Skip to main content

Full text of "Anacalypsis, an attempt to draw aside the veil of the Saitic Isis; or, An inquiry into the origin of languages, nations, and religions."

See other formats 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2011  with  funding  from 
Brigham  Young  University 


http://www.archive.org/details/anacalypsisattem01higg 


(la. 

\ 


ANACALYPSIS, 


OR, 


AN  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  ORIGIN 


OF 


LANGUAGES,   NATIONS,   AND   RELIGIONS. 


ANACALYPSIS, 


AN 


ATTEMPT  TO  DRAW   ASIDE   THE   VEIL 


OF 


%%t  £atttc  Mi&; 


OR, 


AN  INQUIRY  INTO  THE  ORIGIN 


OF 


LANGUAGES,  NATIONS,  AND  RELIGIONS. 


BY 


GODFREY    HIGGINS,    Esq., 

F.S  A.,  F.R.ASIAT.SOC.,  F.R.AST  S., 
Or    SKELLOW    ORANGE,    NEAR    DONCASTER. 


RES    VERBIS,     ET    VERBA    ACCENDUNT    LUMINA    REBUS. 


VOL.  I. 


LONDON : 

LONGMAN,  REES,  ORME,  BROWN,  GREEN,  AND  LONGMAN,  PATERNOSTER  ROW 

1836. 


PRINTED    »Y    GEORGE    SMALLFIELD,    HACKNEY. 


PREFACE. 


It  is  a  common  practice  with  authors  to  place  their  portraits  in  the  first  page  of  their 
books.  I  am  not  very  vain  of  my  personal  appearance,  and,  therefore,  I  shall  not  pre- 
sent the  reader  with  my  likeness.  But,  that  I  may  not  appear  to  censure  others  by  my 
omission,  and  for  some  other  reasons  which  any  person  possessing  a  very  moderate  share 
of  discernment  will  soon  perceive,  I  think  it  right  to  draw  my  own  portrait  with  the  pen, 
instead  of  employing  an  artist  to  do  it  with  the  pencil,  and  to  inform  my  reader,  in  a  few 
words,  who  and  what  I  am,  in  what  circumstances  I  am  placed,  and  why  I  undertook 
such  a  laborious  task  as  this  work  has  proved. 

Respecting  my  rank  or  situation  in  life  it  is  only  necessary  to  state,  that  my  father  was 
a  gentleman  of  small,  though  independent  fortune,  of  an  old  and  respectable  family  in 
Yorkshire.  He  had  two  children,  a  son  (myself)  and  a  daughter.  After  the  usual  school 
education,  I  was  sent  to  Trinity  Hall,  Cambridge,  as  a  pensioner,  and  thence  to  the  Tem- 
ple. As  I  was  expected  to  pay  the  fees  out  of  the  small  allowance  which  my  father  made 
me,  I  never  had  any  money  to  spare  for  that  purpose,  and  I  never  either  took  a  degree 
or  was  called  to  the  bar. 

When  I  was  about  twenty-seven  years  of  age  my  father  died,  and  I  inherited  his  house 
and  estate  at  Skellow  Grange,  near  Doncaster.  After  some  time  I  married.  I  continued 
there  till  the  threatened  invasion  of  Napoleon  induced  me,  along  with  most  of  my  neigh- 
bours, to  enter  the  third  West-York  militia,  of  which,  in  due  time,  I  was  made  a  major. 
In  the  performance  of  my  military  duty  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Harwich,  I  caught  a 
very  bad  fever,  from  the  effects  of  which  I  never  entirely  recovered.  This  caused  me  to 
resign  my  commission  and  return  home.  I  shortly  afterward  became  a  magistrate  for 
the  West  Riding  of  my  native  county.  The  illness  above  alluded  to  induced  me  to  turn 
my  attention,  more  than  I  had  formerly  done,  to  serious  matters,  and  determined  me  to 
enter  upon  a  very  careful  investigation  of  the  evidence  upon  which  our  religion  was 
founded.  This,  at  last,  led  me  to  extend  my  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  all  religions,  and 
this  again  led  to  an  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  nations  and  languages ;  and  ultimately  I 
came  to  a  resolution  to  devote  six  hours  a  day  to  this  pursuit  for  ten  years.  Instead  of 
six  hours  daily  for  ten  years,  I  believe  I  have,  upon  the  average,  applied  myself  to  it  for 
nearly  ten  hours  daily  for  almost  twenty  years.  In  the  first  ten  years  of  my  search  I  may 
fairly  say,  I  found  nothing  which  I  sought  for ;  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twenty,  the  quan- 
tity of  matter  has  so  crowded  in  upon  me,  that  I  scarcely  know  how  to  dispose  of  it. 

When  I  began  these  inquiries  I  found  it  necessary  to  endeavour  to  recover  the  scho- 
lastic learning  which,  from  long  neglect,  I  had  almost  forgotten:  but  many  years  of 
industry  are  not  necessary  for  this  purpose,  as  far,  at  least  as  is  useful.     The  critical 


I 

i 


yi  PREFACE. 

knowledge  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  highly  ornamental  and  desirable  as  it  is, 
certainly  is  not,  in  general,  necessary  for  the  acquisition  of  what,  in  my  opinion,  may  be 
properly  called  real  learning.  The  ancient  poetry  and  composition  are  beautiful,  but  a 
critical  knowledge  of  them  was  not  my  object.  The  odes  of  Pindar  and  the  poems  of 
Homer  are  very  fine ;  but  Varro,  Macrobius,  and  Cicero  De  Natura  Deorum,  were  more 
congenial  to  my  pursuits.  The  languages  were  valuable  to  me  only  as  a  key  to  unlock 
the  secrets  of  antiquity.  I  beg  my  reader,  therefore,  not  to  expect  any  of  that  kind  of 
learning,  which  would  enable  a  person  to  rival  Porson  in  filling  up  the  Lacunae  of  a 
Greek  play,  or  in  restoring  the  famous  Digamma  to  its  proper  place. 

But  if  I  had  neglected  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin,  I  had  applied  myself  to  the  study 
of  such  works  as  those  of  Euclid,  and  of  Locke  on  the  Understanding,  the  tendency  of 
which  is  to  form  the  mind  to  a  habit  of  investigation  and  close  reasoning  and  thinking, 
and  in  a  peculiar  manner  to  fit  it  for  such  inquiries  as  mine ;  for  want  of  which  habit, 
a  person  may  possess  a  considerable  knowledge  of  the  Classics,  while  his  mind  may  be 
almost  incapable  of  comprehending  the  demonstration  of  a  common  proposition  in  geo- 
metry. In  short,  we  see  proofs  every  day,  that  a  person  may  be  very  well  skilled  in 
Greek  and  Latin,  while  in  intellect  he  may  rank  little  higher  than  a  ploughboy. 

Along  with  the  study  of  the  principles  of  law,  whilst  at  the  Temple,  I  had  applied 
myself  also  to  the  acquisition  of  the  art  of  sifting  and  appreciating  the  value  of  different 
kinds  of  evidence,  the  latter  of  which  is  perhaps  the  most  important  and  the  most  neg- 
lected of  all  the  branches  of  education.  I  had  also  applied  myself  to  what  was  of  infinitely 
more  consequence  than  all  the  former  branches  of  study,  and  in  difficulty  almost  equal  to 
them  altogether,  namely,  to  the  unlearning  of  the  nonsense  taught  me  in  youth. 

Literary  works  at  the  present  day  have  generally  one  or  both  of  two  objects  in  view, 
namely,  money  and  present  popularity.  But  I  can  conscientiously  say,  that  neither  of 
these  has  been  my  leading  object.  I  have  become,  to  a  certain  extent,  literary,  because 
by  letters  alone  could  I  make  known  to  mankind  what  I  considered  discoveries  the  most 
important  to  its  future  welfare ;  and  no  publication  has  ever  been  written  by  me  except 
under  the  influence  of  this  motive. 

When  I  say  that  I  have  not  written  this  work  for  fame,  it  must  not  be  understood  that 
I  affect  to  be  insensible  to  the  approbation  of  the  great  and  good :  far  from  it.  But  if  I 
had  my  choice,  I  would  rather  rank  with  Epictetus  than  with  Horace,  with  Cato  or  Brutus 
than  with  Gibbon  or  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Had  either  present  popularity  or  profit  been  my 
object,  I  had  spared  the  priests ;  for,  in  Britain,  we  are  a  priest-ridden  race :  but  though 
I  had  died  a  little  richer,  I  had  deserved  contempt  for  my  meanness. 

My  learning  has  been  acquired  since  I  turned  forty  years  of  age,  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  being  enabled  to  pursue  these  researches  into  the  antiquities  of  nations,  which,  I  very 
early  became  convinced,  were  generally  unknown  or  misunderstood.  But  though  I  do 
not  pretend  to  deep  classical  learning,  yet  perhaps  I  may  not  be  guilty  of  any  very  inex- 
cusable vanity  in  saying,  that  I  find  myself  now,  on  the  score  of  learning,  after  twenty 
years  of  industry,  in  many  respects  very  differently  circumstanced  in  relation  to  persons 
whom  I  was  accustomed  formerly  to  look  up  to  as  learned,  from  what  I  was  at  the 
beginning  of  my  inquiries ;  and  that  now  I  sometimes  find  myself  qualified  to  teach  those 


PREFACE.  Vll 

by  whom  I  was  at  first  very  willing  to  be  taught,  but  whom  I  do  not  always  find  dis- 
posed to  learn,  nor  to  be  untaught  the  nonsense  which  they  learned  in  their  youth. 

In  my  search  I  soon  found  that  it  was  impossible  to  look  upon  the  histories  of  ancient 
empires,  or  upon  the  history  of  the  ancient  mythologies,  except  as  pleasing  or  amusing 
fables,  fit  only  for  the  nursery  or  the  fashionable  drawing-room  table,  but  totally  below 
the  notice  of  a  philosopher.  This  consideration  caused  my  search  into  their  origin ;  in- 
defatigable labour  for  many  years  has  produced  the  result, — the  discovery  which  I  believe 
I  have  made,  and  which  in  this  work  I  make  known  to  my  countrymen. 

I  am  convinced  that  a  taste  for  deep  learning  among  us  is  fast  declining  ;*  and  in  this 
I  believe  I  shall  be  supported  by  the  booksellers,  which  is  one  reason  why  I  have  only 
printed  two  hundred  copies  of  this  work :  but  I  have  reason  to  think  the  case  different 
in  France  and  Germany;  and  on  this  account  I  have  sometimes  thought  of  publishing 
editions  in  the  languages  of  those  countries.  But  whether  I  shall  wait  till  these  editions 
be  ready,  and  till  my  second  volume  be  finished,  before  I  make  public  the  first,  I  have 
not  yet  determined ;  nor,  indeed,  have  I  determined  whether  or  not  I  shall  publish  these 
editions.     This  must  depend  upon  the  foreign  booksellers. 

If,  like  some  learned  persons,  I  had  commenced  my  inquiries  by  believing  certain 
dogmas,  and  determining  that  I  would  never  believe  any  other ;  or  if,  like  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Faber,  I  had  in  early  life  sworn  that  I  believed  them,  and  that  I  would  never  believe 
any  other,  and  that  all  my  comfort  in  my  future  life  depended  upon  my  professed  conti- 
nuance in  this  belief,  I  should  have  had  much  less  trouble,  because  I  should  have  known 
what  I  was  to  prove ;  but  my  story  is  very  different.  When  I  began  this  inquiry,  I  was 
anxious  for  truth,  suspicious  of  being  deceived,  but  determined  to  examine  every  thing 
as  impartially  as  was  in  my  power,  to  the  very  bottom.  This  soon  led  me  to  the  dis- 
covery, that  I  must  go  to  much  more  distant  sources  for  the  origin  of  things  than  was 
usual ;  and,  by  degrees,  my  system  began  to  form  itself.  But  not  having  the  least  idea 
in  the  beginning  what  it  would  be  in  the  end,  it  kept  continually  improving,  in  some 
respects  changing,  and  I  often  found  it  necessary  to  read  again  and  again  the  same 
books,  for  want  of  an  index,  from  beginning  to  end,  in  search  of  facts  passed  hastily  over 
in  the  first  or  second  reading,  and  then  thought  of  little  or  no  consequence,  but  which  I 
afterwards  found  most  important  for  the  elucidation  of  truth.  On  this  account  the  labour 
in  planting  the  seed  has  been  to  me  great  beyond  credibility,  but  I  hope  the  produce  of 
the  harvest  will  bear  to  it  a  due  proportion. 

I  very  early  found  that  it  was  not  only  necessary  to  recover  and  improve  the  little 
Greek  and  Latin  which  I  had  learned  at  school,  but  I  soon  found  my  inquiries  stopped 
by  my  ignorance  of  the  Oriental  languages,  from  which  I  discovered  that  ours  was  derived, 
and  by  which  it  became  evident  to  me  that  the  origin  of  all  our  ancient  mythoses  was 
concealed.  I  therefore  determined  to  apply  myself  to  the  study  of  one  of  them;  and, 
after  much  consideration  and  doubt  whether  I  should  choose  the  Hebrew,  the  Arabic, 

*  Of  this  a  more  decisive  proof  need  not  be  given  than  the  failure  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Valpy's  Classical  Journal,  a  work 
looked  up  to  as  an  honour  to  our  country  by  all  learned  foreigners,  which  was  given  up,  as  well  from  want  of  contribu- 
tors as  from  want  of  subscribers. 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

or  the  Sanscrit,  I  fixed  upon  the  first,  in  the  selection  of  which,  for  many  reasons,  which 
will  appear  hereafter,  I  consider  myself  peculiarly  fortunate. 

For  some  time  my  progress  was  very  slow, — my  studies  were  much  interrupted  by 
public  business ;  and,  for  almost  two  years  together,  by  a  successful  attempt  into  which 
I  was  led,  in  the  performance  of  my  duty  as  a  justice  of  the  peace,  to  reform  some  most 
shocking  abuses  in  the  York  Lunatic  Asylum. 

In  my  study  of  Hebrew,  also,  a  considerable  time,  I  may  say,  was  wasted  on  the 
Masoretic  points,  which  at  last  I  found  were  a  mere  invention  of  the  modern  Jews,  and 
not  of  the  smallest  use.* 

During  this  process,  I  also  found  it  was  very  desirable  that  I  should  consult  many 
works  in  the  libraries  of  Italy  and  France,  as  well  as  examine  the  remains  of  antiquity 
in  those  countries,  and  my  reader  will  soon  see  that,  without  having  availed  myself  of 
this  assistance,  I  should  never  have  been  able  to  make  the  discoveries  of  which  he  will 
have  been  apprized.  The  benefit  which  I  derived  from  the  examination  of  the  works  of 
the  ancients,  in  my  two  journeys  to  Rome,  and  one  to  Naples,  at  last  produced  a  wish 
to  examine  the  antiquities  of  more  Oriental  climes,  and  a  plan  was  laid  for  travelling  in 
search  of  Wisdom  to  the  East ; — the  origin  and  defeat  of  this  plan  I  have  detailed  in 
the  preface  to  my  Celtic  Druids.  I  am  now  turned  sixty ;  the  eye  grows  dim,  and  the 
cholera  and  plague  prevail  in  the  East ;  yet  I  have  not  entirely  given  up  the  hope  of 
going  as  far  as  Egypt :  but  what  I  have  finished  of  my  work  must  first  be  printed. 
Could  I  but  ensure  myself  a  strong  probability  of  health  and  the  retention  of  my 
faculties,  for  ten,  or,  I  think,  even  for  seven  years,  I  should  not  hesitate  on  a  journey  to 
Samarkand,  to  examine  the  library  of  manuscripts  there,  which  was  probably  collected 
by  Ulug-Beig.  If  the  strictest  attention  to  diet  and  habits  the  most  temperate  may  be 
expected  to  prolong  health,  I  may  not  be  very  unreasonable  in  looking  forwards  for  five 
or  six  years ;  and  I  hope  my  reader  will  believe  me  when  I  assure  him,  that  the  strongest 
incentive  which  I  feel  for  pursuing  this  course  of  life  is  the  confident  hope  and  expecta- 
tion of  the  great  discoveries  which  I  am  certain  I  could  make,  if  I  could  once  penetrate 
into  the  East,  and  see  things  there  with  my  own  eyes. 

In  a  very  early  stage  of  my  investigation,  my  attention  was  drawn  to  the  ancient 
Druidical  and  Cyclopaean  buildings  scattered  over  the  world,  in  almost  all  nations, 
which  I  soon  became  convinced  were  the  works  of  a  great  nation,  of  whom  we  had  no 
history,  who  must  have  been  the  first  inventors  of  the  religious  mythoses  and  the  art  of 
writing ;  and,  in  short,  that  what  I  sought  must  be  found  among  them.  My  book,  called 
the  Celtic  Druids,  which  I  published  in  the  year  1827,  was  the  effect  of  this  convic- 
tion, and  is,  in  fact,  the  foundation  on  which  this  work  is  built,  and  without  a  perusal 


It  may  be  necessary  to  inform  some  persons  who  may  read  this  book,  that,  in  the  dark  ages,  the  Jews,  in  order  to 
fix  the  pronunciation  and  the  meaning  of  their  Hebrew  to  their  own  fancy  at  the  time,  invented  a  system  called  the 
Masoretic  Points,  which  they  substituted  in  place  of  the  vowels,  leaving  the  latter  in  the  text ;  but,  where  they  could 
not  make  them  stand  for  consonants  and  thus  form  new  syllables,  leaving  them  silent  and  without  meaning.  The  belief 
in  the  antiquity  of  this  system  has  now  become  with  them  a  point  of  faith;  of  course  here  the  use  of  reason  ends.  On 
this  account  I  shall  add  to  the  appendix  to  this  volume  a  small  tract  that  I  formerly  published  on  this  subject,  which  I 
doubt  not  will  satisfy  reasoning  individuals. 


PREFACE.  IX 

of  it,  this  work  will,  notwithstanding  my  utmost  care,  scarcely  be  understood.  It  might 
very  well  have  formed  a  first  volume  to  this,  and  1  now  regret  that  I  did  not  so  arrange  it. 

I  think  it  right  to  state  here,  what  I  beg  my  reader  will  never  forget,  that  in  my  ex- 
planations of  words  and  etymologies  I  proceed  upon  the  principle  of  considering  all  the 
different  systems  of  letters,  Sanscrit  excepted,  to  have  formed  originally  but  one  alpha- 
bet, only  varied  in  forms,  and  the  different  written  languages  but  one  language,  and  that 
they  are  all  mere  dialects  of  one  another.  This  I  consider  that  /  have  proved  in  my 
Celtic  Druids,  and  it  will  be  proved  over  and  over  again  in  the  course  of  the  follow- 
ing work. 

Numerous  are  the  analyses  of  the  ancient  mythology,  but  yet  I  believe  the  world  is 
by  no  means  satisfied  with  the  result  of  them.  There  is  yet  a  great  blank.  That  the 
ancient  mythoses  have  a  system  for  their  basis,  is  generally  believed ;  indeed,  I  think 
this  is  what  no  one  can  doubt.  But,  whether  I  have  discovered  the  principles  on  which 
they  are  founded,  and  have  given  the  real  explanation  of  them,  others  must  judge. 

The  following  work  is  similar  to  the  solution  of  a  difficult  problem  in  the  mathe- 
matics, only  to  be  understood  by  a  consecutive  perusal  of  the  whole — only  to  be  under- 
stood after  close  attention,  after  an  induction  of  consequences  from  a  long  chain  of 
reasoning,  every  step  of  which,  like  a  problem  in  Euclid,  must  be  borne  in  mind.  The 
reader  must  not  expect  that  the  secrets  which  the  ancients  took  so  much  pains  to  conceal, 
and  which  they  involved  in  the  most  intricate  of  labyrinths,  are  to  be  learned  without  dif- 
ficulty. But  though  attention  is  required,  he  may  be  assured  that,  with  a  moderate  share 
of  it,  there  is  nothing  which  may  not  be  understood.  But  instead  of  making  a  con- 
secutive perusal  of  the  work,  many  of  my  readers  will  go  to  the  Index  and  look  for 
particular  words,  and  form  a  judgment  from  the  etymological  explanation  of  them, 
without  attending  to  the  context  or  the  arguments  in  other  parts  of  the  volume,  or  to 
the  reasoning  which  renders  such  explanation  probable,  and  thus  they  will  be  led  to 
decide  against  it  and  its  conclusions  and  consider  them  absurd.  All  this  I  expect, 
and  of  it  I  have  no  right  to  complain,  unless  I  have  a  right  to  complain  that  a  profound 
subject  is  attended  with  difficulties,  or  that  superficial  people  are  not  deep  thinkers,  or 
that  the  nature  of  the  human  animal  is  not  of  a  different  construction  from  what  I  know 
it  to  be.  The  same  lot  befel  the  works  of  General  Vallancey,  which  contain  more  pro- 
found and  correct  learning  on  the  origin  of  nations  and  languages  than  all  the  books 
which  were  ever  written.  But  who  reads  them  ?  Not  our  little  bits  of  antiquarians  of 
the  present  day,  who  make  a  splashing  on  the  surface,  but  never  go  to  the  bottom.  A 
few  trumpery  and  tawdry  daubs  on  an  old  church-wall  serve  them  to  fill  volumes.  It 
is  the  same  with  most  of  our  Orientalists.  The  foolish  corruptions  of  the  present  day 
are  blazoned  forth  in  grand  folios1  as  the  works  of  the  Buddhists  or  Brahmins  ;  when, 
in  fact,  they  are  nothing  but  what  may  be  called  the  new  religion  of  their  descendants, 
who  may  be  correctly  said  to  have  lost,  as  they,  indeed,  admit  they  have  done,  the  old 


1  Vide  the  works,  for  instance,  published  by  Akerman. 

b 


X  PREFACE. 

religions,  and  formed  new  ones  which  are  suitable  to  their  present  state — that  is,  a  state 
equal  to  that  of  the  Hottentots  of  Africa. 

Hebrew  scholars  have  been  accused  of  undue  partiality  to  what  is  sneeringly  called 
their  favourite  language  by  such  as  do  not  understand  it:  and  this  will  probably  be 
repeated  towards  me.  In  self-defence,  I  can  only  say,  that  in  my  search  for  the  origin 
of  ancient  science,  I  constantly  found  myself  impeded  by  my  ignorance  of  the  Hebrew  ; 
and,  in  order  to  remove  this  impediment,  I  applied  myself  to  the  study  of  it.  I  very 
early  discovered  that  no  translation  of  the  ancient  book  of  Genesis,  either  by  Jew  or 
Christian,  could  be  depended  on.  Every  one  has  the  prejudices  instilled  into  him  in  his 
youth  to  combat,  or  his  prejudged  dogma  to  support.  But  I  can  most  truly  say,  that  I 
do  not  lie  open  to  the  latter  charge ;  for  there  is  scarcely  a  single  opinion  maintained  in 
the  following  work  which  I  held  when  I  began  it.  Almost  all  the  latter  part  of  my 
life  has  been  spent  in  unlearning  the  nonsense  I  learned  in  my  youth.  These  con- 
siderations I  flatter  myself  will  be  sufficient  to  screen  me  from  the  sneers  of  such 
gentlemen  as  suppose  all  learning  worth  having  is  to  be  found  in  the  Latin  and  Greek 
languages  ;  especially  when,  in  the  latter  part  of  this  work,  they  find  that  I  have  come  to 
the  conclusion,  that  the  Hebrew  language,  or  that  language  of  which  Hebrew,  Chaldee, 
and  Arabic  are  only  dialects,  was  probably  the  earliest  of  the  written  languages  now 
known  to  us. 

When  I  affirm  that  I  think  the  old  synagogue  Hebrew  the  oldest  written  language, 
the  philosopher  will  instantly  turn  away  and  say,  "  Oh  !  I  see  this  is  only  the  old  devo- 
teeism."  He  may  be  assured  he  will  find  himself  mistaken.  I  believe  that  I  found 
my  opinion  on  evidence  equally  free  from  modern  Christian  or  ancient  Jewish  prejudice. 
I  attribute  the  preservation  of  these  old  tracts  (the  books  of  Genesis)  from  the  destruc- 
tion which  has  overtaken  all  other  sacred  books  of  the  priests  of  the  respective  temples 
of  the  world,  to  the  fortunate  circumstance  that  they  were  made  public  by  Ptolemy  Phi- 
ladelphus.  Natural  causes,  without  any  miracle,  have  produced  a  natural  effect,  and 
thus  we  have  these  interesting  remains,  and  have  them,  too,  in  consequence  of  a  religious 
dogma  having  operated,  nearly  uncorrupted,  in  their  general  language,  by  modern  Jew- 
ish and  Masoretic  nonsense.  In  the  Synagogue  books  we  have,  most  fortunately, 
several  tracts  in  a  language  older  than  any  language,  as  now  written,  in  the  world,  not 
excepting  the  beautiful  and  almost  perfect  Sanscrit.  And  this  I  think  I  shall  prove  in 
the  course  of  the  work.  That  my  reader  may  not  run  away  with  a  mistaken  inference 
from  what  I  now  say,  I  beg  to  observe,  that  I  pay  not  the  least  attention  to  the  generally 
received  ancient  chronologies. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  what  I  believe  to  be  the  truth,  I  have  often  been  obliged  to  enter 
into  very  abstruse  and  difficult  examinations  of  the  meaning  of  Hebrew  words  ;  but  they 
are  generally  words  which  have  undergone  the  most  elaborate  discussion,  by  very  great 
scholars,  and  have  been  the  subjects  of  controversy.  This  has  been  a  great  advantage 
to  me,  as  by  this  means  I  have  been  enabled  to  see  every  thing  which  could  be  said  on 
the  respective  points  in  dispute,  and  my  conclusions  may  be  considered  as  the  summing 


PREFACE.  XI 


up  of  the  evidence  on  both  sides.  As  the  results  of  my  inquiries  will  sometimes  depend 
upon  the  meaning  of  the  words,  the  subjects  of  these  discussions,  T  have  found  it  neces- 
sary to  enter,  in  several  instances,  into  a  close  and  critical  examination  of  their  meaning, 
as  I  have  just  said;  in  which,  without  care  and  patience,  the  reader  unlearned  in  Hebrew 
will  not  be  able  to  follow  me.  |  But  yet  I  flatter  myself  that  if  he  will  pass  over  a  very 
few  examples  of  this  kind,  which  he  finds  too  difficult,  and  go  to  the  conclusion  drawn 
from  them,  he  will,  in  almost  every  instance,  be  able  to  understand  the  argument,  j  If, 
as  I  believe,  the  foundations  of  the  ancient  mythoses  are  only  to  be  discovered  in  the 
most  ancient  roots  of  the  languages  of  the  world,  it  is  not  likely  that  such  an  inquiry 
into  them  could  be  dispensed  with. 

The  letters  of  the  old  Synagogue  Hebrew  language  are  nearly  the  same  as  the  English, 
only  in  a  different  form.  They  are  so  near  that  they  almost  all  of  them  may  be  read  as  ^ 
English,  as  any  person  may  see  in  Sect.  46,  p.  10,  by  a  very  little  consideration  of  the 
table  of  letters,  and  the  numbers  which  they  denote.  In  order  that  an  unlearned  reader 
may  understand  the  etymological  conclusions,  nearly  throughout  the  whole  work  every 
Hebrew  word  is  followed  by  correspondent  letters  in  English  italics,  so  that  a  person 
who  does  not  understand  the  Hebrew  may  understand  them  almost  as  well  as  a  person 
who  does.  Half  an  hour's  study  of  the  table  of  letters,  and  attention  to  this  observation, 
I  am  convinced  is  all  that  is  necessary. 

In  great  numbers  of  places,  authors  will  be  found  quoted  as  authority,  but  whose 
authority  my  reader  may  be  inclined  to  dispute.  In  every  case,  evidence  of  this  kind 
must  go  for  no  more  than  it  is  worth.  It  is  like  interested  evidence,  which  is  worth 
something  in  every  case,  though,  perhaps,  very  little.  But  in  many  cases,  an  author  of 
little  authority,  quoted  by  me  as  evidence  in  favour  of  my  hypothesis,  will  be  found  to 
have  come  to  his  conclusion,  perhaps,  when  advocating  doctrines  directly  in  opposition 
to  mine,  or  in  absolute  ignorance  of  my  theory.  In  such  cases,  his  evidence,  from  the 
circumstance,  acquires  credibility  which  it  would  not  otherwise  possess:  and  if  nume- 
rous instances  of  evidence  of  this  kind  unite  upon  any  one  point,  to  the  existence  of  any 
otherwise  doubtful  fact,  the  highest  probability  of  its  truth  may  be  justly  inferred.  If  a 
fact  of  the  nature  here  treated  of  be  found  to  be  supported  by  other  facts,  and  to  dovetail 
into  other  parts  of  my  system,  or  to  remove  its  difficulties,  its  probability  will  be  again 
increased.  Thus  it  appears  that  there  will  be  a  very  great  variety  in  the  evidence  in 
favour  of  different  parts  of  the  system,  which  can  only  be  correctly  judged  of  by  a  con- 
secutive perusal  of  the  whole.  And,  above  all  things,  my  reader  must  always  bear  in 
mind,  that  he  is  in  search  of  a  system,  the  meaning  of  which  its  professors  and  those 
initiated  into  its  mysteries  have  constantly  endeavoured  in  all  ages  and  nations  to  con^ 
ceal,  and  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  which,  the  most  influential  body  of  men  in  the 
world,  the  priests,  have  endeavoured,  and  yet  endeavour,  by  every  honest  and  dishonest 
means  in  their  power,  to  destroy. 

The  following  work  will  be  said  to  be  a  theory:  it  is  given  as  a  theory.  But  what  is 
a  Theory  ?    Darwin  says,  "  To  theorise  is  to  think."     The  peculiar  nature  of  the  subject 

b2 


Xll  PREFACE. 

precludes  me  from  founding  my  thinkings  or  reasonings  on  facts  deduced  by  experiment, 
like  the  modern  natural  philosopher;  but  I  endeavour  to  do  this  as  far  as  is  in  my  power. 
I  found  them  on  the  records  of  facts,  and  on  quotations  from  ancient  authors,  and  on  the 
deductions  which  were  made  by  writers  without  any  reference  to  my  theory  or  system. 
A  casual  observation,  or  notice  of  a  fact,  is  often  met  with  in  an  author  which  he  con- 
siders of  little  or  no  consequence,  but  which,  from  that  very  circumstance,  is  the  more 
valued  by  me,  because  it  is  the  more  likely  to  be  true. 

This  book  is  intended  for  those  only  who  think  that  the  different  mythoses  and  his- 
tories are  yet  involved  in  darkness  and  confusion  :  and  it  is  an  attempt  to  elucidate  the 
grounds  on  which  the  former  were  founded,  and  from  which  they  have  risen  to  their 
present  state.  It  is  evident  that,  if  I  have  succeeded,  and  if  I  have  discovered  the 
original  principles,  although,  perhaps,  trifling  circumstances  or  matters  may  be  errone- 
ously stated,  yet  new  discoveries  will  every  day  add  new  proofs  to  my  system,  till  it  will 
be  established  past  all  dispute.  If,  on  the  contrary,  I  be  wrong,  new  discoveries  will 
soon  expose  my  errors,  and,  like  all  preceding  theories,  my  theory  will  die  away,  as  they 
are  dying  away,  and  it  will  be  forgotten. 

I  have  just  said  that  this  work  is  a  theory,  and  professes,  in  a  great  measure,  to  arrive 
at  probabilities  only.  1  am  of  opinion  that,  if  ancient  authors  had  attended  more  to  the 
latter,  we  should  have  been  better  informed  than  we  now  are  upon  every  thing  relating 
to  the  antiquities  of  nations.  The  positive  assertions,  false  in  themselves,  yet  not  meant 
to  mislead,  but  only  to  express  the  opinions  of  some  authors,  together  with  the  inten- 
tional falsities  of  others,  have  accumulated  an  immense  mass  of  absurdities,  which  have 
rendered  all  ancient  history  worse  than  a  riddle.  Had  the  persons  first  named  only 
stated  their  opinion  that  a  thing  was  probable,  but  which,  in  composition,  it  is  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  do,  as  I  have  constantly  found,  their  successors  would  not  have  been 
misled  by  their  want  of  sense  or  judgment.  Every  succeeding  generation  has  added  to 
the  mass  of  nonsense,  until  the  enormity  is  beginning  to  cure  itself,  and  to  prove  that 
the  whole,  as  a  system,  is  false :  it  is  beginning  to  convince  most  persons  that  some  new 
system  must  be  had  recourse  to,  if  one  can  be  devised,  which  may  at  least  have  the  good 
quality  of  containing  within  itself  the  possibility  of  being  true,  a  quality  which  the 
present  old  system  most  certainly  wants.  Now  I  flatter  myself  that  my  new 
system,  notwithstanding  many  errors  which  it  may  contain,  will  possess  this  quality ; 
and  if  I  produce  a  sufficient  number  of  known  facts  that  support  it,  for  the  existence  of 
which  it  accounts,  and  without  which  system  their  existence  cannot  be  accounted  for,  1 
contend  that  I  shall  render  it  very  probable  that  my  system  is  true.  The  whole  force 
of  this  observation  will  not  be  understood  till  the  reader  comes  to  the  advanced  part  of 
my  next  volume,  wherein  I  shall  treat  upon  the  system  of  the  philosophic  Niebuhr 
respecting  the  history  of  the  ancient  Romans. 

Of  whatever  credulity  my  reader  may  be  disposed  to  accuse  me,  in  some  respects, 
there  will  be  no  room  for  any  charge  of  this  kind,  on  account  of  the  legends  of  bards  or 
monks,  or  the  forgeries  of  the  Christian  priests  of  the  middle  ages  ;  as,  for  fear  of  being 


PREFACE.  XIU 

imposed  on  by  them,  I  believe  I  have  carried  my  caution  to  excess,  and  have  omitted  to 
use  materials,  in  the  use  of  which  I  should  have  been  perfectly  justified.  For  example 
1  may  name  the  works  of  Mr.  Davies,  of  Wales,  and  General  Vallancey,  both  of  which 
contain  abundance  of  matter  which  supports  my  doctrines ;  but  even  of  these,  I  have 
used  such  parts  only  as  I  thought  could  not  well  be  the  produce  of  the  frauds  of  the 
priests  or  bards.  I  endeavour,  as  far  as  lies  in  my  power,  to  regulate  my  belief  according 
to  what  I  know  is  the  rule  of  evidence  in  a  British  court  of  law.  Perhaps  it  may  be 
said,  that  if  I  am  not  credulous  in  this  respect  of  the  monks  and  priests,  I  am  in  respect 
of  the  ancient  monuments.  But  these  ancient  unsculptured  stones  or  names  of  places, 
are  not  like  the  priests,  though  with  many  exceptions  in  all  sects,  regular,  systematic 
liars,  lying  from  interest,  and  boldly  defending  the  practice  on  principle — a  practice 
brought  down  from  Plato,  and  continued  to  our  own  day.  Witness  the  late  restoration 
of  the  annual  farce  of  the  liquefaction  of  the  blood  of  St.  Januarius,  and  the  fraudulent 
title  to  what  is  called  the  Apostles'  Creed  in  our  Liturgy. 

Some  years  ago  a  fraud  was  attempted  by  a  Brahmin  on  Sir  William  Jones  and  Major 
Wilford.  These  two  gentlemen  being  totally  void  of  any  suspicion  were  deceived,  but 
in  a  very  little  time  the  latter  detected  the  fraud,  and  instantly  published  it  to  the  world 
in  the  most  candid  and  honourable  manner.  This  has  afforded  a  handle  to  certain  per- 
sons, who  dread  discoveries  from  India,  to  run  down  every  thing  which  Wilford  wrote, 
not  only  up  to  that  time,  but  in  a  long  and  industrious  life  afterward.  I  have  been  care- 
ful, in  quoting  from  his  works,  to  avoid  what  may  have  been  fraudulent ;  but  so  far  from 
thinking  that  Wilford's  general  credit  is  injured,  I  think  it  was  rather  improved  by  the 
manner  in  which  he  came  forward  and  announced  the  fraud  practised  on  him.  There 
was  no  imputation  of  excessive  credulity  previously  cast  upon  him,  and  I  consider  it 
likely  that  this  instance  made  him  more  cautious  than  most  others  against  impostures  in 
future.  I  cannot  help  suspecting,  that  this  fraud  was  the  cause  of  much  true  and  curi- 
ous matter  being  rendered  useless. 

It  has  been  said,  that  the  more  a  person  inquires,  the  less  he  generally  believes.  This 
is  true ;  and  arises  from  the  fact  that  he  soon  discovers  that  great  numbers  of  the  priests, 
in  every  age  and  of  every  religion,  have  been  guilty  of  frauds  to  support  their  systems,  to 
an  extent  of  which  he  could  have  had  no  idea  until  he  made  the  inquiry.  Many  worthy 
and  excellent  men  among  our  priests  have  been  angry  with  me,  because  I  have  not  more 
pointedly  excepted  the  order  in  the  British  empire  from  the  general  condemnation 
expressed  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  though  I  there  expressly  stated  that  I  did  except 
many  individuals.  The  fraudulent  title  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  which  I  have  just 
named,  would  alone  justify  me. 

The  following  rational  account  of  the  corruption  of  religion  is  given  by  the  cool  and 
philosophical  Basnage:1  "  Divines  complain  that  the  people  have  always  a  violent  pro- 
c'  pensity  to  sensible  objects  and  idolatry  ;  and  I  do  not  deny  it ;  but  in  the  mean  time 

1  Bk.  iii.  ch.  xix.  p.  217. 


XIV  PREFACE. 


"  divines  of  all  ages  have  been  more  to  blame  than  the  people,  since  they  conducted 
"  them  to  the  adoration  of  creatures  :  that  they  might  be  able  to  discourse  longer,  and  to 
"  distinguish  themselves  from  the  crowd,  they  have  disguised  religion  with  obscure 
"  terms,  emblems  and  symbols,  as  if  they  were  alive  ;  as  if  they  were  persons  ;  and  have 
"  dressed  them  up  like  men  and  women.  This  has  trained  up  and  encouraged  the  peo- 
"  pie  in  their  carnal  notions.  They  thought  that  they  might  devote  themselves  to 
"  the  symbols,  which  were  furnished  with  a  wondrous  efficacy,  and  treated  of  more  than 
"  the  Deity  himself.  Whereas  they  ought  to  give  the  people  the  simplest  ideas  of 
"  God,  and  talk  soberly  of  him :  they  embellish,  they  enrich,  and  magnify  their  ideas  of 
"  him,  and  this  is  what  has  corrupted  religion  in  all  ages,  as  is  manifest  from  the  in- 
"  stance  of  the  Egyptians.  By  veiling  religion  under  pretence  of  procuring  it  respect, 
"  they  have  buried  and  destroyed  it." 

Though  the  labour  which  I  have  gone  through  in  the  production  of  this  volume  of  my 
work  has  been  very  great,  yet  it  has  been  sweetened  by  many  circumstances,  but  by 
none  so  much  as  the  conviction,  that  in  laying  open  to  public  view  the  secret  of  the 
mythoses  of  antiquity,  I  was  performing  one  of  the  works  the  most  valuable  to  my  fel- 
low-creatures which  was  ever  completed, — that  it  was  striking  the  hardest  blow  that  ever 
was  struck  at  the  tyranny  of  the  sacerdotal  order, — that  I  was  doing  more  than  any  man 
had  ever  done  before  to  disabuse  and  enlighten  mankind,  and  to  liberate  them  from  the 
shackles  of  prejudice  in  which  they  were  bound. 

Another  thing  which  sweetened  the  labour  was,  the  perpetual  making  of  new  discove- 
ries,—the  whole  was  a  most  successful  voyage  of  discovery. 

No  doubt,  in  order  to  prevent  females  from  reading  the  following  work,  it  will  be  ac- 
cused of  indecency.  Although  I  have  taken  as  much  care  as  was  in  my  power  to  re- 
move any  good  grounds  for  the  charge,  it  is  certainly  open  to  it,  in  the  same  way  as  are 
many  works  on  comparative  anatomy.  But  these,  in  fact,  are  indecent  only  to  persons  of 
indecent  and  filthy  imaginations — to  such  persons  as  a  late  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  who 
ordered  the  Savoyard  statue-dealers  out  of  the  city,  until  they  clothed  their  Venus  de 
Medicis  with  drapery. 

In  all  cases  brevity,  as  far  as  clearness  of  expression  would  admit,  has  been  my  object ; 
and  I  can  safely  say,  though  the  reason  for  many  passages  may  not  be  obvious  to  a  rea- 
der who  has  not  deeply  meditated  on  the  subject  as  I  have  done,  yet  I  believe  scarcely 
one  is  inserted  in  the  book  which  has  not  appeared  to  me  at  the  time  to  be  necessary  to 
elucidate  some  subject  which  was  to  follow. 

It  has  been  observed,  that  persons  who  write  a  bad  style,  generally  affect  to  despise  a 
good  one.  Now  whatever  may  be  thought  of  mine,  I  beg  to  observe,  that  I  regret  it  is 
not  better  ;  I  wish  I  had  been  more  attentive  to  it  in  early  life  ;  but  I  must  freely  confess, 
that  my  mind  has  been  turned  to  the  discovery  of  truth  almost  to  the  entire  neglect  of 
style. 

I  fear  some  repetitions  will  be  found  which  would  not  have  occurred  had  I  been  better 
skilled  in  the  art  of  book-making;  but  in  many  cases  I  do  not  know  how  they  could 


PREFACE.  XV 

have  been  avoided,  as  a  new  consequence  will  often  be  shewn  to  flow  from  a  statement 
formerly  made  for  a  different  purpose.  However,  I  justify  myself  by  the  example  of  the 
learned  and  popular  Bryant,  who  says, 

"  As  my  researches  are  deep  and  remote,  I  shall  sometimes  take  the  liberty  of  repeat- 
"  ing  what  has  preceded,  that  the  truths  which  I  maintain  may  more  readily  be  perceived. 
"  We  are  oftentimes,  by  the  importunity  of  a  persevering  writer,  teazed  into  an  unsatis- 
"  factory  compliance  and  yield  a  painful  assent :  but  upon  closing  the  book,  our  scruples 
"  return ;  and  we  lapse  at  once  into  doubt  and  darkness.  It  has,  therefore,  been  my 
"  rule  to  bring  vouchers  for  every  thing  which  I  maintain  ;  and  though  I  might,  upon 
"  the  renewal  of  my  argument,  refer  to  another  volume  and  a  distant  page  ;  yet  I  many 
"  times  choose  to  repeat  my  evidence,  and  bring  it  again  under  immediate  inspection. 
"  And  if  I  do  not  scruple  labour  and  expense,  I  hope  the  reader  will  not  be  disgusted  by 
"  this  seeming  redundancy  in  my  arrangement.  What  I  now  present  to  the  public, 
"  contains  matter  of  great  moment,  and  should  I  be  found  in  the  right,  it  will  afford  a 
"  sure  basis  for  a  future  history  of  the  world.  None  can  well  judge  either  of  the  labour 
or  utility  of  the  work,  but  those  who  have  been  conversant  in  the  writings  of  chrono- 
logers  and  other  learned  men  upon  these  subjects,  and  seen  the  difficulties  with  which 
they  are  embarrassed.  Great  undoubtedly  must  have  been  the  learning  and  perspicacity 
"  of  many  who  have  preceded  me.  Yet  it  may  possibly  be  found  at  the  close,  that  a 
"  feeble  arm  has  effected  what  those  prodigies  in  science  have  overlooked."1 

I  conceive  the  notice  which  I  have  taken  of  my  former  work  cannot  be  considered 
impertinent,  as  it  is,  indeed,  the  foundation  on  which  this  is  built.  The  original  habita- 
tion of  the  first  man,  and  the  merging  of  nearly  all  ancient  written  languages  into  one 
system,  containing  sixteen  letters,  which  in  that  work  I  have  shewn  and  proved,  pave  the 
way  for  the  more  important  doctrines  that  will  be  here  developed,  and  form  an  essential 
part  of  it.  The  whole  taken  together,  will,  I  trust,  draw  aside  the  veil  which  has  hitherto 
covered  the  early  history  of  man, — the  veil,  in  fact,  of  Queen  Isis,  which  she,  I  hope 
erroneously,  boasted  should  never  be  withdrawn.  If,  in  this  undertaking,  it  prove  that  I 
have  spent  many  years,  and  bestowed  much  labour  and  money  in  vain,  and  have  failed, 
Mr.  Faber  may  then  have  to  comfort  himself  that  his  failure  is  not  the  last.  I  think  it 
no  vanity  to  believe  that  I  have  succeeded  better  than  he  has  done,  because  I  have  come 
to  the  task  with  the  benefit  of  the  accumulated  labours  of  Mr.  Faber,  arid  of  all  my  pre- 
decessors. So  that  if  there  be  merit  in  the  work,  to  them,  in  a  great  degree,  it  must  be 
attributed.     I  have  the  benefit  both  of  their  learning  and  of  their  errors. 

In  the  fifth  book  a  number  of  astronomical  calculations  are  made.  But  every  thing 
like  scientific  parade  and  the  use  of  technical  terms,  to  which  learned  men  are  generally 
very  partial,  are  studiously  avoided  ;  and  I  apprehend  that  even  the  little  knowledge  of 
astronomy  which  any  well-educated  school-girl  may  possess,  will  be  sufficient  for  under- 
standing these  calculations.      Close  attention  to  the  argument  will  doubtless  be  re- 

1  Bryant,  Anal.  Pref.  p.  vii. 


XVI  PREFACE. 

quired ;  but,  with  less  than  this,  my  reader  will  not  expect  to  solve  the  problem  which 
has  hitherto  set  at  defiance  the  learning  and  talent  of  all  scientific  inquirers.  When  my 
reader  comes  to  this  part  of  my  work  he  will  find,  that  to  make  my  calculations  come 
right,  I  have  constantly  been  obliged  to  make  a  peculiar  use  of  the  number  2160,  and  in 
many  cases  to  deduct  it.  For  this  he  will  find  no  quite  satisfactory  reason  given.  But 
though  I  could  not  account  for  it,  the  coincidence  of  numbers  was  so  remarkable,  that  I 
was  quite  certain  there  could,  in  the  fact,  be  no  mistake.  In  the  second  volume  this  will 
be  satisfactorily  accounted  for ;  and  I  flatter  myself  it  will  be  found  to  form,  not  a  blem- 
ish, but  the  apex,  necessary  to  complete  the  whole  building. 

How  I  may  be  treated  by  the  critics  on  this  work,  I  know  not ;  but  I  cannot  help 
smiling  when  I  consider  that  the  priests  have  objected  to  admit  my  former  book,  the 
Celtic  Druids,  into  libraries,  because  it  was  antichristian ;  and  it  has  been  attacked  by 
Deists,  because  it  was  superfluously  religious.  The  learned  deist,  the  Rev.  R.  Taylor, 
has  designated  me  as  the  religious  Mr.  Higgins.  But  God  be  thanked,  the  time  is  come 
at  last,  when  a  person  may  philosophise  without  fear  of  the  stake.  No  doubt  the  priests 
will  claim  the  merit  of  this  liberality.  It  is  impossible,  however,  not  to  observe  what 
has  been  indiscreetly  confessed  by  them  a  thousand  times,  and  admitted  as  often  both  in 
parliament  and  elsewhere  by  their  supporters,  that  persecution  has  ceased,  not  because 
the  priests  wished  to  encourage  free  discussion,  but  because  it  is  at  last  found,  from  the 
example  of  Mr.  Carlile  and  others,  that  the  practice  of  persecution,  at  this  day,  only 
operates  to  the  dissemination  of  opinion,  not  to  the  secreting  of  it.  In  short,  that  the 
remedy  of  persecution  is  worse  than  the  disease  it  is  meant  to  cure. 

On  the  subject  of  criticism  Cleland  has  justly  observed,  "The  judging  of  a  work,  not 
"  by  the  general  worth  of  it,  but  by  the  exceptions,  is  the  scandal  of  criticism  and  the 
"  nuisance  of  literature  ;  a  judgment  that  can  dishonour  none  but  him  who  makes  it."1 
In  most  cases  where  I  have  known  the  characters  of  the  priests  who  have  lost  their  tem- 
per, and  taken  personal  offence  at  what  I  have  said  against  the  order,  in  that  work,  I 
have  thought  I  could  discover  a  reason  for  it  which  they  did  not  assign.  As  the  sub- 
jects there  treated  of  may  be  considered  to  be  continued  here,  the  objections  of  my 
opponents  will  be  found  to  be  refuted  without  the  odious  appearance  of  a  polemical 
dispute.  As  for  those  attacks  which  were  evidently  made  by  the  priests  merely  for  the 
purpose,  as  far  is  possible,  of  preventing  their  followers  from  reading  the  Celtic  Druids, 
and  not  for  the  purpose  of  refuting  that  work,  they  are  of  no  consequence.  Although 
it  was  published  in  great  haste,  I  am  happy  to  have  it  in  my  power  to  state,  that  no 
error  of  any  importance  has  been  pointed  out,  some  few  overlooked-errors  of  the  press 
excepted.  Various  attacks  upon  it  are  characterized  by  the  obvious  vexation  and 
anger  of  my  opponents,  rather  than  by  argument.  But  the  attack  of  one  gentleman  I 
think  it  right  to  notice. 
The  Rev.  Hugh  James  Rose,  B.  D.,  Christian  Advocate  of  Cambridge,  has  honoured 


1  Preface  to  Specimen,  p.  xi. 


PREFACE.  XV11 

it  with  his  notice  ;  but  it  is  gratifying  to  me  to  be  able  to  say,  that  except  one  proverbial 
expression,  in  toto  ccelo  perhaps,  improperly  used,  and  a  mistake  in  writing  Plato  for 
Herodotus,  and  Herodotus  for  Plato,  which,  in  a  great  part  of  the  impression,  was  cor- 
rected with  the  pen,  and  in  all  was  ordered  to  be  so  corrected  with  it,  before  the  book 
left  the  printer's,  and  a  mistake  in  writing  irap  s§o^*jv  instead  of  xar  e|o^y)v,  he  has  not 
found  any  other  fault,  though  I  think  he  has  shewn  no  want  of  inclination.  With  respect 
to  the  latter  error,  as  I  certainly  never  discovered  the  gross  and  shocking  inadvertency 
until  a  great  part  of  this  work  was  printed,  I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  somewhere, 
as  I  wrote  for  Greek  wag  s^oxw  instead  of  xar*  e^o^v,  I  should  have  written  for  French 
leaf  excellence  instead  of  par  excellence. 

A  writer  in  the  Bishop's  review  accuses  me  of  being  in  a  rage  with  priests.  I  flatter 
myself  I  am  never  in  a  rage  with  any  thing  ;  but,  I  never  have  scrupled  and  never  shall 
scruple  to  express  my  detestation  of  an  order  which  exists  directly  in  opposition  to  the 
commands  of  Jesus  Christ — which  in  no  case  is  of  use  to  mankind,  but  which  has  pro- 
duced more  demoralisation  and  misery  in  the  world  than  all  other  causes  put  together. 
With  this  conviction  it  would  be  base  in  me  to  withhold  my  opinion,  and  not  even  the 
fear  of  the  auto-da-fe  shall  prevent  me  from  expressing  it.  -*.^ 

As  long  as  the  art  of  writing  and  reading  was  a  secret  confined  to  a  few  select  persons, 
priests  might  be  thought  to  be  wanted  to  say  the  prayers  for  the  ignorant ;  but  as  most 
persons  can  read  now,  they  are  no  longer  necessary ;  and  the  prayer  which  Jesus  Christ 
taught  is  so  very  short  and  simple,  that  no  person,  above  the  class  of  an  idiot,  can  be  in 
any  difficulty  about  it ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Jesus  Christ  taught  that  sim- 
ple and  short  form  that  priests  might  no  longer  be  necessary. 

Matthew  vi.  5,  6,  7,  9,  makes  Jesus  say,  "  When  thou  prayest,  thou  shalt  not  be  as  the 
"  Hypocrites,  for  they  love  to  pray  standing  in  the  synagogues"  [they  go  in  great  form  to 
church  and  have  their  pew  made  with  high  walls  and  lined  with  crimson  cloth],  "and  in 
"  the  corners  of  the  streets,  that  they  may  be  seen  of  men ;"  [attend  Bible  and  Missio- 
nary meetings  ;]  "  verily  they  have  their  reward.  But  thou,  when  thou  prayest,  enter 
"  into  thy  closet,  and  when  thou  hast  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father  which  is  in 
"  secret,  and  thy  Father  which  seeth  in  secret,  shall  reward  thee  openly.  But  when  ye 
"  pray,  use  not  vain  repetitions  as  the  heathen  do,  for  they  think  that  they  shall  be  heard 
"  for  their  much  speaking.     After  this  manner,  therefore,  pray  ye,"  &c. 

Here  priesthoods  and  priests,  vipers  as  Jesus  often  called  them,  are  expressly  forbid- 
den. In  giving  directions  what  a  person  is  to  do  when  he  prays,  he  directly  counter- 
mands every  other  mode  of  proceeding.  In  strict  keeping  with  this,  not  a  single  word 
of  his  can  be  pointed  out  in  any  one  of  the  gospels,  which  can  be  construed  into  even  a 
toleration  of  priests  ;  and  in  the  vain  repetitions  liturgies  are  evidently  implied. 

In  the  prayer  which  Jesus  gave,  he  gave  a  liturgy  and  directions  for  the  use  of  it,  and 
no  human  being  who  has  learned  to  repeat  this  prayer  can  ever  want  any  priest  or  other 
apparatus. 

Had  Jesus  considered  any  symbol  or  confession  of  faith  necessary,  he  would  have 


Xvill  PREFACE. 

given  one.  As  he  has  not  given  one,  and  as  he  did  take  upon  himself  to  legislate 
in  the  case,  on  every  principle  of  sound  reasoning  it  must  be  held,  that  he  did  not  think 
a  belief  in  this  or  in  that  fait h,  as  it  is  called,  (which  his  profound  wisdom  well  knew 
never  can  be  a  merit  or  demerit,)  was  necessary  to  salvation.  This  justifies  its  name, 
the  poor  man's  religion.  The  poor  man's  whole  duty  to  God  is  contained  in  this  prayer, 
and  the  whole  moral  part  of  his  duty  to  man  is  contained  in  the  direction  to  every  one 
to  do  to  his  neighbour  as  he  would  wish  his  neighbour  to  do  to  him.  Its  founder  left 
nothing  in  writing,  because  the  poor  man's  religion  does  not  require  it. 

This  great  simplicity  makes  the  pure,  unadulterated  Christian  religion  the  most  beau- 
tiful religion  that  ever  existed.  Restore  it  to  this  pure  and  simple  state,  and  ninety- 
nine  out  of  every  hundred  of  all  the  philosophers  in  the  world  will  be  its  friends,  instead 
of  its  enemies.  In  the  accounts  which  we  read  of  Jesus's  preaching,  he  is  made  to  say, 
that  if  they  believed  on  him  they  should  be  saved.  In  order  to  find  some  pretext  for 
their  own  nonsense,  the  priests,  by  a  gross,  fraudulent  mistranslation,  have  made  him  talk 
nonsense  and  say,  if  ye  believe  on  me,  instead  of  in  me,  or  in  my  words,  ye  shall 
be  saved.  On  this  they  found  the  necessity  of  faith  in  their  dogmas.  Some  persons 
will  think  this  a  merely  trifling  critical  emendation  ;  but  so  far  is  it  from  being  trifling, 
that  it  is  of  the  very  greatest  importance,  and  on  it  some  most  important  doctrines 
depend.  All  this  tends  to  support  the  doctrines  of  the  celebrated  Christian  philosopher 
Ammonius  Saccas,  of  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say  in  the  following  work. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  observe,  that  this  simple  view  of  the  religion  leaves  untouched 
every  dogma  of  every  sect.  It  shews  that  the  religion  damns  no  person  for  an  opinion. 
It  leaves  every  one  to  enjoy  his  own  opinions.  It  censures  or  condemns  the  opinions  of 
no  one  ;  but  I  fear  that  it  will  be  liked  almost  by  no  one,  because  it  prevents  every  one 
from  condemning  the  opinion  of  his  neighbour.  If  Jesus  can  be  said  to  have  established 
any  rite,  it  will  be  found  in  the  adoption  of  the  very  ancient  ceremony  of  the  Eucharistia, 
the  most  beautiful  of  all  the  religious  ceremonies  ever  established,  and  of  which  I  shall 
often  have  to  treat  in  the  course  of  my  work.  Jesus  Christ  was  put  to  death,  if  the  four 
gospel  histories  can  be  believed,  merely  for  teaching  what  I  have  no  doubt  he  did  teach, 
that  Temples,  Priests,  Mysteries,  and  Cabala,  were  all  unnecessary.  Mohamed,  by  abo- 
lishing priests,  liturgies,  and  symbols,  and  by  substituting  a  simple  hymn  in  praise  of  the 
Creator,  was  a  much  more  consistent  Christian  than  the  modern  Paulite  ;  and  this,  and 
nothing  but  this,  was  the  religion  of  Mohamed.     The  Koran  was  none  of  his. 

The  priest  to  whom  I  lately  alluded  has  called  me  misosierist.  This  he  may  do  as 
long  as  he  pleases.1  How  is  it  possible  for  a  person  who,  like  me,  is  a  sincere  friend  of 
religion,  not  to  be  indignant  at  an  order  which  has,  by  its  frauds,  rendered  the  history  of 
all  religions,  and  of  every  thing  connected  with  them,  doubtful — by  frauds  systematically 
practised  in  all  ages,  and  continued  even  to  the  present  day,  and  in  our  own  country  ? 


1  My  work  called  The  Celtic  Druids  has  never  been  noticed  in  any  way  which  can  be  called  a  review,  except  in  the 
fifth  and  sixth  numbers  of  the  Southern  Review  of  North  America,  printed  at  Charleston.  In  that  periodical  it  is 
reviewed  by  a  very  learned  man,  with  whom  I  first  became  acquainted  in  consequence  of  his  critique. 


PREFACE.  XIX 

I  consider  that  when  the  Bishop's  review  called  me  a  misosierist,  it  paid  me  the  greatest 
of  compliments.  To  be  called  a  misosierist  is  the  same  as  to  be  called  Philanthropist. 
I  am  proud  of  the  epithet. 

I  have  been  accused  of  being  fond  of  paradox.  The  word  paradox  means,  beyond 
common  opinion.  When  common  opinion  tells  me  to  believe  that  God,  the  Supreme 
First  Cause,  walked  in  the  garden,  or  that  he,  as  Jupiter,  carried  Io  away  on  his  back  to 
Crete,  I  am  not  afraid  of  being  paradoxical  or  doing  wrong  in  adopting  the  opinion  of 
all  the  first  fathers  of  the  church,  and  in  seeking  some  meaning  which  the  original  words 
do  not  literally  possess. 

If  the  priests  can  refute  the  doctrines  which  I  teach,  they  will  not  lose  a  moment  in 
doing  it ;  if  they  cannot,  they  will  have  recourse  to  turning  selected  passages  and  parts 
of  arguments  into  ridicule.  To  this  they  are  welcome.  I  shall  rejoice  in  the  proof  of 
my  victory. 

I  have  come  to  one  resolution — never  to  attempt  to  vindicate  myself  from  any  un- 
founded charge  of  ignorance  or  misquotation  in  this  book  ;  but,  only  to  notice  such  real 
errors  in  thework,as  maybe  pointed  out,  and  to  correct  them,  of  whatever  kind  they  may  be. 

Like  my  learned  friend  Eusebe  de  Salverte,  1  shall  be  accused  of  rationalism.1  I, 
beforehand,  plead  guilty  to  the  charge.  I  can  be  of  no  religion  which  does  not  appear  to 
be  consistent  with  sound  reason,  and  1  cannot  stoop,  with  the  advocates  of  priestcraft  and 
idiotism,  to  lend  my  hand  to  continue  the  degradation  of  my  fellow-creatures.  Since 
the  priests  and  their  abettors  have  thought  proper  to  convert  the  exercise  of  the  highest 
gift  of  God  to  man  reason  into  a  term  of  reproach — rationalism — I  know  not  how  to 
return  the  compliment,  though  I  do  not  like  to  render  evil  for  evil,  better  than  by  desig- 
nating their  attempted  opposition  to  reason,  idiotism. 

To  guard  myself  against  being  accused  of  the  disgusting  practice  of  using  abusive 
epithets,  I  beg  that  the  term  devotee,  which  will  often  occur,  as  of  course  it  conveys  no 
meaning  against  any  one's  moral  character,  may  not  be  considered  to  mean  a  bigot,  but 
merely  a  person  very  much,  or  rather  more  than  usually  religious,  which  is  its  true  and 
correct  meaning.  I  leave  the  use  of  abusive  language,  such  as  infidel^  to  persons  who, 
feeling  that  their  arguments  are  weak,  try  to  strengthen  them  by  violence. 

In  the  execution  of  this  work  I  have  endeavoured  to  place  myself  above  all  religions 
and  sects,  and  to  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  them  all ;  and,  as  I  have  favoured  none,  I  know  J 
I  shall  be  favoured  by  none.  A  few  and  very  few  persons,  those  persons  who  are  really 
philosophers  will  read  it.  The  generality  of  mankind  will  read  no  further  than  to  that 
part  where  it  begins  to  touch  their  own  prejudices  or  their  own  religion  ;  then  they  will 
throw  it  down.  It  is  very  seldom  indeed  that  a  religious  person  is  capable  of  reasoning- 
respecting  matters  connected  with  his  religion.  This  is  the  cause  why,  on  this  subject, 
no  two  persons  scarcely  ever  agree.  And  I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect,  that  if  he  take 
the  opinion  of  a  religious  person  on  any  matter  connected  with  such  a  work  as  this,  as 


1  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,  No.  XII. 


c2 


XX  PREFACE. 

there  are  numbers  of  religions,  the  chances  are  very  great,  that  in  some  part  it  must 
have  attacked  the  religion  of  the  person  whose  opinion  he  takes ;  whence  it  follows,  that 
the  chances  are  in  proportion  to  the  whole  numbers  of  religions  which  exist  to  one,  that 
he  depends  on  a  prejudiced  person,  and  is  deceived.  All  this  will  operate  against  the 
the  book  ;  but  how  can  I  expect  any  better  ? — for  the  immediate  effect  of  my  theory,  if 
universally  received,  would  be,  to  render  obsolete  nine-tenths  of  all  the  literature  of  the 
world,  and  to  overthrow  almost  every  prevailing  system  of  history,  chronology,  and  reli- 
gion. But  founding  my  opinion  on  a  thorough  conviction  that  I  have  solved  the  great 
problem  and  have  discovered  the  long-lost  truths  of  antiquity  which  have  been  so  long 
sought  for  in  vain,  I  feel  no  doubt  that  the  time  will  come  when  my  discovery  will  be 
adopted,  when  the  errors  in  the  work  or  in  the  system  will  be  corrected,  and  the  truth  it 
contains  will  be  duly  appreciated,  and  that,  if  I  have  succeeded  in  developing  the  origin 
of  religions,  nations,  and  languages,  it  will  by  degrees  make  its  way.  Besides,  the 
schoolmaster  is  abroad.     Tempora  mutantur,  et  Veritas  praevalebit. 

I  shall  be  found  frequently  to  express  a  suspicion  ;  as  for  instance,  /  have  a  suspicion, 
or  /  have  a  strong  suspicion.  I  think  it  right  to  apprize  my  reader,  that  when  I  use 
these  words,  I  really  mean  that  /  suspect  or  conjecture,  and  that  however  numerous  may 
be  the  proofs  which  I  produce,  I  yet  admit  a  doubt,  and  by  no  means  intend  to  place  the 
credit  of  my  work  upon  the  absolute  truth  of  the  doctrines  so  doubtfully  advanced  by 
me.  Of  course  among  such  an  innumerable  number  of  references  contained  in  the  notes, 
errors  would  have  been  found,  even  if  my  eyes  had  not  begun  to  fail  me,  and  to  verify 
them  it  is  impossible  to  travel  again  over  all  the  libraries  from  Glasgow  to  Naples.  I 
shall  be  thankful  for  any  corrections. 

In  many  places  the  explanations  of  words  will  be  found  to  be  given  in  numbers.  This 
has  been  generally  treated  by  the  learned  with  contempt.  I  think  it  right  to  give  notice  to 
the  reader,  that  before  this  work  is  finished,  this  buffoonery,  as  it  has  been  called  by  those 
who  did  not  understand  it,  and  who  were  too  idle  or  too  proud  to  inquire  what  could  be 
the  cause  that  the  most  learned  of  the  ancients  used  such  a  practice,  will  be  found  of  the 
very  first  importance,  and  to  be  any  thing  but  buffoonery. 

It  is  also  necessary  to  observe,  that  if  an  observation  or  notice  of  an  ancient  custom 
should  sometimes  appear,  which  may  be  thought  to  be  introduced  without  good  cause,  it 
is  not  therefore  to  be  concluded  that  all  persons  will  be  of  that  opinion.  I  think  it  right 
to  warn  my  reader,  that  there  are  more  passages  than  one  in  the  book,  which  are  of  that 
nature,  which  will  be  perfectly  understood  by  my  masonic  friends,  but  which  my  en- 
gagements prevent  my  explaining  to  the  world  at  large. 

My  masonic  friends  will  find  their  craft  very  often  referred  to.  I  believe,  however, 
that  they  will  not  find  any  of  their  secrets  betrayed  ;  but  I  trust  they  will  find  it  proved, 
that  their  art  is  the  remains  of  a  very  fine  ancient  system,  or,  perhaps,  more  properly,  a 
branch  of  the  fine  and  beautiful  system  of  wisdom  which,  in  this  work,  I  have 
developed. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the,  work  many  facts  are  stated  and  observations  made  which 


PREFACE.  XXI 

ought  to  have  had  a  place  in  the  earlier  parts  of  it ;  this  arose  from  the  fact,  that  when  I 
commenced  printing,  I  thought  I  had  finished  my  first  volume :  but,  as  it  proceeded,  I 
continued  my  researches,  and  in  consequence  met  with  many  new  circumstances  tending 
to  complete  or  strengthen  my  system.  Was  I  to  leave  them  unnoticed  ?  This  would 
have  been  a  kind  of  infanticide.  Their  late  introduction  may  injure  the  work  ;  but  my 
object  is  not  to  make  a  book,  but  to  develop  great  truths,  respecting  ancient  Language, 
Religion,  and  the  Origin  of  Nations. 

Sometimes  a  quotation  will  be  found  to  contain  bad  grammar,  as  for  instance,  in  Book 
X.  Chapter  VI.  Sect.  11,  pp.  716,  717;  but  I  have  thought  it  better  to  leave  it  as  I 
found  it,  than  run  the  risk  of  making  an  author  say  what  he  did  not  intend,  by  my  cor- 
rection. Schoolmasters  think  such  things  of  consequence.  They  are  certainly  better 
avoided.  It  is  a  common  practice  of  our  scholars  to  endeavour  to  tie  down  inquirers  to 
the  niceties  which  the  old  languages  acquired  when  they  had  arrived  at  their  highest 
state  of  perfection,  prohibiting  any  licence,  and  making  no  allowance  for  their  uncertain 
state  before  grammars  or  lexicons  were  written.  For  instance,  Buddha  and  Buda,  be- 
tween which  they  now  make  some  very  nice  distinctions  ;  saying,  one  is  the  Planet 
Mercury,  and  the  other  is  Wisdom,  a  distinction  adopted  evidently  in  later  times.  This 
is  the  counterpart  of  the  Sun  and  the  planet  Mercury  of  the  Greeks,  both  of  which,  I 
shall  shew,  meant  the  Sun  and  the  Planet  also.  The  same  is  the  case  with  the  Greek 
words  Fjpcog  and  Epos,  one  of  which  I  shall  be  told  means  hero  and  the  other  Love  ;  but 
which  I  shall  prove  must  have  been  originally  the  same,  and  each  must  have  had  both 
meanings,  before  the  later  Greeks  fixed  the  meaning  of  every  word  in  their  language. 
These  puny  criticisms  are  calculated  for  nothing  but  the  concealment  of  truth,  and  are 
founded  upon  a  total  forgetful ness  or  ignorance  of  the  principles  or  history  of  all  lan- 
guages. This  will  be  discussed  much  at  large  in  my  second  volume,  but  I  have  thought  it 
right  thus  slightly  to  notice  it  here,  in  order  to  assuage  the  anger  of  those  small  critics, 
in  the  mean  time. 

I  think  it  right  to  make  an  observation  upon  an  effect  of  prejudice,  which  has  operated 
for  the  concealment  of  truth  in  modern  times  more  than  almost  any  other  cause  what- 
ever, and  it  is  this  :  it  constantly  happens  that  circumstances  are  met  with,  to  all  ap- 
pearance closely  connected  with  the  history  of  the  Jews,  and  yet  in  places  so  remote 
from  Judea,  and  so  unconnected  with  it,  that  our  inquirers  have  not  been  able  to  admit 
even  the  possibility  of  any  connexion  having  existed  between  them  ;  and,  in  order  that 
they  might  not  expose  themselves  to  ridicule  for  what  has  appeared  even  to  themselves  to 
,  be  absurd  credulity,  they  have,  without  any  dishonest  motive,  disguised  and  corrupted 
^  words  without  number.  Thus  we  find,  instead  of  Solomon,1  Soleimon  and  Suleimon ;  in- 
stead  of  David,  Daoud,  and,  as  the  learned  Dr.  Dorn  calls  it,  Davudze ;  and  instead  of  Jacob, 
Yacoob,  when  the  name  was  clearly  meant,  in  the  original,  to  be  what  we  call  Jacob. 

1  It  is  true  that,  properly  speaking,  neither  person  ought  to  have  been  called  Solomon ;  but,  as  the  same  name  of  a 
person  was  originally  meant  in  both  cases,  they  ought  both  to  be  represented  by  the  same  letters. 


XX11  PREFACE. 

In  a  similar  manner,  in  Hamilton's  Gazetteer,  the  word  which,  in  old  maps,  is  pro- 
perly called  Adoni,  is  changed  by  him  into  Adavani,  and  Salem  into  Chelam.  Vide 
Book  x.  Chap.  vii.  Sec.  8,  p.  7<58. 

Another  evil  consequence  has  arisen  out  of  this  union  of  ignorance  and  prejudice, 
which  is,  that  many  works,  because  they  contain  passages  relating  to  matters  which 
have  been  thought  to  be  comparatively  modern,  have  hastily  been  decided  to  be  modern 
forgeries,  and  cast  away.  The  force  of  this  argument  my  reader  cannot  now  estimate, 
but  he  will  understand  it  as  he  advances  in  the  work ;  on  this  account  the  question  re- 
specting the  genuineness  of  almost  every  writing  which  has  been  deemed  spurious  deserves 
reconsideration.  Now  I  would  produce,  as  examples  of  this,  some  of  the  books  of  the 
}-  Apocrypha,  and,  for  one,  the  book  of  Jesus,  the  son  of  Sirach.  Something  which  has 
caused  them  to  be  thought  modern,  will  be  found  respecting  this  personage  in  my  next 
volume.  The  fact,  as  my  reader  will  see,  is  rather  a  proof  of  the  genuineness  of  that  book 
at  least.  The  effect  of  this  prejudice  has  been  totally  to  prevent  any  approximation 
towards  the  truth.  The  discoveries  which  I  have  made  have  been  effected  by  pursuing 
a  course  diametrically  opposite.  If  not  merely  as  much  care  had  been  taken  to  discover 
the  truth  as  has  been  taken  to  conceal  it,  but  only  a  fair  and  impartial  care  had  been 
taken,  the  true  character  of  the  ancient  histories  and  mythologies  would  have  been  dis- 
covered long  since.  This  I  beg  my  reader  always  to  bear  in  mind.  It  is  of  the  very  first 
importance.  When  I  began  my  inquiries,  I  was  the  dupe  of  this  superstition.  This  is 
an  example  of  the  many  things  which  I  have  stated  that  I  found  so  difficult  to  unlearn. 

For  a  very  long  time,  and  during  the  writing  of  the  greater  part  of  my  work,  I  ab- 
stained from  the  practice  of  many  etymologists,  of  exchanging  one  letter  for  another, 
that  is,  the  letter  of  one  organ  for  another  of  the  same  organ  ;  such,  for  instance,  as  Pada 
for  Vada,  (p.  7<59,)  or  Beda  for  Veda,  in  order  that  I  might  not  give  an  opportunity  to 
captious  objectors  to  say  of  me,  as  they  have  said  of  others,  that  by  this  means  I  could 
make  out  what  I  pleased.  From  a  thorough  conviction  that  this  has  operated  as  a  very 
great  obstacle  to  the  discovery  of  truth,  I  have  used  it  rather  more  freely  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  work,  but  by  no  means  so  much  as  the  cause  of  truth  required  of  me.  The 
practice  of  confining  the  use  of  a  language  while  in  its  infancy  to  the  strict  rules  to 
which  it  became  tied  when  in  its  maturity,  is  perfectly  absurd,  and  can  only  tend  to  the 
secreting  of  truth.  The  practice  of  indiscriminately  changing  ad  libitum  a  letter  of  one 
organ  for  another  of  the  same  organ,  under  the  sanction  of  a  grammatical  rule, — for  in- 
stance, that  B  and  V  are  permutable,  cannot  be  justified.  It  cannot,  however,  be  denied, 
that  they  are  often  so  changed  ;  but  every  case  must  stand  upon  its  own  merits.  The 
circumstances  attending  it  must  be  its  justification. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  professed  Oriental  scholars  will  nearly  all  unite  to  run  down 
my  work.  The  moment  1  name  Irish  literature  and  several  other  subjects,  they  will 
curl  up  the  corner  of  the  lip,  as  they  have  often  done  before.  Oriental  scholars  are  no 
ways  different  from  the  remainder  of  mankind,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  they  should 
receive  with  pleasure  the  rude  shock  which  this  work  will  give  to  many  of  their  preju- 


PREFACE.  XX111 

dices.  It  is  not  likely  that  they  will  hear  with  pleasure,  that  in  all  their  researches 
into  the  history  of  antiquity  they  have  been  in  the  wrong  track.  All  this  is  natural,  and 
I  find  no  fault  with  it — it  is  what  I  ought  to  expect, — it  is  what  has  happened  in  almost 
every  case  where  an  individual  has  attacked  old  prejudices.  Was  it  not  the  case  with 
Locke  ?  Was  it  not  the  case  with  Newton  ?  some  of  whose  best  works  did  not  go  to  a 
second  edition  in  less  than  thirty  years  !  If  these  master  minds  were  so  treated,  would  it 
not  be  absurd  in  me  to  hope  to  escape  without  illiberal  attacks  or  censures  ?  But  there  is 
one  thing  of  which  I  must  complain  in  Orientalists, — they  always  appear  to  speak  on  the 
subjects  to  which  they  have  directed  their  studies  with  authority,  as  if  they  did  not  admit 
of  any  doubt.  But  if  a  person  will  carefully  attend  to  them,  he  will  find,  nevertheless, 
that  scarcely  any  two  of  them  agree  on  a  single  point. 

I  must  also  make  another  observation  which  I  fear  will  give  offence.  Some  of  them, 
I  think,  prize  too  highly  the  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Oriental  dead  languages, — 
they  seem  to  think  that  these  once  acquired,  all  wisdom  is  acquired  also  as  a  necessary 
consequence.  They  seem  to  forget  that  the  knowledge  of  these  languages  is  of  no  other 
value  than  as  a  key  to  unlock  the  treasuries  of  antiquity.  I  wish  to  recall  this  to  their 
recollection,  and  to  remind  them  of  the  story  of  the  Chameleon,  that  others  can  see  as 
well  as  themselves.  In  making  these  observations,  I  hope  they  will  not  consider  that  I 
wish  to  depreciate  their  Oriental  learning ;  far  from  it.  I  think  it  has  not  been  so  much 
appreciated  as  it  deserves  by  their  countrymen,  and  though  I  think  they  cannot  pretend 
to  compete  in  learning  with  the  Jesuits  or  the  priests  of  the  propaganda,  whose  whole 
lives  were  spent  in  the  acquisition  of  Oriental  learning,  and  almost  in  nothing  else  ;  yet 
1  think  that  the  proficiency  which  great  numbers  of  them  have  made  in  the  learning  of 
the  East,  in  the  midst  of  the  performance  of  numerous  arduous  labours  of  civil  or 
military  life,  is  above  all  praise,  and  has  laid  their  countrymen  under  the  greatest  obliga- 
tion to  them. 

Before  I  conclude,  I  feel  myself  bound  to  acknowledge  my  obligations  to  my  Printer, 
Mr.  Smallfield,  not  only  for  his  punctuality  and  attention,  but  for  many  orthographical 
and  other  suggestions,  which  have  greatly  improved  the  work.  It  would  have  been  still 
more  worthy  of  the  reader's  perusal,  if,  like  the  monks  in  their  works,  I  could  have  called 
a  brotherhood  to  my  assistance,  or  if,  like  Mr.  Bryant,1  I  could  have  had  a  learned  and 
confidential  friend  to  advise  and  assist  me. 

After  having  spent  many  years  upon  this  work,  I  have  long  doubted,  as  I  have  already 
intimated,  whether  I  should  make  it  public  or  not.  I  will  not  deny  that  I  feel  cowardly. 
I  flatter  myself  that  I  am  esteemed  by  many  valuable  friends,  some  of  whom  I  may 
probably  lose  by  my  publication.  What  shall  1  gain  by  it  ?  Nothing. — Posthumous 
fame?  Perhaps  so.  Is  this  worth  having?  Pliny  and  Cicero  so  thought.  Is  the 
work  worth  publishing  ?  I  flatter  myself  the  answer  may  be  in  the  affirmative.  Is  it 
calculated  to  do  good  ?     Is  it  calculated  to  reduce  the  power  and  influence  of  priests, 

1  Vide  his  Preface  to  the  third  Volume  of  the  4to  edition. 


XXIV  PREFACE. 

and  to  enlighten  mankind?  It  surely  is.  The  discussion  alone,  supposing  I  am  mis- 
taken, must  tend  to  elicit  and  to  establish  truth  ;  and  truth  is  good.  Supposing  that  I 
believe  the  publication  to  be  for  the  good  of  mankind,  am  I  justified  in  suppressing  it? 
In  this  case,  am  I  doing  to  the  rest  of  mankind  as  I  would  wish  them  to  do  to  me?  A 
sentiment  of  the  great  and  good  Epictetus  is  so  appropriate  to  my  situation  and  circum- 
stances, that  I  think  I  cannot  do  better  than  conclude  with  his  words,  except,  indeed,  it 
be  humbly  to  imitate  their  author,  and  to  endeavour,  as  far  as  lies  in  me,  to  profit  by 
his  example. 

"  If  you  resolve  to  make  wisdom  and  virtue  the  study  and  business  of  your  life,  you 
"  must  be  sure  to  arm  yourself  beforehand  against  all  the  inconveniences  and  discourage- 
"  ments  that  are  likely  to  attend  this  resolution.  I  imagine  that  you  will  meet  with 
"  many  scoffs  and  much  derision  ;  and  that  people  will  upbraid  you  with  turning  phi- 
"  losopher  all  on  the  sudden.  But  be  not  you  affected  or  supercilious  ;  only  stick  close 
"  to  whatever  you  are  in  your  judgment  convinced  is  right  and  becoming :  and  consider 
"  this  as  your  proper  station,  assigned  you  by  God,  which  you  must  not  quit  on  any 
"  terms.  And  remember,  that  if  you  persevere  in  goodness,  those  very  men  who  derided 
"  you  at  first  will  afterward  turn  your  admirers.  But  if  you  give  way  to  their  re- 
"  proaches,  and  are  vanquished  by  them,  you  will  then  render  yourself  doubly  and  most 
"  deservedly  ridiculous."  (Stanhope.)  Yes,  indeed,  I  am  resolved  I  will  endeavour  to 
imitate  thee,  immortal  slave,  and  will  repeat  the  words  of  the  modern  poet, 

"  Steadfast  and  true  to  Virtue's  sacred  laws, 

"  Unmoved  by  vulgar  censure  or  applause, 

"  Let  the  world  talk,  my  friends ;  that  world,  we  know, 

"  Which  calls  us  guilty,  cannot  make  us  so. 

"  With  truth  and  justice  support  Nature's  plan, 

"  Defend  the  cause,  or  quit  the  name  of  man." 

GODFREY    HIGGINS. 


SKELLOIV  GRANGE,   NEAR   DONCASTER, 
May  1,  1833. 


CONTENTS. 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS. 
CHAPTER  I. 

Page 
Probable  Origin  of  Numbers  and  Letters,  and  of  the  first  adoption  of  the  Number  28  for  the  former,  and  of  16 
for  the  latter. — They  both  preceded  Hieroglyphics         ---....-.--         1 

CHAPTER  II. 
Etymology  and  its  Use -.._ 20 

CHAPTER  III. 

Origin  of  the  Adoration  of  the  Bull,  and  of  the  Phallic  and  Vernal  Festivals        ----...26 

BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  I. 
Age  of  the  World.— Flood.— Planets  and  Days  of  the  Week.— The  Moon 27 

CHAPTER  II. 

First  God  of  the  Ancients. — The  Sun. — Double  Nature  of  the  Deity. — Metempsychosis  and  the  Renewal  of 
Worlds.— Moral  Evil.— Eternity  of  Matter.— Buddha.— Genesis 3.3 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Sun  the  first  object  of  Adoration  of  all  Nations. — The  Gods  not  deceased  Heroes. — The  Chinese  have  only 
one  God. — Hindoo  Goddesses. — Toleration  and  Change  in  Religions 43 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Two  Ancient  Ethiopias.— Great  Black  Nation  in  Asia. — The  Buddha  of  India  a  Negro. — The  Arabians  were 
Cushites. — Memnon. — Shepherd  Kings. — Hindoos  and  Egyptians  similar. — Syria  peopled  from  India      -        -      51 

BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I. 

The  Ancient  Persians  of  the  Religion  of  Abraham.— First  Books  of  Genesis. — Disingenuous  conduct  in  the 
Translators  of  the  Bible. — Abraham  acknowledged  more  than  one  God  __..---      60 

CHAPTER  II. 

On  the  word  Aleim  or  Jewish  Trinity. — Saddai,  Adonis. — Trinity  of  the  Rabbins. — Meaning  of  the  words  Al  and 
El 64 

CHAPTER  III. 

Esdras  and  the  Ancient  Jewish  Cabala. — Emanations,  what. — Meaning  of  the  word  Berasit— Sephiroths  and 
Emanations  continued. — Origin  of  Time. — Planets  or  Samim. — Observations  on  the  preceding  Sections  72 

d 


XXVI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Page 
Why  Cyrus  restored  the  Temple. — Melchizedek. — Abraham,  what  he  was. — Abraham  the  Father  of  the  Persians. 
— Daniel. — Book  of  Esther,  Persian. — Zoroaster. — Variation  between  Persians  and  Israelites — Sacrifices. — 
Religion  of  Zoroaster. — Religion  of  Zoroaster  continued. — Zendavesta. — Observations  on  the  Religions  of  Jews 
and  Persians. — All  ancient  Religions  Astrological         _------_.        __gi 

CHAPTER  V. 
Character  of  the  Old  Testament.— Nature  of  the  Allegory  in  Genesis 96 

BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  I, 

Orphic  and  Mithraitic  Trinity  similar  to  that  of  the  Christians.— Sir  William  Jones  on  the  Religion  of  Persia.— 
Persian  Oromasdes,  Mithra,  Arimanius.— Opinions  of  Herodotus,  Porphyry,  Strabo,  Julian,  on  the  above.— 
Hyde  and  Beausobre  respecting  Times  of  Pythagoras  and  Zoroaster.— Followers  of  Zoroaster,  not  yet  extinct. 

—Worship  Fire The  Vedas  describe  the  Persian  Religion  to  have  come  from  Upper  India.— Maurice  on  the 

Hindoo  Trinity 100 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  wordOii.— Omphe,  Omphalos.— Olympus,  Ammon,  Delphi.— Digression  concerning  the  word  On.— Subject 
of  Ammon  renewed.— Ham  the  Son  of  Noah,  and  Ammon  the  Sun  in  Aries.— Niebuhr  on  the  Ombrici  of  Italy: 
several  remarkable  Synonymes. — On  the  Spirit  or  Ruh,  the  Dove.— Priestley's  opinion.— Subject  of  the  Persian 
and  Hindoo  Trinity  resumed         ..-------------106 

CHAPTER  III. 

Israel  Worsley's  Account  of  Ancient  Trinities.— Opinion  of  Dr.  Pritchard  and  others  on  the  Trinities. — Opinion 
of  Maurice  and  others  on  the  Trinities. — The  Christian  Trinity.— Its  Origin.— Macrobius  on  the  Trinity. — 
Philo's  Trinity  of  the  Jews.— Faber's  Account  of  the  universal  Belief  of  the  Trinity. — Observations  on  the 
Doctrine  that  Destruction  is  only  Regeneration    -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -115 

BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I. 

Proper  mode  of  viewing  the  Religion.— Life  of  Cristna.— Subject  continued.  Maturea.— Sir  W.  Jones's  Expla- 
nation of  the  Circumstances,  and  Mr.  Maurice's  Admissions. — Reflections  on  the  above.— Solemn  Considera- 
tions  of  Mr.  Maurice's  in  Explanation. — Digression  on  the  Black  colour  of  Ancient  Gods ;  of  the  Etymology 
of  the  words  Nile  and  Osiris. — Subject  continued. — Christ  Black,  an  Answer  to  a  solemn  Consideration. — Other 
solemn  Considerations. — Observation  on  Mr.  Maurice's  solemn  Considerations. — Mr.  Maurice's  Pamphlets.— 
Back  Reckonings.    Maturea.— Bryant  and  Dr.  A.  Clarke  on  this  Mythos 128 

CHAPTER  II. 

Crucifixion  of  Cristna,  and  Wittoba  and  Baljii. — Moore's  Observations  refuted. — More  particulars  respecting  the 
Temple  of  Wittoba. — Cristna,  Bacchus,  Hercules,  &c,  Types  of  the  Real  Saviour. — Taurus  and  Aries,  and 
^Era  of  Cristna. — Immaculate  Conception,  from  the  History  of  Pythagoras    -  144 

BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  I. 

Buddha  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  as  Cristna  was  the  Sun  in  Aries.  —  Names  of  Buddha.— Meaning  of  the  word 
Buddha,  the  same  as  that  of  the  first  word  in  Genesis. — The  Ten  Incarnations. — Descent  of  Buddha  the  same  as 
Cristna's. — Buddha  and  Cristna  the  same.— Simplicity  of  Buddhism. — Explanation  of  Plate. — Buddha  a  Negro. 
— Hierarchy. — Maia. — Samaneans  of  Clemens. — Incarnation.— Cabul. — Buddhism  extends  over  many  Coun- 
tries.—Buddha  before  Cristna - -     152 

CHAPTER  II. 

Cassini.  Loubere.  Cycles. — Isaiah's  Prophecy  known  to  the  Egyptians  and  the  Celt9  of  Gaul.— Mystical  meaning 
of  the  Letter  M.— Explanation  of  the  Oriental  Astronomical  Systems.— Subject  continued.  Mr.  Bentley. 
Berosus.— Mosaic  and  Hindoo  Systems.    Various  Prophecies.— Martianus  Capella.    Subject  continued  -        -     166 


CONTENTS.  XXV11 

CHAPTER  III. 

Page 

Subject  continued. — Two  Cycles.  Joshua  stops  the  Sun  and  Moon. — Jewish  Incarnations. — Millenium.  Pritchard. 
Plato. — Jewish  and  Christian  authorities  from  Dr.  Mede. — Plutarch  and  other  Western  Authors  on  the  600-year 
Cycle.— The  Hindoos  and  different  Systems. — Observations  on  Pythagoras,  &c— La  Loubere  on  the  word  Siam     195 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Cross,  the  meaning  of  it.— Justin  and  Tertullian  on  the  Cross. — Monograms  of  Christ  and  Osiris. — Cross  of 
Ezekiel  and  others. — Other  Monograms  of  Christ. — Chrismon  Sancti  Ambrogii. — Sacred  Numbers  in  the  Tem- 
ples of  Britain. — Mithra. — Josephus  and  Vallancey  on  Mystic  Numbers. — Indian  Circles. — Lama  of  Tibet. — 
Indra  crucified. — Jesuits' Account  of  Tibet  -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -216 

CHAPTER  V. 
Menu. — Sir  William  Jones  on  Menu         --__.___.-----    235 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Hercules  and  Samson  the  same.  —  Etymology  of  the  word  Samson Muttra,  Hercules  at. — Drummond  on 

Hercules.    The  Foxes.— Wilford  on  Hercules  at  Muttra.    Meaning  of  the  word  Hercules.— Hercules  Black. 
Cristna  in  Egypt  ----_......_-.---    236 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Mr.  Bentley.— Playfah°s  Recantation.— Yedas.— Forgeries.— Colebrooke  on  the  Forgeries. — Observations  on  a 
passage  in  the  Celtic  Druids.— Mr.  Bentley's  Recantation  to  Dr.  Marsham -  244 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Maturea.— Objections.— Mr.  Seeley's  Observations  on  the  Serpent.— Atonement,  Original  Sin.— Black  Nation  of 
Buddhists  in  Asia         -_._-_._..-------    252 

CHAPTER  DC. 

Baal.— Sir  W.  Jones  and  the  Desatir.— Etymology  of  the  word  Bal.  —  Dr.  Hager  on  Apollo.— Cufa  Grass, 
Sacrifice  of  .--..--.-.--------    256 

CHAPTER  X. 
Yajna  or  Passover. — Eight  Vasus      ---------------    260 

CHAPTER  XL 

Rasit,  or  Wisdom,  resumed. — Secret  Doctrines. — Bull-headed  and  Ram-headed  Gods. — Date  of  the  System.     , 
Names  of  Buddha,  &c. — Ignorance  of  the  Brahmins  and  Ancients. — Creuzer,  Hammer,  Guignaut,  &c. — Tree 
of  Genesis  at  Ipsambul,  and  the  same  in  Montfaucon     ------ 264 

CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Eagle  Garuda.— Spencer,  Faber,  Burnet,  Calmet,  &c,  on  Genesis  and  its  Allegory.— Faber's  Trinity  of  the 
Indians  and  the  Hebrews      ----------------    273 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Disputed  Chapters  of  Matthew  and  Luke.— Cause  of  the  Black  Curly-head  of  Buddha.— General  Observations  on 
the  Moral  Doctrines  of  different  Religions     --- "    2°3 

BOOK  VI.     CHAPTER  I. 
Flood  of  Noah.— Learning  of  Genesis.— Text  of  Genesis— Inland  Seas  of  Asia.— Theory  of  a  learned  Cantab— 
Theory  of  Mr.  Gab.— Rennell  on  Egypt.— Origin  of  the  Delta  of  Egypt.— Caspian  Sea.— Plato's  Atlantis- 
Geological  Fact  in  Yorkshire        .-_------.----*-    291 

</2 


xxviii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Page 

Adoration  of  the  Virgin  and  Child Carmelites  attached  to  the  Virgin — Virgin  of  the  Sphere.— Festival  of  the 

Virgin.— German  and  Italian  Virgin.— Mansions  of  the  Moon.— Montfaucon.— Multimammia.— Isis  and  the 
Moon.— Celestial  Virgin  of  Dupuis Kircher.— Jesus  Ben  Panther.— Lunar  Mansions 303 

CHAPTER  III, 

Bacchus  an  Imaginary  Personage.— Opinions  of  Different  Authors.— Subject  continued.  — Bacchus  in  India. 
Mount  Meru.— Adventures  similar  to  those  of  Cristna  318 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Names  of  Jesus  and  Iao.— Chifflet  and  others  on  these  Names.— Kircher  on  the  Name  Iao.— Name  Iao.— Name 
Iao  known  to  the  Gentiles.— YHS,  derivation  of  it.— Observations 323 

BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER  I. 
Ionians,  Origin  of.— Derivation  of  Ionian.— Argonauts.— Linga  and  Yoni.— The  Argha 332 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Lotus.— Maurice  on  the  Lotus.— Payne  Knight  on  the  Same.— Moore  on  the  Same.— Nimrod  on  the  Same  -    339 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Loadstone. — Helen  Athena. — Yavanas. — Division  of  the  Followers  of  the  Male  and  Female  Principles,  and 
their  Religion       ------------------341 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ship  of  Egypt  and  Greece. — Dupuis  on  the  Argonauts. — Arks  and  Area. — Thebes,  Tibet    -----    344 

CHAPTER  V. 

Janus. — Aphrodite  and  Diana.  Ganesa. — Thales,  and  meaning  of  Proper  Names. — Two  Syrias. — Two  Merus. 
Two  Moriahs.— The  Greeks  new-named  their  Conquests.     Om 349 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Id-Avratta,  Meru,  and  Meroe.  —  Eden  and  its  Rivers. — Whiston  and  Josephus  on  ditto. — Delos. — Plan  of  the 
Mystic  City. — Hanging  Gardens  and  Seven  Hills. — Seleucus  of  Antioch. — Greek  Mythologies;  Homer. — Troy. 
— Ilion. — Ulysses  and  St.  Patrick  ---------------    354 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Cassandra. — Babylonian  Mythos.— Constantine  and  Helena  —Astrology.  — Bryant  on  Early  History. — Native 
Country  of  the  Olive  and  Ararat   --- 367 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Rome. — Images  not  anciently  used. — Origin  of  the  name  Roma. — Labyrinth. — Observations  on  Proper  Names. — 
Hero  Gods  accounted  for.— Seleucus  Nicator. — Antichrist. — General  Observations. — Yavanas  expelled  from 
the  Towns  they  built 373 

BOOK  VIII.     CHAPTER  I. 

Jewish  Pentateuch.^  Publication  forced. — Jews  a  Hindoo  or  Persian  Tribe. — Name  of  Phoenicia  and  Syria.— 
Reason  of  Abraham's  Migration. — Abaris,  meaning  of. — Yadus  a  tribe  of  Jews. — God  called  by  Gentile  Names, 
but  always  Male.— Difficulty  in  the  Metempsychosis. — Dr.  Hyde  shews  Abraham  to  have  been  a  Brahmin        -    386 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Dove  of  the  Assyrians.— Black  Jews.— Meghasthenes'  Account  of  the  Jews.— Solumi  or  Solomons.— Judaism 
shewn  by  Eusebius  to  be  older  than  Abraham.— Hellenism— Jewish  Mythos  in  Nubia  and  India  —High  Places    397 


CONTENTS.  XXIX 


CHAPTER  III. 

Paste 

Names  of  Places.— Rajpouts,  Rannse  of  Ptolemy. — Indian  Chronology.—  Ajimere. — Mount  Sion. — Sion  and 
Hierosolyma. — Various  Mounts  of  Solyma. — Temples  of  Solomon. — Jerusalem. — Jessulmer. — Meaning  of 
Jerusalem. — Temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere        --_.----.-  ~  .    405 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Mount  of  Solomon,  Mount  of  the  Cabala. — Mount  Olympus. — Afghans,  Ioudi. — Turks  — Afghans  speak  Chaldee, 
Pushto,  and  Hebrew. — Arabia  on  the  Indus. — The  Thousand  Cities  of  Strabo.  Peculiarities  in  Eastern  and 
Western  Syria      ------------------    414 

CHAPTER  V. 

Religions  of  Afghans  and  Rajpouts.— Saul. — Ferishta,  Account  of  Indian  Jews. — Arabia,  its  Site  and  Meaning. — 
Tombs  of  Noah,  Seth,  and  Job.— Bentley. — Names  of  Places  in  India  continued.— Places  in  Greece.— Names 
of  old  Towns  not  noticed. — Saba. — Nile  and  Egypt,  Names  of       -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -418 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Arabians  from  India. — Laws  and  Customs  of  Afghans  and  Jews. — Rennell  on  the  Rajpouts.— Paradise.  Ararat. 
— Colonel  Tod  on  Places  in  India.— Jehovah,  Name  of,  in  India  — Colonel  Tod  on  the  Indian  MythosesT— 
Kaempfer  on  Siam. — Herodotus  did  not  know  of  the  Empire  of  Solomon        --_____    425 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Jews  hate  the  Female  Principle. — Jews  and  Egyptians,  Blackness  of — Observations  on  the  Jews. — Samaritans. — 
General  Conclusions - 433 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Pandion,  Pandeus,  Pandsea. — Pandeism. — Gypsies. — Recapitulation  ---*--__-    438 

BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  I. 


Sanscrit,  Origin  of. — Van  Kennedy  on  Sanscrit. — Language  changeable — Masoretic  Hebrew  a  new  Language, — 
Grammatical  construction  no  criterion. — Phoenician,  Greek,  and  Coptic,  the  same. — Yadavas  from  India. — 
Abyssinian  Jews. — Abraham  from  India. — Arabic  and  Ethiopian  the  same. — Dr.  Murray  on  Sanscrit. — Pro- 
fessor 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       -  448 

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  Monu- 
ments.— 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.— Mar- 
quis Spineto  not  a  Sceptic,  &c. — Bentley.     Zodiacs.    Esne.     Dendera   ----____    482 

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  con- 
tinued. — Cecrops.     Ixion.    Divine  Love  crucified         --_______._    496 

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     ..-_ ____    505 


XXX  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Page 

Cyclopes.— Cyclopaean  Buildings.— All  Ancient  History  Fable  or  ^Enigma.— Mundore,  &c— The  Cyclopes  in 
Mundore. — Abury  and  Serpent  Worship.— Freemasons  in  Mundore.  Almug. — Fourmont.  The  Temple  of 
Ongar 512 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Serpent  of  Genesis.— Ophites.— Serpent  of  Genesis  the  Logos.— Different  Mr&s  of  Buddhism.— Dupuis       -        -    521 

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    --------------    526 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Rivers  of  same  Name.— Jordan. — Various  Rivers  called  Don. — Doncaster,  &c. — Philistines  or  Palli      -  532 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Loretto.— Observations  on  Homer,  the  Iliad,  and  the  iEneid 539 


I 


CHAPTER  X. 

Enoch.  Laurence.— Mount  Meru.— The  Deluge.— Change  from  Taurus  to  Aries.— Prophecy  of  a  Saviour.— Pro- 
phecy of  Ten  Cycles.— The  Elect  One  slain.— Change  in  Earth's  Axis.— General  Observations  - ,      -        -    544 

BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  I. 

General  Observations.— Secret  Doctrines.— Subject  continued.— Observations.— Two  Classes  of  Avatars.— Romish 
Missionaries.— Star  of  Abraham,  Moses,  &c,  &c  —  Pythagoras.  —  Sibyls.— Cabala.—  Change  in  Religion.— 
Meaning  of  the  word  Sibyl,— By  whom  quoted.— Acrostic— Name  of  Christ.— Clarke's  Inscriptions.— Subject 
continued. — Cicero  admits  Acrostic. — Extract  from  Dupuis. — Bishop  Horsley         -....,    555 

CHAPTER   II. 

X/»k,  Chres. — Indians  in  Thrace. — Colida. — Ceres,  Xpyj?.— Subject  continued. — Herald,  Kerux. — Chaldeans  where 
from. — Gosen. — Erythraea,  Diu,  Dis.— Colida  of  South  India. — Indians  in  Thrace. — Ritter. — Meaning  of  the 
word  Xpvao<;. — Chersonesus. — Mythos  in  Africa,  Marcus. — Gaza-mere. — Bacchus     ------    580 

CHAPTER  III. 

Caesar  the  Ninth  Avatar. — Zarina. — Caesar  honoured  as  a  God. — Twelve  Caesars. — Adriatic. — Sibyl's  Prophecy  of 
Caesar.— Iliad  a  sacred  Mythos. — Caesar's  Death  followed  by  Darkness.— Star. — Roma  — Niebuhr. — Palladium. 
— History  of  Italy. — Mundos. — Rajah. — Pala. — Hellen. — Attila.— Hieroglyphics       ------    608 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Fish  Avatar.— Fish  Acrostic— Fishes  in  Italy.— Dagon.  Jonas.— Vishnu. — Name  of  Vishnu. — Sacred  Fishes. — 
Oannes. — Cyclopes. — Bishop  Berkeley  — iEschylus. — Euripides. — Peter  the  Fisherman. — John. — Bala  Rama. — 
Zoroaster.— Janus  —Polish  Masons.— Idols  Modern.— John.— Mundaites.— Explanation  of  Words. — Jasus        -    634 

CHAPTER  V. 

Salivahana. — Thomas.— Sharon  Turner.— Chaldee  Tongue.— Tamas. — Jesuits. — Vicramaditya. — Rama. — Daniel. — 
Crusades.— Mohamed—  Subject  continued—  M— OM— OMD 662 


CONTENTS.  XXXI 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Page 

Templars,  Observations  on.— Chair  of  St.  Peter.— Gospel  of  St.  Joachim.— St.  Francis.— Ishmaelians  or  Assassins. 
— Giblim. — Casideans. — Templars  resumed. — Templars  continued. — Good  and  Evil.  Manes. — Rasit.  Wisdom. 
—Templars  resumed. — Masons.— Masons  continued.— Manes,  Masons  continued.— Sophees.— Lockman.    iEsop    688 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Afghans.  —  Tamul  Language.  —  Subject  continued.— Observations  on  Language.  —  Boees,  Baieux. —Thomas, 
Sharon  Turner. — Twins,  Tamas. — Crete,  Cres.— Malabar,  Meaning  of. — Caraa,  Camasene. — Two  Tombs  of 
Thomas.— Jaggernaut.— Veda 735 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Freemasons  of  York  and  India. — Solomons  —Kingdom  of  Solomon  unknown. — Chaldeans  in  Babylon,  their 
Language  and  Sanscrit.— Sacred  Numbers. — Sephiroth,  Cherubim,  Seraphim.— First  Verse  of  Genesis. — Mani. 
— Freemasons  of  York,  Metempsychoses       --------.____    767 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Rasit,  Ap%ij. — Argonauts. — Nama  Amida  Buth. — Gnostics. — Gnostics  continued. — Gnostics  continued. — Valen- 
tinians. — St.  John,  St.  Thomas.— Yes-dan.— Mythos  in  Asia  Minor.— Samaritan  Genesis.— Adam  Cadmon. — 
t  Wisdom  in  Greece  and  Egypt.— Time.— To  Ov.—To  Ov  continued. — Christian  Mysteries  -----    794 

Appendix     --.------_-.__         -.-__    829 

Appendix  II.         -- 842 


CORRIGENDA    et    ERRATA. 


Page      3,  line  6  from  the  bottom,  for  'Bishop  D'Oyly,'  read 
Rev.  Dr.  D'Oyly. 

7,  line  6,  for  «  XXVIIII .,'  read  XXVIII. 

8,  bottom  line,   dele  the  words   'the  first  sixteen, 

perhaps.' 
15,  bottom  line  but  one,  for  '  elliptic,'  read  circular. 

17,  line  33,  for  'Tripods,'  read  Quiposes ;  and  ill  last 

line  but  one,  for  '  Astles,'  read  Astle. 

18,  line  7  from   the  bottom,   after  the    second  word 

'  been,'  insert  an  emblem  of;  and,  after  the  word 

'  fact,'  insert  the  word  of. 
20,  in  line  5,  for  '  Kurnec,'  read  Carnac. 
22,  line  41,  expunge  the  first  word  sixteen. 

24,  line  22,  for  '  Sarpendon,'  read  Sarpedon. 

25,  line  26,  after  '  merriment,'  insert  the  word  which. 

29,  line  28,  dele  the  inverted  commas  after  '  sciri.' 

30,  in  the  bottom  of  note  line,  insert  VI.  after  IV. 

41,  second    line    from    bottom,    for   'Crishna,'    read 

Cristna. 
48,  line  31,  for  '  Aphrodita,'  read  Aphrodite. 
54,  line  1,  for  '  Ludim,'  read  Lubim. 
63,  line  6  from  the  bottom,  for  '  Hails,'  read  Hales. 
70,  line  17,  after  U1N  insert  Adni. 

73,  last  but  one  of  note,  after  '  qui,'  iusert  est. 

74,  line  5,  for  '  from  the,'  read  from  a. 

7b,  line  21,  after  '  Bologna,'  insert  my  fig.  No.  22. 

77,  line  15,  for  'where,'  read  when;  and  in  line  29, 

for  '  Versions,'  read  version. 

78,  line  17,  for  '  satriim,'  read  smim. 
88,  note  3,  for  '  Cabala,'  read  Kebla. 
91,  line  6,  for  '  though,'  read  and. 

96,  line  11  from  the  bottom,  for  'this,'  read  his. 
101,  line  10,  for  '  Monsani,'  read  Mossani. 
Ill,  line  11,  for  *  Ame,'  read  Hme ;  and  in  line  6  from 

bottom,  dele  privately. 
120,  line  6,  dele  such;  aud,  line  7,  for  the  first  'as,* 

read  ichich. 
135,  line  32,  and  in  several  other  places,  for  '■nap'e^ox'^v,' 

read  v.a.1'  i^o%rjv. 
157,  line  20,  after  Guatama,  add,  He  taught  his  master 

as  Jesus  taught  Zaccheus.     Alph.  Tib.  pp.  33,  34. 
162,  line  31,  before  'AH,'  read  almost. 
166,  line  15,  for  'Lubere,'  read  Loubire. 

175,  line  5  from  the  bottom,  for  '  Mauwantara,'  read 

Manwantara. 

176,  line  19,  for  '  double,'  read  doubled. 
181,  line  23,  in  '  Nonnius,'  dele  i. 

188,  in  note  1,  for  '  708,'  read  608  ;  and  for  '  725,'  read 

625. 
192,  line  18,  insert  a  comma  after   'thee;'   and    for 

'calls,'  read  invokes. 
201,  line  23,  before  '  Melchisedek,'  insert   that;   and, 

after  it,  was  thought. 
226,  line  24,  for  '  twelfth,'  read  tenth. 

230,  in  note  1,  before  '  plates,'  read  my. 

231,  line  3,  after  '  gereutis,'  insert,  see  Fig.  14. 

236,  line  9,  for  'UEnJ'  inhmni,'  read  UorU'  inhmnu. 

(See  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  p.  350^     And  in  line 

14,  for  ''JD  mni,'  read  1JD  mnu 
241,  note  5,  line  2,  for  '  Psychologist,'  read  Physiologist. 

252,  note  1,  liue  5,  for  '  Aui,'  read  Ain. 

253,  line  26,  for  second  'of,'  read  to. 
255,  line  16,  for  '  chapter,'  read  book. 
258,  liue  25,  change  '  o  in,'  to  o  into. 
269,  liue  17,  iusert  Note  5  in  the  text. 


Page  274,  line  13,  for  'and,'  read  had;  and,  in  line  26,  in- 
terchange Pra  and  Bra. 

285,  line  32,  for  '  depend,'  read  depends. 

289,  line  3  from  bottom,  after  'utility,'  insert  a  comma. 

296,  line  1,  for  '  Cab,'  read  Gab. 

304,  liue  1,  for  '  Dyonyg,'  read  Dyonys. 

310,  in  inscription  of  Isis,  for  '  BvfjBuv'  read  0mjtwv; 
and  in  note  2,  for  '  fig.  18,'  rend  fig.  19. 

319,  line  18,  for  '  Dyonisius,'  read  Dionysus. 

329,  line  10,  for  '  translating  the  LXX.  into  Greek/ 
read,  translating  the  Hebrew  into  the  Greek  LXX. 

335,  line  29,  for  '  fig.  20,'  read  fig.  21. 

348,  line  40,  for  '  fig.  23,'  redd  fig.  24. 

363,  line  35,  for  '  Laeshmi,'  read  Lacshmi. 

399,  line  1,  for  '  Chap.  I.  Sect.   1,'   read  '  Chap.  II. 

Sect.  2. 

400,  line  23,  after  '  witness,'  insert  He  says  that. 
407,  line  26,  for  'and,'  read  or. 

411,  line  28,  for  '  Adam,'  read  Noah. 
415,  line  24,  for  '  Judia,'  read  India. 
420,  line  27,  for  '  tombs,'  read  icons. 

423,  line  13,  leave  out  all  the  words  relating  to  the  temple. 

424,  lines  35  and  37,  for  '  Mr.,'  read  Major  Rennell. 
433,  line  3,  for  'credibility,'  read  rationality. 

445,  line  35,  for  '  full,'  read  new. 

446,  lines  9  and  10,  dele  the  parenthesis. 
450,  note,  line  2,  for  'these,'  read  their. 
460,  note  4,  for  'XPE,'  read  XP2. 

482,  liue  1  of  Chapter  II.,  for  '  chapter,'  read  book. 
519,  the  parenthesis  in  lines  15  and  16,  is  the  author's, 

not  Col.  Tod's. 
524,  liue  31,  for  «  Uaillie,'  read  Bailly. 
535,  line  36,  dele  '  were,'  and  add  were  named  after  '  it.' 
540,  line  21,  for  '  Greek,'  read  Latin. 

544,  for '584,'  read  544. 

545,  line  5  from  the  bottom,  put  the  word  '  only'  after 

Josephus. 
590,  line  1,  and  in  several  other  places,  for  '  Gebelen,' 

read  Gebelin. 
593,  dele  the  last  clause  of  note  1. 
595,  liue  7,  for  '  Eeudra,'  read  Eendra. 

602,  line  5,  for  '  they,'  read  the  latter. 

603,  line  3  from  bottom,  for  '  Yahandi,'  read  Yahaudi. 
614,  liue  10,  after  the  second  '  they,'  add  the  word  may. 
619,  line  1,  for  '  biber,'  read  Bible. 

623,  line  13,  for  •  Genesa,'  read  Ganesa. 

639,  line  17  from  the  bottom,  insert  a  comma  after 

Yuthia 
642,  line  1,  for  '  Fish  or,'  read  or  Fish. 
644,  line  3,  dele  '  who  were.' 
668,  line  1,  for  '  Goguet,'  read  Bouchet. 
679,  Hue  4  from  the  bottom,  for  '  if  Bishop  Marsh  says  « 

the,'  read  if,  as  Bishop  Marsh  says,  the,  &c. 
683,  bottom  line,  note,  for  '  Aries,'  read  Pisces. 
692,  line  20,  for  'and,'  after  priests,  read  of. 
704,  line  4  from  the  bottom,  for  '  then,'  read  three- 

719,  in  the  head  line,  for  '  Section  3,'  read  Section  12. 

720,  line  27,  for  '  and  by,'  read  with;  and  in  line  29, 

for  'Nabli,'  read  Nabhi. 

737,  line  4  from  the  bottom,  for  'Pentateuch,'  read 
Genesis. 

750,  line  14,  dele  Goguet. 

776,  lines  15  and  16,  read  the  passage  thus:  The  sir- 
teen-letter  of  the  Tamuls  may  have  been;  and  in 
line  16,  for  '  the,'  read  their. 


PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PROBALE  ORIGIN  OF   NUMBERS  AND  LETTERS,  AND  OP   THE    FIRST  ADOPTION  OF   THE   NUMBER  28   FOR   THE    FORMER 
AND    16     FOR    THE    LATTER.      THEY   BOTH    PRECEDED   HIEROGLYPHICS. 

1.  In  the  following  preliminary  observations,  I  have  repeated  much  of  what  may  be  found  in  my  work,  entitled  The 
Celtic  Druids,  but  it  is  so  much  enlarged,  and  I  hope  improved,  by  additional  evidence  in  its  support,  that  I  have 
found  it  impossible  to  avoid  the  repetition  to  do  justice  to  my  subject.  Therefore  I  hope  it  will  be  excused :  more  par- 
ticularly as  I  consider  that  the  removal  of  all  doubt  respecting  the  antiquity  of  the  16  or  Cadmean  letter  system  is 
necessary,  several  very  important  consequences  being  drawn  from  it,  which  have  an  intimate  relation  to  the  doctrines 
developed  in  the  following  work. 

2.  In  an  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  nations,  or  into  the  early  history  of  mankind,  one  of  the  very  first  objects  which 
offers  itself  to  our  attention  is  the  invention  of  letters  and  numbers.  Of  this  we  have  no  actual  information  to  which 
the  least  attention  can  be  paid ;  for  I  suppose  no  one  listens  to  such  stories  as  those  of  their  invention  by  Hermes  or 
Mercury  in  Egypt,  or  Hercules  in  Gaul ;  it  is  therefore  evident  that  to  theory,  and  to  theory  alone,  we  must  have 
recourse  for  the  solution  of  the  difficulty.  A  bare  probability  is  the  utmost  at  which  we  can  ever  expect  to  arrive  in  the 
investigation  of  this  very  interesting  subject. 

3.  There  is  no  likelihood  that  man  would  be  endowed  with  these  sciences  at  his  creation ;  therefore  it  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  we  must  suppose  the  knowledge  of  them  to  have  been  the  result  of  his  own  ingenuity,  and  of  the 
gradual  development  of  his  faculties.  This  being  admitted,  it  surely  becomes  a  matter  of  great  curiosity  to  ascertain 
the  probable  line  of  conduct,  and  the  gradual  steps  which  he  would  pursue  for  their  acquisition. 

4.  After  he  had  arrived  at  the  art  of  speaking  with  a  tolerable  degree  of  ease  and  fluency,  without  being  conscious 
that  he  was  reasoning  about  it,  he  would  probably  begin  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  a  mode  of  recording  or  perpetuating 
some  few  of  the  observations  which  he  would  make  on  surrounding  objects,  for  the  want  of  which  he  would  find 
himself  put  to  inconvenience.  This  I  think  was  the  origin  of  Arithmetic.  He  would  probably  very  early  make  an 
attempt  to  count  a  few  of  the  things  around  him,  which  interested  him  the  most,  perhaps  his  children ;  and  his  ten 
fingers  would  be  his  first  reokoners ;  and  thus  by  them  he  would  be  led  to  the  decimal  instead  of  the  more  useful 
octagonal  calculation  which  he  might  have  adopted;  that  is,  stopping  at  8  instead  of  10.  Thus,  8  +  1,  8  +  2,  8  +  3, 
instead  of  10  +  1  or  11 ;  10  +  2  or  12;  10  +  3  or  13.  There  is  nothing  natural  in  the  decimal  arithmetic;  it  is  all 
artificial,  and  must  have  arisen  from  the  number  of  the  fingers ;  which,  indeed,  supply  an  easy  solution  to  the  whole 
enigma.  Man  would  begin  by  taking  a  few  little  stones,  at  first  in  number  five,  the  number  of  fingers  on  one  hand. 
This  would  produce  the  first  idea  of  numbers.  After  a  little  time  he  would  increase  them  to  ten.  He  would,  by  placing 
them  in  order,  and  making  them  into  several  parcels,  by  degrees  acquire  a  clear  idea  of  ten  numbers.  He  would  divide 
them  into  two,  and  compare  them  with  one  another  and  with  the  fingers  on  each  hand,  and  he  would  observe  their 
equality ;  and  thus  by  varying  his  parcels  in  different  ways,  he  would  begin  to  do  what  we  call  calculate,  and  acquire 
the  idea  of  what  we  call  a  calculation.  To  these  heaps  or  parcels  of  stones,  and  operations  by  means  of  them,  he 
would  give  names ;  and  I  suppose  that  he  called  each  of  the  stones  a  calculus,  and  the  operation  a  calculation. 

5.  The  ancient  Etruscans  have  been  allowed  by  most  writers  on  the  antiquities  of  nations,  to  have  been  among  the 
oldest  civilized  people  of  whom  we  have  any  information.    In  my  Essay  on  the  Celtic  Druids,  I  have  shewn  that  their 

B 


2  PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.   I. 

language,  or  that  of  the  Latins,  which  was  in  fact  their  language  in  a  later  time,  was  the  same  as  the  Sanscrit  of  India. 
This  I  have  proved  not  merely  by  the  uncertain  mode  of  shewing  that  their  words  are  similar,  but  by  the  construction 
of  the  language.  The  absolute  identity  of  the  modes  of  comparison  of  the  adjective,  and  of  the  verb  impersonal, 
which  in  my  proof  I  have  made  use  of,  cannot  have  been  the  effect  of  accident.  The  words  which  I  have  used  above 
for  the  first  calculation,  and  for  the  instruments  used  in  its  performance,  calculus1  and  calculation,  are  Latin,  the 
language  of  the  descendants  of  the  Etruscans,  and  thus  may  have  been  readily  derived  from  the  earliest  people  of  the 
world,  whether  Asiatic  or  European.  I  name  this  to  shew  that  there  is  no  objection  to  the  names  merely  because  they 
are  the  names  of  a  modern  language. 

6.  During  the  time  that  man  was  making  this  calculation,  his  attention  would  be  turned  to  the  Sun  and  Moon.  The 
latter  he  would  perceive  to  increase  and  decrease ;  and  after  many  moons  he  would  begin  to  think  it  was  what  we  call 
periodical ;  and  though  he  had  not  the  name  of  period,  he  would  soon  have  the  idea  in  a  doubtful  way,  and  with  his 
calculi  he  would  begin  a  calculation.  He  would  deposit  one  every  day  for  twenty-eight  days,  being  nearly  the  time 
one  moon  lived,  and  is  the  mean  between  the  time  of  her  revolution  round  the  earth,  twenty-nine  days  twelve  hours  and 
forty-four  minutes,  and  the  time  she  takes  to  go  round  her  orbit,  twenty-seven  days,  seven  hours  and  forty-three  minutes. 
Any  thing  like  accuracy  of  observation  it  would  be  absurd  to  expect  from  our  incipient  astronomer.  After  a  few 
months'  observation  he  would  acquire  a  perfect  idea  of  a  period  of  twenty-eight  days,  and  thus  he  would  be  induced  to 
increase  his  arithmetic  to  twenty-eight  calculi.  He  would  now  try  all  kinds  of  experiments  with  these  calculi.  He 
would  first  divide  them  into  two  parts  of  equal  number.  He  would  then  divide  them  again,  each  into  two  parts,  and 
he  would  perceive  that  the  two  were  equal,  and  that  the  four  were  equal,  and  that  the  four  heaps  made  up  the  whole 
twenty-eight.  He  would  now  certainly  discover  (if  he  had  not  discovered  before)  the  art  of  adding,  and  the  art  of 
dividing,  in  a  rude  way,  by  means  of  these  calculi,  probably  at  first  without  giving  names  to  these  operations.  He  would 
also  try  to  divide  one  of  the  four  parcels  of  calculi  into  which  the  Moon's  age  was  divided  still  lower,  but  here  for  the 
first  time  he  would  find  a  difficulty.  He  could  halve  them  or  divide  them  into  even  parcels  no  lower  than  seven,  and 
here  began  the  first  cycle  of  seven  days,  or  the  week.  This  is  not  an  arbitrary  division,  but  one  perfectly  natural,  an 
effect  which  must  take  place,  or  result  from  the  process  which  I  have  pointed  out,  and  which  appears  to  have  taken  place 
in  almost  every  nation  that  has  learned  the  art  of  arithmetic.  From  the  utmost  bounds  of  the  East,  to  the  Ultima 
Thule,  the  septenary  cycle  may  be  discovered.  By  this  time,  which  would  probably  be  long  after  his  creation,  man 
would  have  learned  a  little  geometry.  From  the  shell  of  the  egg,  or  the  nut,  he  would  have  found  out  how  to  make 
an  awkward,  ill-formed  circle,  or  to  make  a  line  in  the  sand  with  his  finger,  which  would  meet  at  both  ends.  The 
spider,  or  experiment,  would  certainly  have  taught  him  to  make  angles,  though  probably  he  knew  nothing  of  their 
properties. 

7.  A  very  careful  inquiry  was  made  by  Dr.  Parsons  some  years  ago  into  the  arithmetical  systems  of  the  different 
nations  of  America,  which  in  these  matters  might  be  said  to  be  yet  in  a  state  of  infancy,  and  a  result  was  found  which 
confirms  my  theory  in  a  very  remarkable  manner.  It  appears,  from  his  information,  that  they  must  either  have  brought 
the  system  with  them  when  they  arrived  in  America  from  the  Old  World,  or  have  been  led  to  adopt  it  by  the  same 
natural  impulse  and  process  which  I  have  pointed  out. 

8.  The  ten  fingers  with  one  nation  must  have  operated  the  same  as  with  the  other.  They  all,  according  to  their 
several  languages,  give  names  to  each  unit,  from  one  to  ten,  which  is  their  determinate  number,  and  proceed  to  add  an 
unit  to  the  ten ;  thus,  ten  one,  ten  two,  ten  three,  &c,  till  they  amount  to  two  tens,  to  which  sum  they  give  a  peculiar 
name,  and  so  on  to  three  tens,  four  tens,  and  till  it  comes  to  ten  times  ten,  or  to  any  number  of  tens.  This  is  also 
practised  among  the  Malays,  and  indeed  all  over  the  East :  but  to  this  among  the  Americans  there  is  one  curious  ex- 
ception, and  that  is,  the  practice  of  the  Caribbeans.  They  make  their  determinate  period  at  five,  and  add  one  to  the 
name  of  each  of  these  fives,  till  they  complete  ten,  and  they  then  add  two  fives,  which  bring  them  to  twenty,  beyond 
which  they  do  not  go.  They  have  no  words  to  express  ten  or  twenty,  but  a  periphrasis  is  made  use  of.  From  this 
account  of  Dr.  Parsons',  it  seems  pretty  clear  that  these  Americans  cannot  have  brought  their  figures  and  system  of 
notation  with  them  from  the  Old  World,  but  must  have  invented  them ;  because  if  they  had  brought  it,  they  would 
have  all  brought  the  decimal  system,  and  some  of  them  would  not  have  stopped  at  the  quinquennial,  as  it  appears  the 
Caribbees  did.  If  they  had  come  away  after  the  invention  of  letters,  they  would  have  brought  letters  with  them :  if 
after  the  invention  of  figures,  but  before  letters,  they  would  all  have  had  the  decimal  notation.  From  this  it  follows, 
that  they  must  have  migrated  either  before  the  invention  of  letters  or  figures,  or,  being  ignorant  persons,  they  did  not 
bring  the  art  with  them.  If  this  latter  were  the  caso,  then  the  mode  of  invention  according  to  my  theory  must  have 
taken  place  entirely  and  to  its  full  extent  with  the  Americans,  (which  proves  my  assumed  natural  process  in  the  discovery 

1   In  the  same  way  we  have  annus  and  annulus,  circus  and  circulus. 


PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I.  O 

to  be  correct,)  and  in  part,  though  not  to  the  full  extent,  with  the  Caribbees  :  but  the  same  natural  process  must  have 
influenced  both,  which  proves  that  my  theory  is  rational  and  probable,  and  really  has  a  principle  of  human  nature  for 
its  foundation.  I  think  the  fact  of  the  Caribbees  having  proceeded  by  the  same  route,  but  having  only  gone  part  of 
the  way,  is  a  strong  circumstance  to  confirm  my  hypothesis. 

9.  The  natives  of  Java  have  the  quinary  system,  or  calculation  by  fives.  And  it  is  remarkable  that  the  word  lima, 
which  means  five,  means  also  the  hand.  It  appears  from  Mr.  Crawford,  that  in  early  times  they  had  only  the  quinary 
system,  which  by  degrees  they  improved  to  the  denary. 

10.  In  support  of  the  idea  which  I  have  suggested  above  relative  to  the  period  of  twenty-eight  days,  several  circum- 
stances or  historical  facts  of  the  earliest  nations  of  whom  we  have  any  account,  may  be  cited.  The  almost  universal 
adoption  of  the  septenary  cycle,  which  as  a  religious  ordinance  was  certainly  not  known  to  the  Israelites  before  the  time 
of  Moses,  can  in  no  other  way  be  accounted  for,  and  is  in  itself  not  of  trifling  moment.  When  man  advanced  in 
astronomical  science,  and  parcelled  the  path  of  the  moon  in  the  heavens  into  divisions,  he  did  not  choose  for  this 
purpose  twenty-nine  or  twenty-seven,  but  twenty-eight ;  and,  accordingly,  this  was  the  number  of  mansions  of  the 
moon  into  which  the  Lunar  Zodiac  was  divided  by  the  astrologers  of  Egypt,  of  Arabia,  of  Chaldea,  and  of  India. 
It  was  not,  in  my  opinion,  until  a  late  date,  comparatively  speaking,  that  the  mansions  in  India  were  more  correctly 
divided  into  twenty-seven  ;  but  I  do  not  state  this  as  a  fact,  because  I  think  it  is  not  clearly  made  out  which  of  the 
two  Indian  divisions,  twenty-seven  or  twenty-eight,  with  which  we  meet,  was  the  most  ancient.  If  it  were  twenty- 
seven,  I  should  consider  this  as  a  circumstance  strongly  tending  to  support  the  doctrine  of  Bailly,  advocated  by  me 
in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  a  highly  civilized  nation  had  formerly  existed,  of  which  the  learning  of  India  and  Egypt 
was  a  remnant.  I  think,  from  various  circumstances  which  will  be  noticed  in  the  following  work,  the  reader  will  be 
induced  to  believe  that  the  Indian  division  was  originally  the  same  as  those  of  the  Chaldees  and  Arabians.  All  the 
three  Zodiacs  differ  in  the  figures  on  them  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  it  likely  that  they  are  not  copies  from  one 
another,  but  that  they  have  each  given  their  own  figures  to  the  divisions  previously  made  into  twenty-eight,  from  some 
common  source.  A  learned  astronomer,  Mr.  Bentley,  in  his  work  lately  published,  called  Ancient  and  Modern 
Hindoo  Astronomy,1  states  them  to  have  been  originally  twenty-eight. 

1 1 .  The  Chinese  also  have  a  Lunar  Zodiac  divided  into  twenty-eight  parts  or  mansions,  and  seven  classes,  four  of 
which  are  assigned  to  each  of  the  seven  planets.  But  they  do  not,  like  the  Hindoos,  the  Chaldees,  and  the  Arabians, 
give  them  the  forms  of  animals.2  Here  is  evidently  the  same  system,  which  so  completely  accords  with  my  theory  of 
the  first  lunar  observations  of  uncivilized  or  infant  man.  And  the  circumstance  of  their  Zodiac  being  without  the 
forms  of  animals  seems  to  confirm  my  idea,  that  the  Hindoo,  the  Chaldean,  the  Arabic,  and  Egyptian  Zodiacs,  must 
have  been  drawn  from  some  common  source  which  originally  was  without  them.  There  must  have  been  some  common 
reason  for  all  these  different  nations  adopting  a  Zodiac  of  twenty-eight  divisions.  I  know  not  any  so  probable  as  the 
supposed  length  of  the  Moon's  period.  The  animals  in  those  Zodiacs  are  many  of  them  natives  of  low  latitudes :  for 
instance,  the  elephant  of  Africa  and  India — which  shews  where  the  persons  lived  who  gave  them  these  animals.  The 
Solar  Zodiac,  which  has  not  the  elephant,  shews  that  it  is  not  the  produce  of  any  nation  where  the  elephant  was  indi- 
genous. If  the  elephant  and  camel  had  been  natives  of  the  country  where  the  Solar  Zodiac  was  invented,  they  would 
not  have  been  left  out,  to  substitute  goats  or  sheep.  The  modern  astronomer,  Mr.  Bentley,  was  told  by  a  learned 
Mohamedan,  that  the  Lunar  Zodiacs  originally  came  from  a  country  north  of  Persia  and  north-west  of  China— the  evi- 
dent birth-place  of  the  Solar  Zodiac.3 

12.  My  opinion  on  this  subject  is  confirmed  by  that  of  the  learned  Professor  Playfair,  who  says,  "  It  is  also  to  the 
"  phases  of  the  Moon  that  we  are  to  ascribe  the  common  division  of  time  into  weeks,  or  portions  of  seven  days,  which 
"  seems  to  have  prevailed  almost  over  the  whole  earth."  * 

13.  It  has  been  observed  by  Bishop  Doyly,  in  an  attack  upon  Sir  W.  Drummond,  that  the  Zodiac  is  not  of  Indian 
extraction,  but  of  Greek,  because  the  animals  of  which  it  is  composed  are  not  natives  of  India.3  The  argument  seems 
fair ;  for  it  is  not  credible  that  the  elephant  should  have  been  omitted  in  an  Indian  composition.  The  same  argument 
applies  to  Egypt  and  the  remainder  of  Africa.  But  this  is  by  no  means  a  proof  that  it  is  the  invention  of  the  Greeks. 
The  climate  of  Samarcand,  in  Tartary,  is  the  same  as  that  of  Greece,  and  as  I  consider  that  the  latter  is  quite  out  of  the 
question,  I  maintain  that  it  tends  strongly  to  confirm  my  hypothesis. 


1  P.  5.  *  Encyclop.  Brit.  »  Bentley  on  Hind.  Ast.,  p.  251.  *  Trans.  Roy.  Soc.  Edin.  Vol.  II.  p.  140. 

*  The  whimsical  sign  called  Capricorn,  in  the  Indian  Zodiac,  is  an  entire  goat  and  an  entire  fish ;  in  the  Greek  and  Egyptian, 
the  two  are  united  and  form  one  animal.  It  has  been  observed,  that  this  is  itself  a  presumptive  proof  that  the  Indian  is  the  older 
of  the  two.  And  the  Indian  name,  as  noticed  by  Mons.  Dupuis,  (Tome  III.  p.  332,)  is,  as  he  has  justly  observed,  probably  taken 
from  a  primeval  language  whence  both  the  Greek  aud  Indian  have  been  formed. 

b2 


4  PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I. 

14.  The  Bishop  says,1  "  The  first  astronomers  were  not  calculators,  but  observers.  Now  the  Moon  is  seen  in  the 
"  Zodiac,  and  her  place  is  obvious  to  the  eye  of  the  most  rude  observer :  the  Sun  is  not  seen  in  it,  and  its  place  is  only 
"  known  by  comparison  and  calculation.  Thus  the  division  of  the  Zodiac  with  respect  to  the  Moon  was  probably 
"  among  the  earlier  results  of  attention  to  the  heavenly  appearances,  and  its  division  with  respect  to  the  Sun  among 
"  the  results  comparatively  later."  This  is  probable ;  but  it  seems  to  follow  that  it  could  not  have  been  invented  by 
the  Greeks  till  they  were  far  advanced  in  science ;  and  if  this  be  admitted,  it  seems  absolutely  incompatible  with  the 
ignorance  of  the  Greek  authors  of  its  origin.  Their  fabulous  nonsense  clearly  proves  their  ignorance,  but  Phornutus 
and  other  authors  admit  it.  In  several  passages,  Bishop  Doyly4  states  quite  enough  to  prove  that  the  Zodiac  could  be 
invented  neither  by  the  Chaldeans,  by  whom  he  always  means  the  Babylonians,  nor  by  the  Egyptians,  nor  the  Greeks. 
It  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  inventors  of  the  Neros  and  the  Metonic  cycle  must  have  been  infinitely  more  learned 
than  any  of  these  three  at  any  period  of  their  histories  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  It  is  also  proved  from  the  number  of 
the  pillars  in  the  Druidical  circles  of  Britain,  that  the  builders  of  them  must  have  been  acquainted  with  these  cycles. 
The  Phenniche  and  Phan,  noticed  in  Chap.  V.  sect.  xiv.  Chap.  VI.  sect.  xxv.  of  the  Celtic  Druids,  and  the  note  on  it, 
Appendix,  p.  307,  prove  that  the  Irish  were  acquainted  with  these  cycles. 

15.  It  has  been  observed  by  Bishop  Doyly,3  "  That  we  may  rest  assured  that  the  duodecimal  division  of  the  Zodiac 
"  was  formed  in  correspondence  with  the  twelve  lunations  of  the  year.  Since  the  Sun  completed  one  apparent  period 
"  while  the  Moon  completed  twelve  periods,  the  distribution  of  the  Zodiac  into  twelve  parts,  so  as  to  afford  one  man- 
"  sion  for  the  Sun  during  each  of  the  twelve  revolutions  of  the  Moon,  was  by  far  the  most  obvious  and  natural."  This 
is  remarkably  confirmed  by  what  I  have  just  now  observed,  and  by  the  well-known  historical  fact  that  the  Indians,  the 
Chinese,  Persians,  Arabians,  Egyptians,  and  Copts,  had  a  lunar  Zodiac  divided  into  twenty-eight  parts,  called  the  man- 
sions of  the  Moon,  from  immediate  reference  to  the  Moon's  motion  through  the  several  days  of  her  period.  The 
universality  of  this  division  is  a  proof  of  its  extreme  antiquity.4 

16.  Again  the  Bishop  says,  "As  has  been  already  mentioned,  the  appointment  of  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac  was 
"  probably  a  result  of  some  advanced  state  of  astronomy :  men  must  then  have  been  not  merely  observers  of  the 
"  heavenly  appearances,  but  must  have  begun  to  calculate  and  compare  with  some  degree  of  science.  Now  we  have 
"  every  reason  to  know  that  many  nations,  the  Chaldeans  and  Egyptians  especially,  were  diligent  observers  in  astro- 
"  nomy  from  very  early  times.  They  partitioned  out  the  sphere  into  many  constellations ;  noted  the  risings  and 
"  settings  of  the  stars ;  kept  accounts  of  the  eclipses,  &c. ;  and,  in  many  instances,  determined  the  calendar  with  sur- 
"  prising  exactness,  considering  the  means  which  they  employed.  But  then  these  means  were  such  as  to  shew  that 
"  they  had  made  little  or  no  advance  in  the  science  of  astronomy,  properly  so  called.  Lalande  mentions  a  number  of 
"  particulars  respecting  the  early  efforts  of  the  Chaldeans  and  Egyptians  in  astronomy,  which  seem  to  prove  decidedly 
"  that  they  had  made  no  progress  beyond  rude  observation,  although  they  certainly  accomplished,  in  this  manner, 
"  more  than  could  have  been  supposed.  Among  other  things,  he  mentions/  that  the  Chaldseans  ascertained  the  dura- 
"  tion  of  the  year  by  the  very  artificial  method  of  measuring  the  length  of  a  shadow  of  a  raised  pole.  The  Egyptians, 
"  too,  settled  their  years  merely  by  observing  the  risings  and  settings  of  stars.6  He  thinks  the  latter  have  been  unduly 
"  celebrated  for  astronomical  knowledge,  because  we  hear  of  them  only  from  the  Greeks,  who  were  comparatively 
"  ignorant.  He  expressly  calls  the  astronomy  of  the  Egyptians  very  moderate,  600  years  B.  C."7  All  this  shews  that 
the  science  of  the  Babylonians  and  Egyptians  was  but  the  debris  of  former  systems,  lost  at  that  time  by  them,  as  it  is 
known  to  have  been  in  later  times  lost  by  the  Hindoos. 

17.  Hyde  gives  the  following  account  of  the  lunar  mansions  among  the  Arabians:  "  The  stars  or  asterisms  they 
"  most  usually  foretold  the  weather  by,  were  those  they  call  Anwa,  or  the  Houses  of  the  Moon.  These  are  twenty-eight 
**  in  number,  and  divide  the  Zodiac  into  as  many  parts,  through  one  of  which  the  moon  passes  every  night :  as  some 
"  of  them  set  in  the  morning,  others  rise  opposite  to  them,  which  happens  every  thirteenth  night."  To  these  the  Arabs 
ascribe  great  power.8 

18.  All  these  superstitions  appear  to  us  very  foolish,  but  yet  we  retain  some  of  them.  How  many  Englishmen 
believe  that  the  Moon  regulates  the  weather,  or  rather  how  few  disbelieve  it !  A  moment's  reflection  ought  to  teach 
them,  that  if  the  moon  had  any  influence,  it  would  be  exerted  regularly  and  periodically,  like  that  upon  the  tides.    But 


1  Remarks  on  CEd.  Jud.  p.  189.  *  Ibid.  p.  191.  3  Ibid.  p.  190. 

*  Sir  W.  Jones's  Works,  Vol.  I.  p.  330  ;  Hyde  on  the  Tables  of  Ulug.  Beg. ;  Bailly's  Astron.  Anc.  pp.  109,  126,  476, 475,  491 ; 
Goguet,  Vol.  II.  p.  401. 

*  See  Lalande's  Astron.,  Vol.  I.  p.  89.  6  lb.  93.  7  lb.  p.  102 ;  Doyley,  p.  192. 
8  Hyde  in  Not.  ad  Tabulas  Stellar. ;  Ulugh  Beigh,  p.  5  ;  Sale's  Prel.  Disc,  p.  41. 


PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I.  5 

our  prejudices,  like  those  of  the  Arabian,  will  not  permit  us  to  see  the  folly  of  our  own  superstitions.  Over  each  day 
and  month  the  Persians  and  Arabians,  as  well  as  all  the  followers  of  the  Magi  or  Magians,  believed  that  a  genius  or 
angel  presided,  giving  to  each  day  or  month  the  name  of  one  of  them.  They  had  the  same  names  as  those  of  the 
Jews,— Gabriel,  Michael,  &c.    The  Jews  say  they  took  them  from  the  Persians. 

19.  If  my  reader  possess  my  Celtic  Druids,  I  beg  him  to  turn  to  the  first  chapter,  section  vi.,  and  consider  what  is 
there  said  respecting  the  Lunar  Cycle  of  twenty-eight  days,  and  what  is  said  afterward  respecting  the  antiquity  of  the  ■ 
Chaldeans  or  Culdees,  the  priests  of  the  first  of  the  nations  of  the  world,  with  their  360  crosses  in  Iona,  their  Metonic 
Cycles,  &c,  and  the  information  afforded  by  Mr.  Maurice  in  his  Observations  on  the  Ruins  of  Babylon,  p.  29,  that  the 
Chaldeans  of  Babylon  had  a  Lunar  Zodiac  consisting  of  twenty-eight  mansions  or  houses,  in  which  her  orb  was  sup- 
posed to  reside  during  the  twenty-eight  nights  of  her  revolution,  and  I  think  he  must  be  struck  with  the  surprising 
manner  in  which  my  theory  is  supported  by  circumstances. 

20.  Plutarch,  in  his  Treatise  de  hide  et  Osiride,1  states,  that  the  division  of  Osiris  into  fourteen  parts  was  a  mytho- 
logical mode  of  expression  for  the  different  phases  of  the  moon  during  the  increase  and  decrease  of  that  orb.  Mr. 
Maurice  observes,  that  this  "  manifestly  alludes  to  the  different  degrees  of  light  which  appear  in  the  moon,  and  to  the 
"  number  of  days  in  which  she  performs  her  course  round  the  earth."2 

21.  Porphyry  distinctly  notices  the  period  of  twenty-eight  days  with  the  Egyptians,3  which  he  also  observes  was  a 
Lunar  period. 

22.  A  traveller  of  the  ancients,  of  the  name  of  Jambulus,  who  visited  Palibothra,  and  who  resided  seven  years  in  one 
of  the  oriental  islands,  supposed  to  be  Sumatra,  states,  that  the  inhabitants  of  it  had  an  alphabet  consisting  of  twenty-  • 
eight  letters,  divided  into  seven  classes,  each  of  four  letters.  There  were  seven  original  characters  which,  after  under- 
going four  different  variations  each,  constituted  these  seven  classes.  I  think  it  is  very  difficult  not  to  believe  that  the 
origin  of  the  Chinese  Lunar  Zodiac  and  of  these  twenty-eight  letters  was  the  same,  namely,  the  supposed  length  of  the 
Lunar  revolution.    The  island  of  Sumatra  was,  for  many  reasons,  probably  peopled  from  China.4 

23.  The  Burmas  keep  four  Sabbaths  at  the  four  phases  of  the  moon,  which  shews  the  cycle  of  twenty-eight  days.5 

24.  Astrologers  had  also  in  India  another  Lunar  division.  Mr.  Colebrooke  says,  "  Astrologers  also  reckon  twenty- 
"  eight  yogas,  which  correspond  to  the  twenty-eight  nacshatras  or  divisions  of  the  moon's  path." 6  These  different 
astronomical  systems  are  among  the  oldest  of  the  records  of  the  world  which  we  possess,  and  come  nearest  to  the  time 
when  the  science  of  letters  and  arithmetic  must  have  been  discovered,  and  tend  strongly  to  support  my  theory  of  man's 
division  of  time  into  weeks,  and  the  formation  of  his  first  arithmetic  from  the  moon's  age. 

25.  During  the  time  that  man  was  making  his  observations  on  the  motions  of  the  Moon,  he  would  also  be  trying 
many  experiments  on  his  newly-discovered  circle.  He  would  divide  it  into  two,  then  into  four ;  thus  he  would  make 
radii.  Whilst  he  was  doing  this,  he  would  begin  to  observe  that  the  Sun  was  like  the  Moon,  in  the  circumstance  that  it 
was  periodical ;  that  it  changed  continually,  and  continually  returned  to  what  it  was  before,  producing  summer  and 
winter,  spring  and  autumn ;  that  after  it  had  blessed  him  for  a  certain  time  with  warmth  and  comfort,  and  the  supply 
of  fruits  necessary  for  his  subsistence,  it  gradually  withdrew;  but  that  in  a  certain  number  of  days  it  returned,  as  the 
Moon  had  always  returned,  nearly  to  its  former  situation.  He  would  do  as  he  had  done  with  respect  to  the  Moon, 
collect  calculi,  and  deposit  one  for  every  day;  and  he  would  find  that  there  were,  as  he  supposed,  three  hundred  and 
sixty  days  in  a  period  of  the  Sun's  revolution.  About  this  time,  probably,  he  would  hit  upon  the  comparison  of  his 
period  constantly  returning  into  itself  with  his  circle— the  Sun's  endless  period  with  his  endless  circle.  He  would 
deposit  his  calculi  about  the  circumference  of  his  circle.  He  would  divide  it  by  means  of  these  calculi  into  two  parts. 
He  would  then  halve  them  cross- ways,  thus  making  four  pieces  or  segments  of  circles,  each  having  ninety  stones.  He 
would  halve  the  nineties,  but  he  could  go  no  lower  with  halving,  than  making  his  ninety  into  two ; .  therefore  after 
many  experiments  he  would  divide  his  ninety  into  three  divisions,  placed  in  the  circumference  of  the  circle,  or  into 
thirties  :  each  thirty  again  he  would  divide  into  three,  and  he  would  find  each  little  division  to  contain  ten  calculi,  the 
exact  number  of  his  fingers,  and  the  most  important  number  in  his  arithmetic,  and  the  whole  number  would  equal  the 
days  of  a  supposed  solar  revolution — three  hundred  and  sixty  days.  By  this  time  he  must  have  made  considerable  pro- 
gress in  arithmetic  and  geometry.  He  must  have  learned  the  four  common  rules  of  the  former,  and  how  to  make  a 
square,  a  right-angled  triangle,  a  correct  circle,  and  other  useful  knowledge  in  these  sciences.  To  all  this  there  is 
nothing  which  can  be  objected,  except  it  be  the  assumption,  that  he  would  reckon  the  Sun's  period  at  three  hundred 
and  sixty  days.  But  we  are  justified  in  assuming  this  from  the  well-known  fact,  that  the  ancients,  even  within  the 
reach  of  history,  actually  believed  the  year  to  consist  of  only  three  hundred  and  sixty  days. 


'  P-  93-  *  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p.  135.  s  De  Abstin.  Lib.  iv. ;  Taylor,  p.  145. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  151.  *  Ibid.  Vol.  VI.  p.  297.  6  lbid.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  366. 


6  PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I. 

26.  From  the  circumstances  here  pointed  out,  I  suppose  it  to  have  happened,  that  the  circle  became  divided  into  360 
parts  or  degrees.  Philosophers,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  astrologers,  now  began  to  exercise  all  their  ingenuity  on  the 
circle.  They  first  divided  it  into  two  parts  of  180  degrees  each ;  then  into  four  of  90  degrees  each;  then  each  90  into 
three ;  and  they  observed  that  there  were  in  all  twelve  of  these,  which  afterward  had  the  names  of  animals  and  other 
things  given  to  them,  came  at  length  to  be  called  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  and  to  be  supposed  to  exercise  great  influence  on 
the  destinies  of  mankind.  They  then  divided  each  of  the  12  into  three  parts,  called  Decans,  and  these  decans  again  into 
two,  called  Dodecans ;  then  there  would  be 

A  Circle  consisting  of  360  degrees, 

2  Semicircles  of .  .  .  180  degrees  each, 

4  Quadrants  of   .  .  .    90  degrees  each, 

12  Signs  of 30  degrees  each, 

36  Decans  of .  .  .  .    10  degrees  each,  or  24  parts  of  15  degrees  each,  and  each  15  into  3  fives  or  Dodecans,  and 
72  Dodecans  of  .  .      5  degrees  each. 

27.  In  a  way  somewhat  analogous  to  this,  they  would  probably  proceed  with  the  division  of  the  year.  As  it  con- 
sisted of  the  same  number  of  days  as  the  circle  of  degrees,  they  divided  it  into  halves  and  quarters,  then  into  twelve 
months,1  and  these  months  into  thirty  days  each ;  and  as  each  day  answered  to  one  degree  of  the  circle,  or  to  each 
calculus  laid  in  its  circumference,  and  each  degree  of  the  circle  was  divided  into  sixty  minutes,  and  each  minute  into 
sixty  seconds,  the  day  was  originally  divided  in  the  same  manner,  as  Bailly  shews.  Of  this  our  sixty  minutes  and 
sixty  seconds  are  a  remnant. 

28.  The  following,  I  believe,  was  the  most  ancient  division  of  time : 

1  Year    ....  12  Months    ....  1  Circle    ....  12  Signs 

1  Month     ...  30  Days 1  Sign 30  Degrees 

1  Day     ....  60  Hours 1  Degree  ....  60  Hours 

1  Hour  ....  60  Minutes   ....  1  Hour    ....  60  Minutes 

1  Minute     ...  60  Seconds   ....  1  Minute  ....  60  Seconds. 

29.  About  the  time  this  was  going  on,  it  would  be  found  that  the  Moon  made  thirteen  lunations  in  a  year,  of  twenty, 
eight  days  each,  instead  of  twelve  only  of  thirty :  from  this  they  would  get  their  Lunar  year  much  nearer  the  truth 
than  their  Solar  one.  They  would  have  thirteen  months  of  four  weeks  each.  They  would  also  soon  discover  that  the 
planetary  bodies  were  seven ;  and  after  they  had  become  versed  in  the  science  of  astrology,  they  allotted  one  to  each  of 
the  days  of  the  week ;  a  practice  which  we  know  prevailed  over  the  whole  of  the  Old  World.  A  long  course  of  years 
probably  passed  after  this,  before  they  discovered  the  great  Zodiacal  or  precessional  year  of  25,920  years.  In  agree- 
ment with  the  preceding  division,  and  for  other  analogical  reasons  connected  with  the  Solar  and  Lunar  years  above- 
named,  and  with  a  secret  science  now  beginning  to  arise,  called  Astrology,  they  divided  it  by  sixty,  and  thus  obtained 
the  number  432 — the  base  of  the  great  Indian  cycles.  When  they  had  arrived  at  this  point  they  must  have  been 
extremely  learned,  and  had  probably  corrected  innumerable  early  errors,  and  invented  the  famous  cycles  called  the 
Neros,  the  Saros,  the  Vans,  &c. 

30.  In  another  way  they  obtained  the  same  result.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  great  object  with  the  ancient  astrologers 
to  reduce  these  periods  to  the  lowest  point  to  which  it  was  possible  to  reduce  them,  without  having  recourse  to  frac- 
tions j  and  this  might  perhaps  take  place  before  fractions  were  invented.  Thus  we  find  the  dodecan,  five,  was  the 
lowest  to  which  they  could  come.  This,  therefore,  for  several  reasons,  became  a  sacred  number.  In  each  of  the  twelve 
signs  of  the  Zodiac  of  thirty  degrees  each,  they  found  there  were  six  of  these  dodecans  of  five  degrees,  and  that  there 
were  of  course  6  x  12=72,  and  72  x  6=432,  in  the  whole  circle,  forming  again  the  base  of  their  most  famous  cycle.  It 
was  chiefly  for  these  reasons  that  the  two  numbers  five  and  six  became  sacred,  and  the  foundations  of  cycles  of  a  very 
peculiar  kind,  and  of  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  treat  much  at  large  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

31.  After  man  had  made  some  progress,  by  means  of  his  calculi,  in  the  art  of  arithmetic,  he  would  begin  to  wish  for 
an  increased  means  of  perpetuating  his  ideas,  or  recording  them  for  his  own  use,  or  for  that  of  his  children.  At  first, 
I  conceive,  he  would  begin  by  taking  the  same  course  with  right  lines  marked  on  a  stone,  or  on  the  inner  rind  of  a 
tree,  which  he  had  adopted  with  his  calculi.  He  would  make  a  right  line  for  one,  two  lines  for  two,  and  so  on  until 
he  got  five,  the  limit  of  one  hand.  He  here  made  a  stop,  and  marked  it  by  two  lines,  meeting  at  the  bottom  thus,  V : 
after  this  he  began  anew  for  his  second  series  thus,  V  and  I  or  VI,  and  so  on  till  he  came  to  Villi,  the  end  of  the 


1  What  induced  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  Chaldees  to  throw  two  signs  into  one,  and  thus  make  only  eleven,  it  is  now  perhaps 
impossible  to  determine. 


PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS,      CHAP.   I.  7 

second  series,  and  he  then  made  two  fives  thus,  ^  X,  or  ten.  This  was  with  him  a  most  important  number,  and  became 
in  process  of  time  of  the  greatest  importance  also,  as  we  shall  hereafter  find,  in  the  concerns  of  mankind.  It  was  called 
the  perfect,  or  complete  number,  evidently  from  completing  the  number  of  the  fingers  of  the  hands.  When  man  began 
to  follow  up  his  arithmetic  to  his  number  of  twenty-eight,  he  proceeded  with  this  as  he  had  done  with  his  calculi  and 
number  ten,  and  added  units  thus,  XI,  XII,  &c,  until  he  arived  at  twenty,  and  then  he  wrote  two  tens  thus,  XX. 
After  this  he  again  proceeded  in  the  same  way  till  he  arrived  at  his  XXVIIII.  Nothing  can  be  more  simple  than  this, 
and  this  is  what  we  find  among  the  Latins,  the  same  nation  in  which  we  found  our  calculi,  and  the  Etruscans,  and  it  is 
what  (except  with  respect  to  the  X)  was  used,  according  to  General  Vallancey,1  by  the  ancient  Irish,  among  whom 
indeed,  if  any  where,  we  may  expect  to  find  the  first  traces  of  civilized  man.  How  the  X  came  to  be  varied,  or  its 
use  left  off  by  the  Irish,  I  know  not ;  but  it  was  probably  from  a  religious  motive  similar  to  that  which  made  the 
Hebrews  substitute  a  letter  for  their  Jod,  of  which  more  hereafter. 

32.  General  Vallancey  observes,  That  from  the  X  all  nations  began  a  new  reckoning,  because  it  is  the  number  of 
fingers  on  both  hands,  which  were  the  original  instruments  of  numbering :  hence  "p  (id)  iod  in  Hebrew  means 
both  the  hand  and  the  number  ten  ;s  and  in  the  same  manner  the  word  lamb  means  hand  and  ten  with  the  Buddhists  of 
Tartary,  whose  first  arithmetic  stopped  at  ten ;  and  lima  means  hand  and  Jive  with  the  Malays,  whose  first  arithmetic 
stopped  at  five.    We  can  scarcely  believe  that  this  coincidence  of  practice  is  the  effect  of  accident. 

33.  Among  the  Hebrews  the  name  of  the  perfect  number,  i.  e.  ten,  was  Jod  or  I,  their  name  of  God.  Among  the 
Arabs,  it  was  Ya,  the  ancient  Indian  name  of  God  (as  in  the  course  of  this  work  I  shall  prove),  and  among  the  Greeks 
it  was  I  or  EI,  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  name  of  God.  By  the  Etruscans,  whatever  might  be  its  name,  it  was  described 
by  the  X  or  T,  and  for  the  sake  of  an  astrological  meaning  I  have  no  doubt  the  Greeks  contrived  that  the  X  should 
stand  for  600.    But  relative  to  this  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter. 

34.  In  the  Chinese  language  the  twenty-fourth  radical,  the  Shib,  is  in  the  shape  of  the  cross  thus  +,  and  means  ten. 
It  also  means  complete,  perfect,  perfectly  good?    Thus  the  same  system  is  universally  found. 

35.  What  I  have  said  respecting  the  origin  of  numbers,  and  the  importance  which  I  have  attached  to  them,  must  not 
be  considered  merely  a  theory,  totally  without  support  from  history,  for  the  historical  accounts  of  most  nations  shew 
us  that  the  superstitious  regard  to  numbers  was  carried  to  almost  an  inconceivable  length.  I  think  the  doctrines  of 
Pythagoras  may  be  considered  as  among  the  oldest  of  any  which  we  find  in  the  Western  world,  and  whatever  they 
were,  thus  much  we  know,  that  they  were  all  founded  on  numbers.  We  also  know  that  the  astronomical  system  which 
is  confessed  to  have  been  obtained  by  him  in  the  East  was  the  true  one,  in  its  great  features — the  revolving  motions  of 
the  planets ;  then  have  we  not  reason  to  believe  that  these  very  numbers,  which  we  find  recurring  every  where  in  the 
Eastern  and  Western  systems,  were  the  same?  We  find  the  numbers  five  and  six  continually  recurring  in  both 
systems,  as  the  basis  of  the  sacred  60,  360,  3600,  and  432,  4320,  &c.  Then  how  can  we  doubt  that  they  became  sacred 
for  the  reasons  which  I  have  given  ?  There  must  have  been  some  cause  for  the  effect,  and  what  other  can  be  assigned 
than  that  which  I  have  supposed  ? 

36.  We  will  now  return  to  our  incipient  astronomers'  twenty-eight  calculi. 

37.  I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  system  I  have  here  developed  was  the  origin  of  arithmetic,  that  it  preceded  the  art  of 
writing,  and  was  its  cause  or  precursor.  It  led  the  way  to  this  most  useful  discovery.  Mr.  Bryant  supports  my 
opinion  so  far  as  to  allow  that  the  use  of  arithmetic  must  have  been  known  long  before  letters. 

38.  After  man  had  found  by  this  combination  of  right  lines  the  art  of  writing  down  the  few  limited  ideas  appertaining 
to  these  twenty-eight  signs  for  numbering  the  days,  he  would  begin  to  entertain  the  desire  of  extending  the  art  of 
writing  to  other  objects.  For  this  purpose  he  would  naturally  try  to  use  these  same  right  lines.  This  experiment  we 
have  in  full  view  in  the  Irish  Oghams,  and  it  is  particularly  exemplified  in  an  Irish  inscription  called  the  Callan  inscrip- 
tion, which  is  given  in  the  Celtic  Druids,  in  the  second  table  of  Alphabets.  The  total  unfitness  of  this  kind  of  writing 
for  the  conveyance  of  complicated  chains  of  reasoning,  or  indeed  of  ideas  generally,  is  there  exhibited.  Dr.  Aikin 
says,  "  fifteen  lines  are  required  to  express  the  first  five  letters  of  this  alphabet,  and  this  may  be  translated  in  five  dif- 
**  ferent  ways ;  consequently  nothing  can  be  more  uncertain  than  its  true  meaning."  Here  I  think  we  find  the  origin 
of  the  Ogham  writing  and  of  the  Northern  Runes.  Thus  these  simple  lines  at  angles  would  constitute  the  first  letters  or 
figures  or  signs  used  by  mankind  for  the  conveyance  of  ideas.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  result  of  our  researches  into 
the  earliest  inscriptions  and  letters  on  ancient  monuments. 

39.  The  Oghams,  or  secret  alphabets,  of  the  Irish,  all  consist  of  right  lines,  and  the  ancient  Runes  of  the  same ;  and 
it  would  be  very  easy  to  select  several  complete  alphabets,  consisting  of  nothing  but  right  lines,  at  various  angles,  from 

1  Collect,  de  Reb.  Hib.  No.  XII.  p.  571.  s  Vail.  Col.  Vol.  V.  p.  177.  3  Morrison's  Chinese  Diet.  p.  299. 


8  PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I. 

the  letters  on  the  oldest  Greek  and  Etruscan  coins.  The  old  Runes  were  inscribed  on  sticks  or  staves  of  wood,  cut  or 
shaved  so  as  to  expose  three  plain  surfaces,  and  on  these  the  right-lined  letters  were  engraved  with  a  stylus.  These 
are  what  are  alluded  to  by  Aulus  Gellius,1  when  he  states  the  laws  of  Solon  to  have  been  engraved  awibus  ligneis, 
which  have  been  mistranslated  table  or  board.  These  two  Latin  words  will  bear  no  such  construction.*  They  mean 
the  staves  or  stems  of  trees  used  by  the  ancient  Druids,  as  well  as  by  the  Greeks.  And  on  them  were  inscribed  the 
letters  of  the  Ionian  Greeks,  which  Herodotus  says  were  originally  composed  of  right  lines.3 

40.  These  inscribed  stems  were  in  part  the  origin  of  a  vast  variety  of  interesting  allegories  respecting  trees,  letters, 
and  science,  particularly  among  the  Arabians  and  a  numerous  class  of  oriental  philosophers  called  Gnostics. 

41.  The  Greek  system  of  notation  is  nearly  the  same  as  the  Latin.    The  numbers  are  as  follow :  I,  II,  III,  IIII,  II, . 
ni,  nil,  mil,  mill,  A,  M,  All,  Alii,  Aim,  An,  AA  20,  AAl  21,  AAn  25,  AAA  30,  &c.    The  principle  is  evidently 
the  same,  and  all  the  letters  consist  of  right  lines  easily  made  axibus  ligneis ;  and  though  the  ten,  the  sacred  number, 
does  not  consist  of  an  X,  it  does  of  an  equilateral  triangle,  A,  which  I  have  no  doubt  was  adopted  for  a  mysterious 
reason,  hereafter  pointed  out. 

42.  Pliny  the  Elder  says,  that  the  Ionian  letters  were  the  oldest  of  Greece,  and  that  the  most  ancient  Grecian  letters 
were  the  same  as  the  Etruscan ;  and  as  he  produces  the  example  of  an  ancient  inscription  to  justify  his  assertion,  it 
seems  more  worthy  of  attention  than  most  of  the  idle,  gossiping  stories  which  he  has  collected  together.  We  have  just 
now  seen  that  the  most  ancient  of  the  Greek  and  Italian  alphabets  have  a  strong  tendency  to  the  right-lined  practice. 
Now  the  question  very  naturally  arises,  who  were,  and  whence  came,  the  Ionians  ?  This  is  a  question  which  it  is  very 
easy  to  ask,  but  very  difficult  to  answer, — a  question  which  will  be  most  intimately  connected  in  the  answer  with  some 
very  abstruse  and  profound  oriental  doctrines  into  which  I  must  enter  in  the  course  of  the  following  work,  and  which 
will  require  much  previous  investigation.  I  shall,  therefore,  beg  to  suspend  it  for  the  present,  but  the  reader  will  please 
to  bear  it  in  mind. 

43.  My  reader  is  not  to  suppose  that  I  imagine  the  process  of  the  invention  of  letters  took  place  literally  by  one  pair 
of  persons  as  I  have  here  represented.  What  is  meant  is  only  to  shew  generally  the  nature  of  the  process.  The  steps 
by  which  the  result  was  obtained  it  is  not  possible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  to  describe  with  accuracy.  Various  persons 
would  from  time  to  time  be  employed,  or  perhaps  a  society,  on  whom  the  natural  causes  which  I  have  pointed  out,  or 
other  causes  similarly  natural,  would  operate  to  produce  the  effect ;  for  example,  the  number  of  the  fingers  of  the  hand 
creating  the  first  class  of  numbers,  the  two  hands  the  second  class,  &c. 

44.  From  General  Vallancey  I  learn  a  fact  which  strongly  confirms  my  theory.  He  says,  "The  Phoenicians  had  nu- 
"  merals  before  they  had  letters.  Their  first  numerals  were  similar  to  the  Irish  Ogham,  marks  consisting  of  straight, 
"  perpendicular  lines,  from  one  to  nine,  thus  :  I,  II,  III,  IV,  &c.  Ten  was  marked  with  an  horizontal  line— ;  and 
"  these  they  retained  after  they  had  adopted  the  Chaldean  alphabetic  numerals."4 — "  There  cannot  be  a  stronger  proof 
"  that  numerals  preceded  letters,  than  the  Hebrew  word  nsD  Spr,  sepher,  which  properly  signifies  to  number,  to 
"  cipher :  numeration,  numbering :  but  after  numerals  were  applied  as  literary  characters,  the  same  word  denoted,  as  it 
"  does  at  this  day,  a  scribe,  a  letter,  a  book,  a  literary  character."  *  Bates  says,  the  word  sepher  has  all  the  senses  of 
the  Latin  calculus.  Mr.  Hammer,  of  Vienna,  found  in  Egypt  an  Arabic  manuscript  which  is  written  in  Arabic  words, 
but  in  a  character  which  is  evidently  the  same  as  the  tree  Ogham  of  Ireland.  See  Plate  I.  Fig.  I.  The  word  Ogham 
or  Agham  is  Indian,  and  means  secret  or  mysterious. 

45.  From  various  circumstances  it  is  not  improbable  that  these  right-lined  figures  had  originally  the  names  of  trees. 
In  the  infant  state  of  society,  so  large  a  number  of  letters  or  signs  for  an  alphabet  as  twenty-eight,  would  be  rather  an 
incumbrance  than  an  advantage.  It  would  take  a  long  time  for  man  to  discover  the  advantage  of  a  correct  sign  for 
every  vocal  sound  which  he  was  capable  of  uttering,  and  he  probably  made  a  selection  of  sixteen  of  them  :  the  first 
sixteen,  perhaps.     In  our  names  of  numbers  there  is  not  now  the  least  appearance  of  the  names  of  the  letters  or  trees : 


1  The  words  of  Gellius  are,  In  Legibus  Solonis,  tilts  antiquissimis,  quce  Athenis,  axibus  ligneis  intisee  erant.  Some  learned  men, 
not  understanding  the  nature  of  the  ancient  staves  on  which  letters  were  accustomed  to  be  inscribed,  have  wished  to  substitute 
assibus  for  axibus.  Had  they  succeeded,  they  would  have  completely  chauged  the  sense  of  the  author,  and  have  concealed  the 
interesting  fact,  that  the  ancient  Irish  and  the  Greeks  used  the  same  mode  of  writing.  The  emendations  of  Editors  have  done 
infinite  mischief  to  science.  I  have  no  objection  to  emendations  suggested  in  notes,  but  scarcely  ever  ought  they  to  be  carried 
into  the  text.  By  emendations,  as  authentic  records,  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  have,  in  innumerable  instances,  been  rendered 
doubtful  as  to  their  real  meaning. 

*  See  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  I.  Sect.  xxxi.  *  Ibid.  Sect.  xxxi.  xxxii. 

*  Vail.  Col.  Vol.  V.  pp.  183—186.  *  Ibid.  p.  175. 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.  I. 


9 


and  the  names  of  many  of  our  numbers  may  be  found  in  almost  all  languages.     So  that  if  they  ever  had  the  names  of 
trees,  a  change  must  have  taken  place  at  a  very  early  period. 

46.  The  first  notice  which  we  have  of  letters  being  called  by  the  names  of  trees  is  found  in  one  of  the  alphabets  of 
the  ancient  Irish,  called  the  Beth-luis-nion.  It  consists  of  the  seventeen  letters  in  the  table,  in  column  No.  4,  in  the 
order  in  which  they  stand  in  the  Irish  grammar,  with  the  meaning  of  each  placed  opposite  to  it : 


1 

2 
B 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

?L 

Boibel 

J 

B 

Beith 

Birch 

J_ 

L 

Loth 

<L 

L 

Luis 

Quicken 

X 

F 

Foran 

, > 

N 

Nuin 

Ash 

\ 

S 

Salia 

X 

F 

Fearan 

Alder 

6 

N 

Neaigadon 

L 

S 

Suil 

Willow* 

t> 

D 

Daibhoith 

> 

D 

Duir 

Oak 

~S~ 

T 

Teilmon 

( 

T 

Tinne 

Furze* 

S. 

C 

Casi 

ex 

C 

Coll 

Hazel 

£ 

M 

Moiria 

<^ 

M 

Muin 

Vine 

V 

G 

Gath 

1 

G 

Gort 

Ivy 

P 

— 

P 

Poth 

Dwarf  Elder* 

e 

R 

Ruibe 

y\) 

R 

Ruis 

Elder 

j 

A 

Acab 

vu. 

A 

Ailim 

Elm 

X 

O 

Ose 

V) 

O 

On,  or  Oir 

Spindle 

T 

U 

Ura 

AV 

U 

Ux 

White-thorn  or 

Heath 

3 

E 

Esu 

r> 

E 

Eactha  or  Eadha 

Aspen 

% 

J 

Jaichim 

9 

J    J 

Jodha 

Yew 

Column  No.  1  is  another  Irish  alphabet,  of  which  the  letters  had  a  different  shape  and  different  names,  but  it  was  in 
number  the  same. 

47-  In  the  following  Table  the  column  No.  1  contains  the  names  of  the  letters  of  the  ancient  Samaritan  and  Hebrew 
or  Chaldee  alphabets.  No.  2  contains  the  Samaritan  letters.  No.  3,  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  letters  used  after  the 
Babylonish  captivity.  No.  4  contains  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  final  letters,  opposite  to  their  powers  of  notation.  No.  5 
contains  the  powers  of  notation  of  the  Samaritan,  the  Chaldee,  and  the  Greek  letters.  No.  6  contains  the  Greek  letters. 
In  No.  7,  the  asterisks  shew  the  letters  first  brought  to  Greece  from  Phoenicia  by  Cadmus.  No.  8  contains  the  names 
of  the  Greek  letters.  No.  9  contains  the  Celtic  Irish  letters  in  English  characters,  placed  opposite  to  the  letters  in  the 
other  alphabets  to  which  they  correspond.  No.  10  contains  the  names  of  the  Celtic  Irish  letters;  and  No.  11,  their 
meanings. 


Logan,  Scottish  Gael,  Vol.  II.  p.  390. 


10 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    I. 


ALPHABETS. 


. 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

«fc    ■   1  1       1 

Aleph 

ft 

« 

1 

A  a 

# 

Alpha 

A 

Ailm 

Elm  tree 

Beth 

9 

a 

2 

B/3 

* 

Beta 

B 

Beth 

Birch 

Gimel 

1 

j 

3 

r7 

» 

Gamma 

G 

Gort 

Ivy 

Daleth 

T 

n 

4 

AS 

* 

Delta 

D 

Duir 

Oak 

He 

* 

n 

5 

E£ 

* 

Epsilon 

E 

Eadha 

Aspen 

Vau 

"* 

l 

6 

F 

* 

Digamma 

Fv 

Fearn 

Alder 

Zain 

*J 

T 

7 

z? 

Zeta 

Hetli 

^ 

n 

8 

Hij 

Eta 

Teth 

^ 

to 

9 

©S-0 

Theta 

Jod 

m 

» 

10 

I  * 

* 

Iota 

I 

Jodha 

Yew 

Caph 

il 

D 

1 

20 

Kk 

* 

Kappa 

C 

Coll 

Hazle 

Lamed 

z 

*? 

30 

AX 

* 

Lambda 

L 

Luis 

Quicken 

Mem 

J3 

n 

O 

40 

M/A 

* 

Mu 

M 

Muin 

Vine 

Nun 

^ 

: 

I 

50 

N  v 

* 

Nu 

N 

Nuin 

Ash 

Sameeh 

£ 

D 

60 

as 

Xi 

Oin 

V 

V 

70 

Oo 

• 

Omicron 

O 

Oir 

Spindle 

Pe 

2 

a 

i 

80 

n  * 

* 

Pi 

P 

Pieth  Bhog 

Dwarf  elder 

Tzaddi 

-m 

y 

r 

90 

5 

Episemon  bau 

Koph 

V 

P 

100 

EiriO'ijjU.ov  tav 

100 

Pp 

• 

Rho 

R 

Ruis 

Elder 

Resh 

°\ 

1 

200 

200 

2<r 

• 

Sigma 

S 

Suil 

Willow 

Shin 

VJUL 

w 

300 

300 

Tt 

* 

Tau 

T 

Teine 

Furze 

Tau 

A 

n 

400 

/-Uath* 

400 

Tv  ' 

* 

Upsilon 

U 

<j  Heath 
(.aspirate 

White-thorn 

Initials. 

Finals. 

Caph 

K 

3 

1 

500 

$  </> 

Phi 

Mem 

M 

D 

O 

600 

x% 

Chi 

Nun 

N 

1 

I 

700 

■*-^ 

Psi 

Pe 

P 

E> 

1 

800 

11  a 

Omega 

Tzaddi 

Z 

y 

r 

900 

7t) 

Sanpi 

*  No  doubt  the  Tau  or  Teine  ought  to  be  the  last  letter,  but  the  Uath  has  been  obliged  to  be  put  here  instead  of  at  the  sixth 
place,  to  make  room  for  the  Digamma,  an  anomaly,  in  the  Greek  lauguage,  not  understood. 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    I. 


11 


48.  In  the  treatise  called  The  Celtic  Druids,  I  have  proved,  by  a  great  variety  of  circumstantial  and  positive  evi- 
dence, that  the  sixteen  or  seventeen  letter-alphabet  here  given  of  the  Irish,  in  its  principle  or  system,  was  the  same  as 
those  of  the  ancient  Samaritan,  the  Phoenician,  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee,  the  Persian,  the  Etruscan,  the  Greek,  and  the 
Latin.  I  have  shewn  that,  however  numerous  the  letters  of  these  languages  may  be  at  this  day,  different  learned  men, 
without  any  intercourse  with  one  another,  or  any  idea  that  an  universal  system  prevailed  among  them,  have  reduced 
them  to,  or  proved  that  they  were  originally,  only  sixteen  or  seventeen  in  number.  And  these  are,  in  all  of  them,  the 
very  same  letters,  as  is  ascertained  by  their  having  the  powers  of  notation  in  a  manner  so  similar  as  to  put  the  identity 
of  the  principle  or  system  out  of  all  question. 

49.  Bishop  Burgess,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Arabic  Language,  without  having  the  least  idea  of  the  general  system 
which  I  have  pointed  out,  has  confirmed  it  in  a  very  remarkable  manner.1  He  has  shewn  that  the  Arabic  had  originally 
only  seventeen  letters,  including  the  Digamma.  The  near  approximation  of  the  powers  of  notation,  and  the  similarity 
of  the  names  of  the  letters,  shew  that  they  are  the  same  as  the  Irish,  the  Greek,  and  the  Hebrew. 


Arabic. 

1  Alef 

2  Ba 

3  Gim 

4  Dal 
200  Ra 
300  Shin 

90  Sad 
400  Ta 
70  Ain 
80  Fa 
20  Caf 
30  Lam 
40  Mim 
50  Nun 
6  Wau 


Hebrew. 
Aleph 
Beth 
Gim  el 
Daleth 
Resh 
Shin 
Tzadi 
Tau 
Oin 
Pe 

Caph 
Lamed 
Mem 
Nun 
Vau 


Greek. 


Alpha 
Beta    . 
Gamma 
Delta  . 
Ro      . 
Sigma 


1 
2 

3 

4 
100 
200 

300 


Tau 300  Teine. 

Omicron 70  Oir. 

Pi 80  Pieth-Bhog. 

Kappa 20  Coll. 

Lambda 30  Luis. 

Mu  or  Mui  ....  40  Muin. 

NuorNui    ....  50  Nuin. 

F,  formerly  Vau,  pro-  Fearn. 
nounced  U, tbeu  V, 
afterwardsDiGAMMA     6 

5  Ha  He  Epsilon 5  Eadha. 

10  Ya  Yod  Iota 10  Jodha. 

Upsilon Uath. 

50.  The  Shin,  Shin,  and  Sigma,  I  have  substituted  for  the  Sin,  Samech,  and  Xi,  which  are  in  the  Bishop's  table,  and 
which  is  evidently  a  mistake,  the  Greek  X*  being  one  of  the  new,  and  not  one  of  the  Cadmean  or  ancient  Greek  letters. 
This  mistake  is  a  most  fortunate  circumstance,  because  it  proves  that  the  Bishop  did  not  know  the  principle  of  these 
alphabets  which  I  have  been  explaining,  and  therefore  cannot  be  suspected  of  having  made  his  original  letters  to  suit  it. 
And  it  also  renders  it  impossible  for  any  one  to  say,  that  he  has  been  contriving  his  seventeen  primary  letters  to  make 
them  suitable  to  the  Irish,  whose  letters  he  probably  looked  on  with  too  much  contempt  to  have  considered  them  even 
for  a  single  moment.     This  adds  very  materially  to  the  value  of  his  opinion. 

51.  The  powers  of  notation  are  the  same  in  all  the  ancient  alphabets,  with  their  increased  number  of  letters,  till  they 
get  to  the  nineteenth  letter,  Ra  or  Resh,  when  a  variation  takes  place,  which  I  have  shewn  probably  arose  in  after  times 
from  the  coming  into  use  of  the  Greek  Digamma.2 

52.  The  following  is  the  table  of  the  Arabian  system  of  numbers  given  by  Bishop  Burgess : 


Irish. 

Ailim. 

Beth. 

Gort. 

Duir. 

Ruis. 

Suil. 


Alif  . 

.  1 

Ba  .  . 

2 

Gim  .  . 

.  3 

Dal    . 

.  4 

Ha.  . 

.  .  5 

Wav  . 

.  6 

Za  .  . 

.  7 

Hha  . 

.  8 

Ta  .  . 

.  9 

Ya  .  .  . 

10 

10 

Kaf  .  .  100 

19 

Caf.     . 

20 

11 

Ra    .  .  200 

20 

Lam  .  . 

30 

12 

Shin.  .  300 

21 

Mim  .  . 

40 

13 

Ta    .  .  400 

22 

Nun  .  . 

50 

14 

Tha  .  .  500 

23 

Sin  .  .  . 

60 

15 

Rha  .  .  600 

24 

Ain.  .  , 

70 

16 

Dhal    .  700 

25 

Fe   .  . 

80 

17 

Dad.  .  800 

26 

Sad  .  . 

90 

18 

Da    .  .  900 
Ghain  1000 

27 

28 

VI.  Sect. 

xxvi. 

2  See 

Ibid. 

1  See  Celtic  Druids,  „ 

c2 


12  PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I. 

53.  Here,  I  think,  is  as  triumphant  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  the  system  as  can  well  be  desired.  Here  is  the  exact 
number  of  the  Calculi  28,  and  here  they  are  interwoven  into  the  decimal  calculation  in  a  very  wonderful  manner ;  the 
1000  exactly  answering  to  the  number  of  28  figures.  If  I  be  told  that  the  present  Arabic  alphabet  is,  comparatively 
speaking,  modern,  I  reply,  however  the  forms  of  its  letters  may  have  been  changed  by  the  Califs,  the  principle,  the 
system,  is  evidently  ancient,  both  of  the  letters  and  figures.  No  one  can  for  a  moment  believe  that  they  invented  a  new 
alphabet  and  system  of  notation  which,  by  mere  accident,  coincided  with  all  the  old  systems  of  the  world;  the  idea  is 
ridiculous ;  it  involves  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

54.  Some  persons  have  pretended  that  the  Irish  selected  their  letters  from  the  Latin  and  Greek.  How  came  they  to 
select  the  identical  letters  which  Cadmus  brought  to  Greece,  and  no  others  ?  This  at  once  disposes  of  this  pretence, 
and  proves  to  a  certainty,  that,  if  the  Irish  received  their  letters  from  Greece,  they  must  have  received  them  before  the 
time  of  Homer ;  if  from  Syria,  before  the  time  of  Moses,  whose  Pentateuch  contains  twenty-two  letters.  This  carries 
back  Irish  literature  to  a  time  surprisingly  ancient. 

55.  The  alphabets  of  ancient  nations  have  attracted  the  attention  of  several  learned  men  at  different  times  and  places, 
and  they  have  endeavoured,  with  very  great  care,  to  ascertain  the  original  number  of  letters  in  those  alphabets.  Nearly 
all  their  investigations  have  terminated  in  demonstrating  the  same  facts,  viz.  that  the  different  systems  of  letters  agree 
within  one ;  that  they  all  amount  to  sixteen  or  to  seventeen  letters ;  that  they  have  a  striking  similarity  in  their  names ; 
and  that  the  correspondent  letters  have  the  same  numerical  powers ;  and,  from  incidental  circumstances,  it  is  very 
evident  that  the  learned  men  to  whom  I  allude,  Morton,  Chishull,  Burgess,  &c,  have  had  no  intention  of  making  the 
different  alphabets  systematically  agree  with  one  another.  This  I  have  most  clearly  proved  in  my  essay  on  The  Celtic 
Druids,  to  which,  for  the  complete  proof  of  the  truth  of  these  assertions,  I  must  refer. 

56.  I  now  beg  my  reader  to  refer  back  to  page  5,  to  the  account  given  by  the  ancient  traveller  Jumbulus  of  the 
alphabet  of  Sumatra,  and  I  think  when  he  has  read  it  with  attention  he  will  be  obliged  to  believe  that  it  must  have  been 
the  same  in  system  as  the  Arabic,  and  both  to  have  come  from  the  first  system  of  notation  founded  on  the  supposed 
age  of  the  Moon  ;  and  I  also  beg  him  to  consider  the  tree  alphabet  found  in  the  Arabic  language  by  professor  Hammer 
in  Egypt ;  in  fact,  an  Arabic  treatise  written  in  an  Irish  Ogham  letter.  Before  I  finish  I  shall  trace  these  Arabians  to 
the  borders  of  China. 

57.  The  Sanscrit  alphabet  consists  of  not  less  than  fifty  letters,  but  the  number  of  simple  articulations  may  be 
reduced  to  twenty-eight,  (the  number  of  the  Arabic  and  of  my  first  numbers,)  five  vowels  and  twenty-three  consonants. 
May  not  the  original  twenty-eight  numerals  have  been  adopted  by  the  Indians  for  their  letters,  and  sixte'en  only  of  them 
selected  by  the  Arabs  ?  And  may  not  this  have  been  the  reason  why  the  difference  between  the  Arabic  and  Sanscrit 
appears  to  be  greater  than  that  between  the  Sanscrit  and  all  the  other  Western  languages  ?  if  indeed  there  be  this  dif- 
ference, a  fact  which  I  very  much  doubt. 

58.  Though  I  am  ignorant  of  the  Sanscrit  language,  a  close  attention  to  great  numbers  of  its  proper  names  had  made 
me  strongly  suspect  that  its  system  of  letters  was  originally  the  same  as  that  of  the  Western  nations.  The  following 
two  passages  which  I  have  discovered  will  shew  that  I  had  good  grounds  for  my  suspicion.  Colonel  Wilford  says, 
"  The  Sanscrit  alphabet,  after  striking  off  the  doultle  letters,  and  such  as  are  used  to  express  sounds  peculiar  to  that 
"  language,  has  a  surprising  affinity  with  the  old  alphabets  used  in  Europe,  and  they  seem  to  have  been  originally  the 
"  same."1  In  another  place  Col.  Wilford  says,  "  I  have  observed  that  gradual  state  of  decay  in  the  Sanscrit  language, 
"  through  the  dialects  in  use  in  the  Eastern  parts  of  India  down  to  the  lowest,  in  which  last,  though  all  the  words  are 
"  Sanscrit  more  or  less  corrupted,  the  grammatical  part  is  poor  and  deficient,  exactly  like  that  of  our  modern  languages 
"  in  Europe,  whilst  that  of  the  higher  dialects  of  that  country  is  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  Latin  language.  From 
"  such  a  state  of  degradation  no  language  can  recover  itself:  all  the  refinements  of  civilization  and  learning  will  never 
"  retrieve  the  use  of  a  lost  case  or  mood.  The  improvements  consist  only  in  borrowing  words  from  other  languages, 
"  and  in  framing  new  ones  occasionally.  This  is  the  remark  of  an  eminent  modern  writer,  and  experience  shews  that 
"  he  is  perfectly  right.  Even  the  Sanscrit  alphabet,  when  stripped  of  its  double  letters,  and  of  those  peculiar  to  that 
"  language,  is  the  Pelasgic,  and  every  letter  is  to  be  found  in  that,  or  the  other  ancient  alphabets,  which  obtained 
"  formerly  all  over  Europe,  and  I  am  now  preparing  a  short  essay  on  that  interesting  subject."  * 

59.  This  is  confirmed  by  Col.  Van  Kennedy,  who  says,  "  In  all  essential  respects,  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Sanscrit 
"  alphabetical  systems  are  similar."3 

60  In  The  Celtic  Druids  I  have  pointed  out  a  very  curious  circumstance  of  a  Sanscrit  sentence  being  found  at 
Eleusis.  This  is  confirmed  by  an  observation  of  Col.  Van  Kennedy's,  that  there  are  339  Sanscrit  words  in  the  poems 
of  Homer.4    I  shall  resume  the  subject  of  the  Sanscrit  language  hereafter. 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  152.        *  Ibid.  Vol.  VIII.  8vo,  p.  265.         3  Res.  into  the  Orig.  of  Lang.,  p.  131.        *  Ibid.  p.  209. 


PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS.   CHAP.  I.  13 

61.  If  more  than  sixteen  or  seventeen  letters  be  found  in  the  Amiclean  or  Eugubean  inscriptions,  I  think  they  prove, 
either  that  these  inscriptions  are  forgeries,  or  that  their  date  has  been  mistaken.  For  after  the  detection  of  the  frauds 
of  the  rascals  Ennius  and  Fourmont,  I  think  they  cannot  be  permitted  to  overturn  the  positive  assertion  of  Pliny,  that 
Cadmus  brought  only  sixteen  letters,  supported  as  the  assertion  is  by  the  varieties  of  authorities  and  reasonings  which 
I  have  given,  and  the  independent  examination  and  opinions  of  learned  modern  inquirers,  that  all  these  languages  are 
reduceable  to  sixteen  letters.  Before  the  conclusion  of  this  work  the  reader  will  find,  that  consequences  of  the  most  im- 
portant nature  follow  the  reduction  of  the  different  written  languages  to  one  system,  consisting  of  that  number  of  letters. 

62.  The  decimal  system  of  which  the  last  table  (Sect.  52)  consists,  has  every  appearance  of  being  founded  on  the  origi- 
nal simple  twenty-eight  units.  After  civilization  had  advanced,  a  higher  notation  than  the  twenty-eight  would  be  wanted, 
and  the  Arabians  appear  to  have  adopted  the  decimal  system,  keeping  as  near  as  possible  to  the  ancient  twenty-eight 
letters,  as  a  close  examination  will  prove;  for  what  is  the  20  but  two  tens,  the  30  but  three  tens,  the  100  but  ten  tens, 
the  1000  but  one  hundred  tens  ?  Perhaps  it  may  be  said,  that  the  coincidence  of  the  decimal  numbers  to  the  twenty- 
eight  calculi  is  accidental.  But  is  it  accidental  that  the  powers  of  notation  in  the  Arabic,  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Irish 
letters  are  the  same  till  they  come  to  nineteen ;  that  is,  similar  in  eighteen  instances  in  succession  ?  It  is  a  very 
singular  accident  that  in  each  of  the  eighteen  cases  the  letters  and  numbers  should  agree  in  the  different  languages. 
It  is  also  a  most  fortunate  accident  which  should  cause  the  elements  of  the  Irish  names  of  letters,  the  Muin,  Nuin,  &c, 
as  I  shall  now  shew,  to  be  found  in  the  Arabic.  By  a  careful  comparison  of  thenames  of  the  different  letters  in  the 
Irish  Beth-luis-nion,  with  the  Samaritan,  Hebrew,  and  Greek,  it  will  appear  almost  certain  that  they  have  all  been 
called  after  the  trees  which  now  grow  in  the  latitude  of  England,  or  else  that  the  trees  have  been  named  after  them.' 
But  it  is  proper  to  observe,  that  great  allowance  ought  to  be  made  for  the  change  necessarily  arising  from  the  lapse  of 
perhaps  thousands  of  years.  It  seems  to  me  impossible  to  doubt  the  original  identity  of  the  Samaritan,  the  Greek,  and 
the  Hebrew  letters ;  and  how  wonderfully  are  they  changed  !  Then  if  we  do  not  find  the  English  names  of  trees  differ 
more  from  the  Irish  names  of  letters,  and  the  names  of  the  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Samaritan  letters,  than  the  alphabets 
differ  from  each  other,  we  shall  have  a  similarity  as  great  as,  perhaps  greater  than,  can  be  expected.  It  is  not  at  all 
probable  that  the  similarity  should  continue  till  this  time  in  all  the  letters  :  very  few  will  be  sufficient  to  establish  the 
fact,  if  they  only  possess  a  sufficient  degree  of  similarity.  The  Arabic  system  of  notation  or  arithmetic,  which  is  so 
intimately  connected  with  their  system  of  letters,  is  believed,  by  all  Orientalists,  to  have  come  from  India.  I  trust  I 
shall  be  able  to  prove  that  they  came  together  from  India. 

63.  The  Aleph,  Alpha,  and  Ailm,  are  not  strikingly  similar ;  but  there  is  a  very  obvious  resemblance  between  the 
words  Ailm  and  Elm  ;  the  first  letter  of  the  word  Ailm  being  pronounced  as  we  pronounce  the  A  in  our  A,  B,  C,  or  in 
the  word  able. 

64.  The  Beth  or  Beith  of  the  Samaritan  and  Hebrew  is  the  identical  Beth  or  Beith,  the  Birch-tree  of  the  Irish.  Pliny 
calls  Betulla  the  Birch,  a  Gaulish  tree.    In  one  of  the  dialects  of  Britain,  the  Welsh,  it  is  called  Bedw. 

65.  In  the  next  three  names  of  letters,  the  similarity  is  lost,  except  that  they  begin  with  the  same  consonants. 

66.  The  Digamma  forms  an  exception  to  all  rules. 

67.  The  Jod,  or  Iod  or  Iota,  and  Iodha  and  Yew,  are  all  clearly  the  same,  or  as  near  as  can  be  expected.  This  will 
be  immediately  found  on  pronouncing  the  Y  in  the  word  Yew  by  itself,  instantly  followed  by  the  other  letters. 

68.  The  name  of  this  tree  is,  as  I  have  shewn  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  one  of  the  names  of  Jehovah,  leu.  It  is  consi- 
dered by  our  country  people  to  be  in  its  wood  the  most  durable  of  all  trees. 

69.  There  is  nothing  more  which  is  striking  till  we  cfrme  to  the  Mem,  Mu,  Muin,  vine.  The  vine  may  have  readily 
come  from  the  word  Muin— the  letter  M  being  dropped  for  some  unknown  cause ;  or  the  M  may  have  been  prefixed 
to  the  Vin,  and  be  what  Hebrew  grammarians  call  formative  ,•  or  it  may  have  been  prefixed  for  a  reason  which  will 
be  given  hereafter. 

70.  The  Nun  is  the  Nu  and  Nuin  without  difficulty,  though  it  has  no  relation  to  the  Ash  in  sound  or  in  letters.  Yet 
the  Nun  of  the  Hebrew  is  evidently  the  same  as  the  Irish  tree  Nuin. » 

71.  The  Oin  and  the  Irish  Oir  have  a  similarity,  but  have  no  relation  to  the  Spindle  or  the  Oir,  except  in  the  first 
letter  of  the  latter  name. 

72.  The  Samaritan  and  Hebrew  Resh  is  the  Irish  Ruis. 

73.  The  Shin  and  Tau  are  only  similar  in  the  first  letters  to  the  Suiland  Teine. 

74.  The  similarity,  it  is  true,  is  not  found  in  many  of  the  sixteen  letters,  but  there  is  sufficient  similarity  to  prove 

1  It  has  been  observed  in  the  Celtic  Druids,  that  the  vine  which  is  found  among  the  trees  in  this  alphabet  is  neither  of  Indian 
nor  of  British  origin;  for  though  it  grows  in  both,  it  is  common  in  neither;  but  it  is  indigenous  in  the  same  latitude  in  the 
country  which  I  suppose  was  the  birth-place  of  the  human  race,  that  is,  between  45  and  50  degrees  of  North  latitude,  where  all 
the  other  trees  of  this  alphabet  are  to  be  found. 


14  PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    I. 

that  the  Irish  have  not  merely  culled  letters  out  of  the  Roman  alphabet  and  given  them  the  names  of  trees :  for  al- 
though the  examples  of  similarities  are  now  become  oddly  and  unsystematically  arranged,  yet  their  present  situation 
can  have  arisen  from  nothing  but  an  original  identity,  destroyed  by  various  accidents.  If  the  Ailm  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  Aleph,  it  is  evidently  the  same  as  the  English  Elm ;  and  if  the  Beth  or  Beith  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
the  English  Birch,  it  is  evidently  identical  with  the  Hebrew  Beth.  How  came  an  Irish  tree  to  bear  the  name  of  a 
Hebrew  letter  ?  Thus  again,  the  Jod,  Iod,  Iota,  Jodha,  and  Yew,  are  all  nearly  allied,  and  the  Jod  and  Jodha  iden- 
tical. Again,  how  came  this  Irish  name  of  a  tree  and  a  letter  of  their  alphabet  to  be  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  name  of 
this  letter  ?  Can  any  one  look  at  the  Greek  Mu,  the  Irish  Muin,  and  the  English  vine,  and  not  be  convinced  (all  the 
other  letters  and  circumstances  considered)  that  they  are  the  same  ?  Vine  is  evidently  the  three  last  letters  of  the  Irish 
Muin. 

75.  The  Irish  name  of  the  Ash,  Nuin,  is  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  and  Samaritan  Nun  and  the  Greek  Nu. 

76.  Lastly,  the  Samaritan  and  Hebrew  Resh  is  unquestionably  the  Irish  Ruis,  the  Elder.  Again  I  ask,  how  came 
these  Hebrew  letters  to  bear  the  name  of  Irish  trees  ?  Did  the  Irish  literati  understand  Hebrew  several  thousand  years 
ago,  and  call  their  trees  after  Hebrew  and  Samaritan  letters  on  purpose  to  puzzle  the  learned  men  of  the  present  day  ? 
There  is  no  way  of  accounting  for  these  extraordinary  coincidences  and  circumstances  except  by  supposing  an  original 
alphabet  called  after  trees,  and  changed  by  accident  in  long  periods  of  time.  Bigots  may  ridicule  this,  but  they  cannot 
refute  it. 

77-  It  is  a  singular  circumstance,  that  though  the  Irish  names  of  letters,  for  instance  the  Mem  or  Muin,  and  the 
Beith,  are  the  Irish  names  of  trees,  they  are  not  the  hiown  Hebrew  names  of  trees.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
Asiatics  by  accident  called  their  sixteen  letters  after  the  Irish  names  of  trees.  I  think  it  is  pretty  clear  that  the  Hebrew 
letters,  and  of  course  the  Greek  or  Cadmean  taken  from  them,  were  originally  called  after  the  Beth-luis-nion  of  the 
Irish,  or  after  some  language  whence  that  was  taken. 

78.  The  ancient  Rabbis  had  a  tradition,  that  the  names  of  the  Hebrew  letters  had  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  diffe- 
rent trees,  and  General  Vallaucey  attempts  to  specify  them.  But  he  does  not  seem  to  have  succeeded.  His  information 
is  taken  from  the  old  Jewish  writers,  who  appear  to  give  rather  what  they  surmise  than  what  they  found  in  the  syna- 
gogue copies  of  the  Pentateuch.  But  their  opinion  is  very  important  indeed,  as  a  record  of  an  old  tradition.  It  seems 
that  the  Rabbis  had  received  a  tradition  that  the  names  of  their  letters  had  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  trees,  which 
they  wished,  but  wished  in  vain,  to  verify. 

79.  The  General  quotes  the  authority  of  Bayer,  "  that  each  of  the  Chaldean  or  Hebrew  letters  derives  its  name 
"  from  some  tree  or  shrub  ;  as  a  Beth,  a  thorn ;  l  Daleth,  a  vine ;  n  He,  the  pomegranate ;  l  Vau,  the  palm  ;  >  Jod, 
"  ivy;  d  Teth,  the  mulberry-tree;  D  Samech,  the  apple-tree;  S  Pe,  the  cedar;  1  Resh,  the  pine,"  &C.1 

80.  There  is,  as  I  have  said,  the  strongest  probability  that  the  art  of  figuring  or  of  arithmetic  took  precedence  of  the 
art  of  writing.  The  figures  would  evidently  be  the  first  wanted,  and  probably,  in  the  way  I  have  stated,  the  names  of 
trees  were  given  to  them.  The  Mexicans  had  the  knowledge  of  figures — the  decimal  calculation,  but  not  of  letters  : 
the  natives  of  Otaheite  had  the  same.2  From  the  use  of  the  first  ten  or  fifteen  figures  for  numbers  of  the  calculi,  a 
transition  to  letters  would  not  be  very  difficult,  and  probably  took  place  and  gave  them  their  names  of  leaves.  And 
I  think  it  very  probable  that  (what  is  commonly  called)  the  accidental  discovery  of  letters,  may  have  been  the  original 
cause  of  the  Old  World  having  attained  so  superior  a  state  of  refinement  and  civilization — notwithstanding  some  persons 
may  think  this  a  cause  too  small  for  so  large  an  effect.     It  would,  I  conceive,  operate  by  geometrical  progression. 

81.  From  all  these  considerations,  there  is  a  strong  probability  that  the  first  alphabet  was  denoted  by  the  names  of 
trees ;  and,  from  a  passage  of  Virgil's,  one  might  be  induced  to  believe  that  the  leaves  themselves  were  actually  used  : 

Arrived  at  Cumae,  when  you  view  the  flood 

Of  black  Aveinus,  and  the  sounding  wood, 

The  mad  prophetic  Sibyl  you  shall  find 

Dark  in  a  cave,  and  on  a  rock  reclined. 

She  sings  the  fates,  and  in  her  frantic  fits 

The  notes  and  names,  inscribed  to  leaves  commits. 

What  she  commits  to  leaves,  in  order  laid, 

Before  the  cavern's  entrance  are  display'd. 

Unmoved  they  lie  :  but  if  a  blast  of  wind 

Without,  or  vapours  issue  from  behind, 

The  leaves  are  borne  aloft  in  liquid  air  ; 

And  she  resumes  no  more  her  museful  care, 


1  Pref.  and  Prospect,  for  an  Irish  Diet,  by  Gen.  Vallancey;  Davies'  Cel.  Res.,  p.  305.  *  Astle,  p.  182. 


PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.   I.  15 

Nor  gathers  from  the  rocks  her  scatter'd  verse, 
Nor  sets  in  order  what  the  winds  disperse. 
Thus  many,  not  succeeding,  most  upbraid 
The  madness  of  the  visionary  maid, 
And  with  loud  curses  leave  the  mystic  shade. 

JEn.  Lib.  iii.  ver.  445. 

But,  oh!  commit  not  thy  prophetic  mind 
To  flitting  leaves,  the  sport  of  every  wind, 
Lest  they  disperse  in  air  our  empty  fate  : 
Write  not,  but,  what  the  powers  ordain,  relate. 

Lib.  vi.  1.  116—120. 

82.  I  think  if  any  sense  is  to  be  made  of  this  poetical  description,  we  must  understand  that  each  leaf  had  or  was  a 
letter. 

foliisque  notas  et  nomina  maudat. 

Quaecumque  in  foliis  descripsit  carntias  virgo, 
Digerit  in  numerum,  at  que  antro  seclusa  relinquit: 
Ilia  manent  immota  locis,  neque  ab  ordiue  cedunt : 
Verum  eadem  verso  tenuis  cum  cardine  ventus 
Impulit  et  teneras  turbavit  janua  fiondes, 
Nunquam  deinde  cavo  volitantia  prendere  saxo, 
Nee  revocare  situs,  aut  jungere  carmina,  curat : 
Inconsulti  abeunt,  sedemque  odere  Sibyllas. 

It  seems  pretty  clear  that  if  whole  words  had  been  written,  each  word  upon  a  leaf,  and  these  words  in  verse,  the  inquirer 
might  easily  have  put  them  together.  From  this  it  may  fairly  be  inferred,  that  if  letters  were  written  at  all,  there  could 
only  have  been  one  on  each  leaf. 

83.  In  the  religious  rites  of  a  people  I  should  expect  to  find  the  earliest  of  their  habits  and  customs,  and  the  above 
passage  relating  to  this  Celtic  Sibyl  can  mean  nothing  except  that  the  leaves  themselves  were  used  either  as  letters 
(each  leaf  standing  for  a  letter)  or  the  names  of  letters,  each  written  on  a  leaf  which  the  wind  might  easily  blow  away. 
But  it  is  probable  that  the  leaves  themselves  may  have  been  used,  and  that  this  practice  may  have  been  derived  from 
the  letters  having  the  names  of  trees,  and  may  have  been  adopted  for  the  sake  of  mystery,  which  we  know  was  greatly 
affected  in  all  the  old  religions.  The  way  in  which  this  passage  is  connected  by  Virgil,  a  native  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  with 
the  Celtic  or  Cimmerian  Sibyl  of  Cuma,  where  he  died  and  was  buried,  and  the  misletoe  of  the  Druids,  carries  it  back  to 
a  period  antecedent  to  any  ancient  Italian  history  which  we  possess.  I  cannot  help  believing  that  it  has  a  close  connexion 
with  the  Irish  practice  of  calling  their  letters  after  the  names  of  trees.' 

84.  There  have  been  authors  who  have  wasted  their  time  in  inquiries  into  the  mode  in  which  the  inventor  of  the 
alphabet  proceeded  to  divide  the  letters  into  dentals,  labials,  and  palatines.  There  surely  never  was  any  such  proceeding. 
The  invention  was  the  effect  of  unforeseen  circumstance — what  we  call  accident;  and  when  I  consider  the  proofs,  so 
numerous  and  clear,  of  the  existence  of  the  oldest  people  of  whom  we  have  any  records,  the  Indian  Buddhists  in  Ireland, 
and  that  in  that  country  their  oldest  alphabet  has  the  names  of  trees,  I  cannot  be  shaken  in  my  opinion  that  the  trees 
first  gave  names  to  letters,  and  that  the  theory  I  have  pointed  out  is  the  most  probable. 

85.  I  suspect  that,  some  how  or  other,  our  practice  of  calling  the  parts  of  our  books  leaves  came  from  this  custom. 
The  bark  of  the  Irish  birch-tree,  the  Papyrus,  or  the  roll  of  skin,  had  no  leaves. 

86.  From  Mr.  Davies  I  learn  that  the  Welsh  bards  had  a  similar  alphabet  to  that  of  the  Irish.  He  says,  "  The  Anti- 
"  quarians  claim  an  alphabet  of  their  own,  which,  in  all  its  essential  points,  agrees  with  that  of  the  bards  in  Britain. 
"  1  It  was  Druidical.  2  It  was  a  magical  alphabet,  and  used  by  those  Druids  in  their  divinations  and  their  decisions 
"  by  lot.  3.  It  consisted  of  the  same  radical  sixteen  letters  which  formed  the  basis  of  the  Druidical  alphabet  in  Britain. 
"  4.  Each  of  these  letters  received  its  name  from  some  tree  or  plant  of  a  certain  species,  regarded  as  being,  in  some 
"  view  or  other,  descriptive  of  its  power,  and  these  names  are  still  retained. 

87-  "  So  far  the  doctrine  of  the  British  Druids  is  exactly  recognized  in  the  Western  island.  The  same  identical  system 
"  is  completely  ascertained  and  preserved.  Yet  there  are  circumstances  which  point  out  a  very  ancient  and  remote 
"  period  for  the  separation  of  these  alphabets  from  each  other  "  Mr.  Davies  then  observes,  that  *'  among  other  things 
"  the  order  of  the  letters  is  different."    He  says,  there  are  three  kinds  of  writing ;  and  adds,  "  The  third,  which  is  said 


1  If  it  were  consistent  with  the  object  of  this  dissertation,  I  think  I  could  prove  by  strong  circumstantial  evidence,  that  Virgil 
was  initiated  into  the  order  of  Druids  or  Chaldeaus  or  Culdees.  I  am  not  the  first  person  who  has  held  this  opinion.  I  believe 
it  was  held  by  the  great  Roger  Bacon,  but  being  too  profound  for  his  ignorant  compeers,  like  the  circular  orbits  of  Pythagoras, 
it  was  turned  into  ridicule. 


16  PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.  I. 

"  to  be  (no  doubt)  the  remains  of  an  old  magical  alphabet,  is  called  Beth-luis-nion  na  Ogma,  or  the  alphabet  of  magical 
"  or  mysterious  letters;  the  first  three  of  which  are  Beth,  Luis,  Nion,  whence  it  is  named." '  In  my  Celtic  Druids  I 
have  maintained  that  our  islands  were  peopled  by  two  swarms  from  a  common  Eastern  hive,  one  coming  by  Gaul,  the 
other  in  ships  through  the  straits  of  Gibraltar.  This  account  of  the  appearance  of  the  two  alphabets  of  Ireland  and 
Britain  seems  to  support  my  system. 

88.  I  am  quite  of  opinion  that  the  Welsh  are  right  ;  but  that  not  only  their  letters,  but  all  letters,  were  once  magical 
and  astrological,  and  known  only  to  the  sacred  caste  of  priests  for  many  generations.  I  am  of  opinion  that  our  common 
playing  cards  once  formed  an  astrological  instrument  of  the  same  kind. 

89.  The  Greek,  the  Hebrew,  and  the  Arabic  systems  are  evidently  the  same,  though  in  their  latter  letters,  from 
some  unknown  cause,  a  change  takes  place,  and  the  powers  of  notation  vary ;  but  they  do  not  vary  till  they  get  to  the 
nineteenth  letter,  as  observed  above,  where  the  hundreds  begin ;  and  in  the  mode  of  variation  after  it  takes  place  the 
same  system  is  continued.  From  all  this  I  am  inclined  to  think,  that  the  old  Arabic  language,  which  I  shall  shew  is 
really  Hebrew,  as  all  the  roots  of  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  words  are  found  in  it,  was  a  language  before  the  present  He- 
brew, Greek,  Sanscrit,  and  Deva  Nagari  letters  were  invented ;  that  the  first  system  of  arithmetic  was  that  now 
possessed  by  the  Arabians,  though  not  invented  by  them  in  their  present  country  at  least ;  and  that  the  inventors  of  the 
first  alphabet  made  it  of  right  lines  and  lines  joined  at  angles,  and  called  its  component  parts  after  certain  names  of 
numbers,  which,  at  that  time,  probably,  in  the  first  lost  language,  had  the  names  of  trees  ;  and  that  from  this  came  all 
the  allegories  of  Gnosticism,  respecting  the  trees  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  held  by  the  Valentinians,  Basilideans,  Barde- 
sanians,  &c,  allegories  which  have  been  acknowledged  by  very  learned  men  to  have  been  the  produce  of  a  very  ancient 
oriental  system,  in  existence  long  previous  to  the  birth  of  Christ — such  as  that  of  the  tree  bearing  twelve  sorts  of  fruit, 
one  in  each  month,  &c  ,  &c.  The  alphabet  was  the  wood  or  the  forest — the  tree  was  the  system — the  upright  stem,  the 
«s^«  Alpha,  the  Chaldee  name  for  the  trunk  of  a  tree  (as  I  am  informed  by  General  Vallancey).— The  words  were 
the  branches— the  letters  were  the  leaves  growing  out  of  the  stem  or  branches — and  the  fruits  were  the  doctrines  and 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  learned  by  means  of  receiving  these  doctrines  from  letters.  In  this  manner  a  prodigious 
number  of  allegories  were  invented.  In  the  old  Irish,  the  words  wood  and  alphabet  are  described  by  the  same  letters — 
A os,  which  also  signify  both  a  tree  and  knowledge. 

90.  Taliesin,  a  Welsh  bard  of  the  sixth  century,  has  written  a  poem  on  the  battle  of  the  trees,  which  is  yet  in 
existence,  and  in  which  he  compares  the  words  in  the  secret  letters  of  the  Welsh  to  twigs  or  branches  of  trees.  The 
subject  is  the  battle  between  good  and  evil,  light  and  darkness,  Oromasdes  and  Arimauius  Mr.  Davies  thinks  this  is 
an  allusion  to  the  original  system.2 

91.  Apollonius  Rhodius  says,  that  when  Orpheus  played  on  the  lyre,  the  trees  of  Pieria  came  down  from  the  hills  to 
the  Thracian  coast,  and  ranged  themselves  in  due  order  at  Zona.3  This  is  a  Grecian  allegory,  of  the  same  kind,  perhaps 
copied  from  the  Orientals.  Virgil  has  given  an  account  of  an  elm-tree,  which  ^Eneas  found  growing  at  the  side  of  the 
road  to  the  infernal  regions,  loaded  with  dreams.  This  tree  had  the  name  of  the  elm,  the  first  letter  of  the  alphabet, 
the  alpha,  the  trunk  which  bears  all  the  rest,  loaded  with  every  kind  of  science  and  learning : 

Full  in  the  midst  of  this  infernal  road 
An  elm  displays  her  dusky  arms  abroad  : 
The  god  of  sleep  there  hides  his  heavy  head  ; 
And  empty  dreams  on  every  leaf  are  spread. 

92.  The  following  extract  from  a  work  of  a  Chaldean  Rabbi  is  given  by  Kircher  :  Arbor  magna  in  medio  Paradisi, 
cujus  rami,  dictiones,  ulterius  in  ramos  parvos  et  folia,  quae  sunt  Uteres,  extenduntur  :  the  great  tree  in  the  garden  of 
Eden,  whose  leaves  were  letters,  and  whose  branches  were  words. 

93.  It  is  agreed  by  all  authors  that  the  Druids  pretended  to  perforin  various  operations  by  means  of  sticks,  sprigs,  or 
branches  of  trees,  which  are  commonly  called  magical.  Some  account  of  this  may  be  seen  in  Tacitus  de  Moribus 
Germanorum.  But,  in  fact,  all  the  old  native  authors  are  full  of  these  accounts  :  and  it  is  impossible  to  read  or  con- 
sider them  for  a  moment,  without  seeing  the  extraordinary  similarity  of  the  practice  to  that  of  Jacob  with  respect  to 
the  sheep  of  Laban,  named  in  Gen.  xxx.  3/.  The  rod  of  Moses,  and  that  of  Aaron  throwing  out  sprouts,  &c,  afford 
additional  instances  of  similarity. 

94.  The  letters  of  these  magical  alphabets,  all  which  answered  to  the  leaves  of  trees,  were  engraved  on  the  surface  of 
the  rods,  or  sticks,  cut  square  or  triangular,  to  which  the  straight  and  simple  form  of  the  letters  was  peculiarly 
favourable.  Hence  the  letters  and  the  alphabets  came  to  be  considered  magical,  and  the  whole  system  of  writing 
compared  to  a  tree  bearing  leaves  and  fruits.     And  hence,  also,  came  the  celebrated  Sortes  Virgiliance,  which  had  this 


1  Celtic  Res.  p.  275.  *   Ibid.,  p.  274.  3  Argonaut,  Lib.  i.  ver.  29. 


PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I.  \*J 

name  from  the  belief  that  Virgil  was  a  Chaldean  magician  or  astrologer.  He  was  of  the  order  of  men  who 
were  banished  by  Marcus  Aurelius,  under  the  name  of  Mathematici  and  Chaldei,  of  whom  I  shall  have  much  to  say 
hereafter. 

95.  From  these  leaf  letters,  or  letters  having  the  names  of  trees,  and  from  the  right-lined  letters  inscribed  on  the 
holes  of  trees,  the  ancients,  particularly  the  Arabians,  invented  their  almost  innumerable  allegories,  an  account  of 
which,  much  more  detailed  than  I  think  it  necessary  to  give,  may  be  found  in  the  fifth  volume  of  Gen.  Vallancey's 
Collectanea  Hibernica. 

96.  On  this  subject  General  Vallancey  observes,  "  And  hence  the  Sephiroth-tree,  or  tree  of  numbers,  of  the  Caba- 
'  listical  Jews  :  and  this  tree  contained  ten  names,  viz  corona,  sapientia,  prudentia,  dementia,  gravitas,  ornatus,  tri- 
'  umphus,  confessio  laudis,  fundamentum,  regnum.  The  number  ten  seems  to  have  been  fixed  on  because,  as  relating 
'  to  numerals,  ten  was  called  perfection,  as  from  thence  all  nations  began  to  count  anew.  For  this  reason  the  Egyptians 
'  expressed  the  number  ten  by  the  word  mid,  that  is,  perfection  ,•  and  the  Irish  call  it  deag,  a  word  of  like  meaning : 
'  and  for  this  reason  the  Chaldeans  formed  the  word  jod,  or  number  ten,  by  an  equilateral  triangle  thus  A,1  which  was 
'  the  symbol  of  perfection  with  the  Egyptians.  The  Egyptians  doubled  the  triangle  thus  X,  and  then  it  became  a  cross 
'  of  St.  Andrew,  or  the  letter  X  or  ten,  that  is,  perfection,  being  the  perfect  number,  or  the  number  of  figures  on  both 
'  hands :  hence  it  stood  for  ten  with  the  Egyptians,  Chinese,  Phoenicians,  Romans,  &c,  and  is  so  used  with  us  at  this 
'  day.  The  Mexicans  also  use  the  same  figure  in  their  secular  calendars.  The  Tartars  call  it  lama,  from  the  Scythian 
•  lamh,  a  hand,  synonymous  to  thejod  of  the  Chaldeans,  and  thus  it  became  the  name  of  a  cross,  and  of  the  high  priest 
'  of  the  Tartars ;  and  with  the  Irish,  luam  signifies  the  head  of  the  church,  an  abbot,  &c.  Ce  qu'il  v  a  de  remarkable 
'  c'est  que  le  grand  pretre  des  Tartares  port  le  nom  de  lama  qui,  en  langue  Tartare,  signifie  la  croiv :  et  les  Bogdoi  qui 
'  conquirent  la  Chine  en  1644,  et  qui  sont  soumis  au  dalai-lama  dans  les  choses  de  la  religion,  ont  toujours  des  croix 
'  sur  eux,  qu'ils  appellent  aussi  lamas.'" 2 

97.  It  has  been  observed  by  General  Vallancey,  that  "  it  seems  natural  and  universal  to  man  to  have  entertained 
'  the  idea  of  numbering  from  his  fingers,  and  it  does  not  appear  extraordinary  that,  when  man  led  an  agrestic  life,  fas 
'  the  Chaldeans  and  Scythians,  the  parents  of  numerals,  did,)  and  had  occasion  to  carry  numbers  higher  than  the  fin- 
'  gers  on  his  hands,  that,  before  he  had  assigned  arbitrary  marks  for  numbers,  he  should  have  adopted  the  names  of 
'  trees— objects  immediately  surrounding  him,  some  of  which  grew  more  luxuriantly  than  others— and  that  having 
'  invented  an  arbitrary  mark  for  such  a  number,  he  should  give  it  the  name  of  the  tree  which  stood  for  it :  and  thus, 
'  having  formed  a  numerical  alphabet,  these  numerals  at  length  became  letters,  as  I  have  shewn  in  the  preceding  pages, 
'  still  bearing  the  original  names."3 

98.  I  think  it  very  probable  that  from  the  use  of  leaves  as  letters,  the  hieroglyphics  may  have  taken  their  rise.  Sup- 
pose letters  in  the  shape  of  the  leaves  of  trees  to  have  been  made  of  thin  laminae  of  gold  or  tin,  and  strung  on  a  cord, 
something  like  the  tripods  of  the  ancient  Peruvians,  a  magical  letter  would  thus  be  invented  which  could  be  deciphered 
by  none  but  those  who  understood  the  secret ;  and  it  might  be  made  extremely  complicated  by  the  addition  of  leaves 
not  in  the  alphabet,  or  by  the  forms  of  other  things,  between  the  words  or  real  letters,  which  would  not,  to  the  initiated, 
increase  the  difficulty  of  reading  it,  but  rather  the  contrary,  and  at  the  same  lime  would  render  it  perfectly  unintelligible 
to  those  not  initiated.  After  some  time  these  leaf  letters  would  be  drawn  on  plain  surfaces,  and  again,  with  a  little 
more  experience,  all  other  kinds  of  objects  would  be  added  to  increase  the  difficulty  and  mystery,  until  the  leaves  would 
be  lost  sight  of  altogether,  and  the  hieroglyphics  come  to  what  we  find  them. 

99.  Much  has  been  said  respecting  the  picture-writing  of  the  Mexicans,  sent  to  Cortes,  by  the  Emperor's  messengers. 
They  made  drawings  of  the  horses,  ships,  &c,  because  they  had  never  seen  such  objects  before,  and  of  course  their 
language  could  convey  no  idea  of  them.  But  this  had  no  resemblance,  in  reality,  to  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics. 
The  intention  of  the  ancient  hieroglyphics  was  to  enable  one  person  to  convey  to  another  information  relating  to 
something  already  known  to  both,  and  of  which,  therefore,  they  possessed  an  idea  common  to  both.  But  the 
pictures  of  Mexico  were  intended,  by  the  persons  drawing  them,  to  convey  a  new  idea  respecting  something  wholly 
unknown  to  the  beholder,  for  whose  use  they  were  intended,  and  of  which,  consequently,  he  had  never  formed  an 
idea  before. 

100.  Mr.  Astles,  on  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  Writing,  supports  my  opinion  that  hieroglyphics  were  not  the  origin 
of  writing.4     "  The  subject  of  this  chapter  (Origin  of  Letters)  hath  engaged  the  attention  and  perplexed  the  sagacity 


1  I  know  not  where  Gen.  Vallancey  got  his  triangle  for  the  Chaldaic  ten,  but  the  triangle  was  the  ten  of  the  Greeks. 
8  Voyage  de  la  Chine,  par  Ami,  Liv.  iii.  p.  194.  3  Vail.  Col.  Heb.  Vol.  V.  p.  187. 

4  Ch.  ii.  p.  10. 


18  PRELIMINARY     OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    I. 

"  of  many  able  and  judicious  persons  for  many  centuries :  some  of  the  most  respectable  writers  Lave  reasoned  upon 
"  erroneous  principles,  and,  by  their  works,  have  obscured  the  true  path  which  might  have  led  to  the  discovery  of 
"  letters.  Mons.  Fourmont,  Bishop  Warburton,  and  Mons.  Gebelin,  have  endeavoured  to  shew  that  alphabets  were 
"  originally  made  up  of  hieroplyphic  characters;  but  it  will  presently  appear  that  the  letters  of  an  alphabet  were  essen- 
"  tially  different  from  the  characteristic  marks  deduced  from  hieroglyphics,  which  last  are  marks  for  things  and  ideas, 
"  in  the  same  manner  as  the  ancient  and  modern  characters  of  the  Chinese ;  whereas  the  former  are  only  marks  for 
"  sounds ;  and  though  we  should  allow  it  an  easy  transition  from  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  to  the  characteristic 
"  marks  of  the  Chinese,  which  have  been  demonstrated  by  Du  Halde  and  others  to  be  perfectly  hieroglyphic,  yet  it 
"  doth  not  follow  that  the  invention  of  an  alphabet  must  naturally  succeed  these  marks.  It  is  true  there  is  a  sufficient 
"  resemblance  between  the  Mexican  picture-writing,  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  and  the  Chinese  characters ;  but  these 
"  are  foreign  to  alphabetic  letters,  and,  in  reality,  do  not  bear  the  least  relation  to  them." 

101.  From  a  consideration  of  certain  historical  facts  which  cannot  be  denied,  I  think  I  can  shew  that  hieroglyphics 
did  not  precede  the  invention  of  letters,  as  has  been  generally  imagined. 

102.  It  has  been  observed  by  almost  every  philosopher  who  has  visited  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  that  they  are  placed 
exactly  to  face  the  four  cardinal  points  of  the  compass,  from  which  astronomers  know  that  their  builders  must  have 
possessed  a  very  considerable  skill  in  the  science  of  astronomy.  This  affords  a  strong  presumption  that  the  art  of 
writing  must  have  been  known  to  their  builders ;  they  can  scarcely  be  believed  to  have  possessed  so  much  science  as 
the  fact  seems  to  require,  without  it.  Now,  in  the  next  place,  it  may  be  observed,  that  there  is  not  on  any  one  of  the 
larger  pyramids  the  least  appearance  of  any  thing  like  a  hieroglyphic.  This  fact,  combined  with  the  evident  knowledge 
possessed  by  their  builders  of  astronomy,  justifies  the  presumption  that  they  were  built  before  hieroglyphical  writing 
was  known,  though  perhaps  after  our  mode  of  writing  was  discovered.  Though  the  two  facts  may  not  be  considered 
to  amount  to  a  decisive  proof,  I  maintain  that  taken  together  they  afford  strong  presumptive  evidence.  On  the  subject 
of  hieroglyphics, 

103.  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  Before  we  quit  the  pyramids,  I  must  be  permitted  to  make  one  reflection.  On  no  part 
"  of  the  three  great  pyramids,  internal  or  external,  does  there  appear  the  least  sign  of  those  hieroglyphic  sculptures 
"  which  so  conspicuously  and  so  totally  cover  the  temples,  the  obelisks,  and  colossal  statues,  of  Upper  Egypt.  This 
"  exhibits  demonstrative  proof,  that  at  the  period  of  the  construction  of  those  masses,  that  kind  of  hieroglyphic 
"  decoration  was  not  invented,  for,  had  that  sacerdotal  character  been  then  formed,  they  would  undoubtedly  not  have 
"  been  destitute  of  them."  l 

104.  Some  of  the  smaller  pyramids  have  been  built  out  of  the  ruins  or  stones  of  temples  on  which  have  been 
hieroglyphics.  This  shews  these  particular  pyramids  to  be  of  modern  date.  No  doubt  they  have  been  tombs.  All 
our  churches  are  tombs ;  but  they  are  also  places  of  worship. 

105.  After  the  celebrated  Mr.  Belzoni  and  Lieut.-Col.  Fitzclarence  had  with  great  labour  obtained  admission  to  the 
inner  chamber  of  the  second  in  size  of  the  pyramids,  Mr.  Belzoni  discovered,  from  an  inscription,  that  it  had  been 
opened  before  by  one  of  the  Califs.  It  appeared  that  the  contents  of  the  sarcophagus  which  he  discovered  had  been 
thrown  out,  and  were  lying  on  the  floor  at  its  side.  He  preserved  part  of  them,  which  were  bones,  and  brought  them 
to  England,  never  letting  them  go  out  of  his  own  possession.  These  were  carefully  and  publicly  examined  by  several 
of  the  first  natural  philosophers  in  London,  who,  to  their  great  surprise,  discovered  that  they  were  the  remains  of  an 
animal  of  the  Beeve  kind.8  Respecting  these  facts  there  never  has  been  any  dispute.  They  are  perfectly  notorious ; 
and  neither  Mr.  Belzoni,  nor  the  natural  philosophers,  had  any  theory,  interest,  or  system,  to  influence  their  judgments 
respecting  them.  Part  of  the  bones  may  yet  be  seen,  where  I  have  seen  them,  at  the  house  of  Lieut.-Colonel 
Fitzclarence. 

106.  I  suppose  no  one  will  doubt  that  these  were  the  bones  of  an  exemplar  of  the  famous  God  Apis,  on  which  some 
foolish  and  absurd  priest-ridden  king  must  have  been  weak  enough  to  lavish  such  immense  labour  and  treasure.  This  Bull 
Apis  has  been  proved  by  many  philosophers  to  have  been  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac  ;  in  fact,  the  Sun,  when  he  entered 
the  sign  of  the  Bull  in  the  Zodiac,  at  the  vernal  equinox,  concerning  which  I  shall  shortly  make  some  observations, 
and  of  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say  in  the  following  work.  This  being,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  at  the  present 
moment  admitted,  it  follows  that  the  Zodiac  must  have  been  invented  before  one  of  its  signs,  the  Bull,  can  have  become 
the  object  of  adoration. 

107.  Now  I  think  no  person  can  believe  that  the  Zodiac,  with  its  various  signs,  and  divided  and  subdivided  as 
it  necessarily  is  into  many  parts,  was  invented  before  writing.    Then  it  seems  to  follow,  if  this  be  admitted,  that 


1  Maur.  Ant.  Hind.  Vol.  III.  p.  95.  «  Class.  Journal,  Vol.  XXI.  p.  16. 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    I.  19 

the  art  of  writing  must  have  been  known  before  the  pyramids,  the  burial-plaee  of  the  Bull,  were  built ;  and  as  the 
hieroglyphics  were  not  invented  till  after  the  building  of  the  pyramids,  it  seems  to  follow,  that  they  were  not 
invented  till  after  the  invention  of  writing,  consequently  that  they  were  not,  as  it  has  generally  been  thought,  the  origin 
of  writing. 

108.  The  intimate  relations  between  India  and  Egypt,  in  some  ancient  period,  cannot  possibly  be  doubted.  But 
what  is  the  reason  that  there  are  no  hieroglyphics  in  India  ?  The  days  of  the  week  are  dedicated  in  each  to  the  same 
Gods.  The  adoration  of  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac  or  the  Sun,  in  the  sign  Taurus,  is  common  to  both.  The  same  Zodiac 
is,  with  a  trifling  variation,  also  common  to  both.  Then  how  came  they  not  both  to  have  hieroglyphics,  if  hieroglyphics 
were  invented  before  writing,  or  figures  in  arithmetic  ? 

109.  I  conclude  that  this  connexion  or  intercourse  (which  will  be  proved  over  and  over  again  in  the  course  of  the 
following  work)  must  have  existed  before  the  invention  of  hieroglyphics,  and  must  also,  in  a  great  measure,  have 
ceased  before  their  invention,  because,  if  the  contrary  had  been  the  case,  hieroglyphics  would,  in  some  degree,  have 
been  common  to  the  two  countries.  When  the  religion  went  From  one  to  the  other,  the  hieroglyphical  system,  if  in 
existence,  would  have  gone  also.  From  which  it  almost  necessarily  follows,  that  hieroglyphics  are,  comparatively 
speaking,  a  modern  invention. 

110.  In  their  endeavours  to  prove  that  hieroglyphics  were  the  originals  or  parents  of  letters  and  writing,  philosophers 
have  done  every  thing  which  ingenuity  could  devise  to  establish  the  fact ;  but  I  think  their  arguments  are  founded  upon 
no  sufficient  data,  and  therefore  have  always  appeared  to  me  unsatisfactory.  For  my  theory  I  have  a  great  number  of 
facts  and  circumstances  which  cannot  be  disputed,  and  I  think  my  arguments  founded  upon  them  are  sound.1 

111.  From  the  whole  investigation  there  can  be  no  doubt,  whether  the  leaf  alphabets  were  the  origin  of  hierogly- 
phics or  not,  that  the  latter  were  invented  after  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  writing,  and  were  a  secret  and  sacred  system 
invented  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  certain  religious  or  historical  truths  from  the  vulgar  eye. 

112.  Before  I  quit  this  subject  I  think  it  proper  to  recall  my  reader's  attention  to  the  observation,  that  whether  Egypt 
was  colonized  from  India  or  India  from  Egypt,  it  is  very  clear  that  the  intercourse  of  colonization  must  have  ceased 
before  hieroglyphics  were  invented,  or  they  would  certainly  have  been  found  among  the  priests  in  both  countries.  And 
it  is  also  probable  that  they  were  invented  after  Moses  and  the  Hebrew  tribe  left  Egypt,  or  we  should  have  found  some 
notice  of  them  in  the  books  of  Moses— the  Pentateuch.    I  only  say  it  is  probable ,•  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain. 

113.  M.  Denon2  has  given  a  description  of  a  painting  in  one  of  the  tombs  of  the  kings  of  Thebes,  in  which,  among 
other  things,  is  described  the  sacrifice  of  a  child,  and  he  has  these  words :  "  Incense  is  offered  to  him  in  honour  of  these 
"  victories ;  a  priest  writes  his  annals,  and  consigns  them  to  sacred  memorial.  It  is,  therefore,  proved,  that  the  ancient 
"  Egyptians  had  written  books  :  the  famous  Thoth  was  then  a  book,  and  not  inscribed  tablets  sculptured  on  walls,  as  has 
"  been  often  supposed.  I  could  not  help  flattering  myself  that  I  was  the  first  to  make  so  important  a  discovery:  but  I 
"  was  much  more  delighted  when,  some  hours  after,  I  was  assured  of  the  proof  of  the  discovery  by  the  possession  of  a 
"  manuscript  itself,  which  I  found  in  the  hand  of  a  fine  mummy  that  was  brought  to  me.  In  its  right  hand,  and  resting 
"on  the  left  arm,  was  a  roll  of  papyrus,  on  which  was  the  manuscript."  And  here,  with  respect  to  this  MS.,  end  Mons. 
Denon's  observations ;  not  another  word  of  what  became  of  the  papyrus,  or  of  the  language  or  letters  in  which  it  was 
written.  But  in  plate  LV.  a  short  description  is  given  of  a  manuscript  found  upon  a  papyrus  which,  I  suppose,  is 
meant  for  it.  Nothing  can  be  made  out  from  it  except  that  it  reads  from  right  to  left.  In  plate  LVI.  is  a  copy  of 
another  manuscript  equally  unintelligible,  which  was  found  upon  a  papyrus  in  a  mummy. 

114.  In  consequence  of  the  attempts  of  Mr.  Bankes  to  prove,  from  the  style  of  building  of  the  temples,  confirmed  by 
the  explanations  of  M.  Champollion,  that  many  of  the  hieroglyphics  on  them  relate  to  the  Roman  emperors,  these 
manuscripts  cannot  be  made  use  of  to  prove  the  antiquity  of  letters ;  but  they  prove  that  letters  were  known  before  the 
hieroglyphics  on  the  temples,  in  which  these  mummies  were  found  used,  or,  that  hieroglyphics  were  continued  in  use 
after  the  invention  of  the  art  of  writing,  and  along  with  it.  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  of  the  buildings  in  Egypt 
were  erected  by  the  Roman  emperors,  that  many  others  of  them  were  partly  their  work,  and  that  still  more  of  them 
were  erected  by  the  monarchs  of  Egypt  after  the  time  of  Cambyses.  But  the  sepulchres,  and  many  parts  of  the 
temples  of  Thebes  and  other  temples  of  Upper  Egypt,  I  have  no  doubt  existed  before  Cambyses's  time,  and  escaped 
his  fury. 

1 15.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  churches  of  Notre  Dame  and  St.  Denis,  at  Paris,  were  both  the  workmanship  of  the 

1  The  text  of  the  Bible  ifself  proves  that  letters  were  well  known  in  the  time  of  Moses,  therefore  the  author  does  not  attempt 
to  refute  the  arguments  of  those  who  pretend  that  he  was  the  inventor  of  them. 
8  Vol.  III.  Chap.  xx.  Aik.  Trans,  p.  70. 

d2 


20  PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    II. 

middle  ages,  but  I  think  that  the  Zodiac  on  the  former,  and  the  Mosaic  pavement  found  in  the  latter,  of  a  Bacchanal 
tilling  a  wine  vessel,  were  the  works  of  an  age  long  prior. 

116.  My  view  of  the  subject  is  considerably  strengthened  by  an  observation  of  Belzoni's,  I  think,  that  some  of  the 
smaller  pyramids  have  been  built  with  stones,  the  ruins  of  old  temples,  on  which  are  hieroglyphics  broken  and  worked 
into  them.  And  Mons.  Denon  found  in  the  bases  of  some  of  the  oldest  pillars  at  Medinet  Abou,  near  Thebes,  Kurnec, 
numerous  hieroglyphics.  On  which  he  asks,  "  How  many  preceding  ages  of  civilization  would  it  require  to  be  able  to 
"  erect  such  buildings  ?  How  many  ages  again,  before  these  would  have  fallen  into  ruins,  and  served  as  materials  for 
"  the  foundations  of  other  temples,  which  themselves  have  existed  for  so  many  centuries  ?"  The  questions  are  inter- 
esting :  but  it  would  not  require  a  long  period  for  the  buildings  to  have  decayed,  if  the  decay  were  produced  by  the 
violent  hand  of  a  Cambyses.  On  the  subject  of  the  Origin  of  Letters,  I  must  refer  my  reader  to  the  first  chapter  of 
The  Celtic  Druids,  where  it  is  treated  of  at  large. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ETYMOLOGY   AND    ITS    USE. 


1.  A  little  time  ago  two  systems  of  Etymology  were  published,  one  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Whiter,  of  Cambridge,  and 
the  other  by  Mr.  James  Gilchrist.  The  former  called  his  work  Etymologicon  Universale.  It  is  very  large,  and  was 
printed  by  the  University  of  Cambridge,  at  its  press.  The  object  is  to  prove  that  all  the  words  of  every  language  may 
be  traced  back  to  the  word  Earth}  Great  learning-  and  ingenuity  are  displayed,  and  incredible  labour  must  have  been 
bestowed  on  the  production.  The  work  of  the  latter  gentleman,  entitled  Philosophic  Etymology,  is  not  so  large,  and  in 
its  doctrine  is  directly  in  opposition  to  the  former.  Mr.  Gilchrist  contends,  that  CL,  CR,  LC,  or  RC,  is  the  primary 
simple  word  of  written  language,  and  that  all  the  copies  verborum  are  merely  varieties  and  combinations  of  that  one 
simple  word,  or  rather  sign. 

2.  He  says,  "  There  is  nothing  arbitrary  about  language.  All  the  dialects,  as  Hebrew,  Celtic,  Greek,  Latin,  &c,  are 
"  essentially  but  one  language.  They  have  such  diversities  as  may  be  termed  idioms ;  but  with  all  their  circumstantial 
"  varieties,  they  have  substantial  uniformity :  they  proceed  on  the  same  principles,  and  have  the  same  origin.  The 
"  philosophic  grammar  and  lexicography  of  one,  is  in  reality  that  of  all."2  In  this  I  perfectly  agree  with  Mr.  Gilchrist : 
I  also  agree  with  him  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between  a  scholar  and  a  philosopher,  but  I  cannot  think  with  him 
that  men  in  the  first  instance  conversed  wholly  by  looking,  not  by  listening ;  and  that  the  different  modifications  of 
sound,  emitted  from  the  mouth,  were  a  subsequent  step  of  improvement  and  conveniency,  not  contemplated  when  the 
mouth  was  first  applied  to  curiologic  signs;  which  application  of  the  mouth  was  not  anticipated  when  these  signs  were 
first  employed,  and  which  signs  were  not  contemplated  when  hieroglyphics  were  invented :  that  thus,  in  the  use  of 
signs,  men  were  led  on  step  by  step  from  hieroglyphics  or  picture-writing  to  curiologics,  an  abridged  form  of  the 
preceding ;  from  curiologics  engraved  or  drawn  on  any  substance,  to  the  expression  of  them  by  the  mouth  ;  and  from 
the  expression  of  them  by  the  mouth  to  the  eye,  to  the  expression  of  them  by  sound  to  the  ear,  enabling  men  to  con- 
verse in  the  dark  as  well  as  in  the  light.  If  I  understand  Mr.  Gilchrist,  he*  supposes  both  hieroglyphics  and  letters  to 
have  been  invented  before  speech.  This  does,  indeed,  surprise  me  very  much.  On  reflecting  on  the  first  situation  of 
man,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  he  would  not  perceive  his  mate  many  minutes  before  he  would  utter  some  kind  of  a 
sound  or  sounds,  which  would  soon  grow  into  monosyllabic  words. 

3.  I  lay  it  down  as  a  principle,  that  there  were  no  such  persons  as  Aborigines  (as  this  word  is  often  used)— that  man 
did  not  rise  into  existence  by  accident,  or  without  cause  :  but  that  he  was  the  effect  of  a  cause,  a  creation,  or  formation 
by  a  Being  possessing  power.  This  admitted,  I  consider  that  he  must  have  acquired  his  knowledge  of  speech  either 
by  experience,  or  have  such  knowledge  of  it  given  to  him  by  his  Creator,  as  would  enable  him  to  communicate  his 
ideas  to  his  mate,  and  that  in  each  case  his  Creator  gave  him  the  power  of  using  his  voice  at  the  same  time  that  he  gave 
him  the  power  of  using  his  teeth  and  other  organs.     And  if  I  admit  the  former,  that  man  acquired  by  experience  the 


'  See  his  Prelim.  Diss.  p.  77.  *  Phil.  Etymol.  p.  xx. 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    III.  21 

use  of  speech,  which  of  course  every  philosopher  will  do,  I  must  think  that  both  Mr.  Whiter  and  Mr.  Gilchrist  go  to 
causes  far  too  scientific  to  account  for  it.  Speech  would  be  very  much  the  effect  of  circumstance— there  would  not  be 
any  thing  like  system  in  its  first  formation. 

4.  Mr.  Gilchrist's  idea  that  the  first  letters  arose  from  curved  lines,  seems  to  me  not  only  not  to  be  so  probable  as 
that  of  right  lines,  which  I  have  unfolded  above,  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  actually  against  all  the  early  and,  what  is 
more,  wv/Z-founded  historical  facts  which  we  possess.  For  the  fact  of  the  oldest  letters  and  figures  which  we  possess 
consisting  of  right  lines  does  not  depend,  alone,  on  the  relations  of  writers,  but  upon  their  existing  at  this  day  on  old 
coins  and  stones  :  in  which  latter  fact,  therefore,  we  cannot  be  deceived.  I  think  my  theory  as  rational  as  Mr.  Gil- 
christ's ;  in  addition  to  which,  I  have  the  evidence  of  the  oldest  inscriptions,  and,  as  I  have  shewn,  analogy  also,  on  my 
side ;  for  the  higher  we  ascend  the  more  right-lined  the  alphabets  become. 

5.  As  I  have  just  now  said,  if  I  understand  Mr.  Gilchrist  aright,1  he  maintains  that  hieroglyphics  were  invented  before 
letter-writing.  We  know  of  only  one  nation,  the  Egyptians,  among  whom  hieroglyphics  ever  existed,  and  I  think  I 
have  proved  that  they  were  not  invented  by  that  nation  till  after  letters  were  in  use.  I  make  no  account  of  the  Mexican 
paintings,  for  our  information  respecting  them  is  too  scanty  to  draw  any  conclusions  from  them  ;  and  that  part  of  our 
information  which  we  do  possess,  namely,  the  painting  of  Cortes's  ships  and  horses,  is  against  hieroglyphics  being-  the 
origin  of  letters,  rather  than  in  favour  of  it ;  because,  as  I  have  observed  above,  these  drawings  were  not  to  convey  ideas 
of  known  things,  but  ideas  of  unknown  things — new  things,  and  new  ideas. 

6.  The  plan  or  theory  proposed  by  Mr.  Whiter  and  Mr.  Gilchrist,  of  resolving  all  words  into  one,  or  nearly  into  one, 
seems  to  me  to  be  not  only  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  nature,  but  to  clog  their  philological  researches  with  insuperable 
and  unnecessary  difficulties.  Let  us  for  a  moment  consider  man  to  have  newly  started  into  existence,  by  what  means 
does  not  signify,  and  to  exist  alone.  I  will  suppose  this  to  have  happened  in  a  beautiful  valley  in  upper  Tibet,  about 
latitude  35,  at  the  vernal  equinox,  a  fig-tree  growing  near  him,  bearing  its  early  crop  of  fruit.  The  olfactory  nerves,  I 
think,  would  speedily  draw  him  to  the  tree ;  he  would  take  of  the  fruit,  and  what  is  vulgarly  called  instinct  would  teach 
him  to  put  it  into  his  mouth  and  to  eat  it.  Before  he  ate  the  fig,  he  would  have  become  master  of  several  ideas ;  but  as 
he  would  have  had  no  occasion  to  communicate  them,  he  probably  would  not  have  made  any  effort  at  speech. 

7.  We  will  now  suppose  this  being,  in  the  state  of  about  twenty  years  of  age,  to  awake  and  find  a  beautiful  young 
woman  close  to  him  and  touching  him.  Instinct  would  again  begin  to  move  him ;  love  would  ensue  and  its  conse- 
quences, and  very  speedily  afterward  the  wish  to  communicate  happiness ;  for  it  is  all  a  mistake  that  man  is  born  to 
evil  as  the  smoke  flies  upwards.  He  is  born  to  good,  and  all  his  natural  tendencies  are  to  good,  though  he  possesses 
passions  and  is  a  fallible  being,  from  which  circumstances  partial  evil  has  naturally  arisen.  Much  time  would  not 
elapse  before  he  would,  in  order  to  communicate  happiness,  wish  to  call  the  attention  of  his  mate  to  something — per- 
haps to  partake  with  him  of  some  fruit — and,  to  awaken  this  attention,  an  attempt  to  speak  or  make  a  sound  would  be 
made;  after  this,  another  and  another  attempt;  and  thus  a  few  monosyllabic  words  would  be  formed,  such  as  were 
easiest  made  by  the  organs  of  speech,  and  thus  from  this  kind  of  process  the  first  language  would  arise.  It  would  pro- 
bably consist  of  arbitrary  sounds,  not  formed  in  any  way  from  one  another  or  from  one  word  ;  and  had  Mr.  Gilchrist 
tried  to  trace  all  language  to  these  primitive  words,  he  would,  I  think,  have  perfectly  succeeded. 

8.  But  after  some  time  a  second  race  of  original  words  would  have  arisen,  which  would  a  little  increase  the  first  lan- 
guage, and  which  must  not  be  neglected.  The  voice  of  love  would  have  been  heard,  and  would  not  have  been  heard  in 
vain.  A  child  would  make  its  appearance,  and  would  have  a  little  language  of  its  own,  which  would  never  be  lost, 
which  would  grow  with  its  growth,  strengthen  with  its  strength,  and  which  we  actually  find  yet  existing  in  every  lan- 
guage on  earth — exemplified  in  the  words  Ma,  Mater,  Moder,  Muder,  Pa,  Pater,  Fater,  Fader,  &c,  &c;  and  thus  from 
these  two  sources  came  to  be  formed  the  first  original  language.  It  would  probably  consist  of  monosyllabic  roots, 
which  would  be  very  simple :  and  to  these,  I  think,  all  language  may  be  reduced.4 

9.  It  is  necessary  to  guard  myself  from  being  misunderstood  in  what  I  have  said  above,  that  the  language  of  the  eyes 
was  not  the  first  language,  because  I  believe  that  it  was ;  but  what  I  mean  is,  that  this  language  would  last  but  for  a 
very  short  time — a  very  few  hours,  perhaps  only  a  few  minutes.  The  first  man  and  his  mate,  surrounded  as  M.  Cuvier 
has  shewn  that  they  probably  were,  by  animals,  formed  long  before,  young  and  old,  in  every  state,  and,  like  these 
animals,  possessing  animal  sensations,  and  being,  in  addition,  imitative  creatures,  would  in  a  very  few  hours,  perhaps 
minutes,  perform  all  the  animal  functions,  exercise  all  the  animal  powers,  do  as  other  animals  did  :  and  until  they 

1  Philosophic  Etymol.  p.  33. 

*  I  wish  Mr.  Gilchrist  had  undertaken  the  task  of  so  reducing  them,  for  no  man  is  better  qualified.  Had  he  and  Mr.  Whiter 
attempted  to  re-form  or  re-discorer  the  ancient  first  language  or  collection  of  words,  and  their  systems  had  been  left  unfinished, 
other  learned  men  would  have  continued  them,  perhaps,  till  they  had  been  completed. 


22  PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    II. 

had  thus  exercised  these  powers,  perhaps  the  eyes,  the  most  eloquent  eyes,  would  continue  to  be  the  medium  of  the 
communication  of  ideas ;  but  eloquent  as  they  are,  they  would  not  continue  to  be  so  much  longer ;  for  an  attempt  to 
emit  sound  would  be  made,  and  thus  would  arise  the  first  words. 

10.  I  beg  my  reader  to  attend  to  the  beings  of  the  animal  creation.  He  cannot  suppose  man,  though  inferior  to 
them  in  many  respects,  to  be  much  inferior  to  them  in  those  which  we  are  considering.  How  long  is  it  before  the  dove 
or  the  partridge  learns  to  call  its  mate  with  the  voice  of  love,  or  its  young  about  it,  when  it  has  found  a  nest  of  ants  ? 
Has  man  any  language  more  significant  than  that  which  these  birds  possess  ?  When  the  hen  chucks  her  first  chickens 
around  her,  can  any  language  be  more  intelligible  ? '  and  she  has  no  profound  philosophers  to  make  grammars  for  her, 
or  divines  to  write  creeds  for  her.  Can  the  animal  man  be  supposed  to  have  been  worse  endowed  than  these  fowls  ?  I 
think  not.  Grant  but  these  advantages  of  the  animals  around  him,  and  it  is  all  which  I  ask  for  my  system,  and  I  think 
it  must  be  established. 

1 1.  If  these  philosophers  had  undertaken  to  prove  that  all  languages  might  be  resolved  into  one,  consisting  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  monosyllables  or  roots,  they  would  have  undertaken  to  prove  what  I  am  persuaded  is  perfectly  true ;  and 
they  would,  I  doubt  not,  have  succeeded  in  their  undertaking.  But  I  think  neither  of  their  theories  tenable.  If  their 
theories  had  been  well  founded,  the  abilities  which  they  have  displayed  would  not  have  failed  to  establish  them.  But 
though  I  think  they  have  both  failed,  I  beg  to  be  understood  not  to  have  any  wish  to  detract  from  their  merit.  Nor  do 
I  wish  to  enter  into  controversy  with  either  of  them.  I  should  not  have  noticed  their  treatises  but  that  I  felt  it 
would  be  a  great  reflection  on  myself  to  let  it  be  supposed  that  I  was  ignorant  of  them. 

12.  I  now  take  my  leave  of  these  two  gentlemen,  to  whom,  with  Bacon,  Hobbes,  Locke,  and  Tooke,  we  are  all 
under  great  obligation.  I  enter  not  more  into  their  systems,  because  my  object  and  theirs  is  different.  Their  systems 
are  only  auxiliary  to  mine.  I  feel  perfectly  confident  that  it  will  not  be  long  before  some  ingenious  man,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  Mr.  Tooke,  Mr.  Whiter,  and  Mr.  Gilchrist,  will,  upon  the  foundation  which  I  have  laid,  erect  the  edifice  of  the 
true  philosophy  of  grammar.    If  in  this  I  am  mistaken,  I  shall  be  only  like  hundreds  of  my  predecessors. 

13.  Perhaps  it  will  be  said  that  my  system  depends  too  much  on  the  explanation  of  words.  The  observation 
does  not  cause  me  much  uneasiness.  For  if  my  system  be  founded  in  the  truth,  it  must  shew  itself  in  the  words 
of  all  languages,  in  an  infinite  variety  of  ways;  in  which  case  the  observation  will  never  do  it  any  injury,  or  be 
able  to  prevent  its  reception  when  it  comes  to  be  known.  If  it  be  not  true,  it  will  fall,  as  others  have  done  before  it, 
whether  depending  on  explanation  of  words,  etymology,  or  not.  As  among  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  the 
modern  Europeans,  we  have  a  great  number  of  systems,  in  like  manner  there  was  the  same  variety  among  the 
Orientalists ;  but  I  feel  confident  I  shall  be  able  to  shew  that  they  all  flowed  from  one  fountain ;  that  one  refined  and 
beautiful  system  was  not  only  the  foundation,  but  that,  however  varied  the  systems  which  branched  from  it  might 
be,  yet  in  many  respects  the  parent,  the  original,  is  every  where  to  be  seen,  even  in  the  Western  systems  of  the  present 
day. 

14.  It  will  probably  also  be  objected  by  those  who  wish  not  to  discover  truth,  but  to  throw  discredit  upon  this  work, 
that  I  often  make  etymological  deductions  in  one  word  from  two  languages.  This  would  have  been  more  plausible  if  I 
had  not  first  proved,  most  unquestionably,  (as  I  believe,)  the  intimate  connexion — indeed,  I  feel  I  am  quite  justified  in 
saying  the  absolute  identity,  of  the  Western  and  Oriental  languages  in  a  very  remote  period.  And  this  observation  will 
apply  to  all  the  languages  in  which  the  sixteen-letter  system  has  obtained.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  one  original 
language  has  extended  over  all  the  old  world,  which  is  the  reason  that  we  find  Hebrew  and  Hindoo  words  in 
Britain,  and  words  of  the  most  remote  countries  and  climates  intermixed,  in  a  manner  in  no  other  way  to  be  accounted 
sixteen  for.    All  the  sixteen-letter  languages  are  but  dialects  of  an  original  language. 

15.  But  my  practice  of  explaining  words  from  what  are  at  this  day  two  languages,  will  be  objected  to  by  enemies 
of  inquiry,  because  it  has  a  tendency  to  discover  hidden  truths.  But  if  there  have  been  one  language  upon  which  several 
have  been  founded  or  built,  what  is  so  natural  as  that  the  roots  of  a  compound  word  should  be  found  in  several  of  them  ? 
Suppose  two  colonies  emigrated,  the  one  to  Europe  and  the  other  to  Africa,  from  Chaldea,  and  that  each  carried  a  cer- 
tain word ;  this  word  might  change,  by  being  compounded  with  other  words,  in  both  cases,  so  as  to  become  in  each  case 
a  new  word.   Is  it  not  evident  that  the  roots  of  the  word  may  reasonably  be  sought  in  either  or  both  the  new  languages  ? 

16.  In  etymological  inquiries  a  mere  corruption  no  doubt  may  sometimes  be  admitted;  but  this  must  be  done  with 
great  caution,  and  when  there  is  strong  extra  evidence  to  support  it.  For  proof  of  this,  our  own  language  affords 
innumerable  examples.  Of  this  kind  of  corruption  I  need  to  produce  only  one  instance  from  our  Liturgy— prevent  us 
in  all  our  doings.  Here  we  have  not  a  change  in  one  or  two  radicals  only,  but  in  a  whole  word.  Again  in  the  Latin 
word  hostis. 

1  The  common  barn-door  hen  has  at  least  two  clear  and  distinct  words,  one  which  she  commonly  uses  to  her  chickens,  and 
another  when  she  calls  them  to  her  on  having  discovered  any  unexpected  hoard  of  food. 


PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    II.  23 

17.  Etymology  may  be  considered  in  another  point  of  view.  What  is  a  written  word  but  an  effect — an  effect  arising 
from  an  unknown  cause  ?  What  we  want  is,  to  find  the  cause — to  ascertain  if  there  were  one  original  written  language 
— by  what  steps  any  given  word  descended  from  that  first  parent  to  its  present  state.  In  many  cases  this  may  be 
difficult,  in  others  it  may  be  impossible  to  make  it  out ;  but  is  there  not  the  same  difficulty  with  translations  ?  Does 
not  one  word  often  mean  several  different  and  often  opposite  things?  There  is  scarcely  a  word  in  Parkhurst's  Hebrew 
Lexicon  which  has  not  four  or  five  different  meanings ;  and  how  do  we  proceed  to  find  out  which,  in  any  case,  is  the 
one  intended,  but  by  comparing  it  with  the  context  ?  Most  words  may  be  derived  from  several  others,  but  the  variety 
or  uncertainty,  great  as  I  admit  it  is,  is  generally  not  greater  than  in  mere  translations. 

18.  Sir  William  Jones  says,  "I  beg  leave,  as  a  philologer,  to  enter  my  protest  against  conjectural  etymology  in  his- 
"  torical  researches,  and  principally  against  the  licentiousness  of  etymologists  in  transposing  and  inserting  letters,  in 
"  substituting  at  pleasure  any  consonant  for  another  of  the  same  order,  and  in  totally  disregarding  the  vowels."  I 
most  heartily  join  in  the  protest,  though  I  think  etymology  the  grand  and  only  telescope  by  means  of  which  we  can 
discover  the  objects  of  far  distant  and  remote  antiquity.  But  Sir  William  afterward  says,  "  When  we  find,  indeed,  the 
"  same  words,  letter  for  letter,  and  in  a  sense  precisely  the  same,  in  different  languages,  we  can  scarce  hesitate  in 
"  allowing  them  a  common  origin."1  To  shew  how  little  he  attended  to  his  own  sound  and  sensible  remarks  respecting 
the  changing  of  letters,  in  a  page  or  two  preceding  he  had  been  observing,  that  the  word  Moses  ought  to  have  been 
Musah,  not  Moses.  It  is  written  in  the  Hebrew  rtttfo  Mse.  I  cannot  admit  this  to  be  either  Musah  or  Moses.  If,  in 
compliance  with  modern  authority,  I  admit  the  u  to  be  supplied,  I  cannot  admit  the  n  e,  the  fifth  letter,  to  be  changed 
into  N  a,  the  first,  and  the  letter  n  h,  without  authority,  to  be  added.  I  have  shewn  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  the 
Hebrew  system  of  letters  is  the  same  as  the  English  and  Greek;  and  when  it  is  desired  to  write  the  Hebrew  letters  7\wa 
Mse  in  the  English  characters,  the  same  letters  which  the  order  and  the  power  of  notation  shew  to  be  identical,  ought 
to  be  used,  and  no  others.  The  practice  of  substituting  one  consonant  for  another  can  very  seldom  be  admitted ;  it 
can  be  subjected  to  no  rule,  but  in  every  instance  where  such  a  liberty  is  taken  each  case  must  stand  upon  its  own 
merits,  and  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  a  letter  may  never  be  changed,  but  it 
ought  never  to  be  changed  except  for  a  very  good  reason ;  and  when  it  is  so  changed,  the  doctrine  to  be  deduced  from 
it  will  stand  on  a  much  worse  foundation  than  if  it  had  not  been  so  changed.  But  after  all,  the  practice  of  changing 
letters  cannot  possibly  be  denied.  For  instance,  do  we  not  see  sovereigns  in  India  sometimes  called  Nawab,  and 
sometimes  Nabob — the  w  and  b  interchanged ;  and  so  on  in  other  cases  ? 

19.  But  uncertain  as  the  nature  of  etymological  science  is  supposed  to  be  in  researches  into  the  early  learning  of  the 
world,  it  is  the  best  fountain  from  which  we  can  draw.  Let  those  of  a  different  opinion  pursue  their  own  plan,  and 
continue  to  believe  the  histories  of  Greece  that  Cadmus  founded  Thebes  by  means  of  men  raised  from  sowing  the  teeth 
of  serpents ;  or  that  Jupiter,  in  the  form  of  a  Bull,  ran  away  with  Europa  from  her  father  Agenor,  by  whom  he  had 
three  sons— Minos,  Sarpendon,  and  Radamanthus,  who  were  really  all  living  persons. 

20.  As  reason  cannot  be  made  effectual  against  etymology,  the  power  of  ridicule  has  been  applied,  and  it  has  had  the 
success  it  will  always  have  against  truth — it  v/ill  fail.  A  pickled  cucumber  has  been  derived  from  Jeremiah  King  (e.  g. 
Jeremiah  King — Jer.  King — Girkin).  Now  this  is  very  good,  and  whenever  similar  licences  are  taken  under  the  same 
or  similar  circumstances  as  this,  the  result  deserves  nothing  but  ridicule,  and  the  persons  who  depend  upon  such  deduc- 
tions are  really  ridiculous.  Forced  allegories  are  equally  ridiculous ;  and  pray  what  are  our  orthodox  impugners  of  ety- 
mology better  in  their  literal  explanations  of  the  Old-Testament  writings  ?  What  shall  I  say  to  the  wrestling  of  God  with 
Jacob  and  wounding  him  in  the  thigh  ?  What  of  his  ineffectual  attempt  to  kill  Moses  at  an  inn  ?  These  gentlemen  run 
down  etymology  in  order  that  they  may  open  the  door  to  their  literal  meanings.  But  the  truth  is,  the  abuse  of  either  is 
ridiculous,  as  every  thing  must  be  when  not  kept  within  the  bounds  of  sense  and  reason.  And  with  respect  to  etymo- 
logy, however  uncertain  it  may  be,  it  is  the  only  instrument  left  us  for  the  investigation  of  ancient  science,  all  others 
having  failed  us,  and  the  certainty  of  facts  discovered  by  its  agency  will  depend  upon  the  reason  and  probability  which 
the  etymological  deduction  will  possess,  in  every  individual  case;  and  of  each  case  the  reader  must  be  the  judge.  But 
the  real  truth  is,  that  etymology  is  not  run  down  because  it  is  not  calculated  to  discover  truth,  but  because  it  is  calcu- 
lated to  discover  too  much  truth. 

21.  Very  certain  I  am  that  if  we  are  not  willing  to  receive  the  learning  of  the  ancients  through  the  medium  of  etymo- 
logy, and  a  comparison  of  the  words  of  one  language  with  another,  we  must  remain  in  ignorance.  The  early  historical 
accounts  are  all  little  better  than  fables.  Every  word,  in  every  language,  has,  no  doubt,  originally  had  a  meaning, 
whether  a  nation  has  it  by  inheritance,  by  importation,  or  by  composition.  It  is  evident,  then,  if  we  can  find  out  the 
original  meaning  of  the  words  which  stand  for  the  names  of  objects,  great  discoveries  may  be  expected. 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  4to.  p.  489. 


24  PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    III. 

22.  I  repeat,  the  science  of  etymology  is  the  standing  but  for  the  shafts  of  every  fool.  If  a  witling  be  so  foolish  that 
he  can  ridicule  nothing  else,  he  can  succeed  against  etymology.  The  true  and  secret  reason  of  the  opposition  to  ety- 
mology is,  that  the  priests  knowing  it  is  by  its  aid  only  that  ancient  science  can  be  discovered,  have  exerted  every  nerve 
to  prejudice  the  minds  of  youth  against  it.  After  all,  what  is  it  but  the  science  of  explaining  the  meaning  of  words  ? 
Its  uncertainty  every  one  must  admit.  But  in  this  it  is  only  like  the  words  of  all  languages,  in  almost  every  one  of  which 
every  noun  has  a  great  number  of  meanings.  On  the  meaning  of  the  words,  as  selected  judiciously  or  injudiciously, 
depends  the  value  of  the  translation,  which  is,  of  course,  sometimes  sense,  sometimes  nonsense.  But,  I  think,  one  is 
scarcely  less  doubtful,  or  subject  to  fewer  mistakes,  than  the  other.  Are  there  not  at  least  two  meanings  given  to  almost 
every  important  text  of  the  Bible  ?  The  same  is  the  case  with  etymological  deductions.1  The  devotee,  as  in  duty 
bound,  will  take  the  construction  of  his  priest,  the  philosopher  of  his  reason.  And  when  an  etymologist  finds  out  a 
new  derivation,  we  are  as  much  obliged  to  him  as  we  are  to  a  lexicographer  when  he  discovers  a  new  meaning  in  a 
word  which  has  been  before  overlooked. 

23.  The  first  word  of  Genesis  may  furnish  an  example  of  what  I  mean.  We  have  great  authorities  to  justify  the 
rendering  of  the  word  either  by  wisdom  or  beginning,  or  both.  And  it  must  be  for  the  reader  to  decide  whether  it  has 
one  or  the  other,  or  both — the  double  meaning. 

24.  When  a  translator  finds  a  word  with  several  meanings,  than  which  nothing  is  more  common,  it  is  his  duty  to 
compare  it  with  the  context  and  to  consider  all  the  circumstances  under  which  it  is  placed,  and  his  prudence  and  judg- 
ment are  displayed,  or  his  want  of  them,  in  the  selection  which  he  makes.  It  is  precisely  the  same  with  etymology. 
There  is  no  argument  which  can  be  brought  against  etymology  which  may  not  be  advanced  with  equal  force  against 
translations.     In  the  course  of  the  following  work  I  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  this  subject  several  times. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ORIGIN    OF   THE    ADORATION    OF   THE    BULL,   AND    OF   THE    PHALLIC    AND    VERNAL   FESTIVALS. 

1.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Maurice,  in  his  learned  work  on  the  Antiquities  of  India,  has  shewn,  in  a  way  which  it  is  impossible 
to  contradict,  that  the  May-day  festival  and  the  May-pole  of  Great  Britain,  with  its  garlands,  &c  ,  known  to  us  all,  are  the 
remains  of  an  ancient  festival  of  Egypt  and  India,  and  probably  of  Phoenicia,  when  these  nations,  in  countries  very 
distant,  and  from  times  very  remote,  have  all,  with  one  consent,  celebrated  the  entrance  of  the  sun  into  the  sign  of 
Taurus,  at  the  vernal  equinox ;  but  which,  in  consequence  of  the  astronomical  phenomenon,  no  longer  disputed,  of  the 
precession  of  the  equinoxes,  is  removed  far  in  the  year  from  its  original  situation.  This  festival,  it  appears  from  a  letter 
in  the  Asiatic  Researches?  from  Colonel  Pearce,  is  celebrated  in  India  on  the  first  of  May,  in  honour  of  Bhavani  (a 
personification  of  vernal  nature,  the  Dea  Syria  of  Chaldea,  and  the  Venus  Urania  of  Persia).  A  May-pole  is  erected, 
hung  with  garlands,  around  which  the  young  people  dance,  precisely  the  same  as  in  England.  The  object  of  the  fes- 
tival, I  think  with  Mr.  Maurice,  cannot  be  disputed ;  and  that  its  date  is  coeval  with  the  time  when  the  equinox  actually 
took  place  on  the  first  of  May.  To  account  for  these  facts  consistently  with  received  chronology,  he  says,  "  When 
"  the  reader  calls  to  mind  what  has  already  been  observed,  that  owing  to  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  after  the  rate 
"  of  seventy-two  years  to  a  degree,  a  total  alteration  has  taken  place  through  all  the  signs  of  the  ecliptic,  insomuch  that 
"  those  stars  which  formerly  were  in  Aries  have  now  got  into  Taurus,  and  those  of  Taurus  into  Gemini :  and  when  he 
"  considers  also  the  difference  before  mentioned,  occasioned  by  the  reform  of  the  calendar,  he  will  not  wonder  at  the 
"  disagreement  that  exists  in  respect  to  the  exact  period  of  the  year  on  which  the  great  festivals  were  anciently  kept, 
"  and  that  on  which,  in  imitation  of  primeval  customs,  they  are  celebrated  by  the  moderns.  Now  the  vernal  equinox, 
"  after  the  rate  of  that  precession,  certainly  could  not  have  coincided  with  the  first  of  May  less  than  four  thousand  years 
"  before  Christ,  which  nearly  marks  the  aera  of  the  creation,  which,  according  to  the  best  and  wisest  chronologers, 


I  beg  my  reader  to  look  in  Mr.  Winter's  Etymologicon  for  the  meaning  of  argo.    It  has  scores  of  meanings,  some  as  opposite 
as  the  poles. 

*  Vol.  II.  p.  333. 


PRELIMINARY    OBSERVATIONS.       CHAP.    III.  25 

"  began  at  the  vernal  equinox,  when  all  nature  was  gay  and  smiling,  and  the  earth  arrayed  in  its  loveliest  verdure,  and 
'*  not,  as  others  have  imagined,  at  the  dreary  autumnal  equinox,  when  that  nature  must  necessarily  have  its  beauty 
"  declining,  and  that  earth  its  verdure  decaying.  I  have  little  doubt,  therefore,  that  May-day,  or  at  least  the  day  on 
**  which  the  Sun  entered  Taurus,  has  been  immeniorially  kept  as  a  sacred  festival  from  the  creation  of  the  earth  and  man, 
"  and  was  originally  intended  as  a  memorial  of  that  auspicious  period  and  that  momentous  event."  He  afterwards 
adds,  "  on  the  general  devotion  of  the  ancients  to  the  worship  of  the  Bull,  I  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  remark, 
"  and  more  particularly  in  the  Indian  history,  by  their  devotion  to  it  at  that  period, 

aperit  cum  cornibus  annum 


Taurus, 


"  '  When  the  Bull  with  his  horns  opened  the  Vernal  year.'  I  observed  that  all  nations  seem  anciently  to  have  vied 
"  with  each  other  in  celebrating  that  blissful  epoch ;  and  that  the  moment  the  sun  entered  the  sign  Taurus,  were  dis- 
"  played  the  signals  of  triumph  and  the  incentives  to  passion  :  that  memorials  of  the  universal  festivity  indulged  at  that 
"  season  are  to  be  found  in  the  records  and  customs  of  people  otherwise  the  most  opposite  in  manners  and  most  remote 
"  in  situation.  I  could  not  avoid  considering  the  circumstance  as  a  strong  additional  proof,  that  mankind  originally 
"  descended  from  one  great  family,  and  proceeded  to  the  several  regions  in  which  they  finally  settled,  from  one  com- 
"  mon  and  central  spot :  that  the  Apis,  or  Sacred  Bull  of  Egypt,  was  only  the  symbol  of  the  sun  in  the  vigour  of  vernal 
"  youth ;  and  that  the  Bull  of  Japan,  breaking  with  his  horn  the  mundane  egg,  was  evidently  connected  with  the  same 
"  bovine  species  of  superstition,  founded  on  the  mixture  of  astronomy  and  mythology."1 

2.  Mr.  Maurice  in  a  previous  part  of  his  work  had  shewn  that  the  May-day  festival  was  established  to  celebrate  the 
generative  powers  of  nature,  called  by  the  ancient  Greeks  <paXXocpego<;— that  cpaXkoc;,  in  Greek,  signifies  a  pole,  and  that 
from  this  comes  our  May-pole. 

3.  After  the  equinox  (in  consequence  of  the  revolution  of  the  pole  of  the  equator  round  the  pole  of  the  ecliptic) 
ceased  to  be  in  Taurus,  and  took  place  in  Aries,  the  equinoctial  festivals  were  changed  to  the  first  of  April,  and  were 
celebrated  on  that  day  equally  in  England  and  India :  in  the  former,  every  thing  but  the  practice  of  making  April 
fools  has  ceased ;  but  in  the  latter,  the  festival  is  observed  as  well  as  the  custom  of  making  April  fools ;  that  is,  the 
custom  of  sending  persons  upon  ridiculous  and  false  errands  to  create  sport  and  merriment,  is  one  part  of  the  rites  of 
the  festival.  In  India  this  is  called  the  Naurutz  and  the  Hull9  festival.  This  vernal  festival  was  celebrated  on  the  day 
the  ancient  Persian  year  began,  which  was  on  the  day  the  sun  entered  into  the  sign  of  Aries ;  and  Mr.  Maurice  says, 
"  The  ancient  Persian  coins,  stamped  with  the  head  of  a  ram,  which,  according  to  D'Ancarville,  were  offered  to 
"  Gemshid,  the  founder  of  Persepolis,  and  first  reformer  of  the  solar  year  amongst  the  Persians,  are  an  additional 
"  demonstration  of  the  high  antiquity  of  this  festival."  When  Sir  Thomas  Roe  was  ambassador  at  Delhi,  this  festival 
was  celebrated  by  the  Mogul  with  astonishing  magnificence  and  splendour  :  it  has  the  name  of  Naurutz  both  in  India 
and  Persia,  and  was  celebrated  in  both  alike.3  And  in  the  ambassador's  travels  the  writer  acquaints  us,  "  That  some 
"  of  their  body  being  deputed  to  congratulate  the  Schah  on  the  first  day  of  the  year,  they  found  him  at  the  palace  of 
"  Ispahan,  sitting  at  a  banquet,  and  having  near  him  the  Minatzim,  or  astrologer,  who  rose  up  ever  and  anon,  and 
"  taking  his  astrolobe  went  to  observe  the  sun ;  and  at  the  very  moment  of  the  sun's  reaching  the  equator,  he  published 
"  aloud  the  new  year,  the  commencement  of  which  was  celebrated  by  the  firing  of  great  guns  both  from  the  castle  and 
"  the  city  walls,  and  by  the  sound  of  all  kinds  of  instruments." 

4.  It  is  not  only  in  Persia  and  India  that  this  worship  of  the  Bull  is  to  be  found  ;  there  is  no  part  of  the  old  world, 
from  the  extremest  East  to  the  West,  where  the  remains  of  it  are  not  to  be  found.4 

5.  The  reader  will  observe  in  the  whole  of  the  above  quotations  from  Mr.  Maurice  the  style  of  the  Christian  apologist, 
who  is  endeavouring  to  account  for  a  disagreeable  circumstance  which  he  cannot  deny,  and  to  shew  that  it  is  not 
inconsistent  with  his  religious  system.  He  will  see  that  it  is  the  evidence  of  an  unwilling  witness,  and  on  this  account 
evidence  of  the  greatest  importance.  The  learning  and  talent  of  Mr.  Maurice  are  unquestionable,  and  it  cannot  for  a 
moment  be  doubted,  that  he  would  have  denied  the  fact  if  he  could  have  done  it  honestly.  But  in  the  teeth  of  the 
most  clear  evidence  of  its  existence  that  was  absolutely  impossible.  I  do  not,  however,  mean  to  insinuate  that  he  was 
dishonest  enough  to  have  attempted  it  if  he  could  have  done  so  with  a  chance  of  success,  for  I  believe  no  book  was 
ever  more  honestly  written.  The.  reality,  close  connexion,  and  object,  of  the  Tauric  and  Phallic  worship,  have  been  so 
clearly  and  fully  proved  by  D'Ancarville,  Payne  Knight,  Maurice,  Parkhurst  in  his  Hebrew  Lexicon,  Bryant,  Faber, 
Dupuis,  Drummond,  and  many  others,  that  there  is  no  room  left  for  a  moment's  doubt.     It  would  therefore  only  be  an 


1  Maurice's  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VI.  pp.  91—93. 

*  The  word  Huli,  I  apprehend,  is  derived  from,  or  is  the  same  as,  the  ancient  Celtic  word  Yule. 

3  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VI.  p.  76.  *  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  v.  Sect.  ii. 


26  PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS.      CHAP.    III. 

idle  waste  of  time  to  attempt  to  prove  it.  I  could  only  repeat  an  immense  mass  of  facts,  now  well  known,  from  these 
authors,  without  adding  any  thing  new.  I  have  therefore  determined  not  to  attempt  it,  but  to  trust  that  any  reader 
who  may  not  have  studied  this  subject,  will  depend  upon  the  irreproachable  testimony  of  Mr.  Maurice.  Jf  he  be  not 
satisfied,  he  may  consult  the  works  above-named,  where  he  will  find  much  instruction,  if  not  amusement.  For  these 
reasons  I  hope  I  shall  be  excused  going  into  the  proof  of  the  antiquity  of  the  Phallic  and  Tauric  festivals,  although 
their  ancient  existence  is  of  the  very  first  importance  to  my  system.— My  system,  in  fact,  is  founded  upon  them,  and 
upon  them  I  rest  my  foot  as  upon  a  foundation  from  which  I  am  convinced  nothing  can  remove  me.  The  fact  that  the 
May-day  festivals  of  India  and  Britain  are  admitted  to  have  been  instituted  to  celebrate  the  entrance  of  the  sun  into  the 
sign  Taurus  at  the  vernal  equinox,  overthrows  all  our  learned  men's  systems  of  chronology,  root  and  branch ;  it  leaves 
scarcely  a  wreck  behind,  and  will  enable  me  nearly  to  explain  the  origin  and  meaning  of  all  the  Mythoses  of  antiquity., 
and,  indeed,  of  almost  all  those  of  modern  times  also. 


(    27    ) 


ANACALYPSIS. 


BOOK  I. 
CHAPTER     I. 

AGE    OP   THE    WORLD. — FLOOD. — PLANETS    AND    DAYS    OP    THE   WEEK. — THE    MOON. 

1.  On  looking  back  into  antiquity,  the  circle  of  vision  terminates  in  a  thick  and  impenetrable 
mist.  No  end  can  be  distinguished.  There  seems  reason  to  believe  that  this  is  an  effect  of  that 
cause,  whatever  it  may  be,  which  first  produced  and  gave  law  to  the  revolving  motions  of  the 
planets,  or  other  phenomena  of  nature,  and  therefore  cannot  be  impugned,  perhaps  ought  not 
to  regretted.  At  all  events,  if  this  obscurity  be  regretted,  it  is  pretty  evident  that  there  is  little 
hope  of  its  being  removed.  But  in  endeavouring  to  stretch  our  eye  to  the  imaginary  end  of  the 
prospect,  to  the  supposed  termination  of  the  hitherto  to  us  unbounded  space,  it  is  unavoidably 
arrested  on  its  way  by  a  variety  of  objects,  of  a  very  surprising  appearance ;  and  it  is  into  their 
nature  that  I  propose  to  inquire.  When  I  look  around  me,  on  whatever  side  I  cast  my  eyes,  I  see 
the  ruins  of  a  former  world — proofs  innumerable  of  a  long-extended  period  of  time.  Perhaps 
among  all  the  philosophers  no  one  has  demonstrated  this  so  clearly  as  Mons.  Cuvier.  I  apprehend 
these  assertions  are  so  well  known  and  established  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  upon  them. 

The  great  age  of  the  world  must  be  admitted ;  but  the  great  age  of  man  is  a  different  thing. 
The  latter  may  admit  of  doubt,  and  it  is  man  with  whom,  in  the  following  treatise,  I  propose  to 
concern  myself,  and  not  his  habitation.  On  man,  his  folly,  his  weakness,  and,  I  am  sorry  I  must 
add,  his  wickedness,  I  propose  to  treat :  his  habitation  I  leave  to  the  geologists. 

In  the  most  early  history  of  mankind  I  find  all  nations  endeavouring  to  indulge  a  contemp- 
tible vanity,  by  tracing  their  origin  to  the  most  remote  periods ;  and,  for  the  gratification  of  this 
vanity,  inventing  fables  of  every  description.  Of  this  weakness  they  have  all,  in  reality,  been 
guilty ;  but  the  inhabitants  of  the  oriental  countries  occupy  rather  a  more  prominent  place  than 
those  of  the  western  world ;  and  I  believe  it  will  not  be  denied  that,  in  the  investigation  of  sub- 
jects connected  with  the  first  race  of  men,  they  are  entitled  on  every  account  to  claim  a  prece- 
dence. If,  since  the  creation  of  man,  a  general  deluge  have  taken  place,  their  country  was  certainly 
the  situation  where  he  was  preserved :  therefore  to  the  eastern  climes  I  apply  myself  for  his  early 
histor} .  and  this  naturally  leads  me  into  an  inquiry  into  their  ancient  records  and  traditions. 

2.  All  nations  have  a  tradition  of  the  destruction  of  the  world  by  a  flood,'  and  of  the  preserva- 
tion oi  .  an  from  its  effects.     Here  are  two  questions.     Of  the  affirmative  of  the  former  no  person 


1  The  nature  of  this  flood  I  shall  discuss  in  a  future  chapter.— June,  1830. 

e2 


28 


FLOOD,    TRADITION    OF. 


who  uses  his  eyes  can  doubt.  But  the  latter  is  in  a  different  predicament.  A  question  may  arise 
whether  man  existed  before  the  flood  above  spoken  of,  or  not.  If  the  universality  of  a  tradition  of 
a  fact  of  this  nature  would  prove  its  truth,  there  would  be  scarcely  room  for  doubt,  and  the  pre- 
vious creation  of  man  would  be  established.  But  I  think  in  the  course  of  the  following  inquiry  we 
shall  find  that  universal  tradition  of  a  fact  of  this  kind  is  not  enough  by  itself  for  its  establishment. 
It  appears  to  me  that  the  question  of  the  existence  of  the  human  race  previous  to  the  flood  will 
not  much  interfere  with  my  inquiries,  but  will,  if  it  be  admitted,  only  oblige  me  to  reason  upon 
the  idea  that  certain  facts  took  place  before  it,  and  that  the  effects  arising  from  them  were  not 
affected  by  it. 

If  I  speak  of  persons  or  facts  before  the  deluge,  and  it  should  be  determined  that  the  human 
species  did  not  exist  before  that  event,  then  the  form  of  speech  applied  erroneously  to  the  ante- 
diluvians must  be  held  to  apply  to  the  earliest  created  of  the  post-diluvians ;  and  this  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  only  inconvenience  which  can  arise  from  it.  I  shall  therefore  admit,  for  the  sake  of 
argument,  that  an  universal  flood  took  place,  and  that  it  happened  after  the  creation  of  man. 

Much  difference  of  opinion  has  arisen  upon  the  question  whether  the  flood  to  which  I  have 
alluded  was  universal  or  not.  The  ancient  records  upon  which  Christians  found  their  religion,  as 
generally  construed,  maintain  the  affirmative ;  but  no  one  who  gives  even  a  very  slight  degree  of 
consideration  to  the  circumstances  of  the  Americas  can  deny  that  probability  leans  the  contrary 
way.  It  is  a  very  difficult  question,  but  I  do  not  consider  that  it  has  much  concern  with  the  object 
of  this  work. 

Though  it  be  the  most  probable,  if  man  were  created  before  the  last  general  deluge,  that  a 
portion  of  the  human  race  was  saved  along  with  the  animals  in  the  new,  as  well  as  a  portion  in  the 
old  world,  yet  it  is  equally  probable  that  one  family,  or  at  most  only  a  very  small  number  of  per- 
sons, were  saved  in  the  latter. 

The  strongest  argument  against  the  descent  of  the  present  human  race  from  one  pair  has 
hitherto  been  found  in  the  peculiar  character  of  the  Negro.  But  it  is  now  admitted,  I  believe,  that 
Mr.  Lawrence  has  removed  that  difficulty,  and  has  proved  that  man  is  one  genus  and  one  species, 
and  that  those  who  were  taken  by  some  philosophers  for  different  species  are  only  varieties.  I 
shall  assume  this  as  a  fact,  and  reason  upon  it  accordingly.  If  there  were  any  persons  saved  from 
the  deluge  except  those  before  spoken  of,  who  were  found  near  the  Caspian  Sea,  they  do  not 
appear  to  have  made  any  great  figure  in  the  world,  or  to  have  increased  so  as  to  form  any  great 
nations.  They  must,  ,1  think,  soon  have  merged  and  been  lost  in  the  prevailing  numbers  of  the 
oriental  nation.  But  I  know  not  in  history  any  probable  tradition  or  circumstance,  the  existence 
of  the  Negro  excepted,  which  should  lead  us  to  suppose  that  there  ever  were  such  persons.  If 
they  did  exist,  I  think  they  must  have  been  situated  in  China.  It  is  possible  that  they  may  have 
been  in  that  country,  but  it  is  a  bare  possibility,  unsupported  by  any  facts  or  circumstances  known 
to  us.  No  doubt  the  Chinese  are  entitled  to  what  they  claim — a  descent  from  very  remote  anti- 
quity. But  it  is  acknowledged  that  one  of  their  despots  destroyed  all  their  authentic  and  official 
records,  in  consequence  of  which  little  or  no  dependence  can  be  placed  upon  the  stories  which  they 
relate,  of  transactions  which  took  place  any  length  of  time  previous  to  that  event. 

The  cautious  way  in  which  I  reason  above  respecting  the  universal  nature  of  the  flood,  and 
the  conditional  style  of  argument  which  I  adopt  in  treating  the  question  of  man's  creation  before 
or  after  it,  no  doubt  will  give  offence  to  a  certain  class  of  persons  who  always  go  to  another  class, 
called  priests,  for  permission  to  believe,  without  using  their  own  understandings.  I  am  sorry  that 
I  should  offend  these  good  people,  but  as  I  cannot  oblige  them  by  taking  for  granted  the  truth  of 
alleged  facts,  the  truth  or  falsity  of  which  is,  at  least  in  part,  the  object  of  this  work,  it  is  clearly 
not  fit,  as  it  is  not  intended,  for  their  perusal. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  I.     SECTION  3.  29 

3.  Of  the  formation  of  our  planetary  system,  and  particularly  of  our  world  and  of  man,  a  vast 
variety  of  accounts  were  given  by  the  different  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome,  a  very  fair 
description  of  which  may  be  met  with  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Universal  History,  and  in  Stan- 
ley's History  of  Philosophy.  Many  of  these  cosmogonists  have  been  highly  celebrated  for  their 
wisdom  ;  and  yet,  unless  we  suppose  their  theories  to  have  been  in  a  great  degree  allegorical,  or 
to  have  contained  some  secret  meaning,  they  exhibit  an  inconceivable  mass  of  nonsense.  But  some 
of  them,  for  instance  that  of  Sanchoniathon,  so  largely  discussed  by  Bishop  Cumberland,  are  clearly 
allegorical :  of  course  all  such  must  be  excepted  from  this  condemnation. 

If  a  person  will  apply  his  mind  without  prejudice  to  a  consideration  of  the  characters  and 
doctrines  of  the  ancient  cosmogonists  of  the  western  part  of  the  world,  he  must  agree  with  me 
that  they  exhibit  an  extraordinary  mixture  of  sense  and  nonsense,  wisdom  and  folly — views  of  the 
creation,  and  its  cause  or  causes,  the  most  profound  and  beautiful,  mixed  with  the  most  puerile 
conceits — conceits  and  fancies  below  the  understanding  of  a  plough-boy.  How  is  this  to  be  ac- 
counted for  ?  The  fact  cannot  be  denied.  Of  the  sayings  of  the  wise  men,  there  was  not  one, 
probably,  more  wise  than  that  of  the  celebrated  TvuBi  a-savrov,  Know  thyself,  and  probably  there  was 
not  one  to  which  so  little  regard  has  been  paid.  It  is  to  the  want  of  attention  to  this  principle 
that  I  attribute  most  of  the  absurdities  with  which  the  wise  and  learned,  perhaps  in  all  ages,  may 
be  reproached.  Man  has  forgotten  or  been  ignorant  that  his  faculties  are  limited.  He  has  failed 
to  mark  the  line  of  demarcation,  beyond  which  his  knowledge  could  not  extend.  Instead  of  apply- 
ing his  mind  to  objects  cognizable  by  his  senses,  he  has  attempted  subjects  above  the  reach  of  the 
human  mind,  and  has  lost  and  bewildered  himself  in  the  mazes  of  metaphysics.  He  has  not  known 
or  has  not  attended  to  what  has  been  so  clearly  proved  by  Locke,  that  no  idea  can  be  received 
except  through  the  medium  of  the  senses.  He  has  endeavoured  to  form  ideas  without  attending 
to  this  principle,  and,  as  might  well  be  expected,  he  has  run  into  the  greatest  absurdities,  the 
necessary  consequence  of  such  imprudence.  Very  well  the  profound  and  learned  Thomas  Burnet 
says,1  "  Sapientia  prima  est  stultitia  caruisse ;"  "  primusque  ad  veritatem  gradus  pifecavere  er- 
rores."  Again  he  says,  "  Sapientis  enim  est,  non  tantum  ea  quae  sciri  possunt,  scire :  sed  etiam 
quce  sciri  "  non  possunt,  discernere  et  discriminare." 2 

It  must  not  be  understood  from  what  I  have  said,  that  I  wish  to  put  a  stop  to  all  metaphy- 
sical researches ;  far  from  it.  But  I  do  certainly  wish  to  controul  them,  to  keep  them  within  due 
bounds,  and  to  mark  well  the  point  beyond  which,  from  the  nature  of  our  organization,  we  cannot 
proceed.  Perhaps  it  may  not  be  possible  to  fix  the  exact  point  beyond  which  the  mind  of  man 
can  never  go,  but  it  may  be  possible  to  say  without  doubt,  of  some  certain  point,  beyond  this  he 
has  not  yet  advanced.  By  this  cautious  mode  of  proceeding,  though  we  may  pretend  to  less  know- 
ledge, we  may  in  fact  possess  more. 

For  these  various  reasons  I  shall  pass  over,  without  notice,  the  different  theories  of  the  for- 
mation of  the  world  by  the  sages  of  Greece  and  Rome.  In  general  they  seem  to  me  to  deserve  no 
notice,  to  be  below  the  slightest  consideration  of  a  person  of  common  understanding.  As  a  curious 
record  of  what  some  of  the  wise  men  of  antiquity  were,  they  are  interesting  and  worthy  of  preser- 
vation :  as  a  rational  expose  of  the  origin  of  things,  they  are  nothing. 

Among  the  subjects  to  which  I  allude  as  being  above  the  reach  of  the  human  understanding  are 
Liberty  and  Necessity,  the  Eternity  of  Matter,  and  several  other  similar  subjects. 

4.  Our  information  of  the  historical  transactions  which  it  is  supposed  took  place  previous  to 
the  catastrophe, 3  and  its  attendant  flood,  which  destroyed  the  ancient  world,  is  very  small.    Mons. 

1  Arch.  Phil.  cap.  vii.  *  Ibid.  p.  95. 

*  This  catastrophe  has  been  thought  by  many  of  the  moderns  to  have  arisen  from  a  change  of  the  direction  of  the 


30  PLANETS    NAMED    AFTER   THE    DAYS    OF  THE  WEEK. 

Bailly  has  observed,  that  the  famous  cycle  of  the  Neros,  and  the  cycle  of  seven  days,  or  the  week, 
from  their  peculiar  circumstances,  must  probably  have  been  of  antediluvian  invention.  No  persons 
could  have  invented  the  Neros  who  had  not  arrived  at  much  greater  perfection  in  astronomy  than 
we  know  was  the  state  of  the  most  ancient  of  the  Assyrians,  Egyptians,  or  Greeks.  The  earliest 
of  these  nations  supposed  the  year  to  have  consisted  of  360  days  only,  when  the  inventors  of  the 
Neros  must  have  known  its  length  to  within  a  few  seconds  of  time — a  fact  observed  by  Mons. 
Bailly  to  be  a  decisive  proof  that  science  was  formerly  brought  to  perfection,  and  therefore,  conse- 
quently, must  have  been  afterward  lost.  There  are  indeed  among  the  Hindoos  proofs  innume- 
rable that  a  very  profound  knowledge  of  the  sciences  was  brought  by  their  ancestors  from  the 
upper  countries  of  India,  the  Himmalah  mountains,  Thibet  or  Cashmir.  These  were,  I  appre- 
hend, the  first  descendants  of  the  persons  who  lived  after  the  deluge.  But  this  science  has  long 
been  forgotten  by  their  degenerate  successors,  the  present  race  of  Brahmins.  The  ancient  Hin- 
doos might  be  acquainted  with  the  Neros,  but  I  think  it  probable  that  Josephus  was  correct  in 
saying  it  is  of  antediluvian  discovery;  that  is,  that  it  was  discovered  previous  to  the  time  allotted 
for  the  deluge.  And  it  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  we  receive  this  tradition  from  the  people 
among  whom  we  find  the  apparently  antediluvian  part  of  the  book,  or  the  first  tract  of  the  book, 
called  Genesis,  about  which  I  shall  have  much  more  to  observe  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

The  other  cycle  just  now  named,  of  the  seven  days  or  the  week,  is  also  supposed  by  Bailly 
to  be,  from  its  universal  reception,  of  equal  antiquity.  There  is  no  country  of  the  old  world  in 
which  it  is  not  found,  which,  with  the  reasons  which  I  will  now  proceed  to  state,  pretty  well  jus- 
tify Mons.  Bailly  in  his  supposition. 

5.  In  my  Preliminary  Observations,  and  in  my  treatise  on  The  Celtic  Druids,  I  have  pointed 
out  the  process  by  which  the  planetary  bodies  were  called  after  the  days  of  the  week,  or  the  days 
of  the  week  after  them.  I  have  there  stated  that  the  septennial  cycle  would  probably  be  among 
the  earliest  of  what  would  be  called  the  scientific  discoveries  which  the  primeval  races  of  men 
would  make. 

Throughout  all  the  nations  of  the  ancient  world,  the  planets  are  to  be  found  appropriated 
to  the  days  of  the  week.  The  seven-day  cycle,  with  each  day  named  after  a  planet,  and  univer- 
sally the  same  day  allotted  to  the  same  planet  in  all  the  nations  of  the  world,  constitute  the 
first  proof,  and  leave  no  room  to  doubt  that  one  system  must  have  prevailed  over  the  whole. 
Here  are  the  origin  and  the  reason  of  all  judicial  astrology,  as  well  as  the  foundation  upon  which 
much  of  the  Heathen  mythology  was  built.     The  two  were  closely  and  intimately  connected. 

It  is  the  object  of  this  work  to  trace  the  steps  by  which,  from  the  earliest  time  and  small 
beginnings,  this  system  grew  to  a  vast  and  towering  height,  covering  the  world  with  gigantic 
monuments  and  beautiful  temples,  enabling  one  part  of  mankind,  by  means  of  the  fears  and 
ignorance  of  the  other  part,  to  trample  it  in  the  dust. 

Uncivilized  man  is  by  nature  the  most  timid  of  animals,  and  in  that  state  the  most  de- 
fenceless. The  storm,  the  thunder,  the  lightning,  or  the  eclipse,  fills  him  with  terror.  He  is 
alarmed  and  trembles  at  every  thing  which  he  does  not  understand,  and  that  is  almost  every  thing 
that  he  sees  or  hears. 

If  a  person  will  place  himself  in  the  situation  of  an  early  observer  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
and  consider  how  they  must  have  appeared  to  him  in  his  state  of  ignorance,  he  will  at  once 
perceive  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  that  he  could  avoid  mistaking  them  for  animated  or  intelli- 

earth's  axis,  and  a  simultaneous,  or  perhaps  consequent,  change  of  the  length  of  the  year  from  360  to  365  days.  The 
change  of  the  axis  was  believed  among  the  ancients  by  Plato,  Anaxagoras,  Empedocles,  Diogenes,  Leucippus,  and 
Democritus.    Vide  book  ii.  ch.  iv.  of  Thomas  Burnet's  Archeeologia  Philosophica. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  I.     SECTION  5.  31 

gent  beings.  To  us,  with  our  prejudices  of  education,  it  is  difficult  to  form  a  correct  idea  of  what 
his  sensations  must  have  been,  on  his  first  discovering  the  five  planets  to  be  different  from  the 
other  stars,  and  to  possess  a  locomotive  quality,  apparently  to  him  subject  to  no  rule  or  order. 
But  we  know  what  happened;  he  supposed  them  animated, and  to  this  day  they  are  still  supposed 
to  be  so,  by  the  greatest  part  of  the  world.  Even  in  enlightened  England  judicial  astrologers  are 
to  be  found. 

I  suppose  that  after  man  first  discovered  the  twenty-eight  day  cycle,  and  the  year  of  360 
days,  he  would  begin  to  perceive  that  certain  stars,  larger  than  the  rest,  and  shining  with  a  steady 
and  not  a  scintillating  light,  were  in  perpetual  motion.  They  would  appear  to  him,  unskilled  in 
astronomy,  to  be  endowed  with  life  and  great  activity,  and  to  possess  a  power  of  voluntary 
motion,  going  and  coming  in  the  expanse  at  pleasure.  These  were  the  planets.  A  long  time 
would  pass  before  their  number  could  be  ascertained,  and  a  still  longer  before  it  could  be  dis- 
covered that  their  motions  were  periodical.  The  different  systems  of  the  ancient  philosophers  of 
Greece  and  other  countries,  from  their  errors  and  imperfections,  prove  that  this  must  have  been  the 
state  of  the  case.  During  this  period  of  ignorance  and  fear  arose  the  opinion,  that  they  influenced 
the  lot  of  man,  or  governed  this  sublunary  world ;  and  very  naturally  arose  the  opinion  that  they 
were  intelligent  beings.  And  as  they  appeared  to  be  constantly  advancing  towards  and  receding 
from  the  sun,  the  parent  of  life  and  comfort  to  the  world,  they  were  believed  to  be  his  ministers 
and  messengers.  As  they  began  in  some  instances  to  be  observed  to  return,  or  be  visible  in  the 
same  part  of  the  heavens,  they  would  naturally  be  supposed  by  the  terrified  barbarian  to  have 
duties  to  perform;  and  when  the  very  ancient  book  of  Job1  represents  the  morning  stars  to  have 
sung  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  to  have  shouted  for  joy,  it  probably  does  not  mean  to  use. 
merely  a  figurative  expression,  but  nearly  the  literal  purport  of  the  language. 

In  contemplating  the  host  of  heaven,  men  could  not  fail  soon  to  observe  that  the  fixed  stars 
were  in  a  particular  manner  connected  with  the  seasons— that  certain  groups  of  them  regularly 
returned  at  the  time  experience  taught  them  it  was  necessary  to  commence  their  seed-time  or 
their  harvest ;  but  that  the  planets,  though  in  some  degree  apparently  connected  with  the  seasons, 
were  by  no  means  so  intimately  and  uniformly  connected  with  them  as  the  stars.  This  would  be 
a  consequence  which  would  arise  from  the  long  periods  of  some  of  the  planets — Saturn,  for  instance. 
These  long  periods  of  some  of  the  planets  would  cause  the  shortness  of  the  periods  of  others  of 
them  to  be  overlooked,  and  would,  no  doubt,  have  the  effect  of  delaying  the  time  when  their 
periodical  revolutions  would  be  discovered;  perhaps  for  a  very  long  time  :  and,  in  the  interim,  the 
opinion  that  they  were  intelligent  agents  would  be  gaining  ground,  and  receiving  the  strengthening 
seal  of  superstition  ;  and,  if  a  priesthood  had  arisen,  the  fiat  of  orthodoxy. 

From  these  causes  we  find  that,  though  in  judicial  astrology  or  magic  the  stars  have  a  great 
influence,  yet  that  a  great  distinction  is  made  between  them  and  the  planetary  bodies  ;  and 
I  think  that,  by  a  minute  examination  of  the  remaining  astrological  nonsense  which  exists, 
the  distinction  would  be  found  to  be  justified,  and  the  probability  of  the  history  here  given 
confirmed. 

As  it  has  been  observed,  though  the  connexion  between  the  planets  and  the  seasons  was 
not  so  intimate  as  that  between  the  latter  and  the  stars,  yet  still  there  was  often  an  apparent 
connexion,  and  some  of  the  planets  would  be  observed  to  appear  when  particular  seasons  arrived, 
and  thus  after  a  certain  time  they  were  thought  to  be  beneficent  or  malevolent,  as  circumstances 
appeared  to  justify  the  observers'  conclusions. 

6.  Of  the  different  histories  of  the  creation,  that  contained  in  the  book,  or  collection  of  books, 


Chap,  xxxviii.  ver.  /• 


32  SUBJECT   OF   THE    PLANETS    CONTINUED. — THE    MOON. 

called  Genesis,  has  been  in  the  Western  parts  of  the  world  the  most  celebrated,  and  the  nonsense 
which  has  been  written  respecting  it,  may  fairly  vie  with  the  nonsense,  a  little  time  ago  alluded  to, 
of  the  ancient  learned  men  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

This  book  professes  to  commence  with  a  history  of  the  creation,  and  in  our  vulgar  translation 
it  says,  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth."  But  I  conceive  for  the 
word  heavens  the  word  planets  ought  to  be  substituted.  The  original  for  the  word  heavens  is 
of  great  consequence.  Parkhurst  admits  that  it  has  the  meaning  of  placers  or  disposers.  In  fact, 
it  means  the  planets  as  distinguished  from  the  fixed  stars,  and  is  the  foundation,  as  I  have  said, 
and  as  we  shall  find,  upon  which  all  judicial  astrology,  and  perhaps  much  of  the  Heathen  mytho- 
logy, was  built. 

After  man  came  to  distinguish  the  planets  from  the  stars,  and  had  allotted  them  to  the 
respective  days  of  the  week,  he  proceeded  to  give  them  names,  and  they  were  literally  the 
Dewtahs  of  India,  the  Archangels  of  the  Persians  and  Jews,  and  the  most  ancient  of  the  Gods  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  among  the  vulgar  of  whom  each  planet  had  a  name,  and  was  allotted  to, 
or  thought  to  be,  a  God. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  the  Gods  allotted  to  each  day :  Sunday  to  the  Sun,  Mon- 
day to  the  Moon,  Tuesday  to  Mars,  Wednesday  to  Mercury,  Thursday  to  Jupiter,  Friday  to 
Venus,  and  Saturday  to  Saturn  :  and  it  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  neither  Bacchus  nor  Her- 
cules is  among  them  ;  on  which  I  shall  have  an  observation  to  make  in  a  future  part  of  this  work. 
In  almost  every  page  we  shall  have  to  make  some  reference  to  judicial  astrology,  which  took  its 
rise  from  the  planetary  bodies. 

The  Sun,  I  think  I  s-hall  shew,  was  unquestionably  the  first  object  of  the  worship  of  all 
nations.  Contemporaneously  with  him  or  after  him  succeeded,  for  the  reasons  which  I  have  given, 
the  planets.  About  the  time  that  the  collection  of  planets  became  an  object  of  adoration,  the 
.Zodiac  was  probably  marked  out  from  among  the  fixed  stars,  as  we  find  it  in  the  earliest  supersti- 
tions of  the  astrologers.  Indeed,  the  worship  of  the  equinoctial  sun  in  the  sign  Taurus,  the  remains 
of  which  are  yet  found  in  our  May-day  festivals,  carries  it  back  at  least  for  4,500  years  before 
Christ .     How  much  further  back  the  system  may  be  traced,  I  pretend  not  to  say. 

7.  After  the  sun  and  planets  it  seems,  on  first  view,  probable  that  the  moon  would  occupy 
the  next  place  in  the  idolatrous  veneration  of  the  different  nations  ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  this  was  not  the  case.  Indeed,  I  very  much  doubt  whether  ever  he  or  she,  for  it  was  of  both 
genders,  was  an  object  of  adoration  at  all  in  the  very  early  periods.  I  think  it  would  be  dis- 
covered so  soon  that  its  motions  were  periodical,  that  there  would  be  scarcely  any  time  for  the 
error  to  happen ;  for  I  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that  it  should  have  been  thought  to  be  an  intel- 
ligent being  after  once  its  periodical  nature  was  discovered. 

This  doctrine  respecting  the  Moon  will  be  thought  paradoxical  and  absurd,  and  I  shall  be 
asked  what  I  make  of  the  goddess  Isis.  I  reply,  that  it  is  the  inconsistencies,  contradictions,  and 
manifest  ignorance  of  the  ancients  respecting  this  goddess,  which  induce  me  to  think  that  the 
Moon  never  was  an  object  of  worship  in  early  times ;  and  that  it  never  became  an  object  of 
adoration  till  comparatively  modern  times,  when  the  knowledge  of  the  ancient  mysteries  was  lost, 
and  not  only  the  knowledge  of  the  mysteries,  but  the  knowledge  of  the  religion  itself,  or  at  least 
of  its  origin  and  meaning,  were  lost.  The  least  attention  to  the  treatises  of  Plato,  Phornutus, 
Cicero,  Porphyry,  and,  in  short,  of  every  one  of  the  ancient  writers  on  the  subject  of  the  religion, 
must  convince  any  unprejudiced  person  that  they  either  were  all  completely  in  the  dark,  or  pre- 
tended to  be  so.     After  the  canaille  got  to  worshipping  onions,  crocodiles,  &c,  &c,  &c,  no  doubt 

1   Celtic  Druids,  p.  291. 


BOOK.  I.      CHAPTER  II.      SECTION   1.  33 

the  moon  came  in  for  a  share  of  their  adoration  ;  but  all  the  accounts  of  it  are  full  of  inconsistency 
and  contradiction  :  for  this  reason  I  think  it  was  of  late  invention,  and  that  Isis  was  not  originally 
the  moon,  but  the  mother  of  the  gods.  Many  other  reasons  for  this  opinion  will  be  given  in  the 
course  of  the  work,  when  I  come  to  treat  of  Isis  and  the  Moon. 


CHAPTER  II. 

FIRST   GOD  OF  THE   ANCIENTS. — THE   SUN. — DOUBLE  NATURE   OF   THE  DEITY. — METEMPSYCHOSIS   AND 
RENEWAL   OF  WORLDS. — MORAL   EVIL. — ETERNITY   OF   MATTER. — BUDDHA — GENESIS. 

1.  I  shall  now  proceed  to  shew,  in  a  way  which  I  think  I  may  safely  say  cannot  be  refuted, 
that  all  the  Gods  of  antiquity  resolved  themselves  into  the  solar  fire,  sometimes  itself  as  God,  or 
sometimes  as  emblem  or  shekinah  of  that  higher  principle,  known  by  the  name  of  the  creative 
Being  or  God.  But  first  I  must  make  a  few  observations  on  his  nature,  as  it  was  supposed  to 
exist  by  the  ancient  philosophers. 

On  the  nature  of  this  Being  or  God  the  ancient  oriental  philosophers  entertained  opinions 
which  took  their  rise  from  a  very  profound  and  recondite  course  of  reasoning,  (but  yet,  when  once 
put  in  train,  a  very  obvious  one,)  which  arose  out  of  the  relation  which  man  and  the  creation 
around  him  were  observed  by  them  to  bear,  to  their  supposed  cause — opinions  which,  though 
apparently  well  known  to  the  early  philosophers  of  all  nations,  seem  to  have  been  little  regarded 
or  esteemed  in  later  times,  even  if  known  to  them,  by  the  mass  of  mankind.  But  still  they  were 
opinions  which,  in  a  great  degree,  influenced  the  conduct  of  the  world  in  succeeding  ages  ; 
and  though  founded  in  truth  or  wisdom,  in  their  abuse  they  became  the  causes  of  great  evils  to 
the  human  race. 

The  opinions  here  alluded  to  are  of  so  profound  a  nature,  that  they  seem  to  bespeak  a  state 
of  the  human  mind  much  superior  to  any  thing  to  be  met  with  in  what  we  have  been  accustomed 
to  consider  or  call  ancient  times.  From  their  philosophical  truth  and  universal  reception  in  the 
world,  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  refer  them  to  the  authors  of  the  Neros,  or  to  that  enlightened  race, 
supposed  by  Mons.  Bailly  to  have  formerly  existed,  and  to  have  been  saved  from  a  great  catas- 
trophe on  the  Himmalah  mountains.  This  is  confirmed  by  an  observation  which  the  reader  will 
make  in  the  sequel,  that  these  doctrines  have  been  like  all  the  other  doctrines  of  antiquity, 
gradually  corrupted — incarnated,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  compose  a  word  for  the  occasion. 

Sublime  philosophical  truths  or  attributes  have  become  clothed  with  bodies  and  converted 
into  living  creatures.  Perhaps  this  might  take  its  origin  from  a  wish  in  those  professing  them  to 
conceal  them  from  the  vulgar  eye,  but  the  cause  being  forgotten,  all  ranks  in  society  at  last 
came  to  understand  them  in  the  literal  sense,  their  real  character  being  lost;  or  perhaps  this 
incarnation  might  arise  from  a  gradual  falling  away  of  mankind  from  a  high  state  of  civilization,  at 
which  it  must  have  arrived  when  those  doctrines  were  discovered,  into  a  state  of  ignorance, — the 
produce  of  revolutions,  or  perhaps  merely  of  the  great  law  of  change  which  in  all  nature  seems  to 
be  eternally  in  operation. 

2.  The  human  animal,  like  all  other  animals,  is  in  his  mode  of  existence  very  much  the  child 
of  accident,  circumstance,  habit :  as  he  is  moulded  in  his  youth  he  generally  continues.  This  is 
in  nothing,  perhaps,  better  exemplified  than  in  the  use  of  his  right  hand.     From  being  carried  in 

F 


34  MAN   THE   CHILD   OF    CIRCUMSTANCE. 

the  right  arm  of  his  nurse,  his  right  hand  is  set  at  liberty  for  action  and  use,  while  his  left  is  at 
rest:  the  habit  of  using  the  right  hand  in  preference  to  the  left  is  thus  acquired  and  never  for- 
gotten. A  similar  observation  applies  to  the  mind.  To  natural  causes  leading  men  to  peculiar 
trains  or  habits  of  thinking  or  using  the  mind,  may  be  traced  all  the  recondite  theories  which  we 
find  among  the  early  races  of  man.  If  to  causes  of  this  kind  they  are  not  to  be  ascribed,  I  should 
be  glad  to  know  where  their  origins  are  to  be  looked  for.  If  they  be  not  in  these  causes  to  be 
found,  we  must  account  for  them  by  inventing  a  history  of  the  adventures  of  some  imagined 
human  being,  after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks  and  many  others,  whose  priests  never  had  a  difficulty, 
always  having  a  fable  ready  for  the  amusement  of  their  credulous  votaries. 

In  opposition  to  this,  I,  perhaps,  may  be  asked,  why  the  inhabitants  of  the  new  world  have 
not  arrived  at  the  high  degree  of  civilization, — at  the  same  results,  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  old  ? 
The  answer  is,  Accident  or  circumstances  being  at  first  different,  they  have  been  led  to  a  different 
train  of  acting  or  thinking ;  and  if  they  branched  off  from  the  parent  stock  in  very  early  times, 
accident  or  circumstances  being  after  their  separation  different,  are  quite  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  difference  of  the  results.  It  seems  probable,  that  from  their  knowledge  of  figures  and  their 
ignorance  of  letters,  they  must  have  branched  off  in  a  very  remote  period.  Although  the  peculiar 
circumstance,  that  few  or  none  of  the  animals  of  the  old  world  were  found  in  the  new  one,  or  of 
the  animals  of  the  new  one  in  the  old,  seems  to  shew  a  separate  formation  of  the  animal  creation ; 
yet  the  identity  of  many  of  the  religious  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  two  worlds, 
and  other  circumstances  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Faber  and  different  writers,  seem  to  bespeak  only  one 
formation  or  creation  of  man. 

The  rise  of  the  doctrine  respecting  the  nature  of  God  named  above,  is  said  to  be  lost  in  the 
most  remote  antiquity.  This  may  be  true ;  but  perhaps  a  little  consideration  will  enable  us  to 
point  out  the  natural  cause  from  which,  as  I  have  observed,  it  had  its  origin.  Like  the  discovery 
of  figures  or  arithmetic,  the  septennial  cycle,  &c,  it  probably  arose  among  the  first  philosophers 
or  searchers  after  wisdom,  from  their  reflecting  upon  the  objects  which  presented  themselves  to 
their  observation. 

3.  That  the  sun  was  the  first  object  of  the  adoration  of  mankind,  I  apprehend,  is  a  fact,  which 
I  shall  be  able  to  place  beyond  the  reach  of  reasonable  doubt.  An  absolute  proof  of  this  fact  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  put  it  out  of  our  power  to  produce  j  but  it  is  supported  by  reason  and 
common  sense,  and  by  the  traditions  of  all  nations,  when  carefully  examined  to  their  foundations. 
The  allegorical  accounts  or  my thoses l  of  different  countries,  the  inventions  of  an  advanced  state  of 
society,  inasmuch  as  they  are  really  only  allegorical  accounts  or  mythoses,  operate  nothing 
against  this  doctrine. 

When,  after  ages  of  ignorance  and  error,  man  became  in  some  degree  civilized,  and  he 
turned  his  mind  to  a  close  contemplation  of  the  fountain  of  light  and  life — of  the  celestial  fire — he 
would  observe  among  the  earliest  discoveries  which  he  would  make,  that  by  its  powerful  agency 
all  nature  was  called  into  action ;  that  to  its  return  in  the  spring  season  the  animal  and  vegetable 
creation  were  indebted  for  their  increase  as  well  as  for  their  existence.  It  is  probable  that  for  this 
reason  chiefly  the  sun,  in  early  times,  was  believed  to  be  the  creator,  and  became  the  first  object 
of  adoration.     This  seems  to  be  only  a  natural  effect  of  such  a  cause.     After  some  time  it  would 

1  This  is  nothing  against  the  Mosaic  account,  because  it  is  allowed  by  all  philosophers,  as  well  as  most  of  the  early 
Jews  and  Christian  fathers,  to  contain  a  mythos  or  an  allegory — by  Philo,  Josephus,  Papias,  Pantsenus,  Irenaeus, 
Clemens  Alex.,  Origen,  the  two  Gregories  of  Nyssa  and  Nazianzen,  Jerome,  Ambrose,  Spencer  de  Legibus  Hebraeorum, 
Alexander  Geddes,  the  Romish  translator  of  the  Bible,  in  the  Preface  and  Critical  Remarks,  p.  49.  See  also  Marsh's 
Lectures,  &c,  &c.    Of  this  I  shall  say  more  hereafter. 


BOOK  I.      CHAPTER    II.     SECTION   3.  35 

be  discovered  that  this  powerful  and  beneficent  agent,  the  solar  fire,  was  the  most  potent  destroyer, 
and  hence  would  arise  the  first  idea  of  a  Creator  and  Destroyer  united  in  the  same  person.  But 
much  time  would  not  elapse  before  it  must  have  been  observed,  that  the  destruction  caused  by 
this  powerful  being  was  destruction  only  in  appearance,  that  destruction  was  only  reproduction  in 
another  form — regeneration ;  that  if  he  appeared  sometimes  to  destroy,  he  constantly  repaired  the 
injury  which  he  seemed  to  occasion — and  that,  without  his  light  and  heat,  every  thing  would 
dwindle  away  into  a  cold,  inert,  unprolific  mass.'  Thus  at  once,  in  the  same  being,  became 
concentrated,  the  creating,  the  preserving,  and  the  destroying  powers, — the  latter  of  the  three 
being,  at  the  same  time,  both  the  destroyer  and  regenerator.  Hence,  by  a  very  natural  and 
obvious  train  of  reasoning,  arose  the  creator,  the  preserver,  and  the  destroyer — in  India,  Brahma, 
Vishnu,  and  Siva  ;  in  Persia,  Oromasdes,  Mithra,  and  Arimanius ;  in  Egypt,  Osiris,  Neith,  and 
Typhon:  in  each  case  Three  Persons  and  one  God.  And  thus  arose  the  Trimurti,  or  the  celebrated 
Trinity.  On  this  Mr.  Payne  Knight  says,  "  The  hypostatical  division  and  essential  unity  of  the 
"  Deity  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  parts  of  this  system,  and  the  farthest  removed  from 
"  common  sense  and  reason :  and  yet  this  is  perfectly  reasonable  and  consistent,  if  considered 
"  together  with  the  rest  of  it,  for  the  emanations  and  personifications  were  only  figurative  abstrac- 
"  tions  of  particular  modes  of  action  and  existence,  of  which  the  primary  cause  and  original  essence 
"  still  continued  one  and  the  same.  The  three  hypostases  being  thus  only  one  being,  each 
"  hypostasis  is  occasionally  taken  for  all,  as  is  the  case  in  the  passage  of  Apuleius  before  cited, 
"  where  Isis  describes  herself  as  the  universal  deity."2 

The  sun  himself,  in  his  corporeal  and  visible  form  of  a  globe  of  fire,  I  do  not  doubt  was,  for  a 
long  time,  the  sole  trinity.  And  it  would  not  be  till  after  ages  of  speculation  and  philosophizing  that 
man  would  raise  his  mind  to  a  more  pure  trinity,  or  to  a  trinity  of  abstractions, — a  trinity  which 
would  probably  never  have  existed  in  his  imagination  if  he  had  not  first  had  the  more  gross  corpo- 
real igneous  trinity,  with  its  effects,  for  its  prototype,  to  lead  him  to  the  more  refined  and  sublime 
doctrine,  in  which  the  corporeal  and  igneous  trinity  gave  way  among  philosophers  to  one  of  a  more 
refined  kind ;  or  to  a  system  of  abstractions,  or  of  attributes,  or  of  emanations,  from  a  superior 
being,  the  creator  and  preserver  of  the  sun  himself. 

It  has  been  said  in  reply  to  this,  Then  this  fundamental  doctrine  on  which,  in  fact,  all  the  future 
religion  and  philosophy  of  the  world  was  built,  you  attribute  to  accident !  The  word  accident 
means,  by  us  unseen  or  unknown  cause ;  but  I  suppose,  that  when  an  intelligent  Being  was  esta- 
blishing the  present  order  of  the  universe,  he  must  know  how  the  unseen  cause  or  accident  which 
he  provided  would  operate, — this  accident  or  unseen  cause  being  only  a  link  in  a  chain,  the  first 
link  of  which  begins,  and  the  last  of  which  ends,  in  God. 

That  the  sublime  doctrine  of  emanations,  or  abstractions  as  it  was  called,  above  alluded  to, 
prevailed  among  the  oriental  nations,  cannot  be  doubted ;  but  yet  there  may  be  a  doubt  whether 
they  were  ever  entirely  free  from  an  opinion  that  the  creative  Deity  consisted  of  a  certain  very 
refined  substance,  similar,  if  not  the  same,  as  the  magnetic,  galvanic,  or  electric  fluid.  This  was 
the  opinion  of  all  the  early  Christian  fathers,  as  well,  I  think,  as  of  the  Grecians.  But  still,  I 
think,  certain  philosophers  arose  above  this  kind  of  materialism,  among  whom  must  have  been  the 
Buddhists  and  Brahmins  of  India ;  but  of  this  we  shall  see  more  in  the  sequel.  We  shall  find  this 
a  most  difficult  question  to  decide. 

1  Described  in  Genesis  by  the  words  lroi  inn  t'eu-u-b'eu,  which  mean  a  mass  of  matter  effete,  unproductive,  unpro- 
lific, ungenerating,  and  itself  devoid  of  the  beautiful  forms  of  the  animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral  kingdoms, — the  mud 
or  lXvt;  of  Sanchoniathon.    The  words  of  our  Bible,  as  here  used,  without  form  and  void,  have  not  any  meaning. 

s  Knight,  p.  163. 

F  2 


36  THE    SUN    THE    FIRST   OBJECT    OF   ADORATION. 

4.  The  Trinity  described  above,  and  consisting  of  abstractions  or  emanations  from  the  divine 
nature,  will  be  found  exemplified  in  the  following  work  in  a  vast  variety  of  ways ;  but  in  all,  the 
first  principle  will  be  found  at  the  bottom  of  them.  I  know  nothing  in  the  works  of  the  ancient 
philosophers  which  can  be  brought  against  them  except  a  passage  or  two  of  Plato,  and  one  of 
Numenius,  according  to  Proclus. 

Plato  says,  "  When,  therefore,  that  God,  who  is  a  perpetually  reasoning  divinity,  cogitated 
"  about  the  god  who  was  destined  to  subsist  at  some  certain  period  of  time,  he  produced  his  body 
"  smooth  and  equable ;  and  every  way  from  the  middle  even  and  whole,  and  perfect  from  the 
"  composition  of  perfect  bodies."  l 

Again  Plato  says,  "  And  on  all  these  accounts  he  rendered  the  universe  a  happy  God." 2 
Again  he  says  "  But  he  fabricated  the  earth,  the  common  nourisher  of  our  existence  ;  which  being 
"  conglobed  about  the  pole,  extended  through  the  universe,  is  the  guardian  and  artificer  of  night 
"  and  day  and  is  the  first  and  most  ancient  of  the  gods  which  are  generated  within  the  heavens. 
"  But  the  harmonious  progressions  of  these  divinities,  their  concussions  with  each  other,  the  revo- 
**  lution6  and  advancing  motions  of  their  circles,  how  they  are  situated  with  relation  to  each  other 
"  in  their  conjunctions  and  oppositions,  whether  direct  among  themselves  or  retrograde,  at  what 
"  times  and  in  what  manner  they  become  concealed,  and,  again  emerging  to  our  view,  cause 
"  terror  and  exhibit  tokens  of  future  events  to  such  as  are  able  to  discover  their  signification ;  of 
"  all  this  to  attempt  an  explanation,  without  suspecting  the  resemblances  of  these  divinities, 
"  would  be  a  fruitless  employment.  But  of  this  enough,  and  let  this  be  the  end  of  our  discourse 
"  concerning  the  nature  of  the  visible  and  generated  gods."  * 

How  from  these  passages  any  ingenuity  can  make  out  that  Plato  maintained  a  trinity  of  the 
Sun,  the  Moon,  and  the  Earth,  as  the  Supreme  God  or  the  Creator,  I  do  not  know,  and  I  should 
not  have  thought  of  noticing  them  if  I  had  not  seen  an  attempt  lately  made  in  a  work  not  yet 
published,  to  depreciate  the  sublime  doctrines  of  the  ancients  by  deducing  from  these  passages 
that  consequence. 

The  other  passage  is  of  Numenius  the  Pythagorean,  recorded  by  Proclus,  who  says  that  he 
taught,  that  the  world  was  the  third  God,  o  yaq  xoa-^og  xolt  aorov  o  rqirog  etrri  Qeog.4 

This  is  evidently  nothing  but  the  hearsay  of  hearsay  evidence,  and  can  only  shew  that  these 
doctrines,  like  all  the  other  mythoses,  had  become  lost  or  doubtful  to  the  Greeks.  The  latter 
quotation  of  this  obscure  author  will  be  found  undeserving  of  attention,  when  placed  in  opposition 
to  the  immense  mass  of  evidence  which  will  be  produced  in  this  work.  And  as  for  the  passage  of 
Plato,  I  think  few  persons  will  allow  it  to  have  any  weight,  when  in  like  manner  every  construc- 
tion of  it  is  found  to  be  directly  in  opposition  to  his  other  doctrines,  as  my  reader  will  soon  see.4 

5.  The  doctrine  as  developed  above  by  me,  is  said  to  be  too  refined  for  the  first  race  of  men. 
Beautifully  refined  it  certainly  is  :  but  my  reader  will  recollect  that  I  do  not  suppose  that  man 
arrived  at  these  results  till  after  many  generations  of  ignorance,  and  till  after  probably  almost 
innumerable  essays  of  absurdity  and  folly.     But  I  think  if  the  matter  be  well  considered,  the  Pan- 

1  Plato's  Tim.,  Taylor,  p.  483.  *  Ibid.  p.  484.  3  Ibid.  p.  499,  500. 

*  Comment,  in  Tim.  of  Plat.  II.  93. 

*  In  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  2nd  book  of  Arch.  Phil,  by  Thomas  Burnet,  who  was  among  the  very  first  of  modern 
philosophers,  may  be  seen  an  elaborate  and  satisfactory  proof  that  the  ancient  philosophers  constantly  held  two  doc- 
trines, one  for  the  learned,  and  one  for  the  vulgar.  He  supports  his  proofs  by  an  example  from  Jamblicus  and  Laer- 
tius,  relative  to  some  notions  of  Pythagoras,  which  accorded  with  the  vulgar  opinion  of  the  Heavens,  but  which  were 
contrary  to  his  keal  opinions.  He  has  completely  justified  the  ancients  from  the  attempts  of  certain  of  the  moderns 
to  fix  upon  them  their  simulated  opinions.  The  fate  of  Socrates  furnishes  an  admirable  example  of  what  would 
happen  to  those  who  in  ancient  times  taught  true  doctrines  to  the  vulgar,  or  attempted  to  draw  aside  the  veil  of  Isis. 


BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  6.  37 

theistic  scheme  (for  it  is  a  part  of  a  pantheism)  of  making  the  earth  the  creator  of  all,  will  require 
much  more  refinement  of  mind  than  the  doctrine  of  attributing  the  creation  to  the  sun.  The  first 
is  an  actual  refinement  run  into  corruption,  similar  to  Bishop  Berkley's  doctrine, — refinement, 
indeed,  carried  to  a  vicious  excess,  carried  to  such  an  excess  as  to  return  to  barbarism ;  similar, 
for  instance,  to  what  took  place  in  the  latter  ages  of  Greece  and  Rome  in  the  fine  arts,  when  the 
beautiful  Ionic  and  Corinthian  orders  of  architecture  were  deserted  for  the  Composite. 

We  may  venture,  I  think,  to  presume  that  adoration  must  first  have  arisen  either  from  fear 
or  admiration ;  in  fact,  from  feeling.  As  an  object  of  feeling,  the  sun  instantly  offers  himself. 
The  effect  arising  from  the  daily  experience  of  his  beneficence,  does  not  seem  to  be  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  wear  away  by  use,  as  is  the  case  with  most  feelings  of  this  kind.  He  obtrudes  himself  on 
our  notice  in  every  way.  But  what  is  there  in  the  earth  on  which  we  tread,  and  which  is  nothing 
without  the  sun,  which  should  induce  the  half- civilized  man  to  suppose  it  an  active  agent — to  sup- 
pose that  it  created  itself  ?  He  would  instantly  see  that  it  was,  in  itself,  to  all  appearance  inn 
t'eu,  irD)  ub'eu,1  an  inert,  dead,  unprolific  mass.  And  it  must,  I  think,  have  required  an  exertion 
of  metaphysical  subtlety,  infinitely  greater  than  my  trinity  must  have  required,  to  arrive  at  a 
pantheism  so  completely  removed  from  the  common  apprehension  of  the  human  understanding. 
In  my  oriental  theory,  every  thing  is  natural  and  seductive;  in  the  other,  every  thing  is  unnatural 
and  repulsive. 

My  learned  friend  who  advocates  this  degrading  scheme  of  Pantheism  against  my  sublime 
and  intellectual  theory,  acknowledges  what  cannot  be  denied,  that  the  doctrines  held  in  these  two 
passages  of  Numenius  and  Plato,  are  directly  at  variance  with  their  philosophy  as  laid  down  in  all 
their  other  works.  Under  these  circumstances,  I  think  I  may  safely  dismiss  them  without  further 
observation,  as  passages  misunderstood,  or  contrivances  to  conceal  their  real  opinions. 

6.  Of  equal  or  nearly  equal  date,  and  almost  equally  disseminated  throughout  the  world  with 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  was  that  of  the  Hermaphroditic  or  Androgynous  character  of  the  Deity. 
Man  could  not  help  observing  and  meditating  upon  the  difference  of  the  sexes.  He  was  conscious 
that  he  himself  was  the  highest  in  rank  of  all  creatures  of  which  he  had  any  knowledge,  and  he 
very  properly  and  very  naturally,  as  far  as  was  in  his  power,  made  God  after  the  being  of  highest 
rank  known  to  him,  after  himself;  thus  it  might  be  said,  that  in  his  own  image,  in  idea,  made  he 
his  God.  But  of  what  sex  was  this  God  ?  To  make  him  neuter,  supposing  man  to  have  become 
grammarian  enough  to  have  invented  a  neuter  gender,  was  to  degrade  him  to  the  rank  of  a  stone. 
To  make  him  female  was  evidently  more  analogous  to  the  general  productive  and  prolific  characters 
of  the  author  of  the  visible  creation.  To  make  him  masculine,  was  still  more  analogous  to  man's 
own  person,  and  to  his  superiority  over  the  female,  the  weaker  vessel;  but  still  this  was  attended 
with  many  objections.  From  a  consideration  of  all  these  circumstances,  an  union  of  the  two 
was  adopted,  and  he  was  represented  as  being  Androgynous. 

Notwithstanding  what  1  have  said  in  my  last  paragraph  respecting  the  degradation  of  making 
God  of  the  neuter  gender,  I  am  of  opinion  that  had  a  neuter  gender  been  known  it  would  have 
been  applied  to  the  Deity,  and  for  that  reason  would  have  been  accounted,  of  the  three  genders, 
the  most  honourable.  For  this,  among  other  reasons,  if  I  find  any  very  ancient  language  which 
has  not  a  neuter  gender,  I  shall  be  disposed  to  consider  it  to  be  probably  among  the  very  oldest 
of  the  languages  of  the  world.    This  observation  will  be  of  importance  hereafter. 

7-  Of  all  the  different  attributes  of  the  Creator,  or  faculties  conferred  by  him  on  his  creature, 
there  is  no  one  so  striking  or  so  interesting  to  a  reflecting  person  as  that  of  the  generative  power. 


1  Gen.  chap.  i. 


38  IMMORTALITY    OF   THE    SOUL    AND    MORAL    EVIL. 

This  is  the  most  incomprehensible  and  mysterious  of  the  powers  of  nature.  When  all  the  adjuncts 
or  accidents  of  every  kind  so  interesting  to  the  passions  and  feelings  of  man  are  considered,  it  is 
not  wonderful  that  this  subject  should  be  found  in  some  way  or  other  to  have  a  place  among  the 
first  of  the  human  superstitions.  Thus  every  where  we  find  it  accompanying  the  triune  God,  called 
Trimurti  or  Trinity,  just  described,  under  the  very  significant  form  of  the  single  obelisk  or  stone- 
pillar,  denominated  the  Lingham  or  Phallus,"  and  the  equally  significant  Yoni  or  Cteis,  the  female 
organ  of  generation  :  sometimes  single,  often  in  conjunction.  The  origin  of  the  worship  of  this 
object  is  discussed  at  large  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  and  will  be  found  in  the  index  by  reference  to  the 
words  Phallus,  Linga,  Lithoi. 

8.  The  next  step  after  man  had  once  convinced  himself  of  the  existence  of  a  God  would  be,  I 
think,  to  discover  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Long  before  he  arrived  at  this 
point,  he  must  have  observed,  and  often  attempted  to  account  for,  the  existence  of  moral  evil. 
How  to  reconcile  this  apparent  blot  in  the  creation  to  the  beneficence  of  an  all-powerful  Creator, 
would  be  a  matter  of  great  difficulty  :  he  had  probably  recourse  to  the  only  contrivance  which  was 
open  to  him,  a  contrivance  to  which  he  seems  to  have  been  driven  by  a  wise  dispensation  of  Pro- 
vidence, the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  of  existence,  where  the  ills  of  this  world  would  find  a  remedy, 
and  the  accounts  of  good  and  evil  be  balanced  j  where  the  good  man  would  receive  his  reward, 
and  the  bad  one  his  punishment.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  probable  result  of  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  existence  of  evil  by  the  profound  primeval  oriental  philosophers,  who  first  invented 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

9.  Other  considerations  would  lend  their  assistance  to  produce  the  same  result.  After  man 
had  discovered  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  metempsychosis  followed  the  doc- 
trine of  the  reproduction  or  regeneration  by  the  third  person  of  the  triune  God,  by  a  very  natural 
process,  as  the  doctrine  of  the  triune  God  had  before  arisen  by  an  easy  process  from  the  consider- 
ation by  man  of  the  qualities  of  the  beings  around  him.  Everywhere,  throughout  all  nature,  the 
law  that  destruction  was  reproduction  appeared  to  prevail.  This  united  to  the  natural  fondness 
for  immortality,  of  which  every  human  being  is  conscious,  led  to  the  conclusion,  that  man,  the 
elite  of  the  creation,  could  not  be  excepted  from  the  general  rule;  that  he  did  but  die  to  live  again, 
to  be  regenerated ;  a  consciousness  of  his  own  frailty  gradually  caused  a  belief,  that  he  was  rege- 
nerate in  some  human  body  or  the  body  of  some  animal  as  a  punishment  for  his  offences,  until  by 
repeated  penances  of  this  kind,  his  soul  had  paid  the  forfeit  of  the  crimes  of  its  first  incarnation, 
had  become  purified  from  all  stain,  and  in  a  state  finally  to  be  absorbed  into  the  celestial  influence, 
or  united  to  the  substance  of  the  Creator.  As  it  happens  in  every  sublunary  concern,  the  law  of 
change  corrupted  these  simple  principles  in  a  variety  of  ways ;  and  we  find  the  destroyer  made 
into  a  demon  or  devil,  at  war  with  the  Preserver  or  with  the  Creator.  Hence  arose  the  doctrine  of 
the  two  principles  opposed  to  each  other,  of  Oromasdes  and  Arimanius  in  perpetual  war,  typified 
by  the  higher  and  lower  hemisphere  of  the  earth,  of  winter  and  summer,  of  light  and  darkness, 
as  we  shall  find  developed  in  a  variety  of  ways.  What  could  be  so  natural  as  to  allot  to  the 
destroyer  the  lower  hemisphere  of  cold  and  darkness,  of  winter,  misery,  and  famine  ?  What  so 
natural  as  to  allot  to  the  beneficent  Preserver  the  upper  hemisphere  of  genial  warmth,  of  summer, 
happiness,  and  plenty  ?  Hence  came  the  festivals  of  the  equinoxes  and  of  the  solstices,  much  of 
the  complicated  machinery  of  the  heathen  mythology,  and  of  judicial  astrology. 

From  similar  trains  of  reasoning  arose  the  opinion  that  every  thing  in  nature,  even  the  world 
itself,  was  subject  to  periodical  changes,  to  alternate  destructions  and  renovations — an  opinion, 


1  Religion  de  1' Antiquity  par  Cruizer,  Notes,  Introd.  p.  525. 


BOOK    I.    CHAPTER    II.    SECTION    11.  39 

perhaps,  for  sublimity  not  to  be  equalled  in  the  history  of  the  different  philosophical  systems  of 
the  world,  the  only  doctrine  which  seemed,  in  the  opinion  of  the  ancients,  to  be  capable  of 
reconciling  the  existence  of  evil  with  the  goodness  of  God. 

10.  A  little  time  ago  I  said,  that  the  first  philosophers  could  not  account  for  the  existence  of 
moral  evil  without  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  I  am  induced  to  make  another 
observation  upon  this  subject  before  I  leave  it.  In  the  modern  Christian  system,  this  difficulty 
has  been  overcome,  as  most  theological  difficulties  usually  are,  among  devotees,  by  a  story.  In 
this  case  by  a  story  of  a  serpent  and  a  fruit  tree,  of  which  I  shall  not  here  give  my  opinion,  except 
that,  like  most  of  the  remainder  of  Genesis,  it  was  anciently  held  to  have  an  allegorical  meaning, 
and,  secondly,  that  I  cannot  do  Moses  the  injustice  of  supposing  that  he,  like  the  modern  priests, 
could  have  meant  it,  at  least  by  the  higher  classes  of  his  followers,  to  be  believed  literally. 

Moral  evil  is  a  relative  term ;  its  correlative  is  moral  good.  Without  evil  there  is  no  good ; 
without  good  there  is  no  evil.  There  is  no  such  thing  known  to  us  as  good  or  evil  per  se.  Here 
I  must  come  to  Mr.  Locke's  fine  principle,  so  often  quoted  by  me  in  my  former  book,  the  truth  of 
which  has  been  universally  acknowledged,  and  to  which,  in  their  reasoning,  all  men  seem  to  agree 
in  forgetting  to  pay  attention, — that  we  know  nothing  except  through  the  medium  of  our  senses, 
which  is  experience.  We  have  no  experience  of  moral  good  or  of  moral  evil  except  as  relative 
and  correlative  to  one  another ;  therefore,  we  are  with  respect  to  them  as  we  are  with  respect  to 
God.  Though  guided  by  experience  we  confidently  believe  their  existence  in  this  qualified  form, 
yet  of  their  nature,  independent  of  one  another,  we  can  know  nothing.  God  having  created  man 
subject  to  one,  he  could  not,  without  changing  his  nature,  exclude  the  other.  All  this  the  ancients 
seem  to  have  known  ;  and,  in  order  to  account  for  and  remove  several  difficulties,  they  availed 
themselves  of  the  metempsychosis,  a  renewal  of  worlds,  and  the  final  absorption  of  the  soul  or  the 
thinking  principle  into  the  Divine  substance,  from  which  it  was  supposed  to  have  emanated,  and 
-where  it  was  supposed  to  enjoy  that  absolute  and  uncorrelative  beatitude,  of  which  man  can  form 
no  idea.  This  doctrine  is  very  sublime,  and  is  such  as  we  may  reasonably  expect  from  the  school 
where  Pythagoras  studied  ;  i  but  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  it  removes  all  difficulties,  or  is  itself 
free  from  difficulty.  But  absolute  perfection  can  be  expected  only  by  priests  who  can  call  to  their 
aid  apples  of  knowledge.  Philosophers  must  content  themselves  with  something  less.  Of  the 
great  variety  of  sects  or  religions  in  the  world  there  is  not  one,  if  the  priests  of  each  may  be  be- 
lieved, in  which  any  serious  difficulties  of  this  kind  are  found. 

11.  Modern  divines,  a  very  sensitive  race,  have  been  much  shocked  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
ancients,  that  nothing  could  be  created  from  nothing,  ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit.  This  is  a  subject  well 
deserving  consideration.  The  question  arises  how  did  the  ancients  acquire  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  of  this  proposition.  Had  they  any  positive  experience  that  matter  was  not  made  from 
nothing  ?  I  think  they  had  not.  Then  how  could  they  have  any  knowledge  on  the  subject  ?  As 
they  had  received  no  knowledge  through  the  medium  of  the  senses,  that  is  from  experience,  it  was 
rash  and  unphilosophical  to  come  to  any  conclusion. 

The  ancients  may  have  reasoned  from  analogy.  They  may  have  said,  Our  experience  teaches 
that  every  thing  which  we  perceive  has  pre-existed  before  the  moment  we  perceive  it,  therefore 
it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  it  must  always  have  existed.    A  most  hasty  conclusion.     All  that 

1  Carmel,  close  to  the  residence  of  Melchizedek,  where  was  the  temple  of  Iao,  without  image.  See  Jamblicus, 
chap,  iii.,  Taylor's  translation.  When  I  formed  the  table  of  additional  errata  to  my  Celtic  Druids,  I  had  forgotten 
where  I  found  the  fact  here  named  relating  to  the  residence  of  Pythagoras,  which  caused  the  expression  of  the  doubt 
which  may  be  seen  there  respecting  it. 


40  ETERNITY  OF  MATTER  AND  RENEWAL  OF  WORLDS. 

they  could  fairly  conclude  was,  that,  for  any  thing  which  they  knew  to  the  contrary,  it  may  have 
existed  from  eternity,  not  that  it  must  have  existed.     But  this  amounts  not  to  knowledge. 

Are  the  modern  priests  any  wiser  than  the  ancient  philosophers  ?  Have  they  any  know- 
ledge from  experience  of  matter  having  ever  been  created  from  nothing  ?  I  think  they  have  not.' 
Then  how  can  they  conclude  that  it  was  created  from  nothing  ?  They  cannot  know  any  thing 
about  it ;  they  are  in  perfect  ignorance. 

If  matter  have  always  existed,  I  think  we  may  conclude  that  it  will  always  exist.  But  if  it  have 
not  always  existed,  will  it  always  continue  to  exist  ?  I  think  we  may  conclude  it  to  be  probable 
that  it  will.  For  if  it  have  not  always  existed  it  must  have  been  created  (as  I  will  assume)  by  God. 
God  would  not  create  any  thing  which  was  not  good.  He  will  not  destroy  any  thing  that  is  good. 
He  is  not  changeable  or  repents  what  he  has  done :  therefore  he  will  not  destroy  the  matter  which  he 
has  created.  From  which  we  may  conclude,  that  the  change  of  form  which  we  see  daily  taking  place 
is  periodical ;  at  least  there  is  in  favour  of  this  what  the  Jesuits  would  call  a  probable  opinion  ; 
and  this  brings  us  to  the  alternate  creations  and  destructions  of  the  ancients.  A  learned  philoso- 
pher says,  "  The  bold  and  magnificent  idea  of  a  creation  from  nothing  was  reserved  for  the  more 
"  vigorous  faith  and  more  enlightened  minds  of  the  moderns,  who  seek  no  authority  to  confirm 
"  their  belief;  for  as  that  which  is  self-evident  admits  of  no  proof,  so  that  which  is  in  itself  impos- 
"  sible  admits  of  no  refutation."8 

This  doctrine  of  the  renewal  of  worlds,  held  by  the  ancient  philosophers,  has  received  a 
great  accession  of  probability  from  the  astronomical  discoveries  of  La  Place,  who  has  demon- 
strated, that  certain  motions  of  the  planetary  bodies  which  appeared  to  Newton  to  be  irregular, 
and  to  portend  at  some  future  period  the  destruction  of  the  solar  system,  are  all  periodical,  and 
that  after  certain  immensely  elongated  cycles  are  finished,  every  thing  returns  again  to  its 
former  situation.  The  ancient  philosophers  of  the  East  had  a  knowledge  of  this  doctrine,  the 
general  nature  of  which  they  might  have  acquired  by  reasoning  similar  to  the  above,  or  by  the 
same  means  by  which  they  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Neros. 

This  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  doctrine  of  a  future  judgment  and  a  state  of  reward  and 
punishment  in  another  world.  Why  should  not  the  soul  transmigrate,  and  after  the  day  of  judg- 
ment (a  figure)  live  again  in  the  next  world  in  some  new  body  ?  Here  are  all  the  leading  doctrines 
of  the  ancients.  I  see  nothing  in  them  absurd — nothing  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes  of  God 
— and  nothing  contrary  even  to  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  It  has  been  thought  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  pre-existence  of  souls  may  be  found  in  the  New  Testament. 

Many  of  the  early  fathers  of  the  Christians  held  the  doctrine  of  the  Metempsychosis,  which 
they  defended  on  several  texts  of  the  New  Testament.3  It  was  an  opinion  which  had  a  very 
general  circulation  both  in  the  East  and  in  the  West.  It  was  held  by  the  Pharisees  or  Persees,  as 
they  ought  to  be  called,  among  the  Jews  ;  and  among  the  Christians  by  Origen,4  Chalcidius,  (if  he 
were  a  Christian,)  Synesius,  and  by  the  Simonians,  Basilidians,  Valentiniens,  Marcionites,  and  the 
Gnostics  in  general.  It  was  held  by  the  Chinese,  and,  among  the  most  learned  of  the  Greeks,  by 
Plato  and  Pythagoras.  Thus  this  doctrine  was  believed  by  nearly  all  the  great  and  good  of  every 
religion,  and  of  every  nation  and  age;  and  though  the  present  race  has  not  the  smallest  information 
more  than  its  ancestors  on  this  subject,  yet  the  doctrine  has  not  now  a  single  votary  in  the  Western 
part  of  the  world.  The  Metempsychosis  was  believed  by  the  celebrated  Christian  apologist, 
Soame  Jenyns,  perhaps  the  only  believer  in  it  of  the  moderns  in  the  Western  parts. 

1  The  book  of  Genesis,  when  properly  translated,  says  nothing  on  the  subject. 

8  Knight,  p.  131.  3  Beausobre,  Hist.  Munich.  L.  vii.  c.  v.  p.  491.  4  lb.  p.  492. 


BOOK  I.    OHAP.  II.    SECT.   12.  41 

The  following  observations  tend  not  only  to  throw  light  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Indians,  the 
earliest  philosophers  of  whom  we  have  any  genuine  records,  but  they  also  shew  that  their  doctrine 
is  identically  the  same  as  that  of  certain  individuals  of  the  Western  philosophers,  who,  recorded 
traditions  inform  us,  actually  travelled  in  very  remote  ages  to  the  country  of  the  Brahmins  to 
learn  it. 

"  Pythagoras,    returning    from  his  Eastern  travels    to  Greece,    taught    the  doctrine   of    the 
"  Metempsychosis,  and  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being,  by  whom  the  universe  was  created,  and 
"  by  whose  providence  it  is  preserved ;  that  the  souls  of  mankind  are  emanations  of  that  Being. 
"  Socrates,  the  wisest  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  seems  to  have  believed  that  the  soul  existed 
"  before  the  body ;  and  that  death  relieves  it  from  those  seeming  contrarieties  to  which  it  is 
"  subject,  by  its  union  with  our  material  part.     Plato  (in  conformity  to  the  opinions  of  the  learned 
"  Hindoos)  asserted,  that  God  infused  into  matter  a  portion  of  his  divine  spirit,  which  animates 
"  and  moves  it :  that  mankind  have  two  souls  of  separate  and  different  natures — the  one  cor- 
"  ruptible,  the  other  immortal :  that  the  latter  is  a  portion  of  the  Divine  Spirit :  that  the  mortal 
"  soul  ceases  to  exist  with  the  life  of  the  body ;  but  the  divine  soul,  no  longer  clogged  by  its  union 
"  with  matter,  continues  its  existence,  either  in  a  state  of  happiness  or  punishment :  that  the  souls 
"  of  the  virtuous  return,  after  death,  into  the  source  whence  they  flowed ;  while  the  souls  of  the 
"  wicked,  after  being  for  a  certain  time  confined  to  a  place  destined  for  their  reception,  are  sent 
"  back  to  earth  to  animate  other  bodies.     Aristotle  supposed  the  souls  of  mankind  to  be  portions 
"  or  emanations  of  the  divine  spirit;  which  at  death  quit  the  body,  and,  like  a  drop  of  water  falling 
"  into  the  ocean,  are  absorbed  into  the  divinity.     Zeno,  the  founder  of  the  Stoic  sect,  taught  that 
"  throughout  nature  there  are  two  eternal  qualities ;  the  one  active,  the  other  passive :  that  the 
"  former  is  a  pure  and  subtle  aether,  the  divine  spirit ;  and  that  the  latter  is  in  itself  entirely  inert, 
"  until  united  with  the  active  principle.     That  the  divine  spirit,   acting  upon  matter,  produced 
"  fire,  air,  water,  earth  :  that  the  divine  spirit  is  the  efficient  principle,  and  that  all  nature  is  moved 
"  and  conducted  by  it.     He  believed  also  that  the  soul  of  man,  being  a  portion  of  the  universal 
"  soul,  returns  after  death  to  its  first  source.     The  opinion  of  the  soul  being  an  emanation  of  the 
"  divinity,  which  is  believed  by  the  Hindoos,  and  was  professed  by  Greeks,  seems  likewise  to  have 
"  been  adopted  by  the  early  Christians.     Macrobius  observes,  Animarum  originem  emanare  de 
"  coelo,  inter  recte  philosophantes  indubitatae  constant  esse  fidei.     Saint  Justin  says,  the  soul  is 
"  incorruptible,  because  it  emanates  from  God  ;  and  his  disciple  Tatianus,  the  Assyrian,  observes, 
"  that  man  having  received  a  portion  of  the   divinity,  is  immortal  as  God  is.     Such  was  the 
"  system  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  Pythagoreans,  Brachmans,  and  some  sects  of  the  Chris- 
"  tians."i 

Thus  from  trains  of  reasoning  similar  to  what  I  have  briefly  described,  and  from  natural 
causes,  I  think  arose  all  the  ancient  doctrines  and  mythologies. 

12.  The  oldest  philosophy  or  mythology  of  which  we  have  any  certain  history,  is  that  of  the 
Buddha  of  the  Eastern  nations,  in  which  are  to  be  found  the  various  doctrines  to  which  I  have  just 
alluded.  From  the  Metempsychosis  arose  the  repugnance  among  the  Buddhists  to  the  slaughter 
of  animals, — a  necessary  consequence  of  this  doctrine  uncorrupted  and  sincerely  believed.  From 
this  circumstance  in  the  first  book  of  Genesis,  or  book  of  Wisdom,  which  is  probably  a  work  of 
the  Buddhists,  the  slaughter  of  animals  is  prohibited  or  not  allowed.  After  a  time  the  mild  doc- 
trines of  Buddha  came  to  be  changed  or  corrupted  and  superseded  by  those  of  Crishna.  Hence  in 
the  second  book  of  Genesis,  or  the  book  of  the  Generations,  or  Re-generations  2  of  the  planetary 

1  Forbes,  Orient.  Mem.  Vol.  III.  CB.  xxxiii.  p.  261.  *  Parkhurst,  in  voce,  l^'  ild. 

G 


42  BUDDHA — GENESIS. 

bodies,  which  is,  I  think,  a  Brahmin  work,  they  are  allowed  to  be  used  for  sacrifice.  In  the 
third  book,  or  the  book  of  the  Generations,  or  Re-generations l  of  the  race  of  man,  the  Adam,  they 
are  first  allowed  to  be  eaten  as  food. 

How  long  a  time  would  elapse  before  man  would  arrive  at  the  point  I  here  contemplate — 
the  knowledge  of  the  doctrines  which  I  have  described— must  evidently  depend,  in  a  great  measure, 
upon  the  degree  of  perfection  in  which  he  was  turned  out  from  the  hand  of  his  Creator.  On  this  point 
we  are  and  we  must  remain  in  ignorance.  I  argue  upon  the  supposition  that  man  was  created 
with  only  sufficient  information  for  his  comfortable  existence,  and,  therefore,  I  must  be  considered 
to  use  merely  a  conditional  argument.  If  any  person  think  it  more  probable  that  man  was  turned 
out  of  his  Creator's  hand  in  a  state  of  perfection,  I  have  no  objection  to  this  ;  but  my  reasoning 
does  not  apply  to  him.     If  he  will  condescend  to  reason  with  me,  he  must  conditionally  admit  my 

premises. 

13.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  I  imagine  these  profound  philosophical  results  respecting  the 
Trinity,  &c,  to  have  been  arrived  at  by  the  half  civilized  or  infant  man  all  at  once — in  a  day,  a 
week,  or  a  year.  No,  indeed  !  many  generations,  perhaps  thousands  of  years  may  have  elapsed 
before  he  arrived  at  this  point ;  and  I  think  the  discovery  of  several  of  them  in  every  part  of  the 
world,  new  as  well  as  old,  justifies  the  inference  that  they  were  the  doctrines  of  a  race,  in  a  high 
state  of  civilization,  either  immediately  succeeding  or  before  the  flood,  which  has  so  evidently  left 
its  traces  everywhere  around  us.  Before  these  profound  results  were  arrived  at,  innumerable 
attempts  must  have  been  made  to  discover  the  origin  of  things.  Probably  every  kind  of  absurdity 
imaginable  may  have  been  indulged  in.  All  this  we  may  readily  suppose,  but  of  its  truth  we 
cannot  arrive  at  absolute  certainty.  At  the  same  time,  for  any  thing  we  know  to  the  contrary, 
man  may  have  been  created  in  such  a  state  as  easily  to  have  arrived  at  these  conclusions.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  for  us  at  this  day  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  advantages  which  the  first  races  of 
mankind  would  possess,  in  not  having  their  minds  poisoned,  and  their  understandings  darkened, 
and  enervated  by  the  prejudices  of  education.  Every  part  of  modern  education  seems  to  be 
contrived  for  the  purpose  of  enfeebling  the  mind  of  man.  The  nurse  begins  with  hobgoblins  and 
ghosts,  which  are  followed  up  by  the  priests  with  devils  and  the  eternal  torments  of  hell.  How 
few  are  the  men  who  can  entirely  free  themselves  from  these  and  similar  delusions  in  endless 
variety  instilled  into  the  infant  mind! 

A  learned  philosopher  has  said,  "  It  is  surprising  that  so  few  should  have  perceived  how 
"  destructive  of  intellect,  the  prevailing  classical  system  of  education  is ;  or  rather  that  so  few 
"  should  have  had  courage  to  avow  their  conviction  respecting  classical  absurdity  and  idolatry. 
"  Except  Bacon  and  Hobbes,  I  know  not  that  any  authors  of  high  rank  have  ventured  to  question 
"  the  importance  or  utility  of  the  learning  which  has  so  long  stunned  the  world  with  the  noise  of 
"  its  pretensions  ;  but  sure  it  does  not  require  the  solid  learning  or  philosophic  sagacity  of  a 
"  Bacon  or  a  Hobbes  to  perceive  the  ignorance,  nonsense,  folly,  and  dwarfifyitig  tendency  of  the 
"  kind  of  learning  which  has  been  so  much  boasted  of  by  brainless  pedants." 

All  the  doctrines  which  1  have  stated  above,  are  well  known  to  have  been  those  of  the  most 
ancient  nations ;  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  those  doctrines  is  my  own.  But  I  beg  leave  to 
observe,  that  whether  the  theory  of  their  origin  be  thought  probable  or  not,  the  fact  of  the 
existence  of  the  doctrines  will  be  proved  beyond  dispute  in  a  great  variety  of  ways ;  and  it  is  on 
the  fact  of  their  existence  that  the  argument  of  this  work  is  founded.  The  truth  or  falsity  of  the 
theory  of  their  origin  will  not  affect  the  argument.     But  of  such  persons  as  shall  dispute  the  mode 


1  These  are  the  names  which  the  books  give  to  themselves. 


BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  2.  43 

above  described,  by  which  the  ancients  are  held  to  have  arrived  at  their  knowledge,  I  request  the 
statement  of  a  more  rational  theory. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  shew,  that  the  doctrines  which  I  have  here  laid  down  were  dissem- 
inated among  all  nations,  and  first  that  the  Sun  or  solar  fire  was  the  sole  object  of  the  worship 
of  all  nations  either  as  God  himself,  or  as  emblem  or  shekinah  of  the  Supreme  Being. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  SUN    THE    FIRST   OBJECT     OF    ADORATION    OF    ALL  NATIONS. — THE   GODS   NOT   DECEASED  HEROES. — 
THE  CHINESE  HAVE  ONLY  ONE  GOD. — HINDOO  GODDESSES. — TOLERATION  AND  CHANGE  IN  RELIGIONS. 

1.  On  the  first  view  of  the  mythological  systems  of  the  Gentiles,  the  multitude  of  their 
gods  appears  to  be  infinite,  and  the  confusion  inextricable.  But  if  a  person  will  only  con- 
sider the  following  chapters  carefully,  and  without  prejudice,  he  will  probably  discover  a  system 
which,  in  some  degree,  will  unravel  their  intricacies,  will  reconcile  their  apparent  contradictions, 
will  explain  the  general  meaning  of  their  mysteries,  and  will  shew  the  reason  why,  among  the 
various  religions  in  later  times,  toleration  so  universally  prevailed.  But  yet  it  is  not  intended  to 
attempt,  as  some  persons  have  done,  a  complete  development  of  the  minutiae  of  the  mysteries,  or 
to  exhibit  a  perfect  system  attended  with  an  explanation  of  the  ceremonies  and  practices  which 
the  Heathens  adopted  in  the  secret  recesses  of  their  temples,  which  they  guarded  from  the  prying 
eye  of  the  vulgar  with  the  greatest  care  and  the  most  sacred  oaths ;  and  which  have  long  since 
been  buried  amidst  the  ruins  of  the  finest  buildings  of  antiquity — lamentable  sacrifices  to  the  zeal, 
bigotry,  and  fury  of  the  Iconoclasts,  or  of  the  professors  of  Christianity. 

Few  persons  have  exhibited  more  learning  or  ingenuity  on  the  subject  of  the  ancient  worship 
than  Mr.  Bryant  and  M.  Dupuis :  and  whatever  opinion  people  may  entertain  of  different  parts  of 
their  works,  or  of  some  of  their  hypotheses,  yet  they  can  scarcely  refuse  assent  to  their  general 
assertions,  that  all  the  religions  of  antiquity,  at  least  in  their  origin,  are  found  to  centre  in  the 
worship  of  the  Sun,  either  as  God  the  Creator  himself,  or  as  the  seat  of,  or  as  the  emblem  of 
Creator. 

Socrates,  Pythagoras,  Plato,  Zoroaster  or  Zeradust,  &c,  and  all  those  initiated  in  the  most 
secret  mysteries,  acknowledged  one  supreme  God,  the  Lord  and  First  Cause  of  all.  And  perhaps, 
though  it  can  never  be  certainly  known,  those  who  only  received  the  lesser  mysteries,1  might 
confine  their  worship  to  the  sun  and  the  host  of  heaven  ;  but  it  was  only  the  vulgar  and  ignorant 
who  bent  the  knee  to  the  stone,  wood,  or  metal  idols  of  the  gods,  perhaps  only  a  little  more 
numerous  than  the  images  of  the  Christian  saints. 

2.  It  has  until  lately  been  the  general  opinion,  that  the  gods  of  the  ancients  were  nothing  but 
the  heroes  or  the  benefactors  of  mankind,  living  in  very  illiterate  and  remote  ages,  to  whom  a 
grateful  posterity  paid  divine  honours.    This  appears  at  first  sight  to  be  probable ;  and  as  it  has 

1  An  interesting  account  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Heathens  will  be  found  in  Part  II.  of  Vol.  II.  of  Dupuis's  History  of 
all  Religions. 

g2 


44  THE  GODS   OF  THE   ANCIENTS   NOT   DECEASED    HEROES. 

served  the  purpose  of  the  Christian  priests,  to  enable  them  to  run  down  the  religion  of  the  ancients, 
and,  in  exposing  its  absurdities,  to  contrast  it  disadvantageous^  with  their  own,  it  has  been,  and 
continues  to  be,  sedulously  inculcated,  in  every  public  and  private  seminary.  The  generality  of 
schoolmasters  know  no  better ;  they  teach  what  they  have  learned  and  what  they  believe.  But,  as 
this  rank  of  men  increase  in  talent  and  learning,  this  is  gradually  wearing  away.  " 

Although  the  pretended  worship  of  Heroes  appears  at  first  sight  plausible,  very  little  depth  of 
thought  or  learning  is  requisite  to  discover  that  it  has  not  much  foundation  in  truth.  It  was  not 
in  the  infant  state  of  society,  that  men  were  worshiped  ;  it  was  not,  on  the  contrary,  until  they 
arrived  at  a  very  high  and  advanced  state  of  civilization.  It  was  not  Moses,  Zoroaster,  Confucius, 
Socrates,  Solon,  Lycurgus,  Plato,  Pythagoras,  or  Numa,  that  were  objects  of  worship  ;  the  bene- 
factors of  mankind  in  all  ages  have  been  oftener  persecuted  than  worshiped.  No,  divine  honours 
(if  such  they  can  be  called)  were  reserved  for  Alexander  of  Macedon,  the  drunkard,  for  Augustus 
Caesar  the  hypocrite,  or  Heliogabalus,  the  lunatic.  A  species  of  civil  adoration,  despised  by  all 
persons  of  common  understanding,  and  essentially  different  from  the  worship  of  the  Supreme 
Beinff  was  paid  to  them.  It  was  the  vice  of  the  moment,  and  soon  passed  away.  How  absurd  to 
suppose  that  the  elegant  and  enlightened  Athenian  philosopher  could  worship  Hercules,  because 
he  killed  a  lion  or  cleaned  a  stable  !  Or  Bacchus,  because  he  made  wine  or  got  drunk  !  Besides, 
these  deified  heroes  can  hardly  be  called  Gods  in  any  sense.  They  were  more  like  the  Christian 
Saints.  Thus  we  have  Divus  Augustus,  and  Divus  Paulus,  and  Divus  Petrus.  Their  nature  has 
been  altogether  misunderstood  ;  it  will  afterward  be  explained. 

3.  After  a  life  of  the  most  painful  and  laborious  research,  Mr.  Bryant's  opinion  is,  that  all  the 
various  religions  terminated  in  the  worship  of  the  Sun.  He  commences  his  work  by  shewing, 
from  a  great  variety  of  etymological  proofs,  that  all  the  names  of  the  Deities  were  derived  or  com- 
pounded from  some  word  which  originally  meant  the  Sun.  Notwithstanding  the  ridicule  which 
has  been  thrown  upon  etymological  inquiries,  in  consequence  of  the  want  of  fixed  rules,  or  of  the 
absurd  length  to  which  some  persons  have  carried  them,  yet  I  am  quite  certain  it  must,  in  a  great 
measure,  be  from  etymology  at  last  that  we  must  recover  the  lost  learning  of  antiquity. 

Macrobius1  says,  that  in  Thrace  they  worship  the  Sun  or  Solis  Liber,  calling  him  Sebadiusj  and 
from  the  Orphic  poetry  we  learn  that  all  the  Gods  were  one  : 

'E(?  Zei)?,  kit;  A»"Si)?,  I<$  'HXio?,  it<;  Aiowo-os, 
eif  ®£6f  £i/  nxvTEcra-i.  2 

Diodorus  Siculus  says,  that  it  was  the  belief  of  the  ancients  that  Osiris,  Serapis,  Dionusos, 
Pluto,  Jupiter,  and  Pan,  were  all  one. 3 

Ausonius  represents  all  the  deities  to  be  included  under  the  term  Dionusos.4 

Sometimes  Pan  5  was  called  the  God  of  all,  sometimes  Jupiter.6 

Nonnus  also  states,  that  all  the  different  Gods,  whatever  might  be  their  names,  Hercules,  Am- 
nion, iVpollo,  or  Mithra,  centred  in  the  Sun. 

Mr.  Selden  says,  whether  they  be  called  Osiris,  or  Omphis,  or  Nilus,  or  Siris,  or  by  any  other 
name,  they  all  centre  in  the  Sun,  the  most  ancient  deity  of  the  nations. 7 

Basnage8  says,  that  Osiris,  that  famous  God  of  the  Egyptians,  was  the  Sun,  or  rather  the  Sun 
was  the  emblem  of  the  beneficent  God  Osiris. 


1  Sat.  L.  i.  18.  «  Orphic  Fragm.  iv.  p.  364,  Gesner,  Ed.  3  L.  i.  p.  23. 

4  Auson.  Epigram.  30 ;  Bryant,  Vol.  I.  p.  310,  4to.  «  4  Orp.  Hym.  x.  p.  200,  Gesner. 

6  Euphorion.  7  Selden  de  Diis  Syriis,  p.  77.  8  B.  iii.  Ch.  xviii.  Sect.  xxii. 


BOOK    I.    CHAPTER    III.    SECTION    4.  45 

Serapis  was  another  name  for  the  Sun.  Remisius  gives  an  inscription  to  Jupiter  the  Sun,  the 
invincible  Serapis. 

Mithras  was  likewise  the  Sun,  or  rather  was  but  a  different  name,  which  the  Persians  bestowed 
on  the  Egyptian  Osiris. 

Harpocrates  also  represented  the  Sun.  It  is  true,  he  was  also  the  God  of  Silence  ;  he  put  his 
finger  upon  his  mouth,  because  the  Sun  was  worshiped  with  a  reverential  silence,  and  thence  came 
the  Sige  of  the  Basilidians,  who  had  their  origin  from  Egypt. l 

By  the  Syrians  the  Sun  and  Heat  were  called  norr  hme,  Chamha ;  2  and  by  the  Persians 
Hama.  3  Thus  the  temple  to  which  Alexander  so  madly  marched  in  the  desert,  was  called  the 
temple  of  the  Sun  or  of  Ammon.  Mr.  Bryant  shews  that  Ham  was  esteemed  the  Zeus  of  Greece, 
and  the  Jupiter  of  Latium. 

A^s?  o  Zsu?  Apt^oreXei.  4 

A/x/xov  yap  Atyvitrtoi  KctXesai  rov  A<a.  5 

Ham,  sub  Jovis  nomine,  in  Africa  cultus.6 

Zev  Aj^w;?  Ap.jA.ov,  Ktpa.  ti?  (pope  ksk\v6i  Maj/Ti.7 

Mr.  Bryant  says,  "  The  worship  of  Ham,  or  the  Sun,  as  it  was  the  most  ancient,  so  it  was  the 
"  most  universal  of  any  in  the  world.  It  was  at  first  the  prevailing  religion  of  Greece  ;  and  was 
"  propagated  over  all  the  sea-coast  of  Europe,  from  whence  it  extended  itself  into  the  inland  pro- 
"  vinces.  It  was  established  in  Gaul  and  Britain ;  and  was  the  original  religion  of  this  island, 
"  which  the  Druids  in  after  times  adopted."  8 

This  Ham  was  nothing  but  a  Greek  corruption  of  a  very  celebrated  Indian  word,  formed  of  the 
three  letters  a  u  m,  of  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter. 

Virgil  gives  the  conduct  of  the  year  to  Liber  or  Bacchus,  9  though  it  was  generally'thought  to  be 
in  the  care  of  Apollo.  It  also  appears  from  the  Scholia  in  Horace,10  that  Apollo  and  Dionusos 
were  the  same.     In  fact,  they  were  all  three  the  same,  the  Sun. 

'HXie  wayyeveTup  TtavcuoXs  xpva-tcKpeyyes.1* 

4.  It  is  allowed  that  the  grand  mysteries  of  the  Grecian  religion  were  brought  by  way  of  Thrace 
from  Assyria,  Persia,  Egypt,  or  other  Eastern  parts,  by  a  person  of  the  name  of  Orpheus,  or  at 
least  that  it  came  from  those  parts,  whoever  brought  it  into  Greece.  And  in  the  doctrines  attri- 
buted to  this  philosopher,  we  may  reasonably  expect  to  find  the  ground-works  of  the  religion,  in 
fact,  the  religion  unadulterated  by  the  folly  of  the  populace,  and  the  craft  of  the  priests.  And 
here  we  shall  find  a  pure  and  excellent  religion. 

Proclus  says  of  the  religion,  Zsvg  xsfyahe,  Zsvg  (xe<r<ra'  Aiog  8'sx  7ravra  tstuxtou — Jove  is 
the  head  and  middle  of  all  things  ;   all  things  were  made  out  of  Jove. 

According  to  Timotheus,  in  Cedrenus,  Orpheus  asserted  the  existence  of  an  eternal,  incom- 
prehensible Being,  Arj[xi8f>yov  owravTov,  xoa  outs  re  aiQspos,  xou  7ravTcov  rcov  sir  avrov  rov 
aiQsga,  the  Creator  of  all  things,  even  of  the  aether  itself,  and  of  all  things  below  that  aether. 
According  to  him,  this  Arjfxiapyog  is  called  4>&2,  BOTAH,  ZGH,  Light,  Counsel,  Life.  And 
Suidas  says,  that  these  three  names  express  one  and  the  same  power,  raura  rcc  tqioL  ovo/xaTa 
juuav  §uva.fJLiv  airzfyrivaTo :  and  Timotheus   concludes  his  account  by  affirming  that  Orpheus,  in 


'  Basnage,  B.  iii.  Ch.  xviii.  *  Selden  de  Diis  Syriis  Syntag.  II.  C.  viii.  p.  247. 

3  Gale's  Court  of  the  Gentiles,  Vol.  I.  Ch.  xi.  p.  72.  *  Hesychius.  *  Herodotus,  L.  ii.  C.  xlii. 

6  Bochart,  Geog.  Sac.  L.  i.  C.  i.  p.  5.  7  Pind.  Pyth.  Ode  iv.  28,  Schol. 

8  Bryant,  Vol.  I.  4to.  p.  284.  9  Georg.  L.  i.  v.  6.  ,0  Lib.  ii.  Ode  xix. 

11  Orphic  Fragm.  in.  Macrob.  Sat.  L.i.  C.  xxiii. 


46  shuckford's  and  porphyry's  opinion. 

his  book,  declared,  Sia  rwv  ctoruiv  ovoparcov  jouae  0sottjto£  ra  Travra  eysvsro,  xai  aurog  e$i  ra 
iroLVTOL :  That  all  things  were  made  by  one  Godhead,  in  three  names,  and  this  God  is  all  things. 
Proclus  gives  us  the  following  as  one  of  the  verses  of  Orpheus : 

Zeu?  fiaa-iXevs,  Ztu?  avrot;  aicavruv  apx'J^eOKoi;' 
'Ev  Kpa,T0<;,  hf  la.iy.uv  yevsTO  peya.;  ap%o<;  aitavruv. 

Jupiter  is  the  king,  Jupiter  himself  is  the  original  source  of  all  things  ;  there  is  one  power,  one 
god,  and  one  great  ruler  over  all.1  But  we  have  seen  that  Jupiter  and  all  the  other  Gods  were  but 
names  for  the  Sun ;  therefore  it  follows  that  the  Sun,  either  as  emblem  or  as  God  himself,  was  the 
object  of  universal  adoration. 

The  Heathens,  even  in  the  later  days  of  their  idolatry,  were  not  so  gross  in  their  notions,  but 
that  they  believed  there  was  only  one  supreme  God.  They  did,  indeed,  worship  a  multitude  of 
deities,  but  they  supposed  all  but  one,  to  be  subordinate  deities.  They  always  had  a  notion  of  one 
deity  superior  to  all  the  powers  of  heaven,  and  all  the  other  deities  were  conceived  to  have  different 
offices  or  ministrations  under  him — being  appointed  to  preside  over  elements,  over  cities,  over 
countries,  and  to  dispense  victory  to  armies,  health,  life,  and  other  blessings  to  their  favourites,  if 
permitted  by  the  Supreme  Power.  Hesiod  supposes  one  God  to  be  the  Father  of  the  other 
deities  j 

— —  &suv  TJaryp  ^Se  kui  Avtiouv' 

and  Homer,  in  many  passages  of  the  Iliad,  represents  one  Supreme  Deity  as  presiding  over  all  the 
others  ;2  and  the  most  celebrated  of  their  philosophers  always  endeavoured  to  assert  this  theology.3 
5.  Dr.  Shuckford  has  shewn  that  the  Egyptians  originally  worshiped  the  Supreme  God,  under 
the  name  of  Cneph,  affirming  him  to  be  without  beginning  or  end.  Philo  Biblius  says,  that  they 
represented  him  by  the  figure  of  a  serpent  with  the  head  of  a  hawk,  in  the  middle  of  a  circle — cer- 
tainly a  very  mythological  emblem ;  but  then  he  represents  them  to  have  given  to  this  Being  all  the 
attributes  of  the  Supreme  God  the  Creator,  incorruptible  and  eternal.  Porphyry  calls  him 
rou  Av)[j.i8f>yov,  the  Maker  or  Creator  of  the  universe.4 
The  opinion  entertained  by  Porphyry  may  be  judged  of  from  the  following  extract : 
"  We  will  sacrifice,"  says  he,  "  but  in  a  manner  that  is  proper,  bringing  choice  victims  with  the 
"  choicest  of  our  faculties  ;  burning  and  offering  to  God,  who,  as  a  wise  man  observed,  is  above 
"  all — nothing  sensual :  for  nothing  is  joined  to  matter,  which  is  not  impure ;  and,  therefore, 
"  incongruous  to  a  nature  free  from  the  contagion  belonging  to  matter ;  for  which  reason,  neither 
"  speech,  which  is  produced  by  the  voice,  nor  even  internal  or  mental  language,  if  it  be  infected 
"  with  any  disorder  of  the  mind,  is  proper  to  be  offered  to  God ;  but  we  worship  God  with  an 
c<  unspotted  silence,  and  the  most  pure  thoughts  of  his  nature."5 

1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  704. 

2  Vide  Iliad,  vii.  ver.  202,  viii.  vers.  5 — 28,  &c.    See  also  Virgil,  JEn.,  ii.  ver.  777- 

non  hsec  sine  numine  Divum 

Eveniunt :  non  te  huic  comitem  asportare  Creiisam 
Fas,  aut  ille  sinit  superi  regnator  Olympi. 

Jupiter  is  here  supposed  to  be  the  numen  divum,  and  his  will  to  be  the  fas  or  fate,  which  no  one  might  contradict : 
Fatum  est,  says  Cicero,  non  id  quod  superstitiose  sed  quod  physice  dictum  causa  seterna  rerum.  De  Divin.  L.  i. 
C.  xxxv.  Deum — interdum  necessitatem  appellant,  quia  nihil  aliter  possit  atque  ab  eo  constitutem  sit.  Id.  Academ. 
Qusest.  L.  iv.  C.  xliv. 

3  Cic.  in  lib.  de  Nat.  Deorum,  in  Acad.  Qusest.  L.  i.  C.  vii.,  Ibid.  C.  xxxiv. ;  Plato  de  Legib.  L.  x.  in  Phil,  in  Cratyl. 
&c;  Aristot.  L.  de  Mundo,  C  vi.;  Plutarch  de  Placit.  Philos.  L.  i.;  Id.  in  lib.  de  E.  I.  apud  Delphos,  p.  393.  See 
Shuckford,  B.  ix.  Vol.  II.  p.  394. 

4  Plut.  de  Iside  and  Osiride,  p.  359 ;  and  Euseb.  Praep.  Evan.  L.  i.  C.  x. ;  Shuckford  Con.  B.  v.  p.  312. 

5  Val.  Col.  Vol.  III.  p.  466. 


<i 

K 

(I 

(i 


(C 


BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  6.  47 

Shuckford  says,  "  But  if  we  look  into  Italy  we  not  only  find  in  general  that  the  writers  of  their 
"  antiquities1  remark,  that  their  ancient  deities  were  of  a  different  sort  from  those  of  Greece,  but 
"  according  to  Plutarch,2  Numa,  the  second  King  of  Rome,  made  express  orders  against  the  use  of 
images  in  the  worship  of  the  Deity;  nay,  he  says  further,  that  the  first  170  years  after  the 
building  of  the  city,  the  Romans  used  no  images,  but  thought  the  Deity  invisible,  and  reputed 
it  unlawful  to  make  representations  of  him  from  things  of  an  inferior  nature  ;  so  that,  according 
to  this  accouut,  Rome  being  built  about  A.  M.  3256, 3  the  inhabitants  were  not  greatly  corrupted 
"  in  their  religion,  even  so  late  as  A.M.  3426,  which  falls  when  Nebuchadnezzar  was  King  of 
"  Babylon,  and  about  169  years  after  the  time  where  I  am  to  end  this  work.  It  is  remarkable 
"  that  Plutarch  does  not  represent  Numa  as  correcting  or  refining  the  ancient  idolatry  of  Italy ; 
"  but  expresses,  that  this  people  never  had  these  grosser  deities,  either  before  or  for  the 
"  first  170  years  of  their  city;  so  that  it  is  more  than  probable,  that  Greece  was  not  thus  cor- 
rupted when  the  Pelasgi  removed  from  thence  into  Italy  :  and  further,  that  the  Trojans  were 
"  not  such  idolaters  at  the  destruction  of  their  city,  because,  according  to  this  account,  iEneas 
"  neither  brought  with  him  images  into  Italy,  nor  such  Gods  as  were  worshiped  by  the  adoration 
"of  images;  and,  therefore,  Pausanias, 4  who  imagined  that  iEneas  carried  the  Palladium  into 
"  Italy,  was  as  much  mistaken  as  the  men  of  Argus,  who  affirmed  themselves  to  have  it  in  their 
"  city.5  The  times  of  Numa  are  about  200  years  after  Homer,  and  very  probably  the  idolatry  so 
S  much  celebrated  in  his  writings  might  by  this  time  begin  to  appear  in  Italy,  and  thereby 
"  occasion  Numa  to  make  laws  and  constitutions  against  it."6 

After  the  above  observations,  Shuckford  goes  on  to  assert,  in  a  style  rather  democratical  for  a 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  that  the  first  corruptions  of  religion  were  begun  by  kings  and  rulers  of  nations  ! 
And  he  produces  several  examples  to  support  his  assertion,  which  are  not  much  in  point.  If  he 
had  said,  that  these  corruptions  had  been  produced  by  the  knavery  of  his  own  order,  the  priests, 
working  upon  the  timidity  and  weakness  of  timid  and  weak  kings,  and  making  them  its  tools,  he 
would  have  been  perfectly  correct.  For  this  is  the  mode  by  which  half  the  miseries  of  mankind 
have  been  produced  by  this  pernicious  order  of  men.  And  when  he  says  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Italy  were  not  greatly  corrupted,  he  goes  too  far;  he  ought  to  have  confined  his  observations  to  the 
Romans.  But  perhaps  to  them  only  he  alluded. 
6.  The  Chinese,  with  all  their  apparent  idolatry,  had  only  one  God. 

Speaking  of  the  religion  of  the  Chinese,  Sir  W.  Jones  7  says,  "  Of  the  religious  opinions  enter- 
"  tained  by  Confucius  and  his  followers,  we  may  glean  a  general  notion  from  the  fragments  of 
"  their  works,  translated  by  Couplet :  they  professed  a  firm  belief  in  the  Supreme  God,  and  gave 
"  a  demonstration  of  his  being  and  of  his  providence,  from  the  exquisite  beauty  and  perfection  of 
"  the  celestial  bodies,  and  the  wonderful  order  of  nature  in  the  whole  fabric  of  the  visible  world. 
"  From  this  belief  they  deduced  a  system  of  ethics,  which  the  philosopher  sums  up  in  a  few  words 
"  at  the  close  of  the  Lunyn.  He"  (says  Confucius)  "  who  shall  be  fully  persuaded  that  the 
"  Lord  of  Heaven  governs  the  universe,  who  shall  in  all  things  choose  moderation,  who  shall 
"  perfectly  know  his  own  species,  and  so  act  among  them,  that  his  life  and  manners  may  conform 
"  to  his  knowledge  of  God  and  man,  may  be  truly  said  to  discharge  all  the  duties  of  a  sage,  and  to 
"  be  exalted  above  the  common  herd  of  the  human  race  !" 

Marco  Paulo8  informs  us,  that  in  his  time  the  Chinese  paid  their  adoration  to  a  tablet  fixed 
against  the  wall  in  their  houses,   upon  which  was  inscribed  the  name  of  the  high,   celestial,   and 

1  Dionys.  Halicar.,  Lib.  vii.  *  In  Numa,  and  Clem.  Alexand.  Stromat.  Lib.  i.  3  Usher's  Annals. 

4  In  Corinthiacis.  s  Ibid.  *  Shuckford  Con,  B.  v.  p.  352,  Svo.  Ed. 

7  Diss.  VII.  p.  227.  8  B.  ii.  Ch.  xxvi.  Ed.  of  W.  Marsden,  4to. 


48  GODDESSES — HINDOO    DOCTRINE. 

supreme  God  ;  to  whose  honour  they  burnt  incense,  but  of  whom  they  had  no  image.  The  words, 
Mr.  Marsden  says,  which  were  on  the  tablet  were  three,  Hen,  heaven;  hoang-tien,  supreme  heaven ; 
and  Shang-ti,  sovereign  Lord.  De  Guignes  tells  us,  that  the  word  Hen  stands  indifferently  for  the 
visible  heaven  and  the  Supreme  Deity.1  Marco  Paulo  tells  us,  that  from  the  God  whose  name 
was  on  the  tablet  the  Chinese  only  petition  for  two  things,  sound  intellect  and  health  of  body,  but 
that  they  had  another  God,  of  whom  they  had  a  statue  or  idol  called  Natigai,  who  was  the  God  of 
all  terrestrial  things;  in  fact,  God,  the  Creator  of  this  world,  (inferior  or  subordinate  to  the  Supreme 
Being,)  from  whom  they  petition  for  fine  weather,  or  whatever  else  they  want— a  sort  of  Mediator. 
Here  is  evidently  a  striking  similarity  to  the  doctrines  of  some  of  the  early  Christian  heretics. 

It  seems  pretty  clear  from  this  account,  that  originally,  and  probably  at  this  time  also,  like  all 
the  ancients  of  the  West  in  the  midst  of  their  degrading  idolatry,  they  yet  acknowledged  one 
Supreme  God,  with  many  subordinate  agents,  precisely  the  same  as  the  Heathens  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  and  modern  Christians,  under  the  names  of  inferior  gods,  angels,  demons,  saints,  &c. 
In  fact  they  were  Deists. 

7.  In  addition  to  the  authorities  which  have  been  produced  to  prove  that  the  whole  of  the 
different  Gods  of  antiquity  resolve  themselves  at  last,  when  properly  examined,  into  different 
names  of  the  God  Sol,  it  would  be  easy,  if  it  were  necessary,  to  produce  as  many  more  from  every 
quarter  of  the  world  ;  but  what,  it  may  be  asked,  will  you  do  with  the  Goddesses  ?  The  reader 
shall  now  see ;   and  first  from  the  learned  and  Rev.  Mr.  Maurice. 

"  Whoever  will  read  the  Geeta  with  attention  will  perceive  in  that  small  tract  the  outlines  of 
"  nearly  all  the  various  systems  of  theology  in  Asia.  That  curious  and  ancient  doctrine  of  the 
"  Creator  being  both  male  and  female,  mentioned  in  a  preceding  page  to  be  designated  in  Indian 
"  temples  by  a  very  indecent  exhibition  of  the  masculine  and  feminine  organs  of  generation  in 
11  union,  occurs  in  the  following  passages  :  '  I  am  the  father  and  mother  of  this  world;  I  plant  myself 
"  upon  my  own  nature,  and  create  again  and  again  this  assemblage  of  beings  ;  I  am  generation 
"  and  dissolution,  the  place  where  all  things  are  deposited,  and  the  inexhaustible  seed  of  all 
"  nature  ;  I  am  the  beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end  of  all  things.5"  In  another  part  he  more 
directly  says,  "  The  great  Brahme  is  the  womb  of  all  those  various  forms  which  are  conceived  in 
"  every  natural  womb,  and  I  am  the  father  that  soweth  the  seed.' " 2  Herodotus  informs  us  that 
the  Persian  Mithras  was  the  same  with  the  Assyrian  Venus  Mylitta  or  Urania,  and  the  Arabian 
Alitta.3  Mr.  Cudworth  shews  that  this  must  have  been  the  Aphrodita  Urania,  by  which  was 
meant  the  creating  Deity.     It  is  well  known  that  the  Venus  Aphrodite  was  a  Phoenician  Deity, 

worshiped  particularly  at  Citium,  and  was  of   both  the  male   and  female  gender, — the  Venus 

Genitrix. 

Proclus  describes  Jupiter,  in  one  of  the  Orphic  Hymns,  to  be  both  male  and  female,  appsvcfoyhvv, 

Hermaphroditic.     And  Bishop  Synesius  adopts  it  in  a  Christian  hymn.4     The   Priapus  of  the 

Etruscans  was  both  male  and  female.    (See  Table  LVIII.  of  Gorius.)     He  has  the  membrum  virile, 

with  the  female  breasts. 

Damascius,  treating  of  the  fecundity  of  the  Divine  Nature,  cites  Orpheus  as  teaching,  that  the 

Deity  was  at  once  both  male  and  female,  a%(T£VoQr}\uv   aurr^v   uirt-cri<ra.To,    7rpog  svhei^iv   rwv 

xavraiv   ysvvr^rixt]g    acriag,  to  shew  the   generative   power  by  which  all  things   were  formed. 

Proclus,  upon  the  Timseus  of  Plato,  cites  the  following  : 

Zed?  apcrrjv  yzvtro,  Zevi;  a/x^poroq  ettXeto  i/v/Atpy" 

Jupiter  is  a  man ;  Jupiter  is  also  an  immortal  maid.     And  in  the  same  commentary,  and  the 
same  page,  we  read  that  all  things  were  contained  sv  yage^i  Tjiqvog,  in  the  womb  of  Jupiter. 

1  Tom.  II.  p.  350.      *  Maurice  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  705.     a  Hyde  de  Rel.  Pers.  Cap.  ill.  p.  95.    *  Ubi  sup.  p.  304. 

« 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.     SECTION  8.  ■  49 

8.  Manichffius,  according  to  Theodoret,  said,  in  his  allegorical  language,  "  That  a  male- virgin 
"  gave  light  and  life  to  Eve,"  that  is,  created  her.  And  the  Pseudo-Mercurius  Trismegistus  in 
Psemander  said,  that  God  being  male  and  female,  (a^psvoQ^\us  cov,)  because  he  is  light  and  life, 
engendered  by  the  word  another  intelligence,  which  was  the  Creator.  The  male-virgin,  Theodoret 
says,  was  called  Joel,  or  IojvjA,  which  Beausobre  thinks  was  "  El,  God,  and  Joha,  life-making, 
"  vivifying,  life-giving,  or  the  generating  God."  (So  far  my  friend  Beverley.)  But  which  was 
probably  merely  the  irv  leu,  bx  al,  or  God  Iao,  of  which  we  shall  treat  hereafter.  Again,  Mr. 
Beverley  says,  "  In  Genesis  it  is  written,  '  God  said,  Let  us  create  man  after  our  own  image  and 
"  likeness.'  This,  then,  ought  in  strictness  of  language  to  be  a  male  and  female  God,  or  else  it 
"  would  not  be  after  the  likeness  proposed." 

"  The  male-virgin  of  the  Orientals  is,  I  know,  considered  the  same  by  Plato  as  his  'Eg-ja,  or 
'*  Vesta,  whom  he  calls  the  soul  of  the  body  of  the  universe.  This  Hestia,  by  the  way,  is  in  my 
"  view  a  Sanscrit  lady,  whose  name  I  take  to  have  been  EST,  or  she  that  is,  or  exists,  having 
"  the  same  meaning  as  the  great  name  of  the  Jewish  Deity.  Est  is  shewn  in  the  Celtic  Druids  to 
"  be  a  Sanscrit  word,  and  I  do  not  doubt  of  this  her  derivation.  The  A  terminal  is  added  by  the 
"  Greek  idiom  to  denote  a  female,  as  they  hated  an  indeclinable  proper  name,  such  as  HEST  or 
"  EST  would  have  been."     Extract  from  a  letter  from  Makenzie  Beverley,  Esq.1 

Apuleius  makes  the  mother  of  the  Gods  of  the  masculine  gender,  and  represents  her  describing 
herself  as  called  Minerva  at  Athens,  Venus  at  Cyprus,  Diana  at  Crete,  Proserpine  in  Sicily, 
Ceres  at  Eleusis :  in  other  places,  Juno,  Bellona,  Hecate,  Isis,  &c.  j  2  and  if  any  doubt  could 
remain,  the  philosopher  Porphyry,  than  whom  probably  no  one  was  better  skilled  in  these  matters, 
removes  it  by  acknowledging  that  Vesta,  Rhea,  Ceres,  Themis,  Priapus,  Proserpine,  Bacchus, 
Attis,  Adonis,  Silenus,  and  the  Satyrs,  were  all  the  same.  3 

Valerius  Soranus  calls  Jupiter  the  mother  of  the  Gods : 

Jupiter  omnipotens,  Regum  Rex  ipse  Deumque 
Progenitor,  Genetrixque  Deum  ;  Deus  et  idem. 

Synesius  speaks  of  him  in  the  same  manner  : 

2u  S'a/xnjv,  av  Se  6-qXvi;.  4 

The  like  character  is  also  given  to  the  ancient  deity  Mr}Tig,  or  Divine  Wisdom,  by  which  the 
world  was  framed : 

MrjTit;-cpi^yjV£veTaci,  BbXyj,  $«$,  ZuohorYjp.  s 
Apo-qv  [A.EV  kcu  SrjXvs  e<f>v$,  ■arokvuvvjAe  M^tj.  6 

And  in  two  of  the  Orphic  Fragments  all  that  has  been  said  above  seems  to  be  comprehended. 
This  Deity,  like  the  others,  is  said  to  be  of  two  genders,  and  to  be  also  the  Sun. 7 

Myng,  Mr.  Bryant  says,  is  a  masculine  name  for  a  feminine  deity, 8  and  means  Divine  Wisdom. 
I  suspect  it  was  a  corruption  of  the  Maia  or  Mia  of  India. 

In  Cyprus,  Venus  is  represented  with  a  beard,  and  called  Aphrodite. 

Calvus,  the  poet,  calls  her  masculine,  as  does  also  Macrobius. 10 

1  The  A  at  the  end  of  the  word  EST  may  be  the  Chaldee  emphatic  article ;  then  Vesta  would  be  the  Est  or  the  Self- 
existent. 
*  Apuleii  Metamorph.  L.  ii.  p.  241.  3  Porphyry  ap.  Eusebium,  Evan.  Praep.  L.  iii.  C.  xi. 

4  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  315.  5  Orpheus,  Eusebii  Chronicon.  6  Orphic  Hymn,  xxxi.  10,  p.  224. 

7  Bryant,  Vol.  I.  p.  204.    Ed.  4to.  8  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  25. 

9  Hesychius  Servius  upon  Virgil's  ^Eneid,  L.  ii.  632.  ,0  Satur.  L.  iii.  C.  viii. 

H 


50  TOLERATION   AND    CHANGE    IN    RELIGION. 

Jupiter  is  called  feminine,  and  the  genetrixque  Deum,1  by  Augustine. 
The  Orphic  verses  make  the  Moon  both  male  and  female.  2 

9.  The  following  extract  from  Sir  W.  Jones's  Dissertation  on  the  Gods  of  Greece  and  India,  will, 
perhaps,  be  of  some  weight  with  the  very  large  class  of  mankind,  who  prefer  authority  to  reason  ; 
and  may  serve  to  justify  or  excuse  the  opinions  here  expressed,  by  shewing  them  that  they  are 
neither  new  nor  unsupported  :  "  We  must  not  be  surprised  at  finding,  on  a  close  examination, 
"  that  the  characters  of  all  the  Pagan  Deities,  male  and  female,  melt  into  each  other,  and  at  last 
"  into  one  or  two  ;  for  it  seems  a  well  founded  opinion,  that  the  whole  crowd  of  Gods  and  God- 
"  desses  in  ancient  Rome  and  modern  Varanes,  mean  only  the  powers  of  nature,  and  principally 
ft  those  of  the  Sun,  expressed  in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  by  a  multitude  of  fanciful  names." 

In  a  future  part  of  this  work  I  shall  have  much  more  to  say  of  the  Goddesses  or  the  female 
generative  power,  which  became  divided  from  the  male,  and  in  consequence  was  the  cause  of  great 
wars  and  miseries  to  the  Eastern  parts  of  the  world,  and  of  the  rise  of  a  number  of  sects  in  the 
Western,  which  have  not  been  at  all  understood. 

Thus,  we  see,  there  is  in  fact  an  end  of  all  the  multitude  of  the  Heathen  Gods  and  Goddesses, 
so  disguised  in  the  Pantheons  and  books  of  various  kinds,  which  the  priests  have  published  from 
time  to  time  to  instil  into  the  minds  of  their  pupils— that  the  ancient  Heathen  philosophers  and 
legislators  were  the  slaves  of  the  most  degrading  superstition  ;  that  they  believed  such  nonsense 
as  the  metamorphoses  described  by  Ovid,  or  the  loves  of  Jupiter,  Venus,  &c,  &c.  That  the 
rabble  were  the  victims  of  a  degrading  superstition,  I  have  no  doubt.  This  was  produced  by  the 
knavery  of  the  ancient  priests,  and  it  is  in  order  to  reproduce  this  effect  that  the  modern  priests 
have  misrepresented  the  doctrines  of  their  predecessors.  By  vilifying  and  running  down  the 
religion  of  the  ancients,  they  have  thought  they  could  persuade  their  votaries  that  their  new 
religion  was  necessary  for  the  good  of  mankind  :  a  religion  which,  in  consequence  of  their  corrup- 
tions, has  been  found  to  be  in  practice  much  worse  and  more  injurious  to  the  interests  of  society 
than  the  old  one.  For,  from  these  corruptions  the  Christian  religion— the  religion  of  purity  and 
truth  when  uncorrupted— has  not  brought  peace  but  a  sword. 

After  the  astrologers  had  parcelled  out  the  heavens  into  the  forms  of  animals,  &c,  and  the  annual 
path  of  the  Sun  had  become  divided  into  twelve  parts,  each  part  designated  by  some  animal,  or 
other  figure,  or  known  emblem,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  should  have  become  the  objects  of 
adoration.  This  M.  Dupuis  has  shewn,3  was  the  origin  of  the  Arabian  and  Egyptian  adoration 
of  animals,  birds,  &c.  Hence,  in  the  natural  progress  of  events,  the  adoration  of  images  arose 
among  the  Heathens  and  Christians. 

10.  The  same  tolerating  spirit  generally  prevailed  among  the  votaries  of  the  Heathen  Gods  of 
the  Western  world,  which  we  find  among  the  Christian  saints.  For  though  in  some  few  instances 
the  devotees  in  Egypt  quarrelled  about  their  Gods,  as  in  some  few  instances  the  natives  of 
Christian  towns  have  quarrelled  about  their  Divi  or  tutelar  saints,  yet  these  petty  wars  never 
created  much  mischief.4  They  were  evidently  no  ways  dangerous  to  the  emoluments  of  the  priests, 
and  therefore  they  were  not  attended  with  very  important  consequences. 

A  great  part  of  the  uncertainty  and  apparent  contradictions  which  we  meet  with  in  the  history 
of  the  religions  of  antiquity,  evidently  arises  from  the  inattention  of  the  writers  to  the  changes 
which  long  periods  of  time  produce. 

It  is  directly  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature  for  any  thing  to  remain  stationary.     The  law  of 


1  August,  de  Civit.  Dei,  L.  iv.  C.  xi.  and  L.  vii.  C.  ix.  *  Hymn  viii.  4. 

3  Ch.  i.  Rel.  Univ. 

*  See  Mosheim,  who  shews  that  the  religious  wars  of  the  Egyptians  were  not  like  those  of  the  Christians. 


BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  1.  51 

perpetual  motion  is  universal ;  we  know  of  no  such  thing  as  absolute  rest.  Causes  over  which 
man  has  no  controul  overturn  and  change  his  wisest  institutions.  Monuments  of  folly  and  of 
wisdom,  all,  all  crumble  into  dust.  The  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  the  codes  of  the  Medes  or  of 
Napoleon,  all  will  pass  away  and  be  forgotten. 

M.  Dupuis,  in  his  first  chapter,  has  shewn  that  probably  all  nations  first  worshiped,  as  we  are 
told  the  Persians  did,  without  altars  or  temples,  in  groves  and  high  places.  After  a  certain 
number  of  years,  in  Persia,  came  temples  and  idols,  with  all  their  abuses  ;  and  these,  in  their  turn, 
were  changed  or  abolished,  and  the  worship  of  the  Sun  restored,  or  perhaps  the  worship  of  the  Sun 
only  as  emblem  of  the  Creator.  This  was  probably  the  change  said  to  have  been  effected  by 
Zoroaster. 

The  Israelites  at  the  exodus  had  evidently  run  into  the  worship  of  Apis  the  Bull,  or  the  Golden 
Calf  of  Egypt,  which  it  was  the  object  of  Moses  to  abolish,  and  in  the  place  thereof  to  substitute 
the  worship  of  one  God — Tao,  Jehovah — which,  in  fact,  was  only  the  Sun  or  the  Solar  Fire,  yet  not 
the  Sun,  as  Creator,  but  as  emblem  of  or  the  shekinah  of  the  Divinity.  The  Canaanites,  according 
to  the  Mosaic  account,  were  not  idolaters  in  the  time  of  Abraham ;  but  i£  is  implied  that  they 
became  so  in  the  long  space  between  the  time  he  lived  and  that  of  Moses.  The  Assyrians  seem 
to  have  become  idolaters  early,  and  not,  as  the  Persians,  to  have  had  any  reformer  like  Zoroaster  or 
Moses,  but  to  have  continued  till  the  Iconoclasts,  Cyrus  and  Darius,  reformed  them  with  fire  and 
sword ;  as  their  successor  Cambyses  soon  afterward  did  the  Egyptians.  The  observations  made 
on  the  universality  of  the  solar  worship,  contain  but  very  little  of  what  might  be  said  respecting  it; 
but  yet  enough  is  said  to  establish  the  fact.  If  the  reader  wish  for  more,  his  curiosity  will  be 
amply  repaid  by  a  perusal  of  Mr.  Bryant's  Analysis  of  the  Heathen  Mythology.  He  may  also 
read  the  fourth  chapter  of  Cudworth's  Intellectual  System,  which  is  a  most  masterly  performance* 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TWO  ANCIENT  ETHIOPIAS. — GREAT  BLACK  NATION  IN  ASIA. — THE  BUDDHA  OF  INDIA  A  NEGRO. — THE 
ARABIANS  WERE  CUSHITES. — MEMNON. — SHEPHERD  KINGS. — HINDOOS  AND  EGYPTIANS  SIMILAR. — 
SYRIA  PEOPLED  FROM   INDIA. 

1.  In  taking  a  survey  of  the  human  inhabitants  of  the  world,  we  find  two  classes,  distinguished 
from  each  other  by  a  clear  and  definite  line  of  demarkation,  the  black  and  white  colours  of  their 
skins.  This  distinguishing  mark  we  discover  to  have  existed  in  ages  the  most  remote.  If  we 
suppose  them  all  to  have  descended  from  one  pair,  the  question  arises,  Was  that  pair  black  or 
white  ?  If  I  were  at  present  to  say  that  I  thought  them  black,  I  should  be  accused  of  a  fondness 
for  paradox,  and  I  should  find  as  few  persons  to  agree  with  me,  as  the  African  negroes  do  when 
they  tell  Europeans  that  the  Devil  is  white.  (And  yet  no  one,  except  a  West-India  planter,  will 
deny  that  the  poor  Africans  have  reason  on  their  side.)  However,  I  say  not  that  they  were  black, 
but  I  shall,  in  the  course  of  this  work,  produce  a  number  of  extraordinary  facts,  which  will  be 
quite  sufficient  to  prove,  that  a  black  race,  in  very  early  times,  had  more  influence  over  the  affairs 
of  the  world  than  has  been  lately  suspected ;  and  I  think  I  shall  shew,  by  some  very  striking 
circumstances  yet  existing,  that  the  effects  of  this  influence  have  not  entirely  passed  away. 

h2 


52  THE   ARABIANS   WERE    CUSHITES. 

2.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Sir  William  Jones,  that  a  great  nation  of  Blacks 1  formerly  possessed 
the  dominion  of  Asia,  and  held  the  seat  of  empire  at  Sidon.2  These  must  have  been  the  people 
called  by  Mr.  Maurice  Cushites  or  Cuthites,  described  in  Genesis  j  and  the  opinion  that  they  were 
Blacks  is  corroborated  by  the  translators  of  the  Pentateuch,  called  the  Seventy,  constantly 
rendering  the  word  Cmh  by  Ethiopia.  It  is  very  certain  that,  if  this  opinion  be  well  founded,  we 
must  go  for  the  time  when  this  empire  flourished  to  a  period  anterior  to  all  our  regular  histories. 
It  can  only  be  known  to  have  existed  from  accidental  circumstances,  which  have  escaped  amidst 
the  ruins  of  empires  and  the  wrecks  of  time. 

Of  this  nation  we  have  no  account ;  but  it  must  have  flourished  after  the  deluge.  And,  as  our 
regular  chronological  systems  fill  up  the  time  between  the  flood  and  what  is  called  known, 
undoubted  history ;  if  it  be  allowed  to  have  existed,  its  existence  will  of  course  prove  that  no 
dependence  can  be  placed  on  the  early  parts  of  that  history.  It  will  shew  that  all  the  early 
chronology  is  false ;  for  the  story  of  this  empire  is  not  told.  It  is  certain  that  its  existence  can 
only  be  known  from  insulated  circumstances,  collected  from  various  quarters,  and  combining  to 
establish  the  fact.  But  if  I  succeed  in  collecting  a  sufficient  number  to  carry  conviction  to  an 
impartial  mind,  the  empire  must  be  allowed  to  have  existed. 

3.  The  religion  of  Buddha,  of  India,  is  well  known  to  have  been  very  ancient.  In  the  most 
ancient  temples  scattered  throughout  Asia,  where  his  worship  is  yet  continued,  he  is  found  black  as 

jet,  with  the  flat  face,  thick  lips,  and  curly  hair  of  the  Negro.  Several  statues  of  him  may  be  met 
with  in  the  Museum  of  the  East-India  Company.  There  are  two  exemplars  of  him  brooding  on 
the  face  of  the  deep,  upon  a  coiled  serpent.  To  what  time  are  we  to  allot  this  Negro  ?  He  will  be 
proved  to  have  been  prior  to  the  god  called  Cristna.  He  must  have  been  prior  to  or  contempo- 
raneous with  the  black  empire,  supposed  by  Sir  William  Jones  to  have  flourished  at  Sidon.  The 
religion  of  this  Negro  God  is  found,  by  the  ruins  of  his  temples  and  other  circumstances,  to  have 
been  spread  over  an  immense  extent  of  country,  even  to  the  remotest  parts  of  Britain,  and  to  have 
been  professed  by  devotees  inconceivably  numerous.  1  very  much  doubt  whether  Christianity 
at  this  day  is  professed  by  more  persons  than  yet  profess  the  religion  of  Buddha.  Of  this  I  shall 
say  more  hereafter. 

4.  When  several  cities,  countries,  or  rivers,  at  great  distances  from  each  other,  are  found  to  be 
called  by  the  same  name,  the  coincidence  cannot  be  attributed  to  accident,  but  some  specific  cause 
for  such  an  effect  must  be  looked  for.  Thus  we  have  several  cities  call  Heliopolis,  or  the  city  of 
the  Sun  ;  the  reason  for  which  is  sufficiently  obvious.  Thus,  again,  there  were  several  Alexan- 
drias  ;  and  on  close  examination  we  find  two  Ethiopias  alluded  to  in  ancient  history— one  above  the 
higher  or  southern  part  of  Egypt,  and  the  other  somewhere  to  the  east  of  it,  and,  as  it  has  been 
thought,  in  Arabia.  The  people  of  this  latter  are  called  Cushim  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  Ethiopians  by  the  text  of  the  Septuagint,  or  the  Seventy.  That  they  cannot  have 
been  the  Ethiopians  of  Africa  is  evident  from  a  single  passage, 3  where  they  are  said  to  have 
invaded  Judah  in  the  days  of  Asa,  under  Zerah,  their  king  or  leader.  But  the  Lord  smote  the 
Cushim;  and  Asa  and  the  people  that  were  with  him  pursued  them  unto  Gerar;  and  the 
Ethiopians  were  overthrown,  and  they  (i.  e.  Asa  and  his  people)  smote  all  the  cities  round  about 
Gerar,  &c.  Whence  it  plainly  follows,  that  the  Cushim  here  mentioned,  were  such  as  inhabited 
the  parts  adjoining  to  Gerar,  and  consequently  not  any  part  of  the  African  Ethiopia,  but  Arabia. 

1  I  do  not  use  the  word  Negro,  because  they  may  not  have  been  Negroes  though  Blacks,  though  it  is  probable  that 
they  were  so ;  and  I  wish  the  distinction  to  be  remembered. 

2  But  why  should  not  Babylon  have  been  the  place  ?  3  2  Chron.  xiv.  9—15. 


BOOK.  I.      CHAPTER  II.      SECTION  5.  53 

When  it  is  said  that  Asa  smote  the  Cushites  or  Ethiopians,  in  number  a  million  of  soldiers,  as 
far  as  Gerar,  and  despoiled  all  the  cities  round  about,  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  Gerar  in  the 
lot  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon  is  meant.  The  expression  all  the  cities  and  the  million  of  men  cannot 
apply  to  the  little  town  of  that  tribe.  Probably  the  city  in  Wilkinson's  Atlas,  in  the  Tabula  Ori- 
entalisy  at  the  side  of  the  Persian  gulf,  which  is  called  Gerra,  is  the  city  meant  by  the  word  Gerar ; 
and,  that  Saba  was  near  where  it  is  placed  by  Dr.  Stukeley,  or  somewhere  in  the  Peninsula, 
now  called  Arabia. 

Iu  2  Chrou.  xxi.  16,  it  is  said,  And  of  the  Arabians  that  ivere  near  the  Ethiopians.  This  again 
shews  that  the  Ethiopians  were  in  the  Peninsula,  or  bordered  on  it  to  the  eastwards.  They 
could  not  have  lived  to  the  west,  because  the  whole  land  of  Egypt  lay  between  them,  if  they  went 
by  land ;  and  the  Red  Sea  lay  between  the  two  nations  westwards. 

In  Habakkuk  iii.  />  the  words  Midian  and  Cushan  are  used  as  synonymes  :  I  saw  the  tents  of 
Cushan  in  affliction  :  the  curtains  of  the  land  of  Midian  did  tremble. 

It  is  said  in  Numbers  xii.  J,  "And  Miriam  and  Aaron  spake  against  Moses,  because  of  the 
Ethiopian  woman  whom  he  had  married ;  for  he  had  married  an  Ethiopian  woman."  n>W)3  cusit. 
It  appears  that  this  Ethiopian  woman  was  the  daughter  of  Jethro,  priest  of  Midian,  near  Horeb, 
in  Arabia. l     ' 

5.  Dr.  Wells  has  justly  observed,  that  the  Cush  spoken  of  in  scripture  is  evidently  Arabia,  from 
Numbers  xii.  1,  just  cited;  and  that  it  is  also  certain,  from  Exod.  ii.  15 — 21,  that  the  wife  of 
Moses  was  a  Midianitish  woman; -and  it  is  proved  that  Midian  or  Madian  was  in  Arabia,  from 
Exod.  iii.  J,  &c. :  consequently  the  Cush  here  spoken  of,  and  called  Ethiopia,  must  necessarily 
mean  Arabia.  He  also  proves,  from  Ezek.  xxix.  10,  that  when  God  says  he  "  will  make  the  land 
"  desolate  from  the  tower  of  Syene  to  the  borders  of  Ethiopia,"  Cush,  he  cannot  mean  an  African 
Cush,  because  he  evidently  means  from  one  boundary  of  Egypt  to  the  other :  and  as  Syene  is  the 
southern  boundary  between  the  African  Ethiopia  and  Egypt,  it  cannot  possibly  be  that  he  speaks 
of  the  former,  but  of  the  other  end  of  Egypt,  which  is  Arabia. 

The  circumstance  of  the  translators  of  the  Septuagint  version  of  the  Pentateuch  having  rendered 
the  word  Cush  by  the  word  Ethiopia,  is  a  very  decisive  proof  that  the  theory  of  two  Ethiopias  is 
well  founded.  Let  the  translators  have  been  who  they  may,  it  is  totally  impossible  to  believe  that 
they  could  be  so  ignorant  as  to  suppose  that  the  African  Ethiopia  could  border  on  the  Euphrates, 
or  that  the  Cushites  could  be  African  Ethiopians. 

From  all  the  accounts  which  modern  travellers  give  of  the  country  above  Syene,  there  does  not 
appear,  either  from  ruins  or  any  other  circumstance,  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  ever  occupied 
by  a  nation  strong  enough  to  fight  the  battles  and  make  the  great  figure  in  the  world  which  we 
know  the  people  called  Cushites  or  Ethiopians  did  at  different  times.  The  valley  of  the  Nile 
is  very  narrow,  not  capable  of  containing  a  great  and  powerful  people.  Sheba  and  Saba  were 
either  one  or  two  cities  of  the  Cushites  or  Ethiopians,  and  Pliny  says,  that  the  Sabaeans  extended 
from  the  Red  Sea  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  thus  giving  them  the  whole  of  Arabia;  one  part  of  which,  it 
is  well  known,  is  called  from  its  fertility  of  soil  and  salubrity  of  climate,  Felix,  or  The  Happy. 


1  Vide  Exod.  cli.  ii.  and  iii.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  this  great  tribe  of  Israelites  had  not  laws  before  those 
given  on  Sinai.  It  is  perfectly  clear  that  great  numbers  of  those  in  Leviticus  were  only  re-enactments  of  old  laws  or 
customs.  The  marriage  of  Moses  with  an  Ethiopian  woman,  against  which  Miriam  and  Aaron  spoke,  was  a  breach  of 
the  law,  and  the  children  were  illegitimate.  This  was  the  reason  why  Aaron  succeeded  to  the  priestly  office,  instead  of 
the  sons  of  Moses.  This  also  furnishes  an  answer  to  what  a  learned  author  has  written  about  the  disinterested  conduct 
of  Moses  proving  his  divine  mission.  The  conduct  of  Moses,  in  this  instance,  proves  nothing,  and  all  the  labour  of  the 
learned  gentleman  has  been  thrown  away.  But  Moses  had  two  wives,  both  Ethiopians— one  of  Meroe,  called  Tharbis, 
and  the  other  of  Midian,  in  Arabia.    Josephus'  Antiq.  L.  ii.  ch.  x. 


54  HEATHEN    AUTHORITIES. 

Dr.  Wells  states,  that  the  Ethiopians  of  Africa  alone  are  commonly  called  Ludim,  both  by  ancient 
and  modern  writers. l 

But  the  country  east  of  the  Euphrates  was  called  Cush,  as  well  as  the  country  west  of  it;  thus 
giving  the  capital  of  Persia,  Susan  or  Susiana,  which  was  said  to  be  built  by  Memnon,  to  the 
Cushites  or  Ethiopians,  as  well  as  Arabia. 

Mr.  Frey,  in  his  vocabulary,  gives  the  word  i^d,  cits,  as  a  word  whose  meaning  is  unknown ; 
but  the  Septuagint  tells  us  it  meant  black.  Mr.  Hyde  shews,  that  it  was  a  common  thing  for  the 
Chaldeans  to  substitute  the  Tau  for  the  Shin,  thus  riD  cut,  for  ana  cus.  Thus,  in  their  dialect,  the 
Cuthites  were  the  same  as  the  Cushites. 

If  my  reader  will  examine  all  the  remaining  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  not  cited  by  me, 
where  the  words  Ethiopia  and  Ethiopians  are  used,  he  will  see  that  many  of  them  can  by  no  pos- 
sibility relate  to  the  African  Ethiopia. 

6.  Eusebius  2  states  the  Ethiopians  to  have  come  and  settled  in  Egypt,  in  the  time  of  Ameno- 
phis.  According  to  this  account,  as  well  as  to  the  account  given  by  Philostratus, 3  there  was  no 
such  country  as  Ethiopia  beyond  Egypt  until  this  invasion.  According  to  Eusebius  these  people 
came  from  the  river  Indus,  and  planted  themselves  to  the  south  of  Egypt,  in  the  country  called 
from  them  Ethiopia.  The  circumstance  named  by  Eusebius  that  they  came  from  the  Indus,  at  all 
events,  implies  that  they  came  from  the  East,  and  not  from  the  South,  and  would  induce  a  person 
to  suspect  them  of  having  crossed  the  Red  Sea  from  Arabia  :  they  must  either  have  done  this,  or 
have  come  round  the  northern  end  of  the  Red  Sea  by  the  Isthmus  of  Suez ;  but  they  certainly 
could  not  have  come  from  the  present  Ethiopia. 

But  there  are  several  passages  in  ancient  writers  which  prove  that  Eusebius  is  right  in  saying, 
not  only  that  they  came  from  the  East,  but  from  a  very  distant  or  very  eastern  part. 

Herodotus4  says,  that  there  were  two  Ethiopian  nations,  one  in  India,  the  other  in  Egypt.  He 
derived  his  information  from  the  Egyptian  priests,  a  race  of  people  who  must  have  known  the 
truth ;  and  there  seems  no  reason  either  for  them  or  Herodotus  to  have  mis-stated  the  fact. 

Philostratus5  says,  that  the  Gymnosophists  of  Ethiopia,  who  settled  near  the  sources  of  the 
Nile,  descended  from  the  Bramins  of  India,  having  been  driven  thence  for  the  murder  of  their 
king. 6    This,  Philostratus  says,  he  learnt  from  an  ancient  Brahmin,  called  Jarchas. 

Another  ancient  writer,  Eustathius,  also  states,  that  the  Ethiopians  came  from  India.  These 
concurring  accounts  can  scarcely  be  doubted ;  and  here  may  be  discovered  the  mode  and  time  also 
when  great  numbers  of  ancient  rites  and  ceremonies  might  be  imported  from  India  into  Egypt :  for, 
that  there  was  a  most  intimate  relation  between  them  in  very  ancient  times  cannot  be  doubted ; 
indeed,  it  is  not  doubted.  The  only  question  has  been,  whether  Egypt  borrowed  from  India,  or 
India  from  Egypt.  All  probability  is  clearly,  for  a  thousand  reasons,  in  favour  of  the  superior  anti- 
quity of  India,  as  Bailly  and  many  other  learned  men  have  shewn— a  probability  which  seems  to  be 
reduced  to  a  certainty  by  Herodotus,  the  Egyptians  themselves,  and  the  other  authors  just  now 
quoted.  There  is  not  a  particle  of  proof,  from  any  historical  records  known  to  the  author,  that 
any  colony  ever  passed  from  Egypt  to  India,  but  there  is,  we  see,  direct,  positive  historical  evi- 
dence, of  the  Indians  having  come  to  Africa.  No  attention  can  be  paid  to  the  idle  stories  of  the 
conquest  of  India  by  Bacchus,  who  was  merely  an  imaginary  personage,  in  short,  the  God  Sol. 

Dr.  Shuckford  gives  an  opinion  that  Homer  and  Herodotus  are  both  right,  and  that  there  were 
two  Ethiopias,  and  that  the  Africans  came  from  India.7 


•  Wells,  Vol.  I.  p.  200.  *  In  Chron  ad  Num  402-  3  In  vita  Apollon.  Tyanei. 

4  L.  vii.  C.  lxx.  *  Vita  Apoll.  C.  vi.  6  Crawford,  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  193.  7  B.  ix.  p.  334. 


BOOK    I.    CHAPTER   IV.   SECTION   7«  55 

7.  The  Bishop  of  Avranches  thinks  he  has  found  three  provinces  of  the  name  of  Chus  ;  Ethio- 
pia, Arabia,  and  Susiana.1  There  were  three  Ethiopias,  that  is,  countries  of  Blacks,  not  three 
Chusses  ;  and  this  is  perfectly  consistent  with  what  M.  Bochart2  has  maintained,  that  Ethiopia  (of 
Africa)  is  not  named  Chus  in  any  place  of  scripture ;  and  this  is  also  consistent  with  what  is  said 
by  both  Homer  and  Herodotus.3  The  bishop  shews  clearly,  that  the  ancient  Susiana  is  the  modern 
Chuzestan  or  Elam,  of  which  Susa  was  the  capital.  The  famous  Memnon,  probably  the  Sun,  was 
said  to  be  the  son  of  Aurora.  But  Eschylus  informs  us,  that  Cissiene  was  the  mother  of  Mem- 
non, and  to  him  the  foundation  of  Susa  is  attributed ;  and  its  citadel  was  called  Memnonium,  and 
itself  the  city  of  Memnon.  This  is  the  Memnon  who  was  said  to  have  been  sent  to  the  siege  of 
Troy,  and  to  have  been  slain  by  Achilles ;  and  who  was  also  said,  by  the  ancient  authors,  to  be  an 
Ethiopian  or  a  Black.  It  seems  the  Egyptians  suppose  that  this  Memnon  was  their  king  Ameno- 
phis.  The  Ethiopians  are  stated  by  Herodotus  to  have  come  from  the  Indus;  according  to  what 
modern  chronologers  deduce  from  his  words,  about  the  year  1615  B.  C,  about  four  hundred  years 
after  the  birth  of  Abraham,  in  (1996,)  and  about  a  hundred  years  before  Moses  rebelled  against  the 
Egyptians  and  brought  the  Israelites  out  of  Egypt.  Palaces  were  shewn  which  belonged  to  this 
Memnon  at  Thebes  and  other  places  in  Egypt,  as  well  as  at  Susa,  which  from  him  were  called  in 
both  places  Memnoniums;  and  to  him  was  erected  the  famous  statue  at  Thebes,  which  is  alleged 
to  have  given  out  a  sound  when  first  struck  by  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun.  Bishop  Huet 
thinks,  (probably  very  correctly,)  that  this  statue  was  made  in  imitation  of  similar  things  which 
the  Jewish  traveller  Rabbi  Benjamin  found,  in  the  country  where  the  descendants  of  Chus  adore 
the  sun ;  and  this  he  shews  to  be  the  country  of  which  we  speak.  It  lies  about  Bussora,  where 
the  Sabeans  are  found  in  the  greatest  numbers,  and  who  are  the  people  of  whom  he  speaks. 

The  bishop  thinks  this  Memnon  cannot  have  been  Amenophis,  because  he  lived  very  many  years 
before  the  siege  of  Troy,  in  which  he  is  said  to  have  been  an  actor.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  as  absurd 
to  look  to  Homer  or  Virgil  for  the  chronology  of  historical  facts,  as  to  Shakespeare,  Milton,  or  any 
other  epic  poet.  These  poems  may  state  facts,  but  nothing  of  a  historical  or  chronological  kind 
can  be  received  without  some  collateral  evidence  in  confirmation.  It  never  was  supposed  to  be 
incumbent  on  any  epic  poet  to  tie  himself  down  to  mere  historical  matters  of  fact.  And  wherever 
it  is  evident,  either  from  the  admission  of  a  later  historical  author  or  from  any  other  circumstance, 
that  he  is  relating  facts  from  the  works  of  the  poets  without  any  other  authority,  he  can  be  as 
little  depended  upon  as  they  can. 

The  bishop  has  shewn  that  the  accounts  of  modern  authors,  George  Syncellus,  Suidas,  Pausa- 
nias,  Dionysius  Periegites,  &c,  &c,  are  full  of  contradictions ;  that  they  are  obliged  to  suppose 
two  Memnons.  All  this  arises  from  these  persons  treating  the  poem  of  Homer  as  a  history, 
instead  of  a  poem.  We  shall  never  have  an  ancient  history  worthy  of  the  jiemsal  of  men  of  common 
sense,  till  ive  cease  treating  poems  as  history,  and  send  hack  such  peisonages  as  Hercules,  Theseus, 
Bacchus,  8fc,  to  the  heavens^  whence  their  history  is  taken,  and  whence  they  never  descended  to  the 
earth. 

It  is  not  meant  to  be  asserted  that  these  epic  poems  may  not  be  of  great  use  to  a  historian. 
It  is  only  meant  to  protest  against  their  being  held  as  authority  by  themselves,  when  opposed 
either  to  other  histories  or  to  known  chronology.  This  case  of  Memnon  is  in  point.  Homer 
wanted  a  hero  to  fill  up  his  poem  ;  and,  without  any  regard  to  date,  or  any  thing  wrong  in  so 
doing,  he  accommodated  the  history  to  his  poem,  making  use  of  Amenophis  or  Memnon,  or  the 
religious  tradition  whichever  it  was,  as  he  thought  proper.     These  poems  may  also  be  of  great 

1  Diss,  on  Parod.  Ch.  xiii.  2  Phaleg.  L.  iv.  C.  ii. 

3  Homer,  Odyss.  a ;  Herod.  Polymn.  Cap.  Ixix.  lxx. ;  also  Steph.  in  'OfABjflrat. 


56  SHEPHERD    KINGS   OF   EGYPT. 

use  as  evidence  of  the  customs  and  manners  of  the  times,  both  of  when  they  were  written  and  pre- 
viously, and  very  often  of  dry  unconnected  facts  which  may  turn  out  to  be  of  consequence.  Thus 
Virgil  makes  Memnon  black, »  as  does  also  Pindar. 2  That  Pindar  and  Virgil  were  right,  the  fea- 
tures of  the  bust  of  Memnon  in  the  British  Museum  prove,  for  they  are  evidently  those  of  the 

Negro. 

8.  It  is  probable  that  the  Memnon  here  spoken  of,  if  there  ever  were  such  a  man,  was  the  leader 
of  the  Shepherds,  who  are  stated  by  Manetho  and  other  historians  to  have  come  from  the  East, 
and  to  have  conquered  Egypt.  The  learned  Dr.  Shuckford  thinks,  that  the  trouhles  caused  in 
Egypt  by  the  shepherd  kings  appear  to  have  happened  about  the  time  the  Jews  left  it  under 
Moses.  He  places  these  events  between  the  death  of  Joseph  and  the  birth  of  Moses. 3  And  he 
supposes  that  the  Jews  left  the  country  in  consequence  of  the  oppressions  of  these  shepherd 
kino-s.  It  is  very  clear  that  much  confusion  has  arisen  in  this  part  of  ancient  history  from  these 
eastern  shepherds  having  been  confounded  with  the  Israelites,  and  also  from  facts  relating  to  the 
one  having  been  attributed  to  the  other.  Josephus  takes  the  different  accounts  to  relate  to  the 
same  people.  This  is  attended  with  great  difficulty.  The  shepherds  are  said  by  Manetho,  after  a 
severe  struggle  with  the  old  inhabitants,  to  have  taken  refuge  in  a  city  called  Avaris  or  Abaris,  4 
where  they  were  a  long  time  besieged,  and  whence  at  last  they  departed,  two  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  in  number,  together  with  their  wives  and  children,  (in  consequence  of  a  capitulation,) 
into  the  deserts  of  Syria. 

If  there  were  two  races  of  "people  who  have  been  confounded  together,  one  of  which  came  from 
India  and  overran  Arabia,  Palestine,  and  Egypt,  and  brought  thence  its  religion  to  the  Egyptians, 
and  was  in  colour  black,  it  must  have  come  in  a  very  remote  period.  This  may  have  been  the  race 
of  shepherd  kings,  of  whom  Josephus  speaks  when  he  says,  they  oppressed  the  Israelites  :  but  the 
assertion  of  Josephus  can  hardly  have  been  true,  for  they  must  have  been  expelled  long  before  the 
Israelites  came.  The  second  race  were  the  Arabian  shepherd  tribe  called  captives,  who,  after 
being  settled  some  time  in  the  land  of  Goshen,  were  driven  or  went  out  into  the  open  country  of 
Arabia.  They  at  last,  under  the  command  of  Joshua,  conquered  Palestine,  and  finally  settled 
there.  Bishop  Cumberland  has  proved  that  there  was  a  dynasty  of  Phenician  shepherd  kings, 
who  were  driven  out  three  hundred  years  before  Moses.  These  seem  to  have  been  the  black  or 
Ethiopian,  Phenician  Memnonites.  They  may  have  exactly  answered  to  this  description,  but  to 
his  date  of  three  hundred  years  I  pay  no  attention,  further  than  that  it  was  a  great  length  of  time. 

Josephus  says  that  the  copies  of  Manetho  differed,  that  in  one  the  Shepherds  were  called  Cap- 
tives, not  kings,  and  that  he  thinks  this  is  more  agreeable  to  ancient  history ;  that  Manetho  also 
says,  the  nation  called  Shepherds  were  likewise  called  Captives  in  their  sacred  books ;  and  that 
after  they  were  driven  out  of  Egypt,  they  journied  through  the  wilderness  of  Syria,  and  built  a 
city  in  Judea,  which  they  called  Jerusalem.5 

Josephus6  says,  that  Manetho  was  an  Egyptian  by  birth,  but  that  he  understood  Greek,  in 
which  he  wrote  his  history,  translating  it  from  the  old  Egyptian  records. 

If  the  author  understand  Mr.  Faber  rightly  in  his  Horae  Mosaicse,7   he  is  of  opinion  that  these 


1  iEneid,  Lib.  i.  2  Olymp.  Od.  ii. ;  vide  Diss,  of  Bishop  Huet,  ph.  xiii.  p.  185. 

3  Shuckford,  Conn.  pp.  233,  234. 

4  We  read  of  a  person  coming  from  the  Hyperboreans  to  Greece,  in  the  time  of  Pythagoras,  called  Abaris  or  Avaris. 
Josephus  also  tells  us  that  the  city  in  the  Saite  Nomos,  (Seth-roite,)  i.  e.  Goshen,  where  the  oriental  Shepherds  resided, 
was  called  Avaris.  Now  I  suspect  that  this  man  was  called  from  the  Hebrew  word  "lmy  ober,  as  was  also  the  name  of 
the  city,  and  that  they  both  meant  stranger  or  foreigner :  the  same  as  the  tribe  of  Abraham,  in  Syria. 

5  Jos.  vers.  Apion,  B.  i.  §  xiv.,  Whiston,  p.  291.  6  Ut  sup.  §  xiv.  7  Ch.  ii.  Sect.  xi.  p.  23. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER   IV.     SECTION   9.  57 

Shepherd  Captives  were  the  Israelites.  The  accounts  of  these  two  tribes  of  people  are  confused, 
as  may  naturally  be  expected,  but  there  are  certainly  many  striking  traits  of  resemblance  between 
them.  Mr.  Shuckford,  with  whom  in  this  Mr.  Volney  agrees,  thinks  there  were  two  races  of 
Shepherd  kings,  and  in  this  opinion  he  coincides  with  most  of  the  ancients;  but  most  certainly,  in 
his  treatise  against  Apion,  Josephus  only  names  one.1  We  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter  re- 
specting these  shepherds,  under  the  name  of  Palli. 

The  only  objection  which  occurs  against  Amenophis  or  Memnon  being  the  leader  of  the  Hindoo 
race  who  first  came  from  the  Indus  to  Egypt  is,  that  according  to  our  ideas  of  his  chronology,  he 
could  scarcely  be  sufficiently  early  to  agree  with  the  known  historical  records  of  India.  But  our 
chronology  is  in  so  very  vague  and  uncertain  a  state,  that  very  little  dependance  can  be  placed 
upon  it.  And  it  will  never  be  any  better  till  learned  men  search  for  the  truth  and  fairly  state  it, 
instead  of  sacrificing  it  to  the  idle  legends  or  allegories  of  the  priests,  which  cannot  by  any  possible 
ingenuity  be  made  consistent  even  with  themselves. 

Mr.  Wilsford,  in  his  treatise  on  Egypt  and  the  Nile,  in  the  Asiatic  Researches,  informs  us,  that 
many  very  ancient  statues  of  the  God  Buddha  in  India  have  crisp,  curly  hair,  with  flat  noses  and 
thick  lips;  and  adds,  "  nor  can  it  be  reasonably  doubted,  that  a  race  of  Negroes  formerly  had  power 
"  and  pre-eminence  in  India." 

This  is  confirmed  by  Mr.  Maurice,  who  says,  "  The  figures  in  the  Hindoo  caverns  are  of  a  very 
"  different  character  from  the  present  race  of  Hindoos  :  their  countenances  are  broad  and  full,  the 
"  nose  flat,  and  the  lips,  particularly  the  under  lip,  remarkably  thick."  2 

This  is  again  confirmed  by  Colonel  Fitzclarence  in  the  journal  of  his  journey  from  India.  And 
Maurice,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Indian  Antiquities,  states,  that  the  figures  in  the  caves  in  India 
and  in  the  temples  in  Egypt,  are  absolutely  the  same  as  given  by  Bruce,  Niebuhr,  &c. 

Justin  states,  that  the  Phoenicians  being  obliged  to  leave  their  native  country  in  the  East,  they 
settled  first  near  the  Assyrian  Lake,  which  is  the  Persian  Gulf;  and  Maurice  says,  "  We  find  an 
"  extensive  district,  named  Palestine,  to  the  east  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris.  The  word  Pales- 
"  tine  seems  derived  from  Pallisthan,  the  seat  of  the  Pallis  or  Shepherds." 3  Palli,  in  India,  means 
Shepherd. 

This  confirms  Sir  William  Jones's  opinion,  in  a  striking  manner,  respecting  a  black  race  having 
reigned  at  Sidon. 

9.  It  seems  to  me  that  great  numbers  of  circumstances  are  producible,  and  will  be  produced  in 
the  following  work,  to  prove  that  the  mythology,  &c,  &c,  of  Egypt  were  derived  from  India,  but 
which  persons  who  are  of  a  different  opinion  endeavour  to  explain  away,  as  inconclusive  proofs. 
They,  however,  produce  few  or  no  circumstances  tending  towards  the  proof  of  the  contrary,  viz. 
that  India  borrowed  from  Egypt,  to  enable  the  friends  of  the  superior  antiquity  of  India,  in  their 
turn,  to  explain  away  or  disprove. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  our  Hindoo  soldiers  when  they  arrived  in  Egypt,  in  the  late  war, 
recognized  the  Gods  of  their  country  in  the  ancient  temples,  particularly  their  God  Cristna. 

The  striking  similarity,  indeed  identity,  of  the  style  of  architecture  and  the  ornaments  of  the 
ancient  Egytian  and  Hindoo  temples,  Mr.  Maurice  has  proved4  beyond  all  doubt.  He  says, 
"  Travellers,  who  have  visited  Egypt  in  periods  far  more  recent  than  those  in  which  the  above- 
"  cited  authors  journeyed  thither,  confirm  the  truth  of  their  relation,  in  regard  both  to  the  number 
"  and  extent  of  the  excavations,  the  beauty  of  the  sculptures,  and  their  similitude  to  those  carved 
"  in  the  caverns  of  India.     The  final  result,  therefore,   of  this  extended  investigation  is,  that,  in 

1  Jos.  vers.  Apion,  C.  i.  §  xiv.  B.  i.  2  Maurice,  Hind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  pp.  374—376. 

3  Maurice,  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  146.  «  Antiquities  of  Hindustan,  Vol.  I.  Sect.  viii. 

I 


58  SYRIA    PEOPLED    FROM    INDIA. 

"  the  remotest  periods,  there  has  existed  a  most  intimate  connexion  between  the  two  nations,  and 
"  that  colonies  emigrating  from  Egypt  to  India,  or  from  India  to  Egypt,  transported  their  deities 
"  into  the  country  in  which  they  respectively  took  up  their  abode."  This  testimony  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Maurice's  is  fully  confirmed  by  Sir  W.  Jones,  who  says, 

"  The  remains  of  architecture  and  sculpture  in  India,  which  I  mention  here  as  mere  monuments 
"  of  antiquity,  not  as  specimens  of  ancient  art,  seem  to  prove  an  early  connexion  between  this 
"  country  and  Africa :  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  the  colossal  statues  described  by  Pausanias  and 
"  others,  the  Sphinx,  and  the  Hermes  Canis,  which  last  bears  a  great  resemblance  to  the  Varaha- 
"  vatar,  or  the  incarnation  of  Vishnou  in  the  form  of  a  Boar,  indicate  the  style  and  mythology 
"  of  the  same  indefatigable  workmen  who  formed  the  vast  excavations  of  Canara,  the  various 
"  temples  and  images  of  Buddha,  and  the  idols  which  are  continually  dug  up  at  Gaya,  or  in  its 
"  vicinitv.  The  letters  on  many  of  those  monuments  appear,  as  I  have  before  intimated,  partly 
"  of  Indian,  and  partly  of  Abyssinian  or  Ethiopic,  origin :  and  all  these  indubitable  facts  may 
"  induce  no  ill-founded  opinion,  that  Ethiopia  and  Hindostan  were  peopled  or  colonized  by  the 
"  same  extraordinary  race ;  in  confirmation  of  which  it  may  be  added,  that  the  mountaineers  of 
"  Bengal  and  Bahar,  can  hardly  be  distinguished  in  some  of  their  features,  particularly  their  lips 
"  and  noses,  from  the  modern  Abyssinians,  whom  the  Arabs  call  the  children  of  Cush  :  and  the 
«'  ancient  Hindus,  according  to  Strabo,  differed  in  nothing  from  the  Africans  but  in  the  straight- 
"  ness  and  smoothness  of  their  hair,  while  that  of  the  others  was  crisp  or  woolly ;  a  difference 
"  proceeding  chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  from  the  respective  humidity  or  dryness  of  their  atmospheres : 
"  hence  the  people  who  received  the  first  light  of  the  rising  sun,  according  to  the  limited  knowledge 
"  of  the  ancients,  are  said  by  Apuleius  to  be  the  Arii  and  Ethiopians,  by  which  he  clearly  meant 
"  certain  nations  of  India;  where  we  frequently  see  figures  of  Buddha  with  curled  hair,  apparently 
"  designed  for  a  representation  of  it  in  its  natural  state."  l 

Again,  Sir  VV.  Jones  says,  "  Mr.  Bruce  and  Mr.  Bryant  have  proved  that  the  Greeks  gave  the 
"  appellation  of  Indians  to  the  nations  of  Africa,  and  to  the  people  among  whom  we  now  live." 2  I 
shall  account  for  this  in  the  following  work. 

Mons.  de  Guignes  maintains,  that  the  inhabitants  of  Egypt,  in  very  old  times,  had  unques- 
tionably a  common  origin  with  the  old  natives  of  India,  as  is  fully  proved  by  their  ancient  monu- 
ments, and  the  affinity  of  their  languages  and  institutions,  both  political  and  religious.3 

Many  circumstances  confirming  the  above,  particularly  with  respect  to  the  language,  will  be 
pointed  out  hereafter. 

10.  It  is  curious  to  observe  the  ingenuity  exercised  by  Sir  W.  Jones  to  get  over  obstacles  which 
oppose  themselves  to  his  theological  creed,  which  he  has  previously  determined  nothing  shall 
persuade  him  to  disbelieve.  He  says,  "  We  are  told  that  the  Phenicians,  like  the  Hindus,  adored 
"  the  Sun,  and  asserted  water  to  be  the  first  of  created  things ;  nor  can  we  doubt  that  Syria, 
"  Samaria,  and  Phenice,  or  the  long  strip  of  land  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  were 
"  anciently  peopled  by  a  branch  of  the  Indian  stock,  but  were  afterwards  inhabited  by  that  race 
"  which,  for  the  present,  we  call  Arabian."  Here  we  see  he  admits  that  the  ancient  Phoenicians 
were  Hindoos  :  he  then  goes  on  to  observe,  that  "  In  all  three  the  oldest  religion  was  the  Assyrian, 
"  as  it  is  called  by  Selden,  and  the  Samaritan  letters  appear  to  have  been  the  same  at  first  with 
"those  of  Phenice."*  Now,  with  respect  to  which  was  the  oldest  religion,  as  their  religions 
were  all,  at  the  bottom,  precisely  the  same,  viz.  the  worship  of  the  Sun,  there  is  as  strong  a 
probability  that  the  earliest  occupiers  of  the  land,  the  Hindoos,  were  the  founders  of  the  solar 
worship,  as  the  contrary. 

'  Diss.  III.  on  Hind.,  by  Sir  W.  Jones,  p.  1 1 1.  s  Jones's  Eighth  An.  Diss.  Asiatic  Res. 

3  Diss.  VII.  of  Sir  W.  Jones  on  the  Chinese,  p.  220.  *  Sir  W.  Jones's  Eighth  An.  Diss. 


BOOK    I.    CHAPTER    IV.    SECTION    10.  59 

When  the  various  circumstances  and  testimonies  which  have  been  detailed  are  taken  into  con- 
sideration, there  can  be  scarcely  any  doubt  left  on  the  mind  of  the  reader,  that,  by  the  word  Ethio- 
pia, two  different  countries  have  been  meant.  This  seems  to  be  perfectly  clear.  And  it  is  proba- 
ble that  by  an  Ethiopian,  a  negro,  correctly  speaking,  may  have  been  meant,  not  merely  a  black 
person ;  and  it  seems  probable  that  the  following  may  have  been  the  real  fact,  viz.  that  a  race 
either  of  Negroes  or  Blacks,  but  probably  of  the  former,  came  from  India  to  the  West,  occupying 
or  conquering  and  forming  a  kingdom  on  the  two  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  the  eastern  Ethiopia 
alluded  to  in  Numbers,  chap.  xii. ;  that  they  advanced  forwards  occupying  Syria,  Phoenicia,  Arabia, 
and  Egypt ;  that  they,  or  some  tribe  of  them,  were  the  shepherd  kings  of  Egypt ;  that  after  a  time 
the  natives  of  Egypt  rose  against  them  and  expelled  part  of  them  into  Abyssinia  or  Ethiopia, 
another  part  of  them  into  Idumea  or  Syria,  or  Arabia,  and  another  part  into  the  African  desert  of 
Lybia,  where  they  were  called  Lubim. 

The  time  at  which  these  people  came  to  the  West  was  certainly  long  previous  to  the  exodus  of 
the  Israelites  from  Egypt ;  but  how  long  previous  to  that  event  must  remain  doubtful.  No  system 
of  chronology  can  be  admitted  as  evidence ;  every  known  system  is  attended  with  too  many  diffi- 
culties. Perhaps  chronology  may  be  allowed  to  instruct  us,  in  relation  to  facts,  as  to  which  pre- 
ceded or  followed,  but  certainly  nothing  more.  No  chronological  date  can  be  depended  on  previous 
to  the  capture  of  Babylon  by  Cyrus :  whether  we  can  depend  upon  it  quite  so  far  back  seems  to 
admit  of  doubt. 

Part  of  the  ancient  monuments  of  Egypt  may  have  been  executed  by  these  people.  The  raem- 
noniums  found  in  Persia  and  in  Egypt  leave  little  room  to  doubt  this.  In  favour  of  this  hypothesis 
all  ancient  sacred  and  profane  historical  accounts  agree  ;  and  poetical  works  of  imagination  can- 
not be  admitted  to  compete  as  evidence  with  the  works  of  serious  historians  like  Herodotus.  This 
hypothesis  likewise  reconciles  all  the  accounts  which  at  first  appear  discordant,  but  which  no  other 
will  do.  It  is  also  confirmed  by  a  considerable  quantity  of  circumstantial  evidence.  It  is,  there- 
fore, presumed  by  the  writer,  he  may  safely  assume  in  his  forthcoming  discussions,  that  there  were 
two  Ethiopias,  one  to  the  East  of  the  Red  Sea,  the  other  to  the  West  of  it ;  and  that  a  very  great 
nation  of  blacks  from  India,  did  rule  over  almost  all  Asia  in  a  very  remote  sera,  in  fact  beyond  the 
reach  of  history  or  any  of  our  records. 

This  and  what  has  been  observed  respecting  judicial  astrology  will  be  retained  in  recollection  by 
my  reader ;  they  will  both  be  found  of  great  importance  in  our  future  inquiries.  In  my  Essay  on 
The  Celtic  Druids,  I  have  shewn,  that  a  great  nation  called  Celtae,  of  whom  the  Druids  were  the 
priests,  spread  themselves  almost  over  the  whole  earth,  and  are  to  be  traced  in  their  rude  gigantic 
monuments  from  India  to  the  extremity  of  Britain.  Who  these  can  have  been  but  the  early  indi- 
viduals of  the  black  nation  of  whom  we  have  been  treating  I  know  not,  and  in  this  opinion  I  am 
not  singular.  The  learned  Maurice  says,  "  Cuthites,  i.  e.  Celts,  built  the  great  temples  in  India 
"  and  Britain,  and  excavated  the  caves  of  the  former."  1  And  the  learned  Mathematician,  Reuben 
Burrow,  has  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  Stonehenge  to  be  a  temple  of  the  black,  curly-headed 
Buddha. 

I  shall  leave  the  further  consideration  of  this  black  nation  for  the  present.  I  shall  not  detain  my 
reader  with  any  of  the  numerous  systems  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Persians,  the  Chaldeans,  Egyptians, 
or  other  nations,  except  in  those  particular  instances  which  immediately  relate  to  the  object  of  this 
work, — in  the  course  of  which  I  shall  often  have  occasion  to  recur  to  what  I  have  here  said,  and 
shall  al»o  have  opportunities  of  supporting  it  by  additional  evidence. 


1  Maurice,  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  249. 
i2 


(    60    ) 


BOOK  II. 
CHAPTER   I. 

THE  ANCIENT   PERSIANS   OF    THE    RELIGION    OF  ABRAHAM.  —  FIRST    BOOKS   OF    GENESIS.  —  DISINGENUOUS 
CONDUCT    IN   THE   TRANSLATORY   OF  THE    BIBLE. — ABRAHAM   ACKNOWLEDGED   MORE   THAN    ONE   GOD. 

1.  The  religion  and  ancient  philosophy  of  the  Chaldeans,  by  whom  are  meant  the  Assyrians,  as 
o-iven  by  Stanley, *  at  first  view  exhibit  a  scene  of  the  utmost  confusion.  This  may  be  attributed 
in  part  to  the  circumstance,  that  it  is  not  the  history  of  their  religion  and  philosophy  at  any  one 
particular  aera,  but  that  it  is  extended  over  a  space  of  several  thousand  years,  during  which, 
perhaps,  they  might  undergo  many  changes.  To  this  circumstance  authors  have  not  paid  suffi- 
cient attention ;  so  that  what  may  have  been  accurately  described  in  the  time  of  Herodotus  may 
have  been  much  changed  in  the  time  of  Porphyry.  Thus  different  authors  appear  to  write  in 
contradiction  to  each  other,  though  each  may  have  written  what  was  strictly  true  at  the  time  of 
which  he  was  writing. 

Under  the  name  of  the  country  of  the  Chaldeans  several  states  have  at  different  periods  been 
included.  It  has  been  the  same  with  respect  to  Persia.  When  an  author  speaks  of  Persia,  some- 
times Persia  only  is  meant,  sometimes  Bactria,  sometimes  Media,  sometimes  all  three ;  and 
Assyria  is  very  often  included  with  them.     Here  is  another  source  of  difficulty  and  confusion. 

After  the  conquest  of  Babylon  and  its  dependent  states,  the  empire  founded  by  its  conquerors, 
the  Persians,  was  often  called,  by  writers  of  the  Western  part  of  the  world,  the  Assyrian  or 
Chaldean  empire.  In  all  these  states  or  kingdoms  the  religion  of  the  Persians  prevailed;  and  the 
use  of  the  indiscriminate  terms,  Persian,  Assyrian,  and  Chaldean,  by  Porphyry,  Plutarch,  &c, 
when  treating  of  that  empire,  has  been  the  cause  of  much  of  the  uncertainty  respecting  what  was 
the  religion  of  the  Persians  and  Assyrians.  Thus,  when  one  historian  says,  the  Chaldeans, 
meaning  the  Assyrians,  worshiped  the  idol  Moloch ;  and  another  says,  they  worshiped  fire,  as  the 
emblem  of  the  Deity  ;  they  are  probably  both  correct :  one  assertion  is  true  before  the  time  of 
Cyrus,  the  other  afterward. 

Although  it  may  not  be  possible  to  make  out  a  connected  and  complete  system,  yet  it  will  be 
no  difficult  matter  to  shew,  that,  at  one  particular  time,  the  worship  of  the  Assyrians,  Chaldeans, 
Persians,  Babylonians,  was  that  of  one  Supreme  God ;  that  the  Sun  was  worshiped  as  an  emblem 
only  of  the  divinity,  and  that  the  religions  of  Abraham,  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  of  these 
Eastern  nations  were  originally  the  same.  The  Christian  divines,  who  have  observed  the  identity, 
of  course  maintain  that  the  other  nations  copied  from  Moses,  or  the  natives  of  Palestine,  i.  e. 
that  several  great  and  mighty  empires,  copied  from  a  small  and  insignificant  province.  No  doubt 
this  is  possible  :  whether  probable  or  not  must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader,  after  he  has 
well  considered  all  the  circumstances  detailed  in  the  following  work. 

2.  The  very  interesting  and  ancient  book  of  Genesis,   on  which  the  modern  system  of  the 


Part  XIX. 


BOOK  II.    OHAP.  I.    SECT.  2.  61 

reformed  Christian  religion  is  chiefly  founded,  has  always  been  held  to  be  the  production  of  Moses. 
But  it  requires  very  little  discernment  to  perceive,  that  it  is  a  collection  of  treatises,  probably  of 
different  nations.  The  first  ends  with  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chapter — the  second  with  the 
last  verse  of  the  fourth. 

In  the  first  verse  of  the  first  book,  the  Aleim,  which  will  be  proved  to  be  the  Trinity,  being  in 
the  plural  number,  are  said  by  Wisdom  to  have  formed,  from  matter  previously  existing,  the 
D>D10  smitn,  or  planetary  bodies,  which  were  believed  by  the  Magi  to  be  the  rulers  or  directors  of 
the  affairs  of  men.  This  opinion  I  shall  examine  by  and  by.  From  this  it  is  evident,  that  this 
is  in  fact  a  Persian,  or  still  more  Eastern,  mythos. 

The  use  of  animals  for  food  being  clearly  not  allowed  to  man,  in  chap.  i.  vers.  29,  30,  is  a  cir- 
cumstance which  bespeaks  the  book  of  Buddhist  origin.  It  is  probably  either  the  parent  of  the 
Buddhist  religion,  or  its  offspring.  And  it  is  different  from  the  next  book,  which  begins  at  the 
fourth  verse  of  the  second  chapter,  and  ends  with  the  last  verse  of  the  fourth  ;  because,  among 
other  reasons  in  it,  the  creation  is  said  to  have  been  performed  by  a  different  person  from  that 
named  in  the  first,— by  Jehovah  Aleim,  instead  of  Aleim.  Again,  in  the  first  book,  man  and 
woman  are  created  at  the  same  time ;  in  the  second,  they  are  created  at  different  times.  Again, 
in  the  first  book,  the  fruit  of  all  the  trees  is  given  to  the  man ;  in  the  second,  this  is  contradicted, 
by  one  tree  being  expressly  forbidden.     These  are  in  fact  two  different  accounts  of  the  creation. 

The  beginning  of  the  fifth  chapter,  or  third  tract,  seems  to  be  a  repetition  of  the  first,  to  connect 
it  with  the  history  of  the  flood.  The  world  is  described  as  being  made  by  God,  (Aleim,)  and  not 
as  in  the  second  by  Jehovah  or  the  God  Jehovah  or  Jehovah  Aleim;  and,  as  in  the  first,  the  man 
and  woman  are  made  at  one  time,  and  not,  as  in  the  second,  at  different  times.  The  account  of 
the  birth  of  Seth,  given  in  the  twenty- fifth  verse  of  the  fourth  chapter,  and  the  repetition  of  the 
same  event  in  the  third  verse  of  the  fifth  chapter,  or  the  beginning  of  the  third  tract,  are  a  clear 
proof  that  these  tracts  are  by  different  persons  ;  or,  at  least,  are  separate  and  distinct  works. 
The  reason  why  the  name  of  Seth  is  given  here,  and  not  the  names  of  any  of  the  later  of  Adam's 
children,  is  evidently  to  connect  Adam  with  Noah  and  the  flood,  the  object  of  the  third  tract.  The 
permission,  in  the  third  tract,  to  eat  animals  implying  that  it  was  not  given  before,  is  strictly  in 
keeping  with  the  denial  of  it  in  the  first. 

The  histories  of  the  creation,  both  in  the  first  and  in  the  second  book  of  Genesis,  in  the  sacred 
books  of  the  Persians,  and  in  those  of  the  Chaldeans,  are  evidently  different  versions  of  the  same 
story.  The  Chaldeans  state  the  world  to  have  been  created  not  in  six  days,  but  in  six  periods 
of  time — the  lengths  of  the  periods  not  being  fixed.  The  Persians,  also,  divide  the  time  into  six 
periods. 

In  the  second  book,  a  very  well-known  account  is  given  of  the  origin  of  evil,  which  is  an  affair 
most  closely  interwoven  with  every  part  of  the  Christian  system,  but  it  is  in  fact  nothing  more 
than  an  oriental  mythos,  which  may  have  been  taken  from  the  history  of  the  ancient  Brahmins, 
in  whose  books  the  principal  incidents  are  to  be  found ;  and,  in  order  to  put  this  matter  out  of 
doubt,  it  will  only  be  necessary  to  turn  to  the  plates,  to  Figs.  2,  3,  4,  taken  from  icons  in  the 
very  oldest  of  the  caves  of  Hindostan,  excavated,  as  it  is  universally  agreed,  long  prior  to  the 
Christian  aera.  The  reader  will  find  the  first  to  be  the  seed  of  the  woman  bruising  the  serpent's 
head ;  the  second,  the  serpent  biting  the  foot  of  her  seed,  the  Hindoo  God  Cristna,  the  second 
person  of  their  trinity ;  and  the  third,  the  spirit  of  God  brooding  over  the  face  of  the  waters. 
The  history  in  Genesis  is  here  so  closely  depicted  that  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  the  identity  of 
the  two. 

Among  the  Persians  and  all  the  oriental  nations  it  has  been  observed,  that  the  Creator  or  God 
was  adored  under  a  triple  form — in  fact  in  the  form  of  a  trinity.     In  India,  this  was  Bramah, 


62  ABRAHAM   ACKNOWLEDGED    MORETHAN    ONE   GOD. 

Cristna  or  Vishnu,  and  Siva ;  in  Persia,  it  was  Oromasdes,  Mithra,  and  Arhimanius ;  in  each  case 
the  Creator,  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  shew  that,  in  this  particular,  the  religion  of  Abraham  and  the  Israelites 
was  accordant  with  all  the  others. 

3.  But  before  I  proceed,  I  must  point  out  an  example  of  very  blameable  disingenuousness  in 
every  translation  of  the  Bible  which  I  have  seen.  In  the  original,  God  is  called  by  a  variety  of 
names,  often  the  same  as  that  which  the  Heathens  gave  to  their  Gods.  To  disguise  this,  the 
translators  have  availed  themselves  of  a  contrivance  adopted  by  the  Jews  in  rendering  the  Hebrew 
into  Greek,  which  is  to  render  the  word  mn*  Ieue,  and  several  of  the  other  names  by  which  God 
is  called  in  the  Bible,  by  the  word  Kupios  or  Lord,  which  signifies  one  having  authority,  the 
sovereign.  In  this  the  Jews  were  justified  by  the  commandment,  which  forbids  the  use  of  the 
name  Ieue.  But  not  so  the  Christians,  who  do  not  admit  the  true  and  evident  meaning  adopted 
by  the  Jews — Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  Ieue,  thy  God,  in  vain.  And,  therefore,  they  have 
no  right,  when  pretending  to  give  a  translation,  to  call  God  by  any  other  name  than  that  in  the 
original,  whether  it  be  Adonis,  or  Ie,  or  Ieue,  or  any  other.  This  the  reader  will  immediately  see 
is  of  the  first  importance  in  obtaining  a  correct  understanding  of  the  book.  The  fact  of  the  names 
of  God  being  disguised  in  all ,  the  translations  tends  to  prove  that  no  dependence  can  be  placed 
on  any  of  them.  The  fact  shews  very  clearly  the  temper  or  state  of  mind  with  which  the  trans- 
lators have  undertaken  their  task.  God  is  called  by  several  names.  How  is  the  reader  of  a 
translation  to  discover  this,  if  he  find  them  all  rendered  by  one  name  ?  He  is  evidently  deceived. 
It  is  no  justification  of  a  translator,  to  say  it  is  of  little  consequence.  Little  or  great,  he  has  no 
right  to  exercise  any  discretion  of  this  kind.  When  he  finds  God  called  Adonai,  he  has  no  busi- 
ness to  call  him  Jehovah  or  Elohim. 

4.  The  fact  that  Abraham  worshiped  several  Gods,  who  were,  in  reality,  the  same  as  those  of 
the  Persians,  namely,  the  creator,  preserver,  and  the  destroyer,  has  been  long  asserted,  and  the 
assertion  has  been  very  unpalatable  both  to  Jews  and  many  Christians ;  and  to  obviate  or  disguise 
what  they  could  not  account  for,  they  have  had  recourse,  in  numerous  instances,  to  the  mistrans- 
lation of  the  original,  as  will  presently  be  shewn. 

The  following  texts  will  clearly  prove  this  assertion.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Shuckford  pointed  out  the 
fact  long  ago  ;  so  that  this  is  nothing  new. 

In  the  second  book  of  Genesis  the  creation  is  described  not  to  have  been  made  by  Aleim,  or  the 
Aleim,  but  by  a  God  of  a  double  name — Q>n^K  ffliV  Ieue  Aleim  ;  which  the  priests  have  translated 
Lord  God.  By  using  the  word  Lord,  their  object  evidently  is  to  conceal  from  their  readers 
several  difficulties  which  arise  afterward  respecting  the  names  of  God  and  this  word,  and  which 
shew  clearly  that  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch  are  the  writings  of  different  persons. 

Dr.  Shuckford  has  observed,  that  in  Genesis  xii.  />  8,  Abraham  did  not  call  upon  the  name  of 
the  Lord  as  we  improperly  translate  it ;  but  invoked  God  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  (i.  e.  Ieue) 
whom  he  worshiped,  and  who  appeared  to  him ;  and  that  this  was  the  same  God  to  whom  Jacob 
prayed  when  he  vowed  that  the  Lord  should  be  his  God.  2  Again,  in  Gen.  xxviii.  21,  22,  n>ffi 
CDT6&6  6  niiT  erit  Dominus  mihi  inDeum;  and  he  called  the  place  DTT7N  D>1  (Bit  aleim),  Domus 
Dei.  Again,  Shuckford  says,3  that  in  Gen.  xxvi.  25,  Isaac  invoked  God  as  Abraham  did  in  the 
name  of  this  Lord,  mil'  Ieue  or  Jehovah.  On  this  he  observes,  "  It  is  very  evident  that  Abraham 
and  his  descendants  worshiped  not  only  the  true  and  living  God,  but  they  invoked  him  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  and  they  worshiped  the  Lord  in  whose  name  they  invoked,  so  that  two  per- 
sons were  the  object  of  their  worship,  God  and  this  Lord  :  and  the  Scripture  has  distinguished 

1  At  least  I  have  never  seen  an  exception.  *  Shuckford,  Book  vii.  pp.  130,  131.  3  Book  vii.  p.  130. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  4.  63 

e<  these  two  persons  from  one  another  by  this  circumstance,  that  God  no  man  hath  seen  at  any 
"  time  nor  can  see, 1  but  the  Lord  whom  Abraham  and  his  descendants  worshiped  was  the  person 
"  who  appeared  to  them."2 

In  the  above  I  need  not  remind  my  reader  that  he  must  insert  the  name  of  Ieue  or  Jehovah  for 
the  name  of  Lord. 

Chapter  xxi.  verse  33,  is  wrong  translated  :  when  properly  rendered  it  represents  Abraham  to 
have  invoked  (in  the  name  of  Jehovah  J  the  everlasting  God.3  That  is,  to  have  invoked  the  ever- 
lasting God,  or  to  have  prayed  to  him  in  the  name  of  Jehovah — precisely  as  the  Christians  do  at 
this  day.  who  invoke  God  in  the  name  of  Jesus — who  invoke  the  first  person  of  the  Trinity  in  the 
name  of  the  second. 

The  words  of  this  text  are,  D^iy  bx  mrv  DiiQ  Di2>-N")pM  et  invocavit  ibi  in  nomine  Ieue  Deum 
ceternum. 

The  foregoing  observations  of  Dr.  Shuckford's  are  confirmed  by  the  following  texts  : 

Gen.  xxxi.  42,  "  Except  the  God  of  my  father,  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  fear  of  Isaac,"  &c. 

Gen.  xxxi.  53,  "  The  Gods  of  Abraham,  and  the  Gods  of  Nahor,  the  Gods  of  their  father,  judge 
betwixt  us,  DnON  TtVi*.  Dii  patris  eorum,  that  is,  the  Gods  of  Terah,  the  great-grandfather  of 
both  Jacob  and  Laban.  It  appears  that  they  went  back  to  the  time  when  there  could  be  no  dispute 
about  their  Gods.  They  sought  for  Gods  that  should  be  received  by  them  both,  and  these  were 
the  Gods  of  Terah.  Laban  was  an  idolater,  ^or  at  least  of  a  different  sect  or  religion — Rachel  stole 
his  Gods,)  Jacob  was  not ;  and  in  consequence  of  the  difference  in  their  religion,  there  was  a 
difficulty  in  finding  an  oath  that  should  be  binding  on  both. 

In  Gen.  xxxv.  1 ,  it  is  said,  And  (D'nVK  Aleim)  God  said  unto  Jacob,  Arise,  go  up  to  Bethel,  and 
dwell  there;  and  make  there  an  altar  unto  God  (bxb  Lal)  that  appeared  unto  thee,  when  thou  jleddest 
from  the  face  of  Esau  thy  brother.  If  two  Gods  at  least,  or  a  plurality  in  the  Godhead,  had  not 
been  acknowledged  by  the  author  of  Genesis,  the  words  would  have  been,  and  make  there  an  altar 
unto  me,  that,  &c. ;  or,  unto  me,  because  I  appeared,  &c. 

Genesis  xlix.  25,  *]Dnn>)  nw  DX)  "pty')  "JON  bxn,  a  Deo  tui  patris  et  adjuvabit  te ;  et  omnipo- 
tente  benedicet  tibi.  By  the  God  (Al)  of  thy  father  also  he4  will  help  thee,  and  the  Saddai  (Sdi) 
also  shall  bless  thee  with  blessings,  &c. 

It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  there  is  a  marked  distinction  between  the  Al  of  his  father  who 
will  help  him,  and  the  Saddi  who  will  bless  him.  Here  are  two  evidently  clear  and  distinct  Gods, 
and  neither  of  them  the  destroyer  or  the  evil  principle. 

Even  by  the  God  (bx  Al)  of  thy  father,  who  shall  help  thee :  and  by  the  Almighty,  nw  omnipo- 
tente,  who  shall  bless  thee  with  blessings  of  heaven  above,  blessings  of  the  deep  that  lieth  under, 
blessings  of  the  breasts  and  of  the  womb.  The  Sdi  or  Saddi  are  here  very  remarkable  ;  they  seem 
to  have  been  peculiarly  Gods  of  the  blessings  of  this  world. 

Deut.  vi.  4,  ina  miT  WiT7X  miT.  This,  Mr.  Hails  has  correctly  observed,  ought  to  be  ren- 
dered Jehovah  our  Gods  is  one  Jehovah. 

The  doctrine  of  a  plurality,  shewn  above  in  the  Pentateuch,  is  confirmed  in  the  later  books  of  the 
Jews. 

Isaiah  xlviii.  16,  mm  >2nb\D  miT  >31K  nnyi-  Et  nunc  Adonai  Ieue  misit  me  et  spiritus  ejus  : 
And  now  the  Lord  (Adonai)  Jehovah,  hath  sent  me  and  his  spirit. 

1  Exod.  xxxiii.  20.  2  Gen.  xii.  1 1 ;  Shuckford,  Book  ix.  p.  378,  Ed.  3,  also  p.  400. 

3  Shuckford,  Con.  Book  v.  p.  292.  4  The  mighty  one  named  in  the  former  verse,  the  ra«  Abir. 


64  ON    THE   WORD    ALEIM    OR   JEWISH   TRINITY. 

Again  Isaiah  li.  22,  ioy  an*  "J'hVki  niiT  7J"TK  nDX-HD.  Thus  thy  Adonai  Jehovah  spoke,  and  thy 
Aleim  reprimanded  his  people.     Sic  dixit  tuus  Adoni  Ieue,  et  tuus  Aleim  litigabit  suo  populo. 

Two  persons  of  the  Trinity  are  evident  in  these  texts.  The  third  is  found  in  the  serpent,  which 
tempted  Eve  in  its  evil  character,  and  in  its  character  of  regenerator,  healer,  or  preserver,  in  the 
brasen  serpent  set  up  by  Moses,  in  the  wilderness,  to  be  adored  by  the  Israelites,  and  to  which  they 
offered  incense  from  his  time  through  all  the  reigns  of  David  and  Solomon,  to  the  time  of 
Hezekiah,  the  name  of  which  was  Nehushtan. 1  Numbers  xxi.  8,  9 ;  2  Kings  xviii.  4.  The 
destroyer  or  evil  spirit  may  also  probably  be  found  in  the  Aub  named  Lev.  xx.  27;  Deut.  xviii.  11. 

There  are  many  expressions  in  the  Pentateuch  besides  those  already  given,  which  cannot  be 
accounted  for  without  a  plurality  of  Gods  or  the  Trinity,  a  doctrine  which  was  not  peculiar  to 
Abraham  and  his  descendants,  but  was  common  to  all  the  nations  of  the  ancient  world  from 
India  to  Thule,  as  I  have  before  observed,  under  the  triple  title  of  creator,  preserver,  and  de- 
stroyer— Brama,  Vishnu,  and  Siva,  among  the  Hindoos ;  Oromasdes,  Mithra,  and  Arhimanius, 
among  the  Persians. 

We  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  that  the  Trinity  will  be  found  in  the  word  Aleim  of  the  first 
verse  of  Genesis,  which  will  tend  to  support  what  I  have  asserted,  viz.  that  it  is  an  Indian  book. 


CHAPTER  II. 


On  THE  WORD   ALEIM  OR  JEWISH  trinity. — SADDAI  adonis. — TRINITY  of  the  rabbis. — MEANING  of 

THE   WORDS   AL   AND   EL. 

1 .  Perhaps  there  is  no  word  in  any  language  about  which  more  has  been  written  than  the  word 
Aleim ;  or,  as  modern  Jews  corruptly  call  it,  Elohim. 2  But  all  its  difficulties  are  at  once  removed 
by  considering  it  as  a  representation  of  the  united  Godhead,  the  Trinity  in  Unity,  the  three 
Persons  and  one  God.  It  is  not  very  unlike  the  word  Septuagint — of  which  we  sometimes  say,  it 
gives  a  word  such  or  such  a  sense,  at  other  times  they  give  such  a  sense,  &c.  A  folio  would  be 
required  to  contain  all  that  has  been  said  respecting  this  word.  The  author  believes  that  there  is 
no  instance  in  which  it  is  not  satisfactorily  explained  by  considering  it,  as  above  suggested,  as  the 
representation  of  the  Trinity. 

The  root  ^N  al,  the  root  of  the  word  Aleim,  as  a  verb,  or  in  its  verbal  form,  means  to  mediate, 
to  interpose  for  protection,  to  preserve ; 3  and,  as  a  noun,  a  mediator,  an  interposer.  In  its 
feminine  it  has  two  forms,  nbx  ale,  and  mba  alue.  In  its  plural  masculine  it  makes  H2>bx  alim, 
in  its  plural  feminine  d^N  aleim.  In  forming  its  plural  feminine  in  CD*  im,  it  makes  an  excep- 
tion to  the  general  Hebrew  rule,  which  makes  the  plural  masculine  in  CD*  im.  But  though  an 
exception,  it  is  by  no  means  singular.  It  is  like  that  made  by  CD'ty  ozim,  she-goats,  CD»m  dbim, 
she-bears,  &c. 4  In  the  second  example  in  its  feminine  form,  it  drops  the  u  or  vau,  according  to 
a  common  practice  of  the  Hebrew  language. 


1  This  has  been  observed  by  Mr.  Maurice,  Hind.  Ant.  Vol.  III.  p.  209. 

2  In  the  Synagogue  copies  it  is  always  Aleim. 

3  Parkhurst  in  voce.  *  Parkhurst's  Grammar,  p.  8. 


a 


a 


BOOK  II.    CHAPrER  II.    SECTION   1.  65 

A  controversy  took  place  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  between  one  Dr.  Sharpe  and 
several  other  divines  upon  the  word  Aleini.  The  Doctor  was  pretty  much  of  my  opinion.  He 
says,  "  If  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  as  I  think  there  is  none,  that  nbx  ale  and  ni^>N  alue  are  the 
"  same  word,  only  the  vau  is  suppressed  in  the  one,  and  expressed  in  the  other,  why  may  not 
"  CD>r6x  aleim  be  the  plural  of  one  as  well  as  of  the  other  ?  If  it  be  said  it  cannot  be  the  plural 
"  of  ni^>N  alue,  because  it  is  wrote  without  the  vau  ;  I  answer,  that  CD'Znp  qrbim,  tzi>prf-\  rhqim, 
tanaj  gbrim,  CD>bll  gdlim,  &c,  are  frequently  wrote  without  the  vau  :  are  they  not,  therefore, 
1  the  plurals  of  21~\\)  grub,"  &c.  ?  Again,  he  says, 
"  When,  therefore,  Mr.  Moody,  tells  us  that  CD>r6x  aleim  may  be  the  plural  masculine  of  nbx 
ale,  as  D01K  adnim,  and  >3TN  adni,  are  also  plurals'  of  fnx  adun,  Lord,  so  may  Dt6n  aleim  and 
"  >n^K  alei  be  plural  of  mbx  Alue,  God."  ! 

In  the  course  of  the  controversy  it  seems  to  be  admitted  by  all  parties,  that  the  word  has  the 
meaning  of  mediator  or  interposer  for  protection,  and  this  is  very  important. 

I  cannot  quite  agree  with  Mr.  Moody,  because,  according  to  the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  language, 
it  is  much  more  in  character  for  0>nbx  aleim  to  be  the  plural  feminine  of  rr?N  ale,  a  feminine  noun, 
than  the  plural  masculine ;  and  for  D'Vx  alim  to  be  the  plural  masculine,  of  the  masculine  noun 
bx  al. 

But  it  does  not  seem  to  have  ever  occurred  to  any  of  those  gentlemen,  that  the  words  in  ques- 
tion, n^N  ale,  or  m^N  alue,  and  bx  al,  might  be  one  the  masculine,  and  the  two  others  the  feminine, 
of  the  same  word — like  God  and  Goddess.  They  never  seem  to  have  thought  that  the  God  of  the 
Hebrews  could  be  of  any  sex  but  their  own,  and,  therefore,  never  once  gave  a  thought  to  the 
question.  The  observation  of  Mr.  Moody  is  very  just,  if  p^x  ale  be  a  masculine  noun.  But  it  is 
much  more  according  to  the  genius  of  the  language  that  it  should  be  feminine.  If  n^N  ale  be 
masculine,  it  is  an  exception.  I  beg  the  reader  to  observe,  that  the  Arabians,  from  whose  lan- 
guage the  word  al  properly  comes,  have  the  word  for  the  Sun,  in  the  feminine,  and  that  for  the 
moon,  in  the  masculine  gender ;  and  this  accounts  for  the  word  being  in  the  feminine  plural. 
From  the  androgynous  character  of  the  Creator,  the  noun  of  multitude,  Aleim,  by  which  we  shall 
now  see  that  he  was  described,  probably  was  of  the  common  gender :  that  is,  either  of  one  gender 
or  the  other,  as  it  might  happen. 

From  the  plural  of  this  word,  bn  al,  was  also  formed  a  noun  of  multitude  used  in  the  first  verse 
of  Genesis  :  exactly  like  our  word  people,  in  Latin  populus,  or  our  words  nation,  flock,  and  congre- 
gation. Thus  it  is  said,  D'H^N  N"iN2  bara  aleim,  Aleim  formed  the  earth;  as  we  say,  the  nation 
consumes,  a  flock  strays,  or  the  congregation  sings  psalms,  or  a  triune  divinity,  or  a  trinity 
blesses  or  forms.  It  is  used  with  the  emphatic  article  :  "  Their  cry  came  up  to  the  Gods," 
D'i"6*<n  e-aleim.  In  the  same  way  we  say,  wolves  got  to  the  sheep,  or  the  flock,  or  the  congre- 
gation sing  or  sings.  Being  a  noun  of  multitude,  according  to  the  genius  of  the  language,  the 
verb  may  be  either  in  the  singular  or  plural  number. 

Parkhurst  says,  that  "  the  word  Al  means  God,  the  Heavens,  Leaders,  Assistance,  Defence, 
"  and  Interposition ;  or,  to  interpose  for  protection."  He  adds,  "  that  bbx  All,  with  the  ^>  I 
doubled,  has  the  meaning,  in  an  excessive  degree,  of  vile,  the  denouncing  of  a  curse :  nought, 
"  nothing,  res  nihili."  Mr.  Whiter  2  says,  that  it  has  the  same  meaning  in  Arabic,  and  that  Al 
Al,  also  means  Deus  optimus  maximus.  Thus  we  have  the  idea  of  creating,  preserving,' and 
destroying. 

The  meaning  of  mediator,  preserver,  or  intervener,  joined  to  its  character  of  a  noun  of  multitude, 
at  once  identifies  it  with  the  Trinity  of  the  Gentiles.     Christians  will  be  annoyed  to  find  their  God 

1  Sharpe,  on  Aleim,  pp.  179,  180.  *  Etymol.Univ.  Vol.  I.  p.  512. 


66  SADDAI    ADONIS. 

called  by  the  same  name  with  that  of  the  Heathen  Gods  ;  but  this  is  only  what  took  place  when  he 
was  called  n\D  Sdi,  Saddi,  Saddim,  or  >l*TK  adni,  Adonai,  or  Adonis,  jn»  adun,  or  tyn  hoi,  Baal :  so 
that  there  is  nothing  unusual  in  this. 

The  Jews  have  made  out  that  God  is  called  by  upwards  of  thirty  names  in  the  Bible  j  many  of 
them  used  by  the  Gentiles,  probably  before  they  fell  into  idolatry. 

The  word  ba  al,  meaning  preserver ;  of  course,  when  the  words  D»i"6n  n  miT  ieue-e-aleim  are 
used,  they  mean  Ieue  the  preserver,  or  the  self- existent  preserver— the  word  Ieue,  as  we  shall  after- 
ward find,  meaning  self-existent. 

When  the  DTl^K  aleim  is  considered  as  a  noun  of  multitude,  all  the  difficulties,  I  think,  are 
removed. 

It  seems  not  unlikely  that  by  the  different  modes  of  writing  the  word  bx  al,  a  distinction  of 
sexes  should  originally  have  been  intended  to  be  expressed.  The  Heathen  divinities,  Ashtaroth 
and  Baal-zebub,  were  both  called  Aleim. 1  And  the  Venus  Aphrodite,  Urania,  &c,  were  of  both 
genders.  The  God  Mithra,  the  Saviour,  was  both  male  and  female.  Several  exemplars  of  him, 
in  his  female  character,  as  killing  the  bull,  may  be  seen  in  the  Tovvnly  Collection,  in  the  British 
Museum.  By  the  word  Aleim  the  Heathen  Gods  were  often  meant,  but  they  all  resolved  them- 
selves at  last  into  the  Sun,  as  triune  God,  or  as  emblem  of  the  three  powers — the  Creator,  the 
Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer — three  Persons  but  one  God — he  being  both  male  and  female. 
Without  doubt  Parkhurst  and  the  divines  in  the  controversy  with  Dr.  Sharpe,  do  not  give,  till 
after  much  research,  as  meanings  of  the  verb  bit,  al,  to  mediate,  to  interpose,  or  intervene ;  and  of 
the  noun  the  mediator,  interposer,  or  intervener.  But  here  we  evidently  have  the  preserver  or 
saviour.  At  first  it  might  be  expected  that  the  gender  of  the  word  Aleim  and  of  the  other  forms 
from  its  root  would  be  determined  by  the  genders  of  the  words  which  ought  to  agree  with  it :  but 
from  the  extraordinary  uncertain  state  of  this  language  nothing  can  be  deduced  from  them — as  we 
find  nouns  feminine  aud  plural  joined  to  verbs  masculine  and  singular  (Gen.  i.  14)  ;  and  nouns  of 
multitude,  though  singular,  having  a  verb  plural — and,  though  feminine,  having  a  verb  masculine 
(Gen.  xli.  57).  But  all  this  tends,  I  think,  to  strengthen  an  observation  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
make  hereafter,  that  the  Hebrew  language  shews  many  marks  of  almost  primeval  rudeness  or 
simplicity  ;  and,  that  the  Aleim,  the  root  whence  the  Christian  Trinity  sprung,  is  the  real  trinity 
of  the  ancients — the  old  doctrine  revived.  Nothing  could  be  desired  more  in  favour  of  my  system 
than  that  the  word  Aleim  should  mean  preserver,  or  intervener,  or  mediator. 

At  first  it  seems  very  extraordinary  that  the  word  bx  al  or  nbi*  ale,  the  name  of  the  beneficent 
Creator,  should  have  the  meaning  of  curse.  The  difficulty  arises  from  an  ill-understood  connexion 
between  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer — the  Creator  being  the  Destroyer,  and  the  De- 
stroyer the  Creator.     But  in  this  my  theory  is  beautifully  supported. 

2.  It  appears  that  in  these  old  books,  God  is  called  by  names  which  are  sometimes  singular, 
sometimes  plural,  sometimes  masculine,  and  sometimes  feminine.  But  though  he  be  occasionally 
of  each  gender,  for  he  must  be  of  the  masculine  or  feminine  gender,  because  the  old  language  has 
no  neuter ;  he  is  not  called  by  any  name  which  conveys  the  idea  of  Goddess  or  a  feminine  nature, 
as  separable  from  himself.  My  idea  is  very  abstruse  and  difficult  to  explain.  He  is,  in  fact,  in 
every  case  Androgynous;  for  in  no  case  which  I  have  produced  is  a  term  used  exclusively  belonging 
to  one  sex  or  the  other.  He  is  never  called  Baaltes,  or  Asteroth,  or  Queen  of  Heaven.  On  this 
subject  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter. 

Many  Christians  no  doubt,  will  be  much  alarmed  and  shocked  at  the  idea  of  the  word  ale  being 
of  the  feminine  gender.     But  why  should  not  the  Hebrew  language  have  a  feminine  to  the  word 

1  Sharpe,  p.  224. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  2.  67 

bn  al,  as  the  English  have  a  feminine  to  the  word  God,  in  Goddess,  or  the  Romans  in  the  words 
Deus  and  Dea  ?  And  why  should  not  God  be  of  the  feminine  gender  as  easily  as  of  the  mascu- 
line ?  Who  knows  what  gender  God  is  of?  Who  at  this  day  is  so  foolish  as  to  fancy  that  God 
is  of  any  gender  ?  We  have  seen  that  all  the  Gods  of  the  Gentiles  were  of  both  genders.  We 
find  God  called  Al,  Ale,  Alue,  Alim,  and  Aleim — more  frequently  Aleim  than  any  other  name. 
It  must  be  observed,  that  God  nowhere  calls  himself  by  any  of  those  names,  as  he  does  by  the 
name  n»  Ie  or  Jah,  or  7\V\>  Ieue,  which  is  the  only  name  by  which  he  has  ever  denominated  himself. 
Dr.  Shuckford,  on  Genesis  xxvi.  25,  makes  Ieue, 1  mean  Preserver  or  Mediator. 

The  God  Baal  was  both  masculine  and  feminine,  and  the  God  of  the  Jews  was  once  called  Baal. 
The  learned  Kircher 2  says,  "  Vides  igitur  dictas  Veneris  Uraniam,  Nephtem,  et  Momemphitam, 
"  nihil  aliud  esse  quam  Isidem,  quod  et  vaccae  cultis  satis  superque  demonstrat  proprius  Isidi 
"  certe  hanc  eandem  quoque  esse,  quae  in  historia  Thobiae  Dea  Baal  dicitur  quae  vacca  colebatur ; 
"  sic  enim  habetur,  C.  i.  5,  E&vov  rj]  BaaX  ttj  hupaXsi.  Scilicet  faciebant  sacra  tj\  BaaA 
"  juvencae  seu  vaccae,  quod  et  alio  loco  videlicet  L.  iii.  Reg.  C.  xix.  ubi  Baal  legitur  feminino 
"  genere ;  Oux  exa.[xil(x.v  yovccrct  ry  BaaX — non  incurvaverunt  genu  Baali.  Hesychius  autem 
"  J$rj7&7)s  inquit,  13  'Hpa  7)  A<£go8mj,  Belthes,  Juno  sive  Venus,  est  cuicum  juvencam  sacrificarint 
"  Phoenices,  veresimile  est,  eandem  esse  cum  Venere  /Egyptia,  seu  Iside,  seu  Astarthe  Assyrio- 
"  rum,  sicut  enim  Baal  est  Jupiter,  sic  Baalis  seu  Belthis  est  Juno  seu  Venus,  cui  parallela  sunt, 
"  Adonis  seu  Thamus,  et  Venus  seu  Astaroth ;  (quorum  ille  Baal  Assyriorum  haec  eorum  Beltis 
"  est ;)  quibus  respondent  Osiris  et  Isis,  Jupiter  et  Juno  seu  Venus  iEgyptiorum ;  eternum 
"  secuti  D'Qttf  tyn  Baal  samim  est  Jupiter  Olympius,  ita  D'Ditf  r^J/H  Baalet  samaim  est  Juno 
"  Olympia,  scilicet,  Domina  cceli  seu  Regina :  quemadmodum  Jerem.  vii.  44,  earn  vocant  Septua- 
"  ginta  Interpretes,  quod  nomen  Isidi  et  Astarthi  et  Junoni  Venerive  proprie  convenit:  uti  ex 
"  variis  antiquarum  inscriptionum  monumentis  apud  Janum  Gruterum  videre  est."  3 

Parkhurst  says,4  "  But  Al  or  El  was  the  very  name  the  Heathens  gave  to  their  God  Sol,  their 
Lord  or  Ruler  of  the  hosts  of  heaven." 

The  word  Aleim  DTl^N  has  been  derived  from  the  Arabic  word  Allah  God,  by  many  learned 
men  ;  but  Mr.  Bellamy  says  this  cannot  be  admitted;  for  the  Hebrew  is  not  the  derived,  but  the 
primitive  language.  Thus  the  inquiry  into  the  real  origin  or  meaning  of  this  curious  and  important 
word,  and  of  the  language  altogether,  is  at  once  cut  short  by  a  dogmatical  assertion.  This  learned 
Hebraist  takes  it  for  granted  from  his  theological  dogma,  that  the  two  tribes  of  Israel  are  the 
favourites  of  God,  exclusive  of  the  ten  other  tribes — that  the  language  of  the  former  must  be  the 
original  of  all  other  languages ;  and  then  he  makes  every  thing  bend  to  this  dogma.  This  is 
the  mode  which  learned  Christians  generally  adopt  in  their  inquiries ;  and  for  this  reason  no 
dependance  can  be  placed  upon  them  :  and  this  is  the  reason  also  why,  in  their  inquiries,  they 
seldom  arrive  at  the  truth.  The  Alah,  articulo  emphatico  alalah  (Calassio)  of  the  Arabians,  is 
evidently  the  bo.  Al  of  the  Chaldees  or  Jews ;  whether  one  language  be  derived  from  the  other  I 
shall  not  give  an  opinion  at  present:  but  Bishop  Marsh,  no  mean  authority  as  all  will  admit,  speak- 
ing of  the  Arabic, 5  says,  "  Its  importance,  therefore,  to  the  interpretation  of  Hebrew  is  apparent. 

1  Which  means  self-existent.    Vide  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  v.  Sect,  xxxvii.  and  xxxviii. 

2  (Ed.  JEg.  Synt.  iv.  Cap.  xiii.  Vol.  I.  p.  319. 

3  Proserpine,  in  Greek  Uepaacpov/i,  was  styled  by  Orpheus,  (in  his  Hymn  E»«  nepa-£<pov^v,)  Z«vj  nai  ©awro;,  both 
Life  and  Death.     He  says  of  her — (pepui;  yap  aui  nat  iravra  cpovevsn;,  Thou  both  producest  and  destroy  est  all  things. 

Porphyry  and  Eusebius  say,  she  said  of  herself,  "  I  am  called  of  a  three-fold  nature,  and  three-headed:'  Parkhurst, 
p.  347. 

4  Lex.  p.  20.  *  Lecture  XIV.  p.  28. 

k2 


68  TRINITY    OP   THE    RABBIS. 

"  It  serves,  indeed,  as  a  key  to  that  language ;  for  it  is  not  only  allied  to  the  Hebrew,  but  is  at  the 
"  same  time  so  copious,  as  to  contain  the  roots  of  almost  all  the  words  in  the  Hebrew  Bible."  If  this 
be  true,  it  is  evident  that  the  Arabian  language  may  be  of  the  greatest  use  in  the  translating  of  the 
Scriptures ;  though  the  Arabian  version  of  them,  in  consequence  of  its  having  been  made  from  the 
Greek  Septuagint  or  some  other  Greek  version,  (if  such  be  the  fact,)  instead  of  the  original,  may 
be  of  no  great  value.  And  if  I  understand  his  Lordship  rightly,  and  it  be  true,  that  the  Arabic 
contains  the  roots  of  the  Hebrew,  it  must  be  a  more  ancient  language  than  the  Hebrew.  But, 
after  all,  if  the  two  languages  be  dialects  of  the  same,  it  is  nonsense  to  talk  of  one  being  derived 
from  the  other. 

In  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  the  word  Aleim  is  found  without  any  particle  before  it,  and,  there- 
fore, ought  to  be  literally  translated  Gods  formed ;  but  in  the  second  chapter  of  Exodus  and  23d 
verse,  the  emphatic  article  n  e  is  found,  and  therefore  it  ought  to  be  translated,  that  "  their  cry 
"  came  up  to  the  Gods,"  or  the  Aleim.  In  the  same  manner  the  first  verse  of  the  third  chapter 
ought  to  have  the  mountain  of  the  Gods,  or  of  the  Aleim,  even  to  Horeb,  instead  of  the  mountain  of 
God.  Mr.  Bellamy  has  observed  that  we  cannot  say  Gods  he  created,  but  we  can  say  Gods  or 
Aleim  created ;  and  the  fact,  as  we  see  above,  of  the  word  Aleim  being  sometimes  preceded  by 
the  emphatic  article  n  e  shews,  that  where  it  is  omitted  the  English  article  ought  to  be  omitted, 
and  where  it  is  added  the  English  article  ought  to  be  added. 

Perhaps  the  word  Septuagint  may  be  more  similar  to  the  word  Aleim.  But  if  there  be  no  idiom 
in  our  language,  or  the  Latin,  or  the  Greek,  exactly  similar  to  the  Hebrew,  this  is  no  way 
surprising. 

3.  Persons  who  have  not  given  much  consideration  to  these  subjects  will  be  apt  to  wonder  that 
any  people  should  be  found  to  offer  adoration  to  the  evil  principle ;  but  they  do  not  consider  that, 
in  all  these  recondite  systems,  the  evil  principle,  or  the  destroyer,  or  Lord  of  Death,  was  at  the 
same  time  the  regenerator.  He  could  not  destroy,  but  to  reproduce.  And  it  was  probably  not 
till  this  principle  began  to  be  forgotten,  that  the  evil  being,  per  se,  arose ;  for  in  some  nations  this 
effect  seems  to  have  taken  place.  Thus  Baal-Zebub  is  in  Iberno  Celtic,  Baal  Lord,  and  Zab  Death, 
Lord  of  Death ;  but  he  is  also  called  Aleim,  the  same  as  the  God  of  the  Israelites  ;  *  and  this  is 
right,  because  he  was  one  of  the  Trimurti  or  Trinity. 

If  I  be  correct  respecting  the  word  Aleim  being  feminine,  we  here  see  the  Lord  of  Death  of  the 
feminine  gender;  but  the  Goddess  Ashtaroth  or  Astarte,  the  Eoster  of  the  Germans,*  was  also 
called  Aleim. 3  Here  again  Aleim  is  feminine,  which  shews  that  I  am  right  in  making  Aleim  the 
plural  feminine.  Thus  we  have  distinctly  found  Aleim  the  Creator,  (Gen.  i.  1,)  Aleim  the  Pre- 
server, and  Aleim  the  Destroyer,  and  this  not  by  inference,  but  literally  expressed.  We  have  also 
the  Apis  or  Bull  of  Egypt  expressly  called  Aleim,  and  its  plurality  admitted  on  authority  not 
easily  disputed.  Aaron  says,  -yrhi*,  vbx  ale  aleik,  these  are  thy  Aleim  who  brought  thee  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt.  4 

Mr.  Maurice  says, 5  Moses  himself  uses  this  word  Elohim,  with  verbs  and  adjectives  in  the 
plural.  Of  this  usage  Dr.  Allix  enumerates  two,  among  many  other  glaring  instances,  that  might 
be  brought  from  the  Pentateuch  ;  the  former  in  Genesis  xx.  13,  Quando  errare  fecerunt  me  Deus  ; 
the  latter  in  Gen.  xxxv.  7>  Quia  ibi  revelati  sunt  ad  eum  Deus  ;  and  by  other  writers  in  various 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament.  But  particularly  he  brings  in  evidence  the  following  texts :  Job 
xxxv.  10;  Josh.  xxiv.  19;  Psa.  cxix.  1. 

The  26th  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  completely  establishes  the  plurality  of  the  word 

1  Sharpe,  p.  224.  *  See  Ancient  Universal  History,  Vol.  II.  pp.  334— 34G. 

3  Sharpe,  p.  224.  4  parkhurst,  p.  81.  *  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p  81. 


BOOK*  II.     CHAPTER  II.     SECTION  4.  69 

Aleim.  And  then  said  Aleim,  we  will  make  man  in  our  image  according  to  our  likeness.  To 
rebut  this  argument  it  is  said,  that  this  is  nothing  but  a  dignified  form  of  speech  adopted  by  all 
kings  in  speaking  to  their  subjects,  to  give  themselves  dignity  and  importance,  and  on  this  account 
attributed  to  God.  This  is  reasoning  from  effect  to  cause,  instead  of  from  cause  to  effect.  The 
oriental  sovereigns,  puffed  up  with  pride  and  vanity,  not  only  imitated  the  language  of  God  in  the 
sacred  book  ;  but  they  also  went  farther,  and  made  their  base  slaves  prostrate  themselves  before 
them  in  the  same  posture  as  they  used  in  addressing  their  God.  In  this  argument  God  is  made  to 
use  incorrect  language  in  order  that  he  may  imitate  and  liken  himself  to  the  vainest  and  most 
contemptible  of  human  beings.  We  have  no  knowledge  that  God  ever  imitated  these  wretches  ; 
we  do  know  that  they  affected  to  imitate  and  liken  themselves  to  Him.  This  verse  proves  his 
plurality  :  the  next,  again,  proves  his  unity  :  for  there  the  word  hara  is  used— whence  it  is  appa- 
rent that  the  word  has  both  a  singular  and  plural  meaning. 

On  the  22d  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis,  my  worthy  and  excellent  old  friend,  Dr.  A. 
Geddes,  Vicar  Apostolic  of  the  Roman  See  in  London,  says, '  "  Lo !  Adam— or  man— is  become 
"  like  one  of  us.  If  there  be  any  passage  in  the  Old  Testament  which  countenances  a  plurality  of 
"  persons  in  the  Godhead ;  or,  to  speak  more  properly,  a  plurality  of  Gods,  it  is  this  passage. 
"  He  does  not  simply  say,  like  us  ;  but  like  one  of  us  1:DD  infra.  This  can  hardly  be  explained  as 
"  we  have  explained  n^3  Let  us  make,  and  I  confess  it  has  always  appeared  to  me  to  imply  a 
"  plurality  of  Gods,  in  some  sense  or  other.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Lord  or  Jehovah,  is  called 
"  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  *  The  God  of  Gods.'  He  is  also  represented  as  a  Sovereign  sitting 
"  on  his  throne,  attended  by  all  the  heavenly  host ;"  in  Job  called  the  sons  of  God.  Again  he 
says,  "  Wherever  Jehovah  is  present,  whether  on  Sinai  or  Sion,  there  he  is  attended  by  twenty 
"  thousand  angels,  of  the  Cherubic  order.  When  he  appeared  to  Jacob,  at  Bethel,  he  was 
"  attended  by  angels,  and  again  when  he  wrestled  with  the  same  patriarch." 

The  first  verse  of  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes  is  strongly  in  favour  of  the  plurality  of 
Aleim— Remember  thy  Creator*,  not  Creator — ftWQ  DK  "QT.  But  many  copies  have  the  word 
-[Kin  and  others  -[N-Q  without  the  \  "  But,"  as  Parkhurst  observes,  "  it  is  very  easy  to  account 
"  for  the  transcribers  dropping  the  plural  »  I,  in  their  copies,  though  very  difficult  to  assign  a 
"  reason  why  any  of  them  should  insert  it,  unless  they  found  it  in  their  originals."  2  The  Trini- 
tarian Christians  have  triumphed  greatly  over  the  other  Christian  sects  and  the  Jews,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  plurality  of  the  Aleim  expressed  in  the  texts  cited  above.  It  appears  that  they 
have  justice  on  their  side. 

There  would  have  been  no  difficulty,  with  the  word  Aleim,  if  some  persons  had  not  thought  that 
the  plurality  of  Aleim  favoured  the  doctrine  of  the  Christian  Trinity,  and  others  that  the  contrary 
effect  was  to  be  produced  by  making  Aleim  a  noun  singular.  But  whatever  sect  it  may  favour  or 
oppose,  I  am  clearly  of  opinion  that  it  conveys  the  idea  of  plurality,  just  as  much  as  the  phrase 
Populus  laudavit  Deum,  or,  in  English,  The  Congregation  sings. 

4.  It  has  already  been  observed  that  the  God  of  the  Jews  was  also  called  by  a  very  remarkable 
name  nitf  ba  al  sdi.     The  proper  name  Sdi  is  constantly  translated  God  Almighty. 3 

In  Gen.  xlix.  25,  ntif  Sdi  is  put  for  the  Almighty,  (as  it  is  translated,)  not  only  without  the 
word  ^>K  al  preceding  it,  as  usual,  but  in  opposition  to  it. 

In  Deut.  xxxii.  17,  the  Israelites  are  said  to  have  sacrificed  to  DHlif  sdim  and  not  to  n^K  ale — as 
it  is  translated  in  our  version,  "  to  devils  and  not  to  God,"  Dty*T>  xb  D'Vtba  eos  noverunt  non  diis, 
to  Gods  whom  they  did  not  know.     Here  is  a  marked  distinction  between  the  Sadim  and  the  Aleim. 

1  Crit.  Rem.  Gen.  iii.,  pp.  48,  49.  %  Parkhurst,  Lex.  p.  82. 

8  Gen.  xxviii.  3,  xxxv.  11,  xliii.  14,  xlviii.  3 ;  Exod.  vi.  3. 


70  TRINITY    OF   THE    RABBIS. 

Here  is  Ale  in  the  singular  number,  God ;  Aleim  in  the  plural  number,  Gods :  and  here  is  Sadim, 
the  plural  number  of  another  name  of  the  Deity,  which  is  both  of  the  masculine  and  feminine 
gender. 

In  Gen.  xiv.  3,  the  kings  are  said  to  have  combined,  "  in  the  vale  of  Siddim,  which  is  the  salt 
"  sea."  This  shews  that  the  Gods  called  Saddai  were  known  and  acknowledged,  by  the 
Canaanites,  before  the  time  of  Abraham.  This  word  Siddim  is  the  plural  of  the  word  used,  in 
various  places,  as  the  name  of  the  true  God — both  by  itself  as  Saddi  and  El  Saddi.  In  Exodus  vi. 
3,  the  Israelites  are  ordered  to  call  God  leue ;  but  before  that  time  he  had  been  only  known  to 
their  fathers  as  Al  Saddi,  God  Almighty. 

Now,  at  last,  what  does  this  word  Sadi,  Saddim,  or  Shaddai,  >"VD  Sdi,  really  mean  ?  Mr.  Park- 
hurst  tells  us,  it  means  all-bountiful — the pourer  forth  of  blessings  ;  among  the  Heathen,  the  Dea 
Multimammia ;  in  fact,  the  Diana  of  Ephesus,  the  Urania  of  Persia,  the  Jove  of  Greece,  called 
by  Orpheus  the  mother  of  the  Gods,  each  male  as  well  as  female — the  Venus  Aphrodite ;  in  short, 
the  genial  powers  of  nature.  !  And  I  maintain,  that  it  means  also  the  figure  which  is  often  found 
in  collections  of  ancient  statues,  most  beautifully  executed,  and  called  the  Hermaphrodite.  See 
Gallery  of  Naples  and  of  Paris. 

The  God  of  the  Jews  is  also  often  known  by  the  name  of  Adonai  >J*TN2  But  this  is  nothing  but 
the  God  of  the  Syrians,  Adonis  or  the  Sun,  the  worship  of  whom  is  reprobated  under  the  name  of 
Tammuz,  in  Ezekiel  viii.  1 4. 

From  these  different  examples  it  is  evident  that  the  God  of  the  Jews  had  several  names,  and  that 
these  were  often  the  names  of  the  Heathen  Gods  also.  All  this  has  a  strong  tendency  to  shew 
that  the  Jewish  and  Gentile  systems  were,  at  the  bottom,  the  same. 

Why  we  call  God  masculine  I  know  not,  nor  do  I  apprehend  can  any  good  reason  be  given. 
Surely  the  ancients,  who  described  him  as  of  both  genders,  or  of  the  doubtful  gender,  were  more 
reasonable.  Here  we  see  that  the  God  of  the  Jews  is  called  *T\D  Sdi,  and  that  this  Sdi  is  the  Dea 
Multimammia,  who  is  also  in  other  places  made  to  be  the  same  as  the  ba  al  or  nbn  ale.  Therefore  it 
seems  to  follow,  that  the  Gods  of  the  Israelites  and  of  the  Gentiles  were  in  their  originals  the  same. 
And  I  think  by  and  by  my  reader  will  see  evident  proof,  that  the  religion  of  Moses  was  but  a  sect 
of  that  of  the  Gentiles  ;  or,  if  he  like  it  better,  that  the  religion  of  the  Gentiles  was  but  a  sect  of 
the  religion  of  Jehovah,  leue,  or  of  Moses. 

It  may  be  here  observed  that  these  names  of  God  of  two  genders  are  almost  all  in  the  old  tracts, 
which  I  suppose  to  have  been  productions  of  the  Buddhists  or  Brahmins  of  India,  for  which  I  shall 
give  more  reasons  presently. 

5.  From  what  I  may  call  the  almost  bigoted  attachment  of  the  modern  Jews  to  the  unity  of 
God,  it  cannot  for  a  moment  be  supposed,  that  they  would  forge  any  thing  tending  to  the  proof  of 
the  Trinity  of  the  Christians ;  therefore,  if  we  can  believe  father  Kircher,  the  following  fact 
furnishes  a  very  extraordinary  addition  to  the  proofs  already  given,  that  the  Jews  received  a  trinity 
like  all  the  other  oriental  nations.     It  was  the  custom  among  them,  to  describe  their  God  Jehovah 

or  leue,  by  three  jods  and  a  cross  in  a  circle,  thus  :  (f*f).     Certainly  a  more  striking  illustration  of 

the  doctrine  I  have  been  teaching  can  scarcely  be  conceived  :  and  it  is  very  curious  that  it  should 
be  found  accompanied  with  the  cross,  which  the  learned  father,  not  understanding,  calls  the 
Mazoretic  Chametz.  This  mistake  seems  to  remove  all  suspicion  of  Christian  forgery ;  for  I  can 
hardly  believe  that  if  the  Christian  priests  had  forged  this  symbol,  the  learned  Father  would 
not  have  availed  himself  of  it  to  support  the  adoration  of  the  Cross,  as  well  as  of  the  Trinity.    The 

1  Parkhurst,  Lex.  pp.  720,  721.  s  Vide  Parkhurst,  p.  141  and  p.  788. 


BOOK.  II.      CHAPTER  II.      SECTION  6.  71 

the  jods  were  also  disposed  in  the  form  of  a  crown,  thus    \  A />  t0  signify  the  mystical  name 

of  Jehovah  or  Ieue.  The  reader  may  refer  to  the  CEdipus  ^Egyp.  Vol.  II.  Cap.  ii.  pp.  114,  115, 
where  he  will  find  the  authorities  at  length,  and  where,  among  the  reasons  given  by  the  father  to 
prove  the  Christian  Trinity,  is  proof  enough  of  that  of  the  Jews.  He  will  find  also  an  observation 
of  Galatinus's  that  the  three  letters  in>  ieu  were  the  symbol  of  Jehovah,  an  observation  made  by  me 
in  the  Celtic  Druids, 1  though  for  a  different  reason,  and  accounted  for  in  a  different  manner ; 
but  the  fact  is  admitted.  The  cross  here  seems  to  be  united  to  the  Trinity — but  more  of  this 
hereafter. 

Dr.  Alix,  on  Gen.  i.  10,  says,  that  the  Cabalists  constantly  added  the  letter  jod,  being  the  first 
letter  of  the  word  Ieue  to  the  word  Aleim  for  the  sake  of  a  mystery.  The  Rabbi  Bechai  says,  it  is 
to  shew  that  there  is  a  divinity  in  each  person  included  in  the  word. 2  This  is,  no  doubt,  part  of 
the  Cabala,  or  esoteric  religion  of  the  Jews.  Maimonides  says,  the  vulgar  Jews  were  forbidden  to 
read  the  history  of  the  creation,  for  fear  it  should  lead  them  into  idolatry ; 3  probably  for  fear  they 
should  worship  the  Trimurti  of  India,  or  the  Trinity  of  Persia.  The  fear  evidently  shews,  that 
the  fearful  persons  thought  there  was  a  plurality  in  Genesis. 

6.  It  is  a  very  common  practice  with  the  priests  not  always  to  translate  a  word,  but  sometimes 
to  leave  it  in  the  original,  and  sometimes  to  translate  it  as  it  may  suit  their  purpose :  sometimes 
one,  sometimes  the  other.  Thus  they  use  the  word  Messiah  or  Anointed  as  they  find  it  best 
serves  their  object.  Thus,  again,  it  is  with  the  word  El,  in  numerous  places.  For  instance,  in 
Gen.  xxviii.  19,  And  he  called  the  name  of  the  place  Beth-el,  instead  of  he  called  the  place  The  House 
of  the  Sun.     The  word  Beth  means  House,  and  El  Sun.  4 

"  Ai  was  situated  between  Bith-Avon  (read  Bith-On)  and  Bith-El ;  and  these  were  temples  of 
"  the  Sun,  under  his  different  titles  of  On  and  El."  5 

Speaking  of  the  word  Jabneel,  Sir  W.  Drummond  says,  "  El,  in  the  composition  of  these 
"  Canaanite  names  does  not  signify  Deus  but  Sol."  6  This  confirms  what  I  have  before  observed 
from  Parkhurst. 

"  Thus  Kabzeel,  literally  means  The  Congregation  of  the  Sun."  7 

"  Messiah-El  a  manifest  corruption  of  the  word  Messiah — The  Anointed  of  El,  or  the  Sun. 8 

"  Carmel,  The  Vine  of  El,  or  of  the  Sun."  9 

"  Migdal-El  Horem,  The  Station  of  the  Burning  Sun."  10 

"  Amraphel,  Ammon,  or  the  Sun  in  Aries,  here  denominated  Amraphel,  Agnus  Mirabilis."  u 

V  El-tolad  signifies  the  Sun,  or  The  God  of  Generation."  12 

In  all  the  above-named  examples  the  word  El  ought  to  be  written  Al.  In  the  original  it  is  ^ 
Al ;  and  this  word  means  the  God  Mithra,  the  Sun,  as  the  Preserver  or  Saviour. 


1  Ch.  v.  Sect,  xxxviii.  2  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  86.  3  Ibid.  p.  89. 

4  See  CEdip.  Jud.  p.  250.  s  Ibid.  p.  221.  «  Ibid.  p.  270. 

7  Ibid.  p.  272.  8  Ibid.  p.  280.  »'  Ibid.  p.  334.  <°  Ibid.  338. 

"  Ibid.  p.  76.  12- Ibid.  p.  286. 


n 


CHAFTER  m. 

rAMiA, — int ax vrows..  wte.-.  7  — : : i.-. >• : :•  :-    :  7  7 :-:  1  ~  :  r  7   : 1  tasit. — 
ariuiuoiL — amors  or  time. — naxKis  ok  s&xrx. —  obebtitio.xs 


■  i::'z  ::.z  7.-75:5 
cated  to  a  select 


'ersian,  it 

:i  likf  ill 


-' 


:::_:    -.77    ::;;    7 


:-.— :-»:    :ie    ::  ::'-.:::i    ::'    ::~.    :::._!5.     :777::    ;t    77:::^t   i;iir 

:::  V  :i  err.:.     In  ::i-:::  ::    il.  ::=   - :  7  :-   .7777.:  n:  77.7s;       7:-.   -7:77  ;;     :::   : : 

7t77-1t  :it  57777      -  :.   7    ::   -.77  ?::-:,:  '•':.._  :    .7:5  7775   :zz  7: ; :  . 

ity  c:  flat  rcfigiaui  im  and  of  Zoroaster. 

Hi?    ::::777t    :;:;    7.::;:    ::    ~75    -   ::::::    .:;  —  7:.  77   77::':::.   :::   J  7~=  77.1:777:7.    ::.:;  :._: 

delivered  in  the  Pentateuch  ;  and  they  also  maintain,  that  it  was  given  by  God,  on  Mount  Sinai, 

-.   V;i.ri      ;-::    .   :::7i:  "77::.    777   :7_:  liii   :=  -.77    i::.:.iz    ir::rl:-ri  ir.  :r.t  ::_r.7.  :>•:•; k  :: 

Z-:;-:^.   :7    :;:-.  7.  1"".  777  7   .'.   :i-i  : 

T»«e  war*  shah  thou  declare,  amd  these  shall  thou  hide. 

Ami  when  thorn  lot  dome,  some  things  shall  thorn  publish,  amd  some  thing*  shall  thou  shew  secretly 
feUewnB. 

the  Behest  spate,  saying,  The  jh%t  that  thorn  hast  written  publish  open/a,  thai  the  worthy 

amd  the  ammmthw  worn  read  it :  but  keep  the  setenty  last,  that  thou  mayest  deliver  them,  only  to 
he  wiss  amwmg  the  people.     For  in  them  is  the  spring  of  understanding,  the  fountain  of 


Xow,  though  the  book  of  Esdcas  be  no  authority  in  argument  with  a  Protestant  Christian  for 
any  ptwf  of  doctrine,  it  may  be  considered  authority  in  such  a  case  as  this.     If  the  Jews  had  had 


7: 


mid  hare  stated  such  a  met,  in  the  face  of  all  his  country- 
r  falsity.  No  doubt,  whatever  might  be  pretended,  the  real 
was  concealment.  But  the  Jews  assert  that,  from  the 
iai,  it  was  handed  down,  pure  as  at  first  delivered.  In  the 
way  they  maintain,  that  their  written  law  has  come  to  us  unadulterated,  without  a  single 
One  iih  iliim  may  be  indeed  of  by  the  other.  For,  of  the  tradition  delivered  by  memory, 
one  question  need  only  be  asked :  What  became  of  it,  when  priests,  kings,  and  people,  were  all 
sack  idolaters,  viz.  before  and  during  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  the  good  King  Josiah,  that  the 
law  was  completelv  forgotten — not  even  known  to  exist  in  the  world  ?  To  obviate  this  difficulty, 
in  part,  the  fourth  book  of  Esdras  was  probably  written. 

2.  The  following  prrtigr  may  serve,  at  present,  as  an  outline  of  what  was  the  general  nature  of 


"  The  smmarhy,  or  rather  the  coincidence,  of  the  Cabalistic,  Alexandrian,  and  Oriental  philo- 
u  sophy,  will  be  sufficiently  evinced  by  briefly  stating  the  common  tenets  in  which  these  different 
**  systems  agreed  ;  they  are  as  follow :  All  things  are  derived  by  .emanation  from  one  principle : 
"  and  this  principle  is  God,    From  him  a  substantial  power  immediately  proceeds,  which  is  the 


BOOK    II.   CUAFTKE   III.    SECTION   3.  ~3 

'.'zi  i.zzzt  zz  =11  iz.zs^cizz.1  zzzzzzzzzzz-.  Yzz'.i  =e::zi  zr.zz.z.-.  iezis  :;.-_. 
by  the  energy  of  rmniiliiai,  other  natures,  which  are  more  or  less  perfect,  according  to  their 
degrees  of  distance,  in  the  scale  of  emanation,  from  the  First  Source  of  existence,  and 
■Mililiilr  difHaent  wurids,  or  orders  of  being,  all  muted  to  the  eternal  power  from  which 
■  tber  proceed.  Matter  is  nothing  more  than  the  most  remote  effect  of  the  rmmwin  energy  of 
«*  the  Deitv.  The  material  world  receives  its  form  from  the  iauuiiBilr  agency  of  powers  far 
u  beneath  the  First  Source  of  being.     E  -     ;       f  :-rr-::::-  :: 

u  material  vehicles,  will  return,  thnmgli  radons  stages  of  purification,  to  the 
**  they  first  proceeded."  * 

From  this  extract  the  reader  wffl  see  the  nature  of  the  oriental  doctrine  of  emanations,  which, 
as  here  given  in  most,  though  not  in  aD,  respects,  coinrinW  with  the  oriental  philosophy :  *  and 
the  honest  translation  given  by  the  Septnagint  of  Dent.  ram.  2— he  thimed  forth  from  Parmn  m-ith 
thonsmnds  of  saints,  and  hating  his  angels  on  his  right  hand,*  proves  that  the  Cabala  was  as  old  or 


T~-e   zzczzr.-.  Persia    \z\:z'zi,    .-;  ;zi   5:r:e~e  3--^  ~is  i-~::~:,:  - :±    zzziz.i,    z: 
they  caUrd  <rums  or  I:  ,ns»  from  the  difiue  substaz  z-      Tz.  «  — 

Manieheans,  and  of  almost  all  the  G:    -    :  As   zzzlzz: 

particulars  of  this  complicated  system,  among  the  different  purfiiwi  of  it  a  great  variet 
nnjomna  arose;  but  all,  at  the  bottom,  evidently  of  the  same  nature.    These  oriental  sects 
very  much  in  the  habit  of  using  figurative  language,  under  which  they  M»**aJ*4  their  met* 
sieal  doctrines  from  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar.     Ti:=   ri-f  e~e~;e:  .   ;t 

struing  them  fiteraDy,  of  uptrsmring  them  as  wonderfully  absurd.    All  these  doctrines  were 
closely  counciUd  with  judicial  astrology.     To  the  further  consideration  of  the  above-cited  text  I 
shall  return  by  and  by. 

3.  Perhaps  in  the  languages  of  the  world  no  two  words  have  been  of  greater  importance  than  the 
first  two  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  rrZ'X'  >  3  ■■■■■■  ;  (for  they  are  pmpcrit  two  not  one  word;) 
and  great  tffierence  of  opinion  has  arisen,  among  learned  men,  respecting  the  nwuusng  of  them. 
Grotins  renders  them,  when  first;  Simeon,  before :  Tertulban,  in  patter ;  Rabbi  Bechai  and 
Castabo,  in  order  before  all;  Onkelos,  the  Septnagint,  Jonathan  ben  trcel.  izzz  :  z  :  . 
translators,  in  the  beginning. 

Bat  the  official  or  accredited  and  admittrd  anthuiitt  of  the  Jewish  iehgion,  the  Jeucsaum 
Takgum,  renders  them  bt  Wisdom. 

It  may  be  observed  that  the  Targum  of  Jerusalem  is,  or  was  formerly,  the  received  orthodox 
yHlwwiy  of  the  Jews :    the  other  Targums  are  only  the  opinions  of  iniBiihbiil^  and  in  this 
the  Jewish  Cabala  and  the  doctrine  of  the  ancient  Gnostics  are  evident;  and,  it  is,  as  I 
shew,  to  conceal  this  that  f%»UiS«>  ha,^  suppressed  its  true  meaning.    To  the 

in  this  word.  He  says,  «  The  Jews,  instead  of  «■— n115-c  Berasit  by  the  words  in  the 
«*  beginning,  translate  it  by  the  Principle  (par  le  Prindpej  active  una*  immndimtt  mfmU  things,  God 
**  mane,  Jfcc,  that  is  to  say,  according  to  the  Targum  of  Jerusalem,  bt  Wisdom,  {tsm.  la  >a- 
«gks*e.    G:i  -;.Ir. 


1  Dr  Bee? 

1  Seeffi^Pm^EmeM,YoLILCk.5.;  PfciL  Tims.  N*.  CO.  p.  800;  Burnet**  Aidnml  Uk.  L  Can.  ii 

'  See  Bemvmre,  Iir.  is. 

•"■yi  mcore  me  resexim  a 

mhGeatee,  «  mi,  a  I'm  ea  era 

L 


74  MEANING   OF   THE   WORD    BERASIT. 

Beausobre  also  informs  us,  Maimonides  maintains,  that  this  is  the  only  literal  and  true 
meaning  of  the  word.  And  Maimonides  is  generally  allowed  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  learned 
of  modern  Jews.  (He  lived  in  the  twelfth  century.)  Beausobre  further  says,  that  Chalcidius, 
Methodius,  Origen,  and  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  a  most  formidable  phalanx  of  authorities, 
give  it  this  sense.  The  latter  quotes  a  sentence  as  authority  from  the  work  of  St.  Peter's  now  lost. 
Beausobre  gives  us  as  the  expression  of  Clemens,  "  This  is  what  St.  Peter  says,  who  has  very 
"  well  understood  this  word :  «  God  has  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth  by  the  Principle.  (Dieu 
"  'a  fait  le  Ciel  et  la  Terre  dans  le  Principe.)  This  principle  is  that  which  is  called  Wisdom  by 
"  '  all  the  prophets.' "  *     Here  is  evidently  the  doctrine  of  the  Magi  or  of  Emanations. 

Of  this  quotation  from  Peter,  by  Clemens,  the  Christian  divine  will  perhaps  say,  It  is  spurious. 
I  deny  his  right  to  say  any  such  thing.  He  has  no  right  to  assume  that  Peter  never  wrote  any 
letters  but  the  two  in  our  canon  ;  or  that  Clemens  is  either  mistaken  or  guilty  of  fraud  in  this 
instance,  without  some  proof. 

The  following  passage  of  Beausobre's  shews  that  St.  Augustine  coincided  in  opinion  with  the 
other  fathers  whom  I  have  cited  on  the  meaning  of  the  word  JVtMfl  Rasit :  "  Car  si  par  Reschit 
"  on  entend  le  Principe  actif  de  la  creation,  et  non  pas  le  commencement,  alors  Mo'ise  n'a  plus  dit 
"  que  le  Ciel  et  la  Terre  furent  let  premieres  des  ceuvres  de  Dieu.  II  a  dit  seulement,  que  Dieu 
"  area  le  ciel  et  la  terre  par  le  Principe,  qui  est  son  Fils.  Ce  n'est  pas  l'epoque,  c'est  l'auteur 
"  immediat  de  la  creation  qu'il  enseigne.  Je  tiens  encore  cette  pensee  de  St.  Augustin.  Les 
"  anges,  dit  il,  out  ete  faits  avant  le  Firmament,  et  meme  avant  ce  qu'est  rapporte"  par  Mo'ise, 
"  Dieu  fit  le  ciel  et  la  terre  par  le  Principe  ;  car  ce  mot  de  Principe  ne  veut  pas  dire,  que  le  ciel  et 
"  la  terre  furent  faits  avant  toutes  choses,  puisque  Dieu  avoit  deja  fait  les  anges  auparavant;  it 
"  veut  dire,  que  Dieu  a  fait  toutes  choses  par  sagesse,  qui  est  son  Verbe,  et  que  1'  Ecriture  a 
"  nominee  le  Principe."  2 

By  Wisdom,  I  have  no  doubt,  was  the  secret,  if  not  the  avowed,  meaning  of  the  words ;  and 
I  also  feel  little  doubt  that,  in  the  course  of  this  work,  I  shall  prove  that  the  word  A^tj  used  by 
the  Seventy  and  by  Philo  had  the  same  meaning.  But  the  fact  that  the  LXX.  give  A^vj  as 
the  rendering  of  Berasit,  which  is  shewn  to  have  the  meaning  of  wisdom  by  the  authorities 
cited  above,  is  of  itself  quite  enough  to  justify  the  assertion  that  one  of  the  meanings  of  the  word 
App^i)  was  Wisdom,  and  in  any  common  case  it  would  be  so  received  by  all  Lexicographers. 

Wisdom  is  one  of  the  three  first  of  the  Eight  Emanations  which  formed  the  eternal  and  ever- 
happy  Octoade  of  the  oriental  philosophers,  and  of  the  ten  Sephiroth  of  the  Jewish  Cabala.  See 
Parkhurst's  Hebrew  Lexicon,  p.  668,  and  also  his  Greek  one  in  voce  Ap^ij,  where  the  reader 
will  find  that,  with  all  his  care,  he  cannot  disguise  the  fact  that  WVT\  ras  means  wisdom.  See  also 
Beausobre, 3  where,  at  large,  may  be  found  the  opinions  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  most  learned  of 
the  Fathers  and  Rabbis  on  the  first  verse  of  Genesis. 

The  Jerusalem  Targum,  as  already  stated,  is  the  orthodox  explanation  of  the  Jews  :  it  used  to 
be  read  in  their  synagogues,  and  the  following  is  its  rendering  of  this  celebrated  text,  which  com- 

"  actif  et  immediat  de  toutes  choses.  Ainsi  au  lieu  de  traduire,  Au  commencement  Dieu  fit  le  Ciel  et  la  Terre,  ils 
"  traduisoient,  Dieu  fit  le  Ciel  et  la  TerreFAV.  le  Principe,  c'est  a-dire,  selon  1' explication  du  Targum  de  Jerusalem, 
"  Par  la  Sagesse  :  Maimonide  soutient,  que  cette  explication  est  la  seule  litterale  et  veritable.  Elle  passa 
"  d'abord  chez  les  Chretiens.  On  la  trouve  non  seulement  dans  Chalcidius,  qui  marque  qu'elle  venoit  des  Hebreux, 
"  mais  dans  Methodius,  dans  Origene,  et  dans  Clement  d'  Alexandria,  plus  ancien  que  Tun  et  1' autre."  Beausobre, 
Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  vi.  Ch.  i.  p.  290. 

1  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  vi.  Ch.  i.  p.  290.  s  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  vi.  Ch.  i.  p.  291. 

3  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  v.  Ch.  in.  and  Liv.  vi.  Ch.  i. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  5. 


75 


pletely  justifies  that  which  I  have  given  of  it :  wnN  n»l  N'OlWT  m^N  *m  riDDm  In  sapientia 
creavit  Deus  ccelum  et  terrain,  h 

It  is  said  in  Proverbs  viii.  22,  "  Jehovah  possessed  me,"  wisdom,  rvtwn  rasit ;  but  not  n»iyN"D 
b-rasit,  which  it  ought  to  be,  to  justify  our  vulgar  translation,  which  is,  "  The  Lord  possessed  me 
"  in  the  beginning"  The  particle  3  b,  the  sign  of  the  ablative  case,  is  wanting;  but  it  is  inter- 
polated in  our  translation,  to  justify  the  rendering,  because  it  would  be  nonsense  to  say  the  Lord 
possessed  me,  the  beginning.  2 

The  Targum  of  Jerusalem  says  that  God  made  man  by  his  Word,  or  Aoyog,  Gen.  i.  26.  So 
says  Jonathan,  Es.  xlv.  12 ;  and  in  Gen.  i.  27,  he  says,  that  the  Aoyog  created  man  after  his 
image.  See  Allix's  Judgment  of  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  131.  From  this  I  think  Dr.  Allix's  asser- 
tion is  correct,  that  the  Targum  considered  the  rvtWO  rasit,  and  the  Aoyog  to  be  identical. 

And  it  seems  to  me  to  be  impossible  to  form  an  excuse  for  Parkhurst,  as  his  slight  observation 
in  his  Greek  Lexicon  shews  that  he  was  not  ignorant.  Surely  supposing  that  he  thought  those 
authorities  given  above  to  be  mistaken,  he  ought,  in  common  honesty,  to  have  noticed  them, 
according  to  his  practice  with  other  words,  in  similar  cases. 

4.  According  to  the  Jewish  Cabala  a  number  of  Sephiroths,  being  Emanations,  issued  or  flowed 
from  God — of  which  the  chief  was  Wisdom.  In  Genesis  it  is  said,  by  Wisdom  God  created  or 
formed,  &c.  Picus,  of  Mirandula,  confirms  my  rendering,  and  says,  "  This  Wisdom  is  the  Son."  3 
Whether  the  Son  or  not,  this  is  evidently  the  first  emanation,  Minerva — the  Goddess  of  Wisdom 
emanating  or  issuing  from  the  head  of  Jove,  (or  Iao  or  Jehovah,)  as  described  on  an  Etruscan 
brass  plate  in  the  Cabinet  of  Antiquities  at  Bologna. 4  This  is  known  to  be  Etruscan,  from  the 
names  being  on  the  arms  of  the  Gods  in  Etruscan  letters,  which  proves  it  older  than  the  Romans, 
or  probably  than  the  Grecians  of  Homer. 

M.  Basnage  says,  "  Moses  Nachmanides  advanced  three  Sephiroths  above  all  the  rest ;  they 
"  have  never  been  seen  by  any  one;  there  is  not  any  defect  in  them  nor  any  disunion.  If  anv  one 
**  should  add  another  to  them,  he  would  deserve  death.  There  is,  therefore,  nothing  but  a  dispute 
"  about  words  :  you  call  three  lights  what  Christians  call  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  That 
"  first  eternal  number  is  the  Father :  the  Wisdom  by  which  God  created  the  heavens  is  the  Son  : 
*'  and  Prudence  or  Understanding,  which  makes  the  third  number  of  the  Cabalists,  is  the  Christian 
"  Holy  Ghost."  5 

5.  The  word  Rasit,  as  we  might  expect,  is  found  in  the  Arabic  language,  and  means,  as  our 
Lexicographers,  who  are  the  same  class  of  persons  that  made  our  Hebrew  Lexicons,  tell  us,  head, 
chief— and  is  used  as  a  term  of  honour  applied  to  great  persons  :  for  instance,  Aaron-al-raschid. 
Al  is  the  emphatic  article.     Abd-al-raschid,  i.  e.  Abdallah-al-raschid,  &c. 

For  a  long  time  I  flattered  myself  that  I  might  set  down  Parkhurst  as  one  of  the  very  few 
Polemics,  with  whose  works  I  was  acquainted,  against  whom  I  could  not  bring  a  charge  of  pious 
fraud,  but  the  way  in  which  he  has  treated  the  first  word  of  Genesis  puts  it  out  of  my  power.  It 
seems  to  me  impossible  to  believe  that  this  learned  man  could  be  ignorant  of  the  construction 
which  had  been  given  to  the  word  JTIWH  rasit. 

Again,  I  repeat,  it  is  impossible  to  acquit  Parkhurst  of  disingenuousness  in  suppressing,  in  his 
Hebrew  Lexicon,  the  opinions  held  respecting  the  meaning  of  this  word  by  Clemens  Alexan- 
drinus,  Chalcidius,  Methodius,  Origen,  St.  Augustine,  Maimonides,  and  by  the  authors  of 


1  Kircher,  (Ed.  JEgypt.  Syntag.  II.  Cap.  vii. 

3  Kircher,  (Ed.  Egypt.  Syntag.  II.  Cap.  vii. 

4  Book  iv.  Ch.  v.  Sect.  vii. 


2  Vide  Parkhurst,  p.  668. 

4  A  copy  of  the  plate  may  be  seen  in  Montfaucon. 


L  2 


76  MEANING   OF   THE   WORD    BERASIT. 

the  Targum  op  Jerusalem,  the  accredited  exposition  of  the  Jewish  church,  and  in  the  slight  and 
casual  way  in  which  he  has  expressed  a  disapprobation  of  the  rendering  of  the  Targum,  in  his 
Greek  Lexicon.  It  is  really  not  to  be  believed  that  he  and  the  other  modern  Lexicographers — 
Bates,  Taylor,  Calassio,  &c,  should  have  been  ignorant,  for  I  believe  they  all  suppress  the  rendering. 
It  ought  to  serve  as  a  warning  to  all  inquirers  that  they  never  can  be  too  much  on  their  guard. 
How  true  is  the  dictum  of  Bacon,  that  every  thing  connected  with  religion  is  to  be  viewed  with 
suspicion  ! 

Wisdom  was  the  first  emanation  from  the  Divine  power,  the  protogonos,  the  beginning  of  all 
things,  the  Rasit  of  Genesis,  the  Buddha  of  India,  the  Logos  of  Plato  and  St.  John,  as  I  shall 
prove.  Wisdom  was  the  beginning  of  creation.  Wisdom  was  the  primary,  and  beginning  the 
secondary,  meaning  of  the  word.  Of  its  rendering  in  the  LXX.,  by  the  word  A§p^>j5  I  shall  treat 
presently  at  great  length.  The  fact  was,  Parkhurst  saw  that  if  the  word  had  the  meaning  of 
Wisdom  it  would  instantly  establish  the  doctrine  of  Emanations  ;  and  if  he  had  given,  as  he  ought 
to  have  done,  the  authority  of  the  Jerusalem  Targum  and  of  Maimonides,  no  person  would  have 
hesitated  for  a  moment  to  prefer  it  to  his  sophistry.  But  as  the  doctrine  of  emanations  must,  at 
all  events,  be  kept  out  of  sight,  he  suppressed  the  authorities. 

The  meaning  of  wisdom,  which  the  word  Has  bore,  I  can  scarcely  doubt  was,  in  fact,  secret,, 
sacred,  and  mystical ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  following  work  my  reader  will  perceive,  that 
wherever  a  certain  mythos,  which  will  be  explained,  was  concerned,  two  clear  and  distinct 
meanings  of  the  words  will  be  found  :  one  for  the  initiated,  and  one  for  the  people.  This  is  of  the 
first  importance  to  be  remembered.  If  the  ancients  really  had  a  secret  system  it  was  a  practice 
which  could  not  well  be  dispensed  with,  and  innumerable  proofs  of  it  will  be  given  j  but  among 
them  there  will  not  be  found  one  more  important,  nor  more  striking,  than  that  of  the  word  wtc\  ras 
or  jviWQ  b-rasit.  To  the  reconsideration  of  the  meaning  of  this  word  I  shall  many  times  have 
occasion  to  revert.     I  shall  now  return  to  the  text  of  Deuteronomy,  from  which  I  have  digressed. 

That  the  angels  are  in  fact  emanations  from  the  Divine  substance,  according  to  the  Mosaic  sys- 
tem, is  proved  from  Deut.  xxxiii.  2.  Moses  says,  according  to  the  Septuagint,  The  Lord  is  come 
from  Sinai:  he  has  appeared  to  us  from  Seir  ;  he  shined  forth  from  Par  an  with  thousands  of  saints, 
and  having  his  angels  on  his  right  hand.  But  M.  Beausobre1  has  shewn,  (and  which  Park- 
hurst, p.  149,  in  voce,  m  dt,  confirms,)  that  the  Hebrew  word  mWH  asdt,  which  the  Septuagint 
translates  angels,  means  effusions,  that  is,  emanations,  from  the  Divine  substance.  According  to 
Moses  and  the  Seventy  translators,  therefore,  the  Angels  were  Emanations  from  the  Divine 
substance.  Thus  we  see  here  that  the  doctrines  of  the  Persians  and  that  of  the  Jews,  and  we  shall 
see  afterward,  of  the  Gnostic  and  Manichean  Christians,  were  in  reality  the  same. 

The  fact  has  been  established  that  the  Septuagint  copy  which  we  now  possess  is  really  a  copy 
of  that  spoken  of  by  Philo  and  the  Evangelists,  though  in  many  places  corrupted,  so  that  no  more 
need  be  said  about  it.  But  if  any  one  be  disposed  to  dispute  this  passage  of  the  LXX.,  it  may  be 
observed  to  him,  that  the  probability  is  strongly  in  favour  of  its  being  genuine. 

It  is  not  a  disputed  text.  It  is  found  in  these  words  in  the  ancient  Italic  version,  which  was 
made  from  the  Septuagint, 2  which  shews  that  it  was  there  in  a  very  early  period,  and  it  did  not 
flatter  the  prejudice  or  support  the  interest  either  of  the  modern  Jews  or  the  ruling  power  of  the 
Christians  to  corrupt  it,  but  the  contrary.     As  M.  Beausobre  properly  observes,  if  the  question 

1  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  ix.  Ch.  ii. 

2  Qui  avoit  Ste"  fait  sur  les  LXX.  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  ix.  Ch.  ii.  p.  621  j  and  Sim.  Hist.  Crit.  du  V.  Test. 
Liv.  ii.  Ch.  xi. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  6.  77 

be  decided  by  authority,  the  authority  of  the  Septuagint  is  vastly  preferable  to  that  of  the 
Masorets,  who  lived  many  ages  after  the  makers  of  the  Septuagint.  And,  as  he  says,  if  reason 
be  admitted  to  decide  it,  a  person  inclined  to  favour  the  system  of  emanations,  would  urge, 
in  the  first  place,  that  rnttfN  asdt  is  a  Hebrew  word,  one  entire  word,  which  cannot  be  divided ; 
and  that  it  is  evident  from  the  Septuagint,  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  did  not  divide  it. 
Secondly,  he  would  say,  that  Dat,  which  signifies  law,  commandment,  is  not  a  Hebrew  but  a 
Median  *  word,  which  the  Hebrews  took  from  the  Medes,  and  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  their 
books,  but  such  as  were  written  after  the  captivity;  so  that  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
it  had  been  used  by  Moses  in  Deuteronomy.  Thirdly,  he  would  say,  that  the  fire  of  the  law, 
or  the  law  of  fire,  as  our  English  has  it,  is  unnatural ;  and  that  although  it  is  said  the  law  was 
given  from  the  middle  of  the  fire,  there  is  nothing  to  shew  that  it  was  from  the  right  hand  of 
God.  In  fine,  he  would  urge  that  the  explanation  of  the  LXX.  is  much  more  natural.  God  comes 
with  thousands  of  saints,  and  the  angels,  the  principal  angels,  those  who  are  named  Emanations 
were  at  his  right  hand.  These  proofs  would  have  been  invincible  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity, 
where  the  version  of  the  Septuagint  was  considered  to  be  inspired,  and  had  much  greater  authority 
given  to  it  than  to  the  Hebrew. 

In  many  of  Dr.  Kennicot's  Hebrew  codices,  the  word  mt£W  adst,  is  written  in  one  word,  but  not 
in  all :  it  is  likewise  the  same  in  three  of  the  Samaritan  ;  and  in  two  of  the  latter  it  is  written 
nnt^N  asdut.     The  following  are  the  words  of  the  Septuagint : 

Kog<0£  ex  "Xiva  r^xei,  xai  e7rs<pavev  ex  S>je<g  *]]!*«',  xai  xarecTreuarev  s£  opsg  <Pa.(>av,  guv 
[AV%ia<ri  Ka&?]£  *   ex  §e£ia>v  oluts  AyysXoi  (xer  auT«.2 

Nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  vulgar  translation,  which  is  made  from  a  copy  in  which 
the  words  have  been  divided  by  the  Masorets.  But  it  was  necessary  to  risk  any  absurdity,  rather 
than  let  the  fact  be  discovered  that  the  word  meant  angels  or  emanations,  which  would  so  strongly 
tend  to  confirm  the  doctrine  of  the  Gnostics,  and  also  prove  that  the  religions  of  Moses  and  the 
Persians  were  the  same.  M.  Beausobre  has  satisfactorily  explained  the  contrivance  of  the  Masorets 
to  disguise  the  truth  by  dividing  the  word  Asdt  mttfN,  or,  as  he  calls  it,  Eschdot,  into  two,  Esch-Dot. 
And  his  observations  respecting  the  authority  of  the  Italic  versions  and  the  Septuagint,  written  so 
many  centuries  before  the  time  of  the  Masorets,  when  the  language  was  a  living  one,  is  conclusive 
on  the  subject.  The  very  fact  of  adopting  the  use  of  the  points,  is  a  proof  either  that  the  language 
was  lost  or  nearly  so,  or  that  some  contrivance,  after  the  time  of  Jerom,  was  thought  necessary  by 
the  Jews,  to  give  to  the  unpointed  text  such  meaning  as  they  thought  proper. 

6.  But  to  return  to  the  word  Berasit,  or  more  properly  the  word  JTttfN")  Rasit,  the  particle 
3  beth  being  separated  from  it.  A  curious  question  has  arisen  among  Christian  philosophers, 
whether  Time  was  in  existence  before  the  creation  here  spoken  of,  or  the  beginning,  if  it  be  so 
translated. 

The  word  cannot  mean  the  beginning  of  creation,  according  to  the  Mosaic  account,  because  the 
context  proves  that  there  were  created  beings  before  the  creation  of  our  world — for  instance,  the 
angels  or  cherubim  who  guarded  the  gate  of  paradise  after  the  fall. 3 

In  common  language,  the  words,  In  the  beginning,  mean  some  little  time  after  a  thing  has 
begun  ;  but  this  idea  cannot  be  applied  to  the  creation.  The  expression  cannot  be  applied  to  any 
period  of  time  after  the  universe  began  to  exist,  and  it  cannot  be  applied  to  any  period  before  it 
began  to  exist.     If  the  words  at  first  be  used,  they  are  only  different  words  for  precisely  the  same 

1  He  says  he  owes  this  remark  to  Mons.  de  la  Croze,  a  qui  je  serois  bien  fach6  de  la  deVober. 
*  Deut.  xxxiii.  2,  LXX.  juxt.  Exemp.  Vatic. ;  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  ix.  Ch.  ii.  p.  621. 
3  See  St.  Agustiue  above,  in  section  3  and  Job  xxxviii.  7- 


78  PLANETS   OR   SAMIM. 

idea.  The  translators  of  the  Septuagint  and  Onkelos  are  undoubtedly  entitled  to  high  respect. 
In  this  case,  however,  they  advocate  an  untenable  opinion,  if  they  both  do  advocate  the  meaning  of 
beginning,  because  our  system  was  not  the  first  of  created  things  ;  and  they  make  the  divine 
penman  say  what  was  not  true — in  fact,  to  contradict  himself  in  what  follows.  But  if  we  adopt 
the  explanation  of  the  Jerusalem  Targum  and  of  the  other  learned  Jews,  and  of  the  earliest  of  the 
fathers  of  the  church,  there  is  nothing  in  it  inconsistent  with  the  context ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  strictly  in  accordance  with  it,  and  with  the  general  system  of  oriental  philosophy,  on  which 
the  whole  Mosaic  system  was  founded. 

I  think  the  author  of  Genesis  had  more  philosophy  than  to  write  about  the  beginning  of  the 
world.     I  cannot  see  any  reason  why  so  much  anxiety  should  be  shewn,  by  some  modern  trans- 
lators, to  construe  this  word  as  meaning  beginning.     I  see  clearly  enough  why  others  of  them 
should  do  so,  and  why  the  ancient  translators  did  it.     They  had  a  preconceived  dogma  to  support, 
their  partiality  to  which  blinded  their  judgment,  and  of  philosophy  they  did  not  possess  much. 
However,  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  either  in  a  primary  or  secondary  sense,  the  word  means  wisdom 
as  well  as  beginning,  and,  therefore,  its  sense  here  must  be  gathered  from  the  context. 
I  will  now  return  to  the  word  Samim,  as  I  promised  in  the  early  part  of  this  book. 
7.  The  two  words  called  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  D'OtiTT  e- samim,  the  heavens,  ought  to  be 
translated  the  planets.     In  that  work  the  sun,  and  moon,  and  the  earth,  are  said  to  be  formed,  and 
also  separately  from  them  the  samim  or  planets  ;  and  afterward  the  stars  also.     Dr.  Parkhurst  has 
very  properly  explained  the  word  to  mean  disposers.     They  are  described  in  the  Chaldean  Oracles 
as  a  septenary  of  living  beings.     By  the  ancients  they  were  thought  to  have,  under  their  special 
care,  the  affairs  of  men.     Philo  was  of  this  opinion,  and  even  Maimonides  declares,  that  they  are 
endued  with  life,  knowledge,  and  understanding ;  that  they  acknowledge  and  praise  their  Creator. 
On  this  opinion  of  the  nature  of  the  planets,  all  judicial  astrology,  magic,  was  founded — a  science, 
I  believe,  almost  as  generally  held  by  the  ancients,  as  the  being  of  a  God  is  by  the  moderns.  * 

Phornutus,  JJepi  Oupavs, 2  says,  "  For  the  ancients  took  those  for  Gods  whom  they  found  to 
"  move  in  a  certain  regular  manner,  thinking  them  to  be  the  causers  of  the  changes  of  the  air  and 
"  the  conservation  of  the  universe.  These,  then,  are  Gods  (^eoi)  which  are  the  disposers  (^srrj^ss) 
"  and  formers  of  all  things." 

The  word  wi2Wn>  itsmia  is  used  by  the  Targum  of  Jerusalem  for  the  word  D'Ditf  J~IN  at  smim  of 
Genesis,  and  I  think  fully  justifies  my  rendering  of  that  word  by  planets  instead  of  the  word 
heavens.  It  comes  from  the  root  Ditf  sm,  which  signifies  to  fix,  to  enact,  pono,  sancior — and 
means  placers,  fixers,  enactors. 

With  respect  to  the  D'Qttf  smim,  Parkhurst  is  driven  to  a  ridiculous  shift,  similar  to  the  case  of 
the  first  word  rvtyjo  rasit.  It  was  necessary  to  conceal  the  truth  from  his  Christian  reader,  but 
this  was  very  difficult  without  laying  himself  open  to  a  charge  of  pious  fraud.  In  this  instance  he 
will  be  supported  by  the  Jews,  because  at  this  day  neither  Jews  nor  Christians  will  like  to  admit 
that  the  very  foundation  of  their  religions  is  laid  in  judicial  astrology.  But  such  I  affirm  is  the 
fact,  as  any  one  may  at  once  see,  by  impartially  considering  what  Parkhurst  has  unwillingly  been 
obliged  to  allow  in  his  Lexicon.  He  does  not  admit  that  the  singular  of  the  word  means  a 
disposer  or  placer,  or  the  disposer  or  placer,  but  he  takes  the  plural  and  calls  them  the  disposers  or 
placers.  And,  shutting  his  eyes  to  the  planetary  bodies  and  to  the  word  y>pn  rqio,  which  means 
the  space,  air,  or  firmament,  and  which  can'  have  no  other  meaning,  he  calls  the  D'Qttf  smim,  the 
firmanent,  and  says  it  is  the  disposers.  It  is  absurd  to  speak  of  the  air,  or  space,  or  firmament,  in 
the  plural ;  and  that  Parkhurst  must  have  known.     In  some  author  (I  yet  believe  somewhere  in 

1  See  Faber,  Vol.  II.  p.  226.  *  Ap.  Parkhurst,  in  voce  our  sm,  p.  745. 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  7«  79 

Parkhurst)  I  found  the  D>Otl>  smim,  called  the  disposers  of  the  affairs  of  men ,  and  by  mistake,  if  it 
were  a  mistake,  I  quoted  it  as  from  Parkhurst  in  my  Celtic  Druids.  It  is  of  little  consequence 
where  I  got  the  quotation,  as  the  fact  itself  is  true.  The  planets  in  ancient  times  were  always 
taken  to  be  the  superintendants  and  regulators  of  the  affairs  of  mankind,  and  this  is  the  meaning 
of  Genesis.  This  idea,  too,  was  the  foundation  of  all  judicial  astrology  :  which  is  as  visible  as  the 
noonday  sun  in  every  part  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  The  word  y>pn  rqio  means  the  firma- 
ment or  ethereal  space ;  the  word  233  ccb  means  a  star  :  and  though  the  word  D'Oitf  smim  some- 
times means  stars,  as  we  call  the  planets  stars,  yet  its  primary  meaning  is  the  disposers  or  planets. 
Originally  the  fixed  stars  were  not  regarded  as  disposers. 

For  proof  that  the  word  D'Oitf  smim  means  placers  or  disposers,  see  Hutchinson,  "  Of  the 
"  Trinity  of  the  Gentiles," 1  and  Moses's  Principia.2  They  shew  that  the  essential  meaning  of  the 
word  D>Qt£>  smim  is  disposers  or  placers  of  other  things.  If  they  were  not  to  dispose  or  place  the 
affairs  or  conduct  of  men,  pray  what  were  they  to  place  ?  Were  they  to  dispose  of  the  affairs  of 
beasts,  or  of  themselves  ?  They  were  the  *02f  Zba,  or  Heavenly  Host,  and  I  have  no  doubt  the 
original  word  was  confined  to  the  wandering  stars,  whatever  it  might  be  afterward.  Parkhurst 
and  Hutchinson  shew  great  unwillingness  to  allow  that  they  mean  disposers,  but  they  are  both 
obliged  to  confess  it,  and  in  this  confession,  admit,  in  fact,  the  foundation  of  judicial  astrology. 

It  is  very  certain  that  the  ancient  philosophers  knew  the  difference  between  the  stars  and 
planets,  as  well  as  the  moderns.  This  is  the  only  place  where  the  formation  of  the  planets  is 
named ;  the  formation  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  is  described  in  the  14th  verse.  As  I  have  just 
said,  D'DtiTt  esmim  does  not  mean  the  vast  expanse,  because  this  is  afterward  described  in  the 
6th  verse  by  the  word  y>pi  rqio. 

In  the  eighth  verse  the  word  rqio  is  used.  In  our  translation  it  is  said,  he  called  the  expanse 
heavens.  But  before  the  word  y»p")  rqio  the  particle  b  I,  the  sign  of  the  dative  case  is  written, 
which  shews  that  a  word  is  understood  to  make  sense.  Thus,  And  he  called  the  D>Ot£>  smim,  in  the 
rqio  or  expanse,  planets.  This  merely  means,  and  he  gave  to  the  smim  the  name  which  they  now 
bear,  of  smim.  This  explanation  of  mine  is  justified  by  the  Jerusalem  Targurn,  in  its  use  of  the 
word  N'OtitfV  itsmia,  placers. 

Persons  are  apt  to  regard  with  contempt  the  opinion,  that  the  planetary  bodies  are  animated  or 
rational  beings.  But  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  the  really  great  Kepler  believed  our  globe  to  be 
endowed  with  living  faculties ;  that  it  possessed  instinct  and  volition — an  hypothesis  which  Mons. 
Patrin  has  supported  with  great  ingenuity.3  Among  those  who  believed  that  the  planets  were 
intelligent  beings,  were  Philo,  Origen,  and  Maimonides. 4 

The  first  verse  of  Genesis  betrays  the  Persian  or  Oriental  philosophy  in  almost  every  word.  The 
first  word  rasit  rvt£>K")  or  wisdom  refers  to  one,  or  probably  to  the  chief,  of  the  emanations  from  the 
Deity.  This  is  allowed  by  most  of  the  early  fathers,  who  see  in  it  the  second  person  of  the 
Trinity.  The  word  m*0  bara  in  the  singular  number,  followed  by  DTI^K  Aleim  in  the  plural,  or 
a  noun  of  multitude,  refers  to  the  Trinity,  three  Persons  and  one  God ;  and  does  not  mean  that 
the  Aleim  created,  but  that  it  formed,  S7roi^asv,  fecit,  as  the  Septuagint  says,  out  of  matter 
previously  existing.  On  the  question  of  the  eternity  of  matter  it  is  perfectly  neutral :  it  gives  no 
opinion.  The  word  D'Ottfil  esmim  in  the  Hebrew,  and  \>nwn  esmin  in  the  Chaldee,  do  not  mean  the 
heavens  or  heavenly  bodies  generally,  but  the  planets  only,  the  disposers,  as  Dr.  Parkhurst,  after 
the  Magi,  calls  them. 

This  is  all  perfectly  consistent,  and  in  good  keeping,  with  what  we  know  of  the  Jewish  Cabala. 

1  In  voce,  p.  20.  *  Part  II.  p.  56. 

3  Vide  Jameson's  Cuvier,  p.  45,  and  Nouveau  Diet.  d'Histoire  Naturelle.  4  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  32. 


80  OBSERVATIONS   ON   THE   PRECEDING    SECTIONS. 

And  it  is  surely  only  reasonable  to  expect,  that  there  should  be  something  like  consistency  between 
this  verse  and  the  Cabala,  which  we  know  was  founded,  in  some  degree,  perhaps  entirely,  upon  it. 

The  conduct  of  Christian  expositors,  with  respect  to  the  words  D'Dttf  smim  and  n»tftn  rasit,  has 
been  as  unfair  as  possible.  They  have  misrepresented  the  meaning  of  them  in  order  to  prevent 
the  true  astrological  character  of  the  book  from  being  seen.  But,  that  the  first  does  mean  disposers, 
the  word  heavens  making  nonsense,  and  the  words  relating  to  the  stars,  in  the  16th  verse,  shewing 
that  they  cannot  be  meant,  put  it  beyond  a  question.  My  reader  may,  therefore,  form  a  pretty 
good  judgment  how  much  Parkhurst  can  be  depended  upon  for  the  meaning  of  the  second,  from 
the  striking  fact  that,  though  he  has  filled  several  columns  with  observations  relating  to  the 
opinions  of  different  expositors,  he  could  not  find  room  for  the  words,  the  opinion  of  the  Synagogue 
is,  that  the  word  means  wisdom,  or  the  Jerusalem  Targum  says  it  means  wisdom.  But  it  was 
necessary  to  conceal  from  the  English  reader,  as  already  stated,  the  countenance  it  gives  to  judicial 
astrology  and  the  doctrine  of  emanations. 

Indeed,  I  think  the  doctrine  of  Emanations  in  the  Jewish  system  cannot  be  denied.  This  Mr. 
Maurice  unequivocally  admits  :  "  The  Father  is  the  great  fountain  of  the  divinity  ;  the  Son  and 
"  the  Holy  Spirit  are  Emanations  from  that  fountain."  Again,  "  The  Christian  Trinity  is  a 
"  Trinity  of  subsistences,  or  persons  joined  by  an  indissoluble  union."  l  The  reader  will  please  to 
recollect  that  hypostasis  means  subsistence,  which  is  a  Greek  word — virogao-ig,  from  u7ro  sub,  and 
i?r\y.i,  sto,  existo. 

In  the  formation  of  an  opinion  respecting  the  real  meaning  of  such  texts  as  these,  the  prudent 
inquirer  will  consider  the  general  character  of  the  context;  and,  in  order  that  he  may  be  the  better 
enabled  to  do  this,  I  request  him  to  suspend  his  judgment  till  he  sees  the  observations  which  will 
be  made  in  the  remainder  of  this  work. 

Whatever  trifling  differences  or  incongruities  may  be  discovered  between  them,  the  following 
conclusions  are  inevitable,  viz.  that  the  religion  of  Abraham  and  that  of  the  Magi,  were  in  reality 
the  same  ;  that  they  both  contained  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  and  that  the  oriental  historians 
who  state  this  fact,  state  only  what  is  true. 

Dr.  Shuckford  gives  other  reasons  to  shew  that  the  religions  of  Abraham  and  of  the  Persians 
were  the  same.  He  states,  that  Dr.  Hyde  was  of  his  opinion,  and  thus  concludes  :  "  The  first 
"  religion,  therefore,  of  the  Persians,  was  the  worship  of  the  true  God,  and  they  continued  in  it 
"  for  some  time  after  Abraham  was  expelled  Chaldsea,  having  the  same  faith  and  worship  as 
"  Abraham  had,  except  only  in  those  points  concerning  which  he  received  instruction  after  his 
"  going  into  Haran  and  into  Canaan."2 

8.  I  must  now  beg  my  reader  to  review  what  has  been  said  respecting  the  celebrated  name  of 
God,  Al,  Ale,  Aleim;  and  to  observe  that  this  was  in  all  the  Western  Asiatic  nations  the  name  both 
of  God  and  of  the  Sun.  This  is  confirmed  by  Sir  W.  Drummond  and  Mr.  Parkhurst,  as  the  reader 
has  seen,  and  by  the  names  given  by  the  Greeks  to  places  which  they  conquered.  Thus  :  bn  DO 
Bit  Al,  House  of  the  Sun,  became  Heliopolis.  I  beg  my  reader  also  to  recollect  that  when  the 
Aleim  appeared  it  was  generally  in  the  form  of  fire,  thus  he  appeared  to  Moses  in  the  bush.  Fire 
was,  in  a  particular  manner,  held  sacred  by  the  Jews  and  Persians;  a  sacred  fire  was  always 
burning  in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem.  From  all  this,  and  much  more  which  the  reader  will  find 
presently,  he  will  see  that  though  most  undoubtedly  the  Sun  was  not  the  object  of  the  adoration  of 
Moses,  it  is  very  evident  that  it  had  been  closely  allied  to  it.  In  the  time  of  Moses,  not  the  sun, 
but  the  higher  principle  thought  to  reside  in  the  sun,  perhaps  the  Creator  of  the  sun  himself,  had 


1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  49.  *  Shuckford,  Book  v.  p.  308,  Ed.  3. 


BOOK    II.    CHAPTER    IV.    SECTION    1.  81 

become  the  object  of  adoration,  by  the  Gentiles  if  not  by  Moses  (but  of  the  latter  it  may  be 
matter  of  doubt)  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  had  arisen  as  I  have  supposed  and  described  in  my 
5ast  book. 

Thus  if  a  person  was  to  say,  that  the  God  of  Moses  resolved  himself  at  last  into  the  Sun,  he 
would  not  be  correct;  but  he  would  be  veryaiear  it.  The  object  of  this  observation  will  be  seen 
hereafter. 

I  must  also  beg  my  reader's  attention  to  the  observation  at  the  end  of  Chapter  II.  Sect.  4,  of 
this  book  relating  to  the  word  el,  as  used  by  Sir  W.  Drummond.  In  the  Asiatic  language,  the 
first  letter  of  the  word  is  the  first  letter  of  the  alphabet  and  not  the  fifth,  as  here  written  by  Sir 
William,  and  this  shews  the  importance  of  my  system  of  reducing  the  alphabets  to  their  originals  : 
for  here,  most  assuredly,  this  name  of  the  Sun  is  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  name  of  God.  But  by 
the  mistake  of  Sir  William  this  most  important  fact  is  concealed.  No  doubt  dialectic  variations  in 
language  will  take  place1  between  neighbouring  countries,  which  occasion  difficulties,  and  for 
which  allowance  must  be  made  :  but,  by  not  attending  to  my  rule,  we  increase  them,  and  create 
them,  where  they  are  not  otherwise  to  be  found. 

But  we  do  not  merely  increase  difficulties,  we  disguise  and  conceal  absolute  facts.  Thus  it  is  a 
fact  that  the  Sun  and  the  God  of  Moses  had  the  same  names  ;  that  is,  that  the  God  of  Moses  was 
called  by  the  same  word  which  meant  Sun,  in  the  Asiatic  language  :  but  by  miscalling  one  of  them 
El  instead  of  Al,  the  fact  is  concealed,  and  it  is  an  important  fact,  and  will  lead  to  important 
results. 

We  must  also  recollect,  that  when  I  translate  the  first  word  of  Genesis  by  the  word  Wisdom,  I 
am  giving  no  new  theory  of  my  own,  but  only  the  orthodox  exposition  of  the  Jewish  religion,  as 
witnessed  in  the  Jerusalem  Targum,  read  in  their  synagogues,  supported  by  the  authorities  of  the 
most  eminent  of  the  Jewish  Rabbis,  Maimonides,  &c,  and  the  most  learned  of  the  Christian 
fathers,  Clemens,  Origen,  &e.  All  this  is  of  importance  to  be  remembered,  because  a  great  con- 
sequence will  be  deduced  from  this  word  Wisdom.  It  was,  as  it  were,  the  foundation  on  which 
a  mighty  structure  was  erected. 

It  was  by  what  may  be  called  a  peculiar  Hypostasis,  denominated  Wisdom,  that  the  higher 
principle  operated  when  it  formed  the  world.  This  is  surely  quite  sufficient  to  shew  its  great 
importance — an  importance  which  we  shall  see  demonstrated  hereafter,  when  I  treat  of  the  cele- 
brated Buddha  of  India. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WHY   CYRUS  RESTORED   THE  TEMPLE. — MELCHIZEDEK. — ABRAHAM,  WHAT  HE  WAS. — ABRAHAM  THE  FATHER 
OF  THE  PERSIANS. — DANIEL. — BOOK  OF  ESTHER,  PERSIAN.— ZOROASTER. — VARIATION  BETWEEN  PERSIANS 

AND    ISRAELITES. — SACRIFICES. — RELIGION     OF    ZOROASTER. — RELIGION     OF    ZOROASTER    CONTINUED. 

ZENDAVESTA. — OBSERVATIONS    ON     THE    RELIGION    OF    JEWS  AND   PERSIANS. — ALL   ANCIENT   RELIGIONS 
ASTROLOGICAL. 

1 .  From  the  striking  similarity  between  the  religion  of  Moses  and  that  of  the  Persians,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  the  reason  why  Cyrus,  Darius,  and  the  Persians,  restored  the  temples  of  Jerusalem 

1  With  the  Syrians  the  A  changed  into  the  O. 
M 


82  WHY    CYRUS    RESTORED   THE   TEMPLE. — MELCHIZEDEK. 

and  Gerizim,  when  they  destroyed  the  temples  of  the  idolaters  in  Egypt  and  other  places,  which, 
in  fact,  they  did  wherever  they  came.  It  appears  probable  that  the  temple  on  Gerizim  was  built 
or  restored  within  a  few  years  of  the  same  time  with  that  at  Jerusalem  :  and  for  the  same  reason 
— because  the  religion  was  that  of  the  Persians,  with  such  little  difference  as  distance  of  country 
or  some  peculiar  local  circumstances  in  length  of  time  might  produce. 

In  Genesis  xiv.  20,  we  read,  that  when  Abraham  returned  from  the  pursuit  of  the  five  kings 
who  were  smitten  by  him  as  far  as  Hobah  and  Damascus,  he  received  gifts  from  Melchizedek, 
King  of  Salem,  and  paid  him  tithes  of  all  he  had  taken  from  his  enemies.  The  situation  of  this 
Salem  has  been  much  disputed,  and  concerning  it  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter  :  but  it  was 
evidently  somewhere  West  of  the  Jordan,  in  the  country  of  the  Canaanites.  Now  this  king  and  priest 
is  said  to  have  been  a  priest  of  the  most  high  God.  And  as  the  Canaanites  were  then  in  the  land, 
(Gen.  xii.  6,)  or  were  then  its  inhabitants,  it  is  evident  that  he  could  be  no  other  than  their  priest. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  sacred  history  which  militates  against  this  in  the  slightest  degree.  It  is 
quite  absurd  to  suppose  that  there  should  be  priests  without  a  people,  and  there  were  no  others 
besides  the  Canaanites.  There  is  no  expression  which  would  induce  us  to  believe  that  they  were 
idolaters  in  the  time  of  Abraham.  The  covenants  and  treaties  of  friendship  which  Abraham 
entered  into  with  them,  raise  a  strong  presumption  that  they  could  not  then  have  been  so  wicked 
as  they  are  represented  to  have  been  in  the  time  of  Moses,  five  hundred  years  afterward.  As 
the  history  supplies  no  evidence  that  the  Canaanites  were  idolaters  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  the 
fact  of  a  priest  of  the  true  God,  and  this  priest  a  king,  being  in  the  midst  of  them,  almost  proves 
that  they  were  not  idolaters.  The  conduct  of  Abimelech,  (Genesis  xx.,)  in  restoring  Sarah  to  her 
husband,  as  soon  as  he  found  her  to  be  a  married  woman,  and  his  reproof  of  Abraham  for  his 
deceit,  shew,  whatever  his  religion  might  be,  that  his  morality  was  at  least  as  good  as  that  of  the 
father  of  the  faithful.  But  several  circumstances  named  in  the  context,  prove  him  of  the  same 
religion. 

Dr.  Shuckford  not  only  agrees  with  me  that  Abraham  and  the  Canaanites  were  of  the  same 
religion,  and  that  Melchizedek  was  their  priest,  but  he  also  shews  that  Abimelech  and  the 
Philistines  were  at  that  time  of  the  same  religion. 1  He  also  gives  some  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
Egyptians  were  the  same.2 

The  circumstance  that  the  old  inhabitants  of  Palestine  (Palli-stan)  were  of  the  same  religion  as 
the  tribe  which  came  with  Abraham,  will  be  seen  by  and  by  to  be  of  consequence.  This  can 
scarcely  be  accounted  for,  except  we  suppose  them  to  have  come  from  the  same  country  from 
which  he  came. 

Joseph  could  hardly  have  married  a  daughter  of  the  priest  Potiphar,  if  he  had  been  an  idolater. 
And  it  is  curious  that  he  was  priest  of  On  or  Heliopolis,  a  place  which  will  be  found  to  be  of  great 
importance  in  the  following  observations.     Shuckford  says, 

"  Melchizedec,  the  King  of  Salem,  was  a  priest  of  the  most  high  God,  and  he  received  and 
"  entertained  Abraham  as  a  true  servant  and  particular  favourite  of  that  God,  whose  priest  he 
"  himself  was ;  blessed  (said  he)  he  Abraham,  servant  of  the  most  high  God,  possessor  of  heaven 
H  and  earth."  3 

Respecting  the  rites  or  ceremonies  performed  by  this  priest,  few  particulars  are  known.  It 
appears  his  votaries  paid  him  tithes.  Abraham,  we  have  seen,  paid  him  tithes  of  all  the  plunder 
which  he  took  from  the  five  kings  whom  he  had  defeated.  This  contribution  is  enforced  in  the 
religion  of  the  ancient  Persians,  and  also  in  the  religious  ordinances  of  the  Jews.  It  is  very  sin- 
gular that  the  exact  tenth  should  be  found  in  all  the  three  religions  to  be  paid.     It  might  be  asked, 


Book  v.  pp.  309,  310.  *  Ibid.  pp.  312,  313.  3  Gen.  xiv.  19  ;  Shuckford,  Book  v.  p.  310. 


BOOK  II.    CHAP.  IV.    SECT.  ].  83 

If  they  were  not  the  same  religions,  how  came  they  all  to  fix  upon  the  exact  number  of  ten  and 
not  the  number  of  eight  or  twelve  ?  There  is  nothing  in  the  number,  that  should  lead  their  ad- 
herents to  it,  rather  than  to  any  other.  The  second  of  the  rites  of  Melchizedek's  religion  which  is 
known,  is  the  offering  or  sacrifice  of  bread  and  wine,  about  which  more  will  be  said  hereafter. 

It  is  not  possible  to  determine  from  Genesis  where  the  Salem  was  of  which  Melchizedek  was 
priest.  (I  pay  no  attention  to  the  partisan  Josepthus.)  Taking  advantage  of  this  uncertainty  the 
Christians  have  settled  it  to  be  Jerusalem.  But  it  happens  in  this  case  that  a  Heathen  author 
removes  the  difficulty.  Eupolemus  states  that  Abraham  received  gifts  from  Melchizedek  in  the 
Holy  City  of  Hargarizim,  or  of  Mount  Gerizim.  Har,  in  the  ancient  language,  signifies  mount. 
This  proves  that  there  was  a  place  holy  to  the  Lord  upon  Gerizim,  long  before  Joshua's  time, 
whatever  the  Jews  may  allege  to  the  contrary  against  the  Samaritans. 

There  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  this  Melchizedek  was  the  priest  of  the  Temple  of  Jove, 
Jupiter,  or  Iao,  without  image,  spoken  of  by  the  Greeks,  to  which  Pythagoras  and  Plato  are  said 
to  have  resorted  for  study  ;  the  place  where  Joshua  placed  his  unhewn  stones.  The  mountain 
Carmel,  probably,  extended  over  a  considerable  extent  of  country.  Hargerizim  was  probably 
looked  on  as  a  mount  of  Carmel,  as  Mount  Blanc  is  a  mount  of  the  Alps. 

Melchizedek  (Gen.  xiv.  19)  ought  to  be  written  p*J2f->:£D  mlki-zdq,  and  means  literally  Kings 
of  Justice;  but  it  is  evidently  a  proper  name.  The  proper  translation  is,  "And  Melchizedek, 
•'  king  of  peace,  brought  forth  bread  and  wine,  because  he  (ivas,  understood)  priest  to  the  most 
"  high  God.  And  he  blessed  him  (or  he  bestowed  his  benediction  upon  him,  first  addressing  a 
"  prayer  to  God)  and  said,  Blessed  be  Abram,  by  the  most  high  God,  possessor  of  heaven  and 
"  earth ;  (he  then  addresses  Abraham  ;)  and  blessed  be  the  most  high  God  who  hath  delivered 
"  thine  enemies  into  thine  hand,"  &c.  I  cannot  conceive  how  any  person  who  comes  to  the  con- 
sideration of  this  text  with  an  impartial  and  candid  mind  can  find  any  difficulty. 

When  David  and  the  priests  removed  the  holy  place  from  Gerizim  to  the  city  of  the  Jebusites, 
they  then,  perhaps,  first  called  it  Jerusalem  ;  and  to  justify  themselves  against  the  charges  of  the 
Samaritans,  they  corrupted  the  text  in  Joshua,  as  some  of  the  most  eminent  Protestant  divines  are 
obliged  to  allow,  substituting  Ebal  for  Gerizim,  and  Gerizim  for  Ebal.     The  whole  is  a  description 
of  the  sacrifice  of  bread  and  wine,  repeated  by  Jesus  Christ  a  few  hours  previous  to  his  cruci- 
fixion :  the  same,  probably,  as  was  offered  by  Pythagoras  at  the  shrine  of  the  bloodless  Apollo.     It 
was  sometimes  celebrated  with  wine,  sometimes  with  water.     The  English  priests,  in  the  time  of 
Edward  the  Sixth,  not  knowing  what  to  make  of  it,  ordered  it  in  the  rubric  to  be  celebrated  with 
both,  mixing  them  together.     It  is  still  continued  by  the  Jews  at  their  pascal  feast,  and  is  alto- 
gether, when  unaccompanied  by  nonsense  not  belonging  to  it,  the  most  beautiful  religious  cere- 
mony that  ever  was  invented.     It  is   found  in  the  Buddhist  rites   of  Persia  before  they  were 
corrupted,  in  the  rites  of  Abraham,  of  Pythagoras,  and,  in  a  future  page  I  shall  shew,  of  the 
ancient  Italians,  and  of  Jesus  Nagcupaios,  the  Nazarite,  of  the  city  of  Nazarites,  or  of  Nazareth. 
Of  this  city  of  Nazareth  it  might  be  said,  that  it  was  nothing,  in  fact,  but  a  suburb  of  the  sacred 
city  which  God  had  chosen  to  place  his  name  there.     (Deut.  xii.  5 — 14.)     It  was  a  convent  of  Esse- 
nian  Monks,  or  Carmelites,  for  all  monks  were  Carmelites  before  the  fifth  century  after  Christ. 
If  Pythagoras  were  one  of  them,  in  this  very  place,  it  is  probable  that  he  took  the  vows,   Tria 
vota  substantialia,  Poverty,  Chastity,  and  Obedience,   still  taken  by  the  Buddhists  in  India,  and 
Carmelites  in  Rome.     These  constituted  the  companies  of  prophets  named  in  1  Sam.  xix.  20,  and 
I  see  no  reason  why  Jesus  may  not  have  been  the  head  of  the  order,  though  I  admit  we  have  no 
proof  of  it;  but  of  this  more  hereafter. 

Melchizedek  could  not  be  king  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  because  it  was 

m2 


84  ABRAHAM WHAT    HE   WAS. 

not  built ;  for  it  was  in  the  thicket  in  this  place,  Mount  Moriah,  where  he  found  the  ram  fast  by 
the  horns,  when  he  prepared  to  sacrifice  his  son  Isaac.  It  therefore  follows,  that  the  city  of  the 
Jebusites  must  have  been  built  between  the  time  fixed  for  the  sacrifice  by  Abraham,  and  the  time 
of  David ;  or  rather,  perhaps,  between  the  time  of  Moses  and  of  David  j  and  for  this  to  have 
been  effected,  there  was  a  space  of  about  five  hundred  years.  By  building  an  altar  here  it  might 
be  made  a  holy  place,  and  thus  a  city  might  be  drawn  to  it.  If  there  had  been  a  city  here  in  the 
time  of  Abraham,  the  history  would  have  said,  that  he  went  to  the  town  to  sacrifice,  not  to  the 
mount.    The  whole  context  implies  that  there  was  no  town. 

2.  It  is  very  clear  that  Abraham  is  represented  in  the  history  as  a  rich  and  powerful  shepherd 
king,  what  we  should  now  call  an  Arab  or  Tartar  chieftain,  constantly  migrating  with  his  tribe 
from  place  to  place  to  seek  pasture  for  his  flocks  and  herds.  He  probably  never  remained  long  in 
one  situation,  but  dwelt  in  the  mountains  in  summer,  and  in  the  plains  in  winter.  How  formida- 
ble and  indeed  ruinous,  wandering  tribes  of  this  description  have  been  in  later  times  to  the  Romans 
and  other  civilized  nations  is  well  known.  And  though  the  distance  from  Canaan  to  Persia  is  con- 
siderable, it  is  not  greater  than  migratory  shepherd  tribes  often  pass,  and  by  no  means  equal  to 
Abraham's  journey  which  we  learn  from  Genesis  that  he  did  take  from  Haran,  in  the  upper  part  of 
Mesopotamia,  to  Egypt.  Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham,  seems  to  have  been  of  the  same  migratory 
character,  for  he  removed  from  Ur  in  Chaldea,  to  Haran  in  Mesopotamia — no  little  distance. 
(Gen.  xi.  31.) 

Palestine  is  now  nearly  in  the  same  situation  in  which  it  was  in  the  time  of  Abraham.  The 
nomade  tribes  under  the  patriarchal  government  of  their  Sheiks,  ramble  about  the  country,  some- 
times attacking  the  towns,  sometimes  making  treaties  and  confederacies  with  them. 

When  I  speak  of  Abraham  I  mean  the  tribe  which  became  known  by  the  name  of  Israelites. 
Whether  there  was  such  a  man  as  Abraham,  and  whether  the  tribe  did  not  come  from  much  more 
eastern  countries,  will  be  discussed  hereafter. 

It  appears  that  Abraham  attacked  the  confederate  kings,  and  drove  them  before  him,  (Gen. 
xiv.  15,)  and  that  the  war  raged  (ver.  6)  from  near  Damascus  to  Mount  Seir :  from  which  it  is 
evident,  that  it  must  have  been  a  very  great  one.  When,  therefore,  it  is  said  that  Abraham  di- 
vided his  318  trained  servants  against  the  confederate  kings,  the  literal  meaning  cannot  be  in- 
tended. Some  very  learned  persons  have  supposed,  that  the  whole  of  this  account  is  an  astro- 
nomical allegory,  and  every  one  must  confess  that  this  is  not  destitute  of  probability.  But 
allowing  all  that  Sir  W.  Drummond  has  said  to  be  true,  it  is  still  evident  from  the  terms  used, 
such  as  Damascus,  Mount  Seir,  &c,  &c,  the  names  of  places  must  have  been  used  in  the  allegory 
(and  if  the  names  of  places  be  used,  why  should  not  the  names  of  persons  f)  by  way  of  accom- 
modation :  and  whether  it  be  all  allegory  or  not,  the  argument  will  not  be  affected,  because  it 
is  only  here  undertaken  to  produce  such  probable  proofs  that  the  worship  of  Abraham  and  his  fa- 
mily and  that  of  the  Persians  were  the  same,  as  that  no  unprejudiced  person  can  refuse  his  assent 
to  them. 

Dr.  Hyde  l  not  being  able  to  account  for  the  great  similarity,  which  could  not  be  denied, 
between  the  religion  of  Moses  and  of  Zoroaster,  (without  any  authority,)  supposes,  that  the  latter 
was  a  slave  or  servant  in  the  family  of  Daniel  or  of  Ezra,  at  Babylon,  during  the  captivity ;  and 
that  he  was  by  birth  a  Jew.  This  ridiculous  fancy  is  supported  by  Prideaux  ;  2  but  as  it  is  com- 
pletely laughed  down  by  Maurice, 3  no  more  need  be  said  about  it,  except  merely  that  the  simi- 
larity, indeed  identity,  of  the  two  religions  being  clearly  seen  by  the  learned  doctor,  it  was  neces- 


Hist.  Rel.  Vet.  Pers.  Chap.  xxiv.  p.  314.  2  Con.  Vol.  I.  p.  213.  3  Ind-  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  118. 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  4.  85 

sary  to  find  some  plausible  reason  for  it.  Dr.  Hyde  observed  also,  that  a  marked  similarity  was 
to  be  found  between  Abraham  and  the  Brahma  of  the  Hindoos,  but  I  reserve  that  point  for  another 
chapter. 

3.  The  Persians  also  claim  Ibrahim,  i.  e.  Abraham,  for  their  founder,  as  well  as  the  Jews.  Thus 
we  see  that  according  to  all  ancient  history  the  Persians,  the  Jews,  and  the  Arabians,  are  de- 
scendants of  Abraham. 

But  Abraham  was  not  merely  the  founder  of  the  Persians,  but  various  authors  assert,  that  he  was 
a  great  Magician,  at  the  head  of  the  Magi,  that  is,  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  priesthood,  as  our 
king  is,  and  as  the  Persian  kings  always  were,  and  as  the  Roman  Emperors  found  it  necessary  to 
become  in  later  days  :  no  doubt  a  sound  and  wise  policy.  His  descendants,  Jacob  for  instance, 
continued  to  occupy  the  same  station.  The  standards  of  the  tribes  of  the  Israelites,  the  ornaments 
of  the  Temple,  the  pillars  Joachim  and  Boaz,  the  latter  with  its  orrery  or  sphere  at  the  top  of  it, 
the  Urim  and  Thummim,  in  short,  the  whole  of  the  Jewish  system  betrays  judicial  astrology,  or, 
in  other  words,  magic,  in  every  part.  The  Magi  of  Persia  were  only  the  order  of  priests — Magi 
in  Persia,  Clergymen  in  England.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  word  Magus  or  Magi,  con- 
veyed the  vulgar  idea  attached  to  modern  Magicians,  persons  dealing  with  the  devil,  to  work 
mischief.  They  probably  became  objects  of  detestation  to  the  Christians  in  the  eastern  nations 
from  opposing  their  religion,  and  in  consequence  were  run  down  by  them,  and  held  up  to  public 
odium,  in  the  same  way  as  philosophers  are  now  endeavoured  to  be,  and  not  without  some  suc- 
cess. To  be  versed  in  magic  is  something  horrid,  not  to  be  reasoned  about.  It  is  to  be  as  bad  as 
Voltaire,  or  as  Lord  Byron. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  judicial  astrology,  or  the  knowledge  of  future  events  by  the  study 
of  the  stars,  was  received  and  practised  by  all  the  ancient  Jews,  Persians,  and  many  of  the  Chris- 
tians, particularly  the  tjnostics  and  Manicheans.  The  persons  now  spoken  of,  thought  that  the 
planets  were  the  signs,  that  is,  gave  information  of  future  events,  not  that  they  were  the  causes  of 
them  l  — not  that  the  events  were  controlled  by  them  :  for  between  these  two  there  is  a  great  dif- 
ference. Eusebius  tells  us,  on  the  authority  of  Eupolemus,  that  Abraham  was  an  astrologer,  and 
that  he  taught  the  science  to  the  priests  of  Heliopolis  or  On.  This  was  a  fact  universally  asserted 
by  the  historians  of  the  East.  Origen  was  a  believer  in  this  science  as  qualified  above ;  and  M. 
Beausobre  observes,  it  is  thus  that  he  explained  what  Jacob  says  in  the  prayer  of  Joseph  :  He  has 
read  in  the  tables  of  heaven  all  that  will  happen  to  you,  and  to  your  children. 2 

4.  When  the  Jews  were  carried  away  to  Babylon,  Daniel  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  pri- 
soners, and  to  have  risen  to  a  very  high  situation  at  the  court  of  the  great  king ;  and  in  fact  to 
have  become  almost  his  prime  minister.  (Dan.  ii.  48.)  On  the  taking  of  the  city,  he  appears 
to  have  been  a  principal  performer  :  he  was  occupied  in  explaining  the  meaning  of  the  writing  on 
the  wall  at  the  very  moment  that  the  city  was  stormed.  After  the  success  of  the  Persians,  we 
find  him  again  in  great  power  with  the  new  king,  who  was  of  his  own  sect  or  religion,  and  as 
bitter  against  idolaters  as  himself.  We  also  find  that  the  Jews  were  again  almost  immediately  re- 
stored to  their  country. 

If  Daniel  opened  the  gates  of  Babylon  to  admit  the  enemy,  certainly  of  all  men  he  must  have 
been  the  best  qualified  to  tell  Belshazzar  that  his  city  was  taken.  If  he  were  a  Jew,  he  had  been 
carried  away  and  reduced  to  slavery  by  the  enemy  of  his  country,  and  under  all  the  circumstances, 

1  It  is  not  meant  to  say  that,  at  a  very  early  period,  the  planets  were  not  believed  to  be  the  active  agents  of  a  superior 
power :  they  probably  were. 

*  "  II  a  lu  dans  les  tables  du  ciel,  tout  ce  qui  doit  vous  arriver,  et  a  vous  enfans."  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Liv. 
vii.  ch.  i.  p.  429. 


86  ZOROASTER. 

if  he  made  the  restoration  of  his  countrymen  the  price  of  what  in  him  can  hardly  be  called  his 
treason,  very  few  people  will  be  found  to  condemn  him. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  but  that  if  the  story  of  Daniel  had  been  met  with  in  a  history  of  the 
Chinese  or  the  Hindoos,  or  of  any  nation  where  religious  prejudice  had  not  beclouded  the  under- 
standing, all  historians  would  have  instantly  seen,  that  the  Assyrian  despot  was  justly  punished 
for  his  egregious  folly,  in  making  a  slave,  whose  country  he  had  ruined,  one  of  his  prime  minis- 
ters, and  for  entrusting  him  with  the  command  of  his  capital  when  besieged  by  his  enemies— by 
persons  professing  the  same  religion  as  his  minister.  Upon  any  other  theory,  how  are  we  to 
account  for  Daniel's  being,  soon  after  the  capture  of  Babylon,  found  to  be  among  the  ministers  of 

its  conqueror  ? 

I  suspect  that  Daniel  was  a  Chaldee  or  Culdee  or  Brahmin  priest — a  priest  of  the  same  order  of 
which,  in  former  times,  Melchizedek  had  been  a  priest. 

The  o-ratification  of  that  spirit  which  induced  Darius,  Cyrus,  and  their  successors,  to  wage  a 
war  of  extermination  wherever  they  came  against  the  temples,  &c,  of  idolaters,  would  probably 
greatly  aid  Daniel  in  pleading  the  cause  of  his  country.  But  it  is  worthy  of  observation  that, 
although  the  temples,  altars,  and  priests,  were  restored,  both  in  Judaea  and  Samaria,  yet  the 
county  was  kept  in  a  state  of  vassalage  to  the  Persian  kings.  They  had  no  more  kings  in  Judaea 
or  Samaria,  till  long  after  the  destruction  of  the  Persian  empire  by  Alexander. l 

5.  Perhaps  in  the  Old  Testament  there  is  not  a  more  curious  book  than  that  of  Esther.  It  is 
the  only  remaining  genuine  specimen  of  the  ancient  chronicles  of  Persia. 

The  object  of  putting  this  book  into  the  canon  of  the  Jews  is  to  record,  for  their  use,  the  origin 
of  their  feast  of  Purim.  Michaelis  is  of  opinion,  from  the  style  of  the  writing  and  other  circum- 
stances, that  the  last  sixteen  verses  of  this  book  were  added  at  Jerusalem.  This  seems  very  pro- 
bable. It  is  pretty  clear,  from  this  book,  that  the  religion  of  Persia  in  the  time  of  Ahasuerus,  as 
he  is  named  in  scripture,  had  begun  to  fall  into  idolatry  ;  and  that  it  was  reformed  by  Mordecai, 
who  slew  seventy-five  thousand  of  the  idolaters,  and  restored  it  to  its  former  state,  when  it  must 
have  been  in  all  its  great  features  like  that  of  the  Jews,  if  not  identically  the  same.  A  very  in- 
genious writer  in  the  old  Monthly  Magazine,2  supposes,  "  that  Ezra  was  the  only  Zoroaster,  and 
"  that  the  twenty-one  books  of  Zertusht  were  the  twenty-one  books  of  our  Hebrew  Bible  ;  with 
"  the  exception,  indeed,  that  the  canon  of  Ezra  could  not  include  Nehemiah,  who  flourished  after 
"  the  death  of  Ezra,  or  the  extant  book  of  Daniel,  which  dates  from  Judas  Maccabeus,  or  the  Ec- 
"  clesiastes,  which  is  posterior  to  Philo  :  and  that  it  did  include  the  book  of  Enoch;  now  retained 
"  only  in  the  Abyssinian  canon." 

6.  No  person  who  has  carefully  examined  will  deny,  I  think,  that  all  the  accounts  which  we 
have  of  Zoroaster  are  full  of  inconsistencies  and  contradictions.  Plato  says,  he  lived  before  him 
6000  years.  Hyde  or  Prideaux  and  others,  make  him  contemporary  with  Darius  Hystaspes,  or 
Daniel.  By  some  he  is  made  a  Jew  ;  this  opinion  arose  from  the  observation  of  the  similarity  of 
many  of  his  doctrines  to  those  of  the  Jews.     Now,  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  complicated  word 

1  Cyrus  is  described  as  a  Messiah  or  Saviour.  He  restored  the  temple,  but  not  the  empire.  He  saved  the  priests, 
though  he  kept  the  country  in  slavery ;  therefore,  he  was  a  Messiah,  a  holy  one  of  God.  This  is  natural  enough,  and 
gives  us  the  clue  to  all  the  Jewish  sacred  books.  They  were  the  writings  of  the  priests  and  prophets  or  monks,  not  of 
the  nation.  An  established  priesthood  generally  cares  nothing  for  the  nation  ;  it  only  cares  for  itself.  Though  the 
nation  be  kept  in  slavery,  if  the  tithes  and  altars  be  restored,  all  is  well ;  and  its  conquerors  are  Saviours,  Messiahs. 
When  Alexander  conquered  Palestine  and  arrived  at  Jerusalem,  (if  he  ever  did  arrive  there,)  we  are  told,  that  the  high 
priest  went  out  to  meet  him  with  the  keys  of  the  city, — thus  renouncing  the  race  of  Messiahs  who  had  formerly  restored 
his  temple  and  religion.  And  in  this  treachery  the  pious  Rollin  sees  great  merit :  thus  what  weak  people  miscal  reli- 
gion obscures  the  understandings  of  the  best  of  men. 

2  No.  CCCLXXXV.  Aug.  1823. 


BOOK  II.      CHAPTER    IV.      SECTION    J.  %"J 

Zoroaster,  or  Zoradust  ?  Of  the  latter  T  can  make  nothing  ;  but  of  the  former,  which  is  the  name 
by  which  he  was  generally  called  in  ancient  times,  Mr.  Faber  (I  think)  has  made  Jstre,  Zur,  or 
Syr.  Here  is  the  star  or  celestial  body  Syr  or  Sur,  which  we  shall  presently  find,  is,  without 
any  great  violence,  the  celestial  body,  the  Bull  or  the  Sun.  Hence  we  arrive  at  an  incarnation  of 
the  Deity,  of  the  Sun,  or  of  Taurus — a  renewed  incarnation.  This  accounts  for  the  antiquity 
assigned  to  him  by  Plato,  and  for  the  finding  of  him  again  under  Darius  Hystaspes.  In  short,  he 
is  a  doctrine,  or  a  doctrine  taught  by  a  person.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  Magi,  who  were  priests 
of  the  religion  of  the  Sun,  or  of  that  Being  of  whom  the  Sun  was  the  visible  form  or  emblem. 

Dr.  Hyde,  after  allowing  that  the  religion  of  the  Persians  was  originally  the  same  with  that  of 
Abraham,  and  that  it  fell  into  Sabiism,  says,  he  thinks  that  it  was  reformed  by  him.  He  adds, 
that  the  ancient  accounts  call  it  the  religion  of  Ibrahim  or  Abraham.  The  idea  of  its  reformation 
by  Abraham,  seems  to  be  without  any  proof.  However,  we  may  safely  admit  that  it  consisted  in 
the  worship  of  the  one  true  God,  or  of  the  sun,  merely  as  an  emblem  ;  and,  that  it  was  really 
reformed  and  brought  back  to  this  point,  from  which  it  had  deviated,  by  some  great  man,  whether 
he  were  Abraham  or  Zoroaster ;  as  that  of  the  Jews  was,  from  the  worship  of  Apis  or  the  Calf,  by 
Moses.  Hyde  says,  they  had  a  true  account  of  the  creation  of  the  world, l  meaning  hereby  the 
account  in  Genesis.  This  may  be  very  true  if  the  religion  of  the  Jews  came  from  Persia,  and 
was,  in  fact,  identically  the  same.  How,  indeed,  could  it  be  essentially  different,  if,  as  Dr.  Hyde 
believed,  they  both  worshiped  the  same  God,  with  nearly  the  same  ceremonies  ?  2 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Persians  and  Assyrians  had  their  religion  originally  from  the 
same  source  ;  but  that  the  latter,  in  the  time  of  Cyrus,  had  degenerated  into  idolatry,  from  which 
the  former  were  at  that  time  free.  This  greater  purity  was  probably  owing  to  the  reformation 
which  is  related  by  several  authors  to  have  been  effected  by  Zoroaster,  by  whom  it  had  been 
brought  back  to  its  first  principles.  It  had  probably  degenerated  before  his  time  as  much  as  that 
of  the  Assyrians.  The  authorities  in  proof  of  the  fact  of  some  one  having  reformed  the  Persian 
religion,  are  so  decided  as  to  make  it  almost  unquestionable. 

7.  Notwithstanding  the  general  similarity  between  the  two  religions,  there  are  several  particulars 
in  which  they  so  pointedly  differ,  after  the  time  of  Moses,  that  unless  the  reason  of  the  difference 
could  be  shewn,  they  might  be  thought  to  invalidate  the  argument  already  adduced.  But  as  we 
happen  to  know,  in  most  cases,  the  precise  reasons  for  the  difference,  this  very  discrepancy  rather 
tends  to  confirm  than  to  weaken  the  argument,  as  they  are,  in  fact,  for  particular  reasons,  excep- 
tions to  a  general  rule. 

When  it  is  said  that  the  religions  of  the  descendants  of  Abraham  and  of  the  Persians  were  the 
same,  considerable  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  peculiar  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
then  placed,  and  in  which  they  are  viewed  by  us.  We  see  them  in  records  or  histories,  whose 
dates  are  acknowledged  to  be  long  after  the  time  of  Abraham,  written  by  persons,  strangers, 
probably,  to  the  religion  and  language  of  both  these  nations.  The  Persians  have  a  sacred  book, 
called  Solifi  Ibrahim,  or  the  book  of  Abraham,  but  which  ought  to  be  called  the  book  of  the 
wisdom  of  Abraham.*  The  Jews  also  have  a  sacred  book,  called  the  book  of  Moses,  and 
the  first  of  which,  known  to  us  under  the  name  of  Genesis,  is  called  by  them  rviwn  rasit,  or 
the  book  of  wisdom.  Now,  supposing  them  to  have  been  the  same  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  we 
may  reasonably  suppose  considerable  changes  and  additions  would  be  made, 4  to  both  religions  in 
the  space  of  five  or  six  hundred  years,   merely  from  the  natural  effects  of  time  :   but  besides  this, 


1  Rel.  Vet.  Pers.  Cap.  iii.  *  See  Shuckford,  Book  v.  p.  309. 

3  Sohfi  is  nothing  but  a  word  represented  by  the  Greek  2o</>««,  and  by  the  Sophoim  of  the  Arabians 

4  Shuckford,  Book  v. 


88  VARIATIONS    BETWEEN    PERSIANS    AND    ISRAELITES. 

we  know  that  they  both  underwent  a  great  change,  one  by  Zoroaster  and  the  other  by  Moses,  who 
reformed  or  formed  them  anew.  The  two  chiefs  or  reformers  resided  at  a  great  distance  from 
each  other,  and  unless  they  had  had  some  communication  it  is  evident  that  in  their  reforms  they 
would  not  establish  the  same  rites  and  ceremonies.  This  may  account  for  several  ordinances 
being  found  in  the  law  of  Moses  which  are  not  found  in  the  law  of  Zoroaster,  and  vice  versa. 

After  the  migration  of  Moses  and  his  tribes  from  Egypt,  before  he  undertook  the  invasion  of  the 
beautiful  country  of  Palestine,  he  spent  many  years  in  rambling  about  the  deserts  or  uncultivated 
pasture  lands  bordering  on  the  Northern  end  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  Arabia  Petnea.  The  settled 
natives  of  these  countries  were  sunk  into  the  grossest  and  most  degrading  idolatry  and  super- 
stition, much  worse  than  even  that  of  the  Assyrians,  or  that  of  the  Persians,  before  it  was  reformed 
by  Zoroaster.  In  order  to  prevent  his  people  from  being  contaminated  by  this  example,  Maimo- 
nides  informs  us,  on  the  authority  of  the  old  Jewish  authors,  that  Moses  made  many  of  his  laws  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  customs  of  these  people.  And  for  this  same  reason  we  are  told,  in  Exodus, 
that  he  punished  the  alliance  of  his  people  with  any  of  the  natives  of  these  countries,  with  the 
most  horrible  severity:  a  policjr,  though  sufficiently  cruel  and  unjust,  as  exercised  by  him  in  several 
cases,  certainly  wisely  contrived  for  the  object  he  had  in  view. 

The  observance  of  the  Sabbath  on  the  seventh  instead  of  the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  in  its 
extreme  degree  of  strictness,  was  ordained  effectually  to  separate  the  Jews  from  the  neighbouring 
nations  : 1  and  experience  has  shewn  that  nothing  could  have  been  better  contrived  for  that  purpose. 

The  learned  Maimonides  says,  "they  [the  Arabians]  worshiped  the  sun  at  his  rising;  for  which 
"  reason,  as  our  Rabbins  expressly  teach  in  Gemara,  Abraham  our  father  designed  the  West  for 
"  the  place  of  the  Sanctum  Sanctorum,  when  he  worshiped  in  the  mountain  Moriah.  Of  this  ido- 
"  latry  they  interpret  what  the  Prophet  Ezekiel  saith  of  the  men  with  their  backs  toward  the 
"  temple  of  the  Lord  and  their  faces  toward  the  East,  worshiping  the  Sun  toward  the  East." 
(Ezek.  viii.  16.)  Perhaps  a  better  knowledge  of  the  Arabian  superstitions  might  enable  us  to 
account  for  many  other  of  the  ordinances  of  Moses,  which  appear  to  us  unmeaning  and  absurd.  2 
In  this  instance  of  adoration  toward  the  rising  Sun,  we  see  that  the  religion  of  the  Magi  had 
become  corrupted  by  the  Arabians,  and  that  in  order  to  avoid  this  very  corruption,  and  preserve  the 
worship  of  one  God,  (which  was  the  great  object  of  Moses,  that  to  which  all  the  forms  and  ordi- 
nances of  discipline,  both  of  the  Magi  and  Moses,  were  subservient,)  he  established  a  law  directly 
in  opposition  to  that  whence  his  religion  had  originally  sprung.  For  the  Persians  always  wor- 
shiped turning  their  faces  to  the  East,  which  the  Jews  considered  an  abomination,  and  uniformly 
turned  to  the  West  when  they  prayed.  And  certainly  this  would  be  against  the  author's  hypo- 
thesis, if  we  did  not  know  exactly  the  reason  for  it. 

Though  Maimonides  says  that  Abraham  designed  the  West  for  the  place  of  adoration,  he  does 
not  say  that  he  ordered  it ;  if  he  had,  it  would  have  been  mentioned  in  the  Pentateuch.  It  seems 
much  more  likely  to  have  been  ordered  by  Moses,  for  the  same  reason  that  he  made  the  several 
laws  as  observed  above,  in  opposition  to  the  corruptions  of  the  Persians  or  Arabians  ;  but  it  might 
be  adopted  by  Moses  for  the  same  reason  also  that  he  adopted  very  many  other  religious  rites 
of  the  Egyptians, 3  who  sometimes  worshiped  towards  the  West,  as  well  as  Jews. 

1  See  my  Horae  Sabbaticse,  in  the  British  Museum. 

*  Vide  Stanley's  Hist.  Phil.  Chal.  Part  xix.  Ch.  ii.  pp.  38,  801,  4to. 

s  Perhaps  it  was  not  ordained  by  either  Moses  or  Abraham,  as  no  directions  relating  to  it  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Pentateuch,  but  by  the  builders  of  the  temple,  in  which  the  Sacred  part,  or  Cabala,  was  placed  in  the  West.  Beaus. 
Hist.  Manich.  Vol.  II.  Liv.  vi.  Ch.  viii.  p.  385 ;  Windet  de  vit.  Func.  Stat.  Sect.  vii.  p.  77 ;  Pirke,  Eliez.  p.  ii. ;  Porph. 
de  Ant.  Nymp.  p.  268. 


II.      CHAPTER  IT.      SBCTIOSI  & 


The  third  chapter  and  twenty-fourth  Terse  of  Genesis  informs  as,  that  a  tabernacle  s« 
to  the  East  of  Eden.     This  tends  to  proTe  that  this  book  was  of  Persian  origin,  and  of  a  « 

:    :  F  mwIm  was  written  ;  and  that  the  people  whose  sacred  boc 
originally  worshiped  towards  the  East.     See  Parkhurst, ■  who  shews  that  there  were 
before  that  erected  by  Moses.     He  also  shews  that  at  a  time  not  long  after  the  Exodus  the  idola- 
ters had  the  same  things. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  when  iguuiauf  fauwirr,  Eke  the  early  fathers,  Papias,  Hegiaippus, 
&t,  were  travelling,  as  we  know  that  they  did,  to  find  oat  the  true  doctrines  of  the  gospel,  they 
would  make  the  traditions  bend  in  some  respects  to  their  preconceived  notions.  Thus  the  Jewish 
sects  of  Xazarenes  and  Ebionites  kept  the  Sabbath,  and  other  Jewish  rites;  and  thus,  pen  Bke 
Justin,  converts  from  Heathenism,  who  had  no  predilection  for  Judaism,  abolished  them.  Hence 
find,  at  a  Terr  early  period  of  the  Christian  era,  the  advocates  of  these  opposite  opinions  perse- 
:  another,  each  calling  the  other  heretic  The  conreits  from  Heathenism,  taking  their 
from  the  Persian  fountain,  abofisbed  the  Sabbath,  but  adopted  the  custom  of  turning  to 
the  East  in  prayer,  and  the  celebration  of  the  Dies  Sobs  or  Sunday;  as  wefl  as  some  other  days,  as 
win  afterward  be  shewn,  sacred  among  the  Heathens  to  that  hmunary.    It  is  curious  to  obserre  the 

part  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  the  orthodox  to  discourage  the  pbara- 

'_'.     'It     ?  i  Z  Z  ZZ  Z  .     ~  ~.     ZZ.  _  '.Z     ZZZ  Z     i  '.     -ZZ~.Z~-i~.zZ '. _  T     \T.~Z     -Z      .  ~~    1_!  ItTI     r  -7 .'.  ZZZ  5  . 

Lz  c:~~^zi~z    -z     :-.    ::L-:zL   ::    :e   ii::.  :ie  izyzz. ::i:i  :•   '-~7  =  ::l.:~ti   :t  :,z 

r  _l__t  -        *  -.  r.     -       ^       -        *   *V-    *?  ,1,|,  ■  «*,    •-»     si  si  ■     ■■■■■■■■■  m    nW  Til       1 

of  sacrifices,  (a  rite  common  to  both  Jews  and  Heathens,)  in  which  they  hare  found  great 

to  induce  him  to  intercede  with  some  unknown  being,  to  protect  the  timid  or  pardon  the  guilty ; 
a  trick  invented  by  the  rogues  to  enable  them  to  cheat  the  fools ;  a  cuutrit ance  of  the  idte  possess 
sag  brains  to  fire  upon  the  labour  of  those  without  them.  The  sacrifice,  whatever  it  anight  be  hi 
its  origin,  soon  became  a  feast,  in  which  the  priest  and  his  votary  were  partakers;  and  if,  in  some 
the  body  of  the  victim  was  burnt,  for  the  sake  of  deluding  the  iwultunrir,  with  a  show  of 
st  the  part  of  the  priest,  even  then,  that  he  might  not  lose  all,  he  iuuihI  to 
See  Lev.  viL  8. 
But  it  was  in  very  few  instances  that  the  flesh  was  really  burnt,  even  in  bum  insiin^i.  Dent. 
2 :  And  thorn  skmlt  orznm.  thy  bc»nt-ofte ar>GS,  the  flesh  on*  the  blood,  upon  the  mliar  of  the 
Loan***  Goaf;  ami  the  blood  of  law  smeri&cn  afinff  be  poured  out  upcm  tie  mttmr  of  the  Loan  thy 
thou  shah  eat  the  flesh  :  not  bmrm  it.  At  first  the  ■  mitii'  was  a 
devotee,  but  the  former  very  soon  cuntiited  to  keep  it  all  for  himself;  and  it  is 
Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan,  that  when  there  was  more  than  the  priest  could  mm  ami,  he  sent  the 
to  asavket  for  sale. 

all  nations.    The  following  is  the  account  given  of  it  by  the  Rer.  Mr.Faber: 
the  whole  world  we  find  a  notion  prevalent,  that  the  Gods  could  only  be  appeased 
by  bloody  sacrifices.     Now  this  idea  is  so  thoroughly  arbitrary,  there 
accessary  connexion,  in  the  way  of  cause  and  effect,  bclnixn  slaughtering  a 
recoviring  of  the  divine  favour  by  the  ilinfahtiiii,  that  its  very      '      i  r'j 
sky  of  cmnlndint,  that  all  nations  have  borrowed  it  from  some  cosssaon  source.    It  is  in  vain  to 


'Lex.s.01.  '  Druid k a  C<^  vara avdkastaeavaauwsf. 

9 


90  SACRIFICES. 

"  say,  that  there  is  nothing  so  strange,  but  that  an  unrestrained  superstition  might  have  excogi- 
"  tated  it.  This  solution  does  by  no  means  meet  the  difficulty.  If  sacrifice  had  been  in  use  only 
"  among  the  inhabitants  of  a  single  country,  or  among  those  of  some  few  neighbouring  countries, 
"  who  might  reasonably  be  supposed  to  have  much  mutual  intercourse ;  no  fair  objection  could  be 
"  made  to  the  answer.  But  what  we  have  to  account  for  is,  the  universality  of  the  practice ;  and 
"  such  a  solution  plainly  does  not  account  for  such  a  circumstance  ;  I  mean  not  merely  the  exist- 
"  ence  of  sacrifice,  but  its  universality.  An  apparently  irrational  notion,  struck  out  by  a  wild 
"  fanatic  in  one  country  and  forthwith  adopted  by  his  fellow-citizens,  (for  such  is  the  hypothesis 
"  requisite  to  the  present  solution,)  is  yet  found  to  be  equally  prevalent  in  all  countries.  There- 
"  fore  if  we  acquiesce  in  this  solution,  we  are  bound  to  believe,  either  that  all  nations,  however 
"  remote  from  each  other,  borrowed  from  that  of  the  original  inventor ;  or  that  by  a  most  marvel- 
"  lous  subversion  of  the  whole  system  of  calculating  chances,  a  great  number  of  fanatics,  severally 
"  appearing  in  every  country  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  without  any  mutual  communication, 
"  strangely  hit  upon  the  self-same  arbitrary  and  inexplicable  mode  of  propitiating  the  Deity.  It 
"  is  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  two  suppositions  is  the  most  improbable.  The  solution  therefore 
"  does  not  satisfactorily  account  for  the  fact  of  the  universality .  Nor  can  the  fact,  I  will  be  bold  to 
"  say,  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for,  except  by  the  supposition,  that  no  one  nation  borrowed  the 
"  rite  from  another  nation,  but  that  all  alike  received  it  from  a  common  origin  of  most  remote 
"  antiquity." 

Such  is  the  account  given  of  this  disgusting  practice.  Very  well  has  the  Rev.  Mr.  Faber 
described  it,  as  apparently  an-  irrational  notion  struck  out  by  a  wild  fanatic, — an  arbitrary  and 
inexplicable  mode  hit  upon  by  fanatics  of  propitiating  the  Deity.  As  he  justly  says,  ivhy  should  that 
righteous  man  (meaning  Abel)  have  imagined  that  he  could  please  the  Deity,  by  slaying  a  firstling 
lamb,  and  by  burning  it  upon  an  altar  ?  What  connexion  is  there  betwixt  the  means  and  the  end  ? 
Abel  could  not  but  have  known,  that  God,  as  a  merciful  God,  took  no  pleasure  in  the  sufferings  of 
the  lamb.  How,  then,  are  we  to  account  for  his  attempting  to  please  such  a  God,  by  what  abstractedly 
is  an  act  of  cruelty  ? l  Very  true,  indeed,  Reverend  Sir,  an  act  of  cruelty,  as  a  type  of  an  infinitely 
greater  act  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  in  the  murder,  by  the  Creator,  of  his  only  Son,  by  the  hands 
of  the  Jews  :  an  act  not  only  of  injustice  and  cruelty  to  the  sufferer,  but  an  act  of  equal  cruelty 
and  injustice  to  the  perpetrators  of  the  murder,  whose  eyes  and  understandings  were  blinded  lest 
they  should  see  and  not  execute  the  murder — and  lest  they  should  repent  and  their  sins  be  for- 
given them.     What  strange  beings  men,  in  all  ages,  have  made  their  Gods  !  !  ! 

I  cannot  ascribe  such  things  to  my  God.  This  may  be  will  worship  ;  but  belief  is  net  in  my 
power.  I  am  obliged  to  believe  it  more  probable  that  men  may  lie,  that  priests  may  be  guilty  of 
selfish  fraud,  than  that  the  wise  and  beneficent  Creator  can  direct  such  irrational,  fanatical,  cruel 
proceedings,  to  use  Mr.  Faber's  words.  The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  with  its  concomitant 
dogmas,  is  so  subversive  of  all  morality,  and  is  so  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes  of  God,  that  it  is 
totally  incredible  :  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Sykes  justly  observes  of  actions  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes 
of  God,  that  they  are  incredible  even  if  supported  by  miracles  themselves.  However,  I  am  happy 
to  say  that  belief  in  this  doctrine  is  no  part  of  the  faith  declared  by  Jesus  Christ  to  be  necessary  to 
salvation — no  part  in  short  of  his  gospel,  though  it  may  be  of  the  gospel  of  Bishop  Magee. 

That  in  later  times  the  practice  of  sacrifice  was  very  general  cannot  be  denied ;  but  I  think  a 
time  may  be  perceived  when  it  did  not  exist,  even  among  the  Western  nations.  We  read  that  it 
was  not  always  pratised  at  Delphi.  Tradition  states  that  in  the  earliest  time  no  bloody  sacrifice 
took  place  there,  and  among  the  Buddhists,  who  are  the  oldest  religionists  of  whom  we  have  any 


1  See  Faber,  Pagan  Idol.  B.  ii.  Ch.  viii.  pp.  4C6,  482. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  9.  91 

sacred  traditions,  and  to  whom  the  first  book  of  Genesis  probably  belongs,  no  bloody  sacrifices 
ever  prevailed.  With  Cristna,  Hercules,  and  the  worshipers  of  the  Sun  in  Aries,  they  probably 
arose.  The  second  book  of  Genesis  I  think  came  from  the  last.  No  doubt  the  practice  took  its 
rise  in  the  Western  parts  of  the  world,  (after  the  sun  entered  Aries,)  even  among  the  followers  of 
the  Tauric  worship,  and  was  carried  to  a  frightful  extent.  But  the  prevalence  of  the  practice,  as 
stated  by  Mr.  Faber,  is  exaggerated.  It  never  was  practised  by  the  followers  of  Buddha,  though 
they  have  constituted,  perhaps,  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  world. 

I  believe  the  history  of  Cain  and  Abel  is  an  allegory  of  the  followers  of  Cristna,  to  justify  their 
sacrifice  of  the  firstling  of  the  flock — of  the  Yajna  or  Lamb  in  opposition  to  the  Buddhist  offering 
of  bread  and  wine  or  water,  made  by  Cain  and  practised  by  Melchizedek. 

9.  Dr.  Shuckford  has  satisfactorily  shewn  that  the  sacrifices  and  ceremonies  of  purification  of 
the  Heathens,  and  of  Abraham  and  his  family  and  descendants,  were  in  fact  all  identical,  with 
such  trifling  changes  as  distance  of  countries  and  length  of  time  might  be  expected  to  produce.  * 
Moses  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  copied  many  of  his  institutions  from  the  Gentiles.  The  Israelites 
had  them  probably  before  the  time  of  Moses.  The  prohibition  of  marrying  out  of  the  tribe  was 
one  of  these.  The  custom  was  evidently  established  by  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  with  their 
wives. — But  to  return  to  my  subject. 

How  many  Zoroasters  there  were,  or  whether  more  than  one,  it  is  difficult  to  determine ;  but 
one  of  them  was  thought  by  Hyde,  as  we  have  already  shewn,  to  have  lived  in  the  time  of  Darius 
Hystaspes  ;  but  whether  he  really  lived  then  or  not  is  of  no  consequence,  except  that  the  account 
given  of  him  shews  what  the  religion  of  the  Persians  at  that  time  was.  Sir  W.  Drummond  thinks 
he  really  lived  much  earlier,  as  does  also  Mr.  Moyle.  2  He  is  said  to  have  been  deeply  skilled  in 
the  Eastern  learning,  and  also  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  Indeed,  so  striking  is  the  similarity 
between  his  doctrines  and  those  of  Moses,  that  Dean  Prideaux  is  almost  obliged  to  make  a  Jew  of 
him  :  and  this  he  really  was,  in  religion.  But  why  he  should  abuse  him,  and  call  him  many  hard 
names  it  is  difficult  to  understand.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  formed  a  new  religion,  but  only  to 
have  reformed  or  improved  that  which  he  found. 

The  following  is  Dean  Prideaux's  account  of  the  religion  of  Zoroaster :  "  The  chief  reformation 
"  which  he  made  in  the  Magian  religion  was  in  the  first  principle  of  it ;  for  whereas  before  they 
"  had  held  the  being  of  two  first  causes,  the  first  light,  or  the  good  god,  who  was  the  author  of  all 
"  good  ;  and  the  other  darkness,  or  the  evil  god,  who  was  the  author  of  all  evil ;  and  that  of  the 
"  mixture  of  those  two,  as  they  were  in  a  continued  struggle  with  each  other,  all  things  were 
"  made ;  he  introduced  a  principle  superior  to  them  both,  one  supreme  God  who  created  both 
"  light  and  darkness,  and  out  of  these  two,  according  to  the  alone  pleasure  of  his  own  will,  made 
"  all  things  else  that  are,  according  to  what  is  said  in  the  45th  chapter  of  Isaiah,  ver.  5— 7.— In 
"  sum,  his  doctrine,  as  to  this  particular,  was,  that  there  was  one  Supreme  Being,  independant 
"  and  self-existing  from  all  eternity ;  that  under  him  there  were  two  angels,  one  the  angel  of  light, 
"  who  is  the  author  and  director  of  all  good;  and  the  other  the  angel  of  darkness,  who  is  the  author 
'*  and  director  of  all  evil ;  and  that  these  two,  out  of  the  mixture  of  light  and  darkness,  made  all 
"  things  that  are ;  and  that  they  are  in  a  perpetual  struggle  with  each  other ;  and  that  where  the 
"  angel  of  light  prevails,  there  the  most  is  good,  and  where  the  angel  of  darkness  prevails,  there 
"  the  most  is  evil ;  that  this  struggle  shall  continue  to  the  end  of  the  world  ;  that  then  there  shall 
"  be  a  general  resurrection,  and  a  day  of  judgment,  wherein  just  retribution  shall  be  rendered  to 
"  all  according  to  their  works :  after  which,  the  angel  of  darkness  and  his  disciples  shall  go  into  a 


1  Shuckford,  Con.  Book  v.  p.  314. 

9  Pliny  mentions  a  Zoroaster  who  lived  sex  millibus  annorum  ante  Platonis  mortem.    Maurice,  Vol.  II.  p.  124. 

n2 


92  RELIGION   OP   ZOROASTER. 

"  world  of  their  own,  where  they  shall  suffer  in  everlasting  darkness  the  punishment  of  their  evil 
"  deeds  j  and  the  angel  of  light,  and  his  disciples,  shall  also  go  into  a  world  of  their  own,  where  they 
"  shall  receive  in  everlasting  light  the  reward  due  unto  their  good  deeds  :  and  that  after  this  they 
"  shall  remain  separated  for  ever,  and  light  and  darkness  be  no  more  mixed  together  to  all  eternity. 
"  And  all  this  the  remainder  of  that  sect  which  is  now  in  Persia  and  India,  do,  without  any  varia- 
"  tion,  after  so  many  ages,  still  hold  even  to  this  day.  And  how  consonant  this  is  to  the  truth 
"  is  plain  enough  to  be  understood  without  a  comment.  And  whereas  he  taught  that  God  origi- 
"  nally  created  the  good  angel  only,  and  that  the  other  followed  only  by  the  defect  of  good,  this 
"  plainly  shews,  that  he  was  not  unacquainted  with  the  revolt  of  the  fallen  angels,  and  the  en- 
"  trance  of  evil  into  the  world  that  way,  but  had  been  thoroughly  instructed  how  that  God  at  first 
"  created  all  his  angels  good,  as  he  also  did  man,  and  that  they  that  are  now  evil  became  such 
"  wholly  through  their  own  fault,  in  falling  from  that  state  which  God  first  placed  them  in.  All 
"  which  plainly  shews  the  author  of  this  doctrine  to  have  been  well  versed  in  the  sacred  writing 
"  of  the  Jewish  religion,  out  of  which  it  manifestly  appears  to  have  been  all  taken."  1 

Another  reformation  which  Zoroaster  is  said  to  have  introduced,  was,  the  building  of  temples, 
for  before  his  time  the  altars  were  all  erected  upon  hills  and  high  places  in  the  open  air.  Upon 
those  the  sacred  fire  was  kept  burning,  but  to  which  they  denied  that  they  offered  adoration,  but 
only  to  God  in  the  fire. 2  It  is  said  that  Zoroaster  pretended  to  have  been  taken  up  into  heaven, 
and  to  have  heard  God  speak  from  the  midst  of  a  flame  of  fire  j  that,  therefore,  fire  is  the  truest 
shekinah  of  the  Divine  presence ;  and  that  the  sun  is  the  most  perfect  fire — for  which  reason  he 
ordered  them  to  direct  their  worship  towards  the  sun,  which  they  called  Mithra.  He  pretended 
to  have  brought  fire  from  heaven  along  with  him,  which  was  never  permitted  to  go  out.  It  was 
fed  with  clean  wood,  and  it  was  deemed  a  great  crime  to  blow  upon  it,  or  to  rekindle  it  except 
from  the  sun  or  the  sacred  fire  in  some  other  temple.  Thus  the  Jews  had  their  shekinah  or  sacred 
fire  in  which  God  dwelt,  and  which  came  down  from  heaven  upon  their  altar  of  burnt-offerings  : 
and  Nadab  and  Abihu  were  punished  with  death  for  offering  incense  to  God  with  other  fire.  The 
Jews  used  clean  peeled  wood  for  the  fire,  and,  like  the  Persians,  would  not  permit  it  to  be  blown 
upon  with  the  mouth. 

To  feed  the  sacred  fire  with  unhallowed  fuel,  was  punishable  with  death  ;  to  blow  upon  it  the 
same.  But  though  it  was  thus  treated  with  the  most  profound  veneration,  as  a  part  of  the  glorious 
luminary  of  heaven,  it  was  not  worshiped ;  though  the  Lord  Jehovah,  who  shrouded  himself  in 
the  sacred  fire,  or  took  up  his  residence  in  the  sun,  was  worshiped.  Thus  God  upon  Sinai  or 
Horeb,  or  in  the  bush,  appeared  in  a  flame  of  fire  to  Moses,  who  fell  down  on  his  face  to  it.  Yet 
the  text  means  to  represent  that  he  worshiped  God,  not  fire. 

A  very  ingenious  and  learned  critic, 3  in  his  controversy  with  Dean  Prideaux,  has  maintained, 
that  the  Persians  destroyed  the  temples  in  Egypt,  because  they  disapproved  the  worshiping  of 
God  in  temples,  when  the  whole  earth  was  his  temple  j  and  that  they  had  only  two  Principles 
and  never  acknowledged  a  third,  superior  to  the  Good  and  Evil  ones,  till  about  the  time  of  the 
Christian  aera.  He  seems  to  be  mistaken  in  both  these  respects.  The  fact  that  the  Persians  had 
no  closed  temples  in  the  time  of  Herodotus,  may  be  very  true,  and  cannot  well  be  disputed,  as  he 
affirms  it :  but  notwithstanding  this,  it  is  plain  that  though  they  did  not  choose  to  have  temples 
of  their  own,  they  had  no  objection  to  the  temple-worship  of  others ;  because  if  they  had,  they 
would  not  have  restored  the  temples  of  the  Jews  and  Samaritans  at  Jerusalem  and  Gerizim.    This 

1  Prid.  Con.  Part  I.  Lib.  iv.  p.  267.    8vo. 
^ 8  These  are  nothing  but  the  Hill-altars  of  the  Canaanites,  (of  which  we  often  read  in  the  Old  Testament,)  the  ancient 
circles  of  the  Druids,  which  I  have  lately  discovered  are  as  common  in  India,  Persia,  and  Syria,  as  in  Britain. 
3  Moyle,  Works,  Vol.  II. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  10.  93 

fact  proves  that  their  enmity  was  against  the  temples  of  idolaters,  not  against  those  of  the  true 
God,  nor  against  temples  merely  as  temples.  For  the  same  reasons  the  pious  Theodosius  de- 
stroyed the  temples  at  Alexandria ;  but  he  had  no  objection  to  temple-worship,  or  worship  in 
buildings. 

The  Israelites  had  no  temple  till  the  time  of  Solomon,  but  they  had  circles  of  stone  pillars  at 
Gerizim  and  Gilgal,  exactly  the  same  as  those  at  the  Buddhist  temple  of  Stonehenge. 

10.  Zoroaster  retired  to  a  cavern  where  he  wrote  his  book,  and  which  was  ornamented  on  the 
roof  with  the  constellations  and  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac ;  whence  came  the  custom  among  his  fol- 
lowers of  retiring  to  caves  which  they  called  Mithriatic  caves,  to  perform  their  devotions,  in  which 
the  mysteries  of  their  religion  were  performed.  Many  of  these  caves  of  stupendous  size  and 
magnificence  exist  at  this  day  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Balck,  and  in  different  parts  of  upper  India 
and  Persia. 

They  had  several  orders  of  priests  like  our  parochial  priests  and  bishops,  and  at  the  head  of  them 
an  Archimagus  or  Archpriest,  the  same  as  the  Pope  or  the  High  Priest  of  the  Jews  :  the  word 
Magus,  in  the  Persian  language,  only  meant  priest :  and  they  did  not  forget  that  most  useful 
Jewish  rite,  the  taking  of  tithes  and  oblations.  At  stated  times  the  priests  read  part  of  their  sa- 
cred writings  to  the  people.  The  priests  were  all  of  the  same  family  or  tribe,  as  among  the 
Jews. 

Dr.  Pococke  and  Hyde  acknowledge  that  many  things  in  their  sacred  books  are  the  same  as 
those  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  in  other  parts  of  the  Bible.  Of  course  they  easily  account  for  this  by 
the  assertion,  that  they  were  taken  from  the  Jews.  But  the  fact  of  the  identity  is  not  denied : 
which  copied  from  the  other  is  not  now  the  question.  All  that  it  is  necessary  to  shew  is,  that 
they  were  the  same.  They  contain  many  of  the  Psalms,  called  by  the  Jews  and  Christians 
absurdly  enough,  the  Psalms  of  David,  and  nearly  the  same  account  of  Adam  and  Eve,  the 
deluge,  &c.  The  creation  is  stated,  as  already  mentioned,  to  have  taken  place  in  six  periods,  which 
together  make  up  a  year ;  and  Abraham,  Joseph,  Moses,  and  Solomon,  are  all  spoken  of  in  the  same 
manner  as  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  In  these  books  are  inculcated  similar  observances  about 
beasts,  clean  and  unclean, — the  same  care  to  avoid  pollution,  external  and  internal, — the  same 
purifyings,  washings,  &c,  &c.  Zoroaster  called  his  book  the  book  of  Abraham,  because  he  pre- 
tended that,  by  his  own  reformation,  he  had  only  brought  back  the  religion  to  the  state  in  which  it 
was  in  the  time  of  Abraham.  *  Can  any  one,  after  this,  doubt  the  identity  of  the  two  religions  ? 
If  they  were  not  the  same,  what  would  make  them  so  ? 

The  Zendavesta  which  we  have,  and  which  was  translated  by  Anquetil  Du  Perron,  is  said,  by 
Sir  W.  Jones,  to  be  spurious;  but  it  is  admitted  by  the  best  authors  to  agree  with  the  ancient  one, 
at  least  "  in  its  tenets  and  the  terms  of  religion."  2  Upon  the  question  of  its  genuineness  it  is  not 
necessary  to  give  an  opinion.  Probably  Sir  W.  Jones  would  find  anachronisms  in  it,  such  as  have 
been  pointed  out  in  the  Old  Testament.  These  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  prove  to  him  the 
spuriousness  of  the  Zend,  though  not  of  the  Pentateuch.  The  fact  is,  they  both  stand  exactly 
upon  the  same  grounds  with  respect  to  genuineness.3 

Much  might  have  been  spared  which  has  been  said  respecting  the  fire  worshipers  of  Persia.  It 
is  very  probable  that,  in  some  degree,  the  charge  of  worshiping  fire  may  be  substantiated  against 
them,  in  the  same  way  as  the  worship  of  saints,  images,  and  relics,  in  some  parts  of  Christendom 
may  certainly  be  proved  to  have  existed;  but  it  is  equally  as  unjust  to  call  the  Persians  fire 

1  Prid.  Con.  Part.  I.  Book  iv.  pp.  2/8,  &c,  8vo.  8  Marsh's  Mic.  Ch.  iv.  Sect.  ix.  p.  161. 

•  Marsh's  Mic.  Vol.  IV.  p.  288,  Vol.  I.  p.  433. 


94  OBSERVATIONS    ON    THE    RELIGION    OF    JEWS    AND    PERSIANS. 

worshipers,  as  it  is  to  call  the  Christians  idolaters.     The  religion  of  Persia  became  corrupted,  and  so 
did  the  Christian.     Zoroaster  reformed  one,  Luther,  &c,  the  other. 

If  we  are  to  credit  the  history,  the  religion  of  Abraham's  descendants  by  Sarah,  became  also 

corrupted  whilst  they  were  in  Egypt ;  and  was  restored  to  its  original  state,  at  least  in  all  its 

great  and  leading  features,  by  Moses.    That  they  were  addicted  to  the  idolatry  of  Egypt  is  evident 

-  from  their  setting  up  for  themselves  a  golden  calf,  the  image  of  the  God  Apis,  in  less  than  three 

months  after  their  escape  into  the  desert  of  Sinai. 

The  religion  of  Abraham  was  that  of  the  Persians,  and  whether  he  were  a  real  or  a  fictitious 
personage  (a  matter  of  doubt)  both  the  religions  must  have  been  derived  from  the  same  source.  If 
Abraham  really  did  live,  then  the  evidence  both  Jewish  and  Persian  shews  that  he  was  the  founder 
of  both  nations.  If  he  were  an  allegorical  personage,  the  similarity  of  the  religions  shews  them  to 
have  had  the  same  origin.  Why  should  not  his  family  by  his  wife  Keturah,  as  historians  affirm 
they  did,  have  conquered  Persia,  as  his  family  by  Sarah  conquered  Canaan  ?  Both  worshiped  the 
solar  fire, 1  as  an  emblem  of  their  God,  of  God  the  Preserver  and  Saviour — of  that  God  with  whom 
Abraham  made  a  covenant;  the  same  Jehovah  or  Lord  who  Jacob  (Gen.  xxviii.  21)  vowed 
should  be  his  God,  if  he  brought  him  back  to  his  father's  house  in  peace ;  the  same  God  wor- 
shiped by  the  brother  of  Abraham,  Nahor,  in  the  land  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  (Gen.  xi.  29,  xxxi. 
53,)  and  of  whom  it  is  written,  "  My  Lord  said  unto  thy  Lord,  sit  thee  at  my  right  hand,  till  I 
make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool."  Ps.  ex.  1 ;  Matt.  xxii.  44 ;  Mark.  xii.  36  j  Luke  xx.  42,  43  ; 
Acts  ii.  34,  35. 

11.  Now  perhaps  perverseness,  bigotry,  and  ill-temper,  will  observe,  Then  you  take  Abraham 
and  Moses  for  nothing  but  Persian  magicians  and  idolaters.     I  do  no  such  thing.     The  God  of 
Abraham,  of  Melchizedek,  of  the  Brahmins,  and  of  the  Persians,  originally,  or  about  the  time  of 
Abraham,  was  one,  precisely  the  same — the  oriental  divine  Triad  or  Trinity,  three  Persons  and  one 
God.     Why  Abraham  left  his  country  and  came  into  Canaan  may  be  doubtful :    but  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  he  emigrated  because  the  priests  had  corrupted  the  religion,  as  they  always  corrupt 
it  when  they  can  ;   and,  that  he  came  into  Canaan  because  he  there  found  his  religion  in  a  state  of 
purity,  and  a  priest  of  the  most  high  God,  Melchizedek,  at  whose  altar  he  could  sacrifice,  and  to 
whom  he  could  pay  his  tithes.     And  it  is  not  unlikely,  that  he  and  his  family  or  tribe  might  have 
been  banished  from  their  country  at  the  time  they  left  it,  for  endeavouring  to  oppose  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  priests, — to  enlighten  or  reform  their  countrymen.     Indeed  some  authors  have  actually 
said,  and  before  I  conclude  this  work  I  shall  prove,  that  this  was  the  case.     It  is  probable,  as  the 
Bible  says,  that  the  descendants  of  Abraham,  if  there  were  such  a  man,  were  induced  to  take 
refuge  in  Egypt  for  some  reason  or  other ;  probably,  as  stated,  by  famine  ;  that  after  residing  in 
Egypt  for  some  time,  two  hundred  years  or  upwards,  they  were  beginning  to  fall  into  the  idola- 
trous practices  of  the  people  among  whom  they  dwelt,  and  by  whom  also  endeavours  were  made 
to  enslave  them ;  that  to  prevent  this  or  to  stop  its  progress,  after  a  severe  struggle,  they  left 
Egypt,  and  betook  themselves  to  the  desert,   under  the  command  of  Moses,  who  was  both  the 
restorer  or  reformer  of  their  religion,  and  their  leader  and  legislator ;  that,  after  various  wars 
with  other  Arab  tribes,  or  settled  nations,  on  whose  territories  they  encroached  when  in  search 
of  pasturage,  for  they  had  then  no  country  of  their  own,  they  at  last  succeeded  in  conquering 
Canaan — where  they  finally  established  themselves — though  not  completely  till  the  time  of  David. 
This  country  they  always  occupied  along  with  remnants  of  the  ancient  Canaanites,  till  about  the 

1  Ireneus  says,  God  is  fire ;  Origen,  a  subtle  fire ;  Tertullian,  a  body.  In  the  Acts  of  the  council  of  Elvira  it  is 
forbidden  to  light  candles  in  the  cemetries,  for  fear  of  disturbing  the  souls  of  the  saints.  A  great  dispute  took  place  in 
Egypt  among  the  monks  on  the  question,  whether  God  was  corporeal  or  incorporeal. 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  IV.     SECTION  12.  95 

time  of  Jesus  Christ,  (in  the  same  way  as  the  Turks  have  occupied  Greece,)  when  they  were 
■finally  expelled  from  it  by  the  Romans,  and  their  tribe  dispersed.  The  country  then  became 
partly  occupied  by  Roman  colonies,  and  partly  by  the  remains  of  the  old  idolatrous  Canaanites, 
the  worshipers  of  Adonis,  Venus,  &c,  &c.  The  Jews  occupied  Canaan,  as  the  Moriscoes  occupied 
Spain.  They  never  completely  mixed  or  amalgamated  with  the  old  inhabitans,  who  continued  in 
slavery  or  subjection.  Every  page  almost  of  the  Jewish  history  shews  that  the  Canaanites  con- 
tinued, and  had  temples.  During  what  is  called  the  time  of  the  Judges  it  is  evident  that  an  almost 
incessant  warfare  was  carried  on  between  the  old  inhabitants  and  the  Israelites.  The  Jebusites 
possessed,  in  spite  of  the  latter,  the  fortress  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  until  the  time  of  David,  who 
took  it  by  storm  ;  and  the  city  of  Tyre,  with  its  king,  set  even  the  power  of  Solomon  at  defiance, 
and  never  was  taken  by  the  Israelites  at  all. 

The  difference  between  the  religion  of  Moses  and  that  of  the  surrounding  nations,  consisted 
merely  in  this :  the  latter  had  become  corrupted  by  the  priests,  who'had  set  up  images  in  allego- 
rical representation  of  the  heavenly  bodies  or  Zodiacal  signs,  which  in  long  periods  of  time  the 
people  came  to  consider  as  representations  of  real  deities.  The  true  and  secret  meaning  of  these 
emblems,  the  priests,  that  is  the  initiated,  took  the  greatest  pains  to  keep  from  the  people.  The 
king  and  priest  were  generally  united  in  the  same  person  :  and  when  it  was  otherwise,  the  former 
was  generally  the  mere  tool  and  slave  of  the  latter.  But  in  either  case,  the  sole  object  of  the 
initiated  was,  as  it  yet  is,  to  keep  the  people  in  a  state  of  debasement,  that  they  might  be  more 
easily  ruled.  Thus  did  the  Magi  in  ancient  and  thus  do  the  chief  priests  in  modern  times  wallow 
in  wealth  on  the  labour  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 

If  we  may  judge  of  the  state  of  Egypt  and  Canaan,  and  the  countries  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Canaan,  from  the  collection  of  ancient  tracts  or  traditionary  histories,  called  the  Jewish  canon,  we 
must  allow  that  they  had  become,  in  matters  of  religion,  sunk  to  the  very  lowest  state  of  debase- 
ment. The  sacrifices  and  rites  of  Baal  and  Moloch,  and  the  idolatry  of  Tyre,  Sidon,  &c,  were  of 
the  most  horrible  kind.  The  priests  in  almost  all  ages  have  found  that  the  more  gloomy  and 
horrible  a  religion  is,  the  better  it  has  suited  their  purpose.  We  have  this  account  of  the  state  of 
the  religion,  not  only  from  the  history  of  the  Jews,  but  from  that  of  the  Gentiles,  therefore  it  can 
scarcely  be  disputed.  It  was  to  keep  his  people  from  falling  into  this  degraded  state,  that  Moses 
framed  many  of  his  laws.  To  the  original  religions  of  these  nations,  before  their  degradation,  he 
could  have  had  no  objection  ;  or  else  he  would  never  have  adopted  so  many  of  their  astronomical 
and  astrological  emblems :  nay,  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  call  his  God  by  the  same  names. 

Though  the  adoption  of  the  astronomical  and  astrological  emblems  of  the  Magi  and  the  Egyp- 
tians may  be  no  proof  of  the  wisdom  or  sagacity  of  Moses,  they  are  sufficiently  clear  proofs  of  the 
identity  of  his  religion  with  the  religion  of  the  Magi,  &c,  before  their  corruption.  What  are  we 
to  make  of  the  brazen  serpent  set  up  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness,  and  worshiped  by  the  Israelites 
till  the  time  of  Hezekiah  ?  What  of  the  Cherubim  under  the  wings  of  which  the  God  of  the  Jews 
dwelt  ?  These  Cherubim  had  the  faces  of  the  beings  which  were  in  the  four  cardinal  points  of  the 
Zodiac,  when  the  Bull  was  the  equinoctial  sign,  viz.  the  ox,  the  lion,  the  man,  and  the  eagle.  * 
These  were  clearly  astrological. 

12.  Every  ancient  religion,  without  exception,  had  Cabala  or  secret  doctrines  :  and  the  same 
fate  attended  them  all.  In  order  that  they  might  not  be  revealed  or  discovered,  they  were  not 
written,  but  only  handed  down  by  tradition ;  and  in  the  revolutions  of  centuries  and  the  violent 
convulsions  of  empires  they  were  forgotten.  Scraps  of  the  old  traditions  were  then  collected,  and 
mixed  with  new  inventions  of  the  priests,  having  the  double  object  in  view,  of  ruling  the  people 
and  of  concealing  their  own  ignorance. 

See  a  picture  of  them  in  Parkhurst's  Hebrew  Lexicon  in  voce,  ma  krb.    See  also  Jurieu,  Rel.  Vet.  Vol.  I.  Part.  II.  Cap.  i. 


96  CHARACTER  OP  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

The  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac  for  the  standards  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  the  scorpion  or 
typhon,  the  devil  or  the  emblem  of  destruction,  being  changed  for  the  eagle  by  the  tribe  of  Dan, 
to  whom  it  was  allotted ;  the  ark,  an  exact  copy  of  the  ark  of  Osiris,  set  afloat  in  the  Nile  every 
year,  and  supposed  to  sail  to  Biblos,  in  Palestine  j  the  pillars  Joachim  and  Boaz ;  the  festival  of 
the  Passover  at  the  vernal  equinox,  an  exact  copy  of  the  Egyptian  festival  at  the  same  time ; 
almost  all  the  ornaments  of  the  temple,  altar,  priest,  &c,  all  these  are  clearly  astrological.  The 
secret  meaning  of  all  these  emblems,  and  of  most  parts  of  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch,  of  Joshua 
and  Judges,  (almost  the  whole  of  which  was  astrological,  that  is,  magical  allegory,)  was  what  in 
old  times,  in  part  at  least,  constituted  the  Jewish  Cabala,  and  was  studiously  kept  from  the  know- 
ledge of  the  vulgar.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  Cabala  of  the  modern  Jews  has  any 
similitude  to  that  of  the  ancients.  The  childish  nonsense  of  the  modern  Cabalists,  it  would  in- 
deed be  very  absurd  to  attribute  to  the  sages,  who,  on  Carmel,  taught  Pythagoras  the  true  system 
of  the  planetary  bodies — or  to  Elias,  whose  knowledge  of  chemistry,  perhaps,  taught  him  to  out- 
manoeuvre the  priests  of  Baal. 

On  the  subject  of  the  reason  why  Abraham  or  his  tribe  left  his  or  its  home,  I  shall  have  much 
more  to  say  in  the  course  of  this  work,  when  I  flatter  myself  that  that,  and  many  other  things  on 
which  I  slightly  touch  here,  will  be  accounted  for. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CHARACTER  OP  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. — NATURE  OF  THE  ALLEGORY  IN   GENESIS. 

1.  The  reader  will  now  perhaps  ask,  What  in  the  result  is  the  truth  respecting  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ?  It  is  very  difficult  to  answer  this  question  in  a  few  words.  Is  it  the  produce  of  deep 
learning  and  profound  wisdom,  hidden  under  the  veil  of  allegory,  or  is  it  the  mere  literal  history 
of  transactions  of  past  events,  as  believed  by  the  Christians  and  modern  Jews  ?  It  is  probably 
both  :  a  collection  of  tracts  mixed  up  with  traditions,  histories  or  rumours  of  events,  collected 
together  by  the  priests  of  an  ignorant,  uncivilized  race  of  shepherds,  intermixed  also  with  the 
allegories  and  fictions  in  which  the  ancient  philosophers  of  the  eastern  nations  veiled  their  learning 
from  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar.  The  Pentateuch  is  evidently  a  collection  of  different  mythological 
histories  of  the  creation,  and  of  the  transactions  of  Moses,  the  chief  of  a  tribe  of  wandering  Arabs, 
who  was  believed  to  have  brought  this  tribe  from  the  borders  of  Egypt  and  to  have  conquered  Pa- 
lestine :  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  contains  a  considerable  portion  of  truth.  The  priests  of 
the  hilly  part  of  Judea,  after  the  tribes  had  united  under  one  government,  wanting  something 
whereon  to  found  their  system,  collected  from  all  quarters  the  different  parts,  connecting  them 
together  as  well  as  they  could,  though  very  unskilfully.  And  this  was  probably  not  all  done  at 
once,  but  by  degrees,  without  any  regular  preconcerted  design.  The  only  part  of  it  which  shews 
any  thing  like  a  regular  system,  is  the  invariable  tendency  evident  in  every  page  to  support  the 
power  of  the  priests  or  prophets.  And  this  may  perhaps  be  attributed  more  to  a  natural  effect, 
arising  from  the  manufacture  of  the  work  by  priests,  than  to  design. 

The  treatises  in  the  Pentateuch  are  put  together,  or  connected  with  one  another,  in  so  very 
awkward  and  unskilful  a  manner,  that  they  would  have  passed  as  the  work  of  one  person  with 


BOOK  II.   CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  2.  97 

none  but  such  uncivilized  barbarians  as  the  Jews,  if  they  had  related  to  any  of  the  common  con- 
cerns of  life,  and  where  the  reasoning  faculty  of  the  human  mind  could  be  brought  into  fair  action; 
but  in  matters  connected  with  religion  this  has  never  been  done,  and  never  will  be  done :  reason 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  religion  of  the  generality  of  mankind. 

To  this  the  priests  will  reply,  The  circumstances  which  mark  identity  in  the  religions  of  the 
Jews  and  Gentiles  we  do  not  deny  ;  the  Heathens  copied  almost  all  their  superstitions  from  Moses 
and  the  Prophets ;  and  probably  to  multitudes  of  believers  this  will  be  very  satisfactory :  this 
satisfaction  may  naturally  be  expected  to  be  enjoyed  by  such  persons  ;  reason  does  not  operate 
with  them.  To  them  it  is  of  no  consequence,  that  those  heathenish  superstitions  which  are 
alleged  to  have  been  copied  from  Moses,  were  in  existence  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  of  years 
before  Moses  was  born  or  thought  of. 

That  many  parts  of  the  books  of  the  Jews  are  allegorical,  cannot  be  for  a  moment  doubted,  and, 
as  was  said  before,  no  doubt  the  true  knowledge  of  these  allegories  constituted  their  first  Cabala, 
and  the  learning  of  their  priests.  But  as  they  are  evidently  made  up  of  loose,  unconnected  ac- 
counts, very  often  different  accounts  of  the  same  history  or  allegory,  it  is  not  possible  that  any 
complete  and  regular  system  should  be  made  out  of  them.  For  instance,  Genesis  contains  two 
histories  of  the  creation  ;  Deuteronomy  a  history  of  the  promulgation  of  the  law  by  Moses,  differ- 
ent from  that  given  in  Exodus,  which  was  evidently  written  by  a  different  author  from  that  of 
Genesis.  This  view  of  the  Jewish  writings  does  not  militate  against  parts  of  them  being  the  pro- 
duce of  the  profound  wisdom  of  the  oriental  philosophers,  which  was  probably  the  case,  as  main- 
tained by  M.  Dupuis.  A  person  may  readily  believe  that  the  first  book  of  Genesis  was  written  by 
an  ancient  philosopher,  whose  descendants  may  have  taught  Pythagoras  (perhaps  on  Carmel)  the 
demonstration,  that  the  square  of  the  hypothenuse  is  equal  to  the  square  of  the  two  sides  of  a  right- 
angled  triangle.  From  these  circumstances  it  has  followed,  that  in  every  part  of  these  writings 
we  meet  with  a  strange  mixture  of  oriental  learning,  and,  to  outward  appearance,  nonsensical  and 
degrading  puerilities  and  superstitions,  which  in  all  ages  have  perplexed  the  understandings  of  those 
persons  who  have  endeavoured  to  use  them  on  these  subjects.  No  reasoning  being  could  believe 
them  literally,  no  ingenuity  could  make  out  of  them,  taken  collectively,  a  consistent  allegory. 

But  as  far  as  concerns  the  generality  or  industrious  class  of  the  Jews  and  modern  Christians, 
they  are  taken  literally.  In  this  sense  they  were  and  are  yet  received.  Whether  the  later 
Jewish  collectors  of  them  into  one  code  understood  the  allegorical  meaning  of  any  of  them,  remains 
doubtful ;  probably  they  might  in  part.  But  it  is  equally,  if  not  more,  probable,  that  they  would 
care  very  little  whether  they  understood  them  or  not,  so  long  as  they  assisted  them  in  establishing 
their  temple,  their  tithes,  and  their  order.  Perhaps  after  these  objects  were  secured,  they  would 
amuse  themselves  in  their  leisure  hours,  like  our  own  priests  and  bishops,  in  endeavouring  by  ex- 
planations to  make  order  out  of  disorder,  sense  out  of  nonsense.  Hence  arose  their  modern 
Cabala.  And  as  they  were  generally  men  of  the  meanest  capacities,  though  perhaps  men  under- 
standing several  languages,  the  modern  Cabala  is  just  what  might  be  expected. 

The  modern  and  Romish  religion  being  partly  founded  upon  that  of  the  Jews,  which  was  founded 
upon  writings  thus  connected  together,  it  is  not  surprising  that,  like  its  parent,  it  should  be  diffi- 
cult or  impossible  to  make  out  a  complete  system,  to  fit  into  or  account  for  every  part  of  it. 

2.  M.  Dupuis,  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  third  volume,  has  made  many  curious  observations  on 
the  book  of  Genesis,  tending  to  prove  that  it  was  an  allegory  descriptive  of  the  mythology  of  the 
oriental  nations  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Palestine.  That  it  was  allegorical  was  held  by  the  most 
learned  of  the  ancient  fathers  of  the  church,  such  as  Clemens  Alexandrinus  and  Origen,  as  it 
had  been  by  the  most  learned  of  the  Jews,  such  as  Philo,  Josephus,  &c,  so  that  its  alle- 
gorical nature  may  perhaps  be  safely  assumed,  notwithstanding  the  nonsense  of  modern  devotees. 


gg  NATURE   OF  THE   ALLEGORY   IN    GENESIS. 

The  following  extract  from  the  work  of  Maimonides,  called  More  Nevochim, l  exhibits  a  fair  ex- 
ample of  the  policy  of  the  ancient  philosophers  :  "  Taken  to  the  letter,  this  work  (Genesis)  gives 
"  the  most  absurd  and  extravagant  ideas  of  the  Divinity.  Whoever  shall  find  the  true  sense  of  it 
"  ought  to  take  care  not  to  divulge  it.  This  is  a  maxim  which  all  our  sages  repeat  to  us,  and 
«  above  all  respecting  the  meaning  of  the  work  of  the  six  days.  If  a  person  should  discover  the 
"  meaning  of  it,  either  by  himself  or  with  the  aid  of  another,  then  he  ought  to  be  silent :  or  if  he 
"  speak  of  it,  he  ought  to  speak  of  it  but  obscurely,  and  in  an  enigmatical  manner  as  I  do  myself; 
"  leaving  the  rest  to  be  guessed  by  those  who  can  understand  me."2 

Although  it  is  clear  from  the  works  of  Philo  and  others,  that  the  learned  in  all  ancient  times  ac- 
knowledged an  allegorical  sense  in  the  accounts  of  Genesis  ;  it  is  equally  clear  from  the  works  of 
that  learned  man,  that  in  his  time  its  meaning  was  in  a  great  degree  lost.  The  most  celebrated  of 
the  Christian  fathers  equally  admitted  it  to  be  allegorical,  but  the  moderns  have  a  difficulty  to 
contend  with,  unknown  to  them  and  to  the  Jews.  To  admit  the  accounts  in  Genesis  to  be  literal, 
would  be  to  admit  facts  directly  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes  of  God.  Fanatical  as  the  ancient 
fathers  were,  their  fanaticism  had  not  blinded  them,  as  it  has  blinded  the  moderns,  so  far  as  to 
admit  this.  But  if  the  story  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  the  trees  of  knowledge  and  of  life,  the  talking 
serpent,  and  the  sin  of  Adam  and  Eve  were  allegorical,  redemption  by  the  atonement  from  the 
consequences  of  his  allegorical  fault  could  not  but  be  equally  allegorical.  This,  it  is  evident,  in- 
stantly overthrows  the  whole  of  the  present  orthodox  or  fashionable  scheme  of  the  atonement — a 
doctrine  not  known  in  the  early  ages  of  the  religion,  but  picked  up  in  the  same  quarter  whence 
several  other  doctrines  of  modern  Christianity  will  be  found  to  have  been  derived.  If  the  history 
of  the  fall  be  allegorical,  we  repeat,  that  the  allegorical  nature  of  the  redemption  seems  to  follow 
as  a  necessary  consequence. 

In  reasoning  from  cause  to  effect,  this  seems  to  be  a  necessary  consequence.  From  this  diffi- 
culty arose  a  great  mass  of  contradictions  and  absurdities.  It  is  impossible  to  deny,  that  it  has 
always  been  a  part  of  the  modern  corrupt  Christian  religion,  that  an  evil  spirit  rebelled  against 
God,  and  that  he  having  drawn  other  beings  of  his  own  description  into  the  same  evil  course,  was, 
for  this  conduct,  expelled  along  with  them  from  heaven,  into  a  place  of  darkness  and  intense 
torment.  This  nonsense,  which  is  no  part  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  the  Nazarite,  came  from  the 
same  quarter  as  the  atonement.     We  shall  find  them  both  in  India. 

It  is  quite  impossible,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  fallen  angels  can  be  taken  from  the  Pentateuch ; 
for  not  a  word  of  the  kind  is  to  be  met  with  there  :  but  it  is  the  identical  doctrine  of  the  Brahmins 
and  later  Magi.  The  Devil  is  the  Mahasoor  of  the  Brahmins,  and  the  Ahriman  of  the  Magi ;  the 
fallen  angels  are  the  Onderah  and  Dewtahs  of  the  Brahmins,  and  the  Dowzakh  and  Dews  of  the 
Magi.  The  vulgar  Jews  and  Christians  finding  the  story  of  the  serpent,  did  not  know  how  to 
account  for  it,  and  in  consequence  went  to  the  Persians  for  an  explanation.  They  could  not  have 
gone  to  a  better  place,  for  the  second  book  of  Genesis,  with  its  serpent  biting  the  foot  of  the 
woman's  seed,  is  nothing  but  a  part  of  a  Hindoo- Persian  history,  of  which  the  story  of  the  fallen 
angels,  &c,  is  a  continuation. 

In  several  places  in  this  chapter,  the  reader  will  have  observed  that  I  have  used  an  expression 
of  doubt  respecting  the  existence  of  Abraham.  This  I  have  done  because  I  feel  that  in  inquiries 
of  this  kind  a  person  can  scarcely  ever  be  too  careful.  And  after  reading  the  works  of  Sir  William 
Drummond,  Mons.  Dupuis,  &c,  suspicion  cannot  be  entirely  banished.  Besides,  I  wish  not  to 
take  any  thing  for  granted  ;  particularly  the  questions  under  examination,  and  this  question  will 
be  amply  discussed  hereafter.     I  think  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  magical  or  astrological  theories  or 

1  Pars  II.  Cap.  xxix.  2  Dupuis,  sur  tous  les  Cultes,  Vol  III.  p.  9,  4to. 


BOOK  II.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  2.  99 

doctrines  were  connected  with  every  part  of  the  Mosaic  system.  It  is  impossible  to  separate  or 
conceal  them  ;  they  are  connected  with  the  numbers,  the  names  of  cities,  and  of  men, — in  short, 
with  every  thing :  but  this  no  more  proves  that  there  were  not  such  men  as  Abraham,  Moses, 
Joshua,  &c,  than  it  proves  that  there  were  not  such  cities  and  places  as  Damascus,  Hobah,  Gilgal, 
Gerizim,  Bethel,  Jericho,  &c.  The  existence  of  the  cities  and  places,  having  astronomical  names, 
is  clear.  There  is  nothing  in  these  astrological  allusions  against  the  existence  of  the  men,  any 
more  than  there  is  against  the  existence  of  the  cities  :  and  those  have  gone  much  too  far  who, 
for  no  other  reason,  have  run  away  with  the  opinion  that  there  were  not  such  men.  Their  pre- 
mises will  not  warrant  their  conclusions. 


o  2 


(    100    ) 


BOOK  III. 
CHAPTER   I. 


ORPHIC  AND  MITHRAIT1C  TRINITY  SIMILAR  TO  THAT  OF  THE  CHRISTIANS. — SIR  WILLIAM  JONES  ON  THE 
RELIGION  OF  PERSIA. —  PERSIAN  OROMASDES,  MITHRA,  ARIMANIUS.  —  OPINIONS  OF  HERODOTUS,  POR- 
PHYRY, STRABO,  JULIAN,  ON  THE  ABOVE — HYDE  AND  BEAUSOBRE  RESPECTING  TIMES  OF  PYTHAGORAS 
AND  ZOROASTER. — FOLLOWERS  OF  ZOROASTER,  NOT  YET  EXTINCT — WORSHIP  FIRE. — THE  VEDAS  DE- 
SCRIBE THE  PERSIAN  RELIGION  TO  HAVE  COME  FROM  UPPER  INDIA. — MAURICE  ON  THE  HINDOO 
TRINITY. 

1 .  In  the  former  part  of  this  work,  in  treating  of  the  Trimurti  or  Trinity,  it  was  found  scarcely 
possible  to  avoid  anticipating  part  of  what  was  intended  to  form  the  subject  of  the  present  book, 
but  the  author  flatters  himself,  that  the  apparent  repetition  will  not  be  found  useless  or  unin- 
teresting. 

Having  proved  the  absolute  identity  of  the  religions  of  the  family  of  Abraham  and  of  the  Per- 
sians, in  this  book  will  be  shewn  a  similar  identity  between  several  of  the  dogmas  of  the  Romish 
and  Protestant  Christians,  generally  accounted  of  the  greatest  importance,  particularly  the  Trinity 
and  similar  dogmas  of  the  religions  of  Orpheus  and  Mithra,  or  the  Sun,  held  by  the  Persian  Magi : 
of  the  latter  of  which  Zeradust  was  either  the  great  prophet  or  founder,  or  the  reformer.  It  is 
very  possible  that  the  moral  doctrines  of  two  races  of  people,  totally  unconnected,  may  be  the 
same,  or  nearly  so,  because  the  true  principles  of  morals  must  be  the  same :  there  can  be  only  one 
true  morality  ;  and  each,  without  any  connexion,  may  originally  discover  the  truth.  But  it  is  evi- 
dently impossible  that  such  artificial  regulations  and  peculiar  opinions,  as  will  be  pointed  out,  could 
have  been  adopted  by  two  races  of  people  without  some  very  intimate  connexion  existing  between 
them.  Justin  Martyr  observed  the  striking  similitude,  and  very  easily  explained  it.  He  says, 
the  evil  spirits,  or  demons,  introduced  the  Christian  ceremonies  into  the  religion  of  Mithra. 
Though  this  explanation  of  ceremonies  and  doctrines,  existing  long  anterior  to  Christianity,  might 
be  satisfactory  to  the  ancient  and  venerable  fathers  of  the  church,  it  will  hardly  prove  so  to  modern 
philosophers.  It  cannot  be  expected,  that  the  author  should  go  through  the  whole  of  the  ceremo- 
nies of  each  religion,  and  shew  that  in  every  individual  instance  they  exactly  agreed.  The 
unceasing  exertions  of  Christian  priests  to  conceal  the  truth,  and  the  change,  arising  from  various 
other  causes,  which  we  know  always  takes  place  in  long  periods  of  time,  in  every  religion,  and  in- 
deed in  every  sublunary  concern,  ^render  such  an  expectation  unreasonable  and  absurd  j  but  it  is 
presumed  that  the  circumstances  which  will  now  be  pointed  out,  in  addition  to  what  has  already 
been  stated,  will  leave  no  doubt  on  the  mind  of  any  reasonable  and  unprejudiced  person,  that  the 
religions  under  consideration  were  originally  the  same. 

In  contemplating  the  different,  and  often  contradictory,  circumstances  of  the  religion  of  the 
ancient  Persians,  it  is  impossible  not  to  observe  the  striking  similarity  both  of  its  doctrines,  and 


BOOK  III.    CHAP.  I.    SECT.  3.  101 

discipline  or  practices,  to  those  of  their  Eastern  neighbours  of  India,  on  one  side;  and  their 
Western  neighbours,  the  Christians  of  Europe,  on  the  other.  That  religion  appears  to  have  been 
a,  connecting  link  in  the  chain,  and  probably  in  this  point  of  view  it  will  be  regarded  by  every 
unprejudiced  person,  when  all  the  circumstances  relating  to  it  are  taken  into  consideration.  Like 
almost  all  the  ancient  systems  of  theology,  its  origin  is  lost  in  the  most  remote  antiquity. 
Its  foundation  is  generally  attributed  to  a  sage  of  the  name  of  Zoroaster,  but  in  order  to  reconcile 
the  accounts  given  of  him  with  any  thing  like  consistency,  or  with  one  another,  several  persons  of 
this  name  must  be  supposed  to  have  lived. 

2.  Treating  of  the  religion  of  Persia,  Sir  W.  Jones  says,  "  The  primeval  religion  of  Iran,  if  we 
<c  may  rely  on  the  authorities  adduced  by  Monsani  Fani,  was  that  which  Newton  calls  the  oldest 
"  (and  it  may  justly  be  called  the  noblest)  of  all  religions  ;  a  firm  belief  that  '  one  Supreme  God 
"  '  made  the  world  by  his  power,  and  continually  governed  it  by  his  providence ;  a  pious  fear, 
"  'love,  and  adoration  of  him;  and  due  reverence  for  parents  and  aged  persons;  a  fraternal 
"  '  affection  for  the  whole  human  species ;  and  a  compassionate  tenderness  even  for  the  brute 
"  < creation.'"1 

Firdausi,  speaking  of  the  prostration  of  Cyrus  and  his  paternal  grandfather  before  the  blazing 
altar,  says,  "  Think  not  that  they  were  adorers  of  fire,  for  that  element  was  only  an  exalted  object, 
"  on  the  lustre  of  which  they  fixed  their  eyes  ;  they  humbled  themselves  a  whole  week  before 
"  God;  and  if  thy  understanding  be  ever  so  little  exerted,  thou  must  acknowledge  thy  dependance 
"  on  the  Being  supremely  pure."  2 

However  bigoted  my  Christian  reader  may  be,  he  will  hardly  deny  that  there  is  here  the 
picture  of  a  beautiful  religion.  On  this  subject  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  The  reader  has  already  been 
"  informed  that  the  first  object  of  the  idolatry  of  the  ancient  world  was  the  Sun.  The  beauty, 
"  the  lustre,  and  vivifying  warmth  of  that  planet,  early  enticed  the  human  heart  from  the  adoration 
"  of  that  Being  who  formed  its  glowing  sphere  and  all  the  host  of  heaven.  The  Sun,  however, 
"  was  not  solely  adored  for  its  own  intrinsic  lustre  and  beauty ;  it  was  probably  venerated  by  the 
"  devout  ancients  as  the  most  magnificent  emblem  of  the  Shechinah  which  the  universe  afforded. 
"  Hence  the  Persians,  among  whom  the  true  religion  for  a  long  time  flourished  uncorrupted 
"  according  to  Dr.  Hyde,  in  a  passage  before  referred  to,  asserted,  that  the  throne  of  God  was 
f(  seated  in  the  sun.  In  Egypt,  however,  under  the  appellation  of  Osiris,  the  sun  was  not  less 
"  venerated,  than  under  the  denomination  of  Mithra,  in  Persia."3 

3.  The  first  dogma  of  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  clearly  was,  the  existence  of  one  Supreme, 
Omnipotent  God.  In  this  it  not  only  coincides  with  the  Hindoo  and  the  Christian,  but  with  all 
other  religions ;  in  this,  therefore,  there  is  not  any  thing  particular :  but  on  further  inquiry  it 
appears  that  this  great  First  Cause,  called  Ormusd  or  Oromasdes,  was  a  being  like  the  Gods  of 
the  Hindoos  and  of  the  Christians,  consisting  of  three  persons.  The  triplicate  Deity  of  the 
Hindoos  of  three  persons  and  one  God,  Bramha  the  Creator,  Vishnu  or  Cristna,  of  whom  I  shall 
soon  treat,  the  Saviour  or  Preserver,  and  Siva  the  Destroyer ;  and  yet  this  was  all  one  God,  in  his 
different  capacities.  In  the  same  manner  the  Supreme  God  of  the  Persians  consisted  of  three 
persons,  Oromasdes  the  Creator,  Mithra  the  Saviour,  Mediator,  or  Preserver,  and  Ahriman  the 
Destroyer.  The  Christians  had  also  their  Gods,  consisting  of  three  persons  and  one  God,  the 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Psellus  informs  us,  Oromasdes  and  Mithras  were  frequently  used 
by  the  Magi  for  the  to  @eiov,  or  whole  Deity  in  general,  and  Plethro  adds  a  third,  called  Arimanius, 
which  is  confirmed  by  Plutarch,  who   says,  "  That  Zoroaster  made  a  threefold  distribution  of 

1  Sir  W.  Jones  on  the  Persians,  Diss.  VI.  p.  197.  3  lb.  p.  201.  3  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  605. 


102 


OPINIONS    OF    HERODOTUS,    PORPHYRY,    STRABO,    JULIAN,    ON    THE    ABOVE. 


"  things,  and  that  he  assigned  the  first  and  highest  rank  of  them  to  Oromasdes,  who,  in  the  oracles, 
"  is  called  the  Father ;  the  lowest  to  Arimanes ;  and  the  middle  to  Mithras,  who,  in  the  same 
"  oracles,  is  called  the  second  mind.  Whereupon  he  observes,  how  great  an  agreement  there 
"  was  betwixt  the  Zoroastrian  and  the  Platonic  Trinity,  they  differing  in  a  manner  only  in 
"  words." » 

"  And,  indeed,  from  that  which  Plutarch  affirms,  that  the  Persians,  from  their  God  Mithras, 
"  called  any  Mediator,  or  middle  betwixt  two,  Mithras,  it  may  be  more  reasonably  concluded, 
"  that  Mithras,  according  to  the  Persian  theology,  was  properly  the  middle  hypostasis,  of  that 
"  triplasian,  or  triplicated  deity  of  theirs,  than  that  he  should  be  a  middle,  self-existent  God,  or 
<f  Mediator,  betwixt  two  adversary  Gods,  unmade,  one  good,  and  the  other  evil,  as  Plutarch  would 
"suppose."2  If  it  were  now  needful,  we  might  make  it  still  further  evident  that  Zoroaster, 
"  notwithstanding  the  multitude  of  Gods  worshiped  by  him,  was  an  asserter  of  one  Supreme, 
"  from  his  own  description  of  God,  extant  in  Eusebius :  God  is  the  first  incorruptible,  eternal, 
"  indivisible,  most  unlike  to  every  thing,  the  head  or  leader  of  all  good ;  unbribable,  the  best  of  the 
"  good,  the  wisest  of  the  wise  ;  He  is  also  the  Father  of  law  and  justice,  self-taught,  perfect,  and 
"  the  only  inventor  of  the  natural  holy. — Eusebius  tells  us  that  the  Zoroastrian  description  of  God 
"  was  contained  verbatim  in  a  book,  entitled  A  Holy  Collection  of  the  Persian  Monuments :  as 
"  also,  that  Ostanes  (himself  a  famous  Magician  and  admirer  of  Zoroaster)  had  recorded  the  very 
"  same  of  him  in  his  Octateuchon."  3 

4.  Porphyry,  in  his  treatise,  de  Antro  Nympharum,  says,  "  Zoroaster  first  of  all,  as  Eubolus 
"  testifieth,  in  the  mountains  adjoining  to  Persia,  consecrated  a  native  orbicular  cave,  adorned 
"  with  flowers  and  watered  with  fountains,  to  the  honour  of  Mithras,  the  maker  and  father  of  all 
"  things ;  this  cave  being  an  image  or  symbol  to  him  of  the  whole  world  which  was  made  by 
"  Mithras  ;  which  testimony  of  Eubolus  is  the  more  to  be  valued  because,  as  Porphyrius  else- 
"  where  informs  us,  he  wrote  the  history  of  Mithras  at  large  in  many  books, — from  whence  it  may 
"  be  presumed  that  he  had  thoroughly  furnished  himself  with  the  knowledge  of  what  belonged  to 
"  the  Persian  religion.  Wherefore,  from  the  authority  of  Eubolus,  we  may  well  conclude  also, 
"  that  notwithstanding  the  Sun  was  generally  worshiped  by  the  Persians  as  a  God,  yet  Zoroaster 
"  and  the  ancient  Magi,  who  were  best  initiated  in  Mithraick  mysteries,  asserted  another  Deity, 
"  superior  to  the  Sun,  for  the  true  Mithras,  such  as  was  the  maker  and  father  of  all  things,  or  of 
"  the  whole  world,  whereof  the  Sun  is  a  part.  However,  these  also  looked  upon  the  Sun  as  the 
"  most  lively  image  of  the  Deity  in  which  it  was  worshiped  by  them,  as  they  likewise  worshiped 
"  the  same  Deity  symbolically  in  fire,  as  Maximus  Tyrius  informeth  us  j  agreeable  to  which  is  that 
"  in  the  Magic  oracles;  All  things  are  the  offsprings  of  one  fire  ;  that  is,  of  one  Supreme  Deity. 
"  And  Julian,  the  Emperor,  was  such  a  devout  Sun  worshiper  as  this,  who  acknowledged,  besides 
"  the  Sun,  another  incorporeal  deity,  transcendant  to  it."  4  The  first  kind  of  things  (according 
"  to  Zoroaster)  is  eternal,  the  Supreme  God.  In  the  first  place  (saith  Eusebius)  they  conceive 
"  that  God  the  Father  and  King  ought  to  be  ranked.  This  the  Delphian  Oracle  (cited  by  Por- 
"  phyrius)  confirms : — Chaldees  and  Jews  wise  only,  worshiping  purely  a  self-begotten  God  and 
"  King. 

"  This  is  that  principle  of  which  the  author  of  the  Chaldaic  Summary  saith,  They  conceive  there 
"  is  one  principle  of  all  things,  and  declare  that  is  one  and  good. 

"  God  (as  Pythagoras  learnt  of  the  Magi,  who  term  him  Oromasdes)  in  his  body  resembles  light ; 
"  in  his  soul  truth." 


1  Cudwortb,  Book  i.  Ch.  iv.  p.  289.  2  lb.  p.  290.  3  lb. 


p.  293. 


4  lb.  p.  287. 


BOOK    III.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION    5.  103 

In  the  same  sense  the  Chaldeans  likewise  termed  God  a  fire ;  for  Ur,  in  Chaldee,  signifying 
both  light  and  fire,  they  took  light  and  fire  promiscuously. l  "  The  name  and  image  whereby  thev 
"  represented  the  Supreme  God  was  that  of  Bel,  as  appears  by  the  prohibition  given  by  God  him- 
*'  self  not  to  call  him  so  any  more.  '  Thou  shalt  call  me  no  longer  Baali :'  Bel  with  the  Chal- 
"  deans  is  the  same  as  Baal  with  the  Phenicians,  both  derived  from  the  Hebrew  Baal."  2 

"  They  who  first  translated  the  Eastern  learning  into  Greek  for  the  most  part  interpret  this  Bel 
"  by  the  word  Zsog,  Jupiter.  So  Herodotus,  Diodorus,  Hesychius,  and  others  :  Berosus  (saith 
Eusebius)  was  priest  of  Belus,  whom  they  "  interpret  (Aia)  Jupiter."3 

From  the  worship  of  the  one  Supreme  God,  (in  Assyria,)  they  very  early  fell  off  to  the  worship 
of  numbers  of  gods,  daemons,  angels,  planets,  stars,  &c.  They  had  twelve  principal  Gods  for  the 
twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  to  each  of  which  they  dedicated  a  month.4  The  identity  of  the  name 
Baali  among  the  Chaldeans  and  the  Israelites,  as  observed  by  Stanley,  raises  a  strong  presump- 
tion, that  all  these  religions  were  fundamentally  the  same,  with  only  such  greater  or  less  adventi- 
tious variations  as  circumstances  produced. 

Sir  W.  Jones  informs  us  that  the  letters  Mihr  in  the  Persian  language  denote  the  sun,  5  and  he 
also  informs  us,  that  the  letters  Mihira  denote  the  sun  in  the  Hindoo  language. 6  Now  it  is  pretty 
clear  that  these  two  words  are  precisely  the  same  :  and  are  in  fact  nothing  but  the  word  Mithra 
the  sun. 

5.  Dr.  Hyde  thought  that  Zoroaster  and  Pythagoras  were  contemporaries,  but  Mr.  Stanley  was 
of  opinion  this  was  not  the  fact,  but  that  the  latter  lived  several  generations  after  the  former. 
This  subject  has  been  well  discussed  by  M.  Beausobre, 7  who  has  undertaken  to  shew  that  they 
might  have  lived  at  the  same  time,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  chronology  to  render  it  im- 
probable. 

It  appears  that  the  question  respecting  Pythagoras  and  Zoroaster  was  simply,  whether  they,  or 
either  of  them,  admitted  a  first  moving,  uncreated  cause,  superior  to  and  independent  of  any  other 
or  whether  they  admitted  two  equal,  co-eternal  beings,  the  authors  of  good  and  evil.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  expressions  used  by  these  great  philosophers  must  always  remain  a  subject  of  very  con- 
siderable doubt.  It  seems  surprising  that  such  men  as  Stanley  and  Beausobre  should  pretend  to 
reduce  to  a  certainty  that  which,  from  peculiar  circumstances,  must  always  be  involved  in  diffi- 
culty. In  the  first  place,  the  line  between  the  unity  and  duality,  as  explained,  is  so  fine,  that  in 
our  native  language,  which  Ave  understand,  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  it ;  then  how  much  more 
difficult  must  it  be  in  a  foreign  and  dead  language  !  Besides,  we  have  it  not  in  the  language  of 
the  philosophers'themselves,  but  retailed  to  us  in  a  language  foreign  to  that  in  which  it  was  deli- 
vered, and  that  also  by  foreigners,  living  many  years  after  their  deaths.  After  all  the  ingenuity 
displayed  by  M.  Beausobre,  who  has  exhausted  the  subject,  considerable  doubt  must  always  re- 
main upon  this  point,  whether  the  two  principles  professed  by  the  philosophers  were  identically 
the  same  or  not.  But  yet  one  thing  seems  certain,  all  accounts  tending  to  confirm  the  fact,  that 
the  principles  were  both  derived  from  the  same  school,  situated  on  the  East  of  the  Euphrates  ; 
and,  that  they  are,  in  fact,  so  nearly  the  same,  that  no  one  can  tell  with  absolute  certainty  wherein 
they  differ.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  and  those  of  Zoroaster,  as  main- 
tained when  the  former  was  at  Babylon  after  its  conquest  by  Cyrus,  were,  as  it  has  been  already 
remarked,  the  same  or  nearly  so ;  nor  can  any  one  doubt  that  Pythagoras  was  either  the  fellow- 
labourer  and  assistant  of  Zoroaster,  or  a  pupil  of  his  school. 

'  Stanley,  Hist.  Phil.  Part  xv.  Ch.  i.  p.  765.  2  Ibid.  p.  784.  3  Ibid.  *  Ibid.  Ch.  vii. 

5  Diss.  I.  on  the  Gods  of  Greece,  Italy,  and  India.  6  Supplement  to  Ess.  on  Ind.  Chron. 

7  Liv.  i.  Ch.  iii.  p.  31. 


]04  FOLLOWERS   OP    ZOROASTER   NOT   YET   EXTINCT WORSHIP    FIRE. 

Manes  lived  long  after  both  of  them  ;  and  if  it  should  be  contended  that  he  differed  from  them 
in  any  very  abstruse  speculative  point,  this  will  not  be  admitted  as  a  proof  that  he  did  not  draw 
his  doctrine  from  their  fountain,  when  it  is  known  that  it  came  from  the  East  of  the  Euphrates, 
and  when  it  is  evidently  the  same  in  almost  every  other  particular. 

6.  The  ancient  followers  of  Zoroaster  are  not  yet  extinct.  There  is  "  a  colony  of  them  settled 
"  in  Bombay,  an  island  belonging  to  the  English,  where  they  are  allowed,  without  any  molesta- 
"  tion,  the  full  freedom  and  exercise  of  their  religion.  They  are  a  poor,  harmless  sort  of  people, 
"  zealous  in  their  superstition,  rigorous  in  their  morals,  and  exact  in  their  dealings,  professing  the 
"  worship  of  one  God  only,  and  the  belief  of  a  resurrection  and  a  future  judgment,  and  utterly  de- 
"  testing  all  idolatry,  although  reckoned  by  the  Mahometans  the  most  guilty  of  it ;  for  although 
"  they  perform  their  worship  before  fire  and  towards  the  rising  sun,  yet  they  utterly  deny  that 
"  they  worship  either  of  them.  They  hold  that  more  of  God  is  in  these  his  creatures  than  in  any 
"  other,  and  that  therefore  they  worship  God  towards  them,  as  being  in  their  opinion  the  truest 
"  Shekinah  of  the  Divine  presence  among  us,  as  darkness  is  that  of  the  devil's :  and  as  to  Zoroas- 
"  tres,  they  still  have  him  in  the  same  veneration,  as  the  Jews  have  Moses  ;  looking  on  him  as 
"  the  great  prophet  of  God,  by  whom  he  sent  his  law,  and  communicated  his  will  unto  them."  l 
Thus  it  appears  that  if  the  Jews  have  preserved  their  religion  for  the  last  two  thousand  years,  in 
order  to  fulfil  a  miracle  or  prophecy,  the  Persians  have  preserved  the  same  religion  without  any 
miracle  or  prophecy  whatever.  And  it  must  not  be  said,  that  this  is  confined  to  one  little  spot, 
for  they  are,  like  the  Jews,  dispersed  all  over  Asia. 

Although  there  is  the  most  indisputable  evidence,  that  the  Magi,  who  were  the  priests  of  Persia, 
acknowledged  one  Supreme  Being,  called  Oromasdes,  yet  they  certainly  worshiped  the  sun  under 
the  name  of  Mithra,  the  second  person  of  their  Trinity.  They  are  said  to  have  done  this  as  only 
to  an  emblem  or  symbol — the  seat  and  throne — of  the  Supreme  Being.  But  it  probably  soon 
came  to  pass  that  the  Supreme  Being  was  forgotten,  and  that  his  image  only  was  adored  by  the 
people.  The  Persian  Magi  have  always  denied  that  they  worshiped  fire  in  any  other  sense  than  as 
an  emblem  of  the  Supreme  Being,  but  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  ascertain  the  exact  truth ;  and 
the  difficulty  is  increased  by  the  circumstance  that  most  ancient  philosophers,  and,  in  fact,  almost 
all  the  early  Christian  fathers,  held  the  opinion  that  God  consisted  of  a  subtile,  ethereal,  igneous 
fluid,  which  pervaded  all  nature — that  God  was  fire.  Thus,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  he  appeared 
to  Moses  in  the  burning  bush,  and  again  upon  Sinai. 

All  the  Oriental  and  Grecian  writers  agree  in  ascribing  to  the  Persians  the  worship  of  one 
Supreme  God  :  they  only  differ  as  to  the  time  when  this  first  began  to  take  place.  Much  more 
attention  is  due  to  the  ancient  Oriental,  than  to  the  Grecian,  histories  of  Persia,  and  they  all 
represent  the  worship  of  one  Supreme  God  as  having  begun  very  early,  and  this  is  confirmed,  in 
a  considerable  degree,  by  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem  by  Cyrus.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  Persian  religion  was  reformed,  or  improved  by  some  one,  that  the  capital  of  the  empire  of 
the  Magi  was  at  one  time  at  Balch,  and  that  it  was  from  this  place  their  religion  spread  both  into 
India  and  the  West.  It  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  city,  where  the  first  orbicular  caves,  of 
which  we  have  heard  so  much,  were  excavated,  long  before  the  time  of  Cyrus. 

Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  But  it  is  now  necessary  that  we  should  once  more  direct  our  attention 
"  towards  Persia.  The  profound  reverence,  before  noticed,  to  have  been  equally  entertained  by 
"  the  Magi  of  Persia  and  the  Brachmans  of  India,  for  the  solar  orb  and  for  fire,  forms  a  most 
"  striking  and  prominent  feature  of  resemblance  between  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  and  that  of 
"  Brahma. 

1  Prid.  Con.  Part  i.  Book  iv.  p.  285.  8vo.  2  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  V.  II.  p.  116. 


BOOK   III.    CHAPTER   I.   SECTION   8.  105 

/.  The  Vedas  are  supposed  by  the  Brahmins  to  have  existed  from  the  most  remote  antiquity. 
The  words  are  Sanscrit  and  the  letters  Nagari. l  On  this  subject  Sir  W.  Jones  says,  "  That  the 
*'  Vedas  were  actually  written  before  the  flood,  I  shall  never  believe."  Sir  William,  in  his  first 
Dissertation,  makes  many  professions  of  disinterestedness,^  a  mind  perfectly  free  from  prejudice; 
but  the  author  must  be  excused  by  his  friends  for  observing,  that  the  declaration  of  his  firm 
resolution  not  to  believe  a  plain  historical  fact,  "  I  shall  never  believe,"  gives  us  very  little  reason 
to  hope  for  a  fair  and  candid  examinatian  of  any  question,  which  shall  in  any  way  concern  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  the  doctrines  he  had  previously  determined  to  receive  or  reject.  As  might  be 
expected,  the  result  of  this  pious  determination  may  be  seen  in  almost  every  page  of  his  works. 
The  author  finds  no  fault  with  the  declaration  ;  it  is  a  mark  of  candour  and  sincerity,  and  it  has 
had  two  good  effects  :  it  has  secured  to  Sir  William  the  praise  of  the  priesthood  ;  and  it  has  put  the 
philosophical  inquirer  upon  his  guard.  But  it  would  have  been  a  great  advantage  if  so  learned  a 
man,  and  a  man  possessing  so  powerful  an  understanding,  as  Sir  William  Jones,  could  have  been 
induced  to  examine  the  subject  without  prejudice  or  partiality,  or  any  predetermination  to  believe 
either  one  thing  or  another.  After  this  declaration  of  Sir  William's,  every  thing  which  he  admits 
in  opposition  to  his  favourite  dogma,  must  be  taken  as  the  evidence  of  an' unwilling  witness. 

The  Vedas  are  four  very  voluminous  books,  which  contain  the  code  of  laws  of  Brahma.  Mr. 
Dow  supposes  them  to  have  been  written  4887  years  before  the  year  1769.  Sir  W.  Jones  informs 
us  that  the  principal  worship  inculcated  in  them,  is  that  of  the  solar  fire ;  and,  in  the  discourse  on 
the  Literature  of  the  Hindoos,  he  acquaints  us,  that  "  The  author  of  the  Dabistan  describes  a 
"  race  of  old  Persian  sages,2  who  appear,  from  the  whole  of  his  account,  to  have  been  Hindoos; 
"  that  the  book  of  Menu,  said  to  be  written  in  a  celestial  dialect,  and  alluded  to  by  the  author, 
"  means  the  Vedas,  written  in  the  Devanagari  character,  and  that  as  Zeratusht  was  only  a  re- 
"  former,  in  India  may  be  discovered  the  true  source  of  the  Persian  religion.3  This  is  rendered 
"  extremely  probable  by  the  wonderful  similarity  of  the  caves,  as  well  as  the  doctrines,  of  the  two 
countries.  The  principal  temple  of  the  Magi  in  the  time  of  Darius  Hystaspes  was  at  Balch,  the 
capital  of  Bactria,  the  most  Eastern  province  of  Persia,  situated  on  the  North-west  frontiers  of 
India  and  very  near  to  where  the  religion  of  Bramha  is  yet  in  its  greatest  purity,  and  where  the 
most  ancient  and  famous  temples  and  caverns  of  the  Hindoos  were  situate."4  As  we  know  very 
well  that  there  are  no  caves  in  the  Western  or  Southern  part  of  Persia  answering  to  the  descrip- 
tion above,  we  are  under  the  necessity  of  referring  what  is  said  here  and  in  the  quotation  in 
Section  4,  from  Porphyry,  to  the  great  caves  of  the  Buddhists  and  the  Brahmins  in  the  Northern 
parts  of  India  and  Northern  Thibet.  This  proves  their  existence  in  the  reputed  time  of  Zoro- 
aster. 

8.  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  Of  exquisite  workmanship,  and  of  stupendous  antiquity — antiquity  to 
"  which  neither  the  page  of  history  nor  human  traditions  can  ascend — that  magnificent  piece  of 
"  sculpture  so  often  alluded  to  in  the  cavern  of  Elephanta  decidedly  establishes  the  solemn  fact, 
"  that,  from  the  remotest  reras,  the  Indian  nations  have  adored  a  Triune  Deity.  There  the 
"  traveller  with  awe  and  astonishment  beholds,  carved  out  of  the  solid  rock,  in  the  most  conspi- 
"  cuous  part  of  the  most  ancient  and  venerable  temple  of  the  world,  a  bust,  expanding  in  breadth 
"  near  twenty  feet,  and  no  less  than  eighteen  feet  in  altitude,  by  which  amazing  proportion,  as 
"  well  as  its  gorgeous  decorations,  it  is  known  to  be  the  image  of  the  grand  presiding  Deity  of 
"  that  hallowed  retreat :  he  beholds,  I  say,  a  bust  composed  of  three  heads  united  to  one  bod}', 


u 
u 


1  Jones,  Diss.  VI.  on  the  Persians,  p.  185.  *  A  Sage  is  a  sagax,  or  sagacious  or  wise  man,  a  sophi. 

3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  I.  p.  349. 

4  Hyde,  Hist.  Rel.  Vet.  Pers.  Cap.  xxiv.  p.  320;  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  pp.  120,  126, 

p 


106  ON    THE   WORD    OM. 

"  adorned  with  the  oldest  symbols  of  the  Indian  theology,  and  thus  expressly  fabricated,  according 
"  to  the  unanimous  confession  of  the  sacred  sacerdotal  tribe  of  India,  to  indicate  the  Creator,  the 
"  Preserver,  and  the  Regenerator  of  mankind."  * 

To  destroy,  according  to  the  Vedantas  of  India  and  the  Sufis  of  Persia,  that  is,  the  <ro(J>oi  or 
wise  men  of  Persia,  is  only  to  regenerate  and  reproduce  in  another  form ;  and  in  this  doctrine 
they  are  supported  by  many  philosophers  of  our  European  schools.  We  may  safely  affirm,  that 
we  have  no  experience  of  the  actual  destruction, — the  annihilation  of  any  substance  whatever. 
On  this  account  it  is  that  Mahadeva  of  India,  the  destroyer,  is  always  said  to  preside  over  genera- 
tion, is  represented  riding  upon  a  bull,  the  emblem  of  the  sun,  when  the  vernal  equinox  took  place 
in  that  sign,  and  when  he  triumphed  in  his  youthful  strength  over  the  powers  of  hell  and  dark- 
ness :  and  near  him  generally  stands  the  gigantic  Lingham  or  Phallus,  the  emblem  of  the  creative 
power.  From  this  Indian  deity  came,  through  the  medium  of  Egypt  and  Persia,  the  Grecian 
mythos  of  Jupiter  Genitor,  with  the  Bull  of  Europa,  and  his  extraordinary  title  of  Lapis — a  title 
probably  given  to  him  on  account  of  the  stone  pillar  with  which  his  statue  is  mostly  accompanied, 
and  the  object  of  which  is  generally  rendered  unquestionable  by  the  peculiar  form  of  its  summit  or 
upper  part.  In  India  and  Europe  this  God  is  represented  as  holding  his  court  on  the  top  of  lofty 
mountains.  In  India  they  are  called  mountains  of  the  Moon  or  Chandrasichara  ;  in  the  Western 
countries  Olympuses.  He  is  called  Trilochan  and  has  three  eyes.  Pausanias  tells  us  that  Zeus 
was  called  Triophthalmos,  and  that,  previous  to  the  taking  of  Troy,  he  was  represented  with  three 
eyes.     As  Mr.  Forbes2   says,  the  identity  of  the  two  Gods  falls  little  short  of  being  demonstrated. 

In  the  Museum  of  the  Asiatic  Society  is  an  Indian  painting  of  a  Cristna  seated  on  a  lotus  with 
three  eyes — emblems  of  the  Trinity. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  WORD  OM. — OMPHE,  OMPHALOS. — OLYMPUS,  AMMON,  DELPHI. — DIGRESSION  CONCERNING  THE  WORD 
ON. — SUBJECT  OF  AMMON  RENEWED. — HAM  THE  SON  OF  NOAH,  AND  AMMON  THE  SUN  IN  ARIES. — 
NIEBUHR  ON  THE  OMBRICI  OF  ITALY  :  SEVERAL  REMARKABLE  SYNONYMES. — ON  THE  SPIRIT  OR  RUH, 
THE   DOVE. — PRIESTLEY'S   OPINION. — SUBJECT    OF   THE   PERSIAN    AND   HINDOO   TRINITY   RESUMED. 

1.  Mr.  Hastings,  one  of  the  most  early  and  liberal  patrons  of  Sanscrit  literature  in  India,  in  a 
letter  to  Nathaniel  Smith,  Esq.,  has  remarked  how  accurately  many  of  the  leading  principles  of  the 
pure,  unadulterated  doctrines  of  Bramha  correspond  with  those  of  the  Christian  system.  In  the 
Geeta,  (one  of  the  most  ancient  of  the  Hindoo  books,)  indeed,  some  passages,  surprisingly  conso- 
nant, occur  concerning  the  sublime  nature  and  attributes  of  God,  as  well  as  concerning  the  proper- 
ties and  functions  of  the  soul.  Thus,  where  the  Deity,  in  the  form  of  Cristna,  addresses  Arjun  : 
"  I  am  the  Creator  of  all  things,  and  all  things  proceed  from  me," — "  I  am  the  beginning,  the 
"  middle,  aad  the  end  of  all  things  ;  I  am  time  :  I  am  all-grasping  death,  and  I  am  the  resurrec- 
"  tion  :  I  am  the  mystic  figure  OM  !  I  am  generation  and  dissolution."  Arjun  in  pious  ecstacy 
"  exclaims,  "  Reverence  1  reverence  !  be  unto  thee,  a  thousand  times  repeated  !  again  and  again 
"  reverence  !  O  thou  who  art  all  in  all !  infinite  in  thy  power  and  thy  glory  !    Thou  art  the  father 

1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  736.  s  Mem.  Orien.  Vol.  III.  Ch.  xxxv.  p.  444. 


BOOK  III.      CHAPTER    II.     SECTION   2.  107 

"  of  all  things  animate  and  inanimate  !  there  is  none  like  unto  thee." *  In  our  future  investiga- 
tions we  shall  find  this  mystic  figure  OM  of  the  greatest  importance ;  for  which  reason  I  shall  now 
inquire  into  the  meaning  of  this  celebrated,  not-to-be- spoken  word. 

"  In  the  Geeta,  Arjun  is  informed  by  Creeshna,  that  (  God  is  in  the  fire  of  the  altar,  and  that 
"  '  the  devout,  with  offerings,  direct  their  worship  unto  God  in  the  fire.'  '  I  am  the  fire  I  am  the 
"  '  victim.'  (P.  80.)  The  divinity  is  frequently  characterized  in  that  book,  as  in  other  Sanscreet 
"  compositions,  by  the  word  OM,  that  mystic  emblem  of  the  Deity  in  India."  The  ancient 
Brahmins,  as  well  as  the  Buddhists,  of  India,  regarded  this  word  with  the  same  kind  of  veneration 
as  the  Jews  did  the  word  IEUE,  which  they  never  pronounced  except  on  certain  very  solemn  oc- 
casions. This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  fourth  commandment,  which  we  render,  "  Thou  shalt  not 
"  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God"  (but  which  ought  to  be  Ieue  thy  God  J  "  in  vain."  Asa 
pious  Jew  will  not  utter  the  word  Ieue,  so  a  pious  Hindoo  will  not  utter  the  word  Om.  It  is  the 
duty  of  the  Jews  and  Hindoos  to  meditate  on  the  respective  words  in  silence,  and  with  the  most 
profound  veneration. 

The  word  Om  is  always  prefixed  in  pronouncing  the  words  which  represent  the  seven  superior 
worlds,  as  if  to  shew  that  these  seven  worlds  are  manifestations  of  the  power  signified  by  that 
word.  In  an  old  Purana  we  find  the  following  passage :  "  All  the  rites  ordained  in  the  Vedas  the 
"  sacrifices  to  the  fire,  and  all  other  solemn  purifications,  shall  pass  away ;  but  that  which  shall 
i(  never  pass  away  is  the  word  Om — for  it  is  the  symbol  of  the  Lord  of  all  things."  M.  Dubois 
adds,  that  he  thinks  it  can  only  mean  the  true  God.  (P.  155.) — The  sacred  monosyllable  is  gene- 
rally spelled  OM  :  but,  being  triliteral,  it  seems  better  expressed  by  AUM  orAOM  orAWM 
it  being  formed  of  the  three  Sanscrit  letters  that  are  best  so  represented.  The  first  letter  stands 
for  the  Creator,  the  second  for  the  Preserver,  and  the  third  for  the  Destroyer. 2 

Sir  W.  Jones  informs  us  that  the  names  of  Brahma,  Veeshnu,  and  Seeva,  coalesce  and  form  the 
mystical  word  Om,  which  he  says  signifies  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  solar  fire. 3  Here  I 
apprehend  we  have  the  identical  word  used  by  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  their  neighbours  for  the 
Sun,  Amnion. 

2.  The  Hindoo  word  Om,  I  think,  will  be  found  in  the  celebrated  Greek  word  Ou.&r\  which  I 
will  now  examine,  before  I  proceed  with  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  as  it  will  often  be  found  to 
meet  us  in  our  investigations. 

In  the  Greek,  O/xcprj  signifies  divina  vox,  responsum  a  Deo  datum  consulenti.  4>ij  or  $i  by 
itself,  according  to  Scapula,  has  no  meaning,  but  is  merely  a  paragogic  syllable,  as  is  also  the 
word  O^ ;  4  but  $ij  is  the  root  of  <£aa>,  to  speak  or  pronounce,  and  of  $7)^1,  to  say.  I  therefore 
go  to  the  parent  language,  the  Hebrew,  and  I  find  the  word  <J>tj  or  <p<,  nD  pe  or  >D  pi,  to  be  a  noun 
in  regimine,  and  to  mean  an  opening,  a  mouth,  a  measure  of  capacity.  Then  the  literal  meaning 
will  be,  the  mouth,  or  the  opening,  of  Om.  This  is  not  far  from  the  divina  vox  of  the  Greek. 
Hesychius,  also  Suidas  in  voce,  interprets  the  word  OM<I>  to  be  Qeiu  xX^wv,  the  sacred  voice 
the  holy  sound — and  hence  arose  the  o/KpaXoc,  or  place  of  Omphe.  But  its  real  meaning  is  still 
further  unravelled  by  explaining  it  as  OM  4>H,  the  enunciation  of  the  mysterious  OM  of  Hindoo 
theology,  the  sacred  triliteral  AUM,   but  often  written  as  it  is  pronounced,   OM.     The  Greeks 


1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  2  Moore's  Pantheon,  pp.  413,  414. 

3  Jones,  Asiat.  Res. 

4  This  assertion  of  Scapula  only  shews  what  he  had  better  have  confessed,  that  he  knew  nothing  about  it.     There  are 
not,  I  am  of  opinion,  any  paragogic  syllables,  that  is,  syllables  without  meaning,  in  any  of  the  old  languages 

p2 


108  OLYMPUS,   AMMON,   DELPHI. 

often  call  the  oracles,  or  places  where  the  oracles  were  delivered,  the  o^cpaXoj,  or,  as  it  is 
interpreted,  the  navels  of  the  earth.  These  o^ahoi  rt\g  yr\g,  (so  Euripides,  in  Medea,  calls  Del- 
phi,) are  by  the  scholiasts  said  to  be  the  navels  or  centres  of  the  earth  ;  now,  as  Delphi  could  not 
be  considered  the  centre  by  the  Greeks,  and  as  they  had  many  o/^aXoi  or  centres,  it  is  evident 
that  the  true  meaning  of  the  word  was  unknown  to  them. 
The  Jews  consider  Jerusalem  to  be  the  navel  of  the  earth. » 
The  above  etymon  of  the  word  does  not  quite  meet  all  the  circumstances,   does  not  quite  satisfy 

me unless  we  consider  this  mystic  word  to  have  had  more  meanings  than  one.     We  have  seen 

that  o^a'kog  meant  a  navel.     It  is  the  name  given  to  Delphi :  and  Delphi,  as  Mr.  Faber  has 
observed   has  the  meaning  of  the  female  organ  of  generation,  called  in  India  Yoni,  the  Os  Minxae. 
Jones  savs   OM4>H  Oracle,  AEA^TS — Matrix,  womb.     In  one  of  the  plates  in  Moore's  Hin- 
doo Pantheon,  Brahma  is   seen  rising  from  the  navel  of  Brahme-Maia  with  the   umbilical  cord 
uncut :  this  justifies  the  last  rendering  of  Jones,  Matrix,     Closely  allied  to  Ofxfyrj  seems  to  be 
the  word  oa^atoj,   or  o[A<pa.'hog.     I  find  <$>a?;7)  or  QctXog  to  mean  Phallus  or  Linga,  the  memhrum 
virile    constantly  used  for  the  generative  power.     Then   o/^aXvj  will  mean  the  generative  power 
Orx,  or  the  generative  power  of  Om.     I  find  the  oracle  or  Divina  vox  at  Delphi  called  Omphalos, 
and  the  word  Delphi  or  AeX<$>u£  means  the  female  generative  power;  and  in  front  of  the  temple  at 
Delphi,  in  fact  constituting  a  part  of  the  religious  edifice,  was  a  large  Phallus  or  Linga,   anointed 
every  day  with  oil.     This,  all  taken  together,  shews  very  clearly  that  Omphale  means  the  oracle 
of  the  generative  (androgynous)  power  of  Om.     But  it  might  also  come  from  the  sacred  word  Ofx 
and  Qoihos — Benignus— the  benignant  Om.     In  the  religious  ceremonies  at  Delphi  a  boat  of  im- 
mense size  was  carried  about  in  processions  ;  it  was  shaped  like  a  lunar  crescent,  pointed  alike  at 
each  end  :  it  was  called  an  Omphalos  or  Umbilicus,  or  the  ship  Argo.     Of  this  Argo  I  shall  have 
very  much  to  say  hereafter.     My  reader  will  please  to  recollect  that  the  os  minxae  or  As7^<pvg  is 
called  by  the  name  of  the  ship  Argo.     The  Aum  of  India,   as  might  well  be  expected,  is  found  in 
Persia,   under  the  name  of  Horn,   and  particularly  in  the  mountains  of  Persia,   amongst  the  Arii, 
before  they  are  said  to  have  migrated,  under  Djemchid,  to  the  South.     As  usual,  we  get  to  the 
North-east,  for  the  origin  of  things.  2 

Bacchus  was  called  Omcstes,  explained  the  devourer.  This  is  in  fact  the  Om-Esta,3  of  Persia. 
"  Ista-char,  or  Esta-char,  is  the  place  or  temple  of  Ista  or  Esta,  who  was  the  Hestia  'Eg-ia.  of 
"  the  Greeks,  and  Vesta  of  the  Romans."  This  Persian  ista  or  esta,  is  the  Latin  ista  and  est, 
he  or  she  is  ;  it  is  also  Sanscrit,  and  means  the  same  as  the  Jah  of  the  Hebrews.  Bacchus,  at 
Chios  and  Tenedos,  was  also  called  Omadius.     This  is  correctly  the  God,  or  the  holy  Om. 

3.  Mr.  Bryant  connects  the  word  Olympus  with  the  Omphe.  He  observes,  that  wherever 
there  was  an  Olympus,  of  which  there  were  a  great  number,  there  was  also  an  Omphi  or  Ompi, 
and  that  the  word  came  from  the  Hebrew  Har-al-ompi,  (Ear  means  mount,)  which  al-ompi  was 
changed  by  the  Greeks  into  OXu^7rog  Olympus.4  The  word  means  the  mount  of  the  God 
Omphi,  according  to  Bryant's  exposition  ;  but  more  correctly,  I  think,  the  mount  of  the  Phi,  or 
the  prophetic  voice  or  oracle  of  the  God  Om :  whence  tri-om-phe  chaunted  in  the  mysteries  at 
Rome,  the  triple  Omphe.  Mr.  Bryant's  etymon  completely  fails  in  accounting  for  the  syllable 
Om.     He  probably  did  not  know  of  the  Hindoo  Aum,  Om.     In  his  work  cited  above  may  be  found 

1  Basnage,  Hist.  Jud.  B.  iii.  Ch.  xiv.  p.  194.  *  Creuzer,  notes,  p.  686. 

3  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  227.  *  Ibid.  p.  239. 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  4.  J09 

many  very  learned  and  curious  observations  respecting  the  word  Om  and  its  connexion  with  va- 
rious places.     He  shews  that  the  meaning  of  the  0[A<pi  was  totally  unknown  to  the  Greeks. 

From  Parkhurst,  (in  voce  "W  sr,  p.  771?)  it  is  pretty  clear  that  the  omphalos  had  both  the 
meaning  of  beeve  and  umbilicus,  and  that  it  had  also  the  same  meaning  as  "j8>  sr. 

Amon  is  the  Om  of  India,  and  On  or  jk  an  of  the  Hebrews.  Strabo  calls  the  temple  of  Jupiter 
Ammon,  'Iegov  Opxvw.  Bryant1  says,  rtOn  erne  is  called  Horn.2  Gale  says,  "  In  the  Persian  lan- 
**  guage  Hama  means  the  sun."3    These  are  all  evidently  the  Om  of  India,  variously  translated. 

The  word  Am,  Om,  or  Um,  occurs  in  many  languages,  but  it  has  generally  a  meaning  some  way 
connected  with  the  idea  of  a  circle  or  cycle,  as  ambire,  ambages,  or  circum.  This  is  particularly 
the  case  in  all  the  Northern  languages.  I  need  not  name  again  the  Umbilicus,  nor  the  way  in 
which  this  seems  to  be  connected  with  the  idea  conveyed  by  the  Greek  word  AsX<pu£.  Nonnus 
says,  that  the  Babylonian  Bel  and  the  Lybian  Hammon  were,  sv  'ExXaS*,  AEA^OS  A7roXAo£. 

An  attentive  perusal  of  what  Jamieson  has  said,  in  his  Hermes  Scythicus,  (pp.  6,  7,)  on  the 
word  Am,  Om,  Um,  will  satisfy  the  reader  that  there  is  a  strong  probability  that  the  radical  mean- 
ing of  this  word  is  cycle  or  circle.     The  importance  of  this  will  be  seen  hereafter. 

It  would  be  going  too  far  to  quote  Dr.  Daniel  Clarke  as  an  authority  in  support  of  my  explana- 
tion of  the  word  Ammon,  but  I  will  give  a  note  of  his  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  his  Travels  in 
Egypt,  and  leave  the  reader  to  judge  for  himself:  "Plane  ridiculum  est,  velle  Ammonis  nomen 
"  petere  a  Greecis  :  cum  iEgyptii  ipsi  A/x,ouv  appellent,  teste  Herodoto.4  The  name  of  the  Su- 
"  preme  Being  among  the  Brahmins  of  India  is  the  first  syllable  only  of  this  word  pronounced 
"AM."  Again,5  "Sol  superus  et  clarus  est  Ammon."6  The  ancients  had  a  precious  stone 
called  Ombria.  It  was  supposed  to  have  descended  from  heaven.7  The  place  of  its  nativity  seems 
to  connect  it  with  the  mysterious  Om.  The  Roman  nurses  used  the  letter  M,  pronounced  Mu,  as 
a  charm  against  witchcraft,  and  from  the  effects  of  the  evil  eye — from  being  fascinated  by  the  God 
Fascinus,  who  had  the  figure  of  the  membrum  virile,  and  was  worn  about  the  necks  of  women  and 
children,  like  the  Agnus  Deis  worn  by  Romish  Christians.  The  latter,  I  have  no  doubt,  bor- 
rowed the  custom  from  the  Gentiles.8 

4.  Various  derivations  are  given  of  the  word  On,  but  they  are  all  unsatisfactory.  It  is  written 
in  the  Old  Testament  in  two  ways,  J)N  aun  and  :x  an.  It  is  usually  rendered  in  English  by  the 
word  On.  This  word  is  supposed  to  mean  the  sun,  and  the  Greeks  translated  it  by  the  word 
'rfhiog  or  sol.  But  I  think  it  only  stood  for  the  sun  as  emblem  of  the  procreative  power  of  na- 
ture. Thus,  in  Genesis  xlix.  3,  Reuben,  thou  art  my  firstborn,  my  might,  and  the  beginning  of 
mv  strength  :  principium  roboris  mei : 9  >:ik  auni,  rvtWHI  u-rasit.  It  meant  the  beginning  or 
the  first  exercise  of  his  pro-creative  power.  Again,  in  Deut.  xxi.  17,  the  words  UN  jTiWn  rasit 
anu,  refer  to  the  firstborn,  and  have  the  same  meaning :  For  he  is  the  beginning  of  his  strength  ; 
the  right  of  the  firstborn  is  his.  Again,  in  Psalm  lxxviii.  51,  we  find  it  having  the  same  meaning  : 
And  smote  all  the  firstborn  in  Egypt:  the  chief  of  their  strength  in  the  tabernacles  of  Ham: 
Q>31K  aunim  r\>WVT\  rasit :  Primitias  omnis  laboris  eorum,  in  tabernaculis  Cham. 10  In  the  hun- 
dred and  fifth  Psalm  and  the  thirty-sixth  verse,  it  has  the  same  meaning. 

It  was  from  Oenuphis,  a  priest  of  On,  that  Pythagoras  is  said  to  have  learnt  the  system  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  moving  round  the  sun  in  unceasing  revolutions.  The  priests  of  this  temple  were 
esteemed  the  first  in  Egypt.  " 

1  Heathen  Myth.  p.  3.  *  Ibid.  *  Gale's  Court  of  the  Gentiles,  Vol.  I.  ch.  xi.  p.  72. 

*  Vossius  de  Orig.  &c,  Idolat.  Tom.  i.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  ii.  p.  362,  Amst.  1642.  s  Ibid.  p.  282. 

6  Jablonski,  Panth.  Mgyp.  7  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  Lib.  xxxvii.  Cap.  x.  8  Vide  Ibid.  Lib.  xxviii.  Cap.  iv. 

9  Ar.  Montanus.  10  Vulg.  "  See  Elut.  de  Is,  et  Osir. 


110  SUBJECT  OF   AMMON    RENEWED. 

iEnon  or  ]M  oinn,  where  John  baptized,  was  called  by  a  figure  of  speech  only  iEnon,  or  the 
fountain  of  the  sun.     The  literal  meaning  was,  The  Fountain  of  the  Generative  Power. 

Mr.  Faber,  speaking  of  the  calves  set  up  by  Jeroboam,  says,  "  that  they  were,  in  their  use  and 
"  application,  designed  to  be  images  of  the  two  sacred  bulls  which  were  the  living  representations 
"  of  Osiris  and  Isis,  is  both  very  naturally  asserted  by  St.  Jerome,  and  may  be  collected  even 
"  from  Scripture  itself.     Hosea  styles  the  idols  of  Jeroboam  the  calves  of  Beth-Aven :  and  imme- 
"  diately  afterwards  speaks  of  the  high  places  of  the  God  Aven,  whom  he  denominates  the  sin  of 
"  Israel.     Now  we  are  told,  that  when  Jeroboam  instituted  the  worship  of  the  calves,  he  likewise 
"  made  high  places  in  which  their  priests  might  officiate.     The  high  places,  therefore,  of  the 
"  calves  are  the  high  places  of  Aven ;  the  temple  of  Aven  is  the  temple  of  the  calves  ;  and  Aven, 
"  the  sin  of  Israel,  is  the  same  as  at  least  one  of  the  calves,  which  are  also  peculiarly  described  as 
"  being  the  sin  of  Israel.     But  the  God,  whose  name  by  the  Masoretic  punctuation  is  pronounced 
"  Aven,  is  no  other  than  the  Egyptian  deity  Aun  or  On  :  for  the  very  God  whose  worship  Hosea 
"  identifies  with  that  of  the  calves,  is  he  of  whom  Potipherah  is  said  to  have  been  the  priest :  the 
"  two  appellations,  which  our  translators  variously  express,  Aven  and  On,  consisting  in  the  He- 
"  brew  of  the  self-same  letters.     On,  however,  or  Aun,  was  the  Egyptian  title  of  the  sun,  whence 
"  the  city  of  On  was  expressed  by  the  Greeks  Heliopolis ;  and  the  sun  was  astronomically  the 
"  same  as  the  Tauric  God  Osiris  :  consequently  On  and  Osiris  are  one  deity.     Hence  it  is  evident, 
"  that  the  worship  of  Jeroboam's  calves  being  substantially  the  worship  of  On  or  Osiris,  the  calves 
"  themselves  must  have  been  venerated,  agreeably  to  the  just  supposition  of  Jerome,  as  the  repre- 
*'  sentatives  of  Apis  and  Nevis."  *     The  calves  were  probably  emblematical  of  the  Sun  in  his  male 
and  female  character — Baal  and  Baaltis. 

5.  We  have  seen  that  Strabo  says,  the  temple  of  Ammon  was  called  Uqov  0[xaus,  and  we 
have  also  seen,  that  the  first  syllable  of  the  word  ON  am  was  no  other  than  the  celebrated  Hindoo 
word  Aum,  which  designated  the  Brahmin  Trinity,  the  Creator,  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer. 
These  three  letters,  Sir  W.  Jones  tells  us,  as  stated  above,  coalesce  and  form  the  mystic  word 
OM.  In  the  Geeta,  Cristna  thus  addresses  Arjun  :  "lam  generation  and  dissolution."  It  was 
from  the  last  idea  that  Heliopolis,  or  the  city  of  On,  was  called  in  some  of  the  old  versions  of  the 
Bible  the  city  of  destruction.  Here  are  evidently  the  Creator  and  the  Destroyer.  Mr.  Strauss  says, 
that  Bethaven  means  place  of  unworthiness.2 

The  word  ON  am  in  the  Hebrew  not  only  signifies  might,  strength,  power,  firmness,  solidity, 
truth,  but  it  means  also  mother,  as  in  Genesis  ii.  24,  and  love,  whence  the  Latin  Amo,  mamma. 
If  the  word  be  taken  to  mean  strength,  then  Amon  will  mean  (the  first  syllable  am  being  in  regi- 
mine)  the  temple  of  the  strength  of  the  generative  or  creative  power,  or  the  temple  of  the  mighty 
procreative  power.  If  the  word  am  mean  mother,  then  a  still  more  recondite  idea  will  be  implied, 
viz.  the  mother  generative  power,  or  the  maternal  generative  power :  perhaps  the  Urania  of  Persia, 
or  the  Venus  Aphrodite  of  Crete  and  Greece,  or  the  Jupiter  Genetrix,  of  the  masculine  and  femi- 
nine gender,  or  the  Brahme-Maia  of  India,  or  the  Alma  Venus  of  Lucretius.  And  the  city  of  On 
or  Heliopolis  will  be  the  city  of  the  Sun  or  city  of  the  procreative  powers  of  nature,  of  which  the 
Sun  was  always  the  emblem.  3 

I  have  proved  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  ii.  Sect.  xxiv.  that  the  old  Latin  was  Sanscrit,  and  I 
may  affirm,  that  the  Alma  of  Lucretius  is  of  Oriental,  not  Grecian,  origin.  The  Greeks  knew  not 
the  word  Alma.  This  word,  I  think,  means  Al  the  preserver,  and  ma  mother :  it  will  then  mean, 
the  preserving  mother  Venus.     I  think  in  this  case  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  Noty  olma  of  the 


1  Pagan  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  437-  *  Hos.  x.  5 ;  Amos  iv.  4  j  Helon's  Pilgrimage,  B.  iv.  Ch.  i. 

3  Drummond,  Origines,  B.  i.  Ch.  iv.  p.  47, 


BOOK  III.   CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  7>  111 

Phoenicians,  and  the  nofy  olme  of  the  Hebrews,  which  both  mean  Virgin,  or  young  woman,  were 
the  same  as  the  Latin  Alma.  The  Om  or  Aura  of  India  is  evidently  the  Omh  of  the  Irish  Druids, 
which  means  He  who  is. l  It  is  a  very  curious  circumstance  that  in  almost  all  etymologies,  when 
probed  to  the  bottom,  the  Celtic  language  is  found  along  with  the  Hebrew. 

There  was  in  Syria  or  Canaan  a  place  called  Amnion,  the  natives  of  which  were  always  at  en- 
mity with  the  Israelites.  This  was  spelt  pay  omun  in  the  Hebrew,  and  by  the  Greeks  was  called 
Heliopolis.    This  seems  to  shew  that  it  was  dedicated  to  the  same  God  as  the  Aju.ov  of  Egypt. 

This  word  is  used  in  the  writings  of  the  Hindoos  precisely  as  we  use  the  word  Amen,  which  I 
have  no  doubt,  both  in  its  meaning  and  use,  comes  from  this  word. 

6.  The  name  of  the  son  of  Noah  was  on  Um,  called  Ham.  The  name  of  the  solar  orb  was 
ITOrr  Ame  the  feminine  of  EDf7  Hm.  It  appears  to  me  that,  from  misapprehension,  the  Ham  of 
Noah  has  been  confounded  with  the  Ham,  or  Hm  or  Om  of  Egypt — the  Jupiter  Ammon  or  Amon, 
the  God  with  the  Ram's  head,  adored  at  the  isgov  Oftave.  The  word  nn  Hm,  the  patriarch, 
and  the  word  nnn  Hme,  the  Sun,  being  the  same,  were  the  cause  of  the  mistake.  Suppose  the 
LXX.  meant  to  say  that  Egypt  was  given  to  Ham,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  this  was  the  Ham 
or  Am  of  the  temples  of  the  Sol  Generator.  As  we  have  another  much  more  probable  way  of  ac- 
counting for  the  Om  of  the  temple  than  that  of  supposing  the  deification  of  a  man  living  a  thou- 
sand miles  from  the  temple  of  the  Oasis,  I  think  we  are  bound  to  take  it.  But  if  the  history  of 
the  flood  was  a  sacred  mythos,  the  two  words  might  have  the  same  meaning  without  being  copied 
from  one  another.  I  know  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  son  of  Noah  was  deified — a  mere  fancy 
of  modern  priests  ;  but  I  have. many  reasons  for  believing  that  Amon  was  the  Sun  as  the  genera- 
ting power,  first  in  Taurus,  then  in  Aries.  "  Belus,  Kronos,  Apis,  were  solar  symbols,  and  Nonnus 
"  ranks  Amon  with  these  : 

B^Xo<  ex  Ev<ppijTao,  Aij3vs  /cfxtaj/xEvo?  A/a/aov, 
Awj<  e<f)vs  N«Xa>o?,  Apaxf/  Kpovo$,  A<rovpio$  Zev$. 


« 


Amon  was  clearly  understood  by  the  mythologists  to  represent  the  Sun  in  Aries."2  Sir  W. 
Drummond  has  given  many  other  satisfactory  reasons  for  Amon  being  the  Sun  :  then  how  absurd 
is  it  to  go  any  farther !  All  difficulties  are  easily  explained  by  attending  to  the  circumstance  of 
the  fundamental  doctrine,  that,  in  fact,  all  the  Gods  resolve  themselves  into  the  Sun,  either  as  God 
or  as  emblem  of  the  Triune  Androgynous  Being. 

Wilkinson,  in  his  Atlas,  has  placed  on  the  Eastern  shore  of  Arabia,  on  a  river  named  Lar,  a  town 
called  Omanum,  which  was  also  called  Om.  Here  a  moderately  fertile  imagination  may  perhaps  find 
a  second  or  third  Ammon — and  thus  several  Ammons,  several  Heliopolises,  several  Memmons, 
&c,  &c. 3  Some  important  words  are  connected  with  or  derived  from  the  word  Om.  Mr.  Nie- 
buhr  says,  "  The  Umbri  were  a  powerful  people  previous  to  the  Etruscans."4  He  also  says,  that 
the  Greeks  detected  in  the  name  of  these  people,  which  they  pronounced  Ombrici,  an  allusion  to 
a  very  remote  antiquity.  The  reader  will  not  be  surprised  that  I  should  go  to  the  East  for  the 
origin  of  the  Om-brici  and  of  Om-brica,  and  consequently  of  our  Umber — North-umberland  and 
C-umberland. 

7.  Mr.  Niebuhr  does  not  pretend  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the  word  Italia,  but  he  informs  us 
that  the  ancient  Greeks  referred  it  to  Heracleian  traditions,  and  to  a  Greek  word  lra"kag  or  ItSAo£,  * 
signifying  a  Bull.     This  recalls  our  attention  in  a  very  singular  manner  to  the   most  ancient  su 
perstition.     Pliny 6  says,  "  The  people  of  Umbria  are  supposed,  of  all  Italy,  to  be  of  greatest 


1  Maurice,  Hist,  of  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  171,  ed.  4to.  2  Drum.  Orig.  B.  iv.  p.  330. 

3  Ibid.  B.  iii.  Ch.  iii.  p.  360.  *  Ch.  vi.  *  Ch.  i.  p.  31.  6  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  xiv. 


112  ON   THE   SPIRIT   OR    RUH,   THE   DOVE. 

"  antiquity,  as  whom  men  think  to  have  been  of  the  Greeks  named  Ombri,  for  that,  in  the  general 
«  deluge  of  the  country  by  rain,  they  only  remained  alive."  I  think  it  does  not  require  a  very 
fertile  imagination  to  discover  here  traces  of  the  flood,  the  first  race  of  men,  and  the  sacred  myste- 
rious Om.  Br  or  Pr,  in  the  Eastern  language,  means  sacred  and  creative,1  and  Omberland  will 
mean,  The  Land  of  the  Sacred  Om. 

Thus  we  have  several  clear  and  distinct  meanings  of  O^akog.  It  was  mitis,  begnignus.  It 
was  the  male  generative  power,  as  QaXhog.  As  Omphale,  it  was  the  female  generative  power,  the 
wife  of  Hercules,  and  the  navel  of  the  Earth  or  Nabbi.  It  was  also  the  prophetic  voice  of  the 
benignant  Om.  We  shall  see  by  and  bye  how  it  came  to  have  all  these  different  meanings.  Be- 
fore we  conclude  this  work,  we  shall  find  a  similar  variety  arising  from  other  names  connected 
with  this  subject,  and  in  particular  it  should  be  recollected  that  we  have  found  the  Indian  Creeshna 
or  Cristna  calling  himself  Om. 

I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  ancients  often  adopted  an  extraordinary  play  upon  words— a 
kind  of  punning.  Thus,  litf  Sr9  is  the  root  of  Osiris,  who  changed  himself  into  a  bull.  He  is  the 
Sun.  Surya  is  the  Sun,  and  is  the  favourite  God  of  Japan,  where  the  celebrated  Bull  breaks  the 
mundane  egg.  nittf  Sur,  is  a  beeve,  as  Taurus,  at  the  vernal  equinox,  the  leader  of  the  heavenly 
hosts.     TTitf  Srr,  means  ruler,  or  absolute  director  or  Lord. 

Brahme  is  the  Sun,  the  same  as  Surya.  Brahma  sprung  from  the  navel  of  Brahme.  The 
Greeks  call  the  oracles  oju-c^aAoi,  or  navels  of  the  earth.  Srr  has  the  same  meaning  as  o^4>aXo£ 
— and  Sr  means  funis  umhilicalis. 

Offc$»)  means  an  oracle.  The  oracle  was  the  spirit  of  the  God,  the  sanctus  spiritus,  and  came  from 
the  ofxfyoChos.  It  founded  Delphi  in  the  form  of  a  black  Dove.  A  Dove  is  always  the  emblem 
the  Holy  Spirit,  nil*  Iune,  is  Hebrew  for  Dove.  This  is  the  Yoni  of  India,  the  Os  Minxae,  the 
matrix.  At  Delphi  the  response  came  from  a  fissure  or  crack  in  the  mountain,  the  Yoni  of  the 
earth.     This  was  the  emblem  of  the  m*)  ruh  or  Holy  Ghost,  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity. 

8.  In  Psalm  xxxiii.  6,  it  is  said,  "  By  the  word  of  Ieue  were  the  D>Dttf  smim  heavens  made  ; 

"  and  all  the  host  of  them  by  the  nr>  ruh  breath  of  his  mouth."     Again,  ver.  9,  "  For  he  spake, 

"  and  it  was  done  ;  he  commanded,  and  it  stood  fast." 

The  third  person  was  the  Destroyer,  or,  in  his  good  capacity,  the  Regenerator.    The  dove  was 

the  emblem  of  the  Regenerator.     When  a  person  was  baptized,  he  was  regenerated  or  born  again. 

A  Dove  descended  on  to  the  head  of  Jesus  at  his  baptism.     Devotees  profess  to  be  born  again  by 

the  Holy  Ghost — Sanctus  Spiritus.     We  read  of  an  Evil  Spirit  and  of  a  Holy  Spirit ;  one  is  the 

third  person  in  his  destroying  capacity,  the  other  in  his  regenerating  capacity.     We  read  in  the 

Acts  of  the  Apostles  (ch.  xvi.  16)   of  a  spirit  of  Python   or  a  Pythonic  spirit,   an  evil  spirit. 

Python,  or  the  spirit  of  Python,  was  the  destroyer.     But  at  Delphi  he  was  also  Apollo,  who  was 

said  to  be  the  Sun  in  Heaven,  Bacchus  on  Earth,  and  Apollo  in  Hell. 
M.  Dubois  has  observed,  (p.  293,)   that  the  Prana  or  Principle  of  Life,  of  the  Hindoos,  JLs  the 

breath  of  life  by  w'hich  the  Creator  animated  the  clay,  and  man  became  a  living  soul."     Gen.  ii.  J. 
The  Holy  Spirit  or  Ghost  was  sometimes  masculine,  sometimes  feminine.     As  the  third  person 

of  the  Trinity,  it  was  as  well  known  to  the  ancient  Gentiles  as  to  the  moderns,  as  it  will  hereafter 

be  shewn. 

Origen  expressly  makes  the   Holy  Ghost  female.      He   says,  7ra*Wx>j  Ss  xopiag  re  dyis 
Uvsu[xa.Tos  i  ^X*l — "  The  soul  is  maiden  to  her  mistress  the  Holy  Ghost.2 


1  Loubere,  Hist.  Siam. 

*  Porson  against  Travis ;  Class.  Jour.  No.  LXXVI.,  Dec.  1828,  p.  207. 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  8.  113 

I  believe  by  almost  all  the  ancients,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  the  Supreme  Being  was  thought  to 
be  material,  and  to  consist  of  a  very  refined  igneous  fluid  ;  more  like  the  galvanic  or  electric  fire 
than  any  thing  with  which  I  am  acquainted.  This  was  also  the  opinion  of  most  of  the  ancient 
Christian  fathers.  This  was  called  the  anima  as  feminine,  or  spiritus  as  masculine — and  was  the 
nil  ruh  of  the  second  verse  of  Genesis,  which  Parkhurst  calls  breath  or  air  in  motion,  (Isaiah  xi. 
4,)  an  incorporeal  substance,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  From  this  comes  the  expression  to  inspire,  or 
holy  inspiration.  The  word  Ghost  means  spiritus  or  anima.  This  was  often  confounded  with  the 
igneous  fluid  of  which  God  was  supposed  to  consist;  whence  came  the  baptism  by  fire  and  the  Holy 
Ghost.  (Matt.  iii.  11.)  These  were  absurd  refinements  of  religious  metaphysicians,  which  neces- 
sarily arose  from  their  attempts  to  define  that  of  which  they  had  not  the  means  of  forming  an  idea. 
I  should  be  equally  as  absurd,  if  I  were  to  attempt  to  reconcile  their  inconsistencies.  In  the  above 
examples  of  the  different  names  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  singular  mixture  of  genders  is  observable. 
We  see  the  active  principle,  fire,  the  Creator  and  the  Preserver,  and  also  the  Destroyer,  identified 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the  Christians,  in  the  united  form  of  the  Dove  and  of  Fire  settling  on  the 
apostles.     Here  we  have  most  clearly  the  Holy  Ghost  identified  with  the  Destroyer,  Fire. 

The  Dove  is  the  admitted  emblem  of  the  female  procreative  power.  It  always  accompanies 
Venus.  Hence  in  Sanscrit  the  female  organ  of  generation  is  called  Yoni.  The  Hebrew  name  is 
niv  iune.  Evidently  the  same.  The  wife  of  Jove,  the  Creator,  very  naturally  bears  the  name  of 
the  female  procreative  power,  Juno.  It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  close  relation  of  the  pas- 
sion of  love  to  the  procreative  power.  There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  the  Dove  was  called 
after  the  Yoni,  or  the  Yoni  after  the  Dove,  probably  from  its  salacious  qualities.  And  as  creation 
was  destruction,  and  the  creative  the  destructive  power,  it  came  to  be  the  emblem  of  the  destructive 
as  well  as  of  the  creative  power.  As  the  ni")  ruh  or  spiritus  was  the  passive  cause  (brooding  on 
the  face  of  the  waters)  by  which  all  things  sprung  into  life,  the  Dove  became  the  emblem  of  the 
ruh  or  Spirit  or  Holy  Ghost,  the  third  person,  and  consequently  the  Destroyer.  In  the  foundation 
of  the  Grecian  Oracles,  the  places  peculiarly  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit  or  Ghost,  or  inspiration, 
the  Dove  was  the  principal  agent.  The  intimate  relation  between  all  these  things,  and  their  de- 
pendance  on  one  another,  I  think,  cannot  possibly  be  disputed.  We  have  in  the  New  Testament 
several  notices  of  the  Holy  Ghost  or  the  sanctus  spiritus,  WHp  qdis,  ni~i  ruh,  7rveujU,a  dyiov,  "tyvyr} 
xoa-fxs,  or  anima  mundi,  or  alma  Venus.  It  descended,  as  before  remarked,  upon  Jesus  at  his 
baptism,  in  the  form  of  a  Dove,  and  according  to  Justin  Martyr,  a  fire  was  lighted  in  the  moment 
of  its  decent  in  the  river  Jordan.  It  is  also  said  to  have  come  with  a  sound  as  of  a  rushing  mighty 
wind,  but  to  have  been  visible  as  a  tongue  of  fire,  settling  on  each  apostle,  as  described  Acts  ii. 
2,  3.  Here  we  have  the  fin  ruh  or  air  in  motion,  according  to  Parkhurst's  explanation,  which 
brooded  on  the  face  of  the  deep,  an  active  agent  in  the  creation ;  and  we  have  fire  the  Destroyer — 
the  baptism  of  water,  wind,  and  fire — the  baptism  of  the  Etruscans. l  John  says,  "  I  indeed  bap- 
•'  tize  you  with  water,  but  one  shall  come,  who  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with 
"  fire."  (Luke  iii.  ]6.)  All  this  is  part  of  the  Romish  Esoteric  religion  of  Jesus,  which,  like  other 
religions,  has  been  lost ;  a  few  fragments  only  now  remaining ;  unless  it  be  privately  concealed  in 
the  recesses  of  the  Vatican. 

8.  We  may  see  very  clearly  from  the  nonsense  of  Lactantius  that  my  idea  is  correct.  He  says, 
the  Son  of  God  is  the  sermo  or  ratio  (the  speech  or  reason)  of  God ;  also,  that  the  other  angels 
are  the  breath  of  God,  spiritus  Dei.  But  sermo  (speech)  is  breath  emitted,  together  with  a  voice 
expressive  of  something.2    I  shall,  perhaps,  be  asked  by  a  disciple  of  the  philosophic  Priestley 


Vide  Gorius's  Etruscan  Monuments.  2  Priestley,  Cor.  Christ.  Sect.  ii. 


U4  SUBJECT   OF   PERSIAN    AND    HINDOO   TRINITY    RESUMED. 

how  I  conceive  the  soul  to  be  connected  with  or  related  to  the  body— to  matter.  I  reply,  I  know 
not.  I  only  know  that  God  is  good,  and  that  this  goodness  cannot  exist  without  a  state  of  reward 
and  punishment  hereafter  to  mankind.  This  makes  me  certain  that,  in  some  way  or  other,  man 
will  exist  after  death :  but  how  the  Deity  has  not  given  me  faculties  to  comprehend.  And  if  I 
wanted  a  proof  of  this  latter  proposition,  I  have  only  to  go  for  it  to  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of 
the  Doctor's  Disquisitions  on  Matter  and  Spirit,  from  which  I  think  any  unprejudiced  person  must 
see  that  he  has  involved  himself  in  inextricable  difficulties,  from  not  attending  to  Mr.  Locke's 
doctrine,  and  from  attempting  that  which  is  beyond  the  reach  of  the  human  understanding. 

If  my  reader  will  pay  a  little  attention  to  what  passes  in  his  own  mind,  he  will  soon  see,  that 
when  he  talks ,of  Spirit  or  Ghost,  he  generally  has  no  idea  of  any  thing.     This  is  one  of  the  sub- 
jects of  which  he  can  acquire  no  knowledge  or  idea  through  the  medium  of  the  senses.     Therefore, 
as  might  be  expected,  a  great  confusion  of  terms  prevails.     In  the   foregoing  examination,  the 
truth  of  what  I  have  said  will  be  instantly  apparent.     The  terms  betray,  in  their  origin,  the 
grossest  materialism.     I  think  the  reader  must  now  see  that  if  the  spirit  of  God  mean  any  thing,  it 
is  a  mere  figure  of  speech,   and  means  that  God  has  so  modelled  his  law  of  creation,  that  the 
patient  shall  have  a  good  disposition,  or  a  good  spirit.     And  if  it  be  said  that  he  has  a  spirit  of 
prophecy  or  of  foretelling  future  events,  I  reply,  the  expression  may  as  well  be,  that  he  has  a  flesh 
to  foretell  as  a  spirit  to  foretell.     If  God  have  ever  given  a  person  a  knowledge  of  what  will  happen 
at  a  future  time,  this  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  spirit  or  the  air  in  motion,  than  with  the  flesh. 
Jesus  said,  the  gates  of  hell  should  never  prevail  against  his  religion.     According  to  your  accounts, 
Christian  doctors,  they  have  prevailed  and  continue  to  prevail.     But  I  say,  No.     They  have  not 
prevailed,  and  never  will  prevail ;  the  pure,   unadulterated  doctrines  of  Jesus  will  stand  for  ever. 
They  have  only  prevailed  against  the  corruptions  with  which  you  have  loaded  his  religion.     The 
fine  morality  and  the  unity  of  God,  which  you  would  have  destroyed,  can  never  really  be  destroyed, 
though  your  idols,  your  relics,  your  saints,  and  your  mother  of  God,  will  all  pass  away,  like  yes- 
terday's shadow  of  a  cloud  on  the  mountain. 
9.  It  is  now  time  to  return  to  the  Persians. 

After  enumerating  various  other  instances  to  prove  the  existence  of  an  Indian  Trinity,  Mr. 
Maurice  says,  "  Degraded  infinitely,  I  must  repeat  it,  beneath  the  Christian,  as  are  the  characters 
"  of  the  Hindoo  Trinity,  37et  in  our  whole  research  throughout  Asia  there  has  not  hitherto  occurred 
"  so  direct  and  unequivocal  a  designation  of  a  Trinity  in  Unity  as  that  sculptured  in  the  Ele- 
"  phanta  cavern  :  nor  is  there  any  more  decided  avowal  of  the  doctrine  itself  any  where  to  be  met 
"  with  than  in  the  following  passages  of  the  Bhagvat  Geeta.  In  that  most  ancient  and  authentic 
"  book,  the  supreme  Veeshnu  thus  speaks  concerning  himself  and  his  divine  properties  :  '  I  am 
"  *  the  holy  one,  worthy  to  be  known.'  He  immediately  adds,  '  I  am  the  mystic  (triliteral)  figure 
"  '  Om  ;  the  Reig,  the  Yagush,  and  the  Saman  Vedas.' 1  Here  we  see  that  Veeshnu  speaks  ex- 
"  pressly  of  his  unity,  and  yet  in  the  same  sense  declares  he  is  the  mystic  figure  A.  U.  M.,  which 
"  three  letters  the  reader  has  been  informed,  from  Sir  W.  Jones,,  coalesce  and  form  the  Sanscreet 
"  word  OM."  A  little  after,  in  the  same  page,  Mr.  Maurice  tells  us,  that  the  figure  which  stands 
for  the  word  OM  of  the  Brahmins,  is  designated  by  the  combination  of  three  letters,  which  Dr. 
Wilkins  has  shewn  to  stand,  the  first  for  the  Creator,  the  second  for  the  Preserver,  and  the  third 
for  the  Destroyer.'2 

M.  Sonnerat  also  states  that  the  Hindoos  adore  three  principal  deities,  Brouma,  Chiven,  and 
Vichenou,  who  are  still  but  one.3 


1  Geeta,  p.  80.  »  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  744,  745.  3  Ibid.  p.  747- 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION   1.  115 

M.  Sonnerat  also  gives  a  passage  from  a  Sanscrit  Pooraun, !  in  which  it  is  stated  that  it  is 
God  alone  who  created  the  universe  by  his  productive  power,  who  maintains  it  by  his  all- 
preserving  power,  and  who  will  destroy  it  by  his  destructive  power,  and  that  it  is  this  God 
who  is  represented  under  the  name  of  three  Gods,  who  are  called  Trimourti.2  Mr.  Forster3  says, 
"  One  circumstance  which  forcibly  struck  my  attention  was  the  Hindoo  belief  of  a  Trinity ;  the 
"  persons  are  Sree  Mun  Narrain,  the  Maha  Letchimy,  a  beautiful  woman,  and  a  Serpent.  These 
"  persons  are  by  the  Hindoos  supposed  to  be  wholly  indivisible ;  the  one  is  three,  and  the  three 
"  are  owe."  Mr.  Maurice  then  states  that  the  Sree  Mun  Narrain,  as  Mr.  Forster  writes  it,  is 
Narayen  the  Supreme  God  :  the  beautiful  woman  is  the  Imma  of  the  Hebrews,  and  that  the  union 
of  the  sexes  is  perfectly  consistent  with  that  ancient  doctrine  maintained  in  the  Geeta,  and  propa- 
gated by  Orpheus,  that  the  Deity  is  both  male  and  female. 4 

Mr.  Maurice,  in  his  Indian  Antiquities,  says,  *  This  notion  of  three  persons  in  the  Deity  was 
"  diffused  amongst  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  established  at  once  in  regions  so  distant  as  Japan 
"  and  Peru,  immemorially  acknowledged  throughout  the  whole  extent  of  Egypt  and  India,  and 
"  flourishing  with  equal  vigour  amidst  the  snowy  mountains  of  Thibet,  and  the  vast  deserts  of 
"  Siberia." 


CHAPTER  III. 

ISRAEL  WORSLEY'S  ACCOUNT  OF  ANCIENT  TRINITIES.— OPINION  OF  DR.  PRITCHARD  AND  OTHERS  ON  THE 
TRINITIES. — OPINION  OF  MAURICE  AND  OTHERS  ON  THE  TRINITIES.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  TRINITY  —  ITS 
ORIGIN. — MACROBIUS  ON  THE  TRINITY. — PHILO's  TRINITY  OF  THE  JEWS.— FABER'S  ACCOUNT  OF  THE 
UNIVERSAL  BELIEF  OF  THE  TRINITY. — OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  DOCTRINE  THAT  DESTRUCTION  IS  ONLY 
REGENERATION. 

1.  Mr.  Worsley  says,  "  This  doctrine  was  of  very  great  antiquity,  and  generally  received  by 

"  all  the  Gothic  and  Celtic  nations.     These  philosophers  taught,  that  the  Supreme  God,  Teut  or 

"  Woden,  was  the  active  principle,  the  soul  of  the  world,  which,   uniting  itself  to  matter,  had 

f  thereby  put  it  into  a  condition  to  produce  intelligences  or  inferior  gods   and  men.     This  the 

'  poets  express  by  saying  that  Odin  espoused  Frea,  or  the  Lady,  by  way  of  eminence.     Yet  they 

"  allowed  a  great  difference  between  these  two  principles.     The  Supreme  was   eternal,   whereas 

"  matter  was  his  work,  and  of  course  had  a  beginning.     All  this  was  expressed  by  the  phrase, 

"  Earth  is  the  daughter  and  wife  of  the  universal  Father.     From  this  mystical  union  was  born  the 

"  God  Thor-Asa  Thor,  the  Lord  Thor.     He  was   the  firstborn  of  the  Supreme,  the  greatest  of 

'  the  intelligences,  that  were  born  of  the  union  of  the  two  principles.     The  characters  given  him 

'  correspond  much  with  those  which  the  Romans  gave  to  their  Jupiter.     He,  too,  was  the  thun- 

'  derer,  and  to  him  was  devoted  the  fifth  day,  Thor's-dag ;  in  German  and  Dutch,  Donder  dag, 


1  Voyages,  Vol.  I.  p.  259.  2  Ibid.  p.  749.  3  Sketches  of  Hindoo  Mythology,  p.  12. 

*  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  750. 

q2 


116  ISRAEL   WORSLEY'S    ACCOUNT   OF   ANCIENT   TRINITIES. 

"  thunder  day.  The  common  oaths  of  these  people  mark  the  same  origin.  They  swear  by  donder 
"  and  blexen,  thunder  and  lightning.  Friday  took  its  name  from  Frea,  Frea's-dag ;  as  Wednesday 
"  did  from  Woden,  Woden's-dag.  Tuis  was  the  name  which  the  old  Saxons  gave  to  the  son  of 
"  the  Supreme,  whence  Tuesday.  Thor,  being  the  firstborn,  was  called  the  eldest  of  the  sons  . 
"  he  is  made  a  middle  divinity,  a  mediator  between  God  and  man.  Such,  too,  was  the  Persians' 
"  God  :  for  Thor  was  venerated  also  as  the  intelligence  that  animated  the  sun  and  fire.  The  Per- 
"  sians  declared  that  the  most  illustrious  of  all  the  intelligences  was  that  which  they  worshiped 
"  under  the  symbol  of  fire.  They  called  him  Mithras,  or  the  mediator  God.  The  Scythians  called 
"  him  Goeto-Syrus,  the  Good  Star.  All  the  Celtic  nations  were  accustomed  to  worship  the  sun, 
"  either  as  distinguished  from  Thor,  or  as  his  symbol.  It  was  their  custom  to  celebrate  a  feast  at 
"  the  winter  solstice,  when  that  great  luminary  began  to  return  again  to  this  part  of  the  Heavens. 
"  They  called  it  Yuule,  from  Heoul,  Helios,  the  sun,  which  to  this  day  signifies  the  sun  in  the 
"  language  of  Bretagne  and  Cornwall :  whence  the  French  word  Noel. 

"  How  great  a  resemblance  may  be  seen  between  the  expressions  which  have  been  stated  above, 
"  relative  to  these  ancient  Trinities,  and  those  of  some  Christian  worshipers,  who  imagine  that 
"  the  Father  begat  the  Son — according  to  some  in  time,  according  to  others  from  eternity — and 
"  that  from  these  two  sprang  or  proceeded  the  Holy  Ghost  1" l 

According  to  Israel  Worsley, 2  "  It  was  Justin  Martyr,  a  Christian  convert  from  the  Platonic 
"  school,  who,  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  first  promulgated  the  opinion,  that  the  Son 
"  of  God  was  the  second  principle  in  the  Deity,  and  the  creator  of  all  material  things.  He  is  the 
"  earliest  writer  to  whom  this  opinion  can  be  traced.  He  ascribes  his  knowledge  of  it,  not  to  the 
"  Scriptures,  but  to  the  special  favour  of  God."  But  Justin  is  the  very  earliest  admitted  genuine 
Christian  writer  whom  we  have,  not  supposed  to  be  inspired,  and  it  seems  that  he  did  not  attribute 
the  knowledge  of  his  doctrine  to  the  gospel  histories.  The  reason  of  this  will  be  explained  here- 
after. 

Mr.  Worsley  then  proceeds  to  state  that  "  Modern  theologians  have  defined  the  three  Hypos- 
"  tases  in  the  Godhead  with  great  precision,  though  in  very  different  words  :  but  the  fathers  of 
"  the  Trinitarian  Church  were  neither  so  positive  nor  so  free  from  doubt  and  uncertainty,  nor 
"  were  they  agreed  in  their  opinions  upon  it.  The  very  councils  were  agitated ;  nor  is  that  which 
"  is  now  declared  essential  to  salvation,  the  ancient  Trinity.  They  who  thought  the  Word  an 
"  attribute  of  the  Father,  which  assumed  a  personality  at  the  beginning  of  the  creation,  called  this 
"  the  generation  of  the  Son ;  regarding  him  still  as  inferior  to  the  Father,  whom  they  called  the 
"  God  by  way  of  eminence,  while,  after  the  example  of  the  old  Heathens,  they  called  the  Son 
"  God.  This  notion  of  descent  implied  inferiority,  and  on  that  ground  was  objected  to,  and  the 
"  Nicene  Council,  in  325,  issued  a  corrected  and  improved  symbol ;  and  Christ,  instead  of  only 
"  Son,  was  styled  God  of  God,  and  very  God  of  very  God.  But  even  here  the  equality  of  the  Son 
"  was  not  established,  the  Father  by  whom  he  was  begotten  being  regarded  as  the  great  fountain 
"  of  life.  The  investment  of  wisdom  with  a  personality  still  implied  a  time  when  he  was  begotten, 
"  and  consequently  a  time  when  he  was  not.  From  this  dilemma  an  escape  was  in  process  of 
"  time  provided  by  the  hypothesis  of  an  eternal  generation ;  a  notion  which  is  self- contradictory. 
"  The  Nicene  Fathers,  however,  did  not  venture  on  the  term  Trinity  ;  for  they  had  no  intention 
"  of  raising  their  pre-existent  Christ  to  an  equality  with  the  Father :  and  as  to  the  Holy  Spirit, 
"  this  was  considered  as  of  subordinate  rank,  and  the  clauses  respecting  its  procession  and  being 
"  worshiped  together  with  the  Father  and  the  Son,  were  not  added  till  the  year  381,  at  the  Council 
"  of  Constantinople."3    I  give  no  opinion  on  the  statement  of  Mr.  Worsley,  as  it  is  not  my  inten- 


1  Israel  Worsley's  Enquiry,  p.  42.  s  Ibid.  p.  54.  3  Ibid.  p.  63. 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  III.     SECTION  2.  U7 

tion  to  enter  into  a  controversy  as  to  what  the  Trinity  is,  but  only  to  give  an  historical  account 
of  it. 

2.  Dr.  Pritchard,  in  his  Analysis  of  Egyptian  Mythology,  (p.  271,)  describes  the  Egyptians  to 
have  a  Trinity  consisting  of  the  generative,  the  destructive,  and  the  preserving  power.  Isis  answers 
to  Seeva.  Iswara,  or  "  Lord,"  is  the  epithet  of  Siva,  or  Seeva.  Osiris,  or  Ysiris,  as  Hellanicus 
wrote  the  Egyptian  name,  was  the  God  at  whose  birth  a  voice  was  heard  to  declare,  "  that  the 
"  Lord  of  all  nature  sprang  forth  to  light."  Dr.  Pritchard  again  says,  (p.  2G2,)  "  The  oldest 
"  doctrine  of  the  Eastern  schools  is  the  system  of  emanations  and  the  metempsychosis." 
These  two  were  also  essentially  the  doctrine  of  the  Magi,  and  of  the  Jews,  more  particularly  of 
the  sect  of  the  Pharisees,  or,  as  they  ought  to  be  called,  of  the  Persees. l  D"iD  Prs, 2  Mr.  Mau- 
rice3 observes,  that  the  doctrines  of  Original  Sin  and  that  man  is  a  fallen  creature,  are  to  be  found 
both  in  the  religion  of  Brahma  and  Christ,  and  that  it  is  from  this,  that  the  pious  austerities  and 
works  of  supererogation  by  the  Fakirs  and  Yogees  of  the  former  are  derived.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Metempsychosis  was  held  by  most  of  the  very  early  fathers,  and  by  all  the  Gnostic  sects,  at  one 
time,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  largest  part  of  the  Christian  world.  Beausobre  thought  that  the 
transmigration  of  souls  was  to  be  met  with  in  the  New  Testament.  He  says,4  "  We  find  some 
"  traces  of  this  notion  even  in  the  New  Testament,  as  in  St.  Luke  xvi.  23,  where  there  is  an  ac- 
"  count  of  the  abode  of  departed  souls,  conformable  to  the  Grecian  philosophy ;  and  in  St.  John 
"  ix.  2,  where  we  find  allusion  to  the  pre-existence  and  transmigration  of  souls."  The  works  of 
supererogation  and  purgatory  of  the  Romish  Church  both  come  from  this  source.  A  celebrated 
modern  apologist  for  Christianity  believed  the  metempsychosis. 

The  God  Oromasdes  was  undoubtedly  the  Supreme  God  of  the  Persians,  but  yet  the  religion 
was  generally  known  by  the  name  of  the  religion  of  Mithra,  the  Mediator  or  Saviour. 

In  the  same  way  in  India  the  worship  of  the  first  person  in  their  Trinity  is  lost  or  absorbed  in 
that  of  the  second,  few  or  no  temples  being  found  dedicated  to  Brahma  ;  so  among  the  Christians, 
the  worship  of  the  Father  is  lost  in  that  of  the  Son,  the  Mediator  and  Saviour.  We  have  abun- 
dance of  churches  dedicated  to  the  second  and  third  persons  in  the  Trinity,  and  to  saints,  and  to 
the  Mother  of  God,  but  none  to  the  Father. 5  We  find  Jesus  constantly  called  a  Son,  or  as  (ac- 
cording to  the  Unitarians)  the  Trinitarians  choose  to  mistranslate  the  Greek,  the  Son  of  God.  In 
the  same  way,  Plato  informs  us,  that  Zoroaster  was  said  to  be  "  the  son  of  Oromasdes  or  Ormis- 
"  das,  which  was  the  name  the  Persians  gave  to  the  Supreme  God"— therefore  he  was  the  Son  of 
God.6 

Jesus  Christ  is  called  the  Son  of  God  :  no  doubt  very  justly,  if  the  Evangelist  John  be  right,  for 
he  says,  (ch.  i.  ver.  12,)  that  every  one  who  receives  the  gospel,  every  one,  in  fact,  who  believes 
in  God  the  Creator,  has  power  to  become  a  Son  of  God.  Ormusd,  in  Boundehesch,  says,  «  My 
"  name  is  the  principle  (le  principe)  and  the  centre  of  all  things  :  my  name  is,  He  who  is,  who  is 
"  all,  and  who  preserves  all."7 

As  the  Jews  had  their  sacred  writings  to  which  they  looked  with  profound  respect,  so  had  the 
Persians  :  and  so  they  continue  to  have  them  to  this  day.  Mr.  Moyle 8  has  endeavoured  to  dis- 
credit the  genuineness  of  these  writings,  by  stating  "  that  they  contain  facts  and  doctrines  rnani- 
"  festly  taken  from  the  gospels."     It  is  probable  that  these  writings  are  no  more  the  writings  of 


'The  Pharisees  were  merely  Parsees,  (the  Jews  pronounced  P  like  PH  or  F,)  persons  who  intermingled  Magian 
notions  (acquired  during  the  captivity)  with  the  law  of  Moses  :  hence  a  peculiar  propriety  in  child  of  fire,  uhv  ynw^ 
Matt,  xxiii.  15;  Sup.  to  Palaeromaica,  pp.  63,  100. 

1  Parkhurst  in  Voce,  p.  594 ;  Beaus.  Int.  pp.  16,  132.  3  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  V.  p.  195.  *  Int.  p.  16. 

*  See  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  V.  p.  87.  6  Cud.  B.  i.  Ch.  iv.  p.  287. 

7  Notes  to  Creuzer's  Religions  de  1' Antiquity  by  Guigniault,  p.  670.  3  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  57. 


118  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY — ITS    ORIGIN. 

Zoroaster,  or  of  a  man  who  lived  five  or  six  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  before  Cyrus,  than  that 
the  Jewish  Pentateuch  is  the  writing  of  Moses.  Yet  they  are  probably  partly  his  or  his  compila- 
tion, in  the  same  way  that  the  Pentateuch  is  partly  the  production  or  the  compilation  of  Moses. 
Though  these  books  may  not  be  the  writing  of  Zoroaster,  they  are  the  received  sacred  books  of 
the  Magi,  the  same  as  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch  are  of  the  Jews,  and  their  genuineness  is 
entitled  to  equal  respect.  It  was,  perhaps,  on  account  of  these  matters,  that  Dr.  Hyde's  trans- 
lations of  the  Persian  works  never  went  to  press. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  first  to  be  met  with  to  the  North-east  of  the  Indus,  and  it  may 
be  traced  Westwards  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  nations  ;  but  the  two  latter  seem  almost  to  have 
lost  sight  of  it  as  a  national  or  vulgar  doctrine  ;  indeed,  among  the  multitude  in  them,  nothing 
half  so  rational  is  to  be  found.  It  seems  to  have  been  confined  to  the  philosophers,  such  as  Plato 
— but  whether  as  a  secret  doctrine  or  mystery  may  admit  of  doubt. 

Whether  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  formed  a  part  of  the  Christian  religion  has  been  disputed  al- 
most from  its  earliest  period,  by  a  great  variety  of  sects,  with  a  degree  of  bitterness  and  animosity 
hardly  to  be  equalled  in  the  history  of  the  world.  If  the  question  had  been  of  vital  importance  to 
the  religion,  or,  which  is  of  equal  consequence  in  the  estimation  of  too  many,  had  involved  the 
continuance  of  the  hierarchy  or  tithing  system,  instead  of  being  merely  an  idle  speculation,  its 
truth  or  falsity  could  not  have  been  contested  with  greater  virulence.  Several  considerable  sects 
affirm,  that  it  was  introduced  by  some  of  the  early  fathers  from  the  school  of  Plato  :  this  others  as 
strongly  deny.  Mr.  Maurice,  who  being  a  Churchman  is,  of  course,  on  the  Trinitarian  side,  can- 
didly allows  that  it  existed  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Jews,  and  of  all  the  other  Asiatic  nations  from 
the  most  remote  antiquity.  But  so  far  from  seeing  any  difficulty  in  this,  he  concludes  from  it, 
that  it  must  have  been  revealed  by  God  to  Adam,  or  to  Noah,  or  to  Abraham,  or  to  somebody 
else,  and  from  thence  he  most  triumphantly  concludes  that  it  is  true.  The  antiquity  of  the  doc- 
trine he  has  clearly  proved.  His  conclusion  is  another  affair.  If  it  be  satisfactory  to  his  mind,  it 
is  all  well ;  a  worthy  and  good  man  is  made  happy  at  very  little  expense.  In  Chapter  II.  Mr. 
Maurice  has  brought  together  a  vast  variety  of  facts  to  prove  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
generally  held  by  the  Gentiles,  but  they  all  at  last  shew  its  origin  to  have  been  the  Egyptian 
Mithraitic  or  Hindoo  school.  Fi'om  this  source  the  Trinity  sprang  :  a  doctrine  which  it  is 
seen  may  be  traced  to  very  remote  periods  of  time,  indeed  long  prior  to  the  time  fixed  for  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Jews,  or  probably  of  Noah  :  and  it  passed  to  them  through  the  medium  of  the  Per- 
sians and  Egyptians,  as  it  did  also  to  the  Greeks  :  and  from  them  all  it  passed  to  the  Christians  in 
a  later  day.  As  it  might  have  been  supposed,  it  is  found  not  to  be  altogether,  but  yet  fundamentally, 
the  same,  and  in  fact  to  possess  much  more  similarity  than  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
eternal  law  of  change  to  which  it  was  subject,  during  the  time  it  was  travelling  through  various 
climates,  nations,  and  languages,  for  hundreds,  indeed  thousands,  of  years.  However,  in  all  the 
great  essential  parts  it  is  the  same.  There  are  the  Father,  the  Creator — the  Son,  the  Preserver  or 
Saviour — and  the  evil  principle  or  the  devil — in  his  bad  character  the  destroyer.,  in  his  good  one  the 
regenerator  ;  the  same  three  persons  as  in  the  Christian  Trinity — except  that  the  ignorant  monks 
of  the  dark  ages,  not  understanding  there  fined  doctrine  of  the  Eternity  of  Matter,  and,  that  de- 
struction was  only  reproduction,  divided  the  third  person  into  two — the  Destroyer  and  Regenerator, 
and  thereby,  in  fact,  formed/owr  Gods — the  Father,  the  Son,  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  Devil. 

4.  The  immediate  origin  of  the  complete  and  correct  Christian  Trinity,  of  that  peculiar  doctrine 
on  which  all  orthodox  persons  seem  to  think  their  happiness  in  this  life,  as  well' as  in  that- which  is 
to  come,  actually  depends,  will  now  be  exhibited  on  the  unquestionable  authority  of  a  most  un- 
willing witness,  of  one  of  the  most  learned  and  orthodox  of  its  priests — the  Rev.  Mr.  Maurice. 
Speaking  of  the  Trinity  in  the  oracles  of  Zoroaster,  he  says,  "  Since,   exclusive  of  the  error  of 


BOOK  III.      CHAPTER  III.      SECTION  4.  119 

"  placing  Principles  for  Hypostases,  x  which  was  natural  enough  to  an  unenlightened  Pagan,  it  is 
"  impossible  for  language  to  be  more  explicit  upon  the  subject  of  a  divine  Triad,  or  more  confor- 
"  mable  to  the  language  of  Christian  theologers. 

Otts  irarpt%Yj  povai;  strri, 
Ta.va.Yi  sffTt  pwac,  vj  Suo  ysvva. 


«  ( 


Where  the  paternal  monad  is,  that  paternal  monad  amplifies  itself,  and  generates  a  duality.' 
"  The  word  Trotr^xr],  or  paternal,  here  at  once  discovers  to  us  the  two  first  hypostases,  since  it 
"  is  a  relative  term,  and  plainly  indicates  a  Son.  The  paternal  monad  produces  a  duality,  not  by 
"  an  act  of  creation,  but  by  generation,  which  is  exactly  consonant  to  the  language  of  Christianity. 
"  After  declaring  that  the  duad,  thus  generated,  xaQrirai,  sits  by  the  monad,  and,  shining  forth 
"  with  intellectual  beams,  governs  all  things,  that  remarkable  and  often-cited  passage  occurs  : 

Havri  jap  ev  Koapu  Xa^Bi  r^iaq 
'H<;  (Aova;  apyjii. 

"  *  For  a  triad  of  Deity  shines  forth  throughout  the  whole  world,  of  which  a  monad  is  the  head.'  "  2 
Thus,  after  describing  the  paternal  monad,  as  he  calls  it,  he  describes  a  duality,  and  it  is 
certainly  very  remarkable  that  this  duality  is  not  produced  by  creation  or  emanation,  but  by 
generation  ;  and  is  said  to  sit  by  the  side  of  the  monad,  and  to  govern  all  things.  It  is  impos- 
sible after  reading  this,  not  to  recollect  the  words  of  our  creed,  in  which  this  doctrine  is  clearly 
expressed  :  "  Begotten  of  his  Father."  "  Begotten  not  made."  "  He  sitteth  on  the  right  hand 
"  of  the  Father."     "  And  shall  come  again,  to  judge  both  the  quick  and  the  dead." 

Mr.  Maurice  then  adds,  "  In  the  very  next  section  of  these  oracles,  remarkable  for  its  singular 
"  title  of  IIATHP  xai  NOYS,  or  the  Father  and  the  Mind,  that  Father  is  expressly  said  '  to 
"  *  perfect  all  things,  and  deliver  them  over  to  No)  hevTSfxpS  the  second  Mind ;  which,  as  I  have 
"  observed  in  the  early  pages  of  this  dissertation,  has  been  considered  as  allusive  to  the  character 
"  of  the  mediatorial  and  all-preserving  Mithra  ;  but  could  only  originate  in  theological  conceptions 
"  of  a  purer  nature,  and  be  descriptive  of  the  office  and  character  of  a  higher  Mediator,  even  the 
"  eternal  AOTOS.     The  whole  of  the  passage  runs  thus  : 

Havra  yap  sfeTEXso-o-f  IIATHP,  Kai  NO  ttaptlaiKZ 
AETTEPO,  6v  irpwToi/  KXsfyrai  nav  ytvac,  avtpaiv. 

" (  That  second  Mind,'  it  is  added,  '  whom  the  nations  of  men   commonly  take   for  the  first.' 
"  This  is,  doubtless,  very  strongly  in  favour  of  the  two  superior  persons  in  the  Trinity." 

Mr.  Maurice  goes  on  to  shew  that  the  term  second  mind  is  used,  and  is  allusive  to  the  all-pre- 
serving Mithra.  He  then  adds,  "  The  following  passage,  cited  by  Proclus  from  these  oracles,  is 
"  not  less  indubitably  decisive  in  regard  to  the  third  sacred  hypostasis,  than  the  preceding  pas- 
"  sages  in  regard  to  the  second : 

"  Msra  §£  irarpiKai;  kiavoiai;  ^%ij  eyoi  vatu 
"  ©ep/A'/;,  r|/u%8tra  ra  icavza,. 

1  That  is,  e  In  order  next  to  the  paternal  Mind  I  Psyche  dwell  warm,  animating  all  things.' 
"  Thus,  after  observing  in  the  first  section,  the  Triad  or  to  Ssiov,  the  whole  Godhead  collectively 
"  displayed,  we  here  have  each  distinct  hypostasis  separately  and  clearly  brought  before  our  view." 


1  This  almost  alone  proves  that  these  were  not  copies  from  the  Christian  doctrines.  According  to  the  authors  cited 
both  by  Kircher  and  Stanley,  these  oracles  were  originally  written  in  the  Chaldee  language,  and  were  translated  into 
Greek.    Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  258.  * 

s  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  259. 


120 


THE    CHRISTIAN  TRINITY — ITS   ORIGIN. 


And  thus,  by  this  learned  priest, l  not  by  me,  the  whole  correct  Christian  Trinity,  with  its  various 
hypostases,  is  shewn  to  have  existed  in  the  religion  of  Mithra  and  the  Magi,  ages  before  Christ 
was  born. 

There  is  now  no  resource  left  to  the  priests,  but  to  declare  these  oracles  of  Zoroaster  spurious, 
which  Bishop  Synesius,  in  the  fourth  century,  called  holy  oracles.  2  But  Mr.  Maurice  provides 
against  this,  by  informing  his  reader,  that  he  has  only  availed  himself  of  such  passages  in  these 
oracles  as  have  been  quoted  by  such  men  as  Porphyry,  Damascius,  and  other  Greek  writers 
unfavourable  to  Christianity,  and  such  as  have  a  marked  similitude  to  the  ancient  tenets  of  India, 
Persia,  and  Egypt ; 3  and  which,  therefore,  cannot  be  modern  forgeries.  The  existence  in  these 
oracles  of  such  passages  as  have  been  cited,  is,  the  author  believes,  the  only  circumstance  on 
which  the  priests  have  determined  that  they  are  spurious.  They  have  said,  These  passages  must 
have  been  extracted  from  the  gospel  histories,  therefore  the  books  containing  them  must  be  spuri- 
ous. It  never  once  occurred  to  them,  that  the  gospel  histories  might  copy  from  the  oracles,  or 
that  they  might  have  both  drawn  from  a  common  source.  And  it  also  never  occurred  to  them, 
that  the  fact  of  their  quotation  by  old  authors  proves  that  they  must  have  existed  before  the 
gospels.  In  pointing  out  this  circumstance  Mr.  Maurice  has  really  great  merit  for  his  candour  and 
honesty.  I  believe  there  are  very  few  priests  who  would  not  have  found  an  excuse  to  themselves, 
for  omitting  to  point  out  the  conclusive  and  damning  fact. 

Plutarch  4  says,  "  Zoroaster  is  said  to  have  made  a  threefold  distribution  of  things  :  to  have 
"  assigned  the  first  and  highest  rank  to  Oromasdes,  who,  in  the  oracles,  is  called  the  Father; 
"  the  lowest  to  Ahrimanes  ;  and  the  middle  to  Mithras ;  who,  in  the  same  oracles,  is  called 
"  tov  Seursgov  N£v,  the  second  Mind."  As  Mr.  Maurice  says,5  Plutarch,  born  in  the  first 
century,  cannot  have  copied  this  from  a  Christian  forgery.  Besides,  he  expressly  says  it  is  taken 
from  the  oracles — herein  going  very  far  to  confirm  the  genuineness  of  the  oracles  ;  indeed,  he  ac- 
tually does  confirm  it,  in  those  parts  where  the  quotations  are  found. 

This  doctrine  of  the  oracles  is  substantially  the  same  as  that  of  Plato.  It  was  taken  from  the 
Hymns  of  Orpheus,  which  we  now  possess,  and  which  Mr.  Parkhurst  allows  are  the  very  same 
that  were  revered  by  the  ancient  Greeks  as  his,  and,  as  such,  were  used  in  their  solemn  ceremonies. 
He  proves  this  by  a  passage  from  Demosthenes.  6  In  the  Pythagorean  and  Platonic  remains, 
written  long  anterior  to  the  Christian  sera,  all  the  dogmas  of  Christianity  are  to  be  found.  Witness 
the  A7jjuu8£yo£  or  Zsvg  Bao-fosvg  ;  the  o'euTsqog  0eo£,  or  second  God ;  (teorsgog  Ns£,  or  second 
Mind;  the  M*0gac  ju.schttjc,  or  mediatorial  Mithra;  and  yevvyrog  Qsog,  or  generated  God, 
begotten  not  made.  Again,  the  ^t>^  xo<tju,8,  or  soul  of  the  world ;  i.  e.  the  mi  ruh  or  spiritus, 
of  Osiris  and  Brahma,  in  loto  arhore  sedentem  super  aquam,  brooding  on  the  waters  of  the  deep  ; 
the  Osiog  Aoyog,  or  divine  Word,  verbum,  which  Jesus  announced  to  his  mother  that  he  was, 
immediately  on  his  birth,  as  recorded  in  the  Gospel  of  his  Infancy.  7 

Upon  the  Logos,  Bishop  Marsh,  in  his  Michaelis,  says,  "  Since,  therefore,  St.  John  has  adopted 
"  several  other  terms  which  were  used  by  the  Gnostics,  we  must  conclude  that  he  derived  also 
"  the  term  Aoyoc  from  the  same  source.     If  it  be  further  asked,  Whence  did  the  Gnostics  derive 

this  use  of  the  expression,  <  Word'  ?  I  answer,  that  they  derived  it  most  probably  from  the 
"  Oriental  or  Zoroastrian  philosophy,  from  which  was  borrowed  a  considerable  part  of  the  Mani- 
"  chean  doctrines.     In  the  Zendavesta,  we  meet  with  a  being  called  '  the  Word,'  who  was  not 


a 


1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  267. 

4  De  Iside  et  Osiride,  p.  370. 

6  See  his  note  in  voce  am  sin,  XI. 


3  Ibid.  p.  291. 
»  Maur.  Ind.  Seep.  Conf.  pp.  53  and  139. 


*  Ibid.  p.  262 
*  Vol.  IV.  p.  367. 


BOOK  III.   CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  4.  121 

"  only  prior  in  existence,  but  gave  birth  to  Ormuzd,  the  creator  of  good ;  and  to  Ahriman,  the 
"  creator  of  evil.  It  is  true,  that  the  work  which  we  have  at  present  under  the  title  of  Zendavesta, 
"  is  not  the  ancient  and  genuine  Zendavesta  j  yet  it  certainly  contains  many  ancient  and  genuine 
"  Zoroastrian  doctrines.  It  is  said,  likewise,  that  the  Indian  philosophers  have  their  Aoyog, 
"  which,  according  to  their  doctrines,  is  the  same  as  the  M-OVoyevrig." 

In  reply  to  this,  attempts  will  be  made  to  shew  that  the  Aoyog  of  John  is  different  from  the 
Oriental  Logos  :  all  mere  idle,  unmeaning  verbiage,  fit  only  for  those  described  by  Eusebius,  who 
wish  to  be  deceived  :  the  doctrines  as  well  as  the  terms  are  originally  the  same,  in  defiance  of  the 
ingenuity  of  well-meaning  devotees  to  hide  from  themselves  the  sources  whence  they  are  derived. 
The  variation  is  not  greater  than  might  be  expected  from  change  of  place,  of  language,  and  lapse 
of  time. 

Eusebius  acknowledges  that  the  doctrines  of  the  Christians,  as  described  in  the  first  chapter  of 
John,  are  perfectly  accordant  with  those  of  the  Platonists,  who  accede  to  every  thing  in  it,  until 
they  come  to  the  sentence,  Et  verbum  caro  factum  est.  This  seems  to  be  almost  the  only  point 
in  which  the  two  systems  differed.  The  philosophers  could  not  bring  themselves  to  believe  that 
the  Logos,  in  the  gross  and  literal  sense  of  the  Christians,  quitted  the  bosom  of  God,  to  undergo 
the  sorrowful  and  degrading  events  attributed  to  him.  This  appeared  to  them  to  be  a  degradation 
of  the  Deity.  Eusebius  allows,  what  cannot  be  denied,  that  this  doctrine  existed  long  anterior  to 
Plato  ;  and  that  it  also  made  part  of  the  dogmas  of  Philo  and  other  Hebrew  doctors.  He  might 
have  added  also,  had  he  known  it,  of  the  priests  of  Egypt,  and  of  the  philosophers  of  India. 

The  origin  of  the  verbum  caro  factum  est,  we  shall  presently  find  in  the  East.  It  was  not  new, 
but  probably  as  old  as  the  remainder  of  the  system.  Its  grossness  well  enough  suited  such  men 
as  Justin,  Papias,  and  Ireneus.1  For  the  same  reason  that  it  suited  them,  it  was  not  suitable  to 
such  men  as  Plato  and  Porphyry. 

In  the  doctrines  of  the  Hindoos  and  Persians,  as  it  has  already  been  stated,  the  third  person  in 
the  Trinity  is  called  both  the  Destroyer  and  the  Regenerator.  Although  in  the  Christian  Trinity 
the  Destroyer  is  lost  sight  of,  yet  the  Regenerator  is  found  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  neophite  is 
said  to  be  regenerate,  or  born  again,  by  means  of  this  holy  spiritus  or  mind.  Plutarch  says,  that 
Mithras  or  Oromasdes  was  frequently  taken  for  the  to  0s<oj/,  or  whole  deity,  and  that  Mithras  is 
often  called  the  second  mind.  "  Whereupon  he  observes,  how  great  an  agreement  there  was 
"  betwixt  the  Zoroastrian  and  the  Platonic  Trinity,  they  differing  in  a  manner  only  in  words  !"  2 
This  second  mind  is  evidently  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the  Christians,  so  accurately  described  above  in 
the  oracles  of  Zoroaster,  the  nn  ruh  of  the  second  verse  of  Genesis,  which  moved,  or  more  cor- 
rectly brooded,  (see  Fry's  Dictionary,)  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  This,  in  sacred  writ,  is  often 
called  nn  mil'  Ieue  ruh,  or  mi  "cyrbnAleim  ruh.  The  words  Ieue  and  Aleim  not  being  in  regimine, 
which  would  make  it  the  Spirit  of  Aleim,  or  of  Jehovah,  but  being  in  the  nominative  case,  they 
make  it  the  Ieue  ruh  or  Aleim  ruh. 

The  figure  in  the  Hindoo  caves  (whose  date  cannot  be  denied  to  be  long  anterior  to  the  time  of 
Moses)  of  the  second  person,  Cristna,  having  his  foot  bitten  by  the  serpent,  whose  head  he  is 
bruising,  proves  the  origin  of  Genesis. 

There  can  be  no  longer  any  reasonable  doubt  that  it  came  from  India,  and  as  the  Christian  Tri- 
nity is  to  be  found  in  its  first  chapter,  it  raises,  without  further  evidence,   a  strong  presumption 

These,  the  early  fathers  of  Christianity,  believed,  that  persons  were  raised  from  the  dead  scepissime ;  that  Jesus 
would  come,  before  that  generation  passed  away,  to  reign  upon  earth  for  a  thousand  years ;  and,  that  girls  were  fre- 
quently pregnant  by  demons. 
*  Cudworth,  Book  i.  Ch.  iv.  p.  289. 

R 


122  MACROBIUS   ON   THE   TRINITV. 

that,  that  also  came  from  India.  By  the  word  D'H^N  Aleim,  the  to  0sjov,  or  whole  Deity,  or 
Christian  Trinity,  is  meant.  By  the  word  r\>W*r\  rasit,  the  first  Emanation  or  iEon,  Wisdom  or 
the  Logos  is  meant,  and  by  the  word  r\T\  rich,  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  second  mind,  the  second 
emanation,  the  third  person  in  the  Trinity  is  meant — forming  altogether  the  whole  Godhead,  three 
persons  and  one  God. 

5.   Macrobius,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Dream  of  Scipio,  (a  work  of  Cicero's,)  which  he  ex- 
plains by  the  great  principles  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Pythagoreans  and  Platonists,   has  given  in 
the  clearest  manner,  in  his  account  of  the  Trinity  of  the  Gentiles,  a  description  of  the  Triad  or 
Trinity  of  the  orthodox, — the  triple  distinction  of  God  the  Father,  of  his  Logos,  and  of  the  Spi- 
ritus,  with  a  filiation  similar  to  that  which  exists  in  the  theology  of  the  Christians,  and  an  idea  of 
their  unity  inseparable  from  that  of  the  Creator.     It  seems,  in  reading  it,   as  if  we  were  listen- 
ing to  a  Christian  Doctor,  who  was  teaching  us  how  the  Spiritus  proceeds,  and  the  Son  is  engen- 
dered from  the  Father,  and  how  they  both  remain  eternally  attached  to  the  Paternal  unity,  not- 
withstanding their  action  on  the  intellectual  and  visible  world.     The  following  is  in  substance 
what  Macrobius  says. l    This  learned  theologian  distinguishes  first,  after  Plato,  the  God  Supreme, 
the  first  God,  whom  he  calls  with  the  Greek  philosophers  r  AyaQov,  the  Good,  par  excellence,  the 
First  Cause.     He  places  afterward  his  Logos,  his  intelligence,  which  he  calls  Mens  in  Latin,  and 
Ne$  in  Greek,2  which  contains  the  original  ideas  of  things,  or  the  ideas — intelligence  born  and 
produced  from  the  Supreme  God.     He  adds,   that  they  are  above  the  human  reason,  and  cannot 
be  comprehended  but  by  images  and  similitudes.     Thus,  above  the  corporeal  being  or  matter, 
either  celestial  or  terrestrial,   he  establishes  the  divinity,  of  which  he  distinguishes  three  degrees, 
Deus,  Mens,  and  Spiritus.     God,   says  he,  has  engendered  from  himself  by  the  superabundant 
fecundity  of  his  Majesty,  Mens  or  Mind,  with  the  Greeks  N«£  or  A070C.     Macrobius  then  de- 
scribes an  immense  graduated  chain  of  beings,  commencing  with  the  First  Cause,  to  be  born  or 
produced  from  itself.     He  says  that  the  three  first  links  of  this  immense  chain  are  the  Father,  his 
Logos,  Ne£,  Mens,  and  Anima  or  Spiritus  Mundi  ;  or,  in  the  Christian  phraseology,  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  the  principles  of  all  things,  and  placed  above  all  created  beings.     After  this 
he  goes  on  to  explain,  in  exact  Christian  style  of  language,  the  manner  in  which  the  Spirit  pro- 
ceeds, and  in  which  the  Son  is  begotten — engendered  by  the  Father.     If  ,a  trifling  difference  can  be 
discovered  between  the  doctrine  of  the  Pagan  Macrobius  and  that  of  the  orthodox  Christian,  it  is 
not  so  great  as  that  which  may  be  met  with  between  the  doctrines  or  opinions  of  different  sects  of 
even  orthodox  Christians  upon  this  subject.     Surely  a  greater  resemblance  need  not  be  desired 
between  the  Platonic  and  Christian  Trinities. 

Upon  the  Trinity  of  Plato,  M.  Dupuis  observes,  that  all  these  abstract  ideas,  and  these  subdivi- 
sions of  the  first  Unity,  are  not  new ;  that  Plato  is  not  the  author  of  them  ;  that  Parmenides 
before  him  had  described  them ;  that  they  existed  long  anterior  to  Plato ;  that  this  philosopher 
had  learned  them  in  Egypt  and  the  schools  of  the  East,  as  they  might  be  seen  in  the  writings  of 
Mercury  Trismegistus  and  Jamblicus,  which  contain  a  summary  of  the  theology  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  a  similar  theory  of  abstractions.  Marsilius  Ficinus  has  well  observed,  that  the  system  of 
three  principles  of  the  theology  of  Zoroaster  and  the  Platonicians,  had  the  greatest  similarity  with 
those  of  the  Christians,  and  that  the  latter  philosophy  was  founded  upon  the  former.  He  might 
have  said,  that  it  was  not  only  similar,  but  in  reality  the  same.  The  curious  reader  will  do  well  to 
consult  the  beautiful  and  luminous  essay  of  M.  Dupuis,  Sur  tous  les  Cultes,  on  this  subject ;  be 
will  find  himself  amply  repaid  for  his  trouble. 


1  Macrob.  Som.  Scip.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  ii. — vi.  2  Heb.  Rasit,  Wisdom. 


BOOK  III.    CHAP.  III.    SECT.  6.  123 

For  proofs  that  the  Grecians  worshiped  a  Trinity  in  Unity,  the  reader  may  consult  the  Classical 
Journal,  Vol.  IV.  p.  89.  It  is  there  shewn  that  their  Trinity  was  the  Jupiter  (that  is,  the  Iao) 
Machinator. 

Speaking  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Chaldeans,  Thomas  Burnet  says, '  "  In  prima  ordine  est  Su- 
"  prema  Trias.  Sic  philosophatur  Psellus."  Though  he  gives  no  account  of  what  this  Trias 
consisted,  there  is  not  much  room  to  doubt  that  it  was  the  Hindoo,  Zoroastrian,  Platonic  Triad. 

Mercury  was  called  Triceps  ;  Bacchus  Triambus  ;  Diana  Triformis  ;  and  Hecate  Tergemina. 

Tergeminamque  Heeatem,  tria  virginis  ora  Dianje.8 

S&TEIPA  occurs  as  a  title  of  Diana  on  the  brass  coins  of  Agathocles.3  , 

Plutarch4  says,  &jo  xai  MiQprjV  Hepa-ai  rov  MscnTijv  ovoy.ag&<ri.  Orpheus  also  calls  Bacchus 
Murris  Mediator,  the  same  as  Mithra  of  the  Persians. 5  Proserpine  had  three  heads  ;  the  Triglaf 
of  the  Vandals  had  also  three  heads  ;  and  Mithras  was  called  Tqnr'koi^iog. 

The  Trimurti  was  the  Trimighty  of  the  Saxons,  the  Trimegas  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  Ter-mag- 
nus  of  the  Latins. 6  The  Trinity  is  equally  found  amongst  the  Druids  of  Ireland  in  their  Taulae 
Fen  Molloch. 7  » 

Navarette,  in  his  account  of  China, 8  says,  "  This  sect  (of  Foe)  has  another  idol  they  call 
"  Sanpao.  It  consists  of  three,  equal  in  all  respects.  This,  which  has  been  represented  as  an 
"  image  of  the  most  blessed  Trinity,  is  exactly  the  same  with  that  which  is  on  the  hio-h  altar  of 
"  the  monastery  of  the  Trinitarians  at  Madrid.  If  any  Chinese  whatsoever  saw  it,  he  would  say 
"  the  San  Pao  of  his  country  was  worshiped  in  these  parts." 9 

I  must  now  beg  my  reader  to  turn  to  Book  I.  Chapter  II.  Sect.  4,  and  read  what  I  have  there 
said  respecting  the  material  or  Pantheistic  Trinity,  endeavoured  to  be  fixed  upon  Plato  and  the  Or- 
phic and  Oriental  philosophers,  and  I  think  he  must  be  perfectly  satisfied  of  the  improbability  that 
the  persons  who  held  the  refined  and  beautiful  system  which  I  have  developed,  could  ever  have 
entertained  a  belief  that  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  and  the  Earth,  were  the  creators  or  formers  of  them- 
selves. 

6.  As  the  whole,  or  nearly  the  whole,  of  the  ceremonies  of  the  Jews  were  borrowed  from  their 
Gentile  neighbours,  it  would  be  very  extraordinary  if  their  most  important  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
had  not  been  found  in  the  Jewish  religion.  I  shall,  therefore,  add  several  more  authorities  to 
those  already  laid  before  my  reader,  in  Book  II.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  5,  and  particularly  that  of  the  cele- 
brated Philo. 

Mr.  Maurice  l0  says,  that  the  first  three  sephiroth  of  the  Jewish  cabala  consist  of  first  the 
Omnipotent  Father ;  second  Divine  Wisdom ;  and  third  the  Binah  or  Heavenly  Intelligence, 
whence  the  Egyptians  had  their  CNEPH,  and  Plato  his  Na£  bypisgyoi;.  But  this  demiourgos 
is  supposed  to  be  the  Creator,  as  we  have  before  seen  that  he  must  necessarily  be,  if  he  be  the 
Destroyer.  Thus  some  of  the  early  Christians  confounding  these  fine  metaphysical  distinctions, 
and  at  a  loss  how  to  account  for  the  origin  of  evil,  supposed  the  world  to  be  created  by  a  wicked 
demiourgos.  The  confusion  arising  from  the  description  of  three  in  one,  and  one  in  three — the 
community  of  Persons  and  unity  of  Essence — the  admitted  mysterious  nature  of  the  Trinity,  and 
the  difficulty,  by  means  of  common  language,  of  explaining  and  of  reconciling  things  apparently 
irreconcilable,  may  nevertheless  be   easily  accounted  for.     On  the  subject  of  the  Destroyer  Mr. 


1  Cap.  iv.  p.  29.  *  ^Eneid,  iv.  511 ;  Maur.  Hind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  238  ;  Parkhurst,  p.  347. 

3  Payne  Knight,  Essay,  Gr.  Al.  Sect.  v.  p.  105.  4  De  Iside  et  Osiride,  p.  43. 

s  Stukeley,  Pakeog.  Sac.     No.  I.  p.  54.  6  D'Ancarville,  p.  95.  7  See  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  v.  Sect.  xix. 

8  Book  ii.  Ch.  x.,  and  Book  vi.  Ch.  xi.  o  Parkhurst,  p.  348. 

10  Hind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  183,  184. 

r  2 


124  PHILO'S  TRINITY   OP  THE   JEWS. 

Maurice  says, *  "  I  must  again  repeat,  that  it  would  be,  in  the  highest  degree,  absurd  to  continue 
"  to  affix  the  name  of  Destroyer,  to  their  third  hypostasis  in  the  triad,  -  when  it  is  notorious,  that 
"  the  Brahmins  deny  that  any  thing  can  be  destroyed,  and  insist  that  a  change  alone,  in  the  form 
"  of  objects  and  their  mode  of  existence,  takes  place.  One  feature,  therefore,  in  that  character, 
"  hostile  to  our  system,  upon  strict  examination,  vanishes."  He  then  shews,  from  the  Sephir 
Jetzirah,  that  the  three  superior  sephiroths  of  the  Jewish  cabala  were  invariably  considered  by 
the  ancient  Jews  in  a  very  different  light  from  the  other  seven  ;  that  the  first  three  were  regarded 
as  personalities,  but  the  last  seven  only  as  attributes. 3 

Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  Jochai 4  says,  "  Come  and  see  the  mystery  of  the  word  Elohim :  there  are 
"  three  degrees,  and  each  degree  by  itself  alone,  and  yet,  notwithstanding,  they  are  all  one,  and 
"  joined  together  in  one,  and  cannot  be  divided  from  each  other."  This  completely  justifies 
what  I  have  formerly  said,  respecting  the  words  bn  al  and  EDTI^N  aleim,  having  a  reference  to  the 

Trinity. 

Priestley  says,  "  But  Philo,  the  Jew,  went  before  the  Christians  in  the  personification  of  the 
"  Logos,  and  in  this  mode  of  interpreting  what  is  said  of  it  in  the  Old  Testament.  For  he  calls 
"  this  divine  word  a  second  God,  and  sometimes  attributes  the  creation  of  the  world  to  this  second 
"  God,  thinking  it  below  the  majesty  of  the  great  God  himself.  He  also  calls  this  personified 
"  attribute  of  God  his  zspoToyovog,  or  his  firstborn,  and  the  image  of  God.  He  says  that  he  is 
"  neither  unbegotten,  like  God,  nor  begotten,  as  we  are,  but  the  middle  between  the  two  extremes. 
"  We  also  find  that  the  Chaldee  paraphrasts  of  the  Old  Testament  often  render  the  word  of  God, 
"  as  if  it  were  a  being  distinct  from  God,  or  some  angel  who  bore  the  name  of  God,  and  acted  by 
"  deputation  from  him."  5 

In  reply  to  this  I  shall  be  told  that  Philo  Platonized  or  was  a  Platonist.  To  be  sure  he  was ; 
because  recondite,  cabalistic,  esoteric  Judaism,  was  the  same  as  Platonism.  It  would  have  been 
as  correct,  probably,  to  have  said  that  Plato  Hebraized  :  for  as  it  is  evident  that  the  Israelites 
held  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  where  was  it  so  likely  for  him  to  obtain  it  as  from  them  ?  Philo 
was  a  Jew  of  elevated  rank,  great  learning,  and  the  highest  respectability ;  the  very  man  to  whom 
we  have  a  right  to  look  for  the  real  doctrines,  both  esoteric  and  exoteric  of  the  Israelites :  and  we 
find  him  maintaining  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Platonic  and  Oriental  Trinity— doctrines  held  by  the 
nearest  neighbours  of  the  Jews,  both  on  the  East  and  West,  and  from  whom  Mr.  Spencer  has 
shewn,  that  they  took  almost  all  their  rites  and  ceremonies.  1  contend,  therefore,  that  the  doctrines 
taught  by  Philo  afford  the  strongest  presumption  that  these  were  also  the  doctrines  of  the  Jews. 

Of  Orpheus,  who  is  said  to  have  brought  the  knowledge  of  the  Trinity  into  Greece,  very  little 
is  known.  But  Damascius,  ITegi  A^cov,  giving  an  account  of  the  Orphic  theology,  among  other 
things  acquaints  us,  that  Orpheus  introduced  rpi[xo^ov  ®sov,  a  Triform  Deity. 6  This  was  the 
Platonic  philosophy  above  described. 

Of  this  person  Mr.  Payne  Knight 7  says,  "  The  history  of  Orpheus  is  so  confused,  and 
"  obscured  by  fable,  that  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  any  certain  information  concerning  him.  He 
"  appears  to  have  been  a  Thrasian,  and  to  have  introduced  his  philosophy  and  religion  into  Greece ; 
"  viz.  plurality  of  worlds,  and  the  true  solar  system  ;  nor  could  he  have  gained  this  knowledge 
"  from  any  people  of  which  history  has  preserved  any  memorial :  for  we  know  of  none  among 
"  whom  science  had  made  such  a  progress,  that  a  truth  so  remote  from  common  observation,  and 
"  so  contradictory  to  the  evidence  of  unimproved  sense,  would  not  have  been  rejected,  as  it  was 

1  Vol.  IV.  p.  388.  *  He  here  alludes  to  the  Hindoos.  3  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  182. 

*  Comment,  on  the  6th  Sec.  of  Leviticus.  s  Priestley,  Cor.  Christ.  Sect.  ii. 

6  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  336.  7  On  Priapus,  vide  note,  p.  33. 


BOOK  III.      CHAPTER    II.     SECTION   2.  125 

w  by  all  the  sects  of  Greek  philosophers,  except  the  Pythagoreans,  who  rather  revered  it  as  an 
"  article  of  faith,  than  understood  it  as  a  discovery  of  science. 

"  Thrace  was  certainly  inhabited  by  a  civilized  nation  at  some  remote  period ;  for  when  Philip 
"  of  Macedon  opened  the  gold  mines  in  that  country,  he  found  that  they  had  been  worked  before 
"  with  great  expense  and  ingenuity,  by  a  people  well  versed  in  mechanics,  of  whom  no 
"  memorials  whatever  are  extant."  I  think  memorials  of  these  people  may  be  found  in 
the  Pyramids,  Stonehenge,  the  walls  of  Tyryns,  and  the  Treasury  of  Messina. 

7-  The  following  extract  from  Mr.  Faber's  work  on  the  Origin  of  Heathen  Idolatry,  exhibits  a 

pretty  fair  proof  how  very  general  was  the  ancient  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  among  the  Gentiles : — 

"  Among   the   Hindoos  we  have  the  triad   of  Brama-Vistnou-Siva,  springing   from  the   monad 

"  Brahm  :  and  it  is  acknowledged,  that  these  personages  appear  upon  earth  at  the  commencement 

"  of  every  new  world,  in  the  human  form  of  Menu  and  his  three  sons.     Among  the  votaries  of 

"  Buddha  we  find  the  self- triplicated  Buddha  declared  to  be  the  same  as  the  Hindoo  Trimurti. 

"  Among  the  Buddhic  sect  of  the  Jainists,  we  have  the  triple  Jina,  in  whom  the  Trimurti  is 

"  similarly  declared  to  be  incarnate.    Among  the  Chinese,  who  worship  Buddha  under  the  name  of 

"  Fo,  we  still  find  this  God  mysteriously  multiplied  into  three  persons,   corresponding  with  the 

"  three  sons  of  Fo-hi,  who  is  evidently  Noah.     Among  the  Tartars  of  the  house  of  Japhet,  who 

"  carried  off  into  their  Northern  settlements  the  same  ancient  worship,  we  find  evident  traces  of  a 

"  similar  opinion  in  the  figure  of  the  triple  God  seated  on  the  Lotos,  as  exhibited  on  the  famous 

"  Siberian  medal  in  the  imperial  collection  at  Petersburgh  :  and  if  such  a  mode  of  representation 

"  required  to  be  elucidated,  we  should  have  the  exposition  furnished   us  in  the  doctrine  of  the 

"  Jakuthi  Tartars,  who,  according  to  Strahremberg,  are  the  most  numerous  people  of  Siberia : 

"  for  these  idolaters  worship  a  triplicated  deity  under  the  three  denominations  of  Artugon,   and 

"  Sc-hugo-tangon,  and  Tangara.     This  Tartar  god  is  the  same  even  in  appellation  with  the  Tanga 

"  Tanga  of  the  Peruvians :  who,  like  the  other  tribes  of  America,   seem  plainly  to  have  crossed 

*'  over  from  the  North-eastern  extremity  of  Siberia.     Agreeably  to  the  mystical  notion  so  familiar 

"  to  the   Hindoos,  that  the  self-triplicated  great  Father  yet  remained  but  one  in  essence,  the 

"  Peruvians  supposed  their  Tanga-tanga  to  be  one  in  three,  and  three  in  one :  and  hi  consequence 

"  of  the  union  of  Hero  worship  with  the  astronomical  and  material  systems  of  idolatry,  they  vene- 

"  rated  the  sun  and  the   air,  each  under  three  images  and  three  names.     The  same  opinions 

"  equally  prevailed  throughout  the   nations   which   lie  to   the  West   of  Hindostan.     Thus  the 

"  Persians  had  their  Ormusd,  Mithras, *  and  Ahriman  :  or,  as  the  matter  was  sometimes  repre- 

"  sented,  their  self-triplicating  Mithras.     The  Syrians  had  their  Monimus,  Aziz  and  Ares.     The 

"  Egyptians  had  their  Emeph,  Eicton,  and  Phtha.     The   Greeks  and  Romans  had  their  Jupiter, 

"  Neptune,  and  Pluto ;  three  in  number  though  one  in  essence,  and  all  springing  from  Cronus,  a 

"  fourth,  yet  older  God.     The   Canaanites  had  their  Baal-Spalisha  or  self- triplicated  Baal.     The 

"  Goths  had  their  Odin,  Vile,  and  Ve :  who  are  described  as  the  three  sons  of  Bura,  the  offspring 

"of  the  mysterious  cow.     And  the  Celts  had  their  three  bulls,  venerated  as  the  living  symbols  of 

"  the  triple  Hu  or  Menu.     To  the  same  class  we  must  ascribe  the  triads  of  the  Orphic  and 

M  Pythagorean  and  Platonic   schools  :  each  of  which  must  again  be  identified  with  the  imperial 

"  triad  of  the  old  Cbaldaic  or  Babylonian  philosophy.     This  last,  according  to  the  account  which  is 

"  given  of  it  by  Damascius,  was  a  triad  shining  throughout  the  whole  world,  over  which  presides  a 

"  Monad."  2 


*  Voss.,  de  Orig.  et  Prog.  Idol.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  ix.,  says,  that  the  word  Mither,  in  Persian,  means  Lord,  that  Mithras 
is  derived  from  Mither.    A  Mediator  is  called  Mithras  in  Persian.    Mithras  also  means  love,  pity. 

*  Book  vi.  Ch.  ii.  p.  470. 


it 
t( 


126  OBSERVATIONS    ON    THE   DOCTRINE   THAT    DESTRUCTION    IS    REGENERATION. 

Again  he  says,  "  To  the  great  Triad  of  the  Gentiles,  thus  springing  from  a  Monad,  was  ascribed 
"  the  creation  of  the  world,  or  rather  its  renovation  after  each  intervening  deluge.  It  was  likewise 
supposed  to  be  the  governing  power  and  the  intellectual  soul  of  the  universe.  In  short,  all  the 
attributes  of  Deity  were  profanely  ascribed  to  it.  This  has  led  many  to  imagine  that  the 
"  Pagans  did  fundamentally  worship  the  true  God,  and  that  even  from  the  most  remote  antiquity 
"  they  venerated  the  Trinity  in  Unity."  * 

Thus  it  is  evident,  from  the  Rev.  Mr.  Faber's  admission,  that  a  Being  called  a  Trinity,  three 
persons  and  one  God,  was  worshiped  by  all  the  ancient  nations  of  the  earth.  He  very  properly 
says  to  the  same  class  we  must  ascribe  the  triads  of  the  Orphic,  Pythagorean,  and  Platonic  schools. 

The  school  of  Plato  has  been  generally  looked  to  for  the  origin  of  the  Christian  Trinity,  but,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  would  be  more  correct  to  look  to  the  oracles  of  Zoroaster.  Christianity  may  have 
drawn  from  Platonism,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Plato  had  drawn  from  the  oracles  of  the 
East.  The  -Second  Mind,  or  the  Regenerator,  correctly  the  Holy  Ghost,  was  in  the  oracles  of 
Zoroaster,  and  will  be  shewn  to  have  been  in  the  baptismal  service  of  the  Magi.  And  "  the  many" 
to  whom  Mr.  Faber  alludes,  as  believing  that  the  Gentiles  venerated  the  Trinity  in  Unity,  believed 
what  was  perfectly  true.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Heathens  adored  the  Trinity  before 
the  Christians,  and  did  not  copy  it  from  Christianity.  If  either  copied,  the  Christians  must  have 
copied  from  their  Heathen  predecessors.  But  all  this  has  a  strong  tendency  to  prove,  that  what 
Ammonius  Saccas  said  was  true>  namely,  that  the  religions  of  the  Christians  and  the  Gentiles  were 
the  same,  when  stripped  of  the  meretricious  ornaments  with  which  the  craft  of  priests  had  loaded 
them. 

8.  Before  I  quit  the  subject  of  the  Persian  doctrines  it  may  not  be  irrelevant  again  to  observe, 
that  the  ancient  philosophers,   meditating  upon  the  nature  of  the  universe,  and  confining  their 
theories  and  systems  to  the  knowledge  which  they  derived  from  experience  or  through  the  medium 
of  their  senses,  the  only  mode  by  which  knowledge  or  ideas  can  be  acquired,  discovered  that  they 
had  no  experience  of  the  destruction  of  matter ;  that  when  it  appears  to  the  superficial  observer 
to  be  destroyed,  it  has  only  changed  its  mode  of  existence  ;  that  what  we  call  destruction,  is  only 
reproduction  or  regeneration.    On  this  account  it  is  that  we  always  find  the  Destroyer  united  with 
the  Creator,  and  also  with  the  Preserver  or  Saviour,  as  one  person.     Upon  this  curious  philoso- 
phical and  very  true  principle,  an   infinite  variety  of  fictions  have  been  invented,  by  the  sportive 
genius  of  poets,  or  the  craft  of  priests.     But  the  simple  philosophical  principle  was  at  the  bottom 
of  them  all ;  and  it  was  that  only  which  philosophers  believed.     God  only  knows  whither  the 
vanity  of  the  moderns  has  carried  them,   or  will  carry  them ;  but  the  ancients   confined  their 
wisdom  or  knowledge,  in  this  instance  at  least,  within  the  compass  of  their  ideas — the  limit 
of  veal  knowledge  ;  and  as,  in  their  present  state  of  existence,  they  could  not  receive  the  idea  of 
the  annihilation  of  matter  through  the  medium  of  the  senses,  they  could  not  form  an  idea  of  it  at 
all ;  and  consequently  could  not  receive  as  an  article  of  faith  that  of  which  they  must  necessarily 
remain  in  profound  ignorance.     Matter  might  be  created  from  nothing,  or  it  might  not  be  created; 
their  senses  told  them  it  existed  ;  but  to  them  it  was  unknown  whether  it  had  ever  not  existed; 
and  they  did  not  pretend  to  decide,  as  an  article  of  faith,  the  question — for  in  its  very  nature  it 
was  not  possible  to  decide  it  by  human  means.     Not  so  the  wise  Christian  :  he  and  his  priest 
laugh  at  the  ignorance  of  the  ancient  philosopher ;  and  at  once  declare  that  matter  was  created ; 
and  that  they  have  a  perfect  idea  respecting  its  creation,  which  they  can  by  no  possibility  have 
received  from  experience,  or  through  the  medium  of  the  senses.     With  the  ancient  philosopher 
the  Author  confesses  his  ignorance.     The  Oriental  philosopher,  who  penned  the  first  verse  of 

■  Book  vi.  Ch.  ii.  p.  471. 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  8.  127 

Genesis,  was  too  wise  to  give  an  opinion  upon  the  subject.  He  merely  says,  "  God  formed  (or 
re-formed)  the  earth;"  the  question  of  its  creation  from  nothing,  or  its  eternity,  he  did  not 
touch. 

Thus  the  reader  sees  that  from  the  caves  of  Upper  India,  Persia,  and  Egypt,  the  doctrine  of 
the  Christian  Trinity  was  undoubtedly  drawn.  But  though  these  countries  were  the  places  where 
this  doctrine  flourished  many  ages  before  Christianity  ;  yet  it  has  been  supposed  that  it  was  from 
the  Platonists  of  Greece,  who  had  learned  it  from  these  three  nations,  that  the  Christians  imme- 
diately drew  their  doctrine.  And  if  the  keen  eye  of  a  modern  Thomas  Aquinas  should  discover 
some  minute  metaphysical  variation  between  the  ancient  and  modern  systems,  this  will  only  be 
what  we  may  expect  to  arise  from  the  lapse  of  ages,  and  the  difficulty  of  conveying  ideas,  so  very 
abstruse,  from  one  language  into  another.  Nor  will  it  be  very  surprising  if  the  profound  doctrines 
of  philosophers,  like  Plato  and  Pythagoras,  should  happen  to  have  been  misunderstood  by  such 
philosophers  as  Papias  and  Ireneus.  And  if  this  should  prove  to  have  been  the  fact,  the  philo- 
sopher of  the  present  day  may  not  think  the  modern  deviation  any  improvement  upon  the 
system. 

I  shall  add  no  more  at  present  on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity  or  Cabala.  I  shall  return  to  it  very 
often;  and  it  will  not  be  till  I  come  nearly  to  the  end  of  this  volume  of  my  work,  that  I  shall  unfold 
the  whole  of  what  I  have  to  disclose  on  this  subject ;  when  several  apparent  inconsistencies  will 
be  reconciled. 


(    128    ) 


BOOK  IV. 


CHAPTER   J. 


PROPER  MODE  OF  VIEWING  THE  RELIGION. — LIFE  OF  CRISTNA. — SUBJECT  CONTINUED.  MATUREA. — SIB 
W.  JONES'S  EXPLANATION  OF  THE  CIRCUMSTANCES,  AND  MR.  MAURICE'S  ADMISSIONS.  —  REFLEC- 
TIONS ON  THE  ABOVE. — SOLEMN  CONSIDERATIONS  OF  MR.  MAURICE'S  IN  EXPLANATION.— DIGRESSION 
ON  THE  BLACK  COLOUR  OF  ANCIENT  GODS;  OF  THE  ETYMOLOGY  OF  THE  NILE  AND  OSIRIS. — SUBJECT 
CONTINUED. — CHRIST  BLACK,  AN  ANSWER  TO  A  SOLEMN  CONSIDERATION. — OTHER  SOLEMN  CONSIDE- 
RATIONS.— OBSERVATIONS  ON  MR.  MAURICE'S  SOLEMN  CONSIDERATIONS. — MR.  MAURICE'S  PAMPHLETS. 
— BACK   RECKONINGS.      MATUREA. — BRYANT  AND   DR.   A.   CLARKE   ON   THIS   MYTHOS. 


1.  Having  shewn  that  the  Hindoos  and  Persians  had  certain  of  the  leading  articles  of  what  is 
usually  called  the  Christian  religion,  some  thousands  of  years,  probably,  before  the  time  assigned 
to  Jesus, — the  actual  history  of  the  birth  and  life  of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity,  or  of  the 
Saviour  of  the  Romish  or  modern  Christian  religion,  will  now  be  given ;  from  which  it  will 
be  evident  to  the  reader  whence  most  of  the  corruptions  in  the  histories  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
have  been  derived. 

When  a  person  takes  a  view  of  the  whole  of  what  has  constituted  the  Christian  system,  at  any 
period  of  the  time  during  which  it  has  existed,  if  he  mean  to  form  a  correct  idea  of  it,  he  must  not 
confine  his  observation  to  any  one  or  two  of  the  divisions  of  which  it  consists  at  the  time  of  his 
survey,  but  he  must  take,  as  it  were,  a  bird's  eye  view  of  it.  He  must  bring  all  its  numerous 
subdivisions  within  the  field  of  his  telescopic  vision.  No  doubt  each  of  them  will  dispute  the  pro- 
priety of  this,  because  there  is  not  one  of  them,  however  small  and  contemptible  it  may  be,  which 
will  not  maintain  that  it  is  the  sole  and  true  religion,  all  the  others  being  merely  heresies  or  cor- 
ruptions. To  this,  however,  the  philosopher,  inquiring  only  for  the  truth,  will  pay  no  attention : 
each  is  an  integral  part,  and  the  union  of  the  whole  forms  the  religion  of  that  day ;  though  it  is 
very  possible  that  it  may  differ  essentially  from  that  taught  by  Jesus,  or  from  the  religion  of  the 
present  day. 

If  a  person  be  disposed  to  dispute  the  doctrine  here  laid  down,  I  would  beg  to  ask  him  what  he 
would  do  if  he  undertook  to  make  a  survey  of  the  religion  of  India.  t  Would  he  consider 
only  the  religion  of  the  followers  of  Vishnu ;  or  of  that  of  the  followers  of  Cali ;  or  of  that  of  the 
followers  of  Buddha  ?  No  :  he  would  consider  each  of  these  as  parts  of  the  grand  whole ;  all  de- 
rived from  one  common  source  ;  and  reason  upon  them  accordingly.  In  the  same  manner  he  will 
consider  the  sects  of  Christians,  when  he  takes  a  philosophical  view  of  the  religion.  In  carrying 
this  intention  into  effect,  I  shall,  of  course,  often  have  occasion  to  notice  the  writings  of  Christians 
of  former  times,  but  which  are  now  little  known.  Of  this  kind  are  what  are  called  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels.  This  being  the  correct  mode  of  viewing  the  religion,  it  seems  evident  that  if  a  general 
corruption  have  pervaded  all  its  sects,  we  must  not  expect  to  find  the  cause  or  origin  of  this  cor- 


BOOK    IV.    CHAPTER   I.   SECTION   2.  129 

ruption  applicable  to  one  sect  only  j  but,  on  the  contrary,  we  shall  find  it  apply  in  a  very  consi- 
derable degree  to  the  whole  of  them. 

It  will  not  apply  alone  to  the  gospel  of  Paul,  or  of  Montanus,  or  of  Marcion,  or  of  the  Egyptians, 
but  it  will  apply  to  them  all  indiscriminately,  orthodox  and  heterodox,  without  any  partiality  to 
any  one  of  then}.  But  it  cannot  be  reasonably  expected  that  the  exact  place  should  be  pointed 
out  where  every  one  of  the  facts  stated  in  the  whole  of  the  numerous  gospels,  or  histories  of  the 
religion,  came  from.  The  only  question  will  be,  whether  sufficient  be  pointed  out  to  convince  the 
mind  of  the  impartial  reader  of  the  identity  of  the  systems,  or  of  the  truth  of  the  proposition  meant 
to  be  established. 

It  will  now  be  shewn,  in  the  first  place,  that  from  the  history  of  the  second  person  of  the  Indian 
Trinity,  many  of  the  particulars  of  the  gospel  histories  of  the  Christians  have  been  compiled. 

The  book  called  the  Bhagavat  Geeta,  which  contains  the  life  of  Cristna,  is  allowed  to  be  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  puranas,  for  its  sublimity  and  beauty.  It  lays  claim  to  nearly  the 
highest  antiquity  that  any  Indian  composition  can  boast :  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Maurice,  a  very 
competent  judge,  allows,  that  there  is  ample  evidence  to  prove  that  it  actually  existed  nearly  four 
thousand  years  ago.  Sir  William  Jones  says,  "  That  the  name  of  Chrishna,  and  the  general  outline 
"  of  his  story,  were  long  anterior  to  the  birth  of  our  Saviour,  and  probably  to  the  time  of  Homer, 
"  we  know  very  certainly."  In  fact,  the  sculptures  on  the  walls  of  the  most  ancient  temples, — 
temples  by  no  one  ever  doubted  to  be  long  anterior  to  the  Christian  aera — as  well  as  written  works 
equally  old,  prove,  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  the  superior  antiquity  of  the  history  of  Cristna, 
to  that  of  Jesus.  The  authority  of  the  unwilling  witness,  Sir  W.  Jones,  without  attempting  any 
other  proof  of  this  fact,  is  enough.  But  in  the  course  of  this  work  many  Other  corroborating  cir- 
cumstances will  be  produced,  which,  independently  of  his  authority,  will  put  the  matter  beyond 
question. 

2.  These  observations  being  premised  respecting  the  Bhagavat  Geeta,   we  will  now  consider 
some  of  the  leading  facts  which  are  stated  in  it  relating  to  the  God  Cristna,  Crisna,  or  Chrishna. l 
These  we  shall  find  are  copies  of  the  Christian  gospel  histories,  or  the  Christian  gospel  histories 
are  copies  from  them,  or  they  have  both  been  copied  from  an  older  mythos. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Cristna  of  India  is  always  represented  as  a  Saviour  or  Preserver  of  man- 
kind, precisely  the  same  as  Jesus  Christ.  While  he  is  thus  described  as  a  Saviour,  he  is  also 
represented  to  be  really  the  Supreme  Being,  taking  upon  himself  the  state  of  man  :  that  is,  to 
have  become  incarnate  in  the  flesh,  to  save  the  human  race,  precisely  as  Jesus  is  said  to  have  done, 
by  the  professors  of  the  orthodox  Christian  faith.  This  is  the  Verbum  caro  factum  est  of  St.  John, 
to  which  I  alluded  in  Book  III.  Chap.  III.  Sect.  4. 

As  soon  as  Cristna  was  born,  he  was  saluted  with  a  chorus  of  Deutas  or  Devatas  or  Angels, 
with  divine  hymns,  just  as  it  is  related  of  Jesus  in  the  orthodox  Gospel  of  Luke,  ch.  ii.  13,  14. 
He  was  cradled  among  shepherds,  to  whom  were  first  made  known  the  stupendous  feats  which 
stamped  his  character  with  marks  of  the  divinity.  The  circumstances  here  detailed,  though  not 
literally  the  same  as  those  related  of  Jesus,  are  so  nearly  the  same,  that  it  is  evident  the  one 
account  has  been  taken  from  the  other.  The  reader  will  remember  the  verse  of  the  gospel  history, 
And  there  were  shepherds  tending  their  flocks  by  night.     Luke  ii.  8. 

Soon  after  Cristna's  birth,  he  was  carried  away  by  night  and  concealed  in  a  region  remote  from 
his  natal  place,  for  fear  of  a  tyrant  whose  destroyer  it  was  foretold  he  would  become ;  and  who 
had,  for  that  reason,  ordered  all  the  male  children  born  at  that  period  to  be  slain.     This  story  is 

1  Sir  W.  Jones  always  spells  the  name  of  this  celebrated  person  Chrishna. 


130  SUBJECT   CONTINUED — MATUREA. 

the  subject  of  an  immense  sculpture  in  the  cave  at  Elephanta,1  where  the  tyrant  is  represented 
destroying  the  children.     The  date  of  this  sculpture  is  lost  in  the  most  remote  antiquity.     It  must, 
at  the  very  latest  period,  be  fixed  at  least  many  hundred  years  previous  to  the  birth  of  Jesus 
Christ,  as  we  shall  presently  see.     But  with  much  greater  probability  thousands  instead  of  hun- 
dreds of  years  might  be  assigned  to  its  existence.     Cristna  was,  by  the  male  line,  of  royal  descent, 
though  he  was  actually  born  in  a  state  the  most  abject  and  humiliating— in  a  dungeon— as  Jesus 
was  descended  from  King  David  and  was  born  in  a  cave,  used  as  a  stable.     The  moment  Cristna 
was  born,  the  whole  room  was  splendidly  illuminated,  and  the  countenances  of  his  father  and  mother 
emitted  rays  of  glory.     According  to  the  Evangelium  Infantice  "  Spelunca  repleta  erat  luminibus, 
"  lucernarum  et  candelarum  fulgorum  excedentibus,   et  solari  luce  majoribus."      Cristna  could 
speak  as  soon  as  he  was  born,  and  comforted  his  mother,  as  did  the  infant  Jesus,  according  to  the 
same  gospel  history.     As  Jesus  was  preceded  and  assisted  by  his  kinsman,  John,   so  Cristna  was 
preceded  by  his  elder  brother,   Ram,   who  was  born  a  little  time  before  him,  and  assisted  him  in 
purifying  the  world,  polluted  with  demons  and  monsters.     Ram  was  nourished  and  brought  up  by 
the  same  foster  parents  as  Cristna.     Thus  the  Gospel  of  James  2  states,  that  the  prophecy  of  Za- 
chariah  and  the  supernatural  pregnancy  of  his  wife  being  notorious,   Herod  suspected  that  John 
might  be  the  expected  Messiah,  and  commanded  him  to  be  delivered  up,  in  order  that  he  might 
murder  him ;  but  Elizabeth  had  sent  him  into  the  wilderness  to  his  cousin,   by  which  means  he 
escaped.     Cristna  descended  into  Hades  or  Hell,   and  returned  to  Vaicontha,  his  proper  paradise. 
One  of  his  epithets  was  that  of  a  good  shepherd,  which  we  know  was  that  of  Jesus.    After  his  death, 
like  Jesus  Christ,  he  ascended  into  heaven. 3    From  the  glory  described  above,  in  the  Evangelium 
Infantiae,  we  see  the  reason  why,  in  all  pictures  of  the  Nativity,  the  light  is  made  to  arise  from  the 
body  of  the  infant,  and  why  the  father  and  mother  are  often  depicted  with  glories  round  their 
heads. 

3.  After  the  birth  of  Cristna,  the  Indian  prophet  Nared,  Xotpog,  having  heard  of  his  fame,  vi- 
sited his  father  and  mother  at  Gokul,  examined  the  stars,  &c,  and  declared  him  to  be  of  celestial 
descent.  As  Mr.  Maurice  observes,  here  is  a  close  imitation  of  the  Magi  guided  by  his  star  and 
visiting  the  Infant  in  Bethlehem.  Cristna  was  said  to  have  been  born  at  Mathura,  (pronounced 
Mattra,)  on  the  river  Jumna,  where  many  of  his  miracles  were  performed,  and  in  ivhich  at  this  day 
he  is  held  in  higher  veneration  than  in  any  other  place  in  Hindostan.  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  The 
"  Arabic  edition  of  the  Evangelium  Infantiae  records  Matarea,  near  Hermopolis,  in  Egypt,  to 
"  have  been  the  place  where  the  Infant  Saviour  resided  during  his  absence  from  the  land  of  Judaea, 
"  and  until  Herod  died.  At  this  place  Jesus  is  reported  to  have  wrought  many  miracles  ;  and, 
"  among  others,  to  have  produced  in  that  arid  region  a  fountain  of  fresh  water,  the  only  one  in 
"  Egypt.  Hinc  ad  Sycamorum  illam  urbem  digressi  sunt,  quae  hodie  Matarea  vocatur  ;  et  produxit 
"  Dominus  Jesus  fontem  in  Matarea,  in  quo  Diva  Maria  (Cristna's  mother  has  also  the  epithet 
"  Deva  prefixed  to  her  name)  tunicam  ejus  lavit.  Ex  sudore  autem,  qui  a  Domino  Jesu  defiuxit, 
"  balsamum  in  ilia  regione  provenit."4 

M.  Savary  says,  that  at  a  little  distance  from  Heliopolis  is  the  small  village  of  Matarea,  so 
called  because  it  has  a  fresh-water  spring,  the  only  one  in  Egypt.     This  spring  has  been  rendered , 
famous  by  tradition,  which  relates  that  the  holy  family  fleeing  from  Herod  came  hither ;  that  the 

1  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  149.  2  Protevangeliura  Jacobi,  p.  23,  apud  Fabric,  p.  25. 

3  Maur.  Ind.  Ant. 

«  Evangelium  Infan.  Arab,  et  Lat.  p.  71,  ed.  Syke,  1697 ;  Maur.  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  318 ;  Jones  on  the  Canon,  Vol.  II. 
Part  III.  Ch.  xxii. 


BOOK  IV.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  3.  131 

Virgin  bathed  the  holy  child  Jesus  in  this  fountain;  and  that  much  balsam  was  formerly  produced 
in  the  neighbourhood.1 

Eusebius  and  Athanasius  state,  that  when  Joseph  and  Mary  arrived  in  Egypt,  they  took  up 
their  abode  in  a  city  of  the  Thebais,  in  which  was  a  superb  temple  of  Serapis.  On  their  going 
into  the  temple,  all  the  statues  fell  flat  on  their  faces  to  the  Infant  Saviour.  This  story  is  also 
told  by  the  Evangelium  Infantiae. 2 

After  Cristna  came  to  man's  estate,  one  of  his  first  miracles  was  the  cure  of  a  leper.  Matthew 
(in  ch.  viii.  ver.  3)  states  an  early  miracle  performed  by  Jesus  to  have  been  exactly  similar,  viz. 
the  cure  of  a  leper.  Upon  another  occasion  a  woman  poured  on  the  head  of  Cristna  a  box  of 
ointment,  for  which  he  cured  her  of  her  ailment.  Thus,  in  like  manner,  a  woman  came  and 
anointed  the  head  of  Jesus.    Matt.  xxi.  7. 

At  a  certain  time  Cristna  taking  a  walk  with  the  other  cowherds  with  whom  he  was  brought  up, 
they  chose  him  for  their  king,  and  every  one  had  a  place  under  him  assigned  to  him.  Nearly  the 
same  story  is  related  of  Jesus  and  his  playfellows.  At  another  time,  the  Infant  Jesus  declaring 
himself  to  be  the  good  shepherd,  turned  all  his  young  companions  into  sheep ;  but  afterward,  at  the 
solicitation  of  their  parents,  restored  them  to  their  proper  form.  This  is  the  counterpart  of  a 
story  of  the  creation,  by  Cristna,  of  new  sheep  and  new  cow-boys,  when  Brahma,  to  try  his  divi- 
nity, had  stolen  those  which  belonged  to  Nanda's,  his  father's,  farm. 3  To  shew  his  humility  and 
meekness,  he  condescended  to  wash  the  feet  of  the  Brahmins,  as  Jesus  did  those  of  his  disciples. 
John  xiii.  5,  &c 

Cristna  had  a  dreadful  combat  with  the  serpent  Calinaga, 4  which  had  poisoned  all  the  cow- 
herds. In  the  Apocryphal  Gospel  above  alluded  to,  the  infant  Saviour  had  a  remarkable  adventure 
with  a  serpent,  which  had  poisoned  one  of  his  companions. 5 

Cristna  was  sent  to  a  tutor  to  be  instructed,  and  he  instantly  astonished  him  by  his  profound 
learning.  In  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  it  is  related,  that  Jesus  was  sent  to  Zaccheus  to  be  taught, 
and,  in  like  manner,  he  astonished  him  with  his  great  learning.  This  also  must  remind  the  reader 
of  the  disputation  in  the  temple  with  the  Jewish  doctors.  (Luke  ii.  46,  47.)  Cristna  desired  his 
mother  to  look  into  his  mouth  and  she  saw  all  the  nations  of  the  world  painted  in  it.  The  Virgin 
saw  the  same  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus. 6  Mr.  Maurice  observes  that  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  is 
alluded  to  by  Ireneus, 7  which  shews  that  it  was  among  the  earliest  of  the  ancient  gospel  histories. 

Finally,  Cristna  was  put  to  death  by  being  crucified ;  he  descended  into  hell,  and  afterward 
ascended  into  heaven.  For  further  particulars,  see  Maurice's  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  pp.  149,  &c.  The 
descent  into  hades  or  hell,  and  the  ascent  into  paradise  or  heaven,  is  stated  by  Mr.  Maurice ;  the 
crucifixion  is  not  stated  by  him  ;  but  my  authority  for  the  assertion  I  shall  adduce  presently. 

It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  deny  the  close  connexion  between  the  histories  of  Jesus  and 
of  Cristna.  We  now  come  to  the  most  important  point — how  such  connexion  is  to  be  rendered 
consistent  with  the  existence  of  the  whole  of  the  Christian  system  as  at  present  expounded  by 
our  priests, — how  the  priests  are  to  explain  it  away, — how  those  men  who  are  so  unfortunate  as 
to  feel  themselves  obliged  to  yield  to  such  conclusive  evidence  can  be  proved  to  be  what  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Maurice,  in  true  orthodox  strain,  calls  impious  infidels. 

1  Savary's  Travels  in  Egypt,  Vol.  I.  p.  126. 

2  Vide  Euseb.  Demon.  Evang.  Lib.  vi.  Cap.  xx. ;  Athan.  de  Incarnat.  Verbi,  Vol.  I.  p.  89. 

3  Maurice,  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  322. 

4  Call  is  now  the  Goddess  of  a  sect  in  opposition  to  that  of  Cristna,  and  Naga  means  serpent.    It  is  evidently  the 
same  as  the  old  English  word  for  serpent — Hag. 

4  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  322.  6  Maur.  Bram.  Fraud  Exposed,  p.  114. 

■>  Adv.  Heres.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xvii.  p.  104,  ed.  fol.  1596. 

s2 


132  REFLECTIONS   ON   THE   ABOVE. 

4.  The  mode  in  which  Sir  W.  Jones  gets  over  the  difficulty  is  very  easy.  Without  pretending 
that  he  has  any  variation  of  manuscripts,  or  other  authority,  to  justify  him,  but  merely  because  he 
finds  the  facts  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  existence  of  the  whole  of  the  present  Christian  system, 
as  he  chooses  to  expound  it,  he  asserts  the  passages  containing  them  to  be  interpolations  from 
spurious  gospels  ;  but,  unfortunately  for  his  credit,  this,  for  many  reasons,  will  not  obviate  the 
difficulty.  It  is  evident  that  much  of  the  history  is  the  same  as  the  orthodox  gospels,  as  well  as  of 
those  called  spurious. 

In  reference  to  the  opinion  of  Sir  W.  Jones,  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  For,  however  happy  and 
"  ingenious,  as  it  certainly  is,  may  be  the  conjecture  of  Sir  W.  Jones  concerning  the  interpolation 
"  of  the  Bramin  records  from  the  Apocryphal  Gospels,  it  still  affords  but  a  partial  explanation  of 
"  the  difficulty.  Many  of  the  Mythological  sculptures  of  Hindostan  that  relate  to  the  events  in 
"  the  history  of  this  Avatar,  more  immediately  interesting  to  the  Christian  world,  being  of  an  age 
"  undoubtedly  anterior  to  the  Christian  aera,  while  those  sculptures  remain  unanswerable  testi- 
"  monies  of  the  facts  recorded,  the  assertion,  unaided  by  these  collateral  proofs,  rather  strengthens 
"  than  obviates  the  objection  of  the  Sceptic.  Thus  the  sculptured  figures,  copied  by  Sonnerat, 
"  from  one  of  the  oldest  pagodas,  and  engraved  in  this  volume,  the  one  of  which  represents 
"  Chreeshna  dancing  on  the  crushed  head  of  the  serpent ;  and  the  other,  the  same  personage  en- 
"  tangled  in  its  enormous  folds,  to  mark  the  arduousness  of  the  contest,  while  the  enraged  reptile 
"  is  seen  biting  his  foot,  together  with  the  history  of  the  fact  annexed,  could  never  derive  their 
"  origin  from  any  information  contained  in  the  Spurious  Gospels." 

A°-ain,  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  To  return  to  the  more  particular  consideration  of  these  parts  of  the 
"  life  of  Chreeshna,  which  are  above  alluded  to  by  Sir  William  Jones,  which  have  been  paralleled 
"  with  some  of  the  leading  events  in  the  life  of  our  blessed  Saviour,  and  are,  in  fact,  considered  by 
"  him  as  interpolations  from  the  spurious  Gospels ;  I  mean  more  particularly  his  miraculous  birth 
"  at  midnight ;  the  chorus  of  Devatas  that  saluted  with  hymns  the  divine  infant  as  soon  as  born ; 
"  his  being  cradled  amongst  shepherds,  to  whom  were  first  made  known  those  stupendous  feats 
"  that  stamped  his  character  with  divinity  ;  his  being  carried  away  by  night,  and  concealed  in  a 
"  region  remote  from  the  scene  of  his  birth, 1  from  fear  of  the  tyrant  Cansa,  whose  destroyer  it 
"  was  predicted  he  would  prove,  and  who,  therefore,  ordered  all  the  male  children  born  at  that 
"period  to  be  slain:  his  battle,  in  his  infancy,  with  the  dire,  envenomed  serpent  Calija,2and 
"  crushing  his  head  with  his  foot ;  his  miracles  in  succeeding  years  ;  his  raising  the  dead  ;  his  de- 
"  scending  to  Hades  ;  and  his  return  to  Vaicontha,  the  proper  paradise  of  Veeshnu,"  &c,  &c,  &c. 

5.  Upon  the  plea  of  interpolation,  which  Sir  W.  Jones  has  used  to  account  for  the  extraordinary 
similarity  in  the  lives  of  Jesus  and  of  Cristna,  and  which  Mr.  Maurice  has  allowed,  happy  and 
ingenious  as  it  is  !  to  be  altogether  unsatisfactory ;  it  may  be  asked,  what  could  induce  the  Brah- 
mins, the  most  proud,  conceited  and  bigoted  of  mankind,  to  interpolate  their  ancient  books ;  to 
insert  in  them  extracts  from  the  gospel  histories,  or  sacred  books  of  people  very  nearly  total 
strangers  to  them  ;  very  few  in  numbers,  and  looked  on  by  them  with  such  contempt,  that  they 
would  neither  eat,  drink,  nor  associate  with  them  (which,  if  they  had  done,  they  would  have 
been  contaminated,  and  ruined  by  becoming  outcasts  from  their  order)  ;— people  who  came  as 
beggars  and  wanderers  soliciting  a  place  of  refuge  ?  It  cannot  be  pretended  that  the  Brahmins 
wished  to  make  converts ;  for  this  is  directly  contrary  to  their  faith  and  practice.  The  books 
in  which  these  interpolations  are  found,  were  obtained  from  them  with  the  greatest  difficulty  ; 

— — ^ — _ — , — ___ — . ~ — — ^— — — — — —  ^ 

1  And  Mr.  Maurice  might  have  added,  called  Mattra  or  Maturea,  the  same  name  as  the  place  to  which  Christ  was 
carried,  according  to  Christian  tradition,  as  we  have  already  shewn. 

*  Calija,  this  is  another  name  for  the  Calinaga,  explained  in  note  p.  131. 


BOOK  IV.    CHAPTER  I.   SECTION  5.  133 

they  have  every  appearance  of  very  great  antiquity  j  and  are  found  concealed  in  the  recesses  of 
their  temples,  evidently  built  many  centuries  before  the  Christian  aera.  And  though  the  books  in 
which  they  are  found  are  scarce,  yet  they  are  sufficiently  numerous,  and  spread  over  a  sufficient 
extent  of  country,  to  render  it  impossible  to  interpolate  them  all,  if  they  had  been  so  disposed. 
Upon  the  impossibility  of  interpolating  the  old  Hindoo  books,  I  shall  treat  at  large  hereafter. 

But  how  is  the  figure  in  the  cave  at  Elephanta  to  be  acounted  for ;  that  prominent  and  ferocious 
figure,  as  Mr.  Maurice  calls  it,  surrounded  by  slaughtered  infants,  and  holding  a  drawn  sword  ? 
If  it  were  only  a  representation  of  the  evil  principle,  how  came  he  only  to  destroy  infants  ;  and, 
as  I  learn  from  Mr.  Forbes's  Oriental  Memoirs, x  those  infants,  boys  f  He  is  surrounded  by  a 
crowd  of  figures  of  men  and  women,  evidently  supplicating  for  the  children.  This  group  of  figures 
has  been  called  the  Judgment  of  Solomon  ;  as  Mr.  Forbes  justly  says,  very  absurdly.  But,  at  the 
same  time  he  admits,  that  there  are  many  things  in  these  caves  which  bear  a  resemblance  to 
prominent  features  in  the  Old  Testament.  Over  the  head  of  the  principal  figure  in  this  group, 
are  to  be  seen  the  mitre,  the  crosier,  and  the  cross — true  Christian  emblems. 

Again  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  All  these  circumstances  of  similarity  are  certainly  very  surprising, 
"  and,  upon  any  other  hypothesis  than  that  offered  by  Sir  W.  Jones,  at  first  sight,  seem  very 
"  difficult  to  be  solved.  But  should  that  solution,  from  the  allowed  antiquity  of  the  name  of 
"  Chrisna,  and  the  general  outline  of  his  story,  confessedly  anterior  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  and 
"  probably  as  old  as  Homer,  as  well  as  the  apparent  reluctance  of  the  haughty,  self- conceited 
"  Brahmin  to  borrow  any  part  of  his  creed,  or  rituals,  or  legends,  from  foreigners  visiting  India, 
"  not  be  admitted  by  some  of  my  readers  as  satisfactory,  I  have  to  request  their  attention  to  the 
"  following  particulars,  which  they  will  peruse  with  all  the  solemn  consideration  due  to  a  question 
"  of  such  high  moment." 

We  will  now  attend  with  solemn  consideration  to  these  particulars,  offering  such  observa- 
as  occur  upon  each,  as  they  come  in  order. 

But,  gentle  reader,  if  you  please,  we  will,  as  we  go  along  with  the  Reverend  Gentleman,  not 
forget  what  Lord  Shaftsbury  so  shrewdly  observed,  that  solemnity  is  of  the  essence  of  imposture. 

"  And  first  with  respect  to  the  name  of  Christna,  (for  so  it  must  be  written  to  bear  the  asserted 
"  analogy  to  the  name  of  Christ,)  Mr.  Volney,  after  two  or  three  pages  of  unparalleled  impiety,  in 
"  which  he  resolves  the  whole  life,  death,  and  resurrection,  of  the  Messiah,  into  an  ingenious 
"  allegory,  allusive  to  the  growth,  decline,  and  renovation  of  the  solar  heat  during  its  annual 
"  revolution  ;  and  after  asserting  that,  by  the  Virgin,  his  mother,  is  meant  the  celestial  sign  Virgo, 
"  in  the  bosom  of  which,  at  the  summer  solstice,  the  sun  anciently  appeared  to  the  Persian  Magi 
"  to  rise,  and  was  thus  depicted  in  their  astrological  pictures,  as  well  as  in  the  Mithraitic  caverns  j 
"  after  thus  impiously  attempting  to  mythologize  away  the  grand  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
'«  Christian  code,  our  Infidel  author  adds,  that  the  sun  was  sometimes  called  Chris,  or  Conservator, 
"that  is,  the  Saviour;  and  hence,  he  observes,  the  Hindoo  god  Chris- en  or  Christna,  and  the 
"  Christian  Chris-tos,  the  son  of  Mary.  Now,  whatever  ingenuity  there  may  be  displayed  in  the 
"  former  part  of  this  curious  investigation,  into  which  I  cannot  now  enter,  I  can  confidently 
"  affirm,  there  is  not  a  syllable  of  truth  in  the  orthographical  derivation  ;  for  Chrisna,  nor 
"  Chris-en,  nor  Christna,  (as  to  serve  a  worthless  cause,  subversive  of  civil  society,  he  artfully 
"  perverts  the  word,)  has  not  the  least  approach  in  signification  to  the  Greek  word  Christos, 
"  anointed,  in  allusion  to  the  kingly  office  of  the  Hebrew  Messiah  j  since  this  appellative  simply 
"  signifies,  as  we  shall  presently  demonstrate,  black  or  dark  blue,  and  was  conferred  on  the  Indian 
"  God  solely  on  account  of  his  black  complexion.     It  has,  therefore,  no  more  connexion  with  the 


1  Vol.  III.  Ch.  xxxv.  p.  447. 


134  DIGRESSION    ON    THE    BLACK    COLOUR    OF   ANCIENT    GODS. 

"  name  of  our  blessed  Saviour,  supposed  by  this  writer  to  be  derived  from  it,  than  the  humble 
"  Mary  of  Bethlehem  has  with  the  Isis  of  Egypt,  the  original  Virgo  of  the  Zodiac  :  or  Joseph,  as 
"  there  asserted,  has  with  the  obsolete  constellation  of  praesepe  Jo  vis,  or  stable  of  Jove,  as,  in  his 
"  rage  for  derivation,  he  ridiculously  asserts." 

Now,  upon  the  observation  of  Mr.  Maurice,  relating  to  the  celestial  Virgin,  and  the  Virgin 
Mary,  the  reader  is  requested  to  suspend  his  judgment  till  he  comes  to  my  chapter  where  she  is 
expressly  treated  of.  With  respect  to  the  remainder  of  his  observation  on  the  colour  of  the 
Cristna  of  India,  it  is  replied,  that  of  all  the  circumstances  connected  with  this  subject,  there  is  not 
one  so  curious  and  striking  as  this  ;  nor  one  so  worthy  of  the  attention  of  the  reader.  And 
though,  at  first,  he  may  think  the  Author,  in  what  he  is  going  to  say,  respecting  the  black  colour, 
is  deviating  from  the  subject,  he  will  in  the  end  find  nothing  but  what  is  closely  connected  with  it, 
and  necessary  for  its  elucidation. 

7-  On  the  first  view,  it  seems  rather  an  extraordinary  circumstance  that  the  statues  of  the  Gods 
of  the  ancients  should  be  represented  of  a  black  colour ;  or  that  the)7  should  have  been  made  of  a 
stone  as  nearly  black  as  it  could  be  obtained.  Where  the  stone  could  not  be  obtained  quite  black, 
a  stone  was  often  used  similar  to  our  blue  slate,  of  a  very  dark  blue  colour ;  the  drapery  of  the 
statue  often  being  of  a  different,  light- coloured  stone.  It  is  evident  that  the  intention  was  to 
represent  a  black  complexion ;  of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  marble  statues  of  Roman 
Emperors  are  often  found  with  the  fleshy  part  black,  and  the  drapery  of  white  or  some  other 
colour. 

Eusebius  informs  us,  on  the  authority  of  Porphyry,  "  That  the  Egyptians  acknowledged  one 
"  intellectual  Author  or  Creator  of  the  world,  under  the  name  of  Cneph  ;  and  that  they  worshiped 
"  him  in  a  statue  of  human  form  and  dark  blue  complexion."  Plutarch  informs  us,  "  That  Cneph 
"  was  worshiped  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  Thebaid ;  who  refused  to  contribute  any  part  towards 
"  the  maintenance  of  the  sacred  animals,  because  they  acknowledged  no  mortal  God,  and  adored 
"  none  but  him  whom  they  called  Cneph,  an  uncreated  and  immortal  being.'"'  The  temple  of 
"  Cneph,  or  Cnuphis,  was  in  the  island  of  Elephantine,  on  the  confines  of  Egypt  and  Ethiopia.1 

In  the  Evangelical  Preparation  of  Eusebius,2  is  a  passage  which  pretty  well  proves  that  the 
worship  of  Vishnu  or  Cristna  was  held  in  Egypt,  under  the  name  of  Kneph :  Toy  Artfuovpyov 
Kv?)<£>,  of  Aiyu7TTioi  zjqo(rayoqev8(riv,  ttjv  p^pojav  ex  xaovs  jU,eAavo£,  s^oi/to.  xqaxsvrci.  ^covr^v 
xai  trxyprrpov  (Xeye<riv).  "  The  Egyptians,  it  is  said,  represented  the  Demiurgos  Kneph,  as  of 
a  blue  colour,  bordering  on  black,  with  a  girdle  and  a  sceptre." 3 

Mr.  Maurice4  has  observed  that  the  Cneph  of  Egypt,  and  the  statue  of  Narayen,  in  the  great 
reservoir  of  Catmandu,  are  both  formed  of  black  marble.  Dr.  Buchanan  states  the  statue  of  Jug- 
gernaut to  be  of  wood,  painted  black,  with  red  lips. 

Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  That  Osiris,  too,  the  black  divinity  of  Egypt,  and  Chreeshna,  the  sable 
"  shepherd-God  of  Mathura,  have  the  striking  similitude  of  character,  intimated  by  Mr.  Wilford, 
"  cannot  be  disputed,  any  more  than  that  Chreeshna,  from  his  rites  continuing  so  universally  to 
"  flourish. over  India,  from  such  remote  periods  down  to  the  present  day,  was  the  prototype,  and 
"  Osiris  the  mythological  copy.  Both  are  renowned  legislators  and  conquerors,  contending 
"  equally  with  physical  and  spiritual  foes :  both  are  denominated  the  Sun  ;  both  descend  to  the 
"  shades  and  raise  the  dead." 5 

Again  he  says,  "  Now  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  a  dark  blue  tint,  approaching  to  black, 
"  as  his  name  signifies,  was  the  complexion  of  Chreeshna,  who  is  considered  by  the  Hindoos  not 

1  Pritchard's  Anal,  of  Egypt,  Mythol.  p.  171.  *  Lib.  iii.  p   1 15.  3  Class.  Journ.  No.  XXIX.  p.  122. 

*  Ant.  Ind.  Vol.  I.  Sect.  viii.  *  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  477- 


BOOK   IV.    CHAPTER   I.   SECTION   7«  '  135 


"  so  much  an  avatar,  as  the  person  of  the  great  Veeshnu  himself,  in  a  human  form."  1      That  is, 
he  was  incarnate,  or  in  the  flesh,  as  Jesus  was  said  to  be. 

For  reasons  which  the  reader  will  soon  see,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Osiris  was  not  the  copy 
of  Cristna,  but  of  the  earlier  God,  Buddha. 

That  by  Osiris  was  meant  the  Sun,  it  is  now  allowed  by  every  writer  who  has  treated  on  the 
antiquities  of  Egypt.  Mr.  Maurice,  as  the  reader  sees,  states  him  to  have  been  black,  and  that 
the  Mnevis,  or  sacred  bull,  of  Heliopolis,  the  symbol  of  Osiris,  was  also  black.  Osiris  is  allowed, 
also,  to  be  the  Seeva  of  India, 2  one  of  the  three  persons  of  the  Indian  God — Bramha,  Vishnu  or 
Cristna,  and  Seeva,  of  whom  the  bull  of  the  Zodiac  was  the  symbol. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  number  of  trifling  circumstances  which  constantly  occur  to  prove 
the  identity  of  the  Hindoos  and  Egyptians,  or  rather  the  Ethiopians.  The  word  Nile,  in  the 
Indian  language,  means  black.  Dupuis 3  says,  "  Nilo  in  Indian  signifies  black,  and  it  ought 
"  to  signify  the  same  in  Egyptian ;  since,  whenever  the  Arabs,  the  Hebrews,  the  Greeks, 
"  and  the  Latins,  have  wished  to  translate  the  word  Nil,  they  have  always  made  use  of  a  word 
"  which  in  their  language  signifies  black.  The  Hebrews  call  it  Sichor  ;  the  Ethiopians,  Nuchul ; 
"  the  ancient  Latins,  Melo  ;  the  Greeks,  Melas — all  names  signifying  Mack.  The  word  or  name 
"  Nilos,  then,  in  Egyptian,  presents  the  same  idea  as  the  word  Nilo  in  Indian."  But  the  name  of 
Nile  was  a  modern  one,  (comparatively  speaking,)  a  translation  of  the  ancient  name  of  this  river, 
which  was  Siri.     Speaking  of  the  word  Nile,  Tzetzes  says,  to  Ss  Ne7Xo£  vsov  e?i.  4 

Selden  5  says,  "  Sit  Osiris,  sit  Omphis,  Nilus,  Siris,  sive  quodcunque  aliud  ab  Hierophantis 
"  usurpatum  nomen,  ad  unum  tandem  solem  antiquissimum  gentium  Numen  redeunt  omnia." 
He  says  again,  "  Osiris  certe  non  solum  idem  Deus  erat  cum  Nilo,  verum  ipsa  nomina  Nili  et 
"  Osiridis,  sublato  primo  elemento,  sunt  synonyma.     Nam  lingua  prophetarum  -irr^  schichor  est 

Nilus,  ut  doctissimi  interpretum  volunt,  quod  ")nt£>  schichori,  lingua  iEthiopica  (ita  monet 
"  illustrissimus  Scaliger  filius)  prolatum — in  Sstg*£  aut  Xf^S  Grasca  scriptione,  transmigravit." 
See  also  Parkhurst's  Lex.  instf  pp.  728,  729. 

The  word  Osiris  may  be  a  Greek  word,  composed  by  the  Greeks  from  their  own  emphatic  article 
O,  and  the  Hebrew  word  -inttf  shr,  written  with  their  customary  termination  Ocrifiig.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  Hebrew  word  is  black.  And  one  meaning  of  the  Greek  is  evidently  the  black,  or  the 
black  God.     This  is   confirmed  by  Plutarch,  in  his  treatise  de  Iside  et  Osiride. 

The  Nile  was  often  called  *in>  iar,  which  is  the  Hebrew  word  for  river,  and  was  probably  the 
Egyptian  one  also.  It  was  simply  the  river  ira.£  ^^X^v'  ^  was  never  called  Neilos  by  the 
Egyptians,  but  by  the  Greeks,  and  that  only  from  the  time  of  Hesiod,  in  whose  writings  it  is  first 
so  called.  This  pretty  nearly  proves  it  a  translated  name. 6  If  the  author  be  right  in  this  con- 
jecture, the  reason  is  evident  why  this  word  sets  etymological  inquiries  at  defiance.  Sir  W.  Jones 
says,  Nila  means  blue  ;  but  this  blue  is  probably  derived  from  the  colour  of  the  stone— a  dark 
blue,  meant  originally  to  describe  black.  The  Nile  was  called  kiyvirrog  JEgt/ptus,  before  the 
country  had  that  name.  This  last  name  also  defies  the  etymologists.  But  it  was  probably  an 
Eastern  word  mangled  by  the  Greeks,  who  mangled  every  thing.     It  will  be  explained  hereafter. 

M.  De  Lambre  tells  us,  from  Censorinus,  that  the  Egytians  called  the  year  of  365  days  by  the 
word  NeiXoc,  Neilos.  And  he  observes  that,  in  the  Greek  notation,  the  letters  of  which  this  word 
is  composed  denote  365.     Sir  W.  Drummond  calls  this  buffoonery,  and  asks  if  M.  De  Lambre  has 


a 


1  Maurice,  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p.  66,  4to. ;  also  Ant.  Ind.  Vol.  III.  p.  3?5.  2  Maurice,  Ant.  Ind. 

3  Vol.  III.  p.  351.  *  Drummond,  Ess.  Zod.  pp.  106  and  112. 

*  De  Diis  Syriis,  De  Vitulo  Aureo,  Syntag.  i.  Cap.  iv.  6  Vide  Drummond's  Orig.  B.  iv.  Ch.  ii. 


136  SUBJECT    CONTINUED. 

forgot  that  the  Egyptians  did  not  speak  Greek.  To  which  it  may  be  answered,  that  the  polite  and 
learned  among  them  did  speak  Greek,  after  the  time  of  Alexander.  It  is  overlooked  by  Sir  Wil- 
liam, that  this  name  (as  he  acknowledges)  veov  £<rri,  is  modern.  It  is  probable  that  the  Greeks 
found  the  ancient  Egyptian  name  to  signify  black,  and  the  letters  of  it  to  denote  or  to  signify  the 
year  of  365  days.  But  as  they  could  not  in  their  language  give  it  a  term  which  would  signify 
both,  and  as  they  understood  why  it  was  called  365  or  the  year,  but  did  not  understand  why  it 
was  called  black,  they  adopted  the  former,  and  called  it  Nefooc. 

The  ancient  name,  as  we  have  said,  was  Sir,  or  Siri,  the  same  as  O-sir,  or  Osiris,  who  was  al- 
ways black ;  after  whom  it  was  called,  and  by  whom  was  meant  the  sun.  Thus  it  was  called  the 
river  of  the  sun,  or  the  river  sun,  or  the  river  of  Osiris — as  we  say,  the  river  of  the  Amazons,  or 
the  river  Amazon.  And  this  river  flowed  from  the  land  of  the  sun  and  moon.  It  arose  in  the 
mountains  of  the  moon,  and  flowed  through  the  land  of  Sir,  perhaps  the  land  of  Siriad,  where 
Josephus  was  told  that  columns  had  been  placed  which  were  built  before  the  flood — xoltol  ttjv  yyv 
Sjugio&a.  Manetho,  300  years  before  Josephus,  says,  these  columns  stood  sv  ry  yy\  Xvgiafiixy, 
and  from  them  Josephus  took  his  history,  which  was  inscribed  on  them  in  the  sacred  language  and 
in  hieroglyphical  characters,  a  language  and  character  evidently  both  unknown  to  him.  These 
columns  were  probably  the  Egyptian  monuments — Pyramids,  or  Obelisks,  which  had  escaped  the 
destruction  of  Cambyses,  perhaps  because  they  were  only  historical  and  not  religious,  or  perhaps 
because  they  were  linghams,  to  which  the  Persians  might  not  object — but  the  knowledge  of  whose 
characters  was  at  that  time  lost  amidst  the  universal  destruction  of  priests  and  temples,  and  which 
has  never  been  really  known  since,  though  the  new  priests  would  not  be  willing  to  confess  their 
ignorance.     Query,  -\w  sur  n>  ia  n  di,  The  holy  land  of  Sur  ? 

The  river  Nile  in  Sanscreet  books  is  often  called  Crishna. * 

Titf  sr,  is  the  origin  or  root  of  Osiris,  and  means  a  leader,  regulator,  ruler,  or  director.  The 
ninth  of  the  meanings  given  to  it  by  Parkhurst  in  the  form  -nitf  sur,  is  that  of  Beeve. 

The  modern  words  Sir,  Mon-sieur,  Mon-seignor,  are  all  derived  from  the  Hebrew  word  -)ty  Sr, 
or  Lord,  as  we  translate  it,  which  was  an  epithet  of  the  sun  in  all  the  eastern  countries.  This  is 
the  same  as  the  Iswara  of  India,  which  means  Lord.2  The  Bull  of  the  Zodiac,  or  the  sun,  also 
had  a  name  very  similar  to  this,  whence  probably  it  came  to  be  applied  to  the  animal  j  or  at  least 
they  had  the  same  names.     See  Parkhurst  in  voce  *0iy  sur. 

Mr.  Maurice  says,3  Persse  %og7\  Deum  vocant.  Surya  is  the  name  of  the  solar  divinity  of 
India.  It  is  also  the  name  of  Osiris.  Mr.  Bryant  says,  Oasiqiv  7rf)0(rayo%si)8<ri  xai  %u^iov.  *  As 
the  God  of  the  Egyptians  went  by  several  names,  as  Apis,  Serapis,  Cneph,  Osiris,  &c,  so  did  the 
God  of  the  Hindoos.  The  word  sable  or  black  was  one  of  their  epithets.  Thus  Christ  is,  in  like 
manner,  an  epithet  of  Jesus.     He  is  called  Jesus  the  Christ,  the  Anointed. 

8.  As  the  reader  has  seen  above,  and  also  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  I  have  derived  Osiris  from  the 
word  Sr,  and  the  Greek  emphatic  article  O.  This  derivation  is  justified  by  Porphyry.  But  Hel- 
lanicus  informs  us,  that  it  was  sometimes  written  Tcripig.  Now,  as  Isis  was  the  wife  of  Osiris, 
may  it  not  have  come  from  the  Hebrew  word  y^>  iso,  to  save,  and  itp  sr,  or  -jittf  sur  f  Osiris  was 
the  Sun,  so  was  Surya  in  India  and  Persia :  for,  as  we  have  seen,  Persse  Sure  Deum  vocant. 
Syria  was  the  land  of  the  Sun.  The  Sun  was  called  Lord  and  Saviour ;  so  was  Mithra.  The  Bull 
was  the  emblem  of  the  Sun— of  Mithra,  called  Lord,  and  of  the  God  in  the  land  where  Surya  or 
the  Sun,  with  seven  heads,  was  adored,  and  in  Japan,  where  he  breaks  the  mundane  egg  with  his 


1  Maurice,  Bram.  Fraud  Exposed,  p.  80.  s  See  Pictet,  p.  16. 

3  Ant.  Ind.  Vol.  II.  p.  203.  «  Ibid.  p.  221. 


BOOK  IV.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  8.  13? 

> 

horn.  The  Bull  was  the  body  into  which  Osiris  transmigrated  after  his  death ;  and,  lastly,  the 
Hebrew  name  for  bull  is  "nay  sur.  Orpheus  has  a  hymn  to  the  Lord  Bull.  Iswara  of  India  or 
Osiris,  is  the  husband  of  Isi  or  of  Isis  ;  and  Surya  is  Buddha.  Can  all  these  coincidences  be  the 
effect  of  accident  ? 

"  Osiris,  or  Isiris,  as  Sanchoniathon  calls  him,  is  also  the  same  name  with  Mizraim,  when  the 
"  servile  letter  M  is  left  out."  1  The  reason  of  the  monogram  M  being  prefixed  to  this,  and  to 
many  other  words,  will  be  shewn  by  and  by. 

I  have  some  suspicion  that  Osiris  is  a  Greek  corruption ;  that  the  name  ought,  as  already  men- 
tioned, to  be  what  it  is  called  by  Hellanicus,  Ysiris  or  Isiris,  and  that  it  is  derived  from,  or  rather 
I  should  say  is  the  same  as,  Iswara  of  India.  Iswara  and  Isi  are  the  same  as  Osiris  and  Isis — the 
male  and  female  procreative  powers  of  nature. 

"  Iswara,  in  Sanscrit,  signifies  Lord,  and  in  that  sense  is  applied  by  the  Bramans  to  each  of 
"  their  three  principal  deities,  or  rather  to  each  of  the  forms  in  which  they  teach  the  people  to 
"  adore  Brahm,  or  the  great  one  ....  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Mahadeva,  say  the  Puranics, 
"  were  brothers  :  and  the  Egyptian  triad,  or  Osiris,  Horus,  and  Typhon,  were  brought  forth  by 
"  the  same  parent."2 

Syria  was  called  Suria.  Eusebius  says  the  Egyptians  called  Osiris,  Surius,  and  that,  in  Persia, 
Sure  was  the  old  name  of  the  sun. 3 

In  the  sol-lunar  legends  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Sun  is,  as  we  have  seen,  sometimes  male  and  some- 
times female.  The  Moon  is  also  of  both  sexes,  and  is  called  Isa  and  Isi. 4  Deus  Lunus  was  com- 
mon to  several  nations  of  the  ancient  world. 5 

The  peculiar  mode  in  which  the  Hindoos  identify  their  three  great  Gods  with  the  solar  orb,  is  a 
curious  specimen  of  the  physical  refinements  of  ancient  mythology.  At  night  and  in  the  West, 
the  Sun  is  Vishnu  :  he  is  Brarna  in  the  East  and  in  the  morning :  and  from  noon  to  evening,  he  is 
Siva.6 

The  adoration  of  a  black  stone  is  a  very  singular  superstition.  Like  many  other  superstitions 
this  also  came  from  India.  Buddha  was  adored  as  a  square  black  stone ;  so  was  Mercury  ;  so 
was  the  Roman  Terminus.  The  famous  Pessinuntian  stone,  brought  to  Rome,  was  square  and 
black.  The  sacred  black  stone  at  Mecca  many  of  my  readers  are  acquainted  with,  and  George  the 
Fourth  did  very  wisely  to  be  crowned  on  the  square  stone,  nearer  black  than  any  other  colour,  of 
Scotia  and  Ireland. 

In  Montfaucon,  a  black  Isis  and  Orus  are  described  in  the  printing,  but  not  in  the  plate.  I  sus- 
pect many  of  Montfaucon's  figures  ought  to  be  black,  which  are  not  so  described.7 

Pausanias  states  the  Thespians  to  have  had  a  temple  and  statue  to  Jupiter  the  Saviour,  and  a 
statue  to  Love,  consisting  only  of  a  rude  stone  j  and  a  temple  to  Venus  Melainis,  or  the  black. 8 

Ammon  was  founded  by  Black  doves,  At§s-Io)V££.  One  of  them  flew  from  Ammon  to  Dodona 
and  founded  it.9 

At  Corinth  there  was  a  black.  Venus. 10 

In  my  search  into  the  origin  of  ancient  Druids,  I  continually  found,  at  last,  that  my  labours  ter- 
minated with  something  black.  Thus  the  oracles  at  Dodona,  and  of  Apollo  at  Delphi,  were  founded 
by  black  doves.     Doves  are  not  often,  I  believe  never  really,  black. 


1  Cumberland,  Orig.  Gen.  p.  100.  2  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  371 ;  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  44. 

3  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VI.  p.  39.  «  Moore's  Pantheon,  pp.  2S9,  290.  *  Ibid.  p.  291. 

6  Faber,  Or.  Idol.  B.  iv.  Ch.  i.  »  Montf.  Exp.  Vol.  II.  Plate  XXXVII.  Fig.  5. 
8  Pausanias,  Lib.  ix.  Cap.  xxvi.  xxvii.  9  Nimrod,  p.  276.  10  Ibid.  p.  400. 

T 


138  CHRIST   BLACK.      . 

Osiris  and  his  Bull  were  black ;  all  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  of  Greece  were  black  :  at  least  this 
was  the  case  with  Jupiter,  Bacchus,  Hercules,  Apollo,  Ammon. 

The  Goddesses  Venus,  Isis,  Hecati,  Diana,  Juno,  Metis,  Ceres,  Cybile,  are  black.  The  Multi- 
mammia  is  black  in  the  Campidoglio  at  Rome,  and  in  Montfaucon,  Antiquity  explained. 

The  Linghams  in  India,  anointed  with  oil,  are  black :  a  black  stone  was  adored  in  numbers  of 
places  in  India. 

It  has  already  been  observed  that,  in  the  galleries,  we  constantly  see  busts  and  statues  of  the 
Roman  Emperors,  made  of  two  kinds  of  stone }  the  human  part  of  the  statue  of  black  stone,  the 
drapery  white  or  coloured.  When  they  are  thus  described,  I  suppose  they  are  meant  to  be  repre- 
sented as  priests  of  the  sun  ;  this  was  probably  confined  to  the  celebration  of  the  Isiac  or  Egyptian 

ceremonies. 

9.  On  the  colour  of  the  Gods  of  the  ancients,  and  of  the  identity  of  them  all  with  the  God  Sol, 
and  with  the  Cristna  of  India,  nothing  more  need  be  said.  The  reader  has  already  seen  the  strik- 
ing marks  of  similarity  in  the  history  of  Cristna  and  the  stories  related  of  Jesus  in  the  Romish  and 
heretical  books.  He  probably  will  not  think  that  their  effect  is  destroyed,  as  Mr.  Maurice  flatters 
himself,  by  the  word  Cristna  in  the  Indian  language  signifying  black,  and  the  God  being  of  that 
colour,  when  he  is  informed,  of  what  Mr.  Maurice  was  probably  ignorant,  that  in  all  the  Romish  y^/ 
,  countries  of  Europe,  in  France,  Italy,  Germany,  &c,  the  God  Christ,  as  well  as  his  mother,  are 
described  in  their  old  pictures  and  statues  to  be  black.  The  infant  God  in  the  arms  of  his  black 
mother,  his  eyes  and  drapery  white,  is  himself  perfectly  black.  If  the  reader  doubt  my  word,  he 
may  go  to  the  cathedral  at  Moulins — to  the  famous  chapel  of  the  Virgin  at  Loretto — to  the  church 
of  the  Annunciata — the  church  of  St.  Lazaro,  or  the  church  of  St.  Stephen  at  Genoa — to  St.  Francisco 
at  Pisa — to  the  church  at  Brixen,  in  the  Tyrol,  and  to  that  at  Padua — to  the  church  of  St.  Theo- 
dore, at  Munich,  in  the  two  last  of  which  the  whiteness  of  the  eyes  and  teeth,  and  the  studied 
redness  of  the  lips,  are  very  observable  ; — to  a  church  and  to  the  cathedral  at  Augsburg,  where  are 
a  black  virgin  and  child  as  large  as  life : — to  Rome,  to  the  Borghese  chapel  Maria  Maggiore — to 
the  Pantheon — to  a  small  chapel  of  St.  Peter's,  on  the  right-hand  side  on  entering,  near  the  door ; 
and,  in  fact,  to  almost  innumerable  other  churches,  in  countries  professing  the  Romish  religion. 

There  is  scarcely  an  old  church  in  Italy  where  some  remains  of  the  worship  of  the  black  virgin 
and  black  child  are  not  to  be  met  with.     Very  often  the  black  figures  have  given  way  to  white 
ones,  and  in  these  cases  the  black  ones,  as  being  held  sacred,   were  put  into  retired  places  in  the 
churches,  but  were  not  destroyed,  but  are  yet  to  be  found  there.     In  many  cases  the  images  are 
painted  all  over  and  look  like  bronze,  often  with   coloured  aprons  or  napkins  round  the  loins  or 
other  parts ;  but  pictures  in  great  numbers  are  to  be  seen,  where  the  white  of  the  eyes  and  of  the 
teeth,  and  the  lips  a  little  tinged  with  red,  like  the  black  figures  in  the  Museum  of  the  India  Com- 
pany, shew  that  there  is  no  imitation  of  bronze.     In  many  instances  these  images  and  pictures  are 
shaded,  not  all  one  colour,  of  very  dark  brown,   so  dark  as  to  look  like  black.     They  are  generally 
esteemed  by  the  rabble  with  the  most  profound  veneration.     The  toes  are  often  white,  the  brown 
or  black  paint  being  kissed  away  by  the  devotees,  and  the  white  wood  left.     No  doubt  in  many 
places,  when  the  priests  have  new-painted  the  images,  they  have  coloured  the  eyes,  teeth,  &c,  in 
order  that  they  might  not  shock  the  feelings  of  devotees  by  a  too  sudden  change  from  black  to 
white,  and  in  order,  at  the  same  time,  that  they  might  furnish  a  decent  pretence  for  their  black- 
ness, viz.  that  they  are  an  imitation  of  bronze :  but  the  number  that  are  left  with  white  teeth,  &c, 
let  out  the  secret. 

When  the  circumstance  has  been  named  to  the  Romish  priests,  they  have  endeavoured  to  dis- 
guise the  fact,  by  pretending  that  the  child  had  become  black  by  the  smoke  of  the  candles  j  but  it 
was  black  where  the  smoke  of  a  candle  never  came  :  and,  besides,  how  came  the  candles  not  to  / 


BOOK  IV.    CHAP.  I.    SECT.  10.  139 

blacken  the  white  of  the  eyes,  the  teeth,  and  the  shirt,  and  how.  came  they  to  redden  the  lips  ? 
The  mother  is,  the  author  believes,  always  black,  when  the  child  is.  Their  real  blackness  is  not  to 
be  questioned  for  a  moment. 

If  the  author  had  wished  to  invent  a  circumstance  to  corroborate  the  assertion,  that  the  Romish 
Christ  of  Europe  is  the  Cristna  of  India,  how  could  he  have  desired  any  thing  more  striking  than 
the  fact  of  the  black  Virgin  and  Child  being  so  common  in  the  Romish  countries  of  Europe  ?  A 
black  virgin  and  child  among  the  white  Germans,  Swiss,  French,  and  Italians  !  !  ! 

The  Romish  Cristna  is  black  in  India,  black  in  Europe,  and  black  he  must  remain — like  the 
ancient  Gods  of  Greece,  as  we  have  just  seen.  But,  after  all,  what  was  he  but  their  Jupiter,  the 
second  person  of  their  Trimurti  or  Trinity,  the  Logos  of  Parmenides  and  Plato,  an  incarnation  or 
emanation  of  the  solar  power  ? 

I  must  now  request  my  reader  to  turn  back  to  the  first  chapter,  and  to  reconsider  what  I  have 
said  respecting  the  two  Ethiopias  and  the  existence  of  a  black  nation  in  a  very  remote  period. 
When  he  has  done  this,  the  circumstance  of  the  black  God  of  India  being  called  Cristna,  and  the 
God  of  Italy,  Christ,  being  also  black,  must  appear  worthy  of  deep  consideration.  Is  it  possible, 
that  this  coincidence  can  have  been  the  effect  of  accident  ?  In  our  endeavours  to  recover  the  lost 
science  of  former  ages,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  avail  ourselves  of  rays  of  light  scattered  in 
places  the  most  remote,  and  that  we  should  endeavour  to  re-collect  them  into  a  focus,  so  that,  by 
this  means,  we  may  procure  as  strong  a  light  as  possible  :  collect  as  industriously  as  we  may,  our 
light  will  not  be  too  strong.  * 

I  think  I  need  say  no  more  in  answer  to  Mr.  Maurice's  shouts  of  triumph  over  those  whom  he 
insultingly  calls  impious  infidels,  respecting  the  name  of  Cristna  having  the  meaning  of  black.  I 
will  now  proceed  to  his  other  solemn  considerations. 

10.  The  second  particular  to  which  Mr.  Maurice  desires  the  attention  of  his  reader,  is  in  the 
following  terms  :  "  2d,*Let  it,  in  the  next  place,  be  considered  that  Chreeshna,  so  far  from  being 
"  the  son  of  a  virgin,  is  declared  to  have  had  a  father  and  mother  in  the  flesh,  and  to  have  been 
"  the  eighth  child  of  Devaci  and  Vasudeva.  How  inconceivably  different  this  from  the  sanctity 
"  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  Christ !" 

I  answer,  that  respecting  their  births  they  differ;  but  what  has  this  to  do  with  the  points 
wherein  they  agree  ?  No  one  ever  said  they  agreed  in  every  minute  particular.  Yet  I  think, 
with  respect  to  their  humanity,  the  agreement  continues.  I  always  understood  that  Jesus  was 
held  by  the  Romish  and  Protestant  Churches  to  have  become  incarnate  ;  that  the  word  was  made 
flesh.2  That  is,  that  Jesus  was  of  the  same  kind  of  flesh,  at  least  as  his  mother,  and  also  as  his 
brothers,  Joses,  James,  &c. 3  If  he  were  not  of  the  flesh  of  his  mother,  what  was  he  before  the 
umbilical  cord  was  cut  ? 

It  does  not  appear  from  the  histories,  which  we  have  yet  obtained,  that  the  immaculate  concep- 


1  But  though  the  Bull  of  Osiris  was  black,  the  Bull  of  Europa  was  white.  The  story  states  that  Jupiter  fell  in  love 
with  a  daughter  of  Agenor,  king  of  Phoenicia,  and  Telephassa,  and  in  order  to  obtain  the  object  of  his  affections  he 
changed  himself  into  a  white  bull.  After  he  had  seduced  the  nymph  to  play  with  him  and  caress  him  in  his  pasture 
for  some  time,  at  last  he  persuaded  her  to  mount  him,  when  he  fled  with  her  to  Crete,  where  he  succeeded  in  his 
wishes,  and  by  her  he  had  Minos,  Sarpedon,  and  Rhadamanthus.  Is  it  necessary  for  me  to  point  out  to  the  reader  in 
this  pretty  allegory  the  peopling  of  Europe  from  Phoenicia,  and  the  allusion  in  the  colour  of  the  Bull,  viz.  white,  to 
the  fair  complexions  of  the  Europeans  ?  An  ingenious  explanation  of  this  allegory  may  be  seen  in  Drummond's  Ori- 
gines,  Vol.  III.  p.  84. 

2  John,  eh.  i.  ver.  14. 

3  I  look  with  perfect  contempt  on  the  ridiculous  trash  which  has  been  put  forth  to  shew  that  the  brothers  of  Jesus, 
described  in  the  Gospels,  did  not  mean  brothers,  but  cousins  ! 

t  2 


140  OBSERVATIONS   ON    MR.    MAURICE'S    SOLEMN    CONSIDERATIONS. 

tion  has  been  taken  from  the  history  of  Cristna.  However,  we  shall  find  hereafter,  that,  in  all 
probability,  it  came  from  the  same  quarter  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Maurice  observes,  3dly,  "  That  it  has  been,  from  the  earliest  periods,  the  savage  custom 
"  of  the  despots  of  Asia,  for  the  sake  of  extirpating  one  dreaded  object,  to  massacre  all  the  males 
"  born  in  a  particular  district,  and  the  history  of  Moses  himself  exhibits  a  glaring  proof  how 
"  anciently,  and  how  relentlessly  it  was  practised."  The  story  of  Moses,  Pharaoh,  and  the  order 
to  murder  the  boys  of  the  Israelites,  will  be  shewn  hereafter  to  have  a  certain  mystical  meaning 
much  closer  to  the  Indian  Mythoses,  particularly  to  that  of  the  God  Cristna,  than  Mr.  Maurice 
would  have  liked,  had  he  known  it. 

4th.  "  In  his  contest  with  the  great  serpent,  Calija,  circumstances  occur  which,  since  the  story 
"  is,  in  great  part,  mythological,  irresistibly  impel  me  to  believe  that,  in  that,  as  in  many  other 
"  portions  of  this  surprising  legend,  there  is  a  reference  intended  to  some  traditional  accounts, 
"  descended  down  to  the  Indians  from  the  patriarchs,  and  current  in  Asia,  of  the  fall  of  man,  and 
"  the  consequent  well-known  denunciation  against  the  serpentine  tempter."  This  like  the  last 
particular  proves  nothing. 

5th.  "  In  regard  to  the  numerous  miracles  wrought  by  Chreeshna,  it  should  be  remembered,  that 
"  miracles  are  never  wanting  to  the  decoration  of  an  Indian  romance ;  they  are,  in  fact,  the  life 
"  and  soul  of  the  vast  machine;  nor  is  it  at  all  a  subject  of  wonder  that  the  dead  should  be  raised 
"  to  life,  in  a  history  expressly  intended,  like  all  other  sacred  fables  of  Indian  fabrication,  for  the 
"  propagation  and  support  of  the  whimsical  doctrine  of  the  Metempsychosis.  The  above  is  the 
"  most  satisfactory  reply  in  my  power  to  give  to  such  determined  sceptics  as  Mr.  Volney." 

11.  The  reasons  of  Mr.  Maurice  to  account  for  the  history  of  Cristna  are  so  weak,  that  they 
evidently  do  not  deserve  a  moment's  consideration  ;  and,  as  well  as  Sir  W.  Jones's  happy  and 
ingenious  theory  of  interpolation,  are  only  named  in  order  that  the  Author  may  not  be  accused 
of  suppressing  them  ;  that  the  reader  may  see  how  learned  divines  explain  these  matters ;  and 
that  he  may  hear  both  sides.  Mr.  Maurice's  jeer  upon  miracles  never  being  wanting  to  an  Indian 
romance,  is  rather  hard  upon  such  of  his  friends  as  believe,  or  affect  to  believe,  histories  or 
romances  where  miracles  are  the  very  life  and  soul  of  the  machine,  to  use  his  own  expression ; 
which,  in  fact,  consist  of  miracles  from  one  end  to  the  other ;  and  he  seems  to  have  forgotten  that 
most  of  the  early  orthodox  fathers  believed  in  the  Metempsychosis. 

The  reader  will  please  to  recollect  that  the  circumstances  related  of  Cristna  come  to  us  very 

unwillingly  from  the  orthodox  Jones  and  Maurice ;  whether  any  others  of  consequence  would  be 

found,  if  we  had  a  translation  of  the  whole  Vedas,  is  as  yet  uncertain.     Without  any  reflection 

on  these  gentlemen,  it  may  be  permitted  us  to  say,  that  circumstances  which  did  not  appear 

important  to  them,  might  on  these  subjects  appear  of  great  consequence  to  others. 

Sir  William  Jones  strives  to  deceive  himself  into  a  belief,  that  all  the  cycles  or  statements  of 
the  different  astronomical  events  related  in  the  Hindoo  books  are  the  produce  of  modern  back- 
calculations.  Those  books  are  brought  from  different  nations  of  India,  so  remote  and  numerous, 
that  it  is  almost  imj)ossihle  to  suppose  them  all  to  be  the  effect  of  artifice ;  and,  when  united  to  the 
evident  extreme  antiquity  of  the  Zodiacs,  and  some  of  the  monuments  of  both  India  and  Egypt, 
quite  impossible.  All  this  he  did  for  fear  his  faith  in  the  chronology  of  the  Bible,  which  he  did  not 
know  how  to  reconcile  to  that  of  the  Indians,  should  be  shaken.  His  incredulity  is  so  great  as  to 
be  absolutely  ridiculous  credulity.  What  a  lamentable  figure  it  exhibits  of  the  weakness  of  mind, 
and  the  effect  of  early  prejudice  and  partial  education,  in  one  of  the  greatest  and  very  best  of 
men  I 

In  the  same  way  that  he  finds  a  pretext  to  disguise  to  himself  the  consequences  which  follow 
from  the  great  antiquity  of  the  Indian  temples,  books,  and  astronomy,  he  finds  an  equally  satisfac- 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER   I.     SECTION    13.  141 

tory  reason  for  disguising  the,  evident  identity  of-  the  history  of  Cristna,  or  as  he  is  sometimes 
called  Heri-Cristna,  with  Christ,  (Heri  means  Saviour,)  by  the  idle  pretence,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  the  Brahmins,  some  way  or  other,  have  got  copies  of  part  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels,  from 
which  they  have  taken  the  history  of  the  birth,  life,  and  adventures,  of  Cristna — these  gospels  being 
written  some  time,  of  course,  after  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ.  How  wonderfully  absurd  to  suppose 
that  all  the  ancient  emblems  and  idols  of  Cristna  in  the  temples  and  caves,  scattered  over  every 
part  of  India,  and  absolutely  identified  with  them  in  point  of  antiquity,  can  have  been  copied  from 
the  Gospels  about  the  time  of  Jesus !  How  wonderfully  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  Brahmins, 
and  people  of  this  widely-extended  empire,  should  condescend  to  copy  from  the  real  or  cast- away 
spurious  Gospels,  of  a  sect  at  that  time  almost  entirely  unknown  even  in  their  own  country,  and 
many  thousand  miles  distant  from  these  Brahmins ! 

12.  After  Mr.  Maurice  discovered  that  the  truths  which  had  been  permitted  to  appear  in  the 
Asiatic  Researches,  and  in  his  History  of  Hindostan  and  Antiquities  of  India,  had  been  observed 
by  the  philosophers,  he  published  a  couple  of  pamphlets,  the  intention  of  which  was  to  remedy  the 
mischief  which  he  had  done.  But  they  contain  very  little  more  than  what  he  had  said  before. 
When  the  reader  observes  that  the  Brahminical  histories  not  only  apply  to  the  New  Testament 
and  the  Apocryphal  Gospel  histories,  but  that  the  Jewish  histories  of  the  creation  and  fall  of  man, 
as  translated,  not  by  the  Romish  Church  only,  but  by  Protestants,  are  also  closely  interwoven  with 
them,  he  will  not  easily  be  persuaded  that  they  are  copies  of  these  Gospels.  The  battle  of  the 
infant  Cristna  with  the  serpent  is  considered  as  the  greatest  as  well  as  the  first  of  all  his  wonderful 
actions.  This  is  evidently  the  evil  principle,  the  tempter  of  Eve,  described  in  the  sphere :  it  is 
evidently  the  greatest  of  the  victories  of  the  Romish  Jesus  as  well  as  of  Cristna.  It  is  the  con- 
quests of  Hercules  and  of  Bacchus,  when  in  their  cradles.  If  the  Brahmins  had  been  merely  inter- 
polating from  the  Gospels,  they  would  not  have  troubled  themselves  with  the  Old  Testament. 

When  a  person  considers  the  vast  wealth  and  power  which  are  put  into  danger  by  these  Indian 
manuscripts  ;  the  practice  by  Christian  priests  of  interpolating  and  erasing,  for  the  last  two 
thousand  years  ;  the  well-known  forgeries  practised  upon  Mr.  Wilsford  by  a  Brahmin ;  and  the 
large  export  make  to  India  of  orthodox  and  missionary  priests  ;  he  will  not  be  surprised  if  some 
copies  of  the  books  should  make  their  appearance  wanting  certain  particulars  in  the  life  of  Cristna : 
but  this  will  hardly  now  be  noticed  by  the  philosophical  inquirer ;  particularly  as  the  figures  in  the 
temples  cannot  be  interpolated,  nor  very  easily  erased.  No  doubt  this  observation  is  calculated 
to  give  pain  to  honourable  men  among  the  priests ;  but  they  cannot  be  responsible,  as  they  cannot 
controul  their  coadjutors,  too  many  of  whom  have  in  all  ages  lost  sight  of  honesty  and  integrity,  in 
things  of  this  kind. 

The  Hindoos,  far  from  labouring  to  make  proselytes  to  their  religion,  do  not  admit  into  it  those 
who  have  been  born  in  and  professed  any  other  faith.  They  say  that,  provided  men  perform  their 
moral  duties  in  abstaining  from  ill,  and  in  doing  good  to  the  utmost  of  their  ability,  it  is  but  of 
little  importance  under  what  forms  they  worship  God;  that  things  suitable  to  one  people  may  be 
unfit  for  another;  aud  that  to  suppose  that  God  prefers  any  one  particular  religion  to  the  exclusion 
of  others,  and  yet  leaves  numbers  of  his  creatures  ignorant  of  his  will,  is  to  accuse  him  of  injustice, 
or  to  question  his  omnipotence.1  I  wish  our  priests  would  attend  to  the  sound  wisdom  and 
benevolence  of  these  people,  called  by  our  missionaries  ignorant  and  benighted. 

13.  In  reply  to  the  observation  of  such  persons  as  have  contended  that  the  Hindoos  have  made 
use  of  back-reckoning,  Mr.  Craufurd  pertinently  observes,  "  That  to  be  able  to  do  so,  implies  a 


Craufurd's  Researches,  Ch.  ii.  p.  158. 


142  BACK    RECKONINGS — MATUBBA. 

"  more  accurate  practice  in  astronomy  than  the  Hindus  seem  to  possess  ;  for  it  is  evident  that 
"  their  knowledge  in  science  and  learning,  instead  of  being  improved,  has  greatly  declined  from  what 
"  it  appears  to  have  been  in  the  remote  ages  of  their  history.  And,  besides,  for  what  purpose 
"  should  they  take  such  pains  ?  It  may  possibly  be  answered,  from  the  vanity  of  wishing  to 
"  prove  the  superior  antiquity  of  their  learning  to  that  of  other  nations.  We  confess  that  the 
"  observation,  unsupported  by  other  proofs,  appears  to  us  unworthy  of  men  of  learning,  whom  we 
"  should  expect  to  find  resting  their  arguments  on  scientific  proofs  only."  » 

No  doubt  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  arrive,  on  this  subject,  at  mathematical  certainty  or  proof, 
but  vet  it  may  probably  be  safely  concluded  that,  if  preconceived  notions  respecting  danger  to  the 
literal  meaning  of  the  Mosaic  text  had  not  stood  in  the  way,  no  difficulty  would  have  been 
found  in  admitting  the  sufficiency  of  the  evidence  of  the  Hindoo  antiquity.  It  strongly  calls  to 
recollection  the  struggle  and  outcry  made  against  Walton  and  others  for  asserting  that  the 
Mazoretic  points,  in  the  Hebrew  language,  were  of  modern  adoption.  As  long  as  the  discovery 
was  supposed  to  endanger  the  religion,  the  proofs  were  pronounced  to  be  altogether  insufficient ; 
but  as  soon  as  it  had  been  shewn  that  the  religion  was  in  no  danger,  the  truth  of  the  new  theory 
was  almost  universally  admitted.  Exactly  similar  would  be  the  case  of  the  Hindoo  astronomical 
periods  if  it  could  be  shewn  that  religion  was  not  implicated  in  the  question.  The  author  has  no 
doubt  of  the  side  of  the  question  which  any  unprejudiced  person  will  take,  who  will  carefully  read 
over  the  works  of  Playfair,  and  the  Edinburgh  Review,  upon  this  subject,  and  Craufurd's  Re- 
searches, and  his  Sketches.  2 

However,  there  is  a  passage  in  Arrian,  which  proves  that  one  of  the  great  leading  facts,  which 
forms  a  point  of  striking  similarity  between  the  Cristna  of  India  and  the  Christ  of  Europe,  was 
not  taken  from  the  Gospels  after  Jesus's  death,  but  was  actually  a  story  relating  to  Cristna,  in 
existence  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great.  The  reader  has  seen  already  all  the  curious  circum- 
stances narrated  in  the  Gospel  histories,  and  by  Athanasius  and  Eusebius,  respecting  the  city  of 
Matarea  in  Egypt,  to  which  place  Jesus  fled  from  Herod.  He  has  also  seen  that  it  was  at  Mathura 
of  India,  where  the  holy  family  of  Cristna  resided  in  his  infancy.  In  a  future  part  of  this  work 
I  shall  shew,  that  Hercules  and  Bacchus  are  both  the  same,  the  Sun — one  in  Taurus,  the 
other  in  Aries.  Then  the  following  passage  from  the  Edinburgh  Review,  of  the  article  Asiatic 
Researches,  Vol.  XV.  p.  185,  will  prove  most  clearly,  and  beyond  all  doubt,  that  the  history  of 
Cristna,  his  residence  at  Matarea,  &c,  cannot  have  been  copied  from  the  histories  in  the  spurious 
Gospels  ;  but  must  have  been  older  than  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great. 

"  Arrian  (Ch.  viii.)  proceeds  to  relate  that  Hercules  was  fifteen  centuries  later  than  Bacchus. 
"  We  have  already  seen  that  Bacchus  was  Siva  j  and  Megasthenes  distinctly  points  out  what 
"  Indian  divinity  is  meant  by  Hercules.  '  He  was  chiefly  adored  (says  Arrian)  by  the  Suraseni, 
"  '  who  possess  two  large  cities,  Methora  and  Clissobora.  The  Jobares,  a  navigable  river,  flows 
"  *  through  their  territories.'  Now  Herichrisna,  the  chief  of  the  Suraseni,  was  born  in  the  metro- 
"  polis  of  their  country,  Mathura :  and  the  river  Jamuna  flows  through  the  territory  of  the 
"  Suraseni,  Mathura  being  situated  on  its  banks,  and  called  by  Ptolemy,  Matura  Deorum  j  which 
"  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  its  being  the  birth-place  of  Christna  j"  in  fact,  of  the  triplicate 
God  Brahma,  Cristna,  and  Seeva,  three  in  one  and  one  in  three — the  Creator,  the  Preserver  or 
Saviour,  and  the  Destroyer  or  Regenerator.     The  great  city  of  Mathura  or  Methora,  and  the  river 


1  Craufurd's  Res.  Ch.  viii.  p.  \"J. 

8  Edinb.  Review,  Vol.  XV.  p.  414,  Vol.  X.  p.  469,  also  Vol.  XVI.  pp.  390,  391 ;  see  also  Trans.  Royal  Soc.  of 


Edinburgh,  Vol.  II.  pp.  155,  160,  169,  185,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  83,  103.  ' 


BOOK  IV.    CHAPTER  I.   SECTION   13.  143 

Jobares  or  Jumna,  could  not  be  called  after  the  city  or  river  in  Egypt  in  accommodation  to  the 
Christian  story. 

The  statue  of  Cristna  in  the  temple  of  Mathura  is  black,  and  the  temple  is  built  in  the  form  of 
a  cross, '  and  stands  due  East  and  West.  "  It  is  evident  the  Hindoos  must  have  known  the 
"  use  of  the  Gnomon  at  a  very  remote  period.  Their  religion  commands  that  the  four  sides  of 
"  their  temples  should  correspond  with  the  four  cardinal  points  of  the  Heavens,  and  they  are  all 
"  so  constructed."  2 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Arrian  has  not  given  a  more  detailed  account ;  but  in  the  fact  which 
he  gives  of  Heri-Cristna,   Hercules  or  the  Sun,  being  worshiped  at  Mathura,  called  by  Ptolemy    , 
Matura  Deorum,  there  is  quite  enough  to  satisfy  any  person  who  chooses  to  use  his  understanding, 
of  the  antiquity  of  the  history. 3 

Mr.  Bryant  says,  "  It  is  remarkable  that  among  some  Oriental  languages  Matarea  signifies  the 
"  sun.  This  may  be  proved  from  the  Malayan  language,  expressed  Mataharii,  and  Matta-harri, 
"  and  Mattowraye,  and  Matta'ree,  and  from  that  of  the  Sumatrans  at  Acheen.  It  seems  to  be  a 
"  compound  of  Matta  and  Ree,  the  ancient  Egyptian  word  for  the  Sun,  which  is  still  retained  in 
"  the  Coptic,  and,  with  the  aspirate,  is  rendered  Phree."  This  Phree  is,  I  doubt  not,  the  Coptic 
4>PH,  explained  in  my  Celtic  Druids,*  to  mean  the  number  608,  of  which  I  shall  have  much  to 
say  hereafter. 

Strabo5  says,  that  close  to  Heliopolis  was  a  city  called  Cercesura.  This  name  and  the  Cerca- 
sorum  of  Herodotus,  are,  I  do  not  doubt,  corruptions  of  Clissobora. 

In  the  Classical  Journal  will  be  found  an  attempt,  by  Dr.  Adam  Clarke,  to  invalidate  what  Mr. 
Maurice  has  said  respecting  Cristna  treading  on  the  serpent's  head,  and,  in  return,  the  serpent 
biting  his  heel.  He  seems  to  have  rendered  it  doubtful  whether  there  were  pictures,  or  icons,  of 
the  serpent  biting  the  heel,  but  the  biting  of  the  foot,  I  think,  is  admitted  by  the  learned  Doctor.  It 
is  of  little  consequence  :  but  the  reader  must  observe  that,  since  gentlemen  of  the  Doctor's  warmth 
of  temper  and  zeal  have  considered  this  to  be  inimical  to  their  system,  the  same  cause  which  pre- 
vents our  finding  any  icons  or  pictures  of  Wittoba,  (of  which  my  reader  will  be  informed  shortly,) 
probably  prevents  our  finding  exemplars  of  the  biting  serpent.  It  seems  perfectly  in  keeping  with 
the  remainder  of  the  system,  particularly  with  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin,  which  is  known  to  be 
one  of  the  Hindoo  tenets,  and  for  this  and  other  reasons,  I  confess  I  believe  Mr.  Maurice,  although 
I  thereby  become,  according  to  the  Doctor's  expression,  an  Infidel  and  a  viper.  The  following 
passage  is  from  Sonnerat,  and  I  think  it  must  be  regarded  as  fully  justifying  Mr.  Maurice  :  C'est 
in  memoire  de  cet  evenement  que  dans  les  temples  de  Vichnou,  dedies  a  cette  incarnation,  on  re- 
presente  Quichena  le  corps  entortille  d'une  couleuvre  capelle,  qui  lui  mord  le  pied,  tandis  qu'il  est 
peint,  dans  un  autre  tableau,  dansant  sur  la  tete  de  cette  meme  couleuvre.  Ses  sectateurs  ont 
ordinairement  ces  deux  tableaux  dans  leurs  maisons.6 

Dr.  Clarke  says,  "  I  have  proved,  and  so  might  any  man,  that  no  serpent,  in  the  common  sense 
"  of  the  term,  can  be  intended  in  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis ;  that  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
"  case,  as  detailed  by  the  inspired  penman,  are  in  total  hostility  to  the  common  mode  of  interpre- 
"  tation,  and  that  some  other  method  should  be  found  out."7  I  partly  agree  with  the  Doctor  ;  but 

— — , 1 

1  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  355.  *  Craufurd's  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  18. 

3  Many  of  the  Brahmins,  declare  that  there  is  no  need  to  send  missionaries  to  convert  them ;  that  it  would  better 
become  us  to  convert  ourselves,  by  throwing  off  the  corruptions  of  our  religion,  which  is  only  a  branch  or  sect  of 
theirs ;  that  our  Jesus  is  their  Cristna,  and  that  he  ought  to  be  black. 

4  Ap.  p.  308.  «  Lib.  xvii.  5  Voyage  aux  Ind.  Vol.  I.  pp.  168,  169,  see  plates,  fig.  5,  6. 
7  Class.  Jour.,  No.  VI.  June,  1811,  p.  440. 


144 


CRUCIFIXION    OF    CRISTNA,   AND    WITTOBA   OR    BALJII. 


beg  leave  to  add,  that  without  deserving  to  be  called  Viper  or  Infidel,  I  have  as  much  right  to  con- 
sider the  whole  as  an  allegory,  as  he  has  to  consider  the  serpent  to  be  an  ape.  But  here  is  the 
Doctor  not  believing  according  to  the  orthodox  faith.  Then,  on  his  own  shewing,  he  must  be 
both  Infidel  and  Viper.  But  God  forbid  that  it  should  be  meted  to  this  Protestant  heretic,  as  he 
metes  to  others. 

The  observation  which  Dr.  Clarke  has  made  is  extremely  valuable,  that  in  the  drawings  of  Son- 
nerat  the  serpent  is  not  biting  the  heel  of  Cristna,  but  the  side  of  the  foot.  This  clearly  shews 
that  they  are  not  servile  copies  of  one  another ;  but  records  of  a  mythos  substantially  the  same. 
Had  the  Hindoos  copied  from  the  Bible,  they  would  have  made  the  serpent  bite  the  heel,  whether 
it  were  of  the  mother  or  of  the  son.  If  the  author  of  Genesis  copied  from  the  Hindoo,  in  making 
the  serpent  bite  the  heel,  he  substantially,  and  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  made  him  bite  the  foot. 
But  the  two  accounts  are  not  mutually  convertible  one  for  the  other.  This  story  of  Cristna  and 
the  serpent  biting  his  foot,  is  of  itself  alone  sufficient  to  prove,  that  the  mythos  of  Cristna  is  not 
taken  from  the  Romish  or  Greek  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  because  in  it  the  mother,  not  the  son, 
bruises  the  serpent :    Ipsa  contaret  caput  tuum,  &c. 1 

In  a  future  chapter,  I  shall  take  an  opportunity  of  saying  much  more  on  the  subject  of  the 
Indian  Hercules. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CRUCIFIXION  OF  CRISTNA,  AND  WITTOBA  OR  BALJII. — MOORE'S  OBSERVATIONS  REFUTED.— MORE  PARTI- 
CULARS RESPECTING  THE  TEMPLE  OF  WITTOBA. — CRISTNA,  BACCHUS,  HERCULES,  &C,  TYPES  OF  THE 
REAL  SAVIOUR. — TAURUS  AND  ARIES,  AND  .ERA  OF  CRISTNA. — IMMACULATE  CONCEPTION,  FROM  THE 
HISTORY   OF   PYTHAGORAS. 

1 .  In  compliance  with  the  rule  which  I  have  laid  down  for  the  regulation  of  my  conduct,  criti- 
cally to  examine  every  thing  relating  in  any  degree  to  my  subject  with  the  most  impartial  severity, 
nothing  to  suppress,  and  nothing  of  importance  to  add,  without  stating  the  authority  on  which  I 
receive  it, — I  now  present  my  reader  with  two  very  extraordinary  histories  relating  to  the  cruci- 
fixion. I  say,  fiat  Veritas  ruat  caelum.  Nothing  can  injure  the  cause  of  religious  truth,  except, 
indeed,  it  be  the  falsities,  suppressions,  pious  frauds,  and  want  of  candour  of  the  priests,  and  of  its 
weak  and  ill-judging  friends.  The  pious  frauds  of  the  priests  of  all  religions,  imperiously  demand 
of  the  philosophizing  critic  the  most  severe  and  suspicious  examination.  And  whether  the  priests 
of  the  modern  British  church  are  to  form  an  exception,  will  be  a  subject  of  inquiry  in  the  second 
part  of  this  work.     In  the  work  of  Mons.  Guigniaut2  is  the  following  passage  : 

"  On  raconte  fort  diversement  la  mort  de  Crichna.  Une  tradition  remarquable  et  averee  le  fait 
"  perir  sur  un  bois  fatal  (un  arbre),  ou  il  fut  cloue"  d'un  coup  de  fleche,  et  du  haut  duquel  il  predit 
"  les  maux  qui  allaient  fondre  sur  la  terre,  dans  le  Cali-youga.3  En  effet,  trente  ou  trente-six  ans 
"  apres,  commenca  cet  age  de  crimes,  et  de  miseres.     Une  autre  tradition  ajoute  que  le  corps  de 


1  Vulgate.  *  Vol.  I.  p.  208. 

3  The  word  Yug  or  Youga  is  evidently  the  same  word  as  the  English  word  age,  both  having  the  same  meaning. 
Paul,  Sist.  B.  pp.  149,  et  sq. ;  vide  Sonnerat,  I.  pp.  169,  et  sq. ;  Polier,  II.  pp.  144,  162,  et  sq. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.     SECTION  2.  145 

1'homme-dieu  fut  change  en  un  tronc  de  tchandana  ou  sandal ;  et  qu'ayant  £te  jete*  dans  l'Yamou- 
na,  pres  de  Mathoura,  il  passa  de  la  dans  les  eaux  saintes  du  Gange,  qui  le  porterent  sur  la  cote 
d'Orissa :  il  y  est  encore  adore*  a  Djagannatha  ou  Jagrenat,  lieu  fameux  par  les  pelerinages,  comrne 
le  symbole  de  reproduction  et  de  la  vie. l  II  est  certainment  fort  remarkable,  quelques  variantes 
que  Ton  puisse,  decouvrir  dans  les  differens  recits,  de  voir  Siva  et  Crichna  reunis  a  Djagannatha, 
nom  qui  signifie  le  pays  du  maitre  du  monde,  en  sous-entendant  Kchetra  ;  car,  par  lui-meme,  ce 
nom  est  une  epithete  de  Crichna.  La  Mythologie  Egyptienne  nous  offrira  une  tradition  sur  le 
corps  d'Oslris,  toute  a  fait  analogue  a  la  derniere  que  nous  verrons  de  rapporter.2 

The  first  part  of  the  above-cited  passage  respecting  the  nailing  of  Cristna  to  the  fatal  tree,  and 
his  prediction  of  the  future  evils  of  the  world,  is  very  remarkable,  particularly  when  coupled  with 
the  following  recital : 

Mr.  Moore  describes  an  Avatar  called  Wittoba,  who  has  his  foot  pierced.  After  stating  the 
reason  why  he  cannot  account  for  it,  he  says,  "  A  man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  bringing  me  Hin- 
"  doo  deities,  pictures,  &c.,  once  brought  me  two  images  exactly  alike  :  one  of  them  is  engraved 
"  in  plate  98,  and  the  subject  of  it  will  be  at  once  seen  by  the  most  transient  glance.  Affecting 
"  indifference,  I  inquired  of  my  Pundit  what  Deva  it  was  :  he  examined  it  attentively,  and,  after 
"  turning  it  about  for  some  time,  returned  it  to  me,  professing  his  ignorance  of  what  Avatar  it 
"  could  immediately  relate  to,  but  supposed,  by  the  hole  in  the  foot,  that  it  might  be  Wittoba ; 
"  adding,  that  it  was  impossible  to  recollect  the  almost  innumerable  Avataras  described  in  the 
"  Puranas. 

"  The  subject  of  plate  98  is  evidently  the  crucifixion  ;  and,   by  the  style  of  workmanship,  is  • 
"  clearly  of  European  origin,  as  is  proved  also  by  its  being  in  duplicate."3 

This  incarnation  of  Vishnu  or  Cristna  is  called  Wittoba  or  Ballaji.  He  has  a  splendid  temple 
erected  to  him  at  Punderpoor.  Little  respecting  this  incarnation  is  known.  A  story  of  him  is 
detailed  by  Mr.  Moore,  which  he  observes  reminds  him  of  the  doctrine  of  turning  the  unsmote 
cheek  to  an  assailant.  This  God  is  represented  by  Moore  with  a  hole  on  the  top  of  one  foot  just 
above  the  toes,  where  the  nail  of  a  person  crucified  might  be  supposed  to  be  placed.  And,  in 
another  print,  he  is  represented  exactly  in  the  form  of  a  Romish  crucifix,  but  not  fixed  to  a  piece 
of  wood,  though  the  legs  and  feet  are  put  together  in  the  usual  way,  with  a  nail-hole  in  the  latter. 
There  appears  to  be  a  glory  over  it  coming  from  above.  Generally  the  glory  shines  from  the 
figure.  It  has  a  pointed  Parthian  coronet  instead  of  a  crown  of  thorns.  I  apprehend  this  is 
totally  unusual  in  our  crucifixes.  When  I  recollect  the  crucifix  on  the  fire  tower  in  Scotland, 
(Celtic  Druids,  plate  24,)  with  the  Lamb  on  one  side,  and  the  Elephant  on  the  other,  and  all  the 
circumstances  attending  this  Avatar,  I  am  induced  to  suspect  I  have  been  too  hasty  in  deter- 
mining that  the  fire  tower  was  modern  because  it  had  the  effigy  of  a  crucified  man  upon  it,  and 
relating  to  this  we  shall  find  something  very  curious  hereafter. 

All  the  Avatars  or  incarnations  of  Vishnu  are  painted  with  Ethiopian  or  Parthian  coronets.4 
Now,  in  Moore's  Pantheon,  the  Avatar  of  Wittoba  is  thus  painted  ;  but  Christ  on  the  cross,  though 
often  described  with  a  glory,  I  believe  is  never  described  with  the  Coronet.    This  proves  that  the 
figure  described  in  Moore's  Pantheon  is  not  a  Portuguese  crucifix.     Vide  plates,  fig.  *]. 

2.  Mr.  Moore  endeavours  to  prove  that  this  crucifix  cannot  be  Hindoo,  because  there  are  dupli- 
cates of  it  from  the  same  mould,  and  he  contends  that  the  Hindoos  can  only  make  one  cast  from 


1  Voy.  Langles.  Monum.,  I.,  p.  186,  con/,  pp.  127,  et.  sq. 

*  Religions  de  L' Antiquity,  Du  Dr.  Frederic  Creuzer,  par  J.  D.  Guigniaut.    Paris,  Treuttel  et  Wurtz,  Rue  de 
Bourbon,  No.  17.     1825. 

3  Moore's  Ind.  Pantheon,  pp.  98,  416,  420.  4  Jones,  Asiatic  Res.  Vol.  I.  p.  260.    4to. 

u 


146  moore's  observation  refuted. 

one  mould,  the  mould  being  made  of  clay.  But  he  ought  to  have  deposited  the  two  specimens 
where  they  could  have  been  examined,  to  ascertain  that  they  were  duplicates.  Besides,  how  does 
he  know  that  the  Hindoos,  who  are  so  ingenious,  had  not  the  very  simple  art  of  making  casts  from 
the  brass  figure,  as  well  as  clay  moulds  from  the  one  of  wax  ?  Nothing  could  be  more  easy.  The 
crucified  body  without  the  cross  of  wood  reminds  me  that  some  of  the  ancient  sects  of  heretics 
held  Jesus  to  have  been  crucified  in  the  clouds. 

Montfaucon  says,  "  What  can  be  the  reason  that,  in  the  most  common  medals,  some  thousands 
"  of  which  might  be  got  up,  we  never  can  find  two  struck  with  the  same  die,  though  the  impres- 
"  sion  and  inscription  be  still  the  same  ?  This  is  so  constantly  true,  that  whenever  we  find  two 
"  medals  which  appear  to  be  struck  with  the  same  die,  we  always  suspect  one  is  a  modern  piece 
"  coined  from  the  other,  and  upon  strict  examination  find  it  always  is  so." ' 

I  very  much  suspect  that  it  is  from  some  story  now  unknown,  or  kept  out  of  sight,  relating  to 
this  Avatar,  that  the  ancient  heretics  alluded  to  before  obtained  their  tradition  of  Jesus  having 
been  crucified  in  the  clouds.  The  temple  at  Punderpoor  deserves  to  be  searched,  although  the 
result  of  this  search  would  give  but  little  satisfaction,  unless  it  were  made  by  a  person  of  a  very 
different  character  from  that  of  our  missionaries.  The  argument  respecting  the  duplicates  on 
which  Mr.  Moore  places  his  chief  dependence  to  prove  it  Christian,  at  once  falls  to  the  ground 
when  it  is  known  that  the  assertion  is  not  true  :  duplicates  of  brass  idols,  or  at  least  copies  so 
near  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  distingush  them,  or  to  say  that  they  are  not  duplicates  from  the 
same  mould  coarsely  and  unskilfully  made,  may  be  seen  at  the  Museum  at  the  India  House;  and 
also  in  that  of  the  Asiatic  Society  in  Grafton  Street,  where  there  are  what  I  believe  to  be  dupli- 
cates of  figures  from  the  same  mould.  I  therefore  think  it  must  remain  a  Wittoba.  But  the 
reader  has  seen  what  I  have  found  in  Montfaucon,  and  he  must  judge  for  himself. 

That  nothing  more  is  known  respecting  this  Avatar,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  may  be  attributed 
to  the  same  kind  of  feeling  which  induced  Mr.  Moore's  friend  to  wish  him  to  remove  this  print 
from  his  book.  The  innumerable  pious  frauds  of  which  Christian  priests  stand  convicted,  and  the 
principle  of  the  expediency  of  fraud  admitted  to  have  existed  by  Mosheim,  are  a  perfect  justifica- 
tion of  my  suspicions  respecting  the  concealment  of  the  history  of  this  Avatar :  especially  as  I 
can  find  no  Wittobas  in  any  of  the  collections.  I  repeat,  I  cannot  help  suspecting,  that  it  is  from 
this  Avatar  of  Cristna  that  the  sect  of  Christian  heretics  got  their  Christ  crucified  in  the  clouds. 

Long  after  the  above  was  written,  I  accidentally  looked  into  Moore's  Pantheon,  at  the  British 
Museum,  where  it  appears  that  the  copy  is  an  earlier  impression  than  the  former  which  I  had 
consulted :  and  I  discovered  something  which  Mr.  Moore  has  apparently  not  dared  to  tell  us,  viz. 
that  in  several  of  the  icons  of  Wittoba,  there  are  marks  of  holes  in  both  feet,  and  in  others,  of 
holes  in  the  hands.  In  the  first  copy  which  I  consulted,  the  marks  are  very  faint,  so  as  to  be 
scarcely  visible.  In  figures  4  and  5  of  plate  11,  the  figures  have  nail-holes  in  both  feet.  Fig.  3 
has  a  hole  in  one  hand.  Fig.  6  has  on  his  side  the  mark  of  a  foot,  and  a  little  lower  in  the  side  a 
round  hole ;  to  his  collar  or  shirt  hangs  the  ornament  or  emblem  of  a  heart,  which  we  generally 
see  in  the  Romish  pictures  of  Christ;  on  his  head  he  has  an  Yoni-Linga.  In  plate  12,  and  in  plate 
97,  he  has  a  round  mark  in  the  palm  of  the  hand.  Of  this  last,  Mr.  Moore  says,  "  This  cast  is  in 
"  five  pieces  :  the  back  lifts  out  of  sockets  in  the  pedestal,  and  admits  the  figures  to  slide  back- 
"  wards  out  of  the  grooves  in  which  they  are  fitted  :  it  is  then  seen  that  the  seven-headed  Naga 
'•  (cobra),  joined  to  the  figure,  continues  his  scaly  length  down  Ballaji's  back,  and  making  two 
"  convolutions  under  him  forms  his  seat :  a  second  shorter  snake,   also  part  of  the  figure,  pro- 


'  Ant.  Exp.  Supplement,  Vol.  III.  B.  v.  p.  329. 


BOOK  IV.      CHAPTER  II.      SECTION  3.  ]4~ 

"  trudes  its  head,  and  makes  a  seat  for  Ballaji's  right  foot,  and  terminates  with  the  other  snake 
"  behind  him.  Unless  this  refer  to  the  same  legend  as  Crishna  crushing  Kaliya,  I  know  not  its 
"allusion."1 

Figure  1,  plate  91,  of  Moore's  Pantheon,  is  a  Hanuman,  but  it  is  remarkable  that  it  has  a  hole 
in  one  foot,  a  nail  through  the  other,  a  round  nail  mark  in  the  palm  of  one  hand  and  on  the  knuckle 
of  the  other,  and  is  ornamented  with  doves  and  a  five-headed  Cobra  snake. 

Tt  is  unfortunate,  perhaps  it  has  been  thought  prudent,  that  the  originals  are  not  in  the  Museum 
to  be  examined.  But  it  is  pretty  clear  that  the  Romish  and  Protestant  crucifixion  of  Jesus  must 
have  been  taken  from  the  Avatar  of  Ballaji,  or  the  Avatar  of  Ballaji  from  it,  or  both  from  a  com- 
mon mythos. 

In  this  Avatar  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  appears  to  be  closely  connected  with  the  crucifixion 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  The  seven-headed  Cobra,  in  one  instance,  and  the  foot  on 
the  head  of  the  serpent  in  others,  unite  him  with  Surya  and  Buddha.  Some  of  these  figures  have 
glories  at  the  back  of  them.  In  Calmet's  Fragments,  Cristna  has  the  glory.  Some  of  the  marks 
on  the  hands  \  should  not  have  suspected  to  be  nail-marks,  if  they  had  not  been  accompanied  with 
the  other  circumstances  :  for  the  reader  will  see  that  they  are  double  circles.  The  nail-holes  may 
have  been  ornamented  for  the  sake  of  doing  them  honour,  from  the  same  feeling  which  makes  the 
disgraceful  cross  itself  an  emblem  of  honour.  I  have  seen  many  Buddhas  perfectly  naked,  with  a 
small  lotus  flower  in  the  palms  of  the  hands  and  on  the  centre  of  the  soles  of  the  feet.  The  mark 
in  the  side  is  worthy  of  observation  and  is  unexplained.  I  confess  it  seems  to  me  to  be  very  sus- 
picious, that  the  icons  of  Wittoba  are  no  where  to  be  seen  in  the  collections  of  our  societies. 

Mr.  Moore  gives  an  account  of  an  influence  endeavoured  to  be  exercised  upon  him,  to  induce 
him  not  to  publish  the  print,  for  fear  of  giving  offence.  If  it  were  nothing  but  a  common  crucifix, 
why  should  it  give  offence  ? 

3.  It  cannot  and  will  not  be  denied,  that  these  circumstances  make  this  Avatar  and  its  temples 
at  Terputty,  in  the  Carnatic,  and  Punderpoor  near  Poonah,  the  most  interesting  to  the  Christian 
world  of  any  in  India.  Pilgrimages  are  made  to  the  former,  particularly  from  Guzerat.  Why  have 
not  some  of  our  numerous  missionaries  examined  them  ?  Will  any  person  believe  that  they  have 
not  ?  Why  is  not  the  account  of  the  search  in  the  published  transactions  of  the  Missionary  So- 
ciety ?  There  is  plenty  of  nonsense  in  their  works  about  Juggernaut  and  his  temple.  Was  it 
suppressed  for  the  same  reason  that  the  father  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  Eusebius,  admits  that  he 
suppressed  matters  relating  to  the  Christians,  and  among  the  rest,  I  suppose,  the  murder  of  Cris- 
pus,  by  his  father  Constantine,  viz.  that  it  was  not  of  good  report  ?  It  would  be  absurd  to  deny 
that  I  believe  this  to  be  the  fact.  When  Mr.  Moore  wrote,  Terputty  was  in  the  possession  of  the 
English,  who  made  a  profit  of  ^15,000  a  year  of  the  temple.  The  silence  itself  of  our  literati  and 
missionaries  speaks  volumes. 

Mr.  Moore  (p.  415)  says,  "  In  Sanscrit  this  Avatara  is  named  Vinkatyeish  ;  in  the  Carnatic 
"  dialect,  Terpati ;  in  the  Telinga  country  and  language,  Vinkatramna  Govinda;  in  Guzerat  and 
"  to  the  westward,  Ta'khur,  or  Thakhur,  as  well  as  Ballaji  :  the  latter  name  obtains  in  the  neigh- 
"  bourhood  of  Poona,  and  generally  through  the  Mahratta  country."  The  name  of  Terpati,  or  as 
he  elsewhere  calls  him  Tripati,  identifies  him  with  the  ancient  Trinity.  This  word  is  almost  cor- 
rectly Latin,  but  this  a  person  who  has  read  Sect.  XXV.  of  Chap.  II.  and  Ap.  p.  304,  of  my  Celtic 
Druids,  will  not  be  surprised  at.  Pati  or  Peti  is  the  Pali2  word  for  father.  And  what  does 
Wittoba's  other  name  Ballaji  look  like  but  Baal-jah,  b]}2  Bol,  rv  Ie,  or  n»  He  f  Whenever  the 
languages  of  India  come  to  be  understood,  I  am  satisfied  that  Colonel  Wilford's  opinion  will  be 


1  P.  416.  *  We  shall  find  in  the  end  that  the  Pali  language  was  originally  the  same  as  the  Tamul. 

u2 


148  CRISTNA,    BACCHUS,    HERCULES,  &C,   TYPES    OF   THE    REAL    SAVIOUR. 

proved  well  founded,  and  that  they  will  be  discovered  at  the  bottom  to  be  derived  from  the  same 
root  as  the  sixteen-letter  system  of  the  Phoenicians,  Hebrews,  &c,  &c,  and  their  Gods  the  same. 

The  circumstance  of  Ballaji  treading  on  the  head  of  the  serpent  shews  that  he  is,  as  the  Brah- 
mins say,  an  Avatar  of  Cristna.  I  shall  be  accused  of  illiberality  in  what  I  am  going  to  say,  but  I 
must  and  will  speak  the  truth.  Belief  is  not  (at  least  with  me)  a  matter  of  choice,  it  is  a  matter 
of  necessity,  and  suspicion  is  the  same— and  I  must  say,  if  I  speak  honestly,  that  after  the  cir- 
cumstances of  concealment  for  so  many  years  stated  above,  I  shall  not  believe  that  there  is  not 
something  more  in  the  Avatar  of  Wittoba  if  his  temples  be  not  searched  by  persons  well  known 
to  be  of  a  sceptical  disposition.  And  even  then,  who  knows  that  the  most  important  matters  may 
not  have  already  been  removed  ?  It  is  lamentable  to  think  that  the  lies  and  frauds  of  the  unprin- 
cipled part  of  the  priesthood,  and  generally  the  ruling  part,  have  rendered  certainty  upon  these 
subjects  almost  unattainable  :  however,  it  comes  to  this,  that  it  is  perfectly  absurd  to  look  for 
certainty,  or  to  blame  any  one  for  an  opinion.  The  fact  of  the  God  treading  on  the  head  of  the 
serpent  is  a  decisive  proof,  both  in  his  case  and  in  that  of  Cristna,  that  this  cannot  have  been 
taken  from  the  Romish  or  Greek  writings,  or  the  spurious  Gospel  histories ;  because  the  sects 
whose  writings  they  are,  all  make  the  woman,  not  the  seed  of  the  woman,  bruise  the  serpent's 
head.  The  modern  Protestant  churches  translate  the  Hebrew  in  Genesis  by  the  word  ipse  ;  the 
ancient  Romish  church,  by  the  word  ipsa  ;  the  latter,  to  support  the  adoration  of  the  Virgin,  the 
Maia ;  the  former,  to  support  their  oriental  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  which  never  was  held  by 
the  latter.  I  believe  the  seed  of  the  woman  bruising  the  serpent's  head  was  never  heard  of  in 
Europe  till  modern  times,  notwithstanding  some  various  readings  may  be  quoted.  The  Brahmins 
surely  must  have  been  deeply  read  in  the  modern  scholastic  divinity,  to  have  understood  and  to 
have  made  the  distinction  between  the  Romish  and  Protestant  schools  !  They  must,  indeed, 
have  had  a  Magee  on  the  Atonement.  The  mode  in  which  all  the  different  particulars  relating  to 
the  serpent,  Osiris,  &c,  are  involved  with  one  another,  seems  to  render  it  impossible  to  suppose 
that  the  history  relating  to  Cristna  can  have  been  copied  from  the  gospel  histories.  The  seed  of 
the  woman  crushing  the  serpent's  head  is  intimately  connected  with  the  voyage  of  the  God  from 
Muttra  to  the  temple  of  Jaggernaut, — evidently  the  same  mythos  as  the  voyage  of  Osiris  to  Byblos. 
Of  the  seed  of  the  woman  crushing  the  serpent's  head,  or  of  the  descent  into  hell,  similar  to  that 
of  Cristna,  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  orthodox  gospel  histories. 

4.  I  shall  presently  make  some  observations  on  the  celebrated  Hercules,  and  I  shall  shew  that 
he  is  the  same  as  Cristna,  a  supposed  incarnation  of  the  Sun  in  Aries.  On  this  God  the  very  cele- 
brated and  learned  divine  Parkhurst  makes  the  following  observation  : l  "  But  the  labours  of  Her- 
"  cules  seem  to  have  had  a  still  higher  view,  and  to  have  been  originally  designed  as  emblematic 
"  memorials  of  what  the  real  Son  of  God,  and  Saviour  of  the  world,  was  to  do  and  suffer  for  our 
"  sakes, 

"  bringing  a  cure  for  all  our  ills,  as  the  Orphic  hymn  speaks  of  Hercules." 

Here  Mr.  Parkhurst  proceeds  as  a  Christian  priest,  who  is  honest  and  a  believer  in  his  religion, 
ought  to  do.  This  is  very  different  from  denying  a  fact  or  concealing  it.  The  design,  of  the 
labours  of  Hercules  here  supposed,  having  nothing  to  do  with  the  antiquity  of  nations,  does  not  in 
any  way  interfere  with  my  inquiry.  For  my  own  part  I  feel  that  whether  I  approve  the  reason 
assigned  or  not,  Mr.  Parkhurst  and  other  Christians  of  his  school  have  as  much  right  to  their  opi- 
nion as  I  have  to  mine  ;  and,  for  entertaining  such  opinion,  ought  not  to  be  censured  by  me  or 
any  one.     My  object  is  facts — and,  if  I  could  avoid  it,  I  would  never  touch  a  dogma  at  all. 

1  In  voce  \y  oz,  III.  p.  520. 


BOOK  IV.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  5.  149 

I  am  extremely  glad  to  find  such  a  reason  given,  because  it  liberates  me  from  a  painful  situation ; 
for  it  is  evident,  that  if  Hercules  were  Cristna  or  Buddha,  they  must  have  been  types  or  symbols 
of  Christ  if  Hercules  were  :  and  if  this  be  the  religion  which  I  contend  that  I  am  justified  in  taking 
from  Parkhurst,  how  absurd  is  it  to  suppress  the  facts  respecting  Cristna  !  For,  [it  is  evident  the 
nearer  and  closer  they  are  to  the  history  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  more  perfect  is  the  type  or  emblem  ; 
and  upon  this  ground  the  complaint  of  the  philosopher  against  the  religion  will  be,  not  that  these 
histories  are  similar,  but  that  in  certain  cases  they  are  not  similar.  He  will  say,  this  cannot  be  a 
type  or  emblem,  because  it  is  not  the  same.  Thus  the  frauds  of  the  priests  in  suppressing  facts 
will  recoil  upon  themselves.  And  when  we  perceive  that  the  Hindoo  Gods  were  supposed  to  be 
crucified,  it  will  be  impossible  to  resist  a  belief,  that  the  particulars  of  that  crucifixion  have  been 
suppressed.  To  suppose  that  Buddha  and  Cristna  are  said  in  the  Hindoo  books  to  be  crucified, 
and  yet  that  there  are  no  particulars  of  such  crucifixion  detailed,  is  quite  incredible.  The  argu- 
ment of  Mr.  Parkhurst  is  very  different  from  that  of  Mr.  Maurice,  and  I  hail  it  with  delight,  be- 
cause it  at  once  sets  my  hands  at  liberty,  and  shews  that  in  future  the  defenders  of  the  religion 
must  bring  forth,  not  suppress,  ancient  histories.  This  shews  the  folly  of  the  disingenuous  pro- 
ceedings of  our  priests  with  respect  to  Hindoo  learning. 

For  a  long  time  I  endeavoured  to  find  some  reason  or  meaning  for  the  story  of  the  crown  of 
thorns,  so  unlike  any  thing  in  history  but  itself,  but  in  which  the  prejudices  of  our  education 
prevent  our  seeing  any  absurdity.  I  have  at  last  come  to  an  opinion,  which  I  know  will  be 
scouted  by  every  one  who  has  not  very  closely  attended  to  the  extreme  ignorance  of  the  first 
professors  of  Christianity,  and  it  is  this,  that  the  idea  of  the  thorns  has  been  taken  from  the  pointed 
Parthian  coronet  of  Wittoba  or  Balaji.  Not  understanding  it,  and  too  much  blinded  by  their  zeal 
to  allow  themselves  time  to  think,  as  in  many  other  instances,  they  have  run  away  with  the  first 
impression  which  struck  them.  If  I  were  not  well  acquainted  with  the  meanness  of  understanding 
of  these  devotees,  I  should  not  certainly  harbour  this  opinion,  but  it  is  not  more  absurd  than  many 
other  of  their  superstitions. 

5.  In  many  of  the  most  ancient  temples  of  India,  the  Bull,  as  an  object  of  adoration,  makes  a  most 
conspicuous  figure.  A  gigantic  image  of  one  protrudes  from  the  front  of  the  temple  of  the  Great 
Creator,  called  in  the  language  of  the  country,  Jaggernaut,  in  Orissa.  This  is  the  Bull  of  the  Zo- 
diac,— the  emblem  of  the  sun  when  the  equinox  took  place  in  the  first  degree  of  the  sign  of  the 
Zodiac,  Taurus.  In  consequence  of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  the  sun  at  the  vernal  equinox 
left  Taurus,  and  took  place  in  Aries,  which  it  has  left  also  for  a  great  number  of  years,  and  it  now 
takes  place  in  Aquarius.  Thus  it  keeps  receding  about  one  degree  in  72  years,  and  about  a  whole 
sign  in  2160  years.  According  to  this  calculation,  it  is  about  2500  years  by  the  true  Zodiac, 
before  the  time  of  Christ,  since  it  was  in  the  first  degree  of  Aries,  and  about  4660  before  the 
time  of  Christ,  since  it  was  in  the  same  degree  of  Taurus.  M.  Dupuis  has  demonstrated  that  the 
labours  of  Hercules  are  nothing  but  a  history  of  the  passage  of  the  sun  through  the  signs  of  the 
Zodiac ;  *  and  that  Hercules  is  the  sun  in  Aries  or  the  Ram,  Bacchus  the  sun  in  Taurus  or  the 
Bull.  From  this  it  follows  that  the  worship  of  Jaggernaut  must  have  been  instituted,  and  his 
temple  probably  built,  near  6500  years  ago,  and  that  the  temple  and  worship  of  Cristna,  or  the 
Indian  Hercules,  must  have  taken  place  at  least,  but  probably  about,  2160  years  later.  This 
brings  the  date  of  Cristna  to  about  2500  years  before  Christ.  When  Arrian  says  that  the  Indian 
Hercules  was  fifteen  hundred  years  after  Bacchus,  it  appears  that  he  had  learnt  a  part  of  the 
truth,  probably  from  the  tradition  of  the  country.  The  great  length  of  time  between  the  two 
was  known  by  tradition,  but  the  reason  of  it  was  unknown.     But  I  think  we  may  see  the  truth 

1  In  the  sphere,  Hercules  treads  on  the  serpent's  head.    See  Dupuis. 


150  IMMACULATE    CONCEPTION,    FROM   THE    HISTORY   OF    PYTHAGORAS. 

through  the  mist.  The  adoration  of  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac  is  to  be  met  with  every  where  through- 
out the  world,  in  the  most  opposite  climes.  The  examples  of  it  are  innumerable  and  incontrover- 
tible ;  they  admit  of  no  dispute. 

6.  The  reader  will  not  fail  to  recollect  that  in  our  observations  on  the  Cristna  of  India,  some 
difference  between  him  and  Jesus  Christ,  relating  to  the  immaculate  conception,  was  observed  by 
Mr.  Maurice,  and  laid  hold  of  by  him  as  a  point  on  which  he  could  turn  into  ridicule  the  idea  of 
the  identity  of  the  two  histories  of  Cristna  and  Jesus.  The  life  of  Pythagoras  will  shew  us  where 
the  Christians  may  have  got  the  particulars  which  differ  from  the  history  of  Cristna.  The  early 
fathers  travelling  for  information,  which  was  the  case  with  Papias,  Hegesippus,  Justin,  &c,  mixed 
the  traditions  relating  to  Pythagoras,  which  they  found  spread  all  over  the  East,  with  those 
relating  to  the  Indian  Cristna,  and  from  the  two  formed  their  own  system.  Pythagoras  himself 
having  drawn  many  of  his  doctrines,  &c,  from  the  Indian  school,  the  commixture  could  scarcely 
be  avoided.  Thus  we  find  the  few  peculiarities  respecting  the  birth  of  Jesus,  such  as  the  imma- 
mulate  conception,  wherein  the  history  of  Jesus  differs  from  that  of  Cristna,  exactly  copied  from 
the  life  of  Pythagoras.  And  the  circumstances  relating  to  the  immaculate  conception  by  the  mother 
of  Pythagoras,  I  have  no  doubt  were  taken  from  the  history  of  Buddha,  as  I  shall  shew  in  my 
next  chapter,  and  from  the  virgin  of  the  celestial  sphere — herself  of  Oriental  origin.  Thus  from  a 
number  of  loose  traditions  at  last  came  to  be  formed,  by  very  ignorant  and  credulous  persons,  the 
complete  history  of  the  Jesus  Christ  of  the  Romish  Church,  as  we  now  have  it.  I  think  no  person, 
however  great  his  credulity  may  be,  will  believe  that  the  identity  of  the  immaculate  conceptions 
of  Jesus  and  Pythagoras  can  he  attributed  to  accident.  The  circumstances  are  of  so  peculiar  a 
nature  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible.  With  this  system  the  fact  pointed  out  by  the  Unitarians 
is  perfectly  consistent,  that  the  first  two  chapters  of  Matthew  and  of  Luke,  which  contain  the 
history  of  the  immaculate  conception,  are  of  a  different  school  from  the  remainder  of  the  history. 

The  first  striking  circumstance  in  which  the  history  of  Pythagoras  agrees  with  the  history  of 
Jesus  is,  that  they  were  natives  of  nearly  the  same  country  ;  the  former  being  born  at  Sidon,  the 
latter  at  Bethlehem,  both  in  Syria.  The  father  of  Pythagoras,  as  well  as  the  father  of  Jesus,  was 
prophetically  informed  that  his  wife  should  bring  forth  a  son,  who  should  be  a  benefactor  to 
mankind.  They  were  both  born  when  their  mothers  were  from  home  on  journeys :  Joseph  and 
his  wife  having  gone  up  to  Bethlehem  to  be  taxed,  and  the  father  of  Pythagoras  having  travelled 
from  Samos,  his  residence,  to  Sidon,  about  his  mercantile  concerns.  Pythais,  the  mother  of 
Pythagoras,  had  a  connexion  with  an  Apolloniacal  spectre,  or  ghost,  of  the  God  Apollo,  or  God 
Sol,  (of  course  this  must  have  been  a  holy  ghost,  and  here  we  have  the  Holy  Ghost,)  which 
afterward  appeared  to  her  husband,  and  told  him  that  he  must  have  no  connexion  with  his  wife 
during  her  pregnancy — a  story  evidently  the  same  as  that  relating  to  Joseph  and  Mary.  From 
these  peculiar  circumstances,  Pythagoras  was  known  by  the  same  identical  title  as  Jesus,  namely, 
the  Son  of  God ;  and  was  supposed  by  the  multitude  to  be  under  the  influence  of  Divine  inspi- 
ration. 

When  young,  he  was  of  a  very  grave  deportment,  and  was  celebrated  for  his  philosophical  ap- 
pearance and  wisdom.  He  wore  his  hair  long,  after  the  manner  of  the  Nazarites,  whence  he  was 
called  the  long-haired  Samian.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  was  a  Nazarite  for  the  term  of  his 
natural  life,  and  the  person  called  his  daughter  was  only  a  person  figuratively  so  called. 

He  spent  many  years  of  his  youth  in  Egypt,  where  he  was  instructed  in  the  secret  learning  of 
the  priests,  as  Jesus,  in  the  Apocryphal  Gospels,  is  said  to  have  been,  and  was  carried  thence  to 
Babylon  by  Cambyses,  the  iconoclast  and  restorer  of  the  Jewish  religion  and  temple,  where  he 
was  initiated  into  the  doctrines  of  the  Persian  Magi.  Thence  he  went  to  India,  where  he  learned 
the  doctrines  of  the  Brahmins.     Before  he  went  to  Egypt  he  spent  some  time  at  Sidon,  Tyre,  and 


BOOK  IV.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  6.  151 

Biblos,  learning  the  secret  mysteries  of  all  these  places.  Whilst  in  this  country  he  chiefly  dwelt 
in  a  temple  on  Mount  Carmel ;  probably  in  the  temple  of  Jove,  in  which  there  was  no  image. 
After  his  return  from  India,  he  is  stated  to  have  travelled  about  the  world,  to  Egypt,  Syria 
Greece,  Italy,  &c,  preaching  reformation  of  manners  to  these  different  nations,  and  leaving  among 
them  numbers  of  proselytes.  He  was  generally  favoured  by  the  people,  but  as  generally  persecuted 
by  the  governments ;  which  almost  always  persecute  real  philanthropists.  Here  are  certainly 
some  circumstances  in  this  history  very  like  those  in  the  histories  of  Jesus. 

The  stories  told  of  the  mother  of  Pythagoras  having  had  connexion  with  an  Apolloniacal  spec- 
tre, is  not  the  only  one  of  the  kind  :  the  same  story  is  told  of  Plato,  who  was  said  to  be  born  of 
Parectonia,  without  connexion  with  his  father  Ariston,  but  by  a  connexion  with  Apollo.  On  this 
ground  the  really  very  learned  Origen  defends  the  immaculate  conception,  assigning,  also,  in  con- 
firmation of  the  fact,  the  example  of  Vultures,  (Vautours,)  who  propagate  without  the  male. 
What  a  striking  proof  that  a  person  may  possess  the  greatest  learning,  and  yet  be  in  understand- 
ing the  weakest  of  mankind  ! 

It  seems  to  be  quite  impossible  for  any  person  of  understanding  to  believe,  that  the  coincidence 
of  these  histories  of  Plato1  and  Pythagoras,  with  that  of  Jesus,  can  be  the  effect  of  accident. 
Then  how  can  they  be  accounted  for  otherwise  than  by  supposing  that  in  their  respective  orders 
of  time  they  were  all  copies  of  one  another  ?  How  the  priests  are  to  explain  away  these  circum- 
stances I  cannot  imagine,  ingenious  as  they  are.  They  cannot  say  that  Jamblicus,  knowing  the 
history  of  Christ,  attributed  it  to  the  philosophers,  because  he  quotes  for  his  authorities  Epime- 
nides,  Xenocrates,  and  Olimpiodorus,  who  all  lived  long  previous  to  the  birth  of  Christ. 

In  my  next  chapter  all  these  sacred  predicted  births  will  be  shewn  to  be  supposed  renewed 
incarnations  of  portions  of  the  Holy  Spirit  or  Ghost.  And  here  I  must  observe,  that  these  mira- 
culous facts,  charged  to  the  account  of  Plato  and  Pythagoras,  by  no  means  prove  that  these  men 
did  not  exist,  nor  can  such  facts,  charged  to  Jesus,  if  disbelieved,  justify  an  Unbeliever  in  drawing 
a  conclusion  that  he  never  existed. 


1  Vide  Olimpiodorus's  Life  of  Plato. 


(    152    ) 


BOOK  V. 


CHAPTER   I. 


BUDDHA  THE  SUN  IN  TAURUS,  AS  CRISTNA  WAS  THE  SUN  IN  ARIES.  —  NAMES  OF  BUDDHA. — MEANING  OF 
THE  WORD  BUDDHA,  THE  SAME  AS  THAT  OF  THE  FIRST  WORD  IN  GENESIS. — THE  TEN  INCARNATIONS. — 
DESCENT  OF  BUDDHA  THE  SAME  AS  CRISTNA'S.— BUDDHA  AND  CRISTNA  THE  SAME. — SIMPLICITY  OF 
BUDDHISM. —  EXPLANATION  OF  PLATE. — BUDDHA  A  NEGRO — HIERARCHY— MAI  A.  —  SAMANEANS  OF  CLE- 
MENS— INCARNATION. — CABUL. — BUDDHISM  EXTENDS  OVER  MANY  COUNTRIES. — BUDDHA  BEFORE  CRISTNA. 

1.  The  time  is  now  arriv«d  when  it  becomes  proper  to  enter  upon  an  examination  of  the  doc- 
trines of  the  celebrated  Buddha  of  India,  which  were  the  foundations  of  all  the  mythoses  of  the 
Western  nations,  as  well  as  of  those  which  we  have  seen  of  Cristna ;  and  from  these  two  were 
supplied  most  of  the  superstitions  which  became  engrafted  into  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

I  shall  now  shew,  thaj  Buddha  and  Cristna  were  only  renewed  incarnations  of  the  same  Being, 
and  that  Being  the  Solar  power,  or  a  principle  symbolized  by  the  Sun — a  principle  made  by  the 
sun  visible  to  the  eyes  of  mortals  :  and  particularly  exhibiting  himself  in  his  glory  at  the  vernal 
equinox,  in  the  heavenly  constellation  known  by  the  name  of  Taurus,  as  Buddha,  and  subse- 
quently in  that  of  Aries,  as  Cristna. 

But  I  must  previously  make  one  observation  to  guard  my  reader  against  mistake. 

There  is  a  style  of  writing  or  speaking,  adopted  by  our  orientalists  from  inadvertency  or  inat- 
tention to  its  consequences,  which  has  a  great  tendency  to  mislead  the  reader.  They  take  up  a 
book  in  Ceylon  or  Pegu,  perhaps,  to  learn  from  it  the  doctrines  of  Buddha  or  of  Cristna  ;  they  read 
this  book,  and  then  tell  us  that  these  are  the  doctrines  of  Buddha,  never  considering  that  this  book 
may  contain  only  the  doctrines  of  an  obscure  sect  of  Buddhists.  Suppose  a  Brahmin  were  to 
come  to  England,  and  to  take  up  a  book  of  Johanna  Southcote's,  or  of  Brothers',  or  of  Calvin's; 
how  much  would  he  misrepresent  the  religion  of  Jesus  if  he  represented  it  as  he  found  it  there ! 
Except  in  a  few  leading  particulars,  it  is  as  difficult  to  say  what  is  at  present  the  religion  of 
Buddha,  as  it  is  to  decide  what  is  the  religion  of  Christ.  Again,  if  any  one  would  say  what  the 
religion  of  Christ  is  at  this  day,  in  any  particular  country,  it  would  be  very  different  from  what 
the  religion  of  Christ  was  four  hundred,  or  even  two  hundred,  years  ago.  We  have  no  service  now 
in  our  Liturgy  for  casting  out  devils.  And  it  is  the  same  with  Buddhism  and  Vishnuism. 
My  search  is  to  find  the  spring-head  whence  all  the  minor  streams  of  Buddhism  have  sprung. 
A  description  of  the  rivulets  flowing  from  it  and  which  have  become  muddy  in  their  progress, 
however  interesting  to  some  persons,  is  not  my  object;  nor  is  it  to  my  taste  to  spend  my  time  upon 
such  nonsensical  matters,  which  can  have  no  other  effect  than  to  disguise  the  original  of  the  reli- 
gion, and  to  gratify  evil  passions,  by  depreciating  the  religion  of  our  neighbour.  If  his  religion 
have  sunk  into  the  most  degraded  state,  as  in  Ceylon,  the  more  the  pity.     It  shall  not  be  my  task 


BOOK  V.    CHAP.  I.    SECT.  2.  153 

to  expose  the  foolish  puerilities,  into  which  our  unfortunate  fellow-subjects,  now  unable  to  defend 
themselves,  have  fallen ;  but  to  shew  the  truth  that,  fallen  as  they  are,  they  once  possessed  a  reli- 
gion refined  and  beautiful. 

M.  Creuzer l  says,  "  There  is  not  in  all  history  and  antiquity  perhaps  a  question  at  the  same 
"  time  more  important  and  more  difficult  than  that  concerning  Buddha."  He  then  acknowledges 
that  by  his  name,  his  astronomical  character,  and  close  connexion,  not  only  with  the  mytho- 
logy and  philosophy  of  the  Brahmins,  but  with  a  great  number  of  other  religions,  this  personage, 
truly  mysterious,  seems  to  lose  himself  in  the  night  of  time,  and  to  attach  himself  by  a  secret  bond 
to  every  thing  which  is  obscure  in  the  East  and  in  the  West.  I  apprehend  the  reason  of  the  diffi- 
culty is  to  be  found,  in  a  great  degree,  in  the  fact,  that  our  accounts  are  taken  from  the  Brahmins 
who  have  modelled  or  corrupted  the  history  to  suit  their  own  purposes.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the 
Buddhists  were  worshipers  of  the  sun  in  Taurus,  the  Bacchus  of  the  Greeks ;  that  they  were  the 
builders  of  the  temple  of  Jaggernaut,  in  front  of  which  the  Bull  projects  ;  and  that  they  were  ex- 
pelled from  Lower  India  when  the  Indian  Hercules,  Cristna,  succeeded  to  the  Indian  Bacchus. 
That  is,  when  the  sun  no  longer  rose  at  the  equinox  in  the  sign  Taurus,  but  in  the  sign  Aries. 
This  is,  I  believe,  the  solution  of  the  grand  enigma  which  M.  Creuzer  says  we  are  not  able  entirely 
to  solve,  and  this  I  will  now  endeavour  to  prove. 

2.  "  Buddha  is  variously  pronounced  and  expressed  Boudh,  Bod,  Bot,  But,  Bad,  Budd,  Bud- 
"  dou,  Boutta,  Bota,  Budso,  Pot,  Pout,  Pota,  Poti,  and  Pouti.  The  Siamese  make  the  final  T  or 
"  D  quiescent,  and  sound  the  word  Po  ;  whence  the  Chinese  still  further  vary  it  to  Pho  or  Fo.  In 
"  the  Talmudic  dialect  the  name  is  pronounced  Poden  or  Pooden ;  whence  the  city,  which  once 
"  contained  the  temple  of  Sumnaut  or  Suman-nath,  is  called  Patten- Sumnaut.  The  broad  sound 
"  of  the  (7  or  Ou  or  Oo,  passes  in  the  variation  Patten  into  A,  pronounced  Ah  or  Aw,  and  in  a 
"  similar  manner,  when  the  P  is  sounded  B,  we  meet  with  Bad,  Bat,  and  Bhat.  All  these  are  in 
"  fact  no  more  than  a  ringing  of  changes  on  the  cognate  letters  B  and  P,  T  and  D.  Another  of 
"  his  names  is  Saman,  which  is  varied  into  Somon,  Somono,  Samana,  Suman-Nath,  and  Sarmana. 
"  From  this  was  borrowed  the  sectarian  appellation  of  Samaneans,  or  Sarmaneans.  A  third  is 
"  Gautama,  which  is  indifferently  expressed  Gautamek,  Godama,  Godam,  Codam,  Cadam,  Cardam, 
"  and  Cardama.  This  perpetually  occurs  in  composition  with  the  last,  as  Somono-Codum  or  Sa- 
rmana-Gautama.  A  fourth  is  Saca,  Sacya,  Siaka,  Shaka,  Xaca,  Xaca- Muni  or  Xaca- Menu, 
"  and  Kia,  which  is  the  uncompounded  form  of  Sa-Kia.  A  fifth  is  Dherma,  or  Dharma,  or 
"  Dherma-rajah.  A  sixth  is  Hermias,  Her-Moye,  or  Heri-Maya.  A  seventh  is  Datta,  Dat- 
"  Atreya,  That-Dalna,  Date,  Tat  or  Tot,  Deva-Tat  or  Deva-Twasta.  An  eighth  is  Jain,  Jina, 
"  Chin,  Jain-Deo,  Chin- Deo,  or  Jain-Eswar.  A  ninth  is  Arhan.  A  tenth  is  Mahi-  Man,  Mai- 
"  Man,  or  (if  Om  be  added)  Mai-Man-Om.  An  eleventh  is  Min-Esivara,  formed  by  the  same 
"  title  Min  or  Man  or  Menu  joined  to  Eswara.  A  twelfth  is  Gomat  or  Gomat-Eswara.  A  thir- 
"  teenth,  when  he  is  considered  as  Eswara  or  Siva,  is  Ma-Esa  or  Har-Esa  ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
"  great  Esa  or  the  Lord  Esa.  A  fourteenth  is  Dagon  or  Dagun,  or  Dak-Po.  A  fifteenth  is 
•'  Tara-Nath.     And  a  sixteenth  is  Arca-Bandhu  or  Kinsman  of  the  Sun."  2 

Again.  "  Wad  or  Vod  is  a  mere  variation  of  Bod;  and  Woden  is  simply  the  Tamulic  mode  of 
"  pronouncing  Buddha:  for  in  that  mode  of  enunciation,  Buddha  is  expressed  Pooden  or  Poden; 
"  and  Poden  is  undoubtedly  the  same  word  as  Voden  or  Woden."  3  This  etymology  is  assented  to 
by  Sir  W.  Jones,  if  it  were  not,  as  I  believe  it  was,  originally  proposed  by  him.     Woden  was  the 

1  Religions  de  1'  Antiquity  Vol.  I.  p.  285,  ed.  de  Mons.  Guigniaut. 

2  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  B.  iv.  Chap.  v.  p.  351.  3  lb.  p.  355. 

x 


154      NAMES    OF    BUDDHA.— MEANING   OF    BUDDHA    SAME    AS   THE    FIRST    WORD    OF    GENESIS. 

God  of  the  Scuths  or  Goths  and  Scandinavians,  and  said  to  be  the  inventor  of  their  letters ;  as 
Hermes  was  the  supposed  inventor  of  the  letters  of  the  Egyptians.  This,  among  other  circum- 
stances, tends  to  prove  that  the  religion  of  the  Celts  and  Scuths  of  the  West  was  Buddhism. 
The  Celtic  Teutates  is  the  Gothic  Teut  or  Tuisto,  Buddhas  titles  of  Tat,  Datta,  or  Twashta. 
Taranis  is  Tara-Nath.  Hesus  of  Gaul  is,  Esa,  Ma-Hesa,  and  Har-Esa.  But  those  are  by  the. 
Latin  writers  called  Mercury.1 

My  reader  will  observe  that  I  have  given  from  Mr.  Faber  sixteen  different  names  of  Buddha,  by 
which  he  undertakes  to  prove  that  he  was  known  at  different  times  and  in  different  places.  Mr. 
Faber  enters  at  great  length  into  the  discussion  of  each,  and  proves  his  case,  in  almost  every  in- 
stance in  a  way  which  cannot  reasonably  be  disputed.  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  follow  him, 
but  shall  take  those  names  upon  his  authority.  He  makes  it  evident  that  Buddhism  extended  almost 
to  every  part  of  the  old  world :  but  we  must  remember  that  the  British  Taranis,  and  the  Gothic 
Woden  were  both  names  of  Buddha.  In  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  shewn  that  the  worship  of 
Buddha  is  every  where  to  be  found — in  Wales,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  2  Hu,  the  great  God  of  the 
Welsh,  is  called  Buddwas  ; 3  and  they  call  their  God  Budd,  the  God  of  victory,  the  king  who  rises 
in  light  and  ascends  the  sky.4 

In  Scotland,  the  country  people  frighten  their  children  by  telling  them,  that  old  Bud  or  the  old 
man  will  take  them.     In  India,  one  of  the  meanings  of  the  word  Buddha  is  old  man. 

3.  In  this  inquiry  it  seems  of  the  first  consequence  to  ascertain  the  meaning  of  the  word  Buddha. 
From  the  examination  of  the  accounts  of  the  different  authors,  this  celebrated  word  appears  to 
have  the  same  meaning  as  the  first  word  of  Genesis,  that  is,  Wisdom,  or  extremely  wise,  or  wise  in 
a  high  degree. 5  M.  Creuzer  gives  it  savant,  sage,  intelligence,  excellente,  et  supe'rieure.  He  says, 
it  allies  itself  or  is  closely  allied  to  the  understanding,  mind,  intelligence  unique,  and  supreme  of 
God. 

This  is  confirmed  by  Mr.  Ward,  the  missionary,  who  tells  us,  that  Buddha  is  the  Deity  of 
wisdom,  as  was  the  Minerva  of  Greece.  When  devotees  pray  for  wisdom  to  their  king,  they  say, 
May  Buddha  give  thee  wisdom.6 

The  etymology  of  the  word  Buddha  seems  to  be  unknown  to  the  Hindoos,  which  favours  the 
idea  of  a  date  previous  to  any  of  the  present  known  languages.  In  the  Pali,  of  Ceylon,  it  means 
universal  knowledge  or  holiness.7 

The  word  Buddha  has  been  thought,  by  some  Hindoo  authors,  to  be  a  general  name  for  a  philo- 
sopher ;  by  others  it  has  been  supposed  to  be  a  generic  word,  like  Deva,  but  applicable  to  a  sage 
or  philosopher ;    but  still  it  is  allowed  to  mean,  excellence,  wisdom,  virtue,  sanctity. 

In  Sanscrit  we  have,  Sanskrit  Root,  Budh,  to  know,  to  be  aware;  Budhyati,  he  knows,  is  aware; 
Bodhayami,  I  inform,  I  teach. 

Buddhi,  wisdom;  Buddha,  sage,  wise;  Bodha,  wisdom.8 

N"D  hda  in  the  Hebrew  means,  to  devise  of  himself  alone;  or  I  should  say,  to  think  or  theorise. 
In  Arabic  it  means,  to  begin  to  produce,  or  to  devise  something  new. 

Two  facts  seem  to  be  universally  agreed  upon  by  all  persons  who  have  written  respecting 
Buddha.     The  first  is,  that  at  last  he  is  always  found  to  resolve  himself  into  the  sun,  either  as  the 

'  Faber,  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  2  Celtic  Druids,  pp.  197,  306,  &e.  a  Davies,  Celtic  Myth.  p.  118. 

4  lb.  p.  1 16.  fl  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  234.  6  Ward's  Hist,  of  Hind.  p.  452. 

»  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XVII.  p.  33. 

8  Some  of  our  Indian  scholars  make  a  distinction  between  Buddha,  and  Budd,  the  Planet  Mercury.  I  can  no  more 
admit  this,  than  I  can  admit  that  the  God  Mercury  was  not  the  Sun  ;  though  I  know  that  Mercury  is  the  name  of  a 
Planet,  and  that  the  planet  is  not  the  Sun.    The  cases  are  exactly  similar. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER    I.      SECTION    4.  155 

sun,  or  as  the  higher  principle  of  which  the  sun  is  the  image  or  emblem,  or  of  which  the  sun  is  the 
residence.  The  second  is,  that  the  word  Buddha  means  wisdom.  Now,  we  cannot  believe  that 
this  wisdom  would  be  called  by  so  singular  a  name  as  Buddha,  without  a  cause. 

It  has  been  observed  by  several  philologers  that  the  letters  B  D,  B  T,  universally  convey  the 
idea  either  of  former  or  of  creator.  But  Genesis  says  the  world  was  formed  by  Wisdom.  Wisdom 
was  the  Buddha  or  former  of  the  world  :  thus  Wisdom,  I  conceive,  became  called  Bud.  Wisdom 
was  the  first  emanation,  so  was  Buddha.  Wisdom  was  the  Logos  by  which  the  world  was  formed ; 
but  Buddha  was  the  Creator :  thus  the  Logos  and  Budd  are.  identical,  the  same  second  person  of 
the  Trinity. 

Rasit,  or  Wisdom,  was  contemporaneous  with  the  commencement  of  creation — it  was  the 
beginning  of  things,  and  the  beginning  was  Wisdom,  the  Logos. 

The  beginning,  as  the  word  Rasit  is  explained  by  our  version,  is  contradictory  to  the  context, 
because  the  existence  of  space,  of  time,  of  created  angelic  beings,  is  implied,  before  the  moment 
which  gave  birth  to  the  mundane  system.  This  will  not  be  thought  to  be  too  refined  for  the 
inventors  of  the  Trinity, — the  Creator,  Preserver  and  Destroyer.  I  shall  shew  that  Logos,  Bud, 
and  Rasit,  were  only  names  in  different  languages  for  the  same  idea. 

Mr.  Whiter  says,  "  Through  the  whole  compass  of  language  the  element  B  D  denotes  Being: 
"  hence  we  have  the  great  Deity  worshiped  all  over  the  East — Budda." 1  Then  Buddha  will  mean 
the  existent  or  self-existent  wisdom,  self-existent  as  an  integral  part  of  the  Trinity.  He  then 
informs  us  that,  in  Persian,  Bud-en  Bud,  signifies  to  be.  The  same  as  Is,  est,  existo.  Bud  is 
clearly  the  /  am  that  I  am  of  our  Bible ;  or,  in  the  original,  which  has  no  present  tense,  the  I 
shall  be,  or  the  I  have  been;  or  what,  perhaps,  this  celebrated  text  may  mean,  That  which  I 
have  bekn,  I  shall  be — Eternity,  past  and  future. 

4.  Mr.  Crawfurd  says,  oriental  scholars  have  for  some  time  suspected  that  the  religions  of 
Brahma  and  Buddha  are  essentially  the  same,  the  one  being  nothing  but  a  modification  of  the 
other.  2    This  we  shall  find  hereafter  confirmed. 

The  following  is  the  speech  of  Arjoon  respecting  Vishnu  as  Cristna — Thou  art  all  in  all.  Thou 
art  thyself  numerous  Avatars.  Thy  Hyagrive  Avatar  killed  Madhu,  the  Ditya,  on  the  back  of  a 
tortoise.  In  thy  Comma  Avatar  did  the  Devites  place  the  solid  orb  of  the  earth,  while  from  the 
water  of  the  milky  ocean,  by  the  churning  staff  of  mount  Meru,  they  obtained  the  immortal 
Amrita  of  their  desires.  Hirinakassah,  who  had  carried  the  earth  down  to  Patal,  did  thy  Varaha 
Avatar  slay  and  bring  up  the  earth  on  the  tusks  of  the  boar:  and  Prahland,  whom  Hirinakassah 
tormented  for  his  zeal  towards  thee,  did  thy  Narasing  Avatar  place  in  tranquillity.  In  thy  dwarf 
or  Bahmen  Avatar  thou  didst  place  Bali  in  the  mighty  monarchy  of  Patal.  Thou  art  that  mighty 
Parasa  Rama,  who  cut  down  the  entire  jungle,  the  residence  of  the  Reeshees  :3  and  thou  art  Ram 
the  Potent  slayer  of  Ravar.  O  supreme  Bhagavat,  thou  art  the  Buddha  Avatar  who  shall  tran- 
quillize and  give  ease  to  Devaties,  human  creatures,  and  Dityes.  4 

I  think  I  could  scarcely  have  wished  for  a  more  complete  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  doctrine  of 
the  renewal  of  the  Avatars,  than  the  above.     It  shews,  in  fact,  that  both  Buddha  and  Cristna  are 
nothing  but  renewed  incarnations  in  each  cycle. 
The  ancient  identity  of  the  worship  of  Buddha  and  of  Cristna,  receives  a  strong  confirmation 


1  Etymol.  Univ.  Vol.  I.  p.  310.  2  Hist.  Ind.  Arch.  Vol.  II.  p.  222. 

3  I  apprehend  the  Reeshees,  or  Rishees,  when  the  word  is  applied  to  men,  are  the  Ras-shees — the  <f>tXo<ro<f>oi.  They 
are  said  to  have  been  seven  in  number,  and  the  Pleiades  were  dedicated  to  them.  But  I  shall  return  to  this  subject 
hereafter. 

«  Camb.  Key,  Vol.  II.  p.  294. 

x  2 


]56  DESCENT   OP   BUDDHA. 

from  the  fact,  that  the  Buddhists  have  ten  incarnations  of  Buddha,  the  same  as  the  followers  of 
Cristna,  and,  what  is  remarkable,  called  by  the  same  names. »  Mr.  Ward  says,  "  Vishnu  had  ten 
"  incarnations,  and  Buddha  had  the  same  number."  2  These  ten  incarnations,  thus  noticed  by 
this  missionary,  we  shall  find  of  the  very  first  importance  in  our  future  disquisitions. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Maurice  has  given  a  very  long  and  particular  account  of  these  ten  grand  Avatars 
or  incarnations,  of  the  God  of  the  Hindoos.  The  accounts  of  the  Brahmins  consist,  to  outward 
appearance,  of  a  great  number  of  idle  and  absurd  fables,  not  worth  repetition.  The  only  fact 
worthy  of  notice  here  is,  that  Buddha  was  universally  allowed  to  be  the  first  of  the  incarnations ; 
that  Cristna  was  of  later  date ;  and  that,  at  the  aera  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  eight  of  them  had 
appeared  on  the  earth,  and  that  other  two  were  expected  to  follow  before  the  end  of  the  Cali-Yug, 
or  of  the  present  age.  But  the  Brahmins  held  that  3101  years  of  it  had  expired  at  the  period  of 
the  birth  of  Christ,  according  to  our  reckoning. 

Between  the  Brahmins  and  the  Buddhists  there  exists  the  greatest  conceivable  enmity :  the 
former  accusing  the  latter  of  being  Atheists,  and  schismatics  from  their  sect.  They  will  hold  no 
communication  with  them,  believing  themselves  to  be  made  unclean,  and  to  require  purification, 
should  they  step  within  even  the  shadow  of  a  Buddhist.  Much  in  the  same  way  the  Buddhists 
consider  the  Brahmins.  The  ancient  histories  of  the  Hindoos  are  full  of  accounts  of  terrible  wars 
between  the  different  sectaries,  which  probably  lasted,  with  the  intermissions  usual  in  such  cases, 
for  many  generations,  and  extended  their  influence  over  the  whole  world  ;  and  we  shall  see  in  the 
course  of  this  work,  that,  in  their  results,  they  continue  to  exercise  an  influence  over  the  destinies 
of  mankind. 

Buddha  is  allowed  by  his  enemies,  the  Brahmins,  to  have  been  an  avatar.  Then  here  is  divine 
wisdom  incarnate,  of  whom  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac  was  the  emblem.  Here  he  is  the  Protogonos 
or  first-begotten,  the  God  or  Goddess  Mr^ng  of  the  Greeks,  being,  perhaps,  both  male  and  female. 
He  is  at  once  described  as  divine  wisdom,  the  Sun,  and  Taurus.  This  is  the  first  Buddha  or  in- 
carnation of  wisdom,  by  many  of  the  Brahmins  often  confounded  with  a  person  of  the  same  name, 
supposed  to  have  lived  at  a  later  day.  In  fact,  Buddha  or  the  wise,  if  the  word  were  not  merely 
the  name  of  a  doctrine,  seems  to  have  been  an  appellation  taken  by  several  persons,  or  one  person 
incarnate  at  several  periods,  and  from  this  circumstance  much  confusion  has  arisen.  But  I  think 
we  may  take  every  thing  which  the  Brahmins  say  of  the  first  Buddha  to  his  advantage,  as  the  re- 
ceived doctrine  of  his  followers.  They  hate  all  Buddhists  too  much  to  say  any  thing  in  his  favour 
which  they  think  untrue. 

5.  The  mother  of  Buddha  was  Maia,  who  was  also  the  mother  of  Mercury,  a  fact  of  the  first 
importance.  Of  this  Maia  or  Maja  the  mother  of  Mercury,  Mr.  Davies 3  says,  "  The  universal 
"  genius  of  nature,  which  discriminated  all  things,  according  to  their  various  kinds  or  species — the 
"  same,  perhaps,  as  the  Meth  of  the  ^Egyptians,  and  the  Mtjtjs  of  the  Orphic  bards,  which  was  of 
"  all  kinds,  and  the  author  of  all  things. — Ka<  M^r/j  7r%a)Tos  ysvsrcop.  Orph.  Frag."  To  this 
Mr.  Whiter  adds,  "  To  these  terms  belong  the  well-known  deities  Budda  and  Amida.  The  Fo  of 
"  the  Chinese  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  Fod  or  Budda  of  the  Eastern  world,  and  the  Mercury  of 
"  the  Greeks."  He  then  gives  the  following  passage  from  Barrow's  Travels :  "  The  Budha  of 
"  the  Hindus  was  the  son  of  Maya,  and  one  of  his  epithets  is  Amita.  The  Fo  of  China  was  the 
"  son  of  Mo-ya,  and  one  of  his  epithets  is  Om-e-to  ;  and  in  Japan,  whose  natives  are  of  Chinese 
"  origin,  the  same  God  Fo  is  worshiped  under  the  name  of  Amida.  I  could  neither  collect  from 
"  any  of  the  Chinese  what  the  literal  meaning  was  of  Om-e-to,  nor  could  I  decipher  the  characters 
"  under  which  it  was  written." 


Ward's  India,  p.  387.  %  Transac.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  p.  427.  3  Apud  Whiter,  Etymol.  Univ.  p.  103. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  I.   SECTION  5.  157 

I  think  there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  finding  here  the  Maia  in  the  Mo-ya,  nor  the  Om-e-to  in  the 
Am-i-da  and  Am-i-ta.  Nor,  in  the  first  syllable  of  the  three  last,  the  letters  A,  U,  M,  coalescing 
and  forming  the  word  Om.  The  Mijffg  is  well  known  to  mean  divine  wisdom,  and  we  have  seen 
above,  that  it  is  7rqa)Tog  yeverwp  or  first  mother  of  all. 1  The  first  of  the  ./Eons  of  all  nations  was 
wisdom.     Is  Am-i-da,  n  di  n  e  oy  om? 

The  followers  of  Buddha  teach  that  he  descended  from  a  celestial  mansion  into  the  womb  of 
Maha-Maya,  spouse  of  Soutadanna,  king  of  Megaddha  on  the  north  of  Hindostan,  and  member  of 
the  family  of  Sakya  Sa-kia,2  the  most  illustrious  of  the  caste  of  Brahmins.  His  mother,  who  had 
conceived  him,  (by  a  ray  of  light,  according  to  De  Guignes,)  sans  souillure,  without  defilement, 
that  is,  the  conception  was  immaculate,  brought  him  into  the  world  after  ten  months  without  pain. 
He  was  born  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  and  he  did  not  touch  the  earth,  Brahma  having  sought  him  to 
receive  him  in  a  vase  of  gold,  and  Gods,  or  kings  the  incarnations  of  Gods,  assisted  at  his  birth. 
The  Mounis3  and  Pundits  (prophets  and  wise  men)  recognized  in  this  marvellous  infant  all  the 
characters  of  the  divinity,  and  he  had  scarcely  seen  the  day  before  he  was  hailed  Devata-Deva, 
God  of  Gods.  Buddha,  before  he  was  called  by  the  name  Buddha  or  wisdom,  very  early  made 
incredible  progress  in  the  sciences.  His  beauty,  as  well  as  his  wisdom,  was  more  than  human  ; 
and  when  he  went  abroad,  crowds  assembled  to  admire  him.  After  a  certain  time  he  left  the 
palace  of  his  father,  and  retired  into  the  desert,  where  he  commenced  his  divine  mission.  There 
he  ordained  himself  priest,  and  shaved  his  head  with  his  own  hands,  i.  e.  adopted  the  tonsure. 
He  there  changed  his  name  to  Guatama. 

After  various  trials,  he  came  out  of  them  all  triumphant  ;  and  after  certain  temptations  or  peni- 
tences, to  which  he  submitted  in  the  desert,  were  finished,  he  declared  to  his  disciples  that  the  time 
was  come  to  announce  to  the  world  the  light  of  the  true  faith,  the  Gods  themselves  descending 
from  heaven  to  invite  him  to  propagate  his  doctrines.  He  is  described  by  his  followers  as  a  God 
of  pity,  the  guardian  or  saviour  of  mankind,  the  anchor  of  salvation,  and  he  was  charged  to  prepare 
the  world  for  the  day  of  judgment. 

Amara  thus  addresses  him  :  "  Thou  art  the  Lord  of  all  things,  the  Deity  who  ovorcomest  the 
"  sins  of  the  Cali-Yug,  the  guardian  of  the  universe,  the  emblem  of  mercy  towards  those  who 
"  serve  thee — Om  :  the  possessor  of  all  things  in  vital  form.  Thou  art  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and 
"  Mahesa  :  thou  art  the  Lord  of  the  universe  :  thou  art  the  proper  form  of  all  things,  moveable 
"  and  immoveable,  the  possessor  of  the  whole,  and  thus  I  adore  thee.  Reverence  be  unto  thee, 
"  the  bestower  of  salvation. —  ....  I  adore  thee,  who  art  celebrated  by  a  thousand  names,  and 
"  under  various  forms,  in  the  shape  of  Buddha  the  God  of  mercy.  Be  propitious,  O  most  high 
"God."4 

Buddha  was  often  said  not  only  to  have  been  born  of  a  virgin,  but  to  have  been  born,  as 
some  of  the  heretics  maintained  Jesus  Christ  was  born, //-om  the  side  of  his  mother.5  He  was  also 
said  to  have  had  no  father.     This  evidently  alludes  to   his  being  the   son  of  the  androgynous 

1  Jupiter  took  M?jt*«  Metis,  to  wife  :  and  as  soon  as  he  found  her  pregnant,  he  devoured  her :  in  consequence  of 
which  he  became  pregnant,  and  out  of  his  head  was  born  Pallas  or  Minerva.  Now  ^t<«  means  divine  wisdom. 
That  this  is  an  allegory  closely  connected  with  the  doctrine  of  Buddha  (wisdom),  and  of  the  n'BFMI  rusit,  or  wisdom 
of  Genesis,  the  first  emanation  of  the  Jews,  I  think  no  one  will  doubt,  though  it  may  be  difficult  to  explain  its  details. 

2  If  we  look  back  to  Section  2,  we  shall  see  that  Mr.  Faber  states  Sa-kia  to  be  a  name  of  Buddha.  This  Xaca  or 
Saka  is  the  origin,  as  I  shall  shew,  of  the  name  of  our  Saxon  ancestors. 

3  Mounis  are  nothing  but  Menus  or  wise  men,  like  the  Minoses  of  Crete,  &c,  Rashees  of  India,  and  Sophis  of 
Persia. 

4  Moore's  Pantheon,  pp.  23,  33,  39.  5  And  as  Mani  was  said  to  be  born. 


158  BUDDHA   AND    CRISTNA  THE   SAME. 

Brahme-Maia.1     This  I  suppose  to  be  described  in  the  prints  in  Moore's  Pantheon,  where  Buddha 
is  rising  from  the  navel  of  Brahme-Maia,  with  the  umbilical  cord  uncut. 

Mons.  De  Guignes2  states  that  Fo,or  Buddha,  was  brought  forth  not  from  the  matrix,  but  from 
the  right  side,  of  a  virgin,  whom  a  ray  of  light  had  impregnated.  The  Manichaeans  held  that  this 
was  the  case  with  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  this  single  fact,  without  the  necessity  for  any  other,  they 
identify  themselves  with  the  Buddhists. 

St.  Jerom  says,3  Apud  Gymnosophistas  Indise,  quasi  per  manus,  hujus  opinionis  auctoritas 
traditur,  quod  Buddam,  principem  dogmatis  eorum,  e  latere  suo  virgo  generavit. 

We  see  here  that  the  followers  of  Buddha  are  called  Gymnosophists.  It  has  been  observed  that 
the  Meroe  of  Ethiopia  was  a  Meru.  This  is  confirmed  by  an  observation  of  Heliodorus,  that  the 
priests  of  Meroe  were  of  a  humane  character,  and  were  called  Gymnosophists* 

When  we  treat  of  some  doctrines  held  by  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Bentley,  I  must  beg  my 
reader  to  recollect  that  in  the  account  of  Jerom,  the  Mythos  of  Buddha,  the  same  as  that  of 
Cristna,  was  known  to  him  in  the  fourth  century,  and  therefore  cannot  have  been  invented  to  op- 
pose Christianity,  about  the  sixth  century,  or  to  deceive  Mohammed  Akbar  in  the  sixteenth. 

Jayadeva  thus  addresses  Buddha :  "  Thou  blamest  (O  wonderful)  the  whole  Veda  when  thou 
"  seest,  O  kind-hearted  !  the  slaughter  of  cattle  prescribed  for  sacrifice— O  Kesava !  assuming 
"  the  body  of  Buddha.  Be  victorious,  O  Heri !  lord  of  the  universe."5  It  may  be  observed  that 
Heri  means  Saviour. 

There  was  a  Goddess  called  Jayadevi,  i.  e.  the  Goddess  Jaya.  6 

6.  Buddha  as  well  as  Cristna  means  shepherd.  Thus,  he  was  the  good  shepherd.  M.  Guigniaut 
says,  there  is  a  third  Guatama,  the  founder  of  the  philosophy  Nyaya.  I  ask,  may  not  this  be  the 
philosophy  of  a  certain  sect,  which  in  its  ceremonies  chaunts  in  honour  of  Cristna  the  word  IEYE, 
in  fact,  the  name  of  the  Hebrew  God  leue,  or  Jehovah  as  we  disguise  it  ?  7  We  know  that  names 
of  persons  in  passing  from  one  language  into  another,  have  often  been  surprisingly  changed  or  dis- 
guised ;  but  there  is  in  reality  no  change  here  ;  it  is  the  identical  name. 

This  is  one  of  thousands  of  instances  where  the  identity  of  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  names 
is  not  perceptible,  unless  recourse  be  had  to  the  sixteen-letter  system,  which  I  have  exhibited  in 
my  Celtic  Druids  ;  and  here  I  must  stop  to  make  an  observation  on  the  identity  of  languages. 
I  do  not  consider  the  identity  of  common  names,  though  it  is  not  to  be  neglected,  as  of  half  so 
much  consequence  as  the  identity  of  proper  names.  I  think  no  person  who  has  made  himself 
master  of  my  doctrine  respecting  the  ancient  system  of  sixteen  original  letters,  can  help  seeing 
here  the  identity  of  the  IEYE  and  the  leue  of  the  Hebrews,  nor  can  at  the  same  time  help  seeing 
its  great  importance,  in  diving  to  the  bottom  of  the  ancient  mythologies.  The  two  words  are 
identical ;  but  write  the  Hebrew  word  in  the  common  way  Jehovah,  and  the  truth  is  instantly 
lost.  It  matters  not  how  they  are  pronounced  in  modern  times  ;  when  they  were  originally  writ- 
ten with  the  same  letters,  they  must  have  been  the  same  in  sound. — Iaya-deva  is  said  to  have 
been  a  very  celebrated  poet,  but  we  see  he  had  the  name  of  one  of  the  Hindoo  Deities.  From  the 
practice  of  calling  their  distinguished  personages  by  the  names  of  their  Gods  and  Goddesses,  the 
confusion  in  their  history  is  irremediable.  Iayadevi  was  the  wife  of  Jina,  one  of  the  incarnations 
of  Vishnu.8 


1  Ratramu.  de  Nat.  Christ.  Cap.  iii.  ap.  Fab.  Pag.  Idol.  B.  iv.  Ch.  v.  p.  432. 

2  Hist,  des  Huns,  Tome  I.  Part  ii.  p.  224.  3  Hieron  in  Jovinianum. 

4  De  Paw,  Recherches  sur  les  Egyptians,  Vol.  II.  s  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  234. 

6  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  235,  and  Asiatic  Res.  Vol.  III.  art.  13,  also  Vol.  IX. 

7  See  Maur.  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  339,  ed.  4to.  8  Moore's  Panth.  p.  235. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  6.  159 

One  cannot  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  the  histories  of  the  different  Avatars  of  India,  without 
being  struck  with  the  apparent  contradiction  of  one  part  to  the  other.  Thus  Cristna  is  the  Sun, 
yet  he  is  Apollo.  He  is  Bala  Rama,  and  yet  Bala  Cristna.  He  is  also  Narayana  floating  on  the 
waters.  Again,  he  is  Visfenu  himself,  and  an  incarnation  of  Vishnu.  He  is  also  Parvati,  the 
Indian  Venus.  In  short,  he  is  every  incarnation.  All  this  is  precisely  as  it  ought  to  be,  if  my 
theory  be  correct.  He  is  an  Avatar  or  renewed  incarnation,  in  every  case,  of  the  sun,  or  of  that 
higher  principle  of  which  the  sun  is  an  emblem — of  that  higher  principle  which  Moses  adored 
when  he  fell  down  upon  his  face  to  the  blazing  bush.  The  adoration  of  the  solar  fire,  as  the 
emblem  of  the  First  Great  Cause,  is  the  master-key  to  unlock  every  door,  to  lay  open  every 
mystery. 

Buddha  may  be  seen  in  the  India  House  with  a  glory  round  his  head.  This  I  consider  of  great 
consequence.  The  glory  round  the  head  of  Jesus  Christ  is  always  descriptive  of  his  character, 
as  an  incarnation  of  that  Higher  Power  of  which  the  sun  is  himself  the  emblem,  or  the  manifes- 
tation. 

There  were  thousands  of  incarnations,  but  those  were  all  portions  of  the  divinity.  Emanations, 
perhaps  they  may  be  called,  in  vulgar  language,  from  the  Divine  Mind,  inspired  into  a  human 
being.  But  Cristna,  as  the  Brahmins  hold,  was  one  of  the  three  persons  of  their  Trinity,  Vishnu 
himself  incarnated ;  he  was  the  second  person  of  their  Trinity,  become  man.  Inspired  or  in- 
spirated  mighnbe  said  to  be  the  same  as  incarnated ;  this  was  exactly  the  same  as  the  Christian 
doctrine.  We  have  many  inspired  persons,  but  Jesus  is  held  to  be  God  himself  incarnated — the 
Logos,  one  of  the  three,  incarnated. — To  return  to  my  subject. 

Buddha  passed  his  infancy  in  innocent  sports  ;  and  yet  he  is  often  described  as  an  artificer. 
In  his  manhood  he  had  severe  contests  with  wicked  spirits,  and  finally  he  was  put  to  death,  we 
shall  find,  by  crucifixion,  *  descended  into  hell,  and  re-ascended  into  heaven.  The  present  sect  of 
the  Brahmins  hold  Buddha  to  have  been  a  wicked  impostor  ;  therefore,  we  need  not  expect  them 
to  say  any  thing  favourable  of  him  ;  but  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  that  he  was  the  same  kind  of 
incarnation  as  Cristna. 

In  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  observed,  that  the  word  Creeshna,  of  the  old  Irish,  means  the  Sun. 
Now,  in  the  Collectanea  of  Ouseley, 2  we  find  Budh,  Buth,  Both,  fire,  the  sun  ;  JBuide  lachd,  the 
great  fire  of  the  Druids.  We  also  find  in  Vallancey's  ancient  Irish  history,  that  they  brought 
over  from  the  East  the  worship  of  Budh- dear gt  or  king  Budh,  who  ivas  of  the  family  of  Saca- 
sa,  or  bonus  Saca.  In  the  Hindoo  Chronology  there  is  a  Buddha  Muni,  who  descended  in  the 
family  of  Sacya :  and  one  of  his  titles  was  Arca-bandu>  or  Kinsman  of  the  Sun.  If  my  reader 
will  look  back  a  little,  and  observe  that  the  Hindoo  Budhh  was  of  the  family  of  Sakya,  he  will, 
I  think,  believe  with  me  that  here  we  have  the  Hindoo  Buddha  in  Ireland.  It  is  impossible  to  be 
denied.  How  contemptible  does  it  make  our  learned  priests  appear,  who  affect  to  despise  facts  of 
this  kind,  and  to  consider  the  learning  wherein  they  are  contained,  beneath  their  notice  !  But 
they  do  not  despise  them  ,  they  hate  them  and  fear  them.  They  feel  conscious  that  they  prove  a 
state  of  the  world  once  to  have  existed,  which  shakes  to  their  foundations  numbers  of  their  non- 
sensical dogmas,  and,  with  them,  their  gorgeous  hierarchies. 

In  the  above  extract  General  Vallancey  calls  Saca-SA,  bonus  Saca.     I  dare  say  it  means  bonus, 


1  Neither  in  the  sixteen  volumes  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Calcutta,  nor  in  the  works  of  Sir  W. 
Jones,  nor  in  those  of  Mr.  Maurice,  nor  of  Mr.  Faber,  is  there  a  single  word  to  be  met  with  respecting  the  crucifixion 
of  Cristaa.  How  very  extraordinary  that  all  the.  writers  in  these  works  should  have  been  ignorant  of  so  striking  a  fact ! 
But  it  was  well  known  in  the  Conclave,  even  as  early  as  the  time  of  Jerom. 

8  Vol.  III.  No.  I. 


160  SIMPLICITY    OF    BUDDHISM. — EXPLANATION    OF   PLATES. 

but  it  means  also,  I  think,  the  same  as  the  Greek  word  £*,  from  Xcuo  to  save,  or  the  Hebrew 
word  yv>  iso,  and  means  Saviour. 

The  Arca-bandhu,  above-mentioned,  is  the  same  as  the  word  Nau-banda,  and  has  the  same 
meaning,  as  well  as  that  of  Kinsman  of  the  Sun,  if  Arca-bandu  have  that  meaning ;  jnx  arg,  in 
Chaldee,  means  ship.     Of  the  probability  of  this,  we  shall  be  better  able  to  judge  hereafter. 

M.  Matter  has  made  a  very  correct  observation  (as  we  proceed  in  our  inquiries,  every  new  page 
will  produce  some  additional  proofs  of  its  truth);  he  says,  L/Antiquite  vraiment  devoile,  nous 
offrirait  peut-etre  une  unite  de  vues,  et  une  liaison  de  croyances,  que  les  temps  modernes  auraient 
peine  a  comprendre. l    This  was  the  doctrine  of  the  learned  Ammonias  Saccas,  of  which  I  shall 

treat  hereafter. 

J.  The  farther  back  we  go  in  history  the  more  simple  we  find  the  icons  of  the  Gods,  until  at 
last  in  Italy.  Greece,  and  Egypt,  we  arrive  at  a  time  when  there  were  no  icons  of  them.  And 
from  this  circumstance,  which  seems  to  have  been  applicable  to  all  nations,  I  draw  a  conclusion 
favourable  to  the  superior  antiquity  of  the  Buddhist  worship.  For  Buddha  is  never  seen  in  the. 
ohl  temples,  where  his  worship  alone  prevails,  but  in  one  figure,  and  that  of  extreme  simplicity. 
And  in  many  temples  about  Cabul,  known  to  be  Buddhist,  there  are  no  images  at  all.  In  this 
case  they  can  only  be  known  by  tradition. 

The  stone  circles,  and  the  ruins  at  Dipaldinna,  2  are  undoubtedly  among  the  most  ancient  in 
India.  They  are  evidently  not  Brahminical,  but  Buddhist  or  Jain.  The  execution  of  them  may 
well  compete  with  the  works  of  the  most  skilful  of  the  Greeks.  The  drawings  which  Colonel 
Mackenzie  employed  the  natives  to  execute,  are  very  beautifully  done,  but  in  many  instances  a 
close  comparison  with  the  originals  at  the  India  House  will  shew,  that  they  by  no  means  equal 
them.  In  these  works  none  of  the  unnatural  monsters,  with  numerous  heads  or  arms,  which  we 
see  in  the  later  works  of  the  Brahmins  or  Buddhists,  are  to  be  found.  These  facts  seem  to  shew, 
that  in  the  most  remote  periods  of  Indian  history,  good  taste,  as  well  as  skill,  prevailed — circum- 
stances which  are  very  worthy  of  observation. 

Though  in  these  drawings,  by  Col.  Mackenzie,  of  sculptures,  at  Dipaldinna,  near  Amrawatty, 
which  are  most  beautifully  executed,  no  example  of  a  monstrous  figure  will  be  found — a  figure 
with  three  or  four  heads — yet  the  Linga  and  Yoni  are  every  where  to  be  seen  as  well  as  the 
favourite  Cobra  Capella,  shielding  or  covering  its  favourite  God  with  its  hood. 

The  images  of  Buddha  can  be  considered  only  as  figures  of  incarnations,  of  a  portion  of  the 
Supreme  Being ;  in  fact,  of  human  beings,  filled  with  divine  inspiration  ;  and  thus  partaking  the 
double  quality  of  God  and  man.  No  image  of  the  supreme  Brahm  himself  is  ever  made;  but  in 
place  of  it,  his  attributes  are  arranged,  as  in  the  temple  of  Gharipuri,  thus  : 


Brama 

Power 

Creation 

Matter 

The  Past 

Earth. 

WlSHNU 

Wisdom 

Preservation 

Spirit 

The  Present 

Water 

SlVA 

Justice 

Destruction 

Time 

The  Future 

Fire. 

Thus  each  triad  was  called  the  Creator.  In  the  last  of  these  divisions  we  find  the  Trinity  ascribed 
to  Plato,  which  I  have  noticed  in  B.  I.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  4.  We  see  here  whence  the  Greeks  have 
obtained  it,  and  as  was  very  common  with  them,  they  misunderstood  it,3  and  took  a  mere  figura- 
tive, or  analogical,  expression  of  the  doctrine,  for  the  doctrine  itself.  Probably  the  Earth,  fire, 
water,  might  be  given  to  the  canaille,  by  Plato,  to  deceive  them,  as  it  has  done  some  moderns,  to 
whose  superstition  its  grossness  was  suitable. 


1  Matter  sur  les  Gnostiques,  Vol.  II.  p.  205.  s  Mackenzie's  Collection  in  the  India  House. 

3  Moore's  Panth.  p.  242. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION   9.  161 

8.  The  figure  in  the  plates  numbered  8,  descriptive  of  Buddha  or  Cristna,  is  given  by  Mons. 
Creuzer.  The  following  is  the  account  given  of  this  plate  by  Mons.  Guigniaut:1  Crichna  8e 
avatar  ou  incarnation  de  Vichnou,  sous  la  figure  d'un  enfant,  allaite  par  Devaki,  sa  mere,  et  rece- 
vant  des  offrandes  de  fruits;  pres  de  la  est  un  groupe  d'animaux  rassembles  dans  une  espece 
d'arche.  La  tete  de  l'enfant-dieu,  noir,  comme  indique  son  nom,  est  ceinte  d'une  aureole  aussi 
bien  que  celle  de  sa  mere.  On  pent  voir  encore,  dans  cette  belle  peinture,  Buddha  sur  le  sein  de 
Maya* 

M.  Creuzer  observes  that  the  images  of  Cristna  and  Buddha  are  so  similar,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  distinguish  them ;  and  the  groupe  pictured  above  is  acknowledged  by  Moore,  in  his  Hindoo 
Pantheon,  to  be  applicable  to  Buddha  on  the  knee  of  his  beautiful  mother  Maya.3  But  yet  there 
is  one  circumstance  of  very  great  importance  which  is  peculiar  to  Buddha,  and  forms  a  discrimi- 
nating mark  between  him  and  Cristna,  which  is,  that  he  is  continually  described  as  a  Negro,  not 
only  with  a  black  complexion,  in  which  he  agrees  with  Cristna,  but  with  woolly  hair  and  fiat  face. 
M.  Creuzer  observes,  that  the  black  Buddha,  with  frizzled  or  curled  hair,  attaches  himself  at  the 
same  time  to  the  three  systems  into  which  the  religion  of  India  divides  itself. 

9.  Mr.  Moore,  on  his  woolly  head,  says,  "  Some  statues  of  Buddha  certainly  exhibit  thick 
"  Ethiopian  lips  ; 4  but  all  woolly  hair  :  there  is  something  mysterious,  and  unexplained,  connected 
"  with  the  hair  of  this,  and  only  of  this,  Indian  deity.  The  fact  of  so  many  different  tales  having 
"  been  invented  to  account  for  his  crisped,  woolly  head,  is  alone  sufficient  to  excite  suspicion,  that 
"  there  is  something  to  conceal — something  to  be  ashamed  of;  more  than  meets  the  eye."5 

The  reason  why  Buddha  is  a  Negro,  at  least  in  the  very  old  icons,  I  trust  I  shall  be  able  to  ex- 
plain in  a  satisfactory  manner  hereafter.  The  Brahmins  form  a  species  of  corporation,  a  sacerdotal 
aristocracy,  possessing  great  privileges  ;  but  the  Buddhists  have  a  regular  hierarchy ;  they  form  a 
state  within  a  state,  or  a  spiritual  monarchy  at  the  side  of  a  temporal  one.  "  They  have  their 
"  cloisters,  their  monastic  life,  and  a  religious  rule.  Their  monks  form  a  priesthood  numerous  and 
"  powerful,  and  they  place  their  first  great  founder  at  their  head  as  the  sacred  depositary  of  their 
"  faith,  which  is  transmitted  by  this  spiritual  prince,  who  is  supported  by  the  contributions  of  the 
"  faithful,  from  generation  to  generation,  similar  to  that  of  the  Lamas  of  Thibet."  M.  Creuzer 
might  have  said,  not  similar  to,  but  identical  with  the  Lama  himself;  who,  like  the  Pope  of  Rome, 
is  God  on  Earth,  at  the  head  of  all,  a  title  which  the  latter  formerly  assumed.  Indeed  the  close 
similarity  between  the  two  is  quite  wonderful  to  those  who  do  not  understand  it. 

The  monks  and  nuns  of  the  Buddhists,  here  noticed  by  M.  Creuzer,  take  the  three  cardinal  vows 

1  61,  xiii. 

*  Of  the  two  trays  which  are  placed  by  the  figure  with  the  infant,  one  contains  boxes,  part  of  them  exactly  similar  to 
the  frankincense  boxes  now  used  in  the  Romish  churches,  and  others  such  as  might  be  expected  to  hold  offerings  of 
Myrrh  or  Gold.  The  second  contains  cows,  sheep,  cattle,  and  other  animals.  If  my  reader  has  ever  seen  the  exhibition 
of  the  nativity  in  the  church  of  the  Ara  Coeli  at  Rome,  on  Christmas-day,  he  will  recollect  the  sheep,  cows,  &c,  &c, 
which  stand  around  the  Virgin  and  Child.  It  is  an  exact  icon  of  this  picture.  Hundreds  of  pictures  of  the  Mother  and 
Child,  almost  exact  copies  of  this  picture,  are  to  be  seen  in  Italy  and  many  other  Romish  countries. 

3  Col.  Tod  says,  Dare  we  attempt  to  lift  the  veil  from  this  mystery,  and  trace  from  the  seat  of  redemption  of  lost 
science  its  original  source  ?  This,  I  answer  my  good,  learned,  and  philanthropic  friend,  I  only  have  done.  The  alle- 
gory of  Cristna's  Eagle  pursuing  the  Serpent  Buddha,  and  recovering  the  books  of  science  and  religion  with  which  he 
fled,  is  an  historical  fact  disguised.  True !  and  its  meaning  is  so  clear,  it  requires  no  explanation.  In  the  Cave  at 
Gaya,  which  means  the  Cave  of  Gaia  or  the  Earth,  it  is  written — Heri  who  is  Buddha.  Here  the  Col.  says,  that  Cristna 
and  Buddha,  in  characters,  are  conjoined.  This  is  true,  and  they  mean,  Buddha  who  is  Heri,  and  Heri  who  is  Buddha. 
— Hist.  Rajapoutana,  p.  537- 

4  The  lips  are  often  tinged  with  red  to  shew  that  the  blackness  does  not  arise  from  the  colour  of  the  bronze  or  stone 
of  which  the  image  is  made,  but  that  black  is  the  colour  of  the  God. 

*  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  232. 


162  BUDDHA    A    NEGRO. — SAMANKANS    OF    CLEMENS. — INCARNATIONS. 

of  poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience, — the  same  as  the  monks  and  nuns  of  the  European  Christians. 
This  singular  fact  at  once  proves  the  identity  of  the  orders  in  the  two  communities,  and  that  they 
must  have  had  a  common  origin.  I  know  not  any  circumstance  of  consequence  in  their  economy 
in  which  they  differ. 

Maya  is  called  the  great  mother,  the  universal  mother.  She  is  called  Devi,  or  the  Goddess 
Trap*  e^o^v — the  Grand  Bhavani,  the  mother  of  gods  and  of  men.  She  is  the  mother  of  the 
Trimurti,  or  the  being  called  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer,  whom  she  conceived  by  Brahm  : 
and  when  the  Brahmins  can  get  no  farther  in  their  mystics,  they  finish  by  calling  her  Illusion. 
Perhaps  they  had  better  have  said,  Delusion,  which  is  the  very  point  arrived  at  by  Bishop  Berkeley, 
in  his  metaphysics.  Plate  VI.  of  Creuzer's  work  represents  Maia  receiving  the  adoration  of  the 
other  divinities.  On  the  top  of  the  building  appear  the  Beeve,  and,  at  the  side  of  it,  the  Yoni  and 
Lingha,  in  union.  The  Burmese  make  Maria,  or  Maha-Maria,  the  mother  of  their  God  Somon- 
Codom,  who  was  Buddha. l 

10.  A  certain  order  of  persons  called  Samaneans  are  noticed  by  Porphyry  and  Clemens  Alexandrinus. 
I  do  not  doubt  that  these  are  the  Somonokodomites  of  Siam,  and  the  Buddha  called  by  them  their 
leader — to  be  the  Buddha  of  Siam,  who,  as  Surya  with  the  seven  heads,  is  the  sun  and  the  seven 
planets.  This  Mons.  Guigniaut,  in  his  note,  by  a  curious  etymological  process,  has  proved.2  And 
that  this  Buddha  was  of  very  remote  date  is  also  proved  by  the  fact  noticed  by  Guigniaut,  that  he 
is  identical  with  Osiris  and  the  Hermes  of  Egypt.  "  L'Hermes  d'Egypte,  appele"  encore  Thoth 
"  ou  Thaut,  a  tous  ses  characteres,  et  se  retrouve"  a  la  fois  dans  les  cieux,  sur  la  terre,  et  aux  enfers  : 
"  THermes  ou  Mercure  des  Grecs  et  des  Latins  est  jils  de  Maya  comme  Buddha.  Nous  pourions 
"  pousser  beaucoup  plus  loin  ces  rapprochemens."  3  Learned  men  have  endeavoured  to  make  out 
several  Buddhas  as  they  have  done  several  Herculeses,  &c.  4  They  were  both  very  numerous,  but 
at  last  there  was  only  one  of  each,  and  that  one  the  sun.  And  from  this  I  account  for  the  striking 
similarity  of  many  of  the  facts  stated  of  Buddha  and  Cristna.  What  was  suitable  to  the  sun  in 
Taurus,  would,  for  the  most  part,  be  suitable  to  him  in  Aries,  and  it  was  probably  about  this 
change  that  a  great  war  took  place  between  the  followers  of  Buddha  and  Cristna,  when  ultimately 
the  Buddists  were  expelled  from  Lower  India.  This  was  the  war  of  the  Maha-barata.  Maha 
means  great,  and  Barata  is  the  Hebrew  n-q  bra  and  nN-Q  brat,  and  means  Creator  or  Regenerator. 
This,  I  have  no  doubt,  was  the  meaning  of  this  proper  name,  in  the  old  language.  What  meaning 
the  Brahmins  may  give  to  it,  in  their  beautiful,  artificial  Sanscrit,  I  do  not  know.  All  the  pro- 
per names  oX  gods,  men,  and  places,  will  be  found,  if  we  could  get  to  the  bottom  of  them,  in  the 
Hebrew.  On  this  1  must  i*equest  my  Sanscrit  reader  to  suspend  his  judgment  till  I  treat  of  the 
Sanscrit  language. 

Porphyry,  in  his  treatise  on  Abstinence,  gives  a  very  good  description  of  the  Brahmins  and 
Samaneans,5  from  which  it  appears  that  the  latter  had  precisely  the  same  monastic  regulations  in 
his  time,  that  they  have  at  this  day. 

The  Hermes  of  Egypt,  or  Buddha,  was  well  known  to  the  ancient  Canaanites,  who  had  a  temple 
to  D"in  erm,  "  The  Projector,  by  which  they  seem  to  have  meant  the  material  spirit,  or  rather 
"  heavens,  considered  as  projecting,  impelling,  and  pushing  forwards,  the  planetary  bodies  in  their 
"  courses."6  Notwithstanding  the  nonsense  about  material  spirit  or  heavens,  the  Hermes,  or 
Buddha,  is  very  apparent. 

1  La  Loubere,  P.  iii.  p.  136. 

Hesychius  says,  that  Mat,  pvya,  and  Maha,  had  the  meaning  of  great,  and  Mat  has  the  meaning  of  great  in  modern 
Coptic.     Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  415. 
«  Vol.  I.  p.  292.  3  ibid.  *  See  the  Desatir,  published  at  Bombay,  in  1818. 

*  De  Abs.  Lib.  iv.  Sect.  xvii.  6  Parkhurst,  Lex.  in  voce  rro")  rme. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION   10.  163 

The  different  Bu,  ddhasCristnas,  Ramas,  &c.,  are  only  different  incarnations  of  the  same  being. 
The  want  of  attention  to  this  has  caused  great  and  unnecessary  confusion.  In  the  Samaneans  and 
Buddha  of  Porphyry  and  Clemens,  we  have  a  proof  that  the  doctrines  of  Buddhism  were  common 
in  their  day. 

These  Samaneans  were  great  travellers,  and  makers  of  proselytes ;  and  by  this  means  we  readily 
account  for  the  way  in  which  the  oriental  doctrines  came  to  be  mixed  up  with  the  history  of  Jesus, 
by  such  collectors  of  traditions  as  Papias,  Irenseus,  &c.  These  writers  made  prize  of  every  idle 
superstition  they  found,  provided  they  could,  by  any  means,  mix  it  up  with  the  history  and  doc- 
trines of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  as  I  shall  abundantly  prove  in  the  second  part  of  this  work. 

"  Both  Cyril  and  Clemens  Alexandrinus1  agree  in  telling  us,  that  the  Samaneans  were  the  sa- 
"  cerdotal  order  both  in  Bactria  and  in  Persia.  But  the  Samaneans  were  the  priests  of  Saman  or 
"  Buddha,  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  sacerdotal  class  of  Bactria  and  Persia  were  the  Magi  : 
"  therefore  the  Magi  and  the  Samaneans  must  have  been  the  same,  and  consequently  Buddha,  or 
"  Maga,  or  Saman,  must  have  been  venerated  in  those  regions.  With  this  conclusion,  the  my- 
"  thologic  history  of  the  Zend-avesta  will  be  found  in  perfect  accordance.  The  name  of  the  most 
"  ancient  Bull,  that  was  united  with  the  first  man  Key-Umurth,  is  said  to  have  been  Aboudad. 
"  But  Aboudad,  like  the  Abbuto  of  the  Japanese,  is  plainly  nothing  more  than  Ab-Boud-dat,  or 
"  father  Buddh-Datta."2  But  this  is  not  the  only  proof  of  the  Buddhism  of  the  Persians.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Desatir  of  Moshani,  Maha-bad,  i.  e.  the  great  Buddha,  was  the  first  king  of  Persia 
and  of  the  whole  world,  and  the  same  as  the  triplasian  Mithras.3 

Buddha  has  his  three  characters,  the  same  as  Brahma,  which  produced  three  sects,  like  those  of 
the  Brahmins — that  of  Buddha  or  Gautama,  that  of  Jana  or  Jina,  and  that  of  Arhan  or  Mahiman.4 
I  think  in  the  last  of  these  titles  may  be  found  the  Ahriman  or  the  Ma-Ahriman,  the  destroyer,  of 
Persia.  But  Buddha  is  allowed  by  the  Brahmins  to  have  been  an  incarnation  of  Vishnu,  or  to  be 
identified  with  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva,  and  like  them  he  was  venerated  under  the  name  OM. 

Colonel  Franklin  (p.  5)  says,  "  The  learned  Maurice  entertains  no  doubt  that  the  elder  Boodh 
"  of  India  is  no  other  than  the  elder  Hermes  Trismegistus  of  Egypt,  and  that  that  original  cha- 
"  racter  is  of  antediluvian  race ;  here  then  is  an  analogy  amounting  almost  to  positive  and  irre- 
"  fragable  conviction  ;  for  Boodh  and  Jeyne  are  known  throughout  Hindostan,  with  very  little 
"  exception,  to  be  one  and  the  same  personage."  In  p.  41,  Colonel  Franklin  remarks,  that  Bac- 
chus agrees  in  his  attributes  with  the  Indian  Boodh.  And  Mr.  Faber  observes,  "  that  Thor  is 
"  represented  as  the  first-born  of  the  Supreme  God,  and  is  styled  in  the  Edda  '  the  eldest  of 
"Sons.'5  He  was  esteemed  in  Scandinavia  as  a  middle  divinity,  a  mediator  between  God  and 
"man."6 

Colonel  Franklin  (p.  99)  speaks  of  "  Jeyne  Ishura,  or  Jeyne  the  preserver  and  guardian  of 
;<  mankind."  Here  is  the  Indian  Osiris  as  preserver,  or  saviour,  from  the  same  root  as  the  He- 
brew yt£»  iso,  to  save. 

Buddha  in  Egypt  was  called  Hermes  Trismegistus ;  Lycophron  calls  him  Tricephalus.  This 
speaks  for  itself,  as  we  have  seen  that  Buddha  is  identified  with  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva. 


1  Clemens  Alexandrinus  in  particular  states  that  the  Samaneans  were  the  priests  of  the  Bactrians.     Strom  Lib.  i.  p. 
305 ;  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  B.  iv.  Ch.  v.  p.  235. 

*  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  B.  iv.  Ch.  v.  p.  353.  3  Ibid.  4  ibid.  p.  349. 

4  Faber,  Horse  Mosaieae,  Vol.  I. 

Franklin's  Res.  p.  49.    Brahma  is  generally  in  the  neuter  gender.     But  as  Vishnu  or  Narayen  he  is  masculine,  as 
he  is  also  when  he  is  considered  as  the  Creator.    Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  I.  pp.  242,  243 ;  Collier,  Sect.  iv. 

y2 


164  CABUL,    CAVES   AT. — BUDDHISM    BXTBNDS   OVER    MANY    COUNTRIES. 

Mr.  Moore  says,  "  Most,  if  not  all,  of  the  Gods  of  the  Hindoo  Pantheon,  will,  on  close  investi- 
"  gation,  resolve  themselves  into  the  three  powers,  and  those  powers  into  one  Deity,  Brahm,  typi- 
"  fied  by  the  sun."  l  Again,  "  In  Hindu  mythology  every  thing  is  indeed  the  Sun."  Nothing 
can  be  more  true.  Mr.  Moore  adds,  "  We  may  here,  as  usual  with  all  Hindu  deities,  trace 
"  Kama's  genealogy  upwards  to  the  sun,  who  is  Brahm."  2 

It  is  admitted  that  Surya  is  the  Sun,  and  that  he  is  Buddha  :  hence  Buddha  is  the  sun.  He  is 
described  with  seven  heads.  Here  he  is  the  sun,  attended  by  five  planets  and  the  moon.  At 
other  times,  he  is  described  sleeping  on  a  coiled  serpent  with  seven  heads,  overshadowing  and 
protecting  him,  his  and  the  serpent's  heads  making  eight.  The  first  is  a  mythos  probably  adopted 
before  the  earth  was  discovered  to  be  a  planet,  like  the  other  five,  which  were  only  called  D'Oitf 
smim,  or  disposers,  the  angels  or  messengers  of  God. 

11.  About  the  city  of  Bamiam,  in  the  kingdom  of  Cabul,  are  many  caves  of  immense  size  without 
any  sculptures.  The  formation  of  these  caves  is  attributed,  by  tradition,  to  the  Buddhists.  They 
are  in  ancient  Persia,  not  far  from  Balch.  The  city  has  been  of  very  great  size,  and  has  been 
compared  to  Thebes  in  Egypt.  It  is  called  in  Sanscrit  Vami-Nagari,  or  the  beautiful  city.  The 
Buddhist  caves,  without  image  or  sculpture,  seem  to  bespeak  the  most  remote  period.  In  the 
oldest  of  the  caves  in  India,  those  of  Ellora,  Salcette,  Elephanta,  the  sculptures  attest  the  identity 
of  Buddha  with  Cristna.  In  most  of  the  temples,  of  which  the  architecture  bespeaks  a  more  re- 
cent date,  nothing  is  found  relating  to  Buddha,  but  he  is  found  in  the  temple  of  Jaggernaufc,  where 
there  is  no  distinction  of  castes  or  sects.  The  date  of  these  temples  is  generally  totally  unknown. 
The  colossal  Bull  in  front  of  that  at  Jaggernaut  evidently  betrays  Buddhism. 

These  circumstances  confirm  the  hypothesis  that  Buddhism  was  the  first  religion,  and  I  shall 
hereafter  prove  that  the  religion  of  Cristna  was  engrafted  into  it,  when  the  festival  was  changed 
from  Taurus  to  Aries. 

Colonel  Franklin  says,  "  That  as  the  figures  in  the  caves  at  Cabul  all  bear  the  stamp  of  an 
"  Indian  origin,  we  may  justly  ascribe  them  to  the  votaries  of  Boodh,  who  has  already  been  identi- 
"  fied  with  the  Mithras  of  Persia."  3 

M.  Creuzer  has  observed,  that  the  doctrines  of  Buddha  are  said  to  have  come  to  India  from  the 
north.  Of  this  I  have  no  doubt.  I  think  that  the  place  of  his  birth  was  in  a  far  higher  latitude 
than  either  that  of  Upper  Egypt,  or  of  Lower  India — in  a  latitude  where  the  month  of  Maia,  his 
mother,  would  be  the  month  of  flowers  and  delight.  This  would  be  the  case  in  Northern  Thibet, 
or  in  a  climate  very  similar  to  it,  but  not  in  a  climate  where,  in  the  month  of  May,  all  verdure  was 
withering  away  by  the  excess  of  the  heat,  and  the  ground  fast  reducing  to  a  parched  desert. 

Buddha  is  stated  by  Sir  W.  Jones  to  be  Woden,  and  not  a  native  of  India. 4  But  it  is  remarka- 
ble, that  Woden  is  his  Tamul  name,  and  the  Tamulese  are  now  in  South  India.  This  will  be  found 
of  importance  hereafter. 

Mons.  Guigniaut,  in  his  notes  on  Creuzer,  has  very  justly  observed  that  the  earliest  notice  we 
have  of  the  Persian  religion  has  come  from  the  north,  from  the  ancient  Aria  or  Balch,  the  ancient 
Bactriana.  He  says,  "  Nous  avons  deja  parle  des  temples  souterrains  de  Bamiam,  a  quelque 
"  distance  de  Caboul.  Ici  la  Perse  et  l'lnde,  Horn  et  Brahma,  Bouddha  et  Zoroaster,  semblent  se 
"  donner  la  main."  5  The  doctrine  of  Buddha  extends  throughout  China  and  its  tributary  nations ; 
over  the  great  empires  and  states  of  Cochin  China,  Cambodia,  Siam,  Pegu,  Ava,  Asam,  Tibet, 
Budtan ;  many  of  the  Tartar  tribes,  and,  except  Hindostan  perhaps,  generally  all  parts  east  of 
the  Ganges,  including  vast  numbers  of  large  and  populous  islands.  6 

1  Pantheon,  pp.  6,  16.  i  Ibid.  p.  447.  3  P.  113. 

*  Asiat  Res.  Vol.  II.  4to.  p.  9.  *  Creuzer,  Vol,  I.  p.  677.  6  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  240. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION    12.  165 

The  immense  extent  of  country  over  which  Buddhism  prevails  surely  raises  a  strong  presump- 
tion, that  it  was  the  root,  and  Cristnism  a  branch  from  it.  M.  Schegel  has  remarked,  that  in  the 
temples  of  Buddha  are  to  be  found  all  the  Pantheon  of  the  idols  of  India  j  not  only  their  theogony, 
but  their  heroical  mythology ;  the  same  mysticism  which  teaches  man  to  unite  himself  by 
contemplation  to  the  Deity  ;  and,  that  the  chief  difference  between  the  Buddhists  and  Vishnuites 
consists  in  the  former  forbidding  the  shedding  of  blood  either  for  sacrifice  or  food.  But  as  Schegel 
justly  observes,  it  is  also  considered  to  be  a  great  virtue  with  the  devotees  of  Vichnu  to  abstain 
from  these  practices.  The  Buddhists  are  allowed  to  have  been  at  one  time  very  numerous  on  this 
side  the  Ganges,  but  it  is  said  they  were  exterminated  or  expelled.  They  are,  however,  beginning 
to  reappear  in  the  Djainas.  M.  Schegel  says,  "  I  know  not  in  truth  what  difference  one  can 
"  establish  between  the  new  sectaries  and  the  Buddhists."  '  In  the  Transactions  of  the  Asiatic 
Society2  it  is  said,  "  The  princes  of  the  country  continued  Jains  till  the  prince,  in  the  time  of 
"  Pratap,  turned  to  Vishnou."     It  is  added,  "  the  Buddists  and  Jains  are  the  same." 

12.  The  following  copy,  in  Moore's  Hindoo  Pantheon,  of  an  inscription  which  was  found  in 
Bengal,  the  very  focus  of  the  country  of  the  Brahmins,  is  of  itself,  as  its  genuineness  cannot  be 
disputed,  almost  enough  to  prove  the  original  identity  of  Cristna  and  Buddha.  The  address  is 
said  to  be  to  the  Supreme  Being  :  "  Reverence  be  unto  thee  in  the  form  of  Buddha :  reverence  be 
"  unto  thee,  Lord  of  the  earth  :  reverence  be  unto  thee,  an  incarnation  of  the  Deity,  and  the 
"  eternal  one  :  reverence  be  unto  thee,  O  God  !  in  the  form  of  the  God  of  mercy  :  the  dispeller 
"  of  pain  and  trouble  :  the  Lord  of  all  things  :  the  Deity  who  overcomest  the  sins  of  the  Kali 
"  Yug :  the  guardian  of  the  universe  ;  the  emblem  of  mercy  toward  those  who  serve  thee,  oai  ! 
"the  possessor  of  all  things  in  vital  form.  Thou  art  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Mahesa  ; 3  thou  art 
"  the  Lord  of  the  universe  ;  thou  art  the  proper  form  of  all  things,  moveable  and  immoveable ; 
"  the  possessor  of  the  whole,  and  thus  I  adore  thee ;  reverence  be  unto  thee,  the  bestower  of 
"  salvation  :  reverence  be  unto  thee,  (Kesava,)  the  destroyer  of  the  evil  spirit,  Kesi. — O  Damor- 
"  dara !  shew  me  favour.  Thou  art  he  who  resteth  upon  the  face  of  the  milky  ocean,  and  who 
"  lieth  upon  the  serpent  Sesha."4  Again,  Mr.  Moore  says,  "In  Ceylon,  the  Singhalese  have 
"  traditions  respecting  Buddha,  that,  like  the  legends  of  Krishna,  identify  him  with  his  prototype, 
"  Vishnu."  I  think  with  Mr.  Moore  and  Major  Mahony,  that  the  identity  of  Buddha  and  Vishnu 
is  clearlv  made  out. 5 

I  have  been  asked  if  they  be  identical,  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  wars  ?  I  answer,  is  not 
the  religion  of  the  Protestant  and  the  Papist  identical,  that  is,  alike  forms  of  Christianity  ?  Then, 
how  are  we  to  account  for  their  wars  ?  As  the  wars  of  the  West  may  be  accounted  for,  so  may 
those  of  the  East. 

In  my  last  chapter  I  said,  that  the  word  om  was  used  exactly  like  our  word  Amen.  In  the 
above  prayer  is  a  proof  of  what  1  there  advanced,  with  this  only  difference,  that  it  was  not  spoken 
but  meditated  on,  in  profound  silence,  at  the  end  of  the  distich  or  the  prayer.  The  worship  of 
Cristna  has  been  proved  to  have  been  in  existence,  at  the  temple  of  Mutra  or  Maturea  on  the 
J  umna,  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great.  This  accords  with  what  Mr.  Franklin  6  has  observed, 
that  the  Buddhist  statues  dug  up  around  the  ruins  of  old  temples  in  every  part  of  India,  prove 
that  the  religion  of  the  country  was  formerly  that  of  Java,  which  is  that  of  Buddha.  He  regrets 
that  they  have  hitherto  been  treated   with  neglect.     The  name  of  the  island  Java,  is  clearly  the 


1  In  the  Museum  of  the  Asiatic  Society  is  a  Buddha  with  a  Bull  on  the  pedestal  of  the  image.     It  is  a  Diain  Buddha 
No.X. 

P.  532.  3  is  the  Ma-hesa  of  Mr.  Moore  the  Ma  or  great-hesits  of  Gaul  ?     I  helieve  so.     But,  nous  venous. 

4  Pp.  222,  224.  *  lb.  p.  228.  fi  Researches  on  Bodhs  and  Jeynes,  Ch.  i. 


166  CASSINI. — LOTJBERE. — CYCLES. 

island  of  Ieua,  i.  e.  mrv  ieue.  Mr.  Franklin  makes  an  observation  which  is  new  to  me,  that 
the  ancient  Etrurians  had  the  countenances  of  Negroes,  the  same  as  the  images  of  Buddha  in 
India. i  This  is  very  striking,  when  compared  with  the  proofs  which  I  have  given  in  my  Celtic 
Druids,  Ch.  II.  Sect.  xxv.  Ap.  p.  304,  of  the  identity  of  the  Sanscrit  and  the  ancient  language  of 
Italy.  Cristna  having  been  made  out  to  be  the  sun,  the  consequence  necessarily  follows,  that 
Buddha  is  the  Sun  ;  and  this  easily  and  satisfactorily  accounts  for  the  similarity  in  the  history  of 
Cristna  and  of  Buddha.  And  all  these  circumstances  are  easily  accounted  for,  if  Buddha  and 
Cristna  were  the  Sun  in  Taurus  and  Aries.  In  the  quotation  above,  from  Mons.  Schegel,  the 
second  Hermes  Trismegistus  is  alluded  to.  In  the  sequel  I  shall  shew  that  these  alleged  appear- 
ances of  second  persons  of  the  same  name  were  derived  from  a  system  of  renewed  incarnations, 
and  of  unceasing  revolving  cycles. 

The  elder  Buddha  being  now  admitted  by  all  oriental  scholars  to  have  long  preceded  Cristna,  I 
have  no  occasion  to  dwell  longer  on  this  subject. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CASSINI.  LUBERE.  CYCLES. — ISAIAH'S  PROPHECY  KNOWN  TO  THE  EGYPTIANS  AND  THE  CELTS  OF  GAUL. — 
MYSTICAL  MEANING  OF  THE  LETTER  M. — EXPLANATION  OF  THE  ORIENTAL  ASTRONOMICAL  SYSTEMS. — 
SUBJECT  CONTINUED.  MR.  BENTLEY.  BEROSUS.  — MOSAIC  AND  HINDOO  SYSTEMS.  VARIOUS  PROPHECIES. 
— MARTIANUS  CAPELLA.      SUBJECT  CONTINUED. 

1.  The  following  observations  of  the  very  celebrated  astronomer  Cassini,  made  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  and  extracted  from  La  Loubere's  History  of  Siam,  will  enable  me  to  elicit 
several  conclusions  respecting  the  famous  Neros,  of  the.  greatest  importance.  As  an  astronomer, 
M.  Cassini  is  in  the  first  rank.  No  one  will  deny  that  his  calculations  upon  acknowledged  or 
admitted  facts  are  entitled  to  the  highest  respect.  I  think  they  will  enable  me  to  point  out  the 
origin  of  many  of  the  difficulties  respecting  Buddha  and  Cristna,  and  to  explain  them.  They  will 
also  enable  me  to  shew  the  mode  which  was  adopted  by  the  early  popes  and  other  priests,  in 
fixing  the  times  of  several  of  the  most  important  Christian  epochas  ;  as  well  as  to  exhibit  the  mode 
in  which  the  Gods  Buddha  and  Cristna  have  been  regenerated.  These  circumstances  have  either 
been  unobserved,  or  they  have  been  concealed  from  Europeans.  After  a  long  discussion  on  the 
formation  of  the  Siamese  astronomical  and  civil  epochas,  in  which,  with  profound  learning,  Cassini 
explains  the  process  by  which  they  have  been  formed,  he  says, 

"  The  first  lunisolar  period,  composed  of  whole  ages,  is  that  of  600  years,  which  is  also  com- 
"  posed  of  31  periods  of  19,  and  one  of  11  years.  Though  the  chronologists  speak  not  of  this 
"  period,  yet  it  is  one  of  the  ancientest  that  have  been  invented. 

"  Josephus,2  speaking  of  the  patriarchs  that  lived  before  the  deluge,  says,  that  '  God  prolonged 
n  their  life,  as  well  by  reason  of  their  virtue,  as  to  afford  them  the  means  to  perfect  the  sciences  of 
"  geometry  and  astronomy,  which  they  had  invented:  which  they  could  not  possibly  do,  if  they  had 

1  Researches  on  Bodhs  and  Jeynes,  p.  149.  *  Antiq.  Jud.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  iii. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION   1.  167 

"  lived  less  than  600  years,  because  that  it  is  not  till  after  the  revolution  of  six  ages,  that  the  great 
"  year  is  accomplished.' 

"  This  great  year,  which  is  accomplished  after  six  ages,  whereof  not  any  other  author  makes 
"  mention,  can  only  be  a  period  of  lunisolar  years,  like  to  that  which  the  Jews  always  used,  and 
"  to  that  which  the  Indians  do  still  make  use  of.  Wherefore  we  have  thought  necessary  to 
"  examine  what  this  great  year  must  be,  according  to  the  Indian  rules. 

"  By  the  rules  of  the  first  section  it  is  found,  then,  that  in  600  years  there  are  7-00  solar 
"  months ;  7421  lunar  months,  and  -^V  Here  this  little  fraction  must  be  neglected ;  because 
"  that  the  lunisolar  years  do  end  with  the  lunar  months,  being  composed  of  entire  lunar  months. 

"  It  is  found  by  the  rules  of  Section  II.,  that  7421  lunar  months  do  comprehend  219,146  days, 
"  1  i  hours,  57  minutes,  52  seconds :  if,  therefore,  we  compose  this  period  of  whole  days,  it  must 
"  consist  of  2 19, 146  days. 

"  600  Gregorian  years  are  alternatively  of  219,145  days,  and  219,146  days  :  they  agree  then  to 
"  half  a  day  with  a  solilunar  period  of  600  years,  calculated  according  to  the  Indian  rules. 

"  The  second  lunisolar  period  composed  of  ages,  is  that  of  2300  years,  which  being  joined  to 
"  one  of  600,  makes  a  more  exact  period  of  2900  years  :  and  two  periods  of  2300  years,  joined  to 
"  a  period  of  600  years,  do  make  a  lunisolar  period  of  5200  years,  which  is  the  interval  of  the  time 
"  which  is  reckoned,  according  to  Eusebius's  chronology,  from  the  creation  of  the  world  to  the 
"  vulgar  Epocha  of  the  years  of  Jesus  Christ. 

"  These  lunisolar  periods,  and  the  two  epochas  of  the  Indians,  which  we  have  examined,  do 
"  point  unto  us,  as  with  the  finger,  the  admirable  epocha  of  the  years  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  is 
M  removed  from  the  first  of  these  two  Indian  Epochas,  a  period  of  600  years,  wanting  a  period  of 
•'  19  years,  and  which  precedes  the  second  by  a  period  of  600  years,  and  two  of  19  years.  Thus 
"  the  year  of  Jesus  Christ  (which  is  that  of  his  incarnation  and  birth,  according  to  the  tradition  of 
"  the  church,  and  as  Father  Grandamy  justifies  it  in  his  Christian  chronology,  and  Father  Riccio- 
"  lus  in  his  reformed  astronomy)  is  also  an  astronomical  Epocha,  in  which,  according  to  the  mo- 
"  dern  tables,  the  middle  conjunction  of  the  moon  with  the  sun  happened  the  24th  of  March,  ac- 
"  cording  to  the  Julian  form  re-established  a  little  after  by  Augustus,  at  one  o'clock  and  a  half  in 
"  the  morning,  at  the  meridian  of  Jerusalem,  the  very  day  of  the  middle  Equinox,  a  Wednesday, 
"  which  is  the  day  of  the  creation  of  these  two  planets. 

"  The  day  following,  March  25th,  which,  according  to  the  ancient  tradition  of  the  church,  re- 
"  ported  by  St.  Augustine,1  was  the  day  of  our  Lord's  incarnation,  was  likewise  the  day  of  the 
"  first  phasis  of  the  moon  ;  and,  consequently,  it  was  the  first  day  of  the  month,  according  to  the 
"  usage  of  the  Hebrews,  and  the  first  day  of  the  sacred  year,  which,  by  the  divine  institution,  must 
"  begin  with  the  first  month  of  the  spring,  and  the  first  day  of  a  great  year,  the  natural  epocha  of 
"  which  is  the  concourse  of  the  middle  equinox,  and  of  the  middle  conjunction  of  the  Moon  with 
"  the  Sun. 

"  This  concourse  terminates,  therefore,  the  lunisolar  periods  of  the  preceding  ages,  and  was  an 
"  epocha  from  whence  began  a  new  order  of  ages,  according  to  the  oracle  of  the  Sibyl,  related  by 
"  Virgil  in  these  words  (Eclog.  iv.) : 

Magnus  ab  integro  sseclorum  nascitur  ordo ; 
Jam  nova  progenies  Ccelo  dimittitur  alto. 

"  This  oracle  seems  to  answer  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  Parvulus  natus  est  nobis;  (ch.  ix.  6  and  7;) 
"  where  this  new-born  is  called  God  and  father  of  future  ages  ;   Deus  fortis,  pater  futuri  sceculi. 
{  The  interpreters  do  remark  in  this  prophecy,  as  a  thing  mysterious,  the  extraordinary  situation 


1  De  Trin  Lib.  iv.  Cap.  v. 


168  CASSINI. — LOUBERE. — CYCLES. 

"  of  a  Mem  final  (which  is  the  numerical  character  of  600)  in  this  word  naiDb  Imrbe,  ad  multipli- 
"  candum,  where  this  Mem  final  is  in  the  second  place,  there  being  no  other  example  in  the  whole 
"  text  of  the  Holy  Scripture  where-ever  a  final  letter  is  placed  only  at  the  end  of  the  words.  This 
"  numerical  character  of  600  in  this  situation  might  allude  to  the  periods  of  600  years  of  the  Pa- 
"  triarchs,  which  were  to  terminate  at  the  accomplishment  of  the  prophecy,  which  is  the  epocha, 
"  from  whence  we  do  at  present  compute  the  years  of  Jesus  Christ."1 

On  this  prophecy  Mr.  Faber  says,  "  In  this  extraordinary  poem,  he  (Virgil)  celebrates  the  ex- 
"  pected  birth  of  a  wonderful  child,  who  was  destined  to  put  an  end  to  the  age  of  iron,  and  to  in- 
"  troduce  a  new  age  of  gold,  (precisely  the  idea  of  Isaiah). 

"  The  last  period  sung  by  the  Sibylline  prophetess ,  is  now  arrived;  and  the  grand  series  of  ages, 

"  THAT   SKRIES  WHICH  RECURS  AGAIN  AND  AGAIN    IN    THE  COURSE  OF  ONE  MUNDANE  REVOLUTION, 

"  begins  afresh.  Now  the  Virgin  Astrea  returns  from  heaven  ;  and  the  primaeval  reign  of  Saturn 
"  recommences ;  noiv  a  new  race  descends  from  the  celestial  realms  of  holiness.  Do  thou,  Lucina3 
"  smile  propitious  on  the  birth  of  a  boy,  who  will  bring  to  a  close  the  present  age  of  iron,  and  iutro- 
"  duce,  throughout  the  whole  world,  a  new  age  of  gold.  Then  shall  the  herds  no  longer  dread  the 
"fury  of  the  lion,  nor  shall  the  poison  of  the  serpent  any  longer  be  formidable  :  every  venomous  ani- 
"  mal  and  every  deleterious  plant  shall  perish  together.  The  fields  shall  be  yellow  with  corn,  the 
"  grape  shall  hang  in  ruddy  clusters  from  the  bramble,  and  honey  shall  distil  spontaneously  from  the 
"  rugged  oak.  The  universal  globe  shall  enjoy  the  blessings  of  peace,  secure  under  the  mild  sway  of 
"  its  new  and  divine  sovereign."  2 

Many  of  our  divines  have  been  much  astonished  at  the  coincidence  between  the  prophecy  of  the 
heathen  Sibyl  and  that  of  Isaiah  ;  the  difficulty  I  flatter  myself  I  shall  now  be  able  to  remove,  by 
shewing  that  it  related  to  the  system  of  cycles,  which  Mons.  Cassini  detected  in  the  Siamese  ma- 
nuscript. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  prove  that  the  period  of  600  years,  or  the  Neros  alluded  to  by  Cassini, 
which  has  been  well  described  by  the  most  celebrated  astronomers  as  the  finest  period  that  ever 
was  invented,  and  which  Josephus  says  was  handed  down  from  the  patriarchs  who  lived  before 
the  flood,  is  the  foundation  of  the  astronomical  periods  of  the  Indians,  and  is  probably  the  age  or 
mundane  revolution  alluded  to  by  Virgil.  On  the  subject  of  this  fine  cycle,  and  the  important 
consequences  deduced  by  Mons.  Bailly  from  the  knowledge  of  it  by  the  ancients,  my  Celtic  Druids 
may  be  consulted.  There  my  reader  will  see  proofs  that  it  was  probably  the  invention  of  a  period 
long  prior  to  any  thing  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  contemplate  as  founded  on  historical 
records. 

In  Sect.  III.  M.  Cassini  has  shewn  that  there  was  among  the  Siamese  a  very  important  epocha 
in  the  year  544  before  Christ.  This  is  the  sera  fixed  for  the  second  Buddha  according  to  the 
Brahmins.  He  has  also  pointed  out  another  epocha,  638  years  after  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ; 
these  my  reader  will  please  to  retain  in  recollection.  The  sera  of  Buddha  is  calculated  from  his 
death,  that  of  Christ  from  his  birth,  and  this  should  always  be  remembered. 

The  following  observations  shew  Mons.  Cassini  was  of  opinion,  that  these  Siamese  periods  had 
some  connexion  with  Pythagoras  ;  he  savs, 

"  This  Siamese  Epocha  (of  543  or  544  B.  C.)  is  in  the  time  of  Pythagoras,  whose  dogmata  were 
"  conformable  to  those  which  the  Indians  have  at  present,  and  which  these  people  had  already  in 
"  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  as  Onesicritus,  sent  by  Alexander  himself  to  treat  with  the  In- 
"  dian  philosophers,  testified  unto  them,  according  to  the  report  of  Strabo,  Lib.  xv."3     Cassini 

1  La  Loubere,  Hist.  Siam,  Tome  II.  Sect.  xxii.  and  xxiii.  *  Pagan  Idol.  Vol.  II.  p.  10. 

3  La  Loub.  Cass.  Tome  II.  p.  203. 


BOOK  V.     CHAPTER    II.     SECTION   2.  169 

has  shewn x  why  the  above-named  epocha  ought  to  be  543  and  not  544, 2  (his  reasons  it  is  not  ne- 
cessary for  me  to  repeat,)  then,  if  we  add  543  to  the  second  period  638,  we  shall  have  the  space 
of  1181  years  between  them  ;  if  we  add  to  which  the  period  19,  we  shall  have  exactly  1200,  which 
makes  two  Neroses.  Cassini  says,  "  Between  the  two  Indian  epochas  there  is  a  period  of  1181 
<c  years,  which  being  joined  to  a  period  of  19  years,  there  are  two  periods  of  600  years,  which  re- 
"  duce  the  new  moons  near  the  equinoxes."3 

Lalande,  in  his  Astronomie,4  says,  "  Si  Ton  emploie  la  duree  de  l'annee  que  nous  connoissons 
"  et  le  mois  Sinodique  tel  que  nous  l'avons  indique  ci-devant,  c'est-a-dire,  des  mois  de  29  jours 
"  12  heures  44  min.  3  sec.  chacun,  on  aura  28  heures,  1  min.,  42  sec.  de  trop,  dans  les  sept  mille, 
"  quatre  cent,  vingt-une  lunaissons  :  ainsi  la  lune  retarderoit  de  plus  d'un  jour  au  bout  de  six 
"  cents  ans/' 

I  notice  this,  here,  that  a  reader  learned  in  astronomy  may  not  suppose  me  ignorant  of  it,  or 
that  I  have  overlooked  it.  In  mythological  calculations  for  short  periods,  small  errors  like  this 
can  be  of  little  consequence.  In  a  future  book  of  this  work,  I  shall  shew  that,  at  last,  a  very  im- 
portant consequence  arose  from  this  error  j  and  I  flatter  myself  that  I  shall  be  able,  by  its  means, 
to  explain  a  part  of  the  ancient  mythology,  beyond  all  question  the  most  curious  and  important  of 
the  whole. 

2.  The  prophecy  of  Isaiah  alluded  to  by  Cassini  had  reference  in  the  first  place  to  a  new  cycle, 
which  may  be  called  the  cycle  of  Cyrus,  because  in  Isaiah  he  is  described  by  name.  It  probably 
began  about  the  captivity.  The  date  of  it  professes  to  be  some  time  before  that  cycle  of  600 
years,  which  cycle  preceded  the  birth  of  Christ ;  which  birth  ought  to  be  precisely  at  the  end  of 
the  cycle  above-named,  in  which  the  543  years  before  Christ  are  spoken  of.  It  is  evident  that  this 
prophecy  of  the  cycle  of  Cyrus  would,  in  a  considerable  degree,  apply  to  every  succeeding  cycle  of 
the  Neros.  In  the  same  manner  I  shall  shew  that  the  prophecies  of  Cristna  and  Buddha  will  be 
found  to  apply  to  their  re-appearances. 

The  prophecy  of  Isaiah  may  be  said  to  have  been  a  mystery,  an  example  of  judicial  astrology. 
It  required  no  divine  inspiration  to  prove  to  the  initiated,  that,  at  the  end  of  the  cycle  then  run- 
ning, a  new  cycle  would  commence,  or  that  the  cycle  of  the  God  Cristna,  the  Sun,  would  be  born 
again  :  and  this  leads  us  to  a  discovery  which  will  account  for  and  remove  many  of  the  difficulties 
which  our  learned  men  have  encountered  respecting  Buddha  and  Cristna.  It  is  evident  that  both 
of  them  being  the  sun,  mystically  and  astrologically  speaking,  their  year  was  600  years  long,  and 
their  birthday  on  the  first  year  of  the  600,  on  which  was  a  conjunction  of  sun  and  moon  at  the 
vernal  equinox.  The  day  of  the  first  birth  of  Buddha  was  at  the  vernal  equinox  of  that  600  when 
the  sun  entered  Taurus,  of  Cristna  of  that  600  nearest  to  the  time  when  he  entered  Aries.  The 
birthdays  of  both  returned  every  600  years — when  the  Phen  or  Phenishe  or  Phoenix  was  con- 
sumed on  the  altar  of  the  temple  of  the  sun  at  Heliopolis,  in  Egypt,  and  rose  from  its  ashes  to 
new  life.     This,  I  think,  seems  to  have  been  purely  astrological. 

At  first  many  persons  will  be  greatly  surprised  at  the  assertion,  that  the  passages  of  Isaiah, 
ch.  vii.  14,  viii.  8,  are  not  prophecies  of  Christ.     In  order  to  force  the  text  of  Isaiah  to  serve  this 


1  Sect.  six.  p.  219.  «  Vide  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  266.    8vo. 

3  The  Brahmins  were  acquainted  with  the  Cycle  of  19  years.     Crawfurd  says,  "  It  is  curious  to  find  at  Siam  the 
'  knowledge  of  that  Cycle,  of  which  the  invention  was  thought  to  do  so  much  honour  to  the  Athenian  astronomer 

"  Melon,  and  which  makes  so  great  a  figure  in  our  modern  calendars."  Researches,  Vol.  II.  p.  18.  The  Siamese 
had  the  Metonic  cycle  more  correctly  than  Numa,  Meton,  or  Calippus,  and  the  Epact  also  more  correct  than  the 
French  in  the  time  of  Cassini.  Cassini,  p.  213.  M.  Bailli  observed  that  the  Chinese,  the  Indians,  the  Chaldeans, 
and  the  Egyptians,  all  had  the  same  astronomical  formulae  for  the  calculation  of  eclipses,  though  the  principles  of 
them  were  forgotten.     Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  37. 

4  Tome  II.  Art.  1570,  ed.  3. 


1/0  isaiah's  prophecy  known  to  the  Egyptians  and  the  celts  of  gaul. 

purpose,  Clemens  of  Alexandria,  Bishop  Kidder,  Dr.  Nicholls,  Bishop  Chandler,  Dr.  Campbel, 
and  many  others,  have  been  obliged  to  suppose  that  God  inspired  the  author  to  use  a  double  sense, 
and  that  the  predictions  related  both  to  the  prophet's  son,  born  about  the  time  when  these  were 
written,  and  to  Christ,  born  many  hundred  years  afterward.  These  learned  men  do  not  seem  ever 
to  have  thought  either  of  the  unworthiness  of  the  motive  which  they  attribute  to  the  Deity  by  this 
deceit,  or  of  the  gross  absurdity  of  making  the  prophecy  of  Christ,  who  was  to  be  born  so  many 
hundred  years  afterward,  a  sign  to  the  people  then  living.  However,  the  monstrous  absurdity  of 
this  double  sense  has  been  refuted  by  Dr.  Sykes,  Dr.  Benson,  Bishop  Marsh,  and  others  j  and  Dr. 
Ekerman,  and  Dr.  George  S.  Clarke,  in  his  Hebrew  Criticism  and  Poetry,  Lond.  1810,  maintain 
that  the  Old  Testament  contains  no  prophecy  at  all  which  literally  relates  to  the  person  of 
Christ.1 

Again,  Dr.  Adam  Clarke  maintains,  that  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah — A  virgin  2  shall  conceive  and 
bear  a  son,  and  call  his  name  Immanuel,  does  not  mean  Christ. 3 

Dr.  Clarke  says,  "  It  is  humbly  apprehended  that  the  young  woman  usually  called  the  Virgin  is 
"  the  same  with  the  prophetess, 4  and  Immanuel  is  to  be  named  by  his  mother,  the  same  with  the 
"  prophet's  son,  whom  he  was  ordered  to  name  Maher-shalal-hash-baz."5 

I  think  no  one  will  deny  that  Dr.  Adam  Clarke,  the  annotator  on  the  Bible,  is  a  very  learned 
man,  and  he  is  here  an  unwilling  witness,  and  he  comes  to  this  conclusion  in  the  teeth  of  all  the 
prejudices  of  his  education,  after  having  read  all  the  laboured  attempts  of  our  divines  to  make 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  a  prophecy  relating  to  Jesus  Christ.  I  maintain  then,  that  this  fairly  opens 
the  door  to  the  explanation  which  I  shall  now  give,  and  which,  I  think,  will  be  considered  probable, 
when  I  shew  that  many  other  expressions  of  Isaiah  are  the  same  with  the  Hindoo  doctrines  and 
predictions.  At  all  events,  with  every  person  whose  understanding  is  not  quite  dwarfified  by 
superstition,  there  is  an  end  of  the  belief  in  what  has  been  called  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  as  a  ne- 
cessary article  of  faith.  The  Hebrew  for  Immanuel  is  ^WJay  omnual,  which  may  certainly  be  ren- 
dered with  us  God.  But  it  might  also  be  rendered  by  Om  our  God,  the  word  Om  being  the  first 
syllable  of  the  name  of  Ammon,  the  surname  of  Jupiter  Ainmon,  of  the  'Iegov  0/xav«,  and  of  the 
Ammonites,  ch.  viii.  8, — "  And  the  stretching  out  of  his  wings  shall  fill  the  breadth  of  thy  land,  O 
"  Immanuel,  or  God  with  us,"  or  the  land  of  thee,  Om  our  God — the  A.  U.  M.  or  Om  of  India. 

I  can  entertain  little  doubt  that  this  prophecy  was  well  known  to  the  Gauls  or  Celts  and  Druids, 
long  before  the  time  of  Christ,  as  is  made  sufficiently  evident  by  an  inscription  Virgini  paritur^e, 
which  was  found  at  Chartres  upon  a  black  image  of  Isis.  This  image  was  made  by  one  of  their 
kings,  and  the  Rev.  M.  Langevin  says  it  was  existing  in  his  day,  about  1/92. 6  They  are  almost 
the  words  of  Isaiah,  and  Mons.  Langevin  says,  were  inscribed  one  hundred  years  before  the  birth  of 
Christ.  Along  with  the  statue  of  Isis  was  a  boat,  which  M.  Langevin  says  was  the  symbol  under 
which  this  Goddess  was  adored.     This  was  the  Argha  of  India,  of  which  I  shall  treat  hereafter. 

1  Class.  Journal,  Vol.  XXXIII.  p.  47. 

I  beg  leave  to  ask  the  candid  reader,  if  one  can  be  found,  how  he  can  expect  unlearned  persons  to  pay  any  attention 
to  these  prophecies,  as  they  are  called,  when  some  of  the  most  learned  divines,  much  against  their  inclinations,  are  obliged 
to'  confess  that  they  are  no  such  thing  ?  One  fact,  however,  this  clearly  proves,  that  no  man  can  be  expected,  by  a  mer- 
ciful God,  under  pain  of  punishment,  to  believe  subjects  involved  in  so  much  difficulty. 

■  The  word  virgin,  here  is,  in  the  Hebrew,  niobv  olme,  and  is  preceded  by  the  emphatic  article  n  e,  therefore  of  course 
it  means  the  not  a  virgin.  In  the  Phoenician,  Bochart  says,  »,ob]}  olma  signifies  virgin.  This  is  evidently  the  same 
word,  the  celestial  virgin,  the  Alma  Venus  of  Lucretius,  and  the  Brahme-Maia  of  India,  or  the  Virgin  Astrea,  alluded 
to  by  Virgil. 

»  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  IV.  p.  169,  of  No.  VI.  and  No.  VII.  *  Chap.  viii.  3. 

4  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  I.  p.  637.  n  bz  trm  hs  bbw  sll  inn  mer.  I  cannot  for  a  moment  believe  that  the  real,  that  is, 
the  secret,  meaning  of  these  words  is,  proedum  ucceleravit  spolium  festinundo. 

6  Recherches  Hist,  sur  Falaise,  par  Langevin,  pretre. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  3.  IJ[ 

•  This  prophecy,  which  our  divines  have  been  so  eager  to  make  apply  to  Jesus  Christ,  was  known 
also  to  the  Egyptians  and  Greeks,  as  well  as  to  the  Hindoos  and  Jews.  This  fact  strongly  sup- 
ports my  rendering,  and  that  it  related  to  their  sacred  Om. l 

Singular  as  my  reader  may  imagine  it  to  be  that  Isaiah  should  allude  to  the  Om  of  India,  he  will 
not  think  it  so  very  paradoxical  and  singular,  when  he  learns,  that  the  history  of  Cyrus,  who  is 
prophesied  of  by  name  by  Isaiah,  is  taken  from  a  passage  in  the  life  of  Cristna,  from  some  history 
of  whom  Herodotus  must  have  copied  it.  For  the  particulars  of  this  the  reader  may  refer  to  Mr. 
Maurice's  History  of  Hindostan.2  I  beg  him  to  reflect  on  this  extraordinary  fact  before  he  pro- 
ceeds.    His  utter  inability  to  account  for  it  he  must  confess. 

The  connexion  noticed  by  Cassini  between  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  the  oriental  cycles,  and  the 
prophecy  of  the  Sibyl  in  Virgil,  has  a  strong  tendency  to  confirm  the  explanation  which  I  have 
given  above  of  the  word  ^NUQy  omnual  or  Immanuel,  used  by  Isaiah. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  in  the  course  of  the  following  work,  when  I  treat  of  the  Sibvls,  I  shall 
produce  many  very  striking  proofs  of  identity  between  the  doctrines  of  Isaiah  and  those  of  the 
Orientalists.  And  I  beg  my  reader  to  remember,  what  I  have  already  proved,  that  all  the  learned 
ancients  held  that  the  sacred  books  had  two  meanings.  He  will  also  remember,  that  almost  every 
thing  is  closely  connected  with  judicial  astrology. 

3.  The  calculation  of  the  age  of  the  world  before  Christ,  according  to  Eusebius,  ending  exactly  with 
the  Siamese  cycle,  is  very  curious.  On  the  birth  of  Christ  the  Eastern  astrologers,  who,  according 
to  the  two  disputed  chapters  in  Matthew  and  Luke,  had  calculated  his  nativity,  came  to  Bethlehem, 
or  the  temple  of  Ceres,  where  Adonis  or  Adonai  was  adored,  to  make  to  him  the  solar  offerings,  as 
Isaiah,  according  to  the  same  disputed  chapters,  had  foretold.  All  this  applies  very  well  to  the  sun, 
to  Cristna  or  Buddha,  to  Jesus  of  Bethlehem,  but  has  nothing  to  do  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  When 
the  Irenaeuses,  Papiases,  and  early  Popes,  were  intruding  the  disputed  chapters  of  Matthew  and 
Luke  into  their  canon,  they  took  all  the  remainder  of  the  story  to  which  these  books  alluded.  The 
book  of  Isaiah  might  probably  mislead  them. 3 

The  book  of  Isaiah  has  given  much  trouble,  as  already  mentioned,  to  our  divines.  They  have 
wanted  it  for  a  prophecy  of  Christ,  while  it  literally  expresses  that  it  alludes  to  Cyrus,11  and  that  it 
was  for  a  sign  to  the  prophet's  contemporaries :  in  consequence,  as  I  have  just  stated,  they  have 
been  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  a  double  sense.  No  doubt,  in  one  point  of  view,  the  double  sense 
is  justified,  as  Isaiah's  prediction  relating  to  the  cycle  next  coming  would,  in  a  considerable  degree, 
apply  to  every  new  revolving  cycle,  as  it  arose.  As  a  work  of  judicial  astrology,  it  is  indeed  very 
probable  that  the  prediction  had  a  double  sense,  for  that  is  strictly  in  conformity  with  the  spirit  of 
astrology  or  magic. 

Our  divines,  depending  on  the  very  questionable  authority  of  their  chronology,  will  tell  me,  that 
Isaiah  foretold  Cyrus  as  a  Messiah,  before  he  was  born.  I  say  nothing  of  the  ease  with  which 
these  prophecies  might  be  corrupted,  a  circumstance  which  we  know,  either  less  or  more,  has  hap- 
pened to  every  sacred  writing  in  existence  :  but  observe,  that  the  word  Cyrus  is  a  solar  epithet,  that 
in  fact  it  means  the  sun.5     Isaiah  must  have  been  an  unskilful  astrologer  or  Chaldean  if  he  could  not 

1  See  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  v.  Sect.  viii.  p.  163,  note.  2  Vol.  II.  p.  478.     Ed.  4to. 

3  As  usual  we  find  them  laying  their  hands  on  every  thing  they  found.  Thus  iu  Luke  ii.  25—38,  we  have  a  story  of 
Simeon,  and  of  Anna,  the  daughter  of  Phanuel,  which  is  a  complete  interloper.  Why  it  is  here  no  one  can  tell ;  but 
Phanuel  is  Phan  or  Phen-our-god,  the  cycle  of  the  neros ;  vide  Celtic  Druids,  App.  pp.  307,  308  ;  and  of  Anna,  or  the 
year,  we  shall  see  more  by  and  by. 

4  Isaiah  xlv.  1 — 4.    The  circumstance  of  Cyrus  being  called  by  his  name  is  different  from  every  other  prophecy. 

4  Cyrus  was  called  Cai  Cosroe,  the  primitive  of  which  is,  Coresh,  a  Persian  name  for  the  Sun.  Maur.  Hist.  Hind. 
Vol.  II.  p.  478. 

z2 


172  MYSTICAL  MEANING   OF  THE   LETTER   M. 

foretell  the  time  of  a  new  incarnation  of  the  sun.  This  solar  epithet  of  honour  given  to  the  Persian 
conqueror,  and  the  events  of  the  incarnation,  very  well  agree  with  the  other  part  in  the  same  pro- 
phecy, where  Om  our  God,  or  the  Hero  or  Messiah  of  the  soli-lunar  cycle,  is  foretold.  Of  the 
names  of  the  earliest  of  the  ancients  we  have  scarcely  one  which  has  not  been  given  on  account  of 
some  supposed  quality,  or  something  in  the  life,  of  the  bearers,  which  could  only  be  known  (ex. 
cept  by  divine  inspiration)  after  their  deaths.  This  must  have  been  the  case  with  the  name  of 
Cyrus.  It  was  not  till  after  he  lived  that  he  would  be  known  to  the  world  to  deserve  the  solar 
title.  I  believe  the  name  Pharaoh,  of  Egypt,  was  a  similar  solar  title,  meaning,  in  the  Coptic, 
without  vowels,  *  500,  P  100,  H  8=608. 

In  Usher's  Chronology,  the  famous  eclipse  of  the  sun,  which  caused  the  battle  between  the 
Medes  and  Lydians  to  cease,  and  which  was  said  to  have  been  foretold  by  Thales,  is  placed 
exactly  601  years  before  Christ.  I  am  well  aware  that  the  date  of  this  eclipse  has  been  a  subject 
of  much  controversy.  But  the  date  of  it  being  fixed  by  Usher,  where,  according  to  my  theory  it 
ought  to  be,  is  striking.  In  the  same  year  the  city  of  Nineveh  is  said  to  have  been  taken,  and  the 
Assyrian  empire  destroyed,  as  it  was  foretold  in  holy  writ,  and  the  Great  Cyrus  to  have  been  born. 
These  coincidences  can  scarcely  have  been  the  produce  of  accident.  They  are  all  closely  connected 
with  the  sacred  prophecies. 

The  case  of  the  Mem  final  in  the  Hebrew  word  i"Q"iE3^  Imrbe,  the  sign  of  600,  noticed  by 
Cassini,  leaves  little  room  to  doubt  of  the  allusion.  Secrets  of  this  kind  constitute  sacred  myste- 
ries, cabala.  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  there  is  not  a  secret  "religion  in  St.  Peter's,  not  known 
perhaps  to  any  persons  but  the  Pope  and  Cardinals.  I  believe  I  am  at  this  moment  letting  out 
their  secrets.  I  beg  leave  to  ask  them  if  they  have  not  in  some  of  the  Adyta  of  St.  Peter's  Church, 
a  column  or  lithos  of  very  peculiar  shape,  on  which  are  ascribed  the  words  Seo£  "Xayr^q,  or  some 
words  of  nearly  similar  meaning  ?  I  have  not  seen  it,  but  I  have  it  on  authority  which  I  cannot 
doubt. 

This  Mem  final  was  understood  by  Picus  of  Mirandula,  who  maintained  that  the  closed  CD  Mem 
in  Isaiah,  taught  us  the  reasons  of  the  Paraclete  coming  after  the  Messiah.  He  *  evidently  under- 
stood that  there  was  a  secret  concealed  under  this  word  of  Isaiah.  He  was  a  man  much  celebrated 
for  his  learning  in  the  antiquities  of  the  Jews,  and  thus  it  appears  that  my  idea,  taken  from  M. 
Cassini,  is  no  modern  thought,  but  that  a  similar  opinion  respecting  this  word  was  held  four  hun- 
dred years  ago,  by  a  man  who,  of  all  others  in  modern  times,  was  the  most  likely  to  understand 
it.2    This,  I  hope,  will  justify  me  and  Cassini  against  the  charge  of  being  fantastical. 

In  the  celebrated  history  called  The  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  which,  I  think  it  probable,  was 
originally  in  Arabic,  but  of  which  there  are  some  passages  remaining  in  Greek,  Jesus  is  said  to 
have  been  sent  to  a  school- master,  to  whom  he  explained  the  mystical  meaning  of  the  letters. 
This  gospel  was  peculiarly  the  gospel  of  the  Nestorians,  and  of  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  on 
the  coast  of  Malabar,  of  whom  I  shall  have  to  speak  hereafter.  This  story  is  repeated  in  another 
Gospel,  called  the  Gospel  of  St.  Thomas,  which  is  in  Greek,  and,  for  the  reasons  which  the  reader 
will  see,  was  probably  translated  from  Syriac,  Hebrew,  or  Arabic.  When  the  master  taught  Jesus 
the  word  Aleph,  (the  mystical  meaning  of  which  has  been  proved  to  be  the  Trinity  by  Chardin,) 
he  pronounced  the  second  letter,  which  is  written  in  the  Greek  letters,  but  in  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, MxeS-  Mpeth,  after  which  it  is  said,  that  he  explained  to  his  master  the  meaning  of  the 
prophets.     Here  we  see  the  mystical  CD  Mem,  or  600  of  Isaiah,  only  written  in  Greek  letters. 


1  Basnage,  Hist.  Jews,  B.  iii.  Ch.  xxiv.  xxv. 

s  I  recommend  the  perusal  of  the  works  of  Picus  to  persons  disposed  to  follow  up  my  inquiries. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.     SECTION  3.  1/3 

This  was  the  explanation  of  the  mystery  of  Isaiah,  of  the  prophets.  If  the  person  translating  this 
work  from  the  Hebrew  had  given  to  the  letters  the  Greek  names  Alpha,  Beta,  &c,  the  mystery 
would  not  have  been  contained  in  them  j  therefore  he  gave  them  in  the  Hebrew.  Mr.  J.  Jones 
says,  these  Gospels  were  published  in  the  beginning  of  the  second  century.  They  were  received 
by  the  Manichaeans,  and  the  Gnostic  sects,  particularly  that  of  the  Marcosians  (probably  followers 
of  Marcus).  The  Gnostics  existed,  as  will  be  proved,  not  only  before  St.  Paul,  who  wrote  against 
them,  but  also  before  the  Christian  eera. ' 

It  will  be  objected  here,  that  in  the  Mpeth,  and  in  several  other  instances,  the  Mem  or  Muin 
is  not  the  Mem  final,  but  the  common  Mem  or  Muin,  which  stands  only  for  40.  The  objection 
seems  reasonable,  but  I  think  a  great  number  of  circumstances,  which  I  shall  produce  in  the 
course  of  this  work,  will  satisfy  my  reader,  that  the  mystical  use  of  the  M  final  was  transferred  to 
the  common  M,  in  the  languages  which  had  not  an  M  final,  and  in  which  another  letter  was  used 
for  the  number  600.  I  suspect  that  a  regard  for  the  sacred  character  of  the  M  was  the  reason 
why  the  Greeks,  in  their  language,  never  permitted  a  word  to  end  with  the  letter  M.  Thus  the 
superstition  of  the  Hebrews  caused  them  to  use  the  Teth  13  t  and  Vau  i  v  for  15,  instead  of  the 
Jod  *  i  and  He  n  e,  the  name  of  their  God.  This  cannot  be  attributed  to  a  custom  with  the 
Greeks  of  writing  the  Hebrew  B  by  MP,  because,  had  not  the  mystery  been  alluded  to,  it  would 
have  been  written  Beta.  I  am  not  ignorant  that  the  Greeks  wrote  the  double  B  by  M  P,  as 
noticed  by  Georgius2  and  Dr.  Clarke,  in  his  Travels  in  Greece:  but  I  suspect  it  arose  from  this 
sacred  mystic  practice  getting  into  use  among  ignorant,  uninitiated  people. 

When  the  chief  priest  placed  his  hands  on  the  candidate  for  orders  or  for  initiation  into  the 
priesthood,  he  Samached  him,  that  is,  he  made  the  mark  of  the  cross,  or  mai-ked  the  candidate 
with  the  number  or  sign  of  600. 3  This  letter  in  the  Hebrew  means  60  and  600,  (the  two  famous 
cycles  of  the  Indians,)  the  Samach  being,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  M  final. 

And  Joshua  the  son  of  Nan  ivas  full  of  the  spirit  of  Wisdom  ;  for  Moses  (*pD  smk)  samached 
him,  laying  his. hands  upon  him.     Deut.  xxxiv.  9,  ^siqotoviol. 

The  Mem  final — the  letter  Samach — was  adopted  for  the  600,  because  the  cycles  of  60  and  600 
are,  in  reality,  the  same,  or  one  a  part  of  the  other  :  they  would  equally  serve  the  purposes  of  the 
calendar.  If  they  reckoned  by  the  Neros,  there  were  10  Neroses  in  6000 ;  if  the  reckoning  was  made 
by  60,  there  were  100  times  that  number  in  6000  years.  This  we  shall  understand  better  presently. 
This  explanation  of  the  Samach  completes  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  X  being  the  mark  for 
600,  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  iv.  Sect.  ix. 

In  the  Coptic  language  there  is  a  very  peculiar  use  of  the  letter  M.  Ptolomeos  is  there  written 
Mptolomeos  :  on  which  Dr.  Young  says,  "  The  prefix  M  of  the  Copts,  which  cannot  be  tbans- 
"  lated,  is  frequently  found  in  the  inscription,  with  the  same  indifference  as  to  the  sense."4  Thus 
in  the  quotation  above,  from  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  it  is  not  written  Beth  or  Peth,  but  M-Peth. 
The  M  is  nothing  but  a  sacred  Monogram  prefixed,  and  meaning  precisely  the  same,  as  the  -f  or 
X,  which  is  found  often  prefixed  to  words  and  sentences  in  the  writings  of  the  dark  ages.  It  is 
the  Samach. 

But  M  is  the  sign  of  the  passive  as  well  as  of  the  active  principle,  that  is,  of  the  Maia.  Thus  it 
is  the  symbol  of  both  ;  that  is,  of  the  Brahme-Maia  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  we  find  this  the 
Monogram  of  the  Virgin  upon  the  pedestal  of  the  Goddess  Multimammia,  and  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
with  the  Bambino,  or  black  Christ,  in  her  arms,  as  may  be  seen  in  many  places  in  Italy. 


1  Jones  on  Canon,  Vol.  I.  pp.  396,  433 ;  Vol.  II.  p.  232.  2  Alp.  Tib.  Sect.  vi. 

3  See  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  iv.  Sect.  ix. 

<  Mus.  Crit.  Camb.  No.  VI.  p.  172;  Rud.  of  a  Diet,  of  Hieroglyph.  Pref. 


174  EXPLANATION    OF   THE   ORIENTAL   ASTRONOMICAL    SYSTEMS. 

The  Hebrews  and  the  Arabians  had  the  same  system  of  28  letters  for  arithmetical  figures ;  but, 
in  order  to  place  this  Mem  or  Muin  in  the  centre,  the  former  dropped  one  letter.  Thus  we  have 
this  central  letter  on  the  figures  of  the  Virgin,  the  female  generative  power  ;  the  allusion  is  plain 
enough. 

The  Momphta  of  Egypt,  named  by  Plutarch,  admitted  by  Kircher  to  be  the  passive  principle  of 
nature,  is  evidently  nothing  but  the  Om-tha  or  Om-thas,  with  the  Mem  final,  the  sign  of  600, 
prefixed.  The  sun  was  the  emblem  of  the  active  principle,  the  moon  of  the  passive  principle. 
Hence  she  was  generally  female,  often  called  Isis,  to  which  she  was  dedicated,  and  Magna 
Mater.1 

The  recurrence  of  the  word  Om,  in  the  names  of  places  in  Egypt,  and  in  Syria, 2  about  Mount 
Sinai,  is  very  remarkable,  and  raises  strong  ground  for  suspicion  that  it  has  a  relation  to  the  Om 
of  India.  We  must  remember  that  this  Om  is  the  Amen  or  sacred  mystical  word  of  the  Bible,  of 
the  law  given  on  Sinai.  3     It  is  also  the  word  Omen — good  or  bad — which  means  prophecy. 

4.  Before  I  proceed  to  the  following  calculation,  I  must  beg  to  observe,  that  whether  the  equinoxes 
preceded  after  the  rate  of  72  years  to  a  degree,  or  something  more  or  less,  was  a  subject  of  great 
debate  among  the  ancient,  as  it  has  been  among  modern,  astronomers.  But  the  rate  of  7'2  has 
been  finally  determined  to  be  sufficiently  near  for  common  mythological  purposes,  though  not  cor- 
rectly true.  I  must  also  further  premise  that  our  received  chronology,  that  is,  Archbishop  Usher's, 
which  fixes  the  creation  at  4004  years  before  Christ,  is  generally  allowed  to  be  in  error  4  years, 
and  that  it  ought  to  be  only  4000.  This  was  done  in  compliance  with  a  settlement  of  it  by 
Dionysius  Exiguus,  who  fixed  it  to  the  end  of  the  4713th  year  of  the  Julian  period.  The  real 
reason  why  this  is  allowed  to  be  too  late  by  our  divines  is,  that  it  makes  Christ  to  have  been  born 
after  the  death  of  Herod,  who  sought  to  kill  him.  And  the  real  reason  why  Usher  fixed  it  at 
4004,  instead  of  4000  years,  was  a  wish  to  avoid  the  very  striking  appearance  of  judicial  astrology 
contained  in  the  latter  number. 

There  was  a  remarkable  eclipse  in  March  4710  of  the  Julian  period,4  about  the  time  of  Herod's 
death,  and  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  is  as  it  ought  to  be.  The  conjunction  of  the  Sun  and  Moon 
took  place  on  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  was  exactly  600  years  after  the  birth  of  Cyrus,  who 
was  the  Messiah,  to  use  the  epithet  of  the  Old  Testament,  who  immediately  preceded  Jesus 
Christ. 

Mr.  Fry5  states,  that  the  year  preceding  the  year  4  B.  C,  was  the  year  of  the  nativity.  He 
adds,  "  We  arrive  at  B.  C.  4 ,  the   year  before  which  is  supposed,  by  most  writers  of  eminence, 


1  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  318.  2  Vide  Burchardt's  Travels. 

3  Some  will  think  this  to  be  paradoxical,  and  if  I  did  not  know  that  the  secret  learning  of  the  ancients  was  in 
strict  keeping  with  it,  I  should  think  so  too.  But  I  beg  my  reader  to  refer  to  the  history  of  the  Cabala  by  Basnage, 
and  presuming  that  he  will  oblige  me  in  this,  I  shall  push  this  abstruse  speculation  a  little  farther.  The  14th,  the 
middle  numerical  letter  in  the  alphabet  is  called  Muin:  this  is  evidently  the  vine,  the  Marital  tree,  sacred  to  Bacchus, 
j»  tin,  with  the  M  prefixed.  May  not  this  o  m  final  be  a  monogram  prefixed  to  the  name,  long  after  it  came  into 
use  ?  It  is  found  in  all  the  languages.  How  came  Bacchus  to  be  the  God  of  wine  ?  (Bacchus  was  the  sun  in  Taurus.) 
Did  it  arise  from  the  junction  of  this  Mem,  as  a  Monogram  or  emblem  of  the  sun  in  Taurus,  mystically  given  to  the 
name  of  the  tree  of  wine  ?  I  know  not.  Let  it  be  more  probably  accounted  for ;  first  takirig  into  account  the  ancient 
mystic  doctrines  and  practices  relating  to  figures.  It  was  from  the  mystical  emblems  carried  on  the  signets  of  the 
ancients  that  our  modern  coats  of  arms  arose.  How  can  any  thing  be  more  recondite  and  mystical  than  the  figures 
and  monograms  on  the  ancient  signets  ?  Any  one  may  see  an  example  in  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  pp.  320,  326, 
ed.  4to.    I  shall  return  to  the  Om  or  M  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

*     See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  48 ;  Calmet,  Chron. ;  and  Encyclop.  Britt.  art.  Chron.,  p.  754. 
5  Epocha  of  Daniel's  Proph.  p.  5. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  4.  175 

"  to  have  been  the  year  of  the  holy  nativity."     This  is  the  same  as  Marsham  and  Hevelius  who 
fix  the  Christian  sera,  calculating  from  the  Hebrew,  at  exactly  4000  years  from  the  creation. 

In  calculating  periods,  a  variation  of  several  years  has  arisen  from  a  very  natural  cause :  one 
author  or  translator  speaks  of  the  tenth  year,  another  uses  the  same  expression,  and,  without  any 
ill  intention,  calls  it  ten  years  :  this,  again,  is  followed  by  another,  who  makes  the  ten  years  into 
the  eleventh  year,  and  this  again  into  the  twelfth.  A  similar  variation  is  exhibited  in  the  Indian 
Cali  Yug,  which  is  placed  3000,  3001,  3002  years  before  Christ. 

Dr.  Hales  has  given  many  very  satisfactory  reasons  why  the  difference  of  one  or  two,  in  chro- 
nological calculations,  cannot  be  admitted  to  impugn  them,  chiefly  on  account  of  the  different  me- 
thods of  speaking  of  the  same  number,  by  different  persons.  It  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  them. l 
In  addition  to  what  Dr.  Hales  has  said,  it  may,  perhaps,  be  useful  to  observe,  that  a  difference 
of  1  in  chronological  calculations  can  seldom  be  reasonably  used  as  an  argument  against  any  con- 
clusion to  which  there  is  no  other  objection,  in  consequence  of  authors  often  neglecting  to  keep 
distinct  the  last  and  first  numbers  of  series,  whence  it  happens  that  one  unit  is  counted  twice  over. 
Colonel  Wilford  says,  "  It  is  also  to  be  observed,  that  where  we  put  0  at  the  beginning  of  a 
"  chronological  list,  the  Hindoos  put  1,  as  we  used  to  do  formerly  :  and  that  year  should  be 
"  rejected  in  calculations :  but  this  precaution  is  often  neglected,  even  in  Europe."  2 

The  Hindoo  astronomical  accounts  having  been  found  to  make  a  great  impression  on  the  public 
mind,  an  attempt  was  made  in  the  sixth  volume  of  the  Asiatic  Researches  to  remove  it,  by  a  gen- 
tleman, before  noticed,  of  the  name  of  Bentley.  His  essay  was  attacked  in  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
to  which  he  replied  in  the  eighth  volume  of  the  above-mentioned  work. 

He  states  that  there  are  only  three  Hindoo  systems  of  astronomy  now  known.  The  first  is 
called  Brahma  Calpa,  the  second  Padma  Calpa,  the  third  Varaha  Calpa.  I  shall  not  trouble  my 
reader  with  the  details,  but  merely  with  certain  results.  Mr.  Bentley  states  (p.  212)  the  Cali 
Yug  to  have  commenced  3101  years  before  Christ.  In  the  Brahma  Calpa,  (p.  225,)  a  Maha  or 
great  Yug  or  Calpa  consists  of  2400  years,  which  great  Yug  was  divided  into  four  other  Yugs  ; 
of  course  these  were  600  years  each.  The  beginning  of  this  2400  was  3164  years  B.  C,  and  it 
ended  764  years  B.  C.  Here,  in  the  division  into  four,  we  have  clearly  four  ages  or  yugs  of  600 
years  each.    I  think  the  Neros  cannot  be  denied  here. 

In  a  future  page  I  shall  explain  how  this  Brahma  Calpa  arose,  which  is  unknown  to  the  present 
Brahmins. 

If  from  3164  we  take  764  and  add  a  Neros  600,  we  shall  have  exactly  five  Neroses  between  the 
commencement  of  the  system  and  the  birth  of  Christ,  which  commencement  we  shall  afterward 
see  must  have  been  meant,  according  to  this  system,  for  the  date  of  the  flood,  and  of  the  Cali 
Yug.  I  think  the  four  divisions  obviously  prove,  that  the  sum  of  2400  years  is  only  a  part 
of  a  system  consisting  of  Neroses  ;  and,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  of  the  ten  incarnations,  in  reality 
Neroses,  spoken  of  in  the  first  chapter  and  fourth  section  of  the  present  book  of  this  work. 

In  the  next  system,  the  Padma  Calpa,  a  Calpa  is  called  5000  years  ;  but  the  term  called 
Brahma's  life  consists  of  387,600,000  years.  Mr.  Bentley  says,  (p.  220,)  "  By  this  table  it  will 
"  appear,  that  the  Satya,  or  golden  age,  as  we  may  call  it,  of  the  first  system,  began  on  the  same 
"  year  that  the  third  Mauwantara  of  the  second  system  did  ;  that  is,  the  year  before  Christ  3164." 
Here  is  evidently  the  same  system ;  and  being  the  same,  the  Neros  must  be  at  the  bottom,  how- 
ever carefully  hidden :  I  have,  therefore,  no  occasion  to  add  any  thing  more  at  present. 

In  Usher's  Chronology,  the  death  of  Shem,  when  he  was  exactly  the  age  of  a  Neros  or  600  years 
old,  took  place  502  years  after  the  flood  :  this  we  shall  find  of  consequence.     One  of  the  Hindoo 


1  Chron.  Vol.  I.  p.  121.  a-  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  161. 


/ 


6  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 


systems  makes  the  Cali  Yug  begin  3098  years  B.  C, '  at  which  time  some  Brahmins  maintain  that 
the  flood  happened.  This  shews  the  same  mythos  as  that  relating  to  Shem.  98+502=600+3000 
=3600-600=3000  or  5  Neroses. 

The  third  or  Varaha  Calpa  has  the  famous  cycle  of  4,320,000,000  years  for  its  duration.  This 
system  makes  the  Cali  Yug  (Mr.  Bentley  says)  begin  3098  years  B.  C. 2  In  the  preliminary  dis- 
course, (Sect.  26,  p.  6,)  we  have  shewn  that  a  dodecan  consisted  of  5  days,  and  72  dodecans  of 
course  formed  a  natural  year  of  360  days  :  360  solar  diurnal  revolutions  formed  a  natural  year. 
The  Sun  or  rather  that  higher  principle  of  which  the  Sun  was  the  emblem  or  the  Shekinah,  was 
considered  to  be  incarnated  every  six  hundred  years.  Whilst  the  sun  was  in  Taurus,  the  different 
incarnations,  under  whatever  names  they  might  go,  were  all  considered  but  as  incarnations  of 
Buddha  or  Taurus.  When  he  got  into  Aries,  they  were  in  like  manner  considered  but  as  incarna- 
tions of  Cristna  or  Aries.  And  even  Buddha  and  Cristna,  as  I  have  before  stated,  were  originally 
considered  the  same,  and  had  a  thousand  names  in  common,  constantly  repeated  in  their  litanies — 
a  striking  proof  of  identity  of  origin.  Of  these  Zodiacal  divisions,  the  Hindoos  formed  another 
period,  which  consisted  of  ten  ages  or  Calpas  or  Yugs,  which  they  considered  the  duration  of  the 
world :  at  the  end  of  which,  a  general  renovation  of  all  things  would  take  place.  They  also  reck- 
oned ten  Neroses  to  form  a  period,  each  of  them  keeping  a  certain  relative  location  to  the  other, 
and  together  to  form  a  cycle. 

5.  To  effect  this,  they  double  the  precessional  period  for  one  sign,  viz.  2160  years,  thus  making 
4320,  which  was  a  tenth  of  43,200,  a  year  of  the  sun,  analogous  to  the  360  natural  days,  and  pro- 
duced in  the  same  manner,  by  multiplying  the  day  of  600  by  the  dodecans  72=43,200.  They 
then  formed  another  great  year  of  432,000,  by  again  multiplying  it  by  10,  which  they  called  a  Cali 
Yug,  which  was  measurable  both  by  the  number  2160,  the  years  the  equinox  preceded  in  a  sign, 
and  by  the  number  600.     They  then  had  the  following  scheme  : 

A  Cali  Yug,  or  600  (or  a  Neros,  as  I  will  call  it)  Age. . . .  432,000 

3  A  Dwapar,  or  Duo-par  Age 864,000 

A  Treta,  or  tres-par  Age , 1,296,000 

A  Satya,  or  Satis  Age 1,728,000 

Altogether  10  ages,  making  a  Maha  Yug,  or  Great  Age.  .    4,320,000 

These  were  all  equimultiples  of  the  Cycle  of  the  Neros  600,  and  of  2160,  the  twelfth  part  of  the 
equinoctial  precessional  cycle  :  and  in  all  formed  ten  ages  of  432,000  years  each. 

This  is  a  most  important  Cycle,  and  I  think  we  shall  here  see  the  reason  for  the  formation  of 
such  very  long  periods  by  the  Hindoos.  The  Neros  or  cycle  of  600  was  originally  invented  to 
enable  them  to  regulate  the  vernal  and  autumnal  Phallic  festivals.  After  some  time  they  disco- 
vered that  their  cycle  of  600  no  longer  answered,   but  that  their  festivals  returned  at  a  wrong  pe- 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  237-  2  Ibid. 

3  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  these  Sanscrit  names  are  nothing  but  Latin,  except  the  first :  but  this  will  not  surprise  a 
person  who  has  read  Ch.  II.  Sect.  XXV.  of  The  Celtic  Druids,  where  the  close  affinity  of  the  Latin  and  Sanscrit  is  shewn. 
The  first  Cali  is  a  mystical  word,  a  little  corrupted  by  its  translation  from  Sanscrit  into  English,  or  by  its  translation 
from  a  primeval  language.  It  may  be  the  Chaldee  word  composed  of  the  letters  yhp  klo.  This  word  I  have  shewn, 
in  the  Celtic  Druids,  from  General  Vallancey,  meant  1  £=500  h  1=30  v  0  =  70,  total  600.  It  may  also  be  the  same  as 
the  Greek  word  kccKo*;,  and  mean  benignant,  beautiful,  the  same  as  Mundus  and  noa-fAo*; — Beauty  arising  from  order; 
peculiarly  appropriate  to  the  cycle  of  the  Neros  of  600.  The  Yug  means  age,  and  really  looks,  as  before  intimated, 
very  like  our  word  age ;  in  fact,  it  is  nothing  but  our  word.  One  is  a  corruption  of  the  other,  but  which  is  the 
corruption  I  do  not  say.  Klo  is  found  in  the  Greek  in  the  word  kwXo?,  circle  or  cycle,  and  Hericlo  is  Hercules,  the 
saviour  600,  or  the  Sun  in  Aries,  when  the  Cali  began.    But  more  of  this  hereafter. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER  II.      SECTION  5.  1^7 

riod,  as  the  equinox,  which  once  fell  on  the  first  of  May,  now  took  place  on  the  first  of  April.  This 
led  ultimately  to  the  discovery,  that  the  equinox  preceded  about  2160  years  in  each  sign,  or  25,920 
years  in  the  12  signs  ;  and  this  induced  them  to  try  if  they  could  not  form  a  cycle  of  the  two.  On 
examination,  they  found  that  the  600  would  not  commensurate  the  2160  years  in  a  sign,  or  any 
number  of  sums  of  2160  less  than  10,  but  that  it  would  with  ten,  or,  that  in  ten  times  2160,  or  in 
21,600  years,  the  two  cycles  would  agree  :  yet  this  artificial  cycle  would  not  be  enough  to  include 
the  cycle  of  25,920.  They,  therefore,  took  two  of  the  periods  of  21,600,  or  43,200 ;  and,  multi- 
plying both  by  ten,  viz.  600x10=6000,  and  43,200X10=432,000,  they  found  a  period  with  which 
the  600  year  period,  and  the  6000  year  period,  would  terminate  and  form  a  cycle.  Every  432,000 
years  the  three  periods  would  commence  anew :  thus  the  three  formed  a  year  or  cycle,  72  times 
6000  making  432,000,  and  720  times  600  making  432,000. 

Again,  to  shew  this  in  another  way :  the  year  of  360  days,  or  the  circle  of  360  degrees,  we  have 
seen  was  divided  into  dodecans  of  5  days,  or  degrees,  each  ;  consequently  the  degrees  or  days  in 
a  year  or  circle  being  multiplied  by  72,  that  is,  72  x  360  gives  25,920,  the  length  of  the  preces- 
sional  year.  In  the  same  way  the  Hindoos  proceeded  with  the  number  600,  which  was  the  number 
contained  in  a  year  of  the  sun  ;  they  multiplied  it  by  72,  and  it  gave  them  43,200  :  but  as  the 
number  600  will  not  divide  equally  in  25,920,  and  they  wanted  a  year  or  period  which  would  do 
so,  they  took  ten  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  or  10  times  2160,  the  precessional  years  in  a  sign,  which 
made  21,600,  thus  making  their  Neros  year  ten  periods,  to  answer  to  ten  signs;  then  multiplying 
the  43,200  by  10  they  got  432,000  :  thus,  also,  they  got  two  years  or  periods  commensurate  with 
each  other,  and  which  formed  a  cycle,  viz.  21,600  and  432,000,  each  divisible— the  former  by  600, 
and  the  latter  by  21,600.  As  the  latter  gave  a  quotient  of  20,  in  20  periods  of  21,600  years,  or 
432,000  years,  they  would  have  a  cycle  which  would  coincide  with  the  Neros  ;  and  which  is  the 
least  number  of  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  viz.  10,  which  would  thus  form  a  cycle  with  the  Neros. 

• 

Thus  a  year  of  the  Clo  or  Cli  or  Cali  Yug,  or  age,  or  600,  is 432,000 

Then  a  year  of  the  double  Neros,  or  1200,  will  be  . .  t 864,000 

Of  a  triple  ditto 1,296,000 

And  of  a  quadruple    1,728,000 

And  of  a  year  formed  of  the  ten  ages  or  Neroses  altogether,  or  of  the  6000  years,  4,320,000 

And  this  long  period  they  probably  supposed  would  include  all  the  cyclical  motions  of  the  Sun 
and  Moon,  and,  perhaps,  of  the  Planets.  Whether  this  was  the  result  of  observations  some  will 
hesitate  to  admit.  Persons  of  narrow  minds  will  be  astonished  at  such  monstrous  cycles ;  but  it 
is  very  certain  that  no  period  could  properly  be  called  the  great  year  unless  it  embraced  in  its  circle 
every  periodical  movement  or  apparent  aberration.  But  their  vulgar  wonder  will  perhaps  cease 
when  they  are  told  that  Mons.  La  Place  has  proved,  that  if  the  periodical  aberrations  of  the  Moon  be 
correctly  calculated,  the  great  year  must  be  extended  to  a  greater  length  even  than  the  4,320,000 
years  of  the  Maha  Yug  of  the  Hindoos.  And  certainly  no  period  can  be  called  a  year  of  our 
planetary  system,  which  does  not  take  in  all  the  periodical  motions  of  the  planetary  bodies. 

As  soon  as  these  ancient  astronomers  had  found  that  the  equinoxes  had  the  motion  in  antecedentia, 
or  preceded,  they  would,  of  course,  endeavour  to  discover  the  rate  of  the  precession  in  a  given  time. 
It  is  evident  that  this  would  be  a  work  of  very  great  difficulty.  The  quantity  of  precession  in  one 
year  was  so  small,  that  they  must  have  been  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  observations  in  long 
periods,  and  it  is  not  very  surprising  that  they  should  at  first  have  been  guided,  in  part,  by  theory. 
The  orderly  arrangement  of  nature  appeared  so  striking  to  the  Greeks,  as  to  induce  them  thus  to 
accou.  t  for  the  Planets  being  called  Disposers,  the  appellation   (as  we  learn  from  Herodotus)  first 

2A 


178  SUBJECT    CONTINUED. 

given  to  the  Gods, — the  D'EHB  smim  of  Genesis.  From  observations  taken  during  the  precession 
through  several  degrees,  the  Hindoos  were  first  induced  to  suppose  that  the  precession  took  place 
after  the  rate  of  60  years  in  a  degree,  or  1800  in  a  zodiacal  sign,  and  of  21,600  in  a  revolution  of  the 
whole  circle.  And  Sir  W.  Jones  informs  us,  from  an  examination  of  their  periods,  that  this  was  the 
rate  at  which  they  reckoned.  But  they  afterwards  discovered,  as  they  thought,  that  this  was  not 
true,  and  that  the  precession  was  at  the  rate  of  a  degree  in  60  years  and  a  fraction  of  a  year  ;  and 
that  thus  the  precession  for  a  sign  was  in  1824  years,  and  for  the  circle  in  21,888  years.  During  the 
time  this  was  going  on,  they  discovered,  as  they  thought,  the  Soli-Lunar  period  of  608  years,  and 
they  endeavoured  to  make  the  two  cycles  go  together.  For  this  purpose  they  took  the  periods  in  a 
zodiacal  circle,  viz.  12  X  1824  =  21,888,  and  they  found  the  two  cycles  of  608  and  21,888  would 
agree  and  form  a  new  one,  at  the  end-  of  which  both  cycles  would  terminate,  and  begin  anew. 
Hence  came  to  be  formed  the  sacred  608.     But  both  of  them  were  erroneous. 

Among  the  ancient  Romans  we  find  a  story  of  12  vultures  and  12  ages,  the  meaning  of  which 
was  certainly  unknown  ;  for  the  12  ages  of  120  years  each  will  by  no  means  account  for  all  the 
particulars  of  the  history.  But  we  find  among  them  also  the  sacred  period  of  608  years.  This 
arose  from  the  following  cause  :  they  came  from  the  East  before  the  supposition  that  the  precession 
took  place  a  degree  in  about  60  years,  and  1824  years  in  a  sign  had  been  discovered  to  be  erroneous  ; 
and  as  they  supposed  the  Neros  made  a  correct  cycle  in  608  years,  and  believed  the  precessional  cycle 
to  be  completed  in  21,888  years,  they  of  course  made  their  ages  into  12.  As  both  numbers  were 
erroneous,  they  would  not  long  answer  their  intended  purpose,  and  their  meaning  was  soon  lost, 
though  the  sacred  periods  of  twelve  ages  and  of  608  remained. 

The  equinoxes  were  believed  by  Hipparchus  and  Ptolemy  to  have  preceded  after  the  rate  of  a 
degree  in  100  years,  and  of  the  circle  in  36,000  years,  thus  :  1  deg.  :  100  yrs. :  :  360  deg.  ."36000 
yrs  ,  and  that  then  the  Attoxolt adeems  or  restitution  or  regeneration  of  all  things  would  take  place. 
This,  I  think,  was  nothing  but  a  remnant  of,  probably,  the  most  ancient  of  the  Indian  mythoses, 
when  the  precessional  years  in  each  sign  of  the  Zodiac  were  supposed  to  be  3000  in  number,  and 
consequently  36,000  in  the  circle,  and  36  seconds  in  a  year. '  This  doctrine  of  the  Greeks  is 
evidently  nothing  but  a  theory,  and  not  the  result  of  observation  ;  for  it  cannot  be  believed  that 
erroneous  observations  should  have  brought  out  these  peculiar  round  numbers. 

Some  time  after  the  arrival  of  the  Sun  in  Aries,  at  the  Vernal  equinox,  the  Indians  probably 
discovered  their  mistake,  in  giving  about  60  years  to  a  degree;  that  they  ought  to  give  50"  to  a  year, 
about  72  years  to  a  degree,  and  about  2160  years  to  a  sign  ;  and,  that  the  Luni-Solar  cycle,  called 
the  Neros,  did  not  require  608  years,  but  600  years  only,  to  complete  its  period.  Hence  arose 
the  more  perfect  Neros. 

After  some  time  the  erroneous  Neros  of  608  would  be  lost  sight  of  altogether  in  the  country  of 
its  birth,  and  would  be  superseded  by  the  more  perfect,  of  600  years.  Hence  the  old  one  is  only 
found,  as  it  were,  in  scraps  and  detached  parts,  as  in  the  calculations  on  chronology,  which  the 
reader  has  seen,  and  in  certain  verses  of  Martianus  Capella's,  which  I  shall  presently  give.  But 
it  continued  in  use  among  the  ignorant  devotees  in  Latium  and  in  Greece,  who  knew  nothing  of 
its  meaning,  or  of  the  profound  astronomy  from  which  it  had  its  origin.  As  I  have  just  said,  I 
suppose  the  great  Neros  of  608  years  came  to  the  West  before  the  less  and  more  correct  one  of 
600  was  discovered,  and,  in  consequence  of  the  communication  between  these  distant  countries 
being  intercepted,  the  greater  one  remained,  as  a  sacred  number,  uncorrected. 

Perhaps  after  some  time  the  Indians  found  that  the  equinox  did  not  precede  correctly  50"  in  a 
year,  or  a  degree  in  72  years  ;  but  50"  and  a  fraction,  i.  e.  50"  9'"  fin  a  year,  or  a  degree  in  71 


1  Costard,  Ast.  p.  131. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  5.  1/9 

years,  eight  or  nine  months,  and  an  entire  sign  in  2152  or  2153  years. l  They,  therefore,  divided 
the  43,200  by  71  ;  this  gave  them  the  number  608  fj,  and  from  this  arose  the  sacred  number  of 
their  Manwanteras  71.  It  is  evident  that  the  error  is  so  small  a  fraction,  as  to  amount  in  practical 
effect  to  nothing  in  these  long  periods  ;  for  as,  in  these  religious  systems,  they  calculated  in  whole 
numbers,  the  error  did  not  operate  unless  it  was  more  than  a  fraction  of  the  72  years  in  one 
degree. 

It  is  necessary  to  observe,  that  few  of  the  numbers  respecting  the  precession  are  absolutely 
correct :  for  instance,  the  number  of  years  for  a  sign  is  2153,  instead  of  2160  ;  the  difference  arises 
from  fractions,  as  I  have  stated  above,  and  is  so  small,  that  it  is  not  worth  notice.  The  following 
observation  of  M.  Volney's  will  explain  it. 

"  Edward  Barnard  discovered  from  ancient  monuments  that  the  Egyptian  priests  calculated, 
"  as  we  do,  the  movement  of  precession  at  50A/  9'"  \  in  a  year  :  consequently  that  they  knew  it 
•'  with  as  much  precision  as  we  do  at  this  day. 

"  According  to  these  principles,  which  are  those  of  all  astronomers,  we  see  that  the  annual 
"  precession  being  50"  and  a  fraction  of  about  a  fourth  or  a  fifth,  the  consequence  is,  that  an  entire 
"  degree  is  lost,  or  displaced,  in  seventy-one  years,  eight  or  nine  months,  and  an  entire  sign  in 
"  2152  or  2153  years."2 

Again  Volney  says,  "  It  is,  moreover,  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  Egyptians  never  admitted  or 
"  recognized,  in  their  chronology,  the  deluge  of  the  Chaldeans,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  understand 
"  it :  and  this,  no  doubt,  because  among  the  Chaldeans  themselves  it  was  only  an  allegorical 
"  manner  of  representing  the  presence  of  Aquarius  in  the  winter  solstitial  point,  which  presence 
"  really  took  place  at  the  epoch  when  the  vernal  equinoctial  point  was  in  Taurus :  this  carries  us 
"  back  to  the  thirty-first  (3100)  or  thirty-second  century  before  our  aera,  that  is,  precisely  to  the 
"  dates  laid  down  by  the  Indians  and  Jews."3 

The  observation  respecting  the  Hindoo  period  of  3100  years  before  Christ  is  striking.  What  he 
means  by  the  Jews,  I  do  not  understand. 

Besides  the  Neros  of  600  years,  and  the  great  Neros  of  608  years,  which  were  both  sacred 
numbers,  the  ancients  had  also  two  other  remarkable  and  sacred  numbers — 650  and  666.  Sir 
William  Jones,  I  have  before  observed,  has  stated  that  the  Hindoos  at  a  very  early  period  must 
have  believed,  that  the  precessional  year  consisted  of  24,000  years.  "  They  computed  this  motion 
"  (the  precession  of  the  equinox)  to  be  at  the  rate  of  54"  a  year :  so  that  their  annus  magnus,  or 
"  the  times  in  which  the  stars  complete  an  entire  revolution,  was  24,000  years."4 

I  will  now  trv  to  shew  how  the  above-named  sacred  numbers  arose. 

I  suppose  that  at  first  the  Soli-lunar  cycle  was  thought  to  consist  of  666  years,  and  the  great 
year,  caused  by  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  of  24,000  years.  Nothing  can  be  more  awkward 
and  intractable  than  these  numbers.  65  years  to  a  degree  give  23,760  to  the  great  year,  which  are 
too  few;  and  67  years  to  a  degree  give  24,120  to  the  great  year,  which  are  too  many  to  complete 
a  period  without  fractions:  thus,  66x30x12=23,760;  67x30x12=24,120.  Nor  will  666  divide 
equally  in  24,000,  for  they  leave  a  remainder  of  24.  The  Luni-solar  period  of  666  years  was  aban- 
doned when  its  incorrectness  was  perceived.  About  the  same  time  it  was  thought  to  be  discovered 
that  the  equinox  did  not  precede  24,000  in  the  great  year,  but  65  years  in  a  degree,  and  23,400  in 
the  great  year,  the  Soli-lunar  period  was  thought  to  be  650  years.  These  two  periods  agree  very 
well,  and  together  form  a  cycle:  36x650—23,400.  Then  650  became  a  sacred  number,  and  we  have 
it  recorded  in  the  number  of  the  stones  at  Abury.     Of  this  cycle  M.  Basnage  has  given  an  account. 


1  Volney,  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  453.  *  Transl.  of  Volney  on  Anc.  History,  Vol.  II.  p.  453.  3  Ibid.  p.  455. 

4  Trans.  Royal  Soc.  Edin.  Vol.  II.  p.  141. 

2a2 


J  80  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  vi.  Sect,  xxiii.,  we  shall  see  the  other  sacred  numbers  of  the 
Cycles  of  India  described.  Since  I  wrote  that  work  I  have  discovered  that  the  sum-total  of  the 
pillars  discovered  by  Dr.  Stukeley,  and  confirmed  by  Sir  R.  C.  Hoare,  at  Abury,  made  exactly  the 
sacred  Solar  number  650.  There  can  therefore  be  little  doubt  that  they  adopted  that  number  of 
pillars  for  their  temple  to  record  this  Cycle. 

All  these  different  Neroses  form  cycles  with  the  then  supposed  great  precessional  year,  except 
the  number  666.  This  number,  for  the  reason  already  assigned,  will  not  form  a  cycle  with  24,000. 
And  it  might  be  on  account  of  this  awkwardness  that  it  became  a  reprobated  number — the  number 
of  evil,  of  discord,  of  the  beast  in  the  Revelation.  Some  persons  will  probably  think  these  theories 
fanciful.  I  should  certainly  think  with  them,  if  I  did  not  bear  in  mind  that  all  the  ancient  mythoses 
were  replete  with  fancies  of  this  kind.  Their  nonsense  respecting  sacred  numbers  is  palpable,  but 
the  numbers  having  sacred  characters  applied  to  them  are  not  fancies,  but  historical  facts ;  and, 
though  these  fancies  are  nonsensical  in  their  own  nature,  they  cease  to  be  so  when  consequences 
important  to  the  good  of  mankind  depend  upon  them. 

General  Vallancey  says,  "  The  Saros,  according  to  Berosus,  consisted  of  6660  days.  Syncellus  and 
"  Abydenus, '  tell  us,  that  it  was  a  period  of  3600  years ;  but  Suidas,  an  author  contemporary  with 
"  Svncellus,  says,  the  Saros  was  a  period  of  lunar  months  amounting  to  18  years  and  a  half,  or 
"  222  moons.  Pliny  mentions  a  period  of  223  lunar  months,  which  Dr.  Halley  thinks  is  a  false 
"  reading,  and  proposes  the  amendment  by  reading  224  months.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  makes  the 
"  Saros  18  years  and  6  intercalary  months,  which  agrees  with  Suidas;  but  it  is  not  the  simple 
"  Saros,  but  the  tenfold  Saros,  that  makes  this  number,  as  will  appear  from  the  numerical  or  celes- 
"  tial  alphabet.  The  word  is  evidently  derived  from  -|j/ttf  sor,  revolutio,  mensura.  In  the  old  Irish 
"  it  is  called  Siora."  2  We  have  seen  how  the  666  arose,  and  in  its  multiplication  by  ten,  we  have 
the  cycle  of  6660,  which  being  founded  on  an  erroneous  calculation,  was  itself  erroneous,  but  it 
was  agreeable  to  the  principle  of  the  cycle  of  6000  years,  as  I  have  already  explained. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  above  extract  with  attention  and  not  to  see  that  the  meaning  of  the 
cycle  or  Saros  of  666  was  unknown,  because,  in  order  to  make  the  reckoning  by  months  agree, 
they  must  use  a  fraction,  and  also,  without  any  reason  whatever,  according  to  their  sJheme,  multi- 
ply the  number  by  ten.     General  Vallancey  gives  the  following  proof: 

Proof 

S_ty— 300  360 

A— j/_  70  18 

R— -1—200  6480 

V— )_     6  180  6  months 


S — 2f —  90  6660 


666  222 

10  30 


6660  6660 


The  Irish  had  a  festival  called  La  Saora,  always  kept  in  the  night;  and  many  persons  have  de- 
rived Serapis,  from  Sor  or  Soros  Apis,  meaning  the  entombed  Apis;  Soros  being  the  name  of  a 
stone  coffin.  All  this  tends  to  support  my  idea,  that  this  number  of  the  beast  was  only  an  ex- 
ploded or  heretical  cycle.  The  year  of  the  Apocalypse  being  calculated  at  only  360  days,  I  must 
maintain  is  a  decisive  proof  of  its  extreme  antiquity. 

i  Al.  Polyhistor.  2  Ouseley,  Orient.  Coll.  Vol.  II.  No.  iii.  p.  214. 


BOOK  V.    CHAP.  II.    SECT.  5.  181 

The  cycle  of  19,  a  common  number  of  the  Irish  stone  circles,  is  called,  in  the  Irish  language, 
Baise-Bhuidin.1  I  confess  I  can  read  this  no  other  way  than  Bud-base  ox  Buddhist  foundation — it 
being  the  foundation,  in  one  sense,  of  the  fambus  Neros.  The  temple  in  Cornwall,  called  Biscawoon, 
said  to  be  a  corruption  of  Baise-bhuidin,  contains  in  its  circle  19  stones.  The  meaning  of  this  can 
scarcely  be  doubted.2 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  often  trifling  circumstances  keep  occurring  to  support  the  claim  of 
the  Etruscans  to  be  placed  among  the  most  ancient  of  the  nations.  The  cycle  of  666  is  an  example 
of  this  kind.  It  is  found  with  them,  as  the  following  passage  of  Niebuhr  proves,  but  its  meaning 
was  lost.  "  In  the  year  of  Rome  666  the  Haruspices  announced,  that  the  mundane  day  of  the 
"  Etruscan  nation  was  drawing  to  a  close."  This  cycle  has  a  strong  tendency  to  prove,  what  no 
one  who  looks  impartially  at  the  apocalypse  of  John,  and  the  continual  recurrence  in  it  of  the  num- 
bers contained  in  the  ancient  cycles,  can  doubt,  that  it  is  an  allegorical  mythos,  and  relates  chiefly 
to  them ;  though  perhaps  only  emblematically. 

The  Etruscan  cosmogony  is  exactly  that  of  one  of  the  earlier  Brahmin  systems.  It  supposes 
that  the  author  of  the  creation  employed  12,000  years  in  his  work.  In  the  first  thousand  he  made 
the  planets  and  earth ;  in  the  second,  the  firmament ;  in  the  third,  the  sea  and  waters  ;  in  the 
fourth,  the  sun  and  moon,  and  also  the  stars  ;  in  the  fifth,  living  creatures  ;  in  the  sixth,  man  : — 
that  after  they  were  finished  in  the  six  thousand  years,  they  were  to  last  six  thousand  years,  then  a 
new  world  was  to  begin,  and  the  same  things  to  go  over  again. 3  Here  is  the  renewal  of  the  Cycles 
of  Virgil  and  Juvenal ;  but  as  may  be  expected  of  a  system,  if  it  can  be  called  a  system,  which  has 
ripened  into  form,  as  circumstances  favoured,  through  thousands  of  years,  the  length  of  the  period 
is  unknown,  a  subject  of  speculation  varying  in  different  nations  and  different  times. 

Although  Nonnius  is  perfectly  in  the  dark  respecting  the  length  of  the  great  year,  making  it  to 
be  456  years  long,  yet  he  accidentally  makes  a  calculation,  from  various  circumstances,  that  the 
Phoenix  must  have  made  its  appearance  in  the  year  608  before  Christ,  which  evidently  produces, 
to  that  time,  one  of  the  Neroses.  This  I  can  attribute  to  nothing  but  the  fact,  that  one  of  the 
periods  had  been  discovered,  though  not  understood.  This  is  the  best  kind  of  evidence  to  esta- 
blish facts  of  this  nature. 

The  Irish  expressly  state  the  life  of  the  Phenn  or  Phennische  to  have  lasted  600  years.4  In 
Egyptian,  Pheneh  is  cyclus,  periodus,  sevum.     (Scaliger.) 

Phoenix,  Egyptiis  astrologiae  symbolum.  Bochart. 

Una  est  quae  reparat  seque  ipsa  reseminat 

Ales,  Assyrii  Phoenica  vocant.  Ovid.* 

If  I  mistake  not,  I  have  pointed  out  the  origin  of  the  Hindoo  cycles  ;  and  it  is  probable,  that  the 
principle  which  I  have  unfolded  will  account  for  the  various  systems  which  are  found  among  the 
learned  in  different  parts  of  India.  One  system  founded  on  one  series  of  observations  would  be 
adopted  by  the  sect  of  one  nation  of  that  widely-extended  country,  and  another  of  another.  And 
thus  have  arisen  the  different  systems  which  we  find.  The  festivals,  forms,  and  ceremonies, 
(matters  of  the  very  first  importance  to  devotees  in  all  nations,)  depending  on  the  cycles,  we 
need  not  be  surprised  that  old,  incorrect  systems  should  have  been  continued  in  different  places. 
And  after  the  religion  was  divided  into  sects,  the  fortunate  detectors  of  the  early  mistakes,  by 
which  they  were  enabled  to  keep  their  own  festivals  in  order,  would  probably  be  very  unwilling  to 

1  Ouseley,  Orient.  Coll.  Vol.  II.  No.  iii.  p.  213. 

»  Val.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  VI.  p.  383.    Vide  eh.  ii.  Sect.  i.  of  this  book  for  Cassini's  opinion  on  the  Metonic  Cycle. 

3  Universal  Hist.  Vol.  I.  Cosmog  p.  64.  4  Vallancey,  Vol.  VI.  p.  379.  5  Metam.  xv.  392. 


182 


SUBJECT  CONTINUED.   MR.  BENTLEY.   BEROSUS. 


communicate  information  of  this  kind,  to  those  who  were  considered  by  them  as  heretics.  Again, 
it  is  not  at  all  unlikely,  that  the  correction  of  festivals  should  have  actually  created  sects  These 
are,  I  think,  some  of  the  chief  reasons  why  these  systems  were  concealed,  and  confined  with  so 
much  care  to  a  very  few  persons,  and  why  the  knowledge  of  the  principles  was  forgotten,  while 
the  formulae  were  continued  in  use. 

I  consider  that  the  Hindoo  religion  was  not  the  produce  of  premeditation,  but  like  most  others 
of  circumstance,  of  accident — and  that  it  kept  pace,  in  some  measure,  with  the  gradual  approxi- 
mation of  their  astronomy  to  perfection.  And  I  think  it  is  pretty  clear  that  it  must  have  been 
fully  established  some  time  about  the  year  3100  B.  C,  at  least  not  very  long  after  that  date.  It 
might,  perhaps,  be  five  or  six  hundred  years  later,  for  which  time,  of  course,  they  must  have  had 
recourse  to  back-reckoning.  I  think  it  also  probable,  that  this  may,  in  part,  have  furnished 
'  plausible  grounds  for  much  of  the  nonsense  which  has  been  broached  on  the  subject  of  back-reck- 
onings. 

6.  Mr.  Bentley,  notwithstanding  he  has  written  so  much  against  the  antiquity  of  Hindoo  astro- 
nomy, admits  (p.  212)  that  the  Cali  Yug  began  3101  years  before  Christ;  that  the  Brahma  Calpa 
began  3164  years  before  Christ ;  that  one  of  the  four  ages  of  the  Padma  Calpa  began  precisely  at 
the  same  time  as  the  Brahma  Calpa ;  and  that  the  third  or  the  Varaha  Calpa  began  3098  years 
before  Christ.  It  is  very  evident  that  all  these  systems  are  the  same — and  yet  the  trifling  varia- 
tion shews  that  they  were  not  contrived  for  the  purpose  of  deceit  or  fraud  :  for,  if  they  had  been, 
they  would  have  been  made  to  agree.  They  rather  seem  to  shew  the  result  of  observations  made 
independently  of  one  another,  from  some  common  source.  It  is  very  evident  from  Mr.  Bentley's 
admissions,  that  the  present  Brahmins,  whatever  they  may  pretend  to,  do  not  know  much  respect- 
ing their  different  systems  ;  and  that  they  have  to  make  them  out  precisely  as  they  are  made  out 
by  Europeans — in  a  considerable  degree  by  conjecture  and  calculation. 

Among  other  matters,  Mr.  Bentley,  by  a  long  train  of  reasoning,  undertakes  to  shew  the  Calpa 
of  432,000  years  to  have  been  invented  after  the  Christian  sera.  The  following  table  will  demon- 
strate how  little  his  kind  of  proof  can  be  depended  on,  because  it  shews,  that  this  cycle  was 
known  long  before  that  aara  commenced. 

The  following  is  the  description  of  the  Chaldean  kings  given  by  Berosus,  which  again  proves 
the  system  of  very  great  antiquity.     I  give  along  with  it  the  system  of  Moses. 


Antediluvian  patriarchs  according  to  Genesis. 
Names.  Ages.  In  Years. 


Adam   •  •  •  • 

Seth 

Enos    •  •  •  • 
Cainan-«  •  • 
Mahalaleel 
Jared 
Enoch 
Methuselah 
Lamech    •  • 
Noah 


930 
912 
905 
910 
862 
895 
365 
969 
777 
950 


Chaldean  Antediluvian  Kings  according  to  Berosus. 

Names.        Ages  in  Sares.  In  Years. 

Alor 10     36,000 

Alaspar    ••  3     10,800 

Amelon    ••  13     46,800 

Amenon  ••  12     43,200 

Matalar    ••  18     64,800 

Daon 10     36,000 

Evidorach  .  18     64,800 

Amphis   ••  10     36,000 

Otiartes    ••  8     28,800 

Xisuthrus-.  18     64,800 


120 


432,000 


This  proves  that  one,  and  the  most  important,  of  the  immensely-extended  cycles  of  the  Hindoos 
was  in  existence  long  before  the  Christian  sera,  and  of  itself  entirely  overturns  Mr.  Bentley's  doc- 
trine.    It  also  raises  a  very  strong  presumption,  that  the  Hindoos  and  Chaldeans  had  an  intimate 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  6.  183 

connexion  in  the  time  of  Berosus,  for  the  identity  of  these  large  numbers  cannot  have  been  the 
effect  of  accident. 

I  will  now  endeavour  to  point  out  the  truth  of  my  theory  in  another  way.  We  will  take  for 
granted  the  truth  of  the  millenary  period  of  6000  years  as  an  age — the  age  of  iron  :  the  ages 
are  supposed  to  be  in  the  proportion  of  4,  3,  2,  1, — the  same  as  those  of  the  Grecian  Hesiod. 
Now,  if  we  take  the  last  to  be  6000  and  count  backwards,  we  shall  have 

Present  Iron  age  or  Cali  age • 6,000  1 

Brass 12,000  2 

Silver 1 8,000  3 

Gold 24,000  4 

Ten  periods    60,000 

Multiply  this  by  •  • * 72 

120,000 

420,000 
as  we  formerly  multiplied  the  Dodecans  by  72  to  compose  a  common  solar  

year,  and  we  shall  have  a  year  of  Brahma  or  of  the  whole  system 4,320,000 

The  anonymous  author  of  the  Cambridge  Key  to  the  Mythology  of  the  Hindoos,  endeavours  to 
prove  this  theory  of  increasing  numbers  to  apply  to  the  period  before  the  deluge  of  900  years. 
Thus  400,  300,  200,  and  the  last,  or  tenth,  to  be  that  now  running.  But  here  his  theory  com- 
pletely fails  ;  because  the  last  period  instead  of  being,  as  it  ought  to  be,  only  100  years,  has 
already  extended  since  the  flood,  according  to  his  own  account,  to  near  4000  years.  If  the  above 
scheme  be  right,  if  the  Cali  Yug  or  the  last  6000  began  3100  years  B.  C,  there  ought  to  be  1070 
yet  to  run— as  3100+1830=4930+1070=6000.  Here  we  see  we  have  the  famous  6000  of  the 
Hindoos,  Jews,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  for  one  extreme,  and  the  famous  Maha-Yug  or  great  year 
for  the  other — the  year  when  all  things  were  to  resolve  themselves  into  the  Deity.  Though  this 
is  a  second  system,  yet  it  is  evidently  the  same  in  principle,  and  the  two  are  in  perfect  ac- 
cordance. 

Mr.  Bentley,  in  a  recent  work  published  after  his  death,  states  that  he  has  obtained  the  Janam- 
patri  of  Cristna,  or  the  positions  of  the  planets  at  his  birth ;  that  is,  if  I  understand  it  rightly,  the 
astrological  calculation  of  his  nativity.  Now,  I  think  this  tends  strongly  to  confirm  what  the 
reader  has  seen  from  La  Loubere.  Cassini  has  shewn  that  the  birth  of  Christ,  as  fixed  by 
Eusebius,  exactly  agreed  with  an  astronomical  epoch  of  the  Buddhists  of  Siam,  which  is  also 
connected  with  the  Neros  or  cycle  of  600,  as  the  reader  has  seen.  According  to  the  Janampatri, 
(the  genuineness  of  which  I  suppose  we  must  admit,)  and  the  Brahmins'  and  Mr.  Bentley's  calcu- 
lation from  the  Janampatri,  (p.  Ill,)  Cristna  was  born  exactly  at  the  end  of  600  years  (the  termi- 
nation of  a  Neros)  from  the  time  fixed  by  Eusebius  for  the  birth  of  Christ  and  the  Buddhist  cycle. 
Thus  the  fact  comes  out,  that  the  birth-days  fall  at  the  beginning  of  the  different  Neroses;  and,  1 
think,  from  a  consideration  of  the  whole  of  what  Cassini,  Loubere,  and  Bentley  say,  it  is  clear  that 
this  Luni-solar  period  of  600  must  be  considered  as  the  year  of  both  Buddha  and  Cristna.  Mr. 
Bentley  says,  (p.  61,)  "  The1  epoch  of  Buddha  is  generally  referred  to  the  year  540  or  542  before 
1  Christ."  It  is  impossible  not  to  see  here  the  epoch  of  Cassini  of  543  years  before  Christ. 
From  these  circumstances  we  may  easily  account  for  many  difficulties  which  have  been  met  with 


1  The  only  difference  between  the  seras  of  Christ  and  Buddha  is,  that  one  is  calculated  from  the  birth,  the  other  from 
the  death  of  the  person  from  whom  the  cycle  is  named. 


184  SUBJECT  CONTINUED.   MR.  BENTLEY.   BEROSUS. 

in  the  histories  of  Buddha  and  Cristna,  and  which  have  induced  Mr.  Bentley  and  others  to  imagine 
them  of  later  dates  than  they  are  :  for  it  is  evident  that  very  nearly  the  same  relative  positions  of 
the  Sun  and  Moon  would  be  renewed  every  fresh  cycle  or  Luni-solar  period  as  it  ran  its  course. 
Thus,  like  the  Phoenix,  they  were  eternally  renewing  themselves. 

But  though  the  sun  and  moon  would  have  the  same  relative  positions,  the  planets  would  differ  in 
each  of  these  cycles.  Hence  Mr.  Bentley  was  induced  to  believe,  that  Cristna  was  first  born  in 
this  last  cycle  :  whereas  he  was,  in  fact,  born  in  each  of  five  preceding  ones.  His  first  birth  was 
at  the  egress  of  Noah  or  Menu  from  the  ark,  which  the  Hindoos  say  took  place  when  they  suppose 
the  sun  entered  Aries  at  the  vernal  equinox,  and  which  they  fix  at  3101  years  before  Christ. 

M.  Loubere  says  that  the  Siamese  date  their  civil  year  from  the  death  of  Sommono-Codom,  544 
years  before  Christ.  He,  however,  adds,  "  But  1  am  persuaded  that  this  epocha  has  quite  another 
"  foundation,  which  I  shall  afterwards  explain."  (P.  8.)  This  explanation  we  have  already  seen  ; 
and  it  proves  that,  though  he  understood  the  astronomy,  he  was  not  aware  of  the  mystery.  This 
epoch,  not  being  like  that  of  Jesus,  from  his  birth  or  incarnation,  but  from  his  death,  it  seems  to 
me  that  we  shall  have  another  Neros  or  cycle  if  we  add  56  to  the  544,  the  years  of  the  life  of 
Buddha.     This  we  shall  see  presently. 

M.  Bailli  professed  to  have  discovered,  by  calculation,  that  on  the  18th  of  February,  3102  years 
before  the  Christian  eera,  there  was  a  very  remarkable  conjunction  of  the  planets  and  an  eclipse  of 
the  moon. l     This  is  the  moment  when  the  Brahmins  say  their  Cali  Yug  began. 

From  the  epochas  and  cycles  explained  by  Mons.  Cassini  we  may  readily  infer  the  mode  which 
was  adopted  by  Eusebius  and  the  Christian  fathers  in  settling  the  times  of  the  festivals  and  of  the 
births,  &c,  of  John  and  Jesus.  It  is  almost  certain  that  they  were  indebted  to  the  Sommono  Co- 
domites  or  Samaneans,  noticed  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  as  shewn  above.  All  this  dovetails 
perfectly  into  the  astronomical  theories  of  Mons.  Dupuis;  into  what  the  learned  Spaniard,  Al- 
phonso  the  Great,  said, — that  the  adventures  of  Jesus  are  all  depicted  in  the  constellations  ;  into 
what  Jacob  is  reported  to  have  said,  that  the  fortunes  of  his  family  were  read  in  the  stars  ;  and  also 
into  what  Isaiah  said,  that  the  heavens  were  a  book.  This  was  really  believed  by  some  of  the  Ca- 
balists,  who  divided  the  stars  into  letters. 2 

Itaque  hunc  in  modum  intelligi  potest,  quod  in  Josephi  precatione  a.  Jacobo  dicitur;  legit  in 
tabulis  cceli  quseeunque  accident  vobis  et  filiis  vestris,  quia  etiam  complicabitur  quasi  liber.3 

I  have  sometimes  entertained  a  suspicion,  that  the  speech  of  Alphonso  alluded  to  the  Messiah  of 
each  Cycle,  and  that  the  Zodiacs  of  Esne  and  Dendera  are  of  the  nature  of  perpetual  calendars,  for 
one  of  the  cycles  of  600.  or  608  years. 

We  must  recollect  that  the  likeness  between  the  history  of  Hercules  and  Jesus  Christ  is  so  close 
that  Mr.  Parkhurst  has  been  obliged  to  admit,  that  Hercules  was  a  type  of  what  the  Saviour  was 
to  do  and  suffer.  Now  M.  Dupuis  has  shewn  the  life  of  Hercules  in  the  sphere  in  a  manner  which 
admits  not  of  dispute;  and  Hercules,  as  it  has  also  been  shewn,  is  the  Hericlo,  the  saviour 
600. 

The  commentary  on  the  Surya  Siddhanta  says,  "  The  ayanansa  (equinoctial  point)  moves  east- 
"  ward  thirty  times  twenty  {—  600)  in  each  Maha  Yug",  600.  Again,  "  By  the  text,  the  ayana 
"  hhagana  (revolution)  is  understood  to  consist  of  600  bhaganas  (periods)  in  a  Maha  Yug ;  but 
"  some  persons  say  the  meaning  is  thirty  bhaganas  only,4  and  accordingly,  that  there  are  30,000 
"  bhaganas.,,     Again,  "The  Sacalya  Sanhita  states,  that  the  bhaganas  (revolutions)   of  the  cranti 


1  Bailli's  Astronomie  Indienne  et  Orientate,  p.  110,  4to.  Ed.  1787.  *  See  Basnage,  Hist.  Jews,  B.  iii. 

3  Orig.  Comm.  in  Genes. ;  Val.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  VJ.  p.  345.  *  Asiat  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  267. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER    II.    SECTION    6.  185 


a 


pata  (point  of  intersection  of  the  Ecliptic  and  Equator)  in  a  Maha  Yug l  are  600  eastward" 
(4,320,000  years).  Again,  "The  Bhaganas  (revolutions)  of  the  ayanansa  (equinoctial  points)  in 
"  a  Maha  Yug  are  600  (4,320,000),  the  saura2  years  in  the  same  period  4,320,000 :  one  bhagana 
"  of  the  ayanansa  therefore  contains  7,200  years."  Here  the  Neros  and  the  origin  of  the  famous 
432,000  are  very  clear, 3  where  it  is  shewn  that,  according  to  the  Hindoos,  the  equinoxes  have  a 
libration. 

This  La  Place  is  said  to  have  demonstrated,  but  he  makes  it  very  small,  while  they  extend  it 
from  the  third  degree  of  Pisces  to  the  twenty-seventh  of  Aries,  and  from  the  third  of  Virgo  to  the 
twenty- seventh  of  Libra,  and  back  again,  in  7200  years. 

It  is  admitted  by  all  the  Brahmins  that  their  Cali  Yug,  or  their  fourth  period  (at  the  beginning 
of  which  they  say  the  vernal  equinoctial  point  was  in  the  first  degree  of  Aries)  took  place  or  began 
3101  years  before  Christ.  4  The  beginning  of  this  fourth  period  is  evidently  about  the  end  of  the 
fifth  back  from  the  aera  of  Christ,  which  is  the  time  assigned  by  them  to  the  flood  of  Noah 
when  he  came  out  of  the  ark.  These  five,  and  the  three  preceding,  make  eight  ages,  or  Yugs,  or 
Neroses,  which  we  shall  see  were  known  by  the  initiated  in  both  the  Eastern  and  Western  nations. 
But  I  must  stop  my  argument  to  give  a  specimen  of  the  uncertainty  of  ancient  chronology. 

The  following  statement  will  shew  how  little  dependance  can  be  placed  upon  systems  of  chro- 
nology : 

Blair  and  Usher  state  the  period  from  the  creation  to  Christ,  to  be  in  the  Hebrew 

Version  of  the  Bible « •  *  ■ 4004  years 

TheLXX- 5872 

The  Samaritan 4700 

Josephus  states  it  to  be 5  4483 

And  Eusebius  5200 

Sir  William  Drummond,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Zodiacs  of  Esne  and  Dendera,  gives  the  following 
numbers : 

Received  text 4004 

Samaritan  text 4245 

Septuagint  2262  +  3128 5390 

Josephus   -v 5688 

Seder  Olam  Sutha    ....  i 3751 

Maimonides V.  Jewish  Authorities 4058 

Gersom    I 3754 

Asiatic  Jews J • 4180 

Sir  William  Drummond  adopts  the  LXX.,  and  thus  divides  it — 2262  years  to  the  deluge,  and 
3128  from  the  deluge  to  the  birth  of  Christ. 

The  following  numbers  are  taken  from  Dr.  Hales : 


1  The  reader  will  observe  that  the  Yug,  or  age  as  it  ought  to  be  translated,  is  of  all  lengths — from  5  to  5000  years. 
Every  system,  and  there  is  a  vast  number  of  systems,  has  its  own  yug. 

2  Does  the  word  Saura  mean  Surya  ?  3  See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  pp.  268—270. 

4  Jones's  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  393. 

•  Vide  Winston  on  Old  Testament,  p.  214;  preface  to  the  21st  volume  of  Universal  History;  also  Celtic  Druids, 
p.  148. 

2b 


186  SUBJECT  CONTINUED.   MR.  BENTLEY.   BEROSU3. 

Alphonsus  of  Castile 6984  years 

Hales 5411 

Meghasthenes   5369 

Other  Indians  according  to  Gentil  .     6204 

Arab    •     6174 

LXX.— Abulfaraji    5586 

Vatican   ■- 5270 

Alexandrine    "^ 

Abyssinian >     5508 

Russian    \ 

Josephus   •  -w      5555 

5481 
5402 
4698 
Samaritan  computation : 


3 


Scaliger 4427 

Samaritan  text •  • «. .  4305 

Hebrew  text 4161 

Usher 4004 

Hevelius 


} 


4000 
Marsham 

The  above  is  quite  enough  to  shew  the  utter  hopelessness  of  making  out  a  system  of  chronology ; 
but  in  Hales's  treatise  on  this  subject  there  may  be  seen,  in  addition  to  this,  a  list  of  more  than 
100  systems,  each  proved  by  its  author  to  be  the  true  and  perfect  system,  and  varying  in  their 
extremes  not  less  than  3000  years.  Each  author  (as  he  comes  in  order,  finishing  with  Dr. 
Hales,  as  confident  as  those  who  have  gone  before  him)  succeeds  in  nothing  but  in  overthrow- 
ing the  doctrines  of  his  predecessors  j  but  in  this  he  has  no  difficulty.  Can  any  thing  be 
devised  which  shall  raise  a  stronger  presumption,  that  a  system  of  chronology  never  was  the 
leading  object  of  the  books  ?  The  whole  tends  to  support  the  doctrine  of  nearly  all  the  learned 
men  of  antiquity,  that,  like  the  Mythological  histories  of  the  Gentile  nations,  a  secret  doctrine  was 
concealed  under  the  garb  of  history.  The  same  thing  is  seen  in  the  early  history  of  Rome,  in  the 
Iliad, '  the  iEneid,  the  tragedies  of  iEschylus,  &c,  &c. 

Mr.  Faber  says,  "  There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt,  I  think,  that  we  ought  to  adopt  the  longer 
"  scheme  of  chronology,  as  it  is  called,  in  preference  to  that  curtailed  one  which  appears  in  the 
"  common  Hebrew  Pentateuch.  I  am  myself  inclined  to  follow  the  Seventy  in  their  antediluvian 
"  chronology,  and  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  in  early  postdiluvian  chronology." 2  Thus  by  taking 
a  little  of  one  and  a  little  of  another,  ad  libitum,  a  system  is  easily  to  be  formed. 

It  may  be  considered  certain  from  the  above,  that  no  dependance  can  be  placed  on  any  system 
of  Chronology,  and  that  there  is  no  hope  whatever  of  ascertaining  the  truth,  unless  some  person 
shall  be  able  to  devise  a  plan  of  proceeding  different  in  principle  from  any  thing  which  has  hitherto 
been  adopted.  Therefore  I  think  it  will  be  allowed,  that  I  am  not  to  be  tied  down  by  any  of  them 
as  authority. 

1  Herodotus  says,  that  when  Paris  ran  away  with  Helen,  he  was  driven  by  contrary  winds  to  Tarichea,  (probably  the 
Heracleum  of  Strabo,)  and  that  she  was  detained  by  the  king  of  the  country,  and  given  up  to  her  husband.  Here  we 
have  a  sober  fact  stated  by  the  historian.  Upon  this  the  sacred  Mythos  might  be  founded.  Vide  Rennel  on  Geog.  Sys- 
of  Her.  Vol.  II.  p.  155;  Herod.  Euterpe,  113,  et  seq.  ed.  Belce. 

2  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  234. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  7-  187 

Besides,  it  must  be  evident,  on  a  moment's  consideration,  that  it  cannot  be  expected  that  I 
should  make  the  cycles,  which  I  shall  shew  existed,  agree  with  any  of  them.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
do  it,  though  it  is  possible  that,  in  some  instances,  I  may.  My  object  is  merely  to  shew  that  the 
Neros  did  exist,  and  was  the  foundation  of  a  system,  not  that  it  fitted  to  any  of  the  systems  of 
chronology — systems  which  not  only  disagree  with  one  another,  but  almost  every  one  of  which  is 
totally  inconsistent  with  itself,  as  M.  Volney,  in  his  researches,  has  clearly  proved. 

The  extraordinary  exaggerations  in  numbers  of  years,  and  in  other  matters,  have  been  noticed 
by  the  Author  of  the  Cambridge  Key  to  the  Chronology  of  the  Hindoos,  of  both  the  Hindoos  and 
Jews,  and  he  endeavours  to  shew  that  they  are  written  in  a  species  of  cipher,  and  how  the 
former  ought  to  be  reduced.  These  statements,  taken  by  the  pi'iests  in  a  literal  sense,  have  caused 
many  persons  to  doubt  the  whole  history,  but  they  no  more  prove  that  the  Jewish  history  is  in  the 
great  leading  articles  false,  than  the  lengthened  cycles  of  the  Indians,  before  the  year  3100,  prove 
that  they  had  no  history,  or  that  they  did  not  exist. 

7.  I  will  now  shew  that  the  Mosaic  system  is  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  Brahmins  and  the 
Western  nations  ;  I  will  unfold  one  part  of  the  esoretic  religion.  But  first  I  shall  avail  myself  of 
the  statement  of  several  facts  of  the  highest  importance,  which  cannot  be  disputed,  made  by  Col. 
Wilford  in  the  Asiatic  Researches.1 

In  consequence  of  certain  prodigies  which  were  reported  to  have  been  seen  at  Rome,  about 
the  year  119  before  Christ,  the  sacred  College  of  Hetruria  was  consulted,  which  declared  that  the 
eighth  revolution  op  the  world  was  nearly  at  an  end,  and  that  another,  either  for  the  better 
or  the  worse,  was  about  to  take  place. 2 

Juvenal,  who  lived  in  the  first  century,  declared  that  he  was  living  in  the  ninth  revolution, 3  or 
saeculum.  This  shews  that  the  cycle  above  alluded  to  had  ended  in  Juvenal's  time,  and  that  a 
new  one  had  begun  :  and  this  ninth  revolution  consisted  evidently  of  a  revolution  of  more  than 
100  or  120  years  — of  several  centuries  at  least. 

"Nona  aetas  agitur,  pejoraque  seecula ferri  temporibus  :  quorum  sceleri  non  invenit  ipsa  Nomen, 
"  et  a  nullo  posuit  natura  metailo."  On  this  passage  Isaac  Vossius  says,  Octo  illas  aetates  credit 
appellatas  a  coeli  regionibus,  quas  octo  faciebant  Pythagorei :  nonam  vero,  de  qua  hie,  a  tellure 
denominatam  opinatur :  in  libello  de  Sibyle.     Orac.  Oxoniae,  nuper  edito,  Cap.  v. 

This  statement  of  Juvenal's,  which  no  author  has  ever  yet  pretended  to  understand,  will  now 
explain  itself,  and  it  completes  and  proves  the  truth  of  my  whole  system.  It  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  my  theory,  as  it  is  evidence,  which  cannot  be  disputed,  of  the  fact  on  which  the 
whole  depends.  Virgil  lived  before  Christ,  Juvenal  after  him.  This  is  quite  enough  for  my 
purpose,  as  we  shall  soon  see. 

About  sixty  years  before  Christ  the  Roman  empire  had  been  alarmed  by  prodigies,  and  also  by 
ancient  prophecies,  announcing  that  an  emanation  of  the  Deity  was  going  to  be  born  about  that 
time,  and  that  a  renovation  of  the  world  was  to  take  place. 

Previous  to  this,  in  the  year  63  B.  C,  the  city  had  been  alarmed  by  a  prophecy  of  one  Figulus, 
that  a  king  or  master  to  the  Romans  was  about  to  be  born,  in  consequence  of  which  the  Senate 
passed  a  decree,  that  no  father  should  bring  up  a  male  child  born  that  year :  but  those  among  the 
Senators,  whose  wives  were  pregnant,  got  the  decree  suppi-essed. 4  These  prophecies  were 
applied  to  Augustus,  who  was  born  63  years  before  Christ  according  to  some  persons,  but  56 
according  to  several  writers  in  the  East,  such  as  the  author  of  the  Lebtarikh  and  others.     "  Hence 


1  Vol.  X.  p.  33.  *  Ibid. ;  Plutarch  in  Syllam,  p.  456. 

3  Satire  xiii.  v.  28.  4  See  Sup.  to  Tit.  Liv.  CII.  Decad.  Cap.  xxxix. 

2b  2 


188         MOSAIC    SYSTEM   THE    SAME   AS   THE    HINDOO.       VARIOUS    PROPHECIES    OF    SIBYLS,  &C. 

"  it  is,  that  Nicolo  de  Conti,  who  was  in  Bengal  and  other  parts  of  India  in  the  fifteenth  century, 

"  insists  that  Vicramaditya  was  the  same  with  Augustus,   and  that  his  period  was  reckoned,  from 

"  the  birth  of  that  Emperor,  fifty-six  years  before  Christ."     Now,  it  is  evident  that  these  fifty-six 

years  before  Christ  bring  us  to  the  aera  of  the  Buddha  of  Siam,  for  the  beginning  of  the  new  eera, 

foretold  by  the  Cumaean  Sibyl,  as  declared  by  the  Mantuan  or  Celtic  poet,  the  Druid  of  Cisalpine 

Gaul,  in  his  fourth  eclogue. '     This,  in  some  old  manuscripts  seen  by  Pierius,  is  entitled  Interpre- 

tatio  Novi  Sceculi. 2      This  Eclogue  was  evidently  a  carmen  Sceculare. 

Virgil  says, 

The  last  great  age,  foretold  by  sacred  rhymes, 

Renews  its  finished  course :  Saturnian  times 

Roll  round  again,  and  mighty  years,  begun 

From  their  first  orb,  in  radiant  circles  run. 

The  base  degenerate  iron  offspring,  (or  the  Cali-yuga,)  ends 

A  golden  progeny  (of  the  Crita,  or  golden  age)  3  from  heaven  descends : 

O  chaste  Lucina,  speed  the  mother's  pains : 

And  haste  the  glorious  birth :  thy  own  Apollo  reigns ! 

The  lovely  boy  with  his  auspicious  face ! 

The  son  shall  lead  the  life  of  Gods,  and  be 

By  Gods  and  heroes  seen,  and  Gods  and  heroes  see. 

Another  Typhis  shall  new  seas  explore. 

Another  Argo  land  the  chiefs  upon  the  Iberian  shore  : 

Another  Helen  other  wars  create, 

And  great  Achilles  urge  the  Trojan  fate. 

O  of  celestial  seed !  O  foster  son  of  Jove  ! 

See,  labouring  nature  calls  thee  to  sustain 

The  nodding  frame  of  heaven,  and  earth,  and  main : 

See,  to  their  base  restored,  earth,  seas,  and  air. 

Col.  Wilford  on  this  passage  observes,  that  these  are  the  very  words  of  Vishnu  to  the  earth, 
when  complaining  to  it,  and  begging  redress.  4  Here  is  the  Brahmin  periodical  regeneration 
clearly  expressed.  And  here  is'an  admission  by  Virgil,  that  the  poem  of  Homer  was  a  religious 
Mythos.  All  these  prophecies,  I  apprehend,  alluded  to  the  renovation  of  the  cycle  of  the  Neros, 
then  about  to  take  place  in  its  ninth  revolution. 

I  quote  these  verses  here  merely  to  shew  that  some  great  personage  was  expected.  The 
Ultima  Cumaei  venit  jam  car  minis  iEtas,  of  Virgil,  I  shall  discuss  in  a  future  page,  and  shew  that 
it  is  in  accordance  with  my  theory. 

Several  of  the  other  most  celebrated  Roman  authors  have  noticed  the  expectation  of  the  arrival 
of  some  great  personage  in  the  first  century,  so  that  this  could  not  be  a  mere  solitary  instance  of 
Virgil's  base  adulation  in  this  interesting  poem. 

Tacitus  says,  "  The  generality  had  a  strong  persuasion  that  it  was  contained  in  the  ancient 
"  writings  of  the  priests,  that  at  that  very  time  the  East  should  prevail :  and  that  some  one  who 
"  should  come  out  of  Judea,  should  obtain  the  empire  of  the  world  :  which  ambiguities  foretold 
"  Vespasian  and  Titus.  But  the  common  people,  (of  the  Jews,)  according  to  the  usual  influence 
"  of  human  wishes,  appropriated  to  themselves,  by  their  interpretation,  this  vast  grandeur  foretold 


1  The  seras  of  the  Heroes,  or  Messiahs,  of  the  cycle,  (as  the  Bible  calls  Cyrus,)  did  not  always  commence  on  their 
births,  either  in  very  old  or  more  modern  times.  Thus  Buddha's  aera,  above-mentioned,  was  from  his  death ;  Jesus 
Christ's  is  four  years  after  his  birth.     Mohained  was  born  A.  D.  708,  his  sera  begins  725. 

8  Vide  Dupuis  sur  tous  les  Cultes,  Vol.  III.  p.  156. 

3  We  may  observe,  and  reserve  for  future  consideration,  that  Col.  Wilford  says  the  Crita  or  Golden  age  was  about 
to  return.     In  his  observation  of  the  Cali  Yug  he  is  wrong. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  31. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  7*  ^9 


(( 


by  the  fates,  nor  could  be  brought  to  change  their  opinion  for  the  true,  by  all  their  adversities. 1 
"  Suetonius  2  says,  There  had  been  for  a  long  time  all  over  the  East  a  constant  persuasion  that  it 
"  was  (recorded)  in  the  fates  (books  of  the  fates,  decrees,  or  fortellings),  that  at  that  time  some 
"  one  who  should  come  out  of  Judea  should  obtain  universal  dominion.  It  appeared  by  the  event, 
"  that  this  prediction  referred  to  the  Roman  Emperor :  but  the  Jews  referring  it  to  themselves, 
"  rebelled." 

Percrebuerat  orients  toto  constans  opinio  esse  in  fatis, 3  ut  eo  tempore,  Judaei  profecti  rerun) 
potirentur.  Id  de  imperio  Romano,  quantum  postea  eventu  patuit,  praedictum,  Judaei  ad  se 
habentis,  rebellarunt. 

Josephus  says,4  "  That  which  chiefly  excited  them  (the  Jews)  to  war,  was  an  ambiguous  pro- 
"  phecy,  which  was  also  found  in  the  sacred  books,  that  at  that  time  some  one,  within  their  country, 
"  should  arise,  that  should  obtain  the  empire  of  the  whole  world  {<*>$  tcara  tov  xcliqov  sxetvov  euro 
"  rr\S  X(°?a^^  TrlS  a-VToiv  ap£-ei  rr\v  oJxejU-svTjv),  For  this  they  had  received  by  tradition,  [oi£ 
"  oixeiov  s^shafiov,)  that  it  was  spoken  of  one  of  their  nation :  and  many  wise  men,  (co<£oi,  or 
"  Chachams,)  were  deceived  with  the  interpretation.  But,  in  truth,  Vespasian's  empire  was 
"  designed  in  this  prophecy,  who  was  created  Emperor  (of  Rome)  in  Judcea."  5  The  Chachams 
above  are  Hakims,  from  the  Hebrew  word  Q]n  hkm,  wisdom.  The  accompanying  word  <ro§oi 
would  have  proved  it,  if  it  required  any  proof. 

Another  prophecy  has  been  noticed  by  Prideaux6  of  one  Julius  Marathus,  in  these  words: 
Regem  populo  Romano  naturam  parturire.7 

Among  the  Greeks,  the  same  prophecy  is  found.  The  Oracle  of  Delphi  was  the  depository,  ac- 
cording to  Plato,  of  an  ancient  and  secret  prophecy  of  the  birth  of  a  son  of  Apollo,  who  was  to 
restore  the  reign  of  justice  and  virtue  on  the  earth.8  This,  no  doubt,  was  the  son  alluded  to  by 
the  Sibyl. 

Du  Halde,  in  his  History  of  China,  informs  us,  that  the  Chinese  had  a  prophecy  that  a  holy 
person  was  to  appear  in  the  West,  and  in  consequence  they  sent  to  the  West,  which  I  think  would 
be  Upper  India,  and  that  they  brought  thence  the  worship  of  Fo,  (i.  e.  Buddha,)  whom  they  call 
Fwe,  K-yau,  and  Shek-ya.  This  is  evidently  the  law  of  Diodorus,  and  the  Iau  of  Genesis,  and 
the  Sa-kia  the  name  of  Buddha. 9 

Now,  according  to  my  idea,  the  Sibyl  of  Virgil  would  have  no  difficulty,  as,  from  her  skill  in  ju- 
dicial astrology,  she  would  know  very  well  when  the  Neros  would  end.  Isaiah  might  easily  learn 
the  same  (even  if  he  were  not  initiated,  a  thing  hardly  to  be  believed)  from  the  Sibyl  of  Judaea, I0 
perhaps  called  a  Huldah.  Nothing  is  so  likely  as  that  Augustus  should  permit  his  flatterers  to 
tell  the  populace  that  his  age  exactly  suited  to  the  prophecy.  Few  persons  would  dare  to  canvas 
this  matter  too  closely ;  it  was  good  policy,  to  strengthen  his  title  to  the  throne.  But  respecting 
him  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter.  The  Hindoo  works,  Colonel  Wilford  informs  us,  foretell 
the  coining  of  Cristna,  in  the  same  manner,  at  the  time  he  is  said  to  have  come.  Nothing  is  more 
likely.     This  has  been  erroneously  supposed  to  prove  them  spurious.     Any  astronomer  might  tell 

1  Hist.  Cap.  xiii.  2  Frag,  apud  Calmet,  Diet.  Vol  IV.  p.  65 ;  Vespasian,  Cap.  iv. 

3  I  beg  my  reader  to  observe  the  words /«  to  and  fatis,  and  I  think  he  will  see  the  origin  of  the  unchangeable  fates, 
i.  e.  the  true  prophets. 

4  De  Bello,  Lib.  vii.  Cap.  xxxi.  "  Apud  Calmet,  Frag.  Vol.  IV.  p.  65. 
6  Connec.  P.  ii.  B.  ix.  p.  493,  fol.  7  Suet,  in  Oct.  Cap.  xciv. 

8  Plato  in  Apolog.  Socr.  et  de  Repub.'  Lib.  vi. ;  A.  Clarke's  Evidences  ;  Chatfield  on  the  Hindoos,  p.  245. 

9  Vide  B.  v.  Ch.  i.  §  ii.  10  Named  by  Pausanias  and  iElian.    Vide  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  30. 


190         MOSAIC    SYSTEM    THE    SAME   AS   THE    HINDOO.       VARIOUS    PROPHECIES    OF    SIBYLS,    &C. 

it,  for  it  was  what  had  been  told  for  every  new  age,  before  it  arrived,  that  a  great  personage  would 
appear — in  fact  the  presiding  genius,  Cyrus,  or  Messiah,  of  the  Cycle. 

In  addition  to  all  these  prophecies,  which  are  in  themselves  sufficiently  striking,  there  is  yet 
another  very  celebrated  one  respecting  Zeradusht,  which  is  noticed  by  Mr.  Faber.  He  maintains, 
and  I  think  proves,  the  genuineness  of  this  famous  prophecy  of  Zeradusht,  who  declared  that  in 
the  latter  day  a  virgin  should  conceive  and  bear  a  son,  and  that  a  star  should  appear  blazing  at 
noon-day.  "  You,  my  sons,"  exclaimed  the  seer,  "  will  perceive  its  rising  before  any  other  na- 
"  tion.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  you  shall  behold  the  star,  follow  it  whithersoever  it  shall  lead  you  : 
"  and  adore  that  mysterious  child,  offering  him  your  gifts  with  profound  humility.  He  is  the  al- 
"  mighty  WORD,  which  created  the  heavens." l  This  prophecy,  Mr.  Faber  observes,  is  found  among 
the  Celts  of  Ireland,  ascribed  to  a  person  of  the  name  of  Zeradusht,2  a  daru  or  Druid  of  Bock- 
hara,3  the  residence  of  Zeradusht  (whose  mother  was  called  Dagdu,  one  of  the  names  of  the  mother 
of  the  Gods).  He  shews  by  many  strong  and  decisive  proofs,  that  this  can  be  no  monkish  forgery 
of  the  dark  ages. 

Amongst  other  arguments  against  its  being  a  forgery,  Professor  Lee  observes,  that  the  very 
same  prophecy,  in  the  same  words,  is  reported  by  Abulfaragius  to  have  been  found  by  him  in  the 
oriental  writings  of  Persia.  This  prophecy  thus  found  in  the  East  and  in  Ireland,  and  in  the  Vir- 
gini  pariturae,  of  Gaul,  before  noticed,  previous  to  the  Christian  era,  is  of  the  very  first  impor- 
tance. It  cannot  have  been  stolen  from  the  Christian  books,  but  they  must  have  been  copied 
from  it,  if  either  be  a  copy,  (which  yet  may  not  be  the  fact,)  for  they  are  absolutely  the  same.  It 
cannot  have  been  copied  from  the  Jewish  prophets,  because  there  is  nothing  like  it,  not  a  word 
about  a  star  at  noon  in  any  of  them.  This  prophecy  is  alluded  to  in  the  gospel  of  the  infancy : 
"  Ecce  !  magi  venerunt  ex  Oriente  Hierosolymas,  quemadmodum  prsedixerat  Zoradascht,  erantque 
"  cum  ipsis  munera,  aurium,  thus,  et  myrrha."  4 

The  star  above  spoken  of,  was  also  known  to  the  Romans.  "  Chalcidius,  a  heathen  writer 
"  who  lived  not  long  after  Christ,  in  a  commentary  upon  the  Timaeus  of  Plato,  discoursing  upon 
"  portentous  appearances  of  this  kind  in  the  heavens,  in  different  ages,  particularly  speaks  of  this 
"  wonderful  star,  which  he  observes,  presaged  neither  diseases  nor  mortality,  but  the  descent  of  a 
"  God  among  men  :  Stellae,  quam  a  Chaldeeis  observatam  fuisse  testantur,  que  Deum  nuper  natum 
"  muneribus  venerati  sunt."5  Nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  the  Romish  Christians  got 
their  history  of  the  Star  and  Magi  from  these  Gentile  superstitions. 

These  prophecies  have  been  equally  troublesome  to  the  priests  and  to  the  philosophers.  The 
divines  would  have  been  very  glad  of  them,  but  the  adoption  of  them  carried  with  it  the  shocking 
consequence,  that  God  must  have  had  such  bad  taste,  as  to  have  preferred  even  the  wicked  pagans 


1  Vol.  II.  p.  97. 

2  This  Zeradusht  is  no  other  than  the  person  generally  called  Zoroaster  by  our  old  authors.  Now  I  learn  from  the 
learned  oriental  Professor  Lee,  of  Cambridge,  that  the  latter  orthography  is  a  complete  mistake,  and  that  in  all  the  old 
oriental  authors  it  is  spelt  Zeradusht.  I  think  this  furnishes  a  very  strong  proof  of  the  real  antiquity  and  genuineness 
of  the  Irish  records  :  for  if  they  had  been  merely  compiled  or  formed  from  the  works  of  the  Western  nations,  they 
would  have  had  the  Western  mode  of  spelling  the  word,  and  would  not  have  had  the  Eastern  mode,  of  which  they  could 
know  nothing.  It  proves  that  they  had  this  word  direct  from  the  East,  and  not  through  the  medium  of  Western 
reporters. 

If  I  mistake  not,  another  equally  striking  proof  of  the  same  kind  may  be  found  in  the  word  Dagdhu,  the  mother  of 
the  Gods.  Circumstantial  evidence  of  this  kind  excels  all  written  evidence  whatever.  This  is  worth  the  whole  of  the 
chronicles  of  Eri.     Dagdhu  is  «in  eua  or  eva  JT  dg,  Eve  the  propagatrix. 

3  Bochara  means  place  of  learning.  4  Jones  on  the  Can.  Vol.  II.  Part  iii.  Ch.  xxii.  S.  /• 
s  In  Timseum,  Platonis,  p.  19,  apud  Hind.  Hist,  of  Maurice,  Vol.  II.  p.  296. 


BOOK  V.     CHAPTER  II.     SECTION  8.  191 

to  his  own  people — his  priestly  nation — the  Pagan  prophecies  being  much  clearer  than  those  of  the 
Jews.  The  philosophers  have  been  annoyed  because  they  clearly  foretell  a  great  person  to  come, 
and  unless  they  allowed  it  to  be  Jesus  Christ,  they  could  make  nothing  of  them.  The  Persians, 
the  Chinese,  and  the  Delphians,  could  not  prophesy  of  Caesar,  and  the  close  resemblance  of  the 
prophecies  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  could  not  be  the  effect  of  accident.  These  matters  being 
premised,  we  will  now  compare  the  calculations  made  a  little  time  ago,  with  the  periods  produced 
by  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes.  But  first  it  is  necessary  to  recollect,  that  Julius  Caesar 'fixed 
the  solstice  to  the  25th  of  December,  about  one  in  the  morning,  which  brings  the  Equinox,  in  the 
zodiacal  circle,  to  the  25th  degree  of  Pisces. 

From  the  birth  of  Christ  to  the  beginning  of  Aries  will  be — 35  degrees,  or  about 2520  years. 

From  Aries  to  the  beginning  of  Taurus  30 2160 


In  the  whole  about 4680 

30  degrees  in  May,  Taurus.  8    X   600  =  4800 

30  degrees  in  April,  Aries.  4680 

5  degrees  in  March,  Pisces 


120 
65   X  72  =4680 

This  difference  is  what  we  might  expect,  because  the  two  cycles  of  the  precession,  and  of  the  Sun 
and  Moon,  the  Neros  would  not  coincide  till  the  end  of  10  signs.  For,  2160  x8  =  17280  -r-  by 
600,  leaves  a  remainder  of  480,  to  which,  if  we  add  the  difference  of  120,  it  exactly  completes  the 
cycle  of  600.  Then  add  120  to  the  4680,  and  it  gives  us  exactly  the  time  for  8  Neroses,  4800. 
This  shews  the  reason  why,  in  most  of  the  calculations  which  I  shall  presently  make,  the  sum  of 
2160,  the  years  of  the  precession  in  one  sign,  must  first  be  deducted,  to  make  the  sums  come 
right. 

These  results  serve  to  shew  that  the  system  must  have  been  made  up,  or  completed,  by  the  Brah- 
mins, some  time  after  the  beginning  of  their  Cali  Yug.  Their  attempts  to  reconcile  facts  irrecon- 
cileable — the  2160  years  of  the  precession  from  Taurus  to  Aries,  with  the  three  Neroses,  and  a  wish 
to  begin  to  count  the  latter  from  the  beginning  of  the  Cali  Yug — in  short  the  whole  exhibits  a  system 
of  expedients,  or  shifts.  The  coincidence  of  numbers  in  my  explanation  is  so  extraordinary  as  to 
set  at  defiance  the  supposition  of  accident.  The  system  being  originally  founded  in  error,  as  I  will 
presently  shew,  when  the  Brahmins  discovered  the  error,  they  had  recourse  to  such  expedients  as 
offered  themselves. 

8.  In  the  following  verses  of  Martianus  Capella,  the  celebrated  Monogram  of  Christ  THS,  60S, 
is  described.  These  very  well  apply  to  the  Cristna  of  India,  of  the  Jews,  and  also  of  the  father  of 
Ecclesiastical  history,  Eusebius,  by  whom  the  Roman  church  is  followed,  and  by  whom,  in  fact,  it 
was  established ;  and  I  beg  my  reader  to  pay  particular  attention  to  the  Sacrum  nomen  et  cogno- 
men, the  THS  in  these  verses,  which  are  written  in  Roman  letters  on  our  pulpit  cloths,  in  Greek 
letters  on  the  inside  of  the  roof  of  the  cathedral  of  St.  Alban's,  and  in  every  kind  of  letters  on  the 
churches  in  Italy.1 

This  period  of  608,  I  have  just  now  shewn,  was  a  celebrated  cycle  with  the  Hindoos.  I  shall 
call  it  the  Great  Neros,  to  distinguish  it  from  that  of  600,  the  Neros  of  Josephus. 

Solem  te  Latium  vocitat,  quod  solus  honore 
Post  Patrem  sis  lucis  apex,  radiisque  sacratum 
Bis  senis  perhibent  caput  aurea  lumina,  ferre : 


1  For  some  interesting  observations  respecting  the  crux  ansata,  the  reader  may  consult  Dr.  Daniel  Clarke's  Travels, 
Vol.  III.  ch.  iv.,  and  Socrat.  Schol.  Histor.  Eccles.,  lib.  v.  cap.  xvii. 


192  SUBJECT    CONTINUED.      MARTIANUS    CAPELLA. 

Qubd  totidem  menses,  totidem  quod  conficis  horas. 
Quatuor  alipedes  dicunt  te  flectere  habenis, 
Qu6d  solus  domites,  quam  dant  elementa  quadrigam. 
Nam  tenebras  prohibens,  retegis  quod  cerula  lucet.' 
Hinc  Pho3bum  perhibent  prodentem  occulta  futuri ; 
Vel  quia  dissolvis  nocturna  admissa.     Isesum 
Te  Serapim  Nilus,  Memphis  veneratur  Osirim  : 
Dissona  sacra  Mitram,  Ditemque,  feruinque  Typhonem  : 
Atys  pulcher  item,  curvi  et  puer  almus  arratri, 
Ammon  et  arentis  Libyes,  ac  Biblius  Adon. 
Sic  vario  cunctus  te  nomine  convocat  orbis. 
Salve  vera  deum  facies,  vultusque  paternse, 

OCTO  ET  SEXCENTIS  NUMERIS,  CUI  LITERA  TR1NA 
CONFORMAT  SACRUM  NOMEN,  COGNOMEN,  ET  OMEN. 

Da,  Pater,  sthereos  mentis  conscendere  ccetus  : 
Astrigerumque  sacro  sub  nomine  noscere  caelum. 
Augeat  haec  Pater  insignis  memorandus  ubique.2 

Latium  calls  thee  Sol,  because  thou  alone  art  in  honour,  AFTER  THE  FATHER,  the  centre  of  light;  and  they  affirm 
that  thy  sacred  head  bears  a  golden  brightness  in  twelve  rays,  because  thou  formest  that  number  of  months  and  that  number 
of  hours.  They  say  that  thou  guidest  four  winged  steeds,  because  thou  alone  rulest  the  chariot  of  the  elements.  For, 
dispelling  the  darkness,  thou  revealest  the  shining  heavens.  Hence  they  esteem  thee,  Phoebus,  the  discoverer  of  the  secrets 
of  the  future ;  or,  because  thou  preventest  nocturnal  crimes.  Egypt  worships  thee  as  Iscean  Serapis — and  Memphis  as 
Osiris.  Thou  art  worshiped  by  different  rites  as  Mithra,  Dis,  and  the  cruel  Typhon.  Thou  art  also  the  beautiful  Atys, 
and  the  fostering  son  of  the  bent  plough.  Thou  art  the  Ammon  of  arid  Libya,  and  the  Adonis  of  Byblos.  Thus  under 
a  varied  appellation  the  whole  world  worships  thee.    Hail !  thou  true  image  of  the  Gods,  and  of  thy  father's  face !  thou 

WHOSE    SACRED    NAME,    SIRNAME,    AND    Omen,    THREE    LETTERS    MAKE    TO   AGREE    WITH   THE    NUMBER    608.       Grant 

us,  oh  Father,  to  reach  the  ethereal  intercourse  of  mind,  and  to  know  the  starry  heaven  under  this  sacred  name.  May  the 
great  and  universally  adorable  Father  increase  these  his  favours. 

For  an  explanation  of  the  Sacrum  Nomen,  vide  Celtic  Druids.3 

For  the  reason  given  above  by  Colonel  Wilford,  M.  Cassini  has  shewn  that  the  aera  of  Buddha 
ought  to  be  fixed  to  the  year  543,  not  544,  before  Christ.  It  is  said  that  the  Cali  Yug  took  place 
3101  years  before  Christ.  The  era  of  Buddha,  it  has  been  before  stated,  is  calculated  from  his 
death.  Now  let  us  count  the  difference  between  his  death  and  the  beginning  of  the  cycle  for  his 
life,  and  it  will  be  57.  Take  this  from  the  time  the  Cali  Yug  has  run,  and  it  will  give  3101 — 57 
=  3044.  Take  from  this  the  time  which  Christ  is  placed  too  late,  accordering  to  Usher,  viz.  4 
years,  and  we  shall  have  from  the  beginning  of  the  Cali  Yug  3040.  Divide  this  by  the  mystical 
number  of  Martianus  Capella,  the  Monogram  of  Christ,  THS,  =  608,  and  we  shall  have  exactly 
the  number  of  five  Yugs,  or  five  great  Neroses,  between  the  flood,  or  the  entrance  of  the  Sun  into 
the  Hindoo  Aries  or  the  beginning  of  the  Cali  Yug,  and  Christ.  This  and  the  three  in  the  preced- 
ing 2160  years,  the  time  the  Sun  took  to  pass  through  Taurus,  make  up  the  eight. 

In  the  2160  years  there  is  an  excess  of  360  years  over  the  three  Cycles  or  Neroses.  This  arises 
from  the  system  having  originally  commenced,  or  at  least  been  in  existence,  when  the  precession 
was  supposed  to  be  1800  years  in  passing  through  a  sign,  treated  of  before  in  Section  5.  This 
was  probably  connected  with  Enoch's  conveyance  to  heaven,  when  360  years  of  age  (not  365),  as 
his  age  ought  to  be.     I  shall  return  to  this  presently. 

If  we  take  from  the  period  of  5,200  stated  by  Cassini  as  Eusebius's,  (viz.  from  the  creation  to 
the  birth  of  Christ,)  the  precession  for  one  sign,  viz.  2160,  we  shall  leave  exactly  3040,  which  sum 
is  five  sacred  Christian  periods,  or  great  Neroses  of  608  each.     Thus:  5x608=3040;  which  will 


Quae  caerula  lucent  ?  «  Martianus  Capella,  de  Nuptiis  Philologise,  Lib.  ii.  p.  32.  3  Ch.  iv.  Sect.  viii. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER    II.      SECTION    8.  193 

be  the  time  from  the  Cali  Yug,  or  the  entrance  of  the  sun  into  Aries,  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  accord- 
ing to  Eusebius.1 

Again,  add  together  4  cycles  of  600  each,  and  we  have 2400 

Then  add  the  sera  of  the  death  of  Buddha  pointed  out  by  Cassini. « 543 

Then  add  the  difference  between  the  sera  of  his  death  and  the  beginning  of  a  Neros,  the 
duration  of  his  life 57 

And  it  leaves  exactly  5  Neroses    3000 

The  beginning  of  the  Cali  Yug  is  invariable,  being  3100  B.  C,  or  3044  before  Vicramaditya.  2 
This  last  3044+2160=5204,  is  Eusebius's  period,  Usher's  mistake  allowed  for. 

If  in  the  last  calculation  we  count  the  sera  for  the  death  of  Buddha  at  544,  as  uncorrected  by 
Cassini,  and  take  the  age  of  Buddha  at  56,  exactly  the  time,  according  to  the  Lebtarikh,  which 
Augustus  was  born  before  Christ,  we  shall  have  3000  years,  or  five  Neroses  from  the  flood  to  the 
birth  of  Christ. 3 

Wilford  says,  the  Samaritans  count  3040  years  from  the  flood  to  the  birth  of  Christ.  From  this 
it  appears  that  they  used  the  Neros  of  608  in  their  calculation. 

Again,  from  the  period  between  the  Cali  Yug  and  Christ,  3101  years,  take  the  time  between  the 
epoch  543  and  Christ,  viz.  57,  and  we  have  3044 :  exactly  the  time,  according  to  the  Samaritan 
computation,  between  the  birth  of  Christ  and  the  flood,  Usher's  error  allowed  for. 

In  India  there  was  an  sera  called  the  sera  of  Vicramaditya.  Many  learned  Pundits  make  him 
begin  to  reign  3044  years  after  the  flood,  and  they  add  that,  after  a  reign  of  56  years,  he  died  in 
the  year  3101,  which  year  3044  was  the  first  of  the  Christian  sera  of  the  flood,  according  to  the 
Samaritan  computation,  Usher's  error  allowed  for ;  thus  completing  the  cycle,  and  with  three  be- 
fore the  flood,  make  the  eight  required. 4 

Years  of  the  world  to  Christ 4000 

Years  from  creation  to  flood ]  656 


2344 

Admitted  error  in  Hebrew,  or  the  ? 

•         •  /■•••• 

Samaritan  without  error 3 


700 


3044 
Life  of  Vicramaditya  56  years 56 

3100 

This  shews  the  Indian  and  Samaritan  to  be  precisely  the  same. 

There  was  also  an  sera  of  Salivahana,  of  whom  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter.  He  con- 
quered and  killed  Vicramaditya.  His  sera  commenced  at  the  death  of  his  enemy,  that  is,  at  the 
birth  of  Christ.  The  Samaritans,  who  give  700  years  more  between  the  flood  and  Christ  than  the 
Hebrew  and  Vulgate,  appear  to  have  calculated  by  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  and  to  have 


1  The  Cali  Yug  begins  when  the  Sun  enters  Aries  at  the  Vernal  Equinox.  Jones,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  393.  This 
is  the  date  of  the  flood  according  to  the  Brahmin  doctrines. 

2  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  86. 

3  According  to  some  calculations,  Augustus  was  born  63  years  before  Christ.  (Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  33.)  Then  5 
Yugsor  Neroses=3000  +  638  +  63=3701—  3101=600.  This  evidently  alludes  to  the  second  aera  of  Buddha,  of  638 
years  after  Christ,  formerly  noticed  in  Section  1. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  122. 

2c 


194  SUBJECT    CONTINUED.      MARTIANUS    CAPELLA. 

calculated  in  such  a  manner,  that  65  degrees,  and  a  part  of  a  degree,  had  passed  at  the  birth  of  Christ : 
65x72=4680;  add  for  a  part  of  a  degree  20  years zr4700.  The  principle  on  which  the  Samaritan 
computation  is  made  is  pretty  clear. 

As  the  Samaritans  count1  3044  between  the  flood  and  Christ,  and  as  they  reckon  4700  from  the 
creation  to  Christ,  they  must  reckon  the  same  time  between  the  creation  and  flood  as  Usher,  viz. 
1656  years.2  The  Julian  period  begins,  the  4  years'  mistake  of  Usher  allowed  for,  4709  or  4710 
years  before  Christ.     This  evidently  is  meant  to  coincide  with  the  Samaritan  system. 

All  these  periods  are  correct  except  the  Julian  period,  which  comes  sufficiently  near  to  prove 
very  clearly,  that  what  Megasthenes  said  was  true,  that  the  Jews  and  the  Hindoos  had  the  same 
system  of  chronology,  and  we  shall  see  by  and  by,  in  a  future  book,  when  I  come  to  treat  of  the 
Jews,  the  reason  of  this. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  considered  the  two  numbers  608  and  650  as  in  a  particular  manner 
sacred  to  Bacchus.  Now,  when  Eusebius  was  making  out  his  5200  by  deducting  from  it  the  years 
of  the  precession  in  the  sign  Taurus,  and  then  calculating  five  cycles  from  the  beginning  of  Aries 
to  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  reader  has  seen,  he  would  naturally  inquire,  what  the  other  sacred  number 
650  would  do  ;  and  he  would  find,  that  if  multiplied  by  eight,  (the  number  of  cycles  stated  by  Ju- 
venal and  Censorinus  to  have  run  to  Christ,)  it  would  exactly  make  his  number  of  5200 ;  so  that 
one  made  the  cycles  from  Taurus,  the  other  from  Aries, — but  both  coming  to  the  same  thing,  eight 
cycles  in  the  whole,  and  the  same  number  of  years.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  absolutely  impossible, 
that  the  coincidence  of  these  numbers  can  have  been  the  effect  of  accident. 

The  cycle  of  600  does  not  appear  to  have  been  known  as  a  sacred  number  to  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  but  only  to  the  Jews  and  oriental  nations.  The  reason  was,  because  the  60S  and  650 
came  from  the  East  before  their  error  was  discovered.  I  think  I  need  not  have  desired  any  tiling 
better  to  confirm,  both  my  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  sacred  solar  numbers,  and  of  the  eight  periods 
or  cycles  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  than  that  the  multiplication  of  the  650  by  eight,  should  give  us  the 
exact  number  stated  by  Eusebius  to  have  passed  before  the  birth  of  Christ. 

The  following  is  surely  a  singular  coincidence  of  numbers  : 

Usher's  age  of  the  world 4004 

Usher's  time  of  the  flood 1656 

Flood  before  Christ  2348 

Add  Samaritan  correction •> 700 

3048 
Add  real  precession  for  one  sign - 2152 

5200 

If  we  suppose,  as  is  the  fact,  that  the  sun  left  the  last  degree  of  Aries,  and  entered  Pisces,  about 
the  year  380  before  Christ,  and  add  the  years  of  the  commonly  reputed  precession  for  the  two  signs 
Aries  and  Taurus,  2 160+2160=4320,  we  shall  have  exactly  the  Samaritan  computation  4320+ 
380=4700.  If  this  be  accident,  it  is  surely  a  wonderful  accident,  that  should  bring  all  those  num. 
bers  which  my  theory  requires  to  an  exact  agreement. 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  241. 

2  See  Universal  History,  Vol.  I.  p.  147,  where  the  Hebrew  and  Samaritan  chronology,  before  the  flood,  are  reconciled 
on  the  hypothesis  of  Father  Tournemine.  In  this  reconciliation,  I  think,  will  be  found  the  trifling  error  or  difference 
before  mentioned,  of  the  ten  in  the  Julian  period. 


BOOK   V.    CHAPTER    III.    SECTION    1.  195 

I  consider  this  to  be  very  important,  because  the  Samaritan  computation  not  only  agrees  with 
the  Hindoo  in  system,  but  it  adopts  the  error,  using  its  favourite  number  72  instead  of  71  ;  and 
again,  the  Hindoo  error  of  2160  instead  of  2152. 

Colonel  Wilford  says,  "  The  year  of  the  death  of  Vicramarca  and  that  of  the  manifestation  of 
"  Sal'-ba-han,  are  acknowledged  to  be  but  one  and  the  same,  and  they  are  obviously  so ;  according 
"  to  the  Cumarica-chanda,  that  remarkable  year  was  the  310ist  of  the  Cali  Yuga,  and  the  first  of 
"  the  Christian  aera,  thus  coinciding  also  with  the  Samaritan  text,  which  is  a  remarkable  circum- 
"  stance."1 

With  respect  to  the  time  fixed  by  Eusebius  for  the  age  of  the  world  before  Christ,  we  must  re- 
collect that  it  is  very  different  from  all  the  others,  because  at  the  time  when  he  and  his  master, 
Constantine,  were  settling  and  establishing  the  Christian  religion — destroying  by  the  agency  of 
Theodoret  such  gospel  histories  as  they  thought  wrong,  and  substituting  such  as  they  thought 
right  —  they  may  be  fairly  supposed  to  have  had  information  on  these  subjects,  which  may 
very  easily  have  been  lost  in  later  times.  I  think  no  one  will  believe  that  it  was  by  accident,  that 
the  number  of  the  years  of  the  Sun's  precession  in  a  sign,  (2160,)  the  number  of  Eusebius,  (5200,) 
and  the  eight  cycles,  agreed  with  the  doctrines  of  Juvenal  and  Censorinus  and  the  eight  Avatars  of 
India.2 

Every  part  of  this  curious  mythos  betrays  marks  of  a  system  founded  originally  in  errox1,  but  at 
this  day  lost,  and  made  out  by  expedients  or  doubtful  calculations  :  and  when  we  reflect  upon  the 
fact  stated  by  Josephus,  that  the  Jews  had  a  knowledge  from  their  ancestors  of  the  beautiful  cycle 
of  the  Neros,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  their  chronology  should  shew  proofs  of  their  know- 
ledge of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  as  the  Samaritan,  I  think,  does.  When  Josephus  says 
that  the  Jews  had  the  Neros,  he  of  course  means  the  Israelitish  nation,  the  descendants  of 
Abraham. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SUBJECT  CONTINUED.  —  TWO  CYCLES.  JOSHUA  STOPS  THE  SUN  AND  MOON.  —  JEWISH  INCARNATIONS. — 
MILLENIUM.  PRITCHARD.  PLATO.  —  JEWISH  AND  CHRISTIAN  AUTHORITIES  FROM  DR.  MEDE.  — PLUTARCH 
AND  OTHER  WESTERN  AUTHORS  ON  THE  600-YEAR  CYCLE. —  THE  HINDOOS  HAD  DIFFERENT  SYSTEMS. 
— OBSERVATIONS    ON    PYTHAGORAS,   &C— LA   LOUBERE    ON   THE  WORD   SIAM. 

1.  As  we  have  the  two  small  cycles  600  and  608,  we  have  in  like  manner  two  systems  of  chrono 
logy  depending  upon  them.     The  first  is  Eusebius's.     It  begins  with  the  egress  of  Noah  from  the 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  122. 

9  Methodius,  Bishop  of  Tyre,  states,  that  in  the  year  of  the  world  2100,  there  was  born  unto  Noah  a  fourth  son, 
called  Ioni-thus.  (Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  4.)  This  has  certainly  a  mythological  appearance  and  looks  as  if  it  was  meant 
for  the  2160  years,  the  precessional  time  between  Taurus  and  Aries.  If  this  2100  be  added  to  the  3100  years  which  the 
Hindoos  place  between  the  flood  and  Christ,  it  exactly  makes  up  the  date  fixed  on  by  Eusebius,  5200  years  for  the  age 
of  the  world.  The  word  Iotii,  we  know  the  meaning  of,  and  may  not  the  Thus  mean  the  black  ?  for  it  is  often  written 
Ioni-chus.  Perhaps  it  may  allude  in  some  way  to  a  schism  which  took  place  between  the  followers  of  Taurus  and  the 
Ioni,  which  I  shall  treat  of  presently,  and  the  followers  of  the  Yoni  alone.  Other  chronicles  confirm  the  existence  of 
this  Ioni-thus  as  a  son  of  Noah.  He  was  a  famous  astrologer  and  prophet.  "  He  held  the  region  from  the  entering  in 
"  of  Etham  to  the  sea,  which  region  is  called  Heliochora,  because  the  sun  riseth  there." 

2  C  2 


196  SUBJECT    CONTINUED.      JOSHUA    STOPS   THE   SUN    AND    MOON. 

ark.  Deducting  from  his  statement  of  the  world's  age  (i.  e.  5200)  the  years  of  the  precession  for 
the  sign  Taurus,  2160,  and  it  leaves  3040,  equal  to  608x5,  or  five  Great  Neroses  to  the  birth 
of  Christ.  This,  as  we  have  before  noticed,  is  the  correct  Samaritan  computation,  according  to 
Col.  Wilford, l  the  mistake  of  Usher  being  allowed  for,  and  correct,  according  to  Marsham  and 
Hevelius. 

The  second  system  begins  at  the  birth  of  Shem.  The  fourth  period  ends  with  the  death  of  Shem, 
who  lived  exactly  600  years,  and  who  is  said2  to  have  died  in  the  year  of  the  flood  502.  Then, 
502+31 01  (the  duration  of  the  Cali  Yug  before  Christ)  =3603 ;  the  Neros,  that  of  Shem,  being  de- 
ducted, it  leaves  3003,  and  then  Usher's  4  years  for  the  birth  of  Christ  placed  too  forward,  being 
also  deducted,  we  have  3000,  or  five  correct  Neroses  of  600  years  each,  all  but  an  unit,  which  we 
have  seen  is  of  no  material  consequence. 

It  is  a  circumstance  worthy  of  observation,  that  Shem  is  said  by  Usher,  to  have  died  at  the 
2158th  which  may  be  called  2160th  year  of  the  world's  age.  These  were  the  years  of  the  preces- 
sion in  one  sign.  This,  like  other  coincidences,  could  scarcely  have  been  the  effect  of  accident.  If 
we  add  to  2160,  five  great  Neroses  or  3040,  we  shall  have  the  calculation  of  Eusebius,  the  man  of 
all  others,  since  the  trme  of  Christ,  the  most  likely  to  understand  the  machinery  of  the  system. 
And  this  again  shews  why,  in  these  calculations,  the  time  which  the  equinox  preceded  in  one  sign, 
viz.  2160  years,  ought  to  be  deducted. 

Tnus  we  have  two  systems  of  the  Neros,  one  of  600,  and  the  other  of  608  years  each. 

Hesiod,  in  his  Works  and  Days,  makes  out  that  he  is  himself  living  in  the  fifth  age,  that  of  Iron, 
the  fourth  having  just  passed  away.  This  evidently  alludes  to  the  six  millenaries,  in  the  fifth  of 
which  he  lived.  A  learned  and  anonymous  author  of  Cambridge  (Key  to  Chronology  of  the  Hin- 
doos) comparing  the  chronology  of  the  Hindoos  and  Jews  says,  speaking  of  the  Works  and  Days, 
"  The  commencement  of  the  fourth  age  is,  if  possible,  yet  more  clearly  marked.  The  three  first 
"  ages  having  consumed  1000,  800,  and  600  years,  the  fourth  commences  with  A.  M.  2400 — and  to 
"  this  age  is  assigned  400  years.  Hesiod  styles  it  the  age  of  the  Demigods,  and  represents  a  part 
of  it  as  a  time  of  great  virtue,  justice,  and  piety."  We  may  here  observe  how  the  ingenious 
Cantab,3  who  does  not  in  the  least  understand  or  even  suspect  the  nature  of  my  theory,  stumbles 
upon  my  numbers,  only  mistaking  the  end  of  the  fourth  age,  2400,  for  its  commencement.  He 
thinks  Moses  answered  to  Cristna.  This  alludes  to  the  period  which  the  Samaritans  allotted  to 
the  bringing  of  the  ark  to  Shiloh,  by  Joshua. 

It  is  stated,  Joshua  x.  12,  13,  that  he  stopped  the  sun  and  moon  about  a  day  :  Sun,  stand  thou 
still  upon  Giheon ;  and  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon — and  the  Sun  hasted  not  to  go  down 
about  a  whole  day.     Is  not  this  written  in  the  hook  of  Jasher  f  4 

The  Bible  says,  "  about  a  day."  I  shall  endeavour  to  shew  why  and  for  how  long  a  time  Joshua 
stopped  it.  This  stoppage  probably  continued  during  the  time  between  the  ending  of  one  of  Noah's 
and  one  of  Shem's  cycles,  viz.  98  years  :  i.  e.  98  +  502  =  600.  By  this  means  he  brought  the 
two  cycles  together.  98  years  would  be  more  than  equal  to  one  degree,  or  the  360th  part  of  the 
circle,  but  not  quite  to  one  degree  and  a  half.  At  that  time  each  degree,  or  J'2  years,  represented 
a  day,  of  the  year  of  360  days  long.     Every  festival  would  fall  back  a  day  in  about  72  years. 

The  circumstance  of  the  Moon  being  stopped  as  well  as  the  Sun,  is  allusive  to  the  double  cycle, 
of  Sun  and  Moon.    It  was  a  throwing  back  the  Luni-solar  period.    If  this  were  not  so,  why  should 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  241,  Map.  *  Universal. History.     '  3  Vol.  II.  p.  289. 

4  As  our  version  says,  but  as  Josephus  says,  in  the  writings  laid  up  in  the  temple.  (See  Parkhurst  in  voce  1tt>>  isr,  and 
in  voce  n3D  spr.)  But,  as  I  should  say  with  Parkhurst,  in  the  emblematical  writing-;  and,  I  should  also  add,  of  the  Sa- 
viour "iiy»  isr — from  the  word  yw>  iso,  to  save. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  1.  19/ 

Joshua  make  use  of  the  expression  to  stop  the  Moon  ?     Surely  the  Sun  gave  light  enough  without 
the  Moon !     I  suppose  nobody  is  so  weak  now  as  to  take  these  texts  to  the  letter. 

The  system  of  Shem  was  that  of  608  years  to  a  Neros,  and  when  Joshua  is  said  to  have  stopped 
the  Sun  and  Moon,  he  dropped  the  use  of  the  608  and  adopted  the  600.  He  corrected  the  Calendar, 
as  Caesar  did  in  a  later  day.  In  all  these  calculations  I  look  upon  the  first  books  of  Genesis  as  Hin- 
doo works,  and,  for  reasons  which  will  hereafter  be  given  upon  the  Mosaic  and  Hindoo  systems, 
in  their  foundations  or  principles  the  same.  The  Mosaic  has  been  shewn  to  be  the  same  as  the 
Persian,  and  Sir  William  Jones  has  shewn  that  the  old  Persian  was  the  same  as  the  Hindoo, 
which  is  also  proved,  by  the  Desatir  of  Moshani. 

It  is  admitted  that  the  Neros  could  not  have  been  invented  without  a  very  great  degree  of  astro- 
nomical knowledge,  or  till  after  very  long  and  correctly  recorded  astronomical  observations.  As  I 
have  stated,  the  great  Neros  was  probably  the  cycle  before  their  increased  knowledge  enabled  them 
to  bring  it  to  perfection,  and  was  carried  very  early  to  the  West,  and  is  thus  found  with  the 
Etruscans. 

The  cycles  would  require  correcting  again  after  several  revolutions,  and  we  find  Isaiah  making 
the  shadow  go  back  ten  degrees  on  the  dial  of  Ahaz.  '•■  This  would  mean  nothing  but  a  second  cor- 
rection of  the  Neros,  or  a  correction  of  some  cycle  of  a  planetary  body,  to  make  it  agree  with  some 
other. 

In  the  annals  of  China,  in  fact  of  the  Chinese  Buddhists,  in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Yau,  (a 
very  striking  name,  being  the  name  of  the  God  of  the  Jews,)  it  is  said,  that  the  sun  was  stopped 
ten  days,  that  is,  probably,  ten  degrees  of  Isaiah,2  a  degree  answering  to  a  year,  360  degrees  and 
360  days. 

As  might  well  be  expected,  when  Joshua  stopped  the  sun  it  was  observed  in  India.  Mr.  Frank- 
lin says,  "  1575  years  before  Christ,  after  the  death  of  Cristna  (Boodh  the  son  of  Deirca),  the  sun 
"  stood  still  to  hear  the  pious  ejaculations  of  Arjoon.  This  is  the  great  leader  of  the  Jews — 
"  Moses." 3 

The  author  of  the  Cambridge  Key"  says,  that  in  the  text  of  the  Bible  the  sun  is  said  to  stand  still 
in  A.  M.  1451,  the  year  in  which  Moses  died.  This  is  the  Cali  year  1651,  in  which  the  sun  stood 
still  to  hear  the  pious  ejaculations  of  Arjoon  for  the  death  of  Cristna.4  The  learned  Jesuit  Bal- 
daeus  observes,  that  every  part  of  the  life  of  Cristna  has  a  near  resemblance  to  the  history  of  Christ : 
and  he  goes  on  to  shew  that  the  time  when  the  miracles  are  supposed  to  have  been  performed  was 
during  the  Dwaparajug,  which  he  admits  to  have  ended  3100  years  before  the  Christian  sera.5  So 
that,  as  the  Cantab  says,  If  there  is  meaning  in  words  the  Christian  missionary  implies  that  the  his- 
tory of  Christ  was  founded  on  that  of  Crishnu. 

After  this,  in  p.  226,  Cantab  goes  on  to  shew,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  his- 
tory of  Cristna  was  written  long  prior  to  the  time  of  Christ.  The  same  mythos  is  evident,  in  all 
these  widely- separated  nations.     Its  full  meaning,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  be  some  day  discovered. 

The  Cali  Yug  is  fixed  to  about  the  year  3100  before  Christ,  in  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century, 
by  Albumazar,  a  famous  Arabian  astronomer,  who  lived  at  the  court  of  the  celebrated  Al-Mamun 
at  Balkh.  6  This  alone  proves  that  the  Hindoo  periods  are  not  of  modern  invention,  and  is  of  itself 
enough  to  refute  all  Mr.  Bentley's  arguments  which  have  been  used,  and  have  for  their  foundation 
solely  his  assertion,  that  the  astronomical  calculations  were  forged  for  the  purpose  of  deceiving 
Mahmood  Akbar  in  the  16th  century.     George  of  Trebizond,  who  died  about  1448,  says,  that  the 

1  2  Kings  xx.  1] ;  and  Isaiah  xxviii.  8.  2   Pref.  to  the  last  Vol.  of  Univers.  Hist.  p.  xiii. 

3  On  Buddhists  and  Jeynes,  p.  1 74.  4  Vol.  II.  p.  224.  5  Ibid. 

6  Vide  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  142;  Vol.  X.  p.  117- 


J 98  JEWISH    INCARNATIONS. 

Persians  reckoned  from  the  flood  to  A.  D.  632,  the  aera  of  Yesdejird,  3733  years.  Thus,  632+3101 
=3733.  This  again  shews  that  the  Persians  had  the  same  system  as  the  Hindoos,  >  and  again 
clearly  proves,  that  these  Hindoo  calculations  cannot  have  been  made  to  deceive  Mahmood  Akbar. 

2.  Noah  began  a  new  world,  and  thus  also  did  Cristna. 

In  looking  back  to  the  Jewish  history,  1  find  the  flood  ended  on  the  day  that  Noah  finished  his 
600th  year,  when  a  new  world  began.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  year  of  the  saviour  Cristna 
was  feigned  to  be  600  years — the  duration  of  the  Neros.  He  was  the  saviour  of  India,  expressly 
predicted  in  the  ancient  writings  of  the  Brahmins.  The  saviour  of  the  Jews  and  of  Europe  was  the 
same.  The  Jewish  incarnations  were  the  same  as  those  of  the  Hindoos,  as  was  indeed  almost  every 
part  of  their  system.  But  from  the  extremely  corrupt  state  of  the  details  of  the  Hebrew  history  in 
the  three  old  versions  of  it,  there  is  no  probability  that  the  cycles  should  ever  be  made  out  correctly 
according  to  either  of  them. 

The  first  cycle  began  with  the  sun  in  Taurus,  the  creation  of  the  system,  and  ended  with  Enoch, 
who  did  not  die,  but  who  ascended  into  heaven.     I  think  this  speaks  for  itself. 

Enoch  is  said  to  have  lived  365  years,  but  it  is  probable  that  his  life  was  only  360,  the  time  which 
it  was  necessary  to  intercalate  to  make  up  the  difference  between  the  three  Neroses,  and  the  pre- 
cession for  one  sign,  1800+360=2160,  when  the  system  of  Noah,  the  correct  system,  began.  In 
this  theory  I  am  supported  by  evidence  (under  the  circumstance  in  which  we  have  it)  which  I  call 
strong.  Dr.  Shuckford  says,  "  Now  if  Enoch  was  60  years  old  at  Methusaleh's  birth,  according  to 
"  Eusebius  himself,  from  Methusaleh's  birth  to  the  180th  year  of  Noah  is  but  300  years,  and  con- 
"  sequently  Eusebius,  to  have  been  consistent  with  himself,  should  have  made  Enoch's  age  at  his 
"  translation  360,  but  he  has  made  it  365." 2  Dr.  Shuckford  has  some  very  interesting  observa- 
tions on  the  different  systems  of  chronology,  and  professes  to  have  removed  or  accounted  for  the 
difference  between  the  Hebrew  and  the  LXX.,  with  the  exception  of  the  very  suspicious  round  sum 
of  600  years. 

As  I  have  just  stated,  I  consider  the  Mythos  of  Enoch  as  an  intercalation,  to  make  the  periods 
come  right,  after  the  discovery  that  the  precession  did  not  take  place  in  1800  years,  but  in  2160; 
1800+360—2160.  The  cyles  were  like  men,  and  died  of  old  age.  The  cycle  of  Enoch  not  being 
finished,  he  was  taken  up  to  heaven,  but  did  not  die.  In  every  part  of  this  mythos  we  see  proofs 
that,  like  most  other  systems  of  this  kind,  it  was  made  up  by  expedients  from  time  to  time,  as  cir- 
cumstances called  for  them.  The  first  errors  respecting  the  true  length  of  the  cycles,  and  their 
subsequent  improvements,  rendered  this  a  necessary  consequence.  The  Arabians  called  Enoch 
Edris,  and  say  that  Edris  was  the  same  as  Elijah,  who  did  not  die.  And  the  Arabians  and  the 
Jews  also  had  a  tradition,  that  Phinehas,  the  son  of  Eleazar,  revived  in  Elijah. 3  Thus  the  Jewish 
and  Arabian  traditions  unite  Enoch  and  Elijah,  and  Elijah  and  Phinehas,  by  correct  renewed  incar- 
nations; and  1  suppose  every  one  who  reads  this  will  recollect,  that  the  Jews  are  said  to  have  be- 
lieved Jesus  to  be  Elijah.4  Jesus  declares  that  John  Baptist  came  in  the  spirit  and  power  of 
Elijah. 5  These  circumstances  have  at  least  a  strong  tendency  to  prove,  if  they  do  not  really  prove, 
that  the  Hindoo  doctrine  of  renewed  incarnation  was  the  esoteric  religion  of  the  Jews.  When 
Elijah  went  up  to  heaven  he  left  his  cloak  and  prophetic  office  to  Elisha,  or  to  the  Lamb  of  God.0 

The  Arabians  say  that  Elijah  was  the  same  with  Enoch  and  Phinehas,  who  was  the  same  with  a 
person  called  by  them  Al-Choder.     But  Al-Choder  signifies  a  Palm-tree.     In  Sanscrit  Al  Chod  is 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  1 19.  2  Connec.  B.  i.  3  See  Hottinger  de  Mohamedis  Genealogii*. 

«  Mark  viii.  28.  »  Matt.  xi.  10,  14. 

6  In  a  future  page  I  shall  shew,  that  this  cloak  is  the  Pallium  of  the  Romish  church,  by  the  investiture  with  which  the 
Popes  infused  a  portion  of  the  Holy  Ghost  into  their  Bishops.    Without  the  investiture  there  was  no  bishop. 


„      BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  2.  199 

God, *  as  it  is  in  English.  "  Thus,  then,  according  to  the  Arabian  traditions,  Henoch  was  the  same 
"  with  Elijah,  and  Elijah  with  Phinehas.  But  all  these  three  were  the  same  with  Al-Choder,  that  is, 
"  o  <poivt%,  palma."  This  Al-Choder  is  said  to  have  flourished  at  the  same  time  with  a  certain 
Aphridun  which  signified  o  (£>o7vi£,  avis.2  We  have  not  inquired  respecting  the  birth-place  of  this 
celebrated  bird.  Lucian  says  what  we  might  expect,  that  it  is  an  Indian  bird,  *Poivi%  to  IvSjxov 
oqyeov.     But  the  Irish  have  it  in  Phenn,  and  Phennische. 3 

The  annus  magnus  of  the  ancients  was  a  subject  of  very  general  speculation  among  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  but  not  one  of  them  seems  to  have  suspected  the  sacrum  nomen,  cognomen,  et  omen, 
of  Martianus  Capella.  Several  of  them  admit  that  by  the  Phoenix  this  period  was  meant,  or  at 
least  that  its  life  was  the  length  of  the  great  year.  From  this  I  conclude  that,  as  it  was  well  known 
to  Martianus  Capella,  it  must  have  been  a  secret  known  only  to  the  initiated.  Solinus  says,  it  is  a 
thing  well  known  to  all  the  world,  that  the  grand  year  terminates  at  the  same  time  as  the  life  of  the 
Phoenix.4    This  is  confirmed  by  Manilius  and  Pliny. 5 

George  Syncellus  says,  that  the  Phoenix  which  appeared  in  Egypt,  in  the  reign  of  Claudius,  had 
been  seen  in  the  same  country  654  years  before.  On  this  Larcher  says,  "  This  pretended  Phoenix 
"  appeared  the  seventh  year  of  the  reign  of  Claudius,  the  year  800  of  Rome,  and  the  47th  year  of 
"  our  {era.  If  we  take  from  800  the  sum  of  654,  which  is  the  duriation  of  life  of  this  bird,  accord- 
"  ing  to  this  chronographer,  we  shall  have  for  the  time  of  its  preceding  apparition  the  year  146  of 
"  the  foundation  of  Rome,  which  answers  to  the  year  608  before  our  aera."  6  It  is  surely  a  verv 
extraordinary  accident  that  should  make  the  learned  Larcher's  calculation  exactly  agree  with  the 
term  of  one  of  the  great  Neroses,  which  this  bird's  name  means ;  and  also,  that  the  other  term 
147  of  our  sera,  should,  within  one  year,  be  the  term  of  the  six  last  whole  Neroses  of  Shem,  from  the 
flood  :  6x608=3648.  Deduct  one  Neros,  thus,  3648-608=3040=5  Neroses.  We  must  recollect 
that  the  Neros  of  Shem,  in  the  time  of  the  flood,  was  partly  before  the  flood  and  partly  afterward 
so  the  one  spoken  of  might  be  said  to  be  either  the  fifth  or  the  sixth  from  the  flood.  Faber  says, 
"  sometimes  the  Phoenix  is  said  to  live  600,  sometimes  460,  and  sometimes  340  years."7 

We  will  now  return  to  the  cycles.  I  before  stated  that  I  suspected  the  first  ended  with  the 
birth  of  Enoch.  The  second  ended  with  the  birth  of  Noah.  The  third  ended  with  Noah  leaving 
the  ark,  when  he  was  600  years  old.  The  fourth  ended  about  the  time  of  Abraham,  and  was  pro- 
bably Isaac,  whose  name  may  mean  joy,  gladness,  laughter,  and  who  was  so  called  because  he  was 
the  saviour,  not  because  his  mother  laughed  at  God. 8  The  word  I  shall  explain  in  a  future  page, 
when  I  treat  of  the  Jews.  And  here  it  may  be  observed,  that  in  the  conduct  of  this  curious  system, 
if  I  correctly  develop  it,  the  incarnations  ought  not  to  coincide  exactly  with  the  beginning  of  a 
cycle ;  because,  though  the  priests  could  regulate  the  dates  of  long-past  events,  they  could  not  so 


1  Al-Choder  is  the  Syrian  and  Rajpoot  od  only  aspirated,  and  with  the  Arabic  emphatic  article  Ah.  When  the  Budd- 
hists address  the  Supreme  Being  or  Buddha,  they  use  the  word  Ad,  which  means  the  first.  This  is  exactly  one  meaning 
of  the  first  word  of  Genesis.  Here  we  have  the  first  and  Wisdom,  (Col.  Tod,)  as  in  Genesis.— Buddha,  Wisdom,  is 
called  Ad,  the  first. 

2  Sir  W.  Drummond,  Class.  Journ.,  Vol.  XV.  pp.  12,  13. 

3  In  the  Irish  Trinity  called  Tauloc  Phenn  Mollnch,  the  Middle,  or  Saviour,  is  the  Phenn,  600. 

4  Solini  Polyhistor.  Cap.  xxxvi.,  Ed.  Salmas. 

5  Hist.  Nat.  Lib.  x.  Cap.  ii.,  and  Mem.  Acad.  Paris,  An.  1815,  in  a  treatise  by  Larcher.  s  Ibid. 

7  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  147. 

8  The  exoteric  reason  given  to  the  devotees  of  Judea,  and,  as  it  appears  from  their  being  satisfied  with  it,  suitable  to 
their  understandings,  as  it  has  hitherto  been  to  the  understandings  of  the  devotees  of  London ;  but  the  inhabitants  of 
the  latter  are  fast  outgrowing,  when  literally  understood,  such  nonsense,— at  least  they  are  in  St.  Giles's,  whatever  they 
may  be  in  Lambeth  and  St.  James's. 


200  JEWISH    INCARNATIONS. 

easily  regulate  the  births  or  deaths  of  individuals,  entered  most  carefully  in  public  registers, — facts 
which  must  have  been  remembered  by  families, — but  events,  such  as  the  arrival  of  the  ark  at  Shiloh, 
would  be  easily  swelled  into  importance,  and  regulated  also  as  to  its  date,  to  make  it  suit.  In  the 
course  of  a  very  few  years  the  actual  date  of  such  an  event  would  be  forgotten,  and  might  be  ad- 
vanced or  retarded  a  few  years  to  suit  the  occasion.  It  is  evident  also,  that  it  is  only  some  events 
of  this  kind  which  could  be  regulated.  For  example  the  going  out  of  Abraham  must  be  difficult  to 
reconcile,  if  it  were  wished,  which  it  probably  was  not.  This  going  out  I  shall  by  and  by  explain, 
and  shew  its  truth.  All  this  is  perfectly  consistent  if  there  were  such  persons  as  Isaac,  &c,  the 
supposed  incarnations,  as  I  shall  shew  there  were — persons  who  had  those  peculiar  names  given  to 
them,  because  they  were  supposed  to  be  incarnations.  The  meaning  of  the  ages  of  man  in  the 
Jewish  books,  and  the  lengths  of  time  which  events  took  in  passing,  I  do  not  understand;  but  [ 
have  no  doubt  they  had  a  mythological  or  figurative  meaning,  or  concealed  some  doctrines.  To 
suppose  that  a  system  of  chronology  was  really  meant,  is  to  suppose  the  writers  of  the  books  inca- 
pable of  adding  and  subtracting,  which  any  one  must  be  convinced  of  in  a  moment  by  looking  into 
Volney's  Researches  into  Ancient  History,  where  their  arithmetical  inconsistency  with  one  another 
is  shewn. 

It  was  the  belief  that  sOme  great  personage  would  appear  in  every  cycle,  as  the  Sibylline  verses 
prove ;  but  it  was  evidently  impossible  to  make  the  birth  of  great  men  coincide  with  the  birth  of 
the  cycle.  But  when  it  was  desirable  to  found  power  upon  the  belief  that  a  living  person  was  the 
hero  of  the  cycle,  it  is  natural  to  expect  that  the  attempt  should  have  been  made,  as  was  the  case 
with  the  verses  of  Virgil  and  others,  as  I  shall  hereafter  shew.  This  great  person  is,  according  to 
Mr.  Parkhurst,  the  type  of  a  future  saviour. 

The  fifth  Jewish  cycle  might  end  when  the  Samaritans  say  the  prophecy  of  Jacob  was  verified, 
that  is,  when  Osee,  expressly  called  the  Messiah  or  Saviour — Joshua  or  Jesus — brought  the  ark  to 
Shiloh.  The  versions  vary  more  than  200  years  respecting  the  time  of  Abraham's  stay  in  Canaan 
and  the  residence  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt;  so  that  the  chronology  furnishes  no  objection.  The 
language  of  the  prophecy  of  Jacob  to  Judah,  that  a  Lawgiver  should  not  pass  from  beneath  his  feet 
till  Shiloh  should  come,  has  been  a  subject  of  much  dispute.  Dr.  Geddes  and  others  maintain,  that 
it  is  no  prophecy,  but  Christians  in  general  consider  it  to  be  one.  The  Samaritans  insist  that  it  is 
a  prophecy,  and  that  it  was  fulfilled  in  the  son  of  Nun,  Osee,  called  properly  Jesus  or  the  Saviour, 
and  improperly  Joshua,  on  his  bringing  the  ark  to  Shiloh,  as  remarked  above.  Sir  William  Drum- 
mond  has  shewn,  in  a  most  ingenious  and  convincing  manner,  in  his  CEdipus  Judaicus,  how  this 
prophecy  is  depicted  on  the  sphere. 

The  sixth  incarnation  I  will  not  attempt  to  name.  The  Jews,  like  the  Hindoos,  had  many 
saviours  or  incarnations,  or  persons  who  at  different  times  were  thought  to  be  inspired,  or  to  be 
persons  in  whom  a  portion  of  divine  wisdom  was  incarnate.  This  makes  it  difficult  to  fix 
upon  the  right  person.  Might  not  Samson  be  one  of  them  ?  He  was  an  incarnation,  as  we  shall 
soon  see. 

The  next  cycle  must  be,  I  think,  that  of  Elias,  (rH?woc)  or  Elijah,  in>  bx  al-ieu,  or  God  the  Lord, 
according  to  Calmet  and  Cruden,  but  I  should  say,  God  the  self  existent ;  that  is,  it  means  to  say, 
an  incarnation  or  inspiration  of  'H?uo£  or  the  God,  in>  ieu,  the  Iao  of  the  Greeks,  or  the  solar 
power. 1  He  left  his  prophetic  power  to  Elisha,  which  Cruden  and  Calmet  say  means  the  Lamb 
of  God. 

It  seems  from  the  Hebrew  words,  when  they  come  to  be  translated  into  English,  that  these 


1  It  is  curious  to  observe  numbers  of  churches  in  Greece  dedicated  to  St.  Elias,  which  have  formerly  been  temples  of 
the  sun. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  2.  201 

books  must  have  been  esoteric,  i.  e.  secret  writings,  known  only  to  the  chief  priests,  probably  first 
exposed  to  the  public  eye  by  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  246  years  before  Christ,  when  he  caused  the 
Pentateuch  to  be  translated.  The  explanation  made  by  Ezra  of  such  parts  of  the  book  as  he 
thought  proper  at  the  gate  of  the  temple,  or  the  reading  of  it  to  the  good  king  Josias,  militates 
nothing  against  this  hypothesis.  I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  publication  of  the  Jewish  writings 
was  forced,  as  the  Jeivs  sat/,  by  Ptolemy,  and  to  that  publication,  I  think,  we  are  indebted  for 
them  ;  for,  after  they  were  once  translated  and  published,  there  would  be  no  longer  any  use  in 
keeping  them  locked  up  in  the  temple,  and  copies  of  the  original  would  be  multiplied.  At  the 
Babylonish  captivity  they  were  not  destroyed,  because  the  desolation  of  Palestine  happened  at 
two  different  periods ;  so  that  one  part  of  the  people  preserved  the  sacred  book  in  their  temple, 
when  all  was  burnt  in  the  temple  of  the  other.  When  Cambyses  sacked  Egypt,  all  was  destroyed 
in  a  moment,  except  the  obeliscal  pillars,  which  were  left,  and  some  of  which  are  standing  yet, 
particularly  the  finest  of  them  all  at  Heliopolis. 

Of  the  Hero  of  the  eighth  age  it  is  said  in  our  version,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  to  his  anointed,  his 
Messiah,  to  Cyrus,  whose  right  hand  I  have  holden  to  subdue  nations.  l  Here  I  beg  it  may  be 
observed  that  if  persons  doubt  the  existence  of  Joshua  or  Abraham,  they  cannot  well  doubt  the 
existence  of  Cyrus.  This  observation  will  be  found  of  importance  hereafter.  The  eighth  period 
began  about  the  Babylonish  captivity,  about  600  years  before  Christ.  The  ninth  began,  as  the 
Siamese  say,  with  Jesus  Christ,  making  in  all  eight  cycles  before  Christ. 

I  do  not  claim  to  be  the  first  who  has  observed  the  renewal  of  incarnations  among  the  Jews, 
nor  can  I  deserve  the  whole  of  the  ridicule  which  will  be  lavished  by  the  priests  upon  the  doc- 
trine, because  they  cannot  refute  it.  I  learn  from  the  Classical  Journal,  2  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Faber 
believed  Melchizedek  to  he  an  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God.  Mr.  Faber  says,  "  It  was  con- 
"  tended  that  every  extraordinary  personage,  whose  office  was  to  reclaim  or  to  punish  mankind, 
P  was  an  avatar  or  descent  of  the  Godhead."  Again,  "  Adam,  and  Enoch,  and  Noah,  might  in 
"  outward  appearance  be  different  men,  but  they  were  really  the  selfsame  divine  person  who  had 
"  been  promised  as  the  seed  of  the  woman,  successively  animating  various  human  bodies."  3 
From  the  black  Cristna  bruising  the  head  of  the  serpent,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  two  mythoses 
being  so  evidently  the  same,  there  seems  nothing  inconsistent  in  this.  The  renewed  solar  incar- 
nation, every  600  years,  seems  pretty  clear.  The  fact  of  a  renewed  incarnation  could  not  escape 
Mr.  Faber ;  his  mode  of  accounting  for  it  is  a  different  matter ;  but  I  beg  leave  to  add,  that  I 
must  not  be  accused  by  the  priests  of  being  fanciful  in  this  instance,  since  their  great  oracle,  the 
very  learned  Mr.  Faber,  had  stated  it  previously.  Although  the  author  of  Nimrod  does  not  ap- 
pear to  have  the  least  idea  of  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true  system,  yet  the  idea  of  a  cycle  in  the 
history  of  Noah  forcibly  occurred  to  him.  He  says  the  fourth  in  order  from  Noah,  with  whom  this 
present  cycle,  or  system,  of  the  world  commenced.  4 

Col.  Franklin,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Jeynes  and  Buddhists,  says,  "  First  Bood'h,  the  self-exist- 
<{  ing,  Swayam  Bhuva,  whose  outar  or  period  of  time  commenced  4002  years  before  Christ,  or, 
"  according  to  the  fictitious  calculations  of  the  Hindoos,  3,891,102:  he  ended  his  mortal  career 
"  when  the  three  first  ages  were  complete,  or,  agreeable  to  the  Hindoo  computation,  during  the 
"  commencement  of  the  fourth  age."  5  Here  is  evidently  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  theory, 
though  concealed  under  a  mythos.  Here  is  the  first  equinoctial  Avatar  Buddha,  ending  when 
the  sun  enters  Aries,  after  three  Neroses  or  ages,  according  to  the  Brahmins,  when  Cristna  begins. 


1  Isaiah  xlv.  1.  *  Vol.  XIX.  p.  72.  3  Fab.  Orig.  Pag,  Idol.  Vol.  III.  pp.  612,  613. 

Vol.  I.  p.  7.  5  p.  172. 

2d 


A 


202  MH.LENIUM.      PRITCHARD    AND    PLATO. 

Col.  Franklin  says,  the  Avatar  ended  during  the  commencement  of  the  fourth  age.  He  was  obliged 
to  use  this  nonsensical  mode  of  expression,  because  it  would  not  fit  to  the  end  of  the  third  or  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  age.  It  ended  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  age.  This  arises  from  con- 
founding the  equinoctial  cycle  with  the  Neros,  which  Col.  Franklin  did  not  understand.  He  had 
a  slight  glimpse  of  the  two  systems  of  cycles,  but  did  not  see  that  there  were  two  cycles  running, 
but  not  exactly  pari  passu . 

3.  I  shall  now  endeavour  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  the  cycle  of  600  or  6000  among  the 
Western  nations.  Col.  Wilford  has  shewn  that  the  Buddhas  and  Brahmins  were  well  known  and 
distinguished  from  each  other  by  Strabo,  Philostratus,  Pliny,  Porphyry,  &c. !  The  alternate  de- 
struction of  the  world  by  fire  and  water  was  taught  by  Plato.  In  his  Timaeus  he  says,  that  the 
story  of  Phaeton's  burning  the  world  has  reference  to  a  great  dissolution  of  all  things  on  the  earth, 
by  fire.  Gale  2  shews  that  the  Jews,  as  well  as  Plato,  maintained  that  the  world  would  be  de- 
stroyed at  the  end  of  6000  years ;  that  then  the  day  of  judgment  would  come  :  manifestly  the 
Jewish  and  Christian  Millenium. 

On  this  subject  Plato  says,  "  When  the  time  of  all  these  things  is  full,  and  the  change  is  need- 
"  ful,  and  every  kind  upon  the  earth  is  exhausted,  each  soul  having  given  out  all  its  generations, 
"  and  having  shed  upon  the  earth  as  many  seeds  as  were  appointed  unto  it,  then  doth  the  pilot  of 
"  the  universe,  abandoning  the  rudder  of  the  helm,  return  to  his  seat  of  circumspection,  and  the 
"  world  is  turned  back  by  fate  and  its  own  innate  concupiscence.  At  that  time  also  the  Gods, 
"  who  act  in  particular  places  as  colleagues  of  the  supreme  Daemon,  being  aware  of  that  which  is 
"  coming  to  pass,  dismiss  from  their  care  the  several  parts  of  the  world.  The  world  itself  being 
"  turned  aivry,  and  falling  into  collision,  and  following  inversely  the  course  of  beginning  and  end, 
"  and  having  a  great  concussion  within  itself,  makes  another  destruction  of  all  living  things.  But 
"  in  due  process  of  time  it  is  set  free  from  tumult,  and  confusion,  and  concussion,  and  obtaineth  a 
"  calm,  and  then  being  set  in  order,  returneth  into  its  pristine  course,  &c."  3  Nimrod  then 
adds,  "  as  we  farther  learn  from  Virgil,  that  the  next  renovation  of  the  world  will  be  followed  by 
*'  the  Trojan  war — I  do  not  think  that  more  words  are  necessary  in  order  to  evince  that  the  I  lion 
"  of  Homer  is  the  Babel  of  Moses."  Cicero  says,  4  "  Turn  efficitur,  cum  solis  et  lunae,  et 
"  quinque  errantium  ad  eundem  inter  se  comparationem  confectis  omnium  spaciis,  est  facta  con- 
"  versio."  And  Clavius,  Cap.  i.,  says,  "  Sphaerae  quo  tempore  quidam  volunt  omnia  quascunque 
"  in  mundo  sunt,  eodem  ordine  esse  reditura,  quo  nunc  cernuntur." 

The  doctrine  of  the  renewal  of  worlds  has  been  well  treated  by  Dr.  Pritchard. 5  He  shews  that 
the  dogma  was  common  to  several  of  the  early  sects  of  philosophers  in  Greece ;  6  that  traces  of  it 
are  found  in  the  remains  of  Orpheus  ;  that  it  was  a  favourite  Doctrine  of  the  Stoics,  and  was  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  peculiar  tenets  of  that  school  j  and  that  we  are  indebted  chiefly  to  their 
writings  for  what  we  know  of  this  ancient  philosophy.  But  although  the  successive  catastrophes 
are  shewn  to  have  been  most  evidently  held  by  them,  yet,  from  the  doctor's  account,  it  is  very 
clear  that  they  were  not  generally  understood ;  some  philosophers  describing  the  catastrophes  to 
have  taken  place  in  one  way,  some  in  another ;  some  by  Water,  some  by  fire,  and  some  by  both 
alternately.  "  Seneca,  the  tragedian,  teaches  that  all  created  beings  are  to  be  destroyed,  or  re- 
'  solved  into  the  uncreated  essence  of  the  divinity ;"  and  "  Plutarch  makes  the  Stoic  Cleanthes 
'  declare  that  the  moon,  the  stars,  and  the  sun  will  perish,  and  that  the  celestial  ether,  which, 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  298.  «  Court  Gent.  Vol.  I.  B.  iii.  Ch.  vii.  Sect.  iii.  v. 

3  Plat.  Polit.  p.  37.  apud  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  51 1.  «  De  Nat.  Deor. 

■  Anal,  of  Egypt.  Myth.  p.  ]  78.  e  gee  Lipsius  de  Physiol.  Stoic.  Dissert.  2. 


BOOK   V.   CHAPTER   III.   SECTION   3.  203 

"  according  to  the  Stoics,  was  the  substance  of  the  Deity,  will  convert  all  things  into  its  own 
"  nature,  or  assimilate  them  to  itself. x  And  Seneca  compares  the  self-confidence  of  the  phi- 
f  losopher  to  the  insulated  happiness  of  Jupiter,  who,  after  the  world  has  melted  away,  and  the 
"  gods  are  resolved  into  one  essence,  when  the  operations  of  nature  cease,  withdraws  himself  for 
"  a  while  into  his  own  thoughts,  and  reposes  in  the  contemplation  of  his  own  perfections."  2  The 
Doctor  shews  that  the  same  thing  was  affirmed  by  Chrysippus,  Zeno,  and  Cleanthes ;  and  we  find 
passages  similar  to  the  foregoing  cited  by  Cicero,3  Numenius,4  Philo  Judseus,5  and  many  others. 
I  think  in  the  account  given  above  of  Jupiter  from  Seneca,  we  cannot  help  recognising  the  Hindoo 
doctrine — Brahma  reposing  on  the  great  abyss.  After  this,  the  Doctor  goes  on  to  state  6  the 
opinions  of  Numenius,  Censorinus,  Cassander,  &c,  as  to  the  alternation  from  heat  to  cold,  and  the 
length  of  the  periods,  in  which  they  all  disagree ;  but  enough  comes  out,  I  think,  to  shew  that  they 
were  all  connected  "  with  the  revolution  of  the  annus  magnus,  or  great  year,"  and  must  have 
originally  come  from  the  East,  where  the  doctrine  of  the  change  in  the  angle  which  the  plane  of 
the  ecliptic  makes  with  the  plane  of  the  equator  was  well  understood, 7  and  whence  it  probably  came 
to  the  Greeks.  The  words  of  Plato,  cited  above,  being  turned  awry,  are  allusive  to  this.  It  was 
called  Aogias,  unless  Aortas  was  applied  to  the  elliptic  orbits,  of  which  I  have  some  suspicion.  It 
is  very  certain  that  if  it  be  true  that  this  change  in  the  angle  do  take  place,  something  very  like 
the  alternations  from  heat  to  cold,  and  cold  to  heat,  in  certain  long  periods,  must  happen  :  and 
paradoxical  as  many  of  my  readers  may  think  me,  yet  I  very  much  suspect  that  if  the  angle  do 
increase  and  decrease  as  just  mentioned,  and  the  race  of  man  should  so  long  continue,  evils  very 
like  those  above  described  must  be  experienced, 

"  In  the  Surya-Sidhanta,  Meya,  the  great  astronomer,  has  stated  the  obliquity  of  the  ecliptic 
"  in;his  time  at  24°  ,H  from  whence  Mr.  S.  Davis  computed,  that  supposing  the  obliquity  of  the 
"  ecliptic  to  have  been  accurately  observed  by  the  ancient  Hindus  at  24°,  and  that  its  decrease 
"  had  been  from  that  time  half  a  second  a  year,  the  age  or  date  of  the  Surya-Sidhanta  (in  1789) 
"  would  be  3840  years  ;  therefore  Meya  must  have  lived  about  the  year  1956  of  the  creation."  9 1 
It  appears  from  the  preceding  sentence  that  Meya's  system  differs  much  from  the  older  Puranas. 
His  begins  from  the  moment  the  sun  enters  Aries  in  the  Hindoo  sphere,  as  Mr.  Davis  says, 
"  which  circumstances  alone  must  form  a  striking  difference  between  it  and  the  Puranic  system."  10 
I  am  not  sufficiently  skilled  in  astronomy  to  speak  positively  upon  the  subject,  but  I  should 
think  that  the  reduction  to  nothing  of  the  angle  which  the  ecliptic  makes  to  the  equator,  that  is, 
the  coincidence  of  the  equator  and  ecliptic,  would  necessarily  cause  some  very  great  changes  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  globe.  The  decrease  of  this  angle  or  obliquity  we  see  was  certainly  known 
by  the  celebrated  Brahmin  Meya,  who  fixes  it  in  his  time  at  24  °  .  The  knowledge  of  this  change 
gave  rise,  I  think,  to  the  allegory  or  mythos  of  the  fWod.  The  extraordinary  changes  which  have 
taken  place  at  different  and  remote  aeras  or  long  intervals,  in  the  crust  of  our  globe,  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  denied.  It  was  supposed  that  these  were  caused  by  the  change  in  the  angle  above  alluded 
to,  and  the  mythos  of  the  flood  and  ship  fastened  to  the  peak  of  Naubanda  was  formed  to  account 
for  it  to  the  vulgar.  This  was  I  think  confounded  with  another  flood,  of  which  I  shall  treat 
hereafter. 


1  Plut.  *  Seneca,  Epist.  ix.  3  De  Nat.  Deor.  Lib.  ii. 

4  Apud  Euseb.  Prep.  Evang.  Lib.  xv.  5  De  Immortal.  Mundi.  6  p.  133. 

i  Mr.  Parkhurst  has  shewn  (in  voce  r\ttW  ste,  vi.  p.  730)  that  the  declination  of  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic  to  the  plane 
of  the  equator  was  as  well  known  to  the  ancients  of  the  West  as  it  is  to  the  moderns. 
«  An  interesting  account  of  the  discovery  of  this  phenomenon  may  be  seen  in  the  preface  to  Blair's  Chronology. 
9  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  4to,  p.  329.  10  Ibid. 

2  d  2 


204  JEWISH    AND    CHRISTIAN    AUTHORS.       DR.    MEDE. 

4.  The  following  Jewish  and  Christian  authorities  will  go  far  to  establish  what  I  have  said  re- 
specting the  above  doctrines  :  Ita  enira  legitur  in  Gemara  Sanhedrin,  Perek  Chelek.  Dixit  R. 
Ketina,  Sex  annorum  millibus  stat  mundus,  et  tmo  vastabitur :  de  quo  dicitur,  Et  exaltabitur 
Dominus  solus  die  illo.  Sequitur  paulo  post,  Traditio  adstipulatur,  R.  Ketince :  sicut  e  sep- 
tenis  minis  septimus  quisque  annus  remissionis  est :  ita  e  septem  millibus  annorum  mundi,  septimus 
millenarius  remissiones  erit :  quemadmodum  dicitur,1  et  exaltabitur  Dominus  Solus  die  illo. 
Dicitur  item2  Psalm  us  canticum  de  die  sabbati;  id  est,  de  die  quo  tota  quies  est.  Dicitur 
etiam3  Nam  mille  anni  in  oculis  tuis  velut  dies  hesternus.  Traditio  Domus  E lice :  Sex 
mille  annos  durat  mundus ;  bis  mille  annos  inanitas,  (seu  vastitas  imn  tueu,)  bis  mille  annis  lex  : 
denique  bis  mille  annis  dies  Christi. 4  None  of  the  Fathers  have  written  more  clearly  respecting  the 
Millenium  than  Irenaeus,  and  he  expressly  declares  that,  after  it,  the  world  shall  be  destroyed  by 
fire,  and  that  the  earth  shall  be  made  new  after  its  configration. 5  Here  is  the  admission  of  the 
identical  renewal  of  worlds  held  by  the  oriental  nations.    Irenaeus,6  Quotquot  diebus  hie  factus  est 

mundus,  tot  et  millenis  consummatur Si  enim  dies  Domini  quasi  mille  anni,  in  sex  autem 

diebus  consummata  sunt  qua  facta  sunt :  manifestum  est,  quoniam  consummatio  isporum  sextus 
millesimus  annus  est.  Lactantius,7  Quoniam  sex  diebus  cunctaDei  opera  perfecta  sunt :  per  secula 
sex,  id  est,  annorum  sex  millia,  manere  in  hoc  statu  mundum  necesse  est.    Dies  enim  magnus  Dei 

mille  annorum  circulo  terminatur Et  ut  Deus  sex  illos  dies  in  tantis  rebus  fabricandis  labora- 

vit,  ita  et  religio  ejus  et  Veritas  in  his  sex  millibus  aunorum  laborare  necesse  est,  malitia  preeva- 
lente  et  dominante.     Mede's  works,8  where  several  other  Christian  authorities  may  be  found. 

St.  Augustin  had  an  indistinct  view  of  the  true  system.  He  says,  that  the  fifth  age  is  finished, 
that  we  are  in  the  sixth,  and  that  the  dissolution  of  all  things  will  happen  in  the  seventh.9  He 
evidently  alluded  to  the  thousands,  not  the  Neroses ;  and  that  the  world  should  be  burnt  and  re- 
newed. i0  Barnabas  says,  "  In  six  thousand  years  the  Lord  shall  bring  all  things  to  an  end."  He 
makes  the  seventh  thousand  the  millenium,  and  the  eighth  the  beginning  of  the  other  world.  Ovid 
quotes  the  expected  conflagration  : 

"  Esse  quoque  in  fatis  reminiscitur  affore  tempus. 
"  Quo  mare,  quo  tellus,  correptaque  regia  coeli 
"  Ardeat,  et  mundi  moles  operosa  laboret."11 

Nothing  astonishes  me  more  than  the  absolute  ignorance  displayed  in  the  writings  of  the  an- 
cients, of  the  true  nature  of  their  history,  their  religious  mythology,  and,  in  short,  of  every  thing  re- 
lating to  their  antiquities.  At  the  same  time  it  is  evident  that  there  was  a  secret  science  possessed 
somewhere,  which  must  have  been  guarded  by  the  most  solemn  oaths.  And  though  I  may  be 
laughed  at  by  those  who  inquire  not  deeply  into  the  origin  of  things  for  saying  it,  yet  I  cannot  help 
suspecting,  that  there  is  still  a  secret  doctrine  known  only  in  the  deep  recesses,  the  crypts,  of 
Thibet,  St.  Peter's,  and  the  Cremlin.  In  the  following  passage  the  real  or  affected  ignorance  of 
one  of  the  most  learned  of  the  Romans  is  shewn  of  what  was  considered  as  of  the  first  consequence 


I  Isai.  ii.  11,  17.  2  Psal.  xcii.  '  Psal.  xc. 

4  Capentarius  Com.  Alcinoum  Platonis,  p.  322 ;  Mede's  Works,  pp.  535,  894.     In  the  same  page  of  Mede  several 
other  Jewish  authorities  may  be  seen  for  the  existence  of  the  6000-year  period. 

5  Floyer's  Sibyls,  p.  244.  6  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxviii.  7  De  Divino  Prsemio,  Lib.  vii.  Cap.  xiv. 
»8  P-  893.                            9  Civ.  Dei,  Lib.  xxii.  Cap.  xxx.j  Ouseley,  Orient.  Coll.  Vol.  II.  No.  ii.  p.  119. 

10  Floyer's  Sibyls,  p.  245. 

II  For  prophecies  of  a  Millenium,  see  Isaiah  xxvi.  19,  lx.  1,  3,  11,  12,  19,  21,  lxv.  17,  18,  19,  25,  lxvi.  12,23; 
Ezekiel  xlvii.  12;  Joel  iii.  18,  20;  Isaiah  xxiv.  23,  xxv.  7;  2  Esdras  viii.  52,  53,  54. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER.    III.    SECTION  5.  205 

in  their  religion — the  time  of  their  festivals.  Censorinus  says,1  "  How  many  ages  are  due  unto  the 
"  city  of  Rome,  it  is  not  mine  to  say;  but  what  I  have  read  in  Varro,  that  will  I  not  withhold.  He 
"  saith  in  the  18th  book  of  his  antiquities,  that  there  was  one  Vettius,  a  distinguished  Augur  at 
"  Rome,  of  great  genius,  and  equal  to  any  man  in  learned  disputations  ;  and  that  he  heard  Vettius 
"  say,  that  if  that  was  true  which  historians  related,  concerning  the  auguries  of  Romulus  the  foun- 
"  der,  and  concerning  the  twelve  Vultures,  then,  as  the  Roman  people  had  safely  passed  over  their 
"  120th  year,  they  would  last  unto  the  1200th."2  I  construe  this  to  mean,  that  the  Vultures  had 
l-elation  to  two  cycles  of  60  years  each,  or  to  the  two  of  600  each ;  and,  as  time  had  shewn  that  it 
did  not  relate  to  the  former,  it  must  relate  to  the  latter.  Rome  was  to  finish  with  the  1200th  year, 
because  the  world  was  then  to  end,  as  was  supposed  by  the  priests,  who  did  not  understand  their 
mythology. 

But  besides  the  period  announced  by  their  twelve  Vultures,  the  Etruscans  had  also  another  ill- 
understood  system  of  ten  ages,  which  was  the  system  common  to  the  Hindoos,  the  Jews,  and  the 
Romans,  and  this  fact  adds  one  more  to  the  numerous  proofs  of  the  identity  of  the  two  races. 

5.  Plutarch  in  Sylla  has  stated,  that  on  a  certain  clear  and  serene  day,  a  trumpet  was  heard  to 
sound  which  was  so  loud  and  clear,  that  all  the  world  was  struck  with  fear.  On  the  priests  of 
Etruria  being  consulted  they  declared,  that  a  new  age  was  about  to  commence,  and  a  new  race 
of  people  to  arise, — that  there  had  been  eight  races  of  people,  different  in  their  lives  and  manners, 
— that  God  has  allotted  to  each  race  a  fixed  period,  which  is  called  the  great  year, — that  when  one 
period  is  about  to  end  and  another  to  begin,  the  heaven  or  the  earth  marks  it  by  some  great  pro- 
digy. The  author  of  Nimrod3  observes,  that  Plutarch  gives  the  account  loosely  and  mistakes  the 
age  then  ending,  the  eighth,  for  the  ultima  aetas ;  for  the  correction  of  which  we  are  indebted  to  the 
invaluable  treatise  of  Censorinus.  This  ultima  aetas  was  the  same  as  the  Ultima  iEtas  Cumaei  Car- 
minis  of  Virgil,  which  I  believe  meant,  not  the  last  age  of  the  world,  but  the  latter  part  of  the  age 
or  cycle  sung  of  by  the  prophetess  of  Cuma, — as  we  should  say,  the  last  end  of  the  cycle  of  the 
Cumaean  Sibyl  had  arrived.  If  it  be  supposed  to  allude  to  the  periods  of  120  years,  I  ask,  how  is  it 
possible  to  believe  the  Romans  could  be  such  idiots  as  to  fancy  that  new  Troys,  Argonauts,  &c, 
would  arise  every  120  years  ?     But  I  shall  return  to  this  again. 

Although  a  certain  great  year  was  well  known  to  the  Romans,  yet  the  nature  of  it  seems,  in  the 
latter  times  of  the  commonwealth,  to  have  been  lost.4  The  end  of  one  of  these  great  years,  and  the 
beginning  of  another,  were  celebrated  with  games  called  Ludi  Saeculares.  They  were  solemnized  in 
the  time  of  Sylla,  when  the  ninth  age  was  said  to  have  commenced  by  his  supporters,  probably  for 
the  sake  of  flattering  him  with  being  the  distinguished  person  foretold.  Nimrod  says  "  Sylla  was 
"  born  in  the  year  of  Rome,  616,5  but  it  is  uncertain  in  what  year  the  Saccular  games  were  cele- 
"  brated,  whether  in  605,  in  608,  or  in  628.  It  was  a  matter  of  the  most  occult  science  and  ponti- 
"  fical  investigation  to  pronounce  on  what  year  each  saeculum  ended,  and  /  am  not  satisfied  whether 
"  the  Quindecemviri  did  not  j)ublish  the  games  more  than  once,  when  they  saw  reason  to  doubt  which 
"  was  the  true  Sibylline  year.  It  was  not  fixed  by  law  or  custom  to  be  an  unvarying  cycle  of  1 10 
"  years, 

-  "  Certus  undenos  decies  per  annos 
"  Orbis, 

"  till  after  the  games  held  by  Augustus ;  if  even  then."6 


1  Cap.  xvii.  in  fine.  9  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  496.  3  Vol.  III.  pp.  459—462. 

*  For  proofs  that  the  Etruscans  had  lost  the  true  length  of  the  Saeculum,  vide  Niebuhr,  Rom.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  pp.  93,  &c, 
and  p.  164. 

5  Appian,  Civil,  lib.  i.  cap.  cv.  6  Sueton.  Domit.  cap.  iv. ;  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  462. 


206  PLUTARCH    AND   OTHER   WESTERN   AUTHORS   ON   THE   600-YEAR   CYCLE. 

The  latter  part  of  the  above  quotation  which  I  have  marked  with  italics,  shews  that  the  learned 
author  of  Nimrod  was  not  aware  that  the  great  year  was  either  the  great  or  little  Neros — either 
600  or  608  years.  His  expression  respecting  the  games  probably  being  celebrated  in  more  periods 
than  the  608th  year  of  Rome,  in  the  time  of  Sylla,  seems  to  shew  that  they  were  not  then  under- 
stood, and  it  seems  actually  to  prove  the  correctness  of  the  idea  also  of  Nimrod,  that  all  the  early 
Roman  history  is  a  Mythos.  I  consider  the  fixing  of  the  period  by  Augustus  at  110  years,  as  a 
manifest  modern  contrivance  to  serve  political  purposes  of  the  moment.  The  extreme  difficulty 
and  profound  pontifical  investigation  necessary  to  fix  the  time  of  the  Ludi  Sseculares,  admitted  by 
Nimrod,  was  one  of  the  circumstances  which  gave  weight  to  the  opinion  of  Figulus,  named  before, 
in  Chap.  II.  Sect.  7,  because  he  was  considered  to  be  the  most  learned  in  dark  and  mysterious 
science  of  any  man  in  Rome. 

From  a  careful  consideration  of  all  that  has  been  written  on  the  subject  of  the  Ludi  Sseculares,  I 
am  quite  satisfied  that  the  Romans  had  no  certain  knowledge  respecting  them,  which  is  proved  by 
the  circumstance  of  their  having  celebrated  them  at  different  times,  in  order  that  they  might  hit  upon 
the  right  time.  Another  fact,  that  one  of  these  times  was  the  supposed  608th  year  from  the  foun- 
dation of  Rome,  the  great  Neros,  raises  a  strong  presumption  that  this  was  originally  the  religious 
forgotten  period  to  which  they  referred.  The  pretended  period  of  120  years,  as  a  real  period  of 
history,  is  disposed  of  by  an  observation  of  the  only  historian  of  Rome  to  whom  any  attention  can 
be  paid — Niebuhr — who  says,1  "  From  the  foundation  of  Rome  to  the  capture,  I  here  find  360 
"  years,  (Rome's  fundamental  number,  twelve  times  thirty,)  and  this  period  as  a  whole  broken  into 
"  three  parts :  one  third  manifestly  occupied  by  the  three  first  kings,  to  the  year  120 ;  the  second 
"  by  the  remaining  kings,  to  the  banishment  of  Tarquin ;  the  third,  the  commonwealth.  Divisions 
"  so  accurate  are  never  afforded  by  real  history.  They  are  a  sign  which  cannot  be  mistaken,  of  an 
"  intentional  arrangement  dependent  on  the  notion  of  a  religious  sanctity  in  numbers."  This  kind 
of  superstition  has  every  where  prevailed  and  corrupted  all  history.  Mr.  Niebuhr' s  observation, 
that  twelve  times  thirty  make  the  360,  is  true;  but  why  should  these  numbers  have  been  adopted? 
I  apprehend  they,  in  this  case,  counted  by  the  cycle  of  Vrihaspati  60,  and  they  made  6  cycles ;  6  x 
60  =:  360 :  and  this  was  founded  on  the  Indian  dodecan  5,  which,  with  them,  was  called  a  Lus- 
trum, and  which,  equally  with  the  6,  formed  a  base  for  the  cycle  of  60,  or  of  1 20,  or  of  600,  or  of 
1200,  or  of  6000,  or  of  432,000.  By  means  of  the  two  sacred  numbers,  5  and  6,  already  described 
in  my  preliminary  observations,  (p.  6,)  they  would  always  form  cycles,  which  would  be  commen- 
surate with  one  another,  so  as  easily  to  count  their  time,  in  order  to  regulate  their  festivals. 

The  ancient  Etruscan  sacred  period  was  ten — that  of  the  Romans  (disguised  under  a  story  of  twelve 
vultures)  was  twelve — but  to  make  the  two  come  together  the  twelve  periods  were  made  of  120  years 
each,  (10  X  120  —  1200,)  this  makes  up  just  two  Neroses.  But  probably  the  Indian  system  of  432,000 
was  the  secret  cycle ;  for,  from  the  founding  of  Rome  to  the  building  of  Constantinople  was  called 
1440  years:  4  X  360  =  1440,  and  12  x  360  =  4320:  the  same  cyclical  system.  These  circum- 
stances, and  the  evident  identity  of  the  Sanscrit  and  Etruscan  written  languages,  seem  to  raise 
a  fair  presumption,  that  the  sacred  cycles  were  the  same  in  both  India  and  Italy.  I  repeat  that  I 
feel  no  doubt  that  the  Roman  Seeculum  of  110  years  was,  comparatively  speaking,  a  modern  inven- 
tion, when,  from  the  carelessness  of  the  Consuls  or  Priests,  the  burning  of  the  sacred  books,  or  some 
other  cause,  their  ancient  measures  of  time  had  become  lost.  Varro  states,2  "  In  the  eighth  Saecu- 
"  lum  it  was  written,  that,  in  the  tenth,  they  were  to  become  extinct."  This  evidently  refers  to 
the  10  Neroses. 

The  observation  of  Mons.  Niebuhr,  respecting  the  Mythos,  is  very  just,   but  he  might  have 


'  Vol.  I.  ch.  xvii.  p.  201.  *  In  Censorinum,  cap.  xvii. ;  Niebuhr,  cap.  v.  p.  93. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  III.     SECTION  5. 


207 


gone  a  little  farther,  and  have  shewn  that  the  Mythos  was  a  correct  imitation  of  that  of  Troy  and 
of  Egypt. 


ROME. 

Rohiulus,  Founder 

Numa,  Legislator 

Hostilius,  Warrior 

Martins 

Tarquin 

Servius  Tullius 

Tarquin  the  Superb,  ba- 
nished for  the  rape,  by 
Sextus. 


EGYPT. 

Vulcan 
Apollo 

Good  Fortune 
Serapis 
Pan 

Osiris,  Isis 

Typhon    the    Superb,   de- 
stroyed by  the  Gods. 


TROY. 

Dardanus 
Erichton 
Tros 
Ilus 

Ganymede 
Laomedon,  Hesione 
Priam  lost  the  kingdom  for 
the  rape  of  Paris. 


And  even  the  same  system  may  be  found  in  Kemfer's  Japan.  The  whole  may  be  seen  drawn 
out  at  length  by  Gebelin. l  The  seven  kings  reigned  245  years, 2  thirty-five  for  each  on  an  average, 
which  is  incredible.     This  shews  it  to  be  a  Mythos. 

When  the  first  600  years  from  the  supposed  foundation  of  the  city  arrived,  and  also  when  the 
1200  arrived,  the  Roman  devotees  were  much  alarmed  for  fear  of  some  great  unknown  calamity. 
This  all  referred  to  the  lost  period  either  of  600  or  608  years.  In  the  later  years  of  the  Republic, 
or  in  the  early  years  of  the  Emperors,  the  saeculum  having  become  quite  uncertain  both  as  to  its 
termination  and  its  meaning,  a  shorter  period  was  fixed  on  to  gratify  the  people's  love  of  shows, 
and  the  vanity  of  the  ruler  of  the  clay  in  the  exhibition  of  them.  It  is  pretty  certain  that  there 
were  several  systems  in  different  nations,  all  arising  from  the  supposed  lengths  of  the  Neros,  the 
real  length  of  which  being  only  found  out  by  degrees,  they  were  obliged  to  make  out  their  system 
by  expedients  as  well  as  they  were  able. 

If  we  take  the  period  of  the  Trojan  war  as  settled  by  Usher  at  1194  years  before  Christ, 
making  it  very  nearly  two  Neroses,  the  period  with  which  these  cycles  in  all  different  countries 
end,  we  shall  see  that  the  Mythos  of  Troy  was  the  same  as  that  of  Rome.  It  is  perfectly  clear 
that  the  Romans  knew  there  ought  to  be  a  sacred  saeculum  or  age,  that  the  eighth  saeculum  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world,  was  running,  but  the  exact  length  of  it,  or  when  it  began  or  ended, 
they  did  not  know.  The  Sibylline  verses,  foretelling  a  new  Troy  and  a  new  Argonautic  expedi- 
tion, cannot  be  construed  to  allude  to  a  short  period  of  1 10  or  120  years  :  nor  can  the  expression, 
a  series  of  ages  which  recurs  again  and  again  in  the  course  of  one  mundane  revolution,  be  construed 
to  refer  to  it.  It  may  be  said  that  Virgil's  prophecy  by  the  Sibyl  of  the  age  being  about  to  expire 
will  apply  to  the  eighth  century  from  the  supposed  building  of  Rome,  as  well  as  to  the  Neros. 
But  this  is  not  the  case,  because  it  will  not  apply  to  the  renewal  of  Trojan  wars,  Argonautic 
Expeditions,  &c. 

Among  all  the  ancient  nations  of  the  world,  the  opinion  was  universal,'  that  the  planetary 
bodies  were  the  disposers  of  the  affairs  of  men.  Christians  who  believe  in  Transubstantiation, 
and  that  their  priests  have  an  unlimited  poiver  to  forgive  sins,  may  affect  to  despise  those  who 
have  held  that  opinion,  down  to  Tycho  Brahe,  or  even  to  our  own  times  j  but  their  contempt  is 
not  becoming,  it  is  absurd.  From  this  error,  however,  arose  the  opinion,  that  the  knowledge  of 
future  events  might  be  obtained  from  a  correct  understanding  of  the  nature  of  the  planetary 
motions.  This  was,  perhaps,  an  improvement  on  the  other.  It  was  thought  that  the  future 
fortunes  of  every  man  might  be  known,  from  a  proper  consideration  of  the  state  of  the  planets  at 


1  Vol.  VIII.  p.  428. 


Ibid. 


208  PLUTARCH   AND   OTHER   WESTERN   AUTHORS   ON    THE   600-YEAR   CYCLE. 

the  moment  of  his  birth.  As,  of  course,  these  calculations  would  continually  deceive  the  calcu- 
lators, it  was  very  natural  that  endeavours  should  be  made  (overlooking  the  possibility  that  the 
system  might  be  false  from  the  beginning)  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  these  failures.  This  was  soon 
believed  to  arise  from  a  want  of  correctness  in  the  calculation  of  the  planetary  motions— a  fact 
which  would  speedily  be  suspected  and  then  ascertained.  This  produced  the  utmost  exertion  of 
human  ingenuity,  to  discover  the  exact  length  of  the  periods  of  the  planets  :  that  is,  in  other 
words,  to  perfect  the  science  of  astronomy.  In  the  course  of  these  proceedings  it  was  discovered, 
or  believed  to  be  discovered,  that  the  motions  of  the  planets  were  liable  to  certain  aberrations, 
which  it  was  thought  would  bring  on  ruin  to  the  whole  system,  at  some  future  day.  Perhaps  by 
reasoning  on  the  character  of  the  Deity  they  might  be  induced  to  believe  this  to  be  incorrect,  or  at 
least  to  doubt  it,  and  this  would  at  last  be  confirmed  by  the  discovery  that  what  appeared,  in  some 
instances,  to  be  aberrations,  were  periodical;  and  this  at  last  produced  the  knowledge,  or  the  belief, 
that  every  aberration  was  periodical — that  the  idea  of  the  system  containing  within  itself  the  seeds 
of  its  own  destruction  was  a  mistake.  Whether  they  arrived  at  the  point  of  calculating  the  exact 
period  of  every  apparent  aberration  may  be  doubtful ;  but  it  is  very  clear  they  believed  that  the 
nearer  they  got  to  this  point,  the  nearer  to  the  truth  would  be  the  calculation  of  nativities  or  of  the 
fortunes  of  mankind,  made  from  the  planetary  motions.  Experience  would  teach  them  that  they 
never  could  he  certain  they  had  discovered  all  the  aberrations,  and  thus  they  never  could  be  certain 
that  they  had  calculated  all  the  periods.  They  would  also  perceive  that  the  longer  they  made  their 
cycles  or  periods  the  nearer  they  came  to  the  truth.  For  this  reason  it  was,  and  it  was  a  sensible 
reason,  that  they  adopted  the  very  long  periods  :  for  it  was  evident  that,  in  every  one  of  the 
lengthened  periods,  multiples  of  600,  the  cycle  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  would  be  included,  and  with 
it  would  make  a  cycle.  When  our  priests  can  discover,  or  suppose,  no  other  reason  for  these 
lengthened  periods  than  a  wish  to  appear  the  most  ancient  of  nations,  I  fear  they  estimate  the 
understandings  of  those  who  discovered  the  Neros,  by  the  measure  of  their  own. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  shew  how  our  modern  astrologers  tell  their  friends'  fortunes,  (for,  be  it  Ob- 
served, these  gentlemen  never  pretend  to  tell  their  own,  from  which  defect  they  sometimes  get 
hanged,)  but  the  ancients  proceeded,  as  Mons.  Dupuis l  has  shewn,  on  a  very  ingenious  plan,  and, 
if  their  data  had  been  true,  a  very  certain  one.  Believing  that  all  nature  was  cycloidal,  or  periodi- 
cal, as  Virgil  says — every  thing  will  be  renewed — new  Iliums,  new  Argonauts,  &c. — they  supposed 
that  if  they  knew  in  what  part  of  a  planet's  cycle  a  thing  had  formerly  happened,  they  could 
ascertain  when  it  would  happen  again.  And  though  this  does  not  prove  the  truth  of  judicial 
astrology,  it  certainly  removes  much  of  its  absurdity ;  for,  though  the  reason  is  false,  it  is  not 
foolish.  Soon  after  the  discovery  of  the  last  of  the  primary  planets,  an  astrologer  called  on  a  friend 
of  the  author's  who  was  well  known  to  be  a  skilful  calculator,  and  requested  him  to  calculate  for 
him  the  periodical  motions  of  the  newly-discovered  planet ;  observing,  it  was  probable  that  the 
want  of  the  knowledge  and  use  of  its  motions  was  the  cause  that,  in  judicial  astrology,  the  predic- 
tions so  often  failed.  Here  is  a  beautiful  modern  exemplification  of  the  ancient  reasoning  which  I 
have  just  given  above. 

I  am  always  rejoiced  when  I  find  my  theories  supported  by  learned  Christian  dignitaries.  I 
then  flatter  myself  that  they  cannot  be  the  produce  of  a  too  prurient  imagination.  Bishop  Horsley 
could  not  help  seeing  the  truth,  that  the  fourth  Eclogue  of  Virgil  referred  to  the  child  to  whom 
the  kings  of  the  Magi  came  to  offer  presents.  In  the  second  volume 2  of  Sermons,  he  has  under- 
taken to  prove  that  this  Eclogue  is  founded  on  old  traditions  respecting  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  he 


1  Vol.  III.  p.  158.  2  Sermon  I. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER    III.    SECTION    6.  209 

is  the  child  of  whom  Virgil  makes  mention.  I  suspect  this  learned  Bishop  had  at  least  a  slight 
knowledge  of  the  esoteric  doctrine.  On  this  I  shall  say  more  when  I  treat  of  the  Sibyls  ;  I  shall 
then  shew  that  the  bishop  is  perfectly  right. 

The  period  of  the  great  Neros,  I  think,  may  be  perceived  in  China. l  La  Loubere  has  observed, 
that  the  Chinese  date  one  of  their  epochas  from  2435  years  before  Christ,  when  they  say  there 
was  a  great  conjunction  of  the  planets ;  but  this  seems  to  be  a  mistake :  for  Cassini  has  shewn 
that  there  was  no  conjunction  of  the  planets,  but  one  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  at  that  time.  This 
mistake  arises  from  the  destruction  of  their  books,  which  was  effected  by  one  of  their  kings,  about 
200  years  before  Christ.  Their  period  of  2435  years  before  Christ  has  probably  been  608x4=2432. 
They  calculated  by  a  cycle  of  60  years ;  this  is  evidently  the  same  as  the  600,  Usher's  mistake 
allowed  for. 

6.  I  think  it  is  probable  that,  by  Europeans,  several  allegories  of  the  Hindoos  have  been  con- 
founded together,  and  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  separate  them.  They  are  known  to  have  had 
various  periods  called  Yogas  or  Calpas,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  their  allegories  alluded  to  the 
renewals  of  different  periods  :  some  to  the  renewal  of  all  visible  nature,  the  fixed  stars  included  ; 
some  to  our  planetary  system,  and  some  only  to  the  renewal  of  our  globe  ;  and  to  this  last,  the 
saecula  or  ages  of  600  and  of  6000  years  applied.  It  has  been  before  observed,  that  it  was 
anciently  thought  that  the  equinoxes  preceded  only  after  the  rate  of  2000,  not  2160  years  in  a 
sign.  This  would  give  24,000,  or  4  times  6000  years,  for  the  length  of  the  great  year.  Hence 
might  arise  their  immensely-lengthened  cycles,  because  it  would  be  the  same  with  this  great  year 
as  with  the  common  year,  if  intercalations  did  not  take  place.  It  would  be  more  erroneous  every 
common  year,  till  it  travelled  quite  round  an  immensely-lengthened  circle,  when  it  would  come  to 
the  old  point  again.  Thus  there  were  believed  to  be  regenerations  of  the  starry  host,  of  the  planetary 
host  or  our  solar  system,  and  of  this  globe.  If  the  angle  which  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic  makes 
with  the  plane  of  the  equator  had  decreased  gradually  and  regularly,  as  it  was  till  very  lately  be- 
lieved to  do,  the  two  planes  would  have  coincided  in  about  10  ages,  6000  years  ;  in  10  ages,  6000 
years  more,  the  sun  would  have  been  situated  relatively  to  the  Southern  hemisphere,  as  he  is  now 
to  the  Northern  ;  in  10  ages,  6000  years  more,  the  two  planes  would  coincide  again  ;  and,  in  10 
ages,  6000  more,  he  would  be  situated  as  he  is  now,  after  the  lapse  of  about  24,000  or  25,000 
years  in  all.  When  the  Sun  arrived  at  the  equator,  the  10  ages  or  6000  years  would  end,  and  the 
world  would  be  destroyed  by  fire  ;  when  he  arrived  at  the  Southern  point  it  would  be  destroyed 
by  water ;  and  thus  alternately,  by  fire  and  water,  it  would  be  destroyed  at  the  end  of  every  6000 
years  or  ten  Neroses.  At  first  I  was  surprised  that  the  Indians  did  not  make  their  Great  Year  12 
Neroses  instead  of  10 ;  but  a  reason,  in  addition  to  that  which  I  have  formerly  given,  is  here  ap- 
parent :  12x600=7200x4=28,800  instead  of  24,000,  the  first- supposed  length  of  the  precessional 
year.     This  6000  years  was  the  age  of  the  world  according  to  the  early  Christians. 

M.  La  Place  professes  to  have  proved,  that  the  sum  of  the  variation  of  the  angle  made  by  the 
plane  of  the  equator  with  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic  is  only  very  small,  and  that  the  libration,  which 
he  admits,  is  subject  to  a  very  short  period.  Certainly  the  ruinous  state  of  the  strata  of  the  earth 
might  induce  a  belief  that  it  was  not  small,  but,  as  the  Hindoos  believed,  very  great. 

An  account  is  given  by  Suidas,  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made,  of  the  formation  of 
the  world  as  held  by  the  Tuscans,  or  Etrurians.  They  supposed  that  God,  the  author  of  the 
universe,  employed  twelve  thousand  years  in  all  his  creations,  and  distributed  them  into  twelve 
houses:  that  in  the  first  chiliad,  or  thousand  years,  he  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth;  in  the 
next   the  firmament  which   appears  to   us,  calling  it  heaven;  in  the  third  the  sea  and  all  the 


1  Hist.  Siam.  p.  258. 
2e 


210  PYTHAGORAS,  OBSERVATIONS  ON. 

waters  that  are  in  the  earth ;  in  the  fourth  the  great  lights,  the  sun  and  the  moon,  and  also  the 
stars ;  in  the  fifth  every  volatile,  reptile,  and  four-footed  animal  in  the  air,  earth,  and  water ;  in 
the  sixth  man.  It  seems,  therefore,  according  to  them,  that  the  first  six  thousand  years  were 
passed  before  the  formation  of  man,  and  that  mankind  are  to  continue  for  the  other  six  thousand 
years,  the  whole  time  of  consummation  being  twelve  thousand  years.  For  they  held,  that  the 
world  was  subject  to  certain  revolutions,  wherein  it  became  transformed,  and  a  new  age  and  gene- 
ration began  ;  of  such  generations  there  had  been  in  all,  according  to  them,  eight,  differing  from  one 
another  in  customs  and  way  of  life  ;  each  having  a  duration  of  a  certain  number  of  years  assigned 
them  by  God,  and  determined  by  the  period  which  they  called  the  great  year.1  If  Suidas  can  be 
depended  on,  and  I  know  no  reason  to  dispute  his  authority,  we  have  here,  among  these  Italian 
priests,  in  the  six  ages  of  creation,  evident  proofs  of  the  identity  of  their  doctrines  with  those  of 
the  Hindoos,  the  ancient  Magi  of  Persia,  and  the  books  of  Genesis.  And  what  is  more,  we  have, 
if  Mons.  Cuvier  can  be  depended  on,  proofs  that  these  very  ancient  philosophical  priests  all  taught 
the  true  system  of  the  universe,  one  of  the  most  abstruse  and  recondite  subjects  in  nature.  To 
what  is  this  to  be  attributed  ?  Most  clearly  either  to  the  learning  of  the  primeval  nation,  or  to 
revelation.     Different  persons  will  entertain  different  opinions  on  this  subject. 

There  are  few  readers  who  have  read  my  abstruse  book  thus  far,  who  will  be  surprised  that  I 
should  look  back  to  an  existent  state  of  the  Globe  in  a  very  remote  period.  £  allude  to  a  time 
when  the  angle  which  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic  makes  with  the  plane  of  the  equator  was  much 
larger  than  it  is  at  this  moment ;  the  effect  of  which  would  be  to  increase  the  heat  in  the  polar 
regions,  and  render  them  comfortable  places  of  residence  for  their  inhabitants.  This  easily  accounts 
for  the  remains  of  inhabitants  of  warm  climates  being  found  in  those  regions,  which  they  probably 
occupied  before  the  creation  of  man.  Every  extraordinary  appearance  of  this  kind  is  easily 
accounted  for,  as  the  effect  of  that  periodical  motion  of  the  earth  which,  if  continued,  will  bring 
the  planes  of  the  ecliptic  and  equator  to  coincide,  and,  in  process  of  time,  to  become  at  right 
angles  to  one  another.  The  circumstance  of  the  animals  of  the  torrid  zone  being  found  in  the 
high  latitudes  near  the  poles,  is  itself  a  decisive  proof,  to  an  unprejudiced  mind,  that  the  time 
must  have  been  when,  by  the  passage  of  the  Sun  in  his  ecliptic  his  line  of  movement  was  much 
nearer  the  poles  than  it  is  now,  the  northern  regions  must  have  possessed  a  temperate  climate. 
This  shews,  in  a  marked  manner,  the  sagacity  of  the  observations  of  Buffon,  Baillie,  Gesner,  &c, 
though  ridiculed  by  weak  people,  that  the  northern  climes  were  probably  the  birth-place  of  man. 
For  though  in  the  cause  which  they  assigned  for  this  they  might  be  mistaken,  in  the  effect  they 
were  correct. 

7.  The  date  of  Pythagoras's  birth  has  been  much  disputed  by  learned  men.  After  what  the 
reader  has  seen,  he  will  not  be  surprised  to  find  this  great  philosopher  connected,  as  has  been 
already  noticed  from  the  work  of  La  Loubere,  like  the  Jewish  worthies,  Augustus  Caesar,  and 
others,  with  one  of  the  Neroses.  And  the  circumstance  that  the  discovery  has  much  of  the 
nature  of  accident,  or,  at  least,  that  it  is  not  made  out  by  me  or  any  person  holding  my  system, 
adds  greatly  to  the  probability  of  its  truth.  Dr.  Lempriere,  after  stating  the  great  uncertainty  of 
the  date  of  Pythagoras,  says,  "  that  75  or  85  years  of  the  life  of  Pythagoras  fall  within  the  142 
"  years  that  elapsed  between  B.  C.  608,  and  B.  C.  466."  Here  608,  the  boundary  of  his  period, 
evidently  bring  out  the  cycle  of  the  greater  Neros.  Whether  the  date  of  Christ  be  quite  correct 
or  not,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  learned  men,  who  have  at  different  times  endeavoured  to  fix  it, 


•  Anonym,  apud  Suid  in  voce  Tyrrheni,  Univers.  Hist.  Vol  I  p.  64.— The  Universal  History  adds,  that  the  Druids 
also  taught  the  alternate  dissolution  of  the  world  by  water  and  fire,  and  its  successive  renovation.     Ibid. 


BOOK  V.     CHAPTER   III.     SECTION   7«  211 

have  reasoned  upon  certain  principles,  and  that  they  have  all  had  access  to  the  same  data  whereon 
to  ground  their  calculations.  When,  therefore,  I  find  this  same  number  608  constantly  occurring 
as  a  number  in  some  way  or  other  connected  with  their  periods,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  it  has 
been  used  by  the  persons  formerly  making  the  ancient  calculations.  Thus  in  this  I  find  608  years 
to  form  one  boundary,  or  to  come  out  as  one  number.  Again,  in  the  inquiry  into  the  proper 
period  from  the  foundation  of  Rome,  on  which  the  Ludi  Sseculares  ought  to  be  celebrated  in  the 
time  of  Sylla,  I  find  that  the  result  of  the  very  difficult  calculations  of  one  or  some  of  the  aruspices 
employed  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  calculations,  brings  out  the  number  608  as  one  of  the 
probable  periods  on  which  they  ought  to  be  celebrated ;  and,  as  I  find  several  other  such  coinci- 
dences with  this  peculiar  number,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  they  tend  greatly  to  confirm  my 
doctrines.  It  shews  that  this  sacred  number  was  in  general  use,  and  it  justifies  me  in  believing 
that  it  was  often  used  in  cases  where  the  direct  evidence  of  its  use  is  only  weak,  but  where  ana- 
logy of  reasoning  would  induce  me  to  expect  to  find  it. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  Stanley's  account  of  the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  and  not  to  see  that,  as 
a  complete  system,  they  were  totally  unknown  to  the  persons  who   have  left  us  the  account  of 
them.     One  says  one  thing,  another  says  another.     But  it  is  evident,  that  much  the  greater  part 
of  what  they  say  is  opinion  only ;  or  what  they  had  heard,  as  being  the  opinion  of  some  one  else. 
This  state  of  uncertainty  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  abstruse  doctrines  handed  down  by 
tradition.    Then  it  follows,  that  evidence  in  these  cases  can  amount  at  last  only  to  probability, 
never  to  absolute  demonstration.     But  when  the  probability  is   sufficiently  strong,  faith  or  belief 
will  follow.     And  I  think  in  reasoning,  I  have  a  right  to  take  any  asserted  fact  and  reason  upon  it, 
depending  for  its  reception   by  the   reader,  upon  such  evidence,  positive,  or  circumstantial,  or 
rational,  as  I  shall  be  able  to  produce.     Now  I  will  produce  an  example  of  what  I  mean.     We 
have  every  reason  to  believe,  that  Pythagoras  travelled  far  to  the  East  to  acquire  knowledge.     In 
looking  through  the  great  mass  of  facts  or  doctrines  charged  to  him,  we  find  much  oriental  doctrine 
intermixed  with  truth  and  science,  the  same  as  we  find  at  this  day  among  the  Brahmins  :  truth 
and  science  very  much  more  correct  than  that  which  his  successors   (whose  ignorance  or  uncer- 
tainty respecting  him  is  admitted)  knew  or  taught,  mixed  with  an  inconceivable  mass  of  nonsense, 
of  that  description  of  nonsense,  too,  which  his   followers   particularly  patronized,  and  taught  as 
sense  and  wisdom.     Have  we  not,  then,  reason  to  make  a  selection,  and  give  Pythagoras  credit 
only  for  such  parts  as  we  find  of  the  wise  character  to  which  I  have  alluded,  and  throw  out  all  the 
remainder  as  the  nonsense  of  his  successors  ?     What  can   be  more  striking  than  the  fact  of  his 
teaching  that  the  planets  moved  in  curved  orbits,  a  fact  for  the  statement  of  which  he  got  laughed 
at  by  his  ignorant  successors,  but  a  fact  which  we  now  know  to  be  well-founded ! 

All  his  doctrines,  we  are  told  by  his  followers,  were  founded  on  numbers,  and  they  pretend  to 
give  us  what  was  meant  by  these  numbers,  and  choice  nonsense  they  give  us, — nonsense  very 
unworthy  of  the  man  who  taught  the  47th  proposition  of  Euclid,  and  the  true  planetary  system. 
Then  are  we  to  believe  them  ?     I  reply,  no ;  we  ought  to  believe  only  such  parts  as  are  analogous 
to  the  oriental  systems,  and  to  good  sense.    All  the  remainder  must  remain  subjudice.   I  find  very 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  doctrine  of  numbers  ascribed  to  him,  by  his  successors,  as  nonsensical  as 
their  story  ot  his  golden  thigh,  so  that  I  can  give  no  credit  to  them ;  and,  in  consequence,  I  am 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  the  East,  and  to  suppose  that  when  they  repeat  the  admitted  fact,  that 
his  doctrines  were  founded  on  numbers,  the  oriental  numbers,  on  which  the  astronomical  cycles  and 
periods  were  founded,  must  chiefly  be  meant :  such  as  the  Zodiacal  divisions,  the  Neros,  the  pre- 
cessional  year,  &c.     And  this  is  confirmed  when  I  read  what  has  been  extracted  respecting  Pytha- 
goras from  La  Loubere,  and  when  I  find  them  stumbling  on  the  cycle  of  the  great  Neros.     If 
Pythagoras  were  not  in  some  way  or  other  connected  with  it,  it  seems  surprising  that  this  iden- 

2e2 


212  PYTHAGORAS,  OBSERVATIONS  ON. 

tical  number  preceding  the  celebrated  epocha  of  Jesus  Christ,   as  shewn  by  Cassini,  should  be 
found  by  our  modern  doctors  as  a  boundary  line  in  the  way  the  reader  has  seen.     There  must 
have  been  some  circumstances  closely  connected  with  the  great  Neros  in  the  ancient  data  on  which 
our  modern  divines  have  founded  their  calculations,  to  induce  them  to  pitch  upon  this  number. 
The  effect  must  have  a  cause :  accident  will  not  account  for  it.     The  reader  must  not  forget  that 
all  the  ancients  who  give  us  the  account  of  this  philosopher,  pretend  to  what  they  may,  are  only 
possessed  of  shreds  and  patches  of  his  system.     But  I  have  little  doubt  that  out  of  the  shreds  and 
patches  left  us  by  his  successors,  of  the  real  value  of  which  they  were  perfectly  ignorant,  a  beautiful 
oriental  garment  might  be  manufactured — bearing  a  close  analogy  to  the  purest  of  what  we  find 
in  the  East,  which,  in  our  eyes,  at  this  day,  would  be  beautiful,  but  which,  by  his  ancient  biogra- 
phers, would,  like  his  planetary  orbits,  be  treated  with  contempt.    Before  I  conclude  what  I  have  to 
say,  at  present,  respecting  this  great  man,  I  will  make  one  more  observation.     It  is  said,  that  the 
Monad,  the  Duad,  the  Triad,  and  the  Tetractys,  were  numbers  held  in  peculiar  respect  by  him. 
The  last  is  called  the  perfection  of  nature.  But  Dr.  Lempriere  says,  "  Every  attempt,  however,  to 
"  unfold  the  nature  of  this  last  mysterious  number  has  hitherto  been  unsuccessful."     This  seems 
wonderful.     Surely  Dr.  Lempriere  cannot  have  understood  the  Hebrew  language,  or  he  would  at 
once  have  seen  that  this  can  be  nothing  but  the  Tetragrammaton   of  the  Hebrews — the  sacred 
name  miT  icue  or  ieu  e — the  self- existent,  the  /  am,  often  called  (he  name  of  four  letters,  or,  in 
other  words,  the  Tetractys.     This  is  confirmed  by  what,  according  to  Aristotle,  Pythagoras  said 
of  his  Triad.     "  He  affirmed  that  the  whole  and  all  things  are  terminated  by  three."    Here  are  the 
three  letters  of  the  sacred  word,  without  the  emphatic  article, — the  three  signifying  /  am  Jah. 
Of  the  Tetractys  he  says,  "  Through  the  superior  world  is  communicated  from  the  Tetractys  to  the 
"  inferior,  Life  and  the  being  (not  accidental,  but  substantial)  of  every  species."    *  The  Tetractys 
"  is  the  divine  mind  communicating."     This  can  be  nothing  but  the  Tetragrammaton  of  the  He- 
brews.   I  confess  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  that  his  Monad,  his  Duad,  his  Triad,  and  his  Tetractys, 
formed  the  Hindoo  Trinity,  and  the  sacred  name  of  four,  including  the  three. 

We  have  already  seen  that  Buddha  was  born  after  ten   months,  sans  souillure,   that  is,  he 
was  the  produce  of  an  immaculate  conception.     This  was  attributed  to  many  persons  among  the 
Gentiles ;  and  whenever  any  man  aspired  to  obtain  supreme  power,  or  to  tyrannize  over  his  coun- 
trymen, he  almost  always  affected  to  have  had  a  supernatural  birth,  in  some  way  or  other.     This 
was  the  origin  of  the  pretended  connexion  of  Alexander's  mother,  Olympias,  with  Jupiter.     Scipio 
African  us  was  also  said  to  be  the  son  of  God.     There  is  no  doubt  that  he  aimed  at  the  sovereignty 
of  Rome,  but  the  people  were  too  sharp- sighted  for  him.     A.  Gellius  says,  "  The  wife  of  Publius 
"  Scipio  was  barren  for  so  many  years  as  to  create  a  despair  of  issue,  until  one  night,  when  her 
"  husband  was  absent,  she  discovered  a  large  serpent  in  his  place,  and  was  informed  by  soothsay- 
"  ers  that  she  would  bear  a  child.     In  a  few  days  she  perceived  signs  of  conception,  and  after  tkn 
"  moNTHS  gave  birth  to  the  conqueror  of  Carthage."1     Arion  was  a  divine  incarnation,  begotten  by 
the  gods,  in    the  citadel  Byrsa,  and  the  Magna  Mater  brought  him  forth  after  ten  months, 
IX.STOL  Ssxa  \Kf\va.g.     Hercules  was  a  ten  months'  child,  as  were  also  Meleager,  Pelias,  Neleus,  and 
Typhon. 2    The  child  foretold  in  the  fourth  eclogue  of  Virgil  was  also  a  ten  months'  child.     Au- 
gustus also  was  the  produce,  after  a  ten  months'  pregnancy,  of  a  mysterious  connexion  of  his 
mother  with  a  serpent  in  the  temple  of  Apollo. 3      The  ten  months'  pregnancy  of  all  the  persons 
named  above,  had  probably  an  astrological  allusion  to  the  ten   ages.     The  name  of  Augustus, 
given  to  Octavius,  was  allusive  to  his  sacred  character  of  presiding  daemon  of  the  Munda,  xocfxog 
or  cycle.     Solomon,  according  to  the  Bible,  was  also  a  ten  months'  child. 

1  Aul.  Gell.  lib.  vii  cap.  i. ;  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  449.  *  Nimrod,  i(>.  3  Ibid.  p.  458. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  III.   SKCTION  7-  213 

Several  of  the  Hindoo  incarnations,  particularly  that  of  Salivahana  and  of  Guatama,  of  whom 
I  shall  treat  by  and  by,  are  said,  like  Scipio,  Augustus,  Alexander,  &c,  to  have  been  born 
after  a  ten  months'  pregnancy  of  their  mothers,  and  also  to  have  been  produced  by  a  serpent 
entwining  itself  round  the  body  of  the  mother.  The  coincidence  is  too  striking  to  be  the  effect  of 
accident. ' 

The  author  of  Nimrod  has  shewn,  at  great  length,  that  about  the  time  of  Augustus,  and  a 
considerable  time  previously,  there  had  been  a  very  general  idea  prevalent  in  the  world,  that  a 
supernatural  child  would  be  born,  in  consequence  of  a  new  age  which  was  then  about  to  arise ; 
but  the  certain  time  of  which  was  either  unknown  or  a  profound  secret.  All  this  was  connected 
with  the  eighth  cycle,  which  I  have  explained.  To  these  supernatural  births  I  shall  return  in  a 
future  page. 

If  my  reader  have  gone  along  with  me  in  the  argument,  he  must  have  observed  that  there  is  a 
difficulty  arising  from  the  blending  of  the  cycle  of  600 — the  Neros  and  the  cycle — and  the  distin- 
guished personage  who  was  the  hero  of  it.  I  find  it  difficult  to  explain  what  I  mean.  Expressions 
constantly  refer  to  the  cycle  of  600  years,  and  to  a  person,  an  incarnation  of  the  divine  mind.  The 
age  and  person  are  confounded.  This,  it  might  plausibly  be  said,  operates  against  my  theory,  if  I 
could  not  shew  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the  ancient  mystics  thus  to  confound  them.  But  we  have 
only  to  look  to  the  words  of  Virgil  in  the  prophecy  of  the  Sibyl,  B.  V.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  7>  and  the  quo- 
tation from  Mr.  Faber,  and  we  have  a  clear  example  of  what  I  allude  to.  The  ninth  age  was  to  arrive, 
but  a  blessed  infant  also  was  to  arrive  with  it,  to  restore  the  age  of  gold.  The  age  lasted  600  years, 
but  it  did  not  mean  that  the  child  was  to  live  600  years.  The  Buddha,  the  Cristna,  the  Salivahana 
of  India,  each  arrived  in  a  period,  and  they  are  identified  with  the  period,  but  they  are  none  of 
them  said  to  have  lived  the  whole  term  of  600  years.  Cyrus  was  foretold,  and  I  have  shewn  that 
he  was  born  in  the  eighth  age  or  cycle,  but  he  was  not  supposed  to  live  to  the  end  of  it.  I  ac- 
knowledge this  would  form  a  difficulty  if  it  were  not  obviated  by  the  express  words  of  Virgil, 
which  cannot  be  disputed.  To  the  objection  I  reply,  that  the  cycle  or  age  in  India  and  Judsea  was 
used,  precisely  as  it  was  by  the  mystics  of  Virgil.  Whatever  one  meant  respecting  the  child 
being  born,  was  meant  by  the  other.  And  this  leads  to  another  observation  respecting  the  Mes- 
siah of  the  Jews.     We  have  here  express  authority  from  the  record  itself  what  a  Messiah  was 

what  was  meant  when  a  Messiah  was  foretold.  He  was  a  man  endowed  with  a  more  than  usual 
portion  of  the  divine  spirit  or  nature,  and  as  such  was  considered  to  be  the  presiding  genius  of  the 
cycle  —  the  ctiwv  rwv  aicovcov — the  father  of  the  succeeding  ages.  We  have  seen  that  the  word 
Cyrus  meant  Sun. 

The  mother  of  Cyrus,  or  of  the  incarnation  of  the  solar  power,  had,  as  we  might  expect,  a  very 
mythological  name.  She  was  called  MANDA-ne.2  In  the  oriental  language  this  would  have  the 
same  meaning  as  xotrpog,  correctly  a  cycle.  In  the  same  spirit  the  mother  of  Constantine  was 
called  Helen,  her  father  Coilus.  Great  mistakes  (perhaps  intended)  have  been  made  in  the  con- 
struing of  the  word  mundus.  It  has  often  been  construed  to  mean  world,  when  it  meant  cycle. 
It  was,  I  think,  one  of  the  words  used  by  the  mystics  to  conceal  their  doctrine,  and  to  delude 
the  populace. 

The  results  of  the  calculations  made  by  Cassini  are  in  a  very  peculiar  manner  satisfactory. 
They  are  totally  removed  from  suspicion  of  Brahminical  forgery,  either  to  please  Mohamedan 
conquerors,  or  European  masters,  or  scavans,  because  they  are  strictly  Buddhist,  and  have  no 


1  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  p.  431. 

*  This  I  take  to  be  a  word  formed  of  Munda  and  Anna. 


214  PYTHAGORAS,  OBSERVATIONS  ON. 

concern  whatever  with  the  followers  of  Cristna — Siam  being  far  away  from  the  country  where 
the  religion  of  Cristna  prevails.  The  old  manuscript  which  La  Loubere  sent  over  to  Cassini  was 
not  understood  by  him,  but  sent  to  the  astronomer  for  examination.  It  was  not  until  a  hundred 
years  after  this  manuscript  came  to  Europe,  that  any  of  the  circumstances  relating  to  Cristna, 
which  the  reader  has  seen  from  Mr.  Maurice,  &c,  were  known  :  and  it  is  very  probable  that  M. 
Cassini  did  not  see  the  consequences  which  would  arise  from  his  calculations. 

Mr.  Maurice  has  laboured  hard  to  prove  that  the  Babylonians  were  the  inventors  of  the  Neros. 
This  he  does  because  he  fancies  it  supports  the  Mosaic  system.  I  shall  now  shew  that  it  cannot 
have  been  invented  either  by  them  or  by  the  Egyptians  ;  and  I  suppose  no  one  will  suspect  the 
Greeks  of  being  the  inventors  of  it.  And  this  will  compel  us  to  go  for  it  to  the  ancestors  and 
country  of  Abraham,  if  we  can  only  find  out  who  and  where  they  were :  this  I  do  not  despair  of 
doing  in  due  time. 

Respecting  the  extent  of  the  walls  of  Babylon  we  have  two  histories,  one  of  Herodotus,  and 
the  other  of  Diodorus  Siculus,  between  which  there  appears  at  first  to  be  a  considerable  disagree- 
ment. Herodotus  states  them  to  be,  in  his  time,  480  furlongs  j  Diodorus,  that  they  were  origi- 
nally made  only  360,  in  accordance  with  the  supposed  number  of  days  in  the  year  ;  that  two  millions 
of  men  were  employed  to  build  a  furlong  a  day,  by  which  means  they  were  completed  in  a  year  of 
360  days.1  This  apparent  contradiction  Mr.  Maurice  has  reconciled,  by  shewing  from  another 
passage  of  Berosus,  reported  by  Josephus,  that  they  were  lengthened  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  so  as  to 
equal  those  of  Nineveh,  which  were  480  furlongs  in  extent.  From  this  ignorance  of  the  length  of 
the  year  I  conclude  that  the  builders  of  Babylon  could  not  be  the  inventors  of  the  cycle  of  the 
Neros  ;  nor  could  they  even  have  known  it.  This  fact  is  at  once  decisive  against  the  whole  of  Mr. 
Maurice's  theory,  that  the  Babylonians  were  the  inventors  of  the  ancient  astronomy.  I  place  my 
finger  on  the  cycle  of  the  Neros,  and  unhesitatingly  maintain,  that  the  persons  acquainted  with 
it  could  not  have  believed  the  year  to  be  only  360  days  long. 

Mr.  Maurice  has  shewn  that  the  Babylonians  were  ignorant  of  the  length  of  the  year  so  late  even 
as  the  reign  of  Cyrus,  until  which  time  they  supposed  it  to  consist  of  only  360  days.  This  all 
tends  to  confirm  Baillie's  doctrine,  that  the  Babylonian  science  is  only  the  debris  of  an  ancient 
system.  The  ignorance  of  the  early  Egyptians  of  the  true  length  of  the  year  is  as  well  established 
as  that  of  the  Babylonians.  This  we  learn  from  Diodorus  Siculus,  who,  among  other  things,  states 
that  the  Egyptian  priests  made  360  libations  of  milk  on  the  tomb  of  Osiris,  when  they  bewailed 
his  death,  which  he  says  alluded  to  the  days  of  the  primitive  year,  used  in  the  reign  of  that  mo- 
narch. 2  I  contend  also,  that  the  inventors  of  the  Zodiac  were  in  the  same  state  with  respect  to 
science  as  the  builders  of  Babylon,  or  they  would  not  have  divided  it  into  360  degrees  only.  Had 
they  known  the  real  length  of  the  year,  they  would  have  made  some  provision  for  the  five  days. 

Respecting  the  length  of  the  old  year,  there  is  a  very  curious  story  in  Plutarch,  which  has  been 
noticed  by  Sir  William  Drummond,  in  his  CEdipus  Judaicus,  p.  103,  in  the  following  words : 
"  The  number  318  is  very  remarkable.  Plutarch  relates,  that  a  connexion  having  been  discovered 
"  between  Saturn  and  Rhea,  the  Sun  threatened  that  the  latter  should  not  be  delivered  of  a  child 
"  in  any  month  or  year.  But  Mercury,  who  was  in  love  with  Rhea,  having  won  from  the  Moon 
"  at  dice  the  20th  part  of  each  of  her  annual  lunations,  composed  of  them  the  5  days,  which  were 
"  added  to  the  year,  and  by  which  it  was  augmented  from  360  to  365  days.  On  these  5  days 
"  Rhea  brought  forth  Osiris,  Arueris,  Typhon,  Isis,  and  Nephte.     Now  the  old  year  being  com- 


1  Berosus,  apud  Josephus,  Antiq.  Lib.  x.  Cap.  xi. 

s  Diod.  Sic.  Lib.  xvii.  p.  220 ;  Maurice,  Observ.  on  the  Ruins  of  Babylon,  p.  39. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  8.  215 

"  posed  of  360  days,  the  20th  part  amounts  to  18  days.  Let  us  then  take  12  lunations  at  28  days 
"  each,  and  we  shall  get  a  period  of  336  days.  Deduct  a  20th  part  of  the  old  year  of  360  days 
"  from  the  12  lunations  at  28  days  each,  and  the  remainder  will  be  318  days.  The  equation  may 
"  be  given  as  follows  :  28x12— vy>=318." 

8.  In  the  course  of  his  history,  M.  La  Loubere  drops  several  observations  which,  when  I  con- 
sider the  facts  of  two  islands  of  Elephanta,  two  Matureas,  the  seed  of  the  woman  bruising  the  head 
of  the  serpent  in  Europe  and  also  in  India,  &c,  &c,  seem  to  me  well  worthy  of  notice.  I  shall 
give  them  in  his  words  and  leave  them  to  the  reader,  but  I  shall  return  to  them  again  very  often. 
Speaking  of  the  name  of  Siam,  he  says,  (p.  6,)  "  and  by  the  similitude  of  our  language  to  theirs, 
"  we  ought  to  say  the  Sions,  and  not  the  Siams:  so  when  they  write  in  Latin  they  call  them 
"  Stones."  Again,  (p.  7>)  "  Nevertheless,  Navarete,  in  his  historical  treatises  of  the  kingdom  of 
"  China,  relates,  that  the  name  of  Siam,  which  he  writes  Sian,  comes  from  these  two  words  Siett 
"  lo,  without  adding  their  signification  or  of  what  language  they  are."  In  the  same  page  he  says, 
"  from  Si-yo-thi-ya,1  the  Siamese  name  of  the  city  of  Siam,  foreigners  have  made  Judia."2  No 
doubt  at  the  present  moment,  my  reader  will  think  the  facts  stated  respecting  Sion  and  Judia  of 
no  consequence,  but  in  a  little  time,  if  he  read  with  attention  the  remainder  of  this  work,  he  will 
find  them  well  worthy  of  consideration.  He  will  find  them,  when  united  to  other  circumstances, 
to  be  facts  to  account  for  which  it  will  be  very  difficult,  upon  any  of  the  systems  to  which  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  give  credit.  My  reader  will  not  forget  that  we  are  travelling  on  mystic 
ground  ;  and  that  the  object  of  our  researches,  the  secret  history  of  the  mythoses  of  antiquity,  is 
concealed  from  our  view,  not  only  by  the  sedulous  care  and  the  most  sacred  oaths  of  our  ances- 
tors, in  the  most  remote  ages,  but  by  the  jealousy  of  modern  priests  interested  in  preventing  the 
discovery  of  truth,  and  also  by  the  natural  effect  of  time,  which  is  itself  almost  enough  to  render 
of  no  avail  the  most  industrious  researches.  It  seems  to  be  a  law  of  nature,  that  the  memory  of 
man  should  not  reach  back  beyond  a  certain  very  confined  boundary.  We  are  endeavouring  to 
break  down,  to  overstep,  this  boundary. 

When  we  go  to  India  we  find  that  the  Brahmins  had  eight  Avatars  complete,  and  were  at  or  in 
the  ninth  at  the  birth  of  Christ.3  The  first  was  Buddha  or  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  and  all  the  Avatars 
must  have  been,  properly  speaking,  his  till  the  flood,  or  the  Sun  entered  Aries,  when  the  first 
cycle  of  Cristna  and  that  of  Joshua  began,  according  to  Col.  Wilford.  Then,  after  the  last  cycle 
of  Cristna,  or  the  cycle  of  Cyrus,  where  his  history,  in  part  is  found,  had  ended,  perhaps  such  of 
the  priests  as  understood  the  secret  doctrines  might  wish  for,  and  might  attempt  to  introduce,  the 
ninth  Avatar,  but  to  this  the  populace,  and  such  of  them  as  had  perhaps  forgotten  or  did  not 
know  the  secret  meaning  of  their  Avatars,  would  not  consent. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  attempt  to  introduce  a  new  practice  at  the  end  of  the  periods  of 
six  hundred  years  should  have  often  been  attended  with  religious  wars.  It  seems  to  be  almost  a 
necessary  consequence,  that  these  should  take  place.  The  devotees  would,  of  course,  be  very 
averse,  as  devotees  always  are,  to  part  with  their  old  superstition,  which  the  initiated  would  per- 
ceive was  becoming  obsolete  and  unsuitable  to  times  and  circumstances ;  hence  might  arise  several 

'  This  is  evidently  a  corruption  of  the  word  I-oud-ya,  the  name  of  the  kingdom  of  Oude,  in  Upper  India ;  and  this 
will  be  found,  when  joined  to  some  other  matters,  to  connect  the  capital  of  Siam  with  the  city  of  Oude. 

e  In  the  city  of  Siam  they  have  a  sacred  tooth  of  Sommona-Codom,  resorted  to  by  many  pilgrims.  This  is  the  oldest 
relic  worship  which  I  have  met  with.  They  have  also  a  sacred  foot  of  Sommona-Codom,  the  same  as  that  in  Ceylon, 
and  that  named  of  Hercules,  in  Scythia,  by  Herodotus,  and  that  of  Jesus  in  Palestine  This  is  the  first  sacred  foot- 
mark I  have  met  with,  the  last  is  that  of  Louis  le  DfiSIR^  on  the  pier  at  Calais ! ! !— Printed  March,  1831. 

"Sree  Mun  Narrain,  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  has  at  nine  different  periods  assumed  incarnated  forms,  either 
for  the  purpose  of  eradicating  some  terrestrial  evil,  or  chastising  the  sins  of  mankind.  According  to  the  Hindoo  tra- 
dition a  tenth  is  yet  expected."    Forster's  Travels,  p.  43. 


216  CROSS,  THE   MEANING   OF   IT. 

of  the  religious  wars  which  otherwise  seem  inexplicable.  On  this  ground  they  are  easily  ex- 
plained :  and  this  circumstance  will  satisfactorily  explain  several  other  equally  inexplicable  phe- 
nomena, as  we  shall  see  hereafter.  In  some  parts  of  India  a  ninth  Avatar  was  believed  to  have 
come,  called  Salivahana ;  in  others,  Ceylon  for  instance,  he  was  thought  to  be  another  Buddha. 
Respecting  this  I  shall  say  more  hereafter. 

Perhaps  I  shall  be  told  that  the  incarnations  of  the  Hindoo  Gods  are  innumerable,  and  extend 

through  millions  of  ages.     This  is  true :  probably  to  conceal   their  real  periods  from  the  profane 

eye. l      But  with  these  I  do  not  meddle,  as  they  do  not  militate  against  the  existence  of  real  cycles 

and  for  periods  of  true  time.     The  ten  incarnations  were  the  ten  revolutions  of  the  Neros  or  the 

sacred  Om.     At  the  birth  of  Christ,  eight  had  passed  as  allowed  by  the  Brahmins,  and  testified  of 

by  Virgil,  Zoroaster,  and  the  Sibyls.     All  the  mystics  expected  the  world  to  end  in  6000  years ; 

that  was  in  ten  Avatars,  Yugs,  Calpas,  or  ages  of  600  years  each.     The  Gentiles  were  in  no  fear 

as  they  thought  there  were  yet  1200  years  to  run,  while  many  Christians,  taking  their  uncertain 

and  doubtful  calculations  from  the  LXX.  and  Josephus,  expected  the  end  of  the  world  every  day. 

They  saw  the  calculations  in  these  books  could  not  be  brought  to  any  certainty;  and,  to  make  the 

matter  worse,  they  knew  not  whether  their  ages  were  to  begin  from  the  creation  or  the  Jlood. 

But  the  term  of  6000  years,  for  the  duration  of  the  world,  was  the  generally  received  opinion  among 

the  early  Christians ;  and  this  continues  to  be  the  opinion  of  many  of  them.     The  celebrated 

mystic,  Mr.   Irving,  who  lately  preached  with  great  eclat  to  the  rabble  of  St.  James's  and  St. 

Giles's,  in  London,  has  just  announced  that  the  Millenium  will  commence  in  a  very  few  years. 

The  reader  may  probably  have  observed  that,  in  my  inquiries  into  the  various  incarnations  of 
Buddha  and  Cristna,  and  into  the  ancient  cycles,  &c,  I  have  scarcely  ever  named  any  thing  later 
than  the  supposed  sera  of  Jesus  Christ.  Since  that  epoch,  however,  much  very  interesting  matter 
and  most  valuable  information  respecting  the  last  two  cycles,  and  the  origin  of  the  Romish  religion, 
will  he  laid  before  him ;  but,  after  much  consideration,  I  have  determined  to  defer  it  until  I  have 
shewn  whence  the  various  rites  and  ceremonies  of  that  religion,  on  which  I  have  not  yet  touched, 
were  derived.  I  shall  also  previously  explain  many  other  circumstances  relating  to  the  ancient 
mythoses. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


CROSS,     THE   MEANING   OF   IT.  —  JUSTIN    AND  TERTULLIAN    ON   THE   CROSS.  —  MONOGRAMS    OF   CHRIST  AND 

OSIRIS. CROSS   OF   EZEKIEL   AND   OTHERS. — OTHER   MONOGRAMS   OF   CHRIST. — CHRISMON   SANCTI   AM- 

BROG1I.—  SACRED   NUMBERS   IN   THE   TEMPLES    OF   BRITAIN.  —  MITHRA.— JOSEPHUS    AND    VALLANCEY    ON 

MYSTIC     NUMBERS. — INDIAN     CIRCLES.  —  LAMA     OF  TIBET.  —  INDRA   CRUCIFIED JESUITS'      ACCOUNT     OP 

TIBET. 

1.  I  will  now  shew  how  the  cycle  of  600,  or  the  Neros,  was  concealed  in  another  system  and 
by  another  kind  of  mysticism.  I  scarcely  need  remind  my  reader  that  the  cross  has  been  an  em- 
blem used  by  all  Christians,  from  the  earliest  ages.  In  my  Celtic  Druids  he  may  see  many  proofs 
that  it  was  used  by  the  most  ancient  of  the  Gentiles,  the  Egyptians,  and  the  Druids.  The  mean- 
ing of  it,  as  an  emblem,  has  been  a  matter  much  disputed.     It  has  generally  been  thought  to  be 


■  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  114. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  1.  217 

emblematic  of  eternal  life.  It  has  also  been  considered,  from  a  fancied  similarity  to  the  membrum 
virile,  to  be  emblematic  of  the  procreative  powers  of  nature.  The  general  opinion,  I  think,  seems 
to  have  settled  upon  an  union  of  the  two — that  it  meant  eternally  renovating  life,  and  this  seems 
to  agree  very  well  with  the  nature  of  a  cycle — with  the  Neros,  which  eternally  renovated  itself,  and 
of  which  it  was  probably  an  emblem.  But  in  my  opinion,  it  is  much  more  probable,  that  it  be- 
came the  emblem  of  generation  and  regeneration,  from  being  the  emblem  of  the  cycle,  than  from 
any  fancied  resemblance  alluded  to  above ;  and  that  it  was  the  emblem,  from  being  the  figure 
representing  the  number,  of  the  cycle. 

Mr.  Payne  Knight  says,  "  The  male  organs  of  generation  are  sometimes  represented  by  signs 
"  of  the  same  sort,  which  might  properly  be  called  symbols  of  symbols.  One  of  the  most  remark- 
"  able  of  these  is  the  cross  in  the  form  of  the  letter  T,  which  thus  served  as  the  emblem  of 
"  creation  and  generation."  * 

At  first  I  hastily  concluded,  that  the  circle  which  we  often  see  joined  to  the  cross,  was  meant 
merely  as  a  handle,  but  this,  on  reflection,  I  cannot  believe.  It  is  contrary  to  the  genius  and 
character  of  the  ancient  mythologists,  to  use  such  a  lame  and  unnecessary  contrivance.  I  am 
satisfied  it  was  meant,  like  the  cross  itself,  as  an  emblem.  In  some  inscriptions,  particularly  at 
the  end  of  one  of  the  oldest  with  which  I  am  acquainted,  from  Cyprus,  that  given  in  Pococke's 


description  of  the  East,2  as   a  monogram,  it  is  given  thus — the  cross  and  ~J-  circle  of  Ve- 
nus, or  Divine  Love. 


Scire 


Cyprus  was,  in  former  times,  a  place  of  great  consequence.  It  must  be  a  delightful  island. 
It  is  about  130  miles  long  and  60  broad.  In  its  centre  it  had  its  Olympus,  now  the  Mount  of 
the  Cross,  where,  as  might  be  expected,  remains  to  this  day  a  convent  of  Monks,  dedicated  to  the 
holy  Cross — descended  in  direct  succession,  I  have  no  doubt,  from  the  earliest  times  of  Paganism. 

The  cross  was  the  Egyptian  Banner,  above  which  was  carried  the  crest,  or  device  of  the 
Egyptian  cities.  It  was  also  used  in  the  same  manner  by  the  Persians.  According  to  oriental 
traditions,  the  cross  of  Calvary  and  that  supposed  to  be  set  up  by  Moses  in  the  Wilderness  were 
made  of  the  wood  of  the  tree  of  life,  in  Paradise.  It  was  carried  in  the  hand  of  the  Horus,  the 
Mediator  of  the  Egyptians,  the  second  person  in  their  Trinity,  and  called  Logos  by  the  Platonists. 
Horus  was  supposed  to  reign  one  thousand  years.  He  was  buried  for  three  days,  he  was  regene- 
rated, and  triumphed  over  the  Egyptian  evil  principle.  Among  the  Alchemists  the  T  with 
a  circle  and' crescent,  is  the  numerical  sign  of  Mercury.  The  sign  of  Venus  is  a  crux  ansata,  that 
is,  a  cross  and  a  circle. 3 

Mr.  Maurice  describes  a  statue  in  Egypt  as  "  bearing  a  kind  of  cross  in  its  hand,  that  is  to  say, 
**  a  Phallus,  which,  among  the  Egyptians,  was  the  symbol  of  fertility."  *  Fertility,  that  is  in 
other  words,  the  productive,  generative  power.  On  the  Egyptian  monuments,  in  the  British 
Museum,  may  be  seen  the  mystic  cross  in  great  numbers  of  places.  And  upon  the  breast  of  one 
of  the  Mummies  in  the  Museum  of  the  London  University,  is  a  cross  exactly  in  this  shape, 
a  cross  upon  a  Calvary.  CZ 


it. 


■  On  Priapus,  p.  48.  *  Vol.  I.  p.  213,  PI.  xxxiii. 

3  Monthly  Mag.  Vol.  LVI.  *  Ant.  Vol.  III.  p.  1 13. 

2  F 


.ng  JUSTIN   AND  TERTULLIAN   ON   THE   CROSS. 

The  reader  may  refer  to  the  thirty-ninth  number  of  the  Classical  Journal,  for  some  curious  and 

profound  observations  on  the  Crux  ansata.  •         . 

2    The  sign  of  the  cross  is  well  known  to  all  Romish  Christians,  among  whom  it  is  yet  used  » 

2.    Ihe  sign  ot  tne  cro  Apology:  "  And  whereas 

everv  respect  as  is  described  by  Justin,  wno  ndt>  m»  y        &  „    V    w     .  ,  ., 

every  respect  as  Q  d  He  expressed  him  up0n  the 

: ":;:  "1:7;:;  srsfs  «  -  J*.  ^  •«-.,■  - » - 

«  MTs  aw  W  g   itU  related,  that  after  the  Israelites  went  out  of  Egypt  and  were  in  the  desert, 

-  *™  set  upon  and  destroyed  hy  venomous  beasts,  vipers,  asps    and  all  sorts  of  serpents 
«  and  that  Moses  thereupon,  by  particular  inspiration  from  God,  took  brass  and  made  the  sign  of 
«  the  cross  and  placed  it  by  the  holy  tabernacle,  and  declared,  that  if  the  people  would  look  upon 

-  lhatcrol;  and  believe,  they  should  be  saved  ,  upon  which  he  writes,  that  the  serpents  died,  and 

*TZZ:;2^e^Z^«,  said,  .*._<  p~  to  the  Supreme  God  was 

-  "us  ed  or  figured  in  the  shape  of  a  cross  on  the  universe."  These  opinions  of  Plato  were 
tal en  mm  the  do  trine  of  Pythagoras  relating  to  numbers,  which  were  extremely  mystical,  and 
are  certainly  not  understood.  Here  we.  have  the  Son  oe  God  typified  by  the  X,  hundreds  of  years 
before  Christ  was  born,  but  this  is  in  keeping  with  the  Platonic  Trimly. 

It  is  a  certain  fact  that  there  is  no  such  passage  as  that  quoted  by  Justin  relating  to  the  cross 
in  the  Old  or  the  New  Testament.  This  is  merely  an  example  of  economical  reasoning,  of  pious 
fraud,  in  the  first  Christian  father,  not  said  to  be  inspired,  any  of  whose  entire  and  undented 
workl  we  possess.  The  evident  object  of  this  fraud  was  to  account  for  the  adorat.on  o  the  cross, 
which  Justin  found  practised  by  his  followers,  but  the  cause  of  which  he  did  not  «■*•*»* 

Tertullian  says,  that  «  The  Devil  signed  his  soldiers  in  the  forehead,  ,n  .rn.tat.on  -*•«**- 
"  tians  :  Mithra  signat  illic  in  frontibus  milites  suos."  ■  And  St.  Austin  says,  that  the  cross 
«  and  baptism  were  never  parted  :  semper  enim  cruci  Bapt.smus  jungitur. 

The  cross  was  a  sacred  emblem  with  the  Egyptian,     The  Ibis  was  represented  with  human 

hands  and  feet  holding  the  staff  of  Isis  in  one  hand,  and  a  globe  and  cross  m  the  other     It  is  on 

most  of  the  Egyptian  obelisks,  and  was  used  as  an  amulet.     Saturn's  astrological  character  was  a 

cross  and  a  ram's-horn.     Jupiter  also  bore  a  cross,  with  a  horn.  ,,,,,,„ 

«  We  have  already  observed,  that  the  cabalists  left  these  gross  symbols  to  the  people,  but  the 

"  learned  and  the  initiated  piercing  through  these  objects,  pretended  to  aspire  to  the  knowledge  and 

"  contemplation  of  the  Deity.-      Again,  «  What  hideous  darkness  must  mvolve  the  Egyptian 

«  history  and  religion,  which  were  only  known  by  ambiguous  signs  !     It  was  impossible  but  they 

«  must  vary  in  their  explication  of  these  signs,  and  in  a  long  tract  of  time  forget  what  the  ancients 

«  meant  by  them.     And  thus  every  one  made  his  own  conjectures  :  and  the  priests  taking  advan- 

«  tage  of  the  obscurity  of  the  signs,  and  ignorance  of  the  people,  made  the  best  of  their  own 

•->  learning  and  fancies.    Hence  necessarily  happened  two  things-one,  that  religion  often  changed , 

«  the  other,  that  the  cabalists  were  in  great  esteem,  because  necessary  men. 

From  these  quotations  it  is  evident  the  sign  of  the  cross  was  a  religion,  symbol  commor >  both 
to  Heathens  and  Christians,  and  that  it  was  used  by  the  former  long  before  thereof  Chruttr 
anity.*  The  two  principal  pagodas  of  India,  viz.  at  Benares  and  Mathnra,  are  budt  in  the  form 
of  crosses."    The  cross  was  also  a  symbol  of  the  British  Druids.'     Mr.  Maurice  says,      We 


■  Tenul.  de  Prascrip.  '  Aug.  Temp.  Ser.  CI ;  Ree.e's  Ap.  Vol.  I   p.  98. 

',  toto*J.^A8^hXta* ;  Terminal  Apoi.  Ch.  xvi.  '  Maur.  lad.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  359. 

i  See  Borlase,  Ant.  Cornwall,  p.  108 ;  Maur.  lad.  Aat.  Vol.  VI.  p.  68. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER  IV.      SECTION  3.  2J9 

u  know  that  the  Druid  system  of  religion,  long  before  the  time  of  Cambyses,  had  taken  deep  root 
"  in  the  British  Isles."  *  "  The  cross  among  the  Egyptians  was  an  hieroglyphic,  importing  the 
"  life  that  is  to  come."2 

Mr.  Ledwick  has  observed  that  the  presence  of  Heathen  devices  and  crosses  on  the  same  coin 
are  not  unusual,  as  Christians  in  those  early  times  were  for  the  most  part  Semi  pagans.  This  is 
diametrically  in  opposition  to  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Protestants  about  the  early  purity  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Christ,  and  its  subsequent  corruption  by  the  Romists.  It  equally  militates  against  the 
purity  of  the  Culdees.  In  fact  it  is  mere  nonsense,  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  cross  was 
one  of  the  most  common  of  the  Gentile  symbols,  and  was  adopted  by  the  Christians  like  all  their 
other  rites  and  ceremonies  from  the  Gentiles — and  this  assertion  I  will  prove,  before  I  finish  this 
work. 

Nothing  in  my  opinion  can  more  clearly  shew  the  identity  of  the  two  systems  of  the  Christian 
priests,  and  of  the  ancient  worshipers  of  the  Sun,  than  the  fact,  unquestionably  proved,  that  the 
sign  or  monogram  used  by  both  was  identically  the  same.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  that  this 
can  be  the  effect  of  accident. 

3.  The  following  are  monograms  of  Christ,  J?  J?  ;  but  it  is  unquestionable,  that  they  are  also 
monograms  of  Jupiter  Amnion.  The  same  character  is  found  upon  one  of  the  medals  of  Decius, 
the  great  persecutor  of  the  Christians,  with  this  word  upon  it,  B  A  $  ATO-3  This  cipher  is  also 
found  on  the  staff  of  Isis  and  of  Osiris.  There  is  also  existing  a  medal  of  Ptolomy,  king  of  Cy- 
rene,  having  an  eagle  carrying  a  thunderbolt,  with  the  monogram  of  Christ,  to  signify  the  oracle 
of  Jupiter  Ammon,  which  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cyrene,  and  in  the  kingdom  of  Ptolomy.4 

Basnage  says,  "  Nothing  can  be  more  opposite  to  Jesus  Christ  than  the  oracle  of  Jupiter 
"  Ammom.  And  yet  the  same  cipher  served  the  false  God  as  well  as  the  true  one  ;  for  we  see  a 
"  medal  of  Ptolomy,  king  of  Cyrene,  having  an  eagle  carrying  a  thunder-bolt,  with  the  monogram 
"  of  Christ  to  signify  the  Oracle  of  Jupiter  Hammon."5 

Dr.  Clarke  has  given  a  drawing  of  a  medal,  found  in  the  Ruins  of  Citium,  in  Cyprus,  which  he 
shews  is  Phoenician,  and,  therefore,  of  very  great  antiquity.  This  medal  proves  that  the  Lamb, 
the  holy  cross,  and  the  rosary,  were  in  use  in  a  very  remote  period,  and  that  they  all  went  together, 
long  before  the  time  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

It  is  related  by  Socrates  that  when  the  temple  of  Serapis,  at  Alexandria,  was  demolished  by  one 
of  the  Christian  emperors  in  his  pious  zeal  against  the  demons  who  inhabited  those  places,  under 
the  names  of  Gods,  that  beneath  the  foundation  was  discovered  the  monogram  of  Christ,  and  that 
the  Christians  made  use  of  the  circumstance  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  their  religion,  thereby 
making  many  converts.  It  is  very  curious  that  this  unexpected  circumstance  should  have  carried 
conviction  (as  we  learn  that  it  did)  to  the  minds  of  the  philosophers  of  the  falsity  of  the  religion  of 
Christ,  and  to  the  minds  of  the  Christians  of  its  truth.  Unquestionably  when  the  Christians  held 
that  the  digging  up  of  this  monogram  from  under  the  ruins  of  the  temples  was  a  proof  that  they 
should  be  overthrown  by  the  Cross  of  Christ,  with  the  Christian  Roman  Emperor  and  his  legions 
at  their  elbow,  they  would  have  the  best  of  the  argument.     But  what  was  still  more  to  the  pur- 


1  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VI.  p.  104;  Celtic  Druids,  by  the  Author. 

*  Ruffinus,  Vol.  II.  p.  29;  Sozomen  says  the  same,  Hist.  Eccl.  Vol.  VII.  p.  15. 
I  suspect  that  this  word  having  been  inscribed  on  a  coin  is  circular,  and  may  either  begin  or  end  with  the  O — that 
it  ought  to  be  OBA|?AT,  and  that  it  is  a  Hebrew  word  written  in  Greek  letters,  meaning  the  Creator,  formed  from 
the  word  toa  bra  to  create.    The  X  is  put  in  the  middle  of  the  word,  the  same  as  the  Samach  or  Mem  final,  in  the 
passage  of  Isaiah,  and  for  the  same  reason. 

4  Bas.  B.  iii.  Ch.  xxiii.  S.  iii.  A  X^^gtov,  Scaliger  in  Euseb.  Chron.,  Hist.  Jews,  B.  iii.  Ch  xxiii. 

2  f  2 


220  CROSS    OF    EZEKIEL   AND    OTHERS. 

pose,  the  pagan  religion  was  out  of  fashion.     Reason  has  hitherto  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
religion. 

On  this  subject  of  the  cross  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  Let  not  the  piety  of  the  Catholic  Christian  be 
"  offended  at  the  preceding  assertion,  that  the  cross  was  one  of  the  most  usual  symbols  among  the 
"  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt  and  India.  Equally  honoured  in  the  Gentile  and  the  Christian  world, 
"  this  emblem  of  universal  nature,  of  that  world  to  whose  four  quarters  its  diverging  radii  pointed, 
"  decorated  the  hands  of  most  of  the  sculptured  images  in  the  former  country ;  and  in  the  latter 
"  stamped  its  form  upon  the  most  majestic  of  the  shrines  of  their  deities." 1  I  think  Mr.  Maurice 
should  have  said  this  emblem  of  the  prolific  powers  of  nature.  In  the  cave  of  Elephanta,  in  India, 
over  the  head  of  the  figure  who  is  destroying  the  infants,  whence  the  story  of  Herod  and  the  in- 
fants at  Bethlehem  (which  was  unknown  to  all  the  Jewish,  Roman,  and  Grecian  historians)  took 
its  origin,  may  be  seen  the  Mitre,  the  Crozier,  and  the  Cross ;  and,  a  little  in  the  front  of  the 
group,  a  large  Lingam,  the  emblem  of  generation,  the  creative  power  of  nature. 2 

4.  Mr.  Maurice  observes,  that  in  Egypt,  as  well  as  in  India,  the  letter  T,  or  in  other  words,  the 
Cross,  or  the  Crux  Hermis,  was  very  common,  in  which  form  many  of  the  temples  of  India  are 
built,  and  those  in  particular  dedicated  to  Cristna :   as  for  example,  those  at  Matterea  or  Mattra, 
and  at  Benares.     D'Ancarville  and  the  generality  of  mycologists  explain  this  symbol  to  refer  to 
the  Deity  in  his  creative  capacity,  in  both  ancient  Egypt  and  India.     Mr.  Bruce  frequently  met 
with  it  in  his  travels  in  the  higher  Egypt  and  Abyssinia,  and  it  was  also  very  often  noticed  by  Dr. 
Clarke.     It  was   commonly  called  the  crux  ansata,  in  this  form    q    and  was  what  was  referred 
to  in  Ezekiel, 3  in  the  Vulgate,  and  the  ancient  Septuagint,  accord-      |      ing  to  Lowth,  rendered,  "  I 
"  will  mark  them  in  the  forehead  with  the  T  or  Tau."     It  is  also      |      referred   to  by  Tertullian, 
when  he  says  that  the  Devil  signed  his  soldiers  in  the  forehead  in  imitation  of  the  Christians.    It  is 
certainly  very  remarkable  that  God  should  select  this  Mithraitic  symbol  for  the  mark  to  distinguish 
the  elect  from  those  that  were  to  be  slain  by  the  sword  of  the  destroyers.     This  may  furnish  ano- 
ther reason  why  Christians  should  moderate  their  anger  against  those  who  used  this  symbol  of  the 
creative  power  of  God.4    The  Latin  Vulgate5  does  in  fact  read,  "  You  shall  mark  their  forehead 
"  with  the  letter  Thau,"  i.  e.  Tau  cij/ASiov,  and  not  as  at  present  in  the  LXX.  to  <t^[xsiov.6    In 
the  Mazoretic  Hebrew  it  is  )n  tau,  which  confirms  the  Vulgate  and  shews  what  it  was  considered 
to  be  by  the  Mazorites  of  the  middle  ages.     The  cross  was  much  venerated  by  the  cabalists  of  the 
early  Christians  who  endeavoured  to  blend  the  arcana  of  Plato  and  the  numerical  doctrines  of  Py- 
thagoras with  the  mysteries   of  Christianity.     I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  either  the  origin  of  the 
words  Taut  and  Thoth,  names  of  the  Egyptian  Gods,  or,  that  these  words  are  the  originals  from 
which  it  came ;  and  perhaps  of  the  Thor  of  the  Celts,  who  went  into  Hell  and  bruised  the  head  of 
the  great  snake.    The  monogram  of  the  Scandinavian  Mercury  was  represented  by  a  cross.     The 
Monogram  of  the  Egyptian  Taut  is  formed  by  three  crosses  thus,       -p       united    at   the    feet, 
and  forms,  to  this  day,  the  jewel  of  the  royal  arch  among  free  ma-  | — ' — |  sons.    It  is  the  figure 
and  is  X=600  H  =8=608. 


* 


The  Samaritans  had,  in  very  early  times,  the  Tau  of  their  alphabet  in  the  form  of  the  Greek  Tau, 
as  is  clearly  proved  by  their  ancient  Shekels,  on  which  it  is  so  inscribed.7    St.  Jerom  and  Origen 


1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  I.  p.  359.  s  Forbes's  Oriental  Memoirs,  Vol.  HI.  Ch.  xxxv.  p.  448. 

3  Ch  ix.  ver.  4.  *  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VI.  p.  67.  *  Ezekiel  Ch.  ix.  ver.  4. 

6  Maurice,  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p.  245. 

7  The  reader  may  find  some  curious  observations  on  the  Crux  Ansata  in  Monthly  Magazine,  Vol.  LVI.  No.  III.  p.  388. 


BOOK  V.    CHAP.  IV.    SECT.  5.  221 

both  assert  that  it  was  so  in  Samaritan  copies  of  the  Pentateuch  in  their  day.  The  Celtic  lan- 
guage of  Wales  has  it  also  in  the  form  of  a  Tau,  though  a  little  changed  thus,  t.  This  tends  to 
prove  that  the  Greeks  and  Celts  had  their  letters  from  the  Samaritans,  or  early  Chaldeans.  Might 
not  the  Tat  or  Taut  be  TT=600,  or  TTL-650  ?     This  will  be  explained  by  and  by. 

On  the  decad  or  the  number  X,  the  Pythagoreans  say,  "That  ten  is  a  perfect  number,  even  the 
"  most  perfect  of  all  numbers,  comprehending  in  it  all  difference  of  numbers,  all  reasons,  species, 
"  and  proportions.  For,  if  the  nature  of  the  universe  be  defined  according  to  the  reasons  and  pro- 
"  portions  of  numbers ;  and  that  which  is  produced,  and  increased,  and  perfected,  proceed  accord- 
"  ing  to  the  reasons  of  numbers;  and  the  decad  comprehends  every  reason  of  number,  and  every 
"  proportion  and  all  species ;  why  should  not  nature  itself  be  termed  by  the  name  of  ten,  X,  the 
"  most  perfect  number?"1 

The  Hexad  or  number  six  is  considered  by  the  Pythagoreans  a  perfect  and  sacred  number;  among 
many  other  reasons,  because  it  divides  the  universe  into  equal  parts. 2  It  is  called  Venus  or  the 
mother.  It  is  also  perfect,  because  it  is  the  only  number  under  X,  ten,  which  is  whole  and  equal 
in  its  parts.     In  Hebrew  Vau  is  six.     Is  van  mother  Eva  or  Eve  ?  Nirr  eua. 

5.  The  Rabbins  say,  that  when  Aaron  was  made  high-priest  he  was  marked  on  the  forehead  by 
Moses  with  a  figure  like  the  Greek  ^.3  This  is  the  Samaching.  This  letter  X  in  the  Greek  lan- 
guage meant  600,  the  number  of  the  Neros.  It  answered  to  the  Mem  final  of  the  Hebrews,  found 
in  so  peculiar  a  manner  in  the  middle  of  the  word  rD~iD^>  Imrbe  in  Isaiah.  We  every  where  meet 
with  X  meaning  600,  and  XH  and  TH2  meaning  608,  the  monograms  of  Bacchus  according  to 
Martianus  Capella,  in  the  churches  and  monuments  in  Italy  dedicated  to  Jesus  Christ ;  and  in 
this  is  found  a  striking  proof  of  what  I  have  said  before,  in  the  beginning  of  this  book,  respecting 
the  two  Neroses;  for  the  use  of  the  X  for  600,  and  the  XH  and  THS  for  608,  indiscriminately 
as  monograms  op  Christ,  connect  them  altogether,  and  prove  that  the  two  Neroses,  the  one  of 
600  and  the  other  608,  had  the  same  origin.  This  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  for  it  is  a  grand  link 
which  connects  Christianity  with  the  ancient  oriental  mythoses,  in  a  manner  which  cannot  be  dis- 
puted, and  most  unquestionably  proves  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  Ammonias  Saccas,  that  the  two 
religions  are  in  principle  identical.  I  do  not  know  what  persons  may  believe  on  this  subject :  but 
I  do  know  that  this  is  evidence,  and  conclusive  evidence. 

The  T,  Tau,  was  the  instrument  of  death,  but  it  was  also  (as  before  mentioned)  what  Ezekiel 
ordered  the  people  in  Jerusalem  to  be  marked  with,  who  were  to  be  saved  from  the  destroyer.  It 
was  also  the  emblem  of  the  Taranis  or  the  Thoth  or  Teutates  or  Tat4  or  Hermes  or  Buddha  among 
the  Druids.  It  was  called  the  Crux  Hermis.  The  old  Hebrew,  the  Bastulan,  and  the  Pelasgian, 
have  the  letter  Tau  thus,  X;  the  Etruscan,  -f-  X  ;  the^Coptic,  -j-  ;  the  Punic,  XX-  lt  is  not  un_ 
likely  that  the  Greek  priests  changed  their  letters  as  marks  of  notation,  from  the  ancient  Phoeni- 
cian or  Cadmean,  by  the  introduction  of  the  episemon  bau  or  vau,  to  make  them  suit  the  mystery 
contained  in  the  sacred  number  608,  and  the  word  derived  from  the  Hebrew  word  to  save  and  the 
sacred  cross.  Thus  the  letter  X  stood  for  the  600  of  the  Hebrews,  for  Ezekiel's  sacred  mark  of 
salvation,  and  for  the  astronomical  or  astrological  cycle. 

Nothing  can  be  more  common  than  the  letter  X  in  Italy  as  a  monogram  of  Christ.  But  we 
have  seen  above,  from  Plato,  as  quoted  by  the  celebrated  Justin  Martyr,   that  it  was  the  emblem 

1  Moderates  of  Gaza  apud  Stanley,  Hist.  Pyth.  P.  IX.  Ch.  iv. 

*  In  Chapters  x.  and  xiv.  of  Part  IX.  of  Stanley's  History  of  Philosophy  may  be  seen  abundant  proofs,  that  the 
science  of  Pythagoras  relating  to  numbers  had  been  then  a  long  time  totally  lost.  For  the  mystery  of  letters  see  Jones 
on  the  Canon,  Vol.  II.  p.  425  j  also  Basnage,  B.  iii.  Ch.  xxvi.  Sect.  ii.  iii. 

a  Life  of  Usher,  p.  348.  •  See  B.  v.  Ch.  i.  Sect.  2. 


222 


CHRISMON    SANCTI    AMBROGII. 


of  the  Son  of  God,  the  Logos,  which  Son  of  God  is  declared  over  and  over  again  by  Justin  to  be 
divine  wisdom,  i.  e.  the  same  as  Buddha.  Whenever  proselytes  were  admitted  into  the  religion  of 
the  Bull— of  Mithra— they  were  marked  in  the  forehead  with  this  mark  of  600,  X.  The  initiated 
were  marked  with  this  sign  also,  when  they  were  admitted  into  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis.  We 
constantly  see  the  Tau  and  the  Resh  united  thus  T>  These  two  letters  in  the  old  Samaritan,  as 
found  on  coins,  stand  the  first  for  400,  the  second  "J*  for  200=600.  This  is  the  staff  of  Osiris.  It  is 
also  the  monogram  of  Osiris,  and  has  been  adopted  by  the  Christians,  and  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
churches  in  Italy  in  thousands  of  places.  See  Basnage,  (Lib.  iii.  Cap.  xxiii.,)  where  several  other 
instances  of  this  kind  may  be  found.  In  Addison's  Travels  in  Italy  there  is  an  account  of  a  medal, 
at  Rome,  of  Constantius,  with  this  inscription  :  In  hoc  signo  Victor  eris  Jp.  In  the  Abbey  church 
at  Bath  the  monogram  on  the  monument  of  Archdeacon  Thomas  lately  buried  is  thus :  ]f?.  This 
shews  how  long  a  superstition  will  last,  after  its  meaning  is  quite  lost. 

Dr.  Daniel  Clarke  has  made  several  striking  observations  respecting  the  Crux  Ansata.  After 
repeating  the  well-known  observation  of  Socrates  Scholasticus,  that  it  meant  life  to  come,  he  says, 
K  Kircher's  ingenuity  had  guided  him  to  an  explanation  of  the  crux  ansata,  as  a  monogram  which 
"  does  not  militate  against  the  signification  thus  obtained.  He  says,  it  consisted  of  the  letters 
"  4>T,  denoting  Ptha,  a  name  of  Mercury,  Thoth,  Taut,  or  Ptha."  He  then  observes,  that  it  was 
often  used  as  a  key,  and  might  be  the  foundation  of  the  numerous  allusions  in  sacred  writ,  to  the 
keys  of  Heaven,  of  Hell,  and  of  Death.  In  a  note,  he  says,  "  Sed  non  erat  ullum  templum,  in 
"  quo  non  figura  crucis  ansata,  ut  eum  eruditi  vocant  :  saepius  vixenda  occurreret,  hodieque  in 
"  ruderibus  ac  minis  etiamnum  occurrat.  Ejus  haec  est  species  £  . . . .  Crucem  vero  istam  an- 
"  satam,  quae  in  omnibus  iEgyptiorum  templis  saepius  ficta  et  picta  extabat,  quam  signa  deorum 
"  iEgyptiorum  manu  tenere  solent,  quae  partem  facit  ornatis  Sacerdotalis,  nihil  aliud  esse  quam 
"  phallum."  l  *'  Jamblicus  thinks  the  crux  ansata  was  the  name  of  the  Divine  Being. . .  .Some- 
"  times  it  is  represented  by  a  cross  fastened  to  a  circle  as  above  :  in  other  instances,   with  the 


"  letter    |    only,  fixed  in  this  manner 
I  think  few  persons  will  doubt,  what 


tto  a  circle." 
old  Kircher 


says  is  true,  that  it  means  -\-  X  —  600. 


PThas 


600. 


<f>  =      500 
6  =         9 

a.    =  1 

<,  =       90 

And  when  accompanied  by  the  circle,  it  is  the  Linga  and  Ioni  of  India  united.  The  Deity  *&$<x.$ 
presided  in  the  kingdom  of  Omptha,  Om-tha,  the  cycle  Om.  Here  we  have  the  cycle  of  600,  the 
Om  of  Isaiah,  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  the  Om-tha  of  Egypt  all  united.  The  Greek  numbers  must 
have  been  once  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  above,  and  have  been  changed,  as  the  reader  will  be 
convinced  in  a  moment,  by  considering  the  two  alphabets  in  my  Table  of  Alphabets,  page  10. 
The  Greek  Tau  was  anciently  written  +.3 

6.  The  monogram  which  constitutes  figure  9,  I  copied  from  a  bad  drawing  of  a  stone  at  the 
back  of  the  Choir  in  the  Duomo  at  Milan,  lent  to  me  by  the  Sacristan,  who  told  me  that  it  had 
been  then  lately  removed,  in  consequence  of  a  gentleman  from  Naples  having  noticed  it,  and 
having  made  a  drawing  of  it.  He  had  come  from  Naples  on  purpose.  I  saw  it  there  myself  the 
first  time  I  went  to  Milan  ;  when  I  went  again  it  was  gone.  (The  church  is  very  discreet.)  The 
following  is  the  description  of  it,   taken  from  Nuova  Descrizione  Del  Duomo  di  Milano,  presso 


1  Vide  Jablonski,  Panth.  JEgyp  I    282. 
3  Vide  Parkhurst's  Lexicon  in  voce  T. 


2  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  III.  p.  107. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  6.  223 

Ferdinando  Artaria,  1820:  "  Non  lungi  da  questo  monumento  si  vede  incastrata  nel  muro  una 
"  pietra,  la  quale,  entro  a  misterioso  cerchio  contiene  scolpito  il  monogramma  ossia  1'  abbreviatura 
"  del  nome  del  Salvatore  in  lettere  Greche  coll'  alfa  ed  omega  dall'  una  e  dall'  altra  parte,  antica- 
"  mente  chiamato  il  crisma  o  sia  oracolo  di  S.  Ambrogio  :  Landolfo,  scrittore  Milanese,  assicura 
"  che  questo  serviva  di  primo  elemento  ai  catecumini  per  iniziarli  nei  misteri  della  fide.  Sotto 
"  questa  pietra  ed  agli  ornamenti  de  marmo  che  vi  sono  stati  posti  diutorno,  leggesi  la  iscrizione 
"  sequente,  in  parte  mascherata  da  un  confessionale  : 

"  ClRCULUS    *    HlC    •   SUMMI  '  CONTINET  '  NOMINA  *  REGIS  *  QUEM  "  SINE  '  PRINCIPIO  '  ET  *  SINE 

"  pine  •  vides  •  principium  •  cum  'fine  •  Tibi  •  designat  A  •  et '  £1  nella  antica  lapida  era  ag- 
"  giunto  : 

"X.  '  et  •  P.  Christi  •  Nomina  •  Sancta  •  tenet." 

In  the  next  page,  30,  is  a  description  of  the  last  footstep  on  Mount  Olivet,  thus  printed  : 
"  Nostro  Signore  IHV — Cristo."  In  the  Chrismon  above  are  the  Etruscan  Tau  400  and  the  Resh 
200=600.  In  my  essay  on  The  Celtic  Druids,  (p.  264,)  I  have  shewn  an  example  from  Dr. 
Clarke  of  a  mixture  of  the  Phoenician  and  Etruscan  letters  in  a  Phoenician  inscription  in  Etruscan 
characters. 

In  this  magical  device  of  St.  Ambrose,  which  is  a  cross  with  eight  points,  here  are  the  Alpha 
and  Omega,  the  well-known  emblems  of  eternity,  united  to  the  cycle  of  600,  the  X  and  P,  pro- 
nounced to  be  emblems  of  eternal  life.     See  plates,  fig.  9. 

The  learned  Spencer  says,  "  Nomen  solis  mysticum  ad  numerum  octo  et  sexcentorum  pervenie- 
"  bat,  uti  nos  docet  Martianus  Capella.  Id  autem  hoc  modo  notabatur,  XH.  Cabalisticus  ille 
"  deorum  nomina  designandi  modus  eo  antiquior  habeatur,  quod  veri  Dei  (nempe  Christi)  nomen 
"  mysticis  numeris  expressum,  in  claro  illo  aenigmate. *  Sibyllino  reperiamus  :  quamvis  haud 
"  adeo  inter  doctos  conveniat  cuinam  Christi  nomini  vel  titulo,  numerus  ille  melius  congruat."  2 

The  Abbe  Pluche  says  that  the  Egyptians  marked  their  God  Canobus  indifferently  with  a  T  or  a 
•"J-1.  The  Vaishnavas  of  India  have  also  the  same  sacred  Jar.  which  they  also  mark  with  crosses 
thus  r^,  and  with  triangles  thus  \X-  The  vestment  of  the  priests  of  Horus  is  covered  with  these 
crosses  -f- 3  This  is  the  same  as  the  dress  of  the  Lama  of  Tibet.  These  are  the  sectarian  marks 
of  the  Jains,  J-J     J-J        The  distinctive  badge  of  the  sect  of  Xaca  Japonicus,  is  this  ■  I   I 

The  religion  of  the  Jains,  Buddha,  or  Xaca,  and  Fo,  all  having  been  proved  the  same,  we  have 
here  the  sign  of  Fo,  identical  with  the  cross  of  Christ. 

In  Montfaucon 6  may  be  seen  several  medals  of  Anubis  or  Noubis,  where  he  is  called  X  and  T, 
Noubis  or  Noumis,  or  in  his  fig.  10,  Anoubis.     Again, 

In  the  samer  is  a  medal  with  the  letters  <J»PH.  4»=500,  P=100,  H=8,=608.  In  the  same 
plate,  No.  36,  is  a  young  man  crowned  ;  with  a  cup  in  one  hand,  and  the  letters  X  on  one  side  of 
him,  and  @  on  the  other;  this  last  is  an  Etruscan  letter,  which  stands  for  8,  X  0=608.  Another, 
not  numbered,  above  33,  exhibits  a  female  nursing  a  child,  with  ears  of  corn  in  her  hand,  and  the 
legend  cooli,  Iao.  She  is  seated  on  clouds,  a  star  is  at  her  head,  and  three  ears  of  corn  are  rising 
from  an  altar  before  her.  The  reading  of  the  Greek  letters,  from  right  to  left,  shews  this  to  be  no 
produce  of  modern  Gnosticism,  but  to  be  very  ancient. 


1  Orac.  Sibyl.  L.  i.  p.  171,  ed.  Par.  1599. 

*  Spencer,  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  xiv.  p.  365.  3  See  Caylus,  Vol.  VI.  PI.  7 ;  Vail.  Col.  Vol.  VI.  p.  185. 

■  See  Moore's  Ind.  Pantheon,  pp.  401,  451.  s  Georgius,  Alphab.  Tib.  Ap.  III.  p.  725. 

6  Ant.  Exp.  Vol.  II.  PI.  49.  7  Ibid.  Vol.  II.  PI.  50,  Fig.  14. 


224  SACRED   NUMBERS   IN   THE   TEMPLES   OP   BRITAIN. 

It  is  the  common  and  unsatisfactory  way  of  accounting  for  the  mystical  character  of  medals  of 
this  kind,  to  throw  them  all  aside  as  the  idle  superstitions  of  the  Gnostic  Christians.  But  here 
the  style  of  writing  from  right  to  left  proves  the  foregoing  to  be  of  a  date  long  prior  to  Christianity. 
The  idle  and  unfounded  plea  of  Gnostic  Christianity  has  been  of  inestimable  value  to  the  Christian 
priesthood,  by  enabling  them  to  conceal  many  very  important  facts,  which,  in  consequence  of  this 
plea,  cannot  be  adduced  as  evidence  of  ancient  doctrines.  Were  it  not  for  this  plea  I  should  fill  a 
book  with  these  facts. 

In  Dr.  Daniel  Clarke's  Travels,  at  the  head  of  Chapter  XI.  of  Vol  II.,  will  be  found  a  print  of 
the  medal  of  the  ancient  Phoenicians  found  at  Citium  or  Cyprus,  before  named,  on  one  side  of 
which  are  a  ram  couchant,  and  on  the  other  the  cross,  the  rosary,  and  two  letters  or  figures. 


The  following  are  copies,  taken  most  carefully  from  Mr.  Astle's  table  of  the  general  alphabet  of 
the  Etruscans  :  H  ^  $  ©  ®  J  M  00  Tff .  I  ask,  may  not  these  two  letters  on  the  medal, 
connected  here  with  the  lamb,  the  cross,  the  circle,  and  the  rosary,  (the  latter  found  in  the 
hands  of  most  Hindoo  Gods,)  signify  M.  600,  H.  8  ?  The  letter  M,  as  described  on  this  medal, 
differs  both  from  the  closed  and  the  open  Mem  of  the  Hebrews,  in  shape,  but  as  there  is  a 
variety  of  ways  in  which  the  ancient  Etruscans  formed  this  letter,  we  can  never  be  certain  that 
this  may  not  have  been  a  Mem  final  standing  for  600,  like  that  of  the  Hebrews.  The  figure  for 
the  H  is  evidently  the  origin  of  our  8.  And  here,  as  joined  with  the  Mem  and  connected  with  all 
the  other  circumstances,  raises  a  very  strong  presumption  that  the  celebrated  608  is  meant. l 
When  I  consider  all  the  collateral  circumstances  attending  this  medal,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
many  things  are  received  in  which  the  imagination  is  more  taxed  than  in  this.  I  affirm  nothing 
except  that  I  wish  some  one  to  give  me  a  more  rational  explanation  of  the  two  letters  or  figures. 
I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  we  tread  on  mystic  ground. 

The  votaries  of  the  Roman  Church  constantly  mark  themselves  with  the  cross — the  emblem  of 
600.  They  will  say,  they  do  it  in  commemoration  of  the  sufferings  of  their  Saviour.  When  I 
consider  the  peculiarity  of  the  cycles  and  epochs  in  Siam,  that  of  Mr.  Bentley,  the  Mem  final  of 
Isaiah,  his  prophecy,  that  of  Zoradusht,  of  the  Sibyl,  and  of  Virgil,  and  also  that  of  the  Druid  of 
Bochara  in  Ireland,  the  magical  character  of  the  disputed  chapters  in  Luke  and  Matthew,  and  the 
X  and  IHS  XH,  the  monograms  of  the  black  Christ,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  they  all  refer 
to  the  same  person— Buddha — or  the  Christ,  the  black  God  of  the  temple  of  Bethlehem,  but  not  to 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  and,  in  support  of  this  opinion,  a  thousand  other  reasons  will  be  given  in  the 
course  of  this  work. 

I  shall  now  exhibit,  in  an  extract  from  my  Celtic  Druids,  another  example  of  the  mystical 
numbers  600  and  608,  where  few  persons  would  expect  to  find  it,  viz.  in  the  ancient  Druidical 
temples  of  Britain.     "  The  most  extraordinary  peculiarity  which  the  Druidical  circles  possess,  is 

1  Ancient  Teutonic  M,  Aft,* 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  7-  225 


that  of  their  agreement  in  the  number  of  the  stones  of  which  they  consist  with  the  ancient 
astronomical  cycles.  The  outer  circle  of  Stonehenge  consists  of  60  stones,  the  base  of  the  most 
famous  of  all  the  cyles  of  antiquity.  The  next  circle  consists  of  40  stones,  but  one  on  each  side 
of  the  entrance  is  advanced  out  of  the  line,  so  as  to  leave  19  stones,  a  metonic  cycle,  on  each 
"  side,  and  the  inner,  of  one  metonic  cycle,  or  19  stones.  At  Abury  we  find  all  the  outward 
"  circles  and  the  avenues  make  up  exactly  the  600,  the  Neros,  which  Josephus  says  was  known 
"  before  the  flood.  The  outer  circles  are  exactly  the  number  of  degrees  in  each  of  the  12  parts, 
"  into  which,  in  my  aerial  castle-building,  I  divided  the  circle,  viz.  30,  and  into  which  at  first  the 
"  year  was  divided,  and  the  inner,  of  the  number  of  the  divisions  of  the  circle,  viz.  12,  and  of  the 
"  months  in  the  year.  We  see  the  last  measurement  of  Stonehenge,  taken  by  Mr.  Waltire,  makes 
"  the  second  circle  40 ;  but  for  the  sake  of  marking  the  two  cycles  of  19  years,  two  of  the  stones, 
"  one  on  each  side  of  the  entrance,  have  been  placed  a  little  within.  I  think  it  very  likely  that 
"  the  outer  circle  of  the  hackpen  of  40  stones  was  originally  formed  in  the  same  manner.  Surely 
"  it  is  not  improbable  that  what  is  found  in  one  temple  should  have  been  originally  in  the  other. 
"  I  also  think  that  the  whole  number  of  stones  which  Stonehenge  consisted  of  was  144,  according 
"  to  Mr.  Waltire's  model,  and  including  along  with  it  three  stones  which  could  not  be  described  in 
"  Mr.  Waltire's  model  for  want  of  room ;  thus  making  the  sum-total  of  stones  amount  exactly  to 
"  the  oriental  cycle  or  vau  of  144  years. 

Outer  circle  with  its  coping  stones 60 

Inner    , ,,,, ,   40 

Outer  ellipse  21 

Inner  parabola    , , 19 

Altar 1 

Three  outer  stones 3 


144 
"  In  this  temple  the  outer  circle  is  the  oriental  cycle  of  Vrihaspati,  60.  Next  outer  circle,  ex- 
"  elusive  of  two  entrance  stones  a  little  removed  inside  the  line,  to  mark  a  separation  from  the 
"  others,  making  two  metonic  cycles,  each  19.  The  trilithons  are  seven  in  number,  equal  to  the 
"  planets.  The  inner  row  is  a  parabolic  curve,  and  the  stones  a  metonic  cycle.  Now  with  re- 
"  spect  to  Abury  we  find  the  same  peculiarity. 

"  Outer  circle 100  stones 

Northern  temple  outward  circle , 30 

Inner  circle ........ 12 

The  cove 3 

Southern  temple,  outward  circle 30 

Inner  circle  of  the  same , 12 

Central  obelisk ...  .c 1 

Ring  stone 1 

Kennet  avenue   200 

Outer  circle  of  the  hackpen  or  serpent's  head 40 

Inner  circle  of  ditto is 

Beckhampton  avenue 200 

Longstone  cove 2 

Inclosing  stone  of  the  serpent's  tail 1 


Total    650   stones. 

2g 


226  MITHRA. 

"  Of  these,  the  whole  number  of  the  outside  lines  of  the  structure  make  600,  viz.  100  +  30 
"  +  30  +  200  +  40  +  200  =  600,  the  cycle  of  the  Neros,  alluded  to  in  Chapter  II.  Section 
"  XIII.  The  whole  of  the  smaller  circles  make  142 ;  30  +  12  +  30  +  12  +  40  +  18  =  142. 
"  When  I  consider  all  the  other  circumstances  of  the  attachment  of  the  Druids  to  cycles,  I  cannot 

"  help  suspecting  that  thev  have  been  144,  and  that  there  is  some  mistake." "  If  all  the 

"  stones  of  Abury  be  taken,  except  the  inner  circles,  you  will  have  the  number  608,  a  very  curious 
"  number,  the  sacred  number  of  the  God  Sol,  already  described  in  Chap.  IV.  Sect.  VIII.,  to  which 
"  I  beg  to  refer  my  reader.     If  this  be  the  effect  of  accident,  it  is  an  odd  accident." 

I  confess  I  cannot  help  considering  the  discovery  of  these  cycles  in  the  old  temples  as  confirma- 
tory in  an  extraordinary  manner  of  my  system.  My  theory  respecting  the  Druids  being  oriental 
Buddhists  is  confirmed  by  the  oriental  Neroses  of  Siam ;  and  my  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  orien- 
tal doctrines  is  confirmed  by  the  temples  of  the  West.  Circumstances  of  this  kind  surpass  all 
written  testimony  :  there  can  be  no  forged  interpolations  here.  The  reader  has  seen  that  the  total 
number  of  stones  in  the  temple  of  Abury  was  six  hundred  and  fifty,  as  discovered  by  Stukeley, 
and  confirmed  by  Sir  R.  C.  Hoare's  later  examination.  Neither  of  those  gentlemen  had  any  idea 
of  the  importance  of  the  number  of  the  stones,  and  therefore  had  no  theory  to  support,  which,  if 
found  by  me  only,  might  make  persons  think  I  was  deceived  by  a  prurient  imagination.  The  fol- 
lowing is  a  passage  from  Basnage's  History  of  the  Jews,  *  which  1  have  discovered  since  I  pub- 
lished my  Celtic  Druids : 

"  Martianus  Capella  speaks  of  two  letters,  X.  and  N. ;  who  would  not  think  here  was  a  character 
"  of  Christianity  ?  Xp<s"0£  N*xa,  Christ  victorious  :  but  it  was  a  mystical  name  of  the  Sun  ;  and 
"  these  two  letters  designed  a  certain  number  he  was  used  to  be  signified  by ;"  X  n  600,  N  —  50. 
But  if  it  did  not  mean  Xpjg"0£  vixa,  it  meant  something  very  near  it,  viz.  *Kf>7]£og  vma,  as  I 
shall  shew  in  the  twelfth  book  of  this  work. 

8.  The  Persian  God  is  often  called  Mitr.  Of  course  we  may  expect  to  find  the  more  perfect  Neroses, 
or  sacred  numbers,  described  by  the  letters  of  notation  of  the  later  nations,  and  the  ruder  Neroses 
with  the  more  early,  all  in  fact  descriptive  of  the  solar  cycle.  Thus  in  Hebrew  we  have  "lira  mitr, 
1  200,  n  400,  >  10,  o  40  =  650.  This  was  probably  the  first  way  of  writing  it;  the  second  was  Mithras 
Mfyag,  written  without  an  E  and  meaning  CCCLX.,  M  40,  I  10, 0  9,  P  100,  A  1,  2J  200  =  360j 
but  afterward,  when  the  length  of  the  year  was  more  perfectly  understood,  it  was  as  it  is  com- 
monly found  with  an  e,  Meithras.2  A  Mitra  Mithridates  est,  et  Mitra  quod  alii  corrupte  Misra 
scribunt,  etiam  multi  Brahmanes  appellantur. 3  Might  not  the  name  of  the  Egyptian  Misraim  be 
a  corruption  of  the  word  QHfVD  mitrim  ?  If  this  were  the  case,  it  would  have  had  the  same  name 
in  the  oriental,  as  Italy  had  in  its,  language  Itala,  a  bull.  Bishop  Cumberland  thought  that  Mitz- 
raim  was  the  word  Isiris  or  Itziris,  with  the  mystic  M  prefixed,  which  seems  by  no  means  im- 
probable. 

The  number  650,  sacred  to  the  Sun,  and  found  in  the  temple  at  Abury  in  so  remarkable  a 
manner,  again  confirms  my  theory.  He  must  have  a  prurient  imagination  indeed  who  can  attri- 
bute all  these  coincidences  to  accident.  Why  this  number  650  came  to  be  sacred  to  the  Sun  I 
have  explained  in  Chap.  ii.  Sect.  5. 

The  following  extract  will  exhibit  the  metonic  cycle  in  as  remarkable  a  manner  as  the  Neros : 

"  At  Biscawen'unn,  near  St.  Buriens  in  Cornwall,  there  is  a  circular  temple  consisting  of  19 

"  stones,  and  a  twentieth  stone  stands  in  the  centre  higher  than  the  rest. — I  beg  my  reader  to  refer 

"  to  the  description  of  the  temple  at  Classerness  in  the  introduction,  plate  No.  28.     There  he  will 


1  B.  iii.  Chap,  xxiii.  p.  236.  *  See  Mont.  Ant.  Exp.  Vol.  II.  p.  226.  3  Bartolomeus,  Sys.  Bracb.  p  2, 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER.    IV.    SECTION  9.  227 

ct  again  find  the  metonic  cycle.— Near  Clenenney,  in  North  Wales,  is  a  circle  containg  38  stones, 
"  two  metonic  cycles. — Near  Keswick  is  an  oval  of  40  stones.  This  I  have  little  doubt  is  in 
"  number  40,  for  the  same  reason  as  the  second  circle  at  Stonehenge,  already  explained. — Dr. 
"  Borlase  says,  *  There  are  four  circles  in  the  hundred  of  Penwith,  Cornwall,  (the  most  distant 
"  two  of  which  are  not  eight  miles  asunder,)  which  have  19  stones  each,  a  surprising  uniformity, 
"  expressing,  perhaps,  the  two  principal  divisions  of  the  year,  the  twelve  months,  and  the  seven 
"  days  of  the  week.  Their  names  are  Boscawen'unn,  Rosmodereny,  Tregaseal,  and  Boskednan.' 
"  Here  the  similarity  could  not  escape  Dr.  Borlase  j  but  the  idea  of  a  cycle  never  occurred  to 
"  him.     There  is  no  room  to  attribute  any  thing  here  to  imagination." 

In  the  same  chapter  my  reader  may  see  many  other  examples  of  astrological  numbers  in  the  old 
temples  of  the  Druids.  Before  I  quit  the  temple  of  Abury,  I  beg  leave  to  suggest  whether  it  may 
not  be-probable  that  the  number  of  the  stones  of  the  inner  circle  of  the  serpent's  head  may  have  been 
19  instead  of  18 ;  that  it  may  have  had  a  centre  stone  ;  and  that  the  Longstone  Cove  which  stands 
at  a  little  distance  may  have  been  considered  as  part  of  the  temple  ?  This  would  give,  instead  of 
142  for  the  number  of  stones  in  the  inner  circles,  the  number  144,  and  would  not  derange  any  of 
the  other  cyclar  sums,  as  my  reader  will  find  on  experiment.  Amidst  the  intricacy  of  the  modern 
buildings  and  old  stones,  Dr.  Stukeley  and  Sir  R.  C.  Hoare  might  easily  be  led  into  so  trifling  a 
mistake. .  I  beg  my  reader  to  make  this  correction,  then  to  take  his  pencil  and  try  an  experiment 
or  two  with  the  different  numbers,  and  he  will  find  how  curiously  the  sums  into  which  I  first  sup- 
posed the  great  circle  to  have  been  divided  come  out,  viz.  12  signs,  36  decans,  72  dodecans,  and 
360  degrees.  All  this  may  be  nonsensical  enough,  but  are  not  all  judicial  astrology  and  the  ancient 
mystical  doctrines  of  lucky  and  unlucky,  sacred  and  profane  numbers,  nonsensical?  It  is  of  no 
use  to  say  they  are  nonsensical.  Can  any  one  say  that  even  the  wisest  of  the  ancients  did  not 
entertain  these  doctrines  ? 

9.  What  I  have  said  respecting  the  division  of  the  great  circle  into  360  degrees,  and  into  decans 
and  dodecans,  receives  a  strong  confirmation  from  the  description  which  Josephus  gives  of  the 
mystical  meaning  of  the  Jewish  tabernacle,  &c.  He  says,  "  And  when  he  ordered  twelve  loaves 
"  to  be  set  on  the  table,  he  denoted  the  year  as  distinguished  into  so  many  months.  By  branching 
"  out  the  candlestick  into  seventy  parts  he  secretly  intimated  the  Decani,  or  seventy  divisions  of 
"  the  planets  ;  and  as  to  the  seven  lamps  upon  the  candlesticks,  they  referred  to  the  course  of  the 
"  planets,  of  which  that  is  the  number."  Again  :  "  And  for  the  twelve  stones,  whether  we  under- 
"  stand  by  them  the  months,  or  whether  we  understand  the  like  number  of  the  signs  of  that  circle 
"  which  the  Greeks  call  the  Zodiac,  we  shall  not  be  mistaken  in  their  meaning." J  The  Decani 
here  mentioned  must  evidently  allude  to  what  Sir  William  Drummond  calls  Dodecans,  each  of 
which  consists  of  five  degrees  ;  and  what  is  here  called  JO  must  mean  72,  for  72  x  5  =  360  •  but 
70  x  5  would  only  equal  350,  neither  the  division  of  the  circle,  nor  of  the  year  which  Moses  made 
to  consist  of  360  days.  In  his  account  of  the  flood  the  year  or  circle  is  divided  exactly  according 
to  my  theory.  In  his  explanation  Josephus  is  confirmed  by  Philo,  another  very  eminent  person, 
who  states  the  identical  doctrine.  The  expression  used  here  respecting  the  seventy  divisions 
of  the  planets,  shews  that  when  the  word  seventy  is  used,  seventy-two  must  be  understood, 
as  it  still  is,  and  always  was,  in  some  other  cases ;  for  example,  in  that  of  the  version  of  the  se- 
venty, though  LXXII.  always  is  meant.  It  is  here  evident  that  though  a  secret  meaning  was 
known  to  exist,  its  nature  was  only  a  subject  of  speculation. 


'  Antiq.  B.  iii.  Chap.  vii.      If  this  tabernacle  was  not  astrological,  I  should  be  happy  to  be  informed  what  would 

ih  a.  If   on. 


make  it  so 

2g2 


228  JOSEPHUS   AND   VALLANCEY   ON    MYSTIC   NUMBERS. 

That  72  constellations  were  meant,  we  also  know  from  Pliny,  who  says  (Lib.  ii.),  that  1600  stars 
may  be  counted  in  the  72  constellations,  meaning  the  72  divisions  of  the  Zodiac.  See  the  Classical 
Journal,  No.  XXXI.,  where  the  reader  may  see  satisfactory  proofs,  given  by  Sir  W.  Drummond, 
of  what  I  have  said  in  my  Celtic  Druids — that  the  ancients  had  the  use  of  the  telescope.  I  shall 
prove  the  truth  of  what  is  said  here  of  the  use  of  the  term  70  for  72,  more  at  large  hereafter. 

The  following  passage  from  the  Appendix  to  my  Celtic  Druids,  pp.  307,  308,  will  exhibit  the 
two  Neroses  in  Ireland. 

"  Vallancey  says,  the  Irish  have  the  cycle  of  the  Neros  by  the  name  of  Phennicshe,  which  in 
"  Chaldean  numerals  make  the  number  as  given  below,  No.  1 ;  and  he  says,  if  you  add  n  H,  which 
"  alters  not  the  pronunciation,  it  makes  up  in  the  Coptic  language  the  Egyption  period  of  608, 
«  No.  2. 

No.l.     Ph.  D 80  No.2.     Ph.  D 80 

E.    n 5  E.    n 5 

N.    3 50  N.    3 50 

N.    3 50  N.    3    50 

I.     » 10  I.     » 10 

K.    p 100  K.    p 100 

Sh.  1^ 300  Sh.  ttf 300 

E.    n 5  H.    n 8 


600 


E.  n 5 

608 


(i 


"  If  my  reader  will  refer  back  to  Chapter  V.  Sect.  XIV.,  he  will  find  Phanes  or  Fan  amongst 
"  the  Irish  Gods.  He  is  a  God  of  fire.  He  is  one  of  the  celebrated  ancient  triad,  the  Creator, 
"  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer,  and  the  word  meant  oucov  or  aeternitas.     It  is  in  this  respect 

particularly  applicable  to  the  idea  of  a  cycle. 

4>  Ph.  500 

He.     s 

N  N.      50 
N  N.      50 


608 


"  From  this  cycle  of  600  came  the  name  of  the  bird  Phoenix,  called  by  the  Egyptians  Phenn, 
"  with  the  well-known  story  of  its  going  to  Egypt  to  burn  itself  on  the  altar  of  the  sun  (at  Helio- 
"  polis),  and  rise  again  from  its  ashes,  at  the  end  of  a  certain  period."  For  the  word  <£PH  pre 
or  phre,  see  Celtic  Druids, x  where  the  manner  in  which  the  mystics  concealed  various  other 
cycles  and  objects  by  means  of  figures  is  explained. 

In  an  old  Irish  Glossary  the  Phoenix  is  said  to  be  a  bird  which  lives  600  years  or  turns  of  Beal, 
or  the  sun,  with  all  the  remainder  of  the  history  of  the  burning,  &c. 2 

Phanes  is  called  Protogonos,  and  had  the  head  of  a  Bull. ' 

In  Montfaucon  4  "  is  an  Isis  sitting  on  the  Lotus.  She  hath  a  Globe  on  her  head  with  a  radiant 
"  circle  round  it,  which  denotes  the  Sun.     The  inscription  on  the  reverse  hath  some  affinity  with 


1  Chap.  IV.  Sect.  VIII.  *  Ouseley,  Coll.  Orient.  Vol.  II.  No.  iii.  p.  203. 

3  Porphyry  on  Cave  of  Nymphs,  trans.  Taylor,  p.  190. 

*  Supplement  to  the  Ant.  Exp.  PI.  LII.  Fig.  7,  Vol.  II.,  and  in  my  plates,  Fig.  10. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER   IV.   SECTION    10.  229 

"  the  figure.  It  is  IEOT  AP2ENO<I>PH.  Ies  is  for  law,  which  is  the  usual  way  of  the  ec- 
"  clesiastic  authors  reading  the  Hebrew  word  Jehovah  ;  for  in  these  kinds  of  words  the  change  or 
"  transposition  of  vowels  is  not  regarded.  The  gem  here  hath  lee,  and  Eusebius  hath  Isuw. 
"  The  last  syllable  in  the  next  word  (<J3g7j  which  we  read  phri)  signifies,  in  the  Egyptian  lan- 
"  guage,  the  sun.  Therefore  the  whole  word,  ot.$(revo<Pprh  signifies  the  sun  is  male,  if  we  may  be 
"  allowed  to  join  a  Greek  word  and  an  Egyptian  together.  We  see  here  the  rays  of  the  sun,  but 
"  they  proceed  from  a  woman's  head ;  which  particular  disagrees  with  the  inscription.  Doth 
"  this  signify  that  Isis,  who  is  taken  for  the  moon,  is  male?"1  Here  Isis,  whose  veil  no  mortal 
shall  ever  draw  aside,  the  celestial  virgin  of  the  sphere,  is  seated  on  the  self-generating  sacred  Lotus, 
and  is  called  Isto  or  in>  ieu,  or  Jove,  and  also  the  solar  cycle  <J>g7j  :  3>  500,  P  100,  H  8=608. 
The  breasts  shew  the  female  sex,  the  apasvog  shews  the  male,  and  united,  they  shew  as  usual  the 
Androgynous  deity. 

In  the  Greek  and  Coptic  the  famous  Io  Sabboe  means  360  : 

I 10 

O 70 

% 200 


A .... 

1 

B. . . . 

2 

B . . . . 

2 

O 

70 

E. . . . 

5 

360 2 

This  shews  that  the  earliest  year  in  Greece  was  360  days  only.  Thus  we  find  the  same  igno- 
rance in  Greece,  and  in  the  book  of  the  deluge  of  Moses,  and  in  the  Apocalypse,  as  well  as  in 
Egypt :  but  with  the  Indians,  we  find  the  Metonic  cycle  and  the  Neros,  which  evince  a  more  cor- 
rect knowledge  of  the  length  of  the  year  j  and  it  was  also  shewn  by  the  builders  of  the  Metonic 
cycles  of  pillars  in  Britain. 

Whilst  on  the  subject  of  Druidical  circles,  I  will  take  the  opportunity  of  stating,  that  Dr. 
Daniel  Clarke  found  a  Druidical  circle  on  the  top  of  mount  Gargarus,  the  ancient  Ida,  where  the 
Gods  of  Homer  assembled  at  the  siege  of  Troy.  It  may  be  put  down  as  a  parallel  to  Joshua's 
Gilgal,  (Joshua  viii.  30,  31,)  on  mount  Ebal — the  Proseucha  discovered  by  Epiphanius.  The 
Temples  of  Greece  are  constantly  said  to  be  surrounded  with  a  riy.svosf  the  meaning  of  which  has 
been  doubted.     Homer  3  says, 

Tapyapov,  £v0a  §£  ot  Ts/xevo?  jSw/ao?  re  Svyetq' 

Here  I  think  the  temenos  was  the  Gilgal  of  Dr.  Clarke.  See  Celtic  Druids,  passim.  And  from 
this  we  may  not  unreasonably  suspect  that  the  rey.svog  meant  a  stone  circle ;  or,  at  all  events, 
that  a  stone  circle  was  a  TSfxevog. 

10.  In  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  given  an  example  of  two  Cromlehs  in  India,  Plates  39  and  40 ; 
and  I  have  given  a  drawing  of  another  in  figure  18  of  this  work.  I  have  since  found  that  stone 
circles,  similar  to  our  Stonehenge,  Abury,  &c,  are  very  common  in  the  Northern  parts  of  India. 
The  natives  can  give  no  account  of  them. 

1  P.  243.  *  Ouseley,  Coll.  Orient.  Vol.  II.  No.  iii.  p.  209.  3  Lib.  viii.  v.  48. 


230  INDRA   CRUCIFIED. 

These  circles  appear  to  be  a  remnant  of  antiquity  of  a  similar  species  to  those  of  the  Puniha- 
Pandawars,  a  great  number  of  which  are  to  be  seen  scattered  on  the  adjacent  heights  about  a  mile 
west  of  a  place  called  Dumacotta.  The  stones  composing  these  circles  are  of  a  hard  blackish 
granite,  very  irregular  in  shape,  measuring  in  general  about  3  feet  in  height,  and  of  the  same  dimen- 
sion in  thickness.  The  country  people  seem  ignorant  on  the  subject  of  these  antiquities,  and  can 
give  no  information  for  what  purposes  they  were  designed.  It  is  reported  that  circles  of  a  similar 
description  are  very  numerous  among  the  skirts  of  the  hills  of  Wudlamaun  and  others  in  that 
neighbourhood,  that  on  some  of  these  being  opened  by  the  late  Rajah,  Vassareddy,  they  were  found 
to  contain  human  bones  of  a  large  size,  and  that  in  some  there  were  earthern  pots  curiously 
placed  together  containing  ashes  or  charcoal.  Similar  to  the  above  at  Amravutty,  on  the  river 
Christna  or  Kistna,  is  to  be  seen  a  mound  called  Depaldenna. 1 

Drawings  of  great  numbers  of  these  circles  may  be  seen  in  Mackenzie's  manuscripts  above- 
mentioned.  I  shall  give  a  drawing  of  only  one  of  them,  because,  although  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  the  general  accuracy  of  the  accounts,  yet  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  ascertain  of  what 
numbers  of  stones  these  circles  originally  consisted,  which  was  the  only  thing  that  could  render 
them  really  useful ;  but  which,  as  was  originally  the  case  in  England,  was  thought  to  be  of  no 
consequence.  It  is,  however,  remarkable  that,  in  the  circle  which  I  have  given,  fig.  11,  as  the 
reader  will  find  on  counting  them,  (allowance  being  made  for  one  evidently  broken,)  19  stones,  the 
number  of  the  Metonic  cycle,  are  found. 

11.  For  the  origin  of  the  cross  we  must  go  to  the  Buddhists  and  to  the  Lama  of  Tibet,  who 
takes  his  name  from  the  cross,  called  in  his  language  Lamh,  which  is  with  his  followers  an  object 
of  profound  veneration. 2 

The  cross  of  the  Buddhists  is  represented  with  leaves  and  flowers  springing  from  it,  and  placed 
upon  a  mount  Calvary,  as  among  the  Roman  Catholics.  They  represent  it  in  various  ways,  but 
the  shaft  with  the  cross  bar  and  the  Calvary  remain  the  same.  The  tree  of  life  and  knowledge, 
or  the  Jamba  tree,  in  their  maps  of  the  world,  is  always  represented  in  the  shape  of  a  cross, 
eighty-four  Yoganas  (answering  to  the  eighty-four  years  of  the  life  of  him  who  was  exalted  upon 
the  cross)  or  423 3  miles  high,  including  the  three  steps  of  the  Calvary.4 

12.  The  celebrated  Monk  Georgius,  in  his  Tibetinum  Alphabetum,  p.  203,  has  given  plates  (in 
my  figures  No.  14  )  of  the  God  Indra  nailed  to  a  cross,  with  Jive  wounds.  These  crosses  are 
to  be  seen  in  Nepaul,  especially  at  the  corners  of  roads  and  on  eminences.  Indra  is  said  to 
have  been  crucified  by  the  keepers  of  the  Hindoo  garden  of  Paradise  for  having  robbed  it.  The 
country  of  Nepaul  is  evidently  the  Caucasus  where  Alexander  went  to  look  at  the  cave  of  Prome- 
theus, to  whom  the  whole  mythos  obviously  applies.  But  it  is  the  same  as  that  of  Jesus,  evi- 
dently existing  here  also,  long  before  the  time  of  Christ.  All  these  crucifixes,  &c,  &c,  must  be 
well  known  to  our  Indian  travellers.  Have  the  Romish  Monks  been  more  honest  than  our  philo- 
sophers of  Calcutta  ?  It  would  be  absurd  to  deny  that  I  think  they  have.  Ah  !  old  Roger  Bacon, 
how  truly  hast  thou  said,  "  Omnia  ad  religionem  in  suspicione  habenda"  ! 

Georgius  says,  "  Si  ita  se  res  habet,  ut  existimat  Beausobrius,  Indi,  et  Budistce  quorum  religio, 
"  eadem  est  ac  Tibetana,  nonnisi  a  Manichaeis  nova  hsec  deliriorum  portenta  acceperunt.  Hae 
"  namque  gentes  praesertim  in  urbe  Nepal,  Luna  XII.  Badr  seu  Bhadon  Augusti  mensis,   dies 


1  See  Col.  Mackenzie's  manuscripts,  India  Antiqua  Illustrata, iin  the  Museum  in  the  India-House,  No.  9, 1816,  1817, 
and  plates,  Fig.  11. 

2  See  Celtic  Druids,  App.  pp.  307—312.  3  This  I  suppose  to  be  in  the  original  a  misprint  for  432. 
4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  123.    See  my  plates,  Figures  Nos.  12,  13. 


BOOK  V.     CHAPTER  IV.     SECTION  12.  231 

"  festos  auspicaturae  Dei  Indrce,  erigunt  ad  illius  memoriam  ubique  locorum  cruces  amictas 
"  Abrotono.  Earum  figuram  descriptam  habes  ad  lit.  B,  Tabula  pone  sequenti.  Nam  A  effigies 
"  est  ipsius  Indrce  crucifixi  signa  Telech  in  fronte  manibus  pedibusque  gerentis."  i 

Again,  he  says, 2  "  Est  Krishna  (quod  ut  mihi  pridem  indicaverat  P.  Cassianus  Maceratensis, 
"  sic  nunc  uberius  in  Galliis  observatum  intelligo  a  vivo  litteratissimo  De  Guignes)  nomen  ipsum 
"  corruptum  Christi  Servatoris." 

And  again,  speaking  of  Buddha,  Georgius  says, 3  "  Nam  Xaca  et  Christus  nomina  sunt  aequae 
"  significationis  apud  Tibetanos,  quemadmodum  apud  Sinenses,  teste  et  vindice  De  Guignesio, 
"  Christus  et  Fo  :  apud  Indos  vero  Christus  et  Bisnu :  Christus  et  Chrisnu."  Buddha  is  often 
seen  with  a  glory,  and  with  a  tongue  of  fire  on  his  head.4 

Gen.  Vallancey  says,  "  The  Tartars  call  the  cross  Lama  from  the  Scythian  Lamh,  a  hand, 
"  synonymous  to  the  Jod  of  the  Chaldeans  :  and  thus  it  became  the  name  of  a  cross,  and  of  the 
"  high-priest  with  the  Tartars  ;  and,  with  the  Irish,  Luam  5  signifies  the  head  of  the  church,  an 
"  abbot,  &c. 

"  From  this  X  all  nations  begin  a  new  reckoning,  because  it  is  the  number  of  fingers  on  both 
"  hands,  which  were  the  original  instruments  of  numbering  :  hence  y  fid)  iod  in  Hebrew  is  the 
"  hand  and  the  number  ten,  as  is  Lamh  with  the  Tartars."6 

Though  I  have  noticed  this  before,  I  think  it  right  to  repeat  it  here. 

This  figure  X  not  only  stands  for  ten,  but  was  considered,  as  it  has  been  already  shewn,  a  per- 
fect number,  i.  e.  the  emblem  of  perfection,  and  hence  stood  for  600 — the  cycle — which,  after 
many  attempts,  was  erroneously  thought  to  be  perfect. 

From  the  abuse  of  the  original  incarnation  or  divine  inspiration,  for  if  they  were  not  identical 
they  were  very  nearly  allied,  arose  the  Lama  of  Tibet,  now  become  a  mere  tool  of  the  Monks,  by 
means  of  which  their  order  keeps  possession  of  the  sovereign  sway.  If  the  circumstances  of  the 
Lama  and  the  Pope  be  carefully  examined,  the  similarity  will  be  found  to  be  very  striking.  In 
each  case  the  Monks  and  their  Pope  have  the  temporal  power  in  the  surrounding  territory,  and  in 
each  case  extensive  foreign  states  admit  their  spiritual  authority.  And  when  in  former  times  the 
priests  gave  the  Pope  of  Italy  the  epithet  of  Deus,  and  elevated  him  as  they  yet  do,  on  the  altar 
of  St.  Peter's,  and  bending  the  knee  to  him,  offered  him,  to  use  their  own  words,  adoration — they 
in  fact  very  nearly  arrived  at  Tibetian  perfection.  In  each  case  the  head  of  the  empire  is  called 
Papa  and  Holy  Father,  and  in  each  case  the  empire  is  called  that  of  the  Lama,  the  Lamh,  or  the 
Cross — for  Lamh  means  Cross.  Lamh  looks  very  like  Lamb.  I  know  not  the  etymology  of  our 
word  Lamb  ;  but  each  empire  is  that  of  the  Lamb  of  God  upon  earth,  which  taketh  away  the  sins  of 
the  world.     I  shall  hereafter  treat  on  this  point. 

But  the  word  Ram,  om  ram,  in  Hebrew  means  both  Bull  and  Ram.7  This  arose,  I  suspect, 
from  the  Indian  incarnation  of  Rama,  who  preceded  Cristna.  In  fact  he  was  the  incarnation  of 
the  Neros  when  the  Sun  left  Taurus  and  entered  Aries ;  thus  he  was  incarnate  in  the  signs  of  both 
the  Bull  and  the  Ram. 

"  Boodism,"  Col.  Franklin8  says,  "is  known  very  widely  in  Asia  under  the  appellation  of 

1  Alph.  Tibet,  p.  203.  h     s  Ibid.  pp.  253—263.  3  Ibid.  p.  364. 

4  See  Moore's  Pantheon,  PI.  71,  72. 

5  This  Luam  is  evidently  a  corruption  of  Lamh  or  Lamb.    The  High-priest  was  an  incarnation  of  the  Lamb  of  the 
Zodiac. 

6  Celtic  Druids,  App.  p.  312.  7  Vide  Parkhurst  in  voce. 
8  Treatise  on  the  Tenets  of  the  Jeynes  and  Buddhists,  p.  186. 


232  jesuits'  account  of  the  religion  of  tibet. 

"  Shamanism :  the  visible  head  of  which  religion,  the  Dalai  Lama,  resides  in  a  magnificent  palace 
"  called  Putala,  or  the  Holy  Mountain,  near  Lassa,  the  capital  of  the  extensive  region  of  Thibet. 
"  He  is  believed  to  be  animated  by  a  Divine  Spirit,  and  is  regarded  as  the  vicegerent  of  the  Deity 
"  on  earth,  and  by  some  as  the  Deity  incarnate,  and  death  is  nothing  more,  it  is  pretended,  than 
"  the  transmigration  of  the  spirit  into  another  body,  like  that  of  the  Bull  God  Apis  in  Egypt." 
Here  is  the  principle  which  will  unravel  all  the  mysteries  of  antiquity. 

In  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  proved  that  the  first  race  of  man  after  the  flood  came  from  about 
the  latitude  45,  perhaps  Balk  or  Samarkand,  not  far  from  Northern  Tibet.  The  following  extract 
from  the  work  of  the  Christian  Jesuits  will  shew  that  some  of  the  Romish  doctrines  might  have 
been  copied,  and  probably  were  copied  by  the  Persian  or  Pythagorean  school,  from  a  source  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  modern  Christianity.  The  authority  of  the  Jesuits  in  this  case  cannot  be  dis- 
puted, and  the  doctrines,  from  their  being  identified  with  the  Buddhism  of  Tibet,  must  have  an  an- 
tiquity far  higher  than  that  of  the  doctrines  of  Cristna. 

13.  The  close  coincidence  between  the  religion  of  Tibet  and  that  of  the  Christians,  can  hardly 
be  disputed,  as  the  knowledge  of  it  comes  to  us  from  several  persons  who  do  not  appear  to  have 
any  interest  in  trying  to  deceive.  "  Father  Grebillon  observes  also  with  astonishment,  that  the 
"  Lamas  have  the  use  of  holy  water,  singing  in  the  church  service,  prayers  for  the  dead,  mitres 
"  worn  by  the  bishops  ;  and  that  the  Dalai  Lama  holds  the  same  rank  among  his  Lamas,  that  the 
"  Pope  does  in  the  Church  of  Rome  :  and  Father  Grueber  goes  farther ;  he  says,  that  their  religion 
"  agrees,  in  every  essential  point,  with  the  Roman  religion,  without  ever  having  had  any  connexion 
"  with  Europeans  :  for,  says  he,  they  celebrate  a  sacrifice  with  bread  and  wine ;  they  give  extreme 
"  unction ;  they  bless  marriages ;  pray  for  the  sick  j  make  processions  ;  honour  the  relics  of  their 
"  saints,  or  rather  their  idols ;  they  have  monasteries  and  convents  of  young  women  ;  they  sing  in 
"  their  temples  like  Christian  Monks ;  they  observe  several  fasts,  in  the  course  of  the  year,  and 
"  mortify  their  bodies,  particularly  with,  the  discipline,  or  whips  :  they  consecrate  their  bishops, 
"  and  send  missionaries,  who  live  in  extreme  poverty,  travelling  barefoot  even  to  China.  Father 
"  Grueber  says  he  has  seen  all  this  :  and  Horace  de  la  Pona  says,  that  the  religion  of  Tibet  is 
"  like  an  image  of  that  of  Rome.  They  believe  in  one  God  :  a  Trinity,  but  filled  with  errors  ;  a 
"Paradise,  Hell,  Purgatory;  but  mingled  with  fables:  they  make  alms,  prayers,  and  sacrifices 
"  for  the  dead  ;  they  have  convents,  wherein  they  make  vows  of  chastity  and  poverty ;  have  con- 
"  fessors  appointed  by  the  grand  Lama,  and,  besides  holy  water,  the  cross,  chaplets,  and  other 
"  practices  of  Christians."  *  The  above  is  confirmed  by  Grueber  and  D'Orville,  the  missionaries, 
in  the  account  of  their  Voyage  to  China. 

Whatever  Protestants  may  say  to  the  contrary,  this  is  correct  Popish,  and  also  Protestant, 
Christianity.  The  Pope,  like  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  is  believed  by  his  consecration, 
ordination,  or  installation,  that  is,  by  the  ceremony  of  making  him  pope  or  bishop,  by  the  imposi- 
tion of  hands,  by  the  Samach,  or  by  investiture  with  the  Pallium,  to  have  had  instilled  or  inspired 
into  him  a  portion  of  the  divine  spirit,  of  the  logos,  or  divine  wisdom :  thus  endowed,  as  it  is 
clearly  expressed,  he  has  power  to  remit  sins,  in  the  Romish  serviee  on  the  condition  of  repentance ; 
in  the  Protestant  (as  appears  in  the  service  for  the  ordination  of  priests)  without  a  condition. 

The  accounts  of  the  Jesuits  are,  in  some  instances,  confirmed  by  the  Journal  of  a  most 
respectable  gentleman,  sent  by  Mr.  Hastings  to  Tibet. 2  Mr.  Turner  says,  that  the  mysterious 
word  Aum  or  Om,   is  equally  sacred  with  the  Buddhists  of  Thibet,  as  with  the  Brahmins  of 


1  Remains  of  Japhet,  4to.  p.  201.  *  Turner's  Travels  in  Tibet. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION   13.  233 

Bengal,  under  the  form  of  Oom  maunee  paimee  oom.  The  temple  at  Jaggernaut,  and  most  of 
the  other  places  in  India  held  sacred  by  the  Brahmins,  are  equally  held  sacred  by  the  Buddhists 
of  Tibet. l  They  have  monasteries  for  Monks  and  Nuns,  precisely  like  those  of  the  Romish 
Church,  in  which  prayers  are  chaunted,  with  music,  which  never  cease  night  or  day  for  thousands 
of  years,  accompanied  with  occasional  processions.  They  make  pilgrimages  to  the  chief  holy 
places  in  India,  the  ruined  city  of  Gowr,  to  Gya,  Benares,  Mahow,  Allahabad,  &c,  and  the  rich, 
like  those  of  the  Romish  Church,  do  it  by  proxy.  They  say  that  the  Grand  Lama  has  been 
regenerated  at  all  these  places.  The  principal  idol  in  their  temples  is  called  Mahamoonie:2  the 
Buddha  of  Bengal,  called  Godama  or  Gautama,  in  Assam  and  Ava  :  Samana  in  Siam  :  Amida  and 
Buth  in  Japan  :  Fohi  in  China  j  Buddha  and  Shakamuna,  in  Bengal  and  Hindostan  :  Dherma 
Raja  and  Mahamoonie,  in  Bootan  and  Tibet.  From  time  immemorial  they  have  had  the  art  of 
printing,  though  it  has  been  limited  to  their  religious  works  ;  and  it  is  still  more  curious,  that  it  has 
been  done  upon  blocks  similar  to  the  stereotype  method,  and  not  by  moveable  letters,  which  shews 
that  they  have  not  learnt  it  from  the  West ;  for,  when  Mr.  Turner  visited  them,  the  art  of  printing 
in  that  manner  was  not  known  in  Europe.  It  is  much  to  be  lamented  that  Mr.  Turner  did  not 
get  copies  of,  or  procure  more  information  respecting,  their  sacred  books,  of  which  he  states  them 
to  have  great  numbers  in  their  monasteries. 

This  account  of  the  Buddhists  of  Upper  India,  is  confirmed  by  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Craw- 
ford3 of  the  same  religionists,  in  the  island  of  Siam,  a  thousand  miles  from  them.  He  says,  "  The 
"  Siamese  have  as  excellent  a  morality  as  the  Christians.  They  have  their  Talapoins  or  Monks, 
"  who  take  the  vows  of  chastity  and  poverty  ;  they  have  auricular  confession  ;  they  believe  that 
"  the  professors  of  any  religion  may  be  saved." 

"  Agreeably  to  the  prevailing  belief  in  a  succession  of  similar  worlds,  over  each  of  which  pre- 
"  sides  a  Buddha  or  Menu,  the  inhabitants  of  Ceylon  suppose  that,  towards  the  end  of  the  present 
"  mundane  system,  there  will  be  long  wars,  unheard-of  crimes,  and  a  portentous  diminution  of  the 
"  length  of  human  life  :  that  a  terrible  rain  will  then  sweep  from  the  face  of  the  earth  all  except  a 
"  small  number  of  pious  persons,  who  will  receive  timely  notice  of  the  evil,  and  thus  be  enabled  to 
"  avoid  it ;  and  that  the  wicked  will  be  changed  into  beasts,  and  that  ultimately  Maitri4  — Buddha 
"  — will  appear  and  re-establish  a  new  order  of  things."5  Here  are  the  metempsychosis  and 
the  renewal  of  worlds ;  the  exact  doctrine,  which  was  noticed  before,  of  Irenaeus. 

I  must  now  beg  my  reader  to  pause  a  little,  and  to  reflect  upon  the  accounts  which  he  has  read 
in  this  book  respecting  the  prophecies  of  Cristna,  of  Isaiah,  of  Virgil,  of  the  Sibyls,  as  reported  by 
Fignlus  and  other  Romans,  of  the  prophecy  of  Zoroaster,  and  of  the  Druid  of  Ireland, — and  I 
would  then  ask  him  what  he  thinks  of  it.  Can  he  for  a  moment  doubt  that  all  this  relates  to  the 
renewal  of  the  cycles,  and  to  a  succession  of  incarnations  ?  The  mysterious  child,  alluded  to  in 
the  beginning  of  this  book,  was  a  new  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom,  the  TrpcoToyovog,  the  first 
emanation,  the  logos,  the  solar  fire,  the  sacred,  mysterious,  never-to-be-spoken  OM,  the  Trimurti 
united  in  the  person  of  Buddha  or  Cristna, 6  born  to  be  king  of  the  people  of  Sion,  of  the  country 


1  They  have  the  custom  of  forming  Cams  by  piling  heaps  of  stones  over  dead  bodies,  like  those  of  the  Western 
world,  pp.  221,  222.     Every  traveller  passing  by  adds  a  stone  to  the  heap. 

*  Pp.  306,  307.  3  Res.  Vol.  II.  pp.  190,  et  seq. 

4  I  suspect  this  word  Maitri  is  the  French  Maitre,  the  Spanish  and  Italian  Maestro,  the  Dutch  Meester,  and  our 
Master,— all  probably  derived  from  the  Latin  Magister ;  and  the  last  equally  with  Maitri  from  a  common  origin. 

5  Fab.  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  II.  p.  339.  6  Ibid.  p.  43. 

2h 


234  MENU. — SIR    WILLIAM    JONES   ON    MENU. 

of  Judia,  of  the  tribe  of  Yuda,1  whose  language  was  that  of  the  Baali  of  Siam  and  Persia — of  the 
people  called  Palli,  or  Pallestini  or  Philistines — of  the  black  nation  of  Sir  William  Jones,  and  whose 
name  was,  with  the  Greeks,  X  600,  and  XH  and  THS  608  ;  and  Jupiter,  Ieu-pati,  the  Saviour, 
represented  in  St.  Peter's  by  the  stone  image  to  which  I  have  before  alluded,  having  inscribed  on  it 
the  words  Zevg  ^coTrjp. 


CHAPTER  V. 


MENU. — SIR   WILLIAM    JONES   ON    MENU. 


1.  In  the  Hindoo  mythology  we  meet  with  a  very  important  personage,  called  Menu.  He  is 
allowed  to  be  identical  with  Buddha,  and  with  the  Sun,  and  to  be  surnamed  Son  of  the  Self-existent, 
or,  in  other  words,  Son  of  God.  The  word  Menu  signifies  mind  or  understanding,  and  is  closely 
connected  with  the  idea  of  wisdom.  It  is,  in  short,  but  another  epithet  for  Buddha.  This  root  is 
closely  allied  to  the  root  i:o  mnr,  whence  comes  the  Minerva  of  the  Greeks, 2  and  the  English 
word  man,  and  the  Latin  words  mens  mind,  memini  to  remember,  and  the  Sanscrit  man  or  men, 
to  think.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Numa  of  the  Romans,  the  legislator  who  had  the  mystical 
surname  of  P-Om-pilius, 3  was  a  Menu  corrupted;  read  from  right  to  left  it  is  Manu. 

Menu,  meaning  mind,  or  soul,  or  spirit,  every  incarnation  was  a  Menu,  or  a  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  Mind.  This  was  the  same  as  Divine  Wisdom,  the  7r peor oysvog.  To  this  Divine  Mind 
or  Wisdom  the  priests  most  discreetly  attributed  their  codes  of  law.  Thus  Menes  in  Egypt  gave 
the  first  laws  ;4  and  Minos,  the  son  of  Jupiter  (Iao)  and  the  beautiful  Io,  was  the  first  legislator 
of  Crete.  From  the  second  syllable  of  the  word  Menu  the  Greek  word  Noo£  has  been  thought  to 
be  derived.  The  heretical  Jews  worshiped  the  planetary  bodies,  under  the  name  of  >3D  mni,  which 
means,  the  disposers  or  placers  in  order.  In  the  Hindoo  system  there  are  said  to  have  been  four- 
teen Menus,  (the  last  of  whom  finished  with  the  flood,)  or  the  same  person  is  said  to  have  appeared 
many  times.  He  is  attended  by  seven  companions,  who  are  called  Rashees  or  Rishees,  before 
explained,  but  evidently  the  five  planets,  the  earth,  and  the  moon. 

2.  Menu  was  maintained  by  Sir  W.  Jones  to  be  the  m  nh,  or,  as  we  call  him,  the  Noah  of  Genesis. 
This  is  strongly  supported  by  the  fact,  that  it  is  said  in  Genesis  viii.  13,  "  in  the  six  hundred  and 
**  first  year  of  Noah's  life,  in  the  first  month,  the  first  day  of  the  month,  the  waters  were  dried 
"  up  from  the  earth."  Here  is  evidently  the  cycle  of  the  Neros,  ending  with  the  drying  of  the 
waters,  and  beginning  anew.  Here  are  the  ending  of  one  year  or  life  of  Menu  or  Buddha,  and  the 
beginning  of  a  new  one. 

The  intimate  connexion  between  Minerva  and  Buddha,  as  wisdom  and  mind,  I  need  not  point 
out.  On  this  Word  or  Person  Mr.  Faber  says,  "  The  import  of  the  Greek  word  Nous  and  of  the 
"  Sanscrit  Menu  is  precisely  the  same  :  each  denotes  mind  or  intelligence :  and  to  the  latter  of 


1  Of  the  tribe  of  Yuda  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter.  2  See  Parkhurst  in  voce  1JD  mnr. 

3  With  Pi  the  Coptic  emphatic  article,  Pi-OM-philius  or  Alius,  the  son  of  Om.  *  Maurice,  Hist. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  2.  235 

"  them  the  Latin  Mens  is  evidently  very  nearly  allied  :  or,  to  speak  more  properly,  Mens  and 
"  Menu,  perhaps  also  our  English  Mind,  are  fundamentally  one  and  the  same  word."  1 

After  the  Gods,  Diodorus  makes  the  first  king  of  Egypt,  Menas,  or  Menes,  to  reign  at 
Thebes,  not  at  Memphis  ;  the  latter  was  a  modern  city  compared  with  the  former.  Thus  Menes 
is  found  as  first  king  at  Thebes  and  at  Memphis ;  in  Crete,  by  the  name  of  Minos,  and  in  India 
as  Menu.  The  Men-des  or  Pan  of  Egypt  may  mean  the  Divine  Mind,2  in  fact, the  Holy  Mind  or 
Ghost.  Menu  is  also  shewn  by  various  writers  to  be  the  Sun,  and  in  this  respect  the  same  as 
Buddha.  All  these  Hindoo  persons,  like  the  different  Gods  of  the  Western  nations,  resolve  them- 
selves at  last  into  the  Sun. 

Of  the  Theban  kings  Eratosthenes  says,  The  first  who  reigned  was  Mines  the  Thebinite,  the 
Thebsean,  which  is  by  interpretation  Dionius :  U%(oto$  £§acnAeu<rev  Mwijc  ®rj€iviTr}s,  0»j£ajo£, 
o  £^7]veusTa<  Aioviog.  The  second  was  called  by  interpretation  'Egjotoyev-qs  Hermogenes,  i.  e. 
Begotten  of  Hermes. 

Mr.  Faber  correctly  observes,  that  the  Menu  of  the  Hindoos  is  the  Maha-bad  or  Great  Bud  of 
the  Buddhists  :  he  has  the  same  history :  what  applies  to  the  one,  with  very  little  variation,  ap- 
plies to  the  other.  3  There  were  fourteen  Maha-bads,  as  there  were  fourteen  Menus.  In  the  Desatir 
of  Moshani  fourteen  Mahabads  are  treated  of.  These  were  the  imaginary  persons  of  whom  Sir 
William  Jones  made  a  dynasty  of  kings. 

Mr.  Faber  has  very  successfully  proved  that  Buddha  and  Zoroaster,4  or  the  star  of  the  Bull, 
as  he  explains  the  word,  are  the  same  person,  the  same  as  the  Menu  of  the  Chusas  of  Iran.  He 
says,  "  The  early  worship,  therefore,  of  Iran,  according  to  the  Zendavesta,  was  the  worship  of 
"  Buddha  or  Tat  under  the  form  of  a  Bull,  compounded  with  the  human  form." 5 

In  Persia  they  had  five  Zoroasters :  these  were  but  renewed  incarnations  of  the  Tauric  God.  6 

In  short,  I  believe  the  word  Menu  had  the  same  meaning,  originally,  as  Rasit,  Wisdom;  that  it 
was  the  same  as  the  mount  of  Meru,  and  that  Meru  and  Menu  were  mere  dialectic  variations.  In 
this  I  am  supported  by  Mons.  La  Loubere,  who  states  that  Maria  and  Mania  are  written  and  used 
indiscriminately  in  the  Siamese  language  :  and  this  fact,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  whole 
Eastern  mythos  was  removed  to  the  West,  justifies  a  suspicion  that  along  with  the  others  came 
the  oriental  il-avratta,  or  mount  of  Meru,  and  that  we  have  it  in  the  mount  now  called  Baris  and 
Armenia  :  that  is,  Ar  or  Er-Meni-ia,  the  country  of  mount  Meru  or  Meni.  The  mount  Baris  is 
the  mount  of  Nau-banda.  Dr.  Jones7  says,  Bagj£,  a  structure  of  any  sort,  a  boat  or  barge.  The 
mount  of  Naubanda,  in  the  Indian  language,  is  said  to  mean  ship-cabled  mount.  To  this  mount 
in  the  flood  of  Noah  the  Ark  was  said  to  be  fastened.  The  word  Nau  is  the  Latin  Navis,  and  the 
Greek  Nai>£ :  and  the  word  band  is  a  common  English  word  for  a  cord  or  cable.  8  The 
expression  mount  Meru  or  Menu,  means  the  mount  of  Meru.  In  the  Hebrew  language  when  a 
word  is  in  regimine,  in  many  cases  it  can  only  be  known  by  the  context  whether  it  be  in  the 
nominative  or  genitive  case.  The  words  for  mount  Meru  and  mount  of  Meru  would  be  the  same. 
This,  if  the  Hebrew  or  any  language  like  the  Hebrew  were  the  original  language,  readily  accounts 
for  the  names  of  many  places.     If  Manes,  the  son  of  Budwas,  the  son  of  Thomas,  of  whom  we 


1  Faber,  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  40. 

8  In  Egypt  there  was  a  city  called  Mendes.    The  symbol  of  Mendes  was  a  Goat :  the  reason  of  this  I  shall  explain 
hereafter. 

3  Fab.  p.  123.  4  Ch.  iii.  4  Vol.  II.  p.  83.  6  Nimrod,  231.  »  In  Lexicon. 

3  This  is  a  good  example  of  the  utility  of  applying  to  several  languages  for  the  meaning  of  a  word,  for  I  am  quite 
certain  no  one  can  doubt  the  identity  of  signification  in  the  word  naubanda. 

2H  2 


236  HERCULES    AND    SAMSON    THE    SAME. 

shall  hereafter  have  much  that  is  very  extraordinary  to  offer,  were  really  a  man,  he  had  his  name 
from  Menu,  and  when  his  doctrines  were  said  to  be  those  of  Manes,  it  was  meant  that  thev  were 
the  doctrines  of  the  incarnate  Wisdom. 

In  consequence  of  the  word  for  moon  p  rnn  or  Mvjvvj  being  the  same  as  the  name  of  the  Menu 
of  India,  I  cannot  shew  examples  of  him  very  clearly  in  the  West,  because  the  two  names  are  so 
confounded,  that  it  is  almost  impossible,  in  most  cases,  to  be  certain  of  which  the  ancient  author 
is  treating.  But  Arrian  has  observed  that  the  mount  Meru  was  known  to  the  Greeks,  and  was 
sacred  to  Bacchus.1 

In  Genesis  v.  29,  it  is  said,  that  Noah  had  his  name  of  nJ  nh  ('JDfW  inhmnu)  because  he  shall 
comfort  us  ;  or,  because  he  shall  cause  to  rest.  Now,  I  think  these  explanations  of  the  name  of  the 
Man,  the  grand  point  of  whose  life  was  the  ruin  of  a  world  by  floods  and  winds,  are  both  ridiculous, 
and  only  prove  that  the  meaning  of  the  word,  of  this  half-lost  language,  is  unknown.  Under  all 
the  circumstances  I  have  a  suspicion  that  there  is  here  a  mistake  between  the  letter  He  n  e  and 
the  letter  Heth  n  h,  and  that  the  word  nj»  ink,  followed  by  the  word  >jd  mnu,  meant,  Menu  shall 
lead  or  precede.  We  have  already  seen  that  Noah  and  Menu  were  the  same.  Thus  we  find  that  in 
the  Western  as  well  as  in  the  Eastern  part  of  Asia,  there  was  a  Menu,  and  each  was  saved  in  an 
Ark  from  a  flood.  The  letter  n  h  and  the  letter  n  e  are  often  substituted  for  each  other  in  the 
Hebrew,  as  they  are  in  the  Greek. 

In  Gen.  ix.  20,  Noah  is  called  by  Moses  nDlNH  ®>R  ais  eadme,  that  is,  the  husband  of  the  earth. 
Thus  Saturn  was  the  husband  of  Rhea. 2  I  shall  have  more  to  say  on  the  meaning  of  the  word 
Menu  hereafter. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HERCULES  AND  SAMSON  THE  SAME. — ETYMOLOGY  OF  SAMSON. — MUTTRA,  HERCULES  AT. — DRUMMOND  03* 
HERCULES.  THE  FOXES. — WILFORD  ON  HERCULES  AT  MUTTRA.  MEANING  OF  WORD  HERCULES. — 
HERCULES   BLACK.      CRISTNA  IN   EGYPT. 

1.  I  shall  now  proceed  to  exhibit  some  other  circumstances  to  prove  that  the  God  of  Western 
and  Eastern  Asia  was  the  same.  In  the  particulars  of  the  God  Hercules  some  striking  marks  of 
the  identity  of  the  two  will  be  found.  In  his  adventures  also  a  number  of  facts  may  be  perceived, 
which  identify  him  with  the  Samson  of  the  Jews  and  the  Cristna  of  India. 

Samson  \\WftOf  smsun,  is  explained  by  Calmet  and  Cruden  to  mean  his  sun.  This  explanation  I 
greatly  doubt.  Samson  answers  correctly  to  the  Hindoo  incarnation  Shama,  or  Shama-Jaya, 
which  is  one  of  the  thousand  names  of  Vishnu,  which  the  Hindoos  repeat  in  their  litanies,  as  is 


1  Hist.  Ind.  pp.  318,  321;  Diod.  Sic.  Lib.  ii.  p.  123;  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  196.  Menu  in  India  was  the 
supposed  author  of  a  celebrated  code  of  laws  called  the  Institutes  of  Menu,  translated  into  English  by  the  learned 
Professor  Haughton. 

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


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER    VI.     SECTION    2.  237 

done  by  the  Romish  Christians. l  Bal-iswara  was  the  son  of  this  Shama,  and  the  Sem-i-ramis  of 
Assur,  of  Scripture.2  Several  of  the  early  Christian  fathers,  and  along  with  them  Syncellus,  ac- 
knowledge the  identity  of  Samson  and  Hercules,  who,  they  say,  was  copied  by  the  Gentiles  from 
the  Bible.  The  whole  story  of  Samson,  the  Philistines,  the  Lion,  Thamnath  or  Thamnuz,  nruon 
tmnte,  is  a  mythos  :  it  is  explained  by  Dupuis,  sur  tous  les  Cultes,  in  his  dissertation  on  the  la- 
bours of  Hercules. 

Mr.  Faber  says,  "  On  the  sphere  he  (Hercules)  is  represented  in  the  act  of  contending  with  the 
"  serpent,  the  head  of  which  is  placed  under  his  foot :  and  this  serpent,  we  are  told,  is  that  which 
"  guarded  the  tree  with  golden  fruit  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  of  the  Hesperides.  But  the  garden 
of  the  Hesperides,  as  we  have  already  seen,  was  no  other  than  the  garden  of  Paradise:  conse- 
quently the  serpent  of  that  garden,  the  head  of  which  is  crushed  beneath  the  heel  of  Hercules, 
and  which  itself  is  described  as  encircling  with  its  folds  the  trunk  of  the  mysterious  tree,  must 
necessarily  be  a  transcript  of  that  serpent  whose  form  was  assumed  by  the  tempter  of  our  first 
"  parents.  We  may  observe  the  same  ancient  tradition  in  the  Phoenician  fable  respecting  Ophion 
"  or  Ophioneus." 3  The  reader  will  not  dispute  the  authority  of  the  orthodox  Faber.  Would  he 
wish  for  a  more  decisive  proof  that  Genesis  is  a  mythos,  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Geddes  properly  calls  it  ? 
If  he  do,  let  him  consult  Mons.  Dupuis  sur  tous  les  Cultes,  where  Mr.  Faber  acquired  his  know- 
ledge, though  he  wishes  to  keep  M.  Dupuis's  fine  work  in  the  back-ground. 

The  situation  of  the  foot  of  the  celestial  Hercules  on  the  Serpent's  head,  pretty  well  identifies 
him  with  the  Cristna  of  Genesis  and  India.  Parkhurst  admits  that  the  labours  of  Hercules  are 
nothing  but  the  passage  of  the  sun  through  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac ;  and  the  circumstances  re- 
lating to  him  he  adopts  as  "emblematic  memorials  of  what  the  real  Saviour  was  to  do  and  to 
suffer" — the  name  of  Hercules  being,  according  to  him,  "  a  title  of  the  future  Saviour." 
He  could  not  foresee  that  the  origin  of  Hercules  was  to  be  found  (viz.  at  Maturea  or  Muttra)  in 
India.4 

2.  The  etymology  of  the  name  of  Samson  and  his  adventures  are  very  closely  connected  with 
the  solar  Hercules.  Sampsa  was  the  name  of  the  Sun.  Among  the  Arabians  Baisampsa  was  the 
name  of  a  city  of  their  country,  which  was  the  same  as  Heliopolis  or  city  of  the  Sun.  Isidore,  of 
Seville,  says,  that  the  name  of  Samson  signifies  the  solar  force  or  power  ;  that  is,  he  defines  it 
as  Macrobius  defines  Hercules.  Whatever  may  be  the  origin  of  the  name,  we  know  that  Samson 
was  of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  or  of  that  which,  in  the  astrological  system  of  the  Rabbins,  was  placed 
(casee)  under  Scorpio,  or  under  the  sign  with  which  the  celestial  Hercules  rises.  He  became 
amorous  of  a  daughter  of  Thamnis.  nrnon  tmnte.5  In  going  to  seek  her,  he  encountered  a 
furious  lion  which,  like  Hercules,  he  destroyed.  Syncellus  says  of  him,  "  In  this  time  lived 
"  Samson,  who  was  called  Hercules,  by  the  Greeks.  Some  persons  maintain,  nevertheless,"  adds 
he,  "  that  Hercules  lived  before  Samson  ;  but  traits  of  resemblance  exist  between  them,  which 
"  cannot  be  denied."  6 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  Parkhurst  should  be  obliged  to  acknowledge  the  close  connexion 
between  Hercules  and  Jesus — as  the  fact  of  Hercules,  in  the  ancient  sphere,  treading  on  the 
head  of  the  serpent   leaves   no   room  for  doubt  on  this  subject,    and   also   identifies  him  with 

1  The  practice  of  calling  the  God  by  many  names,  and  repeating  them  in  their  Litanies,  is  still  followed  in  the 
Romish  Church.  I  counted  forty-three  names  of  the  black  virgin  under  her  image  at  Loretto.  See  plates,  fig.  15. 
Cristna  has  one  thousand  names ;  as  time  passed  on  they  probably  increased. 

*  See  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  293.  3  Faber,  Orig.  of  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  443. 

4  For  some  interesting  observations  on  this  God  the  reader  may  consult  Parkhurst's  Lexicon  in  voce  w  oz,  p.  520. 

5  Judges  xiv.  1.  e  Dupuis,  sur  tous  les  Cultes,  Vol.  I.  pp.  311,  539. 


238  MUTTRA,    HERCULES    AT. 

Cristna  of  India,  who  is  seldom  seen  without  the  head  of  the  Cobra  beneath  his  foot:  and  these 
two  facts  at  once  locate  Cristna  before  the  Christian  aera. 

The  identity  of  Cristna  and  Hercules  has  been  shewn.  Christian  priests  say  that  the  man 
treading  on  the  head  of  the  serpent  is  an  emblem  of  Jesus  ;  then  here  we  have  the  same  emblem 
of  Cristna,  Hercules,  and  Jesus.  Whether  this  will  prove  the  identity  of  the  three,  I  leave  to  the 
devotees.  It  surely  proves  the  identity  of  the  doctrine  or  mythos  of  the  second  book  of  Genesis, 
of  Greece,  and  of  India.  I  am  not  surprised  that  the  Rev.  and  superstitious  Parkhurst  should 
state  Hercules  to  be  an  emblem  of  the  future  Saviour.  How  could  any  person  who  had  eyes 
avoid  seeing  the  identity  of  the  history  of  the  two  ?  However,  let  me  not  be  abused  for  first 
seeing  this  :  it  was  the  pious  Parkhurst  who  discovered  it,  I  only  repeat  his  words,  and  I  have  no 
inclination  to  dispute  his  explanation  of  the  mythos. 

Col.  Wilford  says,  that  Megasthenes  reckons  fifteen  generations  between  Dionysius  and 
Hercules,  by  the  latter  of  whom,  he  observes,  we  are  to  understand  Cristna  and  Bala-Rama.  He 
adds,  "  It  appears  that,  like  the  spiritual  rulers  of  Tibet,  Deo-Naush  did  not,  properly  speaking, 
"  die,  but  his  soul  shifted  its  habitation,  and  got  into  a  new  body,  whenever  the  old  one  was  worn 
"  out,  either  through  age  or  sickness."  Here  we  have  the  true  system  of  incarnations  and  the 
metempsychosis.  Whether  there  be  in  the  Hindoo  mythos  an  incarnation  called  Bala-Rama 
between  Bachus,  that  is  Dionysius,  that  is  Taurus— and  Hercules,  that  is  Cristna,  that  is  Aries, 
or  not,  is  of  no  consequence.  It  may  have  been  the  fact.  It  will  not  affect  the  general  argument. 
But  Bala-Rama  is  said  to  be  the  same  as  Cristna.  The  two  grand  incarnations,  whether  called 
Bala-Rama  or  by  whatever  other  name,  were  those  of  Buddha  and  Cristna.  After  the  equinox 
began  in  Taurus,  they  were  all  incarnations  of  Buddha  until  the  sun  entered  Aries,  and  after  his 
entrance  into  Aries,  of  Cristna ;  and  both  were  incarnations  of  Vishnu,  or  of  the  Trimurti. 

By  the  word  generation,  used  above,  I  apprehend  is  meant  century.  Then  if  we  admit  that  Bala- 
Rama  was  the  incarnation,  as  I  am  inclined  to  believe  he  was,  of  the  cycle  next  before  Cristna,  and  if  to 
the  1500  we  add  600,  his  cycle,  this  would  bring  us  to  the  year  2100  from  the  Sun's  entrance  into 
Taurus  to  his  entrance  into  Aries,  for  the  incarnation  of  his  successor,  Cristna.  Bala-Rama  is 
constantly  held,  by  the  present  ignorant  Brahmins,  to  be  the  same  as  Cristna.  This  is  because  he 
was  the  next  previous  incarnation.  The  nearness  of  the  two,  connected  also  with  the  fact,  that 
they  were  in  reality  renewed  incarnations  or  regenerations  of  the  same  person,  prevents  the  Brah- 
mins from  seeing  the  distinction.  Besides,  he  was  the  same  in  another  sense ;  he  was  the  Sun  in 
the  equinoctial  sign  Aries,  and  in  the  cycle  of  the  Neros,— both  running  at  the  same  time,  and 
crossing  each  other  in  their  progress.  * 

3.  The  old  statues  of  the  Gods  at  the  famous  Muttra  or  Maturea  have  been  destroyed  by  the 
Mohamedans,  and  the  new  ones  have  been  erected  in  modern  form,  and  in  consequence  have  no 
resemblance  to  those  described  by  Megasthenes,  but  at  a  place  called  Bala-deva,  about  thirteen 
miles  from  Muttra,  there  is  a  very  ancient  statue,  which  minutely  answers  to  his  description ;  it 
was  visited  some  years  ago  by  the  late  Lieut.  Stewart,  who  describes  it  in  the  following  words  : 
"  Bala-Rama,  or  Bala-deva,  is  respresented  there  with  a  plough-share  in  his  left  hand,  with  which 
"  he  hooked  his  enemies  ;  and  in  his  right  hand  a  thick  cudgel,  with  which  he  cleft  their  sculls ; 
"  his  shoulders  are  covered  with  the  skin  of  a  tiger."  Captain  Wilford  adds,  «  Here  I  shall  ob- 
"  serve,  that  the  ploughshare  is  always  represented  very  small,  and  sometimes  omitted ;  and  that 
"  it  looks  exactly  like  a  harpoon  with  a  strong  hook  or  a  gaff,   as  it  is  usually  called  by  fishermen. 


1  The  doctrine  of  regeneration  has  been  actually  carried  to  the  letter  in  India.  Mons.  D'Ancarville,  p.  102,  gives 
an  account  of  a  Prince  being  admitted  to  the  Brahmin  caste  by  being  passed  through  the  body  of  a  golden  cow.  The 
Brahmins  hold  that  they  are  the  descendants  of  Brahma,  and  the  Cow  or  Beeve  is  the  emblem  of  him. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER    VI.    SECTION    4.  239 

"  My  Pundits  inform  me  also,  that  Bala- Rama  is  sometimes  represented  with  his  shoulders  co- 
"  vered  with  the  skin  of  a  lion."  * 

Our  account  of  Samson  and  the  bone  of  the  Ass  is  probably  some  misunderstanding  of  the  text, 
or  a  corruption.  I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  gaff  and  the  bone  were  the  same  thing,  whatever  they 
were.2 

On  most  of  the  Egyptian  monuments  a  priest  is  seen  with  a  lituus  or  crosier  of  a  peculiar  shape. 
This  I  take  to  have  been  the  Hieralpha  (described  by  Kircher)  and  the  ploughshare  in  the  hand  of 
Bala-Rama,  just  mentioned.  This  is  confirmed  by  a  passage  of  Diodorus  Siculus  respecting  the 
rites  of  the  priests  of  Ethiopia  and  those  of  the  Egyptians  :  "  The  several  colleges  of  priests 
"  (they  say)  observe  one  and  the  same  order  and  discipline  in  both  nations.  For,  as  many  as  are 
"  so  consecrated  for  divine  service  are  wholly  devoted  to  purity  and  religion,  and  in  both  countries 
"  are  shaven  alike,  and  are  clothed  with  the  like  stoles  and  attire,  and  carry  a  sceptre  like  unto  a 
"  ploughshare,  such  as  their  kings  likewise  bear,  with  high- crowned  caps  tufted  at  the  top, 
"  wreathed  round  with  serpents  called  asps  :  by  which  is  seemed  to  be  signified,  that  those  who 
"  contrive  any  thing  against  the  life  are  as  sure  to  die  as  if  they  were  stung  with  the  deadly  bite 
"  of  an  asp."  Here  I  think  the  lituus,  which  is  seen  so  often  and  is  called  a  ploughshare,  is 
meant. 3 

This  image  of  Bala-Deva  is  probably  that  of  Cristna.  The  Hindoos  know  little  about  the  names 
of  their  Gods.     Bala-Deva  is  but  one  of  the  names  of  Cristna  and  Buddha. 

4.  Sir  William  Drummond  says,  "  I  have  already  observed  that  Gaza  signifies  a  Goat,  and  was 
"  the  type  of  the  sun  in  Capricorn.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  gates  of  the  sun  were  feigned 
"  by  the  ancient  astronomers  to  be  in  Capricorn  and  Cancer,  from  which  signs  the  tropics  are 
"  named.  Samson  carried  away  the  gates  from  Gaza  to  Hebron,  the  city  of  conjunction.  Now, 
"  Count  Gebelin  tells  us  that  at  Cadiz,  where  Hercules  was  anciently  worshiped,  there  was  a  re- 
"  presentation  of  him,  with  a  gate  on  his  shoulders.4  The  story  of  Samson  and  Delilah  may  re- 
"  mind  us  of  Hercules  and  Omphale. 

"  >nb  Lehi,  Ihi,  a  Jawbone.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  first  decan  of  Leo  an  Ass's  head 
"  was  represented  by  the  Orientalists.  >nb  DOI  Rmt  Lhi,  Ramath  Lehi,  means  the  high  place  of 
"  the  Jawbone. 

"  Samson  had  seven  locks  of  hair  (the  number  of  the  planetary  bodies).  The  yellow  hair  of 
"  Apollo  was  a  symbol  of  the  solar  rays :  and  Samson  with  his  shaven  head  may  mean  the  sun 
"  shorn  of  his  beams." 5 

Volney  says,  "  Hercules  is  the  emblem  of  the  sun  :  the  name  of  Samson  signifies  the  sun  : c 
"  Hercules  was  represented  naked, 7  carrying  on  his  shoulders  two  columns  called  the  Gates  of 
"  Cadiz:  Samson  is  said  to  have  borne  off  and  carried  on  his  shoulders  the  Gates  of  Gaza.  Her- 
"  cules  is  made  prisoner  by  the  Egyptians,  who  want  to  sacrifice  him  :  but  while  they  are  pre- 
"  paring  to  slay  him,  he  breaks  loose  and  kills  them  all.  Samson,  tied  with  new  ropes  by  the 
"  armed  men  of  Judah,  is  given  up  to  the  Philistines,  who  want  to  kill  him  :  he  unties  the  ropes 
"  and  kills  a  thousand  Philistines  with  the  Jawbone  of  an  Ass.  Hercules  (the  sun)  departing  for 
"  the  Indies,  (or  rather  Ethiopia,)  and  conducting  his  army  through  the  deserts  of  Lybia,  feels  a 
"  burning  thirst,  and  conjures  Ihou,  his  father,  to  succour  him  in  his  danger  :  instantly  the  ce- 
"  lestial  Ram  appears  :  Hercules  follows  him,  and  arrives  at  a  place  where  the  ram  scrapes  with 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  294.  *  Vide  Dr.  D.  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  III.  Ch.  iv.  *  B.  iii.  Ch.  1. 

4  Drum.  (Ed.  Jud.  p.  361.  *  lb.  p.  360.  6  In  Arabic  Shams-on  means  The  Sun. 

7  See  Montfaucon,  Ant.  Exp.  Vol.  I.  p.  127. 


240  WILFORD    ON    HERCULES    AT    MUTTRA.       MEANING    OF   THE   WORD    HERCULES. 

"  his  foot,  and  there  comes  forth  a  spring  of  water  (that  of  the  Hyads  or  Eridan).1  Samson  after 
"  having  killed  a  thousand  Philistines  with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass  feels  a  violent  thirst :  he  be- 
"  seeches  the  God  Ihou  to  take  pity  on  him  :  God  makes  a  spring  of  water  to  issue  from  the 
"  jawbone  of  an  ass." 2  M.  Volney  then  goes  on  to  shew  that  the  story  of  the  foxes  is  copied 
from  the  Pagan  mythology,  and  was  the  subject  of  a  festival  in  Latium.  The  labours  of  Hercules 
are  all  astronomically  explained  by  Mons.  Dupuis  in  a  manner  which  admits  of  no  dispute.  They 
are  the  history  of  the  annual  passage  of  the  sun  through  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  as  may  be  seen 
on  the  globe,  it  being  corrected  to  the  proper  sera  and  latitude. 

The  story  of  the  Foxes  with  the  fire-brands3  is  vindicated  by  Ovid4  — passages  which  imply, 
though  the  author  himself  affirms  the  contrary,  more  than  a  solitary  instance  of  mischief,  to  justify 
a  general  and  annual  memorial — and  is  farther  explained  by  Lycophron's  AapirovQic.  and  Suidas' 
voc.  yswpioi.  The  Roman  festival,  Vulpium  combustio,  recurred  about  the  middle  of  April,  when, 
as  Bochart  in  his  Hieroz.  remarks,  there  was  no  harvest  in  Italy.  Hence  it  must  have  been  im- 
ported from  a  warmer  climate.  5 

Bochart  (in  the  Pref.  to  Histor.  de  Animal.)  says,  "  In  memory  of  Samson's  foxes,6  there  were 
"  let  loose  in  the  circus  at  Rome  about  the  middle  of  April  foxes  with  firebrands.  Whereunto  ap- 
"  pertains  that  which  the  Boeotians,  who  sprang  partly  from  the  Phoenicians,  boast  of  themselves, 
"  that  they  could  kindle  any  thing  by  means  of  a  torch  affixed  to  a  fox  :  and  that  of  Lycophron,  a 
"  Cilician,  by  whom  a  fox  is  termed  Xa^t,7r8gic,  from  its  shining  tail  :  or  from  a  torch  bound  to 
"  its  tail."  The  same  Bochart  tells  us,  "  that  the  great  fish  which  swallowed  up  Jonah,  although 
"  it  be  called  a  whale,7  yet  it  was  not  a  whale  properly  so  called,  but  a  dog-fish,  called  Carcharias. 
"  Therefore  in  the  Grecian  fable  Hercules  is  said  to  have  been  swallowed  up  of  a  dog,  and  to  have 
"  lain  three  days  in  his  entrails.  Which  fable  sprang  from  the  sacred  history,  touching  Jonah 
the  Hebrew  prophet,  as  is  evident  to  all."3 

Hesychius  says,  that  by  Cetus  Ktjto£,  which  we  translate  Whale,  was  meant  a  large  ship,  in 
bulk  like  a  whale.  Kyrog,  etiog  vscog'  Kvjnvrj  tz7>om  [xsya  cog  Ktjtoc.  Mr.  Bryant9  says,  that 
when  Andromeda  is  said  to  have  been  carried  away  by  a  sea-monster,  this  was  probably  only  a 
ship — perhaps  by  pirates. 

Respecting  the  Hercules  of  India,  Captain  Wilford  says,  "  Diodorus  Siculus,  speaking  of 
"  Palibothra,  affirms  that  it  had  been  built  by  the  Indian  Hercules,  who,  according  to  Megasthenes, 
"  as  quoted  by  Arrian,  was  worshiped  by  the  Suraseni.  Their  chief  cities  were  Methora  and 
"  Clisobora  :  the  first  is  now  called  Mutra,  (in  Sanscrit  it  is  called  MaChura,)  the  other  Mugu- 
"  nagur  by  the  Musselmans,  and  Calisa-pura  by  the  Hindus.  The  whole  country  about  Mutra 
"  is  called  Surasena  to  this  day,  by  learned  Brahmins. 

"  The  Indian  Hercules,  according  to  Cicero,  was  called  Belus.  He  is  the  same  as  Bala,  the 
"  brother  of  Crishna,  and  both  are  conjointly  worshiped  at  Mutra  ;  indeed,  they  are  considered 
"  as  one  Avatar  or  incarnation  of  Vishnu.  Bala  is  represented  as  a  stout  man,  with  a  club  in  his 
"  hand.  He  is  called  also  Balarama.  To  decline  the  word  Bala,  you  must  begin  with  Balas,  which 
"  I  conceive  to  be  an  obsolete  form,  preserved  only  for  the  purpose  of  declension  and  etymological 
"  derivation.  The  first  a  in  Bala  is  pronounced  like  the  first  a  in  America,  in  the  Eastern  parts 
"  of  India  :  but  in  the  Western  parts,  and  in  Benares,  it  is  pronounced  exactly  like  the  French  e 

1  Eridan,  river  of  Adonis,  from  the  words  p  V  ir  dn.  2  Volney,  Res.  Vol.  I.  p.  35. 

3  Judges  xv.  4,  5.  *  Fasti,  IV.  681,  707.  s  Class.  Jour.  Vol.  VI.  p.  326. 

6  Ibid.  *  Maft.  xii.  40,  and  by  LXX.  Jonah  ii.  1.  9  Gale,  Court  Gent.  B.  iii.  Ch.  ix. 

9  Anal.  Vol.  Ill  p.  550. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  6.  241 

"  in  the  pronouns  je,  me,  &c. ;   thus  the  difference  between  Balas  and  Belus  is  not  very  great. 
"  As  Bala  sprung  from  Vishnu  or  Heri,  he  is  certainly  Heri-cula,  Heri-culas,  and  Hercules."1 
Here  we  see  the  Ball  or  ^>yi  Bol,  of  Assyria  and  Ireland,  the  Bel  of  Syria  and  Phoenicia,  and  the 
Belinus  of  Gaul.     Cristna  is  evidently  Hercules,  and  Bala- Rama  is  the  strong  Bala.     Rama  is 
the  Greek  Pco//,?].   To  Bel  I  shall  return  presently.2 

It  seems  here  convenient  to  inquire  a  little  further  into  the  meaning  of  the  word  Hercules. 
This  word  is  admitted  to  be  neither  Greek  nor  Latin;  then  I  think  we  must  look  for  it  to  the 
Barbarians.  He  is  called  in  the  Dionysiacon,3  'HPAKAHS  astris  amictus,  Rex  Ignis,  Princeps 
Mundi,  Sol,  &c.  He  was  called  (I  learn  from  Vallancey)  EREKOELL,  that  is  n  e=5+-i  r-'^00 
+i1  e  =5+d  A=20+y  o  70+n  e  5+b  /=30+*>  Z=30=365  ;  or  again,  E=5+Pzrl00+K=20+E=5 
+A-30+E=5 +2=200=365  ;  or,  as  'EPKAE2=360.  In  my  Celtic  Druids4  I  have  shewn  that 
this  practice  of  describing  persons  by  letters  as  numbers  was  common,  (the  origin  of  which  I  shall 
endeavour  to  demonstrate  in  a  future  book,)  both  in  writings  and  in  the  numbers  of  pillars  in  the 
ancient  circular  temples,  which  are  equally  common  in  India  and  Europe.5  I  ask,  may  not  the 
word  Hercules  have  been  derived  from  Heri  the  saviour,  and  «]  kzzoOO+b  Z=30+y  o  =70=600, 
which  was  sacred  among  the  Egyptians  under  the  shape  of  a  cat,  and  which,  in  their  language,  had 
this  name  ?  Their  cat  mummies  may  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum.  Then  he  would  be  the  sa- 
viour of  the  Neros  or  the  Q  Mem  final  of  Isaiah,  the  X  of  Plato.  By  and  by  we  shall  find  several 
other  examples  of  Gods  whose  names  had  the  meaning  of  more  than  one  cycle. 6 

As  Hercules  was  called  Heri-cules  so  Mercury  was  called  Mer-coles,  or  Mer-colis.  The  Mer  I 
do  not  understand ;  the  colis  is  the  do  of  the  Chaldees — the  Cali  of  India,  and  the  Coll  or  Cal  of 
Ireland.  Col.  Wilford  speaks  of  a  God  called  Hara-ja  or  Hara-cula. 7  Here  Heri  the  saviour  and 
the  God  Ie  are  identified  with  Hercules  or  Cristna. 8 

The  word  Heri  in  Sanscrit  means  shepherd  as  well  as  saviour.  Cristna  is  called  Heri,  and  Jesus 
is  always  called  Shepherd.  He  is  the  leader  of  the  followers  of  the  Lamb.  He  is  the  good 
shepherd,  as  was  also  Cristna.    In  Ireland  a  shepherd  is  called  Sheepheri,  or  sheep-aire.    See  Gen. 

1  Asiat.  Res.Vol.  V.  p.  27<>. 

*  Bryant  says,  the  most  considerable  mission  in  Madura  is  called  Aour  (tin  Aur)  at  this  day.  (Travels  of  Jesuits  by 
Lockman,  Vol.  I.  p.  470.)  Near  it  are  a  city  and  the  river  Balasore.  Bal  is  the  Chaldean  and  Syrian  Deity,  well  known. 
Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  207- 

3  Lib.  xl.  p.  683.  *  Ch.  vi.  Sect  xxv  p.  245,  and  Appendix,  p.  309. 

5  Vide  one  of  the  Metonic  cycle  plates,  fig.  11. 

Allowance  must  be  made  for  one  stone  evidently  broken  into  two.  A  very  curious  account  of  a  circular  temple 
under  a  tumulus  in  the  province  of  Coimbatoor,  is  given  by  my  particular  friend,  the  learned  Psychologist,  Sir  Anthony 
Carlisle,  in  the  twenty-first  volume  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries.  He  says,  "  These  mounds  occur 
"  numerously  in  the  province  of  Coimbatoor ;  they  are  each  invariably  denoted  by  a  circle  of  rude  stones  or  masses  pf 
"  rock,  the  diameter  of  the  larger  areas  being  often  as  much  as  one  hundred  feet.  In  one  example,  the  circle  was 
"  formed  by  upright  flat  obelisks,  averaging  sixteen  feet  in  height,  rude,  and  without  impression  of  tools.  In  the 
"  centre  of  each  mound  a  massive  table  of  unhewn  stone  forms  the  roof  or  cover  to  four  chambers,  the  sides  and  septa 
"  being  of  the  same  rude,  unworked  stone,  and  mortices  with  tenons  apparently  ground  out  by  trituration,  serve  to  fix 
"  the  roof  upon  the  walls.  One  of  these  roofs  contained  upwards  of  three  hundred  cubic  feet  of  Granite*  and  being 
"  immoveable  as  a  whole,  it  was  divided  into  four  equal  divisions  by  stone-cutters,  in  order  to  expose  the  subjacent 
"  recesses,  or  chambers."  This  is,  in  reality,  almost  an  exact  description  of  the  temple  and  tumulus  at  New  Grange, 
in  Ireland,  and  its  circle  of  pillars  described  in  my  Celtic  Druids. 

6  If  it  be  said  I  have  here  placed  a  final  Caph  at  the  beginning  of  a  word,  I  justify  myself  by  the  example  of  the  Mem 
final  in  Isaiah,  and  by  the  Mwe0  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy.. 

7  Asiat.  Res.  VoL  VI.  p.  514. 

9  In  an  ancient  inscription  at  Delphi  Dr.  Clarke  found  the  word  'HPAKAEIOT.  lb.  p.  196.  At  the  foot  of  Olympus 
was  a  town  called  Heraclea.    lb.  301. 

2l 


242  HERCULES    BLACK. — CHRISTNA    IN    EGYPT. 

Vallancey,  Ouseley's  Col.  Orien.  p.  315,  where  he  proves  that  the  ryots  of  India  were  known  in 
Ireland,  and  were  the  Ara-Cottii  famed  for  linen  geer  of  Dionysius. 

In  this  case  there  will  be  two  origins  for  the  name  of  Hercules  ;  and  this  is  certainly  mystical 
enough.  But  it  must  be  recollected  that  we  are  now  in  the  centre  of  the  land  of  mystery.  Cristna 
is  constantly  called  Heri-Cristna  :  this  is  the  black.  But  it  may  be  the  beneficent  or  good  saviour, 
or  good  Heri ;  for  Cristna  may  come  from  some  old  word,  whence  came  the  Greek  word  XgTjj-oc 
bonus.  He  was  called  Creechna  in  Ireland.  I  have  proved  that  all  the  very  ancient  languages  are 
the  same,  mere  dialects,  and  I  will  not  be  fettered  in  my  search  after  truth  either  by  one  language 
or  another.  The  utility  of  my  endeavour  first  to  prove  the  identity  of  the  ancient  systems  of  letters 
and  lano-uao-e  I  hope  is  obvious.  It  is  no  more  likely  that  the  black  Hindoos  should  call  their  God 
the  black  Saviour  or  Heri,  than  it  is  that  the  white  French  should  call  Henry  Quatre  their  white 
Henry ;  but  it  is  as  natural  for  them  to  call  him  the  good  Saviour,  as  for  the  French  to  call  their 
king  their  good  Henry.  It  is  certain  that  in  Sanscrit  cris  means  black,  and  in  old  Greek  %%rjs 
means  good;  he  may,  therefore,  have  been  named  from  both  words.  On  the  subject  of  the  word 
y_^g  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter. 

Arrian  says,  on  the  authority  of  Megasthenes,  that  the  Indian  Hercules  had  the  same  habit  as 
the  Theban  Hercules,  and  that  he  had  an  only  daughter  called  Pandaea. '  This  was  precisely  the 
same  name  as  that  which  was  given  to  the  only  daughter  of  Cristna,  to  whom  he  left  a  mighty  em- 
pire— the  Pandaean  kingdom. 

6.  In  addition  to  all  the  other  circumstances  of  identity  between  Cristna  and  Hercules,  is  the 
fact  that  they  were  both  blacks.  Of  Hercules,  Homer,  in  what  Nimrod  calls  his  genuine  verses, 
thus  speaks  : 

— — —  o  ^'epe[/.vri  vvy.ti  yeyotKUS 

YvfAVOV  TofoV   t%0)V  Y-SCi   till   V£U%T[<piV  Ol'^OV. 


Black  he  stood  as  night, 


His  bow  uncased,  his  arrow  strung  for  flight* 

In  B.  iv.  ch.  i.  Sect.  13,  I  have  shewn,  from  Mr.  Bryant,  that  the  last  syllable  in  the  word  Ma- 
turea,  viz.  re,  meant  the  sun.  The  first  syllable,  I  suspect,  was  the  Hebrew  niDQ  mte,  which  meant 
a  resting-place,  a  couch,  a  bed,  a  sofa  or  sopha,  (that  is,  as  the  Re  was  a  ray  of  the  sun  which  was 
Wisdom,)  or  soph-ia  or  place  of  wisdom, — a  resting-place  of  divine  wisdom — a  Divan,  that  is, 
Deva-ana  or  holy  place,  where,  in  the  Asiatic  courts,  is  the  Sopha  on  which  the  king  reposes  to 
administer  justice.  From  the  same  idea  I  have  no  doubt  it  was,  that  the  kings  of  the  Franks,  (or 
as,  in  a  future  page,  I  shall  prove  them,)  the  kings  of  the  Sacse  or  Saxons,  had  their  Beds  of  Jus- 
tice. In  the  Maturea  of  India,  Cristna  spent  his  youth,  after  taking  refuge  there  from  the  tyrant 
who  strove  to  destroy  him.  And  in  the  Maturea  of  Egypt,  Jesus  Christ  is  said,  as  we  have  before 
shewn,  to  have  spent  his  youth,  after  he  took  refuge  there  from  the  tyrant  Herod. 

Mr.  Maurice  has  pointed  out  a  passage  of  Eusebius  from  which  it  seems  probable  that  the 
Cristna  in  Egypt  was  well  known  in  his  time.  He  says,  "That  at  Elephantina  they  adored  an- 
"  other  deity  in  the  figure  of  a  man,  in  a  sitting  posture,  painted  blue,  having  the  head  of  a  Ram 
"  with  the  horns  of  a  Goat  encircling  a  disk.     The  deity  thus  described  is  plainly  of  astronomical 


1  Arr.  Hist.  Ind.  ch.  viii. ;  Creuzer,  Vol.  II.  ch.  v.  p.  190. 

i  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  19,  Sup.  ed.  Nimrod  is  the  name  given  by  a  very  learned  devotee  to  an  anonymous  work  in 
three  volumes  octavo,  published  by  Priestley,  Holborn.  The  first  volume  was  suppressed,  and  then  republished.  The 
work  abounds  with  the  most  profound  Greek  learning,  but  falls  short,  in  many  places,  in  consequence  of  its  ingenious 
author,  most  unfortunately,  not  understanding  the  Oriental  languages. 


BOOK  V.   CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  6.  243 

"  origin,  denoting  the  power  of  the  sun  in  Aries.  It  is,  however,  exceedingly  remarkable  that 
"  Pococke  actually  found,  and  on  his  48th  plate  has  engraved,  an  antique  colossal  statue  of  a  man, 
"  sitting  in  the  front  of  this  temple  with  his  arms  folded  before  him,  and  bearing  in  his  hand  a 
"  very  singular  kind  of  Lituus  or  crosier."  l  I  think  there  can  be  hardly  any  doubt  that  the  figure 
described  by  Eusebius  was  that  of  Cristna  or  Buddha.  There  was  a  city  in  Egypt  called  Hera- 
cleopolis. 

It  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  more  surprising  that  there  should  be  two  Matureas,  one  in  India 
and  one  in  Egypt,  than  that  there  should  be  two  islands  of  Elephanta  in  which  the  statues  of 
Cristna  should  be  found,  one  near  Bombay,  where  the  famous  cavern  is  seen,  and  one  in  Upper 
Egypt.  Every  one  knows  the  fact  of  our  Seapoys  discovering  their  favourite  God  Cristna,  when 
they  arrived  in  Egypt,  during  the  last  war,  and  which,  very  naturally,  they  immediately  fell  to 
worshiping.  This  alone  at  once  proves  the  fallacy  of  all  the  deductions  which  are  drawn  from  the 
astronomical  calculations  and  reasonings  of  Mr.  Bentley,  on  which  I  will  now  make  some  observa- 
tions, and  may  serve  to  shew  how  little  the  abstruse  and  complicated  chains  of  reasoning  used  by 
him  can  in  any  case  be  depended  on.  The  fact  of  the  God  Cristna  being  found  in  the  ruins  of  the 
old  temples  at  Thebes  in  Egypt  of  itself  settles  the  question  of  its  antiquity,  for  it  could  not  be 
put  there  after  the  birth  of  Christ. 2 

We  have  seen  above  that  the  striking  similarity  between  the  vulgarly-received  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth and  Hercules  cannot  be  denied  by  the  learned  and  orthodox  Parkhurst,  and  we  have  also  seen 
the  mode  in  which  he  accounts  for  it.  I  have  fairly  stated  the  facts  for  the  consideration  of  my 
reader,  who  must  see  at  once  that  if  the  explanation  of  Parkhurst  be  satisfactory  for  Hercules,  the 
same  explanation  will  serve  for  Cristna.  In  an  honest  inquiry  into  the  superstitions  of  the  world, 
I  could  not  conceal  the  circumstances  relating  to  Cristna  j  and  there  are  many  others,  which  I 
shall  state.  Of  course  I  cannot  condemn  any  one  for  being  satisfied  with  Mr.  Parkhurst's  judg- 
ment. That  it  is  not  satisfactory  to  me,  may  be  readily  accounted  for  from  an  opinion  which  I 
entertain,  that  I  can  and  shall  account  for  the  facts  in  a  very  different  and  more  satisfactory  man- 
ner, when  I  come  to  that  part  of  my  work  where  I  shall  undertake  to  prove  that  a  person  usually 
called  Jesus  Christ  did  live,  and  that  the  doctrines  which  he  taught  were  true.  I  must  beg  my 
reader  to  recollect  that  in  this  work  I  am  not  writing  for  the  ignorant,  nor  to  gratify  the  passions 
of  any  class,  but  that  it  is  the  object  of  my  work  to  develop  and  unveil  the  secret  history  of  the 
ancient  world,  which  operates  influentially  upon  us  ;  that  it  is  meant  for  legislators  and  philoso- 
phers, to  enable  them  the  better  to  determine  what  is  the  most  expedient  course  for  them  to  pur- 
sue for  the  good  of  their  fellow-creatures. 


'  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  III.  p.  211. 

8  In  one  of  the  plates  of  my  Celtic  Druids  of  a  round  tower  in  Scotland,  the  crucified  Saviour  has  a  lamb  on  one 
side,  and  an  elephant  on  the  other.    How  came  an  elephant  to  be  thus  found  in  Scotland  ? 


2l  2 


244  MR.    BENTLEY — PLAYFAIR's    RECANTATION. VEDAS. 


CHAPTER.  VII. 

MR.  BENTLEY — PLAYFAIR'S  RECANTATION. — VEDAS. — FORGERIES. — COLEBROOKE  ON  THE  FORGERIES. — 
OBSERVATIONS  ON  A  PASSAGE  IN  THE  CELTIC  DRUIDS.  —  MR.  BENTLEY'S  RECANTATION  TO  DR. 
MARSHAM. 

1.  Since  Bailly,  Playfair,  and  the  other  learned  men  have  been  dead,  as  might  be  expected, 
renewed  attempts  have  been  made  to  shew  that  the  Brahmins'  astronomical  tables  are  not  the 
produce  of  actual  observation,  but  a  combination  of  back  reckonings  and  forgeries.  The  gentleman 
of  the  name  of  Bentley,  of  whom  I  have  before  spoken,  has,  by  means  of  the  most  deeply- 
learned  and  profound  calculations,  published  in  the  Asiatic  Researches,  endeavoured  to  shew  that 
the  history  of  Cristna  was  invented  in  the  year  after  Christ  COO,  and  that  the  time  of  the  story 
was  laid  about  the  birth  of  Christ.  The  object  of  this  invention  he,  in  his  first  essays,  says,  was 
to  prevent  the  propagation  of  the  Christian  religion  in  India,  by  a  colony  which  arrived  from  the 
West  about  that  time  ;  and  in  his  latter  essays  he  says,  the  object  was  to  deceive  Mohamed 
Akbar  in  the  16th  century  into  a  belief  that  they  were  the  oldest  of  nations. 

In  these  essays,  a  most  inflated  and  exaggerated  account  has  been  given  by  him,  of  the  forgeries 
of  the  Hindoo  writings  :  in  answer  to  which  I  beg  leave  to  refer  to  some  observations  long  before 
written  by  Mr.  Colebrooke,  in  the  Asiatic  Researches, 1  where  he  gives  most  convincing  reasons 
why  the  chief  part  of  the  Hindoo  writings  cannot  have  been  forged  or  materially  interpolated.  As 
he  justly  observes,  it  would  be  as  fair  to  conclude  that  all  European  books  were  forged,  because 
there  have  been  forgeries  in  Europe,  as  it  is,  because  there  have  been  forgeries  in  India,  to  conclude 
the  same  thing  of  them.  His  argument  really  shews,  that  it  would  be  just  as  easy  to  forge  the 
gospels  at  this  day,  as  it  must  have  been  to  forge  the  Vedas ; 2  and  the  impossibility  of  the  former 
need  not  be  pointed  out. 

2.  The  Vedas  of  the  Brahmins  have  hitherto  been  attended  with  several  difficulties.  According 
to  the  received  Brahmin  tradition,  they  were  originally,  after  being  revealed  by  Brahma,  trans- 
mitted by  oral  tradition  to  the  time  of  Vyasa,  who  collected  them  and  arranged  them  into 
books.  And  this  Vyasa,  which  word  it  is  said  means  compiler,  has  been  thought  to  be  merely  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  the  literature  of  India. 3  The  number  of  the  Vedas  is  also  a  matter  of  dis- 
pute ;  some  making  them  in  number  only  three,  some  four,  and  some  add  to  them  the  collection 
of  books  called  the  Pouranas,  of  which  they  make  a  fifth  Veda.  From  these  circumstances  it 
seems  probable  that  the  Brahmin  Vedas  were  first  collected  or  remodelled,  after  the  great  division 
between  the  followers  of  Buddha  and  Cristna.  They  are  said  to  contain  internal  evidence  of  being 
composed  at  different  times.  The  Pouranas  are  eighteen  in  number;  they  are  also  the  work  of 
Vyasa.  Each  has  a  particular  and  characteristic  name.  For  instance,  one  of  the  lotus,  another  of 
the  egg  of  the  world,  and  the  last  is  that  of  Cristna,  called  Bhagavad — Baga-veda.  Now  it  has 
been  observed  that  the  Brahmins  admit  that  Buddha  was  the  ninth  Avatar ;  then  what  is  the 
reason  that  he  has  no  Pourana  ?  But  at  the  same  time  that  the  Brahmins  admit  him  to  have  been 
an  incarnation  or  Avatar,  they  say  he  was  an  impostor,  that  he  was  every  thing  that  is  bad,  and 

1  Vol.  VIII.  pp.  484— 488. 

2  It  has  been  said  that  Mr.  Playfair  changed  his  opinion  before  he  died  respecting  the  antiquity  of  the  Hindoo  tables. 
I  have  made  the  most  careful  inquiry  of  his  friends,  and  have  reason  to  believe  this  to  be  false. 

3  Creuzer,  Liv.  I.  p.  671. 


BOOK  V.   CHAP.  VII.    SECT.  2.  245 

that  he  lived  many  ages  after  Cristna.1     This  appearance  of  contradiction  I  shall  explain  by 

and  by. 

In  wishing  to  condemn  the  whole  of  the  Hindoo  writings,  because  there  are,  as  he  says,  corrup- 
tions in  them,  Mr.  Bentley  does  not  perceive  the  blow  which  he  is  striking  at  the  gospel  histories, 
which  contain  30,000  various  readings,  half  of  which  must  be  corruptions.  He  also  instances  the 
prophetic  style  of  the  Hindoo  writings  as  a  mark  of  corruption.  In  these  cases  it  is  frequently  no 
such  thing,  not  even  if  a  person  be  designated  by  name,  as  the  persons,  viz.  the  Buddhas,  the 
Balis,  &c,  were  all  the  same — re- incarnations,  regenerations  of  the  same  being,  and  often  called 
by  the  same  name.  I  admit  that  many  corruptions  and  interpolations  have  taken  place  ;  but  I 
maintain  that  if  these  are  sufficient  to  condemn  the  Vedas,  the  gospels  also  must  be  condemned, 
for  they  contain  various  readings  or  corruptions,  some  of  them  of  vital  consequence  to  the  reli- 
gion. But  it  is  not  just  to  infer  of  either,  that  they  are  not  genuine,  because  the  priests  have  cor- 
rupted them. 

It  is  pretty  clear  that  in  order  to  get  over  the  absolute  identity  of  the  history  of  Christ  and 
Cristna,  many  attempts  will  be  made  to  shew,  that  the  story  of  Cristna  is  an  interpolation  in  the 
Hindoo  books,  though  they  are  among  the  oldest  of  their  records.  Mr.  Colebrooke  observes,  that 
"  the  former  of  these  (the  story  of  Cristna)  is  inserted  in  all  the  collections  of  the  Upanishads 
"which"  he  has  "seen."2  Dr.  Pritchard3  admits,  that  the  history  of  Cristna,  &c,  are  to  be 
found  in  all  the  caves  of  Ellora,  Elephanta,  &c,  which  are  known  to  be  the  oldest,  as  he  says,  by 
their  fiat  roofs,  &c.  Mr.  Colebrooke  allows,  that  the  formulas  attached  to  the  Vedas  for  adjusting 
the  periods  for  celebrating  the  religious  festivals,  "  were  evidently  formed  in  the  infancy  of  astro- 
"  nomical  knowledge :"  hence  he  infers  that  they  were  written  about  200  years  after  the  Penta- 
teuch. But  the  fair  inference  is,  that  as  the  Vedas,  and  the  caves,  and  the  astronomical  observa- 
tions, and  the  formulae,  are  all  closely  interwoven  with  the  history  of  Cristna — that  history  is  of 
the  same  early  date,  and  the  formulae  at  least  equally  ancient.  However,  as  Dr.  Pritchard  allows 
that  the  formulae  are  much  older  than  Christ,  it  is  evident  that  they  cannot  have  been  written  to 
serve  any  purpose  in  any  way  connected  with  Christianity. 

But  the  stories  related  of  Cristna  are  most  clearly  no  interpolation  j  they  are  intimately  blended 
with,  they  are,  in  fact,  the  ground-work,  of  the  whole  system.  The  system  of  the  Brahmins  can- 
not exist  without  them.  Besides,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  sculptures  in  the  caves  ?  Are  they 
interpolations  too  ?  What,  of  the  tremendous  figure  destroying  the  infant  boys  ?  What,  of  the 
cross-shaped  temple  in  the  city  of  Mathura,  allowed  by  Mr.  Maurice  to  have  been  once  the  capital 
of  a  great  empire  ? 4  This  is  most  certainly  proved  by  Arrian  to  have  been  in  existence  in  the 
time  of  Alexander.  Was  this  built  to  support  the  apocryphal  gospel  history  ?  The  April  festival, 
in  Britain  and  India,  was  it  founded  for  the  same  purpose ;  or  the  statue  of  Hercules  and  Samson 
still  remaining  at  Rama-deva  ?  Mr.  Maurice  acknowledges  that  the  Evangelists  must  have  copied 
from  the  Puranas,  or  the  Brahmins  from  the  Evangelists. 5  The  reader  has  seen  the  reply  of  Mr. 
Maurice  given  in  his  Antiquities,  and  must  judge  for  himself.  There  is  nothing  in  Mr.  Maurice's 
pamphlets  but  a  mere  repetition.  But  in  his  pamphlets  I  do  not  perceive  that  he  makes  a  single 
observation  on  the  subject  of  the  figures  in  the  caves.  This  is  prudent ;  but  it  settles  the 
question. 


'"  Dr.  Collier  observes,  that  the  genuineness  of  the  Vedas  is  proved  by  Mr.  Ward  beyond  dispute.  (Ward's  Account 
of  Hindoos,  4to.  edit.  Serampore.)  By  this  the  Doctor  does  not  mean  proved  to  be  free  from  modern  interpolation, 
but  that  they  are  the  real  Vedas. 

2  Vide  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  494.  3  Anal.  Egypt.  Mythol.  p.  261 . 

4  Maur.  Bram.  Fraud  Exp.  4  Ibid.  p.  81. 


246  FORGERIES. 

When  the  small  number  of  the  Christians,  in  comparison  with  the  immense  number  of  Hindoos 
spread  over  all  India,  and  using  a  great  variety  of  dialects,  is  considered,  it  seems  perfectly  incre- 
dible, that  the  system  of  fraud  supposed  by  Mr.  Bentley  can  have  taken  place ;  that  for  this 
object  the  figures  in  the  temples  should  have  been  cut  out  of  the  rock,  or  the  caves  excavated,  or 
the  temples  themselves  erected.  Mr.  Bentley's  effect  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  cause. 
Cristna,  his  statues,  temples,  and  books,  &c,  respecting  him,  are  to  be  found  where  a  Christian 
never  came.  Is  it  not  absurd  to  suppose  that  all  at  once  the  Brahmins  could  invent  the  story  of 
Cristna,  and  make  it  dovetail  into  all  their  other  superstitions — make  him  form  an  integral  part 
of  their  curious  Trinity,  the  actual  Trinity  of  ancient  Persia  and  of  Plato — make  him  also  exactly 
fit  into  the  theological  inferences  of  the  modern  Christians  respecting  the  meaning  of  the  first 
chapters  of  Genesis — make  his  story  exactly  agree  with  the  orthodox  massacre  of  the  innocents — 
and.  finally,  make  all  this  be  received  as  an  ancient  doctrine  and  article  of  faith,  by  millions  of 
people  who  must  have  known  very  well  that  it  was  all  perfectly  new  to  them,  and  that  they  had 
never  heard  of  it  before  ! '  Besides,  it  is  not  only  the  immaculate  conception  and  crucifixion  of 
Cristna  which  must  have  been  invented  to  serve  Mr.  Bentley's  purpose  ;  the  crucifixion  of  the 
God  India  in  Nepaul ;  in  fact,  the  immaculate  conception,  crucifixion,  and  resurrection  of  Buddha, 
in  Nepaul  and  Tibet,  equally  with  the  religion  of  the  Samanaeans  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  2  and 
of  the  Buddha  of  Porphyry  and  Jerom,  born  from  the  side  of  his  mother,  must  have  been  invented. 
Yes,  all  these  things  must  have  been  forged. 

3.  The  forgeries  of  the  early  Christians  are  so  numerous  as  to  be  almost  incredible;  but  they 
bear  no  proportion  to  what,  if  we  are  to  believe  Mr.  Bentley,  has  been  taking  place  in  India  in 
modern  times.  In  the  history  of  Buddha,  as  well  as  of  Cristna,  are  to  be  found  many  of  the  stories 
which  are  supposed  to  be  forged ;  so  that  two  sects  hating  one  another,  and  not  holding  the  least 
communication,  must  have  conspired  over  all  the  immense  territories  east  of  the  Indus,  to  destroy 
and  to  rewrite  every  old  work,  to  the  amount  almost  of  millions ;  and  so  completely  have  they 
succeeded,  that  all  our  missionaries  have  not,  in  any  of  the  countries  where  the  Brahmins  are  to 
be  found,  or  in  which  there  are  only  Buddhists,  been  able  to  discover  a  single  copy  of  any  of  the 
works  uncorrupted  with  the  history  of  Cristna.  Buddha  is  allowed  by  Mr.  Bentley  to  have  been 
long  previous  to  Cristna,  and  he  is  evidently  the  same  as  Cristna,  which  can  only  arise  from  his 
being  the  sun  in  an  earlier  period.  This  identity  with  Mercury  and  Woden,  the  Budvar  day,  the 
Maia  mother  of  Mercury  and  Buddha,  the  Maturea  in  India  and  Egypt,  the  two  Elephantas  with 
their  Cristnas,  and  the  destroying  tyrant  of  the  gospel  history  in  that  of  the  Eastern,  the  Sama- 
neans  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  and  many  other  circumstances,  unite  to  prove  that  something 
must  be  wrong  in  the  principle  of  Mr.  Bentley's  very  learned  and  abstruse  calculations.  As  I 
have  said  before,  the  fact  of  Cristna  being  found  in  Egypt  by  the  seapoys  of  itself  decides  the 
question.  It  is  of  importance  to  observe,  that  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  writings  stated  by 
Mr.  Bentley  to  be  forgeries,  have  little  or  no  relation  to  religion.  Those  that  have,  are  filled  with 
stories  of  immensely  elongated  cycles  and  complication,  for  the  sake,  perhaps,  of  secrecy  ;  or, 
perhaps,  as  our  priests  say,  to  produce  astonishment  in  the  minds  of  weak  and  ignorant  persons, 
and  for  the  gratification  of  the  silly  vanity  of  being  thought  the  most  ancient  of  nations.  That 
this  has  caused  the  adoption  of  their  old  cycles,  which  is  done  by  merely  adding  a  few  ciphers, 


1  See  Buckingham's  Oriental  Herald. 

2  Clemens  (Lib.  i.  p.  305)  says,  that  the  Indian  Gymnosophists  consisted  of  two  sects,  the  Sarmanae  and  the 
Brachmanes  ;  that  there  are  also  some  in  India  who  followed  the  doctrines  of  ButtEe.  He  says  Hellenicus  writes,  that 
there  are  Hyperboreans  beyond  the  Riphaean  mountains,  who  eat  no  flesh,  but  live  on  fruits,  &c.  Again,  (p.  451,)  he 
says,  that  the  Brackmens  neither  eat  flesh  nor  drink  wine. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  4.  24/ 

may,  however  unlikely,  be  true.  But  this  will  not  account  for  the  destruction  of  the  old  works 
in  all  the  dialects  spoken  by  various  sects  over  all  the  countries  east  of  the  Indus,  which  existed 
before  a  certain  period,  and  the  manufacture  of  almost  innumerable  new  works,  for  the  use  of  all 
these  different  and  hostile  sects. 

4.  It  has  been  observed  by  Mr.  Colebrooke  that  the  observations  of  Hindoo  astronomers  were  ever 
extremely  coarse  and  imperfect,  and  their  practice  very  inferior  to  their  theory  of  astronomy.  An 
improved  theory,  or  the  hint  of  it,  was  borrowed  from  the  West :  but  they  did  not  learn  to  make 

correct  observations.     They  were  content,  in  practice,  with  a  rude  approximation Again  Mr. 

C.  says,  "  We  are  not  to  try  their  rules  by  the  test  of  their  agreement  with  accurate  observations 
*  at  any  assignable  moment,  and  thence  conclude  that  the  rule  and  its  correct  application  are 
"  contemporaneous.  This  has  always  been  the  point  at  issue  between  Mr.  Bentley  and  me.  He 
"  mentioned,  in  his  first  essay,  that  the  age  of  a  Hindu  astronomical  treatise  can  be  so  determined 
"  with  precision  :  I  have  always  contended  that  their  practical  astronomy  has  been  too  loose  and 
"  imperfect  for  the  application  of  that  test,  except  as  an  approximation.  In  one  instance,  by  the 
"  rigorous  use  of  his  test  he  would  have  had  to  pronounce  that  the  work  under  examination  is  of 
"  an  age  yet  to  come  (1454  years  after  A.  D.  1799). l  To  avoid  so  monstrous  an  absurdity  he 
"  rejected  this  case,  and  deduced  a  mean  from  the  other  results,  varying  from  340  to  1105  years"  2 
But  I  think  the  example  of  the  fallacies  to  which  Mr.  Bentley's  mode  of  argument  is  liable,  which 
the  deduction  of  Mr.  Colebrooke  in  this  case  has  shewn,  is  quite  sufficient  to  prove  that  Mr. 
Bentley's  conclusions  cannot  on  any  account  be  permitted  to  weigh  against  all  the  facts  and 
powerful  reasons  which  have  been  given.  Indeed,  Mr.  Colebrooke's  observation  seems  to  me  at 
once  to  prove  the  fallacy  of  his  rule,  notwithstanding  that  it  has  been  admitted  by  some  very 
eminent  astronomers. 

Respecting  the  manuscripts  of  India,  the  missionary  Dr.  Buchanan  says,3  "  The  greater  part 
"  of  Bengal  manuscripts,  owing  to  the  badness  of  the  paper,  require  to  be  copied  at  least  once  in 
"  ten  years,  as  they  will  in  that  climate  preserve  no  longer  :  and  every  copiest,  it  is  to  be  sus- 
"  pected,  adds  to  old  books  whatever  discoveries  he  makes,  relinquishing  his  immediate  reputation 
"  for  learning,  in  order  to  promote  the  grand  and  profitable  employment  of  his  sect,  the  delusion 
"  of  the  multitude."  Or  as  he  probably  would  say,  (in  fact  as  all  priests  would  say,)  the  enlight- 
ening of  the  multitude.  I  know  no  reason  why  the  Doctor  should  be  guilty  of  any  deceit  here  : 
but  if  he  state  the  fact  fairly  we  see  how  completely  he  justifies  what  Mr.  Colebrooke  has  said 
respecting  the  corrections  of  the  ancient  astronomical  works  by  the  moderns  ;  and  thus  entirely 
overthrows  Mr.  Bentley's  specious  reasonings,  from  the  correctness  of  the  astronomical  observa- 
tions. The  fact  here  stated  at  once  accounts  for  no  old  manuscripts  being  found  uncorrected. 
No  man  would  renew  a  copy  except  from  the  last  version. 

Mr.  Colebrooke  seems  to  consider  the  adoration  of  Cristna  as  Hero-worship  ;  the  same  of  Menu. 
This  is  a  great  mistake.  They  are  both  personifications  or  incarnations,  like  Buddha,  of  Divine 
Wisdom — from  the  latter  of  which  came  the  Hebrew  m  nh,  the  Greek  Noo£,  and  the  Latin  Mens, 
as  I  have  before  shewn.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Buddhists  and  Brahmins  constituted  one  sect, 
followers  of  Brahma,  till  the  Sun  entered  Aries  ;  then  they  divided  ;  and  the  Buddhists  were 
driven  out  of  India.  But  the  Buddhists  had  the  renewed  incarnations,  precisely  the  same  in 
number  as  the  Brahmins — for  the  systems  were  the  same;  and  this  accounts  for  the  vouno-er 
Buddha,  after  Christ,  whom  the  Brahmins  call  an  impostor.  That  there  were  to  be  ten  incarna- 
tions in  all,  was  a  doctrine  admitted  by  both. 


See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol  VI.  p.  570.  *  Asiatic  Journal,  March  1826,  p.  355.  3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  174. 


248  COLEBROOKE    ON    THE    FORGERIES. 

When  it  is  considered  that  the  Vyasa,  of  whom  so  much  has  been  said,  is  an  imaginary  cha- 
racter, that  the  word  means  merely  a  compiler,  and  that  when  we  say  Vyasa  compiled  the  Vedas, 
we  ought  to  say,  the  compiler  compiled  them  at  such  or  such  a  time,  and,  that  it  is  admitted  that 
they  were  compiled  from  oral  traditions — it  does  not  seem  to  me  probable,  that  the  Brahmins  had 
any  fraudulent  or  dishonest  intention  in  correcting  the  astronomical  parts  of  them.  They  contained 
astronomical  facts,  in  which,  in  their  old  books,  they  discovered  errors,  and  they  corrected  them. 
The  astronomical  tables  had  no  connexion  with  religion  :  nor  was  it  possible  the  Brahmins  could 
foresee  that  these  tables  could  ever,  in  London  or  any  where  else,  at  a  future  day,  have  any  con- 
nexion with  it.  After  the  Mythos  was  established  about  the  year  B.  C.  3101  on  the  Cycle  of  the 
Neros  it  stood  still ;  but  the  astronomy  constantly  advanced.  The  same  thing  takes  place  with 
our  astronomical  tables,    tables   of    Logarithms,    &c,  &c.      In  every  new  edition    errors   are 

corrected. 

Mr.  Colebrooke 1  after  a  very  careful  examination  of  the  credit  due  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
Vedas  inclines  to  think  the  worship  of  Cristna  may  have  been  introduced  at  or  after  the  time 
that  the  persecution  took  place  of  the  Buddhists  and  Jains. 2  This  I  think  is  the  truth,  and  as 
far  as  the  fact  goes  agrees  perfectly  with  my  theory,  that  Cristna  is  only  the  Indian  Hercules,  the 
Sun  in  Aries.  And  this  obviates  entirely  another  opinion  of  Mr.  Colebrooke's,  and  proves  that  the 
Hindoos  did  not  deify  heroes. 3  The  precise  time  when  the  struggle  took  place  between  the 
followers  of  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  and  those  of  the  Sun  in  Aries,  is  doubtful.  It  must,  however,  have 
taken  place  at  some  time— it  may  have  been  a  long  time— and  if  they  did  not  then  perfectly 
understand  the  precession  of  the  equinox,  it  probably  was  a  long  time  after  the  Sun  entered  Aries. 

The  argument  relied  on  by  Mr.  Bentley  is  of  an  extremely  abstruse  and  difficult  nature :  and  I 
should  say,  in  opposition  to  the  numerous  facts,  and  the  mass  of  circumstantial  evidence  in  favour 
of  the  antiquity  of  the  Hindoo  works,  will  itself  serve  as  an  example  of  the  fallacy  of  the  system 
recommended  by  him.  I  know  not  better  how  to  describe  it,  than  by  giving  an  extract  from  a 
paper  of  Mr.  Colebrooke's  in  the  Asiatic  Researches. 4  The  practice  of  modernizing  books, 
alluded  to  by  Mr.  Colebrooke,  seems  to  harmonize  the  facts,  which  cannot  be  questioned,  with  the 
plausible  hypothesis  of  Mr.  Bentley,  and  thus  to  remove  a  very  great  difficulty : 

"  Without  entering  at  length  into  any  disquisition  on  this  subject,  or  discussing  the  accuracy 
"  of  the  premises,  but  acceding  generally  to  the  position,  that  the  date  of  a  set  of  astronomical 
"  tables,  or  of  a  system  for  the  computation  of  the  places  of  planets,  is  deducible  from  the  ascer- 
"  tainment  of  a  time  when  that  system  or  set  of  tables  gave  results  nearest  to  the  truth ;  and 
"  granting  that  the  date  above-mentioned  approximates  within  certain  limits  to  such  an  ascertain- 
"  ment ;  1  shall  merely  observe  that,  supposing  the  dates  otherwise  irreconcilable,  still  the  book 
"  which  we  now  have  under  the  name  of  Surya,  or  Saura,  Sidd'  hanta,  may  have  been,  and 
"  probably  was,  modernized  from  a  more  ancient  treatise  of  the  same  name,  the  later  work  borrow- 
"  ing  its  title  from  an  earlier  performance  of  a  different  author.  We  have  an  instance  of  this 
"  practice  in  the  kindred  case  of  the  Brahme-sidd'  hanta  :  for  we  are  acquainted  with  no  less  than 
"  three  astronomical  treatises  bearing  this  title :  and  an  equal  number  of  tracts,  entitled  Vasisht'ha- 
"  sidd' hanta,  may  be  traced  in  the  quotations  of  authors.  This  solution  of  the  objection  also  is 
"  entirely  compatible  with  the  tenour  of  the  references  to  the  Saura,  which  have  been  yet  remarked 
"  in  the  works  of  Brahmegupta  and  Varahamira  j  none  of  them  being  relative  to  points  that  furnish 
"  arguments  for  concluding  the  age  of  the  book  from  internal  evidence." 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  8vo.  pp.  377,  480,  497.  8  Vide  p.  495,  ed.  Lond.  1808. 

a  Ibid.  «  Vol.  XII.  p.  228. 


BOOK    V.     CHAPTER    VII.     SECTION  5.  249 

This  passage  is  of  the  very  first  importance ;  because,  as  all  the  arguments  against  the  anti- 
quity of  the  Hindoo  learning  have  been  refuted,  so  as  to  leave  no  question  except  this  of  Mr. 
Bentley's,  it  shews  that  this  last  hold,  even  if  not  removed  by  other  arguments  and  presumptive 
evidence,  is  not  any  longer  tenable.  And  it  shews  this  in  the  best  manner ;  for  it  does  not  shew 
that  Mr.  Bentley  has  been  wrong,  either  in  his  reasoning  or  his  fact :  but  it  harmonizes  both  to 
the  assumed  assertions  of  the  Hindoos  and  the  other  circumstances.  This  also  harmonizes  per- 
fectly with  the  system  of  renewed  incarnations  which  I  have  exhibited  to  the  view  of  the  reader ; 
and  thus  the  minute  examination,  consequent  on  the  controversy,  in  the  end,  as  it  always  does 
conduce,  has  conduced  to  the  cause  of  truth.  All  this  also  harmonizes  perfectly  with  what  has 
been  said  in  the  preliminary  observations  respecting  the  great  antiquity  and  the  identity  of  the 
Tauric  festivals  in  India  and  Britain. 

The  undisputed  fact  noticed  above  by  Mr.  Colebrooke  of  the  practice  of  the  Brahmins  in  mo- 
dernizing their  ancient  treatises,  at  once  renders  Mr.  Bentley's  arguments  inconclusive,  and  leaves 
in  full  force  all  that  Mr.  Colebi-ooke  has  said  respecting  the  impossibility  of  forging  books  to  the 
extent  contemplated  by  Mr.  Bentley,  though  that  would  be  absolutely  necessary  to  support  his 
system.  The  quantity  of  fraud  and  forgery  necessary  for  deceiving  the  single  despot  Mohamed 
Akbar  about  the  year  1556, l  according  to  the  theory  of  Mr.  Bentley,  unsupported  by  any  autho- 
rities, constitutes  an  effect  so  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  supposed  cause,  that  it  is,  I  believe,  by 
almost  all  scientific  Europeans  of  the  Hindoo  school,  looked  upon  with  the  most  perfect  contempt. 
The  observation  of  Mr.  Colebrooke  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  quotation  above,  that  the  references 
are  to  works  unconnected  with  the  internal  evidence  seems  conclusive,  and  I  cannot  find  in  Mr. 
Bentley's  answer  any  thing  to  afford  a  satisfactory  reply  to  this.  I  therefore  feel  obliged  to  adopt 
Mr.  Colebrooke's  mode  of  accounting  for  the  apparent  difficulties  which  Mr.  Bentley  has  pointed 
out.  But  I  apprehend,  independently  of  the  other  argument,  that  the  circumstance  of  the  old  sera 
of  the  Cali-yug  exactly  agreeing  with  its  present  date,  having  been  observed  by  Al  Mansor  at  the 
court  of  Balk,  as  noticed  before  by  me,  tends  strongly  to  overthrow  all  the  nonsensical  specula- 
tions of  modern  forgery  to  please  Mohamed  Akbar. 

5.  In  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  said  that  the  renovation  of  the  cycles  would  account  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  Cristna  in  one  of  those  of  late  date.  As  I  have  observed  before,  it  may  be  replied  to 
this,  that  although  the  sun  and  moon  would  hold  the  same  relative  situation  to  one  another  in 
consequence  of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  they  would  not  hold  the  same  situations  in  rela- 
tion to  the  planets  and  fixed  stars.  It  is  very  clear  that  this  must  have  been  observed  by  the 
Hindoo  astronomers,  in  a  very  little  time,  if  they  made  any  actual  observations,  and  in  each  cycle, 
when  they  renewed  their  books  they  would  endeavour,  as  they  thought,  to  correct  them.  This 
perfectly  agrees  with  what  Mr.  Colebrooke  has  informed  us  above  respecting  the  Brahma  Sid- 
hantha,  &c.  These  tracts,  which  he  notices,  have  evidently  escaped  the  correction,  and  serve  in  a 
different  and  distant  clime  to  confirm  the  profound  argument  of  Michaelis  and  Bishop  Marsh  re- 
specting the  difficulty  of  corrupting  the  gospel  histories  in  later  times.  It  is  evident  that  the 
Brahmins  who  made  the  corrections,  have  not  had  possession  of  all  the  old  copies,  which,  in  some 
retired  temple  of  some  of  the  numerous  sects,  have  probably  been  copied  by  a  person  ignorant  of 
what  was  done  at  Benares  or  Ougein.  The  Janampatri  of  Cristna,  given  by  Mr.  Bentley  for 
about  the  year  600  after  Christ,  was  not  long  before  the  time  when  the  Mohamedans  overran 
India,  and  destroyed  all  the  temples  and  colleges  :  and  from  this  time  probably  may  be  dated  the 
ignorance  of  the  Brahmins,  and  the  cessation  of  the  general  correspondence  among  them,  which 


Vide  Bentley  on  Hindoo  Astr.  p.  164. 
2k 


250  mr.  bentley's  recantation  to  dr.  marsham. 

would  be  a  consequence  of  the  overthrow  of  their  universal  power,  and  hence  they  could  no  longer 
attempt  to  correct  astronomical  errors.  Thus  we  find  their  tables  most  correct,  at  the  time  of 
their  conquest,  the  destruction  of  their  power,  and  the  pollution  of  their  temples  and  colleges. 

These  considerations  also  account  for  the  correction  without  the  imputation  of  intentional  fraud 
in  the  Brahmins,  to  whom  (though  I  do  not  consider  them  better  than  other  priests,  for  all  priests, 
as  bodies,  will  deceive,  if  they  have  the  power)  I  do  not  like  to  impute  fraud,  if  I  can  avoid  it. 
These  considerations  also  leave  Mr.  Bentley's  astronomical  arguments  all  their  force,  and  to  him 
all  the  credit  which  is  justly  due  for  his  ingenuity.  The  greatly  exaggerated  accounts  of  Mr. 
Bentley  betray  a  consciousness  of  weakness  in  argument.  The  doctrine  that  a  renewed  incarna- 
tion was  expected  every  600  years,  is  supported  by  a  great  number  of  facts  which  cannot  be  dis- 
puted, totally  independent  of  each  other,  and  found  in  widely-separated  countries.  For  example — 
the  ten  ages  in  India  and  in  Europe,  eight  of  them  nearly  finished,  and  a  ninth  expected  to  arrive, 
when  a  new  saviour  was  to  appear — a  new  incarnation  of  the  Supreme  Being.  This  supplies  a 
clue  to  all  the  difficulties  respecting  the  date  of  the  God  with  a  thousand  names.  He  was  born  in 
the  time  of  Joshua,  and  in  the  time  of  Cfesar  ;  but  though  he  had  different  names,  yet  he  had  the 
same  name.  This  is  similar  to  the  mistake  of  the  Jewish  rabble  in  taking  Jesus  Christ  for  an 
incarnation  of  Elias,  E?uo£,  or  the  God  in*  ieu,  IH'^K  alien,  al-Ieu. 

Mr.  Bentley  has  admitted  several  facts  of  consequence,  which,  as  he  is  an  opponent  to  my  doc- 
trines, the  reader  will  know  how  to  estimate. 

Mr.  Bentley  has  observed,  that  Hermes  was  the  son  of  Osiris  and  Maia,  and  that  Mercury  was 
the  son  of  Jupiter  and  Maia ;  that  Buddha  was  also  the  son  of  Maia,  and  was  the  same  as  Mer- 
cury, and  that  his  name  meant  Wise  or  Wisdom.  1  He  allows 2  that  the  image  of  Siva,  is 
generally  accompanied  with  a  Bull  to  indicate  the  commencement  of  the  year  from  the  sign  Taurus, 
or  first  of  May.  He  says  that  Sura  in  Sanscrit  means  light,  and  Asura  means  darkness.  This  is 
evidently  the  Surya,  and  ~\XD  sr,  Osiris.  Mr.  Bentley  also  shews  that  the  Hindoo  mansions  of  the 
moon  were  originally  28  not  27  in  number. 3  Coming  from  Mr.  Bentley,  my  opponent,  these  are 
all  important  admissions — strongly  supporting  my  system. 

6.  Long  after  I  had  written  the  above  respecting  Mr.  Bentley,  I  found  what  at  once  settles  the 
question  ;  but  as  I  think  it  extremely  desirable,  in  a  case  of  such  importance,  that  my  reader 
should  see  the  steps  by  which  I  have  gradually  arrived  at  my  conclusions,  I  shall  not  expunge 
what  I  had  previously  written. 

If  any  dependence  can  be  placed  on  Mr.  Bentley's  own  words,  he  was  at  last  satisfied  that  the 
story  of  Cristna  having  been  copied  from  that  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  which  I  have  treated  in  my  Celtic 
Druids,  and  also  before  in  this  work,  was  not  to  be  supported.  In  a  letter  from  him,  published  by 
the  Rev.  J.  Marsham,  D.  D.,  in  his  Elements  of  the  Chinese  Grammar,  is  the  following  passage  : 
"  July  4th,  1813,  Krishna  ivas  contemporary  with  Yoodhishf  hira  (see  the  Geeta),  and  the  epoch 
of  Yoodhisf  hira's  birth  was  the  year  2526  of  the  Cali  Yug  of  the  present  astronomers,  or  about  5/5 
years  before  the  Christian  cera."  The  fact  of  Cristna's  living  more  than  500  years  before  Christ 
at  once  disposes  of  all  the  nonsense,  both  oral  and  written,  about  the  history  of  Cristna  being 
copied  from  that  of  Christ.  The  admission  also  removes  the  only  plausible  objection  to  the  whole 
of  my  theory,  and  at  once  shews  that  my  explanation  of  the  nature  of  the  Janampatri  of  Cristna  is 
correct.  Mr.  Bentley's  admission  opens  the  door  to  my  theory,  that  renewed  incarnations  of  the 
same  persons  were  believed  to  have  taken  place,  and  indeed  nearly  proves  the  truth  of  it  respecting 
them  :  for  we  have  here  one  Cristna  about  600  years  before  Christ,  and  another  Cristna  about 
600  years  after  him.     Here  are  three  persons  of  the  same  name  in  the  world,  at  three  very  pecu- 

1  Pp.  55,  56,  60.  »  P.  58.  3  P.  5. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER    VII.   SECTION   6.  251 

liar  epochas — Cristna  about  600  B.  C,  Christ  himself  at  the  end  of  this  600,  and  Cristna  600  years 
afterward. 

After  this,  in  another  letter,  (lb.)  .Mr.  Bentley  goes  on  to  shew,  by  astronomical  calcula- 
tions and  proofs,  that  he  is  correct,  and  that  Cristna  was  certainly,  as  he  had  before  said,  more 
than  500  years  before  Christ. 

The  date  of  the  sera  of  Yudist'hira  is  the  only  fact  which  materially  concerns  my  argument,  this 
being  allowed  by  Mr.  Bentley  to  be  the  date  of  the  birth  of  Cristna.  This  date,  in  his  posthumous 
work,  I  find  fixed,  to  use  his  own  words,  decidedly  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  to  the  year  575 
before  Christ.  (See  pp.  67,  72.)  Then  the  history  of  Cristna  cannot  have  been  copied  from 
that  of  Christ.     I  shall  return  to  Mr.  Bentley  several  times  in  the  course  of  the  work. 

No  doubt  the  difficulty  of  coming  at  the  truth  in  questions  of  this  nature  is  exceedingly  great 
and  almost  insuperable.  It  is  very  evident  that  written  evidence  can  scarcely  ever  be  made  free 
from  objection,  as  the  controversy  between  Mr.  Colebrooke  and  Mr.  Bentley  proves ;  and  I  con- 
ceive that  it  can  be  discovered  which  side  is  in  the  right,  only  from  collateral  circumstances,  over 
which  neither  party  engaged  can  have  any  controul,  and  which  we  learn  from  persons  or  writings 
that  cannot  by  any  possibility  have  any  interest  in  the  question.  I  allude  to  such  evidence  re- 
specting the  Heri-Cristna  at  Mutra  as  is  afforded  by  Arrian,  and  to  such  facts  as  the  existence  of 
two  Mutras  or  Matureas.  All  this  goes  to  prove  the  great  absurdity  of  believing  that  God  would 
give  a  system  to  his  creatures  to  be  believed  under  pain  of  damnation,  depending  on  written  evi- 
dence of  this  kind.  In  this  case  I  cannot  forget  that  passion,  religious  bigotry,  and  interest,  are 
on  one  side,  and  disinterested  philosophy,  and  nothing  that  I  can  perceive  but  a  love  of  truth,  on 
the  other.  When  I  consider  the  letters  to  Dr.  Marsham,  with  the  ultra  pietism  of  Mr.  Bentley, 
and  all  the  circumstances  relating  to  his  last  work,  partly  written,  as  I  am  told,  on  his  death-bed, 
I  confess  I  feel  rather  inclined  to  adopt,  of  his  two  opinions,  that  entertained  when  he  was  sound 
both  in  body  and  mind.  It  is  very  unwise  and  generally  very  unkind,  in  surviving  relatives  to 
publish  the  death-bed  works  of  their  friends.  Nothing  can  be  more  unsatisfactory  than  the  opi- 
nions of  persons  in  this  situation. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  now,  I  think,  that  the  history  of  Cristna  is  the  history  of  the  equinoctial 
sun  in  Aries,  and  that  Buddha  was  the  equinoctial  sun  in  Taurus.  Buddha  was  Bacchus,  Cristna 
was  Hercules,  in  reality,  one  2160  years  after  the  other  :  this  nearly  agrees  with  what  is  said  by 
Arrian,  that  Hercules  was  many  generations — 1500  years — after  Bacchus ;  and  that,  as  Plutarch 
says,  Bacchus  and  Hercules  were  modern  Gods, 1  that  is,  they  were  not  so  old  as  the  Gods  which 
gave  names  to  the  planets.  After  the  sun,  I  suppose  the  five  planets,  the  disposers,  as  Moses  and 
the  Pelasgi2  called  them,  were  the  objects  of  adoration,  and  the  foundation  of  astrology.  The 
signs  of  the  Zodiac,  and  the  festivals  at  the  vernal  equinox,  followed  in  due  course. 


1  Plutarch  says,  De  Iside  et  Osiride,  (Squire,  p.  35,)  "  Osiris  and  Isis  were  translated  as  some  say  to  the  rank  of 
"  Gods,  as  Bacchus  and  Hercules  were  in  after  ages"— -thus  confirming  my  idea,  that  the  latter  were  not  the  oldest 
Gods. 

'  Pelasgi,  Phoenician  Sailors.    See  Celtic  Druids,  pp.  258  et  seq. 


2K  2 


252  MATUREA. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MATUREA. — OBJECTIONS.— MR.   SEELEY'S   OBSERVATION   ON   THE  SERPENT. — ATONEMENT,   ORIGINAL  SIN. — 

BLACK   NATION    OF  BUDDHISTS   IN    ASIA. 

1.  When  the  identity  of  the  doctrines  of  Genesis  with  the  story  of  Cristna  is  considered,  the 
circumstances  of  the  Egyptian  city  of  Heliopolis  or  Maturea,  the  city  of  the  Sun,  as  I  have  for- 
merly shewn,  are  very  striking.  It  was  the  capital  of  Goshen,  (Goshen  means  house  of  the  sun,) 
where  the  Israelites  settled  under  Jacob.  It  was  here  the  priest  Potiphar  lived  and  officiated,  to 
whose  daughter  Joseph  was  married.  It  was  here,  where  a  Jewish  temple  was  built  by  Onias, 
who  was  at  the  head  of  a  sect  of  schismatical  or  heretical  Jews,  whose  doctrines  we  cannot  know, 
or  on  what  grounds  they  maintained  that  this  was  the  proper  place  for  the  temple  of  Jehovah. 
But  we  do  know  that  they  were  hated  by  the  orthodox,  as  almost  always  happen  to  heretics. 

Jerusalem,  according  to  the  Pentateuch,  had  no  more  right  to  call  itself  the  place  chosen 
by  Jehovah  to  place  his  temple  there,  than  Heliopolis  or  any  other  city.  This  same  Heliopolis  was 
the  place  to  which,  as  has  been  already  shewn,  Joseph  and  Mary  fled  from  Herod,  and  where  Jesus 
performed  great  miracles — and,  in  his  time,  was  called  Maturea — the  name  of  the  birthplace  of 
Cristna,  the  Maturea  Deorum  of  Ptolemy.  It  may  be  said  these  things  do  not  prove  the  identity 
of  Jesus  and  Cristna,  and  that  the  story  of  the  former  was  copied  from  the  latter.  This  I  admit. 
But  though  they  do  not  prove  the  identity  of  Jesus  and  Cristna,  they  prove  that  the  corruptions 
of  the  religion  of  Jesus  have  been  collected  from  the  mythoses  of  India,  which  is  the  object  for 
which  they  are  produced.  Before  I  conclude  this  work,  I  shall  produce  evidence  that  the  man 
Christ  Jesus,  to  use  the  words  of  the  gospel  histories,  was  not  a  man  living  in  India. ' 

I  feel  a  perfect  conviction  that  I  have  proved  that  Buddha  preceded  Cristna,  and  I  am  equally 
convinced  that  no  unprejudiced  person  can  doubt  the  existence  of  the  worship  of  Cristna  in  the 
reign  of  Alexander  the  Great.  We  have  seen  that  Buddha  was  the  son  of  Maia,  a  virgin,  in  whose 
womb  he  was  incarnate  sans  souillure,2  and  whose  birth  was  foretold  many  centuries  before  it 
took  place.  This  is  the  identical  history  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  Pythagoras,  and  in  like 
manner  of  Jesus,  foretold  before  Jesus  was  born.  Almost  immediately  afterward  we  have  Buddha 
and  the  Samaneans,  his  priests,  noticed  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  who  states  Buddha  to  have 
been  the  founder  of  the  sect  of  the  Gymnosophists,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Brahmins  were 
used  to  attribute  their  institution  to  Brahma.3  Reland  says,  "  Vehar,  templum  Dei  primarii 
"  Buddae  3ourra  quern  Indos  ut  Deum  venerari  jam  olim  notavit  Clemens  Alexandrinus."4 


1  "  The  Antonine  Itinerary  gives  24  MP.  between  Heliopolis  and  Memphis ;  of  which  12  are  taken  up  between  Heli- 
"  opolis  and  Babylon.  The  former  of  these  places  is  universally  allowed  by  travellers  to  have  been  at  Matarea,  where, 
"  amongst  other  remains,  an  obelisk  is  still  standing.  Besides  the  remains  at  Matarea  which  are  by  no  means  equivocal, 
"  in  respect  of  the  fact  which  they  indicate,  there  are  other  circumstances  which  must  be  allowed  in  proof  of  the  posi- 
"  tion.  The  fountain  at  Matarea  is  named  Ani  Schams,  or  the  fountain  of  the  sun.  A  modern  town,  situated  so  near  to 
"  the  site  of  the  remains  at  Matarea,  as  that  the  skirts  of  the  two  are  within  a  mile  and  half  of  each  other,  is  named 
"  Keliub :  which  is  no  doubt  the  same  with  Heliopolis,  a  little  changed.  The  province  is  also  called  Keliubie ;  and  an- 
"  swers  to  the  ancient  prefecturate  of  Heliopolis.  The  mound  of  Heliopolis,  according  to  Dr.  Pococke,  is  about  a  mile 
"  in  length,  by  half  that  breadth.    The  obelisk,  now  standing,  occupies  nearly  the  centre  of  it."    Rennel,  Her.  p.  495. 

2  An  immaculate  conception.  3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  I.  p.  168. 
4  Strom.  Lib.  i.  p.  223,  Dissert,  xi.  pars  tertia,  p.  85. 


BOOK  V.   CHAPTER  VIII.   SECTION  3.  253 

2.  Our  inquirers  into  the  history  of  the  mythology  of  the  natives  of  India  generally  take  their 
accounts  from  the  writings  of  the  followers  of  Cristna,  never  recollecting  that  they  are  all  denied 
any  authority  by  the  greatest  part  of  the  immense  population  of  those  countries  in  which  Budd- 
hism prevails — a  population  covering  a  country  ten  times  as  large  as  that  of  the  Brahmins.  In 
consequence  of  this,  as  might  be  expected,  they  are  merely  echoes  of  the  misrepresentations  of 
the  Brahmins.  But  at  last  enough  escapes  from  their  own  writings,  notwithstanding  all  the  at- 
tempts of  the  Brahmins  at  concealment,  to  shew  that  there  was  a  Buddhism  before  the  time  of 
Cristna ;  and  I  never  can  forget  the  unexceptionable  testimony  of  Arrian  to  the  Indian  Bacchus 
having  long  preceded  the  Indian  Hercules. 

In  the  various  accounts  which  different  authors  have  given  us  respecting  Buddha,  I  perceive  but 
one  plausible  objection  to  the  theory  which  I  have  proposed  of  his  being  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  as  all 
allow  that  he  was  the  Sun  ;  and  that  is,  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the  Cristna  of  the  Brahmins 
having  come  to  Egypt.  That  a  colony  did  pass  from  India  to  Egypt  no  one  can  doubt,  and  that, 
too,  after  the  rise  of  the  name  and  mythos  of  Cristna.  At  first  to  account  for  this,  when  the  preju- 
dices of  the  Brahmins  against  leaving  their  country  or  making  proselytes  is  considered,  seems 
difficult.  Yet  I  think  there  are  certain  facts,  now  well  known,  which  will  justify  us  in  supposing, 
that  the  Brahmins  had  not  always  the  same  objection  to  leaving  their  country  which  they  have 
had  for  many  centuries  past.  It  is  very  certain  that  the  Sanscrit  language,  in  its  present  state,  is 
an  artificial  one,  and  that  it  is  not  the  oldest  of  India.  Now,  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  mythos 
did  come  to  Italy  ;  then  it  must  have  come  previous  to  the  Sanscrit  being  perfected.  The  exam- 
ples of  the  personal  verb,  the  formation  of  the  degrees  of  comparison  of  the  adjective,  and  the 
identity  of  the  names  of  numbers,  &c,  with  those  of  the  Latin,  which  I  have  given  in  my  Celtic 
Druids,  decidedly  and  incontrovertibly  prove  the  identity  of  the  two  languages.  I  suppose  it  will 
not  be  held  that  Italy  has  colonized  India.  Will  any  one  be  absurd  enough  any  longer  to  maintain 
that  Egypt  colonized  India,  making  two  islands  of  Elephanta — two  Matureas,  carrying  also  thither 
an  astronomical  mythology,  suitable  to  no  part  of  its  own  territory,  or  of  that  of  India,  and  that 
India  sent  back  in  return  a  language  to  Italy  and  the  OM  IIA^  KOI^S, 1  in  language  not 
Greek  but  Indian,  to  Eleusis  ? 

The  fact  of  the  black  God  Cristna  being  found  in  Italy,  Germany,  Switzerland,  and  France,  is  of 
itself,  independent  of  all  other  circumstances,  sufficient  to  decide  the  question.  How  came  the 
French  and  Italians  to  dye  their  own  God  Cristna  black,  before  they  sent  icons  of  him  to  India  ? 
How  came  his  mother  to  be  black? — the  black  Venus,  or  Isis  the  mother,  the  virgin  mother  of 
divine  love,  of  Aur  or  Horus,  the  Lux  of  St.  John,  the  llegina  Cceli,  treading,  in  the  sphere,  on  the 
head  of  the  serpent — all  marks  of  the  Jesus  of  Bethlehem — of  the  temple  of  the  sun,  or  of  Ceres, 
but  not  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

3.  The  following  observation  of  Mr.  Seely,  is  alone  quite  sufficient  to  determine  the  question  as 
to  which  of  the  two  countries,  Egypt  or  India,  colonized  the  other. 

Mr.  Seely  says,  "  The  Cobra  capella,  or  hooded  Snake,  being  unknown  in  Africa,  except  as 
"  hieroglyphic,  it  may  be  concluded  (as  also  .from  other  arguments),  that  the  Egyptians  were  the 
"  depositaries,  not  the  inventors,  of  their  mythological  attainments/' 2  If  it  be  true  that  there  are 
no  snakes  of  this  kind  in  Africa,  though  they  are  very  commonly  found  among  the  hieroglyphics,  I 

1  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  II.  Sect.  XXVII. 

By  a  pretended  emendation  of  the  text  of  Hesychius,  a  learned  German  of  the  orthodox  school,  of  the  name  of 
Lobeck,  has  attempted  to  overthrow  the  argument  of  Col.  Wilford  respecting  these  curious  words,  but  he  is  obliged 
first  to  emend  the  text.  I  prefer  the  opinions  of  Creuzer,  Schelling,  Munter,  and  Uwarrow,  upon  this  passage,  to  that 
of  Mr.Xobeck.    Vide  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,  Jan.  1831,  p.  51. 

*  On  the  Caves  of  Ellora,  p.  216. 


254  ATONEMENT,    ORIGINAL    SIN. 

can  scarcely  conceive  a  more  decisive  proof,  that  the  Egyptian  mythology  came  from  India.  From 
the  union  of  these  considerations  and  indisputable  facts  I  conclude,  that,  in  very  early  times,  soon 
after  the  sun  entered  Aries,  the  Brahmins  did  not,  as  at  this  day,  object  to  travel  from  their  own 
country  ;  and  I  think  we  may  find  a  probable  reason  for  their  present  dissocial  system  being 
adopted.  We  know  that  the  Buddhists,  under  the  name  of  Sekhs  or  Jaines,  have  been  for  many 
centuries  endeavouring  to  convert  the  Vishnuites,  and  it  was  probably  to  prevent  this  that  their 
followers  were  forbidden  by  the  Brahmins  to  hold  any  commerce  with  strangers,  or  to  quit  their 
own  country :  and  that  it  was  thus  their  rule  of  seclusion  became  established.  There  seems  in 
this  to  be  nothing  very  improbable.  There  is  no  miracle,  nothing  contrary  to  the  order  of  nature, 
required  here.  Of  course,  I  suppose  this  to  have  taken  place  some  time  after  the  change  of  the 
equinoctial  festival  from  May  to  April, — from  Taurus  to  Aries.  This  change,  there  is  reason  to 
believe,  was  not  made  without  considerable  bloodshed  and  confusion.  But  I  think  wherever  it 
^ook  place,  there  is  now  no  Buddism,  properly  so  called.  I  think  there  is  evidence  enough  to 
prove  that  it  took  place  in  Egypt,  and  that  Moses  adopted  it.  We  read  in  ancient  times  of  several 
Brahmins  having  come  into  the  West.  But,  according  to  Mr.  Wilford,  the  difficulty  really  does 
not  exist ;  for  he  says,  "  The  Hindoos  are  not  prohibited  from  visiting  foreign  countries, — 
"  they  are  only  forbidden  to  pass  certain  rivers  ;  but  there  is  no  objection  to  their  ascending  round 
"  their  heads,  so  they  only  do  not  cross  them."' l  This  interpretation  has  evidently  been  adopted 
to  evade  the  law. 

4.  As  we  find  that  most  of  the  other  absurd  doctrines  with  which  fanatics  and  priests  have 
loaded  the  religion  of  Jesus  have  come  from  India,  so  we  also  find  that,  from  the  same  source,  has 
come  original  sin.  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  It  is  the  invariable  belief  of  the  Brahmins  that  man  is  a 
a  fallen  creature.  Upon  this  very  belief  is  built  the  doctrine  of  the  migration  of  the  souls  through 
u  various  animal  bodies,  and  revolving  Bobuns  or  planetary  spheres."  Hence  arose  all  the 
austerities  of  the  Yogees,  Fakirs,  and  other  fanatics,  which  were  carried  to  an  excess  that  is 
scarcely  credible. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  has  the  following  passage  : 2  "  The  chief  and  distinguishing 
'*  doctrines  of  Scripture  may  be  considered  the  four  following — the  Trinity  in  Unity :  the  incarna- 
"  tion  of  the  Deity  :  a  vicarious  atonement  for  sin  :  and  the  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  on  the 
"  mind  of  man.  Now,  if  we  should  be  able  to  prove  that  all  these  are  represented  in  the  systems 
"  of  the  East,  will  any  man  venture  to  affirm  that  it  happens  by  chance  ?"  No,  indeed,  no  man, 
who  is  not  a  fool,  will  venture  to  say  any  such  thing.  The  Doctor  then  goes  on  to  admit,  that 
the  Brahmins  must  have  known  of  the  plural  nature  of  the  Aleim,  which  he  calls  the  Elohim,  the 
"  Let  us  make  man,"  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  incarnation,  the  atonement,  and  the 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit, — the  doctrine  of  regeneration  or  man  twice  born.  Thus  in  having 
shewn  that  all  these  Jewish  and  Christian  doctrines  are  to  be  found  among  the  ancient  Brahmins, 
I  am  supported  in  the  fact  by  divines  of  the  first  eminence.  The  fact  that  the  doctrines  are 
common  to  the  East  and  West  of  the  Indus,  cannot  be  disputed,  and  the  only  question  will  be, 
whether  the  East  copied  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  from  the  West,  before  the  birth  of  Christ, 
for  they  were  there  before  his  birth,  or  the  West  copied  from  the  East  its  ancient  doctrines,  to 
the  corruption  and  almost  ruin  of  the  beautiful  and  simple  system  of  their  Founder  and  Sa- 
viour. 

Original  Sin,  the  foundation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  was  not  known  to  the  early  Chris- 
tians, 3  and  therefore  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  it  cannot  have  been  copied  from  them.     Original 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  533.  8  Christian  Researches  in  Asia,  p.  266. 

3  See  Jones  on  the  Canon,  Vol.  II.  p.  348. 


BOOK  V.   CHAPTER  VIII.   SECTION  5.  255 

Sin  entirely  depends  on  the  story  of  the  fruit-tree  of  Genesis  being  taken  in  a  literal  sense.  But 
the  ancient  fathers  of  the  church  understood  that  it  was  an  allegory ;  therefore,  in  their 
writings,  there  could  be  nothing  about  original  sin.  The  doctrine  is  not  known  to  the  Romish  or 
Greek  Churches,  and  the  reason  of  this  is,  in  addition  to  what  I  have  stated  respecting  allegory, 
that  these  churches  make  the  text  say,  the  woman,  not  the  seed  of  the  woman,  shall  bruise  the 
serpent's  head  :  "  Inimicitias  ponam  inter  te  et  mulierem,  et  semen  tuum  et  semen  illius  :  ipsa 
conteret  caput  tuum,  et  tu  incidiaberis  calcaneo  ejus."  1  This  decisively  proves,  when  joined  with 
the  other  circumstances,  as  I  have  said  before,  that  the  Hindoo  doctrines  have  not  been  copied  from 
the  Christian.  It  seems  probable  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Metempsychosis  was  gradually  super- 
seded by  that  of  the  Atonement  in  the  Christian  religion.  The  former  was  held  by  most  or  all  the 
early  Christians,  to  whom  the  latter  seems  to  have  been  unknown.  The  two  appear  to  me  to  be 
totally  incompatible.  Perhaps  we  do  not  find  in  history  any  doctrine  which  has  been  more  perni- 
cious than  that  of  Original  Sin.  It  is  now  demoralizing  Britain.  It  caused  all  the  human  sacri- 
fices in  ancient  times,2  and  actually  converted  the  Jews  into  a  nation  of  Cannibals,  as  Lord 
Kingsborough,  in  his  splendid  work  on  Mexican  Antiquities,  has  proved  that  they  were. 

5.  The  reader  will  recollect  what  was  said  in  the  first  chapter  respecting  the  two  Ethiopias — 
the  opinion  of  Sir  W.  Jones  and  Mr.  Maurice,  that  a  nation  of  blacks  formerly  ruled  over  all  Asia, 
and  the  other  circumstances  where  the  black  colour  occurred  in  various  ways  :  and  now  I  think 
he  will  be  prepared  for  a  few  questions,  for  which  I  have  been  from  the  beginning  paving  the  way : 
May  not  this  nation  have  been  a  nation  of  black  Buddhists  ?  May  not  the  peaceable  religion  of 
the  curly-headed  Buddha  have  pervaded  and  kept  in  peace  for  many  generations,  of  which  we  have 
no  history,  the  whole  of  Asia  ?  May  not  the  people  professing  it,  have  been  the  Palli  or  Palles- 
tini  of  Mr.  Maurice  and  Sir  William  Jones,  or  the  shepherd  kings  or  Cushites,  of  whom  so  much 
has  been  said  ?  Sir  W.  Jones  thought  the  seat  of  this  empire  may  have  been  Sidon.  The  Grand 
Lama,  or  the  sovereign  priest  of  this  empire,  might  as  easily  reside  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sidon, 
as  in  any  other  place.  And  in  favour  of  this  opinion,  there  are  many  trifling  circumstances  which 
may  induce  a  person  to  think,  that  Mount  Gerizim,  the  favourite  place  of  Joshua,  was,  in  very 
remote  times,  like  the  capital  of  the  Lama  of  Thibet,  a  place  of  great  sanctity.  Who  was  Mel- 
chizedek  ?  Was  he  a  Grand  Lama  ?  That  Gerizim,  not  Jerusalem,  was  his  residence,  we  are 
told  by  the  disinterested  witness  Eupolemus,  whose  evidence  also  is  confirmed  by  various  circum- 
stances. Why  should  not  a  nation  have  ruled  all  Asia  in  peace,  as  the  Chinese  have  done  their 
empire,  for  several  thousand  years  ?  If  these  were  Jain  Buddhists,  their  propensity  to  propagate 
their  doctrine,  so  different  from  the  practice  of  the  Brahmins,  easily  shews  why  it  was  carried  to 
the  extremest  West,  and  why  it  was  found  in  Britain.  But  if  they  were  the  first  people,  the 
Celts,  for  instance,  as  I  believe  they  were,  and  their  religion  the  first,  it  would  of  course  go  with 
them. 

"  Buddha,  the  son  of  Maya,  is  considered  as  the  God  of  Justice  j  and  the  Ox,  which  is  sacred 
"  to  him,  is  termed  Dherma.  So  that  this  epithet,  like  that  of  Buddha,  is  not  confined  to  any  in- 
"  dividual  or  any  race." 3  "  On  the  contrary,  we  learn  from  the  institutes  of  Menu,  that  the  very 
"  birth  of  Brahmins  is  a  constant  incarnation  of  Dherma,  God  of  Justice."  Here  I  think  we  have 
a  Melchizedek.  In  the  interior  of  the  great  temple  of  Bali,  at  Maha-bali-pore,  is  a  couch  called 
the  bed  of  Dherma- rajah.4  This  compound  word  translated,  is  Bed  of  the  king  of  justice  or  Bed 
of  Melchizedek. 

Against  a  nation,  as  Sir  W.  Jones  thought,   having  ruled  over  all  Asia,   I  see  no  objection  ;  and 


1  Vulg.  *  See  Celtic  Druids,  last  chapter.  3  Camb.  Key,  Vol.  I.  p.  216. 

*  Chambers'  Asiat.  Researches. 


256  BAAL. 

if  they  were  Cushite  Buddhists  attached  to  their  religion  in  the  way  we  see  many  oriental 
nations  attached  to  their  religion  at  this  day,  I  know  no  reason  why  their  royal  high-priests 
should  not  have  ruled  them  with  justice,  and  in  peace,  for  many  generations,  till  they  were  dis- 
turbed, perhaps,  by  the  inroads  of  some  northern  tribes.  During  this  golden  age  a  most  intimate 
correspondence  among  the  priests  of  different  and  remote  countries  may  have  been  kept  up; 
and  this  may  account  for  the  transfer  of  the  festival  of  Taurus  to  that  of  Aries,  in  some  countries, 
in  Britain  perhaps,  without  any  struggle.  When  I  contemplate  what  the  character  of  a  Buddhist 
must  have  been  before  corruption  crept  into  the  religion,  I  can  readily  believe  any  thing  which  is 
good  of  a  people  professing  it.  The  real,  true,  conscientious  Buddhist,  must  have  been  an  exact 
prototype  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  I  shall  prove,  both  in  doctrine  and  practice.  It  is  pretty  evident 
from  the  Pascal  feast,  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb,  the  change  of  the  beginning  of  the  year  to  the 
first  of  Aries,  the  anger  at  Aaron's  Bull  or  Bulls,  the  going  back  of  the  Israelites  to  the  Bulls  of 
Bethavon,  jx  n>3  bit  an,  &c,  &c,  a  great  part  of  Moses's  object  was  the  change  of  the  festival  of 
the  equinox  from  Taurus  to  Aries.  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  in  very  ancient  times  a  human 
being  was  sacrificed  at  the  Pascal  festival  by  some  devotees,  and  that  the  story  of  Abraham's  sa- 
crifice of  Isaac  was  the  mythologic  mode  of  describing  the  change,  either  from  this  worship,  or 
from  the  offering  of  the  bull  or  calf,  to  that  of  the  Lamb,  perhaps  of  both. 

The  simultaneous  existence  of  the  worship  of  the  sun  in  Taurus  with  the  sun  in  Aries,  is,  in 
most  cases,  easily  accounted  for.  In  general  it  was  not  an  abolition  of  an  old  worship  so  much 
as  the  addition  of  a  new  one,  which  was  required  to  keep  the  festivals  in  order.  So  that  in  most 
cases  the  two  would  go  on  amicably  together,  the  prejudices  of  the  followers  of  the  old  religion 
being  indulged.  Thus  we  find  the  festival  of  Taurus  continued  along  with  that  of  Aries  in  Bri- 
tain. In  the  peninsula  of  India  there  appears  to  have  been  a  severe  struggle,  and  the  old  reli- 
gionists were  expelled ;  but  even  here  some  remains  of  the  old  or  Tauric  religion  are  found :  for 
instance,  in  the  temple  at  Jaggernaut,  and  at  Mavalipuram  or  Mahabalipore,  the  city  of  the  Great 
Bali,  the  ruins  of  which  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  near  Sadrass,  prove  it  to  have  been  of  vast 
size.  In  Egypt  they  appear  to  have  gone  on  amicably.  And  we  have  Osiris,  Apis,  Serapis,  and 
Jupiter  Ammon — Osiris,  after  his  death,  regenerated,  transmigrated  into  the  body  of  Apis.  Plu- 
tarch says  that  the  Bull  Apis  was  an  image  of  the  spirit  of  Osiris. ' 


CHAPTER  IX. 

BAAL. — SIR  W.    JONES   AND   THE  DESATIR. — ETYMOLOGY   OF    THE  WORD    BAL. — DR.    HAGER    ON    AFOLLO.-i«~ 

CUFA   GRASS,   SACRIFICE  OF. 

1.  Bala  or  Bal  was  one  of  the  names  of  Buddha.2  It  cannot  be  modern;  in  most  ancient 
times  it  is  every  where  to  be  found — in  Carthage,  Sidon,  Tyre,  Syria,  Assyria — the  Baal  of  the 
Hebrews.  It  is  impossible  to  modernize  him.  The  temples  with  the  Bull  remaining,  and  the 
ruins  of  the  most  magnificent  city  of  Maha-bali-pore  not  quite  buried  beneath  the  waves,  and  the 

1  De  Is.  et  Osir.  *  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  134. 


BOOK  V.     CHAPTER  IX.     SECTION  2.  257 

figures  in  the  temples  prove  the  antiquity  of  this  crucified  God.  Captain  Wilford  has  pointed  out 
some  very  striking  traits  of  resemblance  in  the  temples  of  Bal  or  Buddha,  in  Assyria,  India,  and 
Egypt :  but  this  is  not  surprising,  for  they  were  all  temples  of  Apis,  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac. 

From  a  great  variety  of  observations  it  appears  to  me  that  the  earliest  remains  of  antiquity  may 
be  expected  to  be  found  in  the  most  remote  situations — on  the  extreme  bounds  of  continents,  or 
in  islands,  or  in  places  the  most  distant  from  the  centre  of  migration.  Thus,  Syria  from  upper 
India;  again,  the  Ionians  on  the  West  of  Asia  Minor,  the  British,  and  still  more  the  Irish.  In 
these  situations  the  migrators  from  the  first  hive  settled,  and  removed  no  more ;  and  here,  in  con- 
sequence, the  earliest  habits,  customs,  and  Gods,  are  found. 

In  the  Indian  Archipelago  there  are  an  island  of  Madura,  and  an  island  of  Bali.  In  the  first, 
where  the  Brahmin  religion  prevails,  it  is  difficult  not  to  recognize  a  duplicate  of  the  Muttra  or 
Maturea  of  Cristna,  on  the  Jumna.  In  the  second,  Bali,  we  have  the  same  name  as  the  temples 
of  Maha-Bali-pore,  a  little  to  the  south  of  Madras — of  the  Bali  so  often  connected  in  upper 
India  with  Cristna,  of  the  Baal  of  Syria,  of  Han-ni-bal  and  Asdru-bal  of  Carthage,  of  Belinus  of 
Bretagne,  and  of  Baal  or  Bal-timore,  Bal-linasloe,  and  of  the  fires  of  the  Baal  of  Ireland,  through 
which  the  people  yet  pass  their  children,  as  they  did  of  old  time  in  Asia.  The  identity  of  these 
respective  Bals  does  not  depend  on  identity  of  names  only,  but  is  confirmed  by  historical  and  pre- 
sent existing  facts  and  local  customs,  like  that-last  named. 1 
Of  the  islands  here  alluded  to  Crawford2  says, 

"  There  are  two  islands  near  the  east-end  of  the  island  of  Java  called  Balli,  or  Baly,  and  Ma- 
"  dura.  They  have  an  acient  language  of  their  own,  which  differs  entirely  from  their  neighbours' : 
"  the  latter  is  the  grand  emporium  of  the  Brahmin  religion  in  the  Indian  Archipelago.  It  is  now 
"  almost  confined  to  these  two  islands." 

When  all  the  other  circumstances  are  considered,  it  will  not  have  surprised  the  reader  to  find  the 
Hebrew  God  Baal,  the  bull-headed,  among  the  Hindoo  Gods.  He  is  called  Bala-Rama  ox  Bala- 
hadra.  He  is  the  elder  brother  of  Cristna,  that  is,  probably,  he  preceded  Cristna.  M.  Guigniaut 
says,  Bala  is  evidently  an  incarnation  of  the  sun  ;  and  Mr.  Muller  remarks,  that  he  is  a  modifica- 
tion of  Sri-Rama,  and  forms  the  transition  or  connecting  link  between  Sri-Rama  and  Cristna. 
This  Sri  is  evidently  the  -up  sr  or  Osiris,  with  the  bull  of  Egypt.  This  Sri  is  found  in  the  Surya 
of  India,  which  is  no  other  than  Buddha ;  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  the  oriental  word  for  Bull,  11^  sur, 
from  which  perhaps  Syria,  where  the  worship  of  Baal  prevailed,  had  its  name.  Bali  is  allowed  by 
the  Brahmins  to  have  been  an  incarnation  or  Avatar,  but  he  is  also  said  to  have  been  a  great 
tyrant  and  conquered  by  Cristna.  In  the  history  of  this  Avatar  the  rise  of  Cristnism  is  described. 
Vishnu  or  Cristna  at  first  pretends  to  be  very  small,  but  by  degrees  increases  to  a  great  size,  till  at 
last  he  expels  the  giant,  but  leaves  him  the  sovereignty  of  a  gloomy  kingdom. 3 

2.  Sir  W.  Jones,  in  his  Sixth  Annual  Discourse,  gives  an  account  of  a  celebrated  Persian  work, 
called  the  Desatir,  written  by  a  person  named  Moshani  Fani,  in  which  is  described  a  dynasty  of  Persian 
kings  descending  from  a  certain  Mahabad  who  reigned  over  the  whole  earth,  by  whom,  he  says, 
the  castes  were  invented ;  that  fourteen  Mahabads  or  Great  Buddhas  had  appeared  or  would  ap- 
pear; and  that  the  first  of  them  left  a  work  called  the  Desatir,  or  Regulations,4  and  which  was 


1  The  word  Baal  or  Bal  was  in  fact  a  title  of  honour.  Dr.  Russell  observes,  "  that  this  same  title  was  conferred  by 
"  the  Phoenicians,  the  Persians,  the  Syrians,  the  Phrygians,  and  even  by  the  remote  people  of  India,  on  all  their  sove- 
"  reigns,"  The  Jews,  who  passed  their  children  through  the  fire  to  Baal,  were  called  pupils  of  Buddha  or  Bauddhers. 
2  Kings  xvii.  17 ;  Cambridge  Key,  Vol.  II.  p  220. 

*  Hist.  Ind.  Archipel.  Vol.  II.  p.  97.  3  Creuzer,  Vol.  I.  p.  187. 

4  Of  which  we  now  have  a  translation,  published  by  Mulla  Firuz  Bin  Kaus,  from  the  Courier  press,  Bombay,  1818. 

'2l 


258  ETYMOLOGY  OF  THE   WORD   BAL. 

received  by  Mahabad  from  the  Creator.  This  Maha-Bad  is  evidently  the  great  Buddha  ;  »  and  the 
Maha~Bul  or  Maha-Beli  the  great  Baal  or  Bol  of  Syria,  with  the  head  of  a  bull,  in  fact  the  sun — 
the  whole  most  clearly  an  astrological  or  astronomical  mythos  or  allegory.  The  Desatir,  the  work 
here  alluded  to,  is  written  in  a  very  ancient  language,  which,  it  is  said,  would  have  been  unintelli- 
gible without  the  Persian  translation.  As  a  mythos  the  Mahabadian  history  of  Moshani  Fani  is 
very  interesting ;  as  the  true  account  of  a  dynasty  of  kings  it  is  nothing.  But  I  think  there  is  great 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Desatir  is  one  of  the  oldest  religious  works  existing,  though  probably 
much  corrupted  by  the  Mohamedan  Moshani.  This  work  confirms  what  I  have  said  in  B.  V. 
Ch.  V.  S.  2,  that  Menu  and  Buddha  were  identical. 

Sir  William  Jones  maintains  that  Mahabad  is  the  same  as  the  Indian  Menu ; .  that  the  fourteen 
Mahabads  are  the  fourteen  manifestations  of  Menu ;  that  the  celestial  book  of  Mahabad  is  the 
celestial  book  of  Menu  ;  and  that  the  four  castes  of  Mahabad  are  the  four  castes  of  Menu. 2  Ma- 
habad and  Menu  were  the  same,  because  both  were  the  sun.  But  they  were  probably  not  the 
same  incarnation.     This,  however,  is  of  little  consequence. 3 

3.  To  return  to  the  word  Baal.  The  word  b$2  bol,  called  by  us  Baal,  seems  to  be  an  original  root. 
It  makes  D»VjD  Bolim  in  ks  plural.  Schleusner  says,  BaaX  o  et  v\  Baal.  Nomen  Hebraicum  in- 
declinabile ;  tyn  bol  quod  significat  dominum.  Like  the  word  bx  al  it  seems  to  make  both  its  mas- 
culine and  feminine  in  o>  im.  ^]D  bol  is  also  called  DTlta  aleim.  It  is  said  by  Parkhurst  to  be 
equivalent  to  the  Greeek  'O  s^oov,  one  having  authority.  It  is  also  said  by  him  to  mean  the  solar 
fire.  Baal  is  also  called  Lord  of  heaven,  which  may  be  the  meaning  of  f»nttf  b]/2  Bol  smin,  trans- 
lated Lord  of  heaven.  But  D'Dttf  smim  or  j'Ditf  smin  meant  the  planets  or  the  disposers.  Its  most 
remarkable  meaning  was  that  of  a  Beeve  of  either  gender.  It  was  an  idol  of  the  Syrians  or  Assy- 
rians, often  represented  as  a  man  with  the  head  of  a  bull.4 

In  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  language,  we  see  the  word  Baal  is  written  by2  Bol.  The  Syrians 
had  constantly  the  habit  of  changing  the  y  o  in  the  n  e,  and  the  e  into  o  ;  thus,  with  them,  on  the 
sea-coast,  it  was  called  bvo,  Bel.  These  sea-coast  people  were  the  Pelasgi,  who  went  to  Greece, 
and,  from  their  changing  the  B  into  P,  probably  came  the  Greek  Homeric  verb  IleTuo  /  am.  From 
these  Pelasgic  sailors  of  Syria,  came  the  Bel  or  Belinus  into  the  West.  All  this  confirms  Park- 
hurst's  idea  of  its  meaning  o  e%a)V,  or  one  having  authority.  From  this  comes  the  word  Pelorus  : 
Pel-aour,  or  Bel-aour — Self-existent  fire — the  son  of  Isis,  the  Maia  or  Great  Mother.     The  true 


1  Vide  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  II.  pp.  74—83.  s  Disc,  on  Pers.  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  59. 

3  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol  III.  p.  441. 

It  is  clear  to  me  that  the  Desatir  is  a  work  of  Sabean  Buddhists,  or  Buddhists  who  worshiped,  as  a  kind  of  mediators, 
the  Planets.  With  them  Hurmusd  is  Jupiter,  or  Iao-piter.  (P.  74.)  The  planets  are  all  named  and  are  supposed  to 
have  intelligent  souls,  and  are  called  angels.  The  stars  also  are  supposed  to  have  intelligent  souls.  I  shall  hereafter 
say  more  respecting  the  fourteen  Mahabads. 

*  For  Bull-worship,  see  D'Ancarville,  Vol.  I. 

My  explanation  of  the  word  Pelasgi,  in  the  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  VI.  Sect.  XXIX.,  is  of  considerable  importance,  as  it 
removes  many  obscurities  which  are  caused  by  these  people  in  ancient  history.  I  am  happy  to  find  myself  supported 
in  a  conclusive  manner  by  Bishop  Cumberland,  (Origen  Gent.  p.  295,)  who  says,  "  My  opinion  is,  that  their  name 
"  comes  from  tttkaym,  by  inserting  the  letter  s,  which  was  usually  done  in  ancient  times  :  and  such  were  the  times 
"  when  this  name  was  first  given.  For  one  example  of  this,  he  is  called  Masnes  in  Dionysiw  Halicarnassensis,  who  is 
"  Manes  in  Herodotus.  Again,  Casmsense  for  Camsenae  :  Casmillus  for  Camillus :  and  Dusmus  for  Dumus,  &c,  &c. 
"  For  I  believe  it  only  signifies  that  they  were  strangers  that  came  by  sea  QitsXayos)  to  settle  more  commodiously  than 
"  they  were  before :  so  they  might  be  adventurers  of  any  tribe,  family,  or  nation :  or  mixt  of  many  that  would  agree  to 
"  seek  their  fortune  by  shipping  into  another  country."  Myrsilus,  the  Lesbian,  says,  the  Tyrrhenians  obtained  the 
name  of  Storks  or  Pelasgi  because  they  depart  and  return  again.  This  shews  them  to  be  sailors.  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I. 
p.  69. 


BOOK   V.   CHAPTER   IX.    SECTION   4.  259 

God  was  originally  called  fyo  Bol, l  Thou  shalt  no  more  call  me  Baali.  He  was  afterward  called 
iT  ie  or  nin>  ieue,  which  meant  the  Self-existent,  and  was  the  root  of  the  word  Icuo,  or  Iao-pater, 
Jupiter,  and  in  Egypt,  with  the  head  of  a  ram,  was  called  Jupiter  Ammon.  The  followers  of 
Baal  were  the  worshipers  of  the  sun  in  Taurus :  those  of  Iao  of  Ammon — of  the  sun  in  Aries. 
From  the  word  ^3  Bol  probably  came  our  word  Bull.  Here  the  struggle  betwixt  the  two  sects 
of  Taurus  and  Aries  shews  itself. 

4.  The  Apollo  of  the  Greeks  was  nothing  but  the  name  of  the  Israelitish  and  Syrian  Bol  b]fr  hoi, 
with  the  Chaldee  emphatic  article  prefixed  and  the  usual  Greek  termination. 

Dr.  Hager  says,  "  Heliopolis,  (of  Egypt,)  or  the  city  of  the  sun,  where  the  first  obelisks  were 
"  erected,  and  where  the  sun  was  first  worshiped.  It  (Jablonski's  Proleg.)  seems  that  the  name 
"  of  Apollo,  or  the  sun  among  the  Greeks,  was  likewise  derived  from  Bel,  otherwise  Baal,  with  an 
"  am."  Then,  after  some  reasoning  in  which  I  cannot  agree  with  him,  he  says,  "  Thus  in  the 
"  Greek  alphabet,  which  is  derived  from  the  Phoenician,  the  o  micron  stands  exactly  in  the  same 
"  place  where  the  ain  (as  he  miscalls  the  oin)  of  the  Phoenician  stood,  whose  shape  it  also  has  re- 
"  tained.  Besides,  what  in  Chaldaea  was  pronounced  like  an  a,  in  Syria  sounded  like  o — as  olaph 
"  instead  of  aleph,  dolath  instead  of  daleth,  &c.  If  we  then  join  a  Greek  termination,  and  prefix 
"  the  Phoenician  article  Ha,  we  have  the  Apollo  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  who  had  no  aspirate 
"  letters,  like  the  modern  Greeks  and  Italians,  their  descendants,  or  did  not  pronounce  them.  The 
"  same  Bel  was  also  called  Pal :  which  we  ought  not  to  wonder  at,  the  ain  being  a  gutteral  sound, 
"  sometimes  approaching  to  a,  sometimes  to  o,  and  sometimes  to  u.  Thence  we  find  the  different 
"  pronunciations  of  Bal,  Bol,  Pul,  just  as  But,  Pot,  Fo,  in  more  Eastern  countries."  2 

On  le  voit  (Baal  or  Bel)  comme  nom  du  Soleil,  says  Count  de  Gebelin,  sur  des  medailles  Phe- 
niciennes  de  Cadiz  et  de  plusieurs  autres  villes  d'  Espagne. 3  Hence  Baalbek  in  Syria  was  called 
by  the  Greeks  Heliopolis,  and  according  to  Macrobius  Assyrii  Heliopoli  solem  magna  pompa 
coluere  sub  Jovis  Heliopolitani  nomine. 4 

The  most  remarkable  of  the  remains  of  the  Indian  Bal  or  Bala- Rama  yet  to  be  found  in  the 
West,  is  the  temple  of  Heliopolis  or  Balbec  in  Syria.  Jablonski  informs  us,  that  Bee  and  Beth 
are  synonymous.  Then  this  will  be  the  no  hit  or  temple  or  house  of  Bal.  The  remains  of  the 
modern  temple  are  very  large  and  magnificent ;  but  I  learn  from  an  intelligent  young  friend  and 
traveller,  that  this  building  is  evidently  of  two  dates — that  it  is  a  Grecian  building,  erected  upon 
Cyclopaean  foundations.  There  is  one  stone  upwards  of  60  feet  long,  and  12  feet  thick,  which 
is  placed  in  a  wall,  at  least  20  feet  from  the  ground.  The  Cyclopaean  remains  prove  that  this 
temple  was  erected  in  the  most  remote  aera.  It  is  remarkable  that,  like  Stonehenge  and  Abury, 
no  Roman  or  Greek  writer  has  noticed  it  before  the  time  of  Augustus.  Antoninus  is  said  to  have 
rebuilt  the  temple,  but  it  must  have  been  on  the  old  foundations.  The  Greek  name  Heliopolis 
proves,  if  proof  were  wanting,  the  meaning  of  the  word  Bal. 5 


1  Hosea  ii.  16. 

8  Diss,  on  Babyl.  Ant.  p.  35.  That  Bel  was  the  Sun,  see  Voss.  de  Idol. ;  Vitringa,  Comment  in  Isa.  xlvi.  ap. 
Brucker;  Hist.  Crit.  Philos. ;  de  Philos.  Chaldseor.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  ii. ;  Hist.  Babyl. ;  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  III.  Sect.  ii. 

3  Monde  Primitif,  Vol.  IV.  4  Saturn,  Lib.  i. ;  Hager,  Dissert,  on  Bab.  Ant. 

5  In  my  Celtic  Druids,  (p.  198,)  I  have  derived  Jupiter  from  Iao-pater.  Mr.  Sharon  Turner  (Trans.  Soc.  Lit.)  en- 
ables me  to  go  to  a  more  distant  fountain,  perhaps  the  fountain-head  of  the  same  stream.  He  says,  p.  49,  Sanscrit 
Matri  mother ;  p.  60,  Sanscrit  Ipatri  father.  Here  are  most  clearly  the  Mater  and  Pater  of  Italy.  But  how  came  the 
/  to  precede  the  Patri?  I  think  it  was  the  same  /  which  I  have  noticed  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  V.  Sect.  XLII.,  as 
the  sacred  name  of  the  island  of  Iona,  called  II  in  the  annals  of  Ulster,  and  by  which  the  God  Jehovah  or  mn»  Ieue  is 
always  called  by  the  Chaldee  paraphrases,  which  confirms  what  I  there  said  respecting  Iona.  It  is  almost  impossible  to 
read  a  page  of  Sir  William  Jones's  works  and  not  to  observe  the  elements  of  the  word  mrp  ieue  recurring  continually 

2l2 


260  YAJNA    OR   PASSOVER. 

5.  The  Hindoos  have  a  sacrifice  held  in  very  high  esteem  which,  their  traditions  state,  goes 
back  to  the  most  remote  aera :  this  is  the  sacrifice  of  a  certain  species  of  grass,  called  Cufa  grass. 
This  ancient  sacrifice  was  also  in  use  among  the  Egyptians.  It  is  noticed  by  Porphyry  de  absti- 
nmtid, 1  in  these  words  :  "  It  seems  that  the  period  is  of  immense  antiquity,  from  which  a  nation, 
"  the  most  learned  of  all  others,  as  Theophrastus  says,  and  who  inhabit  the  most  sacred  region 
"  made  by  the  Nile,  began  first,  from  the  Vestal  hearth,  to  sacrifice  to  the  celestial  Gods,  not 
"  myrrh,  or  cassia,  or  the  first-fruits  of  things,  mingled  with  the  crocus  of  frankincense  :  for 
"  these  were  assumed  many  generations  afterward,  in  consequence  of  error  gradually  increasing, 
"  when  men  wanting  the  necessaries  of  life  offered,  with  great  labour  and  many  tears,  some  drops 
"  of  these,  as  first-fruits  to  the  Gods.  Hence  they  did  not  at  first  sacrifice  these,  but  Grass, 
"  which,  as  a  certain  soft  wool  of  prolific  nature,  they  plucked  with  their  hands." 

The  identity  of  the  two  sacrifices  of  grass  assimilates  very  well  with  the  veneration  of  the 
Egyptians  and  Phoenicians  for  the  cow.2 


CHAPTER  X. 

YAJNA  OR   PASSOVER. — EIGHT  VASUS. 

1 .  If  the  religions  of  Moses  and  the  Hindoos  were  the  same,  it  was  reasonable  to  expect  that 
we  should  find  the  celebrated  Egyptian  festival  of  the  Passover  in  both  countries,  and  it  is  found 
accordingly.     We  have  it  in  the  most  solemn  of  the  religious  rites  of  the  Brahmins,  the  sacrifice 

of  the  Yajna  or  the  Lamb. 

I  have  no  doubt  that,  with  the  Hebrews,  this  succeeded  to  the  Mithraitic  sacrifice  of  the  Bull ; 
and  that  it  was  in  celebration  of  the  passage  or  passover  of  the  equinoctial  sun  from  the  Bull  to 
the  Ram.  This  history  of  the  passage  of  the  sun  and  of  the  passage  of  the  Israelites  from  Egypt, 
affords  a  very  remarkable  example  of  the  double  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  books.  The  story  of  the 
ten  plagues  of  Egypt  might  be  very  suitable  for  the  rabble  3  of  Jerusalem  and  London,  but  the 
hio-her  classes  in  the  former  had,  and  1  should  hope  in  the  latter  now  have,  too  much  sense  to 
believe  such  degrading  accounts  of  the  Deity  as  the  literal  meaning  of  this  history  exhibits. 


in  the  names  of  Indian  Gods.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  n»  ie  Jah  of  the  Chaldees.  Father  is  also,  in  the  Sancrit  and  Bali  lan- 
guages, Pita.  The  planet  Jupiter  is  called  Vrihaspati  in  Sanscrit.  From  the  attributes  of  this  God,  Sir  W.  Jones  has 
shewn  him  to  be  the  Jupiter  of  the  Latins.  This  is  probably  the  Patri  with  some  other  word  prefixed,  perhaps  as  a 
title  of  honour  :  and  it  is  probably  the  way  in  which  Ie  and  Ye  are  used  in  the  names  of  the  Sanscrit  Gods.  But  in  the 
old  Bali  or  Pali,  a  language  much  older  than  the  improved  Sanscrit,  Mr.  Turner  gives  Pati  for  father. 

1  Taylor,  B.  ii.  p.  47. 

2  Ibid,  p  51.  For  want  of  a  system,  Mr.  Maurice  falls  into  great  mistakes.  In  page  40  of  his  Modern  History,  ed. 
4to  ,  he  calls  Cristna  Bacchus ;  in  p.  129,  he  makes  him  to  be  Hercules;  and  in  page  135,  he  makes  him  Bali.  In  one 
sense  he  is  right,  for  they  are  all  the  sun,  but  the  sun  at  different  epochs.  M.  Guigniaut  has  observed,  that  all  the 
Gods  and  Goddesses  of  India  return  or  run  into  one  another.  This  exactly  accords  with  what  the  reader  has  already 
seen— that  all  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  of  the  Western  world  centre  in  the  Sun. 

3  See  Bryant  on  the  Plagues  of  Egypt. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER    X.      SECTION     I.  261 

Rabbi  Bechai,  in  commenting  on  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Exodus,  speaks  to  the  following  purport : 
Scripsit  Maimonides,  in  ratione  hnjus  prcecepti,  quod  propterea  quod  sidus  Aries  iri  mense  Nisan 
maxime  valeret,  et  hoc  sidus  fructus  germinare  facer  et,  ideo  jussit  Deus  mactare  arietem.  Here  is  a 
pretty  clear  avowal  on  the  part  of  Maimonides,  the  most  learned  of  the  Rabbins,  that  the  paschal 
lamb  was  a  type  of  the  astronomical  Lamb. l 

Before  the  time  of  Moses,  the  Egyptians  fixed  the  commencement  of  the  year  at  the  vernal 
equinox.  R.  A.  Seba  says,  Incipiebant  autem  JEgyptii  numerare  menses  ah  eo  tempore,  quo  sol, 
ingressus  est  in  initium  sideris  Arietis,  &c.  In  the  Oriental  Chronicle  it  is  said,  that  the  day  when 
the  sun  entered  into  Aries,  was  solennis  ac  celeberrimus  apud  JEgyptios1.  But  this  ^Egyptian  festi- 
val commenced  on  the  very  day  when  the  Paschal  lamb  was  separated.  Insuper  die  mensis  decimo, 
says  R.  A.  Seba,  ipso  illo  die  quo  JEgyptii  incipiebant  celebrare  cultum  Arietis,  fyc,  placuit  Deo 
nt  sumerent  agnum,  Sfc.  2  In  this  festival  the  Israelites  marked  their  door-posts,  &c,  with  blood, 
the  ^Egyptians  marked  their  goods  with  red.3  The  Hebrew  name  was  riDD  psh  pesach,  which 
means  transit.    The  Lamb  itself  is  also  often  called  Pesech,  or  the  Passover. 

In  Tndia,  the  devotees  throw  red  powder  on  one  another  at  the  festival  of  the  Huli  or  vernal 
equinox.  This  red  powder,  the  Hindoos  say,  is  in  imitation  of  the  pollen  of  plants,  the  principle 
of  fructification,  the  flower  of  the  plant.  Here  we  arrive  at  the  import  of  this  mystery.  A  plant 
which  has  not  this  powder,  this  flower  or  flour,  is  useless  ;  it  does  not  produce  seed.  I  could 
carry  this  farther,  sed  sat  for  the  present. 4  This  Huli  festival  is  the  festival  of  the  vernal 
equinox ;  it  is  the  Yule  ;  it  is  the  origin  of  our  word  holy  ;  it  is  Julius,  Yulius. 

The  followers  of  Vishnu  observed  the  custom,  on  grand  occasions,  of  sacrificing  a  ram.  This 
sacrifice  was  called  Yajna;  and  the  fire  of  the  Yajna  was  called  Yqjneswara,  or  the  God  tire. 
The  word  "  Yajna,  M.  Dubois  says,  (p.  316,)  is  derived  from  Agni  fire,  as  if  it  were  to  this  God 
"  that  the  sacrifice  was  really  offered.  I  need  not  point  out  the  resemblance  between  the  word 
"  Agni  and  the  Latin  Ignis."  And  I  suppose  i"  need  not  point  out  the  resemblance  of  the  word 
Agni  to  the  Latin  Agnus,  to  those  who  have  seen  the  numerous  extraordinary  coincidences  in  the 
languages  of  Italy  and  India,  which  I  have  shewn  in  this  work  and  in  my  Celtic  Druids.  Mr. 
Bentley  says,  (p.  45,)  "  Aries  or  the  Ram  is  to  be  found  in  the  sign  of  Agni,  who,  according  to 
"  the  fictions  of  the  Hindus,  was  feigned  to  ride  that  animal."  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Rev.  M. 
Dubois  did  not  choose  to  see  the  Agnus,  though  he  could  clearly  see  the  Ignis. 

Agnus  is  not  so  properly  the  Latin  word  for  a  lamb  as  for  an  animal  peculiarly  dedicated  to 
God,  hostia  pura  ;  therefore  similar  to  the  Greek  ayvoc  purus.  The  lamb  being  the  animal  pecu- 
liarly sacred,  thus  became  called  Agnus.  This  the  reader  will  see  confirmed  at  once  by  turning 
to  Moore's  Hindoo  Pantheon,  (Plate  80,)  where  there  are  three  examples  of  the  Agni  Avatar ;  one 
is  riding  on  a  Ram,  the  other  two  have  flags  in  their  hands,  on  which  are  inscribed  the  Ram.  He 
may  also  see  the  same  repeated  several  times  in  the  plates  of  M.  Creuzer. 

In  this  ceremony  of  sacrificing  the  lamb  the  devotees  of  India  chaunt  with  a  loud  voice,  When 
will  it  be  that"  the  Saviour  will  be  born  !  When  will  it  be  that  the  Redeemer  will  appear  !  The 
Brahmins,  though  they  eat  no  flesh  on  any  other  occasion,  at  this  sacrifice  taste  the  flesh  of  the 
animal :  and  the  person  offering  the  sacrifice  makes  a  verbal  confession  of  his  sins  5  and  receives 
absolution.6      On  this  I  need  make  no  observation.     Mr.  Parkhurst's  doctrine  of  types  explains 


1  Drum.  (Ed.  Jud.  p.  376.  *  Ibid.  p.  3/8.  *  Ibid   p#  380 

4  See  a  beautiful  note,  No.  66,  in  Professor  Haughton's  Laws  of  Menu,  to  which  I  shall  return. 

5  Loubere  says,  auricular  confession  is  practised  by  the  Siamese. 

6  Travels  and  Letters  of  the  Jesuits,  translated  from  the  French,  1713;  London,  1714,  pp.  14 — 23,  signed  Bouchet. 


262 


YAJNA   OR   PASSOVER. 


it  to  those  who  admit  the  doctrine  of  types.  The  Hindoos  have  a  sacred  fire  which  never  dies, 
and  a  sacrifice  connected  with  it,  called  Oman. »  They  have  also  the  custom  of  casting  out  devils 
from  people  possessed,  by  prayers  and  ceremonies,2  which  is  also  practised  by  the  people  of  Siam. 
All  this  is  very  important. 

The  first  sentence  of  the  Reg- Veda  is  said  to  be  Agnim-ile,  /  sing  praise  to  fire.  Here  we  are 
told  that  Agnim  means  fire.  When  we  reflect  upon  the  slain  lamb,  and  the  call  for  the  Saviour, 
we  must  be  struck  with  the  scene  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  Apocalypse,  from  verse  five  to  ten, 
where  praise  is  given  to  the  slain  Lamb.    The  identity  of  the  Mythoses  cannot  be  denied. 

That  the  word  agnus  means  lamb  every  one  knows  j  but  it  will,  perhaps,  be  said,  that  though  it 
may  have  this  meaning  in  Latin  or  Etruscan,  it  has  it  not  in  Sanscrit.  To  this  I  reply,  if  it  have 
not  this  meaning  in  the  Sanscrit,  it  must  have  had  it  in  the  old  language  on  which  the  Sanscrit 
was  built,  because  it  is  impossible  to  consider  the  way  in  which  we  find  the  Indian  language  mixed 
with  Latin,  and  to  see  the  Agni  always  mounted  on  a  lamb,  or  in  some  way  or  other  accompanied 
by  the  lamb,  and  the  lamb  slain  and  burnt,  without  believing  that,  however  it  may  have  changed, 
it  must  once  have  had  this  meaning.  But  it  probably  had  both  the  meaning  of  the  Lamb  and  of 
fire — of  the  Sun  in  Aries.  The  whole  seems  to  raise  a  presumption  that  this  Lamb  worship  was 
in  existence  before  the  artificial  Sanscrit  was  composed,  and  that  the  Brahmins  have  lost  the 
meaning  of  their  mythology  as  well  as  of  their  astronomy.  I  only  wish  my  reader  to  cast  his  eye 
over  the  plates  of  the  Agni  in  Moore  and  Creuzer,  to  be  convinced  of  what  I  say.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  word  Iaya,  and  several  others,  which  I  have  pointed  out  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  quite  impossible  for  any  person  who  has  studied  this  subject,  and  considered 
the  Zodiacal  Agnus,  the  Yajna  sacrifice,  the  worship  of  the  lamb  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  and 
the  icons  of  Agni  with  the  Lamb  on  them,  to  doubt  that  the  Agnus  means  lamb  :  then,  to  such  a 
person,  the  proof  that  the  Agnus  meant  lamb,  must  carry  the  conviction,  that  the  original  language 
of  the  early  mythology  is  lost.  This  is  of  great  consequence,  as  it  removes  the  only  impediment 
to  my  interpretation  of  the  name  of  the  God  nin»  ieue,  which,  as  I  have  shewn,  is  found  in  all  the 
names  of  the  Gods.  I  am  told  that,  in  the  Sanscrit,  Massih  means  alike  Aries,  fire,  and  Saviour. 
This  is  correctly  the  irttfO  msih  of  the  Hebrew,  the  anointed,  or  Saviour.  Thus  the  Lamb  is  the 
Messiah. 

I  know  that  my  method  of  rendering  many  Indian  names  will  be  contested  by  Hindoo  scholars, 
who  will  poh,  poh  me  down, — as  we  are  told  by  the  traveller,  J  have  seen,  Sir,  and  sure  must  know ! 
But  I  am  not  to  be  put  down  in  this  way.  I  tell  them  that  their  authority,  in  many  cases,  is 
exactly  similar  to  that  which  was  proffered  to  me  in  the  case  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Yajni.  I  said  in 
a  large  party  of  learned  Orientalists,  that  this  sacrifice  of  the  God  Agni  was  not  that  of  the  God  of 
Fire  merely,  but  that  also  of  the  Lamb  j  the  Aries  of  the  Zodiac.  I  was  poh,  poked  down,  put  down 
with  authority :  these  learned  gentlemen  said,  it  had  not  that  meaning  in  Sanscrit ;  but  as  I  per- 
sisted, and  shewed  them  that  the  thing  offered  in  the  sacrifice  was  a  Lamb,  tasted  by  Brahmins  on 
that  occasion,  though  they  never  eat  flesh  at  any  other  time ; — that  this  God  of  fire,  though  always 
surrounded  by  a  glory,  was  at  the  same  time  invariably  accompanied  by  a  Lamb,  he  mostly  riding 
a  lamb,  they  were  silenced.  The  truth  was,  they  had  never  looked  so  far.  But  the  fact  itself  of 
this  meaning  of  the  word  being  lost  in  the  Sanscrit,  tends  to  prove  the  modern  date  of  that  language. 
I  cannot  believe  that  the  Brahmins  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  Agnus.  Their  wish  for 
secrecy  can  be  the  only  reason  that  I  can  imagine  for  the  signification  of  it  not  being  found  in 


1  ON  the  generative  power  of  Om. 

s  Travels  and  Letters  of  the  Jesuits,  pp.  14—23. 


s  Ibid.  p.  29. 


BOOK  V.   CHAPTER  X.   SECTION  2.  263 

their  dictionaries.  Another  example  of  lost  signification  is  in  the  word  Ya,  Ya,  chaunted  in  their 
ceremonies.  I  shall  be  told  it  means  only  victory  ;  but  is  not  the  God  Jah,  miT  ieue  and  nn»  ieie 
always  culled  the  God  of  victory  ?  It  has,  therefore,  both  these  meanings.  What  can  be  more 
striking  than  the  invocation  in  both  cases  of  the  slain  lamb  and  of  the  Saviour  ? 

There  is  in  India  a  sect  or  tribe  called  Agniculas.  These  I  suppose  to  be  followers  of  the  Cycle 
of  the  Agni  or  Igni.  It  is  observed  by  Ainsworth,  that  the  word  Agniculus  is  not  Latin.  I  think 
my  readers  will  be  satisfied,  before  I  have  finished,  that  the  Sanscrit  must  have  been  formed  upon 
a  great  number  of  other  languages. 

Yajn-eswara  is  Janus-osiris,  or  Lord  Janus.  Eswara  is  found  united  to  numbers  of  words,  and 
seems  now  to  be  used  as  an  epithet  of  honour,  like  Lord  with  us.  The  sacrifice  of  the  Ram  is  the 
Ram  of  the  Zodiac  at  the  vernal  equinox.  Thus  the  adoration  of  the  Ram  succeeded  to  the  Bull, 
(but  it  did  not  entirely  abolish  it,)  as  in  the  case  of  Asteroth  of  the  Sidonians,  which  had  first  the 
head  of  a  Bull,  and  afterward  that  of  a  Ram. 

2.  I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  that,  in  the  ancient  languages,  the  V  and  the  I  are  perpetually 
confounded  and  written  for  one  another,  and  that  the  Brahmins  had  eight  Vasus, l  or  Gods  of  the 
winds,  or  of  air  in  motion,  and  that  Agni  was  the  ninth  j  Agni,  the  Lord  of  fire,  carried  on  the 
back  of  a  Ram  and  sacrificed  at  the  vernal  equinox.  Thus  there  were  eight  Vasus,  the  number  of 
the  Cycles  B.  C,  and  of  the  Salivahanas,  of  whom  I  shall  treat  by  and  by.  This  Wind  was  also 
called  Vayu — query  iTiT  ieie  ?  I  cannot  help  believing  that  Yasu-vati  (query  Jesu-vates  ?)  and 
Ya-du,  the  tribe  of  Cristna' s  ancestors,  and  Vasus  and  Vayu  and  Agni  and  the  Lamb  were  all 
closely  connected.  Cristna  is  identified  with  Vasu-deva  by  the  orthodox  Vaishnavas.2  Having 
first  considered  all  the  circumstances  relating  to  Cristna,  the  extraordinary  transformations  which 
names  undergo  in  passing  from  one  country  to  another,  and  the  interchanges  of  the  letters  V  and  I, 
I  beg  my  reader  to  consider  and  compare  the  two  syllables  of  the  name  Vasu  with  the  word  Jesus, 
and  I  think  he  will  be  obliged,  with  me,  to  entertain  a  strong  suspicion  that  there  has  been  some 
connexion  between  them.  The  word  deva  is  evidently  deus,  and  thus,  with  Vasus,  making  the 
God  Vasus. 

Jadu  was  the  ancestor  of  Cristna,3  that  is,  rv  ie,  H  di,  holy  Ie. 

Moore  says,  "  Agni  is  the  Hindu  regent  or  personification  of  fire."     Again,  "  I  will  here  observe 
"  that  although  all  the  Hindu  deities  partake  more  or  less  remotely  of  the  nature  and  character  of 
"  Surya,  or  the  Sun,  and  all  more  or  less  directly  radiate  from,  or  merge  in,  him,  yet  no  one  is,  I 
"  think,  so  intimately  identified  with  him  as  Vishnu ;  whether  considered  in  his  own  person,  or  in 
"  the  character  of  his  most  glorious  Avatara  of  Krishna."  4 

It  is  evident  from  a  careful  perusal  of  Moore,  from  pp.  265 — 272,  that  the  Brahmins  did  not 
know  what  to  make  of  the  Vasus  or  holy  air  in  motion.  When  Jesus  was  baptized  in  the  Jordan, 
(a  river  having  the  same  name  as  Padus  and  the  Ganges,)  he  was  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  or  air 
in  motion,  which  descended  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  and  the  Agni,  or  Lord  of  fire,  appeared  in  the 
water. 5 

From  the  following  passage  of  Porphyry,  de  abstinentid,  I  cannot  help  thinking  the  Yajna  sacri- 
fice is  probably  alluded  to,  which  receives  considerable  confirmation  from  its  connexion  with  Py- 
thagoras, whose  aera  was  the  same  as  that  of  Buddha,  B.  v.  Ch.  ii.  S.  i.  The  tasting,  but  not  eating, 
is  the  identical  practice  of  the  Brahmins.  "  The  truth  of  this  may  also  be  perceived  from  the  altar 
' '  which  is  even  now  preserved  about  Delos,  which,  because  no  animal  is  brought  to,  or  is  sacrificed 
*'  upon  it,  is  called  the  altar  of  the  pious.     So  that  the  inhabitants  not  only  abstain  from  sacrificing 

•  Moore's  Ind.  Panth.  p.  268.  *  Colebrooke,  Trans.  Aaiat.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  p.  576.  3  ibid.  p.  538. 

4  Moore's  Ind.  Panth.  pp.  294,  295.  «  Justin  Martyr. 


264  RASIT,   OR    WISDOM,    RESUMED. 

"  animals,  but  they  likewise  conceive,  that  those  who  established  are  similarly  pious  with  those 
"  who  use  the  altar.  Hence  the  Pythagoreans,  having  adopted  this  mode  of  sacrifice,  abstained 
"  from  animal  food  through  the  whole  of  life.  But  when  they  distributed  to  the  Gods  a  certain 
"  animal  instead  of  themselves,  they  merely  tasted  of  it,  living  in  reality  without  touching  other 
"  animals."1  This  is  the  very  picture  of  the  Brahmin  practice  at  this  day;  it  tends  strongly  to 
satisfy  me  of  the  identity  of  the  Brahmin  and  Pythagorean  systems.  In  Book  iv.  p.  152,  of  the 
same  work,  Porphyry  informs  us  that  in  very  old  times,  the  sacrificing  or  indeed  the  using  of  the 
flesh  of  animals  was  not  practised  either  by  the  Athenians  or  by  the  Syrians — the  Syrians,  that 
is  the  natives  of  the  ancient  city  of  Iona  and  the  Pallistini,  the  Ionians,  of  whom  I  shall  speak 
presently.  Advancing  still  eastwards,  we  find  Porphyry  giving  an  account  of  the  Magi  from  Eubo- 
lus,  who  wrote  their  history,  in  which  he  states  that  "  the  first  and  most  learned  class  of  the  Magi 
"  neither  eat  nor  slay  any  thing  animated,  but  adhere  to  the  ancient  abstinence  from  animals." 
After  this  he  goes  to  the  Gymnosophists  called  Samaneans  and  Brahmins  of  India,  of  whom  he 
gives  an  account,  and  from  which  it  appears  that  they  have  varied  very  little  from  what  they  were 
in  his  time.  But  all  these  accounts  seem  to  shew  signs  of  the  first  black  Buddhist  people,  as 
eating  no  animal  food — of  the  Black  Pelasgi  or  Ionians,  as  coming  to  Italy  and  bringing  the  black 
God  and  his  mother  along  with  them.  And  they  not  only  brought  the  black  God  and  his  mother, 
but  they  brought  his  house,  the  house  at  Loretto,  as  I  shall  shew  in  its  proper  place. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

RASIT,  OR  WISDOM,  RESUMED.  — SECRET  DOCTRINES.  —  BULL-HEADED  AND  RAM-HEADED  GODS. — DATE  OF 
THE  SYSTEM.  NAMES  OF  BUDDHA,  &C. —  IGNORANCE  OF  THE  BRAHMINS  AND  ANCIENTS.  —  CREUZER, 
HAMMER,   GUIGNIAUT,    &C. — TREE   OF   GENESIS   AT  IPSAMBUL,   AND   THE  SAME   IN   MONTFAUCON. 

1.  That  the  tribe  of  Israelites  did  go  out  from  Egypt  and  conquer  Canaan  I  feel  no  doubt;  but 
it  is  very  clear  to  me  that  the  priests,  in  their  books,  have  wrapped  up  the  whole  in  allegory; 
that,  in  fact,  as  the  learned  philosophers  of  the  Jews  say,  these  writings  had  two  meanings — one 
for  the  priests,  and  one  for  the  people.  The  former  meaning,  as  might  be  expected,  has  been 
nearly  lost ;  the  latter  is  still  received  by  most  Jews  and  Christians.  What  evils  have  been  pro- 
duced by  the  system  of  endeavouring  to  keep  the  mass  of  mankind  in  ignorance !  The  words 
JVtMTD  h-rasit  no  doubt  had  two  meanings,  one  for  the  priests,  and  one  for  the  people — wisdom 
for  the  former,  beginning  for  the  latter.  This  is  strengthened  by  the  fact,  that  the  Jews  divided 
their  Cabala  into  two  parts.  T.  Burnet  says,  Barischith  et  Merkavah,  illic  philosophiam  naturalem, 
hie  Metaphysicam  intelligi. — In  the  distribution  and  system  of  nomenclature  adopted  by  Joshua 
for  the  land  of  Canaan,  an  astrological,  or,  if  my  reader  like  it  better,  an  astronomical  system  was 
adopted  of  the  same  kind  as  that  which  the  Israelites  had  left  in  Egypt.  Sir  William  Drummond 
has  proved  this  in  his  CEdipus  Judaicus.     This  was  in  compliance  with  an  order  in  Deuteronomy 


1  Taylor's  Trans.  B.  II.  p.  65. 


BOOK    V.    CHAP.    XI.    SECT.    2.  265 

to  pull  down  the  altars  of  the  nations  they  subdued,  to  cut  down  their  groves,  burn  their  graven 
images,  and  to  destroy  and  blot  out  their  names  from  under  heaven. 1 

If  divines  deny  that  the  word  JTtZWi  rasit  means  wisdom,  and  affirm  that  it  only  means  beginning, 
they  forget  that  they  are  moderns  expounding  a  language  which  has  been  dead  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years,  a  great  part  of  which  the  best  judges  have  allowed  to  be  lost,  or  no  longer  understood  ; 
and  that  they  are  deciding  against  the  collected  opinion  of  the  divines  or  priests  of  the  people 
whose  vernacular  language  it  was ;  in  short,  against  the  opinion  of  their  church,  held  by  that 
church  when  the  language  was  yet  a  living  one,  and  therefore  must  have  been  well  understood. 
These  reasons  joined  to  those  which  I  have  before  given,  and  by  which  I  have  shewn  that  the 
meaning  beginning  as  applied  to  the  creation  is  actually  nonsense,  fully  justify  me  in  maintaining 
that  the  word  has  two  meanings,  and  that  it  means  both  beginning  and  wisdom.     Besides,  the 
reader  will  not  fail  to  observe,  that  the  meaning  wisdom  is  in  good  keeping  with  all  the  cabalistic 
doctrines  which  must  have  been  founded  upon  this  verse.     The  Jewish  Sephiroth  consisted,  as  I 
have  already  shewn,  of  ten  existences,  which  answered  to  the  trinity,  and  to  the  spirits  or  emana- 
tions of  the  seven  planetary  bodies.     By  some  later  Jews  the  first  three  were  said  to  be  Hyposta- 
ses, the  other  seven  Emanations.     Here  we  have  the  beginning  of  our  Hypostatical  Trinity.     The 
first  of  the  Sephiroth  was  corona,  and  answered  to  the  Father,  or  Brahma;  the  second  was  wisdom, 
2o<JJ*a,  the  Uqayroyovos  and  Aoyoj ,  and  answered  to  Vishnu,  the  Preserver ;'  the  third  was  pru- 
dentia  or  ITvsu^.a,  and  answered  to  Siva  in  his  regenerating  capacity.     I  confess  it  appears  to  me 
to  be  somewhat  presumptuous  for  a  modern  divine  to  assert,  that  a  word  in  an  ancient  dead  lan- 
guage, a  religious  epithet,  has  not  the  meaning  which  was  given  to  it  by  the  priests  of  that  people 
whose  language  it  was,  when  it  was   a  livi?tg  language,  merely  because  it  does  not    support  a 
modern  religion.     Like  many  other  words,  it  had  two  meanings.     In  this  case  the  translation  of 
the  word  rviMH  rasit  will  rule  the  word  Agp£»j. 

2.  The  pretended  genealogy  of  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis  is  attended  with  much  difficulty.  It 
reads  like  a  genealogy  :  it  is  notoriously  a  chart  of  geography.  It  is  exoterically  genealogical, 
esoterically  geographical.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  allotment  of  the  lands  by  Joshua  was  astrono- 
mical. It  was  exactly  on  the  same  principle  as  the  nomes  of  Egypt,  which  every  one  knows  were 
named  astronomically,  or  rather,  perhaps,  I  should  say,  astrologically.  The  double  meaning  is 
clear ;  but  probably  the  exact  solution  of  the  whole  riddle  will  never  be  made  out.  Most  of  the 
names  which  are  given  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis  are  found  in  the  mystic  work  of  Ezekiel. 
The  works  of  all  the  prophets  are  mystical.  This  chapter  divides  the  world  into  7'2  nations. 
Much  ingenuity  must  have  been  used  to  make  them  agree  with  the  exact  number  of  dodecans  into 
which  the  great  circle  was  divided.  But  who,  after  observing  this  fact,  can  help  seeing  the  mysti- 
cal character  of  the  chapter  ?     Many  of  the  works  of  the  Greeks  were  equally  mystical. 

I  request  any  person  to  read  the  travels  of  Pausanias  in  Greece,  and  he  must  be  astonished  at 
the  puerile  nonsense  which  that  good  man  appears  to  have  believed.  But  did  he  believe  it  ?  Was 
not  the  book  written  merely  for  the  amusement  of  devotees,  like  the  novels  of  our  evangelical  ladies 
or  gentlemen  ?— like  the  Paradise  Lost  of  Milton  ?  It  is  evident  he  knew  that  there  was  a  secret 
doctrine,  for  in  several  passages  he  admits  it  in  distinct  terms.2  "  But  the  particulars  respecting  the 
"pomegranate,  as  they  belong  to  a  secret  discourse,  I  shall  pass  by  in  silence."  Again,3  "that 
M  such  of  the  Greeks  as  were  formerly  reckoned  wise,  designedly  concealed  their  wisdom  in  asnig- 
'mas:  and  I  conjecture,  that  what  I  have  just  now  related  concerning  Saturn  contains  some- 


'  Ch-  vii-  5>  24,  ix.  14.  *  B.  i.  Ch.  xiv.,  B  i.  Ch.  xxxvii.,  B.  ii.  Ch.  xvii. 

3  For  the  mystical  nature  of  the  pomegranate,  see  Cumberland's  Origines  Gentium. 

2    M 


266  BULL- HEADED    AND    RAM-HEADED    GODS. 


«( 


thing  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Greeks.  And  we  should  consider  things  relative  to  divine  concerns 
"  after  this  manner."1  Plutarch  undertakes  to  prove  that  Osiris  and  Bacchus  are  the  same,  with- 
out recourse  to  the  secret  rites,  which  are  not  to  he  divulged? 

Speaking  of  the  statements  respecting  the  Gods  in  Homer,  Maximus  Tyrius  says,  "  For  every 
"  one  on  hearing  such  things  as  these  concerning  Jupiter  and  Apollo,  Thetis  and  Vulcan,  will  im- 
"  mediately  consider  them  as  oracular  assertions,  in  which  the  apparent  is  different  from  the  latent 
"  meaning."3  This  is  confirmed  by  Herodotus,  who  constantly  says,  when  describing  things  in 
Egypt,  there  is  a  sacred  reason  (iepoc  Xoyoc)  for  this,  which  I  shall  not  give.  I  suspect  that 
Cicero,  Pausanias,  &c,  were  like  Gibbon  and  Warburton,  and  many  other  of  our  authors,  who,  for 
the  sake  of  the  peace  of  society,  pretend  to  be  what  they  are  not,  a  mischievous  device  of  the 
priests,  which  has  done  more  to  retard  the  improvement  of  mankind  than  all  other  causes  put 
together. 

3.  The  Greeks  have  been  supposed  by  some  persons  to  have  learnt  their  mythologies  from  the 
Egyptians.     But  I  have  shewn,  on  the  authority  of  their  own  writers,  that  all  their  old  oracles 
came  from  the  Hyperboreans  by  way  of  Thrace.     Their  Eleusinian  mysteries  I  have  also  shewn  to 
have  come  by  the  same  route,  probably  from  India.     I  consider  Osiris,  Bacchus,  Astarte  with  the 
Bull's  head,  Bol  or  Baal,  Mithra,  Adonis,  Apis,  and  Buddha,  to  have  been  contemporary,  or  to 
have  constituted  one  class.      In  the  same  manner  I  consider  Hercules,  Cristna,  and   (Jupiter) 
Ammon,  and  Astarte  with  the  Ram's  head,  to  have  been  contemporary,  or  to  have  formed  a 
second  class.     My  theory  is  strikingly  confirmed  by  the  fact,  which,  I  believe,  has  not  been  noticed 
before,  that  the  first  class  are  all  Taupoxe<£>aXo<,  or  Bull-headed.     Buddha  is  closely  allied  or  con- 
nected with  the  Siamese  or  Japanese  bull,  breaking  the  Mundane  egg  with  his  horn,  and  was  partly 
man,  partly  bull,  in  Persia,  as  Mr.  Faber  has  proved  ;  and  therefore  I  conclude  from  this,  exclusive 
of  the  other  reasons  given  above,  that  these  Gods  are  nothing  but  the  Sun  in  the  sign  of  Taurus,  at 
the  vernal  equinox  :  and  the  other  class  are  all  xgi07rpo(ra)7roi,  or  Ram-headed,  and  are  in  like 
manner,  for  similar  reasons,  the  sun  in  the  sign  of  Aries,  at  the  vernal  equinox.     Several  of  those 
which  were  first  bull-headed  became  ram-headed  in  later  times.    Ammon,  for  instance.    In  the  his- 
tories of  the  births,  deaths,  funerals,  and  resurrections,  of  all  these  Gods,  a  striking  similiarity  pre- 
vails, as  I  shall  shew  in  a  future  page ;  but  yet  there  are  between  the  two  classes  some  trifling 
discrepancies.     These  discrepancies  probably  arose  from  the  circumstance  that  one  class  refers  to 
the  adventures  of  the  God  Sol  in  the  sign  of  the  Bull,  the  other  to  those  of  the  God  Sol  in  the  sign 
of  the  Ram.     It  is  evident  that  almost  every  where  civil  war  arose  on  the  change  of  the  wor- 
ship from  Taurus  to  Aries.     But  though  this  may  account  for  the  trifling  differences  which  we  find, 
yet  we  may  readily  suppose  that  the  great  points  of  resemblance,  being  equally  applicable  to  the 
sun  in  both  cases,  might  remain  unaltered.4 

The  adoration  of  the  Bull  still  continued  in  most  countries  after  the  equinox  had  receded  to 
Aries.  This  was  the  case  in  Egypt,  where  Apis  still  continued,  though  Ammon  with  his  sheep's- 
head  arose — if  he  did  not,  as  I  believe  he  did,  change  his  beeve's  head  for  that  of  a  ram.  I  have 
shewn  that  Ammon  meant  the  generative  power  of  Am,  or  Aum,  or  Om :  but  Am  was  the  Bull 


'  B.  viii.  Ch.  viii.  «  De  Iside  et  Osir.     Sect.  xxxv.  Squire. 

3  Max.  Tyr.  Ed.  Taylor,  p.  87,  and  Dissertation  xvi. 

4  In  Fig.  3,  Plate  36,  Vol.  II.  of  the  Montf.  (Ant.  Exp.)  is  exhibited  an  Isis  sitting,  nursing  the  infant  Orus.  She 
has  the  head  of  a  cow,  but  the  body  of  a  woman.  Plutarch  (de  Iside  et  Osir.  Ed.  Squire,  Sect.  xxxv.  p.  46)  says,  that 
to  Bacchus  the  Greeks  gave  the  face  and  neck  of  an  Ox.  The  women  of  Elis  called  Bacchus  Ox-footed ;  the  people  of 
Argos  called  him  Ox-begotten.  Porphyry  (de  Abstin.  Sect,  xvi.)  says,  the  Greeks  united  the  Ram  to  Jupiter,  but  the 
horns  of  a  Bull  to  Bacchus. 


BOOK   V.    CHAP.    XI.    SECT.   4.  267 

Mithra,  Buddha — therefore  it  must  have  changed.  The  prayers  to  the  God  Bull,  of  Persia,  given 
by  Mr.  Faber,  are  very  curious.  Asteroth,  or  Astarte,  in  Syria,  was  first  represented  with  the 
horns  and  head  of  a  beeve,  and  in  later  times  with  those  of  a  sheep.1  Thus  in  India  the  Bull,  the 
emblem  of  Buddha,  continued  to  be  adored  long  after  Cristna  arose,  and  along  with  him  at  some 
few  places. 

From  Waddington  and  Hanbury's  voyage  up  the  Nile,  I  think  it  appears  that  in  Egypt,  as  in  Syria, 
the  emblems  of  the  conjoined  Sun  and  Moon,  the  Cycle,  the  Crescent,  and  the  Disk,  which  are 
found  on  the  oldest  Tauric  Monuments,  were  taken  from  the  Bull,  and  removed  to  the  Ram.2  I 
think  the  lunette  and  circle  on  the  head  of  the  Bull,  and  in  later  times  on  the  head  of  the  Ram; 
alluded  both  to  the  compound  cycle  of  the  Neros,  and  to  the  precession,  or  to  the  male  and  female 
generative  powers. 

In  the  temple  cave  at  Ellora,  the  Bull  Nundi,  or  Nandi,  is  placed  opposite  to  the  Yoni  and  Ling- 
ham,  as  an  emblem  of  the  prolific  power.  In  this  temple,  on  each  side  of  the  entrance  is  a  Sphinx, 
similar  to  those  in  Egypt,  placed  on  the  outside  of  the  entrance  exactly  in  the  same  manner.3 

I  have  already  remarked  on  the  alleged  disinclination  of  the  Brahmins  to  leaving  India  for  the 
purpose  of  colonization.  I  do  not  think  Egypt  was  first  colonized  by  them  as  the  priests  of  Cristna, 
but  by  Buddhists,  the  worshipers  of  the  Sun  in  Taurus.  The  story  and  effigies  of  Buddha  are  so 
similar  to  those  of  Cristna,  that  the  Seapoys  of  India,  when  in  Egypt,  might  very  readily  mistake 
one  for  the  other.  But  the  theory  of  religion,  as  time  advanced,  would  cause  the  Ram-headed  God 
to  arise  in  both  places,  without  copying  one  another;  and  supposing  the  icons  not  exactly  the  same, 
they  might  be  near  enough  to  exhibit  the  same  mythos  to  our  seapoy  officers  and  men,  who  would 
not  be  very  careful  inquirers.  Yet  every  thing  tends  to  confirm  what  I  have  before  said,  that  there 
is  reason  to  believe  the  first  Brahmins  were  not  so  averse  to  communicate  with,  or  to  visit  foreigners, 
as  are  those  of  a  later  day":  and  thus  the  worship  of  Cristna  may  have  been  brought  at  a  later  pe- 
riod to  Egypt. 

M.  Dubois  confirms  my  opinion  that  the  Brahmins  came  from  the  north,  and  that  they  established 
their  religion  on  the  ruins  of  that  of  Buddha.  He  adds,  that  he  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  Jainas  or 
followers  of  Buddha,  and  that  they  far  surpassed  the  Brahmins  in  probity  and  good  faith.4  Hero- 
dotus5 says  the  Pelasgians  learnt  the  names  of  their  Gods  from  the  barbarians  ;  "  that  at  first  they 
"  distinguished  them  by  no  name  or  surname,  for  they  were  hitherto  unacquainted  with  either;  but 
"  they  called  them  Gods,  which  by  its  etymology  means  disposers,  from  observing  the  orderly  dis- 
"  position  and  distribution  of  the  various  parts  of  the  universe."  It  is  easy  here,  I  think,  to  recog- 
nize the  planets,  the  disposers,  the  D'Qttf  smim,  of  the  first  book  of  Genesis. 

4.  In  all  our  speculations  hitherto,  we  have  reasoned  that  the  facts  under  consideration  must 
have  taken  place  before  such  or  such  a  time.  I  think  we  shall  now  be  able  to  deduce  a  very  im- 
portant consequence  in  an  opposite  direction.  We  have  seen  that  the  days  of  the  week  are,  in  the 
most  remote  corners  of  the  world,  called  by  the  names  of  the  same  planets,  and  in  the  same  order, 
and  these  planets  after  the  same  Gods.  The  universality  of  this  shews  its  extreme  antiquity — 
that  in  all  probability  it  must  have  been  adopted  before  the  human  race  became  divided  into  na- 
tions. But  the  fact  that  all  these  Gods  were  identified  with  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac  in  some  way  or 
other,  proves  that  they  must  have  been  adopted  later  than  the  time  when  the  sun,  at  the  vernal 


1  Drummond,  Orig.,  Vol.  III.  p.  229.  2  Landseer,  Sabaean  Res.  p.  228. 

3  Seeley's  Wonders  of  Ellora,  p.  138.    The  cave  temples  in  Cabul  are  12,000  in  number,  all  dedicated  to  Buddha. 
Ibid.  p.  139. 

4  Pp.  42,  305,  324,  326,  327,  549,  &c.  5  Euterpe,  LII.  p.  377- 

2  m2 


2t>8  DATE    OF   THE    SYSTEM. — NAMES    OF    BUDDHA,    &C. 

equinox,  entered  Taurus  by  the  true  Zodiac,  which  would  be  about  4700  years  before  Christ.  (A. 
very  great  French  philosopher,  Mons.  Dupuis,  for  some  other  reasons,  has  thought  this  time  so 
much  too  short,  that  he  has  been  induced  to  suppose  the  period  ought  to  be  thrown  back,  to  where 
Taurus  would  be  at  the  autumnal  equinox,  about  11,000  years;  but,  though  this  might  be  correct, 
yet  I  think  sufficient  proof  of  its  correctness  is  not  produced.)  This  consideration  seems  to  offer 
something  like  a  boundary  to  our  researches ;  something  like  a  distant  view  of  our  journey's  end, 
which  I  greet  with  pleasure;  for  I  think  we  can  find  no  traces  of  any  thing  before  the  Tauric  wor- 
ship commenced.  And  this  brings  our  chronology  to  agree,  as  near  as  can  be  expected,  with  the 
various  systems.  The  eight  ages,  about  the  time  of  Augustus,  cannot  be  doubted.  If  these  were 
600  years  each — 4800,  and  we  add  a  thousand  before  the  Tauric  worship  commenced  for  mankind 
to  arrive  at  their  then  state  of  civilization,  we  shall  not  be  very  much  out  of  the  way  in  our  cal- 
culations. 

The  Disposer's,  as  Herodotus  says  the  Pelasgi  first  called  their  Gods,  that  is,  the  Q>Dt£>  Smim  of 
Genesis,  or  the  Planets,  were  in  later  times  all  called  by  names  appropriated  to  the  days  of  the 
week  which  were  dedicated,  by  astrologers,  to  the  Gods  who  were  typified  by  the  Bull :  Monday 
to  the  horned  Jsis  ;  Tuesday  to  Mercury,  the  same  as  Hermes  and  Osiris ;  Wednesday  to  Woden  ; 
Fo,  Buddha,  and  Surya;    Thursday  or  Thor-day,  or  nm  Tur,  (written  both  Tur  and  Sur,)   or 
Taurus,  or  Bull-day,  to  Jove  or  Jupiter,  who,  as  a  Bull,  stole  Europa,  which  shews  what  he  was 
at  first ;   (the  manner  in  which  he  is  called  not  merely  Jupiter,  but  Jupiter  with  the  word  Ammon 
added,   seems  to  shew  that  the  two  words  were  not  always  joined.     In  Montfaucon's  Antiquities  ' 
may  be  seen  an  account  of  various  Jupiters  connected  with  the  Tauric  worship,  which  proves  that, 
although  he  had  latterly  the  head  of  a  Ram,  he  had  originally  that  of  a  Bull.)     Friday  was  dedi- 
cated to  Venus,  Ashteroth,  or  beeve-horned  Astarte ;  Saturday  to  Saturn,  identified  by  Mr.  Faber  2 
with  Moloch  and  the  Centaur  Cronus  or  Taschter ;  Sunday  to  the  Sun,  every  where  typified  by 
Taurus.     All  these,  I  think,  must  have  taken  their  names  after  the  entrance  of  the  Sun  into  Taurus; 
and  before  this  date  all  history  and  even  mythology  fails  us.     Each  of  the  days  and  the  planets 
had  a  monogram,  consisting  of  a  cross  with  some  form  annexed  to  it;  another  proof  of  the  great 
antiquity  of  the  adoration  of  the  cross. 

But  yet  it  seems  fair  to  infer,  that  man  must  have  existed  a  great  number  of  years  before  he 
could  have  divided  the  heavens  into  signs,  degrees,  &c,  &c.  How  long  a  time  may  have  been  re- 
quired for  this  I  pretend  not  to  say.  It  must  have  depended  upon  that  which  We  can  never  know, 
the  exact  state  in  which  he  was  turned  out  of  the  hand  of  his  Creator.  But  I  think  many  genera- 
tions must  have  passed  before  the  May-day  festivals  were  established  in  Britain  and  India. 

Some  of  the  cave-temples  of  India  which  are  arched,  are,  on  that  account,  supposed  to  be  more 
modern  than  those  with  Jlat  roofs ;  but  I  think  this  is  a  hasty  inference.  If,  indeed,  the  arch  were 
formed  of  wedge-shaped  stones,  like  modern  arches,  this  would  be  probable;  but  when  the  curve 
is  merely  cut  out  of  the  solid  granite  without  any  of  the  architectural  knowledge  necessary  in 
throwing  an  arch,  I  do  not  think  the  inference  warranted.  Mr.  Seely  says,  "  Karli  and  Canarah 
"  are  evidently  the  production  of  the  followers  of  Buddha."  He  states,  that  the  arched  temple  of 
Vishvacarma  at  Ellora  is  also  Buddhist ;  and  he  adds,  "  Their  whole  history  is  involved  in  such  a 
"  labyrinth  of  mystery  from  beginning  to  end,  that  there  is  not  the  most  remote  chance,  by  the 
"  deepest  research,  of  arriving  at  any  satisfactory  data."3  I  hope  Mr.  Seely  is  mistaken.  But 
in  the  assertion  of  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  all  the  theories  hitherto  proposed,  he  is  certainly 
correct. 

What  I  have  said  respecting  the  temple  of  Jaggernaut  in  Orissa  being  Buddhist,  is  confirmed  by 

1  Fig.  8,  Plate  11,  p.  31.  *  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  II.  p.  86.  3  pp.  186,  194. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  XI.    SECTION  5.  269 

one  of  the  flat-roofed  cave  temples  at  Ellora  being  dedicated  to  him  by  the  name  of  Jaggernaut, 
i.  e.  Creator.1  The  Brahmins  not  being  able  to  conceal  the  Buddhist  doctrines  in  some  of  their 
temples,  without  their  entire  destruction,  are  obliged  to  admit  a  ninth  Buddhist  Avatar,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  most  absurdly  maintain  that  this  Buddha,  this  ninth  Avatar,  was  an  impostor. 
It  is  singular  enough  that  the  Buddha  in  the  cave  at  Ellora  is  called  the  Lord  paramount,  the  Maha- 
Maha-Deo,2  the  great  great  God.  At  this  temple  the  Brahmin  uttered  the  name  Buddha  without 
any  hesitation,  which  is  what  a  Brahmin  will  seldom  do.3  Their  ninth  Avatar  was  a  Buddha,  be- 
cause he  was  an  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom,  perhaps  not  understood  by  modern  Brahmins.  The 
Brahmins  and  Buddhists  have,  as  already  stated,  each  the  same  number  of  Avatars,  and,  at  the 
time  of  Jesus  Christ,  they  both  say  that  eight  were  gone,  and  that  a  ninth  then  came.  The  Budd- 
hists say  he  came  among  them,  and  was  called  Buddha.  The  Brahmins  affirm  that  he  came  among 
them,  and  was  called  Salivan,  of  whom  I  shall  treat  hereafter.  This  is  the  reason  why  they  allege 
that  the  ninth  Buddha  was  an  impostor. 

It  is  no  small  confirmation  of  the  superior  antiquity  of  Buddha,  that  over  all  India,  whether 
among  Bauddhas,  Saivas,  or  Vaishnavahs,  the  day  of  Woden,  or  Wednesday,  is  called  Budhvar.  4 
In  Sanscrit  it  is  Bou-ta  var,  and  in  the  Balic,  Van  Pout;  in  the  northern  nations,  Woden's  day; 
the  latter  having  no  B,  write  W, 5  where  the  reader  may  also  find  additional  proofs  that  Mercury  or 
Hermes,  Sommonacodom  and  Buddha,  are  all  the  same — with  Maia  for  their  Mother. 

As  I  have  formerly  said,  the  fact  of  Buddha  giving  name  to  one  of  the  days  of  the  week,  Wed- 
nesday, fixes  him  to  the  very  earliest  period  of  which  we  have  any  record  or  probable  tradition. 
He  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  Sun  or  the  Surya,  with  seven  heads,  of  Siam  and  Japan  and  Ceylon ; 
and  to  be  the  son  of  Maia.  Thoth  and  Teutates  and  Hermes  are  allowed  to  be  identical,  and  Her- 
mes is  allowed  to  be  Mercury ;  and  Mercury  is  the  God  to  whom  Wednesday  is  dedicated,  and  the 
mother  of  Mercury  is  Maia.  Sir  William  Jones  clearly  proved  that  the  first  Buddha  was  Woden, 
Mercury,  and  Fo,  and  I  think,  however  he  may  have  alarmed  himself  and  his  prejudices  when  he 
came  to  see  the  consequences  of  his  proofs,  he  never  was  able  to  overthrow  them.6  Mr.  Faber 
says,  "  The  Egyptian  cosmogony,  like  the  Phoenician,  is  professedly  of  the  Buddhic  school :  for  the 
"  fullest  account  which  we  have  of  it  is  contained  in  a  book  ascribed  to  Hermes  or  Thoth  :  but 
"  Hermes  or  Thoth  is  the  same  person  as  Taut,  who  is  said  to  have  drawn  up  the  Phoenician  sys- 
"  tem :  and  Taut  again  is  the  same  as  the  Oriental  Tat  or  Buddha." 7 

The  Tau,  T,  is  the  emblem  of  Mercury,  of  Hermes.  It  is  the  crux  ansata,  and  the  crux  Hermis. 
It  was  the  last  letter  of  the  ancient  alphabets,  the  end  or  boundary,  whence  it  came  to  be  used  as  a 
terminus  to  districts ;  but  the  crux  Tau  was  also  the  .emblem  of  the  generative  power,  of  eternal 
transmigrating  life,  and  thus  was  used  indiscriminately  with  the  Phallus.  It  was,  in  fact,  the  phal- 
lus. The  Tau  is  the  Thoth,  the  Teut,  the  Teutates  of  the  Druids ; 8  and  Teutates  was  Mercury, 
in  the  Sanscrit  called  Cod  or  Somona-cod-om ;  and  in  German  God.  In  old  German  Mercury  was 
called  Got.  The  remains  of  the  crosses  are  to  be  found  in  the  highways  at  the  boundaries  of  the 
parishes,  and  every  where  at  cross-road  ends  in  this  country.  They  have  precisely  the  same  meaning 
as  the  Roman  Terminuses,  and  had  the  same  origin.  It  is  the  same  with  the  crosses  which  have 
now  the  crucified  Saviour  on  them,  all  over  the  continent,  and,  being  engrafted  into  Christianity, 
were  thus  preserved.     Many  of  them  are  thousands  of  years  old. 

1  Seely,  Wond.  of  Ellora,  p.  218. 

*  Here,  in  the  repetition  of  the  word  Maha,  we  may  perceive  the  Hebrew  practice  of  expressing  the  superlative  de- 
gree by  a  repetition  of  the  adjective. 
3  Seely,  Wond.  of  Ellora,  220.  4  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  240.  4  See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  I.  pp.  161,  162. 

6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  Svo.  p.  531 ;  also  Diss,  on  Chron.  of  Hind.  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II. 

7  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  228.  9  See  Herod.  Euterpe,  LI.  p.  375. 


270  IGNORANCE   OF   THE    BRAHMINS   AND    ANCIENTS. 

M.  Sonnerat  thinks  Rama  is  Buddha ;  "  Sir  W.  Jones  is  of  a  very  different  opinion,  and  thinks 
"  that  Dionysos  and  Rama  were  the  same  person." l  They  are  both  right,  they  all  were  the  Sun : 
and  it  is  very  surprising  to  me  that  those  gentlemen  did  not  perceive  that  what  applied  to  one,  ap- 
plied to  all  three ;  with  this  only  exception,  perhaps,  that  one  might  be  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  the 
other  the  Sun  in  Aries.  And  into  the  Sun,  in  his  male  or  female  character,  all  the  great  Deities  of 
India  and  the  Western  world  resolve  themselves.  I  think  it  not  improbable  that  many  images  as- 
cribed to  Cristna  may  belong  to  Buddha— their  histories  being  so  very  similar. 

5.  The  uncertainty  of  the  real  names  of  the  Gods  of  India  has  been  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Seely, 
who,  after  stating  that  he  has  detected  the  Brahmins  in  forgetting  names  which  they  had  bestowed 
a  day  or  two  before  on  the  same  figure,  says,  "On  making  inquiries  the  Brahmins  rather  confound 
"  than  assist  in  your  researches.  Each  has  his  favourite  deity  and  peculiar  local  name,  generally 
"  accompanied  with  some  fanciful  theory  of  his  own.  My  Brahmin  was  a  native  of  Poonah ;  he 
"  was  fond  of  his  Wittoba,  Ballajee,  Lakshmi,  and  others,  and  wished  them  to  be  paramount  in  all 
"  the  temples.  A  different  list  would  have  been  preferred  by  a  Benares  Brahmin ;  while  a  coast 
"  (Coromandel)  Brahmin  would  probably  have  been  for  the  Buddhist  heroes.  If  to  this  discrepancy 
"  we  add  the  numberless  host  of  minor  or  secondary  deities,  all  with  their  consorts,  giants,  sages, 
"  and  holy  men,  the  whole  wrapped  up  in  impenetrable  and  mysterious  fable,  some  faint  idea  may 
"  be  entertained  of  the  difficult  and  abstruse  subject  of  Hindoo  mythology."  The  description  is, 
I  do  not  doubt,  just.  The  accounts  of  the  present  Brahmins  can  be  little  depended  on.  Of  the 
minor  details  of  their  mythology  they  are  totally  ignorant.  After  a  careful  consideration  of  the 
work  of  the  father  of  history,  Herodotus,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  generality  of  priests  in  his  day 
were  as  ignorant  as  the  Brahmins  in  ours.  The  Priests,  whenever  they  were  ignorant  of  a  fact, 
coined  a  fable,  which  the  credulous  Greek  believed  and  recorded  ;  and  which  the  still  more  absurdly 
credulous  modern  Christians  continue  to  believe.  Witness,  as  one  out  of  many  examples,  the  his- 
tory of  Jupiter  and  Europa,2  believed  by  classical  scholars  to  have  been  actually  a  king  and 
queen,  to  have  reigned,  had  children,  &c,  &c. 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  even  the  oldest  of  both  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers,  unless  I 
except  Homer,  were  absolutely  and  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  their  Gods — whence  they 
came,  and  of  what  they  consisted.  As  the  people  by  degrees  emerging  from  barbarism  began  to 
open  their  eyes,  they  found  them.  They  received  the  Gods  from  their  ancestors,  who,  having  no 
writers,  transmitted  their  superstitions,  but  not  the  histories  of  their  Gods.  Whether  the  initiated 
into  the  mysteries  were  any  wiser  seems  very  doubtful.  But  I  think  it  is  possible  that  the  only 
secrets  were,  the  admission  of  their  own  ignorance  and  the  maintenance  of  a  doctrine  respecting 
the  nature  of  God  (of  which  I  shall  treat  hereafter)  and  in  substance  of  the  unity  of  God.  We 
can  hardly  suppose  that  such  men  as  Phornutus,  Lucian,  and  Cicero,  were  not  initiated  in  the 
higher  mysteries.  Then,  if  the  nature  of  the  Gods  had  been  known  in  these  mysteries,  I  think 
we  should  not  have  those  men  writing  about  them  :  and,  in  every  sentence,  proving  that  of  their 
real  nature  they  were  perfectly  ignorant.  If  they  were  not  ignorant,  they  were  dishonest.  But 
this  I  can  scarcely  believe.  If  they  were  ignorant  I  cannot  entertain  a  doubt  that  Messrs.  Dupuis 
and  D'Ancarville  were  much  more  likely  to  discover  the  secret  nature  of  the  Gods  than  Cicero  or 
Phornutus,  Porphyry  or  Plutarch.  The  mistaken  vanity  which  prevented  these  latter  philosophers 
from  looking  to  the  Barbarians  for  their  Gods,  tended  to  keep  them  in  a  state  of  ignorance,  in  a 
bondage  from  which  we  are  free,  and,  in  consequence,  are  much  more  likely  to  discover  the  truth. 
I  shall  be  told  /have  a  theory.  This  is  very  true  :  but  how  is  it  possible  to  make  any  sense 
out  of  the  mass   of  confusion  without  one  ?     And  are  not  facts   sufficient  collected  to  found  a 


1  Seely,  p.  176.  *  Drum.  Orig.  Vol.  III.  p.  82. 


BOOK    V.    CHAPTER   XI.    SECTION    6.  2/1 

theory  upon  ?  My  theory  has  arisen  from  a  close  attention  to  the  facts  which  transpire  from 
the  writings  of  a  vast  variety  of  authors,  and  is,  I  think,  a  theory  which  will  be  found  to  be 
established  by  them.  I  have  not  first  adopted  my  theory,  and  then  invented  my  facts  to  confirm  it. 
The  facts  have  come  first,  and  the  theory  is  the  consequence.  Whether  they  be  sufficient  to  sup- 
port the  theory,  is  the  only  question.  This  must  be  left  to  the  reader.  I  feel  confident  that  I  can 
explain  every  thing  which  appears  inconsistent  with  the  theory,  unless  it  be  a  very  few  of  the 
histories  of  the  inferiors  Gods,  which  may  very  well  be  supposed  to  have  been  mistaken  or  uns- 
tated, by  the  Priests,  whose  ignorance  or  deceit  is  acknowledged. 

6.  After  studying  with  great  attention  the  very  learned  and  able  review  of  the  German  authors 
Creuzer,  Hammer,  Rhode,  Goerres,  &c,  by  Mons.  Guigniaut,  my  opinions  founded  on  the  works 
of  Maurice,  Bryant,  Cudworth,  Stanley,  &c,  are  nothing  shaken.  I  am  more  than  ever  confirmed 
in  my  opinion,  that  all  the  Gods  of  the  ancients  resolve  themselves  into  one — the  Sun,  or  into  the 
refined  or  spiritual  fire  seated  in  the  Sun :  and  that  the  Trinity,  contended  for  by  Mr.  Maurice 
and  Mr.  Faber,  cannot  be  disputed.  The  hypothesis  of  Mr.  Maurice,  respecting  the  great  anti- 
quity of  the  worship  of  the  Bull  of  the  Zodiac,  can  never  be  overthrown,  until  it  can  be  shewn  that 
all  our  Indian  travellers,  who  tell  us  of  the  celebration  of  our  May-day  games  and  April-fool 
festivals,  have  deceived  us.  I  place  my  foot  upon  the  identity  and  ubiquity  of  these  Tauric, 
Phallic  Games,  as  upon  a  rock,  from  which  I  feel  nothing  can  remove  me.  They  set  at  defiance 
all  books  and  all  systems  of  chronology.  Next  to  them  is  the  reasoning  of  Mons.  Bailly  on  the 
septennial  cycle,  and  on  that  of  the  Neros.  Collectively  they  form  a  mass  of  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  a  state  of  the  world  in  a  most  remote  period,  very  different  from  what  any  of  our 
historians  contemplate.  In  searching  into  the  records  of  antiquity  it  is  impossible  to  move  a  step 
without  meeting  with  circumstances  confirmatory  of  the  Tauric  worship,  the  date  of  which  the 
known  precession  of  the  equinoxes  puts  out  of  all  dispute.  My  excellent  and  learned  old  acquaint- 
ance Mr.  Frend  would  make  the  cycles  Antediluvian,  but  how  are  the  bull  on  the  front  of  the 
temple  of  Jaggernaut,  and  hundreds  of  other  similar  circumstances,  to  be  accounted  for  ?  Was 
the  temple  built  before  the  flood  ?  I  am  very  far  from  wishing  to  depreciate  the  learned  and 
meritorious  labours  of  the  German  scholars  to  whom  I  have  just  alluded,  but  I  feel  confident  if 
they  had  paid  a  little  more  attention  to  the  facts  pointed  out  in  the  writings  which  contain  the 
whimsical  theories  l  of  our  Bryants,  Fabers,  &c,  they  would  have  been  more  successful  in  dis- 
covering the  secret  meaning  of  the  ancient  Mythoses.  Had  they  attended  to  what  is  indisputable 
— that  all  the  Gods  of  antiquity  resolve  themselves  into  one — the  Sun — either  as  an  original 
object  of  worship  or  as  the  type,  or  the  Epiphania,  or  Shekinah  of  the  triune  male  and  female 
Deity,  they  would  have  found  themselves  in  their  researches  relieved  from  many  difficulties. 

Protestant  priests  for  some  years  past  have  endeavoured  to  shew  that  the  Mosaic  accounts 
are  to  be  found  in  India,  and  generally  among  the  Gentiles.  What  good  this  can  do  them  I 
cannot  understand.  However,  they  have  certainly  succeeded.  The  labours  of  the  learned  Spencer 
have  shewn  that  there  is  no  rite  or  ceremony  directed  in  the  Pentateuch,  of  which  there  is  not  an 
exact  copy  2  in  the  rites  of  Paganism.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Faber  has  proved  that  the  Mythoses,  as  the 
Romish  Dr.  Geddes  properly  calls  them,  of  the  creation  and  the  flood  have  their  exact  counter- 


1  Though  I  call  them  whimsical  I  mean  no  disrespect  to  their  authors.    The  world  is  much  obliged  to  these  gentle- 


men  for  their  labours 


*  From  this  must  be  excepted  some  few  laws  adopted  by  the  Jewish  law-giver  to  make  a  line  of  demarcation  between 
his  people  and  the  Gentiles— such,  for  instance,  as  the  Sabbath  on  the  last  instead  of  the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  a 
few  others  that  are  very  apparent.  The  object  of  Moses  was  to  restrict  his  law  to  the  Jews  as  much  as  possible,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  nations.    The  object  of  the  law  of  Jesus  was  to  restore  the  worship  of  Jehovah  to  all  nations, 


27'2  TREE    OF    GENESIS    AT    IPSAMBUL,    AND   THE    SAME    IN    MONTFAUCON. 

parts  among  the  wild  mythologies  of  the  followers  of  Buddha  and  Cristna ;  and  the  history  of  the 
serpent  and  tree  of  life  have  been  lately  discovered  by  Mr.  Wilson  to  be  most  correctly  described 
on  the  ruins  of  the  magnificent  temple  of  Ipsambul  in  Nubia.  *  So  that  it  is  now  certain,  that 
all  the  first  three  books  of  Genesis  must  have  come  from  India :  the  temple  at  Ipsambul,  as 
well  as  the  famous  Memnon,  being  the  work  of  the  ancient  Buddhists — the  latter  proved  most 
satisfactorily  by  Mr.  Faber. 

After  what  the  reader  has  seen  he  will  not  be  surprised  that  1  should  have  been  struck  most 
forcibly  by  an  observation  which  seems  casually  given  by  M.  Denon  in  his  account  of  the  Tem- 
ples in  Upper  Egypt.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  been  aware  of  its  importance,  or,  indeed,  in  a 
theological  point  of  view,  that  it  had  any  importance  at  all.  In  2  speaking  of  a  very  beautiful 
small  temple  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  at  Philoe,  he  says,  "  I  found  within  it  some  remains  of  a 
"  domestic  scene,  which  seemed  to  be  that  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  and  it  suggested  to  me  the  sub- 
"  ject  of  the  flight  into  Egypt,  in  a  style  of  the  utmost  truth  and  interest." 

It  is  said,  by  late  travellers,  that  the  Christians  converted  the  ancient  temples  of  Upper  Egypt 
into  churches,  and  they  thus  account  for  the  Christian  Mythos.  But  in  this  case,  at  Ipsambul,  the 
pretence  is  totally  destitute  of  foundation,  because  the  figures  were  in  that  part  of  the  temple 
which  was  buried  in  sand,  and  were  excavated  by  Belzoni.  No  person  will  believe  that  the  sand 
was  brought  here  since  the  Christian  sera.     But  I  shall  discuss  this  matter  at  length  presently. 

7.  In  the  supplement  to  Vol.  I.  of  Montfaucon,3  is  exhibited  a  tree,  on  the  two  sides  of  which 
are  Jupiter  and  Minerva.  He  says,  "  It  was  preserved  for  several  centuries  in  one  of  the  most 
"  ancient  churches  of  France,  and  passed  for  an  image  of  terrestrial  paradise,  to  represent  the  fall 
"  of  Adam.  The  tree  bearing  fruit,  in  the  middle,  passed  for  that  from  whence  the  forbidden  fruit 
"  was  gathered.  The  robe  on  Jupiter's  shoulders,  the  thunderbolt  which  he  has  in  his  hand,  the 
"  helmet  on  Minerva's  head,  and  her  habit  covering  her  all  over :  these  particulars  might  easily 
"  have  undeceived  persons  moderately  versed,  I  will  not  say  in  mythology,  but  even  in  the  history 
"  of  the  Bible,  that  it  was  a  mere  conceit.  But  in  those  times  of  simplicity,  people  did  not  con- 
"  sider  some  things  very  closely.  Jupiter  holds  the  thunderbolt  raised  in  his  right  hand  ;  he  has 
"  a  robe  on,  which  does  not  cover  his  nakedness.  Minerva  is  armed  with  a  helmet  and  dressed 
"  as  usual :  the  serpent  at  her  feet  is  the  peculiar  symbol  of  Minerva  polias  of  Athens,  which 
"  seems  to  support  the  opinion  of  the  gentlemen  of  our  academy,  that  this  agate  relates  to  the 
"  worship  of  Jupiter  and  Minerva  at  Athens.  The  tree,  and  the  vine  curling  round  the  tree,  the 
"  goat  beneath  Jupiter's  foot,  and  all  the  animals  pictured  about — the  horse,  the  lion,  the  ox,  and 
"  others,  seem  to  denote  nature,  of  which  Jupiter  is  the  father.  An  Hebrew  inscription  graved 
"  round  the  gem,  appears  to  be  modern  ;  it  is  in  Rabbinical  characters,  scarcely  to  be  deciphered : 
"  the  sense  of  it  is  this  :  The  woman  saw  that  the  tree  was  good  for  foody  and  that  it  was  pleasant 
"   to  the  eyes,  and  a  tree  to  be  desired  to  make  one  wise."  4 

Who  can  help  seeing  here  a  refined  allegory  ?  Here  is  the  God  Ieo,  Jove,  in*  ieu.  Here  is 
Minerva,  divine  wisdom,  which  sprung  from  the  head  of  Jove — the  Trpwroyovos,  the  first-begotten, 
Buddha.     Here  is  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.     Here  is  the  vine  with  its  fruit 


pure  and  undented  as  held  by  Melchizedek.  Moses  made  his  Sabbath  on  the  day  of  Saturn,  in  opposition  to  the  festival 
of  all  other  nations,  which  was  on  the  dies  solis.  The  doctrine  of  the  Nazarite  of  Samaria  being  intended  for  the  whole 
world,  his  followers  acted  very  properly  in  restoring  the  festival  to  the  dies  solis,  on  which  no  doubt  it  was  in  the  time 
of  Melchizedek,  of  which  religion  Jesus  was  declared  to  be  a  priest. 

'  Wilson's  Travels ;  Franklin's  Researches  on  the  Jeynes,  p.  127. 

s  The  English  Trans,  by  Arthur  Aikin,  1803,  Vol.  II.  Chap.  xiv.  p.  169. 

3  Ant.  Exp.  Plate  5,  Fig.  17.  *  P.  35.    See  my  plates,  fig.  16. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  XII.   SECTION  1.  2/3 

united  to  the  elm,  which  Virgil  met  with  at  the  side  of  the  road  to  hell,  loaded  with  science— as 
the  Mem,  the  600,  was  united  to  the  vin  in  the  name  of  the  word  Muin,  the  name  of  the  letter 
which  denoted  the  most  sacred  of  the  cycles.  The  elm  is  commonly  planted  in  Gaul  and  Italy  for 
the  vine  to  ascend,  and  selected  as  the  tree  of  knowledge,  because  it  was  the  name  of  the  first 
letter  of  the  alphabet,  or  the  Aleph  of  the  Hebrews,  which  meant  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  which  was  the 
tree  of  Virgil,  and  bore  all  the  remainder.  The  circumstance  of  this  gem  having  a  Hebrew  legend 
round  it  is  exceedingly  curious,  and  is  not  to  be  got  quit  of  by  the  observation  of  Montfaucon,  the 
innocent  produce  of  his  prejudice  and  ignorance,  that  it  appears  to  be  modern.  It  was  of  the  same 
school  with  the  Virgo  Paritura,  the  Bacchus's  Wine-cask  and  Tiger-hunt  of  St.  Denis,1  the  Isis  of 
Notre  Dame,  and  several  other  matters  which  I  shall  adduce  in  their  proper  time  and  place. 

In  fig.  9  of  the  52nd  plate  of  the  Supplement  to  Montfaucon's  Antiquite  Explique'e,  there  is  a 
representation  of  Abraham  sacrificing  Isaac  :  but  Abraham  has  not  a  sword  or  a  knife,  but  a  thun- 
derbolt, in  his  hand.  Can  any  thing  be  more  clear  than  that  the  makers  of  these  very  ancient 
gems  considered  that  the  story  of  Abraham  covered  a  mythos  ?  Vishnu  or  Cristna  is  often 
represented  with  thunder  and  lightning  in  his  hand— as  in  the  act  of  giving  the  benediction  with 
three  fingers,  and  as  wearing  a  triple  crown. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   EAGLE   GARUDA. — SPENCER,     FABER,     BURNET,     CALMET,    fee,    ON    GENESIS   AND   ITS  ALLEGORY. — FA- 

BER'S   TRINITY   OF  THE   INDIANS  AND  THE  HEBREWS. 

1.  The  following  example  of  an  Eastern  mythos,  in  the  West,  will  be  thought  not  only  curious, 
but  will  be  found,  in  a  future  page,  to  involve  some  important  consequences. 

Mr.  Moore  says,  "  Sonnerat  notices  two  basso-relievos  placed  at  the  entrance  of  the  choir  of 
"  -Bourdeaux  Cathedral :  one  represents  the  ascension  of  our  Saviour  to  heaven  on  an  Eagle  :  the 
"  other  his  descent,  where  he  is  stopped  by  Cerberus  at  the  gates  of  hell,  and  Pluto  is  seen  at  a 
"  distance  armed  with  a  trident.  In  Hindu  pictures,  Vichnu,  who  is  identified  with  Krishna,  is 
"  often  seen  mounted  on  the  Eagle  Garuda,  sometimes  with  as  well  as  without  his  consort 
"  Lakshmi. 2  And  were  a  Hindoo  artist  to  handle  the  subject  of  Krishna's  descent  to  hell,  which 
"  I  never  saw,  he  would  most  likely  introduce  Cerbura,  the  infernal  three-headed  dog  of  their 
"  legends,  and  Yama,  their  Pluto,  with  the  trisula,  or  trident :  a  farther  presumption  of  early  in- 
"  tercommunication  between  the  Pagans  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  hemispheres." 3    An  account 


'  In  the  church  of  St.  Denis  near  Paris.     See  Prel.  Obs.  Ch  I.  Sect.  115. 

*  Whence  comes  the  name  of  Cristna's  consort  Lakshmi  ?  We  will  write  it  as  it  may  be  pronounced,  and  we  shall 
have  no  farther  trouble— L'Akme.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Wisdom,  HD3n  hkme,  should  be  the  wife  of  Cristna,  the 
incarnation  of  Vishnu,  the  second  person  or  the  Logos  of  the  Indian  trinity ;  but  it  is  very  curious,  indeed,  that  we 
should  find  it  here  in  Greek  and  modern  French.  If  this  stood  alone,  it  might  be  taken  for  accident,  but  with  its 
concomitant  circumstances,  this  cannot  be  admitted.  I  believe  the  Lamed  of  the  Hebrew  is  often  used  as  an  emphatic 
article,  as  it  is  in  the  Arabic,  Italian,  and  French.  It  is  an  abbreviation  of  the  Arabic  Al.  Thus  we  find  it  in  the 
word  Aceldama— Ac  place  of,  al  the,  dama  blood. 

3  Pantheon,  p.  214. 

2n 


274  THE    EAGLE    GARUDA. 

is  given  by  Arrian  of  a  visit  of  Alexander  the  Great  to  the  cave  of  Prometheus1    on  the  borders  of 
India. 

In  addition  to  what  Mr.  Moore  and  M.  Sonnerat  have  said,  I  beg  to  observe  that  Bourdeaux,  in 
whose  cathedral  this  Garuda  was  discovered  by  them,  is  watered  by  the  river  Garumna,  evidently 
the  Latinised  Garuda  or  the  Frenchised  Garonne.  It  is  situated  in  the  department  of  the  Gironde. 
Messrs.  Sonnerat  and  Moore  seem  to  have  overlooked  the  striking  names  of  the  river  and  the  de- 
partment. Respecting  Garuda  and  Prometheus,  Colonel  Wilford  says,  "  I  inquired  after  Garuda- 
"  athan  and  was  perfectly  understood.  They  soon  pointed  it  out  to  me  in  the  Puranas  and  other 
"  sacred  books,  and  I  immediately  perceived  that  it  was  situated  in  the  vicinity  of  Cabul,  where 
"  the  historians  of  Alexander  have  placed  it,  and  declare  that  this  hero  had  the  curiosity  to  go  and 
"see  it."2  He  then  states  how  he  inquired  for  the  legend  relating  to  Prometheus  and  the 
eagle  in  the  books  of  the  Buddhists,  where  he  found  it,  and  from  which  inquiry  he  discovered,  that 
the  Buddhists  had  Vedas  and  many  valuable  books  of  their  own,  different  from  those  of  the  Brah- 
mins, by  which  he  was  induced  to  retract  an  opinion  hastily  given  against  the  Buddhists.3  The 
eagle  Garuda,  as  appears  from  Moore's  Pantheon,  is  intimately  blended  with  the  history  of  Cristna 
in  a  variety  of  ways  :  and,  if  I  mistake  not,  forms  in  the  three  facts  of  the  Garuda  at  Bourdeaux 
on  the  Garumna,  in  the  Gironde — of  Alexander's  visit — and  of  its  connexion  with  the  Cristna  of 
India  and  the  Cristna  of  Europe — a  chain  of  evidence  in  proof  of  the  intimate  connexion  between 
the  East  and  the  West ;  and  equally  so  of  the  existence  of  Cristna  and  his  mythos  in  India  long 
previous  to  the  birth  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  though  perhaps  not  of  Jesus  of  Bethlehem.  And  this 
again  overthrows  all  Mr.  Bentley's  doctrines,  except  recourse  be  had,  as  I  believe  it  ought  to  be 
had,  to  renewed  cycles.     Admit  the  cycles,  and  Mr.  Bentley's  alleged  proofs  are  all  in  my  favour. 

Prometheus  formed  the  first  woman,  for  the  formation  of  whom  he  stole  fire  from  heaven,  &c, 
&c.  The  word  Prometheus  is  the  Sanscrit  word  Pramathah  or  Pramathas,  which  comes  from 
Pra-Mat'ha-isa,  which  coalescing,  according'  to  the  rules  of  Sanscrit  grammar,4  form  Prama- 
thesa.  Now,  Pra  is  the  Siamese  Bra,  creator  or  former ;  Matha  is  Mati,  in  the  Bali  language 
Mother,  and  esa  is  Isa  or  Iscah  or  Eve  or  Isis — the  whole  meaning,  maker  of  mother  Eve  or  Isis. 
It  is  no  small  confirmation  of  what  I  have  said,  that  Prometheus,  the  name  of  the  Greek  God,  is 
Sanscrit ; 5  as  is  also  Deucalion,  his  son.  The  latter  is  Deo-cala-yun  or  Deo-Cala-Yavana. 
There  is  an  account  of  his  contest  with  Cristna,  who  was  driven  from  Mathura  by  him,  but  by 
whom  he  was  at  last,  with  his  Ya-vanas,  finally  expelled  from  India.  On  this  I  shall  say  more 
presently.  I  am  well  aware  of  the  forgery  practised  on  Colonel  Wilford,  but  the  knavish  priest 
could  not  forge  the  image  in  Bourdeaux  Cathedral,  nor  the  passage  in  Arrian  respecting  Alexander 
the  Great.  I  am  also  well  aware,  that  an  elegant,  flowery  style  of  writing  would  have  the  effect  of 
convincing  many  readers  better  than  dry  facts.  People  of  this  description  are  not  worth  converting 
to  any  opinion,  and  no  opinion  of  theirs  can  be  worth  having.  But  to  persons  of  critical  judgment, 
who  know  the  value  of  evidence,  a  fact  of  the  kind  here  stated  is  worth  volumes  of  declamation. 
The  authority  of  the  ancient  historians  of  Alexander,  in  a  case  circumstanced  like  this,  cannot  be 
doubted ;   nor,  in  consequence,  can  the   fact  that  there  was  a  cave  of  Prometheus  in  the  time  of 


1  In  my  account  of  the  cave  of  Prometheus,  I  have  carefully  omitted  the  parts  where  Colonel  Wilford  was  deceived 
by  his  Pundit. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  612.  3  ibid.  *  ibi(i.  p.  515. 

I  lie  absolute  identity  of  the  Indian  mythos  at  Bourdeaux  and  the  Indian  mythos  of  Prometheus  and  his  Eagle,  of 
Whom  I  shall  have  much  more  to  say  hereafter,  will  prepare  us  for  the  reception  of  another  and  a  similar  mythos  at 
liaicux,  in  a  future  page  of  this  work. 


BOOK    V.     CHAPTER    XII.      SECTION  2.  275 

Alexander,  in  Upper  India,  some  one  of  the  numerous  cave  temples  yet  remaining,  similar  to  those 
at  Ellora,  Elephanta,or  Cabul — hereby  decidedly  proving  that  the  Greek  mythology  was  not  brought 
into  India  in  the  time  of  the  Seleucidse,  as  a  learned  and  ingenious  author  has,  as  a  last  resource, 
alleged.  This  is  of  the  same  nature  as  that  of  the  Hercules  at  Maturea,  as  described  by  Arrian, 
and  noticed  before.  These  are  proofs  not  probabilities.  Trifling  as  they  appear  to  be  at  first 
sight,  they  are  worth  volumes  of  fine  reasoning.  They  are  like  the  Maypole,  and  April  festival  in 
India  and  in  England,  and  must  carry  conviction  to  the  mind  of  every  person  who  knows  the  value 
of  evidence.  Many  facts  of  this  kind  cannot  be  expected,  but  very  few,  one  indeed,  if  it  be  clear, 
is  enough  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  suspected  history.  It  has  also  been  said,  that  if  the  books  of 
the  Hindoos,  the  Vedas,  &c,  had  been  in  existence  in  the  time  of  the  Seleucidre,  the  Greek  au- 
thors would  have  noticed  them.  I  do  not  admit  that  the  argument  has  any  weight,  when  the  con- 
tempt of  the  Greeks  for  the  Barbari  is  considered  ;  and  when  it  is  also  considered  with  what  diffi- 
culty we  have  obtained  the  Brahmin  books.  It  is  as  inconclusive  as  the  argument  of  those  who 
maintain  that  Stonehenge  is  modern,  because  the  Romans  do  not  notice  it. 1 

2.  How  the  proof  of  the  histories  in  Genesis  being  intermixed  with  the  mythoses  of  the  Gen- 
tiles can  be  of  any  service  to  the  defenders  of  the  literal  construction  of  these  books,  I  cannot  con- 
ceive. It  seems  to  me  that  if  the  plagues  of  Egypt  and  the  history  of  the  flood  were  found  in 
every  parish  throughout  the  world  in  the  most  ancient  of  times,  they  would  not  be  rendered  in 
their  literal  meaning  in  the  least  degree  more  credible,  not  even  though  supported  by  the  Oracles, 
the  Sibyls,  and  the  affirmations  of  the  priests.  Throughout  all  the  world  the  same  system  pre- 
vailed, nor  could  any  country  be  properly  said  to  have  copied  its  system  from  others.  It  travelled 
with  the  aborigines ;  with  them  it  flourished,  and  with  them  decayed :  at  first  as  the  religion  of 
Buddha,  that  is  of  Brahma  or  divine  wisdom,  afterward  as  the  religion  of  Cristna,  another  incarna- 
tion of  the  same  being  or  hypostasis. 

Mr.  Faber2  says,  "  The  close  resemblance  of  the  whole  Levitical  ceremonial  to  the  ceremonial 
"  in  use  among  the  Gentiles  has  often  been  observed,  and  has  differently  been  accounted  for.  This 
"  resemblance  is  so  close  and  so  perfect,  that  it  is  alike  absurd  to  deny  its  existence,  and  to  as- 
"  cribe  it  to  mere  accident.  The  thing  itself  is  an  incontrovertible  matter  of  fact :  and  it  is  a  fact 
"  which  might  at  first  seem  to  be  of  so  extraordinary  a  nature,  that  we  are  imperiously  called  ou 
"  to  account  for  it."  Again,  he  says,3  "  Spencer  has  shewn  at  full  length,  that  there  is  scarcely 
"  a  single  outward  ordinance  of  the  Mosaical  law,  which  does  not  minutely  correspond  with  a 
"  parallel  outward  ordinance  of  Gentilism." 

If  persons  will  only  reflect  a  little  they  will  perceive  that,  if  every  ordinance  of  the  Jews  is  the 
same  as  the  ordinances  of  the  Gentiles,  the  Mythoses  must  necessarily  be  the  same :  that  is,  that 
the  religions  in  their  chief  part  must  be  the  same. 

Mr.  Maurice  says,4  "After  all,  we  must  own,  with  Calmet,  that  the  temple  of  the  great 
"  Jehovah  had  many  decorations  similar  to  those  in  the  hallowed  temples  of  Asia.  He  was  served 
"  there,  says  the  last  cited  author,  with  all  the  pomp  and  splendour  of  an  Eastern  monarch.  He 
"  had  his  table,  his  perfumes,  his  throne,  his  bed-chamber,  his  offices,  his  singing-men  and  his 
"  singing-women." 

Mr.  Faber  states  three  ways  of  accounting  for  these  facts.     The  first  is,  that  the  Gentiles  copied 


1  Since  I  published  my  Celtic  Druids,  it  has  been  observed  to  me,  that  of  all  the  numerous  tumuli  which  surround 
Stonehenge  and  which  have  been  opened,  though  a  variety  of  articles  have  been  found,  there  has  not  been  the  least  ap- 
pearance of  any  thing  Roman  or  of  later  people's.  Can  a  more  decisive  proof  be  desired,  that  the  bodies  were  buried 
before  the  time  of  the  Romans,  and  that  the  tumuli  ceased  to  be  cemeteries  on  their  conquest  of  the  island? 

s  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  62-J.  3  Ifctf.  p.  629.  *  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  V.  p.  174. 

2N  2 


276  SPENCER,   FABER,   BURNET,    CALMET,   &C,   ON    GENESIS   AND    ITS   ALLEGORY. 

from  the  Jews.  This  he  easily  refutes.  The  second  is,  that  the  Jews  copied  from  the  Gentiles. 
Of  this  he  says,  "  The  second  theory,  which  is  precisely  the  reverse  of  the  first,  and  which  sup- 
"  poses  the  Levitical  ark  to  be  a  copy  of  the  ark  of  Osiris,  is  wholly  unincumbered,  indeed,  with 
"  chronological  difficulties  :  but  it  is  attended  by  others,  which,  perhaps,  are  scarcely  less  formi- 
"  dable.  Its  orignal  author  was,  I  believe,  the  Jew  Maimonides  :  the  learned  Spencer  has  drawn 
"  it  out,  at  full  length,  and  has  discussed  it  with  wonderful  ingenuity  :  and  the  mighty  Warburton, 
"  without  descending  to  particulars,  has  given  it  the  honourable  sanction  of  his  entire  approba- 
"  tion."  *  He  then  satisfactorily  shews  that  neither  of  these  schemes  is  defensible,  and  under- 
takes to  prove,  that  all  the  ceremonial  and  ritual  in  principle  originated  from  an  old  patriarchal 
religion.  And  in  this  I  quite  concur  with  him ;  though  I  cannot  allow  that  religion  to  have  con- 
sisted in  the  adoration  of  Noah,  his  ark,  and  his  family  ;  the  idea  of  which  is  to  me  altogether  ri- 
diculous, too  ridiculous  to  deserve  a  serious  refutation.  But  by  and  by  I  shall  shew  from  what 
patriarchal  religion  these  Mosaic  rites  were  derived.2 

Had  not  Mr.  Faber  been  bound  by  the  prejudices  of  his  education,  and  by  the  sacerdotal  oaths 
which  he  took,  whilst  almost  a  boy,  and  by  which  he  in  fact  solemnly  engaged  never  to  abandon 
the  former,  I  have  no  doubt  that  my  present  labours  would  have  been  unnecessary.  No  man 
before  him  ever  came  so  near  the  truth.  The  following  is  nearly  his  account  of  the  ancient 
philosophy,  taught  in  the  mysteries,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  sentences  which  I  have  omitted, 
*  and  which  are  inserted  by  him  to  make  it  apply  to  his  ship  and  old  women — to  make  his  ship  and 
old  women  appear  the  originals,  and  the  heavenly  bodies  and  the  recondite  philosophy,  the 
mythological  representations  under  which  they  were  disguised  ;  instead  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
and  the  philosophy  being  the  originals,  and  the  ship  and  old  women  the  mythological  representa- 
tions under  which  the  latter  were  concealed  from  the  vulgar  eye.  He  has  certainly  proved  the 
second  and  third  books  of  Genesis  to  be  Hindoo  Mythoses. 

As  we  have  seen,  it  is  acknowledged  that  the  Jewish  and  the  Gentile  ceremonies  are  the 
same.  It  is  also  admitted  that  neither  can  have  been  borrowed  from  the  other.  We  have 
seen  also,  that  the  doctrines  are  the  same.  Then  is  it  not  reasonable  to  look  for  the  origin  of  the  one, 
where  you  look  for  the  origin  of  the  other  ?  At  first,  the  same  system  must  have  pervaded 
the  whole  world.  I  think  I  have  already  proved,  that  all  ancient  nations,  almost  within  even  the 
reach  of  history,  had  a  form  of  worship  without  idols.  The  ancient  Latins,  the  ancient  Greeks, 
the  Egyptians,  the  Pelasgi,  the  Syrians,  who  made  treaties  with  Abraham  and  Isaac,  had  no 
names  for  their  Gods.  What  can  this  universal  religion  have  been,  but  that  of  Buddha  or 
Brahma  ? 

If  it  be  true  that  the  Pentateuchian  system  is  a  mythos,  or  more  properly  several  detached 
parts  of  a  mythos,  in  principle  the  same  as  the  mythoses  of  the  neighbouring  nations,  it  is  no  ways 
surprising  that  it  should  have  many  traits  of  similarity  to  them.     The  reader  has  seen  what  I 


1  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  628. 

*  Although  our  great  men  can  swallow  the  literal  meaning  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  now,  and  find  no  difficulty 
in  it ;  yet  the  stomachs  of  the  ancients  were  not  quite  so  capacious.  Siraeides  says,  the  world  was  not  created  day 
after  day,  but  all  at  once— simul  in  the  Latin  Vulgate  ;  kmmj  in  the  LXX.  (Eccles.  xvi.  1.)  Philo  calls  it  silly,  to  think 
that  the  world  was  made  in  the  compass  of  six  days.  Lib.  Alleg.  St.  Augustin  also  says,  it  was  produced  at  one  time. 
(De  Civ.  Dei,  Lib.  xi.  Cap.  xxxi. ;  Morer.  Dial,  on  the  Sabbath,  II.  p.  107 )  The  absurdity  of  the  history  those 
men  could  not  get  over,  therefore  they  had  recourse  to  explanations.  And  although  the  Saint,  Augustin,  could  not 
believe  such  things,  he  was  canonized ;  but  if  a  man  doubt  noio  he  is  damned.  But  the  fact  was,  that  all  these  apparent 
absurdities  had  an  allegorical  meaning,  and  do  not  prove,  as  some  persons  have  imagined,  the  falsity  of  the  religion  ; 
they  only  prove  that  the  esoteric  religion  has  not  been  thrown  open  to  the  vulgar.  The  esoteric  religion  was  a  masonic 
mystery;  I  am  under  no  tie,  and  I  will  explain  to  the  world  what  it  really  was. 


BOOK  V.    CHAPTER  XII.    SECTION  2.  2/7 

have  said  to  have  been  the  foundation,  or  nearly  the  foundation,  of  all  the  mythoses  of  antiquity ; 
but  he  has  yet  a  great  deal  more  to  see.  It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  in  long  periods  of  time, 
and  in  different  nations  and  languages,  great  changes  would  take  place,  and  that  a  vast  variety  of 
minor  systems  or  mythoses  would  arise.  It  is  equally  natural  to  expect  that  a  general  similarity 
should  nevertheless  prevail,  or,  that  in  all  the  different  superstructions  some  traces  of  the  original 
should  be  found.  As  with  the  systems  of  tvriting,  though  they  became  very  different,  yet  enough 
(indeed  super-abundant)  relics  of  the  old  first  language  are  apparent  in  all  of  the  sixteen-letter 
system,  to  shew  that  they  are  all  from  one  source.  From  the  above-named  mythoses,  Mr.  Faber 
and  Nimrod  have  selected  a  great  number  of  similar  matters,  which  have  given  to  their  systems 
a  certain  degree  of  plausibility.  The  ingenuity  of  Mr.  Faber  is  shewn  in  annexing  the  word 
Helio  to  the  word  ark,  by  which  means  he  succeeds  in  attributing  to  his  imaginary  worship  of  the 
ship,  the  real  worship  of  the  sun.  Divide  the  words,  and  what  will  apply  to  the  sun,  is,  in 
general,  ridiculous  as  applied  to  his  ship  or  to  an  old  man,  the  exalted  father  its  sailor  :  and,  on 
the  contrary,  what  will  apply  to  the  ship  is  ridiculous  as  applied  to  the  sun.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  deny,  from  the  facts,  the  etymologies,  and  the  analogies,  pointed  out  by  these  learned  and 
ingenious  devotees,  that  it  is  apparent  an  universal  mythos  has  prevailed — that  the  Pentateuch 
and  the  Iliad  (of  which  I  shall  say  more  hereafter)  have  originally  had  the  same  mythological 
doctrines  for  their  foundations.  These  gentlemen  taking  the  allegorical  or  mythological  accounts 
of  the  Bible  to  the  letter,  have  made  the  mythoses  of  the  Gentiles  bend  to  them.  Had  they 
possessed  understandings  a  little  more  enlarged,  their  learning  and  ingenuity  would  probably 
have  organized  the  chaos.  But  what  can  be  expected  from  persons,  however  learned,  who  believe 
like  Nimrod  that  the  old  Gentile  oracles  really  prophesied, 1  or  that  the  possession  of  human 
beings  by  daemons  once  prevailed.2  Persons  who  can  believe  in  daemonology,  second  sight, 
witchcraft,  and  similar  nonsense,3  although  very  learned  and  skilful  in  writing  novels,  or  making 
pictures,  are  weak  men,  undeserving  the  name  of  philosophers.  They  may  amuse  a  few  of  their 
sect  to-day;  posterity  will  only  smile  to-morrow. 

The  philosophy  in  question  taught  that  matter  itself  was  eternal,  but  that  it  was  liable  to  endless 
changes  and  modifications;  that  over  it  a  demiurgic  Intelligence  presided,  who,  when  a  world 
was  produced  out  of  chaos,  manifested  himself  at  the  commencement  of  that  world  as  the  great 
universal  father  both  of  men  and  animals :  that,  during  the  existence  of  the  world,  every  thing  in 
it  was  undergoing  a  perpetual  change :  no  real  destruction  of  any  substance  taking  place,  but  only 
a  transmutation  of  it :  that,  at  the  end  of  a  certain  appointed  great  period,  the  world  was  destined 
to  be  reduced  to  its  primeval  material  chaos :  that  the  agent  of  its  dissolution  was  a  flood  either  of 
water  or  of  fire :  that  at  this  time  all  its  inhabitants  perished ;  and  the  great  father,  the  Brahme- 
Mai,  from  whose  soul  the  soul  of  every  man  was  excerpted,  (i.  e.  emanated,)  and  into  whose  soul 
the  soul  of  every  man  must  finally  be  resolved,  was  left  in  the  solitary  majesty  of  abstracted  medi- 
tation :  that,  during  the  prevalence  of  the  deluge  and  the  reign  of  chaos,  he  floated  upon  the  sur- 
face of  the  mighty  deep,  the  being  on  which  he  reposed  being  represented  by  a  ship,  a  lotus,  an 
egg,  the  sea-serpent,  the  navicular  leaf,  or  the  lunar  crescent :  that  the  two  generative  powers  of 
nature,  the  male  and  female,  were  then  reduced  to  their  simplest  principles,  and  were  in  a  state  of 
mystic  conjunction  brooding  on  the  surface  of  the  deep.  The  Brahme-Maia  or  Great  Father  was 
but  mystically  alone :  for  he  comprehended  within  his  own  essence  three  filial  emanations,  and  was 
himself  conspicuous  in  eight  distinct  forms  : 4  that  at  the  close  of  a  divine  year,  the  deluge  abating, 


1  P.  488,  of  Supp.  Edition.  s  Also  Dolphin,  p.  405,  id. 

3  Vide  story  of  the  Ghost  seen  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ruddle,  &c.,  &c. !  in  Nimrod,  p.  588,  ib. 

4  Wonderful  to  tell,  Mr.  Faber  can  see  nothing  here  but  Adam,  Cain,  Abel,  and  Seth— or  Noah,  his  wife,  and  Sheaij 


278  faber's  trinity  of  the  Indians  and  the  Hebrews. 

the  Great  Father  awaked  to  the  reforming  of  the  world  out  of  the  chaotic  mass ;  and  that  he  ap- 
peared with  his  three  emanations,1  and  in  his  eight  forms,2  as  he  had  appeared  at  the  commence- 
ment of  former  worlds  :  that  this  new  world  was  destined  to  run  the  same  course  as  former  worlds : 
that  this  alternation  of  destruction  and  reproduction,  was  eternal  both  retrospectively  and  pro- 
spectively: that  to  destroy  was,  consequently,  nothing  more  than  to  create  under  a  new  form.  3 
This  is  the  doctrine  which  Mr.  Faber  supposes  was  taught  in  the  ancient  mysteries,  except  my 
leaving  out  and  altering  some  trifling  parts  forced  in  to  suit  it  to  his  peculiar  theory.  But  it  will 
not  be  denied  to  be  on  the  whole  a  sublime  system.  It  has  the  merit,  too,  of  being,  when  thus 
corrected,  nearly  the  true  system  of  the  first  sages  of  antiquity. 

3.  The  following  account  of  the  Hebrew  and  Indian  Trinities,  according  to  Mr.  Faber,  is  very 

striking : 

"  In  the  preceding  citations  from  the  Geeta,  we  may  observe  that  Vishnou  or  Crishna  is  identi- 
"  fied  with  Brahm,  although  one  of  his  three  emanations ;  and  we  may  also  observe,  that  in  the 
"  single  character  of  Brahm,  all  the  three  offices  of  Brahma,  Vishnou,  and  Siva,  are  united.  He  is 
"  at  once  the  creator,  the  preserver,  and  the  destroyer.  He  is  the  primeval  Hermaphrodite,  or 
"  the  great  father  and  the  great  mother  blended  together  in  one  person.  Consequently  he  is  the 
*  same  as  the  hermaphroditic  Siva,  in  the  form  which  the  Hindoos  call  Ardha-Nari ;  the  same 
"  also  as  Brahma  and  Vishnou,  for  each  of  these  is  similarly  an  hermaphrodite  by  an  union  with 
"  his  proper  Sacti  or  heavenly  consort;  4  the  same  moreover  as  the  Orphic  Jupiter  and  the  Egyp- 
u  tian  Osiris  ;  the  same  as  Adonis,  Dionusus,  and  Atys  ;  the  same,  in  short,  as  the  compound 
"  great  father  in  every  part  of  the  pagan  world." — "  Yet  this  compound  great  father,  as  the  whole 
"  of  his  history  shews,  is  not  the  true  God ;  but  a  being,  who  has  been  made  to  usurp  his  attri- 
"  butes.  He  is  primarily  Adam  and  the  Earth,  and  secondarily  Noah  and  the  Ark.  In  the  former 
"  case,  his  three  emanations  of  children,  who  partake  of  his  nature,  and  who  discharge  his  pre- 
u  tended  functions,  are  Cain,  Abel,  and  Seth ;  in  the  latter,  they  are  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet. 
iC  Accordingly,  Brahm  himself  is  declared  to  be  the  same  as  Menu ;  and  Brahma,  Vishnou,  and 
"  Siva,  are  identified  with  those  three  sons  of  Menu,  who  appear  at  the  commencement  of  every 
"  Manwantara,  whose  proper  human  names  are  said  by  the  Hindoos  to  be  Sama  and  Cama  and 
"  Pra-Japati,  and  who  transmit  to  their  descendants  the  sceptre  of  sovereignty  throughout  the 
"  whole  duration  of  their  allotted  period. 

"  On  this  point  the  Hindoo  writers  are  sufficiently  explicit ;  though  by  their  wild  system  of 
"  personal  multiplication  and  repeated  Avatarism,  they  have  superinduced  a  certain  degree  of  con- 
"  fusion.     The  evidence  may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  manner : 

"  We  are  taught  on  the  one  hand,  that  Brahma,  Vishnou,  and  Siva,  are  essentially  but  a  single 
"  person  ;  and  this  single  person  is  Brahm,  who  unites  in  himself  the  divided  attributes  of  the 


Ham,  and  Japhet,  and  their  three  wives— in  all  eight.  He  either  conceals,  or  his  prejudice  has  hlinded  him  to  the 
Brahme-Maia,  the  Supreme  Being  and  his  three  emanations — Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva— the  creator,  the  preserver,  and 
the  destroyer ;  and  the  eight  planetary  bodies,  the  Sun,  the  Earth,  the  Moon,  and  the  five  Planets.  I  really  can  hardly 
bring  myself  to  the  belief  that  he  can  be  so  blind.  But  he  pretty  well  proves  where  the  mythos  of  Genesis  came  from, 
or  on  what  it  was  founded. 

1  Powers.    The  forming  power,  the  preserving  power,  and  the  destroying  power;  attributes  of  omnipotence. 

2  The  planetary  substances  having  form,  his  Angels  or  Messengers,  the  fnitf  smin. 

3  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  11 7. 

4  From  this  hermaphrodite  described  by  Mr.  Faber,  probably  came  the  construction  of  the  verse  in  Genesis,  (so  God 
created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  him  ;  male  and  female  created  he  them,)  that  the  first 
male  and  female  human  beings  were  joined  in  one  body,  or  were,  in  some  way,  Hermaphroditic.  This  was  the  belief 
of  many  Jews  and  Christians  in  former  times.    Here,  as  usual,  we  go  to  India,  both  for  the  book  and  its  meaning. 


BOOK  V.   CHAPTER  XII.    SECTION  3.  279 

•  three ;  and  that  the  triplicated  Brahm  is  materially  the  World,  astronomically  the  Sun,  and  mys- 
"  tically  the  great  Hermaphrodite,  who  is  equally  the  father  and  the  mother  of  the  universe.  But 
"  we  are  told,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Menu-Swayambhuva  is  conjointly  and  individually  Brahma, 
¥  Vishnou,  and  Siva ;  that  he  had  three  sons,  who  sprang  in  a  mortal  shape  from  his  body,  and 
"  who  named  his  three  daughters ;  and  that  these  three  sons  were  severally  Brahma,  Vishnou,  and 
"  Siva. 

"  Such  are  the  declarations  of  the  Hindoo  theologists  ;  and  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  them 
"  is  abundantly  obvious.  Since  Brahma,  Vishnou,  and  Siva,  are  conjointly  Menu-Swayambhuva; 
"  and  since  they  are  also  conjointly  the  imagined  supreme  God  Brahm ;  it  is  evident,  that  Brahm 

and  Menu-Swayambhuva  must  really  be  the  same  person.     And  again,  since  Brahma,  Vishnou, 

and  Siva,  are  severally  the  three  sons  of  Menu-Swayambhuva ;  and  since  they  are  also  three 

supposed  emanations  from  Brahm ;  it  must  plainly  follow,  that  the  famous  triad  of  Hindoo  theo- 
"  logy,  which  some  have  incautiously  deemed  a  corrupt  imitation  of  the  Trinity,  is  really  composed 
"  of  the  three  sons  of  a  mere  mortal,  who,  under  the  name  of  Menu,  is  described  as  the  general 
"  ancestor  of  mankind.  Brahm  then  at  the  head  of  the  Indian  triad,  is  Menu  at  the  head  of  his 
"  three  sons.  But  that  by  the  first  Menu  we  are  to  understand  Adam  is  evident,  both  from  the 
"  remarkable  circumstance  of  himself  and  his  consort  bearing  the  titles  of  Adima  and  Iva,  and  from 
"  the  no  less  remarkable  tradition  that  one  of  his  three  sons  was  murdered  by  his  brother  at  a  sa- 
"  crifice.  Hence  it  will  follow  that  Brahm,  at  the  head  of  the  Indian  triad,  is  Adam  at  the  head  of 
"  his  three  sons,  Cain,  Abel,  and  Seth."  l 

This  may  be  true,  unless  the  reader  should  think  with  me  that  the  profound  Hindoo  doctrine 
does  not  arise  from  the  history  of  the  men,  but  that  the  doctrine  is  disguised  under  the  allegory  of 
men  to  conceal  it  from  the  vulgar  eye,  after  the  manner  of  all  the  other  Mythoses  of  Antiquity. 

Again,  Mr.  Faber  says,  "  Each  Menu,  however,  with  his  triple  offspring,  is  only  the  reappearance 
"  of  a  former  Menu  with  his  triple  offspring ;  for,  in  every  such  manifestation  at  the  commence- 
"  ment  of  each  Manwantara,  the  Hindoo  Trimurti  or  Triad  becomes  incarnate,  by  transmigrating 
"  from  the  human  bodies  occupied  during  a  prior  incarnation ;  Brahm  or  the  Unity  appearing  as 
"  the  paternal  Menu  of  a  new  age,  while  the  triad  of  Brahma,  Vishnou,  and  Siva,  is  exhibited  in 
"  the  persons  of  his  three  sons.  The  first  Menu,  therefore,  with  his  three  sons,  must  be  viewed 
"  as  reappearing  in  the  characters  of  Menu-Satyavrata  and  his  triple  offspring — Sama,  Cama, 
"  and  Pra-Japati.  But  the  ark-preserved  Menu-Satyavrata  and  his  three  sons,  are  certainly 
"  Noah  and  his  three  sons,  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet.  Hence  again  it  will  follow,  since  Menu- 
"  Satyavrata  is  only  a  reappearance  of  Menu- Adima,  and  since  the  triplicated  Menu- Adima  is  the 
"  same  as  the  triplicated  Brahm,  that  Brahm  at  the  head  of  the  Indian  triad  is  likewise  Noah  at  the 
"  head  of  his  three  sons."  2 

Notwithstanding  the  nonsense  in  the  above  extracts  about  Brahm  being  the  world,  &c,  and  the 
ingenious  misrepresentation  that  Brahm  is  not  the  true  God,  enough  transpires  to  shew  that  the 
mythoses  of  the  Israelites  and  of  the  Brahmins  are  essentially  the  same.  When  this  is  added  to 
the  general  character  of  the  history,  of  the  serpent,  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  &c,  &c,  and  to  the 
proof  which  has  been  given  by  Sir  W.  Drummond,  in  his  OEdipus  Judaicus,  that  the  names  of 
the  persons  and  places  in  Genesis  have  astronomical  meanings,  I  think  no  one  can  hesitate  to 
agree  with  the  ancient  Jews  and  fathers  of  the  Christian  Church,  that  the  whole  is 
allegory.  In  this  I  believe  few  people  would  differ  from  me,  if  a  literal  interpretation  were 
not  wanted  to  bolster  up  those  pernicious  heresies,  Original  Sin  and  the  Atonement — the  wild 
chimeras  of  insane  fanatics,  of  former  times,  and  held  by  the  moderns  through  the  prejudices  of 

1  Faber,  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  pp.  117,  118.  s  Ibid.  p.  119. 


280  faber's  trinity  op  the  Indians  and  the  Hebrews. 

education.  How  surprising  that  a  man  of  learning  and  talent  like  Mr.  Faber  should  succeed  in 
persuading  himself  that  the  Platos  and  Ciceros  of  antiquity,  were  contemptible  enough  to  adore 
three  or  four  old  women  and  a  rotten  ship  ! 

It  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  Mr.  Faber,  in  his  attempt  to  prove  that  all  the  profound 
theories  and  learning  of  the  Platos,  Pythagorases,  and  Hindoo  philosophers,  were  nothing  but 
figurative  representations  of  his  ship  and  old  women,  that  he  might  prove  the  ship  and  its  crew 
were  nothing  but  an  allegorical  representation  or  an  incarnation  of  the  theories  of  the  philosophers. 
However,  with  great  learning  and  talent,  he  has  certainty  rendered  this  extremely  probable,  if  he 
have  not  actually  proved  it — which,  indeed,  I  think  most  unprejudiced  people  will  allow  that  he 
has  done.  In  this  he  has  shewn  that  the  priests  of  the  Israelites  were  like  those  of  all  other 
nations  who  dressed  up  or  disguised  their  recondite  philosophical  doctrines  under  the  representa- 
tion of  human  adventures  of  different  kinds,  in  order  the  better  to  secure  to,  themselves  dominion 
over  the  vulgar that  vulgar  who  will  be  in  a  fury  with  me  for  endeavouring  to  undeceive  them. 

The  similarity  of  the  numbers,  in  the  Mosaic  history,  with  the  numbers  constantly  recurring  in 
the  Hindoo  systems,  seems  very  striking.  Here  are  Adam  and  his  three  sons,  and  Noah  and  his 
three  sons,  each  class  answering  to  Brahm  and  his  three  emanations — Brahma,  Vishnou,  and  Siva. 
There  are  eight  persons  in  the  ark,  answering  to  the  sun  and  seven  planetary  bodies.  But  whether 
the  histories  of  Adam  and  Noah  and  their  families  were  taken  from  the  metaphysical  and  profound 
theory  of  the  hermaphroditic  creator,  preserver,  and  destroyer — the  sun  presiding  over  the 
planetary  system ;  or,  the  recondite  system  was  formed,  and  the  sun  and  planets  numbered  after 
him  and  his  family,  I  leave  to  every  person  to  judge  of  as  he  thinks  proper.  The  pious  devotee, 
to  the  literal  meaning,  will,  no  doubt,  take  the  former.  I  incline  to  the  latter,  which  will  enable 
me  by  and  by  to  prove  the  truth  of  Christianity  to  the  philosophers.  But  I  do  not  mean  by 
Christianity,  that  of  the  Pope,  putting  up  the  picture  of  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  in 
his  chapel ;  or  that  of  Calvin,  burning  Servetus  ;  or  that  of  Cranmer,  burning  Joan  Bocher. 

The  book  of  Genesis  was  considered  by  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  ancient  Jewish  philosophers  and 
Christian  fathers  as  an  allegory.  For  persons  using  their  understandings,  to  receive  it  in  a  literal 
sense,  was  impossible  :  and  when  we  find  modern  Christians  so  receiving  it,  we  only  find  a  proof 
that,  with  the  mass  of  mankind,  reason  has  nothing  to  do  with  religion,  and  that  the  power  of 
education  is  so  great,  as  in  most  cases  to  render  the  understanding  useless.  In  the  Jewish  religion, 
as  in  all  other  religions,  there  was  an  esotoric  and  an  exoteric  meaning  of  its  dogmas.  One  great 
object  of  Moses  evidently  was  to  destroy  idolatry ;  he  was  of  the  Iconoclastic  sect — that  was  all. 
He  was,  in  fact,  of  the  Linga  sect  of  the  Indians,  and  of  the  Persee  sect,  or  of  the  religion  of  the 
Persians.  He  adored  the  sacred  fire  as  the  emblem  of  the  Supreme  Being,  precisely  after  the 
manner  of  the  Oriental  nations,  and  he  reprobated  the  worship  of  Adonis,  the  name  equally  of 
the  Israelitish  and  Heathen  God,  and  Astarte,  in  the  shape  of  a  Golden  Calf, l  at  Sinai.  This 
was  the  chief  object  of  his  system ;  but  something  more  will  be  pointed  out  hereafter. 


1  In  the  annunciation  of  the  festival  of  the  golden  calf  Aaron  expresses  himself  in  the  following  words :  Festum 
Adonai  eras.  (Selden  de  Diis  Syriis  Synt.  I.  Cap.  iv.)  In  Arabia,  where  Aaron  then  was,  Bacchus,  the  Saviour,  was 
adored  under  the  name  of  Urotalt,  and  under  the  title  of  Adonai  or  pf  Adoneus.  (Auson.  Epig.  29.)  Urotalt  is 
evidently  the  two  Latin  words  Urus  and  Alius— the  lofty  Bull  or  Beeve.  Probably  the  title  of  Urania,  given  to  Venus, 
came  from  the  Urus.  The  junction  of  the  two,  the  Venus  and  the  Urus  produced  God  the  generator.  D'Ancarville, 
Vol.  I.  p.  47. 

In  Jer.  xlvi.  15,  the  LXX  render  the  passage,  o  Att«<,  o  p><rx«?  o  «cXeicT««  o-s— Apis  thy  chosen  Calf.  This  is  justified 
by  forty-six  of  Dr.  Kennicot's  manuscripts,  which  read  "pUN  abirk  in  the  singular,  and  not  T*1U«  abirik  in  the  plural. 
Now,  as  I  look  upon  the  LXX  as  a  most  valuable  gloss,  and  as  being  unprejudiced  wherever  it  gives  a  meaning  against 
the  doctrines  of  the  Jews  of  its  own  or  of  later  times,  I  pay  much  attention  to  it,  particularly  when,  as  here,  I  find  it 
supported  by  the  various  readings. 


BOOK  V.     CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  4.  281 

There  is  one  fact  which  must,  I  should  think,  have  been  observed  by  every  person  conversant 
with  inquiries  of  the  nature  of  those  on  which  I  have  been  employed,  and  it  is  this  :  all  those 
works,  without  exception,  which  we  call  early  histories,  are  deeply  tainted  with  mythology ;  so 
that  we  have  not,  in  fact,  one  early  real  history.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  the  effect 
is,  that  the  early  history  of  every  state,  like  that  of  Rome,  has  been  made  use  of  as  a  kind  of  peg 
to  hang  a  system  of  priestcraft  or  mythos  on.  The  mythos,  not  the  history,  is  the  object  of  the 
writer :  as  might  be  expected,  the  history  bends,  not  the  mythos,  if  they  do  not  fit.  Of  this  the 
early  Roman  history  is  an  example.  The  historians  not  understanding  it  have  recorded  as  history 
the  most  palpable  nonsense.  Herodotus  is  an  example  of  this.  His  story  is  the  first  in  Greece 
which  was  told  for  the  purposes  of  history.  All  former  stories  were  for  the  purpose  of  a  secret 
doctrine,  desired  to  be  perpetuated  in  secrecy  :  first  verbally  told  in  verse  or  rhythm  for  the 
assistance  of  the  memory,- next  written.     Such  were  the  works  of  Hesiod  and  Homer. 

Mr.  Faber  has  clearly  proved,  as  the  reader  has  seen,  that  the  Mosaic  accounts  of  the  creation, 
and  of  the  flood  of  which  I  shall  treat  in  my  next  book,  are  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  the 
Hindoos ;  the  outlines  or  great  points  being  evidently  the  same.  Yet  the  particulars  differ  suffi- 
ciently to  induce  a  suspicion,  that  they  are  not  copies  of  each  other,  but  were  probably  drawn  from 
a  common  source.  The  material  parts  of  the  history  may  be  true.  I  believe  it,  as  I  believe  the 
history  of  Tacitus.  I  believe  that  Vespasian  lived  ;  but  Vespasian's  miracles,  as  related  by  him,  I 
cannot  believe.  I  believe  in  a  creation  ;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  God  walked  in  the  Garden.  I 
believe  in  a  flood ;  but  I  cannot  believe  that  all  the  animals  of  the  old,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
New  World,  «  were  put  into  one  ship.  Many  other  things  I  believe,  and  many  other  things  I 
do  not  believe ;  but  it  is  always  a  pleasure  to  me  to  find  (if  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  alone  be  the 
religion  of  my  country)  that  my  faith,  though  differing  from  it,  in  a  few  trifling  and  unimportant 
points,  is  nevertheless  the  same  in  its  great  foundations.  If  the  reader  will  consult  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Calcutta,  particularly  Volume  IV.,  he  will  find  innumerable  proofs 
that  the  Grecian  histories,  equally  with  the  Mosaic  and  Hindoo  mythologies,  are  most  of  them 
drawn  from  the  same  common  fountain,  in  Upper  India,  about  Balk,  Cabul,  and  Samarkand.  The 
same  universal  system  pervaded  the  whole,  and,  no  doubt,  had  its  origin  in  ancient  Buddhism. 

Many  facts  stated  by  Mr.  Faber  having  been  taken  from  the  works  of  Mr.  Wilford,  before  the 
frauds  which  one  of  the  Brahmins  practised  upon  him  were  discovered,  it  is  necessary  to  read 
with  caution,  and  exclude  the  parts  in  which  he  might  be  deceived ;  but  there  is  quite  enough  to 
satisfy  any  unprejudiced  person,  that  the  books  of  Genesis  are  mythoses  or  parables,  the  same 
as  those  of  the  Hindoos,  and,  in  short,  of  all  the  other  nations  of  antiquity. 

That  the  Mosaic  ceremonies  were  the  same  as  those  of  the  Gentiles,  has  been  proved  by 
Spencer,  Faber,  and  other  learned  divines,  beyond  dispute.  This  being  the  fact,  it  does  not  seem 
surprising  that  the  doctrines  of  the  two  should  also  partake  of  the  same  character,  when  stripped 
of  the  corruptions  which  the  priests  and  the  infirmities  of  humanity  have  introduced  into  them. 
We  see  not  only  the  same  fundamental  Trinity,  but  we  see  the  same  system  of  concealment  under 
apparently  absurd  mythoses  or  allegorical  representations, — absurd,  indeed,  to  outward  appear- 
ance, but  probably,  if  perfectly  understood,  covering  a  system  of  wisdom  and  truth.  But  enough 
escapes  to  prove  that,  for  our  good,  as  much  is  known  as  is  necessary.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the 
object  of  Jesus  was  the  reform  of  the  Jewish  polity,  and  the  restoration  of  the  religion  of  the 
Gentiles  to  that  of  Abraham  and  Melchizedek,  that  is,  Buddha;  for  I  am  persuaded  they  were 
originally  the  same — the  religion  of  the  first  Persians,  or  something  very  near  to  it,  described  by 

1  None  of  which  were  ever  found  in  the  old  world. 

2o 


282  faber's  trinity  of  the  Indians  and  the  Hebrews. 

Sir  W.  Jones  as  being  so  beautiful.     But  the  discussion  of  this  point  belongs  to  the  latter  part  of 
my  work. 

Let  the  reader  look  at  the  print  of  Cristna  bruising  the  serpent's  head,  and  that  also  of  his 
brooding  on  the  waters,  and  then  doubt,  if  he  can,  that  the  system  of  Genesis  and  that  of  India 
were  the  same.  This  proves  the  doctrine,  as  well  as  the  ritual,  to  be  identical.  They  are  prints 
of  statues  cut  out  of  rocks  long  before  the  Christian  sera.  Let  him  consider  the  histories  of 
Samson,  Hercules,  and  Bala-Rama,  of  Buddha  and  Osiris,  Budvar,  Hermes,  and  Fo,  and  doubt  the 
identity  if  he  can.  Then,  how  is  it  possible  to  doubt,  that  the  original  mythoses  on  which  these 
are  founded  were  the  same  ? 

On  this  subject  Maimonides  says,  "  Non  omnia  secundum  litteram  intelligenda  et  accipienda 

"  esse  quae  dicuntur  in  opere  Bereschet,  (Genesis,)  sicut  vulgus  hominum  existimat sensus 

"  enim  illorum  pravas  vel  gignunt  cogitationes,  imaginationes,  et  opiniones,  de  natura  Dei,  vel 
"  certe  fundamenta  legis  evertunt,  hseresimque  aliquatenus  introducunt."  * 

The  learned  Spencer  says,  E  superioribus  evidens  esse  censeo,  omnis  generis  arcana  sub  rituum 
"  Mosaicorum  tegmine  latuisse.  Quod  itaque  Plutarchus,  creduld  temeritate,  de  religiosis  Egyp- 
"  tiorum  institutis  dixit,  de  Judaeorum  sacris  et  ceremoniis  usurpemus.  Nihil  a  ratione  dissonum, 
"  fabulosum  nihil,  nihil  superstitionem  olens,  in  eorum  sacris  constitutum  est :  sed  quaedam  ethicas 
"  et  utiles  doctrinas  in  recessu  continentia,  alia  vero  non  expertia  elegantiae  cujusdam  historicae  vel 
"  philosophicae."  2 

The  fact  that  the  books  of  Moses  do  cover  a  secret  doctrine  being  here  broadly  admitted  by 
Spencer,  one  of  the  most  learned  divines  of  the  British  Protestant  Church,  I  hope  and  trust  I  may 
stand  excused,  if  I  find  myself  under  the  necessity  of  adopting  his  principle — which,  under  the 
words  omnis  generis,  is  pretty  extensive.  This  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  whether  the 
esoteric  doctrine,  admitted  to  exist,  be  or  be  not  rightly  understood  by  me.  I  only  here  contend 
that  there  was  a  secret  doctrine.  What  that  secret  doctrine  was,  is  not  the  subject  of  this 
section. 

The  following  is  the  opinion  of  the  learned  Thomas  Burnet,  one  of  the  first  of  Christian  philo- 
sophers :  "  Sed  quid  tandem,  inquies,  omnibus  perpensis,  de  Hebraeorum  Cabala  statuendum  erit  ? 
"  Nil  habet  arcani  sensfts,  nil  sapientiae  recondite ;  neque  olim  habuit  ?  Rabbinorum  cordatissi- 
"  mus,  Moses  Maimonides,  ait,  olim  fuisse  apud  Hebraeos  de  rebus  divinis  multa  mysteria,  sed 
"  periisse  :  vel  injuria  temporis,  et  repetitis  gentis  istius  calamitatibus  3  vel  ex  eo  quod  prohibitum 
"  fuit,  mysteria  divina  scriptis  consignare.  Sed  audiamus,  si  placet,  ipsius  verba  Latine.  Scito 
"  multas  egregias  sententias,  quae  in  gente  nostra  olim  fuerunt,  de  veritate  istarum  rerum,  partim 
"  longinquitate  temporis,  partim  infidelium  et  stultorum  populorum  in  nos  dominatione :  partim 
"  etiam  quod  non  cuivis  (sicut  exposuimus)  concessa  erant  mysteria,  periisse,  et  in  oblivionem 
"  devenisse.  Nihil  enim  permissum  erat  litteris  mandare,  nisi  ea  quae  in  libros  sacros  digesta  et 
"  relata  erant.  Nosti  enim  Talmud  ipsum  inter  nos  receptum,  olim  non  fuisse  in  certum  librum 
"  digestum,  propter  rationem  istam,  quae  turn  passim  obtinebat  in  gente  nostra :  verba  qum 

dixi  tibi  ore,  non  licet  tibi  scripto  divulgare."  Haec  est  sententia  Maimonidis  "  de 
i'  occulta!  veterique  Judaeorum  sapientia."3  Again  he  says,  "  Si  veniam  damus  conjecturis,  in  illam 
"  opinionem  facile  descenderem,  Antiquam  Cabalam  Realem  (nam  verbalis  est  figmentum  huma- 
"  num)  tractasse  potissimum  de  rerum  originatione,  et  gradationibus.  Sive  de  modo  productionis 
"  aut  profluxus  rerum  a  primo  ente,  et  earundem  rerum  gradibus  et  descensu  a  summis  ad  ima."  4 


(< 


1  Maim.  More  Nevoc.  Pars  ii.  Cap.  xxix.  p.  273 ;  Beaus.  Hist.  Manich.  Vol.  II.  p.  451. 

«  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xi.  Sect.  3.  3  Burnet,  Archjeol.  Cap.  vii.  p.  84.  *  lb.  p.  85. 


BOOK  V.   CHAPTER  XIII.    SECTION  1.  283 

Again,  "  Haec  est  rerura  et  temporum  ratio,  in  historia  primi  hominis  et  Paradisi.  Quae  cum  sin- 
"  gula  mecum  revolvo,  aequo  animo,  et  in  omnem  partem  flexili,  qua  ducit  ratio  et  veritatis  amor: 
"  succensere  non  possum,  ex  patribus,  et  authoribus  antiquis,  illis,  qui  in  symbola,  aut  parabolas 
"  aut  sermones  populares,  haec  convertere  studuerunt/' 1  After  this  Burnet  goes  on  to  exhibit  the 
opinion  of  Cicero,  Seneca,  Zeno,  and  others,  from  which  it  appears  that  many  of  the  learned  Greeks 
and  Latins  held  the  identical  doctrine  respecting  the  absorption  of  all  things  into  the  Deity,  and 
their  periodical  renovation  and  regeneration,  with  those  of  the  oriental  philosophers.  I  shall  say 
nothing  more  at  present  respecting  the  esoteric  religion  of  the  Jews,  or  the  secret  meaning  of  their 
Pentateuch,  except,  if  the  modern  priests  will  persist  in  discarding  the  opinions  of  the  learned 
ancients,  both  before  and  after  Christ,  that  these  books  had  an  allegorical  meaning,  and  will  still 
persist  in  taking  them  to  the  letter,  that  the  time  is  rapidly  coming,  when  they  will  not  be  received 
at  all,  except  by  a  few  persons  of  very  mean  understandings — persons  who  remind  me  of  the  very 
appropriate  speech  of  the  Egyptian  priest  to  Solon  :  Vos  Greed  semper  pueri  estis :  Senex  Grceco- 
rum  est  nullus.  And  I  should  say,  Vos  religiosi  semper  pueri  estis :  Senex  ultra-piorum  est 
nullus. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

< 

DISPUTED   CHAPTERS  OF  MATTHEW  AND   LUKE. — CAUSE   OF   THE   BLACK   CURLY-HEAD   OF   BUDDHA.— GENE- 
RAL  OBSERVATIONS   ON   THE   MORAL   DOCTRINES    OF   DIFFERENT   RELIGIONS. 

1.  Every  one  knows  the  violent  altercations  which  have  taken  place  among  learned  Christians, 
almost  from  the  beginning  of  Christianity,  respecting  the  last  eight  verses  of  theirs*  and  the  whole 
of  the  second  chapter  of  Matthew — and  the  whole  of  the  second,  and  all  the  first  chapter,  except  the 
first  four  verses;  of  Luke.  Great  numbers  of  men,  of  first-rate  character  for  learning  and  talent, 
have  declared  them  and  proved  them  spurious,  men  who  have  shewn  their  sincerity  by  the  resig- 
nation of  rich  livings  rather  than  appear  to  tolerate  them  against  their  consciences. 2  Some  inte- 
resting questions  here  naturally  suggest  themselves.  What  are  those  chapters  ?  Are  they  mere 
forgeries  of  the  orthodox  ?  Why  should  the  orthodox  wish  for  an  immaculate  conception  or  a 
divine  incarnation  ?  They  would  have  been  just  as  rich  and  powerful  without  these  doctrines.  I 
cannot  think  they  were  mere  forgeries.  They  have  no  appearance  of  any  such  thing.  Then  what 
are  they  ? 

I  think  they  are  evidently  the  effects  of  the  same  cause  as  that  which  produced  the  oracles  of 
Zeradust,  the  different  prophecies  which  alarmed  the  Romans,3  the  Sibylline  oracles,  the 
prophecies  of  Virgil,  &c,  in  the  West ;  and  as  that  which  produced  the  same  species  of  prophecy 
among  the  Brahmins,  named  above,  of  expected  saviours — the  saviours  expected  and  prayed  for  in 
the  Yajna  sacrifice,  "  When  will  it  be  that  the  Saviour  will  he  born  !  when  will  it  be  that  the  Re- 
"  deemer  will  appear !"     To  deny  these  heathen  prophecies  is  impossible.     I  know  not  how  to 

1  Burnet,  Archaeol.  p.  400.  2  Amongst  whom  were  Lindsey,  Disney,  Jebb,  and  Frend. 

3  Cited  in  Chap.  II.  Sect.  7. 

2o2 


284  CAUSE   OP  THE   BLACK    CURLY-HEAD   OF   BUDDHA. 

account  for  them,  except  by  supposing  that  they  alluded  to  the  renovating  cycles  demonstrated 
above.  With  this,  the  whole  Jewish  history  and  the  disputed  chapters  are  in  perfect  keeping.  We 
have  seen  that  all  the  ceremonies  and  much  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Jews,  indeed  the  most  impor- 
tant part,  their  Trinity,  were  exactly  the  same  as  those  of  the  Gentiles.  And  I  think  if  a  person 
will  pay  but  a  very  little  attention,  he  must  see  that  the  incarnation  described  in  these  chapters 
was  but  the  counterpart  or  repetition  of  former  incarnations,  or  extraordinary  conceptions,  such 
for  instance  as  that  of  Isaac  or  Samuel,  or  Buddha,  or  Cristna,  or  Pythagoras — the  arrival  of  the 
three  Magi,  with  the  gifts  sacred  to  the  God  Sol,  or  Mithra — the  episode  of  Anna  or  the  year,  and 
Phanuel,  or  Phan,  our  God — of  John  having  the  power  of  the  God  leu  (Elijah)  lrv^X  alieu.  All  this 
dovetails  very  well  into  the  remainder  of  the  Gentile  history,  and  proves  these  chapters  to  have  a 
secret  meaning,  and  to  refer  to  the  prophecies  alluded  to  above.  It  all  tends  to  prove  the  truth,  a 
truth  of  which  I  have  no  doubt,  that  an  identical  secret  system  pervaded  the  whole  world  ;  sin- 
gular as  it  may  appear,  in  its  universal  extension,  perhaps,  unknown  to  the  world.  We  have 
most  unquestionably  the  same  prophecy  in  Ireland,  in  Greece,  in  Persia,  in  Judaea,  in  Italy,  and 
in  India.  But  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  nation  had  merely  copied  the  prophecy 
of  the  other  nations.  We  read  in  Roman  and  Greek  authors  of  the  eighth  age,  and  the  ninth 
age,  but  scarcely  another  word  do  we  meet  with  about  them.  So  that  it  seems  as  if  the  meaning 
of  these  ages  had  become  lost ;  and  this  I  really  believe  was  the  truth.  I  should  set  it  down  as 
part  of  the  secret  mysteries,  without  any  difficulty  ;  but  I  cannot  help  believing  that  the  mysteries, 
the  real  meaning  of  the  Gods,  &c,  was  actually  lost.  Cicero,  Phornutus,  Macrobius,  &c,  would 
not  have  written  as  they  have  done  had  they  been  understood.  A  general  traditionary  opinion  had 
descended  from  the  Buddhists,  that  the  world  would  be  renovated  at  the  close  of  every  ten  ages, 
or  ten  Neroses,  or  six  thousand  years.  These  were  the  ages  the  knowledge  of  which  was  almost, 
but  not  entirely,  lost.  The  priests  and  prophets  had  some  slight  perception  of  them,  but  it  was, 
as  through  a  glass,  darkly, 

2.  I  must  now  once  more  bring  back  the  attention  of  my  reader  to  the  curly-headed,  flat-faced, 
thick-lipped,  black- skinned  Buddha,  almost  forgotten.  For  these  singularities  we  have  not  yet 
attempted  to  give  any  reasons.  This  Negro  God  cannot  have  been  the  only  Negro  East  of  the 
Indus,  without  some  cause.  On  this  subject  credible  history  is  silent.  Let  us  try  if  we  can  form 
a  theory. 

It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  animal,  man,  is  in  many  respects  like  most  other  animals  with 
which  we  are  acquainted,  and  the  philosophers  Buffon  and  Lawrence  have  proved,  that  he  partakes 
of  the  animal  character  in  a  much  greater  degree  than  was  generally  admitted  in  former  times. 
And  I  think  it  will  scarcely  be  denied  that,  like  most  other  animals,  he  is  capable  of  being  im- 
proved, as  well  in  person  as  in  mind.  I  suppose  that  no  one  will  deny  the  latter,  how  much  soever 
the  bigots  may  turn  into  ridicule  the  march  of  intellect,  or  improvement  of  the  human  understand- 
ing. Now  I  suppose,  that  man  was  originally  a  Negro,  and  that  he  improved  as  years  advanced 
and  he  travelled  Westwards,  gradually  changing,  from  the  jet  black  of  India,  through  all  the  in- 
termediate shades  of  Syria,  Italy,  France,  to  the  fair  white  and  red  of  the  maid  of  Holland  and 
Britain.  On  the  burning  sands  and  under  the  scorching  sun  of  Africa,  he  would  probably  stand 
still,  if  he  did  not  retrograde.  But  the  latter  is  most  likely  to  have  happened  ;  and,  accordingly, 
we  find  him  an  unimproved  Negro,  mean  in  understanding,  black  in  colour.  We  know  from  ex- 
perience that  by  coupling  animals  of  beautiful  forms,  our  animals  constantly  increase  in  beauty ; 
indeed,  our  breeders  of  sheep,  horses,  and  other  domestic  animals,  know  how  to  give  them  almost 
any  colour  or  character  they  choose.  They  breed  the  high-mettled  racer,  the  bold  and  warlike 
game-cock,  or  the  sluggish,  fattening  Leicestershire  sheep.  The  same  effect  has  arisen  in  the 
form  of  man.     In  the  rich  soils  of  India,  unfit  for  pasturage  or  hunting,  but  well  calculated 


BOOK   V.    CHAPTER   XIII.    SECTION   2.  285 

for  the  operations  of  agriculture,  distinctions  of  rich  and  poor  would  much  sooner  arise  than  among 
the  nomade  or  wandering  tribes  ;  and  as  soon  as  a  class  became  rich,  the  natural  propensity  would 
operate  in  causing  the  most  handsome  of  the  males,  which  would  be  the  rich,  those  who  were  well 
fed  and  lived  without  labour,  to  couple  with  the  most  handsome  of  the  females.  This  cause,  in 
long  periods  of  time,  constantly  acting,  produced  a  great  improvement  in  the  human  form.  The 
scorching  climate  kept  man  black  ;  but,  by  degrees,  the  curly  hair,  flat  face,  and  thick  lips,  yielded 
to  the  improved  appearance  of  the  present  race. 

Mr.  Crawford  has  observed,  that  no  country  has  produced  a  great  or  civilized  race,  but  a  country 
which,  by  its  fertility,  is  capable  of  yielding  a  supply  of  farinaceous  grain  of  the  first  quality. 
This  he  ingeniously  supports  by  a  great  many  examples. 

When  the  Equinoctial  Sun  entered  Taurus,  he  found  man  in  India,  like  the  first  Buddha,  a  Negro ; 
when  he  entered  Aries,  he  found  him  black,  it  is  true,  but  with  the  aquiline  nose  and  long  hair  of 
the  handsome  Cristna.  The  God  of  wood,  of  stone,  of  gold,  stood  still :  the  man  in  the  space  of 
2160  years,  perhaps  of  peace  and  prosperity,  had  materially  improved.  Not  so  the  curly- haired 
man  of  Africa.  Every  thing  tended  to  the  improvement  of  the  former,  every  thing  to  stop  the 
improvement  of  the  latter.  In  the  African  Ethiopia  he  remains  a  curly-headed  black.  In  Egypt 
he  formerly  was  so  ;  as  the  Memnon,  Sphinxes,  &c,  prove.  But  in  Egypt,  where  he  became  rich 
and  civilized,  and  where  good  farinaceous  food  was  grown,  the  same  effects,  in  a  great  measure, 
took  place  as  in  India :  and  if  he  be  not  quite  so  black,  the  mixture  of  white  Europeans,  and, 
comparatively  speaking,  ivhite  Turks,  will  account  for  the  difference.  It  has  l?een  observed,  that 
the  figures  in  the  old  caves  of  India  are  representations  of  a  very  different  race  from  the  present 
inhabitants ;  that,  although  the  figures  possess  a  graceful  elegance  of  form,  yet  a  remarkable 
difference  may  be  observed  in  the  countenance,  which  is  broad  and  full :  the  nose  flat :  the  lips, 
particularly  the  under  lip,  remarkably  thick,  and  the  whole  very  unlike  the  present  natives  of  Hin- 
dostan. l  All  these  circumstances  are  easily  accounted  for,  by  the  reasons  alleged  to  account  for 
the  singular  appearance  of  the  curly-headed  Buddha. 

I  request  my  reader  to  reflect  with  me  upon  the  present  state  of  different  parts  of  the  world  ; — 
go  to  Lower  Egypt  and  look  at  the  tinted  natives,  and  ascend  to  the  torrid  zone,  and  we  shall 
find  them  to  grow  darker  as  we  approach  the  Sun,  always,  when  humanized,  described  as  black. 
The  straight  hair  grows  woolly  as  we  approach  the  scorched,  steril  regions  of  Nubia,  and  generally 
the  parched  sands  of  Africa,  where  no  corn  grows,  where  the  tree  of  the  Sun,  the  everlasting  2 
Phoenix  or  Palm  tree,  is  perhaps  the  only  plant  on  which  man  depend  for  the  certain  produc- 
tion of  a  scanty  subsistence  ;  the  only  fruit-bearing  tree  which  raises  its  head,  a  majestic  head, 
around  the  few  solitary  springs  of  the  parched  desert.  Let  us  go  to  India,  and  we  find  the  same 
effect,  with  this  only  difference,  that  in  this  grain-growing  country,  this  land  of  ease  and  luxury, 
the  persons  are  more  handsome,  and  the  hair  straight  and  long.  And,  above  all,  let  us  contem- 
plate the  Jewish  character,  the  jet-black  hair,  and  peculiar  complexion,  verging  to  the  oriental, 
among  the  white  European  followers  of  Abraham.  Let  us  reflect  on  all  these  circumstances ; 
when  my  reader  has  done  this,  I  trust  he  will  think  that  the  solution  of  the  enigma,  which  I  have 
attempted,  is  the  most  probable  which  has  been  devised. 

The  opinion  which  I  have  here  given,  is  supported  by  the  ingenious  Dr.  Pritchard,  in  his  Re- 
searches into  the  Physical  History  of  Man,  p.  41.     He  says,  "  The  perception  of  beauty  is  the 
"  chief  principle,  in  every  country,  which  directs  men  in  their  marriages.     It  is  very  obvious  that 
'  this  peculiarity  in  the  constitution  of  man,  must  have  considerable   effects  on  the   physical 


*  Maur.  Ant.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  376.  *  To  be  explained  by  and  by. 


286  GENERAL   OBSERVATIONS   ON    THE    MORAL   DOCTRINES   OF    DIFFERENT    RELIGIONS. 

"  character  of  the  race,  and  that  it  must  act  as  a  constant  principle  of  improvement." 

Again,  (p  43,)  "  The  noble  families  of  modern  Persia  were  originally  descended  from  a  tribe  of 
"  ugly  and  bald-headed  Mongoles.  They  have  constantly  selected  for  their  harams  the  most 
"  beautiful  females  of  Circassia.  The  race  has  been  thus  gradually  ameliorated,  and  is  said  now  to 
"  exhibit  fine  and  comely  persons." 

I  believe  that  all  the  Black  bambinos  of  Italy  are  negroes— not  merely  blacks ;  this  admitted, 
it  would  prove  the  very  early  date  of  their  entrance  into  Italy. 

Dr.  Pritchard  has  successfully  proved  that  the  blackness  of  the  skin  is  not  caused  by  heat  alone; 
that  the  Negro  is  to  be  found  in  cold  as  well  as  hot  climates,  and  that  the  change  which,  in 
various  instances,  has  taken  place  in  his  complexion,  is  to  be  ascribed  more  to  civilization  than  to 
climate.  This  perfectly  agrees  with  the  observation  of  Mr.  Crawford,  that  man  is  found  improved 
in  rich  and  farinaceous,  but  stationary  in  desert  districts.  Civilization  was  the  effect  of  the  former 
— barbarism  of  the  latter. 

Dr.  Pritchard1  has  observed,  that  the  Brahmins  are,  as  might  be  expected,  the  finest  formed 
race  in  India.  He  has  also  shewn,  in  a  very  satisfactory  manner, 2  that  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
the  masters  of  Thebes,  were  Negroes — or,  that  they  were  black,  with  curly  heads. 

Col.  Wilford  says,  "  It  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted  that  a  race  of  Negroes  had  formerly 
"  pre-eminence  in  India."3  These  were  the  inhabitants  of  India  in  the  time  of  the  curly- headed 
Buddha,  who  was  succeeded,  after  2i60  years,  by  the  long-haired  Cristna — one  an  incarnation  of 
the  solar  God  in  Taurus,  the  other  in  Aries. 

Thus  I  account  for  the  Negro  Buddha,  and  for  the  handsome,  though  black,  Cristna.4 

In  aid  of  this  theory,  a  reconsideration  of  the  foregoing  pages  will  shew,  that  we  have  found  the 
black  complexion  or  something  relating  to  it  whenever  we  have  approached  to  the  origin  of  the 
-jiations.  The  Alma  Mater,  the  Goddess  Multimammia,  the  founders  of  the  oracles,  the  Memnons 
or  first  idols,  were  always  black.  Venus,  Juno,  Jupiter,  Apollo,  Bacchus,  Hercules,  Asteroth, 
Adonis,  Horus,  Apis,  Osiris,  Amnion, — in  short,  all  the  wood  and  stone  Deities  were  black.  The 
images  remained  as  they  were  first  made  in  very  remote  times.  They  were  not  susceptible  of  any 
improvement ;  and  when  for  any  reason  they  required  renewal  they  were  generally  made  exactly 
after  the  former  sacred  pattern.    I  once  saw  a  man  repainting  a  black  God  on  a  house-side  in  Italy. 

3.  The  shocking  state  of  degradation  into  which  the  religion  of  the  Brahmins  has  sunk,  gives  a 
plausible  appearance  of  truth  to  the  rantings  of  our  Missionaries ;  but,  nevertheless,  the  religion 
of  Brahma  is  no  more  idolatrous  than  the  religion  of  the  Romish  Church.  Abul  Fazil,  a  Maho- 
metan author,  in  the  Ayeen  Akbery,  states,  that  the  opinion  that  the  Hindoos  are  Polytheists  has 
no  foundation  in  truth,  but  that  they  are  worshipers  of  God,  and  only  of  one  God.  They  main- 
tain (with  all  enlightened  followers  of  the  Romish  Church),  that  images  are  only  representations  of 
the  great  Being,  to  which  they  turn  whilst  at  prayer,  in  order  to  prevent  their  thoughts  from 
wandering.  They  hold  that  "  the  Being  of  beings  is  the  only  God,  eternal,  and  every  where 
"  present,  who  comprises  everything;  there  is  no  God  but  He."5  The  religions  of  Brahma  and 
of  Buddha  have  both  become  corrupted,  but  a  third  has  arisen — that  of  the  Sikhs,  a  reformed 
Buddhism,  more  pure  than  either  of  them,  and  which  may  perhaps  be  destined  to  possess  the 
sovereignty  of  India.     Certainly  nothing  but  the  British  can  prevent  it. 6 

1  P.  390.  *  Sect.  v.  p.  376.  ^  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III. 

4  It  is  remarkable  that  the  Abyssinian  or  Ethiopian  has  always  continued  the  Indian  Sanscrit  custom  of  writing  his 
letters  from  left  to  right,  in  the  syllabic  form  retaining  the  vowels.  This  appears  to  have  been  a  remnant  of  the  first 
Buddhism  of  India.  Much  will  be  said  upon  this  subject  by  and  by,  and  the  reason  of  the  change  in  the  custom  of  other 
nations  shewn. 

4  Crawford's  Researches,  Vol.  I.  pp.  200—220.  6  Ibid.  Ch.  vii.  of  the  Sikhs. 


BOOK  V.      CHAPTER   XIII.     SECTION   3.  287 

The  following  is  the  most  celebrated  verse  of  the  Vedas,  called  the  Gayatri :  "  Let  us  adore  the 
"  supremacy  of  that  divine  Sun,  the  Godhead  who  illuminates  all,  from  whom  all  proceed,  to  whom 
"  all  must  return,  whom  we  invoke  to  direct  our  understandings  aright  in  our  progress  towards 
"  his  holy  seat." 1  On  this  Sir  William  Jones  says,  "  The  many  panegyrics  on  the  Gayatri,  the 
"  Mother,  as  it  is  called,  of  the  Vedas,  prove  the  author  to  have  adored,  not  the  visible  material 
"  sun,  but  that  divine  and  incomparably  greater  light  which  illumines  all,  delights  all,  from  which 
"  all  proceed,  to  which  all  must  return,  and  which  alone  can  irradiate  (not  our  visual  organs  merely, 
""  but  our  souls  and)  our  intellects.  These  may  be  considered  as  the  words  of  the  most  venerable 
"  text  in  the  Indian  Scripture."2    The  words  in  italics  mark  the  words  of  the  Veda  text. 

If  we  are  to  believe  our  priests,  at  the  same  time  that  nothing  can  be  more  pure  than  our 
religion,  or  more  charitable  than  themselves,  nothing  can  be  more  horrible  than  the  religion  or 
practices  of  the  wicked  Heathens.  Yet  it  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  we  curse  sinners  on  Ash 
Wednesday,  and  our  enemies  whenever  we  are  at  war :  but  when  the  Athenians  in  a  moment  of 
fury  ordered  the  priestess  to  curse  Alcibiades  for  having  insulted  the  mysteries,  she  refused — 
saying,  she  was  the  priestess  of  prayers,  not  of  curses.3  The  passage  in  Martianus  Capella,  cited 
Chap.  II.  Sect.  8,  shews  that  the  Pagans  were  no  more  Idolaters  than  the  modern  Romans. 

One  of  the  most  common  and  triumphant  boasts  of  the  Christian  priests  has  been,  that  no 
morality  could  be  put  in  competition  with  theirs.  The  following  extract,  from  the  eleventh 
discourse  of  Sir  William  Jones  to  the  Asiatic  Society,  will  abundantly  prove  how  slender  are  the 
foundations  upon  which  these  arrogant  pretensions  are  built.  These  are  the  words  of  the  pious 
president ;  though  they  be  rather  long,  their  importance  will  plead  their  excuse : — "  Our  divine 
"  religion,  the  truth  of  which  (if  any  history  be  true)  is  abundantly  proved  by  historical  evidence, 
"  has  no  heed  of  such  aids,  as  many  are  willing  to  give  it,  by  asserting  that  the  wisest  men  of 
r  this  world  were  ignorant  of  the  two  great  maxims,  that  we  must  act  in  respect  of  others,  as  we 
"  would  wish  them  to  act  in  respect  of  ourselves  ;  and  that,  instead  of  returning  evil  for  evil,  we 
"  should  confer  benefits  even  on  those  who  injure  us :  but  the  first  rule  is  implied  in  a  speech  of 
"  Lysias,  and  expressed  in  distinct  phrases  by  Thales  and  Pittacus ;  and  I  have  even  seen  it  word 
"  for  word  in  the  original  of  Confucius,  which  I  carefully  compared  with  the  Latin  translation.  It 
"  has  been  usual  with  zealous  men,  to  ridicule  and  abuse  all  those  who  dare  on  this  point  to  quote 
"the  Chinese  philosopher;  but  instead  of  supporting  their  cause,  they  would  shake  it,  if  it  could 
"  be  shaken  by  their  uncandid  asperity, — for  they  ought  to  remember,  that  one  great  end  of  reve- 
"  lation,  as  it  is  most  expressly  declared,  was  not  to  instruct  the  wise  and  few,  but  the  many 
"  and  unenlightened.  If  the  conversion,  therefore,  of  the  Pandits  and  Maulavis  in  this  country 
"  shall  ever  be  attempted  by  Protestant  Missionaries,  they  must  beware  of  asserting,  while  they 
"  teach  the  gospel  of  truth,  what  those  Pandits  and  Maulavis  would  know  to  be  false  :  the  former 
'  would  cite  the  beautiful  A'ry'a  couplet,  which  was  written  at  least  three  centuries  before  our  agra, 
"  and  which  pronounces  the  duty  of  a  good  man,  even  in  the  moment  of  his  distraction  to  consist 
"  not  only  in  forgiving,  but  even  in  a  desire  of  benefiting,  his  destroyer,  as  the  Sandal  tree,  in  the 
f  instant  of  its  overthrow,  sheds  perfume  on  the  axe  which  fells  it ;  and  the  latter  would  triumph  in 
ie  repeating  the  verse  of  Sadi,  who  represents  a  return  of  good  for  good  as  a  slight  reciprocity,  but 
"  says,  the  virtuous  man  confers  benefits  on  him  ivho  has  injured  him  ;  using  an  Arabic  sentence, 
"  and  a  maxim  apparently  of  the  ancient  Arabs."  Thus  we  see  the  essence  of  the  Christian 
moral  doctrine  was  known  at  least  three  hundred  years  before  Jesus  was  born. 

And  the  following  extract  will  shew  that  the  Mohamedans  were  as  enlightened  upon  this  subject 

'  Moore,  Panth.  p.  410.  2  Ibid.  3  Plutarch,  apud  Payne  Knight  on  Sym.  S.  Mi.  n. 


288  GENERAL   OBSERVATIONS   ON   THE    MORAL   DOCTRINES    OP    DIFFERENT    RELIGIONS. 

as  any  of  them  : — "  Nor  would  the  Musselmans  fail  to  recite  four  distichs  of  Hafiz,  who  has 
"  illustrated  that  maxim  with  fanciful  but  elegant  allusions : 

"  Learn  from  yon  orient  shell  to  love  thy  foe, 
"  And  store  with  pearls  the  hand  that  brings  thee  woe : 
"  Free  like  yon  rock,  from  base  vindictive  pride, 
"  Imblaze  with  gems  the  wrist  that  rends  thy  side : 
"  Mark,  where  yon  tree  rewards  the  stony  show'r, 
"  With  fruit  nectareous,  or  the  balmy  flow'r  : 
"  All  nature  calls  aloud  ;  shall  man  do  less, 
"  Than  heal  the  smiter,  and  the  railer  bless  r" 

"  Now  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  reason  for  believing  that  the  poet  of  Shiraz  had  borrowed  this 
"  doctrine  from  the  Christians."  ! 

In  Mr.  Maurice's  History2  may  be  found  many  moral  sentiments  identically  the  same  as  those 
of  the  Christians. 

In  order  to  exalt  the  credit  of  the  Christian  religion,  nothing  which  talent  and  ingenuity  could 
contrive  has  been  left  untried  by  divines  to  depreciate  the  philosophy  of  the  ancients,  and  to 
blacken  the  characters  of  its  professors.  No  doubt  among  the  followers  of  Socrates,  Pythagoras, 
Aristotle,  Plato,  &c,  as  well  as  among  the  followers  of  Jesus  and  Mohamed,  brawls  and  squabbles 
the  most  disgraceful  have  taken  place.  But  it  does  not  appear  that  better  men  have  been  pro- 
duced by  the  latter,  than  by  the  former.  The  Antonines  and  Epictetus  are  not  to  be  placed  below 
any  men  whom  modern  history  can  produce  :  and  although  we  cannot  now  give  a  catalogue  of  il- 
lustrious ancient  names  equal  in  number  to  that  of  the  moderns,  this  by  no  means  proves  that  such 
individuals  did  not  formerly  exist.  The  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  case  prevent  our  knowledge 
of  them,  and  that  principally  in  consequence  of  the  destruction  of  their  works — an  effect  arising 
from  various  causes. 

The  oldest  and  wisest  of  the  Grecian  philosophers  taught  the  very  best  parts  of  the  Christian 
morality,  many  hundred  years  before  Jesus  was  born.  Pythagoras  said,  that  the  best  way  for  a 
man  to  revenge  himself  of  his  enemies  was  to  make  them  friends :  and  Socrates,  whose  character 
has  been  vindicated  from  reproach  by  Dean  Prideaux, 3  says  in  the  Crito,  that  it  is  not  permitted 
to  a  man  who  has  received  an  injury  to  return  it  by  doing  another.  An  able  defence  of  Socrates 
may  be  found  in  the  Travels  of  Mr.  Buckingham  to  India,  published  in  1829. 

Our  treatises  on  the  Christian  religion  are  sufficiently  numerous ;  but  it  may  be  doubted  very 
much  whether  they  exceed  in  number  those  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  or  even  of  the  modern 
Mohamedans.  On  the  philosophy  of  Plato  eight  thousand  commentaries  were  said  to  have  been 
written.  The  greatest  fault  of  the  aneient  philosophers  consisted  in  the  affected  obscurity  with 
which  they  strove  to  conceal  their  real  doctrines  from  the  public  eye.  Into  this  error  they  all 
seem  to  have  fallen  ;  though  in  different  ways.  Many  of  them  concealed  their  principles  under 
fables  and  figurative  expressions, — by  the  literal  interpretation  of  which  Christian  divines,  over- 
looking the  corruptions  into  which  religion  had  fallen,  have  very  unjustly  succeeded  in  persuading 
mankind  that  their  doctrines  were  both  pernicious  and  contemptible  in  the  highest  degree. 

The  liberal  and  benign  doctrine  of  the  followers  of  Brahma,  in  its  original  purity,  can  never  be 
too  much  praised,  and  must  fill  every  one  with  admiration.  No  doubt  in  succeeding  ages  its  cor- 
rupt and  mercenary  priests  engrafted  into  it,  as  we  see  daily  to  take  place  in  all  religions,  and 
wherever  priests  are  concerned,   doctrines  and  practices  utterly  repugnant  to  the  mild  spirit  of  its 


1  Jones,  11th  Dis.  to  Asiat.  Soc.  9  Vol.  II.  Ch.  iii.  3  Vide  Movie's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  77. 


BO 


OK    V.    CHAPTER   XIII.    SECTION    3.  289 


founders.  Those  founders  maintained  that  all  religions  come  from  God,  and  that  all  modes  of 
adoring  him,  when  springing  from  an  upright  heart,  are  acceptable  to  him.  Their  enlightened 
followers  still  affirm  that  "  the  Deity  is  present  with  the  Mahometan  in  the  mosque  counting  his 
"  beads,  and  equally  in  the  temple  at  the  adoration  of  the  idols ;  the  intimate  of  the  Musselman 
"  and  the  friend  of  the  Hindoo ;  the  companion  of  the  Christian,  and  the  confidant  of  the  Jew." 
They  are  of  opinion  that  he  has  many  times  appeared  and  been  incarnate  in  the  flesh,  not  only  in 
this  world,  but  in  others,  for  the  salvation  of  his  creatures  ;  and  that  both  Christians  and  Hindoos 
adore  the  same  God,  under  different  forms. l 

The  fine  sentiment  here  given  from  the  ancient  religion  of  the  Brahmins,  and  on  which  I  fear 
they  did  not  always  act,  has  been  copied  by  the  Christian  historians  of  the  gospel ;  but,  either 
from  its  mixture  with  other  doctrines  of  a  pernicious  nature,  or  from  some  other  cause,  it  has  un- 
fortunately scarcely  ever  been  acted  on  :  Then  Peter  opened  his  mouth,  and  said,  Of  a  truth  I 
perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  :  but  in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  him,  and  worketh 
righteousness,  is  accepted  with  him.2  (Acts  x.  34,  35.)  Beautiful  as  is  this  sentiment,  clear  as  is 
the  language,  and  beneficial  to  mankind  as  is  its  tendency,  I  have  found  divines  who,  with  a  nar- 
rowness of  mind  almost  inconceivable,  have  endeavoured  to  explain  away  its  plain  and  obvious 
sense,  and  to  limit  its  meaning  to  countries  in  which  a  man  may  dwell.  But  how  little  can  such 
men  know  of  the  Divine  paternity  who  need  to  be  told  that  God  will  not  damn  a  man  because  he 
was  a  Frenchman,  a  Dutchman,  a  Turk,  or  a  Hindoo  ! 

Much  fault  has  been  found  with  the  Decalogue,  and  justly,  as  a  code  for  the  whole  world.  But 
not  justly  when  it  is  confined,  as  it  ought  to  be,  to  the  country  of  Judaea.  By  its  language,  when 
properly  translated,  it  is  strictly  confined  to  the  Israelites.  And  as  a  code,  in  its  totality,  it  was 
never  adopted  by  Jesus  Christ.  The  whole  of  it  is  as  impossible  to  be  obeyed  by  the  remainder 
of  mankind,  as  it  is  to  make  a  circle  triangular,  or  a  triangle,  the  angles  of  which  shall  not  be  equal 
to  two  right-angles.  Jesus  Christ  never  inculcated  it,  though  part  of  the  moral  doctrines  which 
he  taught  are  to  be  found  in  it.  In  this  instance,  by  not  understanding  or  attending  to  the  letter 
of  the  old  language,  priests  have  mistaken  the  doctrine  both  of  Moses  and  of  Jesus.  They  are 
both  correct  when  properly  understood.  The  Decalogue  may  be  easily  defended — but  not  on  the 
mistaken  grounds  taken  by  our  priests.  I  should  like  to  meet  a  disciple  of  M.  Voltaire  on  the 
subject  of  the  jealous  God. 

There  is  in  the  Geeta,  (p.  81,)  a  sentiment  which  is  peculiar  to  the  religion  of  Brahma,  and 
which  (at  least  if  the  happiness  of  mankind  in  this  world  is  to  be  considered  as  one  object  or  end 
of  religion)  places  it  above  all  others.  Happy,  indeed,  would  it  have  been  for  the  world  had  the 
Mohamedan  and  Christian  religions  contained  this  most  admirable  and  benevolent  doctrine.  The 
Deity  speaks — "  They,  ivho  serve  even  other  Gods  with  a  firm  belief,  in  doing  so,  involuntarily 
"  worship  me.  I  am  he  who  partaketh  of  all  worship,  and  I  am  their  reward." 3  How  admirable  is 
this  sentiment !  How  superior  to  the  Jewish  doctrine  of  a  jealous  God,  improperly  adopted  by 
Christians  !  and  how  true  !  True,  at  least,  if  benevolence,  justice,  and  mercy,  are  the  attributes 
of  the  Creator.  For  the  peace  and  happiness  of  mankind  in  this  world,  it  may  safely  be  affirmed 
that,  in  all  the  Jewish,  Christian,  and  Mohamedan  religions,  there  is  no  dogma  of  half  so  much 
importance,  or  which  has  been  of  the  twentieth  part  of  the  utility  as  this  would  have  been,  had  it 
been  taught  in  those  religions.  Yet  there  is  a  very  fine  and  nearly  similar  sentiment  in  the 
Koran  : 


'  Maurice,  Hist.  Ind.  4to.  Vol.  II.  p.  301 ;  see  Anathema,  1  Cor.  xvi.  22!!! 

2  This  is,  indeed,  the  genuine  doctrine  of  the  philosophical  Nazarite,  Carmelite,  or  Essenian  of  Samaria. 

3  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  V.  p.  1052. 

2  p 


290  GENERAL   OBSERVATIONS   ON   THE    MORAL   DOCTRINES    OF   DIFFERENT    RELIGIONS. 


a 


If  God  had  pleased,  he  surely  had  made  you  one  people  :  but  he  hath  thought  fit  to  give  you 
"  different  laws,  that  he  might  try  you  in  that  which  he  hath  given  you  respectively.  Therefore 
"  strive  to  excel  each  other  in  good  works  ;  unto  God  shall  ye  all  return,  and  then  will  he  declare 
"  unto  you  that  concerning  which  ye  have  disagreed." '  How  superior  is  this  to  the  faith  with- 
out works  of  our  modern  and  fashionable  fanatics  ! 2 

■ 

Mr.  Maurice3   pours  out  a  torrent  of  abuse  upon  M.  Volney  for  having  endeavoured  to  rob  him 
of  his  immortality,  and  to  destroy  the  best  interests  of  society  by  violating  the  truth  of  history, 
&c.     It  seems  difficult  to  conceive  why  M.  Volney  should  wish  any  one  to  be  robbed  of  his  im- 
mortality, or  why  he  should  not  be  very  glad  to  have  the  hope  of  it,  if  he  could  entertain  it  on 
what  appeared  to  him  reasonable  grounds.     But  he,  no  doubt,  felt  an  utter  repugnance  to  admit 
such  doctrines,  or  any  doctrine,  on  the  mere  assertion  of  priests,  paid  to  support  their  systems, 
right  or  wrong ;  who  find  Cristna  a  God  in  Asia,  and  Jesus  in  Europe ;  who  are  the  regular 
paid  appendages  to  every  arbitrary  government,   and  are  as  naturally  found  to  belong  to  it  as  an 
exciseman  or  a  soldier.     When  Mr.  M.   rails  at  Volney  for  violating  the  truth  of  history,  he 
should  have  shewn  distinctly  how  he  violated  it :  empty  railing  will  not  answer  any  longer  :  men 
begin  to  use  their  understandings.     And  when  Mr.  Maurice  says  Volney  violated  the  truth  of 
history  in  order  to  destroy  the  best  interests  of  society,   he  ought  to  have  said,  the  best  interests 
of  a  hired  priesthood,  whose  interests  have  always  been  opposed  to  the  best  interests,   and  to  the 
liberty  and  happiness,  of  mankind.     But  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  M.  Volney  ever  inten- 
tionally violated  the  truth  of  history. 

If  the  work  which  is  now  presented  to  the  world  be  executed  with  any  tolerable  degree  of  talent, 
no  doubt  the  author  will  be  honoured  like  M.  Volney  with  the  abuse  of  the  priests.  It  will  be 
said  that  he  has  violated  the  truth  of  history  ;  that  he  hates  the  religion  of  Jesus,  &c,  &c.  That 
he  has  violated  the  truth  of  history  intentionally  he  utterly  denies.  He  equally  denies  that  he 
hates  the  religion  of  Jesus.  He  does  hate  the  hypocrisy  of  its  priests,  and  the  intolerance  of 
their,  not  its,  principles — as,  on  the  contrary,  he  loves  the  liberality  and  tolerating  spirit  of  the 
ancient,  uncorrupted  religion  of  the  Buddist  or  Brahmin  ;  which  teaches  that  God  is  equally  the 
Father  of  the  devout  and  sincere  Chinese,  Brahmin,  Christian,  and  Deist ;  which  contains  no  creed 
inculcating  that  except  a  man  believe  this  or  that  he  cannot  be  saved  ;  a  creed  whose  tendency  is  to 
fill  the  world  with  war  and  bloodshed,  and  to  sacrifice,  indeed,  the  best  interests  of  society  to  those 
of  a  corrupt  and  pernicious  order  or  corporation. 


1  Koran,  Ch.  v.  p.  131. 

*  On  the  subject  of  the  Koran,  the  Apology  for  the  Life  and  Character  of  Mohamed,  by  the  author  of  this  work,  may 
be  consulted. 

3  Hist.  Ind.  Vol.  II.  pp.  499,  501. 


(    291    ) 


BOOK  VI. 
CHAPTER    I. 

FLOOD  OF  NOAH. — LEARNING  OF  GENESIS. — TEXT  OF  GENESIS. — INLAND  SEAS  OF  ASIA. — THEORY  OF  A 
LEARNED  CANTAB. — THEORY  OF  MR.  GAB. — RENNEL  ON  EGYPT. — ORIGIN  OF  THE  DELTA  OF  EGYPT. 
— CASPIAN   SEA. — PLATO'S   ATLANTIS. — GEOLOGICAL   FACT   IN   YORKSHIRE. 

1.  I  now  propose  to  fulfil  the  promise  which  I  gave  in  my  last  book — to  make  some  observations 
on  the  flood  or  floods  which  have  taken  place  upon  our  globe.  To  treat  this  subject  fully  would 
require  a  volume.  I  must  confine  myself  to  one  or  two  observations,  upon  a  few  well-known 
facts. — I  suppose  it  will  not  be  denied  that  the  history  of  the  flood  is  an  integral  part  of  the 
Mosaic  system  ;  that  whether  it  be  allegory  or  a  literal  history,  the  whole  book  or  collection  of 
books  called  Genesis  must  go  together,  and  be  considered  on  the  same  principle  :  if  the  first  and 
second  tracts  be  allegory,  so  likewise  must  the  third. 

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  must  have  taken  place. x  He  has  shewn  the 
order  in  which  the  different  classes  of  living  creatures  have  been  formed;  and  it  has  been  observed, 
that  they  have  taken  place  exactly  in  that  order  in  which  they  are  said  to  have  been  formed,  in 
the  first  book  of  Genesis,  which  figuratively  describes  them  as  being  created  in  successive  days. 
The  observation  strikingly  illustrates  the  allegorical  principle  :  for,  though  it  absolutely  proves 
the  falsity  of  the  letter  of  the  record,  it,  at  the  same  time,  proves  the  truth  of  the  allegory,  as  far 
as  we  clearly  understand  it.  Now,  if  man  had  been  formed  before  the  flood,  at  the  same  time 
with  the  Elks,  Elephants,  &c,  found  fossilized,  it  is  not  possible  to  believe  that  some  remains  of 
him  would  not  have  been  found  among  them  in  some  part  of  the  earth.  "  Human  bones  have 
"  been  found  indurated  and  preserved  by  vitriolic,  sparry,  and  ferruginous  incrustation  :  these  are 
"  modern  operations  of  daily  process,  but  have  no  relation  to  the  petrefaction  incident  to  the  bones 
"  of  elephants  and  other  animals  confined  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  :  in  earth  undisturbed  since 
"  its  original  formation  of  consistency,  and  which  bones  (in  some  cases)  are  indurated  to  the 
"hardest  agate."2  The  whole  world  has  been  ransacked  for  a  specimen;  but  it  has  not  been 
found :  for  the  priests  have  seen  that  the  want  of  such  specimen  strikes  a  death-blow,  at  their 
literal  interpretation  of  the  text,  and  at  what  I  must  call  their  modern,  mischievous,  demoralizing  * 
doctrines,  depending  upon  it.  This  failure  alone  has  brought  the  matter  to  this  point — either 
Genesis  is  false,  or,  it  is  an  allegory  or  parable ;  and  to  the  latter  conclusion  every  enlightened 
Christian  must  now  come.  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 

1  Vide  Celtic  Druids.  5  Gent.  Mag.  Vol.  LVIII.  A.  D.   1783,  p.  384. 

2p2 


292  LEARNING    OF    GENESIS. 

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, l 
whatever  may  be  the  meaning  of  the  one  must  be  the  meaning  of  the  other. 

M.  Cuvier,  after  shewing  that  there  are  no  human  bones  in  a  fossil  state — that  is,  in  a  fossil 
state  properly  so  called,  2  goes  on  to  prove  that  the  bones  of  men  and  birds,  or  of  very  small 
animals,  are  as  indestructible  in  their  nature  as  those  of  Elephants,  &c.  He  concludes,  "  How- 
"  ever  this  may  have  been,  the  establishment  of  mankind  in  those  countries  in  which  the  fossil 
"  bones  of  land  animals  have  been  found,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  greatest  part  of  Europe,  Asia,  *and 
"  America,  must  necessarily  have  been  posterior  not  only  to  the  revolutions  which  covered  up 
u  these  bones,  but  also  to  those  other  revolutions  by  which  the  strata  containing  the  bones  have 
"  been  laid  bare.  Hence  it  clearly  appears,  that  no  argument  for  the  antiquity  of  the  human 
"  race  in  those  countries  can  be  founded  either  upon  these  fossil  bones,  or  upon  the  more  or  less 
"  considerable  collections  of  rocks  or  earthy  materials,  by  which  they  are  covered." 3 

The  way  in  which  M.  Cuvier's  fear  of  the  priests  shews  itself  here,  is  very  marked.  It  is  true, 
as  he  says,  that  no  argument  for  the  antiquity  of  the  human  race  can  be  formed  from  the  fossil 
bones,  or  collections  of  rocks  by  which  they  are  covered ;  but  it  is  clear  that  an  argument  which 
he  keeps  back  can  be  formed,  and  must  be  formed,  for  the  contrary — for  its  modern  creation — 
that  is,  that  it  must  have  been  created  since  the  great  catastrophe  here  alluded  to  took  place  : 4  and 
thus,  that  the  third  book  of  Genesis  or  Mosaic  book  of  the  Flood,  contains  a  figurative  account  like 
the  other  two. 

2.  The  history  of  Genesis  conceals,  under  its  allegory,  the  most  profound  knowledge  of  natural 
philosophy,  and  the  general  formation  of  the  world,  as  proved  by  the  most  learned  researches  of 
Mons.  Cuvier  and  other  Geologists  :  and  this  has  a  strong  tendency  to  support  the  opinion  of  the 
great  Bailly,  that  a  profoundly  learned  race  of  people  existed  previous  to  the  formation  of  any  of 
our  systems.  In  this  investigation  we  must  recollect,  that  M.  Cuvier's  doctrines  are  not  founded 
on  what  are  called  theories,  but  on  experimental  philosophy. 

On  the  existence  of  living  animals  M.  Cuvier  states,  that  when  the  Spaniards  first  penetrated 
into  South  America,  they  did  not  find  it  to  contain  a  single  quadruped  exactly  the  same  with  those 
of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  The  Puma,  the  Jaguar,  the  Tapir,  the  Capybara,  the  Lama  or 
Glama,  and  Vicugua,  and  the  whole  tribe  of  Sapajous,  were  to  them  entirely  new  animals,  of 
which  they  had  not  the  smallest  idea. 5 

Dr.  Pritchard  says,6  "  The  Count  de  Buffon  observed  that  the  animals  which  inhabit  the  old 


1  In  a  future  page  I  shall  shew  that  there  were  two  Syrias. 

2  Cuvier,  ap.  Jameson,  pp.  62,  63,  128.  3  Ibid.  p.  134. 

*  Thus  away  goes  the  learned  Mr.  Faber's  Helio-archite  hypothesis,  that  is,  his  Sunned-ship  or  his  shippcd-Sun 
worship  It  is  often  very  useful  when  you  treat  with  superficial  persons,  to  use  an  unintelligible  word,  like  Helio- 
archite.     Similar  to  this  is  our  word  Heavens  in  the  first  verse  of  Genesis. 

s  Cuvier  ap.  Jameson,  pp.  62,  63.  My  reader  will  often  find  the  expression  before  the  flood  used.  He  will  recollect 
I  formerly  warned  him,  that  he  must  consider  this  to  mean  merely  the  earliest  known  period.  He  must  not  consider 
it  as  the  giving  of  an  opinion  as  to  the  occurrence  or  non-occurrence  of  that  event,  before  the  creation  of  the  present 
race  of  man. 


«  Sect.  iii.  p.  101. 


BOOK  VI.     CHAPTER  I.     SECTION  3.  293 

"  world  are  in  general  different  from  those  of  the  new,  and  that  whatever  species  are  found  to  be 
"  common  to  both  are  such  as  are  able  to  endure  the  extreme  cold  of  the  Arctic  regions,  and  may 
"  therefore  be  supposed  to  have  found  a  way  from  one  continent  to  the  other,  where  they  approach 
"  very  near  together,  and  may  probably  have  been  formerly  joined."  After  a  careful  examination 
of  this  opinion  of  the  Count's,  Dr.  Pritchard  concludes  thus  :  "  But  as  far  as  accurate  knowledge 
"  extends,  the  opinion  of  Buffon  and  his  followers  seems  to  be  well  founded.  It  does  not  appear 
"  that  any  one  animal  was  originally  common  to  the  warm  parts  of  the  old  and  new  world."  ' 
Here,  again,  I  think  is  an  end  of  the  universal  deluge,  taken  with  all  its  details,  except  in  the 
sense  in  which  most  of  the  other  parts  of  Genesis  must  be  taken ;  namely,  as  an  allegory,  under 
which  some  secret  doctrine  is  concealed  :  like  the  expression  of  God's  walking  in  the  garden, 
&c,  &c,  it  must  be  construed  figuratively.  And  I  think,  for  hundreds  of  reasons  given  in  Mr. 
Faber's  learned  work  on  Pagan  Idolatry,  it  is  evident,  that  the  story  of  the  ark  of  Noah  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Argha  of  the  oriental  Menu,  in  which  the  germ  of  animated  nature  is  supposed 
to  have  floated  on  the  ocean,  and  to  have  been  thus  preserved. 

The  deductions  of  Dr.  Prifchard  and  M.  Buffon,  as  stated  above,  are  perfectly  legitimate,  and 
are  decisive  against  the  literal  meaning  of  the  text  taken  as  a  whole.  I  cannot  bring  myself  to 
believe  that  the  Doctor  can  be  in  earnest,  in  the  sophistry  which  he  uses  in  page  138,  to  assuage 
the  anger  of  the  priests,  by  pretending  to  reconcile  the  deduction  to  the  literal  meaning.  But  he 
probably  was  aware  that,  if  it  did  not  pacify  them,  the  same  fate  would  befal  his  work  which 
afterward  happened  to  Mr.  Lawrence's.  The  Doctor's  argument  is,  that  God,  by  a  great  miracle, 
brought  every  animal  to  the  ark,  and  carried  it  back  again, — great  Elephants,  and,  of  course,  the 
little  mite  of  the  Cheshire-cheese.  But,  unfortunately  for  the  learned  and  ingenious  Doctor's 
scheme,  the  text  does  not  warrant  any  such  inference.  Besides,  how  came  God  not  to  have 
completed  his  work,  and  to  have  carried  all  the  animals  back  again  ? — for  example,  the  Horse,  the 
Cow,  the  Elephant,  and  the  Camel ;  and  how  came  he  not  to  leave  us  some  of  the  animals  which 
they  have,  but  which  we  have  not  ?  2 

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-handed  or  cabled  mount ; 3  in  Western,  4 
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. 

3.  The  account  of  the  flood,  taken  from  our  common  version,  is  plain  and  unaffected ;  and 
has  probably  been  misunderstood  from  its  too  great  simplicity.  It  is  as  follows  :  And  the  xvaters 
prevailed  exceedingly  upon  the  earth  ;  and  all  the  high  hills  that  were  under  the  whole  heaven  were 
covered.  Fifteen  cubits  upward  did  the  waters  prevail ;  and  the  mountains  were  covered.  (Gen. 
vii.  19,  20.)  Now  I  take  the  liberty  of  asking,  of  what  earth,  and  of  what  mountains  or  hills,  does 
the  author  speak  ?  I  answer,  most  clearly  not  of  those  of  the  new,  but  of  those  of  the  old  world, 
of  the  height  of  which  we  know  nothing.  All  that  we  know  of  them  is,  that  there  were  hills,  or 
. — . , _ 

1  Sect.  iii.  p.  133. 

*  The  Ark  was  a  correct  parallelogram,  square  at  the  ends,  300  cubits  long,  50  cubits  broad,  and  30  cubits  deep. 
It  had  no  pretensions  to  the  name  of  a  ship.  As  it  was  like  nothing  else,  perhaps  its  most  appropriate  name  is  Ark. 
Origen  calculated  that  it  was  about  thirty  miles  long. 

*  See  B.  V.  Ch.  V.  Sect.  2.  4  There  were  two  countries  of  each  of  these  names. 


294  INLAND    SEAS   OF   ASIA. 

mounts,  or  mountains ;  but  we  have  many  reasons  for  believing  that  they  were  not  at  that  time 
very  high  :  besides,  the  text  certainly  implies  that  they  were  not  more  than  fifteen  cubits  high, 
for  the  water,  having  risen  fifteen  cubits,  covered  them.  Now,  if  we  consider  the  history  in  this 
simple  point  of  view,  which  is  the  only  way  the  words  will  fairly  bear  to  be  considered,  because 
the  whole  context  relates  to  the  old  world,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  the  same  convulsion 
which  covered  the  highest  land  of  the  old  world  with  water  only  fifteen  cubits  or  less  than  thirty 
feet  deep,  might  also  throw  up  Mont  Blanc  and  Chimborazo. 

But  I  must  make  another  observation.  The  text  does  not  say,  that  the  surface  of  the  whole 
globe  was  covered.  The  word  2HKn  e-arz  does  not  necessarily  include  the  whole  surface  of  the 
globe :  for  this  observation  I  am  indebted  to  my  friend  Coopkr,  the  learned  Professor  of  Columbia 
College,  in  America.  It  may  mean  nothing  more  than  the  surface  of  the  old  land,  and  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Americas,  for  it  often  means  countries  as  well  as  the  earth.1  When  a 
word  has  clearly  two  meanings,  it  is  a  most  unwarrantable  proceeding  to  adopt  that  which  gives  an 
impossible  sense,  instead  of  that  which  is  consistent  with  reason  and  probability.  Professor 
Cooper  observes,  "  If  the  acknowledged  facts  cannot  be  explained  without  a  miracle,  we  must 
"  admit  the  miracle :  if  they  can,  we  ought  not  to  resort  to  supernatural  interposition,  when  the 
"  known  action  of  secondary  causes  will  suffice."  If  this  reasoning  be  adopted,  we  have  nothing 
in  sacred  writ  respecting  the  deluge  merely,  at  variance  with  possibility.  For,  if  the  hills  of  the 
old  world  were  not  very  high,  there  is  ten  times  as  much  water  in  the  ocean  as  would  cover  the 
land  to  thirty  feet  deep  ;  and  no  one  can  say,  that  the  cause  which  forced  up  Mont  Blanc  was  not 
powerful  enough  to  cause  a  proportionate  concussion  of  the  waters. 

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  I  look  at  iEtna  and  count  the  volcanoes 
burning  and  worn  out,   I  have  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  what  has  caused  them,  may  have  split 
the  globe  in  pieces,  as  we  see  it  has  been.     So  far  as  this,  I  think  geologists  will  go  with  me.     F 
am  well  aware  that  there  are  many  phenomena  which  my  theory  will  not  reach,   but  which  I  think 
are  not  in  opposition  to  it,   or  which  do  not  impugn  it,  and  which  must  be   accounted  for  from 
other  and  additional  causes,  probably  previous  deluges.     These  are  not  in  my  province  ;  I  leave 
them  to  the  Geologists,  and  come  to  this  conclusion  merely, — that  there  was  a  convulsion  or  flood, 
which  raised  the  highest  mountains ;  and,   that  there  may  have  been  other  convulsions  which 
destroyed  the  people  of  Greece,  &c,  of  which  Plato  gives  us  an  account.     But  none  of  these  can 
have  been  the  flood  which  buried  the  Elks,  &c,  before  treated  of. 

4.  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  Gibral- 
tar ;  covering  with  water  the  Delta,  or  Lower  Egypt,  if  it  then  existed,  the  Pontine  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  Maeotis,   and  the  Euxine,  were  probably  one  sea,   or  a  series  of 


1  Gen.  x.  5,  20,  31,  ii.  11,  12;  Deut.  vi.  1,  3,  10;  Psa  cvi.  2/,  cv.  44,  et  al. 


BOOK  VL    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  5.  295 

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  possi- 
bility, 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  succeed- 
ing to  natural  causes.  * 

In  some  author,  whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  I  have  met  with  an  assertion,  that  the  plain  of 
Troy  has  certain  appearances  which  indicate  that  a  great  flood  has  formerly  swept  over  it,  which 
may  have  destroyed  the  city  of  Ilion.  This  may  readily  account  for  the  general  character  which 
the  rivers,  &c,  bear  to  the  account  in  the  poem  of  Homer,  and  for  the  difficulty  in  minute  parti- 
culars of  making  them  agree.  Although  the  poem  is  evidently  a  sacred  mythos,  there  was  pro- 
bably a  true  basement  on  which  it  was  erected,  as  was  the  case  with  the  Roman  mythos,  treated 
of  by  Niebuhr. 

5.  A  learned  orientalist  of  Cambridge,  in  a  work  called  the  Cambridge  Key  to  the  Chronology 
of  the  Hindoos,  has  made  some  pertinent  observations  on  the  subject  of  a  flood.  The  work  of 
this  gentleman  is  the  best  defence  of  the  flood  of  Noah  that  I  have  seen.  He  shews  that  an 
immense  flood  was  believed  by  all  nations  to  have  taken  place,  and  he  produces  proofs,  I  think 
satisfactory,  that  in  all  of  them  certain  traditions  were  nearly  the  same  as  to  date,  and  that  these 
traditions  place  it  at  or  about  A.  M.  1656,  2  of  Usher's  Chronology.  His  great  object  is  to  prove 
that  the  Mosaic  history  of  the  Patriarchs  before  the  flood  is  real  history  and  not  a  mythos,  and  he 
considers  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  general  tradition  of  a  flood,  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  Noah's 
flood  with  all  its  details.  But  there  may  be  a  demur  to  this  conclusion,  even  by  persons  who  may 
admit  most  of  the  premises.  Assuredly  the  circumstances  and  traditions,  so  generally  found, 
furnish  strong  grounds  for  belief  that  some  great  flood  did  take  place  since  the  formation  of  the 
world  and  of  man.  But  the  reasons  which  I  have  given  to  prove  that  man  has  been  created  since 
the  universal  flood,  which  buried  the  last  race  of  fossilized  animals,  seem  to  be  satisfactory ;  there- 
fore, the  flood  of  which  I  now  speak  must  have  been  of  later  date,  and  this  later  flood  is  what  the 
priests  of  all  religions  have  exaggerated  into  an  universal  deluge,  burying  the  highest  of  our  present 
mountains  fifteen  cubits  deep.  This  flood  may  have  taken  place  in  the  period  of  from  about  two 
to  three  thousand  years  before  Christ.  At  this  time  the  celebrated  city  of  the  great  Bali,  or 
Maha-Balipore,  near  Sadrass,  in  India,  may  have  been  destroyed.  Of  this  city  the  Cambridge 
Key 3  says,  "  The  stately  palaces,  august  temples,  and  stupendous  edifices,  of  this  once  magnifi- 
"  cent  city,  are  universally  believed  by  every  Hindoo,  whether  learned  or  unlearned,  to  have  been 
"  destroyed  by  '  a  general  deluge  brought  upon  the  earth  by  the  immediate  mandate  of  the  Supreme 
"  God.'  They  still  shew  the  chasm  in  the  rock,  that  forms  one  of  the  largest  choultrys  ;  and 
'  the  divided  sculpture  but  too  plainly  shews  that  nothing  less  than  such  a  convulsion  of  nature 


1  From  the  relations  of  Pallas  and  other  travellers  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Caspian,  there  are  distinct  traces  of 
the  Aral,  the  Caspian,  the  Mseotis  or  Sea  of  Asoph,  the  Euxine,  all  having  been  once  united.    Quarterly  Review,  No 
LXXXVI.  p.  447. 

1  We  have  formerly  seen  that  Hercules  succeeded  Bacchus  about  fifteen  generations  (meaning  centuries)  or  1500  years. 
This  tradition  alludes  to  the  three  Neroses  before  the  flood.  The  Indians  fixed  the  flood  at  the  Cali  Yug,  and  this  was 
the  mistaken  time  between  Taurus  and  Aries. 

'  Vol.  I.  p.  313. 


296  THEORY    OF    MR.    CAB. 

"  could  have  rent  so  large  a  mass  of  solid  stone,  leaving  the  divided  sculpture  on  each  side  the 
"  chasm, — evidently  denoting  that  it  was  carved  before  the  convulsion  took  place.  This  is  a  truth 
"  too  apparent  to  be  denied." 

Here  we  have  an  argument  worthy  the  consideration  of  a  philosopher,  and  not  far  from  being 
conclusive  as  to  a  very  great  convulsion,  if  the  account  given  by  the  Key  be  not  exaggerated.  I 
wish  this  Indian  scholar  had  been  a  little  more  full,  and  had  told  us  that  he  had  seen  it  himself: 
for  I  have  a  high  opinion  of  his  sincerity.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a  place  more  worthy  of  careful 
examination  than  perhaps  any  other  in  the  world. 

The  account  given  by  this  gentleman  is,  in  general,  confirmed  by  William  Chambers,  Esq.,  in 
the  first  volume  of  the  Asiatic  Transactions.  * 

As  I  have  just  said,  all  this  tends  to  prove  that  there  really  has  been  a  very  great  convulsion 
since  the  creation  of  man,  and  the  foolish  exaggerations  of  priests  are  not  enough  to  invalidate  it, 
any  more  than  the  mythos  spliced  on  to  the  history  of  ancient  Rome,  as  satisfactorily  shewn  by 
Niebuhr,  is  enough  to  prove  that  Rome  did  not  exist.  Few  persons,  except  priests  of  very  con- 
fined education,  now  believe  the  account  of  the  flood  literally,  as  expounded  by  devotees,  but 
consider  it,  as  they  consider  the  texts  which  say  that  God  wrestled  with  Jacob,  and  strove  to  kill 
Moses  at  an  inn,  but  failed.  The  case  is  very  difficult — but  I  am  inclined  to  look  upon  the  history 
of  the  flood,  as  Mr.  Niebuhr  shews  that  the  early  history  of  Rome  ought  to  be  considered ;  and 
that  it  is  not  a  mere  fable,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  has  real  history  for  its  foundation — though 
disguised  by  the  contrivance  of  priests  to  excite  astonishment  in  the  minds  of  their  votaries,  or 
perhaps  merely  to  conceal  their  secret  doctrines. 

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  Pyramids  aud 
Delta  of  Egypt,  from  -which  I  think  we  may,  in  our  search,  gain  some  assistance. 

6.  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. 
He  says,  "  But  before  I  draw  any  further  inferences  from  the  discoveries,  or  perhaps  I  should  say 
"  revival  of  facts,  (sunk,  through  the  inattention  of  the  learned,  into  a  temporary  oblivion,)  now 
"  submitted  to  their  consideration,  by  one  who  has  little  to  boast  of  beyond  taste  and  diligence  in 
"  such  a  pursuit ;  I  will  hazard  the  experiment,  and  see  what  progress  I  can  make  in  the  investi- 
"  gation  of  the  antiquity  of  this  interesting  monument,  this  paragon  so  replete  with  principles  of 
"  science,  the  great  Pyramid  of  Giza,  or  ancient  Memphis. 

"  There  appears  no  convincing  reason  to  conclude  the  other  pyramids  to  be  coeval  with  this, 
"  as  may  be  gathered  from  the  sequel  of  the  present  discussion.  I  have  before  observed,  that 
"  were  I  to  hazard  a  conjecture  of  this  Pyramid  being  erected  by  the  Antediluvians,  I  should 
"  not  want  for  arguments  to  bear  me  out.  But  if  I  have  deceived  myself,  and  should  fail  in  this 
"  attempt,  still  the  Pyramid  will  neither  fail,  nor  suffer  any  diminution  of  its  beneficent  utility  in 
"  assisting  in  further  discoveries. 

"  It  has  been  a  very  prevailing,  not  to  say  a  general,  opinion,  that  the  sands  which  environ  the 
"  Pyramid,  and  hide  a  great  part  of  its  reclining  sides,  next  to  the  foundation,  have  been  drifted  by 
"  the  winds  from  other  parts  of  those  regions,  and  lodged  in  the  circuitous  strata  now  seen  on 
"  every  side  of  it.  A  strange  property,  surely,  must  be  imagined  in  those  winds,  thus  invariably 
"  to   combine  their  efforts  to  bury  this  stupendous  monument  of  art,   without  ever  taking  back 


1  Page  152,  Ed.  8vo. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  6.  297 

"  any  part  of  their  deposite.  Strange,  however,  as  it  appears  to  me,  it  has  been  received  by  most 
writers  and  visiters  of  the  Pyramid,  which  opinion  I  now  shall  venture  to  combat. — At  the  time 
Herodotus  reported  the  length  of  the  side  of  the  base  to  be  800  feet,  (proved  above  to  be  of  the 
"  standard  chest,  and  equal  to  583  feet  8  inches  of  ours,)  all  will  agree  that  he  dug  not,  like  the 
"  French  of  late,  through  the  sands,  in  search  of  the  exact  length  of  the  foundations  of  a  pile, 
"  which  he  was  led  to  believe  to  be  a  sepulchral  monument,  but  only  measured  on  the  adventitious 
"  surface,  and  that  probably  to  no  great  exactness,  but  thought  a  few  feet  of  no  such  consequence 
"  as  to  spoil  the  round  number  of  800,  by  inserting  them. 

"  Now,  if  the  surface  had  continued  to  rise  by  the  incessant  arrival  of  sand  ;  as,  about  2000 
"  years  after  Herodotus,  Mr.  Greaves,  Professor  of  Astronomy,  most  accurately  measured  the  side 
"  of  the  base  also  on  the  adventitious  surface,  he  must  have  necessarily  found,  from  2000  years' 
"  accumulation  of  sand  against  the  declining  sides,  a  much  less  length  of  side  than  Herodotus 
"records:  whereas  he  made  the  length  693  feet  English,  which  exceeds  it  by  110  feet.  And 
".  the  learned  admit  that  we  may  depend  on  the  veracity  of  Herodotus  in  such  matters  as  fell 
"  under  his  cognizance  :  and  who  can  deny  Mr.  Greaves  an  equal  character  ?  This  inference, 
"  then,  may  fairly  be  drawn,  that  the  winds  in  those  regions  have  been  imperceptibly  stripping 
"  the  sand-covered  sides  of  this  Pyramid,  for  at  least  2000  years,  instead  of  increasing  the  accu- 
"  mulation.  This  conclusion,  however,  rests  not  entirely  on  the  accuracy  of  these  stated  dimen- 
"  sions.     The  argument  is  supported  by  these  further  considerations. 

"  All  who  have  written  on  the  Pyramids,  agree  in  one  point,  though  scarce  any  two  in  many 
"  others,  that  the  sands  which  cover  the  surface  of  the  rock,  and  are  accumulated  about  the  sides 
"  of  the  Pyramids,  are  adventitious.  But  by  what  agency,  is  the  question  ?  Most  have  taken  it 
"  for  granted,  without  further  investigation,  they  have  been  brought  by  the  winds  :  and  indeed  we 
"  read  of  wonderful  effects  thus  produced  in  those  regions  of  the  earth  :  as  tremendous  columns 
"  of  sand,  raised  by  the  impetuous  whirlwinds,  to  the  great  terror  of  the  alarmed  travellers  :  but 
"  where  do  we  read  of  these  phenomena  becoming  stationary  even  for  a  day  ?  Common  obser- 
"  vation  teaches  us,  that  fine  sands  and  pulverized  earth  are  invariably  driven  by  the  wind  from 
"  higher  grounds  and  summits,  and  lodged  in  vales.  All  readers  and  travellers  know  the  surface 
"  whereon  the  Pyramid  stands,  is  the  summit  of  an  extensive  rising  ground  or  covered  rock,  at 
"  a  sufficient  distance  from  the  mountains  of  Lybia  to  give  the  wind  free  access  to  the  site 
"  whereon  the  Pyramid  is  built.  And  it  is  directly  contrary  to  common  experience  to  attribute 
"  that  deposite  of  sand  to  the  agency  of  the  wind,  since  the  removal  of  it  is  rather  the  natural  and 
"  invariable  effect  of  that  agitated  element.  And  that  this  has  been  the  case  with  the  sands 
"  deposited  about  the  Pyramid,  the  greater  altitude  of  them  at  the  time  of  Herodotus,  and  the 
"  less  altitude  when  Mr.  Greaves  visited  the  Pyramid,  seems  to  be  a  proof,  wanting  nothing  but 
"  accuracy  in  their  statements  to  be  a  demonstration  :  and  though  no  man  is  infallible,  can  it  be 
"  reasonable  to  argue  two  such  reputable  characters,  as  Greaves  and  Herodotus,  could  either  of 
"  them,  in  so  short  a  length,  as  at  most  one  stadium  or  furlong,  have  deviated  from  the  other  and 
"  from  truth,  by  110  feet  ? 

*'  But  if  this  deposite  of  sand  is  not  the  effect  of  the  winds,  by  what  agency  came  it  there  ? 
"  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 
u  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 

2ft 


298  RENNEL   ON    EGYPT. 

"  in  extent  to  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  sands  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."  l 

Herodotus  stated  the  length  of  the  side  to  be  about  600  feet,  of  our  measure  about  583  feet ; 
Mr.  Greaves  states  it  to  be  693  feet  English,  or  110  feet  more.  The  French  found  the  base  of 
the  Pyramid  31  feet  below  the  surface  :  now,  taking  the  area  at  eight  acres,  the  builders  must 
have  removed  611,177  cubic  yards  to  lay  the  foundation.  And  if  Herodotus's  account  be  taken, 
of  the  less  height  of  the  Pyramid  and  increased  depth  of  sand,  it  would  be  3,745,928  yards.  The 
French  found  Mr.  Greaves's  measurement  correct. 

In  addition  to  the  argument  of  Mr.  Gab,  upon  the  excavation  to  acquire  a  foundation  for  the 
Pyramids,  it  may  be  asked,  If  they  were  built  on  the  rock  before  it  was  covered  with  sand  from 
the  desert,  how  came  the  rock  itself  not  to  be  covered  ?  Did  the  winds  only  begin  to  blow  sand 
when  the  Pyramid  began  to  be  built  ?  During  the  thousands  of  years  before,  was  no  sand  blown  ? 
This  appears  to  me  to  form  a  very  strong  argument  in  favour  of  Mr.  Gab's  hypothesis,  though  it 
seems  to  have  been  overlooked  by  him. 

7.  The  oases  in  the  deserts  are  much  more  exposed  than  the  Pyramids  to  the  drifting  of  the 
sands  by  the  winds,  and  they  are  not  covered,  nor  are  likely  to  be  so.  The  ruins  of  the  old 
temple  of  Jupiter  Amnion  are  yet  remaining,  and  the  groves  of  palm  trees,  and  the  ruins  of  temples 
around  it,  would  form  as  effectual  obstructions  to  the  free  passage  of  the  sands  as  the  Pyramids. 
But  between  the  sandy  deserts  of  Lybia  and  the  Pyramids,  is  a  ridge  of  mountains  placed,  as  if  on 
purpose  to  form  a  barrier  against  the  sands ;  and  so  completely  have  they  answered  this  purpose, 
that,  as  Major  Rennel  says,  2  "  So  little  have  the  sands  of  Lybia  raised  the  country,  that  they 
"  have  not  even  filled  up  the  old  bed  of  the  Nile,  which  runs  past  the  Pyramids,  and  which  is 
"  easily  distinguishable  by  a  hollow  and  series  of  lakes,  and  an  old  canal.  And  it  appears  that 
"  Giza  is  several  miles  from  the  present  Giza,  where  the  Pyramids  are."  Authors  speak  of  the 
Etesian  winds  as  causing  this  effect.  I  believe  these  winds  do  not  blow  from  West  to  East,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  blow  mostly  up  the  river  from  North  and  North-east  to  South  and  South-west. 3 

From  the  best  information  which  I  have  been  able  to  acquire,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  sand 
ever  continues  for  any  great  length  of  time  higher  on  one  side  of  the  Pyramid  than  on  the  other, 
but,  in  fact,  as  we  might  expect,  it  varies  with  the  winds — sometimes  higher  on  one  side,  some- 
times on  another. 

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 


1  Gab's  Finis  Pyramidis.  *  Geog.  Syst.  of  Herod.  Vol.  II.  3  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  p.  419. 


BOOK    VI.    CHAPTER   I.    SECTION   8.  299 

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,1  to  which  it  is  not  impos- 
sible the  flood  extended.  The  phenomena  noticed  by  Mr.  Gab,  I  think  may  be  accounted  for  in  the 
following  manner : 

I  suppose  that  when  the  Pyramids  at  Giza  were  built,  Memphis  was  the  capital,  and  Giza  the 
sea-port,  placed  at  the  end  of  a  gulf  or  bay.  By  the  breaking  of  the  mounds  which  formed  banks 
to  the  Euxine,  the  Palus  Maeotis,  the  Caspian  and  Aral  Seas,  when  they  were  all  in  contiguous 
lakes  or  in  one  sea,  as  I  have  expressed  my  persuasion  that  they  formerly  were,  before  the 
opening  of  the  Darnanelles  took  place — a  sudden,  mighty  rush  of  water  would  be  made  on  to  the 
shores  of  Athos  and  Greece,  which  being  stopped  directly  in  front,  would  be  divided,  and  half  of 
it  turned  into  the  bay  of  Egypt,  and  over  the  land  of  Upper  Egypt ;  and  the  other  half  of  it  into 
Thrace, — causing  the  flood,  recorded  by  Plato,  drowning  the  first  race  of  people  on  the  East 
shores  of  Greece,  and  carrying  along  with  it,  in  each  case,  the  mass  of  sand  and  sea-shells  now 
found  around  the  Pyramids.  2  However  this  may  have  been,  the  petrified  oysters  and  other  sea- 
shells  never  can  have  been  brought  thither  by  the  winds  of  Libya,  nor  by  the  downward  annual 
Sowings  of  the  Nile.  The  former  supposition  is,  upon  the  face  of  it,  impossible,  and  the  oyster 
shells  are  never  found  except  in  salt  water,  and  therefore  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  come  down 
the  river,  but  must  have  gone  up  it.  In  the  assertion  that  there  are  no  oysters  in  the  Nile, 
I  have  ascertained  that  Mr.  Gab  has  fallen  into  a  great  mistake.  There  are  oysters  in  the  lower 
part  of  it,  some  of  which,  of  course,  would  be  carried  up  by  any  great  body  of  water  suddenly 
rushing  into  the  country  above  Memphis. 

If  it  be  not  thought  possible  that  a  great  rush  of  water  coming  from  the  Euxine,  against  Greece 
and  Negropont,  might  flow  up  Egypt,  I  know  of  no  resource  we  have,  except,  perhaps,  the  more 
probable  theory  of  Mr.  Gab,  that  in  the  universal  deluge,  which  raised  up  Mont  Blanc  and  Chim- 
borazo,  and  which  happened  since  the  building  of  the  Pyramids,  and  left  them  perfect  and  unin- 
jured, the  oyster  shells  may  have  been  brought  down  from  the  mountains  of  the  Moon,  for  I  know 
no  where  else  that  they  can  have  come  from. 

If  we  suppose  that  the  strait  of  Gibraltar  was  originally  closed  like  the  Isthmus  of  Suez,  and 
that  the  water  flowed  over  the  neck  of  land,  we  may  readily  conceive  how  Lower  Egypt,  the 
Isthmus  of  Suez,  the  Pontine  Marshes,  and  many  islands,  would  be  left  dry,  on  its  breaking  down 
the  neck  into  the  Atlantic.  Whether  the  opening  increased  gradually  for  a  great  number  of  years 
after  its  first  disruption,  or  it  happened  at  once,  it  will  readily  account  for  the  Pharos  of  Alexan- 
dria having  once  stood  a  considerable  distance  from  the  land,  and  for  the  city  of  Hadria  and  the 
sea-port  of  Padua,  in  Italy,  being  left  far  inland,  where  they  are  now  found. 

8.  Pretty  nearly  as  numerous  as  the  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  Nile  and  its  floods,  and  as 
nonsensical,  have  been  the  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  Delta  of  Egypt.  Herodotus,  Diodorus 
Siculus,  Strabo,  and  Ptolemy,  assert  that  the  Delta  of  Egypt  was  once  overflowed  by  the  sea.3 
This  is  perfectly  consistent  with  reason  and  probability,  and  with  the  experience  which  we  have 
of  the  formation  of  deltas  at  the  mouths  of  other  rivers  ;  and  I  cannot  see  why,  for  its  mere 
formation,  we  are  to  seek  for  any  other  cause  :  but  this  argument  does  not  apply  to  the  question 
of  the  slow  or  speedy  formation  of  the  Delta. 

In  a  discourse  recently  delivered  at  Paris,  Cuvier  declared,  that  "  we  come  by  a  very  simple 


1  Vide  Rennel,  ib.  pp.  238,  257-  8  See  Asiat.  Journal,  Jan.  1828.  3  Ency.  Britt.  art.  Phil. 

2q2 


300  CASPIAN    SEA. 


"  calculation  to  the  result,  that  2000  years  before  Christ  the  whole  of  Lower  Egypt  had  no  eocist- 
"  ence.  We  presume  that  the  learned  philosopher  does  not  mean  to  bind  us  to  the  strict  letter,  or 
"  we  shall  find  some  difficulty,  even  on  the  lowest  system  of  chronology,  in  constructing  that 
"  kingdom  of  Egypt  which  Abraham  visited,  and  the  city  of  Zoan  (Tanis),  where  in  all  probability 
"  its  king  resided." l 

I  apprehend  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  flood  of  the  Nile  is  the  effect  of  the  periodical  rains, 
or  the  melting  of  snow  in  the  mountains  of  Africa,  or  of  both  these  causes  united.  For  many 
generations  the  river  has  not  deposited  annually  much  sediment,  but,  for  obvious  reasons,  this  can 
raise  no  objection  to  the  supposed  formation  of  the  Delta  by  the  deposite  from  the  river,  aided  by 
the  North  winds  blowing  into  the  mouth  of  it.  For  though,  as  appears  from  Mr.  Bruce's  account, 
all  the  rivulets  by  which  the  Abyssinian  Nile  is  fed,  now  have  stony  beds,  free  from  mud ; 
yet  what  Herodotus  has  said  may  probably  be  perfectly  true,  that  the  Delta  was  raised  by  the 
gradual  deposition  of  mud  brought  from  the  high  countries,— because  this  may  have  taken  place 
before  the  mud  was  exhausted  ;  before  the  hill-sides  and  the  beds  of  the  rivers  of  the  high 
country  were  washed  almost  clean  :  since  that  time  no  very  considerable  deposite  may  have  taken 
place.  The  same  process  is  now  going  on  in  the  lake  of  Geneva.  The  Rhone  deposits  its  mud, 
and  forms  islands  or  lagunes  at  the  top  of  the  lake,  and  runs  out  at  the  bottom  as  clear  as  crystal. 
At  first  the  sediment  would  be  invisible,  until  at  last  it  would  come  near  the  surface,  and  the  whole 
bay  would  become  very  shallow,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  perhaps  two  deep  gullies  :  and  when 
the  disruption,  to  which  I  have  before  alluded,  took  place,  and  the  great  mass  of  water  escaped  at 
Gibraltar,  the  land  which  had  been  gradually  forming  under  the  water  would  be  left  dry,  and  the 
Delta  would  shew  itself. 

When  I  look  at  a  map,  and  contemplate  the  little  progress  made  by  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris, 
by  the  Indus,  Ganges,  and  Burrampoutra,  in  filling  up  the  gulfs  at  their  mouths,  and  in  converting 
their  bays  into   promontories ;  and  again   at  the  promontory  of  the  Nile,   and  the  recession  of 
the  sea  from  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  in  various  parts,   and  reflect  on  what  the  ingenious 
geologist,   Mr.  Lyal,  has  said  respecting  the  rate  of  the  formation  of  Deltas  generally,  I  can- 
not help  thinking  that  there  must  have  been  some  peculiar  cause  for  the  more  rapid  formation, 
or  at  least  exaltation  above  the  sea,  of  the  Delta  of  Egypt,  than  mere  subsidence  of  alluvial  matter.  . 
And  this  I  attribute  to  the  breaking  down  of  the  bank  at  the  straits  of  Gibraltar,  or  the  widening 
of  an  ancient  opening  at  those  straits,  or  to  the  lowering,  from  some  other  cause,   of  the  waters  of 
the  Mediterranean.     For  the  elevation  of  the  Pontine  marshes  and  other  shores  and  islands  of  this 
sea  must  be  accounted  for,  which  cannot  be  done  by  the  subsidence  of  the  sediment  of  any  rivers, 
because  in  many  cases  there  are  no  rivers  to  deposit  sediment.     No  doubt  a  strong  surface  current 
sets  into  the  Mediterranean  at  present  from  the  Atlantic,   which  makes  against  my  system,  but 
this  may  not  always  have  been  so,  and  a  deep  counter  current  is  generally  believed  at  present  to 
take  place.     The  ingenious  author  of  the  review  of  Mr.  Lyal's  fine  work  on  Geology,  says,  the 
latter  is  an  unwarranted  hypothesis.     I  have  been  told,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  has  been  ascer- 
tained, from  actual  experiment,  by  some  of  our  naval  officers,  to  be  true. 2 

But,  whatever  may  be  the  fact  with  respect  to  the  current  at  Gibraltar,  the  truth  of  which  is  not 
yet,  I  think,  ascertained,  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  water  of  the  Mediterranean,  fed  by  the  Danube, 
Nile,  Rhone,  Tiber,  Tanais,  Dnieper,  &c,  &c,  must  have  some  way  of  escaping.  Evaporation  is 
not  enough  to  account  for  the  effect.  Evaporation  must  take  place  in  the  great  Atlantic  as  well  as 
the  small  Mediterranean.     If  it  do  not  go  by  the  straits  of  Gibraltar,  it  must  have  a  subterraneous 


1  Quarterly  Review,  No.  LXXXV.,  May  1830,  p.  131  n.  9  Ibid.  No.  LXXXVI.  p.  446. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION   10.  301 

passage,  like  the  Dead  sea  and  the  Caspian.  Some  time  ago  I  was  told  by  an  Indian  traveller,  that 
the  surface  of  the  Caspian  was  forty  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  Indus  at  its  mouth,  and  that  he 
supposed  the  water  of  this  sea  escaped  by  an  immense  whirlpool  which  was  not  far  from  its  South 
end.  On  naming  this  circumstance  to  another  Indian  traveller,  to  Captain  E — ,  whose  public  duty 
it  is  to  inquire  into  matters  of  this  kind,  he  told  me  my  friend,  Col.  W — , '  was  mistaken  ;  that 
he  had  made  a  mistake  from  having  a  defective  barometer ;  that  he  had  tried  it  himself  with  a 
good  instrument  made  by  Troughton,  and  he  found  it  not  forty,  but  one  hundred  and  forty  feet 
below  the  Indus.  Now  this  is  an  extremely  interesting  fact,  and  raises  the  questions,  What  be- 
comes of  the  water  ?  Does  the  water  circulate  when  heated  by  an  equatorial  sun,  and  flow  up  to 
the  poles  and  back  again,  as  it  flows  out  and  back  again  in  the  newly-discovered  apparatus  for 
warming  buildings  ? 

10.  We  learn  from  Plato,  and  other  Greek  authors,  that,  in  a  very  remote  sera,  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  coin- 
cidences 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.  If  we  look  at  the  map  of  the  globe,  and 
consider  the  relative  space  of  its  surface  which  is  occupied  by  land  and  water,  we  must  at  once  see, 
that  if  there  be  only  an  equal  quantity  of  each,  there  is  infinitely  more  than  enough  water  to  cover 
the  land  fifteen  cubits  high,  above  even  the  hills  of  the  old  world,  which  might  be  low.  But  in 
addition  to  this,  the  space  of  sea  is  not  merely  equal,  but  is  much  greater  than  the  space  of  land. 

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  de- 
scribed 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  think  it  not  at  all  unlikely  that  when  the  Atlantis  sunk,  the  level  of  the  water  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean may  have  been  changed,  in  some  way  or  other,  which  we  cannot  discover,  though  the  sink- 
ing of  the  island  would  have  a  tendency  to  raise  it.  But  since  the  building  of  Adria,  Padua,  &c. 
it  seems  certainly  to  have  been  changed.  This  is  an  indisputable  fact,  which  it  is  of  no  use  to 
deny.  At  the  time  that  this  happened,  the  passage  which  connected  the  Dead  sea  with  the  Red 
sea,  shewn  by  Burchardt  formerly  to  have  existed,  and  the  isthmus  of  Suez  formerly  covered  with 
water,  may  have  been  both  leffdry.  I  shall  in  a  future  page  give  some  reasons  to  prove,  that 
Egypt  was  not  peopled  by  tribes  passing  over  the  isthmus  of  Suez,  but  across  the  Red  sea  from 
some  place  near  Mecca. 

If  ever  the  rock  over  which  the  water  rushes  at  Niagara  should  suddenly  give  way,  no  doubt  a 
very  sensible  flood  would  be  experienced  in  Ireland.  In  consequence  of  having  a  vastly  greater 
space  to  expand  its  waters  over,  this  flood,  when  compared  with  those  in  the  Mediterranean,  would 
be  trifling.  On  the  order  of  the  floods  of  which  I  have  spoken  we  must  always  remain  ignorant ; 
but  it  is  probable,  I  think,  that  one  of  them,  and  perhaps  the  second  spoken  of  by  me,  2500  or  3000 


1  Both  gentlemen  are  now  in  India,  and  I  have  not  permission  to  give  their  names. 


302  GEOLOGICAL  FACT  IN  YORKSHIRE. 

years  before  Christ,  caused  the  destruction  of  almost  the  whole  of  mankind ;  a  few  might  be  saved 
in  ships,  and  it  might  happen  that  among  these  few  might  be  the  possessors  of  our  system  of 
letters.  The  distressing  state  in  which  they  may  have  been  left  will  account,  without  difficulty, 
for  the  loss  of  the  learning  which  their  fathers,  as  Bailly  supposed,  possessed.  But  all  these  mat- 
ters are  mere  theories  ;  of  their  truth  we  cannot  be  certain. 

11.  I  have  lately  discovered  a  geological  fact  of  a  nature  which  bears  strongly  upon  this  subject. 
There  is  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.  Sometimes  whole  trees  are  found  lying  on  their 
sides.  The  firs  are  mostly  a  little  bent  by  the  weight  of  the  superincumbent  soil,  but  they  yet  re- 
tain their  white  colour.  The  oak  is  generally  perfectly  black.  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  the  appearance  of  the  trees,  it  is  probable,  that  after  being  long  covered 
with  water  they  have  rotted  off  a  little  above  ground,  the  tops  have  fallen,  and  most  of  them  been 
floated  away  by  the  tides  and  floods,  and  the  bottoms  have  been  by  degrees  covered  with  alluvial 
soil  as  they  are  now  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  the  salt  water.  What  I  have  stated  with  respect  to  the  tides  and  the  remains  of  the 
trees  which!  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  At- 
lantic, with  relation  to  the  land  of  Britain,  has  been  raised,  or  vice  versa,  the  land  lowered.  The 
district  where  these  trees  are  found  was  drained,  in  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  by  one  Sir  Cornelius 
Vermuyden,  and  there  does  not  appear  any  reason  to  believe  that  the  relative  altitudes  of  the  land 
and  ocean  have  undergone  any  perceptible  change  since  that  time.  Of  course,  in  a  country  like 
this,  the  natives  watch  every  thing  relating  to  those  altitudes  with  great  anxiety.  The  relative 
levels  of  the  land  and  tides  have  lately  been  ascertained  by  experienced  engineers  with  very  great 
care. 

The  bold  shores  on  the  east  and  south-east  coast  of  Britain  keep  constantly  yielding  to  the  wash- 
ing of  the  bases  of  their  cliffs  by  the  tides ;  but  the  rising  within  the  last  century  of  the  large  and 
valuable  tract  of  land  called  Sunk  island,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Humber,  proves,  that  if  any  change 
be  taking  place  in  the  relative  altitude  of  the  island  and  the  ocean,  the  former  is  now  rising,  not 
sinking ;  but  I  do  not  think  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  any  change  is  taking  place.  The  whole 
subject  is  one  of  very  great  curiosity  and  interest :  I  shall  now  leave  it  to  the  consideration  of  my 
reader,  but  I  shall  return  to  it  again  in  the  course  of  the  following  pages.  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,  Memoire  de  Institut.  Royal  de  France,  1815  j  Dr. 
Clarke's  Travels ;  and  Muller's  Univers.  Hist.  Eng.  Trans.  Vol.  I.  p.  33. 


BOOK  VI.      CHAPTER    II.      SECTION    1.  303 


CHAPTER  II. 

ADORATION  OF  THE  VIRGIN  AND  CHILD. —  CARMELITES  ATTACHED  TO  THE  VIRGIN.  —  VIRGIN  OF  THE 
SPHERE.  —  FESTIVAL  OF  THE  VIRGIN.  —  GERMAN  AND  ITALIAN  VIRGIN.  —  MANSIONS  OF  THE  MOON. — 
MONTFAUCON. —  MULTIMAMMIA.  —  ISIS  AND  THE  MOON.  —  CELESTIAL  VIRGIN  OF  DUPUIS. — KIRCHER. — 
JESUS  BEN    PANTHER. — LUNAR   MANSIONS. 

1.  In  the  two  following  chapters  I  shall  repeat,  with  some  important  additions,  or  shall  collect  into 
one  view,  what  has  been  said  in  a  variety  of  places  in  the  foregoing  work,  respecting  the  Queen  of 
Heaven,  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  her  son  law ;  to  which  I  shall  also  add  some  observations  respect- 
ing the  famous  God  Bacchus. 

In  very  ancient  as  well  as  modern  times,  the  worship  of  a  female,  supposed  to  be  a  virgin,  with 
an  infant  in  her  arms,  has  prevailed.  This  worship  has  not  been  confined  to  one  particular  place 
or  country,  but  has  spread  to  nearly  every  part  of  the  habitable  world.  In  all  Romish  countries  to 
this  day,  the  Virgin,  with  the  infant  Jesus  Christ  in  her  arms,  is  the  favourite  object  of  adoration ; 
and  it  is,  as  it  has  been  observed  before,  a  decisive  proof  that  the  Christ,  the  good  shepherd,  the 
Saviour  of  the  Romish  church  of  Italy,  is  the  same  as  the  person  of  the  same  name  in  India ;  that 
he  is,  like  him,  described  to  be  black,  to  be  an  Ethiopian.  It  seems  that  if  a  person  wanted  a  fact 
to  complete  the  proof  of  the  identity  of  the  person  of  Cristna  and  the  Romish  Jesus,  he  could  not 
have  invented  any  thing  more  striking  than  this,  when  all  the  other  circumstances  are  considered. 
But  though  they  were  both  black,  I  think  they  had  both  the  name  of  Crish,  or  Christ,  or  Xprj$og, 
from  a  word  in  a  very  ancient  language,  (the  parent  both  of  the  Greek  and  the  Sanscrit,)  having 
the  meaning  of  Benignus,  of  which  I  shall  say  more  hereafter.  We  will  now  try  to  find  out  who 
the  celebrated  virgin,  the  mother  of  this  person,  was. 

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.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Stukeley  writes,  "Diodorus  says  Bacchus  was  born  of  Jupiter  (mean- 
"  ing  the  Supreme)  and  Ceres,  or  as  others  think,  Proserpine."—"  Both  Ceres  and  Proserpine 
"  were  called  Kopij,  which  is  analogous  to  the  Hebrew  nofy  virgo,7rap%evos,  LXX.,  Isaiah  vii.  14: 
"  Behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive.  It  signifies  eminently  the  virgin.  A^rrjvouot  Aiovixrov  r  Aiog 
:'  xai  Ko$rjs  <re£e<riv.  Arrian,  Alex.  II.  The  Egyptians  called  this  same  person  Bacchus,  or  the 
"  sun-deity,  by  the  name  of  Orus,  which  is  the  same  as  the  Greek  word  Kogoj  aspirated.  The 
"  heathen  fables  as  oft  confound  Bacchus's  mother  and  wife." 

"  Ovid,  Fasti  iii.,  makes  Libera,  the  name  of  Ariadne,  Bacchus's  pretended  wife,  whom  Cicero, 
"  de  Nat.  Deor.,  makes  to  be  Proserpina,  Bacchus's  mother.  The  story  of  this  woman  being 
"  deserted  by  a  man,  and  espoused  by  a  God,  has  somewhat  so  exceedingly  like  that  passage, 
"  Matt.  i.  19,  20,  of  the  blessed  virgin's  history,  that  we  should  wonder  at  it,  did  we  not  see  the 
"  parallelism  infinite  between  the  sacred  and  the  profane  history  before  us. 

"  —  Ariadne  was  translated  into  heaven,  as  is  said  of  the  Virgin,  and  her  nuptial  garland  was 
"  turned  into  an  heavenly  crown :  she  was  made  queen  of  heaven." 

Testis  sidereae  torta  corona  Deae.    Propert.  iii.  17. 

,e  —  There  are  many  similitudes  between  the  Virgin  and  the  mother  of  Bacchus  in  all  the  old 


304  CARMELITES   ATTACHED   TO   THE   VIRGIN. 

"fables;  as  for  instance,  Hyginus   (Fab.    164)    makes  Adoneus  or  Adonis  the  son  of  Myrrha. 
"  Adonis  is  Bacchus  beyond  controversy." 

Ogygia  me  Bacchum  vocat 

Osirin  Egyptus  putat 

Arabica  gens  Adoneum.         Auson. 

"  Adonis  is  the  Hebrew  >3*7K  (Acini)  Adonai,  which  the  Heathens  learned  from  the  Arabians — 
"  one  of  the  sacred  names  of  the  Deity.  Mary  or  Miriam,  St.  Jerome  interprets  Myrrha  Maris  : 
"  Mariamne  is  the  same  appellation  of  which  Ariadne  seems  a  corruption.  Orpheus  calls  the  mo- 
"  ther1  of  Bacchus,  Leucothea,  a  sea  Goddess. 

"  —  Nonnus  in  Dyonyg.  calls  Sirius  star  Moera,  Ma<pv]£.  Hesychius  says,  Maiga  xvov  to 
"  agqov.  Our  Sanford  hence  infers  this  star  to  mean  Miriam,  Moses's  sister.  Vossius  de  IdolaL. 
"  approves  of  it.     Ma/pa  by  metathesis  is  Magta."  2 

Thus  we  see  that  the  Rev.  and  learned  Gentleman,  Dr.  Stukeley,  has  clearly  made  out,  that  the 
story  of  Mary,  the  queen  of  heaven,  the  mother  of  >HN  (Adni)  Adonis,  or  the  Lord,  as  our  book 
always  renders  this  word,  with  her  translation  to  heaven,  &c,  was  an  old  story  long  before  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  was  born.  After  this,  Stukeley  observes,  that  Ariadne,  the  queen  of  heaven,  has  upon 
her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars.  This  is  the  case  of  the  queen  of  heaven  in  almost  every  church 
on  the  continent. 

2.  In  the  service  or  liturgy  of  the  Carmelites,  which  I  bought  in  Dublin  at  the  Carmelite  mo- 
nastery, the  Virgin  is  called  Stella  Maris  ;  that  is,  in  fact,  the  star  of  the  sea — "  Leucothea" — 
Venus  rising  from  the  sea. 

All  monks  were  Carmelites  till  the  fifth  century.  3  After  that  time,  from  different  religious  mo- 
tives, new  orders  branched  off  from  the  old  one,  and  became  attached  to  new  superstitions :  but 
the  Carmelites  always  remained,  and  yet  remain,  attached  in  a  peculiar  manner  to  the  Virgin  Mary, 
the  Regina  Stellarum.4     The  Carmelites  were  the  original  monks,  Na£a)gaioj,  translated  from 


1  Nurse.  *  Stukeley,  Pal.  Sac.  No.  I.  p.  34.  3  Priestley,  Hist.  Cor.  Vol.  II.  p.  403. 

*  I  am  of  opinion  that  a  certain  class  of  persons,  initiated  into  the  higher  mysteries  of  the  ancients,  were  what  are 
called  Carmelites  Therapcutce  and  Esseniens,  or  that  they  constituted  a  part  of,  or  were  formed  out  of,  these  sects,  and 
were  what  we  now  call  Freemasons.  They  were  also  called  Chaldsei  and  Mathematici.  I  think  that  the  rite  of  circum- 
cision was  originally  instituted  for  the  characteristic  mark  of  the  fraternity  or  society.  I  doubt  its  being  a  religious 
community  solely.  Abraham  brought  circumcision  from  Urr  of  the  Chaldees.  When  the  Jewish  tribe  was  declared  a 
priestly  tribe  it  was  circumcised,  part  of  the  secret  rites  were  thrown  open  to  all,  probably  the  tribe  refused  any  longer 
to  be  excluded  from  them,  and  the  rite  no  longer  continued  the  secret  symbol.  We  read  of  three  hundred  and  eighteen 
servants  trained  in  Abraham's  own  house.  On  these  persons,  the  Apostle,  St.  Barnabas,  the  companion  of  St.  Paul,  has 
the  following  passage : 

"  For  the  Scripture  says,  that  Abraham  circumcised  three  hundred  and  eighteen  men  of  his  house.  But  what,  there- 
"  fore,  was  the  mystery  that  was  made  known  to  him  ?  Mark  the  eighteen  and  next  the  three  hundred.  For  the 
"  numeral  letters  of  ten  and  eight  are  I  H,  and  these  denote  Jesus ;  and  because  the  cross  was  that  by  which  we  were 
"  to  find  grace,  therefore  he  adds,  Three  hundred .-  the  note  of  which  is  T  (the figure  of  his  cross).  Wherefore  by  two 
"  letters  he  signified  Jesus,  and  by  the  third  his  cross.  He  who  has  put  the  engrafted  gift  of  his  doctrine  within  us 
*'  knows  that  I  never  taught  to  any  one  a  more  certain  truth  :  but  I  trust  ye  are  worthy  of  it." — Epist.  Barnabas,  Sect. 
ix.  ed.  Wake. 

This  epistle  of  St.  Barnabas  was  formerly  read  in  the  Romish  churches ;  but  the  Protestants  do  not  allow  it  to  be 
genuine.  One  reason  why  Jones  contends  that  it  is  spurious  is,  because  it  says  that  Abraham  circumcised  318  men  of 
his  family,  which  is  not  now  in  the  text.  But  the  Hebrew  word  which  Jones  renders  circumcised  VD'Jn  hnikiu,  in  one 
sense  means  initiated,  and  this  justifies  Barnabas.  In  fact,  this  word  hnikiu  is  our  initiate.  (Jones  on  Canon,  Pt.  III. 
ch.  xli.  p.  449.)  If  what  I  suspect  be  true,  viz.  that  circumcision  was  the  mark  or  test  of  initiation,  Barnabas  the  Apostle 
might  not  understand  the  full  import  of  the  Greek  ,•  but  he  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  been  ignorant  of  the  Hebrew, 


BOOK   VI.    CHAP.    II.    SECT.   3.  305 

Meru  and  Tibet  to  Mount  Carmel,  or  the  mount  of  the  garden  of  God,  or  of  the  sun,  at  the  foot  of 
Lebanon,  or  of  the  mountain  of  the  moon.  They  were  the  original  monks  of  Maia  or  Maria ;  the 
others  were  all  offsets  from  the  parent  tree,  or  perhaps  they  were  a  species  of  heretics  who  arose 
from  the  original  monkish  religious  system.  This  accounts  for  the  Carmelites  being,  in  a  peculiar 
manner,  attached  to  the  adoration  of  the  Virgin. 

Isidore  of  Seville  says,  that  the  meaning  of  the  word  Mary  is,  One  who  begins  to  illuminate — 
Maria  illuminatrix.  He  gives  to  this  virgin,  as  her  mother,  a  person  called  Anna,  an  allegorical 
name,  by  which  the  Romans  meant  the  annual  revolution  of  the  sun,  which  they  personified,  and 
for  whom  they  had  a  festival,  under  the  name  of  Anna  Perenna,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year.  l 
The  Hindoos  have  the  same  person  as  a  Goddess  under  the  name  of  Anna,  or  Unnu  Poorna.  2 
Poorna  is  evidently  Perenna,  or  Porana.  There  is  extant,  in  Jones  on  the  Canon,  a  gospel  history 
called  that  of  James  or  of  Mary,  in  which  her  mother  is  called  Anna,  of  whom  I  shall  say  more 
presently. 

Dr.  Pritchard  says,  "  The  beneficent  form  of  Bhavani,  termed  Devi  or  Anna  Purna,  is  doubtless, 
"  as  Sir  W.  Jones  remarked,  the  Anna  Perenna  of  the  Romans."  Again,  "  Anna  Purna  is,  how- 
"  ever,  also  the  counterpart  of  the  Egyptian  Isis.  She  is  figured  as  bent  by  the  weight  of  her  full 
"  breasts,  and  reminds  us  of  the  statues  of  Isis  Multimammia."  Again,  "  Bhavani  is  invoked  by 
',*  the  name  of  Ma,  as  was  Demeter  among  the  Greeks  by  that  of  Maia."3  In  the  passages  where 
the  Hebrew  word  C3HD  mrim  of  the  Old  Testament  is  translated  by  the  Vulgate,  it  is  rendered 
Maria,  and  the  LXX.  render  it  Mapia^..     All  this  clearly  proves  that  they  are  the  same  name.4 

3.  Though  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  the  celestial  virgin  of  the  sphere  was  one  original  source 
whence  the  Madonna,  Regina  Cceli,  Seoroxog — and  Mater  Dei,  were  derived,  yet  the  Goddess 
Cybele  was  another.  She  was  equally  called  the  Queen  of  Heaven  and  the  Mother  of  the  Gods. 
As  devotees  now  collect  alms  in  the  name  of  the  Virgin,  so  did  they  in  ancient  times  in  the  name  of 
Cybele,  in  which  they  were  protected  by  a  law  when  begging  was  not  otherwise  allowed.  The 
Galli  now  used  in  the  churches  of  Italy  were  anciently  used  in  the  worship  of  Cybele.  Our  Lady- 
day,  or  the  day  of  the  blessed  Virgin  of  the  Roman  Church,  was  heretofore  dedicated  to  Cybele. 
"  It  was  called  Hilaria,"  says  Macrobius,  "  on  account  of  the  joy  occasioned  by  the  arrival  of 
"  the  equinox."  Lampridius  also  says,  that  it  was  a  festival  dedicated  to  the  Mother  of  the  Gods. 
A  Greek  commentator  on  Dionysius  cited  by  Demster,  in  his  Antiquities,  also  states,  that  the 
Hilaria  was  a  festival  in  honour  of  the  Mother  of  the  Gods.  In  the  fourth  century  there  existed  a 
sect  of  Christians  called  Collyridians,  who  made  offerings  of  cakes  to  the  Virgin  Mary  as  a  Goddess 
and  Queen  of  Heaven.5 

The  Collyridians  are  said,  by  Mr.  Sayle,6  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 

because  he  was  a  Jew,  and  therefore  must  be  supposed  to  understand  the  common  powers  of  notation  of  the  letters  of 
his  own  language.  He  here  makes  the  Hebrew  T  stand  for  300,  which,  in  my  table,  appears  to  stand  for  400.  The 
canons  of  criticism  by  which  Jones  pretends  to  try  the  genuineness  of  ancient  books,  can  on  no  account  be  admitted. 

1  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  p.  47,  4to. 

A  very  learned  dissertation  on  the  Anna  of  the  Romans,  with  much  very  curious  information,  may  be  found  in  Nim- 
rod,  Vol.  III.  p.  47.  See  also  Taylor's  Calmet,  Vol.  IV.  p.  68.  For  the  history  of  Anna,  the  mother  of  Mary,  and  of 
Joachim,  that  is  TV  ie,  eon  hkm,  Jah  the  wise,  Jones  on  the  Canon,  Vol.  II.  p.  145,  may  be  consulted. 

2  Vide  Ward's  India.  3   Anal.  Egyp.  Mythos.  p  280.  *   Exod.  xv.  20. 
*  Jortin,  Eccles.  Rem.  Vol.  I.  332.                               6  Prem.  Dis.  to  Koran,  Sect.  ii.  p.  45. 

2r 


306  FESTIVAL   OF  THE   VIRGIN. 

Mary;  and  they  were  thence  named  Mariamites. ,  Others  imagined  her  to  be  exempt  from 
humanity,  and  deified  ;  which  goes  but  little  beyond  the  Popish  superstition  in  calling  her  the 
Complement  of  the  Trinity,  as  if  it  were  imperfect  without  her. 

It  is  very  evident  that  the  idea  of  Mary  being  the  mother  of  God,  and  also  God  himself,  in  some 
way  or  other,  arose  from  the  Maia  of  India,  the  spouse  of  Brahme.  Maia  was  the  female  genera- 
tive power,  and,  as  such,  the  Deity,  and  the  mother  of  Buddha,  or  Divine  Wisdom  or  the  Logos. 
Thus  she  was  the  mother  of  Iao  or  of  IH2  or  of  Jesus,  and  still  a  part  of  the  Deity.  She  was 
also  the  nn  nth,  and  thus  it  was  that  this  word  was  feminine  in  the  Hebrew  or  the  Buddist  book 

of  Genesis. 

4.  Samuel  and  John  the  Baptist  had  the  same  person  for  their  mothers  as  the  Virgin  Mary, 
viz.  Anna  or  at  least  persons  of  the  same  name,  who  all  produced  their  sons  in  their  extreme 
old  age.  Samson's  mother  was  delivered  of  her  son  in  the  same  way,  but  her  name  is  not  given  : 
but  from  the  similarity  in  other  respects  it  was  probably  the  same.  All  these  ladies  might  very 
properly  be  called  what,  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  were  called,  Perennas  or  Per- annas;  having 
the  same  meaning  as  Per-vetustas.  But  this  Per-anna,  or  old  year,  seems  nonsense.  I  believe  it 
secretly  or  mystically  alluded  to  the  mighty  year  celebrated  by  Virgil,  (see  B.  v.  Ch.  ii.  Sect.  7,) 
and  that  it  was  the  period  of  608  years,  to  which  it  alluded. 2 

The  25th  of  March  was  a  day  of  general  festivity  throughout  the  ancient  Grecian  and  Roman 
world,  and  was  called  Hilaria.  The  Phrygians  kept  the  same  holiday  and  worshiped  Atys,  the 
mother  of  the  Gods,  with  similar  rites.  Hence  the  appointment  of  this  day,  Lady-day,  to  the 
honour  of  the  mother  of  Jesus,  called  by  the  Catholics,  the  mother  of  God.3  Here  Atys  is  made 
a  female.    Atys  in  the  Persian  means  fire.    This  must  be  Vesta.    Is  it  anagrammatically  ysta,  Latin 

ista  ? 

In  the  15th  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis  God  says  to  the  serpent,  which  had  tempted 
Eve,  "  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed :  it 
"  shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel."  Here  the  seed  is  called  it,  and  afterward 
his  in  the  masculine  gender.  But  the  Roman  Church  (as  I  have  before  shewn)  translates  this  in 
the  Vulgate  ipsa  conteret  caput  tuum,  by  which  they  cause  the  woman  to  bruise  the  serpent's 
head,  and  not,  as  the  Protestants  do,  the  seed  of  the  woman  to  bruise  it.  The  Hebrew  language 
having  no  neuter  gender,  therefore  a  literal  translation  must  have  either  he  or  she.  Availing  them- 
selves of  this  equivocal  or  double  meaning,  they  have  made  this  passage  serve  as  a  justification  of 
their  adoration  of  the  celestial  virgin,  which  they  found  in  Italy  and  other  countries  ;  and  which, 
of  course,  in  compliance  with  their  much  abused  traditionary  practice,  they  adopted. 

When  I  first  examined  this  subject,  I  was  of  opinion  that  the  adoption  of  the  ipsa  instead  of 
the  ipse  was  the  effect  of  ignorance  ;  but  since  I  considered  the  matter  more  deeply,  I  have  been 
induced  to  believe  that  this  rendering  was  the  effect  of  profound  learning,  not  of  ignorance  ;  and 
that  it  was  done  in  order  to  adopt  secretly  the  adoration  of  the  double  principle.  The  adoption 
of  the  word  ipsa  instead  of  ipse  is  of  very  great  importance  ;  as,  when  combined  with  the  reasoning 
which  the  reader  has  seen  respecting  the  serpent's  biting  of  the  foot,  and  not  the  heel,  of  Cristna, 
it  shews  most  clearly  that  the  Mythos  of  the  East  cannot  have  been  copied  from  that  of  the  West. 

In  Dr.  Geddes's  Critical  Remarks  on  this  passage  may  be  seen  every  thing  of  any  consequence 
which  has  been  said  upon  the  question,  whether  the  Hebrew  ought  to  be  rendered  by  he  or  she  ; 
but  I  am  quite  certain  that  the  result  of  unprejudiced  examination  must  be,   that  it  may  be  ren- 


'  Vide  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.,  Vol.  I.  p.  532.  2  Magnus  ab  integro  sSclorum  nascitur  ordo. 

3  Israel  Worsley's  Enq.  p.  13. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  5.  307 

dered  either  way.     The  two  words  N>n  eia  and  Nin  eua  Mr.  Parkhurst x  has  very  correctly  shewn 
are  convertible,  and  both  of  them  have  a  masculine  and  also  a  feminine  meaning. 

5.  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  a  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  brauch  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, 2  "  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  saluta- 
"  tion  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  came  from  the  East.  The  white  one  is  the 
Goddess  Nurtia  or  Nortia  of  the  Etruscans. 3  I  saw  in  the  palazzo  Manfreni,  at  Venice,  in  a  collec- 
tion of  Etruscan  antiquities,  some  small  figures  of  the  Virgin  and  Child  in  Bronze,  evidently  origi- 
nally from  Egypt.  In  the  Museum  F.  Gorii  will  be  found  a  print  of  an  Etruscan  Virgin  and 
Child ;   the  Goddess  Nurtia  or  Nortia,  as  he  calls  her.  4 

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.  5  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  j  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  Abbe  Pluche  admits,  what  indeed  is  evident,  that  Virgo  symbolizes  the  harvest  season. 
But  in  the  plains  of  Sennaar  the  harvest  season  is  over  several  months  before  the  sun  passes  into 
that  sign.6 


1  Vide  his  Hebrew  Grammar.  *  Travels  in  Persia,  VI.  p.  628,  4to. 

3  The  present  church  of  St.  Stephen  at  Bologna  is  formed  from  several  Heathen  temples  which  have  stood  together 
like  those  at  Tivoli  and  Ancona.  The  centre  one,  of  a  circular  form,  has  been  a  temple  of  Isis.  On  the  side  of  the 
church  is  to  be  seen  an  ancient  inscription  in  these  words  :  Dominae  victrici  Isidi. 

4  Tab.  4,  Ant.  Fran.  Gorii,  Nortia  Tuscorum  Dea.  Summa  religione  &  Volsiniensibus  et  Volaterranis  culta.  A 
statue  of  a  female  much  covered  with  drapery,  with  a  child  in  swaddling  clothes  in  her  arms.  The  head  of  the  mother 
is  broken  off,  and  the  complexion  of  the  figures  cannot  be  judged  of  from  the  print.  She  was  called  the  Magna  Dea 
by  the  Etruscans:  on  the  arm  of  the  mother  is  an  inscription  in  Etruscan  letters.  See  plates,  fig.  17;  also  Pliny, 
Lib.  xxxvi.  Cap.  vii. ;  Livy,  Lib.  vii. ;  etiam  Festum  Pompeium  :  Juvenalem,  Sat.  x.  v.  74 ;  and  the  treatise  Donianas 
inscriptiones  antiquas  Francisci  Gorii.  Class.  I.  Num.  149,  150;  Tertullian,  Apologet.  Cap.  xxiv.  Reinesius  states, 
Class.  I.  Num.  cxxxi.,  that  an  inscription  was  found  in  the  foundation  of  the  Church  of  S.  Reparatfe  at  Florence  in 
these  words— To  the  great  Goddess  Nortia.  See  also  Cicero,  Lib.  ii.  de  OfBciis ;  Martianus  Capella,  Lib.  de  Nuptiis 
Philolog.  Cap.  ix. 

5  Tome  III.  p.  90,  and  his  plate,  No.  19.    In  this  plate  is  described  the  whole  horoscope  of  the  birth  of  Jesus,  &c. 

6  Drum.  Zod.  p.  95. 

2r2 


308 


MANSIONS    OF   THE    MOON. 


The  Virgin's  having  generally  the  lotus,  bnt  sometimes  an  ear  of  wheat  in  her  hand,  arose  from 
a  very  profound  and  mysterious  doctrine-conneeted  with  the  pollen  of  plants-of  wh.ch  I  shall 

treat  hereafter,  as  already  intimated.  , 

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

Mr   Maurice  has  observed,   that  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac  cannot  be  of  Egyptian  origin  because 
thev  are  not  adapted  to  the  order  in  which  the  seasons  succeed  each  other  in  Egypt.     For  in- 
stance   Virgo  with  ears  of  ripened  corn  in  her  hand  evidently  points  to  the   season  of  harvest- 
such    in  fact    it  is  when  the  sun  enters  into  September;  but  the  corn  harvest  in  Egypt  is  in 
March      The  same  argument  applies  to  Aquarius,  which  denotes  the  chilling  cold  rains  of  winter, 
when  'in  reality,  the  depth  of  winter  is  the  season  of  pleasure  in  Egypt.2     All  the  arguments  ot 
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  Chaldaea.     Samarkand  is  the  lowest  that  can  be  admitted.     There  being  in  these  Zodiacs.no 
sign  of  the  elephant,  the  pride  of  the  animal  creation  both  in  Africa  and  India,  is  a  fact  alone  suffi- 
cient to  shew  that  the  Zodiac  is  not  an  invention  of  these  countries. 

Maia  the  mother  of  Mercury,  Mr.  Davies  says/  is  the  universal  genius  of  nature,  which  dis- 
criminated all  things,  according  to  their  various  kinds  or  species  :  the  same,  perhaps,  as  the  Meth 
of  the  Egyptians  and  the  Mtjt.c  of  the  Orphic  bards,  which  was  of  all  kinds,  and  the  author  of  all 

things— xai  Mtjt/c  tt^cotoc  ycratfOf. 

«  Sir  William  Jones  was  told  by  a  Cashmirian,  that  Maya  herself  is  the  mother  of  universal 
«  nature,  and  of  all  the  inferior  gods.  This  exactly  agrees  with  the  import  of  the  word  among  the 
«  Geeks.     Maia   properly  denotes    a  grandmother  or  a  great  mother."     Hesychius  (Lex.)  says, 

Maia,  -rraroog  xcu  ^r^os  p]T7)p.4 

We  have  seen,  I  think,  that  it  is  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt  that  Buddha  and  Mercury,  sons 
of  Maia,  were  the  same  person.  This  receives  a  very  remarkable  confirmation  from  the  fact,  that 
Mercury  was  always  called  by  the  Gentiles  the  Logos-"  The  word  that  in  the  beginning  was 
«  God,  "and  that  also  was  a  God."  5  But  this  Logos  we  have  also  shewn  to  be  the  Divine  Wis- 
dom, and  he  was,  according  to  the  Pagan  Amelius,  the  Creator.  He  says,  «  And  this  plainly  was 
the  Aoyoc  by  whom  all  things  were  made/  he  being  himself  eternal,  as  Heraclitus  would  say: 
and  by  Jove  the  same  whom  the  barbarian  affirms  to  have  been  in  the  place  and  dignity  of  a 
principal,  and  to  be  with  God,  and  to  be  God,  by  whom  all  things  were  made,  and  in  whom 
«  every  thing  that  was  made  has  its  life  and  being :  who,  descending  into  body,  and  putting  on 
«  flesh,  took  the  appearance  of  a  man,  though  even  then  he  gave  proof  of  the  majesty  of  his  na- 
«  ture  :  nay,  after  his  dissolution,  he  was  deified  again."  If  this  do  not  prove  the  identity  ot 
Buddha  and  the  Romish  Jesus  nothing  can  do  it. 

Sommona  Codom  I  consider  to  be  admitted  as  one  of  the  names  of  Buddha.  M.  La  Loubere 
says,  "  His  mother,  whose  name  is  found  in  some  of  their  Balie  books,  was  called,  as  they  say, 
«  Maha  Maria,  which  seems  to  signify  the  great  Mary,  for  Maha  signifies  great.     But  it  is  found 


a 


u 


a 


1  Maur.  Ant.  Hind.  Vol.  VII.  p.  604. 
3  Apud  Whiter,  Etym.  Univ.  p.  103. 
*  R.  Taylor,  Dieg.  pp.  183-T-185. 


*  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  I.  p.  29. 

*  Fab.  Pag.  Idol.  B.  iv.  Ch.  v.  p.  333. 
6  Ibid. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  6.  809 

"  written  Mania,  as  often  as  Maria This  ceases  not  to  give  attention  to  the  missionaries, 

"  and  has,  perhaps,  given  occasion  to  the  Siamese  to  believe  that  Jesus  being  the  Son  of  Mary  was 
"  brother  to  Sommono-Codom,  and  that  having  been  crucified,  he  was  that  wicked  brother 
"  whom  they  give  to  Sommono-Codom,  under  the  name  of  Thevetat,  and  whom  they  report  to  be 
"  punished  in  hell,  with  a  punishment  which  participates  something  op  the  cross.  The 
"  father  of  Sommona-Codom  was,  according  to  this  same  Balie  book,  a  king  of  Teve-Lanca,  that 
"  is  to  say,  a  king  of  the  famous  Ceylon." '  Cyril  of  Alexandria  calls  the  Egyptian  Mercury 
Teutat. 2  Now  Tat  has  been  shewn  to  be  one  of  the  names  of  Buddha ;  and  Teve-Lanca  is  evi- 
dently the  same  as  Deve-Lanca,  which  has  been  called  island  Lanca — in  the  same  manner  as  the 
island  in  the  West  was  called  1  or  li,  which  it  is  said  means  island ;  but  it  means  also  holt/,  or  is 
the  name  of  God.  From  all  this  it  follows  pretty  clearly,  that  Deve-Lanca,  6*r  Teve-Lanca,  means 
holy  Lanca,  or  Seren- dive,  and  that  Teve-Tat  means  holy,  or  God  or  Divus  Tat :  but  Tat  is 
Buddha;  and,  of  course,  as  Tat  is  the  son  of  Mary,  Buddha  is  the  son  of  Mary.  But  Tat,  or 
Deve-Tat,  or  Theve-Tat,  was  crucified  !  ! 

The  Mercury  of  Egypt,  Teut-tat,  is  the  same  as  the  Gothic  Thiod-tat,  or,  query,  Thiod-ad  ?3 
Here  we  come,  perhaps,  at  the  origin  of  0eo£.  Jayadeva  describes  Buddha  as  bathing  in  blood, 
or  sacrificing  his  life  to  wash  away  the  offences  of  mankind,  and  thereby  to  make  them  partakers 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  On  this  the  author  of  the  Cambridge  Key  4  says,  "  Can  a  Christian 
"  doubt  that  this  Buddha  was  the  type  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world  ?"  This  Buddha  the  Cantab, 
supposes  to  have  been  Enoch. 

The  circumstance  of  Maria  being  called  Mania  is  worthy  of  observation.  In  the  old  language, 
without  vowels,  Mn  means  moon.  Is  this  one  of  the  reasons  why  Mary  is  always  represented 
with  a  moon  in  some  way  or  other — generally  standing  on  it  ?  If  Maria  be  the  same  as  Maia,  and 
is  the  female  generative  power,  we  see  why  she  is  always  connected  with  the  moon.  This  Mary 
is  found  in  the  kingdom  of  Sion  or  Siam  in  the  city  of  Judia. 5  The  mother  of  the  gods  was 
called  Ma  in  the  Phrygian  dialect.6  In  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  languages  we  have  the  word 
Maria  N»1D  mria,  which  means  a  female  beeve,  and  also  a  wild  dove.7  The  word  in  the  Hebrew 
is  attended  with  much  difficulty.     I  suspect  it  is  in  some  way  mystical,  and  not  understood. 

Maia  the  the  mother  of  Mercury  was  the  daughter  of  Atlas.     Virgil  calls  her  Maia  or  Maja. 8 
Hesiod  calls  her  Manj. 

Tvpi  8*  ap  AtX«vti?  Ma/vj  Te>t£  xvSijWov  'E/Jjoojv. 

But  Pausanias  calls  her  Maera. 

Maipu$  <yvva.iv.ot;  ts  Teyeocrs'  SvytxTepa.  8e  AtXccvtoi;  (pamv  tivai  ti\v  Mrzipuv.  9 

Wen  is  acknowledged  to  belong  to  the  Celtic  terms  for  a  woman,  from  which  the  Latin  Venus  is 
dei'ived. 10  Then  Alma  Venus  might  mean  the  mother,  the  mother  Venus,  the  Deity-mother  woman, 
or  the  female  great  Deity.  This  Alma  might  mean  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. 


1  Part  iii.  p.  136.  *  In  Julian.    Vide  Anc.  Univer.  Hist.  VI.  p.  50;  Jameson's  Herm.  Scyth.  p.  130. 

3  Hermes  Scythicus,  Origin  of  Greeks,  p.  131 ;  Univers  Hist.  Vol.  VI.  p.  33.  *  Vol.  I.  p.  118. 

5  La  Loubere,  pp.  6,  7-  6  Sir  William  Jones,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  14.    4to. 

7  Vide  Bochart's  Opera,  Vol.  II.  p.  283.  8  Mn.  VIII.  v.  133. 

9  Arcadic.  Cap.  xlviii.  p.  698  ;  Jameson's  Hermes  Scyth.  p.  130. 
'*  Whiter,  Etymol.  Univ.  p.  757  ;  Davies  on  the  Druids,  p.  445. 


310  MONTFAUCON. — MULTIMAMMIA. 

7.  In  the  fourth  plate  of  the  first  volume  of  Montfaucon's  Antiquity  Explained  may  be  seen 
several  exemplars  of  the  Mother  of  the  Gods.  She  is  called  Cybele,  and  she  is  on  the  same 
monument  often  joined  with  Atys.  But  her  most  remarkable  name  is  that  of  Suria.  She  is 
loaded  in  some  figures  with  paps,  and  on  the  base  of  one  statue *  is  the  word  Surice.  On  another, 
Mater  Deor.  Mater  Surice.  This  figure  is  sitting,  and  is  crowned  with  a  mitre  of  the  Romish 
church,  and  in  appearance  is  altogether  the  very  picture  of  the  Pope,  when  seated  in  his  chair, 
giving  his  benediction;  with  the  exception  that  he  has  not  the  caduceus,  the  sistrum,  and  the 
emblematic  animals  with  which  she  is  covered.  She  is  evidently  the  same  as  Diana  or  the  Multi- 
mammia,  many  figures  of  which  may  be  seen  in  Montfaucon's  46th  plate.  But  the  most  remarkable 
figure  is  in  plate  47,  where  the  text  describes  her  as  black,  but  with  long  hair,  therefore  not  a  Negress. 
On  one  of  the  other  figures  are  the  words  <S>YCIC  ITANAIO  AOC  IIANT  MHT,  and  on  another, 
$>vcic  7ravaioXoc.  None  of  these  figures  seem  to  be  of  very  great  antiquity.  I  have  seen  many  of 
them  in  Rome,  but  it  has  happened  that  all  which  I  recollect  to  have  seen  have  had  white  drapery, 
— although  the  face,  hands,  and  feet,  were  black.  I  suspect  that  this  Syrian  goddess,  or  Dea  Suriae, 
or  Syriae,  is  of  a  far  more  eastern  origin ;  that  she  is  closely  connected  with  the  Buddhist  Syria;  that 
she  is  a  native  of  Syra-stra,  or  Syra-strene.2  In  Fig.  11  of  the  thirtieth  plate  to  the  Supplement  to 
Montfaucon's  Antiquity  Explained,  is  a  tablet,  on  which  are  described  three  females.  It  was  found 
at  Metz.  The  inscription  is,  In  honorem  Domus  Divince  Dis  Mairabus  Vicani  Vici  Pads:  In  honour 
of  the  divine  house,  to  the  Goddesses  Mains,  they  of  the  street  of  peace.  Montfaucon  thinks  them  deities 
of  the  country.  These  are  the  three  Marys  of  the  Christians,  before  Christ  was  born ;  of  course 
one  of  them  must  have  been  the  Gallic  Virgo  paritura.  A  plate  of  this  and  of  several  other 
German  triads  maybe  seen  in  the  preface  to  Maurice's  Ind.  Ant.3  All  the  three  women  who 
attended  Jesus  at  his  death  were  called  Marys, — Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  Mary,  the  mother  of 
James,  and  Mary  Salome.4  In  Sanval's  History  of  the  Antiquities  of  Paris,  the  virgin  is  called 
Stoile  e'clatante  de  la  mer.  He  says  that  St.  Denis  was  the  first  bishop  of  Paris  :  he  came  thither 
in  the  time  of  the  emperor  Decius. 

8.  On  a  first  examination  the  Goddess  Isis  will  be  generallly  taken  to  be  the  moon,  and  as  such 
it  will  appear  to  receive  the  adoration  of  its  votaries.  Osiris,  the  sun,  is  said  to  be  her  spouse, 
and  also  her  brother :  and  Horus,  called  the  xqcoroyovos  Qsog,  or  first-born,  is  said  to  be  their  son. 
The  name  Horus  is  derived  from  the  Hebrew  or  Phoenician  word  -|\K  our,  lux,  or  light :  but  yet 
there  are  some  circumstances  unaccountable  upon  this  supposition,  except  the  moon  was  merely 
adored  as  an  emblem  of  the  Supreme  Being.  On  the  front  of  the  temple  of  Isis  at  Sais,  under  the 
synonyme  of  Minerva,  according  to  Plutarch,  was  the  following  description  of  her  : 

I<nc  syco  sijai  tuvIo  yeyovog,  xai  ov  xcti 
e<roju,evov,  xai  to  sy.ov  7T£7tXov 
8§sjc  roiv  Qvyj 

Qo)V  COTB 
V. 


1  Fig-  3. 
*  Vide  n 
>ove.    - 

3  Vol.  V.,  ed.  8vo.  *  Calmet,  Diet,  in  voce  Salome. 


*  Vide  my  plates,  fig.  18,  taken  from  a  figure  of  the  Goddess  Multimammia,  in  Montfaucon's  47th  plate,  cited 
above. 


BOOK   VI.   CHAPTER   II.    SECTION   8.  311 

I   Isis  am   all   that   has 

been,  that  is  or  shall 

be;  no  mortal  Man 

hath  ever 

me  un- 

vei- 

le- 

d.     ■ 

This  cannot  apply  to  the  moon.  The  Indian  deity  is  described  to  be,  All  that  is,  everywhere, 
always.  On  many  words  closely  connected  with  this  topic,  almost  everyf  page  of  Sir  William 
Drummond's  Essay  on  a  Punic  Inscription  may  be  consulted. 

I  am  persuaded  that  there  is  no  subject  on  which  more  mistakes  have  been  made  than  on  that 
of  the  Goddess  Isis,  both  by  ancients  and  moderns.  She  has  constantly  been  taken  for  the  moon, 
which  in  many  countries  was  masculine.  But  she  is  constantly  declared  to  be  the  same  as  Ceres, 
Proserpine,  Juno,  Venus,  and  all  the  other  Goddesses;  therefore  they  must  all  be  the  moon.  This 
is  out  of  the  question.  The  case  I  believe  to  be  this ; — the  planet  called  the  moon  was  dedicated 
to  her  in  judicial  astrology,  the  same  as  a  planet  was  dedicated  to  Venus  or  Mars.  But  Venus 
and  Mars  were  not  those  planets  themselves,  though  those  planets  were  sacred  to  them.  The  in- 
scription in  front  of  her  temple  at  Sais  at  once  proves  that  she  cannot  be  the  moon ;  it  is  totally 
inapplicable  to  that  planet.  The  mistake  of  the  ancients  is  only  one  proof  among  hundreds,  that 
they  had  lost  the  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  their  mythology,  or  that  we  do  not  understand  it. 
I  am  of  opinion  that  much  of  the  confusion  in  the  ancient  systems  arose  from  the  neglect,  or  the 
ignorance,  of  the  distinction  between  religion  and  judicial  astrology. 

Apuleius  makes  Isis  say,  I  am  nature,  the  parent  of  all  things,  the  sovereign  of  the  elements, 
the  primary  progeny  of  time,  the  most  exalted  of  the  deities,  the  first  of  the  heavenly  Gods  and 
Goddesses ;  whose  single  deity  the  whole  world  venerates  in  many  forms,  with  various  rites,  and 
various  names.  The  Egyptians  worship  me  with  proper  ceremonies,  and  call  me  by  my  true  name, 
Queen  Isis.2  Isis  is  called  Myrionymus,  or  Goddess  with  10,000  names.3  Herodotus4  says,  that 
the  Persian  Mithra  was  Venus. 

No  person  who  has  considered  well  the  character  of  the  temples  in  India  and  Egypt,  can  help 
being  convinced  of  the  identity  of  their  character,  and  of  their  being  the  production  of  the  same 
race  of  people ;  and  this  race  evidently  Ethiopian.  The  Sphinxes  have  all  Ethiopian  faces.  The 
bust  of  Memnon  in  the  British  museum  is  evidently  Ethiopian.  The  worship  of  the  Mother  and 
Child  is  seen  in  all  parts  of  the  Egyptian  religion.  It  prevails  everywhere.  It  is  the  worship  of 
Isis  and  the  infant  Orus  or  Osiris.  It  is  the  religious  rite  which  was  so  often  prohibited  at  Rome, 
but  which  prevailed  in  spite  of  all  opposition,  as  we  find  from  the  remaining  ruins  of  its  temples. 
It  was  perhaps  from  this  country,  Egypt,  that  the  worship  of  the  black  virgin  and  child  came  into 
Italy,  where  it  still  prevails.  It  was  the  worship  of  the  mother  of  the  God  law,  the  Saviour ; 
Bacchus  in  Greece,  Adonis  in  Syria,  Cristna  in  India ;  coming  into  Italy  through  the  medium  of 
the  two  Ethiopias,  she  was,  as  the  Ethiopians  were,  black,  and  such  she  still  remains. 

Dr.  Shuckford5  has  the  following  curious  passage :  "We  have  several  representations  in  the 
"  draughts  of  the  same  learned  antiquary  (Montfaucon),  which  are  said  to  be  Isis,  holding  or 


1  Basnage,  p.  217 ;  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  682—684.  2  Metamorph.  Lib.  xi.,  Payne  Knight,  p.  6/. 

3  Squire's  Plutarch,  de  Iside  et  Osir.  cap.  liii.  p.  74.  4  Clio.  Sect,  cxxxi. 

*  Con.  Book  viii.  p.  311.  . 


312  MONTFAUCON. — MULTIMAMMIA. 


"  giving  suck  to  the  boy  Orus  ;  but  it  should  be  remarked,  that  Orus  was  not  represented  by  the 
"figure  of  a  new-born  child:  for  Plutarch  expressly  tells  us,  that  a  new-born  child  was  the 
"Egyptian  picture  of  the  sun's  rising."1  Plutarch  and  Montfaucon  were  both  right.  Orus 
was  the  sun,  and  the  infant  child  was  the  picture  of  the  sun,  in  his  infancy  or  birth,  im- 
mediately after  the  winter  solstice — when  he  began  to  increase.  Orus,  I  repeat,  is  nothing  but  the 
Hebrew  word  "iin  aur,  lux,  light  —  the  very  light  so  often  spoken  of  by  St.  John,  in  the  first 
chapter  of  his  gospel.  Plutarch2  says,  that  Osiris  means  a  benevolent  and  beneficent  power,  as 
does  likewise  his  other  name  Omphis.  In  a  former  book  I  have  taken  much  pains  to  discover  the 
meaning  of  Omphi.     After  all,  is  it  any  thing  but  the  Om,  with  the  Coptic  emphatic  article  Pi  ? 

There  is  no  more  reason  for  calling  Tsis  the  moon,  than  the  earth.  She  was  called  by  all  the 
following  names  :  Minerva,  Venus,  Juno,  Proserpina,  Ceres,  Diana,  Rhea  seu  Tellus,  Pessinuncia, 
Rhamnusia,  Bellona,  Hecate,  Luna,  PolymorphusDaemon.3  But  most  of  these  have  been  shewn  to  be 
in  fact  all  one — the  Sun.  Tsis,  therefore,  can  be  nothing  but  the  sun,  or  the  being  whose  residence 
was  the  sun.  This  being  we  have  seen  was  both  masculine  and  feminine :  I  therefore  con- 
clude that  Isis  was  no  other  than  the  first  cause  in  its  feminine  character,  as  Osiris  was  the  first 
cause  in  the  masculine.  The  inscriptions  cited  above,  upon  the  temples  of  Isis,  completely 
negative  the  idea  of  her  being  the  moon.  From  Pausanias4  we  learn  that  the  most  ancient  statue 
of  Ceres  amongst  the  Phigalenses  was  black ;  and  in  chap,  vi.,  that  at  a  place  called  Melangea,  in 
Arcadia,  was  a  Venus  who  was  black,  the  reason  for  which,  as  given  by  him,  evidently  shews  that 
it  was  unknown.  At  Athens,  Minerva  Aglaurus,  daughter  of  Cecrops,  was  black,  according  to 
Ovid,  in  his  Metamorphoses.5  Jerom  observed,  that  "Juno  has  her  priestesses  devoted  to  one 
"  husband,  Vesta  her  perpetual  virgins,  and  other  idols  their  priests,  also  under  the  vows  of 
"  chastity."6  The  Latin  Diana  is  the  contract  of  Diva  Jana.7  Gale  says  they  styled  the  moon 
"  Urania,  Juno,  Jana,  Diana,  Venus,  &c. ;  and  as  the  sun  was  called  Jupiter,  from  i"J>  fie, J  ja, 
'  7raT7]g,  and  Janus  from  n>  fie)  Jah,  the  proper  name  of  God  ;8  so  Juno  is  referred  to  the  moon, 
"  and  comes  from  rr  (ie)  Jah,  the  proper  name  of  God,  as  Jacchus  from  n>  (ie)  ja-ch\i&.  Amongst 
"  the  ancient  Romans  Jana  and  Juno  were  the  same."9  That  the  moon  was  the  emblem  of  the 
passive  generative  power  cannot  be  denied,  but  this  was  merely  astrological,  not  religious.  She 
was  not  considered  the  passive  power  itself,  as  the  sun  was  himself  considered  the  active  power, — 
but  merely  as  the  planets  were  considered :  for  though  the  planet  was  called  Jupiter,  as  I  have 
before  observed,  that  planet  was  not  considered  Lord  of  heaven,  the  Great  Creator. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  informed,  by  a  friend,  since  deceased,  that  he  had  seen  a  church  (I  think) 
in  the  Netherlands,  dedicated  to  the  Black  Virgin,  au  Vierge  Noire.  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  fact, 
though  I  have  forgotten  the  place.  Here  we  have  the  black  Venus  and  Ceres.  To  make  the 
thing  complete,  we  want  nothing  but  a  church  dedicated  to  the  Black  Saviour ;  and  if  we  cannot 
shew  this,  there  is  scarcely  a  church  in  Italy  where  a  black  bambino  may  not  be  seen,  which 
comes  very  near  it.  If  Pausanias  had  told  us  that  the  infant  Jupiter10  which  he  found  in  Arcadia 
had  been  black,  we  should  have  had  all  we  required;  for  he  had  before  told  us,11  that  Jupiter  had 
the  title  of  Saviour,  and  Statius  tells  us  he  was  black.12 

Heres  signifies  the  sun,  but  in  the  Arabic  the  meaning  of  the  radical  word  is  to  preserve,  and  of 


1  Lib.  de  Iside  et  Osiride,  p.  355.  *  De  Iside  et  Osiride,  Sect,  xlii.,  Squire. 

3  Kircher,  (Ed.  Egypt.  Tom.  I.  p.  188.  *  Book  viii.  eh.  v.  and  ch.  xlii.  *  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  151. 

6  Priestley,  Hist.  Cor.  Vol.  II.  p.  386.  7  Voss.  de  Idolat.  Lib.  ii.  cap.  xxv.  8  lb.  xxvi. 

0  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  31/.  ed.  4to.  10  Book  viii.  ch.  xxxi.  "  Book  ii.  ch.  xx. 

18  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  299,  ed.  4to.    Vide  my  plates,  fig.  20,  from  Montfaucon. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  9.  313 

haris,  guardian,  preserver.1  This  is  the  name  of  the  Messiah  Cyrus,  and  also  of  Ceres,  for  it  is 
only  a  different  way  of  pronouncing  the  same  word,  aspirated  or  not,  and  this  makes  out  a  Ceres  or 
Heres  of  both  the  masculine  and  feminine  genders.  All  this  is  easily  accounted  for,  on  the  andro- 
gynous principle.  Hara-Hara  is  a  name  of  Maha-Deva,  which  is  Great  God;  Heri  means 
Saviour.  When  people  are  in  great  distress  they  call  on  Maha-Deva  by  the  name  of  Hara-Hara.2 
In  Greek,  A[A[xa  Amma  means  at  once  Mother  and  Great  Mother  of  all  the  Earth.  Ceres  is 
called  Alma  Ceres,  and  among  the  Trcezenians,  Amcea.3  The  generative  principle  is  considered 
to  have  existed  before  light,  and  to  be  the  mother  of  both  gods  and  men,  as  the  generative  source 
of  all  things.  In  this  character  she  is  the  black  Venus  of  Orpheus,4  and  the  black  Maia  or  Maria 
of  Italy,  the  Regina  Cceli,  Regina  Stellarum,  &c.  "  From  the  God  Maius  of  the  Etruscans,  and 
"  his  wife  Maia,  the  month  of  May  received  its  denomination  :  and  at  its  commencement,  when  the 
"  sun  entered  into  Taurus,  were  celebrated  in  their  honour  those  phallic  mysteries,  of  which  the 
"  now  almost  obsolete  May-games  are  a  transcript  and  a  relic."5  Jupiter,  Bacchus,  Hercules, 
Apollo,  iEsculapius,  had  each  the  appellation  of  Saviour.  They  are  all  indeed  the  same  person — 
Jehovah.   Stukeley6  allows  that  the  thyrsus  of  Bacchus  is  only  the  rod  of  Aaron  and  Moses,  called 

nnn  pinus.7 

9.  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,  Ora  our  God).     One  may  see 
in  the  sphere  the  image  of  the  infant  god  Day,  in  the  arms  of  the  constellation  under  which  he 
was  born,  and  all  the  images  of  the  virgin  offered  to  the  veneration  of  the  people  represent  her,  as 
in  the  sphere,  nursing  a  mystical  infant,  who  would  destroy  evil,  confound  the  prince  of  darkness, 
regenerate  nature,  and  rule  over  the  universe.     On  the  front  of  the  temple  of  Isis  at  Sais  was  this 
inscription,  below  that  which  I  have  given  above :  "  The  fruit  which  I  have  brought  forth  is  the 
"  sun."     This  Isis,  Plutarch  says,  is  the  chaste  Minerva,  who,  without  fearing  to  lose  her  title  of 
virgin,  says  she  is  the  mother  of  the  sun.8    This  is  the  same  virgin  of  the  constellations  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.9 

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 
Roman  calendar  of  Columella  marks  at  this  epoch  the  death  or  disappearance  of  the  virgin.     The 


1  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  313.  8  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  137.  3  Whiter,  Etym.  Univ.  p.  107. 

*    Orph.  Hymn,  lxxxiii.  5,  ii.  1,2;  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  HI.  p.  49.  s  Fab.  Pag.  Idol.  Book  iv.  ch.  v.  p.  397. 

6  Pal.  Sac.  I.  p.  27.  '  lb.  p.  28.  8  Plutarch,  de  Iside,  p.  354 ;  Procl.  in  Tim.  p.  30. 

9  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  pp.  40,  &c  ,  4to. 

2  s 


314  ISIS   AND   THE   MOON. 

sun,  it  says,  passes  into  the  Virgin  the  13th  before  the  kalends  of  September.  The  Christians 
place  here  the  assumption,  or  reunion  of  the  Virgin  to  her  Son.  This  used  to  be  called  the  feast 
of  the  passage  of  the  Virgin.  At  the  end  of  three  weeks,  the  birth  of  the  Virgin  Mary  is  fixed. 
In  the  ancient  Roman  Calendar  the  assumption  of  the  virgin  Astrea,  or  her  reunion  to  her  son, 
took  place  at  the  same  time  as  the  assumption  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  her  birth  or  her  disengagement 
from  the  solar  rays  at  the  same  time  with  the  birth  of  Mary.1  How  is  it  possible  to  believe  that 
these  extraordinary  coincidences  are  the  effect  of  accident  ? 2  Every  particular  necessary  to  consti- 
tute actual  identity  is  found  in  the  two  systems,  which  the  reader  will  find  explained  at  much 
greater  length  by  M.  Dupuis.  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  should  become  pregnant  by 
the  holv  ghost.  "  The  Pamylia  were  on  the  25th  of  the  month  Phamenoth,  and  on  the  new  moon 
"  of  that  month  the  ancient  Egyptians  celebrated  the  entrance  of  Osiris  into  the  moon,"  or  Isis. 

This,  "  Plutarch  says,3  is  the  beginning  of  the  spring '  The  moon  is  impregnated  by  the 

"  sun.'     Nine  months  after,  at  the  winter  solstice,  Harpocrates  is  born.     It  is  no  wonder,  there- 
"  fore,  that  Dupuis4-  compares  the  Pamylia,  a  word  which  in  Coptic,  according  to  Jablonski,5 
"  means    *  annunciation,    to  the  annunciation   of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  which   is  marked   in  our 
"  calendars  on  the  25th  of  March,  four  days  after  the  vernal  equinox,  and  nine  months  before  the 
birth  of  Christ."6 

The  identity  of  the  Holy  Virgin  of  the  Christians  and  of  that  of  the  Gentiles  had  been  observed 
before  M.  Dupuis's  time.  Albert  the  Great  says,7  that  the  sign  of  the  celestial  virgin  rises 
above  the  horizon  at  the  moment  in  which  we  fix  the  birth  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. — All  the 
mysteries  of  his  divine  incarnation,  and  all  the  secrets  of  his  miraculous  life,  from  his  conception 
even  to  his  ascension,  are  traced  in  the  constellations,  and  figured  in  the  stars  which  announced 
them.  For  a  more  detailed  proof  of  the  assertion  of  Albert,  the  reader  may  consult  Dupuis.8 
Bochart9  says,  that  Leo  X.  gave  the  Virgin  Mary  the  title  of  Goddess.  Pelloutier,10  as  noticed 
before,11  has  observed,  that  more  than  a  hundred  yeai's  before  the  Christian  sera,  in  the  territory  of 
Chartres,  among  the  Gauls,  honours  were  paid  to  the  virgin  (virgini  paritur^e)  who  was  about 
to  give  birth  to  the  God  of  Light.  That  this  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.12 

Adonis,  the  Syrian  God,  was  the  son  of  Myrrha.13  This  Myrrha  was  feigned  to  be  changed  into 
a  tree  of  the  same  name  with  it,  consecrated  by  the  Eastern  nations  to  the  sun.14  This  was  what 
was  offered  by  the  Magi  to  Christ  at  his  birth.  The  trifling,  but  still  striking,  coincidences 
between  the  worship  of  the  god  Sol  and  the  stories  of  Jesus  are  innumerable.15 

Kircber  the  Jesuit  gives  an  astrological16  account  of  the  seven  planets,  of  the  twelve  signs  of 


1  On  the  8th  of  September  in  our  calendars     What  can  have  induced  our  priests  to  retain  this  figment  of  Heathen- 
ism I  do  not  know,  and  do  not  think  it  worth  the  trouble  of  inquiring. 

2  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  p.  48,  4to.  »  De  Iside,  cap.  xliii.  *  Tom.  I.  pp.  375—409,  ed.  4to. 

4  Lib.  v.  cap.  vii.  sect.  v.  6  Mr.  Carlile's  Republican,  Vol.  XII.  No.  xii.  p.  371.  7  Lib.  de  (Jnivers. 

8  Vol.  III.  p.  47,  and  notes,  p.  318,  ed.  4to.  9  Against  Veron.  p.  815. 

10  Hist,  des  Celtes,  liv.  v.  p.  15;  Dupuis,  Vol.  HI.  p.  51.  "  In  Book  v.  ch.  ii.  sect.  2. 

14  Ch.  v.  sect.  viii.  and  xxxvii.  13  Dupuis,  Vol.  II  p.  157,  ed.  4to. 

14  Vide  Kircher,  (Ed.  Tom.  II.  Part  ii.  p.  206.  15  Dupuis,  Vol.  II.  p.  272,  notes,  ed.  4to. 

16  The  whole  of  this  part  of  Kircher's  work  is  a  development  of  the  judicial  astrology  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Arabians, 
and  the  Hebrews,  which  he  shews  to  have  been  common  to  them  all. 


BOOK    VI.    CHAPTER    II.    SECTION    11.  315 

the  Zodiac,  of  the  thirty- six  ciecans  into  which  the  twelve  signs  were  divided,  and  Be  48  Asteris- 
mis,  sive  mansionibus  Deorum  avrirsyyoiV  :  in  the  latter  of  which  he  has  the  words,  In  medio 
autem  horum  numinum,  Mithram,  quern  et  Msa-irrjV,  hoc  est  Mediatorem,  ponebant,  id  est,  Solem. 
He  afterwards  has  the  following  heading  to  a  chapter,  p.  200:  Dispositio  Iconismorum,  qua 
Egyptii  ex  mente  Avenaris,  singulorum  signorum  dodecatemoria,  in  tres  fades  subdiviserunt,  singu- 
lisque  faciebus  appropriatas  imagines  attribuerunt ;  in  which  is  this  passage  : 

"  5.  Intra  Virginis  et  Librae  mansiones  ascendunt  aspis  magna,  quae  et  Agathodaemon  Ophionius 
"  dicitur,   una  cum  cratere  vini,  teste  Avenar.     Tametsi   Indorum  astrologi  hoc  loco   arborem 
"  ponant  magnam,  in  cujus  ramis  Canis  et  Ibis  existant.     Sed  audiamus  verba  authoris  :  Ascendit- 
"  que l  ibi  arbor  magna,  in  cujus  ramis  Canis  et  Ciconia,  quae  et  Ibis  dicitur,  et  a  Philostorgid  ap- 
"  pellatur  Hebrceis  Rachama  noam  rh/cme.     Nihilque  hoc  aliud,  quam  stationem  Mercurialium 
"  Numinum  indigitabant.     Dicunt  praeterea  ^Egyptii  apud  Avenarem,  hoc  loco  poni  virginem  pul- 
"  chram,  capillorum  longitudine  spectabilem,  duas  in  manu  spicas  habentem ;  sedet  autem  in  throno, 
"  et  puerum  lactat  parvulum,  nutritque  ipsum  sumrna.  diligentia.     Verum  cum  verba  Avenar  con- 
"  sideratione  dignissima  sint,  ea  hie  adduco  :  2  In  prima,  inquii  facie  virginis,  ascendit  virgo  pul- 
"  chra,  longis  capillis  et  duas  in  manu  spicas  continet,  sedetque  supra  sedem,  et  nutrit  puerum  adhuc 
"  parvulum,  et  lactat  eum,  et  cibat  eum.     Expressius  multo  Albumazar  ea  in  suo  in  astrologiam 
"  introductory  describit,  quae  verba  allegat  Stefflerus  in  Sphaera  Procli ;  ita  autem  disserit :  Oritur 
"  in  primo  virginis  decano  puella,  Arabice  dicta 3  Aderenosa,  id  est,  virgo  munda,  virgo  immaculata, 
"  corpore  decora,   vultu  venusta,  habitu  modesta,   crine  prolixo,  manu  duas  aristas  tenens,  supra 
"  solium  aulceatum  residens,  puerum  nutriens,  ac  jure  pascens,  in  loco,  cui  nomen  Hebresa,  puerum 
"  dico  a  quibusdam  nationibus  nominatum  lesum,  signifcantibus  Issa,  quern  et  Greece  Christum 
"  dicunt.     Haec  Albumazar.     Ex  his  manifesto  patet,   Salvatorem  nostrum   ex  illibata  Virgine 
"  natum  indigitari.     Oritur  ergo  haec  virgo  Iesum  pascens.     Pudeat  hie  protervos  Hebraeos,  dum 
virginem  matrem  renuunt,  cum  tantis  aetatibus,  tot  ante  secula  Gentiles  ista  praeviderint.     Quod 
"  si  Verpus  dicat :  Non  dicunt  hi  ipsam  virginem  pueri  illius  matrem,  sed  tantum  jure  ipsum  pas- 
"  centem :  erubescat  infelix,  quia  quae  jure  ipsum  pascet,  non  nisi  mater  est.     Simile  quid  legitur 
"  apud  Sybillam  Europaeam :  Veniet  montes  et  colles  transiliens,  et  in  paupertate  regnans  cum  silentio 
"  dominandi  e  Virginis  vase  exiliet.     Ponitur  quoque  hoc  eodem  loco  ab  .ZEgyptiis  figura  hominis 
"  Tavpou.o^8,  id  est,  figurae  Taurinae.     Ita  Avenar."  4 

11.  Mr.  Faber  says,  Jesus  was  not  called  originally  Jesus  Christ,  but  Jescua  Hammassiah. 
Jescua  is  the  same  as  Joshua  and  Jesus,  and  means  Saviour ;  and  Ham  is  evidently  the  Om  of 
India,  (the  Ammon,)  and  Messiah  is  the  anointed.  It  will  then  be,  The  Saviour  Om  the  anointed ; 
precisely  as  Isaiah  had  literally  foretold :  or,  reading  in  the  Hebrew  mode,  The  anointed  Om  the 
Saviour.  This  was  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Bethlehem.  The  name  of  Jesus  also  was  Jesus  ben 
Panther.  Jesus  was  a  very  common  name  with  the  Jews.  Stukeley  observes,  that  the  patro- 
nymic of  Jesus  Christ  was  Panther;  and  that  Panthers  were  the  nurses  and  bringers  up  of 
Bacchus;  and  adds,  "  'Tis  remarkable  that  Panther  waff  the  sirname  of  Joseph's  family,  our  Lord's 
"  foster-father.     Thus  the   Midrashkoheleth,  or  gloss,  upon  Ecclesiastes  :  '  It  happened  that  a 


1  Hebrew  text  omitted.       -  *  Hebrew  omitted.  3  Corrupte. 

<  Kircher,  (Edip.  ./Egypt.  Tom.  III.  cap.  v.  p.  203.  For  more  particulars  upon  this  subject  my  reader  may  consult 
Drumtnond's  (Edip.  Jud.  p.  277;  also  p.  318  of  Dupuis'  notes,  Vol.  III.  ed.  4to.  The  Jesuit  Riccioli  calls  this  virgin 
of  the  Sphere  Virgo  Dei  para.  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  pp.  2,  52,  ed.  4to.  She  had  the  name  of  Ceres,  whom  Hesychius 
calls  the  Holy  Virgin.  Ibid.  Avecenna  calls  her  Isis,  the  mother  of  the  young  Horus,  who  died  and  rose  from  the 
dead.     Ibid. 

2s2 


a 


316  LUNAR    MANSIONS. 

"  '  serpent  bit  R.  Eleasar  ben  Damah,  and  James,  a  man  of  the  village  Secania,  came  to  heal  him 
"  '  in  the  name  of  Jesus  ben  Panther.'  This  is  likewise  in  the  book  called  Abodazara,  where  the 
"  comment  upon  it  says,  This  James  was  a  disciple  of  Jesus  the  Nazarene" 

Here,  in  this  accidental  notice  of  Jesus,  by  these  two  Jewish  works,  is  a  direct  and  unexception- 
able proof  of  his  existence ;  it  is  unexceptionable,  because,  if  it  be  not  the  evidence  of  unwilling 
witnesses,  it  is  the  evidence  of  disinterested  ones.  On  this  I  shall  have  occasion  to  say  more 
hereafter.  No  one  will  dispute  the  piety  of  Dr.  Stukeley.  The  similarity  of  the  circumstances 
related  of  Jesus  and  Bacchus  could  not  be  denied,  and  therefore  he  accounts  for  it  by  supposing 
that  God  had  revealed  to  the  Heathen  part  of  what  was  to  happen  in  future.  This  may  be  satis- 
factory to  some  persons,  as  it  was  no  doubt  to  the  Doctor.  The  accidental  manner  in  which  the 
assertion  is  made,  that  the  father  of  Jesus  was  called  Panther,  removes  the  possibility  of  account- 
ing for  it  by  attributing  it  to  the  malice  of  the  Jews.  In  a  former  chapter  it  has  been  proved  that 
Bacchus  was  mistaken  by  the  Romish  priests  for  Jesus.  Here  the  reader  sees  that  the  pious  Dr. 
Stukeley  has  proved,  as  might  be  expected,  that  the  mother  of  Bacchus  is  the  same  person  as  the 
mother  of  Jesus,  viz.  Mary.  And  as  the  persons  who  brought  up  Jesus  were  called  Panthers,  the 
name  of  an  animal,  so  Bacchus  was  brought  up  by  the  same  kind  of  animal,  a  panther.  When 
the  reader  reflects  that  the  whole  Roman  Christian  doctrine  is  founded,  as  the  Roman  Church 
admits,  on  tradition,  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  similarity  of  the  systems. 
The  circumstance  of  Joseph's  family  name  being  supposed  to  be  Panther,  is  remarkably  confirmed 
by  Epiphanius, 1  who  says,  that  Joseph  was  the  brother  of  Cleophas,  the  son  of  James,  sirnamed 
Panther.  Thus  we  have  the  fact  both  from  Jewish  and  Christian  authorities.2  It  is  very  clear 
that  Bacchus's  Panther  must  have  been  copied  from  that  of  Jesus  or  IHS,  or  that  of  Jesus  from 
Bacchus's.     I  leave  the  matter  with  my  reader. 

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  other  women,  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. 

I  know  very  well  what  the  devotees  have  said  to  conceal  the  fact  of  the  Virgin's  family,  but  it 
is  all  answered  at  once  by  the  observation,  that  if  James,  &c,  were  the  children  of  Joseph  by  a 
former  wife,  they  were  not  brothers  of  Jesus,  but  half-brothers.  They  are  totally  different  things. 
But  what  folly  there  is  in  all  this  !    Is  there  any  thing  wrong  in  a  married  woman  having  a  family  ? 

12.  It  is  well  known  that  almost  all  the  oriental  nations,  the  Hindoos,  the  Persians,  the  Syrians, 
the  Arabians,  the  Egyptians,  the  Copts,  and,  I  believe,  the  Jews  in  their  astrology,  had  a  Lunar 
Zodiac  divided  into  28  parts,  allusive  to  the  days  in  the  moon's  period — called  the  mansions  of  the 
moon.  Over  each  of  these  divisions  a  genius  or  daemon  presided.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
was  the  same  system  in  all  these  nations,  and  probably  the  doctrines  held  respecting  it  may  have 
been  originally  the  same  in  each  of  them,  although  it  may  not  be  possible  to  demonstrate  this 
by  a  rigorous  proof:  but  for  the  sake  of  argument  I  shall  consider  them  the  same.     The  access  to 


1  Hseres.  78,  Antidic.  S.  vii.  s  See  Jones  on  the  Canon,  Vol.  II.  p.  137. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  12.  317 

these  mansions  was  supposed  to  be  by  the  milky  way,  as  it  was  called  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
who,  not  understanding  it,  as  usual,  invented  a  story  of  their  own  to  account  for  it. l 

But  the  original  oriental  name  was  the  strawey  way — via  straminis  seu  paleae — and  was  thus 
called  from  an  astronomical  allegory  of  the  celestial  virgin,  who,  fleeing  from  the  evil  principle 
Typhon,  let  fall  some  of  the  ears  of  corn,  or  corn  in  the  straw,  which  she  carried  in  one  of  her 
hands.  This  celestial  virgin  was  feigned  to  be  a  mother :  she  is  represented  in  the  Indian  Zodiac 
of  Sir  William  Jones  with  ears  of  corn  in  one  hand,  and  the  lotus  in  the  other :  in  Kircher's 
Zodiac  of  Hermes,  she  has  corn  in  both  hands.  In  other  planispheres  of  the  Egyptian  priests 
she  carries  ears  of  corn  in  one  hand,  and  the  infant  Horus  in  the  other.  In  Roman  Catholic 
countries,  she  is  generally  represented  with  the  child  in  one  hand,  and  the  lotus  or  lily  in  the 
other.  This  milky  way  is  placed  immediately  under  that  degree  of  North  latitude,  which  is  called 
the  tropic  of  Cancer,  and  the  two  tropics  of  Cancer  and  Capricorn  have  been  called  by  the 
astrologers  the  Gates  of  Heaven  or  the  Sun ;  2  at  each  of  which  the  sun  arrives  in  his  annual 
progress.  The  reason  why  these  two  lines  were  called  the  gates  was  this :  they  were  the  boun- 
daries to  the  North  and  South,  beyond  which  the  sun  never  extended  his  course.  The  space 
between  them  might  be  called  the  dominion  of  the  sun,  and  when  you  passed  into  the  space 
between  them  you  might  be  said  to  pass  into  his  kingdom.  The  Southern  gate  is  called  the 
tropic  of  Capricorn,  an  amphibious  animal,  half  goat  hdMfish,  in  our  present  Zodiacs,  but  in  the 
most  ancient  Zodiacs  of  India,  it  is  described  as  two  entire  beings,  a  goat  and  a  fish. 

The  Brahmins  also  call  the  tropics  of  Cancer  and  Capricorn  the  Gates  of  the  Sun.  Kircher, 
in  his  GEdipus  Egyptiacus, 3  has  undertaken  to  give  the  names  of  the  daemons  or  genii  who 
presided  over  each  of  the  Lunar  mansions,  and  the  meanings  of  these  names.  The  sincerity  of 
the  learned  old  Jesuit  cannot  be  doubted,  though  some  of  his  etymologies  may.  He  states  that 
the  first  is  called  the  gate  of  the  fish.  This  evidently  alludes  to  the  Indian  sign  of  Capricorn, 
and  is  very  satisfactory.  The  thirteenth  is  called  the  station  of  love  by  the  Egyptians  or  Copts  ; 
by  the  Arabs,  the  alzarphet,  or  that  which  takes  away  cold ;  and  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans  the 
ear  of  corn.  Of  this  Cicero  says,  Spicam  illustrem  tenens  splendenti  corpore  Virgo.  Kircher  says, 
Incipit  hsec  statio  a  quarto  virginis,  et  terminatur  in  decimo  octavo  gradu  ejusdem  dodecatemorii 
Virginis.     Genius  est  Masaiel;  statio  pacis  et  unionis  conjugalis. 

The  following  passage  is  from  p.  278  of  Sir  William  Drummond's  CEdipus  Judaicus :  "  poi^n 
"  (hsmun)  Heshmon.  It  is  clear  that  the  letters  in  this  name  have  been  transposed,  and  probably 
"  for  a  mysterious  purpose.  In  the  Onomasticon,  the  word  Heshmon  is  brought  from 
"  nttfO  (mshj  unxit,  and  even  the  English  reader  will  easily  see  that  this  is  only  a  transposition 
"  of  the  radicals  in  p-ojyn  (hsm-un).  The  Jews,  in  fact,  pretend  that  one  Messiah  fritfD  frnsih) 
"  was  to  be  born  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  another  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim.4  This  Heshmon 
"  seems  to  indicate  him  who  was  the  anointed  of  Judah,  and  who  indeed  is  called  Ben-Jehudah, 
"  Judah's  son."  Let  us  inquire  if  there  be  any  astronomical  allusion  here.  "  Again,"  he  says, 
**  Immediately  on  leaving  the  sign  of  Leo,  the  emblem  of  Judah,  the  sun  passes  into  the  sign 
"  where,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  ancient  Persians,  Arabians,  and  Syrians,  depicted  Virgo 
"  with  a  male  infant  in  her  arms.    Now  I  observe,  that  the  Arabians  make  Messaiel,  the  pro- 


1  It  was  said  to  have  the  name  of  milky,  from  its  whiteness,  which  was  caused  by  the  accidental  spilling  on  the  ground 
of  some  of  the  milk  of  Juno. 

2  Porphyry,  Cave  of  the  Nymphs,  Taylor,  p.  193.  3  Vol.  III.  Cap.  x.  p.  241. 

4  We  see  here  that  one  Messiah  was  to  come  from  the  tribe  of  Judah  under  the  tropic  of  Capricorn,  the  other  from 
the  tribe  of  Ephraim,  the  exactly  opposite  in  the  camps  of  the  Hebrews.  See  Drummond,  plate  15,  which  would  place 
him  in  the  tropic  of  Cancer.     (Can  the  reader  doubt  the  astrological  meaning  of  all  this  ?) 


318  BACCHUS   AN    IMAGINARY   PERSONAGE. 

"  tecting  genius  in  the  sign  of  Virgo. 1     This  Messaiel  seems  a  manifest  corruption  from  Messiah- 

"  El.     It  is  vain  to  talk  of  the  Shin  being  dageshed  by  the  Masorites, 

"  or  of  the  aspirate  being  suppressed.  We  ourselves  suppress  the  sound  of  the  aspirate  in  Eve, 
"  Messiah,  and  many  other  words.  Besides,  the  Syrians  certainly  often  softened  the  harsh 
"  aspirate  ;  and  the  Arabians  may  have  caught  the  sound  from  them.  Mesai-El,  then  appears  to 
"  be  a  corruption  for  bn-WW  (msih-al)  Messiah-El — the  anointed  of  El,  the  male  infant,  who 
"  rises  in  the  arms  of  Virgo,  who  was  called  Jesus  by  the  Hebrews,  that  is,  ywy  (iuso)  the  Saviour, 
"  and  was  hailed  the  anointed  king  or  Messiah." 

When  it  is  considered  that  this  Heshmon,  and  the  whole  of  the  towns  specified  in  this  passage 
of  Joshua,  are  part  of  the  allotment  given  to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  a 
close  connexion  with  the  Christian  Messiah  will  be  found  here.  Sir  W.  Drummond  has  shewn, 
that  all  the  names  of  the  other  places  which  are  certainly  understood  have  an  allegorical  meaning 
allusive  to  the  heavenly  bodies.  It  must  also  be  recollected  that  these  astrological  circumstances 
preceded  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ. 


CHAPTER  III. 

BACCHUS     AN     IMAGINARY    PERSONAGE.  —  OPINIONS     OF    DIFFERENT    AUTHORS.  —  SUBJECT     CONTINUED. — 
BACCHUS   IN    INDIA.      MOUNT   MERU. — ADVENTURES   SIMILAR   TO   THOSE   OF  CRISTNA. 

I.  We  will  now  make  a  few  inquiries  respecting  the  celebrated  God  Bacchus,  the  son  of  the 
Goddess  of  whom  we  have  been  treating. 

Diodorus  Siculus  acknowledges  that  some  historians  maintained  that  Bacchus  never  appeared 
on  earth  in  a  human  shape. 2  Had  we  but  the  works  of  these  authors,  probably  at  that  time  des- 
pised, we  should  see  the  truth,  which  their  narrow-minded  contemporaries  were  not  able  to 
appreciate.  Diodorus  Siculus  also  says, 3  that  the  Libyans  claim  Bacchus,  and  say  that  he  was 
the  son  of  Amnion,  a  king  of  Libya,  who  reigned  in  a  city  called  Ammon ;  that,  after  various 
adventures,  he  returned  to  Libya,  and  built  a  temple  to  his  father  Ammon.  The  account  of 
Diodorus  is  full  of  contradiction,  but  the  result  is,  that  Bacchus  built  the  temple  of  Ammon,  and 
was  succeeded  by  Jupiter;  consequently  that  the  Bull  worship  preceded  the  Ram-headed  Jupiter. 
Plutarch4  says,  that  Bacchus  was  the  same  deity  as  Osiris,  and  that  he  was  also  the  same  as  the 
Egtoc  TrpuiToyovog  of  Orpheus  and  Hesiod.  The  word  Ammon  in  Greek  is  often  written  A/xui/ : 
this  is,  when  written  from  right  to  left,  Numa.5  It  is  also  written  OjU.ai/o£.  In  Hebrew  the  word 
is  written  poy  o?nun,  which,  if  read  from  left  to  right,  is  Numo.  In  the  last  chapter  it  was  noticed 
that  Osiris  was  called  Om-phi,  and  that  Om-phi  might  be  merely  Pi-Om — The  Ora :  Pi  being 
the  Coptic  emphatic  article.     Plutarch 6  says,  Phylarchus  taught  that  Bacchus  first  brought  into 


1  See  Kircher's  (Edipus,  Vol.  III.  p.  245.  *  Lib.  iii.  p.  137-  3  Ibid.  iii.  4    De  Iside  et  Osiride. 

5  Nothing  was  more  common  with  the  ancients  than  to  transpose  the  letters  of  names,  or  to  write  in  anagrams  for 
the  sake  of  secresy. 

6  De  Iside  et  Osiride. 


BOOK  VI,    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  2.  319 

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 
Sacaae. 1  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  or  grapes. 2  The  Pope  is  always  accompanied  by  one 
or  two  large  fans  made  of  feathers.  The  Buddhist  priests  of  Ceylon  always  have  the  same, — as 
Mr.  Robinson  says,  the  mystic  fan  of  Bacchus.3  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. 

Porphyry 4  says,  "  Hence,  a  place  near  to  the  equinoctial  circle  was  assigned  to  Mithra  as  an 
"  appropriate  seat.  And  on  this  account  he  bears  the  sword  of  Aries,  which  is  a  martial  sign. 
"  He  is  likewise  carried  in  the  Bull,  which  is  the  sign  of  Venus  j  for  Mithra,  as  well  as  the  Bull, 
"  is  the  demiurgus  and  Lord  of  Generation."  Again,5  he  says,  "  Thus  also  the  Greeks  united  a 
"ram  to  the  statue  of  Jupiter:  but  the  horns  of  a  bull  to  that  of  Bacchus."  Again,6  "Homer 
"  calls  the  period  and  revolution  of  regeneration  in  a  circle  Circe,  the  daughter  of  the  Sun,  who 
"  perpetually  connects  and  combines  all  corruption  with  generation,  and  generation  with  corrup- 
"  tion."  Again,7  "Nymphs,  says  Hermias,8  are  Goddesses  who  preside  over  generation,  and  are 
"  the  attendants  of  Bacchus,  the  son  of  Semele.  On  this  account  they  are  present  with  water, 
"  that  is,  they  ascend,  as  it  were,  and  rule  over  generation.  But  this  Dionysius,  or  Bacchus, 
"  supplies  the  regeneration  of  every  sensible  nature." 

2.  Bacchus  and  Osiris  are  the  same  person,  and  that  person  has  been  shewn  to  be  the  sun  ;  and 
they  were  both  black.  But  Bacchus  was  also  the  Baghis  of  India,  as  Sir  W.  Jones  has  shewn. 
Baghi-stan  in  Persia  was  the  town  of  Bacchus.  Bacchus  was  called  Dionusos  or  Dionissus  :  this 
is  simply  Dios-nusos,  or  the  God  of  the  city  spoken  of  by  Arrian,  on  the  confines  of  India — Nysa, 
the  capital  of  Nysea.  He  is  also  the  Dios  Nysa,  a  city  of  Arabia,  and  Nysa,  on  the  top  of  a  moun- 
tain in  Greece.  He  is  also  Seeva,  one  of  the  three  persons  of  the  Hindoo  Trinity.  But  Seeva  is 
called  Om. 9  Plutarch  witnesses  that  Osiris  and  Isis  were  Bacchus  and  Ceres,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  they  were  the  Eswara  and  Isa  of  India.  He  is  found  in  the  Old  Testament  under  the 
name  IEUE  Nissi  >D3  mir  which,  translated  from  the  Greek,  would  be  Dios  Nyssos  or  Dionusos, 
a  name  of  Bacchus.10   Indeed,  being  the  Sun,  he  is  naturally  enough  found  every  where. 

Ogygia  me  Bacchum  vocant, 
Osirim  iEgyptus  putat, 
Mysi  Phanacem  nominant, 
Dionyson  Indi  existimant, 
Romana  Sacra  Liberum, 
Arabica  gens  Adoneum, 
Lucaniacus  Pantheum. 

He  was  also  Deo-Naush,  or  Deva-Nahusha,  and  Ram  or  Rama-Deva.     He  was  three  times  born 

in  India;  and  the  Greeks  call  Osiris  zxQOiToyovov,  8*$u»),  and  rqiyovov.11 

Strabo12  says,  "It  is  for  this  reason  that  they  give  to  this  God  (Bacchus)  the  name  of  Mrjpo- 
Tga$vj£,  Merotraphes."     This  means  One  nourished  in  Meru,  the  propriety  of  which  is  evident 

1  Strabo,  Geog.  Lib.  xi. ;  Pausan.,  Lib.  iii.  cap.  xvi. ;  Hoffman,  voc.  Anaitis  ;  Jameson,  Herm.  Scyth.  p.  136. 

2  See  Spence,  Polymetis,  p.  129,  folio  ed.  3  Last  Days  of  Heber,  p.  43. 

4   In  his  Cave  of  the  Nymphs,  Sect.  ii.  p.  190,  ed.  Taylor.  5  De  Abstin.,  Sect.  xv.  p.  1 10.  6  Ibid.  247- 

7  Ibid.  248.  »  In  Plat>  phgedrum.  »  Malcolm's  India,  p.  505.  10  Stukeley,  Paleog.  Sac.  No.  I.  p.  10. 

"  Maurice,  Hist.  Vol.  II.  133,  4to;  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  272.  ,?  Lib.  xv. 


320  OPINIONS    OF    DIFFERENT    AUTHORS. 

enough  to  us,  since  we  have  acquired  the  Indian  learning.  Casaubon  proposed  to  change  the 
word  to  MypoopaQrig,  Merorrhaphes.  This  shews  the  danger,  in  these  old  authors,  of  changing  a 
word  because  we  do  not  understand  it.  Had  the  suggestion  of  the  learned  Casaubon  been 
adopted,  we  should  have  lost  the  most  important  fact,  that  Bacchus  was  nourished  in  the  celebrated 
Mount  of  the  Indians. 

According  to  Herodotus,1  Bacchus  was  called  Iacchus,  in  the  mysteries.  Kax  irpoxa  rs 
<£a>j/f]£  axseiu,  xau  ox  tycuvsaSou  rr\v  (ptovriv  exvax  rov  pvgixov  Iax^ov — xax  ttjv  <£cov7jv  ry\g 
axseig,  ev  raMT*\  ry  bgry  Iaxp^a^acrx.  Selden  and  Vossius  allow  this  to  be  the  same  as  the  Jah,  or 
\aa>  of  Diodorus.  Now,  from  Hamilton2  I  learn  that  the  people  of  Pegu,  in  a  district  called 
Syrian,  give  their  God  the  name  of  Kiack,  also  of  Kiackiack,  God  of  Gods,  This  is  nothing,  I 
think,  but  the  corrupted,  or  perhaps  only  aspirated,  lack  of  the  mysteries.  It  answers  to  the 
BuxysSax^og.  Casaubon3  says,  "  Sed  noraen  J$ax%sxopog,  ut  alia  item  quam  plurima,  alibi 
"  quam  apud  Orpheum  non  legas.  Imitatus  est  eleganter  in  novanda  ea  dictione  vetustissimam 
"  Bacchi  appellationem  3ax^s^ax^og,  quam  heroici  metri  lex  non  admittebat :  ita  Liberum 
"  patrem  in  ipsiis  orgiis  et  mysteriis  vocant."  Bax^ccx^og,  'O  Aiovu<rog  ouroog  exaXsiro  ev 
rang  Svtrioug. 4  I  ask  if  Bacchus,  in  the  iEolic  dialect,  proved  above  by  Herodotus  to  be  Iacchus, 
be  anything  but  Iacchus  ?     Pococke5   says, 

Baccha,  grandem,  magnum,  pr?eclarum,  esse  denotare. 

I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  the  K  in  the  above  word  Kiack  is  only  the  aspirate ;  and  that  the 
final  ck  is  only  the  barbarous  mode  of  writing  the  Hebrew  n  h,  adopted  by  most  of  our  gram- 
marians n  ch.     This  would  make  the  word  iT  ie,  called  in  the  Psalms  Jah,  into  the  word  Kiach. 

Mr.  Taylor,  in  his  Diegesis,  has  called  the  word  Jah,  Jack.  Those  who  will  persist  in  miscalling 
the  Hebrew  n  h  by  the  letters  ch,  have  no  right  to  complain.  According  to  their  practice  he  is 
right:  but  they  are  wrong,  as  I  have  proved  in  the  table  of  Alphabets,  p.  11 

Bacchus  is  said  by  Orpheus6  to  have  slept  three  years. 

Ko«/x»^£«  TPIETHPA  x?»vov  Ba/c^tov  ayvov. 

This  is  exactly  met  by  a  fact  which  the  natives  of  Pegu  named  of  their  god  Kiack,  that  he  was 
then  asleep,  and  was  to  sleep  6000  years.  This  God  in  Pegu  was  of  immense  size,  and  lay  in  a 
temple  in  a  sleeping  posture,  evidently  the  Buddha  whom  we  see  sleeping  in  the  India  House. 
When,  in  their  ceremonies,  the  Hindoos  call  out  IETE,  IETE,  what  is  this   but  the  EYOE, 

ETOE  of  the  Bacchantes  ? 

3.  Diodorus  Siculus  in  his  second  book  says,  that,  after  Bacchus  had  conquered  India,  his 
army  becoming  unhealthy,  he  retreated  to  a  mount  in  the  north,  called  Meros,  [Mrjqov  in  the 
accusative  case,)  where  he  refreshed  them,  and  that  this  word  Myptp  meaning  thigh  in  Greek, 
the  Greeks  feigned  the  story  of  his  being  nourished  in  a  thigh.  Pomponius  Mela7  says,  "  Urbium 
"  quas  incolunt,  Nysa  est  clarissima  et  maxima :  Montium  Meros,  Jovi  sacer :  famam  hinc  prae- 
"  cipuam  habent,  in  ilia  genitum,  in  hujus  specu  Liberum  arbitrantur  esse  nutritum :  unde 
"  Graecis  autoribus,  ut  femori  Jovis  incitum  dicerent,  aut  materia  ingessit  aut  error,"  Here  we 
have  the  connexion,  or,  in  fact,  identification  of  Bacchus  with  the  resident  of  Meru,  and  here 


1  Lib.  viii.  cap.  lxv.  2  New  Account  of  East  Indies,  ch.  xxxvi.  p.  43.  3  De  Poesi  Satyr.  Grsecorum. 

4  Hesychius.  s  spec-  jjist.  Arab.  p.  107.  6  Hymn  in  Bacchum,  No.  52.  7  Lib.  ii.  cap.  xi. 


BOOK  VI.      CHAPTER    III.      SECTION    3.  321 

we  have  also  a  very  pretty  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  minor  details  of  the  Greek  mytho- 
logies were  made  up.  The  ignorance  of  the  Greeks  in  their  own  concerns  is  inconceivably  ridi- 
culous, as  well  as  their  absurd  credulity.  In  addition  to  the  above,  Philostratus x  says,  "  The 
"  inhabitants  of  India  had  a  tradition  that  Bacchus  was  born  at  Nysa,  and  was  brought  up  in  a 
"  cave  on  Mount  Meros."  And  Diodorus  Siculus  says,  that  "  when  Semiramis  marched  into  India, 
"  she  stopped  and  formed  fine  gardens  at  a  place  in  Media  called  Hayigavov,  Baghistan,"  that  is, 
place  of  Bacchus.2  The  story  of  Pythagoras'  shewing  his  golden  thigh  to  the  people  in  the  public 
assembly  in  Greece,  is  well  known.  When  the  other  accounts  of  Pythagoras,  and  his  profound 
philosophy,  are  considered,  this  seems  a  most  unaccountable  story,  and  can  be  regarded  only  as  a 
fable,  or  an  allusion  to  something  which  we  do  not  understand.  We  have  seen  that  Mount  Meru 
was  a  type  or  symbol  of  the  Linga  and  Ioni.  Now  I  suspect  that  what  Pythagoras  shewed  to  the 
people  was  one  of  the  models  of  Meru,  or  of  the  united  Linga  and  Ioni,  which  we  see  in  such  a 
variety  of  ways  in  the  museum  at  the  India-house.  Of  this  the  rabble  made  a  golden  thigh.  If 
impartial  philosophers  could  be  found  to  search  for  it  in  India,  I  doubt  not  that  all,  or  nearly  all, 
the  ancient  mythology  would  be  explained ;  and  no  small  part  of  that  of  the  Greeks  would  be 
found  to  have  arisen  from  their  mistakes.  Herodotus  says  that  Jupiter  carried  Bacchus  in  his 
thigh  to  Nyssa.  This  confirms  what  I  have  said,  that,  in  his  story,  there  is  some  unknown 
meaning.3 

WTe  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  announces 
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, 

Bacchumque  vocant,  Bromiumque,  Dyoeumque, 
Ignigenam,  Satumque  iterum,  solumque  Bimatrem. 

Ovid's  Met.  Lib.  iv. 

Here  I  beg  my  reader  to  observe  that  Bacchus  is  both  Igni-genam  and  Bi-matrem.  The  igni- 
genam I  suppose  I  need  not  explain.  The  poetical  expression  of  Bi-matrem,  which  I  suppose 
means  twice  born,  alludes  to  Bacchus  in  his  character  of  Menu  or  Noah,  and  to  the  mythological 
fact  of  his  having  lived  m  two  worlds,  or  the  life  of  Noah  having  continued  into  the  fourth  cycle. 
Noah  or  Menu  lived  in  two  cycles — in  the  third,  and  in  part  of  the  fourth.  He  lived  also  in  two 
worlds — before  the  flood,  and  after  the  flood ;  in  two  ages — in  the  Cali-yug,  and  in  the  age  before 
it.  He  lived  when  the  sun  at  the  equinox  was  in  two  constellations — in  Taurus  and  in  Aries  :  so 
that  on  many  accounts  he  might  be  called  twice  born,  as  Bacchus  was,  according  to  Ovid. 

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  4  shews  that  the  name  of  Brouma  given  to  Bacchus  was  Brama,  and  that 
Diodorus  calls  this  name  indigenous  (ey%a)piov  ^ia\exrov).  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. 5 


1  In  Vita  Apol.  Lib.  ii.  cap.  ix.  ?  Lib.  ii.  3  Herod.  Euterp.  cap.  cxlvi.  -*  P.  98. 

5  Ibid.  p.  127. 

2t 


322  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 

Strabo  says,  that  Bacchus  reigned  over  all  the  oriental  nations,  but  that  Hercules  reigned  over 
only  those  of  the  western  parts  :  Ilegj  §s  'H§axAs8£  ol  pev  sm  r  olvovtiol  ikmov  jw-£^§»  rwv 
e<nrsQi(ov  7rsgara)V  l^ops<riv,  o»  Se  s<£>'  exarepa.  *  This  alludes  to  the  fact,  of  the  truth  of  which  I 
have  no  doubt,  that  the  religion  of  Buddha  or  Bacchus  once  extended  throughout  Ava,  China, 
Tibet,  and  the  islands  as  well  as  the  peninsula  of  Hindostan.  But  the  religion  of  Cristna  or 
Hercules  extended  only  over  the  peninsula. 

4.  Bacchus  was  called  EYOI.  This  is  the  IETil,  IA&,  IAOT,  or  Yahouh,  the  same  as  the 
IE  on  the  temple  of  the  Delphian  Apollo.  2  Bacchus  was  also  called  a  Bull,  and  a  Son  of  God. 
When  the  Prince  of  Thebes  forbade  his  mysteries,  neglected  his  miracles,  and  denied  his  divinity, 
he  put  on  the  appearance  of  man,  and  submitted  to  be  bound  and  led  to  prison.  He  was  exposed 
by  his  grandfather  king  Cadmus,  was  preserved  in  an  ark,  and  nursed  in  a  cavern  by  Rhea,  the 
mother  of  God.3  Bacchus  was  twice  born,  was  represented  at  the  winter  solstice  as  a  little  child, 
born  five  days  before  the  end  of  the  year.  On  his  birth  a  blaze  of  light  shone  round  his  cradle. 4 
The  Romans  had  a  god  called  Quirinus  ;  he  was  said  to  be  the  brother  of  Bacchus.  His  soul 
emanated  from  the  sun,  and  was  restored  to  it.  He  was  begotten  by  the  God  of  armies  upon  a 
virgin  of  the  blood  royal,  and  exposed  by  order  of  the  jealous  tyrant  Amulius,  and  was  preserved 
and  educated  among  shepherds.5  He  was  torn  to  pieces  at  his  death,  when  he  ascended  into 
heaven  ;  upon  which  the  sun  was  eclipsed  or  darkened.6  Bacchus's  death  and  return  to  life  were 
annually  celebrated  by  the  women  of  Delphi ;  his  return  was  expected  by  his  followers,  when  he 
was  to  be  the  sovereign  of  the  universe.7  He  was  said  to  sit  on  the  same  throne  as  Apollo.  He 
was  three  nights  in  hell,  whence  he  ascended  with  his  mother  to  heaven,  where  he  made  her  a 
goddess.8  He  killed  an  amphisbsena  which  bit  his  leg ;  and  he,  with  several  other  gods,  drove 
down  the  giants  with  serpents'  feet,  who  had  made  war  against  heaven.9  The  same  general  cha- 
racter is  visible  in  the  mythoses  of  Hercules  and  Bacchus.  Hercules  was  called  a  Saviour:  he 
was  the  son  of  Jove  by  the  virgin  Prudence.10  He  was  called  the  Universal  Word.11  He  was 
reabsorbed  into  God.12  He  was  said  by  Orpheus  to  be  self-produced,  the  generator  and  ruler  of 
all  things,  and  the  father  of  time.13 


1  Strabo,  Lib.  xv.  p.  687- 

*  Vide  a  Dialogue,  the  taste  of  which  I  cannot  admire,  supplied  by  a  literary  friend  of  mine  to  Mr.  Carlile,  for  the 
first  number  of  Vol.  XI.  of  the  Republican.  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  give  his  name,  but  I  shall  quote  his  Dialogue  by  his 
initials,  J.  H.  As  I  know  him  to  be  a  man  of  deep  learning,  and  have  a  perfect  confidence  in  his  honour,  I  shall 
depend  upon  him  for  his  references,  which  are  almost  innumerable,  to  which  the  learned  may  apply  for  proofs  of  the 
assertions. 

3   J.  H.,  Dial,  in  Rep.  *  Ibid ;  see  also  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy.  *  J.  H.  in  Rep.  G  Ibid. 

7  Ibid.  8  Ibid.  s  Ibid.  ,0  Julian,  Orat.  vii.  p.  427. 

"  Cornut.  de  N.  D.  p.  89;  Lucian,  Hercul.  cap.  iv.  and  v.  12  Ibid  p.  409.  U  J.  H.  in  Rep. 


BOOK  VI.     CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  1.  323 


CHAPTER  IV. 

NAMES  OF  JESUS  AND  IAO.-CHIFFLET  AND   OTHERS  ON   THESE  NAMES.— KIRCHER    ON   THE   NAME   IAO— 
NAME  IAO.— NAME   IAO   KNOWN  TO  THE  GENTILES.— YHS,   DERIVATION   OF  IT.— OBSERVATIONS. 

1.  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. 
Here  will  be  found  several  facts  repeated  in  a  similar  manner  to  what  has  taken  place  with  the 
Queen  of  heaven,  his  mother;  but  I  hope  the  importance  of  the  subject  will  excuse  their  being  all 
brought  together  under  one  view. 

In  the  ancient  books  of  the  Jews  we  constantly  find  mention  made  of  the  god  Jehovah,  who 
ought  to  be  called  Jah,  or  Ieue.  This  God  answered  to  the  person  whom  the  Hindoos  designate 
by  the  name  of  Cristna,  the  second  person  in  their  trinity,  or  their  God  the  saviour  or  preserver; 
and  was  he  whom  the  Persians  designated  by  the  name  of  Mithra,  the  second  person  in  their  trinity' 
and  also  their  preserver  or  saviour;  and  was  he  whom  the  Romish  Christians  designate  by  the  name 
of  Jesus,  also  the  second  person  in  their  trinity,  and  their  saviour  or  preserver.  He  is  called  by  the 
Jews  the  Lord  of  hosts,  God  of  Sabaoth :  which  means  God  of  the  stars  and  constellations.  This 
name  with  the  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Gentiles  in  general,  was  understood  and  meant  to  desig- 
nate both  the  Supreme  Being  and  the  Sun,  Dominus  Sol,  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  the  heavenly 
host. 

The  God  Iaco,  mm  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.     This  infant  is  the  seed  of  the 
woman  who,  according  to  Genesis,  was  to  bruise  the  head  of  the  serpent,  which,  in  return,  was  to 
bite  his  foot  or  heel,  or  the  foot  or  heel  of  her  seed,  as  the  figure  of  the  Hindoo  Cristna  proves.2 
From  the  traditionary  stories  of  this  god  Iao,  which  was  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  Juda3a,-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,  and  the  name  of  IH^oog, 
and  to  him  at  last  all  the  legendary  stories  related  of  the  god  Iao  were  attributed.     Jesus  was 
commonly  called  Christ. 

"  The  ineffable  name  also,  which,  according  to  the  Masoretic  punctuation,  is  pronounced  Jeho- 
vah, was  anciently  pronounced  Jaho,  Iaa>,  or  Ieua>,3  as  was  also  Sabazius  or  Sabadius,4  which 
'  is  the  same  word  as  Sabaoth,  one  of  the  scriptural  titles  of  the  true  God,  only  adapted  to  the 


•  See  Plate  19  of  Dupuis,  the  Celestial  Sphere.  *  Hates,  No.  II.  and  V. 

3  Hieron.  Coram,  in  Psalm  viii. ,  Diod.  Sic,  Lib.  i. ;  Philo-Bybl.  apud  Euseb.  Prep.  Evang.  Lib.  i.  cap.  ix. 

*  Macrob.  Sat.  Lib.  i.  cap.  xviii. 

2t  2 


324  NAMES    OF   JESUS    AND    IAO. 

"  pronunciation  of  a  more  polished  language.  The  Latin  name  for  the  Supreme  God  belongs  also 
"  to  the  same  root ;  lu-zjarrj^,  Jupiter,  signifying  father  Isu,  though  written  after  the  ancient 
"  manner,  without  the  dipthong,  which  was  not  in  use  for  many  ages  after  the  Greek  colonies 
"  settled  in  Latium,  and  introduced  the  Arcadian  alphabet.  We  find  St.  Paul  likewise  acknow- 
"  ledging  that  the  Jupiter  of  the  poet  Aratus  was  the  God  whom  he  adored ; '  and  Clemens 
"  Alexandrinus  explains  St.  Peter's  prohibition  of  worshiping  after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks  not 
"  to  mean  a  prohibition  of  worshiping  the  same  God,  but  merely  of  the  corrupt  mode  in  which  he 
"  was  then  worshiped."  2 

Diodorus  Siculus  says,  that  Moses  pretended  to  receive  his  laws  from  the  God  called  IA12. 
This  shews  that  the  Greeks  considered  the  name  of  the  Jewish  God  to  be,  not  Jehovah,  but,  as  I 
have  stated  it,  ijr  ieu,  or  Ieo.  Iijio£3  is  one  of  the  names  of  Apollo:  and  Nimrod4  says,  I  Ail 
means  I  heal,  I  make  sound.  It  was  probably  from  this  the  Essenian  monks,  his  followers,  in 
Egypt  and  Syria  were  called  Therapeutae,  or  physicians  of  the  soul.  In  the  first  volume  of  Asiatic 
Researches  Sir  W.  Jones  names  a  female  deity  called  Hygeia,  or  health,  and  another  called  laso, 
whom  he  calls  remedy,  daughters  of  ZEsculapius.  May  not  this  remedy  mean  Preserver?  Perhaps 
the  reader  may  think  that  the  use  of  any  correct  etymology  is  not  to  be  expected  from  such 
grammarians  as  Justin,  Papias,  and  Irenaeus.  The  last  gives  the  following  derivation  of  the  name 
Jesus  :  "  Jesus  noraen  secundum  propriam  Hebraeorum  linguam  litterarum  est  duarum  et  dimi- 

dias et  secundum  antiquam  Hebraicam  linguam  ccelum  est.5     Is  it  possible  to  believe  that 

Irenaeus  had  ever  seen  the  gospel  history  by  Matthew  ? 

2.  Chifflet,  speaking  of  Iao  in  his  treatise  on  coins,  says,  that  except  the  Christians  no  other 
sect  or  religion  has  given  this  name  to  the  divinity.  This  is  unquestionably  a  very  great  mistake. 
M.  Beausobre  says,6  "  Supposing  that  to  be  true,  it  does  not  follow  that  these  figures  belonged  to 
"  the  Basilidians  ;  they  might  be  from  some  I  know  not  what  Gnostic  sect,  which  pretended  that 
"  Iao  is  the  name  of  an  angel.  One  must  allow  that  it  is  that  of  Jehovah,  which  the  ancients  have 
"written  and  pronounced  sometimes  Jaho,  7  sometimes  Jevo, 8  and  sometimes  Iaou.9  But  it  is 
"  necessary  also  to  allow,  that  Iao  is  one  of  the  names  that  the  Pagans  give  to  the  sun.  I  have 
"  noticed  the  oracle  of  Apollo  at  Claros,  in  which  Pluto,  Jupiter,  the  sun,  and  Iao,  divide  the 
'J  seasons  amongst  them.     These  four  divinities  are  at  bottom  the  same. 

Ei?  "Live,,  ei?  'ASijs,  £i?  'HX;o?,  tic,  Aiovvo-oc., 

"  that  is  to  say,  Jupiter,  Pluto,  the  Sun,  and  Bacchus,  are  the  same.  That  which  is  called 
"  Dyonusus  in  the  last  verse  is  the  same  which  is  called  Iao  in  the  oracle.  It  is  Bacchus  who 
"  presides  over  the  autumn.  Macrobius  reports  another  oracle  of  Apollo  which  is  couched  in 
"  these  terms  : 

<l>/)a£w  roy  ■wa.vraiv  vwarccv  6eov  e/a/zev  law' 

"  '  I  declare  to  you  that  Iao  is  the  greatest  of  the  Gods.'  It  would  be  doing  too  much  honour  to 
"  the  Demon,  if  one  believed  that  the  god  called  Iao  is  the  Jehovah  of  Scripture,  or  the  true  God. 
"  This  is  no  other  than  the  sun.  Iao,  which  was  a  barbarous  name,  has  been  changed  by  the 
"  Greeks  into  Itjjo£  (Ieios).     Macrobius,  well  instructed  in  the  Pagan  theology,  affirms,  that  Iao 


'Actsxvii.  2  Stromat.  Lib.  v. ;  P.  Knight,  p.  195.  3  Scapula.  4  P.  617. 

5  Iren.  contra  Hair.  lib.  ii.  cap.  xli. ;  Dalleus,  De  Usu  Pat.  p.  243. 

6  Beaus.  Hist.  Manich.  Vol.  II.  liv.  iv.  chap.  iv.  p.  59.  7  Euseb.  Dem.  Ev.  lib.  iv.  p.  129. 
8  Euseb.  Praep.  Evan.  lib.  i.  x.                                              s  Clem.  Alex.  Strom,  lib.  v.  p.  562. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  IN.     SECTION  2.  325 

"  is  the  sun,  and  that  Cornelius  Labeo  had  shewn  this  in  a  book  entitled,  '  Concerning  the  Oracle 
"  '  of  Apollo  at  Claros.'  "  Speaking  of  the  oracle  of  Apollo  above-named  by  Macrobius,  Dr.  Cud- 
worth  says,1  "  And  the  oracle  applied  this  to  the  sun  as  the  supreme  God."  Porphyry  says,  that 
Sanchoniathon  received  information  from  Hierombalus,  a  priest  of  laco.  The  Euoi  Bax^e  Xsyov- 
rsg  is  nothing  but  the  IEUE  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  in  the  country  of  Palestine,  miswritten 
by  the  Greeks,  who  miswrote  every  thing.  "  Athenseus  IX.  gives  Bacchus  the  name  of  Irjiog. 
"  I  doubt  not  but  it  is  the  great  name  of  Jehovah,  which  they  learnt  from  among  the  Jews  :  and  that 
"  Evohe  Sabohe  is  the  Jehovah  Sabaoth,  Lord  of  Hosts,  in  the  Scripture ;  whence  Bacchus  was 
"called  Sabazius  likewise.  Diodorus  Siculus  says  expressly,  the  Jews  call  God  Iaoj  and  the 
"  learned  universally  agree  that  is  Jehovah.  Evohe  is  but  another  awkward  way  of  pronouncing 
"it."2 

In  almost  innumerable  places  in  Italy  very  old  paintings  may  be  seen  of  Christ  in  various  situa- 
tions, labelled  with  the  words  in  the  middle  of  the  painting,  Deo  Soli.  These  words  it  is  evident 
have  two  meanings — To  God  alone,  and  To  the  God  Sol.  In  most  of  them  there  are  seen  the 
attributes  of  the  latter,  such  as  the  glory,  &c.  The  former  sense  is  in  no  way  applicable  to  Christ, 
because  as  one  person  of  the  Trinity  he  cannot  be  called  solus.  These  pictures,  with  their  two 
meanings,  shew  an  example  like  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  one  for  the  priests,  and  one  for  the 
people — the  esoteric  and  the  exoteric  religion. 

1  think  we  may  now  assume  that  we  have  found  the  origin  of  the  word  Jesus.  M.  Beausobre 
may  talk  as  much  as  he  pleases  about  honour  to  the  Daemon,  but  all  his  ingenuity  will  never  be 
able  to  overthrow  the  fair  and  legitimate  consequence  which  arises  from  his  argument.  He  has 
clearly  proved  that  the  Sun,  Iao,  and  Jesus,  were  all  taken  for  the  same  being  by  the  ancients,  and 
it  will  require  more  than  the  skill  of  the  whole  priesthood  to  disprove  it.  But  there  is  another 
way  of  deriving  the  name  of  lri<rsg  more  probable  than  the  explanation  of  M.  Beausobre  ;  though 
they  both  come  so  nearly  to  the  same  thing  that  they  are  in  fact  and  substance  evidently  the  same. 
On  this  subject  Sir  W.  Drummond  says, 

"  That  the  sun  rising  from  the  lower  to  the  upper  hemisphere  should  be  hailed  the  Preserver  or 
"  Saviour  appears  extremely  natural :  and  that  by  such  titles  he  was  known  to  idolaters  can- 
"  not  be  doubted.3  Joshua  literally  signifies  the  preserver  or  deliverer;  and  that  this  preserver 
"  or  deliverer  was  no  other  than  the  sun  in  the  sign  of  the  ram,  or  lamb,  may  be  inferred  from 
"  many  circumstances.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  LXX.  write  I^cou^  for  Joshua,  and  the  lamb 
"  has  always  been  the  type  of  I?j<rou£/'  4 

Matthew5  says,  that  the  son  of  Mary  was  called  Jesus,  because  he  ivould  save  (i.  e.  preserve) 
his  people  from  their  sins.6  The  Jews  say  in  their  Talmud,  that  the  name  of  Jesus  was  Bar 
Panther,   but  that  it  was  changed  into  Jesus.     The  word  Jesus,   as  was   before  remarked,  is  the 

1  Book  i.  chap.  iv.  p.  285.  *  Stukeley,  Pal.  Sac.  No.  I.  p  21. 

3  "  The  Sun,  according  to  Pausanias,  was  worshiped  under  the  name  of  Saviour,  at  Eleusis." 

4  Drummond,  (Edip.  Jud.  p.  195.  5  Chap.  i.  verse  21. 
6  We  are  told  in  Numbers,  (xiii.  16,)  that  Moses  changed  the  name  of  Osee  to  Joshua. 

WW  pj-p  IWin^  ntr>D  i-Opn  And  Moses  called  Leuso,  son  of  Nun,  Ieuso.  I  believe  there  is  in  this  passage  a 
correct  example  of  the  word  r\b  le,  being  used  as  the  emphatic  article,  and  the  correct  translation  would  be,  And 
Moses  called  the  saviour  or  guardian  or  protector,  {who  was  understood)  the  son  of  Nun,  n'  ie  ytm  uso  .-  as  we  should 
say,  He  entitled  the  protector  (who  was)  the  son  of  Nun,  the  Lord  Protector.  It  is  exactly  our  practice,  our  idiom, 
and  even  the  very  word  Lord,  according  to  our  translation.  At  this  time  the  Hebrew  nation  was  a  federative  republic 
of  twelve  tribes,  under  leaders  elected  by  the  people,  or  often  by  the  prophet  or  priest.  I  believe  that  ie  became  a  title 
of  honour,  like  Bal  and  Lord,  and,  for  several  reasons  which  I  shall  give  hereafter,  that  the  word  nb  le  or  the  letter  b  I 
the  cl  or  al  of  Arabic,  the  le  of  France,  and  the  il  of  Italy,  was  a  Hebrew  emphatic  article. 


326  KIRCHER   ON   THE   NAME    IAO. 

same  as  the  word  Joshua  in  the  Hebrew,  and  has  the  same  signification.  It  may  be  correctly  derived 
either  from  the  Hebrew  word  yw>  iso,  or  from  the  Greek  word  <r(D<o  or  (ra>%a)  to  save;  <roo$,  safe. 
It  may  be  correctly  derived  from  the  Greek  as  well  as  the  Hebrew,  because  the  Greek  is  itself 
derived  from  the  Hebrew.1  It  may  be  derived  also  from  rr>  ie,2  the  name  of  the  Hebrew  God, 
often  rendered  Jah,  and  $&'  *so>  saviour;  or  Jehovah  or  Iao  saviour.3  In  the  old  Irish  and  Etrus- 
can languages  the  word  Aesar  means  God.  In  Sanscrit  the  word  Isa,  Iswara,  means  Lord  and 
Saviour.  Probably  the  Greeks  understanding  that  the  Hebrew  word  n>  ie  meant  God  the  Saviour, 
added  a  significant  termination  according  to  the  genius  of  their  language,  taken  from  the  word 
(raw  to  save,  and  so  made  of  it  \v\-<r&s,  or  Iao  the  Saviour. 

3.  Kircher  informs  us,  that  "  the  ancient  Jews  absolutely  applied  the  three  first  letters  of  this 
"  name  (niiT)  to  denote  the  three  superior  Sephiroth,  and  he  remarks  that,  in  fact,  there  are  but 
"  three  distinct  letters  in  the  word,  which  are  Jod,  He,  and  Vau ;  the  last  letter  being  only  a  repe- 
tition of  the  second."4  "This  name  (says  Buxtorf)  signifies  Ens,  existens  a  seipso,  ab 
"  ceterno  et  in  ceternum,  omnibusque  aliis  extra  se  essentiam  et  existentiam  communicans  :  the  being 
"  existing  of  necessity  from  all  eternity  and  to  eternity."  Again,  "  Nam,  litera  Jod  ab  initio, 
"  characteristica  est  futuri :  Vau  in  medio,  participii,  temporis  presentis :  He,  in  fine,  cum 
"  Kametz  subscripto,  prceteriti"5 

In  my  Celtic  Druids6  I  have  said,  that  the  niiT  ieue  of  the  Israelites  was  but  Iao  with  the  em- 
phatic article,  making  it  the  Iao :  and  that  it  was  originally  leu,  not  Ieo  ;  the  first  three  letters  of 
of  the  word  ieu-e.     In  the  Bible  we  constantly  meet  with  the  expression  the  Aleim,  but  in  no 
instance  with  the  expression  the  Jehovah.     This  arises  from  the  expression  ieue  meaning  the  ieu. 
I  have  in  the  Celtic  Druids  also  shewn  that  the  word  Abraxas  meant  365,  the  solar  period  or  the 
sun.     This  Abraxas  is  constantly  identified  on  the  coins  of  Chifflet  and  Kircher  with  the  names  of 
God,  Adonai,  Sabaoth,  &c.     Kircher r   says,  "  Gnostici  natione  iEgyptii,  religione  primum  He- 
"  braei,  dum  virtutem  nominis  Dei  tetragrammati  ex  veterum  relatione  cognoscerent,  ad  impietatis 
"  suae  complementum,  superstitiosa  sua  nomina  passim  nomine  IAa>  et  CEBAeo,  quod  idem  est 
"  ac  niiT  (ieue)  Jehova  et  rnyttf  (sbout)  Sabaoth,  summa  tamen  nominum  corruptela  indigitarunt." 
But  the  name  of  Jesus  was  sometimes  written  leu.     I  have  observed  before,  that  in  the  Duomo  at 
Milan,  the  first  time  I  went  to  Italy,  I  found  it  written  thus,  IEV — Cristo.      In  the  above  passage 
we  see  the  identity  of  the  Jesus  of  the  Roman  Church  and  the  Iao  of  the  ancients  proved,  not  by 
implication,  but  by  documents  produced  by  the  learned  Jesuit  Kircher.     In  a  few  pages  later,8 
the  learned  father  adds,  "  Hujus  farinae  fecit  quoque  quae  lib.  ii.  cap.  xiii.  Irenaeus  de  Gnosticorum 
"  impietatibus  refert,  ubi  nomen  absconditum  Redemptoris  sic  profantur.     Messian  fromagno  in 
"  scenchaldin  mosomeda  ecacha  saronhepseha  Jesu  Nazarene  :  quorum  interpretation  em  hanc  esse 
"  dicunt :  Christi  non  divido  spiritum,  cor  et  supra  coelestem  virtutem  miserecordem  fruar  nomine 
"  tuo  Salvator  veritatis :  confirmatus  autem  et  redemptus  respondet :  Ego  redimo  animam  meam 
"  ab  hoc  ceone  et  omnium  quce  ab  eo  sunt  in  nomine  IAO,  qui  redimit  animam  meam.      Hujus  quo- 
"  que  impietatis  censenda  sunt  pleraque  lapidibus,  gemmis,  laminisque  metallicis  insculpta  sine 
"  numero  nomina." 

Cedrenus  says  that  the  Chaldeans  adored  the  light :  that  they  called  it  intellectual  light,  and 
that  they  described  it,  or  symbolized  it,  by  the  two  letters  a  and  «>,  or  aw,  by  which  he  meant  the 
extreme  terms  of  the  diffusion  of  matter  in  the  seven  planetary  bodies,  of  which  the  first  or  the 


1  Parkhurst,  p.  299,  ed.  7-  s  tt»  Ie,  self-existing— existing  by  his  own  power.  3  See  Pictet,  pp.  6—16. 

«  Maur.  Hind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  196.  5  ibid.  p.  198.  6  Chap.  v.  sect,  xxxviii.  7  Vol.  III.  p.  416. 

8  P.  469. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  4.  327 

moon,  answered  to  the  vowel  a,  and  the  last,  or  Saturn,  to  the  vowel  a> ;  and  that  the  letter  I  de- 
scribed the  Sun  ;  and  this  altogether  formed  the  word  Iao) — the  Panaugria  of  the  Gnostics,  other- 
wise the  universal  light  distributed  in  the  planets.  All  this  is  evidently  judicial  astrology.  St. 
John  says,  "  and  the  life  was  light,  and  the  light  was  life,  and  the  light  was  the  word  :  Vita  erat 
lux,  et  lux  erat  vita,  et  lux  erat  verbum,  in  Greek  Logos, l  where  Christ  is  described  in  the  midst 
of  seven  candlesticks,  and  seven  stars  in  his  hand.  The  Guebres,  the  Magi,  and  the  Manicheans, 
all  describe  God  to  be  an  eternal,  intelligent,  and  perfectly  pure  light.  The  Manicheans  call  this, 
Christ,  the  son  of  The  Light  Eternal,  which  Plato  calls  the  Sun.  The  Scriptures  and  the  fathers 
of  the  church  all  call  God  a  sublime  light.  2 

4.  On  the  word  mrv  Ieue,  or  Jehovah,  Mr.  Parkhurst,  p.  155,  has  the  following  observations, 
which  confirm  what  Beausobre  has  said  upon  it.  His  authority  will  not  be  disputed.  That  this 
divine  name  "niiT  ieue  was  well  known  to  the  heathen,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Diodorus  Siculus, 
"  lib.  i.,  speaking  of  those  who  attributed  the  framing  of  their  laws  to  the  Gods,  says  Uaqa  rots 
u  IouSotio*£  Ma)<n]V  fco^otxn  tov  IAil  s7nKaXouju,si/ov  @eov.  Among  the  Jews  they  report  that 
"  Moses  did  this  to  the  God  called  Iao.  Varro,  cited  by  St.  Austin,  says,  Deum  Judseorum  esse 
"  Jovem,  that  Jove  was  the  God  of  the  Jews;  and  from  fltfv  the  Etruscans  seem  plainly  to  have 
"  had  their  Juve  or  Jove,  and  the  Romans  their  Jovis  or  Jovis-Pater,  that  is,  Father  Jove,  after- 
"  wards  corrupted  into  Jupiter.  And,  that  the  idolaters  of  several  nations,  Phoenicians,  Greeks, 
"  Etruscans,  Latins,  and  Romans,  gave  the  incommunicable  name  rflTP,  with  some  dialectical  varia- 
"  tion  to  their  false  Gods,  may  be  seen  in  an  excellent  note  in  the  Ancient  Universal  History."  3 
It  is  rather  whimsical  that  Mr.  Parkhurst  should  state  this  name  of  God  to  be  incommunicable, 
when,  in  the  same  sentence,  he  informs  us  that  it  was  common  to  almost  all  nations.  Here  seems 
a  manifest  and  gross  contradiction,  which,  in  a  note,  I  will  now  try  to  account  for.4 

The  truth  will  sometimes  escape  from  learned  sectaries  when  they  very  little  intend  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  niiT  ieue,  or  pi'  ie  of  the  Jews, 
was  the  Jove  of  the  Latins  and  Etruscans.  In  the  next  page,  and  in  p.  160,  under  the  word  bbn 
ell,  he  allows  that  this  rr  ie  was  the  name  of  Apollo,  over  the  door  of  the  Temple  of  Delphi.  He 
then  admits  that  this  nirv  ieue  Jehovah  is  Jesus  Christ  in  the  following  sentences :  "  It  would  be 
"  almost  endless  to  quote  all  the  passages  of  scripture  wherein  the  name  TV\7\>  {ieue)  is  applied  to 
"  Christ :  let  those,  therefore,  who  own  the  scriptures  as  the  rule  of  faith,  and  yet  doubt  his  essen- 
"  tial  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. 


i  See  Apocalypse,  Ch.  i.  2  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  p.  105,  ed  4to.  3  «  Vol.  XVII.  pp.  2/4,  &c." 

4  The  Jews  maintain  that  the  fourth  command  in  the  decalogue,  not  to  mention  the  name  of  God,  means  not  to  men- 
tion the  word  Ieue.  But  from  considering  that  it  is  so  often  named  in  their  writings,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
named,  and  ordered  to  be  named  in  them ;  as  for  instance,  in  Exodus,  ch.  vi., — in  the  decalogue, — and  also  to  Moses 
by  God  in  the  bush,  &c,  &c, — that  it  is  directed  to  be  used  in  such  a  manner  as  to  carry  with  it  the  necessity  of  con- 
stantly repeating  it  in  the  performance  of  the  service  in  their  synagogues,  and  also  considering  other  parts  of  their 
Cabala,  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  the  names  of  places,  and  the  identity  of  Jewish  and  Heathen  doctrines,  (of  Heathens 
both  East  and  West  of  them,)  I  have  been  induced  to  suspect  that  their  secret  word  was  the  Indian  Om,  and  not  really 
Ieue.  It  seems  to  be  nonsense  to  tell  them  the  word  Ieue  is  not  to  be  repeated  when  it  is  ordered  to  be  repeated  con- 
tinually. If  I  be  right,  the  verse  of  the  decalogue  might  be  paraphrased  thus  :  "  Thou  shall  not  repeat  the  secret  name 
of  thy  God  Ieue.  This  exoteric  and  esoteric  meaning  of  the  passage  is  in  perfect  keeping  with  what  we  know  of  the 
remainder  of  the  Jewish  Cabala;  but  upon  this  subject  I  must  entreat  ray  reader  to  suspend  his  judgment  till  he  has 
travelled  with  me  over  countries  the  most  distant,  and  times  the  most  remote,  in  search  of  this  celebrated  cabala. 


328  NAME   OF    IAO   KNOWN   TO  TUB   GENTILES. 

root  ,ffp  nf  the  Romish  Christians,  have  been 
5.  The  three  letters  I  H  S,  from  the  very  eaAest  age  of  the  Ko  embroidered  in 

adopted  for  the  insignia  of  their  rehg  ion  ™™^e>  ^ng and,  and  the  clergy  say  they 
g„,den  letters  upon  the  velvet  pudpit  clot  h  of  ££ «h-  ^  ^^  ^  R_  ?  ch  ..  §  g 
mean  Jesus  Hominum  Salvator.    But  it  is  very  rem  ,  ^  ^^ 

„,at  these  three  letters,  in  the  Greek  language    are  th ms*™ **«*  rf  ^ 

for  the  mystical  number  «®  which ^sacred  »  K      ^  «(  their  gods,  used  by  the 
two.     Of  the  slgns  or  monograms  to  express  in  a  celebrated  YHS.    These  letters 

:::;naSirrf„  2**—P.  *  as  ^^zzz^x^zz: 

ples,  churches,  towns,  every  thing  indeed  was  destroyed ^™ "/^     ^  bdonge<1 
which  for  many  ages  prevailed,  supposed  the  rums  upon ^i ^W  we  ton 
to  their  religion,  they  construed  them  to  meanJ^i  •Ho—M"* .    of  course  every  stone 
tbe  truth  of  the  monogram,  «— ™        , *£££-.  settled  to  he  of  Chris- 
L^:.SS  -  cl'verL  to  Christianity,  old  stones,  temples,  and  statues 

'Ttftf^iS'SL.  in  English,  for  several  T^^*?^ 
t„e  Chaldaic  Hebrew.  In  most  places  it  is  spelt  £  j£  >*^"^£  ^  *,  M  * 
says,  /  a**™*  «*  „»,  .*  *-,  „^  „**  JM *«~  /  ^     ^  ^ 

wv.KHnco/nin'Jcw.cas/MtteoMMMtoMem.     But  in  other  places  ?  b 

Hebrew,  iords  are  often  met  with  repeated  in  a  peculiar  manner  V  a ,  r »  K»  *  »  <>         « 
sabat.    This  has  been  considered  by  grammarians  mere  y  as  "^J^  have  bee„ 

^rastVr—ntonc  word,  or  two,  cannot  be  known     »--»— ^ 
were  no  divisions  between  the  words.    n>  -  »  often  toansl* d M,  * .  w «ri  ^ 

as  7io,  and  was  the  Androgynous  Jo  whom  the  Bull  Jnpiter  ran  , iway  wi 
Mr.  Parkhurst  has  very  properly  observed,  that,  from  one  of  those  divine  names  t  ^ 

-  *  *  *  **  — i0DS  nl  Z££m*2£J1Z*'  great  door  of  the 
«  the  oriental  manner  from  right  to  lett),  alteram  ix,,  w  ce 

.  Tip,  of  Apollo  at  Belphi."*    No  do  b   ^^^^^^  to  be  read 

z:  £t  istsrft  -  ^2  r*  ,«,  u  -,  -  *- — t 

was  read  P^o^oov,  or  from  right  to  left,  and  back  ^"\  JEYE,„  , 

The  "  Devatas  of  India  sing  out  in  *^^"^^  ™L  the  word  ,«  trans- 

Here  we  have  the  identical  name  Jehovah.-IEVE  mt  HML «  anrf         & 

lated  Jah  is  correctly  the  word  of  the  Greeks  over  their  temple  *  ^i  «j,         »  ._  ^ 

Jah,  Praise  him  by  his  name  Jah,  is  still  more  clearly  ^\^°^J  ,  ,  8ta„ding  t* 

Hebrew  and  Greek,  they  are  the  same  letters  in  order  and  "™xact     the  same  order, 

ten,  and  n  E  for  five,  in  each  language.    They  would  not,  ""-""^^  / 

if  a  letter  were  not  inserted  in  the  Greek  for  the  number  «,  which  makes  g 


1  EXod.  xv.  2.  *  Parkhurst,  voce  rrn,  p.  157. 

4  Exod.  xv.  2,  and  Psalm  lxviii.  5. 


3  Maurice  Hind.  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  339,  ed.  4to. 


BOOK  VI.    CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  5.  329 

The  followers  of  Iao,  mn»  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,  "  ED>blVn  elulim  praises, 1  rpMn  (elluie)  Praise  ye  Jah — 
"  Eng.  Marg.  Hallehijah :  and  so  the  LXX.  throughout,  leaving  it  untranslated,  AxX^Xei'a.  It 
"  occurs  very  frequently  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  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  EXsXsu  Itj  (eleleu  ie),  with  which  they  both  began  and  ended  their 
"  Paeans  or  Hymns  in  honour  of  Apollo,  i.  e.  The  light."2 

Jesus  in  the  gospels  is  always  called  Lord,  or  in  the  Greek  Kog*o£.  This  is  the  word  by  which 
the  Hellenistic  Jews,  in  translating  the  LXX.  into  Greek,  constantly  rendered  the  word  niiT  ieue. 
The  word  Kt>£»0£  is  derived  from  the  word  Kupa>,  to  be,  exist,  subsist;3  and  is  a  very  excellent 
word  to  use  for  the  Hebrew  word  n>  ie,  which  has  precisely  the  same  meaning.  But  this  word  rv 
t'e,  as  it  has  been  before  observed,  was  the  name  given  to  Apollo  or  the  sun  at  Delphi,  who  is 
always  called  Ku§<0£,  and  the  day  dedicated  to  him  xvqiaxri,  dies  dominica,  or  the  Lord's-day. 
From  some,  or  from  a  combination,  of  these  circumstances,  Jesus  took  the  name  of  Lord,  the  ety- 
mological meaning  of  which  will  be  explained  hereafter.  Eupolemus  states,  that  there  was  a  temple 
of  Iao  or  Jupiter  on  Carmel,  without  image,  which  is  confirmed  by  Tacitus.4  This  was  evidently 
the  temple  of  Melchizedek,  of  Joshua,  and  the  proseucha  discovered  by  Epiphanius.  This,  probably, 
was  also  the  temple  where  Pythagoras,  who  sacrificed  to  the  bloodless  Apollo  at  Delos,  went  to  acquire 
learning,  or  to  be  initiated.  Nuraa  autem  rex  Romanorum  erat  quidem  Pythagoreus,  ex  iis  autem 
quae  a  Mose  tradita  sunt  adiutus,  prohibuit  Romanis  ne  homini  aut  animali  similem  Dei  facerent 
imaginem.  Cum  itaque  centum  et  septuaginta  primis  annis  templa  aedificarent,  nullam  imaginem, 
nee  affictam,  nee  depictum  fecere.  Occulte  enim  eis  indicaret  Numa,  quod  est  optimum,  non  alia 
ratione  quam  sola  mente  ulli,  licet  attingere.5 

Alexander  autem  in  libro  de  symbolis  Pythagoreis,  refert  Pythagoram  fuisse  discipulum  Nazarati 
Assyrii.  Quidum  eum  existimant  Ezechielem,  sed  non  est,  ut  ostendetur  postea :  et  vult  praeterea 
Pythagoram  Gallos  audiisse  et  Brachmanas.6  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  a  considerable  part  of 
the  ancient  idolatry  arose  from  a  cause  apparently  trifling,  but  yet  quite  proportionate  to  the  effect. 
This  was  the  necessary  personification  of  objects  by  the  primeval  language  which  had  no  neuter 
gender,  as  we  know  was  and  yet  is  the  case  with  the  synagogue  Hebrew;  and  I  doubt  not  all  its 
cognate  dialects,  in  early  times,  were  the  same.  "  None  dare  to  enter  the  temple  of  Serapis,  who 
"  did  not  bear  on  his  breast  or  forehead  the  name  Jao  or  J-ha-ho,  a  name  almost  equivalent  in 
"sound  to  that  of  the  Hebrew  Jehovah,  and  probably  of  identical  import;  and  no  name  was 
"  uttered  in  Egypt  with  more  reverence  than  this  of  Iao.  In  the  hymn  which  the  hierophant  or 
"  guardian  of  the  sanctuary  sang  to  the  initiated,  this  was  the  first  explanation  given  of  the 
"  nature  of  the  Deity:  He  is  one,  and  by  himself,  and  to  him  alone  do  all  things  owe  their  existence." 
Translation  from  the  German  of  Schiller.7 

Voltaire,  in  his  commentary  on  Exodus,  tells  us,  that  some  critics  say  the  name  Jehovah  signi- 
fies destroyer.8  The  Egyptians  pronounced  it  Jaou,  and  when  they  entered  into  the  temple  of  the 
Sun  they  carried  a  phylactery,  on  which  the  name  laou  was  written.    Sanchoniathon  wrote  it  Jevo. 


1  Lev.  xix.  24.  *  Parkhurst's  Lexicon,  voc.  hbn,  p.  160,  ed.  7.  3  Ibid.  voc.  mrr,  p.  155,  ed.  7. 

4  Vide  Diss.  III.  in  Preface  to  Whiston's  Josephus  and  Tacitus.         s  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  Lib.  i.  p.  304.         6  Ibid. 

7  Monthly  Repository,  Vol.  XX.  pp.  198,  199. 

*  Where  Voltaire  got  his  authority  for  Jehovah  meaning  destroyer  the  author  does  not  know,  but  it  is  probably  true, 
as  it  is  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  remainder  of  the  picture,  and  arose  from  the  mistake  between  the  Creator  and 
Destroyer. 

2u 


330  YHS,   DERIVATION   OF. 

Origen  and  Jerom  think  it  ought  to  be  pronounced  Jao.  The  Samaritans  called  it  Jave.  From 
this  name  comes  the  ancient  Jovis,  (ancient  nom.  case,  see  Parkhurst,)  Jovispiter — Jupiter  with 
the  ancient  Tuscans  and  Latins.     The  Greeks  made  from  Jehova  their  Zeus. 

The  god  Horus  is  stated  by  Dodvvell  to  have  the  meaning  of  destroyer. 

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  in  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."2  He  goes  on  in  the  same 
page  to  observe,  that  it  is  said  by  Philo-Biblius  in  Eusebius,  that  the  God  of  the  Phoenicians  was 
called  Jevo  or  Jao.  How  can  any  one  doubt  that  this  is  the  Jove,  who,  according  to  the  report  of 
the  Greeks,  had  a  temple  in  Carmel,  where  no  image  was  adored  ?  To  this  temple,  as  I  have 
before  remarked,  Plato  and  Pythagoras  probably  withdrew  for  study. 

Adrian  Reland,  De  Nomine  Jehovah,  says,  "It  is  plain  that  the  Latins  formed  the  name  of 
"  their  god  Jupiter,  whom  they  called  Jovis,  from  the  name  Jehovah." 3  Mr.  Maurice  says, 
"  From  this  word  mrv  leue,  the  Pagan  title  of  Jao  and  Jove  is,  with  the  greatest  probability, 
formed."  4  "  In  the  Indra  or  Divespiter  of  India,  and  his  symbol,  the  vaira  or  forked  bolt,  we  im- 
"  mediately  recognize  the  Jupiter  Tonans  of  the  Greeks  and  Latins.  Jupiter  conquered  the 
"  Titans,  Indra  the  Assoors,  with  their  bolts." 5  Deva,  or  Deo,  was  a  sacred  title. 6  It  was  pro- 
phesied that  Cristna  was  to  become  incarnate  in  the  house  of  Yadu  at  Mathura,  of  his  mother 
Devaci.1  The  elements  of  the  words  Ie  and  Deus  or  Diva  are  evident  in  these  names.  Cristna 
was  born  in  the  eighth  month,  on  a  Wednesday  at  midnight,  in  the  house  of  Vasudeva,  his  father, 
of  Devaci,  his  mother. 8  The  same  is  here  again  to  be  found  in  the  word  Vasudeva.  I  cannot 
entertain  a  doubt  that  the  Indra  of  the  Brahmins  is  the  Jupiter  of  the  Etruscans  and  Latins.  He 
is  called  Dyupeti  and  Dyupetir.9  Although  various  specious  derivations  of  the  word  Jupiter  may 
be  given,  yet  I  think  the  most  probable  is,  that  it  is  nothing  but  Peti  or  Pater  in>  ieu,  or  Jupiter : 
the  leu  shortened  into  Ju.  Mr.  Whiston,  in  a  note  on  Book  ii.  chap.  xii.  of  Josephus,  has  ob- 
served, that  the  way  I  write  Jehovah  by  Jao  is  correct.  Even  amongst  the  Chinese  the  God  is  to 
be  found.  In  ascending  to  their  fabulous  history,  they  say  their  first  legislator  was  Yao.10  In 
short,  it  is  evident  that  all  these  derivations  are,  at  the  bottom,  essentially  the  same. 

6.  It  is  thus  proved  by  fair  deduction  and  logical  reasoning  on  unquestionable  authority,  that  the 
God  mrv  Ieub  Jehovah,  n>  Ie  or  Jah  of  the  Jews,  the  God  ai,  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  j  for  if  Jehovah  was  lao, 
and  lao  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, 


1  The  Hebrew  word  for  the  God  of  Abraham  consisted  merely  of  vowels,  but  we  have  put  three  consonants  into  our 
translation  of  it,  Jehovah. 

2  Book  ix.  pp.  388,  391.  »  Val.  Col.  Lib.  ii.  p.  296.  *  Hind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  p.  73. 

4  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  pp.  461,  462.  6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  288.  7  Maurice,  Hind.  Sceptic  Refuted,  p.  56. 

8  Maurice,  Brain.  Frauds  exp.  *>  Moore's  Pantheon,  p.  259.  ,0  Muller's  Hist.,  Vol.  I.  p.  320.     . 


BOOK   VI.     CHAPTER    IV.     SECTION  6.  331 

but  not  the  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  must  be  the  sun.  Perhaps  the  reverend,  pious,  and  learned  doctor 
would  not  have  been  so  ready  to  make  this  admission,  if  he  had  foreseen  the  consequences  to 
which  it  would  lead.  But  he  was  perfectly  right ;  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews  is  the  Jesus  of  corrupted 
Christianity,  and  multitudes  of  passages  in  the  gospels  prove  it,  or  allude  to  it,  as  the  Doctor  truly 
says— passages  which  are  really  genuine  parts  of  these  works,  as  well  as  many  which  are  misre- 
presented by  accident,  many  by  design,  and  also  many  which  are  forged.  The  philosophical 
Unitarians  may  continue  their  toils  to  overturn  this  doctrine  of  Dr.  Parkhurst,  by  exposing  the 
false  or  misunderstood  passages  in  the  text;  but  when  they  have  done  their  utmost,  enough  will 
remain  for  its  support. 

The  author  will  not  attempt  an  argument  with  them  ;  he  leaves  them  to  the  doughty  champions 
of  the  church — the  Burgesses  and  the  Wranghams,  who  are  never  backward  to  take  the  field  in 
defence  of  the  favourite  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  is  evidently  involved  in  this  question.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  these  doctrines  are  merely  a  chimera,  an  invention  of  the  author's  own  imagi- 
nation ;  almost  every  assertion  which  he  has  made  is  supported  by  the  authority  of  some  one  or 
other  of  learned  Christian  divines  who  have  studied  the  subject  most  carefully.  Jesus  being 
mistaken,  by  the  founders  of  the  Roman  church,  for  the  god  Sol  or  the  sun,  it  follows  that  the  rites, 
ceremonies,  and  doctrines  of  the  devotees  of  the  god  Sol  or  the  sun  may  be  expected  to  be  found 
in  their  religion.  In  the  following  part  of  this  work  it  will  be  shewn  that  that  which  may  be  ex- 
pected to  be  found,  is  really  found ;  and  that  most  of  the  rites  and  doctrines  of  modern  Christi- 
anity are  nothing  more  than  the  rites  and  doctrines  of  the  old  religion,  collected  by  devotees  of 
very  weak  and  mean  understandings,  and  applied  either  to  a  real,  or  to  an  imaginary  personage. 
Which  of  these  two  is  the  truth,  it  will  be  the  final  object  of  this  work  to  determine. 


2  n2 


(    332    ) 


BOOK  VII. 
CHAPTER   I. 

IONIANS,   ORIGIN    OF. — DERIVATION   OF  IONIAN. — ARGONAUTS. — LINGA   AND  YONI. — THE   ARGHA. 

1 .  It  has  been  a  general,  but  a  very  erroneous  opinion,  that  there  were  no  religious  wars  among 
the  ancients.     But  we  read  of  them  in  Egypt,  and  from  the  inquiries  of  our  countrymen  into  the 
habits  and  manners  of  the  oriental  nations  of  very  remote  times,  we  learn  that  traces  yet  exist, 
which  cannot  be  mistaken,  of  religious  wars  in  India  of  the  very  worst  description — wars  not  ex- 
ceeded in  duration  or  atrocity  by  any  of  those  in  modern  Europe,  bad  as  they  have  been.     It  also 
appears  that  the  religions  of  India  became,  in  very  early  times,  divided  into  an  almost  inconceiv- 
able number  of  sects,  some  of  which,  after  bloody  wars,  were  expelled  to  the  West,  under  different 
names.     In  one  of  these  sects,  either  driven  out  or  emigrating  from  India,  I  think  will  be  found 
the  ancient  Ionians.     These  people  are  chiefly  found  in  Attica,  and  on  the  most  Western  coast  of 
Asia  Minor.     The  story  of  the  latter  being  a  colony  from  Athens  is  not  worth  a  moment's  con- 
sideration.    The  vain  Athenians  found  traces  of  them  in  Greece  and  in  Asia;   then,  of  course, 
their  national  vanity  suggested  that  the  Ionians  must  have  come  from  Athens.     It  probably  never 
occurred  to  them  that  the  two  remnants  might  have  a  common  origin.    As  usual,  the  Greeks  being 
perfectly  ignorant  of  their  origin,  in  order  to  account  for  it  they  invented  a  story ;  and  in  this  case, 
it  was  of  a  king  called  Ion,  from  whom  it  was  said  that  they  took  their  name.     It  is  not  improba- 
ble that  they  might  have  arrived  at  Athens  from  the  North-east  by  way  of  Thrace.     But  it  may 
be  a  doubt  whether  part  of  them  may  not  have  come  by  sea  at  a  more  early  period  to  Argos,  and 
the  Argolis,  where  they  are  found  to  have  been  settled.    They  were  also  said  to  have  once  dwelt 
in  Achaia,  whence  the  adjoining  sea  and  islands  had  the  name  of  Ionian.     But  their  principal  set- 
tlement was  in  Asia  Minor,  on  the  western  coast  of  which  they  had  a  very  fine  country,  and 
twelve  states  or  tribes  in  a  confederacy,  which   all  assembled  at  stated  times  to  worship  at  a 
temple  built  by  them  in  common,  like  that  of  the  Jews,  a  circumstance  worthy  of  attention  j  it 
was  called  Pan-Ionium.     We  have  here  a  very  close  resemblance  to  the  Israelitish  system.    I 
suspect  that  the  district  was  called  by  this  name,  but  that  the  national  temple  was  at  Ephesus,  a 
town  which  was  said  to  have  been  built  by  Amazons,  and  was  certainly  one  of  the  principal  Ionian 
cities,  if  not  the  chief  of  them.     Here  was  the  famous  image  of  the  black  Di-ana,  or  Di-jana,  or 
Dia-iana,  which  was  supposed  to  have  descended  from  heaven. 

2.  On  the  derivation  of  the  word  Ionian,  Dr.  Lempriere  says,  "  It  is  generally  thought  to  come 
"  from  the  Hebrew  Iavan,  or  (if  pronounced  with  the  quiescent  vau)  Ion ;  and  in  like  manner 
"  the  Hellenes  are  thought  to  be  the  same  with  Elisa,  in  the  sacred  writings,  more  especially 
"  their  country  Hellas.  Hence  Bochart  makes  Iavan,  the  son  of  Japhet,  the  ancestor  of  the 
"  Iones."  He  had  just  before  observed  that  Greece  was  anciently  divided  between  the  Hellenes 
and  the  Ionians,  and  that  Hellen  has  the  same  meaning  as  Ioni,  and  both  that  of  the  female 
generative  power.     They  are  said  by  Conon  to  have  descended  from  a  king  called  Hellen,  the  son 


BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  3.  333 

of  Deucalion,  one  of  whose  grandsons  settled  in  the  Peloponnesus,  then  called  Apia.  Thus  we 
find  them  to  descend  from  a  man  saved  at  the  flood  of  Noah,  Japeti ;  and  also  from  Deucalion, 
said  by  the  Greeks  to  have  been  saved  from  the  flood,  whose  son  was  called  Hellen.  They  are  also 
said  to  have  built  a  town  called  Argos,  and  to  have  dwelt  in  a  country  called  Apia,  the  name  of 
the  Egyptian  Apis.  In  their  city  of  Argos  the  goddess  Juno  was  particularly  worshiped ;  and 
here  Io,  the  daughter  of  Jasus,  or  laeroc,  or  I^cos,  was  born,  with  whom  Jupiter  or  the  God  Iao 
fell  in  love;  to  prevent  whose  intrigues  the  bull-eyed1  Juno  set  Argus,  with  a  hundred  eyes,  to 
watch.  Jupiter  turned  Io  into  a  beautiful  heifer ;  she  wandered  into  Egypt,  and,  as  they  say, 
became  the  goddess  Isis,  the  wife  of  the  bull-headed  Osiris  or  Apis.  Another  story  says,  she  was 
the  daughter  of  Jordanus,  a  king  in  Phoenicia ;  that  Jupiter  turned  himself  into  a  bull ;  and  after 
persuading  her  to  mount  him,  swam  over  the  sea  with  her  to  Crete,  where  she  brought  forth  a 
most  celebrated  lawgiver,  called  Minos,  who  is  the  same  as  the  lawgiver  of  India,  called  Menu, 
and  as  the  first  king  and  lawgiver  of  Egypt,  Menes.  Respecting  king  Jordanus,  that  is,  the  king 
named  after  the  river  Jordan,  I  shall  say  more  hereafter.  I  think  the  reader  will  agree  with  me, 
that  all  this  is  sufficiently  mystical. 

The  Hindoo  books  are  full  of  accounts  of  the  expulsion  from  India  of  a  class  of  persons  called 
Yavanas.  Now  who  were  these  Yavanas  ;  and  when  expelled,  what  became  of  them  ?  To  this 
I  think  I  can  produce  an  unanswerable  reply, — the  evidence  of,  in  this  case,  an  unimpeachable 
witness.  The  person  in  the  Pentateuch  called  Javan  is  thought  to  have  planted  Greece ;  the 
LXX.  were  of  this  opinion,  and  constantly  translate  the  Hebrew  word  Javan  into  'RxXccg, 
the  country  of  Hellen,  or  Greece.2  When  I  consider  the  circumstance  of  the  Yavanas  being 
Greeks,  and  the  fact,  that  many  Greek  towns,  as  I  shall  presently  shew,  were  called  after  those  in' 
India,  I  cannot  doubt  that  some  at  least  of  the  Greek  states  were  colonies  from  that  country. 
"  Javan  was  called  by  Moses  \v  iun.  Between  this  name  and  that  of  Janus  there  is  thought  to  be 
"  a  great  similitude." 3 

Respecting  the  word  Helen,  Proclus4  says,  that  all  the  beauty  subsisting  about  generation 
from  the  fabrication  of  things,  is  signified  by  Helen :  about  which  there  is  a  perpetual  battle  of 
souls,  till,  the  more  intellectual  having  vanquished  the  more  irrational  forms  of  life,  they  return  to 
the  place  from  whence  they  originally  came.  Mr.  Taylor,  the  Platonist,  says,  that  the  word 
Helen  signifies  intelligible  beauty,  being  a  certain  vessel  ('sXeV7j  rig  oixrct)  attracting  to  itself  intel- 
lect.5 

3.  The  elegant,  polite,  and  enlightened  Greeks,  a  nation  celebrated  for  wise  men,  had  a  history 
of  a  voyage  called  the  Argonautic  expedition,  of  a  company  of  heroes,  who  sailed  from  Greece  in 
a  ship  called  the  Argo,  to  the  kingdom  of  Colchis,  in  search  of  the  golden  fleece  of  a  Ram. 
Although  the  history  literally  taken  is  full  of  the  most  puerile  nonsense  and  absurd  contradictions, 
it  was  in  substance  generally  believed ;  the  ancient  wise  men,  as  in  some  similar  cases  modern 
ones  do,  endeavouring  to  explain  the  difficulties  away.  The  story  is  very  long  and  is  really  so 
foolish,  if  understood  literally,  that  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  repeat  it,  but  it  may  be  found  in  Dr. 
Lempriere's  Classical  Dictionary,  gravely  told,  not  disputed,  but  countenanced,  for  the  instruction 
of  our  youth — and  a  very  beautiful  thing  it  is  for  the  purpose.  He  finishes,  instead  of  expressing 
any  doubt  about  its  having  taken  place,  by  observing,  that  many  persons,  the  learned  no  doubt,  con- 
sider it  as  a  commercial  enterprise,  that  Dr.  Gillies  considers  it  partly  as  a  voyage  of  instruction 
for  young  Greeks,  and  partly  for  retaliation  for  injuries  sustained  by  Greece  from  strangers;  and 


i  Homer.  •  Shuckford,  Lib.  iii.  3  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  251.  *  In  Plat.  Polit.  p.  398. 

*  Class.  Journal,  No.  XLV.  p.  39. 


334  ARGONAUTS. — LINGA   AND    YONI. 

the  Leviathan  of  wise  men,  the  Aleim  or  God  of  modern  Britain,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  considered  it 
to  be  an  embassy:  and  so  firmly  was  this  talented  and  silly,  wise  and  foolish,1  though  very 
good  man,  convinced  of  its  truth,  that  he  founded  upon  it  a  system  of  chronology.  It  is  probably 
an  astronomical  allegory:  and  from  various  terms  used  and  incidental  circumstances,  it  is  evidently 
not  of  Grecian  invention,  though  accommodated  by  them  to  their  traditions  and  localities.  On 
this  part  of  the  subject  Mr.  Maurice  says,  2 

"  Now  the  mythological  history  of  Canopus  is,  that  he  was  the  pilot  of  that  sacred  vessel, 
"  (meaning  the  ship  Argo,)  and  was  adored  as  the  God  of  mariners  among  the  Egyptians,  who, 
"  therefore  placed  him  on  the  rudder,  calling  him  Canobus,  from  Cnoub,  the  Coptic  term  for  gold — 
"  in  reference  to  the  singular  colour  and  lustre  of  a  star,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  in  the  southern 
"  hemisphere.  The  circumstance  of  this  star  not  being  visible  in  any  of  the  celebrated  cities  of 
"  Greece  has  already  been  noticed  from  the  same  author,  and  Dr.  Rutherford,  in  proof  that  the 
"  Greeks  were  not  the  original  inventors  of  that  asterism." 

Again,  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  Dr.  Rutherford,  in  one  of  the  most  ingenious  productions  on  the 
"  subject  of  natural  philosophy  that  ever  was  published,  has  in  the  clearest  manner  evinced  that 
"  the  constellations  delineated  on  the  sphere,  though  apparently  allusive  to  the  Argonautic  expe- 
"  dition,  could  not  possibly  be  the  fabrication  of  Chiron,  or  any  other  Grecian  for  that  purpose  ; 
"  since  the  greatest  part  of  the  stars  in  the  constellation  Argo,  and,  in  particular,  Canopus,  the 
"  brightest  of  them,  were  not  visible  in  any  part  of  Greece ;  and  no  astronomer  would  be  so  absurd 
"  as  to  delineate  constellations  to  direct  the  course  of  a  vessel,  the  principal  stars  in  which  '  could 
"  *  not  be  seen  by  the  mariners  either  when  they  set  out  or  when  they  came  to  the  end  of  the 
"  <  voyage.'  "  3 

Here  is  an  end  of  the  Argonautic  expedition  as  a  Grecian  story  j  we  will  try  if  we  can  find  it 
elsewhere. 

Of  the  Argonautic  expedition  Sir  W.  Jones  says,  "  That  it  neither  was  according  to  Herodotus, 
"  nor  indeed  could  have  been  originally,  Grecian,  appears  even  when  stripped  of  its  poetical  and 
"  fabulous  ornaments,  extremely  disputable :  and  I  am  disposed  to  believe  it  was  an  emigration 
"  from  Africa  and  Asia,  of  that  adventurous  race  who  had  first  been  established  in  ChaldaBa."4 

In  a  little  treatise  of  Mr.  Maurice's,  called  Sanscreet  Fragments,  published  in  1798,  is  an  ac- 
count of  a  sage  called  Agastya,  whom  he  shews  to  be  the  star  Canopus,  the  famous  steersman  or 
pilot  of  the  Argo  of  Greece.  The  circumstance  that  this  star  was  not  visible  in  Greece,  and  that 
it  was  in  this  particular  manner  noticed  and  said  to  be  a  hero,  placed  in  the  heavens  by  the  San- 
screet historians,  is  very  remarkable,  and  pretty  well  shews  that  the  mythos  of  the  Argonauts  is, 
as  we  might  expect,  of  Hindoo  origin.  When  we  consider  how  intimately  this  Argonautic  story 
is  blended  with  all  the  Greek  mythoses — what  multitudes  of  their  towns  and  districts  are  called 
from  it — the  accounts  of  it  in  the  poems  of  Homer — and  that  its  stars  are  not  visible  in  Greece, 
how  can  we  doubt  that  all  their  systems  came  from  the  same  place  whence  it  came,  viz.  India  ? 

Sir  W.  Jones  has  observed,  that  the  asterisms  of  the  Greek  and  Indian  hemispheres  are  so  simi- 
lar, that  it  is  plain  the  systems  are  the  same,  yet  that  there  are  such  variations  as  to  make  it 
evident  they  were  not  copied  from  one  another ;  whence  it  follows,  that  they  must  have  come  from 
a  common  source.5 

When  the  almost  infinite  variety  of  ways  in  which  the  Argonauts  are  connected  with  the 
mythoses  of  Greece  is  considered,  it  of  itself  affords  a  strong  probability,  amounting  very  near  to  a 


1  Witness  his  Essays  on  the  Revelation  of  St.  John.    He  was  the  greatest  of  natural,  and  the  least  of  moral,  phi- 
losophers. 

*  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  38.  3  ind,  Ant.  <  Supplement  to  Ind.  Chron. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  p.  10. 


BOOK   VII.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION   5.  335 

demonstration,  that  the  Grecian  mythology  came  from  India.  Indeed,  I  think  a  probable  opinion 
might  be  very  safely  founded  upon  it  alone.1  Babylon  must  have  been  the  great  connecting  link 
between  India  and  Europe. 

4.  It  now  becomes  necessary  to  make  a  few  observations  on  the  Indian  Linga  and  the  I,  or 
Yoni,  as  connected  with  the  celebrated  boat  of  the  Hindoos,  called  Argha,  which  I  propose  to 
shew  gave  rise,  among  the  Greeks,  to  the  fables  of  the  above-named  Argo,  Argonauts,  &c,  &c. 
In  the  old  philosophy  of  the  Hindoos  I  have  shewn  that  the  world  was  supposed  to  be  destroyed 
and  renewed  at  the  end  of  certain  periods,  and  this  process  was  supposed  to  be  of  immense,  if  not 
of  eternal,  duration.  This  was  a  very  recondite  and  philosophical  idea,  and  was  partly  founded 
upon  the  principle  that  God  was  perfectly  wise,  and  that  he  would  form  or  create  nothing  that 
was  bad,  and  that  as  he  was  not  changeable,  he  would  not  really  finally  destroy  that  which  he  had 
made,  which  was  necessarily  good :  and  that  consequently  what  appears  to  us  to  be  changed  must 
be  only  periodical,  and  therefore  that  a  periodical  renovation  of  every  thing  would  take  place.  At  the 
end  of  every  period  the  world  was  supposed  to  be  destroyed.  At  this  moment  Brahme  or  Brahme- 
Maia,  the  Creator,  was  believed  to  be  in  a  state  of  repose  or  inaction  in  the  profundity  of  the  great 
abyss  or  firmament :  and  the  male  and  female  generative  powers  of  nature,  in  conjunction,  were 
said  to  float  or  brood  on  the  surface  of  the  firmament  or  abyss,  and  in  themselves  to  preserve  the 
germ  of  animated  nature, — of  all  plants  and  animated  beings.  This  operation  of  the  two  powers 
is  described  by  the  Linga,  in  the  shape  of  a  mast,  fixed  in  the  Yoni,  in  the  shape  of  a  boat,  floating 
in  the  firmament.  After  this  operation  has  proceeded  a  certain  time,  the  female  generative  power 
begins  to  act,  by  feeling  the  passion  of  love,  the  spcog  of  the  Greeks,  which  is  described  by  the 
sending  forth  of  a  dove,  and  this  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  age.     Of  this  Col.  Wilford  says,2 

"  Satyavrata  having  built  the  ark,  and  the  flood  increasing,  it  was  made  fast  to  the  peak  of 
"  Naubandha  with  a  long  cable. 3 

5.  The  mystic  Ocean  in  which  the  ship  Argha  floated,  is  the  ethereal  space  or  fluid,  the  yp-\ 
rqio,4  called  firmament  in  Gen.  i.  7>  in  which  the  bodies  of  the  planetary  system  revolve.  The 
Ark  or  Argha,  the  ship,  with  its  mount  Meru  in  the  centre  by  way  of  mast,  may  be  seen  in  every 
temple  of  India,  and  requires  no  explanation.  It  is  the  Omphale  of  Delphi.  See  the  Yoni  and 
Linga,  plates,  fig.  20. 

The  Earth  was  often  called  the  Arga :  this  was  imitated  by  the  mystic  Meru.  The  north  pole 
was  the  Linga,  surrounded  by  seven  dwips  or  zones  rising  one  above  another,  and  seven  seas,  or 
rivers,  or  waters,  and  an  outward  one  called  Oceanus.  In  this  Oceanus  the  whole  floated.  Thus 
the  earth,  mother  Eartha,  became  the  Argha  or  lone,  and  Meru  the  pole,  the  Linga. 


1  I  ought  to  have  explained  to  my  reader  before,  that  a  probable  opinion  is  such  a  one  as  a  man  may  entertain, 
whether  it  be  true  or  false,  without  being  damned  for  it.  It  is  the  scientific  term  for  a  doctrine  of  the  Jesuits,  discussed 
and  misrepresented  by  Pascal  in  the  Provincial  Letters.  The  Jesuits,  making  allowance  for  the  infirmities  of  human 
nature,  maintained,  that  if  a  person  by  inquiry  of  those  who  were  likely  to  be  informed,  or  by  the  best  means  in  his 
power,  came  to  an  erroneous  conclusion,  he  would  not  be  subject  to  condemnation  for  it.  The  Calvinists,  and  those 
who  adopt  the  Athanasian  creed,  are  of  a  different  opinion ;  but  then  they  are  a  more  enlightened  race  than  the 
benighted  Jesuits ! 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  524. 

3  Nau-band-a  I  have  explained  before  (in  B.  v.  chap.  v.  sect.  2  ).  Sati-avrata  is  composed  of  the  word  Sati,  meaniag 
Saturn,  (which  I  shall  explain  hereafter,)  and  a-vrat,  which  is  the  Hebrew  emphatic  article,  and  ntm  brat,  and 
means  former  or  creator,  from  *m  bra,  to  form  or  create :  and  jointly  it  means  mount  of  Sati  the  Creator.  Thus  II- 
avrata  is  the  mount  of  God  (il)  the  Creator.     In  the  Sanscrit  the  b  and  "v  are  used  indifferently  for  each  other. 

4  From  this  word  rqio  came  the  rack  of  Shakspeare.  "  Shall  leave  not  a  ruck  behind."  See  title-page  of  the  Celtic 
Druids. 


336  THE   ARGHA. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  this  mythos  must  have  been  formed  in  the  infancy  of  astronomical  science, 
when  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic  was  believed  to  coincide  with  the  plane  of  the  equator. 

"  During  the  flood,  Brahma,  *  or  the  creating  power,  was  asleep  at  the  bottom  of  the  abyss  :  the 
"  generative  powers  of  nature,  both  male  and  female,  were  reduced  to  their  simplest  elements — 
"  the  Linga  and  the  Yoni.  The  latter  assumed  the  shape  of  the  hull  of  a  ship,  since  typified  by 
"  the  Argha,  whilst  the  Linga  became  the  mast.  (Maha-deva  is  sometimes  represented  standing 
"  ing  erect  in  the  middle  of  the  Argha,  in  the  room  of  the  mast.  Maha-deva  means  magnus-deus.) 
"  In  this  manner  they  were  wafted  over  the  deep,  under  the  care  and  protection  of  Vishnu."  (The 
three  in  one,  and  one  in  three.)  "  When  the  waters  had  retired,  the  female  power  of  nature  ap- 
"  peared  immediately  in  the  character  of  Capoteswari,  or  the  dove,  and  she  was  soon  joined  by 
"  her  consort  Capoteswura."  *  I  think  he  must  be  very  blind  who  does  not  see  here  the  duplicate 
of  the  Mosaic  allegory  of  a  ship  and  a  deluge.  The  animated  world  in  each  case  preserved  in  a 
boat,  or  Argha,  or  Theba,  n^n  the,  @i&),  but  in  the  latter,  instead  of  putting  all  the  live  animals 
into  one  ship,  the  germ  or  principle  of  generation  is  substituted.3 

The  Argha  is  represented  by  a  vessel  of  copper,  by  the  Brahmins  in  their  sacred  rites. 4  It 
is  intended  to  be  a  symbol  or  hieroglyphic  of  the  universal  mother.  It  is  very  often  in  the  form 
of  an  elliptic  boat  or  canoe,  having  both  ends  similarly  pointed,  or  biprora,  as  its  name  was. 5  In 
the  centre  of  it  is  an  oval  rising,  embossed,  which  represents  the  Linga.  But  it  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  shape  described  in  the  plate,  repeated  in  every  variety  of  way,  in  every  temple  of  India.  By 
this  union  of  the  Linga  and  Yoni,  or  Ioni,  it  is  intended  mystically  to  represent  the  two  principles 
uf  generation — to  represent  them  as  one.  This  boat,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  was  the  Argo  of 
Greece,  the  name  of  the  mystic  ship  in  which  the  Ionians,  who  lived  at  Argos,  sailed  to  seek  the 
golden  fleece  of  the  Ram.  It  was  also  the  name  of  a  man,  Argos,  who  is  said  to  have  lived  at 
Aiviphilochium,  in  the  bay  of  AM-brasius,  and  it  was  the  invention  of  divine  wisdom  or  Minerva; 
This  Argha  was  also  the  cup  in  which  Hercules  sailed  over  the  ocean.6 

In  my  plates,  fig.  21,  is  an  example  of  the  Argha  and  Linga  and  Ioni,  from  a  great  number  in 
Moore's  Hindoo  Pantheon,  and  from  Creuzer's  plates.     The  Argha  of  India  was  the  same  as  the 


1  Brahma  is  K-o  bra,  creator,  and  ma,  or  maha,  great — that  is,  great  Creator.     Vide  Book  v.  chap.  i.  sect.  10,  n. 
*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  523. 

3  This  leads  me  to  digress  a  moment  to  make  an  observation  upon  the  <Xv?  or  mud  of  Sanchoniathon,  into 
which  the  mass  of  our  globe  was  supposed,  not  unphilosophically,  to  have  been  reduced  j  a  state  into  which  M.  Cuvier's 
researches  shew  that  it  has  been  at  least  nearly  reduced  many  times.  This  substance,  Genesis  says,  was  inn  teu,  imi 
u-b'eu,  incapable  of  generation  or  of  producing  any  of  those  beautiful  animal  or  vegetable  forms  which  we  see  around 
us.  God  communicated  to  it  this  faculty,  and  we  know  not,  and  probably  never  shall  know,  how  far  it  extended.  For 
any  thing  we  know,  he  might  subject  it  to  certain  rules,  or  endow  it  with  certain  properties,  which  should  give  it  the 
power,  under  certain  limited  circumstances,  of  what  we  call  self-generation,  or  self-production.  I  contend  that,  if  we 
admit  a  God,  we  cannot  doubt  his  possession  of  this  power ;  and,  as  we  cannot  know  that  he  has  not  exercised  it,  we 
cannot,  I  think,  from  equivocal  generation,  conclude  that  he  does  not  exist-  When  certain  particles  of  matter,  under 
certain  circumstances,  come  together,  they  shoot  into  certain  regularly-shaped  crystals,  always  having  the  same  forms, 
but  not  animated.  Where  is  the  improbability  in  the  Creator  having  subjected  matter  to  such  other  rule  or  law,  that 
when  other  particles  of  it  come  together,  under  certain  peculiar  circumstances,  certain  other  forms  having  the  faculty 
or  capability  of  vivification,  the  property  of  animation,  to  a  certain  limited  extent,  should  be  produced  ?  For  instance, 
the  animalcule  observed  to  appear  in  vinegar,  in  which  any  vegetable  matter  is  steeped.  We  are  totally  ignorant  of 
the  means  by  which  the  principle  of  vitality  acts  upon  matter.  Then  shall  we  draw  positive  conclusions  merely  from 
our  ignorance  ?  Heat  applied  to  an  inanimate  egg  produces  what  we  call  life.  This  egg  is  matter  under  a  certain 
modification,  fitted,  when  heat  is  applied,  to  produce  the  effect,  life.  In  the  same  manner,  the  matter  in  the  vinegar  is 
under  such  circumstances  as  are  fitted  to  produce  the  effect  which  we  see. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  pp.  52,  275.  s  This  was  the  shape  of  the  ship  of  the  Argonauts. 
6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  pp.  363,  365. 


BOOK  Vlf.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  5.  337 

Patera  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  so  sacred  in  the  mysteries  of  Delphi,  and  every  where  in  those 
of  Apollo.  It  is  called  among  the  Hindoos  sometimes  Argha,  and  sometimes  Patera,  and  some- 
times Argha-patera.  It  is  also  called  Pan-patera  or  Pan-patra.  Among  the  numerous  plates  in 
Moore's  Pantheon,  there  is  scarcely  one  in  which  the  Linga  and  Ioni  or  Argha  are  not  to  be  seen, 
varied  in  different  ways.  *  In  the  ceremonies  of  the  Hindoos  there  is  no  emblem  in  more  uni- 
versal use.     For  a  full  account  of  it,   I  must  refer  my  reader  to  the  book  itself. 

The  meaning  of  the  word  Argo  as  applied  to  the  ship  Argo,  is  generally  acknowledged  to  be 
unknown,  and  not  to  be  intelligible  in  the  Greek  language.  Argolis  is  Argo-polis.  Argia,  the 
other  name  of  the  same  place,  is  Argo-ia ;  written  in  Hebrew  letters  it  would  be  N>J")K  argia,  or 
WIN  argai,  and  would  mean  the  place  of  Argo.  This  was  in  Arcadia,  which  was  called  the  cradle 
of  the  Greeks,  where  also  was  Delphi.  Arcadia  is  Area  or  Arga-dia,  the  Sacred  Arga.  The 
Greeks  were  called  Argives.  The  mariners  of  this  ship  were  called  Argonautae.  The  ship  carried 
a  beam  on  her  prow  cut  in  the  forest  of  Dodona,  by  Minerva,  which  gave  out  oracles,  and  which 
falling  on  Jason,  the  captain  of  the  ship,  killed  him.  Of  course  it  must  have  been  carried  upright 
as  a  mast,  or  it  could  not  have  fallen  down  upon  him.  The  ship  was  built  by  seven  Cyclops,  who 
came  from  Syria  or  the  country  of  the  Sun,  ")i#  sr.  It  conveyed  many  passengers2  who  at  one 
time  carried  the  ship  150  miles,  from  the  Danube  to  the  Adriatic,  on  their  shoulders.  They 
passed  from  Greece  by  way  of  the  river  Tanais  or  the  Don  to  the  ocean.  Some  authors  have  said 
the  ship  was  built  by  Hercules  ;  Dr.  Lempriere  solemnly  assures  us  this  is  false.  I  therefore  place 
no  dependence  on  it.     He  seems  really  to  have  believed  that  there  once  was  such  a  ship. 

There  was  also  a  town  of  Acarnania,  called  Argos  AMphilochium,3  in  the  bay  of  Aaibracius.  It 
was  founded  by  AMPHilochus  of  Argos,  son  of  AMPHiareus  son  of  Apollo.  It  is  at  present  called 
Filoquia.  Here  again  we  find  the  words  Argo  and  Amphe  or  Omphe  or  Om  closely  connected. 
There  was  also  a  city  in  Macedonia  called  Amphipolis,  of  which  Thucydides  gives  an  explanation, 
but  which  was  not  satisfactory  to  D'Anville.  It  had  the  name  of  Crysopolis.  Its  Turkish  name 
is  Iamboli  or  Emboli.  It  was  anciently  also  called  Eion,  out  of  which  the  Greeks  made  Iampolis. 
It  is  at  the  mouth  of  the  Strymon,  near  Palaeo-Orphano,  and  not  far  from  the  tomb  of  Orpheus, 
near  which  Dr.  Clarke  4  found  a  medal  with  a  Boustrophedon  inscription  thus  :  AM 

I*. 

These  names  may  be  considered  to  be  translations  of  one  another.  Crysopolis  is  7ro?us, 
Xpr}c;og  henignus,  mitis. 5  Iam-boli  is  polis-om,  or  om-polis,  with  the  monogram  1  prefixed,  as 
was  very  common.  The  Eion  is  the  on  of  Egypt  and  the  Delphic  ei.  But  of  the  meaning  of 
these  words  we  shall  see  more  presently.  Col.  Leake  found  an  inscription  at  a  village  near  the 
Strymon  in  Macedonia,  called  at  this  time  Yenikeni,  the  remains  of  the  ancient  Amphipolis.6    Mr. 


1  Panth.  p.  388.  s  Onomacritus  makes  the  passengers  by  the  Argo  amount  to  fifty-two. 

3  I  suspect  that  this  is  Om-pi-lhkm  or  Omphi-l'-hkm— town  of  the  wise  Omphi,  or  of  the  wisdom  of  Om,  or  Omphi. 
If  my  suspicion  be  correct,  the  mystic  Om  ought  to  be  found  wherever  the  mythos  is  found.  I  much  suspect  that  in 
all  these  words,  even  in  the  word  Omphi,  the  phi,  as  I  have  before  intimated,  is  the  Coptic  emphatic  article  Pi,  and  that 
we  have  sought  too  deeply  for  the  meaning  of  this  word.  I  shall  be  told  that  Pi  is  not  Greek ;  but  is  it  not  evident 
that  the  Greek  and  Coptic  were  originally  one  ?  Can  any  thing,  therefore,  be  more  likely  than  that  the  names  given 
to  places  should  be  similar  in  both  of  the  languages  ?  The  Egyptian,  however,  must  have  been  the  oldest :  but  I  shall 
discuss  the  question  of  this  language  presently. 

4  Travels,  Vol.  IV.  p.  401.  4to. 

s  Why  not  Xpi/o-o;  will  be  explained  hereafter. 

6  Walpole's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  512.  In  the  same  work,  p.  516,  I  find  Apollo  called  AIUOTN,  in  Thessaly.  This 
is,  I  think,  Apollyon. 

2x 


338  THE   ARGHA. 

Bryant  has  observed  that  the  Greeks  new-named  many  places.  For  example,  Palmyra,  for  Tad- 
mor  ;  but  that  among  the  natives  the  ancient  names  are  yet  to  be  found  in  use,  the  Greek  name 
being  forgotten.  I  suspect  this  is  the  case  with  Amphipolis  and  Yeni-keni,  and  that  the  former 
part  of  this  word  was  a  corruption  of  Yoni.  The  country  about  Amphipolis  was  peculiarly  sacred. 
The  river  Strymon  was  anciently  called  Ioneus. 

The  Greeks  considered  Delphi  to  be  the  navel  of  the  earth,  as  the  Jews,  and  even  the  first 
Christians,  thought  that  the  true  navel  was  Jerusalem ;  and  the  Mohamedans  still  consider  Mecca 
as  the  mother  and  navel,  or  nabhi.  All  these  notions  appear  to  have  arisen  from  the  worship  of 
which  we  have  been  treating.  The  Yoni  and  Nabhi  or  navel,  are  both  denominated  Amba  or  mo- 
ther :  but  Wilford  says,  the  words  Amba,  Nabhi,  and  Argha,  have  gradually  become  synony- 
mous j  and  as  otju&j  and  umbo  seem  to  be  derived  from  amba  or  the  circular  argha,  with  a  boss 
like  a  target,  so  oy.<pahos  and  umbilicus  apparently  spring  from  the  same  root :  and  even  the 
word  navel,  though  originally  Gothic,  was  the  same  anciently  with  Nabhi  in  Sanscrit  and  Naf  in 
Persian.  *  This  is  also  the  same  with  the  Nau  in  Sanscrit  for  ship,  and  Navis  in  Latin.  A 
great  umbilicus,  carried  in  the  processions  both  at  Delphi  and  in  Egypt,  had  the  form  of  a  boat  or 
Nau.  From  this  Nau  the  centre  part  of  our  churches  was  called  Nave,  and  built  in  their  present 
oblong,  inconvenient  form. 

The  Protogenos  or  first  Emanation  from  the  divine  power — from  the  head  of  Jupiter,  was  Mi- 
nerva or  Divine  Wisdom,  or  the  female  generative  power,  of  which  the  Ioni  or  Argha  of  India  was 
an  emblem.  See  plates,  fig.  22.  This  was  the  Rasit  of  Genesis,  the  Wisdom  or  the  first  prin- 
ciple (or  principe  in  French)  by  which  God  formed  the  world.  It  was  the  Argo  of  Greece  :  it  was 
the  A-PX7}  of  the  feminine  gender,  which  meant  the  first  cause,  the  ruler,  the  beginning.11  Its  verb 
was  Ag%a>,  to  command,  to  set  in  order. 3  The  Ionian  Pelasgi  or  Ionian  sailors  called  their  gods 
disposers  or  placers  in  order.  Here  is  the  Argha  or  Argo  or  Agp£7j,  the  first  or  pre-eminent  placer 
in  order,  both  in  time  and  dignity.  The  way  in  which  these  profound  doctrines  emanate  from  one 
another  is  striking  and  beautiful.  This  shews  how  the  Exoteric  meaning  of  Genesis  is  beginning, 
and  its  Esoteric  wisdom.  As  I  have  before  observed,  if  the  Greek  had  merely  meant  in  the  first 
place,  or  in  the  beginning,  it  would  have  said  7r^(oroog.  The  Argha  or  Ark  is  called  xtGtoros  by 
the  LXX.  When  a  Buddha  or  new  Incarnation  of  divine  wisdom  appeared  in  Japan  he  was  called 
Cobotos.4  Can  any  one  doubt  that  this  was  the  Argha  or  xiGcorog  of  the  LXX.  ?  This  shews 
that  the  xi€o)tos  could  not  mean  a  ship,  but,  as  I  have  said  before,  it  had  the  same  meaning  as 
Argha,  the  female  generative  power,  in  opposition  to  the  Linga.  As  a  boat  was  also  the  emblem 
of  the  female  generative  power,  the  two  came  at  length  to  be  confounded. 


'  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  367.  2  See  Jones's  Lex. 

3  The  Hebrew  Tip  ord  and  the  English  order  are  the  same  Saxon  words.  4  Ksempfer,  Japan. 


BOOK  VII.   CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  3.  339 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  LOTUS. — MAURICE  ON   THE  LOTUS. — PAYNE  KNIGHT  ON  THE  SAME.  —  MOORE  ON   THE  SAME. — 

NIMROD  ON  THE  SAME. 

1 .  The  double  sex  typified  by  the  Argha  and  its  contents  is  also  by  the  Hindoos  represented 
by  the  "  Nymphaea  or  Lotus,  floating  like  a  boat  on  the  boundless  ocean,  where  the  whole  plant 
"  signifies  both  the  earth  and  the  two  principles  of  its  fecundation.  The  germ  is  both  Meru  and 
"  the  Linga :  the  petals  and  filaments  are  the  mountains  which  encircle  Meru,  and  are  also  a  type 
"  of  the  Yoni :  the  leaves  of  the  Calyx  are  the  four  vast  regions  to  the  cardinal  points  of  Meru : 
*'  and  the  leaves  of  the  plant  are  the  Dwipas  or  isles  round  the  land  of  Jambu." *  As  this  plant, 
or  the  lily,  was  probably  the  most  celebrated  of  all  the  vegetable  creation  among  the  mystics  of 
the  ancient  world,  and  is  to  be  found  in  thousands  of  the  most  beautiful  and  sacred  paintings  of 
the  Christians  at  this  day,  I  must  detain  my  reader  with  a  few  observations  respecting  it.  This  is 
the  more  necessary,  as  it  appears  that  the  priests  of  the  Romish  Church  have  lost  the  meaning  of 
it :  at  least  this  is  the  case  with  every  one  of  whom  I  have  made  inquiry.  But  it  is  like  many 
other  very  odd  things,  probably  understood  in  the  Vatican,  or  the  crypt  of  St.  Peter's. 

2.  Maurice  says,  "  Among  the  different  plants  which  ornament  our  globe,  there  is  no  one  which 
has  received  so  much  honour  from  man  as  the  Lotos  or  Lily,  in  whose  consecrated  bosom 
Brahma  was  born,  and  Osiris  delighted  to  float.  This  is  the  sublime,  the  hallowed,  symbol  that 
eternally  occurs  in  oriental  mythology  :  and  in  truth  not  without  reason  ;  for  it  is  itself  a  lovely 
prodigy.  Throughout  all  the  Northern  hemisphere  it  was  every  where  held  in  profound  venera- 
tion, and  from  Savary  we  learn  that  that  veneration  is  yet  continued  among  the  modern  Egyp- 

"  tians."  And  we  shall  find  in  the  sequel,  that  it  still  continues  to  receive  the  respect,  if  not  the 
adoration  of  a  great  part  of  the  Christian  world,  unconscious,  perhaps,  of  the  original  reason  of 
their  conduct. 

3.  The  following  is  the  account  given  of  it  by  Mr.  Payne  Knight,  in  his  very  curious  disserta- 
tion on  the  Phallic  worship  : 2 

"  The  Lotos  is  the  Nelumbo  of  Linnaeus.  This  plant  grows  in  the  water,  and  amongst  its 
"  broad  leaves  puts  forth  a  flower,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  formed  the  seed  vessel,  shaped  like  a 
"  bell  or  inverted  cone,  and  punctuated  on  the  top  with  little  cavities  or  cells,  in  which  the  seeds 
"  grow.  The  orifices  of  these  cells  being  too  small  to  let  the  seeds  drop  out  when  ripe  they  shoot 
"  forth  into  new  plants,  in  the  places  where  they  were  formed :  the  bulb  of  the  vessel  serving  as 
"  a  matrix  to  nourish  them,  until  they  acquire  such  a  degree  of  magnitude  as  to  burst  it  open,  and 
"  release  themselves,  after  which,  like  other  aquatic  weeds,  they  take  root  wherever  the  current 
"  deposits  them.  This  plant,  therefore,  being  thus  productive  of  itself,  and  vegetating  from  its 
"  own  matrix,  without  being  fostered  in  the  earth,  was  naturally  adopted  as  the  symbol  of  the 
:'  productive  power  of  the  waters,  upon  which  the  active  spirit  of  the  Creator  operated  in  giving 
*  life  and  vegetation  to  matter.  We  accordingly  find  it  employed  in  every  part  of  the  northern 
c  hemisphere,  where  the  symbolical  religion,  improperly  called  idolatry,  does  or  ever  did  prevail. 
1  The  sacred  images  of  the  Tartars,  Japanese,  and  Indians,  are  almost  all  placed  upon  it,  of  which 


i  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  364. 

Pp.  84  86.  This  book  was  never  sold,  but  only  given  away.  A  copy  is  kept  in  the  British  Museum,  but  it  is 
not  m  the  catalogue.  The  care  displayed  by  the  trustees  in  keeping  it  out  of  the  catalogue,  to  prevent  the  minds  of  the 
studious  gentlemen  who  frequent  that  institution  from  being  corrupted  is  above  all  praise ! ! !    I  have  read  it  in  the 


Museum 

2x2 


340  MOORE   AND   NIMROD   ON   THE   LOTUS. 

"  numerous  Instances  occur  in  the  publication  of  Ksempfer,  Sonnerat,  &c.  The  Brahma  of  India 
"  is  represented  sitting  upon  his  Lotos  throne, and  the  figures  upon  the  Isiac  table  hold  the  stem 
"  of  this  plant  surmounted  by  the  seed  vessel  in  one  hand,  and  the  cross  representing  the  male 
"  organs  of  generation  in  the  other :  thus  signifying  the  universal  power,  both  active  and  passive, 
"  attributed  to  that  Goddess." 

Creuzer  says,1  from  the  peculiar  mode  in  which  the  sacred  Lotus  propagates  itself  by  its  bean, 
came  the  religious  veneration  for  this  seed  ;  on  which  Mr.  Muller  observes,  that  it  was  from  this 
that  Pythagoras,  who  was  of  the  school  of  the  Buddhists,  ordered  his  disciples  to  hold  in  vene- 
ration and  to  abstain  from  beans.  See  my  plates,  fig.  23.  The  Nelumbo  Nymphaea  is  not  a 
native  of  Egypt,  though  seen  upon  almost  all  its  ancient  monuments,  but  of  the  North-eastern 
parts  of  Asia. 2  This  is  the  correct  and  proper  plant  of  the  sacred  mysteries,  but  after  the  ori- 
ginal meaning  of  it  had  become  lost,  in  modern  times,  any  lily  was  indiscriminately  used,  as  may 
be  observed  in  the  Romish  pictures  of  the  Virgin,  particularly  of  the  annunciation  or  impregna- 
tion, where  the  ministering  angel  is  always  seen  to  carry  in  his  hand  a  branch  of  some  kind  of 
lily. 

4.  Of  the  Lotos,  Mr.  Moore  says,  "  The  Nymphaea  or  Lotos  floating  on  the  water,  is  an  emblem 
"  of  the  world  :  the  whole  plant  signifies  both  the  earth,  and  its  two  principles  of  fecundation. 
"  The  stalk  originates  from  the  navel  of  Vishnu,  sleeping  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,3  and  the 
"  flower  is  the  cradle  of  Brahma  or  mankind.  The  germ  is  both  Meru  and  the  Linga  :  the  plants 
"  and  filaments  are  the  mountains  which  encircle  Meru,  and  are  also  the  type  of  the  Yoni :  the 
"  four  leaves  of  the  calyx  are  the  four  vast  dtvipas,  or  countries,  toward  the  four  cardinal  points. 
"  Eight  external  leaves,  placed  two  by  two  in  the  intervals,  are  eight  subordinate  dwipas  or  coun- 
tries/'4 

5.  Concerning  the  Lotus  of  the  Hindoos,  Nimrod5  says,  "  The  Lotus  is  a  well-known  allegory, 
"  of  which  the  expanse  calyx  represents  the  ship  of  the  Gods  floating  on  the  surface  of  the  water, 
"  and  the  erect  flower  arising  out  of  it,  the  mast  thereof:  the  one  was  the  Galley  or  Cockboat, 
"  and  the  other  the  mast  of  Cockayne  :  but  as  the  ship  was  Isis  or  Magna  Mater,  the  female 
"  principle,  and  the  mast  in  it  the  male  deity,  these  parts  of  the  flower  came  to  have  certain  other 
"  significations,  which  seem  to  have  been  as  well  known  atSamosata6  as  at  Benares."  This 
plant  was  also  used  in  the  sacred  offices  of  the  Jewish  religion.  In  the  ornaments  of  the  temple 
of  Solomon  the  Lotus  or  lily  is  often  seen. 7 

Athenaeus  says  that  Suson  was  a  Greek  word  for  a  Lily,  and  that  the  name  of  the  city  Susa 
meant  the  city  of  Lilies.8  This  is  very  remarkable,  as  it  was  the  capital  of  the  Cushites  or  Ethi- 
opians. But  the  Lotus  of  the  Nile  and  Ganges  was,  I  believe,  dark  blue,  which  sometimes  was 
the  colour  of  Cristna :  but  he  was  as  often  black  as  blue.  He  is  perfectly  black  in  the  India 
House.  John  Crawford  says,  "  I  suppose  the  Lotos  to  be  here  an  emblem  of  Parvati,  who,  as 
"  well  as  Sri,  I  find  has  the  epithet  of  Padmi  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  Gods."  Again,  "  A 
"  Lotos  is  frequently  substituted  for  the  Yoni."9  This  may  be  seen  in  thousands  of  places  in 
Egypt  and  India.     We  will  now  return  to  our  Ionians  and  their  Argo. 

1  Liv.  prem.  Ch.  ii.  note,  p.  160;  Maurice,  Ant.  Hind.  Vol.  III.  p.  245. 

*  Payne  Knight's  Inquiry,  Sect.  146.  3  See  plates  7  and  8  of  Moore's  Pantheon. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  308  ;  Moore,  Hind.  Panth.  p.  270.  s  Vol.  I.  p.  127,  Sup.  Ed. 

6  Vide  Luc.  Ver.  Hist.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  xlv. 

7  In  "the  North  of  England  children  make  boats  of  Walnut  shells  which  they  call  cock-boats,  a  remnant  of  the  same 
superstition.     See  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  441,  note. 

8  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  44.  9  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XIII.  p.  359. 


BOOK  Vllt   CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  2.  341 


/ 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  LOADSTONE. — HELEN   ATHENA. — YAVANAS.  —  DIVISION    OF  THE   FOLLOWERS   OF  THE   MALE  AND 

FEMALE   PRINCIPLES,  AND  THEIR  REUNION. 

1.  In  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  proved  that  the  loadstone  was  known  to  the  ancients  ;  and  I 
think  it  was  used  by  the  priests  for  the  purposes  of  superstition,  for  which  it  was  evidently  pecu- 
liarly calculated.  *  "  The  Temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon  was  esteemed  of  the  highest  antiquity,  and 
"  we  are  informed  that  there  was  an  Omphalus  here :  and  that  the  Deity  was  worshiped  under 
"  the  form  of  a  navel."  2     Quintus  Curtius  says,  "  Id  quod  pro  Deo  colitur,  non  eandem  effigiem 

habebat,  quam  vulgo  Diis  artifices  accommodarunt.  Umbilico  maxime  similis  est  habitus, 
smaragdo,  et  gemmis,  coagmentatus.  Hunc  cum  responsum  petitur,  navigio  aurato  gestant 
sacerdotes,  multis  argenteis  pateris  ab  utroque  navigii  latere  pendentibus."  I  think  with  Scotus 
and  Hyde  that  this  relates  to  the  compass.3  I  have  little  doubt  that  here  was  the  sacred  Argha 
concealing  in  it  a  loadstone  or  magnet,  or  carrying  it  perhaps  upright  as  the  mast,  by  which  the 
credulous  devotees  were  duped.     The  Paterae  ab  utroque  latere  pendentes  were  votive  offerings:  4 

2.  The  name  of  the  chief  Grecian  city  of  the  Ionians,  Athena,  was  the  name  of  the  female  gene- 
rative principle,  as  was  also  Helena,  called  by  Lycophron  the  Dove,  which  is  a  translation  of  the 
word  Pleias,  and  also  of  the  word  Semiramis,5  and  Ion  or  lone.  The  Ionian  Athenians  claimed 
to  be  called  Athenians  from  Athena,  which  was  the  name  of  Minerva,  who  was  both  the  female 
generative  principle  and  divine  wisdom.  The  Greeks  were  called  Hellenes,  which  has  precisely 
the  same  meaning  as  Ionians.  And  they  are  called  Argives  from  the  ship  Argo,  which  was  in- 
vented by  Minerva,  who  fixed  in  the  prow  of  it  the  pole  or  phallus  cut  at  Dodona,  as  before 


a 


a 


l 


Aristotle  describes  the. Mariner's  Compass.     See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  28. 
Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  246.  3  Hyde  de  Relig.  Vet.  Pers.  App.  p.  496. 

4  For  what  I  have  said  in  my  Celtic  Druids  on  the  subject  of  the  Telescope,  Gunpowder,  the  Mariner's  Compass, 
and  other  examples  of  the  learning  of  the  ancients,  as  might  well  be  expected,  I  have  been  turned  into  ridicule  by  ig- 
norant, narrow-minded  persons,  whose  understandings  permit  them  to  see  no  further  either  behind  or  before  them  than 
the  length  of  their  noses.  However,  the  doctrine  I  advocate  has  been  placed  above  the  reach  of  cavil  by  Sir  W. 
Drummond,  in  the  19th  volume  of  the  Classical  Journal,  p.  297.  Among  other  matters,  he  there  observes,  that  we  are 
not  to  laugh  at  the  powers  which  the  ancients  claimed  to  possess,  because  we  do  not  possess  them  ourselves ;  and  he 
instances  the  burning  of  the  Roman  ships  by  the  Mirror  of  Archimedes,  which  was  not  believed  to  be  possible  till  it 
was  successfully  imitated  by  Buffon  :  and  the  hatching  of  eggs  in  an  oven  in  Egypt,  which  was  laughed  at  till  imitated 
by  Reaumur :  and  which  I  have  been  told  is  now  commonly  practised  in  breeding  poultry  for  the  London  market. 

Roger  Bacon  believed  in  the  possible  transmutation  of  the  baser  metals  into  gold,  and  his  reasoning  amounted  to  this 

Since  carriages  have  been  moved  without  the  aid  of  animals — since  boats  have  been  impelled  through  the  water  without 
oars  or  sails— since  men  have  been  transported  through  the  air — since  very  distant  and  very  minute  objects  may  be 
made  perfectly  clear  to  vision  by  means  of  glasses — and  since  the  effects  of  thunder  have  been  produced  by  a  few 
grains  of  powder — how  can  it  be  contended  that  the  transmutation  of  metals  is  impossible?  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  XIX. 
p.  303.  From  this  most  extraordinary  exhibition  of  the  words  of  this  most  celebrated  natural  philosopher  or  alchemist 
or  magician,  or  judicial  astrologer,  I  feel  very  little  doubt  that  among  the  ancient  priests  or  astrologers,  all  these 
secrets  were  known ;  and  that  from  his  books  of  the  occult  sciences  he  came  by  the  information,  that  these  important 
secrets  were  formerly  known,  though  perhaps  only  known  to  a  very  few  of  the  heads  of  a  secret  order,  guarded  as 
Masonic  secrets,  and  consequently  in  later  times  lost. 

5  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  451. 


342 


YAVANAS. 


noticed.  All  these  names  have  a  direct  reference  to  the  female  generative  power,  and  had  their 
origin  in  India.  Minerva  was  both  the  female  generative  power  and  divine  wisdom,  because 
wisdom  was  the  first  emanation  of  the  Divine  Power,  and  man  can  conceive  no  way  in  which  it 
can  become  active  except  by  producing  ;  thus  the  mystics  united  the  two. 

Mr.  Bryant  says,  "  The  Grecians  were,  among  other  titles,  styled  Hellenes,  being  the  reputed 
"  descendants  of  Hellen.     The  name  of  this  personage  is  of  great  antiquity  :  and  the  etymology 

e  foreign."  Again,  "  The  Hellenes  were  the  same  as  the  Ionim,  or  Icourig,  whence  Hesychius 
"  very  properly  mentions  latuag,  'E^^vag.     The  Ionians  and  Hellenes  are  the  same  family. 

'  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  the  iEolians  and  Dorians  :  they  were  all  from  one  source,  being  de- 
"  scended  from  the  same  ancestors,  the  Ionim  of  Babyionia  and  Syria :  as  the  Phoenician  women 
"  in  Euripides  acknowledge  : 

Koivov*  ai/A.a,  KOiva  ttKza. 
T«?  Kepaacpopa  ire(pvK.Ev  Iaj. 

"  The  term  Hellen  was  originally  a  sacred  title."  2 

Many  states  of  Asia  Minor  and  other  countries  were  said  to  have  been  colonized  by  Greeks. 
This,  in  most  instances,  arose  from  mistakes  respecting  the  word  Helen.  Sometimes  they  were 
Hellenes,  sometimes  Argives,  and  sometimes  Ionians ;  but  neither  ancients  nor  moderns  have 
suspected  the  real  meaning  of  these  words,  and  therefore  have  applied  them  all  to  the  Greeks — in 
doing  which  they  have  fallen  into  innumerable  inconsistencies.  Mr.  Bryant  has  shewn  that  Jason 
was  as  well  known  in  the  East  as  in  Greece  j 3  that  he  was  styled  Argos,  and  gave  name  to  a 
mountain  near  Ecbatana  in  Media.  All  this  tends  to  strengthen  the  proofs  that  the  Argive,  Hel- 
lenian,  or  Ionian  doctrines  came  from  the  East.  Mr.  Bryant  says,4  "The  city  Antioch,  upon  the 
'  Orontes,  was  called  Ionah. 5  Icavrj  ercog  sxol'Keito  y\  Avrio^sia,  ij  stti  Aa<pv>},  rp  coxurctv  Aqyuoi. 
!  Who  these  Argeans  were  that  founded  this  city,  Iona,  needs  not,  I  believe,  any  explanation."  I 
think  not.     And  I  trust  my  reader  will  soon  think  with  me,  if  he  do  not  think  so  already. 

Jeremiah  says, 6  "  Arise,  and  let  us  go  again  to  our  own  people  and  to  the  land  of  our  nativity, 
"  from  the  face  of  the  sword  of  the  Ionim"  The  LXX.  translate  the  last  words,  Atto  E7go<rco7r8 
fj.a%(upa.g  rfchyvixyg :  and  in  chap.  1.  ver.  16,  it  is  translated  in  the  same  way.  Johannes  An- 
tiochenus  calls  the  Midianites  Hellenes.  He  calls  Jethro,  father-in-law  of  Moses,  Aq%ie%eog  rw 
¥/k\t)V(ov.  I  think,  though  it  is  a  difficult  etymon,  that  the  word  must  have  come  from  the  He- 
brew bx  al  the  sun,  and  j>y  oin  a  fountain  or  an  eye.7 

3.  Among  the  Hindoos,  the  natives  of  the  Western  world  are  called  Yavanas.  The  word  Ya- 
vana  is  a  regular  participial  form  of  the  Sanscrit  root  Yu,*  from  which  root  the  word  Yoni  or  the 
female  nature  is  derived.  Thus  the  Yavanas  are  the  same  as  Yonijas  or  the  Yoni-ans.  And 
here  we  find  the  origin  of  the  Ionians,  as  we  might  expect,  in  a  religious  principle — a  principle 
which,  though  now  almost  lost  and  forgotten,  I  do  not  doubt  formerly  placed  one  half  of  mankind 
in  arms  against  the  other,  the  feuds  of  the  two  covering  the  world,  for  many  generations,  with 
carnage  and  blood :  a  feud  about  the  most  ridiculous  and  trifling  of  nonsense.  "  The  Yavanas 
"  were  so  named  from  their  obstinate  assertion  of  a  superior  influence  in  the  Yoni  or  female,  over 
"  the  Linga  or  male  nature,  in  producing  perfect  offspring."9     And  from  this  nonsense,  almost  as 


'  Phceniss.  V.  256.  2  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  383.  3  Ibid.  Vol.  II.  p.  513. 

4  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  370.  5  Steph.  Byzant.  Iawij.  6  Chap.  xlvi.  ver.  16. 

7  Vide  Trans.  Roy.  Soc.  Edinb.  Vol.  III.  p.  140.  8  In  Syriac  Yo  or  Io  both  male  and  female. 

9  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  358. 


BOOK   VII.   CHAPTER   III.    SECTION   4.  343 

absurd  as  most  of  the  sectarian  doctrines  of  the  Christians,  the  whole  world  was  involved  in  war 
and  misery. 

In  the  earliest  times  of  which  we  have  any  records,  the  Brahme-Maia,  that  is  the  male  and 
female  generative  principles  in  union,  or  the  Linga  and  the  Ioni,  were  the  objects  of  adoration. 
After  some  time  the  division,  which  I  have  just  noticed,  took  place,  and  a  terrible  war  arose  between 
the  followers  of  the  Linga  and  those  of  the  Ioni,  and  the  latter  were  at  last  expelled,  with  great 
slaughter,  to  the  West.  This  war  was  between  the  followers  of  Iswara  the  active  generative 
principle,  and  the  Yonijas  the  followers  of  the  passive  generative  principle.  It  was  probably  the 
origin  of  the  Greek  fable  of  the  war  between  the  Gods  and  the  Giants,  or  sons  of  the  earth, l  which 
we  know,  from  Nonnus,  had  its  origin  in  India. 2  For  a  more  particular  account  of  this  war  I 
refer  to  the  Asiatic  Researches. 3  This  was  the  famous  war  of  the  Maha-barat,  in  which  the 
Buddhists  were  expelled  from  South  India.  The  Buddhists  were  particularly  attached  to  the  male 
principle. 

4.  In  this  manner  the  ancient  religion  became  divided  into  two  :  the  sect  which  adored  the 
sacred  Yoni  or  female  generative  principle  alone,  were  called  Yavanas, 4  and  were  expelled  from 
India,  and  are  to  be  found  almost  all  over  the  Western  world.  But  we  are  informed  that  after 
some  time  a  reconciliation  took  place,  and  the  two  parties  united,  and  once  more  returned  to  the 
worship  of  the  double  principle.  This  is  very  important.  We  shall  find  traces  of  it  in  our  re- 
searches almost  every  moment,  which  will  enable  us  to  account  for  many  seemingly  inconsistent 
circumstances.  Although  various  sects  went  out  from  India,  as  one  party  or  other  prevailed,  the 
natives  of  that  country  now  make  no  distinction,  but  call  them  all  Yavanas. 

From  the  reunion  of  the  two  principles  it  is  that  we  have  the  Ioni  and  Linga  united  in  almost 
every  temple  in  India,  as  well  as  at  Delphi,  &c,  in  Greece ;  in  the  former,  described  by  the  two 
objects  in  union,  in  the  latter,  by  the  stone  pillar  and  orifice  in  the  earth  called  Omphe,  and  by 
the  boat,  the  Argha,  with  a  man  in  it,  carried  in  procession  in  their  ceremonies.  The  meaning  of 
the  united  two,  the  self-existent  being,  at  once  both  male  and  female — the  Aleim,  called  Jah  in 
Genesis,  and  the  IE  on  the  temple  at  Delphi,  the  Ieo  of  Greece,  the  Iu-piter  Genetrix  of  Latium. 

Of  the  reality  of  the  great  wars  here  noticed,  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  if  the  habits  of 
life  of  the  ancient  Indians  were  in  any  degree  similar  to  those  of  the  present  Afghans,  they  must 
in  a  very  remarkable  manner  have  been  calculated  for  easy  emigration.  The  existence  of  nations 
in  the  form  of  tribes  yet  continues  in  North  India,  and  when  we  look  back  in  Europe  to  the  most 
remote  periods,  we  every  where  find  traces  of  it — many  indeed  yet  remaining.  In  the  earliest 
periods,  the  population  of  the  world  consisted  of  many  tribes,  with  a  few  cities,  the  slow  produce 
of  commerce.  In  modern  times,  the  latter  have  prevailed;  there  are  few  tribes,  and  many  cities, 
and  the  land  has  become  divided  and  appropriated. 

In  these  doctrines  respecting  the  Ioni  I  am  not  singular,  for,  according  to  Theodoret,  Arnobius, 
and  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  the  Yoni  of  the  Hindoos  was  the  sole  object  of  veneration  in  the  mys- 
teries of  Eleusis. 5  In  this  temple  was  the  celebrated  OM  UAH  ROTH.  When  my  friend, 
Colonel  Tod,  author  of  the  beautiful  history  of  Rajah-Poutana,  was  at  Psestum  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  temple  of  Ceres,  he  saw  at  that  place  several  little  images  of  the  Goddess  holding  in 
her  hand  the  Linga  and  Ioni,  or  mysterious  Argha ;  and  he  observed  the  same  on  the  porch  of  the 
temple  of  Isis  at  Pompeii.     It  is  probable  that  in  early  times  the  Yoni  alone  may  have  been  adored 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  360.  s  Dionys.  1.  34,  v.  24],  ab.  Asiat.  Res.  ibid.  3  Vol.  III.  p.  361. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  510.  s  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  365. 


344  SHIP  OF  EGYPT  AND  GREECE. 

at  Eleusis  ;  but  here,  as  elsewhere,  I  have  no  doubt  the  two  sects  united.  At  Eleusis ;  there  was  a 
famous  vessel  called  the  Muodus  Cereris,  used  fa.  the  mystenes.  It  was  probably  the  Argha  of 
India ;  it  was  supposed  to  contain  the  male  and  female  organs  of  generatmn. 

5.  Another  sect  which  was  expelled  from  India  was  called  by  the  name  of  ladavas  They  were 
said  to  be  descendants  of  one  Yadu,  >  the  father  of  Cristna,  to  have  been  persecuted  by  an  enemy 
of  Cristna's,  and  to  have  emigrated  during  his  minority.*  But  ,t  „  sa.d  that  after  Cnstna  came 
of  m,  he  conquered  and  punished  their  persecutors.  As  Cnstna  certamly  was  not  the  female 
ffene°rative  power,  though  the  emblem  of  the  two  united  principles  is  seen  now  ,„  all  h,s  temples, 
this  story  serves  to  shew  that  the  ladus  were  probably  in  enmity  to  it  also,  and  tins  by  and  by 
will  be  found  of  consequence,  for  we  shall  find  they  continued  in  this  religion  in  the  West.  The 
word  la-du  is  evidently  the  Dens  or  the  Divns  la  or  le,  the  God  Ie.  Of  course  the  descendants 
of  Ya-du  are  his  votaries  or  followers.     Of  Ia-dn  and  his  descendants,  or  tnbe,  I  shall  treat  very 

much  at  large  presently.  M    , 

Mount  Meru,  the  Moriah  of  India,  is  the  primeval  emblem  of  the  Linga  and  the  earth,  Mother 
Eartha,  is  the  mysterious  Yoni  expanded,  and  open  like  the  Padma  or  Lotos,  which  is  as  we  have 
seen  with  its  seed  in  the  centre,  an  emblem  of  the  same  thing.  Iswara  is  called  Argha-nat  ha  or 
the  Lord  of  the  broad-shaped  vessel ;  and  Osiris  or  Ysiris,  as  Hellanicus  calls  him,  was,  according 
to  Plutarch,  the  commander  of  the  Argo,  and  was  represented  by  the  Egyptians,  in  their  proces- 
sions,  in  a  boat  carried  on  the  shoulders  of  ?2  men,  and  at  Delphi  in  an  umbilicus  of  white  marble. 
I  have  some  suspicion,  that  the  history  of  the  Argonautic  expedition  is  an  allegorical  description 
of  the  war  of  the  two  principles,  and  of  their  reunion. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SHIP   OF   EGYPT   AND   GREECE.-DUPUIS   ON   THE  ARGONAUTS.-ARKS   AND  ARCA.-THEBES,   TIBET. 

1  In  the  mysteries  of  Egypt  and  Greece  a  ship  was  commonly  used-this  was  the  Argha.  But 
it  has  been  remarked  by  Mr.  Bryant  that  this  ship  was  not  a  common  ship,  but  was  of  a  peculiar 
construction;  was,  in  fact,  a  mystic  ship. 3  It  had  both  ends  alike,  was  a  correct,  very  much 
elongated,  ellipse,  and  was  called  A^^^dig  Amphipruumaas.  Hesychius  says,  A/^^a- 
va  ra  an  trcor^a  tz^tto^vol  CTXo,a.  That  is,  Amphipmmna  are  used  in  voyages  of  salvation 
This  alludes  to  the  processions  in  which  these  ships  were  carried  about,  in  the  middle  of  whicl 
was  placed  the  phallus.  They  were  sometimes  of  immense  size.  «  iElian4  informs  us  ha  a 
«  Lion  was  the  emblem  of  this  God  in  Egypt  (i.  e.  Hephaistos)  :  and  in  the  curious  description 
«  which  Capella  has  given  us  of  the  mystic  ship  navigated  by  seven  sailors,  we  find  that  a   bio 

-  Cristna,  called  Yadava,  was  the  descendant  of  Yadu,  the  son  of  Yayati.    Asiat.  Res.    The  Iadu  of  Mr.  Maurice 
ought  probably  to  be  written  Idv — it  would  then  mean  the  God  /. 
*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  pp.  326,  32/.  3  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  224.  •  Lib.  xii. 


BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER   IV.    SECTION  '2.  345 

ci  was  figured  on  the  mast  in  the  midst  of  the  effulgence  which  shone  around.  This  ship  was  a 
••'  symbol  of  the  Universe — the  seven  planets  were  represented  by  the  seven  sailors — and  the  Lion 
"  was  the  emblem  of  Phtha,  the  principle  of  light  and  life."  l  The  Hindoos  have  a  stone  called 
Shalgramu,  which  they  worship.  Mr.  Ward  saw  one  which  had  fallen  down  and  broken,  by  which 
it  appeared  to  be  a  shell  petrefaction.  The  shell  in  the  inside  of  this  stone  is  that  which  is 
called  the  Arsconauta  Argo, 2  or  the  Nautilus,  which  sets  its  pretty  sail  before  the  wind.  Every 
Hindoo  God  almost  has  one  of  them  in  his  hand.  How  this  shell-fish  came  to  have  the  name  of 
Argo-Argonauta  in  the  West,  I  know  not ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  it  has  a  connexion  in  some  v. 
with  the  Indian  superstition,  and  that  it  relates  to  the  Argha.  In  the  cabinet  of  the  Baptist  Mis- 
sionaries at  Bristol,  is  an  Indian  one  in  copper.  I  think  in  the  ship  Argo,  or  Nautilus,  with  its 
mast  supplied  by  Minerva  or  divine  wisdom,  I  can  perceive  a  beautiful  mythos.  It  is  really  a 
ship,  not  of  human,  but  of  divine,  invention  and  manufacture.  From  a  careful  consideration  of  the 
Argonautic  story,  I  can  entertain  little  doubt  that  it  is  a  mistaken  and  misrepresented  Indian 
mythos.  The  arguments  of  Dr.  Rutherford,  given  in  Chapter  I.  Section  3,  clearly  prove,  that  it 
must  have  had  its  origin  very  many  degrees  to  the  South  of  Greece ;  and  this  must  have  been,  I 
think,  where,  as  I  shall  presently  shew,  the  Bay  of  Argo,  and  the  Golden  or  Holy  Cbersonesus, 
that  is,  South  India  and  Siam,  are  to  be  found.  It  is  probable  that  the  solution  of  this  enigma 
will  be  found  in  the  Vedas  or  Puranas. 

I  believe,  fantastical  as  my  opinion  may  be  thought,  that,  as  I  have  before  stated,  our  churches 
were  built  in  the  inconvenient  oblong  form,  instead  of  square  or  round,  in  imitation  of  these  ships, 
and  that  hence  the  centres  of  the  churches  are  called  naves.3  This  was  exactly  the  case  of  many 
of  the  ancient  temples  from  which  we  have  copied  ours — if  indeed  our  mysticism  and  theirs  be  not 
the  same.  This  ship  was  very  often  described  as  a  lunar  crescent  ]) ,  and  was  mistaken  for  the 
moon,  and  thus  she  often  became  an  object  of  adoration,  when  in  fact  she  was  not  meant  to  be  so. 
The  meaning  of  the  Argo  or  Argha,  or  the  origin  of  the  Argives,  was  all  entirely  unknown  to  the 
Greeks.  If  the  moon  were  intended,  why  should  her  infant  state  have  been  always  chosen  ?  Why 
is  she  never  worshiped  when  at  full  or  in  the  quarters,  by  her  figure  in  the  latter  of  which  on  mo- 
numents she  would  be  much  the  best  described  ?  I  suspect  she  never  was  an  object  of  adoration 
till  the  meaning  of  the  Ampbiprumna  or  Argo  was  lost.     Besides  the  moon  was  very  often  a  male. 

There  was  an  order  of  priests  in  Greece  called  Argeiphontes — that  is,  priests  of  Argha  or  Argus. 
Their  origin  or  meaning  was  probably  unknown  to  the  Greeks.  The  chief  of  them,  at  Athens,  had 
the  second  rank  to  the  Archontes,  that  is,  the  second  rank  of  the  magistracy.  He  wore  a  crown 
and  had  the  title  of  king. 4 

2.  Mons.  Dupuis  thought  the  Argonautic  story  merely  astronomical.  I  must  say  I  cannot  en- 
tirely agree  with  him.  I  believe  it  was  both  astronomical  and  astrological,  or  macjicrJ  or  alche- 
mical. It  was,  in  fact,  all  four,  for  they  were  so  closely  united,  and  folly  and  nonsense  were  so 
completely  mixed  up  with  real  science,  that  it  is  impossible  to  separate  them.  Sir  W.  Jones  calls 
it  a  mixed  story.  He  says,  "  This  is  a  mixed  fable,  which  is  astronomical  in  one  sense,  and  che- 
"  mical  in  another  ;  but  this  fable  is  of  Egyptian,  not  of  Grecian,  invention.  The  position  of  the 
"  ship  Argo  in  the  heavens  would  render  this  assertion  evident,  were  we  even  without  the  autho- 


1  Drummond,  Gass.  Journ.  No.  XXXIX. 

8  Ward's  India,  Table  of  Contents,  p.  5 ;  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  MI.  p.  240. 

1  These  amphiprumna  or  naves  were  all  prophetic.    I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Hebrew  word  for  prophet,  Xuli,  and 
these  naves,  had  the  same  origin. 

4  Montfaucon,  VoL  II.  p.  6. 

2y 


346  ARKS   AND   ARCA. 


"  rity  of  Plutarch  for  saying,  that  this  constellation  is  of  Egyptian  origin.  Canopus,  the  great 
"  star  at  the  helm,  is  not  visible  beyond  35  deg.  N.  lat.  Now  the  chemical  sense  of  the  fable,  say 
"  the  alchemists,  is  so  clear,  that  some  ancient  Greek  author,  of  whom  Suidas,  according  to  his 
"  custom,  probably  borrowed  the  language,  thus  expresses  himself :  *  Golden  Jleece — this  is  not 
"  '  what  it  is  poetically  said  to  be,  but  it  was  a  book  written  on  skins,  containing  the  mode  of  making 
"  *  gold  by  the  aid  of  chemistry .'  The  alchemists  have  explained  what  was  meant  by  the  dragon, 
"  and  the  oxen  with  brazen  feet,  which  guarded  the  golden  fleece  :  nor  is  their  explanation  with- 
"  out  some  show  of  plausibility  :  but  I  wonder  that  they  have  neglected  to  cite  a  passage  in  Hesiod 
"  about  Medea,  and  another  passage  in  Apollonius  Rhodius,  in  which  it  is  said  that  the  ram  which 
"  carried  Phrixus  was  converted  into  gold  by  Mercury." ' 

I  believe  that  whatever  was  meant  by  the  Mi]Xov  of  the  Argonauts,  was  also  meant  by  the 
MrjXov  of  the  Hesperides.  The  same  mythos  is  concealed— that  the  Ionian  heresy  of  the  Magna 
Mater,  and  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  of  Paradise,  and  the  allegories  of  the  tree 
bearing  twelve  fruits,  &c,  &c,  are  all  implicated.  In  one  case,  the  book  or  written  skin  conveyed 
the  knowledge ;  in  the  other  the  tree,  of  which  the  leaves  were  letters ;  the  fruits,  the  books  con- 
veying knowledge,  &c. 

The  doctrine  of  regeneration  is  closely  connected  with  the  Yoni  and  its  emblem  the  Dove.  In 
India  are  various  clefts  in  the  ground  or  in  rocks,  (these  are  all  nabi  or  navels,)  into  which  devotees 
go,  and  from  which  when  they  come  out  they  are  regenerated  or  born  again.  There  is  a  large 
stone  in  Nepaul  called  Guhya-sthan  used  for  this  purpose.  Here  is  a  curious  mixture  of  Greek 
and  English  found  in  India2  — the  stan  or  stone  of  Youa,  Gaia  the  earth.  There  is  a  similar 
opening  in  several  of  the  Celtic  monuments  of  the  British  Isles,  and  particularly  in  the  rocks  at 
Brimham,  near  Harrowgate  in  Yorkshire,  a  place  formerly  much  used  by  the  Druids.  See  Celtic 
Druids.  If  the  hole  in  the  stone  were  too  small  for  the  body,  as  Col.  Wilford  says,  they  put  a 
hand  or  a  leg  in,  and  with  faith  it  did  as  well.3  The  early  Christians  called  those  things  Cunni 
Diaboli,  and  from  the  former  of  these  words  came  the  vulgar  appellation  for  the  membrum  foemi- 
neum  in  England. 

The  country  of  Greece,  the  Peloponnesus  where  the  Ionians  dwelt,  was  called  Apia  or  the  coun- 
try of  Bees,  and  Archaia.  The  Athenians  had  a  story,  that  when  they  sent  out  their  pretended 
colony  to  Asia  Minor,  it  was  preceded  by  the  nine  Muses  in  the  form  of  Melissae  or  Bees  j  and 
the  emblem  of  the  generative  principle  in  Egypt,  the  Bull,  was  called  Apis.  That  this  has  some 
meaning  connected  with  this  subject  cannot  be  doubted.  Porphyry  de  Abstinentia 4  says,  it  was 
reported  that  Apis  gave  the  first  laws  to  the  Greeks. 

3.  Great  confusion  seems  to  have  taken  place  respecting  the  different  Arks.  The  Ark  of  Noe 
or  of  m  nh  is  called  ran  the  (Gen.  vi.  14)  in  the  Hebrew ;  KiGwrog  by  the  LXX  -,  and  Area  by 
the  Vulgate.  The  Ark  of  the  covenant  (Exod.  xxv.  10)  is  called  p-|K  arun  or  pK  am,  in  the  He- 
brew ;  and  by  the  LXX.  and  the  Vulgate  as  above.  It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  Ark  of  Noah 
should  not  be  called  in  any  one  of  the  three  versions  by  any  name  which  answers  to  our  word 
ship — in  Hebrew  rV3N  anie  or  >jn  ani ;  in  Greek  votog  ;  in  Latin  Navis.  The  Latin  word  Area 
may  be  old  Etruscan,  therefore  it  cannot  be  objected  to,  as  an  original  name  of  the  ark.  But 
still,  I  repeat,  it  is  very  remarkable,  that  not  one  of  the  three  versions  should  have  called  it  by  any 


1  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  XIX.  p.  301. 

*  In  England  we  have  Penis-stone,  and  Girdle-stone,  and  Gods-atone,  &c,  &c,  &c. ;  in  India  Garga-stan,  and  Gher- 
ghis-stan,  and  Aitni-stan,  &c,  &c.,  all  having  the  same  meaning. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  502.  ♦  Bk.  iii.  p.  1 10,  Taylor. 


BOOK  VII.     CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  3.  347 

name  answering  to  our  word  ship  ;  for  Area  means  box  and  not  ship.  This  has  certainly  a  mys- 
tical appearance.  From  the  profound  secrecy  observed  respecting  the  Hebrew  Area,  I  suspect 
came  the  word  arcanus.  All  the  ancient  nations  appear  to  have  had  an  ark  or  Argha,  in  which  to 
conceal  something  sacred;  and  in  all  of  them  (unless  I  except  that  of  the  Jews)  the  Yoni  and 
Linga  were  inclosed. 

Now,  from  the  studied  avoidance  of  every  thing  like  a  ship,  either  in  the  name  of  the  article  or 
in  its  shape,  for  it  was  not  shaped  at  all  like  any  boat  that  ever  was  built,  being  a  solid  parallelo- 
gram, with  rectangular  ends,  (cubits  300  by  50  by  30,)  I  contend  that  I  am  justified  in  supposing, 
that  it  was  meant  expressly  to  exclude  the  idea  of  a  ship.  The  Argha  of  the  Hindoos  is  of  various 
shapes,1  oral,  like  a  boat,  having  both  ends  alike,  that  is  crescent- shaped,  as  well  as  round  and 
square.  The  name  Argha  does  not  mean  a  boat,  but  merely  the  proper  name  of  that  variously- 
shaped  structure.  The  boat  Ark  of  Moses  is  called  ron  tbe  in  the  Hebrew  j  but  in  the  LXX 
generally  xiGtorog  ;  but  where  the  infant  Moses  is  preserved  on  the  river,  it  is  called  @/£?j  in  the 
LXX.  This  word  ®<&J  is  the  name  of  the  city  of  Thebes,  Theba,  and  both  Nimrod  and  Faber 
admit  that  it  has  the  meaning  of  the  female  generative  power ;  the  Argha  and  the  Ioni.  All  this 
tends  to  shew  that  the  ark  and  all  the  other  vessels  had  one  mystical  meaning,  which  meaning  is 
plain.  * 

The  famous  Argha  of  India,  I  believe,  never  means  an  inclosed  box,  therefore  it  is  rather  forced 
to  fetch  the  Latin  Area  from  it ;  but,  in  our  necessity,  we  must  be  obliged  to  do  so,  for  we  have 
no  where  else  to  fetch  it  from.  On  this  very  questionable  word  Area  all  Mr.  Bryant's  and  Mr. 
Faber's  etymology  turns.  The  word  Argha  in  India  does  not  answer  to  our  word  ship,  but  is  the 
proper  name  given  to  a  certain  ship  or  boat,  as  we  name  our  ships.  From  the  name  of  a  mount, 
JVaub&nda,,  I  conclude  that  Nau  is  their  name  for  ship :  then  it  would  be  the  nau  called  Arga.  In 
the  Chaldee,  4")K  arg  meant  a  ship.  In  Greece  many  places  are  called  by  words  something 
similar,  but  not  the  same,  (which  Mr.  Bryant  constantly  refers  to  the  Ark — for  instance,  A%%vaioi 
he  calls  Arkites,)  because  there  is  no  such  word  as  ag;^o£  for  ship  or  box  in  the  language ;  and 
the  letter  X  being  one  of  the  new  letters  shews  that  it  is  a  new  word,  and  must  be  a  corruption 
of  some  old  word.  There  is  no  word  known  to  us  to  which  it  can  apply  but  the  word  Agyog.  It 
will  then  mean  Argives,  or  followers  of  the  Argha.  Thus  when  we  read  in  Macrobius 3  of  the 
Arkitae  or  Architae,  in  Syria,  we  ought  to  read  Agyeioi.  These  considerations  render  almost  all 
Mr.  Bryant's  reasoning  respecting  these  words  inconclusive. 

If  my  reader  will  turn  to  the  table  of  alphabets,  Prel.  Obs.  Sect.  47,  he  will  observe,  that  the 
Latin  C  answers  to  the  Greek  Gamma  and  the  Hebrew  Gimel,  each  being  the  third  letter  in  the 
respective  alphabets  j  and  it  is  the  same  in  the  Arabic  and  Ethiopian.  Then,  the  identity  of  all 
these  alphabets  being  allowed,  it  seems  to  follow  that  the  powers  of  notation  in  each  of  them  must 
originally  have  been  the  same  ;  and  that  the  third  letters  must  consequently  have  been  the  same, 
that  is,  that  the  C  in  Latin  answered  to  the  G  in  the  other  cognate  languages.  This  admitted,  the 
Latin  Area,  and  the  Greek  Agp^Tj,  and  Hebrew  Arga,  Rjnx  arga,  must  have  been  all  the  same. 
Every  Greek  scholar  will  allow  that  the  word  Ap^  is  a  most  obscure  word,  in  fact  a  word  not 
understood — like  many  of  the  Greek  names  of  the  Gods.    In  early  periods,  if  written  at  all,  it 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  364. 

*  The  Egyptians  bad  two  Gods  called  Apis  and  Nevis,  Beeves.    The  first  was  the  male,  the  second  the  female,  and 
from  this  called  Neve  or  Nave— that  is,  the  Argo. 
3  Sat.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xxi. 

2Y2 


348  THEBES,  TIBET. 

could  no£  have  been  written  with  the  X  but  with  some  other  letter,  (because  the  X,  as  already 
remarked,  was  a  new  letter,)  and  this  letter  would,  I  think,  be  the  gamma  or  gimel  or  c. 

4.  It  is  a  striking  circumstance  that  the  two  cities  of  Thebes  should  be  called  by  the  Hebrew 
word  for  this  ship  or  box — the  word  ran  The  or  0/£>]  or  Thibe,  which  answers  to  the  names  of 
several  Greek  towns — Argos.  It  is  also  the  name  of  Tibet,  whence  came  all  the  sacred  concerns 
of  the  Hindoos,  the  cradle,  in  fact,  of  the  human  race.  One  name  of  Tibet  is  also  Baltistan,  i.  e. 
place  of  Baltis.  In  or  near  Tibet  is  the  mount  called  Naubanda,  or  mount  of  the  ship's  cable,  called 
so,  as  the  Brahmins  say,  from  this  ship  Argha  being  simulatively  fastened  to  it  when  it  floated  in 
the  ocean,  carrying  within  it  the  two  principles  of  generation  or  the  germ  of  animal  life,  in  a  state 
of  quiescence  and  union — before  the  epog  '  or  divine  love  began  to  act  upon  the  Brahme-Maia  who 
was  reposing  at  the  bottom  of  the  profound  abyss.  After  a  time  divine  love  began  to  act,  and  the 
creator,  Brahm,  divided  himself  into  three,  the  creating,  the  preserving,  and  the  destroying  powers, 
described  in  our  books  by  Adam  and  Eve  and  their  three  sons,  and  by  Noah  and  his  three  sons. 
This  all  alludes,  I  think,  to  the  origin  of  the  sects  which  became  dispersed  about  the  world.2 

In  all  ancient  towns,   we  find  an  elevated  place  of  the  nature  of  a  mount  called  by  different 
names.     All  these  mounts  were  imitations  of  the  Meru  of  India.     In  Greece  this  was  called  the 
Acropolis — place  of  the  Area,  Arca-polis  ;  in  Rome,  the  capitol.     In  this  place  the  moveable  Area 
was  always  kept,  and  it  was  itself  an  Area.     The  Capitolium  of  Rome  will  be  said  to  have  been  so 
called  from  an  imaginary  likeness  to  the  head  of  a  man,  it  being  the  highest  part.     This  may  be 
true  ;  but  it  was  called  caput  for  another  reason :  it  was  an  icon  or  model  of  the  Meru,  which  was 
itself  an  icon  of  the  sun  and  planetary  bodies — the  sun,  the  visible  sign  or  icon  of  the  protogonos 
or  Rasit  of  Moses,   Rachid  of  the  Arabians,  App£>]  of  Greece,  Caput-olium  of  Latium,  and  the 
Area  of  Jerusalem.     The  Arabic  and  Ethiopic  Rachid  means  head,  the  same  as  the  Roman  Caput 
the  Greek  a^rj,  and  the  Hebrew  rviwn  rasit,  and  they  have  all  the  same  mystic  allusion.     At 
last,  they  are  all  allusions  to  the  protogonos,  to  divine  love — recondite  and  mystical  enough  I  do 
not  deny ;  but,  I  am  persuaded,  not  more  mystical  than  many  doctrines,  both  of  the  ancients  and 
of  modern  Christians.     I  need  not  remind  my  reader  of  the  allegorical  allusions  in  our  own  lan- 
guage to  head  and  wisdom.     A  wise  man  has  a  good  head  ;  he  is  a  long-headed  fellow  j  his  mind 
always  resides  in  the  head.     Tibe  or  ron  the  or  @i£r)  or  Thebes  or  the  Beeve  of  the  Zodiac,  is 
Tibet,  a  noun  in  the  feminine  form.     Georgius  has  shewn  that  Ti-bet  is  Di-bud — Holy  Bud  ;  the 
generative  power,  divine  wisdom,  of  which  the  Arga  and  Ioni  were  symbols.     We  have  before 
observed  in  Book  V.  Ch.  I.  Sect.  1,  2,  and  3,  that  the  letters  B  D,  B  T,  are  found  in  almost  every 
country  to  mean  Creator,  but  we  have  not  seen  clearly  why.     I  think  we  have  the  reason  in  the 
Hebrew  y\fa  tub  good,  the  same  as  KaXo£  or  Cali.     This  is  nothing  but   the  name  of  Budda, 
Butta,  But,  read  in  the  Hebrew,  instead  of  the  Indian,  fashion — >*T-£n  but-di.    The  origin  of  the 
word  Di  or  Ti,  I  shall  explain  in  a  future  page  :  but  it  is  >*r  di,  Aj£,  dius,  divus. 

1  Cupid,  called  in  some  mythoses  the  oldest  of  the  Gods. 

*  To  Noah  a  fourth  son  was  said  to  be  born,  called  Inachus,  the  father  of  the  Ionians. 


* 


BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER  V.  SECTION  1.  349 


CHAPTER  V. 

JANUS.— APHRODITE  AND  DIANA. — GANESA. — THALES,   AND   MEANING   OF   PROPER  NAMES. — TWO   SYRIAS  ; 
TWO   MERUS  ;   TWO   MORIAHS. — THE   GREEKS   NEW-NAMED  THEIR  CONQUESTS.      OM. 

1.  The  Romans  and  Etruscans  had  a  God  called  Janus:  of  his  origin  they  were  perfectly  igno- 
rant. He  was  absolutely  unknown  in  Greece.  Of  the  different  circumstances  connected  with 
these  recondite  subjects,  there  is  none  more  surprising  and  unaccountable  than  the  complete  state 
of  ignorance  in  which  the  best-informed  persons  were  of  the  meaning  and  origin  of  their  Gods. 
Janus  was  not  one  of  what  they  called  their  twelve  great  Gods,  but  he  was  said  to  be  the  father 
of  them  all.  He  had  twelve  altars  erected  to  him.  He  held  in  one  hand  letters  denoting  365,  and 
in  the  other  the  keys  of  heaven,  which  he  opened  to  the  good  and  shut  to  the  wicked.  The  first 
month  of  the  year,  Januarius,  was  dedicated  to  him.  He  was  represented  sometimes  with  two, 
and  sometimes  with  four  faces  ;  the  reason  of  which  is  unknown.  He  was  called  Junonius  from 
the  Goddess  Juno,  whose  name  Mr.  Bryant  resolves  into  Juneh,  which  signifies  a  dove,  and  is  in 
the  Hebrew  language  nJV  iune,  and  is  the  same  as  the  Yoni  or  Yuni,  the  female  principle,  as  ob- 
served by  Col.  Wilford.  On  his  coins  are  often  seen  a  boat  and  dove,  with  a  chaplet  of  olive 
leaves,  or  an  olive  branch.  Gale,  after  observing  that  Juno  was  the  same  as  Jana,  and  that  Janus 
came  from  n>  Jah  of  the  Hebrews,  and  that  Diana  was  Di-va  Jana,  or  Dea  Jana,  says  also,*  that 
she  was  the  same  as  Astarte  or  Asteroth  of  the  Sidonians,  and  had  the  head  of  a  Bull.  He  also 
says,  that  she  was  the  Belisama  of  the  Hebrews.  *      In  Sanscrit  Di-Jana  is  the  Goddess  Jana. 

Macrobius  tells  us,  that  the  introitus  and  exitus,  the  front  and  back-door  entrances  of  buildings, 
were  sacred  to  Janus  :  on  this  account  he  had  two  faces,  he  was  bifrons.  Zeno  says  that  Janus 
was  the  first  who  built  temples  and  offered  sacred  rites  in  Italy  to  the  Gods,  that,  therefore,  he 
deserved  to  be  the  first  to  be  sacrificed  to.2  He  was  supposed  to  open  and  shut  the  gates  of  heaven 
in  the  morning  and  evening,  and  thus  the  prayers  of  men  were  admitted  by  his  means  to  the  Gods. 
C.  Bassus  says,  he  was  represented  (bifrons)  double-faced,  because  he  was  the  porter  (janitor)  of 
heaven  and  hell.  January  was  called  after  him,  because  it  was  the  gate  of  the  year — the  opening 
of  the  year.  Twelve  altars  were  erected  to  him,  because  he  presided  over  the  first  days  of  the 
twelve  months.     The  doors  of  his  temple  were  shut  in  time  of  peace,  and  open  in  time  of  war. 

Gale,3  who  wrote  more  than  150  years  ago,  and  therefore  could  have  no  prejudice  arising  from 
Hindoo  learning,  likens  Janus  to  Noah,  on  account  of  the  "  cognation  of  his  name  with  the  He- 
"  brew  \»jain  wine,  whereof  Noah  was  the  inventor  •"  and  he  says  the  entrance  of  a  house  called 
janua,  and  the  month  January,  were  sacred  to  him,  because  he  was,  after  the  flood,  the  beginner 
of  all  things.  Again,  he  says,  "  others  refer  the  origination  (both  of  name  and  person)  of  Janus 
'  to  Javan  the  son  of  Japhet,  the  parent  of  Europeans.  For,  1st,  \)>  (iuri)  Javan  is  much  the 
"  same  with  Janus  ;  2nd,  Thence  that  of  Horat.  Lib.  i.  3,  Japeti  Genus.  So  Voss.  Idol.  Lib.  ii. 
"  Cap.  xvi.    Janus's  name  taken  historically  is  the  contract  of  Javan." 

Bochart4  asserts,  that  from  Japhet,  mentioned  Gen.  x.  2,  the  Grecians  refer  their  first  genealo- 
gies to  Japetus,  whom  they  make  to  be  the  most  ancient  man.    Thus  from  Javan,  Japhet's  son, 


'  Court  Gent.  Vol.  II.  pp.  120,  12] .  *  Mac.  Sat.  Cap.  ix. 

3  Court  Gent.  Book  ii.  Chap.  vi.  Seq.  4  Phaleg.  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  i. 


350  APHRODITE   AND    DIANA. 

the  Grecians  derived  their  Ionians.    Also  from  nttf^K  Alise,  (Elishah,)  Javan's  son,  Gen.  x.  4, 
they  had  their  Hellas. 

Jana  was  the  same  as  Diana,  (i.  e.  Di-iana,)  or  Venus,  or  Juno,  or  Lucina,  the  goddess  of  par- 
turition, in  which  capacity  she  was  called  Diana,  Di-iana,  or  the  divine  Jana.  Mr.  Faber  *  ob- 
served, that  the  Italians  had  a  Goddess  called  Maia.  This  was  evidently  the  Maia  of  India,  and 
answered  to  the  Di-jana ;  they  had  also  a  God  called  Maius,  who  answered  to  the  Janus.  There 
was  also  a  God  called  Aius,  and  a  Goddess  called  Aia ;  evidently  the  same.  One  with  the  mono- 
gram M  prefixed,  the  other  without  it.2  I  think  in  the  Jain  or  Janus  and  Jana,  we  have  the  re- 
union of  the  two  principles.  Some  persons  have  thought  that  the  word  annus  came  from  the 
word  Janus  j  and  certainly  the  holding  of  the  number  365  in  his  hand  seems  to  shew  a  close  con- 
nexion between  them.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  his  wife  (or  mother  as  I  suppose)  Anna- 
perenna,  and  Di-ana  or  Diva-Iana.  From  Bryant  I  learn  that  the  name  of  this  God  was  often 
written  Jannus,  or  I-annus.  In  this  latter  case  the  /  was  prefixed  as  a  monogram,  as  the  M  was 
above. 3  Mr.  Faber  says,  "  Juno  herself,  indeed,  was  the  same  character  as  Isis  or  Parvati,  in 
"  her  varied  capacity  of  the  ship  Argha,  the  Yoni  and  the  sacred  Dove. 4 

2.  In  Cyprus,  Venus,  I  believe,  was  particularly  called  A^goSiTij.  But  Dr.  Clarke5  has  ob- 
served from  Tacitus,  that  simulacrum  Dece  non  effigie  humana.  From  what  he  says,  and  from  the 
pateras  with  the  cone  in  the  centre  of  them,  it  seems  probable  that  she  was  here  represented  by 
the  Linga  and  Ioni  in  conjunction — the  Meru  in  the  Argha.  Juno  was  called  Hera,  which  is 
probably  the  same  as  Heri  in  Sanscrit,  and  means  Saviour :  she  was  also  called  Argiva.  A  cer- 
tain De'ione  was  feigned  to  be  beloved  by  Apollo.  This  is  the  Indian  De  and  lone.6  "  Diana  is 
"  a  compound  of  De  Iiina,  and  signifies  the  Goddess  Jana.  That  her  name  was  a  feminine  from 
"  Janus,  we  may  learn  from  Macrobius,  who  quotes  Nigidius  for  his  authority.  Pronunciavit 
"  Nigidius  Apollinem  Janum  esse,  Dianamque  Janam.  From  this  lana,  with  the  prefix,  was 
"  formed  Diana,  which  I  imagine  was  the  same  as  Dione :"  that  is,  Di-Ione7  in  the  Sanscrit. 
The  God  Janus  was  the  unknown  God  of  the  Romans,  whose  first  legislator  was  Numa,  which,  as 

I  have  already  intimated,  I  take  to  be  a  corruption  of  the  word  Menu.    According  to  Cornificius, 8 
the  name  of  Janus  was  probably  Eanus.     But  Eanus  was  undoubtedly  the  same  as  the  Oivaj  of 
the  Greeks,  and  the  Ionas  of  the  Eastern  nations. 9 

"  One  of  the  names  of  Buddha  is  Jain  or  Jain-Esa :  and  it  has  been  clearly  shewn  by  Sir  W. 
"  Jones,  that  the  mythology  of  Italy  was  substantially  the  same  as  that  of  Hindostan,"  and  I  have 
proved  their  ancient  languages  the  same.  "  Such  being  the  case,  it  seems  highly  probable  that 
"  the  oriental  Jain  ought  to  be  identified  with  the  Western  Janus,  whose  worship,  like  that  of 
"  Suman,  the  Romans  apparently  borrowed  from  the  Etruscans  or  ancient  Latins.    To  this  opi- 

II  nion  I  am  equally  led  by  similarity  of  appellation,  and  by  unity  of  character.     Janus,  when  the 


'  Vol.  II.  p.  397. 

8  See  B.  V.  Ch.  II.  S.  3.  The  M,  which  is  found  in  a  very  unaccountable  manner  in  the  beginning  of  Egyptian 
words,  Drummond  (Orig.  Vol.  III.  p.  456)  calls  the  nominal  prefix.  He  so  called  it  because  he  did  not  know  what  to 
make  of  it. 

3  The  letters  I,  M,  and  X,  were  constantly  prefixed  to  words  as  monograms,  the  reason  for  which  will  be  explained 
by  and  by.  The  practice  is  still  kept  up  with  the  X.  See  signature  to  a  letter  from  Bishop  Doyle,  Morning  Chronicle, 
August  2,  1831. 

4  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  389.  *  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  334,  Ed.  4to. 
6  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  339.  7  Bryant,  Anal.  p.  340. 

8  Etymorum  libro  tertio,  Cicero,  inquit,  non  Janum,  sed  Eanum  nominat.    Macrob.  Sat.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  ix.  p.  158. 

9  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  258. 


BOOK  VII.     CHAPTER   V.     SECTION  3.  351 

"  Latin  termination  is  omitted,  is  the  same  as  Jain." !  Mr.  Faber  then  observes,  that,  like 
Buddha,  he  stands  insulated  as  it  were  from  the  reigning  superstition  :  and  his  worship  appears 
rather  to  have  been  super-added  to  it,  than  to  have  formed  an  originally  constituent  part  of  it.  Of 
this  Ovid  seems  to  have  been  fully  conscious  when  he  asks,  not  unnaturally,  in  what  light  he  ought 
to  consider  the  God  Janus,  since  the  theology  of  the  Greeks,  which  was  radically  that  of  the 
Romans,  acknowledged  no  such  divinity.  Mr.  Faber  proceeds  to  observe,  that  precisely  the  same 
actions  are  attributed  to  Janus,  which  are  attributed  by  the  Greeks  to  Dionusus,  and  by  the 
Egyptians  to  Osiris.  But  the  Dionusus  or  Bacchus  of  the  Greeks,  Wilford  and  Jones  have 
shewn  to  be  the  god  Deo-naush  of  India.  Lucian  says,  Bacchus  was  born  of  Semele  and  also 
out  of  Jupiter's  thigh ;  that,  after  he  was  born,  he  was  taken  to  Nysa,  whence  he  was  called 
Dionysius.8 

Having  proved  that  the  Jains  were  Buddhists,  I  think  it  cannot  well  be  doubted  that  the  Etrus- 
cans, with  their  four-faced  god,  Janus,  were  anciently  descended  from  that  stock.  The  extraor- 
dinary circumstance  that  the  god  Janus  was  unknown  to  the  Greeks,  shews  that  the  first  settlers 
of  Italy  did  not  come  from  Greece,  but  confirms,  in  a  remarkable  manner,  the  hypothesis  laid 
down  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  these  countries  were  peopled  by  tribes  from  the  North-east. 

3.  Sir  W.  Jones  has  endeavoured  to  prove,  that  the  Ganesa  of  the  Hindoos  is  the  Italian  Janus. 
This  seems  not  unlikely. 3  Ganesa  is  called  Pollear :  this  is  evidently  the  polis  *  in  the  sense  of 
gate. 

Ganesa  has  almost  all  the  attributes  of  the  Roman  or  Etruscan  Janus.  He  opens  the  year  j  he 
is  the  chief  and  preceptor  of  the  heavenly  host.  He  has  often  two  heads.  He  is  the  leader  of  all 
enterprises,  and  his  name  is  inscribed  in  the  beginning  of  books  and  on  the  doors.5  I  think  no 
one  can  doubt  that  this  is  the  Janus  of  the  Romans,  of  whom  it  appears  that  Cicero  knew  little  or 
nothing,  except  that  he  was  the  oldest  of  their  Gods.  No  doubt  he  was  the  Ganesa  brought  to 
Italy  by  the  persons  who  brought  the  Indian  words  given  in  Ch.  II.  Sect.  XXV.  of  my  Celtic 
Druids  ;  and  as  there  were  no  historical  records,  those  things  not  being  then  invented — nothing 
but  mere  traditions — and  our  Indian  knowledge  not  being  possessed  by  them,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  they  should  be  ignorant  of  every  thing  relating  to  their  origin. 6 

The  Heliopolitae,  or  inhabitants  of  On,  in  Egypt,  worshiped  the  god  Gennaeus  in  the  form  of  a 
Lion  :  so  Damascius  in  Photius,  in  the  life  of  Damascius,  toj>  he  Teuueiov  'H?uoy7ro?UTa<  ri/taxny 
ev  Aios  vtyvo-afxevoi  ftop^qv  rim  Aeovreg. T  Now  is  this  Gennajus  the  god  Janus  or  not  ?  It  is 
true  the  gamma  answers  not  to  the  Iota  of  Janus,  but  the  Greeks  and  Latins  made  such  sad 
havock  in  their  rendering  of  the  proper  names  of  one  country  into  those  of  another,  that  there  is 
no  answering  for  any  thing. 

In  general,  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  the  old  hero  Gods  (as  they  are  called)  of  Greece,  was 
unknown  to  the  Greeks  and  cannot  be  ascertained  from  their  language  ;  in  it,  they  have  no  mean- 
ing :  but  many  of  them  are  to  be  found  in,  and  explained  by,  the  oriental  languages,  in  which  they 
have  significant  meanings.  This  is  at  once  a  proof  that  the  mythologies  travelled  from  India  to 
Greece  and  not  from  Greece,  or  from  any  country  West  of  the  Indus,  to  India.  It  is  to  me  sur- 
prising that  this  decisive  argument  should  have  been  overlooked.     Of  this  Prometheus  is  one  ex- 


1  Fab.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  II.  p.  369.  *  Dial,  between  Neptune  aud  Mercury. 

3  See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  I.  p.  226.  *  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VII.  p.  343. 

6  Creuzer,  Liv.  prem.  Ch.  ii.  pp.  166,  167. 

6  Like  Janus,  Mithra  held  in  his  hand  two  keys.    Vide  Montfaucon,  Vol.  I.  p.  232 ;  Monthly  Mag.  Vol.  LVI.  p.  22. 

7  Mr.  Beverley's  unpublished  book,  called  Religion  Critical,  Xxxiv. 


352  TWO    SYRIAS  J    TWO    MBRUS  J    TWO    MORIAHS. 

ample  :  Deucalion  and  Saba, l  the  latter  of  which  means  host  or  congregation,  are  others.  Semi- 
ramis, whose  history,  except  as  a  mythos,  has  always  been  attended  with  insuperable  difficulties, 
is  another.  She  was  Sami-Rama.  Col.  Wilford  says,  "  Sami-Rama  is  obviously  the  Semiramis 
"  of  the  Western  mythologists,  whose  appellation  is  derived  from  the  Sanscrit  Sami-Ramesi,  or 
"  Isi  (Isis)."2  They  are  also  further  identified  by  the  fact  that  Capotesi,  or  the  Dove,  was  consi- 
dered a  manifestation  of  Sami-Rama,  in  India.  And  in  Assyria,  Semiramis  was  born  of  a  dove, 
and  disappeared  at  last  in  the  form  of  a  dove.  Besides  these,  there  are  many  other  circumstances 
which  make  the  identity  of  the  two  unquestionable,  of  which  I  shall  observe  more  hereafter. 

4.  The  natural  philosophy  of  Sanchoniathon  and  Mochus  ( Query  Moses  ?)  is  said  to  have  been 
brought  into  Greece  from  Phoenicia,  by  Thales,  the  founder  of  the  Ionic  school  of  philosophy.  I 
have  a  strong  suspicion  that  Thales,  who  was  most  certainly  a  mythological  person,  was  a  corrup- 
tion of  the  <&Sas  of  the  Egyptians.     But  I  state  this  as  a  suspicion  only. 

I  have  said  that  there  never  were  such  men  as  Hercules  and  Bacchus,  but  that  they  are  merely 
mythological  persons,  their  histories  being,  in  fact,  astronomical  allegories.  This  I  think  Mons. 
Dupuis  has  most  satisfactorily  proved.  But  I  do  not  mean  this  rule  respecting  the  mythological 
personages  to  be  entirely  without  exception ;  because  it  is  very  difficult  to  point  out  the  boundary- 
line  where  mythology  ends,  and  history  begins  ;  and  on  this  account  it  is  possible,  that  some  per- 
sons having  a  suspicious  appearance  may  have  been  real  persons.  For  the  cause  of  truth,  how- 
ever, we  had  better  mistake  in  believing  too  little  than  too  much.  This  observation  I  apply  to 
Thales.  What  he  was,  it  is  very  difficult  to  make  out,  as  the  various  fables  about  his  genealogy 
prove.  I  have  no  doubt  that,  generally,  ancient  names  had  a  meaning,  particularly  technical  terms 
or  terms  of  art.  But  from  this  I  must  except  such  names  as  are  taken,  that  is  transferred,  from 
one  language  into  another.  As  this  was  done  by  the  ancients,  as  indeed  it  is  yet  constantly  done 
by  the  moderns,  without  any  rule  or  system,  this  great  class  of  names  will  of  course  form  an  ex- 
ception. As  a  consequence,  whenever,  in  ancient  history,  I  meet  with  a  word,  a  rational  or  pro- 
bable meaning  of  which  I  cannot  find,  either  in  its  own  or  any  other  language,  I  set  it  down  as 
unknown,  and  by  no  means  accept  what  appears  an  absurd  meaning.  On  the  subject  of  language, 
Nimrod3  has  some  very  pertinent  observations.  "  We  now  make  a  difference  between  a  name 
"  which  is  positive  and  insignificant,  like  Mr.  White  and  Mr.  Brown,  (for  these  names  are  insig- 
"  nificant  quoad  the  individuals,)  and  a  title  which  has  relation  and  significancy,  as  William 
"  Rufus.  But  in  those  early  times,  when  language  was  analogical  and  nearly  perfect,  all  appehV 
"  tions  were  significant,  and  represented  some  quality,  or  some  religious  symbol,  or  something  of 
"  good  omen  :  and  men  gave  as  many  names  to  famous  characters,  as  their  fancy,  guided  by 
"  various  circumstances,  might  chance  to  dictate  :  and  oftentimes  the  very  same  sense,  essentially, 
"  was  given  in  different  phraseology.  If  any  one  of  those  could  be  called  the  name  rather  than 
"  the  others,  it  must  have  been  when  a  name  was  imposed  by  divine  authority,  with  a  prophetic 
"  import.  Many  of  the  great  men  recorded  in  scripture  had  several  appellations,  as  Solomon, 
"  Lemuel,  Jedidiah.  Achilles  had  two  other  titles,  Liguron  and  Pyrissous.  We  must  not  there- 
"  fore  wonder  at  finding  him  called  Bellerophon  in  Glaucus's  pedigree,  who  in  some  others  is 
"  called  Memnon,  or  Theseus  or  Romulus." 

5.  That  the  Ionic  philosophy  should  come  from  the  coast  of  Phoenicia,  from  the  natives,  per- 
haps, of  Antioch,  anciently  called  Iona,  or  from  the  Palli  or  Philistines,  the  natives  of  Gaza,  (also 
anciently  called  Iona,)  who  were  the  great  enemies  of  the  tribe  of  Abraham,  seems  natural  enough, 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  393.  *  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  p.  368  ;  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  pp.  249—253. 

3  Vol.  I.  p.  91,  Sup.  Ed. 


BOOK   VII.     CHAPTER   V.     SECTION  6.  353 

and  not  inconsistent  with  my  theory.  For  the  Pelasgi  or  sailors  may,  I  think,  without  any  great 
violence,  be  supposed  to  have  extended  the  whole  length  of  the  sea-coast  of  Syria,  or  Assyria,  as 
it  has  been  said  that  it  was  most  anciently  called,  the  whole  being  the  country,  no  doubt,  of  the 
same  priests,  the  Culdees  or  Chaldees  of  the  Ionas,  and  of  Babylon.  Now,  when  I  reflect  on  the 
singular  repetition  of  names  of  places  in  the  Eastern  part  of  Asia,  and  in  the  Western  part  of  it, 
the  Sions,  the  Moriahs  or  Merus,  the  Rama,  near  Jerusalem  and  near  Gaza,  the  Semi-rama-is  of 
Babylon,  of  India,  and  of  Ascalon,  the  Hercules  of  Maturea,  and  the  Hercules  or  Samson  of  Gaza, 
(Iona,)  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  Syria  or  Suria  is  the  Western  country  of  the  Soors  of  India, 
and  that  Assuria  is  the  Western  country  of  the  Assoors,  two  celebrated  and  opposed  sects  of 
India,  the  first  meaning  devotees  of  Sur,  the  sun  or  light ;  and  the  other  a  name  of  reproach  given 
them  by  their  enemies,  meaning  a-soor  or  a-sur,  without  light,  darkness,  the  meaning  of  the 
names  of  the  two  sects  in  India,  but  which  we  may  be  well  assured  the  latter  never  gave  to  them- 
selves, but  only  received  it  from  their  enemies,  their  real  name  being  not  told  to  us,  or  being  Suri 
or  Soors.  The  Assoors  of  India  were  a  very  bad  race  of  people;  so  were  the  Carthaginians  ;  and 
both  for  the  same  reason,  probably,  because  we  only  hear  the  account  from  their  enemies,  who 
may  have  destroyed  all  their  records  and  books,  if  they  had  any.  It  is  thought  by  Gale,  that  the 
A  ssuri  were  only  Suri,  with  the  emphatic  article  prefixed :  this  I  would  readily  admit  if  they  were 
Assuri  only  in  the  Greek  books,  as  we  English  talk  about  the  Arabic  Al-koran,  which  is  The  The 
Koran ;  but  they  are  called  omitfN  asurim  by  the  authors  of  the  country,  who  would  never  make 
such  a  mistake.  The  poets  Dionysius  and  Apollonius  observe,  that  there  were  more  countries 
than  one  called  Assyria.  Mr.  Bryant1  has  shewn,  that  the  word  our  was  often  written  sour. 
Syncellus2   says,  Abraham  was  born  bu  rj\  X00^  7WV  XaX8a/a)V  eu  Soug  rr\  irohei. 

A  treatise,  De  Dea  Surice,  was  published  by  Lucian,  which  has  been  much  celebrated.  It 
appears  that  this  was  meant  to  convey  the  idea  of  a  treatise  relating  to  the  Goddess  of  Syria. 
This  is  only  one  of  the  numerous  mistakes  of  the  Greeks.  This  Goddess  was  the  Goddess  Suria, 
from  which  Syria  took  its  name,  not  the  Goddess  of  Syria  :  though  she  certainly  was  the  Goddess 
of  that  country.  My  idea  that  Syria  and  Assyria  were  rather  sectarian  than  proper  names  of  these 
countries,  is  confirmed  by  a  passage  of  Strabo  noticed  by  Mr.  Bryant :  "  Those  whom  we  Gre- 
"  cians  name  Syrians,  are  by  the  Syrians  themselves  named  Armenians  and  Aramaeans." 3 

As  we  have  seen  that  there  were  two  Elephantas,  two  Matureas,  and  two  Sions,  the  reader  will 
not  be  surprised  to  find  two  Moriahs.  The  Moriah  of  Isaiah  and  of  Abraham,  is  the  Meru  of  the 
Hindoos,  and  the  Olympus  of  the  Greeks.4  Cruden  expounds  it  the  mount  of  doctrine.  This  is 
so  unsatisfactory  as  at  once  to  prove  that  the  word  is  not  understood  ;  and  the  reason  pf  this  is, 
because  it  is  a  word  of  some  far  more  Eastern  clime.  Of  the  mountain  Moriah,  Mr.  Faber5  says, 
"  I  greatly  doubt  whether  the  name  of  this  hill  be  Hebrew :  with  Mr.  Wilford,  I  am  much  inclined 
"  to  believe,  that  it  was  a  local  Meru  or  imitative  Paradisiacal  Ararat."  In  this  I  quite  agree  with 
Mr.  Faber.     It  was  nothing  but  a  Meru. 6 

6.  It  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  the  Greeks  gave  new  names  to  almost  all  the  towns  and  coun- 
tries which  they  conquered  or  acquired.  If  the  place  had  a  name  whose  meaning  was  known  to 
them,  the  new  title  was  often  a  mere  translation.  But  this  had  all  the  effect  of  new  names.  It 
might  arise  from  the  same  superstition  as  that  noticed  by  me  in  B.  V.  Ch.  XI.  Sect.  1.     It  is  pro- 


1  Anal.  Anc.  Myth.  Vol.  III.  pp.  147,  446,  463,  465.  2  P.  95.  *  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  HI.  p.  90. 

4  Al-om-pi.  *  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  620. 

The  Hindoos  had  in  the  North  of  upper  India  a  mountain  of  the  moon.  In  imitation  of  this  when  the  Palli  or 
Palestini  took  possession  of  Syria,  they  called  the  most  northern  of  its  mountains  Lebanon,  which  means  Moon.  See 
Celtic  Druids,  App.  p.  310. 

2z 


354  ID-AVRATTA,    MERU   AND   MEROE. 

bable  that  the  ancient  names  always  continued  among  the  natives,  and  Dr.  Clarke  has  observed, 
that  after  the  conquest  of  the  countries  by  the  Saracens  and  Turks,  they  appear  to  have  retaken 
their  old  appellations.  This  is  similar  to  the  observation  which  I  quoted  in  Chap.  I.  Sect.  V.  from 
Mr.  Bryant :  and  it  is  a  very  interesting  observation,  and  will  be  found  to  lead  to  some  very  im- 
portant consequences.  I  shall  return  to  it  very  often.  In  the  following  names  of  places,  the  Om 
of  India  I  think  is  very  apparent.  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  this  Om  is,  at  last,  nothing  but 
the  monogram  M,  the  numerical  symbol  of  the  God  of  the  cycle  of  600.  Generally  speaking,  a 
person  will  look  in  vain  into  the  Greek  geographers  for  these  Oms,  and  nobody  will  doubt  that 
they  are  ancient  and  not  modern  names.1  "  Homs-Emesa;  Om  Keis-Gadara;  Om  el  Djemal ; 
"  Om-Ezzertoun  ;  Om-Haretein  ;  Om-el-Kebour  ;  Om-Waled;  Om-'Eddjemal ;  Om-ba,  where 
"  resides  the  Sheikh  or  El  Hakem  ;  Om-el-Sheratyth  ;  Tel-Houm,  Capernaum ;  Om-el-Taybe ; 
"  Ammon  or  Philadelphia  ;  Om  Djouze  ;  Om-el-Reszasz  ;  Om-Aamed  ;  Om-teda  ;  Biar  Om- 
"  shash  ;  Om-megheylan  ;  Omran  tribe  of ;  Horn- mar  river  of ;  Om-Hash  j  Om-haye;  Om-Had- 
"  jydjein;  Omyle  ;  Om-Kheysyr  ;  Om-Shomar;  Om-Dhad,  places  near  Sinai,"  &c,  &c.2 

In  or  near  the  island  of  Meroe,  Burckhardt  calls  a  place  Senaar,  (which  I  consider  a  corruption 
of  Shinar,)  and  he  mentions  Tuklawi  and  an  island  of  Argo,  and  below  Assouan,  two  temples 
called  Hierosyeaminon.  In  many  places,  particularly  near  Mount  Sinai,  he  notices  mountains 
called  Om  ;  as  Om  Thoman.  Animals  also  are  called  Om.  And  from  one  passage  it  appears  as 
if  this  word  had  the  meaning  of  Mother.  But  it  is  also  applied  to  a  village  called  Om  Daoud,  evi- 
dently David.  And  near  Mount  Sinai  he  met  with  a  tribe  of  Arabs,  who  paid  adoration  to  a  saint 
called  El  Khoudher  (St.  George).  This  is  evidently  the  name  of  Al  Choder,  of  the  ancient  Arabs. 
But  how  Burckhardt  came  to  know  that  he  was  St.  George  does  not  appear.  Burckhardt  says, 
that,  at  the  period  of  the  Mohamedan  conquest,  the  peninsula  of  Mount  Sinai  was  inhabited  exclu- 
sively by  the  tribe  of  Oulad  Soleiman,  or  Beni  Selman.  It  is  clear  that  this  tribe  of  sons  (Beni) 
of  Solomon,  cannot  have  come,  or  had  their  name,  from  the  Mohamedans. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ID-AVRATTA,  MERU  AND  MEROE. — EDEN  AND  ITS  RIVERS. — WHISTON  AND  JOSEPHUS  ON  DITTO. — DELOS. — 
PLAN  OP  THE  MYSTIC  CITY.— HANGING  GARDENS  AND  SEVEN  HILLS. — SELEUCUS  OF  ANTIOCH. — GREEK 
MYTHOLOGIES. — HOMER. — TROY,   ILION. — ULYSSES  AND  ST.    PATRICK. 

1 .  To  the  work  of  the  learned  person  under  the  name  of  Nimrod,  I  am  chiefly  indebted  for  the 
following  observations :  they  appear  to  me  to  confirm  the  doctrines  advanced  by  me,  in  a  very 
remarkable  manner. 

Ilavratta,  Id-avratta,  or  Ararat,  or  Mount  Meru,  of  the  Indians,  was  surrounded  with  seven  belts 
of  land,  and  seven  seas,  and,  beyond  them,  by  one  much  greater,  called  the  Ocean.  This  was 
exactly  in  imitation  of  the  earth  and  the  seven  planets.     The  Mount,   with  its  seven  belts  in  the 


1  See  Bk.  V.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  3.  s  Burckhardt's  Travels  in  the  Decapolis  or  Houran,  and  to  Mount  Sinai. 


BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER  VI.   SECTION  1 .  355 

form  of  an  ellipse,  was  a  type  of  the  planets  in  their  elliptic  orbits — with  the  sun,  the  seat  of  the 
generative  principle  in  their  centre,  all  floating  in  the  ocean  or  firmament.  The  whole  was  repre- 
sented by  the  Lotus,  swimming  in  the  water ;  by  the  ship  of  Noah  and  its  eight  sailors  ;  by  the 
Argha  and  its  mast ;  and  (as  we  shall  soon  see)  by  a  tower  in  each  city,  or  an  Argha-polis,  or 
Arco-polis,  or  acropolis,  and  seven  other  hills,  and  surrounded  with  seven  districts,  and  one  larger 
than  the  others,  called  oceanus,  at  the  outside.  On  the  top  of  the  Mount  Meru,  called  the  Mount 
of  Saba,  or  of  the  congregation  or  heavenly  host,  was  the  city  of  Brahmapore ;  the  place  of 
assembly  of  the  Gods,  and  it  was  square,  not  round  or  elliptical.  There  the  Gods  were  said  to 
assemble  in  consultation,  on  the  side  of  the  Mount  of  the  North. 

Here  we  find  the  seat  of  God  with  its  seven  earths,  emblematical  of  the  sun  and  seven  planets. 
And  the  Hindoo  Sabha,  called  congregation,  meaning  the  same  as  Sabaoth,  "  Lord  God  of  Sa- 
haoth,"  Lord  God  of  the  heavenly  host,  the  starry  host.  We  always  end  with  the  sun  and 
heavenly  host.  And  here  is  also  Il-avratta,  Id-avratta,  holy  Avratta,  or  Ararat.  The  Saba  is 
what  we  call  in  the  Bible  Sabaoth,  but  in  the  Hebrew  it  is  the  same  as  the  Sanscrit  N22f  zba  ;  and 
generally  means  Lord  of  the  planetary  bodies — a>ottf  n  *OS  zba-e-smim,  though,  perhaps,  the 
stars  may  sometimes  be  included  by  uninitiated  persons.  Here  is  the  origin  of  the  Sabseans, 
which  has  been  much  sought  for.     See  Parkhurst  in  voce. l 

The  learned  Dr.  Hager  says, 2  The  number  seven  seems  to  have  been  sacred  among  the  Chal- 
deans, in  the  same  way  as  it  was  afterward  among  other  nations,  in  honour  of  the  seven  planets, 
over  which  they  believed  that  seven  angels  or  Cabirian  deities,  presided  ;  and  therefore  they  may 
have  built  seven  towers.  In  the  eighth,  says  Herodotus,  was  the  temple  of  Belus.  Belus's  tower 
consists  of  eight  stories,  a  perfect  square  circuit,  2250  feet.3  Tov  8e  B^Xov,  6u  xou  Aioc  [xeSsp- 
(xrivst)8(nv — "  Belus  whom  they  interpret  Jupiter."  That  is,  the  Babylonians  interpret.4  San- 
choniathon  says,  that  Jupiter  Belus  was  the  son  of  Saturn.  In  Syria  is  a  river  Belus,  near  which 
is  a  tomb  of  Memnon  ;  and  here  Hercules  was  cured  of  his  wounds.5 

If  my  reader  wish  for  a  short  and  very  clear  account  of  the  great  learning  of  the  ancient  Chal- 
deans and  Egyptians,  he  may  consult  a  treatise  on  this  subject,  published  by  Sir  W.  Drummond, 
in  the  thirty-first  number  of  the  Classical  Journal. 

The  striking  similarity  between  the  Meru  of  India  and  of  Babylon,  could  not  escape  Mr.  Faber, 
and,  to  prove  the  identity  of  their  designs  and  objects,  he  has6  given  a  very  ingenious  paper, 
which  he  concludes  with  the  following  sentence  :  "  Agreeably  to  the  just  opinion  of  the  Hindoo 
"  Theologians,  the  Pyramid  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  an  artificial  mountain  raised  in  a  flat 
"  country  where  there  are  no  natural  mountains,  was  the  first  erected  copy  of  the  holy  mount  Meru 
"  or  Ararat"  I  refer  my  reader  to  Mr.  Faber's  essay,  which  will  much  please  hiin,  if  he  will 
make  only  a  reasonable  allowance  for  Mr.  Faber's  official  superstition. 

Meru,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  is  the  Ararat  of  the  Hindoos.  There  has  been  a  considerable 
difference  of  opinion  respecting  the  precise  situation  of  Ararat.  Most  persons  have  placed  it  in 
the  high  land  of  Armenia,  near  the  fountains  of  the  Euphrates  :  but  some  have  supposed  that  it  lay 
in  the  mountainous  country  of  Cashgar,  to  the  North  of  India,  and  that  it  was  a  part  of  that  lofty 
chain  of  hills  which  the  Greeks   called  the  Indian  Caucasus.     The  latter  of  these  opinions  was 

1  Faber,  Orig.  of  Pag.  Idol.  There  was  an  obelisk  in  Babylon,  according  to  Diodorus  Siculus,  (Lib.  ii.)  erected 
by  Semiratnis,  130  feet  high.  The  name  of 'Ep^cuo?  Ao^o?  (Hesychius)  or  Hermae  given  to  the  places  of  the  obelisks, 
shew  that  they  were  Buddhist,  Hermes  being  Buddha. 

2  Diss.  Babyl.  Bricks,  p.  27.  3  Bombay  Transactions,  Vol.  I.  p.  137. 

4  Berosus,  ap.  Seal.  Graec.  Euseb.  p.  6.  5  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  395,  ed.  4to. 

6  In  the  Classical  Journal,  No.  XLI. 

2z2 


356  ID-A  VRATTA,   MERU   AND    MEROE.       - 

held  by  Heylin  and  Shuckford:1  and  it  has  lately  been  revived,  with  much  ingenuity  and  with  the 
advantage  of  great  local  knowledge,  by  Mr.  Wilford. 2  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  there  were 
two  Ararats.  The  hypothesis  of  the  oriental  site  of  Ararat,  as  maintained  in  my  Celtic  Druids, 
but  ridiculed  by  some  pragmatical  individuals,  is  supported  both  by  Heylin  and  Shuckford.  "  11a- 
"  vratta  or  Ida-vratta  signifies  the  circle  of  Ua,  the  earth,  which  is  called  Ida.  The  Jews  and 
"  Greeks  soon  forgot  the  original  Meru,  and  gave  that  name  to  some  favourite  mountain  of  their 
"  own  country :  the  first  to  Sion  or  Moriah.  The  Greeks  had  their  Olympus  and  Mount  Ida, 
"  near  which  was  the  city  of  Ilium,  Aileyam  in  Sanscrit,  from  Ida,  whose  inhabitants  were 
"  Meropes,  from  Merupa :  being  of  divine  origin,  or  descended  from  Meru." 3  Meru  is  Olympus, 
or  01ympusvis  Meru.  There  are  several  Olympuses,  but  only  one  Meru,  though  several  less 
sacred  mounts,  called  Splinters  of  Meru.  This  raises  a  strong  presumption  that  Meru  was  the 
original,  and,  when  joined  to  the  consideration  that  almost  all  the  Greek  proper  names  are  Indian, 
is  conclusive  as  to  which  is  the  original  and  which  is  the  copy.  It  is  very  likely  that  vratta  may 
mean  circle,  for  the  divine  mind  was  constantly  represented  by  a  circle  ;  but  I  believe  the  deriva- 
tion of  it  is  DK12  brat,  from  Kin  bra,  to  form.  Ida  is  the  Hebrew  y*i>  ido,  idea  or  mind,  and  the 
whole  is  the  mount  of  the  creative  or  formative  mind. 

In  most  countries,  there  was  a  sacred  mount,  an  Olympus,  an  Athos,  or  Atlas,  or  Ida,  in  short, 
a  Meru — and  a  sacred  city.  In  Egypt,  Thebes  was  the  city ;  and  as  they  could  not  conveniently 
have  a  mount,  without,  in  fact,  going  out  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  they  had  a  sacred  island,  and 
this  was  Phylae  or  Meroe.  The  most  sacred  oath  of  the  Egyptians  was,  by  the  bones  of  Osiris, 
buried  at  Phylae.  And  Diodorus  Siculus  says;  that  when  the  priests  of  Phyla?  thought  proper, 
they  sent  a  command  to  the  king  to  put  himself  to  death,  with  which  command  he  was  obliged  to 
comply.     The  first  rulers  of  nations  were  Priests,  Kings  their  generals. 

It  appears  from  Diodorus  Siculus, 4  that  the  Babylon  of  Egypt  was  built  on  a  hill,  which  was 
selected  for  the  purpose — Meru,  I  can  scarcely  doubt.  That  Meroe  was  a  Meru  receives  strong 
confirmation  from  the  fact,  that  its  priests  had  the  same  name,  Gymnosophists,  as  the  Indian 
priests  of  Buddha.5  This  has  been  observed  before,6  and  is  the  name  given  to  the  Buddhists 
by  Jerome  ;  and  also  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  who  says  that  Butta  was  the  institutor  of  them ; 7 
and  in  this  my  idea  or  suspicion  that  the  Meroe  of  Egypt  was  an  imitation  of  the  Hindoo  Meru  is 
strongly  supported.  Here  is  evidently  an  establishment  of  the  oriental  priests  or  sectaries,  in 
imitation  of  that  which  had  been  left.  This  adds  probability  to  all  the  other  examples  of  the 
same  kind  already  produced  in  the  course  of  this  work,  and  of  which  we  shall  yet  see  several 
others. 

In  the  map  to  Waddington's  Travels,  at  a  considerable  distance  above  Assouan  will  be  found  an 
Argo  and  a  Merawe, 8  and  the  author  says,  "As  far  as  we  could  judge,  from  the  granite  and 
"  other  sculptures  remaining  at  Argo  and  Djebel  el  Berkel,  that  art  (sculpture)  seems  to  have 
"  been  as  well  understood,  and  carried  to  as  high  perfection  by  the  sculptors  of  Meroe,  as  it  was 
"  afterward  by  their  scholars  at  Thebes  and  at  Memphis."  9  Now  I  ask-  any  incredulous  reader, 
whether  he  do  not  perceive  something  worthy  of  notice  in  a  Meru  and  an  Argo  being  found 


1  Connect,  Book  II.  p.  98.  8  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  307.  3  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  316. 

4  Lib.  i.  s  De  Paw,  Resercbes  sur  les  Egyptiens,  Vol.  II. 

6  Book  I.  Ch.  IV.  Sect.  6;  also,  Book  V.  Ch.  I.  Sect.  5.  7  Hagar,  p.  9. 

8  Mr.  Waddington  has  justly  observed,  that  the  accounts  of  the  building  of  Meroe  by  Cambyses,  as  given  by  Strabo 
and  Diodorus,  are  not  worth  notice. 

9  P.  185. 


BOOK  VII.   CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  3.  357 

together  in  Nubia  or  Ethiopia  ?  I  desire  him  to  recollect  my  observation,  that  in  many  instances 
after  the  conquerors  of  a  country,  the  Greeks  for  instance,  had  given  new  names  to  it,  the  old 
inhabitants  or  their  descendants  restored  the  original  ones. 

2.  The  Hindoo  religion  states  Mount  Merou  to  be  the  Garden  of  Eden  or  Paradise,  out  of  which 
went  four  rivers.  These  rivers  are  the  Burramputer,  or  Brahmapouter,  the  son  of  Brahma ;  2dly, 
the  Ganges,  Ganga  or  river  xot]'s|o^v,  female  or  Goddess  Ganges,  in  fact,  a  generic  name  for 
sacred  rivers ;  3dly,  the  Indus,  Sind,  the  river  blue  or  black  ;  and,  4thly,  the  Oxus,  Gihon,  or 
Djihhoun. 

These  rivers  were  also  called  Chaishu,  Bhadra,  Sita,  and  Ganga,  in  the  Hindoo  language  :  and 
the  country  between  two  of  the  rivers  was  called  a  douab  from  duo-aub,  like  Mesopotamia,  from 
ju,so"0£  7T0Ta/*,0£-<a.  In  like  manner,  the  rivers  Euphrates  and  Tigris  were  supposed  to  flow  from 
Ararat  and  Paradise ;  but  still  one  of  them  was  thought  to  be  the  river  Ganges,  which  flowed 
underground  from  India,  and  appeared  at  the  foot  of  the  Armenian  mountains  :  and  they  formed, 
likewise,  a  Mesopotamia.  The  Nile  also  was  supposed  to  be  the  Euphrates,  which,  by  an  under- 
ground channel,  was  conveyed  into  Africa.  In  this  way  is  accounted  for  the  apparent  absurdity 
of  the  Nile  being  one  of  the  rivers  of  Paradise.  The  Ganges  was  called  Padus,  one  of  the  names 
of  Buddha,  and  the  same  as  the  Eridanus  of  Italy.  Whether  the  Euphrates,  or  the  Tigris,  or  the 
Nile,  was  ever  called  Padus  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  do  know,  that  Buddha  was  the  sun,  and  that 
two  of  those  rivers,  the  Ganges  and  the  Nile,  were  called  rivers  of  the  sun,  as  I  shall  shortly  prove 
to  have  been  the  meaning  of  Eridanus. 

Volney,  in  treating  on  the  four  rivers  of  Paradise,  and  the  fact  that  Josephus  makes  one 
of  them  to  be  the  Ganges,  observes,  that  the  Buddhists'  and  Brahmins'  seven  chains  of  moun- 
tains with  their  seven  seas  which  surround  Mount  Mem,  or  the  sacred  mount  of  the  Gods — the 
seven  planetary  bodies  with  their  seven  ethereal  spaces  around  them  in  which  they  float,  are, 
with  the  Buddhists,  circular ;  but,  with  the  Brahmins,  elliptical.  From  this  he  infers  the  superior 
antiquity  of  the  Buddhists.     The  inference  is  curious  and  interesting. 

3.  Mr.  Whiston,  on  the  passage  where  Josephus  states  the  Ganges  to  be  one  of  the  rivers, 
observes,  that  upon  the  face  of  it  an  allegorical  or  esoteric  meaning  is  intended  by  him — but  adds, 
that  what  it  is  he  fears  it  is  now  impossible  to  be  determined.  The  record  of  Josephus,  that  one 
of  the  rivers  was  the  Ganges,  can  scarcely  be  supposed  to  have  been  made  without  some  tradi- 
tionary or  doctrinal  connexion  with  India.  But  the  passage  of  Josephus  deserves  much  attention; 
indeed,  more,  I  believe,  than  it  has  hitherto  received.  Mr.  Whiston  observes,  on  the  work  of 
creation,  that  Moses  speaks  of  it  philosophically,  which  must  mean,  according  to  the  words  of  his 
preface,  aenigmatically  or  allegorically ; l  and  the  whole  of  the  work  of  this  ancient  priest  shews 
the  absurdity  of  the  moderns,  in  construing  these  allegories  or  parables  to  the  letter.  It  is  evident 
that  his  account  of  the  rivers  flowing  from  Paradise  has  a  secret  meaning.     Whiston  observes, 

"  Moses  says  farther,  that  God  planted  a  paradise  in  the  east,  flourishing,"  &c "  Now 

"  the  Garden  was  watered  by  one  river  which  ran  round  about  the  whole  earth,  and  was  parted 
"  into  four  parts.  And  Phison,  which  denotes  a  multitude,  running  into  India,  makes  its  exit 
*'  into  the  sea,  and  is  by  the  Greeks  called  Ganges.  Euphrates  also,  as  well  as  Tigris,  goes  down 
"  into  the  Red  Sea.2  Now  the  name  Euphrates,  or  Phrath,  denotes  either  a  dispersion  or  a 
"  flower  :  by  Tigris  or  Diglath,  is  signified  what  is  swift,  with  narrowness  :  and  Geon  runs  through 
**  Egypt,  and  denotes  what  arises  from  the  East,  which  the  Greeks  call  Nile." 

1  See  Whiston's  note  on  Ch.  i.  Book  i. 

8  Mr.  Whiston  shews  that  all  the  Eastern  Sea  had  the  same  name,  which  we  call  Red  Sea. 


358  PLAN    OP   THE    MYSTIC    CITY. 

Josephus  knew  that  the  Ganges  was  the  sacred  river  of  the  original  Ararat  or  Paradise,  and  to 
account  for  the  fact  of  its  being  in  India,  it  was  feigned  to  run  under  ground  j  but  can  any  circum- 
stance tend  more  to  confirm  my  hypothesis  that  the  mythos  is  of  oriental  birth  ?  If  the  whole  had 
not  originally  sprung  from  the  Ganges,  how  could  the  Ganges  have  ever  been  thought  of  as  one  of 
the  rivers  ?  and  had  not  Josephus  known  this,  he  would  have  made  the  Ganges,  if  he  had  noticed  it 
at  all,  run  from  Armenia  to  India.  If  my  reader  will  turn  for  a  minute  to  the  map,  he  must  either 
admit  an  allegory  or  a  secret  meaning,  or  take  Josephus  for  an  idiot.  But  if  he  will  for  a  moment 
consider  the  Hindoo  accounts  of  the  river  Oceanus  (the  name  of  the  Nile)  running  round  the  earth, 
and  again  of  some  of  the  rivers  running  under  ground,  he  will  see  that  the  account  is  in  reality 
nothing  but  a  confused  copy  of  the  mythos  of  the  Hindoos.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  aenigmatical  expla- 
nation of  an  senigma ;  and  it  is  evidently  a  version  of  the  Hindoo  history,  so  couched  as  to  be  now 
evident  to  us  who  have  the  Hindoo  mythos  as  a  key,  but  must  have  been  unintelligible  to  the 
Greeks  or  Romans,  who  never  heard  of,  or  had  access  to,  the  books  of  the  Brahmins.  That  they 
never  heard  of  these  books,  will  surprise  no  one  who  pays  the  least  attention  to  the  vanity  which 
made  them  despise  the  learning  of  the  Barbarians,  and  to  the  difficulty  which  we,  the  possessors  of 
India,  have  had  to  get  the  better  of  the  excessive  repugnance  of  the  Brahmins  to  let  them  be  seen 
by  persons  not  of  their  own  caste  or  religion. 

4.  Gale  says,  "  ]^m  dhln,  is  often  used  in  the  Chaldee  paraphrases  for  the  Gentile  gods ;  so  Exod. 
"xx.  23;  wherefore  the  Phoenicians  called  Delos  bm  DhlDeel;  that  is,  the  island  of  the  god 
"  Apollo ; J  or,  in  the  plural,  \bm  dhln  of  the  gods  Diana  and  Apollo,  for  the  birth  of  whom  this 
"  place  was  famous.  Thence  Inopus  was  called  by  the  Phoenicians  niN  aub  \>y  oin  the  fountain  of 
"  Python,  being  a  river  in  the  same  island,  derived  by  secret  passages  under  the  earth  from  Nilus, 
"  as  supposed,  and  Cynthus,  the  mountain  of  Delos,  where  Latona  brought  forth  Apollo,  from  mn 
"  h)it,  to  bring  forth  ;  whence  the  Phoenician  Kftjn  hnta,  and  the  Greek  Kuj&0£,  ft  being  put  for  &, 
"  as  in  Cadmus's  alphabet."2  The  circumstance  of  the  Nile  having  a  subterraneous  passage  to 
this  famous  mountain  and  temple,  is  exactly  parallel  to  the  Ganges  and  Nile  coming  to  the  Ararat 
of  Armenia ;  but  still  more  curious  and  striking  is  the  name  of  the  mountain  Cyn  or  Cunthus, 
being  exactly  the  same  as  the  Hindoo  name  of  the  goddess  of  the  generative  power,  Cunti,  and  the 
name  of  the  membrum  fcemineum  in  Britain.  The  name  of  the  membrum  virile,  god  of  genera- 
tion, in  Hebrew,  is  "t^ID^k  altuld,  al  tolad. 3  In  the  north  of  England,  by  boys  at  school,  it  is 
called  sometimes  Tally,  at  other  times  Tolly.  Is  there  any  one  so  blind  as  not  to  see  here  the 
identity  of  the  ancient  languages  of  India,  Syria,  and  Britain  ? 

5.  The  following  description  of  the  city  on  Meru  is  given  by  the  author  of  Nimrod,  with  a  copy  of 
his  plan : — •«  In  the  sides  of  the  north,"  that  is,  at  the  North  Pole,  "  according  to  the  fictions  of 
"  Indian  mythology,  is  the  pure  and  holy  land  of  Ilavratta,  and  in  the  centre  of  that  land  stands 
"  Brahma-puri,  the  city  of  the  gods,  and  in  the  centre  of  Brahma-puri  rises  Mount  Meru,  their 
"  Olympus.  The  forms  which  have  been  the  subject  of  our  discussion  have  been  curiously  com- 
"  bined  on  this  occasion.  The  land  of  Ilavratta  is  a  perfect  circle,  but  the  city  Brahma-puri  is  a 
"  perfect  square ;  and  instead  of  right  concentric  lines  fencing  in  the  central  sanctuary,  eight  cir- 
"  cular  towers  are  placed  round  the  wall."  *      See  my  plates,  fig.  23. 

The  author  of  Nimrod  has  shewn  that  Babylon  was  built  with  the  tower  in  the  middle  of  it, 
square,  in  imitation  of  Meru,  or  the  Indian  city  or  their  Ararat,  surrounded  by  streets,  making 
seven  concentric  squares  of  houses,  and  seven  spaces,  and  twenty-eight  principal  streets,  (like  the 


1  Or  in  Hebrew  Vn-h  di-al.  *  Boch.  Can.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xxiv.;  Gale,  Court  Gent.,  p.  43. 

3  Drummond  (Ed.  Jud.  285.  *  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  VIII.  285,  376,  No.  4,  X.  128 ;  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  257- 


BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER  VI.   SECTION  7-  359 

seven  lands  and  seas  of  Mem,)  and  the  eighth,  the  outward  fosse  or  Oceanus. l  He  has  shewn 
that  the  tower  was  formed  upon  seven  towers,  one  above  another,  exactly  as  the  Indian  priests 
taught  or  imagined  that  the  world  was  formed  of  belts  of  land  and  sea,  step  above  step  to  the 
Meru  or  North  pole,  in  the  centre  and  at  the  top.  Here  appears  to  be  a  complete  jumble  of 
astronomy  and  mythology.  The  seven  seas  and  mount  of  the  North,  Isaiah's  seat  of  the  gods, 
were  theological,  the  seven  planets  astrological,  and  concealed  from  the  vulgar. 

Nimrod  has  shewn,  I  think  pretty  clearly,  that  Meru  was  surrounded  with  its  paradise.  Now 
we  have  seen  how  closely  Bacchus  was  connected  with  Meru,  or  this  place  of  Paradise.  Diodorus 
says,  that  Semiramis  made  a  Garden  or  a  Tlaqahi(rov,  at  a  place  in  the  mountains  of  Media  called 
Baghistan,  or  the  place  of  Baghis.     Sir  W.  Jones  had  no  doubt  that  Baghis  was  Bacchus. 

Ecbatana  or  Egbatana,  in  like  manner,  was  built  in  seven  inclosures,  one  rising  above  the  other ; 
it  was  in  the  mountains  of  Media,  and  was  the  summer  residence  of  the  kings  of  Persia,  who 
resided  in  the  winter  at  Susa,  the  city  of  Memnon  who  was  supposed  to  have  built  it.  Susa 
means  Lotus  or  Lily — the  city  of  the  Lotus.2 

On  the  island  of  Bali,  a  small  appendage  to  Java,  are  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  temple,  in  which 
the  mount  Meru  is  exactly  copied.  It  is  a  square  stone  building,  consisting  of  seven  ranges  of 
wall,  each  range  decreasing  as  you  ascend,  till  the  building  terminates  in  a  kind  of  dome.  It 
occupies  the  whole  of  a  small  hill  which  is  shaped  to  receive  the  walls  and  to  accommodate  itself 
to  the  figure  of  the  whole  structure.  It  contains  310  images  of  Buddha  yet  entire.  This  temple 
is  in  the  district  of  Kodu.  This  Kodu  is  a  corruption  of  Iodu  or  loud.  Of  this  more  hereafter.3 
The  Pagoda  of  Vilnour  has  seven  stories  :  il  y  a  tin  huitieme  etage,  says  Gentil,  qui  soutient  le 
faite  de  la  pyramide,  mais  1'  escalier  ne  meme  qu'  au  septieme  etage. 

6.  From  the  supposition  that  Meru  or  Ararat  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  garden  of  paradise, 
came  the  attachment  of  all  religious  to  groves  or  gardens.  In  imitation  of  this,  the  hanging  gar- 
dens were  built  at  Babylon  :  rising  like  the  seats  of  the  Amphitheatre  at  Verona  one  above 
another,  but  oblong  in  imitation  of  the  elliptic  Meru.4  These  raised-up  or  hanging  gardens  round 
the  temple  of  Belus,  no  doubt  were  in  analogical  imitation  of  the  seven  belts  of  land  rising  above 
one  another  around  mount  Meru,  and  of  the  mystic  garden  of  Paradise.  In  imitation  also  of 
Babylon  and  Meru,  the  city  of  Iona,5  or  the  Syrian  Antioch,  was  built  on  seven  hills,  and  was 
likewise  supplied  with  its  sacred  groves,  called  the  gardens  of  Daphne,  which  were  very  famous. 
The  gardens  of  Adonis,  at  Byblos,  in  this  country,  were  also  very  celebrated.  Daphne  was  the 
name  of  the  bay  tree,  (sacred  to  Apollo  the  HELLENistic  deity,)  and  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of 
the  Sibyl.6  In  or  near  most  cities  where  the  adoration  of  the  Magna  Mater  prevailed,  these  gar- 
dens are  to  be  found.  The  celebrated  garden  of  delight  or  Paradise  of  Daphne,  planted  by  Seleucus 
at  Iona  or  Antioch,  was  placed  on  the  site  of  a  former  one,  which  was  said  to  have  been  planted 
by  Hercules. 

7-  If,  as  I  think  cannot  be  denied,  I  have  proved  or  shall  prove  that  one  universal  religion — 
that  of  Buddha  or  Cristna — pervaded  the  whole  of  the  old  world,  the  conduct  of  Seleucus,  as  I 
shall  presently  shew,  in  the  building  of  his  city  of  Antioch  on  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Iona,  in 
imitation  of  Babylon,  Egbatana,  Aia-aia,  Mount  Meru,  &c,  &c,  will  sufficiently  demonstrate  the 
reason  why  we  meet  with  the  several  Babylons,  Troys,  Sions,  &c. ;  namely,  that  it  proceeded 
from  a  superstitious  imitation  of  the  first  sacred  city.  In  the  old  Greek  authors  a  city  called 
Aia-aia  is  often  named.    This  means  Earth  of  Earth,  or  Land  of  Lands.     It  is  celebrated  as  the 


1  Vol.  I.  p.  279.  *  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  pp.  248,  289.  3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XIII.  p.  161,  4to.  ed. 

4  Vide  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  279.  '  Ibid.  Vol.  HI.  p.  382.  6  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  pp.  249,  287. 


360  GREEK   MYTHOLOGIES. 

residence  of  king  iEetes,  of  the  Orphic  Argonauts,  and  was  also  the  island  of  Circe  and  Aurora. 
It  had  its  central  tower,  its  seven  or  eight  precincts,  its  garden  or  Tspevos  or  grove  :  but  I  sup- 
pose it  is  merely  mythological,  and  in  reality  never  did  exist.  Its  remains  are  no  where  to  be 
found. ! 

Thebes  in  Boeotia  was  called  Heptapylos,  as  Nimrod  supposes,  from  its  seven  gates  in  succes- 
sion, one  within  the  other,  which  formed  it  into  districts  like  Babylon  j  and,  in  the  centre  like  all 
other  Greek  cities,  of  course  had  its  acropolis.  And  though  we  have  no  absolute  authority  for 
saying  so,  it  is  probable  that  Thebes  in  Egypt,  that  is  the  city  of  Theba,  of  the  Heifer  or  of  the 
Argha,  was  the  same ;  for  the  French  scavans  clearly  made  out  five  of  the  seven  circuits  among 
the  ruins.     It  was  one  of  the  oldest  cities  of  Egypt  or  of  the  world.2 

M.  Volney  has  observed  that,  in  the  language  of  the  first  observers,  the  great  circle  was  called 
mundus  and  orbis,  the  world.  Consequently,  to  describe  the  solar  year,  they  said  that  the  world 
began  ;  that  the  world  was  born  in  the  sign  of  Taurus  or  of  Aries  ;  that  the  world  ended  in  such 
another  sign.  If  this  explanation  be  justified  by  the  oriental  languages,  of  which  M.  Volney  was. 
I  believe,  a  very  competent  judge,  it  will  remove  several  difficulties. 

Of  Troy  not  much  is  known,  except  that  it  was  placed  on  seven  hills.  Near  it  was  the  famous 
Mount  Ida  or  Gargarus,  with  its  Buddhist  Gilgal,  or  stone  circle,  or  rs^svog  of  Homer,  seen  and 
described  by  Dr.  Clarke,  where  the  gods  were  accustomed  to  assemble  on  the  sides  of  the  North. 
In  my  Essay  on  the  Celtic  Druids,  (Ch.  VI.  Sect.  XXI.,)  I  have  given  a  quotation,  with  a  transla- 
tion, from  Homer,  where  the  chiefs  are  represented  as  assembling  in  counsel,  on  seats,  each  at  his 
stone  pillar,  in  a  circle.  It  is  only  fair  to  suppose  that  the  circle  of  stones  found  on  Gargarus,  by 
Dr.  Clarke,  were  the  very  stones  alluded  to  by  Homer,  for  they  exactly  suit  to  the  description ; 
and,  by  this  fact,  afford  a  remarkable  piece  of  circumstantial  evidence,  that  the  poem  is  not  entirely 
destitute  of  foundation. 

Rome  was  built  upon  seven  hills,  with  a  capitol  or  acropolis,  which  was  square,  and  in  other 
respects  was  an  exact  imitation  of  Babylon.  It  is  worthy  of  observation  that  Constantinople  also 
was  built,  by  the  Christian  Constantine,  upon  seven  hills.  These  circumstances  tend  to  shew  that 
one  secret  system  was  at  the  bottom  of  them  all.  The  oriental  trinity  is  found  in  each  of  the 
cities  in  different  ways  ;  but,  after  the  observations  on  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  trinity  which 
the  reader  has  already  seen,  it  is  unnecessary  to  add  more  here.  The  word  Troia  or  Troy,  the 
district  3  in  which  the  city  of  Ilion  was  placed,  I  have  before  observed  means  in  Greek  and  Hebrew 
the  three  places :  or,  in  English,  Tripoly,  of  which  name  we  have  several  towns  now  remaining. 

8.  We  can  with  certainty  trace  back  the  history  of  the  Greeks  till  we  are  lost  in  absolute  bar- 
barism ;  and  in  that  state  we  find  them  in  possession  of  gods,  of  whose  origin  they  know  nothing, 
except  that  the  priests  in  their  temples  tell  them  they  have  learned  from  their  predecessors  that 
they  are  foreigners,  and  that  they  came  from  the  East  or  the  North-east — some  say  by  land,  others 
by  sea.  In  the  earliest  periods  there  were  no  idols  attached  to  these  temples,  but  in  lieu  thereof  a 
plain  upright  obelisk  or  stone  pillar,  which  was  daily  anointed  with  oil.  The  God  or  Gods  had 
then  no  names.  By  degrees  they  got  idols,  and  gave  them  names  which  are  universally  acknow- 
ledged to  have  come  from  the  East  or  Egypt.  We  examine  these  temples  and  Gods  now,  and  we 
find  the  earliest  ceremonies  in  a  language  unknown  to  the  Greeks — the  names  of  the  Gods  unin- 
telligible, in  fact,  also  in  an  unknown  tongue.  But  we  find  these  ceremonies  and  these  names  in- 
telligible in  the  Sanscrit,  and  the  same  ceremonies  and  Gods  now  in  existence  in  India,  the  his- 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  pp.  300,  311,  322.  2  Volney,  Res.  Anc.  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  403. 

3   Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  438. 


BOOK   VII.   CHAPTER   VI.    SECTION   8.  361 

lories  of  which  all  agree  in  saying,  that  they  were  sent  in  remote  times  to  the  West.  We  find  as 
soon  as  the  Greeks  became  civilized,  that  their  learned  men  travelled  to  the  East  for  knowledge, 
and  that  they  brought  back  with  them  the  identical  philosophical  doctrines  taught  in  India  from 
the  most  remote  antiquity :  the  Metempsychosis  and  the  Trinity  for  instance.  We  are,  however, 
desired  to  believe,  that  the  whole  or  the  most  important  of  these  facts,  gods,  and  doctrines,  were 
learned  by  the  people  of  the  East  from  those  of  the  West,  among  whom  it  is  asserted  they  arose 
hundreds  of  years  after  we  know  that  they  were  taught  by  the  travelling  philosophers.  Surely 
persons  who  tell  us  to  believe  this,  must  think  us  very  credulous.  Nimrod  says,  "  The  word 
"  Syrian  is  oftentimes  confounded  by  the  Greeks  with  Assyrian,  but  it  doth  nevertheless  denote  a 
very  different  country,  that  between  Euphrates  and  the  Mediterranean,  famous  or  infamous  for 
the  Ionian  or  Hellenic  worship,  for  the  lewd  groves  of  Daphne,  the  mysteries  of  Hermaphroditus, 
and  the  Dove  temples  of  Hierapolis  and  Ascalon,  at  which  last  Semiramis  was  fabled  to  have 
been  born.  This  was  mere  fable,  for  it  only  means  that  that  was  the  country  of  the  Dove.  The 
Syrians  at  large  bore  the  appellation  of  Ionians  and  Ionites."1 
Again,  Nimrod  says,2  "  From  the  Semiramis  or  Dove,  the  heretical  people  got  the  denomina- 
"  tion  of  Ionic,  which,  as  a  sectarian  name,  may  apply  to  them  all :  but,  as  a  Gentile  name,  was 
"  particularly  affected  by  certain  of  the  Pelasgi  or  Gra'ics.  The  name  lone  was  borne  by  the 
"  Syrian  city  which  afterwards  took  the  title  of  Antiochia,  and  which,  with  its  Daphne,  was  a 
"  great  type  of  Babylon  :  and  also  by  other  places.  When  Alexander  of  Abonos  Teichos  sought 
"  to  reanimate  Paganism  by  a  sham  Avatar  of  Apollo  Python,  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  which 
"  he  called  Thvx-Qv,  he  requested  of  the  Emperor  that  the  town  might  change  its  name  to  Iono- 
"  Polis.  The  name  was  evidently  applicable,  and  xa?  s^o^v,  to  Babylon,  which  city  was  the 
"  Iona  vetus  of  Propertius." 

After  this,  Nimrod  endeavours  to  shew  that  the  Ionians  were  emigrants  from  Babylon ;  that 
Ionia,  in  Greece,  was  founded  by  one  Caunus,  son  of  Miletus,  son  of  the  second  Minos ;  that  the 
capital  of  Attica  was  a  type  of  Babylon,  and  that  it  adopted,  to  an  unusual  extent,  the  legends  as 
well  of  the  Diluvian  as  of  the  Tauric  age  ;  that  the  Acropolis,  with  its  olive,  was  the  Ark-tower, 
which,  he  says,  is  the  meaning  of  Acro-polis  or  Acra :  to  which  purpose  may  be  noticed  the 
Smyrnean  coin  inscribed  Zevg  AKPAIOS  %y.vqvaia)V  HavKoviog.  All  this  evidently  alludes  to 
the  celebrated  Yoni  or  Argha.  The  Acropolis  was  the  high- place  or  the  Meru.  Again;  that  not 
less  than  seven  cities  had  the  name  of  Athena,  who  was  no  other  than  the  female  principle  in  her , 
warlike  form,  springing  from  the  head  of  Jupiter  Ammon,  and  supporting  her  own  party  with 
wisdom  and  power ;  that  one  city  was  the  Minyeian  Archomenus,  whose  citizens  manned  the 
Argo;  that  the  emigration  of  these  colonies  was  the  celebrated  »)  Icovixr}  axoixia,  and  the  age  in 
which  it  happened  the  "Koovog  Icovixog — and  that  Homer  was  one  of  these  ouroixoi,  and  thence 
called  an  Ionian  :  that  there  were  other  colonies  besides  the  Ionians,  one  of  which  "  bore  the 
"  name  of  Aiol  or  the  whole  earth  ;"  (the  iEolians  ;)  and  others  again  that  of  D'Ore,  or  D'Aour 
(the  Dorians);  that  the  Bacchic  pomp,3  in  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  or  singing  the  Iacchus,  which 
he  explains  as  the  mysteries  of  the  son  shall  come,  (but  which  I  think  were  the  mysteries  of  the  son 
of  Sol,  ivig  'HTuoc,  Eleus-in,)  was  in  commemoration  of  these  emigrations  ;  that  the  Iacchus  was 
named  Tp»-0/x4>  aQd  Tg*-A/x,£ — and  that  "  now  when  the  causes  of  their  connexion  have  been 


1  Tz.  Exeg.  in  Iliad,  p.  135;  Nimrod,  p.  121,  Sup.  Ed.  *  Vol.  I.  Sup.  Ed.  p.  163. 

3  Bryant  explains  our  word  pomp  from  P'ompha.     I  have  before  said  that  the  second  name  of  Numa,  that  of  Pom- 
pilius  comes  from  the  same  source. 

3  A 


362  HOMER. 

"  long  forgotten,  the  name  Iacch  is  identified  with  John  or  Johan,  and  is  said  to  be  a  diminutive 
"  thereof,  although  exactly  of  the  same  length."  l 

It  seems  probable  that  Babylon  was  a  great  emporium  of  lonism,  as  it  advanced  to  the  West.  If 
the  reader  cast  his  eye  on  the  map,  he  will  see  that  it  could  scarcely  be  otherwise.  It  must  have 
come,  I  think,  from  the  North  of  India,  as  Persia  does  not  seem  to  have  been  much  tainted  with  it, 
if  at  all,  for  any  great  length  of  time.  Greece  was  chiefly  divided  between  the  iEolians,  Aiolians 
or  Aiol-Iones  and  the  Ionians, 2  and  in  this  I  think  may  be  seen  an  example  of  the  subdivision  of 
the  religion  :  the  name  of  Aiol-ians,  I  believe,  means  a  mixed  race  or  sect — perhaps  a  mixture  of 
the  male  and  female,  the  Linga  and  Ioni  in  opposition  to  the  Ioni  alone.  The  emigrations  are 
called  a7TQiH(ii  or  the  going  out  or  leaving  the  house.  (This  is  the  very  expression  applied  to 
Abraham :  he  is  said  to  have  left  his  father's  house.)  The  Aiolians  were  the  larger  sect  in  Greece, 
occupying  Bceotia,  Thessaly,  Euboea,  Locris,  &c.3 

9.  The  opinion  which  I  entertain,  in  common  with  such  of  the  ancients  as  were  most  likely  to 
be  well-informed,  that  the  Iliad  is  a  sacred  mythos,  by  no  means  carries  the  consequence  that 
there  was  not  such  a  city  as  Ilion,  or  a  war  and  siege  of  it.     I  am  strongly  inclined  to  believe  that 
its  neighbourhood  was  a  holy  place,  in  a  very  remote  sera.     The  Druidical  circle  or  Gilgal,  found 
by  Dr.  Clarke  on  the  summit  of  mount  Gargarus,  in  a  very  striking  manner  reminds  me  of  the 
Proseucha,  probably  a  similar  circle,  found  by  Epiphanius  on  Gerizim.     I  suspect  Olympus,  Par- 
nassus, Athos,  Ida,  Gerizim,  and  Moriah,  were  each  a  Meru  or  high-place ;  a  sacred  place  of  the 
same  universal  primary  religion,  that  of  Buddha,  of  which  the  same  distinctive  marks  in  its  stone 
circles,  tumuli,  earns,  lingas,  and  Cyclopean  buildings,  are  every  where  to  be  found,  from  India  to 
Stonehenge  and  Iona.     It  is  very  remarkable  that  on  these  mountains,  either  numbers  of  monks 
or  numerous  remains  of  them  are  always  found.     Are  these  remains  of  the  colleges  of  the  pro- 
phets, named  in  the  Old  Testament,  remains  of  Buddhist  monks  of  Thibet,  with  the  tria  vota  sub- 
stantial ?      These  three  vows  completely  identify  them  with  Christian   Monks  —  Carmelites. 
Lycurgus  is  said  to  have  found  the  poems  of  Homer,  being,  as  the  Rev.  G.  Townsend  describes 
them,  *  merely  a  collection  of  ballads,  with  their  appropriate  titles.     In  the  5th,  6th,  and  7th  vo- 
lumes of  the  Asiatic  Researches,  the  story  of  the  Trojan  war  is  given  from  Sanscrit  authors  :  its 
episodes,  like  those  of  Homer,   are  placed  in  Egypt :    and  the  traditions   of  Laius,  Labdacus, 
CEdipus,  and  Jason,  are  all  found  among  the  same  ancient  compositions.     When,  in  addition  to 
all  this,  the  fact  is  considered,  that  the  works  of  Homer  are  discovered  to  contain  more  than  300 
Sanscrit  words,  the  true  character  of  the  Iliad  will  be  seen  ;  namely,  that  it  is  a  sacred  poem,  made 
up  by  Pisistratus,  and  after  him  by  Aristotle,  out  of  a  number  of  ballads  relating  to  the  religion  of 
the  Indians  and  Greeks.     Many  of  them  have  been  thought  to  have  a  reference  to  events  described 
in  Holy  Writ,  and  this  is  natural  enough  if  holy  writ  itself  be  indebted  to  the  East  for  its  events 
and  doctrines. 

The  resemblance  between  the  Cristna  of  Valmic  and  the  Achilles  of  Homer,  proves  the  identity 
of  the  origin  of  the  two  mythoses.     Each  of  them,  in  mythology,  is  supposed  invulnerable,  except 
in  the  right  heel :  each  was  killed  by  an  arrow  piercing  that  part :  each  was  the  son  of  the  mother 
of  the  God  of  Love  :  and  the  presence  of  each  was  indispensable  for  the  overthrow  of  the  enemy.5 
I  can  scarcely  believe  that  this  identity  is  accidental. 

I  should  suppose  no  man  was  more  likely  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  poems  of  Homer  than 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  170,  Sup.  Ed.  *  Strabo,  Lib.  xiii.  p.  841 ;  Steph.  Byzant. 

3  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  167,  Sup.  Ed.  *   Class.  Journ.  No.  XLVII.  p.  9. 

4  Key  to  Chron.  Camb.  p.  221. 


BOOK  VII.    CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  9.  363 

Plato,  and  the  question  whether  they  were  to  be  construed  literally  or  allegorically,  and  he  ba- 
nished them  from  his  imaginary  republic,  because  youth  would  not  be  able  to  distinguish  what  is, 
from  what  is  not,  allegorical.1  And  Porphyry  says,  we  ought  not  to  doubt  that  Homer  has 
secretly  represented  the  images  of  divine  things  under  the  concealments  of  fable.2  The  very 
name  of  the  Iliad,  viz.  Rhapsodies,  precludes  all  reasonable  expectation  of  discovering  the  meaning 
of  the  whole  of  the  minute  parts  of  it,  for  they  were  known  originally  to  have  been  loose  detached 
songs,  very  much  in  the  style  of  what  Ossian's  poems  are  said  to  have  been.  Besides,  it  is  evident 
from  Mr.  Payne  Knight's  observation,  that  it  is  full  of  very  large  interpolations,  as  he  calls  them, 
or  at  least  parts  inserted,  perhaps  by  different  authors,  which  are  unconnected  or  awkwardly  in- 
terwoven with  the  poem,  but  which  are  still  necessary  to  unite  the  songs.  But  if  the  reader 
consider  the  history  of  its  collection  by  Pisistratus,  and  its  revisal  by  Aristotle  and  his  friends,  for 
the  use  of  Alexander,  he  must  see  at  once  that  the  expectation  of  shewing  or  making  a  regular 
system  out  of  it  is  hopeless.  I  have  no  doubt  that  poetry  or  rhythm  was  originally  invented  for 
the  purpose  of  assisting  the  memory  to  retain  the  sacred  and  secret  doctrines  ;  that  when  used 
in  the  mysteries,  it  was  set  to  music,  and  repeated  in  the  manner  of  chaunting  or  recitative. 

I  think  it  will  not  be  denied,  that  the  observations  of  Nimrod  respecting  the  war  of  Troy  are 
marked  with  much  good  sense  ;  but  yet  there  is  a  difficulty  to  be  found  in  Greece  and  many 
other  countries,  in  the  gigantic  Cyclopean  buildings  every  where  scattered  about  them.  Who 
were  they  that  built  the  stone  circles,  the  walls  of  Tyrins,  the  cave  at  Mycenae,  &c,  &c.  ? 
Great  and  powerful  people  must  have  lived  who  executed  these  works,  and  that  before  even  the 
fabulous  periods  of  Grecian  history.  Were  they  the  people  who  formed  the  Trojan  Mythos  ? 
But  if  they  were,  they  must  have  lived  long  before  the  time  assigned  for  the  date  of  the  Trojan 
war.     They  were  the  Cyclopes,  as  I  shall  shew  ;  but  they  had  not  each  only  one  eye. 

The  opinion  which  I  have  expressed  respecting  the  Western  names  of  Gods  being  found  in 
India  is  strongly  confirmed  by  Dr.  Vincent.  On  Indian  names  he  says,  "  Most,  if  not  all,  of  the 
"  Indian  names  which  occur  in  classical  authors,  are  capable  of  being  traced  to  native  appellations, 
"  existing  at  this  day  among  the  Hindoos,  at  least,  if  not  the  Moguls."  3 

Col.  Franklin  4    has  observed  the  connexion  between  the  Mythoses  of  the  East  and  West.     He 
says,  "  The  Gods  are  Merupa  (Meropes  of  Homer)  and  signify  in  Sanscrit  Lords  of  Mount  Meru, 
"  the  North-pole  of  the  Hindoos,  which  is  a  circular  spot,  and  the  strong  hold  of  the  Gods :  it  is 
"  called  Ila :  or,  in  a  derivative  form,  Ileyam  or  Ilium.     There  is  a  Triad  (Troiam)   of  towers 
"  dedicated  to  the  three  Gods.     The  Trojans  are  styled  divine,  and  aBa.vcx.Toi,    athanatoi,  immor- 
"  tals ;  they  are  Meropes  and  came  from  the  place  where  the  sun  stables  his  horses.     The  Gods 
"  and  giants  at  each  renovation  of  the  world  fight  for  the  Amrit  or  beverage  of  immortality  (Nec- 
"  tar),  and  also  for  the  beautiful  Laeshmi  (or  Helen)  :  she  is  called  Helena.     In  Sanscrit  all  these 
"  derivations,   Meropes,   for   Merupa,   Ileyam  or   Ilium,   Troiam   or  Troia    (Troja),   Helena   or 
"  Helene,  are  the  same,  and  point  to  the  same  thing.     The  story  is  told  with  some  variations  : 
"  and  the  Trojan  war  happened  soon  after  the  flood  of  Deucalion,  called  in  Sanscrit  Deva  Cala 
"  Yavana,  but  to  be  pronounced  Deo  Calyun."     "  All  the  expressions  in  the  mysteries  of  Bac- 
"  chus  are  Erse,  according  to  General  Vallancey  :  Sanscrit,  according  to  Col.  Wilford  in  the  5th 
"  volume  of  the  Asiatic  Researches  :  and  Hebrew,  according  to  Parkhurst  in  his  Lexicon  :  three 
"  singular  opinions,  which  only  persuade  the  unprejudiced  reader  of  their  immense  antiquity  and 
"  their  Eastern  origin."  5     It  is  then  noticed  that  Homer  refers  to  a  language  different  from  the 

1  Taylor  on  the  Myth,  of  the  Greeks,  Class.  Journ.  No.  XLV.  2  Ibid.  p.  41. 

3  Voyage  of  Nearchus,  129.  *  Researches  into  the  Jains,  p.  43.  s  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  III.  p.  179. 

3a2 


364  HOMER. 

Greek,  called  the  speech  of  the  Gods.     Mr.  Van  Kennedy's  300  Sanscrit  words,  in  Homer,  I  take 
to  be  part  of  the  speech  of  the  Gods. 

Diodorus,  in  his  preface  to  his  fourth  book,  says,  that  many  authors,  for  instance,  Ephorus, 
Callisthenes,  and  Theopompus,  passed  over  the  ancient  mythology  on  account  of  its  difficulty. 
This  proves  it  unknown. 

It  is  recorded  in  old  traditions,  that  Homer,  in  a  temple  in  Egypt,  found  a  poem  relative  to  a 
war  against  a  city  called  Troy,  near  Memphis.   The  town,  I  believe,  is  admitted  to  have  existed.1 
Tatian,  in  his  oration  ad  Graecos, 2  says,  that  Metrodorus,  of  Lampsacus,  in  his  treatise  on  Homer, 
made  not  only  the  Gods  and  Goddesses,  but  the  heroes,  of  the  poem,  allegorical  persons. 

It  may  be  a  matter  of  doubt,  whether  the  whole  story  of  the  Iliad  may  not  be  found  in  the 
histories  of  Joseph  and  Uriah,  the  gallantry  of  David,  his  marriage  with  Michal,  his  banish- 
ment, &c. 3 

Maximus  Tyrius,  as  I  have  noticed  in  a  former  chapter,  expressly  asserts,  that  the  stories 
of  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  in  Homer  are  oracular,  and  have  a  meaning  different  from  what  is  ap- 
parent at  first  sight. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  celebrated  Dr.  Bentley  wrote  a  treatise  to  prove  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  were  written  by  Solomon,  king  of  Israel.  But  to  guard  himself  from  persecution  for  so 
singular  an  opinion,  he  added,  that  they  were  written  after  the  apostacy  of  this  Wise  man, 
Lempriere  says,4  that  the  Bentley  manuscript  (the  treatise  was  never  published)  is  in  the  British 
Museum.  A  writer  in  the  Times  newspaper  of  April  30th,  1829,  p.  5,  says  the  MS.  is  not  there. 
Its  contents  were  wicked,  and  have  been  probably  destroyed  by  the  priests  in  whose  hand  that 
establishment  is.  But  it  proves  one  fact, — that  Bentley  thought  he  could  prove  the  Mythos  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah  and  of  Homer  were  the  same  ;  and  we  have  just  now  seen,  that  there  was  an 
Ileyam  or  Ilium  in  India  ;  that,  in  fact,  Meru  was  Ilium.  Ilavratta,  or  the  Indian  Ararat,  was  often 
written  Idavratta.     This  is  evidently  mount  Ida. 

The  system  of  renewed  incarnations  is  not  strongly  marked  with  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  but 
it  may  occasionally  be  found :  the  prophecy  of  a  renewed  Trojan  war  by  the  Sibyl  cannot  be 
mistaken,  particularly  when  we  find  there  were  formerly  many  Troys  and  Trojan  wars,  with  their 
ten  years'  sieges  and  cities  taken.  And  this  leads  to  the  question,  who  was  Homer  ?  He  was  born 
at  or  in  Cyprus,  Egypt,  Lydia,  Italy,  Lucania,  Rome,  and  Troy.  His  college  or  place  of  education 
was  Chios,  Smyrna  of  iEolis,  Colophon,  Argos,  Athens,  Ithaca,  Teos,  Tenedos,  Grynium,  and  Crete. 
The  Sibyl  of  Babylon  said  he  stole  from  her.  Lucian  of  Samosata  says  he  was  a  Babylonian,  called 
Tigranes  : 5  and  Proclus, 6  that  he  was  a  cosmopolite — xo&ohs  7ra<ra  xoT^ig  oLvrnroiBiTai  rov  av8go£, 
oSei/  sixorcog  xo<r^.o7ro?UT>3£  Xsyoiro.  The  name  consists  of  two  syllables,  Horn  and  er,  or  eer, 
which  word,  Nimrod  says,  "  is  indicative  of  early  or  beginning  time,  whether  it  be  the  opening 
"  of  a  mundane  cycle,  the  spring  of  a  year,  or  the  morning  of  a  day."7  In  one  word,  I  know 
nothing  about  him  j  but  yet  I  believe  I  know  as  much  as  any  body  else.  I  believe  with  Bentley 
or  Barnes,  it  matters  not  which,  that  the  Iliad  is  a  sacred  oriental  mythos,  accommodated  to 
Grecian  circumstances,  written,  perhaps,  by  a  Solomon,  though  not  the  Solomon  of  Jerusalem, 
and  that  Homer  or  Om-eer  was  a  Solomon — if  the  epithet  given  to  the  poem  do  not  mean  the 
poems  of  Om-heri  the  saviour  Om.  Near  Ajemere,  in  India,  is  a  place  called  Ummerghur,  that  is, 
the  walled  city  of  Ummer  or  Omer,     The  Ipthi-genia  of  Homer  is  literally  Jeptha's  daughter.8    It 


1  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  V.  p.  18.  8  Sect.  37.  3  See  Pope's  note  on  the  Iliad,  Bk.  vi. 

4  Class.  Diet.  Barker's  Ed.  *  Luc.  Ver.  Hist.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  xx.  Vol.  IV.  p.  279,  ap.  Nimrod,  p.  545. 

6  De  Genere  Homeri,  Ed.  Barnes,  ap.  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  544.        7  Ibid.  pp.  514,  &c.        8,R.  Taylor,  Dieg.  p.  21. 


BOOK  VII.     CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  10.  365 

is  impossible  for  this  identity  of  name,  joined  to  almost  identity  of  history,  to  be  the  effect  of  ac- 
cident. 

10.  It  seems  desirable  to  know  what  was  the  meaning  of  the  name  Troy,  and  the  learned  Nim- 
rod  explains  it  as  follows  :  "  Tr'oia  is  the  triple  oia,  and  oia  means  one  or  unique,  so  that  Tr'oia 
"  is  three  in  one,  the  tripolitan  and  triunal  kingdom.  Oia  was  the  chief  of  a  Tripolis  or  of  three 
'*  cities,  belonging  together  in  Libya,  near  the  fertile  banks  of  the  Cinyps,  which  was  reported  to 
flow  from  the  High-place  of  the  three  Graces  :  and  the  said  Oia,  having  survived  her  two  sisters, 
still  keeps  to  herself  the  name  of  Tripoly. *  But  Troia  was  the  land  of  the  universal  Omphe  or 
"  of  all  the  Omphes,  according  as  you  will  take  the  word  Pan  distributively  or  collectively,  for  in 
"  that  country  from  its  first  beginnings 

Ara  pan-omphaeo  vetus  est  sacrata  Tonanti.— Ovid. 

"  Omphe  is  a  word  for  voice  or  speech,  but,  like  ossa,  it  is  confined  to  such  as  proceeds  from  a 

"  deity,  or  otherwise  in  a  preeternatural  way.     Optyr}  Qsia  xtojoW Ol-ymp,  properly  Hol- 

"  ymp,  is  the  universal  voice,  and  equivalent  to  Pan-omphaeus Iphis,  in  Greek,  is   a  woman 

M  with  a  familiar  spirit.  Hence  we  often  find  the  word  Am-phi  in  the  name  of  soothsayers,  as 
"  Amphiareus,  Amphilochus,  Amphion."  2  Troy  meant  the  country  of  which  Ilium  or  H?uov  was 
the  capital.     There  was  a  Troy  in  Egypt  built  by  Semiramis. 3 

I  have  said  that  there  may  have  been  an  Ilion.     Nimrod  has  observed,  that  it  would  be  consi- 
dered blasphemy  to  doubt  it ;  yet  with  him  I  must  be  guilty  and  doubt.     That  the  wars  of  Troy 
related  to  the  Phrygian  Troas  is  certain  ;  but  that  the  remains  of  this  city  should  be  invisible  to 
the  scrutiny  of  the  oldest  of  those  who  sought  for  its  foundations  is  almost  incredible.     The  ex- 
istence of  a  mighty  monarchy  in  Greece,   and  an  organized   system,  ages  before  the  dawn  of 
civilization  in  that  country,  he  maintains,  is  utterly  fabulous  j  and  that  no  means  are  apparent 
which  could  have  thrown  back  into  barbarism  a  country  so  far  advanced,  as   to  give  birth  to  the 
league  of  so  many  nations,   to  a  decennial  siege  by  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  men,  and 
above  all  to  the  artful  writings  of  Homer.     Barbarous,  by  their  own  accounts,  the  Greeks  were 
before  this  war — barbarous  for  ages  after.  What  then  shall  we  make  of  this  gleam  of  glory,  dividing, 
as  it  were,  the  upper  from  the  lower  darkness  ?     It  is  very  extraordinary,  that  this  paltry  town 
should  have  interested  all  mankind.     Every  nation  desired  it  to  be  believed,   that  they  came  from 
conquered  Troy.     There  was  a  Troy  or  Ilion  in  Phrygia  in  Asia  Minor,   one  in  Epirus,  one  in 
Latium,  one  in  Egypt,  and  one  near  Venice.     Every  state  almost  was  founded  by  its  conquered 
and  dispersed  refugees.     They  are  found  in  Epirus,  Threspotia,  Cyprus,  Crete,  Venice,   Rome, 
Daunia,  Calabria,  Sicily,  Lisbon,  Asturia,  Scotland,  Wales,  Cornwall,  Holland,  Auvergne,  Paris, 
Sardinia,  Cilicia,  Pamphylia,  Arabia,  Macedonia,  and  Libya.     Every  people  descended  from  unfor- 
tunate Troy.     It  was  a  mythos,   a  sacred  history.     It  was  like  the  ancient  history  of  all  nations, 
a  mythos — tons  of  fable  mixed  up  with  some  grains  of  truth.    All  nations  were  alike.    There  were 
two  Moriahs,  two  Sions,  two  Ararats,  an  African  and  an  European  Thebes  j  an  Asiatic  and  Egyp- 
tian Babylon  ;  multitudes  of  Memnoniums,  seven  cities  of  Athena,  the  name  of  the  Goddess,  the 
Magna  Mater,  the  female  principle  in'her  warlike  form.     The  Titans  fought  the  Gods  ten  years  ; 
the  Sabeans  besieged  Babylon  ten  years  ;  Rome  besieged  Veii,  the  site  of  which  nobody  can  find, 


1  There  was  a  Tripoly  in  Africa  and  one  in  Western  Asia,  and  a  Tripetti  and  Trichinopoly  in  India — a  Tanjore  in 
India,  and  one  in  Africa. 

2  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  443.  3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  454. 


366  ULYSSES    AND    ST.    PATRICK. 

ten  years  ;  Eira  in  Messenia,  and  Eiran  in  iEolia  had  ten  years'  wars  ;  and  Thebes  was  besieged 
by  the  Epigons  for  ten  years.     And  all  this,  grave  and  wise  men  call  history  and  believe  it  true. 

How  can  any  one  consider  these  striking  circumstances  and  not  see  that  almost  all  ancient  his- 
tory and  epic  poetry  are  mythological, — the  secret  doctrines  of  the  priests,  disguised  in  parables, 
in  a  thousand  forms  ?  Mr.  Faber,  Mr.  Bryant,  and  Nimrod,  have  proved  this  past  doubt.  Whe- 
ther they  have  found  the  key  to  the  parable  or  mythos  is  another  matter.  The  talents  and 
learning  of  these  gentlemen  cannot  be  doubted.  If  they  had  not  brought  minds  to  the  subject 
bound  by  a  predetermined  dogma,  which  was  to  be  supported,  there  is  very  little  doubt  but  that 
they  would  have  solved  the  amigma.  But  they  have  failed.  Weak  and  credulous  as  man  has 
been,  he  did  not  mistake  a  rotten  ship  and  a  few  old  women  for  his  God  and  Creator.  Under  the 
guise  of  the  ship  and  old  women  a  system  is  emblematically  described.  Our  priests  have  taken  the 
emblems  for  the  reality.  The  lower  orders  of  our  priests  are  as  much  the  dupes  as  their  votaries. 
The  high-priests  are  wiser.  Our  priests  will  be  very  angry  and  deny  all  this.  In  all  nations,  in 
all  times,  there  has  been  a  secret  religion  :  in  all  nations  and  in  all  times,  the  fact  has  been  denied. 

"  There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,"  said  the  wise  Solomon,  who  never  uttered  a  wiser 
speech ;  and  in  its  utterance  proved  that  he  understood  the  doctrines  of  the  eternal  renewal  of 
worlds  ;  that  new  Troys,  new  Argonauts,  would  arise,  as  the  Sibyl  of  Virgil  subsequently  foretold. 

11.  In  the  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  V.  Sect.  XLIV.,  I  have  said,  "  Thus  there  is  an  end  of  St. 
Patrick."  I  shall  not  repeat  the  reasons  which  I  have  given  for  that  opinion,  which  are  quite 
sufficient  for  its  justification.  A  learned  and  ingenious  gentleman  has  written  a  life  of  St.  Patrick, 
and  Nimrod  says,  "  Firstly,  and  most  obviously,  the  express  tradition  that  St.  Patrick's  fosse  and 
"  purgatory  were  the  fosse  and  necyia  of  Ulysses.  Ogygia  (moreover)  was  the  isle  of  Calypso,  in 
"  which  Ulysses  sojourned :  and  Plutarch  informs  us  that  it  was  situated  five  days'  sail  to  the 
"  West  of  Britannia,  and  that  there  were  three  other  islands  near  it.  From  the  South-east  of 
"  Britain,  where  the  Romans  used  to  land,  it  would  have  been  a  five  days'  journey  to  Ireland  for 
"  ancient  navigators.  The  first  name  of  Ulysses,  before  he  came  to  be  styled  Ho-dys-eus,  was 
"  Nanus,  and  the  first  name  of  St.  Patrick  was  Nannus.  In  Temora,  the  bardic  capital  of  Ireland, 
"  Nani  tumulum  lapis  obtegit,  and  it  is  one  of  Ireland's  thirteen  mirabilia.  Ulysses,  during  his 
"  detention  in  Aiaia,  was  king  of  a  host  of  Swine  :  and  Patrick,  during  a  six  years'  captivity  in 
"  the  hands  of  King  Milcho  or  Malcho,  was  employed  to  keep  swine.  Ulysses  flourished  in  Babel, 
"  and  St.  Patrick  was  born  at  Nem-Turris  or  the  Ccdestial  Tower  ;  the  type  of  Babel  in  Irish 
"  mythology  is  Tory  island  or  the  isle  of  the  Tower.  At  the  time  of  its  expugnation  Sru  emigrated 
"  from  the  East.  Rege  Tutane  gestum  est  praelium  campi  Turris  et  expugnata  est  Troja  Tro- 
"  janorum  :  but  Tutanes  is  the  Teutames,  King  of  Assyria,  whose  armies  Memnon  commanded. 
"  Ulysses  the  xTvw-fy  3eX<pjvoo-7^o£  was  the  Koiranus  (or  king)  whom  a  dolphin  saved,  and  whom 
"  all  the  Dolphins  accompanied  from  Miletus  :  his  son  Telemachus,  whom  a  dolphin  saved,  was 
"  the  bard  Arion ;  but  Arion  was  King  of  Miletus  in  the  days  of  Priam,  King  of  Troy :  and  as 
"  Miletus  was  a  considerable  haven  of  Asia  Minor  in  Homer's  time,  it  is  the  most  probable  place 
"  of  Ulysses's  departure.  But  a  great  consent  of  tradition  brings  the  colonists  of  Ireland  from 
"  Miletus.  Miletus,  father  of  Ire,  came  to  Ireland  in  obedience  to  a  prophecy." *  The  above  is 
a  very  small  part  of  the  similitudes  between  Ulysses  and  St.  Patrick ;  but  it  is  enough  to 
confirm  what  I  have  said  in  the  Celtic  Druids,  and  to  blow  the  whole  story  of  the  saint  into  thin 
air.     I  believe  that  the  whole  is  a  Romish  fable. 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  63F 


BOOK  VH.    CHAPTER  VII.   SECTION  1.  367 

Nimrod  *  afterward  goes  on  at  great  length  to  shew  how  the  story  of  St.  Patrick  is  accom- 
modated to  the  ancient  Homeric  Mythos,  and  Patricius  and  the  Paterae  to  the  saint ;  and  he 
particularly  notices  a  famous  ship  temple,  described  by  General  Vallencey  in  the  Archaeologia. 
Now  I  think  it  is  quite  impossible  to  date  this  great  stone  ship  after  the  rise  of  Christianity. 
This  at  once  raises  the  strongest  probability,  indeed  almost  proves,  that  the  stories  of  Ulysses 
King  Brute,  &c,  &c,  detailed  in  the  old  monkish  historians,  are  not  their  invention  in  the  dark 
ages,  as  they  are  now  considered  by  all  our  historians,  and  as  such  treated  with  contempt,  but  are 
parts  of  an  universally  extended  Mythos,  brought  to  the  British  isles  in  much  earlier  times,  and 
as  such  in  a  high  degree  worthy  of  careful  examination.  The  proof  of  any  part  of  this  Mythos 
having  existed  in  Ireland  or  Britain  before  the  time  of  Christ  opens  the  door  for  the  consideration 
of  all  the  remainder,  and  is  a  point  of  the  greatest  importance. 

Jeoffrey  of  Monmouth  gives  an  account  of  King  Brutus,  grandson  of  JKneas,  who  having  killed 
his  father  Sylvius  in  Italy,  after  many  adventures  arrived  in  Britain,  which  he  conquered.  He 
had  three  sons,  Logrin,  to  whom  he  gave  England  ;2  Camber,  to  whom  he  gave  Wales,  Cam- 
bria j  and  Albanact,  to  whom  he  gave  Scotland,  Albania,  or  Callidonia — Callidei-ania. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CASSANDRA. — BABYLONIAN  MYTHOS. — CONSTANTINE  AND  HELENA.  ASTROLOGY. — BRYANT  ON  EARLY  HISTORY. 

— NATIVE   COUNTRY  OF  THE   OLIVE  AND  OF  ARARAT. 

1.  There  is  existing,  in  the  Greek  language,  a  very  dark  and  obscure  poem  called  Cassandra; 
purporting  to  be  written  by  a  person  named  Lycophron,  in  the  time  of  Ptolomy  Philadelphus. 
It  pretends  to  be  chiefly  poetical  and  prophetic  effusions  delivered  by  Cassandra,  during  the 
Trojan  war.  For  its  profound  learning  it  was  in  the  highest  estimation  with  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers. It  has  been  called  to  <rxorsivh  :roj7j^a,  the  dark  poem.  This  may  excuse  my  inability 
to  explain  it.  But  if  the  reader  be  satisfied  with  me  that  the  Iliad  is  a  sacred  poem  relating  in 
part  to  the  renewal  of  the  Sacrum  Saeculum,  he  will  probably  think,  that  the  following  lines 
prove  that  the  prophecies  of  Cassandra  relate  to  the  same  subject. 

But  when  athwart  the  empty,  vaulted  heaven 
Six  times  of  years  have  roll'd,  War  shall  repose 
His  lance,  ohedient  to  my  kinsman's  voice, 
Who,  rich  in  spoils  of  monarchs,  shall  return 
With  friendly  looks,  and  carolings  of  love, — 
While  Peace  sits  brooding  upon  seas  and  land. 

It  speaks  of  the  Healing  or  Saviour  God  icho  thus  ordained  and  poured  the  voice  divine  (1. 1007); 
of  the  impious  railers  who  taunt  the  God  of  light,  scorning  his  word,  and  scoffing  at  his  truth.  It 
calls  the  different  ages  Woes. 

One  Woe  is  past!  another  woe  succeeds. 
The  distribution  of  these  woes  seems  impenetrably  dark,  but  the  last,  I  think,  clearly  alludes 
to  the  wars  of  Alexander.     As  the  Saeculum  or  Neros  was  confounded  by  the  early  Christians 


1  Vol.  II.  p.  637.  2  Query,  Ingli-aria  ?  or,  Angli-aria— Onglir— L'Ongir 


368 


BABYLONIAN    MYTHOS. — CONSTANTINE    AND    HELENA. 


and  Jews  with  the  saeculum  of  one  thousand,  and  with  that  of  six  thousand  years;  so  I  think  the 
ages  were  confused  by  Lycophron,  which  arose  probably  from  his  having  only  an  obscure  and 
indistinct  view  of  his  subject.  Like  all  the  other  mythologies  and  mysteries,  they  were  in  the 
West,  after  the  time  of  Cambyses,  only  partly  understood.  Thus,  though  the  Mellenium  was 
the  established  doctrine  of  the  early  Christians,  the  date  of  its  commencement,  though  expressly 
foretold,  was  yet  unknown.  I  shall  shew,  in  the  second  part  of  this  work,  what  was  the  opinion 
of  the  authors  of  the  Gospels  and  Canonical  Epistles.  The  renewal  of  the  Argonautic  Expedi- 
tion is  foretold  by  Lycophron's  Cassandra,  exactly  as  it  was  afterwards  made  to  be  foretold  in 
Virgil  by  his  Sibyl. 

—  Again  rush  forth  the  famished  wolves,  and  seize 
The  fateful  fleece,  and  charm  the  dragon  guard 
To  sleep ;  so  bids  the  single-sandall'd  king, 
Who,  to  Libystian  Colchis,  won  his  way,  &c. 

In  the  course  of  the  work  she  says  that  the  Egyptian  Sphynx  was  black  ;  and,  what  is  very 
extraordinary,  she  says  the  same  thing  of  the  White  Sow  of  Alba  Longa,  calling  her  KeAouv*j. 
Jupiter  is  called  Ethiopian  or  black.  I  have  no  doubt  that  whatever  was  meant  by  the  prophecy 
of  Virgil's  Sibyl,  was  meant  by  Cassandra.  Nothing  can  be  more  dark  and  mystical  than  this 
poem.  But  I  think  its  general  tendency  may  perhaps  be  discovered  from  detached  passages  like 
the  above.  It  speaks  of  a  Budean  Queen,  and  compares  her  to  a  dove  :  dragged  like  a  dove  unto 
the  vulture's  bed.  This  is  an  evident  allusion  to  Semiramis,  the  Dove,  and  to  the  Promethean 
cave. 

2.  The  author  of  Nimrod  has  bestowed  almost  incredible  labour  to  prove,  that  the  Mythos  of 
the  Trojan  war,  the  early  history  of  Rome,  &c,  &c. ;  in  short,  almost  all  ancient  mythology, 
came  from  Babylon,  and  were  close  copies  of  the  Babylonian  history  (say,  Babylonian  mythos). 
The  close  similarity  between  the  Gods  of  India  and  those  of  Greece,  has  been  proved  over  and 
over  by  Sir  William  Jones  and  others.  Then,  did  they  come  direct  from  India?  It  is  difficult 
to  conceive  how  that  could  be  effected.  Nimrod  has  untied  the  knot:  for  Colonel  Wilford  has 
shewn,1  that  all  the  Babylonian  Mythoses  came  from  India,  its  Semi-ramis  or  Sami-Rama-isi, 
&c,  &c.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  from  India  they  came  to  Babylon  or  Assyria,  thence  to 
Syria  and  Sidon ;  thence  brought  by  Cadmus  or  the  Orientals  to  Greece:  hence  the  duplicates 
and  triplicates  of  the  cities,  the  ten  years'  wars,  &c.  And  thus  at  last  the  grand  truth  will  be 
established,  that  they  are  all  mythoses  from  the  East  or  North-east  of  the  Indus. 

3.  I  have  said,  that  Mr.  Faber,  Nimrod,  and  Niebuhr,  have  proved  that  all  ancient  history  is 
little  better  than  fable.  This  is  true.  It  is  all  mythological.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
there  is  not  some  truth  in  it;  but  I  mean  to  say,  that  there  is  scarcely  one  history,  perhaps  not 
one,  which  does  not  contain  more  religious  fable  than  truth.  They  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
written  for  the  same  purpose  as  our  grave  and  serious  histories ;  or  they  were  mythoses  made  up 
of  old  traditions.  They  seem  to  have  been  a  species  of  religious  novels.  Even  so  late  as  Con- 
stantine,  Nimrod  has  pointed  out  something  very  suspicious.  He  says,  "  It  is  to  me  a  matter  of 
"  grave  suspicion  whether  the  woman,  his  mother,  was  really  and  by  her  true  name  Helena;  or 
"  whether  her  name  was  not  purely  fictitious,  as  her  parentage  from  Coil  or  Uranus,  King  of 
"  Britannia.  In  the  church  legend,  when  she  dug  and  found  the  true  cross,  she  also  found  a 
"  statue  of  Venus.  A  most  suspicious  legend.  Venus  was  daughter  of  Coil  us,  (how,  I  need  not 
"  say,)  and  Helena  was  Venus."2    This,  no  doubt,  is  suspicious  enough.     Alas!  what  is  to  be 


'  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  378,  &c. 


*  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  150. 


BOOK    VII.    CHAPTER   VII.    SECTION    3.  369 

believed  ?  Concerning  this  Lady,  I  beg  my  reader  to  peruse  the  eighth  chapter  of  Usher's  Anti- 
quitates,  headed  thus:  De  patria  Constantini  Magni,  et  Matris  ejus  Helena,  variae  et  discre- 
pantes  Authorum  Sententiae,  quam  alii  Britanniam,  alii  Galliam,  alii  Bithyniam,  Nonnulli  etiam 
Daciam  fuisse  volunt.     She  was  said  to  have  produced  Constantine  at  York.1 

I  am  quite  certain  that  no  one  possessing  the  least  candour  can  deny  the  mystical  character  of 
the  story  of  Helen.  Then,  what  are  we  to  make  of  it?  Are  we  to  disbelieve  the  story  of  the 
churches  built  by  Helena  and  Constantine?  If  we  are  to  throw  this  out,  what  are  we  to  believe? 
Where  is  our  incredulity  to  stop?  But  can  the  existence  of  the  suspicious  circumstance  be  de- 
nied ?     It  surely  cannot. 

The  explanation  of  the  Helena  probably  is  this  :  it  was  desired  to  make  out  that  her  son  was  a 
renewed  incarnation,  and  therefore  he  and  she  adopted  the  sacred  mythical  names.  He  wished 
to  be  thought,  and  perhaps  thought  himself,  the  Paraclete  prophesied  of  by  Jesus  Christ.  This 
will  easily  account  for  his  hitherto  unaccountable  mixture  of  Heathenism  and  Christianity. 

Sir  W.  Drummond  pointed  out  the  mythological  character  of  the  history  of  Jacob.  This  was 
finely  ridiculed  by  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Townsend,  who  undertook,  by  the  same  means,  to 
prove  the  twelve  Caesars  to  be  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  and  his  success  is  wonderful ;  but 
it  all  raises  the  most  unpleasant  state  of  uncertainty  in  my  mind,  and  makes  me,  after  very  long 
consideration,  almost  to  doubt  whether  we  really  have  one  history  uncontaminated  with  judicial 
astrology.  I  ask,  why  have  we  twelve  Caesars  ?  Why  do  the  learned  historians  labour  to  make 
out  twelve  ?     Twelve  emperors  called  after  the  Celtic  God  of  war,  ./Esar? 

I  feel  a  great  difficulty,  indeed  I  may  say  an  impossibility,  to  bring  my  mind  to  believe,  that  the 
story  of  Helena  and  the  twelve  Caesars  are  not  true  histories.  But  I  recollect,  that  only  as  yes- 
terday, I  should  have  had  the  same  feeling  with  respect  to  the  early  history  of  Rome.-  By  degrees 
I  began  to  doubt  of  Remus,  Antius,  Camillus,  &c,  &c,  and  at  last  Mr.  Niebuhr  has  dissipated 
all  this  trash,  and  has  converted  my  doubts  into  conviction.  Then  am  I  to  doubt  the  existence 
of  the  Caesars?  This  is  impossible.  Then  what  am  I  to  do?  I  am  obliged  to  believe,  that  all 
true  history  has  been  debased  and  corrupted  by  judicial  astrology  and  mythology ;  that  all  histo- 
ries are  like  the  Acta  sincera  of  the  Christian  martyrs,  very  far  from  sincere.  I  think  no  one 
can  deny,  that  the  desire  to  make  out  the  twelve  Caesars  to  be  twelve,  and  not  eleven  or  thirteen,  is 
astrological,  and  I  believe  that  the  names  given  to  them,  or  assumed  by  them,  had  astrological 
meanings;  and  that  it  is  from  this  circumstance  that  Mr.  Townsend  has  been  enabled  to  support 
his  ingenious  raillery  in  apparently  a  plausible  manner.  Without  its  professors  intending  to  do 
so  perhaps,  I  believe  judicial  astrology  has  corrupted  almost  every  ancient  history  which  we 
possess. 

It  has  been  observed  that  Caesar  was  an  astrological  name.  It  was  in  fact  the  Celtic  ^Esar,  or 
God  of  war,  taken,  as  the  Hindoo  princes  take  their  names,  from  a  favourite  God — the  God  of  the 
country  which  Caesar  conquered.  Gen.  Vallancey  has  observed,  that  Caesar  did  not  give  the 
name  to  the  solstitial  month,  but  that  he  took  his  name  from  it.  In  the  old  Irish,  half  June  and 
half  July  was  called  Mi-Jul:  thence  Caesar's  name  of  Julius. 

1  On  the  ancient  Roman  road,  at  the  ford  over  the  river  Wharf,  between  Tadcaster  and  Wetherby,  a  mile  from 
Thorparch,  is  a  place  called  St.  Helen's  Ford,  and  near  it  St.  Helen's  Spring,  not  far  from  which,  on  a  mount,  formerly 
stood  a  curious  stone  cross.  A  few  years  ago  this  cross,  after  standing  perhaps  1500  years,  was  carried  away,  in  my 
Lord  Elgin's  style,  by  an  Antiquarian  Lady  of  the  name  of  Richardson,  who  took  it  to  her  garden  at  Gargrave.  She  is 
now  dead,  and  it  has  probably  become  useful  to  mend  the  roads.  The  spring  used  to  perform  miracles,  and  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  votive  rags  which  I  have  seen  hanging  on  the  bushes  adjoining,  suspended  by  the  persons  who  have  ex- 
perienced the  efficacy  of  its  water,  its  power  still  continues. 

3  u 


370  CONSTANTINE    AND    HELENA. 

"  Venerisque  ab  origine  proles 

"  Julia  descendit  coelo,  ccelumque  replevit, 
"  Quod  regit  Augustus  socio  per  signa  Tonante, 
"  Cernit  in  coetu  Divum,  magnumque  Quirinum, 
"  Ille  etiam  coelo  genitus,  cceloque  receptus." 

Manilius.1 

Augustus  was  also  a  mystical  name  given  to  their  princes  by  the  Egyptians.  I  suspect  Julius 
was  Cesar's  family  sacred  name,  what  we  call  Christian  name.  Caesar  was  a  name  he  assumed 
as  conqueror  of  Gaul,  and  Augustus  was  assumed  by  his  successor  as  prince  of  Egypt;  but  we 
shall  understand  this  better  hereafter. 

Sir  William  Drummond  has  shewn,  that  the  names  of  most  of  the  places  in  Joshua  are  astrolo- 
gical ;  and  General  Vail ancey  has  shewn,  that  Jacob's  prophecy  is  astrological  also,  and  has  a 
direct  reference  to  the  Constellations.  The  particulars  may  be  seen  in  Ouseley's  Orient.  Coll.  2 
To  this,  probably,  Jacob  referred  when  he  bade  his  children  read  in  the  book  of  heaven  what 
must  be  the  fate  of  you  and  your  children.3  The  meaning  of  all  this  is  explained  by  the  passage 
of  Virgil,  that  new  wars  of  Troy  and  new  Argonauts  would  arise. 

It  is  evident  that  where  we  meet  with  such  names  as  Heliogabalus,  connected  with  such  num- 
bers as  twelve,  or  with  other  numbers  which  we  know  are  astrological,  we  may  be  certain  some 
superstition,  probably  astrological,  is  alluded  to;  thus  we  may  be  perfectly  assured  that  both  Sir 
W.  Drummond  and  Mr.  Townsend  are  right,  that  the  names  noticed  by  the  latter,  such  as  Lucius, 
Augustus,  Julius,  and  the  number  12,  have  all  astrological  allusions.  I  beg  Mr.  Townsend  to 
recollect  that  there  is  scarcely  a  name  in  very  ancient  history,  either  sacred  or  profane,  which  was 
not  an  adopted  or  second  name,  or  a  name  given  with  a  reference  to  the  supposed  quality  or 
office  of  its  owner.  I  beg  him  to  begin  with  Abram,  and  he  may  end,  if  he  please,  with  the 
Saviour  and  his  cousin,  John  ;  the  latter  formed  from  the  oriental  word  for  dove,  the  holy  mes- 
senger, and  the  former  called  Jesus,  because  he  should  save  his  people.  Matters  such  as  these  have 
made  some  persons  hastily  disbelieve,  and  treat  with  contempt,  all  early  sacred  history.  Although 
Niebuhr  has  shewn  that  almost  all  early  Roman  history  is  fable,  this  does  not  prove  that  during 
the  three  or  four  hundred  years  of  Rome's  fabulous  period,  that  there  was  no  Rome,  that  there 
were  no  Consuls,  no  Senates,  or  no  people.  It  is  equally  rash  to  maintain,  that  there  were  no 
wars  of  Joshua  or  Judges,  because  we  find  the  walls  of  Jericho  falling  to  the  sound  of  Rams' 
horns,  or  the  mythological  history  of  Hercules  as  Samson,  or  of  Iphigenia  as  Jeptha's  daughter. 
At  the  same  time  that  Mr.  Faber  and  Nimrod  have  proved  the  early  Jewish  history  to  be  in  great 
part  the  same  as  the  mythology  of  the  nations,  they  have  shewn  us,  from  the  history  of  this  my- 
thology, that  it  is  the  height  of  rashness  hence  to  conclude  that  it  is  all  false.  It  in  no  way 
differed  from  the  history  of  other  nations ;  like  them  it  had  much  fable ;  like  them  it  had  much 
truth.  The  very  ancient,  curious,  and  interesting  records  of  the  Israelites,  have  never  had  fair 
play.  One  class  of  readers  swallows  every  thing — the  Frogs  of  Egypt,  the  Bulls  of  Bashan,  the 
Giants,  and  all ;  the  others  will  swallow  nothing ;  and  I  am  rather  surprised  that  they  admit  the 
inhabitants  of  Duke's  Place  ever  to  have  had  any  fathers.  Why  cannot  the  Jewish  books  be  ex- 
amined like  the  history  of  Herodotus,  by  the  rules  of  common  sense  and  reason?  But  this,  I 
fear,  is  not  likely  very  soon  to  happen. 

Thucydides,    in  the  beginning  of  his  history,    allows,  that  before  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
which  was  waged  in  the  time  of  Arta-Xerxes  and  Nehemiah,  he  could  find  nothing  in  which  he 


1  Ouseley  Orient.  Coll.  Vol.  II.  No.  III.  p.  221.  *  Vol.  II.  No.  IV.  pp.  336,  &c.  »  Ibid.  p.  103. 


BOOK   VII.   CHAPTER    VII.    SECTION    4.  371 

could  place  any  confidence.  This  is  confirmed  by  Bochart,  in  the  preface  to  his  Phaleg,  and 
also  by  Stillingfleet,1  and  again  by  Gale.2 

4.  The  following  is  the  state  of  ancient  history  given  by  Mr.  Bryant,  and  nothing  can  be  more 
true: — "  Besides,  it  is  evident  that  most  of  the  deified  personages  never  existed  :  but  were  mere 
"  titles  of  the  Deity,  the  Sun  ;  as  has  been  in  a  great  measure  proved  by  Macrobius.  Nor  was 
"  there  ever  any  thing  such  detriment  to  ancient  history,  as  the  supposing  that  the  Gods  of  the 
"  Gentile  world  had  been  natives  of  the  countries  where  they  were  worshiped.  They  have  been 
"  by  these  means  admitted  into  the  annals  of  times:  and  it  has  been  the  chief  study  of  the 
"  learned  to  register  the  legendary  stories  concerning  them  :  to  conciliate  absurdities,  and  to 
"  arrange  the  whole  into  a  chronological  series — a  fruitless  labour,  and  inexplicable :  for  there 
"  are  in  these  fables  such  inconsistencies  and  contradictions  as  no  art,  nor  industry,  can  remedy. 

" This  misled  Bishop  Cumberland,  Usher,  Pearson,  Petavius,  Scaliger,  with  numberless 

"  other  learned  men,  and  among  the  foremost  the  great  Newton.  This  extraordinary  genius  has 
"  greatly  impaired  the  excellent  system  upon  which  he  proceeded,  by  admitting  these  fancied 
"  beings  into  chronology.    We  are  so  imbued  in  our  childhood  with  notions  of  Mars,  Hercules, 

"  and  the  rest  of  the  celestial  outlaws,  that  we  scarce  ever  can  lay  them  aside, It  gives 

"  one  pain  to  see  men  of  learning  and  principle,  debating  which  was  the  Jupiter  who  lay  with 
"  Semele,  and  whether  it  was  the  same  that  outwitted  Amphitryon.  This  is  not,  says  a  critic, 
"  the  Hermes  that  cut  off  Argus's  head  ;  but  one  of  later  date,  who  turned  Battus  into  a  stone. 
"  I  fancy,  says  another,  that  this  was  done  when  Io  was  turned  into  a  cow.  I  am  of  opinion, 
"  says  Abbe  Banier,  that  there  was  no  foundation  for  the  fable  of  Jupiter's  having  made  the  night 
"  on  which  he  lay  with  Alcmena,  longer  than  others:  at  least  this  event  put  nothing  in  nature 
"  out  of  order ;  since  the  clay  which  followed  was  proportionably  shorter,  as  Plautus  remarks. 
"  Were  it  not  invidious,  I  could  subjoin  names  to  every  article  which  I  have  alleged,  and  produce 
"  numberless  instances  to  the  same  purpose."  Mr.  Bryant,  after  this,  goes  on  to  shew  that  the 
early  fathers  believed  these  Gods  to  have  been  men,  and  then  turns  the  numerous  Gods  into 
ridicule;  observing,  that  a  God  was  always  ready  on  every  occasion — five  Mercuries,  four 
Vulcans,  three  Dianas,  five  Dionususes,  forty  Herculeses,  and  three  hundred  Jupiters.  He  then 
asks  why  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  in  his  chronological3  interpretations,  chooses  to  be  determined  by 
the  story  of  Jupiter  and  Europa,  rather  than  by  that  of  Jupiter  and  Leda. 4  Thus  he  goes  on  to 
shew  that  the  whole,  if  literally  understood,  was  a  mass  of  falsity  and  nonsense. 

On  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Bryant  these  questions  naturally  arise — Has  he  mended  the 
matter?  Has  he  satisfactorily  removed  the  difficulty?  I  believe  nine-tenths  of  mankind  will 
say  No ;  though  he  has  certainly  great  merit  in  clearing  the  way  for  others.  He  was  followed  by 
Mr.  Faber,  and  he  by  Nimrod,  who  have  given  as  little  satisfaction  ;  and  the  reason  is,  because 
these  gentlemen  have  all  set  out  with  begging  the  question  under  discussion :  then  making  every 
thing  bend  to  it — bend  to  a  certain  dogma,  because  they  happen  to  have  been  born  in  England, 
where  it  was  held.  It  may  be  reasonably  asked  of  me,  What  right  have  you  to  think  that  you 
will  succeed  any  better?  I  answer,  /  have  no  predetermined  dogma  ;  but  the  chief  and  most 
important  of  my  opinions  have  arisen  during  my  examination,  and  from  it.  And  in  addition  I 
have  the  assistance  of  the  learning  of  Mr.  Bryant,  Mr.  Faber,  Nimrod,  and  several  others,  which 
gives  me,  without  any  merit  of  my  own,  a  great  advantage  over  them.  I  have  the  advantage  also 
of  their  errors  as  well  as  of  their  learning. 


1  Orig.  Sac.  Book  i.  Ch.  iv.  8  Court,  of  Gent.  Book  iii.  Ch.  ii. 

3  Newton's  Chronology,  p.  151.  4  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  460. 

3b2 


372  NATIVE  COUNTRY  OF  THE  OLIVE  AND  OF  ARARAT. 

The  idea  of  a  reduction  of  the  Western  nations  to  the  situation  of  Tibet,  will  be  turned  into 
ridicule  by  the  priests,  who  would  wish  the  rest  of  mankind  to  believe  them  to  be  the  most 
industrious  and  useful  of  bees,  only  working  and  storing  up  truths  for  the  good  of  mankind  ;  but 
experience  shews  that  they  can  never  be  watched  too  carefully;  and  if  they  do  not  anew  establish 
their  empire  of  the  tenth  century,  to  the  printing-press  alone  their  failure  must  be  attributed. 
However  amiable  in  private  life  many  priests  may  be,  there  is  scarcely  one  of  them  who  ever 
loses  sight  of  the  aggrandisement  of  his  order.  Look  at  them  in  Portugal,  Spain,  and  France ; 
look  at  the  wicked  and  unhallowed  exertions  of  the  priests  of  the  Protestant  sect  in  Ireland  to 
oppress  the  followers  of  the  Romish  Church,  and  to  rivet  and  continue  their  own  usurped  power. 
And  however  we,  the  philosourists,  may  flatter  ourselves  with  the  effects  of  the  press,  it  is  yet 
to  be  proved  that  it  cannot  be  rendered  subservient  to  the  designs  of  the  order.  Though  the 
Protestant  and  Romish  sects  are  at  present  in  opposition,  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind,  that  if 
government  were  to  hold  a  just  and  equal  hand  to  both,  they  would  speedily  unite.  Then  it  is 
much  to  be  feared,  that  the  liberties  of  Europe  would  speedily  be  destroyed. 

5.  No  doubt  the  question  of  the  originality  of  the  ancient  mythoses  is,  to  the  present  genera- 
tion, of  the  greatest  possible  importance;  as  it,  in  fact,  involves  the  existence  of  a  most  terrific 
system  of  priest-craft  and  priest-rule — a  system  most  dangerous  to  the  well-being  of  all  mankind, 
except  the  favoured  caste — a  system  which  cannot  stand  still,  but  which  must  either  soon  fall  or 
go  on  increasing  in  power  till  it  reduce  the  remainder  of  the  world  to  the  situation  of  its  parent 
in  Tibet.  To  resist  successfully  the  artful  sophistry  of  the  able  men  among  the  priests  is  a  task 
of  the  greatest  difficulty.  The  reader  must  have  observed  that  written  evidence  can  scarcely, 
in  any  case,  be  made  conclusive,  but  fortunately  circumstances  may  ;  and  I  consider  that  of  the 
olive  as  an  example  of  these  fortunate  circumstances.  It  cannot  have  been  forged,  and  the 
recourse  which  the  very  able  priest,  or  the  priest-ite  Nimrod,  is  obliged  to  have,  as  we  shall  see, 
to  the  stale  plea  of  miracle,  shews  that  it  is  conclusive  and  incapable  of  being  explained  away. 

The  observation  of  Nimrod  is  confirmed  in  a  remarkable  manner  by  Col.  Wilford,  when  treating 
of  the  Oriental  Ararat,  which  at  once  proves  where  the  third  book  of  Genesis,  or  the  book  of  the 
Flood,  came  from  :  "  The  region  about  Tuct-Suleiman  is  the  native  country  of  the  olive-tree, 
"  and  I  believe  the  only  one  in  the  world.  There  are  immense  forests  of  it  on  the  high  grounds, 
"  for  it  does  not  grow  in  plains.  From  the  saplings,  the  inhabitants  make  walking-sticks,  and 
*'  its  wood  is  used  for  fuel  all  over  the  country;  and  as  Pliny  justly  observes,  the  olive-tree  in 
"  the  Western  parts  of  India  is  sterile,  at  least  its  fruit  is  useless,  like  that  of  the  Oleaster. 
"  According  to  Tenestalla,  an  ancient  author  cited  by  Pliny,  there  were  no  olive-trees  in  Spain, 
"Italy,  or  Africa,  in  the  time  of  Tarquin  the  Elder.  Before  the  time  of  Hesiod,  it  had  been 
"  introduced  into  Greece :  but  it  took  a  long  time  before  it  was  reconciled  to  the  climate,  and 
"  its  cultivation  properly  understood  :  for  Hesiod  says,  that,  whoever  planted,  never  lived  to  eat 
"  of  its  fruit.  The  olive-tree  was  never  a  native  of  Armenia  ;  and  the  passage  of  Strabo  cited 
"  in  support  of  this  opinion,  implies  only  that  it  was  cultivated  with  success  in  that  country."1 
Of  the  two  Ararats  this  pretty  well  proves  which  is  the  original,  and  which  the  copy. 

The  argument  drawn  from  the  olive  is  like  that  of  Mr.  Seely's  respecting  the  Cobra  Capella  not 
being  found  in  Egypt,  but  which  will  be  soon  brought  thither,  if  it  should  be  thought  decisive. 
The  Missionaries  will  not  be  long  in  bringing  them  ;  this  will  be  easily  effected. 

The  author  of  Nimrod  is  as  unwilling  a  witness  as  can  be  imagined  to  any  circumstance  that 
shall  remove  Ararat  from  the  country  between  the  two  seas,  and  place  it  to  the  East  of  the 


!  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  525. 


BOOK    VII.   CHAPTER    VIII.    SECTION    1.  373 

Caspian:  for  it  at  once  upsets  the  whole  of  his  ingenious  system,  and  scatters  the  fruits  of  his 
immense  labour  into  thin  air.  The  observation  respecting  the  olive  has  not  escaped  him.  The 
following  extract  will  shew  how  he  surmounts  the  difficulty  :  "  The  olive  is  not  an  Armenian 
"  tree :  nor,  if  it  had  been  so,  could  it  have  been  Tavo<puXXo£  (as  Homer  supposed)  by  any 
"  natural  means.  The  transaction  is  a  miracle,  (that  is,  a  thing  in  which  the  divine  power  is  not 
"  only  exercised  unaccountably,  as  it  is  in  all  things,  but  conspicuously,  and  for  a  particular 
"  purpose,  and  that  purpose  an  apparent  one,) l  and  I  surmise  that  it  may  have  been  a  miracle 
"  of  creation,  producing  a  new  thing  such  as  the  rainbow  was,2  and  which  had  not  existed 
"  before.  It  was  a  tree  of  peace  and  reconciliation,  and  a  pledge  that  the  tree  of  life  should  one 
"  day  be  restored.  It  was  probably  removed  to  Babel,  and  thence  propagated  over  the  world. 
"  Whether  plants  sprung  up,  after  the  flood,  from  seeds  that  were  preserved  in  the  mud,  or  by 
"  an  original  creation,  is  unknown.  The  Ambrosia  of  the  Gods,  or  elixir  of  immortality,  was, 
"  according  to  one  ancient  opinion,  the  oil  of  olives.  Thetis  anointed  Achilles  every  day  with 
"  Ambrosia,  and  exposed  his  body  to  the  action  of  fire  by  night,  that  he  might  become  immoital 
"  and  exempt  from  old  age,  which  the  scholiast  Apollonius  explains  by  these  words,  Qsiorctrto 
"  eXato)  7re$ie%Qie.  If  this  does  not  mean  the  oil  of  olives,  it  at  least  alludes  to  the  sanctity  of 
"  that  ointment."3 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ROME.— IMAGES  NOT  ANCIENTLY  USED.  ORIGIN  OF  THE  NAME  ROMA. — LABYRINTH. — OBSERVATIONS  ON 
PROPER  NAMES. — HERO  GODS  ACCOUNTED  FOR. — SELEUCUS  NICATOR  ANTICHRIST. — GENERAL  OBSERVA- 
TIONS.— YAVANAS   EXPELLED  FROM   TOWNS   THEY  BUILT. 

1.  A  great  number  of  curious  circumstances  are  known  respecting  the  city  of  Rome — the 
eternal  city,  which  convince  me  that  it  was  a  place  of  very  great  consequence,  and  closely  con- 
nected with  the  universal  mythos  which  I  am  endeavouring  to  develope,  long  before  the  time 
usually  allotted  to  Romulus  and  the  wolf.  The  following  particulars  extracted  from  the  work  of 
Nimrod  are  very  striking:  "  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  Roma  was,  when  occupied  by  the 
"  predecessors  of  the  Tusci  and  the  Ofnbri,  called  Rama.     Rome  herself  was  supposed  by  many 


1  Though,  for  a  purpose  not  connected  with  the  question  of  miracle,  and  that  I  may  not  be  accused  of  unfair  quo- 
tation, I  insert  this  definition,  I  by  no  means  admit  any  thing  so  unphilosophical  and  confused. 

*  Here  Nimrod  supposes,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  there  was  no  rainbow  before  the  flood,  and  that  it  was  the  effect 
of  an  instant  miracle.  If  there  had  been  rain  there  must  have  been  a  bow.  From  a  former  expression  it  seems  he 
believes  that  the  obliquity  of  the  ecliptic  to  the  equator  did  not  exist,  but  that  it  was  the  effect  of  miracle,  contrary  to 
the  doctrine  that  it  is  the  effect  of  the  periodical  revolution  of  the  pole  of  the  equator  round  the  pole  of  the  ecliptic, 
as  the  Hindoo  philosophers  hold.  But  even  if  this  were  so,  it  ought  not  to  be  spoken  of  as  he  speaks  of  it :  for  it  is  in 
that  case  a  natural  effect  arising  from  a  natural  cause.  The  miracle  was  the  disturbance  of  the  direction  of  the  pole  of 
the  earth,  not  the  appearance  of  the  bow. 

J  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  272. 


374 


ROME. 


"  authors1  to  have  been  a  city  of  the  Etrurians,  during  the  time  anterior  to  its  foundation  in  the 

'  year  B.  C.  75*2,  and  subsequent  to  its  abandonment  by  the  ancient  aborigines  :  and  the  site  of 

1  Rome  had  been  excavated  by  certain  subterraneous  passages  of  extraordinary  size  and  solidity, 

'  the  cloacae,  or  rather  cluacae  maxima?:  operum  omnium  dictu  maximum  suffosis  montibus 

'  atque  urbe  pensili,2  subterque  navigata.     This  work  is  ascribed  by  some  to  the  imaginary 

'  king,  Tarquin  the  ancient :  but.  so  inconsistent  is  Roman  mythology,  that  we  find  them  existing 

'  as  buildings  of  indefinite  antiquity  in  Romulus' s  time,  when  the  image  of  Venus  Cluacina  (the 

'  expurgatrix,  the  warrioress,  or  the  illustrious,  for  the  sense  is  doubtful)   was  discovered  in 

"  these  gloomy  canals.     They  were  not  adapted  to  the  shape3  and  ground-plan  of  Rome,  but 

"  probably  were  conformable  to  that  of  some  older  city.     Fabretti  observes,4  that  there  are 

'  several  very  ancient  watercourses  at  Rome,  entirely  subterranean,  one  of  which  is  situated 

"  between  the  church  of  St.  Anastasia  and  that  of  St.  George,  and  leads  directly  into  the  caverns 

"  of  Cloaca  Maxima.     They  were  large  enough  for  a  waggon  loaded  with  hay5  to  pass,  and 

"  upon  one  occasion,  after  they  had  been  neglected,  the  cleansing  of  them  was  contracted  for  at 

"  3000  talents.6     It  has  been  justly  and  sagaciously  observed,  by  Dr.  Ferguson,  that  works  of 

"  convenience  or  cleanliness  were  rarely  undertaken  in  times  of  remote  antiquity,  and  if  these 

"  were  made  with  such  an  intent,  they  stand  alone  among  those  wonderful  monuments,  whose 

"  having  existed  is  only  credible  because  they  still  exist  and  are  visible,  and  which  were  all  sub- 

•'  servient  to  the  uses  of  ambition  or  fanaticism.     And  we  may  infer  in  a  more  particular  manner, 

"  that  the  works  in  question  were  directed  to  one  or  both  of  these  objects  from  the  example  of 

"  the  Egyptian  Theba  Hecatompylos,7   which  was  excavated  with  navigable  canals,  through 

"  which  the  kings  used  to  lead  forth  their  armies,  under  the  city,  and  unobserved  by  the  inhabi- 

"  tants.     M.  Vipsanius  Agrippa,8  in  like  manner  went  into  the  cloacae  with  his  barge  and  sailed 

"  through  them  into  the  Tybur."9 

On  the  subject  of  these  Cloacinae  Dr.  Ferguson 10  says,  "  These  works  were,  in  the  midst  of 
"  Roman  greatness,  and  still  are,  reckoned  among  the  wonders  of  the  world.  And  yet  they  are 
"  said  to  have  been  works  of  the  elder  Tarquin,  a  prince  whose  territory  did  not  extend  in  any 
"  direction  above  sixteen  miles :  and  on  this  supposition  they  must  have  been  made  to  accom- 
"  modate  a  city  that  was  calculated  chiefly  for  the  reception  of  cattle,  herdsmen,  and  banditti. 
"  Rude  nations  sometimes  execute  works  of  great  magnitude,  as  fortresses  and  temples,  for  the 
"  purposes  of  war  and  superstition:  but  seldom  palaces:  and  still  more  seldom  works  of  mere 
"  convenience  or  cleanliness,  in  which  for  the  most  part  they  are  long  defective.  It  is  not  there- 
"  fore  unreasonable  to  question  the  authority  of  tradition  in  respect  to  this  singular  work  of  anti- 
"  quity,  which  so  greatly  exceeds  what  the  best-accommodated  city  of  Europe  could  undertake 
"  for  its  own  conveniency.  And  as  these  works  are  still  entire,  and  may  continue  so  for  thou- 
'  sands  of  years,  it  may  be  suspected  that  they  were  even  prior  to  the  settlement  of  Romulus, 
"  and  may  have  been  the  remains  of  a  more  ancient  city,  on  the  ruins  of  which  the  followers  of 
"  Romulus  settled,  as  the  Arabs  now  hut  or  encamp  on  the  ruins  of  Palmyra  or  Balbec.  Livy 
"  owns  that  the  common  sewers  were  not  accommodated  to  the  plan  of  Rome  as  laid  out  in  his 
"  time :  they  were  carried  across  the  streets,  and  past  under  buildings  of  the  greatest  antiquity. 
"  This  derangement  he  imputes  to  the  hasty  rebuilding  of  the  city  after  its  destruction  by  the 


Dion.  Hal.  Arch.  Rom.  I.  Cap.  xxix.  s  Plin.  Lib.  xxxvi.  Cap.  xxiv.  Sect.  2,  p.  698,  Franz. 

3  Lib.  v  Cap.  lv.  4  De  aquis  Romae,  Dis.  III.  p.  190,  Rom.  1680  5  Strabo,  v.  p.  336. 

0  Dion.  Hal  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  lxxxvii.  »  Plin.  xxxvi.  Cap.  xx.  (or  xiv.)  p.  688,  Franz. 

s  Dion.  Cassius,  xlix.  Cap.  xliii.  9  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  321. 

'»  Hist.  Rom.  Rep.  Vol.  I.  note,  p.  13,  4to.;  Liv.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xxxviii. 


BOOK    VII.    CHAPTER    VIII.    SECTIOX    2.  375 

"  Gauls.  But  haste  it  is  probable  would  have  determined  thepeople  to  build  on  their  old  foun- 
"  dations :  or  at  least  not  to  change  them  so  much  as  to  cross  the  directions  of  former  streets." 
Nimrod  observes  upon  this,1  "  Dr.  Ferguson  has  omitted  to  notice  one  remarkable  passage  of 
"  Lactantius,  which  shews  that  the  sewers  were  in  existence  before  the  time  of  Romulus,  and  an 
"  object  of  ignorant  veneration  to  that  founder  and  his  colleague.  Cloacinse  simulacrum  in  cloaca 
"  maxima  repertum  Tatius2  consecravit,  et  quia  cujus  effigies  esset  ignorabat,  ex  loco  illi  nomen 
"  imposuit.  Yet  we  are  to  believe,  that  they  were  made  by  the  fourth  king  after  Romulus." 
After  this  Nimrod  goes  on  to  shew  what  is  extremely  probable,  that  the  first  Roma,  which 
would  probably  be  the  Roma  or  Rama  of  the  Ombri,  or  Osci,  was  destroyed  by  a  natural  convul- 
sion, a  volcano. 

It  is  very  certain  the  old  traditions  agreed  that  Rome  was  built  on  the  site  of  a  former  city. 
The  chronicle  of  Cuma  (which  Niebuhr  calls  modern  and  worthless,  but,  query  ?)  says,  that  the 
name  of  the  first  city  was  Valentia,  and  that  this  name  was  synonymous  with  Roma.  Now,  there 
was  a  Valentia  in  Italy,  and  one  in  Britain  ;  there  is  one  in  Ireland,  and  one  in  Spain.  There 
was  also  a  3rigantia  in  England,  and  there  is  one  yet  in  Spain.  There  was  Umbri  in  England, 
(North-umberland  and  river  Umber,)  and  Umbri  in  Italy.  The  Hindoo  Gods  by  the  same  names 
are  all  found  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  the  Etruscan.  Now,  I  ask,  have  these  singular  names  of 
people  descended  from  a  people  from  Upper  India,  speaking  the  Sancrit  language  before  it  was 
brought  to  its  present  perfection?  How  can  the  singularity  be  otherwise  accounted  for?  The 
early  history  of  Rome  is  most  certainly  a  mythos,  its  real  history  is  absolutely  unknown.  The 
Greeks  also,  namely  Lycophron  and  Aristotle,  state,  that  there  was  a  city  in  old  time  before  that 
of  Romulus,  called  Roma  or  Pcop.7).3 

I  suspect  with  Nimrod,  that  Rama,  so  common  both  in  India  and  in  Syria,  was  the  same  as 
Roma;  that  it  was  a  noun  adjective  appellative,  and  meant,  in  one  sense,  strong.  Thus  Bala- 
rama,  the  powerful  or  potent  Bal.  He  says,  "  I  believe  that  Roma  is  radically  the  same  word  as 
"  Rama,  the  Romans  being  Pelasgi,  and  here  we  have  the  vowel  E  concurrent  with  A  and  O,  for 
"  Remus  is  always  in  Greek  Pcoju.0£,  and  the  name  Romulus,  on  the  contrary,  was  sometimes 
"  expressed  Remulus.  Livy  gives  me  further  confirmation  by  deriving  Ram-nenses  a  Romulo." 
Nimrod  says,  "  For  the  flatterer  of  Octavius,  the  pretended  iEnead  prince,  freely  owns  that 
"  when  JEneas  landed,  Evander  the  Arcad, 

Evandrus  Romanse  conditor  arcis, 

"  was  already  established  at  mount  Palatine:  nay,  even  he  displayed  to  ^Eneas  the  ruins  of  yet 
"  an  older  city.  And  Antiochus,  an  authority  far  elder  and  graver  than  Virgil,  makes  Rome  an 
"  established  city  in  the  time  of  Morges."  Nimrod  then  compares  the  Cloacae  to  the  Labyrinths 
of  Egypt,  &c,  and  the  Caves  of  Ellora,  and  observes,  that  these  things  are  inconceivable  and 
mark  an  astonishing  state  of  society.  This  is,  indeed,  very  true,  and  the  history  and  date  of  it, 
is  that  of  which  we  are  in  search. 

2.  In  the  course  of  this  work  the  reader  must  have  observed,  that  it  has  been  shewn  that  the 
Romans,  the  Greeks,  and  the  Egyptians,  had  none  of  them  originally  the  use  of  images.  This  I 
believe  was  when  the  Buddhist  doctrine  prevailed,  or  rather  I  should  say  the  Buddhist  Jaines  : 
and  probably  for  some  time  also  after  that  of  Cristna  had  succeeded  to  it.  I  think  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  images  were  used  by  the  Etruscans.  This  seems  to  be  fairly  implied  in  the  order 
of  Numa,  that  in  the  Roman  service  they  should  not  be  used  ;  for,  if  they  had  not  been  used  by 


Vol.  III.  p.  ft,  *  Lactant.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xx.  *  Niebuhr's  Rom.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  p.  151. 


376  IMAGES    NOT    ANCIENTLY    USED. — ORIGIN    OF    THE   NAME    ROMA. 

some  persons,  he  would  never  have  thought  of  prohibiting  them.  I  have  said  that  I  suspect 
Numa  of  being  a  Menu  or  a  Noah,  as  it  is  written  in  the  Hebrew  a  Nuh  rm.  The  tribe  of  Juda 
were  strictly  followers  of  the  doctrines  of  Noah  or  Nuh,  and  in  this  respect  were  correctly 
followers  of  the  same  doctrine  as  Numa.  Tt  was  from  this  cause  that  his  city  was  called  by  the 
Brahmin  name  of  Rama  or  Roma,  or  Po>/mj,  the  name  of  several  cities  in  Syria  and  India.  The 
words  in  India,  in  Greece,  and  in  Latium,  having  the  same  meaning,  shew  them  to  be  the  same. 1 

Mr.  Heyne  in  his  work  entitled  Veteris  Italia?  Origines  Populi  et  Fabulae  ac  Religiones,  in  the 
following  passage,  has  suggested  another  origin  for  the  name  of  Rome.     He  says,  "  Quid  quod 
"  satis  probabile  mihi  sit,  etsi  aliquid  pro  liquido  et  explorato  in  his,  quorum  nulla  fides  historica 
"  est,  tradere  velle  ineptum  sit,  ipsam  fabulam  de  Romulo  et  Remo  a  lupa  lactatis  a  nominis  in- 
"  terpretatione  esse  profectam :  nam  a  ruma,  seu  rumi,  quod  vetus  mammas  nomen  est,  Romas 
"  nomen  deduxisse  nonnullos  videmus  ;  ut  alios  a  virtute  ac  robore  ad  Graecum  vocem  po)[X7}V. 
"  Ignoratio  originis,  a  qua  nomen  urbis  ductum  esset,  hominum  animos  ad  conjecturas  convertit, 
"  quas  postea  in  narrationes  abierant.     Quod  si  verum  est  et  ex  antiquioribus  sumptum,  quod 
"  Servius  ad  lib.  8,  90,  et  alibi  habet,  ut  Tiberis  priscum  nomen  Rumon  fuerit  (neque  illud 
"  adeo  abhorrens  ab  antiquissimo  aquarum  et  omnium  nomine  per  Celtas  et  Graecos  vulgato: 
*'  Rha,  Rho,  Rhu,  Rhin,  Rhiu,  Rhei,  (psco,  poog,)  non  improbabile  sit,  urbis  nomen  a  flumine 
"  esse  ductum,  et  omnia  alia,  quae  narrantur,  pro  commentes  seriorum  cetatum  esse  habenda." 
On  this  my  learned  friend  who  pointed  out  to  me  the  passage  of  Heyne  observes,  that  the  epithet 
of  Roma  or  strength  given  to  Rome,  must  have  been  given  after  it  grew  strong.     Of  course  the 
observation  falls  to  the  ground  when  it  is  known  that  it  was  a  mystical  name,  given  from  an 
ancient  mythos  or  city  in  the  East,  and  was  itself  built  on  the  foundation  of  an  ancient  city.    The 
following  assertion  of  Atteius  settles  this  question:  Atteius  asserit  Romam  ante  adventum  Evan- 
dri  diu  Valentiam  vocitatam.2 

I  cannot  answer  for  the  opinions  of  others,  but  the  fact  of  these  names  having  the  same  meaning, 
and  the  numerous  other  circumstances  connected  with  them,  compel  me  to  believe  that  the 
Numa  was  a  Menu,  and  that  the  Roman  religion  was  from  India.     But  we  all  know  that  it  was 
also  from  Ilium  or  Troy;  that  is,  that  it  was  closely  connected  with  the  Trojan  mythos  in  some 
way  or  other.      This  raises  a  strong   presumption   that   that  of  Troy  must   have  been  from 
the  East.     Every  thing  increases  the  probability  that  the  Hindoo  system  once  universally  pre- 
vailed.    All  this  tends  also  to  add  probability  to  what  the  reader  has  seen  respecting  a  city  of 
Valentia  having  formerly  occupied  the  site  of  the  present  Roma.     If  I  prove  that   the  early 
Roman  history  is  a  mythos,  I  open  the  door  to  very  latitudinarian  researches  to  discover  its 
origin.     And  for  the  proof  that  it  is  so,  I  am  quite  satisfied  to  depend  upon  what  Niebuhr 
has  said,  supported  by  the  numerous  facts  pointed  out  by  Nimrod.     Taking  Valentia  and  Roma 
to  be  the  same,  we  find  them  in  England,  in  Ireland,  in  Spain,  in  Italy,  in  Phrygia,  in  Syria,  -(as 
Rama,)  and  in  India.     Then,  when  can  these  synonymous  cities  have  been  built  but  when  or 
before  the  Hindoo  Gods  Samanaut,  Bood,  Om,  Eswara,  &c,  &c.,3   came  to  Ireland,  and  the 
God  Jain  or  Janus  to  Italy  ?     I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  that  however  different  the  Cristnuvites 
may  be  at  this  day,  the  Jains  and  Buddhists  are,  and  always  were,  great  makers  of  proselytes. 

Numa  expressly  forbade  the  Romans  to  have  any  representation  of  God  in  the  form  of  a  man 
or  beast,  nor  was  there  any  such  thing  among  them  for  the  first  170  years.  And  Plutarch  adds 
to  this,   that  they  were  Pythagoreans,  and  shed  no  blood  in  their  sacrifices,   but  confined  them 


1  Hesychius  says,  Pap?  'O  tyiw  ©eg?.  2  Serv.  in  Mix.  I.  277;  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  1 10. 

3  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  V.  Sect.  XXVI. 


BOOK    VII.    CHAPTER   VIII.    SECTION    3.  377 

to  flour  and  wine.  Here  is  the  sacrifice  of  Melchizedek  again;  the  Buddhist  or  Mithraitic 
sacrifice,  which  I  have  no  doubt  extended  over  the  whole  world. *  In  the  rites  of  Nuraa  we 
have  also  the  sacred  fire  of  the  Irish  St.  Bridget,  of  Moses,  of  Mithra,  and  of  India,  accompanied 
with  an  establishment  of  Nuns  or  Vestal  virgins.  Plutarch  also  informs  us,  that  May  was  called 
from  the  mother  of  Mercury,  and  that  in  the  time  of  Numa  the  year  consisted  of  360  days. 2 
"  Numa  ordered  fire  to  be  worshiped  as  the  principle  of  all  things :  for  fire  is  the  most  active 
"  thing  in  nature,  and  all  generation  is  motion,  or  at  least  with  motion :  all  other  parts  of  matter 
"  without  warmth  lie  sluggish  and  dead,  and  crave  the  influence  of  heat  as  their  life;  and  when 
"  that  comes  upon  them  they  immediately  acquire  some  active  or  passive  qualities.  And  there- 
"  fore  Numa  consecrated  fire,  and  kept  it  ever  burning,  in  resemblance  of  that  eternal  power 
"  which  actuates  all  things."  3  Again,  in  the  Life  of  Numa,  he  says,  "  Numa  built  the  temple 
"  of  Vesta,  which  was  intended  as  a  repository  of  the  holy  fire,  in  an  orbicular  form,  not  with  a 
"  design  to  represent  the  figure  of  the  earth,  as  if  that  were  Vesta,  but  the  frame  of  the  universe, 
"  in  the  centre  of  which  the  Pythagoreans  place  the  element  of  fire,  and  give  it  the  name  of 
"  Vesta  and  Unity :  but  they  do  not  hold  that  the  earth  is  immoveable,  or  that  it  is  situated  in 
"  the  middle  of  the  world,  but  that  it  has  a  circular  motion  about  the  central  fire.  Nor  do  they 
"  account  the  earth  among  the  chief  or  primary  elements.  And  this  they  say  was  the  opinion 
"  of  Plato,  who,  in  his  old  age,  held  that  the  earth  was  placed  at  a  distance  from  the  centre,  for 
"  that  being  the  principal  place  was  reserved  for  some  more  noble  and  refined  body." 

The  Phliasians  had  a  very  holy  temple  in  which  there  was  no  image,  either  openly  to  be  seen 
or  kept  in  secret. 4 

The  Abbe  Dubois  states,  that  the  Hindoos  in  the  earliest  times  had  no  images.  As  we  have 
found  that  this  was  the  case  in  most  other  nations  it  was  to  be  expected  that  it  would  be  the  same 
in  India. 

3.  The  ancients  had  a  very  curious  kind  of  building,  generally  subterraneous,  called  a  laby- 
rinth. The  remains  of  this  are  found  in  Wales,  where  the  boys  yet  amuse  themselves  with 
cutting  out  seven  inclos'ures  in  the  sward,  which  they  call  the  city  Troy.  There  is  a  copy 
of  it  taken  from  Nimrod's  work,5  in  my  plates,  figure  25.  Pliny  names  it,6  and  his  de- 
scription agrees  with  the  Welsh  plan.  7  This,  at  first  sight,  apparently  trifling  thing,  is  of  the 
very  first  importance ;  because  it  proves  that  the  traditions  respecting  Troy,  &c,  found  in  the 
British  isles,  were  not  the  produce  of  monkery  in  the  middle  ages,  but  existed  in  them  long 
before. 

The  Roman  boys  were  also  taught  a  mazy  or  complicated  dance,  called  both  the  Pyrrhic  war- 
dance,  and  the  dance  of  the  city  Troy.  Pliny  says  that  Porsenna  built  a  labyrinth  under  the  city 
of  Clusium,  in  Etruria,  and  over  it  a  monument  of  enormous  and  incredible  dimensions. 8  The 
Cloacae  Maximae,  under  the  city  of  Rome,  have  by  some  been  thought  to  be  a  labyrinth.  These 
labyrinths  were  sometimes  square  and  sometimes  elliptical.  The  sacred  mazy  dance  was  to 
imitate  the  complicated  motions  of  the  planets, — was  in  honour  of  the  Gods — that  is,  of  the  dis- 
posers :  in  short,  it  had  the  same  object  as  the  labyrinths. 

The  Roman  circus  was  an  allegory  corresponding  to  the  labyrinth,  as  the  author  of  Nimrod 
supposes.  The  circuits  were  seven,  saith  Laurentius  Lydus,  because  the  planets  are  so  many. 
In  the  centre  was  a  pyramid  on  which  stood  three  altars  to  Saturn,   Jove,  and  Mars,  and  below  it 


1  Vide  Plut.  Life  of  Numa.  *   Ibid.  3   piut<  Life  of  Camillus. 

4  Cumb.  Orig.  Gent.  p.  264.  5   Vol.  I.  p.  241.  6  XXXVI.  Cap.  xix.  Sect.  ii. 

7  Nimrod,  Vol  I.  p.  319.  s  ibid.  p.  319. 

3  c 


378 


LABYRINTH. 


three  others— to  Venus,  Hermes,  and  Luna.  The  circuits  were  marked  by  posts,  and  the 
charioteers  threaded  their  way  through  them  guided  by  the  eye  and  memory.  "  The  water  of 
"  the  ocean,  coming  from  heaven  upon  mount  Meru,  is  like  Amrita,  (amber  or  Ambrosia,)  and 
"  from  it  arises  a  river  which  through  seven  channels  encircles  Meru."  *  The  circuits  of  the 
circus  were  called  Euripi.  An  Euripus  was  a  narrow  channel  of  water :  ductus  aquarum  quos 
illi  Nilos  et  Euripos  vocant.  2  The  three  Gods,  on  the  pyramid,  had  reference  to  the  three  Gods 
in  the  capitol,  called  Xuvvaioi,3  or  the  dioellers  together,  for  these  three  were  the  Dii  Magni 
Samothraces— Qsot  //.eyaAoj,  Qsoi  hvvaroi,  0eo*,  XPH2TOI.  But  the  &soi  XW&h  though 
three  were  all  "one,  and  that  one  the  Sun  or  the  higher  power  of  which  the  Sun  was  the  emblem  : 
and  Tertullian  says,  that  the  three  altars  in  the  circus  were  sacred— trinis  Diis,  magnis,  poten- 
tibus,valentibus:  eosdem  Samothracas  existimant. 

The  city  of  Troy  also  had  its  labyrinth.  The  Pergamus,  in  which  Cassandra  was  kept,  was 
in  the  shape  of  a  pyramid,  and  had  three  altars— to  Jove,  Apollo,  and  Minerva  ;  but  the  Capi- 
tolium  of  Rome  and  all  her  sacred  things  were  avowedly  but  revivals  of  the  religion  of  Troy. 
Her  founder  arrived  in  Latium, 

Ilium  in  Italiam  portans  victosque  Penates. 

The  seven  tracts  or  channels  of  the  sky,  through  which  the  planets  move,  are  called  in  the 
Homeric  Greek  reipsa — 


Apei;  vTreppevsra  ....  nvpavyea,  yvyXov  thuraw 

a  word  which  has  nothing  to  do,  Nimrod  says,  with  rega£,  a  portent,  but  implies  merely  the 
common  idea  terere  iter,  and  of  rpifios,  via  trita,  or,  as  the  Brahmins  say,  the  paths  of  the  planets. 
With  the  teirea  agree  the  euripi  of  the  circus,  and  the  seven  main  streets  which,  taking  the  square 
as  a  round,  circuit  the  seven-fold  city. 5  These  latter  are  called  its  ayuiou,  and  Apollo  Ergates, 
the  architect  God,  who  built  the  walls  of  Troy,  was  therefore  called  Ayoisog,  and  because  he 
traced  the  walls  of  the  great  seven-streeted  city  or  voXig  eoguocyuia  irj  the  shape  of  an  exact 
square,  or  superficies  of  a  cube,  the  idol  or  sculptured  form  of  the  God  Aguieus  was  a  cube, 
tryrnhCL  rsrqayaivov.  6  Orpheus  describes  the  city  of  Aiaia  as  consisting  of  seven  circles  of  walls 
and  towers,  one  within  another;  and  Gnossus,  in  Crete,  was  the  alleged  site  of  the  Labyrinth 
of  Minos,  of  which  Ariadne  possessed  the  clue.7  The  celebrated  fair  Rosamond  had  her 
underground  labyrinth,  near  Woodstock,  and  her  bower  from  which  the  labyrinth  did  run.  8 

In  the  isle  of  Lemnos  there  was  a  labyrinth  of  which  some  remains  existed  in  the  time  of 
Pliny.  It  is  very  remarkable  for  having  been  surrounded  with  150  columns,  which  were  revolving 
cylinders,  so  movable  that  a  child  could  spin  them  round.  These  are  evidently  what  we  call 
rocking-stones.  9    The  maze  of  complicated  circles  near  Botallek*  in  Cornwall,  described  in  plate 


1  Asiat.  Res.  VIII.  pp.  322,  323,  357.  »  Cicero  de  Legibus,  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  i. 

3   Serv.  in  JEn.  Lib.  ii.  ver.  225.  4  Horn.  Hym.  Mart.  ver.  6,  7. 

5  The  Olympian  course  of  Jupiter,  at  Pisa,  was  600  feet  long,  as  were  all  the  running  courses  of  Greece :  this  was 
instituted  by  Hercules.     Stanley's  Hist.  Phil.  Part  ix.  Ch.  iii. 

6  Pausan.  Lib.  viii.  Cap.  xxxii.  Sect.  3.  7  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  pp.  247,  315. 

8  Drayton,  note  A,  on  Ep.  of  Ros.  p.  81,  Ed.  London,  1748  ;  Percy's  Relics,  Vol.  III.  p.  146. 

9  The  Asphodel  was  called  by  Theophrastus  the  Epimenidian  plant.  The  name  As-phod-el  is  the  Asian  God  Phod 
or  Buddha,  whose  name  rings  every  change  upon  the  vowels,  and  upon  the  two  variable  consonants  B.  F.  P.  V.  and 
D.  T.  Th.  Nimrod,  sup.  Ed.  p.  18.  This  was  the  plant  used  to  move  the  celebrated  Gigonian  rocking-stone,  (which 
I  have  noticed  in  my  Celtic  Druids,)  which  stood  near  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  not  far  from  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar. 


BOOK    VII.    CHAPTER    VIII.    SECTION   4.  370 

No.  29,  of  my  Celtic  Druids,  was  also,  in  some  way,  allusive  to  the  planetary  motions.  The 
labyrinth  of  the  Fair  Rosamond  could  be  nothing  but  an  astrological  emblem,  allusive  to  the 
planets. 

There  are  also  histories  of  labyrinths  in  Egypt,  seen  by  Herodotus ;  in  Andeira;  at  the  Lake 
of  Van ;  Praeneste,  &c.  The  etymology  of  the  word  labyrinth  is  unknown,  therefore  probably 
Hindoo  or  Oriental ;  but  Nimrod  has  some  interesting  speculations  concerning  it.  From  its 
form  exactly  corresponding  to  the  sacred  mount,  &c,  of  India,  and  of  the  cities  formed  after  its 
pattern,  they  probably  were  meant  to  be  in  one  sense  representations  of  the  paradise,  &c,  in 
inferis,  as  we  know  these  sacred  matters  on  earth  were  supposed  to  be  exactly  imitated  in  the 
Elysian  regions. 

I  have  before  observed,  that  each  city  had  its  ten  years'  war,  its  conquest  and  dispersion,  I 
therefore  need  not  here  repeat  them. 

4.  No  one  who  has  reflected  much  on  the  names  of  Grecian  Gods  and  Mythoses,  can  deny, 
that  their  etymologies  are  in  general  most  unsatisfactory.  This  is  caused  by  searching  for  them 
no  where  but  in  the  Greek  language.  The  spoken  language  of  Greece  was,  like  that  of  all  other 
nations,  the  child  of  circumstance.  It  was  composed  out  of  a  mixture  brought  by  Celtae,  by 
Ionians,  if  they  were  not  the  same, — by  Pelasgi  from  Phoenicia, — from  the  second  race  of  Celtae, 
called  Scythians, — and  perhaps  by  others;  so  that  it  is  evident,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
as  Plato  truly  said,  recourse  ought  to  be  had  for,  probably,  ail  the  old  names,  to  the  Barbari. 
The  state  of  the  case,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  is  the  same  with  respect  to  all  ancient  nations. 
Their  spoken  language  was  a  general  mixture,  and  the  sixteen  letters  were  common  to  all, 
and  were  used  to  record  this  mixture,  or  heterogeneous  compound.  This  admitted,  we  see  the 
reason  why  in  etymology  we  ought  not  to  be  bound  to  any  one  nation  for  the  origin  of  words, 
but  why  we  ought  to  seek  them  wherever  we  can  find  them.  They  are  exactly  like  the  present 
English;  but  who  would  think  of  seeking  the  meaning  of  all  English  words  in  one  language? 

It  addition  to  these  reasons  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  all  the  ancient  names  of  towns  and 
persons  had  a  meaning,  and,  as  their  early  histories  were  all  mythological,  this  meaning  was 
astrological.     Egypt  was  divided,  as  every  one  knows,  in  its  names,  with  a  reference  to  the 
heavenly  bodies  :  and,  as  I  have  just  observed,  Sir  William  Drummond  has  shewn,  that  most  of 
the  names  of  the  towns  and  persons  recorded  in  Joshua  had  an  astrological  meanino-.     It  is, 
therefore,  reasonable  to  believe  that  those  which  we  cannot  explain  would  be  shewn  to  be  the 
same,  if  our  ignorance  of  their  meaning  could  be  removed.     The  history  of  every  ancient  state 
was  a  mythos:  with  such  trifling  variation  as  change  of  place  and  change  of  time  produced, 
they  were  all  the  same.     Such  towns  as  were  erected  de  novo  were  built  astrologically,  or  with  a 
reference  to  the  prevailing  mythos:    such  as  arose  by  degrees  were,  when  their  inhabitants 
became  rich,  assimilated  as  far  as  possible  to  the  prevailing  and  universal  superstition.     This, 
I  think,  satisfactorily  accounts  for  the  mixture  of  mythology  and  true  history,  and  it  is  only  by 
a  careful  attention  to  separate  the  two— an  attention  which  has  never  yet  been  properly  paid, — 
that  any  thing  like  a  rational  history  can  be  formed.     The  learned  author  of  Nimrod  could  not 
avoid  seeing  the  universal  character  of  the  mythos;  but,  bound  by  religious  prejudice,  he  has 
most  absurdly  exerted  his  great  learning  and  talent  after  the  example,    and   in  aid,    of  Mr. 
Faber,  to  make  it  fit  to  his  own  superstition.     He  assumes  that  his  own  mythos  is  true  literally, 
and  as  the  mythoses  are  all  fundamentally  the  same^— as  a  general,  generic,  or  family  character 
runs  through  the  whole,— it  is  no  difficult  matter  to  give  a  certain  degree  of  plausibility  to  his 
scheme.     But  these  gentlemen  never  perceive  that  their  literal  systems  involve  consequences 
utterly  absurd,  and  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes  of  God. 

The  districts  of  Canaan  appear  to  have  been  allotted  or  divided  according  to  astronomical 

3  c  2 


380  HERO    GODS    ACCOUNTED    FOR. 

or  astrological  rules,  in  the  same  manner  as  was  practised  with  the  nomes  of  Egypt.  The  tenth 
chapter  of  Genesis  is  an  example  of  the  same  kind— a  division  of  the  world  into  seventy-two 
countries  or  nations,  under  the  mask  of  a  genealogy.  Every  chapter  of  Genesis  exhibits  an 
esoteric  and  an  exoteric  religion.  The  same  persons  named  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis 
are  found  in  Ezekiel,  and  also  in  Job — a  sacred  book  of  the  Jews,  in  which  the  destroyer 
makes  a  great  figure. 

The  following  passage  exhibits  a  pretty  fair  example  of  the  mist  which  superstition  sometimes 
raises  before  the  eyes  of  men  of  learning  and  talent,  and  also,  in  no  small  degree,  tends  to 
confirm  what  Sir  W.  Drummond  says  in  his  CEdipus  Judaicus,  viz.  that  the  astronomical 
meaning,  which  almost  all  the  early  names  in  the  book  of  Joshua  contain,  prove  it  to  have  an 
allegorical  meaning:  "The  names  of  the  Patriarchs  of  the  line  of  Shem  had  a  significancy 
"  prophetic  of  events  which  should  occur  in  their  lives.  I  conceive  that  Salah  flourishing,  the 
"  people  were  sent  forth  :  Heber  flourishing,  they  crossed  or  transgressed  the  mighty  river 
"  Euphrates  or  Tigris:  Peleg  flourishing,  mankind  were  split  by  the  great  schism:  Rehu 
"  flourishing,  the  Patriarchal  Unity  was  broken,  and  the  kingdom  of  lone,  or  Babel,  erected  in 
"opposition  to  that  of  Ninus:  and,  lastly,  Serug  flourishing,  the  confusion  of  tongues  took 
"  place."  *  When  I  consider  the  fact,  that  the  names  of  the  towns  and  places  described  in  the 
Jewish  books,  as  well  as  the  names  of  the  persons,  have  all  meanings  like  those  above,  I  am 
surprised  that  any  one  who  knows  it  should  hesitate  a  moment  to  admit  that  an  allegory  is  used 
— in  fact,  a  mythos  described. 

Nimrod  takes  Babylon  for  his  standard,  as  I  have  before  said,  not  because  it  is  more  convenient 
or  because  it  was  the  original,  but  because  he  thinks  it  is  necessary  to  the  religion  in  the  belief 
of  which  he  happens  to  have  been  educated;  and  he  is  probably  unconscious  of  the  fact,  and  will 
strenuously  deny  it,  and  be  very  angry  with  me  for  stating  it.  But  no  philosopher  or  unpre- 
judiced person,  reading  his  book,  will  ever  raise  any  question  about  it.  In  our  endeavours  to 
explain  the  ancient  mythoses,  great  care  ought  to  be  taken  not  to  confound  two  cases  which  must 
be,  in  their  nature,  extremely  difficult  to  separate, — the  ancient  mythological  or  allegorical  histo- 
ries, and  the  idle  stories  invented  by  the  Greek  or  Roman  priests  of  comparatively  modern  times, 
to  conceal  their  ignorance,— and  this  is  so  very  difficult  a  matter,  that  our  success,  exert  what- 
ever care  we  may,  must  always  be  attended  with  considerable  doubt. 

5.  The  account  which  is  constantly  given  of  the  attempt  of  Alexander  and  others  to  declare 
themselves  Gods,  has  never  been  satisfactory  to  me.  With  Christian  priests  it  has  always  been 
a  favourite  theme,  and  if  they  have  not  striven  to  disguise  the  truth,  we  may  safely  say  they  have 
not  taken  much  pains  to  discover  or  explain  it.  I  have  shewn,  that  in  the  latter  times  of  the 
Roman  republic  an  eminent  person  to  be  a  general  benefactor  of  mankind  was  expected  to  arrive 
along  with  a  new  and  more  happy  saeculum.2  This  was  the  renewal  either  of  the  Neros  or  of  the 
cycle  of  608—  THS.  On  the  beginning  of  every  one  of  these  new  ages  a  person  of  great  merit 
was  supposed  to  come,  endowed  with  a  portion  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  of  the  dyiou  7rveo[j.a.  or  the 
Epa>£,  which  was  the  protogenos  or  first-begotten  of  the  Supreme  Being.  It  was  correctly  the 
new  incarnation  of  the  mythologists  of  India.  It  was  correctly  the  Christian  inspiration.  The 
Supreme  First  Cause  was  generally  believed  to  overshadow,  or,  in  some  other  mysterious  manner, 
to  impregnate  the  mother  of  the  favoured  person,  by  which  she  became  pregnant.   This  was  done 


1  Nimrod,  Vol  I.  p.  16,  Sup.  Ed. 

2  This  cycle  was  what  the  Romans  called  sceculum,  at  the  end  of  which  the  Ludi  Saeculares  were  celebrated-when 
black  victims  were  sacrificed.  These  sacred  and  unascertained  periods  were  professed  to  be  known  only  to  the  keepers 
of  the  Sibylline  books,  from  which  they  were  learnt.    Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  191. 


BOOK    VII.    CHAPTER    VIII.    SECTION    5.  381 

in  various  ways.     When  any  person  became  very  eminent  as  a  benefactor  of  mankind,  his  suc- 
cessors generally  attributed  this  inspiration  to  him;  and  he  was  said,  by  the  vulgar,  to  have  a 
God  for  his  father:  but  the  initiated  understood  it  as  first  stated,  which  was  a  doctrine  too  re- 
fined for  the  understandings  of  the  populace,  and  was  never  confided  to  them  ;  and  which,  for  the 
most  part,  we  only  know  by  halves — by  collecting  trifling  facts  that  have  unintentionally  escaped 
from  the  mysterious  adyta  of  the  temples — in  which,  perhaps,  in  later  times,  the  whole  doctrine 
was  not  known,  but  in  great  part  lost.     The  periods  of  the  renewal  and  the  actual  length  of  the 
cycle  were  unquestionably  lost.    It  is  the  natural  and,  I  take  it,  inevitable  consequence  of  all 
secret  doctrines  of  this  kind,  unwritten  and  handed  down  by  tradition,  that  they  should  either  be 
lost  or  become  doubtful.     It  was  a  knowledge  of  this  natural  and  inevitable  effect,  probably, 
which  caused  the  priests  in  several  countries  to  commit  the  doctrines  to  writing  in  the  guise  of 
aenigmas  or  allegories  or  parables,  and  experience  has  shewn  that  this  is  equally  unavailing;  or 
perhaps  it  is  of  worse  consequence,  as  the  allegory  being  at  length  believed  to  the  letter,  the 
secret  meaning  has  not  only  been  forgotten,  but  the  belief  of  it,  or  the  allowance  of  its  existence, 
has  been  denounced  as  heretical — a  crime — and  the  persons  entertaining  it,  subjects  of  persecu- 
tion.    This  is  a  great  evil,  but  evil,  less  or  more,  is  always  a  necessary  consequence  of  disinge- 
nuous and  deceitful  conduct  in  man.     Plato  and  Pythagoras,  among-  the  Gentiles,  were  both 
examples  of  eminent  men  supposed  to  be  the  produce  of  divine  influence  or  inspiration,  as  I 
have  shewn  in  B.  IV.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  6.     Their  mothers  were  believed  to  have  been  overshadowed 
or  obumbrated  by  an  Apolloniacal  spectre,  to  have  been  affiata  numine  filled  with  the  rn*i  tlHp 
gds  ruh,  and  to  have  produced  their  respective  sons  without  connexion  with  man.     This,  in  fact, 
was  correctly  Hindoo  incarnation.    All  the  extraordinary  births  recorded  in  the  two  Testaments, 
such  as  those  of  Samson,  Samuel,  John  Baptist,  &c,  were  examples  of  the  same  kind. 

Persons  wishing  to  obtain  power  often  attempted  to  induce  a  belief  that  they  were  the  effects 
of  this  kind  of  divine  interference.  This  was  the  case  with  Alexander  the  Great,1  who  was 
feigned  to  be  begotten  by  Jupiter  Amnion  in  the  form  of  a  Dragon.  This  was  the  case  also  with 
Augustus  Caesar,  whose  mother  fell  asleep  in  the  temple  of  Apollo,  and  who  (when  she  awaked) 
saw  reason  quasi  a  concubitu  maritali  purificare  se,  et  statim  in  corpore  ejus  extitisse  maculam, 

velut  depicti  draconis Augustum  natum  mense  decimo,  et  ob  hoc  Apollinis  filium  existima- 

tum.2  When  Scipio  Africanus  aspired  to  be  the  tyrant  of  his  country,  a  similar  story  was  told 
of  his  mother,  and  of  him — but  the  Romans  discovered  his  object,  and  he  was  banished  for  it, — 
he  failed.  His  mother  was  said  to  have  been  impregnated  by  a  serpent  creeping  over  her  body 
when  she  was  asleep.  In  the  same  manner  Anna,  the  mother  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  was  said,  in 
one  of  the  spurious  Gospel-histories,  to  have  been  impregnated,  when  an  infant  of  only  three  or  four 
years  old,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  form  of  a  serpent,  creeping  over  her  body  w  hen  asleep ;  the  pro- 
duce of  which  was  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus.  And  as  Jesus  was  in  like  manner  the  produce  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  they  declared  Mary  to  be  both  the  mother  and  the  daughter  of  God.  The  Serpent 
was  the  emblem  of  divine  wisdom  equally  in  India,  Egypt,  and  Greece. 

An  attempt  was  also  made  by  Sylla  to  establish  himself  as  the  object  in  honour  of  whom  the 
Ludi  Saeculares  were  celebrated ;  but  if  such  were  his  object,  it  does  not  seem  to  have  succeeded. 
He  appears  not  to  have  been  supported  by  the  priests,  and  therefore  probably  gave  it  up.  "  Sylla 
"  was  born  in  the  year  of  Rome3  616,  but  it  is  uncertain  what  year  the  Saecular  Games  were  cele- 
"  brated,  whether,  in  605,  in  608,  or  in  62S.  It  was  a  matter  of  the  most  occult  science  and  pon- 
"  tifical  investigation,  to  pronounce  on  what  year  each  Saeculum  ended,  and  I  am  not  satisfied 

1  Nimrod.  Vol.  III.  pp.  366,  &c.  2  Suet.  Octav.  Cap.  xciv.,  Nim.  Vol.  III.  p.  458. 

3  Thusca?  Historiae  cit.  Censorin.  p.  84 ;  Plut.  Sylla. 


382  ■      SELEUCUS    NICATOR    ANTICHRIST. 

"  whether  the  decemviri  did  not  publish  the  games  more  than  once,  when  they  saw  reason  to 
"  doubt  which  was  the  true  Sibylline  year."1  It  is  quite  clear  that  these  difficulties  would  not 
apply  to  so  short  a  period  as  110  or  120  years.  The  nails  driven  annually  by  the  consuls  with 
great  ceremony,  from  a  time  long  anterior  to  that  here  alluded  to,  must  have  readily  fixed 
the  time  for  the  celebration  of  feasts  of  such  short  periods. 

6.  Perhaps  in  ancient  times  there  never  was  a  more  remarkable  example  of  this  superstition 
than  that  of  Seleucus  Nicator,  who  founded  the  city  of  Antioch,  which  was  finished  by  Antiochus, 
who  was  called  Epiphanes,  perhaps  on  that  account.     The  original  name  of  this  city,  situated 
on  the  Orontes,  was  Iona  or  Iopolis,  the  city  of  Io,  the  beeve  le.     (Io  was  sometimes  the  name  of 
a  male,  sometimes  of  a  female ;  and  the  Syrians,  we  are  told,  were  in  the  habit  of  changing  the 
Chaldaic  N  a  and  n  e  into  the  y  o.)     It  was  said  to  have  been  built  by  Triptolemus,  i.  e.  Enyulius 
or  Mars,  as  a  funeral  monument  to  the  cow  Io,  which  died  there  when  she  fled  from  Jupiter 
Picus  (Pi-chus  the  black);  but  it  was  called  Antiochia  by  Seleucus  in  honour  of  his  son  Antio- 
chus Soter.8     The  name  of  the  kings  of  Antioch  sufficiently  explain  the  fact.   The  first  was  called 
Soter  or  the  Saviour;  the  second,  Theos  or  the  Holy,  or  the  God  ;  the  third,  who  finished  the  city, 
Epiphanes,  or  the  Manifestation  of  the  Deity  to  the  Gentiles.     One  of  them,  in  furtherance  of 
this  scheme,  endeavoured  to  place  his  image  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  but  was  defeated  by 
the  religious  zeal  of  the  Jews,  to  the  uninitiated  of  whom  he  would  appear  but  as  an  enemy  to 
their  local  God  Iao  or  Ieue.     To  these  Jews  the  secret  meaning  could  not  be  explained  without 
letting  out  all  the  mysteries  of  the  religion  to  the  vulgar.     The  Seleucidae  governed  almost  all 
southern  and  central  Asia,  including  part  of  Upper  and  Lower  India,  and  here  they  probably 
learnt  anew  many  of  the  ancient  mysteries  then  lost  to  the  Western  nations.    This  may  have 
caused  Seleucus  Nicator  to  build  a  magnificent  temple  in  Antioch  or  Iona  to  Jupiter  Bottius,  that 
is  Jupiter  Buddaeus,  whose  high-priest  he  called  Amphion — Om-phi-on.    The  Christians  are  said 
to  have  received  the  name  of  Christian  at  Antioch.     At  first  they  were  every  where  considered 
by  the  Gentiles  as  Jews,  as  they  really  were,  and  the  God  of  Seleucus  was  called  Antichrist  by 
the  Jews.    This  would  be  in  the  Greek  language  Avri  Xg7j$-°£>  or  an  opponent  or  second  Xgij $■<>£, 
meaning  against  the  good  or  holy  one,  the  holy  one  of  Israel,  and  this  would  cause  the  Christians, 
the  servants  of  the  God  of  the  Jews,  to  call  themselves  followers  of  the  Xp^foj,  or  of  the  good 
daemon,  the  opposite  of  Antichrist.     And  from  this  it  was,  that  Theodoret  and  other  fathers 
maintained  that  the  city  of  Antioch  was  a  type  of  Antichrist.     The  Antichristian  Antioch,  Anti- 
christian  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  unravels  the  mystery.    Nimrod  has  most  clearly  proved,  that 
the  Seleucidae  meant  to  convert  the  city  of  Antioch  into  a  sacred  place,  and  to  found  their  empire 
upon  a  close  connexion  between  church  and  state:3  but  he  has  not  observed  that  Buddha  and 
the  grand  Lama  of  Tibet  were  their  model.4    The  grand  Lama,  successor  of  Buddha,  was  at  that 
time  probably  an  efficient  monarch,  and  not  reduced  to  the  inanity  of  the  present  one  by  the 
priests.     Jerusalem  was  set  up  by  the  Antichrist  David,  as  the  Samaritans  would  call  him,  in  op- 
position to  the  old  worship  on  Gerizim,5  and  Antioch  was  the  same,  in  opposition  to  Jerusalem. 
Thus  we  discover  the  origin  of  Antichrist,  with  whom  modern  Christians  have  so  long  amused  or 
tormented  themselves.     But  of  the  XgTjs-oj  more  hereafter.     Another  reason  why  they  called 
Antioch  by  the  name  of  Antichrist  was,  because  the  king  of  it  usurped  the  name  of  Epiphanes, 


i  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  462,  Sup.  Ed.  a   Vide  Nimrod,  from  pp.  370  to  490,  Vol.  III. 

3  As  all  politic  modern  kings  do.  *  The  Jupiter  Bottius  proves  this. 

5  According  to  the  first  religion  of  Moses,  Gerizim,  not  Jerusalem,  was  the  place  chosen  by  God  to  place  his  altars 
there.  The  text  of  Joshua  contains  satisfactory,  internal  proof  of  its  corruption  by  the  Jews  to  favour  the  claim  of 
Jerusalem,  as  is  admitted  by  the  first  Protestant  divines. 


BOOK    VII.     CHAPTER   VIII.     SECTION   7.  383 

or  the  Manifestation  of  God  to  the  Gentiles,  which  belonged  only  to  their  God.  Notwithstanding 
the  destruction  of  the  books  at  Antioch,  under  the  superintendence  of  the  Apostles,  and  of  the 
Christian  priests,  systematically  continued  to  the  present  day  in  all  other  countries,  enough  has 
escaped  to  prove  it  was  the  doctrine  of  the  ancient  religion,  that  a  saviour  should  come  at  the  end 
of  the  Saeculum. 

The  system  of  renewed  incarnations  seems  to  offer  a  strong  temptation  to  ambitious  spirits  to 
declare  themselves  to  be  emanations  of  the  Deity,  as  we  have  seen  it  was  attempted  by  Alexander 
the  Great  and  several  others.  Mr.  Upham,  in  his  history  of  Buddhism,1  has  given  an  account  of  a 
successful  attempt  of  this  kind  in  the  kingdom  of  Ava.  From  this  example  it  does  not  seem  un- 
likely that  similar  attempts,  in  other  places,  Ceylon  for  instance,  may  have  been  made.  In  this  way, 
at  the  same  time  that  the  system  of  incarnations  which  I  have  described,  is  supported,  the  absurd 
and  degraded  state  of  Buddhism  in  Ceylon  and  other  places  may  be  accounted  for.  Mr.  Upham 
admits,  as  every  one  must,  a  primeval  Buddha  of  great  antiquity.  His  existence  he  does  not 
attempt  to  explain,  except  so  far  as  to  admit  that  he  was  the  Sun.  Mr.  Upham's  is  the  account 
of  modern  Buddhism ;  with  this  I  do  not  concern  myself,  except  in  some  few  instances,  where 
the  ancient  truth  hid,  under  the  modern  trash,  seems  to  shew  itself:  as  for  instance,  in  the  cycles 
noticed  by  Loubere  and  Cassini.  From  the  lapse  of  time  and  other  circumstances,  the  view  of 
the  Hindoo  avatars  has  become  indistinct ;  yet  they  are  still  so  visible  that  almost  every  Christian 
who  has  of  late  carefully  looked  into  the  early  history  of  them,  is  obliged  to  admit  them.  Thus 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Townsend  says,2  "  As  this  incarnate  being  was  considered  as  a  divine  person,  and 
"  the  son  of  God,  and  as  Nimrod  claimed  the  authority  and  titles  of  the  incarnate,  it  is  evident 
"  that  his  father  or  his  ancestor  must,  from  some  cause,  have  been  also  considered  as  divine."  I 
can  have  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Townsend  is  right,  and  that  Nimrod  was  Bala-rama,  an  avatar,  pro- 
bably Maha-Beli,3  or  an  avatar  of  Buddha.  Nimrod  and  Bala-Rama  were  both  grandsons  or  sons 
of  Menu,  i.  e.  i:  Nu.  But  since  these  most  learned  and  orthodox  gentlemen  are  obliged  to  admit 
the  fact,  I  beg  I  may  not  be  called  fantastical  and  paradoxical,  at  least,  unless  they  be  coupled 
with  me. 

7.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  believe  that  all  the  striking  marks  of  similarity  between  the  names 
of  towns,  the  modes  or  plans  of  building  them,  the  names  of  persons,  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
Orientals  and  the  Western  nations,  can  have  been  the  effect  of  accident ;  and  I  can  see  no  other 
way  of  accounting  for  them  than  by  supposing  that  they  were  brought  by  the  first  race  of  people 
who  travelled  Westwards  from  India,  and  who  all  had,  with  various  sectarian  differences,  funda- 
mentally the  same  religion,  and  gave  the  same  names  to  their  towns  as  those  they  had  left  in  their 
own  North-eastern  countries.  This  practice  we  know  has  always  prevailed  among  emigrating 
people,  and  prevails  to  this  day,  and  it  rationally  removes  all  the  difficulties.  It  cannot  be  ex- 
pected that  at  this  late  day,  amidst  the  ruins  of  cities  which  have  almost  disappeared,  we  should 
find  in  each  all  the  traits  or  marks  of  the  system,  or  a  whole  system,  complete.  It  is  as  much  as 
we  can  expect,  if  we  can  find,  in  each,  detached  parts  of  the  system:  for  example,  suppose  I 
found  the  head  of  a  man  in  Babylon,  the  leg  of  a  man  in  Troy,  and  the  hand  of  a  man  in  Rome  ; 
though  I  did  not  find  a  whole  man  in  any  of  them,  I  should  be  obliged  to  believe  that  all  the1 
towns  had  formerly  been  occupied  by  men.  It  is  the  same  with  the  universal  system.  In  every 
city  some  of  the  de'bris  are  to  be  found,  quite  enough  to  enable  us  to  judge  of  the  remainder, 
with  as  much  certainty  as  we  should  in  the  case  of  the  limbs  of  a  man,  or  of  an  animal. 

An  actual  example  of  this  kind  took  place  in  Ireland  :  in  one  place  the  back-bones  of  an  elk 

1  Pp.  1 10,  11 1.  *  Class.  Joura.  No.  XLVIII.  p.  236.  3  ib.  p.  237. 


384  YAVANAS    EXPELLED    FROM    TOWNS    THEY    BUILT. 

were  found,  in  another  thigh-bones,  in  a  third  legs,  and  in  another  the  magnificent  antlers,  and 
so  on  till  all  the  bones  of  a  perfect  animal  were  found.  They  were  collected,  put  together,  and 
now  form  that  most  beautiful  and  majestic  skeleton  standing  in  the  Hall  of  the  Institute  in 
Dublin.  Does  any  one  doubt  that  the  elk  was  in  former  times  an  inhabitant  of  these  places  in 
Ireland  ?  Just  so  it  is  with  the  mythological  system  of  the  ancients,  with  the  adoration  of  the 
Sun  and  the  host  of  heaven,  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  Every  where  the  same  system  with,  in  part,  the 
same  ceremonies  prevailed,  from  Iona  in  Scotland  to  Iona  at  Athens,  or  Iona  at  Gaza,  Iona  at 
Antioch,  or  the  Ioni  or  Argha  in  India. 

I  think  it  probable  that  the  natives  of  central  Asia,  in  the  times  of  which  we  are  treating,  were 
nearly  in  the  situation  of  the  Afghans,  inhabitants  of  the  same  country  described  by  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Elphinston  at  this  day.1  They  are  in  a  great  measure  nomadic  and  divided  into  tribes,  but  yet 
are  more  located  than  the  Arabians  of  the  deserts.  Wars  often  take  place  between  them,  and 
one  tribe  drives  out  another,  who  quit  their  country  not  in  a  state  of  distress  and  weakness,  but 
of  power — compared  with  the  countries  into  which  they  come.  The  celebrated  Baber  is  an 
example  of  this;  he  was  expelled  from  his  country  about  Balk  into  the  South,  where  he  attacked 
the  empire  of  Delhi  and  conquered  it. 

8.  In  the  old  books  of  the  Hindoos,  as  it  was  before  stated,  we  meet  with  accounts  of  great 
battles  which  took  place  between  the  followers  of  the  Linga  and  those  of  the  Ioni,  and  that  the 
latter  in  very  early  times  were  expelled  from  India  under  the  name  of  Yavanas.  After  the  sun 
had  left  Taurus  and  entered  Aries,  or  about  that  time,  it  is  probable  that  the  war  above  alluded 
to  arose.  Whether  the  question  of  the  precedence  of  the  Linga  and  Ioni  had  any  connexion 
with  the  transit  from  Taurus  to  Aries  I  know  not,  but  the  two  events  appear  to  have  taken  place 
about  the  same  time.  The  Buddhists  or  Yavanas  were  expelled;  their  priests  were  Culdees; 
and  they  were  Jaines.  They  passed  to  the  West.  In  their  way  they  built,  or  their  sect  pre- 
vailed in,  the  city  of  Baal,  Bal,  or  Babylon— as  Nimrod  says,  probably  the  old  Iona  : 

Et  quot  Iona  tulit  vetus,  et  quot  Achaia  formas.2 

They  built,  or  their  sect  prevailed  in,  the  city  of  Coan  or  Aiaia,  if  ever  there  were  such  cities — 
the  city  of  Colchis  or  of  the  golden  fleece,  if  ever  there  was  such  a  city,  to  which  the  Argonauts 
are  feigned  to  have  sailed — the  city  of  Iona  which  afterward  became  Antiochia — and  the  city  of 
Iona  called  afterward  Gaza,  where  they  were  Palli  or  Philistines,  and  near  to  which  Jonas  was 
swallowed  up  by  a  whale — and  the  city  of  Athens,  called  Athena,  (a  word  having  the  same 
meaning  as  Iona,)  with  its  twelve  states  and  Amphictyonic  council.  They  dwelt  in  Achaia,  they 
built  Argos,  they  founded  Delphi,  or  the  temple  of  the  navel  of  the  earth,  where  they  were 
called  Hellenes  and  Argives.  They  founded  the  state  of  the  Ionians,  with  its  twelve  towns  in 
Asia  Minor.  They  built  llion  in  Troy,  or  Troia  or  Ter-ia,  i.e.  country  of  the.  Three.  They 
carried  the  religion  of  Osiris  and  Isis,  that  is  Isi  and  Is-wara,  to  Egypt ;  they  took  the  Deity 
Janus  and  Jana  or  Iana  to  Italy,  where  their  followers  were  called  Ombri :  they  founded  the  city 
of  Valentia  or  the  city  of  Rama  or  Roma :— they  built  Veii  or  the  city  of  Uei  (read  from  right 
to  left  leu),  if  ever  there  was  such  a  city  : — they  built  the  temple  of  Isis,  now  called  Notre  Dame 
or  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  at  Paris  ;  and,  as  it  might  be  called,  Baghis-stan  now  St.  Dennis,  and 
were  called  Salarii  from  .their  attachment  to  and  practice  of  the  sacred  Mazy  dance: — they  left 
the  Garuda  at  Bourdeaux : — they  founded  the  most  stupendous  monument  in  the  world  called 
Carnac,3  of  the  same  name  as  the  temple  of  Carnac  in  Egypt,  and  the  Carnatic  in  India: — they 
built  Stonehenge,  or  Ambres-stan,  and  Abury  or  Ambrespore  : — they  founded  Oxford  on  the  river 


1  Hist.  Cabul.  2  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  237.  3  See  Celtic  Druids. 


BOOK    VII.     CHAPTER    VIII.     SECTION    8.  385 

which  they  called  Isis,  and  Cambridge  on  the  river  Cam,  Cham,  HAM,  Am  or  Om  : — they  built 
Iseur  or  Oldborough,  and  called  the  Yorkshire  river  by  the  name  OM-ber  or  Umber  or  Humber, 
and  called  the  state,  of  which  Iseur  was  the  capital,  Brigantia,  the  same  as  the  state  which  they 
had  left  behind  them  in  Spain  or  Iberia,  and  Valentia  a  little  more  to  the  North,  and  Valentia  in 
Ireland  the  same  as  the  Roma  and  Valencia  in  Italy  and  Spain :  and  finally  they  founded  a  col- 
lege like  Oxford  or  Cambridge  or  the  island  of  Ii  or  Iona,  or  Columba,  which  remained  till  the 
Reformation,  when  its  library,  probably  the  oldest  in  the  world  at  that  time,  was  dispersed  or 
destroyed. l  These  were  the  people,  Jains  or  Buddhists,  whom,  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  I  have 
traced  from  Upper  India,  from  Balk  or  Samarcand,  one  part  between  the  45th  and  50th  degree  of 
North  latitude  by  Gaul  to  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  another  part  by  sea,  through  the  Pillars  of 
Hercules,  to  Corunna,  and  thence  to  Ireland,  under  the  name  of  Pelasgi  or  sailors  of  Phoenicia. 

APPENDIX    TO    BOOK    VII. 

In  the  history  of  Brutus  and  his  three  sons,  noticed  at  the  end  of  Chapter  VI.,  we  have  the 
universal  mythos  in  Britain,  in  imitation  of  Adam,  Cain,  Abel,  and  Seth — Noah,  Shem,  Ham, 
and  Japhet.  The  Welsh  game  of  Troy,  noticed  by  Pliny,  in  Ch.  VII.  Sect.  3,  proves  the  Trojan 
mythos  in  Britain  before  the  time  of  the  Romans.  With  this  may  be  classed  a  medal  of  the 
Saviour  found  in  Wales  with  the  Hebrew  inscription,  in  Fig.  26,  described  by  Roland  in  his 
Mona  Antiqua,2  which  may  rank  with  the  Crucifix,  the  Lamb,  and  the  Elephant,  or  Ganesa  at 
Brechin,  3  in  Scotland ;  and  with  a  ring  having  its  Ling-ioni,  its  Bulls  and  Cobra,  found  in  the 
same  country,  exhibited  by  the  Earl  of  Munster  to  the  Asiatic  Society,  and  described  in  Volume 
II.  art.  xxvi.  of  their  Transactions  (vide  my  plates,  Fig.  27) ;  and  with  the  Indian  Gods  Samnaut, 
Bood,  Om  or  Aum,  Eswara,  Cali,  Neith  or  Naut,  and  Creeshna,  in  Ireland,  described  in  Chapter 
V.  Section  XXVI.  of  the  Celtic  Druids  ;  and  with  the  Trimurti  of  Ireland,  Criosan,  Biosena,  and 
Sheeva, 4  and  with  the  Culdees  or  Chaldaeans  in  every  part  of  the  British  isles. 


1  It  is  known  that  part  of  it  went  to  Douay  in  Flanders. 

*  Plate  V.  p.  93,  add.  p.  298.  a  Vide  Celtic  Druids,  plate  24.  *  Class.  Journal,  Vol.  III.  p-  1/9. 


3  D 


(    386    ) 


BOOK  VIII. 
CHAPTER   I, 

JEWISH  PENTATEUCH  :  PUBLICATION  FORCED. — JEWS  A  HINDOO  OR  PERSIAN  TRIBE. — NAME  OP  PHOENICIA 
AND  SYRIA. — REASON  OF  ABRAHAM'S  MIGRATION. — ABAR1S,  MEANING  OF.  —  YADUS  A  TRIBE  OF  JEWS. — 
GOD  CALLED  BY  GENTILE  NAMES,  BUT  ALWAYS  MALE.  —  DIFFICULTY  IN  THE  METEMPSYCHOSIS.  —  DR. 
HYDE   SHEWS   ABRAHAM   TO    HAVE    BEEN   A   BRAHMIN. 

1 .  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  any  person  who  has  read  the  preceding  part  of  this  work, 
of  the  very  extraordinary  manner  in  which  the  Jews  appear  to  have  been,  as  it  were,  insulated 
amidst  the  surrounding  nations.  If  we  may  believe  the  literal  sense  of  the  Bible,  (for  a  short  time, 
the  Persians  excepted,)  they  were  always  at  secret  enmity  or  open  war  with  their  neighbours,  the 
Gentiles,  or  the  idolaters,  as,  by  way  of  reproach,  they  are  generally  called.  By  the  Greeks  they 
were  scarcely  noticed ;  known  they  certainly  were  j  but  probably  their  doctrines  were  first  made 
public  by  the  translation  of  their  Pentateuch,  in  the  time  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  and  its  conse- 
quent publication,  which  was  so  abhorrent  to  the  feelings  of  the  Jews,  that  a  solemn  fast  to  atone 
for  the  sin  was  established  on  the  anniversary  of  the  day  that  the  translation  was  finished.  This 
fast  continues  to  be  observed  annually  throughout  all  the  world,  where  there  are  any  of  the  Jewish 
nation.  Notwithstanding  what  is  said  of  Jesus  reading  in  the  synagogue,  which  admits  of  expla- 
nation so  as  not  to  be  adverse  to  my  opinion,  I  believe  that  anciently  the  Pentateuch  was  kept 
strictly  secret  by  the  Jews,  and  would  probably  have  been  lost  like  similar  works  of  different  tem- 
ples,— Diana,  Eleusis,  Delphi,  &c, — had  it  not  been  for  the  translation  forced  by  Ptolemy.  In 
Athens  they  had  a  prophetic  and  a  mysterious  book,  which  they  called  the  Testament,  to  which 
they  believed  the  safety  of  the  republic  was  attached.  They  preserved  it  with  so  much  care,  that 
among  all  their  writers  no  one  ever  dared  to  make  any  mention  of  it ;  and  the  little  we  know  of 
this  subject  has  been  collected  from  the  famous  oration  of  Dinarchus  against  Demosthenes,  whom 
he  accuses  of  having  failed  in  the  respect  due  to  this  ineffable  book,  so  connected  with  the  welfare 
and  safety  of  the  state. l  Manetho  notices  a  sacred  book  in  the  grand  Egyptian  library  of  Osyman- 
dias,  said  to  be  written  by  Pharoah  Suphis.2  This  is  Pharoah,  5o<£>o£,  the  Wise.  This  was  pro- 
bably a  similar  book  to  that  of  the  Athenians. 

No  doubt  every  division  of  the  universal  religion  had  its  secret  and  sacred  writings  as  well  as  the 
Jews,  only  they  were  never  made  public,  and  thus  were  lost.  To  the  peculiar  circumstance  which 
caused  Alexandria  to  be  almost  filled  with  Jews  and  Samaritans,  and  to  the  necessity  which  Ptole- 
my found  of  causing  their  books  to  be  translated  in  order  that  he  might  know  how  to  decide 
between  them  in  their  squabbles,  and  to  a  wish,  perhaps,  to  govern  them  by  their  own  laws,  we 
are,  probably,  indebted  for  our  knowledge  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  After  they  were 
once  translated  into  Greek,  there  could  be  no  longer  any  object  in  concealing  the  originals. 

1  Spinetto  on  Hierog.  p.  123.  *  Ibid.  p.  304. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  2.  387 

Of  the  reality  of  the  translation  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  but  whether  it  was  made  from  the  copy 
of  the  Samaritans  or  from  that  of  the  Jews  cannot  be  certainly  known  :  against  the  Samaritans, 
Josephus  is  not  evidence  :  but  as  the  Jews  allow  the  Samaritan  to  be  the  sacred  character,  from 
that  it  was  probably  taken  :  in  consequence  of  the  unintentional  corruption  of  the  LXX.  by 
Origen,  nothing  can  be  deduced  by  comparison  of  the  versions. 

Calmet  says,  the  Samaritans  allege  that  "  their  translation  was  preferred  before  that  of  the 
"  Jews,  and  laid  up  in  the  library  of  Alexandria."  This  seems  not  improbable.  The  Samaritan 
is  said  to  be  the  sacred  language  of  the  Jews  by  Josephus,  who,  in  this  case,  must  be  allowed  to 
be  an  unquestionable  authority,  because  it  is  evidence  against  himself  and  his  sect.  He  says  that 
the  Petalon, l  or  gold  plate  on  the  forehead  of  the  high  priest,  had  on  it  "  the  name  of  God  in 
"  sacred  characters.''  This  plate  was  in  existence  in  the  capitol  of  Rome  in  the  time  of  Origen, 
who  relates  that  the  letters  were  Samaritan.  Josephus  was  here  the  most  unwilling  of  witnesses, 
consequently  his  evidence  is  good,2  and  Origen's  is  the  same. 

2.  Christians  and  Jews  will  find  no  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  insulated  state  or  the  singu- 
larity of  the  Jews,  to  which  allusion  was  made  in  the  last  Section.  They  will  say  the  Israelites  were 
singular  because  they  were  the  elect  of  God — God's  chosen  people.  But  philosophers  will  not  be 
so  easily  satisfied,  and  perhaps  they  may  reply,  that  this  is  an  assumption  made  by  the  priests  of 
almost  every  nation  in  its  turn.  A  wish  may  also  exist  on  their  parts  to  discover  the  cause  of 
this  singularity  combined  with  the  general  family  likeness  which,  notwithstanding  their  peculiarity, 
may  be  perceived  in  their  ceremonies  and  doctrines  to  those  of  the  other  nations.  This  wished- 
for  cause  I  shall  now  proceed  to  shew  may  be  found  in  the  probable  fact,  that  they  were  a  tribe  of 
Hindoo  or  Persian  nomades  or  shepherds,  for  a  wandering  tribe  they  certainly  were — one  of  the 
sects  of  the  Hindoo  religion  after  it  divided  into  two,  i.  e.  those  of  the  Linga  and  Ioni,  or  Buddha 
and  Cristna,  or  perhaps  of  the  sect  of  the  Linga  after  the  separation,  but  before  the  reunion  of  the 
two.  I  think  this  theory  will  account  for  most  of  the  difficulties  with  which  we  meet,  and  that 
there  will  not  be  a  disagreement  from  the  Hindoo  religion,  in  its  probable  original  purity,  greater 
than  may  be  expected  to  have  arisen  from  the  lapse  of  time,  the  change  of  place,  revolutions,  and 
other  circumstances.  I  incline  to  the  opinion  that  it  was  of  the  religion  of  the  followers  of  the 
Linga  after  the  separation.  Thus  they  were  the  followers  of  the  God  Ie-pati  or  law,  in  opposition 
to  the  Goddess  Parvati  or  Venus,  Astarte  or  Asteroth,  &c.  They  were  the  followers  of  the  male 
Io,  in  opposition  to  the  female  Io,  of  Syria;  for  the  Io,  as  we  have  seen,  was  of  both  sexes.  The 
To  of  Syria,  was  probably  nothing  more  than  the  lr\  or  Iso)  of  Moses,  with  the  peculiar  Syriac 
dialect,  which  changed  the  e  into  the  o. 

We  are  told  that  Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham,  originally  came  from  an  Eastern  country  called 
Ur,  of  the  Chaldees  or  Culdees,  to  dwell  in  a  district  called  Mesopotamia.  Some  time  after  he  had 
dwelt  there,  Abraham,  or  Abram,  or  Brahma,  and  his  wife  Sara  or  Sarai,  or  Sara-iswati,  left  their 
father's  family  and  came  into  Canaan.  If  the  letter  a  be  changed,  by  metathesis,  from  the  end  of 
the  word  Brahma  to  the  beginning,  as  is  very  often  practised  in  the  oriental  languages,  we  shall 
have  correctly  Abrahm ;  or  the  a  might  be  only  the  emphatic  Chaldee  article,  making  the  Braham 
or  Brahmin.  The  word  Iswati,  in  the  second  name,  is  now  said  to  be  merely  a  term  of  honour,  like 
Lady  Sarah.3  The  identity  of  Abraham  and  Sara  with  Brahma  and  Saraiswati  was  first  pointed 
out  by  the  Jesuit  missionaries. 


'  I  apprehend  that  the  use  of  the  word  UbtoKov  here,  exhibits  a  remnant  of  the  first  style  of  writing  on  leaves.    The 
sacred  word  must  have  been  written  on  a  golden  leaf— folium  or  r\hv  ole. 

8  Antiq.  B.  iii.  Chap.  vii.  Sect.  6.  3  j  shall  explain  it  hereafter. 

3d2 


388  JEWS   A    HINDOO   OR   PERSIAN   TRIBE. 


« 


Mr.  Paxton,  in  his  illustrations  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  describes  the  striking  similarity  of 
"  manners,  habits,  and  customs,  observable  between  the  Israelite  and  Hindoo  nations.  Abraham 
"  is  said  to  be  the  son  of  a  Hindoo  Rajah,  who,  abandoning  his  caste  and  native  land,  which  was 
"  Mesopotamia,  went  to  reside  in  a  foreign  country."  *  This  Mesopotamia,  as  it  was  intimated 
in  the  last  book,  must  evidently  be  the  country  called  Doab,2  or  the  Mesopotamia  of  India,  the 
same  as  the  Greek,  Me<ro£  7roTct[x.o$.  This  is  probably  meant  for  Matura  on  the  Jumna,  in  the 
country  between  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges.  They  came  ultimately  into  a  country  which  they 
called  Canaan,  probably  from  a  place  in  India,  which  had  the  same  name,  noticed  by  Dr. 
Buchanan.3 

3.  In  Isaiah  xxx.  4,  the  city  of  Maturea,  or  Heliopolis,  is  called  Din  hns ;  in  the  Vulgate, 
Hanes,  and  in  the  LXX.  ^Heliopolis.  Mr.  Bryant  observes  that  the  place  called  Hanes  is,  by 
Stephanus  Byzantinus,  called  Inys  or  IviHrcros,  and  by  Herodotus  Irjvitrog.  Now  it  is  remarkable 
that  this  was  the  very  city,  to  which  the  <£HN  or  <£  hnn  or  Phoenix,  came  at  the  end  of  every  600 
years  to  burn  itself,  on  the  altar  of  the  temple  of  the  sun.  But  under  the  circumstance  of  the 
Hebrews  having  no  letter  which  answered  to  the  Coptic  or  Egyptian  letter  <£,  the  word,  by  them, 
may  have  been  rendered  by  the  letter  n  h.  This  must  also  suppose  the  Egyptian  language,  when 
the  name  Phanes  was  given  to  the  city,  to  be  older  than  the  Syrian  of  the  time  of  Isaiah.  But 
when  what  I  have  said  and  shall  say  respecting  the  antiquity  of  the  language  of  African  Ethiopia 
is  considered,  this  will  be  found  to  be  of  no  consequence.  As  Phoenicia  was  imagined  to  have  had 
its  name  from  a  hero,  Phoenix,   so  Syria  is  said  to  have  had  its  name  from  a  man  called  Syrus,  4 


1  Franklin  on  Buddhists  and  Jeynes,  p.  10. 

*  In  the  Indian  language  ad  means  river,  like  aub  in  Danaub,  and  Do  is  the  Latin  duo.  The  whole  means,  in  the 
Indian  language,  country  of  the  two  rivers.  Here  in  the  do  is  a  beautiful  and  incontrovertible  example  of  the  necessity 
of  having  recourse  to  mixed  etymology. 

3  Franklin  on  the  Jeynes,  p.  3.     I  have  said,  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  Canaanites  meant  traders.    I  have  changed 
my  opinion  on  this  subject.    They  were  traders  no  doubt,  but  they  were  called  from  the  Hebrew  p3  knn,  and  jo  kin, 
Natura,  omnium  genetrix,  et  directrix.     Hence  the  Kann  or  Diana  of  the  Etruscans,  and  the  p>3  kiun  or  round  cakes, 
in  honore  Reginse  Ccelorum  ;  hence  the  Chann  or  the  Jana  of  the  ancient  Romans ;  as  Chiun  became  Juno.     (Ouse- 
ley's  Collect.  Vol.  III.  No.  II.  p.  120.)     It  was  closely  connected  with  the  Chaones  or  Caones,  and  had  the  same 
meaning  as  the  Apollo  Cunnius.     The  Sun  God  of  Egypt  is  called  Kan,  by  Diodorus  Siculus  :  and  Col.  Tod  has 
observed,  that  the  Lotus  is  equally  sacred  to  the  Kan  of  Egypt  and  Kaniya  of  India.     (Hist.  Raj.  p.  538.)     In 
Deuteronomy  Moses  orders  the  Israelites  to  destroy  the  names  of  the  divinities  of  the  land.     Solomon  Jarchi  says,  this 
was  done  by  giving  them  a  contemptible  name.    This  was  the  origin  of  Babylon — city  of  Confusion.     In  the  same 
way,  and  for  the  same  reason,  probably,  Canaan  was  a  sectarian  name  of  reproach  with  the  Jews.    In  Greece  BffKoi 
(vide  Etym.  M.  in  voce)  signified  Mount  Olympus  or  Heaven,  and  Bs-BvjXo?  any  place  abominated  or  unholy.   (Nimrod, 
p.  ii.  Sup.  Ed.)      Hence  Babylon  perhaps.     The  great  disorder  in  ancient  history  has  arisen,  in  some  measure, 
from  the  custom  of  calling  princes  by  new  names — by  titles  of  honour.  This  is  carried  to  such  an  extent  in  the  Birman 
empire,  that  a  native  of  that  country  shudders  at  the  idea  of  calling  his  prince  by  his  proper  name.     (Asiatic  Res.) 
Nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  this,  or  something  very  similar  to  it,  and  equally  embarrassing  to  the  historian, 
was  practised  in  the  East  in  ancient  times.     We  find  Abraham,  Jacob,  Joshua,  and  many  others,  changed  their  names ; 
and  in  these  cases  the  text  of  the  history  tells  us  why,  or  at  least  when,  they  changed  them ;  but  what  should  we  have 
done  if  we  had  not  had  that  information  ?     We  should  then  have  known  these  people  by  their  new  names  at  one  time, 
and  by  their  old  ones  at  another — in  fact,  not  have  known  them  at  all.  Thus  it  may  well  be  supposed  to  be  with  Persian 
and  other  names,  in  the  Persian  histories,  in  which  it  cannot  be  expected  that  the  explanation  can  be  given.  There  must 
always  have  been  a  great  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  father  and  son  in  historical  accounts,  and  different  nations 
had  recourse  to  different  expedients.     I  have  no  doubt  that  judicial  astrology  had  a  great  influence  in  this  matter,  for 
it  seems  to  have  been  a  practice  in  all  nations  to  give  children  names  in  reference  to  their  horoscope,  or  the  calcu- 
lation of  their  nativity  according  to  the  planets,  which  were  sacred  names,  and  were  borne  in  addition  to  their  paternal 
names. 

*  Syncellus,  p.  150. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  4.  389 

one  of  the  earth-born  people.  But  Mr.  Bryant1  says,  Sur,  Sour,  whence  was  formed  2ugo£, 
signified  the  sun.  It  was  the  same  as  Sehor  of  Egypt,  called  Xsigiog  by  the  Greeks.  The  city 
of  Ur  in  Chaldea  was  sometimes  called  Sur,  and  Syncellus  says  Abraham  was  born  in  the  city 
Sur.  Stephanus  says  Sur  was  common  to  many  places.  From  this  it  seems  that  Abraham  may 
have  come  from  an  oriental  Sur  or  Suria. 

But  Abraham  or  the  Brahmin  came  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  (this  may  have  been  the  peninsula 
of  Saurastra  or  of  Zoroaster  or  Sura-stan,)  which  has  been  supposed  to  mean  the  fire  of  the  Chal- 
dees, alluding  to  their  fire  worship.  Fire  worship,  however,  was  not  objected  to  by  Moses,  but 
was  continued  by  him  as  much  as  by  other  nations ;  for  it  was  adopted  by  no  nations,  in  their 
temples,  except  merely  as  an  emblem  of  a  superior  Being.  We  have  seen  just  now,  that  Abra- 
ham was  said  by  some  authors  to  have  come  from  a  place  called  Sur  as  well  as  Ur  ;  and  Sur  meant 
Beeve  or  Bull :  see  Book  IV.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  8.  All  this  is  consistent,  for  Sur  was  called  from 
the  Bull,  Ur  in  the  old  language  being  the  origin  of  the  word  Urus  or  Beeve.  After  what  has 
been  said  respecting  the  identity  of  the  ancient  languages  of  Italy  and  India,  I  feel  no  hesitation 
in  locating  Latin  words  in  India.  And  thus  I  am  led  to  the  conclusion,  that  Abraham's  family 
may  have  come  away  from  his  country  to  avoid  the  adoration  of  the  Bull,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
Yoni.2  We  have  found  the  Agnus  or  Aries  in  the  Yajna  sacrifice — the  Agni  construed  to  mean 
Fire,  the  Agnus  Lamb  overlooked.  In  the  same  manner  we  find  the  word  Ur  called  fire,  the 
meaning  of  Urus  or  bull  being  overlooked.  The  circumstance  of  the  Agni  being  only  known  at 
this  time  to  mean^re  is  a  proof  that  the  Sanscrit  language  has  been  changed,  and  that  we  ought  to 
go  to  an  older  language,  its  parent,  or  rather  to  it  before  its  change.  No  one,  I  think,  who  looks  at 
the  word  Agni  and  considers  that,  in  the  Yajna  sacrifice  or  the  sacrifice  of  the  Agni,  a  lamb  is  slain, 
and  that  the  Agni  always  rides  a  lamb,  or  if  on  foot  carries  a  standard  bearing  a  lamb,  and  the  other 
circumstances  pointed  out  by  me  in  Book  V.  Chap.  X.,  can  doubt  that  the  word  Agni  has  origi- 
nally meant  lamb.  I  do  not  think  that  the  least  appearance  of  the  worship  of  the  Bull  can  ever  be 
perceived  in  the  tribe  of  Abraham  until  their  return  from  Egypt.  But  the  sacrifice  of  the  Ram  is 
ordained  by  God  in  lieu  of  the  human  sacrifice  of  Isaac.  There  was  a  district  of  India  called  Ur 
or  Urii  or  Uriana  on  the  Jumna,  which  we  shall  find  was  the  place  from  which  Abraham  came. 

4.  Abraham  and  his  family  or  clan  probably  left  their  country  on  account  of  what  he  truly  con- 
sidered the  corruption  of  the  religion,  viz.  the  reconciliation  or  the  coalition  which  the  Brahmin 
books  say  took  place  between  the  followers  of  the  Linga  and  those  of  the  Ioni.  He  seems  to 
have  been  of  the  sect  of  the  Linga  alone.  When  he  first  came  into  Canaan,  the  natives  with  their 
Canaanitish  king-priest  Melchizedek,  were  of  his  religion — that  of  Brahma  and  Persia.  When  his 
tribe  returned  from  Egypt  under  the  command  of  Joshua  or  the  Saviour,  to  which  only  they  had 
been  driven  by  famine,  and  where  it  is  evident  that  they  never  were  comfortable,  they  found  the 
Canaanites  with  their  Ionic  cities  (lona  at  Antioch  and  Iona  at  Gaza)  had  become  corrupted, 
they  had  fallen  into  the  heresy  of  Babylon  and  the  Culdees,  the  measure  of  their  iniquity 
was  full,  and  they  conquered  them.  The  Canaanites  forfeited  their  dominions,  and  the  Israelites 
seized  them,  and  under  the  Saviour,  the  son  of  Nave,  restored  the  temple  of  Melchizedek  on 
Gerizim,3  which  was    afterward   removed  by  David  and  Soleiman  or  Solomon  to   Jerusalem. 

1  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  446.  »  Bulls  of  Bashan,  Calves.of  Bethel  and  Dan. 

3  Har-Geriziin,  probably,  was  so  called  after  some  sacred  Mount  in  India.  Ar,  in  the  old  language  of  Upper  India 
as  well  as  in  Hebrew,  is  constantly  applied  to  sacred  mounts,  indeed  to  all  mounts — as  Ar-buddha.  Ar,  in  Sanscrit, 
means  hill,  and  Gir  circle.  Azim,  in  Arabic,  means  greatness,  a  title  of  eminence  :  hence  Ar-ger-izim  might  mean 
hill  of  the  great  circle.  The  great  circle  consisted  of  the  circle  of  stones  set  up  by  Joshua,  and  was  the  Proseucha,  the 
remains  of  which  Eplphanius  found  on  Gerizim,  as  I  have  already  mentioned.  Hebrew  names  are  not  uncommon  in 
India :  the  Baithana  of  Ptolemy  is  so  clear  that  it  cannot  be  mistaken.     Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  199. 


390  reason  of  Abraham's  migration. 

This  shews  us  why  the  Israelites  were  a  peculiar  people  iu  the  midst  of  nations  of  enemies  on  every 
side — hating  all  nations  except  the  Persians,  who,  in  the  time  of  Cyrus  and  Ahasuerus,  were  of 
their  own  religion,  and  who,  without  minding  their  domestic  feud,  restored  their  temples  both  on 
(jerizim  and  at  Jerusalem.  The  Israelites  exhibit  several  remarkable  points  of  resemblance  to  the 
followers  of  Brahma  and  Cristna  at  this  day.  Their  religions  are  mutually  intermixed  with  many 
of  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  their  predecessors,  the  Buddhists.  The  first  book  of  Genesis  is 
Buddhist ;  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  at  the  vernal  equinox  or  at  the  passover,  is  clearly  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Yajna,  offered  by  the  followers  of  Cristna  or  Brahma.  This  accounts  for  the  hatred  of 
Moses  to  the  Bull,  and  his  partiality  to  the  Lamb.  Jeroboam  and  the  Samaritans  fell  off  to  the 
Bull  and  the  Queen  of  heaven — into  the  union — and  thus,  to  the  Ioudahites,  became  heretics. 

I  have  said  above,  that  Abraham  came  from  India  or  Persia.  It  is  very  possible  that  the  tribe 
might  originally  have  come  from  India  and  have  resided  a  long  time  in  Persia,  before  it  moved 
forwards  into  Canaan.  It  is  very  possible  that  great  numbers  of  persons  constituted  the  tribe  and 
came  into  Syria,  and  went  thence  into  Egypt,  though  the  history  of  the  family  of  Abraham  only  is 
given.  I  think  this  is  not  contrary  to  the  fair  meaning  of  the  history,  and  removes  some 
difficulties. 

Although  the  ancients  of  the  West  do  not  seem  to  have  known  much  of  the  doctrines  or  sacred 
hooks  of  the  Jews,  yet  Abraham  was  well  known  to  them  ;  several  persons,  both  Greek  and  Ori- 
ental, having  written  respecting  him.  They  all  agree  that  he  was  not  a  native  of  Syria,  but  that 
he  came  thither  from  the  East.  If  we  can  believe  Mr.  Faber  and  the  Desatir,  which  must,  I  think, 
be  genuine,  (however  much  it  may  have  been  corrupted  by  Moshani  in  rendering  it  out  of  the  old 
language  into  Persian,)  the  adoration  of  the  Bull  and  Buddhism  first  prevailed  in  Persia ;  but  this, 
there  is  reason  to  believe,  was  succeeded  by  Cristna  and  the  Lamb  which  might  have  come  in  with 
Gemshid.  The  ancients  would  say  that  from  Brahma,  who  came  into  Persia,  came  Brahminism, 
and  the  Brahmins,  but  yet  there  would  have  been  no  Brahma.  Thus,  when  the  Israelitish  tribe, 
who  were  a  sect  of  Brahmins,  came  into  Syria,  they  would  merely  say  that  Abram  came.  The 
whole  history  of  Abram  or  Abraham,  that  is  D-QN  Abrm  or  Dn~QX  Abrem,  has  a  most  mythological 
appearance.  The  reason  given  for  changing  his  name  in  Gen.  xvii.  5,  is  very  unsatisfactory,1  and 
I  am  induced  to  think  that  it  looks  very  like  the  reason  of  a  person  writing  and  not  understanding 
the  meaning  of  the  name ;  or,  which  is  still  more  likely,  not  choosing  to  give  the  meaning  of  it, 
under  the  change  of  which  some  mystery  was  probably  concealed.  The  word  DH  em  means  multi- 
tude, and  the  word  2J*  ab  may  mean  father :  but  -ox  abr  never  means  father.  Now  suppose  the 
letter  x  a  after  the  manner  of  the  Chaldee  to  be  emphatic,  to  mean  the,  and  the  word  D"0  brm  to 
mean  the  same  as  the  Brahm  of  India,  whatever  that  might  be  :  and  suppose  this  -o  br  the  first 
syllable  of  the  Brahme-Maia  to  mean,  as  Mr.  Whiter  says  it  does  mean  in  all  old  languages,  cre- 
ator ox  former,  giver  of  forms ;  then,  by  adding  to  it  the  word  DH  em,  we  get  the  meaning  given  by 
the  author  of  Genesis,  and  this  in  a  way  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  remainder  of  the  book,  though 
perhaps  mystical  enough.  I  again  repeat,  that  according  to  the  common  idiom  of  the  Hebrew, 
Abraham  cannot  mean  father  of  a  multitude.  Dr.  Hales  says,  that  Ab-ram  meant  "a  high 
"  father,"  and  Abraham  "  a  father  of  a  multitude  of  nations  :"  from  in  ab  "  alhther,"  31  rb  in 
Chaldee  "  great,"  and  Dn  em  the  abridgment  of  pD.l  emun,  "  multitude."2     It  has  been  thought 

1  The  change  made  in  the  name  of  Abraham  was  bv  the  addition  of  the  vowel  n  e,  the  first  name  not  having  a  vowel. 
This  i>  evidently  mystical.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that,  formerly,  the  vowels  were  only  used  when  it  was  necessary 
to  distinguish  one  word  from  another  which  had  the  tame  consonants,  but  a  different  meaning.  In  this  case  the  vowel 
in  one  of  the  words  was  inserted  to  distinguish  it,  as  the  modern  Jews  have  since  done  with  their  points. 

*  Chron.  Vol.  I.  p.  131. 


BOOK  VIII.   CHAPTER  I.   SECTION  5.  391 

that  the  word  Abraham  had  the  meaning  of  stranger.  This  will  apply  to  the  Brahmins  as  well  as 
to  Abraham,  because  they  are  considered  to  have  come  into  India  from  the  North.  The  reader 
must  remember  that  I  am  supposing  Moses  to  have  written  many  hundred  years  after  the  arrival 
of  the  tribe  from  the  East,  and  that,  in  the  course  of  the  events  of  which  I  treat,  time  enough  had 
passed  for  the  languages  to  have  materially  changed — an  event  which  we  know  to  have  taken 
place.  Then  I  think  there  is  nothing  against  our  going  back  to  a  language  common  to  both  for 
the  origin  of  the  word :  for  the  farther  back  we  go,  the  nearer,  of  course,  all  the  languages  would 
be  to  one  another. 

Let  me  not  be  called  a  wicked  atheist  for  seeing  the  likeness  between  Brahma  and  Abraham  ;  for 
what  says  the  Rev.  and  learned  Joseph  Hager,  D.  D.  ? l  "  As  the  Indian  alphabets  are  all  syllabic, 
"  and  every  consonant  without  a  vowel  annexed  is  understood  to  have  an  a  joined  to  it,  there  is  no 
"  wonder  if  from  Abraham  was  made  Brahma  j  and  thus  we  see  other  Persian  words  in  the  Sans- 
"  crit  having  an  a  annexed,  as  deva  from  div,  appa  from  ab,  deuda  from  deud,"  &c.2  Dr.  Hyde 
says,  that  Ibrahim  or  Abraham,  by  the  Persians,  is  never  called  otherwise  than  Ibrahim  or  Abra- 
ham Zerdusht,*  that  is  evidently  Zerdusht  the  Brahmin.  All  this  I  think  is  confirmed  by  a  fact 
which  we  learn  from  Damascenus,  that  Abraham  first  reigned  at  Damascus ;  and  Alexander  Poly- 
histor,  who  lived  about  ninety  years  before  Christ,  and  Eupolemus,  who  lived  about  250  years 
before  Christ,4  say  that  he  came  and  resided  in  Egypt  at  Hcliopolis,  that  is  Maturea,  and  there 
taught  astrology,  which  he  did  not  profess  to  have  invented,  but  to  have  learnt  from  his  ancestors, 
of  course  in  the  East.  This  is  confirmed  by  Artapanus.  It  seems  not  unreasonable  to  suppose 
that  by  means  of  Abraham,  Maturea  acquired  its  Indian  name, — the  name  of  the  birth-place  of 
Cristna. 

5.  Mr.  Bryant  thinks5  that  Abaris  in  Egypt  had  its  name  from  the  word  -Qy  obr.  This  seems 
not  unlikely  :  as  it  was  here  that  the  Israelites  dwelt,  it  does  not  seem  improbable  that  it  had  its 
name  from  them — as  I  have  shewn,  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  they  had  their  name  from  the 
word  my  obr. 

"  The  city  of  Abaris  was  called  Sethron  and  urbs  Typhonia :  Seth  being  (as  Plutarch  assures 
"  us)  the  Egyptian  name  of  Typhon,  the  great  enemy  of  their  Gods."6  It  seems  to  me  to  be  dif- 
ficult to  say  that  Abaris  was  not  the  city  of  Maturea  of  Abaris,  or  >"Qy  obri,  the  strangers — of 
Heliopolis  of  On,  or  of  destruction,  as  it  was  called,  or  Typhon.  The  names  of  this  city  curiously 
confirm  my  doctrines.  It  was  called  On,  or  the  city  of  the  generative  power  of  the  sun  ;  it  was 
also  called  the  city  of  Typhon,  or  of  destruction,  because  destruction  was  regeneration ;  it  was  also 
the  city  of  the  Sun,  because  the  sun  was  both  Creator  and  Destroyer.  The  sacred  books  tell  us 
why  Abraham  went  into  Egypt,  and  the  Gentile  authors  find  him  there,  and  thus  confirm  the  fact, 
and  the  finding  this  Brahmin  and  his  tribe  at  Maturea  is  very  striking.  All  this  is  confirmed  in 
various  ways  by  Eupolemus,  Berosus,  Philo,  and  Josephus,  and  indirectly  also,  I  think  I  may  say, 
by  Sanchoniathon. 7  When  Alexander  says  that  the  Heliopolitan  priests  made  use  of  the  astrology 
of  Abraham,  it  is  the  same  as  to  say  of  the  astrology  of  the  Brahmins.8  And  when  the  Greek 
Orpheus  says,  that  God  of  old  revealed  himself  to  one  Chaldaean  only,  I  quite  agree  with  Hornius,  9 
that  it  is  probable  the  person  called  Abraham  is  meant,  whether  he  was  really  a  person,  or  a  sect, 
or  a  system.  I  beg  leave  to  observe,  en  passant,  that  from  Sanchoniathon  we  have  in  substance 
the  same  Cosmogony  for  the  Phoenicians  as  is  found  in  Genesis.     On  this  account  the  genuineness 


1  Diss.  Bab.  Ins.  Lond.  1801.  *  See  Paolino's  Amarasinha,  p.  12;  Symes's  Embassy  to  Ava,  ch.  xiv. 

3  Hyde  de  Rel.  vet.  Pers.  Cap.  ii.  et.  iii.  *  Maurice,  Anc.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  p.  438.                 4  Vol.  III.  p.  238. 

6  Cumb.  Orig.  Gen.  p.  47.  '  Gale,  Vol.  II.  Book  i.  Ch.  i.  §  8,  9,  &c.                          8  lb.  §  9. 
9  Hist.  Philos.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  x. 


392  ".      YADUS    A   TRIBE   OF   JEWS. 

of  his  work  has  been  doubted,  but  I  think  without  sufficient  reason,  as  the  reader  must  perceive.  » 
Josephus  and  Plutarch  think,  that  the  Phoenician  shepherds,  said  to  be  driven  out  of  Egypt,  were 
the  Israelites ;  but  what  Bishop  Cumberland  has  written  upon  Sanchoniathon's  account,  has  nearly 
satisfied  me,  that  these  people  must  have  been  expelled  more  than  three  hundred  years  before. 
The  circumstance  of  these  Phoenicians  being  able  to  conquer  and  hold  possession  of  Egypt,  shews 
that  Phoenicia  (and,  I  suppose,  of  course,  its  capital  Sidon)  must  have  been  a  very  great  and  power- 
ful state  before  the  time  of  Abraham. 2  I  think  these  shepherds  must  have  been  the  Palli,  or  Phi- 
listines, who  came  from  the  border  of  the  iErethrean  sea,  and  at  first  from  the  peninsula  of  Sau- 
restrene  or  Saurastra,  which  perhaps  means  country  of  Zoroaster. 

6.  J  will  now  state  another  fact,  which,  coming  from  the  quarter  whence  we  have  it,  cannot  be 
disputed  on  account  of  any  interest  or  system.  The  tribe  of  Cristna  had  a  name,  noticed  by  me 
before  in  Book  V.  Chap.  X.  Sect.  2,  which  is  very  remarkable.  Captain  Wilford  says,  "  The 
"  Yadus,  his  own  tribe  and  nation,  were  doomed  to  destruction  for  their  sins,  like  the  descendants 
"  of  Yahuda  or  Yuda,  which  is  the  true  pronunciation  of  Juda.3  They  all  fell,  in  general,  by 
"  mutual  wounds,  a  few  excepted,  who  lead  through  lam  bu-dwipa,  a  miserable  and  wretched  life. 
"  There  are  some  to  be  found  in  Guzarat,  but  they  are  represented  as  poor  and  wretched."4  Mr. 
Maurice  says,  "  The  Yadavas  were  the  most  venerable  emigrants  from  India ;  they  were  the 
"  blameless  and  pious  Ethiopians,5  whom  Homer  mentions,  and  calls  the  remotest  of  mankind. 
"  Part  of  them,  say  the  old  Hindu  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."6  The  fact  of 
part  of  the  tribe  yet  remaining  in  existence,  is  one  of  the  pieces  of  circumstantial  evidence  which 
I  consider  invaluable.  It  cannot  be  the  produce  of  forgery,  and  couples  very  well  with  the  two 
Sions,  two  Merus,  &c,  &c.  It  is  on  circumstances  of  this  kind  that  I  ground  my  system.  They 
surpass  all  written  evidence,  for  they  cannot  have  been  forged.  This  emigrating  tribe  of  Yadu  or 
Yuda,  we  shall  find  of  the  first  importance,  for  they  were  no  other  than  the  Jews. 

Porphyry,  in  his  book  called  Hzpt  leftaicov,  quoted  by  Eusebius, 7  makes  Saturn  to  be  called 
Israel.  His  words  are  these  :  Koouog  roivvv,  ov  Qomxsg  Iorpari\  7rpo<ra.yopv8<ri.  Then  he  adds, 
that  the  same  Saturn  had  by  a  nymph  called  Ava)@ger,  an  only  son,  ov,  $<a  rsro,  IesS  exatev, 
whom,  for  this,  they  call  lend,  as  he  is  so  called  to  this  day,  by  the  Phoenicians.  This  only  son, 
he  adds,  was  sacrificed  by  his  father.  Bochart8  says,  "  Thus  Ieud  amongst  the  Hebrews  is  *vr? 
"  (ihidj  Iehid,  which  is  the  epithet  given  to  Isaac,9  concerning  whom  it  is  evident  that  Porphyry 
"  writes."  Bochart  is  followed  by  Stillingfleet, 10  who  says,  u  Abraham  is  here  called  by  the 
"  name  of  his  posterity,  Israel,  Isaac  Jeoud.  So  Gen.  xxii.  2  :  Take  thy  son :  *in»  ihd  is  the 
"  same  with  the  Phoenician  Joud."     This  is  again  confirmed  by  Vossius. " 

There  is,  I  think,  no  difficulty  in  finding  here  the  Iudai  or  tribe  of  Yuda  of  the  Hindoos  long 
before  the  Jews  of  Western  Syria  could  have  taken  that  name  from  one  of  the  sons  of  Jacob, 
called  Judah, — a  name  which  cannot  have  been  first  derived  from  him,  because  it  is  clear  that  they 
had  the  epithet  long  before  he  was  born — his  grandfather  Isaac  having  borne  it. 


1  Montfaucon,  Vol.  II.  p.  245,  thinks  Sanchoniathon  a  forgery,  and  doubts  of  his  translator  Philo  Byblius.  But  his 
reasons  seem  feeble :  it  must  remain  doubtful.  The  work  of  Sanchoniathon  was  thought  spurious  by  Basnage,  Hist. 
Jews,  Book  iii.  Ch.  xxvii.  p.  251. 

2  Cum.  San.  Rem.  I.  p.  109.  3  It  ought  to  be  mirP  ieude  or  ieu-de,  which  means  the  holy  leu. 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  35.  *  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  II.  p.  262.  6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  368. 

7  Prapar.  Evang.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  ix.  8  Can.  Liv.  ii.  Ch,  ii.  fol.  790.  9  Gen.  xxii.  2. 

10  Origin.  §.  B.  iii.  C.  v.  »  Vide  Gale,  Court  Gent.  Vol.  I.  Book  ii.  Ch.  i. 


BOOK  VIII.      CHAPTER    I.     SECTION   6.  393 

Stillingfleet  and  Bochart  observe  that  mniy-jn  hn-onbrt,  avwfigsr,  means  conceiving  by  grace. 
Respecting  the  Anobret  of  Sanchoniathon,  Vallancey  has  given  a  copy  of  a  very  extraordinary 
Irish  MS.  with  a  translation  of  it,  in  which  an  Irish  king's  wife  is  said  to  bring  forth  a  white  lamb, 
whence  she  was  called  Uanabhreit,  i.  e.  bringing  forth  a  white  lamb.  This  distressed  her  very 
much ;  but  she  again  conceived  and  brought  forth  a  son,  when  she  was  told  by  the  priest  that 
her  womb  was  consecrated,  and  the  lamb  must  be  sacrificed  as  her  first-born,  for  her  ceanin  (pp 
qnin)  cion-iuda  ox  purification  of  her  first-born.1  I  quite  agree  with  Vallencey  that  this  can  be  no 
monkish  forgery  of  the  eleventh  century.  I  think  it  decidedly  proves,  first,  that  the  Irish  did 
really  come  from  Phoenicia  ;  and,  secondly,  that  Sanchoniathon  is  not  a  forgery.  But  the  proper 
meaning  of  |'3p  qnin  Cion-iuda  is  evidently  not  what  Vallencey  gives  above,  viz.  for  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  first-born,  but  for  the  salvation  of  Juda  of  Sion.  The  whole  story  is  exceedingly 
curious.  The  son  she  brought  forth  was  called  Aodh-Slaine,  i.  e.  because  he  was  saved  from  the 
sacrifice.  I  think  Aodh-Slaine  is  the  same  as  -pit*  izhk,  though  it  is  so  much  corrupted  as  scarcely 
to  be  discoverable.  That  the  history  of  the  sacrifice  is  of  the  nature  of  a  mythos,  or  fable,  or 
parable,  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  a  doctrine  is,  I  think,  very  clear,  and  I  think  the  doctrine  also 
is  clear.  The  first  object  was  to  abolish  human  sacrifices  by  the  substitution  of  the  Lamb,  which 
Moses  afterward  did  better  by  a  redemption-price  ;  the  next  object  was  to  inculcate  the  absolute 
necessity  of  obeying  without  any,  even  the  slightest,  doubt  or  hesitation  the  orders  of  God — in 
other  words,  the  order  of  the  priest. 

That  we  should  find  the  name  of  Iudai  of  the  sect,  in  the  father  of  the  twelve  tribes,  is  not 
surprising,  and  accords  well  with  what  I  have  suggested.  The  word  Jew  is  a  mere  Anglicism,  and 
the  word  Yudi  or  Iudi  is  more  correctly  the  Hindoo  name,  come  from  where  it  would.  No 
doubt  it  might  come  from  the  name  of  a  son  of  Jacob  ;  but  still  this  must  have  been  at  second- 
hand, after  the  division  of  the  tribes.  It  is  most  probable  that  it  came  from  the  tribe  of  Iudia, 
as  the  head  of  the  tribe  seems  to  have  been  known  by  that  name,  as  I  have  before  stated,  many 
years  before  the  son  of  Jacob  was  born,  and  who  was  probably  so  called  after  his  ancestor.  When 
Porphyry  called  Isaac  by  the  epithet  loud,  he,  perhaps,  meant  Isaac  the  Ioud-ite,  or  Isaac  of  the 
tribe  of  loud  or  Yuda.  The  name  given  to  Jacob,  Israel  or  bt<~\VJ*  isral — notwithstanding  Cruden's 
attempt  to  explain  it  by  improperly  changing  one  of  the  letters — is  evidently  unknown.  "W>  isr  is 
the  name  of  the  book  of  Jasher,  which  has  been  construed  the  correct  book.  As  this  word 
gives  name  to  the  whole  tribe,  it  is  a  very  important  and  desirable  thing  to  ascertain  its  meaning. 
I  expect  it  will  be  discovered  in  the  East.  But,  perhaps,  it  may  only  mean  the  same  as  \CW'  isrun, 
an  upright  person  :  then  it  might  be,  the  great  upright  one. 

Bochart,  Gale,  and  many  other  of  our  learned  men,  think  the  Phoenicians  derived  their  letters, 
learning,  &c,  from  the  Jews.     This  is  easily  explained.     When  the  Israelitish  tribe  arrived  in 
Canaan  they  found  the  natives  professing  their  religion  in  all  its  first  principles.     It  might  be  of 
the  Indian  religion  before  the  division  about  the  Linga  and  Yoni  took  place,  or  when  it  partook  of 
both,  or  before  the  division  had  travelled  so  far  westwards.     However  this  might  be,  the  name  of 
Iotia,  borne  by  the  towns  of  Gaza  and  Antioch,  pretty  well  shews  that  it  became,  if  not  entirely, 
yet  in  a  great  measure,  Ionian  afterward.     This  easily  accounts  for  the  idea  of  Gale  and  Bochart, 
to  which,  without  it,  there  would  be  opposed  the  striking  fact,  that  we  scarcely  know  of  the  Phoe- 
nicians from  the  Jews  except  as  their  enemies ;  and  this  makes  greatly  against  the  Phoenicians 
having  borrowed  their  learning  from  them.     People  are  not  often  willing  to  learn  of  their  enemies. 
Abraham  is  said,  by  oriental  historians,  to  have  brought  the  knowledge  of  astronomy  to  the  Cana- 


1  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  p.  430. 
3e 


394  GOD    CALLED    BY    GENTILE   NAMES,   BUT   ALWAYS    MALE. 

anites  and  Egyptians.  It  may  have  been  the  astronomy  of  the  Brahmins  which  he  brought.  It  is 
not  unlikely,  that  though  the  Egyptians  and  Phoenicians  may  have  had  much  knowledge  before 
Abraham,  or  his  sect  or  tribe,  arrived,  he  may  have  brought  them  an  increase,  and  this  would  be 
quite  enough  to  authorize  his  successors  to  say  and  to  believe,  that  he  was  their  first  instructor. 
And  this  theory  accounts  for  the  similarity  between  the  writings  of  Sanchoniathon  and  the  book  of 
Genesis. 

Porphyry  (lib.  iv.  adversus  Christianos)  says,  "that  Sanchoniathon  and  Moses  gave  the  like  ac- 
"  count  of  persons  and  places ;  and  that  Sanchoniathon  extracted  his  account,  partly  out  of  the 
«'  annals  of  the  cities,  and  partly  out  of  the  book  reserved  in  the  temple,  which  he  received  from 
'*  Jerombalus, 1  priest  of  the  God  Jeuo,  i.  e.  Jao,  or  Jehovah."2  The  words  of  Porphyry  are,  as 
given  by  Eusebius,  rot  u7ro[j.vr}[A<xla.  7rapa  €Iegoju,0aX8  rs  Upscog  rs  §58  Iaa>,  All  this  shews 
that  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  tribe  of  Abraham  and  the  Phoenicians  were  the  same,  though 
they  themselves  might  be  of  different  sects.  The  system  established  by  Moses  confirmed  the  line 
of  separation  between  them.  His  great  anxiety  was  to  prevent  his  people  from  falling  into  the 
Tauric  and  Ionian  heresy,  the  heresy  of  Babylon,  of  Iona,  ancient  Antioch,  and  of  Iona  of  the  Phi- 
listines of  Gaza,  his  bitter  enemies.  To  prevent  them  from  relapsing  into  the  worship  of  the 
Bull-headed  Baal  and  Baaltis,  and  Bull-eyed  Juno  or  Asteroth,  the  queen  of  heaven,  he  endeavoured 
to  keep  them  to  the  religion  professed  by  Melchizedek,  to  the  worship  which  Abraham  brought, 
and  which  his  tribe  followed  at  Maturea  or  Heliopolis  of  Egypt,  to  the  worship  of  the  Saviour  or 
Messiah,  typified  by  the  Lamb  of  the  Zodiac,  in  India,  called  the  Saviour  or  Heri-Cristna;  in 
short  to  the  worship  of  the  Male  generative  principle.  We  have  seen  that  Yadu  was  said  in  India 
to  be  the  father  of  Cristna. 

7-  It  has  often  appeared  to  me  an  extraordinary  circumstance  that  the  God  of  Moses  should  be 
called  by  the  same  names  as  the  Gods  of  the  Gentiles — Adonis  and  Baal,  for  instance.  I  have  read 
that  the  Jews  count  in  the  Bible  thirty-two  names  of  God  ;  but  I  believe  in  no  case  whatever  will 
he  be  found  by  the  name  of  one  of  their  Goddesses.  Though  he  is  called  Baal,  he  is  not  called 
Baaltis.  If  I  be  right,  this  is  easily  accounted  for.  When  Abraham  arrived  in  Canaan  the  Ionian 
heresy  did  not  prevail,  and  he  had  no  objection  to  his  God  being  called  after  the  names  of  the  Gods 
of  the  single  male  principle,  or  perhaps  of  the  double  principle ;  but  he  utterly  rejected  the  Ionism 
and  the  idolatry,  its  general  concomitant,  into  which  Canaan  or  Syria  fell,  between  the  time  of  his 
tribe  going  into  Egypt  and  returning,  as  the  Hebrew  text  says,  after  upwards  of  four  hundred  years. 
When  the  tribe  left  Canaan  the  Ionic  principle  might  be  gaining  ground,  but  not  have  become  the 
prevailing  superstition.  When  the  Jews  returned,  increased  in  strength  and  sword  in  hand,  the 
name  of  the  towns  Iona,  shew  that  Ionism  prevailed.  As  Ihave  stated  before,  the  close  similarity 
between  Paganism  and  Judaism  is  not  only  admitted  by  Mr.  Faber,  but  is  descanted  on  by  him  at 
great  length ;  and,  after  shewing  the  absolute  insufficiency  of  all  theories  yet  promulgated  to  ac- 
count for  it,  he  says,  "  Judaism  and  Paganism  sprang  from  a  common  source ;  hence  their  close 
"  resemblance,  in  many  particulars,  is  nothing  more  than  might  have  been  reasonably  antici- 
"  pated."  3 

If  it  be  said  that  we  do  not  find  such  clear  marks  of  this  resemblance  in  the  books  of  the  Jews  a9 
we  ought  to  do,  I  reply,  we  every  where  find  the  worship  of  the  female  generative  power  repro- 
bated, under  the  name  of  Astaroth  of  the  Sidonians,  Queen  of  heaven,  E3»oa/nty3  bolesmim,  and 
O'fttiTirD^D  mlktesmim ;  and  the  Male  Jou,  or  Jupiter,4  extolled.    If  I  be  right,  it  is  evidently  the 


1  Jerombalus  is  probably  'Upos-o/MfraXoi;.  ....       _ 

2  Gale,  Court  of  Gent.  Book  iii.  Ch.  ii.  §.  i.,  Vol.  II.  Book.  i.  Ch.  iii.  §  viii.  3  Orig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  105. 
4  These  were  mere  dialectic  variations,  but  of  the  same  name. 


BOOK   Vfll.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION   8.  395 

object  of  the  Israelitish  books,  to  conceal  the  secret  doctrine  under  an  allegorical  history ;  and  it  is 
very  possible  that  the  real  truth  might  be  soon  forgotten  by  the  Jews,  who  contemplated  their  histo- 
ries with  only  the  narrow  views  and  eyes  of  sectaries. !  In  the  whole  of  the  Jewish  books  I  cannot 
discover  a  single  passage  indicative  of  a  tendency  to  tolerate  the  worship  of  the  Queen  of  heaven. 
If  ever  any  thing  like  an  attempt  was  made,  as  in  the  case  of  Solomon,  it  was  met  with  the  bitter- 
est intolerance  on  the  part  of  the  priests ;  witness  their  violence  against  him  for  his  toleration  of 
the  Sidonians  ;  not  his  adoption  of  their  religion  I  believe,  but  only  his  toleration  of  it. 

With  respect  to  the  adoration  of  the  female  generative  principle,  the  Israelites  and  the  neigh- 
bouring Gentiles  seem  to  have  been  situated  exactly  like  the  Papists  and  the  Protestants.  The 
Israelites  adored  the  Phallus  or  Linga,  as  is  evident  from  the  stone  set  up  and  anointed  with  oil  by 
Jacob.  But  no  where  can  an  emblem  of  the  female  principle  be  discovered.  The  festival  of  the 
Ram,  the  Yajna  sacrifice,  the  emblem  of  the  lam  that  I  am,  or  the  /  will  be  what  I  have  been,  in  the 
masculine  gender,  is  apparent  in  a  variety  of  ways ;  but  no  where  can  any  emblem  of  the  female 
principle  be  discovered,  except  as  an  object  of  reprobation.  The  Gentiles  adored  both  ;  examples 
of  which  need  not  be  given.  The  modern  Romists  adore  the  Ram,  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  also  the 
Virgin,  the  mother  of  God,  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  the  Regina  Stellarum  :  the  Protestants  adore 
the  Lamb  of  God;  but  they,  like  the  Israelites,  can  scarcely  be  found  in  any  case  to  pay  the  least 
respect  to  the  Queen  of  heaven.  At  Antioch-ian-Iona,  at  Delphi,  at  Rome,  both  are  adored  ;  at 
Jerusalem  and  London,  only  one — the  Lamb.  The  Ioni  was  and  is  detested  in  the  last-named 
places.  The  fact  cannot  be  denied.  Was  it  the  effect  of  accident,  or  of  a  secret  religion  ?  Pro- 
bably the  same  cause — some  cause  arising  from  the  character  of  man  in  certain  classes — which  pro- 
duced the  dislike  to  Ionism  or  the  adoration  of  the  female  anciently  in  India,  produced  the  same  in 
our  Calvins  and  Luthers,  of  the  real  nature  of  which  they  might  be  themselves  unconscious. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  objected  to  this,  that  there  is  no  more  particular  account  of  the  distinction 
in  the  Scriptures.  But  the  case  in  this  respect  is  exactly  the  same  as  it  would  be  with  us,  if  all 
the  writings  of  our  time  were  lost  except  the  sacred  ones,  as  were  those  of  the  Israelites.  But  the 
worship  of  the  Queen  of  heaven  is  reprobated  many  times  by  the  prophets,  particularly  by  Jere- 
miah, and  that  in  the  strongest  terms.  My  reader  must  recollect  that,  according  to  the  Hindoo 
history  of  the  religion,  the  first  worship  was  paid  to  a  double  object,  and  that  the  worshipers  were 
afterward  divided  into  those  who  adored  the  male  and  those  who  adored  the  female  principle. 

It  is  notorious,  that  there  are  in  India  great  numbers  of  sects  divided  from  each  other,  like  the 
sects  of  the  Christians  ;  sometimes  by  important,  at  other  times  by  trifling  and  perfectly  unimpor- 
tant, distinctions.  With  this  well-known  fact  before  them,  it  is  perfectly  astonishing  that  our 
Indian  philosophers  should  expect  to  find  the  different  astronomical  or  astrological  mythoses  ex- 
plained by  one  key.  There  are,  probably,  great  numbers  of  systems,  all  having,  perhaps,  the  same 
kind  of  foundation,  but  differing  in  the  superstructure.  The  system  of  the  ten  ages,  which  I  have 
explained,  is  one ;  the  system  of  the  fourteen  Manwantaras,  is  another. 

8.  I  have  been  told  in  reply  to  my  arguments  in  favour  of  Abraham  and  his  tribe  of  Iudai  being 
Brahmins,  that  if  it  were  so,  we  should  find  the  metempsychosis  in  Judaism.  I  am  ready  to  ac- 
knowledge that  this  seems  a  fair  objection  ;  but  this  tenet  may  have  constituted  part  of  the 
esoteric  doctrine,  as  alleged  by  Mr.  Maurice, 2  and  as  some  other  equally  important  doctrines 
appear  to  have  done.     For  instance,  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is  so  little  apparent  in  the  Penta- 

I  trust  I  am  writing  for  the  eyes  of  philosophers,  taking  an  enlarged  and  bird's-eye  view  of  all  sects  and  nations, 
and  as  I  shall  favour  none,  I  shall  be  favoured  by  none.  A  few  philosophers  are  all  that  I  ever  expect  to  read  my  work. 
2  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  288. 

3e2 


396 


DR.  HYDE  SHEWS  ABRAHAM  TO  HAVE  BEEN  A  BRAHMIN. 


teuch,  that  many  of  the  most  learned  Christian  divines  have  denied  that  it  is  there  at  all :  a  great 
Bishop  has  written  hvelve  volumes  to  prove  it  is  not  there.  And  I  reply,  that  whatever  caused 
the  concealment  of  the  one,  caused  the  concealment  of  the  other  ;  or,  whatever  caused  the  one  to 
he  little  apparent  caused  the  other  to  be  little  apparent.  They  are  in  their  nature  closely  allied. 
The  most  learned  of  the  old  Jewish  Rabbis,  and  the  first  and  most  learned  fathers  of  the  church,  I 
suppose,  thought  that  they  could  see  them  in  the  Bible  as  they  maintained  both  the  doctrines  ; 
which  they  would  scarcely  have  done  unless  they  had  thought  they  had  authority  for  their 
opinion. 

Learned  Christian  divines  have  found  no  small  difficulty,  in  the  fact  just  named,  that  in  the 
Pentateuch  there  is  not  the  least  appearance  of  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  or  of  a  place  of  punish- 
ment after  death.  The  cause  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  circumstance  that  the  Jews  secretly  held 
the  doctrine  of  the  metempsychosis,  and  the  perpetual  renewal  of  worlds, — doctrines  thought  to 
be  too  sublime  for  vulgar  comprehension.  The  doctrine  of  a  hades,  or  hell,  arose  in  times  long 
after  those  of  Moses,  among  the  Persians,  when  the  doctrine  of  two  principles  came  to  be  formed, 
and  the  sublime  Hindoo  trhnurtl  was  forgotten.  It  is  evident  that  the  doctrine  of  a  hell  is  quite 
inconsistent  with  the  metempsychosis.  This  simple  consideration  removes  all  Bishop  Warbur- 
ton's  difficulties.  At  first,  when  Christianity  was  unsettled,  the  transmigration  of  souls,  and  the 
millenium,  or  renewal  of  worlds,  were  received  by  the  Christian  fathers ;  but  as  the  more  modern 
doctrine  of  two  principles,  good  and  evil,  gained  ground,  the  other  declined  and  was  forgotten. 
The  two  doctrines  were  totally  incompatible.  The  failure  of  the  prophecies  of  the  millenium 
greatly  aided  in  producing  this  effect ;  but  of  all  this  I  shall  treat  hereafter.  At  first  the  Gnostic 
and  Manichsean  doctrines,  which  possessed  much  sublimity,  were,  with  a  very  trifling  exception, 
universal.  At  that  time  mankind  retrograded  rapidly;  and  as  they  became  degraded,  the  de- 
grading doctrines  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  sectaries  prevailed,  till  the  world  was  overrun  with 
Thaumaturgists  and  Devil-drivers,  and  all  the  absurdities  which  Protestantism  has  unveiled. 

9.  The  likeness  between  Abraham  and  Brahma,  and  between  their  wives  and  histories,  was  ob- 
served by  Dr.  Hyde.  Indeed  it  is  so  marked,  that  to  miss  observing  it  is  impossible.  Of  course 
he  supposes  that  all  the  immense  fabric  of  Hindoo  superstition  was  derived  from  the  man  Abra- 
ham. In  palliation  of  this  absurdity,  it  must  be  recollected  that  in  the  time  of  Hyde  the  nature  of 
the  Hindoo  history  and  religion  was  not  at  all  known ;  but  seeing  the  striking  similarity  between 
the  doctrines  of  the  Hindoos  and  those  of  the  Christians  and  Jews,  he  pronounces  that  Brahma 
was  Abraham. l  Postellus,  in  commentario  ad  Jezirah,  had  long  before  asserted  the  same  thing, 
and  that  the  Brahmins  were  the  descendants  of  that  patriarch  by  his  wife  Keturah,  and  were  so 
called  quasi  Abrahmanes.  This  doctrine  is  supported  by  the  Arabian  historians,  who  contend 
that  Brahma  and  Abraham,  their  ancestor,  are  the  same  person.2 

Drs.  Hyde  and  Prideaux,  perceiving  the  likeness  between  the  Persians  and  Jews,  supposed 
Zoroaster  to  have  been  of  the  Jewish  religion. 3  They  were  certainly  so  far  right,  that  the  two 
nations  were  of  the  same  religion.  I  have  already  observed,  that  the  Persians  generally  call 
Abraham  Ibrahim  Zeradust.  Hyde  says,  Persarum  Religio  in  multis  convenit  cum  Judaicd,  et 
magna  ex  parte  ab  ed  desumptafuit.4  Hyde,  in  his  first  chapter,  shews  that  the  ancient  Persians 
had  a  sacred  fire,  precisely  the  same  as  the  Jews,  from  which  it  did  not  differ  in  any  respect,  and 
that  the  reverence  to,  or  adoration  of,  this  fire  was  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  Jews  to  theirs, 
from  which,  he  says,  the  Persians   copied  it.     He   quotes  Ezra  vi.  24,  to  shew  that  Cyrus  consi- 


'  Hyde,  Hist.  Rel.  Pers.  p.  31. 

3  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  123. 


8  Maurice,  Indian  Antiq.  Vol.  II.  p.  293. 
«  Cap.  x.  p.  170. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  1.  397 

dered  the  religion  of  the  Jews  the  same  as  his  own.  For  proofs  of  the  truth  of  this  theory  my 
reader  may  refer  back  to  Book  II.  Chap.  IV.  It  is  admitted  that  Abraham  and  Brahma  are  the 
same ;  therefore  the  Hindoos  must  have  come  from  Abraham,  or  the  Israelites  from  Brahma. 
Now,  Christian  reader,  look  to  the  Pentateuch,  which  you  cannot  dispute,  and  you  will  see  the 
whole  history  of  circumcision,  and  how  and  why  it  was  first  adopted  by  Abraham  for  all  his  de- 
scendants ;  and  if  the  Brahmins  had  descended  from  him,  they  would  certainly  have  had  this  rite  ; 
but  in  no  part  of  India  is  this  rite  observed  by  the  Brahmins.  This  at  once  proves  that  Abraham 
came  from  the  Brahmins,  if  either  came  from  the  other. 

Sir  W.  Jones,  in  his  translation  of  the  Institutes  of  Menu,  renders  the  word  Brahmana  in  the 
sense  of  Priest.  And  the  Jesuit  Robert  de  Nobilibus,  in  what  have  been  said  to  be  his  forged 
Vedas,  calls  the  high-priest  of  the  Jews  and  his  associates  Yuda-Brahmana. 1  That  is,  the  words 
being  in  regimine,  Brahmin  of  the  holy  Ie.  I  suspect  that  in  mystic  words  like  Yuda,  the  last 
syllable  ending  in  d  and  a  vowel,  always  means  holy,  or  has  the  meaning  of  the  Latin  Divus. 
The  expression  of  the  Jesuit  shews,  that  he  considered  the  word  Yuda,  to  be  the  same  as  the  name 
of  the  tribe  of  Abraham. 

M.  Herbelot,  Bibliot.  Orient,  article  Behergir,  calls  Abraham  "  un  Brahman  de  la  secte,  ou  de 
"  l'ordre,  de  ceux  qui  Ton  appelle  Gioghis  (Yoygees)."  From  the  word  Yogees  our  word  Jews 
may  probably  have  come.  I  beg  the  reader  to  pronounce  aloud  the  word  Gioghis.  The  Sanscrit 
word  Ayudya  becomes  in  English  Oude,  in  Javanese  JVayugya,  and  in  Dutch,  still  more  barbar- 
ously, Djoyu.2  Here  we  arrive  very  nearly  at  the  words  Jude  and  Jew,  as  is  apparent  on 
pronouncing  the  words.  And  here  it  is  found  in  the  island  of  Java,  the  mother  or  sister  of  the 
island  of  Bali,  which  contains  a  place  called  Madura — the  same  as  the  Muttra  of  Upper  India, 
where  the  statue  of  Bala  Rama,  and  Cristna,  so  often  before  noticed,  is  found.  The  island  of  Java 
is  the  island  of  Ieue  or  Jehovah. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  DOVE  OF  THE  ASSYRIANS. — BLACK  JEWS. — MEGASTHENES'  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  JEWS.  —  SOLYMI  OR 
SOLOMONS. — JUDAISM  SHEWN  BY  EUSEBIUS  TO  BE  OLDER  THAN  ABRAHAM. — HELLENISM. — JEWISH  MY- 
THOS   IN    NUBIA   AND   INDIA. — HIGH    PLACES. 

1.  We  have  seen  that  the  dove  is,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  the  emblem  of  the  Ioni.  With  this 
we  find  the  Jews  at  almost  perpetual  war.  The  Assyrians  are  constantly  described  in  the  Jewish 
books  by  the  term  sword  of  the  oppressor.  In  several  places  where  we  find  this  it  ought  to  be 
rendered  the  sword  of  the  Dove. 3      This  was  the  emblem,  or  crest,  or  coat  of  arms 4  carried  by 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XIV.  p.  58.  '  Ibid.  Vol.  XIII.  p.  357. 

3  Jer.  xxv.  38,  xlvi.  16 ;  Hosea  xi.  1 1 ;  Zeph.  iii.  1. 

4  I  have  a  suspicion  that  the  Armorial-bearing  called  Crest,  arose  from  being  originally  the  sectarian  brand  or  mark 
to  distinguish  the  followers  of  the  sect  which  called  its  divine  incarnation,  xa-r'^oxiv,  the  Crest  or  Benignus,  as  the 
sect  in  India  called  their  God  Cristna  or  Cris-en.    In  both  sacred  and  profane  history  we  meet  with  accounts  of 


398  BLACK    JEWS. 

the  followers  of  the  imaginary,  or  at  least  mystical,  Semiramis,  who  was  said  to  have  been  born  at 
or  near  the  Phillistine  Iona, — of  the  Semirama-isi  of  India,  of  whom  I  shall  presently  treat.  See 
Col.  Wilford's  essay  on  Semiramis. >  Persons  may  have  different  opinions  as  to  the  cause  of  the 
Dove,  or  Ca-pot-Eswari  becoming  the  emblem  of  the  female  generative  power,  as  also  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity,  but  the  fact  cannot  be  disputed. 

The  Chaldeans,  or  Chasdim,  or  Culdees,  were  priests  of  the  Assyrians,  and  worshipers  of  the 
Dove  or  female  generative  power,  whence  they  called  their  sacred  isle  of  the  West  Iona  or  Co- 
lumba,  that  is,  the  female  dove,  not  the  male  or  Columbus.  No  person  who  has  studied  the 
Romish  Hagiographa  can  doubt  of  the  origin  of  the  bishops  Iona  and  Columba. 

2.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan,  I  believe  a  missionary,  some  years  ago  published  Travels 
in  India,  in  which  he  states,  that  he  found  no  less  than  sixty-five  settlements  of  black  Jews  in 
different  parts  of  the  peninsula.2  It  is  a  great  pity  that  these  different  races  of  people  could  not 
be  examined  by  a  philosopher.  Dr.  Buchanan,  who  found  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  (before 
they  were  what  he  would  call  corrupted  by  the  Romish  Church)  to  have  been,  and  yet  to  be,  cor- 
rect Lambeth  Christians,  notwithstanding  that  they  received  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  and  were 
Nestorians,  could  not  be  expected  to  discover  much.  These  black  Jews  are  remnants  of  the  sect 
of  the  Iadus,  who,  Col.  Wilford  informs  us,  yet  remain  in  Guzerat.  I  apprehend  they  were  part 
of  the  sect  of  the  Linga,  who  would  not  unite  with,  or  divided  from,  the  followers  of  the  female 
principle,  the  Argha  or  Ioni,  or  from  those  of  the  double  principle,  and,  on  that  account,  were 
persecuted  and  expelled,  and  from  them  came  the  tribe  of  Abram  or  the  Brahmin.  If  this  were 
the  case,  they  would  not,  of  course,  have  all  the  Mosaic  books  in  the  form  in  which  we  have  them, 
except  they  received  them  from  the  West.  And  this  seems  rationally  to  account  for  the  places  in 
Syria  being  called  by  names  of  places  in  India.  We  know  how  almost  all  emigrants  have 
given  the  names  of  the  countries  of  their  births,  to  their  new  habitations. 

Jeremiah  Jones  says,  "M.  La  Crose,  in  a  letter  dated  at  Berlin,  the  4th  of  the  ides  of  December, 
"  1718,  supposes  it  (i.  e.  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy)  written  by  some  person  who  was  a  Nestorian; 
"  because  in  a  Synod,  called  Diamperana,  held  by  Alexius  de  Menezes,  Archbishop  of  Goa,  in  the 
"  diocese  of  Augamala,  in  the  mountainous  country  of  Malabar,  in  the  year  of  Christ  1559,  he 
"  found  it  thus  condemned  :  i  The  book  which  is  entitled,  Of  the  Infancy  of  our  Saviour,  or  the 
"  e  History  of  our  Lady,  already  condemned  by  the  ancient  saints,  because  it  contains  many 
"  *  blasphemies  and  heresies,  and  many  fabulous  stories  without  foundation,'   &c.     Instances  of 


sudden  panics,  or  alarms  having  seized  large  bodies  of  men.  That  of  Brennus  the  Celt,  our  barbarian  ancestor,  was 
accompanied  by  a  circumstance  which  appears  trifling,  but  which  exhibits  a  proof  of  the  great  antiquity  of  our  practice 
of  bearing  devices  or  coats  of  arms.  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  178,  sup.  Ed.  says,  "  The  coufusion  fell  upon  the  army  at  the 
"  closing  in  of  the  evening,  and  at  first  a  few  only  were  confounded  in  mind,  who  imagined  they  heard  the  tramp  of 
"  horses,,  and  the  onset  of  some  enemy.  And  in  a  little  time  this  alienation  possessed  the  minds  of  them  all.  And 
"  taking  up  arms,  and  dividing  among  themselves,  they  mutually  destroyed  one  another,  no  longer  understanding  their 
"  own  native  tongue,  nor  yet  recognizing  the  countenances  of  each  other,  nor  the  devices  on  their  shields." 
The  Assyrians  always  carried  for  their  standard  or  coat  of  arms  a  dove;  the  Romans  an  eagle.  On  the  key-stone 
over  the  inner  entrance  of  the  Amphitheatre  of  Verona  is  a  shield  bearing  a  cross,  evidently  coeval  with  the  building, 

thus— ^?7.     See  also  Nimrod,  Vol.  H.  p.  273 

In  iEschylus's  tragedy  of  the  Seven  Chiefs  against  Thebes,  the  shields  of  six  of  them  are  charged  with  Armorial- 
bearings,  expressive  of  their  characters,  and  as  regular  as  if  they  had  been  marshalled  by  a  herald  at  arms.  Potter  says, 
"  The  impresses  are  devised  with  a  fine  imagination  and  wonderful  propriety."  But  he  has  omitted  to  remark  that 
even  the  motto  is  not  wanting.  On  one  was  inscribed  the  words  I  will  fire  the  city.  The  siege  of  Troy,  if  it  ever 
took  place,  was  a  species  of  crusade.     On  the  antiquity  of  armorial-bearings  Mons.  Gibelin  may  be  consulted. 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  370,  &c.  2  Christ.  Res.  p.  226,  Ed.  1819. 


BOOK  VIII.     CHAPTER  I.   SECTION   ] .  399 

"  which  are  produced  in  that  Synod,  the  same  as  are  in  Dr.  Sykes's  Gospel ;  and  it  is  there  said, 
"  that  it  was  commonly  read  among  the  Nestorians  in  Malabar." 

From  an  observation  which  Mr.  Jones  has  made  respecting  the  Marcosians,  a  branch  of  the 
Gnostics,  and  respecting  a  passage  of  Irenaeus,  already  noticed,  I  think  it  is  unquestionable  that 
the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy  existed  in  the  second  century.  There  is  also  existing  part  of  a  gospel 
called  the  Gospel  of  St.  Thomas,  which  is  evidently  taken  from  the  same  source  as  that  of  the 
Infancy, 1  and  St.  Thomas  is  said  to  have  instructed  the  Indians.  The  extract  from  Jones  shews, 
that  if  what  Buchanan  says  be  true,  that  the  opinions  of  the  Malabar  Christians  are  the  same  as 
the  present  English  Protestants,  they  must  have  surprisingly  changed  since  the  arrival  among 
them  of  the  Portuguese.  It  seems  remarkable,  that  the  Portuguese  Papists  should  have  converted 
these  Nestorians  into  Protestants  ! 

It  is  to  me  utterly  incredible  that  any  tribe  of  people,  existing  as  a  tribe,  should  exist  as  Mosaic 
Jews  without  the  Pentateuch;  because  the  Pentateuch  forms  their  bond  of  union.  It  is  not  only 
their  religious,  but  it  is  their  civil  code,  which  regulates  the  decisions  of  their  judges  in  disputes 
about  the  common  affairs  of  life.  If  they  ever  were  Jews  they  must  once  have  possessed  the 
Pentateuch,  and  they  must  have  lost  it,  which  seems  incredible,  when  it  must  always  have  been  in 
daily  use  by  the  judges.  I  believe  the  case  to  be  this,  that  they  were  tribes  of  Joudi  or  Yadu, 
which  were  spared  when  opposing  sects  got  the  better  of  them  in  the  wars  of  the  Maha-bharat, 
and  were  left  in  a  poor  and  miserable  state,  without  books  or  literature, — spared,  in  fact,  from 
mere  contempt,  being  too  low  to  excite  fear  or  anger ;  that  in  the  course  of  many  generations  their 
origin  was  forgotten,  and  meeting  with  Jews  from  the  West,  and  comparing  notes,  they  found  a 
near  relationship,  and  accounted  for  it  by  supposing  that  they  must  have  come  from  Western 
Syria,  in  consequence  of  the  revolutions  which  had  taken  place  there.  Their  real  history,  in  two 
thousand  years  and  upwards,  might  well  be  forgotten.  The  ancient  civil-religious  wars  of  India 
are  recorded  in  the  books  of  the  Brahmins,  but  they  are  totally  forgotten  among  the  mass  of  the 
people. 

From  the  accounts  given  by  Dr.  Buchanan  of  the  black  tribes,  some  of  them  having  Pentateuchs, 
and  others  not  having  them ;  and  of  those  who  have  them,  having  obtained  them  from  the  white 
tribes,  it  seems  probable  that  they  are  indebted  for  them  solely  to  the  white  tribes.  This  will  exactly 
agree,  as  might  be  expected,  with  my  theory,  if  it  should  turn  out  to  be  true  ;  because  the  airoixog 
or  going  out  of  the  tribe  of  Judi  or  Ioudi  from  India,  in  all  probability,  must  have  taken  place  be- 
fore Moses  lived,  and  before  he  partly  wrote,  and  partly  compiled  or  collected,  the  tracts  into  what 
we  now  call  the  Pentateuch.  In  all  probability  the  first  books  of  Genesis  were  brought  from  India 
with  the  tribe — with  Abraham  or  the  Brahmin. 

The  more  I  meditate  on  the  extraordinary  fact  stated  by  Buchanan,  that  there  are  many  black 
tribes  of  what  are  called  in  our  language  Jews,  but  evidently  tribes  of  Ioudi,  in  different  parts  of 
India,  who  have  not  the  Pentateuch  of  Moses,  the  more  extraordinary  and  important  it  appears.  * 
The  Pentateuch  is  the  civil  law  of  the  Jews.  By  what  law  do  these  tribes  govern  themselves  ?  Is  it 
by  tradition  ?  If  they  be  Jews,  they  must  be  descendants  of  Jacob  or  Abraham,  which  branched 
off  before  the  law  was  given ;  and  if  their  law  be  very  similar  to  that  of  the  present  Ioudi,  it  will 
prove,  what  indeed  seems  pretty  clear  without  it,  that  Moses  adopted,  into  his  written  law,  many 
of  the  old  laws  which  his  tribe  had  before. 

Eusebius,  in  his  Chronicon,  says,  that  Ethiopians  coming  from  the  Indus  or  black  river  settled 
near  Egypt.     There  seems  to  be  nothing  improbable  in  these  Ethiopians  being  the  tribe  of  Jews — 


1  Vide  J.  Jones,  Vol,  II.  Part  iii.  Ch.  xxiv.  2  Jesus  was  a  Jew,  in  Italy  black. 


400  MEGASTHENES'   ACCOUNT   OF   THE   JEWS. 

the  tribe  of  Jacob  or  Israel.  I  think  these  Ethiopians  did  come  under  Jacob,  and  did  settle  in 
Goshen,  and  gave  the  names  of  Maturea  and  Avaris  to  the  city  in  which  they  dwelt.  Avari  in 
Hebrew  would  be  as  often  written  nay  obri,  or  the  city  of  the  Hebrews  or  Foreigners. 

It  can  scarcely  be  maintained  that  the  places  in  Egypt  which  have  names  connected  with  the 
word  Judah  can  have  been  called,  in  that  early  day,  from  that  tribe  of  the  Jews ;  but  if  it  be,  I 
then  ask,  how  the  name  of  Solomon,  which  is  found  in  the  desert  of  Solyme,  &c,  is  to  be  ac- 
counted for  ?  Taken  together,  the  two  exhibit  the  general  Judsean  mythos,  independently  of  the 
tribe  of  Jacob  or  Israel. x 

Eusebius's  assertion,  in  his  Chronicon,  (by  Scaliger,)  that  about  the  year  B.  C.  15J5,  a  tribe  of 
"  Ethiopians  came  from  the  river  Indus  and  encamped  and  settled  near  Egypt,"  is  but  a  loose  kind 
of  information,  and  therefore  can  be  little  depended  on  j  but  as  he  fixes  them  to  about  the  time 
when  the  Jews  are  generally  supposed  to  have  come,  it  rather  tends  to  confirm  my  idea,  though  I 
pay  little  attention  to  the  dates.  It  is  not  impossible  that,  without  knowing  it,  he  may  allude  to 
the  Jewish  tribe.  But  if  this  evidence  be  only  weak,  I  will  now  produce  what  will  not  be  easily 
overthrown. 

3.  Megasthenes,  who  was  sent  to  India  by  Seleucus  Nicator,  about  three  hundred  years 
before  Christ,  and  whose  accounts  from  new  inquiries  are  every  day  acquiring  additional  credit,  2 
in  a  very  remarkable  manner  confirms  my  hypothesis  of  the  Jews'  coming  from  India.  He  says, 
That  they  were  an  Indian  tribe  or  sect  called  Kalani,  and  that  their  theology  has  a  great  resem- 
blance to  that  of  the  Indians.3  The  discovery  of  this  passage,  after  I  had  written  what  the  reader 
has  read  respecting  the  Jews,  gave  me  no  little  pleasure,  because  it  almost  proves  the  truth  of  my 
theory,  and  is  very  different  from  founding  my  theory  upon  it.  I  will  now  produce  another  proof, 
if  records  by  unwilling  witnesses  are  proofs,  for  Josephus  is  an  unwilling  witness. 

Aristotle  gave  an  account  of  the  Jews  that  they  came  from  the  Indian  philosophers,  and  that 
they  were  called  by  the  Indians  Calami,  and  by  the  Syrians  Judaei.4  I  think  few  persons  will 
doubt  that  the  Calami  here  are  the  Calani  of  Megasthenes,  one  of  the  two  being  miscalled.  We 
have  seen  a  Calani  in  Ceylon,  where  we  found  a  Zion,  Adam's  foot,  Mount  Ararat,  and  Coluuibo, 
&c,  and  in  Gen.  x.  10,  and  Amos.  vi.  2,  a  Calneh  or  Calani  is  also  named. 

Gale5  has  observed,  that  the  information  of  Megasthenes  is  confirmed  by  Clearchus,  the  Peri- 
patetic. I  think  in  this  question  these  Grecian  authorities  constitute  good  evidence.  Thus  for 
my  hypothesis  we  have  as  good  written  evidence  as  can  be  expected.  We  will  presently  try  to 
confirm  it  by  circumstances. 

Respecting  Megasthenes,  Col.  Wilford  says,  "  Megasthenes,  a  man  of  no  ordinary  abilities,  who 
"  had  spent  the  greatest  part  of  his  life  in  India,  in  a  public  character,  and  was  well  acquainted 
"  with  the  chronological  systems  of  the  Egytians,  Chaldeans  and  Jews, 6  made  particular  inquiries 
"  into  their  history,  and  declared,  according  to  Clement  of  Alexandria,  that  the  Hindoos  and  Jews 
"  were  the  only  people  who  had  a  true  idea  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  the  beginning  of 
"  things." 7  From  these  circumstances  Col.  Wilford  draws  the  conclusion,  "  that  there  was  an 
"obvious  affinity  between  the  chronological  systems  of  the  Hindus  and  the  Jews."8  And  they 
have  an  obvious  tendency  to  support  my  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Jewish  tribe. 

In  a  former  part  of  this  work,  I  have  noticed  the  assertion  of  Megasthenes,  that  the  Jews  and 


1  In  the  Map  of  Antis's  Egypt  is  a  hill  near  Maturea  called  Tel-el-Ihudieh,  or  Jewry's  hill. 

*  Vide  Lempriere's  Class.  Diet.  ed.  1828.  3  Volney's  Researches,  Anc.  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  .395. 

4  Josephus  adv.  Apion,  B.  I.  Sect.  22,  p.  214.  5  Court  of  Gent.  Vol.  II.  p.  75. 

e  See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  290.  '  Ibid.  Vol  X.  p.  1 18.  9  Ibid.  p.  242. 


BOOK   VIII.    CHAP.    II.    SECT.   4.  401 

Indians  were  the  only  people  who  had  a  true  notion  of  chronology,  and  I  have  also  mo.st  clearly 
proved  that  what  he  said  was  true,  or,  at  least,  that  their  chronologies  were  the  same. 

If  I  had  desired  to  invent  a  piece  of  evidence  in  confirmation  of  what  I  have  said  respecting  the 
emigration  of  the  Israelitish  tribe  from  India  to  Syria,  I  could  not  have  had  any  thing  better  than 
the  following  passage  from  Col.  Wilford.  The  Zohar  Manass6,  which  the  reader  will  find  named, 
cannot,  in  this  case,  be  disputed  as  evidence  of  the  ancient,  probably  the  secret  or  esoteric,  opinion 
of  the  Jews.  The  seven  earths  one  above  another  is  a  circumstance  so  totally  inapplicable  to  Je- 
rusalem, and  so  clearly  Hindoo,  that  the  identity  of  the  two  cannot  be  mistaken. 

Wilford  says,  "  Meru  with  its  three  peaks  on  the  summit,  and  its  seven  steps,  includes  and 
"  encompasses  really  the  whole  world,  according  to  the  notions  of  the  Hindoos  and  other  nations* 
"  previously  to  their  being  acquainted  with  the  globular  shape  of  the  earth.  I  mentioned  in  the 
"  first  part  that  the  Jews  were  acquainted  with  the  seven  stages,  Zones  or  Dwipas  of  the  Hindus  : 
"  but  I  have  since  discovered  a  curious  passage  from  the  Zohar  Manasse  on  the  creation,  as  cited 
"  by  Basnage  in  his  history  of  the  Jews. 1  e  There  are/  says  the  author,  '  seven  earths,  whereof  one 
" '  is  higher  than  the  other,  for  Judaea  is  situated  upon  the  highest  earth,  and  Jerusalem  upon  the 
"  '  highest  mountain  of  Judaea.'  This  is  the  Hill  of  God,  so  often  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  mount  of  the  congregation  where  the  mighty  king  sits  in  the  sides  of  the  north,  ac- 
cording to  Isaiah,  and  there  is  the  city  of  our  God.  The  Meru  of  the  Hindus  has  the  name  of 
Sabha,  or  the  congregation,  and  the  Gods  are  seated  upon  it  in  the  sides  of  the  north.  There 
"  is  the  holy  city  of  Brahma-puri,  where  resides  Brahma  with  his  court,  in  the  most  pure  and  holy 
"  land  of  Ilavratta."  2  The  Judaea  or  Ioud-ia  and  Jerusalem  named  above,  are  evidently  compared 
to  the  North-pole  and  Mount  Meru,  which  is  thus  called  the  place  of  Ioudi.  We  shall  presently 
find  that,  with  the  Arabians,  the  Pole-star  was  called  the  star  of  Ioudi.  The  following  passages 
from  the  Bible  are  very  striking  : 

"  Beautiful  for  situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth,  is  mount  Zion,  on  the  sides  of  the  north  the 
"  city  of  the  great  king." 3  "  The  mountain  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  shall  be  established  in  the  top  of 
"  the  mountains."  4  "  Then  Solomon  began  to  build  the  house  of  the  Lord  at  Jerusalem  in  mount 
"  Moriah,  where  the  Lord  appeared  unto  David  his  father." 5  "  For  thou  hast  said  in  thine  heart,  I 
"  will  ascend  into  heaven,  I  will  exalt  my  throne  above  the  stars  of  God  :  I  will  sit  also  upon  the 
"  mount  of  the  congregation,  in  the  sides  of  the  north."6  "  I  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem  : 
"  and  Jerusalem  shall  be  called  a  city  of  truth ;  and  the  mountain  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  the  holy 
"  mountain."  7  When  we  consider  that  our  Bible  is  merely  the  sacred  writings  of  the  temple  upon 
this  mountain,  of  Sion  or  Moriah,  or  Meru,  the  exaggeration  above  is  only  what  we  might  expect 
to  find  in  them.  Thus  the  Indians  say  the  same  of  their  Meru.  I  think  it  probable  that  all  these 
mounts  were  imitative  of  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem,  described  in  the  last  two  chapters  of  the  very 
ancient  work  called  the  Apocalypse. 

4.  I  think  if  my  reader  will  look  back  to  the  preceding  pages,  he  will  now  observe  several  cir- 
cumstances, particularly  respecting  the  Solymi,  which  will  tend  strongly  to  confirm  an  opinion  to 
which  I  have  come  after  the  most  patient  investigation,  that  the  Israelites  were  one  of  the  tribes 
which  emigrated  from  the  country  of  the  Afghans  or  Rajpouts,  that  is,  from  the  East,  to  avoid 
persecution.  This  is,  indeed,  in  substance  the  account  given  by  Moses.  They  were,  in  fact,  a 
sect  which  worshiped  the  male  generative  principle  in  opposition  to  the  female.     The  circum- 


1  Eng.  Trans  p.  247. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  128,  Vol.  VIII.  285;  2  Chron.  iii.  1,  Isaiah  xiv.  13,  Psalm  xlviii.  2. 
3  Psalm  xlviii.  2.  *  Micah  iv.  1.  5  2  Chron.  iii.  1.  6  Isaiah  xiv.  13.  *  Zeeh.  viii.  3. 

3f 


402  JUDAISM    SHEWN    BY   EUSEBIUS   TO    BE   OLDER   THAN    ABRAHAM. 

stances  relating  to  the  city  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Solymi  will  be  found  to  be  very  striking,  and  will 
shew  clearly  why  we  meet  with  a  Mount  Sion  in  India,  and  with  another  in  Syria.  But  though  I 
think  attachment  to  the  adoration  of  the  Male  principle,  or  at  least  the  double  principle,  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  female  singly,  or  to  Ionism  or  Hellenism,  was  one  reason  for  their  emigration,  I  also 
think  it  probable  that  dislike  to  the  adoration  of  the  Bull  was  another.  If  Solomon,  of  Syria,  thb 
wise,  were  a  Buddha,  one  of  the  fourteen  Solymi,  or  fourteen  Menus,  or  fourteen  Maha-bads,  all 
supposed  to  be  incarnations  of  divine  wisdom,  we  see  why  he  was  so  celebrated  for  that  virtue. 
He  was  the  son  of  the  shepherd  *rn  dud, 1  who  was  the  son  of  w*  isi,  who  was  the  son  of  *niy 
Oubd.  I  think  Dud  was  a  corruption  of  Yud,  as  Iacchus  became  Bacchus,  Eioneus  Deioneus, 
Zeus  Deus,  Zancle  Dancle,  or  Dancle  Zancle. 2  >w>  isi,  is  the  male  Isis  of  India,  *my  Oubd  is 
(Syriace)  Obad  or  A- bad,  i.  e.  the  Buddha. 

"  The  Persians  had  a  title,  Soliman,  equivalent  to  the  Greek  AioXog,  and  implying  universal 
"  cosmocrator,  qu'ils  ont  cru  posseder  l'empire  universel  de  toute  la  terre,  and  Thamurath  aspired 
w  to  this  rank ;  but  the  divine  Argeng,  in  whose  gallery  were  the  statues  of  the  seventy-two  Soli- 
"  mans,  contended  with  him  for  the  supremacy.  This  Argeng  was  the  head  of  the  league  of 
"  Aqysioi,  and  the  number  72,  is  that  of  the  kings  subject  to  the  king  of  kings."3 

The  history  of  Solomon  bears  a  very  mythological  appearance,  which  is  much  confirmed  by  a 
passage  in  Strabo,4  who  asserts,  that  both  Syria  and  Phoenicia  had  their  names  from  India.  He 
says,  speaking  of  the  irruption  of  the  Greeks  of  the  Seleucidae,  into  India,  "  These  same  Greeks 
"  subjugated  the  country  as  far  as  the  territory  of  the  Syri  and  Phanni."  Casaubon  supposed  the 
Phannon  of  Strabo  to  mean  Phoinicon,  and  so  corrected  it.5  This  shews  that  there  were  nations 
of  these  names  in  India,  which  could  not  be  very  far  from  the  peninsula  of  Sawrastrene  or  Syras- 
trene  :6  or  perhaps  Rajahpoutana  or  x\fghanistan. 

The  word  Rajahpoutana,  I  think,  is  Rajah-pout-tana,  or  three  words  which  mean  the  country  of 
the  royal  Buddha — Pout  being  one  ot  tne  names  of  Buddha.  That  Rajah  is  royal  I  shall  shew  by 
and  by.  Of  Afghan  I  can  make  nothing;  but  in  the  travels  of  Ibn  Batuta  there  is  a  place  men- 
tioned, near  Delhi,  called  Afghanpoor. 

5.  The  following  passage  I  did  not  notice  till  I  had  written  the  whole  which  the  reader  has  seen 
respecting  the  tribe  of  ludai.  I  consider  this  under  these  circumstances  as  very  valuable  circum- 
stantial evidence.  This  kind  of  coincidence  I  value  more  than  direct  authorities.  "  Some  of  the 
i "  ancient  fathers,  from  terms  ill-understood,  divided  the  first  ages  into  three  or  more  epochas,  and 
"  have  distinguished  them  by  as  many  characteristics:  Bag£agto-^,o£,  Barbarismus,  which  is  sup- 
"  posed  to  have  preceded  the  flood ;  2iXvQkt(aos,  Scythismus,  of  which  I  have  been  speaking ;  and 


1  Ruth  iv.  22. 

2  "  In  Thessaly  they  have  a  practice  of  prefixing  a  /3  before  the  original  name,  which  is  pronounced  V ;  as  |S'  Othry, 
"  for  Othrys  ;  and  /3'  Alos  for  Alos."  (Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  IV.  p.  256,  4to.)  Thebes,  by  the  natives  of  Lebadea,  is 
called  Thiva.  (Ibid.  p.  215.)  "Thus  we  have  the  initial  digamina  in  wreck,  break,  from  pycra-to"  (Ibid.  p.  160.) 
These  changes  are  not  greater  than  iud  to  dud  or  diud.  Besides  David  was  a  man  after  God's  own  heart  to  do  his  will, 
and  might  be  called  St.  David.  This  would  be  in  the  old  language  Di-ud.  The  word  ad  or  od  is  the  common  name  of 
God  or  eminent  person  among  the  Rajahpoots  ;  this  had  the  very  same  import  among  the  old  Syrians  and  Assyrians. 
Adodus  is  called  king  of  Gods.  Cumberland  says,  "  For  as  Macrobius  (Saturnal.  I.  Cap.  xxxi.)  hath  informed  us, 
"  Adad  signifies  among  the  Assyrians  the  one  eminently,  and  therefore  may  well  be  the  title  of  a  monarch,  or  single 
"  sovereign,  and  of  the  sun,  their  deity.  Hither  belongs  also  Josephus's  observation  from  the  Damascenus,  that  the 
"  ten  successions  from  Hadad-ezer  in  Syria  took  all  of  them  the  title  of  Hadad."  (Origin.  Gent.  pp.  1/0,  171,  17-, 
235,  236. 

3  See  Herbelot  in  voce  Soliman  ;  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  12.  4  Vol.  IV. 
5  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  p.  335.                      6  Ibid.  336. 


BOOK   VIII.     CHAPTER   II.     SECTION  7«  403 

u  'ExX7]Vio-ju,o^,  Hellenismus,  or  the  Grecian  period;  this  last  must  appear  as  extraordinary  as  any. 
"  For  how  was  it  possible  for  an  Hellenic  aera  to  have  existed  before  the  name  of  Hellas  was 
"  known,  or  the  nation  in  being?"  I  suppose  the  reader,  after  having  read  what  I  have  said  re- 
lating to  the  Ionians,  does  not  require  an  answer  to  the  question.  To  this  Mr.  Bryant  adds  in  a 
note, — A*  Ss  raiv  atqs(rsa)V  xacrtov  [x-^rs^sg  rs  xai  TaTqcoxqitoi  xai  ovoy.a$oi  suriv  aural,  Bag£a- 
qi(T[Aog,  "%xuQi(T[Aog,  'E/VXrjViCjao^,  Iehot,'i<ry*og l — "  In  like  manner  a  fourth  heresy  is  supposed  to 
"  have  arisen,  styled  Judaismus,  before  the  time  of  either  Jews  or  Israelites."2  Here  the 
tribe  of  Yadu,  or  Judai,  or  loud,  of  which  I  have  treated,  is  evident,  which  these  fathers  could  not 
help  seeing,  but  of  which  they  could  not  understand  the  origin  or  meaning. 

6.  The  existence  of  the  Ionian  or  Hellenistic  heresy,  as  well  as  its  antiquity,  is  clearly  recog- 
nized by  several  of  the  fathers.  Eusebius 3  says,  Seg 8^,  V'£  Trgoorog  rjp^aro  rs  'EaX7Jvkj-jU8  : 
Serug  was  the  first  who  introduced  the  false  worship  called  Hellenismus.  Epiphanius  says,  4 
Payaju.  ysvvoc  rov  ^spsfo  xoci  r\^aro  sig  avbqoiirsg  7]  eiSoXoAargeia  ts,  xoli  b  'EXA7]Vfo-ju,o£ — 
Ragem  or  Ragan  had  for  his  son  Seruch,  when  idolatry  and  Hellenismus  first  began  among  men. 
Johannes  Antiochenus  styles  the  people  of  Midian,  Hellenes,  and  speaking  of  Moses,  who  married 
the  daughter  of  Jethro,  the  Cuthite,  the  chief  priest  of  Midian,  he  represents  the  woman  5  ryu 
Soyarepa  IoQog  ts  a^ie^Bcug  toju  'EXArjvcuv,  as  the  daughter  of  Jother,  the  high-priest  of  the 
Hellenes.  The  introduction  or  adoption  of  Hellenism  or  Ionism  by  Serug,  several  generations  be- 
fore Abraham,  is  as  much  in  favour  of  my  hypothesis  as  any  thing  can  be. 

Apollodorus 6  says,  Hellen  was  the  firstborn  of  Deucalion  by  Pyrrha ;  though  some  make  him 
the  son  of  Jove  or  Dios.  There  was  also  a  daughter  Protogeneia,  so  named  from  being  the  first- 
born of  women.  Manetho7  says,  that  the  learning  of  Egypt  was  styled  Hellenic,  from  the  Hel- 
lenic shepherds,  and  the  ancient  theology  of  the  country  was  described  in  the  Hellenic  character 
and  language.  This  theology  was  said  to  be  derived  from  Agathodaemon,  by  Syncellus.8  These 
Hellenic  shepherds,  I  suppose,  were  the  Pallestini  or  Palli,  whom  we  meet  with  in  many  places, 
and  whom,  in  Syria,  we  call  Philistines.  But  what  were  the  Hellenic  character  and  language  ? 
I  do  not  know.  Scarcely  any  question  is  more  difficult  to  answer  (when  all  the  circumstances  are 
considered)  ;  but  yet  I  think  it  was  probably  only  a  sixteen-letter  system. 

7.  Mr.  Franklin  says,  "Another  striking  instance  is  recorded  by  the  very  intelligent  traveller 
"  (Wilson)  regarding  a  representation  of  the  fall  of  our  first  parents,  sculptured  in  the  magnificent 
"  temple  of  Ipsambul  in  Nubia.  He  says  that  a  very  exact  representation  of  Adam  and  Eve  in 
"  the  Garden  of  Eden  is  to  be  seen  in  that  cave,  and  that  the  serpent  climbing  round  the  tree  is 
"  especially  delineated,  and  the  whole  subject  of  the  tempting  of  our  first  parents  most  accurately 
"  exhibited." 9  How  is  the  fact  of  the  Mythos  of  the  second  book  of  Genesis  being  found  in 
Nubia,  probably  a  thousand  miles  above  Heliopolis,  to  be  accounted  for,  except  that  it  came  from 
Upper  India  with  the  first  Buddhists  or  Gymnosophists  ?  There  they  were  found  by  Clemens 
Alexandrinus,  and  there  they  founded  a  Meru,  now  called  Meroe.  The  same  Mythos  is  found  in 
India.  Col.  Tod  says,  "A  drawing,  brought  by  Colonel  Coombs,  from  a  sculptured  column  in  a 
'■'  cave-temple  in  the  South  of  India,  represents  the  first  pair  at  the  foot  of  the  ambrosial  tree,  and 


1  Ckron.  Paschall.  p.  23  ;  Epiphan.  Lib.  i.  p.  9;  Euseb.  Chron,  p.  13.  *  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  151. 

3  Chron-  P-  13-  4  Haeres.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  vi.  p.  7-  *  Pp.  "6,  77.  °  Lib.  i.  p.  20. 

7  Ap.  Euseb.  Chron.  p.  6.  8  P.  40 ;  Bryant.  Anal.  Anc.  Myth.  Vol.  III.  p.  157. 

9  On  Buddhists  and  Jeynes,  p.  127,  Note. 

3f2 


HIGH   PLACES. 
404 


.,    !  j      u«iioVis  presenting  to  them  some  of  the  fruit  from 
a  serpent  entwined  among  the  ^^^JZ  discourse,  when 
his  mouth.     The  tempter  appears  to  be  at  that  part 


Into  her  heart  too  easy  entrance  won : 
Fixed  on  the  fruit  she  gazed.' 


his  words,  replete  with  guile, 


v,v,t  to  be  engraved  on  an  ancient  Pagan  temple :  if  Jain  or  Buddhist,  the 
«  This  is  a  eunous  subject  to  be  eng  ^  ^^  but  ^  ,  thmk 

-  interest  would  be  cons.dei **£»%£         »  as  the  Romish  Dr.  Geddes  calls  Genesis, 

so  much  as  the  Colonel  apprehends.     Ine sam my        ,  ^.^  as 

,     u  *4.~„  „f  tV.p  religions  of  Moses,  India,  and  i^gyp^   Wltu  ai"- 
is  at  the  bottom  of  the  religion*  ,  ^         h(j9j  when  we 

time  mA  chc—  may  be  £--  *J*  _"'  '         myth*s  which  we  have  just  now 
treat,  in  a  future  book,  ot  the  religion  one  Qf  the  of  fig„res 

noticed  in  Upper  Egypt.  In  my  plates,  fig.  27,  may neseen ..     W  Pentateuchia„ 

in  Montfaucon.     However  it  may  differ,  can  any  one  doubt  that  it 
or  Mosaic  mythos  >     See  also  fig.  16.  fin(J  high.places 

8.  Although  Sion  or  Moriab,  or  the  Syrian  Meru,  was  a    ngh  P la  ej  ^ 

every  where  reprobated  in  the  Old  Testament,  in  the  ^^P0"^^  worship-to  lonisni  or 
had  become  in  a  peculiar  manner  dedicated  in  these  country  tc *ta»         P 
Hellenism.    This  is  proved  by  the  name  given  t  em  by     e  LXX     «  "      ^  .J  ^ 
again  confirms  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  Jews  being  attach  ed 
firepower.    ,o  these  places,  called  ^  th^mdc^ J  ^  £££ 
Naida,  where  the  secret  and  licentious  rites  of  the  *J*  ™**  imitatio„  of  the  Hindoo 

observed  that  I  suspect  that  from  these  p laces,  ^^^J^  that  their  inhabitants  were 
Argha  or  Nav  or  Kibotos  or  Tibe,  came  the  naves  of  on    church* ,  ^  ^  ^ 

theW  -^»7^*::  :a:;::r:^  J-—  .,*»*.*  *. 

dered  sacred ;  in  a  peculiar  manner  dedicated  to         P  >  are  mw 

like  the  girls,  with  all  their  sins,  better  *-^«  ^j  ^  foHoweI,  of  the  Voni  and  Linga 
Throughout  all  the  ancient  world  the  d,  UncUo ^  be  twee  ^.^     ^  ^  ^ 

may  be  seen.    All  nations  seem  to  have  been  Ionian,  except 
Jewish  or  male  principle  prevailed,  the  other  declined. 


Tod's  Hist.  Raj.  p.  581. 


BOOK    VIH.    CHAPTER    III.    SECTION    1.  405 


CHAPTER  III. 

NAMES  OF  PLACES.  —  RAJPOUTS,  RANN-E  OF  PTOLEMY. — INDIAN  CHRONOLOGY. — AJIMERE. — MOUNT  SION. 
— SION  AND  HIEROSOLYMA. — VARIOUS  MOUNTS  OF  SOLYMA  :  TEMPLES  OF  SOLOMON. — JERUSALEM  :  JE- 
SULMER. — MEANING    OF  JERUSALEM.— TEMPLE   OF   SOLOMON   IN   CASHMERE. 

1.  We  will  now  examine  the  names  of  some  of  the  states  and  cities  in  India,  and  in  them  I  think 
we  shall  find  conclusive  proofs  of  the  place  where  Judaism  came  from,  and  probably  along  with  it 
the  first  written  language. 

In  India,  in  very  ancient  times,  there  was  a  state  of  great  power.  Its  capital  was  in  lat. 
26°  48'  N.,  long.  82°  4'  E.,  of  prodigious  extent,  being  one  of  the  largest  of  Hindostan,  an- 
ciently called  Ayodhya  or  Oude.  It  was,  and  yet  is,  a  place  celebrated  for  its  sanctity,  to 
which  Pilgrims  resort  from  all  parts  of  India.  The  Hindoo  history  states  that  it  was  the  seat  of 
power,  of  a  great  prince  called  Dasaratha,  the  father  of  Rama,  and  of  Rama,  the  brother 
of  Cristna.  Dasaratha  extended  his  conquests  as  far  as  Ceylon,  which  he  subdued.  We  shall 
find  in  a  future  page,  from  the  similarity  of  the  mythos  in  South  India  to  that  of  Oude,  reason 
to  believe  this  story  of  the  conquest  to  be  substantially  true.  Ayodhia  or  Iyodhya  is  nothing  but 
Judia,  and  Oude,  Juda.  Iyodhia  is  Iyo-di-ia — country  of  the  sacred  Iou,  or  Jud.  I  shall  return 
many  times  to  this  etymon. 

I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  tribe  of  Iaoud  was  expelled  from  this  kingdom,  perhaps  from  Maturea, 
from  which  place  they  took  their  names.  Every  difficulty  will  be  removed  if  we  suppose  that  the 
religious  wars  of  the  sects  of  the  Ioni  and  Linga  were  long,  and  had  alternate  successes  ;  and  this 
perfectly  agrees  with  the  Hindoo  histories,  which  represent  the  wars  to  have  been  long,  and  of 
this  description.  The  cities  above-named  are  situated  a  little  Westward  of  Tibet.  The  tribe  of  loud 
or  the  Brahmin  Abraham,  was  expelled  from  or  left  the  Maturea  of  the  kingdom  of  Oude  in  India, 
and,  settling  at  Goshen,  or  the  house  of  the  Sun  or  Heliopolis  in  Egypt,  gave  it  the  name  of  the 
place  which  they  had  left  in  India,  Maturea.  I  beg  my  reader  to  look  back  to  Book  V.  Ch.  VIII. 
Sect.  1,  for  all  the  striking  circumstances  of  connexion,  for  a  vast  number  of  years,  between  the 
tribe  of  Abraham  and  Heliopolis.  Let  him  also  consider  what  I  said  just  now,  respecting  this 
same  city  of  destruction,  being  called  the  city  of  Seth  orTyphon,  and  of  Abaris  or  Avaris,  that  is, 
of  the  Hebrews. 

We  have  seen  that  the  City  of  Avaris  was  probably  called  Abaris,  which  meant  Strangers  or 
Hebrews,  and  close  to  it  was  the  mount  of  Ieudieh.  Bryant1  shews  that  this  Avaris  was  called 
Cercasora,  which  will  turn  out  to  be  the  same  as  the  Calisa-pura  in  the  kingdom  of  Ioudya  or 
Oude,  in  India.2  Thus  we  shall  connect  Maturea,  Judah,  and  Abraham  together,  and,  as  I  have 
suggested,  the  doctrines  of  Cristna  or  the  Lamb. 

There  is  an  account  of  the  Hyperborean  called  Abaris,  viz.  that  he  came  into  Greece  carrying 
in  his  hand  the  arrow  of  Apollo,  which  served  him  as  a  passport  through  all  countries.  Col. 
Tod3  has  given  an  instance  of  the  arrow  of  a  tribe  from  the  kingdom  of  Oude  being  made  use  of 
as  a  passport,  exactly  in  the  same  manner.  Coincidences  of  this  kind  appear  trifling,  but  they 
are  in  reality  very  important.    They  render  it  probable,  that  the  same  mythos  is  in  both  countries. 

Abraham  came  from  Mesopotamia  of  the  Chaldees. 4      This  precisely  answers  to  the  situation 


/ 


1  Vol.  III.  p.  260,  4to.  2  Vide  Book  V.  Chap.  VI.  Sect.  6,  of  this  work. 

3  Hist.  Rajapoutana.  *  Acts  vii.  2—4. 


406  NAMES   OF   PLACES. 

of  Mutra  or  Maturea  on  the  Jumna.  It  is  the  country  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Oude  between 
the  two  rivers  Ganges  and  Indus,  and  is  called  Duab  or  Mesopotamia,  as  I  have  before  stated. 
He  probably  came  just  before  the  change  of  the  worship  took  place,  from  Taurus  to  Aries,  from 
Buddha  to  Cristna. 

Let  us  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  a  tribe  or  sect  was  expelled  from  India.  Is  it 
not  natural  to  expect,  that  when  they  settled  in  a  distant  country  they  would  give  the  same 
names  to  their  new  habitations  after  they  had  conquered  or  acquired  them,  as  those  places  bore 
which  they  left  ?  And  if  this  were  the  case,  is  it  not  probable,  that  though  several  thousand  years 
may  have  since  passed,  the  names  of  the  new  settlements  should  be  found  in  the  old  country  ? 
Thus  it  is  :  and  as  this  was  a  sect,  or  national  religion  widely  extended,  and  not  the  inhabitants 
of  a  town  merely,  it  happens  that  we  have  names  of  places  in  the  country  near  the  Mediterranean 
where  they  settled,  which  are  found  in  many  parts  of  India,  in  Siam,  Pegu,  Tibet,  &c. 

I  beg  my  reader  to  refer  to  the  Map  which  is  taken  partly  from  those  of  Bishop  Heber  and  Col. 
Tod,  and  he  will  find  the  kingdom  of  Oude,  anciently  Ayodhia,  in  a  district  called  Agra,  in  which 
is  a  city,  called  anciently  Argha1  or  Agra.  It  was  in  ruins  in  the  time  of  Akbar — and  was 
rebuilt  by  him  and  called  Akberabad.  a  He  will  also  find  a  place  called  Daoud-nagur,  that  is 
Dud  (in  dud)  or  David-nagur.  Nagur  means  fort  or  walled  town.  There  is  also  a  district  called 
Daod-potra,  that  is,  town  of  the  sons  of  David.  Thus  we  have  a  city  of  David  and  a  country  of  the 
children  or  sons  of  David. 

Maturea  has  been  before  noticed  in  Egypt  and  on  the  Jumna,  or  Jamuna,  or  Yamuna.  There 
is  also  a  city  in  the  same  country  called  Joud-poor,  or  Yuddapoor,  or  the  city  of  Jud,  where  Bishop 
Heber  says  are  the  ruins  of  a  magnificent  city.  This  is  called  by  called  Col.  Tod  Oode-poor :  it 
is  about  lat.  24J,  long.  73f  •  There  are  also  several  other  towns  of  the  same  name.  There  is 
also,  in  about  lat.  26|,  and  long.  73,  a  city  called,  by  Col.  Tod,  Jodpoor,  with  a  district  of  the 
same  name.  About  lat.  27  and  long.  76,  may  be  seen  a  town  called  Jeipour,  with  a  district  of 
the  same  name.  There  is  also,  about  lat.  26,  long.  78,  a  district  called  Jado-ouwatti.  Bishop 
Heber  says,  the  king  of  the  country  of  Joud  or  Jud-poor,  is  called  Malek,  that  is,  in  correct 
Hebrew,  the  King. 3  All  these  places,  as  well  as  Delhi  and  Benares,  were  included  in  the  king- 
dom of  Oud,  or  Ayodhia,  or  Juda. 

There  are  three  places  in  a  triangle  between  25  and  30  degrees  of  latitude,  and  about  73  of 
longitude,  in  the  kingdom  of  Oude  or  Juda — the  first,  called  Oudipour,  or  Cheitore,  or  Meywar,  or 
Midwar ;  the  second,  Joodpour,  or  Yuddapoor  ;  the  third,  called  Ambeer,  or  Amere,  or  Joinagur, 
or  Jyenagur,  or  Jyepour.  4  I  need  not  remind  my  reader  that  he  must  strike  off  the  syllable  pour 
or  poor,  which  means  place  or  town,  and  then  he  will  have  the  real  name.  As  we  may  expect 
from  its  name  Midwar  or  Medway  in  English,  Oudipore  or  Cheitore  is  in  the  middle  of  the  other 
two.  My  reader  may  smile  at  this  observation,  but  the  farther  back  he  goes,  the  more  numerous 
he  will  find  these  kinds  of  extraordinary  coincidences.  They  are  the  words  of  an  universal  and 
very  old  language.  In  some  of  the  Northern  nations  Day  is  called  Far.  This  is  similar  to 
Midwar  and  Medway,  Med  or  Mid-day. 

The  river  Chelum,  or  Jalum,  or  Jhylun,  or  Behut,  or  Jenaut5  has  on  its  West  side  the  country 
of  the  Joudis,  at  the  foot,  of  the  mountains  of  Joud.  There  is  also  a  place  or  district  in  this 
country  called  Seba  or  Siba.     There  is  also  a  tribe  called  Jajoohahs,  which  descended  from  the 

1  Heber. 

s  A  district  of  Jerusalem  was  called  Acra ;  this  must  have  been  Arga,  as  it  is  not  likely  that  this  city  should  have  a 
quarter  called  by  a  Greek  name. 
3  Vol.  I.  p.  368.      ,  «  See  Rennell's  Memoir,  p.  cxxxii.  5  Rennell,  p.  98. 


BOOK  VIII.   CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  3.  407 

Joudis.  Here  are  the  Jews,  descended  from  Judah.  In  the  mountains  of  Solomon  are  found  a 
tribe  of  people  called  Judoons, l  (that  is,  Judaeans,)  and  a  place  called  Gosa,  (that  is  Gaza,)  and  a 
people  called  Jadrauns,  and  another  called  Jaujees  (Jews). 2  The  mountains  of  Solomon,  or 
Solimaun,  have  this  name  in  the  old  books,  though  they  are  not  commonly  known  at  this  time 
by  it.  3  These  mountains  are  higher  than  the  Andes. 4  One  of  the  mounts  of  the  chain  is  called 
Suffaid  Coh. 5  The  Sofees  of  Persia  are  called  Suffarees.  6  In  this  country,  also,  is  the  city  of 
Enoch,  the  Anuchta  of  Ptolemy. 

Col.  Tod  says,7  the  traditions  of  the  Hindoos  assert  that  India  was  first  peopled  or  colonized 
by  a  race  called  Yadu,  to  which  they  trace  the  foundations  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  their 
ancient  cities. 8  The  Yadus  are  in  the  unpolished  dialect  pronounced  Jadu  or  Jadoons. 9  The 
Eusofzyes,  or  tribe  of  Joseph,  is  also  called  Jadoons,  that  is,  Judaeans. 

2.  The  country  of  Cheitore  or  Oudipore  belongs  to  the  tribe  called  Rajpoots,  their  chief  called 
by  the  title  of  Rana.  In  Ptolemy  they  are  called  Rhannae. 10  They  are  a  most  warlike  tribe,  and, 
in  fact,  have  never  been  permanently  subdued.  They  are  the  warrior  tribe  noticed  by  Arrian 
and  Diodorus.     Not  far  from  the  above  is  a  town  called  Ajimere,  the  Gagasmira  of  Ptolemy.  H 

Father  Georgius  admits  the  truth  of  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  names  of  the  Indian  places: 
he  says,  Regnum  Ayiodia  alias  Avod  (meaning  Ayodia  and  Oude)  ex  depravato  nomine  Jehuda, 
seu  Jeuda.  He  then  shews  that  Giodu,  Giadu,  Giadubansi,  are  all  the  same  as  the  miiT  ieude  of 
the  Hebrews,  and  he  gives  the  following  translation  of  a  passage  of  the  Bagavan  :  "  Ipse  (Cristna) 
"  salvabit  Gentem  suam  Gioda  nempe  Pastorum :  vitam  dabit  bonis :  interficiet  Gigantes : 
"  relinquet  Gokul,  et  Madiapur :  agnoscetur  ab  universo  terrarum  orbe :  et  nomen  ejus  invo- 
"  cabunt  omnes,  Divinum  est  vaticinium :  nee  dubita,  haud  :  sic  erit."  Of  course  all  with  the 
monk,  is  clearly  copied  from  the  kingdom  of  Juda,  which  Herodotus  could  not  find.  Is  it  possible 
for  any  proof  to  be  more  clear  than  this,  of  the  truth  of  the  theorv  advocated  bv  me,  of  the  double 
mythos  in  Eastern  and  Western  Syria  ? 

3.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  enter  into  the  history  and  chronology  of  India ;  I  consider  that  it  is 
so  contaminated  with  nonsense  and  fraud,  that  it  is  merely  soiling  paper  to  transcribe  it.  The 
Grecian  heroic  times  are  sense  compared  to  it.  I  will  give  one  specimen,  from  which  a  comparison 
may  be  made  with  all  the  others.  Parasu  Rama,  who  lived  since  the  time  of  Christ,  looking  down 
from  a  hill  on  the  sea-shore,  saw  some  dead  Brahmins.  These  by  magic  he  brought  to  life,  and 
from  them  descended  the  Ranas  of  Udaya-pur,  as  Major  Wilford  calls  it,  to  disguise  the  true  name, 
the  city  of  Judea.  12  This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  the  lost  origin  of  the  various 
tribes  is  accounted  for.  Ex  uno  disce  omnes.  From  this  I  shall  be  told  that  these  Rannas  are  of 
modern  date,  but  Ptolemy's  notice  of  them,  as  well  as  of  Gazamera  or  Ajimere,  settles  this  ques- 
tion. They  were  kings  of  one  of  the  very  old  cities  of  the  tribe  of  Joudi,  miscalled  or  disguised 
by  the  name  of  Udaya-pur.  Col.  Tod  gives  it  its  proper  name  and  calls  it  Ioude,  or  Oudipore. 
The  notice  of  the  Rannae,  by  Ptolemy,  shews  that  the  tribe  was  in  existence  before  the  dispersion 
of  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Vespasian.  In  the  attempt  to  discover  the  truth  in  questions  of  this 
kind,  it  is  very  seldom  that  a  proof  of  a  fact  can  be  obtained,  but  I  think  it  is  obtained  respecting 
the  Rann.e  of  Oudipore.  They  were  evidently  here  in  the  time  of  Ptolemy,  and  they  are  yet 
remaining.    There  can  be  no  shadow  of  pretence  to  set  up  that  they  have  been  destroyed  by  the 


'  Elphins.  Vol.  II.  p.  99.                          Mb.                          3  lb.  Tab.  Vol.  I.  p.  148.  *  lb.  p.  155. 

*  lb.  p.  156.                         e  Ib>  p#  257.                          ■>  Trans.  Royal  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  III.  pp.  1,  141. 

8  For  a  sketch  of  this  race  see  An.  Rajastan,  Vol.  I.  p.  85.                      9  Ibid.  p.  86.  10  Rennell,  p,  153. 
11  Rennell,  p.  145.                          >*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  238. 


408  MOUNT    SION. 

Mohamedans,  and  the  city  of  Oude  or  Oudi-pore  built  by  Mohamedans,  and  since  that  time  a  new 
tribe  of  R  annas  set  up.  The  city  of  Gagasmera  or  Ajimere  confirms  this.  The  city  of  Oudepore 
is  very  large,  and  carries  on  the  face  of  it  marks  of  extreme  antiquity.  If  the  antiquity  of  the  city  of 
Oude  or  Ioudi-pore,  and  its  Rannae  be  considered  to  be  proved,  and  that  they  existed  before  the 
time  of  Christ,  I  think  it  carries  with  it  pretty  good  presumptive  proof,  that  all  the  other  towns 
in  its  neighbourhood  having  Jewish  or  Israelitish  names  are  the  same.  Then,  except  as  I  have 
accounted  for  it,  how  is  it  to  be  accounted  for  ? 

Delhi,  was  formerly  called  Indraprest'ha,  and  was  founded  by  Yoodishtra.  The  shtra  is  like 
the  shtra  in  Saurasthra,  a  termination  which  I  do  not  understand,  but  it  leaves  the  Yoodi. l  The 
most  ancient  of  the  cities  of  this  part  of  India,  are  Oude  or  Yodya,  and  Agra,  the  latter  of  which 
went  to  decay,  and  was  rebuilt  by  Akbar. 

Col.  Tod  says  a  colony  of  the  Yadu  dwelt  in  the  mountains  called  in  Rennell's  map  Ioudes, 
when  they  were  expelled  from  Saurastra.  No  one  can  deny  that  these  Yadu  or  Ioudi  dwelt,  to 
use  a  Bible  phrase,  in  the  mountains  of  Juda.  These  were  the  Yadus  of  Jess-ul-mer. 2  These 
Yadus  have  now  got  corrupted  into  Jadoon.3  Speaking  of  Jodpoor,  the  Colonel  says,  "The 
"  view  will  give  a  more  correct  idea  of  the  (  City  of  Joda'  than  any  description."4  Here  the 
doctrine  which  I  teach  is  unconsciously  adopted  by  Col.  Tod.     loci  means  Joda  or  Juda. 

4.  In  lat.  26,  31  N.  long.  /4,  28  E.,  is  the  city  called  Ajimere  or  Gazamere,  the  Gazamera  of 
Ptolemy  adjoining  to  a  large  lake.  Here  is  Gaza,  of  Syria,  and  the  old  English  word  mere  for  a 
lake.  We  have  Wittlesey  Mere  near  Peterborough,  Hornsey  Mere  near  Kingston-on-Hull,  in  the 
kingdom  of  Brigantia,  near  the  river  Umber.  Is  all  this  accidental  ?  Col.  Tod  says  that  the 
word  mer  in  the  Hindoo  language  means  hill.  Then  it  will  be  the  hill  of  Aji.  But  the  expression 
of  Ptolemy  shews,  that  the  two  words  Aji  and  Gaza  are  the  same.  The  word  which  we  call  Gaza, 
in  the  Hebrew  is  written  N?y  oza.  This  means  Goat,  the  same  as  Aje — which  tends  to  prove  that 
the  original  must  have  been  Aji.  The  lake  of  Potsha  is  close  by  Ajimere,  and  the  town  of  Gaza 
being  on  the  sea,  the  word  mer  must  mean  both  hill,  and  the  Latin  Mare,  or  Meris,  or  Maeris,  a  lake 
— the  Hebrew  mo  inre  or  "no  mrr. 5 

Col.  Tod  explains  the  word  Jerusalem  to  mean  Mer-Jesul  or  Hill  of  Jessul.  The  double 
meaning  of  the  word  Mer  arises  from  all  these  sacred  mounts  being  imitative  Merus.  Thus  they 
might  be  all  called  Mer.  Meru,  we  must  recollect,  was  a  hill  in  a  sea,  or  surrounded  by  an 
oceanus.  And  from  this  the  two  came  to  be  confounded.  But  this  will  be  more  clearly  shewn 
presently. 

The  river  anciently  called  Pontus,  in  Thrace,  is  now  by  the  Turks  called  Mer,  and  the  lake  into 
which  it  runs,  Mer-mer :  whence  I  am  justified  in  concluding  that  the  word  Mer  meant  lake,  in 
the  old  language,  before  it  was  changed  or  translated,  by  the  Greeks,  into  Pontus. 

No  one  can  doubt  that  Casimere  or  Cashmere  was  called  from  the  lake  which  probably  once 
filled  its  valley.     This  again  fixes  one  of  the  meanings  of  the  word  Mere. 

5.  The  missionary  Dr.  Buchanan  states  his  opinion,  that  the  religion  of  Buddha  arose  near 
Tibet.  He  names  a  river  of  Siam,  which  rises  near  the  frontiers  of  China,  and  which  is  in  the 
Burman  empire;  and  he  gives  a  description  of  a  most  holy  imaginary  mountain  in  the  same  empire 
called  Sian. 6  I  think  it  probable  that  the  kingdom  of  Siam  had  its  name  and  religion  from  this 
country.  Here  we  have  the  Sion  referred  to  by  Loubere,  in  Book  V.  Chap.  III.  Sect.  8.  The 
Siamese,  he  states  to  be  called  Yoo-da-ya,  which,  he  observes,  is  nothing  but  Judaei. 


»  Tod's  Hist.  Raj.  p.  87-  *  Hist.  Raj.  pp.  61,  62.  3  lb.  p.  86.  4   lb.  p.  709. 

5  Littleton,  Die.  6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  242. 


BOOK  VIII.     CHAPTER   III.     SECTION   6.  409 

Mount  Sion  is  a  mystic  mount,  and  came  from  the  Mount  Zion  of  the  Burmese  empire,  or  of 
the  kingdom  of  Siam,  or  as  La  Loubere  says  of  the  Sions — for  there  seems  to  have  been  a  ridge  of 
them,  like  the  ridge  of  the  Alpes.  It  is  the  mount  of  the  Gods  or  of  happy  beings, l  in  the 
kingdom  of  Siam — the  mount  where  the  Gods  reside,  and  there  were  several  of  these  mounts  above 
one  another  for  different  orders  of  beings ;  and  though  I  have  no  authority  for  the  assertion,  I  have 
ho  doubt  that  they  were  on  the  sides  of  the  North,  In  short,  Sion  meaning  the  holy  mount  was 
Mount  Meru.  There  were  seven  heavens  before  the  throne  of  God.  The  word  |V2f  ziun,  in 
Hebrew,  correctly  means  a  stone  mount,  and  has  also  the  meaning  of  the  stone  Cam  of  the 
Western  nations.  Mr.  Turner  observed  the  same  Cams  in  Tibet.  They  are  equally  found  in 
lona  of  the  Hebrides.  Every  person  in  passing  these  mounts  thinks  it  an  act  of  piety  to  add  a 
stone  to  them.  There  is  also  a  mystical  Zion  in  Ceylon,  where  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  places 
Mount  Ararat.  The  Cingales'  traditions  state  them  to  have  come  from  the  land  of  Ava,  that  is,  of 
Eva. 

In  the  Buddhist  doctrines  of  Ceylon,  the  Mount  Zian,  or  triumphing  heaven,  makes  a  great 
figure.  2  It  is  called  a  place  of  salvation.  It  is  evidently  like  the  Mount  Zion  of  the  Jews  a 
mystical  mount,  having  in  reality  the  same  name.  The  etymology  of  the  word  Sion  I  reserve  to  a 
future  book. 

The  ancient  name  of  Thibet  or  Tibet  was  Baltistan ;  that  is,  the  place  of  Balti,  or  Baaltis,  of 
Syria. 3 

Mr.  Faber  has  shewn,  that  the  city  of  Sidon,  in  Syria,  where  the  God  Dagon  was  adored,  had 
its  name  from  an  oriental  city  on  the  Erythrean  Sea  called  Sidon ;  but  Trogus  says  that  the 
Erythrean  Sidon  was  not  the  original  settlement  of  the  Sidonians,  but  that  they  came  from  a  more 
Eastern  part. 4 

6.  The  following  observations  of  Nimrod's  will  pretty  well  shew  us  the  origin  of  the  famous 
Mount  Moriah  or  Sion  of  the  Jews.  Coming  as  they  do  from  so  good  a  Greek  and  Latin  scholar, 
and  at  the  same  time  from  a  devotee  and  unwilling  witness,  with  the  impartial  inquirer  they  will 
command  the  greatest  respect.  "  Belerophon  fought  against  the  female  host  of  the  Amazonians. 
"  He  fought  also  with  the  Solymi,  a  circumstance  which  tends  to  identify  him  with  Memnon,  who, 
"  on  his  way  to  relieve  Troy,  met  and  overthrew 

"  ApyaXsuv  'EoXv/auv  Upov  rparov.  5 

"  Immediately  behind  Phaselis,  of  Pamphylia,  rose  Mount  Solymus,  and  close  to  it  (probably  one 
"of  its  peaks)  Mount  Olympus,  «  called  also  Qomxosig,  or  the  red.  Also,  a  Lophos,  or  conical 
"  hill  over  Termessus,  of  Pisidia,  was  called  ^oXufxog  Ao$og,  and  hard  by  it  a  work  of  antiquity, 
;<  called  the  rampart  of  Belorophon  or  mound :  Xa?aS-  7  A  mount  Solymus  was,  like  Ida  to 
"  Jove,  the  <rxo7rir),  or  seat'of  speculation,  to  the  Ethiopian  Neptune. 

Toy  8  £5  Ai^fioirav  aviav  kqeiuv  EvO(TJ%0oy 
TyXoOeu  ex  2o\v[auv  opeav  jSsv.  8 

1  In  fact,  it  was  one  of  the  many  names  used  among  the  nations  for  an  Olymp,  or  sacrificial  and 
'  oracular  high  place.      In  the   maritime  Syria  there  was    a   very  famous   city  of  immemorial 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  18?.  «  Upham's  History  of  Buddhism,  p.  74. 

3  Lett.  Edif.  Vol.  XV.  p.  188.  4  0rig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  562. 

5  Qu.  Sm.  L.  ii.  ver.  120;    Herod.  L.  i.  C.  clxxiii. ;  Steph.  Byz.  in  voce  Milyas.  «  Strabo,  L.  xiv.  p.  952. 

7  Vide  Strabo,  L.  xiii.  p.  904.  ■  Horn.  Od.  L.  v.  ver.  283. 

3g 


410  SOLYMA. 

"  sanctity,  and  containing  within  its  purlieus  several  mounts  dedicated  to  the  mysteries  of  the 
"  Syrian  or  Ionian  religion,  especially  the  Mount  Moriah  or  Olivet,  and  the  Mount  Sion.  This 
"  city,  founded  by  the  Jebusite  Canaanites,  was  called  Solyma,  and,  by  way  of  honour,  Hiero- 
"  Solyma.  It  was  taken  from  its  subsequent  possessors,  the  Jews  and  Benjamites,  by  Nebuchad- 
"  nezzar  the  Great,  a  prince  of  the  Syrian  religion,  which  heresy  he  raised  to  an  unexampled  pitch 
"of  splendour:  and  out  of  the  spoils  of  Hiero-Solyma  he  founded  a  new  city,  Solyma,1  in 
"Assyria."2 

Again,  Nimrod  says,  "  This  place,  Hiero-Solyma,  was  not  occupied  by  the  chosen  people  till 
"  the  time  of  Joshua,3  but  it  was  solemnly  consecrated  to  the  uses  of  the  Christian  worship  in 
"  the  days  of  Abraham,  by  the  symbolical  offering  of  his  son  :  and  the  same  Abraham  having 
"  vanquished  a  league  of  kings,  met  in  the  neighbourhood,  with  a  personage  named  Melchisedek, 
"  king  of  Salem,  who  initiated  him  into  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  sacrament.  Sacrifice, 
"  with  immolation  and  libation,  was  appointed  for  anticipation  of  an  atonement  to  come  :  but  the 

"  two  latter  were  thought  sufficient  for  the  commemoration  thereof  when  complete. We 

"  are  not  told  what  place  it  was  that  was  called  Salem,   but  we  find  the  Israelites,  when  in  pos- 
"  session  of  Hiero-Solym,  invariably  calling  it  Jeru-salem,  Behold  peace :  and  Josephus,  who  was 
"  ignorant  of  the    nature   and  character   of  Melchisedek,    and  mistook  him   for  some  Jebusite 
"  prince,4  informs  us,  that  he  first  gave  to  the  city,  Jerusalem,  its  present  name.     Here  then  we 
"  have  the  truth  :  the  name  Solym  was  changed  to  Salem,  and  Hiero-Solym  to  Hieru-Salein."  5 

Notwithstanding  some  nonsense  and  several  mistakes,  here  are  several  very  important  admissions 
of  Nimrod's,  as  we  shall  presently  see.  What  I  have  said  before  respecting  the  change  of  Salem  to 
Jerusalem  is  here  confirmed.  The  meaning  of  the  present  name  Jerusalem  is,  according  to  our 
divines,  he  shall  see  peace.     But  perhaps,  like  many  other  mythic  words,  it  had  two  meanings. 

Nimrod  seems  to  have  forgotten  that  Eupolemus  tells  us,  that  Melchizedek  lived  at  Gerizim. 6 
Before  I  proceed  further  with  the  meaning  of  the  word  Jerusalem,  we  must  discuss  several  other 
circumstances  connected  with  it. 

7.  The  Solymi  are  named  by  Homer,  and  there  were  a  people  noticed  of  that  name  in  Lycia,  in 
Asia  Minor,  a  province  adjoining  to  Pisidia.  I  suspect  that  they  were  a  sect  driven  out  of  India 
to  the  West,  and  the  builders  of  Jerusalem,  or  Hiero-Solyma,  the  Sacred  Solyma.  I  learn  from 
the  author  of  Nimrod,  that  Memnon  was  said  to  have  fought  the  Solymi, 7  that  is,  that  the  sun 
fought  them.  This  might  mean  that  they  were  driven  from  the  East.  There  were  fourteen  Bads  or 
Buddhas,  or  incarnations  of  divine  wisdom  under  that  name.  There  were  also  fourteen  incarnations 
of  divine  wisdom  under  the  name  of  Menu.  And  there  were  fourteen  Soleimans,  all,  perhaps, 
different  names  for  the  same  mythos.  But  in  the  Jewish  books  we  only  read  of  one  Menu,  and 
one  Noah,  or  of  one  Solomon,  the  Wise. 

I  now  beg  my  reader  to  reflect  upon  the  fact,  of  Sanscrit  words  being  found  in  the  Latin  and 
Greek  languages.  This  done,  he  will  probably  not  be  surprised  to  find  Latin  words  in  India.  He 
will  recollect  that  the  temples  or  sacred  places  in  Judaea  were  called  bx  JT2  bit  al,  or  house  of 
God,  and  Solomon  built  a  house  to  the  Lord,  by  which  name  of  house,  the  temple  of  Jerusalem, 
in  a  very  pointed  manner,  was  called.     Thus,  this  being  premised,   the  next  place  which  I  shall 


1  Asin.  Quadr.  Ap.  Steph.  Byz.  in.  voce.  s  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  Sup.  Ed.  p.  96. 

3  Joshua,  that  is  Jesus,  that  is  the  Saviour,  the  son  of  Nave,  that  is  of  the  boat,  or  the  Argha,  or  the  female  genera- 
tive power  :  note  of  the  author's,  not  Nimrod's. 

4  No  mistake— note  by  G.  H.,  not  by  Nimrod.  *  Ibid.  p.  97. 

6  On  this  point  Josephus  is  not  evidence.    He  is  a  partisan.  7  Vol.  I.  p.  98. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  III.  SECTION  7»  411 

notice  is  Tucte  Soliman — this,  is  tectum,  or  house  of  Solomon.  It  is  one  of  the  five  sacred 
mounts,  Merus  or  Olympuses  or  Solymi  of  India.  It  is  not  far  from  the  hills  called  the  mountain 
or  ridge  of  Solyman.  But  the  Tucte  Soleymans,  or  houses  of  Soleiman,  were  not  confined  to 
India. 

In  Morier's  Travels  in  Persia,  (see  plates,  Fig.  28,)  may  be  seen  a  building,  the  style  of  which  at 
once  proves  its  great  antiquity.     It  is  called  Madre  Soleiman.     On  seven  towers  of  Cyclopean 
•  architecture,  stands  a  square  house,  with  pitched  roof,  formed  of  large  stones  projecting  one  over 
the  other,  like  the  roof  of  the  cave  at  New  Grange,  in  Ireland,  the  cave  at  Mysenae,  the  walls  of 
Tyrins,  and  the  temple  of  Komulmar,  described  by  Col.  Tod,  in  the  history  of  Rajapoutana.    The 
Persians  attribute  it  to  Soleiman,  but  modern  learned  men  think  they  have  made  out,  that  it  is  the 
tomb  of  Cyrus. l    They  may  please  themselves  with  this  fancy  j  but  the  style,  the  traditional  name, 
the  seven  steps,  and  the  square  building  at  the  top,  all  joined  together,  pretty  well  satisfy  me  that 
it  is  a  tecte  Soleiman.     If  it  had  been  the  tomb  of  their  great  Cyrus,  it  would  never  have  lost 
its  name  or  designation.     I  would  ask,  what  has  a  Madre"  Soleiman  to  do  in  Persia,  according  to 
our  construction  of  the  text  of  the  Jewish  historians  ?     Though  the  Persians  say  that  Abraham 
was   their  ancestor — they  do  not  say  his  successors,  a  thousand  years  afterward,  were   their 
ancestors.     Then  how  came  they  to  think  of  Soleiman  as  the  author  of  this  building  ?     I  think  it 
probable,  under  these  circumstances,  that  this  is  not  the  building  alluded  to  by  Arrian,  Curtius, 
Pliny,  &c,    in  their  account  of  the  visit  to  it  of  Alexander  the  Great, 2    but  one  of  the  same 
nature  as   the   Merus  of  India.      I   consider  the  traditional   name  of  the  building,   among  the 
ignorant  natives,  as  better  authority  than  Greek  historians.     For  I  again  ask,  how  could  the  name 
of  Solomon  come  here  among  the  unlearned  natives  ?     Persons  are  struck,  at  first,  with  the  con- 
nexion between  Abraham,  whom,  as  just  mentioned,  the  Persians  claim  for  their  ancestor,  and  Solo- 
mon.    But  such  persons  do  not  attend   to  the  circumstance  of  the  dates,  which  shew  that,  even 
admitting  Abraham  to  have  been  the  ancestor  of  the  Persians,  this  gives  them  no  interest  whatever  in 
the  son  of  Bathsheba,  iVbraham's  descendant,  who  never  was  in  Persia,  or  had  any  connexion  with  it. 
The  Persian  romances  say,  that  there  were  seventy  or  seventy-two  rulers,  called  Suleiman,  before 
Adam  :  this  has  an  obvious  relation  to  the  seventy-one  Manwantaras  of  the  Hindus, 3  and  evidently 
is  the  same  history  as  the  seventy-two  Soleimans  alluded  to  before  in  this  work. 

Perse-polis,  or  the  city  of  Perse,  in  Greek,  was  called  in  Persian  Tucht-i-Gemsheed ;  from  which 
we  may  infer  that  this  fabulous  king  was  the  Perseus  of  the  Greeks,  who  was  the  Sun.  4 

Thus,  Tucht-i-Gemsheed  being  the  same  as  city  of  Gemshid,  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
Tucht-i-Soleiman  is  the  same  as  the  city  of  Soleiman.  Here  we  arrive  at  an  important  truth  by 
recourse  to  my  system  of  applying  to  several  languages,  and  going,  in  fact,  to  the  first  system 
of  letters  and  written  language,  as  far  as  we  can  get.  No  one  will  doubt  the  identity  of  these 
Tuctis. 

Nimrod  says,  "  The  Malmbadian  line  is  nothing  but  the  succession  of  antediluvian  patriarchs  ;"  5 
that  is,  a  supposed  succession  of  re-incarnations  of  Buddha,  or  the  Sun  in  Taurus.  Maha-Bad 
is  Great  Bud.  He  says,  After  this  line  came  Gemshid  or  Perseus,  whose  emblem  was  a  Lamb, 
which  is  yet  common  on  medals  struck  in  his  honour. 

A  very  important  observation  has  been  made  by  Sir  R.  Ker  Porter, — that  he  found  the  traits  of 
resemblance  striking  and  numerous,  betwixt  the  ruins  of  the  temples  of  Persepolis  and  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  temple  of  Solomon.  6 


1  But  query,  was  not  Cyrus  a  Solomon  ?  *  Vide  Hale's  Chronology,  p.  1 1 1. 

a  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  524,  and  also  Vol.  X.  p.  93.  *  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  141. 

s  Vol.  I.  p.  141.  e  Pt  jroo,  Cruezer,  p.  676. 

3g2 


412  JERUSALEM.      JESULMER. 

In  Porter's  Travels1  may  be  found  the  description  of  the  remains  of  a  city  called  Tackt-i-Soli- 
mon  of  very  great  and  unknown  antiquity.  This  city  of  ancient  ruins  has  been  thoughtlessly 
ascribed  to  the  15th  Calif.  Another  of  these  places  called  Tuckt-i- Suleiman,  or  the  throne  of 
Suliema,  may  be  found  described  in  Vol.  I.  p.  485.  Pliny  calls  this  place  Pasargada,  and  says, 
that  here  is  the  tomb  of  Cyrus,  by  whom  it  was  built. 

If  my  reader  will  consult  Pococke's  Travels,2  he  will  see  good  reason  to  believe  that  Solomon's 
gardens  and  pools  in  Syria  were  gardens  of  Daphne  or  a  Meru.  Though  Pococke  did  not  in  the 
least  understand  the  subject,  he  could  not  help  observing  that  "  it  is  probable  there  were  hanging 
"gardens  on  the  side  of  the  hill."  The  plate  describes  a  perfect  Meru  with  its  seven  hills  one 
above  another,  and  its  mount;  on  which  Pococke  observes,  "probably  the  house  stood  at  the  top." 

In  Asia  Minor,  near  Telmessus,  noticed  before,  there  were  Solymean  mountains,  one  of  these  of 
great  height,  called  Takhta-lu  by  the  present  Turks,  was  called  formerly  by  the  Greeks  Mount 
Solyma.  Here  is,  I  think,  the  Tekte  Solyma  of  the  Hindoos  of  Rajapoutana.  Here  is  also  an 
example  of  the  old  name  returning  to  the  place.  I  think  no  one  can  refuse  his  assent  to  the 
identity  of  these  two  curious  names,  Tecte  Solyma  and  Takhta-lu  Solyma.  3 

Josephus  says,  that  the  Jews  assisted  the  Persians  against  Greece.  He  cites  the  poet 
Choerilus,  who,  he  says,  names  a  people  who  dwelt  on  the  Solymean  mountains  of  Asia  Minor, 
and  spoke  Phoenician.  Bochart,  not  knowing  what  to  make  of  this,  supposes  that  what  he  alluded 
to  was  a  colony  of  Phoenicians,  who  had  settled  in  Asia  Minor,  near  to  the  lake  Phaselis.  The 
colony  here  spoken  of,  I  think,  were  from  Tekte  Solymi :  they  were  Ioudi,  which  is  confirmed  by 
their  sooty  heads,  like  horses'  heads  dried  in  the  smoke,  and  their  having  the  Tonsure,4  or 
shaven  crown,  which,  Bochart  has  shewn,  was  prohibited  to  the  Jews  ;  and,  by  the  fact  of  the 
prohibition,  shews  that  it  had  once  existed.     The  Buddhists  of  Tibet  have  the  tonsure. 

It  is  observed  by  Mercator,  that,  by  the  poets,  Jerusalem  was  called  Solyma  or  Solumae.  From 
Josephus,  it  appears,  that  there  was  a  Mount  Solyma,  near  the  lake  Asphaltes,  in  Judea. 5 

8.  About  lat.  27  N.  and  long.  71  E.  on  Col.  Tod's  map  will  be  found  the  place  called  Jesulmer. 
I  learn  from  the  Colonel's  work,  that  it  is  a  place  of  very  great  antiquity,  and  in  a  peculiar  manner 
sacred  among  the  Buddhists.  In  one  of  the  temples  is  a  very  large  library,  and  in  the  centre  of 
it,  suspended  by  a  chain  of  gold  in  a  golden  case,  is  a  most  sacred,  holy  manuscript,  which  is 
expressly  forbidden  to  be  read  or  even  looked  upon.  It  is  believed  that  any  person  reading  it 
would  be  instantly  struck  blind.  Some  time  ago  the  prince  of  the  country  caused  it  to  be  brought 
to  him,  in  order  that  he  might  read  it ;  but  his  courage  failed,  and  he  sent  back  the  virgin  unde- 
flowered,  and  thus  it  will  probably  remain  till  some  sacrilegious  European  lays  hands  on  it.  These 
circumstances  shew,  I  think,  that  the  city  of  Jesulmer  is  no  common  place  :  and  now  I  heg  my 
reader  to  transpose  the  letters  of  this  word  Jesulmer,  and  he  will  find  they  make  Jeruselm.  Take 
this  by  itself  and  the  fact  would  be  of  little  consequence,  but  couple  it  with  all  the  other  circum- 
stances— with  the  names  of  the  other  towns  which  I  have  pointed  out,  and  I  defy  the  unprejudiced 
reader  to  divest  his  mind  of  a  strong  suspicion,  that  the  Jerusalem  of  the  West  is  the  Jesulmer  of 
the  East,  or  vice  versa.6  Jesulmer  changed  into  Jeruselm,  is  nothing  but  an  example  of  the  prac- 
tice called  Themeru  or  changing,  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  of  writing  words  in  the  way  called  anagram- 
matical.7     It  is  quite  surprising  to  what  a  length  this  foolish  and  childish  practice  was  carried 


1  Vol.  IL  p.  557.  *  Fol.  Ed.  Vol.  I.  p.«44. 

3  Drummond's  Orig.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  90—93.  4  (Ibid,  pp.  94,  95.  5  Ibid.  pp.  90,  93. 

c  A  little  to  the  south  of  Jesulmer,  about  lat.  26,  is  a  town  called  Iunali,  the  old  name  of  Antioch. 

1  Ency.  Britt.  voce  Anagram. 


BOOK  VIII.      CHAPTER  III.    SECTION   10.  413 

even  in  modern  times.  John  Calvinus  called  himself  Alcuinus.  When  a  person  observes  the 
variety  of  ways  in  which  the  names  of  these  cities  and  countries  are  written  into  English  by  our 
Indian  travellers  from  the  old  dialects  of  the  country,  (I  do  not  speak  of  the  Sanscrit,)  he  will  be 
willing  to  allow  a  very  considerable  latitude.  Scarcely  any  two  of  them  use  the  same  letters, 
though  the  striking  similitude  to  the  Jewish  names  is  apparent  in  them  all. 

9.  The  meaning  of  Jeru-salem  is  the  sacred  ladder,  d!?D  slm  in  Hebrew ;  N?^>iD  sulma  in  Chaldee. 
The  LXX. l  render  D^D  slm  solim,  by  xhi[Act%,  and  Jerom  by  scala.  The  Mount  Climax  of  Strabo, 
in  Asia  Minor,  was  called  Mount  Solim  or  Solima  by  the  natives ;  and  Climax  was  only  a  Greek 
translation  of  the  oriental  name. 2  I  suspect  that  the  name  of  the  town  of  the  inhabitants  of  Tel- 
messus,  who  lived  close  to  Mount  Solyma,  and  who  were  called  Solymi, 3  was  a  mere  corruption  of 
D^D  slm;  that,  in  a  similar  way,  the  word  Jesulmer  of  India  is  a  corruption  from  the  same  name, 
like  the  name  of  the  Syrian  Meru,  called  Moriah,  or  Sion,  or  Argha  or  Area,  or  Solyma.  The  city 
of  Jerusalem  is  spelt  with  a  Shin  and  not  a  Samech.  The  Samech  being  one  of  the  new  letters,  if 
the  sixteen  letter  system  be  true,  this  makes  nothing  against  my  argument;  for  in  all  this  I  must 
be  supposed  to  speak  of  a  time,  before  the  letters  of  the  alphabets  were  increased,  when  the  Shin 
must  have  been  used.  Our  priests  will  tell  me  that  thv)  slm,  or  salem,  means  peace.  But  the  pas- 
sages of  Strabo,  Jerom,  and  the  LXX.,  compared  with  the  circumstances  relating  to  the  town  in 
Asia  Minor,  shew  pretty  well  what  was  the  original  meaning.  But  it  is  very  likely  that  it  took 
the  meaning  of  peace  from  being  the  name  of  the  mount  of  peace,  Mount  Sion. 

'legos,  in  Greek,  means  sacred,  and  I  suspect  it  has  come  from  some  Asiatic  word  now  lost,  or 
at  least  unknown  to  me.  And  when  I  consider  the  form  of  Meru,  step  above  step,  the  Madre  Soly- 
man  of  Persia,  and  the  rendering  of  the  word  D^D  slm  in  the  LXX.  by  xXi^a^,  and  in  the  Vulgate 
by  scala,  and  the  same  word  D^D  slm  used  for  Jacob's  ladder,  seen  at  Bit-al  or  the  house  of  God,  on 
which  seventy-two  angels  ascended  and  descended,  I  suspect  that  the  Hiero,  ,TV  ire  means  sacred, 
the  sacred  ladder,  or  the  sacred  mount.  It  is  what  the  Greeks  called  Olympus.  The  Bit-al, 
Bethel,  or  house  of  God,  which  Jacob's  place  of  the  ladder  was  called,  is  not  unlike  the  Tectum  of 
the  Solymi.  We  must  also  remember  that  Solomon,  an  incarnation  of  wisdom,  is  closely  connected 
with  the  wisdom  of  the  Buddhists.  The  observation  respecting  the  similarity  of  the  Tectum  of 
Solyman  or  Tucte  Soleyman  to  the  bx  no  hit  al  of  Genesis,  is  the  more  striking,  because  I  learn 
from  my  friend  Col.  Tod,  (who  lived  at  a  little  distance  from  the  Tucte-Soleyman  for  almost  twenty 
years,  who  speaks  the  language  of  the  country  with  ease,  and  who  actually  made  a  survey  of  it,) 
that,  in  the  language  of  the  country  generally,  a  temple  is  called  Beeth-el,  which  means  Edifice  or 
House  of  the  Sun.  He  says,  that  though  the  language  of  the  country  is  not  Sanscrit,  yet  entire 
sentences  may  sometimes  be  found  which  betray  the  Sanscrit;  and  that  it  has  many  words  which 
must  have  come  from  some  language  of  central  Asia. 

10.  But  of  all_  the  temples  of  Solomon,  I  consider  none  of  more  importance  than  the  Tact 
Solomon  or  Tecte  Soleiman,  which  is  found  in  Cashmere.  "  Mr.  Forster  was  so  much  struck 
"  with  the  general  appearance,  garb,  and  manners,  of  the  Cashmerians,  as  to  think  he  had  suddenly 
"  been  transported  among  a  nation  of  Jews."  4  The  same  idea  was  impressed  upon  the  mind  of 
Mons.  Bernier,  on  his  visiting  that  country.  This  Cashmerian  temple  of  Solomon  will  be  found  of 
great  consequence.  Father  Georgius,  who  was  master  of  the  Tibetian  language,  quotes  the  story 
of  Anobret  from  Sanchoniathon,  and  shews  that  the  Jeud  of  Sanchoniathon  is  the  Jid  of  the  Tibe- 
tians.  Jid  a  Tibetanis  Butta  tributum.  Tfy  ieid  Jehid  Isaaci  epithetum  est,  Gen.  xxii.  2 ;  et  Jid 
Tibetanorum  idem  ac  Jehid  Phcenicium  et  Egyptium.5    Thus  we  have  the  mount  or  house  or 


1  Gen.  xxviii.  12.  *  Drummond's  Origines,  Vol.  IV.  p.  99.  3  lb.  p.  92. 

4  Vol.  II.  p.  21 .  5  vai  Col.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p,  314. 


414 


MOUNT  OLYMPUS.— AFGHANS,    IOUDI. 


habitation  of  Solomon  or  Solyma  in  India,  or  the  country  of  loud,  or  of  Daud-poutri,  or  of  the  sons 
of  David;  in  Persia,  the  Madre"  Solyma,  and  the  same  also  in  Palestine  and  in  Asia  Minor;  and- 
all,  in  some  way  or  other,  connected  with  the  tribe  of  Ioudi.  Can  any  one  believe  all  this  to  be 
the  effect  of  accident  ?  Solomon  was  a  personification  or  incarnation  of  wisdom,  and  the  Jews  of 
Asia  Minor  were  a  tribe  or  colony  from  India,  of  black  Buddhists,  at  or  about  the  same  time  with 
the  Ioudi  to  Syria,  under  the  Brahmin. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MOUNT  OF  SOLOMON,  MOUNT  OF  THE  CABALA. —  MOUNT  OLYMPUS.  —  AFGHANS,  IOUDI. — TURKS. — AFGHAN9 
SPEAK  CHALDEE,  PUSHTO,  AND  HEBREW. — ARABIA  ON  THE  INDUS. — THE  THOUSAND  CITIES  OF  STRABO. 
PECULIARITIES   IN   EASTERN    AND  WESTERN    SYRIA. 

1.  Mr.  Bryant1  observes,  that  Strabo  speaks  of  a  city  of  the  Solymi,  in  Mesopotamia,  called 
Cabalis,  which  he  explains,  the  city  of  the  God  Bal.  It  may  have  been  a  city  of  Bal,  but  that  was 
not  the  reason  of  its  name.  It  had  its  name  Cbl  or  Gbl  from  the  secret  doctrine  of  tradition.  It 
had  the  same  name  as  the  Gabala  of  Western  Syria.  Lucian,  in  his  treatise  De  Dea  Syria,  says 
expressly,  that  "Gabala  was  Byblos,  that  is,  city  of  the  book  or  Bible,  famous  for  the  worship  of 
Adonis."  In  1  Kings  v.  18,  the  word  D^U  Gblim  has  been  translated  stone  squarers  or  masons  j 
but  it  means  in-  habitants  of  ^ru  gbl,  or  Mount  Gibel  or  Gebel.  From  this  comes  the  Gabala  or 
Cabala,  or  chain  of  traditions.  It  was2  the  Mountain  of  Tradition.  It  was  Gabal  changed  into 
Cabal,  like  ^dj  gml  the  name  of  the  animal  changed  into  that  of  the  Camel,  in  the  western  coun- 
tries. But  Bal  was  Bala-Rama,  an  incarnation  of  Buddha.  Suppose  Abraham  or  loud  came 
from  thence,  and  it  was  either  the  Mesopotamia  of  Eastern  or  Western  Syria,  the  Cabalis  would 
be  the  city  of  the  traditionary  doctrine.  This  Cabalis  also  looks  very  like  Cabul.  I  only  throw  out 
this  for  consideration,  with  the  single  observation,  that  it  is  very  evident  the  Jews  do  not  know 
the  meaning  of  the  word  Cabala ;  and  whether  Christians  be  any  wiser  is  very  doubtful. 

2.  Mount  Olympuses  are  found  in  many  places.  These,  I  apprehend,  are  the  high  places  re- 
probated in  scripture ;  but  they  were  all  known  under  different  names,  the  same  as  the  Merus  of 
India  and  the  Tecte  Soleimans.  This  is  pretty  well  proved  by  the  fact,  that  the  God  Jupiter,  who 
is  called  Jupiter  Olympus  by  Jason  of  Cyrene  and  Ammianus,  is,  by  Johannes  Malalas,  called  Ju- 
piter Bottius.     Bottius  is  equivalent  to  Buddseus.  3 

Salivahana  was  King  of  Pratishtana,  called  also  Saileyadhara,  or  simply  Saileyam  in  a  derivative 
form.4  An  ancient  treatise  of  authority  says,  that  Salivahana  would  appear  at  Saileya-d'hara,  or 
the  city  firmly  seated  on  a  rock,  which  compound  alludes  to  the  city  of  Sion,  whose  foundations  are 
upon  the  holy  hills ;  "  the  city  of  our  God,  even  upon  his  holy  hill."  Saileyam  would  be  a  very 
appropriate  name,  for  it  is  also,  in  a  derivative  form,  from  Saila,  and  is  really  the  same  with 
Saileya-dhara :  and  the  whole  is  not  improbably  borrowed  from  the  Arabic  Dar-al-salem,  or 
Dar-es-salem,  the  house  of  peace,  and  the  name  of  the  celestial  Jerusalem,  in  allusion  to  the  Hebrew 


1  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  106. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  44. 


9  Costa,  p.  49. 


3  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  391. 


BOOK  VI H.    CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  4.  415 

name  of  the  terrestrial  one.  The  Sanscrit  names  of  this  city  of  the  King  of  Saileyam  or  Salem 
imply  its  being  a  most  holy  place,  and  consecrated  apart,  and  that  it  is  firmly  seated  upon  a  stony 
hill. l 

3.  Not  very  far  from  the  country  where  we  find  the  Indian  Tucte  Soleyman,  the  country  of 
Daud-poutri,  the  city  and  kingdom  of  Oude  or  Ioudi,  &c,  there  is  a  mountainous  district  called 
Afghanistan,  or  country  of  the  Afghauns,  who  consist  of  many  millions  of  people.  Their  traditions 
tell  them  that  they  are  descended  from  the  Jews ;  that  is,  I  should  say,  from  the  Ioudi  of  Oude  ; 
for  they  know  nothing  of  their  descent,  except  that  they  came  into  their  present  country  from  a 
tribe  of  Oudi  or  Jews.  Their  similarity  to  the  Jews  of  Western  Syria  is  so  striking,  that  it  could 
not  escape  the  notice  of  inquiring  orientalists.  Our  priests  have  had  no  small  difficulty  in  ac- 
counting for  them,  as  it  was  impossible  to  deny  their  Israelitish  character  j  but  at  last  they  seem 
to  have  determined  that  they  were  descendants  of  the  ten  tribes,  who  were  sent  thither  in  the 
time  of  the  Captivity,  and  who  never,  as  the  partisan  Josephus  says,  though  directly  contrary  to 
the  fact,  returned  into  Syria.     On  this  I  shall  presently  say  a  few  words. 

In  the  traditions  of  the  Afghauns,  noticed  by  Mr.  Elphinston, 2  the  name  of  Saul  (from  whom 
they  say  they  are  descended,)  may  be  found,  as  also  many  circumstances  similar  to  those  in  the 
Jewish  history ;  but  yet,  in  many  respects,  so  different,  that  they  can  scarcely  be  believed  to  be  a 
copy  of  them.  Mr.  Elphinston  concludes  by  shewing,  in  opposition  to  Sir  W.  Jones,  that  they 
cannot  be  descendants  from  the  Jews  of  Syria ;  that  the  story,  though  plausible,  is  clouded  with 
many  inconsistencies  and  contradictions.  Sir  W.  Jones  found  that  their  language  was  very  like 
the  Chaldaic.  If  the  Jews  be  descended  from  them,  this  is  easily  accounted  for.  The  emigrants 
must  have  come  away  before  the  Sanscrit  was  brought  to  its  present  perfectionxwhether  they  came 
from  Afghanistan  or  from  Oude.  I  suspect  that  originally  the  Afghanistans  were  nothing  but  the 
mountain  tribes  of  central  Judia,  having  the  same  language  and  religion. 

4.  The  Turks,  who  conquered  the  Arabians  or  Saracens  in  modern  times,  have,  in  a  great  mea- 
sure, adopted  their  language.     When  these  pagans  arrived  from  Tartary  they  found  the  countries 
which  they  over-ran  chiefly  occupied  by  two  races  of  men — the  Christians  and  the  Mohamedans. 
The  mortifying  fact  has  been  concealed  as  much  as  possible,  but  the  truth  is,  that  the  conquerors 
adopted  the  religion  of  the  latter,  not  of  the  former.     Persons  who  have  read  my  Apology  for  the 
Life  of  Mohamed  will  easily  believe  me  when  I  say  this  was  no  matter  of  surprise  to  me.     But, 
independently  of  many  reasons,  which  may  be  found  in  my  treatise,  why  the  Mohamedan,  under 
the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  two,  should  gain  the  preference,  there  is  yet  another  to  be  found 
in  the  language.    It  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  (if  I  be  right  and  that  the  Ioudi  and  Arabians  were 
sectaries,  from  Afghanistan  and  Rajapoutana,  which  comprehend  what  was  called  the  Indian  Tar- 
tary or  Indian  Scythia)  the  languages  of  the  Turks  and  Arabians  should  be  nearly  the  same,  and 
very  different  from  the  Greek,  the  prevailing  language  of  the  Christians.     This  was  the  fact,  and  it 
remains  so  to  this  day.     The  Arabic,  the  language  of  the  Koran,  is,  in  some  measure,  a  learned 
language  to  the  Turks,  though  they  probably  find  no  great  difficulty  in  it,  as  "  the  Turkish  contains 
"  ten  Arabic  or  Persian  words  for  one  originally  Scythian." 3    This  agrees  extremely  well  with 
what  we  might  expect  to  find,  if  I  be  right  in  my  theory.     I  beg  leave  to  ask  my  reader,  why  this 
horde  of  Pagan  barbarians,  arriving  from  the  very  distant  north-eastern  countries,  should  bring  with 
them  a  language  containing  ten  out  of  twelve  of  its  words  Arabic,  which  Arabic  was  undoubtedly, 
in  ancient  times,  identical  with  Hebrew  ?     I  am  now  speaking  of  the  words,  not  of  the  forms  of 
the  letters. 


'  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  pp.  45,  100.  *  Hist,  of  Cabul,  p.  248.  3  Rev.  R.  Chatfield's  Hist.  Hind.  p.  366. 


416  ARABIA   ON   THE    INDUS. — THE   THOUSAND    CITIES    OF    STRABO. 

In  reply  to  the  enemies  of  etymology  I  beg  leave  to  observe,  that,  in  the  case  of  the  Jews,  my 
reasoning  depends  very  little  upon  it,  but  upon  the  identity  of  the  names.  If  those  who  have 
written  the  names  of  places  and  persons,  had  all  been  guided  by  the  sixteen-letter  system,  I  believe 
in  almost  every  case  the  Eastern  and  Western  names  would  have  been  the  same.  Though  this 
identity  might  happen  in  a  solitary  instance  or  two,  by  accident,  it  is  quite  incredible  that  it  should 
have  happened  by  accident  in  the  great  number  of  cases  which  I  have  pointed  out. 

5.  It  is  a  singular  and  remarkable  fact,  that  all  the  authors  who  have  written  respecting  the 
Afghans,  or  respecting  the  natives  of  the  countries  near  to  them  to  the  south-eastward,  have  no- 
ticed, not  only  their  personal  likeness  to  the  Jews,  but  also  the  close  likeness  which  their  language 
bears  to  the  Chaldaic.  Michaelis '  says,  "  that  the  dialect  of  Jerusalem  was  East  Aramean,  or,  as 
"  we  call  it,  Chaldee.  The  Syriac  New  Testament  is  written  in  the  same  language,  but  in  a  dif- 
"  ferent  dialect."  Now  this  language  is  called  the  Peshito,  but  why  it  has  that  name  I  know  not; 
for  I  do  not  believe  that  it  means  literal.2  But  we  see  that  the  Peshito  and  the  Chaldaic  are  the 
same.  The  language  of  the  Afghans  is  called  Pukhto  or  Pushto ;  and  it  seems  difficult  to  help  be- 
lieving that  these  are  the  same  languages.  This  is  the  language  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  Chris- 
tians of  Malabar.  Now  it  cannot  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that  the  Afghans  and  Raja-poutani 
emigrated  with  their  Jewish  similitudes  (that  is  the  Rannse  of  Arrian  or  Ptolemy)  after  the  time  of 
Christ.  I  think,  then,  that  these  two  languages,  bearing  names  so  nearly  identical,  must  have  been 
originally  the  same,  however  much  they  may  have  changed  in  the  thousands  of  years  during  which 
those  who  spoke  them  must  have  been  separated.  Of  this  Pushto  I  shall  have  more  to  say  here- 
after. 

6.  It  is  very  evident  from  the  accounts  of  both  Dr.  Dorn  and  Mr.  Elphinston,  that  the  whole  of 
the  fine  Country — Doab  or  Mesopotamia — from  the  Ganges  to  the  Indus,  and  the  whole  valley  of 
the  latter,  were  once  possessed  by  a  race,  the  unconquered  mountain  tribes  of  which  alone  retain 
much  of  their  ancient  habits.  In  their  intractable,  unconquerable  character,  they  very  much  assi- 
milate to  their  brethren  or  children  in  Arabia.  They  were  all  called  Afghans.  The  present  king- 
dom of  Cabul  is  stated  by  Mr.  Elphinston  to  contain  thirteen  or  fourteen  millions  of  people,  of 
whom  more  than  four  millions  are  yet  genuine  Afghans.  The  countries  of  the  Afghans  and  of  the 
Rajpouts  are  so  intermingled,  that  it  is  impossible,  with  any  precision,  to  separate  them.  But  iu 
addition  to  the  above,  it  is  a  most  important  fact,  that  a  large  district  on  the  Indus  was  called 
Arabia,  and  its  inhabitants  Arabi. 

If  the  country  be  examined  where  we  find  these  extraordinary  proofs  of  a  Jewish  population,  it 
will  be  found  to  be  almost  covered  with  the  remains  of  what,  in  very  remote  times,  were  great  and 
flourishing  cities,  and  of  an  extent  so  large,  that,  to  suppose  a  tribe  or  two  of  captives  brought 
into  it  would  change  the  manners  and  the  pristine  character  of  its  inhabitants,  is  so  extraordinary 
an  absurdity,  that  no  man  who  considers  it  for  a  moment  can  believe  it.  Besides,  when  these 
Jewish  or  Samaritan  captives  came  to  people  this  country,  fifty  times  as  large  as  their  own,  and 
the  cities  of  which  they  must  have  taken  possession,  what  became  of  the  old  inhabitants  ? 

7.  A  very  learned  man,  Mr.  Carteret  Web,  has  given  it  as  his  opinion,  that  the  country  about 
Bactria  was,  in  primitive  times,  the  seat  of  the  arts,  and  that  thence  science  was  propagated  to 
Persia,  Assyria,  India,  and  even  to  China.  Strabo  says,  that  Bactria,  adjoining  to  Aria,  abounded 
almost  in  every  thing. 3  Justin4  says,  that  it  had  a  thousand  cities  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Greeks,  after  they  had  destroyed  the  Persian  empire.  Strabo5  also  says,  that  Encratides,  one  of 
the  successors  of  Theodotus,  had  a  thousand  cities  under  his  jurisdiction. 


1  Marsh's  Mic.  Ch".  vii.  Sect.  viii.  p.  41  2  II).  p.  5.  3  Lib.  ii.  p.  73. 

4  Hist.  Lib.  xli.  5  Lib.  xv.  p.  68G. 


BOOK    VIH.    CHAPTER    IV.    SECTION   8.  417 

Bactria1  is  the  same  as  Bucharia,  and  Bochara,  which  Abulghazi  Khan2  says,  means  country 
of  learned  men,  and  was  a  place  to  which  persons  went  from  all  quarters  to  acquire  learning.  It 
was  a  most  beautiful  country,  abounding  in  the  richest  productions  of  the  animal,  vegetable,  and 
mineral  kingdoms.  Perhaps,  upon  the  whole  earth,  a  situation  more  proper  for  the  birthplace 
of  man  could  not  have  been  selected. 

8.  Certain  circumstances  of  natural  similarity  between  the  places  of  the  settlement  of  the  loudi 
in  India  and  in  Western  Syria  may  be  observed,  which  raise  a  suspicion,  that  the  similarity  was 
the  occasion  of  the  selection  of  the  place  where  the  emigrating  loudi  settled,  when  they  came  to 
the  West.  In  Afghanistan  or  the  kingdom  of  Cabul  (query,  of  the  Cabala  ?)  is  a  river  which  rises  in 
what  are  called  the  mountains  of  Cabul,  and  runs  into  a  dead-sea,  called  Loukh  or  Zarrah.  One 
of  its  heads  rises  in  a  range  of  hills  called  the  Ridge  of  Soleyman,  not  far  from  which  is  the  Snow- 
capped mount,  called  Tukte  Soleiman  or  Solomon's  Throne;  where  the  people  of  the  country  be- 
lieve the  Ark  rested  after  the  Deluge.  Here  are  also  mountains  called  Solymi  and  others  called 
mountains  of  loudi.  There  is  a  place  on  the  side  of  the  above-named  sea  (which  is  salt,  and  has 
no  outlet,  and  is  therefore  a  dead  sea),  called  Zoor  or  Zoar,  the  name  of  a  city  on  the  shore  of  the 
dead  sea,  or  Lake  Asphaltes  in  Western  Syria.  "Among  the  heads  of  tribes  I  found  one  having  the 
"  name  of  Lot." 3  Mr.  Elphinston.  observes  of  a  tribe  of  Afghan  shepherds,  that  the  girls  had  Jewish 
features.4  He  also  observes  of  the  Rajpouts,  "They  are  stout  and  handsome,  with  hooked  noses 
"  and  Jewish  features."  The  mountains  of  Soliman  run  north  and  south,  from  the  Indian  Cau- 
casus, to  lat.  29,  and  are  possessed  by  the  Afghans.  They  are  only  known  in  old  books  (books  of 
the  Hindoos)  by  the  name  of  Soliman. 5  These  mountains  are  also  called  Suffaid  Coh,  which  Mr. 
Hamilton  explains  white  mountains,  from  their  snowy  tops.  But  I  suspect  the  proper  translation 
is  Mount  2o<p<a-8i,  Mounts  of  sacred  Wisdom,  of  Solomon.  I  shall  return  to  the  word  Suffaid  by 
and  by.  The  Arabians  call  the  Afghans  Solimanee,  by  which  name  they  are  not  commonly  known 
in  their  own  country.  This  is  a  singular  fact,  but  for  which  the  circumstance  of  their  being  named 
thus  only  in  their  old  books  easily  accounts.  Several  histories  of  the  Afghans  have  been  written 
by  Persians  and  other  Mohamedans,  but  all  evidently  intended  to  serve  religious  purposes ;  and, 
consequently,  owing  to  their  innate  and  palpable  absurdity,  not  deserving  a  moment's  considera- 
tion. I  say  this  of  the  notice  of  them  in  the  fourth  Art.  of  Vol.  II.  of  the  Asiatic  Researches.  I 
am  of  opinion  that  the  Afghans  were  driven  out  from  the  kingdom  of  Oude  or  Juda,  (probably  at 
the  same  time  part  of  their  sect  came  Westwards,)  to  the  mountainous  country  where  they  are 
found,  and  from  which  their  sectarian  opponents  could  not  expel  them.  Thus  Jews  or  loudi  are 
found  in  Afghanistan ;  but  in  Oude  there  are  only  towns  formerly  occupied  by  them. 


1  Bactr-ia  or  Boch-ara,  the  place  of  learned  men,  is  the  place  of  Bock  or  the  Book. 

8  Hist.  Turks  and  Tartars,  Lond.  p.  108.  3  Tod.  *  Introd.  p.  49. 

s  Elphinston,  Vol.  II.  p.  148. 


3h 


418  RELIGION   OF   AFGHANS   AND    RAJPOOTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

RELIGION  OF  AFGHANS  AND  RAJPOOTS.  —  SAUL.  —  FERISHTA,  ACCOUNT  OF  INDIAN  JEWS.  —  ARABIA,  ITS 
SITE  AND  MEANING. — TOMBS  OF  NOAH,  SETH,  AND  JOB. — BENTLEY. — NAMES  OF  PLACES  IN  INDIA  CON- 
TINUED. —  PLACES  IN  GREECE.  —  NAMES  OF  OLD  TOWNS  NOT  NOTICED.  —  SABA,  &C.  —  NILE  AND 
EGYPT,  NAMES   OF. 

1.  In  Lower  India,  in  Greece,  and  in  some  other  countries,  the  Arabian  and  Turkish  conquerors 
seem  to  have  settled  themselves ;  as  it  were,  in  fact,  to  have  deserted  their  old  countries,  and  to  have 
become  residents  of  their  new  conquests.  But  it  appears  that  this  was  not  the  case  with  the 
country  of  the  Rajpoots  or  Afghans.  If  they  were  conquered,  a  momentary  pillage  took  place, 
and  a  tribute  was  exacted,  but  in  other  respects  the  natives  were  left  in  possession  of  their  coun- 
tries ;  which,  in  fact,  they  soon  liberated  from  their  invaders.  But  from  the  Afghans  or  the  king- 
dom of  Cabul,  conquerors  of  Asia  have  repeatedly  issued,  and  probably  will  issue  again. 

The  natives  of  Oude  or  Rajapoutana  are  Hindoos,  of  the  religion  of  Cristna  chiefly.  But  the 
Afghans  are  followers  of  Mohamed.  They  claim  to  be  contemporaneous  with  him  in  their  religion, 
and  to  have  been  his  earliest  allies.  Most  certainly  the  way  in  which  the  Arabian  and  Afghanistan 
peoples  appear  to  assimilate  together,  has  never  been  accounted  for  with  the  least  probability,  or 
the  similarity  of  the  latter  to  the  Jews.  My  theory,  I  think,  will  develop  the  mystery.  A  com- 
munication between  wandering  tribes  of  two  very  distant  countries  is  easier  to  be  accounted  for, 
than  between  two  that  are  settled  in  walled  cities,  which  was  what  became  characteristic  of  the 
natives  of  Syria,  but  not  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Arabia.  And  I  think  there  is 
nothing  improbable  in  a  tribe,  (like  a  tribe  of  Gypsies,)  as  the  Mahomedans  say,  having  come  from 
upper  India  or  the  Indian  Tartary  to  Arabia,  in  the  time  of  Mohamed,  and  having  carried  back 
his  new  doctrines  to  the  Ioudi  of  Afghanistan,  their  ancestors. 

I  suppose  that  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  were  driven  out  of  Rajapoutana  when  the  religion  of  Cristna 
or  Kanyia  prevailed.  In  consequence  of  this  we  find  the  religion  of  Kanyia  in  this  country  j  but 
it  was  not  driven  out  of  Afghanistan  or  the  mountains,  but  remained  there  in  the  situation  of  the 
65  tribes  of  black  Jews  without  Pentateuchs,  found  by  Dr.  Buchanan,  until  the  arrival  of  the  Sa- 
racens, when  they  instantly  accepted  their  religion,  for  which,  in  fact,  they  would  be  in  a  very  peculiar 
manner  prepared,  by  having  the  patriarchs'  statues  which  were  of  old  in  the  temple  at  Mecca. 
The  country  of  Cristna  has  statues  and  remains  of  the  same  patriarchs,  but  they  have  not  the 
least  relation  now  to  its  religion  ;  they  are  quite  obsolete — only  antiquarian  curiosities. 

"  The  province  of  Ajimere  in  general  has  ever  been  the  country  of  the  Rajpoots;  that  is,  the 
"  warrior  tribe  among  the  Hindoos,  and  which  are  noticed  by  Arrian  and  Diodorus  :  and  Cheitore 
"  or  Oudipour,  (which  I  consider  as  synonymous,)  is,  I  believe,  reckoned  the  first  among  the  Raj- 
"  poot  states.,  The  whole  consists  generally  of  high  mountains  divided  by  narrow  valleys  ;  or  of 
"  plains  environed  by  mountains,  accessible  only  by  narrow  passes  and  defiles  :  in  effect,  one  of 
"  the  strongest  countries  in  the  world,  yet  having  a  sufficient  extent  of  arable  land  :  of  dimensions 
"  equal  to  the  support  of  a  numerous  population,  and  blessed  with  a  mild  climate,  being  between 
"  the  24th  and  28th  degrees  of  latitude  :  in  short,  a  country  likely  to  remain  for  ever  in  the  hands 
"  of  its  present  possessors,  and  to  prove  the  asylum  of  the  Hindoo  religion  and  customs.  Not- 
"  withstanding  the  attacks  which  have  been  made  on  it  by  the  Gaznavide,  Pattan,  and  Mogul 
"  Emperors,  it  has  never  been  more  than  nominally  reduced.     Some  of  their  fortresses  with  which 


BOOK  VIII.   CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  2.  .  419 

"  the  country  abounds  were  indeed  taken,  but  the  spirits  of  independent  nations  do  not  reside  in 
"  fortresses,  nor  are  they  to  be  conquered  with  them.     Accordingly,  every  war  made  on  these 
"  people,  even  by  Aurengzebe,   ended  in  a  compromise  or  defeat  on  the  side  of  the  assailants."1 
How  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  towns  called  after  the  names  of  the  Israelites  in  these  countries 
can  have  been  built  by  Mohamedan  conquerors ! 

The  Mohamedans  seldom  changed  the  names  of  towns,  but  they  sometimes  did  change  them  : 
for  instance,  they  substituted  the  name  of  Islam-nuggur  for  Jugdes-pour,  that  is,  for  Jews-pour — 
or,  the  walled  town  or  Islam-fort  for  Jews-town.  But  if  this  shews  any  thing,  it  is  against  their 
giving  the  Jewish  names,  such  as  Jerusalem,  Solomon,  David,  &c,  to  the  towns  of  Central 
India — not  in  favour  of  it.  Though  they  have  always  tolerated  the  Jews  as  well  as  the  Christians, 
yet  they  were  as  little  likely  to  have  adopted  Jewish  as  Christian  names  for  their  towns.  No 
doubt,  in  some  instances,  the  Mohamedans  gave  new  names  to  towns  which  they  rebuilt,  which 
often  makes  it  difficult  to  ascertain  the  truth ;  but  we  see  above,  that  they  did  not  give  Jewish 
names,  but  abolished  them. 

It  is  very  evident  that  the  old  accounts  which  we  have  of  the  Afghans  were  all  written  by  Mo- 
hamedans in  or  about  the  sixteenth  century,  who  found  the  same  likeness  between  the  Afghans 
and  the  Jews  which  we  find  at  this  day — and  not  knowing  how  to  account  for  it,  they  had  recourse  to 
what  they  supposed  probable,  and  squared  with  their  sectarian  ideas  of  religion — sectarian  as 
Jewish  in  opposition  to  the  Samaritan.  Mr.  Elphinston  seems  most  clearly  to  be  mistaken  when 
he  says  their  towns  have  been  named  by  the  Mohamedans,  and  that  the  oldest  of  them  have  not 
those  peculiar  Jewish  characteristics  to  which  our  attention  has  been  drawn.  Directly  the  con- 
trary is  the  fact.  It  is  evident  that  the  places  had  the  names  before  the  time  of  Mohamed.  For 
instance,  the  Tecte  Soloman,  one  of  the  five  sacred  mounts  of,  and  so  called  by,  the  Jain  Buddhists. 
If  the  modern  Mohamedans  had  given  names  to  these  great  cities,  we  should  have  had  Mecca  or 
Medina,  which  we  no  where  find. 

2.  It  has  been  thought  that  the  story  of  the  descent  of  the  Afghans  from  Saul  is  true  ;  among  other 
reasons,  because  there  was  a  tribe  called  Khyber  in  the  East,  and  one,  professing  the  Jewish  religion, 
in  Arabia,  in  the  time  of  Mohamed.  Now  this  has  a  tendency  directly  against  the  head  of  the 
tribe  coming  from  Jerusalem ;  for  the  head  of  the  two  tribes,  if  his  name  were  Khyber,  could  not 
occupy  both  places — he  could  not  emigrate  a  thousand  miles  to  the  East,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
thousand  miles  to  the  West.  To  make  this  probable,  they  should  both  have  had  some  well-known 
Jewish  name,  and  that  have  been  the  name  of  some  large  known  Jewish  division,  tribe,  or  sect. 
If  their  tribes  had  been  called  Samaritan  for  instance,  and  their  country  Samaria,  we  might  have 
believed  that  one  went  one  way,  the  other  another  way.  But  there  is  another  reason  against  their 
descent  from  Saul.  If  the  Jewish  history  is  to  be  received,  the  pious  David  murdered  all  Saul's 
children  by  the  hands  of  the  Gibeonites.2  From  Mr.  Elphinston's  account,  the  traditions  of  the 
Jews  of  Western  Syria,  and  those  of  the  Afghans  of  Cabul,  appear,  though  now  much  varied,  to 
have  been  derived  from  a  common  source. 3 

3.  Ferishta  accounts  for  the  likeness  between  the  Jews  and  Afghans  by  saying,  that  "  The 
c  Afghans  were  Copts  ruled  by  Pharaoh,  many  of  whom  were  converted  to  the  laws  and  religion 

"  of  Moses ;  but  others  who  were  stubborn  in  their  worship  to  their  Gods,  fled  towards  Hindostan, 
'and  took  possession  of  the   country  adjoining  the  Koh-i-Sooliman."4     The  striking  likeness 

1  Rennell,  Mem.  p.  153. 

8  One  of  the  most  atrocious  of  the  actions  of  that  most  profligate  man.     In  history  there  is  not  a  more  horrible  cha- 
racter than  the  psalm-singing  David,  except,  indeed,  it  be  the  church-establishing  Constantine  the  First. 
3  Elphinston,  Hist.  Cabul,  Vol.  II.  *  Tod's  Hist.  Raj.  p.  241. 

3h2 


420  ARABIA,    ITS    SITE   AND    MEANING. — TOMBS    OF   NOAH,    SETH,    AND    JOB. 

Ferishta  could  not  help  seeing  ;  his  mode  of  accounting  for  it  is  absurd  enough.  He  says,  I  have 
read  that  the  Afghans  are  Copts  of  the  race  of  the  Pharaohs  ;  and  that  when  the  prophet  Moses 
got  the  better  of  that  Infidel,  who  was  overwhelmed  in  the  Red  Sea,  many  of  the  Copts  became 
converts  to  the  Jewish  faith,  but  others,  stubborn  and  self-willed,  refusing  to  embrace  the  true 
faith,  leaving  their  country,  came  to  India,  and  eventually  settled  in  the  Soolimany  mountains, 
where  they  bore  the  name  of  Afghans.1  Here  is  a  choice  specimen  of  reasoning;  because  they 
would  not  turn  Jews  in  Arabia,  these  captive  slaves,  without  leave,  I  suppose,  left  their  masters, 
and  turned  Jews  in  India.  All  that  this  proves  is,  that  the  identity  of  the  natives  of  the  Solimany 
mountains  in  India  with  the  Jews  and  Ethiopians  in  the  West,  was  visible  to  Ferishta,  which  he 
could  not  account  for.  But  it  is  very  clear  that  if  there  had  been  any  grounds  for  it,  he  would 
not  have  failed  to  have  pleaded  that  the  Jewish  appearances  were  taken  from  the  Mohamedans. 
Indeed,  no  one,  I  believe,  would  ever  think  of  such  a  thing  except  our  priests,  and  even  they 
would  not  think  of  it  except  from  their  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the  case,  which,  in  fact, 
thev  have  not  the  means  of  knowing.  In  deriving  the  Afghans  from  the  time  of  Moses,  Ferishta 
admits  their  Jewish  existence  long  before  the  time  of  Mohamed.  Though  not  much  in  favour  of 
my  sytem  can  be  learnt  from  Ferishta,  yet  the  little  which  he  has,  is  decisively  in  favour  of  the 
Israelitish  names  being  in  these  countries  before  the  time  of  Mohamed.  And  it  appears  also  that 
they  were  equally  common  with  the  Moguls,  when  they  first  marched  to  attack' Delhi. 

4.  Arabia  means  Western  Country.  If  this  name  were  given  to  the  people  of  the  tribe  of  Arabi 
who  were  situated  on  the  Indus,  by  the  Ioudi  of  Oude,  they  would  be  very  properly  called  Ara- 
bians or  Western  people,  DOny  orbim  ;  Arabi-ia  country  of  the  Arabi :  but  they  had  no  preten- 
sions to  have  this  name  given  to  them  by  the  Jews  or  Greeks.  Part  of  the  peninsula  of  Arabia  is 
due  South,  and  the  remainder  South-east  of  Western  Judaea,  and  all  of  it  South-east  of  Greece. 
They  were  a  tribe  from  the  Indus,  and  brought  with  them  in  the  mouths  of  the  tribe  of  Israelites  , 
coming  from  Oude,  the  name  of  Western  people  which  they  had  been  accustomed  to  call  them. 

5.  Not  far  from  Oude,  on  the  banks  of  a  river  called  Gagra,  by  Colonel  Wilford,  are  shewn  the 
tombs  of  Noah,  Ayub  (Job),  and  Shis  or  Sish  (Seth).  The  stories  told  about  them  are  so  contra- 
dictory that  their  history  is  certainly  unknown.  But  from  two  of  them  being  noticed  in  the  Ayeen- 
Akberry,  they  are  evidently  very  old,  and  the  stories  about  them  false. 2  The  idea  of  the  Mo- 
hamedans being  the  authors  of  these  monuments  is  quite  ridiculous,  as  they  could  never  bear  the 
idea  of  an  image.  Near  them  there  was  formerly  a  temple  dedicated  to  Ganesa,  and  a  well  which, 
in  the  Puranas,  is  called  Gana-pi^t  cunda.  I  suspect  the  name  of  the  river  Gagra  was  formerly 
Argha,  and  the  well,  I  suspect,  is  similar  to  the  fissure  in  the  earth  at  Delphi.  In  this  country 
Colonel  Wilford  observes,  rich  persons  or  persons  of  consequence  are  called  Maiter,  as  Maiter 
Solomon.     Here  is  the  French  Maltre  and  our  Master,  as  I  have  already  remarked. 

Along  with  the  similarity  of  language,  of  laws,  of  names  of  places  and  men,  almost  all  travellers 
have  noticed  the  similarity  of  personal  character  in  these  people  to  that  of  the  Jews.  The  Mohamed- 
ans could  not  cause  this.  The  Adim  of  India,  which,  in  Sanscreet,  means  the  firsts  is  plainly  the 
Adam  of  the  first  book  of  Genesis.  The  Nuh  or  Noah  is  Menu,  who,  after  the  flood,  repeopled  the 
renovated  world ;  and  the  history  of  Noah  and  his  family  are  precisely  the  same  in  the  Sanscreet 
as  in  theHebrew  Bible.3 


1  Briggs's  Ferishta,  Vol.  I.  p.  6.  The  etymology  of  the  word  Afghan  sets  me  quite  at  defiance.  These  persons  are 
said  to  have  been  among  the  first  converts  to  Mohamedism.  Before  I  conclude, ;  I  shall  treat  of  a  sect  called  Sophees, 
when  I  shall  revert  to  this  question  (first  considering  many  things  of  which  I  shall  treat).  Is  it  not  possible  that  the 
wordAfgh-an  may  be  a  corruption  of  the  word  1o<p,  Soph? 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  482.  3  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VI.  p.  42. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  7«  421 

6.  I  must  stop  my  argument  here  to  observe,  that  if  Mr.  Bentley  be  correct  in  his  idea,  that 
the  Brahmins  forged  their  books  since  the  sixth  century,  in  which  the  circumstances  of  similarity 
to  the  Christian  and  Jewish  dispensations  are  to  be  found,  it  seems  to  me  that  they  must  also 
not  only  have  given  names  to  these  ruined  towns,  ancient  people,  and  mountains,  &c,  (many  of  the 
names  of  which  are  now  obsolete,  and,  except  in  very  old  writings  and  among  the  remote  agricul- 
tural population  of  peasants,  superseded  by  more  modern  ones,)  but  they  must  have  erected  these 
statues  of  Noah,  Job,  and  Seth,  in  this  country,  distant  many  hundred  miles  from  the  Christian 
Malabar  settlement  of  Nestorians,  to  prevent  the  propagation  of  whose  opinions  it  is  alleged  that 
the  forgeries  were  executed  :  and  in  a  country  where  there  is  not  the  least  reason  to  believe 
that  there  ever  was  a  Christian  before  the  last  century. 

Beyond  the  limits  of  Judaea  proper,  beyond  the  Jordan,  or  the  river  of  Adonis,  as  I  shall  pre- 
sently prove  its  name  to  mean,  was  a  country  called  the  Decapolis,  or  country  of  the  ten  cities.  This 
was  in  imitation  of  a  similar  arrangement  and  naming  of  the  country  beyond  the  kingdom  of  Oude 
or  Juda  proper,  of  India,  called  the  Deccan,  which  is  Deccan-ia,  and  consisted  of  the  country  to 
the  South  of  the  river  Buddha,  or  "irt3  wer-Buddha,  or  Ner-mada,  river  of  the  great  God.  By  the 
author  of  the  circumnavigation  of  the  Erythraean  Sea  it  is  called  Dachanos. 1 

7.  In  lat.  28,  29,  and  long.  72,  will  be  found  an  extensive  country  called  Daoudpotra,  which 
means  Country  of  the  sons  of  David.  In  it  will  be  seen  a  town  called  Ahmed-poor — City  of  Ahmed, 
the  name  of  Mohamed,  and  by  which  his  followers  say  he  was  foretold.  But  this  was  an  Arabian 
name  of  description  before  Mohamed  was  born,  or  he  could  not  have  been  foretold  by  it.  Besides, 
the  fact  of  some  person  being  foretold  by  it  in  the  Prophet  Haggai,  shews  it  to  be  an  ancient  and 
sacred  name.2  This  has  a  tendency  to  confirm  the  histories  of  the  Brahmins,  which  say,  that  the 
Temple  of  Mecca  was  founded  by  a  colony  of  Brahmins  from  India,  and  that  it  was  a  sacred  place 
before  the  time  of  Mohamed,  and  that  they  were  permitted  to  make  pilgrimages  to  it  for  several 
centuries  after  his  time.3  Its  great  celebrity  as  a  sacred  place  long  before  the  time  of  the  prophet 
cannot  be  doubted. 

Not  far  from  the  Indus,  in  Rennell's  map,  will  be  found  a  place  in  lat.  36,  long.  67,  called  Dura- 
Yoosoof ;  also  in  lat.  32,  long.  71,  a  place  on  the  Indus  called  Dera-IsMAEL-Khan.  This  is  the 
native  country  of  the  Olive.  Col.  Wilford  has  observed  that  the  name  of  Abdala  is  not  derived 
from  the  Persian  word  Abdal,  the  servant  of  God ;  but  from  the  name  of  an  ancient  tribe  of  Upper 
India,4  before  the  time  of  Mohamed.  This  again  tends  to  confirm  the  idea  of  the  Arabians'  coming 
from  Upper  India,  and  also  shews  that  we  must  not  hastily  conclude  that  every  proper  name  found 
in  India,  which  is  the  same  as  we  find  among  the  modern  Mohamedans,  is  taken  from  them. 

Col.  Wilford  says,  that  there  are  followers  of  Brahma  in  Arabia,  at  this  time,  who  are  supposed 
to  be  descendants  of  Hindoos.  The  greatest  part  of  the  old  names  of  places  in  Arabia  are  either 
Sanscrit  or  Hindi ;  and  Pliny  mentions  two  celebrated  islands  on  the  Southern  coasts  of  Arabia,  in 
which  there  were  pillars  with  inscriptions  in  characters  unknown  (Col.  Wilford  says  he  supposes) 
to  the  Greek  merchants  who  traded  there,  and  that  these  were  probably  Sanscrit,  as  one  of  these 
two  islands  was  called  Isura,  or  Iswara's  island,  and  the  other  Rinnea,  from  the  Sanscrit  H  rimy  a, 
or  the  island  of  the  Merciful  Goddess. 

In  the  Old  Testament  we  read  anathemas  in  almost  every  page  against  high  places.  These  were, 
I  apprehend,  imitative  Merus.     Nimrod  has  observed,  that  of  this  character  were  all  the  different 


1  Hamil.  Gaz.  Deccan.  *  Vide  my  \polngy  for  the  Life  of  Mohamed. 

3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  100.  «  Ibid.  Vol.  IX.  p.  206. 


422  PLACES    IN    GREECE. 

Olympuses  or  sacred  mounts  of  this  and  other  names  in  Greece.   There  is  none  more  striking  than 
Pindus  on  its  western  side. 

8.  In  or  near  the  Bay  of  Ambrasius,  on  the  Western  coast  of  Epirus  and  Acarnania,  in  the  dis- 
trict of  Chaonia  or  Caonia,  which  word  I  apprehend  is  closely  allied  to  the  Apollo  Cunnius,  and  to 
the  Caonim  or  Cakes  offered  to  the  Queen  of  heaven,  was  situated  the  Temple  of  Dodona,  which 
Ritter  says  was  anciently  Bodona.     Here  was  a  town  called  Omphalium,  and  another  called  Am- 
brasia,  and  one  of  Cyclopean  construction  called  Argos  or  Amphilochis,  or  Amphipolis,  that  is,  the 
city  of  Amphi  or  Omphi,  or  the  Om  ;  and  one  called  Nico-polis,  the  city  Nysi  or  Nysus,  the  same 
name  as  Bacchus,  and  of  the  mount  called  Sinai  in  Arabia,  and  of  Jehovah  Nisi,  and  of  the  famous 
Nysa  of  Alexandria  in  India ;  and  one  called  Klissura,  which  seems  a  corruption  of  the  Clyssobora 
or  Klissobora  or  Cercesura  of  the  Indian  Doab,  and  one  called  Argyro-Kastro,  that  is  the  Castrum 
or  fortress  of  Agra.     This  is  also  called  Arsinoe  and  Acree  j  and  one  called  Phcenice. *     There  was 
also  a  town  called  Amphia,  otherwise  Evora,  the  name  of  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Brigantes,  and 
of  York.    There  was  a  river  called  Aias,   and  one  called  Inachus,  the  son  of  Noah.    There  was  a 
mount  called  Olympus,  and  the  famous  Pindus :  and  a  Mons  Tricala,  and  a  Mount  Lingon,  i.  e. 
Linga.    It  has  been  observed  that  all  the  ancient  cities  of  the  districts  called  Caonia  are  Cyclopean, 
and  were  inhabited  by  Ionians.     Herodotus  says,  that  Dodona  was  a^aiorarov  rcov  sv  'EXXijcrt 
Xprisrioicov:  and  Julian  says,  that  John  the  Baptist  was  Xpyzog  luiavveg :  and  here,  upon  a  beau- 
tiful lake,  supposed  to  be  the  ancient  Acherusia,  stands  the  town  of  Joannina.     The  Temple  of 
Dodona  has  been  thought  to  have  been  at  the  town  of  Protopapas.     What  is  Protopapas,  but 
chief  priest  ?     Near  this  is  a  river  called  Kalama.     May  I  suspect  that  this  is  another  Kalane  ?2 
Near  this  sacred  place  is  a  Voni-tza,  i.  e.  Ioni-tza,  and  the  island  of  Santa  Maura,  or  the  Holy 
Meru,  or  at  present  Leucadia,  or  the  island  of  the  Holy  Grove  or  Garden  j  in  which  is  a  town 
called  Leucas  or  Neritus,  and  one  where  was  a  temple  of  Apollo  called  Ell-omenus.     On  the  East- 
ern side  of  Pindus  we  have  Arg-issa,  Ambrasius,  Olympus,  Parnassus,  Larissa,  (the  same  as  the 
district  of  Larice  in  Guzzerat,)  formerly  and  now  again  Yeni-seri.     Tricala,  Delphi,  Eleusis,  Dium 
the  name  of  the  sacred  isle  near  Bombay,  Pelagonia  Tripolis,  that  is  the  three  cities  of  Pelagonia,  a 
sacred  river  named  Peneus,  called  by  Homer  Apyvpobivrj,  on  which  is  a  town  called  Ioannina,3 
and  many  other  places  whose  names  are  evidently  connected  with  this  superstition.    In  Macedonia 
we  have  the  sacred  river  Strymon,  with  an  Amphipolis,  and  an  Eidon  or  Eion,  and  near  it  a  town 
called  Dium,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Athos,  or  the  sacred  Mount  or  Acro-Athos,  covered  with  mo- 
nasteries, of  which  I  shall  say  more  hereafter. 

Between  the  34th  and  35th  degree  of  North  latitude,  and  the  72d  and  73d  degree  of  East  lon- 
gitude, in  the  Hon.  Mr.  Elphinston's  map,  is  a  place  in  the  mountains  of  Cashmere  called  Chumla. 
It  seems  to  have  been  a  pass  into,  or  a  key  as  it  were  to,  the  fine  countries  of  the  South.  It  is  in 
Bactria  or  the  mountains  of  Balk  or  Bactriana,  or  Balkan. 

There  is  a  very  lofty  ridge  of  mountains  which  runs  from  the  Black  Sea  to  the  Adriatic,  and 
defends  Greece,  very  much  in  the  same  way  as  the  mountains  of  Bactriana  defend  India,  which  the 
Greeks  called  Hsemus.  It  has  now  recovered  its  ancient  name  of  Balk-an,  and  the  name  of  its 
chief  pass  its  ancient  name  of  Chumla.  On  the  South  of  Greece  we  have  the  Peninsula  of  Meru 
or  Morea,  with  its  Mount  Olympus  in  its  centre,  its  Chaonian  district,  its  Argos,  its  Tripolitza  or 
Tripoly,  its  Nissi,  &c,  &c,  nearly  repeated. 

In  Asia  Minor  we  have  the  district  of  Troy,  Ter-iia,  and  its  capital  Ilium,  with  the  sacred  Ida  or 


Holland's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  331.  *  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  p.  210,  8vo.  3  D'Anville. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  V.   SECTION  9.  423 

the  Ida-vratta  of  India,  and  its  Gargarus  or  stone  circle,  Gilgal,  and  Tripoli,  of  which  we  have  be- 
fore spoken :  and  in  Lydia  we  shall  find  the  Mount  of  Solym,  having  its  towns  with  the  same 
remarkable  names.  On  the  coast  of  Africa,  at  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  we  shall  again  find  a  Tripoli, 
a  Tangiers,  &c,  exact  copies  of  the  Tangore,  the  Trichinopoly  of  the  Carnatic  on  the  coast  of 
Coromandel— and  the  name  of  Mauri-tania,  is  probably  the  country  or  stan  or  tan  of  Meru. 

It  must  be  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  Iona  of  Syria  with  its  Tripoli.  In  short,  in  the  Western 
as  in  the  Eastern  nations,  the  countries  were  divided  into  districts,  each  having  its  sacred  mount, 
its  trinity  of  towns,  &c,  &c.  Sir  William  Drummond,  by  shewing  that  almost  all  the  ancient 
Hebrew  names  of  the  Holy  Land  had  astronomical  meanings,  has  shewn  that  it  was  like  all  the 
others.  It  had  its  high  place  at  Gerizim  in  Samaria,  and  after  a  schism  took  place  in  the  time  of 
the  man  we  and  his  followers  call  Dud  or  David,  another  was  set  up  at  Jerusalem.  When  the 
Israelites  took  possession  of  Canaan  they  changed  all  the  names  of  the  towns,  and  gave  them  names 
having  the  same  or  similar  astrological  meanings  with  those  which  may  be  perceived  in  every  part 
of  their  temple.  To  their  enemies'  towns  they  gave  names  of  opprobrium. l  I  have  before  observed 
that  in  the  same  manner  the  Greeks,  after  the  time  of  Alexander,  almost  always  changed  the 
names  of  the  towns  they  conquered,  giving  them  names  after  the  places  in  their  old  countries,  or 
after  their  great  men  or  their  superstitions.  All  this  is  practised  by  us  continually  in  the  Ame- 
ricas and  Australia. 2      The  above  were  originally  religious  names. 

9.  It  is  no  unusual  thing,  both  in  Greece  and  in  Asia,  to  meet  with  the  ruins  of  old  towns,  the 
names  of  which  are  not  known  or  noticed  by  the  ancient  authors,  and  which  shew  in  their  con- 
struction two  distinct  and  probably  very  remote  periods  from  each  other.  An  example  of  this  is 
noticed  by  Dr.  Holland.3  He  says,  "  The  last  town  appears  to  have  been  probably  Grecian,  but  it 
"  has  been  built  on  the  foundations  of  an  older  city  which  has  been  Cyclopean."  The  country 
where  these  ruins  were  found  was  Chaonia,  and  I  suspect  all  the  cities  which  were  of  date  coeval 
with  the  word  Chaonia  would  be  Cyclopean.  It  is  impossible  to  account  for  the  Cyclopean  remains 
which  are  found  in  Greece,  without  admitting  the  existence  of  a  powerful  people  long  previous  to 
Grecian  history,  and  even  Grecian  fable;  and  long  prior  to  the  received  date  of  the  Trojan  war. 
These  were  the  Ionians,  the  Hellenes,  the  Arg-ives,  the  Amazons,  the  Cyclopes  :  of  the  two  last 
of  whom  I  shall  presently  treat. 

No  doubt  a  careful  examination  of  the  names  in  the  Arabian  peninsula  would  afford  clear  traces 
of  the  Indian  ancestry.  There  is  the  town  of  Zsvg  Ayqsugt  or  of  Agra,  as  the  author  of  the  Uni- 
versal History  calls  it ; 4  or  perhaps  of  the  Arga,  the  Ny sa,  (in  fact  Mount  Sinai,)  the  birth-place  of 
Bacchus.  And  again,  two  cities  in  a  southern  direction  called  Arga  and  Badeo,5  that  is,  Deo-bud. 
The  river  Yamana6  and  its  city,  the  same  as  the  river  Yamuna  in  India,  with  the  tribe  of  the  Sara- 
ceni  or  Saracens,  evidently  the  same  as  the  Suraseni  of  the  Jumna.  The  Mount  Meriva,  another 
Meru,  Moriah,  and  Meroe  ;r  the  names  of  Hagar  and  Ishmael,  and  many  others. 

If  I  understand  Gale  rightly,  he  and  Vossius  suppose  that  Mount  Sinai  was  called  Nyssa  or  Nysa. 
Vide  Exod.  xvii.  15,  Jehovah  Nissi. 8 


1  See  Book  V.  Chap.  XI.  Sect.  2. 

*  Augustine  says,  "  An  ignoras,  Asclepi,  quod  yEgyptus  imago  sit  coeli,  aut  quod  est  verius,  translatio  aut  descensio 
"  omnium  quae  gubernantur  atque  exercentur  in  ccelo,  ac  si  discendum  est  verius,  terra  nostra  mundi  totius  est  tem- 
"  plum  V    De  Civ.  Dei.,  Lib.  viii.  Cap.  xxiii. 

3  Vol.  II.  p.  321.  4  Vol.  XVIII.  pp.  346,  355.  s  lb.  p.  355. 

6  Yamuna,  the  name  of  the  sacred  river  Jumna,  means  Daughter  of  the  Sun.  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  I.  p.  29 ;  Sir  W. 
Jones. 

7  lb.  p.  387.  b  Gale,  Court  Gent.  Vol.  I.  p.  180-  - 


424  NILE   AND    EGYPT,    NAMES   OF. 

10.  Saba  with  the  Hindoos  meant  the  host  of  heaven:  it  is  also  a  most  important  word  in  the 
Bible,  where  it  had  the  same  meaning.  It  is  the  Sabaoth  of  our  liturgies,  which  does  not  mean 
Lord  God  of  men-killers,  as  our  narrow-minded  priests  suppose  ;  but  Lord  God  of  the  heavenly 
bodies— of  the  countless  millions  of  suns  and  worlds  in  orderly  and  perpetual  motion.  Various 
places  are  called  after  this  word.  As  we  have  found  Solomon  in  India,  it  is  not  surprising  that  we 
should  find  the  Saba  or  Sheba  of  his  Queen  there.  In  Rennell's  map  it  is  called  Shibi.  It  is  in  the 
kingdom  of  Cabul,  just  where  we  might  expect  to  find  it.  This  place  was  also  called  Pramathasi 
and  Parnasa,  whence  the  Greeks  got  their  Parnassus.1  There  is  a  place  in  D'Anville's  ancient 
map  called  Sava  or  Saba  on  each  side  of  the  Straits  of  Babelmandel.  I  ctfn  scarcely  doubt  that 
a  colony  of  the  same  people  with  the  Ioudi  settled  on  the  East  side  of  the  Red  Sea,  built  Mecca 
and  Jidde,  Juda,  (as  the  Brahmins  say,)  and  crossed  the  sea  to  Ethiopia  or  Abyssinia.  Hence  we 
find  the  tradition  among  the  Ethiopians  that  they  are  descended  from  the  Ioudi.  This  accounts  for 
the  Israelitish  names  in  Arabia,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see  more  fully.  The  statues  of  the  patriarchs 
were  in  the  temple  at  Mecca  when  Mohamed  commenced  his  reform.  The  dove  was  also  wor- 
shiped along  with  them.2  Against  this  Mohamed,  in  a  very  particular  manner,  made  war.  With 
the  assistance  of  Ali  he  himself  destroyed  the  dove,  the  emblem  of  the  female  generative  power. 
Mecca  has  been  said  to  have  been  founded  by  Ishmael,  the  son  of  the  Handmaid  or  concubine 
Agar  or  Hagar.  Thus  he  was  a  bastard  to  the  Jews — Agar  meaning  Arga,  and  Ishmael  Apostacy 
to  the  religion  of  the  Dove,  which  was  found  in  the  Temple  of  Mecca  or  Isis. 

11.  Near  the  Indus  is  a  river  called  Nile,  one  of  the  branches  of  which  is  called  Choaspes  and 
Cophes  ;  this  river  is  said  to  pass  through  an  opening  in  the  mountains,  called  Gopha.  I  think  it 
probable  that  the  Nile  of  Egypt  was  called  Guptus,  from  the  river  Cophes  or  Gopha  :  and  the 
Gupts  or  Copts  from  the  same  :  and  that  they  crossed  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Mecca  or  Sheba 
or  Saba  to  E-gupt-ia.  They  were,  if  I  be  right,  correctly  Ethiopians  and  Egyptians.  The  word 
Gupta  in  Sanscrit  means  Saviour.  Then  the  country  might  have  the  Greek  name  of  aia  To7TTog, 
the  country  of  Guptus  or  the  Saviour. 3  Its  own  name  was  Sr,  or  Sur,  or  Sir,  at  least  its  river 
and  a  district  in  its  upper  part,  were  so  called.  But  what  can  be  the  etymon  of  Gopha  or 
Cophes  ?  We  know  how  the  G  and  C  were  changed  for  one  another.  May  Coph  be  So$>  the 
C  being  the  Greek  %  ?  In  the  country  where  the  river  Cophes  is  found,  I  have  before  observed 
that  there  is  a  mount  among  the  mountains  of  Solymi  called  Suffaid,  (which  is  evidently  a  corrup- 
tion of  %<><$>,  or  si¥  zup,)  and  that  the  Sofees  of  Persia  are  called  Suffarees. 

The  explanation  that  the  Guptus  or  Coptos  was  derived  from  the  Cophrenes  of  India,  is  con- 
firmed by  the  singular  circumstance  that  the  Nile,  on  flowing  into  the  Delta  of  Egypt,  is  said  to 
flow  from  the  Cow's  belly.  The  Ganges  is  said  to  flow  from  a  sacred  place,  a  gorge  in  the  moun- 
tains called  Cow's  Mouth — and  the  word  Cophrenes,  Mr.  Rennell  says,  means  Cow.4  One  of 
the  rivers  of  the  Punjab  was  called  Nilab — this  is  evidently  Nile-aub,  river  Nile.  This  I  take  to 
have  been  one  of  the  names  of  the  Cophrenes.  On  the  names  of  those  rivers,  Mr.  Rennell  says, 
"  There  is  so  much  confusion  in  the  Indian  histories  respecting  the  names  of  the  branches  of  the 
"  Indus,  that  I  cannot  refer  the  name  Nilab  to  any  particular  river,  unless  it  be  another  name  for 
"  the  Indus  or  Sinde." 5  On  the  Indian  Nile  above  named,  is  a  city  called  Ishmaelistan.  We 
have  just  now  observed,  that  the  city  of  Mecca  is  said  by  the  Brahmins,  on  the  authority  of  their 
old  books,  to  have  been  built  by  a  colony  from  India ;  and  its  inhabitants  from  the  earliest  era 
have  had  a  tradition  that  it  was  built  by  Ishmael,  the  son  of  Agar.  This  town,  in  the  Indian 
language,  would  be  called  Ishmaelistan. 

'  See  Asiat.  Res.  VI.  p.  496.  2  Il».  Vol.  IV.  p.  370. 

3  lb.  Vol.  V.  p.  286;  Drummond,  Orig.  Vol.  II.  p.  55.  «  Mem.  Map  Hind.  pp.  115,  120.  »  lb.  p  70. 


BOOK   vni.    CHAPTER   VI.    SECTION    2.  425 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ARABIANS  FROM  INDIA. — LAWS  AND  CUSTOMS  OF  AFGHANS  AND  JEWS.  —  RENNELL  ON  THE  RAJPOOTS.  — 
PARADISE.  ARARAT. — COLONEL  TOD  ON  PLACES  IN  INDIA. — JEHOVAH,  NAME  OF,  IN  INDIA. — COLONEL 
TOD  ON  THE  INDIAN  MYTHOSES. — KEMPFER  ON  SIAM. — HERODOTUS  DID  NOT  KNOW  OF  THE  EMPIRE 
OF  SOLOMON. 

1 .  My  reader  has  probably  not  forgotten  the  proofs  I  have  adduced,  that  the  old  Hebrew,  the 
Samaritan,  and  the  Arabian,  are  the  same  language.  From  various  authors  it  is  known  that  when 
Mohamed  commenced  the  reform  of  his  country's  religion,  the  statues  of  the  old  Jewish  patriarchs 
were  in  the  temple  at  Mecca;  and  that  the  Arabians  deemed  themselves  to  have  descended  from> 
Abraham,  or  the  Brahmin,  by  his  son  Ishmael.  They  never  had,  at  any  time  that  we  know  of, 
any  connexion  with  the  Syrian  Jews,  and  yet,  in  their  metropolitan  temple,  they  had  statues  of 
the  Jewish  patriarchs,  and  their  languages  are  radically  the  same,  and  the  same,  Sir  William  Jones 
says,  as  the  Afghans'.  How  can  this  be  accounted  for,  but  by  supposing  them,  as  well  as  the  Jews, 
to  have  migrated  from  Tukhte  Solimaun,  the  Indian  Arabia,  or  the  countries  on  the  North  of  India  ? 
This  is  proved  by  facts  innumerable,  and  Sir  W.  Jones  would  have  had  no  difficulty  in  seeing  it, 
if  he  had  not  been  previously  tied  down  by  a  dogma,  which,  as  he  declares,  nothing  should  induce 
him  to  disbelieve.  In  the  account  which  Mr.  Elphinston  1  has  given  of  the  division  of  the  Afghans 
into  tribes  or  clans,  their  similarity  to  the  ancient  tribes  of  the  Jews  and  of  Arabia,  is  very  ap- 
parent. This  system  of  tribes  was  formed  long  prior  to  the  time  of  Mohamed.  And  it  may  here 
be  observed,  that  the  moment  Mohamed  or  his  califs  conquered,  the  clans  or  tribes  generally  dis- 
appeared :  and  no  instance  can  be  produced  of  their  founding  a  government  by  tribes  where  it  had 
not  been  before-.  For  some  time  after  the  conquests  of  Mohamed,  the  tribes  of  Arabia  were  all 
confounded  beneath  his  victorious  banner.  This  at  once  answers  the  idle  pretences  of  the  Afghans' 
founding  their  tribes,  and  naming  their  districts  and  towns,  from  modern  Mohamedans.  Their 
governors  are  called  Mullik,  evidently  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  word  for  King ;  and  also  Mushir, 
which  is  a  corruption  of  the  Arabic  word  Mosheer  a  Counsellor,*  or  perhaps  Judge. 

The  salutation  of  the  Afghans  is  correctly  Hebrew  :  Assalaum  Alaikoom — Peace  be  with  you.3 
A  person  accustomed  to  the  Jewish  salutation  will  at  once  perceive  that  in  quick  pronunciation 
the  sounds  of  the  two  must  be  identical. 

2.  The  Afghan  mode  of  government  by  tribes,  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Israel- 
ites under  the  Judges.  They  are  the  very  pictures  of  what  the  Israelites  must  at  that  time  have 
been.  The  natives  have  a  code  of  criminal  law  different  from  the  Mohamedan,  such  as  one  would 
suppose  to  have  prevailed  before  the  institution  of  civil  gov  eminent.*  The  laws  and  customs  are  in 
a  wonderful  manner  similar  to  those  of  the  Jews,  and  in  cases  which  can  be  accounted  for  in  no 
other  way  than  an  original  identity  ;  and  this  is  the  most  important  of  all  the  circumstances  re- 
lating to  them,  which  I  have  pointed  out. 

Mr.  Maurice  and  Mr.  Halhed  have  observed  a  very  close  similarity  between  many  of  the  insti- 
tutes of  Menu  and  the  Mosaic  code,  and  that  not  consisting  merely  in  precepts  of  morality,  but  in 
examples  of  artificial  refinement,  which  could  not  be  discovered  by  the  principles  of  common  sense, 


1  Vol.  I.  p.  256.  2  ibid.  Vol.  I.  p.  258.  3  Jbid.  Vol.  II.  p.  372. 

*  Ibid.  Vol.  I.  p.  265. 


3  I 


426  RKNNELL   ON    THE    RAJPOOTS. 

like  many  moral  laws — for  instance  the  law  against  Murder.  Of  this,  the  order  to  a  brother  to 
take  the  widow  to  raise  up  seed  to  his  brother,  is  one  out  of  vast  numbers  of  examples  from  which 
a  judgment  may  be  formed  of  the  remainder,  without  occupying  more  of  my  reader's  time, !  The 
similarity  is  much  too  close  to  be  the  effect  of  accident,  and  much  strengthens  the  position  which 
I  maintain,  that  the  tribe  of  Abraham  was  an  emigrant  one  from  India.  In  the  appendix  to  a  history 
of  India  written  by  a  man,  I  believe  a  missionary,  of  the  name  of  Ward,  who  has  much  more  piety 
than  either  sense  or  charity,  may  be  seen  above  twenty  pages  of  close  print  of  similar  Hebrew  and 
Hindoo  coincidences.  He  calls  them  illustrations  of  Scripture  :  and  proves  the  former  close  con- 
nexion of  the  two,  if  he  do  not  even  prove  their  identity.  The  similarity  was  so  striking  that  even 
a  missionary  was  obliged  to  confess  it,  and  explain  it  away  as  well  as  he  was  able. 2 

No  doubt  the  allegation  that  the  old  Jewish  names  of  ancient  ruined  towns  and  of  districts  have 
been  <nven  by  Mohamedan  conquerors,  or  the  names  of  Jewish  towns  by  Samaritan  emigrants,  or 
Jewish  laws  and  customs  differing  from  those  of  the  Koran,  the  law  of  Moharned,  by  followers  of 
the  prophet,  will  satisfy  many  persons  who  have  too  much  faith  to  use  their  reason :  but  our 
oriental  travellers,  who  have  examined  into  the  histories  of  these  places,  treat  the  idea  of  the  build- 
ing of  the  towns  since  the  seventh  century  with  perfect  contempt. 

3.  Major  Rennell  will  not  be  suspected  of  writing  to  uphold  my  theory,  and  he   expressly 
says,  that  the  Rajpoots  of  Agimere,  or  inhabitants  of  Rajpootana,   who  possess  a  country  equal 
to  half  of  France,  preserved  their  independence  from  the  conquests  of  Mahmood,  and  still  preserve 
it  to  the  present  time.3      He  is  confirmed  by  Col.  Tod.4     This   at   once  puts  an  end  to  the  plea 
that  the  ancient  towns,  whose  Judaite  names  have  been  noticed  by  Sir  W.  Jones,  were  built   by 
the  Mohamedans.     Many  of  them  are  in  ruins,   and  were  probably  reduced  to  this  state  when 
Mahmood  of  Ghazni  swept  across  the  country  like  a  tornado,  not  creating  towns,  but  every  where 
when  in  his  power  destroying  them ;  the  ruins  of  which,   having  Jewish  names,   remain.     The 
Mohamedans  never  acquired  and  occupied  the  towns  of  Rajapootana,  as  they  did  many  of  those  of 
Southern  India.     In  consequence  of  Jewish  customs  being  found  in  Tartary,  (the  very  place  where 
the  Afghan  tribes  are  found,)  several  old  authors  have  supposed  that  the  Jews  had  been  carried 
thither  at  the  Captivity.     For  instance,  Philip  Mornay  de  verit.  Relig.  Christ.,  Cap.  xxvi.,  Geneb. 
Chronic.  Religions  du  Monde,  Tome  II.  (vide  Grot,  de  Origin.  Gent.  Amer.).    Davity  relates,5  that 
there  was  a  place  called  Thabor  in  Tartary,  whence  a  king  came  into  France  in  the  reign  of 
Francis  the  First.     Joseph  Ben  Gorion  states,  that  when  Alexander  the  Great  marched  towards 
the  North,  he  came  to  a  kingdom  called  Arzeret,  which  was  occupied  by  the  captive  Israelites,  into 
which  he  was  prevented  entering  by  a  miracle !     This  serves  to  shew  that  the  tribe  was  the  same 
then  as  now.     Benjamin  de  Tudela  says,  that  after  travelling  to  the  North-east  twenty-one  days, 
he  came  to  the  country  of  the  Rechabites.     Calmet6  says  from  the  old  authors  above,  that  the 
Tartars  eat  no  swines'  flesh,  observe  the  Levitical  law,  which  requires  that  the  brother  shall  marry 
the  brother's  widow  if  he  die  without  children,  &c,  &c.j  all  customs  now  found  among  the  nations 
of  Central  Asia,  as  we  have  seen.     Dr.  Giles  Fletcher  was  envoy  from  Queen  Elizabeth  to  the 


1  Maurice,  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  VII.  p.  834. 

2  The  opinion  which  I  formerly  expressed  of  the  disposition  of  the  missionaries  to  suppress  evidence,  is  justified  by  a 
proof  adduced  by  Col.  Van  Kennedy  (in  the  Transactions  of  the  Bombay  Society  of  Asiatic  Literature)  of  their  gross 
misrepresentations  in  their  histories  of  India.  This  is  confirmed,  too,  by  Mr.  Colebrook,  (in  the  Second  Vol.  of  Trans. 
Asiat.  Soc.  p.  9,  «.,)  who  shews  that  Mr.  Ward's  translation  of  the  Vedanta-sava  is  so  unfaithful  that  it  cannot  be  called 
=i  version  of  the  original  text.  In  the  third  volume  of  the  transactions  of  the  Society  of  Bombay,  is  a  very  able  defence 
of  the  Hindoos  against  Mill,  Wilberforce,  &c,  in  which  their  misrepresentations  are  exposed. 

3  Preface  to  Mem.  of  Map.  p.  xlvii.  "  See  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  270. 
*  Etats  du  Turc  en  Asie,  pp.  124,  168.  6  Diet,  in  voce  tra. 


BOOK    VIII.    CHAP.    VI.    SECT.    4.  427 

people  of  Great  Bucharia.  He  considered  them  to  be  the  remainder  of  the  ten  tribes  of  Samaria, 
from  the  Hebrew  names  of  their  cities;  and  from  the  circumstance  which  he  discovered — that 
their  language,  called  Zagathai,  contained  Hebrew  words.  Here  it  was  where  Benjamin  of  Tudela 
found  what  he  called  the  Hebrew- speaking  Jews. 1  The  Turks  came  from  this  country;  it  is, 
therefore,  not  surprising  that  in  their  language  ten  words  out  of  the  twelve,  should  be  Arabic, 
which  is  Hebrew.  I  believe  that  thousands  of  years  before  the  time  of  Mohamed,  several  pastoral 
tribes,  natives  of  Upper  India,  were  expelled,  as  the  Brahmin  books  inform  us,  in  consequence  of 
religious  feuds,  and  came  and  settled  in  Asia  Minor,  Arabia,  and  Syria.  Such  tribes  as  the  Afghans, 
as  they  are  described  by  Mr.  Elphinston,  were  peculiarly  well  qualified  for  this  species  of  emigration. 

My  suspicion  respecting  the  nature  of  the  faith  of  the  Mohamedans,  and  the  effects  of  it,  is 
strengthened  by  an  observation  of  Col.  Tod's,  that  when  they  destroyed  the  Idols  of  all  the  other 
religions,  they  left  those  of  the  Buddhists  and  Jains2  untouched.  This  was  because,  in  their  se- 
cret religion,  as  I  shall  presently  shew,  they  were  followers  of  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  or  Buddha, 
and  of  the  Linga.  If  this  were  not  the  case,  I  ask,  and  I  have  a  right  to  insist  upon  an  answer 
to  my  question,  before  my  doctrine  is  clamoured  down  ;  Why  did  the  Mohamedan,  that  is  the  Ara- 
bian or  Saracen  followers  of  the  Prophet,  leave  the  icons  of  Buddha,  the  lingas  in  India,  and  the 
obelisks  in  Egypt,  uninjured  ?  I  say  Arabian  or  Saracen,  because  I  have  a  suspicion  that  the 
barbarous  hordes  of  Turcomans,  who  destroyed  the  fine  empires  of  the  Califs,  were  not  initiated 
into  the  secret  doctrines  of  Mohamedism,  which  I  shall  by  and  by  develop. 

We  have  in  India,  as  already  shewn,  a  mount  of  Solomon,  a  country  of  Juda,  and  another  of  the 
sons  of  David,  and  a  Mount  Moriah  or  Meru,  and  places  and  persons  without  number  called  Isis 
or  Jesse.  It  is  certain  from  notice  of  the  Solymi  in  ancient  authors,  that  they  cannot  have  had 
these  names  given  by  Mohamedan  conquerors.  Then  what  must  be  the  consequence  of  all  this, 
if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  history,  if  there  were  really  any  persons  about  the  time  usually  as- 
cribed to  Solomon  and  David  who  governed  Judaea  by  these  names,  but  that  they  must  have  been 
thus  named  after  their  ancestors  in  the  East,  in  the  same  manner  as  names  were  selected  in  all 
countries  from  sacred  or  mythological  persons  ? 

4.  If  the  reader  look  back  to  Book  VII.  Chapter  VI.  Section  2,  he  will  find,  in  the  extraor- 
dinary mysticism  of  the  history  of  Paradise,  and  in  the  name  of  one  of  its  rivers,  a  pretty  strong 
proof  that  the  whole  came  from  Upper  India.  When  all  the  other  circumstances  which  I  have 
described,  and  the  situation  and  character  of  Josephus  are  considered,  I  cannot  conceive  a  stronger 
circumstantial  proof  that  the  Mythos  came  from  India,  than  that  he  should  describe  one  of  the 
rivers  of  Paradise  to  be  the  Ganges.  The  river  Oxus  or  Wolga  is  called  by  Rennell  Djion.  Thus 
we  have  clearly  two  of  the  rivers,  and  probably  the  other  two  had  the  names  which  are  given  in 
Genesis,  though  now  lost.  The  circumstance  of  one  of  them  running  round  the  whole  world  shews 
it  to  be  the  Meru  of  India. 

In  my  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  II.  Sect.  II.  and  VI.,  I  have  given  a  great  many  reasons  to  prove, 
that  the  Jewish  Ararat  was  situate  to  the  East  of  the  Caspian  Sea.  The  Sibyl  placed  Ararat  in 
Phrygia,  near  a  city  called  Celaenes  :  this  is  evidently  the  Calani.  If  the  Sibylline  oracles  had 
been  a  Christian  forgery,  they  would  not  have  placed  Ararat  in  Asia  Minor.  The  more  I  consider 
these  oracles,  the  more  convinced  I  become  that  they  are  genuine.  It  may  be  observed  again,  in 
confirmation  of  the  fact  that  Ararat  was  not  situate  between  the  Black  and  Caspian  seas,  that  the 
olive  does  not  grow  in  Armenia,  therefore  the  dove  could  hardly  have'  found  an  olive-branch  to 
pluck,  when  it  was  sent  out. 3     Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  in  his  Universal  History,  has  placed  Ararat 


1  Buchanan,  Asiat.  Res.  *  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  285.  3  Tournefort's  Voyage,  Lett.  VII. 

3i2 


428  COLONEL   TOD    ON    PLACES    IN    INDIA. 

among  the  mountains  between  Persia,  India,  and  Tartary, '  and  in  this  he  is  supported  by  Dr. 
Shuckford,2  and  by  an  author  little  known,  called  Goropius  Becanus. 3  It  appears  from  the  Uni- 
versal History,  that  this  author  uses  nearly  the  same  arguments  as  those  used  by  me,  particularly 
that  of  the  impossibility  of  the  nations  having  travelled  from  the  East,  if  Ararat  were  in  the  present 
Armenia.  Ben  Gorion  extends  the  mountain  of  Ararat  to  the  Caucasus.  And  the  Samaritan  ver- 
sion calls  it  Serendib,  the  name  of  Ceylon,  the  place  in  which  the  Hindoos  put  Paradise.  All  this 
proves  the  uncertainty  of  the  situation  of  this  mountain.4  All  these  circumstances  tend  to  prove, 
that  there  were  sacred  Merus,  with  their  appurtenances,  wherever  there  were  settlements  of  the 
emigrators. 

It  is  probable  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  ancient  religion  consisted  in  the  performing  of  pil- 
grimages to  sacred  places,  as  it  does  at  this  day  in  India  and  Italy ;  and  as  we  know  it  did  in 
Western  Judaea — every  Jew  being  obliged  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  at  least  once  a  year  :  and  in  order 
to  keep  the  people  and  their  wealth  at  home,  the  priests  of  each  tribe  contrived  to  have  its  sacred 
places,  its  Mount  Sion,  &c,  for  the  people  to  visit.  We  know  that  a  contest  took  place  between 
the  Jews  and  the  Samaritans  for  possession  of  the  national  high-place,  its  Meru  or  Sion,  Olympus, 
Parnassus,  Ida  or  Athos  :  for  all  these  are  of  the  kind  of  high-places  referred  to  so  often  in  the 
Bible  in  terms  of  reprobation.  I  do  not,  however,  believe  that  they  were  objected  to  as  being 
high-places  so  much  as  for  their  being  Lupanars,  or  contaminated  with  the  Hellenic  rites,  except 
those  in  Judaea :  for  the  Jewish  priests  wished  for  only  one  in  Judaea,  and  that,  of  course,  at  Jeru- 
salem. Every  where  we  see  the  same  things  repeated  neariy  by  the  same  names  :  the  Mount,  the 
seven  hills,  the  Tripoly,  &c.  This  is  the  reason  why  we  have  so  many  Troys,  so  many  Argoses, 
so  many  Larissas,  so  many  Solymas,  so  many  Olympuses. 

5.  Col.  Tod  says,  "  With  Mat'hura  as  a  centre,  and  a  radius  of  eighty  miles,  describe  a  circle: 
"  all  within  it  is  Vrij,5  which  was  the  seat  of  whatever  was  refined  in  Hinduism,  and  whose  lan- 
"  guage,  the  Vrij-basha,  was  the  purest  dialect  of  India.  Vrij  is  tantamount  to  the  land  of  the 
"  Sura- seni,  derived  from  Sur- sen,  the  ancestor  of  Crishna,  whose  capital,  Surpuri  (i.  e.  Sura  or 
"  Syra-pore,)  is  about  fifty  miles  South  of  Mat'hura  on  the  Yamuna  (Jumna) :  the  remains  of  this 
"  city  the  author  had  the  pleasure  of  discovering."  6  The  Yamana  was  sometimes  called  black, 
sometimes  blue.7  The  river  was  Yamuna;  the  country  would  be,  as  in  Arabia,  Yemen.  A  little 
before,  the  Colonel  says,  "  The  Yadu  B'hatti  or  Shama  B'hatti  (the  Ashani  of  Abui  Fuzil)  draw 
"  their  pedigree  from  Crishna  or  Yadu-nat'h  as  do  the  lha-riejas  of  Kutch."  Here  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek  God  li,  or  I,  or  Jah,  or  IE  of  Delphi,  is  apparent  enough.  Cristna  or  Yadu  is  the  God 
Iaco — the  du-ya.  Wherever  we  find  the  words  div  or  dev  or  du  thus  used,  we  almost  always  find 
it  meant  holy  or  deity. 


1  B.  i.  Ch.  vii. 

i  Connect.  Vol.  I.  pp.  98,  103  I  have  been  turned  into  ridicule  by  a  shallow  reviewer  of  my  Celtic  Druids  for 
having  there  maintained  what  I  have  since  discovered  was  taught  by  Raleigh  and  Shuckford— that  Ararat  was  East  of 
the  Caspian  Sea.  But  it  has  not  yet  been  the  fortune  of  that  work  to  be  reviewed  by  any  person  who  can  ever  have 
read  it,  except  by  one  really  learned  writer  in  North  America,  in  the  Southern  Review,  No.  V.  Feb.  1829,  printed  at 
Charlestown. 

3  Ino-Scythia,  p.  473. 

4  Who  brought  the  Olive-tree  to  Athens  ?  Minerva,  or  divine  wisdom,  or  Buddha :  and  where  could  it  come  from 
but  from  Oude,  or  Tucte  Soleyman,  or  the  house  of  Solomon  or  of  Wisdom,  in  India  its  native  place  ?  Thus 
Minerva,  or  Pallas,  brought  it.    Vide  Univ.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  B.  i.  Ch.  i.  p.  240. 

5  Of  this  country  Jyadeva  was  a  poet :  this  is  evidently  a  mystic  name. 

6  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  286.  7  Ibid.  p.  287,  n. 


BOOK    VIII.     CHAPTER   VI.      SECTION  6.  429 

Col.  Tod  states,  that  the  statue  of  Cristna  is  said  to  have  been  saved  from  Aurengzebe,  and  con- 
veyed to  Nat'hdwara  in  Mewar,  but  he  gives  no  account  of  the  figure  of  the  God.  He  calls  him 
Kaniya,  that  is,  Kan-or  Cun-iya  ;  and  Nath-ji,  and  Jy-deva.  Here,  again,  I  think  it  is  impossible 
to  be  blind  to  the  »  ii  and  the  n»  ie  of  the  Israelites — the  ii  of  the  Targums  and  of  Iona  *  — the  God 
lao,  that  is,  Jove — and  the  IE  of  Apollo  on  the  temple  of  Delphi.  Bishop  Heber  adduces  an  in- 
stance of  one  of  the  Mahratta  princes,  though  of  the  Hindoo  faith,  being  called  Ali  Jah — Exalted 
of  the  Lord. 2     Thus  the  above  doctrine  is  confirmed  by  the  Bishop. 

In  p.  714,  Col.  Tod  says,  "  This  hierarch  bore  the  title  of  divinity,  or  Nat'hji :  his  prsenomen  of 
"  Deo,  or  Deva,  was  almost  a  repetition  of  his  title  :  and  both  together,  Deonat'h,  cannot  be  better 
"  rendered  than  by  '  Lord  God.' "  Deo-Nath-ji  would  be  then,  Lord  God  Jah  or  Self-existent 
Lord  God.  This  Nath'ji  was  Cristna. 3  Nath  is  the  Neith  of  Egypt,  which  meant  Wisdom,  and 
the  Chinese  name  of  God  Tien,  which  read  Hebraice,  is  Neit. 

"  Radha  was  the  name  of  the  chief  of  the  Gopis  or  Nymphs  of  Vrij,  and  the  beloved  of  Ka- 
niya."4 Radha  (Ray-di-ie)  was  the  Latin  radius,  or  ray  of  light.  The  district  around  Mathura, 
which  was  peculiarly  sacred,  called  Vrij,  might  be  the  district  or  country  of  Ji.  »  "n  ur-ii,  Ur  of 
li,  in  the  regimine  of  the  Hebrews.  And  here  we  have  the  Ur  of  the  Mesopotamia,  whence  the 
tribe  of  Ioudi  came  to  the  West — the  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  The  district  of  Ur-ii  is  also  called 
Hurriana. 5  The  Ana  is  the  same  as  stan  and  ania  in  Mauritania.  I  want  nothing  to  make  the 
demonstration  complete,  but  the  origin  of  the  name  of  Chaldees,  which  we  shall  find  by  and  by. 

Col.  Tod6  remarks,  the  annals  of  the  Yadus  of  Jesulmer  state,  that  the  Yadus  and  Yutis, 7 
whose  resemblance,  he  says,  is  more  than  nominal,  soon  after  the  war  of  the  Mahabharat,*  held 
dominion  from  Guzni  to  Samarkand  ;  that  the  race  of  Ioude  was  still  existing  near  the  Indus  in  the 
emperor  Baber's  time,  who  describes  them  as  occupying  the  mountains  in  the  first  Do-ab,  the  very 
place  the  annals  of  the  Yadus  state  them  to  have  occupied  twelve  centuries  before  Christ,  and 
thence  called  Iadu  or  Yadu-ca-dang,  the  hills  of  Iadu  or  Yadu.  The  circumstance  of  Yadu  being 
said  to  be  the  father  of  Cristna, 9  seems  to  imply  that  the  tribe  of  Yadu  or  Ioudi  arose  before 
Cristna,  or  before  the  Sun  entered  Aries.  This  exactly  agrees  with  the  way  I  have  accounted  for 
the  Afghans  being  Mohamedans,  in  Chapter  V. 

Aod  in  Irish  was  a  name  of  the  Sun,  and  also  of  the  Goddess  of  Fire.  Aodh  baudea  teine, 10 
Aodh,  the  Goddess  of  Fire,  Vesta.  Gen.  Vallancey  says,  this  Aod  is  probably  the  same  as 
Yadu.  u    I  take  this  Aod  and  Yadu  to  relate  to  the  kingdom  of  Oude. 

6.  If  1  be  right  in  my  idea  that  the  religion  of  the  Jews  came  from  India,  it  is  natural  to  expect 
that  we  should  find  their  famous  God  Jehovah  among  the  Hindoos,  and  this  is,  indeed,  the  fact. 
But  my  reader  must  divest  his  mind  of  the  barbarous  corruption  of  the  word  Jehovah,  and  restore 
the  God  to  his  true  name, 12  niiT  leue  n>  Ie,  as  we  call  it  Jah,  and  as  it  is  called  in  Sanscrit,  that  is, 
in  meaning,  the  self- existent,  but  often  denominated  the  God  of  victory.  Among  the  Hindoo  Gods 
there  is  scarcely  one  who  has  not  a  name  which  contains,   in   some  way  or  other,  the  elements  of 


'  Tod,  Hist.  Raj.  pp.  523,  524.                  2  Vol.  II.  p.  562.                3  Tod,  p.  523.  4  Tod,  Hist.  Raj.  p.  530. 

*  Malcolm.                               6  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p  295.  7  That  is,  the  Getas,  I  suppose. 

8  i.  e.  the  battles  of  Cristna.                               9  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.        .  l0  Cormac. 

»  Ouseley's  Oriental  Collections,  Vol.  III.  p.  26. 

18  The  arguments  which  I  use,  founded  on  the  true  name  of  the  Jewish  God  leue  or  Ie,  will,  of  course,  have  no 
weight  with  such  of  my  learned  readers  as  have  been  instructed  by  modern  Jews  to  neglect  the  Synagogue  copies  and 
to  attend  to  the  modern  Mazoretic  corruptions,  and  who  continue  talking  about  Elohim  and  Jehovah.  As  these 
gentlemen  will  not  be  instructed,  they  must  remain  in  ignorance.  I  am  certain  that  I  have  cast  a  new  light  upon 
ancient  history,  and  if  the  old  are  too  prejudiced  to  learn,  the  young  are  not. 


430 


COL.   TOD   ON    THE    INDIAN    MYTHOS. 


the  Ie,  or  God  of  the  Jews.  Col  Tod, E  in  his  treatise  on  the  religion  of  Mewar,  the  very  country 
whence  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  must  have  come,  has  given  a  list  of  the  eight  principal  Gods  of  the 
country.  He  gives  the  names  and  abodes  of  seven  of  them  ;  but  the  eighth,  whose  abode  he  does 
not  give,  except  as  God  of  the  mount,  2  he  says,  is  above  all — and  he  calls  him  Nat'h-Ji,  Nat'h 
meaning  God.  When  the  great  change  is  considered  which  has  taken  place  in  the  old  language 
by  the  perfecting  of  the  Sanscrit,  and  which  must  have  taken  place,  .as  I  shall  shew,  since  the 
emigration  of  the  tribe,  and  also  the  change  in  both  languages  which  time  must  have  produced,  it 
will  not  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  the  perfected  language  should  be  very  different  from  that  of 
the  emigrant  tribe.  But,  notwithstanding,  if  my  reader  can  bring  himself  to  cast  off  his  prejudices 
in  favour  of  the  Jewish  corruption  of  the  word  Jehovah,  and  write  it  as  it  ought  to  be,  Ie,  or  Ii, 
or  I, 3  he  will  see  it  in  the  Sanscrit  names,  in  almost  every  page  of  the  Asiatic  Researches.  The 
most  remarkable  of  his  names,  which  perhaps  may  be  the  best  understood  by  an  unlearned  reader, 
is  that  of  fT  Ie.  Iii  the  Jewish  notation,  which,  like  the  Greek,  is  done  by  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet,  the  fifth  letter  n  E  and  the  tenth  letter  »  I,  (the  former  of  which  stands  for  five,  and  the 
latter  for  ten,)  are  never  used  to  denote  fifteen ;  because  they  are  the  name  of  God  ;  and  the  Jews 
are  forbidden  to  take  the  name  of  the  God,  lis,  in  vain  or  irreverently,  which  it  would  be  to  use  it 
thus,  and  therefore  for  ten  and  Jive  they  substitute  nine  and  six. 

This  name  IE,  corrupted  into  la,  Iy,  Iu,  Yu,  Ya,  occurs  unceasingly  in  the  Hindoo  names  of 
Gods,  and  often  in  their  sacred  ceremonies,  where  they  sing  or  chaunt  IEYE.  How  can  any  thing 
be  more  convincing  than  the  exclamation  of  this  word  IEYE,  the  meaning  of  which  they  may 
probably  have  lost  ? 

7.  I  suppose  Col.  Tod  to  be  a  believer  in  the  actual  human  existence  of  Cristna  :  but  I  think  the 
following  passage  will  satisfy  my  reader  who  and  what  he  was,   as  well  as  strongly  support  my 
theory  respecting  Buddha.     "  Crishna,  Heri, 4   Vishnu,   or   more   familiarly   Kaniya,5   was  of  the 
"  celebrated  tribe  of  Yadu,  or  Jadu,  the  founder  of  the  fifty-six  tribes  who  obtained  the  sovereignty 
of  India,  was  descended  from  Yayat, 6   the  third  son  of  a   primeval  man   called  Swayambhuma 
Manu7  or  Manu  Lord  of  the  earth,   whose  daughter  Ella  f  Terra  J  was   espoused   by  Buddha 
(Mercury),  son  of  Chandra  (the  Moon),  whence  the  Yadus  are  called  Chandravansi  or  children 
"  of  the  moon.     Buddha  was  therefore  worshiped  as  the  great  ancestor  (Pitriswara  or  father  God) 
u  of  the  lunar  race  j  and,  previous  to  the  Apotheosis  of  Crishna,  was  the  common  object  of  devo- 
"  tion  with  all  the  Yadu  tribe.     The  principal  shrine  of  Buddha  was  at  Dwarica,    where  he  yet 
"  receives  adoration  as  Buddha  Trivicrama  (triple  energy — the  Hermes  Triplex  of  the  Egyptians)." 
The  Indian  Cristna,  we  find,  is  called  Kaniya.     He  is  the  Apollo  of  India.     This  word  is  Kan-iya, 
and  is  the  same  as  the  word  Cunnius,  his  name  at  Athens,  and  the  IE  the  word  in  front  of  his 
temple  at  Delphi.     Diodorus   says,  Apollo's  name  was  Kan.9     From  this  has  come  the  word 
Khans  of  Tartary.     The  meaning  of  Kan-iya  will  be  self-existent  generating  power.     Cristna  is 
commonly  called  Sham-nat'h.     This  is  Dttf  sm  and  the  word  Nath  which  means  God.     DIP  sm  is 
the  singular  of  j'Qttf  smin,  planets,  or  disposers.     From  this  may  have  come  Samanaut  or  Sumnaut. 
Col.  Tod  says,  Cristna  worshiped  Buddha  before  his  deification.     This  explains  itself.     Afterward 
the  Colonel  adds,  in  the  cave  of  Gaya  is  the  inscription10  "  Heri,  who  is  Buddha."     Heri  is 
Cristna. 


"  Trans,  of  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  316.  s  Mount  Meru. 

3  li,  the  same  as  the  Hindoo  Nat'h-Ji ;  it  is  always  so  written  in  the  Jerusalem  Targums. 

4  The  Saviour.  «  Kaniya  the  Colonel  has  before  stated  to  be  the  same  as  the  Greek  Apollo. 
6  Query,  Japhet?  »  Also  called  Vaim-swata  Manu,  "  The  man  son  of  the  sun." 

8  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  299.  9  Ibid.  p.  312.  I0  Ibid.  p.  304. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  8.  431 

We  have  just  observed  that  Cristna  and  Buddha  were  the  same,  but  that  Buddha  was  called 
Trivicrama  or  Triple  Energy.  This  was  the  Hermes  Trismegistus  or  Triptolemos — the  Aleim  or 
Trinity  of  the  Jews,  called  n»  IE,  or  Jah.  "  Cristna  or  Kaniya  lived  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
"  brazen  age,  which  is  calculated  to  have  been  about  1100  or  1200  years  before  Christ."  Here  I 
think  proof  enough  is  admitted  to  shew  that  this  Apollo  or  Kaniya  was  no  other  than  the  son  or 
successor  of  Buddha  in  one  of  his  renewed  incarnations,  which  of  course  could  be  no  other  than 
the  Sun.  It  is  a  common  practice  with  the  natives  of  India,  on  the  naming  of  their  children,  to 
give  them  the  epithets  of  one  of  their  minor  deities,  as  Europeans  call  their  children  after  their 
saints  or  divi  (divus  Augustus,  divus  Paulus,  divus  Johannes).  Here  we  have  Christian  names 
and  names  of  honour.  From  this  has  arisen  great  confusion  in  their  histories.  To  remedy  this, 
to  keep  up  their  pedigrees,  and  to  gratify  their  vanity,  the  princes,  like  the  old  kings  of  Ireland, 
have  regular  Genealogists,  called  by  the  same  name,  Bards  or  Bairds,  who  are  domestics  in  their 
families,  and  whose  duty  it  is  to  record  every  thing  honourable  to  their  patrons.  Of  course  we 
need  not  be  surprised  that  the  apparent  history  is  clear  enough,  but  the  real,  when  it  gets  into 
remote  periods,  fabulous  enough.  Every  prince  descends  from  some  great  God,  that  is,  from  the 
Sun  ;  and  all  that  can  be  made  out  for  a  certainty  is,  that  the  Sun  was  the  first  God,  and  the 
parent  of  the  family.  From  this  it  is  clear  that  we  are  not  to  consider  every  history  to  be  false, 
because  the  actors  are  called  by  the  names  of  God,  or  to  consider  that  the  first  Gods  were  men. 
The  first  God  or  King  is  always  the  sun.  The  only  difficulty  is  to  find  out  where  the  real  history 
ends,  and  the  fabulous  begins.  This  must  be  judged  of  by  circumstances.  The  genealogies  can- 
not be  depended  on.  To  decide  with  certainty  is  very  difficult,  because  these  idle  genealogists, 
like  the  genealogists  or  bards  of  Ireland  and  Wales,  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  forge  writings  and 
circumstances,  to  make  the  family  of  their  patron  more  honourable  than  that  of  his  neighbours. 
I  suppose  that  the  fifty-six  tribes  spoken  of  above,  were  the  settlements  or  places  where  the  reli- 
gion of  Kaniya  had  prevailed  in  different  parts  of  India — in  the  kingdom  of  Panionium,  or  of 
Pandaea  the  daughter  of  Cristna,  according  to  another  history  or  mythos. 

8.  A  singular  and  artless  observation  is  made  by  Mr.  Keempfer,  in  his  History  of  Japan,1  in  his 
account  of  Judia,  the  capital  of  Siam :  "  The  Gates  and  other  avenues  of  the  palace  are  crowded 
"  with  black,  checquered  figures,  painted  in  the  manner  as  they  do  with  the  images  at  the  holy 
"  sepulchre  at  Jerusalem."  This  observation  respecting  these  people  of  Judia  is  very  striking. 
The  name  of  the  God  worshiped  here  is  Prah  Pudi  Dsiau.  But  divide  the  last  word  thus,  Ds-iau, 
and  what  have  we  ?  Deus-Iau.  He  is  also  called  Siaka  or  Saka,  the  Irish  Sacya.  The  God  is  an 
exact  Buddha  sitting,  120  feet  high.  The  country  swarms  with  monks.  The  Idol  is  also  called 
Amida  (Om-di),  a  name  of  Buddha.  He  is  seen  standing  upright  on  the  flower  Tarate,  or  Faba- 
Egyptiaca,  or  Nymphcea  Magna  incarnata.  He  is  believed  to  be  the  intercessor  of  departed 
souls.  The  High-priest  lives  in  Judia,  and  his  authority  is  such,  that  the  king  is  obliged  to  bow 
to  him.  This  shews  the  original  superiority  of  the  priests  to  the  kings.  Pra  in  the  Baly  or  Bali, 
the  sacred  language  of  Judia  or  Odiaa,  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Sion,  signifies  the  Sun  and 
the  great  living  God:2  that  is,  the  creator  or  former,  giver  of  forms.  From  this  has  come  Pra 
ja-pati,  or  the  Lord  of  mankind,  which  means  father,  ja,  creator. 3  This  Pra  is  evidently  the 
Hebrew  word  jcq  bra,  to  create  or  form,  of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis.  It  is  singular  that  Park- 
hurst  gives  us  the  verb  xra  bra  to  create,  but  no  noun  for  Creator.  But  though  it  may  be  lost 
now,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  verb  must  have  had  its  correspondent  noun.  I  have  before 
observed  that  this  word  PR  or  BR,  is  said,  by  Whiter,4  always  to  mean  Creator. 


'  Vol.  I.  p.  29.     .  ■  La  Loubere,  pp.  6,  7.  3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  255.  <  Etymol.  Univ. 


432  HERODOTUS    DID    NOT    KNOW   OF  THE   EMPIRE   OP   SOLOMON. 

On  the  south  point  of  Siam  the  Malays  reside.  These  are  the  people  whose  language,  a  Hebrew 
friend,  Mr.  Salome,  of  Bath,  understood,  when  he  went  into  the  depot  of  the  India  company  near 
Wapping,  in  London.  But  if  the  Mohamedans  carried  to  India  their  religious  names,  how  are  we 
to  account  for  the  other  names  connected  with  the  Hindoo  and  Greek  superstitions  being  found  in 
Greece  ;  such  as  Caon  or  Cawnpore,  Agra  or  Argos  ?  How  are  we  to  account  for  two  Syrias  and 
two  Dagons,  two  Matureas,  two  Sions,  &c,  &c?  These  the  Mohamedans  did  not  take.  How 
are  we  to  account  for  the  Sanscrit  at  Eleusis  and  in  Italy;  and  how  for  the  Linga  and  Ioni  at 
Paestum  ?  •  And,  as  I  shall  shew  my  reader,  in  a  future  book,  for  the  Yoni  and  Linga  at  Aberdeen 
in  Scotland  ? 

No  doubt  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  clearly  what  names  of  towns  in  the  countries  North-west  of 
India  are  ancient  and  what  modern.  This  is  caused  by  the  singular  circumstance  of  the  tribes 
which  anciently  left  that  country  to  colonise  the  West,  having  returned,  in  modern  times,  to  their 
old  countries  as  Mohamedan  conquerors  and  propagators  of  their  new  doctrines.  The  difficulty  is 
also  increased  by  the  constant  endeavours  of  the  priests  of  the  Jews,  the  Christians,  and  the  Mo- 
hamedans, to  disguise  the  fact,  which  they  feel  they  cannot  account  for  consistently  with  their 
received  notions  and  their  erroneous  mode  of  explaining  the  sacred  books.  But  if  the  Jewish 
names  of  places  and  persons  were  in  these  countries  before  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  Moha- 
medans, there  is  an  end  of  the  question.  The  names  of  places  enow  we  have  seen.  When  Mah- 
mud,  of  Gazna,  the  first  Mohamedan  conqueror,  attacked  Lahore,  he  found  it  defended  by  a  native 
Hindoo  prince  called  Daood  or  David.2  This  single  fact  is  enough  to  settle  the  question  of  the 
places  not  being  named  by  Mohamedans. 

As  I  have  before  observed,  when  my  learned  friend  Col.  Tod  visited  Naples  and  Passtum  he 
saw  several  small  figures  of  Ceres,  which  had  in  the  hand  something  which  the  antiquarians  of  that 
capital  did  not  understand.  On  looking  at  it  the  Colonel  discovered,  in  a  moment,  that  it  was  the 
Linga  and  Ioni  of  India.  He  recognized  also  at  Pompeii,  on  the  temple  of  Isis,  the  same  effigy. 
I  suspect  the  ellipses  and  circles  of  the  Druids,  with  the  stone  pillar  in  the  middle,  are  emblems  of 
the  same  thing. 3 

I  beg  my  reader  to  look  at  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  cities  of  India,  Agra,  Delhi,  Oude,  Mundore, 
&c,  which  have  many  of  them  been  much  larger  than  London,  the  last,  for  instance,  37  miles 
in  circumference,  built  in  the  oldest  style  of  architecture  in  the  world,  the  Cyclopean,  and  I  think 
he  must  at  once  see  the  absurdity  of  the  little  Jewish  mountain  tribe  being  the  founders  of  such 
a  mass  of  cities.  We  must  also  consider  that  we  have  almost  all  the  places  of  India  in  Western 
Syria.  Let  us  also  consider  how  we  have  nests  of  Asiatic  places  in  Greece,  in  several  districts 
the  Mounts,  the  Argoses,  Tripolies,  &c,  and  I  think  no  one  can  help  seeing  that  these  circum- 
stances are  to  be  accounted  for  in  no  other  way  than  by  the  supposition  that  there  was  in  very 
ancient  times  one  universal  superstition,  which  was  carried  all  over  the  world  by  emigrating  tribes, 
and  that  they  were  originally  from  Upper  India. 

9.  No  one  can  deny  that  it  is  a  very  extraordinary,  and  it  is  to  me  an  unaccountable,  circumstance, 
that  Herodotus,  writing  the  History  of  Babylon,  of  Egypt,  and  of  Syria,  and  travelling  across 
these  countries,  should  have  known  nothing  of  the  magnificent  empire  of  King  Solomon,  or  of  the 
emigration  of  two  millions  of  Jews  from  Egypt,  and  the  destruction  of  the  hosts  of  Pharaoh. 
How  was  this  ignorance  possible,  if  there  be  a  word  of  truth  in  the  Jewish  histories?  Did 
Pythagoras  or  Plato  never  hear  of  the  glories  of  Solomon  ?  Would  not  their  followers  have  told 
Herodotus  if  they  had   known  of  them  ?     The  plagues  of  Egypt  at  once  decide  the  character  of 

1  See  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  285.  *  Maur.  Mod.  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p.  248. 

3  See  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  302. 


BOOK  VIII.    CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  5.  433 

the  miscalled  history  of  the  going  out  of  Moses.  They  do  not  prove  it  false,  any  more  than  the 
mythic  history  of  Rome  proves  that  there  was  no  city  of  the  seven  hills ;  but  they  reduce  it  to  the 
standard  of  credibility,  by  shewing  that  the  history  is  a  parable  or  mythos,  the  key  being  known 
only  by  the  initiated.  The  Mythos,  in  every  place,  had  its  a.7roixog  :  in  Babylon,  in  Thebes,  in 
the  case  of  Moses,  in  Homer,  in  Rome,  &c.  On  this  Nimrod  may  be  consulted.  He  has  shewn 
this,  and  treated  it  most  learnedly,  and  at  great  length.  There  might  be,  as  I  have  no  doubt  that 
there  was,  a  going  out  of  the  tribe  under  Moses :  it  was  like  the  migration  of  all  other  nomade 
tribes,  and  might  indeed  be  rather  a  large  tribe.  But  two  millions  of  people  is  a  story  like  the 
other  Jewish  stories  of  their  millions  of  soldiers,  chariots,  horses,  talents  of  gold  for  their  temple, 
&c,  &c.  Probably,  in  passing  the  end  of  the  Red  Sea,  Pharaoh's  army  was  destroyed  by  a 
tempest,  of  which  Moses  took  advantage. 

It  has  the  same  effect  upon  the  glories  and  magnificence  of  the  empire  of  Solomon.  He  was, 
probably,  the  prosperous  king  of  a  petty  tribe,  and  had  a  mystic  name  given  to  him,  though 
he  oppressed  his  people,  an  ignorant,  priest-ridden  race,  to  erect  a  very  fine  palace  and  temple; 
and  it  is  no  way  wonderful  that  when  the  energies  of  a  whole  tribe,  though  not  a  very  great  one, 
are  directed  for  a  great  number  of  years  to  the  raising  and  adorning  of  one  building,  that  it  should 
be  very  magnificent.  The  very  same  effect  followed  the  same  cause  in  the  states  of  central  India, 
whence  the  Jews  had  emigrated,  as  the  prints  of  several  of  the  temples  in  Col.  Tod's  history 
clearly  prove.  If  any  thing  can  be  deduced  from  the  style  of  architecture,  the  Indian  temples  are 
of  the  same  date  with  the  temples  at  Paestum :  and  as  the  most  ancient  and  most  important  of 
the  Hindoo  emblems  were  found  there  by  Col.  Tod,  it  is  probable  that  they  were  erected  by  the 
same  race. 

The  Jain  temples,  in  Col.  Tod's  book,  are  the  very  pictures  of  the  ancient  temples  at  Paestum, 
the  date  of  which  was  a  subject  of  curiosity  in  the  time  of  Augustus.  I  shall  return  to  this 
again. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

JEWS    HATE    THE    FEMALE    PRINCIPLE. — JEWS    AND    EGYPTIANS,     BLACKNESS    OF. — OBSERVATIONS   ON    THE 

JEWS. — SAMARITANS. — GENERAL   CONCLUSIONS. 

1.  The  excessive  hatred  of  the  Jews  to  the  adoration  of  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  Milcomb  and 
Asteroth  of  the  Sidonians,  is  visible  every  where  in  the  Bible,  as  well  as  to  that  of  the  Bull  Apis, 
under  the  names  of  Baal,  Moloch,  Thamas,  &c,  &c.  Though  the  hypothesis  that  the  Jews  were 
a  branch  of  a  sect  which  arose  in  the  disputes  of  India  about  the  Linga  and  Ioni  may  be  new, 
when  every  thing  is  considered,  I  trust  it  will  not  be  thought  improbable.  It  seems  rationally  to 
account  for  circumstances  which,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  have  not  been  explained  before,  and  to 
remove  many  difficulties.  And  I  think  when  it  is  well  understood  and  duly 'considered,  it  will  be 
fo,und  to  be  in  favour  of  the  Christian  and  Jewish  religions,  and  not  against  them. 

3  K 


434  JEWS    AND    EGYPTIANS,    BLACKNESS    OF.— OBSERVATIONS    ON    THE    JEWS. 

2.  "  Major  Orme1  reckons  eighty-four  castes  in  India,  each  of  which  has  a  physiognomy 
«  peculiar  to  itself.  The  more  civilized  tribes,"  he  says,  «  are  more  comely  in  their  appearance. 
«  The  noble  order  of  the  Brahmins  are  the  fairest  and  the  most  comely.  The  mountaineers  most 
«  resemble  Negroes  in  their  countenances  and  their  hair.  The  natives  of  the  hilly  districts  of 
«  Bengal  and  Bahar  can  hardly  be  distinguished  by  their  features  from  the  modern  Ethiopians." 
All  this  accords  very  well  with  my  theory  respecting  the  black  Buddha.  Probably  at  the  time 
the  black  Jews  divided  from  their  countrymen,  they  were  black-and,  from  being  always  few  m 
number  and  low  in  rank,  and  breeding  entirely  in  their  own  caste,  they  have  kept  their  ancient 
sable  complexion.  It  has  been  observed,  that  the  figures  in  all  the  old  caves  of  India  have  the 
appearance  of  Negroes.3  This  tends  to  prove  not  only  the  extreme  antiquity  of  the  caves,  but 
also  the  original  Negro  character  of  the  natives. 

Dr.  Pritchard  has  most  clearly  proved,  as  I  have  stated  in  Book  V.  Chap.  XIII.  Sect.  2,  that  the 
ancient  Egyptians   were  Negroes.     He  observes  that  "  the  Greek  writers   always  mention  the 
«  Egyptians  as   being  black  in  their  complexions.     In  the   Supplices  of  ^schylus,   when  the 
«  Egyptian  ship  is  described  as  approaching  the  land,  and  seen  from  an  eminence  on  the  shore,  it 
"  is  said, 

"  UpsTiova-i  8'  avhpes  107101  peXayxipois 
"  TviOHTt  Xbvkov  £K  TienXaTuv  jSeiv — 

"  The  sailors  too  I  marked, 
"  Conspicuous  in  white  robes  their  sable  limbs  : 

"  And  again, 

"  EirXevo-ai/  w'S'  mrtv&u  Kora> 
"  IIoXei  u.EXccyX'W  w  rp«T¥- 

«  Herodotus,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  Egyptians,  mentions  the  blackness  of  their  com- 
«  plexions  more  than  once.  After  relating  the  fable  of  the  foundation  of  the  Dodonean  oracle  by  a 
«  black  dove  which  had  fled  from  Thebes  in  Egypt,  and  uttered  her  prophecies  from  the  beach-tree 
«  at  Dodona,  he  adds  his  conjecture  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  story.  He  supposes  the  oracle  to 
«  have  been  instituted  by  a. female  captive  from  the  Thebaid,  who  was  enigmatically  described  as  a 
«  bird,  and  subjoins  4  that,  by  representing  the  bird  as  Mack,  they  marked  that  the  woman  was  an 

"  Egyptian." 5 

3.  I  now  beg  my  reader  to  reflect  upon  what  was  said  in  Book  IV.  Chap.  I.  respecting 
Cristna  and  his  adventures  ;  to  cast  his  eye  upon  the  plates  of  Cristna  treading  on  the  head  of  the 
serpent  described  in  Genesis,  and  of  the  serpent  in  return  biting  his  foot-and,  as  Dr.  Clarke  has 
shewn,  biting  it  in  a  way  which  proves  that  the  oriental  author  did  not  copy  from  Genesis, 
though  the  author  of  Genesis  may  have  copied  from  him ;  and  then,  I  think,  he  will  be  obliged  to 
admit  that  there  must  have  been  a  mythos  common  to  Eastern  and  Western  Asia.  Let  him  then 
consider  the  history  of  and  the  facts  relating  to  circumcision,  and  the  other  particulars  dilated 
upon  by  me,  and  he  can  hardly  scruple  to  allow  that  the  Western  mythos  was  copied  or  derived 

from  that  of  the  East. 

For  the  truth  of  the  theory  which  I  have  advanced-that  the  Jews  did  originally  come  from 
India,  in  addition  to  the  circumstantial  evidence,  I  have  as  good  proof  as  it  is  possible  for  written 


•  Indostan,  Introd.  *  Pritchard,  Phys.  Hist.  p.  392. 

3  Hunter,  in  Archasologia,  Vol.  VII. ;  Dr.  F.  Buchanan,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI. 
^  Herod.  Lib.  ii.  s  Pritchard,  Phys.  Hist.  p.  377- 


BOOK    VIII.       CHAPTER    VII.      SECTION  3.  435 

records  to  afford.  This  I  say  roundly  of  the  testimony  of  Magasthenes.  He  cannot  be  supposed  to 
have  had  any  prejudice  against  the  Jews :  his  observation  respecting  their  being  an  Indian  tribe 
seems  to  have  fallen  from  him  merely  as  illustrative  of  the  character  of  the  Hindoos.  The  Hindoos 
were  the  object  of  the  book,  not  the  Jews.  He  had  no  interested  motive  to  induce  him  to  misre- 
present or  to  deceive  ;  and  the  priests  cannot  here  set  up  even  their  hackneyed  argument  of  hatred 
to  the  Jews  to  account  for  or  obviate  any  thing  which  is  unfavourable  to  them,  as  his  assertion  is 
merely  confirmatory  of  Moses's  narrative — that  they  came  from  the  East,  and  is  in  praise  of  them 
or  their  system.  The  passage,  which  I  have  noticed  before,  where  he  observes  that  the  Indians 
and  the  Jews  were  the  only  people  who  had  a  true  idea  of  chronology  and  the  nature  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world,  is  very  striking,  when  coupled  with  what  I  have  just  laid  before  the  reader.  It 
all  tends  strongly  to  prove  the  close  connexion  between  the  Indians  and  the  Jews. 

I  now  beg  my  reader  to  make  a  visit  to  Duke's  Place,  or  to  any  settlement  of  Jews,  and  to  look 
them  in  the  face  and  deny  if  he  can,  that  they  have  oriental  black  written  on  them  in  the  clearest 
characters.  Let  him  look  at  the  long  black  hair  and  fine  aquiline  nose  of  the  handsome  Cristna, 
and  then  let  him  deny,  if  he  can,  his  likeness  to  the  tribe  of  Abraham.  Let  him  look  at  the  beau- 
tiful black-eyed,  black-haired,  half-bleached  Jewish  girls,  and  deny  it,  if  he  can.  If  I  be  right  in  my 
theory,  the  Jews  were  one  of  the  latest  emigrations  from  India  to  the  West :  we  have  no  symptoms 
of  any  after  them,  except  one  of  which  I  shall  immediately  treat :  and  this  accounts  for  their  being 
not  so  much  whitened  as  the  remainder  of  the  Western  nations.  All  this  exactly  agrees  with  the 
theory  which  I  have  advanced  respecting  the  change  in  the  features  of  Buddha  in  Book  V.  Ch.  XIII. 
Sect.  2.  Of  course,  as  I  suppose  the  Ioudi  did  not  depart  from  India  till  about  the  time  of  the 
sun's  entrance  into  Aries,  or  the  time  of  Cristna,  they  would  have  the  advantage  of  the  improve- 
ment to  his  time,  and  though  black  would  not  have  curly  hair  or  flat  faces. 

Another  reason  for  the  continuance  of  the  dark  complexion  of  the  Jews,  and  their  marked  national 
character,  is  to  be  found  in  their  ancient  law,  which  forbade  them  from  marrying  out  of  their  own 
tribe.  This  law  was  long  anterior  to  Moses,  and  was  only  re-enacted  by  him.  We  have,  perhaps, 
the  first  appearance  of  it,  in  the  esoteric  history  of  Jacob  and  Esau.  The  idle  story  of  the  mess  of 
pottage  is  very  good  as  a  subject  for  the  priests  to  make  sermons  upon  ;  but  probably  the  real  rea- 
son for  Jacob's  conduct  to  Esau,  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  Esau  had  forfeited  his  birthright  by 
marrying  out  of  the  tribe,  and  he  was  excluded  that  his  children  might  not  inherit. l  The  same 
thing  happened  to  Moses,  who  married  an  Ethiopian  woman,  as  I  have  before  pointed  out,  and 
therefore  his  children  did  not  inherit ;  but  the  supreme  power  and  the  priesthood  descended  to  the 
sons  of  Aaron,  his  nephews.  In  the  case  of  Esau  and  Jacob  the  truth  is  disguised  under  the  para- 
ble or  {enigma  of  a  mess  of  pottage.  It  is  surprising  that  persons  do  not  see  that  almost  every 
part  of  Genesis  is  aenigmatical  or  a  parable.  The  system  of  concealment  and  of  teaching  by  para- 
ble is  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  the  religion.  I  suspect  that  there  is  not  a  sentence  in 
Genesis  which  is  not  consistent  with  good  sense,  if  its  true  meaning  could  be  discovered.  I  feel 
little  doubt  that  such  passages  as  that  of  God  wounding  Jacob  in  the  thigh,  and  his  failing  in  his 
endeavours  to  kill  Moses  at  an  inn,  are  wholly  misunderstood. 

The  Jews,  as  a  race,  are  very  handsome ;  they  take  after  their  ancestor  Cristna.  Nothing  is 
more  easy  than  to  distinguish  a  thorough-bred  Jew  or  Jewess.  And  it  is  very  greatly  to  the 
honour  of  the  Jewish  matrons  that  the  family  likeness  or  national  peculiarity  should  have  con- 
tinued so  long.     It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  see  this  hitherto  oppressed  and  insulted  race  re- 


1  Vide  Gen.  xxvi.  34,  35. 
3k2 


436  SAMARITANS. 

gaining  their  station  in  society.     I  hope  that  all  distinction  in  civil  rights  will  very  speedily  dis- 

appear. 

I  shall  here  add  no  more  on  this  theory  respecting  Abraham  and  the  Jews.  Its  probability  must 
be  left  to  the  reader.  If  he  do  not  approve  it,  let  him  account  for  the  fact  of  Abraham  and  his  wife, 
Sarah,  being  found  in  India ;  but  he  must  not  do  this  by  telling  me  that  the  Brahmins  copied  from 
the  Pentateuch,  because  this  is  an  assertion  which  he  knows  he  does  not  himself  believe.  Let 
him  also  account  for  the  two  Matureas,  and  for  the  sixty-five  tribes  of  Black  Jews  intermixed  with 
the  tribes  of  White  Jews  in  India,  and  the  similarity  in  the  names  of  places  and  identity  of  man- 
ners  and  laws  :  and  let  him  shew  some  good  reason  why  Megasthenes  should  have  told  a  falsity. 
Let  him  also  account,  in  a  better  manner,  for  the  peculiarities  which  I  have  pointed  out  above,  in 
the  character  and  history  of  the  Jews.  But,  above  all,  let  him  rebut  the  decisive  argument  which 
I  have  drawn  from  the  circumcision  of  Abraham  and  his  tribe,  that  the  Judi  of  the  West  must 
have  come  from  the  East,  not  the  Judi  of  the  East  from  the  West. 

4.  In  consequence  of  the  allegation  that  the  Afghans  were  derived  from  the  Samaritans,  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  sav  a  few  words  on  the  Jewish  account  of  them  ;  but  I  will  compress  them 
into  as  small  a  space  'as  possible.  The  only  account  our  priests  have  permitted  us  to  have,  re- 
specting the  division  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  and  Juda,  comes  from  the  sect  of  the  latter.  But 
enough  transpires  from  the  Jewish  books  to  see  that  the  sacred  place  appointed  by  the  Pentateuch 
for  the  grand  place  of  worship  of  the  nation  was  Gerizim  in  Samaria,  not  Jerusalem  ;  and  that,  in 
order  to  conceal  the  fact,  the  Jews  have  been  obliged  to  corrupt  the  text,  which  they  have  done 
most  awkwardly— substituting  Ebal  for  Gerizim,  and  Gerizim  for  Ebal.  This  corruption  has  been 
admitted  bv  some  of  the  first  divines  of  the  Protestant  Church.  I  believe,  myself,  that  the  great 
cause  of  the  division  of  the  kingdom,  was  the  removal  of  the  sacred  place  from  Samaria  to  Jeru- 

The  Samaritans  were  carried  into  captivity  before  the  Jews,  and  returned  a  little  before  them. 
A  violent  contention,  it  appears  from  the  Jewish  books,  took  place  between  the  people  possessing 
Samaria  at  the  time  of  the  return  of  the  Jews,  and  the  latter-each  wishing  to  have  only  one 
national  temple,  and  that  temple  at  its  own  capital.  Now  the  Jews  say,  that  the  Samaritans 
never  returned-but  that  in  lieu  of  them,  Cuthite  idolaters  were  sent  by  the  King  of  Babylon, 
-these  idolaters,  the  reader  will  observe,  being  the  people  who  were  so  eager  to  have  the 
temple  of  this  foreign  religion  in  their  own  capital,  and  to  prevent  the  rebuilding  of  it  at  Jeru- 
salem for  the  promotion  of  a  religion  not  theirs  in  another  country  !  To  account  for  these 
evident  absurdities,  the  Jews  tell  a  story,  in  good  keeping  with  many  of  their  other  stories 
—that  in  consequence  of  the  Cuthite  idolaters  having  been  plagued  with  Lions  sent  by  God, 
the  King  of  Babylon  forwarded  them  a  priest  to  teach  them  the  old  law  of  the  land,  and  that 
thus  they  became  possessors  of  the  law  of  Moses.  Josephus  being  ashamed  of  this  story  of 
Lions,  says,  it  was  a  plague  which  God  sent.  But  it  is  easy  to  see,  as  the  Samaritans,  on  the 
contrary  say,  that  the  whole  story  of  Cuthites  and  Lions  is  an  interested  lie  of  their  enemies  ,  and 
that  they  were  carried  into  captivity  by  the  Assyrians,  and  were  returned  from  their  captivity  by 
the  Persian  Monarchs  precisely  the  same,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  that  the  Jews  were.  The 
reader  will  not  forget  that  we  might  have  had  the  whole  Samaritan  history  and  books,  if  the  arch- 
priest  Usher  had  thought  proper.  For,  if  he  did  not  procure  the  whole  and  suppress  them  (many 
of  which  I  Relieve  he  did,)  he  had  the  power  to  do  both.  This  is  clearly  proved.  The  whole  of 
what  I  have  here  said,  may  be  found  in  the  Prolegomena  of  Walton,  in  Pndeaux,  and  in  the 
works  of  Bishop  Marsh.  The  learned  have  bestowed  immense  labour  to  discover  the  place  where 
the  ten  tribes  went  to,  after  their  country  was  conquered.     They  have  sought  them  in  every  part 


BOOK   VIII.    CHAPTER   VII.    SECTION   5.  437 

of  the  world  in  vain.  If  they  had  consulted  any  persons  except  the  sectarian  enemies  of  the 
Samaritans  and  the  Lions,  they  might  have  saved  themselves  the  trouble  of  travelling  so  far. 
The  simple  case  was  this:  the  kings  of  Babylon,  after  wasting  the  country,  took  away  the  chief 
perso7is  of  each  nation  to  Babylon  ;  and  after  the  Persians  took  that  city,  they,  finding  a  number  of 
captives  of  their  oivn  sect  there,  sent  them  home  again. 

But  there  is  yet  one  more  consideration  which  at  once  overthrows  the  fancy  of  the  ten  tribes 
having  given  names  to  the  places  in  India  and  Rajapootana.  They  would  never  have  called  the 
city  or  mount  by  the  name  of  David,  of  Solomon,  or  of  Jerusalem,  men  and  a  place  they  hated ; 
nor  countries  nor  districts  after  the  name  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  which  they  also  hated  ;  but  Geri- 
zim  or  Samaria.  This  at  once  settles  the  question  of  the  ten  tribes  having  founded  the  places  in 
India.  It  is  surprising  that  religious  prejudice  should  blind  men  like  Sir  W.  Jones,  to  such  obvious 
considerations.  But  though  the  presence  of  the  Jewish  names  proves  that  the  towns  cannot  have 
been  denominated  by  Samaritans,  the  names  of  the  Samaritans,  which  they  bore  before  the  division 
of  the  tribes,  if  they  should  be  found,  will  not  prove  the  contrary. 

Thus  there  is  an  end  of  the  ridiculous  pretence  of  the  ten  tribes  in  India.  The  fable  can  deceive 
none  but  Jewish  sectaries  and  their  followers.  And  the  story  of  the  ten  tribes  being  disposed  of,  I 
have  a  perfect  conviction  that  there  is  no  other  way  of  accounting,  rationally,  for  the  similarity 
between  the  tribes  of  Upper  India  and  the  Syrians,  Arabians,  and  Ethiopians,  than  that  which  I 
have  pointed  out,  viz.  emigration  from  the  East  to  the  West,  the  emigrators  taking  with  them  their 
religion  and  their  laws. 

5.  The  result  of  all  my  inquiries  comes  to  this  :  that  about  the  time  of  the  change  of  the  Vernal 
Equinox  from  Taurus  to  Aries,  several  emigrations  took  place  from  the  Mesopotamia  of  India  to 
the  West,  in  consequence  of  the  great  civil  wars  which  then  prevailed.  One  of  these  emigrations 
was  that  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi,  who  constituted  the  Jews,  Arabians,  and  African  Ethiopians. 
Another  emigration  about  the  same  time,  but  probably  a  little  earlier,  was  that  of  the  sect  of  the 
Ionians.  These,  I  think,  also  came  from  the  Duab  or  Mesopotamia.  Long  after  these  succeeded 
the  tribe  of  Tartars  or  Scythians,  mentioned  by  Ezekiel,  who  came  down  from  between  the  Black 
and  Caspian  seas,  and  overran  southern  Asia.  These  probably  came  from  the  North  of  the  Duab 
spoken  of  above.  After  a  long  series  of  years,  the  Arabian  descendants  returned,  under  the  Moha- 
medan  Califs,  and  reconquered  India,  crossing  the  Duab  or  Mesopotamia  in  their  progress,  and 
partly  conquering  it.  Here  they  found  the  rudiments  of  their  language,  and  the  names  of  towns 
similar  to  those  which  their  ancestors  had  carried  to  the  West,  and  a  mythology  in  great  part  simi- 
lar to  their  own — the  Judahs,  Jacobs,  Noahs,  Shems,  Japhets,  &c,  &c.  This  makes  it  impossible, 
without  very  great  care,  to  distinguish  in  the  Eastern  Mesopotamia  the  works  of  the  ancient  My- 
cologists from  those  of  the  modern  ones ;  but,  with  care,  in  most  cases  it  may  be  done  with  cer- 
tainty. Again,  after  the  lapse  of  another  long  series  of  years,  the  descendants  of  the  North-eastern 
Tartars,  spoken  of  above  as  having  come  down  from  the  North  of  the  Duab  under  the  name  of 
Scythians,  advanced  towards  the  West — and,  under  the  name  of  Turks,  conquered  the  Saracens  or 
Arabians  in  Syria,  Arabia,  and  Greece,  and  took  Constantinople,  and  Mount  Haemus,  which  has 
retaken  its  old  name  of  Balk-an  and  Chumla.  These  people  brought  with  them  a  language  radi- 
cally the  same  as  that  of  the  Arabians,  yet,  as  might  well  be  expected  after  a  separation  of  so  manv 
years,  considerably  changed;  nevertheless  not  so  much  changed,  but  that,  with  very  little  difficulty, 
they  understand  the  Arabians.  The  close  similarity  of  the  Turkish  and  Arabian  languages  is  a 
striking  proof  of  my  whole  theory.  The  outlines  of  the  history  of  the  extended  empires,  which  I 
have  here  exhibited,  would  have  been  much  more  conspicuous  had  our  makers  of  maps  and  histories 
recorded  the  names  of  places  as  they  must  have  appeared  to  them.  But  from  their  native  religious 
prejudices  and  necessary  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the  history,  it  has  seemed  to  them  absurd  to 


438  pandion,  pandeus,  pandjea. 

believe,  that  there  should  be  places  or  persons  in  the  East  having  exactly  the  same  names  as  places 
and  persons  in  the  West;  and  to  avoid  the  feared  ridicule  of  their  contemporaries,  which  in  fact 
(in  opposition  to  the  plainest  evidence,  and  which  they  themselves  could  not  entirely  resist)  they 
thought  well-founded,  they  have,  as  much  as  possible,  disguised  the  names.  Thus,  that  which 
otherwise  they  would  have  called  David-poutri,  they  call  Daud-poutri  ;  Solomon,  Soleiman  ;  John- 
guior,  Jahan-guior;  &c,  &c.  In  the  same  way,  without  any  wrong  intention,  they  have  been  in- 
duced to  secrete  the  truth,  in  many  cases,  from  themselves,  by  hastily  adopting  the  idea  that  the 
old  Jewish  names  of  places  have  been  given  by  the  modern  Saracens  or  Turks,  the  erroneousness 
of  which  a  moment's  unprejudiced  consideration  would  have  shewn.  All  this,  I  think,  I  have 
proved ;  but  in  the  course  of  the  following  books  I  flatter  myself  1  shall  strengthen  my  proofs  by  a 
great  variety  of  circumstances.  I  therefore  beg  my  reader,  on  no  account,  to  consider  my  argu- 
ment to  be  concluded.  I  shall  here  merely  add,  that  in  Chapter  IV.  Section  8,  I  have  observed, 
there  appears  in  the  examples  of  the  Dead  Sea,  &c,  a  great  similarity  in  the  countries  where  the 
tribes  of  Judah  were  settled  in  the  East  and  in  the  West.  The  Western  country  seems,  as  much 
as  possible,  to  have  been  accommodated  to  the  Eastern;  from  this  it  is  not  unfair  to  suppose,  that 
when  we  read,  in  the  Jewish  books,  of  the  immense  armies  of  horsemen  and  chariots,  of  the  im- 
mense sums  expended  in  building  their  temple,  &c,  these  were  meant  secretly  to  describe  the 
armies,  cities,  and  temples,  of  the  Eastern  tribe  of  Oude,  or  of  the  Eastern  Judah  and  Solomon. 
What  is  perfectly  ridiculous,  as  applied  to  the  mountain  tribe  of  Western  Syria,  is  quite  otherwise 
when  applied  to  the  armies,  cities,  and  temples,  of  India.  The  Western  temple  of  Solomon,  exclu- 
sive of  the  squares,  or  courts  for  the  residence  of  the  officiating  priests,  was  only  of  very  moderate 
size. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PAN  DION,  PANDEUS,    PANDiEA. — PANDEISM.  —  GYPSIES. — RECAPITULATION. 

1.  I  must  now  make  a  few  observations  respecting  a  certain  person  called  Pandion  ;  but  whether 
there  ever  was  such  a  person,  or  the  stories  told  respecting  him  were  mere  mythoses,  it  is  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  determine.  His  residence  at  the  birthplace  of  Cristna,  where  he  reigned,  is  very 
suspicious.  Mr.  Maurice  says,  "  But  superior  to  both,  in  grandeur  and  wealth,  in  this  southern 
"  division  of  India,  soared  the  puissant  sovereign,  named  Pandion,  whose  kingdom  extended  quite 
"  to  the  southern  point  of  Comaria  or  Comarin,  and  who  was  probably  of  the  ancient  race  of  the 
"  renowned  Pandus.  He  also  is  said,  about  this  time,  to  have  sent  an  embassy  to  Augustus,  but 
"  no  particulars  of  that  embassy  have  descended  to  us.  The  residence  of  this  monarch  was  at  the 
"  city  of  Madura,  and  the  extent  of  his  power  is  evident  from  the  whole  of  that  district  being  de- 
"  nominated  from  him  Pandi-Mandalam,  literally  the  circle  or  empire  of  Pandion.  Arrian  expressly 
"  says,  that  the  Indian  Hercules  (Chrisna)  worshiped  at  Mathura,  on  the  Jobares,  (Jumna,)  left 
"  many  sons,  but  only  one  daughter,  Pandaea,  to  whom  he  gave  a  vast  army  and  kingdom,  and 
"  ordered,  that  the  whole  of  her  empire  should  be  called  by  her  name.  In  this  and  a  few  other 
"  instances  do  the  classical  confirm  and  illustrate  the  native  accounts," l  In  not  a  few,  I  think, 
my  reverend  old  friend  Maurice.  But  I  beg  to  observe  that  Pan-di-Man-dalam  means,  the  circle 
or  district  of  the  holy  Pan,  or  the  district  sacred  to  the  Catholic  God. 


Maurice,  Hist.  Hind.  Ch.  vi. 


BOOK  Vffl.     CHAPTER  VIII.    SECTION  2.  439 

The  temple  of  the  Ionian s  of  Asia  Minor,  built  by  the  twelve  tribes,  at  the  place  called  Pan- 
Ionium,  would  mean,  temple  of  the  universal  or  catholic  Ioni,  or  the  Ioni-an  Pan.  The  Indian 
palace  of  one  of  the  great  kings  or  Gods — Pandion,  i.  e.  Pandu — was  at  Madoura,  i.  e.  Mat'hura.1 
Here  I  think  we  have  the  female  principle  in  Asia,  and  the  male  in  India,  at  the  birthplace  of 
Cristna.  Cunti  or  Prit'ha  was  the  wife  of  Pandu,  and  mother  of  the  Pandavas,  and  she  was  the 
daughter  of  Sura,  king  of  the  Surasenas.  Sura,  the  most  illustrious  of  the  Yadus,  was  the  father  of 
Vasudeva.2  Here  is  Pandu,  the  universal  God,  having  for  wife  Cunti,  the  female  generative  power, 
&c.  Can  any  one  doubt  the  mythos  here  ?  Bishop  Heber  says,  "  King  Pandoo  and  his  four  brethren 
"  are  the  principal  heroes  of  the  celebrated  romance  f  the  Mahabarat ;  and  the  apparent  identity  of 
"  his  name  with  that  of  the  Pandion,  of  whose  territories  in  India  the  Greeks  heard  so  much,  is  too 
"  remarkable  to  be  passed  unnoticed."3  Pliny  says,  there  was  a  Panda — ultra  Sogdianos,  oppidum 
Panda :  and  Solinus  ultra  hos  (Bactros)  Panda,  oppidum  Sogdianorum.  The  same  authorities 
mention  a  gens  Panda  or  Pandea  gens,  whom  Pliny  places  low  down  on  the  Indus.  Ptolemy  fixes 
the  Pandions  in  the  Punjab.  There  is  at  the  South  point  of  India  a  Madura  Pandionis,  and  a 
Regio  Pandionis. 

Pandion  was  king  of  Athens,4  whose  son,  by  the  famous  Medea,  was  called  Medus,  and  became 
king  of  the  Medes.     Perseus  was  the  cousin  of  Medus,  and  the  nephew  of  Pandion.5 

When  I  consider  all  the  circumstances  detailed  above  l-especting  the  Pans,  I  cannot  help  be- 
lieving that,  under  a  mythos,  a  doctrine  or  history  of  a  sect  is  concealed.  Cunti,  the  wife  of 
Pandu  (du  or  God,  Pan),  wife  of  the  generative  power,  mother  of  the  Pandavas  or  devas,  daughter 
of  Sura  or  Syra  the  Sun — Pandsea  only  daughter  of  Cristna  or  the  Sun — Pandion,  who  had  by 
Medea  a  son  called  Medus,  the  king  of  the  Medes,  who  had  a  cousin,  the  famous  Perseus — surely 
a!l  this  is  very  mythological — an  historical  parable  S 

2.  I  think  Pandeism  was  a  system  j  and  that  when  I  say  the  country  or  kingdom  of  Pandsea,  I 
express  myself  in  a  manner  similar  to  what  I  should  do,  if  I  said  the  Popish  kingdom,  or  the 
kingdoms  of  Popery :  or,  again,  the  Greeks  have  many  idle  ceremonies  in  their  church,  meaning 
the  Greeks  of  all  nations  :  or,  the  countries  of  the  Pope  are  superstitious,  &c.  At  the  same  time, 
I  beg  to  be  understood  as  not  denying  that  there  was  such  a  kingdom  as  that  of  Pandsea,  the 
daughter  of  Cristna,  any  more  than  I  would  deny  that  there  was  a  kingdom  of  France  ruled  by 
the  eldest  son  of  the  church,  or  the  eldest  son  of  the  Pope. 

The  country  through  which  the  Indus  runs  has  been  called  by  the  moderns  Panjab  or  Panjaub. 
The  word  Pan/  means  Jive,  and  the  word  Aub  means  river,  i.  e.  the  country  of  the  jive  rivers.  But 
this  is,  in  fact,  not  strictly  true,  for  the  country  is  in  reality  full  of  rivers.  Rennell  says,6  "  The 
"  river  called  by  Europeans  Indus,  and  by  the  natives  generally  Sinde  (or  Sindeh),  is  formed  of 
"  about  ten  principal  streams."  In  Ptolemy  this  country  is  called  Regio  Pandoniorum — the 
country  of  the  Pandus.  We  have  seen  that  though  Cristna  was  said  to  have  left  many  sons,  he 
left  his  immense  empire,  which  extended  from  the  sources  of  the  Indus  to  Cape  Comorin,  (for  we 
find  a  Regio  Pandionis  near  this  point,)  to  his  daughter  Pandaea ;  but,  from  finding  the  icon  of 
Buddha  so  constantly  shaded  with  the  nine  Cobras,  &c,  I  am  induced  to  think  that  this  Pandeism 
was  a  doctrine,  which  had  been  received  both  by  Buddhists  and  Brahmins. 

Col.  Tod  says,  "  But  we  must  discard  the  idea  that  the  history  of  Rama,  the  Mahabharat  of 
'  Cristna,  and  the  five  Pandua  brothers,  are  mere  allegory ;  an  idea  supported  by  some,  although 


1  Tod's  Account,  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  p.  326.  2  Wilson's  History  of  Cashmir,  p.  97. 

3  Vol.  III.  p.  111.  4  Diod.  Sic.  Lib.  iv.  Cap.  iii.  / 

4  A  female  Pan  may  be  seen  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Monnmenta  Vetusta. 
6  Memoir  of  Map,  pp.  68,  69. 


440  PANDEISM. 

"  their  races,  their  cities,  and  their  coins,  exist." '  "  Colossal  figures  cut  from  the  mountain, 
"  ancient  temples  and  caves  inscribed  with  characters  yet  unknown,  attributed  to  the  Pandus, 
"  confirm  the  legendary  tale." 

The  case,  I  apprehend,  was  this :  in  early  times  the  Gods  were  known  by  their  names  of  Bala, 
Rama,  Cristna,  &c.  :  by  these  holy  names  the  princes,  (as  we  know  was  the  fact  in  later  times,) 
were  called,  and  the  bards  or  family  genealogists  filled  up  the  picture.  Thus  we  have  great 
numbers  of  princes  who  trace  their  pedigrees  from  the  same  Gods.  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  sects  may  be  traced  by  their  significant  names.  Thus  we  find  Iouas  every  where.  We 
have  them  in  India,  in  Syria,  in  Asia  Minor,  in  Thrace,  in  Britain.  Can  any  body  believe  that  this 
peculiar  and  significant  name  is  found  in  all  these  places  by  accident  ?  Again  :  we  have  Pan- 
dions,  Pan-dis,  Pan-deas,  Pandus,  at  Cape  Comorin  and  Tanjore,  in  Upper  India,  in  Asia  Minor, 
and  at  Athens.  This  means  Universal  God — but  can  any  one  believe  that  this  daughter  or  son  of 
Cristna,  in  India,  means  only  red,  as  some  orientalists  would  persuade  us  ?  Every  very  ancient 
town  has  two  or  three  names.  Every  ancient  person  of  eminence  has  the  same.  He  has  one, 
which  is  his  patronymic  name,  another  his  sacred,  astrological,  or  lucky,  name ;  and  he  has 
generally  a  third  given  him  from  his  supposed  qualities  or  character.  This  added  to  the  frauds  of 
genealogists,  renders  all  history  a  riddle.  The  princes  of  Mewar,  now  living,  trace  their  pedigrees 
back  two  thousand  years  before  Christ — princes  of  a  country  which,  for  violent  revolutions,  as  far 
as  we  can  look  back,  has  been  exceeded  by  none. 

Many  persons  have  thought  that  this  Pan  related  to  what  has  been  called  Pantheism,   or  the 
adoration  of  universal  nature,  and  that  Pantheism  was  the  first  system  of  man.     For  this  opinion  1 
cannot  see  a  shadow  of  foundation.     As  I  have  formerly  said,  it  seems  to  me  contrary  to  common 
sense  to  believe,  that  the  ignorant,  half-savage  would  first  worship  the  ground  he  treads  upon, — 
that  he  would  raise  his  mind  to  so  abstruse  and  so  improbable  a  doctrine  as,  that  the  earth  he 
treads  upon  created  him  and  created  itself :  for  Pantheism  instantly  comes  to  this.     Against  this, 
all  our  senses  revolt.     But  all  our  senses  lend  their  aid  to  forward  the  adoration  of  the  glorious 
Sol,  with  his  ministers  and  attendants,  the  planetary  bodies,  which  appear  to  await  his  commands, 
and  to  obey  his   orders.     No,   indeed  !     Pantheism  was  the  produce  of  philosophy,  and  excess  of 
refinement,   of,  comparatively  speaking,   a  recent  date.     I  suspect  that  the  old  Pantheism  is  first 
found  in  the  history  of  Pan-daea,  the  only  daughter  of  Cristna,  and  in  Pan-dion,  the  first  king  of 
Athens  ;  and  these  histories,  like  many  others  of  the  same  kind,  are  only  mystical  representations 
of  a  sect  of  devotees,  or  of  philosophers.     An  Oriental  friend  doubts  this  ;  he  says,  because  Pandu 
means  red,  and  has  no  relation,  in  meaning,  to  any  of  the  Pans  above  noticed.     I  think  no  one 
who  has  attended  to  the  surprising  change  which  must  have  taken  place  in  the  Sanscrit  language, 
in  bringing  it  to  its  present  perfection,  will  consider  this  of  much  consequence,  particularly  when 
he  attends  to  a  remark  which  he  will  find  made  by  Col.  Van  Kennedy,  in  the  next  chapter,  that 
the  Sanscrit  roots  have  been  formed  solely  by  grammarians,  and   of  course  artificially  ;  and  that 
they  have  in  themselves  no  signification.     But  this,  to  the  extent  to  which  he  goes,  is  evidently 
not  true.     Had  he  said  many  or  most  Sanscrit  roots,  I  should  not  have  disputed  his  authority ;  but 
my  eyes  tell  me  every  moment  that  when  he  speaks  of  all,  he  goes  much  too  far.     However,  I 
think  his  observation  is  enough  to  account  for  the  change  in  the  meaning  of  a  word  having  taken 
place,   without  such  present  meaning  being  sufficient  to  obviate  the  arguments  advanced  above. 
The  question  seems  likely  to  remain  in  doubt — for  I  do  not  pretend  to  decide  it.     Had  Col.  Van 
Kennedy  excepted  proper  names  of  Deities,  Persons,  and  Places,  his  observation  would  have  been 
more  correct.     But  this  matter  will  be  discussed  in  the  next  book. 


1  Hist.  Raj.  p.  44. 


BOOK  VIII.     CHAPTER  VIII.  SECTION  3.  441 

It  is  the  received  opinion,  I  believe,  of  all  the  first  professors  of  comparative  anatomy,  that  the 
human  race  originally  consisted  of  only  one  genus  and  one  species.  Were  it  not  for  this  received 
opinion,  the  marked  distinction  which  may  be  observed  in  the  different  colours  in  the  pictures  of 
the  Hindoos,  and  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  might  induce  a  suspicion  that  it  was  meant  to  indicate 
different  species.  At  any  rate,  the  distinction  must  be  held  to  mark  varieties — varieties  readily 
accounted  for,  by  the  examples  of  peculiarity  exhibited  by  the  Jews  and  some  other  tribes,  which 
have  been,  in  a  great  degree,  confined  to  propagating  the  species  within  their  own  little  nation. 
Now  I  suggest,  for  the  consideration  of  the  learned,  whether  it  may  not  be  probable  that  the 
Pandus  may  have  formed  a  Northern  sect,  which  at  length  became  /ae'r-complexioned,  by  the 
same  cause,  whatever  it  might  be,  which  made  the  Athenian  Pandions  fair  ;  and  whether  from 
this  yellowish-white  complexion,  the  word  Pandu  may  not  have  come  to  mean  red  or  yellow. 
Thus  a  thing  might  be  said  to  be  of  the  Pandu  colour,  as  we  say  a  thing  is  of  the  Negro  colour. x 

If  my  reader  will  cast  back  his  imagination  over  what  he  has  read  in  this  and  the  last  chapter, 
he  will  find  that  the  doctrines  which  I  have  laid  down  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Ionians  and 
Jews,  are  supported  almost  entirely  by  evidence  and  not  by  theory.  The  system  may  be  said  to  be 
formed  out  of  a  great  number  of  loose,  detached  parcels  of  a  whole,  brought  together  and  fitted  to 
their  respective  places,  thus  forming  them  anew  into  a  whole  again — the  parts,  while  scattered 
about,  offering  nothing  but  a  chaotic  mass  of  odd  materials,  or  the  leaves  of  the  Sibyls  blown  about 
by  the  winds.  I  shall  not  add  any  thing  more  here  relating  to  the  senigma  or  parable  :  but  one 
thing  is  clear — the  Mythos  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Mythos  of  the  Jews,  and  the  Mythos  of  the  Greeks, 
are  all,  at  the  bottom,  the  same ;  and  what  are  called  their  early  histories  are  not  the  histories  of 
man,  but  are  contrivances  under  the  appearance  of  histories,  to  perpetuate  doctrines,  or  perhaps 
the  history  of  certain  religious  opinions,  in  a  manner  understood  by  those  only  who  had  a  key  to 
the  senigma,  Of  this  we  shall  see  many  additional  proofs  hereafter.  The  histories  of  Brahma,  of 
Genesis,  and  of  Troy,  cannot  properly  be  called  frauds,  because  they  were  not  originally  held  out 
as  histories ;  but  as  the  covers  for  a  secret  system.  But  in  later  times  they  were  mistaken  for 
histoiy,  and  lamentable  have  been  the  effects  of  the  mistake.  The  history  of  Lazarus  in  the 
Gospel  is  not  true,  but  it  is  not  a  fraud. 

Though  I  have  said  that  the  Ionians  were  the  Buddhists,  traced  by  me  in  my  Celtic  Druids, 
this  is  not  perhaps  quite  correct ;  for  I  think  it  probable  that,  in  the  2160  years  which  the  worship 
of  Buddha  or  the  Bull  preceded  that  of  Cristna,  the  Buddhists  had  actually  in  part  settled  the 
Western  countries.  The  modified  religion  of  the  Ioni  or  Jains  would  not  find  much  difficulty  in 
making  its  way  among  them,  as  it  was  virtually  the  same— and  perhaps  it  might  be  the  religion 
only,  and  not  the  tribes  of  people,  which  latterly  came.  But  this  can  never  be  known.  From  the 
expressions  in  the  old  Greek  writers  it  seems  probable,  that  when  the  Ionians  arrived  they  found 
Buddhists— shepherds  perhaps— peaceable,  unarmed  people,  called  aborigines,  whom  they  easily 
conquered. 

3.  A  few  pages  back,  I  said  that  the  Jews  were  the  latest  emigrants  from  India,  with  one 
exception,  of  which  I  should  presently  treat.  I  shall  now  fulfil  my  promise.  The  subject  to  which 
I  alluded  was  that  of  the  Gypsies.  Numbers  of  persons  have  treated  of  the  Gypsies ;  but  as  yet 
nothing  has  been  written  respecting  them  that  is  quite  satisfactory.  It  is  now  acknowledged  by 
all,  that  they  are  of  oriental  origin.     I  have  been  told  by  two  gentlemen  who  had  returned  from 


'  Pun  lingua  iEgypt.  est  Osiris.  (Diod.  Sic.)  Phan  or  Phaneus  was  one  of  the  names  of  Apollo,  (Maerob.) 
Phanem  Deus  Sol.  (Alex,  ab  Alex.)  Sam,  Balbn,  Talma,  Crishna,  Arun,  are  common  names  of  the  sun  with  the 
Irish  Druids  The  Sanscrit  Vahni  fire,  is  probably  the  root  of  Fen  or  the  Phoenician  fS  (pn)  phen,  a  cycle.  From 
this  word  the  Druids  made  up  their  Phenniche,  or  Phoenix.  Phoenis  .Egyptiis  astrologiae  symbolum,  was  clear  to 
B  chart.     (Ouseley's  Orient.  Collect.  Vol.  III.) 


3  L 


442  GYPSIES. 

India,  that  they  understood  the  language  of  the  Gypsies  when  they  spoke  it,  and  that  it  was  the 
Hindostannee.  A  strong  circumstance  of  corroboration  of  this  is  given  by  a  German  called 
Grellman, x  who  has  written  the  best  account  of  them  which  I  have  seen,  though  mixed  with  much 
nonsense.  Mr.  Marsden  has  proved  the  language  of  the  Gypsies  to  be  mostly  Hindostannee  and 
Bengalee.2 

Thus  I  think  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  the  language  of  the  Gypsies  is  one  of  the  vulgar 
dialects  of  Hindostan.  Grellman  states  the  Hindoo  languages  to  be  all  radically  the  same,  which 
is  what  we  might  reasonably  expect,  and  gives  a  vocabulary  of  words  in  both  the  Hindostannee 
and  the  Gypsy  languages.  Among  other  similar  circumstances  he  observes,  that  they  have  each 
only  two  genders,  that  the  cases  of  their  nouns  are  made  by  the  addition  of  an  article,  &c.  This 
the  reader  will  recollect  is  exactly  like  the  Synagogue  Hebrew.  A  learned  German,  called  Wagen- 
seil,  has  quoted  near  fifty  of  their  words,  which  he  maintains  are  pure  Hebrew.  Other  Germans 
have  shewn  that  many  of  their  words  are  those  of  the  Mongol  Tartars,  with  whose  language  theirs 
has  a  great  affinity.  This  is  the  language  of  the  Afghans,  which  Sir  W.  Jones  found  so  like  the 
Chaldee.  These  facts  tend  strongly  to  prove  that  they  have  a  language  in  fact  originally  the 
same  as  all  those  languages,  and  that  those  languages  have  all  originally  been  the  same. 

Their  complexion,  like  that  of  the  Jews,  proves  the  Gypsies  also  to  be  oriental.  When  they  first 
appeared  in  Europe,  or  by  what  route  they  came,  is  quite  unknown.  I  consider  them  to  be  a  tribe, 
like  that  of  the  Jews,  from  India.  The  difference  in  the  fortunes  of  the  two  tribes  is  this  :  one 
continued  together  till  it  became  strong  enough  to  create  jealousy,  which  caused  its  expulsion 
from  Egypt,  and  it  continued  united,  having  fortunately  a  leader  skilled,  by  accident,  in  all  the 
learning  of  the  Egyptians,  who  took  the  command,  and  under  whom  it  conquered  and  became  a 
nation.  The  other  was  not  so  fortunate.  It  had  no  child  accidentally  adopted  and  educated  by  a 
princess,  or  other  circumstances  favouring  it  as  they  did  the  Jewish  tribe  ;  it  has,  therefore, 
continued  miserable  and  dispersed.  The  Christian  will  say  the  one  was  a  favoured  tribe  for  pecu- 
liar reasons.  Very  well.  This  makes  nothing  against  my  argument,  or  against  the  facts.  That 
the  Gypsies  were  a  Buddhist  tribe  is  proved,  in  part  at  least,  by  one  singular  remnant  of  the  reli- 
gion of  Buddha,  which  they  yet  I'etain.  It  is  contrary  to  their  faith  to  kill  animals  to  eat,  but  if 
they  find  them  dead,  they  are  permitted  to  eat  them.  Thus  a  dead  ox  or  sheep  is  a  grand  feast  to 
them.  For  though,  as  there  are  Mohamedans  who  drink  wine,  there  are  always  among  them  some 
who  kill  and  eat,  yet  they  prefer  the  feast  that  is  free  from  sin.  Like  the  Jews,  they  couple  only 
in  their  own  tribe,  and  thus  their  national  cast  of  countenance  continues. 

The  Jews  were  originally  believed  to  have  a  peculiar  power  of  extinguishing  fire  :  this  is  con- 
tinued to  the  Gypsies.3  The  Jews  were  believed  to  eat  children  :  this  was  formerly  also  believed 
of  the  Gypsies.  The  oldest  accounts  which  we  have  of  them,  given  by  themselves,  state  them  to 
be  emigrants  on  account  of  religion.  4  If  ever  their  history  shall  be  sought  into  diligently  by  a 
philosopher,  which  has  never  yet  been  done,  I  think  they  will  be  found  to  be  a  tribe  from  Upper 
India — Afghans  perhaps.5  When  I  first  began  to  study  the  Hebrew  language,  I  received  instruc- 
tion from  a  Jewish  gentleman,  of  the  name  of  Salome,  at  Bath.  I  never  had  the  least  reason  to 
entertain  a  doubt  of  his  veracity.  He  told  me  that  passing  the  depot  of  the  Malays,  near  our 
India  House,  his  attention  was  called  to  it  by  an  affray,  and  on  going  into  it  he  found  people 
speaking  a  language  which,  from  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  he  understood.  This  was  an  Indian  or 
Malay  language,  which  must  have  been  a  close  dialect  of  the  Hebrew ;  to  this  I  shall  return. 


1  P.  171,  Eng.  Ed.  ^  Archseol.  Vol.  VII.  p.  252  ;  Vail.  Col.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p.  310. 

3  Grel.  p.  87.  *  lb.  p.  121.  *  For  more  information  see  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VII.  p.  476. 


RECAPITULATION.  443 

In  the  Morning  Herald  for  the  16th  or  17th  of  April,  1827,  is  a  paragraph  stating,  that  the  Bible 
societies  were  giving  Hebrew  Bibles  to  the  native  Irish,  as  it  was  found  that  they  were  better  un- 
derstood than  the  English.  This,  in  a  very  remarkable  manner,  supports  what  General  Vallancey 
has  maintained,  but  which  has  been  much  ridiculed  by  weak  people,  that  Ireland  was  colonised  by 
a  tribe  from  the  East,  and  particularly  from  Phoenicia.  All  this  seems  to  confirm  the  very  close 
connexion  which  there  must  have  been  in  some  former  time,  between  Siam,  Afghanistan,  Western 
Syria,  and  Ireland.  Indeed  I  cannot  doubt  that  there  has  been  really  one  grand  empire,  or  one 
Universal,  one  Pandaean,  or  one  Catholic  religion,  with  one  language,  which  has  extended  over  the 
whole  of  the  old  world ;  uniting  or  governing  at  the  same  time,  Columbo  in  the  island  of  Seren- 
dive,  and  Columbo  in  the  West ,  of  Scotland.  This  must  have  been  Buddhist,  whether  it  ever 
really  existed  as  one  empire,  or  was  divided  into  different  states.  A  friend  has  observed  that 
"  The  priests  will  have  a  great  triumph  over  you,  for  they  will  endeavour  to  revive  the  almost  ob- 
"  solete  doctrine  that  the  Hebrew  was  the  language  of  Adam."  I  reply,  they  will  have  no  triumph 
over  me  here,  for  if  they  do  triumph,  it  will  not  be  over  me,  but  with  me.  For  I  maintain,  and  be- 
lieve that  I  shall  prove,  that  the  Arabian- Hebrew,  as  it  may  be  called,  has  of  all  languages  the  best 
pretensions  to  be  the  first. l  But  in  my  next  book,  when  I  shall  treat  of  Sanscrit  and  the  Hiero- 
glyphics, I  shall  discuss  this  more  at  large. 

RECAPITULATION. 

I  think  it  now  expedient  to  recall  to  my  reader's  recollection  a  few  of  the  subjects  which  I  have 
discussed,  and  to  consider  the  progress  which  1  have  made  in  my  work ;  but  I  shall  not  at  present 
notice  the  Preliminary  Observations,  because  I  have  not  yet  come  to  that  part,  for  the  use  of  which 
they  were  made.  After  a  few  remarks  on  the  cosmogony  of  the  ancients  and  the  abuse  of  his  facul- 
ties by  man,  I  commence  my  work  with  stating  the  doctrine  of  the  existence  of  the  Oriental  Triune 
God  of  the  ancients,  and  with  explaining  his  supposed  nature  ;  and  then  endeavour  to  shew  the 
way  in  which  the  refined  system  of  emanations  or  abstractions  must  have  arisen  out  of  the  natural 
perceptions  of  the  human  mind.  At  the  same  time  I  shew  that  several  of  the  most  important  of 
the  ancient  doctrines  were  intimately  connected  with  it,  and  naturally  arose  out  of  it;  viz.  the 
Androgynous  nature  of  the  Deity,  the  Metempsychosis,  and  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  by  its 
final  absorption  into  the  substance  of  the  Supreme  First  Cause. 

I  next  shortly  point  out  the  circumstance,  that  Genesis  consists  of  three  distinct  works,  the  1st 
called  the  book  of  Wisdom  ;  the  2nd  (B.  I.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  12)  the  hook  of  the  generations  or  regenera- 
tions of  the  planetary  bodies;  and  the  3rd  the  book  of  the  generations  or  regenerations  of  the  human  race. 
After  this  I  proceed  to  shew  that  the  sun  either  as  God  himself  or  as  the  Shekinah  of  the  higher  triune 
principle,  (which  is  only  known  to  us  by  its  attributes,  and  which,  when  attempted  to  be  subjected 
to  a  closer  examination,  vanishes  from  our  grasp  like  a  dream  or  illusion,)  was  the  object  of  adoration 
of  all  nations — that  all  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  of  idolatry  resolve  at  last  into  this  one  principle. 

In  the  fourth  chapter  of  the  first  book  I  shew  that  there  were  two  Ethiopias,  and  that  the  doc- 
trine of  Sir  William  Jones  is  probably  true,  that  a  great  black  nation  once  had  power  and  pre- 
eminence in  Asia,  and  that  it  is  also  probable  that  this  was  the  empire  of  the  black  curly-headed 
Buddha. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  second  book  I  endeavour  to  prove  that  the  religion  of  Abraham  was  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Persians,  and  that  he  held,  like  all  other  nations  of  the  earth,  the  existence  of 
the  triune  God  :  and  that  the  word  Aleim  used  in  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  is  a  noun  in  the  plural 
number,   and  used  in  that  number  for  the  express  purpose  of  describing  this  Being.     In  the  third 


1  I  speak  not  of  ihefi'om  top  to  bottom  written  Chinese,  because  I  know  nothing  about  it. 

3l2 


444  RECAPITULATION. 

chapter  this  leads  to  an  examination  of  the  secret  meaning  of  Genesis,  and  of  course  to  the  mean- 
ing of  the  first  word,  Berasit :  when  I  come  to  the  development  of  the  sublime  esoteric  doctrine  of 
Wisdom,  and  an  exposure  of  the  dishonest  means  adopted  by  the  priests  to  conceal  it  from  mo- 
dern Christians  :  and  in  these  assertions  I  shew  that  I  am  supported  by  almost  all  the  most  emi- 
nent men  of  antiquity.  I  also  prove,  that  the  oriental  doctrine  of  Emanations  is  clearly  maintained 
in  the  Pentateuch.  The  remainder  of  this  book  is  chiefly  taken  up  with  shewing  the  identity,  with 
some  few  exceptions  made  for  particular  purposes,  of  the  religions  of  the  Israelites,  the  Persians, 
and  other  nations,  neighbours  to  the  Jews — with  the  origin  of  Sacrifices — the  reason  of  the  resto- 
ration of  the  Jews  to  Palestine  by  Cyrus — the  allegorical  nature  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
history  of  the  Jewish  Cabala — so  far  all  tending  to  prove  that  the  secret  doctrine  of  the  Jews  was 
the  secret  doctrine  of  all  nations,  which  was,  in  fact,  the  system  of  the  celebrated  Christian  eclec- 
tic philosopher,  Ammonius  Saccas. 

The  third  book  discusses  the  origin  of  the  famous  word  Om  of  India  and  Greece — the  systems 
of  Pythagoras,  of  Orpheus,  and  of  the  Greeks ;  and  I  there  shew  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Orphic 
or  Platonic  trinity  differed  in  no  important  respect  from  that  of  the  Christians  :  and  I  feel  confi- 
dent that  I  have  proved  it  to  have  heen  universally  held  by  all  nations,  Jew  and  Gentile,  from  the 
earliest  period.  The  proofs  of  its  existence  before  the  time  of  Christ  are  numerous  and  incontro- 
vertible. The  observation  of  Mr.  Maurice,  that  Plutarch  and  the  Gentile  authors  drew  their  in- 
formation from  old  writers  before  the  Christian  sera,  is  conclusive  evidence  that  the  doctrines  were 
not  copied  from  the  Christians ;  but  that  they  were  taken  from  the  records  of  the  philosophy  of 
Orpheus  and  Zoroaster.  The  substantial  identity  of  the  two  trinities  I  consider  so  clear,  that  I 
shall  not  waste  a  moment  upon  the  subject.  It  is  too  late  now  to  renew  the  nonsensical  contro- 
versy between  the  Aowoiwsians  and  homoousia,ns.   ■ 

When  in  the  fourth  book  we  come  to  the  God  of  the  Hindoos,  the  celebrated  Cristna,  we  are 
drawn  to  the  consideration  of  the  question  of  the  priority  of  the  Indian  or  of  the  Egyptian  mytho- 
logy :  and  I  here  think  the  great  mass  of  small  circumstances,  as  well  as  of  direct  written  evidence, 
amount  to  as  good  a  proof  as  the  nature  of  the  case  will  admit,  that  India  was  the  parent  and  not 
the  child  of  Egypt.  I  then  observe,  that  such  facts  as  that  of  the  discovery  of  the  Cobra  Capella,  on 
almost  every  monument  in  Egypt, — as  that  of  the  discovery  and  adoration  by  the  Seapoys  of  their 
God  Cristna  in  the  ruins  of  Thebes,  are  decisive  of  the  question — and  are  infinitely  more  valuable 
than  any  written  evidence  whatever.  The  notice  taken  by  Mr.  Maurice  of  the  descent  of  Cristna 
into  Hell  and  his  return  to  his  proper  paradise,  in  Book  IV,  Ch.  I.  Sect.  3,  is  striking:  it  can 
scarcely  be  believed  that  he  did  not  know  of  the  crucifixion  noticed  by  M.  Creuzer.  To  the  cruci- 
fixion of  the  Avatar  of  Cristna,  called  Balajii  or  Wittoba,  I  shall  return  hereafter.  What  shall 
I  say  of  the  black  Christ  among  the  white  Italians,  Swiss,  Germans,  and  French  ?  Is  it  necessary 
to  say  any  thing  ?  Does  it  not  speak  for  itself  ?  Can  any  thing  more  be  wanted  to  shew  whence 
the  corruptions,  in  the  religion  of  the  Ktetosopher1  of  Nazareth  were  derived  ?  I  shall  not  recapi- 
tulate the  particulars  of  the  life  of  the  most  amiable  and  interesting  of  the  Gods  of  antiquity,  the 
playful  Cristna ;  my  reader  must  remember  them  ;  they  are  much  too  striking  to  be  forgotten. 

The  lives  of  Buddha  and  Cristna  are  so  similar,  that  to  tell  the  story  of  one  is  to  tell  the  story  of 
the  other.  The  publication  of  the  plate  of  the  crucifixion  and  resurrection  of  Indra  or  Buddha, 
by  the  learned  Jesuit,  with  the  permission  of  the  Roman  Censor,  is,  however  attempted  to  be 
explained  away  by  him,  a  credit  to  both. 

The  history  of  Buddha,  in  the  Fifth  Book,  supplies  to  the  list  of  the  corruptions  of  Christianity 


'  KrrjTup-'Zotyiai;,  Possessor  of  Wisdom.     Will  my  reader  pardon  my  coining  this  designation — admissible,  perhaps, 
from  its  appropriateness  ? 


RECAPITULATION.  445 

what  was  wanting  in  the  history  of  Cristna.  There  I  have  shewn  that  from  Buddha  came  the 
immaculate  conception  of  Maia  or  Maria,— immaculate  conception  being  first,  in  the  West, 
ascrihed  to  the  mother  of  Pythagoras,  and  from  him,  perhaps,  handed  over  to  the  Christian  devo- 
tees. A  miraculous  birth  having  been  attributed  to  Pythagoras  and  Plato,  shews  that  it  was  no 
new  thing  when  Papias  and  Irenaeus  laid  hands  upon  it. 

In  this  book,  the  history  of  Buddha  introduces  us  to  perhaps  the  most  important  part  of  the 
system,  and  to  the  origin  of  the  whole — the  ancient  cycles  :  and  I  think  that  the  arithmetical 
proofs  which  I  have  given  of  their  meaning,  leave  nothing  wanting  to  the  proof  of  the  truth  of  my 
theory.  The  ancient  doctrine  of  the  millenium  of  the  Jews,  the  secret  meaning  of  the  cross,  the 
mysterious  numbers  of  the  stones  at  Stonehenge,  Abury,  &c,  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  Zoroaster, 
Virgil,  and  the  Druid  of  Ireland,  all  connect  and  bind  together,  as  with  a  chain,  the  mythoses  of 
antiquity. 

The  evidence  to  the  truth  of  my  theory,  afforded  by  La  Loubere  and  Cassini,  is  more  than  could 
have  been  expected  :  and  the  reality  of  the  system  of  cycles,  arising  from  the  arithmetical  proofs, 
I  apprehend,  is  clear  and  satisfactory  as  far  as  we  have  gone  j  but  they  are  only  trifling  compared 
with  the  proofs  which  I  shall  bring,  when  I  come  to  the  chronological  finale  of  the  system. 

I  could  scarcely  wish  for  any  thing  more  opportune  for  my  theory,  than  the  mode  in  which  the 
two  monograms,  the  TH2  and  the  XH  which  stand  for  Christ,  for  the  ancient  sacred  number  of 
the  East,  and  for  one  of  the  cycles,  viz,  608, — and  the  X  alone  standing  for  600,  the  other  cycle, 
connect  together  the  two  systems.  No  pretended  accident  can  account  for  such  a  coincidence. 
The  circles  at  Abury,  the  monograms  at  Rome,  the  prophecies,  the  ten  Avatars,  eight  of  which  I 
have  already  explained,  and  the  expected  Millenium,  prove  the  existence  of  an  universal  system — 
and  that,  as  far  as  it  has  yet  been  stated,  I  have  developed  it. 

The  theory  which  I  have  formed  for  the  origin  of  the  sacred  numbers  of  the  ancients,  600,  608, 
650,  is,  I  think,  more  than  plausibly  supported  in  Book  V.  Ch.  IV.  by  the  monograms.  And  the 
l-ecords  supplied  by  the  number  of  pillars  in  the  temples,  and  particularly  by  the  number  of  650  pil- 
lars in  x\bury,  the  number  sacred  to  Bacchus,  unknown  to  me  when  I  published  the  Celtic  Druids, 
is  a  striking  circumstance,  confirmatory  of  its  truth.  At  first,  when  my  attention  was  drawn  to 
the  ancient  cycles,  I  by  no  means  observed  their  great  importance  to  the  early  generations  of  man. 
In  fact,  in  the  whole  circle  of  science,  there  is  not,  perhaps,  one  object  which  must  have  been  of 
equal  importance.  They  were  not  only  of  consequence  to  mankind  in  all  their  temporal  affairs, 
their  seed-times  and  their  harvests,  but  as  the  first  religion  consisted,  as  much  of  religion  does 
yet,  almost  entirely  of  ceremonies  and  festivals,  the  cycles  became  of  the  greatest  consequence  as 
points  of  faith.  Even  within  a  short  period  of  the  present  time,  the  question  whether  the  devotees 
were  to  keep  Easter  on  the  fourteenth  day  after  the  full  moon,  or  the  Sunday  afterward,  caused 
terrible  and  bloody  wars.  In  short,  almost  all  the  spiritual  and  temporal  concerns  of  life  were 
implicated  in  the  cycles — and  to  this  must  be  added  their  paramount  importance  in  the  nonsensical 
science  of  judicial  astrology.     To  all  these  matters  I  request  particular  attention. 

Most  of  my  readers  will  be  surprised  at  the  explanation  of  the  Om  of  Isaiah.  The  proofs  I  have 
yet  to  produce  in  its  justification  are  almost  innumerable.  The  passage  from  Martianus  Capella, 
Book  V.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  8,  rescues  the  Gentiles  from  the  chai-ge  of  worshiping  many  Gods,  but  my 
reader  will  be  kind  enough  in  the  first  line  for  the  word  calls  to  read  invokes.  The  universal  pre- 
valence of  the  adoration  of  the  Cross  cannot  be  denied.  The  generality  of  my  readers,  I  believe, 
will  begin  to  be  much  surprised  at  finding  in  the  Lama  of  Tibet,  nearly  an  exact  counterpart  of 
the  Pope  of  Rome — in  whose  fisherman's  poitrine  we  shall  find  many  things  little  suspected. 

The  identity  of  Hercules  and  Samson  cannot,  I  think,  be  disputed,  or  that  Bacchus  was  Buddha 
and  the  sun  in  Taurus,  and  that  Hercules  was  Cristna  and  the  sun  in  Aries. 


446  RECAPITULATION. 

Mr.  Bentley's  discoveries,  finished  by  his  recantation  to  Dr.  Marsham,  have  taken  from  under 
the  priests  their  last  strong  support ;  but  much  relating  to  this  matter  is  yet  to  come.  The  Jew- 
ish passover  found  in  the  Yajna  sacrifice  of  the  Hindoos,  is  surely  very  interesting. 

I  flatter  myself  that  I  have  explained  the  senigma  of  the  Negro  God,  and  that  the  curly-head  of 
Buddha,  the  Triune  God  of  Wisdom,  will  no  more  be  a  reproach  and  disgrace  to  his  followers. 
The  resolution  of  numbers  of  Indian  names  into  Hebrew  roots,  must  begin  to  operate  on  the  mind 
of  my  reader,  to  make  him  think  it  not  so  great  a  paradox  to  say,  that  the  Hebrew  is  the  oldest  of 
languages.  The  wars  of  the  Maha-barat  are  explained  in  the  fifth  book.  It  is  not  easy  to  refer  to 
a  proof  of  the  truth  of  that  part  of  my  system,  (which  depends  upon  the  change  of  the  equinox 
from  Taurus  to  Aries,)  as  scarcely  a  page  can  be  pointed  out  in- which  some  proof  of  it  may  not 
be  found ;  but  perhaps  there  is  nothing  more  striking  than  the  fact  stated  in  Book  V.  Chap.  XI. 
Sect.  3,  that  at  a  certain  period,  all  the  heads  of  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  changed  from  that  of  the 
Bos  or  Beeve,  to  that  of  the  Agnus  or  Sheep. 

When  all  the  curious  circumstances  which  have  been  developed  are  considered,  an  unprejudiced 
person  will,  I  think,  be  obliged  to  admit  that  the  ancient  epic  poems  are  oriental  allegories,  all 
allusive  to  the  same  mythos,  and  that  many  of  those  works  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
call  histories,  are  but  allegorical  representations  of  mythologies,  of  the  secret  doctrines  of  which  I 
am  in  pursuit,  and  which  have  been  endeavoured  to  be  concealed  and  perpetuated  for  the  use  of 
the  elect,  the  initiated,  under  the  veil  of  history — to  which,  as  the, first  object  was  the  doctrine  or 
mythos,  the  history  in  every  case  was  sacrificed  or  made  subservient,  and  that  Herodotus,  from 
being  the  first  historian  was,  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name,  the  father  of  history.  Thus  we  find  in 
the  East,  as  well  as  in  the  West,  whenever  an  attempt  was  made  to  discover  the  meaning  of  any 
of  the  ancient  ceremonies  by  the  uninitiated,  the  inquirer  was  always  put  off  with  a  story  or  his- 
tory; and  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Creator,  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer,  which  was  the 
foundation  of  the  mythos,  from  incapacity  or  unwillingness  in  the  priest,  was  never  explained. 

In  the  concluding  chapter  of  Book  V.,  I  flatter  myself  that  I  have  done  an  act  of  justice  to  the 
Gentile  nations,  and  shewn  that,  however  their  different  religions  in  time  became  corrupted,  a  very 
fine  and  beautiful  system  of  morality,  the  morality  in  fact  of  the  philosopher  of  Nazareth,  was  at 
the  bottom  of  them  all.  I  also  flatter  myself  that,  in  the  same  chapter,  I  have  only  done  an  act  of 
justice  to  Mons.  Volney.  The  first  chapter  of  the  sixth  book  on  the  flood  or  floods,  the  Pyramids, 
the  Delta  of  Egypt,  the  theory  of  Mr.  Gab,  and  the  Geological  fact  in  Yorkshire,  will  suggest  room 
for  many  queries.  The  history  of  the  Virgin  of  the  Sphere  will,  I  fear,  make  many  of  my  Catholic 
friends  angry. 

I  think  the  history  of  Bacchus  and  Iao,  in  Book  VI.,  will  leave  no  room  for  doubting  about  who 
they  were. 

This  book  will  have  opened  to  my  reader  some  new  views  of  the  origin  of  the  ancient  inhabi- 
tants of  Greece,  and  the  mythical  meaning  of  the  beautiful  Lotus.  The  passage  in  the  note  on 
Chapter  III.  respecting  Roger  Bacon  and  his  knowledge  of  the  modern  inventions  or  discoveries, 
as  we  call  them,  will  surprise  my  reader,  as  the  fact  surprised  me. 

In  this  book  also,  the  origin  of  the  Hellenes  or  Ionians,  and  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  is  traced — 
and  their  fable  of  the  Argonauts  is  shewn  to  have  come  from  India.  The  circumstance  of  the  two 
Moriahs  or  Merus,  two  Sions,  &c,  prepares  the  way  for  the  complete  proof  of  the  origin  of  the 
ancient  Jews  in  the  next  book.  The  Gods  Janus  and  Ganesa  are  also  shewn  to  be  the  same  ; 
and  what  has  been  said  before  respecting  the  allegorical  poems  and  histories,  is  confirmed  by 
many  observations  respecting  Homer,  Troy,  the  hanging  gardens  of  Babylon,  &c,  &c. — the  whole 
tending  to  prove  one  universal  system  to  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  ancient  mythologies. 
In  the  eighth  Book  I  have  made  an  attempt  to  explain  the  hitherto  inexplicable  peculiarity  of  the 


RECAPITULATION.       '  447 

Jewish  nation,  and  I  flatter  myself  with  success.  Here  comes  into  great  use  the  system  of  the 
sixteen  letters,  which  I  have  established  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  as  the  original  system  of  all  nations 
that  had  the  use  of  letters.  The  authorities  on  which  my  explanation  of  the  history  of  the  Jews 
is  founded  I  think  cannpt  be  impugned;  they  are  chiefly  unwilling  witnesses,— the  admissions  of 
such  men  as  Eusebius,  Bryant,  Faber,  &c,  all  very  learned,  but  most  unwilling  supporters  to  my 
cause.  But  their  admissions  are  confirmed  by  circumstances  which  admit  of  no  other  explanation. 
Can  any  one  doubt  the  existence  of  the  Jewish  mythos  in  India  ?  The  same  names  of  God,  of 
men,  and  of  places  ?  The  two  Ararats,  the  two  Moriahs,  two  Sions  ?  And,  above  all,  the  various 
Soleimans  or  Solomons — the  mountains  of  Solomon — the  Tucti  Solumi  of  Cashmere  and  of 
Northern  India— and  of  Persia,  and  of  Syria,  and  of  Telmessus  ?  What  I  have  said  on  all  these 
subjects,  will  receive  almost  innumerable  additional  proofs  hereafter.  But  I  think  that,  at  last, 
the  origin  of  this  singular  and  interesting  people  has  been  shewn  in  a  way  which  a  philosopher 
need  not  feel  ashamed  to  receive.  Indeed  I  contend,  that  the  existence  of  Judaism  before  the  time 
of  Abraham,  proved  by  Eusebius,  and  the  Israelitish  names  found  in  the  names  of  the  countries, 
the  mountains,  the  cities — like  Ioitd-ia,  the  capital  of  a  mighty  empire,  in  North  or  Central  India, 
amount  to  as  good  proof  as  the  nature  of  the  case  will  admit,  that  the  Judaean  history  is  a  mythos 
brought  to  the  West  by  a  tribe  of  Afghan  Shepherds,  probably  conquered  or  driven  out  of  India, 
from  the  country  of  Oude  or  Juda,  in  the  wars  of  the  Mahabarat.  In  a  future  page  I  shall  shew, 
that  when  the  same  people  established  themselves,  not  as  conquered  emigrants,  but  as  conquerors, 
in  other  foreign  countries,  they  in  a  similar  manner  established  their  mythos  and  their  religion. 

I  think  my  reader  will  now  begin  to  perceive  in  the  general  prevalence  of  the  Trinitarian  doc- 
trine, and  the  renewal  of  cycles,  and  in  many  other  circumstances,  an  approximation  to  proof  that 
what  the  Eclectic  philosopher,  Ammonius  Saccas,  said,  was  true,  viz.  that  one  universal  and 
very  refined  system  originally  pervaded  the  whole  world;  which  only  required  to  be  divested  of 
the  meretricious  ornaments,  or  the  corruptions  with  which  the  craft  of  priests,  or  the  infirmities  of 
men,  had  loaded  it  in  different  countries,  to  be  every  where  found  ;  that,  in  fact,  in  the  Christian 
and  Gentile  systems,  there  was  fundamentally  no  difference.  I  feel  little  doubt  that  in  the 
remainder  of  this  work  I  shall  abundantly  prove  the  truth  of  this  doctrine  of  Ammonius,  and  upon 
this  object,  in  fact  the  great  object  of  my  work,  I  must  beg  my  reader  to  keep  his  eye  steadily 
fixed. 


Note.  During  the  time  that  the  part  of  this  work  which  the  reader  has  seen  has  been  printing, 
I  have  met  with  several  matters  which  would  have  much  elucidated  different  points  on  which  it 
has  treated,  only  part  of  which  I  can  conveniently  insert  hereafter,  and  indeed  the  insertion  of  such 
part  will  be  rather  misplaced.  It  is  therefore  my  present  intention,  if  health  and  circumstances 
permit,  to  publish  a  volume,  or  perhaps  more  than  one,  occasionally,  called  Commentaries  on  the 
Anacalypsis  and  on  Ancient  History.  This  will  give  me  an  opportunity  of  further  elucidating  the 
subjects  which  I  have  discussed,  and  of  following  up  the  important  discoveries  made  by  General 
Vallancey,  which  the  priests  have  contrived  to  consign  almost  to  oblivion,  but  which,  I  am  of  opi- 
nion, are  of  inestimable  value  for  the  discovery  of  ancient  science.  In  this  work  I  shall  be  able  to 
answer  objections  of  opponents,  and  to  correct  oversights  and  mistakes,  which,  as  I  have  not  the 
gift  of  infallibility,  must  necessarily  occur. 

Nov.  1831. 


(     448    ) 


BOOK  IX. 
CHAPTER    I. 

SANSCRIT,  ORIGIN  OF. — VAN  KENNEDY  ON  SANSCRIT. — LANGUAGE  CHANGEABLE. — MAZORETIC  HEBREW  A 
NEW"  LANGUAGE,  — GRAMMATICAL  CONSTRUCTION  NO  CRITERION.  — PHOENICIAN,  GREEK,  AND  COPTIC, 
THE  SAME. — YADAVAS  FROM  INDIA. —  ABYSSINIAN  JEWS.  — ABRAHAM  FROM  INDIA. — ARABIC  AND  ETHI- 
OPIAN THE  SAME. — DR.  MURRAY  ON  SANSCRIT.  —  PROFESSOR  DUNBAR,  H.  E.  BARKER,  ESQ. — HERMAN, 
ANTHOM,  HAUGHTON,  WILSON,  HAGAR. — DR.  PRITCHARD.  — HAGAR.  —  DIRECTION  OF  WRITING. — PRO- 
NUNCIATION   OF   LANGUAGES. — PROFESSOR   BOP. ADAM,    MEANING    OF   THE   WORD. — GREEK   AND   LATIN. 

— NO    COLONY   GOES   OUT   WITHOUT   TAKING   ALL   ITS   LETTERS. — CONCLUDING   OBSERVATIONS. 

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  circum- 
stance ;  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  Brahmin  religion  in  India. 

1.  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.  See  John  Cleland's  attempt  at  the  revival  of  Celtic  Literature. 2 
This  seems  to  point  to  the  Chaldaeans,3  from  whose  country  Abraham  came,  as  the  inventors 
of  it. 

2.  A  gentleman  of  the  army,  of  the  name  of  Van  Kennedy,  has  lately  written  a  long  treatise 
respecting  it.  If  what  he  says  be  true,  that  "  the  roots  of  this  language  have  not  any  meaning," 
I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that,  in  this  respect,  it  probably  differs  from  every  other,  and  in  this 
will  be  found  what  will  be  nearly  a  proof,  that  it  is  artificial.  In  what  languages  or.  where  the 
Colonel  sought  without  success  for  the  meaning  of  the  roots,  I  do  not  know.  But  it  is  evident 
that  if  it  be  founded  on  several  other  tongues,  where  the  roots  of  the  words  of  the  respective 
tongues  are  found,  in  each  particular  case  will  the  root  of  the  Sanscrit  word  be  found.  But  it  will 
make  little  or  no  difference  whether  it  be  founded  on  several  tongues,  or  on  only  one,  if  the  several 
tongues  be  founded  on  one  original  language. 

In  every  written  language,  ivunless  I  except  the  Chinese,)  however  varied  in  shape  its  letters 


1  i.  e.  Rasees,  wise  men.  2  P.  91. 

3  By  Chaldaeans,  of  course,  Assyrians  or  Babylonians  are  not  meant. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAPTER   I.   SECTION   3.  449 

may  be,  the  Cadmaean  must  be  admitted  to  be  its  system  ;  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Greek  was 
the  Cadmsean,  although  each  letter  had  two  or  three  forms. 

There  is  not  one  written  language  in  which  several  words  of  every  written  language  may  not  be 
found ;  and  they  are  at  least  so  numerous  as,  upon  Dr.  Young's  doctrine  of  chances,  to  reduce  the 
fact  that  they  are  all  originally  one  language  to  so  high  a  probability,  as  to  amount,  in  effect,  to 
certainty.  Then  surely,  under  these  circumstances,  when  I  find  a  word  in  two  ancient  languages 
having  the  same  letters  and  the  same  meaning,  I  am  justified  in  considering  them  to  be  the  same : 
for  example — *ny  ord  and  the  English  order  —  both  having  the  same  meaning,  i.  e.  placing 
methodically. 

Van  Kennedy1  gives  a  list  of  nine  hundred  Sanscrit  words  which  are  found  in  Greek,  Latin, 
Persian,  Gerrrian,  and  English,  and  which  are  thus  divided.  There  are  339  Sanscrit  words  in 
Greek,  319  in  Latin,  263  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  Sacae  or  Saxse  of  North  India,  as  I  shall  pre- 
sently prove. 

I  think,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  that  it  is  evident  the  Colonel  must  go  too  far  when  he  speaks 
of  the  roots  generally  having  no  meaning :  for  if  there  be  near  a  thousand  words  now  Sanscrit, 
which  are  the  same  nearly  in  form  and  sense  as  words    in  the  languages  above-named,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  they  have  meanings.     I  suppose,  however,  he  means  to  say,  their  roots  have  no 
meaning  in  the  Sanscrit  language :  but  if  they  have  roots  in  other  languages,  they  will  still  have 
meanings ;  and  if  the  language  be  artificial,  and  formed  upon  a  variety  of  other  languages,  in  every 
case  the  root  will  shew  where  the  word  has  come  from  :  and  if  they  be  all  founded  on  one,  the 
course  will  be  shewn  by  which  it  has  descended  through  the  medium  of  each  language.     For  an 
example  take  the  word  Nau-handa,  noticed  in  a  former  book.     The  word  Nau  will  be  from  the 
Latin  or  Greek,  the  word  band  from  the  Saxon.     Again ;  take  the  word  Nerhuddha,  the  name  of 
a  river.     The  word  Ner  is  clearly  the  Hebrew  word  for  river,   and  the  word  Bud  is  Sanscrit,  and 
means  wise,  or  wisdom,  the  River  Buddha,  or  River  of  the  God  of  Wisdom. — Again  ;  the  word 
Choda.     This  is  Choder  in  Arabic,  and  God  in  Saxon  and  English.     Again  ;  limestones  called 
Shall-gramu,  containing  the  sacred  shells.     The  first  is  evidently  our  shell ;  the  gramu  I  do  not 
understand.     In  page  201,  the  Colonel  says,  "An  examination  of  the  vernacular  dialects  of  India 
"  will  render  it  evident  that  Sanscrit  is  a  foreign  language,  which  has  been  superinduced  on  them, 
"  and  not  they  on  Sanscrit."     He  then  proceeds  to  shew  that  this  was  the  opinion  of  the  late 
Mr.  Ellis,  of  Madras.     Whether  foreign  or  not,  this  goes  to  prove  that,   quoad  India  and  all  its 
mythoses,  it  is  comparatively  modern.     The  Brahmins  are  said  to  be  foreigners  to  South  India. 
All  that  this  amounts  to  is,  that  the   sect  using  this  language  arose  in  the  North  of  India,    (as 
stated  in  Eastern  histories,)   came  down  upon  the  Buddhists  in  the  South,  and  drove  them  out. 

3.  To  the  arguments  which  I  am  about  to  use,  it  is  not  of  the  least  consequence  whether  San- 
scrit in  its  refined  state  was  ever  spoken  by  the  mass  of  people  in  any  nation  or  not. 

Col.  Van  Kennedy,  out  of  the  339  Sanscrit  words  which  he  found  in  the  Greek,  has  detected 
three  hundred  of  them  in  the  poems  of  Homer.  Indeed,  it  is  now  admitted  that  there  are  great 
numbers  of  its  words  in  the  Latin,  the  Greek,  and  other  Western  languages.  But  it  is  not  the 
universal  sacred  language  of  the  Buddhists  or  Jains.     From  this  circumstance,  I  think,  an  impor- 


1  Page  232. 
,3  M 


450  LANGUAGE    CHANGEABLE. 

tant  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  language  of  Chaucer  has  become  scarcely  intelligible  in  the  lapse  of  only  about 
three  hundred  years.  The  Sanscrit,  after  being  brought  to  perfection,  has  remained  almost  un- 
changed, because  it  was  not  a  commonly-spoken  language,  and  because  it  was  tied  down  by  strict 
and  unvarying  grammatical  rules. 

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  lan- 
guage, and  entirely  a  dead  language  in  a  few  years,  as  it  actually  became  when  it  was  improved 
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  lan- 
guage of  the  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. 1     From  the  time  of  the  Ba- 


1  The  corruption  of  old  works  by  emendators,  though  actuated  by  the  best  intentions  possible,  is  grievously  to  be 
deplored.    By  these  emendations  there  is  not  now  a  single  ancient  author  which  can  be  depended  on.     But  the  sacred 
writings  have  suffered  the  most  of  all ;  till  now  they  are  actually  so  corrupt,  that  there  is  not  a  single  text,  of  any  con- 
sequence, on  which  a  rational  faith  can  be  placed.     For  if  the  actual  corruption  of  any  selected  text  cannot  be  shewn, 
it  is  the  easiest  thing  imaginable  to  shew  that  it  may  have  been  corrupted  for  any  thing  which  we  know  to  the  contrary. 
The  corruption  of  our  Bible  was  doubtless  begun  by  the  ancient  Jews,  in  opposition  to  the  Samaritans ;  and  has  been  con- 
tinued, in  a  greater  or  a  less  degree,  in  every  new  version  which  has  been  published.  In  the  last  century,  the  University  of 
Oxford  employed  the  learned  Dr.  Grabe  to  publish  a  version  of  the  famous  Alexandrian  Manuscript,  and  the  following 
is  the  description  of  this  work,  given  by  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  :    (in  voce  Bible  -.)   "  In  this  (version)  the  Alex- 
"  andrian  manuscript  is  not  printed  such  as  it  is,  but  such  as  it  was  thought  it  should  be  ;  i.  e.  it  is  altered  wherever 
"  there  appeared  any  fault  of  the  copyists,  or  any  word  inserted  from  any  particular  dialect."     Thus  every  new  version 
has  been  mended.     The  Jews  mend  the  Samaritan  ;  Origen  mends  the  Jews ;   Jerom   mends  Origen  %    Mohamed 
mends  Jerom ;  Luther  mends  Mohamed ;  Calvin  mends  Luther ;  and  Dr.  Grabe  mends  them  all.     Such  being  the 
case,  what  is  to  be  done?     The  remedy  to  a  rational  person,  is  very  simple.     The  evil,  by  its  excess,  as  most  evils  do, 
has,  in  a  theological  view  of  the  matter,  cured  itself.     The  man  of  sense  must  throw  out  every  text  which  contains  any 
thing  derogatory  to  the  character,  or  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes,  of  God — and  also  every  text  which  has  any 
doubt  at  all  respecting  its  meaning.     I  shall  be  told  that  when  I  have  performed  this  operation,  there  will  be  nothing 
of  the  religion  of  Jesus  left.     If  this  be  true,  I  say  the  more  the  pity  that  the  priestly  emendators  should  have  brought 
the  matter  to  such  a  pass.     But  I  deny  the  fact — much  will  be  left.    I  maintain  that  all  will  be  left  which  is  necessary 
for  the  good  of  man,  either  in  this  world  or  the  next.    We  shall  find  that  a  good  and  benevolent  person  taught,  among 
other  excellent  doctrines,   that  if  we  place  a  firm  reliance  on  the  beneficence   of  our  Creator,   re- 
turn   GOOD    FOR    EVIL,  AND    IN    SHORT    DO    TO    OUR    NEIGHBOUR   AS    WE   WISH    OUR    NEIGHBOUR    TO    DO    TO    US,  WE 

shall  inherit  eternal  life.  Here,  then,  is  the  religion  of  Jesus.  This  religion,  the  religion  ymt  tlox^v  of  the 
poor  and  ignorant  man,  requires  no  bishops  in  coaches-and-six,  and  no  learned  universities  to  explain  it ;  but  in  this 
consists  its  heresy.    If  persons  choose  to  read  and  compare  the  four  gospel  histories,  (with  their  thirty  thousand  various 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  4.  451 

bylonish  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  of  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. 

4.  The  Mazoretic  or  pointed  Hebrew  is,  in  fact,  a  new  language ;  and  if,  instead  of  forming  the 
letters  by  substituting  points  for  the  Chaldaean  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.  It  would, 
then,  not  have  been  called  Hebrew,  but  would  have  been  only  supposed  to  have  been  formed  upon 
it  nearly ;  as  much  of  the  Greek  is  formed  on  Hebrew,  and  of  the  Latin  on  Greek.  It  would  have 
been  to  the  ancient  Synagogue  Hebrew,  what  the  Arabic  is  to  it.  It  would  have  been  infinitely 
more  full  and  copious.  As  in  the  case  of  the  Arabic,  all  the  Hebrew  roots  would  have  been  con- 
tained in  it,  but  probably  the  roots  of  all  its  words  would  not  have  been  found  in  the  Hebrew. 

The  Synagogue  Hebrew  language  has  vowels  like  all  other  languages  j  but,  like  the  Celtic  dia- 
lects, it  has  many  words  written  with  very  few  vowels,  and  many  without  any.  I  shall  explain  the 
reason  of  this  in  a  future  part  of  my  work.  In  this  explanation  will  be  found,  if  I  mistake  not,  a 
proof  of  a  theory  respecting  the  origin  of  written  language,  which  will  at  first  be  thought  paradox- 
ical, but  which  is,  at  all  events,  quite  new.  It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  deficiency  of  vowels  in 
the  Hebrew, 1  in  the  Welsh,  and  in  the  other  Celtic  dialects,  is  very  remarkable,  and  has  never 
received  even  a  shadow  of  an  explanation.  If  the  Hebrew  and  the  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  far- 
ther, 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.  Let  it  be  recollected  that,  in 
the  Preliminary  Observations,  Chap.  I.  Sect.  63,  I  have  proved  that  both  the  ancient  Irish  and  the 
Hebrew  letters  had  the  same  meanings  of  trees.  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  xn^")3  brata  Great  Creator :  r\H"2  brat  being  the  noun  of  the  Hebrew  verb 
N12  bra  to  create  or  form.  Then  the  wars  of  the  Mahabarat  will  be,  the  wars  of  the  Great  Cre- 
ator, or  of  God,  or,  as  we  should  say,  holy  wars. 

I  will  here  stop  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,  that  there  was 


readings,  many  of  them  of  vital  importance  to  the  religion,)  with  one  another,  or  with  the  other  thirty  or  forty  gospel 
histories,  which  are  now,  in  this  country,  out  of  fashion,  and  which  of  course  will  have  various  readings  also,  and  with 
the  Epistles  in  scores,  I  would  not  attempt  to  prevent  them  :  but  respecting  such  persons  I  would  make  only  one 
observation ;  it  is  totally  incredible  that  they  should  be  able  to  form  an  opinion  on  any  rational  ground,  upon  almost 
any  one  of  the  controversial  points  of  the  priests,  all  which  are,  in  fact,  of  no  consequence  to  any  but  themselves,  with- 
out they  be,  in  a  considerable  degree,  conversant  with  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew.  This  brings  ninety-nine  out  of  every 
hundred  persons  to  the  creed  which  I  have  given  above.  But  this  is  no  doubt  a  horrible  heresy,  because  it  verifies  the 
words  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  his  was  the  poor  man's  religion  :  and  it  instantly  does  away  with  the  necessity  of  priests 
and  their  coaches-and-six  superiors,  the  bishops. 
1  On  the  modern  invention  of  the  Mazoretic  points,  see  my  Essay  in  Classical  Journal,  Vol.  XXXIII.  p.  145. 

3m2 


452  GRAMMATICAL    CONSTRUCTION    NO    CRITERION. 

nothing  like  general  wars  ;  that  before  this  time  all  the  world  was  governed  by  an  order  of  priest- 
hood, and  was  like  the  vast  domains  of  China,  in  a  comparative  state  of  peace ;  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  XP2.  These  subjects  will,  however,  come  into  careful  dis- 
cussion in  a  future  book. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression ;  Col.  Van  Kennedy  has  quoted  a  very  judicious  observation  of 
Mr.  Klaproth's  :  "  It  is  a  singular  idea  to  suppose  that  languages,  like  animals,  have  sprung  and 
"  been  procreated  from  one  another ;  but  it  is  to  be  wished  that  the  notion  of  derivation  should  be 
"  given  up,  and  that  all  languages  related  to  each  other  should  be  considered  as  sisters  whose 
"  parent  is  unknown."  l  Mr.  Klaproth  has  observed,  that  the  Sanscrit  betrays  in  itself  every  ap- 
pearance of  recent  formation,  and  is  in  his  opinion  a  very  modern  language,  the  newness  of  which 
is  concealed  and  disguised  by  its  roots.2 

I  confess  I  am  astonished  when  I  hear  learned  men  declare,  that  there  is  no  similarity  between 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Sanscrit.     But  my  surprise,  in  some  degree,  ceases  when  I  find  them  listening 
to  the  corruptions  of  the  modern  Rabbies,  that  is  to  the  modern  language  of  the  Mazorites,  called, 
by  an  old  name,  Hebrew.     After  much  consideration  I  think  I  perceive  several  other  reasons  for  a 
circumstance  which,  at  first  view,  appears  so  astonishing :  one  is,  that  they  give  into  the  absurd 
system  of  the  modern  Jews  in  their  mode  of  representing  the  Hebrew  letters  by  the  English.     As 
an  example  of  which,  among  many  others,  I  have  only  to  instance  the  vowel  O,  which  they  render 
NG, 3  and  thus  of  such  a  simple  word  as  -ays  bobr  they  make  begneeber,  &c.     The  next  is,  that 
they  never  consider  or  make  allowance  for  the   very  extraordinary  and  unnatural  change  which 
must  have  taken  place  between  the  old  language  and  the  artificial  Sanscrit  that  was  built  upon  it, 
or  formed  out  of  it,  which  would  evidently  tend  to  render  the  new  language  dissimilar  to  the 
Hebrew.     But  notwithstanding  this  change,  when  we  compare  the  Sanscrit  words,  as  given  in 
our  letters   by  Sanscrit   scholars,  particularly  proper  names  and  names  of  Gods,   with  the  unso- 
phisticated, uncorrupted  Hebrew  of  the  Synagogue,   the  likeness   is  very   strong.      As  I  have 
observed  in  my  last  book,  for  one  example  take  Jaya-deva.     The  first  word  here  is  clearly  irrt'  ieie 
or  mrv  ieue — the  second,  the  Latin  deva,  deity,  I  need  not  notice.     How  striking  is  the  likeness, 
but  how  unlike  the  corrupt  Jewish  Jehovah  !     How  unlike  is  the  word  of  four  letters,  all   vowels, 
to  the  word  of  seven,  three  of  which  are  consonants  !     Again  for  another  example :  the  Hindoos 
chaunt  in  their  ceremonies  the  word  YEVE,  YEVE.     Here  we  have  the  same  word  repeated;  and 
there  are  many  others,  as  we  shall  occasionally  observe. 

5.  Another  cause  is  to  be  found  in  a  mistake  respecting  the  grammatical  construction  of  lan- 
guages. All  languages  are  in  some  respects  the  same.  Language  is  the  produce  of  unpreme- 
ditated circumstances,  arising  out  of  the  wants  of  man  ;  and  all  men  having  the  same  wants,  a 
certain  similarity  arises  out  of  the  supply  of  them  by  different  men.  I  think  there  is  evident 
proof  that  all  men  set  out  with  one  spoken  language,  (I  do  not  treat  of  the  Chinese,  because  I 
know  nothing  about  it,)  and  all  men  of  the  old  world, 4  who  wrote  at  all,  with  one  written 
language.  When  they  branched  off  in  tribes,  they  took  it  with  them.  I  think  there  are  clear 
proofs  that  this  language  was  in  a  very  rude  state  ;  that  it  was  written,  and  that  it  had  sixteen 
letters.    When  men  began  to  be  civilized,  and  not  before,  they  began  to  improve  their  language  and 

1  Asiat.  Polyglotta,  p.  43;  Van  Kennedy,  p.  196.  *  Asiat.  Polyglotta,  p.  45. 

3  Perhaps  I  shall  have  quoted  to  me  some  Oriental  example  of  the  O  having  become  riff,  and,  perhaps,  even  from 
my  own  book.  Because  it  has  been  corrupted  in  the  East,  is  that  any  reason  why  it  should  be  also  corrupted  in  the 
West  ?  The  corruption  of  it  in  the  East  will  no  more  change  the  ancient  nature  of  the  letter,  than  the  corruption  ia 
the  West  will  do  it. 

4  In  opposition  to  the  new  America. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  5.  453 

to  make  grammars,  and  of  course  they  would,  in  some  measure,  adopt  different  plans  or  gramma* 
tize  differently.     Thus  the  Greeks  made  three  numbers,  the  Latins  were  content  with  two.     But 
still  all  men  having  nearly  the  same  wants,  all  men  would  equally  have  recourse  to  remedies  to 
supply  them,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  in  many  cases  it  is  almost  a  necessary  consequence,  that 
they  should  have  recourse  to  nearly  the  same  remedies,  because  no  other  remedies  would  meet  the 
evil,  supply  the  want.     We  will  take  an  example.     A  man  wishes  to  communicate  the  idea  of 
speaking :  he  would  say,  I  spoke,  or  I  will  speak,  and  all  men  will  have  the  wish  to  communicate 
the  two  ideas ;  and  therefore   all  men  will  have  these  two  tenses  in  their  grammars.     The  same 
argument  will  apply  to  all  nations,  and  thus  to  other  cases ;  thus  all  grammars  or  the  grammatical 
construction  of  all  languages  will  have  a  certain  fundamental  likeness,  but  will  vary  in  some  respect 
according  to  the  degree  of  refinement  to  which  men  have  risen  when  their  grammar  is  formed  or 
completed.     But  their  grammar  would  become  more  complicated,  as  they  increased  in  refinement ; 
and  thus  the  grammatical  construction  of  language  among  nations  would  come  to  vary,  and  that, 
in   process  of  time,   very  greatly.     The  Hebrew  language  is  a  striking  exemplification  of  this. 
When  its   sacred  book  was  written,  it  had  formed  no  present  tense  :  and  it  still  continues  in  the 
old  language  to  have  none ;  because  its  dogma  prevents  any  addition  to  its  sacred  writing,  locked 
up  in  the  temple  :  as  the  present  tense  may  be  very  easily  dispensed  with  by  using,  in  the  very 
few  instances  where  it  is  wanted,  a  periphrasis,  as  I  spoke  Just  now>  instead  of  I  speak.     Thus  we 
see  how  the  grammars  of  the  different  languages  of  the  world,  or  the  different  modes  of  speaking, 
came  to  vary  very  greatly,  though  there  may  have  been  only  one  spoken  or  written  language  at 
first.     The  existence  of  this  grammatical  difference,  and  the  want  of  consideration  as  to  the  cause 
of  it,  have  induced  learned  men  to  imagine  that  languages  have  been  different.     These  are  the 
reasons   why  languages  cannot  be   decided  to  be  different,  from  the   difference  of  grammatical 
construction.     If  two  nations,  at  great  distance,   who  have  had  little  or  no  connexion,  give  to  a 
great  and  a  sufficient  number  of  ideas  the  same  names,  the  original  identity  will  be  proved ;  but 
the  difference  of  names,  for  the  same  ideas,  will  scarcely,  in  any  case,  prove  the  contrary.     We  see 
nations  adopt  new  names  for  ideas  every  day,   forgetting  their  old  ones,  even  going  to  the  extent 
of  giving  to  the  same  words  meanings  diametrically   opposite.     For  instance,   hostis  a  host  or 
friend,  and  hostis  an  enemy.     This  variation  of  meaning  takes  place  much   more  frequently  in 
civilized  than  in  uncivilized  nations.     Thus  I  consider  all  the  deductions  of  learned  men  against 
the  identity  of  languages  from  the  grammatical  construction  of  them  to  be  inconclusive,  and  that  my 
plan  of  going  to  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  the  letters,  to  their  order  and  their  numerical  power, 
and  the  identity  or  similarity  of  words,   is  a  much  more  rational  and  probable  mode  of  proceeding. 
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  mean- 
ing 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. 
Sir  W.  Jones  would  never  have  thought  of  any  such  division,  if  it  had  not  flattered  a  religious 
prejudice,  viz.,  as  he  fancied,  the  literal  meaning  of  Genesis,  which  he  had  declared  nothing  should 
induce  him  to  abandon, — therefore  he  adopted  this  to  bolster  it  up.     After  the  Hebrews  became 
highly  civilized  in  the  schools  of  Alexandria,  &c,  they  found  it  necessary  to  improve  their  lan- 
guage, 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  origi- 
nally the  same  vocal  sounds  attached  to  the  same  letters.     They  all  had  the  same  powers  of  nota- 


454 


GRAMMATICAL    CONSTRUCTION    NO    CRITERION. 


(i 
tt 

a 


tion.  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. 

I  have  just  now  said,  that  if  two  nations  give  to  a  sufficient  number  of  ideas  the  same  names, 
identity  of  language  will  be  proved.  In  cases  of  this  kind  mathematical  proof  can  never  be 
expected  ;  all  producible  proof  resolves  itself  at  last  into  strong  probability.  On  this  subject  Dr. 
Young,  in  his  essay  on  Probabilities,  has  said,  "  Nothing  whatever  could  be  inferred,  with  respect 
to  the  relation  of  two  languages,  from  the  coincidence  of  the  sense  of  any  single  word  in  both  of 
them :  that  is,  supposing  the  same  simple  and  limited  combination  of  sounds  to  occur  in  both, 
but  to  be  applied  accidentally  to  the  same  number  of  objects  without  any  common  links  of 
connexion :  that  the  odds  would  only  be  three  to  one  against  the  agreement  of  two  words ;  but 
"  if  three  words  appeared  to  be  identical,  it  would  be  more  than  ten  to  one  that  they  must  be 
"  derived,  in  both  cases,  from  some  parent  language,  or  introduced  in  some  other  manner,  from  a 
"  common  source.  Six  words  would  give  near  1700  chances  to  one,  and  eight  near  100,000:  so 
"  that  in  these  last  cases  the  evidence  would  be  little  short  of  absolute  certainty."  l  If  this 
reasoning  be  applied  to  the  fact  stated  by  Van  Kennedy,  that  900  Sanscrit  words  are  to  be  found 
in  Greek,  Latin,  Persian,  German,  and  English,  it  surely  proves  their  common  descent ;  and  if  I 
prove  the  descent  of  one  of  them  from  the  Hebrew,  I  prove  it,  also,  to  have  had  the  same  common 
origin.  Now  the  numbers  of  English2  and  Greek  words  which  are  identical  with  Hebrew  are 
quite  surprising.  They  are  sufficient  in  each  case  to  prove,  according  to  Dr.  Young,  absolute 
identity  or  common  origin.  I  am  quite  convinced  that  all  the  old  languages  are  the  same  where- 
ever  the  sixteen-letter  system  is  found,  unless  I  except  the  Sanscrit.  That,  no  doubt,  is  an 
exception  to  them  all,  whether  it  were  formed  upon  one  original,  or,  as  is  the  more  probable, 
upon  a  number  of  languages  indiscriminately,  those  languages  having  been  formed  upon  Wie- 
the ancient  language  of  the  Buddhists — which  I  shall  shew  was  probably  Hebrew. 

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  Cadmcean  letters,  as  nearly  as 
possible,  and  represent  them  in  English  by  the  similar  letters,  according  to  the  powers  of  notation, 
as  pointed  out  in  my  table,  Prel.  Obs.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  47.  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  to  be  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 

1  Kennedy,  p.  232. 

2  The  following  is  an  example  of  Hebrew  words  in  the  English  language,  similar  to  which  a  list  of  about  300  may  be 
seen  in  the  Appendix  to  Roland's  Mona  Antiqua  : 

He  is  m*  is;  to  draw  out  jm  dro ;  camel  hm  gml  ,•  heat  nn  lit ;  sap  r\nv  sap  ;  fracture  p*\nprq ;  muck,  i.  e. 
manure  po  mh ;  myrh  "iid  mur ;  murmur  "iimm  murmur ;  rear  or  raw  meat  "n  rr ;  wine  f  »  iin ;  to  howl  bb'ill; 
bole  of  a  tree  "?u  but;  to  settle  bnm  stl ;  to  shout  nym  suot ;  many  'Jo  mni ;  idea  jn»  ido  ;  mixing,  mix  JTO  mzn  ; 
mixing,  mix  jdd  mm  ,•  race  y*i  rz. — Cluverius  says,  (ap.  Casaubon,)  that  almost  a  thousand  words  may  be  collected  in 
the  Hebrew,  which  may  be  found  in  other  languages. 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER    I.     SECTION   6.  455 

to  confirm  my  whole  system.  For,  as  the  Greek  has  the  Sanscrit  words  but  has  not  the  number 
of  letters,  they  must  have  come  before  its  sixteen  Cadmaean  or  Pelasgic  letters  were  increased  to 
fifty  ;  that  is,  they  were  words  of  the  old  language  of  both  countries,  before  the  Sanscrit  was 
invented.  I  have  before  shewn,  in  my  Preliminary  Observations,  that  the  Hieroglyphics  must 
have  been  invented  by  the  persons  occupying  Egypt,  after  the  arrival  of  the  Indians  in  that 
country ;  and  I  have  now  shewn  that  the  Sanscrit  must  have  been  completed  in  India,  after  it 
had  been  carried  to  the  West,  in  its  rude  state  j  for  I  cannot  separate  its  coming  to  Egypt  from  its 
coming  to  Europe. 

I  think  it  expedient,  in  passing,  to  avow  my  firm  persuasion,  that  the  remark  of  Kircher, 
however  he  and  it  may  have  been,  and  may  be  again,  ridiculed,  will  at  length  be  found  not  to 
have  been  made  without  reasonable  grounds,  namely,  that  the  Greek  system  of  letters  or  language 
was  formed  in  a  great  measure  from  the  ancient  Coptic,  or  from  the  parent  of  the  Coptic.  We 
must  recollect  that  Cadmus  brought  the  sixteen  letters  from  Phoenicia  to  Greece ;  and  the  Greek 
authors,  as  I  have  formerly  shewn,  say  their  Gods  had  their  names  from  Egypt,  the  Coptic  land  j 
and  the  Egyptians  had  theirs  from  Ethiopia.  We  shall  also  find  that  the  Ethiopians  had  their 
language  from  Phoenicia,  and  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  they  had  their  Gods  and  their  written 
language  from  the  same  country. 

6.  A  learned  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia 1  says,  "The  Phoenicians,  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  Phoenician,  (which  was  the  same  with  Hebrew  and  Samaritan,)  Hebrew,  Coptic, 
and  Greek  system  of  letters,  all  identical.  The  histories  tell  us  that  the  Greek  letters  came  from 
Phoenicia;  that  the  Greek  mythology  came  from  Egypt,  the  Coptic  land — but  who  tells  us,  that 
either  Syria  or  Africa,  in  ancient  times,  ever  took  any  thing  from  Greece  ?  But  if  the  reader  will 
attentively  consider  Mr.  Astle's  Table,  and  allow  for  the  different  directions  of  the  writing,  he  will 
be  convinced  that  all  the  ancient  sixteen-letter  alphabets  in  that  table,  have  probably  been  the 
same.  And  we  shall  presently  see  that  the  Ethiopian,  which  is  but  a  dialect  of  the  Coptic,  came 
from  Syria,  i.  e.  Phoenicia.  But  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  Coptic  may  have  been  orignally  the 
same  as  the  most  ancient  right-lined  Greek  and  Etruscan,  and  have  been  corrupted  or  improved 
by  the  intermixture  of  modern  Greeks  with  the  Copts,  when  the  former  possessed  Egypt  under 
the  Ptolemies. 

The  learned  Jesuit  Kircher, 2  not  being  able  to  blind  himself  to  the  singular  affinity  of  the 
Coptic  and  Greek,  supposed  that  the  Greek  had  been  derived  from  it.  This  sufficiently  proves 
the  affinity  ;  the  cause  of  which  is  at  once  satisfactorily  explained,  by  the  supposal  of  a  common 
original.  And  it  is  very  evident,  as  the  oldest  Greek  and  Etruscan  are  proved  to  be  the  same, 
that  this  original  must  have  been  the  Sanscrit  or  the  language  on  which  the  highly -finished  Sanscrit 
was  principally  built ;  but  as  I  have  shewn  that  it  cannot  have  been  the  former,  it  must  have  been 
the  latter. 

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, 3  that  most  Coptic  words,  which  are  not  Arabic  or  Greek,  bear 
a  strong  affinity  to  the  ancient  Syriac,   and  that  the  ancient  Ethiopian  language  was  very  nearly 


1  Art.  Philology,  Sect.  132.  *  See  Drummond  on  a  Punic  Inscription,  p.  45.  3  Ibid.  p.  111. 


456 


PHOENICIAN,    GREEK,    AND    COPTIC,    THE    SAME. 


Chaldaic.     I  am  quite  certain,  from  my  own  observation,  that  many  Egyptian  proper  names  are 
in  reality  Hebrew. 

All  these  facts  tend  strongly,  on  Dr.  Young's  system,  to  prove,  that  in  a  very  early  day,  but 
after  these  countries  were  fully  peopled,  they  had  a  language  which  was  intelligible  to  them  all,  as 
the  language  of  all  the  counties  of  England  is  intelligible  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  Britain. 

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  Phoenicians,  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. 1  These  facts 
seem  to  shew  that  they  have  the  same  origin  as  the  Indians ;  but  yet  their  language  is  really 
Hebrew. 

Pliny  the  Elder  says,  that  the  Ionian  letters  were  the  oldest  of  Greece,  and  that  the  most 
ancient  Grecian  letters  were  the  same  as  the  Etruscan :  and  he  produces  the  example  of  an 
ancient  inscription  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  assertion.  In  consequence  of  this  circumstance,  the 
assertion  seems  more  worthy  of  attention  than  most  of  the  gossiping  stories  which  that  old  gen- 
tleman collected  together.  That  the  Sanscrit  or  the  language  on  which  that  most  beautiful  system 
ivas  erected  was  the  same  as  the  old  Latin  or  Etruscan2  cannot  be  doubted.  In  my  Celtic 
Druids,  Ch.  II.  Sect.  XXV.  XXVI.  App.  p.  304,  it  is  most  clearly  proved.  This  traces  the 
written  language  of  the  Hellenians,  or  Ionians,  or  Athenians,  to  India,  and  confirms  the  assertion 
which  I  have  made  in  Book  VII.,  that  they  were  the  Indian  Yavanas.  The  Ionians,  who  came  by 
sea  to  Argos  or  Apia,  were  called  Ionian  Pelasgi, 3  that  is  Ionian  sailors.  We  have  seen  that 
Arcadia4  was  peopled  by  Ionians  ;  and  the  Arcadian  alphabet  is  said  to  have  been  carried  to 
Tuscany.  This  is  another  example  of  Greek  vanity  j  but  it  serves  to  shew,  that  the  same  alphabet 
was  to  be  found  in  both  countries.  It  was  the  right-lined  alphabet  of  sixteen  letters.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  impossible  that  Greek  sailors  may  have  brought  it  to  Italy,  but  it  most  probably  came 
to  Greece  and  Italy  from  the  North-east  about  the  same  time. 

Dr.  Jamieson,  in  his  Hermes  Scythicus,  says,  it  is  an  admitted  fact  that  the  Latin  language  is 
merely  the  ^Eolic  dialect  of  the  Greek.  In  the  following  words  5  he  adds  what  seems  to  me  at 
once  to  overturn  this  "  admitted  fact :"  "  This  position,  however,  must  be  received  with  the 
"  following  limitations  :  that  in  many  instances  it  is  considerably  varied,  and  that  it  exhibits  some 
"  terms  in  a  more  rude  form  than  that  in  which  they  appear  in  Greek,  as  indicating  immediate 
"  derivation  from  a  cognate  language  far  less  refined."  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact,  and 
this  common  language  must  have  been  that  which  was  spoken  by  the  Ombrici,  iu  Italy;  by 
the  Oscans,  who  had  only  sixteen  letters — reading  from  right  to  left — by  the  people  who  brought 
the  Sanscrit  ceremonies  to  the  temple  of  Ceres,  at  Eleusis  ;  and  by  the  people  whose  groups  of 
figures,  on  what  are  called  Etruscan  vases,  exhibit  the  simplicity  of  nature  in  as  high  a  degree  as 
even  the  simple,  unadorned  icon  of  the  sable  Buddha  of  India. 

Colonel  Wilford's  observation,  that  the  Sanscrit  alphabet,  when  stripped  of  its  double  letters 


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

-  I  consider  the  Latin  language  only  as  an  improved  Etruscan. 

*  Arca-di-ia,  country  of  the  Diva  or  Holy  Area,  or  Agra. 


»  Nirarod,  Vol.  IV.  p.  24. 
*  P.  148. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  6. 


457 


and  those  peculiar  to  that  language,  is  the  Pelasgic,  »  justifies  me  in  endeavouring  to  explain  by, 
or  in  tracing  many  Sanscrit  words  to,  the  cognate  old  languages,  or  to  that  language  which  must 
have  been  the  origin  of  them  all ;  particularly  by  the  Hebrew,  which  though,  even  in  its  present 
state  in  the  synagogue,  not  the  oldest,  probably  must  be  nearly  allied  to  it.  Thus,  for  example, 
when  I  find  the  word  Yapati,  and  I  learn  from  Mr.  Turner  that  pad  means  father  in  the  Pali  or  Bali 
language,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  this  word  to  mean  father  Ia  or  Ie,2  more  especially  as  this 
is  confirmed  by  the  use  of  the  word. 

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  no- 
ticed, 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.  The  example  which  I  have  produced  in  my  Celtic 
Druids  shews,  that  the  two  (or  rather  the  one  or  united)  systems  must  have  been  brought  as 
languages  to  considerable  perfection  when  they  came  to  Italy. 

Sir  W.  Jones  has  observed,3  that  the  inscriptions  of  Canarah,  in  the  island  of  Salcette,  are 
compounded  of  Nagari  and  ^Ethiopic  characters,  which  bear  a  close  analogy  to  one  another,  not 
only  in  the  singular  manner  of  connecting  the  vowels  with  the  consonants,  but  in  the  very  striking 
fact  that  they  are  both  written  from  the  left  hand  to  the  right.  Thus,  in  fact,  the  ancient  system  of 
letters  of  India  and  Ethiopia  may  be  considered  the  same,  notwithstanding  their  great  distance  and 
the  interventipn  of  so  many  other  nations  lying  between  them.4 

Bardisanes  Syrus 5  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."  Philostratus6  says,  "  that  in 
"  his  time  the  chief  of  the  Brahmins  was  called  larch,  and  Jerom  contra  Jovin  says,  the  head  of 
"  the  Gymnosophists  was  called  Buddas."7  Mr.  Bryant  says,  "Nilus  the  Egyptian  tells  Apollo- 
"  nius  Tyannaeus,  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 
"  toisdom  of  their  forefathers."  s 

Gale9  observes,  on  the  authority  of  Philostratus,  in  the  life  of  Apollonius  and  of  Jerom,10  that  the 
philosophers  of  Ethiopia  were  called  Gymnosophists,  and  that  they  received  their  name  and  philo- 
sophy from  India. 

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  are  very  black ; 
and  their  hair  is  also  black ;  but  they  are  not  so  flat-nosed,  nor  have  they  woolly  hair.  They,  who 
are  more  to  the  North,  have  a  greater  resemblance  to  the  Egyptians. 12  I  learn  from  travellers  that 
the  Afghans  have  black  hair,  and  a  dark  Jewish  cast  of  countenance. 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  265.  s  Ibid.  p.  255.  3  jbid.  Vol.  I.  p.  424. 

4  Vide  Maur.  Ant.  Ind.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  414—41/.  *  In  Euseb.  Prapar.  Evang.  Lib.  vi.  Cap.  viii. 

6  Lib.  iii.  in  vita  Apol.  Tyan.  7  Gale,  Court  of  Gent.  Book  II.  p.  74. 

8  Anal.  Ane.  Myth.  Vol.  III.  p.  219.  °  Court  of  Gent.  Vol.  II.  p.  75. 

10  Lib.  iv.  in  Ezech.  Cap.  xiii.  »  Hist.  Indica,  p.  320.  "»  Bryant,  Vol.  III.  p.  211. 

3  N 


458  YADAVAS    FROM    INDIA. 

Diodorus  Siculus  says,  that  the  rites  in  Egypt  and  Ethiopia  had  a  great  resemblance,  so  as  to 
be  nearly  the  same.1  But  they  were  also  very  similar  to  the  Indian.  The  priests  in  each  were 
recluse,  and  given  to  celibacy.  Here  we  have  the  Buddhist  monks.  They  alike  used  the  tonsure, 
and  wore  a  garment  of  linen  ;  and  they  carried  in  their  hands  a  sceptre  or  staff,  which,  at  the  top, 
had  T07rov  aqoTgoetirj,  the  representation  of  a  plough.2  This  plough-shaped  staff  was  clearly  the 
same  as  that  now  borne  by  Bala-Rama,  near  Maturea  in  Indian.  It  is  the  old,  first-invented  plough ; 
it  was,  in  form,  not  unlike  the  pastoral  crook,  and  I  have  little  doubt  that  at  last  it  grew  into  the 
crozier,  which,  with  the  rosary  and  cross,  is  seen  over  the  triple-faced  God  in  the  cave  of  Elephanta. 

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.  Quintus  Curtius,  in  his  account  of  Alexander's  march  into  Upper 
India,  says,  Gens,  ut  Barbari  credunt,  sapientia  excellit,  bonisque  moribus  regitur. 

7.  "  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  are  the  sacred  race  who 
"  settled  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic. [?]  We  are  positively  assured  by  Herodotus,  that  the  Orien- 
"  tal  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."  3  I  request  my  reader  to  refer  to  Book  I. 
Ch.  IV.  Col.  Wilford  has  stated  that  there  are  many  traditions  in  India,  that  the  Iadavas  emi- 
grated to  Abyssinia.4  "  About  this  time,"  says  Eusebius, s  "  some  Ethiopians,  taking  leave  of  their 
"  country  upon  the  river  Indus,  came  and  settled  in  Egypt.  Hence  it  is  that  Bacchus 6  has  been 
"  represented  as  the  son  of  the  river  Indus.  Hence  arose  also  the  true  notion  that  the  Indian 
"  Dionusos  was  the  most  ancient :  Aiovvvov  a^morarov  IN  AON  yeyovevou."  Plutarch  7  tells 
us,  that  Phylarchus  said,  that  Bacchus  first  brought  the  worship  of  the  two  Boves  called  Apis  and 
Osiris,  from  India  into  Egypt.  Upojros  ei$  AiyoKTOv  ef  Iv^ojv  Au>vu(rog  yyaye  8ua>  Bs£,  to>  [xsv 
Awig  ovofxa,  ru>  8s  0(ri%ig.s  I  entertain  a  strong  suspicion  that  these  Boves  "were  the  horned 
male  and  female  Osiris  and  Isis,  not  Apis,  for  Apis  was  nothing  but  another  name  for  Osiris. 

Sir  William  Drummond9  says,  "  We  find  in  the  language  of  the  Copts,  of  which  I  have  already 
"  spoken,  that  many  words,  I  might  say  most,  which  are  not  Arabic  or  Greek,  bear  a  strong  affi- 
"  nity  to  the  ancient  Syriac,  and  consequently  they  may  be  supposed  to  have  belonged  to  the 
"  ancient  Egyptian.  The  ancient  Ethiopian  language  was  very  nearly  Chaldaic,  as  we  have 
"  already  seen."  Ludolf  says,  that  the  African  Ethiopic  has  a  close  affinity  to  the  Chaldee, 
Syriac,  and  Arabic,  and  that  the  roots  of  many  Hebrew  words  are  only  to  be  found  in  it.  We 
have  seen  that  Sir  W.  Jones  confirmed  this, 10  which  is  a  very  important  observation.  This  is 
also  confirmed  by  Mr.  Bruce,  who  has  made  the  very  just  remark  respecting  the  Hebrew  and 
African  Ethiopic  languages,  "  that  a  very  great  number  of  words  are  found  throughout  the  Old 
"  Testament,  that  have  really  no  root,  nor  can  be  derived  from  any  Hebrew  origin,  and  yet  all 
"  have  in  the  Ethiopic  a  plain,  clear,  unequivocal  origin,  to   and  from  which  they  can   be  traced 


1  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  i.  2  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  246.  3  Maur.  Hist.  Hind.  II.  p.  262. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  pp.  323,  &c.  5  Chron.  p.  26.  6  Philostrat.  vita  Apollonii,  Lib.  i.  p  64. 

7  Isis  et  Osiris,  Vol.  II.  p  362.  9  Bryant,  Anal.  Anc  Myth.  Vol.  Ill  p.  213. 

9  On  Punic  Inscrip.  p.  11 1.  ,0  Townsend,  Veracity  of  Moses,  p.  421. 


BOOK    IX.     CHAPTER    I.      SECTION  8. 


459 


"  without  force  or  difficulty." 1     Mr.  Bruce  afterward  observes,  that  the  Geez  or  Ethiopic  has 
a  close  affinity  to  the  Arabic. 

8.  There  is  something  very  contradictory  and  unaccountable  in  the  description  given  by  Mr. 
Bruce  of  the  Falasha,  a  tribe  of  Abyssinian  Jews,  who  are  stated  by  him  to  be  sufficiently  nume- 
rous to  bring  100,000  men  into  the  field.  They  have  no  copy  of  the  Pentateuch  in  their  lan- 
guage, or  in  the  Hebrew  or  Samaritan  ;  but  only  one  borrowed  from  the  Geez,  and  probably 
translated  from  the  LXX.  by  Christians  in  modern  times.  Although  they  have  many  Jewish 
customs,  yet  there  are  some  wanting  among  them,  the  want  of  which  is  difficult  to  be  accounted 
for,  on  the  supposition  that  they  are  Mosaic  Jews.  They  have  no  scribes,  nor  fringes,  nor  rib- 
bands, on  their  garments,  which  they  must  have  had  it  they  had  descended  from  the  Jews  of 
Moses.2  They  do  not  speak  the  present  Jewish  language,  nor  that  of  the  Synagogue.  They  are 
desirous  of  being  thought  to  be  descended  from  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba ;  but  they  are 
called  by  the  other  tribes  Bet-Israel,  which  may  mean  to  allude  to  the  ancestors  of  Solomon,  even 
to  the  grandson  of  Abraham.  From  the  whole  of  the  accounts  of  Ludolf  and  Bruce,3  it  seems 
probable  that,  like  the  Jews  of  India,  they  had  no  Pentateuch  till  they  received  it  from  modern 
Jews  or  Christians,  in  the  time  of  Frumentius,  a  Christian  bishop. 

The  ancients  constantly  called  the  country  above  the  Egyptian  cataracts  India,  and  its  inhabi- 
tants Indians.  This  is  strikingly  confirmatory  of  my  hypothesis,  that  they  came  from  India. 4  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  there- 
fore follows  that  they  must  have  been  called  Indians  because  they  were  known  or  believed  to  have 
come  from  India.  The  words  in  the  Hebrew  language  we  must  recollect  are  not  always  syllabic  j 
but  yet  it  is  the  same  language  as  the  Arabic,  the  near  neighbour  of  the  African  Ethiopians. 


Ethiopic  Letters. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  names  of  the  Ethiopic  letters  in  Astle5  as  they  stand  in  order,  and 
not  to  see  that  though  varied  in  shape  they  are  really  Hebrew.  They  have  nearly  the  same  names 
and  stand  in  the  same  order.  The  following  are  the  letters  with  their  names,  taken  from  Astle 
and  the  Universal  History,  as  nearly  the  same  in  form  as  can  be  had  in  London. 


7\  Alpf A. 

m  Tait. . . 

.Tetb.  Heb. 

d  Af....F. 

(1  Bet B. 

P  Jaman  . 

.J. 

8  Tzadi.  .Heb. 

1  Geml   . .  G. 

Tl  Caf  . . . 

.Ch. 

+  Kopp.  .K. 

P,  Dent   .  .D. 

A  Lawy   . 

.L. 

4  Rees   .  .  R. 

fr\  Haut    .  .H. 

<*  Mai . . . 

.M. 

UJ  Saut  .  ,S, 

(DWaw    ...W. 

^r   Nahas  . 

.N. 

1"  Tawi.  .T. 

H    ZjSLI      ....  Li. 

rt  Saat  . . . 

.S.  C. 

*zHharm..H.  H. 

0  Ain  . . . 

.Heb. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  observe,  that  there  is  a  clerical  error  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  letters 
being  substituted  for  each  other,  but  I  have  copied  them  exactly. 


1  Book  ii.  Ch.  iii.  *  See  Numb.  xv.  38,  39  ;  Deut.  xxii.  12.  »  B.  ii.  Ch:  vi. 

4  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  252.  *  Origin  and  Progress  of  Writing,  Ch.  V.  p.  90. 

3n2 


460 


ABYSSINIAN    JEWS. 


Ludolfus  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  ma}', 
without  difficulty,  make  himself  master  of  the  other ;  but,  that  the  African  Ethiopic  is  the  nearest, 
as  we  might  reasonably  expect,  to  the  Arabic. 1 

I  think  a  moment's  consideration  must  shew  that  the  alphabet  which  I  have  given  is,  in  reality, 
the  same  as  the  Hebrew  and  Samaritan.     I  speak  not  of  the  shapes  of  the  letters,  because  their 
dissimilarity  of  shape  in  my  mind  does  very  little  affect  the  question — the  reason  for  which  I  shall 
give  hereafter.     The  English  written  language  has  only  one  alphabet,  but  that  alphabet  has  three 
different  forms — GAD,  gad,  gad.     This  alphabet,  as  I  have  before  observed,  is  not  used  always 
syllabically  by  the  Hebrews  j  but  it  is  so  used  by  the  African  Ethiopians,  the  same  as  the  Sanscrit. 
This  proves  the  truth  of  what  1  have  published  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  and  in  the  Classical  Journal, 
Vol.  XXXI1L,  viz.  that  the  vowels  are  in  the  Hebrew,  as  really  as  in  our  language,  though  omitted 
in  many  words  ',  where  I  refute  the  nonsense  about  their  antiquity,  contended  for  by  the  Mazorets, 
who  generally  render  them  mute,   and  often  convert  them  into  consonants,  thereby  forming,  in 
fact,  a  new  alphabet.     With  respect  to  the  vowels  the  Celtic  and  Hebrew  are  both  the  same,  as  I 
have  also  observed  in  the  Celtic  Druids.     The  learned  though  prejudiced  writer  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica,  art.  Philology,  noticed  a  little  time  ago,    says,  "  The  Phoenicians  wrote  from 
"  right  to  left,  and  the  old  Grecian  characters  inverted  exactly  resemble  the  other.'1     Besides,  the 
"  names  of  the  Cadmean  characters  are  Syrian,  (Scaliger,)  which  shews  the  near  resemblance  be- 
"  tween  that  language  and  the  Phoenician.     They  stand   thus  :  alpha,  betha,   gamla,   delta,  &c. 
"  The  Syrians  used  to  add  a  to  the  Hebrew  vocables  :  hence  alph  becomes  alpha,  beth  betha  or 
"  beta,  &c.     In  the  Cadmean  alphabet  we  find  the  vowel  letters,  which  is  an  infallible  proof  that 
"  this  was  the  practice  of  the  Phoenicians  in  the  time  of  Cadmus  :  and  this  very  circumstance 
"  furnishes  a  presumption  that  the  Jews  did  the  same  thing  at  the  same  period."3 

But  Mr.  Mitford,   in  his  H  istory,  has  made  a  very  important  observation  ;  namely,   that  the 
vowels  were  originally  often  omitted  in  the  Greek,4  as  well  as  in  the  Hebrew,  language,  and  this 
entirely  does  away  with  the  point  of  Scaliger's  observation.     But  the  Hebrew  system  of  letters, 
which  answered  to  the  Cadmaean  sixteen,  had  vowels — Aleph,  He,  Vau,  Iod,   and  Oin,  though  not 
used  in  very  many  words  and  syllables.     The  vowels  were  really  always  in  use  both  in  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Greek,  though  only  partially.     In  the  Ethiopic  they  were  used  fully,  as  with  us.     This 
was  an  improvement  upon  the  first  system.     The  author  of  the  Encyclopaedia  runs  away  with  the 
old  fancy,  that  they  had  no  vowels  at  first,  and  then  he  infers  because  the  language  had  vowels  in 
the  time  of  Cadmus,  the  full  syllabic  system  must  have  been  once  in  use,  and  afterward  laid  aside, 
which  is  by  no  means  a  necessary  consequence.    The  contrary  was  the  fact ;  they  were  at  first  seldom 
used,  (for  a  reason  which  I  shall  explain  hereafter  in  a  future  book,)  and  added  as  written  language 
improved.    The  written  language  was  defective  without  them.    Mr.  Bosworth,  in  his  Saxon  Gram- 
mar,5 has  proved  the  ancient  Greek  written  from  right  to  left  to  be  nothing  but  the  ancient  Phoenician. 
And  Dr.  O'Connor  in  the  same  book  6  has  proved  the  Phoenician  to  be  Samaritan  and  Canaanitish. 


1  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  286. 

8  Cadmus  was  the  name  of  a  nation.  '(See  Montfaucon,  Paleog.  Gr.  Lib.  ii.  117,  Ed.  fol.)  The  Thebans  were  called 
KaS^Eis?  by  Homer.  By  Joshua  a  nation  of  Phoenicians  was  called  'Jimp  Qdmuni,  Cadmonii.  The  Hebrew  name  of 
Cadmus  was  aip  Qdm. 

3  Sect.  133,  p.  536.  The  strongest  presumption  is  also  raised,  that  the  numeral  powers  of  the  Cadmean  or  Greek 
letters  must  have  been  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  :  then  the  P  would  have  stood  for  200,  which  completely  justifies  my 
explanation  of  the  staff  of  Osiris :   _P.  j> =600  and  608. 

4  See  end  of  Section  4— Xpv?,  Xpvjj,  XPE.  5  P,  11.  6  P.  o3> 


« 


Si 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  I.  SECTION  9.  461 

This,  added  to  what  I  have  said  above,  easily  accounts  for  Kircher's  deriving  his  Greek  from  Coptic. 
It  is  evident  both  having  drawn  from  the  Phoenician,  whence  must  also  have  come  the  African  Ethi- 
opian. In  all  my  speculations  I  consider  the  Hebrew  and  the  Celtic  to  be  but  dialects  of  a  com- 
mon language,  or  of  one  another.  General  Vallancey  has  completely  proved  that  the  old  Irish  or 
Celtic  is  Phoenician — that  is,  in  fact,  Hebrew,  for  they  cannot  as  languages  be  separated.  The 
same  learned  writer  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  on  Philology, l  says,  "  We  have  seen  a  ma- 
"  nuscript  in  the  hands  of  a  private  person,  where  the  first  twelve  verses  of  the  Iliad  are  carefully 

analyzed  j  and  it  appears,  to  our  satisfaction,  that  almost  every  word  may  be,  and  actually  is, 
"  traced  back  to  a  Hebrew,  Phenician,  Chaldean,  or  Egyptian  original  j  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."  Now  this  is  what  may  easily 
have  happened  according  to  my  theory.  The  dialects  may  not  have  varied  enough  in  his  time  to 
have  rendered  them  totally  unintelligible  to  him.  If  they  were  nearly  unintelligible  to  him  and 
his  tribe — in  400  years  more,  in  the  time  of  Moses,  they  may  have  become  totally  unintelligible. 
This  is  quite  time  enough  to  effect  the  change.  Judging  from  what  the  learned  Ludolf  has  said 
respecting  the  ease  with  which  a  person  would  acquire  all  the  remainder  of  these  languages  after 
having  learnt  one  of  them ;  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  observation  in  the  Encyclopaedia  is  well- 
founded.  If  the  example  of  Joseph's  speaking  to  his  brethren  by  means  of  an  interpreter  be 
pleaded  against  me,  I  reply,  some  very  learned  persons  have  maintained  that  by  that  text  merely 
a  mediator — a  sort  of  chamberlain  or  introducer  to  the  presence  of  the  great  man,  but  not  an  inter- 
preter— was  meant.  See  Mr.  Bellamy's  Bible,  and  the  notes.  In  the  African  Ethiopic  language,  we 
have  the  Synagogue  Hebrew,  reading  syllabically  and  from  left  to  right.  When  we  couple  this 
with  the  practice  of  the  Sanscrit,  and  the  history  of  its  owners  the  African  Ethiopians  as  coming 
from  India,  I  cannot  entertain  much  doubt  that  it  was  the  ancient  language  before  they  left  India. 
Then  they  must  have  come  away  before  the  Sanscrit  was  completed,  to  fifty  letters,  unless  it  was 
a  secret  language.  It  is  a  most  important  observation  made  2  by  Ludolfus,  that  the  roots  of  many 
Arabic  and  Hebrew  words  are  only  to  be  found  in  the  African  Ethiopic  language.  All  this  tends 
to  render  it  probable  that  the  Gymnosophists  brought  it  by  way  of  Arabia,  to  Meroe,  or  the  Mount 
Meru  of  African  Ethiopia ;  formerly  the  capital  of  the  country,  where  the  Greek  authors  say  all 
the  learning  of  the  Egyptians  came  from,  where  it  now  remains,  in  some  respects  less  changed 
than  in  Asia,  owing  probably  to  its  secluded  situation. 

If  the  African  Ethiopian  had  become  known,  and  the  Sanscrit  were  invented  by  the  priests  to 
conceal  their  mythos  from  the  Common  people,  a  reason  may  be  found  for  the  Sanscrit  to  have 
been  formed  before  the  Ethiopians  came  away.  The  Universal  History  has  clearly  proved  the 
identity  of  the  African  Ethiopic  and  the  Arabic. 

9.  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.3  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 


1  Sect.  VII.  p.  547.  2  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  287. 

3  Arrian,  Hist.  Hind.  Cap.  xxi.  j  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  116. 


462 


ARABIANS    FROM    INDIA. 


latitude  and  longitude  is  a  most  important  fact,  on  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter,  * 
It  is  in  the  country  where  the  Ioudi  came  from,  of  which  Oude,  or  Ioud-ia,  was  the  capital.  The 
kingdom  of  Ioudia  extended  to  the  Indus.  From  the  name  of  the  Arabians  and  other  circum- 
stances which  an  attentive  reader  must  perceive,  I  suppose  they  were  a  separate  tribe  from  the 
Jews,  who  came  from  nearly  the  same  country :  because  their  name  w-my  orb-ia,  means  country 
of  the  West.  Their  first  home  was  on  the  Indus,  and  I  think  they  have  had  their  name  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  migrated,  they  kept  their  name.  Our  Jews  were  one 
tribe,  the  Arabians  were  another,  of  the  same  nation.  If  I  be  right  in  my  idea  that  the  Arabians 
were  a  tribe,  like  the  Jews,  from  Afghanistan  or  Central  India,  they  might  be  expected,  even 
before  the  time  of  Mohamed,  to  have  received  the  mythos  which  we  have  found  in  India  ;  and  it  is 
manifest  that  they  had,  because  they  had  statues  of  Abraham,  Noe,  &c,  in  their  temple  of  Mecca. 
Thus  their  mythos  is  in  keeping  with  the  other  circumstances.  But  this  is  strengthened  by  what 
has  been  observed  by  Stukeley,2  that  there  were  two  Arabias — the  Egyptian  and  the  Asiatic,  as 
even  appears  from  Homer,  Strabo,  and  Pliny.  The  Egyptian  were  nothing  but  the  peninsular 
Arabians.     They  were  originally  the  same,  and  had  the  same  language. 

The  Western  Arabians  had  the  same  mythos  as  the  other  nations,  which  may  be  perceived  in 
their  pretended  history.  Their  principal  kingdom  was  called  Hamyar — the  natives  were  called,  by 
the  Greeks,  Om-erites.  Ham-yar  is  Omaria.  Aria  is  the  Arabic  or  Hebrew  word  2nK  arz,  soft- 
ened into  aretsia,  aressia,  aria,  ia.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  title  Al  Hareth  of  the  Arabian  kings.  3 
It  meant  of  the  country  of  Many  of  their  kings  were  said  to  be  Jews,  and  they  had  Judsean 
names,  that  is,  names  arising  among  the  Jews  after  the  time  of  Abraham,  therefore  probably  names 
of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  from  India.  It  is  said  by  them  that  Solomon's  Sheba  was  from  their  country.  4 
"  That  Samarkand  was  built  by  one  of  the  Hamyaritic  kings,  surnamed  Tobba,  seems  to  be 
"  agreed  upon  by  the  best  of  the  Eastern  writers."5  In  old  Samarkand,  coins  are  constantly  dug 
up  with  Cufic  letters  on  them.6  The  Jerusalem  Targum  states  the  Ishmaelites  and  the  Saracens 
to  be  the  same  people:  and  Pococke  states  the  word  Saraceni  to  mean  oriental.7  There  was  a 
town  called  Ishmael,  near  the  Indus.  The  earliest  tribes  of  Arabia,  who  are  called  the  lost  ones, 
had  the  names  of  Ad,  Thamud,  Tasm,  Jadis.s  These  are  Indian  names.  To  the  natives  of  Oude 
Ishmaelistan  would  be  properly  called  nny  orb  or  Western.  The  Arabic  sea  is  called  Suph  and  JEdom. 
The  first  is  sea  of^o<^>,  si¥  zup,  sea  of  ivisdom  ;  the  second,  Ad-om.  Ad  was  h  di  dis,  and  Out, 
the  Holy  Om. 

No  doubt  there  are  many  persons  who  will  think  the  story  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba's  journey  to 
Jerusalem,  and  her  return  with  the  Jewish  religion,  satisfactory.  But  yet  there  are  several  cir- 
cumstances which  this  story  does  not  account  for  ;  and,  therefore,  however  true  this  story  may  be, 
yet  some  other  cause  must  be  looked  for  to  account  for  the  Jews  in  Abyssinia ;  and  one  is,  their 
Hebrew  language  being  syllabic,  and  its  reading,  like  the  Sanscrit,  from  left  to  right.  Another  is, 
their  descendants'  ruling  the  country  but  having  no  Pentateuch.  To  account  for  this,  I  can  ima- 
gine no  cause  except  that  which,  at  great  length,  I  assigned  in  the  last  book,  viz.  a  colony  from 
the  Judaea  or  Oude  of  Central  India.  Oude  is  spelt  Ajewdheya  by  Gladwin  in  the  Ayeen  Akbery,  9 
and  in  the  Mahabarat  it  is  called  Adjudea  ;  10  that  is,  Holy  Judea. 

The  state  of  the  Temple  at  Mecca  in  the  time  of  Mohamed,  as  handed  down  to  us  on  the  best 

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

2  Palceg.  Sac.  No.  I.  p.  10.  3  Univ.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  436.  4  Ibid.  p.  421.  5  lb. 
6  lb.               *  Ib.  p.  :i69w                           8  Ib  p  370                            9  Vol.  III.  p.  255. 

10  Hodges'  Travels  in  India,  p.  105. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAP.    I.    SECT.    9.  463 

authorities,  strongly  tends  to  support  my  theory.  It  was  not  Mosaic  Jewish,  it  was  not  Chris- 
tian, but  it  contained,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  images  of  the  patriarchs  of  the  Israelites. 
These  probably  came  from  India  with  the  tribe. l 

Col.  Van  Kennedy  has  noticed  the  affinity  between  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic.  I  have  never  met 
with  any  person  who  understood  the  two  languages  who  denied  it.  He  says,  "  that  Hebrew,  both 
"  in  its  words  and  its  grammatical  structure,  'bears  so  intimate  an  affinity  to  Arabic,  as  to  render 
"  it  highly  probable  that  they  are  both  merely  dialects  of  that  language  which  was  spoken  by  the 
"  race  of  men  by  whom  Arabia  and  Syria  were  originally  peopled."  2 

No  doubt  in  adducing  proofs  of  my  theory  from  so  remote  a  country,  I  shall  be  accused  of 
travelling  too  far ;  but  the  circumstances  I  leave  to  my  reader.  Near  the  source  of  the  Nile,  there 
is  a  valley  called  St.  George.  (For  this  Saint  I  have  never  been  able  satisfactorily  to  account, 
though  I  think  I  have  read  most  of  what  has  been  said  about  him.)  Through  the  middle  of  this 
valley  runs  the  river  Jemna,  (query,  the  Jumna  or  Jamuna  of  India,  or  the  Yamuna  of  Arabia?) 
which  loses  itself  near  the  town  of  Samseen,  (query ,  or  Sams-on,  the  generative  power  of  the  Sun  ?) 
after  crossing  a  district  called  Ma-itsha.  It  rises  in  hills  called  Amid- amid.  Mr.  Bruce  thinks 
these  hills  were  the  Montes  Luna?.  In  this  he  is  probably  right,  but  I  suspect  that  they  were  also 
Montes  Solumi,  like  those  of  India ; — Mounts  of  the  *tdx  amd  prophesied  of  by  Haggai,  and  the 
united  terms  meaning  Mounts  of  Salvation,  Mount  Sions.  Near  this  is  another  river  called  Iworra. 
There  is  also  a  hill  called  Sacale.3  The  singularity  of  the  names  did  not  escape  Mr.  Bruce.  On 
those  of  the  rivers,  he  says,  "  We  crossed  a  clear  river  called  Dee-ohha  or  the  river  Dee.  It  is 
"  singular  to  observe  the  agreement  of  the  names  of  rivers  in  different  parts  of  the  world  that  have 
"  never  had  communication  together.  The  Dee  is  a  river  in  the  North  of  Scotland;  the  Dee  runs 
"  through  Cheshire ;  and  the  Dee  is  a  river  here  in  Abyssinia  !  Kelti  is  the  name  of  a  river  in 
"  Monteith  ;  Kelti,  too,  we  find  in  Maitsha.  Arno  is  a  river  in  Tuscany,  and  the  name  of  a 
"  river  below  Emfras,  falling  into  the  Lake  Tzana."  (Qy.  Zoan?)4  In  the  first  of  the  names, 
Dee-ohha,  the  ohha  is  found  in  the  old  English  name  for  a  piece  of  water,  e.  g.  the  old  ceea 
near  Doncaster.  Here  we  have  mixed  etymologies  again.  Near  the  source  of  the  river  is  a 
church  called  Eion  Mariamo.  We  shall  be  told,  it  is  so  called  after  the  Virgin,  as  churches 
in  Greece,  which  were  formerly  temples  of  the  God  'Hxiog,  are  now  called  after  the  pro- 
phet Elias.  The  Eion,  the  same  name  as  the  town  formerly  Iona,  at  the  mouth  of  the  sacred 
river  Strymon,  in  Thrace,  satisfies  me  where  the  name  came  from.     There  is  also  a  district,  of 


«  mMF'  Sayle  giVGS  thC  followinS  accoutlt  of  the  worship  of  large  stones  by  the  Arabians :  "  Several  of  their  idols,  as 
«■  Manah  in  particular,  were  no  more  than  large  rude  stones,  the  worship  of  which  the  posterity  of  Ismael  first  intro- 
^  duced;  for  as  they  multiplied,  and  the  territory  of  Mecca  grew  too  strait  for  them,  great  numbers  were  obliged  to 
^  seek  new  abodes ;  and  on  such  migrations  it  was  usual  for  them  to  take  with  them  some  of  the  stones  of  that  reputed 
^  holy  land,  and  set  them  up  in  the  places  where  they  fixed ;  and  these  stones  they  at  first  only  compassed  out  of 
^  devotion,  as  they  had  accustomed  to  do  the  Caaba.  But  this  at  last  ended  in  rank  idolatry,  the  Ismaelites  forgetting 
"  the  religion  left  them  by  their  father  so  far  as  to  pay  divine  worship  to  any  fine  stone  they  met  with."  Al  Mostatraf, 
al  Jannabi.  Sayle  Kor.  Prel.  Dis.  p  27.  When  my  reader  recollects  that  the  stones  at  Mecca,  round  the  Caaba,  were 
m.  number>  the  same  as  those  at  Iona  ;  the  practice  of  the  Druids,  in  the  Deisul,  and  all  the  other  strong  traits  of 
similarity  between  their  rites,  &c,  and  those  of  the  children  of  Israel,  he  can  hardly  fail  to  be  much  surprised.  There 
is  a  tradition  that  the  green  inner  and  smaller  stones  of  Stonehenge,  came  from  Africa.  Is  this  possible  ?  Those  which 
are  the  smaller  stones,  are  not  of  a  size  to  preclude  removal  with  moderate  labour.  I  can  entertain  little  doubt  that  the 
first  temple  at  Mecca  was  of  very  great  antiquity,  and  consisted,  like  the  temple  of  Joshua  on  Gerizim,  of  a  circle  of 
rude  stones. 

'  3  Qy-  Scala,  or  Xaca,  or  Saca  ?     On  this  word  much  will  be  said  hereafter. 

,  4  ^°L  V"  Ch-  XIL    The  Editor  of  Bruce's  work,  Dr.  Murray,  makes  a  note  profoundly  wise  upon  this  passa*- 
mat  his  reader  may  not  be  misled,  for  which  he  can  never  be  too  thankful,  and  gravely  informs  him,  that  the  identity  of 
names  arises  from  accident ! 


464  ARABIANS    FROM    INDIA. 

large  extent,  called  Bah-Touda.  No  doubt  all  these  names  came  from  Arabia,  brought  by  the 
Gymnosophists,  when  they  brought  the  names  of  Wed  Baal-anagga,1  the  town  of  Mandera  (the 
cycle),  the  river  Astaboras,2  the  Jumna  or  Yamuna,  &c,  &c,  to  the  sacred  island  of  Meroe,  the 
ancient  capital  of  Ethiopia,  which,  Mr.  Bruce  observes,  has  once  been  the  fountain  whence  the 
learning  and  science  of  Egypt  flowed.  In  this  I  quite  agree  with  him ;  for  I  think  Egypt  was 
peopled  from  Abyssinia,  and  the  latter  from  Arabia ;  and  that  it  was,  in  part,  by  this  circuitous 
route,  the  customs  were  derived  which  are  found  to  be  similar  to  those  of  the  loudi  of  Syria :  and 
they  came  by  this  route,  because  I  believe  at  that  time  the  Delta  of  Egypt  did  not  exist  above 
water,  and  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  was  a  morass  :  the  reasons  for  this  opinion  may  be  seen  in  Book 
VI.  Ch.  I.  On  the  East  coast  of  Arabia  there  are  a  city  and  a  river  called  Ommanum  or  Ammon. 
In  the  island  of  MerOe,  Pliny  says,  there  was  a  temple  to  Ammon ;  in  Syria,  also,  there  was  a  town 
called  Ammon ;  in  Syria,  too,  was  the  well-known  Mount  Libanus  ;  and  near  to  the  Amon  or 
Oman  of  the  East,  was  the  Libano-tophoros  of  Ptolemy.3  The  Eastern  Ommanum  is  now  Nissuwa, 
in  the  district  of  Oman.  The  Nissi  is  its  old  name  of  Bacchus.  Not  far  from  Meroe,  (that  is,  a 
Meru,  or  an  il-a-vratta,  or4  Ararat.)  to  the  south  is  a  plain  called  Senaar.  This  I  call  Shinar. 
These  places  I  apprehend  received  their  names  when  names  were  given  to  the  temples  of  Solumi 
or  Solomon.  In  Egypt,  to  Gize  or  Gaza,  once  the  sea-port  of  Memphis — and  to  Thebes,  or  the  city 
of  ron  The  or  the  cow,  or  Tibet,  also  in  Egypt — and  to  Troy  or  Ter-ia,  and  Mount  Troicus,  and 
Tripoly,  and  to  the  Memnon,  the  same  as  the  Memnon  of  the  city  of  Susa  in  Persia ;  and  to  Cusa 
that  is  Susa — and  to  Babylon — and  to  Cercasura,  Cercesura,  or  Clissobora. 

Great  numbers  of  towns  in  India  are  called  xibad.  This  seems  to  be  the  same  word  as  that 
used  in  the  name  of  the  fourteen  Mahabads,  who,  we  are  told,  lived  before  the  flood  :  but  I  sup- 
pose it  means  the  abode  of,  as  Moorshed-abad,  the  abode  or  residence  of  Moorshed ;  or  Amid- 
abad,  the  abode  of  Amid.  I  can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  abad,  when  meaning  town,  is  the  English 
word  abode.  The  recesses  in  the  temples  in  which  the  icons  of  their  Gods  are  placed  are  called 
Stalla :  these  are  the  stalls  of  our  stables,  and  of  the  canons  or  prebendaries  in  our  cathedrals. 
The  towns  at  the  mouths  of  rivers  are  often  called  j>atam,  as  Masulipatam  or  Kistna-patam  :  this 
means  town  of  Putamos  or  the  river  Masuli  or  Kistna.  Thus  we  find  the  Sanscrit  names  consist 
of  words  from  all  languages.  All  these  places  received  their  names  before  the  great  catastrophe 
took  place  in  the  valley  of  Sodom,5  which  is  described  in  its  own  peculiar  way,  by  parable,  in 
Genesis.  This  catastrophe,  it  is  probable,  destroyed  the  communication  between  the  Dead  Sea 
and  the  Red  Sea,  by  means  of  what  Mr.  Burckhardt  has  shewn  was  formerly  a  river  or  arm  of 
the  sea,  but  which  is  now  a  fertile  valley.  6  At  the  time  here  spoken  of,  the  Delta  of  Egypt  did 
not  exist ;  or  it  was  probably  a  swamp,  together  with  the  country  between  the  Western  branch  of 
the  Red  Sea,  the  Lacus  Amari,  and  the  Pelusiac  branch  of  the  Nile  j  or  they  might  be  like  the 
Sunderbunds  of  India,  whether  covered  or  not  with  wood ;  but,  in  fact,  almost  if  not  entirely 
impassable.  In  these  times  were  made  or  built  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  the  caves  of  Ellora,  the 
walls  of  Argos  and  Tyrins,  the  Cloaca  Maxima  of  Rome,  and  the  temples  of  Stonehenge  and  Iona. 
These  were  the  times  of  the  Pandaean  empire  or  sacred  or  golden  age.  The  buildings  were  Cyclo- 
paean,  and  the  builders  Cyclopes,  but  not  one-eyed  Cyclops.     Of  the  Cyclopes  I  shall  soon  treat. 

I  beg  my  reader  to  turn  to  Book  V.  Ch.  VI.  Sect.  3,  and  to  reconsider  the  Hercules  or  Bala 
Rama ;  and  to  Book  V.  Ch.  XI.  Sect.  7,   and  to  reconsider  Divine  Wisdom  or  Minerva,  with  the 


1  Qy.  Snake-headed  Baal?  2  Qy.  Clyssabora?  3  Tgwo«,  district  of,  Libanus. 

4  Mount  of  il  or  «/-a-vratta,  i.  e.  of  God  the  Creator,  nN"U  brat.  5  ~\w  sd,  dj?  om,  Plain  of  Om. 

6  This  was  the  residence  of  the  tribe  of  loudi,  after  it  left  Egypt,  for  perhaps  forty  years ;  it  is  now  well  peopled 
though  called,  in  Genesis,  a  desert— probably  meaning  merely  a  country  of  pasturage. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION  9.  465 

tree  loaded  with  fruit,  and  the  serpent.  He  will  at  once  see  that  this  is  but  a  slightly-varied 
version  of  the  history  or  allegory  of  the  second  book  of  Genesis  ;  but  he  must  see  that  it  is  the 
same  story  :  he  must  also  perceive  that  it  is  not  a  copy.  Let  him  then  consider,  in  Book  V. 
Chap.  XI.  Sect.  6,  the  account  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  as  reported  by  Wilson,  in  Nubia ;  and  a  similar 
example  in  South  India,  noticed  in  Book  VIII.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  7. 

Sir  William  Jones  has  noticed  several  inscriptions  in  India,  in  characters  very  similar  to  those 
of  the  ancient  African  Ethiopian.  I  have  said  that  I  think  the  Arabian-Ethiopic  Hebrew  the 
oldest  language.  There  is  yet  another  reason  to  be  assigned  in  support  of  this  opinion,  which  is, 
the  amazing  extent  of  country  over  which  this  language  is  spread.  It  seems  an  unquestionable 
fact,  arise  from  what  cause  it  may,  that  all  nomade  tribes  of  the  earth  have  used  and  do  yet  use  the 
Arabic  language,  or  one  which  has  evidently  been  corrupted  from  it,  and  which  is  so  near  it  that 
a  person  speaking  Arabic  is  understood  by  them,  although  with  difficulty.  What  can  be  more 
striking  than  the  fact,  already  noticed,  but  which  I  shall  discuss  more  fully  by  and  by,  that  the 
Turks,  coming  from  the  North-east  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  brought  with  them  to  Europe  and  Arabia, 
a  language  containing  ten  out  of  twelve  of  its  words  Arabic?  How  is  it  that  almost  all  the 
wandering  tribes  of  Africa  have  always  spoken  Arabic,  the  language  of  Moses  and  of  Job  ?  In  the 
character  of  nomade  tribes  there  seems  something  favourable  to  the  retention  of  language,  which  it 
is  difficult  to  account  for. 

It  appears  from  Neuman's  Chronicle  of  Armenia,1  (note  31  on  page  34,)  that  the  Turks  and 
Arabians  had  both  originally  the  same  name  of  Tadjik,  which  is  also  the  name  of  the  people  of 
Bochara.  This  shews  us  where  the  tribe  of  Arabia  came  from,  and  the  reason  why  ten  out  of 
twelve  of  the  words  in  the  Turkish  language  are  Arabic.  I  apprehend  the  word  Tad  is  Tat,  the 
name  of  Buddha. 

From  all  these  considerations  I  draw  the  conclusion,   that  the  Synagogue  Hebrew  and  Sanscrit 
are  both  children  of  a  common  sixteen-letter  parent,   (vide  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  II.  Sect.  XXV. 
XXVI.,)  and  that  this  is  the  reason  why  so  many  of  the  Sanscrit  proper  names  are  so  obviously 
similar  to  the  Hebrew  names.     It  follows  from  all  this,  that  the  emigration  of  the  tribe  of  Juda 
from  India,  must  have  taken  place  before  the  Sanscrit  was  completed.     This  will  place  it  so  early 
as  to  startle  the  prejudices  of  many  persons.     I  know  nothing  of  chronology  except,  first,  that 
before  the  sera  of  about  the  Babylonish  captivity,  it  cannot  be  depended  on  j  and,  secondly,  except 
with  respect  to  about  the  supposed  times  of  the  entrance  of  the  sun  at  the  vernal  equinox  into 
Taurus  and  Aries.     The  Brahmin  tribe,  called  the  tribe  of  Iouda,  may  have  dwelt  several,  perhaps 
many,  centuries  in  the  central  parts  of  Asia,  before  it  came  into  Western  Syria. 2       In  short,  it  is 
very  certain  that  the  Ethiopians  received  their  language  from  India.     The  two  facts— that  it  reads 
from  left  to  right,  and  that  it  is  always  syllabic,  so  different  from  all  the  other  Western  Asiatic 
languages,  absolutely  and  independently  of  the  written  documents  I  have  adduced  to  the  same 
effect,  prove  it.     It  might  be  about  the  time  of  the  Cali  Yug  when  the  Brahmins  suppose  that  the 
equinox  first  fell  in  Aries,  that  they  formed  their  language— perhaps  for  the  sake  of  separating 
themselves  from  the  Buddhists.     The  Pali  is  the  language  of  many  of  the  Buddhists,  but  they  do 
not  seem,  like  the  Brahmins,  to  have  had  an  exclusively  sacred  and  unspoken  language.   And  there- 
fore their  languages  must  be  expected  to  have  changed  like  all  others ;  like  that  of  our  sacred  book, 


1  A  work  published  in  1831,  by  the  Oriental  Translation  Society. 

'  In  Syria  it  found  its  own  sectaries-the  Syria*  or  Soors-under  Melchizedek,  who  had  not  then  been  corrupted  by 
the  heresy  of  the  Assyrise  or  Assoors.    It  may  have  dwelt  many  hundred  years  among  the  people  of  the  Assoor 
religion,  the  Assyrians,  as  it  did  among  the  Egyptians  afterward,  before  it  quitted  Egypt.     Syria  and  Assyria  might  be 
as  I  have  before  intimated,  only  sectarian  terms.  '...*.' 

3o 


466  ARABIANS    FROM    INDIA. 

the  Bible ;  read  it  in  the  English  of  300  years  ago,  and  read  it  now ;  and  how  is  it  already 
changed  ! 

If  the  real  Sanscrit  be  the  language  of  the  earliest  of  the  Vedas,  it  seems  not  to  have 
escaped  the  effects  of  time,  to  which  all  other  spoken  languages  have  been  subjected ;  for,  it  is 
asserted  by  various  learned  men,  that  the  first  Vedas  are  very  different  from  those  of  later  date, 
and  from  the  Puranas ;  and,  that  it  is,  in  fact,  very  difficult  even  for  very  learned  Brahmins  to 
make  out  their  meaning.  But  it  was  probably  perfected  by  degrees,  like  all  other  languages. 
The  Brahmin  priests  may  have  formed  their  sacred  language  to  separate  themselves  from  the 
caste  of  the  kings  or  soldiers,  (who  were  first  their  generals  and  afterward  their  masters,) 
as  well  as  from  the  Buddhists. 

It  is  very  generally  believed  by  both  the  Indians  and  Persians,  that  the  earliest  Vedas  were 
handed  down  by  tradition  till  a  certain  time  ;  that  they  were  then  collected  together  and  put  into 
writing,  but  in  a  language  which  is  now  lost.  Yet  some  say  they  were  not  handed  down  by 
tradition — though  first  written  in  a  language  now  lost. a  This  would  prove  the  Sanscrit  a  more 
recently-formed  language  than  the  originals  of  the  Hindoo  books.  However  persons  who  are 
prejudiced  against  oriental  literature  may  run  down  the  learned  and  honest  Wilford,  because  he 
was  once  the  dupe  of  a  knavish  priest,  (an  accident  to  which  every  individual  at  one  time  or  other 
of  his  life  may  have  been  subject,)  yet  I  believe  no  one  will  doubt  his  knowledge  of  the  Sanscrit 
language,  and  it  was  his  matured  and  deliberate  opinion  that  it  was  reducible  to  the  sixteen  original 
Pelasgic  or  Cadmaean  letters.  This  fact  operates  with  the  greatest  weight  upon  my  mind.  The 
unprejudiced  reader  must  see,  I  think,  that  all  these  facts  and  reasonings  powerfully  corroborate 
my  opinion,  that  the  Hebrew,  or  some  cognate  dialect  very  closely  allied  to  it,  was  the  original 
language.  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  was  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  by  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.     All  the  roots  of  Hebrew  and  of 
the  ancient  natural  languages  have  meanings  ;  but  on  the  Sanscrit,  Col.  Van  Kennedy  2   says,  as  I 
mentioned  in  the  last  book,  "  The  roots  of  the  Sanscrit  have  in  themselves  no  signification,  and 
"  require  several  changes  before  they  can  be  conjugated  even  as  verbs  :  and  the  derivation  from 
"  them  of  other  words  is  often  so  forced  and  unsatisfactory,  as  to  render  it  evident  that  the  roots 
"  could  not  have  been  a  constituent  part  of  the  original  language."     Again,  "  It  is,  therefore,  the 
"  structure  of  Sanscrit  which  so  peculiarly  distinguishes  it  from   other  languages,  and  which 
"  impresses  on  it  a  character  of  originality  which  cannot  be  disputed  ;  for  it  contains  no  exotic 
"  terms,  and,  though  1  have  before  observed  that  its  roots  are  evidently  the  work  of  grammarians 
"  and  not  a  constituent  part  of  the  language,  still  its  words  shew  that  they  have  been  all  formed 
"  solely  by  the  people  who  spoke  it,  according  to  some  well-known  principle." 3 


'  Key  to  Chron.  Vol.  I.  pp.  6,  261 ;  Vol.  II.  pp.  120,  127,  128.  2  Res.  p.  30.  3  Ibid.  p.  193. 


BOOK   IX.    CHAPTER   I.    SECTION    10.  46/ 

In  the  above  extracts  there  is  quite  enough  to  account  for  the  paucity  of  Hebrew  words  in  the 
Sanscrit.  And  if  gentlemen  do  not  strip  their  Hebrew  of  its  modern  corruptions,  and  reduce  it 
to  the  Synagogue  standard,  and  also  as  near  as  possible  to  the  sixteen  original  letters,  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  they  find  few  or  no  marks  of  similarity.  Reduce  the  Hebrew  to  the  simple  system 
laid  down  in  my  Table,  and  in  the  names  of  God  and  other  proper  names,  and  many  more  marks  of 
similarity  will  be  seen  than  could  be  expected— such  as  the  YEYE,  &c,  &c.  The  fact  noticed  by 
Col.  Van  Kennedy,  that  the  roots  of  Sanscrit  are  almost  all  artificial,  the  work  of  grammarians,  but 
formed  upon  an  old  spoken  language,  leaves  ample  room  for  the  old  language,  probably  the  old 
African  Ethiopian  with  its  deva-nagari  letters  in  the  cave  at  Salcette,  to  have  had  many  Hebrew  roots. 
It  may  be,  on  this  account,  that  we  now  meet  with  few  Hebrew  words  in  the  Sanscrit,  except  in 
proper  names  of  persons  and  places.  But  when  I  meet  with  different  persons,  evidently  mytholo- 
gical, bearing  the  same  name,  I  must  believe  that  there  has  been  a  connexion  between  the  nations 
by  whom  that  same  designation  was  assigned. 

10.  It  is  clear  that  the  African  Ethiopic  and  Arabic  have  originally  been  identical.  But,  as 
might  be  expected,  in  process  of  time,  both  have  undergone  some  change — one  in  one  way,  the 
other  in  another.  I  take  the  African  Ethiopic  to  furnish  an  example  of  the  old  language  of  the 
Indian  Mesopotamia,  after  it  had  increased  to  twenty-two  letters,  and  in  this  state  it  probably 
came  to  Western  Asia,  brought  by  a  tribe  of  Ioudi.  Here  the  Ioudi  would  find  the  Arabian,  used 
by  former  emigrants,  nearly  similar  to  their  own  language,  but  consisting  of  the  original  twenty- 
eight  letters  which  we  now  find.  Out  of  these  the  sixteen  letters  had  been  selected  by  the  tribes 
who  came  from  India  before  the  letters  were  increased  to  twenty- two.  In  refutation  of  this  theory 
I  cannot  attend  to  any  nonsensical  fancies  of  chronologists. 

If  the  circular  temples  be  ascertained  to  be,  as  Reuben  Burrow  and  I  think  they  were,  Budd- 
hist, the  number  of  the  stones  in  cycles  and  sacred  numbers  shews,  that  the  early  Buddhists  had 
the  same  system  of  notation  as  we  have.  Mr.  Colebrook  thinks  the  Sanscrit  became  refined  by 
degrees.  He  says,  "  It  evidently  draws  its  origin  from  a  primeval  tongue,  which  was  gradually 
"  refined  in  various  climates,  and  became  Sanscrit  in  India,  Pahlavi  (i.  e.  Pali  or  Bali)  in  Persia, 
"  and  Greek  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean."  l  It  is  extraordinary  that  Mr.  Colebrook  should 
have  leaped  over  the  Hebrew  and  its  cognate  languages,  the  Chaldee  and  Arabic. 

The  following  account  of  the  Sanscrit  is  given  by  Sir  William  Drummond :  "  Many  changes  must 
"  have  been  made  upon  it,  even  before  the  Vedas  were  written.  The  Pandits  reckon  above  1700 
"  radicals  in  the  language.  These  form  the  elements  of  verbs  and  nouns ;  are  all  monosyllables ; 
"  and  to  their  multiform  combinations  may  be  traced  all  existing  words  of  pollysyllabic  conforma- 
x  tion.  But  while  the  language  was  yet  in  its  infancy,  these  radicals  must  often  have  stood  single ; 
:'  and  when  two  or  more  were  united  in  one  word,  must  have  exhibited  combinations  of  easy  com- 
"  prehension.  In  the  sequel  the  Sanscrit  certainly  assumed  a  very  different  aspect;  and  has  finally 
'  become  the  most  perplexed  and  intricate  of  the  oriental  idioms."  Again  he  says,  "  It  is  vain  to 
'■'  argue,  in  this  state  of  the  language,  that  a  meaning  cannot  be  attached  to  certain  radicals,  because 
'  that  meaning  is  expressed  by  other  words,  and  because  the  radical  is  no  longer  in  use."2 

No  one  will  dispute  the  oriental  learning  of  Mr.  Ellis,  who  says,  "  It  is  the  intent  of  the  follow- 

"  ing  observations  to  shew  that  the  statements  contained  in  the  preceding  quotations  are  not  cor- 

:'  rect ;  that  neither  the  Tamul,  the  Teluga,  nor  any  of  their  cognate  dialects,  are  derivations  from 

'  the  Sanscrit ;  that  the  latter,  however  it  may  contribute  to  their  polish,  is  not  necessary  for  their 

'*  existence,  and  that  they  form  a  distinct  family  of  languages,  with  which  the  Sanscrit  has,  in  later 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VII.  p.  201.  2  Origiaes,  Vol.  IV.  p.  171. 

3o2 


468  ARABIC    AND   ETHIOPIAN   THIS    SAME. 

"  times  especially,  intermixed,  but  with  which  it  has  no  radical  connexion." 1  This  nearly  accords 
with  my  theory,  and  the  family  to  which  he  refers  may  be  represented  by  the  Hebrew.  Of  the 
truth  of  this  I  shall  have  many  proofs  to  give  in  the  following  part  of  my  work. 

My  philanthropic  and  excellent  friend  Col.  Tod,  in  his  introduction  to  the  History  of  Rajah- 
stan, 2  has  spoken  "  of  the  familiar  dialects  which  are  formed  from  the  Sanscrit."  Now  the 
Sanscrit  having  never  been  a  vernacular  dialect  any  where,  and  having  been  confined,  at  least 
while  its  professors  had  any  authority,  that  is,  till  the  Mohamedan  invasion,  to  the  two  highest 
classes,  if  not  to  the  Brahmins  alone,  it  seems  altogether  incredible  that  any  such  dialects  should 
have  been  formed  by  the  lower  classes  :  and  I  think  I  can  venture  to  say  none  ever  were  formed. 
A  few  colloquial  expressions  or  proverbs  may  have  become  intermixed  with  the  vulgar  dialects  in 
later  times,  but  nothing  more.  I  observe  that  Sanscrit  scholars  have  no  certain  rule,  at  least  they 
follow  none,  for  rendering  Sanscrit  words  into  English  :  for  instance ;  one  half  of  them  call  the 
language  Sanscrit,  the  other  Sunscrit.  Sir  W.  Jones  calls  the  God  Cristna  Crishna ;  others  call 
him  Krishnu,  others  Crishna,  others  Creeshna,  &c,  &c.  I  learn  from  a  German  professor,  (whose 
name  I  have  not  authority  to  give,)  very  learned  in  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Sanscrit  languages, 
that  he  is  of  my  opinion — forming  his  opinion  from  the  roots  themselves.  After  the  violent  revo- 
lution which  the  Sanscrit  has  undergone  while  the  Synagogue  Hebrew  has  been  stationary,  very 
little  similarity  can  be  expected,  except  in  proper  names ;  and  in  these  I  contend  that  the  simi- 
larity will  be  found  to  be  extremely  striking,  when  the  languages  are  reduced  to  their  first  princi- 
ples, in  the  manner  which  I  have  recommended — when,  in  fact,  Lord  Bacon's  advice  is  followed : 
Reduce  things  to  their  first  institution,  and  observe  wherein,  and  how,  they  have  degenerated.  When 
I  find  a  man  said  to  be  the  son  of  Erechtheus  called  Pandion,  the  first  king  of  Athens;  when  I 
find  a  female,  the  only  daughter  of  Cristna,  ruling  almost  all  the  Indian  nations  from  the  Hhn- 
maleh  mountains  to  Ceylon,  called  Pandcea  ;  and  a  race  called  Pandus  ;  and  a  temple  called  Pan- 
dionium  and  the  Pandivas  or  Pandivus,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  the  same  mythos  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all,  though  one  is  evidently  formed  from  the  Greek  words  Ilav  and  S/o^,  or  ^rsog,  and 
the  other,  I  am  told,  in  the  Sanscrit,  means  red.  I  contend  that  in  this  case  the  meaning  of  the 
root  has  been  lost  in  the  Sanscrit,  and  is  only  to  be  found  in  the  Greek ;  while  in  many  other 
cases,  the  meaning  has  been  lost  in  the  Greek,  and  can  only  be  found  in  the  Sanscrit.  Again,  in 
the  former  example,  the  word  Iaya-deva  :  in  the  Sanscrit,  I  am  told,  the  first  word  means  victory, 
while  in  the  Hebrew,  it  means  self- existent,  both  being  names  of  a  deity.  IE  is  almost  always  called 
the  God  of  victory  in  the  Bible  :  but  may  not  the  word  have  several  meanings  ?  No  one  can  doubt,  I 
think,  that  they  have  been  derived  from  the  same  original,  call  it  root,  or  whatever  else  my  reader 
chooses  :  and  they  both  are  the  Aja  or  Jah  or  Self-existent  of  Genesis.  It  is  in  the  most  ancient 
books  of  the  Israelites,  viz.  the  books  of  Genesis,  where  I  should  expect  to  find  the  closest  simi- 
larity in  names  ;  and  there  we  do  find  it. 

It  is  impossible  to  look  over  Parkhurst's  Hebrew  Lexicon,  and  not  to  be  struck  with  the  great 
number  of  Greek  words  which  appear  to  be  derived  from  the  Hebrew.  All  these  languages  evi- 
dently came  from  one  original — and,  unless  the  Ethiopian  be  excepted,  I  think  the  Synagogue 
Hebrew  is  the  nearest  to  that  original ;  probably,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  in  consequence  of  its 
having  been  locked  up  in  the  recesses  of  the  Jewish  temple,  and  thus  remaining  unchanged  from 
an  earlier  period  than  any  other  book  with  which  we  are  acquainted.  But  that  period  must  have 
been  after  the  sixteen  letters  were  increased  to  twenty-two,  because  it  is  written  with  twenty-two 
letters. 


1  Van  Kennedy  on  Sans.  Lang.,  p.  202 ;  see  also  p.  201.  2  P.  xv. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION    11.  469 

Mr.  Townsend  observes,  "  I  shall,  however,  shortly  take  occasion  to  demonstrate  that  Greek 
"  and  Hebrew  are  radically  one,  as  I  have  adduced  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  that  a  similar  iden- 
"  tity  subsists  between  Sanscrit  and  Greek.  It  will  then,  I  trust,  be  clear  to  every  one,  that 
"  Sanscrit  and  Hebrew  have  a  radical  affinity,  and  may  claim  descent  from  the  same  progenitor, 
"  existing  at  a  given  time,  when  the  whole  earth  was  of  one  language.  This  conclusion  is  per- 
"  fectly  agreeable  to  the  axiom,  that  if  two  things  are  equal  to  a  third,  they  are  equal  to  each 
"  other.  The  argument  will  then  stand  thus  :  Sanscrit  and  Greek  are  radically  one,  therefore 
"  Sanscrit  and  Hebrew  are  radically  one,  q.  e.  d." x 

In  a  paper  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Madras  Transactions,  the  names  of  the  planets  from  the 
Sanscrit  are  given,  with  the  Greek  and  English  names.  The  author  says,  "  The  scholar  will  im- 
"  mediately  perceive  that  the  Greek  names  of  the  planets  are  distinctly  to  be  traced  in  Varaha's 
"  enumeration  thus : 

"  The  Sun Heli €Hx*os Helius 

Mercury.  . . .  Hema   .  . .  .'Ep/Mjs    ....  Hermes 

Mars    Arah Apr^g Mars 

Jupiter    .  ...Jyok Zsug    Jupiter 

Saturn Konah  ....  Kgovoc    ....  Saturn 

Venus Asphujit   .  .A4>go8mj    .  .Venus. 

'*  This  arrangement  is  far  from  fanciful.  Moreover  Idya,  a  name  of  Jupiter,  is  the  Idteus,  a  title 
"  of  that  God  with  the  Latins :  Angiras  seems  to  be  Anxurus,  another  title  of  the  same.  Even 
"  Jupiter  and  Diespiter  appear  the  same  with  Dyupatih  and  Divaspatih  formed  on  true  gramma- 
**  tical  principles,  from  Dyo,  the  atmosphere,  dium,  and  diva,  which  has  the  same  meaning,  united 
"  with  patih,  a  Lord  or  Ruler :  the  compound  being  the  e  Lord  of  the  atmosphere.'  "2 

11.  Dr.  Murray3  says,  "  Ocular  inspection,  assisted  by  such  knowledge  as  the  comparison  re- 
quires, demonstrates  the  ancient  identity  of  the  Sanscrit  and  Chaldee  letters.4  It  is  a  fact,  not 
admitting  a  moment's  dispute,  that  there  is  a  surprising  similarity  or  affinity  of  the  Sanscrit  to 
the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  and  I  believe  to  these  languages  in  nearly  their  most  improved 
and  refined  state — a  state  to  which  it  is  well  known  that  they  did  not  arrive  till  a  time  approxi- 
mating to  the  Christian  aera.  One  example  of  improvement  is  found  in  the  Greek  augment,  which 
is  the  signicative  of  past  time.     The  learned  Professor  Dunbar,   of  Glasgow, 5   has   shewn  that  it 


1  Van  Kennedy's  Researches,  p.  20,  note ;  Townsend's  Character  of  Moses,  Vol.  II.  p.  330. 

2  The  absolute  identity  of  the  Sanscrit  and  the  Greek  cannot  be  doubted.  To  account  for  this  the  author  says, 
Shall  not  the  investigator  of  Yavanisivara's  sayings  discover  the  golden  verses  of  Pythagoras  ?  And  then  he  proceeds 
to  argue,  in  the  teeth  of  all  ancient  Grecian  history,  that  Pythagoras  went  from  Greece  and  taught  the  Indians  the 
Grecian  doctrines  and  names  of  the  planets,  &c,  in  opposition  to  the  notorious  fact,  that  the  most  important  of  the 
doctrines  which  Pythagoras  held,  namely,  the  true  solar  system,  was  not  known  in  Greece  until  Pythagoras  taught  it ; 
and  this  he  professed  to  have  received  from  the  East.  And  so  far  were  the  Europeans  from  holding  it,  that  they  ac- 
tually laughed  at  and  persecuted  Pythagoras  for  teaching  what  they  thought  such  gross  absurdities  as,  among  other 
things,  that  the  planets  and  earth  moved  round  the  sun.  From  an  expression  respecting  the  Atheism  of  Varaha,  I 
think  I  can  perceive  that  the  gentleman  who  is  the  author  of  the  paper  is  one  of  those,  whose  excessive  zeal  does  not 
permit  him  to  have  the  free  use  of  his  understanding  on  these  subjects.  However,  if  the  identity  of  the  names  of  the 
planets  in  Greece  and  India  was  so  apparent  as  to  be  seen  by  this  gentleman,  it  must  be  clear  indeed ;  and  furnishes  a 
very  strong  argument  to  prove  that  the  Greek  came  from  Indian  Sanscrit,  or  from  its  parent.  But  from  the  Sanscrit 
it  cannot  have  come ;  for  if  it  had,  it  would  have  had  its  fifty  letters  :  therefore,  it  must  have  come  from  the  parent  of 
the  Sanscrit. 

3  Hist.  Europ  Lang.  Vol.  II.  p.  227.  *  Van  Kennedy's  Res.  Pref.  p.  vi. 

*  Greek  and  Latin  Lang.,  Append,  p.  275. 


470  PROFESSOR    DUNBAR,    H.    B.    BARKER,    ESQ. 

was  not  in  general  use  before  the  time  of  Homer,  but  that  it  was  beginning  in  his  time,  and  was 
sometimes,  but  only  seldom,  used  by  him.  Now  we  find  this  improved  practice  of  the  Greeks  in 
the  Sanscrit.  Professor  Dunbar  says,  "  I  have  been  the  more  particular  in  these  observations 
"  respecting  the  augment  of  the  verbs,  because  upon  them  I  found  a  principal  argument,  that  the 
"  Sanscrit  was  borrowed  from  the  Greek,  and  not  the  Greek  from  the  Sanscrit.  If  the  Greek  lan- 
"  guage  was  merely  a  dialect  of  the  Sanscrit,  as  has  been  generally  asserted,  and  if  this  latter 
tc  tongue  possessed  the  augment  of  verbs,  when  the  former  was  separated  from  it  by  a  kindred 
"  race,  how  comes  it  that,  for  a  long  period  of  time,  they  seem  to  have  either  totally  neglected,  or 
"  only  partially  used  it,  and  afterward,  without  any  known  communication  with  the  Indians,  uni- 
"  formly  prefixed  it  to  their  verbs  ?  The  inference  seems  to  be,  that  the  Brahmins,  when  forming 
"  their  sacred  language,  adopted  it  from  the  Greeks,  when  it  was  in  general  use  among  them,  and 
"  only  changed  the  character  of  the  vowel."  Of  course  this  must  have  been  after  the  time  of 
Homer ;  and  when  we  consider  that  it  still  more  nearly  resembles  the  Latin  than,  the  Greek,  it 
must,  if  it  have  copied  from  both  Latin  and  Greek,  have  been  long  after  the  time  of  Homer.  It 
may  have  been  between  the  conquests  in  India  by  Alexander,  and  the  birth  of  Christ.  I  cannot 
help  suspecting  that  the  Sanscrit  was  founded  principally  on  the  two  languages — a  little  differing 
from  both,  but  so  contrived  as  to  be  unintelligible  to  the  vulgar  equally  in  Greece,  Italy,  and 
India.  This  may  account  for  the  a  being  used  for  the  augment  in  the  Sanscrit,  instead  of  the  e  as 
in  the  Greek.  It  is  well  known  that  after  the  time  of  Alexander,  the  connexion  between  Europe 
and  India  was  very  intimate  ;  Gymnosophists  and  Samaneans  were  passing  and  repassing  every 
day.  Mr.  Dunbar  has  noticed  a  letter,  said  by  Strabo  to  be  written  by  an  Indian  prince  himself 
to  Augustus,  in  the  Gi'eek  language.  Dr.  Murray,  we  have  seen,  is  decidedly  of  opinion  that  the 
Sanscrit  character  is  formed  from  the  Chaldee.  Then,  I  ask,  may  not  the  Chaldee  or  lost  Tamul, 
have  been  the  base,  improved  by  all  the  assistance  which  could  be  derived  from  the  Latin  and 
Greek  ; — the  Chaldee  found  by  Sir  W.  Jones  in  the  Carnatic  and  also  in  Afghanisthan  ?  The  de- 
scription given  of  the  Sanscrit  by  Sir  W.  Jones  and  Col.  Van  Kennedy,1  leaves  me  no  room  to 
doubt  that  the  Sanscrit  is  artificial. 

12.  The  argument  of  Mr.  Dunbar,  just  adduced,  in  favour  of  the  Sanscrit  being  derived  from  the 
Greek,  drawn  from  the  Greek  augment,  is  very  striking.2  If  the  Sanscrit  were  copied  from  the 
Greek  and  the  Latin,  the  difference  in  the  number  of  the  letters  forms  no  material  objection ;  for, 
it  seems  by  no  means  improbable  that  one  language  should  be  formed  out  of  two,  perhaps  by  Sa- 
maneans or  Gymnosophists,  who  returned  to  the  East  from  Western  journeys.  This  is  much 
more  likely  than  that  those  two  languages  should  both  have  been  copied  from  the  Sanscrit.  Many 
of  the  places  in  Italy,  I  shall  shew  by  and  by,  such  as  Saturnia,  Pallitana,  &c,  have  their  names 
from  the  vulgar  dialects  of  India,  and  not  from  the  Sanscrit :  this  again  raises  a  presumption  that 
the  Sanscrit  is  comparatively  modern.  Dr.  Babington  says  the  Sanscrit  of  South  India  is  written 
in  characters  derived  from  the  Tamul,  and  as  they  are  much  more  complicated,  they  are  probably 
of  later  date.3  But  we  have  just  read,  that  the  Sanscrit  is  derived  from  Chaldee.  This  is  because 
the  Chaldee  and  first  Tamul  are  or  have  been  the  same,  or  nearly  the  same. 

My  learned  friend  Edmund  Henry  Barker,  Esq.,  has  observed  to  me,  that  the  similarity  of  the 
Sanscrit  to  the  Latin  is  much  more  striking  and  close  than  it  is  to  the  Greek,  and  that  Professor 
Dunbar's  theory  requires  the  contrary.  This  remark  is  very  just,  and  increases  the  difficulty; 
but  it  does  not  tend  in  the  least  degree  to  prove  the  Greek  and  Latin  to  have  been  derived  from 
the  Sanscrit.     I  confess,  I  consider  the  fact  that  the  Sanscrit  has  so  many  more  letters  than  the 


Pp.  193  and  201.  *  Vide  Dunbar,  pp.  276—279.  3  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Part  I.  Vol.  II.  p.  264. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  I.   SECTION  13.  471 

languages  of  Western  nations  as  a  decisive  proof  that  they  cannot  have  come  from  it,  after  it  was 
completed.  They  never  would  have  taken  one  half  of  the  letters  with  the  refinements  of  the  lan- 
guage and  left  the  other  half  of  the  letters ;  they  never  would  have  taken  the  exact  sixteen  Cad- 
mean  letters,  the  same  as  the  Irish  Celtic,  the  Phoenician,  the  Arabic,  the  Persian,  and  have  left 
the  others.  There  is  no  nation  of  the  East  among  whom  the  Sanscrit  is  spoken  as  a  vernacular 
tongue  ;  nor  can  any  one  be  fixed  on  as  having  probably  had  it  as  a  vernacular  tongue.  It  has 
been  always  kept  by  the  priests  (at  least  as  strictly  as  it  was  in  their  power)  confined  to  their  own 
order.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  not  credible  that  two  tribes,  like  the  Greeks  and  Latins, 
emigrating  from  India  in  really  almost  a  state  of  barbarism,  as  they  both  were  at  first,  if  their  his- 
tories can  be  believed,  should  have  brought  this  refined  language  with  them.  How  is  it  possible 
to  believe  that  if  they  had  brought  this  fine  fifty-letter  language  with  them  from  India,  they  would 
have  so  completely  lost  all  knowledge  of  it  as,  instead  of  it,  to  have  had  the  tradition,  and  a  false 
tradition,  of  letters  at  first  having  been  brought  to  them  by  Cadmus  from  Phoenicia  ?  Had  they 
brought  this  language,  it  must  have  secured  its  own  perpetuation,  in  very  nearly  all  its  pristine 
excellence.  It  must  have  come  before  the  time  of  Homer,  Hesiod,  Pindar.  Will  any  one  believe, 
who  knows  the  least  of  the  Sanscrit,  that,  beautiful  as  their  language  is,  the  Greeks  would  have 
abandoned  the  Sanscrit  to  form  it  ? 

Mr.  E.  H.  Barker  says,  "Can  you  ever  prove  to  my  satisfaction  that  the  word  vir  (which  is  not 
"  a  Greek  word)  passed  into  the  Sanscrit  language  from  the  Latin  in  the  sense  of  a  man  and  a 
"  husband  ?  It  is  idle  to  say  that  Alexander  carried  the  word  to  India.  How  did  the  Sanscrit 
"  language  catch  hold  ofjivame,  ( to  live,'  which  is  merely  the  verb  jiv,  with  the  personal  pronoun 
"  ame  subjoined  ?  This  is  not  in  the  Greek,  and  therefore  Alexander  did  not  convey  the  word  into 
"  India.  But  it  is  identical  with  the  Latin  vivo,  i.  e.  viv-ego.  Hence  the  analogies  between  the 
"  three  languages  prove  a  common  descent  from  some  unknown  tongue ;  or  else  that  the  Greek 
'  and  Latin  are  derived  from  the  Sanscrit."  I  think  all  this  tends  strongly  to  support  my  idea 
that  the  Sanscrit  was  artificially  founded  on  the  Hebrew,  Latin,  and  Greek,  jointly,  by  the  Brah- 
mins. Had  there  been  anciently  any  language  from  which  the  three  could  have  drawn  their  com- 
mon peculiarities,  it  could  not  have  been  entirely  lost  to  us.  Had  the  Latin  and  Greek  been 
formed  on  the  Sanscrit,  they  would  have  had  all  the  Sanscrit  refinements.  The  Sanscrit  being 
formed  on  the  Latin  and  Greek  has  all  their  refinements,  and  a  great  many  more. 

13.  "The  learned  Hermann  has  the  following  as  the  scheme  of  the  Saturnian  measure.1 


—  <*J 


^j  — (^ 


—  ^J 


'  A  dactyl,  however,  is  occasionally  admitted  in  place  of  the  first  and  second  trochee,  and  a  spon- 
'•'  dee  is  sometimes  introduced  indiscriminately.     Now  if  we  compare  this  measure  with  those  of 
c  the  Sanscrit  poetry,  that  are  given  by  Schlegel,  2  we  cannot  fail  being  struck  by  their  great  simi- 
"  larity.     One  of  their  measures  alluded  to  is  as  follows  : 


^J  — 


<~>  —     —U^ 


—  u 


■e  Schlegel  states  at  the  same  time,  that  this  scheme  admits  of  variations.     These  may  probably 
'  bring  it  into  full  accordance  with  the  Saturnian.    All  this,  together  with  the  Sanscrit  derivation 


Elem.  Doctr.  Metr.  p.  398.  *  Sprache  und  Wekheit  der  Indier,  p.  227. 


472  HERMANN,   ANTHOM,    HAUGHTON,   WILSON,    HAGAR. 

"  of  the  very  name  of  Saturn,  (Satouranouno,)  furnishes  another  link  in  that  curious  chain,  which 
"  connects  the  early  Greeks  and  Romans  with  the  primitive  inhabitants  of  Northern  India."  * 

The  learned  Greaves  Haughton,  Esq.,  the  late  professor  of  Sanscrit,  has  contended  that  there  are 
such  great  numbers  of  Sanscrit  words  in  the  Greek,  as  to  prove  that  it  must  have  come  direct  from 
India.  But  I  am  quite  certain  no  one  can  look  into  any  half  dozen  pages  of  Parkhurst's  Hebrew 
or  Greek  Lexicon,  and  not  be  convinced  that  many  Greek  and  Hebrew  roots  are  the  same  :  then 
will  not  this  confirm  what  I  have  said,  that  there  must  have  been  one  common  language  ?  I  am 
sure  no  one  will  maintain  that  the  perfected  Sanscrit  was  the  parent  of  the  Synagogue  Hebrew, 
for  if  it  had  been,  the  latter  would  have  had  fifty  letters.  It  is  not  credible  that  the  Sanscrit,  in 
the  state  in  which  it  is  found  in  any  of  the  Vedas,  ever  had  less  than  fifty  letters,  nor  is  there  the 
least  reason  to  believe  that  it  ever  had  less  since  it  could  be  called  Sanscrit,  or  Sanctum  Scriotum, 
or  the  sacred  language  or  writ.  Had  either  the  Greek  or  Hebrew  come  from  the  fifty-letter  Sans- 
crit, it  would  also  have  had  fifty  letters.  All  this  goes  to  prove  that  an  ancient  language  must 
have  been  common  to  the  three,  on  which,  in  their  rude  state,  they  were  formed  ;  but  after  all,  the 
Sanscrit  must  have  been  perfected  from  the  Greek  and  Latin,  though  for  all  their  roots  there  may 
have  been  a  common  origin. 

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  en- 
"  tering  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."2  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  members  of  which  were  connected  by  colleges  corresponding 
with  each  other,  its  change  was  for  the  better,  till  it  arrived  at  perfection. 

Dr.  Hagar  has  traced  the  Samaritan  to  the  Deva-nagari,  the  oldest  form  of  the  Sanscrit,  or  the 
Sanscrit  to  the  Samaritan :  but  the  ancient  Samaritan  had  really,  at  the  most,  only  sixteen  letters,3 
as  appears  from  coins,  &c.  Now,  this  being  admitted,  it  is  very  evident  that  the  Sanscrit  must 
have  copied  from  the  Samaritan  ;  because  if  the  latter  had  been  the  copyist,  it  would  have  had  fifty 
letters.  It  would  not  have  taken  part  of  the  letters  only.  Sir  W.  Jones  says,  "  The  square  Chal- 
"  daic  letters,  a  few  of  which  are  found  on  the  Persian  ruins,  appear  to  have  been  originally  the 
"  same  with  the  Deva-nagari,  before  the  latter  were  enclosed,  as  we  now  see  them,  in  angular 
"  frames."4    Of  course  the  latter  sentence  must  apply  to  the  Sanscrit  before  it  was  perfected. 

If  these  two  learned  men  be  right,  my  hypothesis  of  the  identity  of  the  Hebrew,  or  African 
Ethiopic  language,  with  the  Sanscrit  in  its  rude  state,  is  proved.  Need  I  wish  for  any  thing  more 
m  my  favour  than  the  matured  opinion  of  these  two  learned  men  ? 


'  Professor  Anthom's  Ed.  of  Horace,  published  at  New  York,  1830,  p.  xlix.  *  Pref.  p.  xliv. 

3  Vail.  Collect.  Heb.  Vol.  V.  p.  210.  4  Asiat.  Res.  Sixth  Discourse. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  14.  473 

Col.  Wilford l  makes  a  remark  which  strongly  supports  my  theory,  and  what  is  said  above : 
"  The  Greek  language  has  certainly  borrowed  largely  from  the  Sanscrit,  but  it  always  affects  the 
"  broken  dialects  of  India  ;  the  language  of  the  Latins,  in  particular,  does,  which  is  acknowledged 
"  to  have  been  an  ancient  dialect  of  the  Greek."  The  fact  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  affecting  the 
broken  dialects  is  precisely  what  they  ought  to  do,  if  they  came  from  India,  as  I  suppose,  before 
the  Sanscrit  was  perfected.  Facts  of  this  kind  transpiring  from  such  persons  as  Wilford  and 
Jones,  from  enemies  or  strangers  to  my  system,  are  much  more  valuable  as  evidence  than  any 
thing  that  I  could  say. 

Dr.  Buchanan  gives  his  opinion  that  the  Pali  language  of  the  Burmas  is  radically  the  same  as 
the  Sanscrit.2  This  similarity  arises  from  their  all  being  from  one  common  stock.  Col.  Tod  says, 
the  Pali  character  yet  exists,  and  appears  the  same  as  ancient  fragments  of  the  Buddha  inscrip- 
tions in  my  possession  :  many  letters  assimilate  with  the  Coptic.3 

14.  Dr.  Pritchard  says,  "It  has  been  discovered  by  Sir  W.  Jones,  and  confirmed  by  later  re- 
"  searches,  that  the  Zend,  the  old  language  of  the  Magi,  bears  a  close  affinity  to  the  Sanscrit, 
"  differing  from  each  other  and  from  the  common  parent  only  in  trifling  modifications.  The 
"  Zendish  alphabet  was  believed,  by  the  late  Dr.  Leyden,  to  be  derived  from  the  Deva  Nagari,  to 
"  which  that  learned  orientalist  supposed  even  the  arrow-headed  characters  of  the  Persepolitan 
"  inscriptions  to  be  allied.  The  Pahlavi,  in  which  the  Pazend,  a  commentary  on  the  works  of 
"  Zoroaster,  was  written  at  a  time  when  the  idiom  of  the  works  themselves  was  becoming  obsolete, 
"  is  a  branch  of  the  Chaldaic  stock.  A  dialect  of  Chaldee  had,  therefore,  at  some  period,  gained  so 
"  far  the  ascendancy  in  Persia,  as  to  become  the  language  of  the  priesthood."4  Here  I  think  my 
reader  will  see  that  the  Chaldee,  which  is  almost  as  near  Hebrew  as  common  Scotch  is  to  English, 
is  traced  to  have  been  the  vernacular  tongue  in  India :  for,  in  what  part  is  the  Bali,  that  is  the 
Pahlavi,  not  found  ?  Again,  he  says,  "  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  language  of  the  Magi  was  a 
"  dialect  of  the  Sanscrit."  Again,  "  The  modern  Persic  is  formed  by  a  mixture  of  Arabic  with  the 
"  genuine  Parsi,  which  was  the  common  idiom  of  the  Persians  at  the  sera  of  the  Mahomedan  con- 
"  quest,  and  is  preserved  nearly  pure  in  the  works  of  Firdausi  and  others  of  the  older  poets.  It 
"  is  known  that  the  Parsi  has,  for  its  basis,  the  Sanscrit — differing  from  it  much  in  the  same  man- 
"  ner  as  the  several  dialects  of  the  Indian  provinces.  Therefore  the  Zend,  the  ancient  written 
"  language  of  Persia,  being  a  modification  of  the  Sanscrit,  of  which  the  Parsi  is  a  dialect,  the  for- 
"  mer  may  be  considered  as  the  parent  of  the  latter,  just  as  the  Latin  is  of  the  Italian.  The  Parsi 
"  is  the  national  speech  of  the  Persians,  and  therefore  the  Zend  cannot  have  been  introduced  into 
"  that  country  as  a  learned  language.  It  must  have  been  at  some  remote  period  the  universal 
'  idiom  of  the  people."  This  period,  I  think,  must  have  been  before  the  Sanscrit  was  brought  to 
its  highest  perfection.  All  these  gentlemen  seem  to  forget  that  the  difference  in  the  style  of 
the  Vedas  proves,  that  there  must  have  been  a  time  when  the  Sanscrit  was  comparatively  in  a  rude 
state,  and  very  different  from  what  it  is  now. 

Dr.  Pritchard  adds,5   "  The  affinity  between  the  Greek  language  and  the  old  Parsi  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  superstitions  from  Egypt  account  for  the  fact,  since  the  nations 

<  of  Asia  Minor,  as  the  Phrygians  and  Lydians  who  had  np  connexion,  partook  of  old  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 


1  Asiat-  Res-  Vo1'  V-  P-  301.  ■  Ibid.  Vol.  VI.  p.  305.  3  Hist.  Raj.  Pout.  p.  58. 

4  Physical  Hist,  of  Man,  p.  461.  5  p.  522. 

3p 


474  DR.   PRITCHARD. 

"  therefore,  suppose  the  religion,  as  well  as  the  language,  of  Greece  to  have  been  derived,  in  great 
"  part,  immediately  from  the  East." l  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.  Indeed,  the  identity  of  Arabic  and  Chaldee  or  Hebrew,  I  am  quite  cer- 
tain cannot  be  disputed.  How  should  it,  when  every  Hebrew  root  is  to  be  found  in  Arabic  ? 
Thus  they  are  all  connected  like  the  links  of  a  chain.  And  the  fanciful  division  into  the  lan- 
guages of  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet,  must  be  abandoned — a  division,  let  it  be  observed,  directly  at 
variance  with  the  Bible,  if  there  be  a  word  of  truth  in  the  confusion  of  tongues,  as  given  in  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  chapters  of  Genesis :  for  the  seventy-two  nations,  of  the  descendants  of  Noah, 
were  said  to  be  formed  before  the  confusion  of  tongues.  And  there  is  not  a  single  word  to  justify 
the  supposition  that  the  confusion  confused  the  languages  of  the  seventy-two  nations  into  three 
only.  Therefore  I  hope  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  the  threefold  division  of  Sir  W.  Jones,  for  there 
is  not  a  shadow  of  a  foundation  for  it.  At  least  there  is  reason  to  believe,  that  the  Bali,  Pracrit, 
Persian,  Chaldee,  Phoenician,'  Arabic,  Hebrew,  Coptic,  Ethiopic,  Greek,  Latin,  Etruscan,  and 
Celtic,  were  all  one  language,  and  had  the  same  system  of  letters — sixteen  in  number — with  the 
same  powers  of  notation,  which  fixes  their  identity.  They  were,  in  fact,  all  one  nation,  with  one 
religion,  that  of  Buddha ;  and  they  were  originally  Negroes,  and  the  use  of  letters,  if  known,  was 
known  only  to  the  priests.  The  king  or  chief  ruler  was  always  a  priest,  the  head  of  the  priest- 
hood.    All  this  I  have  proved  or  will  prove. 

As  I  have  just  now  observed,  Dr.  Pritchard  shews,  that  the  Zend,  the  old  language  of  the  Magi, 
bears  a  close  affinity  to  the  Sanscrit  ;2  that  the  Zend,  the  Pali,  and  the  Pracrit,  are  three  cognate 
dialects  of  the  Sanscrit ;  that  Dr.  Leyden  also,  on  careful  examination,  believed  the  Zendish 
alphabet  to  be  derived  from  the  Deva-nagari,  to  which  the  arrow-headed  inscriptions  of  Persepolis 
were  nearly  allied ;  that  the  Pali  or  Pahlavi,  in  which  the  work  of  Zoroaster  was  written,  was  a 
branch  of  the  Chaldaic  stock,  and  that,  therefore,  a  branch  of  the  Chaldaic  stock  had  at  one  time 
been  used  by  the  priests  of  Persia ;  that  the  Zend  being  a  modification  of  the  Sanscrit,  of  which 
the  Parsi  or  modern  language  of  Persia  is  a  dialect,  the  former  may  be  considered  as  the  parent  of 
the  latter.  I  think  from  the  above  observation  of  the  Chaldaic  or  Hebrew  and  Arabic  (for  the 
three  are  all  one)  being  in  use  in  Persia,  we  are  brought  to  about  the  time  in  which  I  suppose  the 
Jews  may  have  come  from  India. 3  In  fact,  Dr.  Pritchard  makes  the  Zend — the  same  as  the  Pra- 
crit or  old  Sanscrit — to  have  been  the  common  language  of  Persia,  and  to  have  been  a  branch  of 
Chaldaic. 4  This  brings  the  Chaldaic  to  India,  to  which,  by  other  arguments,  I  have  traced  it. 
Indeed,  I  cannot  doubt  that  all  these  languages  were  nearly  the  same  at  the  time  to  which  Dr. 
Pritchard  alludes ;  but  this  was  before  the  perfecting  of  the  Sanscrit.  I  know  I  shall  have  all 
the  philosophers  against  me,  because  they  will  not  condescend  to  look  at  the  old  Jewish  books : 
for  they  are  in  those  respects  almost  as  prejudiced  as  the  devotees.  But  I  think  the  Chaldee- 
Hebrew-Arabic-Ethiopic-Pali-Pahlavi-Pracrit-Zend  language  was  the  oldest  language  of  Asia 
which  we  know  of,  and  that  they  were  all  one.  After  the  time  when  this  was  the  case,  the  San- 
scrit was  formed.  This.  I  think  may  be  fairly  deduced  from  what  Drs.  Pritchard  and  Leyden, 
and  Sir  W.  Jones  have  shewn.  To  this,  however,  the  philosophers  will  not  listen,  because  the 
priests  will  be  pleased  with  it,  and  triumphantly  make  a  handle  of  it,  in  order  to  shew  that  the 
Hebrew  is  the  oldest  language  of  the  world,  as  a  means  of  supporting  their  dogmas.     But  I  do  not 


Physical  Hist,  of  Man,  p.  525.  *  P.  461.  3  See  Pritchard,  p.  463.  *  Ibid. 


BOOK  IX.      CHAPTER    I.      SECTION    15.  475 

trouble  myself  whether  they  be  pleased  or  grieved.  Truth  is  my  object ;  and  there  is  evidently 
sufficient  reason  to  be  assigned  why  the  Hebrew  language  should  be  the  oldest,  (without  having 
recourse  to  the  nonsense  of  priests,)  in  the  circumstances  which  I  have  detailed  respecting  the 
Pentateuch,  and  the  migration  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  from  India. 

In  addition  to  what  I  have  just  shewn,  that  Dr.  Pritchard  says,  "  the  affinity  between  the 
"  Greek  language  and  the  old  Parsi  and  Sanscrit  is  certain  and  essential,  and  that  the  use  of  cognate 
"  idioms  proves  the  nations  who  used  them  to  have  descended  from  one  stock,"  he  says,  that  "  the 
"  religion  of  Greece  also  came  from  India,  not  Egypt ;  and  that  the  proof  of  this  fact  is  even 
"  more  clear  than  the  affinity  of  the  languages." * 

Conon  says,  that  the  Phoenicians  once  possessed  the  empire  of  Asia ;  that  they  made  Egyptian 
Thebes  their  capital ;  and  that  Cadmus,  migrating  thence  into  Europe,  built  Boeotian  Thebes,2 
and  called  it  after  his  native  town.     Mr.  Faber  says  rightly,  I  think,  that  the  Phoenicians,   the 
Anakim,  the  Philistines,  the  Palli,  and  the  Egyptian  shepherd- kings,  were  all  one   people.     The 
Palli  were  the  Phoenicians  who  came  from  the  Persian  Gulf,  according  to  Herodotus,  the  people 
who  spoke   the   Pali,  Bali,  or   Pahali  tongue.     "As   touching  the  Baly  tongue,   M.  Harbelot 
"  (D'  Herbelot)  informed  me,  that  the  ancient  Persian  is  called  Pahalevi,  Pahali,  and  that  between 
"  Pahali  and  Bahali  the  Persians  make  no  difference.     And  that  the  word  Pout,  which  in  Persian 
"  signifies  an  idol,  or  false  God,  and  which  doubtless  signified  Mercury,  when  the  Persians  were 
"  idolaters,  signifies  Mercury  amongst  the  Siameses." 3     Sommona-Codom  is  also  called  Pout, 4 
which  is  a  Bali  word.     "The   sacred  language  of  the  Jains  or  Buddhists  is  Pracrit  or  Pali."5 
Jones,  in  his  Dissertation  on  the  Persians,  says,  that  the  Pehlevi  was  a  dialect  of  the  Chaldaic,  or, 
in  other  words,  that  they  were  the  same  language  originally.     But,  in  another  place  he  says,  that 
the  Pali,  i.  e.  Bali  or  Pahali  or  Pehleve,  are  all  the  same.     This  accounts  for  the  God  Baal  being 
found  in  Syria  or  Assyria.     Bayer   also  maintains  that  the  Pehlevi,  which  he  calls  Parthic,  is 
derived  from  the  Assyrian  alphabet,  called  Estrangelo. 6      And  Vallancey 7  has   shewn,   that  the 
Estrangelo  is  the  same  as  the  Chaldean  and  Syrian. 8      Sir  William  Drummond  says,  "No  one 
"  can  compare  the  Pehlvi  with  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic,  without  tracing  many  words  in  the  first  of 
"  these  two  languages  to  the  two  last."  9      This  is  perfectly  true,  but  he  must  take  them  without 
points. 

15.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Hagar  thinks  that  before  words  were  divided  in  writing  into  syllables,  arbi- 
trary figures  were  used,  which  he  calls  monograms.  In  this  I  certainly  nearly  agree  with  him, 
because  the  nail-headed  monogram  I  would  stand  for  one,  and  V  for  five,  and  X  for  two  fives. 
But  it  seems  to  me  to  be  probable  that  after  man  made  these  signs  for  the  ideas  of  numbers,  he 
next  made  use  of  similar  signs  to  express  other  ideas.  But  of  this  more  hereafter.  In  his  Dis- 
sertation on  the  Babylonian  Bricks,  he  has  shewn  with  much  learning,  and  I  think  I  may  say  with 
somewhat  more  than  a  slight  degree  of  probability,  that  most  of  the  ancient  alphabets  were  origi- 
nally formed  of  right-lined  and  nail-headed  characters,   and  in  this  respect  he  particularly  points 


1  P.  525. 

'  Thebes  in  both  countries  probably  took  its  name  from  the  word  Theba,  a  Cow,  the  female  of  the  Bull  of  the 
Zodiac.  Cadmus  or  the  oriental  person  who  built  Thebes  was  conducted  by  a  heifer,  a  virgin  of  course :  on  her  side 
was  marked  a  lunar  crescent,  emblem  of  Isis,  the  virgin  mother  of  all  nature,  whose  veil  no  mortal  ever  removed.  The 
meaning  of  this  is,  that  a  person  came  from  the  East,  under  the  auspices  of  the  female  Taurus  or  Bos  of  the  Zodiac. 
Thebes  was  also  called  the  city  of  On,  and  Amnion,  and  No,  and  Diospolis,  the  same  as  Tibet  was  called  Baaltistan. 

3  La  Loubere,  Siam.  Hist.  Part  III.  *  Ibid.  Life  of  Thevetat,  p.  145. 

5  Colebrooke,  Asiat.  Soc.  p.  550.  6  Act.  Erudit.  Jul.  1731.  7  Coll.  de  Reb.  Hib-  Vol.  V.  p.  201. 

9  Vide  Kircher's  Prodronus  Copticus,  p.  279.  9  Origines,  Vol.  I.  p.  334. 

3  p  2 


476  DIRECTION"    OF  WRITING. 

out  the  similarity  between  the  Xazari,  l  one  of  the  most  ancient  Indian  letters  said  to  have  come 
from  heaven,  -  and  the  Samaritan  letters ;  and,  as  this  opinion  cannot  be  suspected  of  being  un- 
duly influenced  by  a  wish  to  support  my  system,  which  it  so  evidently  does,  I  am  induced  to  pay 
much  attention  to  it.  It  is  clear  that  something  very  like  the  Samaritan  must  have  been  the  old 
Indian  letters  before  the  Sanscrit  was  perfected  I  think  the  tracing  of  them  to  the  simple  right- 
lined  characters  adds  to  the  probability  of  his  deductions.  He  connects  them  with  the  nails  driven 
in  the  Roman  temple,  and  in  the  Etruscan  temple  of  Xurtia,  to  mark  the  passing  years.  But 
wonderful  to  tell,  he  overlooks  the  calculi  of  the  Romans,  and  the  nail-headed  Roman  and  Etrus- 
can3 numerals,  all  which  are  evidently  so  closely  allied.  I  think  the  right-lined,  nail-headed, 
old  Xagari  and  the  Roman  or  Etruscan  and  Greek  are  not  far  from  the  same  date.  This  is  strik- 
inglv  confirmed  bv  the  Latin  words  found  in  the  Sanscrit,  or  the  Sanscrit  in  the  Latin  language. 

From  findine  so  many  Latin  words  in  the  Sanscrit,  I  am  not  surprised  at  meeting  in  the  East 
with  the  mode  of  reckoning  by  calculi.  The  Chinese  use  an  instrument  called  Abacus,  as  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  did  in  ancient  times  :  and  the  Brahmins  in  India  calculate  eclipses,  &c,  by 
means  of  little  shells  used  as  calculi,  called  cauris.  And  this  they  continue  notwithstanding  their 
skill  in  Arabian  arithmetic  and  letters.  4  Most  of  my  readers,  I  suspect,  will  here  instantly  recol- 
lect the  Cowries  of  the  Africans,  by  which  they  count,  and  which  they  use  as  money.  Here  is  the 
Indian  practice  in  Africa,  and  the  Indiau  name  also.  H  hen  did  they  come  to  Africa,  and  who 
brought  them  I 

16.  For  a  very  long  time  nothing  appeared  to  me  more  difficult  than  to  account  for  the  different 
direction  in  the  style  of  writing  by  the  nations  of  antiquity.  In  some  it  was  from  right  to  left;  in 
others,  from  left  to  right.  I  think  Dr.  Hagar  has  removed  the  difficulty.  He  has  shewn  that  it 
was  the  practice  of  most  of  the  nations  of  antiquity  and  particularly  of  the  Babylonians  aud  the 
Egyptians,  like  the  Chinese,  to  write  from  the  top  to  the  bottom.5  The  Greeks  knew  it  by  the 
name  of  Tapocon  :  and  Eustathius  informs  us,  that  they  originally  used  it.  Diodorus  Siculus 
savs,6  that  the  Ethiopians  wrote  perpendicularly  from  the  top  to  the  bottom.  Dr.  Hagar  says 
that  the  Romans  also  were  acquainted  with  it.  Of  the  Syrians  he  adds,  "  The  Syrians  still  write 
"  perpendicularly,  like  the  Babylonians,  their  ancestors.  They  turn  the  paper,  indeed,  when  they 
"  have  done,  so  as  to  read  horizontally  :  but  in  writing  they  begin  at  the  top,  and  write  straight 
'•'  down  to  the  bottom." 

A  vertical  inscription  was  found  by  Dr.  Clarke  in  Greece.  The  letters  were  formed  from  right 
to  left,  but  the  words  read  from  top  to  bottom,  as  I  understand  him. '  Now  I  think  that  if  all 
nations  originally  used  this  style,  mere  accident  is  quite  adequate  to  account  for  one  nation  turning 
their  upright  line  one  way,  and  another  another  way.  On  this  I  shall  have  much  to  say  when  I 
proceed  to  discuss  again  the  origin  of  letters. 

The  following  is  an  extract  taken  from  the  letter  of  a  literary  gentleman  in  India,  whose  name 
I  am  not  at  liberty  to  use  :  "  Of  course  you  know  how  many  Hebrew  words  are  in  the  Arabic: 
u  again,  those  verv  words  are  common  Hindostannee.  I  absolutely  use  Hebrew  words  every  day. 
"  1  do  not  know  the  alphabet  at  present,  but  shall  positively  go  the  length  of  doing  so,  at  least  as  I 
"  use  the  letters  in  my  dictionary  (he  means  the  Hind.  Diet.)  every  day,  and  without  being  able 
"  to  read  them.     (Here  follow  some  examples,  the  Arabic  of  which  I  cannot  write.)     I  could  give 


1  P.  41.  «  That  is,  its  origin  is  unknown. 

1  The  Etruscans  had  the  Roman  nail-headed  numerals.     Mr.  Kenrick. 

4   Hagar,  p.  48.  *  Diss,  on  BabyL  Bricks,  p.  5.  6  Lib.  L 

7  Trav.  Pref.  to  Vol.  VII.  ed.  8?o.  p.  aai. 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  I.    SECTION   18.  477 


ft 


you  many  more  examples,  bat  have  only  represented  some  lying  before  me,  without  knowing 
■  any  thing  of  the  alphabet."  Though  this  is  rather  confusedly  written,  here  is  what  I  might 
expect — not  the  perfected  Sanscrit  found  to  be  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic,  but — the 
the  Hindostannee,  the  vulgar  language,  one  of  the  broken  dialects  on  which  the  Sanscrit  was 
built,  identical  with  them.  But  what  is  the  learned  Professor  Hanghton  doing  at  this  moment  ? 
Printing  a  Sanscrit  and  Hindostannee  dictionary  as  one  into  Ki^fiwhj  like  Parkhurst's  Chaldee 
and  Hebrew  and  English  Lexicon. 

\~.  When  I  discuss  matters  of  this  kind  with  learned  men,  I  find  them  perpetually  raising 
objections  from  the  pronunciation  of  the  languages.  I  cannot  admit  any  such  considerations  to 
come  into  the  argument.  The  mode  of  spelling  (except  in  some  sacred  codes,  and  even  they 
change — witness  the  Keri  and  Cetib  of  the  Jews,  and  the  word  p*  an  sometimes  spelt  pK  aun, 
&c,  &c),  unfortunately,  is  too  liable  to  vary ;  but  what  is  the  pronunciation  ?  It  varies  every  year, 
between  every  two  provinces — witness  the  word  spoken  in  Stamford  Window,  and  in  Kent  Finder. 
If  any  gentleman  think  proper  to  search  for  the  fountain-head  of  language  by  the  way  of  pronun- 
ciation, I  find  no  fault — but  he  must  excuse  me  for  not  travelling  his  road.  I  will  go  mv  own,  bv 
the  written  words,  and  written  words  only.  And  when  I  have  reduced  the  different  systems  of 
letters  to  one,  which  I  think  I  have  done,  I  will  then  try  to  find  what  words  hare  roots  of  one  or  two 
consonants  common  to  all  the  written  languages ;  and  I  must  maintain  that,  if  I  find  a  word  whose 
root  is  the  same  in  all  the  systems,  it  is  a  word  of  the  primeval  language.  For  instance  Jfa  or 
Am  for  Mother  :  or  Pa,  or  Ab,  or  Ap,  for  Father.  But  though  the  pronunciation  of  words  is  so 
very  uncertain,  I  do  not  maintain  that  it  is  absolutely,  in  all  cases,  of  no  use.  It  mav  often  aid 
the  use  of  letters :  but  I  maintain  that  it  cannot  be  admitted  to  destroy  the  force  of  anv  fact  or 
consequence  elicited  by  it.  It  may  strengthen  an  argument,  but  it  cannot  overthrow  h.  Upon 
the  mischievous  absurdity  of  the  common  mode  of  rendering  words  out  of  one  language  into 
another,  Sir  W.  Drummond  has  made  some  very  pertinent  observations.  • 

My  reader  must  never  forget  (unless  all  the  learned  men  who,  without  anv  connexion  with  one 
another,  made  out  the  Western  Asiatic  and  European  systems  of  letters  to  be  sixteen  in  number 
be  not  mistaken),  that,  before  any  comparison  can  be  made  between  the  Hebrew  and  the  Imfiaw 
written  languages,  they  must  be  both  reduced,  as  far  as  possible,  to  what  they  were  before  thev 
were  changed  by  the  makers  of  the  Sanscrit  to  fifty  letters,  and  by  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
Hebrew  letters  from  sixteen  to  twenty- two.  And  when  the  very  great  change  which  hay  tAp^ 
place  in  both  these  languages  is  considered,  there  will  be  no  room  for  wonder  that  the  similarity 
of  the  languages  can  be  found  in  nothing  but  names  of  persons  and  of  places. 

18.  My  opinion  on  the  Sanscrit  has  lately  received  a  remarkable  support  in  the  statement  of  the 
learned  Mr.  Bop,  of  Berlin,  who,  in  a  review  of  a  work  of  Professor  Rosen's,  of  the  London 
University,  has  observed,  that  he  believes  there  was  a  time  when  the  difference  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. 

My  argument  chiefly  rests  upon  the  fact,  that  the  Western  letters  were  originally  only  sixteen  in 
number.  The  mode  in  which  five  or  six  very  learned  men,  without  any  connexion  with  each  other, 
made  out  the  number  to  be  sixteen,  and  the  stone  sixteen  is  evidence  of  that  fact,  of  a  much  better 
nature  than  can  ordinarily  be  expected  in  inquiries  of  this  kind.  If  they  be  all  mistaken,  it  is 
scarcelv  less  than  a  miracle. 


0%.  VoL  IV.  pp.  22>— 233.  *  Vienna,  Auab  of  lit.  VoL  SI.TT  p.  2*L 


CI 

(( 

« 
(I 

a 
a 


478  GREEK    AND    LATIN. 

19.  I  think  from  these  circumstances  we  may  almost  venture  to  reason  on  the  Ethiopian  lan- 
guage 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  of 
Q*TK  adm.     It  is  used  as  applied  to  the  race,  both  in  the  masculine  and  feminine  genders.     It  is 
usually  derived  or  explained  by  the  word  nEHX  adme  earth,  because  earth  is  of  a  red  colour.     This 
serves  to  shew  how  easily  lexicographers  can  be  satisfied  when  an  explanation  makes  for  their 
prejudices  or  interest.     The  earth  is  no  more  red  than  black  or  brown  ;  nor  is  the  man  more  red 
than  black.     The  explanation  is  absurd,  and  the  meaning  is  evidently  unknown.     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  Ko<r//,oc  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.    My  observation  is  confirmed  by  Mr.  Townsend :  "  Admah, 
"  the  name  of  a  city  in  that  beautiful  valley,  resembling  paradise,  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  chosen 
by  Lot ;  and  Adam  was  the  name  given  to  our  first  parents.     These  names  have  commonly  been 
referred  to  a  root  in  Hebrew  which  means  red,  but  this  epithet  does  not  seem  appropriate  to  a 
being  of  superior  excellence  as  beautiful,  which  corresponds  to  the  same  root  in  Ethiopic.     It  is 
worthy  of  remark,  that  Koo-^toc,  the  Greek  expression  answering  to  Adamah,  is  derived  from 
Ko<r^sfl),  I  adorn  ;  and,  in  Latin,  Mundus,  like  Munditia,  means,  not  merely  cleanliness,  but 
ornament  and  elegance." l    I  beg  my  reader  not  to  forget  the  meaning  of  Koer^tsa)  and  Mundus. 
It  will  be  wanted  by  and  by.     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  ne^i  Hohewv  on  ASocva,  tells  us,  that  Kgovoc  or  Saturn 
"  was  called  ASavoc  :  and  that  this  Adanus  was  the  son  of  heaven  and  earth,  Eg-i  8s  6  A8avo£ 
713c  xa»  a^avs  ircus  :  which  is  a  perfect  description  of  Adam's  production  by  God  out  of  our 

earth And,  indeed,  the  very  name  ASavoj  seems  to  be  the  very  same  with  mx  adm  Adam. 

For  the  Greeks  having  no  words  terminating  in  M,  for  Adam  they  pronounced  Aoav 

"  Adana,  an  ancient  city  of  Cilicia,  built  by  the  Syrians,  was  called  in  memory  of  the  first  man 
"  Adam." 2  Here  we  have  Adam  in  Greece  by  the  same  name  as  the  Adam  in  India.  It  is  a 
singular  circumstance  that  the  Greek  should  have  no  word  ending  in  M.  This  is  the  most 
mysterious  of  all  the  letters.  I  suspect  it  is  sometimes  left  out  in  languages,  and  sometimes  put 
before  words  in  some  languages,  or  inserted  in  words  in  other  languages,  for  the  same  mysterious 
reason. 

20.  When  I  consider  the  nature  of  the  Sanscrit,  as  I  learn  it  from  scholars,  it  appears  to  be, 
nearly  in  all  respects,  what  might  be  expected  of  an  artificially-formed  learned  language.  It  is  no 
where  found  to  be  a  vernacular  tongue ;  but  it  is  found  strikingly  similar  to  two  languages,  (the 
Greek  and  Latin,)  situated  at  a  very  great  distance  from  its  home  ;  in  certain  artificial  peculiarities 
which  can  on  no  account  be  attributed  to  accident ;  though  it  has  occasionally  such  affinities  to 
native  Indian  words,  as  for  one  dictionary  to  serve  both  it  and  a  native  tongue,  the  Hindos- 
tannee.  This  is  just  what  we  might  expect  if  it  were  formed  by  Brahmins  for  the  sake  of 
secrecy.  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  supposing  that  learned  Brahmins  adopted  the  Greek  and 
Latin  grammars  as  a  groundwork,  both  from  their  complete  state  and  the  distance  of  Greece  and 
Italy  from  India.  I  repeat,  that  if  it  had  ever  been  a  language  spoken  by  a  mass  of  people,  it 
must  yet  have  been  found  among  their  descendants ;  but  it  is  intimately  like  nothing  but  Latin 

1  Townsend,  Verac.  of  Moses,  p.  42  or  421.  *  Gale,  Court  Gent.  B.  ii.  Ch,  i. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER    I.   SECTION  20. 


479 


and  Greek.    No  doubt  this  scheme  has  its  difficulties,  but  the  facts  which  we  possess  leave  us 
nothing  but  a  choice  of  difficulties,  of  which  we  can  only  choose  the  least.     It  seems  the  opinion 
is  gaining  ground  that  the  Sanscrit,  the  Greek,  and  the  Latin,  have  been  all  borrowed  from  some 
lost  language.     But  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  a  written  language  should  be  quite  lost,  after  it 
had  been  brought  to  such  a  high  state  of  refinement  as  it  must  have  been,  to  have  furnished  the 
points  of  similarity  in  the  three  languages.     Where  did  this  language  live  ?     It  is  incredible  that 
such  a  language  should  have  existed,and  no  traces  of  it  be  left  ?  It  must  have  had  books  innumerable. 
I  am  every  day  more  convinced  that  the  Sanscrit  was  a  secret  language  formed  by  its  priests,  who 
had  travelled  to  the  West,  before  the  founding  of  Rome  or  the  institution  of  the  Olympiads  of 
Greece ;  but  still  after  the  time  of  Homer,— perhaps  in  the  seventh  or  eighth  century  before 
Christ,— in  the  Saturnian  times  of  Italy,  and  when  several  of  the  most  important  Indian  customs 
came  to  Thrace  and  Europe,  as  I  shall  shew,  and  when  that  language,   which  Plato  says  was  lost 
was  still  spoken  in  Greece.     When  the  Christian  Roman  Emperors   became  masters  of  Upper 
Egypt,  the  Ethiopians  were  converted  to  Christianity,  and  then  it  would  be  that  the  temples  con- 
taining such  groups  of  mystical  figures  as  that  at  Ipsambul,  described  in  Book  V.  Ch.  XI.  Sect.  6 
would  be  dismantled.     I   think  it  probable,   that  the  original  Christianity  of  Upper  Egypt  was 
correctly  the  Christianity  of  Buddha  or  Cristna.     The  Brahmins,   as  I  have  already  mentioned, 
often  tell  the  English  to  reform  their  religion,   which  they  say  is  only  corrupted  Brahmanism.     If 
we  do  not  discover  many  remains  of  it  except   the   style  of  writing,  and  the  other  example's  of 
identity  in  the  two  languages  pointed  out  by  Sir  W.  Jones,  &c,   we  need  not  be  surprised.     We 
must  not  forget  that  the  country  was  for  many  hundred  years  in  the  hands   of  a  ruling  power, 
whose  exertions  to  secrete  truth  never  ceased,  and  whose  successors  in  India  and  England  still 
continue  the  practice  to  the  utmost  of  their  power.     Their  studied  concealment  of  the  contents  of 
the  temple  of  Bal-iji,  at  Punderpoor,  proves  the  fact  past  contradiction.     They  may  abuse  me  for 
illiberally  if  they  please  :  belief  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  but  necessity,  and  I  feel  obliged   to 
believe  that  they  have  not  noticed  the  contents  of  the  temple,   because  they  knew  it  would  let  out 
some  unpleasant  truths.     Why  was  Mr.  Moore  tampered  with  to  suppress  it  ? 

In  Book  V.  Ch.  IV.  Sect.  11, 1  have  made  a  reflection  upon  our  orientalists  of  Calcutta,  which  will 
be  scouted  for  its  illiberality.    Since  I  printed  that  passage,  I  have  discovered  the  following  speech 
by  Sir  William  Jones,  their  great  Aleim  :  «  The  two  engravings  in  Giorgi's   book,  from  Sketches 
•  by  a  Tibetian  painter,    exhibit  a  system  of  Egyptian  and  Indian   Mythology :  and  a  complete 
«  explanation  of  them  would  have  done  the  learned  author  more  credit  than  his  fanciful  etymo- 
"  logies,  which  are  always  ridiculous,  and  often  grossly  erroneous."  >      This  refers  to  my  figures 
in  the  plates,  number  14.     Georgius  did  not  give  an  explanation  because  he  could  not  give  it 
not  understanding  it.     But  he  did  not  suppress,  but  published  the  fact,  which  Sir  W   Jones    to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  suppressed.    He  then  censured  the  Jesuit  for  his  candour  in  having  printed 
it.     It  is  an  exact  counterpart  to  his  disgraceful  misrepresentation  of  the  great  Bailley  2     He  was 
hot  angry  because  the  Jesuit  did  not  explain  it,  but  because  he  published  it,  which  was  done  with 
;he  consent  and  approbation  of  the  Roman  See,  as  witnessed  by  its   imprimatur.     I  am  ashamed 
•or  my  country  when   I   am  obliged  to  say,  that  when  Sir  W.   Jones  made  the  observation  or 
accounted  for  the  events  in  the  life  of  Cristna,  (related  in  Book  IV.,)    by  their  being  copied  from 
Vpocryphal  Gospels,  he  knew  and  concealed  the  fact  of  the  crucifixion  in  Nepaul.    Thus  he  stands 
convicted  of  a  pious  fraud.     We  need  go  no  farther  now  for  the  cause  of  his  having  been  bespat- 
ered  with  praises  by  the  priests. 


>  Disc,  on  Mount,  of  Asia,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  II,  ed.  8vo.  *  Vide  Celtic  Druids,  p.  45. 


480  GREEK   AND   LATIN. 

I  entertain  a  strong  suspicion,  that  figures  and  arithmetic,  as  well  as  writing,  were  for  many 
generations  confined  to  the  order  of  priests;  that  they  were  considered  to  be  magical  or  judicial 
astrology;  and  that,  after  they  became  commonly  known,  Hieroglyphics  were  invented  to 
supply  their  place.  When  the  priests  could  no  longer  conceal  the  art  of  writing,  which  most 
likely  came  to  be  known  in  the  struggles  and  desperate  wars  for  empire  between  the  swordsmen 
and  the  gownsmen  in  the  East,  various  contrivances  were  resorted  to. 

Actuated  by  the  same  selfish  desire  of  retaining  in  their  own  hands  the  Key  of  Knowledge,  as  I 
before  stated,  the  Jews  yet  keep  a  solemn  fast,  on  the  day  on  which  they  believe  the  LXX  trans- 
lation was  finished.1  This  is  as  a  penance  for  their  great  national  sin  in  having  permitted  it  to 
be  translated  by  Ptolemy,  and  thereby  made  public.  This  is  the  last  proof  which  we  possess, 
and  a  decisive  proof  it  is,  of  sacred  writings  concealed,  and  also  of  their  forced  exposure.  In  this 
system  of  Masonic  secrecy  we  have  the  reason  why,  on  the  Cyclopean  or  Druidical  buildings,  there 
is  no  inscription,  although  the  cycles,  &c,  which  they  exhibit,  most  clearly  prove  the  profound 
astronomical  learning  of  their  founders. 

I  must  now  make  one  more  observation  on  the  antiquity  of  the  language  of  the  tribe  of  Abraham. 
Whether  or  not  their  sixteen-letter  system  were  that  of  the  Samaritan  or  Synagogue  Hebrew, 
(Chaldee,)  it  must  be  very  ancient.     It  must  have  come  from  India  before  the  Sanscrit  was  increased 
to  fifty  letters.    It  is  the  most  simple  of  all  the  languages  with  which  we  are  acquainted.    I  contend 
that  it  betrays,  as  I  have  stated,  in  its  construction,  the  most  unequivocal  signs  of  almost  primeval 
simplicity,  and  evident  proofs  of  formation  by  degrees,  as  we  should  say  in  a  great  measure  a* 
cidentally,  without  any  preconcerted  plan.     Our  learned  men  have  endeavoured  to  reduce  it  to 
system,  but,  in  fact,  almost  in  vain.     Among  other  things  they  have  divided  the  letters  of  the 
Synagogue  Hebrew  into  radical  and  servile,  making  of  the  latter,  which  ought  never  to  form  a  root, 
eleven  in  number.     But  this  is  merely  an  imaginary  and  arbitrary,  and  indeed  unfounded,  divi- 
sion or  rule,  as  it  is  clogged  with  great  numbers  of  exceptions.     I  am  satisfied,  however,  that  no- 
thing like  a  rule  can  be  formed,  nor  is  it  likely,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that  it  should.    We 
may  be  very  certain  that  neither  the  tribe  of  Abraham  nor  any  other  nation  would  increase  its 
number  of  letters  until  it  found  it  wanted  them  ;  and  when  it  did  add  more  letters,  we  may  be  very 
certain  that  it  would  instantly  use  them.     The  language  must  have  deviated  from  its  first  simpli- 
city, in  the  method  of  speaking  words,  which  made  those  who  used  it  feel  a  want  of  new  letters. 
If  they  had  not  wanted  new  sounds  and  letters  representing  them,  the  number  sixteen  would  have 
been  abundantly  sufficient ;  but  they  must  have  formed  words  or  sounds  for  the  representation  of 
which  they  must  have  imagined  that  the  old  letters  were  inconvenient  or  inadequate.     Learned 
men  fall  into  a  great  mistake  in  supposing  that  written  language  was  the  produce  of  profound 
learning :  it  was,  on  the  contrary,  generally  the  produce  of  ignorance  and  of  the  necessities  of, 
comparatively  speaking,  unlearned  and  uncivilized  man,  and,  probably,  as  I  have  said  in  my  Preli- 
minary Observations,  must  have  consisted,  at  first,  of  right  lines.     Of  this  more  hereafter.     I  beg 
it  may  be  understood  that  I  by  no  means  wish  to  throw  any  impediment  in  the  way  of  philosophi- 
cal inquiries  into  the  origin  of  language  or  letters ;  but  I  do  most  unequivocally  protest  against 
the  assumption,  in  the  first  instance,  that  language  is  the  produce  of  philosophy,  or  indeed  even  ot 
system.     Letters  are  like  language,  the  offspring  of  circumstance,  not  of  system  ;  and  grammar  is 
an  attempt  to  reduce  them  both  to  system.     To  this  the  perfected  or  the  comparatively  speaking 
modern  Sanscrit  is,  of  course,  an  exception.     The  existence  of  Sanscrit  words,  in  the  languages  of 
the  nations  West  of  the  Euphrates,  although  those  nations  have  not  the  Sanscrit  number  of  letters, 
shews  that  an  old  language  must  have  existed  common  to  them  all  before  the  Sanscrit  was  per- 


1  Hale's  Chron.  Vol.  I.  p.  73. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  21.  481 

fected.     It  goes  to  prove  that  all  the  nations  had  at  first  a  sixteen-letter  system  ;  the  Ioudi  and 
Hellenes  increased  them  to  twenty-two,  and  other  or  later  orientals  to  fifty. 

The  Buddhists  in  Upper  India  have  their  sacred  books  in  the  Bali  or  Pali,  by  which  I  mean  the 
Pracrit  language,  and  for  the  better  understanding  of  it  they  interline  it  with  the  Sanscrit  as  an  ex- 
planation. l  This  is  something  similar  to  the  old  practice  of  the  Jews  in  their  synagogue,  who  read 
their  Pentateuch  Hebrew  a  verse  in  the  original,  then  the  same  verse  in  the  Chaldee,  alternately, 
for  the  use  of  the  people  to  whom  the  old  language  was  obsolete.  This  tends  to  prove  the  Sans- 
crit in  Upper  India,  i.  e.  Me  war,  new. 

21.  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  very  trifling- 
exception,  not  fewer  will  ever  after  be  used.     From  this  it  follows,  that  the  Sanscrit  words  and 
forms  of  construction,  which  are  both  in  the  Greek  and  the  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 
Cadmaean  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  Cadmaean  system.     I  very  much  suspect 
that  almost  all  the  languages  of  India,   Sanscrit  excepted,   are  now  of  the  nature  of  a  Lingua 
Franca.     India  is  in  language  very  much  like  Europe.     Each  of  the  two  is  a  little  world  to  itself; 
every  province  or  kingdom  of  which  has  a  separate  and  distinct  language,  and,  in  writing,  though 
not  in  printing,  also  a  separate  and  distinct  letter;  but  all  having,  from  intermixture  by  conquests 
and  other  causes,  a  great  intermixture  of  words ;  and  all  having  a  close  connexion  with  the  dead 
language  of  its  learned  men  and  priests — the  Sanscrit.    The  Latin  is  now  to  Europe  what  the  Sans- 
crit is  to  India ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  art  of  printing,  the  forms  of  letters  in  Europe  would  be 
just  as  various  as  the  languages.     The  letters  in  unprinted  languages  vary  as  often  as  the  hand- 
writing of  individuals.     The  art  of  printing  has  given  a  degree  of  fixedness  to  letters  unknown  in 
ancient  times,  and  still  unknown  in  oriental  countries.     Although  I  dissent  from  much  of  what  I 
find  in  Col.  Van  Kennedy's  book,  I  quite  agree  with  him,  that  he  has  proved  the  absolute  uncer- 
tainty of  the  translations  of  the  ancient  oriental  manuscripts  and  medals.     We  must  always  recol- 
lect that  when  an  oriental  professor  claims  to  give  us  a  translation,  we  have,  in  many  cases,  no 
means  of  judging  either  of  his  honesty  or  of  his  capacity  for  what  he  undertakes  :  whatever  he  tells 
us  we  take  and  must  take.     I  mean  by  this  no  reflection  on  oriental  scholars,  farther  than  to  place 
them  pretty  much  on  the  same  footing  with  translators  of  the  Bible  ;  only  that  their  translations  of 
medals  and  manuscripts  may  and  ought,  in  most  cases,  to  be  considered  somewhat  more  doubtful, 
as  we  have  seldom  the  means  of  correcting  them.    A  pretty  good  example  is  afforded  in  the  trans- 
lation of  Ferishta,  by  Dow.     My  friend  Col.  Briggs  declares  that  it  bears  not  the  most  distant 
resemblance  to  the  original :  then  which  of  these  two  translations  are  we  to  believe  ?     The  answer 
cannot  be  doubtful  when  all  the  circumstances  of  the  two  are  considered.     Again,  Mr.  Colebroke 
declares  that  the  translation  of  another  work,  made  by  one  of  the  missionaries,  has  no  similarity 
to  the  original.      Here  again  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  to  which  of  the  two  the  credit  is  due. 
Oriental  scholars  are  not  entitled  to  claim  exemption  from  human  frailties,  any  more  than  Hebrew 
translators.     They  are  equally  liable  to  make  mistakes ;  and,  what  is  much  more  to  be  dreaded,  to 
be  influenced  by  religious  prejudice.     Of  the  latter,  Van  Kennedy  is  no  bad  example :  for  though 


1  Col.  Tod's  Hist. 
3  Q 


482 


MARQUIS    SPINETO. 


his  work  is  full  of  useful  information  and  sound  observation,  yet  a  religious  motive  is  evidently  al 
the  bottom  of  it,  and  throws  a  shade  over  it. 

22.  The  result  of  all  my  inquiries  respecting  the  Sanscrit  is,  that  I  conclude  it  was  invented  in 
the  kingdom  of  Oude  or  Iouda  or  Youdia,  in  North  India,  by  a  people  speaking  a  language,  the 
words  of  which  were  nearly  Hebrew  or  Chaldee,  perhaps  improved  by  the  addition  of  the  vowels 
to  the  syllables,  making  it  nearly  African  Ethiopic,  and  being  in  fact  an  improved  Syriac,  and 
Pushto,  or  the  first  Tamul ;  that  the  letter  of  this  people  was  nearly  the  oldest  Samaritan,  and 
that  it  was  the  produce  of  a  great  number  of  years,  and  brought  to  its  last  perfection  about  the 
time  of  Alexander  by  Brahmins  returning  to  India  from  the  West;  that  its  letters,  the  Deva- 
nagari,  were  formed  on  the  Samaritan,  and  the  language  modelled  on  the  Latin  and  Greek;  that 
it  was  invented  after  the  composing,  perhaps  after  the  committal  to  writing,  of  the  Poems  of 
Homer;  and  that  its  object  was  to  secrete  the  learning  and  elevate  its  owners  above  the  people, 
perhaps  above  the  princes  of  their  country.  When  I  come  to  that  part  of  my  work  where  I  shall 
explain  the  origin  of  letters  and  of  the  language  of  ciphers,  which  was  the  first  written  language,  I 
shall  return  to  the  subject  of  the  Sanscrit,  and  shall  support  what  I  have  said  above  by  some 
additional  observations  and  circumstances. 


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    MONUMENTS. — 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.      DENDERA. 

Before  I  proceed  to  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  I  shall  submit  to  my  reader  a  few  observations 
upon  the  far-famed  discoveries,  as  they  are  called,  by  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion. 

1.  Some  time  ago  a  learned  foreigner,  the  Marquis  Spineto,  gave  a  course  of  lectures  at  Cam- 
bridge, on  the  discoveries  of  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion,  which  he  has  since  puhlished,  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,1 

1  Page  95- 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  3.  483 

says  he  thinks  that  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. 

2.  After  having  inquired  with  great  care  and  attention  into  the  discoveries  believed  to  have  been 
made  of  the  meaning  and  history  of  the  Hieroglyphics  of  Egypt,  by  Messrs.  Young  and  Cham- 
pollion, I  have  found  nothing  which  satisfies  me  respecting  either  their  great  antiquity  or  their 
priority  to  the  art  of  alphabetic  writing.     I  still  continue  convinced  that  the  knowledge  of  letters 
preceded  the  invention  of  hieroglyphics.     But  I  see  no  reason  whatever  for  maintaining  that  the 
same  process  should  have  taken  place  in  the  invention  of  them,  both  in  the  old  and  the  new  world. 
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.     But  before  I  proceed,  I  must  beg 
my  reader  to  recall  to  mind  what  I  have  said  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Preliminary  Observations, 
and  the  proofs  I  have  there  produced,  that  the  Pyramids  preceded  the  invention  of  Hieroglyphics. , 
It  has  been  maintained,  and  is  demanded  by  many  of  the  learned  to  be  admitted,  as  a  postula- 
tum,  that  in  every  country  the  first  attempts  towards  writing  consisted  in  a  rude  delineation  of 
material  or  physical  objects.     Now  this  I  cannot  allow :  and  I  call  for  proof  of  the  assertion.     I 
maintain  that  there  is   not  only  no  evidence  in  its  support,  but  I  am  quite  certain  that  there  is 
much  evidence  of  the  direct  contrary.     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. 
The  idea  that  the  Egyptians  should  invent  and  use  the  complicated  system  on  their  monuments, 
when  they  knew  the  more  simple  system  now  practised,  has  been  turned  into  ridicule.   But  the  same 
arguments  apply  against  their  continued  use  of  the  complicated  system  to  the  time  of  the  Anto- 
nines  as  to  their  first  adoption  of  them,  if  they  did  so  long  use  them.     The  argument  will  prove 
that  they  had  not  the  use  of  alphabetic  writing  in  the  time  of  the  Antonines.     I  take  up  the  argu- 
ment and  say,  It  is  proved  by  Messrs.  Young  and  Co.,  that  hieroglyphics  were  in  use  in  the  times  of 
the  Roman  Emperors  :  this,  therefore,  is  a  clear  proof  that  the  Romans  as  well  as  Egyptians  were 
ignorant  of  the  use  of  alphabetic  writing,  q.  e.  d.     This  is  a  fair  and  conclusive  argument  against 
Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion.     But  irony  apart,  I  must  say  I  can  see  no  other  way  of  account 
ing  for  the  continuance  of  this  system,  if  it  did  continue,  to  the  time  of  the  Romans,  than  a  wish 
for  concealment  from  the  vulgar.     What  else  could  induce  them  to  continue  this  most  complicated 
system,  when  they  might  have  used  the  beautiful  Greek  letters,  well  known  and  always  common 
in  Egypt  after  the  time  of  Alexander,  nearly  four  hundred  years  before  Christ  ?     For  my  theory, 
viz.  that  they  were  used  for  concealment,  I  shew  a  plausible  reason  in  addition  to  the  support  of 
historical  evidence  ;  but  the  opponents  of  my  opinion  can  give  no  reason  for  theirs.     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. 

3.  It  is  said  by  a  very  able  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  who  is  considered  the  great  advo- 
cate of  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion's  discovery,  "That  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions,  executed 
'  so  late  as  the  reign  of  Antoninus,  are  read  into  the  very  same  language  as  those  which  belong  to 
'  the  age  of  Sesostris.  Nor  is  this  at  all  remarkable  or  extraordinary  :  for  in  the  East,  language, 
"  like  every  thing  else,  is  immutable."  Immutable  in  the  East !  Good  God  !  immutabre  ! 
Yet  there  are  hundreds  of  different  languages,  hundreds  of  sects,  the  highest  refinement  and  skill 
in  manufactures  of  all  kinds,  which  must  have  been  brought  to  perfection  by  degrees,  great 
changes  in  Religions,  and  accounts  of  unceasing  revolutions  in  governments  !     But  in  the  state 

3q2 


484 


EDINBURGH    REVIEW    ON    CHANGE    OF    LANGUAGE. 


they  now  are,  they  must  have  heen  created  thousands  of  years  ago,  for  nothing  changes  in  the 
East !  Every  thing  is  as  it  was  originally  created  !  All  is  immutable  !  This  seems  very  extra- 
ordinary. I  know  no  spoken  language  which  has  not  greatly  changed,  except  the  sacred  language 
of  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  sacred  artificial  language  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Sanscrit, — and  even  they 
have  not  been  entirely  exempt  from  the  law  to  which  every  thing  in  this  sublunary  world,  and 
probably  in  the  whole  creation,  is  subject.  Every  constantly -used  language,  like  every  thing  else, 
has  changed  and  always  will  change,  and  that  greatly  in  long  periods  ;  and  one  of  the  most  sus- 
picious circumstances  which  I  know  of,  relating  to  this  subject  is,  that  the  hieroglyphics  of  the  time 
attributed  to  Sesostris  should  be  capable  of  being  read  into  the  Coptic  of  the  time  of  Antoninus, — 
the  Coptic  not  being  a  sacred  or  secret,  but  a  commonly-spoken,  language.  Notwithstanding  the 
ingenuity  displayed  by  Messrs.  Young  and  Co.,  and  the  apparent  reasonableness  of  their  argu- 
ments, this  simple  fact  seems  to  me  to  be  so  contrary  to  all  experience  and  to  all  probability  as  to 
cast  a  shade  of  suspicion  over  their  whole  system  in  the  very  outset.  It  is  quite  impossible  not 
to  believe,  that  the  Coptic,  admitted  to  have  been  the  commonly-spoken  language  of  the  country, 
(passing  through  the  times  of  the  Ethiopians,  the  Shepherd  Kings,  the  Israelites,  the  Persians, 
the  Greeks,  in  the  whole  for  more  than  two  thousand  years,)  must  have  so  changed  as  to 
render  it  impracticable  to  read  the  symbolic  or  hieroglyphic  writing  of  the  Coptic  language  of  Se- 
sostris into  the  Coptic  of  Antoninus.  x 

My  opinion  upon  this  point  is  fully  confirmed  by  an  observation  of  Dr.  Young's,  in  one  of  his 
letters:1  "In  the  four  or  five  hundred  years  which  elapsed  between  the  date  of  the  inscription 
"  and  that  of  the  oldest  Coptic  books  extant,  the  language  appears  to  have  changed  much  more 
"  than  those  of  Greece  and  Italy  have  changed  in  two  thousand."  Again  he  says,  "The  Egyp- 
"  tian  language  must  have  varied  considerably  in  the  time  which  elapsed  between  the  publication 
"  of  the  decree,  and  the  date  of  the  earliest  Coptic  works  which  we  possess."2 

I  think  no  one  will  deny  that  the  Egyptian  system,  as  explained  by  Messrs.  Young  and  Cham- 
pollion,  is  one  of  extreme  complication  ;  and  for  this  reason,  if  they  be  right,  among  all  the  others 
which  I  shall  give,  I  think  it  probable  that  it  was  a  secret  system.  This  is  nothing  against  their 
theories,  and  agrees  with  mine,  the  reasoning  on  which,  I  feel  confident  that  they  cannot  refute. 
If  their  theory  be  admitted,  they  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  making  out  the  names  of  some  of  the 
kings;  but  I  yet  fear,  even  with  the  above  admission,  which  I  make  only  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that,  in  whole  sentences,  from  the  great  number  of  the  Phonetic  characters,  their  explanations 
cannot  be  depended  on. 

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  to  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. 

4.  Respecting  the  change  in  the  Coptic  language,  I  consider  what  I  have  stated  to  constitute  a 
very  formidable  objection  ;  but  there  is  one  much  more  formidable  in  the  fact  that  Strabo,  one  of 
the  most  respectable  of  the  ancient  Greek  authors,  believed  their  meaning  to  be  lost. 

Strabo3  expressly  says,  that  the  Egyptians  were  mere  sacrificers,  without  any  knowledge  of 
their  ancient  philosophy  and  religion.     Mr.  Payne  Knight,  in  his  essay  on  Symbolical  Language, 


'  Mus.  Crit.  Cambridge,  No.  VI.  p.  172. 


Ibid.  p.  182. 


3  Lib.  xvii. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAPTER    II.    SECTION   4.  485 

after  making  some  observations  on  the  above-cited  passage,  gives  a  number  of  striking  reasons  to 
prove  that  the  meaning  of  their  hieroglyphics  was  lost  by  the  Egyptians  in  the  time  of  Strabo,  as 
well  as  that  of  their  religion. 1  Mr.  Knight  observes,  that  "  in  Egypt,  probably  as  in  other 
"  countries,  zeal  and  knowledge  subsisted  in  inverse  proportions  to  one  another."  The  obser- 
vation is  very  severe,  but,  alas  !  too  true.  I  believe  that  Diodorus  Siculus  may  be  ranked  with 
Strabo. 

It  has  been  replied  to  me,  that  Strabo  and  Diodorus  do  not  say  the  meaning  of  the  hieroglyphics 
was  unknown.  This  is  true  :  but  it  is  as  clear  as  the  sun  that  they  were  unknown  to  the  former, 
and  that  he  thought  them  lost.  Can  it  be  believed  that,  if  they  had  known  the  meaning  of  them,  and 
if  they  had  contained  accounts  of  the  mythology  or  history,  they  would  not  have  quoted  them  ?  If 
they  had  been  historical,  they  must,  in  some  measure,  have  been  mythological:  and  when  Diodorus 
was  professing  to  describe  the  mythology,  and  censuring  his  predecessors  for  declining  to  describe 
it  on  account  of  its  difficulty,2  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  he  would  not  in  some  way  have 
referred  to  them.  As  they  were  always  supposed  to  contain  the  history,  if  they  had  really  con- 
tained it,  these  authors  must  have  told  us  the  particulars  of  it.  There  are  two  things  which 
appear  irreconcileable— the  plausible  accounts  of  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion,  and  the  igno- 
rance of  the  historians  at  the  very  time  that  the  Roman  Emperors  and  Ptolemies  are  alleged  by 
Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion  to  have  been  using  them. 

If  the  passage  of  Diodorus  were  taken  by  itself,  it  would  certainly  be  against  me :  but  when  it 
is  considered  in  connexion  with  the  other  circumstances,  I  think  it  will  amount  to  nothing  more 
than  the  idle  boast  of  the  priests,  unwilling  to  admit  their  ignorance  to  the  inquisitive  Greek ;  and 
it  most  clearly  proves  that  he  did  not  understand  these  letters,  said  to  be  applicable  to  the  purposes 
of  common  life,  and  that  the  priests  did  not  explain  them  to  him.  But  the  following  is  the  passage 
taken  from  Booth's  translation.     Every  one  must  judge  for  himself. 

"  But  lest  we  should  omit  things  that  are  ancient  and  remarkable,  it  is  fit  something  should  be 
a  said  of  the  Ethiopic  characters,  and  of  those  which  the  Egyptians  call  Hieroglyphics. 

"The  Ethiopic  letters  represent  the  shapes  of  divers  beasts,  parts  and  members  of  men's 
"  bodies,  and  artificers'  tools  and  instruments.  For,  by  their  writing,  they  do  not  express  any 
"  thing  by  composition  of  syllables,  but  by  the  signification  of  images  and  representations,  the 
<  meaning  of  them  being  engraven  and  fixed  in  the  memory  by  use  and  exercise.  For  sometimes 
'  they  draw  the  shape  of  a  kite,  crocodile,  or  serpent ;  sometimes  the  members  of  a  man's  body, 
"  as  the  eye,  the  hand,  the  face,  and  such  like.  The  kite  signifies  all  things  that  are  quickly  dis- 
patched j  because  this  bird  flies  the  swiftest  almost  of  any  other.  For  reason  presently  applies 
it  by  a  suitable  interpretation  to  every  thing  that  is  sudden  and  quick,  or  of  such  nature,  as  per- 
:c  fectly  as  if  they  had  been  spoken.  The  crocodile  is  the  emblem  of  malice  :  the  eye  the  preserver 
:<  of  justice,  and  the  guard  of  the  body.  Amongst  the  members  of  the  body,  the  right  hand,  with 
:<  open  fingers,  signifies  plenty ;  the  left,  with  the  fingers  close,  preservation  and  custody  of  men's 
;'  goods  and  estates. 

'  The  same  way  of  reasoning  extends  to  all  other  parts  of  the  body,  and  the  forms  of  tools  and 
1  all  other  things  ;  for  being  that  they  diligently  pry  into  the  hidden  signification  of  every  thing, 
'  and  have  their  minds  and  memories  daily  employed  with  continual  exercise,  they  exactly  read 
1  and  understand  every  thing  couched  within  the  Hieroglyphics."     Lib.  iii.  cap.  1. 

The  silence  of  the  Marquis  Spineto  respecting  the  passages  of  Strabo  and  Diodorus, 3   seems  to 
hew  a  consciousness  on  his  part  that  they  contained  nothing  in  his  favour. 


a 


u 


Vide  Sect.  64-66.  *  Vide  Preface.  3  See  p.  9,  Preface. 


486  NAMES    OF   THE   PTOLEMIES    AND    ROMAN   EMPERORS   ON    MONUMENTS. 

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. 

5.  According  to  M.  Champollion,  we  have  not  only  the  names  of  the  Ptolemies  and  their  wives 
on  the  public  monuments,  but  we  have  the  names  of  Roman  Emperors,  to  a  date  long  after  the 
time  of  Strabo  and  Diodorus, — and  those  names,  in  some  instances,  in  such  situations  on  them, 
that  there  is  no  room  whatever  for  suspecting  that  they  have  been  engraved  upon  old  names 
erased,  or  on  buildings  renewed.  The  fact  of  these  names  being  found,  by  M.  Champollion's 
process,  will  of  itself  prove  that  his  plan  will  enable  him,  as  I  suspected,  to  make  the  hieroglyphics 
speak  just  what  he  pleases. 

If  the  names  of  the  Ptolemies,  Cleopatra,  the  Roman  Emperors,  &c,  are  now  to  be  found  upon 
the  buildings,  obelisks,  &c.  in  Hieroglyphics,  it  is  very  certain  that  in  their  time  they  must  have 
been  understood,  and  of  course  they  could  not  have  been  lost  in  the  time  of  Strabo  and  Diodorus. 
But  upon  this  subject  what  says  the  very  able  writer,  and  friend  of  the  discovery,  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Review?  He  shall  speak  for  himself :  "The  fact  undoubtedly  is,  that  the  classical  writers 
"  supply  us  with  only  a  few  vague  and  general  notices,  which,  but  for  recent  discoveries,  would 
"  be  nearly  unintelligible :  while  they  at  once  aggravate  and  apologize  for  their  ignorance  by 
"  asserting,  that,  as  Egypt  was  the  parent  of  art  and  science,  so  the  Hieroglyphical  inscriptions 
u  on  its  public  monuments  contain  a  summary  of  the  most  important  mysteries  of  nature,  and 
"  the  most  sublime  inventions  of  man,  but  that  the  interpretation  of  these  characters  had  been  so 
"  studiously  concealed  by  the  priests  from  the  knowledge  of  the  vulgar,  and  had  indeed  been  so 
"  imperfectly  understood  even  by  themselves,  that  it  was  soon  wholly  lost  and  forgotten."1 
Nothing  can  be  more  true  than  the  account  of  this  learned  Reviewer.  But  why  afterward  deny 
that  the  Hieroglyphics  were  a  sacred  system  ?  I  willingly  end  the  argument  by  saying,  let  us 
substitute  for  sacred,  the  Reviewer's  own  word,  concealed  or  secret.  I  want  no  more.  It  was 
for  the  sake  of  this  secrecy  or  concealment  that  they  were  invented,  and  were  continued  long, 
very  long,  after  the  invention  of  alphabetic  writing,  and  by  no  other  means  can  their  continuance 
be  accounted  for. 

How  can  any  one  read  the  extract  above  from  the  Review,  and  not  see,  if  it  be  true,  that  all  the 
classical  writers,  many  of  them  in  the  time,  and  in  the  confidence,  of  the  masters  of  Egypt,  the 
Roman  Emperors,  and  consequently  the  Emperors  themselves  initiated  in  the  mysteries,  believed 
the  knowledge  of  the  Hieroglyphics  to  be  lost  ? — a  fact  admitted  even  by  the  Reviewer.  How  is 
it  possible  to  believe  that  they  were  all  deceived  ?  If  it  were  lost,  it  is  pretty  much  the  same  as 
if  it  were  concealed.  How  is  the  opinion  of  the  classic  writers  given  above  to  be  reconciled  with 
what  the  Reviewer  says,  that  the  Hieroglyphics  constituted  a  real  written  language  applicable  to 
the  purposes  of  history  and  common  life  ? 2  —  and  this  written  language  unknown  to  such  an 
inquirer  as  Strabo — a  man  professing  to  give  the  best  information  respecting  them  which  he  could 
collect !  But  I  shall  be  told  that  we  have  the  authority  of  a  father  of  the  church,  Clemens 
Alexandrinus,  who  tells  us  what  they  were.  Yes,  indeed,  and  in  such  language,  so  clear,  that  no 
two  translators  have  yet  been  able  to  agree  in  opinion   as  to  his  meaning.     For  my  own  part,  I 


Edin.  Rev.  No.  LXXXIX.  p.  9S.  s  P.  107. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAP.    II.    SECT.   7«  487 

believe  he  had  no  clear  idea,  but  merely  expressed  an  opinion, — in  fact  a  suspicion,  of  the  nature 
of  the  system,  properly  called  Hieroglyphical. 

6.  The  following  is  the  translation  of  the  passage  of  Clemens, !    given  by  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  : 2   "  The  pupils  who  were  instructed  by  the  Egyptians  first  learned  the  order  and  the 
"  arrangement  of  the  Egyptian  letters,  which  is  called  epistolography ,  that  is,  the  manner  of 
"  writing  letters  ;    next  the   sacred  character  which  the   sacred  scribes    employed  j    lastly,   the 
"  Hieroglyphic  character,  one  part  of  which  is  expressed  by  the  first  elements,   and  is  called 
"  cyriologic,  that  is  capital,  and  the  other  symbolic.     Of  the  symbolic  kind,  one  part  explains 
"  properly  by  imitation  ;  and  the  other  is  written  tropically,  that  is,  in  tropes  and  figures  ;  and  a 
"  third  by  certain  enigmatical  expressions.     Accordingly,  when  we  intend  to  write  the  word  sun 
"  we  describe  a  circle  ;  and  when  the  moon  the  figure  of  that  planet  appearing  horned,  conformable 
"  to  the  appearance  of  that  luminary  after  the  change."     From  an  attentive  consideration  of  the 
above  passage,  it  must  be  allowed  that  it  conveys  no  reason  whatever  to  believe,  that  the  Hiero- 
glyphics were  understood  in  the  time  of  Clemens  either  by  him  or  by  any  one  else.     In  reply  to 
this  it  will  be  said,  But  we  know  that  they  were  not  lost  in  the  time  of  the  Ptolemies,  because  we 
have  the  Rosetta  stone  in  three  languages.     This  appears  at  first  sight  a  very  fair  and  plausible 
argument — an  argument  very  difficult  to  answer,  and  a  fact   very  difficult   to  reconcile  to  the 
unanimous  admission  of  the  classical  writers,   that  they  were  no  longer  known.     For,   how  is  it 
possible  to  believe,  that  all  these  writers  should  be  ignorant  that  in  their  time,  it  was  the  practice 
to  write  inscriptions  on  stones  in  Hieroglyphics,  accompanied  by  translations  into  the  Coptic  and 
Greek  languages  ? 

But  when  they  were  inquiring  into  the  meaning  of  the  Hieroglyphics,  why  did  they  not  go  to 
;he  triple  inscription  for  information  ? 

When  the  Egyptians  made  the  inscription  in  Greek  and  Coptic,  what  could  be  the  object  of 
asing  also  the  secret  letter  ?  Was  it  to  inform  the  priests  ignorant  of  Coptic  or  Greek  ;  or,  was 
t  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  ?  It  may  be  said,  that 
hough  it  seems  foolish  enough  to  use  three  languages,  yet  this  kind  of  folly  is  very 
ommon.  I  grant  that  the  argument  seems  good,  for  we  can  scarcely  ever  give  man  credit  for  too 
mch  folly,  or  for  too  little  wisdom. 

I  contend  that  the  Hieroglyphics  were   a  system  made  complicated,  as  M.  Champollion  has 

iescribed  them,  if  they  be  so  complicated,  for  the  express  purpose  of  preventing  their  discovery  ; 

nd  I  contend,  also,  that  this  removes  all  the  difficulties  of  their  history,  and  renders  every  part  of 

consistent  with  all  the  historical  accounts,  with  experience,  and  with  my  theory. 

7.  I  pretend  not  to  fix  the   year  of  the  Jewish  Exod;   but  I  believe  in  that  Exod,  and  that 

ieroglyphics  were  invented   after   it.     The   conquests   of  Joshua,   I  contend,  are   decisively 

ioved  by  a  species  of  evidence  which  no  philosopher  can  deny,  in  the  sixth  chapter  and  thirtieth 

ction,  and  the  note  upon  it,  in  the  last  page  of  the  Appendix  to  my  Celtic  Druids  ;  not  by 

e  evidence  of  lying  priests,   but  by  circumstance  and  the  evidence  of  an  unwilling  witness  j  and 

lis  pretty  well  carries  with  it  proof  of  the  Exod  of  Moses.     From  the  Hieroglyphics  being  no 

here  noticed  in  the  Pentateuch,  there  arises  a  probability,  (but  not  a  proof,  I  admit,)  that  they  were 

known  when  the  Israelites  left  Egypt.     But  even  if  they  were  known  in  the  time  of  Moses,  my 

incipal  argument  is  not  affected  thereby.     I  suppose  that  the  Pyramids  were  not  inscribed  with 

e  names  of  their  builders,   because    (notwithstanding  the  idle  stories  told  to  Herodotus)  they 


I 


8  Strom.  Lib.  v.  2  Art.  Philology,  Sect.  72. 


488  AN    OBSERVATION    OF    MR.    SALT'S. 

were,  with  their  history,  unknown ;  therefore,  upon  them,  there  are  no  hieroglyphics.  If  there 
be  upon  the  buildings  the  names  of  kings  who  lived  thousands  of  years  before  the  time  of  Moses, 
this  does  not  invalidate  my  argument.  Nothing  is  more  likely  or  natural  than  that  when  the 
priests  invented  their  system  to  record  their  history,  they  should  inscribe  it  on  their  old  buildings 
as  well  as  the  names  of  the  kings  by  whom  they  were  believed  to  be  built.  Some  foolish  Scotch- 
men, I  am  told,  are  at  this  time  erecting  a  monument  to  John  Knox,  the  bigot,  the  persecutor, 
and  the  enemy  of  literature,  the  disgrace  of  their  country,  long  after  his  death  ;  so  the  Egyptians 
may  have  done  to  their  worthies.  On  this  supposition,  it  is  very  natural  that  the  history  and 
names  of  kings,  in  the  time  of  Sesostris,  should  read  into  the  Coptic  of  the  time  of  the  Ptolemies, 
as  it  is  asserted  above  that  they  do  :  and  thus  a  considerable  impediment  to  a  belief  in  the  reality 
of  M.  Champollion's  system  is  removed,  and  I  would,  with  pleasure,  remove  all  the  difficulties 
if  it  were  in  my  power.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  probable  that  they  were  invented  during  the  period, 
embracing  many  hundreds  of  years,  which  passed1  between  the  Exod  of  Moses  and  the  conquest 
of  Cambyses.  If  they  wex*e  invented  much  before  this  time,  they  would  not  read  into  modern 
Coptic.  What  I  contend  for  exactly  agrees  with  what  Herodotus  and  Diodorus  say,  that  there 
were  two  kinds  of  character — the  iega  or  sacred,  and  h^y.ori>ta  or  the  popular.  This  also  agrees 
with  the  authority  of  the  Rosetta  stone, 2  (if  we  allow  it  any  credit,)  which  makes  mention  of  only 
two  kinds  of  characters — the  one  called  enchorial,  [sy^co^ia  ypa.[x[Aa.Ta,)  or  "  characters  of  the 
country"  evidently  identical  with  the  demotic  characters  of  Herodotus  and  Diodorus  ;  and  the  other 
sacred  (Jega). 

8.  Mr.  Salt  has  observed,3  that  there  is  not  the  trace  (in  Hieroglyphics  I  suppose  he  means) 
of  any  monument  remaining  throughout  Egypt  or  Nubia,  of  earlier  date  than  Rameses  Thoth- 
mosis,  who,  he  says,  the  best  chronologists  agree  was  nearly  contemporai-y  with  Moses.  If  Mr. 
Salt  be  right  in  this,  I  need  not  point  out  how  much  it  tends  to  confirm  my  hypothesis.  It  is 
said  by  the  Marquis  Spineto,4  that  the  names  of  the  later  kings  of  Egypt  and  emperors  of  Rome 
are  found  on  the  monuments  of  the  earliest  periods ;  and  that  they  were  so  inscribed  by  these 
kings  or  emperors  in  order  to  obtain  for  themselves  the  honour  of  having  erected  them ;  that  the 
names  of  all  the  Roman  emperors,  from  Augustus  to  Antoninus  Pius,  except  Galba,  Otho,  and 
Vitellius,  are  found  on  several  of  them,  both  in  Egypt  and  Rome ;  that  the  several  obelisks  now 
existing  at  Rome,  such  as  the  obelisks  of  the  Barbarini,  the  Albani,  the  Borgian,  and  Pamphilian, 
and  a  part  of  the  public  buildings  at  Philoe,  and  the  temples  at  Esne  and  Dendera,  are  covered 
with  legends,  containing  the  names  and  titles  of  Hadrian,  Titus,  Tiberius,  Nero,  Claudius — in 
short,  of  almost  all  the  Roman  emperors,  down  to  the  fourth  century,  the  whole  written  in  Phonetic 
hieroglyphics5 

Now  this  is  monstrously  absurd  in  the  case  of  the  obelisks  brought  to  Rome,  because  they  were 
brought  as  antiquarian  curiosities,  as  a  species  of  triumphal  monument  of  the  conquests  of  the 
Romans  over  the  Egyptians.  It  would  have  been  even  more  absurd  for  the  Romans  to  insert 
their  names  on  the  obelisks,  than  for  Mr.  Banks  to  engrave  his  on  the  obelisk  which  he  brought 
from  Philoe.     This  seems  to  me  to  strike  a  deadly  blow  at  the  whole  system. 

Mr.  Salt,  in  p.  31  of  his  Essay,6  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, 


1  There  being  in  reality  no  system  of  chronology.  •*  Edin.  Rev.  No  LXXXIX.  p.  101. 

3  Essay,  p.  54.  *  P.  366.  5  P.  100.  6  Vide  Spineto,  p.  366. 


BOOK   IX.   CHAPTER   II.    SECTION    10.  489 

and  was  evidently  necessary. l  But  notwithstanding  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Salt,  whose  zeal  may 
have  blinded  his  judgment,  I  must  say  I  have  seen  no  satisfactory  proof  that  the  letters  of  this 
name  are  of  more  recent  workmanship  than  the  others  on  the  same  edifices  ;  therefore  I  am  war- 
ranted in  believing  that  there  is  no  such  proof,  that  there  is  no  foundation  for  such  an  assertion : 
besides,  if  they  be  so,  as  I  have  just  said,  they  are  probably  modern  frauds.  I  do  not  recollect  in 
history  any  thing  equal  to  this  foolish  vanity  of  the  Ptolemies  and  Caesars — the  gratification  of  a 
vanity  which  must  have  rendered  them  contemptible  in  the  highest  degree  to  their  subjects,  who 
could  surely  never  pass  one  of  these  inscriptions  in  this  real  written  language,  applicable  to  the 
purposes  of  common  life,  without  a  smile  of  contempt — even  though  it  were  the  gratification  of 
such  a  vanity  by  Marcus  Aurelius  or  Trajan.  I  hope  these  gentlemen  do  not  judge  of  such  men 
as  Trajan  and  Antoninus,  by  themselves. 

9.  Sir  William  Drummond  has  made  the  following  very  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  keys  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  cha- 
"  racters  :  but  of  the  tropical  and  enigmatical,  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  were  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."  2 

10.  But  I  must  return  to  the  triple  inscription  or  rather  inscriptions,  for  I  am  told  that  two 
more  have  been  found  in  other  parts  of  Egypt,  by  some  of  the  French  sc,avans.  I  ask  why  Cle- 
mens, living  at  Alexandria,  did  not  go  to  them  to  remove  his  ignorance  ?  Why  Strabo  did  not 
apply  to  them  ?  To  these  writers  there  could  be  no  difficulty  in  reading  the  Greek  ;  which  even 
the  best  of  our  Greek  scholars  cannot  now  understand,  and  by  going  to  the  triple  inscriptions 
they  would  have  had  all  their  difficulties  removed  in  a  moment.  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  frauds 
of  the  infamous  Fourmont,  exposed  by  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen.  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  character 
of  the  Parian  Marbles.  I  have  heard  of  Annius  of  Viterbo,  and  of  M.  Bonelli's  dispute  with  Mr. 
Payne  Knight,  and  the  Cameo  in  the  Museum  ;  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  mo- 
nument 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  j 
I  suspect  that  they  are  all  parts  of  a  great  lie.     I  shall  be  told  of  the  difficulty  of  executing  so  great 


1  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  Mithru,  the  name  of  that  God  taken  by  the  person  who  erected  it.  The  Indian  and  Egyptian  practice  of 
kings  calling  themselves  by  the  names  of  Gods  seems  to  render  all  ancient  history  doubtful. 

*  Drummond  on  Zod.  p.  23. 

3  R 


490  REWARD    OFFERED    BY    AN    EMPEROR    FOR   THE    DISCOVERY    OF   THEIR    MEANING. 

a  lie,  and  that  Dr.  Young  and  Champollion  must  have  been  in  a  league.  Without  difficulty  there 
would  be  no  probability  of  successful  deceit.  Are  we  not  deceived  with  copies  from  Raphael,  with 
Etruscan  Vases  from  Staffordshire,  by  Bonellis  with  Cameos,  and  with  manuscripts,  every  day  ?  The 
difficulty  is  no  objection.  I  desire  an  answer  to  the  question,  why  the  inquiring  authors,  Clemens 
and  Strabo,  did  not  inform  themselves  from  the  triple  inscriptions.  In  the  Morning  Herald  for  June 
24,  1830,  is  the  following  curious  account :  "  At  the  last  meeting  of  the  London  Medico- Botanical 
"  Societ)',  Professor  Houlton  mentioned  the  following  extraordinary  instance  of  the  protraction  of 
"  vegetable  life. — A  bulbous  root,  which  was  found  in  the  hand  of  an  Egyptian  mummy,  in  which 
"  situation  it  had  very  probably  been  for  more  than  two  thousand  years,  germinated  on  being 
"  exposed  to  the  atmosphere,  though  when  discovered  it  was  apparently  in  a  state  of  perfect  dry- 
"  ness.  The  root  was  subsequently  put  into  the  ground,  where  it  grew  with  readiness  and  vigour." 
This  seems  to  shew  us  pretty  clearly  that  what  has  been  for  some  time  suspected  is  true,  that 
alleged  ancient  mummies  are  now  manufactured  in  Egypt  every  day.  This  forms  a  good  match 
for  the  Rosetta  stone. 

II.  But  another  damning  fact  creeps  out  very  unwillingly  from  the  Marquis.  A  reward  was 
offered  by  one  of  the  first  of  the  Caesars  to  him  who  should  give  a  proper  interpretation  of  the  in- 
scription on  the  obelisk  which  had  been  carried  to  Rome. *  This  single  fact  overthrows  the  whole 
system.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  believe  that  the  hieroglyphics  should  have  been  in  common  use, 
for  the  inscribing  on  them  the  names  of  Roman  Emperors  and  other  matters,  (a  real  written 
language  applicable  to  the  purposes  of  history  and  common  life,  as  the  Edinburgh  Reviewer  says,) 
and  yet  that  the  Roman  Emperor  and  his  ministers  should  have  had  occasion  to  offer  a  reward  to 
discover  their  meaning. 

I  believe  it  is  an  admitted  fact,  that  the  Romans  inscribed  hieroglyphics  on  some  modern  obelisks 
in  Rome  to  make  them  imitate  ancient  Egyptian.2  If  this  be  admitted,  it  is  totally  incredible 
that  they  should  erase  the  real  names  from  the  real  ancient  Egyptian  obelisks  in  that  city,  to 
insert  their  own,  and  thus  make  them  appear  to  be  modern. 

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  Alexan- 
drinus  the  Egyptian. 

A  careful  attention  to  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.  The 
consideration  of  these  circumstances  must  be  my  excuse  for  my  apparent  illiberality ;  but  when- 
ever a  Bourbon,  the  eleve,  the  protege  of  the  Jesuits,  protects  a  man,  I  suspect  him.  I  cannot 
forget  that  the  priests  in  every  age  have  protected,  as  ours  do  now  protect,  impostures,  and  that 
in  every  age  numerous  examples  of  pious  fraud  may  be  found.  The  Reviewer,  when  speaking  of 
the  deeds  and  counterparts,  says,  he  suspects  the  age  of  Magic  is  not  over.  I  reply,  Magic  is 
pretty  nearly  over,  but  fraud  seldom  throve  better. 

These  considerations  destroy  my  faith  in  the  discovery.  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  the  belief 
that  the  later  princes,  the  Trajans,  Antonines,  &c,  would  stoop  to  so  despicable  and  unavailing  a 
fraud  ;  that  they  would,  with  their  eyes  open,  expose  themselves  to  the  ridicule  of  all  mankind. 
But  the  evidence  of  the  deeds  and  counterparts  exhibited  in  the  ninetieth  number  of  the  Edinburgh 


•  Spineto,  p.  43.  2  P.  51. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  II.  SECTION   11.  491 

Review  seems  conclusive  against  me.  Then  what  am  I  to  make  of  these  inconsistencies  ?  When 
I  consider  the  respectable  characters  of  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion,  I  cannot  believe  them 
capable  of  practising  a  fraud :  but  I  am  obliged  to  believe  that  they  have  been  in  part  deceived, 
and  partly  deceive  themselves  ;  and  that  in  consequence  of  their  mode  of  proceeding  and  of  the 
great  number  of  the  phonetic  forms  for  one  letter,  they  are  able  to  make  the  hieroglyphics  speak 
what  they  please. 

Whether  the  French  seavans  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  game,  than  that 
Diodorus,  Strabo,  and  Clemens,  and  the  Roman  Emperors  while  offering  rewards,  *  have  all  been 
ignorant  of  the  state  of  the  simple  question,  whether  Hieroglyphics  were  in  common  use  in  their 
time  or  not. 

No  doubt,  to  charge  the  sc,avans  of  France  with  having  caused  the  Rosetta  stone  to  be  made  for 
fraudulent  purposes,  will  be  considered,  in  any  man  having  a  regard  for  his  literary  or  even  moral 
character,  to  be  very  hardy ;  but  this,  notwithstanding,  I  must  do.  I  find  that  Dr.  Young  did 
not  begin  his  researches  till  after  the  finding  of  the  Rosetta  stone ;  that  they  in  a  great  mea- 
sure depend  upon  it — are  founded  upon  it ;  and  that  he,  in  fact,  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  but 
simply  believed  what  we  have  been  told  respecting  it  by  the  French  in  Egypt,  who  made  such  a 
terrible  outcry  for  the  loss  of  it.  If  they  hid  the  stone  for  the  purpose  of  having  it  found,  they 
performed  their  parts,  as  indeed  they  generally  do  every  part  they  undertake,  very  well.  He 
must  know  very  little  of  the  French  character,  who  finds  a  difficulty  in  believing  that  such  of 
them  as  were  likely  to  undertake  an  adventure  of  this  kind,  would  be  deficient  in  talent  to  carry  it 
into  effect.  And  as  to  the  other  stones,  having  on  them  inscriptions  in  the  three  kinds  of  charac- 
ters, 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  size  and  nature  of  all  these  stones  precludes  the  idea,  that  they 
were  intended  to  be  kept,  or  were,  in  fact,  in  ancient  times,  kept  secret.  Then  I  again  ask,  how 
came  Clemens  the  Egyptian — the  Alexandrian — or  Strabo,  or  Diodorus  Siculus  the  Antiquarian, 
when  they  were  inquiring  into  and  regretting  the  loss  of  the  Hieroglyphics,  not  to  go  to  these 
stones  and  remove  at  once  all  their  difficulties  ?  The  Greek,  at  that  day,  could  not  only  not  form 
a  difficulty,  as  at  present,  but  it  must  have  instantly  removed  every  difficulty,  and  this  is  the 
strong  point  upon  which  I  ground  my  charge  of  fraud.  Let  the  fact  be  accounted  for.  How  came 
they  not  to  go  to  these  common  triple  inscriptions  scattered  about  the  country  in  different  places, 
for  a  solution  of  their  difficulties,  and  an  explanation  of  all  the  ancient  mythologies  or  histories  ? 
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  car- 
ried— and  the  manufacture*of  Etruscan  vases,  and  the  forgeries  of  the  works  of  Berosus  by  Ennius, 
of  the  manuscripts  of  Shakspeare,  by  Ireland,  and  the  various  well-known  forgeries  of  ancient 
inscriptions  on  stones,  &c,  &c,  &c. 

This  brings  me  to  make  one  more  observation  on  the  deed  and  counterpart.  The  moment  I 
heard  of  these,  they  struck  me  to  be  very  like  a  modern  indenture,  but  having  no  suspicion  I  hastily 
passed  them  by,  and  there  may  be  nothing  in  it.  But  the  persons  who  could  make  the  Rosetta 
stone,  I  have  no  doubt  could  make  these  deeds,  and  could  bury  them  too,  where  the  proper  persons 
would  find  them.     It  is  well  known  that  articles  are  constantly  buried  at  Pompeii  in  particular 


•  P.  48. 
3r2 


492  VARIOUS    PARTICULARS    RESPECTING   THE    NATURE   OP   THE    SUPPOSED    LANGUAGE. 

places,  where  visitors  of  eminence  are  allowed  to  search.  I  once  saiv  an  Archduke  of  Austria  un- 
commonly successful  at  Pompeii.  There  is  so  large  an  interest  now  concerned  in  this  matter,  and 
interest  and  passion  are  so  much  engaged,  that  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the  French  and  English 
between  them,  were  to  find  a  hundred  Rosetta  stones.  But  to  save  them  further  trouble,  I  beg 
leave  to  point  out  to  them,  that  the  more  Rosetta  or  triplicate  stones  there  are  found,  the  more 
the  difficulty  will  be  increased  of  accounting  for  the  blindness  of  Clemens  and  Strabo. 

In  addition  to  the  above,  I  beg  to  refer  my  reader  to  an  article  in  No.  VIII.  of  the  Foreign 
Quarterly  Review,  published  by  Teutzel  and  Wurtz,  p.  466.  In  this  essay  the  writer  maintains, 
that  he  has  convicted  Messrs.  Champollion  and  Sallier,  of  Aix,  jointly,  of  a  gross  fraud.  I  am 
unwilling  to  decide  between  these  gentlemen  and  the  Reviewer,  upon  hearing  only  one  side ;  but 
I  confess  I  do  not  see  how  they  are  to  defend  themselves ;  and  I  need  not  point  out  to  my  reader 
that,  if  the  Reviewer  should  be  right,  no  man  of  common  sense  will  ever  pay  the  slightest  atten- 
tion to  any  thing  which  Messrs.  Champollion,  and  Co.  may  say  in  future. 

12.  I  might  here,  perhaps,  safely  drop  the  subject;  but  it  may  be  satisfactory  to  my  reader  to 
inspect  a  little  more  minutely  the  machinery  by  which  Messrs.  Champollion  and  Co.  raise  the 
profound  learning  from  the  well  where  it  has  so  long  lain  buried.  M.  Champollion l  teaches,  that 
many  of  the  consonants  and  almost  all  the  vowels  are  often  represented  by  the  same  hieroglyphi- 
cal  characters.  To  apologize  for  this  he  says,2  they  are  to  represent  the  different  dialects  of  the 
different  districts  of  Egypt,  but  where  he  learnt  the  Coptic  dialects  he  does  not  tell  us.  The  most 
extraordinary  of  all  delusions  is  that  which  blinds  this  gentleman  and  his  friends  to  the  absurdity 
of  admitting,  that  there  are  three  distinct  modes  of  writing,  and  that  they  then  have  recourse  to 
the  whole  three  promiscuously  in  their  explanation  of  a  sentence.  They  cull  out  a  part  of  the 
eight  or  nine  hundred  figures  on  the  monuments,  which  they  divide  among  the  letters,  giving  to 
each  a  number  of  figures,  even  in  some  instances  amounting  to  twenty-five  in  number;3  the  re- 
mainder they  call  allegorical,  and  symbolic,  and  then,  in  order  to  expound  the  inscriptions,  they 
bring  all  the  three  into  play  at  once.  Thus,  if  the  letters  will  not  answer  to  the  drawings  so  that 
there  is  a  figure  unexplained,  it  is  then  called  one  of  the  other  kinds  of  writing ;  it  is  an  allegori- 
cal or  a  symbolic  letter;  by  this  process  a  meaning  is,  at  all  events,  made  out  The  Marquis 
Spineto  says,  alphabetical  signs  were  of  three  kinds— Demotic,  hieratic,  and  hieroglyphical  pro- 
perly so  called.4  Hieroglyphics  are  divided  into  three  classes— Hieroglyphics  proper;  Hierogly- 
phics abridged;  Hieroglyphics  conventional.5  There  are  also  symbolical  or  enigmatical  hierogly- 
phics ;  and  conventional  figurative  hieroglyphics ;  and  figurative  abridged  hieroglyphics ;  and  the 
enigmatical  hieroglyphics  may  be  again  divided  or  used  in  three  ways.6  The  alphabet  published 
by  M.  Champollion  contained  134  hieroglyphical  characters,  strictly  speaking  phonetic;  yet  he 
found  out  the  meaning  of  730  more,  some  symbolical,  others  figurative. 7  Some  of  the  consonants, 
and  almost  all  of  the  vowels,  are  often  fepresented  by  the  same  hieroglyphical  characters  ;8  and  as 
there  are  no  vacancies  between  the  words,  they  are  divided  at  pleasure.  They  are  read  from  top 
to  bottom,  from  right  to  left,  from  left  to  right,  and  in  groups,  all  in  the  same  inscription.  Thus? 
in  writing,  the  signs  or  figures  may  be  placed  in  four  different  ways,  and  are  often  found  so  to 
exist  in  the  same  monument. 9  In  another  place  M.  Spineto  says,  all  the  three  kinds  of  writing,  viz. 
the  phonetic,  figurative,  and  symbolic,  are  often  found  in  the  same  inscription,  mixed  together,  not 
one  below  another,  as  translations  of  one  another,10  but  used  promiscuously  (to  repeat  his  word)  in 
the  same  sentence,11  and  the  words  written  in  the  sentence  are  not  divided.     The  hieroglyphical 


1  P.  86.  ^  P  8-  3  P<  88>  4  P#  g^  «  P.  1 16.  e  P  12o. 

•  P.  85.  s  pp,  86>  88  9  Pp  96—98.  >«  P.  169.  »  Pp.  177,  179. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  13.  493 

figures  stood  as  letters ;  for  a  letter  which  began  the  name  of  the  animal,  as  a  Dog,  would  stand 
for  a  D. l  Thus  the  hieroglyphic  as  Dog  standing  for  D,  or  Horse  for  H,  it  seems  to  follow  as  a 
necessary  consequence,  that  letters  must  have  preceded  them  ;  in  fact,  that  they  must  be  an  inven- 
tion founded  upon  letters.2  Thus,  if  we  wished  to  write  London,  we  might  take  a  lion,  a  lamb,  a 
lancet,  or  a  leaf,  &c. ;  and  a  net,  a  negro,  a  north  star,  a  nave  of  a  church,  and  so  on,  for  as  many 
words  in  the  language  as  begin  with  the  letter  L,  in  the  first  instance,  or  with  N,  in  the  second. 
I  think  M.  Champollion  has  been  very  moderate  to  take  no  more,  in  any  case,  than  twenty-five ! 

In  addition  to  all  the  above,  we  have  yet  one  more  kind  of  hieroglyphs,  called  Anaglyphs.3  1 
shall  not  attempt  to  describe  them  ;  we  have  surely  had  enough. 

13.  The  capacityof  the  Marquis  Spineto  for  believing,  may  be  judged  of  by  his  belief  that  a  sub- 
terraneous passage  was  carried  from  Thebes  to  Memphis.4  This  is  at  least  two  hundred  miles. 
As  the  Marquis  justly  observes,  how  contemptible  does  this  make  our  Thames  tunnellers  appear! 
I  believe  that  the  reason  why  we  cannot  find  this  subway  now,  is  that,  for  the  sake  of  dryness,  it 
was  carried  under  the  bed  of  the  river.  I  hope  I  shall  no  more  be  accused  of  scepticism,  for  surely 
I  believe  as  much  as  the  Marquis ;  and  what  is  more,  I  believe  it  merely  out  of  compliment  to 
our  learned  visitor  the  Marquis,  and  I  hope  he  will  sufficiently  appreciate  my  politeness  1 

It  is  very  seldom  that  a  fraud  of  any  length  can  be  successfully  carried  through  j  the  performer 
is  almost  certain  to  let  something  escape  to  betray  it.  Thus,  if  the  Rosetta  stone  be  a  forgery, 
the  manufacturers  of  it  forgot  that  the  knowledge  of  Hieroglyphics  was  proved,  by  the  historians 
whom  I  have  named,  to  have  been  lost  in  the  time  of  the  Ptolemies,  and  thus  he  made  his 
inscription  bear  their  names  in  the  Greek.  The  Hieroglyphics  will  bear  to  be  construed  into 
almost  any  thing ;  and  I  have  little  doubt,  if  it  were  wanted,  William  of  Britain  might  be  made 
out  of  them.  I  suspect  that  some  of  the  French  scavans  formed  the  stone  with  great  ingenuity, 
in  such  a  manner  as  would  enable  them  to  make  the  inscriptions  speak  what  they  pleased,  and 
that  the  Jesuits  discovering  this,  induced  the  Bourbons  to  take  advantage  of  it  to  support,  as  they 
supposed,  the  Mosaic  history. 

M.  Champollion  was  sent  to  Egypt,  by  Charles  the  Tenth,  to  search  for  inscriptions,  and,  of 
course,  with  the  perfect  approbation  of  the  Jesuits.  He  kept  up  a  close  correspondence  with  the 
well-known  Duke  de  Blacas,  Ambassador  from  France  at  Rome,  and  his  discoveries,  as  described 
by  the  Marquis  Spineto,  exhibit,  in  every  part,  a  predetermination  to  support  the  Mosaic 
system;  and  this  also  creeps  out  from  the  Marquis  perpetually  in  his  Lectures.  In  Chapter  XI., 
he  must  pardon  me  for  saying,  rather  ridiculously,  to  serve  his  purpose,5  he  makes  the  usual 
age  for  females  to  marry  to  be  thirty-five  years,  when  it  ought  to  be,  in  that  climate,  fifteen  or 
sixteen.  In  one  place6  he  incautiously  admits  that  he  is  not  authorized  to  state  all  he  knows  ;7 
and  in  another,8  that  he  does  not  think  it  necessary  to  mention  what  would  have  been  of  the  first 
importance.  I  suppose  it  would  have  made  the  learned  Cantabs,  to  whom  he  addressed  his  lec- 
tures, too  learned.  The  moment  I  find  a  person  beginning  to  talk  of  concealment  and  holy  scrip- 
tures, I  suspect  him.  The  word  holy  involves  the  consequence,  that  every  question  is  prejudged 
which  relates  to  these  scriptures.  The  question  is  begged ;  particularly  when  this  is  assisted  by 
the  repetition  of  the  old  cant  about  philosophy  being  dangerous.9 

The  Marquis  10  says,  that  Hebrew  translations  of  many  of  the  consecrated  rolls  of  papyrus  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Bible.     This  again,  coming  in  the  manner  it  does,  tends  to  create  doubt ;  but,  for 

'  P  82.  *  P.  91.  3  P.  411.  4  Pp.  212,  220.  >  P.  3/6.  6  P.  253. 

'  The  French  proverb  of  L'oiseau  de  St.  Luc,  the  origin  and  signification  of  which  I  do  not  feel  myself  authorized 
"  to  state  in  this  place."    P.  253. 
8  P-  369.                                 s  p.  490.  io  P-  6# 


494  BENTLEY.      ZODIACS.       ESNE.      DENDERA. 

reasons  which  I  shall  give  hereafter,  of  the  nature  of  which  the  Marquis  has  not  the  slightest 
suspicion,  I  think  it  very  probable,  that  much  which  is  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  may  be 
recorded  also  on  the  Egyptian  monuments. 

Lecture  XT.,  on  Chronology,  may  be  called  a  mistake,  as  I  think  there  is  scarcely  a  sentence 
which  is  not  wrong.  It  is,  however,  rather  whimsical  to  find  this  learned  gentleman-hierist  in- 
forming not  merely  the  boys  of  Cambridge,  but  also  the  wise  men,  that  Usher  established  the 
Chronology  of  the  LXX. 1  I  think  we  shall  not  be  much  longer  troubled  with  the  modern  dis- 
coveries in  the  Hieroglyphical  branch  of  learning. 

14.  If  Frenchmen  should  stand  convicted  of  a  Hieroglyphical  fraud,  their  neighbours  in  England 
will  not  be  far  behind  them.  Mr.  Bentley,  of  whom  I  have  before  spoken,  has  given  an  explana- 
tion of  the  Zodiacs  of  Esne  and  Dendera,  and  undertaken  to  prove  them  Calendars,  for  the  year 
708  of  Rome.  But  his  pretended  copy  of  the  Zodiacs  is  false  in  a  great  number  of  places,  and  the 
whole  exhibits  a  most  extraordinary  example  either  of  pious  fraud,  or  of  the  grossest  blundering. 
Mr.  Bentley  is  dead  and  cannot  defend  himself,  and  therefore  I  would  willingly  attribute  the  fact 
to  the  latter  of  these  causes  ;  but  the  evident  object  being  to  bolster  up  the  Mosaic  chronology,  it 
is  impossible  to  avoid  suspicion  of  the  former.  This  suspicion  is  strengthened  by  what  appear  to 
me,  in  several  instances,  to  be  wilful  misrepresentations,  and  by  a  recollection  of  the  misrepresen- 
tions  of  which  we  have  already  seen  him  guilty  respecting  the  forgeries  of  the  Brahmins,  and  his 
determination,  at  all  events,  to  run  down  the  Indian  learning. 

He  founds  his  system  upon  a  comparison  of  the  Zodiacs  with  the  Roman  calendar  of  Numa. 
Both  the  Egyptian  Zodiacal  Almanacs,  according  to  his  exposition  of  them,  pretend  to  mark  the 
corrections  introduced  into  the  Roman  Calendar  by  Julius  Cassar,2  and  to  commence  with  a  con- 
junction of  the  Sun  and  Moon  at  Rome,  not  in  Egypt, 3  in  the  year  of  Rome  708.  Now  at  this 
time  Antony  was  living  with  Cleopatra  in  Egypt. 

It  seems  impossible  to  believe,  that  the  Romans  at  this  early  period  should  have  succeeded  in 
having  their  calendar  inserted  into  the  roofs  of  Egyptian  temples,  which  must  have  been  rebuilt  at 
the  time  when  they  were  inserted.  The  adoption  of  this  calendar  seems  necessarily  to  carry  with 
it  the  adoption  of  the  Roman  festivals,  and  this,  again,  a  complete  adoption  of  the  Roman  ritual — 
in  fact,  a  complete  change  in  the  religion  of  the  Egyptians.  When  I  consider  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  histories  of  Egypt  and  Rome  at  that  date,  if  there  were  no  other  objections,  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  believe  this.  If  the  date  of  the  calendar  had  been  placed  in  the  times  of  the  Anto- 
nines,  or  of  other  Emperors,  who  were  absolute  Lords  of  Egypt,  and  who,  we  know,  took  a  plea- 
sure in  repairing  and  adorning  its  public  edifices,  the  case  would  be  very  different.  These  consi- 
derations I  think  Mr.  Bentley  overlooked. 

The  following  observations  of  the  ingenious  Mr.  Landseer  will  shew  the  extreme  absurdity  of 
believing,  that  the  Romans  could  succeed  in  placing  their  calender  on  the  top  of  an  Egyptian 
temple,  so  early  as  the  time  of  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra : — "  For  the  whole  time  that  the  classical 
"  nations  were  in  possession  of  that  interesting  country,  they  appear  to  have  exercised  but  a 
"  conciliatory  controul  in  any  other  than  military  and  municipal  matters,  and  to  have  been  so  far 
"  from  dictating,  in  what  concerned  the  truth  of  science  or  the  dogmata  of  faith,  that  they 
"  evidently  chose,  or  were,  from  prudential  motives,  constrained  to  recognize  and  follow,  what 
"  they  found  established — perhaps  without  comprehending  its  essence,  or  fathoming  its  depth : 
"  yielding  to  the  pontifical  authorities  of  that  ancient  land,  the  same  species  of  deference  that  the 
"  modern  Catholics,  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  pay  to  the  mother  Church  of  Rome.     They  erected 


I  P.  383.  2  P.  274.  3  P.  253. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAPTER   II.   SECTION    14.  495 

"  there  no  Greek  nor  Roman  temples,  or  we  should  have  found  their  ruins  at  least :  but,  if  they 
"  built  at  all,  (which  they  certainly  did,)  re-edified  the  more  ancient  temples  of  Egypt,  with  so 
"  much  of  strict  adherence  to  the  original  designs  ;  or  constructed  others  so  much  in  the  same 
"  style,  that  modern  antiquaries  have  been  fairly  puzzled  by  them."  1  Nothing  can  be  more  true 
than  these  observations,  as  I  believe  all  will  allow  ;  but  they  place  in  the  strongest  point  of  view 
possible  the  absurdity  of  believing  that  they  were  the  builders  of  the  temple  of  Dendera  or  Esne 
in  the  time  of  Cleopatra  and  Antony.  I  have  a  great  suspicion  that  these  Zodiacs  will  turn  out 
to  be  perpetual  calendars  for  the  Metonic  cycles  or  the  Neros,  or  of  both.  And  this  will  account 
for  their  appearing  to  suit  the  very  remote  ages,  as  some  gentlemen  have  supposed.  It  seems 
also  extremely  absurd  that  the  calendar  should  be  suitable  to  the  climate,  latitude,  and  longitude, 
of  Rome,  and  not  of  Egypt.  If  it  be  an  almanac,  I  think  it  is  one  to  serve  for  the  whole  Soli- 
Lunar  cycle,  for  both  the  Zodiacs  are  said  to  begin  with  a  conjunction  of  the  sun  and  moon. 

The  following  short  passage  from  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  completely  disposes  of  Mr. 
Bentley's  Roman  calendar  in  Egypt :  "  The  Egyptians  used  no  intercalations  till  the  time  of 
"  Augustus,  when  the  corrected  Julian  year  was  received  at  Alexandria,  by  his  order :  but  even 
"  this  order  was  obeyed  only  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans  who  resided  in  that  city :  the  supersti- 
"  tious  natives  refusing  to  make  any  addition  to  the  length  of  a  year  which  had  been  so  long 
"  established  among  them."2  This  order,  by  Augustus,  for  the  correction  of  the  year  according 
to  the  Julian  improvement,  implies  that  it  was  not  previously  adopted;  it  would  not,  therefore, 
have  been  inserted  into  the  roofs  of  the  temples  many  years  before,  in  the  time  of  Cleopatra  and 
Antony.  This,  I  think,  invalidates  Mr.  Bentley's  explanations  of  the  Zodiacs  of  Esne  and 
Dendera,  and  I  think  strikes  a  hard  blow  at  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion's  system — it  being 
manifest  that  any  thing  may  be  made  out  of  the  Hieroglyphics — and  that  thus,  in  fact,  they  can 
teach  us  nothing.  If  some  of  Mr.  Bentley's  explanations  were  not  founded,  as  in  reality  they 
are,  upon  false  drawings,  but  even  upon  true  ones,  this  would  completely  blow  them  into  air.  I 
have  somewhere  read  that  the  order  above  given  by  Augustus  caused  an  insurrection. 

Mr.  Bentley  admits  that  the  same  letter  of  the  alphabet  may  be  rendered  ten  or  a  dozen  different 
ways,3  and  that  the  same  number  is  represented  by  several  distinct  characters,  as  described  in  his 
plate  No.  IX.  On  turning  to  the  plate,  1  find  nine  different  characters  for  the  unit,  and  eight  for 
the  number  four,  and  others  in  the  same  way.  From  this  great  number  of  signs  for  one  idea,  or 
letter,  or  number,  the  expounder  may  construe  them  into  what  he  pleases. 

The  exposure  of  Mr.  Bentley's  frauds  or  mistakes,  is  of  the  very  first  importance,  as  his  expla- 
nation has  been  taken  advantage  of  by  the  priests  to  overthrow  all  the  former  theories  respecting 
these  Zodiacs,  and  to  draw  conclusions  inimical  to  all  further  inquiry.  It  has  afforded  to  them  a 
grand  triumph  over  the  philosophers,  and  is  so  plausible,  that  it  has  deceived  some  very  learned 
orientalists.  But  its  exposure  is  of  very  great  consequence  for  another  reason  :  it  shews  that 
by  Messrs.  Young  and  Champollion's  system  of  making  many  phonetic  signs  for  one  letter,  they 
may  be  made  to  speak  whatever  the  expositor  chooses  ;  for  they  take  much  greater  liberties  than 
Mr.  Bentley  took  in  this  respect,  and  he  succeeded  in  making  out  what  he  wished,  though  totally 
destitute  of  any  foundation  in  truth.  But  the  exposure  is  of  consequence  for  yet  one  more  reason 
— it  proves  that  arbitrary  figures,  which  are  not  Hieroglyphics  at  all,  may  be  made  to  give  out 
such  a  meaning  as  the  expositor  wishes ;  for  several  of  Mr.  Bentley's  drawings  are  not  Hierogly- 
phics, but  merely  arbitrary,  unmeaning  figures,  not  in  the  Zodiacs.  This  fact  was  discovered  in 
the  following  manner ;  I  was  told  by  a  very  learned  orientalist,  that  he  was  quite  convinced  by 


1  Sabsean  Res.  p.  218.  8  Art.  Chron.  p.  751-  3  Pp.  257,  258. 


496  SEMIRAMIS   THE   SAME   NAME   AS    HELEN. 

Mr.  Bentley's  book  that  the  Zodiacs  were  Roman  calendars  ;  and  that  all  questions  respecting  them 
were  closed.     Judging  from  the  dates  as  given  above  I  could  not  believe  this,  and  being  at  the  time 
very  much  engaged,  I  requested  my  friend  Richard  Makenzie  Beverley,  Esq.,  LL.D.,  to  examine 
the  work  for  me.     In  consequence  of  my  request  he  wrote  a  paper  which  was  read,  by  my  desire, 
to  the  Asiatic  Society,  and,  as  I  was  told,   for  I  was  not  present,  with  great  applause.     But,  for 
reasons  unknown  to  me,  the  council  refused  to  publish  it  in  their  Transactions.     When  I  consider 
all  the  circumstances  relating  to  this  paper, — the  fact  that  it  prevents  the  priests  from  closing  the 
door  upon  any  further  inquiry  into  those  curious  monuments ;  and,  again,  since  it  proves  that,  by 
the  new  system,  Hieroglyphics  may  be  made  to  say  any  thing  or  every  thing,  and  that  it  thereby 
overturns  the  whole  of  M.  Champollion's  system,  I  am  induced  to  take  the  liberty  of  telling  this 
learned  body,  that  Mr.  Beverley's  paper  was  of  more  consequence  than  all  the  papers  hitherto 
published  in  their  Transactions  put  together;  many  of  which  are  notoriously  nonsensical  enough. 
These  Asiatic  gentlemen  are  constantly  complaining  that  the  Universities  treat  them  and  their 
learning  with  neglect ;  how  can  they  expect  any  thing  better,   when  they  thus  refuse  to  publish 
the  paper,  not  anonymous,  of  a  Cantab  of  high  academical  rank  ?     For,  however  I  may  regret 
the  line  he  has  taken  since  that  paper  was  written,  read,  and  refused  to  be  printed,  I  feel  bound  to 
say,  he  is  a  gentleman  of  great  learning  and  talent.     I  think  the  circumstance  altogether  strikingly 
confirms  my  observation  respecting  the  Orientalists,  in  Book  V.  Chap.  IV.  Sect.  12.    However,  the 
refusal  to  publish  the  paper  will  not  succeed  in  keeping  the  world  in  ignorance.     After  what  I 
have  written  here,  Mr.  Bentley's  work  will  be  soon  compared  with  the  plates  in  Creuzer,  and  in 
the  grand  work  of  the  French  in  the  British  Museum,  and  the  falsity  of  it  made  public.     I  shall 
return  to  Mr.  Bentley,  of  whom  I  shall  have  something  of  much  importance  to  say  before  I  finish 
my  work.     I  have  no  doubt  that  the  "societies  of  our   three  Presidencies  in  India,  may  justly  be 
called,  Three  Societies  for  the  Suppression  of  Oriental  Knowledge.     I  hope  the  Society  in  Grafton 
Street  will  be  more  cautious  in  future,  and  will  not  give  their  enemies  an  opportunity  to  say,  that 
they  make  a  fourth.     To  say  the  very  least,  whoever  advised  them  not  to  publish  Mr.  Beverley's 
paper,  did  not  exercise  a  sound  discretion. 


CHAPTER  III. 

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

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

"  Her  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  Hebri- 


BOOK   IX.    CHAPTER   III.    SECTION   2.  497 

"  dean  l  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.  Helen2  was  born  out  of  a 
"  waterfowl's  egg,  and  that  which  Hyginus  relates  evinces  fully  that  she  was  the  Babylonian 
"  Venus  and  the  Dea  Syria."3  She  was  the  daughter  of  Dercetis,  of  Ascalon,  of  the  Philistines. 
She  was  also  said  to  have  been  nursed  by  the  river  Simois.  This  connects  her  with  the  Hellen 
of  Troy.     If  she  were  the  same  as  Diana,  like  Diana,  she  would,  of  course,  be  black. 

Helen,  like  Semiramis,  was  supposed  to  have  been  born  from  an  egg :  and  she  is  said  to  have 
been  deceived  by  a  phantom,  substituted  by  Juno,  in  the  likeness  of  Menelaus  ;  and,  according  to 
some  accounts,  she  must  have  been  ninety  or  one  hundred  years  old  at  the  siege  of  Troy.  She  is 
called  'EXiva  and  'EAENH.4  I  think  her  identity  with  Semiramis  will  scarcely  be  doubted,  or 
the  identity  of  their  mythological  characters.  It  is  probable  that  the  Greek  name  had  its  origin 
from  the  Asiatic  *?K  ctl  with  its  dialectic  variations,  ^n  el  by  ol  ppN  ale,  &c,  and  ni  nh  the  anima. 
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.  Lucian 
de  Ded  Syria  says,  that  between  the  statues  of  Jupiter  and  Juno  in  the  temple  of  Hierapolis,  in 
Syria,  was  a  statue  of  a  God,  which  had  not  the  shape  of  any  of  the  other  Gods,  on  which  stood  a 
dove.  This  must  have  been  a  plain  stone  pillar,  probably  of  great  antiquity.  He  says  there  are 
two  Priapuses  in  front  of  the  temple  300  fathoms  high,  on  which  devotees  went  at  certain  seasons 
and  remained  seven  days.  From  this  we  see  that  the  pillar  saints  were  not  peculiar  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  that  they  preceded  it  many  generations.  Lucian  also  says,  the  temple  at  Hierapolis, 
or  the  sacred  city,  resembles  the  temples  of  Ionia. 

2.  At  Hierapolis  the  female  statue  with  the  dove  upon  its  head  was  called  Sema.5  This  was 
the  Semi-ramis  of  the  Assyrians  converted  into  a  Dove,  and  the  Rama-Sema  or  Sema- Rama  of 
India. 6  In  a  future  page  we  shall  find  that  the  Zamorin  of  the  promontory  of  India — of  Cape 
Comorin — where,  in  a  very  particular  manner,  the  Cama,  or,  as  it  is  spelt  in  Java,  Como,  was 
adored,  was  a  Semiramis  ;  on  this  account  I  am  induced  strongly  to  suspect  that  the  Sema  above 
was  a  corruption  of  Cama  ;  but  I  shall  return  to  this. 

The  Goddess  of  Dodona  had  a  dove  on  her  head,  and  was  called  Dione.7  This  Dione  was 
evidently  Di-ioni  or  Di-iune,  that  is,  the  holy  lune— 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.     Ega>£,  Divine  Love,  was  the  Protogonos,  the  same  as  wisdom. 

The  above  observations  are  strikingly  supported  by  the  following  passages  of  the  Jewish  writ- 
ings :  Jeremiah  xxv.  38, — facta  est  terra  eorura  in  desolationem  a  facie  irae  columbse.  Again, 
ch.  xlvi.  16, — a  facie  gladii  columbee  (Vulgate).  Again,  ch.  1.  16, — For  fear  of  the  oppressing 
lonah  ruv  (iune, J  they  (the  nations  in  captivity)  shall  turn  every  one  to  his  people,  and  they  shall 


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  Maeris.  3  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  249.  *  Class.  Jour.  Vol.  XXXVII.  p.  204. 

5  Faber,  Origin.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  pp.  33,  34.  6  See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  p.  3fi9. 

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

3s 


498  PHILO   ON   THIS    SUBJECT. 

flee  every  one  to  his  own  land.1      The  Seventy  translate  this  passage,   as  also  that  in  ch.  xlvi.  16, 
in  a  very  particular  manner :  olto  7roo(ro)xs  ixa^ai^ag  'EaXtjv*x%. 

3.  In  confirmation  of  an  idea  which  I  entertain  that  the  division  between  the  tribes  of  Juda  and 
Israel  was  religious  more  than  political,  several  passages  may  be  cited.  The  sin  of  the  Sama- 
ritans was  in  part,  no  doubt,  a  return  to  the  adoration  of  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  as  the  Divine 
manifestation.  Of  this  the  god  Apis,  set  up  at  Sinai,  at  Dan,  and  at  Bethel,  is  the  first  and  a 
decisive  proof.  This  is  confirmed  by  another  passage,2  which  shews,  that  the  festivals  that 
Moses  had  regulated,  with  regard  to  the  precession  of  one  month,  were  restored  by  Jeroboam.  The 
one  month  is  exactly  the  time  of  the  equinoctial  precession  between  Taurus  and  Aries,  which,  of 
course,  would  regulate  all  the  other  festivals.  So  "  Jeroboam  ordained  a  feast  in  the  eighth 
"  month,  like  unto  the  feast  that  is  in  Judah. — On  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  eighth  month,  which  he 
"  had  devised  of  Ms  own  heart."  The  expression  marked  in  italics  seems  to  shew  that  the  festival 
had  been  a  matter  of  dispute.  And  it  is  added,  that  the  feast  was  a  sacrifice  vitulis,  or  to  the 
images  of  Taurus,  which  he  had  set  up  in  Bethel  and  Dan.  "  God  commanded  the  observation 
"  of  the  feast  of  tabernacles  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  seventh  month.  Jeroboam,  in  order  to 
"  corrupt  the  established  worship,  appointed  a  feast  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  eighth  month."3 

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

In  this  dispute  the  priests  and  Levites  would,  of  course,  be  very  much  implicated.  When  the 
persons,  called  in  the  Jewish  books  David  and  Solomon,  removed  the  sacred  place  from  Gerizim 
to  Jerusalem,  they  would  take  the  priests  along  with  it.  The  king  would  wish  to  have  the  high 
priest  near  him,  that  he  might  have  a  watch  upon  his  enormous  power.  The  priest  would  like  to 
be  near  the  king,  to  watch  and  controul  him  :  for  a  priesthood  is  always,  without  any  exception, 
an  imperium  in  imperio,  always,  either  more  or  less,  struggling  for  power.  When  Jeroboam 
restored  the  old  worship,  he  would  wish  to  have  the  old  priests  ;  and  whether  he  had  any  of  them 
or  not  he  would  claim  to  have  them.  This  appears  from  1  Kings,4  where  he  is  charged  by  the 
Jews  with  making  priests  out  of  all  the  people.  This  is  again  confirmed  by  a  speech  of  King 
Abijah  (son  of  Rehoboam)  made  on  mount  Ephraim :  "  Have  ye  not  cast  out  the  priests  of  the 
"  Lord,  the  sons  of  Aaron,  and  the  Levites,  and  have  made  you  priests  after  the  manner  of  the 
"  nations  of  the  other  land,  so  that  whosoever  cometh  to  consecrate  himself  with  a  young  bullock 
"  and  seven  rams  may  be  a  priest  ?"5  It  may  be  true  that  Jeroboam  did  this,  but  as  it  is  made 
a  charge  against  him  by  his  enemy,  and  his  enemy  is  our  only  witness  to  the  fact,  we  cannot 
receive  it  as  a  thing  established,  on  which  we  can  reason. 

In  the  time  of  Rabbi  Meir,  as  I  have  already  stated,  the  image  of  a  dove  was  found  in  the  tem- 
ple of  Mount  Gerizim.6  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 
Ma^ai^ag  'ExXyvixijs,  the  Hellenic  Sword,  clearly  proves  the  truth  of  what  I  have  before  said, 
that  Helen  and  lone  had  the  same  meaning — that  of  the  female  generative  power.  The  Septuagint 
often  serves  as  a  most  useful  gloss. 

4.  Philo  Judaeus  says,  that  Moses  learnt  the  rest  of  the  sciences  of  the  Hellenes :  tyjv  he  aXhr}V 
syxuxXiov  Gratisiav  'EXAvjvsc  so'joWxoi/.7     And  Clemens  Alexandrinus   says,  that  the  Hellenes 


1  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  300.  2  1  Kings  xii.  32,  33.  3  Lewis,  Ant.  Heb.  Vol.  II.  p.  602. 

4  xii.  31,  32.  *  2  Chron  xiii.  9.  6  See  Bochart,  Vol.  III.  Chap.  I.  p.  6. 

»  In  Vita  Mosis,  Vol.  II.  p.  84. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  5.  499 

educated  him  in  Egypt  as  a  princely  child,  and  instructed  him  in  the  whole  circle  of  the  sciences.  1 
Zoroaster  is,  by  Ebn  Batrick,  styled  Iiina-Hellen.  Mr.  Bryant  says,  "  From  what  has  been  said, 
*  it  appears  plainly,  that  the  Hellenes  and  Iones  were  the  same  people  under  different  appella- 
tions. They  were  the  descendants  of  Hellen  and  Ion,  two  names  of  the  same  personage  j 
"  among  whose  sons  idolatry  first  began  in  the  region  of  Babylonia.  He  was  styled  Ion,  Ionan, 
"  Ionichus,  and  was  supposed  to  be  the  author  of  Magic.  From  him  the  Babylonians  had  the 
"  name  of  Ionim,  as  well  as  of  Hellenes  ;  for  these  terms  were  used  as  in  some  degree  synony- 
"  mous."  Mr.  Bryant  justly  observes,  this  accounts  for  the  Seventy  repeatedly  translating  the 
the  Hebrew  from  the  Hellenic  sword  onro  t^oo-cots  [i.a.%a.ipot.s  'ExXtjvjx%,  instead  of  from  the 
sword  of  the  Dove,  PBV  2"in  hrb  iune. 2  "  The  Iones  were  the  leaders  of  this  people,  according  to 
"  the  best  information.  They  were  descendants  of  one  Ion  or  Ionah,  who  was  concerned  in  the 
"  building  of  the  tower,  when  the  language  of  mankind  was  confounded." 3  This  confirms  my 
idea  that  the  Babylonians  were  followers  of  the  Yoni,  and  were  emigrants  from  India.  When  Mr. 
Bryant  wrote,  the  blaze  of  light  which  has  shone  from  the  East,  had  not  fallen  upon  these 
subjects. 

5.  Thus  Semiramis,  or  Semi-rama-isi,  was  the  same  as  Helen,  or,  in  short,  Venus,  or  Divine 
Love.  Her  visible  form  was  that  of  the  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  TAUBi-form  Jove  to  Europe, 
where  her  followers  were  known  by  the  name  of  Ionian  Pelasgi,  or  Ionian  sailors.  The  following 
are  the  words  of  the  learned  devotee  Nimrod :  "  Semiramis  is  said  to  have  been  slain  by  the  last 
"  survivor  of  her  sons ;  while  others  say  she  flew  away  as  a  bird.  I  believe  that  she  perished  by 
"  that  ancient  and  cruel  punishment,  crucifixion.  Helen  (as  we  are  told)  was  put  to  death  by 
"  certain  women  dressed  up  as  Furies  or  Erinnyes,  by  suspending  her  to  a  tree.4  In  honour  or 
"  rather  in  expiation  of  her  suspension,  she  was  worshiped  as  Helen  Dendritis.  But  the  modern 
"punishment  of  hanging  is  only  a  modification  of  the  ancient  crucifixion,  introduced  quite  as 
"  much  by  the  devotion  as  by  the  humanity  of  Christendom  ;  and  it  was  an  ancient  custom  to  use 
'•  trees 5  as  gibbets  for  crucifixion,  or,  if  artificial,  to  call  the  cross  or  furca  a  tree — in  felici  arbore 
"  suspendito.  The  Deuteronomy  says,  '  He  that  is  hanged  is  accursed  of  God  j'6  upon  which  St. 
"  Paul  thus  comments : 7  '  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made  a  curse  for 
"  us:  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every  one  that  hangeth  on  a  tree.'  That  (I  think)  explains  the 
"  ceremony  of  the  Erinnyes  or  Curses  suspending  Helen  upon  the  fatal  tree.  The  same  tradition 
"  may  be  traced  in  the  history  of  the  bird  lynx  or  Venereal  Dove,  into  which  Semiramis  was 
"  changed;  but  that  change  was  her  Apotheosis,  and  the  crucifixion  is  made  into  a  glorious  mys- 
"  tery  by  her  infatuated  adorers."  So  far  the  pious,  not  the  infidel,  Nimrod.  In  reply  to  his  last 
words,  which  I  have  marked  by  italics,  the  Ionian  followers  of  this  incarnate  Ega>£,  if  we  had  them 
here  to  question,  would  most  likely  indignantly  deny  every  thing  which  we  read  of  her,  to  her  dis- 
advantage, in  the  pages  of  opponent  sects,  her  enemies,  or  in  the  poems  of  wicked  unbelieving 
poets.  Again  Nimrod  says,8  "The  wheel  upon  which  criminals  were  extended  was  a  cross, 
"  although  the  name  of  the  thing  was  dissembled  among  Christians ;  it  was  a  St.  Andrew's  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  maenad  or  fanatic  bird,  crucified  on  a  wheel  with  four  spokes, 


1  Strom.  Lib.  i.  p.  413.  2  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  160. 

3  Chnn.  Paschale,  Eusebii  Chron.  p.  7;  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  149. 

4  Pausan.  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  xix.  Sect.  10;  Ptol.  Heph.  Lib.  iv.  p.  149.      5  See  Elias  Schedius  deDiis  Germanis,  p.  51 1. 
6  Deut.  xxi.  23.  ^  Galat.  iii.  13.  8  P.  305. 

3  s2 


500 


STAUROBATES.       PHOINIX. 

XloiKtKav  ivyya,  T£ 
Tpa.wa.iA.ov  OvKv^itoBtv 
Ev  a-XvTU  ^evZa-o-a.  kvkXcp 
MaivaS'  opiv  KvitpoyevEia.  (psptv 
Upurov  avdgwitOHTi.  • 


"  The  8ea-jU,o£2  rerpaxva(xo§  of  the  wheel  is  elsewhere  described  by  Pindar  as  a  punishment  of 
"  the  accursed,  the  eternal  crucifixion  of  Ixion."3 
Who  is  the  Ixion  crucified,  but  the  second  person  of  the  Hindoo  Trinity,  called  Ixora  ? 4 
6.  In  both  Grecian  and  Hindoo  histories  this  mystical  queen  Semiramis  is  said  to  have  fought  a 
battle  on  the  bank  of  the  Indus,  with  a  king  called  Staurobates,  in  which  she  was  defeated,  and 
from  which  she  flew  away  in  the  form  of  a  Dove.  On  this  Nimrod  says,  "  The  name  Staurobates, 
"  the  king  by  whom  Semiramis   was    finally  overpowered,  alludes  to  the   cross  on  which  she 

"  perished."5 

But  Bolivco  means  to  carry,  so  that  Staurobates  might  very  correctly  mean  cross-borne.  I  have 
little  doubt  that  it  meant  Palm-tree  cross  and  cross-borne ;  a  very  interesting  reason  for  the  latter 
signification  I  shall  give  when  I  treat  of  the  ninth  Indian  Avatar.  The  apparent  contradiction  in 
the  account  of  Semiramis'  flying  away  and  being  crucified  is  reconciled  by  supposing,  that,  on  her 
death,  her  soul  flew  away  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  as  was  always  supposed  to  be  the  case  with  the 
souls  of  the  Roman  Emperors,  who  were  apotheosised.  I  think  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  word 
Staurobates,  known  in  India  and  Greece,  may  be  a  contraction  of  two  words  found  in  Greek,  viz. 
Sraueoj  a  cross,6  and  Bcuoi/  a  Palm  or  Phoenix  tree.  It  would  then  mean  the  Phoenix  or  Palm- 
tree  cross.  It  might  also  mean  cross-borne  from  B^a  (Jones).  It  is  a  compound  word  used  by 
the  Greeks.  But  the  Phoenix,  as  I  have  shewn,  was  identified  with  the  cycle  of  600  or  608  in 
Ireland,  or  with  the  Sun  or  Ethereal  fluid,  or  the  still  higher  principle.  Here,  perhaps,  we  may 
find  the  origin  of  the  mystical  idea  of  some  of  the  early  Christians,  that  Jesus  Christ  was  crucified 
in  the  heavens ;  and  it  may  lead  us  to  a  suspicion  (recondite  and  mystical  enough  I  grant,  in  this 
mystical  history)  as  to  what  bird  the  Phoenix  really  was.  It  was  a  portion  of  the  generative  principle, 
the  divine  love,  the  epoog,  which  first  moved  on  the  waters,  and  which,  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  was 
incarnated  every  600  or  608  years,  when  the  Sun  and  Moon  became  in  conjunction  and  a  new 
seeculum  arose.  Ega>£  or  Eros,  we  learn  from  the  Orphic  Argonaut,  ver.  11,  had  the  name  of 
Phanes  ; r  that  is,  Phenn  or  the  Phoenix,  which  has  the  meaning  of  608.  Phenn  is  the  same  as 
the  Greek  Qaivo)  to  shine,  and  Quvog  a  torch,  and  <$*ctvou  the  orgies  of  Bacchus. 

Dr.  Clarke  observed  a  Phoenix  on  an  obelisk  of  the  Sun  at  Heliopolis.  He  thinks  it  was  a  sym- 
bol of  reviving  nature.     Herodotus  says  it  was  like  an  eagle.     Ovid  says  it  is  an  Assyrian  bird;8 


1  Pindar,  Pyth  iv.  ver.  380. 

4  Vide  Georgius  Alp.  Tib.  p.  99. 

7  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  330. 


2  Idem,  Pyth.  ii.  ver.  74.  3  Nimrod,  p.  306. 

s  Nimrod,  306.  6  See  Matt,  xxvii.  32. 

8  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  IV.  p.  73,  4to. 


BOOK    IX.     CHAPTER    III.      SECTION  7«  501 

I  doubt  not  the  Assyrian  bird  of  Semiramis.  "  Meranon  when  dead  was  transferred  into  a  bird, 
"  incomparable  (as  he  had  been  among  men)  for  beauty  and  sagacity;  the  Orion  of  the  Indians,  and 
"  Phoenix  of  the  classical  writers.  Memnon  was  the  son  of  Aurora,  or  (by  another  account)  of 
"  Semiramis,  whose  Persiau  name  is  Hom-ai  or  the  bird  of  Paradise.  Now  Phoinix  was  the  bird 
"  of  the  morning  and  also  of  Paradise ;  his  dwelling  was  in  the  very  East,  at  the  gate  of  heaven, 
"  in  the  land  of  the  spring,  and  the  grove  of  the  sun,  upon  a  plain  of  unalloyed  delights,  lying 
"  twelve  cubits  higher  than  the  highest  of  mouritains.',  "  Phoinix  was  also  a  tree."  "  Upon  the 
"  highest  convexity  or  umbo  of  Achilles's  shield  stood  a  palm  or  Phoinix  tree."1 

Diodorus  Siculus  had  learnt  something  relating  to  the  cross,  but  he  evidently  did  not  understand 
it.  He  says  that  Staurobates  sent  to  inform  Semiramis  that,  if  he  conquered  her,  he  would  nail 
her  to  a  cross.  2  From  such  scraps  of  traditions  collected  together  may  be  found  the  secret  mean- 
ing of  the  ancient  mythoses,  and  by  no  other  method  will  they  ever  be  discovered. 

7.  The  Arion  or  Aour-Ion  just  named  was  a  king,  who  was  said  to  have  lived  among  the  Chal- 
deans. He  is  one  of  the  constellations.  The  Grecian  accounts  of  him  are  absolutely  ridiculous, 
and  exhibit  a  perfect  sample  of  the  manner  in  which  they  accounted  for  the  traditions  and  super- 
stitions of  their  country.  He  was  known  by  the  Assyrians  by  the  name  of  Al-aur,  and  was  said 
to  have  taught  them  to  worship  fire.  The  word  is  a  compound  of  the  Hebrew  "iik  aur,  Aour  or 
Ur  denoting  fire,  (or  that  higher  principle  to  which  both  belong,)  and  Ion,  a  Dove,  or  Ioni.  Not 
only  both  of  these  things,  but  both  of  these  words,  have  been  much  concerned  in  the  mysteries  of 
religion,  from  the  days  of  Adam  to  those  of  Christ. 3  Orion  may  also  be  construed  to  mean  the 
mountain  Dove,  and  in  this  exactly  coincides  both  with  Semi-ramis  and  with  the  Indian  Parvati.4 
Pindar  says, 

Mrj  TY)\o6ev  Clptava  vsi<t9<xi. 

Orion  was  said  to  have  been  nursed  in  a  land  called  Hellopia,5   or  Ia-pi-el,  country  of  the  Sun. 

Mr.  Bryant6  has  shewn  that  Phoinix  was  not  the  name  of  a  country  only,  but  was  also  a  term 
of  honour,  applied  to  many  places.  He  also  observes,  that  it  was  the  name  of  a  tree  which  was 
always  held  in  the  highest  honour,  and  was  thought  to  be  immortal,  as,  if  it  died,  it  obtained  a 
second  life  by  renewal.  Hence  it  was  an  emblem  of  immortality  among  all  nations.  It  is  pro- 
bably to  its  renovating  property  that  the  Psalmist  alludes  when  he  says,  the  righteous  shall  flourish 
like  the  Palm  tree.  7  Its  name  in  Hebrew  is  nDD  Tmr.  In  John  xii.  13,  we  find  the  expression, 
tcl  fia'ia  to)V  (poivixwv— branches  of  palm  trees.  It  is  mentioned  in  the  Maccabees8  that  the  Jews 
entered  the  temple  upon  a  solemn  occasion,  Msto.  aivsrecog  xai  fia'icov.  It  was  called  $ai  or  Bai 
in  Egypt,  and  from  its  supposed  immortality  the  Egyptians  gave  the  name  Bai  to  the  soul.  Eg-J 
[lev  yap  to  0a<  \|/u;£?j.  9 

The  inside  of  the  holy  of  holies,  in  the  Jewish  temple,  was  surrounded  with  palm  trees  or 
Phoinici,  which  overshadowed  the  cloven  or  ox-footed  beings  which  guarded  the  Ark.  See  print 
of  it  in  Walton's  Prologomena  to  his  Polyglot.  In  the  front  of  the  Church  of  Maria  Maggiore  in 
Rome,  is  a  very  large  Corinthian  column,  the  capital  of  course  ornamented  with  palm  leaves. 
Come  from  where  it  would,  it  was  probably  placed  there  before  the  Church  of  the  Queen  of  Heaven, 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  390.  «  B.  II.  Ch.  i.                           3  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  4,  Sup.  Ed. 

4  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  14.  4  Strabo,  Lib.  x.  p.  649,  Oxon.    Ibid. 

6  Anal.  Heath.  Mythol.  Vol.  I.  p.  322.  7  Psalm  xcii.  12.                          8  1  Mace.  xiii.  51. 
9  Horapollo,  Lib.  i.  Cap.  vii.  p.  1 1. 


502  CECROPS.      IXION.      DIVINE   LOVE    CRUCIFIED. 

for  the  same  reason  that  the  obelisks  were  placed  before  the  temples  at  Dodona,  at  Delphi,  and  in 
Egypt,  and  this  I  will  prove  before  I  finish  my  work. 

When  the  Pharaoh  of  Egypt  gave  a  title  of  honour  to  Joseph,  he  called  him  Zophnat- Paneach, 
mj/D  ponh  niDJf  zpnt.  After  a  long  disquisition  the  learned  Pfeiffer  brings  out  the  word  rusy  zpnt 
to  mean  yvco^g  or  Augur.  I  think  the  m^a  ponh  is  the  Phen  or  Phoinix — used  metaphorically 
as  illustrious,   grand,  great,  the  great  Augur,  or  prophet,  or  wise  man— the  Paragon  or  Phoenix 

of  Augurs. 

Justin  Martyr  cites  the  example  of  the  Phoenix  burning  itself  to  prove  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  If  this  do  not  prove  the  wisdom  of  the  holy  father,  it  proves  the  prevalence  of  the  super- 
stition and  its  probable  connexion  with  Christianity.  He  has  mistaken  the  number  of  years  of 
its  period ;  but  authors  differed  about  this,  not  understanding  the  nature  of  the  cycle  concealed 
beneath  the  allegory. 

I  apprehend  the  palm  tree  or  the  Phoinix  tree  was  the  sacred  tree,  the  tree  of  wisdom,  for 
another  reason,  viz.  from  the  use  of  its  leaves  for  the  purpose  of  writing.  It  had  the  name  of 
Doum  tree — tree  of  the  Oum  or  Om,  D'Om.  The  Phoinix  was  the  Om,  the  cycle  of  600.  It 
was  the  ornament  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  Jewish  temple,  of  the  Aiayv  rwv  Aicovcov,  the  eter- 
nally renovating  cycle,  which  was  one  of  his  names.1  In  ancient  Egyptian  Pheneh  meant  cyclus, 
periodus,  sevum.     Scaliger. 

Phoenix,  Egyptiis  astrologiae  symbolum.    Bochart. 

Una  est  quae  reparat  seque  ipsa  reseminat 
Ales  Assyrii  Phoeniea  vocant.    Ovid.2 

The  Meneiadse,  or  the  priests  of  Menes,  were  said  to  have  been  changed  into  doves,  because, 
says  Mr.  Bryant,3  they  were  Ionim.  Here  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  ignorance  of  the  Greeks. 
They  found  the  priests  to  be  Ionim — that  is,  the  Hebrew  plural  of  Ioni— or  the  followers  of  the 
Ioni,  which  had  the  meaning  of  dove,  as  we  have  seen.  This  they  understood,  but  not  under- 
standing the  other  meaning,  viz.  the  sectarian  term,  they  had  no  alternative  but  to  make  them 
doves,  and  Doves  or  Peleiades  they  made  them.  The  priestesses  at  Dodona  were  Ioni-ans,  but 
not,  as  Hesychius  calls  them,  YieKetai  Greek  doves  :  nor  were  they,  as  Servius  described  them, 
Chaonian  Doves.4  Herodotus  has  informed  us  what  this  means:  he  says  they  were  black 
women,  ]U,sXoava£,  who  came  from  Egypt.  Where  they  came  from  is  not  now  the  question,  but 
I  dare  say  they  were  black  women,  Ionim,  followers  of  the  black  queen  of  heaven — Pythonesses, 
or  Sibyls,  perhaps — Asiatic  Ionim — Ionians.  But  it  seems  that  he  did  not  understand  the  whole 
of  the  matter,  for  he  says,  he  supposes  these  black  women  were  foreigners,  because  they  were 
called  doves — a  reason  foolish  enough.  This  explains  all  the  difficulties  about  the  priestesses 
being  doves  of  the  different  temples. 

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  sacrifice  by  the  Jews. 

8.  Cecrops  was  said  to  be  the  founder  of  Athens,  and  to  have  been  the  inventor  of  a  certain 


1  Vide  Book  V.  Ch.  IV.  Sect.  10.  s  Book  V.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  5 ;  Ch.  XIII.  Sect.  2. 

3  Anal.  Anc.  Myth.  Vol.  II.  p.  290. 

4  The  word  Chaonian  is  very  curious.    I  suspect  it  had  the  same  meaning  as  the  Apollo  Cunnius  ;  and  that  there 
never  was  such  a  town  as  Chaon  or  Caon  in  Greece,  although  there  might  be  mountains  so  called  by  the  priests. 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  III.     SECTION   8.  503 

kind  of  cake  made  of  fine  flour  and  honey,  offered  to  the  Queen  of  Heaven.1  These  cakes  were 
said  to  be  made  with  horns,  and  were  called  Boun  2  or  Be$  or  Bev.  A  similar  kind  of  cakeB  are 
called  by  Jeremiah 3  DMia  cunim.  The  Seventy  translate  this  by  the  word  %CLv<ovcig.  Mr\  avev 
tm  VLV&pwv  yp.wv  £7T0i7i(ra^.sv  auTy  ^uvcomg,*  All  this  relates,  I  think,  to  the  joint  adoration  of 
the  Beeve  and  the  Yoni — to  the  Baaltis  j  and  I  think  the  D'Jia  cunim  were  the  cakes  alluded  to  by 
Mr.  Bryant  and  described  by  Herodotus.5  At  Athens  there  was  an  Apollo  Cunnius.6  Cecrops 
sacrificed  nothing  that  had  life.  Here  we  go  back  to  the  Buddhists.7  In  almost  all  nations  when 
we  go  to  their  origin,  we  .meet  with  some  circumstance  of  this  kind  to  connect  them  with 
the  oriental  doctrines,  and  particularly  to  the  abstinence  from  animal  food. 

The  following  observations  of  the  very  learned  and  pious  Nimrod  cannot  fail,  I  think,  to  excite 
some  sensations  of  a  curious  kind  in  the  mind  of  the  reader :  "  Candace  denotes,  as  I  believe, 
"  the  She  Hawk  of  the  Wheel,  that  is,  the  Anima  Mundi  or  Divine  Spirit  of  the  world's  rotation. 
"  We  read  in  Pindar  of  the  venereal  bird  lynx  bound  to  the  wheel,  and  of  the  pretended  punish- 
*c  ment  of  Ixion.8  But  this  rotation  was  really  no  punishment,  being,  as  Pindar  saith,  voluntary, 
"  and  prepared  by  himself  and  for  himself:  or  if  it  was,  it  was  appointed  in  derision  of  his  false 
"  pretensions  whereby  he  gave  himself  out  as  the  crucified  spirit  of  the  world."9 

The  mystic  union  of  the  Ega>£  and  the  "^fuyyi,  Cupid  and  Psyche,  is  celebrated  by  the  Greeks  in 
a  vast  variety  of  beautiful  allegories  j  but  we  almost  always  find  the  dove  and  the  flaming  torch  to 
be  part  of  the  ceremony.  The  butterfly  or  the  chrysalis,  emblematical  of  the  metempsychosis  or 
change  of  state,  is  generally  seen.  10    Varro  itaque  earn  definit,  "  Anima  est  aer  conceptus  ore, 


1  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p  299. 

*  I  believe  that  it  was  from  this  fav  we  derived  our  word  boon  for  a  service  rendered  by  a  tenant  to  his  landlord,  or 
a  piece  of  work  done  gratis— and  our  word  bon-fire,  on  days  of  great  rejoicing.  I  suspect  that  they  all  came  to  En- 
gland  with  Cunobelinus  or  Apollo  Cunnius,  after  whom  our  king  was  so  called,  if  there  were  such  a  king. 

3  Ch.  vii.  18,  xliv.  18,  19.  *  Jeremiah  xliv.  19.  *  Anal.  Ant.  Myth.  Vol.  I.  p.  301. 

6  Ibid.  p.  350.  »  Pausan.  Lib.  viii.  p.  600. 

8  TeT/jaxva/xov  «rpa£e  ha/Aov  Eov  o\&pov  Oy\  Pyth.  2,  v.  74.  The  four  spokes  represent  St.  Andrew's  cross,  adapted 
to  the  four  limbs  extended,  and  furnish  perhaps  the  oldest  profane  allusion  to  the  crucifixion.  This  same  cross  of  St. 
Andrew  was  the  Thau,  which  Ezekiel  commands  them  to  mark  upon  the  foreheads  of  the  faithful,  as  appears  from  old 
Israelitish  coins  whereon  that  letter  is  engraved.  The  same  idea  was  familiar  to  Lucian,  who  calls  T  the  letter  of  cru- 
cifixion, and  seems  to  derive  it  from  the  word  r«v/jo<.  (Luc.  Jud.  voce  ad  finem,  et  vid.  Chishull,  Ant.  Ass.  p.  21.) 
Certainly  the  veneration  for  the  cross  is  very  ancient.  lynx  the  bird  of  Mantic  inspiration,  pan/a?  opvti;,  bound  to  the 
four-legged  wheel, 

Ev  aXvrtp  "^tvy^tKj-a.  y.vy\o3, 

gives  the  notion  of  divine  love  crucified.  The  wheel  denotes  the  world,  of  which  she  is  the  spirit,  and  the  cross  the 
sacrifice  made  for  that  world.  lynx  is  used  for  Love,  Desire,  Appetition,  and  thence  the  Latin  word  iungo  or  yungo 
I  unite,  and  our  name  for  the  age  of  sensual  love,  Young — itoivu'kot.v  ivyya..  Having  explained  thus  much,  I  may  add 
with  Columella,  Lib.  x.  ver.  349, 

Hinc  Amythaonius,  docuit  quem  plurima  Cheiron,  . 

Nocturnas  crucibus  volucres  suspendit,  et  altis 

Cuhninibus  vetuit  feralia  carmina  flere.  Thus  far  Nimrod. 

I  shall  make  no  observation  upon  the  crucifixion  of  the  dove  of  Venus,  the  mcenad  or  fanatic  bird,  born  at  Askelon 
and  on  the  Euphrates,  of  divine  love,  before  Christianity  existed,  except,  1  st,  that  the  priests  for  almost  2000  years  have 
been  employed  in  destroying  every  thing  which  they  thought  made  against  their  system,  and  how  this  has  escaped 
them  I  do  not  know ;  and,  2dly,  that  Epa<;,  or  divine  love,  as  the  reader  has  seen,  was  the  first-begotten  son  of  the 
Platonists. 

9  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  278,  Suppressed  Edition.  l0  Vide  Spon.  Miss.  Erad.  Ant.  p.  7. 


504  CECROPS.      IXION.      DIVINE   LOVE    CRUCIFIED. 

"  defervefactus  in  pulrnone,  tepefactus  in  corde,  diffusus  in  corpore."  ImoLatine  Anima  a  Graeco 
aveposi  ventus  :  sic  Plautus,  Virgilius  et  alii  animam  ssepenumero  pro  vento  usurparunt.  Inde 
animam  efflare  dixerunt,  quod  earn  pro  vento  flatuve  haberent,  comprobaturque  sequenti  marmore, 
ubi  papilio  a  mortuo  efflatus  circumvolitat.  Hinc  Grseci  animam  Psychen  nominarunt,  vel  ha  to 
avtoQev  s^o^co^rai,  quasi  coelitus  inspirata,  ut  dit  Nicetas  Choniates,  vel  a  verbo  ^o^pos,  quod 
Hesycbio,  levis  et  debilis  est.  Anima,  inquit  Poteta,  par  levibus  ventus,  volucrique  simillima 
somno,  quando  scilicet  a  corpore  divortium  fecit.  Addendum  et  ^X^v  Graecis  aequivocatum  esse, 
animamque  significare  et  papilionem  :  unde  Hesychius,  ^X^  7r,/£U/ia  xai  $000$  xrrjvov.1 

"  When  Agamemnon  sacrificed  at  Aulis,  in  Bceotia,  2  the  Gods  sent  no  fire  to  consume  the 
"  victim.  This  fire  is  figured  as  a  breeze  to  be  sent  by  the  Gods  to  speed  the  ships  on  their 
"  imaginary  voyage,  but  it  is  called  by  the  same  word  which  meant  the  sacred  fire,  oogof. 
"  Whenever  the  Gods  sent  a  wind,  it  is  called  Ixfxevog  Ougof, 3  and  it  is  well  known  to  all  readers 
"  that  the  Creator  spirit  is  equally  represented  in  holy  writ  by  a  fire  or  luminous  glory,  and  by  a 
"  rushing  wind.  Aura,  in  Latin,  may  be  used  for  a  breeze,  and  the  divine  particula  aurae  in  a 
"  man  is  called  avsfxos  or  animus,  and  anima  7rvsu/xa,  spiritus. 4  Upon  this  occasion  it  is  said 
"  that  the  king  sacrificed  his  daughter  which  pacified  the  Gods  and  procured  the  augo£." 

Centre  de  toute  puissance,  de  toute  intelligence,  de  toute  perfection,  Dieu  existoit  avant  tous 
les  tems,  avant  toutes  les  choses,  avant  tous  les  6tres  animus.  Invisible  par  son  essence,  son 
invisibilite  fut  la  nuit  primitive,  qui  pr^c^da  les  tems  et  la  lumiere.  Dans  elle,  il  produisit  par  sa 
puissance,  ce  qu'il  avoit  concu  par  son  intelligence  j  c' est  pour  cela,  que  la  nuit  fut  appelee  la 
Mere,  la  Gen^ratrice  de  tout  j 5  Dieu  renferma,  dans  un  oeuf  immense,  les  principes  et  les  germes 
de  toutes  les  choses:  de  cet  oeuf,  sortit  un  etre  qui  posse'doit  les  deux  sexes ;  c'etoit  le  fils,  la 
premiere  production  de  Dieu  :  il  se  servit  de  lui,  pour  separer  les  elemens  confondus  dans  cahos, 
et  pour  developper  les  germs  des  creatures  vivantes.  Sa  vertu  ou  sa  puissance  supreme  confine  a 
son  fils,  fussit  a  la  creation  du  moride  material,  mais  pour  vivifier  les  germs,  il  fallut  le  soiiffle, 
V  esprit  qui  les  echauffa.  Cet  esprit  fut  appele  1' amour.  Orphee  lui  donne  le  titre  de  Trvsofxa. 
et  de  7ravroysvsQ7^a.  Et  suivant  He'siode,  il  fut  contemporaire  du  cahos.6  Htoj  [xsv  Too^Ti^a 
%ot.0S  ysvsr,  aurotq  sxsira,  H*  8'  Ego£.  Au  moment  ou  le  monde  en  sortit,  il  n' existoit  que 
Dieu,  sa  force  supreme,  ou  sa  vertu,  sa  sagesse,  ou  son  esprit.  Ces  deux  &tres  Metaphysiques 
personifies  produisirent  le  Fils,  ou  l'£tre  Ge'ne'rateur,  et  1' Amour,  par  lequel  il  engendra  d'abord, 
et  conserva  dans  la  suite,  toutes  les  creatures.7 


1  Vide  Spon.  Miss.  Erad.  Ant.  p.  7.  *  IL  II.  ver.  303. 

3  From  which  sense  of  the  word  comes  Ssu?  Ovpos,  whose  temple  near  Byzantium  is  mentioned  by  Arrian,  Perip. 
Eux  p.  137;  and  see  the  inscription  in  Chishull,  Ant.  Ass.  p.  59.  The  Ourian  Jove  presided  over  the  command  of 
armies.     Jupiter  imperator  quern  Grseci  Urion  nominant,  saith  Tully.     In  Vervem,  IV.  p.  410,  ed.  Delph. 

4  See  Gen.  i.  2 ;  Acts  ii.  2,  3;  1  Kings  viii.  11.  The  priests  of  Rome  were  called  blowing  winds  or  Flamen.  A  great 
poet  says,  TlvSuvir  av^v^  ovpov,  and  Virgil,  the  thrilling  song  that  wakes  the  dead  "  Wind," 

atque  Ixionii  vento  rota  constitit  axis — 

for  I  do  not  scruple  thus  to  expound  this  most  obscure  verse.  The  Rabbins  call  the  Holy  Ghost  Sephyrah  or  the 

Zephyr,  when  they  interpret  wisdom,  meaning  the  divine  afflatus.  Vide  Tomline's  Elem.  Theol  Vol.  II.  p.  80.    With 

the  substantive  nvevpa,  agrees  that  old  Homeric  verb  ittuvtvjjMi,  I  am  gifted  with  knowledge,  inflated  or  inspired. 
Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  300,  Sup.  Ed. 

4  Orph.  Hymn  II.  v.  3,  Nuf  ywe<rt<;  mavruv.  6  The\)g.  v.  116.  7  D'Ancarville,  Res  Vol.  I.  p.  147- 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER    IV.   SECTION  2.  505 


CHAPTER  IV. 

AMAZONS.  GENESIS.— AMAZON,  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. 

1.  We  will  now  inquire  into  the  origin  of  the  Amazons.  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  the  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  rendered  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. 

The  text  says  man  was  formed  after  the  image  of  God;  but  God  himself  was  believed  to  be  andro- 
gynous. The  text  of  Genesis  (ii.  21)  is  VnyVlfO  ni7K  which  means  either,  one  from  his  sides  or  one 
from  his  ribs  ;  but  the  latter  is  inconsistent  with  the  context,  which  says  in  the  23d  verse,  that 
the  woman  was  made  not  only  from  the  bones,  but  from  the  flesh  of  the  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  1'  adorait  dans  le  royaume  de  Pont, 
avec  1'  epithete  significative  de  Priapina. 

2.  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.  The  Suanes  and  Soanes, 
of  Colchis,  were  sometimes  called  Zani,  Za'inai,  Zanitae,  and  also  Sanitse.  There  was  a  city  on  the 
Thracian  coast  called  Zona,  to  which  the  trees  of  Pieria  are  said  to  have  come  and  ranged  them- 
selves in  order  to  the  music  of  Orpheus's  harp. 3      Heliopolis,  of  Egypt,  or  On,  was  also  called 


1  Pagan  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  71. 

*  The  idea  of  the  learned  Jews  and  others  alluded  to  hy  Mr.  Faber,  does  not  seem  so  absurd  to  us,  since  we  have 
seen  the  Siamese  Boys.  And  if  it  be  said  that  had  they  been  male  and  female  they  could  not  have  increased  the  breed, 
the  answer  is  very  short— had  the  ligature  which  bound  them  together  been  a  few  inches  longer,  they  could  have  done 
it.  There  have  been  many  instances  of  double  persons.  A  double  lady,  the  daughter  of  Fulk  de  Paganel,  formerly 
lived,  and  left  a  large  property  to  the  town  of  Newport  Pagnel,  which  it  now  holds  from  her.  Vide  her  monument  in 
the  centre  aisle  of  the  church. 

3  Argonaut.  Lib.  i.   ver.  29 ;  Mela,  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  iii.  p.  140  j  Herod.  Lib.  vii.  Cap.  lix. ;  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  Ill 
p.  4/6. 

3t 


506  INVASION    OF    ATHENS    BY   THE    AMAZONS. 

Zoan,    and  Taphnes,  and    Fons  Solis,   and   Balbec,    and  Bahalbeth. l      Taphnes  was   probably 
Taph-hanes.     Bahal-beth  and  Balbec  mean  Balbit,  house  of  the  Sun  or  Bal. 

There  was  a  city  in  Africa  called  Zona  taken  by  the  Roman  general  Sestius  ;  also  a  city  of 
Zona  of  the  Amazons  in  Cappadocia,2   or  Armenia,  &c.     There  was  a  temple  in  Thrace  called 
Saot/.    The  following  facts  are  extracted  from  a  long  passage  of  Mr.  Bryant's  Analysis.3      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.4      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  Mseotis.     Polysenus  speaks  of  Ama- 
zons 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. 
Apafyvsg  V7re£qe-ty(x.v   avQig  sig  \rakiav. 5      There  was   a  town  in  Messapia,  towards  the  lower 
part  of  Italy,  named  Amazonia.  6       Even  the  Athenians  and  Boeotians  were  of  the  same  family : 
hence  it  is  said  that  Cadmus  had  an  Amazonian  wife,  when  he  went  to  Thebes,  and  that  her  name 
ivas  Sphinx:  Kotifxog  s^cdv  yvwixa  A^,a£bw§a,  y  ovo/xa  S<£>'7£>  rfsv  sig  (drfiocg.7      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  peculiarly  black.    The 
Iberians,  the  Cimmerians,  the  Maeotse,  the  Atlantians  of  Mauritania,  and  all  the  Ionians,  were 
Amazonians — and  were  called  Azones,  Amazones,  and  Alazones.     They  were  also   called  Syri, 
Assyrii,  Chaldaei,  Mauri,  Chalybes.    They  are  said  to  have  founded  the  cities  of  Ephesus,  Smyrna, 
Cuma,   Myrina  Latorea,  Ansea,  Eldsea,  Myrlaea,  Paphos,  Cuna,  besides  many  others.     Lucian,  in 
his  dialogue  between  Vulcan  and  Jupiter,  calls  Minerva  an  Amazon. 

I  believe,  with  Mr.  Faber, 8  that  the  statues  of  Amazons,  said  to  have  been  worshiped  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. 

They  are  represented  to  us,  by  the  Greek  writers,  as  a  most  turbulent  and  warlike  race.  Pliny 
says,  their  shield  was  in  the  form  of  the  leaf  of  the  Indian  fig-tree  :  and  on  it  they  carried  a 
lunette.  This,  I  think,  was  the  Argha  or  boat  of  India,  which  must  have  been  like  a  lunette. 
Monuments  were  shewn  in  various  places  where  they  are  said  to  have  had  battles,  and  been  killed ; 
as  at  Megara,  Chseronea,  Scotusssea,  Cunoscephale,  also  in  Ionia  and  Mauritania,  and  even  within 
the  walls  of  Athens. 

3.  A  very  celebrated  and  marked  invasion  of  Attica  by  them  is  recorded.  The  Athenians 
shewed  the  place  where,  in  this  invasion,  the  battle  was  fought, — a  subsequent  truce  made,  and  a 
stone  pillar  erected  to  record  it,  called  Amazoneum.  The  commander  of  the  Amazons  is  stated  to 
have  been  a  foreigner  from  Egypt,  a  Thracian  and  an  Athenian,  whose  name  was  Eumolphus. 
Sacrifices  were  offered  by  the  Athenians  to  their  Manes ;  and  a  temple  in  Athens  was  said  to  have 
been  built  by  them.  The  place  where  the  truce  was  made  was  called  'O%xu)[xo(riov,  Horcomo- 
sium.  Here  we  have  an  excellent  example  of  Grecian  history.  Here  are  all  the  particulars  of  the 
war-monuments  to  those  slain  in  battle  ;  places  deriving  their  names  from  the  events  of  the  war; 
temples  erected — treaties  of  peace  exhibited.  And  yet,  taken  literally,  every  word  is  false  :  for 
no  one  can  believe  that  there  ever  was  an  Amazonian  army  of  women  with  one  breast.     This 


1  Raleigh's  Hist.  Book  i.  Ch.  iii.  «  Antoninus,  p.  182.  3  Vol.  III.  pp.  461,  462. 

4  Diod.  Sic.  Lib.  iii.  p.  188,  and  p.  185.  4  Schol.  in  Lycoph.  ver.  1332,  also  ver.  995. 

6  Steph.  Bysant.  -3  Paleephatus,  p.  26.  8  Vol.  III.  p.  80. 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  3.  507 

serves  to  shew  how  all  Grecian  early  history  ought  to  be  estimated.  It  is  all  mythological.  I 
cannot  help  here  observing,  that  we  have  no  sacred  historical  record  better  authenticated  than 
this  at  Athens,  and  not  one  of  the  same  date  bearing,  in  its  literal  sense,  more  the  character  of 
real  history. 

The  confusion  of  the  history  of  the  Amazons  has  hitherto  set  all  theory  at  defiance.  But  I 
think  a  little  consideration  of  what  we  have  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.  l  The  reunion  of  the  two  sects  took  place  at  the  time  de^ 
scribed  in  this  truce  :  this  is  the  figurative  mode  of  describing  the  reunion  of  the  religions. 

The  Amazons  are  said  to  have  burnt  the  temple  of  Ephesus,  which  they  erected  themselves  j 2 
and  which  was  the  chief  seat  of  the  Amazonian  lonim. 3  Mr.  Bryant  4  acknowledges  that  he 
knows  not  how  to  account  for  this,  because  he  is  satisfied  that  the  Amazonians  and  Ionians  were 
the  same.  The  difficulty  is  easily  explained.  The  first  founders  were  worshipers  of  the  double 
principle,  the  Brahme-Maia ;  their  successors  fell  into  the  Yonian  heresy,  and  were  conquered  by 
people  of  the  original  religion,  when  it  became  restored,  according  to  the  accounts  in  the  Hindoo 
histories,  as  it  was  at  last  almost  every  where,  either  by  truce,  as  at  Athens,  or  by  force.  But  at 
Ephesus,  though  they  burnt  the  temple,  the  female,  in  Diana,  seems  to  have  recovered  its  power. 
At  first  we  find  them  founding  cities  and  settling  countries  ;  here  was  the  act  of  the  persons 
holding  the  double  principle;  afterward  we  find  them  making  war  on  the  cities  and  countries  which 
they  had  formerly  founded.  This  was  when  these  places  had  gone  into  the  adoration  of  the  Yoni 
alone,  or  in  other  cases  of  the  Linga  alone ;  for  the  Ama-Zon  must  have  been  at  equal  enmity 
with  the  two  taken  separately ;  and  at  last  when  the  two  reunited  they  all  merged  into  the  double 
worship  :  and  the  Amazons,  as  distinguished  from  the  others,  are  heard  of  no  more  j  so  that,  as 
Lysias  says,  their  name  became  extinct, — at  least  in  Greece,  or  the  Western  world.  But  to  the 
general  pacification,  the  Persians  and  Jews  formed  an  exception  :  in  consequence,  we  find  Cam- 
byses  restoring  the  temple  of  the  male  principle  at  Jerusalem,  destroying  the  temples,  and,  where 
he  could,  the  sphinxes,  but  leaving  the  obelisks,  the  emblems  of  the  Linga,  untouched  in  Egypt, 
where  some,  and  particularly  that  at  Heliopolis,  the  finest  of  them,  remain.  I  consider  the  fact  of 
the  obelisks — the  Lingas — being  left  by  the  Persians  when  the  temples  were  destroyed,  as  very 
important.  Why  were  they  left  ?  They  were  much  more  easy  to  overthrow  than  the  temples  ; 
and  they  are  most  of  them  covered  with  hieroglyphics  of  Gods  and  Goddesses.  Though  the 
temples  and  their  idols  were  odious  to  the  iconoclasts,  the  figures  of  idols  on  the  sacred  obelisks, 
which  were  used  only  as  letters,  were  spared,  for  the  sake  of  the  pillar,  the  Linga,  on  which  they 
were  engraved. 

Something  similar  to  the  story  told  of  the  race  of  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.  But  although  this  is  singular  enough,  there  is  not  in  their  tradi- 
tions the  least  appearance  of  the  breast  having  ever  been  amputated.     They  seem  to  have  been  in 


1  Lysias,  Funeb.  Orat.  to»«  KopivOtov  Bor}Qoi<.    Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  HI.  pp.  478,  480. 

2  Euseb.  Chron.  p.  35  ;  Syneellus,  p.  178.  3  Dionysius,  ver.  827 ;  also  Pausanias,  Lib.  iv.  p.  357. 
*  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p,  475. 

3t2 


508  AMAZONS    IN  THE    TIME   OF   ALEXANDER,   AND    NOW   IN    INDIA. 

existence  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great.     The  account  of  them  may  be  seen  in  the  fifth 
volume  of  the  Asiatic  Researches.     Nimrod1  has  some  curious  observations  respecting  them. 

4.  When  we  come  to  the  time  of  Alexander,  we  arrive  at  a  period  in  which  we  may  expect 
something  like  rational  history.     Bryant  says, 2  "  Some  ages  after,  in  the  time  of  Alexander,  an 
interview3  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  Mag- 
nus, 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  unques- 
tionable 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.    It  is  difficult  to  doubt  the  story  respect- 
ing Alexander;  and  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  present  Nairs,  very  near  to  or  in  the  country 
where  he  marched,  cannot  be  doubted.     When  I  consider  the  excesses  to  which  party  and  reli- 
gious zeal,  about  the  most  contemptible  nonsense,  will  often  carry  people,  I  can  believe  it  possible 
that  some  frantic  women  may  have  cut  off  their  own  or  their  children's  breasts,  which  may  have 
been  exaggerated  and  applied  to  all  the  armies  of  the  followers  of  the  female  sect,  who  may  hence 
have  been  all  called  Amazons.     Perhaps  these  armies  of  the  followers  of  the  female  Solar  princi- 
ple may  have  been  commanded  by  women  like  Boadicea,  of  Britain,  and  hence  the  fable  may  have 
arisen. 

Homer  states  the  Amazons  to  have  come  from  India.  There  is  an  Amazon  with  only  one 
breast  in  the  cave  of  Elephanta,  in  India.4  Mr.  Faber  says,5  "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  Ama- 
zon of  this  cave,  Col.  Wilford6  says,  the  figure  with  one  breast  has  been  thought  by  most  to  re- 
present 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  Na- 
ture considered  as  male  and  female,  and  presiding  over  generation. 7  The  Amazon  is  also  found  in 
the  caves  at  Maha-bali-pore.  8  In  all  parts  we  read  of  the  Amazons,  but  generally  confounded 
with  the  Cyclopes.  Perhaps  the  Cyclopes  were  husbands  of  the  Amazons,  that  is,  had  their  wives 
in  common.  This  custom  formerly  prevailed  in  Thrace,  in  Arabia, 9  according  to  Strabo,  and,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  yet  prevails  in  one  part  of  India,  among  the  people  called  Nairs.  In  the  Insti- 
tutes of  Menu  it  is  written,  "  Having  divided  his  own  subsistence,  the  Mighty  Power  became  half 
"  male  and  half  female."  10    Brahma  is   said  to  have  manifested  himself  in  a  human  shape,  when 


1  Volume  II.  p.  328.  >  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  484. 

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

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

5  Vol.  III.  pp.  63,  71,  82 ;  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  523.  6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  p.  414. 

7  For  the  Amazon  Ardhanari  is/iwar,  see  Bombay  Transactions,  Vol.  I.  p.  220.     .  8  Pritcliard,  p.  405. 

9  Vide  Univ.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  413.  10  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  viii.  advertisement. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  5.  509 

one  half  of  his  body  sprang  from  the  other,  which  yet  experienced  no  diminution ;  and  out  of  the 
severed  moiety  he  framed  a  woman,  denominated  Iva  or  Satarupa.  After  some  time  the  other 
half  of  his  body  sprang  from  him  and  became  Swayambhuva  or  Adima. *  From  their  embrace 
were  born  three  sons. 

In  this  wild  mythos  it  is  impossible  to  be  blind  to  the  account  of  the  creation  in  the  second  book 
of  Genesis,  as  expounded  by  the  Jewish  Rabbis,  in  the  double  being  out  of  which  man  and  woman 
were  formed.  At  the  same  time  I  conceive  it  absolutely  impossible  to  believe  it  to  have  been 
simply  a  copy  of  our  Genesis,  as  we  have  it,  unexplained,  by  the  Rabbis.  This  proves  that  the 
Hindoo  cannot  have  copied  from  the  Hebrew.  The  Hebrew  is  a  part  of  the  Hindoo  :  the  Hindoo 
cannot  have  copied  what  is  not  there,  but  only  understood.  There  is  no  way  of  getting  over  the 
difficulty  except  by  supposing  the  modern  Rabbis  have  learnt  the  exposition  from  the  Hindoo. 
This  is  hardly  credible,  though  possible. 

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.2 

This  subject  affords  a  direct  proof  that  the  true  esoteric  religions  of  Homer,  the  Hindoos,  and 
the  Jews,  were  all  the  same.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  coincidence  of  all  three  could  be 
the  effect  of  accident  in  an  idea  or  doctrine  outwardly  so  absurd  as  the  Amazon,  and  the  man  and 
woman  conjoined  in  one  body.  The  mode  in  which  the  learned  Rabbis,  enumerated  by  Mr.  Faber, 
treat  the  subject,  shews,  that  though  they  knew  very  well  there  was  a  secret  meaning,  yet  they 
did  not  understand  it.  I  once  more  warn  my  reader  to  recollect,  that  I  cannot  be  expected  to  ac- 
count for  all  the  fooleries  which  the  cunning  of  priests,  and  the  fanaticism  of  devotees,  in  long 
periods  of  time — several  thousand  years — have  engrafted  into  the  ancient  doctrines,  which,  without 
these  assistances,  would  vary  from  the  original,  in  consequence  of  the  law  of  change  alone  always 
acting.  The  sacrifice  of  Melchizedek  is  an  example,  so  beautiful  in  its  primeval  simplicity,  (ad- 
mitted by  the  Roman  Church  to  be  the  origin  of  their  Mass,)  and  so  horrible  in  the  body  and  blood 
verily  and  indeed  taken,  into  which,  in  modern  times,  it  has  grown. 

5.  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  wor- 
ship 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  that  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  change  of  the  com- 
mencement of  the  year  from  the  first  of  May  to  the  first  of  April,  from  Taurus  to  Aries,  was  the 
most  probable  way  to  abolish  the  adoration  of  the  former.  It  is  generally  much  more  difficult  to 
destroy  an  old  superstition  than  to  prevent  a  new  one ;  and  the  new  festival  of  the  Yajna  or  Pass- 
over, was  altogether  of  a  very  different  character  from  the  old  one  of  the  Bull. 

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  of  the  male  /  for  when  the  Sheep  succeeded  among  the  Assy 
rians  to  the  Beeve,  Astarte,  &c,  had  the  head  of  a  ram,  not  of  an  ewe.     In  the  adoration  of  the 
Beeve,  the  Heifer  or  Cow  is  continually  found  j  but  in  that  of  the  Ram  or  Lamb  of  God,  no  in- 


i  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  3/6 ;  Faber,  Vol.  I.  p.  318.  *  Qrig.  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  III.  p.  70. 


510  LETTERS    KEPT   SECRET. 

stance  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.  All  the  allegories  of  his  nine  Gopies, 
Milkmaids,  or  Muses,  the  radii  or  rays  of  the  sun  with  which  he  danced,  do  not  amount  to  any 
thing  like  the  female  power ;  and  this,  in  a  striking  manner,  confirms  my  idea  of  his  close  con- 
nexion with  the  Jewish  system.  The  Jews  must  have  emigrated,  when  his  enemies  are  said  to 
have  prevailed ;  for  the  alternate  successes  of  the  sects  are  described  in  his  wars  with  the  evil 
demons. 

The  image  of  "  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world,"  never  was  an  object 
of  adoration  with  the  Jewish  sectaries,  till  it  was  adopted  by  the  Christians,  among  whom  it  is  yet 
to  be  found  in  the  temple  of  St.  John  Lateran,  and  in  many  other  places,  both  Romish  and  Protes- 
tant, and  particularly  about  Florence,  of  all  which  I  shall  treat  hereafter.  The  Jews  were  cor- 
rectly 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  Cceli,  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.  Are  we  to  attribute  this  to  accident  or  design  ?  The 
female  and  the  image  do  not  seem  to  have  any  necessary  connexion. 

6.  If  we  examine  carefully,  without  preconceived  system  or  dogma,  into  the  origin  of  the  affairs 
of  the  M'orld,  I  apprehend  that  we  should  find  proofs  of  their  having  been  in  ancient  exactly  or 
very  nearly  what  they  have  been  in  modern  times.  There  were  great  wars  about  religious  opinions 
of  the  most  trifling  and  unimportant  nature,  which  extended  to  all  countries,  and  lasted  many 
hundreds,  nay  thousands,  of  years.  At  last  the  world  grew  tired  of  these  wars,  or  had  become  suf- 
ficiently enlightened  to  see  their  absurdity,  and  for  many  hundred  years  before  Christ  they  appear 
to  have  so  completely  ceased  in  the  West  that  in  fact  the  recollection  of  them  was  almost  lost. 
Europe  is  now  following  the  same  route.  Religious  animosity  is  every  where  subsiding,  and  we 
have  reason  to  believe  that  the  world,  on  this  subject,  will  be  at  peace,  that  is,  religious  peace, 
as  it  was  before, — verifying  Solomon's  adage,  that  "  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun." 

In  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  we  find  an  extraordinary  confusion  of  Hellenes,  and  Ionians, 
and  Argives,  and  Pelasgi,  &c,  &c.  All  this  arises  from  their  not  knowing,  that  nearly  all  these 
were  sectarian  terms.  If  the  press  do  not  prevent  it,  posterity,  two  or  three  thousand  years  hence, 
will  be  in  exactly  the  same  situation  with  respect  to  us.  They  will  find  Greeks  in  Turkey,  Greeks 
in  Asia,  Greeks  in  Russia,  Greeks  in  Rome.  This  is  like  the  Ionians  in  Athens,  in  Asia  Minor, 
at  Dodona,  in  Egypt  teaching  Moses,  and  in  the  islands  of  the  Mediterranean.  They  will  find 
Papists  in  Rome,  in  France,  in  Russia,  in  Syria,  in  Ireland.  They  will  find  Protestants  also, 
having  their  temples  in  all  these  places.  What,  if  they  do  not  carefully  attend  to  the  secret 
meaning  and  history  of  these  terms,  will  they  make  of  them  ?  They  will  be  lost  as  we  have  been. 
I  could,  if  I  would,  fill  fifty  pages  in  elucidating  this  part  of  my  subject,  but  I  wish  to  diminish,  not 
to  enlarge  my  book.  I  cannot  afford  to  waste  the  paper.  My  book  is  not  to  raise  money;  a  dead 
loss  it  is  certain  to  be.  It  is  to  instruct  my  countrymen,  not  to  amuse  them.  If  I  wanted  to 
make  money  I  would  attempt  to  write  some  pretty,  amusing  but  really  worthless  novels.  Thus, 
perhaps,  I  might  not  only  make  money,  but  be  made  a  baronet  into  the  bargain.  For  my  reward 
I  look  elsewhere.  But  why  should  I  say  worthless  ?  If  the  novels  amuse  idle  people,  and  keep 
them  out  of  mischief,  they  are  not  worthless  :  and  we  are  much  obliged  to  the  gentleman  who  has 
written  them.  But,  had  he  attended  a  little  more  to  the  instruction  of  his  countrymen,  without 
making  his  works  less  amusing  he  might  have  made  them  more  useful ;  and,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
great  and  good  of  future  ages,  he  would  have  occupied  a  higher  place. 

7.  When  I  had  advanced  thus  far  in  my  work  an  opinion  began  to  gain  strength  with  me,  that 


BOOK    IX.    CHAP.    IV.    SECT.   8.  511 

the  reason  why  all  these  ancient  superstitions  were  not  understood  by  the  nations  after  about  the  time 
of  the  Trojan  war,  arose  from  the  use  of  letters  either  not  having  been  known  or  having  been  kept 
as  a  masonic  secret  among  a  class  of  initiated  persons,  and  that  the  histories,  such  as  they  were,  in 
reality  were  mere  traditions.     I  think  every  step  we  take  we  shall  find  new  reason  to  believe  this 
to  be  true.     It  exactly  accords  with  the  history  of  the  Indian  Vedas.     We  have  found  in  them 
proofs  that  the  Indians  had  the  mythos  of  the  Jews,  but  it  is  very  evident  that  it  is  with  them 
mixed  up  with  a  great  mass  of  nonsense,  from  which  the  Mosaic  Judaean  mythos  is  free.     It 
appears  that  in  all  nations  religions  have  advanced  in  complication  along  with  time.     Now,  is  it 
not  possible  that  the  art  of  writing  may  have  been  known  to  the  Chaldeans  only,  and  that  Abraham 
may  have  brought  it  with  him,  and  along  with  it  the  historical  part  of  Genesis,  &c. ;  that  after  his 
tribe  left  India  the  mythos  was  not  committed  to  writing  or  communicated  to  the  people  there,  till 
it  became  much  more  corrupted  or  complicated  than  that  of  the  Iudi ;  and  is  not  this  enough  to 
account  for  the  difference  of  the  style  of  the  two  ?      Certainly  the  style  of  the  Judaean  mythos  be- 
speaks superior  antiquity  ;  and  if  with  the  Indians  the  peculiar  dogma  of  the  Iudi  did  not  prevail, 
viz.  that  not  an  iota  should  be  changed,  we  may  readily  account  for  the  simplicity  of  the  one,  and 
the  complication  of  the  other.     The  Judaeans  were  latterly  both  followers  of  the  male  and  Icono- 
clasts, and  this  may  furnish  a  reason  for  their  superiority.     Whether  they  corrupted  their  sacred 
books  when  they  were  idolaters,  worshipers  of  the  female,   and  cannibals,  and  afterward  restored 
them  to  purity,  I  know  not.     That  they  were  all  three,  we  learn  from  their  Prophets.     Their  can- 
nibalism has  been  proved  by  Lord  Kingsborough,  in  his  fine  work  on  the  antiquities  of  Mexico. 

8.  Chronology.  We  will  now  stop  to  make  a  few  observations  on  this  subject  j  but  they  will 
not  detain  us  long ;  though  it  has  occupied  the  pens  of  innumerable  persons,  and  served  to  waste 
millions  of  reams  of  paper.  To  pretend  to  fix  the  dates  of  the  earlier  events  with  which  we  are 
acquainted,  except  in  respect  to  their  order  of  succession,  would  be  as  absurd  as  to  adopt  as  literal 
histories  the  plagues  of  Egypt  or  the  labours  of  Hercules.  A  probable  theory,  perhaps,  may  be 
formed  as  to  their  succession,  but  there  is  no  dating  events  to  years  till  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.     Of  this,  a  moment's  consideration  of  Chap.  IV.  and  Sect.  XVI.  XVII.  of 
my  Celtic  Druids,  will  convince  any  one.     M.  Cuvier  has  settled  this  question.     If  in  some 
parts  it  be  obscure  or  not  intelligible,  this  may  be  attributed  to  the  numerous  translations  of  igno- 
rant persons,  through  which  we  have  it,  and  in  fact  to  the  language  in  which  it  is  contained  being 
in  great  part  lost,   particularly  the  esoteric  meaning  of  words,  which  Jews  and  Christians  in  late 
years  have  equally  endeavoured  to  keep  out  of  sight ;  of  this  the  word  rasit  is  an  example. 


512  CYCLOPES. 

At  the  latter  part  of  the  time  when  these  Cyclopes  lived,  arose  the  disputes  and  wars  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  Ama- 
zons were  the  builders  of  Argos,  Ephesus,  and  many  other  towns.  This  is  supported  by  the 
Indian  histories,  from  which  we  learn  that,  about  3000  years  before  Christ,  great  and  dreadful  civil 
wars  raged  every  where  respecting  religion,  during  which,  as  happened  in  the  times  since  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  or  traditions.  For  instance  :  Ephesus 
was  built  by  Amazons,  and  destroyed  by  them.  The  histories  state  the  wars  to  have  been  at- 
tended 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  for  by  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."  It  is  evident  that  the 
theory  here  proposed  is  capable  of  being  worked  up  into  a  system,  and  might  afford  room  for  much 
talent  and  ingenuity.  It  is  founded  on  the  facts  which  we  know,  and  the  most  rational  historical 
statements  which  we  possess,  but  it  is  at  the  best  but  a  theory,  and  I  see  not  that  to  spend  more 
time  upon  it  would  be  of  any  use.  It,  in  a  word,  contains  all  we  know  and  all  it  is  probable  that 
we  ever  shall  know.  If  my  reader  be  not  satisfied,  he  may  go  to  the  priests,  and  they  will  give 
him  an  apple  of  knowledge,  and  tell  him  the  year,  the  day,  the  hour,  the  minute,  and  the  second, 
in  which  the  world  was  created,  Abraham  left  the  land  of  Vr-ii,  each  of  the  plagues  of  Egypt 
happened,  or  Elijah  went  in  a  chariot  to  heaven.  On  chronology  I  shall  say  no  more,  but  shall 
proceed  to  the  consideration  of  many  facts  which  are  extremely  interesting,  and  which  will  support 
and  elucidate  what  I  have  proposed. 


CHAPTER  V. 

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

1.  The  explanation  which  I  have  given  of  the  Argives,  the  Hellenes,  the  Ionians,  and  the  Ama- 
zons, seems  to  me  to  be  satisfactory,  but  I  cannot  say  quite  as  much  of  the  Cyclopes ;  though 
certainly  the  fact  of  their  building  Argos,  &c,  seems  to  connect  them  with  the  Ionic  superstition. 
But  this  is  not  enough.  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  Cyclopaean 
style.     The  Cyclopes  must  have  been  as  general  as  the  Amazons. 

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


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  V.  SECTION  2.  513 

In  the  works  of  the  later  Greeks,  the  Cyclops  are  represented  with  only  one  eye.  I  suppose 
this  arose  from  their  absolute  ignorance  of  what  they  were  and  who  they  were,  or  indeed  of  any 
thing  about  them  ;  and,  there  being  merely  a  tradition  that  such  persons  did  once  live,  the  Greeks 
were  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  etymology,  and  from  the  word  xuxkog,  it  is  said  that  they  made 
round  eye  or  one  eye.  Round  eye  is  easily  accounted  for,  but  I  do  not  see  how  the  Cyclops  hence 
came  to  be  supposed  to  have  have  had  only  one  eye. 1  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. 
This  reminds  me  that  Jupiter  appeared  at  Lacedaemon,  in  very  early  times,  with  four  heads  or 
faces — thus  identifying  him  with  Janus  of  Italy  and  Brahma  of  India. 

2.  The  Cyclopaean  buildings,  including  the  Druidical  circles  of  large  stones  and  tumuli,  were 
common  in  Greece  :  but  the  Greeks  knew  not  by  whom  they  were  fabricated,  nor  does  it  appear 
that  they  ever  entered  into  a  rational  inquiry  either  whence  their  fabricators  came,  or  who  they 
were.  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  Cyclopaean, 
and  with  which  I  include  those  called  Druidical,  are  of  so  peculiar  a  character,  that  they  can  be 
compared  to  no  others  in  existence.  If  we  did  not  see  them,  but  only  knew  of  them  by  report,  we 
should  believe  the  stories  of  them  to  be  no  better  than  fairy  tales.  It  is  evident  that  they  were 
in  existence  before  the  time  of  known  history,  and  that  their  fabricators  must  have  possessed  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  astronomy  and  skill  in  the  mechanical  arts.  The  former  is  proved  by  the 
cycles  exhibited  in  their  construction,  as  I  have  shewn  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  and  in  Book  V.  of 
this  work  ;  and  the  latter  is  proved  by  the  size  of  the  stones  which  are  so  large,  that  without 
much  mechanical  skill  they  never  could  have  been  moved.2  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. 

Mr.  Bryant  has  proved  that  the  Cyclopes  were  supposed  to  have  been  once  established  in 
Argolis,  and  that  they  were  said  to  have  built  Argos,  Mycaenae,  and  Tiryns.3  These  circum- 
stances seem  to  connect  or  identify  them  with  the  Ionians  and  Amazons  :  and  I  think  it  will 
ultimately  turn  out  that  they  were  the  same  people  under  different  names.  The  Cyclopes 
were  sg  EITTA  psv  ivai  sxaXejcflou  8e  yagsqo^s^ug.  They  were  called  yagspo%si%ag  and 
sx^siooya^spag.  These  evidently  allude  to  the  womb  or  the  female  organ  of  generation.4  "  The 
'  Cyclops,  Codes,  or  Arimasp,  is  any  Theocrator  of  universal  dominion,  and  the  ten  Arimasps  of 
"  Mount  Riphaeus, 

decern  coclites  quae  montibus  alteis 

Riphaeis  sedere, 

1  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  VII.,  has  something  about  them.    Balbec  is  Cyclopaean. 

8  For  example — the  stones  in  the  walls  at  Balbec,  in  Western  Syria,  and  at  Mahabalipore,  in  India,  and  at  Abury, 
&c,  in  Britain. 

3  Class.  Jour.  Vol.  V.  p.  294.  *  Strabo,  Lib.  viii.  p.  540. 

3u 


514  ALL   ANCFENT    HISTORY    FABLE    OR    ENIGMA. 

u  are  the  ten  Antediluvian  kings."     "  These  are  the  Cyclopes  who  perished  at  the  time  when 
"  Apollo  was  banished  from  heaven  for  a  year,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  long  night  of  the  Catoulas." ] 

Might  not  the  kings  named  above,  allude  to  the  seven  millenaries  and  the  ten  Neroses,  and  the 
Catoulas  to  the  state  of  nature  when  Brahma  reposes  on  the  great  deep,  previous  to  a  new  cre- 
ation, after  the  millenium  ?  Might  not  the  £7rra  ya?e%o%£i%as  be  the  seven  circular  planetary 
bodies,  each  sacred  to  a  millenium ;  and  the  ten  Coclites  sacred  to  the  ten  Neroses  ?  This  is 
very  mystical :  but  the  Cyclopes  are  almost  always  found  along  with  the  Amazons :  and  the 
yagsoag  and  the  peculiarity  of  the  numbers  seem  to  connect  them  in  some  way  or  other. 

3.  I  have  several  times  before  used  the  expression,  that  a  matter  was  sufficiently  mystical.  But, 
in  fact,  we  can  never  give  the  ancient  mythoses  credit  for  too  much  mysticism.  It  was  evidently 
almost  the  only  employment  of  the  idle  priests  to  convert  every  historical  account  into  a  riddle, 
and  again  to  give  their  doctrines  and  riddles  the  appearance  of  history.  Sacred  and  profane  his- 
tory are  both  the  same,  from  the  aenigmas  of  Samson,  that  given  by  the  Queen  of  Sheba  to  Solo- 
mon, and  the  beautiful  fables  of  iEsop  (of  which  I  shall  treat  by  and  by)  to  the  parables  of  Jesus 
Christ.  And  the  reason  why  all  our  learned  men  have  totally  failed  in  their  endeavours  to  discover 
the  meaning  of  the  ancient  mythologies,  is  to  be  found  in  their  obstinate  perseverance,  in  attempt- 
ing to  construe  all  the  mythoses  meant  for  aenigmas  to  the  very  letter.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
anciently  every  kind  of  ingenuity,  which  can  be  imagined,  was  exerted  from  time  to  time,  to  invent 
and  compose  new  riddles,  till  all  history  became,  in  fact,  a  great  aenigma.  In  modern  times  as 
much  ingenuity  has  been  exercised  to  conceal  the  aenigma,  and,  by  explanation,  to  shew  that  it  was 
meant  for  reality.  Under  these  circumstances,  how  was  it  likely  that  the  riddles  should  be  under- 
stood ?  Before  the  time  of  Herodotus  every  ancient  history  is  a  mythic  performance,  in  short  a 
gospel — a  work  written  to  enforce  virtue  and  morality,  and  to  conceal  the  mythos — and  every  temple 
had  one.  This  was  the  case  with  most  of  the  Jewish  writings,  the  Works  and  Days,  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  the  plays  of  iEschylus,  the  Cyropaedia,  the  iEneid,  the  early  history  of  Rome,  the  Sagas 
of  Scandinavia,  the  Sophis  of  Abraham,  the  secret  book  of  the  Athenians,  the  Delphic  verses  of 
Olen,  the  20,000  verses  repeated  by  heart,  (Q.  art  ?  artificially  learnt,)  of  the  Druids,  the  Vedas 
or  Bedahs,  which  is  a  collection  of  hymns  or  psalms. 

The  absurd  superstition,  as  exhibited  in  the  verses  of  Virgil,  that  the  transactions  of  the  lives  of 
mankind  came  over  and  over  in  short  periods,  perhaps  every  600  years,  of  course  prevented  any 
history  from  being  written,  as  long  as  it  had  influence :  and  it  was  not  until  that  superstition 
began  to  be  despised,  that  we  have  any  thing  of  the  nature  of  real  history.  To  have  written  a 
real  history  would  have  been  to  have  overturned  the  religion.  The  first  history  written  in  Europe, 
which  was  independent  of  the  Mythos,  is  that  of  Herodotus.  But  I  think  it  probable,  that  some  of 
the  tracts  in  the  Bible  were  the  same. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  to  most  inquirers,  the  early  history  of  the  world  presents  nothing  but  a 
scene  of  incredible  absurdities.  There  is  scarcely  a  page  of  it  which  can  satisfy  any  reasonable 
mind.  Take  what  history  you  please,  it  is  the  same.  This  is  carried  to  such  an  excess,  that  pre- 
vious to  about  six  hundred  years  before  Christ  we  can  be  said  to  have  no  history  at  all.  Then 
what  is  to  be  done  ?  Are  we  to  give  up  all  inquiry  into  the  early  transactions  of  mankind  ?  It  is 
a  difficult  question.  At  all  events,  we  must  have  recourse  to  some  other  plan  than  retailing  the 
labours  of  Bacchus,  or  the  loves  of  Venus.  In  this  work  I  am  making  an  attempt  to  separate 
religion  from  history,  at  least  to  shew  what  religion  is.  This  will  conduce  to  shew  afterward  what 
history  is.     The  only  fault  I  have  to  find  with  the  histories  of  India  by  Col.  Tod  and  others  -is, 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  85 ;  Enuii  Fragmenta,  Zenobius,  I.  Prov.  18. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  V.   SECTION  4.  515 

that  they  do  not  sufficiently  mark  the  lines  of  separation  between  the  real  and  fabulous  seras.  It 
is  allowed  that  Cristna  is  the  sun,  and  yet  they  talk  of  him  as  of  a  man.  He  is  like  Hercules, 
Bacchus,  &c,  always  the  sun ;  and  every  great  family  traces  its  origin  either  to  him  as  Cristna,  or 
to  him  in  some  other  avatar — as  Rama,  Bali,  or  some  other.  I  know  the  difficulty  of  marking  the 
line  is  great ;  but  of  this  we  may  be  perfectly  assured,  that  these  adored  mythological  personages, 
and  their  miraculous  adventures,  are  nothing  but  inventions,  added  by  the  genealogists  to  the 
pedigrees  of  their  employers,  when  they  could  go  no  higher — when,  perhaps,  they  found  the  ancestor 
to  have  been  some  bandit,  or  ministerial  traitor,  or  upstart  soldier  of  fortune. 

To  return  to  our  subject. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  Latin,  the  famous  Cyclopes  have  no  singular  number.  From  this  I 
think  it  probable,  that  they  were  Latin  before  they  were  Greek  personages.  Their  grand  abode 
was  the  island  of  Sicily.  Virgil  says,  Sicilides  Musee  ;  but  why,  in  his  mystic  poem,  does  he  in- 
voke the  Sicilian  Muses,  in  preference  to  any  other  muses  ?  May  the  original  word  for  one  of 
these  persons  have  been  Cyclo — making  in  its  genitive  Cyclopis — and  meaning,  the  cycle  of  Clo  ? 
We  must  remember  that  Sicily  is  the  peculiar  land  of  the  Cyclopes.  Clo  is  the  same  word  as 
that  which  ends  the  Agni-cula,  the  Jani-cula,  the  Hera-cula,  and  many  other  mystic  words.  No 
doubt  every  profound  classical  scholar  will  laugh  at  me  for  supposing  it  possible,  that  when  Virgil 
was  celebrating  the  renewal  of  Cycles,  and  particularly  the  sacred  cycle  of  600,  he  should  invoke 
the  Muses  of  Cycles  instead  of  pastoral  Muses,  with  whom  his  subject  has  little  or  no  connexion. 
I  shall  pursue  this  inquiry  by  and  by. 

4.  If  my  reader  will  look  to  the  map  and  back  to  the  last  book,  he  will  find  it  stated,  that  close 
to  Jodpoor  were  the  ruins  of  a  very  ancient  city,  called  Mundore.  Respecting  this  city,  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  others  of  the  Tuscan  cities, 1  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  of  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  monu- 
"  ments,  their  religion  and  sacred  character,  as  the  best  records  of  their  supremacy.  The  Rqj- 
"  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  2  are  claimed  by 
"  their  descendants,  the  sectarian  Jains  of  the  present  day." 3 

Again,  the  Colonel  says,4 


1  We  constantly  read  of  the  Tusci  being  one  of  the  names  of  the  progenitors  of  the  Romans,  or,  at  least,  of  the 
people  before  the  Romans,  occupying  a  large  part  of  their  country.  The  word  Tusci  has  no  singular  number.  I 
believe  in  this  word  we  have  an  example  of  another  unobserved  emphatic  article,  and  that  Tusci  is  The  Osci,  the  same 
as  the  English  emphatic  article.  In  like  manner,  I  think  the  De  of  France  was  also  used  by  the  ancients.  The  and 
De  both  mean  God.  It  is  remarkable  that,  in  almost  every  case,  the  emphatic  article  means  God.  ®vqo-koo<;,  a  seer ; 
0vo<,  a  thing  offered  in  sacrifice ;  hence  Thusci :  ©£o?-osci,  The  Osci.  The  language  of  the  Osci  was  the  Latin. 
Pezron,  p.  241.    The  Etruscans  wrote  from  right  to  left.    Astle,  p.  183. 

*  Nail-head,  the  characteristic  of  the  Etruscan  numerals.  3  Tod's  Hist.  Raj.  p.  726.  4  Ibid. 

3u2 


516  MUND0RE,    &C. 

"  As  I  looked  up  to  the  stupendous  walls, 

"  '  Where  time  hath  lent  his  hand,  but  broke  his  scythe/ 

"  I  felt  the  full  force  of  the  sentiment  of  our  heart-stricken  Byron, 

"  '  There  is  a  power 
"  '  And  magic  in  the  ruined  battlement, 
"  '  For  which  the  palace  of  the  present  hour 
"  '  Must  yield  its  pomp,  and  wait  till  ages  are  its  dower.' 

"  Ages  have  rolled  away  since  these  were  raised,  and  ages  will  yet  roll  on,  and  find  them  immove- 
"  able,  unchanged.  The  immense  blocks  are  piled  upon,  and  closely  fitted  to,  each  other,  without 
"  any  cement,  the  characteristic  of  all  the  Etruscan  cities  termed  Cyclopean.  We  might,  indeed, 
"  smuggle  a  portion  of  Mundore,  into  the  pages  of  Micali,  amongst  those  of  Todi  or  Volterra 
"  without  fear  of  detection." 

This  extract,  from  the  work  of  my  friend  Col.  Tod,  will,  I  think,  enable  me  to  shew,  at  least 
with  some  probability,  who  were  the  Cyclopes,  the  builders  of  our  Cyclopaean  cities,  and  circular 
temples,  and  whence  they  had  their  strange  name.  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,  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  the  mount  Palatinus 
of  Rome,  and  Palestrsena,  or  the  Sacrum  Praeneste,  and  the  celebrated  Pali-Raj  or  Royal  pastors 
of  Egypt,  the  builders,  probably,  of  the  Pyramids.  In  the  term  RoY-al  we  see  an  example  of  the 
utility,  and  even  necessity,  of  having  recourse  to  mixed  etymology.  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  pro- 
bably the  kings,  monarchs, l  affected  to  be  emanations  from  the  Supreme,  or  from  the  Sun,  or,  as 
they  called  themselves,  sons  of  God.2  The  coincidence  more  important  than  all  the  others  is, 
that  we  have  here  the  Pallestini  or  Philistines  (as  our  book  has  it  for  the  sake  of  disguise)  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, 
(noticed  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.3  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  j  and  when  Memphis  was  near  the  sea,  before 
the  emergence  of  the  Delta,  Gaza  was  its  port. 

In  this  district  we  find  a  town  (Govindgurh)  founded  by  a  person  called  Oodi,  and  the  tribe  is 
called  Joda;  and,  in  the  neighbourhood,  is  a  river  called  Sarasvati — (Sara-iswati  ?) — which  runs 
into  the  artificial,  elliptic-formed  lake  or  mere  above-named,  called  Poshkur — one  excepted,  the 
most  sacred  of  the  lakes  of  India.     On  its  banks  stands  the  only  temple  now  in  India,  solely 

1  Monarch  Mn — Ap%»j. 

4  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. 

3  Tod,  Hist.  p.  772. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  V.   SECTION  5.  517 

dedicated  to  Bramha,  containing  a  quadriform  image.  It  is  surmounted  with  a  cross. 1  At  a 
little  distance  rises  a  shrine  to  the  Mother,  Mama-deva.2  Not  far  distant,  on  a  rock  called  the 
iVag--pahar  or  serpent  rock,  are  ruins  said  to  be  those  of  the  palace  of  a  monarch  who  formerly 
ruled  the  tribe  of  the  Chohans,  called  Aja  Pal,  or  the  Shepherd  King,  or  Goatherd  Aja. 3  This 
Aja  Pal  was  the  ancestor  of  a  famous  chief  called  Beesildeva -or  Visala-deva,  and  was  the  builder  of 
Aji-mere,  the  Gaza-mera  of  Ptolemy.  He  was  the  contemporary  of  a  celebrated  person  of  Rajaht'- 
han  called  Ulysses.  The  Chohans  of  Aji-mere  were  existing  1000  years  before  Christ,  as  the 
histories  say  that  a  certain  Udya-Dit,  who  died  about  that  time,  served  under  them.  In  my 
Celtic  Druids  may  be  found  an  account  of  a  circular  temple  of  very  large  stones  in  Persia,  which, 
the  tradition  of  the  country  says,  was  built  by  a  tribe  called  Coans,  who  were  pigmies,  but  who 
were  persons  of  supernatural  strength,  a  species  of  fairy.  Here  I  think  we  have  the  tribe  of 
Chohans  of  Aji-mere.  There  was  a  tribe  of  them  near  Egbatana,  and  we  have  them  again  in 
Greece,  in  the  several  towns  called  Caon,  in  the  different  Argolises.  These  Coans  or  Pigmies 
were  the  builders  of  the  monument  described  by  the  learned  Physiologist  Sir  Anthony  Carlisle,  in 
Book  V.  Ch.  VI.  Sect.  6.  From  the  mount  on  which  Ajimere  stands,  runs  the  river,  one 
branch  of  which  is  called  Saraswati,  which  joins,  near  a  town  called  Doon-ara,  a  river  on  which 
stands  a  town  named  Palee  or  Pali,  and  another  river  on  which  stands  Mundore,  in  lat.  26,  20 — 
long.  73,  5 — which  was  formerly  the  capital  of  the  present  Marwar  j  its  immense  cyclopsean  ruins, 
thirty-seven  miles  in  circumference,  alone  remain.  But  a  new  capital  has  been  built  about  six 
miles  from  Mundore,  called  Jod-poor.  Of  the  date  of  Jodpoor  I  have  no  information  ;  but  it  no 
doubt  had  its  name  from  a  reference  to  the  old  name  of  the  tribe  Iodi  or  Yuda.  The  date  of  the 
building  of  the  cyclopaean  Mund-ore,  or  even  of  its  destruction,  is,  I  believe,  unknown  even  to 
tradition. 

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

It  is  probable  that  the  Cyclops  were  named  in  allusion  to  xuxT^og  a  cycle,  and  o$i§  or  the 
Hebrew  niK  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  Mundore  be  Ophites — followers 
or  inventors  of  the  serpentine  cycle  ?  4  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 


1  Hist.  Raj.  pp.  772,  774.  Col.  Tod  says  it  was  only  built  four  years  ago  by  a  minister  of  Scindia.  That  it  was 
built  I  do  not  doubt,  but  I  think  the  legend  and  tradition  prove  that  this  building  must  have  been  a  rebuilding :  if  it 
were  not  a  rebuilding,  here  is  the  old  superstition  revived  or  kept  alive. 

8  Ibid.  p.  773. 

*  Aja  we  see  means  goat;  Gaza  has  the  same  meaning.  I  shall  resume  the  subject  of  Ajemere,  and  the  Rayjah  and 
Palli,  in  my  next  book. 

*  Ow*$  divine  vengeance ;  Oty  a  voice  ;  <paa  to  bring  to  light ;  0</»«  a  snake. 


518  ABURY   AND   SERPENT   WORSHIP. 

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  the  serpentine  temple  at 
Abury  ;  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  the  famous  Carnac,  for  the  age  of  the  world.  We  must  recollect, 
that  Mundus  means  xo(ry.og,  which  means  beauty  arising  from  the  orderly  disposition  of  the 
heavenly  bodies,  moving  in  their  cyclic  revolutions. 

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,  the  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  rain,  or  unite  it  with  that  of  the  Zur-aster,  or  the  fire  or  solar  orb.  The 
Heri-culas  and  Agni-culas 1  are  very  like  the  Jani-cula  of  Rome,  and  from  the  Palli  might  come 
the  Mons  Palatinus. 

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  or  Judaea,  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. 

6.  The  Head  of  the  Serpent  Temple  at  Abury  is  called  Hackpen.  This  is  evidently  the  Pen 
headf  and  Hag,  the  old  English  word  for  Serpent.  In  Hebrew  in  hg  means  circle  or  circular 
motion.  Job,  xxii.  14,  says,  ED'Dttf-jin  hug  samiin,  the  circle  of  the  planets,  or  heavens ;  and  in 
Syriac  ni^jn  hglut  means  a  circuit.  Now,  I  think  the  wm  nhs  or  serpent  was  called  Hag  from  its 
circular,  and,  of  all  the  beasts,  solely  circular,  form,  from  its  likeness  to  eternity — to  the  renovation 
aia)V  rcov  aicovcou — 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.  (This  will  be  explained  presently.)  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. 

It  is  a  bold  speculation,  but  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  jn  hg  and  jn  hk  of  the  word 
EDDn  hkm  and  the  «f^  had  all  a  close  connexion  ;  that  they  were  all  corruptions  or  formations 
of  each  other,  run  hge  meditari,  eloqui.  In  Irish  Eag-gnaisi,  a  philosopher, 2  i.  e.  in  the  singular, 
jn  hg  snake — with  M.  Mag-us.  Magi  appellantur  quod  patria  sua  lingua  idem  sonat,  quod 
apud  nos  sapientes  ;  Gn.  by  Metathesis  ng  nega  Gonesa — Irish  and  Indian  God  of  Wisdom :  Naga 
the  Cobra :  Druids'  Eggs.  Q.  Eag  of  the  Eag-gnaisi  Tvaitris  knowledge,  wisdom,  wisdom  of  the 
serpent,  when  in  the  state  of  a  circular  animal,  and  also  of  its  Egg, — Egg  of  Wisdom,  i.  e.  Egg 
from  which  the  world  sprung  ?  The  world  came  from  Wisdom.  I  shall  return  to  this  etymon  in 
a  future  page. 

In  these  countries  are  many  towns  called,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  Munda,  the  same  as  the 
Munda  of  Spain  j  and  also  many  Oodipoors,  and  towns  and  rivers,  which  bespeak  corruptions  of 
names  relating  to  the  Jewish  history,  as  well  as  the  very  early  mythologies  of  the  Gentiles.     Such 


1  Yaj-niculas  ?  2  Quseley,  Coll.  Vol.  II.  pp.  325,  345. 


BOOK   IX.   CHAPTER   V.   SECTION   8.  519 

are  the  words  Noah,  Japhet,  Shem,  Lot,  Ulysses,  Achilles,  Caesar.  No  doubt  the  observation  re- 
specting such  names  as  Lot  would  be  very  trifling  if  it  were  not  connected  with  very  many  other 
circumstances.  And  we  must  always  bear  in  mind,  that  we  are  endeavouring  to  recover  the  view 
of  objects  just  vanishing  from  our  sight.  The  words  Ulysses  and  Achilles  are  of  the  same  family 
of  words  with  Ileyiam,  and  Prometheus,  and  Baghis,  and  Hercules,  and  Nysa,  and  Meru.  The 
word  Caesar,  is  the  yEsar  of  the  Kelts  or  Gauls,  and  was  adopted  by  Julius  in  honour  of  his  con- 
quest of  Gaul,  as  Scipio  took  the  name  of  Africanus,  but  he  took  the  name  of  Caesar  also  to 
encourage  the  superstition,  that  he  was  the  divine  incarnation  promised  by  the  Sibyls,  which  we 
shall  fully  explain  in  a  future  Book. 
7.  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  2Q[,  &c.     Col.   Tod  says,  lt  Among 

ancient  coins  and  medals,  excavated  from  the  ruins  of  Oojein  and  other  ancient  cities,  I  possess 
a  perfect  series  with  all  the  symbolic  emblems  of  the  twenty-four  Jain  Apostles.  The  compound 
equilateral  triangle  is  among  them  ;  perhaps  there  were  masons  in  those  days  among  the  Pali 
(i.  e.  the  Philistines  of  the  Indian  Gaza — and  of  Gaza,  a  few  miles  from  Solomon's  temple  in 
Western  Syria).  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  this  Trinitarian  symbol  (the  double 
triangle)  occurs  on  our  (so  called)  Gothic  edifices,  e.  g.  the  beautiful  Abbey-gate  of  Bury  St. 
"  Edmund's,  Suffolk,  erected  about  A.D.  1377-"1  So,  my  good  friend,  Col.  Tod,  you  are  sur- 
prised that  there  should  be  masonic  emblems  upon  the  ruins  of  Mundore,  the  capital  of  the  Ioudi, 
or  Juds  of  Yuda,  in  the  country  of  the  Palli,  or  Philistines  of  Gaza-mera,  where  Jessulmer  was,  and 
unquestionably  the  earliest  of  the  Mounts  of  Sotyma — 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  following  observation  is  made  by  Col.  Tod  : 2  "  The  wood  of  Solomon's  temple  is  called 
"  al-mug :  jo^n  almg,  1  Kings  x.  1 1 :  the  prefix  al  is  merely  the  article.  This  is  the  wood  also 
"  mentioned  in  the  annals  of  Guzzerat,  of  which  the  temple  to  '  Adnath' 3  was  constructed.  It  is 
"  said  to  be  indestructible  by  fire.  It  has  been  surmised  that  the  fleets  of  Tyre  frequented  the 
"Indian  coast;  could  they  thence  have  carried  Al-Mug  for  the  temple  of  Solomon?"4  I 
suppose  I  need  scarcely  point  out  how  strongly  this  casual  observation  of  Col.  Tod's  tends  to 
support  my  doctrine,  of  the  intimate  connexion  of  the  tribe  of  Western  Ioudi  with  the  religion  of 
India  ?  We  have  seen  the  Guzzerat  God  Ad  of  Western  Syria,  in  Adad,  Hadadezer,  &c.  A  few 
verses  afterward,  in  1  Kings,  ch.  x.,  shields  of  gold  are  said  to  have  been  made.  Of  what  use 
could  shields  be  in  the  temple  ?  These  shields  were  salvers  or  waiters,  after  the  custom  of  Cen- 
tral India,  where,  when  a  person  is  treated  with  high  respect,  every  thing  is  handed  to  him  on  a 
shield  or  buckler.5 

8  The  infamous  Fourmont  who  destroyed  the  inscriptions  on  the  marbles  in  the  Morea,  disco- 
vered the  temple  of  a  God  or  Goddess  called  Ongar,  i.  e.  Minerva.     The   shrine  of  this  deity  is 


'    Hist.  Raj.  p.  729.  »  Ibid.  282.  3i#  e.  God-ad,  di,  dis. 

4  Brother  mason,  what  do  you  know  of  Solomon's  temple  ?  Here  are  the  word  Almug,  in  Syrastrene,  and  the 
masonic  emblems  in  Mundore, — the  town  of  Cycles  or  Cyclopes.  Be  assured  the  wood  was  carried  for  certain  sacred 
parts  of  the  building,  and  by  Free-Masons  too.  Probably  all  the  fourteen  temples  of  Solomon,  of  which  we  read,  were 
partly  constructed  of  this  sacred  wood,  and  by  Free-Masons  too. 

5  Vide  Tod,  Hist.  Raj. 


520  FOURMONT.   THE  TEMPLE  OF  ONGAR. 

one  of  the  twelve  most  sacred  places  in  India.  It  is  in  the  sacred  island  of  Mundana  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.  7(5,  20— called  by  Sir  John  Malcolm  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  cir- 
cumference, whose  ruins  bespeak  a  most  magnificent  city  in  very  ancient  times.2  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 
Cyclopaean.  If  the  Buddhist  Cyclops  of  the  West,  were  any  thing  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.  These  cities  in  North  India,  were  the  thousand 
cities  alluded  to  by  Strabo,  the  existence  of  which  is  treated  of  with  great  talent  in  the  unpub- 
lished manuscripts  of  the  learned  Mr.  Moyle,  of  Southampton,  now  in  the  possession  of  his 
descendant,  Sir  Joseph  Copley,  Baronet,  of  Sprotsborough. 

A  few  pages  back  I  observed  that  the  Palli  were  called  Raj-Palli  or  royal  shepherds.  I  have 
often  wondered  why  the  shepherd  tribe  who  conquered  Egypt  were  called  royal  shepherds.  We 
here  see  the  reason  :  they  were  the  Raj-Palli  or  Roi-Palli.  They  were  Rajah-poutans,  or  Rajah- 
palitan,  or  Rajah-poutan  shepherds.  These  are  beautiful  coincidences.  I  shall  return  to  this  by 
and  by. 

I  must  now  beg  my  reader  to  recall  to  his  recollection  that  the  discovery  of  the  origins  of 
ancient  nations  and  religions,  the  object  of  our  research,  is  the  most  difficult  undertaking  that  can 
be  imagined — that  it  has  been  the  subject  of  anxious  pursuit  by  the  learned  in  all  the  ages  to  which 
by  writing  or  tradition  we  have  access  ;  that  to  Pythagoras,  to  Plato,  to  Cicero,  to  Pliny,  to 
Bacon,  to  Newton,  to  Bryant,  and  to  Faber,  the  common  or  acknowledged  literal  accounts  have 
been  unsatisfactory,  and  that,  by  the  successors  of  each,  in  turn,  the  failure  or  the  unsatisfactory 
nature  of  the  results  of  the  inquiries  of  their  predecessors  has  been  admitted ;  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  Cyclopaean  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  super- 
stitions 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  Buddha,  the  /VitflO  rasit  of  Moses,  the  religion  of 
Melchizedek,  which,  in  the  second  preface  to  my  Celtic  Druids,  I  said  I  should  unveil. 


1  Malcolm's  Cent.  Ind.  Vol.  II.  p.  505.  9  Ibid.  p.  13. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  |.  521 


CHAPTER  VL 

-SERPENT  OF  GENESIS. — OPHITES. — SERPENT   OF  GENESIS   THE   LOGOS. — DIFFERENT    JERAS  OF 

BUDDHISM. — DUPUIS. 

1.  The  reason  why  the  serpent  became  the  emblem  of  the  destroying  power,  in  Genesis,  has  never 
4?een  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  im- 
mediate 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  the  death,  or  at 
least  apparent  destruction,  of  man— of  his  decomposition  or  return  to  dust. l  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  tilings  was  also  the  destroyer  ;  and  the  Naga  being  the.  em- 
blem 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 . 

Few  persons,  I  believe,  have  read  Genesis,  without  having  had  .their  curiosity  excited  ,to  dis- 
cover why  the  serpent  was  the  wisest  of  the  animal  creation.  The  Elephant,  the  Dog,  or  the 
Monkey,  might  have  had  some  pretension  to  this  honour ;  but  1  think  the  serpent  has,  from  its 
natural  properties,  just  as  little  pretension  to  it,  as  the  frog  or  the  lizard.  But  from  the  refined 
deductions  above,  it  might  have  become  the  emblem  of  wisdom.  It  might  be  the  emblem  of  eter- 
nity 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  fruc- 
tification, 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  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  con- 
text in  fact  falsifies  any  such  idea  :  and  yet  almost  all  Christian  priests  (choosing  to  have  recourse 
to  allegory  to  serve  their  own  purpose,2  though  they  never  cease  abusing  those  who  teach  that 


1  I  think  if  I  can  shew  that  the  literal  meaning  of  Genesis  contains  an  absolute  impossibility  in  itself,  we  must,  for 
that  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. 

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

3x 


522  OPHITES. 

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.  I  beg  my  reader 
to  refer  to  Cruden's  Concordance  on  the  word  Serpent,  and  there  he  will  see  both  the  difficulties 
of  the  learned,  and  an  extraordinary  example  of  the  meanness  of  understanding  in  a  very  learned, 
pious,  and  good  man,  produced  by  the  thing  miscalled  religion. 

2.  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  no  attention  to  the  calum- 
nies of  Origen  and  other  fathers  whose  evidence  our  modern  writers  are  so  weak  as  to  receive — 
the  evidence  of  men  who  professed  to  believe  fraud  to  be  meritorious,  if  used  against  the  opponents 
of  their  religion.  Nothing  which  appears  to  be  told  by  the  orthodox  fathers,  in  a  regular  and 
systematic  manner,  against  the  heretics,  is  credible.  Nor  are  they  to  be  believed  even  when  they 
profess  only  to  refute  doctrines,  for  it  was  not  uncommon  with  them  to  charge  their  opponents 
with  absurd  opinions  which  they  never  held,  for  the  double  purpose  of  disgracing  those  opponents 
and  gaining  credit  to  themselves.  This  has  always  been  considered,  by  priests,  a  mere  allowable 
ruse  in  religious  controversy.  It  is  yet  had  recourse  to  every  day.  For  these  reasons  I  can 
pay  little  attention  to  the  accounts  of  the  Ophites  retailed  from  Origen,  by  Matter.  I  can 
only  receive  a  few  insulated  facts,  which  are  confirmed  by  other  evidence.  They  seem  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  for  the  serpent  from 
Genesis. 

The  famous  Brazen  Serpent  set  up  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness,  called  Nehustan,  is  called  in  the 
Targum  a  Saviour.     It  was  probably  a  serpentine  crucifix,  as  it  is  called  a  cross  by  Justin  Martyr. 
Mr.  Bentley  says  that  in  India  the  serpent  is  the  emblem  of  wisdom.     He  cites  no  authority, 
Out  I  do  not  dispute  his  assertion.1 

As  I  have  just  now  stated,  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  sect  of  Ophites  had  its  origin  from  the  consi- 
deration, 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  increased  in  long  periods 
of  time.  If  we  suppose  only  one  emblem  to  have  been  admitted  in  a  generation,  in  thirty  genera- 
tions or  one  thousand  years  there  would  be  thirty  emblems.  A  single  new  emblem  in  a  generation 
would  not  alarm  the  worshipers,  and  thus  the  abuse  might  creep  on  till  it  arrived  at  the  state  in 
which  we  find  it  both  in  India  and  in  the  Romish  Church  at  this  day.  The  Protestants  are  doing 
the  same  thing ;  the  last  generation  introduced  pictures  into  churches  :  the  cross  is  now  following 
in  order.     They  go  on  slowly  at  first :  at  length  the  minds  of  men  becoming  accustomed  to  inno- 


1  Hist.  Ant.  Hind.  p.  60. 


BOOK   IX.    CHAP.   VI.    SECT.   3.  523 

vations  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  de- 
stroyed. 

This  is  their  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.  There  we  see  a  few  philosophers 
crying  out  against  the  abuse ;  but  the  mass  of  the  people,  with  their  deceiving  and  flattering 
priests  who  live  on  their  folly,  running  into  the  greatest  extravagancies.  When  Socrates  exposed 
the  follies  of  the  priests,  what  was  his  reward  ?  When  Numa  forbade  the  use  of  images,  who 
attended  to  him  ? — his  uncivilized  followers.  When  they  became  civilized,  his  commands  were 
forgotten. 

3.  The  Ophites  are  said  to  have  maintained,  that  the  serpent  of  Genesis  was  the  Aoyog  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  Aoyog  or  the  word  by  the  Chaldee  Paraphrast,  * 
and  for  this  word  they  use  the  Chaldee  N^Oft  mmra.2  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.  Hence  came  the  phallus,  the  emblem  of  the  generative  power  in  India,  to  be  called 
linga.  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  04>I^  ;  (in  Hebrew  21N  aub  ;)  and  as  he  was 
the  Logos  or  Linga,  he  was  also  0\}/  a  voice,  and  in  Hebrew  *noft  ?nmra.  Query,  hence  2u<£ag 
a  seraph  or  serpent, 3  and  Xofyog  wise  ?  The  Xv<p  and  Socp  are  both  the  same  root.  Besides 
considering  the  Serpent  as  the  emblem  of  the  Logos  or  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Ophites  are  said  to 
have  revered  it  as  the  cause  of  all  the  arts  of  civilized  life.  But  still  the  question  recurs  why  this 
animal  should  have  been  selected  as  the  emblem  of  the  giver  of  the  information,  except  as  the  em- 
blem of  the  creator  and  destroyer,  and  therefore  of  wisdom. 

In  Exod.  iii.  14,  God  is  called  n>i"IN  aeie.  This  word  is  formed  from  the  root  n'il  eie  or  mil  eue, 
which  signifies  to  live,  exist,  or  be. 4  But  mn  eue  or  Nvn  hina,  or,  as  we  miscal  it,  Hevah,  but  cor- 
rectly Hiva,  was  the  name  of  Eve  and  of  a  serpent.  The  Bacchantes  invoked  Eve  by  name,  in 
their  ceremonies. 5  Mr.  Bryant  has  shewn,  that  both  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Egyptians  adored 
the  serpent ;  that  two  were  kept  alive  at  Thebes  ;  that  it  was  adored  at  Eleusis,  also  at  Epidaurus ; 
that  one  was  kept  in  the  Acropolis  at  Athens ;  and  that  the  Deities  Cneph,  Hermes,  and  Agatho- 
daemon,  were  described  by  this  emblem.  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,  of  Buddha. 
Maximus  Tyrius  states,  that  when  Alexander  entered  India,  he  found  a  prince  who  kept  an 
enormous  snake  as  the  image  of  Bacchus. 6  Arrian  also  informs  us,  that  when  Alexander  advanced 
into  India  he  met  with  one  of  the  princes  who  adored  a  large  serpent,  which  he  kept  confined. 
This  is  exactly  what  we  are  informed  was  done  by  the  Christian  Ophites.  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  j  this  was  what  I  alluded  to  when  I  spoke  of  a 
selected  female,  in  Chap.  V.  Sect.  6,  of  this  book. 

1  Basnage,  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  xxv.  2  lb.  xxiv.  3  See  Jones's  Lexicon  in  voces 

4  Bryant  on  Plag.  of  Egypt,  p.  203.  s  Parkhurst,  in  voce  tt>nJ  nhs,  IV. 

6  Class.  Journ.  Vol.  XXIII.  p.  14. 

3x2 


524 


DIFFERENT   jERAS   OF   BUDDHISM:. 


In  almost  all  the  emblematical  groups  of  the  Indians,  we  meet  with  the  serpent  in  one  shape  of 
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.  I  apprehend,  as  I  have  already 
intimated,  that  the  serpent,  which  was  thought  to  be  more  deadly  in  its  bite  than  all  others,  was 
selected  as  the  most  perfect  emblem  of  the  destroying  power ;  and  it  is  always  found  with  the 
united  Yoni  and  Linga,  as  the  emblem  of  the  creating  power,  the  doctrine  seen  every  where,  that 
destruction  was  creation  or  formation.  I  suppose  it  was  a  brazen  Cobra  which  Moses  set  up  on  a 
cross  in  the  Wilderness.  The  Cobra,  with  its  tail  in  its  mouth,  would  denote  eternal  formation 
and  destruction,  tbe  eternal  renewal  of  worlds.  It  is  very  clear  that  a  great  variety  of  beautiful 
allegories  present  themselves  where  the  Cobra  may  be  used. 

It  is  said  that  the  word  jntrm  nhstn  nehusthan  cannot  be  understood  by  the  Hebrew  or  ArabiG 
scholar,  because,  though  one  part  be  Hebrew,  the  other  is  pure  Persian.  The  arm  nhs  is  Hebrew, 
the  jn  tn  is  Persian  or  Oriental.  The  first  means  serpent,  the  second  means  place. x  But  this 
may  have  a  very  different  meaning  ;  it  may  mean  m  nh  or  mind,  and  stan  a  place,  the  place  of  the 
Divine  Mind,  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

4.  I  think  the  different  aeras  of  Buddhism  may  be  observed  in  its  monuments.  Its  first  aera  is 
shewn,  by  Budda,  as  a  Negro,  seated  cross-legged,  perfectly  naked,  without  any  ornament  what- 
ever. This  is  the  first  stage  of  idolatry,  unless  it  were  preceded  by  the  stone  pillar  anointed  with 
oil.  In  the  next,  he  is  slightly  ornamented  or  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  next  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.  In  this 
manner  I  think  may  be  shewn  the  relative  dates  of  the  Buddhist  monuments  ;  and,  in  the  second 
and  very  early  stage,  a  degree  of  skill  and  elegance  in  the  workmanship  may  be  observed,  to 
which  the  later  works  can  make  no  pretension.  These  were  the  works  of  the  primeval,  learned 
race  spoken  of  by  Baillie,  the  inventors  of  the  Neros,  supposed  to  have  lived  before  the  flood. 

After  a  most  careful  comparison  of  the  large  specimen  of  the  Cobra  Capella,  in  the  Museum 
of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  with  the  monuments  in  the  British  Museum,  I  am  quite  satis- 
fied that  the  serpent  or  protuberance  on  the  foreheads  of  the  Memnon,  and  of  many  other 
figures,  are  cobras. 

"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  Eythraean  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!"  2  The  Aspic,  called  Thermutis,  was 
believed  to  be  immortal  by  the  Egyptians.3  Mr.  Payne  Knight  has  repeated  an  observation  of 
Stukeley's,  that  the  original  name  of  the  temple  of  Abury  was  the  snake's  head :  and  he  adds,  it 


1  Gerrans  in  Ouseley's  Coll.  Orient,  p.  28!. 
'  See  Jurien,  Vol.  II.  p.  225. 


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


BOOK   IX.   CHAPTER   VI.   SECTION   5.  525 

is  remarkable  that  the  remains  of  a  similar  circle  of  stones  in  Bceotia  had  the  same  name,  in  the 
time  of  Pausanias.  KaTa  8s  ttjv  ss  TXHravra.  suQeiav  ex  0*j&ov  "kdois  ftcoqiov  7rs%is%o[tevov 
"Koya.(T7\v  0<$>ea>£  xcChootriv  o\  0yj£ajot  xe^aTajv.  * 

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  of  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. 

5.  About  thirty  years  ago,  a  very  learned  Frenchman,  of  the  name  of  Dupuis,  published  a  work2 
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  remote  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 
Ave  read  of  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  the  different  sects  ;  and,  consequently,  that  it  was  about  that  time  that  the 
sphere  was  invented  by  Chiron  the  Centaur? — K.sv-Ta.oq-og.  Let  my  reader  recollect  that  he  has 
found  the  same  towns  in  India,  Asia,  and  in  Europe ;  the  same  Gods,  intelligible  in  India,  but 
not  in  Europe  ;  and  all  the  other  marks  of  simultaneous  identity,  and  then  doubt,  if  he  can,  that 
these  constellations  must  have  had  a  common  origin,  and  probably  at  a  common  time.  Let  him 
consider  the  wars  of  Hercules  with  the  Amazons,  and  he  will  agree  with  me,  that  all,  or  nearly 
all,  the  mythoses  have  reference  to  the  wars  of  the  different  sects  of  the  Ioni  and  the  Linga — of 
the  Hellenes  and  Trojans,  the  Argives  and  the  Amazons.  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. 


1  Pausan.  Boeot.  Cap.  xix.  S.  2. 

1  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. 


526  PRITCHARD    ON   THE    MOON.  • 


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. 

1.  Among  the  attempted  explanations  of  the  immense  mass  of  confusion  which  the  ancient 
mythologies  exhibit,  there  is  nothing  much  less  satisfactory  than  those  relating  to  the  rank  and 
character  which  they  ascribe  to  the  moon.  As  I  have  before  observed,  in  Book  VI.  Chapter  II., 
to  me  they  are  indeed  any  thing  but  satisfactory.  She  is  represented  as  Isis,  the  wife  of  Osiris, 
that  is,  of  the  sun.  And  if  she  were  barely  this,  and  nothing  more,  we  might  be  contented  to 
consider  it  as  merely  a  nonsensical  local  superstition,  or  perhaps  a  figure  of  speech.  But  the  moon 
was  masculine  as  well  as  feminine.  This  raises  an  awkward  obstacle  to  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. 

In  reply  to  what  I  have  just  observed  about  the  moon's  being  masculine,  it  may  be  said,  that 
this  only  arose  from  the  superstitions  of  different  countries.  But  this  is  not  satisfactory  to  me; 
because  I  am  convinced  that  the  system  of  the  trinitarian  nature  of  the  foundation  of  the  ancient 
mythology  which  the  reader  has  seen,  with  its  metempsychosis,  its  revolving  cycles,  renewal  of 
worlds,  and  abstinence  from  animal  food,  pervaded  all  countries.  A  beautiful  and  sublime  system 
was  the  foundation  of  all  the  nonsense  which  ignorance  and  selfish  craft  at  last  engendered,  and 
engrafted  upon  it. 

I  am  quite  certain  that  by  the  word  E3>ot#  smim  in  Genesis,  the  planets  were  meant,  and  they 
were  always  called  the  erratic  stars.  Speaking  of  these,  Porphyry  makes  a  marked  distinction 
between  them  and  the  moon,  for  the  purposes  of  divination.  He  says,  "  In  order,  therefore,  to 
"  effect  this,  they  made  use  of  the  Gods  within  the  heavens,  both  the  erratic  and  the  non-erratic, 
"  of  all  of  whom  it  is  requisite  to  consider  the  sun  as  the  leader :  but  to  rank  the  moon  in  the 
"  second  j)lace." l 

2.  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."  2  "  Plutarch  generalises 
all  the  attributes  or  characters  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 


it 

a 

tt 

a 

"  says)  she  is  called,  by  nature,  the  nurse  and  the  all-receiving,  and  is  commonly  termed  Myriony- 

"  mus  or  possessing  ten  thousand  names.3      The  same  idea  is  more  diffusely  expressed  by  Apu- 
« 

tt  t 
tt 


leius,  in  a  passage  in  which  Isis  calls  herself,  '  Natura,  rerum  parens,  elementorum  omnium  do- 
mina.'"4    Again,  "On  the  whole,  we  may  conclude  that  Isis  represented  the  &u<ri§  7ravaioKos, 

the  natura  multiformis,  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  mycologists."  5  This  is  proved  by  several 
engravings  in  Montfaucon,  where  we  find  her  with  the  inscription  4>u<n£  TrumioKos  under  her 
figure,  in  one  of  which  she  may  be  seen  rising  from  the  lotus. 


1  De  Abs.  Taylor,  Book  ii.  p.  71.  *  Pritchard,  Egyp.  Myth.  p.  132.  3  Plut.  de  Iside,  Cap.  liii. 

*  Apul.  Lib.  xi.;  Prit.  ib.  p.  133.  *  lb.  p.  134. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  3.  527 

After  this,  in  p.  145,  Dr.  Pritchard  observes  that,  according  to  Apuleius,  Isis  was  called  in 
Egypt  triformxs  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  destroy- 
er.  The  Doctor  warns  his  reader  to  "  beware  in  making  researches  into  the  fictions  of  mythology, 
"  not  to  discover  more  wisdom  or  more  contrivance  than  ever  really  existed." *  We  must  also, 
I  think,  beware  not  to  discover  less.  But  sure  I  am  that  if  nothing  more  was  to  be  discovered 
than  the  unconnected  collection  of  statements  (nonsensical  enough  if  taken  by  themselves)  on 
which  the  learned  Doctor  has  wasted  his  time,  much  too  valuable  to  be  thus  thrown  away,  the 
pursuit  would  be  of  very  little  use.  The  Doctor  observes,  that  it  is  strange  and  absurd  to  suppose 
(as  the  devotees  did)  that  the  moon  exercises  an  influence  over  women  in  childbirth.  This  is  an 
example  of  the  mistakes  of  the  moderns.  It  arose  from  mistaking  the  moon  for  Isis,  the  female 
generative  power  of  nature.  The  moon  was  only  the  planet  dedicated  to  Isis.  But  the  supposi- 
tion that  the  moon  influenced  women,  is  not  more  absurd  than  to   suppose  that  it  influences 

lunatics. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  word  Isis  often  means  the  moon.  But  what  is  there  that  she  does 
not  mean  ?  Jablonski  says,  "  Praeter  Isidem  ccelestem  quae  Luna  est,  religiose  quoque  colebant 
"  (iKgyptii)  terrestrem,  ipsam  scilicet  Terram,  quae  proinde  Isidis  nomine  designabatur."  2  Ma- 
crobius  says,  "  Isis  est  vel  Terra  vel  natura  rerum  subjacens  Soli.— Isis  nihil  aliud  est,  quam 
terra,  naturave  rerum.3  Very  true— natura- ve  rerum,  either  one  or  the  other.  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. 

3.  Plutarch  says,  the  moon  was  called  MrjTTjp  2eto)yi]  re  X007/.8.  But  Selene  was  the  same 
as  Cybele,  Da-Mater— in  fact,  the  Great  Mother. 4  Cybele  was  called  the  Mean  Mother,  or  Mother 
Ida.  This  is  the  title  of  the  mother  of  Meru,  called  Jda-vratta  or  the  circle  of  Ida.  On  the 
highest  part  of  Ida  was  a  Gargarus  or  stone  circle,  called,  from  the  Sanscrit,  Cor-Ghari. 5 

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  a  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.     Isis,   as  identified  with  the  moon,  is  said  to  have  all  the  attributes  of 
the  mother  of  God.     I  apprehend  that,  chiefly  among  the  later  Egyptians  and  Greeks,  after  they 
had  lost  the  meaning  of  their  mysteries,  by  mistake  the  crescent  was  taken  for  the  Argha,  which 
had  the  form  of  a  crescent.     Isis,  the  female  generative  power  represented  by  the  Lunette  or 
crescent-shaped  Argha,  was  mistaken  for  the  crescent-formed  moon,  to  whom,  among  astrologers, 
the  second  day  of  the  week  or  Monday  was  dedicated.     When  we  see  the  Beeve  or  Bos  or  Urus, 
called  Taurus,  marked  on  the  side  with  a  Lunette  or  Lunar  crescent,  this,  though  in  honour  of 
Isis,  was  not  in  honour  of  the  moon,  but  in  honour  of  that  higher  principle,  the  principle  of  gene- 
ration, whence  the  moon  herself,  along  with  all  nature,  proceeded.     The  Theba  or  Tibe,  fDri  The, 
or  Cow,  with  a  crescent  on  her  side,  which  founded  Thebes,  was  not  the  moon — but  it  was  that 
which  the  Ioni  represented.     In  this   manner,  in  almost  innumerable  instances,  mistakes   have 

1  P.  156.  *  De  Iside,  Sect.  iii.  3  Whiter,  Etyraologicum  Univ.  Vol.  I.  p.  265. 

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


52b  ISIS    UNKNOWN    TO    GREEKS    AND    ROMANS. 

arisen.  I  repeat,  it  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  we  never  meet  with  a  half  moon  or  a  full  moon 
as  an  object  of  adoration  :  it  is  always  a  crescent ;  always  that  which  was  called  an  umbilicus,  at 
Delphi,  which  at  that  place  was  of  stone,  of  great  size,  as  it  was  also  in  Egypt,  and  carried  by 
seventy-two  men,  in  their  sacred  processions — a  navis-biprora.  If  it  be  said  that  the  moon  was 
used  as  an  emblem  of  the  female  generative  power ;  then  I  reply,  I  will  not  dispute  about  a  word. 
If  the  moon,  by  the  lunar  crescent  on  the  side  of  the  Bos,  Theba,  or  Io,  was  meant,  it  was  not  so 
meant  as  an  honour  to  the  moon  as  the  moon,  but  to  it  as  an  emblem  only.  And  if  these  distinc- 
tions be  carefully  attended  to,  all  the  difficulties  will  be  removed. 

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." l  Proclus  makes  Neitha  say,  The  fruit  which  I  have  brought 
forth  is  the  sun  : 2  then  how  can  she  be  the  moon  ?     Neitha  was  also  divine  wisdom. 

4.  But,  as  I  have  said  before,  the  Greeks  and  Romans  knew  as  little  of  the  real  oriental  doc- 
trines, indeed,  I  may  say  less,  than  we  do  at  this  day,  therefore  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  them 
making  mistakes.  Thus  Plutarch  says,  that  the  Egyptian  statues  of  Osiris  had  the  phallus  to 
signify  his  procreative  and  prolific  power  :  Uavra^oo  Be  xou  avQpa)7roy.Q%Q>ov  O<ngi§0£  ayaXua. 
§sixvvov(riv,  sf'opQiatyv  rip  oufioiip,  ha  royovifjt.ov  xou  rpo^>iy.ov.3  The  extension  of  which, 
through  the  three  elements  of  air,  earth,  and  water,  they  expressed  by  another  kind  of  statue, 
which  was  occasionally  carried  in  procession,  having  a  triple  symbol  of  the  same  attribute: 
AyaXjaa  TrporiSsVTOu  xou  irsgifyepooo-tv,  oo  to  u&oiov  ronrKacriov  ej-w.4  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. 

Apuleius  calls  Isis  Queen,  the  Greek  word  for  which  is  Baff-iXeia.  Diodorus  Siculus5  informs 
us  that  Uranus  and  Titea  had  two  daughters,  one  called  Basilea.  He  says,  "  Basilea  being  the 
**  eldest,  brought  up  her  brothers  with  the  care  and  affection  of  a  mother,  whence  she  was  ealled 
*'  the  Great  Mother."  She  married  Hyperion,  one  of  her  brothers,  by  whom  she  had  Helio  and 
Selene.  Her  other  brothers  assassinated  Hyperion,  and  drowned  Helio,  then  a  tender  infant,  in 
Eridanus.  He  then  shews  how  Cybele,  who  was  descended  from  Basilea,  was  called  Mother  of  the 
Mount,  and  joined  Bacchus  at  Nysa.6  The  Indian  mythos  of  Bacchus,  Mount  Meru,  &c,  &c,  is 
evident  in  all  this, — a  tradition  of  the  true  meaning  of  which  Diodorus  was  probably  perfectly 
ignorant.    The  whole  was  taken  from  the  East,  and  located  in  a  part  of  Phrygia. T 

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.  In  addition  to  the  evidence  afforded  by  that  inscription,  we  learn  from  Proclus,  that  it 
had  originally  the  following  words,  bv  eyco  xol^ttov  srsxov,  rXiog  eysvsrd,  that  is,  "  The  fruit 
which  I  have  brought  forth  is  the  Sun  ;"  the  same  as  Neitha.  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? 


1  Class.  Joum.  No.  XLL  2  Ibid.  3  De  Is.  et  Osir.  *  Ibid.  p.  3& 

5  Lib.  iii.  Cup.iv.  6  P.  201. 

'  Vide  Lempriere ;  also  Drummoad  on  a  Punic  Inscription,  pp.86—  SSL 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  6.  529 

5.  Although  what  I  have  stated  may  be  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  consideration  of  the  moon, 
as  the  wife  of  Osiris  and  the  female  generative  principle,  must  have  been,  comparatively  speaking, 
of  modern  date,  yet  I  think  the  origin  of  the  Crescent,  as  the  emblem  of  the  female  generative 
power,  may  be  found  in  another  quarter.  The  Crescent  is  no  more  applicable  to  the  moon,  than 
the  circle  or  semicircle  ;  nor,  indeed,  so  much.  But  if  the  ancients  knew  the  nature  of  the  planet 
Venus,  the  Alma  Venus,  the  Mother — we  have  a  reason  for  the  adoption  of  the  Crescent.  She  is 
always  gibbous,  always  a  crescent.  This  they  would  know,  if  they  had  the  telescope.:  but  I  have 
been  told  that  there  are  some  persons,  in  very  clear  northern  oriental  climates,  who  can  distin- 
guish her  gibbous  form  with  the  naked  eye.  Here,  then,  I  think  we  have  the  reason  why  we 
always  see  the  Crescent  as  the  emblem  of  the  female  generative  power.  And  hence,  when  the 
meaning  of  it  was  quite  lost  in  the  Western  countries,  the  ignorant  devotees  converted  the  Lunus, 
because  it  was  sometimes  gibbous,  into  the  female  Luna. 

6.  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  regene- 
rator, 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  i-egenerated  or  born  again.  Water  was  in  a  peculiar 
manner  the  agent  of  the  sun  :  without  the  Sun,  either  as  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  Eg<o£,  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.  The  priests 
of  all  countries  wished  to  have  the  river  which  run  through  their  territory  sacred ;  from  this  it  is 
that  we  find  so  many  rivers  dedicated  to  the  sun,  and  called  in  the  different  languages  by  a  name 
answering  to  the  word  sun.  At  present  I  shall  not  particularize  them  :  they  must  be  in  the 
remembrance  of  every  reader— the  Ganges,  the  Nile,  the  Po,  &c,  &c.  This  is  the  origin  of  the 
different  baptizings  or  baptisms  of  the  followers  of  Mithra  and  of  Christ.  The  Greek  word 
Ba7rri£a>  means  to  plunge  into  any  thing,  or  be  immersed  in  any  thing,  not  to  sprinkle  merely 
with  water.  From  these  principles  arose  the  custom  in  their  ceremonies  of  constantly  baptizing 
the  Ioni  and  Linga  with  water.  And  it  is  on  the  same  principle  that,  when  in  a  state  of  union, 
they  generally  float  on  the  water  in  the  Arga.  Sometimes  an  artificial  fountain  is  contrived  to 
throw  water  upon  them,  as  may  be  seen  in  two  exemplars  in  the  India- House. 

Meru,  with  its  concentric  circles  of  land  and  water,  surrounded  by  the  ocean,  is  an  emblem  of 
the  creating  and  destroying  powers.  When  this  system  was  established,  the  north-pole  was 
believed  or  feigned  to  be  surrounded  with  seven  dwipas  or  concentric  circles,  the  last  surrounded 
by  the  ocean.  All  this,  in  later  times,  was  an  emblem  of  the  sun  surrounded  with  the  planets  ; 
but  probably  it  first  arose  from  the  belief  that  the  earth  was  the  centre,  the  north-pole  arising  in 
the  middle  of  it,  and  the  planets  revolving  around  it. 

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.  Without  water,  fire  with  all  its  creating  powers  can  produce  nothing.  Thus  they  are 
destroyers  and  creators  in  alternate  succession.     Hence,  from  not  distinguishing  between  the  first 

3  y 


530  ICE.      PAYNE   KNIGHT'S   EXPLANATION    OF   ITS    NAME. 

fine  principle  and  its  emblem,  the  water,  fire,  and  earth,  have  been  taken  for  the  original  objects 

of  adoration. 

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  of  its 
dedication  to  the  female  generative  power,  or  I  sis.  As  the  second  of  the  planets  the  moon  was 
thus  feigned  to  be  the  wife  of  the  sun.     Jointly  they  produced ;  without  her,  as  water,  the  sun 

produced  nothing. 

7.  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.  The  baptism  by  air  is  in  perfect  keeping 
with  the  baptism  by  fire  and  water.  We  have  before  seen  that  air/  the  breath  or  spirit  of  God, 
-  the  air  in  motion,  the  dyiov  7rvsu[xa,  the  nn  WHp  qdis  ruh,  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,1  and  in  the  secret  doctrines 
of  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  John  says,  He  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  withfre.2 
When  Jesus  was  plunged  in  the  Jordan,  or  the  river  of  the  sun,  as  I  shall  presently  prove  it  to 
have  been  called,  Divine  Love  descended  upon  him  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  and  a  fire  was  kindled 
in  the  water. 3  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  sys- 
tem ;  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  of  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. 

I  fear  my  reader  will  think  I  have  gone  to  sources  sufficiently  recondite  and  abstruse  for  my 
doctrines,  but  I  must  yet  take  him  a  little  farther.  Buffon  and  Bailly  have  been  most  unmer- 
cifully ridiculed  and  grossly  misrepresented,  (by  those  who  ought,  consistently  with  their  pre- 
tended great  piety,  to  have  acted  otherwise,)  for  going  to  a  high  latitude  for  the  birthplace  or 
origin  of  man.  But  at  the  risk  of  being  ridiculed  like  them,  I  must  go  thither  for  the  origin  of 
my  doctrine.  Among  a  people  residing  under  a  vertical,  or  an  intensely  hot  sun,  we  are  apt  to 
forget  that  cold  must  be  as  great  a  luxury  as  heat  is  to  us ;  that  their  season  of  happiness,  of 
health,  of  comfort,  is  the  winter,  not,  like  ours,  the  summer.  It  should  be  recollected  that,  during 
the  summer,  in  Egypt  and  in  India,  the  country  is  covered  with  water — in  winter  with  vegetation. 
For  these  reasons  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries  would  not  have  the  same  objections  to  cold, 
or  to  any  thing  connected  with  it,  which  we  have.  The  reader  has  seen  that  I  have  derived  the 
name  of  Isis  from  the  Hebrew  yttf'  iso  and  the  Greek  %eo(o  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 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  119.  *  Luke  Hi.  16.  3  Justin  against  Apion. 


BOOK   IX.    CHAPTER   VII.    SECTION   8.  531 

"  tongue  :  but  in  the  ancient  Gothic  and  Scandinavian,  Io  and  Gio  signify  the  earth  :  as  1st  and 
"  Isa  signified  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  probable  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  prin- 
ciple :  when  compounded  with  fire,  the  active  principle,  it  is  the  emblem  of  the  two — the  rege- 
nator — the  Linga  and  Ioni — the  Isa  and  Isi,  from  ytf/>  iso  to  save ;  and,  by  the  water  of  baptism, 
to  be  saved.  I  should  think  this  ridiculously  abstruse  if  I  did  not  know  that  nothing  can  be  too 
abstruse  for  the  philosophers  of  India  and  Egypt.  On  this  subject  I  shall  have  much  more  to  say 
when  I  treat  of  the  Christian  baptism. 

I  think  no  one  will  deny,  that  the  explanation  of  Mr.  Knight  is  ingenious  and  probable  ;  but 
how  is  this  to  be  reconciled  with  the  theory  stated  in  Book  I.  Chapter  II.  Sect.  1,  that  Isis  was 
the  Bona  Dea  or  Mother  of  the  Gods,  and  with  the  statement  lately  made  that  her  name  was 
derived  from  the  Hebrew  word  yw*  iso  to  save,  or  the  Greek  word  £o>a)  ?  Are  there  to  be  two 
derivations  to  the  word  Isis  ?  In  Book  I.,  cited  above,  I  have  shewn  that  the  sun  came  to  be 
considered  the  Saviour,  in  consequence  of  the  mode  in  which  he  appears  to  preserve  and  renovate 
the  face  of  nature.  Now,  if  we  consider  a  little,  we  shall  find  that  without  the  assistance  of  water 
in  the  form  of  rain  or  dew  he  can  produce  nothing  :  hence  the  name  of  his  wife,  Isis,  came  to  be 
applied  to  water.  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.2  This  shews  that 
the  two  words  are  only  the  same  in  the  different  genders.  In  numerous  Egyptian  monuments  we 
see  Isis  seated  on,  or  rising  from,  the  lotos  or  water  lily,  as  in  my  plates,  fig.  10. 

8.  We  all  know,  independently  of  theory,  that  a  general  belief  prevails  in  the  world,  that  the 
moon  exercises  an   influence  on  the  weather,  particularly  in  respect  to  the  production  of  rain. 
From  this  belief  might  she  not  come  to  be  considered  as  presiding  over  water,  to  be  called  by  the 
name  of  the  saviour  Isis,  to  be  converted  into  a  female,  and  made  the  wife  of  Iswara,  or  Osiris  j 
and  water,  when  entirely  by  itself,  free  from  solar  influence  or  in  its  congealed  shape,  to  be  called 
Ice  ?    This  seems  to  have  been  comparatively  speaking  a  modern  refinement,  as  we  find  the  moon  in 
Tartary,  in  India  with  the  Rajpoots, 3  in  Arabia,  in  Egypt,  in  Germany,  and  in  Etruria,  to  have 
originally  been  of  the  masculine  gender.     Here  we  see  why  she  was  called  Helena  and  Theba,  and 
why  she  is  every  where  connected  with  the  generative  principle.     In  her  lunette  form  she  is 
peculiarly  calculated  to  represent  the  Arga,  or  vehicle,  or  medium  in  which  the  germ  of  animated 
nature  was  carried,  the  united  Linga  and  Yoni.     In  the  prayer  of  the  Persians  to  the  God  Taurus, 
water  is  also  invoked,  joined  with  him  by  the  name  of  rain,  which  seems  to  be  introduced  in  an 
awkward  way,  but  which  is  thus  accounted  for.     I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  Plato  ever 
taught,  that  the  trinity  of  Orpheus  or  Zoroaster  consisted  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  earth,  it 
must  have  been  to  conceal  the  higher  theory  from  public  view.     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-*w  iar  to  flow  ;   >T-1N»-p>  is-iar-di. 

Is  it  possible  that  the  word  Sarah  may  be  found  in  the  Greek  word  p^apa  laughter  ?  She  was 
the  mother  of  Isaac,  which  name  Cruden  says  means  laughter,  and  that  he  was  so  called  from  his 
mother's  laughing.     Before  I  conclude,  I  have  no  doubt  I  shall  prove  that  there  is  no  instance  in 


'  Payne  Knight  on  Symb.  Lang,  of  Anc.  Myth.  S.  54.  «  Ed.  Squire.  3  Tod,  Hist.  Raj.  p.  538. 

3  y2 


532  RIVERS   OF   SAME   NAME. 

which  the  name  of  a  God  or  Goddess,  when  uncorrupted,  is  without  some  meaning  ;  or  who  had 
not  his  or  her  name  given  for  a  specific  reason. 

I  apprehend  the  word  IS  to  be  a  word  of  the  most  ancient  language :  in  English  is,  in  Hebrew 
ty»  is.  It  means  existens  or  perhaps  hypostasis.  As  existens,  it  meant  self-existent  or  the  forma- 
tive power ;  and  as  this  power  or  creator  was  the  preserver,  the  words  jfltf*  iso  the  saviour,  and 
Isis,  came  to  be  formed  from  it.  In  the  Hebrew  language  it  has  exactly  the  same  meaning  it  has 
in  English.  It  is  also  found  in  the  Mexican  language,  which  bespeaks  its  great  antiquity.  The 
Mexicans,  to  mark  the  time  of  the  day,  point  to  the  sun,  and  say,  Is  Teott,  there  God  will  he. ' 
But  the  expression  manifestly  means  (there)  is  God — Teott  meaning  God.  2  Mr.  Crawfurd  evi- 
dently adopted  an  incorrect  mode  of  expression,  to  indulge  his  (pardonable  because  not  ill-mean- 
ing) prejudice  against  the  English  expression  or  language  in  Mexico.  But  this  kind  of  prejudice 
has  been  exceedingly  detrimental  to  the  discovery  of  the  truth.  Here  we  have  the  English  word, 
in  sound,  in  sense,  and  even  in  letters. — In  a  former  section  I  said  that  I  should  explain  the  word 
Eridanus.  Having  shewn  the  importance  of  water  in  the  mysteries  of  the  ancients,  I  shall  now 
perform  my  promise,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  the  meaning  of  the  name  of  this  river  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  sacred  character  of  water.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have  made  some  observa- 
tions upon  the  baptism  of  the  ancients,  which  would  otherwise  have  been  better  delayed  till  I 
treated  of  the  Christian  baptism. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

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

PALLI. 

I.  A  learned  friend  has  observed  to  the  author,  that,  in  his  opinion,  all  names  of  rivers  and  of 
places  have  taken  their  origin  from  accidental  local  circumstances,  arising  in  the  very  earliest 
stages  of  society ;  that  the  man  wholly  or  half  savage,  for  instance,  who  happened  to  ramble  to 
the  confluence  of  the  Rhone  and  Arve,  would  not  think  of  distinguishing  the  Rhone  from  the 
Arve  by  calling  one  of  them  the  river  of  the  sun ;  but  would  most  likely  call  one  the  hlue  river, 
and  the  other  the  muddy  river,  names  arising  out  of  their  accidental  peculiarities  ;  that  the  giving 
such  a  name  as  the  sun,  is  much  too  artificial  and  refined  a  motive  for  the  half  savage,  who  must 
have  given  the  first  names  to  rivers  and  places.  This  remark  seems  reasonable  enough  in  many 
cases  j  but  it  does  not  apply  where  colonies  are  settled  by  civilized  nations,  as  every  day's  expe- 
rience in  the  Americas,  New  Holland,  &c,  proves.  That  rivers  have  been  called  rivers  of  the  sun 
cannot  be  doubted,  as  the  Nile  proves.  This  was  first  called  Sir  after  the  name  of  the  sun,  and 
Greecized  into  Osiris. 

When  I  find  widely-separated  countries,  towns,  and  rivers,  called  by  the  same  names,  I  cannot 
consent  to  attribute  so  striking  a  coincidence  to  the  effect  of  accident  or  of  unconnected  causes. 


1  Crawfurd,  Hist.  Ind.  Arch.  Vol.  I.  p.  288.  *  Teott-Teut-Tat-0£OT-©EO2. 


BOOK   IX.     CHAPTER   VIII.      SECTION  2.  533 

.  I  feel  myself  obliged  to  believe  that  some  common  cause  must  have  operated  to  produce  a  common 
effect.  I  find  rivers  by  the  name  of  Don  in  many  different  countries,  and  under  very  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances, and  on  these  I  must  now  make  some  observations. 

Almost  all  great  rivers  have  been  called  rivers  of  the  sun.     May  not  the  origin  of  this  be  found 
in  the  abstruse  consideration,  that  they  appear  to  be  directly  the  produce  of  the  sun  ;  and  may 
they  not  originally  have  been  thus  called  as  a  sacred  name  ?     In  all  the  Asiatic  countries  they  are 
the  fullest  in  the  summer,  when   the   sun  causes  their  floods   by  melting  the  mountain  snows. 
When  he  is  in  his  glory,  they  are  at  their  full ;  as  he  withdraws,  they  decline.     At  the  same  time 
that  he  causes  them  to  increase,  he  thereby  fertilizes  the  plains  of  India,  and  the  valley  of  the  Nile. 
The  name  of  the  rivers,  the  Nile  for  instance,  is  said  to  mean  sun — not  that  it  means  the  river  of  the 
sun,  but  the  river  sun.  i  If  I  be  right,  that  a  first  language  existed  like  the  Hebrew  in  its  formation, 
this  misnomer  might  arise  from  inattention  to  the  system  (formerly  named)  of  what  in  the  Hebrew 
language  is  called  being  in  regimine.     For  example  :  we  say  house  op  God ;  the  Hebrews  say,   bit 
al  DO  bit — bit  al,  house  God>  wanting  the  particle  ;  and  then  the  word  bit  or  house  is  said  to  be  in 
regimine,  the  particle  of  being  understood.     The  Nile  was  said  to  be  both  the  gift  and  the  emblem 
of   Osiris,  and  an   emanation   from  him — 0<ripi$os  Aleppo?].1     The   Ganges   was   said  to  have 
flowed  from  the  head  or  the  foot  of  Seva.     The  Eridanus   of  the  sphere  flowed  from  the  foot  of 
Orion  or  Orus,   as  any  one  may  see  by  casting  his  eye  upon  the  sphere  of  Dupuis,   Plate  No.  10. 
It  is  there  called  also  the  Nile.     In  No.  9  it  flows  from  the  foot  of  Prometheus.     In  No.  8  it  flows 
from  the  foot  of  Amalthea,  and  also  of  Orus  and  Orion. 

Dr.  Hyde  informs  us,  that  the  constellation  Eridanus  was  called  7roTay.s  a^B^KT^og,  the  aste- 
rism  of  the  river,  by  Ptolemy ;  and,  by  the  Persians,  7rora/AO£  Qgicovog,  the  river  of  Orion. 2  I 
will  now  examine  the  rivers  on  the  globe  and  try  if  we  can  find  any  of  this  celestial  name  there. 

2.  The  first  river  I  shall  notice  is  the  Jordan,  called  in  Genesis  xiii.  11,  pn>n  e-irdn,  that  is,  as 
our  translators  say,  the  Jordan.     The  word  JTVfl  e-irdn  consists   of,  in  fact,   three  words.     The 
first  is  the  emphatic  article,  n  e  thej  the  second  the  word  *y  ir  which,   in  the  Hebrew  language, 
means  river,3   from  the  Hebrew  word  ix»  iar  to  flow,   a  vowel  (x  a)  being  dropped,  as  is  very 
common  in  the  Hebrew  language.     For   example,  in  the  word  *iin  tur  a  turtledove,  often  written 
"if>  tr.4      I  believe  that  the  rendering  by  Mr.  Bellamy  of  the  word  *y  ir  river,  will  not  be  disputed. 
It  is  proved  to  be  correct  by  the  striking  circumstance,  that  although  the  Jordan  is  named  in  the 
Old  Testament  many  times,  it  never,  in  any  case,  has  the  word  river  prefixed  to  it.     The  reason 
is,  that  if  it  were,  it  would  create  a  rank  tautology,  and  would  read  the  river  river  Dn.     From  this 
Hebrew  word  Iar  or  Ir,  the  name  of  different  rivers  has  been  derived ;  for  instance,  one  in  Nor- 
folk, called  Yar,  (the  town  Yarmouth,)  and  the  Jaar  in  Flanders.     Respecting  the  word  p  dn, 
Parkhurst  gives  as  the  meaning  of  it,  to  judge  or  rule ;  as  a  noun,  with  »  i  \n  din,  a  judge,  and, 
with  a  formative  a  pN  Adn,  a  ruler,  director,  Lord — spoken  of  God.     "  Hence  the  word  Adonis 
"  had  his  name,"  and  the  Welsh  Adon  a  Lord.     I  have  no  doubt  that  it  had,  in  the  form  jn  dun, 5 
the  meaning  of  judgment,  discretion,  understanding,  and,  in  fine,   wisdom.     But  of  course  Park- 
hurst would  keep  this  last  offensive  word  out  of  sight,  as  much  as  possible.     If  Adonai  or  Adonis 
were  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  of  course  he  would  be  Wisdom.     Hence  we  have  the 
meaning  of  this  river — the  river  of  Adonis.     I  suppose  I  need  not  remind  my  reader,  that  Adonis 


'  Plut.  de  Isid.  *  Maurice,  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I,  p.  355. 

3  Bellamy's  Ai>ti-Deist  and  Translation  of  Bible,  Gen.  xiv.  14. 
*  Vide  Downs's  Grammar,  p.  27.  *  Vide  Prey's  Lex. 


534  VARIOUS    RIVERS    CALLED   DON. 

was  the  sun ; 1  therefore,  the  Jordan  ought  to  be,  or  might  be,  translated  the  river  of  the  sun. 
When  Moses  gives  an  historical  account  of  Abraham's  success  in  driving  his  enemies  to  the  bank 
of  the  river,  or  of  the  name  of  the  river  on  which  Lot  chose  to  settle,  it  is  out  of  all  question  to 
suppose  that  he  would,  as  Mr.  Bellamy  thinks,  give  it  a  new  name  and  call  it  judgment,  because 
Abraham  had  driven  his  enemies  to  judgment.  But  it  was  called  Jordan  before  Abraham  fought 
his  enemies,  when  Lot  chose  its  borders  for  his  residence  ;  thus  that  question  seems  settled. 

In  the  Exca  IlrsqosvTa2  may  be  seen  the  attempts  of  Mr.  Tooke,  as  well  as  of  great  numbers 
of  other  learned  men,  to  explain  the  word  dun  or  don  ;  in  all  of  which  I  think  my  reader  must 
agree  with  me,  that  there  is  a  complete  failure.  This  is  one  of  the  proofs  how  vain  the  attempt  is 
to  explain  the  English  language,  without  going  to  the  Hebrew.  The  Hebrew  is  of  much  more 
importance  than  the  Saxon,  because  the  Saxon  is  itself,  in  great  part,  derived  from  the  Hebrew. 
So  that  if  in  many  cases  you  pass  over  the  Saxon  and  go  to  the  Hebrew  no  bad  consequence 
arises  ;  for,  though  you  miss  a  step,  you  get  to  the  real  root :  but  in  few  cases,  perhaps,  will  you 
get  to  the  real  root  by  stopping  at  the  Saxon.  If  Tooke  had  understood  Hebrew,  he  would  have 
made  a  very  different  book.  The  observations  of  Mr.  Taylor,  the  editor  of  the  new  edition  of 
Tooke,  on  many  words,  as  well  as  on  that  of  don  or  dun,  though  learned  and  ingenious,  confirm 
what  I  say.  All  that  can  be  made  out  from  these  learned  men  is,  that  this  name  of  so  many 
rivers  means  hill,  a  very  singular  name  it  must  be  allowed  for  river.  But  it  is  exactly  like  the 
Mere  of  India.  This  universally  means  Hill,  (though  generally  a  hill  with  a  piece  of  water  on 
the  top  of  it,)  but  in  our  country  it  also  commonly  means  lake,  and  I  think  it  has  become  appro- 
priated to  lakes  from  the  hill  lakes  of  India.3     I  shall  return  to  this  subject  in  the  next  book. 

From  Burckhardt's  Travels  in  Nubia,4  it  appears  that  the  river  Jordan  is  now  called  El  Dhan. 
I  found  this  authority  after  I  had  finished  my  article  on  this  celebrated  river.  I  think  I  could  not 
have  desired  a  more  decisive  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  theory  than  this.  El  is  the  Arabic  em- 
phatic article  the. 

3.  The  word  duna  was  the  Median  name  for  a  river,  and  was  carried  into  Europe  by  the  tribes 
migrating  from  upper  Asia.     Thus  it  makes  its  appearance  in  the  names  Tanais,   or  Don,  D'ni- 
eper,  Rha-danus,  Rho-danus,  and  Eri-danus. 5    In  North  India  the  Don  is  called  Dena  and  Dond.6 
that  is  Don-di,  or  Dis,  or  Divus,  holy. 

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  of  Danusius  or  Tanais :  in  which  the 
Puranas  coincide  with  Horus,  Apollo,  Eustathius,  and  Strabo.7  Tanais  is  evidently  a  corruption 
of  Dan-usius,— I-ster  :  I,  the  Celtic  emphatic  article  ;  Ster,  star,  astrum,  the  planet. 

In  Russia  there  is  a  river  which  flows  into  the  Sea  of  Azof  or  the  Palus  Mfeotis,  (but  whose 
true  name  Ritter  makes  to  be  Palus  Maietis,)  now  called  Don  but  anciently  Tanais  ;  and  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  back,  as  appears,  by  old  voyages,  it  was  called  Tane.  Dr.  Lempriere 
says,  "  Don  is  a  corrupt  appellation  of  the  ancient  Tanais.     There  is  a  city  at  its  mouth  now 


1  Drummond,  (Ed.  Jud.  p.  231-  2  Part  I.  Chap.  ix. 

3  The  hill  lakes  in  India  were  dedicated  to  Buddha,  and  in  succession  to  Cristna  or  Kaniya.  The  hill  lakes  in 
England  are  called  Tarns :  e.  g.  Mallum-Tarn,  a  lake  on  the  top  of  a  hill  in  Yorkshire.  May  they  not  have  been  called 
from  the  Buddha  or  Teut  or  Hermes  of  Britain,  Taran-is  ?  The  Meres  of  India  were  all  mothers  from  whom  the 
sacred  rivers  descended.    They  were  Merus,  each  of  which  was  both  hill  and  lake. 

4  Mem.  p.  xxxvii.  5  Cab.  Enc.  Vol.  I.  p.  41.  6  Rennell,  Mem.  p.  88. 
'  Eustath.  on  Dionys.  Perieg.  V.  298  ;  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  453. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  VIII.    SECTION  4.  535 

"  called  Azof,  but  the  Sclavonian  traditions  say  it  was  anciently  called  Aas-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  : 
andaas-20/is  aas-sophia,  or  eau-<ro$,  Sea  of  Wisdom.  The  Don  is  called  Donnez,  Danaetz, 
Tdnaetz,  Tanaets,  and  Tanais.1  In  Sogdiana,  not  far  from  the  Jaxartes,  was  a  city  called  Gaza, 
and  the  river  Jaxartes  itself  was  called  Tanais. 2  According  to  Rennell  it  was  at  first  called  Sirr — 
the  same  name  as  that  of  the  ancient  Nile.  The  Tanais  we  have  seen  was  also  the  same  as  the 
Don.  Rennell  makes  the  Jaxartes  to  be  bounded  by  the  mountains  called  Tag  Arga.  "  In  our 
"  modern  maps  it  appears  as  the  Don  :  but  this  word  is  a  palpable  corruption  of  Tanais,  by  which 
"  appellation  it  was  known  to  the  Greeks."3  In  the  Eastern  golden  Chersonesus  or  Siam,  is  a 
district  called,  in  ancient  times,  Daonae,  which  is  now  called  Tanasserim.  This  is  evidently  the 
name  of  its  river  Don,  corrupted  into  Tanasserim.4  Beyond  the  Ganges,  again,  we  find  a 
river  called  Daona.5  I  believe  it  was  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,  in  the  tenth  century,  who 
first  called  the  river  Dnieper,  Danapreos.  Contrarini,  who  travelled  in  1473,  says,  "  La  fiumara 
"  che  si  chiama  Danambre  nella  loro  lingua,  e  nella  nosra  Leresse."  It  is  worthy  of  observation, 
and  can  scarcely  be  accidental,  that  the  Don  of  Yorkshire  flows  into  the  Umber,  or  Umbre. 
There  must  have  been  some  connexion  between  the  Don  and  Umber,  and  Dan-ambre. 

4.  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  nny  obr 
the  far  or  distant  deen,  whatever  the  word  deen  may  mean  :  but  probably  the/ar  don  or  dun.  The 
river  at  Whitby  in  Yorkshire  is  called  Dunum  or  Don.6  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.  It  is  celebrated  for  its  beauty.  I  have  known  it  well  for  more  than  fifty  years,  and 
I  think  I  am  qualified  to  say,  it  does  not  deserve  more  praise  for  the  beauty  of  its  buildings  and 
the  cleanness  of  its  streets,  than  for  the  moral  qualities  of  its  inhabitants. 

In  my  Celtic  Droids,  plate  24,  will  be  found  a  view  of  a  fire-tower  at  Brechin,  in  Scot- 
land.    This  town  is  on  the  east  coast,   not  very  far  from  Aberdeen  or  p  ^yy  obr  dn,  or  Aberdeen 
on  the  river  p  Dn  Don  ;  and  near  it  is  a  small  town  called  Dun.     On  this  tower  is  a  man  cruci- 
fied, with  a  lamb  on  one  side  of  him,  and  an  elephant  on  the  other.     When   I   published  my 
Celtic  Druids,  I  thought  this  proved  that  the  tower  was  not  very  ancient ;  but  I  now  begin  to 
doubt  of  this  matter.     In  the  estate   of  Lady  Castles  near  Aberdeen,  about  forty  years  ago  was 
dug  up  the  large  ring,  of  which  the   print,  No.  2J  A,  is  a  very  close   representation.     The 
figures  are  not  mere  outlines  or  alto-relievos,   but  they  are  of  full-raised  form,  and  well  executed. 
The  pious,  and  also  the  learned  of  the  priests  say,  it  may  have  been  brought  from  the  East  by 
Crusaders.     No  doubt  they  consider  this  to  be  satisfactory.     For  my  own  part,  I  think  it  equally 
satisfactory  to  be  told,  that  the  river  and  town  of  Aberdeen  had  their  names   given   by  the  cru- 
saders, and  that  the  fire-tower  and  the  elephant  were  placed  upon  it  by  them  also.     I  dare  say 
these  valiant  heroes  would  be  said  to  have  given  names  to  the  Umber,  Northumberland,  Brigantia, 
&c,  if  they  had  not  been  known  from  Roman  authors  to  have  had  them  long  before  the  Christian 
aera,  and  even  before  the  arrival  of  the  Romans.     For  example,  Brigantia  the  country  of  Queen 
Boadicea. 

In  Lombardy,  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  there  is  a  celebrated  river  called  Eridanus.  This  is  evidently 
Eri-dan  or  E-ir-dan,  with  a  latin  termination  us,  which  being  left  out  we  have  n  e  the  y  ir  river 
p  Dn,  Don  or  Adonis.     Into  this  river  Phaeton  was  supposed  to  have  fallen,  when  he  drove  the 


1  Clarke's  Travels.  *  Arrian,  B.  iv.  3  Fab.  Orig.  Pag.  Idol. 

*  Vide  Butler's  Atlas.  *  Drum.  Orig.  Vol.  IV.  p.  174.  6  Young's  History. 


536  PHILISTINES   OR   PALLI. 

chariot  of  the  sun.  The  country  about  the  mouth  of  it  was  inhabited  by  the  Om-bri,  and  there 
was  a  town  at  its  mouth  called  Palestinos.  This  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. 

Ille  urbem  Patavi  sedesque  locavit 
Teucrorum,  et  genti  nomen  dedit,  armaque  fixit 
Troia.1 

The  river  in  the  sphere  proceeding  from  Orion  is  called  Eridanus,  but  Eratosthenes  maintains  that 

it  is  the  Nile.     "  The  river  flowing  from  Orion's  foot,  graphically  illustrates  Homer's  Ainrereog 

"  7roTajj.oio,  or  the  river  flowing  from  Dis.     But  in  truth  there  is  no  difference  between  the  Nile 

"  or  dark  blue  river  of  hell  and  the  fabled  Eridanus  :  in  the  fortunate  groves  of  Hades,   so  Virgil 

"  sings, 

"  Pluritnus  Eridani  per  sylvam  volvitur  amnis."* 

The  Roman  poets  feign,  that  Amber  arose  from  the  tears  shed  by  the  sisters  of  Phaeton  for  his 
misfortune,  but  the  Po  never  produced  Amber. 

Nimrod  again  says,  "  But  the  river  Ganges  bore  the  same  name  (being  that  of  the  God  Buddha 
"  or  Batta)  as  the  Eridanus  of  Italy  ;  Ganges  qui  et  Padus  dicitur  :  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,  juxta3  Armenise  montes  manifestantur,  or  in  other  words,  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."4  A  Coptic  name  of  the 
Euphrates  is  eu  water,  and  4>otj— 608 — River  of  the  Sun  as  usual.  See  Ouseley,  Transactions  of 
the  Society  of  Literature, 5  where  it  appears  that  Phrat  was  not  the  Persian  name,  but  Fala  or 
Flad  or  Fulat.     Is  Flad  flood  or  fleuve-ad,  river  of  Ad  ?     Has^ewye  al  become  Fala  or  Fulat  ? 

5.  "  Next  to  the  emigration  of  the  Yadavas  the  most  celebrated  was  that  of  the  Palis,  or  Pali- 
"  putras  :  many  of  whose  settlements  were  named  Palist'han,  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  Philistinse  fossiones,  and  the  Philis- 
"  tinse  arenae  in  Epirus.  As  the  Greeks  wrote  Palai  for  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."  6  Here  the  two  Palibothras  are  sufficiently  clear.  And  the  Pal- 
lestini  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. 

Pliny  says,7  Inde  ostia  plena  Carbonaria  ac  fossiones  Philistinse,  quod  alii  Tartarutn  vocant. 
That  is,  the  fossiones  of  the  Palli,  or  Pallestrtii  the  shepherds  or  nomades.  Here  we  have  the  first 
example  of  the  name  of  Tartars,  but  it  beautifully  supports  all  my  opinions  of  the  arrival  of  the 
Palli  from  the  East  j 8   it  also  shews,  that  we  must  not  conclude  that  names  are  necessarily  modern, 


1  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  115.  *  Nimrod,  Sup.  Ed.  p.  25. 

3  Aethic.  Cosmo<r.  p.  548;  Lugd.  Bat.  1646.  *  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  56.  *  Vol.  I.  p.  110. 

6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  369.  7  Lib.  iii.  p.  173.  9  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  376. 


BOOK  IX.     CHAPTER    VIII.     SECTION   5.  537 

because  we  do  not  meet  with  them  in  ancient  Greek  or  Latin  authors.     We  shall  find  that  these 
Tartars  were  probably  Sacse  or  Saxons. 

Mr.  Bryant  observes,  "  It  is  said,  that  the  Eridanus  was  so  called  first  by  Pherecydes  Syrus."  * 
And  Plutarch2  says,  that  the  Strymon  is  a  river  of  Thrace,  which  runs  by  the  city  of  Edonis 
(HdowSa) :  it  was  of  old  called  the  river  of  Palsestinus. 3  The  town  he  calls  Edonis,  is  called  also 
Ejov.  I  have  before  observed,  that  I  take  this  to  be  a  corruption  of  Yoni  or  lone  ;  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.4 
There  was,  according  to  Pausanias,  also  a  river  in  Attica  called  Eridanos.  Mr.  Dodwell  thinks 
the  channel  which  joined  the  Ilissos  near  Ampelo-Kepous  was  the  Eridanos.5 

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  Phoenicians  and 
Carthaginians  resorted  for  the  purchase  of  amber,  with  which  they  supplied  the  Roman  empire. 
It  bad  the  name  of  Eridanus,  and  by  its  name  Rhodaun,  it  evidently  connects  the  Rhone  with  all 
these  Dons.  The  Rho-daun  is  the  River-Daun.  It  is  said  that  Herodotus  mistook  a  river  for 
the  Tanais  which  he  called  Rha,  now  the  Wolga  or  Volga.  The  reader  will  not  fail  to  perceive, 
that  the  name  of  the  river  at  Dantzig  consists  of  the  river  of  Herodotus,  and  the  river  Don.  The 
Rha  is  the  psu>  and  the  1N>  iar.  The  Wolga  is  called  the  Oarus  by  Rennell:  this  is  only  a  corrup- 
tion of  in>  iar>  with  the  Latin  termination.  When  Herodotus  was  told  that  the  Wolga  was  called 
Rha,  if  he  had  had  the  least  knowledge  of  etymology  he  would  at  once  have  seen  that  Rha  merely 
meant  river — the  same  as  the  Greek  psu)  to  flow,  or  the  Hebrew  y  ir  river.  The  Dwina  also  is 
probably  a  Don. 

That  I  am  not  singular  in  the  opinion  that  the  Rodaun  is  the  same  as  the  Eridanus,  I  copy  the 
following  from  Lempriere  :  "  The  most  curious  circumstance  connected  with  the  story  of  Phaeton 
"  is  the  fact,  that  the  name  Eridanus,  into  which  he  is  said  to  have  fallen,  belongs  properly  to  the 
"  Rodaun,  a  small  stream  in  the  north  of  Europe,  running  near  Dantzic." 

The  word  Lar  or  Laura  is  still  used  in  Gaelic,  (Loar  or  Lomhar,)  and  in  the  dialect  of  the 
Cymri,  Llueru  signifies  resplendence.  Laurus  is  the  Laurel,  sacred  to  the  sun.  Daphne,  another 
name  for  the  Laurus,  is  derived  from  the  Sanscrit  Tapana,  a  name  of  the  sun,  as  the  author  of 
heat ;  for  that  place  in  Egypt  called  Tapana  in  the  Puranas,  is  called  Taphnai  by  the  LXX  : 
and  Daphance  or  Daphne  by  Greek  and  Roman  authors.6  I  suspect  in  Lomhar  there  is  the 
origin  of  Lombardy,  and  in  Tapana,  of  India,  the  name  of  Daphne,  always  connected  with  the 
story  of  Phaeton.  Nimrod  says,  "  Phaeton  was  not  only  prince  of  the  Ethiopians  but  son  of 
"  Tithonus,7  and  his  fall  from  heaven  is  indisputably  the  same  event  as  the  death  of  Memnon. 
"  '  How  art  thou  fallen  from  heaven,  Lucifer,  son  of  the  morning  !  Thou  art  cut  down  to  the 
"  '  ground,  which  didst  weaken  the  nations.  For  thou  hadst  said  in  thine  heart,  I  will  ascend  into 
"  '  heaven,  I  will  exalt  my  throne  above  the  stars  of  God,  I  will  sit  upon  the  mount  of  the  congre- 
"  '  gation  in  the  sides  of  the  North.' "  8  The  above  extract  from  the  religious  Nimrod  is  very 
striking.  9 


1  'Erepoi  8e  <£a<r»  tiiytcuorarov  avruv  eivai  NeiXov.     Eratosthenes,  Catasterism,  37- 
«  De  Fluminibus,  Vol.  II.  p.  1154.  »  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  377. 

4  Cumb.  Orig.  Gen.  p.  265.  5  Vol.  I.  477-  6  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VI.  p.  500. 

7  Apollod.  Biblioth.  p.  354,  Heyne,  1803.  8  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  156. 

9  Don  and  Douno  pro  Domino  utuntur  Hispanica  Picardi  168. 

3z 


538  PHILISTINES    AND    PALLI. 

I  think  most  persons  will  agree  with  me  in  opinion  that  the  following  extracts,  from  an  essay  of 
Col.  Wilford' s,  which  I  found  after  I  had  written  the  foregoing,  confirm  my  theory  in  a  remarkable 
manner.  It  does  not  appear  that  Col.  Wilford  had  any  idea  when  he  wrote  them  of  the  connexion 
between  the  two  rivers  of  India  and  Italy.  The  Eridanus  in  India,  in  Greece,  in  Italy,  and  in  the 
sphere,  flowing  from  the  foot  of  Orion,  all  prove  the  mythological  nature  of  the  connexion 
between  the  Eastern  and  Western  countries.  "  The  Brahma-putra  is  also  called  Hrddini,  as  I 
"  observed  in  a  former  essay,  on  the  geography  of  the  Puranas.  This  word,  sometimes  pro- 
"  nounced  Hlddini,  signifies  in  Sanscrit  a  deep  and  large  river,  from  Hrida,  to  be  pronounced 
"  Hrada,  or  nearly  so,  and  from  which  comes  Hraddna  and  Hrddini.  In  the  list  of  rivers  in  the 
"  Padma-purdna,  it  is  called  Hrddya  or  Hrddyn,  and  its  mouth  is  called  by  Ptolemy  the  Airradon 
"  Ostium,  or  the  mouth  of  the  river  Hrddan  :  and  according  to  him,  another  name  for  it  was 
"  Antiboli,  from  a  town  of  that  name,  called  also  by  Pliny  Antomela,  in  Sanscrit,  Hasti-malla,  in 
"  the  spoken  dialects  Hdtti-malla,  now  Fermgy-bazar,  to  the  S.  E.  of  D'hacca."  l 

My  reader  will  please  to  observe  in  the  above  extract,  the  Hraddna  and  Hrddyn.  I  then 
beg  him  to  pronounce  them  aloud,  and  immediately  afterward  pronounce  the  name  of  the  Wolga 
as  given  by  Herodotus  Rha,  and  also  the  river  Rhodanum  or  Rhone,  which  runs  past  Lyons,  and 
doubt  if  he  can,  that  all  these  rivers  had  once  the  same  name  j  that  the  connexion  was  mytholo- 
gical, and  that  the  mythological  system  extended  to  the  Vistula,  to  Doncaster,  and  to  Aberdeen, 
or  niy  obr  \n  dun.  Hradyn  is  the  word  Radun,  and  with  the  Hebrew  emphatic  article  would  be 
the  Radyn  or  the  river  dyn.  Col.  Wilford  observes2  that  Ptolemy  called  the  river  Brahma-putra 
Daonas.     This  is  evidently  Don  or  Dwina.     This  is  the  same  as  the  Dwina  of  Russia. 

The  observation  respecting  the  Rhone,  is  confirmed  by  the  name  of  Lyons,  which  was  Lug — 
which  means  high— and  to-um,  the  town  of  the  upper  Bun.3  In  Gibelin  may  be  seen  some 
very  curious  examples  of  the  names  of  rivers,  being  Var  or  Ver — all  which  I  suspect  are  derived 
from  the  Hebrew  IAR. 

Lyons  is  situated  at  the  confluence  of  the  Rhone  and  the  Soane.  In  India  also  there  is  a  river 
called  the  Soan,  which  takes  its  source  from  the  same  lake  as  the  Ner-budda,  that  is  (the  word 
nn3  ner  being  correctly  Hebrew)  the  river  Buddha.  But  in  my  observation  on  the  river  Jordan  I 
have  shewn  how  the  Rhone  is   connected  or  identified  with  the  Padus  or  Po,  or,  in  other  words, 

Bud. 

Let  us  reflect  a  little  upon  what  I  have  said  relating  to  the  emigation  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  from 
the  kingdom  of  Oude,  in  which  is  the  river  Burrampouter  or  Brahma-putra,  and  we  must  be  struck 
with  the  singularity  of  its  having  the  same  name  as  the  famous  Jordan  or  river  Don  of  Western 
Syria.  It  was  also  called,  as  we  have  seen,  Padus,  one  of  the  names  of  Buddha.  We  have  seen 
that  the  Rhone  or  Rhadaun  is  the  Ir,  or  Rha,  or  river  Baun — bringing  it  to  the  same  name,  only 
translated,  as  the  Padus  of  Italy.  We  have  also  the  Dan-aub,  i.  e.  the  Aub-dan,  or  river  Dan. 
Doab,  or  Duo-ab,  or  Mesopotamia  of  India,  shews  the  meaning  of  the  aub  to  be  river.  If  the 
word  Soan  be  read  Zoan  we  have  the  two  rivers  of  the  Sun  united  in  India,  at  their  source,  as 
we  have  in  Europe,  at  their  confluence.  A  third  river,  which  takes  its  rise  in  the  same  mount 
as  the  Soan  and  Nerbudda,  is  called  Mandaha,  or  the  river  of  the  cycle  ;  for  I  take  Manda  to  be 
our  Munda.  On,  or  not  far  from,  this  river  is  a  town  called  Sone-pour,  and  near  it  one  of  the 
towns  is  called  Odey-pour  or  Ioudi-pour ;  there  is  also  a  town  called  Pada,  and  at  its  mouth, 
in  the  Brahmin  country,  is  the  famous  temple  of  Jaggernaut,4  or  of  the  Great  Creator;  where 


1  Col.  Wilford,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XIV.  p.  426.  s  Ibid.  p.  .420.  3  Gibelin,  Monde  Prim.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  453. 

4  If  Jaggernaut  mean  Great  Creator,  may  it  not  be  thus  dissected — Ie  self-existent  j  Ger  great,  or  circle,  or  cycle ; 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  IX.   SECTION  5.  539 

the  Bull  projects,  and  where  there  is  no  distinction  of  castes,  or,  I  believe,  of  sects,  but  pilgrims 
of  all  religions  eat  together.  This  is  because  it  is  a  Buddhist  temple.  How  it  has  escaped 
the  fury  of  the  Brahmins  is  not  known.  Ougein  is  the  capital  of  Malwa,  through  which  the 
Nerbuddha  flows.  It  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  cities  of  India,  noticed  both  in  the  Periplus  of  the 
Erythraean  sea,  and  by  Ptolemy. l  On  or  near  the  Nerbuddha  is  a  town  called  Munda  and  one 
called  Mundala,  and  one  called  Mundatta. 2  I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  mount  whence  the  three 
rivers  flowed  was  in  very  ancient  times  the  high-place  of  Malwa,  as  Moriah  was  of  Syria. 

In  India  will  be  found  Dana-poor,  (poor  means  city  or  town,)  whence  the  names  of  all  our 
towns  which  end  in  bury.  The  burghs  come  from  the  Saxon,  and  Dana-poor  probably  from  the 
same  source.  This  city  is  on  the  Soan,  which  name  we  have  seen,  is  the  same  as  the  river 
Rhone,  the  Danube,  the  Po,  &c.  In  the  same  neighbourhood  will  be  found  also  Cawn-poor,  or 
the  city  of  Caon,  and  Bet-ourah,  (or  in  Hebrew,  the  house  or  temple  of  Aur,)  and  near  Agra,  on 
the  Jumna,  a  Betaisor,  house  or  temple  of  iEsar. 

I  think  no  one  can  believe  that  all  these  circumstances  of  curious  coincidence  could  be  the 
effect  of  accident.  I  will  not  undertake  to  put  them  together,  but  he  must  see  that  there  are  the 
links  of  a  chain.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  whole  is  connected  with  a  Buddhist  mythos,  and  that 
the  story  of  Phaeton  is  of  Oriental  extraction.  Lucian  has  given  a  witty  description  of  a  voyage 
up  the  Po,  in  search  of  amber,  poplars,  and  musical  swans,  respecting  any  of  which  the  sailors 
could  give  him  no  information,  but  for  which  they  only  laughed  at  him.  I  think  this  will  now  be 
a  proper  place  to  point  out  some  strong  marks  of  identity  in  the  mythologies  of  India  and  Italy, 
which  are  perceptible  in  the  names  of  their  respective  places. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

LORETTO. — OBSERVATIONS   ON   HOMER,   THE   ILIAD,   AND   THE   ^NEID. 

In  Book  V.  Chapter  X.  Section  2,  I  said  I  should  shew  that  the  philosophers  of  India,  not  only 
brought  the  black  mother  and  her  child  to  Italy,  but  that  they  brought  her  house  also.  I  now 
proceed  to  redeem  my  pledge. 

In  lat.  25,  50 — and  long.  73,  10,  on  the  road  from  Pali  or  Palee  to  Jod-poor,  is  a  hill  called 
Poono  Gir,  or  Poona. 3       (Now  Col.  Tod  says,  Poono  means  virtue  and  Gir  hill. J     It  has  on  the 


Naut  Wisdom  ?  The  Brahmins  only  know  that  it  means  great  creator ;  its  etymon  they  do  not  pretend  to  understand. 
Neith,  not  Nepthe,  with  the  Egyptians,  meant  wisdom.  Of  Neith  it  is  said,  "  I  am  what  is,  what  was,  what  shall  be ; 
"  mortal  has  not  raised  my  veil.  The  sun  is  the  fruit  of  my  womb."  (Savary's  Letters  on  Egypt.)  Phtha  is  the 
supreme  God  of  Egypt.  (lb.)  This  Neith  is  the  Nath  described  in  Col.  Tod's  Hist.  Raj.  pp.  545—548.  It  is  the 
Rasit  of  Genesis,  and  correctly  means  the  same  as  Jehovah  Aleim,  i.  e.  the  self-existent  God. 

1  Malcolm's  Hist,  of  Malwa,  Central  India,  p.  23. 

'  Mundul-ooe  and  Mundul-eeh,  in  Sanscrit,  mean  a  circle  or  tract  of  country.    (Elphinston's  Cabul.) 

3  Tod,  Hist.  p.  702. 

3z2 


540 


LORETTO. 


top  of  it  a  small  Jain  temple,  which  was  conveyed  by  supernatural  power,  by  a  Buddhist  magician, 
as  is  said  by  the  Brahmins,  the  enemies  of  the  Jains,  to  the  place  where  it  now  stands,  from  a  certain 
mount  called  Saturn-ja,  in  a  district  now  called  Guzzerat,  and  the  kingdom  of  Balli-caroes,  or 
Balcarra,  or  Saura-stra,  or  Syra-strene,  or  Saura,  but  most  anciently  Larice,  *  that  is,  evidently, 
Larissa.  This  country  is  also  called  Palli-thana,2  that  is,  Pallestan  or  Pallestine,  or  country  of 
the  Pali.  Poono-Gir  is  now  called  the  hill  or  temple  of  virtue.  What  this  temple  contains  Col. 
Tod  has  not  told  us,  but  it  was  a  temple  of  the  Jains,  that  is,  of  Janus,  the  name  of  the  great  God 
of  the  Italians.  It  was  brought  by  the  power  of  magic  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  ancient  city 
now  called  Mundore,  the  ruins  of  which,  as  already  noticed,  are  thirty-seven  miles  in  circumference: 
but  the  present  name  of  the  new  city,  close  to  it,  is  Jod-pore,  that  is,  town  of  Juda.  In  this 
part  of  the  world,  there  yet  exists  a  sect  of  religionists  called  Nazoreens,  or  Nazoureans,  or 
Mundaites,  or  Christians  of  St.  John— a  sect  of  which  I  shall  treat  at  large  by  and  by.  But  it  is 
evident  that  the  Munda  of  these  people  is  the  same  as  the  Munda  of  this  great  ancient  Cyclopaean 
city.  In  the  country  of  Larice  or  Palli-thana,  the  adoration  of  the  mother  of  God  seems  much  to 
have  prevailed.  The  river  near  Pallithana  is  named  Mahie,  that  is,  Maia  or  Maria,  and,  by 
Ptolemy,  called  Mais.  This  is  the  country  whose  shores  are  washed  by  the  Erythraean  Sea,  and 
it  is  therefore  probably  an  Erythraean  country.  In  this  country  is  the  city  of  Aje-mere,  not  far 
from  which  is  a  temple  of  Mama-Deva,  the  holy  mother.  The  peculiar  object  of  adoration  in  this 
part  of  India  now,  is  Kanyia,  the  son  of  Maia,  otherwise  called  Cristna :  but  Maia  herself  is  often 
called  Kanya.  At  no  great  distance,  in  this  country,  is  the  Jessulmer,  formerly  noticed,  or 
Jerusalem,  anagrammatically  written  :  as  Cupid,  the  Greek  God  of  Love,  read  Hebraice,  in  this 
country,  is  the  same  name  as  their  God  of  Love,  Dipuc. 3 

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  Cceli,  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  beautifully  worked  stone,  to  skreen  both  it  and  herself 
from  impertinent  curiosity,  and  over  the  door,  to  guard  it  or  to  ornament  it,  stands  the  statue  of 
the  Erythraean  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  Na- 
soureans,  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 


D'Anville.  *  Col.  Tod.  3  Query,  the  Puck  of  Shakspeare  i 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  IX.  SECTION  1.  541 

Gir.  Poonah  or  Punah  is  the  Mexican  term  for  woman.  It  is,  I  strongly  suspect,  the  Greek 
Tuvrj.  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. l 

There  was  also  near  to  the  Saturn-ja  Pali-thana  of  India,  a  place  called  Diu,  and  near  it,  in  the 
sea  which  washes  the  shore  of  Syra-strene,  called  the  Erythraean  Sea,  (the  name  of  the  Erythraean 
Sibyl,  which  stands  in  the  screen  of  the  Casa  Santa  at  Loretto,)  a  sacred  island  of  Diu,  the  same 
as  the  name  of  Diu  in  the  mount  Athos  in  Europe,  which  is  on  an  isthmus,  the  very  picture  of  Syra- 
strene  or-Guzzerat.  The  mount  Athos  is  called  Monte  Santo,  and  the  mount  Palithanaof  India 
is  also  called  a  sacred  mount,  or  a  Monte  Santo.  There  is  another  Diu  now  called  Stan-dia,  which 
is  probably  a  corruption  of  Stambul-diu.  It  is  in  the  Thermatic  Gulf,  near  to  the  tomb  of  Orpheus 
and  Olympus  ;  and  a  second  Larissa.  2  Near  Athos  was  a  city  called  Pallene.  If  a  person  will 
only  view  the  respective  countries,  in  the  East  and  West,  where  the  remains  of  the  mythos  are 
found,  he  will  see  that  in  the  choice  of  localities,  a  similarity  of  shape  and  circumstance  has  been 
selected  to  make  the  two  mythoses  agree.  The  peninsula  of  Athos  and  Surastra  afford  a  very  good 
example.  The  river  in  India,  close  to  Surastra,  called  by  the  ancients  Mais,  I  should  have  thought 
nothing  of,  if  I  had  not  found  it  called  in  Col.  Tod's  map  Mayhie,  evidently  Maia  or  Maria ;  and, 
not  far  from  it,  as  I  have  just  now  observed,  the  temple  to  the  Mother,  as  I  conceive,  Queen  Isi 
or  Isha. 

Thus  we  have  the  ruins  of  the  sacred,  and  most  ancient,  Cyclopaean  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  to  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 
ancients3  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  they  have  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,4  now  Viterbo.  There  is 
also  Palaestrina,  now  Praeneste  Sacrum. 

When  a  person  reflects  upon  the  histories  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  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. 
The  temple  belonging  to  the  Jains  connects  it  with  the  Janus  and  Janiculum,  and  the  Palitini 


1  David  Malcolm's  Essay  on  Ant.  of  Britain. 

*  Larissa,  Theba,  and  Argos,  were  synonymous.  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  451. 

a  D' Anville.  4  Tod,  p.  216. 


542  OBSERVATIONS   ON    HOMER,   THE    ILIAD,   AND   THE   ^NEID. 

with  Mons  Palatinus.     I  regret  exceedingly  that  Col.  Tod  has  been  so  concise  in  his  description  • 
but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  the  least  suspicion  of  its  connexion  with  the  Lady  of  Loretto. 

2.  I  consider  the  Mneid  to  be  a  sacred  epic  poem,  and  to  contain  a  complete  description  of  the 
ancient  mysteries,  as  far  they  were  known,  but  conveyed  in  language  which  should  only  be  under- 
stood by  the  initiated.  *  In  the  following  lines,  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  : 

Hsec  duo  praeteria  disjectis  oppida  inuris, 
Reliquias  veterumque  vides  monumenta  virorum, 
Hanc  Janus  pater,  hanc  Saturnus  condidit  urbem  : 
Janiculum  huic,  ille  fuerat  Saturnia  nomen. 

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  daughter  and 
Iphigenia.  We  have  an  Ileyan  or  Illium  at  mount  Meru,  in  India  j  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  Caesar :  and,  in  addi- 
tion, 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. 

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  iEschylus,  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.  I 
consider,  also,  that  it  was  on  the  religious  account  that  Alexander  had  them  in  the  casket,  under 
his  pillow,  when  he  slept,  as  our  devotees  now  use  their  Bible ;  and  I  think  it  very  likely  that 
Ossian's  poems  might  have  been  moulded  to  produce  a  similar  effect,  if  Macpherson,  like  Aristotle 
and  his  coadjutors,  had  understood  the  mythos.  Had  we  the  whole  of  the  plays  of  ^Eschylus,  as 
we  have  the  crucifixion  of  Prometheus,  uncorrupted  by  our  modern  emendators,  I  think  it  proba- 
ble 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.  When  they  were  committed  to 
writing  by  Pisistratus,  it  had  gone  out  of  use.  This  is  the  reason  why  they  are  without  it.  Poetry 
was  not  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. 

The  learned  Basnage  says,  "  Several  authors  have  attempted  to  make  Homer  consistent  with  the 
"  sacred  writers  in  four  things ;  1.  In  the  style ;  for  there  are  so  many  Hebraisms  in  his  verses,2 
"  that  one  can't  avoid  perceiving  that  he  had  read  Moses,  and  the  one  may  be  often  explained  by 


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

2  Vide  Bogani  Homerus  Hebraizans,  in  which  he  would  prove  that  there  is  no  poet  comes  so  near  the  sacred  writers ; 
neminem  poetarn  tantopere  referre  sacros  scriptores. 


BOOK   IX.   CHAPTER   IX.   SECTION   2.  543 

"  the  other.  2.  This  poet  relates  many  rites  that  have  an  evident  relation  to  those  of  the  Old 
"  Testament.  3.  His  two  poems,  which  may  be  justly  called  the  two  eminences  of  Parnassus,  are 
"  full  of  admirable  sentences,  and  therefore  they  are  compared  to  those  of  Solomon,  and  a  parallel  l 
"  is  drawn  betwixt  this  king's  thoughts,  and  this  ancient  poet's.  Scaliger  went  too  far  in  saying 
"  that  Homer  was  divinely  inspired ;  but  at  least  he  entered  into  a  kind  of  enthusiasm,  which  in- 
"  spired  him,  and  rendered  his  genius  next-kin  to  divine. 

"  Est  Deus  in  nobis ;  agitante  celescimus  illo  : 
"  Impetus  his  sacrae  semina  mentis  habet. 

"  The  ancients  have  said,  that  Homer  travelled  into  Egypt,  and  the  Egyptians  asserted  that  he 
"  was  born  there. 2  No  wonder  then  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  books  of  Moses,  and  in- 
"  structed  in  the  Jewish  religion  in  this  country.  If  the  Egyptian  pretence  be  false,  it  can't  how- 
"  ever  be  disputed,  but  that  this  poet  lived  long  at  Samos,  and  had  a  correspondence  with  the 
"  Phoenicians  for  a  great  while,  who  had  taught  him  the  history  of  the  Jews.  'Twas  the  notion 
"  of  Justin  Martyr,  '  that  Homer  had  taken  a  great  deal  from  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
"  but  without  insisting  upon  this  discussion,  it  suffices  that  the  sentences,  which  are  innumerable 
"  in  this  poet's  verses,  are  like  those  dispersed  in  the  books  of  David,  Solomon,  and  sacred  au- 
"  thors.'  A  modern  author  has  filled  a  great  volume  with  this  parallel  of  sentences  and  maxims, 
"  because  if  St.  Paul  has  sanctified  a  saying  of  the  poet  Menander,  he  might  likewise  sanctify  the 
"  maxims  of  Homer.     But  amongst  a  thousand  examples,  we'll  content  ourselves  with  one  : 

BeXo/A  eya  Xaov  <roov  ey.jA.eva.1  -q  aitoktaOai. 

"  Homer  here  introduces  a  prince  saying,  He  had  rather  have  his  people  safe  than  see  them  perish. 
"  'Tis  first  observed,  that  this  is  not  the  true  meaning  of  this  maxim.     The  king  meant,  no  doubt, 
"  that  he  would  die  in  order  to  save  his  people.     However,  take  the  words  as  you  please,  they 
"  have  a  great  resemblance  with  those  of  scripture.     The  fourth  article  of  conformity  is  much 
"  more  important  than  the  rest,  since  Homer,  under  pretence  of  recounting  the  adventures  of 
M  Ulysses,  is  proved  to  have  related  those  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  the  Judges,  and  heroes  of  ancient 
"  Israel.     To  give  the  greater  authority  to  this  conjecture,  'tis  observed,  that  the  ancients  have 
"  given  this  testimony  to  Homer,  that  he  generally  made  use  of  allegories.     Heraclides  made  a 
"  collection  of  this  poet's  allegories."3      There  is  quite  discrepancy  enough  between  the  poems  of 
Homer  and  the  Jewish  writings  to  shew,  that  they  were  not  copies  of  one  another ;  but  when  all 
the  other  circumstances  are  considered,  which  I  shall  lay  before  my  reader,  I  feel  confident  I  shall 
convince  him,  that  they  are  but  different  versions  of  the  same  mythic  history.    Homer,  as  remarked 
by  Basnage,  is  said  to  have  resided  a  long  time  in  Samos.     Not  far  from  this  island,  on  the  con- 
tinent, are  the  Mount  of  Solomon  or  of  the  Solumi,  and  the  Holy  Ladder,  &c,  described  in  the  last 
book,  chapter  HI.  sect.  7«    Near  this  place  there  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,  cele- 
brated 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  Erythra;a,  of  the  infant  of  the  Virgo 
Paritura  of  Gaul,  of  the  prophecy  noticed  by  Tacitus,  and  that  of  Figulus,  of  Zeradust,  and  of  the 

1  "  Homeri  Gnomologia  duplici  parallelismo  illustrata,  uno  ex  locis  sacrae  scripturae,  quibus  Gnomes  Homericce,  aut 
"  prope  affines,  aut  non  prorsus  absirniles ;  altero  ex  gentium  scriptoribus,  per  Jacobum  Duportum  Cantabrigiensem, 
in  4to.  1660,  Cantabrigiae,  p.  4.     There  are  291  of  them. 

2  The  Greek  poet  Naucrates  accuses  Homer  of  having  copied  his  poem  from  a  book  in  the  library  of  the  God  Ptha, 
at  Memphis.    Spineto's  Lect.  p.  330.    It  is  probable  that  poems  of  Om-eer  existed  both  in  Egypt  aud  India. 

1  Basnage,  Book  iii.  Ch.  xx. 


584 


ENOCH.      LAURENCE. 


Druid  of  Bochara  in  Ireland.  Lactantius  makes  the  Apollo  of  Miletus  say,  "  He  was  a  mortal  ac- 
"  cording  to  the  flesh  ;  wise  in  miraculous  works ;  but,  being  arrested  by  an  armed  force  by  com- 
"  mand  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  of  our  Bible.  Who  this  crucified 
person  of  Roum  or  Roma  was,  I  shall  shew  in  a  future  page, 


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. — GENE- 
RAL  OBSERVATIONS. 

I.  Mr.  Bruce,  on  his  return  from  Abyssinia,  brought  with  him  three  manuscripts  which  pur- 
ported to  be  exemplars  of  the  Ethiopian  version  of  the  long-lost  and  much-desired  book  of  Enoch. 
I  did  not  examine  or  pay  any  attention  to  them,  till  after  the  whole  of  what  the  reader  has  seen 
respecting  the  cycles  was  written  ;  and,  after  much  consideration,  1  have  judged  it  better  that  my 
observations  on  this  curious  work  should  be  placed  here  by  themselves,  though  it  may  perhaps  be 
thought  that  they  ought  to  have  appeared  in  the  fifth  book. 

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  Babylonish  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.  A  learned  writer  in  the  Monthly  Magazine,  No.  385,  August  1823,  Vol.  LVI.  pp.  18—20, 
denies  that  Bishop  Laurence  has  shewn  that  there  are  marks  of  more  recent  date  than  Ezra  in  the 
book  of  Enoch,  and  observes  that  it  is  alluded  to  in  the  last  chapter  of  Malachi.  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.  The  Bishop  says,  "  The  fourth  gate  in  his  description  is  that  which  is 
situated  due  East  at  sun  rising,  and  due  West  at  sun  setting,  and  which,  answering  to  the  sign 
Aries,  the   sun   enters   at  the  Vernal  Equinox.     It  is  very  clear  that  if  the  sun,   at  the  Vernal 


1  Propterea  Milesius  Apollo  consultus  utrumque  Deus  an  Homo  fuerit,  hoc  modo  respondit :  0>^to<  trjv  xaTa  crapKa, 
cro<po<;  TsgctTuSeo-iv  «fyo»$.  AXX'  iuro  XaXtiotiav  Kpirav  asrXo»{  <rvvaXu6aq,  Vc/pcpon;  Kara  a-KOMTCto-o-i  niytpyv  avitwrjCt  TfXtfnjy. 
Lactant.  Inst.  Div.  iv.  Cap.  xiii.    See  also  Euseb.  Demons.  Ev.  iii.  Cap.  viii.  p.  134. 


BOOK  IX.   CHAPTER  X.   SECTION  1.  545 

Equinox,  was  at  the  beginning  of  Aries,  the  book  must  have  been  written  as  early  as  I  have  stated 
above.  Though  Bishop  Laurence  limits  the  period,  before  which  it  must  have  been  written,  to  the 
end  of  Herod,  the  fact  noticed  by  Maurice, l  that  it  is  quoted  by  Eupolemus,  shews  that  it  was 
well  known  in  Greece  previous  to  the  year  B.  C.  200. 

Bishop  Laurence,  in  his  Preliminary  Dissertations,  p.  xxxiv.,  endeavours  to  disguise  the  fact  of 
the  quotation  of  this  book  by  Eupolemus  ;  but  I  think  he  fails.  Mr.  Maurice  states  it  broadly  and 
honestly  as  he  generally  quotes,  and,  as  I  think,  every  one  who  carefully  examines  what  Laurence 
has  said  may  see  reason  to  believe,  correctly  too.  After  observing  several  wilful  mistranslations  of 
Bishop  Laurence's,  if  there  were  any  doubt  of  the  two,  I  would  much  prefer  the  respectable  old 
Maurice. 

The  following  are  the  passages  which  I  contend  are  wilful  mistranslations,  pious  frauds  of  the 
Bishop's  :  Ev  raig  £xxKr\(ria.is  ou  7rctvo  (pepsrai  cog  Qsta. — The  church  considers  it  not  an  inspired 
production. 2 

Again.     Non  recepi  a  quibusdam — Not  universally  rejected.3 

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  ex- 
pressly 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  gre%t  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  re- 
morse, 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  Ire- 
neus,  and  that  neither  of  them  alludes  to  its  spurious  character. 4  The  truth  is,  that  it  is  quoted 
by  them  precisely  like  any  other  canonical  sacred  scripture. 

It  allegorically  foretells  the  coming  of  Samuel,  Saul,  David,  Solomon,  the  captivity,  &c.,*  so 
clearly,  as  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt;  and  this  clearness  of  completed  prophecy  is,  in  Bishop 
Laurence's  opinion,  a  proof  that  it  is  spurious ;  while  it  is  remarkable  that  supposed  clearness  of 
the  same  kind  is  a  proof  that  Isaiah  is  genuine.  The  argument  of  Bishop  Laurence  is  good  in 
every  case.  Unless  the  genuineness  of  a  book  purporting  to  be  prophetic  be  taken  for  granted, 
the  proof  of  the  verification  of  a  prophecy  is  rather  a  proof  of  spuriousness  than  the  contrary. 

Faustus  quoted  the  book  of  Enoch  against  Augustine,5  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  esta- 
blished 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.  Josephus  says  that  the  Pentateuch  only  was 
translated  by  the  LXX :  and  by  whom,  or  when  the  remainder  of  the  Jewish  books  were  translated, 
no  one  knows.  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.     I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt,  though  direct  authority 


'  In  his  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p.  438.  2  Prel.  Dis.  p.  xiv.  3  Ibid.  pp.  xvi.  xvii. 

4  Ibid.  p.  xiv.  5  ix.  3. 

4a 


546  MOUNT    MERU. 

be  wanting,  that  both  the  works  were  written  after  the  Babylonish  captivity,  but  before  the  time  of 
Christ :  and  in  defiance  of  Bishop  Laurence's  misrepresentations,  I  think  there  is  evidence  to  prove 
that  they  were  both  generally  admitted  since  the  time  of  Christ ;  that  is,  as  much  admitted  as  any 
other  books  of  the  canon,  by  the  generality  of  Christians.  But  there  were  no  books,  against  which 
some  Christians  did  not  make  objections ;  and  the  class  of  books  called  o^o'hoyooy.sva  by  Eusebius, 
never  did  exist — as  that  word  cannot  be  restricted  in  its  meaning  to  his  own  sect,  a  very  small  one 
indeed,  compared  with  the  great  mass  of  Christians.  His  sect  might  be  greater  than  any  other, 
but  it  is  ridiculous  to  believe  it  more  numerous  than  all  the  other  sects  united. 

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.  See  my  Map.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  great  nation  did  not  spread 
over  a  considerable  space  of  land.  I  have  been  accused  of  ignorance  and  blundering  in  placing 
Samarkand  half  a  degree  wrong.  How  can  I  be  expected  to  answer  such  critics? )  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  com- 
pel 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  Judsea. 

Every  page  exhibits  the  Judaean  mythos,  which  we  have  seen  to  have  existed  both  in  Eastern 
and  Western  Syria ;  but  there  is  quite  difference  enough  between  the  two  mythoses  to  shew  that 
they  cannot  be  copies  of  each  other.  Of  the  sacred  book  or  mythos  of  Eastern  Syria,  we  have  not 
particulars  enough  to  form  an  accurate  opinion.  The  name  given  to  Saul,  in  North  India,  of  Talut, 
a  name  unknown  in  the  Bible,  is  a  very  strong  circumstance  in  favour  of  its  oriental  extraction. 

The  language  in  which  we  find  the  book  of  Enoch,  the  African  Ethiopic,  when  combined  with 
the  variety  of  circumstances  relating  to  this  language  in  Ethiopia,  which  I  have  laid  before  the 
reader,  furnishes  ground  for  much  curious  observation,  and  supports,  in  a  very  remarkable  manner, 
what  I  have  said  respecting  the  migration  of  the  Jewish  tribe  from  Upper  India. 

If  it  be  said  that  the  latitude  of  45  or  50  will  suit  Armenia  as  well  as  the  East  of  the  Caspian,  I 
reply,  this  is  not  supported  by  any  circumstances  like  the  other,  for  there  are  no  traditions,  except 
what  are  very  trifling  and  evidently  the  invention  of  Christians.  There  are  no  remains  of  great 
cities,  no  Jewish  similarities,  no  statues  of  the  patriarchs,  no  Jewish  names,  no  Temple  of  Solomon, 
like  that  in  Cashmere;  and  the  fact  is  directly  contrary  to  the  history  of  Genesis,  which  makes  the 
descendants  of  Noah  to  have  left  the  hilly  country  and  come  down  from  the  East  into  the  plains : 
that  they  did  thus  migrate  has  been  proved  by  both  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  Dr.  Shuckford, 
whose  testimony  strikingly  confirms  the  hypothesis  as  maintained  in  my  Celtic  Druids. 

2.  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. 


BOOK    IX.    CHAPTER    X.    SECT.   3.  547 

u  I,  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  another ;  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  resembled  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  con- 
"  sumed  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  a  long  life  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. 

There  are  many  passages  which  have  a  close  resemblance  both  to  the  Hindoo  books  and  to  the 
Jewish  prophets.  Of  the  former  is  the  allegory  of  the  mountains  of  various  metals  j l  of  the 
latter,  the  comparison  of  the  heavens  to  a  book.  The  lunar  period  of  28  days  days  is  distinctly 
named,  chapter  lxxvii. 

3.  In  chapters  lxxxvii.  and  Ixxxviii.  is  a  very  clear  allegorical  description  of  the  deluge  :  and  a 


1  P.  166. 
4a2 


548 


CHANGE   FROM   TAURUS    TO   ARIES. 


star  is  said  to  have  fallen  from  heaven.  This  is  all  closely  connected  with  animals  of  the  Beeve 
race  in  which  a  cow  is  distinctly  marked  as  of  the  masculine  gender.  The  allegory  is  carried  on 
through  several  chapters,  in  which  the  personages  named  in  the  Pentateuch  are  supposed  by 
Bishop  Laurence  to  be  described — till  it  comes  to  a  being  who  is  called  a  white  cow,  and  who,  in 
ch.  lxxxviii.  ver.  18,  is  said  to  have  brought  forth  a  black  wild  sow  and  a  white  sheep.  With  the 
production  of  the  sheep,  the  allegory  of  the  bull  or  beeve  ends  :  and  although  many  other  animals 
are  named  continually,  the  beeve  is  never  once  named  afterward,  till  the  conclusion,  when  the 
bull  is  said  to  return  ;  but  the  sheep,  which  was  never  once  named  before,  takes  the  lead.  The 
white  cow,  supposed  by  the  Bishop  to  be  Abraham,  introduces  it,  although  almost  every  other 
domestic  animal  is  named  distinctly  many  times.  The  distinction  between  the  beeve  and  the 
sheep  is  marked  in  a  way  that  is  most  extraordinary,  and  cannot  possibly  have  been  so  marked 
without  a  clear  and  distinct  meaning.  The  change  from  the  Bull  Taurus  to  the  Ram  Aries,  is  so 
clear  that  it  cannot  be  mistaken. 

The  Bishop,  in  notes,  shews  or  gives  the  names  of  the  Jewish  worthies  as  far  as  Solomon,  to 
whom  he  supposes  the  allegory  applies.  And  in  many  cases  his  observations  seem  very  probable; 
but  there  are  many  circumstances  which  do  not  apply  to  those  worthies,  which  seem  to  shew  that 
the  allegory  cannot  be  founded  upon  them,  but  rather  that  it  is  a  mythos  common  to  both.  For 
instance,  the  Bishop,  in  his  translation  and  note,  states  a  cow,  Abraham,  to  have  brought  forth  a 
sheep,  Isaac,  and  the  sheep,  Isaac,  to  have  brought  forth  twelve  sheep.  Now  I  think  with  the 
Bishop,  that  this  alludes  to  the  story  of  the  Israelites  j  but  if  it  had  been  a  copy,  it  would  not 
have  omitted  Jacob,  who  changed  his  name  to  Israel.  Other  similar  instances  might  be  pointed 
out,  where  the  mythoses  are  the  same,  but  the  variation  is  so  great,  that  they  cannot  be  copies. 
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. 

4.  It  is  not  possible  to  give  an  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  marked  distinction  between  the  Beeve 
and  the  Ram,  unless  I  copied  several  long  chapters,  much  of  which  could  no  way  interest  the  reader ; 
I  must  therefore  refer  him  to  the  book  itself.  There  is  also  something  very  remarkable  in  the  way 
in  which  the  Cow  or  Heifer  is  constantly  spoken  of  in  the  masculine  gender.  I  suspect  that  the 
studied  confusion  of  the  colours  of  the  kine,  and  of  their  genders,  has  a  reference,  which  I  do  not 
understand,  to  the  different  sects,  and  to  the  wars  about  the  Linga  and  Ioni.  When  the  allegory 
changes  from  the  Beeve  to  the  Sheep,  one  of  the  sheep  is  said  to  become  a  man,  and  to  build  a 
house  for  the  Lord.  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  to  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  Cash- 
mere ;  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.  What  words  are  in  the  original  for  Noah  and  Lord  cannot 
be  known  from  the  translation.  They  may  or  may  not  be  Menu  and  Iswara.  On  the  meaning  of 
such  words  as  these  no  dependence  can  be  placed  on  Bishop  Laurence's  translation.  Without  we 
had  the  words  represented  to  us,  as  I  do  now  in  the  word  Jehovah,  miT  ieue,  no  conclusion  can  be 
come  to. 


BOOK  IX.    CHAPTER  X.    SECTION  6.  549 

5.  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,  apudj  the  Lord  of  spirits,  and  bis 
"  name  in  the  presence  of  the  ancient  of  days. 

"  3.  Before  the  sun  and  the  signs l  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. 

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

"  6.  In  his  presence  Ite  existed,  and  has  revealed  to  the  saints  and  to  the  righteous  the  wisdom 
M  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." 

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  one,  the  Messiah.  It 
is  said  that  he  shall  sit  upon  a  throne  of  glory,  and  shall  judge  sinners. 3  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. 

How  can  this  be  accounted  for  ?  Does  the  prophet  not  here  allude  to  the  crucified  Buddha, 
Cristna,  or  Balajii  r  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. 

This  passage  respecting  the  blood  of  the  elect  one  having  been  shed,  clearly  proves  that  this 
can  be  no  forgery  after  the  death  of  Christ.  It  is  impossible  to  attribute  such  absurdity  to  any 
fabricator  of  such  a  work,  professing  to  have  been  written  before  the  time  of  Christ. 

6.  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.  UI. 
Sect.  2. 

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

"  6.  In  that  week4  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  60S  running  into  the  next 
or  seventh  century. 

1  Signs  of  the  Zodiac.  *  Ch.  xliL  3  Ch.  xlr.  Sect.  vii.  *  I*  it. 


550  THE    ELECT    ONE   SLAIN. 


it 

il 

it 


it 
il 

it 


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  judg- 
"  ment  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  habita- 
tion 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.     (Elijah.) 

"11.  During  its  completion  also  the  house  of  dominion  shall  be  burnt  with  fire,  and  all  the  race 
"  of  the  elect  root  be  dispersed.     (Babylonish  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  allusions,  as  explained  by  Bishop  Laurence  in  the  words  in  parentheses,  are  suffi- 
ciently 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  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  look  out  for  the  path  of  integrity. 

]6.  And  after  this,  on  the  seventh  day  of  the  tenth  week,  there  shall  be  an  everlasting  judg- 
ment, 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  the  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.  And  I  think 
we  may  fairly  infer,  that  if  the  arrangement  of  the  former  part  shew,  that  it  is  not  a  copy  from  the 
Jewish  Scriptures,  the  absence  of  a  more  particular  prophecy  in  reference  to  Jesus,  shews,  that  it 
must  have  been  written  both  before  the  Gospels  and  before  his  birth :  for  most  assuredly  the 
writer  would  have  imitated  the  prophecy  relating  to  the  Messiah,  Cyrus,  in  Isaiah,  and  have  named 
him  by  his  name  if  it  had  been  in  his  power. 

7.  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 


tt 

a 
a 

a 


BOOK    IX.    CHAPTER    X.    SECTION    *J .  551 

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! 

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  ?      The  fact  is,  there  have  been  two  Messiahs,  or   elects,  or  sons  of  man  j 
two  Jewish  mythoses  ;  two  Noahs  ;  two  tribes  of  Juda.     On   this  subject  I  shall  have  much 
more  to  say  hereafter.     However  this   may  be,  the  whole  serves   to  shew  the  absolute  uncer- 
tainty of  a  religion  founded  on  documents  of  this  kind.    It  is  much  more  clear  than  Isaiah,  and  has, 
to  say  the  least,  as  much  evidence  in  favour  of  its  genuineness.    When  was  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah 
first  known  ?     Josephus  proves  that  it  was  not  translated  with  the  Pentateuch ;  and  though  he 
pretends  to  shew  that  Isaiah  was  known  to  Ptolemy,  and  gives  a  letter  of  Ptolemy's  respecting 
him,  this  is  not  contemporary  evidence,  but  the  mere  assertion  of  a  partisan,  hundreds  of  years 
after  Isaiuh's  death.     In  its  prophecy  of  a  Saviour,  the  book  of  Enoch  is  much  clearer  than  Isaiah, 
though  it  does  not   (as  Isaiah  does  in  the  case  of  Cyrus)  give  him  by  name.     But  from  its  whole 
character  I  cannot  doubt,  that  if  it  had  been  written  after  the   Christian  religion  had  made  any 
progress,  it  would  have  followed  the  example  of  Isaiah,  and  have  given  the  Saviour's  name.     I 
therefore  conclude  that  it  was  written  before  the  time  of  Christ.    The  book  is  of  great  consequence 
to  me,  because  it  proves  the  truth  of  the  system  of  renewed  incarnations  in  renewed  cycles. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  book  of  Enoch,  and  not  to  be  struck  with  the  similarity  of  style  to 
that  of  the  Jewish  prophets,  particularly  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  :  the  same  expressions  are  perpe- 
tually recurring.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  celebrated  Desatir  (which  was  so  highly  prized  by 
Sir  William  Jones)  in  the  account  therein  given  of  the  fourteen  Maha-bads  or  Great  Buddhas  or 
Prophets  who  had  appeared,  or  were  to  appear,  to  enlighten  the  world :  the  first  of  whom, 
Hushang,  divided  mankind  into  four  classes — the  religious,  the  military,  the  commercial,  and  the 
agricutural.  Of  the  genuineness  of  the  Desatir,  Sir  W.  Jones  had  no  doubt.  I  am  not  so  easily 
satisfied  :  though  it  may  be  true  that  it  was  translated  by  Moshani  from  a  language  now  not  in 
use.  It  clearly  alludes  to  the  Christian  and  Mohamedan  systems,  or  to  two  systems  which  answer 
to  them.  By  and  by  my  reader  will  see  that  this  is  no  proof  either  of  its  spuriousness  or  its 
corruption. 

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.  The 
residence  or  birth-place  of  the  theology,  Upper  India  ;  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac  ;  the  change  of  the 
Equinox  from  Taurus  to  Aries  ;  (of  which  no  one  can  judge  who  has  not  read  the  whole  work ;) 
the  Hindoo  Trinity,  than  which  nothing  can  be  more  clear ;  the  description  of  Mount  Meru,  with 
its  paradise  or  hanging  gardens,  surrounded  by  its  seven  mounts,  where  the  Gods  sat  on  the  sides 
of  the  North  ;  the  sacred  Phoinix  tree,  and  a  history  similar  to  the  Jewish,  but  not  copied  from 
it ;  the  prophecy  of  an  elect  one  as  described  by  all  the  prophets,  including  the  prophecy  of  Virgil, 
and  the  elect  one  put  to  death,  noticed  by  me  in  the  cases  of  Buddha,  Cristna,  and  him  of  the 
Apollo  of  Miletus  ;  and  lastly,  the  clear  elucidation  of  the  ten  ages,  alluded  to  by  Virgil,  and 
taught  by  the  Buddhists  and  Brahmins.  It  has  been  the  object  of  this  work  to  shew  that  an 
universal  system  extended  over  the  whole  of  the  old  world ;  and  the  principal  facts  for  which  I 


552  CHANGE    IN    EARTH'S   AXIS. 

have  contended  are  supported  by  this   curious  and  unquestionably  genuine  document :    for  no 
one  can  doubt  that  it  is  the  actual  manuscript  brought  from  Ethiopia  by  Mr.  Bruce.     When  all 
these  things  are  considered,  it  surely  affords  very  extraordinary  evidence.     I  have   shewn  that 
the  history  in  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.    The 
fact  shewn  by  Dr.  A.  Clarke  that  the  serpent  bites  the  foot  not  the  heel,  is  one  example — and 
the  Doctor's    observation  is  decisive  and  invaluable  :    for,   when   the  Brahmin  icon  or  picture 
makes  the  reptile  bite  the  foot  he  does  not  bite  the  heel;  and,  therefore,  it  cannot  have  been 
copied  from  Genesis.      But  when  the  writer  of  Genesis  makes  the  serpent   bite  the  heel,  he 
may  have  copied  from  the  East,  for  he  does  bite  the  foot.     It  will  not  be  denied,   that  it  is  very 
extraordinary  that  this   book,  written  in  the  Hebrew  language,  between  40  and  50  degrees  of 
North  latitude,  should  be  found  to  be  part  of  the  Sacred  Canon  of  the  Ethiopians  of  Africa — 
the  people  who,   as  we  have  seen,  have  such  striking  marks  of  affinity  in  their  language  with 
the   Hindoos  ;    and,  that  the  oldest  copy  we  have  of  it,  is  in   the  language  of  this   country. 
Bishop   Laurence    admits,   that  it   was    written   before    the   time    of  Christ,    but   he   does  not 
attempt  to  account  for  the  expression  of  the  blood  of  the  righteous  being  shed.     The  circumstance 
most  remarkable  in  this  book,  is  the  mixture  of  the  different  doctrines  of  countries  so  widely 
separated  from  each  other.     When  I  consider  that,  in  many  countries,  these  doctrines  had  become 
forgotten  or  were  lost,  that  in  no  one  country  in  the  times  of  the  Romans,  were  they  all  known, 
and  that  they  are  the  doctrines  or  rather  the  fragments  of  the  doctrines,  of  different  ages  and  of 
widely  separated  countries,  which  doctrines,  as  I  have  contended,  constituted  those  of  a  primeval 
nation,  I  cannot  help  looking  to  a  very  remote  sera  for  its  existence.     When  I  find  the  account  of 
David  and  Solomon  alluded  to  in  this  Indian  book,  I  am  almost  induced  to  consider  them  like  the 
heroes  of  Troy.     For,  when  they  are  alluded  to,  it  is  not  by  name,  and  their  names  given  by  the 
bishop,  in  parentheses,  are  not  in  the  original,  but  are  only  inferences  of  his  own,  but  which  infer- 
ences are  so  clear  that  I  think  they  cannot  be  doubted.     Then  do  we  at  last  come  to  this,  that 
the  whole  is  a  mythos  concealed  under  an  apparent  history  j  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  fabu- 
lous 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  suppress- 
ing evidence  and  in  keeping  mankind  in  ignorance. 

8.  I  must  not  omit  to  notice  a  very  extraordinary  part  of  the  prophecy  relating  to  Noah  and 
the  flood.  It  says,  Ch.  Ixiv.  Sect.  xi.  ver.  1,  p.  163,  "  In  those  days  Noah  saw  that  the  earth  be- 
"  came  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  doc- 
trine 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.     I  shall  return  to  this  subject  hereafter. 


boob:  IX.  CHAPTER  X.  SECTION  9.  553 

But  who  was  referred  to  in  the  blood  of  the  elect  one  put  to  death  ?  Was  it  Prometheus  cru- 
cified on  Mount  Caucasus  ?  Was  it  Ixion  ?  Was  it  the  mystic  dove  or  Divine  Love  under  the 
form  or  the  name  of  Semiramis  ?  Was  it  Bal-ji,  the  Lord  Ji  f  Was  it  Cristna,  or  was  it  Buddha  ? 
Or,  was  it  the  person  foretold,  or  said  to  be  crucified,  by  the  Apollo  of  Miletus  ? 

9.  I  flatter  myself  my  reader  will  begin  to  perceive  that  my  object  is  to  prove,  that  an  universal 
language  and  philosophy,  in  very  remote  times,  pervaded  the  whole  of  the  old  world  ;  that  it  was 
a  philosophy,  beautiful  and  fundamentally  true  ;  that  it  had  for  its  basement  the  existence  of  one 
God,  to  whom  were  ascribed  the  attributes  of  .creating,  preserving,  and  destroying ;  that  its  pro- 
fessors were  black  in  colour,  and  probably  negro  in  form ;  that  it  was  a  race  of  Herbaceous 
beings,  killing  no  harmless  animal,  perhaps  no  animal  whatever.  Whether  it  were  as  learned  as 
Mons.  Bailly  supposed  his  antediluvian  race  to  have  been,  may  be  matter  of  doubt,  or  whether  it 
may  not  have  been  the  original  race  itself.  But  the  Neros  must  have  been  invented  by  some 
persons,  and  we  can  trace  it  no  farther  back  than  the  race  of  which  I  now  speak,  and  it  is  found 
in  their  possession.  After  a  certain  time  we  find  historical  accounts  in  India,  of  the  followers  of 
the  first  principle  having  become  split  into  parties,  or,  in  other  words,  of  its  professors  having 
fallen  into  differences  of  opinion,  succeeded  by  wars  of  great  length  and  cruelty ;  in  the  course  of 
wrjich,  various  tribes  were  driven  out  to  the  West :  whence,  by  degrees,  arose  the  number  of 
variations  of  the  mythos,  with  which  the  world  has  been  tormented  or  amused.  Though  these 
were  different  mythoses  in  some  respects,  yet  in  the  fundamental  principle  they  were  all  the  same, 
and  bore,  through  all  their  different  ramifications,  one  universal  family  character — viz.  the  Tri- 
nity, the  metempsychosis,  the  renewal  or  regeneration  of  worlds,  at  the  end  of  every  cycle  of  600 
and  6000  years,  the  absence  of  idols,  and,  as  I  have  just  now  said,  the  abstinence  from  animal  food. 
These  were  the  Cyclopaean  Buddhists,  the  builders  of  Stonehenge,  of  Abury,  and  of  Carnac. 
They  were  succeeded  by  the  founders  of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  Iona,  upon  the  Cyclopaean  ruins. 
They  were  the  Atlantides  or  sons  of  the  earth  ;  they  were  the  sons  of  the  ethereal  fire  or  of  Vul- 
can, whose  Cyclopaean  buildings  yet  serve  to  astonish  our  mechanists,  and  excite  the  wonder  and 
despair  of  our  antiquarians. 

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  pro- 
fessors, its  Vyasas,  Pythagorases,  and  Platos,  have  all  been  deluded  with  the  idea  that  the  doc- 
trine 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  n>  ie,  IE 
or  Jah,  at  Delphi,  by  Pythagoras,  and  by  Abraham,  in  the  same  rite,  at  the  altar  of  the  priest 
Melchisedek,  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  Melchisedek,  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 

4  b 


554  GENERAL   OBSERVATIONS. 

and  explained  by  the  principles  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  pearls  before  swine.  Alas  !  his  doctrine 
was  much  too  sublime  for  the  wretched  and  miserable  race  which  succeeded  him.  For  such  men 
as  Irenaeus,  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  with  one  eye  in  the  breast.  Fabri- 
cius  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.2  But 
Mosheim  had  what  has  been  seldom  found  in  the  Christian  cause,  he  had  sincerity,  as  well  as 
learning.  Although  for  my  system  I  go  not  to  the  support  of  great  names,  yet  I  am  not  insen- 
sible 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  pe- 
riod—sixteen hundred  years. 


!  The  story  of  Lot's  wife  is  the  best  proved  miracle  which  we  have  on  record.  If  persons  will  not  believe  this,  they 
will  believe  nothing.  If  ever  I  have  the  happiness  to  go  to  Syria,  the  first  thing  I  shall  do  will  be  to  visit  Lot's  wife. 
The  history  of  the  fate  of  this  unhappy  woman  is  first  told  in  Genesis,  xix.  26.  This  was  about  two  thousand  years 
before  Christ.  It  is  next  noticed  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Philo,  or  about  his  time. 
This  author  says,  ch.  x.  7,  a  standing  pillar  of  salt  is  a  monument  of  an  unbelieving  soul.  The  next  witness  is  the  Jewish 
historian,  so  universally  celebrated  for  his  veracity,  Josephus,  Antiq.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xi.,  who  says,  I  have  seen  it,  audit 
remains  at  this  day.  The  next  witness  is  Clement,  of  Rome,  who  attests  that  it  was  standing  in  his  day.  (Winston's 
note  in  loco,  in  his  translation  of  Josephus.)  But  the  most  perfect  and  complete  evidence,  with  particulars  which  are 
really  surprising,  is  given  about  150  years  afterward,  by  the  Christian  bishop,  saint,  and  martyr,  of  Gaul,  Ireuaeus. 
I  shall  give  the  passage  from  his  work  at  full,  in  the  original,  for  various  reasons.  He  says,  "  Quemadmodum  et  Lot, 
"  qui  eduxit  de  Sodomis  filias  suas,  quae  conceperunt  de  patre  suo,  qui  reliquit  in  confinio  uxorem  suam  statuam  salis 

"  usque  in  hodiernum  diem Et  cum  haec  fierent,  uxor  remansit  in  Sodomis,  jam  non  caro  corrup- 

"  tabilis,  sed  statua  salis  semper  manens,1  et  per  naturalia,2  ea  quae  sunt  consuetudinis  hominis,  ostendens,  quoniam 
"  et  ecclesia,  quae  est  sal  terras,  sub  relicta  est  in  confinio  terrae,  patiens  quae  sunt  humana :  et  dum  saepe  auferuntur 
"  ab  ea  membra  integra,  perseverat  statua  salis,  quod  est  firmamentum  fidei,  firmans  et  praemittens  filios  ad  patrem 
"  ipsorum"  Iren.  Cap.  li.  p.  354,  ed.  Oxon.  1702.  And  in  the  eleventh  century  it  was  still  existing.  Benj.  de 
Tudela  (Ch.  ix.)  says,  "  From  this  mount  you  have  a  prospect  of  the  sea  of  Sodom  ;  from  which  sea  it  is  about  two 
"  parasangs  to  the  pillar  of  salt,  into  which  Lot's  wife  was  metamorphosed.  The  pillar  or  statue  is  indeed  daily  wasted 
"  by  the  cattle,  who  are  perpetually  licking,  or  rather  rubbing  against,  it,  but  it  is  likewise  daily  restored,  and  becomes 
"  as  it  was  before."  I  only  regret  that  I  cannot  indulge  my  reader  with  an  account  of  its  present  state,  from  the 
travels  of  Mons.  Chateaubriand ;  for,  of  course,  he  would  not  go  to  the  Jordan  to  fetch  water  to  baptize  the  Duke  of 
Bourdeaux,  without  examining  this  very  interesting  pillar. 

8  Mosheim,  Vol.  I.  p.  170,  note. 


1  "Statua  salis  semper  manens]  Ita  et  Clemens  Rom.  in  Epist.  ad  Corinth.  Memorat,  pjXqy  dXos  luc,  vtfi  yptpcu; 
"  lavrqq,    S.  xi.    Atque  ex  Judaeis,  Josephus.     Antiq.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xi." 

2  "  Per  naturalia,  ea  quae  sunt  consuetudinis  hominis.]  Menstruum  fluxum  muliebri  sexui  naturalem  indigitare 
"  videtur,  utpote  quem  uxori  Loti,  licet  jam  in  statuam  salis  versae,  quosquam  adscripsisse,  vcl  affinxisse,  docet  auctor 
"  Carminis  de  Sodoma,  quod  inter  Tertulliani  atque  Cypriani  opera  extat,  post  medium  ita  de  uxore  Loti  canens : 
"  Dicitur  et  vivens  alio  jam  corpore  sexus  munificos  solito  dispungere  sanguine  menses." 


(    555    ) 


BOOK  X. 
CHAPTER   I. 

GENERAL   OBSERVATIONS. — SECRET  DOCTRINES. — SUBJECT  CONTINUED. — OBSERVATIONS. — TWO  CLASSES  OF 
AVATARS.  —  ROMISH   MISSIONARIES.  —  STAR  OF  ABRAHAM,   MOSES,    &C,    &C.  —  PYTHAGORAS.  —  SIBYLS. — 

CABALA. — CHANGE  IN   RELIGION. — MEANING   OF    THE    WORD    SIBYL. — BY  WHOM    QUOTED. — ACROSTIC. 

NAME   OF  CHRIST. — CLARKE'S   INSCRIPTION.  —  SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  —  CICERO   ADMITS   ACROSTIC.  —  EX- 
TRACT  FROM   DUPUIS. — BISHOP   HORSLEY. 

1.  In  all  our  speculations  we  must  never  forget,  that  the  whole  Mythos,  of  which  I  have  been 
treating,  was  not  known,  but  in  great  part  lost,  by  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  in  their  day, 
and  also  by  the  Brahmins  when  the  modern  Europeans  arrived  in  India.  The  only  difference  be- 
tween them  and  us  is,  that  they  really  believed  the  mythos,  little  as  it  was  known  to  them,  to  be 
true,  and  thus  made  every  thing  bend  and  fit  to  it,  as  far  as  was  in  their  power.  We  have  been 
equally  ignorant,  but  have  endeavoured  to  disguise  to  ourselves  the  reality — the  existence  of 
it ; — philosophers  and  inquirers  in  general  have  done  this  from  incredulity,  arising  from  what 
appeared  to  them  the  improbability  of  the  nature  of  it :  for  one  example,  that  there  should 
be  a  nation  of  Jews  or  kingdom  of  Judah  in  central  Asia.  Another  example  may  be  found  in  the 
name  Solomon,  disguised  into  Soleiman,  Solyman,  &c.  It  is  inconceivable  what  an  influence  this 
feeling  has  had  on  philosophers  and  inquirers  generally  in  disguising  and  concealing  the  truth. 
These  are  facts  which  cannot  be  denied ;  and  these  are  facts  which  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  for  a 
moment ;  for,  without  them,  we  cannot  form  a  correct  idea  of  the  real  state  of  the  case.  They 
will  enable  us  to  account  for  many  circumstances  :  they  particularly  support  me  in  shewing,  that 
the  ancients  had  recourse  to  expedients  and  contrivances  to  remove  difficulties,  and  by  this  means 
to  make  the  prophetic  part  of  the  mythos  come  true. 

The  system  had  its  origin  from  the  discovery  and  adoption  of  the  Cycles,  which  I  have  explained 
in  the  fifth  book ; — a  system  which  arose  out  of  the  first  necessities  of  civilized  man.  With  the 
beginning  of  his  civilization  they  must  have  begun.  How  this  took  place  I  shall  shew  by  and  by. 
Upon  these,  by  an  union  of  cunning  and  credulity,  the  religion  was  by  degrees  formed.  Circum- 
stances were  so  favourable  to  it,  that  I  cannot  conceive  any  thing  more  natural.  It  was  the  re- 
gular course  of  events.  There  never  has  been  a  religion  invented  de  novo.  In  fact,  before  I 
finish  I  shall  prove  that,  in  the  civilized  world,  there  never  was  but  one  religion.  What  we  have 
called  different  religions,  because  we  did  not  understand  them,  were  but  modifications  of  one  reli- 
gion.   All  these  considerations  we  must  bear  in  mind,  in  our  future  speculations. 

2.  It  is  a  very  extraordinary  circumstance  that  though  every  one  of  the  ancient  rabbis,  and 
perhaps  every  one  of  the  ancient  fathers  of  the  church,  who  must  necessarily  have  known  the 
truth,  have  admitted  that  the  Jewish  and  Christian  religions  contained  secret  and  mysterious  doc- 
trines not  known  to  the  vulgar,  and  although  great  numbers  of  the  most  eminent  moderns,  such 
as  Thomas  Burnet,  &c,  &c,  have  professed  their  belief  that  the  religion  did  contain  such  secret 
doctrines,  yet  that  no  one  of  them  has  set  himself  seriously  to  the  task  of  unveiling  them— of  dis- 

4  b  2 


556  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 

covering  what  was  their  nature.  The  ancient  Gentiles,  also,  always  professed  the  same  thing  of 
their  religion,  and  Ammonius  Saccas  and  his  few  Christian  and  philosophical  followers  always 
held  that,  at  the  bottom,  the  Christian  and  Gentile  mysteries  were  the  same.  Writers  against 
the  modern  or  the  exoteric  Christianity  we  have  had  in  abundance,  but  never  have  we  had  a 
Hobbes  a  Herbert,  or  a  Bolingbroke,  to  endeavour  to  discover  this  secret.  Thus  their  attempts 
to  expose  the  error  and  nonsense  of  the  vulgar  exoterism,  have  been  successful  enough.  But  the 
real  and  proper  question  for  these  philanthropists  and  philosophers  ought  first  to  have  been,  not 
whether  it  were  credible  that  God  made  Eve  from  the  side  of  Adam  :  but  whether  there  were  a 
secret  religion  for  the  Conclave — the  Lateran  1 — and  a  public  one  for  the  senate  and  people  :  and  if 
there  were  such  secret  religion,  what  was  its  nature  ?  En  passant,  I  may  observe,  that  if  there 
be  a  secret  religion,  all  the  objections  of  Mons.  Voltaire  and  other  philosophers  to  such  passages 
as  that  relating  to  the  side  of  Adam,  which  never  have  been  removed,  are  at  once  answered,  and 
the  religion  relieved  from  a  mighty  mass  of  obloquy.  For  though  it  may  be  very  wrong  to 
have  a  secret  and  a  public  religion,  this  does  not  make  it  foolish  or  absurd. 

Suppose  I  were  to  inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  earliest  Mohamedism,  and  I  were  to  find  that 
all  its  followers,  of  different  and  inimical  sects,  maintained  the  existence  of  four  Gods ;  however 
absurd,  or  weak,  or  dishonest  I  might  believe  these  votaries  were,  should  I  not  be  compelled  to 
believe  that  they  did  admit  four  Gods  ;  and  that  four  Gods  constituted  the  ground-work  of  their 
religion  ?  Thus  it  is  with  the  very  early  Christians :  all  their  writers  admitted  an  esoteric 
religion,  however  much  they  might  differ  on  other  points.  If  there  were  any  exceptions,  they 
were  perfectly  contemptible  in  number  or  talent.  I  know  of  none.  Then  how  is  it  possible  to 
doubt  that  this  was  the  principle  of  the  religion ;  more  particularly  when  we  find  the  Gospel 
histories  teaching  in  parables  or  allegories,  and  teeming  with  numerous  mystical  expressions, 
unintelligible  in  common  language,  and  Jesus  himself  declaring  that  he  taught  in  these  very 
parables  that  he  might  not  be  understood,  (as  of  course  he  must  mean,)  by  the  people  who 
listened  to  him. 

I  am  firmly  persuaded  that  in  the  following  books  of  this  work,  the  foundation  at  least,  indeed 
the  principal  part,  of  the  esoteric  doctrines  of  the  Christians,  Jews,  and  Gentiles,  will  be  un- 
folded, and  at  last  justice  will  be  done  to  the  Pythagorasses,  Platos,  Philos,  Clemenses,  and 
Ammoniuses  of  antiquity ;  and,  however  false  my  philosophical  or  religious  reader  may  think 
their  doctrines,  he  will  no  longer  think  them  base  or  contemptible. 

3.  In  the  affairs  of  religion,  the  world  has  always  been  in  one  respect  the  same  as  it  is  now. 
From  the  most  remote  period  there  has  been  the  esoteric  religion,  of  which  I  have  just  spoken, 
the  existence  of  which  the  vulgar  rabble  of  low  priests  have  denied,  but  which  has  always  been 
well  known  and  admitted  by  a  select  number,  who  wore  the  mitre.     This  was  anciently  observed 


1  The  Papal  decrees  always  issue  from  the  church  of  St.  John  Lateran.  I  suspect  this  is  mystic,  and  means  secret 
place.  The  root  of  Lateran  is  the  Hebrew  tDN1?  lot,  secret ;  Latin,  Lateo  ;  joined  to  the  word  ana — place  of.  It  is 
the  place  of  the  Aarpeia  or  secret  religion.  The  Lateran  is  both  a  domus  and  a  templum — the  palace  and  the  church 
adjoin.  The  decrees  which  issue  from  this  place  are  called  Bulls,  from  the  Greek  word  BeAij  consilium,  counsel. 
Children  anciently  wore  a  sacred  emblem,  in  the  form  of  a  heart,  called  a  Bulla,  as  Maerobius  says,  to  teach  them 
wisdom.  (Littleton's  Diet,  in  voce.)  This  heart  was  the  emblem  of  divine  love,  which  was  wisdom.  It  is  almost 
always  accompanied  with  a  dove.  The  heart  may  be  seen  in  the  Vatican,  upon  innumerable  ancient  inscriptions, 
which  the  Romans  call  Christian.  I  have  little  doubt  that  anciently  every  person  had  his  signet,  which  was  some  holy 
device,  adopted  probably  ad  libitum,  or  families  might  pass  it  by  descent.  This  was  the  family  Bulla,  and  with  it  the 
sign  was  made  on  the  wax  or  metal,  when  deeds  came  into  use ;  thus  the  seals  appended  to  deeds  were  called  bulls; 
but  more  reconditely,  the  whole  probably  came  from  the  name  of  God,  Bui,  the  God  of  Wisdom. 

I  suspect  that  the  word  Vatican  has  come  from  the  word  vates,  which  is  Veda,  Beda,  Vati-cania. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   I.    SECTION   4.  557 

by  a  few  philosophers,  who  occasionally  shewed  some  knowledge  of  it,  and  endeavoured  to  explain 
its  nature  to  the  people.  For  this  endeavour  they  were  persecuted.  They  would  never  have 
been  persecuted  merely  for  discovering  the  secret ;  they  were  in  reality  persecuted  for  making 
their  discovery  known.  In  like  manner  in  modern  times,  a  Romish  bishop  will  not  refuse  abso- 
lution even  to  an  Atheist,  but  then  he  must  keep  his  opinion  secret.  He  is  punished  for  telling — 
not  for  knowing,  believing,  or  disbelieving.  This  knowledge  applies  chiefly  to  the  Romish  and 
Greek  priests  ;  the  Protestant  bigots,  the  Luthers,  Calvins,  and  Knoxes,  never  knew  any  thing  of 
the  philosophy  of  Christianity  ;  they  were  in  reality  insane  with  fanaticism.  The  Romish  Church 
would  have  been  very  glad  to  have  let  them  into  the  secret,  if  it  had  then  the  secret,  in  order  to 
have  stopped  their  proceedings ;  but  how  could  she  trust  persons  in  their  unfortunate  state  of 
mind,  whom  it  was  evident  no  oath  would  bind  ? x  This  is  one  of  the  great  inconveniences  of 
a  double  religion,  but  by  no  means  the  greatest.  But  the  people  will  no  longer  be  kept  in  the 
dark  :  on  the  very  day  2  on  which  I  am  writing  these  prefatory  observations  to  my  tenth  Book,  a 
great  nation,  which  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  have  been  for  thirty  years  out  of  the  trammels  of 
the  priests,  and  therefore  is  more  enlightened  than  any  of  its  neighbours,  is  striking  the  last  blow 
at  their  rule.  Their  authority  will  be  gone,  but  the  French  will  not  abolish  the  order — priests 
and  excisemen  will  probably  always  be  necessary.  Let  it  be  so  !  Only  let  them  keep  their  proper 
place. 

4.  I  think  my  reader  will  have  begun  to  form  a  pretty  correct  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  Christian 
esoteric  religion.  I  think  he  must  see  that  Jesus,  at  least  the  Romish  Jesus,  was  believed  to  be 
no  other  than  a  renewed  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom,  of  the  Logos,  called,  in  India,  Buddha,  or 
Saca,  a  revival  or  rather  a  continuation  of  an  old  system.  In  this  book  I  shall  discuss  several 
detached  points  which  will  clear  up  this  matter,  if  there  be  any  remaining  doubt,  and  proceed 
further  to  unveil  the  esoteric  doctrine  of  Isis,  and  of  eternal  Rome. 

In  my  fifth  Book  I  traced  the  history  of  the  Avatars  and  Cycles  in  India  and  Judaea  up  to  the 
ninth,  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Jesus.  I  there  said  that  I  should  return  to  that  subject,  and  for 
the  sake  of  clearness  I  have  hitherto  studiously  avoided  noticing  any  thing  on  this  side  of  that 
epoch.  If  my  theory  be  right,  I  ought  to  find  traces  of  the  ninth  Avatar  in  a  late  day;  and  as, 
in  all  the  other  earlier  Avatars,  we  have  seen  a  certain  similarity  take  place  in  the  mythoses  of 
the  East  and  West,  so  we  ought  to  find  the  same  in  the  ninth.  I  flatter  myself  my  reader  will 
not  be  disappointed  in  this  expectation.  Like  the  renewal  of  the  Argonautic  expedition,  the 
renewal  of  the  Trojan  war,  &c,  prophesied  of  by  the  Sibyl,  we  shall  find  in  the  latter  Avatars  a 
certain  degree  of  similarity  to  the  former;  as  we  have  seen,  in  many  particulars,  Buddha  to  be 
imitated  by  his  successor  Cristna.  In  fact,  the  theory  of  the  system  was,  that  every  thing  should 
be  renewed  at  the  end  of  certain  periods,  and  that  a  new  incarnation  should  take  place.  What 
periods  these  were  may  have  been  matter  of  doubt.  This  is  proved  very  clearly  by  the  passage  in 
Virgil,  and  this  it  was  which  caused  the  history  of  the  divine  person  in  every  age  to  resemble 
that  of  his  predecessors.  The  fact  of  the  imitation  cannot  be  denied ;  it  is  clearly  seen  in  the 
instance  of  Cristna,  Buddha,  and  Bala-Rama,  and,  again,  in  Cyrus  and  Cristna,  and,  as  I  shall 
shew,  in  many  others.  I  repeat,  if  my  reader  feel  any  doubt  that  it  was  the  doctrine,  let  him  read 
again  the  passage  in  Virgil.  In  the  ninth  Avatar,  we  shall  find  this  proved  still  more  clearly,  and 
in  a  very  remarkable  manner. 


1  Luther's  breach  of  vows,  and  his  marriage,  as  he  called  it,  with  a  nun,  prove  that  if  the  Pope  had  trusted  him 
with  a  secret  under  the  most  solemn  obligation,  though  he  might  have  kept  it  to-day,  however  innocent  in  its  nature, 
he  might  have  thought  it  right  to  divulge  it  to-morrow.  *  July,  1830. 


558  TWO    CLASSES   OF   AVATARS. 

After  we  have  discussed  the  ninth  Avatar  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  the  next  object  of  this 
book  will  be  the  tenth  and  last,  and  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all. 

In  India,  in  consequence  of  the  Mohamedan  and  other  invasions  from  the  North,  which  totally 
destroyed  the  Brahmin  system  of  government,  and  overturned  their  seminaries  of  learning,  not 
much  can  be  found  relating  to  the  tenth  Avatar  j  but  this  will  be  amply  compensated  in  the 
West. 

5.  If  my  reader  have  attended  closely  to  the  argument,  he  will  have  perceived  that  there  were 
always  two  classes  of  Avatars  running  at  the  same  time  :  and  yet,  though  two  they  were  but  one. 
This  was  because  the  Avatars  were  identical  with  the  cycles,  and  the  two  cycles  united  formed  a 
third.  These  were  the  ten  presiding  Geniuses  of  the  Neroses,  and  the  ten  presiding  Geniuses  of 
the  signs  of  the  Zodiac — and  the  Neroses  and  signs  revolving  over  and  over,  and  crossing  each 
other,  until  all,  at  the  end  of  the  ten  signs,  ended  at  the  same  moment,  after  a  period  of  21,600 
years ;  or,  if  larger  cycles  be  taken,  43,200  years,  or  432,000  years.  I  suspect  that  the  Vulgar  were 
taught  to  expect  a  new  divine  person  every  six  hundred  years,  and  a  millenium  every  6000  j  but 
that  the  higher  classes  were  taught  to  look  to  the  year  of  Brahm  432,000  years,  or,  perhaps,  to 
4,320,000  years. 

One  more  observation  I  must  make  on  the  renewed  incarnations,  which  took  place  previous  to 
the  Christian  sera  before  I  proceed. 

A  singular  admission  is  made  by  the  learned  Nimrod  l  in  the  following  words  :  "  The  legend 
"  of  the  birth  of  that  bloody  Cyrus,  (he  of  the  Gorgon's  head,)  concerning  whom  the  Babylonians 
"  informed  Herodotus,  is,  though  a  strange  and  complicated  one,  precisely  the  same  as  that  of 
"  Romulus,  and  they  are  but  one  man."  In  another  place2  he  says,  speaking  of  a  certain  Ha- 
bides,  "  In  other  particulars  the  reader  will  perceive  the  adventures  of  Perseus,  Cyrus,  Quirinus, 
"  Hercules,  Buzyges,  and  Triptolemus."  Here  we  see  the  renewal  of  the  incarnation  just  spoken 
of,  in  the  fact  of  identity  in  the  history  of  most  of  the  ancient  hero  Gods,  which  has  been  fully 
demonstrated  by  Creuzer  in  his  second  volume.  The  case  was,  that  all  the  hero  Gods  were  incar- 
nations— Genii  of  cycles,  either  several  of  the  same  cycle  in  different  countries  at  the  same  time, 
or  successive  cycles — for  the  same  series  of  adventures  was  supposed  to  recur  again  and  again. 
This  accounts  for  the  striking  similitudes  in  all  their  histories.  Some  persons  will  not  easily 
believe  that  the  ancients  could  be  so  weak  as  to  suppose  that  the  same  things  were  renewed 
every  six  hundred  years.  Superstition  never  reasons.  Let  such  persons  as  find  a  difficulty 
in  this,  read  the  work  of  the  learned  person  who  calls  himself  Nimrod,  or  a  page  or  two  of  the 
work  of  the  elder  Pliny,  on  the  cure  of  diseases,  and  they  will  no  longer  be  surprised  at  absurd 
credulity.     But  I  shall  account  for  this  satisfactorily  hereafter. 

The  ancients  of  the  West  had  not  only  the  renewed  cycle  of  the  600  years,  but  they  had  also 
that  of  the  6000, — at  the  end  of  which,  ignorant  devotees,  who  did  not  understand  it,  supposed 
that  what  was  called  the  millenium,  for  1000  years  previous  to  the  renewal  of  the  world,  would 
come.  This  proves  the  truth  of  the  foregoing  calculations.  It  completes  the  Hindoo  system. 
In  India,  two  systems  may  be  perceived  ;  one  of  the  philosophers — merely  the  renewal  of  cycles ; 
the  other  of  divines,  at  the  end  of  the  6000  years,  expecting  a  day  of  judgment  and  a  millenium. 
The  latter  is  a  branch  grafted  on  the  former,  by  weakness  and  credulity. 

If  my  theory  be  well-founded,  two  kinds  of  Avatars  ought  to  be  exhibited  about  the  time  of 
Christ.     We  have  found  an  Avatar  in  the  form  of  the  celestial  Taurus,  and  also  one  in  the  form 


I  Vol.  I.  p.  122.  *  Ibid.  p.  218. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  5.  559 

of  the  celestial  Agnus  or  Aries,  and  we  ought  to  find,  in  course,  a  third  in  the  form  of  the  suc- 
ceeding Zodiacal  sign,  the  celestial  Pisces,  the  Fishes.  This  will  be  the  next  principal  object  of 
this  book.  In  the  performance  of  this  part  of  my  task,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  discuss  several 
subjects  which  may  at  first  appear  irrelevant,  but  they  will  all  be  found  necessary,  more  particu- 
larly for  the  purpose  of  elucidating  the  minor  parts  or  the  detail  of  the  Romish  system.  In  the 
course  of  this  book  I  shall  very  often  return  to  the  secret  religion  which  in  the  early  ages  of 
Christianity  was  held  in  the  Roman  conclave,  and  is  probably  yet  held  there. 

If  the  identity  of  the  modern  Roman  religion  with  the  ancient  be  admitted,  it  does  not  appear 
surprising  that  the  Pope  should  endeavour  to  revive  all  the  ancient  superstitions,  which  were  not 
in  themselves  detrimental  to  public  morals,  but  were  in  any  way  conducive  to  the  increase  of  their 
own  power,  or  that  of  the  priesthood.  In  fact,  we  shall  see  that  the  modern  Roman  religion  was 
only  a  reformed  ancient  Roman  religion.  This  is  not  said  with  the  least  wish  to  insult  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  Romish  Church,  though  no  doubt  it  will  offend,  because  it  is  unveiling  what  the 
church  wishes  to  conceal.  I  will  not  say  positively  of  the  Roman  Church  at  this  time,  but  until 
about  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  I  believe  it  was  its  faith,  that  the  millenium  foretold  by  the 
Sibyls  would  come.  Whether  they  understand  the  length  of  the  ages  may  be  very  doubtful ;  and 
it  is  very  possible  that  the  experience  of  the  non-arrival  of  the  millenium  in  the  last  600  years, 
may  have  caused  them  to  lose  the  esoteric  religion :  for  it  would  throw  all  their  doctrines  into 
confusion  and  uncertainty,  and  apparently  falsify  all  their  calculations. 

It  is  very  certain  that  the  earliest  Christians,  of  whom  we  have  any  account,  depending  upon 
the  reported  words  of  Jesus,  that  the  final  end  and  millenium  should  come  before  the  people 
present  at  his  speech  should  die,  continued  to  entertain  the  expectation  of  it  as  long  as  possible  j 
and,  in  the  same  way,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Popes  entertained  the  hope,  at  the  end  of  the  600 
years,  as  long  as  possible,  supposing  when  the  end  did  not  come  that  their  calculations  were 
wrong  a  few  months  or  years,  or  that  they  had  calculated  by  a  wrong  year ;  and  at  the  last,  when 
their  hopes  were  quite  extinguished,  they  concluded  that  another  period  was  to  pass  away  before 
its  arrival.1 

Soon  after  the  time  of  Christ  this  astrological  superstition  prevailed,  both  among  Christians  and 
Gentiles.  Nero  was  thought  to  be,  or  pretended  to  be,  a  divine  person,  and  to  open  a  new  cycle. 
Again  the  same  thing  was  thought  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  and  again  of  a  Saracen  called  Hakim 
Bemrillah. 2  I  have  called  it  astrological  superstition,  and  so,  in  reality,  it  was ;  but  astrology 
was  so  connected  with  religion  that  it  was  impossible  to  separate  them.  This  superstition  pre- 
vailed very  much  in  the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  but  has  been  kept  out  of  sight  as  much  as  pos- 
sible by  the  priests  in  later  ages.  It  was  never  the  policy  of  the  popes  to  instruct  the  people  in 
the  mystery — in  that  which  the  ancients  kept  concealed — even  if  they  knew  it.  The  popes  wished 
for  a  gross  religion  for  the  people,  such  as,  in  their  opinion,  suited  them — a  refined  one  for  the 
episcopal  palace  ;  their  Jesus  was  an  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom,  of  Iao,  of  TH^.     He  was  the 

'  For  proofs  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  prophesied  of  in  the  Gospels,  &c,  see  Matt,  xxiii.  36,  xxiv.  34,  xxviii. 
20 ;  Mark  xiii.  30  ;  Luke  xxi.  8,  9,  32 ;  John  v.  25 ;  Philip,  iv.  5 ;  1  Thess.  iv.  15—17 ;  1  Tim.  vi.  14 ;  James  v.  8 ; 
1  Pet.  iv.  7 ;  Rev.  xxii.  12,  20— and  many  other  places,  where  last  time,  latter  days,  and  end  of  the  world,  are  named. 
So  clear  is  this  that  such  Christian  writers  as  have  any  regard  to  decency  have  been  obliged  to  allow,  that  the  apostles 
in  these  matters  were  mistaken.  Vide  Baron.  Tom.  I.  p.  656,  Edit.  Rom.  Spondan.  Epit.  An.  57,  S.  54 ;  Mill's  Pro- 
log, to  the  New  Test.  p.  146,  col.  2,  apud  Chishul's  Sermon  on  Proph.  When  it  was  found  that  the  end  did  not 
come  almost  immediately  on  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  some  of  the  latter  Epistles  were  evidently  written  to  account  for 
and  explain  away  the  mistake  which  had  taken  place,  probably  arising  from  the  doubtful  meaning  of  the  words  Tevea, 
Aiuv,  Ilapsa-ja,  and  Te>.oj. 

*  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  493. 


560  STAR   OF   ABRAHAM,    MOSES,   &C,  &C. 

ninth  incarnation ;  and  in  the  gospel  history  of  St.  John,  he  is  made  to  promise  another,  and  a 
last,  i.  e.  a  tenth.     See  John  xiv.  16,  \7,  26. 

The  charge  against  Socrates  of  Atheism  long  appeared  to  me  quite  incomprehensible,  but  the 
cause  was  this  :  he  held  one  unmade,  self-existent  Deity,  but  denied  the  generated  or  created 
Gods,  the  produce  of  the  first  Deity.  Onatus,  the  Pythagorean,  declared  that  they  who  asserted 
one  only  God  and  not  many  understood  not  what  the  majesty  of  the  divine  transcendency  consisted 
in,  namely  in  ruling  over  other  Gods.  And  Plotinus  conceived,  that  the  Supreme  God  was  most 
of  all  glorified  not  by  being  contracted  into  one,  but  by  having  multitudes  of  Gods  derived  from 
him  and  dependent  on  him.  1  This,  most  clearly,  is  nothing  but  the  doctrine  of  the  Christians, 
in  which  the  word  angels  is  used  for  Gods.  Every  step  which  I  take  serves  to  convince  me  of  the 
truth  of  what  Ammonius  Saccas  taught,  that  the  Gentile  and  Christian  doctrines  were  identical, 
and  that  the  quarrels  of  their  professors  were  mere  logomachy. 

6.  A  very  singular  circumstance  may  be  observed  in  the  conduct  of  the  Romish  missionaries  in 
the  oriental  nations.     Where  they  find  the  doctrine  of  the  renovating  Avatars  or  incarnations 
already  understood,  and  where  of  course  concealment  of  their  own  doctrine  is  of  no  use,  they  avow 
and  proclaim   it,   and  announce  themselves    as   messengers   of  Buddha,   Cristna,  &c,  and  that 
Jesus  was  only  a  renewed  incarnation  of  the  Divine  mind.     To  the  Brahmins  who  already  know 
it  they  unveil  the  mystery.     This  enrages  the  Protestant  missionaries  to  the  highest  degree.  They 
accuse  the  Papists  of  the  basest  motives,  never  having  the  slightest  suspicion  of  the  truth.     Some 
of  the  Jesuits  actually  turned, 2   or  pretended  to  turn,  or  to  be  Brahmins,   and  preached  the  union 
of  Papism  and  Brahmanism  ;  maintaining  that  the  religions  of  the  city  of  Rama  in  the  East,  and 
of  Roma  in  the  West,  were  the  same,   with  the   single  exception  that  the  head  of  the  religion  was 
then  existing  in  the  West ;  and  that   the  Avatars  were  continued  for  ever  by  succession  in  the 
Popes.     They  may  have  said  to  the  Indians,  "  We  are  all  agreed  except  as  to  one  point,  and  in- 
■"  deed    we  do  not  disagree    in  that  in  substance,  but  merely  in  name.     Your  Cristna  is  our 
"  Jesus  Christ,  only  he  appeared  or  was  incarnated  in   the  West  1830  years  ago.     We  do  not 
"  dispute  what  you  say,  that  he  was  incarnated  in  a  much  earlier  period,  or  at  different  periods  for 
"  your  salvation  ;  on  this  we  give  no  opinion,  but  he  also  appeared  again  at  the  time  above  named, 
"  in  the  West,  both  for  your  and  for  our  salvation,  thus  completing  the  salvation  of  the  whole 
"  world.     You  know  very  well  that  you  are  split  into  hundreds  of  sects ;  all  this  arises  from  the 
"  want  of  a  head,  or  hierarch.     Your  Cristna  did  not  give  you  this  head,  because  he  foresaw  that 
"  he  should  return  :  he  did  return  in  our  Cristna  or  Christ  in  Judaea,  and  he  then  completed  for 
"  ever  his  mission,  his  last  Avatar,  and  he  left  all  power  on  earth  immediately  transmitted  by  the 
"  hand  of  St.  Peter  to  the  Pope,  his  Vicramaditya.3   If  your  Cristna  were  the  ninth  Avatar,  as  you 
"  allege,  Jesus  of  Judaea  was  the  tenth— the  tenth  who,  you  all  acknowledge,   was  to  come  after 
"  Cristna.     That  he  was  that  person,  he  proved  by  his  miracles,  which  were  universally  known  to 
"  be  true  throughout  all  the  Western  world,  still  witnessed  by  the  continuance  of  the  Papal  power, 
"  which  is  acknowledged  by  all  its  princes  and  rulers."— The  speciousness  of  this  mode  of  address 
no  one  will  deny.     I  shall  return  to  it  presently. 

7.  Among  the  ancients  there  seems  to  have  been  a  very  general  idea,  that  the  arrival  of  the  great 
person  who  was  expected  to  come  would  be  announced  by  a  star.  The  births  of  Abraham,  Moses, 
Caesar,  &c,  &c,  were  all  foretold  by  a  star.4  Calmet  says,  "  I  wish  we  could  ascertain  the  ideas 
"  annexed  to  the  rising  of  the  star  said  to  occur  at  the  birth  of  Abraham." 


1  Cudworth,  Bk.  i.  Ch.  iv.  p.  544.  8  For  instance,  Robertus  de  Nobilibus. 

?  Vicramaditya,  explained  by  and  by.  4  Vide  Calmet,  Hist.  Bible,  Vol.  I.  add.  art.  Abraham. 


BOOK    X.     CHAPTER    I.      SECTION  J.  561 

The  author  of  the  Supplement  to  Calmet  says,  "  I  wish  we  could  trace  enough  to  ascertain  the 
«*  ideas  annexed  in  that  country  to  the  '  rising  of  the  star,'  said  to  occur  at  the  birth  of  Abraham : 
«  perhaps  it  might  explain  the  prophecy  of  Balaam, x   or  might  elucidate  the  ready  apprehension 
"  of  the  Eastern  Ma<n,  who,  when  they,  in  the  East,  saw  a  certain  star  rise  in  a  certain  manner, 
"  and  in  a  certain  portion,  &c,  of  the  heavens,   inferred  that  a  remarkable    child  was  born : 
"  indeed,  no  less  than  the  lineal  King  of  Judea :  and  they  journeyed  many  miles  to  visit  him. 
"  How  came  the  rising  of  a  star  thus  connected  in  idea  with  the  birth  of  a  child  ?     Was  the  idea 
"ancient?     And  what  might  be  its  origin  ?     This   alludes  to  the  birth  of  Abraham  having  been 
"  expected,  and  reported  to  Nimrod,  as  the  Easterns  say,  by  the  Magi  at  his  court.     The  same  is 
"  said  in  respect  to  the  king  of  Egypt  at  the  birth  of  Moses  :  we  read  also  of  a  king,  who  dreamed 
"  that  immense  splendour  from  the  pregnant  womb  of  his  daughter  illumined  his  kingdom.     The 
"  classic  reader  will  recollect  instances  of  other  stars  connected  with  great  men  :  as  the  star  Venus 
"  with  Julius  Caesar,  and  his  family,  Augustus,  &c,  in  Ovid  and  Virgil."2      Here  we  see  this 
gentleman  as  near  to  the  discovery  of  the  mythos  as  possible.     I  have  no  doubt  that  if  we  had  the 
full  histories  of  the  Herculeses  and  Bacchuses,   we  should  find  them  all  said  to  have  stars  at  their 
births,  like  Moses,  Christ,  &c.     As  the  conceptions  were  immaculate,  the  gestation   ten  months, 
the  father  of  the  child  a  holy  spirit  or  other  supernatural  being,  so  they  were  all  announced  by  a 
star.     I  flatter  myself  I  shall  convince  my  reader,   that  this  story  of  the  star  was  no  fiction,   but 
only  a  mythological  or  allegorical  method  of  representing  the  conjunction  of  the  sun  and  moon, 
and  the  conclusion  of  the  cycle,   at  the  end  of  every  six  hundred  years,  and  the  periodical  restora- 
tion of  some  star  or  planet  to  its  old  place,  or  to  its  periodical  rising  in  a  place  relative  to  the  sun 
and  moon,  at  the  end  of  the  time.     Thus,  whenever  that  star  arrived  at  its  proper  place,  they 
knew  that  a  new  cycle  commenced — a  new  saviour  would  be  born  ;  and  for  every  Avatar,  a  star 
was  said  to  have  appeared.     It  was  the  astrological  expectation  of  an  incarnation  on  the  renewal 
of  every  cycle  :  and  the  irregularities  of  the  planetary  motions,    the  precession  of  the  equinoxes, 
and  the  neglect  of  making  the  necessary  intercalations,   rendered  the  times  of  the  arrival  of  the 
periods  and  of  the  consequent  incarnation  doubtful.     The  time  of  the  renewal  of  the  cycle  the 
astrologers  could  always  nearly  foretell,  and  we  find  they  did  foretell  it  at  the  same  time,  both  in 
the  East  and  West,  as  accurately  as  could  be  expected,   when  it  is  considered  that,  in  later  times, 
the  principle  was  lost  in  both  :  but  the  fact  that  it  was  foretold  in  the  East,  is  proved  by  Cassini 
and  Abulfaragius,  and  in  the  West  by  Virgil,  and  the  prophecies  which  I  have  detailed  in  Book  V., 
the  eighth  Avatar  of  India,   and  the  eighth  Seculum  of  Virgil  ending  with  the  birth  of  Christ. 
The  cycle,  without  regard  to  astrologers,   would  regularly  renew  itself.     The  changes  in  the  hea- 
vens they  could  regularly  foretell,  but  it  was  not  thus  with  the  Messiahs  or  the  incarnations ;  so 
that  they  scarcely  ever  exactly  agree  with  the  beginning  of  the  cycle.     Thus  the  astrologers  fore- 
told some  one  before  he  came,  but  who  he  would  be  thev  could  not  foretell.     This  is  so  marked 
that  some  of  our  divines  set  down  the  passage  about  Cyrus  to  be  an  interpolation,  because  he  is 
named.     And  yet  as  his  name  is  of  so  peculiar  a  nature,  viz.  a  solar  title,  the  word  Cyrus  meaning 
Sun,  the  prophet  might  give  him  this  name  in  the  prophecy,   and,   in   consequence,  the  epithet 
might  be  given  to  him  afterward  as  a  title  of  honour.     The  true  character  of  Cyrus  ehd  curs, 
is  apparent  from  the  fragment  of  his  history,   which  Herodotus  got  hold  of,  and  which  has  been 
thought  to  be  a  part  of  the  history  of  Cristna.     This  speaks  for  itself,  and  strongly  supports  all 
my  system.     It  binds  the  parts  together  beautifully.     The  prophets   or  astrologers   might  very 
safely  foretell  an  incarnation  for  every  next  cycle  or  sacred  period,  in   the  period   before  it  took 


1  Numb.  xxiv.  17.  *  Taylor's  Sup.  to  Calmet,  Diet,  in  voce  Abraham. 

4c 


562  PYTHAGORAS. 

place.  If  by  the  prophecy  he  incited  his  countrymen  to  such  a  thing  as  an  insurrection  or  to  do 
any  other  then  desired  act,  his  object  would  be  obtained.  If  he  failed,  when  he  was  in  his  grave, 
what  evil  would  come  to  him  ?  He  would  be  like  our  modern  prophesiers  of  the  Millenium,  for- 
gotten, that  was  all.  If  he  succeeded,  he  then  was  a  great  prophet.  A  hundred  persons— Dr. 
Mede,  Mr.  Faber,  Mr.  Irving,  &c,  have  fixed  the  time  of  the  completion  of  Daniel's  1260  years. 
If  some  great  event  should  happen  to  support  Mr.  Irving,  he  will  be  a  prophet — all  the  rest  for- 
gotten ;  they  are  nearly  so  already.  Is  it  not  evident  that  if  the  art  of  printing  had  not  been 
known,  unless  a  mere  accident  had  prevented  it,  Dr.  Mede's  explanation  of  the  prophecies  would 
have  been  lost  ?  /  may  thus  speak  of  the  celebrated  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  because  the  Rev.  Doctor 
Adam  Clarke  has  declared  it  to  be  no  prophecy  at  all. 

8.  When  all  the  circumstances  relating  to  Pythagoras,  and  to  his  doctrines,  both  in  moral  and 
natural  philosophy,  are  considered,  nothing  can  be  more  striking  than  the  exact  conformity  of  the 
latter  to  the  received  opinions  of  the  moderns  ;  and  of  the  former  to  the  moral  doctrines  of  Jesus 
Christ.     Had  the  moral  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  been  adopted  by  the  Western  nations,  in  his  day, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  same  good  effects  and  improvement  would  have  followed,  which 
we  know  from   experience  followed  the  adoption  of  the  same  doctrines  when  taught  by  his  suc- 
cessor Jesus  Christ.     In  both  cases,  as  usual,   the  philosophers  were  persecuted  by  the  priests  : 
in  the  case  of  Jesus  they  are  said  to  have  succeeded  in  crucifying  him.     In  the  case  of  Pythagoras, 
it  is  said,  they  succeeded  in  burning  him  and  suppressing  his  doctrines.     The  mass    of  mankind 
were  not  in  so  improved  a  state  of  understanding  as  to  be  able  to  appreciate  their  worth  :  the  suc- 
cess of  the  priests  was  owing  to  the  ignorance  of  their  followers.     Yet  notwithstanding  the  fate  of 
the  illustrious  Nazarite,  of  Samaria,  the  state  of  things  was  widely  different  in  his  day  :  the  human 
mind  between  the  death  of  the  Samian  and  the  birth  of  the  Samaritan  had  wonderfully  improved. 
With  the  absolute  loss  of  the  secret  meaning  of  the  mythoses  had  sprung  up  a  general  contempt 
for  their  literal  meaning,  and  thus  the  world  had  become  prepared  for  the  restoration  or  the  revival 
of  the  salutary  doctrines  which  before,  under  the  discipline  of  the  priests,  it  had  despised.     If  it  be 
admitted  that  the  priest  Caiaphas  murdered  the  teacher,  the  philosopher,  in  spite  of  the  remon- 
strance of  the  too  easy  Gentile  Pilate,   he  could  not  suppress  the  doctrines.     Thus  the  fine  moral 
philosophy  of  Jesus,  the  Nazarite,   flourished  ;  but  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  soon  philosophy 
and  philosophers  became  reprobated  by  his  followers :  but  it  was  not  till  his  beautiful  system  had 
been  spoiled  by  fanaticism,  and  at  the  same  time  had  begun  to  be  loaded  by  artful  priests  with 
the  trash,  the  corruptions,  of  the  ancient  mythology,  fragments  of  which  when  they  acquired 
power  they  never  ceased  adding  to  it,  until  at  last,  as  I  have  shewn,  or  shall  shew,  it  became  no- 
thing else  but  a  commixture  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Magna  Mater  and  of  Eleusis  with  the  nonsense 
of  the  vulgar  Paganism.    The  whole  of  the  ancient  mythology  was  adopted  and  re-enacted  and  con- 
tinued till  new  sects  arose  under  the  command  of  the  insane  persons  Luther  and  Calvin,  about  the 
time  of  Leo  the  Tenth.     These  men  in  many  countries  struck  off  a  great  part  of  the  abuses,  but 
they  were  fanatics,  not  philosophers  :  another  pruning  knife  must  be  applied. 

Of  the  learned  ancients  of  the  West,  Pythagoras  was  assuredly  the  greatest ;  and  as  he  was 
some  ages  in  advance  of  his  ignorant  countrymen,  he  was  laughed  at  and  persecuted.  Some 
persons  without  any  good  reason  have  doubted  his  existence.  The  superiority  of  his  doctrines  to 
those  of  his  contemporaries,  affords  to  me  a  convincing  proof  that  he  actually  lived.  The  beauty 
of  his  morals,  the  novelty  but  truth  of  his  astronomy  and  geometry,  all  which  he  professed  to 
bring  from  the  East,  are  of  so  superior  a  nature  to  those  of  his  Western  contemporaries,  that  it  is 
really  not  credible  that  they  should  have  created  an  imaginary  being,  to  whom  they  could  attribute 
these  obnoxious,  unheard-of  doctrines  :  for  instance,  the  47th  proposition  of  Euclid,  the  elliptic 
orbits  of  the  comets.     These  considerations  prove  his  existence,  and  the  state  of  Eastern  learning 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  I.   SECTION  9.  563 

in  his  day,  for  it  was  only  among  the  Brahmins  of  India  that  he  could  have  learnt  them.  We 
know  little  certain  of  his  doctrines  :  for,  as  they  were  not  left  in  writing,  his  followers  attributed 
to  him  all  their  own  follies,  but  they  were  in  perpetual  contradiction  to  one  another.  Certain 
facts,  however,  they  agree  in,  the  truth  of  which  is  now  admitted,  and  others  the  reason  of  which 
we  may  now  discover.  The  golden  thigh  which  he  exhibited,  no  doubt  was  a  golden  Meru — 
probably  a  Linga  and  Arga,  or  Yoni,  several  of  which  are  in  the  India- House,  not  explained  to  the 
vulgar,  and  therefore  turned  into  ridicule,  and  taken  literally  by  the  priests  of  the  day,  in  Greece, 
who  had  lost  the  meaning  of  the  same  emblems  in  their  own  mysteries.  The  same  emblems  are 
found  among  the  ruins  of  the  temples  at  Psestum,  the  meaning  of  which  was  totally  unknown  at 
Naples,  till  my  friend  Col.  Tod  explained  them. 

In  Herodotus  there  is  an  account  of  a  certain  Zalmoxis,  a  Scythian.  Mr.  Upham,  in  his  His- 
tory, has  observed,  *  that  the  story  of  this  person  evidently  shews,  that  Buddhism  was  the  religion 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  banks  of  the  Ister  previous  to  the  time  of  Herodotus,  and  thence  he  infers 
that  Buddhism  was  the  religion  of  the  Celtic  tribes.  Now  it  is  a  very  remarkable  thing  that 
Pythagoras  was  called  Zalmoxis.  In  all  this  there  is  evidently  some  mystery  concealed.  As- 
suredly the  particulars  told  of  Zalmoxis  have  every  appearance  of  being  oriental. 

9.  We  have  seen  in  a  former  book,  that  Virgil  in  his  poem  alluded  to  certain  prophecies  of 
females  called  Sibyls.  I  think  it  necessary  now  to  make  my  reader  a  little  more  acquainted  with 
those  persons.  By  the  expression  the  Sibyls  was  generally  meant  a  collection  of  books,  written 
partly  in  very  early  and  partly  in  later  times  by  female  prophetesses  bearing  that  name.  In  the 
earliest  time  of  Christianity  they  were  considered  by  the  fathers  of  the  church  as  of  the  very  first 
importance,  in  fact,  of  such  very  great  importance,  that  the  Christian  religion  might  be  considered 
to  be  almost  founded  upon  them,  and  by  most  of  the  early  fathers  their  genuineness  was  not  only 
never  disputed,  but  it  was  expressly  admitted.  They  are  now  despised.  The  reason  for  this  it 
will  not  be  difficult  to  discover.  I  shall  make  a  careful  inquiry  into  the  genuineness  of  these 
books,  in  the  course  of  which  we  shall  see  various  proofs  as  to  who  was  the  ninth  Avatar  in  the 
West ;  after  which  I  shall  proceed  to  point  him  out  in  the  East. 

I  repeat,  if  that,  which  all  Christians  professed,  was  not  Christianity,  I  should  be  glad  to  know 
what  was.  They  all  expected  the  Millenium.  The  expectation  is  as  clearly  expressed  in  the  Gospel 
histories  as  it  is  possible  for  any  language  to  express  any  thing.  Jesus,  in  some  places,  is  made 
to  say  that  another  person  would  come  after  him,  at  a  future  period,  while  in  others  he  is  made  by 
the  compilers  of  those  histories  to  say,  that  the  world  should  end  before  the  generation  then  living 
should  pass  away — even  that  some  then  present,  standing  by,  should  not  die  till  the  event  took 
place.  2  All  this  proves,  what  is  proved  by  a  thousand  other  circumstances,  that  the  principle  of 
the  Millenium  was  admitted  universally,  but  that  the  detail,  the  particulars,  were  so  far  lost  as  to 
be  a  matter  of  very  general  doubt  and  dispute.  The  great  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  between 
two  aeras.  Most  of  the  Christian  devotees  imagined  the  consummation  was  to  take  place  at  the 
termination  of  the  age  then  about  to  end,  or  just  ended,  and  this  the  words  of  the  Gospel  tracts 
prove.  Others  of  the  Christians,  judging  from  other  expressions  in  the  same  collection  of  tracts, 
but  probably  in  different  tracts,  which  say  that  another  person  should  come  before  the  grand 
consummation,  looked  forwards  to  a  more  distant  day.  The  most  learned  of  the  Gentiles  supposed 
only  that  a  happy  sera  was  commencing,  that  some  great  and  good  man,  some  most  excellent 
king,  or  great  philosopher,  or  second  Pythygoras — in  short,  they  could  not  tell  what — would  arrive, 
only  that  a  happy  arrival  would  take  place.    This  expectation  the  facts  which  remain  to  us  clearly 


1  Hist.  Buddhism,  p.  27.  2  Matt.  xvi.  28  ;  Luke  ix.  27. 

4c2 


564 


CABALA. 


prove.  The  various  Heathen  and  Jewish  prophecies  all  clearly  prove  this  ;  and  the  Heathen 
Sibyls  much  more  clearly  than  the  Jewish  Prophets.  All  these  prophecies,  and  the  circumstances 
attending  them,  have  long  been  a  stumbling-block,  a  mystery  equally  to  philosophers  and  to 
Christians.  All  explanations  by  either  party  have  been  alike  unsatisfactory,  and  this  both  parties 
very  well  know,  whatever  they  may  pretend  to  the  contrary.  The  mystery,  I  am  perfectly  satis- 
fied, I  have  in  part  developed.  At  all  events  I  am  quite  certain  that  the  theory  which  I  have 
unfolded  and  shall  unfold,  has  accounted  or  will  account  for  all  the  difficulties  attending  these 
prophecies,  in  a  manner  consistent  with  common  sense,  which  none  has  ever  done  before.  My 
scheme  requires  no  miracles  or  interpositions  of  divine  power.  It  requires  nothing  but  the  appli- 
cation of  common  sense,  and  that  we  should  pay  a  little  attention  to  the  lessons  of  experience, 
and  avail  ourselves  of  the  circumstances  and  scattered  rays  of  light  which  have  penetrated  to  us 
through  the  mist  of  antiquity.  My  theory  only  requires  that  we  should  believe  man  to  have  been 
in  former  times  what  we  find  him  now,  and  reason  upon  him  accordingly.  Solomon's  adage  that 
there  is  tiothing  new  under  the  sun  is  neglected  because  it  is  trite  ;  but  it  is  true  :  and  I  believe  it 
was  meant  to  convey  a  meaning  much  more  recondite  and  learned  than  has  been  suspected. 

10.  It  is  an  undisputed  fact,  that  the  ancient  Jews  founded  their  Cabala,  although  they  held  it 
to  be  unwritten  and  only  handed  down  by  tradition,  on  the  book  of  Genesis,   and  particularly  on 
the  first  verse.     In  this  verse  I  have  been  endeavouring  to  shew  may  be  found  the  oriental  doc- 
trines.    Persons  who  attend  to  authority  more  than  reason  may  be  better  disposed  to  attend  to 
my  reasoning,  when  they  find  it  supported  by  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  most  learned  of  our  priests. 
Bishop  Laurence   says,   speaking  of  the  Jewish  Cabala,  "  That   singular,  and  to  those,  perhaps, 
"  who  penetrate  its  exterior  surface,  fascinating  system  of  allegorical  subtleties,  has  no  doubt  its 
"  brighter  as  well  as  its  darker  parts  ;  its  true  as  well  as  its  false   allusions  :  but  instead  of  re- 
"  ducing  its  wild  combinations  of  opinion  to  the  standard  of  Scripture,  we  shall,  I  am  persuaded, 
"  be  less  likely  to  err,  if  we  refer  them  to  the  ancient  and  predominant  philosophy  of  the  East : 
K  from  which  they  seem  to  have  originally  sprung,  and  from  which  they  are  as  inseparable,  as  the 
"  shadow  is  from  its  substance."  l     Indeed,  the  Bishop  is  quite  right  in  what  he   says  of  the 
secret  Jewish  doctrines  having  come  from  the  East.     And  if  he  be  right,  my  reader  will  not  be 
surprised  that  I  should  be  able  to  point  out  in  the  Jewish  books  the  oriental  doctrines.    That  I 
am  not  able  to  make  them  more  clear  may  be  attributed  to  the  fact,  that  I  have  no  lexicons  or 
other  books  to  refer  to  except  those  of  Christians,  who  exert  all  their  ingenuity  to  disguise  the" 
truth,  as  I  have  shewn  in  the  case  of  Parkhurst,  in  voce  rvti'N")  rasit. 

The  early  Christians,  in  general,  were  fanatics,  in  the  highest  state  of  excitement :  and  most  of 
them  in  that  state  became  Monks  or  Carmelites,  (all  Monks  being  then  in  one  order,)  and  thus 
under  their  head  or  superior  they  formed  a  secret,  corresponding  society,  spreading  over  the 
whole  world ;  and,  directly  in  the  teeth  of  the  laws,  holding  their  love-feasts  and  meetings  in  the 
night.  They  were  not  secret  because  they  were  persecuted ;  but  they  were  persecuted  because 
they  were  secret.  Their  meetings  were  directly  in  defiance  of  other  laws  as  well  as  the  law  of  the 
twelve  tables.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  century,  the  head  of  the  order  of 
Carmelites  had  power  enough  to  correct  or  destroy,  at  pleasure,  every  gospel  in  the  whole  world, 
which  was  not  preserved  by  heretics,  and  they  were  not  likely  to  preserve  them,  as  they  did  not 
admit  their  authority  :  and  this  is  the  reason  why  we  have  no  manuscripts  older  than  the  sixth 
century.  For  one  reason,  when  the  Millenium  did  not  arrive  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century, 
they  were  corrected  or  corrupted,  as  the  Mohamedans  say,  to  spiritualize  the  Paraclete.   Although 


|  Pref.  to  Enoch,  p.  xlvi. 


BOOK    X.   CHAPTER    I.    SECTION    11.  565 

the  seculars  and  the  regulars  often  quarreled  for  power,  and  sometimes  about  opinions,  yet  there 
were  various  points  in  which  they  always  agreed,  and  one  point,  and  a  most  important  one  it  was 
to  the  world,  was  the  reprobation  of  the  learning  of  the  ancients.  This  object  began  to  shew 
itself  first  in  the  burning  of  books  at  Antioch,  as  described  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  was 
continued  by  a  succession  of  councils  till  the  last  canon  of  the  Council  of  Trent  against  Heathen 
learning.  All  the  manuscripts,  which  they  preserved  in  the  monasteries,  were  thus  preserved 
for  the  sake  of  the  vellum  or  skin.  They  were  in  fact  preserved  for  the  purpose  of  destruction. 
Here  we  have  the  cause,  and  almost  the  sole  cause,  which  effected  the  darkness  of  the  world  for 
many  generations.  This  is  remarkably  confirmed  by  the  multitudes  of  Panimceste  manuscripts 
which  are  found.  Exceptions  no  doubt  there  were  to  this  rule,  but  yet  it  almost  universally  pre- 
vailed. 

St.  Gregory  is  said  by  John  of  Salisbury,  to  have  burnt  the  imperial  library  of  the  Apollo.1 
11.  There  is  one  very  important  circumstance  which  is  overlooked  by  writers  on  these  subjects, 
which  is,  the  change  which  was  continually  taking  place  in  all  religions.  It  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion to  suppose,  that  any  of  the  systems  or  sects  in  the  time  of  Strabo  or  Diodorus  were  exactly 
like  what  they  were  2000  years  before.  No  doubt  every  sect  claimed  to  be  unchanged,  as  all 
sects  do  at  this  day.  But  the  whole  which  can  be  admitted  is,  that  the  original  principles  remain. 
On  these  accounts  it  is  absolutely  absurd  to  expect  the  Avatars  to  be  found  exactly  the  same,  in 
successive  periods,  but  they  will  be  found  more  nearly  so  than,  all  things  considered,  could  be 
expected. 

Among  all  nations  of  the  Western  parts  of  the  world,  the  prophetesses  called  Sibyls  were 
anciently  known.     There  were  eight  of  them  who  were  celebrated  in  a  very  peculiar  manner,  and 
a  work  is  extant  in  eight  books,2    which  purports  to  contain  their  prophecies.     This  work  in 
several  places  is  supposed  to  foretell  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ.     They  have  been  in  all  times 
admitted  to  be  genuine  by  the  Romish  church,  and  I  believe  also  by  that  of  the  Greeks  j  in  fact, 
they  have  been  literally  a  part  of  the  religion ;  but  in  consequence  of  events  in  very  late  years  not 
answering  to  the  predictions,  the  Romish  priesthood  wishes  to  get  quit  of  them,  if  it  knew  how ; 
several  of  its  learned  men  (Bellarmine  for  instance)  having  called  them  forgeries.    It  is  the  renewed 
case  of  the  ladder :  being  no  longer  useful,  it  is  kicked  down.     The  Protestant  churches  deny 
them  altogether,  as  Romish  forgeries.  These  Sibyls  were  held  in  the  highest  esteem  by  the  ancient 
Gentiles.     And  it  appears  from  the  unquestionable  text  of  Virgil,  that  they  did  certainly  foretell 
a  future  Saviour,  or  something  very  like  it.    We  find,  on  examination  of  the  present  copy  of  them, 
that  they  actually  foretell  in  an  acrostic  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ  by  name.     The  most  early 
fathers  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches  plead  them  as  genuine,  authentic,  and  unanswerable 
proofs  of  the  truth  of  their  religion,  against  the  Gentile  philosophers,  who,  in  reply,  say,  that  they 
have  been  interpolated  by  the  Christians.     This,  when  merely  asserted  by  them  in  argument,  is 
not  evidence ;  nor  is  that  which  is  asserted  by  modern  Protestants.     But  when  I  reflect  upon  the 
prophecies  which  the  reader  has  seen  in  the  preceding  chapters,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the 
acrostic  prophecy  is  in  good  keeping  with  the  others.     I  saw  pictures  of  the  supposed  authoresses 
of  these  prophetic  books  in  several  places  in  Italy.     Their  figures  are  beautifully  inlaid  in  the 
marble  floor  of  the  cathedral  church  at  Sienna,  and  their  statues  are  placed  in  a  fine  church  at 
Venice,  formerly  belonging  to  the  barefooted  Carmelites  j  they  are  also  found  placed  round  the 
famous  Casa  Santa  at  Loretto. 

Dr.  Hyde3  says,  "Chaldaeis  et  Phcenicibus  fcVnttf  seu  n^>nttf,  2*&AXa,  est  coelestis  virginis 


1  Forsyth's  Travels,  p.  134.  *  Published  by  GaUaeus.  *  De  Rel.  Cap.  xxxii. 


566  BY    WHOM    QUOTED. 

"  signum :  unde  (cuique  hoc  perpendenti)  fabula  Sibyllarum  tam  obvia  est,  ut  quisque  forte 
"  dolebit  quod,  sine  me  uionente,  haud  citius  rem  perceperit."  He  shews  also  that  this  is  the  same 
word  (littera  mutata  after  the  Hebrew  custom  in  certain  cases)  as  the  word  n^llltf  sbult,  shibbo- 
leth. He  then  proceeds  to  shew  how  this  celestial  virgin  was  adopted  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  became  their  famous  Sibyl.  This  famous  Sibyl  became  afterward  the  Queen  of  heaven, 
Maria. 

12.  Many  authors,  as  well  as  Dr.  Hyde,  have  endeavoured  in  vain  to  ascertain  the  meaning  of 
the  word  Sibyl.  Vallancey  has  observed,  that  in  the  old  Irish  the  word  means  cycle ;  and  he  goes  on 
to  say,  that  as  the  Sibyls  were  beloved  by  Apollo,  he  supposes  the  cycle  must  have  been  that  of  the 
sun.  Here  I  believe  we  have  the  truth.  There  was  supposed  to  be  a  prophetess  of  each  Sibyl  or 
Cycle.  We  have  the  prophecies  of  eight.  There  was  one  for  each  cycle  as  it  passed.  At  the 
time  of  Christ  one  was  to  come.  For  it  may  be  observed,  that  as  there  could  not  be  one  for  the 
first,  that  is,  before  the  creation,  there  could  in  all  be  only  nine  to  the  consummation  of  all  things. 

The  location  of  these  Sibyls  around  the  Casa  Santa  at  Loretto  clearly  proves,  that  the  Roman 
church  privately  maintained  the  mythological  character  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  her  close  con- 
nexion with  these  celebrated  ladies.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  they  were  placed  in  this  very 
remarkable  place  by  accident,  or  in  ignorance.  Then  why  should  they  be  connected  with  the 
Virgin  ? 

13.  The  Apostolic  Constitutions  quote  the  Sibylline  oracles,  and  say,  "  When  all  things  shall 
"  be  reduced  to  dust  and  ashes,  and  the  immortal  God,  who  kindled  the  fire,  shall  have  quenched 
"  it,  God  shall  form  those  bones  and  ashes  into  man  again,  and  shall  place  mortal  men  as  they 
"  were  before  :  and  then  shall  be  the  judgment,  wherein  God  shall  do  justice."  Here  is,  I  think, 
in  this  very  early  work  (for  early  it  certainly  was)  an  admission  of  the  doctrine  of  a  renewal  of 
worlds. 

Josephus  quotes  the  Sibylline  oracles  concerning  the  tower  at  Babylon. 

The  earliest  undisputed  Christian  writer,  of  whom  any  entire  works  remain,  is  Justin,  and  he 
pointedly  says,  that  the  Cumaean  Sibyl  prophesied  the  advent  of  Christ  in  express  words.1 
Justin's  first  Apology  was  published  not  later  than  about  A.  D.  160.  If  the  Sibyls  were  then 
forged,  they  shew  how  early  the  Christians  began  these  practices.  Justin  tells  the  Greeks  that 
thev  may  find  the  true  religion  in  the  ancient  Babylonian  Sibyl,  who  came  to  Cuma  and  there 
gave  her  oracles,  which  Plato  admired  as  divine.  Clemens  Romanus  also  quotes  the  Sibyls  in  his 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.2  They  are  also  quoted  by  Theophilus  Antiochenus,  Athenagoras, 
Firmianus,  Lactantius,  Eusebius,  St.  Augustine,  &c. 

Clemens  Alexandrinus  quotes  these  words  from  St.  Paul :  Libros  Graecos  sumite,  agnoscite 
Sibyllam  quomodo  unum  Deum  indicet,  et  ea  quag  sunt  futura.  Clemens  Alexandrinus  also 
quotes  Heraclitus  as  an  authority  that  the  Sibyls  were  inspired  by  God.  St.  Austin  says  the 
Sibyls,  Orpheus,  and  Homer,  all  spoke  truly  of  God  and  of  his  Son.3 

There  are  several  works  extant,  purporting  to  be  the  writings  of  Peter,  Paul,  and  other  early 
Christians,  in  which  the  Sibylline  oracles  are  quoted  as  authorities  in  support  of  the  Christian 
religion.  These  writings,  for  instance  the  preaching  of  Peter,  are  quoted  as  the  works  of  the 
persons  whose  names  they  bear,  by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  and,  in  fact,  are  as  well  supported  in 
point  of  genuineness  as  the  orthodox  gospel  histories  themselves,  though  rejected  by  modern 
Christians.4  Jeremiah  Jones  has  laid  down  some  rules  of  criticism  by  which  he  pretends  to  try 
the  genuineness  of  ancient  works.     These  rules  or  canons  are  false,  to  a  ridiculous  degree. 


»  Floyer's  Sibyls,  p.  225.  *  Ibid.  p.  329.  3  Sir  John  Floyer  on  the  Sibyls,  p.  ix. 

•  Vide  Jones  on  Can.  Pt.  II.  Ch.  XXXIII.  XXXIV.,  Vol.  I.  pp.  348-350. 


BOOK  X.      CHAPTER    I.      SECTION    14.  567 

Dr.  Lardner  admits  that  the  old  fathers  call  the  Sibyls  prophetesses  in  the  strictest  sense  of 
the  word. l  The  Sibyls  were  known  as  prophetesses  to  Plato,  to  Aristotle,  Diodorus  Siculus, 
Strabo,  Plutarch,  Pausanias,  Cicero,  Varro,  Virgil,  Ovid,  Tacitus,  Juvenal,  and  Pliny.  Under  all 
the  circumstances  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  deny  that  certain  written  prophecies  did  anciently 
exist ;  and  the  only  question  will  be,  whether  we  have  the  real  originals,  and  if  the  originals, 
whether  uncorrupted  or  not.  It  is  evident  that  in  the  time  of  Plato  they  must,  at  least  part  of 
them,  have  been  written  ;  and  the  question  arises,  what  can  they  have  foretold  ?  I  think  I  am 
entitled  to  answer,  The  same  as  Tsaiah,  as  Enoch,  as  Zoroaster,  as  the  Vedas,  as  the  Irish  Druid 
from  Bocchara,  and  as  the  Sibyl  of  Virgil — a  renewed  cycle,  with  its  hero  or  divine  incarnation, 
its  presiding  genius  ;  but  this  I  think  will  appear  more  clearly  presently. 

The  Sibyls  which  we  now  have  are  of  two  or  three  dates  or  authors,  and  though,  without  ex- 
ception, they  all  admit  the  ten  ages,  yet  they  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  time  when  the  ages  com- 
mence ;  some  making  them  begin  with  the  creation,  some  with  the  flood.  This  again  proves  that 
the  system  was  lost.  The  first  book  makes  five  ages  or  generations  before  the  flood.  But  what- 
ever they  may  be,  this  want  of  connexion  and  system  proves  them  to  be  unconnected  works  of 
different  times  and  different  persons.  It  clearly  proves  that  they  are  not  the  produce  of  one 
fraudulent  system,  moment,  or  person.  It  adds  greatly  to  the  probability  that  they  are,  at  least 
part  of  them,  the  produce  of  the  cheats,  or  self-deluded  fanatics,  called  Sibyls — dupes  of  judicial 
astrology. 

It  seems  that  by  the  word  age  or  generation  different  things  were  meant  by  different  persons, 
from  which  confusion  has  arisen.  But  the  Sibyls  all  agree  that  there  were  to  be  what  are  called 
ten  generations  or  ages  of  the  world  in  all ;  but  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  is  the  only  one  who  correctly 
states  them  to  begin  from  Adam.  Erythra  was  the  name  of  a  town  in  Ionia  and  also  of  the  ori- 
ental ocean,  at  least  as  far  as  Ceylon  or  Taprobana.  In  a  former  book  I  have  shewn,  how  the 
Jews  and  other  nations  expected  the  six  millenaries  :  here  is  a  clear  admission  of  the  ten  periods 
which  could  be  nothing  but  the  Neroses,  or  periods  of  600  years,  as  in  6000  there  are  ten  six 
hundreds. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  is  the  same  as  the  Sibyl  of  Cuma. 2  I  can  admit  this 
in  the  sense  only  of  renewed  incarnation.  The  Sibyl  was  said  to  have  lived  from  the  flood  of 
Noah.  Indeed,  it  was  supposed,  that  she  would  live  through  ten  yevsotg  generations,  i.  e.  ten 
Saecula,  Neroses— which  was  the  secret  meaning,  in  the  sense  of  Cycle,  of  600  years.  The 
Sibyls  differ  in  their  accounts  in  many  respects  from  our  present  Bible,  though  evidently  alluding 
to  the  same  facts.  This  is  a  proof  that  they  were  not  copied  from  it.  For  example,  one  of  them 
says,  that  the  ark  rested  on  the  top  of  a  mountain  in  Phrygia.  If  the  book  of  the  Sibyl  had  been 
merely  a  Jewish  or  a  Christian  forgery,  she  would  not  have  placed  Ararat  in  Phrygia.  The 
Sibylline  oracles,  in  foretelling3  that  Joshua  should  rise  again  and  re-establish  the  Jews,  plainly 
allude  to  the  renewal  of  incarnations.  Indeed,  this  is  clearly  recognized  in  the  Psalms  :  "  Thou 
"  takest  away  their  breath.  They  die  and  return  to  their  dust ;  thou  sendest  forth  thy  spirit  and 
"they  are  created.4  Thus  thou  renewest  the  face  of  the  earth."5  This  was  the  Hindoo  doc- 
trine, and  Judaism  was  virtually  Protestant  Brahminism. 

14.  The  most  important  part  of  these  oracles,  is  a  very  celebrated  collection  of  verses  in  the 
eighth  book,  or  the  prophecy  of  the  Erythraean  Sibyl,  which  in  the  first  words  forms  the  fol- 
lowing Acrostic   in   the   Greek  language :   IH20YS  XPEISTOS   ©EOT  YIOS  SOTHP 


1  Cred.  Hist.  Gosp.  Bk.  i.  Ch.  xxii.  *  Gallseus,  Cap.  vi. 

3  Bk.  v.  p.  4\,  Blundell.  '  i.  e.  renewed.  *  Psalm  civ. 


568  NAME   OF    CHRIST. 

STATPOS.  It  will  not  be  denied  that  this  is  among  the  very  earliest  of  the  records  of  Jesus 
Christ,  whether  it  be  a  forgery  or  not,  and  it  is  very  important,  as  it  proves  to  every  Greek  scholar 
that  the  name  of  Christ  does  not  necessarily  come  from  the  Greek  word  XPiay  to  anoint,  but  may 
come  from  the  word  %(>7}£og  benignus,  mitis  ;  for  it  is  here  written  in  the  manner  which  was  com- 
mon in  very  ancient  times,  but  in  the  later  times  disused,  when  the  e*  became  changed  into  the 
y\ — as  in  crwrsipa,  which  became  o-wrrj^ia.. l  Thus  xqeigog  became  %%ri?og.  The  ij  constantly 
changed  into  the  »,  but  I  believe  seldom  or  ever  did  the  *  change  into  the  r\.  This  I  say  with 
diffidence,  not  professing  to  be  learned  enough  in  the  Greek  language  to  give  a  decided  opinion  on 
so  nice  a  point,  or  to  say  that  in  all  the  Greek  writers  the  change  never  occurs.  However,  no 
Greek  scholar  will  deny  that  it  may  as  readily  have  changed  from  the  e*  to  the  ?)  as  to  the  i,  and 
that  any  word  which  was  written  in  ancient  times  with  the  £',  like  (rcoTsi^a,  may  have  changed, 
like  it,  into  (rtorripia.. 

The  first  name  of  Jesus  may  have  been  %%si$og>  the  second  p^giJS'Of,  and  the  third  X%i?og.  The 
word  p£ge*ro£  was  used  before  the  H  was  in  use  in  the  language. 

If  the  name  of  Jesus  were  to  be  correctly  represented  in  the  Latin  language  from  the  Greek,  it 
ought  to  have  been  Chreestus,  because  the  Greek  El  changed  into  the  H — for  the  EI  corresponds 
with  the  long  E  in  Latin  as  Nimrod2  observes.  Of  the  mode  in  which  the  H  in  proper  names 
changed  into  the  I,  M.  Beausobre3  has  given  a  striking  example  in  the  name  of  Manes.  He 
says,  "  Premierement  St.  Augustin  temoigne,  que  notre  here'siarque  s'appelloit  Manin,  c'est- 
"  a-dire  Manen,  MaVTjv,  parceque  les  Latins  substituent  souvent  unia  l'e  long  des  Grecs."  Thus 
Xg>jc  became  Cris  or  Chris.  All  this  tends  to  prove,  that  the  original  name  must  have  been 
spelt  with  the  EI  or  the  ij,  and  not  with  the  '. 

On  the  change  in  the  letter  H  to  I,  Mr.  Taylor 4  says,  "  The  complimentary  epithet 
"  Chrest,  (from  which  by  what  is  called  the  Ioticism,  or  change  of  the  long  E  into  I,  a  term  of 
"  respect  grew  into  one  of  worship,)  signified  nothing  more  than  a  good  man.  Clemens  Alexan- 
"  drinus,  in  the  second  century,  founds  a  serious  argument  on  this  paronomasia,  that5  all  who 
"  believed  in  Chrest  (i.  e.  in  a  good  man)  both  are,  and  are  called,  Chrestians,  that  is,  good 
"  men."6 

15.  There  certainly  at  first  sight  is  nothing  improbable  in  deriving  the  word  Christ  from  the 
word  X°ia)  *°  an°int  \  Dut  yet,  on  more  consideration,  it  seems  absurd  to  apply  this  to  Jesus, 
who  certainly  could  not  with  any  truth  be  called  either  crowned  or  anointed,  if  the  four  gospel 
histories  be  correct ;  as  he  never  was  either  one  or  the  other.  It  is  true  that  kings  and  prophets 
were  called  by  the  name  of  Messiah  or  Anointed  ;  but  unless  a  prophet  had  undergone  the  cere- 
mony of  anointing,  he  could  not  properly  be  called  anointed.  For  these  reasons  it  is  not  unlikely, 
that  the  pretended  derivation  of  the  Latin  word  Christus  from  the  Greek  word  x% l(0  was  an  a^ter" 
thought,  adopted  to  serve  some  particular  purpose. 

There  is  unquestionably  great  difficulty  respecting  the  name  of  Christ  and  the  Christians.  At 
first  they  certainly  went  by  a  great  variety  of  names,  and  among  others,  by  a  very  extraordinary 
one,  namely  Pisciculi  or  little  fishes.  But  for  the  present  we  will  pass  this  over.  Dr.  Heuman 
Witsius  and  Usher  think,  that  the  name  of  Christians  was  given  them  first  by  the  Heathen  Ro- 

'  See  Payne  Knight's  Hist,  of  the  Greek  Alphabet,  p.  105.  *  Vol.  III.  p.  499. 

s  Hist.  Manich.  Vol.  I.  p.  72.  *  Answer  to  Pye  Smith,  p.  113. 

s  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  xvii.  p.  53,  et  circa— Psal.  55,  D.  6  Strom mata,  Lib.  ii. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER    I.      SECTION   14.  563 

mans,  because,  among  other  reasons,  they  shew  this  name  has  a  Latint  not  a  Greek  termination. 
This  is  a  very  important  remark.  Some  observations  on  this  subject  may  be  found  in  the  Palaeo- 
romaico,  Disq.  iv.  The  name  Christ  may  be  fairly  derived  from  the  word  Cristna,  and  the  traits 
of  similarity  in  the  lives  of  Cristna  and  Jesus,  which  have  been  pointed  out,  will  probably  compel 
the  reader  to  believe,  that  the  black  God  of  Italy  was  called  in  some  way  or  other  from  the  black 
God  of  India,  or  both  from  some  common  source,  and  not  from  the  anointing  of  a  man  who  never 
was  anointed.     We  will  now  try  to  find  how  this  arose. 

The  first  unquestionably  genuine  heathen  evidence  we  have  respecting  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  Christians,  is  found  in  Suetonius. l  Here  he  is  cited  by  the  name  of  Chrestus,  not 
Christus.  Suetonius,  if  he  speak  of  the  Christians,  and  that  he  does  so  speak  I  conceive  no  im- 
partial person  can  doubt,  must  be  allowed  to  be,  in  this  case,  a  perfectly  competent  and  unim- 
peachable witness,  according  to  every  principle  of  fair  reasoning.     The  following  are  his  words  : 

Judaeos,  impulsore  Chresto  assidue  tumultuantes  Roma  expulit. 

Tacitus  speaks  of  these  same  persons,  but  calls  them  Christians,  and  their  master  Christus. 
This,  on  first  view  of  it,  seems  probably  a  corruption,  because  one  of  the  two  must  be  a  corrup- 
tion, and  who  in  later  times  could  ever  think  of  corrupting  Suetonius  into  the  Chrestus  from 
Christus  ? 

Lactantius  ascribes  the  name  of  Chrestus  to  the  ignorance  of  the  Greeks, 2  and  says,  Qui  prop- 
ter ignorantium  errorem  cum  immutata  litera  Chrestum  solent  dicere. 3  Here  is  a  most  clear 
admission  of  an  unimpeachable  witness  in  this  case,  that  the  Greeks  were  accustomed,  solent,  to 
call  Christ  by  the  name  of  Chrestus,  and  not  Christus. 

Justin  Martyr  is  the  earliest  Christian  author  of  whom  we  have  any  undisputed  works  entire, 
and  the  very  best  authority  in  the  Christian  Church.  In  his  first  Apology  he  calls  the  Christians 
XgijoT/ai/o*.  On  that  passage  Ben  David  (that  is, Dr.  John  Jones)  says,4  "  To  this  meaning  of 
"  XgHTTog,  Justin  Martyr  in  his  first  Apology  thus  alludes,  otrov  re  ex  too  xarriyopovpsvov  r^KUiV 
"  ovoy.aros  y^^raxoi  u7ra.p%oy.ev  i.  e.  from  the  mere  name  which  is  imputed  to  us  as  a  crime, 
"we  are  the  most  excellent."  On  this  passage  Thirlby  has  the  following  note:  ^rj^orarot, 
Allusio  est  ad  vulgatam  eo  tempore  consuetudinem,  qua  Christus  ignorata  nominis  ratione  nomi- 
nabitur  Chrestus.  (Sylburgius.)  Here  is  another  decisive  proof  that  in  the  time  of  Justin  the 
Christians  were  commonly  called  Christians.  In  the  next  page  Justin  calls  the  Christians 
Xoio-riavoi,  and  he  adds,  to  8s  -^^(ttov  (juasia-Qai  a  hxaiov—"  To  hate  what  is  good,  chreston,  is 
not  just."  On  this  Thirlby  in  a  note  says  (%Qi<rTiavoi)  ■^f\<rriavtn  legendum  haud  immerito 
conjectavit  Sylburgius,  ex  mente  scilicet  seu  potius  voce  adversariorum.  (Grabe.)  And  certain 
it  is,  that  Sylburgius  conjectured  very  truly.  For  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  xpurriavoi  of 
Justin  is  a  corruption,  and  a  very  absurd  corruption.  If  he  have  been  corrupted  in  one  place  he 
may  in  others. 

Again  Justin  Martyr  says,5  "  For  we  are  indicted  by  the  name  of  Christians,  but  now  XP*I?°S 
"  is  a  word  for  kind  or  good;  and  such  a  word  cannot  surely  be  a  just  foundation  for  hatred."6 
It  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  here  the  word  Xpi?ictvoi  or  Christians  is  a  corruption,  and  that  it 
ought  to  be  Xgi)r<avo<   or  Christians.     Without  this  emendation   the  passage  is   nonsense,  as 
every  Greek  scholar  must  see.     In  many  other  places,  where  Justin  Martyr  is  made  to  speak  in 


1  In  Vita  Claud.  Cap.  xxv. 

*  Ben  David's  refutation  of  the  book  called  "  Not  Paul,  but  Jesus,"  pp.  277,  278. 
5  Lib.  iy.  Cap.  vii.  *  Pp.  84,  103,  104.  s  Sect.  iv.  6  Reeves's  Justin. 

4d 


570  .  NAME   OF   CHRIST. 

the  Greek  of  Christ  and  Christians,  his  page  is  evidently  corrupted ;  but  an  attentive  observation 
of  the  above  passage  will  shew  the  reader  why  the  word  XP^°S  *a  excepted  in  it,  namely,  because 
it  was  impossible,  consistently  with  the  sense  of  the  context,  to  do  it.  Therefore  it  is  half  cor- 
rupted; the  word  %Pr$*$  could  not  be  corrupted.  Certainly  Justin  would  not  have  called  them 
XgTjs-'avo*  if  Xgijg-oc  had  not  been  the  common  name  by  which  Christ  was  known  ;  and  when,  in 
other  places,  he  calls  him  Xg<s"°£>  this  being  in  opposition  or  contradiction  to  the  former,  one  of 
the  passages  must  have  been  corrupted.  But  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  the  X^^0^  *o  be  the 
corrupted  orthography,  because  the  corruption  must  have  been  made  by  the  advocates  for  the 
i  not  for  the  ■>} — the  work  of  Justin  having  always  been  in  possession  of  the  followers  of  the  i. 

Tertullian  says,  *  Christianus  quantum  interpretatio  est,  de  unctione  deducitur.  Sed  et  cum 
perperam  Chrestianus  pronunciatur  a  vobis  (nam  nee  nominis  certa  est  notitia  penes  vos)  de 
suavitate  vel  benignitate  compositum  est.  Oditur  ergo  in  hominibus  innocuis  etiam  nomen 
innocuum. 

Bingham2  says,  the  Christians  were  not  called  Christians,  i.  e.  Christiani,  till  the  time  of  St. 
Ambrose.     I  suppose  this  was  because  they  were  called  Christians. 

Lucian,  in  a  book  called  Philopatris,  makes  a  person  called  Triephon  answer  the  question, 
whether  the  affairs  of  the  Christians  were  recorded  in  heaven,  "  All  nations  are  there  recorded, 
"  since  Chrestus  exists  even  among  the  Gentiles  :"  si  tv%oi  Xprj^og  xai  ev  sQustri.  Thus  it  is 
perfectly  clear  that  they  were  called  Christians  by  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  by  Justin  Martyr,  the 
first  of  the  Christians  in  his  day. 

But  the  following  evidence  is  conclusive  upon  the  subject :  Dr.  Jones 3  observes,  that  this  word 
is  found  in  Rom.  xvi.  18.  He  says,  "  And  in  truth  the  composition  of  it  is  ^tjctoc  Xoyia,  i  e. 
"  "hoyia  7reg<  re  y?y\fTTS->  oracles  concerning  Chrestus,  that  is,  oracles  which  certain  impostors 
"  in  the   church  at  Rome  propagated  concerning  Christ,  Xg/j-oc    being  changed  by  them  into 

"  XgT^OS,    THE     USUAL     NAME     GIVEtf    HIM    BY   THE    GNOSTICS,     AND    EVEN    BY    UNBELIEVERS."4 

Here  I  think  enough  is  admitted  by  Dr.  Jones  to  shew  pretty  clearly  that  his  original  name  wa& 
Xg7jro£>  and  that  the  *  was  not  changed  into  the  ij,  but  the  t\  into  the  i. 

Again,  Dr.  Jones  says,  "  Now  it  is  my  object  to  shew  that  the  Apostle  Paul,  in  two  places,  has  an 
"  obvious  reference  to  the  above  interpretation  of  the  word  X^^igog.  The  first  is  in  Philipp.  i.  21 : 
"  '  For  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain,'  where  the  parallelism  requires  Xil(TT0S  in  the  sense 
"  of  P^ctoc  to  correspond  to  xeq&og." 5  "  Onesimus  was  a  slave  of  Philemon,  a  friend  of  Paul, 
"  and  his  brother  in  Christ.  While  at  Rome,  that  person  was  converted  to  Christianity  by  the 
"  Apostle,  who  being  now  in  chains,  and  as  such  having  occasion  for  his  service,  detained  him  for 
"  some  time  from  his  master,  and  then  sent  him  back  with  this  letter  as  an  apology  to  Philemon  : 
"  *  I  beseech  thee,  in  behalf  of  my  son  Onesimus,  whom  I  have  begotten  in  my  bonds,  and  whom  I 
"  *  again  send  back  to  thee,  receive  him  as  my  own  bowels.'  His  argument  is  this :  '  As  Onesimus, 
"  *  while  yet  a  stranger  to  Christ,  was  a  mere  eye-servant,  driven  by  fear  and  compulsion,  and 
"  *  therefore  worthless  to  his  master,  so  by  imbibing  the  spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  now  become  a 
"  '  faithful  and  valuable  servant — rov  tots  (rot   ap^Tjo-Tov,  vwi  8s  <roi  xut  spot  eo^prjo-rov,  i.  e. 


1  Apol.  Cap.  iii. ;  Ben  David,  pp.  277,  278  ;  Bingham,  Vol.  I.  p.  12.  *  Book  i.  Chap.  i.  p.  7- 

3  Lex.  in  voce. 
To  shew  how  far  absurdity  can  go,  Dr.  Jones  says,  on  the  word  Xp<s-o?,  "  Christ,  he  whom  even  God  anointed 
"with  divine  power."    He  might  as  well  say  that  the  man  who  was  hanged  last  week,  was  anointed  with  a  rope ; 
or,  that  when  the  Lord  Mayor  gave  the  King  a  dinner,  he  anointed  him  with  beef. 

>  Ben  David,  pp.  278,  2;9. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  I.  SECTION   16.  571 

"  'tov  tots  tog  axqurrov,  ovtol  <roi  affir\<rTov,  vovi  h*  <o$  ev  Xofo-To)  <roi  xcli  euot  eu^pijCTOv/ 
"  The  paronomasia  is  perceptible  only  to  those  who  understand  Greek,  and  cannot  be  translated 
"  into  any  modern  language." 

Julian  calls  the  Baptist  Xgvjroc  Icoavvrig.  But,  as  I  have  said  before,  this  matter  is  put  out  of 
all- doubt  by  the  doctrine  being  expressly  called  by  St.  Paul  X^oXo7'a>  Rom-  xvi-  18  :  Ko"  8'a 
Tr,s  ypijo-roXoy/as  xou  sv^oyius  ef a7raT«xr*  rag  xafiius,  rov  axaxcov.  St.  Paul  was  writing 
expressly  against  the  Gnostic  Christians. 

But  Jesus  was  called  XW&S  bv  St-  Peterl  aS  wel1  as  by  St-  Paul-  1  sha11  be  told  that  this  is 
a  various  reading.  True,  all  the  manuscripts  have  not  been  corrected.  But  what  says  the  learned 
Bishop  Marsh  on  this  ?  "  1  Pet.  ii.  3 :  X?^70^  others  XPia"*°S,  where  the  preceding  verb 
"  eysiHravSe  determines  the  former  to  be  the  true  reading." 2  The  Rev.  Joseph  White,  in  his 
Criseeos  Griesbachianse,  has  very  prudently  not  noticed  this  various  reading  :  certainly  one  of  the 
most  important  in  the  book.     This  is  either  an  accident  or  a  fraud. 

If  my  reader  will  consider  with  attention  the  passages  which  I  have  given  above  from  Dr.  Jones, 
he  must  see  the  Doctor  has  shewn  most  clearly,  that  not  only  the  Gentiles  commonly  called  Christ 
XprjO-rog,  but  that  the  Gnostic  Christians,  as  is  I  believe  admitted,  beyond  all  comparison  the 
most  numerous  sect  of  Christians,  (because  many  sects  were  comprised  in  the  term  Gnostic,)  as 
well  as  the  most  learned  and  respectable,  also  called  him  Xpij<rro$.  The  important  fact  that 
Christ  was  first  called  Xprprog,  and  the  Christians  XpijoTiawoi,  was  as  nearly  lost  as  possible. 
The  accidental  discovery  of  an  inscription,  which  I  shall  presently  notice,  given  by  Dr.  Clarke,  in 
his  Travels,  alone  saved  it.  The  orthodox  must  have  been  very  industrious.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  is  also  quite  clear  that  he  was  so  called  by  both  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  surely  this  will 
not  be  disputed. 

In  the  Chrestologia  of  St.  Paul  and  Justin  Martyr  we  have  the  esoteric  religion  of  the  Vatican, 
a  refined  Gnosticism  for  the  cardinals,  a  more  gross  one  for  the  people.  It  seems  very  extraor- 
dinary, that  when  Lardner  was  noticing  the  Chrestus  of  Suetonius  he  should  pass  over  the  most 
important  fact — that  Jesus  was  commonly  known  by  the  name  of  Xp^croc  among  that  sect  of 
Christians,  which  was  by  far  the  most  numerous  and  learned  in  the  world.  There  never  was 
born  a  more  cunning  man  than  Lardner,  nor  one  who  knew  better  when  to  speak,  and  when  to  be 
silent.  In  this  instance  he  seems  to  have  followed  the  example  of  Eusebius,  when,  in  the  life  of 
Constantine,  he  concealed  the  murder  of  his  son  Crispus.  I  cannot  believe  that  Lardner  was 
ignorant  that  the  Christians  were  called  Xp>)<rnai/oi.  I  have  examined  his  indexes,  but  can  find 
nothing  on  the  subject.  And,  in  his  pretended  surprise  that  Suetonius  should  call  Jesus,  Chrestus, 
he  betrays  the  grossest  disingenuousness.  It  is  impossible  that  this  learned  man  can  have  been 
ignorant  of  it.  But  he  found  that  if  he  noticed  it,  even  to  endeavour  to  refute  it,  he  would  bring 
into  observation  what  was  as  good  as  lost,  and  what  it  was  very  desirable  to  keep  out  of  sight. 
I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  conduct  of  both  Lardner  and  White  proceeded  from  the  same 
source — a  wish  to  conceal  the  fact,  a  small  part  of  the  importance  of  which  they  saw. 

16.  The  following  extract  from  Dr.  Clarke's  Travels,  relating  to  the  Heathen  monument  just 
named,  furnishes  a  proof  that  the  X.pri<rros  was  known  before  Christ. 

"  Within  the  sanctuary,  behind  the  altar,  we  saw  the  fragments  of  a  marble  cathedra  ;  upon  the 
"  back  of  which  we  found  the  following  inscription,   exactly  as  it  is  here  written,  no  part  of  it 
'  having  been  injured  or  obliterated;  affording,  perhaps,  the  only  instance  known  of  a  sepulchral 
"  inscription  upon  a  monument  of  this  remarkable  form  : 


1  1  Epis.  ii.  3.  *  Marsh's  Mich.  Various  Readings  of  the  N.  T.  Vol.  I.  Ch.  vi.  Sect.  viii.  p.  278. 

4d2 


572 


CLARKE  S    INSCRIPTION. 


IIP&TOY0ESSA 
AOS  AAPEI2AI0S 

nEAAsrmTHS 

ETiiN.     IH 

HP£S 

"  It  is  in  honour  of  a  youth  of  Larissa,  in  Thessaly,  who  died  at  eighteen  years  of  age.  As  to  the 
"  words  ^pvjo-ro^  and  ypa>g,  it  may  be  remarked  that  all"  the  epitaphs  upon  LarissjEans, 
"  which  Spon  has  preserved,  contain  these  words.  There  were  many  cities  having  the  name  of 
u  Larissa ;  consequently  the  city,  whereof  the  youth  here  commemorated  was  a  native,  has  the 
"  distinction  of  IIeXa<ryiojrrjg.  It  is  named  by  Strabo.  Though  out  of  the  Pelasgiotis  it  had 
"  the  name  of  Larissa  Pelasgia."  l  I  consider  an  ancient  inscription  of  this  kind  as  the  very  best 
species  of  evidence  of  any  fact. 

I  consider  the  words  JCprjfog  at  the  top  and  Hpcog  at  the  bottom  of  this  inscription,  to  have  a 
mystical  meaning,  and  to  be  used  as  monograms,  or  as  the  D.  M.  are  used  on  Roman  monuments; 
that  Hpcog  is  a  dialectic  mode  of  writing  Epa>£  2  — and  that  both  mean  the  benignant  being  or 
Divine  Love.  All  the  Heroes,  who  were  properly  so  called,  were  Demigods  or  Incarnations  of 
Divine  Love  or  Wisdom.  The  fact  of  these  words  being  on  all  the  monuments,  proves,  that  they 
are  neither  of  them  the  name  of  a  deceased  person. 

The  heart  may  be  seen  in  great  numbers  of  the  Christian  monuments  in  the  Vatican  palace  at 
Rome.  The  Roman  Church  has  an  office  for  the  bleeding  heart.  As  an  emblem  scarcely  any 
thing  is  more  common.  But  the  way  in  which  it  is  connected  with  the  Romish  Christian  sepul- 
chral monuments,  and  with  those  of  the  Heathens,  shews  a  close  connexion  between  them.  The 
heart,  being  the  emblem  of  the  passion  or  sensation  of  affection  of  one  person  to  another,  came 
very  naturally  to  be  the  emblem  of  divine  love.3  At  first  it  may  be  thought  that  a  figure  of  this 
kind  is  a  trifling  circumstance  and  not  worth  notice.  I  dare  say  it  will  be  so  considered,  by  persons 
who  spend  their  lives  in  idle  attempts  to  supply  a  Lacuna  or  two  in  a  Greek  play ;  but,  trifling  as 
it  may  appear,  I  will  compel  the  sceptic  to  belief,  in  the  opinion  I  myself  entertain.  Here  we 
have  the  heart  upon  an  ancient  Grecian  monument  before  Christ,  and  connected  with  the  word 
"Kpyg-og,  and  the  name  of  Cupid  or  divine  love  Hpa)g,  We  have  it  on  an  Indian  monument  of 
Bal-ii  an  incarnation  of  Vishnu  crucified  in  the  heavens,  and  we  have  it  on  vast  numbers  of  modern 
Christian  monuments  in  the  Vatican  at  Rome.  I  defy  any  one  to  doubt  the  close  connexion  of 
the  three.  Circumstances  of  this  kind  are  better  than  any  written  evidence  whatever.  This  heart 
is  often  represented  in  Romish  Churches  with  darts  or  spears  stuck  in  it.  Images  of  Christ  are 
often  seen  with  a  spear  thrust  into  the  side.  The  image  of  Bal-ii  has  also  a  hole  or  wound  in  the 
side,  and  is  described  by  an  epithet  which  might  be  rendered  into  English  side-wounded. 


'  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  IV.  p.  189,  4to. 

*  Dialectus  Attica,  i^wa^v  pro  eSw/apjv.     Scapula. 

s  Over  the  altar  of  the  Abbey- church  at  Tewkesbury,  which  is  more  ancient.  I  think,  than  the  church,  a  winged 
heart  is  placed  below  the  dove. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  I.   SECTION  18.  573 

The  Latin  name  of  Christian! *  was  first  given  to  the  followers  of  Jesus  at  Antioch,  probably 
as  a  term  of  reproach  ;  which  is  the  reason,  though  they  were  perhaps  not  often  insulted  with 
it,  why  the  Christian  fathers  in  the  earliest  time  never  use  it.  And  I  believe  it  was  not 
adopted  till  the  doctrine  of  Paul  was  grafted  into  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  by  the  Roman  or  Popish 
Christians  ;  and  then,  for  the  first  time,  along  with  the  Christ  crucified  of  Paul,  came  the  Latin 
word  Christus. 

Now,  with  respect  to  the  word  anointed  it  may  be  recollected,  that  every  thing  which  was 
anointed  had  converted  to  it  the  quality  peculiarly  meant  to  be  described  by  the  word  XfW 
of  good,  holy,  sacred.  To  make  the  stone  of  Jacob  holy  and  sacred  it  was  anointed.  To  install  a 
prophet  into  his  office,  he  was  anointed.  To  render  kings  sacred,  they  are  yet  anointed  ;  from 
this  came  the  idea  that  Christ  had  his  name  from  being  anointed.  And  Cryso-polis  and  Christ  are 
examples  of  the  same  confusion  of  language  and  idea.  If  the  word  Christ  had  its  origin  from 
the  Greek  word  Xptco  to  anoint,  in  the   acrostic  it  would  not  have  been  written  Xpsjfoc  but 

For  all  these  reasons  collectively,  I  conclude  that  the  original  name  by  which  Christians  were 
called  was,  followers  of  Xpvjs-o£  or  Xpr\sia.vot.  I  need  not  waste  more  words  upon  this  point,  for 
the  fact  cannot  be  disputed  that  they  were  thus  called  both  by  Christian  fathers  and  Gentiles. 
But  it  is  a  point  of  very  great  importance.  Dr.  John  Jones's  admission,  that  the  Gnostics  and 
other  early  Heretics  called  Jesus  by  the  epithet  Xprjg-o^,  Chrestus,  coupled  with  the  indisputable 
fact  that  Justin  Martyr  calls  his  followers  Xp^iavoi,  is  quite  enough  for  me,  without  the  autho- 
rity of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 

17-  No  doubt  I  shall  be  asked  the  reason  why  this  discovery  which  I  have  made  of  the  ancient 
name  of  Christ  has  never  been  made  before.  To  which  I  reply,  Look  to  the  decrees  of  Emperors, 
Popes,  and  Councils,  almost  innumerable,  for  the  destruction  of  the  writings  of  those  persons  who 
were  likely  to  state  or  name  the  fact  in  ancient  times,  and  you  will  see  the  reason.  Had  we  the 
large  and  learned  work  of  Porphyry  or  the  works  of  Ammonius  Saccas,  no  doubt  we  should  have 
this  and  many  other  points  cleared  up.2  If  I  be  asked  why  Lardner  did  not  discover  it,  I  reply, 
No  one  is  so  blind  as  he  who  will  not  see.  It  is  impossible  that  he  can  have  been  ignorant :  and 
it  is  one  of  many  examples  of  his  disingenuousness.  For  the  cause  of  truth  it  is  a  most  fortunate 
circumstance  that  the  priests  in  transcribing  the  works  of  Justin  Martyr  have  overlooked  the  pas- 
sage which  the  reader  has  seen.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  every  place  where  he  uses  the  word 
Xp/g-oj  instead  of  the  word  XpTjj-oc  is  a  corruption,  and  the  same  is  probably  the  case  with  every 
writer  before  his  time,  if  any  there  were. 

Of  all  the  Christian  writers  of  antiquity  there  is  no  one  of  whose  works  I  regret  the  loss  so 
much  as  those  of  Ammonius  Saccas.  From  him  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  should  have  had  the 
whole  explained. 

The  word  Xpvjg-os  among  the  Gentiles,  did  not  only  mean  benignus,  mitis,  but  it  also  meant, 
when  applied  to  a  person,  a  being  superior  to  man,  of  a  benevolent  nature  ;  precisely  a  divine  in- 
carnation. Hfxog  had  the  same  meaning — a  demigod.  The  result  of  the  whole  is,  it  is  clearly 
proved  that  the  Papal  Christians  changed  the  first  name  of  Jesus  from  that  of  Chrestus  to  that  of 
Christus,  with  the  Latin  termination.  In  a  future  page  I  shall  produce  some  very  curious  circum- 
stances which  will  trace  this  Chrestos,  foretold  by  the  Sibyls,  to  India. 

18.  I  will  now  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  Acrostic  of  the  Sibyls.     It  is  very  certain  from 
he  passage  in  Virgil,  that  a  great  personage  to  renew  the  ancient  times,   to  act  again  the  Trojan 


Acts  xi.  26.  *  Vide  Lardner's  Works,  Vol.  IV.  Ch.  xvii.  p.  1 1  ],  4to. 


574 


CICERO    ADMITS    ACROSTIC. 


war,  the  Argonautic  expedition,  &c,  was  foretold  by  the  Sibyl.  It  is  very  certain  from  the  fol- 
lowing passages  of  Cicero  also,  that  a  great  person  was  foretold,  and  that  for  the  purpose  of  this 
enunciation  an  Acrostic  was  used ;  for  though  he  is  in  violent  opposition  to  the  Sibylline  pro- 
phecy, because  it  was  used  to  justify  the  setting  up  of  a  tyranny,  and  asks,  what  man,  and  in 
what  particular  time  the  man  is  foretold,  yet  he  does  not  deny  the  prophecy.  And  though  he 
argues  against  the  axpo^ixog,  he  does  not  deny  its  existence,  but  admits  it. 

Sibyllae  versus  observamus   quos  ilia   furens    fudisse  dicitur.     Quorum  interpres  nuper  falsa 
quaedam  hominum  fama  dicturus  in  senatu  putabatur  eum,   quern  revera  Regem  habebamus,  ap- 
pellandum  quoque  esse  regem,  si  salvi  esse  vellemus.     Hoc  si  est  in  libris,  in  quem  hominem,  et 
in  quod  tempus  est  ? *     (N.  B.)     Callide  enim,   qui  ilia  composuit,  perfecit,  ut,  quodcumque  acci- 
disset  praedictum  videretur,  hominum  et  temporum  definitione  sublata.     Adhibuit  etiam  latebram 
obscuritatis,   ut  iidem  versus  alias  in  aliam  rem  posse  accommodari  viderentur.     Non  esse  autem 
illud  carmen  furentis,  cum  ipsum  Poema  declarat  (est  enim  magis  artis,   et  diligentiae,  quam  inci- 
tationis  et  motus)  turn  vero  ea  quae  axpofixos  dicitur,  cum  deinceps  ex  primis  versuum  literis 
aliquid  connectitur.  2    "  We  take  notice  of  the  verses  of  the  Sibyl  which  she  is  said  to  have  poured 
"  out  in  a  fury  or  prophetic  phrenzy ;  the  interpreter  whereof,   was  lately  thought  to  have  been 
"  about  to  declare  in  the  Senate-house,  that  if  we  would  be  safe  we  should  acknowledge  him  for  a 
"  King  who  really  was  so.     If  there  be  any  such  thing  contained  in  the  Sibylline  books,  then  we 
"  demand,  concerning  what  man  is  it  spoken,  and  of  what  time  ?     For  whoever  framed  those 
"  Sibylline  verses,  he  craftily  contrived  that  whatsoever  should  come  to  pass,  might  seem  to  have 
"  been  predicted  in  them,   by  taking  away  all  distinctions  of  persons  and  times.     He  also  pur- 
"  posely  affected  obscurity,   that   the  same  verses  might  be   accommodated,   sometimes  to  one 
"  thing,  sometimes  to  another.     But  that  they  proceeded   not  from  fury  and  prophetic  rage,  but 
"  rather  from  art  and  contrivance,  doth  no  less  appear  otherwise  than  from  the  Acrostic  in  them." 
It  is  perfectly  clear  that  in  the  time  of  Cicero  there  was  an  acrostic  in  the  book.     If  that  which 
is  there  at  this  time  be  not  it,  pray  where  is  it  ?     If  the  Christians  had  forged  this  acrostic  after 
the  time  of  Justin,  they  would  have  contrived  to  insert  Xptfoj  and  not  Xpsj^oj. 

But  I  shall  now  produce  in  this  case,  I  think,  an  unimpeachable  witness,  that  the  present 
acrostic  was  that  in  the  Sibyl  in  the  time  of  Cicero ;  for  Kusehius  affirms,  that  Cicero  quoted 
these  very  verses  which  contain  the  acrostic,  and  which  he  says  was  in  the  Erythraean  Sibyl.  If 
the  father  of  ecclesiastical  history  may  be  credited,  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  our  present 
acrostic  in  the  time  of  Cicero  cannot  be  doubted. 3 

Justin  says,  "  that  the  Sibyl  not  only  expressly  and  clearly  foretells  the  future  coming  of  our 
"  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  but  also  all  things  that  should  be  done  by  him."  4  This  was  in  the  early 
part  of  the  second  century,  and  it  exactly  answers  to  our  present  Sibyls.  It  is  very  evident  that, 
supposing  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  to  have  been  unknown  as  a  man's  name,  which  it  might  be  in 
the  time  of  Cicero,  the  poem  might  pass  generally  without  the  meaning  of  the  acrostic  being  dis- 
covered, or  without  its  being  perceived  that  the  letters  formed  an  acrostic,  except  to  the  ini- 
tiated. 

The  acrostic  suited  both  the  Heathens  and  the  Christians.  If  it  were  Heathen,  there  was  no 
occasion  for  the  Christians   to  expunge  it ;  if  it  were  Christian,  there  was  no  occasion  for  the 


1  See  Floyer's  Sibyls,  last  page,  App.  336  ;  and  consult  Martianus  Capella,  Lib.  ii. 

*  De  Div.  Lib.  ii. 

3  Vide  Floyer's  Sibyl,  Pref.  p.  xx. 

*  Cohort,  ad.  Gr.  p.  36,  ib.  37,  A ;  Lard.  Works,  Ch.  XXIX. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION    18.  575 

Heathens  to  expunge  it :  if  the  Heathens  interpolated  it,  it  served  the  Christian ;  if  the  Chris- 
tians, the  Heathen.  That  the  Christians  should  have  corrupted  the  oracles  is  very  likely,  and 
even  in  some  degree  the  verses  which  form  the  acrostic — but  still  keeping  the  acrostic.  Indeed, 
after  the  observation  in  Justin,  that  all  the  things  which  had  happened  to  Jesus  were  in  the 
Sibyl,  was  noticed,  I  have  no  doubt  that  if  there  were  any  thing  in  the  Gospels  which  was  not  in 
the  Sibyl,  the  Christians  would  put  it  there.  There  is  undoubted  evidence  that  our  Gospel 
histories  underwent  repeated  revisions.  Those  who  would  revise  the  Gospels,  would  not  scruple 
to  revise  the  Sibyls. 

Dr.  Cudworth,  in  his  fine  fourth  chapter  has  observed,  that  these  oracles,  though  pretended  to 
be  kept  locked  up  in  the  time  of  Cicero,  were  apparently  well  known.  If  this  were  the  case,  the 
difficulty  of  interpolating  them  was  greatly  increased.  If  the  acrostic  which  we  have  were  not  the 
one  alluded  to  by  Cicero,  I,  again,  beg  those  who  deny  it,  to  tell  me  to  what  the  acrostic  could 
possibly  allude.  It  evidently  alluded  to  the  good  being  whose  name  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
epitaph  on  the  youth  of  Larissa,  who  was  not  a  hero  as  the  learned  and  respectable  Christian 
advocate  of  Cambridge,  Mr.  Hughes, l  has  expounded  it.  The  circumstance  noticed  by  Clarke, 
that  it  is  on  all  the  monumental  inscriptions  of  Spon,  shews  that  Clarke  is  right,  and  that  the 
learned  Cantab,  is  mistaken. 

I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  that  if  he  expect  ancient  secrets  of  the  kind  here  described — secrets 
guarded  by  the  initiated  with  the  greatest  care  and  most  solemn  oaths,  to  be  proved  like  a  propo- 
sition of  Euclid,  he  will  expect  what  is  very  unreasonable,  and  what  he  will  never  find — secrets, 
too,  endeavoured  to  be  concealed  by  our  modern  priests.  A  probability,  an  approximation  to  a 
demonstration  of  the  truth,  is  all  that  can  be  expected.  Under  all  these  circumstances,  I  cannot 
doubt  that  the  acrostic  which  we  have,  was  actually  the  acrostic  referred  to  by  Cicero,  and  that  it 
meant  IHS  XPH5T0S  the  benignant  Genius  or  new  incarnation  of  Bacchus,  or  Buddha,  or 
Divine  Wisdom,  the  Protogonos  of  God,  or  0EOT  YIOS  SOTHP.  Although  Cicero,  in  the 
passage  I  have  quoted,  does  not  give  us  the  words  of  the  acrostic,  it  is  evident  that  it  referred  to 
some  great  person — but  still  it  gave  only  a  mystical  name  of  him.  In  short,  there  is  not  the  least 
evidence  against  either  the  genuineness  of  the  book  or  of  the  passage. 

How  the  Sibyls  originally  came  to  Rome  it  is  difficult  to  say,  for,  to  the  story  of  their  purchase, 

)y  Tarquin,  I  suppose  no  one  now  attends  :  but  after  they  were  burnt,  in  the  time  of  Sylla,  others 

ivere  procured  from  Erythraea  by  ambassadors  sent  for  the  purpose,  a  fact  which  shews  that  they 

vere  well  known  to   exist.     Afterward,  others  were  sought  for  by  Augustus,  whose  measures 

Tacitus  thus  describes  : 2  Quaesitis  Samo,  Ilio,  Erythraeis,  per  Africam  etiam  et  Siciliam  et  Italicas 

olonias  carminibus  Sibylke,  datum  Sacerdotibus  negotium,  quantum  human  a  ope  potuissent,  vera 

iscernere.     Here  we  see  that  these  books  were  collected  by  Augustus  from  various  places :   of 

ourse  the  Erythraean  from  Erythraea,  the  Cumaean  from  Cuma,  &c,  &c;  and  for  several  hundred 

ears  after  his  time,  it  may  reasonably  be  believed,  that  their  identity  could  not  well  be  disputed. 

is  very  certain  that,  though  known  to  exist,  they  were  not  thrown  open  to  the  public,   and  I 

link  it  seems  probable,  that  they  were  not  published  till  the  Christians  got  possession  of  them, 

id,  for  their  purposes,  published  them,  though  they  were  quoted   to   support  the   tyranny  of 

ugustus,  and  the  attempted  tyranny  of  others  before  him. 

It  is  very  certain  that  Scipio  and  Sylla  both  founded  their  claims  to  power  upon  the  prophecy 

the  Sibyls — that  an  illustrious  person  or  a  saviour  would  come  on  the  opening  of  some  un- 

lown,  but  speedily-expected,  new  age.     This   is  confirmed  by  Virgil,  and  he  is  allowed  to  be 


1  See  his  Travels  in  Greece,  Vol,  I.  p.  360,  Ed.  4to.  *  Annal.  Lib.  vi. 


576  EXTRACT  FROM  DUPUIS. 

named  in  an  acrostic  by  Cicero.  In  the  time  of  Cicero  lytrsg  Xprjf  or  "Kpeigog  was  mystical,  and 
meant,  in  Greek,  the  good  saviour  IE.  Now  a  suspicion  unavoidably  arises,  that  Jesus  (who  was 
so  called  as  we  learn  from  Matthew,  because  that  name  meant  Saviour)  was  also  called  Chrest 
from  this  very  oracle — that  certainly  being  one  of  the  sheet-anchors  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  in 
the  earliest  times.  In  the  sense  of  divine  incarnation,  the  appellation  lr\<rag  Xpygog  applies  to 
all  the  pretenders  to  power  noticed  above ;  and  when  Cicero  was  writing  against  the  acrostic  as  a 
thing  well  known  both  to  him,  and  to  the  persons  to  whom  he  was  addressing  himself,  it  was  not 
a  necessary  consequence  that  he  should  recite  the  words  of  it.  Almost  every  particular  in  the 
life  of  Christ  as  detailed  in  our  Gospels,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Sibyls,  so  that  it  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  the  Sibyls  were  copied  from  the  Gospel  histories,  or  the  Gospel  histories  from  them. 
It  is  also  very  certain  that  there  was  an  Erythraean  Sibyl  before  the  time  of  Christ,  whatever  it 
might  contain.     Where  this  Erythraea  was,  we  shall  presently  try  to  discover. 

No  one  can  deny,  that  the  Greek  verses  are  of  an  inferior  description :  just  such  as  might  be 
expected  from  the  Latin  messengers  sent  by  Augustus  to  translate  them  out  of  one  foreign  ori- 
ental language  into  another — neither  of  which,  probably,  they  understood.  Had  he  sent  Virgil,  it 
is  likely  that  they  would  have  been  translated  better.  In  order  to  produce  the  acrostic,  the 
translator  evidently  worked  with  tied  hands.  The  originals  might  be  in  Hebrew,  or  some  other 
Eastern  dialect,  and  might  have  the  acrostic  in  that  language  in  a  word  which  might  mean  at 
once  Saviour,  Sun,  and  608,  (such  for  instance  as  Mithra  in  Hebrew,)  and  be  translated  at  full 
length  into  Greek.  We  know  acrostics  were  used  by  the  Hebrews,  from  those  used  in  the 
Psalms  for  the  letters  of  the  alphabet.  Cicero  could  not  quote  the  words  of  the  Sibyls,  without 
being  guilty  of  a  great  breach  of  the  law. 

19.  The  following  passage  of  Dupuis  shews  that  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  might  easily  write  the 
acrostic,  and  that  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  for  it  is  in  both,  as  the  reader  will  find  in 
Gallaeus :  that  is  to  say,  that  the  knowledge  of  such  a  person  as  Xpijs"°£  the  benignant  Sftmjp, 
or  in  Hebrew-Greek,  IH^8^,  might  be  easily  known  to  her,  previous  to  the  date  of  the  birth  of 
the  Jesus  Christ  of  the  Romish  Church. 

"  But  the  Virgin  of  the  constellations,  Isis,  the  mother  of  Orus,  is  really  this  famous  Virgin 
"  mother  of  the  God  of  light,  as  we  have  shewn  in  another  part  of  this  work,  to  which  we  refer  the 
"  reader.  We  content  ourselves  here  with  saying,  that  the  celestial  virgin,  of  which  the  heaven 
"  offers  us  the  picture  at  the  equinox  of  the  spring,  with  the  celestial  ark  and  the  serpent,  was 
"  effectually  represented  in  all  the  ancient  spheres  with  all  the  characters  of  that  of  the  Apoca- 
"  lypse,  that  is  to  say,  as  a  female  newly  laid  in,  and  holding  in  her  arms  a  young  infant,  which 
"  she  suckles,  and  which  has  all  the  characters  of  Christ.  Behold  how  the  sphere  of  the  Persians 
"  or  of  the  Magi,  in  the  first  decan  of  the  celestial  Virgin  is  expressed  :  Virgo  pulchra1  capillitio 
"  prolixo  duas  spicas  tnanu  gestans,  sedens  in  siliquastro,  educans  puerulum,  lactam  et  cibans  eum. 
"  Caput  Bestice :  and  the  sphere  of  the  Barbarian  adds,  pars  caudse  Draconis."  "  The  Arabian 
"  Alboazar  or  Abulmazar  goes  farther.  He  gives,  after  the  ancient  traditions  of  the  Persians,  the 
"  real  name  of  this  infant.  This  is,  according  to  him,  he  whom  some  persons  call  Jesus  and 
"  others  Christ,  as  we  have  seen  in  our  chapter  on  the  Christian  religion,  where  we  have  reported 
"  this  passage."  2 

One  finds  here,  as  in  the  Apocalypse,  an  infant  newly  born,  placed  on  an  elevated  throne,  and 
in  the  arms  of  a  female  lately  delivered,  who  nurses  him.  And  this  infant  is  the  Jesus,  the  Christ, 
the  God  who  ought,  as  the  child  of  the  Apocalypse,  to  reign  over  the  world.     Can  more  marks  of 

i  Scaliger,  not.  ad  Manil.  p  341  2  Tome  III.  p.  46. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    I.    SECTION    19.  577 

similarity  be  expected  ?  This  is  the  young  infant,  the  image  of  the  sun  born  at  the  winter 
solstice,  at  midnight,  the  24th  of  December,  of  which  the  Persians  celebrated  the  birth,  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  ancient  calendars,  which  fix  it  to  the  same  day — Natalis  Solis  invicti — and  of  which 
the  effigy  was  placed  by  them  in  the  first  degrees  of  the  sign  which,  by  its  ascension  at  midnight 
on  the  '24th  of  December,  fixed  the  epoch  of  this  birth.  This  was  as  the  horoscope  of  the  God 
Light,  who  commenced  his  career  with  the  year,  and  who  ought,  in  the  spring,  under  the  sign  of 
the  Lamb,  to  make  the  day  triumph  over  the  night,  and  to  repair  the  mischief  done  to  nature  by 
the  winter l 

That  the  work  called  the  Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  just  referred  to,  is  of  very  great  antiquity 
is  clearly  proved  by  the  fact  that  it  makes  the  year  only  360  days  long — the  same  length  that  it  is 
made  in  the  third  book  of  Genesis,  as  Bailly  has  proved  and  Dr.  Hales  admitted.  It  assigns 
twelve  hundred  and  sixty  days  to  three  years  and  a  half.2  The  pious  get  over  these  matters  by 
saying,  that  this  was  the  prophetic  year.  It  is  impossible  to  help  smiling  at  the  credulity  of  these 
good  people.     No  reason  can  be  too  absurd  to  be  received  by  them. 

Mosheim3  says,  they  all  (i.  e.  all  the  fathers  of  the  second  century)  attributed  a  double 
sense  to  the  words  of  Scripture,  the  one  obvious  and  literal,  the  other  hidden  and  mysterious, 
which  lay  concealed,  as  it  were,  under  the  veil  of  the  outward  letter.  The  former  they  treated 
with  the  utmost  neglect. 

"  God  also  hath  made  us  able  ministers  of  the  New  Testament ;  not  of  the  letter,  but  of  the 
"  spirit :  for  the  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life."  4 

The  learned  Burnet  says,  in  his  Archaeologia,  p.  279,  "  Duplex  erat  apud  veteres,  maxime 
"  orientalis,  theologiam  et  philosophiam  tradendi  modus  ^y.co^g,  xoli  a7roppr]rog :  atque  duplici 
"  hoc  stylo,  in  rebus  naturalibus  explicandis,  uti  mihi  videtur  Scriptura  sacra :  quandoque  ad 
11  occultiorem  veritatem."  Clemens  Alexandrinus  and  Origen,  the  most  learned  of  the  Christian 
fathers,  are  much  censured  by  the  fashionables  among  the  moderns  for  attributing  a  mystical  sense 
to  the  Scriptures  ;  but  it  accidentally  drops  from  Eusebius,  that  he,  probably  in  secret,  held  the 
same  opinion :  he  observes,  xara  rivag  owroppijT8£  "hoyovg  Mcoo~eeo£,  secundum  arcanos  sensus 
Mosis.5 

Origen,  against  Celsus,  distinctly  admits,6  that  there  are  Arcana  imperii  in  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, which  are  not  fit  to  be  entrusted  to  the  vulgar.  He  excuses  it  by  saying,  that  there  are 
the  same  in  philosophy.  Now  I  maintain,  that  this  is  evidence  of  the  fact  which  cannot  be 
impeached  ;  for  he  admits  it  with  obvious  unwillingness.  And  I  have  a  right  to  ask,  what  were 
these  arcana  ?  It  will  not  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  they  were  only  certain  arcana  concealed  from 
catechumens  :  before  I  conclude,  I  shall  shew  that  these  were  but  a  very  small  part  of  what  con- 
stituted the  mysteries  of  Christianity.  Whatever  fanciful  meanings  Origen  might  apply  to  the 
sacred  books,  it  is  very  certain  he  would  not  publish  in  writings  what  he  confessed  to  be  the 
arcana.  To  publish  these  would  be  to  confess  his  own  infamy ;  therefore,  whatever  he  might 
pretend,  his  allegories  were  not  the  esoteric  doctrines.  I  think  I  am  justified  in  saying  that,  at 
least,  part  of  these  arcana  were  the  doctrines  connected  with  the  millenium  and  the  renewal  of  the 
cycles,  and  the  secrets  contained  in  the  favourite  Sibyls.  Good  God  !  if  all  the  authorities  which 
I  have  produced,  not  only  of  learned  moderns  but  of  learned  ancients,  the  chief  persons  of  the 
religions,  joined  to  the  clear  words  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels,  will  not  prove  that  a  mystery  was 
concealed,  what  can  be  expected  to  do  it  ?     And  surely,  if  there  were  such  mystery,   I   have  a 

1  Dupuis,  sur  tons  les  Cultes,  Vol.  III.  p.  251,  ed.  4to. 

*  Vide  Rev.  xi.  2,  3,  xii.  6,  14,  xiii.  5  ;  and  Calmet,  in  voce  Year  3  Vol.  I.  p.  186,  ap  R.  Taylor,  Dieg.  p.  52. 

«  2  Cor.  iii.  6,  ap.  Taylor,  ib.  4  Praep.  Evang.  Lib.  xii.  Cap.  xi.  6  Cap.  viii. 

4  E 


578  BISHOP    HORSLEY. 

right  to  endeavour  to  find  it  out :  and  I  am  certain  that  in  great  part,  at  least,   I  have  found  it 
out. 

20.  Bishop  Horsley  has  some  observations  upon  the  Sibylline  oracles,  which  are  deserving  of 
notice.  He  observes,  that  no  quotations  are  to  be  found  from  these  books  in  any  of  the  Heathen 
authors,  because  to  quote  them  was  a  capital  offence.  This  seems  a  satisfactory  reason  why  the 
acrostic  was  alluded  to  by  Cicero,  and  no  quotation  of  it  made.  But  it  is  no  reason  to  such  of 
the  Christians  as  sought  the  honour  of  martyrdom. 

On  this  subject,  it  is  said  in  a  note  of  the  Bishop's  book,  "  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that 
"  Celsus  charged  the  Christians  of  his  time  with  interpolating  the  Sibylline  books.  Origen 
"  challenges  him  to  support  the  accusation  by  specific  instances  of  the  fraud,  and  insinuates  that 
"  the  most  ancient  copies  of  those  books  had  the  passages  which  Celsus  esteemed  insertions  of  the 
■  Christians."  * 

There  seems  to  be  something  very  curious  respecting  a  pretended  debate  between  Celsus  and 
Origen,  in  which  I  think  we  may  find  a  little  uncommonly  well-managed  priestcraft  in  Lardner  and 
his  coadjutors.  The  reader  will  please  to  observe,  that  it  was  the  object  of  Lardner  to  run  down 
the  oracles,  as  it  was  the  object  of  Origen  to  support  them ;  and  therefore  he  really  wished  to 
prove  this  famous  Christian  Apologist  in  the  wrong  j  and,  in  so  doing,  to  take  the  merit  of  can- 
dour in  deciding  against  the  Christian  in  favour  of  the  Pagan — hoping  that  his  secret  reason  would 
not  be  perceived.  He  therefore  says,  that  Origen's  answer  to  Celsus  is  not  satisfactory.  Now 
how  stands  the  question  ?  Celsus  says,  the  oracles  are  interpolated,  Origen  replies  that  the  pas- 
sages in  dispute  are  in  all  the  copies,  and  that  Celsus  ought  to  have  produced  copies  in  which  the 
alleged  interpolations  are  not  found.  Now,  I  say  this  is  a  fair  and  satisfactory  answer  of  Origen's. 
For,  though  Celsus  was  dead  when  Origen  wrote,  yet  the  answer  must  have  been  meant  for  the 
followers  of  Celsus,  who  could  have  answered  Origen  as  easily  as  Celsus  could  have  done,  if  he 
had  been  alive,  by  saying  in  what  places  the  copies  not  interpolated  were.  And  if  they  had  not 
the  passages  called  interpolated,  they  could  at  once  say,  Look,  for  instance,  to  the  copy  in  the 
temple — which  was  in  the  custody  of  the  friends  of  Celsus.  Origen's  answer  is  a  challenge  to 
produce  it,  or  any  copies  not  interpolated ;  and  I  say  it  is  satisfactory,  according  to  the  received 
laws  of  modern  biblical  criticism.  Origen  could  not  be  expected  to  produce  copies,  which  he  said, 
and  his  argument  required  him  to  say,  did  not  exist ;  that  is,  copies  wanting  the  passages. 
Lardner  allows  Origen  to  fail  in  the  argument,  (knowing  that  he  did  not  fail  according  to  the  laws 
of  biblical  criticism,)  to  serve  his  own  purpose,  which  was  not  an  honest  one.  He  used  an  econo- 
mical argument. 

In  the  time  of  Origen  the  manuscript  of  the  oracles  must  have  been  in  the  temple  under  the 
statue  of  the  God,  and  in  the  keeping  of  the  Pagan  high-priest,  where  it  was  totally  impossible  for 
the  Christians  to  get  access  to  it.  And  yet  it  seems,  according  to  Justin,  that  this  manuscript 
contained  every  thing  which  had  been  done  by  Jesus  Christ.  If  we  admit  that  the  present  copy 
is  all  corrupt,  yet  we  must  allow  that  the  real  Sibyl  contained  the  same  in  substance  as  the  one 
we  have,  at  least  if  we  can  believe  Justin. 

The  Bishop  has  observed,  that  it  is  to  the  Cumaean  Sibyl  that  Virgil  refers  for  the  prediction, 
that  a  great  person  would  appear.  Now  this  is  true,  and  it  is  very  remarkable,  that  this  shews  a 
duplication  of  the  prophecy,  because  it  is  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  in  which  we  have  the  acrostic. 
This  proves  that  we  have  them  only  in  a  mutilated  state,  as  well  as  a  corrupted  one,  as  is  evident 
enough  :  but  this  cannot  apply  to  the  passages  relating,  as  Justin  says,  to  Jesus  Christ,  because 
they  must  have  been  in  the  copy  in  the  temple  which  was  not  destroyed  till  after  Justin's  time. 

1  Contra  Celsum,  pp.  368,  369,  E. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  I.    SECTION  20.  579 

The  Bishop  repeatedly  observes,  that  the  style  of  the  prophecy  is  exactly  that  of  the  Jewish 
prophets. l  This  justifies  me  in  what  I  have  said  about  Isaiah.  He  says,  "  The  sum  of  the 
"  character  is  the  same  in  both  :  in  its  nature  unequivocal,  and  such  as  even  in  the  general  outline 
"  could  not  possibly  belong  to  different  persons  in  the  same  age."  Before  this,  in  p.  17,  he  has 
shewn  from  dates,  that  this  use  of  the  prophecy  by  Virgil,  in  foretelling  a  child  to  be  born,  (how 
like  Isaiah's  !)  cannot  by  any  possibility  have  been  meant  at  that  time  for  Julius  Ccesar  or  for  any 
child  of  Pollio's.  It  shews  that  it  was  of  the  same  nature  as  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah.  But  if  we 
recollect  that  we  have  found  all  the  Gentile  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  many  of  their  most  recon- 
dite doctrines,  with  the  Jews,  it  is  not  very  surprising  that  what  may  be  called  their  mythologic 
prophecies  should  be  found  with  them  also.  When  the  Interpretatio  novi  Sceculi,  Virgil's  fourth 
Eclogue,  was  written  (U.  C.  7*4),  Nimrod  has  observed,  that  Octavius  had  not  laid  open 
claim2  to  the  supreme  power,  but  I  think  his  family  always  affected  it.  Nimrod  says3  he  believes, 
"  that  the  conduct  of  Octavius  flowed  from  the  same  superstition,  as  the  poem  which  Virgil  wrote 
"  the  same  year."  This  I  think  to  be  correct,  and  that  he  was  believed  to  be  the  presiding  Genius 
of  the  ninth  age,  as  Juvenal  properly  marked  it.  The  expectation  of  the  new  Iliums,  new 
Argonauts,  &c,  evidently  shews  a  knowledge  of  the  system.  It  is  much  the  fashion  to  abuse  Virgil 
for  baseness  and  servility,  and  he  may  have  been  both  base  and  servile,  but  I  think  it  very  likely 
that  he  really  believed  that  Augustus  was  the  promised  person.  I  shall,  however,  discuss  this 
matter  more  by  and  by,  when  I  examine  the  characters  of  the  first  two  Caesars. 

The  ultima  Cumaei  venit  jam  carminis  aetas  of  Virgil,  exactly  agrees  with  the  doctrine  of  Juve- 
nal, for  Virgil  announces,  that  the  end  of  the  age  sung  of  or  celebrated  by  the  Lady  of  Cuma  had 
arrived.  He  says,  "  The  last  age  (or  time)  of  the  Cumaean  verse  has  now  arrived."  The  Cumsean 
Sibyl  might  have  sung  of  the  eighth  age,  the  Erythraean  of  the  ninth  ;  but  both,  of  the  advent  of  an 
expected  Saviour, — new  Iliums,  new  Argonauts,  &c. :  and,  in  the  expression  of  Virgil,  if  I  rightly 
understand  it,  an  equivoque  is  included.  It  is  usually  construed  to  mean,  that  the  Cumsean  Sibyl 
sung  of  the  last  or  finishing  age  :  but  it  may,  and  no  doubt  did,  mean  also,  the  last  end  of  the  cycle 
or  age  celebrated  in  the  verses  of  Cuma ;  but  this  did  not  necessarily  mean  the  last  of  all  ages, 
past  and  future.  But  it  is  not  Cicero  only  who  recognizes  the  acrostic,  for  I  learn  from  Floyer 
in  his  Sibyls, 3  (who,  however  foolish,  is  a  very  useful  writer  for  authors  referred  to,)  that  the 
acrostic  was  noticed  by  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  who  lived  more  than  thirty  years  before 
Christ :  and  by  Varro,  who  lived  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty  :  and,  what  is  very  important, 
they  both  admit  that  there  were  disputes  about  the  acrostics  in  their  day, — some  persons  main- 
taining that  they  were  forgeries,4  others  the  contrary.  But  the  disputes  prove  the  existence  of 
the  acrostic.  The  disputes  are  what  we  might  expect :  the  followers  of  Scylla  would  maintain, 
that  he  was  the  benignant  Saviour  ;  the  contrary  party,  that  the  acrostic  was  a  forgery :  for,  it 
maybe  observed,  that  the  words  Iijersj  X^rjg"0£  or  Xpeifos  are  not  necessarily  a  proper  name. 
But  if  they  constitute  an  honorific  solar  title,  they  would  be  circumstanced  exactly  as  the  name  of 
Cyrus  was — a  solar  title  adopted  by  a  man — and  thus  it  might  be  given  to  Jesus  Christ,  or  to  any 
one  else. 

I  now  conclude  what  I  have  to  say  of  the  Sibyls,  but  it  has  naturally  brought  me  to  the  consi- 
deration of  Caesar,  who,  I  shall  shew,  was  a  ninth  Avatar.  But  before  I  proceed  to  the  proof,  I 
shall,  in  the  next  chapter,  discuss  many  preparatory  matters. 


1  Page  22.  «  Vol.  III.  p.  464.  J  P.  463.  4  Pref.  p.  xx. 

4e2 


580  Xorjj,  Chres 


CHAPTER  II. 

XpW,    CHRES. — INDIANS      IN    THRACE. — COLIDA. — CERES,   X/M}?. — SUBJECT    CONTINUED. — HERALD,    KERUX.— 

CHALDEANS  WHERE   FROM. — GOSEN. ERYTHRjEA,    DIU,    DIS. — COLLIDA    OF   SOUTH    INDIA.  —  INDIANS   IN 

THRACE. — RITTER. — MEANING   OF   THE   WORD   Xpvnq. —  CHERSONESUS. — MYTHOS   IN   AFRICA,   MARCUS. 

GAZA-MERE. — BACCHUS. 

1.  In  the  first  chapter  of  Book  VII.,  on  the  Ionians,  it  was  observed,  that  the  city  of  Amphipolis 
near  the  Strymon  in  Macedonia,  was  called  by  the  names  of  Chryso-polis  and  Orpheus.     Now  I 
think  this  Chrysopolis  is  the  same  as  Xprjr0?  or  Xpj(ro£-7roXj£,  and  we  have  here  the  city  of  the 
Xpjs"0£  or  good  Genius,  the  Messiah  Cyrus.     We  see  here  the  Xpjro£  or  Xprjcoc  converted  into 
the  X.pi?og  or  Xpj<ro£. 

In  Polydore  Virgil l  is  the  following  passage:  Alii  demum  sine  conjugibus  degere,  ut  quidam 
Thraces,  qui  CtisTjE,  id  est,  creatores  vocantur:  et  Esseni,  tertium  apud  Judaeos  philosophorum 
genus.  The  following  is  the  translation  of  Thomas  Langley.2  "  Some  people  lived  single,  as  cer- 
"  tain  nations  called  Crjste  and  Esseni  among  the  Hebrews,  which  did  abhor  the  calamities  and 
"  trouble  in  marriage."  This  shews  that  the  Ctistae  is  an  error  of  the  press  and  ought  to  be  Cristae : 
and  here  we  have  probably  the  Christian  monks  in  Thrace,  ancestors  of  the  monks  of  mount  Athos, 
long  before  the  time  of  Christ. 

If  we  turn  to  Scapula  we  shall  find  that  p£p]T'S  and  p£p?J0~*£  have  precisely  the  same  significa- 
tion, and  are  convertible  terms.  In  short,  it  is  evident  that  they  are  used  indiscriminately  for  one 
another.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  in  the  very  early  times,  perhaps  before  the  invention  of 
letters,  when  the  names  of  places  first  took  their  rise,  the  same  strictness  in  the  pronunciation,  or 
at  first,  after  the  invention  of  letters,  the  same  strictness  in  the  writing  of  them,  took  place,  as  was 
observed  by  the  Greeks  when  they  became,  in  regard  to  their  language,  the  most  fastidious  people 
in  the  world.  It  has  been  shewn  that  the  Tau  in  the  ancient  languages  was  constantly  written  by 
a  cross.  For  reasons  which  will  appear  hereafter,  I  think  the  root  of  the  XP"*1S  has  been  TPS-XPS. 
It  was  the  constant  practice  of  the  Greeks  to  soften  the  harsh  sounds  of  their  language.  Thus 
Pelasgos  became  Pelagos,  Casmillos  Camillos,  Nesta  Nessa,  Cristos  Crissos ;  where  a  strong  con- 
sonant comes  after  the  <r,  it  is  often  dropped.  Kyvaxrrog  became  ignotus,  the  island  of  Xp?jr0S 
X^roc,  the  country  of  Crestonia  had  its  capital  Crisa  and  its  port  Crysos.  In  the  Eastern  lan- 
guages we  find  Hindo-stan,  Chusi-stan,  Turque-stan.  In  the  West,  where  the  Greek  prevailed, 
we  have  Mauritania,  Aquitania,  Bri-tania.  We  can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  stem  and  tan  are  the 
same.     We  have  the  town  of  Cressa  in  the  tan  or  stan  of  Ores. 

Cortona  in  Tuscany  was  formerly  Croton, 3  from  Croston,  Croton  j  Tyrseni,  Tyrrheni ;  Hetrusci, 
Hetrurii;  Creste,  Crete.  The  identity  of  the  Cretans  and  the  Cressseans  is  proved  by  their  traditions, 
that  the  latter  came  from  Crete.4  The  same  effect  is  found  in  other  languages;  for  instance,  in 
the  English,  Fasten,  Fassen  ;  Whitsunday,  Wissunday;  Christening,  Chrissening.  With  the  Chal- 
deans the  Sigma  and  Tau  were  convertible,  as  in  Tur  and  Sur,  and  in  Assyria  called  Aturia,  as 
Dion  Cassius  has  observed.5     I  suspect  it  was  from  the  indiscriminate  use  of  these  two  letters  that 

1  Typis  Jacobi  Stoer,  imnensis,  Nicolai  Bassei,  M.  D.  X.  C.  Cap.  IIII.  p.  21.  *  Printed  Anno  1551,  fol.  x. 

3  Ency.  Brit  Vol  I.  p.  729.  *  See  Philological  Musaeum,  No.  I.  p.  143. 

*  Apud  Drummond,  Orig.  Vol.  I.  p.  152. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  2.  581 

at  last  the  sigmatau  arose.  The  S  was  not  only  in  Chaldaic  and  Syriac,  but  also  in  Greek  so  fre- 
quently changed  into  the  T,  that  Lucian  composed  a  dialogue  upon  it. *  In  the  Latin  language,  in 
old  manuscripts,  the  c  and  the  t  are  often  written  indiscriminately ;  as,  for  instance,  initiate  with  a  c. 
From  this,  T  think,  came  the  French  9,  which  is  really  in  figure  nothing  but  the  sigmatau  of  the 
Greeks.2  But  though  T  have  met  with  an  assertion  that  the  sigma  and  the  sigmatau  were  used 
indiscriminately  by  early  Greeks,  I  rather  believe  the  change  was  from  XpT}$os  to  %pr)<ros,  and 
Xpi^og  to  Xf>i<ros,  conformably  to  the  practice  of  softening,  similar  to  that  of  Casmillos  to  Camillos, 
of  Nestos  to  Nessos,  &c.  The  sigma  has  something  very  particular  about  it ;  it  is  neither  a  mute, 
liquid,  nor  aspirate ;  therefore  it  has  been  called  solitarium.  It  partakes  something  of  the  sound 
of  the  Theta,  and,  accordingly,  we  find  that  it  was  frequently  employed  by  the  Lacedaemonians 
for  that  aspirate.  Thus  Aristoph.  Lysistr.  1302,  AxoXXco  <nov— 1303,  Atravav.3  This,  I  think, 
in  part  accounts  for  the  indiscriminate  use  of  the  Sigma  and  the  Tau,  and  the  rise  of  the  Sigma- 
tau. 

Col.  Van  Kennedy4  says,  "As  long,  therefore,  as  the  etymologist  confines  his  identifications  of 
**  words  to  those  only  which  agree  in  sound  and  meaning,  he  proceeds  on  the  surest  grounds." 
Now  where  I  cannot  proceed  on  sound  and  meaning,  I  have  proceeded  on  identity  of  letters  and 
meaning.  I  have  shewn  that  the  letters  are  identical,  or  are  those  letters  which,  in  the  use  of  the 
alphabets,  have  actually,  in  each  case,  been  exchanged :  as  C  for  G,  as  Camel  for  Gamel,  H  for  Ch, 
or  Heth  for  He,  &c,  &c. — the  latter  example  evidently  a  corruption,  and  the  former,  the  third 
letter  in  each  alphabet — identified  by  its  position,  the  third,  and  its  power  of  notation,  3. 

2.  I  have  already  proved  that  Thrace  was  peopled  by  a  colony  from  North  India ;  and,  that  the 
Xpi5"0£  or  Cristna  or  holy  person  appertaining  to  the  latter  country  was  crucified.     From  this,  I 
think,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  on  that  account  it  was  accounted  xpyzys  in  its  sense  of  a  prophet 
or  an  oracular  or  benignant  person.     It  was  a  holy  land;  in  every  thing  as  far  as  possible  an  imi- 
tation of  a  holy  land  in  India.     In  some  maps  it  is  written  Grestonia,  and  a  little  to  the  North  the 
Greaei  are  placed,  and  in  the  Peninsula  of  Mount  Athoa  is  Crosseea,  often  written  Cryssaea. 5    Jesus 
was  sometimes  called  Chrostus,  that  is,  Chrost  or  Crost,  and  the  district  noticed  above  called  Cros- 
seea, was  probably  Crost-ia ;  both  evidently  corruptions.     In  the  country  where  the  sacred  Stry- 
mon  or  Palestinus  or  Ioneus  runs,  there  is  a  Doab  or  Mesopotamia,  formed  by  the  Strymon,  or 
more  largely  by  the  Nessus,  and  the  Haliacmon  or  Ioni-cora;  it  is  called  Sintica,  and  by  Ptolemy 
Sindus,  which  is  Sinde,  a  corruption  of  the  Sinde  or  country  of  Indus  of  Asia.     It  had  also  another 
most  important  name  which  I  take  to  be  its  first  name — Crestona  or  Crestonia,6  that  is,  Creston-ia, 
which  means  the  country  of  Creston  or  the  good  Genius  or  Crestus.     By  D'Anville  it  was  called 
Grestonia,  and  its  capital  Cryssa.     My  reader  will  recollect  what  I  have  said  of  Cristna  having  his 
name  from  the  idea  of  good  Genius.     This  Crestonia  is  a  very  sacred  district;  in  it  is  the  town 
called  Chrysopolis  or,  as  I  have  before  shewn,  Chrystopolis,  i.  e.  Chrystos-polis.     This  town  was 
also  called  Eion  or  Adon,  and  Iambolior  Emboli,  the  same  name  as  the  town  of  Emboli-ma  on  the 
Indus,  and  Ioni-keni,  and  Orpheus,7  Or-phi,  the  voice  of  Aur,  or  of  the  oracle  of  Orus  and  Iona, 
and  Amphi-polis,   or  city  of  Amphi  or  Omphi,  or  the  Om,  or  the  voice  or  oracle  of  Om.     The 
district  around  it  was  called  Edon  or  H<W<Sa,  the  same  as  the  Garden  of  Eden  ;  and,  as   I  have 
just  said,  the  country  in  which  it  stands  is  called  Crestonia8  and  Sintica.     In  this  district  stands 
a  town  called  Heraclea  Sintica.9     There  is  also  adjoining  to  the  country  of  Crestonia,  a  Bothaea, 


»  Hagar,  Diss.  Bab.  Brick,  p.  49.  *  Astle,  p.  81.  3  Dunbar,  Gr.  and  Lat.  Lang.  p.  22. 

4  Origin  of  Lang.  p.  239.  *  Smith's  Classical  Atlas.  6  Rennell,  D'Anville. 

7  Bryant,  Anal.  VII.  p.  129.  8  Reimell.  9  D'Anville. 


582  INDIANS   IN   THRACE. 

that  is  Buddhaea.  I  have  before  noticed  that  all  the  monumental  inscriptions  found  by  Spon  in 
this  district,  called  Larissa  Pelasgica,  had,  at  the  top  of  them,  the  mystic  word  Xprjg-og,  and  at  the 
bottom  the  equally  mystic  word  Hpcog.  This  was  precisely  similar  to  the  practice  of  the  Romans 
in  placing  the  letters  D.  M.  at  the  head  of  their  sepulchral  monuments.  This  was  evidently  a 
country  sacred  to  the  God  of  Delphi,  the  Ie  or  Ii  or  Jah  of  the  Hebrews,  which  is  the  name  we 
find  used  for  the  God  of  the  Hindoos,  either  by  itself,  or  compounded  with  some  other  word. 

The  whole  country  of  Crestonia  may  be  correctly  called  a  Doab  or  Mesopotamia,  as  I  have  just 
said,  formed  on  the  West  by  the  Axius  or  Oxus,  or  more  largely  by  the  Haliacmon,  now  Ioni- 
cora,  and  on  the  East  by  the  Nessus,  on  which  stands  the  city  of  Nyssus,  and  Nico-polis,  which 
shew  the  real  name  of  the  river.  These  rivers,  noticed  by  me  in  Book  IX.  Ch.  V.  Sect.  8,  flow  from 
a  chain  of  mountains  called  Bactriana  or  Balk  l  or  Balkan,  and  through  them  is  a  pass  called 
Chumla,  the  very  names  of  the  mountains,  and  a  pass  through  them,  on  the  North  of  India,  lead- 
ing to  the  country  where  the  above-named  places  are  found.  In  this  Mesopotamia  of  Greece  are 
Mounts  PAX-gceus  and  BAL-beus  and  Tri-cala,  all  Indian  names.  In  Mount  Bal-beus  was  the 
town  before  noticed  called  Heraclea  Sintica2  (i.  e.  the  Indian  Heraclea).  The  promontory  on 
which  Byzantium  stood  was  called  Cryso-ceras  j  and  the  present  Scutari,  opposite  to  it,  was 
called  Chryso-polis.  The  circumstance  of  the  Chryso-polis  being  in  the  district  of  Crestonia, 
proves  what  I  have  before  said  to  be  true,  that  Chrysopolis  ought  to  be  Chrestopolis,  and  the  letters 
i  and  y  ought  to  be  the  7)  ;  and,  that  they  were  not  sacred  to  Gold  or  called  from  Gold,  but  that 
they  were  sacred  to  the  good  Genius,  or  called  from  the  good  Genius,  and  that,  therefore,  origi- 
nally the  name  was  Chrestopolis.  It  was,  probably,  in  reference  to  this  superstition  that  Constan- 
tine  selected  this  place  for  his  city. 

The  tablet  on  which  is  the  inscription  with  the  Xpjr0?  and  HPGS,  was  found  by  Dr.  Clarke 
in  a  place  where  I  should  expect  to  find  it ;  at  Delphi,  in  the  temple  of  the  God  called  IE.3  Under 
Parnassus,  in  a  Gymnasium,  where  a  monastery  called  Pana-ja  (a  name  sufficiently  Oriental- 
Hindoo  I  should  think)  now  stands  j  adjoining  to  the  Castalian  fountain  which  flowed  by  the  ruins 
of  Crissa,  probably  the  town  called  Crestona,  into  the  Crissaean  Bay,  i.  e.  Cresta  and  Crestiae  bay. 
Dr.  Clarke  has  observed  what  I  should  have  expected  to  find,  that  the  foundations  of  the  ruins  at 
Delphi  are  Cyclopaean.  The  spelling  of  the  Xf>y$os  on  the  Tablet,  and  of  the  district  Cres-tonia, 
clearly  prove  that  the  word  Crissaean  and  Crista  are  the  same. 

In  Dr.  Clarke's  map,  Delphi,  or  a  place  close  to  it,  is  called  Crissa;  and  an  ancient  scholiast 
upon  Pindar  affirms,  that  under  the  name  of  Crissa,  the  city  of  Delphi  was  designated.  This  is  a 
most  important  fact,  but  it  is  nothing  but  what  other  circumstances  would  lead  us  to  expect. 4  I 
think  I  may  assume  that  the  Xpjf  oc  on  the  tomb  of  the  youth  of  Larissa  was  the  name  of  Apollo  : 
but  we  have  his  priest  called  Chryses,  not  Chrystes.  In  Guzerat  or  Syra-strene  there  are  a 
place  called  Iuna-stan  and  a  district  called  Larice,  In  Thrace  there  were  a  town  called  Iona,  and 
a  place  called  Larissa,  names  evidently  the  same.  In  the  Indian  Larice  the  Palli  were  located,  and 
there  is  a  town  called  Palli-stana.    Not  far  from  the  part  of  Thrace  above-named  were  situated  the 


1  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Turks  have  given  the  name  of  Balk  and  Chumla  to  the  places  in  Mount  Hsernus,  in 
remembrance  of  the  places  which  they  left  in  their  own  country,  because  they  never  possessed  the  Eastern  places  of  this 
name.    Their  residence  was  beyond  the  mountains  to  the  North. 

*  Heraclea,  in  Lat.  39±,  Long.  49|,  the  Turks  now  call  Ereklu  (See  D'Anville.)  Another  town  in  Long.  44£,  Lat. 
about  40f,  is  called  Heraclitza.    Heraclea  Sintica  is  now  Serae,  or  qu.  Tricala? 

3  We  must  not  forget  that  all  orthodox  persons  maintain  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Jehovah  incarnated ;  that  is,  the 
IE  incarnated,  whom  they  call  Jah. 

*  Travels  in  Greece,  Ch.  vi.  p.  183,  4to. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER    II.     SECTION   2.  583 

Palli  or  Pallestini ;  and  the  Strymon  was  called  Pallestinos,  and  near  it  was  Larissa.  In  Guzerat 
is  a  mount,  a  place  called  Satrun-ja.  Here,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  is  the  Saturn  of  the  Latins 
and  Greeks.  Not  far  from  the  Strymon  is  the  promontory  of  Mount  Athos,  which  is  the  very  pic- 
ture of  Guzerat,  and  on  each  is  a  town  of  Diu  or  Dium,  and  near  the  latter  an  island  of  Diu,  and 
both  are  sacred  isles  or  districts.  Athos  is  the  Egyptian  Goddess  Athor1  the  Mother,  and  close 
to  Guzerat  is  a  river,  called  anciently  Mais,  now  Myie,  or  Maia,  or  Maria.  And  what  marks  the 
similarity  more  between  the  Sinde  or  Indus  of  Thrace,  and  the  Sinde  or  Indus  of  the  East,  and  in- 
deed puts  identity  out  of  doubt,  is,  that  Herodotus  informs  us  that,  in  his  time,  like  the  Indian 
wives  now,  the  Thracian  wives  were  sacrificed  on  the  death  of  their  husbands,  and  that  it  was  a 
point  of  contest  among  the  wives  which  should  have  the  privilege.  This  I  think  completes  the 
picture.  The  Thracians  of  rank  were  generally  burnt  after  their  death,  and  their  ashes  put  in  urns 
and  buried  in  tumuli.  This  practice  is  noticed  by  Solinus2  and  Herodotus.3  Stobaeus,4  who 
cites  Herodotus,  says,  that  the  case  of  the  Thracian  women  was  exactly  parallel  with  that  of  the 
wives  in  India,  for  they  were  burnt  with  their  husbands.  There  is  also  a  passage  of  Mela5  which 
I  think  can  mean  nothing  else;  but  the  words  fatumjacentis,  used  by  him,  are  of  doubtful  import. 6 
The  Indian  practice,  I  believe,  was  known  to  Diodorus,  Cicero,  Propertius,  Strabo,  and  Plutarch.7 
The  Jupiter  Patroos  at  Larissa,  (Zevg  Uurpcoos  of  Pausanias,)  was  represented  with  three  eyes : 
this  is  evidently  Indian. 

In  the  Arabic  language  of  the  Koran  Jesus  Christ  is  called  Ischa.  From  this  has  come  the 
word  Larice  or  Larissa.  The  word  Lar  is  in  fact  Lord — a  word  I  shall  explain  hereafter.  The 
whole  name  has  arisen  from  the  regimine  style  of  the  Hebrew,  to  which  in  fact  the  names  of  al- 
most all  cities  and  proper  names  are  to  be  attributed.  Larissa  was  the  country  of  the  Lar-ischa 
the  Lord  Ischa,  or  the  Saviour  Lord,  from  the  Hebrew  yttf>  iso,  to  save.  Thus  it  became  the 
country  called  Lar-ischa.  We  only  know  the  names  of  most  places  from  the  sacred  books  of 
the  respective  countries,  and  thus  we  only  know  their  sacred  or  mythic  names.  There  were  no 
books  before  the  time  of  Herodotus,  which  were  not  merely  mythic,  although  called  historical. 
And  as  there  was  an  universal  mythos,  we  find  the  universal  mythos  every  where  shewing  itself 
in  the  names  of  places.  I  do  not  remember  one  of  the  Gods  of  the  Western  world,  who  had  not 
the  title  of  Saviour,  as  Zevg,  Sajrqp.  In  the  same  way  we  find  most  of  the  Gods  of  India  to  have 
the  word  iswara  or  iswati  attached  to  their  names  ;  for  instance,  Sara-iswati,  Buddhiswara, 8 
which  our  Indian  scholars  tell  us,  means  Lord,  and,  when  applied  to  the  female  Sarah,  a  mere 
title  of  honour,  as  Lady.  This,  as  I  have  previously  remarked,  is  nothing  but  the  Hebrew  and 
Greek  word  for  Saviour,  yttf>  iso  and  £aco  to  save,  with  a  local,  an  Indian,  termination. 

I  think  the  words  Venus  and  Cupid  were  often  used  for  the  same  idea,  and  also  the  Indian  Cama, 
and  the  word  Ischa  the  wife  of  Abraham,  and  the  Arabic  name  of  Jesus.  This  almost  identifies 
the  benignus  Xp?j£,  with  the  saviour  Isis.  In  the  same  way  Kanyia  was  the  name  of  the  Indian 
Venus,  but  it  was  also  the  name  of  Cristna.  From  a  passage  in  Burckhardt's  Travels  in  Arabia9 
[  think  the  adoration  of  the  mother  and  child,  the  latter  called  Aysa,  must  have  prevailed  in  the 
emple  of  Mecca  before  the  time  of  Mohamed.  The  ancient  name  of  the  temple  was  Beitullah, 
touse  of  God. 10  Solis  et  Lunae  nomina  in  sacra  literali  Brahminica  lingua  omnia  sunt  generis 
basculini.     Bartholomeus11  says,  Chandre  seu  Soma,  Luna  Brahmanibus  masculini  generis. 12 


1  Drumniond,  Punic  Inscrip.  *  Cap.  xv.  3  Lib.  v.  p.  183,  ed.  Steph. 

'  Cap.  cxx.  p.  521.  5  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  ii. 

From  the  very  valuable  collection  of  most  learned  manuscript  treatises  of  the  late  Mr.  Moyle,  now  in  the  posses- 
on  of  Sir  J.  Copley,  of  Spotsborough,  Bart ,  his  descendant,  to  which  1  have  before  referred. 
7  I  quote  these  names  from  memory.  8  Tod,  p.  519.  9  P.  164,  4to.  ,0  lb.  p.  165. 

"  Syst.  Brach.  p.  2.  »*  lb.  p.  /. 


584  COLADI. 

Neanthes  Cyzicenus  writing  concerning  the  Macedonian  priests  says,  they  invoke  Bs8u  to  be 
propitious  to  their  children. *      This  Bso\>  is  Buddha. 

I  have  just  now  noticed  a  town  called  Heraclea :  this  leads  me  to  repeat  an  observation  on  the 
termination,  by  the  word  cula.  We  have  Jani-cw/a  or  the  cula  of  Janus  ;  we  have  Hera-culas 
without  end  in  the  West ;  and  we  have  the  Hera-culas  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  in  India,  where 
we  have  also  Igni-culas,  and  Tri-calas  or  Tri-culas.  I  have  in  another  place  derived  the  word 
Hercules  from  Heri  the  saviour  and  do — the  Chaldee  y^3  do  :  D  k  finalrz500,  b  I — 30,  y  o=70= 
600.  Then  Mount  Janicula  would  be,  the  mount  of  the  cycle  sacred  to  Janus;  Igni  or  Agni-cula, 
the  cycle  of  the  Saviour  or  of  the  Lamb,  (as  I  have  shewn  was  the  meaning  of  the  Sanscrit  word 
Agni  in  the  Yajna  sacrifice,)  or  of  Fire,  or  the  sacred  Sol,  invictus,  the  Saviour  :  and  Tri-clo,  or 
the  cycle  sacred  to  the  Trimurti  or  Trinity.  If  this  is  accused  of  being  very  mystical,  I  reply,  It 
is  not  more  mystical  than  the  increase  and  decrease  of  Jesus  and  John  at  the  equinoxes  and  sol- 
stices ;  or  than  the  baptism  by  fire  and  the  Holy  Ghost — all  parts  of  the  same  mythos. 

3.  Mr.  Bryant  shews  that  the  Gymnosophistae  JEthiopum  are  mentioned  by  Hieronymus,2  and 
that  they  extended  from  the  Indus  to  the  Ganges  under  the  name  of  Ethiopians  and  Eryth- 
r^ans.  He  adds,  they  resided,  according  to  Arrian,  below  Carmania,  in  the  mouth  of  the  great 
river,  near  the  island  Crocale. 3 

Again, 4  he  says,  "  Arrian,  Hist.  Indie,  p.  336,  Oras  tenent  ab  Indo  ad  Gangem  Palibothri  : 
"  a  Gange  ad  Colida  (or  Colchida)  atrae  gentes,  et  quodam  modo  ^Ethiopes.  Pomp.  Mela.  Lib. 
"  Hi.  Cap.  vii.  They  worshiped  Zeus  Ombrios.  Strabo,  Lib.  xv.  p.  1046.  He  mentions  the 
"  promontory  Tamus,  and  the  island  Chruse.  Tamus  was  the  name  of  the  chief  Egyptian 
"  Deity  :  the  same  as  Thamuz  of  Syria." 

The  words  in  parenthesis  (or  Colchida)  are  Mr.  Bryant's. 

Here  we  have  the  Buddhists  or  Gymnosophists,  in  the  tenent  oras,  they  hold  the  coast,  and  from  the 
Indus  to  the  Ganges.  This  clearly  points  out  the  Guzerat  of  Syrastrene,  or  Palli-tana.  Here  we 
have  also  the  island  Cro-CALE  and  the  island  Chruse.  The  termination  of  the  first  is  almost  the 
same  as  the  Agni-cula,  and  Heri-cula,  whom  we  found  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  and  the  Jani-cula 
of  Rome,  of  the  mount  which  had  the  nomen  Janicula  in  Saturn-ia,  near  Palli-tana,  both  in  Italy 
and  in  India ;  and,  in  the  Zeus  Ow-brios  of  India,  we  have  the  OM-bri  of  Italy. 

Pliny 5  says,  without  the  mouth  of  the  river  Indus  two  other  islands  there  be  called  Chryse  and 
Agyrae.  These  people  have  the  same  name  as  the  Greasi  in  Mount  Athos  named  in  Smith's  Classi- 
cal Atlas. 6  Again  he  says,  that  there  is  a  country  of  the  Cryseans,  whom  he  places  on  the  East  of 
the  upper  part  of  the  Indus.  The  Cryseans  here  mentioned,  are  positively  nothing  but  Crestians  or 
Christians.  The  country  on  the  North-east  of  the  Sinus  Thermaicus  is  called  Crossaea  and  Chal- 
cidiee,  and  the  point,  the  peninsula,  is  called  Pallene,  prius  Phlegra.  I  think  we  have,  at  last, 
found  the  famous  St.  Thomas  of  the  Portuguese  in  the  promontory  Tamus  :  and  when  I  consider 

'  Georgius,  Alp.  Tib.  p.  127.  2  Lib.  iv.  in  Ezekiel,  Cap.  xiii. 

3  But  the  Gymnosophistae  ^Ethiopum  were  also  found  in  the  Isle  of  Meroe  (Maria  or  Meru,  or  perhaps  the  Mere 
of  the  Ethiopians)  above  Egypt. 
*  Vol.  III.  p.  211. 

5  He  also  says,  that  Rome  had  a  secret  name,  and  that  where  Rome  now  standeth  was  formerly  a  city  called  Sa- 
turnia,  which  is  the  same  as  the  city  of  Surastrene,  called  Satrun-ja.  Rome  was,  correctly  speaking,  the  Saturnian 
kingdom,  its  capital  being  placed  on  Mons  Saturnia,  afterward  called  Mons  Capitolina.  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  226. 
When  I  find  this  city  of  Roma  in  Saturnia  in  Italy,  and  the  Saturnia  of  Rama  in  India,  followed  by  the  two  histories  of 
a  black  infant  God,  born  of  an  immaculate  conception,  crucified  and  raised  frpm  the  dead,  and  both  bearing  the  same 
name— Crist— it  is  impossible  not  to  believe  in  the  identity  of  the  mythoses. 

6  Chap.  xxi. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  II.    SECTION  3.  585 

many  other  very  extraordinary  circumstances  which  have  been  detailed  in  this  work,  and  contem- 
plate the  ignorant  mistakes  of  the  Greeks,  I  am  compelled  to  suspect  that  the  Cro-cale  and  the 
Chruse  are  the  same,  and  near  the  island  of  Diu,  the  same  as  the  Diu  of  Mount  Athos  ;  and  that 
they  ought  to  be  represented  by  the  Greek  word  XP^S  or  chres-tos  a  Chrys-opolis.  The  word 
XpVS  has  the  same  meaning  as  the  word  Div.  And  I  think  the  island  of  Cruse  is  the  same  as  the 
Diu  of  Guzerat  and  of  the  Diu  of  Mount  Athos  and  Crestonia  of  Thrace.  I  know  that  I  am  taking 
a  great  liberty  with  the  words  Cro  and  Crus,  but  I  only  state  my  own  feeling  that  I  have  a  sus- 
picion. Some  persons  will  feel  much  where  others  feel  little  or  nothing.  I  merely  state  facts 
and  leave  them  to  the  reader.  The  word  Crus  changed  from  XP^i  ^s  Dy  n0  means  so  great  a 
corruption  as  many  which  we  have  ;  and  when  I  reconsider  what  has  been  said  respecting  the 
promontory  of  Taurus,  the  black  Cristna  in  India,  the  black  Crist  or  Crest  at  Loretto,  &c,  &c,  in 
Italy,  I  cannot  help  concluding  that  the  XP^^S  of  Greece  may  increase  the  number  of  Mr.  Van 
Kennedy's  Sanscrit  words  in  Greek  from  300  to  301.  In  Siam,  where  we  have  found  a  mount 
Sian  and  its  capital  called  Judia,  Ptolemy  gives  us  also  a  river  called  Fluv — Cresoana,  that  is,  the 
river  Creston.     In  some  maps  it  is  called  only  Soan. 

The  name  of  the  Hindoo  God  Cristna  is  spelt  in  various  ways,  so  that  it  is  not  in  my  power  to 
discover  which  is  the  most  proper ;  but  Vallancey,  in  Ireland,  and  Sir  W.  Jones,  have  spelt  it 
Creeshna,  which  Mr.  Maurice  says  it  ought  to  be.  This  has  a  strong  tendency  to  identify  it  with 
the  XPVS  of  the  West ;  indeed,  it  does  identify  it.  I  hope  after  Mr.  Volney  has  been  abused  in 
very  gross  language  by  Mr.  Maurice,  for  not  calling  him  Creeshna,  I  shall  not  be  turned  upon  and 
abused  for  calling  him  what  these  gentlemen  say  is  his  true  name. 

My  reader  will  probably  have  anticipated  an  observation  which  I  am  going  to  make  on  the 
above  ;  but  whether  to  attribute  it  to  premeditation  or  not,  I  do  not  know :  we  have  in  India  a 
Chres  or  good  genius  who  is  a  man  crucified,  and  we  have  in  Europe  a  man  crucified  who  is  the 
XPVS  or  g°od  genius.     But,  respecting  the  crucified  saviours,  more  hereafter. 

The  learned  German,  Ritter,  has  observed,  that  Dodona  is  often  written  Bodona,  from  which  he 
makes  Buddha.  Herodotus  says,  that  Dodona  was  Ap^aioraTov  rcov  ev  'EXA^tr*  XPri^7iPlwv' 
I  believe  the  word  xpyl^Pl(OV  can  mean  nothing  but  holy  places  or  places  of  the  XP^^Si  and  this 
connects  the  Buddha  and  the  xpijff.  Bodona  or  Dodona  is  said  by  Ritter  to  be  placed  in  the 
country  of  Cestrina.  This  must  be  a  corruption  of  Crest-ina.  It  is  a  change  not  greater  than 
Crestona  to  Cortona.  £-£  was  called  XP^W0V^  and  was  the  monogram  both  of  Christ  and 
Jupiter  Ammon.    Thus  we  find  the  same  X^°S  in  Egypt,  Greece,  and  India. 

The  name  of  Sind  or  India  was  given  to  the  Promontory,  absurdly  called  peninsula,  of  India,  by 
the  Greeks,  because  it  was  the  name  of  all  the  part  with  which  they  were  originally  acquainted  ; 
)ut  its  Sanscrit  name  was  Bharata.2  This  is  the  Hebrew  ma  brit  x>  ia,  and  means  pure  or  holy 
ountry  or  land.  It  is  derived  from  the  Hebrew  jtq  bra,  creator.  Thus  the  country  which  Abra- 
ham left  was  called  by  his  ancestors  the  Holy  Land,  and  thus  his  successors,  in  like  manner,  gave 
he  same  name  to  their  new  residence— the  Holy  Land,  which  we  call  it  to  this  day.  Wars  of 
lahabarat  mean  the  wars  of  the  great  Creator,  in  the  Hebrew  the  wars  of  the  Lord,  jtq  bra. 
>arat  is  the  proper  name  ;  Maha  means  magnus,  great. 

Authors  have  found  great  difficulty  in  an  expression  of  Herodotus's.    Speaking  of  a  people  of 
taly,  he  says,  "  The  Crestoniates  (which  some  would  read  Cortoniates)  and  the  Placians,  the 

remnants  of  that  nation,  although  they  speak  one  and  the  same  language,  are  not  intelligible  to 


1  Apud  Basnage,  B.  iii.  Ch.  xxiii.,  Scaliger  in  Euseb.  Chron.  *  Rennell,  Mem.  Introd.  p.  xx. 

4  F 


586  CERES,  Xp>]£. 

"  those  who  live  around  them."1  Niebuhr  thinks  Creston  meant  Cortona.3  This  is  probably 
correct,  and  serves  to  account  for  the  Indian  temples  at  Paestum,  with  the  unknown  Linga  and 
Yoni  found  there  by  Lieut.-Col.  Tod,  as  well  as  for  their  Janus,  Saturnia  regna,  &c,  &c.  All 
this  tends  to  prove  that  the  same  people  who  came  to  Italy,  also  came  to  Thrace. 

When  the  striking  similarity  of  the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  to  those  of  the  Christians  is  consi- 
dered, it  will  not  be  thought  surprising  that  the  place  in  Italy  where  he  founded  his  school 
was  called  Crotona,  which,  as  appears  above,  some  would  read  ^pvjrova.  In  the  south  point  of 
Italy,  the  town  which  in  our  map  is  called  Cortona  is  called  Crotona. 

In  their  invocations  the  Hindoos  chaunt  forth  the  cry  Rhada  Krishn  !  Rhada  Krishn  !  and  Col. 
Broughton  says,  this  has  a  much  more  holy  meaning  than  the  name  Kunya  (i.  e.  Col.  Tod's 
Kanya).  I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  Rhada  is  the  Latin  Radius  and  Krishn  the  Greek  /£§>)£, 
benignant,  and  Hebrew  D"in  hrs  the  solar  fire.  Kun-ya  or  Kunieya  is  the  Apollo  Cunnius,  the 
IE  on  the  temple  of  Delphi;  the  word  Cun  having  the  same  meaning  as  Rhadha3  — jointly  an 
androgynous  Deity.  Col.  Broughton  says,  Kan  is  one  of  the  numerous  appellations  of  Krishna. 
Again,  Kunue,  ee,  or  Kunya  "  the  beloved."  Here  is  most  clearly  the  Chaldee  emphatic  article.4 
Vallancey 5  has  proved  that  the  Indian  Eeswar  is  the  Irish  Aosfhear,  pronounced  Eesvear  and 
the  Etruscan  Esar :  and  that  "  the  Bramanick  Kreeshna,  an  incarnation  of  the  Deity,  is  the 
"  Irish  Crisean,  holt/,  pure ;"  whence  Crisean  a  priest.  Here  I  think  we  have  the  origin  of 
Caesar,  and  Hesus  of  Gaul ;  and  when  I  reflect  on  what  has  been  shewn  respecting  the  Crysos 
by  Mr.  Bryant,  and  the  indiscriminate  use  of  the  <r  and  r  by  early  Greeks  noticed  before,  I 
cannot  help  feeling  that  here  is  a  strong  confirmation  of  the  identity  of  the  Krishna  of  India  and  the 
Xprjr°£  of  Delphi. 

We  must  not  forget  that  the  black  Apollo  of  Delphi  was  called  by  the  Hebrew  word  IE  and 
also  by  the  name  Cunnius  ;  that  we,  in  a  neighbouring  country,  found  the  people  sacrificing  their 
wives  ;  that  these  people  were  called  Sindi ;  that  this  black  Apollo  is  called  on  the  tomb  of  the 
Youth  of  Larissa  Xp7js-o£,  and  that  we  found  a  Chrys  in  Youdia  of  India.  All  these  matters  con- 
sidered, I  come  to  the  belief  that  when  the  Brahmins  perfected  their  Sanscrit,  on  the  foundation 
of  the  old  language  of  the  country,  they  applied  to  the  word  Kris  the  meaning  black  or  dark  blue; 
but  that  its  original  meaning  was  benignus,  mitis.  In  the  Hebrew,  the  word  d*13  krs  or  \tni  krs 
has  the  same  meaning  as  AsA<po£,  which  again  brings  us  to  to  the  Cun-ie-ya.  Col.  Broughton's 
assertion,  that  Kanya  means  beloved,  looks  very  like  the  Greek  Upatg,  on  the  tomb  of  the  Youth 
of  Larissa,  in  opposition  to  the  Xpv}£  at  the  top. 6 

4.  In  the  Celsic  Druids,  Chap.  V.  Sect.  XV.,  I  have  shewn  that  the  Irish  Ceara,  the  wife  of 
Ceares,  was  the  Goddess  of  Nature,  and  the  same  as  Ceres.  She  had  a  daughter  called  Porsaib- 
hean,  pronounced  Porsaivean,  the  Persephone  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  Proserpine  of  the  Romans. 
According  to  Schelling,  Ceres  is  the  Hebrew  ttnn  hrs  or  chrs,  and  Kersa  the  Chaldse  xvm  hrsa  or 
chrsa,  from  w~\n  hrs,  aravit,  sata.  The  meaning  of  this  name  was  praestigiatrix,  mago,  or  fabrica- 
trix. 7  The  Maja  of  India  was  the  same  as  the  Maia  of  the  Greeks,  but  she  was  the  same  as 
Persephone, 8  and  Persephone  was  Ceres,   and  Ceres  was  the  mother  of  the  Gods  and  Queen  of 


i  Lib.  i.  Ch.  v.  2  Cabinet  Enc.  Vol.  I.  p.  42. 

3  Vide  Col.  Broughton's  Pop.  Poet,  of  Hind.  p.  83.  4  ?P-  28—32. 

*  Col.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Part  i.  p.  81. 

6  In  the  minutes  of  the  Society  of  Antiquarians  of  London,  for  the  year  1767,  is  a  letter  from  a  Mr.  Holhs,  a 
Benares,  in  which  he  says,  that  some  of  the  Brahmins  study  Chaldaic,  in  which,  he  adds,  their  books  of  physic  are 
written.    Vail.  Coll.  Vol.  IV.  Part  i.  p.  xxiii. 

7  Lac.  Epit.  68.  e  Sir  W.  Jones. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   II.    SECTION  4.  587 

heaven.  From  the  same  source  came  the  Xpu<ra)p  and  Chrysaor  of  Sanchoniathon.  Cres  or  Kc»js 
or  W12  krs,  was  the  being  to  whom  the  astrologers  came  on  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  25th  of  De- 
cember, to  make  the  solar  offerings  at  the  temple  of  Bethlehem  or  Ceres,  where  Adonis  or  Adonai 
was  worshiped,  as  described  in  Book  V.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  3.  Gen.  Vallancey  says,  Creasean, 
Crisean,  a  priest.  It  is  the  Chaldaean  \>wm  (hrsin),  i.  e.  Magus,  supposed  by  the  Orientalists 
to  be  derived  from  Win  (hrs)  Chrish,  siluit,  whence  nwin  (hrsaj  Chrisha,  incantator,  magus, 
preestigiator.  Syr.  Chrasa,  magus,  incantator,  magicam  artem  exercens  :  Win  (hrs)  Chris,  apud 
magistros,  mutus,  vulgarissime  respicitur. x  Krishen,  one  of  the  thousand  names  of  God  in  the 
Hindostanee  dialect.2  Creas,  Creasna,  Cheres,  Creeshna,  Cur,  Cores,  and  K.upog  all  mean  the 
sun.3  Jupiter  was  called  Chrysaoreus. 4  Drummond  says,  "  Win  hrs  may  be  sounded  choras, 
"  chros,  chrus.  This  word  signifies  faber,  artifix,  machinator." 5  He  shews  that  this  was  the 
Chrysor  or  Chrus-aor,  of  Sanchoniathon.  Our  choras  descended  by  the  regimine  from  the  praise  of 
Win  hrs,  or  XPW'  called  Lord  or  Kupioc,  and  came  to  be  our  Kupis,  sXer}(rov3  "  Lord,  have  mercy 
"  upon  us,"  which  was,  as  Cudworth  has  proved,  a  part  of  the  ancient  Pagan  Liturgy  or  Litany.6 
In  the  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us,  the  congregation  Joined  in  choras. 

Volney  says,  "  The  Greeks  used  to  express  by  X  or  the  Spanish  Iota,  the  aspirated  Ha  of  the 
"  Orientals,  who  said  Haris  :  in  Hebrew  win  (hrs)  heres  signifies  the  sun,  but  in  Arabic  the 
radical  word  means  to  guard,  to  preserve,  and  Haris  a  preserver." 7  Again,8  "  If  Chris  comes 
"  from  Harish  by  a  chin,  it  will  signify  artificer,  an  epithet  belonging  to  the  sun.5'9  One  of  the 
names  of  the  Vulcan  of  Phoenicia,  according  to  Sanchoniathon,  was  Chrysor  :  of  this  Bochart  makes 
11K  Win  hrs  aur,  which  he  renders  Uvpirs^yiTrig,  an  artificer  by  fire.  Here  we  have  Xpyg 
or  Chres.  "  The  Chaldaean  name  of  the  sun  is  win  (hrs)  Chris,  hinc  et  Persis  Sol  dicitur  Kvpos, 
"  teste  Plutarcho ;— hence  w mn-iy  (oir-ehrs)  Ghir-he  Chris,  Heliopolis,  i.  e.  Civitas  Solis. 
"  This  seems  to  be  the  Chrysor  or  Cearas,  or  {dx  aur)  of  the  Phoenicians."  10  The  name  of  Cyrus 
is  Win  kurs  ;  from  this  comes  the  xupw  to  be,  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  Core  of  Proserpine  or  Perse- 
phone. In  the  DIPT  or  win  hrs  we  have  assuredly  the  persons  Ceres,  Xpj£,  Cyrus,  and  Core,  or 
Proserpine,  otherwise  called  Persephone,  which  latter  is  only  Perse-phnn,  or  $w=600,  or  (pijvv— 
608 — the  Phenn  or  Phoenix  of  Persia  " —  the  cycle  renewed  every  600  years. 

It  is  from  the  Ceres  or  Xpijc,  that  the  Christians  got  their  custom  of  burning  candles  before 
their  saints,  and  of  carrying  them  in  their  processions.     Ceres  was  called  Taedifera. 

Quos  cum  Taedifera  nunc  habet  ille  Dea.1' 
See  Jurieu  u  for  many  other  proofs. 

As  we  might  expect,  one  of  the  sons  of  the  Yadu  of  India  was  said  to  be  Croshta,  or  Croshtdeva. 
Here  we  find  the  Christ  as  Crest,  and  the  Cras-devas  of  Arrian  :  and  here  we  see  the  mythos  of 


I  Gittim,  Cap.  xxv.  *  See  conclusion  of  Chap.  IX. ;  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Part  i.  p.  445. 

3  Alwood,  Let.  Ant.  of  Greece,  p.  144.  4  lb.  p.  166.  5  Orig.  Vol.  III.  p.  192. 

6  Int.  Syst.  Book  i.  Chap.  iv.  p.  454,  ed.  fol. 

7  See  Volney's  Ruins;  Lord  Kingsborough's  Ant.  Mex.  p.  411.  8  lb. 
»  See  Ouseley's  Coll.  III.  p.  27.                         10  Vail.  Coll.  Vol.  IV.  p.  492. 

II  Cabul  is  called  Zabul  and  Zabul-istan,  (Rennell,  Menj.  p.  1 12)  as  Ceres  was  written  Keres,  and  Cyrus  Kyrus, 
and  Cristna  Krishna.  In  the  same  way  Rennell  (Mem.  p.  127)  has  shewn,  in  a  very  satisfactory  manner,  that  Persia 
was  written  Par  THia  or  Par  Tia,  country  of  Pers  or  of  Pert ;  and  that  the  Parthians  were  but  Persians.  In  a  similar 
way  Jen-aub  is  called  Chunaub.    lb.  p.  88. 

"  Ovid.  Fast.  iii.  is  Vol.  II.  Treat,  ix.  Chap.  Hi.  p.  253. 

4f2 


588  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 

the  XP7)^  or  Xpj°"r»  or  Crest,  most  clearly  proved  to  have  been  in  existence  long  anterior  to 
the  Christian  aera. 1  Christ  was  called  Crost  by  the  Ethiopians.  In  Book  I.  Chap.  IV.,  I 
have  shewn  that  the  Ethiopians  were  a  colony  from  India. 

The  Tetraorammaton  of  the  Pythagoreans  I  have  shewn,  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  was  the  word 
miT  ieue :  on  this  account  they  had  great  reverence  for  the  Quadrangle,  and  said  it  corresponded 
to  Ceres.  The  reason  of  this  was,  because  in  the  secret  science  the  sacred  four  represented 
Jehovah  who  was  the  Logos  Incarnate,  the  Xpije.  Ceres  was  the  Deity  androgynous,  the 
Creator  from  whom  abundance  and  all  blessings  flow. 

The  earth  is  called  the  nursing  mother  of  all  creatures,  the  Ceres.  This  was  because  the  earth, 
like  all  other  things,  was  an  emanation  from  the  Creator — was  but  a  link  in  the  chain  of  emana- 
tions proceeding  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  or  vice  versa.  Thus  the  mysticism  of  Plato, 
noticed  in  B.  I.  Ch.  II.,  may  be  reconciled.  Thus  the  earth,  in  the  sacred  metaphorical  language, 
was  a  Ceres ;  and  all  rivers  were  Adonises  or  Dons,  or  Sirs  or  Surs — rivers  of  the  sun.  They 
were,  in  fact,  Cereses,  for  they  were  the  nurses  of  the  creatures  living  on  the  lands  fertilized  by 
them,  and  which,  without  them,  would  be  arid  wastes.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  every  place 
had  a  mystical  name  for  the  priests',  and  a  common  name  for  the  people's,  use.2 

When  I  consider  the  identity  of  the  history  of  Cyrus  with  that  of  Cristna,  and  the  mythological 
character  of  its  date  or  birth,  that  he  was  the  same  as  Adonis  whose  history  was  very  similar  to 
that  of  Perse-phone  or  Proserpine,  who  was  also  called  by  the  same  name  as  Cyrus,  Core,  in 
Hebrew  unia  curs,  I  cannot  help  doubting  his  existence  as  a  human  being.  He  was  a  Messiah 
foretold  by  name,  a  solar  appellation,  to  save  the  Jews ;  and  he  was  most  assuredly  the  presiding 
Genius  of  the  eighth  cycle,  being  born  on  the  first  year  of  it. 

In  the  male  and  female  Xpjc,  M.  Cruezer3  might  have  found  the  Kiris  or  Kyris  who  came  to 
Argos  of  Peloponnesus,  and  whom  he  shews  to  have  been  identical  with  Adonai  or  the  Lord,  or 
Adonis  and  Osiris,  and  afterward4  with  Proserpine,  called  also5  Core.  All  these  Creuzer  shews 
to  have  been  identical  with  a  God  called  ^Eon,6  or  the  eternal  Creator  or  Demiurge.7  I 
suppose  I  need  not  point  out  to  my  reader  how  all  my  system  is  here  unconsciously  confirmed 
by  this  learned  German.  And  further,  he  has  shewn  them  all  to  be  identical  with  Oannes, 
Anandatus,  Derceto,  the  Patares  of  Lycia,  and  the  Horn  or  Omanus,  called  also  Comceus  j8  and 
again  with  an  Autochtone  called  Cresus,9  the  builder  of  the  temple  of  Ephesus,  and  he  with  Semi- 
ramis,  and  Chersiphron  ;10  and  again  with  Omphale,  daughter  of  Jordanus,  (this  shews  a  river  Don 
probably  in  Lydia,)  who  had  a  son  called  Croesus11  by  Hercules,  whose  name  was  Here  and  do;  n 
Here  being  Chore,  Core,  or  Cere,  or  Ceres ;  and  again  with  Axiokersa,  (another  corruption  of 
Ceres,)  who  was  the  same  with  De-meter  j  but  Demeter  was  Bacchus,  the  Saviour,  as  was  also 
Ceres.13    Thus  Bacchus  was  the  androgynous  Saviour,  IHS — and  IHS  is  Jesus  j  and  Jesus  is 


i  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  III.  Part  I.  pp.  143,  144,  Essay  by  Tod. 

*  Nell'  antica  ortografia  si  tralasciava  qualche  vocale  nel  mezzo  della  parola,  ed  era  quella  quam  syllaba  nomine  suo 
exprimit  i  v.  qr.  B.  prommziandosi  Be .-  invece  di  Lebero  (cioe  Libero)  scrivevano  solamente  Lebro,  come  nell'  ara  di 

Pesaro.    Vittorino  adduce  questi  esemplo,  Bne  per  bene,  Cra  per  cera,  Krus  per  carus,  Dcimus  per  decimus 

Spesso  anche  son  popolari  accorciamenti  come  poclum  vinclum,  ove  non  si  supplice  l'ausihare,  ma  diversa  lettera. 
Saggio  di  Lingua  Etrusca,  Vol.  I.  p.  118. 

3  Tome  II.  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  iii.  p.  45.  *  Ibid.  p.  53.  »  Vide  Lempriere.  c  Awv,  name  of  Cyrus. 

i  Tome  II.  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  iii.  p.  73.  8  Comceus  the  aspirated  Omaus. 

b  In  pp.  82,  114,  1 16.  io  Tome  II.  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  iii.  p.  94.  "  Cruezer,  p.  179. 

w Ibid  p.  195.  "Ibid.  p.  312. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   II.    SECT.  5.  589 

the  Logos  and  the  Xp*)£,  an  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom,  the  ILpcog  or  Hpoog,  or  divine  Love. 
Thus  we  see  how,  as  Ammonius  Saccas  taught,  all  the  vulgar  plurality  of  the  Gentiles,  of  the  East 
and  West,  melt  at  last  into  precisely  the  same  trinity  of  the  Indians,  the  Jews,  and  the  Christians. 
In  the  explanation  of  these  identifications,  no  doubt,  partly  consisted  the  Eleusinian  mysteries. l 
In  the  above  I  am  supported  by  the  Scholiast  of  Apollonius  Rhodius,  who  affirms,  that  Axierus 
was  Ceres.  * 

5.  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  from  a  corruption  of  the  W\Vt  hrs  we  have  the  Cyrus,  the 
Messiah  of  Isaiah,  whose  history  was  copied  from  the  history  of  Cristna,  though  the  letters  in  the 
Hebrew  do  not  exactly  suit ;  and  I  think,  also,  that  we  have  here  the  androgynous  or  male  Ceres  of 
the  Greeks,  to  whose  temple  at  Bethlehem  the  Magi  came  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of  the  new  incar- 
nation of  divine  love.  Parkhurst  says,  D^lil  hrs,  the  solar  fire.  He  also  says,  "  grin  hrs,  Machinator. 
"  From  this  root  the  Greeks  had  the  name  of  their  God  Epo£  or  Epa)£,  by  which  it  is  evident  they 
"  meant  the  material  light,  considered  as  possessed  of  the  plastic  or  formative  power."  Surely 
all  these  quotations,  from  men  not  having  the  slightest  idea  of  my  theory,  places  its  truth  beyond 
a  doubt. 

It  is  impossible  to  dip  into  the  inexhaustible  treasury  of  Creuzer,  without  seeing  my  theory  con- 
firmed. Could  we  but  make  out  the  whole,  no  doubt  a  beautiful  system  would  shew  itself  in  every 
part.  Probably  many  Christians,  from  the  indulgence  of  their  prejudices  and,  I  fear,  from  the  bigotry 
and  hatred  instilled  into  their  minds  in  youth  by  their  priests,  (who,  as  usual,  will  fear  that  some 
change  of  opinion  may  affect  their  emoluments,)  will  be  much  shocked  to  find  their  religion  to  be, 
at  last,  nothing  but  that  which  they  have  been  accustomed  to  designate  with  every  opprobrious 
epithet.  But  why  should  they  object  to  the  religion  of  the  Gentiles  being,  when  uncorrupted,  the 
same  as  theirs  ?  Are  they  not  always  at  work  endeavouring  to  make  proselytes  ?  Then  I  hope 
they  will  not  be  angry  with  me  for  at  once  bringing  all  the  religions  of  antiquity,  stripped  of  their 
corruptions,  into  their  pale.  I  am,  in  fact,  the  greatest  proselytist  in  the  world.  I  proselyte  those 
that  have  lived,  those  that  live,  and  those  that  will  live. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Thracians  were  Jews,  Ioudi,  and  Orpheans,  and  Indians ;  that  their 
wives  sacrificed  themselves  on  the  death  of  their  husbands.  Orpheus  charmed  the  beasts  with  his 
music,  and  the  trees  of  Pieria  came  down  to  listen  to  him.  He  was  accompanied  by  the  nine 
Muses.  Kanya  of  India  or  Cristna,  or  Crishna,  or  Creeshna,  or  Xpjfva,  charmed  the  beasts  with 
his  music,  as  Orpheus  had  done.  He  was  accompanied  by  nine  Gopys,  each  called  Radha.3  All 
the  same  things  are  told  of  Apollo  in  the  neighbouring  Temple  of  Delphi  or  Kanya,  or  of  the 
Grecian  Apollo  Cunnius — Kan-ia.  The  last  syllable  is  the  IE  on  the  Delphic  temple,  rp  ie  or  Jah 
of  the  Jews,  the  Jah  of  the  Sanscrit,  and  of  Apollo  or  A-pol,  or  n  e  byi  e-hol — the  God  Bol  or  Bal 
or  Pal,  of  whom  the  shepherd  kings  of  India,  that  is,  the  shepherds  of  Rajah-stan  or  Royal 
shepherds,  Pallestini,  were  followers.  Apollo  had  his  nine  muses;  he  was  the  God  of  Music, 
like  Kanya,  and  he  performed  on  the  Lyre  as  Orpheus  did,  and  as  Kanya  did  on  the  same  instru- 
ment, called  Vina.4 

Among  the  ancients  nothing  was  guarded  with  greater  care  than  their  mysteries  ;  and  nothing 
is  more  difficult  to  account  for,  than  the  apparent  ignorance  of  many  of  the  great  men  who  must 
have  been  initiated — such  as  Cicero.  If  they  understood  the  mysteries  why  did  they  pretend 
ignorance,  and  also  pretend  at  the  same  time  to  give  an  account,  though  not  an  explanation,  of 
them  ?    Was  the  meaning  of  them  lost  in  the  temples,  the  forms  only  remaining  ?    I  much  suspect 


1  Creuzer,  L^v.  v.  Ch.  iii.  p.  315.  «  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  258. 

3  Vide  Tod's  Hist.  Raj.  and  plate — Crishna  on  the  flute.  4  See  a  figure  of  an  ancient  violin  in  Montfaucon. 


590  HERALD,    KERUX. 


the  latter.  Various  moderns,  such  as  Warburton,  Gebelen,  &c,  have  undertaken  to  explain  them, 
but  they  have  all  failed.  The  obvious  reason  of  this  is,  that  the  mysteries  being  only  a  part  of  a 
system,  these  gentlemen  have  all  failed  in  proposing  any  thing  like  a  satisfactory  explanation.  I 
think  the  mysteries  were  like  masonry  ;  indeed,  we  shall  soon  see  it  is  highly  probable  that  the 
Masons  were  a  branch  of  the  initiated — Masonry  a  branch  of  the  art.  The  Konx  om  pancha  of  the 
Indians  and  the  burning  of  widows,  found  in  so  remarkable  a  manner  at  Eleusis,  which  was,  in 
fact  in  the  Sintica,  at  once  identify  the  western  with  the  eastern  devotees.  Eusebius,  like  every 
other  author,  at  the  same  time  that  he  confesses  his  ignorance,  tells  us,  that  there  were  four  minis- 
ters in  the  ceremonies.  Theirs*,  whose  name  must  not  be  given,  represented  the  Demiourgosj 
(was  this  Xp]£  ;)  the  second  the  Sun,  the  third  the  Moon,  and  the  fourth  Mercury.  I  think  it  is 
not  difficult,  from  this  incongruous  nonsense,  to  perceive  the  First  Cause,  and  the  Trimurti.  This 
is  what  we  might  naturally  expect  where  we  have  found  the  Konx  om  pax.  This  was  all  cele- 
brated at  the  temple  of  Ceres,  at  Eleusis,  i.  e.  the  Bit-lehem  or  house  of  Ceres,  or  Cyrus,  or 
Xpr)?va,  which  was  situate  not  far  from  Delphi,  or  AsXc$>U£,  or  the  town  of  Xp>j<ra.  Among 
their  officers  one  was  called  Kijpuf  or  Ceryx,  or  Herald,  and  one  of  them  a  king.  The  former 
carried  the  Caduceus ;  and  the  rites  of  the  infant  Saviour  ^Esculapius,  to  be  treated  of  in  the 
next  book,  were  there  celebrated.  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  have  here  the  origin  of  our  Herald's 
office  introduced  into  the  West  about  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  and  of  course  supposed  by  our 
learned  men,  because  they  can  trace  it  no  further  back,  to  have  then  first  arisen  in  the  world. 
But  Gebelen x  has  shewn  that  it  existed  many  centuries  before. 

6.  The  word  Ki}po|  or  Ceryx,  the  Herald,  was  derived  from  the  Hebrew  word  unp  qrs,  and  meant 
the  cross  or  the  caduceus  of  Mercury  or  of  Buddha.  The  Herald  or  Ceryx,  Littleton  translates 
Caduceator,  and  from  it  Lardner  derives  the  word  crux.  It  is  very  curious  to  observe  how  every 
thing  connected  with  a  cross  comes  at  last,  when  sought  to  the  bottom,  to  be  connected  with 
Hermes  Mercury,  or  Buddha— the  Taranis  of  the  Druid  oak.  The  caduceus  was  either  a  crucifix 
or  a  cross.  I  very  much  suspect  that  our  coats  of  arms,  and  particularly  our  crests,  came  from 
the  Crestian  or  Cretian  mythos.  The  ancients  had  their  crests.  2  The  figure  carried  on  the 
shield  or  banner  was  the  emblem  of  the  %?*&  or  good  daemon  ;  therefore  every  people  who  adored 

the  XPW  or  Sood  daemon  would  have  a  crest'  From  the  firSt  W°rd  emblem>  or  wbatever  word 
stood  in  the  place  of  emblem,  being  in  regimine,  it  came  to  have  the  name  of  crest.  This  style  of 
the  first  language  accounts  for  innumerable  names,  and  in  particular  for  the  priests  having  the 
names  of  their  Gods  :  for  if  it  were  said,  the  priest  of  Apollo,  it  would  be  exactly  the  same  as  to 

say,  priest  Apollo. 

The  Druids  of  Ireland  carried  in  their  hands  the  Crux  ansata,  called  a  key,  or  in  their  language 
kire  or  cire.3  This  we  must  recollect  was  carried  by  the  Gods  or  priests  of  Egypt,  and  is  also 
found  in  a  very  remarkable  manner  in  the  hands  of  many  of  the  bearded  Druidical-looking  figures, 
given  by  Mr.  Hammer,  either  as  figures  of  the  Templars,  or  as  emblematical  figures  used  by  them. 
I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  this  cire  was  closely  connected  with  the  Cris  and  Ceres.  n»xp  qzir 
jn  hg  means  solemnitas  messis.*  One  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels  states,  that  when  Jesus  cele- 
brated the  last  supper-his  last  solemnitas  messis-he  and  his  apostles  sang  a  hymn,  and  per- 
formed a  circular  dance  :  and  jn  hg  has  this  meaning.  I  suspect  also,  that  this  qzir  has  a  near 
relation  to  the  word  Caesar.  This  key  was  what  unlocked  or  opened  the  door  of  eternal  and  of 
human  life.     It  was  a  polis  or  pole  and  a  tri-pole.     Ceres  was  often  written  for  wheat  or  bread 


1  Vol.  VIII.  p.  220.  *  See  Book  VI11-  ChaP<  IL  Sect-  L 

3  Vail.  Coll.  Vol.  VIII.  p.  xlix.  Pref.  to  No.  XII.  4  lb.  p.  1. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  7.  591 

«*  Sine  Cerere,  et  Libero  friget  Venus."  The  Solemnitas  Messis  is  the  offering  of  bread  of  the 
Romists.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  mass.  In  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  the  day  when  they  were 
completed  was  said  to  be,  to  the  initiated,  the  day  of  regeneration  and  new  birth. J  See  our 
baptismal  service.  The  day  when  the  initiation  was  finished  was  the  day,  to  the  initiated,  of  the 
Ba<$>8  Myrig — Bafomet,  to  be  explained  by  and  by. 

The  Temple  at  Eleusis  had  a  very  large  dome,  which  was  of  great  antiquity,  long  before  the 
time  usually  allotted  to  the  invention  of  the  arch,  with  radiated  stones.2  Strabo  and  Vitruvius 
have  given  an  account  of  this  immense  dome,3  said  to  have  been  built  by  Ictinus,  about  430  years 
B.  C.  for  the  celebration  of  the  mysteries;  and  Chrysostom  has  described  the  ceremonies  of  initiation, 
to  have  taken  place  with  great  magnificence  under  it.  In  the  procession,  the  votaries  called  out  what 
Gebelen  calls,  in  his  French,  Khaire  D6me*ter,  Salut,  Ceres.  In  the  Khaire  of  Eleusis  may  not  the  heri 
of  India  or  the  Cyrus  be  found  ?  In  the  dome  of  the  temple  we  have  a  duplicate  of  the  Dome  in  the 
temple  at  Komulmar — described  in  Col.  Tod's  book.  I  request  my  brother  Masons  of  the  Royal 
Arch,  to  place  themselves  in  the  middle  of  the  new  room  at  Freemason's  Tavern,  when  lighted  up, 
and  then  to  reflect  upon  all  their  ceremonies,  on  which,  of  course,  I  cannot  enlarge,  and  I  suspect 
they  will  find  themselves  both  at  Eleusis,  and  at  Bit-lehem,  and  in  India.  Count  de  Gebelen  says, 
Cerus  signifies  creator,  and  creo  to  create.*  "  On  voit  dans  Hesychius  qu'en  Grec  Ceres  s'ap- 
"  pelloit  Kyrus  ;  ce  peut-etre  le  m&me  mot."  En  Hebreu  tznn  hrs  signifie  /aire. 5  Thus  I  am 
not  singular  in  my  idea  of  Ceres  and  Cyrus  being  the  same  :  the  difference  of  sex  can  be  easily 
accounted  for,  frrom  the  known  fact,  that  every  God  and  Goddess  was  androgynous.  Ceres  was 
Demeter, but  Bacchus  was  also  Demeter;  thus  IH%  or  Bacchus  was  Ceres,6  It  is  a  striking  cir- 
cumstance, that  Ceres  had  the  same  name  as  Caesar,  viz.  IsXco.  7  This  seems  to  identify  Caesar, 
Ceres,  and  Xpj£. 

7.  For  the  present  I  add  no  more  respecting  the  Crest,  but  return  to  the  Chaldees.  In  section 
3  of  this  chapter,  to  which  I  beg  to  refer,  Mr.  Bryant  has  noticed  a  country  of  Colida.  Here 
we  have  the  original  Chaldea,  where  was  the  Ur — Ur  of  the  Chaldees. 

Almost  all  writers  respecting  the  Chaldeans  have  laboured  under  the  mistaken  idea,  that  they 
were  identical  with  the  Assyrians  ;  hence  they  have  used  the  words  Assyrian  and  Chaldean  as 
convertible  terms.  The  error  of  this  I  have  shewn  in  The  Celtic  Druids,  and  I  need  not 
repeat  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  many  Assyrians  might  be  Chaldeans,  and  vice  versa.  But 
the  Chaldeans,  most  assuredly,  were  a  sect  or  order  of  some  kind,  totally  independent  of  the 
Assyrian  or  Babylonian  empire.  They  were  no  doubt  numerous  in  Babylon,  as  they  were  after- 
ward in  Rome,  but  who  would  say  that  the  Romans  were  Chaldeans,  or  the  Chaldeans  Romans  ? 
Ancient  history  shews  traces  of  them  in  many  places  besides  Babylon.  Zoroaster  was  always 
said  to  have  been  their  founder:  but  who  was  Zoroaster?  I  shall  not  discuss  this  question  at 
present,  but  content  myself  with  saying,  I  suspect  that  he  was  merely  the  supposed  genius  of  a 
cycle.     Seven  Zoroasters  are  recorded  by  different  historians. 


"  Monde  Prim.  Tome  IV.  p.  322.  2  De  Architect,  praefat.  ad  Lib.  vii.  Monde  Prim.  Vol.  IV.  p.  321. 

3  Monde  prim.  ibid. 

4  Ceres  or  Curus  from  Creo,  to  create,  see  Litt.  Diet.  5  Monde  Prim.  Vol.  IV.  p.  577. 

6  uniD^  Ikurs  irvttfD^  hnsihu,  Isaiah  xlv.  1 ;  rrttfnn  e-msih  from  nttfD  msh,  unxit;  tf'ttflD  musio  from  yw  iso,  to 
save.  Hence  the  female  incarnations  of  the  nine  cycles  were  the  nine  muses  of  Apollo,  and  the  nine  wives,  or  Rhadise 
or  Rays  of  Kanya. 

7  Spanh.  Observ.  in  Callim.  p.  649  ;  Jamieson's  Henn.  Scyth.  p.  137. 


592  CHALDEANS   WHERE    FROM. 

In  the  Colida  or  Colchida  of  Arrian,  noticed  by  Mr.  Bryant,  I  think  we  have  the  origin  of  the 
Culdees  or  Chaldees.  They  are  in  the  district  of  Ur-ii  or  Ur-iana,  where  Abraham  or  the 
Brahmin  came  from.  He  came  from  Ur  of  the  Cullidei,  or  Chaldees,  or  Culdees,  or  from  Colida. 
This  completes  the  proof  of  my  system. 

The  country  of  Calida  or  Colida  in  North  India,  between  the  Burrampooter  and  the  Indus,  is  the 
country  of  the  holy  Cali — Cali-di,  i.  e.  dis  or  divus  and  Cali. 

Cali  is  the  Greek  xccKog  beautiful.  It  is  remarkable  that,  in  the  Celtic,  the  word  Cal  means 
wise  :  \  whence  comes  a  calling  or  vocation.  When  a  person  was  called,  he  was  deemed  wise  for 
the  purpose  for  which  he  was  called.  The  Roman  meeting  for  the  election  of  priests  was  called 
Calata  Comitia.  From  this  comes  our  Gala-day,  Whitsunday,  when  the  Druids  granted  the 
orders  or  functions  to  priests. 

I  believe  myself  that  the  Ariana,  said  by  Col.  Van  Kennedy2  to  be  bounded  by  the  Indus,  was 
Uriana,  which  extended  thus  far ;  that  all  the  Doab  between  the  Ganges  and  Indus  was  Ariana 
and  Ur-iana,  and  perhaps  Ara-bia  also.  The  word  Ur  in  the  Indian  language  signifies  also  coun- 
try or  town3  — Epa  of  Greece.  Then,  when  it  is  said  that  Abraham  came  from  "  Ur  of  the  Chal- 
dees," it  may  mean,  that  he  came  from  the  country  of  the  Chaldees  or  from  Colida,  not  from  the 
fire  of  the  Chaldees.  The  use  here  of  the  word  Ur,  without  any  word  prefixed,  having  the  mean- 
ing of  town  or  country,  is  exactly  like  the  use  of  the  word  Jordan,  the  Jordan.  The  persons 
translating  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  the  first  words  in  each  case.  The  words  in  the  old 
Hebrew  are  never  divided  like  ours — but  all  run  together.  Now  I  have  no  doubt  that  Bartholo- 
maeus  is  right :  yet  I  think  it  was  also  the  proper  name  of  a  country.  As,  if  I  be  right,  it  will 
be  merely  a  district  of  the  country  of  Callida,  it  will  make  no  material  difference  to  the  argument. 
The  Hebrew  regimine  will  account  for  this  word  meaning,  both  country  and  fire.  It  was  the 
country  of  fire  or  Vesta;  in  the  Hebrew  style,  country  fire. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  in  the  following  passage,  seems  to  imply  that  the  Chaldees  were  east- 
ward of  Bactriana ;  this  will  take  them  to  my  Colida :  "  Cui  scientiae  (Magiae)  sseculis  priscis, 
multa  ex  Chaldaeorum  arcanis  Bactrianus  addidit  Zoroastres  :  deinde  Hystaspes  rex,  pruden- 
tissimus  Darii  pater,  qui  cum  superioris  India?  secreta  fidentius  penetraret,  ad  nemorosam 
quandam  venerat  solitudinem,  cujus  tranquillis  silentiis  praecelsa  Brachmanorum  ingenia  poti- 
"  untur,"  4  &c.  The  whole  passage  evidently  alludes  to  a  Chaldea  far  Eastward  of  Assyria.  We 
must  remember  that  the  name  of  the  God  of  the  Jews,  Jah,  IE,  was  the  name  of  Apollo  of  Delphi. 
But  the  Oracle  of  Apollo,  preserved  by  Porphyry, 5  said,  that  the  Chaldeans  and  Jews  were  the 
only  people  who  honoured  a  God  produced  by  himself,  auroyeveQjXov.  Now  Abraham  was  a 
Chaldean,  for  he  came  from  Ur  of  the  country  of  the  Chaldees.  And,  assuredly,  they  were  the 
Chaldees  of  Abraham  whom  the  Oracle  meant,  whose  God  had  the  same  name  as  the  God  of  the 
Oracle,  not  the  Moloch-adoring  Assyrians.  The  coupling  of  the  Chaldeans  and  Jews  was  natural 
enough,  if  they  were  originally  from  the  same  country.  The  place  here  found  for  the  Chaldeans 
fully  justifies  Jeremiah's  assertion,  that  they  came  from  the  ends  of  the  North  and  the  sides  of 
the  earth.6  i.  e.  from  a  very  distant  country.  The  fact  of  the  C  holchians  having  come  from  India 
is  strougly  supported  by  Tzetzes,  who  says,  01  8s  KoA^oi,  INAIKOI  XxvQoi  surw.7  Hesychius 
says,  XaXSouo*,  ysuog  fji.ot.yaiV  7ravra  yivaxncoUToov.9 


'  Cleland,  Spec.  p.  124.  *  P.  197.  3  Barthol.  System.  Brach  p.  151. 

4  Hist.  Lib.  xxiii.  5  Euseb.  Evan.  Praep.  Lib.  ix.  Cap.  x.  6  Cab.  Enc. 

7  Vallancey,  Coll.  Vol.  VI.  p.  66.  8  Lex.  voce  X«x8«w«. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  II.     SECTION  8.  593 

But  there  was  another  Colida  at  the  south  end  of  the  Peninsula  of  India,  not  far  from  Cape 
Comorin,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Doab  of  the  Ganges  and  Indus  ;  thus  there  were  two  Colidas. 

It  has  been  shewn  by  Bryant  that  the  word  Colida  is  the  same  as  Colchida.  This  I  believe 
was  the  place  in  South  India  to  which  the  Argonauts,  fifty-two  in  number,  according  to  Onoma- 
critus,  were  said  to  have  gone  in  search  of  the  golden  fleece  of  a  ram.  A  Colida,  I  think,  I  have 
proved  to  have  been  the  place  whence  Abram  came, — from  Ur,  or  Uri-ana,  of  Colida.  Every  one 
knows  that  Abram  was  said  to  be  a  great  astrologer,  and  no  person  at  all  conversant  with  the 
history  of  the  Roman  Emperors  can  be  ignorant  that  the  Chaldeans  from  India  were  their  great 
astrologers  or  tellers  of  fortunes. l 

Thrace,  as  we  might  expect,  was  called  Aria,  as  well  as  Thracia.2  This  was,  I  have  no  doubt, 
after  the  Aria  or  Uria  of  Colida  between  the  Indus  and  Ganges,3  Duret  says,  it  was  called 
Xpjfov?],  and  that  some  of  its  inhabitants  were  called  Sapae  and  Sapasi.  These  were,  I  feel  little 
doubt,  Sophees— of  whom  I  shall  treat  hereafter.  I  think  the  most  blind  and  credulous  of  devotees 
must  allow  that  we  have  the  existence  of  the  Cristna  of  the  Brahmins  in  Thrace,  many  hundred 
years  before  the  Christian  aera—  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ.  Now,  what  could  Mr.  Maurice,  Sir 
W.  Jones,  and  Mr.  Bentley,  say  to  this  ?  Did  the  Cristna  of  Thrace  take  his  name  from  the 
Apocryphal  Gospels  ?  The  Apollo  EI,  Xp^j,  in  the  country  of  Sind,  with  his  flute  or  music,  his 
nine  muses  or  nine  Rhadii,  with  the  Brahmin  custom  of  burning  the  widows  cannot  be  doubted  or 
evaded.  How  is  it  that  this  has  never  been  seen  before  ?  How,  but  because,  if  roguish  priests 
did  see  it,  they  in  every  case  endeavoured  to  suppress  it  j  and  because  prejudice  is  so  strong  in 
devotees  as  to  blind  them  even  to  an  unclouded  sun  at  noon !  I  beg  my  reader  to  refer  to  my 
observations  in  the  first  section  of  this  book.  In  throwing  out  the  acrostic  from  the  Sibyls,  the 
silly  devotee  Floyer,  has  shewn  how  his  class  corrupted  books.  A  similar  instance  is  to  be  found 
in  the  respectable  antiquarian  Mr.  Davies,  who  has  omitted  to  translate  the  last  couplet  of  an 
ancient  Welsh  bard,  because,  he  says,  its  reference  to  an  infant  Saviour  shews  it  to  be  a  Christian 
interpolation.  This  Saviour,  I  doubt  not,  had  reference  to  the  three  Maries  and  Virgo  Paritura 
of  Gaul,  and  to  the  Jovi  crescenti,  fig.  20.  Every  ancient  author,  without  exception,  has  come  to 
us  through  the  medium  of  Christian  editors,  who  have,  either  from  roguery  or  folly,  corrupted 
them  all.  We  know  that,  in  one  batch,  all  the  fathers  of  the  church  and  all  the  Gospels  were 
corrected,  that  is,  corrupted,  by  the  united  exertions  of  the  Roman  See,  Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  and  the  Monks  of  St.  Maur.  And  the  conduct  of  Sir  W.  Jones,  relating  to  the 
crucifixion  of  Indra,  shews  that  the  same  system  is  now  carrying  on  in  India.  But  on  all  these 
points  my  reader  will  see  much  more  important  matter  presently. 

8.  Colonel  Tod  has  given  an  account  in  his  History,  of  an  order  of  priests  called  Gosaen. 
They  now  officiate  in  the  temple  of  Eklinga,  in  Mewar.  But  the  present  religion  of  this  temple 
is  that  of  Kanyia  or  Cristna,  and  is  said  to  have  come  from  Matura.  When  I  consider  that  I 
have  found  Maturea,  Ur  or  Urii  of  the  Colida,  or  Doab,  or  Mesopotamia  of  the  Chaldees  or  Cul- 
dees,  and  Ayoudya,  or  Oude,  or  Judia,  and  the  Joogees  or  Jews,  all  in  India,  nearly  together,  I 
cannot  help  believing  that  in  the  Gosaen  of  India  we  have  the  Goshen  of  Egypt,  and  of  the  Old 
Testament,  called  in  the  Hebrew  \iv$  gsn,  I  leave  the  case  to  my  reader,  with  the  often-repeated 
observation,  that  it  is  not  an  individual  name  of  this  kind  that  is  of  any  weight,  but  the  number 

1  To  these  Chaldeans  I  attribute  the  invention  of  our  dice  and  playing  cards.  The  latter  were  clearly  astrological 
instruments,  and  I  have  no  doubt  were  connected  with  the  system  of  cycles — for  which,  by  accident  or  design,  they 
were  peculiarly  adapted.  I  think  they  were  probably  invented  expressly  for  the  purpose :  I  pay  no  attention  to  the 
story  of  their  invention  in  France. 

n  <?=8, 1  r=200,  n  *=400=608,  Tre-ia.  * 

3  Vide  Duret,  Trevor  des  Lang.  p.  729. 

4g 


594  ERYTHR-EA,   DIU,   DIS. 

of  them.     These  Gosaen  were  priests.     The  Hebrews  dwelt  in  the  land  of  Goshen  or  of  the 
Goshaen.  * 

Vallancey  says,  Goseyn  a  magus,  wise  man,  priest;  in  Irish  it  is  Gaosna  wise.*  A  Hindoo 
religious  is  called  Gosine  ;  their  chiefs  are  called  Omrahs-Raj-Om. 

We  have  seen  the  various  signs  of  Hercules  in  the  Syrastrene.  Every  one  has  heard  of  his 
killing  the  Erymanthian  boar  in  Arcadia,  or  I  should  say  the  country  of  the  holy  Area,  or  Arga, 
of  Greece.  In  the  Gulf  of  Cutch  or  Sinus  Canthi,  which  washes  the  shore  of  Syrastrene,  the  river 
Erymanthus,  now  called  the  river  Bunwas,  empties  itself,  in  about  lat.23,  long.  7J§- 

9.  I  must  now  make  some  observations  upon  several  very  important  words ;  and  first,  the  word 
Erythraea. 

All  learned  men  will  tell  me  that  Erythraea  means  red,  and  thus,  that  the  country  between  the 
Indus  and  Ganges,  a  great  part  of  which  must  have  a  beautiful  verdure,  and  the  green  Erythraean 
Sea,  are  so  called  from  their  red  colour.  This  is,  as  usual,  Greek  ignorance  and  learned  credulity. 
I  apprehend  the  name  of  the  Erythraean  Sea  had  the  same  meaning  as  the  Goddess  UpoQvpaia,, 
or  the  Juno  Lucina,  or  Diana  Lucina  of  the  Romans. 3  I  think  the  words  have  been  IIpoSpa*a 
and  EpuQpo»a,  and  mean,  the  one  IIpo,  the  same  as  Pra,  the  Siamese  name  of  creator,  former, 
or  giver  of  forms,  added  to  the  word  &f>s  :  and  the  other  'Epj  or  Heri,  the  Saviour,  added  to  the 
word  9pe.  I  think  this  is  confirmed  by  the  great  similarity,  in  the  very  old  alphabet,  of  the  <p 
and  0  Q  Th. 4  I  consider  them  both  of  the  same  family  with  the  Venus  Aphrodite,  the  Sea 
Goddess,  or  the  Goddess  from  the  froth  of  the  sea.  I  take  this  lady  to  be  A-Phre-Dite,  in  the 
Coptic  language  ;  A,  emphatic,  4?=:500,  P=100,  H=8,=608;  sacrum  nomen,  cognomen,  et  omen. 
And  the  Dite  is  evidently  the  Dis,  ditis,  of  Latium  or  the  Etruscans,  and  the  oriental  Aditya  or 
Dit,  which  is  a  term  for  the  sun,5  and  which  also  means  holy  or  sacred.  The  ^pe,  Phre,  is 
also  the  Northern  Freya,  the  Goddess  of  Friday,  the  day  sacred  to  Venus,  all  over  the  world. 
The  observation  respecting  the  Venus  Aphrodite,  is  confirmed  by  Nonnus,  who  says,  Iv&otjv 
ixeTsvorev  EpuQpaiTjv  A^poSiT>jv. 6 

The  ®p?],  Thre,  is  the  Tre  of  the  Egyptians,  by  which  they  designated  the  Nile,  the  fleue- ocean,1 
on  which,  in  their  ceremonies  microcosmically,  floated  the  heavenly  bodies.  Every  thing  was  a 
microcosm  ;  every  reptile  was  a  microcosm  of  man  ;  man  of  the  globe;  the  globe  of  the  planetary 
system ;  the  planetary  system  of  the  universe  ;  and  the  universe  of  God  ;  and  thus,  in  the  image 
of  God  was  man  created — in  the  image  of  God  male  and  female  created  he  him.  The  'Eri  was 
the  Here  (Juno),  the  Heri,  Hera,  the  saviour  of  India — the  destroyer  and  regenerator.  Thus  the 
Erythraean  Sea  was  the  Sea  of  the  Here-thrae.  In  short,  it  was  the  universal  sea;  as  we  find  it 
at  the  Straits  of  Gades  washing  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  and  on  the  other  end  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean washing  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor,  and  again  carrying  on  its  bosom  the  sacred  Tabrobane 
in  India. 

The  word  Dius,  for  God,  in  the  old  Latin,  every  one  knows.  It  makes  Dii  in  its  genitive. 
This  is  in  fact  Hebrew.  The  Logos  is  constantly  spoken  of  by  the  Targums,  particularly  that  of 
Jerusalem,  by  the  term  »>T  KIOTO  memra  dii,  the  Logos  of  God.  This  is  the  Diu  of  mount  Athos 
and  of  Guzerat.8  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  >n  Dn  is  an  old  Latin  or  Etruscan  word, 
though  found  in  the  Hebrew.     What  say  the  opponents  of  mixed  etymology  to  this  ? 


J  Do  our  Three  Wise  Men  of  Gotham,  come  from  this  ?  *  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p.  60. 

3  See  Parkhurst  in  voce  ufrvplt,  IV.  *  See  Dr.  Bosworth's  Saxon  Grammar,  p.  10. 

*  Tod's  Raj.  p.  215.  6  Dyonysiac.  Lib.  xxxv.,  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  187,  4to. 

7  Creuzer,  Rel.  An.  Exp.  des  Planche,  p.  90,  Plate  XLIX.  fig.  192. 

8  Vide  Parkhurst's  Greek  Lexicon  in  voce  Acyoj. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  II.   SECTION  10.  595 

Mr.  Costard,  in  his  Astronomy,  derives  the  word  Zeog,  Jupiter,  "  from  the  Arabic  root  Du  or 
"  Dsu,  a  word  which  signifies  Lord ;  whence  he  conceives  are  derived  the  Dyu  of  the  Welsh, 
■  the  Deu  of  the  Cornish,  Due  in  the  Armoric,  Dia  in  the  old  Irish,  and  the  Deus  of  the  Latins. 
"  The  words  Dew  and  Diva,  however,  constantly  occurring  in  nearly  the  same  sense  in  Sanscrit, 
"  as  in  Dewtah  and  Divatah,  I  cannot  avoid  putting  in  a  claim  for  the  Hindoos  on  this  occasion, 
"  whose  language  bears  a  striking  similitude  to  the  old  Chaldee. — The  planets  are  represented  as 
"  personified  Dewtas  ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  the  Indians  have  a  Divespiter,  in  Eeudra,  their 
"  God  of  the  firmament,  endowed  with  exactly  the  same  functions  as  the  Grecian  Jove." *  In 
my  preliminary  observations,  Sect.  32,  Gen.  Vallancey  says  the  n  id  or  iod  stood  for  ten.  We 
have  seen  the  sacred  character  of  the  iota  and  the  mysticism  belonging  to  it,  and  that  the  Targum 
always  calls  God  »  ii — whence,  I  conclude,  that  the  n  id  ought  to  be  >n  iid  the  holy  *  i.  The 
Targums  bear  me  out  in  this  correction.  Dr.  Smith  says,  that  the  word  mostly  used  by  the 
Celts  for  the  Supreme  Being  was  Dia  or  Dhia,  which,  in  the  oblique  case,  has  De  and  Dhe  ;  that 
of  this  the  Esus  or  Hesus,  said  to  have  been  worshiped  by  the  Druids,  seems  only  to  have  been 
a  corruption,  and  the  Ssog  and  Deus  of  the  Greeks  and  Latins  were  manifestly  derived  from  it ; 
that  the  Dhia  or  Dia  of  the  Celts  is  the  same  as  the  Iah  of  the  Hebrews.2 

Bishop  Marsh  says,3  "  It  has  been  thought  indeed  anomalous  to  insert  the  Digamma  in  such  a 
"  word  as  All.  But,  to  judge  of  the  Digamma,  we  should  not  speak  of  insertion  :  for  it  was  a 
"  constituent  part  of  the  primitive  Greek  alphabet :  and  our  present  forms  were  occasioned  by 
"  the  omission  of  it.  Let  us  ask,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  in  what  manner  the  nominative 
"  Zsvg,  or  rather  Aeu£,  according  to  the  ^Eolic  form,  was  originally  written  by  the  Pelasgi. 
"  They  could  not  at  first  have  written  AEYS  :  for  T  was  an  addition  to  the  primitive  Greek 
"  alphabet,  which  ended  with  T,  like  the  Phoenician,  Samaritan,  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  and  Syriac 
"  alphabets.  F  on  the  other  hand  was  a  constituent  part  of  the  primitive  Greek  alphabet ;  it 
"  was  the  sixth  letter  in  the  Greek  alphabet,  as  the  corresponding  letter  was  in  all  the  alphabets 
"just  mentioned.  The  word,  therefore,  which  was  afterward  written  AEVS4  and  then  AEY2J, 
"  must  at  first  have  been  written  AEFS  and  AIF£.  But  the  genitive  and  dative  of  AIFS 
"  could  have  been  no  other  than  AIFOS  and  A1FI,  which,  when  the  Digamma  was  dropt, 
"  because  Aibg,  and  An.  Hence,  also,  we  see  the  reason  why  Aiog  and  Au  came  to  be  the 
"  genitive  and  dative  of  Zet>£. 

10.  The  poet  Dyonysius  says,  that  Taprobana  was  placed  in  the  Erythraean  Sea.  Bryant5 
shews,  that  Gades  or  Gadir  was  also  called  Syrus  Erythreia.  Thus  we  have  the  Erythraean  Sea 
at  nearly  the  extreme  East  and  the  extreme  West.  How  absurd  to  suppose  that  this  name  was 
taken  from  a  petty  king  of  Asia  Minor !  The  Erythraeans  are  said  to  have  founded  colonies  in 
Ionia,  Libya,  Cyprus,  ^Etolia,  and  Boeotia.  Erythraea  is  only  a  translation  of  Ery-phrea,  and 
means  the  Saviour  608 :  $=500,  PrrlOO  H=8=608 :  or,  as  it  would  be  in  Hebrew,  n  *=400, 
-I  r=200,  n  A=8=608. 

The  Erythrasan  sea  washed  the  island  of  Diu,  or  the  holy  island,  and  the  coast  of  Malabar,  as 


1  Maurice,  Hist.  Hin.  Vol.  I.  p.  239,  ed.  4to.  *  P.  16,  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  V.  Sect.  XXXVIII.  note 

3  Horae  Pelasgicse,  Pt.  i.  Ch.  iii.  p.  64. 

*  When  the  T^Xbi/  was  first  introduced,  it  had  the  same  form  with  the  corresponding  letter  of  the  Latin  alphabet, 
namely  V.  By  degrees  one  of  the  sides  was  lengthened,  and  it  acquired  the  form  of  V  :  but  it  was  some  time  before 
the  two  lines,  which  form  the  angle,  were  bent  into  the  present  form  T. 

5  Anal.  Vol.  III.  pp.  187,  189,  4to. 

4g2 


596  COLIDA    OF    SOUTH    INDIA. 

well  as  that  of  the  island  of  Serendive,  or  Taprobana,  or  Palaesimunda, l  or  Ceylon,  on  which  stood 
Columbo,  and,  according  to  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  mount  Ararat ;  and  where  the  mark  of 
Adam's  foot  was ;  and  it  washed  also  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  or  Colamandel,  or  Chiol-mandala. 
On  this  coast,  according  to  Ptolemy,  there  were  a  river  called  Manda,  a  gulf  called  Colchicus- 
sinus,2  and  a  place  called  Malliarpha  Emporium,  or  Melliapour,  where  the  Christian  St.  Thomas 
was  said  to  have  been  martyred.  But  was  he  not  the  Tammuz  who  was  killed,  for  whom  the 
Jewish  women  made  their  lamentations,  the  God  who  was  also  called,  in  Western  Syria,  Adonis  ? 
Of  both  of  these  we  shall  see  more  by  and  by. 

In  the  Colchicus  Sinus  is  a  town  now  called  Cochin,3  and  near  it  the  Sinus  Arga-ricus.4 
Here  we  have  the  Cholchos,  to  which  the  Argonauts  went,  as  is  proved,  by  what  Ptolemy  calls 
the  Sinus  Argo-ricus,  in  its  neighbourhood.  The  meaning  of  Chiol  or  Choi  is  the  same  as  Colida, 
Cali-di.  The  Manda  or  Munda  of  the  coast,  or  of  the  island,  or  of  the  river,  we  know  means 
cycle.  Thus  we  have  two  Cholchoses  and  two  Argonauts.  But  as  few  people  will  now  believe 
the  story  of  the  Ethiopian  colony  with  their  curly  hair  going  from  Egypt  to  the  shore  of  the 
Euxine,  they  will  be  obliged  to  believe  the  reverse — that  the  whole  story  came  from  India  to  the 
West,  and  was  not  understood  by  the  Greeks.  At  the  top  of  the  coast  of  Malabar  is  the  gulf  of 
Cutch,  which  is  the  Cuttaia,  called  by  Ptolemy  the  Sinus  Canthi.  And  near  to  this  gulf  is  a 
promontory  of  Tammuz. 

Mr.  Bryant  has  shewn  that  the  Colchis  of  the  West  was  also  called  Cutaia,  and  some  of  its 
inhabitants  Sindi,  that  is,  Indi.  Some  of  the  inhabitants  of  Colchis  were  called  lberi  or  Hebrews, 
and  were  said  to  come  from  Ur  :  that,  of  course,  is  the  Urii  or  Uri-ana  of  Colida.  The  circum- 
stance of  these  lberi  being  divided  into  the  four  Indian  castes,5  proves  them  Indians  pretty  clearly. 
A  little  beyond  Ceylon  is  the  Chersonesus,  called  Golden,  on  which  are  found  the  river  Creso-ana, 
and  the  mount  Sian,  the  capital  of  which  is  called  Judia,  and  the  Jewish  looking  people.  It  is 
from  this  country  that  the  Malays  or  Lascars  come,  whose  language,  in  the  depot  in  Wap- 
ping,  my  respectable  friend,  Salome  the  Jew,  understood. 6  It  is  on  the  coast  of  Malabar, 
near  Ceylon,  that  the  black  Jews  were  found  by  Dr.  Buchanan,  and  also  the  Christians  of  St. 
Thomas,  whose  service  is  yet  performed  in  the  Chaldee  or  Jewish  language.  In  the  Golden 
Chersonesus  or  Siam  we  have  several  of  the  same  places  as  those  we  found  on  the  coast  of  Mala- 
bar, Cambay,  Cochin,  &c.  The  circumstance  of  the  promontory  of  Tamus  being  found  in  India, 
near  to  the  settlement  of  the  St.  Thomas  Christians  of  Malabar,  as  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Bryant,  at 
once  renders  the  story  of  St.  Thomas  in  India  doubtful.  Then  how  are  these  persons  called 
Christians,  using  the  Chaldee  language,  to  be  accounted  for  except  as  I  have  stated,  that  they 
were  a  tribe  of  Afghans  or  Ioudi,  having  the  doctrines  of  a  person  called  Salivahana,  (of  whom  I 
shall  presently  treat,)  or  of  Bal-ii,  named  before,  in  Bk.  IV.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  1,  who  were  made  into 
Christians  by  the  Portuguese,  by  means  of  a  little  blundering,  a  little  lying,  and,  by  what  we  know 
was  the  case,  a  good  deal  of  persecution.  The  fact,  of  tribes  of  black  Jews  without  the  Pentateuch 
in  this  Chaldee-speaking  country,  agrees  very  well  with  and  supports  my  theory. — They  were 
X^vjo--ians,  Creseans,  as  Pliny  properly  called  them. 

Servius  on  the  Mneid  says,  that  the  Sibyl  received  the  boon  of  long  life  on  condition,  that  she 


1  Bartolomeus  Systema  Brachmanorum  ;  also  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  pp.  187,  189. 
8  We  recollect  that  Bryant  has  shewn  that  Cholchida  is  Colida. 

3  The  king  of  this  place  was  called  a  Zamorin.    This  has  been  shewn  to  be  a  Semiramis. 

4  Ibid.  5  Bryant,  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  455,  ed.  4to. 
6  Mr.  Salome  is  the  author  of  a  Hebrew  Grammar. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER    II.      SECTION 


10.  59/ 


would  quit  the  Isle  of  Erythrcea.1      Now  I  apprehend  this  island  could  be  no  other  than  Ceylon, 
unless,  indeed,  it  was  Diu.     One  of  them,  I  think,  it  must  have  been. 

Much  has  been  said  respecting  the  priority  of  the  Scythians  or  the  Celts.  As  I  have  said  in  my 
Celtic  Druids,  the  question  is  of  no  value.  The  same  race  of  men  are  evidently  meant,  who 
were  resident  to  the  North,  between  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges,  extending  to  the  North  into 
Tartary.     Gen.  Vallancey  has  pointed  out  a  most  important  passage  of  Dionysius  : 

IvSov  Trap'  icorafAOv  Not«»  SiajQat  swaiea-tv*  &C,  &C. 

Upon  the  banks  of  the  great  river  Ind 

The  Southern  Scuthce  dwell :  which  river  pays 

Its  wat'ry  tribute  to  that  mighty  sea 

Styled  Erythraean.     Far  removed  its  source, 

Amid  the  stormy  cliffs  of  Caucasus  : 

Descending  tbence  through  many  a  winding  vale 

It  separates  vast  nations 


These  were  the  first  great  founders  in  the  world — 
Founders  of  cities  and  of  mighty  states  ; 
Who  shewed  a  path  through  seas,  before  unknown  : 
And,  when  doubt  reigned  and  dark  uncertainty, 
Who  rendered  life  more  certain.    They  first  viewed 
The  starry  lights,  and  formed  them  into  schemes. 


Afterward  the  same  author  says,  that  the  people  above  alluded  to  also  lived  upon  the  Syrian 
Sea,  and  were  called  *Poivixes,  Phoenicians,  and  that  they  were  descended  from  the  true  Ery- 
thrasan  stock.3    These  Scuthse  were  also  Sacse. 

Strabo  describes  one  of  the  Greek  kings  or  generals,  in  his  war  with  the  Indians,  to  have 
penetrated  as  far  as  the  Xvpoi  and  4>avvoi.  From  this  it  is  clear,  that  if  the  names  have  become 
lost,  yet  that  formerly  there  were  Syrians  and  Phoenicians  on  the  East  of  the  Indus.  Surely  if  I 
wished  for  a  confirmation  of  all  my  doctrines  by  a  Greek  author,  I  could  not  have  desired  any 
thing  more  to  my  purpose.  Here,  in  these  Qmvixsg  from  Central  India,  we  have  the  people  over 
whom  Melchizedek  was  king;  the  people  whose  ancestors  gave  Jewish  names  to  the  cities  of 
India,  and  who  were  afterward  joined  by  their  countrymen,  driven  out  under  Abraham  ;  who 
brought  with  them  the  Indian  mythos,  and  who  gave  the  same  names  to  the  places  in  their  little 
mountain  province  of  Judaea  of  the  West,  that  they  had  left  in  the  mighty  empire  of  India,  ex- 
tending from  Cashmere  to  Comorin,  and  from  the  Indus  to  Sian,  or  the  Siones,  or  Sions,  and 
Yudia  of  Pegu — to  the  Pan-daean,  that  is,  the  Catholic  kingdom. 

Bartholomeus  says,  JEt/iMpes*  ab  Indo  (nota  bene)  jlumine  consurgentes  juxta  JEgyptum 
consederunt.  Idem  habet  Syncellus  apud  Marshamum.5  Et  Eupolemus  apud  eumdem  Eusebium.6 
Chus  esse  JEthiopum  patrem  et  fratrem  Mitzraim. 7  Chus  autem  Bacchum  Indicum  esse  suspi- 
cantur  Calcuttenses  Angli,  et  Reverend  P.  Georgius,  qui  etiam  duplicem  ^Ethiopiam  scite  dis- 
tinguit,  atque  Indos  adstipulante  eidem  De  Guines  a  Chus  oriundos  esse  existimati.  Quod  si 
verum  est,  alia  profecto  lndis  antiquitas  tribui  debet,  quatn  tribuat  eisdem  R.  P.  Marcus.  Phi- 
lostratus,  (Lib.  iii>  Cap.  vi.  de  vita  Apollonii)  scribit,  Erat  aliquod  tempus,  quo  Mthiopes  conse- 
derunt hac  in  parte,  gens  Indica  JEthiopia  enim  nondum  erat  (nempe  ^Ethiopes  seu  Indos  portans). 
Et  Lib.  iv.  Cap.  vi.   ait,  Mthiopes  ab  Lidis  venientes.     Et  paulo  infra,   Sapientissimi  mortalium 


1  Note  on  Virgil  by  Servius.  *  Dion.  Perieg.  ver.  1088.  3  Vail.  Hib.  Coll.  Vol.  V.  pp.  17,  18. 

4  Art.  Eusebius'  Chronicon,  Lib.  post.  edit.  Seal.  p.  72.  s  P.  1 15,  c.  6  De  Prap.  Evan.  Lib.  ix. 

7  Ita  legit  Bochartus  in  suo  Phaleg.  Lib.  iv.  Cap.  ii. 


598 


INDIANS    IN    THRACE. 


Indi  sunt:    coloni  autem  eorum  Mthiopes.     Profecto  haec  omnia  de  veris  Indis   dici  liquet,  ac 
proinde  ab  iis  potius  religio  per  Africam  in  iEgyptum  penetravit. * 

11.  Until  I  had  written  the  above,  respecting  the  Grecian  towns,  &c,  I  did  not  observe  the 
following  passage  of  Mr.  Bryant's  : 2  "  The  river  Indus  was  often  called  Si?idus,  and  nations  of 
"  the  family  whereof  I  am  treating  were  called  Sindi.  There  were  people  of  this  name  and  family 
"  in  Thrace,  named  by  Hesychius :  Xivfioi  {rr\g  (dpaxirjg)   sQvog  Ivhxoi.     The  Sindi  (of  Thrace) 

are  an  Indian  nation.     Some  would  alter  it  to  Xivhixw,  Sindicum  :  but  both  terms  are  of  the 

same  purport.     He  mentions,  in  the  same  part  of  the  world,  -nroKig,  %iv§ixog  Xi]w.ijv  Keyopsur} : 

a  city,  which  was  denominated  the  Sindic  or  Indian  harbour."  In  the  next  page  Bryant 
repeats  what  the  reader  has  before  seen,  that  Apollonius  of  Tyanea  affirms,  that  the  African 
Ethiopians  were  originally  an  Indian  nation.  After  this  Mr.  Bryant  goes  on  to  shew,3  on  the 
authority  of  the  ancient  authors,  that  the  Indians  were  divided  into  castes  j  that  their  priests  were 
formed  into  societies,  in  colleges,  as  recluses ;  that  their  religion  was  that  of  Ammon  (Om-man)— 
that  they  worshiped  the  sun—that  their  priests  were  called,  from  the  name  of  the  sun,  Chom,  Chomini 
Sophites,  from  which  the  Greeks,  he  says,  made  Tv(AVO-(rotpoiTai,  and  To[xvo<ro<Pis-ai,  or  Gym- 
nosophists.  The  <ro$og,  I  doubt  not,  was  both  a  Greek  and  Indian  word  for  wise,  and  I  think  no 
one  can  read  the  long  dissertation  of  Mr.  Bryant,  and  not  see  that  the  Gymnosophists  were  the  wise 
men  or  Magi,  or  priests  of  Ammon,  or  of  the  iepov  O/t-jaavs. 

The  Sophites  are  the  Asophs  and  Eusofzyes  resident  on  the  mount  Suffaid,  noticed  by  Mr. 
Elphinston  in  his  Cabul. 4      Of  them  I  shall  treat  hereafter. 

That  a  party  of  Judaites  penetrated  into  Thrace  cannot  be  doubted,  after  the  visible  marks  of 
Judaism,  which  have  been  discovered  in  that  country.  The  Odomantes,  according  to  Aristo- 
phanes,5 were  Jews.  The  scholiast  upon  that  author  says,  0$o[aolt(ov  s^vog  Qpeaxixov,  q>u<ri  8s 
aursg  lelaisg  eivai—"  The  Odomantes  are  a  people  of  Thrace ;  they  say  that  they  are  Jews." 
Hermippus,  in  the  Life  of  Pythagoras,  observes,  "  Pythagoras  performed  and  said  these  things  in 
"imitation  of  the  Jews  and  Thracians."6  The  identity  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinitarian  and 
Thracian  Orpheus  with  the  Trinity  of  India  and  of  Genesis,  again  proves  the  Thracians  and  Jews 
both  to  have  been  colonies  from  India.  The  latter  part  of  the  word  Odo-mantes  I  do  not  under- 
stand, but  I  have  a  suspicion  that  the  first  is  a  corruption  of  Ioudi. 

In  Thrace  we  have,  in  the  doctrines  of  Orpheus,  the  triune  God  of  India  and  of  the  Jews.  In 
the  names  of  towns,  rivers,  fyc,  a  repetition  of  similar  places  in  India :  in  the  Xpj£  we  have  the 
Cristna ;  in  the  widows  sacrificing  themselves,  the  widows  of  India  burning  themselves ;  in  the 
mysteries  of  Eleusis,  the  Indian  Concha  om  pancha,  &c,  &c.  How  is  all  this  ?  Did  the  people 
of  Thrace  send  a  colony  to  India  ;  or  did  the  Hindoos  colonize  Thrace  ?  It  is  impossible  to  be 
blind  to  the  identity  of  the  two  :  the  sacrificing  of  the  widows  and  the  castes  prove  them  of  the 
tribe  Yudi  from  Youdia,  not  of  the  nation  of  Moses,  of  Western  Syria. 

Curtius,  speaking  of  the  very  people  above  noticed  by  Mr.  Elphinston,  says  of  Alexander, 
"  Hinc  in  regnum  Sophitis7  perventum  est  Gens,  ut  Barbari  credunt,  sapientia  excellit,  bonisque 
"  moribus  regitur."  I  think  I  may  now  safely  consider  that  every  thing  which  I  have  formerly 
said  of  the  Ammon  being  the  Om  of  India  is  satisfactorily  proved.  The  tomb  of  Orpheus  was 
shewn  in  Thrace,  and  a  perusal  of  what  Mr.  Bryant  has  said  respecting  him,  I  think  must  con- 


1  Bartol.  Sys.  Brach.  p.  30/.  *  Vol.  III.  p.  215.  3  Pp.  218—220. 

4  Chap.  iv.  *  Acharn.  Act  i.  Scene  iv.  6  Benj.  De  Tudela,  by  Gerrans,  Ch.  xviii.  note. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER    II.      SECTION  12.  599 

vince  any  person  that  there  never  was  a  man  of  this  name,  but  that  the  Orpheans  were  a  sect  or 
tribe  having  the  religion  of  the  Trimurti,  and  were  the  Iudi  who  came  from  the  East,  and  who 
were  also  called  Iberi,  or  foreigners,  or  Hebrews.  They  were  a  tribe  or  sect,  like  the  Jews  of 
Syria,  expelled  from  the  East,  who  settled  in  Thrace,  and  gave  the  places  the  same  names  as  the 
places  they  left  in  India ;  and  they  brought  with  them  the  Trinity,  a  little  altered  in  the  time  of 
Plato,  but  evidently  the  same:  and  the  female  sacrifices,  and  the  worship  of  the  Xgij£-o£>  as  found 
on  the  monument  at  Delphi.  They  were,  as  we  shall  see,  the  X^j-Javoj  of  St.  Thomas,  or 
Tammuz.  It  was  from  the  Orpheans  that  Plato  had  his  Trinity  described  in  the  early  part  of  this 
work. 

12.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Grecian  mountains,  where  I  have  formerly  pointed  out  the  Argos, 
the  Ionnina,  the  Chaonia,  Dodona,  called  by  Ritter,  as  I  am  told,  Bod  or  Bud-ona,  &c,  opposite 
to  the  head  of  the  Haliacmon  or  Ionicora,  is  the  town  of  Nicaea,  and  near  it  Chriso-dio  :  this  is 
Xpurog  or  Xf>v)?<>S  the  holy.  Nicaea  is  the  name  of  the  God  Bacchus,  or  Nysus,  or  IH2J,  and 
Xp7j£-o£  is  his  epithet.  My  reader  will  not  forget  that  I  formerly  pointed  out  that  in  the  sixteen- 
letter  alphabet  XPri(roS^  must  nave  Deen  written  X^°S  °r  XP££0S>  the  root  of  Crestonia. 

A  learned  friend,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Kenrick,  of  York,  has  given  me  the  following  particulars  of  the 
German  work  of  Ritter,  which  I  regret  that  I  cannot  read  :  "  He  himself  thus  states  the  purpose 
"  of  it  in  his  8th  page  :  '  I  intend  to  shew,  from  the  most  ancient  monuments  which  geography, 
'antiquity,  mythology,  architecture,  and  religious  systems  present,  that  Indian  sacerdotal 
'  colonies,  with  the  old  Buddha  worship,  proceeding  from  Central  Asia,  occupied  mediately  or 
'  immediately,  even  earlier  than  the  historical  age  of  the  Greeks,  the  countries  on  the  Phasis, 
1  Pontus,  Thrace,  the  Danube,  many  places  in  Western  Europe,  and  even  Greece  itself,  whose 
religious  influence  may  be  traced  not  only  in  Asiatic  memorials,  but  in  the  old  historical 
fragments  of  the  Greek,  the  people  of  Asia  Minor,  and  in  Herodotus'  account  of  the  Scythians 
"  '  in  his  fourth  book.'  These  Buddhic  priests  he  finds  in  the  BeSio/,  whom  Herodotus  mentions 
«f  along  with  the  Mdyoi,  I.  101  ;  the  doctrine  in  Baaur  of  Sanchoniathon  :  and  the  name  of 
"  Buddha  in  the  Bod-her  of  the  Wends,  (a  Slavonic  tribe,)  and  the  Bogh  of  the  Slavians,  in  the 
"  Odin  of  the  Saxons  and  Woden  of  the  Germans,  whose  day  (Wednesday)  is  sacred  to  Buddha 
"  even  in  the  calendars  of  the  Brahmins,  in  the  Khoda  of  the  Persians  and  Goth  of  the  Germans  ; 
"  in  the  Budini,  among  the  Scythians  on  the  Oaros,  the  Budiaeans  and  Bottiaeans  of  Macedonia 

*  and  Iapygia,  the  hero  Bodo,  founder  of  Dodona,  (originally  Bodona,)  in  Minerva  Budia,  worshiped 
"  in  Thessaly,  (Lycophr.  Cap.  359,)  in  Hercules  BMvyg,  in  Hesychius,  in  the  Budeion  of 
■  Homer,  II.  16,  572,  in  the  festival  Budoron,  in  Salamis,  in  the  Butades  and  Eteobutades,  the 
"  most  ancient  priests  of  Minerva,  in  Attica,  the  Botachidae  of  Arcadia,  and  the  Butakidas  of 
"  Naxos,  Caria  and  Sicily,  builders  of  the  temple  at  Eryx.  The  Budoricum  and  Budorgis  of  the 
"  Sudetes,  Maro-boduum  of  the  Marcomanni,  Budissin,  and  Butinfeld,  the  Boden-see,  (Lake  of 
'■'  Constance,)  the  Bothnian  Gulf  or  Codanus  Sinus,  are  proofs  according  to  him,  that  the  same 
;{  names  were  widely  diffused  also  among  the  Germans  to  the  North.  In  pursuing  his  argument 
'  he  endeavours  to  shew  that  the  Colchians  on  the  Euxine  Sea  were  not,  as  Herodotus  supposed, 
'  and  as  has  been  generally  considered,  an  Egyptian  colony,  left  by  Sesostris,  but  an  Indian 
'•'  colony,  by  shewing  that  the  dark  complexion,  curly  hair,   and  manufacture  of  linen,  by  which 

*  he  proved  them  to  be  Egyptian,  are  equally  explicable  of  an  Indian  origin.  The  name  Colchi 
'*  he  considers  as  allied  to  the  Ko'X^oi,  mentioned  by  Arrian,  on  the  Southern  coast  of  India, 
'(vine.  seq.  to  Periplus,  p.  113,)  and  the  xo\7rog  ho^x1™*  of  Plotemy,  vii.  169;  the  KtoAoj 
1  on  the  Euxine,  with  the  worship  of  Venus  Colias  in  Attica,  and  the  name  KcoKiag,  given  by  the 


u 


600  MEANING   OF   THE    WORD    XpU(T0£. 

"  Greeks  to  Ceylon  and  Cape  Comorin ;  the  Palus  Mairprts  (for  so  he  spells  it)  with  the  Maha 
"  Mai  of  the  Buddhists  in  Nepaul ;  the  xaqot^oi  and  xopixol  on  the  Euxine,  with  the  KvUpo  oixpov, 
"  now  Raraanan  Kor,  and  Ktopu  vytroc,  now  Ramisur  Kor,  in  Southern  India,  which  Pliny  calls 
"  (vi.  24)  Solis  insula;  and  the  Xivroi,  also  dwelling  on  the  Euxine,  with  the  Indi  on  the  Sind. 
"  This  word  Kor,  is  then  pursued  through  a  variety  of  combinations  ;  it  is  a  name  of  the  sun ; 
"  the  Kur  of  the  Persians,  whence  xvpog,  whose  name  meant  sun  ;  Araxes  or  Kor  as  sacred  to 
"  the  sun ;  Chorasan  the  land  of  sun-worship,  and  the  town  of  KopoxavSajU.7j  (Strabo  xi.  1)  on  the 
"  Palus  Maetis,  a  sanctuary  of  sun  worship,  from  Kor  and  the  Bactrian  Kanda,  signifying  a 
"  fortified  town  ;  whence  Maracanda  and  Sindocanda.  (Ptol.  vii.  180.)  There  is  a  Hypanis, 
"  one  of  the  principal  rivers  of  the  Penjab,  and  a  Hypanis  falling  into  the  Bosphorus,  Strab.  xi. ; 
"we  have  a  Phasis  in  Colchis,  another  in  Armenia,  and  another  in  Ceylon  (Taprobane).  This 
"  same  country,  thus  connected  with  India,  appears  to  him  to  be  also  in  relation  with  the  North 
"  of  Europe.  This  is  properly  Asia ;  here  are  the  'Atrirspyiavoi,  Strabo,  xi.,  (Asa-burgers) 
"  inhabitants  of  Asgard ;  here  is  the  ^5of  sea ;  Kauk-asos,  this  was  the  country  of  the  As-kenaz 
"  of  Moses ;  hence  came  Odin  and  his  Asa  into  Scandinavia.  He  compares  the  Buddhist  doc- 
"  trine,  that,  during  the  deluge,  Buddha  put  his  foot  on  certain  places  to  preserve  them  from  being 
"  covered  by  it,  and  left  there  an  impression,  with  the  account  of  Herodotus,  iv.  82,  of  the 
"  gigantic  footsteps  of  Hercules,  said  to  be  left  in  the  land  of  the  Scythians." 

13.  Berenice  was  called  TJav%pv(ros  or  Panchrysos,  or  all  gold,  from  a  mountain  near  it,  where 
the  Ptolemies  were  said  to  get  gold.  I  have  some  suspicion  that  the  gold  here  was  like  the  swans 
and  poplars  in  the  Padus  of  Italy,  sought  for  in  vain,  and  ridiculed  by  Lucian.  It  is  my  firm 
belief,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  X§?]£  or  IHS  or  sacred  nomen,  cognomen,  et  omen,  was  at 
first  a  secret,  and  that  the  epithet  of  golden  was  applied  in  a  double  sense  :  then  Uctv%pv(ros 
would  be  the  beneficent  or  good  Ilav.  There  were  a  golden  age  and  a  holy  age :  and  a  golden  city 
and  a  holy  city.  However,  the  X^fog  and  Epa)£  on  the  monument  of  the  Crestonia  Sindica 
prove  that  gold  cannot  be  there  meant. 

In  this  opinion  respecting  the  meaning  of  the  word  p£pu(ro$  I  am  completely  borne  out  by  Mr. 
Bryant,  whose  learning  no  one  will  deny.  He  has  undertaken  to  shew  that,  in  many  places, 
where  the  words  ysvog  %pv(rsov,  or  ysvos  %pvo~siov  or  ^iktsioi  tuts^s  are  used  by  Greek  au- 
thors, such  us  Hesiod,  Pausanias,  &c,  and  translated  golden  age  or  golden  race  or  golden  fathers, 
&c,  those  expressions  are  nonsense.  In  order  to  get  over  this  difficulty,  he  proposes  the  violent 
measure  of  expunging  the  Greek  consonant  g,  which  is  not  only  contrary  to  all  admissible  rules  of 
etymology,  but  carries  along  with  it  the  consequence  that  the  Greeks  did  not  understand  their  own 
language.  But  if  we  leave  the  p  as  it  is,  and  only  suppose  the  change  of  the  t\  for  the  v,  we  have 
good  sense,  and  have  pious  or  holy  or  benevolent  race,  or  age,  or  fathers. *  I  believe  that  originally 
the  Greek  P£f»J£,  meaning  excellent  or  good,  and  also  perhaps  the  solar  golden  yellow  rays  was 
applied  to  the  metal  we  call  gold,  and  in  time  became  corrupted  into  %pt>S  '•  it  meant  the  precious 
metal. 2 

This  observation  of  the  learned  Bryant's  is  of  the  very  first  importance,  for  if  he  be  right,  he 
completely  justifies  and  bears  me  out  in  the  only  questionable  part  of  my  theory  on  the  X$7l<ro$ 
and  %ou(ro$.     He  cannot  have  done  this  in  accommodation  to  my  system.     What  is  here  said  is 

1  Bryant,  Vol.  III.  pp.  164,  &c. 

*  I  beg  my  reader  to  refer  to  Book  IX.  Chap.  I.,  Sect.  4,  p.  452. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  II.    SECTION   14.  601 

strengthened  by  an  observation  of  Vallancey's  in  a  note  on  Sir  W.  Jones's  calling  Cristna  Krishen. 
Krishen,  the  Sun,  Apollo;  Haeb.  chors,  hinc  Grsec.  Khrusos,  aurum.  Cast.  p.  1409. l  Here  Val- 
lancey  agrees  with  me  in  identifying  the  ^p^cos  and  the  %pv(ros. 

14.  The  natives  of  Siam  and  Ceylon  are  said  by  both  to  have  once  had  the  same  religion.  As 
we  have  seen  a  river  Cresoana  in  Ceylon,  so  Ptolemy  gives  us  a  river  Cresoana  in  Siam,  (which  is 
called  a  golden  Chersonesus,)  and  in  Ptolemy's  map  there  is  a  cape  a  little  to  the  east  of  what  is 
written,  Locus  unde  solvunt  in  Chrysen  navigantes.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Golden  Chersonesus 
ought  to  be  the  Holy  or  Sacred  Chersonesus. 

Greek  scholars  explain  Chersonesus  by  p££g o~o£  land  and  vytrog  island,  that  is,  land-island.  This 
only  shews  how  soon  they  are  satisfied.  There  were  various  Chersonesuses — as  Chersonesus 
Aurea,  Cimbrica,  Taurica,  and  Thracia,  which  are  now  thought  to  be  Malacca,  Jutland,  Crim 
Tartary,  and  Romania,  and  many  others.2  The  explanation  of  land-island  I  consider  ridiculous, 
and  that  it  only  proves  the  meaning  unknown ;  and,  in  consequence,  I  go  to  collateral  circum- 
stances :  finding  several  of  them  having  no  appearance  of  a  peninsula,  but  having  an  evident  con- 
nexion with  the  ^?)£-tian  mythos,  I  consider  it  not  improbable  that  it  may  be  a  corruption  of 
the  word  XPW*  an^  may  nave  Deen  tne  island  of  Crs,  or  Krs  or  Ceres,  or  holy  or  sacred  island. 
It  has  also  been  explained  to  mean  desertus — desert  place.  Although  this  is  not  foolish,  like  land- 
island,  yet  I  think  my  explanation  more  probable,  when  all  the  collateral  circumstances  are  taken 
into  account.  Upon  the  whole,  I  consider  that  the  Chrisen  of  Ptolemy  (see  his  map)  to  which 
people  sailed,  was  clearly  the  Cherson-nesus  aurea,  and  that  Chrisen  had  the  same  meaning  as 
Cherson. 

The  island  of  Java  is  called  by  the  natives  Tana  Jawa,  that  is,  leuetana,  (the  last  syllable  the 
same  as  in  Mauritania,  &c.,)  and  Nusa  Iawa,  that  is,  island  Ieue  ;  here  we  have  the  Greek  vrjcro£. 
A  part  of  it  is  called  the  district  of  Kedu  :  this  is  nothing  but  Iodu  aspirated  and  corrupted. 3 
The  residence  of  the  prince  is  called  Craton  ;  this  I  have  no  doubt  is  Xp^j-ov  or  Crestonia  or 
Croton,  and  the  town  where  it  is,  is  called  Yugya-carta — this  is  also  Carta-Iudia.  The  minister 
of  the  king  is  called  Ade-pati,  that  is,  father  Ad.  Mataram  is  Matarea.  Batavia  is  Buddha- via. 
They  have  also  Cheri-bon.  The  king  is  called  by  a  name  which  means  head  or  chief  Rato :  this 
is  Rasit.  In  the  Greek  language  the  national  termination  makes  the  word  Xp?j£  or  Xflijerr  into 
Xp>]£-o£  :  in  the  Tamul  the  national  termination  made  it  ~Kpr\<r-£V  or  Xgea-T-sv  or  Crisen. 4  This 
was  evidently  the  Chersonesus,  and  it  was  not  the  golden  Chersonesus,  but  (as  Mr.  Bryant's 
argument  proves)  the  sacred  peninsula  island,  or  J^ero^.  The  golden  cherson-nesus  is  a  tautology, 
like  river  Jordan,  arising  from  the  Greeks  not  understanding  the  meaning  of  the  mythos. 

The  word  Chersonesus  cannot  be  held  to  mean  peninsula  exclusively,  as  a  general  term,  be- 
cause we  find  it  means  also  promontory.  Besides,  I  repeat,  the  term  land-island  is  absurd.  I 
believe  the  ^sgcov  in  the  case  of  Siam  is  the  Chrysen  which  we  find  in  Ptolemy's  map,  and  the 
vr^trag  answers  to  the  nasus  of  the  Romans,  and  means  promontory ;  and,  that  the  whole  of  what 
we  call  the  golden  Chersonesus  was  the  golden  or  the  holy  promontory  of  Chrysen.  I  believe 
the  vr]<ro£,  nexus,  nasus,  and  our  word  neck,  had  all  the  same  origin,  and  meant  any  projection. 
On  the  coast  of  Malabar,  in  lat.  15  N.,  there  is  no  peninsula,  nor  can  South  India  be  called  a  pe- 
ninsula, though  it  may  be  denominated  a  cape  or  promontory.  But  there  is  a  small  promontory 
at  the  above-named  latitude.  All  that  I  have  said  respecting  the  meaning  of  Chersonesus,  is 
confirmed  by  an  expression  in  Wilkinson's  Atlas,  in  his  map  of  Achaia,  No.  28,  in  Eubcea, 


1  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  i.  p.  540.  *  Enc.  Brit.  »  Hamilton's  Gaz.  *  See  Ptolemy. 

4   H 


602  MYTHOS    IN    AFRICA,    MARCUS. 

Chersonesus  vel  Nasus.  In  Hall's  Atlas  there  is  a  Cape  Nose,  in  lat.  24,  close  to  Emerald  Isles. 
In  the  Sea  of  Marmora  is  found  the  island  of  Proconnesus.  In  the  Chersonesus  of  the  Hellespont 
may  be  seen,  lat.  40f,  Alopecon-nesus  applied  to  a  neck  of  land :  thus  it  is  plain  that  nesus 
means  both.  Chalcidon  or  Chrysopolis  is  evidently  City  of  Chrysos  or  Chersos.  In  the  old 
language,  without  vowels,  they  would  be  both  the  same.  Though  vi\rros  means  island,  it  is  very 
clear  that  it  does  not  mean  island  exclusively,  but  that  it  also  means  peninsula,  and  answers  to 
the  Hebrew  >x  ai,  and  the  Greek  ccia,  which  my  lexicon  tells  me  means  at  once  land,  island,  and 
country.  To  support  the  common  explanation  all  peninsulas  ought  to  have  been  Chersonesuses, 
which  was  not  the  case,  at  least  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  they  were.  I  shall  be  told  by 
Sanscrit  scholars  that  ia,  in  Sansci-it,  means  victory  ;  no  doubt  it  has  several  meanings,  the  same 
as  the  ii  and  ie  and  ia  of  the  Hebrews.  The  God  Iaa>,  Jah,  was  always  the  God  of  the  host  of 
heaven,  of  armies,  and  of  victory.  Xepo-o£,  Jones  says,  means  a  shell,  and  comes  from  the  He- 
brew t£nn  hrs,  chers.  I  dare  say  it  comes  from  the  Hebrew  Hrs,  or  Chres,  or  Cres,  or  Ceres,  or 
Cyrus.  Axiokersos  was  Ceres,  that  is,  Axios  worthy  or  good  Xegco£.  Nimrod1  says,  the  Dii 
Magni  of  Samothrace — Axieros,  Axiocersos,  and  Axiocersa,  plainly  correspond  with  the  Indian 
names  Asyoru,  or  Asyoruca,  Asyotcersa,  and  Atcersa  or  Asyotcersas. 

Georgius 2  says,  Nam  obvii  sunt  multi  forte  cum  articulo  Pi  a  Graecis  dictus  Bi-cheres,  Acen- 
ckeres,  Mer-cheres,  Tar-cheres,  et  Mo<r^epic,  Mos-cheris,  ab  Eratosthene,  ne  mihi  litem  moveas  de 
significatione  vocis,  (quae  non  minus  iEgyptiaca,  quam  Hebraica  est  Din  hrs,  cheres,)  Graece  versus 
'Hxioboros  sole  datus,  aut  solis  natus,  quemadmodum  eruditorum  plures  ante  hac  observarunt. 
Again,3   Cheres  Sol,  unde  Men-cheres.    Here  we  have  the  Chres  in  Egypt,  as  might  be  expected. 

I  beg  it  may  be  observed,  that  in  my  explanation  of  the  word  Xg>]£,  I  have  not  availed  myself 
of  the  usual  practice  of  etymologists  of  changing  letters  for  one  another;  as  for  instance,  dentals 
into  dentals,  labials  into  labials,  &c,  because  they  are  dentals  or  labials,  but  when  I  have  changed 
a  letter,  it  is  because  I  have  authority  for  it :  for  example,  Crest-ona,  Cort-ona,  Crest-onia,  Cris-sa. 
And  in  every  case  the  changes  which  I  have  made  are  supported  by  collateral  written  or  circum- 
stantial evidence.  Minerva  was  called  BaSe/a,  or  Budea4  in  Thessaly.  This  is  what  we  might 
expect  to  find  in  the  country  of  the  Sindi,  and  where  the  wives  sacrificed  themselves  on  the  deaths 
of  their  husbands.  It  supports  my  system  in  a  wonderful  manner.  The  marks  of  the  succession 
of  the  religions  of  Buddha  and  Cristna  are  every  where  apparent. 

15.  A  learned  Jew,  of  the  name  of  Marcus,  has  given  an  extract  from  Philosturgius,  a  Greek  of 
the  fourth  century,  who  says,  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  East  shore  of  Africa,  as  far  as  Cape 
Guardafui,  were  called  %opoi,  and  were  tout-a-fait  basanes  par  la  chaleur  du  soleil,  or  nearly 
blacks.  These  Xvpoi  I  suppose  to  have  been  the  same  people  who  were  called  Xupoi  and  *Pauvoi 
in  the  Mesopotamia  between  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges.  M.  Marcus  observes,  that  the  Geez 
translate  the  word  Supoi  by  Saman,  which  resembles  Somen.  Claudien  calls  the  Abyssinians 
Judcei.  Now  these  Judaei  or  Saman  or  Samen  were  the  Samaneans  whom  we  have  found  in 
Meroe,  and  proved  to  be  the  East  Indian  Gymnosophists  of  that  state,  and  who  were  sometimes 
called,  by  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers,  the  people  of  the  nether  India,  and,  at  other  times,  of 
India  alone. 5 

We  have  seen  the  derivation  of  the  Gazas,  and  that  Ajmere  was  Gazimera.  This  is  exactly 
like  the  Gaza  of  Syria,  and  Gaza  of  Egypt,  the  sea-port  of  Memphis.     These  would  be  Gazameres, 


'  Vol.  II.  p.  505.  ?  Alph.  Tib.  p.  72.  3  U»d.  p  84.  4  Littl.  Diet. 

*  Journal  Asiatique  Nouveau,  No.  18,  19,  June,  1829. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  II.  SECTION   15.  603 

in  fact.  Gaza  is  Goza  ;  for  it  is  spelt  with  an  oin  not  with  an  aleph.  Mons.  Marcus,  the  learned 
and  ingenious  Jew,  thinks  the  Geez  of  Abyssinia,  and  the  Philistines,  meant  exiles.  I  think  they 
were  not  called  by  these  names  because  they  meant  exiles  ;  but  that  they  were  called  exiles,  be- 
cause they  were  from  Gazimera  and  Pallitana  of  India. 

Juba,  in  the  early  part  of  the  Christian  aera,  wrote  that  the  country  between  Syene  and  Meroe 
was  occupied  by  Arabians,  and  that  this  country  had  the  same  names  of  places  as  Arabia  :  for 
instance,  Ptolemy  places  in  Nubia,  Primis,  Sacole,  Nacis,  Tathis,  and  Napata ;  in  Arabia,  Priom, 
Sakle,  Nascos,  Thades,  and  the  nation  of  the  Napatei.  M.  Marcus  allows  that  the  Abyssinians 
call  their  country  Gys,  which,  he  says,  signifies  emigration,  because  they  emigrated  from  Philis- 
tina  in  Syria.  But  he  does  not  observe  that  these  people  were  called  by  the  same  name  in  the 
country  they  left.  This  I  have  already  accounted  for  in  observing  that  they  were  called  emigrants, 
because  they  were  Geez — not  Geez,  because  they  were  emigrants :  for  they  and  the  Palli  were 
equally  emigrants  or  exiles  in  Western  Syria  and  Nubia. 

M.  Marcus  observes,  it  is  astonishing  that  notwithstanding  the  high  antiquity  of  the  first  esta- 
blishments of  the  Jews  in  Abyssinia,  the  industry  of  these  people  throws  no  light  on  the  sojourn 
of  their  fathers  in  Palestine,  or  of  the  civilization  of  the  Phoenicians,  Assyrians,  &c.  The  reason 
of  this  is  very  simple — because  they  came  at  the  same  time  with  those  who  are  called  their  fa- 
thers, and  before  Moses  lived  :  and  this  is  the  reason  why  they  had  no  Pentateuch  till  they  ob- 
tained one  from  the  Christians.  M.  Marcus  also  observes,  that  the  founding  as  well  as  the 
decline  of  the  kingdom  of  Meroe  are  involved  in  equal  obscurity. 

The  country  of  the  Chaldeans  was  Northern  India ;  in  which  there  was  a  district  called  Syra, 
(Syra-strene),  and  Pallitana;  and  as  the  people  were  Judi  or  Judaei,  they  spoke  the  Chaldee  or 
Syro-Chaldee  language.  The  same  took  place  in  South  India :  Mysore  is  Maha-Sura  or  the 
Great  Syria. l  Here  there  was  also  a  Colida  or  Chaldea,  the  people  Judi  or  Judaei  speaking  the 
Syro-Chaldee  language  ;  and  there  also  were  found  the  Samaneans. 

In  Abyssinia,  the  country  was  called  India  and  nether  India ;  in  a  large  district  of  which,  the 
people  were  called  Sag 01 — a  sufficient  proof  that  the  country  was  called  Sura  or  Suria :  there  also 
people  were  called  Judaei,  and  they  likewise  spoke  the  Chaldee  or  Syro-Chaldee  language.  In  all 
these  countries  the  Pallestini  and  Samaneans  are  found  ;  and  what  is  more  remarkable,  the 
Phannoi  or  Phoenicians  are  found  in  Egypt,  and  in  two  of  the  Eastern  Syrias,  together,  as  the 
reader  has  seen,  with  several  other  striking  coincidences.  In  three  of  them,  all  the  Mosaic 
mythos  is  found,  but  without  the  Pentateuch,  which  was  a  later  compilation  of  the  people  of  the 
fourth  country,  and  in  all  the  four,  Crestians  or  Chrestians  are  found,  though  their  origins  are  for- 
gotten and  variously  accounted  for.  The  persons  whom  Manetho  calls  Royal  Shepherds  he  also 
calls  Phoenices  and  Hellenes. 2 

The  tribe  of  Juda  was  not  stopped  in  its  migration  westward  by  the  sea ;  or,  perhaps  when  it 
was  driven  out  from  Egypt,  part  of  it  moved  to  the  West,  along  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean, 
till  it  got  round  to  Guinea,  and  there  it  is  yet,  with  its  native  curly  head,  possessing  a  beautiful 
country,  full  of  fine  rivers,  among  which  are  found  a  river  Phrat  and  a  Jachin.3  It  would  be  very 
curious  to  examine  the  language  of  this  people.  Edrisi,  in  the  twelfth  century,  says  that  Jews 
occupied  the  country  on  the  river  Lamlem,  and  that  it  is  called  Yahandi.  This  is  confirmed  by 
Mr.  Bowditch,  in  his  account  of  the  Ashantee  country.  Every  thing  proves  that  they  were  of  the 
tribe  Judi,  though,  as  they  have  no  Pentateuch,  it  is  clear  that  they  came  not  from  the  tribe 


•  Buchanan.  *  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  HI.  p.  250. 

3  See  Mem.  de  Berlin,  Tom.  XVII.  by  M.  de  Francheville. 

4h2 


(304  GAZA-MERE. 

of  the  Western  Asiatic  Judaea,  or  at  least  that  they  did  not  emigrate  from  it  after  the  time  of  Moses. 
Near  lat.  10,  N.,  will  be  found  a  country  called  Soolimana,  and  near  it  are  places  called  Kisse  and 
Boodyaea  and  Cambodia  and  Nalanbes— all  Indian  names. 1 

I  have  lately  found  that  it  is  stated  in  the  Talmud  of  Jerusalem,  that  Joshua,  before  he  entered 
Canaan,  sent  to  inform  the  inhabitants,  that  such  as  wished  to  escape  might  do  so,  and  that,  in 
consequence  of  this  permission,  great  numbers,  despairing  of  being  able  to  defend  themselves,  fled 
into  Africa.2  Pieces  of  evidence  of  this  kind,  unexpectedly  occurring  to  support  my  theory,  are 
very  striking.  These  Canaanites  may  have  been  the  people  who  set  up  the  pillars  at  the  Straits 
of  Gibraltar,  (noticed  in  the  last  page  of  the  Appendix  to  my  Celtic  Druids,)  described  by  the 
Gentile  Procopius.  They  may  have  advanced  along  the  coast  till  they  came  to  where  they  are 
now  found. 

In  the  Melpomene  of  Herodotus,  Sect.  Ixiii.,  will  be  found  an  account  of  one  Sataspes  who  at- 
tempted to  sail  round  Africa,  by  going  through  the  Pillars  of  Hercules.  After  sailing  a  long  time 
he  came  to  a  nation  in  EaSrjTi  *$>oivixrfiri.  This  has  much  puzzled  the  learned.  These  people 
were  an  early  tribe  of  Ioudi,  and  they  were  dressed  in  Phoenician  dresses.  That  is  all.  But  this 
and  other  circumstances  prove  the  truth  of  Herodotus's  history.  They  were  probably  the  people 
just  now  noticed,  who  fled  from  before  the  face  of  Joshua  the  robbery  the  son  of  Nun. 

16.  The  Gaza  of  Syria  is  evidently  the  same  in  name  as  the  Aj-mere  of  India,  treated  of  in  Book 
VIII.,  for  in  Ptolemy  they  have  both  the  same  name  :  one  being  called  Gaza-mera,  the  other  Gaza. 
The  Western  Gaza  was  also  called  Iona ;  thus  Iona  is  the  same  as  Aj,  or,  read  in  the  Hebrew 
style,  Ja,  the  famous  Io  of  Syria,  both  male  and  female ;  the  n  e  converted  into  the  o  (in  their 
dialect  making  the  Io)  from  the  Hebrew  male  and  female  In.  But  the  town  of  Gaza  or  Iona  in 
the  Hebrew  is  spelt  nty  Oze.  This  we  see  answers  to  the  Aji  of  India ;  and  as  the  \  z  is  not  one  of 
the  sixteen  letters,  it  is  probable  that  it  has  originally  been  like  the  Indian,  the  i  or  j.  Thus,  again, 
we  get  at  last  to  the  rv  ie  or  Jah  of  the  Hebrews,  which  was  of  both  genders,  or  perhaps  more 
correctly  we  should  say,  of  neither.  The  n>  ie  was  substituted  for  the  nw  sdi,  which  Parkhurst 
clearly  shews  to  have  been  the  Dea  Multimammia.  Thus  it  seems  that  the  object  of  the  change 
was,  to  get  rid  of  the  worship,  exclusively  female,  of  Hellenism. 

Col.  Tod  says,  that  the  word  Mer  means  Hill.  Now,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  as  far  as  I 
can  make  out,  near  each  of  these  hill  towns  there  is  always  a  sacred  lake,  often  upon  the  hill,  and 
frequently  made  at  very  great  expense.  Rivers  generally  flow  from  these  hills,  and  the  spring- 
head was  converted  into  a  lake,  in  a  peculiar  manner  sacred.  These  lakes  by  being  used  for  the 
purposes  of  agriculture,  were  real  and  great  blessings  to  the  countries  below  them.  There  was  a 
great  and  sacred  lake  at  Ajmere,  Gaza  of  India.  A  mer,  the  mr  or  artificial  ocean,  is  found  at 
Gaza  or  nty  oze  of  Western  Syria,  in  the  real  ocean  :  it  is  found  at  Memphis,  of  Egypt,  in  Gize 
near  the  famous  Lake  Mceris,  the  head  or  bank  of  which  was  of  very  great  length — Egypt  of  which 
Memphis  or  Gize  was  once  a  sea-port.  If  the  sea  were  not  there,  the  lake  was.  There  is  also  in 
Ceylon  a  Lake  or  Tank,  the  banks  faced  with  stone,  of  a  size  almost  beyond  credibility.  We 
have  also  mers  or  meers  very  common  in  England.  Now  I  cannot  help  observing,  that  these 
words  Mr  are  all  composed  of  the  two  letters  which  form  the  word  for  Maria  or  the  female  generative 
principle.  I  apprehend  the  case  of  the  Mere  is  precisely  similar  to  that  of  the  Oceanus.  The 
element  round  Mount  Mem  was  called  Oceanus,  and,  in  imitation  of  Meru,  no  one  will  doubt  that 
all  the  Mount  Olympuses  were  consecrated.     In  imitation  of  these  Rome  was  built,   and  round  it 


1  See  large  Map  at  the  Oriental  Club,  Hanover  Square,  London. 

2  Talmud  Hierosol.  apud  Maimonid.  Halach.  Melachim,  Cap.  vi.  Sect,  v.;  Sayle's  Prel.  Dis.  to  Koran,  Sect.  vi. 
p.  192. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    II.    SECTION    16.  605 

a  fosse  was  dug  answering  to  the  Oceanus  called  Mundus  and  Orbis,  and  Urbs  (all  the  same)  : 
but  this  Mundus  is  called  by  Plutarch,  in  Greek,  *  Olympus.  Here  is  the  mount  most  clearly 
used  for  the  oceanus.  Thus  it  was  with  Mere.  It  was  a  mount  and  a  maris  or  sea — as,  Horn-sea- 
mere  and  Wittlesea-mere  and  Mount  Meru,  and  Aj-mere,  and  Casi-mere  or  Cash-mere. 

It  is  a  very  curious  natural  phenomenon,  that  upon  the  top  of  almost  every  mountain  a  spring 
is  found.  This  was  the  mere  or  meer  :  and  from  this  the  hill  came  to  be  called  mere  ;  in  like 
manner  lakes  on  the  tops  of  hills  came  to  be  called  mounts.  The  mere  or  lake  is  the  mother  of 
the  river  ;  the  mere  or  mount  is  also  the  mother  of  the  river.  There  was  a  lake  in  Wales  called 
Pemble  or  Pendle  Meer,  in  which  was  a  sacred  island. 2  We  have  also  mounts  of  the  mere  :  we 
have  Sled-mere,  and  Pen-mawr,  and  Pen-maenmawr. 

The  word  mere  or  meere  was  used  for  a  lake  by  Pliny, 3  who  says,  "  where  now  is  the  mere  or 
lake  Sale  ?"  This  was  near  Erythrasa  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  ;  and  in  the  next  sentence  he 
says,  it  was  near  a  mount  Colpe.  There  was  an  Erythraea  near  Gades,  and  Calpe,  now  Gibraltar, 
is  close  by  it.  By  Mount  Meru  was  probably  meant  Mount  of  the  mere — Mount  rising  out  of 
the  Mere — Mother  Ocean — Mother  Isis. 

The  lake  Mareotis,  Moeris  is  called  Maria,4    and  the  island  Meroe.     It  was  called  island,  pro- 
bably, to  make  it  assimilate  to  Meru,  though  it  was  not  naturally  an  island.     All  these  supersti- 
tions are  evidently  closely  connected  :  and  it  is  clear  to  me  that  the  adoration  of  the  male  and 
female  generative  principle  is  at  the  bottom  of  them  all ;  and  the  terrible  wars  which  took  place, 
with  alternate  successes  and  reverses,  between  the  sects,  furnish  cause  enough  to  account  for  the 
mixture  which  we  every  where  find.     I  think  the  n»  ie  or  Jah,  the  Self-existent,  was  the  founda- 
tion on  which  all  was  built ;  and  what  could  be  more   likely  ?     It  was  the  Aji  in  India ;  Io  in 
Syria  ;  Ei  at  Delphi;  and  at  Gaza  in  Pali-stan,  it  was  rw  oze,  corrupted  from  Aji.     The  mer  and 
the  Aji  we  find  always  together ;  it  was  the  Mount  Meru  with  its  ocean  surrounding  it.     But  we 
have  found  the  lakes  or  inland  seas  called  Mareotis   and  Maretis,  and  in  England  Meres.     We 
have  found  the  mounts  in  India  called  Meres,  on  which,  generally,  were  artificial  lakes ;  or  the 
meer  contained  a  sacred  island  and  temple,  as  in  Cashmere  or  Cashimere.     We  have  found  a 
Meroe  in  Egypt,  being  an  island,  artificially  made,  for  the  sake  of  making  a  mere  round  it.     This 
was  an  imitation  of  Mount  Meru  surrounded  with  its  ocean,  and  in  imitation  of  the  Mount  of 
Maria,  on  which  the  Gods  sat  on  the   sides   of  the  North,   at  Jerusalem,  mistranslated  Moriah, 
which  was  formed  as  nearly  like  the  others  as  circumstances  would  permit.     For,   though  it  was 
impossible  to  make  a  sea  round  this  fortress—this  acropolis,  yet,  in  lieu  thereof,  it  had  its  brazen 
sea  within.     In  Wales,   in  Ireland,  in  Arabia,5   we  meet  with  meres   or  lakes  containing  sacred 
islands.     All  these  arise  from  the  first  imaginary  Meru— the  pole  of  the  earth,   with  its  star  of 
Jude  over  it,  in  the  heavens.     All  these  mounts  were  mounts  or  islands  of  Meru  or  Maria  or 
Maia;  and  the  sacred  Argha,  in  which  the  linga  or  pole  was  erected,  was  an  emblem  of  the  Maria 
or  the  ocean,  from  this  called  Mare. 

The  word  Aja  means  self- existing,  according  to  Col.  Wilsford.6  How  is  it  possible  to  doubt 
that  we  have  here  the  rv  ie  of  Genesis  ?  The  female  energy  of  nature  is  described  by  the  word 
1. 7      This  is  the  I  or  li  of  the  Targums. 

It  is  true  that  Ajmer  is  hill  of  victory,  or  hill  of  Ajya,  as  Col.  Tod  says  ; 8  because  Jah  or  IE  or 
n»  ie  or  ninN  aeue  was  the  God  of  victory,  as  he  is  repeatedly  called  in  the  Old  Testament. 


1  Rom.  eh.  x.;  Nirorod,  Vol.  I.  p.  313.  *  Davies,  Celtic  Myth.  p.  191. 

3  See  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxix.  *  Euseb.  Hist.  Cap.  xvi. 

5  Vide  Davies's  Celtic  Researches.  6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  247,  ed.  8vo.  7  Ibid 

8  P.  11. 


£06  BACCHUS. 

Aja,  in  Sanscrit,  means  goat ;  and  Gaza,  in  Hebrew,  also  means  goat ; l  this  proves  the  identity 
of  the  two:  but  Aja  means  both  goat,  and  sheep,  and  Aries.2  The  goat  copulates  with  a  sheep  and 
breeds  forward  ;  (goat  in  Hebrew  is  vy  oz  ;)  being  of  the  same  class  of  animals,  like  the  greyhound 
and  pointer,  and  not  like  the  horse  and  ass.  Here  we  have  the  reason  why  the  goat  is  often  found 
instead  of  the  ram.  The  bull,  the  ram,  and  the  goat,  are  the  three  animals  of  which  the  sacrifices 
of  the  ancients  chiefly  consisted.     The  two  last,  I  doubt  not,  were  considered,  as  they  are,  of  one 

genus. 

When  I  reflect  upon  the  fact,  that  the  origin  as  well  as,  in  a  great  part,  the  meaning  of  their 
mythologies  were  lost  by  the  Greeks,  I  am  inclined  to  go  to  the  East  for  an  explanation  of  the 
Gaia  of  Plato,  and  calculate  upon  his  ignorance  of  his  own  mythology.3  I  find  one  of  the  most 
holy  places  of  India  called  Gaya  or  Gaia,  famous  as  the  birthplace  of  Buddha.  It  is  in  lat.  24,  49; 
lone.  85.  In  this  case  the  Gaia  must  have  been  a  mystical  term  for  the  generative  power.  Gaia 
would  be  synonymous  to  Chaonia  or  Caonia.  If  I  be  right,  this  case  is  exactly  similar  to  that  of 
the  konx  om  pax  of  Eleusis  noticed  before  ;  that  is,  it  is  an  Indian  word  adopted  by  the  Greeks. 
I  suspect  it  has,  in  some  way,  come  from  the  same  source  as  the  Aj,  Aja,  Agi,  Aje.  A  city  is 
often  alluded  to  in  the  mythic  histories  called  Aiai — that  is,  place  of  Ai ;  the  same  meaning  as  the 
Aje  and  Gaia. 

17.  Of  the  different  names  of  Bacchus,  there  was  not  one  more  common  than  that  of  Dio-nusus, 
or  Dio-nisos,  or  the  holy  Nisus.  The  Dio  means  holy,  and  the  us  or  os  is  merely  a  Latin  or  Greek 
termination.  Then  Nis  is  the  name.  In  Pagninus's  Exodus  the  name  of  Jehovah  Nisi  is  written 
two  ways,  one  in  the  text,  the  other  in  the  margin — >D3  nsi  and  DDJ  nss.  But  the  Samechs  being 
new  letters,  if  we  want  its  meaning,  we  must  put  it  in  the  letters  of  the  old  or  Cadmean  or  six- 
teen-letter  system ;  then  it  will  be  >tM  nsi  and  jptyj  nss,  and  will  mean 

I »—     10  Again     S p  =  300  S v  —  300 

S ttf  =  300  S tt»  =  300  I *  —     10 

N 3=    50  N J-    50  N j  =    50 


360  650  360 

Can  any  man  believe  that  these  peculiar,  sacred  numbers  come  out  by  accident  ? — The  first,  the 
supposed  length  of  the  solar  year,  and  the  number  sacred  to  Bacchus,  or  the  Sun  ?  Let  us  recol- 
lect that  Pythagoras's  learned  secrets  were  all  founded  on  numbers.  We  have  here  the  Jehovah 
Nisi.  >un  rniT  ieue  nsi.  w  Sin  and  D  Samech  are  indiscriminately  used,  as  appears  from  the  au- 
thority of  Elias  in  Thisbi,  and  the  constant  practice  of  oriental  writers.4 

It  appears  from  the  book  or  history  of  the  Exod,  that  it  was  on  the  leaving  of  Egypt  that 
Moses  changed  the  object  of  adoration  from  Taurus  to  Aries.  It  was  then  that  he  represented 
God  as  having  ordered,  that  he  should  be  called  Ictco,  nin»  ieue,  and  not  by  his  old  name  of  nw 
sdi  or  Multimammia.  It  appears  that  the  change  took  place  on  the  mountain  of  Sin,  or  Nisi,  or 
Bacchus,  which  was  evidently  its  old  name  before  Moses  arrived  there.  The  Israelites  were  pu- 
nished for  adhering  to  the  old  worship,  that  of  the  Calf,  in  opposition  to  the  paschal  Lamb,  which 
Moses  had  substituted—"  the  Lamb  which  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world,"  in  place  of  the 
Bull  or  Calf  which  took  away  the  sins  of  the  world.  See  Faber  for  the  prayer  to  the  bull  Taurus 
the  saviour — and  Bryant,  end  of  his  Vol.  III.,  for  the  same. 

I  suppose  the  expression  the  Bull  or  Calf  taking  away  the  sins  of  the  world  will  be  most  un- 
mercifully ridiculed.     It  has  been  in  part  done  by  a  very  worthy  priest,  to  whom  I  opened  the 


1  Drum.  (Ed.  Jud.  p.  361.  *  From  Dr.  Wilkins's  MS.  given  me  by  Prof.  Haughton, 

1  See  Bk.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  4,  of  this  work.  4  Gerran's  note  on  Benj.  de  Tudela,  Ch.  xvii. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  II.    SECTION   \"J .  607 

subject.  But  I  beg  to  be  informed  by  the  dealers  in  ridicule,  why  a  calf  should  not  take  away  the 
sins  of  the  world  as  well  as  a  lamb  ?  Verbum  Sapienti.  If  it  be  said  that  the  Lamb  was  the 
emblem  of  the  second  person  in  the  Trinity,  I  reply  that  the  Bull  was,  in  a  former  period,  the 
same.  The  word  for  the  Sun  is  in  Hebrew  Sur,  in  Chaldee  Tur.  In  the  Hebrew  this  would  be 
TR,  the  same  as  Taurus.  Here  we  have  T=400,  R=200=600 :  but  I  think  it  would  probably 
have  been  T=400  R=200  H=8,  mn  trh.  May  we  not  in  the  TPH  find  the  meaning  of  the 
thre  in  the  name  Ery-thre-a  ? 

Addressez  votre  priere  au  Taureau  excellent :  addressez  votre  priere  au  Taureau  pur  :  addressez 
votre  priere  a  ces  principes  de  tout  bien  :  addressez  votre  priere  a  la  pluie,  source  d'  abundance  : 
addressez  votre  priere  au  Taureau  devenu  pur,  celeste,  saint,  qui  n'as  pas  ete  engendre"  :  qui  est 
saint,  &c. l  When  the  Greeks  became  refined,  they  did  not  like  to  see  their  Bacchus  with  the 
horns  of  a  bull,  like  Moses  :  but,  as  they  could  not  mythologically  be  dispensed  with,  in  the  sta- 
tues which  are  really  old,  they  are  there  hidden  under  vine  or  ivy  leaves.  "  Come,  hero  Dionusus, 
"  to  thy  temple  on  the  sea-shore  :  come,  HEiFER-footed  deity,  to  thy  sacrifice,  and  bring  the  graces 
"  in  thy  train  !     Hear  us,  Bull,  worthy  of  our  veneration  ;  hear  us,  O  illustrious  Bull."2 

As  the  Gods  all  carried  heads  appropriate  to  the  solar  sign  to  which  they  were  sacred,  a  Bull's 
head  to  Taurus,  a  Sheep's  head  to  Aries,  so  their  games  bore  appropriate  names,  and  were  called 
Taurobolia  and  Criobolia.  "  But  whence  the  more  common  Greek  name  Aioi/uo-oc  is  derived  or 
"  what  it  signifies,  is  not  so  easy  to  determine,  or  even  to  conjecture,  with  any  reasonable  proba- 
"  bility.  The  first  part  of  it  appears  to  be  from  AEYS,  AIO£  or  AIS,  the  ancient  name  of 
"  the  supreme  universal  God  :  but  whether  the  remainder  is  significant  of  the  place  from  which 
"  this  Deity  came  into  Greece,  or  of  some  attribute  belonging  to  him,  we  cannot  pretend  to  say  : 
"  and  the  conjectures  of  etymologists,  both  ancient  and  modern,  concerning  it,  are  not  worthy 
"  notice."3  As  we  have  seen  before,  it  is  said  by  Ausonius  to  be  Indian,  and  by  the  mystics  it 
was  called  Phananin— that  is,  Phen.  I  think  this  allowance  by  the  learned  Payne  Knight  of  the 
general  ignorance  opens  the  door  most  beautifully  to  my  explanation  above  :  and  I  think  in  almost 
every  case,  if  not  in  every  one,  where  I  have  explained  these  proper  names  from  numbers,  like 
the  name  Nisi  of  Bacchus,  they  admit  no  other  derivation,  and  this,  in  the  end,  will  be  found  to 
be  an  observation  of  the  first  importance.  This  is  the  common  case  with  the  names  of  the  Gods ; 
they  seldom  or  ever  admit  an  etymological  explanation.  The  reason  of  this  I  shall  explain  in  a 
future  book.  On  the  identity  of  Bacchus  and  Iacchus,  Mr.  Payne  Knight  says,  "  They  are  in 
"  fact  the  same  name  in  different  dialects,  the  ancient  verb  FAX&,  in  Lacaonian,  BAXi2,  having 
"  become  by  the  accession  of  the  augment  FIFAXJ2.  u  ia.%<o."  4  The  I  AX  is  Iacchus  and  our 
Jack. 

The  Taranis  of  the  Druids,  noticed  in  my  Celtic  Druids,5  as  their  object  of  worship,  and,  in 
fact,  having  the  same  name  as  the  Scandinavian  God  Thor,  and  as  the  Belinus,  the  Hesus,  and 
the  Thau,  and  called  their  High  Spirit  by  Vettius  Valens, 6  is,  in  Hebrew,  jin  Trn,  T=400, 
R=200,  N=50,  total  650— the  number  of  stones  in  the  temple  of  Abury,  and  in  the  Hebrew 
name  Mitra.     The  original  name,  probably,  was  Tarn,  the  is  being  a  corruption  of  the  Greek  os. 


1  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  597. 

s  Qusest.  Grac,  p.  299;  Dnvies's  Celtic  Myth.  p.  174. 

3  Payne  Knight,  Class.  Journ    1821,  p.  9.  *  Ibid. 

s  Pp.  130  (misprinted  Taramis)  and  278. 

6  Ibid.  p.  278. 


608  C^SAR   THE   NINTH   AVATAR. 

In  my  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  VI.  Sect.  XXV.,  I  have  given  the  following  explanation  of 
Meithras  : 


No.  1. 

No 

2. 

No.  3. 

M 

-     -     40 

( 

-     M 

- 

-     40 

a  =    40 

E 

-     -       5 

I 

- 

-     10 

Or,  in  Hebrew,  1 

'    =     10 

I 

-     -     10 

But  it  would  be  better,  J 

0 

- 

-      9 

thus:      -     -    J 

n  =  400 

0 

-     -      9 

as  more  ancient,  thus  :     ] 

P 

- 

-  100 

1    =  200 

P 

A 

-  -  100 

-  -       1 

1 

A 

- 

-  1 

-  200 

650 

2 

-     -  200 

— 

. 

_  360 

365 


The  word  is  often  written  Mitra,  particularly  in  India;  thus  we  have  two  sacred  numbers  for 
it,  as  we  have  for  Bacchus.  Is  this  accident  ?  What  says  the  enemy  to  double  etymology  to 
this  ?  We  learn  part  of  the  Pythagorean  secret  from  the  Greeks,  and  a  part  from  the  Hebrews. 
On  this,  very  much  hereafter. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CjESAR  THE  NINTH  AVATAR. — ZARINA. —  CESAR  HONOURED  AS  A  GOD. — TWELVE  CAESARS. — ADRIATIC. — 
SIBYL'S  PROPHECY  OF  CESAR. — ILIAD  A  SACRED  MYTHOS. — CESAR'S  DEATH  FOLLOWED  BY  DARKNESS. 
— STAR. — ROMA. — NIEBUHR. — PALLADIUM. — HISTORY  OF  ITALY. — MUNDUS. — RAJAH.— PALA. — HELLEN. — 
— ATTILA. — HIEROGLYPHICS. 

1.  We  are  now  prepared,  I  think,  for  another  divine  incarnation — the  Ninth — and  we  shall  find 
him  in  the  celebrated  Julius  Caesar. 

In  the  history  of  Julius  Caesar,  and,  indeed,  in  that  of  his  whole  race,  there  is  something  pecu- 
liarly curious  and  mystical.  He  was  of  the  family  of  the  Julii,  who  were  descended  from  Venus, 
by  her  son  iEneas,  the  son  of  the  Trojan  Anchises.  From  ^Eneas  and  Creusa  descended  Ascanius, 
also  named  Julius,  who  lived  in  the  mystic  Alba,  till  that  city  was  ruined  by  Tullus  Hostilius, 
who,  it  is  said,  instead  of  destroying  the  family  of  his  enemy  as  usual,  removed  it  to  Rome,  where 
it  flourished  for  many  generations,  until  it  achieved  the  sovereignty  not  only  of  Rome,  but  almost 
of  the  world,  to  which,  in  a  very  particular  manner,  it  may  be  said  to  have  brought  peace.  The 
greatest  of  the  Caesars  was  Caius  Julius,  who  was  born  about  half  a  century  before  Jesus  Christ. 
The  word  Julius  is  the  same  as  the  ancient  Yule,  who  was  Saturn.  The  Quintile  month,  the 
month  in  which  the  great  Julius  is  said  to  have  been  born,  was  sacred  to  Yule.  See  Nimrod, 1 
who  has  shewn  how  the  Saturnalia  became  our  Christmas  gambols.  We  must  not  forget,  that 
the  Mons  Capitolina,  the  Roman  capitol,  where  Julius  established  his  empire,  was  first  called 
Saturnia. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Barret2   says,  "  the  woman  of  the  Revelation  clothed  with  the  sun,  and  having  on 


■  Vol.  I.  pp.  155,  156,  158.  s  P-  143. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER    III.    SECTION    1.  609 

"  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars,  brings  forth  a  child,  which  is  bhty  oull  or  Christ."  This  is  Yule, 
Julius,  or  lulus.  In  honour  of  this  child,  on  the  25th  of  Dec,  we  have  the  Yule  clog  and  the 
Christmas  gambols,  and  on  this  day,  in  the  morning,  the  old  women  go  about  with  a  child  begging 
from  door  to  door,  singing,  to  us  a  child  is  born,  &c.  From  this  came,  if  it  be  not  itself,  the  Hull 
festival,  to  celebrate  the  Vernal  equinox,  or  the  new  year,  with  the  Hindoos  and  Persians.  Now 
what,  at  last,  is  the  meaning  of  the  Yule  or  annual  games — whence  comes  the  Julius  or  the  Genius  of 
the  Saeculum  or  Cycle  ?  I  believe  that  it  comes  from  the  Hebrew  O^iy  oulm,  sceculum.  Abraham  1 
invoked  God  in  the  name  of  Ieue  the  Aleim  of  the  Sceculum.  And  Cyrus  was  called  Pater  futuri 
sceculi.  Thus  Julius  means  ssecular  or  sseculum — aicou  rcov  aitovcov.  The  letter  lis  prefixed  to 
the  bbty  oull,  making  Julius,  for  the  same  reason  that  it  is  prefixed  in  the  word  IIp^Ssuc,  in  the 
Sibylline  acrostic,  to  be  discussed  presently.  The  passage  in  Genesis  xxi.  33,  rendered  by  me, 
in  Book  II.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  4,  Ieue  Deum  ceternum,  is  rendered  by  Pagninus  in  nomine  Domini  Dei 
sceculi.  This,  I  doubt  not,  was  the  true  meaning.  He  invoked  God  in  the  name  of  Jehovah  or 
Ieue,  the  God  of  the  saeculum,  cycle,  or  age ;  and  in  many  other  places  Ieue  is  called  the  God 
(n^iy  oulm)  of  the  sseculum,  and  from  this  came  our  word  holy. 

The  similarity  between  the  expressions  in  the  fourth  eclogue  of  Virgil  and  in  the  prophecy  of 
Isaiah,  is  very  observable  ;  and  has  been  noticed  by  Bishop  Horsley,  and,  as  we  have  before  said, 
by  many  other  divines.  The  reader  must  now  see,  that  as  they  were  poems  relating  to  the  same 
mythos,  this  was  almost  a  necessary  consequence.  From  the  peculiarly  mystic  character  of  Creusa, 
daughter  of  Priam,  and  wife  of  ^Eneas,  (vide  Lempriere,)  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  she  was  a 
Latin  Crees,  or  Crees-ta.  It  may  be  observed,  that  she  was  the  stirps  whence  the  Roman  nation,  or 
at  least  its  highest  branch,  sprung,  as  I  have  lately  observed.  I  do  not  undertand  the  derivation  of 
the  word  ^Eneas,  from  whom  Julius  was  descended,  but  the  mystic  character  of  that  hero,  and  of 
the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  King  Latinus  or  Lateinus,  may  be  seen  in  Nimrod,  2  where  the  iEneid 
is  satisfactorily  shewn  to  be  a  second  Iliad.  Respecting  the  name  of  King  Latinus,  Nimrod  has 
pointed  out  a  peculiarity  which,  when  coupled  with  other  circumstances,  and  the  very  common 
practice  of  giving  numeral  names  to  persons,  is  well  worthy  of  attention,  and  will  be  accounted  for 
hereafter.  Nimrod  says,3  "  A  passage  of  Irenaeus  is  as  follows  :4  Sed  et  Latinos,  (lege,  Lateinos,) 
"  nomen  sexcentorum  sexaginta  sex  numerum  :  et  valde  verisimile  est,  quoniam  verissimum  reg- 
"num  hoc  habet  vocabulum,  Latini  enim  sunt  qui  nunc  regnant;  sed  non  in  hoc  nos  gloriabimur." 

L 30 

A 1 

T 300 

E 5 

I   10 

N 50 

O 70 

S 200 

666 
This  sacred  number  being  found  equally  among  the  Etruscans  and  Latins,   and  in  the  very 
ancient  Apocalypse,  proves  to  me  its  very  great  antiquity.     ^Eneas,  in  fact,  conquered  Latinus, 
and  by  force  of  arms  obtained  his  kingdom.     The  beast  666  was  overcome.     This  standing  alone, 


1  In  Gen.  xxi.  33.  8  Vol.  III.  pp.  6,  &c.  3  Ibid.  p.  500. 

4  Advers  Huer.  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxv.  p.  365,  ed.  Gallasii,  1570. 

4i 


610  CAESAR   THE    NINTH    AVATAR. 

would  not  be  worthy  a  moment's  consideration.    It  is  the  connexion  of  circumstances  with  it, 
which  gives  it  any  value. 

Of  iEneas  and  Virgil  Nimrod  says, *  "  This  poem  originally  called  Gesta  Populi  Romani,  repre- 
"  sents  iEneas  as  a  descendant  of  the  Gods,  himself  also  a  God,  a  necromancer,  and  the  High 
"  priest,  Flamen,  and  Hierophant,  establishing  and  expounding  the  religions  of  Roma-Troja,  and 
"  unfolding  its  future  destinies.  He  is  not  idly  called  pins  iEneas,  but  his  sanctity  as  a  priest  and 
"  prophet  was  the  main  object  to  which  Virgil  sought  to  draw  his  readers'  admiration,  his  warlike 
"  achievements  being  but  a  menstruum  in  which  he  might  convey  this  political  poison." 

If  Julius  were  the  family  name,  Caesar  was  his  title  of  honour,  which  might  be  taken  from  the 
God  Hesus  of  his  own  conquered  Gaul :  and  this  Hes-us  I  cannot  help  suspecting  will  turn  out  to 
be,  when  examined  to  the  bottom,  a  corruption  of  the  IHS  of  Bacchus.  But  Nimrod2  says, 
"  iEsar,  which  is  the  chief  part  of  the  word  Caesar,  meant  God  in  Etruscan  :  and  no  doubt  the 
"  same  family  which  inherited  the  name  of  the  ^Enead  Hero,  and  Indigete  Julius,  were  also  the 
"  cognomen  ^Esar,  or  Deus,  with  an  honorific  prefix."  Now,  what  could  this  honorific  prefix  be? 
If  Caesar  took  his  title  from  the  Celts  of  Gaul,  whom  he  had  conquered,  and  if  their  letters  were, 
as  we  have  reason  to  suppose,  the  letters  of  Greece,  they  would  not  then  have  the  sibillant  9,  but 
might,  in  lieu  thereof,  have  the  Greek  X,  and  then  the  word  would  be  Xaesar :  and  then  this 
honorific  prefix  would  be,  what  we  might  well  expect,  the  sign  of  the  600,  or  XH-cap  the  Sar, 
608,  the  sacrum  nomen,  cognomen,  et  omen.  If  read  Hebraice  it  would  be  Ras-HX.  Of  all  the 
mystic  names  of  antiquity,  there  was  not  one  more  universal  than  that  of  Msa.r  or  Caesar.  It 
prevailed  in  all  nations.  If  I  be  right  in  this,  we  see  that  the  monogram  will  correctly  apply  to 
Caesar,  or  Tzar.  T=300  2=200  P=100  H =8=608  :  HX=HTo-p=608.  Hence  the  Tzars 
of  Muscovy,  and  the  Caesar  of  Germany.  As  Caesar  was  held  to  be  an  incarnation  of  the  Xpyfog, 
his  birth  was  fixed  to  a  period  which  we  have  found,  by  modern  inquiries,  was  one  of  the  sacred 
aeras  of  India,  when  the  ninth  Xp7j£  was  supposed  to  be  born,  or  the  ninth  benignant  incarnation 
was  believed  to  have  taken  place,  or  when  the  ninth  saeculum  began. 

Suetonius  relates,  in  his  Life  of  Augustus,  that  "  the  letter  C  being  struck  off  by  lightning  from 
"  the  inscription  on  his  statue,  this  response  was  given,  that  he  had  only  a  hundred  days  to  live, 
"  which  was  the  number  pointed  out  by  the  deficient  letter:  but  that  he  should  be  afterward  reckoned 
"  among  the  Gods,  because  Aesar,  which  forms  the  remaining  part  of  the  name  of  Caesar,  is  in  the 
"  Etruscan  language  the  denomination  of  God. 3  In  the  Gothic  language,  As,  Aes,  Aesus,  is  the 
"  name  of  Odin,  or  by  way  of  distinction,  that  of  God.  In  the  plural,  it  is  Asar  and  Aesir." 
Now  Odin  will  not  be  denied  to  be  the  same  as  Woden,  and  Woden  we  have  traced  from  the 
Carnatic,  where  we  shall  find  the  Kesari,  the  XpTjt,*,  &c,  &c.  Sol,  in  Hetrusca  etiam  lingua 
Esar  vocatus  est.4  The  Etruscans  made  it  a  law  not  to  represent  ^Esar  by  any  image :  this 
was  the  Etruscan  name  of  the  invisible  God,  the  great  Creator.  The  Pagan  Irish  worshiped  him 
under  the  same  name,  and  made  no  image  to  him :  the  word  iEsar  or  Esar,  is  undoubtedly 
Phoenician.  ^  izr,  iasar  formavit.5  "The  God  Esus  is  the  Celtic  Mars,  where  we  have  the 
"  sense  of  destroyer ;  and  is  a  reduplication  of  the  element  S,  as  Es-us,  in  order  to  express  the 
"idea  more  strongly."  Again,  "I  have  before  produced  the  Hebrew  my  Oz-Uz,  very  or  ex- 
"  ceedingly  strong,  and  the  Syriac  Az-Az-os  (A£a£os)  and  the  Arabic  Az-Eez,  excellent,  precious" 


1  Vol.  III.  p.  466.  *  Ibid.  p.  456. 

3  Mszx,  id  est,  reliqua  pars  e  Csesaris  nomine  Etrusca  lingua  Deus  vocatur.     Vita  Aug.  Cap.  xcvii.    Jamieson's 
Orig.  of  Greeks,  p.  151. 

4  El  Schedius  de  Diis  German,  p.  108 ;  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p.  91.  5  Vail.  Coll.  Vol.  IV.  p.  461. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  3.  611 

He  adds  that,  in  the  Arabic  term  Az  and  Azar,  the  idea  of  excellence  united  to  strength  seems  to 
prevail  j  and  also  whatever  tends  to  support  life. 1  Here,  I  think,  both  the  good  and  evil  princi- 
ples seem  to  be  found.  A  town  of  Cilicia  was  called  Caesar-Augustini,  but  was  anciently  occupied 
by  the  Anazarbenes  ;  these  were  evidently  the  Beni-azar,  the  sons  of  JLsar  or  Caesar.2  These 
preceded  Julius  and  Augustus  Caesar. 

2.  The  Zarina  of  Russia,  the  name  of  the  queens  of  that  country,  is  evidently  the  ^ittf  sr  with 
a  feminine  termination.  This  is  the  Phoenician  or  Chaldaean  Sar  or  Zar,  a  prince  or  grandee. 3 
Thomyris,  the  Scythian  queen,  who  was  said  to  have  conquered  Cyrus,  was  called  Zarina.  I  have 
a  strong  suspicion  that  the  despots  of  Russia  and  Germany  both  affect  the  name  of  Ccesar,  for  the 
same  reason  that  the  family  of  Caesar  kept  its  mythic  name.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  person  who 
claims  this  title,  claims,  though  secretly,  to  be  autocrat  of  the  world,  both  by  right  of  the  sword 
and  of  the  book, — both  as  priest  and  king. 

It  is  notorious  that  Nero  was  thought  by  the  Romans  to  be  a  peculiarly  sacred  person,  or  to 
have  opened  some  sacred  period.  On  this  account  he  was,  in  more  than  an  usual  manner,  hated 
by  the  Christians,  who  took  him  to  be  Antichrist,  that  is,  another  or  opposition  Christ.  The 
name  of  Nero,  which  he  bore,  looks  very  like  the  name  of  the  Neros,  a  coincidence  which  would 
never  have  occurred  to  me  had  it  not  been  for  the  other  circumstances.  We  very  often  hear  of 
the  wickedness  of  Nero,  but  we  seldom  hear  of  the  wickedness  of  Constantine  the  Great,  who 
murdered  his  son,  his  brother-in-law,  his  wife,  his  nephew  under  age,  and  amused  himself  by 
making  the  kings  taken  prisoners  in  war  fight  wild  beasts  in  the  circus.  Notwithstanding  all  this, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Lardner  tells  us  this  great  man  "  was  not  a  bad  man,"  and  his  general  conduct  is 
marked  with  the  approbation  of  the  Christian  world,  by  his  equestrian  statue  being  placed,  at  this 
very  day,  June  1832,  in  the  porch  of  St.  Peter's  Church  at  Rome!  !  ! 

3.  Caesar  had  all  the  honours  paid  to  him  as  to  a  divine  person,  and  that  particular  divine  person 
of  whom  we  have  been  treating.  He  was  called  Father  of  his  country,  that  is,  the  Aicov  tcov 
oucovcov,  Pater  futuri  saeculi.  At  the  end  of  five  years,  a  festival  was  instituted  to  his  honour,  as 
to  a  person  of  divine  extraction.  A  college  of  priests  was  established  to  perforin  the  rites  insti- 
tuted for  that  occasion.  A  day  was  dedicated  to  him,  and  he  had  the  title  also  of  Julian  Jove  : 
and  a  temple  was  erected  to  him. 4  His  temple  bore  the  appellation  of  Heroum  Iuleum,  and  con- 
tained images  of  Venus.  Julius  was  followed  by  his  nephew  Octavius,  who  was  also  called 
Caesar,  to  which  was  added  the  mystic  title  of  Augustus, 5  which  meant  sanctity  and  deification 
upon  earth.6  Augusto  augurio  postquam  incluta  condita  Roma  est.  And  to  make  the  mytholo- 
gical circumstances  complete,  we  have  the  astrological  number  of  12  applied  to  the  first  12  Roman 
Emperors,  called  Caesars,  by  the  historians  of  those  times.  We  know  that  different  Roman  fami- 
lies had  mythoses  applicable  to  them,  or  they  were  in  some  respects  sacred.  This  was  the  case 
with  the  Fabii ;  the  same  with  the  family  who  had  the  care  of  the  ceremonies  on  Mount  Soracte, 
&c.  I  suppose  that  the  family  of  Julius  had,  or  affected  to  have,  some  sacred  character  of  this 
kind,  and  maintained  the  reality  of  their  imaginary  pedigree,  from  the  mystic  Ilium  or  Troy.  And 
this,  probably,  in  no  small  degree,  aided  the  brilliant  Julius  in  possessing  himself  of  the  supreme 
power — the  prophecy  conducing  to  its  own  fulfilment,   as  was  the  case  of  another  great  man  in  a 

1  See  Winter's  Etyraol.  Univ.  pp.  196,  717,  718.  2  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxvii. 

3  Enc.  Brit,  voce  Philology,  p.  568. 

*  Dion.  Cassius,  Lib.  xliv.  Cap.  iv. ;  Ferguson's  Roman  History,  Vol.  III.  Book  v.  p.  32. 

s  The  Nile  was  called  Augustus  by  the  Egyptians.    They  called  it  King  Augustus.    Basnage,  Hist.  Jews,  p.  247. 

6  Ennius  ap.  Suet.  Octav.  Cap.  vii. ;  Hor.  Lib.  iv.  Cap.  xii. 

4i2 


612  TWELVE   C.ZESAR9, 

later  day,  as  I  shall  presently  shew.  I  It  is  probable  that  when  Julius  was  killed,  some  of  the 
devotees  would  admit  that  they  were  mistaken  in  the  person,  but  this  would  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  injure  the  credit  of  the  mythos.  The  superstition  only  transfers  itself.  Evidence  or  ex- 
perience in  these  cases  is  of  no  avail.  Octavius  became  the  expected  great  one  ;  and  of  him  his 
followers  had  no  doubt,  at  least  the  fools  of  his  followers.  He  was  born  like  Bacchus,  Hercules, 
Nimrod,  Cyrus,  Alexander,  Scipio  Africanus,  Solomon,  mense  decimo.  He  had  Apollo,  in  the 
form  of  a  serpent,  for  his  father,  and  at  his  death  his  soul,  like  that  of  the  Holy  St.  Polycarp,  flew 
away  to  heaven  in  the  form  of  a  bird.  All  this  and  much  more  of  the  same  kind,  may  be  found  in 
different  parts  of  Nimrod's  work,  but  particularly  in  Vol.  III.  p.  458.  But  the  murder  of  Caesar 
was  his  Aphanasia — his  Apotheosis.  It  was  an  imitation  of  that  of  Romulus.  In  every  case  the 
founder  of  the  Cycle  seems  to  have  suffered  a  violent  death,  in  some  way  or  other,  and  the  earth 
to  have  been  darkened ;  but  we  shall  see  much  relating  to  this  hereafter. 

4.  The  observation  made  respecting  the  twelve  Caesars  only  applies  to  a  part  of  an  universal 
mythos.  There  were  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  who  all  assembled  to  worship  at  one  temple.  There 
were  twelve  tribes  of  Ionians,  who  all  assembled  in  like  manner  at  one  temple.  There  were 
twelve  tribes  of  Etruscans,  who  all  assembled  at  one  temple ;  and  who,  by  colonies,  founded 
twelve  tribes  in  Campania,  and  twelve  more  in  the  Apennine  mountains.  There  were  twelve 
Caesars,  and  twelve  Imaums  of  Persia,  followers  of  Ali,  all  believed  to  be  foretold  by  Esdras,  2, 
ch.  xii.  11—15.  When  Moses  built  a  Druidical  temple  near  to  Sinai,  he  set  up  twelve  stones ;  at 
Gil-Gal  again  twelve  unhewn  stones,  and  on  Gerizim,  again,  twelve  stones  in  circles.  I  need  not 
point  out  the  circles  of  twelves  so  often  found  in  the  remaining  Druidical  temples — all  Pythago- 
rean and  Masonic — still  intelligible  in  many  of  our  chapter-houses,  for  the  builders  of  these  were 
the  oldest  monks  (probably  Carmelites)  and  masons.  For  thousands  of  years  there  were  no  stone 
edifices  except  those  for  the  use  of  the  sacred  order,  religion,  and  the  walls  of  towns  ;  all  others 
being  of  sun-burnt  brick  and  wood  of  course,  have  disappeared. 

The  first  information  which  we  have  of  iEsus  or  Aosar  is,  I  think,  in  the  history  of  the  cele- 
brated Abaris,  who  came  from  the  Hyperboreans  to  visit  Pythagoras.  He  is  said  to  have  struck 
his  harp  to  the  Delian  Apollo  or  Aosar.  Of  all  titles  of  honour  among  the  ancients,  perhaps  there 
was  not  one  so  common  as  that  of  Caesar.  This  will  be  thought  extraordinary,  but  I  shall  prove 
it  true.  A  religious  mythos  or  prophecy  always  has  a  tendency  to  cause  its  own  fulfilment,  or  at 
least  apparent  fulfilment.  It  is  natural  that  the  devotees  attached  to  it  should  force  every  indif- 
ferent circumstance  to  fit  to  it,  to  suit  it.  And  if  the  prophecy  were  really  true,  numbers  of 
trifling  circumstances,  indifferent  in  themselves,  would  be  found  to  aid  it  or  support  it.  Thus  the 
person  called  Caesar  took  that  name,  and,  in  imitation  of  the  Lucumones  of  the  Etruscans,  he 
was  followed  by  eleven  other  Caesars.  And  his  assassination  and  six  hours'  darkness  formed  his 
aphanasia,  similar  to  that  of  Romulus  and  others. 

We  have  found  the  Mount  Ararat  in  South  India,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  in  Ceylon.  (This 
island,  I  have  no  doubt,  was  formerly  connected  with  the  main  land,  and  was  probably  discon- 
nected when  the  city  of  Maha-bali-poor2  was  sunk  in  the  sea,  and  when  the  Aral,-  Caspian  and 
Euxine  seas  broke  their  banks,  as  noticed  in  Book  VI.,  Chapter  I.)  We  have  found  it  in 
North  India,  in  Il-av-ratta  or  mount  of  Naubanda;  and  the  Sibylline  Oracles  give  us  another  in 
Phrygia,  or  Roum  or  Rome.  It  had  the  same  name  as  the  Rama  of  India.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  whole  mythos  was  repeated  in  Asia  Minor:  for,  Montanus,  who  came  from  Phrygia,  was 
believed  to  be  the  ninth  or  tenth  Avatar.     He  was  the  Phrygian  Avatar. 


1  On  this  subject,  see  the  4th  Eclogue  and  the  6th  book  of  the  iEneid. 
*  For  a  treatise  on  Mahabalipoor  see  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  1. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   III.    SECT.   5.  613 

5.  At  the  first  sight  of  that  part  of  the  Sibylline  oracle  which  relates  to  the  Emperors,  down  to 
Hadrian,  every  person  will  instantly  say,  it  has  been  written  to  suit  the  history  ;  but  when  I 
consider  that  Julius  Caesar  was  named  certainly  after  the  month,  the  mythos,  and  not  the  mythos 
after  him,  and  the  circumstance  of  the  twelve  Caesars,  I  cannot  avoid  a  suspicion  that  the  Empe- 
rors to  Hadrian  took  their  names  to  suit  the  mythos  as  Caesar  did.  That  the  history  is  deeply 
tainted  with  judicial  astrology  cannot  be  doubted,  or  why  should  there  be  twelve  Caesars,  and  why 
should  Nero  (Q.  Neros  the  Cycle  of  600?)  be  considered  the  expected  Messiah  or  tenth  incar- 
nation— the  genius  of  the  tenth  cycle  of  the  Neros  ?  I  beg  my  reader  to  reconsider  the  singularity 
of  the  name,  coupled  with  the  tradition.  1  had  written  the  above  when  I  discovered  that  the 
Adriatic  Sea  was  called  the  Adriates,  Afipisg,  by  Herodotus ;  and  also  by  Horace.  This  at  once 
proved  that  my  suspicion  was  well-founded,  and  from  this  we  may  learn,  that  we  ought  not  to  be 
too  hasty  in  determining  a  work  to  be  spurious  from  anacronisms — not  till  they  are  very  carefully 
examined.  It  is  probable  that  the  other  Caesars  before  Hadrian  had  their  names  from  the  mythos  ; 
at  all  events,  we  can  no  longer  conclude  that  the  Sibyls  are  spurious  from  the  names  of  Roman 
Emperors.  However  corrupted  they  may  be,  we  cannot  conclude  them  mere  forgeries.  When 
we  consider  that  we  have  not  a  single  book  which  is  not  corrupted,  it  would  indeed  be  a  miracle 
if  the  Sibyls  had  escaped.  When  I  find  two  mystical  persons  called  by  the  same  name,  I  suspect 
mysticism.  In  the  East  Elias  is  called  by  Musselmans  Kheser,  and  Khizir,  which  looks  like  Caesar. 
Elias  was  said  to  be  a  divinely-inspired  person,  and  so  was  Caesar,  and  here  we  seem  to  have  them 
by  the  same  name. 

We  have  heard  of  the  death  of  Adonis  only  from  the  Greeks  ;  Mars  was  jealous  of  Venus.  In 
Gaul  Mars  was  called  Esus,  and  iEsus,  and  Hesus,  and  Hesar.  What  was  it  in  Chaldsea  that 
killed  Adonis  ?  "itr?  Hzr,  Chesar,  Caesar.  But  -\>\n  hzir,  a  wild  boar,  was  taken  for  ntn  hzr,  and 
thus  a  wild  boar  killed  Adonis.  The  evil  principle  prevailed  over  the  good,  but  the  good  one  rose 
again  to  life  and  immortality.1  But  in  Saurashtra,  the  God  Bal  had  also  the  name  of  Cesar.  We 
need  not  therefore  be  surprised  to  find  a  Caesar  in  Italy,  where  are  the  Palli,  the  Saturnia,  the 
temple  of  Loretto,  &c,  of  Surastrene.2  Jajati  (Yayati)  Kesari  was  the  name  of  the  prince  of 
Orissa.3  Kanya  is  called  Kesar  and  Kesu,  which  means  imperial,  royal.  The  Arabian  historians 
inform  us  that  Japhet  had  a  son  called  Khazar,  from  whom  came  the  Khozarians  on  the  Wolga, 
North  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  that  the  Caspian  itself  was  named  from  this  person.  In  Arabic  it 
is  called  Bahr-Khazar  the  Sea  of  Khazar. 4     Caesar  is  the  Iswara  of  India. 

The  Isan  and  Isuren  of  South  India  was  the  same  as  the  Hebrew  yw>  iso  to  save,  or  the  Greek 
Zcot)  life,  and  %<n%a>  or  Xoa)  or  £a)w  to  save.  I  think  the  root  of  the  Hebrew  yttf>  iso  has  been  the 
word  yw  so,  the  » i,  jod,  prefixed  for  the  sake  of  the  mystery  ;  then  it  would  be  •  I  the  saviour. 
From  the  mixed  nature  of  the  Sigma  and  Tau  it  became  Itzur-en  and  Itzar  and  Tzar.  All  these 
words  are  found  in  South  India,  having  the  meaning  of  the  crucified  God,  the  Wise,  or  the  Saviour. 
From  this  came  Isar,  Haesar,  Isar-di  or  dev,  and  Isard,  and  Vizard,  and  W'isard,  and  Wise  man  j 
and,  by  a  similar  process,  Wit,  Witz,  Witzard.  ^Esar  parait  6tre  employe',  aujourd'hui  encore,  en 
islandais,  comme  pluriel  de  As,  signifiant  Dieu.  Again,  du  reste,  le  nom  generique  de  la  divinite 
se  disait  en  langue  Etrusque  .^Esar,  qui  fut  raproche  de  Cesar  ou  Caesar,  mais  qui  rappelle  beau- 
coup  plus  naturellement  les  Ases  des  Scandinaves.5     I  believe   originally  the  word  Caesar  was 


1  See  Ouseley's  Col.  II.  p.  221. 

■  Vide  Col.  Tod  on  the  Temples  of  Ellora,  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  Pt.  i.  p.  329. 

3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  p.  265.  4  D'  Herbelot ;  Vallancey's  Coll.  Vol.  VII.  p.  24. 

5  Creutzer,  Vol,  II.  p.  409. 


614  sibyl's  prophecy  OF  CESAR. 

As-sar,  or  in  the  Hebrew  style  of  reading  Ras-sa,  closely  connected  with  the  Ras-sees  of  India. 
Upon  these  the  word  Caesar  or  Tzar  was  formed. 

In  Irish,  God  is  called  Aosar,  pronounced  Aesar.  In  Hisdostanee  it  is  Eashoor,  Esur,  Iswur. 
In  Sanscrit  it  is  Eswara.  Arabice  Usar,  perlustrans  Deus.  (El.  Scheid.)  Egyptiorum  plerique 
id  nomen  pronunciarunt  Oishiri,  Oisiri,  Usiri  (Jablonsky) ;  and  in  Chaldee  we  find  *T)D>N  aisra 
Jupiter.  (D.  de  Pomis.) \  I  think  no  one  can  doubt  why  Julius  took  the  Gallic  epithet  of  Caesar  : 
and  after  all  the  vituperation  which  has  been  lavished  on  him  for  making  himself  a  God,  he  applied 
to  himself  only  what  the  Romish  Church  applies  to  its  saints,  the  oeXsia  not  the  Tvxrpeia. — 
a  distinction  which  very  nearly  (I  do  not  recollect  an  exception)  all  orthodox  Protestant  writers  keep 
carefully  out  of  sight,  when  they  treat  on  these  subjects ;  in  order  that  they  be  able  to  call  their 
Romish  fellow-countrymen  idolaters.  But  scarcely  any  thing  can  be  more  gross  than  the  idolatry 
of  our  Protestant  bishops  and  nobles.  For,  did  they  not,  when  they  anointed  George  the  Fourth 
King,  place  him  on  the  sacred  black  stone  brought  from  Scotland  for  the  purpose,  and  kept  in  the 
most  sacred  temple  of  the  empire,  Westminster  Abbey,  and  never  on  any  account  removed — on 
that  very  stone,  which,  as  every  body  knows,  Jacob  anointed  with  oil  ?  In  fact,  thousands  of  the 
superstitions  of  the  Papists,  Hindoos,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  were  no  more  idolatrous  than  that 
described  above,  and  they  are  just  as  fairly  represented  by  modern  writers,  as  I  have  represented 
the  above  English  SsXeia  or  superstition. 

6.  The  interpretatio  Novi  Saeculi,  as  the  fourth  eclogue  was  called,  was  a  sacred  mythos,  and 
would,  like  all  other  sacred  mythoses,  have  an  esoteric  and  an  exoteric  meaning.  In  the  same 
poem  a  new  golden  age  is  promised ;  but  new  Trojan  wars  are  also  promised.  This  account  of 
Trojan  wars  to  arrive  in  the  Saturnian  times  is,  in  some  degree,  inconsistent  with  itself,  and  this 
would  form  a  difficulty  if  we  supposed  the  system  to  be  true ;  but  it  agrees  very  well  with  my 
idea,  that  the  system  of  Avatarism  in  renewed  cycles,  though  in  itself  in  the  chief  part  false,  was 
all  believed  by  the  mystics  to  be  true.  Then,  of  course,  they  would  run  into  inconsistencies  and 
contradictions  to  support  their  faith,  as  we  see  all  erroneous  religious  system-believers  do  every 
day.  Nothing  is  too  absurd  for  most  persons  to  believe,  if  they  be  only  educated  in  the  belief  of  it. 
Absurdity  not  being  observed,  raises  no  obstacle.  It  is  very  certain  that,  if  the  system  were  part 
of  the  mysteries  of  the  religion,  Virgil  could  not  describe  it  in  any  other  way  than  aenigmatically : 
so  that  it  might  be  understood  by  the  initiated,  but  not  by  the  vulgar.  The  infant  alluded  to  in 
the  eclogue  has  been  a  subject  of  much  dispute,  but  whoever  it  might  be  meant  for,  I  think  it  is 
very  clear  to  whom  it  was  afterward  accommodated  by  Virgil :  unless  it  was  (a  thing  not  unlikely) 
interpolated  by  him  afterward  to  make  it  suit  to  Octavius ;  when  he  became  apotheosised,  or 
called  Augustus.     The  following  passage  of  the  iEneid,  Lib.  vi.,  puts  this  out  of  all  doubt : 


Turn,  turn  thine  eyes  !  see  here  thy  race  divine, 


Behold  thy  own  imperial  Roman  line : 

Caesar,  with  all  the  Julian  name  survey ; 

See  where  the  glorious  ranks  ascend  to-day  ! — 

This — this  is  he !— the  chief  so  long  foretold 

To  bless  the  land  where  Saturn  ruled  of  old, 

And  give  the  Lernean  realms  a  second  age  of  gold  ! 

The  promised  prince,  Augustus  the  divine, 

Of  Caesar's  race,  and  Jove's  immortal  line. 

All  this  theory  respecting  Augustus  Caesar,  receives  no  little  confirmation  from  the  fact  noticed 
by  me  in  Book  V.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  7,  that  his  birth  was  coeval  with  the  ajra  of  Vicramaditya,  or 
Buddha  of  Siam,  which  shews  beyond  all  doubt  the  actual  identity  of  the  two  systems. 


1  Vallancey,  Col.  Vol.  VI.  p.  87. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   III.    SECTION   7»  615 

It  appears  from  a  passage  in  Suetonius,  that  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar  was  in  a  peculiar  manner 
deplored  by  the  Jews — prcecipu&que  Judcei.  I  think  from  this  and  many  other  circumstances  that 
the  two  Caesars  were  not  only  held  up  by  a  few  contemptible  retainers,  (hangers-on  for  bread,  as 
they  have  been  represented,)  as  the  Cyrus  or  the  Great  One  of  the  age,  foretold  by  the  ancient 
prophecies,  but  by  a  great  and  learned  body  of  mankind,  who  were  believers  in  them.  The  Caesars 
were  supposed  by  their  followers,  when  they  were  alive,  to  be  renewed  incarnations,  like  the 
Lamas  of  Tibet.  The  Popes  say  that  Constantine  gave  up  Italy  to  them.  This  I  think  was  very 
likely  as  the  price  of  his  absolution,  when  he  received  baptism  on  his  death-bed.  At  the  same 
time  he  probably  surrendered  all  claim  to  the  pallium  and  the  other  privileges  of  Pontifex  Maximus. 
From  that  time  I  think  the  emperors  ruled  by  the  sword  only,  the  Pontifex  Maximus  by  the  book. 
Caesar  ruled  by  both.  Whenever  a  king  is  crowned,  he  is  always  made  to  swear  that  he  will 
support  the  rights  of  the  church.     This  is  really  nothing  less  than  fealty  disguised. 

7.  If  my  reader  will  make  allowance  for  the  credulity  of  the  author  of  the  Cambridge  Key  to  the 
Chronology  of  the  Hindoos,  in  the  following  passage,  he  may  observe  several  very  curious  and 
interesting  statements. l  "  In  the  Mahabharat,  we  are  presented  with  a  beautiful  epic  poem. 
"  So  are  we  in  the  Iliad.  The  latter  was  written  about  two  centuries  after  the  former  :  and  I  have 
"  been  inclined  to  think  that  each  was  taken  from  the  same  mythology  :  the  Gods  and  Goddesses 
"  being  no  other  than  the  patriarchs  of  the  antediluvian  world.  That  Vyasa  was  a  name  assumed 
"  by  the  author  of  the  Maha-bharat,  I  have  little  doubt.  That  is,  I  believe,  the  heroic  poem,  as 
"  it  is  now  extant,  to  have  been  taken  from  the  history,  as  recorded  by  the  antediluvian  sage  :  and 
"  that  the  post-diluvian  author,  being  a  follower  of  Vishnu,  ascribed  to  the  black  Shepherd,  as 
"  Vishnu  or  Crishnu,  a  principal  part  of  those  events  which  are  admitted,  beyond  controversy,  by 
"  every  Hindu,  to  have  taken  place  in  the  antediluvian  world.  Homer,  on  the  contrary,  brings 
"  the  ancient  patriarchs,  as  deities,  forward  to  the  seige  of  Troy.  It  is  not  on  either  that  we  can 
"  safely  rely  for  historic  truths :  although  both  poems,  it  is  more  than  probable,  were  founded 
"  thereon.  There  is  a  great  resemblance  between  the  Crishnu  of  Valmic,  and  the  Achilles  of 
"Homer.  Each  of  them,  in  mythology,  is  supposed  invulnerable,  except  in  the  right  heel :  each 
h  was  killed  by  an  arrow  piercing  that  part ;  each  was  the  son  of  the  mother  of  the  God  of  Love  ; 
"  and  the  presence  of  each  was  indispensable,  for  the  overthrow  of  the  enemy."  The  latter  part 
of  this  passage  of  the  ingenious  Cantab,  is  no  doubt  very  striking,  and  we  must  recollect  that  we 

have  before  found  an  Ili-vratta,  an  Ilium,  and  an  Achilles,  in  India,  and  all  the  Greek  Gods 

Bacchus,  Hercules,  &c.  j  and  that  we  have  also  found  the  Jews  in  India,  Jeptha's  daughter  in 
Iphigenia,  and  the  Jonas  and  Samson  in  Hercules.  The  learned  Joshua  Barnes  thought  that  the 
Iliad  was  written  by  Solomon.  This  was  very  odd.  The  seed  of  the  woman  in  Genesis  was 
bitten  in  the  heel,  Crishnu  and  Achilles  are  both  shot  in  the  heel !  ! !  Respecting  the  close  con- 
nexion between  the  poem  of  Homer  and  Solomon,  or  the  Jewish  mythos,  Basnage,  if  my  memory 
do  not  deceive  me,  has  somewhere  expressed  the  same  opinion  as  Barnes. 

The  sacred  books  of  India,  from  being  called  the  books  of  Wisdom,  were  at  length  called 
Wisdom  itself.  In  somewhat  a  similar  way  the  Muses  acquired  their  name.  All  sacred  doctrines 
were  contained  in  verse,  which  was  invented  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  them,  and  every  cycle  had 
its  epic,  or  song,  or  musa,  to  record  its  Saviour  or  rWO  mse.  Thus  Homer  celebrated  the  Greek 
Avatar  of  the  Asian  Cyrus,  and  Virgil,  the  vates,  sung  the  arrival  of  the  Xsesar.  So  completely 
mythic  is  it,  that  the  historians  have  made  the  early  life  of  Virgil  almost  a  close  copy  of  that  of 
Homer,  as  the  modern  author  of  his  life,  W.  Walsh,  Esq.,  has  pointed  out  and  detailed  at  length. 
This  affords  an  admirable  example  of  what  I  have  observed  in  another  place — that  all  history  has 


»  Vol.  II.  p.  221. 


616  Cesar's  death  followed  by  darkness. 

been  corrupted  by  judicial  astrology.  No  one  can  help  seeing  the  similarity,  almost  the  identity, 
of  the  histories  of  Homer  and  Virgil ;  but  no  one  can  doubt  that  Virgil  lived ;  yet  as  true  bio- 
graphy the  account  cannot  be  received.  It  is  like  the  early  history  of  Rome.  No  one  can  doubt 
that  Rome  existed,  but  its  early  history  is  a  mythos.  Every  cycle  had  its  muse,  its  song,  its 
saviour.  Virgil  intimates  that  the  Iliad  is  a  sacred  or  mythical  poem.  The  expectation  of  the 
generality  of  persons  who  treat  on  these  subjects  is  extremely  unreasonable.  They  expect  the 
hidden  secret  to  be  so  slightly  veiled,  that  all  who  read  it  may  discover  its  meaning  ;  and  if  they 
have  not  this  unreasonable  expectation  gratified,  they  cannot  be  brought  to  get  the  better  of  their 
early  prejudices. 

If  my  reader  will  now  turn  back  and  run  over  in  recollection  the  early  history  of  Greece,  he 
will  at  once  see,  that  it  has  no  more  claim  to  the  name  of  real  history  than  that  of  Tom  Thumb, 
or  Jack  the  Giant-killer.  It  is  quite  clear  that  a  Brahminical  nation  has  existed  in  the  South 
part  of  Thrace  and  the  North  part  of  Greece.  The  proofs  of  the  fact  are  complete.  Then  when 
did  it  exist  ? 

After  giving  the  subject  all  the  consideration  in  my  power,  and  a  diligent  examination  of  ancient 
documents  for  many  years,  I  have  become  quite  convinced,  that  almost  all  the  ancient  histories 
were  written  for  the  sole  purpose  of  recording  a  mythos,  which  it  was  desired  to  transmit  to 
posterity — but  yet  to  conceal  it  from  all  but  the  initiated.  The  traditions  of  the  countries  were 
made  subservient  to  this  purpose,  without  any  suspicion  of  fraud  ;  and  we  only  give  them  the 
appearance  of  fraud,  when  we  confound  them  with  history.  This  is  the  case  with  all  early  histo- 
ries. They  were  all  anciently  composed,  or,  if  written,  they  were  written  in  verse  for  the  sake  of 
correct  retention  by  the  memory,  and  set  to  music  for  the  same  reason.  They  were  all  of  the 
same  nature  as  the  Iliad  and  JEneid.  The  most  ancient  of  the  ancients  had  nothing  of  the  nature 
of  our  real  histories.  Real  history  was  not  the  object  of  their  writing,  any  more  than  of  Virgil's 
or  Milton's.  Herodotus  was  the  inventor  of  history.  If  it  be  true,  that  all  these  epics  or  pretended 
histories  are  under  one  disguise  or  other,  but  particularly  under  the  guise  of  real  history,  intended 
to  conceal  a  secret  mythos,  or  religious  system  from  the  vulgar,  how  could  they  be  otherwise  than 
as  we  find  them  ?  They  are,  no  doubt  in  some  respects,  different,  but  there  are  striking  marks  of 
identity  here  and  there  to  be  perceived.  The  marks  of  identity  are  facts  which  cannot  be  denied. 
Let  them  be  rationally  accounted  for  otherwise  than  as  I  have  accounted  for  them,  viz.  by  one 
general  system's  prevailing,  in  secret,  through  all  the  ages.  But  enough  of  this  digression. 
8.  When  Caesar  was  murdered  there  was  a  darkness  over  the  earth.     Virgil  says,1 

Cum  caput  obscura  nitidum  ferrugine  texit 
Impiaquse  seternam  timuerunt  saecula  noctem. 

Servius  in  his  note  on  this  place,  says,  this  darkness  lasted  ab  hora  sexta  usque  ad  noctem,  i.  e. 
from  noon  till  night,  which  at  that  time  of  year  must  have  been  six  hours.2  Here  we  see  the 
history  accommodated  to  the  mythos,  but  are  we  therefore  to  suppose  that  there  was  no  Julius 
Caesar  ?  Here  we  also  see  a  confirmation  of  what  I  have  said,  that  Caesar,  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  was  believed  to  be  the  presiding  genius  of  the  age  :  and  as  was  the  case  at  the  death  of 
Romulus  and  many  others,  the  death  did  not  change  the  mythic  character  of  Caesar.  Soon  after 
Caesar's  death,  when  Augustus  obtained  the  power,  he  was  believed  to  be  the  person,  and  the 
iEneid  was  written  to  celebrate  him.  The  Death  of  Caesar,  so  like  to  that  of  Romulus,  rather 
tended  to  prove  him  a  sacred  character  like  Romulus.  The  darkness  was  easily  invented  after- 
ward to  complete  the  picture.3 

1  Georg.  I.  467.  2  Costard,  Astron.  p.  92. 

»  I  much  suspect  that  all  chronology  was  corrupted  for  mythical  purposes,  as  we  are  very  sure  history  was.    Sir 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  8.  617 

It  is  Caesar  that  Virgil  celebrates  in  all  his  verses.  The  mythos  taught  that  there  were  to  be 
twelve  Caesars,  and  Julius's  praise  will  suit  all  or  any  of  them.  If  the  generation  in  this  case 
were  taken  at  thirty  years,  it  brings  us  to  the  mythos  of  Constantine,  who  founded  Nova  Roma  on 
the  seven  hills,  360  years  after  the  first  of  the  Caesars.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  mythos  was,  that 
the  Julian  family  should  last  for  twelve  generations — in  all  360  years — till  a  new  period  arose.  I 
think  it  not  unlikely  that  the  flatterers  of  Constantine  (the  son  of  Hellen  by  Coilus)  might  per- 
suade him,  that  notwithstanding  the  actual  number  of  Roman  despots,  yet  that  before  him  there 
were  only  twelve  legal  Emperors  ;  and  that  he  was  the  divine  or  inspired  or  incarnated  person 
destined  to  found  a  new  cycle  and  a  Nova  Roma.  The  divine  character  of  Caesar  is  the  continual 
theme  of  Virgil's  praise.  * 

The  circumstances  respecting  the  Caesars,  when  all  considered,  are  surely  very  curious.     In  the 
first  place,  the  family  name  of  Julius  seems  to  shew  a  latent  claim  to  sovereignty,  only  waiting  a 
fit  opportunity  for  the  family  to  display  itself.     It  must  be  recollected  that  in   those  days  heredi- 
tary high-priesthoods  in   families  were  very  common,  and  with  the  high-priesthood  a   sovereign 
claim,  similar  to  that  of  Tibet,  mostly  shews  itself.     Several  families  possessing  something  of  this 
kind  may  be  perceived  in  Rome.     Augustus  was  pretended   to  be  begotten  by  a  God,  in  the  form 
of  a  serpent,  in  the  temple,  and  to  be  brought  forth  after  ten  mo?iths.     However  we  may  vary  this 
in  language,  it  is  evidently  what  we  should  call  an  immaculate  conception.     And  the  ten  months' 
pregnancy  shews  it  to  be  a  mythos,   similar  to  that  of  Cristna,   Hercules,  Bacchus,   Solomon  ; 
and,  I  doubt  not,  that,  had  we  all  the  apocryphal  gospels  entire,   similar  to  another  immaculate 
conception  also.     The  name  of  the  Indian,  Etruscan,  and  Celtic  God  iEsar  or  Caesar,  followed  by 
eleven  other  Cassars,  again  shews  the   ancient  mythos,  and  that  the   twelve  Lucumones  of  the 
Etruscans  were  perhaps  princes  and  high-priests   in  succession.     Julius   declared  himself  high- 
priest,  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  probably,  though  perhaps  secretly,  pretended  to  the  office  by  here- 
ditary or  divine  right.     He  certainly  pretended  to  be  the  great  one  of  the  ninth  age,  who  was  to 
come,  and  was  believed  to  be  so,  both  by  Jews  and  Romans.     And  though  this  is  scarcely  per- 
ceptible, yet  it  may  be  perceived  in  the  fourth  eclogue  of  Virgil,   and  in   the  regret  of  the  Jews. 
His  aphanasia  and  six  hours'  darkness  at  his  death  liken  him  to  Romulus  and  to  Jesus  Christ. 
The  suffering  of  a  violent  death  seems  a  necessary  part  of  the   mythos  ;  and  I  suspect  that  the 
deaths  of  Calanus,  of  Cyrus,  of  Croesus,  of  Hercules,  of  Romulus,  &c,  &c,  &c,  all  had  a  con- 
nexion with  it.     The  following  two  verses  are  of  themselves    enough  to  shew  that  the  fourth 
eclogue  refers  to  the  mythos  of  which  I  have  written  so  much. 


Isaac  Newton  thought  the  founding  of  Rome  was  120  years  wrong.  I  suspect  that  the  sera  of  Nabonassar,  that  of  the 
first  Olympiad,  and  that  of  the  founding  of  Rome,  were  all  meant  to  begin  the  eighth  Saeculum,  and  that  they  were 
meant  to  be  650  years  before  the  commencement  of  the  ninth. 

1  Tuque  ade6,  quern  mox  quae  sint 
habitura  Deorum 
Concilia,  incertum  est,  urbisne  invisere,  Caesar, 
Terrarumque  velis  curam,  et  te  maximus  orbis 
Auctorem  frugum,  tempestatumque  potentem,  accipiat.     Virg.  Georg.  Lib.  i.  24. 

And  chiefly  thou,  O  Caesar,  concerning  whom  it  is  yet  uncertain  what  the  Gods  in  council  may  determine— whether 
thou  wilt  vouchsafe  to  visit  cities,  and  undertake  the  care  of  countries,  and  the  widely-extended  globe  receive  thee, 
giver  of  the  fruits  and  ruler  of  the  seasons. 

Again,  in  Georg.  II.  503.    Again,  II.  170.     This  passage  is  clearly  not  understood. 

Again,  in  Georg.  III.  16,  Virgil  says,  he  shall  place  Caesar  in  a  Temple.  He  praises  the  boy  Hylas,  which  is  nothing 
bat  the  boy  lulus— Yule— the  infant  Jupiter.     See  Fig.  20,  the  black  Bambino. 

Again,  iEneid.  I.  285—295,  VI.  775,  &c,  and  VIII.  678—714. 

4k 


618  STAR. 

Incipe,  parve  puer,  risu  cognoscere  raatrem  : 
Matri  longa  decern  tulerunt  fastidia  menses. 

Here  is  the  child  laughing  at  its  mother  as  soon  as  born,  and  its  mother  suffering  a  pregnancy  of 
ten  months.  Zoroaster,  Buddha,  and  Jesus  Christ,  are  all  represented  to  have  laughed  as  soon 
as  they  were  born. 

9.  Whether  an  angel  appeared  to  the  mother  of  Caesar  to  warn  her  not  to  have  connexion  with 
her  husband  during  gestation  I  do  not  know,  but  this  is  precisely  what  happened  to  Aristo  the 
father  of  Plato,  according  to  Apuleius,  Plutarch,  and  Hesychius.  So  that  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  was  a  part  of  the  mythos. *  A  star  was  said  to  foretell  the  birth  of  Caesar.  This 
seems  to  have  been  a  necessary  part  of  the  mythos  ;  refer  to  Book  V.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  7.  I  believe 
when  Virgil  wrote  the  line 

Ecce  Dionsei  processit  Caesaris  astrum, 
he  meant  the  star  which  appeared  on  the  birth  of  Caesar.  Col.  Tod  says,2  "  The  Chinese  account 
"  of  the  birth  of  Yu  (Ayu)  their  first  monarch,3  (Mercury  or  Fo,)  a  star  struck  his  mother  while 
u  travelling.  She  conceived  and  gave  to  the  world  Yu,  the  founder  of  the  first  dynasty  which 
"  reigned  in  China."  Here  we  have  the  same  mythos  of  the  immaculate  conception  in  China, 
and  of  the  same  God  if  I  mistake  not — n>  ie. 

In  Basnage  is  a  very  curious  account  of  a  kingdom  of  Cosar  or  Caesar,  which  has  been  much 
sought  after. 4  It  alludes  to  another  kingdom  of  the  Jews  somewhere  in  the  East.  Lord  Kings- 
borough  has  noticed  this  in  his  magnificent  work  on  Mexico. 5  I  believe  this  arose  among  them 
from  meeting  every  where  with  remains  of  a  mythic  kingdom  of  a  Caesar  which  they  could  not 
understand.  They  learnt  that  there  was  a  kingdom  of  Caesar  or  Cosar  or  TZR  or  Tzarina  ruled 
by  Jews  on  the  North  of  India,  which  they  fondly  flattered  themselves  must  keep  alive  the  prophecy 
that  the  sceptre  should  not  pass  from  Juda  till  their  Messiah  came  ;  but  when  they  examined  it, 
it  vanished  from  their  touch.     They  were  the  remains  of  the  kingdom  of  Oude  which  they  found. 

There  is  yet  one  more  circumstance  of  the  mythos  of  Caesar  which  shews,  in  a  very  extraordinary 
manner,  how  all  history,  even  almost  to  our  own  day,  has  been  corrupted  to  conceal  or  record  the 
mythos.  We  have  seen  that  Buddha  was  born  from  the  side  of  his  mother,  and  that  the  Christian 
heretics  taught  the  same  thing  of  Jesus.  To  complete  the  secret  doctrine,  Caesar  was  said  to 
have  been  born  by  means  of  what  we  call  the  Caesarean  operation,  from  the  side  of  his  mother.  No 
doubt  this  was  told  to  the  vulgar,  but  to  the  initiated  the  doctrine  of  Buddha  was  told.  When  all 
the  other  mystical  circumstances  relating  to  Caesar  are  considered,  the  nature  of  this  story  cannot 
be  doubted.  The  doctrine  of  the  birth  from  the  side,  he  probably  learnt,  with  much  more  that 
has  not  come  to  us,  from  the  Chaldeans6  whom  he  employed  to  correct  the  calendar. 

Dez  Prez,  the  author  of  the  notes  on  Horace  in  Usum  Delphini,  begins  his  dedication  thus : 
"  Ensem  dextra,  laeva  librum  tenens  Julius  ille  Divus  quondam  in  numismate  voluit  effingi,  cum 
"  hac  epigraphe,  Ex  utroque  Ccesar.  Julius  Caesar  ordered  his  effigies  to  be  stamped  on  a  coin, 
"  holding  a  sword  in  his  right  hand,  and  a  book  in  his  left,  with  an  inscription  that  imported,  he 
"  was  Caesar  both  by  the  one  and  the  other."  Malcolme's  Letters.  By  this  he  meant,  as  an  in- 
carnation of  the  God  Mars  or  Hesus  or  iEsar,  and  not  as  conqueror  of  his  country,  and  by  the 
secret  doctrines  of  the  book.  By  right  of  the  Liber,  Bacc,  Boc,  Book,  I  have  no  doubt  that  he 
and  his  family  always,  though  perhaps   secretly,   claimed  to  be  Pontifex  Maximus,   which  only 


'  Vide  Taylor's  Jamblicus,  p.  6,  note.  s  Hist.  Raj.  p.  57. 

3  De  Guines  sur  les  Dynasties  des  Huns,  Vol.  I.  p.  7> 

4  Bk.  vii.  Chap.  i.    Bk.  viii.  s  Vol.  VI.  p.  284.  6  Proved  hereafter. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  III.     SECTION  9.  6] 9 

waited  a  favourable  opportunity  to  display  itself.     The  claim  by  the  biber,  the  book,  is  a  very 
curious  part  of  the  mythos,  which  I  hope  to  be  able  by  and  by  to  explain.     Many  circumstances 
might  be  pointed  out  which  tend  to  shew  that  in  all  countries,  in  very  early  times,  the  office  of 
Pontifex  Maximus  was  hereditary  in  families,  as  in  that  of  Aaron ;  and  I  think  in  that  of  Rome 
several  families  had  pretensions  to  it,  which  were  kept  down  by  the  jealousies  of  their  countrymen. 
In  the  time  of  Octavius  one  of  the  priests  told  a  noble  matron  of  Rome,  that  Apollo  was  in 
love  with  her.     In  consequence  of  this  she  went  to  the  temple  and,  as  she  believed,  slept  with  the 
God,  but  having  more  vanity  than  prudence,   she   boasted  of  it,  which  caused  it  to  come  to  the 
ears  of  the  Emperor,  who  ordered  the  priest  to  be  put  to  death.     The  Emperor  did  not  approve  of 
this  intrigue  :  he  smelt  a  rat.     Our  priests,  not  so  wise  as  the  Emperor,   are  shocked   at  the  im- 
morality carried  on  in  the  temples,  and  praise  him  for  his  regard  for  religion  and  morality.     But 
they  may  be  assured  that,  if  there  had  not  been  some  other  reason,  the  God  might  have  intrigued 
at  his  pleasure.     The  Emperor  wished  for  no  sons  of  God.     It  is  pretty  clear  that  but  a  very  small 
part  of  this  story  has  come  down  to  us.     I  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  produce  of  this  holy  amour 
were  a  boy,  Augustus  took  care  to  provide  for  it,  only  with  more  success  than  we  are  told  Herod's 
plans  were  attended  at  Bethlehem. 

If  Pompey  had  defeated  Caesar  he  was  prepared  with  his  divine  claim  exactly  as  Caesar  was. 
He  would  have  been  an  incarnation  of  Buddha  or  Mercury. 


v.a,\u  $'  apa 


A  Ptolemy  of  Egypt  was  called  Soter ;  this  shews  the  claim  again  :  and  the  name  of  the 
Ptolemies  was  often  written  Mptolemeus,  when  the  M  could  not  be  emphatic :  this  was,  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  prefix  X  might  be  given  to  Caesar.  From  the  same  principle  proceeds  the  divine 
right  of  all  our  kings.  The  kings  claim  it  by  birth.  The  popes  and  priests  pretend  to  give  it  by 
imposition  of  hands — ^siporojvia.  It  was  to  conceal  the  origin  of  this  claim,  that  kings  and  priests 
have  always  been  so  solicitous  to  conceal  this  mythos.  They  wished  to  profit  by  it,  but  they 
feared  that  the  people  should  understand  it. 

In  the  same  way,  it  appears  that  Mark  Antony  was  provided  with  his  divine  right,  if  he  had 
succeeded  in  possessing  himself  of  the  empire.  Jurieu  says,  Mark  Antony  was  called  M  Area 
Antonia,  alluding  to  an  Egyptian  superstition  ;  but  he  does  not  try  to  explain  it.  A  tower  in 
Jerusalem  was  called  Antonia.  The  Area  floated  from  Egypt  to  Byblos.  Was  Byblos  called 
Antonia?  Some  very  ingenious  speculations  may  be  found  in  Mr.  Barker's  Lempriere,2  by 
Professor  Anthon,3  respecting  the  old  Roman  nobility  ;  he  supposes  that  they  were  the  remains 
of  a  sacred  caste.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  extremely  probable.  They  were  hereditary  landholders, 
legislators,  and  sacred  persons  or  priests,  each  perhaps  aiming  to  be  the  Pontifex  Maximus — who 
was  unquestionably  the  first  man  in  the  state — all  jealous  of  one  another,  and  perhaps  agreeing  in 
nothing  but  in  the  choice  of  the  most  imbecile  for  that  situation,  as  Bishops  of  Canterbury  and 
Popes  of  Rome  are  said  to  be  selected. 

The  Avatars  seem  to  have  been  very  numerous.     M.  Creuzer,  who,  I  suspect,  from  his  some- 


1  Ajax,  v.  1292;  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  479.  2  In  voce  Rome. 

3  I  beg  leave  to  draw  my  reader's  attention  to  this  work  of  Mr.  Anthon's.  It  exhibits  in  a  very  favourable  point  of 
view  the  literary  character,  and  the  enlargement  of  mind,  of  our  former  countrymen.  It  is  a  wonderful  improvement 
upon  the  obsolete  and  contemptible  priestisms  of  old  Lempriere.  It  is  the  best  book  in  our  language  for  the  educa- 
tion of  youth.  It  might  be  greatly  improved  by  making  it  more  of  an  ancient  Gazetteer,  and  I  hope  when  a  new 
edition  is  printed,  Mr.  Barker  will  add  to  the  obligation  under  which  he  has  laid  his  country  by  making  this  addition  to 
it.    By  this  means  alone  the  size  of  it  might  be  almost  doubled  with  very  great  advantage. 

4k2 


620  STAR. 

times  using  the  word  Avatar,  had  a  glimpse  of  the  true  and  secret  system  of  the  ancients,  shews 
that  the  same  mythos  was  applied  to  great  numbers  of  ancient  Grecian  heroes,  such  as  Theseus 
and  Hercules.  This  is  perfectly  correct.  We  have  seen  proofs  from  the  names  of  towns  or 
places  in  different  countries,  that  each  independent  district  had  its  system  of  Avatars :  then,  of 
course,  there  ought  to  have  passed,  in  the  time  of  Julius  Ctesar,  eight  Avatars  in  each  country ; 
this  accounts  for  their  great  number,  and  for  the  great  numbers  of  persons  or  hero  Gods  of  the 
same  name.  Each  country  had  its  Jupiter ;  and  the  only  thing  which  surprises  me  is,  that  the 
devotees  did  not  quarrel  about  them  in  the  West,  as  they  seem  to  have  done  in  the  East.  That 
the  system  is  not  more  apparent  is  easily  accounted  for.  It  was  a  secret  alluded  to  in  the  cele- 
bration of  the  highest  mysteries  only,  and  perhaps  understood  merely  by  some  of  the  professors 
of  them.  Time  has  long  been  at  work  with  his  all-destructive  scythe,  aided  by  the  power  of  the 
Christian  priests,  to  destroy  or  put  out  of  sight  all  the  facts  that  transpired  respecting  it  in  the 
works  of  the  ancients,  which  had  any  relation  or  similarity  to  the  facts  related  of  Jesus  Christ. 
How  can  any  proof  of  this  assertion  be  required  more  clear  than  that  of  the  different  crucifixions 
of  Prometheus,  Ixion,  &c,  so  completely  disguised,  as  they  are,  and  which  by  good  luck  only  have 
escaped  destruction  ? 

Much  nonsense  has  been  written  concerning  the  heroes  of  antiquity  being  converted  into  Gods; 
but  now,  in  the  Caesars,  I  think,  we  may  see  the  real  nature  of  the  apotheosis.  They  were  not 
supposed  to  be  men  converted  into  Gods,  but  incarnations  of  a  portion  of  the  Divine  Spirit ;  at 
least  this  was  the  real  and  secret  meaning  of  the  apotheosis.  They  were  men  endowed  with  the 
Holy  Ghost.  They  were  nothing  but  men  supposed  to  be  filled  with  more  than  an  usual  portion  of 
that  spirit  which  our  bishops  profess  to  put  into  their  priests,  when  they  ordain  them  by  the 
imposition  of  hands — by  which  they  give  them  the  unconditional  power  of  remitting  sins;  at  least  so 
the  book  says.  Like  the  Christian  saints,  they  were  not  generally  declared,  till  after  their  deaths  j 
though  during  their  lives  they  might  be  believed,  by  many  of  their  followers  to  be  divinely  inspired, 
as  was  probably  the  case  with  St.  Francis, i  as  I  shall  presently  shew.  In  his  case,  his  followers 
were  only  fools  ;  in  such  cases  as  that  of  Octavius  a  due  admixture  of  rogues  would  also  be  found. 
Octavius  was  a  second  Cyrus.  On  this  account  he  was  called  Augustus,  and,  as  the  last  and 
most  holy  appellation,  the  same  as  Cyrus,  Father  of  his  country,  the  Aicov  tcov  aiwvoov — 
Deus  fortis  futuri  sasculi. 2  I  am  surprised  that  we  have  not  a  life  of  Octavius  by  a  Latin 
Xenophon,  to  match  the  Heathen  gospel  called  the  Cyropcedia.  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  the 
prophecies,  in  the  case  of  Octavius,  conduced  to  their  own  fulfilment,  and  I  think  it  very  probable 
that  he  really  believed  himself  foretold,  as  many  others,  with  much  less  pretensions,  have  done 
since  ;  such  as  Brothers,  Swendenborg,  &c.  All  this  was  in  strict  keeping  with  what  I  suppose 
was  the  fact,  that  the  early  history  of  Rome  was  merely  a  mythos,  which  is  strongly  supported  by 
many  of  its  pretended  events  being  only  copies  from  the  heretical  history  of  Greece,  as  noticed  by 
Lumsden  and  Niebuhr,  which  I  shall  immediately  examine.  Then,  as  the  Argonautic  expedition, 
the  Trojan  war,  &c,  took  place  at  the  end  of  the  former  millenary,  or  neros, — they  would  take 
place  again  at  the  end  of  that  then  coming.  If  we  consider  that  the  principal  events  said  to 
have  happened  to  the  early  Romans  are  only  Grecian  fables  repeated,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the 
devotees  really  believed  that  new  Argonauts,  &c.,  would  arise  in  a  few  years.  I  suspect  some 
Gentile  mystics  found  that   the  time  was   shortly  coming  when  the  tragedies  of  Babylon,  Thebes, 


1  And  Johanna  Southcote,  whose  religion  continues  to  flourish,  she  having,  to  my  knowledge,  learned  Protestant 
priests  among  her  followers,  in  A.  D.  1830 — one  of  the  rank  of  honourable. 

*  Isa.  ix.  6,  7. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  III.    SECTION  11.  621 

and  Troy,  would  be  repeated  in  Rome — Nova  Troia  or  new  Babylon.     These  were  the  Irvings  and 
Fabers  of  their  day,  and  probably  this  was  the  correct  mythos. 

10.  Before  I  proceed,  I  beg  my  reader  to  look  back  to  Book  VII.  Chap.  VIII.  Sect.  2,  for  what 
I  have  there  said  respecting  Rome.  The  Targum  of  Jerusalem  says,  Rex  Messias  egredietur 
ex  urbe  Roma.  Edit.  Buxt.  Lex.  in  Roma.1  This  confirms  my  suspicion,  that  there  was  much 
more  mythologic  matter  appertaining  to  Rome,  than  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  calculate 
on.  I  suspect  that  new  Troys,  &c,  were  expected  every  600  years.  In  the  case  of  the  Romans 
this  was  a  superstition,  which  could  not  be  corrected  by  that  kind  of  experience  which  we  acquire 
from  history,  because  they  had  no  history.  What  we  call  their  history,  Mr.  Niebuhr  has  shewn 
was  mere  mythos.  This  will  account  for  a  degree  of  superstition  which  would  be  otherwise 
scarcely  credible,  among  the  higher  ranks  of  the  Romans. 

A  great  many  years  ago,  the  question  of  the  truth  or  authenticity  of  the  history  of  the  first  four 
hundred  years  of  the  Roman  empire,  was  discussed  in  the  Transactions  of  the  French  Academy  of 
Inscription,2  by  Mons.  De  Pouilly  and  the  Abbe  Sallier.  The  former  asserted  the  same  as  had 
been  asserted  by  an  Englishman  called  Lumsden,  in  his  travels  in  Italy — that  many  of  the  incidents 
in  the  Roman  history  were  identical  with  those  in  the  heroical  history  of  the  Greeks,  and  there- 
fore must  have  been  copied  from  them.  In  reply  to  this,  the  Abbe  shewed,  from  dates  and  cir- 
cumstances, that  they  could  not  have  been  copied  by  the  Romans  from  the  Greeks,  and,  therefore, 
that  if  either  copied,  it  must  have  been  the  Greeks  who  copied  from  the  Romans,  which  was 
bringing  the  matter  nearly  to  a  proof  ad  absurdum.  But  that  which  seems  probable  has  never 
been  suspected, — that  they  were  not  copies  of  one  another,  but  were  drawn  from  a  common 
source ;  were,  in  fact,  an  example  of  remaining  fragments  of  the  almost  lost,  but  constantly 
renewed,  mythos,  which  we  have  seen  every  where  in  the  East  and  West, — new  Argonauts,  new 
Trojan  wars,  &c,  &c.  But  these  gentlemen,  not  having  the  least  suspicion  of  any  thing  of  this 
kind,  were,  as  well  as  their  readers,  very  much  puzzled  to  know  what  to  make  of  these  odd 
things  ;  for  both  parties  seemed  to  be  right,  as,  in  fact,  in  great  part,  they  were. 

The  Abbe  Sallier  observes,  that  although  Dionysius,  of  Halicarnassus,  fixes  the  date  of  Rome, 
yet  he  does  not  determine  whether  it  was  then  first  founded  or  only  repeopled.  Dionysius  con- 
tends, that  facts  have  been  received  from  father  to  son  in  families,  as  a  sacred  inheritance  ;  but  to 
this  is  opposed  an  observation  of  Livy's,  which  we  know  from  experience  to  be  very  probable — 
that  families  have  inserted  things  in  their  own  praise  which  have  never  happened  :  multa  enim 
scripta  sunt  in  eis,  quae  facta  non  sunt :  falsi  triumphi,  plures  consulatus,  genera  etiam  falsa.3 

But  there  is  another  passage  of  Livy's  and  one  of  Plutarch's,  which  seem,  taken  together,  to 
place  the  absolute  uncertainty  of  the  Roman  history  out  of  reach  of  reasonable  doubt,  even  if  its 
similarity  to  the  Grecian  fables  did  not  do  this  :  because  these  writers  must  be  considered  as 
unwilling  witnesses  to  an  unwelcome  truth.  Livy4  says,  Vitiatam  memoriam  funeribus  laudibus 
reor,  falsisque  imaginum  titulis,  dum  familia  quaeque  ad  se  famam  rerum  gestarum,  honorumque 
fallente  mendacio  trahunt.  Inde  certe  et  singulorum  gesta,  et  publica  monimenta  rerum  confusa. 
Nee  quisquam  aequalis  temporibus  illis  scriptor  extat,  quo  satis  certo  auctore  stetur.  Plutarch 
says,  at  the  end  of  his  treatise  on  the  fortune  of  the  Romans,  speaking  of  the  times  which  preceded 
603  of  the  foundation  of  Rome,  Ti  tosi  ttbqi  rcuira  hiarpiGsiv,  cru<$>sg  ouSsv,  ot>Se  coqia-^svov  eyei. 

11.  In  August,  1830,  after  this  work  was  sent  to  press,  a  notice  of  Mr.  Niebuhr's  work  made 
its  appearance  in  the  Edinburgh  Review.  That  notice  surprised  me  greatly,  for  it  is  not  in  the 
usual  style  of  the  Review.     It  consists  of  a  loose  tirade  against  the  probability  of  Mr.  Niebuhr's 


•  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  381.  *  For  the  year  1729.  3  Liv.  Lib.  viii.  Cap.  xl.  «  Ibid 


622  NIEBUHR. 

doctrine,  that  the  early  history  of  Rome  is  a  mythos.  It  notices  his  observation  of  the  peculiarity 
of  the  number  of  the  years  of  its  kings,  360,  without  noticing  the  collateral  facts  which  confirm 
the  mythic  character  of  the  history,  viz.  the  circumstance  that  they  are  only  copies  of  facts 
recorded  of  the  heroes  of  Greece.  Suspicious  as  the  numbers  are,  they  would  not  of  themselves, 
perhaps,  have  been  enough,  but  surely  the  collateral  circumstances  ought  to  have  been  noted.  In 
direct  opposition  to  the  ingenious  Reviewer,  who,  I  complain,  has  not  treated  Mr.  Niebuhr's  work 
fairly, l  I  maintain,  that  it  is  not  credible  that  the  very  singular  number  of  360  years  should  have 
elapsed  between  the  fall  of  Troy  and  the  building  of  Rome ;  360  between  the  building  of  Rome 
and  its  destruction  by  the  Gauls  ;  360  more  to  the  foundation  of  the  monarchy  by  the  capture  of 
Alexandria ;  and  from  the  latter  to  the  dedicating  of  Constantinople  360  more ; 2  the  whole 
makino-  the  sum  of  1440.  I  contend  that  the  numbers  connected  with  the  other  matters  do  clearly 
prove  a  mythos, — a  mythos  which,  like  all  other  mythoses,  was  originally  concealed  in  poems  for 
aiding  the  memory — and,  perhaps,  when  letters  came  into  use,  acrostic  poems  too.  Directly 
against  the  Reviewer  I  also  contend,  that  though  the  astrological  taint  of  the  early  histories  does 
not  prove  them  all  false,  yet  it  does  render  them  doubtful,  wherever  there  is  the  least  reason  to 
suspect  that  the  mythos  may  be  concerned.  And  I  contend  that  it  is  philosophical  to  hold  in 
suspicion  (Roger  Bacon)  all  such  histories,  and  unphilosophical  to  receive  them  without  it.  For, 
as  I  have  observed,  although  the  mythic  character  of  the  history  does  not  prove  it  all  false — that 
there  was  no  Rome,  that  there  were  no  kings — yet  it  places  it  in  the  same  situation  with  the 
heroic  history  of  Greece,  the  history  of  Theseus,  &c,  until  the  mythos  is  made  out.  I  contend 
that  wherever  the  mythos  shews  itself — and  it  appears  that  an  historian  has,  like  the  Reviewer, 
not  considered  such  mythos  to  be  a  suspicious  circumstance — the  whole  is  for  that  very  reason 
to  be  doubted  in  a  greater  or  less  degree.  The  mythos  has  corrupted  all  history.  Who  can 
doubt  that  the  Argonautic  history  is  a  recurring  mythos  ?  It  is  noticed  by  Homer,  and  some  of 
its  heroes  are  said  to  have  lived  long  after  his  time.  Now,  our  historians  have  endeavoured  to 
concoct  the  history,  so  as  to  make  out  one  probable  story  j  which,  if  its  cyclic  character  had  been 
understood,  they  would  instantly  have  seen  it  was  impossible  to  do,  consistently  with  truth.  As 
Virgil  has  told  us,  new  Argonauts  would  arise  from  time  to  time.  The  Reviewer  says,  that 
"  historians  draw  largely  upon  their  own  and  their  readers'  credulity  in  matters  connected  with 
"  religion,  when  in  recording  common  secular  events  they  observe  the  most  scrupulous  fidelity." 
But  the  mischief  is,  that  the  mythos  is  historical,  and  all  history  is  closely  connected  with  it.  I 
am  sorry  for  the  line  which  this  influential  review  has  taken,  because  it  tends  to  aid  the  priests 
in  their  attempts  to  run  down  Niebuhr,  and  thus  to  stop  in  limine  the  attempts,  by  establishing 
the  fact  of  the  mythos,  to  remove  the  hitherto  insuperable  difficulties  attending  all  the  early 
history  of  mankind.  However,  I  leave  it  to  the  writer  of  the  article  to  believe  in  Romulus  and 
the  Lady  Wolf,  and,  if  he  please,  in  Jack  the  Giant-killer.  I  shall  continue  to  doubt  their  truth. 
The  fact  of  the  mythos  is  established ;  and  whatever  the  Editor  may  think  or  say  of  my  work  in 
other  respects,  I  hope  his  learned  contributors  will  render  me  their  very  powerful  assistance 
in  making  out  the  whole  secret  of  the  mythos.3 

Whenever  I  find  the  serious  argument  of  a  sensible  man  treated  with  ridicule,  I  always  suspect 
that  the  power  of  an  opponent  to  refute  it  is  weak.  The  hypothesis  of  Bailly  and  some  others  so 
much  ridiculed,  that  the  origin  of  man  is  to  be  sought  far  to  the  North  of  India,  may,  perhaps, 
receive  some  slight  support  from  a  passage   of  Gibbon's.4      It  will  be  accounted  for  by  ridicule 


1  P.  374.  2  Niebuhr,  p.  1/1. 

3  Niebuhr  has  been  ably  vindicated  by  the  Foreign  Quarterly  Review.  "  Hist.  Ch.  xlii. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER    III.     SECTION  11.  623 

and  accident.  I  confess  neither  of  these  modes  of  refuting  is  satisfactory  to  me.  "  In  the  midst 
"  of  these  obscure  calamities,  Europe  felt  the  shock  of  a  revolution,  which  first  revealed  to  the 
"  world  the  name  and  nation  of  the  Turks.  Like  Romulus,  the  founder  of  that  martial  people, 
"  was  suckled  by  a  she-wolf,  who  afterward  made  him  the  father  of  a  numerous  progeny  :  and  the 
"  representation  of  that  animal  in  the  banners  of  the  Turks  preserved  the  memory,  or  rather 
"  suggested  the  idea,  of  a  fable,  which  was  invented,  without  any  mutual  intercourse,  by  the 
"  shepherds  of  Latium  and  those  of  Scythia."  When  I  think  of  Cristna  exposed,  of  Cyrus  exposed, 
of  Moses  exposed,  of  Romulus  exposed,  and  of  the  Turk  exposed,  and  all,  like  Jesus,  saved  from 
the  tyrants'  power,  I  cannot  attribute  this  similarity  to  accident ;  and  the  proofs  which  I  have 
given  of  the  identity  of  the  Latin  and  Sanscrit  languages,  and  the  identity  of  places  in  India  and 
Italy,  &c,  &c,  preclude  the  hasty  conclusion  of  Gibbon,  that  there  has  been  no  intercourse  between 
Italy  and  India.  The  country  of  Janus,  of  Saturnia,  and  Itala  or  the  Bull,  must  have  had  a  close 
intercourse  in  very  early  time  with  the  country  of  Genesa,  Satrun-ja,  and  the  country  where 
Taurus  opened  the  Vernal  Year  with  his  horn.  I  leave  these  things  to  the  reflection  of  my  reader, 
quite  certain  of  the  result,  if  he  will  only  employ  his  reflection  upon  them.  To  account  for  them 
I  can  find  no  way  consistent  with  present  Christianity,  except  by  adopting  the  argument  of  Park- 
hurst,  that,  like  Hercules,  Romulus,  &c,  they  are  emblems  of  a  future  Saviour.  To  this,  at 
present,  I  shall  make  no  objection,  whatever  my  private  opinion  may  be,  provided  its  proposers 
will  only  have  candour  enough  not  to  insult  my  understanding,  by  stories  of  accidents,  and  will 
admit  the  facts  which  cannot  be  disputed. 

Supposing  the  theory  which  I  have  developed,  that  is,  in  fact,  the  theory  of  Virgil,  to  be  correct* 
the  fragments  ought  to  be  found  in  occasional  duplicates,  as  we  do  find  them,  some  in  one  country, 
some  in  another.  For  example,  the  part  of  the  story  consisting  of  Cristna's  escape  and  preserva- 
tion by  a  cowherd  from  a  tyrant,  is  the  same  story  as  Cyrus's,  the  same  as  Moses's,  the  same  as 
Romulus's,  and  as  several  others.  There  has,  no  doubt,  been  originally  one  history  of  them  all, 
and  that  history  a  mythos  or  a  doctrine  :  and  the  doctrine  of  a  divine  incarnatiou  in  each  age, 
which  the  priests  of  each  country  persuaded  the  people  must  belong  to  them,  as  proved  by  their 
history.  Though  I  fear  there  is  little  hope  of  making  out  the  story  completely,  I  do  not  consider 
it  entirely  hopeless.  The  Christian  will  say,  that  the  Pentateuch  is  the  original  mythos  ;  then  I 
say  in  reply,  by  hopeless  I  mean,  if  that  be  the  case,  that  by  the  discovery  of  a  more  full  and  par- 
ticular account  the  whole  meaning  of  Genesis  may  be  discovered.  For  I  assume,  that  no  person 
can  now  believe,  that  the  real  meaning  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  &c,  is  known.  How  monstrous  is  the 
absurdity  of  taking  a  part  of  this  mythos,  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  making  out  of  it  such  a  doc- 
trine as  that  of  the  atonement,  a  doctrine  not  only  contrary  to  the  moral  attributes  of  God,  but 
subversive  of  all  morality  ! 

The  ancient  spirit  of  mysticism  is  well  exemplified  in  the  names  of  Rome.  Among  others  we 
are  told,  that  it  was  called  Epa)£  or  Love,  because  its  name,  of  Roma,  spelt  anagramatically, 
made  Amor.  In  the  same  way,  probably,  its  legislator,  Numa,  was  called  from  Menu  or  Amun.  l 
It  is  very  extraordinary,  that  when  it  must  be  known  to  the  learned,  that  all  the  writers  on  mys- 
tical subjects  concealed  them  as  much  as  possible  by  anagrams,  and  acrostics,  and  aenigmas,  of 
every  kind,  they  should  be  so  unwise  as  to  cast  these  things  away,  and  pay  no  attention  to  them. 
The  Jews  and  Gentiles  were  equally  addicted  to  these  practices.  They  almost  all  gave  themselves 
false  names,  even  down  to  the  modern  John  Calvin.  Lycophron  called  IIto7.£/aso/s,  Ptolemy, 
aTo  [t.e'h.iTog  from  Honey  :    Ap<rivor}  iov  ?jga£,  the  Arrow  of  Venus.2    Under  these  circumstances, 


'  Vide  Creuzer,  Vol.  II.  p.  521.  2  Basn.  Hist.  Jews,  Bk.  iii.  Ch.  xxiii.  Sect.  ii. 


624  PALLADIUM. 

how  is  any  one  who  does  not  attend  to  them  to  be  expected  to  find  out  the  meaning  of  such  works 
as  the  Cassandra  ? 

In  1  Pet.  v.  13,  Rome  is  alluded  to  under  the  name  of  Babylon.  This  very  much  perplexed 
the  Luthers  and  Calvins,  who  were  not  initiated  in  the  Roman  religion.  But  this  was  the  mystic 
name  of  Rome,  as  is  proved  from  a  passage  in  the  Sibylline  Oracle,  Lib.  iii.,  where  Rome  is  most 
clearly  designated  by  the  word  Babylon.  Very  truly  has  Nimrod  said,1  that  the  Sibylline  Ora- 
cles are  Gnostic  performances. 

Urus  is  a  name  for  the  male  or  female  beeve.  Ur  is  the  root.  Ur,  then,  means  beeve.  Ur-ia 
or  Ur-iana  a  district  of  Jndia,  then,  means  Country  of  Beeve,  or  Bull.  Italy  was  called  Vitala  or 
Itala,  which  meant  bull.  It  was  called  Saturnia  regnum  ;  then,  regnum  Saturnia  meant  the  same 
as  regnum  Urus.  Saman  was  the  God  of  Italy.  Saman-Nath  of  that  part  of  India  called  Saturnja, 
in  which  God  was  also  called  Sum-naut,  is  evidently  the  same.  The  Indian  Saturnja  is  found  in 
a  country  of  Pallitana,  and  the  Italian  Regnum  Saturnia  on  Mount  Pallatine.  Palli  occurs  in 
both ;  while  there  is  a  God  Jain  in  the  one,  and  a  God  Janus  in  the  other.  God  was  also  called 
Sam;  and  Meru  meant  mere  or  mount;  then,  Someru  or  Sameru  was  Mount  Sam,  or  mount  of 
the  sun. 

It  is  a  striking  circumstance  that  Rome  should  be  called  Urum  ;  but  it  is  not  so  surprising 
when  we  find  Italy  called  Italus  or  Vitulus. 2  Littleton  says,  Quondam  dicta  fuit  haec  urbs  Valentia, 
Saturnia,  Flora,  Cbphalon,3  £7rraXo(po£  sive  septicollis  urbs,  Urbs  Augusta,  Sacra,  ^Eternaj 
Tuscis  Urum,  et  Christianis  plerisque,  hodie  Babylon.4 

Thus  we  have  Rome  called  Babylon,  and  Babylon  called  Rome.  We  have  a  city  of  Rama  and 
an  island  of  Rama  in  India  :  and  a  point  Romania. 5  We  have  in  Phrygia  Mount  Ararat  noticed 
by  the  Sibyl,  and  a  Roma,  &c,  and  a  country  of  Roum  ;  and,  to  complete  all,  we  have  in  each, 
for  rulers,  Caesars  or  Kesari.  Can  any  one  doubt  a  common  mythos  ?  And  it  may  have  been 
any  of  these  Romes  to  which  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  in  her  prophecy  alluded.  Rome  was  Babylon, 
and  Babylon  was  the  city  of  the  Dove,  and  Lanca  or  Ye-lanka6  or  Ceylon  was  the  island  of  Rama, 
(in  which  were  Ararat  and  Adam's  foot-mark,)  the  capital  of  which  was  Columbo.  Was  there  a 
city  of  Rama  or  Roma  in  Ceylon,  or  in  the  island  of  Rama  ? 

Creuzer  shews  that  Rome  was  called  an  Olympus, 7  and  in  their  ceremonies  they  chaunted 
Tri-omphe,  Triomphe — that  is,  the  triple  Omphe. 

12.  Apollo  had  a  daughter  called  Chryses  ;  he  married  her  to  Dar-dan-us  of  the  opposite  coast 
to  Thrace  or  Troy,  and  with  her  gave,  as  a  marriage  portion,  the  Pa//adium,  or  icon  of  Pallas, 
the  Goddess  of  wisdom.8  It  was  carried  by  ./Eneas  from  Troy  to  Alba  Longa,  on  the  conquest 
of  which,  along  with  Caesar's  family,  it  was  removed  to  Rome,  and  placed  in  the  temple  of  Vesta. 
Caesar's  family  was  spared,  as  .ZEneas's  had  been,  at  Troy.  History  and  not  poetry,  says  that 
jEneas  treacherously  delivered  up  the  Palladium,  by  which  he  purchased  his  safety  and  sacrificed 
his  country.     Was  it  the  same  with  the  ancestor  of  Caesar  ?     There  is  a  parallel  for  this  in  Holy 


'  Vol.  I.  pp.  228,  388. 

3  M.  Creuzer,  Vol.  II.  Liv.  v.  Ch,  v.  p.  518,  shews  how  the  word  Itala  comes  from  th    word  vitulus. 

3  Is  this  a  translation  of  Ras  or  Apxy  ? 

*  Tarquin  the  ancient  is  said  to  have  built  the  Cloacae  Maximse,  but  it  is  forgotten,  when  this  is  said,  that  the  famous 
statue  of  Venus  Cloacina  was  found  in  them  by  Romulus;  (see  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  320;)  so  that  one  part  of  the  tradi- 
tion nullifies  the  other. 

5  Hamilton's  Gaz.  p.  184.  6  Called  Yelanki  by  Wilsom 

*  Liv.  v.  Ch.  v.  p.  524.  «  Sandy's  Travels,  p.  23. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   III.    SECTION    13.  625 

Writ.  The  case  is  suspicious.  As  long  as  a  city  possessed  this  Palladium  or  icon  of  wisdom 
it  was  impregnable.  It  was  carried  from  Rome  to  Constantinople  the  new  capital  of  Thrace,  by 
Constantine  the  First.  I  much  suspect  that  it  was  placed  by  him  in  the  church  of  Sancta 
Sophia,  and  that  for  this  reason  it  was  called  Sophia.  Constantine  is  said  to  have  given  the  name 
of  Nova  Roma  to  Byzantium,  and  to  the  district,  the  name  of  Romelia  :  but  I  imagine  from  its 
propinquity  to  Antiquissima  Roma,  as  it  might  be  called,  or  Troy,  that  he  only  restored  the 
ancient  names,  if  he  did  give  them  those  names.  I  rather  conclude,  it  was  like  the  Roum  of 
Phrygia  and  the  Rama  of  Ceylon,  and  that  he  found  the  old  names  when  he  found  the  seven  hills. 
The  country  of  Ilium  was  called  Mysia,  (ia--)DDO  mstr,  [xvfripiov,)  like  the  part  of  Thrace  called 
Romelia.  This  strengthens  the  ground  for  suspicion.  Ptolemy  knew  nothing  of  the  name  of 
Romelia.  He  only  knew  the  Greek  names;  and  Romelia,  if  I  be  right,  would  be  the  name  which 
preceded  that  of  the  Greeks.     It  was  the  country  of  Rama. 

Let  us  cast  our  eyes  on  ancient  Thrace,  and  what  do  we  find  ? — the  district  first  called  Thrace 
and  then  Macedonia,  restored  to  its  ancient  name,  a  little  corrupted,  Rome-lia;  that  is,  the  coun- 
try of  Rama,  with  the  L  inserted  from  a  natural  tendency  to  improve  the  Euphony  of  the  word. 
Thus  we  have  Rome  in  the  country  of  Saturn-ja  and  Pallitana,  and  in  the  country  of  Rama 
where  the  Trimurti  reigned  and  the  widows  were  sacrificed.  It  was  probably  when  it  first  bore  the 
name  of  Rama,  that  the  gold  mines  were  worked,  the  vestiges  of  which  were  observed  by  the 
Greeks.  When  the  Turks,  ignorant  of  Greek,  conquered  the  country,  they  naturally  gave  places 
the  names  used  by  the  country  people — the  old  names. 

In  Phrygia,  with  the  Turks,  a  district  has  recovered  its  ancient  name  of  Roum  (Wilkinson's 
Atlas).  There  may  be  seen  also  a  Djanik-hu,  that  is  Iuli ;  and  a  Kaisarieh;  a  town  of  Sivas  • 
a  Gulf  of  Samson ;  a  river  Euphrates,  &c,  &c.  From  this  country  the  Romans  got  their  Pessi- 
nuncian  stone.  We  must  remember  that  Troy  was  in  Phrygia,  and  that  Roma  was  Nova  Troia. 
In  Lat.  39|,  Long.  45a,1  we  have  Hadrianotheraj ;  and  in  Lat.  39f,  Long.  47,  we  have  Hadriani 
ad  Olympum,  now  called  Edrenos  by  the  Turks.  Here  I  think  no  one  can  deny  the  Udrinos  or 
the  Y$pj7j£.     Is  this  the  old  name,  or  the  Roman  one  ? 

13.  Niebuhr  says,  "It  appears  that,  in  clearing  away  the  ruins  of  the  Colossaeum,  below  the  for- 
'■'  mer  pavement  which  they  had  dug,  they  discovered  remains  of  a  Cyclopaean  wall.    Unfortunately 
"  their  direction  has  not  been  stated.     It  will  probably  appear  that  they  belonged  to  Roma  Qua- 
"  drata.     It  is  rather  singular  that  they  should  have  carried  it  through  this  deep  valley.     This 
"  mode  of  building  vouches  for  an  age  of  the  city  far  beyond  our  chronology,  and  for  a  nation  of 
"  early  inhabitants  which  had  utterly  disappeared." 2      It  is  an  extraordinary  thing,  that  Mr. 
Niebuhr  should  content  himself  with  this  observation,  without  making  the  slightest  attempt  to 
follow  it  up,  by  inquiring  what  this  nation  was  which  had  disappeared,  or  whence  it  came.     The 
history  of  Rome  and  Italy,  previous  to  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Christ   mav  be 
given  in  very  few  words— as  far  as  with  any  certainty  it  is  known.     It  was  probably  at  first  occu- 
pied by  Nomade  tribes  from  the  North  of  India,  who  gradually  settled  themselves  in  its  delightful 
climate  and  soil;  and,  under  a  patriarchal  or  priestly  government, 3  it  increased  to  great  population 
and  enjoyed  a  state  of  peace  for  many  generations,  till  the  law  of  change  operated  and  destroyed 
this  golden  age,  this  Pandaean  state,  this  empire  of  Pandaea.4      Quarrels  and  separate  states  arose 


'  D'Anville.  *  Vol.  II.  p.  530.  3  Treated  of  bereafter> 

*  This  was  the  time  when  the  city  of  Sybaris  flourished,  which  had  a  population  so  great,  that  it  could  send  an  army 
of  three  hundred  thousand  men  into  the  field.  Posidonia  or  Peestum,  whose  temples  and  walls  yet  remain  to  prove  its 
Indvan  origin  and  its  magnificence,  was  one  of  the  towns  of  this  state.  The  time  when  it  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  the 
peaceable,  patriarchal  government,  before  the  Cyclopaean  walls  were  necessary,  was  probably  that  in  which  its°beautiful 
temples  of  Neptune  and  Ceres  were  built,  which  yet  remain. 

4l 


626  HISTORY    OF    ITALY. 

by  degrees,  and  their  towns  became  surrounded  with  Cyclopaean  walls.  It  remained  in  this  situa- 
tion, sometimes  one  state  preponderating,  sometimes  another,  till  the  famous  tribe  of  Gauls,  under 
Brennus,  arrived,  who  overran  the  country,  pillaging  the  open  towns,  but  not  equal  to  contend 
with  hill  fortresses  like  the  Roman  Capitolium,  the  Cyclopoean  walls  of  Paestum,  Cortona,  and  other 
cities,  or  the  natural  defences  of  Civita  Castellana  or  Veii,  if  it  were  Veii.  After  a  short  course  of 
victory  and  success,  a  great  part  of  the  Gauls  were  probably  destroyed  by  the  perpetual  irruptions 
of  the  natives  from  their  walled  towns,  and  from  their  fastnesses  in  the  Apenines  upon  their  rear ; 
aided  by  a  most  powerful  ally,  the  Autumn  Malaria ;  and,  the  remaining  part  weakened  and  dis- 
pirited, like  a  late  retreating  army  from  Moscow,  were  expelled.  When  this  hurricane  had  blown 
over,  favourable  circumstances  of  which  we  are  ignorant  gave  a  preponderance  to  the  Roman 
state,  and,  after  a  series  of  wars  for  a  considerable  number  of  years,  united  the  population  of  Italy 
under  her  command.  The  fortunate  circumstance  of  having  a  Napoleon  arise  in  her  state,  in  the 
person  of  a  Camillus,  was  quite  enough  to  account  for  Rome  acquiring  the  supremacy.  Perhaps 
some  superstition,  respecting  the  ancient  Cyclopaean  city  just  alluded  to,  might  lend  its  aid.  How 
this  might  be,  we  know  not,  but  probably  the  population  of  Italy,  from  the  previous  state  of  war- 
fare in  which  it  had  been,  might  be  much  more  warlike  than  that  of  the  Eastern  and  civilized 
states,  or  the  trading  Carthaginian  ;  and  thus  Italy  might  be  qualified  to  achieve  the  conquest  of 
the  world.  I  think  this  is  nearly  all  that  can  safely  be  said  of  Rome  previous  to  its  destruction  by 
Brennus,  in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ.  The  histories  of  Livy,  Polybius,  Appian,  &c,  &c, 
are  scarcely  worthy  a  moment's  consideration.  Niebuhr  has  sufficiently  exposed  their  falsities 
and  contradictions. 

We  have  formerly  made  an  observation  on  the  forged  Vedah  of  Robert  de  Nobilibus.  The  case 
may  have  been  simply  this.  As  Ammonius  Saccas,  in  former  times,  had  found  the  Christian  and 
Gentile  religions  to  be  radically  the  same,  so  Robertus  found  the  Brahmin  and  Christian  in  the 
times  of  the  moderns  ;  and  he  endeavoured  so  to  contrive  a  Vedah,  that,  by  leaving  out  part  of 
the  nonsense  of  each  religion,  he  might  bring  them  to  an  agreement,  under  his  master,  the  Grand 
Lama  of  the  Western  Roum  or  city  of  Rama.  He  may  have  found,  what  was  real  fact,  that  the 
mythos  of  modern  and  Western  Rome  was  at  the  bottom  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  ancient  and 
Eastern  Rome.  The  Rama  of  Ceylon  proves  the  possibility  of  this  theory.  I  shall  return  again 
to  the  name  of  the  Eternal  city. 

Infinite  almost  in  number  are  the  places  in  the  writings  of  the  ancients,  and  in  their  ceremonies, 
where  the  sacred  Argha  or  Ark  is  noticed  or  alluded  to.     Every  mythos  of  antiquity  is  represented 
or  disguised  in  the  form  of  a  history.     W'e  have  the  Trojan  war,  the  adventures  of  Bacchus,  Her- 
cules, Theseus,  Osiris,  Cristna.     The  early  history  of  Rome  is  like  all  the  others ;  and  of  the  same 
character  is  the  history  of  Noah — an  allegory  concealed  under  the  garb  of  history — Buddha,  Jain, 
or  Menu,  floating  on  the  ocean  in  a  boat ;  that  is,  the  principle  of  generation  or  the  generative 
power  reduced  to  its  simplest  elements  :  the  Linga,  in  the  form  of  Menu  floating  in  the  Yoni,  in 
the  form  of  a  boat.     In  Genesis  it  is  Noah  and  his  three  sons.     These  great  incarnations  always 
affected  a  similitude  to  those  which  had  preceded,  the  nature  of  which  is  best  described  in  the 
prophecy  of  Virgil,  and  examples  of  which  may  be  seen  in  all  the  Indian  Avatars,  particularly  in 
those  of  Buddha  and  Cristna.     They  are  visible  also  in  the  accounts  which  we  have  seen  of  the 
repetitions  of  the  ten  years'  sieges,  of  towns,  &c,  &c,  of  the  Western  nations.     All  these   his- 
tories were  probably  repetitions  of  mythoses,  on  the  same  principle  as  the  Indian  Avatars.     Pre- 
cisely like  all  the  others  was  the  Mosaic  history.     There  are  Adam  and  his  three  sons,  from  whom 
all  mankind  descended  in  the  first  yug,  age,  or  world.     These  are  succeeded  by  Noah  and  his 
three  sons,  at  the  second  yug,  age,  or  world.     Though  they  be  not  the  same  any  more  than  the 
histories  of  Buddha  and  Cristna,  they  do  not  differ  from  one  another  more  than  the  two  latter 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  III.   SECTION  15.  627 

differ.  The  theory  was,  that  a  renewal  of  every  thing  should  take  place  in  every  mundane  revo- 
lution— new  Argonauts,  new  sieges  of  Troy,  &c.  This  nature  prevented,  but  the  priests  carried 
the  practice  as  near  to  the  theory  as  they  were  able.  Similar  adventures  were  attributed  to  every 
new  incarnation.  This  is  not  a  theory,  it  is  a  fact ;  and  if  my  method  of  accounting  for  it  be  not 
satisfactory,  I  beg  that  one  more  probable  may  be  proposed.  My  theory  has  this  peculiar  recom- 
mendation, that  it  requires  no  miracles  or  admissions  of  incredible  facts,  but  only  what  is  probable 
and  consistent  with  the  course  of  nature,  which  we  learn  from  experience. 

14.  As  I  have  just  now  said,  it  was  at  the  end  of  a  Mundane  revolution  that  a  renewal  of  na- 
ture was  to  take  place  ;  but  we  may  reasonably  ask,  what  was  meant  by  the  word  mundane  f  In 
our  dictionaries  we  are  told,  that  Mundus  means  world  j  but  it  also  means  a  Cycle,  which  implies 
the  same  as  the  Greek  word  Ko<r/xog.  It  should  always  be  recollected  that  I  am  describing  a 
system  which  would,  by  being  constantly  at  variance  with  nature  and  circumstances,  oblige  the 
priest  to  have  recourse  to  such  expedients  as  chance  afforded  him,  whether  entirely  satisfactory 
or  not. 

Plutarch  says,  that  it  was  Pythagoras  who  first  named  all  the  parts  of  the  universe  Koo-^toj,  on 
account  of  its  order.  Ilu0ayopa£  TpcoTog  (ouoy.ct(re  ryv  tcov  oKum  7rspio^v,  xo(T[aov,  ex  rr\g  ev 
auTa)  ra^stog.1  Pliny2  says  also,  Quern  xocrpou  Graeci  nomine  ornamenti  appellavere,  eum  nos 
a  perfecta  absolutaque  elegantia,  mundum. 

15.  Cristna  is  called  Can-ya.  This,  when  all  other  circumstances  are  considered,  is  evidently 
the  epithet  of  the  Apollo  of  Athens,  Cun-ni-us, 3  and  Ya  the  IE  on  the  Delphic  temple.  Each  of 
the  nine  wives  of  Can-ya  is  called  Radha,  and  answers  to  one  of  the  nine  Muses  of  Apollo  j  and 
Radha  is  the  Latin  Radius  or  English  Ray.  Each  Radha  or  Muse  or  nttfO  mse  or  nti'D  msh  or 
female  Saviour  or  Messiah,  was  an  emanation  from  the  Solar  Deity,  incarnate  in  the  presiding  ge- 
nius of  each  age  or  cycle.  Each  was  a  Ray,  and  thus  each  king-priest  was  a  Ray-jah  or  Ra-ya  or 
Ra-ja,  and  the  Rajah  was  an  emanation,  or  the  Ray  Jah4  emanating  from  the  solar  power  in  the 
form  of  air  and  fire.  It  was,  I  suspect,  an  incarnation  of  wisdom,  of  the  Raj  or  Has.  This  Ras 
generally,  when  visible,  appeared  in  the  form  of  Air  and  Fire. 5  Thus  came  the  Ray  of  light,  the 
Ras,  and  the  Rajah  or  Jah  the  Wise.  All  kings  or  Rajahs  were  priests,  thus  all  inspired,  all 
incarnations  of  the  Ray-Jah.  From  these  came  the  Rex,  Regis,  the  Roi  of  France,  and  the  females 
of  these  were  the  Reine  of  France,  and  the  Rana  of  North  India. 

Parkhurst6  says,  "  The  personality  in  Jehovah  is  in  Scripture  represented  by  the  material  Tri- 
"  nity  of  Nature  :  which  also,  like  their  divine  antitype,  are  of  one  substance  ;  that  the  primary 
"  scriptural  type  of  the  Father  is,  fire :  of  the  Word  light :  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  Spirit,  or  Air 
"  in  motion."  This  material  Trinity  as  a  type  is  similar  to  the  material  trinity  of  Plato — as  a 
type  to  conceal  the  secret  Trinity. 

And  the  Lord  God  breathed  into  him  the  breath  of  life  ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul.     That 


1  Lib.  viii. ;  De  Placit.  Phil.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  i.  2  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  iv. 

3  Cuno-Belinus,  the  admitted  Apollo  of  Britain,  was  of  both  genders.  There  are  coins  yet  existing  where  he  is  so 
described.  But  many  learned  medalists  have  thought,  that  these  were  not  pieces  of  money,  but  medals  struck  by  the 
astrologers. 

4  Col.  Briggs  says,  Ray  and  Raja  are  found  to  be  synonymous.  Vol.  I.  p.  7.  May  not  the  word  Raj  be  the  same  as 
the  Greek  Pew  to  flow,  and  the  Hebrew  "itf»  iar  or  rai,  to  flow  \ 

s  When  the  Holy  Spirit  descended  upon  the  apostles,  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  it  was  in  the  form  of  a  tongue  of  fire, 
accompanied  by  a  rushing  wind. 

6  In  voce  113  krb,  II. 

4l2 


628  RAJAH. 

is,  he  instilled  into  him  the  nn  ruh,  as  Parkhurst  calls  it,   air,  breath,  without  which  a  person 
cannot  exist. 

When  God  has  appeared  to  man,  he  is  often  described  as  having  assumed  the  appearance  of  fire. 
Thus  he  appeared  to  Moses  in  the  bush,  and  thus  on  the  mercy-seat  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem. 
But  when  he  appeared  as  the  third  person  to  the  apostles,  at  the  feast  of  Pentecost,  he  assumed 
not  the  appearance  only  but  the  reality  of  cloven  tongues  of  fire,  and  the  reality  seems  clearly  to 
be  meant,  by  the  accompanying  rushing  wind.  That  the  fire  was  a  real,  material  substance,  is 
proved  by  the  sound  of  the  rushing  wind  evidently  caused  by  the  fire  displacing  the  air,  the  usual 
way  a  rushing  noise  is  caused.  This  seems  fully  to  justify  Parkhurst,  in  his  explanation  of  the 
rm  Uf'lp  qdis  ruh  of  the  first  book  of  Genesis,  by  the  words  air  in  motion.  In  this  he  was  sup- 
ported by  all  the  early  fathers,  who  held  God  the  Creator  to  consist  of  a  subtile  fire.  Here  we 
come  to  the  true  theory  of  the  solar  worship,  and  as  usual  we  find  the  ancient  Philosophers  and 
the  Fathers,  their  imitators  or  pupils,  to  be  much  nearer  the  truth  than  we  have  imagined.  If 
the  subtile  fire  were  not  the  solar  fire,  I  beg  to  be  told  what  fire  it  was  ?  We  know  but  of  one  fire 
or  genus  of  fire,  however  varied  may  be  its  appearance,  under  different  circumstances.  In  the 
tongues  of  fire  we  have  unquestionably  a  portion  of  the  Holy  Ghost  becoming  visible  and  incar- 
nate in  the  twelve  apostles.  How  can  any  one  make  of  these  twelve  tongues  one  Comforter  or 
Resold  ?  There  were  twelve  comforters  or  there  were  none.  If  I  endeavoured  to  make  explana- 
tions in  such  a  manner,  I  know  what  would  be  said  of  me.  When  all  these  things  are  considered, 
I  think  much  of  the  vituperation  against  fire-worshipers  might  have  been  spared.  All  the  holy 
Christian  fathers  believed  God  to  be  a  subtile  fire. 

I  suppose  the  Shepherd  Kings  who  conquered  Egypt  were  Rajpouts  or  Buddhists,  of  the 
country  of  the  Rajahi  Bedoueens,  from  Rajah-stan.  The  Israelites  as  well  as  the  Royal  Shep- 
herds, were  both,  in  fact,  Arab  tribes — tribes  also  from  Arab-ia  on  the  Indus.  From  Rajah,  and 
Pout  or  Buddha,  came  the  name  of  the  countx-y  of  the  Raja  Pouts,  or  the  Royal  Buddhists,  for 
Pout  was  a  name  of  Buddha.  The  inhabitants  of  that  country  were  Palli  or  Shepherds.  They  were 
Royal  Shepherds  or  Raja- Pout  Shepherds.  They  came  from  a  country  called  Arabia;  and  as  they 
crossed  the  Western  Arabia  in  their  route  to  the  Abyssinian  Ethiopia,  when  forced  forwards  by  suc- 
ceeding tribes,  they  left  behind  them,  to  the  peninsula,  the  name  of  Arabia,  which  it  still  possesses. 
illi'D  mse 1  or  Muse  was  supposed  to  be  inspired  with  the  solar  divinity,  and  this  is  the  reason 
why  we  see  Cristna,  Apollo,  and  Jesus,  surrounded  with  the  solar  halo  or  rays.  In  very  early 
times  every  king  was  a  priest,  or  in  other  words  the  priest  possessed  the  power  of  the  sword,  and 
he  was  also  an  inspired  person  ;  whence  it  came,  that  each  was  a  Rai  or  Ra-jah.  No  one  could 
offer  the  most  sacred  (sacred  is  only  secret)  sacrifice  but  a  king  ;  whence  in  the  republics  of  Athens 
and  of  Rome,  they  had  the  Rex  Sacrificulus,  and  whence  also  came  our  sacred  herald,  the  king  at 
arms.  The  king  in  the  ceremonies  was  both  king  and  priest,  like  Melchizedek.  He  was  sacred, 
Xpyg.  The  God  Apollo  was  Xpys,  that  is,  henignus,  and  his  priest  Xpt](reog.  He  was  the  unri 
hrs  commonly  rendered  Chrs  or  Ceres,  and  the  mother  of  the  family  of  the  Caesars  of  Rome  was 
Creusa ;  and  she  came  from  the  Ter-ia  (or  Troy  country)  and  the  city  of  Ili-on,  or  Ili-vratta, 
cities  of  the  seven  hills,  with  the  trimurti  or  trinity  in  each.  Creusa  caused,  by  her  descendants, 
the  founding  of  the  sacred  city  of  Roma  or  Flora  or  Epcog  or  Amor,  read  in  the  Hebrew  and  Etrus- 
can fashion  Roma,  with  its  seven  hills,  and  its  capital  with  its  three  Dii  consortes  or  (rvyxKripoi. 
From  the  belief  that  persons  were  incarnations  of  the  solar  ethereal  fire,  came  the  glories,  as  they 


1  See  Parkhurst,  iu  voce,  II.,  where  I  drew,  ought  to  be  I  saved,  him  from  the  waters. 
*  I  suspect  that  Il-avratta  is  a  corruption  of  n^«  ale— nN">2  brat. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    III.    SECT.    16.  629 

are  called,  (or,  as  the  learned  priest  Taylor  has  called  them,  clarys,)  round  the  heads,  and  some- 
times round  the  bodies,  of  incarnated  persons.  We  are  so  used  to  see  this  solar  glory  in  pictures, 
that  we  think  it  of  no  consequence  ;  but  a  careful  examination  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  Glory 
will  shew  that  it  is  correctly  what  I  have  described.  The  sycophants  of  Augustus  Caesar  said, 
that  his  glory  dazzled  them  when  they  looked  upon  him.  I  suspect  the  Raj  nx*l  rae  has  not  only 
an  intimate  connexion  with  the  m  rh,  spirit,  but  with  the  itfid  ras,  wisdom. 1  Generally,  when 
Divine  Wisdom  or  the  Logos  made  itself  visible  to  man,  it  was  in  the  form  of  fire  or  a  ray  of 
light. 

The  nine  Muses  or  Messiahs  were  the  same  as  the  nine  Curetes  of  Crete. 2  The  word  Curetes 
is  only  a  translation  of  Messiah  from  Kupco  to  take  care  or  preserve  or  save.  This  shews  the 
utility  of  treating  all  the  languages  but  as  dialects  of  one  original.  I  believe  that,  in  both  the  East 
and  West,  the  names  of  the  Gods  were  either  names  from  other  countries,  or  translations  of  the 
names  out  of  one  dialect  into  another,  as  the  nine  Curetes  are  evidently  a  translation  of  the  nine 
Messiahs  or  Muses,  or  names  formed  from  numbers,  in  a  way  which  I  shall  presently  explain. 

"  The  people  of  Delphi  had  told  us  that  there  were  only  five  Muses,  and  that  the  opinion  of 
"  there  being  nine  in  number  was  a  heresy.  Such  disputes  about  the  number  of  the  Muses 
"  existed  in  ancient  times,  and  the  Arracovian  Greeks  reduced  their  number  to  three." 3  I 
think  that  a  Muse  has  been  in  the  Hebrew  nttfO  msh.  Will  not  this  account  for  a  doubt  in  the 
times  of  the  Greeks,  or  a  little  after  the  birth  of  Christ,  as  to  whether  they  were  eight  or  nine  ? 
There  was  one  for  each  cycle,  like  the  Salivahanas  of  India — of  whom  more  presently. 

In  India  there  were  eight  Vasus.  These  were  Jesuses  or  incarnations  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  one 
for  each  cycle.  In  the  early  part  of  the  Jewish  Gospel  they  fade  away,  and  are  not  visible  :  but 
Osee,  the  son  of  Nun,  was  one,  preceded  by  Moses,  or  M-Oseh,  as  Cristna  was  by  Ram.  Elisha 
was  one,  preceded  by  Elijah.  The  Vasus,  the  Muses,  and  the  Jesuses,  were  all,  or  had  all,  so  far 
the  same  signification  as  to  mean  one  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity, — Triune  God — three  in  one, 
and  one  in  three  j  and  they  all  meant  Saviours. 

The  title  Pharaoh  is  probably  a  compound  of  the  word  Phre,  and  roh — Raj,  Roi,  Rex.4  In 
Hebrew  ny\  roe  means  shepherd.  The  shepherds  of  Egypt,  I  have  shewn,  were  Rajahpoutans. 
They  also  bore  the  name  of  Palli  and  run  roe.  From  an  union  of  all  these  circumstances  they 
became  Royal  Shepherds. 

The  style  of  Nimrod  is  such  as  to  render  it  altogether  impossible  to  make  out  when  he  is 
uttering  his  own  opinions,  or  merely  describing  the  doctrines  of  Mythology — when  he  is  the  dupe 
of  superstition,  or  when  he  is  only  describing  it :  but  I  think  he  has  clearly  proved  that  Babylon 
was  a  second  Meru,  llion  a  second  Babylon,  and  Rome  a  second  Ilion  ;  and  I  think  we  may 
venture  to  add,  that  Constantine,  initiated  into  the  same  Gnostic  and  Cabalistic  doctrine,  meant 
Constantinople,  with  its  seven  hills,  to  be  one  more  exemplar  of  the  ancient  Mythos  of  Meru  and 
its  seven  mounts  and  Dvvipas.  He  meant  himself,  the  son  of  Helena,  to  be  a  second  Caesar.  If 
he  were  really  the  dupe  of  such  an  hallucination,  he  will  not  have  been  the  only  lunatic  sovereign 
who  has  ruled  in  the  world.  What  are  called  his  vacillations  between  Heathenism  and  Chris- 
tianity cannot  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  the  usual  resources  either  of  fraud,  or  of  the 
common  superstition. 

16.  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  word  N^>D  pla  rendered,  when  applied  to  Cyrus,  by 
the  word  wonderful,  was  the  root  of  the  epithet  of  Minerva — Pallas — and  as  such  meant  also  wise : 
but  it  probably  came  to  have  the  epithet  of  wisdom  from  the  use  of  the  regimine.     In   Chaldean 

1  Vide  Parkhurst.  *  Vide  Diod.  Sic.  Cap.  iv.  3  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  IV.  p.  203. 

4  Drummond,  Pun.  Ins.  p.  51. 


630  HELLEN. 

>bD  pli  is  dijudicare,  disquirere,  ntt^D  plae,  intei-pretatio. *  bbz  pll  is  by  Parkhurst  rendered  to 
judge,  to  mediate,  or  to  intercede.  I  believe  the  ancient  Philiahs  or  Fileahs  of  Ireland,  were 
persons  whose  duty  it  was  to  preserve  and  expound  the  ancient  law,  which  was  handed  down  by 
tradition,  before  the  art  of  writing  became  known ;  and  after  it  became  known,  they  filed  or 
handed  down  judgments.  They  were  the  Phileati  of  the  Scythians  and  Indians.2  They  were  the 
expounders  or  mediators  of  wisdom ;  thus  they  came  to  be  used  as  expounders  or  mediator- 
wisdom.     Thus  the  Goddess  Minerva  came  to  be  called  Pallas. 

In  Isaiah,  Cyrus  is  called  abQ  pla,  in  our  book  translated  wonderful.  This  is  the  holy  Pala,  or 
Palladium,  of  the  Greeks,  which  the  Romans  got  from  Troy  or  Ter-ia.  It  is  Pallas  or  Minerva; 
it  was  an  idol  which  descended  from  heaven  ;  it  was,  I  believe,  a  black  stone,  a  Cornu  Ammonis, 
like  that  in  Westminster  Abbey,  on  which  our  kings  are  crowned.  It  was  the  emblem  of 
Minerva  or  Wisdom.  It  was  the  King's-bench  on  which  he  sat.  It  was  the  origin  of  the  Polis 
or  gate,  in  which  the  judge  or  king  sat  to  administer  justice.  Mordecai  sat  in  the  king's  gate. 
From  this  came  the  seat  of  the  king,  or  his  residence,  to  be  called  Pala-ce.  It  was  the  same 
with  the  Sopha  or  the  Divan  of  the  Eastern  nations.  Divan  is  Div-ania  place  of  the  Divus. 
Sopha  is  %o$>-tct,  place  of  Wisdom.  Divan  is  also  divustania,  Divus-stan-ia,  place  of  the  holy 
stone,  softened,  like  Casmillus  into  Camillus,  Pelasgus  into  Pelagus,  &c,  &c.  The  seat  of  justice 
was  probably  in  the  outer  court  of  the  palace,  where  the  king  came  to  administer  justice,  whence  all 
porches  were  called  gates  or  polises.  The  mention  of  the  Sofa  brings  me  to  an  inquiry,  why  our 
highest  law  officer,  the  Chancellor,  is  seated  on  a  large  sofa  of  wool.  The  word  %o(pia  is 
wisdom.  But  soph  also  means  wool,  and  from  this  double  meaning  came  the  sofa  of  wool.  The 
Pallas  of  the  Greeks  is  the  N^>D  pla  of  Isaiah  ix.  6,  mistranslated,  as  already  noticed,  wonderful,  to 
conceal  the  Gnosticism;  for  it  is  evident  from  the  Greek  Pallas,  that  it  ought  to  be  wisdom. 
Here  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  we  discover  the  lost  meaning  of  a  Hebrew  word  from  its 
Greek  descendant.3  As  n^D  pie,  it  means  intercessor  between  God  and  man.  The  Palla-dium 
shews  that  the  sigma  is  only  the  Greek  termination. 

If  the  Pall  or  Pal  of  the  Oriental  Palli  or  Shepherds,  had  the  same  meaning  as  the  Pallas  of  the 
Greeks,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  Minerva  or  Pallas  should  be  worshiped  in  Italy,  Thrace, 
&c,  where  we  find  settlements  of  the  Palli  or  Palestini.  Then  the  Palli  will  only  be  another  form 
of  the  name  for  Raj-pouts.  I  shall  be  told,  I  have  no  authority  for  giving  the  meaning  of  wise  to 
kVd.  Indeed,  this  is  true.  Poor  Mr.  Parkhurst  has  had  great  difficulty  in  avoiding  to  give  the 
meaning  of  wisdom  to  this  root  of  the  Greek  Pallas  or  Minerva,  and  has  been  obliged  to  translate 
it  extraordinary,  wonderful. 

17.  After  all  the  most  careful  researches,  I  have  not  been  able  to  satisfy  myself  respecting  the 
mythological,  or  rather  I  should,  perhaps,  say  etymological,  origin  of  Hellen  or  Ellen.  But  I 
suspect  that  Il-avratta,  Il-ion,  xb  al,  el,  'H7uo£,  were  all  closely  connected  ;  that  the  Logos  or 
Divine  Wisdom  was  incarnate  in  man,  and  that  the  Palladium,  the  image  of  Minerva,  deposited 
in  the  Perg-amus,  or  Pyrg,  or  fire  tower  of  Troy,  was  allusive  to  this  same  mythos.  Palla-dium 
was  Pallas  dius,  holy  Pallas,  and  Pallas  was  Wisdom,  the  Hebrew  nbs  pla.  The  possessors  of 
Pallas  were  possessors  of  divine  wisdom,  and  the  possessors  of  divine  wisdom  were  possessors  of 
salvation.  Thus  the  city  possessing  the  talismanic  diu-Palla  was  safe.  All  the  hero  Gods 
Theseus,  Bacchus,  iEsculapius,  &c,  were  saviours  and  black  saviours  too.  These  black  icons 
were  made  when  man  himself  was  black.  He  made  his  God  after  himself,  and  then  said  that  man 
was  made  after  the  image  of  God. 


'  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p.  223.  *  Ibid.  "  Jurieu. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   III.    SECTION    18.  631 

Respecting  the   Hellenes  the  learned  Nimrod  says,    "  Hesychius  intimates  to  us,  that  his 

"  countrymen  were  Hellenes  in  respect  to  certain  Wisdom  (that  is,  certain  doctrines)  which  they 

"  possessed.     'EXAvjvsj,  of  airo  re  Aio£,  t«  'ExXtjvo^'  r)  Qpovifxoi,  tjto*  <ro$oi.     In  like  manner 

"  we  hear  nothing  of  the  exploits  of  Hellen,  but  only  of  his  profound  and  remotely  ancient 

"  Cabalism.     '  Hellen,  the  founder  of  the  Greeks,  says  Cassiodorus,  delivered  many  excellent 

"'things  concerning  the  alphabet,   describing  its  composition  and  virtues,  in  an   exceedingly 

"  '  subtile  narration  :  insomuch  that  the  great  importance  of  letters  may  be  traced  to  the  very 

"'beginning  of  things.'"     Again  Nimrod  continues,    "Now,   Helena  is   merely  the  feminine 

"  form  of  the  name  Helen,  and  they  both  serve  to  denote  the  bisexual,  but,  of  preference,  feminine 

"  deity  : 

appyrov  a.va.ff<7(tv 
apaeva  kcu  ByXvv,  iupvvj,  Xvaetov  Iay.%ov.1 

"  If  Helen  were  Divine  Wisdom,  Constantine  was  the  son  or  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom."  2 

I  suppose  I  need  scarcely  to  remind  my  reader  that  Jupiter  was  Iao,  tfV  ieu.  But  Hesychius 
says,  the  Hellenes  were  named  after  Jupiter,  who  was  Hellen. 3  He  afterward  says,  that  his 
countrymen  were  Hellenes,  in  respect  of  certain  Wisdom,  as  just  now  noticed.  We  all  know 
how  Constantine  was  connected  with  Helena.  He  understood  the  secret  doctrine  of  Wisdom 
or  Hellenism  :  for  this  reason,  as  I  have  intimated,  he  probably  called  his  metropolitan  church 
St.  Sophia.  And  from  this  we  see  that  Hellenism  was  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom.  Eusebius  has 
formerly  told  us,  that  Hellenismus  came  in  with  Serug,  which  shews  its  great  antiquity.  Con- 
stantine was  a  Hellenist  and  a  Gnostic,  or  follower  of  Wisdom,  and  also  of  Xp?j£.  Caesar,  the 
descendant  of  Venus,  was  the  same,  with  his  liber  or  book,  the  emblem  of  Wisdom,  in  his  hand. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  use  of  letters  was  for  many  generations  secret,  sacred,  and  cabalistic,  and 
used  only  in  the  mythos  and  the  temple. 

18.   Gengis  Khan  was   considered  a  prophet ;  the  Turkish  emperors   called  Khans,  are  also 
considered  to  be  prophets.     This  is  the  Tibetian  superstition ;   hence  the  Khans  of  Tartary.4 
Guichart  derives  Khan  from  jrP  ken,  in  Greek  xovjj.5     From  this  he  derives  Diaconus. 

If  Constantine  were  an  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom  in  the  fourth  century,  Attila,  the  Scy- 
thian and  the  Hun,  and  a  Khan  of  Tartary,  was  the  same  in  the  fifth.  He  professed  to  be  the 
owner  of  the  sword  God  Acinaces,  a  kind  of  Palladium,  which  entitled  him  to  the  sovereignty  of 
the  universe.  He  pretended  to  have  been  reared  or  educated  at  Engaddi,  an  enchanted  spot  in 
Palestine  upon  the  shores  of  the  sea  of  Sodom  ;  but  whether  this  might  not  be  a  Palestine  and 
Sodom  in  the  Scythian  or  Eastern  Syria  I  know  not.  He  called  his  capital  in  the  West  the  city 
of  Buda,  Buddha,  Babylonia,  and  Susa.6  He  had  an  invincible  horse  called  Giana,  which  Nimrod 
thinks  was  closely  connected  with  the  phrase  yepaviot;  Xttttotol  Nsrcop.  Attila  died  in  his  124th 
year,  almost  the  age  of  a  Nestor.  It  is  probable  that  he  was  held  out  to  be  a  renewed  incarnation 
of  Odin.  The  Buddhist  doctrines  cannot  be  denied.  By  means  of  the  Homeridae  or  Bards,  such 
as  Damascius,  patronized  by  him,  I  feel  little  doubt  that  the  ancient  Scandinavian  mythology  was 
in  fact  renovated,  and  probably  embellished,  and  thus  handed  down  to  us,  which  would  otherwise 

1  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  469. 

*  The  name  of  Delos  is  ^>m  dhl,  and  in  the  plural  f^>m  dhln.  See  Book  VII.  Ch.  VI.  Sect.'4.  I  have  a  great 
suspicion  that  we  have  here  the  origin  of  Helen— Di-Al-in.  No  sufficient  objection  will  arise  from  the  letter  H,  when 
the  common  convertibility  of  the.  two  letters  is  considered. 

3  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  468.  *  Sandy's  Travels,  p.  37.  $  Parkhurst,  in  voce  J  TO  ken. 

6  Wilkina  Saga,  Cap.  ccclxxiv.  p.  505,  id.  Cap.  Ixiii.  p.  134,  Cap.  ccclxxvii.  p.  494 ;  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  475. 


632  HIEROGLYPHICS. 

have  been  all  lost.  I  think  it  not  at  all  unlikely  that  this  hardy  old  warrior  should  have  been  in- 
duced, by  the  flatteries  of  his  bards,  really  to  believe  himself  the  promised  one,  the  desire  of  all 
nations ;  and  I  think  it  not  unlikely  also,  that  some  superstitious  fear  prevented  him  from  seizing 
the  holy  and  eternal  city,  when  it  was  really  in  his  power.  This  seems  to  be  the  opinion  of 
Nimrod.  The  renewal  of  the  ancient  superstition  by  Attila  and  afterward  by  Theodoric,  may  sa- 
tisfactorily account  for  many  parts  of  the  otherwise  fading  mythoses  of  antiquity  being  found  in 
colours  at  first  sight  unaccountably  brilliant  in  the  Northern  climes.  Our  historians  erroneously 
suppose  all  these  mythoses  to  have  been  invented  by  learned  monks  in  the  middle  ages,  and  thus 
dismiss  them  without  examination. 

One  of  the  most  curious  of  all  assemblies  was  the  council  of  the  Amphictyons,  which  con- 
sisted of  deputies  from  twelve  tribes.  Its  date  or  origin  is  totally  unknown.  And  although 
it  did  sometimes  act  in  politics,  as  most  bodies  will  encroach  on  other  powers  if  they  can, 
yet  I  think  it  was  solely  religious  in  its  object.  It  was  unaffected  by  the  Persian  conquest, 
and  lasted  till  the  time  of  the  Antonines.  It  met  at  Delphi.  It  was  called  Koivov  tcov 
'EaXtjvwv  cuvsSgiov.  It  was  said  to  have  been  founded  by  a  king  of  Argos,  called  Acrisius. 
In  that  country  they  had  a  Minerva  Acrius.  When  I  observe  the  Hellenes,  that  it  assembled 
not  far  from  the  temple  of  Ceres  at  Eleusis,  at  the  temple  of  EI  or  Jah,  where  we  have 
found  the  XpjfO£  and  several  other  particulars,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  Acria  must 
have  been  a  corruption  of  the  linnn  ehrs  the  Ceres  or  Cres.  But  it  might  be  Axpiog  or  the  Ram, 
which  would  be  nearly  the  same,  for  the  Ram  was  the  emblem  of  the  Xpjc,  and  might  then  be 
called  Acrios.  We  have  here  the  twelve  tribes  meeting  in  the  Sanhedrim  or  %uvs$f>iov  :  and,  I 
suspect  originally  sending  seventy-two  deputies,  however  they  varied  afterward.  One  of  the  Gospels 
states  Jesus  to  have  been  the  son  of  a  Potter,  not  of  a  Carpenter ;  all  this  I  think  comes  from  the 
Hebrew  name  tinn  hrs,  which  means  both  Machinator  in  general,  and  Potter  in  particular. 1  This 
is  also  the  Greek  Ego>£,  or  plastic  formative  power.  Epcos  is  but  w^tl  hrs,  and,  in  fact,  is  the 
same  as  tin:)  grs, 2  which  means  Ceres.  From  this  word  comes  the  word  grass.  This  brings  to 
my  recollection  the  most  ancient  of  the  sacrifices  of  Egypt,  still  continued  in  India,  of  Grass — 
Citfa  Grass.  The  Hellenian  Athenians  particularly  affected  the  worship  of  Ceres.  They  had  her 
at  Eleusis  as  Ceres,  and  at  Delphi  as  Xprjs,  and  again  in  both  as  Bacchus,  for  he  was  both  Xpvj£ 
and  Ceres. 

19.  As  I  promised  in  a  former  page,  I  now  return  for  one  moment  to  the  subject  of  hierogly- 
phics. We  recollect  that  M.  Champollion  found  what  seemed  to  vitiate  his  whole  system,  the 
names  of  Ptolemies  and  Roman  Emperors  upon  the  old  monuments  of  Egypt.  We  know  that 
the  word  Augustus  as  well  as  Ccesar  was  sacred  :  no  one  can  doubt  that  such  was  the  case  also 
with  the  word  Heliogabalus  :  no  one  can  doubt  the  mythic  or  religious  nature  of  the  adoption  of 
the  number  12,  by  the  Romans,  as  the  peculiar  Caesars.  Might  not  the  names  of  the  Egyptian 
kings  be  of  the  same  nature  ?  Some  of  them,  Ptolemy  Soter  and  Epiphanes,  certainly  were  so. 
Then,  I  ask,  might  not  the  words  which  M.  Champollion  takes  for  the  names  of  the  sovereigns  of 
Egypt  and  of  Rome  be  merely  the  names  of  the  Gods  adopted  by  the  sovereigns  of  both,  as  the 
Roman  dictators  adopted  the  names  of  Julius  Caesar  and  Augustus,  the  latter  of  which  is  well 
known  to  be  an  Egyptian  sacred  title  ?  Whatever  we  may  fancy  to  the  contrary,  we  cannot  be 
certain  that  the  names  of  the  Antonines  and  the  others  of  the  twelve  may  not  be  like  the  words 
Caesar  and  Heliogabalus,  that  is,  mystic  words,  foreign  Latinized  words.  The  names  of  the  Roman 
emperors  are  found  in  the  Sibyls,  and  I  do  not  think  it  any  more  improbable  that  the  emperors 


1  Vide  Parkhurst  in  voce.-  2  Vide  Ibid,  in  voce. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  III.  SECTION   19.  633 

should  have  adopted  them  for  that  reason,  than  that  Caesar  should  adopt  the  name  of  Augustus, 
from  the  Egyptians,  or  Hadrian  his  name  from  the  Adriatic,  or  from  that  superstition  which  gave 
its  name  to  the  Adriatic,  the  etymology  of  which  we  do  not  understand.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
up  to  about  the  time  of  the  Caesars,  Egypt  held  a  much  higher  rank  in  the  world  than  either 
Greece  or  Italy.  And  I  see  nothing  improbable  in  the  idea,  that,  along  with  the  ceremonies  of  Isis 
and  Mithra,  the  conquerors  of  Egypt  should  have  adopted  Latinized  names  of  Egyptian  Gods,  of 
a  nature  similar  to  the  name  of  Augustus.  We  must  not  decide  that  it  was  not  so,  merely 
because  we  cannot  shew  how  the  words  had  the  meaning,  or  how  they  were  derived  from  the 
Egyptian.  Though  we  cannot  say  that  it  certainly  was  so,  we  cannot  say  that  it  certainly  was 
not  so. 

All  this  I  propose  in  perfect  friendship  to  the  Hieroglyphists,  and  with  a  sincere  wish  to  remove 
a  great  stumbling-block  in  their  way — for  truth  is  my  object.  In  an  early  page  I  suggested,  that 
if  the  letters  were  leaves  of  trees,  a  hieroglyphical  system  might  be  formed  by  adding  other 
articles  between  the  leaves.  Several  writers  have  asserted  that  the  Hebrew  letters  had  the 
meaning  of  things — for  instance,  Beth  a  house,  Gimel  a  camel.  The  Marquis  Spineto  says,  that 
he  thinks  the  Egyptian  language  had  originally  only  sixteen  letters  ;  then,  these  matters  con- 
sidered, I  ask,  may  not  certain  things  have  stood  for  the  sixteen  letters,  and  the  other  pictures  of 
things  have  been  only  inserted  among  them  to  render  them  unintelligible  to  the  uninitiated  ?  As  I 
have  formerly  said,  this  would  render  them  more  easy  to  persons  in  the  secret.  Then  the  three 
languages  may  be  first,  the  epistolary  or  common  Coptic ;  secondly,  the  system  formed  from  the 
first  letters,  as  M.  Champollion  supposes  ;  and,  thirdly,  a  system  formed  by  the  symbols  them- 
selves :  and,  that  some  inscriptions  may  be  in  one  system,  some  in  another ;  but  not  in  the 
absurd  way  of  mixing  the  three  in  each  inscription.  That  is  a  practice  which  is  not  credible. 
The  figures  for  the  I'm  M.  Chainpollion's  alphabet,  have  a  great  resemblance  to  our  I  and  the 
Jod. 

Upon  a  careful  search  among  the  ruins  of  antiquity,  we  find  a  large  part  of  a  Mosaic  mythos  in 
North  India ;  another,  a  thousand  miles  distant  in  South  India  ;  another,  a  thousand  miles  to  the 
West  in  Palestine;  and  minor  parts  of  the  same  system  in  other  places,  as  proved  in  the  numbers 
of  the  temples  of  Solomon,  &c.  Thus,  as  we  find  the  Judaean  mythos  scattered  all  over  the  globe, 
it  would  be  a  little  surprising  if  it  were  not  found  in  Egypt.  On  this  account  persons  must  not 
infer  that  I  consider  the  symptoms  of  the  Jews  having  been  in  Egypt,  as  throwing  a  doubt  on  the 
hieroglyphics.  I  am  quite  certain  that  if  the  secret  be  ever  discovered,  marks  of  the  tribe  of 
Abraham,  or  the  Iudi,  will  be  found  in  great  numbers  in  Egypt.  I  suspect  that  when  the  tribe 
of  wandering  Arabs  settled  (squatted,  as  an  American  would  say)  in  Goshen,  the  whole  Delta, 
particularly  the  upper  part,  was  an  extensive  pasture  country,  lately  emerged  from  the  ocean — 
the  lower  part,  perhaps,  only  beginning  to  emerge.  I  take  this  emerging  to  have  been,  as  Cuvier 
would  say,  somewhere  about  '2000  years  before  Christ.  Why  are  there  no  Pyramids  in  the  Delta  ? 
1  wish  the  Marquis  had  told  us  why  there  are  no  hieroglyphics  on  the  large  Pyramids  in  Nubia  or 
Egypt.  Did  he  overlook  the  Pyramids,  or  were  they  unworthy  of  his  notice  ?  The  shepherd  kings 
of  Egypt  were  Palli,  of  Raja-poutana,  who  first  conquered,  and  afterward  were  driven  out  of,  Egypt 
— and  partly  settled  in  Palestine,  and  might  build  Jerusalem,  as  the  history  tells  us.  The  shep- 
herds, who  came  as  friends  and  were  driven  out,  were  the  Jews ;  both  like  the  present  Arab 
tribes — like  the  present  shepherd  Mohamedans.  As  they  passed  the  end  of  the  Red  Sea,  their 
pursuers  might  have  been  partly  drowned.  How  very  extraordinary  a  thing  it  is,  that  the 
destruction  of  the  hosts  of  Pharaoh  should  not  have  been  known  to  Berosus,  Strabo,  Diodorus, 
or  Herodotus  ;  that  they  should  not  have  heard  of  these  stupendous  events,  either  from  the 
Egyptians,  or  from  the  Syrians,  Arabians,  or  Jews  !     The  same  thing  happened  in  India.     The 

4   M 


034  FISH    AVATAR. 

Afghans  or  Rajapoutans,  shepherd  tribes  as  at  this  day,  invaded  South  India  and  conquered 
Ceylon,  and  were  driven  out,  over  Adam's  bridge ;  and  the  same  kind  of  accident  is  said  to  have 
happened  to  their  pursuers  as  happened  in  the  West.  This  accounts  for  the  niythos  being 
substantially  the  same  in  this  instance  in  both,  in  generals — but  in  particulars  varied ;  and,  as 
there  was  no  loss  by  drowning  in  Upper  India,  we  have  the  Noah,  Moses,  David,  Solomon,  &c, 
the  same  mythos  of  the  same  people,  but  no  history  of  a  drowning.  Because  the  histories  are 
made  subservient  to  the  mythoses,  as  the  early  history  of  Rome  was,  we  can  no  more  infer  that 
in  one  case  there  were  no  Jews,  Moses,  Daniel,  or  Solomon,  than  that,  in  the  other,  there 
was  no  Rome,  senate,  kings,  or  peoples.  No  doubt,  in  this  case,  the  two  drownings  throw  sus- 
picions on  both.  These  Afghans,  or  Eastern  Scythians,  or  Celtee,  came  to  Italy  and  Greece  at 
one  time  or  other.  They  were  all  Pallatini  or  Palli,  that  is,  followers  of  Pallas  or  Wisdom,  and 
Shepherds.  Thus  we  have  Pallatini  on  the  Po  of  Italy,  on  the  Po  of  India,  and  on  the  Don  of 
Syria,  and  Don-ube,  near  the  Dardanelles. 

Nimrod1  has  undertaken  to  prove,  that  the  Theogony  of  Lucian  is  precisely  the  same  as  that 
of  Moses  ;  this  exactly  harmonizes  with  all  the  other  circumstances  pointed  out  by  me ;  but  to 
his  work  I  must  refer  my  reader. 

The  violent  way  in  which  the  Mosaic  system  is  attempted  to  be  supported  by  Champollion,  and  his 
connexion  with  Blacas,  Lewis,  Charles,  and  the  Jesuits,  justify  suspicion.  Why  did  not  the  Marquis 
Spineto  give  a  lecture  upon  the  difficulty  with  which  he  is  perfectly  acquainted,  arising  from 
the  three  accounts,  or  defective  accounts,  of  Diodorus,  Strabo,  and  Clemens  ?  Was  he  afraid  that 
the  boys  and  learned  men  of  Cambridge  should  know  too  much  ?  His  Chapter  XL,  to  support 
the  Mosaic  chronology,  may  be  said  to  be  a  mistake ;  and  his  tirade  against  philosophers  at  the 
end  of  the  last  chapter,  only  proves,  what  numerous  passages  had  before  proved,  that  although 
the  Marquis  may  be  a  good  scholar,  and  a  very  honourable  and  good  man,  and  no  way  connected 
with  the  fraud,  if  it  be  a  fraud,  yet  he  must  be  placed  with  the  saints,  the  devotees,  and  not  with 
the  Socrateses,  Pythagorases,  or  philosophers. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FISH  AVATAR. — FISH  ACROSTIC. — FISHES  IN  ITALY. — DAGON.  JONAS. — VISHNU.  —  NAME  OF  VISHNU. — 
SACRED  FISHES. — OANNES. — CYCLOPES.— BISHOP  BERKELEY.  —  AESCHYLUS.  —  EURIPIDES.  —  PETER  THE 
FISHERMAN. — JOHN. — BALA  RAMA. — ZOROASTER. — JANUS. — POLIS  MASONS. — IDOLS  MODERN.  —  JOHN. — 
MUNDAITES. — EXPLANATION    OF  WORDS. — JASUS. 

1.  In  a  former  part  of  this  book  I  observed,  that  if  my  theory  were  right,  the  Avatar  of  the 
incarnation  of  Aries— of  the  Lamb— ought  in  course  to  be  succeeded  by  an  incarnation  of  Pisces  or 
the  Fishes.    I  shall  now  shew  that  it  did  succeed,  and  that  it  was  foretold  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles. 

A  question  very  naturally  arises  how,  when  the  books  of  the  Sibyls  were  locked  up  with  such 


>  Vol.  I.  p.  420. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  2.  635 

great  care,  their  contents  came  to  be  known  to  both  Gentiles  and  Christians.  They  seem  to  have 
been  equally  well  known  to  Cicero  and  to  Justin.  This  offers  at  first  a  difficulty  ;  but,  for  some 
reason  not  known  to  us,  it  could  not  in  their  day  have  been  a  difficulty ;  because  if  it  had,  we 
may  be  very  sure  that  when  Cicero  was  arguing  against  them,  in  opposition  to  the  followers  of 
Caesar,  he  would  not  have  failed  to  have  urged  it :  and  when  Celsus  was,  in  like  manner,  attacking 
them  in  opposition  to  Origen,  it  would  not  have  been  overlooked.  It  has  been  said  that  though 
they  were  deposited  in  the  temple,  yet  none  of  them  were  concealed  except  the  Cumaean  prophecy 
relating  to  the  fortunes  of  Rome,  and  this  does  not  seem  to  have  been  very  secret,  when  Cicero 
knew  enough  about  it  to  argue  the  question  whether  the  acrostic  did  foretell  a  king  to  his  country 
or  not— for  that  certainly  related  to  its  fortunes.  In  favour  of  the  genuineness  of  these  books 
there  seems  a  regular  train  or  chain  of  evidence.  Cicero,  by  not  denying,  admits  that  the  books 
of  which  he  spoke  were  actually  those  which  were  quoted  by  the  followers  of  Sylla.  Justin,  in 
quoting  them,  gives  the  same  description  of  them  in  substance  as  Cicero  had  done.  Then  comes 
Celsus  who,  in  argument  with  Origen,  endeavours  to  impugn  them,  but  fails  ;  after  that  comes 
Constantine,  exhibiting,  or  pretending  to  exhibit,  the  originals  from  the  temple,  as  they  had  been 
deposited  by  Augustus.  All  this  took  place  in  an  age  nearly  as  literary  as  our  own  :  when  all  the 
questions  relating  to  these  oracles  were  contested  with  the  greatest  keenness,  and  yet  in  no  in- 
stance does  any  one  of  the  parties  deny  the  genuineness  of  them.  They  none  of  them  go  farther 
than  to  affirm  that  they  were  corrupted,  and  when  this  is  alleged  by  Celsus,  he  is  successfully 
refuted  by  Origen.  And  when  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  names  IH%-ovs  and  Xgijj-o£  is 
considered,  with  all  the  collateral  circumstances  relating  to  them,  impartial  persons  will  be 
obliged  to  admit  that  a  probability  exists  of  the  highest  order,  that  the  acrostic  alluded  to  by 
Justin  was  the  same  as  that  alluded  to  by  Cicero  ;  and,  in  short,  that  the  two  works,  however 
corrupted  since,  were  at  that  time  substantially  the  same. 

I  now  request  my  reader  to  recollect  that  we  have  had  Avatars  of  Taurus  and  of  Aries,  and  if 
my  theory  be  correct,  at  the  time  of  Christ,  we  ought  to  have  had  an  Avatar  of  Pisces.  The 
XjCrjg-os  was  adored  under  the  form  of  Taurus,  and  of  Aries ;  and  if  the  acrostic  of  the  Sibyl 
foretold  the  Xprj$og  of  the  Zodiac  in  its  proper  course,  it  ought  to  have  foretold  the  Pisces  or 
Fishes  to  succeed  to  the  Lamb,  as  an  object  of  adoration  j  and  so  in  fact  it  did — though  it  has 
been  kept  out  of  the  sight  of  the  vulgar  as  much  as  possible.  The  worshipers  of  the  Bull  or  Calf 
of  gold,  we  have  seen,  in  ancient  times  did  not  like  to  yield  to  the  Ram  or  Lamb.  In  the  same 
manner  the  followers  of  the  Lamb  did  not  like  to  yield  to  the  Fishes.  Besides,  the  adoration  of 
two  Fishes,  absurd  as  man  is  on  these  subjects,  does  appear  to  have  been  rather  too  absurd  to 
overcome  the  old  prejudices  of  the  people  for  the  Lamb. '  The  fishes  were  indeed  very  unseemly 
Gods,  so  that  the  attempt  to  introduce  them,  except  as  a  secret  system,  failed.  But  nevertheless 
the  attempt  was  made,  as  I  will  now  prove.  The  acrostic  of  the  Sibyl,  which  was  a  mode  of  con- 
cealing  the    secret    meaning    of  the    X^g— of  the  Lamb—had  also    another    secret    meaning. 

IHSOTS  XPEISTOS  0EOY  TIOS  SQTHP. 

2.  The  Acrostic  itself  forms  an  Acrostic,  as  the  learned  Beausobre  has  shewn.2  The  first 
letters  of  the  five  words  of  the  Acrostic  mean  IX0Y5,  a  Fish,  which  was  a  name  given  to  Jesus 
Christ.    This  identification  of  the  fish  with  the  IH%  XPHSTOS  and  Jesus  Christ,  and  its  suc- 


1  In  former  times  the  Lamb  was  eaten  at  the  Passover.  This  is  still  done  by  many  Christian  devotees,  but  it  is  not 
ordered  as  part  of  the  religion.  But  the  fishes  have  succeeded,  and  they  are  now  ordered  (that  is,  a  fast-day  in  which 
meat  is  forbidden,  hut  fish  is  ordered).    This  is  the  origin  offish  days. 

s  Basnage,  Hist.  Jews,  Bk.  III.  Ch.  xxiv. 

4m2 


636  FISH    ACROSTIC. 

cession,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  its  attempted  succession,  must  surely  appear  very  extraordinary 
and  at  first  incredible.  But  I  ask,  what  has  Jesus  Christ  to  do  with  a  fish  ?  Why  was  he  called  a 
Fish?  Why  was  the  Saviour  IH£,  which  is  the  monogram  of  the  Saviour  Bacchus,  called 
IX0Y2  ?  Here  are  the  Saviour,  the  Cycle,  and  the  Fish,  all  identified.  The  answer  is,  because 
they  were  all  emblems  of  the  sun,  or  of  that  higher  power  spoken  of  by  Martianus  Capella,  of 
which  the  sun  is  himself  the  emblem  ;  or,  as  Mr.  Parkhurst  would  say,  they  were  types  of  the 
Saviour.  From  this  it  was,  that  the  Christians  called  themselves,  in  their  sacred  mysteries,  by  the 
name  IIX0TS  meaning  I  the  IX0YS,  and  Pisciculi.  The  I  was  prefixed  for  a  mysterious 
reason,  which  I  shall  explain  hereafter. 


i    xQvs    . 

•    Piscis 

I       rj(T8? 

.     Jesus 

X  pjs-0? 

.     Chrestus 

©    £8       . 

.     .    Dei 

T  h<;    . 

.    Filius 

2  ultif) 

,    .    Salvator. 

Jesus  is  called  a  fish  by  Augustin,  who  says  he  found  the  purity  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  word 
fish  :  "  for  he  is  a  fish  that  lives  in  the  midst  of  waters."  This  was  Augustin's  mode  of  concealing 
the  mystery. 

The  doctrine  was  probably  alluded  to  in  some  way  or  other  in  the  miracle  of  the  five  loaves  and 
two  fishes,  because  "  Paulinus  saw  Jesus  Christ  in  the  miracle  of  the  five  loaves  and  two  fishes, 
"  who  is  the  fish  of  the  living  water."  Prosper  finds  in  it  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  Christ :  "for  he 
"  is  the  fish  dressed  at  his  death."  Tertullian  finds  the  Christian  Church  in  it.  All  the  faithful 
were  with  him.  So  many  fishes  bred  in  the  water  and  saved  by  one  great  fish.  Baptism  is 
this  water,  out  of  which  there  is  neither  life  nor  immortality.  St.  Jerom  commending  a  man  that 
desired  baptism,  tells  him,  that  like  the  son  of  a  Fish,  he  desires  to  be  cast  into  the  water.  Here 
we  come  to  the  true,  secret  origin  of  baptism.  I  beg  my  reader  to  look  back  to  Bk.  IX.  Ch.  VII. 
Sect.  6,  and  see  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  sacredness  of  water.  St.  Jerom  no  doubt  un- 
derstood the  esoteric  religion.  The  Lamb  kept  its  ground  against  the  Fishes.  They  never 
greatly  prevailed,  and  soon,  at  least  among  the  rabble,  went  out  of  fashion.1  Yet,  for  a  particular 
reason  which  I  will  now  give,  I  have  a  strong  suspicion,  that  they  are  known  in  the  Adyta  of  St. 
Peter's  even  to  this  day. 

In  several  places  in  Italy  I  have  seen  very  expensive  sepulchral  monuments,  not  of  great  age, 
at  the  top  of  which,  in  the  place  of  the  D.  M.,  i.  e.  Dis.  Man.,  grown  into  the  Deo  Maximo,  is 
inscribed  the  word  Ijfiug.  They  are  very  expensive  monuments  of  persons  of  consequence,  to 
whose  relations  the  esoteric  religion  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  known. 

Mackey,2  in  his  curious  work,  so  creditable  to  the  shoe-making  caste,  called  Mythological 
Astronomy,  says,  that  ancient  Christian  monuments  had  two  fishes  on  them,  fastened,  like  those 
in  the  Zodiac,  together  by  the  tails,  to  shew  that  they  were  those  of  Christians.  Where  he  got 
his  information  1  do  not  know,  as  he  gives  no  reference.  But  he  is  confirmed  by  Calmet,  who 
says,  "  Among  the  primitive  Christians  the  figure  of  a  fish  was  adopted  as  a  sign  of  Christianity  : 
"  and  it  is  sculptured  among  the  inscriptions  on  their  tombstones,  as  a  private  indication  that  the 
"  persons  there  interred  were  Christians.  This  hint  was  understood  by  brother  Christians,  while 
"  it  was  an  enigma  to  the  Heathen.     We  find  also  engraved  on  gems  and  other  stones  an  anchor, 

1  Basn.  Bk.  iii.  Ch.  xxiv. 

2  A  very  profound- thinking  shoemaker,  of  Norwich. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  3.  637 

"  and  on  each  side  of  it  a  fish,  with  the  letters  which  compose  the  name  of  Jesus,  inscribed 
"  around  them."  *  This  emblem  is  found  in  the  orthodox  cathedral  of  Ravenna,  which  shews 
that  it  cannot  be  merely  an  emblem  of  the  Heretics.2  Besides,  it  is  chiefly  in  monasteries  where 
I  have  seen  it.  And  I  suppose  the  letters  which  compose  the  name  of  Jesus  compose  the  word 
Saviour,  and  thus  they  are  the  same  as  Jesus.  The  idea  that  the  fish  should  inform  Christians 
that  a  Christian  was  buried,  and  not  inform  Heathens,  is  nonsensical  enough.  But  allowing  this, 
pray  why  was  a  fish,  or  two  fishes,  selected  instead  of  some  other  animal  ? 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  mean  to  deny  that  the  Sibylline  Oracles  have  been  greatly  cor- 
rupted by  the  Christians.  This  is  a  fact  which  no  critic  can  deny  :  but  I  only  contend  that  the 
probability  is,  that  this  famous  Acrostic  is  not  one  of  the  corruptions,  judging  from  the  circum- 
stances of  there  having  actually  been  an  acrostic,  as  proved  by  Cicero,  and  combined  with  the 
ancient  style,  the  '^3uj,  and  the  4th  Eclogue  of  Virgil,  &c.  I  think  from  this  very  acrostic  the 
Christians  became  pisciculi,  and  not  that  the  i%Qi>s  was  contrived  from   the  Christian  character 

by  Christian  interpolation.     Why  should   Christians   make  the  allusion  to  the  Zodiacal  fishes  ? 

and  such  the  fishes  on  the  monuments  no  doubt  are. 

3.  The  adoration  of  the  fishes  may  be  found,  as  we  might  expect,  in  ancient  Italy.  Janus 
married  his  sister  Candse',  and  had  a  son  and  daughter  called  Camasenes,  a  word  which  in 
Greek  means  the  fishes,  les  poissons.  Cam-ise'  is  Cama  the  Saviour,  or  Isis  of  India  Epajt;  or 
divine  love  incarnate  in  the  fishes.  Brahma  seated  on  the  Lotus  swimming  on  the  waters  was 
called  Camasenes. 3  One  of  the  Muses,  or  the  persons  called  nWD  msh  or  the  Saviour  was  called 
by  this  name,  a  little  corrupted.4     As  I  have  lately  said,  I  suspect  the  number  of  these  muses  (for 

the  number  was  not  fixed)  depended  on  the  number  of  cycles,  a  muse  for  each  cycle that  Apollo 

or  the  Sun,  had  a  MSH  or  Saviour  for  each  Soli-Lunar  cycle.     Of  this  more  presently. 

Persons  in  England  will  scarcely  be  brought  to  admit  that  it  is  possible  for  believers  in  such 
nonsense  now  to  be  found.  But  great  learning  and  fine  garments  do  not  always  produce  strength 
of  mind.  Johnson  believed  in  second  sight.  Erskine  would  not  sit  down  at  table  with  twelve 
others,  making  the  unlucky  number  thirteen.  How  many  readers  of  Moore's  Almanack  have  we  ! 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  believed  in  daemons,  and  wrote  some  very  surprising  essays  on  the  Revelations. 
Judge  Hales  hanged  old  women  and  children  for  being  witches;  and  Tycho  Brahe  was  a  o-reat 
astrologer  as  well  as  astronomer.  What  shall  we  say  of  Transubstantiation  believed  by  many 
very  learned  and  talented  men  ?  When  I  closely  observe  the  goings  on  among  the  old  ladies  in 
red  stockings  at  St.  Peter's,  I  can  believe  any  thing.  If  they  have  a  secret  religion  it  probably 
does  not  go  out  of  the  Conclave,  or  St.  Jovanni  Laterano.  Besides,  I  do  not  accuse  them  of 
worshiping  the  fishes,  in  any  other  way  than  as  emblems  of  the  Supreme  Being — as  the  prayers 
of  the  Persians  to  the  God  Bull  were  used,  which  I  have  before  given  from  Mr.  Faber  and  Mr. 
Bryant.     They  probably  only  pay  them  the  honour  called  Douleia. 

It  is  chiefly  on  account  of  the  acrostic,  that  the  Sibyls  have  been  determined  by  the  moderns 
to  be  spurious.  But  again,  I  ask,  what  Christians  had  to  do  with  fishes,  and  why  they  were 
called  little  fishes?  In  these  fishes  we  have  the  Syrian  Dagon,  which  was  an  attempt  by  devotees 
who,  in  their  secret  lodges,  understood  the  real  doctrine,  to  introduce  the  Avatar  of  the  fishes 
but  failed.  Although  the  sign  of  the  Zodiac  is  called  Pisces,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  two  are 
joined  into  one  by  a  ligature,  which  justifies  the  Chrestus,  or  'K^og,  or  benignant  incarnation 
of  that  Avatar  being  called  IX@Y£  in  the  singular  number:  it  probably  alluded  to  the  male  and 


1  Fragments,  No.  CXLV.  p.  105.  *  Ibid. 

3  Creuzer,  Vol.  II.  Liv.  v.  Ch.  iii.  p.  440.  *  Ibid.  pp.  441,  442. 


638  vishnu. 

female,  or  androgynous,  Deity.  As  we  might  expect  from  what  we  have  already  seen,  the  origin 
of  this  will  be  found  in  India.  In  the  entrance  of  most  Romish  churches,  is  a  vase  full  of  water. 
This  is  called  Piscina.  It  is  true  that  the  word  may  merely  mean  a  vessel  for  water.  But  few 
persons  will  doubt  that  it  has  here  a  more  mystical  meaning.  This  Piscina  was  the  Bowli  found 
in  the  ruins  of  Mundore,  by  Col.  Tod. 

As  the  Lamb  was  eaten  by  the  Egyptians,  the  Hindoos,  and  the  Jews,  and  is  yet  eaten  by 
many  Christians  in  honour  of  the  Saviour  Lamb,  so  in  later  times  the  fish  is  eaten  by  the  Romish 
Christians.  I  beg  of  those  who  think  this  very  absurd,  as,  because  it  is  new,  many  will  do,  to 
give  me  a  more  probable  origin  of  the  pious  eating  fish  on  sacred  days. 

4.  In  the  history  of  Jonas,  we  have  a  second  notice  of  the  Gentile  Hercules,  probably  in  a 
second  incarnation.  The  story  of  Jonas  swallowed  up  by  a  whale,  near  Joppa,  is  nothing  but  part 
of  the  fiction  of  Hercules,  of  the  sun  in  its  passage  through  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  described  in 
the  Heracleid  or  the  Labours  of  Hercules,  of  whom  the  same  story  was  told,  and  who  was 
swallowed  up  at  the  very  same  place,  Joppa,  and  for  the  same  period  of  time,  three  days.1  Ly- 
cophron  says  that  Hercules  was  three  nights  in  the  belly  of  a  fish.2  The  sun  was  called  Jona, 
as  appears  from  Gruter's  inscriptions.3 

The  Syrian  God  is  called  Dag-on.  Now,  the  fish  in  which  Jonah  was  preserved,  was  called  in 
the  Hebrew,  sometimes  in  the  masculine  jt  dg,  sometimes  in  the  feminine,  according  to  the 
Rabbies,  rm  dge.  Calmet  has  observed  that  this  word  Dag  means  preserver,  which  I  suppose  is 
the  same  as  Saviour,  a  word  which  Calmet  or  his  translator  did  not  like  to  use.  Here  is  Jonas 
buried  three  days  in  the  ocean,  and  cast  up  again  by  this  preserver — raised  again  to-day.  Jonas 
means  Dove,  the  emblem  of  one  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity,  and  the  same  as  Oannes  and  as  John. 
Dagon  has  been  likened  to  the  ship  of  Noah,  by  Mr.  Taylor,  the  Editor  of  Calmet's  Fragments. 
In  several  particulars  the  likeness  between  Jonah,  and  Noah,  and  the  ship  or  ark,  and  Dagon,  are 
pointed  out.  But  the  modern  date  of  the  time  when  this  Dagon  saved  Jonah,  about  600  or  700 
years  before  Christ,  at  first  sight  appears  to  make  it  impossible  that  it  should  be  Noah,  except  as 
a  renewed  incarnation,  and  the  ancient  date  of  it  seems  equally  to  militate  against  its  being  an  em- 
blem of  the  sun's  entrance  into  the  sign  Pisces.  But  I  shall  partly  remove  this  objection  by  shewing, 
in  a  future  book  of  this  work,  that  a  very  extraordinary  mistake  took  place  among  mythologists, 
and  indeed  among  astronomers,  both  in  the  East  and  the  West,  of  more  than  500  years,  in  their 
chronology  or  calculations  of  time.  Indeed  the  ancients,  before  the  time  of  Herodotus,  in  the 
Western  part  of  the  world,  had  no  more  knowledge  of  chronology  than  they  had  of  history. 
Their  whole  system  was  made  up  after  his  time,  from  tradition  and  a  few  observations  of  the 
planetary  bodies  made  for  the  purpose  of  Astrology  and  Astronomy,  not  of  History. 

Besides,  there  is  another  way  of  accounting  for  this.  We  must  recollect  that  the  Neros  cycle 
was  passing  in  about  its  middle  state — about  half  of  it  had  passed,  when  the  cycle  of  the  Zodiac 
Taurus  ended,  and  the  cycle  of  2160,  of  Aries  began.  In  the  same  manner  when  the  sun  entered 
Pisces  at  the  vernal  equinox,  about  half  of  the  Neros  cycle  had  passed  ;  thus  the  incarnation  of 
that  cycle  was  both  Aries  and  Pisces,  as  in  the  former  case  he  was  both  Taurus  and  Aries. 
This  is  the  reason  why  the  word  Ram  means  both  Beeve  and  Sheep.  As  this  Avatar-Jonas  ended 
with  Christ,  he  would  be  born  about  six  hundred  years  before  Christ. 

5.  In  Taylor's  Calmet  there  is  a  print  given  of  the  Indian  Avatar  of  Vish-NUH  coming  forth 
from  the  Fish,  which  looks  very  much  like  Jonah  coming  from  the  Fish's  belly.  (Fig.  32.)    He  also 


1  See  Dupuis,  Hist,  de  tous  les  Cultes,  Vol.  I.  pp.  335,  541.  2  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  21 1,  Sup.  Ed. 

3  V.  Atlantic  II.  pp.  149,  150. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    IV.    SECTION    5. 


6^9 


notices  Jonah's  likeness  to  the  Oannes  of  Sanchoniathon.  The  whole  of  his  very  long  treatise  on 
this  subject,  in  which  he  has  collected  and  repeated  a  most  surprising  mass  of  nonsense,  is  itself  a 
most  extraordinary  mass  of  confusion.  This  arises  from  his  seeing  marks  of  similarity  between 
several  persons,  without  knowing  how  to  account  for  them.  But  he  has  made  a  sort  of  table, 
unconscious  of  what  he  was  doing,  which  will  shew  the  reader  that  this  Jonah  or  Dagon  was  a 
renewed  incarnation.     It  is  as  follows  : 


Noah 
In  the  water, 
is  preserved 
by  Divine  power 
in  his  Ark, 
in  which  he  was 

1 ,  part  of  a  year, 

2,  the  whole  of  a  second  year, 

3,  the  beginning  of  a  third  year. 


Jesus 
In  the  earth, 
is  preserved 
by  Divine  power 
in  his  tomb, 
in  which  he  was 

1,  part  of  a  first  day, 

2,  the  whole  of  a  second  day, 

3,  the  beginning  of  a  third  day. 


Jonas 
In  the  water, 
is  preserved 
by  Divine  power 
in  his  Dag, 
in  which  he  was 

1,  part  of  a  day, 

2,  the  whole  of  a  second  day, 

3,  the  beginning  of  a  third  day. 

He  also  shews  that  this  Dagon  was  the  Buddha  Nar'ayana,  or  Buddha  dwelling  in  the  waters  of 
the  Hindoos.1  JVara  means  waters.  In  Hebrew  im  ner  means  river.2  Ay-ana  is  the  Hebrew 
iT  ie  or  God,  with  the  termination  ana  making  Nara-ayana — God  floating  on  the  waters.  But  the 
most  decisive  proof  that  this  Dagon  was  an  incarnation  of  Pisces,  is  found  in  fig.  31  of  my  plates 
of  Dagon,  male  and  female,  copied  from  Calmet,  where  the  reader  will  see  the  double  fishes  in 
one — Male  and  Female.     The  renewed  incarnation  removes  all  the  difficulties. 

We  are  informed  by  Mr.  Finlayson,  that  the  temples  in  Siam  are  called  Pra-cha-di,  and  by  the 
Buddhists  of  Ceylon  Dagoba;  the  meaning  of  which,  he  says,  is  roof  of  the  Lord.  The  God  is 
generally  represented  asleep.  I  think  this  proves  what  I  have  before  stated,  that  this  God  is  the 
Dagon  of  Western  Syria.  The  Dag-oba,  or  roof  of  the  Lord,  I  suspect  is  Dag-o-bit — jt  dg  n  e  DO 
bit — house  of  the  Dag.  Mr.  Finlayson,  probably  from  fear  of  being  laughed  at,  calls  the  old  capital 
of  Siam  Yuthia  instead  of  Judia,  as  it  is  called  by  La  Loubere  and  others. 3  It  is  from  this 
country  that  the  Lascars  come,  some  of  whom  were  found  by  Mr.  Salome  to  speak  Hebrew. 
See  Book  VIII.  Ch.  VIII.  Sect.  3. 

Two  temples  are  described  by  Hamilton,  in  his  account  of  the  East  Indies, 4  near  a  town  called 
Syrian,  in  Pegu.  One  was  the  temple  of  Kiakiack  or  the  God  of  Gods. 5  The  image  of  the 
Deity  is  sixty  feet  long,  in  a  sleeping  posture ;  it  was  supposed  to  have  lain  there  6000  years. 
This  is  evidently  Buddha  or  Bacchus,  as  we  see  him  in  several  exemplars  in  the  India-house. 
The  other  temple  is  of  the  God  Dagun.  They  would  not  let  this  God  be  seen,  but  they  said  he 
was  not  of  a  human  form.  I  think  he  must  be  very  blind  who  does  not  see  here  the  Syrian  God 
Dagon — the  Syria  and  Dagon  of  the  West  in  the  Syrian  of  Pegu.6 

Among  his  epithets,  in  the  18th  Orphic  Hymn,  Bacchus  is  called  first-born,  double-natured, 
thrice-born  or  third-born,  the  King  Bacheius,  the  two-horned,  the  double-shaped,  the  Ayvov  and  the 
Slpuhiov.  The  ayvog  may  mean  chaste,  but  I  rather  suppose  it  to  be  the  object  of  the  famous 
Indian  sacrifice,  and  to  mean  both  the  Lamb  and  Fire ;  and  the  co^a^iov,  I  take,  again,  to  be  a 
Hindoo  word,  and  to  mean  the  holy  Om.  The  word  is  certainly  not  Greek :  Om-a-dios  is  the 
same  as  Om-nu-al.     In  the  orgies  of  Dyonusus  the  Greeks  sung  out  the  words  Trig  A.rrr\g.7 


1  Fragment,  No.  CCCCLXXII.  p.  181.  ■  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  V.  p.  VI. 

3  Mission  to  Siam,  pp.  156,  220,  244.  •>  Vol.  II.  p.  57. 

5  I  refer  my  reader  to  Book  VI.  Ch.  III.  Sect.  2,  for  the  proof,  that  this  Kiakiack  is  the  IH2  or  Bacchus. 

6  Vide  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  III.  558.  ?  Bryant,  Vol.  II.  p.  339. 


640  NAME   OF   VISllNi/. 

The  Tr)g  was  the  sacred  nomen,  cognomen,  et  omen.  Arryg,  Attt)£,  was  an  invocation  of  the 
female  principle  of  Generation— the  Great  Mother.  Bishop  Walton '  says,  "  Chaldaice,  mulier 
xnx  ata  vel  KDDN  atta  dicitur."  Thus  we  find  Bacchus  called  Vesta,  as  we  have  before  found 
him  called  Ceres ;  for  the  word  Vesta,  in  Chaldaic,  is  ND^K  asta :  this  word  in  Persian  is  At-esh, 
both  having  the  same  meaning— that  of  Fire.     Here  we  have  the  Anagram.2 

In  the  Vishnu  of  India,  (Fig.  32,)  my  reader  will  perceive  that,  as  usual,  the  renewed  incarnate 
person  or  Avatar  is  treading  on  the  head  of  the  serpent.  Here  also  we  see  him  with  his  four  emblems : 
the  book  and  the  sword,  to  shew  that,  like  Coesar,  he  ruled  both  in  right  of  the  sword  and  of  the 
book  ;  the  circle,  emblem  of  eternal  renewal,  and  the  shell  with  its  eight  convolutions,  to  shew  the 
place  in  the  number  of  the  cycles  which  he  occupied.  His  Triple  Crown  or  Mitre,  or  three  Tufts, 
shew  him  to  be  an  emblem  of  the  triple  God.  The  shell,  also,  is  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the 
fish  God.  His  foot  on  the  Serpent's  head  connects  him  with  the  Jewish  seed  of  the  woman,  in 
a  manner  which  cannot  be  disputed. 

6.  When  I  consider  the  surprising  similarity  of  some  oriental  words  to  words  having  the  same 
meaning  in  the  West,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  Vish-nu,  is  the  Fish  Nu.  The  Fish  God, 
treading  on  the  head  of  the  serpent,  is  very  striking. 

We  have  said  enough,  perhaps,  of  the  Trinity — the  Trimurti — the  Creator,  Preserver,  and 
Destroyer  ;  but  we  have  never  inquired  into  the  meaning  of  the  name  of  this  triple  Hypostasis. 
We  find  the  second  person  called  Buddha,  and,  in  succession,  Caniya  or  Cristna,  and  the  Brahmins 
now  call  the  three  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Seva.  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that,  in  former  times, 
and  with  Buddhists,  the  name  has  been  Brahma,  Buddha,  and  Seva,  and,  in  succession,  Brahma, 
Cristna  or  Caniya,  and  Seva;3  and  that  it  is  only  since  the  equinox  fell  in  Pisces,  that  the  second 
person  has  been  called  Vishnu  or  Fishnu.  It  is  not  very  absurd  to  suppose  the  modern  Brahmins 
may  have  made  a  mistake  in  a  case  which  they  acknowledge  they  do  not  understand.  If  this  be 
admitted,  all  the  parts  of  the  Mythos  are  in  harmony.  I  know  this  will  be  called  a  very  bold  spe- 
culation :  but  I  recollect  that  God,  in  Sanscrit,  is  Chod  or  Choder,  the  English  same  is  Sam  in 
Sanscrit,  and  Bowl  the  Piscina  is  Bowli.  Van  Kennedy  has  found  many  other  Sanscrit  words  in 
English,  and  I  see  no  reason  why  the  word  Fish  or  Vish  may  not  add  one  more  to  the  number. 
It  is  not  denied  that  the  God  Vishnu  was  incarnate  in  a  Fish. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  same  prophecy  which  we  have  found  in  the  West,  is  found  in  the 
East.  Vishnu  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindoos  is  prophesied  of,  as  to  appear  in  his  ninth 
incarnation  in  the  form  of  Buddha,  son  of  Jina.  This  number  exactly  agrees  with  all  my  calcula- 
tions and  theories.4       This  is  the  ninth  Avatar  of  the  Buddhists  or  Jains. 

Col.  Tod  says,  "  The  Bull  was  offered  to  Mithras  by  the  Persians,  and  opposed  as  it  now 
"  appears  to  the  Hindu  faith,  he  formerly  bled  on  the  altars  of  the  sun  God  (Bal-iswara),  on 
"  which  the  Buld-dan  {offering  of  the  bull)  was  made."5  This  was  the  predecessor  to  the  Yajni 
or  Agni  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  ;  which,  notwithstanding  the  objections  of  the  Brahmins  to  the 
shedding  of  blood,  yet  bleeds  on  the  altars  of  Caniya.  And,  I  have  no  doubt,  if  we  could  come 
at  the  truth,  that  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  would  be  found  to  be  yet  followed,  or  to  have  been 
followed  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  Fishes,  taken  from  the  sacred  finny  tribe  preserved  in  the  tanks 
near  some  of  the  large  temples,  particularly  at  Matura. 

I  think  I  recollect  that  when  I  have  talked  with  Indian  gentlemen  respecting  the  tanks  and  the 

'  Prol.  iii.  p.  15.  5  Hagar,  p.  10  ;  see  Vallancey,  Coll.  Hil>.  Vol.  V.  p.  223,  a. 

3  Seva,  I  suspect,  is  Seba  and  Saba,  the  reason  for  which  I  shall  shew  hereafter. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  413.  *  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  p.  279. 


BOOK  X.      CHAPTER   IV.     SECTION   8.  641 

sacred  fishes,  they  have  always  called  them  Vishnu's  fishes.  And  we  must  recollect  that  the 
Brahmins  are  just  as  ignorant  (and  indeed  in  many  respects  more  ignorant)  of  the  meaning  of  their 
mythology  as  we  are.  The  Bul-dan  means  the  donum  of  the  Bull.  Our  English  word  bull,  in 
Hebrew  written  ^>jq  bol,  is  constantly  translated,  according  to  the  idioms,  bol,  bul,  bal,  and  bel ; 
making  a  case  similar  to  that  of  the  Vish-nu  or  Fish-nu  just  noticed.  The  dan  is  the  Latin  donum. 
But  all  this  is  nonsense,  to  those  who  do  not  understand  something  of  the  Hebrew,  and  also  to 
those  whose  minds  have  been  poisoned  by  the  Mazoretic  nonsense  of  modern  Jews — to  those  who 
will  render  the  simple  Hebrew  word  byi  bol  by  the  letters  bngl  or  perhaps  bengel,  because  they 
find  modern  Jews  pronounce  it  through  the  nose.  This  example  is  very  apposite  to  shew  the  ne- 
cessity of  returning  to  the  sixteen-letter  system,  to  the  system  of  the  Synagogue,  if  the  science  of 
the  ancients  is  ever  to  be  recovered. 

7.  In  the  island  of  Ceylon  or  Lanca,  tanks  are  constructed  in  the  Cyclopaean  style  of  building, 
and  of  a  size  to  be  really  almost  incredible.  These  enormous  basins,  or  Bowli,  *  or  Piscinae,  were 
not  for  a  few  hundred  priests  to  wash  in,  but  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  sacred  finny  tribe,  succes- 
sors of  the  Lamb. 

At  the  temples  of  India,  before  the  priest  officiates,  ablution  always  takes  place  in  the  sacred 
river,  or  tank  in  which  the  holy  fishes  are  kept.  In  India  every  temple  has  a  tank  for  the  fishes  of 
Vishnu.  In  humble  imitation  of  this,  we  have  the  Piscina  in  every  Romish  church.  It  is  not 
merely  a  vas  or  cisterna,  it  is  a  piscina.  The  ablution  in  the  European  climate  would  not  always 
be  agreeable  even  in  Rome.  Each  of  the  Grecian  temples  had,  at  its  entrance,  the  piscina,  for  the 
holy  water  of  the  fishes.     See  Potter's  Antiquities,  and  Miss  Starke's  Travels. 

If  my  memory  do  not  deceive  me,  when  I  was  at  Naples  I  was  told,  that  under  the  palace  of 
Nero,  on  the  bank  of  the  gulf  of  Baiae,  was  a  very  wonderful  reservoir,  a  piscina,  in  which  he  kept 
the  fish  for  his  table.  Now  I  imagine,  that  this  was  for  a  collection  of  holy  fishes.  Surely  the 
Gulf  of  Baia  and  the  Bay  of  Naples  were  the  finest  piscina?  in  the  world,  abounding  in  every  kind 
of  delicious  fish.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  any  thing  more  unnecessary  to  a  Roman  Emperor 
than  an  immense  fishpond  under  his  palace,  close  to  the  Bay  of  Naples.  I  cannot  help  suspecting 
that  this  fiddling  brute,  called  Nero-s,  was  very  pious,  like  David,  or  Solomon,  the  son  of  David 
by  the  wife  of  Uriah,  who  usurped  the  throne  of  his  murdered  elder  brother,  and  like  Constantine, 
called  by  Christians  of  all  sects,  the  Great,  the  not-bad  man  of  Lardner,  and  whose  equestrian 
statue  stands,  as  I  have  before  stated,  in  the  porch  of  St.  Peter's  Church  at  Rome,  a  disgrace 
to  the  civilized  Christian  world. 

Mr.  Maurice2  has  proved  the  identity  of  the  Syrian  Dagon  and  the  Indian  Avatar.  He  says, 
"  From  the  foregoing  and  a  variety  of  parallel  circumstances,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
"  Chaldaic  Oannes,  the  Phoenician  and  Philistian  Dagon,  and  the  Pisces  of  the  Syrian  and  Egyp- 
"  tian  Zodiac,  were  the  same  Deity  with  the  Indian  Vishnu."  This  I  think  will  not  now  be  dis- 
puted. 

8.  With  respect  to  the  Oannes,  several  persons  make  two  of  them,  and  Berosus  says  that  there 
were  other  animals  similar  to  Oannes,  of  whom  he  promises  to  give  an  account  in  his  second 
book.  These  would  most  likely  have  been  shewn  to  be  renewed  incarnations,  but  the  book  does 
not  now  exist.  Has  it  been  purposely  destroyed  ?  I  suspect  the  Johns,  or  Oanneses,  are  like  the 
Merus,  the  Buddhas,  the  Manwantaras,  the  Soleimans,  &c.  They  were  renewed  incarnations, 
and  the  name  was  given  after  death,  and  sometimes  during  life,  to  any  person  whom  the  priests 
thought  proper  to  designate  as  the  guardian  genius  of  the  age. 


1  N.  B.  Bowli  a  bowl !    Accident  as  usual.  *  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p  566. 

4n 


642  CYCLOPES. 

In  the  Pentateuch,  which  is  the  sacred  book  of  the  Israelites,  we  meet  with  no  Dagon  Fish  or 
God.  But  we  do  meet  with  it  in  the  book  of  Judges,  written  nobody  knows  when  or  where  or 
by  whom,  and  which  was  always  held  to  be  spurious  by  ten  out  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  the  Ioudi. 
I  believe  this  Dagon  to  be  the  fish  Avatar  of  India — the  Dagon  of  Syrian  in  Pegu ;  in  fact,  the 
emblem  of  the  entrance  of  the  sun  into  Pisces.  The  order  of  situation  in  which  the  fish  Avatar  is 
now  placed  among  the  Avatars,  by  the  ignorant  Brahmins,  is  of  no  consequence,  and  cannot  mili- 
tate against  the  fish  Avatar  being  Dagon ;  as  Mr.  Maurice  has  shewn  that  their  exact  order,  that 
is,  which  is  the  second  or  third,  &c,  after  the  first  Buddha,  is  uncertain. 1  At  first,  no  doubt,  my 
reader  will  be  very  much  surprised  at,  and  perhaps  treat  with  great  contempt,  the  idea  of  the 
devotees  having  converted  Jesus  into  the  fish  Avatar :  but  why  was  he  called  the  Lamb  ?  And 
why  were  his  followers  called  his  flock,  and  his  sheep,  and  his  lambs  ?  It  does  not  appear  to  me 
to  be  more  extraordinary  that  his  followers,  as  it  is  admitted  that  they  did,  should  call  him  a  fish, 
and  the  believers  in  him  pisciculi,  than  that  they  should  call  him  a  lamb,  and  his  followers  lambs. 
And  I  beg  to  inform  my  reader  that  he  was  originally  represented  as  a  lamb  until  one  of  the  Popes 
changed  his  effigy  to  that  of  a  man  on  a  cross,  of  which  I  shall  treat  at  large  by  and  by.  Applying 
the  astronomical  emblem  of  Pisces  to  Jesus,  does  not  seem  more  absurd  than  applying  the  astro- 
nomical emblem  of  the  Lamb.  They  applied  to  him  the  monogram  of  Bacchus,  IHS ;  the 
astrological  and  alchymical  mark  or  sign  of  Aries,  or  the  Ram  <y> ;  and,  in  short,  what  was 
there  that  was  Heathenish  that  they  have  not  applied  to  him  ?  They  have  actually  loaded  the 
simple  and  sublime  religion  of  the  priest  of  Melchizedek,  with  every  absurdity  of  Gentilism.  And 
this  I  will  amply  prove,  if  I  have  not  already  done  it,  before  I  conclude  this  volume  :  for  I  know 
not  one  absurdity  that  can  be  excepted. 

9.  In  the  earliest  time,  perhaps,  of  which  we  have  any  history,  God  the  Creator  was  adored  under 
the  form  or  emblem  of  a  Bull.  After  that,  we  read  of  him  under  the  form  of  a  calf  or  two  calves, 
afterward  in  the  form  of  the  Ram  and  the  Lamb,  and  the  devotees  were  called  lambs  :  then  came 
the  fish  or  two  fishes.  It  is  a  fact,  not  a  theory,  that  he  was  called  a  fish,  and  that  the  devotees 
were  called  Pisciculi  or  little  fishes.  Are  these  circumstances  accidental ;  or,  is  a  secret  system  of 
religion  or  superstition  here  to  be  seen  ?  I  suppose  few  persons  will  attribute  these  appearances 
of  system  to  accident.  As  we  have  lambs  and  little  fishes  in  the  followers  of  the  Ram,  Aries,  and 
the  constellation  Pisces,  it  is  only  in  character  to  have  the  followers  of  the  Bull  (though  now 
almost  lost  sight  of  from  great  lapse  of  time)  called  calves,  and  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that 
we  have  not  them  in  the  Cyclops. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  etymons  which  I  have  known,  and  yet  to  myself  one  of  the  most  sa- 
tisfactory, is  that  of  the  Cyclopes,  which  I  shall  now  conclude  from  Bk.  IX.  Ch.  V.  Sect.  4,  5. 
We  must  not  forget  the  Cyclopean  buildings,  and,  under  this  term,  I  include  all  those  very  an- 
cient structures  which  are  so  ancient,  that  even  tradition  does  not  pretend  to  assign  owners  to 
them — and  those  called  Druidical,  which  are  so  wonderfully  marked  with  the  numbers  of  the 
ancient  cycles,  marked  in  this  manner,  I  have  no  doubt,  before  the  art  of  literal  syllabic  writing 
was  discovered,  or  at  least  before  it  was  made  public. 

The  Hebrew  word  nfoy  oglut  meant  both  young  beeves  and  revolvers  or  circulators  of  the 
ethereal  fluid.2  hi  gl  means  a  circle  and  also  a  young  beeve,  and  I  suspect  the  word  bty  ogl 
means,  Syriace,  the  circle  or  the  young  beeve — the  Hebrew  emphatic1  article  H  e  being,  in  the 
usual  Syriac  dialect,  the  y  o.  Now  Cycle,  the  C  pronounced  hard,  is  very  near  the  hi  gl,  both  in 
sound  and  sense;  and  the  Greek  xwxX-oc,3  if  the  Greek  termination  be  taken  off;  the  words  are  very 


1  Hist.  Hind.  Vol.  I.  p.  440,  4to.  2  Vide  Parkhurst  in  voce  bw  ogl,  VI.  VII. 

3  "?dj  gml  became  Camel  or  Kamel. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER   IV.     SECTION  10.  643 

nearly  the  same.     This  theory  must  be  considered  in  conjunction  with  what  I  have  said  respecting 
the  Cyclopes  and  Mundore  in  Bk.  IX.  Ch.  V.  Sect.  4,  5. 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  as  a  singular  coincidence,  that  this  word  should  have  the  same  meaning 
as  the  Greek  xuxh-og,  and  as  a  young  beeve,  and  roundness  or  a  circle  or  cycle,  and  that  all  these 
circumstances  should  dovetail  so  curiously  with  what  we  are  told  of  the  cycles  in  the  buildings  or 
temples  of  the  earliest  races  of  people,  and  the  mystical  numbers  of  the  cycles  and  the  Tauric 
worship.  All  this  seems  to  agree  very  well,  as  it  does  also  with  respect  to  the  Greek  ofyig. 
We  have  seen  how  the  serpentine  worship  is  every  where  closely  interwoven  with  the  Buddhist  or 
earliest  worship.     Might  it  not  be  niN^jy  oglaub  ? 

In  old  Irish  Chuig  or  Jog  means  a  cycle  or  period.  In  Chaldee  Jin  hug  means  a  cycle.  This  is 
evidently  the  Hindoo  Yug.  An  ancient  Hebrew  word  (not  in  Parkhurst  but  in  Frey)  for  the  Asp 
or  Serpent  is  "ywiy  oksub.  In  the  oks  I  suspect  we  have  the  Greek  o$ig  ;  and,  in  the  ni  ub>  the 
niK  aub  or  ny  ob,  the  familiar  or  evil  spirit,  or  spirit  of  divination — the  West  Indian  Oub  or  Aubi 
or  Obi.  But  when  I  recollect  the  close  connexion  between  the  serpentine  worship  and  the  cycles 
as  exhibited  in  the  temples,  I  strongly  suspect  that  this  word  is  y  o  the  emphatic  article,  WD  ks  or 
D3  ks  the  numeration  or  numbering,  21  ub  or  2y  ob  serpent.  I  think  the  original  word  has  been 
"2)1  ob  ;  the  reason  for  this  I  shall  give  hereafter.  Thus,  then,  in  the  Cyclopes,  we  have  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  Tauric  and  Serpentine  worship,  and  the  inventors  of  the  ancient  cycles. 

10.  I  think  no  person  will  doubt  the  sleeping  God  Kiakiak  above  spoken  of  to  be  Bacchus ;  and 
we  have  seen  also,  a  few  pages  ago,  that  Bacchus  was  called  ioy.aoioc;,  and  was  said  in  the  hymn 
of  Orpheus  to  have  slept  three  years.  Although  the  period  during  which  the  God  Kiakiak  slept,  viz. 
6000  years  is  very  different  from  the  three  years  of  the  Grecian  mythos  of  Bacchus,  yet,  under  all 
the  circumstances,  there  is  enough  to  excite  a  belief,  that  the  same  principle  or  mythos  is  at  the 
bottom  of  them  both.  An  opinion  has  been  entertained  by  some  metaphysicians,  that  the  world 
is  a  mere  idea,  a  dream  of  the  Supreme  Being,  if  I  may  use  such  an  anthropomorphitical  expres- 
sion— that  we  are  all  like  the  figures  in  the  magic  lantern,  illusion — that  all  at  last  resolves  itself 
into  God — the  great  Pan.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  Hindoo  doctrine  of  illusion  carried  to  its 
first  principles. 

This  I  apprehend  differs  not  greatly  from  the  theory  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  and  is  perhaps  the 
most  profound  and  recondite  of  all  doctrines.  It  is  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  Hermaphroditic 
Trinity — the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer.  It  is  the  fashion  to  turn  this  theory  into  ridi- 
cule, but  I  observe  that  it  is  only  ridiculed  by  persons  of  weak  understandings,  chiefly  the  priests 
and  persons  who  have  never  read  what  Berkeley  has  said  respecting  it :  persons  of  understanding 
who  refuse  it,  do  not  ridicule  it.  I  have  two  very  learned  friends  who  believe  in  this  doctrine. 
They  are  both  excellent  classical  scholars,  and,  besides,  they  are  men  whose  minds  have  escaped 
the  enfeebling  influence  of  the  education  which  has,  until  very  lately,  prevailed  in  our  uni- 
versities. 1  I  think  in  the  sleeping  Kiakiak,  sixty  feet  long,  of  Mount  Sian,  of  Judia,  in  Pegu,  we 
have  the  icon  of  this  great  Pan.  He  is  to  sleep  6000  years  :  when  he  awakes  the  dream  ends, 
and  all  resolves  itself  into  illusion — all  is  absorbed  into  God — the  scene  in  the  magic  lantern 
ends. 


'  I  have  much  pleasure  in  giving  an  opinion,  that  at  the  present  moment  a  great  improvement  is  taking  place  in 
hoth  our  universities,  particularly  at  Cambridge.  I  trust  that,  in  a  very  little  time,  no  one  will  be  able  to  say,  that 
their  members  are  only  remarkable  for  great  scholarship  and  meanness  of  understanding.  Although  a  most  learned 
writer,  under  the  name  of  Nimrod,  I  believe  a  Cantab,  often  quoted  by  me,  has  shewn  us  how  ghosts  move  through  the 
air,  demonstrated  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Riddle  who  saw  one  of  them— I  am  satisfied  there  is  not  now  any  member  of  Tri- 
nity College,  Cambridge,  who  is  afraid  of  them,  unless  it  be  Nimrod  himself. 

4n2 


644  EURIPIDES. 

This  sleeping  God  is  also  the  Om :  in  the  Greek  epithets  of  Bacchus,  «>^.a8jo£ — the  Dios-OM— 
the  Om  of  the  Judia,  and  the  Sian  of  Pegu,  and  the  Om  of  Isaiah. 

My  opinion  respecting  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the  Hindoos  receives  a  strong  confirmation 
from  the  laws  of  Menu  :  "  This  universe  existed  only  in  the  first  divine  idea  yet  unexpanded,  as 
"  if  involved  in  darkness,  imperceptible,  undefinable,  undiscoverable  by  reason,  and  undiscovered 
"  by  revelation,  as  if  it  were  wholly  immersed  in  sleep."  l  All  this  is  mere  idle  attempt  to 
describe  that  of  which  man  can  form  no  idea,  and  therefore  best  described  by  the  Hindoo  term 
illusion. 

11.  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  series  of  the  tragedies  of  YEschylus  contained  a 
sacred  mythos.  But  so  many  of  them  being  lost,  and  those  we  have,  being  misunderstood  and 
corrupted,  it  is  not  probable  that  it  should  be  ever  made  out  clearly.  But  yet,  if  the  foundation 
of  the  mythos  should  be  discovered  by  me  or  by  any  one  else,  the  ruins  of  the  edifice,  which  this 
fine  poet  has  erected,  may  perhaps  be  sufficiently  united  to  shew  that  the  real  foundation  has 
been  discovered.  The  theory  may  be  found  to  fit  to  the  mythos,  and  the  mythos  to  the  theory, 
and  thus  they  may  mutually  support  each  other. 

What  is  said  in  the  play  of  ^Eschylus  respecting  the  crucifixion  of  Prometheus,  on  Mount 
Caucasus,  finds  a  parallel  in  the  Alcestis  of  Euripides,  which  is  proved  by  a  gentleman  of  the 
name  of  H.  S.  Boyd,  in  the  Classical  Journal,2  like  the  Prometheus  hound,  to  be  a  sacred  drama: 
and  he  shews  that  there  may  be  found  in  it  the  whole  of  the  Christian  Atonement.  No  doubt  all 
these  doctrines  came  from  India,  and  are  founded  on  Genesis.  The  Trinity,  the  Atonement,  the 
Crucifixion,  are  all  from  the  same  quarter,  where  they  were  the  foundations  of  the  universal, 
secret  religion,  long  before  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  born. 

Mr.  Boyd  observes,  that  Alcestis  offered  herself  as  a  substitute  for  her  husband,  and  yet  the 
preposition  u7rep  is  employed  as  often  as  avri,  and  that  the  wife  of  Admetus  is  not  designated  by 
so  strong  an  expression  as  avriXorpov,  which  is  applied  to  Christ  by  Paul.  , 

I  know  what  I  am  going  to  say  will  be  thought  fanciful,  and  be  turned  into  ridicule  for  its  ex- 
cessive mysticism,  but  when  all  attempts  at  explanation  have  hitherto  failed,  surely  great  latitude 
may  be  allowed.  In  the  Prometheus  bound  we  have  seen  a  crucified  God.  It  is  said,  that  one 
shall  come  at  last  who  shall  hurl  Jove  from  his  throne.  What  can  all  this  mean  ?  Can  any  one 
believe  that  it  had  no  meaning  ?  Io,  the  female  Taurus,  is  told,  that  this  shall  be  done  by  the 
"  Third  of  thy  race,  the  first  numbering  ten  descents,"  that  is,  by  the  third  of  her  kind  or  race, 
the  incarnation  of  the  Zodiacal  signs,  distinguished  from  the  incarnations  of  the  Neroses;  and 
after  ten  descents,  the  ten  ages  of  Virgil,  or  cycles  of  the  Neros.  In  a  note  in  Potter's  iEschylus 
it  is  observed,  that  Thetis,  the  daughter  of  Oceanus,  should  bring  forth  a  son,  who  should  per- 
form the  act  of  deposing  Jove.  This  is  the  fish  Avatar,  or  the  male  and  female,  androgynous 
Pisces,  daughter  of  Oceanus,  when  the  famous  6000  years  should  end  and  the  millenium  begin — 
when  Jove,  the  creator,  should,  with  all  things  else,  resolve  himself  into  the  Brahme-Maia,  or  Illu- 
sion of  India.     I  shall  explain  this  hereafter.3 

12.  The  head  of  the  religion  in  which  we  have  found  the  fishes  in  Italy,  the  Pope,  received  all 
his  authority  from  a  fisherman,  called  Peter.  We  must  now  make  a  little  inquiry  into  the  history 
of  this  Peter,  whom  we  shall  find  a  very  mysterious  person. 

Matt.  xvi.  17 — 19:  And  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-Jona. 
Again.     J  say  unto  thee,  that  thou  art  Peter :  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church. 


1  Chap.  i.  5.    Advertisement  to  Vol.  V.  Asiat.  Res.  p.  v.  *  Vol.  XXXVII.  p.  10. 

3  The  tragedies  of  the  ancients  were  originally  all  .of  a  sacred  character,  and  were  imitated  by  our  plays  called  mys- 
teries, in  the  time  of  Elizabeth. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  12.  645 

Again.     I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

What  can  be  the  meaning  of  this  Peter  or  Rock,  calied  Simon,  the  son  of  Janus  or  Jonas,  or  the 
son  of  Jain,  or  the  son  of  the  Dove,  or  the  son  of  the  Ioni — the  generative  principle  ?  Does  it 
mean,  that  on  the  union  of  the  two  principles  of  generation  the  church  shall  be  founded  ?  What 
say  the  opponents  of  allegory  in  the  Scriptures  to  this  ?  Dare  they  deny  that  this  is  figurative 
language  ?  Will  they  tell  me  its  literal  meaning  ?  Will  they  dare  to  say  there  is  not  a  concealed 
meaning  in  these  texts  ? 

On  this  stone,  which  was  the  emblem  of  the  male  generative  principle,  the  Linga,  Jesus  founded 
his  church.  This  sacred  stone  is  found  throughout  all  the  world.  In  India  at  every  temple.  The 
Jews  had  it  in  the  stone  of  Jacob,  which  he  anointed  with  oil.  The  Greeks,  at  Delphi,  like  Jacob, 
anointed  it  with  oil.  The  black  stone  was  in  the  Caaba,  at  Mecca,  long  before  the  time  of  Moha- 
med,  and  was  preserved  by  him  when  he  destroyed  the  Dove  and  the  Images.  He  not  only  pre- 
served it,  but  he  caused  it  to  be  built  into  the  corner  of  the  sacred  Caaba,  where  it  is  now  kissed  and 
adored  by  all  Mohamedans  who  make  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca.  Is  it  the  corner-stone  on  which 
the  Temple  or  Church  is  built  ?  The  Romans  got  possession  of  the  sacred  Pessinuncian  stone. 
When  Cambyses  destroyed  the  temples  in  Egypt,  he  left  the  obelisks  or  single  stones — the  Ling- 
ams  untouched,  and  in  like  manner  they  are  now  left  untouched  by  the  Mohamedans.  The  modern 
Romans  have  one  in  front  of  almost  every  church  in  Rome,  and  there  are  few  churchyards  in  En- 
gland without  one,  on  the  top  of  which  is  fixed  a  dial,  or  formerly  a  cross.  We  have  it  yet  in  the 
fire  towers  of  Ireland,  and  in  the  single  stone  found  near  every  Gilgal  or  Druidical  circle;  we  have 
it  as  a  boundary,  a  terminus,  at  the  division  of  all  our  parishes,  and  on  our  Mote  hills,  and  in  Rud- 
stone  churchyard,  in  Yorkshire ; 1  and,  to  complete  all,  we  have  it  in  Westminster  Abbey,  on 
which  our  kings  sit  at  their  coronations.  When  I  examined  this  stone,  I  greatly  shocked  the  reli- 
gious feeling  of  the  keeper,  by  proposing  to  apply  a  chisel  to  see  what  was  its  nature  :  but  it 
appeared  to  be  a  shell  limestone.  I  thought  I  perceived  the  Cornu  Ammonis  or  Argo  Argonauta 
upon  it.  Whether  the  allusion  in  the  Gospel  is  to  this  species  of  stone,  I  will  not  be  positive, 
but  the  circumstances  are  surely  suspicious. 

I  believe  I  am  not  the  only  person,  by  many  thousands,  who  has  thought  that  expression  of 
Jesus's  very  extraordinary  in  which  he  says  to  Peter,  Bar-Jona — thou  art  Peter ;  and  upon  this 
rock  I  will  build  my  church.  Peter  was  not  the  common  name  of  this  apostle,  but  a  cognomen  or 
sirname  given  to  him  by  Christ.  His  name  appears  to  have  been  Simon.  Mr.  Bryant2  says, 
"  When  the  worship  of  the  sun  was  almost  universal,  this  was  one  name  of  that  deity,  even  among 
«'  the  Greeks.  They  called  him  Petor,  and  Petros,  and  his  temple  was  styled  Petra."  Where  the 
temples  had  this  name,  he  shews  that  there  was  generally  a  sacred  stone  which  was  supposed  to 
have  descended  from  heaven.     Peter  is  also  called  Cephas,  which,  in  Hebrew,  means  a  stone. 

In  the  oriental  languages,  without  vowels,  Petor,  Petra,  Patera,  are  all  the  same.  In  the  West- 
ern languages  Peter  has  three  significations:  Paoter,  a  pastor ;  Peter  (Be-tir),  a  fisherman  of  a 
Peter  boat  j  and  Petra,  a  Rock. 3 

Saxa  vocant  Itali  mediis  quae  in  fluctibus  Aras.4 
The  French  Peter  or  Pierre  is  Pi-ara,  and  our  Pier-glass  comes  from  this.  Ar  in  Celtic  means 
stone;  this  is  the  Hebrew  nn  er  or  Har,  stone  mount,  rock,  as  Har-gerizim.  This  stone  was  the 
emblem  of  wisdom  or  the  generative  power,  and  I  suspect  from  this,  a  stone  came  to  be  called 
Sax-urn.  Why  sax  I  shall  explain  hereafter.  Mithra  or  the  sun  copulated  with  a  stone,  whence 
came  a  son  called  Di-orphos  or  Light.5      This  is  the  Holy  Orpheus.     And  from  the  fire  proceed- 

1  See  Celtic  Druids,  plates.  *  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  291.  3  Cleland's  Specimen,  p.  62. 

4  Virgil.  4  Maurice  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  II.  p.  207. 


646 


PETER   THE    FISHERMAN. 


ing  from  the  Flint  stone,  came  Allegories  respecting  the  Petros  or  stone,  in  endless  variety.    Sir 
W.  Ouseley 1  has  shewn  Mithra  to  mean  cycle. 

The  priests  of  the  oracles  of  the  Greeks  who  were  called  Omphi,  or  Delphi,  or  the  Os  Minxae, 
or  the  Matrix,  or  the  Umbilicus,  were  called  Paterae. 2  Bochart  says,  "  Paterae,  Sacerdotes  Apol- 
"  linis,  oraculorum  interpretes  :"  on  which  Mr.  Bryant3  observes,  "  Pator  or  Petor,  was  an  Egyp- 
"  tian  word ;  and  Moses,  speaking  of  Joseph  and  the  dreams  of  Pharaoh,  more  than  once  makes 
"  use  of  it  in  the  sense  above.  It  occurs  Genesis  xli.  8,  13,  and  manifestly  alludes  to  an  interpre- 
"  tation  of  that  divine  intercourse  which  the  Egyptians  styled  Omphi.  This  was  communicated  to 
"  Pharoah  by  a  dream.  These  Omphean  visions  were  explained  by  Joseph :  he  interpreted  the 
"  dreams  of  Pharaoh  :  wherefore  the  title  of  Pator  is  reckoned  by  the  Rabbins  among  the  names  of 
"  Joseph.  There  is  thought  to  be  the  same  allusion  to  divine  interpretation  in  the  name  of  the 
"  Apostle  Peter  :  IIsTgo£,  6  £7ri\v(ov,  o  e7nyiV(ocrxa>v.  Hesych.  Petrus,  Hebraeo  sermone,  agno- 
"  scens  notat  Arator."  4 

In  a  former  part  of  this  work  I  have  shewn  that  the  golden  Paterae  which  were  hung  round  the 
large  Umbilicus  or  Omphalos,  when  it  was  carried  in  procession  at  Delphi,  and  in  Egypt  in  their 
voyages  of  salvation,  argonautic  expeditions,  were  the  same  as  the  vessel  called  Argha  in  India. 
They  were  votive  offerings,  emblematical  of  the  generative  powers  of  nature.  It  was  from  attach- 
ment, or  alleged  attachment,  to  this  superstition,  in  some  way  or  other,  that  the  Manichaeans  were 
called  Patei'ini,  by  their  adversaries,  as  a  term  of  reproach.  It  often  happens  that  sects  are  called 
by  a  name  allusive  to  some  doctrine  or  person  to  which  they  have  an  utter  aversion,  by  their  ad- 
versaries, as  a  term  of  insult,  and  from  this,  without  much  care,  great  mistakes  may  arise ;  and 
this  observation  is  peculiarly  applicable  to  such  sects  as  the  Manichaeans,  of  whom  we  know 
scarcely  any  thing,  except  from  their  most  bitter  enemies.  An  example  of  this  we  have  in  the 
Unitarians.  Half  the  people  of  England,  who  believe  whatever  their  priests  tell  them,  suppose 
them  Socinians,  and  call  them  so.     They  may  as  well  call  them  Chinese. 

13.  The  Baptist  and  the  author  of  the  Apocalypse  were  called  John,  or  Joannes  or  Ia>amj£. 
Bryant  says, 5  "  This  name,  which  we  render  John,  I  have  shewn  to  be  no  other  than  Iona.  It 
"  signifies  a  dove  ;  but  means  likewise  an  oracular  person :  by  whom  the  voice  of  the  Most  High 
"  is  made  known  and  his  will  explained."  That  is,  a  resoul  or  prophet.  This  was  the  lonas  sent 
to  the  Ninevites  as  noticed  before. 

In  Berosus  and  other  authors  the  being,  half  man,  half  fish,  called  Oannes,  is  said  to  have  come 
out  of  the  Erythr^an  Sea,  and  to  have  taught  the  Babylonians  all  kinds  of  useful  knowledge.  This 
is  clearly  the  fish  Avatar  of  India ;  whether  or  not  it  be  the  Ioannes  or  Jonas  I  leave  to  the  reader. 
I  apprehend  it  is  the  same  as  the  Dagun  of  Pegu  and  the  fish  sign  of  the  Zodiac.  Very  little  is 
known  about  it,  but  it  exactly  answers  the  description  of  an  Avatar.  The  extraordinary  number 
of  extraordinary  circumstances  detailed  above  will  compel  my  reader,  I  think,  to  believe,  that  the 
incarnation  of  the  fishes  was  once,  if  it  be  not  yet,  among  the  secret  doctrines  of  the  Vatican.  I 
beg  those  who  doubt,  to  tell  me  why  the  fishes  tied  by  the  tails  are  to  be  seen  on  the  Italian  monu- 
ments, of  the  meaning  of  which  none  of  the  priests  could  or  would  give  me  any  information. 

Jonah  "a  Dove"  was  an  appellation  deemed  applicable  to  one  sent  on  a  divine  mission;  and 
hence,  among  others,  John  the  Baptist  had  his  name.6 

Anna,  or  the  year,  was  the  mother  of  Maria  or  Maera  or  Maia,  all  of  whom  (as  I  have  shewn  or 
shall  shew  hereafter)  were  the  same,  and  Maia  was  the  first  month  of  the  year,  on  which,  in  very 


•  In  the  Col.  Orient.  4  Matrix,  ^rpa,  v?epa,  fcX<pv<.    Littleton's  Diet.  3  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  249. 

*  Ibid.  4  Vol.  II.  p.  293.  6  Class.  Jour.  Vol.  VI.  p.  329. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IV.   SECTION  13.  647 

ancient  times,  began  both  the  year  and  the  Cycle  of  IHS-o$,  or  608.  There  was  also  a  certain 
Anna  who  was  supernaturally  pregnant  (like  the  wife  of  Abraham,  who  was  sometimes  called  Maria1 
and  Isha,  but  commonly  Sarah  or  Sarai  or  Sara-iswati)  in  her  old  age  ;  and  she  was  delivered  of  a 
son  whose  name  was  John,  Joanes,  or  Johna,  or  Jana,  or  Oanes.  He  was  born  at  the  Midsummer 
solstice,  exactly  six  months  before  the  son  of  Maria.  Thus  he  might  be  said,  astrologically,  as 
Matthew  makes  him  say,  to  be  decreasing  when  the  son  of  Maria  was  increasing.  He  prepared 
the  way  for  the  son  of  Maria,— as  the  prophet  said,  he  was  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness. Was  he  a  previous  Avatar,  as  the  learned  divine  Parkhurst  would  say,  sent  as  a  type  or 
symbol  ? 

Jesus  came  to  his  exaltation  or  glory  on  the  25th  of  March,  the  Vernal  equinox.  At  that  mo- 
ment his  cousin  John  was  at  the  Autumnal  equinox  :  as  Jesus  ascended  John  descended.  The  equi- 
noxes and  solstices  equally  marked  the  births  and  deaths  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  of  Jesus.  John 
makes  the  Baptist  say,  chapter  iii.  ver.  30,  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease.  As  Michaelis 
has  justly  observed,  this  is  sufficiently  mystical.  How  can  any  one  doubt,  that  what  was  admitted 
by  the  fathers  was  true — that  the  Christians  had  an  esoteric  and  an  exoteric  religion  ?  2  I  have  no- 
thing to  do  here  with  their  pretended  explanations,  but  only  with  the  fact  which  they  admitted — 
that  there  was  an  esoteric  religion.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  all  the  explanations  pretended  to  be 
made  of  the  esoteric  religion  by  Jerome  and  the  early  fathers,  are  mere  fables  to  deceive  the  vulgar. 
How  absurd  to  suppose,  that  when  these  men,  who  were  at  the  head  of  the  religion,  were  admitting 
that  there  was  a  secret  religion  for  the  initiated  only,  they  should  explain  it  to  all  the  world  ! 
Their  explanations  to  the  vulgar  are  suitable  to  the  vulgar,  and  were  meant  merely  to  stop  their 
inquiries. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  now  speak,  the  mysteries  of  the  Gentiles  were  not  entirely  abolished, 
and  mankind,  educated  in  a  respect  for  them,  felt  no  objection  to  the  principle  of  secrets  or  mys- 
teries in  religion  ;  but  now,  since  it  has  become  the  interest  of  the  priests,  or  at  least  since  they 
think  it  has  become  their  interest,  to  disallow  them,  persons  can  see  the  absurdity  of  them.  But 
I  do  not  doubt  that  a  secret  system  is  yet  in  the  conclave,  guarded  with  as  much  or  more  care,  or 
at  least  with  more  power,  than  the  secrets  of  masonry.  The  priests  know  that  one  of  the  best 
modes  of  secreting  them  is  to  deny  that  they  exist.  Indeed,  the  heads  of  the  church  must  now 
see  very  clearly,  if  they  were  to  confess  what  cannot  be  denied,  that  (if  the  most  learned  and  re- 
spectable of  the  early  fathers  of  the  church  are  to  be  believed)  Christianity  contained  a  secret  reli- 
gion, that  the  populace  would  not  consent  to  be  kept  in  the  dark.  But  whether  the  secret  doc- 
trine be  lost  or  not,  it  is  a  fact  that  it  was  the  faith  of  the  first  Christian  fathers,  admitted  by 
themselves,  that  there  was  such  a  secret  doctrine,  and  before  I  have  done,  I  will  prove  it  clearly 
enough. 

On  the  mystical  nature  of  the  name  John  I  am  not  singular  in  my  opinion.  Mr.  Bryant,  in 
another  place,  says,3  "  The  ancient  and  true  name  of  the  dove  was,  as  I  have  shewn,  Ionah,  and 
"  Ionas.  It  was  a  very  sacred  emblem,  and  seems  to  have  been  at  one  time  almost  universally 
"  received.  For,  not  only  the  Mitzraim,  and  the  rest  of  the  line  of  Ham,  esteemed  it  in  this 
"  light :  but  it  was  admitted  as  an  hieroglyphic  among  the  Hebrews  :  and  the  mystic  dove  was 
"  regarded  as  a  symbol  from  the  days  of  Noah,  by  all  those  who  were  of  the  Church  of  God.  The 
"  prophet  who  was  sent  upon  an  embassy  to  the  Ninevites,  is  styled  Ionas  :  a  title  probably  be- 


»  Nirnrod,  Vol.  III. 

8  See  Basnage's  History  of  the  Jews,  Book  iii.  Ch.  xxiv.,  for  St.  Jerome's  account  of  it. 

3  Anal.  Anc.  Myth.  Vol.  II.  pp.  291,  293. 


648  john. 

"  stowed  upon  him  as  a  messenger  of  the  Deity.  The  great  Patriarch  who  preached  righteous- 
"  ness  to  the  Antediluvians,  is,  by  Berosus  and  Abydenus,  styled  Oan  and  Oannes,  which  is  the 
•"  same  as  Jonah.  The  author  of  the  Apocalypse  is  denominated  in  the  like  manner  :  whom  the 
"  Greeks  style  \toavvr\g,  Joannes.  And  when  the  great  forerunner  of  our  Saviour  was  to  be 
"  named,  his  father  industriously  called  him  Icoavvyg,  for  the  same  reason.  (The  name  was  im- 
posed antecedent  to  his  birth.)  The  circumstances,  with  which  the  imposition  of  this  name 
was  attended,  are  remarkable  ;  and  the  whole  process,  as  described  by  the  Evangelist,  well 
"  worth  our  notice.     Luke  i.  59,  &c,  *  And  it  came  to  pass  that  on  the  eighth  day/  &c." 

Indeed,  Mr.  Bryant,  you  say  very  truly — the  circumstances  are  well  worth  our  notice  :  but  why 
have  you  not  endeavoured  to  explain  them  ?  It  is  perfectly  clear,  that  the  Ionas  or  Oanneses 
were  types,  as  Mr.  Parkhurst  would  maintain,  of  the  John  of  the  gospel  histories,  or  the  gospel 
histories  were  copied  after  them.  On  this  subject  every  one  must  judge  for  himself.  I  only 
state  the  circumstances  as  impartially  as  I  am  able  j  my  private  judgment  or  opinion  I  retain,  till 
I  come  to  my  next  volume. 

When  Jesus  was  baptized  by  that  very  mysterious  character  looavvrjg  in  the  Jordanus,  the 
Holy  Spirit  descended  on  to  him  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  and  a  fire  was  lighted  in  the  river.  Now 
I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  a  mystic  union  was  meant  to  be  represented  here  between  the  two 
principles — in  fact  the  reunion  of  the  sects  of  the  Linga  and  the  Ioni  or  Dove — which  we  yet  find 
in  Jesus  and  his  mother  in  the  Romish  religion.  Justin  says,  when  Christ  was  baptized  a  fire  was 
lighted  in  Jordan.  The  same  thing  is  said  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Nazarenes  and  the  preaching  of 
Paul.1 

14.  In  the  Indian  account  of  Bala  Rama  and  Cristna,  a  difficulty  occurs.  Bala  Rama  is  evi- 
dently the  same,  and  is  said  to  be  the  same,  as  Cristna,  and  this  is  true  upon  the  principle,  as  I 
have  formerly  said,  that  they  are  both  incarnations  of  the  Sun.  But  they  are  the  same  on  another 
principle.  As  Bala  Rama,  this  person  is  an  incarnation  of  the  sun  in  his  cycle  of  the  Neros,  as 
Cristna,  of  the  sun  in  his  character  of  the  Zodiacal  sign  Aries.  This  is  the  Janus  of  the  West, 
the  Bifrons,  the  origin  of  the  Jains,  who  were  Buddhists  and  also  followers  of  Cristna,  as  far  as 
he  existed  in  his  character  of  Taurus  or  Aries,  but  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  separation  from  it 
of  the  female  power.  He  was  Brahma  with  his  four  faces.  Bala  Rama  was  the  precursor  of 
Cristna,  and  aided  him  in  the  destruction  of  monsters,  and  in  the  regeneration  of  the  world  and 
its  preparation  for  the  day  of  judgment ;  but  still  the  persons  who  thus  describe  him  also  say,  that 
he  was  the  same  as  Cristna.  The  word  Ram  means  both  Bull  and  male  Sheep— Ram.  This,  as 
I  have  before  stated,  is  because  he  was  an  incarnation  in  both  Taurus  and  Aries. 

Mr.  Bentley  thinks  he  has  proved  that  Rama  was  born  about  1200  years  before  Christ.  It  has 
been  often  observed  that  Rama  was  to  Cristna  what  St.  John  was  to  Christ ;  particularly  in  as- 
sisting him  in  clearing  the  world  of  monsters  and  in  preparing  it  for  a  day  of  judgment,  and 
that  he  was  an  inhabitant  of  the  desert.  The  identity  of  the  mythoses  cannot  be  disputed;  and  no 
doubt,  with  Cristna,  Rama  was  renewed  every  six  hundred  years.  But  the  exact  meaning  of  the 
parable  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover. 

Mr.  Payne  Knight,  speaking  of  Rameses,  who  is  probably  the  Egyptian  Rama,  says,  "  The  age 
"  of  Rameses  is  uncertain  ;  but  the  generality  of  chronologers  suppose  that  he  was  the  same 
"  person  as  Sesostris,  and  reigned  at  Thebes  about  1500  years  before  Christ.  The  Egyptian 
"  priests  had  a  tradition,  which  they  pretended  to  confirm  by  their  monuments,  that  he  had  con- 
quered all  Asia."2      This  Rameses  is  evidently  Rama— Isi.     But,  as  Mr.  Payne  Knight  observes, 


« 


1  Just  ag.  Tryph.,  Sect,  lxxxviii.  p.  60,  note.  8  Payne  Knight,  Evors.  Pr.  p.  89. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IV.     SECTION   14.  649 

it  is  pretty  clear  that  Homer  knew  nothing  of  this  king.  But  who  was  Sesostris  ?  Now 
I  think  Sesostris  was  a  Zoroaster,  who  was  Zur  or  Sur  astra.  Hyde1  says  "  Supradictus  Zer- 
"  dusht  apud  orientales  (ut  dictum)  decoratur  titulo  ^  Rad,  i.  e.  Sapiens."  Now  here  I  suppose 
that  the  $,  Rad  should  be  V  Ras.  Here  is  a  confirmation  of  what  I  have  said  of  the  Ras,  the 
Hakim,  and  the  Sapiens.  Dr.  Hyde  has  evidently  mistaken  or  found  the  ^  mistaken  for  the  i. 
In  the  life  of  Zoroaster  the  common  mythos  is  apparent.  He  was  born  in  innocence  of  an  imma- 
culate conception,  of  a  ray  of  the  Divine  Reason.  As  soon  as  he  was  born,  the  glory  arising  from 
his  body  enlightened  the  room,  and  lie  laughed  at  his  mother.  He  was  called  a  splendid  light  from 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  and,  in  fine,  he  or  his  soul  was  suspensus  a  ligno  hung  upon  a  tree,  and  this 
was  the  tree  of  knowledge.2  Let  it  be  remembered,  that  I  formerly,  in  Book  X.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  7, 
pointed  out  the  fact,  that  there  were  probably  as  many  Zoroasters  as  Cycles.  Here  we  have  the 
universal  mythos,  the  immaculate  conception  and  the  crucifixion  ;  and  we  find  this  crucifixion 
connected  with  letters  and  the  tree  of  knowledge. 

Among  the  Jews  and  among  the  Indians,  Rama  was  also  known  by  the  name  of  Menu  and 
Noah.  The  striking  similarity  of  Noah  to  Janus  has  been  remarked,  and  their  identity,  in  fact, 
admitted  by  every  person  who  has  written  upon  these  subjects.  The  proofs  of  it  to  any  person 
of  observation  have  been  exhibited  a  thousand  times  in  the  course  of  this  work.  I  apprehend  that 
Bala-Rama  is  said  to  be  the  same  as  Cristna,  because  his  cycle  ran,  in  part,  along  with  that  of 
Cristna.  It  was  probably  partly  before  the  flood  or  entrance  of  the  sun  into  Aries,  and  partly 
after,  as  Shem,  founder  of  one  of  the  cycles,  lived  partly  before  and  partly  after  it.  Thus  his 
cycle  was  on  the  decline  when  that  of  Cristna  began.  If  he  were  the  fourth  Avatar,  he  would 
begin  in  the  year  of  the  sign  Taurus  1801  ;  and  when  Cristna  began,  in  the  year  2161,  he  would 
have  passed  the  best  part  of  his  time  of  600  years,  viz.  360,  and  would  be  declining.  We  must 
not  forget  that  the  Brahmins  say,  Rama  and  Cristna  were  the  same.  Similar  to  this  might  be 
the  meaning  of  the  increase  of  Jesus  and  decrease  of  John,  just  now  pointed  out.  He  answers 
closely  to  John.  He  stands,  as  lately  remarked,  in  the  same  relation  to  Cristna  that  John  does  to 
Jesus.  He  is  now  to  be  seen,  as  the  reader  has  been  informed,  in  a  temple  a  few  miles  from 
Muttra  in  the  very  dress  of  Hercules,  as  described  by  Arrian  ;  and  yet  pious  people  persuade 
themselves  that  John  and  Jesus  are  the  originals  from  which  Cristna  and  Bala-Rama  are  copied.3 

When  we  come  to  the  next  Zodiacal  incarnation,  we  have  it  in  the  fish  Avatar  of  India,  and 
the  Dagon  of  the  Syrians;  and  as  the  Romish  Jesus  was  an  Avatar  in  the  same  intermediate  state, 
partaking  of  the  two  cycles,  we  ought  to  find  him,  as  we  have  found  him,  mixed  with  the  Zodiacal 
symbols  of  Pisces. 

In  reference  to  the  double  cycles,  namely  the  cycles  of  600  and  of  2160  years,  we  may  observe 
how  constantly  the  double  mythoses  of  the  Avatars,  of  the  Neros,  and  of  the  Zodiacal  signs,  keep 
shewing  themselves.  They  support  each  other.  A  close  attention  to  history  and  circumstance 
will  convince  any  one,  that,  in  the  West  at  least,  the  knowledge  of  the  system  was  becoming 
obscure  in  many  countries,  and  doubtful  in  all.  The  conquests  of  the  Scythians,  of  Cambyses,  of 
Alexander,  and  many  other  casualties,  operated  against  the  regular  transmission  of  the  system  ; 
but  still  it  may  be  found. 

In  addition  to  all  the  other  odd  circumstances  relating  to  the  Ioannes  and  St.  Peter,  I  have  to 


1  De  Rel.  Vet.  Pers  p.  312.  %  Vide  Malcolm's  Hist.  Pers.  Vol.  I.  Ap.  p.  494;  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  31. 

3  Eusebius  mentions  an  idol  dedicated  to  the  sun — KerpaXyv  upm  kiktviia.ovgv  zai  (3a<ri\etcv  Ktpccra  raaya  «%oj<,   viz.  havin^ 
the  lordly  and  regal  head  of  a  Ram  with  Goat's  horns.     Sharpe  on  Cherubim,  p.  149. 

4o 


650  BALA   RAMA. 

inform  my  reader  that,  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Nazarenes,  Peter  is  called  Simon  filius  Joannce. l    This 
shews  that  Jonas  and  Johannes  were  the  same. 

The  apostles  of  Jesus,  I  helieve,  were  most  of  them  fishermen.  There  are  many  stories  of  mi- 
raculous draughts  of  fish,  and  other  matters  connected  with  fishes,  in  the  Gospel  histories  ;  and 
Peter,  the  son  of  John,  Ioannes  or  Oannes,  the  great  fisherman,  inherited  the  power  of  ruling  the 
church  from  the  Lamb  of  God.  The  fisherman  succeeded  to  the  shepherd.  The  Pope  calls  him- 
self the  great  Fisherman,  and  boasts  of  the  contents  of  his  Poitrine. 

Vallancey  dit  que  Ionn  etoit  le  m&me  que  Baal.  En  Gallois  Jdn,  le  Seigneur,  Dieu,  la  cause 
premiere.  En  Basque  Janna,  Jon,  Jona,  Jain,  Jaincoa,  Jaunqoicoa,  Dieu,  et  Seigneur,  Maltre. 
Les  Scandinaves  appeloient  le  soleil  John,  pour  indiquer  qu'il  etoit  le  pere  de  l'annee,  ainsi  que  du 
ciel  et  de  la  terre.  Une  des  inscriptions  de  Gruter  montre  que  les  Troyens  adoroient  le  m£me 
astre  sous  le  nom  de  Jona?  En  Persan  le  soleil  est  appele  Jawnah.  Tous  ces  noras  ont  un 
rapport  evident  avec  le  Janus  des  Etrusques,  qui  etoit  considere  comme  le  Dieu  supreme,  et  que 
les  poems  saliens  appeloient  Deorum  Deus.3  On  pourroit  encore  rapprocher  ces  denominations 
de  l'Arabe  Janab,  Majeste,  pouvoir,  et  du  Persan  Jauan,  un  chef.4 

15.  Although  it  cannot  be  shewn  exactly  how  it  was  effected,  yet  I  think  no  person  who  con- 
siders all  the  circumstances  can  doubt  that  there  was  anciently  some  connexion  between  the 
Roman  God  Janus  and  St.  Peter — that  one  is  the  prototype  of  the  other.  Jesus  is  called  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  the  same  as  Janus,  and  his  religion  the  religion  of  the  God  of  Peace.  Peter  was  the  chief 
of  his  apostles.  His  name  was  originally  only  Simon,  but  he  was  surnamed  Peter  and  Cephas  by 
Jesus,  because  on  him  Jesus  said  he  meant  to  found  his  church.  As  successor  of  Janus  he  held  the 
keys  of  heaven.  Matthew,  as  briefly  quoted  already,  in  his  sixteenth  chapter  says,  ver.  1/,  And 
Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Blessed  art  thou,  Simoti  Bar- Jona ;  for  flesh  and  blood  hath 
not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  hut  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

Ver.  18,  And  I  say  unto  thee,  that  thou  art  Peter ;  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church, 
and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it. 

Ver.  19,  And  I  ivill  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt 
bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven  ;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed  in 
heaven. — John  says,  chap.  i.  ver.  42, 

And  when  Jesus  beheld  him,  he  said,  Thou  art  Simon,  the  son  of  Jona ;  thou  shalt  be  called 
Cephas,  which  is,  by  interpretation,  a  stone. 

There  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt,  that  out  of  some  tradition  not  understood  by  us  now  concern- 
ing Janus,  Peter  has  been  made  the  chief  of  the  twelve  apostles,  endowed  with  the  keys,  and  made 
keeper  of  the  gates  of  heaven.  In  this  case  the  process  by  which  the  effect  was  produced  is  lost, 
but  the  effect  itself  cannot  be  doubted ;  and  surely  in  all  this,  a  parable,  a  figurative  meaning, 
must  be  allowed. 5 


1  See  Jones  on  the  Canon,  Vol.  I.  P.  ii.  Ch.  xxv.  p.  269.  2  Jamieson's  Hermes  Scythicus,  p.  60. 

3  Creuz.  Symb.  p.  507,  in  Ausz.  4  Pictet,  Du  Culte  des  Cabiri,  p.  104. 

4  Many  years  ago  a  statue  of  the  God  Janus,  in  bronze,  being  found  in  Rome,  he  was  perched  up  in  St.  Peter's 
with  his  keys  in  his  hand :  the  very  identical  God— not  the  bronze  merely  melted  and  recast— but  the  identical  God 
himself,  in  all  his  native  ugliness,  as  is  proved  by  his  duplicate  in  stone,  which  I  found  in  the  vaults  below.  This  the 
Roman  priests  cannot  say  has  been  recast  from  the  old  bronze,  as  they  say  of  the  Peter  above-stairs.  This  statue  sits 
as  St.  Peter,  under  the  cupola  of  the  Church  of  St.  Peter.  It  is  looked  upon  with  the  most  profound  veneration  : 
the  toes  are  nearly  kissed  away  by  devotees.  The  priests,  when  charged  with  its  being  a  Heathen  God,  deny  it ;  they, 
however,  allow  that  the  bronze  anciently  formed  the  statue  of  a  Heathen  God,  but  they  say  it  was  recast  into  a  Peter, 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  15.  651 

On  the  Janus-T  have  some  very  curious  observations  from  Mackenzie  Beverley,  Esq.,  LL.  D.: 

"  Many  reasons  have  been  proposed  for  the  position  of  Janus  at  the  gates  of  cities,  but  the  true 
"  meaning  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  Ling-yoni  doctrine — than  which  none  is  more  ancient.  The 
"  arch  or  gate  of  Janus  was  a  symbol  of  that  mysterious  gate  through  which  all  men  and  animals 
"  enter  into  the  world,  and  over  which  the  two  or  four- faced  Janus  presided,  representing  the  sun 
"  rising  in  the  East  and  setting  in  the  West,  or  the  power  of  the  Sun  in  the  four  quarters.  The 
"  Sun,  Lord  of  Procreation,  was  in  his  most  ancient  human  figure  the  quadrifront  Janus  or  Brahma. 
"  The  quadrifront  Brahma  is  to  be  seen  occasionally  sitting  before  the  Lingam-Yoni,  presiding 
"  over  the  great  mystery ;  and  the  key  of  Janus  is  but  another  form  of  the  crux-ansata  of  Egypt, 
"  the  key  that  opens  the  arch  through  which  we  all  pass.  The  crux-ansata  is  the  lingam,  and  is 
"  the  monogram  of  the  planet  Venus,  the  key  that  opens  the  great  door  of  mystery  over  which  the 
"  veil  of  Isis  was  drawn.  This  key  is  in  the  hand  of  Janus-Sol,  because  it  opens  the  gate  of  the 
"  mysterious  arch.  But  as  the  sun  was  always  triplified  in  his  power,  and  as  the  triangle  is 
"  another  form  of  the  great  gate  of  mystery,  they  were  fond  of  erecting  triple  gates  in  the  East,  as 
"  in  the  triple  portal  or  Tripolia  of  the  Rajas  of  India,1  from  which  root  also  comes  the  word  Tri- 
"  poli.  From  the  Sanscrit  Pola,  we  have  the  Greek  7ruA>]  a  gate ;  and,  as  I  suspect,  the  pole  and 
"  phallus  always  inseparably  connected  with  the  mysterious  gate.  Pylos  signifies  also  a  pass,  and 
"  in  Sanscrit  these  natural  barriers  are  called  Palas,  which  I  consider  a  near  approach  to  the  Greek 
"  Phallus. 

"  Ganesa,  the  Indian  Janus,  was  expressly  formed  by  Oomia  (the  Indian  Juno,  and  the  Goddess 
"  Oum)  to  guard  the  entrance  of  her  caverned  retreat  in  Caucasus.  Ganesa  is  four-armed  and  car- 
"  ries  a  dirk,  a  club,  a  lotus,  and  a  shell :  the  two  last  are  emblems  of  the  female  mystery.  One 
"  of  the  gates  of  every  Hindu  city  is  called  Ganesa-pol;  clearly  pointing  to  Janus  or  Ganes,  Lord 
"  of  the  Pole,  May-Pole,  or  Phallus,  and  therefore  most  appropriately  made  to  guard  the  great 
"  Arch  of  mystery,2  through  which  all  must  enter."  In  the  cross  we  here  see  the  emblem  of  ge- 
neration, and  as  the  instrument  of  death  of  destruction — of  destruction  and  reproduction,  regene- 
ration,— of  the  Cycle  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  of  600. 

Jesus  Christ  was  an  incarnation  of  divine  Wisdom.  He  taught  that  he  was  the  door,  or  that 
through  him  was  the  entrance  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  He  that  entereth  not  by  the  door  is  a 
thief  and  a  robber.  Again,  J  am  the  door  of  the  sheep.  Again,  lam  the  door;  by  me  if  any  man 
enter  in  he  shall  be  saved.3      This  door  or  gate  is  the  7riA>j—  the  V?D  pll,  the  intercessor.     This  is 

(i.  e.)  Bar-Jonas.  Unluckily  for  the  veracity  of  these  priests,  the  ancient  stone  statue,  exactly  the  same,  found '  in 
the  vault  under  the  church,  shews  that  this  is  not  Bar  Jonas,  but  Jonas  or  Janus  himself.  It  will  be  objected,  that 
the  Peter  in  the  Vatican  Church  has  not  two  faces.  True :  but  one  may  have  been  removed  or  disguised ;  (there  is 
no  getting  at  it  to  examine  it ;)  or  the  Romans,  in  later  times,  may  have  so  far  improved  in  taste,  as  to  drop  the 
Hindoo  custom  of  making  monsters  of  their  Gods,  and  have  returned  to  the  good  taste  of  their  Etruscan  ancestors. 
I  helieve  the  present  statue  was  a  Janus,  and  not  a  Jupiter.  Probably  on  this  very  spot  the  rites  of  Janus  had  been 
formerly  celebrated  in  a  temple,  and  this  very  statue  found  underneath,  with  the  relics  of  the  God,  &c,  &c.  In  this 
way,  and  from  such  ridiculous  mistakes  of  the  ignorant  priests  of  the  middle  ages,  few  of  whom  could  either  write  or 
read,  and  all  of  whom  considered  Heathen  learning  as  wicked,  most  of  the  legends  of  the  Christians  had  their  origin. 
Very  likely  they  had  never  heard  of  Janus,  and  as  for  the  histories  of  the  early  popes,  as  given  by  Eusebius,  or  other 
writers  after  him,  they  are  evidently  unworthy  of  the  slightest  regard.  Almost  the  whole  is  a  manifest  forgery  of 
Eusebius's.  There  may,  perhaps,  have  been  such  persons  as  many  of  those  he  describes,  a  set  of  obscure  persons,  but 
not  any  thing  like  what  he  makes  them  out  to  have  been.  They  may  have  been  something  like  our  present  Methodists, 
with  a  similar  organization. 

'  Tod,  Hist.  Raj.  p.  589.  *  Royal-Arch— verbum  sapienti.  3  John  x   1,  9. 


1  I  saw  it. 
4o2 


652  BALA    RAMA. 

also  K-bD  pl-a,  wisdom,  Pallas.  This  is  the  Ganesa  Pol1  of  India,  the  Gate  of  Wisdom.  From 
this,  Pol  comes  to  mean  head.  Here  we  have  aenigma  within  senigma,  parable  upon  parable. 
When  Jesus  declares  himself  the  door  of  life,  surely  no  one  will  deny  the  allegory  or  figure  of 
speech,  and  it  is  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  declaration  that  he  taught  in  parables — that  the 
uninitiated  might  hear  and  not  understand. 

Amphipolis  is  Polis-om  ;  Am  or  Om-bra-sius  is  a  town  of  Om-creator,  *n!3  bra  ;  Om-phi,  voice 
or  Oracle  of  Om  ;  Om-phi-arius,  place  of  the  oracle  of  Om  :  Om-aiarius  is  Om-aria,  country  or 
place  of  Om.  Om-phale  is  Om-phallus  ;  and  what  is  phallus  but  a  formation  from  nbspla,  divine 
wisdom,  the  former  or  creator  ?  This  in  the  Greek  is  $AX=600.  Am-pulla  (of  Rheims)  is  the 
same.  All  the  superstitions  about  the  iro'hig,  the  pole,  and  the  gate,  arise  from  the  same  source. 
ITpo7ro>.o£  signifies  either  a  male  or  female  attendant ;  ctu.^nro'kog  only  a  female  attendant. 2  This 
seems  to  confirm  what  has  been  said  of  the  amphi. 

There  are  people  who  will  call  this  obscene  and  filthy  j  people  whose  minds  are  depraved  by 
the  education  of  monks  or  monachism.  To  me  they  are  most  beautiful  allegories.  Persons  who 
take  their  ideas  from  monks  are  incapable  of  raising  their  minds  above  the  debasing  ideas  enter- 
tained by  the  generality  of  persons  of  that  description.  To  them  these  beautiful  allegories  are 
invisible,  but  they  can  clearly  see  the  abuses  introduced  into  them  by  filthy  priests.  My  reader 
will  see  here,  as  justly  observed  by  Col.  Tod,  the  counterpart  of  the  Scripture  Gate,  in  which 
Haman  and  Mordecai  sat  to  administer  justice,  and  he  will  refer  to  what  I  have  said  in  Bk.  VII. 
Ch.  VI.  Sect.  7  &n{I  W>  respecting  the  various  Tripolis,  and  will  find  a  more  probable  origin  for 
their  name  than  I  was  acquainted  with  when  I  wrote  those  observations.  But  I  will  not  alter 
them  :  it  will  be  no  inconvenience  to  my  reader  to  permit  the  way  in  which,  by  degrees,  my  dis- 
coveries ripened  into  system,  to  shew  itself. 

Here,  as  Col.  Tod  has  observed,  and  it  is  very  worthy  of  observation,  we  have  the  origin  of  the 
Ottoman  Porte.  Did  the  Ottomans  bring  this  with  them  from  North-eastern  Tartary  ?  Or,  did 
they  find  it  among  the  Arabians  ?  The  Porte,  that  is,  the  Latin  or  Etruscan  word  Portus,  for  the 
Greek  7ru?o]  or  7ro?u£.  Hence  the  origin  of  our  ports ;  and  from  the  gate  of  Oudipoor,  called 
Ga.x\esa.-dwara,  comes  our  word  door.  The  Tripolis  of  antiquity  are  generally,  but  not  always,  sea- 
ports. But  still  a  polis  always  meant  a  city  ;  for  instance,  the  Decapolis  of  Syria.  This  was  an 
imitation  of  the  Decan  of  India,  which  lay  beyond  the  river  Buddha,  as  the  Decapolis  of  Syria 
lay  beyond  the  sacred  Jordan.  But  there  is  another  Pole  which  the  Colonel  has  forgotten  to 
notice — the  Pole  of  the  globe.  Why  does  the  axis  of  the  earth  bear  this  name,  but  because  it  is 
the  mundane  emblem  of  the  generative  power — the  sacred  Meru — with  the  beautiful  diamond  at 
the  end  of  it — the  Pole-star,  called  by  the  Arabians  the  star  of  Iude  or  Juda  ? 

I  have  no  doubt,  and  I  think  my  reader  will  now  have  no  doubt,  of  the  quarter  whence  came 
the  Latin  or  Etruscan  Janus — a  God  older  than  any  of  the  Gods  of  Greece.  He  will  not  fail  to 
be  struck  with  the  recollection  of  the  way  in  which  Janus  is  connected  with  several  other  matters — 
his  connexion  with  Peter,  with  Ioannes,  and  with  the  Juno  Argiva  or  Lucina — the  two  latter  both 
male  and  female.  The  Janesa  holds  in  his  hand  a  shell— sometimes  the  Cornu  Ammonis,  some- 
times the  beautiful  Argo-Argonautae — at  one  time  setting  or  supposed  to  set  its  pretty  sail,  and 
scud  before  the  wind ;  but  at  all  times  safe  from  the  stormy  billows ;  at  another  time  brooding 
on  the  surface  of  the  deep.     Who  can  doubt  that  these  have  their  names  from  India  ? 

Here  also  we  have  the  mystic  triangle,  (Freemasons  understand  this,)  and  the  triangle  tripli- 
cated, as  noticed  in  my  Celtic  Druids.     When  I  wrote  that  work  I  was  not  a  Mason.     It  is  no 


1  Ganesa,  God  of  Wisdom.  *  Monk,  in  Class.  Jour.  Vol.  XXXVII.  p.  126. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IV.     SECTION  16.  653 

secret,  but  it  is  a  Masonic  emblem ;  and,  as  Col.  Tod  has  observed,  is  found  with  other  Masonic 
emblems  on  probably  the  oldest  building  in  the  world,  the  Cyclopaean  walls  of  MuND-ore.  Did 
Masonry  arise  during  the  building  of  these  walls  ?  What  do  Masons  know  of  the  Temple  of 
Solomon  ?  Have  we  not  seen  that  parts,  at  least,  of  this  temple  were  built  of  the  sacred  wood 
2Dbn  almg  of  Rajahpoutana ?  Have  these  matters  any  thing  to  do  with  the  lodge  in  China;  l 
with  the  probably  much-calumniated  man  of  the  mountain,  and  the  Saracenic  Lodges,  or  Lodges 
of  the  Knights  Templars  ?  Why  do  the  priest-led  monarchs  of  the  continent  persecute  Masonry? 
Is  it  because  they  are  not  entrusted  with  its  secrets  ;  or,  because  their  priests  cannot  make  it 
subservient  to  their  base  purposes  ?  All  these  are  questions  I  may  ask,  gentle  reader  ;  but  all  I 
may  not  answer.  If  you  be  not  satisfied,  ask  his  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Sussex  :  he  can 
answer  you  if  he  chooses.  But  this  I  may  say,  it  is  not  every  apprentice  or  fellow-craft  who 
knows  all  the  secrets  of  Masonry. 

Masonry  is  not  inimical  to  priests,  or  kings,  or  religions  ;  but  though  it  is  not  an  active  enemy, 
it  is  no  friend  to  bad  priests,  or  bad  kings,  or  bad  morals.  Masonry  is  patronized  by  the  Royal 
family,  and  by  many  priests  in  Britain.  The  reason  of  this  is  no  Masonic  secret.  It  is  because 
the  princes  of  Britain  are  not,  and  desire  not,  to  be  the  tyrants  of  their  country,  and  because 
among  the  priests  of  Britain  are  to  be  found  many  who  are  neither  fanatical  nor  base  ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  men  possessed  of  every  virtue,  and  whose  misfortune  it  may  be,  but  not  whose  fault,  to 
belong  to  their  pernicious  order. 

16.  When  I  reflect  upon  the  many  evident  proofs,   already  so  often  noticed,  that  the  philoso- 
phers of  Greece  and  Rome,  the  Herodotuses,  the  Ciceros,  the  Cornutuses,  &c,    were  completely 
ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  their  mythologies,  and  yet  that  they  had  certain  great  mysteries  in 
which  they  were  all  initiated,  I  am  induced  to  devise   some  scheme  or  theory  to  account  for  this 
seeming  contradiction — and  I  have  come  to  an  opinion  that,  in  a  late   day,   these  mysteries  con- 
sisted in  part  in  a  knowledge  of  the  system  of  sacred  numbers  and  cycles,  and  in  the  first  princi- 
ples of  Gnosticism.     These  I  have  partially  unfolded,  and  they  were  so  closely  connected  toge- 
ther, that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  Pythagoras   adopted  or  invented  this   expedient  to 
conceal  his  doctrines.     What  else  was  there,  in  fact,  of  which  their  secret  mysteries  could  consist? 
I  have  shewn  by  historical  evidence,  that  all  their  Deities  resolved  themselves  into  the  sun :  and 
that  every  where  almost  within  the  reach  of  history,   the  nations — the  Latins,  the  Greeks,  the 
Egyptians,2   the  Indians,  the  Buddhists — had  no  images,   and  gave  no  names  to  their  Gods.  3 
And  if  the  mysteries  did  not  descend  from  or  were  not  the  learning  of  the  earliest  times,  which 
must  have  been  the  times  when  no  image  nor  names  of  Gods  existed,  of  what  could  they  consist  ? 
There  seems  to  have  been  scarcely  any  other  thing  for  them  to  have  consisted  of.     However,  of 
this  I  feel  pretty  confident,  that  I  have  shewn  the  principle  upon  which  all  the  ancient  mythology 
was  founded,  and  how  it  arose.     When  the  Gods  had  no  names  or  images,  how  was  it  possible 
for  them  to  have  existed  at  all  ?     How  was  it  possible  to  have  been  any  other  than  the  Deistical 
Buddhism  which  I  have  developed,  and,  at  first,  in  its  extremest  simplicity,  even  without  the 
icon  ?     This  I  suppose  to  have  been  about  the  time  when  the  earliest  Druidical  or  Cyclopaean 
buildings  were  erected,  and  it  accounts  for  their  existence — and  their  existence  in  cycles,  is  fact, 
not  theory,  and  connects  them  most  closely  with  the  Cyclic  system  of  renewed  incarnations,  which 
we  have  traced  up  to  the  first  Indians.     When  I  find  the  numbers  144,  600,  608,  650,  in  circles 


1  Vide  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  2  Larcher's  note  on  Herodotus,  Vol.  J.  p.  193  ;  Beloej  Ouseley's  Coll. 

3  Huet  has  observed  that  there  was  originally  no  image  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon.     Georg.  Alph.  Tib. 
p.  116. 


654  janus. 

of  stones  in  Britain,  I  cannot  doubt  that  they  alluded  to  the  cycles  of  the  same  numbers  in  India 
and  Greece. 

The  affectation,  indeed,  of  concealing  their  doctrines  or  discoveries,  was  among  the  ancients 
carried  to  an  extreme  that  is  scarcely  credible  j  and  this  practice  was  continued  down  to  a  much 
later  time  than  persons  who  have  not  inquired  into  these  matters  would  suspect.  Leibnitz  pub- 
lished, in  the  Acta  Eruditorum  of  Leipsic,  his  scheme  of  Differential  Calculation,  so  as  to  disclose 
neither  the  method  nor  the  object.  Leibnitz,  it  is  true,  was  detected  by  the  consummate  mathe- 
matical science  of  the  brothers  James  and  John  Bernouilli.  Newton,  in  like  manner,  explained 
his  invention  of  Infinite  Series,  and  yet  concealed  it  by  a  transposition  of  the  letters  that  make  up 
the  two  fundamental  propositions  into  an  alphabetical  order.  So  also  Algebra,  as  far  as  the 
Arabians  knew  it,  extending  to  quadratic  equations,  was  in  the  hands  of  some  Italians,  and  was 
preserved  nearly  300  years  as  a  secret. 1  With  respect  to  Algebra  I  suspect  it  was  known  in  the 
East  thousands  of  years  ago. 

In  the  mysteries,  the  initiated  swore  by  the  sacred  cycles  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  planets. 
"  Omnes  qui  inciderint,  adjuro  per  sacrum  solis  circulum,  inaequales  lunae  cursus,  reliquorumque 
"  siderum  vires  et  signiferum  circulum,  ut  in  reconditis  haec  haberent,  nee  indoctis  aut  profanis 
"  communicent,  sed  praeceptoris  memores  sint,  eique  honorem  retribuant."  2  This  surely  tends 
strongly  to  confirm  my  hypothesis,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  cycles  constituted  a  part  at  least  of 
the  sacred  mysteries. 

17.  I  will  here  shortly  notice  another  personage,  called  John,  who  is  very  problematical,  and 
has  been  the  object  of  much  inquiry,  and  of  whom  we  shall  say  more  presently. 

"  Dr.  Hakewill,  3  in  his  ingenious  '  Apologie  for  the  Power  and  Providence  of  God,'  cites  good 
"  authorities  to  shew,  what  cannot  but  seem  passing  strange,  that  the  wandering  Jew  was  in  the 
"  thirteenth  century  entitled  Johannes  Butta  Deus,  which  I  doubt  not  to  be  a  piece  of  crusading 
(t  erudition  brought  from  the  country  of  the  Drusian  and  Assassin  Curds." 

Again,  "  The  fable  of  the  wandering  Jew  is,  that  Jesus  said  to  the  man  who  reviled  him  when 
"  on  the  cross,  Thou  shalt  remain  till  I  come."4 

Again,  "  I  may  farther  observe,  in  conclusion  of  this  topic,  that  the  title  Johannes  Butta  means 
"  the  same  as  Presbyter  Johannes  Asiaticus,  a  sort  of  hierarch,  who  was  looked  up  to  with  sin- 
"  gular  awe  in  the  12th  and  13th  centuries,  and  who  was  probably  the  same  personage  as  the 
"  Senex  de  Montanis,  whose  Lieutenant  was  found  in  Phoenicia  by  the  leaders  of  the  third  cru- 
"  sade,  and  who  was  a5  Curd  or  Cordivian.6  When  the  Portuguese  had  visited  the  dominions 
"  of  the  king  or  Negus  of  the  Abyssines  in  Meroetic  ./Ethiopia*  they  pronounced  that  he  was 
"  Presbyter  Johannes,  but  they,  as  well  as  Mr.  Bruce,  assure  us  that  the  Abyssinian  kings  give 
"  themselves  out  for  an  Hybrid  race  of  Jews,  and  display  a  long  pedigree  of  their  lineal  descent 
"  from  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba :  which  explains  the  reason  why  the  Portuguese  thought 
"  the  Abyssinian  kingdom  was  that  of  Prestre  John  or  the  wandering  Jew.  The  prophecies 
*  above-cited  would  naturally  lead  the  inquisitive  to  seek  for  two  Prestre  Johns,  the  one  beyond 
"  the  rivers  of  Egypt,  and  the  other  beyond  the  rivers  of  Assyria."  7 

Again,  "  The  Ionian  expulsion  was  the  same  as  the  Iacchic  egression:  and  even  now,  when 
"  the  causes  of  their  connexion  have  been  long  forgotten,  the  name  Iacch  is  identified  with  John 

1  Southern  North  American  Review,  February,  1829,  p.  179. 

*  Selden,  de  Diis  Syr.— from  Vettius  Valens.  3  Lib.  iii.  Sect.  7,  P-  181,  Oxf.  1635. 

4  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  Sup.  Ed.  *  Marco  Polo,  Cap.  xxviii.  6  Galf  Vinisauf.  Lib.  vi.  Cap.  xxi. 

7  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  401. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  YJ .  655 

"  or  Johan,  and  is  said  to  be  a  diminutive  thereof,  though  it  be  of  exactly  the  same  length."  1 
Here  we  find  the  name  John  connected  with,  or  the  same  as,  Bacchus ;  the  reason  of  this  we  shall 
discover  in  a  future  book,  when  we  return  to  the  word  Johannes. 

"  But  what  strikes  me  most  forcibly  is,  the  story  put  about  by  the  Portuguese,  that  Presbyter 
"  John's  dominions  were  governed  by  a  queen  named  Helena."  2  "  This  fatal  name  speaks  vo- 
"  lumes.  The  whole  of  Illion,  the  nurse  of  Romulus,  the  Goddess  concubine  of  Simon  the 
"  Magian,  and  the  mother  of  that  baleful  catechumen  Constantine  the  Great."  3 

I  have  inserted  the  above  observation  to  call  my  reader's  attention  to  it,  as  I  am  quite  certain 
some  curious  meaning  lies  hid  under  the  mystical  character  of  the  Prester  John.  I  confess  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  understand  Nimrod,  though  the  name  of  Helena  may  speak  volumes.  I  wish  he 
had  been  a  little  more  explicit.  Johannes  or  John  was  called  X.p7)$og  Icoavvsg  by  Julian.  This 
Xpyjj-o?  I  believe  always  means  the  good  genius  of  a  cycle.  This  lioavvsg  Xp^fo^  decreased,  as 
the  IHS  Xp7]S"0£  increased. 

This  Joannes,  whom  Mr.  Bryant  indentifies  with  the  Oannes  of  the  Assyrians,  whom  the  Por- 
tuguese call  Presbyter,  and  John,  who  was  descended  from  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba  in 
Abyssinia,  and  whom  Mr.  Maurice  has  declared  to  be  the  fish  Avatar  of  India,  and  the  God  Dagon, 
and  who,  Nimrod  observes,  was  Johannes- Butta  Deus,  was  in  reality  a  renewed  incarnation  of 
Buddha ;  or,  perhaps,  rather  a  superstition  which  took  its  rise  from  the  half-understood  doctrine 
of  the  renewal  of  the  Indian  incarnations.  Jesus  is  made  to  declare  that  Joannes  should  remain 
till  he  came ;  that  is,  that,  as  the  fish  incarnation,  he  would  remain  until  the  end  of  the  six  mille- 
naries, which,  as  the  Equinoctial  incarnation,  he  would  do ;  for  the  fish  would  remain  the  equi- 
noctial incarnation,  or  the  emblem  of  it,  till  the  ten  less  avatars  were  all  finished.  This  suo-o-ests  a 
doubt  whether  all  the  Equinoctial  Avatars  were  not  Buddhas.  Of  this  Oannes  or  John  Mr.  Bryant 
says,  "Oannes  appeared  ev  ro>  7rp<oTcp  evjaura),4  for  time  commenced  from  his  appearance."5 

We  are  now  in  the  centre  of  the  land  of  mysticism.  Every  thing  is  a  parable,  an  aenigma,  a 
mystery.  What  can  be  more  mystical  than  Matthew's  expression,  that  Jesus  should  increase  and 
John  decrease  ?  What  can  be  more  mystical  than  what  we  have  seen  respecting  the  Joannes,  and 
Butta,  and  Deus  ?  What  more  mystical  than  the  expression,  that  John  should  stop  till  Jesus 
came  again  in  his  glory  ?  What  more  mystical  than  that  the  Baptist  was  Elias,  that  is,  in  plain 
Greek,  the  sun — 'H?uo£? 

Jonas,  the  amphibious,  was  swallowed,  and  returned  again  in  three  days  from  the  fish.  He  was 
the  same  person  as  Hercules  or  as  Heri-clo,  the  saviour  608,  swallowed  at  the  same  time  and 
place  with  Jonas,  who  (vide  Bk.  V.  Ch.  VI.  Sect.  6)  prophesied  the  destruction  of  Nineveh  about 
the  year  600  B.  C.     This  was  the  time  of  the  famous  central  eclipse  of  Thales,  6  or  conjunction  of 


■  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  170,  Sup.  Ed.  2  Purchas,  Pilg.  V.  pp.  744,  736,  742. 

3  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  280,  Sup.  Ed.  *  Alexand.  Polyhist.  apud  Eus.  Chron.  p.  6. 

5  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  357. 

6  The  eclipse  of  Thales  is  said  to  have  happened  in  the  year  610  B.  C.  See  Herodotus,  and  an  Essay  on  it,  by  M. 
Bailly,  in  the  Phil.  Trans,  for  1811 ;  Pritchard,  p.  442.  There  are  some  learned  dissertations  on  this  eclipse'  in  the 
first  four  volumes  of  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical  Transactions ;  but  the  last  dissertation  which  I  have  seen  upon  it,  is 
by  Sir  William  Drummond.  In  his  Origines,  he  makes  it  to  fall  in  the  year  603  before  Christ.  Vol.  IV.  p.  264.  See 
also  Hales's  Chronology,  Vol.  I.  I  beg  my  reader  particularly  to  attend  to  the  circumstances  that  this  central  eclipse 
or  conjunction  of  the  sun  and  moon,  was  the  birthday  of  Cyrus  the  Messiah,  whose  adventures,  we  have  before  seen 
were  partly  the  same  as  those  of  Cristna  of  India,  and  whose  name  Cyrus  is  a  solar  title :  and  that  this  was  exactly  the 
beginning  of  the  cycle  of  600  years  before  Christ.    Is  there  any  man  living  so  stupid  as  to  attribute  this  coincidence  to 


656  POLIS    MASONS. 

the  Sun  and  Moon,  the  time  when  the  oriental  Messiah,  Cyrus,  was  born,  he  having  the  solar  title,1 
and  who  having  established  the  Persian  monarchy  at  Babylon,  restored  the  Jews  and  abolished  ido- 
latry. He  is  still  worshiped,  under  the  name  of  Jonas,  on  Mount  Libanus,2  by  the  Curds  or  Cul- 
dees  formerly  named.  He  has  the  same  appellation,  according  to  Mr.  Bryant,  (vide  Bk.  VII.  Ch. 
V.,  Bk.  VIII.  Ch.  II.,)  as  the  half-man,  half-fish,  or  amphibious  being  called  Oannes,  who  appeared 
for  the  instruction  of  mankind,  &c,  according  to  Sanchoniathon  ;  the  same  as  Dagon,  which  was 
the  name  of  the  fish  which  harboured  Jonas,  or  saved  him,  and  the  meaning  of  which  is  saviour. 
This  Oannes  or  Ioannes  we  find  again  after  about  600  years,  born  of  an  aged  woman,  called  Anna, 
the  name  of  the  mother  of  the  Italian  Janus,  miraculously  foretold  by  the  prophet  Zacharias,  to 
whom  his  birth  was  announced  by  an  angel.  He  was  the  forerunner  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  called, 
as  above-mentioned,  by  the  celebrated  Julian,  Xprjfoj  lojccvvsg.  He  was  by  profession  a  saviour 
of  men  by  means  of  baptism  or  immersion,  like  Jonas  in  the  water.  Jonas  was  immersed  three 
days  in  the  ocean  for  the  salvation  of  the  Ninevites,  as  Jesus  afterward  was  buried  three  days  for  the 
salvation  of  the  Jews  and  of  mankind.  After  this  we  find  another  person  called  Ioannes,  a  fisherman, 
beloved  by  Jesus,  of  whom  Jesus  declared  from  the  cross  that  he  should  not  die  till  his  return.  And 
after  this,  another  Ioannes,  who  had  revelations  from  God ;  and,  at  last,  we  have  that  Ioannes 
ordered  by  Jesus  to  remain  till  his  return,  as  Ioannes,  Butta,  and  Deus,  or  the  fish,  or  Oannes 
God  Buddha.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  any  thing  altogether  more  mystical  than  the  character 
of  I-oannes,  whom,  it  will  be  recollected,  Mr.  Bryant  declared  to  be  the  same  as  Oannes.  Now 
John  the  Baptist  or  the  Prophet,  Regenerator  by  means  of  water,  who  was  also  a  revived  Elias, 
was  the  immediate  forerunner  of  Jesus — in  almost  every  respect  an  exact  copy  of  Bala-rama,  the 
forerunner  of  Cristna.  And  John  the  Baptist,  or  Saviour  of  men  by  means  of  water,  was  the 
Oannes  or  Avatar  of  Pisces,  as  Buddha  was  of  Taurus,  and  Cristna  of  Aries  ;  or,  according  to  Mr. 
Parkhurst's  doctrine,  Oannes  was  the  type  of  the  Baptist,  if  ever  he  appeared  ;  and,  if  he  did  not, 
then,  according  to  Mr.  Parkhurst,  the  history  must  have  been  a  figurative  representation  of  an 
avatar,  foretelling  the  Baptist. 

John  the  Baptist  was  born  on  the  25th  of  June,  the  day  of  the  solstice,  so  that  he  began  to  de- 
cline immediately.  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  or  the  enlightener,  or  teacher  of  glad-tidings,  Avas 
born  at  the  same  time  of  the  year ;  (but,  as  it  is  said,  two  days  after  Jesus  ;)  and  as  Osiris,  and 
Bacchus,  and  Cristna,  and  Mithra,  and  Horus,  and  many  others.  This  winter  solstice,  the  25th  of 
December,  was  a  favourite  birth-day.  The  English  prayer  on  this  Saint's  day  is,  "  Merciful  Lord, 
"  we  beseech  thee  to  cast  thy  bright  beams  of  light  upon  thy  church,  that,  it  being  enlightened  by 
"  the  doctrine  of  thy  blessed  apostle,  may  so  walk  in  the  light  of  thy  truth,"  &c.  This  is,  I  pre- 
sume, from  the  Romish  church,  and  it  is  unquestionably  from  the  Gentile  Gnostics,  of  whom  I 
shall  presently  treat. 

Lightfoot3  observes  of  the  births  of  John  and  Jesus,  "So  the  conceptions  and  births  of  the 
"  Baptist  and  our  Saviour,  ennobled  the  four  famous  Tekuppas  (Revolutions)  of  the  year:  one 
"  being  conceived  at  the  summer  solstice,  the  other  at  the  winter :  one  born  at  the  vernal  equinox, 
"  the  other  at  the  autumnal." 

18.  In  the  Eastern  countries,  chiefly  now  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Bussora,  there  exists  a  sect 
called  Mandaites,  Hemerobaptists,  Nazoreans,  Nazareans,  Nazireans,  and,  among  the  Mussel- 
mans,  Nousairiens.  They  are  evidently  all  the  same  sect,  only  with  some  slight  shades  of 
difference,   which  must  necessarily  arise  between  the  parts  of  a  sect,   scattered  into  distant  coun- 


1  Vide  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  XXI.  p.  59.  2  See  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  Ch.  xiii. 

3  Exer.  on  Matt.  Ch.  iii.  Vol.  II.  p.  1 13. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    IV.    SECT.    18.  657 

tries,  and  unconnected  for  long  periods,  and  divided  by  difference  of  language.  No  doubt  they 
may  be  subdivided  into  sects,  as  our  Protestants  of  the  Church  of  England  may  be  divided  into 
Evangelicals  and  Non-evangelicals  :  but  my  spectacles  do  not  magnify  so  much  as  to  enable  me 
to  treat  on  those  minute  differences.     They  are  noticed  by  the  learned  Matter. ' 

This  is  a  sect  named  by  St.  Epiphanius,  and  said  by  him  to  have  been  in  existence  before  the 
time  of  Christ,  and  not  to  have  known  the  Saviour.  These  people  have  a  book  called  the  book  of 
Adam,  in  which,  Mons.  Matter  says,  is  the  mythos  of  Noe  and  most  of  Genesis,  but  he  says  they 
equally  detest  the  Jews  and  Christians,  and  put  their  founder,  the  Hemero-baptist  John,  in  the 
place  of  the  Saviour :  that  is,  in  other  words,  that  their  founder  was  a  Saviour  or  incarnate  person. 
This  is  very  important — these  people  having,  as  Epiphanius  informs  us,  existed  as  a  sect  before 
the  time  of  Christ.  They  have  in  their  mythos  a  person,  the  Principe  de  Fie,  Abatour,  TinxnN 
abatur,  pater  taurus,  which  answers  to  the  Kaiomorts  of  the  Zendavesta,  translated  Taurus.  This 
Abatour  had  a  son,  the  creator,  called  Feta-Hil  or  El-Phtha  (noticed  by  Matter,  Vol.  II.  p.  203)  ; 
but  El-Phtha  is  the  God  Phtha,  or  <p-Q-a-g— $=500,  0=9,  «=1,  i=90,=600,  before  named. 

If  an  impartial  person  will  consider  the  history  of  John  the  Baptist,  he  will  at  once  perceive, 
that,  as  an  adjunct  or  a  precursor  of  Jesus,  he  is  totally  unnecessary  to  the  system.  The  pre- 
tended prophecies  of  him  are  actually  ridiculous,  and  his  baptizing  nothing  peculiar  to  him,  but  a 
common  Mithraitic  rite,  practised  in  his  time  by  multitudes  of  wandering  devotees  of  the  latter 
religion.  That  there  was  such  a  man  can  hardly  be  doubted  ;  and,  like  Jesus,  he  had  his  apostles 
and  disciples  ;  of  the  former,  twelve  in  number ;  of  the  latter,  thirty,  instead  of  seventy.  His 
sect  existed  before  the  date  ascribed  to  Jesus,  and  were  called  Hemero-baptists,  and,  as  above 
shewn,  they  yet  continue.  A  short  account  of  them  may  be  found  in  Mosheim's  Commentaries.  2 
There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  John  may  not  have  been  a  relation  of  Jesus  Christ's,  or  why  he 
may  not  have  baptized  him.  He  may  have  admitted  him  by  the  ceremony  of  baptism  into  his 
sect :  this  ceremony  may  have  been  then,  as  it  still  continues,  a  badge  of  his  religion.  And  from 
this,  all  we  read  respecting  him  in  the  gospel  histories  may  have  had  its  origin. 

These  people  hold  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal  renewal  of  worlds ;  they  abhor  all  bloody  sacri- 
fices ;  and  they  do  not  use  the  rite  of  circumcision.  Hence  I  think  we  may  conclude  that  they 
are  descendants  of  the  ancestors  of  Melchizedek.  From  the  Jews  they  cannot  have  come;  for,  if 
they  had,  they  would  have  had  the  rite  of  circumcision :  and  from  the  Christians  they  cannot  have 
come,  because  they  existed  before  Christianity.  My  reader  will  please  to  observe,  that  these 
Mandaites  or  Nazareens  or  disciples  of  St.  John,  are  found  in  central  India,  and  that  they  are 
certainly  not  disciples  of  the  Western  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  He  will  also  recollect  what  has  been 
said  respecting  Joannes  Butta  Deus  or  Prester  John,  or  the  old  man  of  the  mountain,  as  he  was 
often  called.  In  Lardner's  Cabinet  Cyclopaedia,3  it  is  said,  by  a  missionary  called  Carpini,  that 
the  Mongol  army  marched  into  Greater  India,  and  fought  the  king  of  that  country,  called  Prester 
John. 

M.  Matter  has  given  the  meaning  of  Manda,  the  origin   of  Mandaism  in   the  word  Gnosis.4 
This  suits  very  well  with  my  belief,  that  all  Gnosticism  came  originally  from  India,   and  perhaps 
from  Mundore.     Mundus  in  Latin,  xo(T[xo§  in  Greek,  we  know  means  cycle  or  circle.     Aioov  we 
know  also  means  a  period  of  time  or  cycle.     And  I  think  Matter  very  correctly  says,  "  Les  D>t£^y 
"  olsim,  aiuyvss  sont  a  la  fois  les  mondes,  les  periodes  de  temps,  et  les  intelligences,  qui  vivent 


1  Hist.  Gnostiques,  Vol.  II.  Ch.  iv.  Sect.  iii.  p.  394.  s  Int.  Ch.  ii. 


Vol.  I.  p.  258.  *  Hist.  Gnost.  Vol.  II.  pp.  400,  40/. 

4p 


658  MANDAITES. 

"  dans  ces  peviodes  et  dans  ces  mondes." '  Again,  he  says,  "  Le  nom  de  Mandai  offre  une  cer- 
"  taine  analogie  avec  celui  de  Gnostiques.  Manda,  JHJQ  mndo,  en  Chaldeen,  signifie  science — 
"  yvuxrig :  le  Manda  di  hai,  la  science  de  la  vie,  est  un  des  genies  celestes,  comme  la  Tvaxrig 
"  des  Barbelonites."2  From  this  it  is  clear  that  Mand — or  Mundore,  the  last  syllable  meaning 
town  or  place,  will  be  city  oftvisdomJ  And  the  Mandaites  or  Nazareens  are  no  other  than  the 
sect  of  Gnostics,  and  the  extreme  East  the  place  of  their  birth.  We  must  not  forget  that  the 
word  jn3D  mndo  correctly  means  yvcocris— Mundul-ooe,  Mundul-eeh,  that  is,  Mundul-aia  (Greek) 
circle  or  tract  of  country — Mando  meaning  ivisdom  :4  it  is  probable,  I  think,  that  these  Mandaites 
may  have  been  Chaldseans  or  followers  of  Cali,  under  another  name — the  word  Cali  having  the 
meaning  of  callidus,  wise  as  well  as  beautiful.     Vide  Book  X.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  7* 

I  quite  agree  with  M.  Matter,  that  their  numerous  sacred  books  deserve  a  much  more  careful 
examination  than  they  have  hitherto  received,  and  I  think  the  sect  comes  from  Mundore  in  India. 

19.  In  the  Tibetian  language  John  is  called  Argiun.5    This  is  Arjoon,  (Ar-John,)  the  coadjutor 

of  Cristna. 

Near  the  small  temple  at  Malvalipuram,  or  the  City  of  the  Great  Bali,  hollowed  out  of  a  single 
mass  of  Granite  about  26  feet  long  and  14  feet  broad,  is  a  figure  of  Cristna  and  Arjoon,  with  some 
inscriptions  in  a  very  ancient  character  and  now  totally  unknown.6  The  size  of  the  stones  used 
in  the  Druidical  temples  is  equalled  by  that  of  those  in  the  temples  of  India.  Some  of  these,  as 
at  Seringham,  on  the  river  Caveri,  being  30  feet  in  length.  On  these  stones  are  inscriptions  in 
characters  now  totally  unknown.7 

As  Jesus  was  IX0TS  with  the  mystic  monogram  I,  prefixed,  I-IX0YS,  and  the  Deity  of 
Egypt  was  Omtha  with  the  mystic  monogram  M,  prefixed,  M-omtha,  so  may  Ixion,  divine  love 
crucified,  have  been  X-ion  with  the  mystic  X  prefixed  ;  and  again,  Caesar  X-aesar  :  and  Iohn  may 
have  been  the  lone  or  Spiritus  Mundi,  the  Dove,  the  crucified  Semiramis,  who  flew  away  in  the 
form  of  a  Dove.  What  does  the  X-Iov  look  like  ?  Ion  lonseus  or  Di-Ion-eus.  It  is  possible 
that  the  Xpvj^,  mitis,  benignus,  may  have  obtained  this  meaning  as  well  as  the  prophetic  con- 
nexion evident  in  the  p^gij,  fr°ra  tne  X  and  P  and  S=600;  and  XPHSz:608. 

The  remarkable  use  of  the  M,  puzzled  Vallancey  as  well  as  Young.  He  says,  M,  in  many 
words,  is  only  the  sign  of  a  noun  denominating  the  instrument  of  the  action,  as  in  the  Oriental 
languages. 8  All  nonsense.  It  would  have  been  better  to  have  said  he  knew  nothing  about  it. 
The  word  Magicus  was  originally  written  by  Cicero  Majicus.  He  also  wrote  Ajio  and  Mafia.  Is 
it  possible  that  the  Mage  may  have  been  age  or  qfe  with  the  monogram  prefixed  ? 

It  has  been  repeatedly  observed,  that  the  M  is  often  prefixed  to  words  in  a  way  that  is  quite 
unaccountable.  I  will  try  to  explain  it.9  Every  one  knows  that  the  vine  was  sacred  to  Bacchus. 
The  final  letter  M  stands  for  600,  now  the  length  of  the  Neros  $  but  I  have  shewn  in  Book  V. 
Ch.  II.  Sect.  5,  that  the  length  of  this  cycle  was  at  first  supposed  to  be  666.  This  was  made  up 
of  M  its  figure  or  monogram  and  vin  its  name.  Vin  was  the  name  of  the  letter  M,  when  the 
letters  had  the  names  of  trees  in  Irish  and  Hebrew,  and  jointly  they  made  666,  the  number  in  that 
very  early  day  sacred  to  Buddha,  Bacchus,  and  Sol  in  Taurus, 10  thus  : 


1  Hist.  Gnost.  Vol.  II.  p.  408.  »  Codex  Nazar.,  I.  p.  62, 

3  See  Parkhurst  in  voce  1JD  mnd,  m»  mdo,  and  jn>  ido,  V.  and  VII. 

4  Parkhurst,  p.  274.  5  Georg.  Alp.  Tib.  xcv.  6  Ibid.  Vol.  II.  p.  92. 
7  Crauford's  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  85.                      ■  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Part  ii.  p.  228. 

9  Refer  to  Book  V.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  4.  10  Carmel  was  vineyard  of  God. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER   IV.    SECTION    19.  659 

M  s=  600 

n    =  6 

i    =  10 

n    =  50 


666 


Muin  the  name  of  the  letter  M  in  the  old  Irish.  \  After  the  error  of  the  666  was  discovered,2  and 
after  the  equinoctial  sun  got  into  Aries  j  when  Cristna  arose  and  Buddha  became  a  heretic,  for  the 
double  reason,  666  became  the  mark  of  the  beast,  of  the  dead  cycle,  and  X  was  then  substituted. 
But  still  in  the  arithmetic  the  M  in  some  nations  would  continue  to  keep  its  power.  The  Irish 
and  the  Hebrews  kept  it,  the  Greeks  changed  it,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  table  above  cited,  to  the  X 
for  600. 
Neilos,  or  the  river  sacred  to  the  Sun,  was  thus  described  in  my  Celtic  Druids  : 


N 

= 

50 

E 

= 

5 

I 

= 

10 

A 

= 

30 

O 

= 

70 

2 

200 
365 

But  it  was  more  anciently  thus,  for  the  Egyptians  at  first  supposed  the  year  to  consist  only  of 
360  days  : 

N   =     50 

1  =  10 
A  =  30 
O  =    70 

2  =  200 

360 

But  the  Nile  was  called  Sir  or  Sur,  or,  in  Hebrew,  Sr.  It  has  been  before  observed  that  the 
Eastern  people  often  changed  the  T  for  the  S,  and  vice  versa,  and  wrote  Cutites  for  Cusites,  Turia 
for  Suria,  and  vice  versa.  Now  n  T  in  Hebrew  is  400,  and  *")  R  is  200,  this  makes  TR  stand  for 
600. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Hales  distinctly  admits  that  a  tradition  of  six  millenary  ages  of  the  world  pre- 
vailed throughout  the  East,  and  was  propagated  to  the  West,  by  the  Sibyls  and  others  j 3  and  he 
expressly  founds  an  argument  upon  the  fact  that  Christ,  to  use  his  words,  the  star  of  Jacob,  the 
star  of  our  salvation,  the  true  Apollo  or  sun  of  righteousness,  the  prince  of  peace,  was  actually 
born  in  the  sixth  millenary  age. 

Whatever  offence  I  may  give  by  the  assertion,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  what  the  Rev. 
Robert  Taylor  has  said,  respecting  the  epithets  of  Christ  being  applicable  to  the  sun,  is  true. 
They  meet  us  at  every  step  we  take  in  forms  innumerable,  and  would  be  seen  by  every  one  if  not 
prevented  by  early  prejudice.  Of  these  assertions  I  need  not  produce  a  stronger  proof  than  the 
glory  or  rays  of  light  round  the  head  of  Christ.  They  mark  the  solar  incarnation  in  a  way  which 
devotees  may  disguise  to  themselves,  but  which  the  prejudices  of  education  only  prevent  them 


1  See  Table,  Prel.  Obs.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  47.  *  See  Book  V.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  5. 

3  Chron.  Vol.  I.  p.  44. 

4p2 


660  jasius. 

from  seeing.  But  have  we  not  seen  that  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity  was  the  Sun,  or  that 
higher  principle  of  which  the  sun  is  the  emblem ;  that  higher  principle  which  was  addressed  by  all 
the  higher  classes  of  the  nations  of  antiquity,  when  they  addressed  the  Sun ;  precisely  as  Jesus 
Christ  is  addressed  by  an  enlightened  Catholic  when  he  addresses  a  crucifix ;  and  as  the  Persian 
addressed  the  Sun — Oh  Thou  from  whom  Thou  receivest  thy  splendour,  &c. 

20.  We  will  now  inquire  into  the  history  of  a  person  called  Jasius. 

Mr.  Bryant  says,  "Justin  places  him  (Jason)  in  the  same  light  as  Hercules  and  Dionusus,  and 
"  says,  that,  by  most  of  the  people  in  the  East,  he  was  looked  up  to  as  the  founder  of  their  na- 
"  tions,  and  had  divine  honours  paid  to  him.  Itaque  Jasoni  totus  ferme  oriens  ut  conditori, 
a  divinos  honores,  templaque  constituit.  I  suspect,  that  iEson,  Jason,  Jasion,  and  Jasius,  were 
"  originally  the  same  title ;  though  at  this  time  of  day  we  cannot  perhaps  arrive  at  the  purport." 
On  this  Mr.  Bryant  has  the  following  note  :  "  It  may  be  worth  while  to  see  the  history  which  the 
"  mythologists  give  of  these  personages.  Jasus  was  the  son  of  Argus.1  Jasius,  Janigena,  teni- 
"  pore  Deucalionis,  cujus  nuptiis  interfecit  Io.  Hoffman  from  Berosus.  louriwv  Arj^rirpos 
"  epao-Qeis.  See  Servius  in  iEneid.2  I«>  Iao-co  $-oyaT7jp.3  Ia<r8  Bcopog.4  Mson  was  re- 
"  stored  to  second  youth."5  I  think  few  persons  who  consider  this  will  doubt  that  Ias-on  was 
only  the  person  who  had  the  sacrum  nomen,  cognomen,  et  omen,  IH^-og,  with  the  Greek  termi- 
nation, and  IHS-us  the  same  person  with  the  Latin  termination — the  Hesus  of  Gaul  and  Caesar. 

Quand  les  Juifs  furent  soumis  aux  rois  Grecs  de  la  Syrie,  le  Grand  pretre  Jesus,  se  fit  appeler 
parmi  les  Grecs  Jason.6 

D'Anville,  in  lat.  37,  long.  45,  has  a  gulf  of  Issius.  Pliny "'  calls  this  the  gulf  of  Iasius.  As 
both  words  come  from  the  Hebrew  word  yt£»  iso,  to  save,  it  may  have  had  both  names.  Does  this 
prove  that  Isis  and  Jesus  were  the  same  names  ?  Isis  was  both  Ceres  and  Bacchus,  and  was  thus 
both  male  and  female.     Close  to  the  Gulf  Issius  stands  the  town  of  Iassus. 

There  is  a  very  singular  expression  in  Virgil,  Iasiusque  pater,  genus  a  quo  principe  nostrum  : 
"  And  father  Jasius,  from  which  prince  our  race  is  descended:"8    i.  e.  Caesar  descended. 

I  take  Jasius  or  Iasion  son  of  Abas  (father)  and  Jupiter,  to  be  the  same  as  Jasus,  son  of 
Triopas  :  see  Lempriere  in  voce.  Iasius  had  a  daughter  called  lasis.  This  was  Isis.  Nimrod 9 
shews  that  this  Iasius  was  the  Babylonian  Jove ;  and,  probably,  that  the  titles  of  Yazeedis,  Yas- 
sidis,  Yezidis,  or  Jezidis,  were  corruptions  of  the  Assyrian  Iasides.  Here  is  evidently  the  Yes- 
dan  of  the  Desatir,  the  name  of  the  sun.  Nimrod  observes,  that  Yezd,  in  Persian,  means  either 
Dieu  tout-puissant,  or  the  evil  principle.  Here  is  the  destroyer  and  regenerator.  But  Yezd  is 
only  TH^-di,  dis,  divus. 

As  applicable  to  all  these  cases  I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  what  was  said  before,  and  in  the 
Celtic  Druids,  of  this  THS  meaning  T— 400,  S=200,  H— 8,  =608,  the  sacred  nomen,  cognomen, 
et  omen. 

It  is  very  much  the  fashion  with  certain  learned  men  to  turn  into  ridicule,  to  treat  with  con- 
tempt, the  exposition  of  names  by  numbers,  and  Sir  W.  Drummond  has  called  it  buffoonery. 
But  buffoonery  or  not,  is  not  the  question.  The  question  is  not  whether  it  be  or  it  be  not 
foolish,  but  whether  almost  all  those  whom  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  the  great  men  of 
antiquity  were  not  the  contrivers  and  practisers  of  this  buffoonery,  and  whether  they  did  not  con- 
ceal their  knowledge  beneath  it.     If  it  be  answered  in  the  affirmative,  then  where  can  we  look 


1  Apollod.  Lib.  i.  pp.  59,  60.  2  Lib.  iii.  ver-  168.  3  Pausan.  Lib.  ii.  p.  145. 

4  Ibid.  p.  412.  s  Bryant,  Vol.  II.  p.  515.  6  Salverte  sur  les  Noms,  Vol.  I.  p.  369. 

7  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxix.  8  ^neid  iii.  168.  9  Vol.  I.  p.  70,  Ed.  2. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  IV.    SECTION  20.  661 

with  so  much  probability  of  success  for  ancient  learning  as  under  this  fool's  dress,  if  it  be  foolish  ? 
I  promise  my  reader  that  by  its  means  I  shall  by  and  by  make  a  discovery  which  will  satisfy  him, 
that  it  was  originally  any  thing  but  buffoonery.  But  before  I  conclude  this  chapter,  I  must  give  him 
one  more  example  of  it.  Mons.  Matter,  speaking  of  the  ancient  Cabbala  and  the  Adam,  Kadmon, 
says,  "  Tout  est  lie  dans  l'antique  Asia,  et  a  chaque  pas  de  plus  que  nous  faisons  dans  l'histoire 
de  ses  monuments,  nous  decouvrons  une  nouvelle  preuve  de  ce  grand  fait.  II  y  a  m6me,  dans 
l'example  special  qui  nous  occupe,  une  analogie  de  nom  qui  est  frappante  :  l'image  de  Seir  Anpin 
se  compose  de  243  members,  nombre  exprime  par  les  letters  D"DN  Abrm  Abram,  Bramah." l 
A=l,  B=2,  R=200,  M=40,  total  —  243.  Abrm,  Bram,  Brma.  This  is  to  me  convincing  evi- 
dence of  what  was  meant  by  the  Seir  Anpin.  And  it  is  also  a  curious  proof  of  what  I  have  for- 
merly taught,  that  Abraham  was  a  Brahmin. 

Again,  Matter  says,2  "  that  there  is  one  who  watches  the  march  of  the  sun,  and  that  he  has  under 
"  his  command  296  armies,  and  is  called  in  Hebrew  harez,  that  is,  arez  :"  N=l,  "\zi2Q0,  n=:5, 2f  (tzdi) 
=90,  totalz=296.  I  cannot  conceive  proofs  of  a  practice,  although  it  may  be  buffoonery,  more  striking 
or  convincing  than  these.  It  is  surprising  to  me  that  while  these  gentlemen  admit  that  all  these 
Gnostic  doctrines,  found  at  Alexandria  and  in  Syria,  came  from  the  East,  they  scarcely  ever  go  to 
the  East  of  these  places  to  seek  their  origin,  but  seek  them  in  the  West.  I  call  every  place  West 
which  is  West  of  the  Indus.  Now  that  we  have  access  to  all  the  learning  of  the  East,  this  neglect 
is  inexcusable. 

Critias  makes  Solon  say,  that  neither  he  nor  any  other  of  the  Greeks  had  any  knowledge  of 
remote  antiquity. 3  He  afterward  makes  the  Egyptian  priest  declare  to  Solon,  that  there  have 
been  many  deluges  of  the  earth,  and  that  a  most  illustrious  and  excellent  race  of  men  once  inha- 
bited Greece,  of  whom  the  Grecians  are  perfectly  ignorant,  their  ancestors  having  lost  the  use  of 
letters,  in  consequence,  he  seems  to  mean,  of  the  last  flood. 4  Again,  Plato  says,  For  the  cause 
of  this  is  as  follows  : — Solon  intending  to  insert  this  narration  into  his  verses,  investigated  for  this 
purpose  the  power  of  names,  and  found  that  those  first  Egyptians  who  committed  these  particu- 
lars to  writing,  transferred  these  names  into  their  own  tongue.  He,  therefore,  again  receiving 
the  meaning  of  every  name,  introduced  that  meaning  into  our  language. 5  All  this  tends  to  prove 
a  once  great  people  in  Greece,  who  must  have  been  the  persons  who  erected  the  Cyclopaean  build- 
ings. Was  this  really  the  nation  ruled  by  Pandea,  like  an  Alexander  ?  We  know  how  he  suc- 
ceeded. What  happened  to  him  may  have  happened  before.  There  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun.  A  little  time  ago  I  noticed,  from  the  Cambridge  Key,  the  identity  of  Grecian  and  Eastern 
mythoses.  The  passage  of  Plato  shews  that  we  ought  to  look  to  the  East  for  the  meaning  of 
proper  names. 

I  shall  now  assume  that  the  Sibylline  Oracles  are  genuine,  and  that  they  foretell  the  Chrestos 
or  the  ninth  Avatar,  in  whom  also  is  blended  the  Jish  Avatar.  This  is  exactly  what  took  place 
with  Cristna.  In  his  person  he  was  mingled  both  with  Taurus  or  Buddha  and  with  Bala  Rama. 
And  here  we  have  mingled  together  Buddha,  Dagon,  Pisces,  Jonah,  and  Jesus  or  the  Lamb,  and 
we  have  Cristna  and  Arjoon,  (Ar-John,)  Jesus  and  Iohn,  I-Oannes.  In  every  case  I  suspect 
Buddha  will  be  found  to  be  a  name  of  the  Zodiacal  incarnation — perhaps  of  every  incarnation. 
No  doubt  all  this  will  surprise  my  reader  very  much,  but  it  will  not  surprise  him  more  than  it  has 
done  me.     But  the  facts  cannot  be  denied. 


1  Voy.  Kabbala  denudata  appar.  ad  libr.  Sohar,  Part  iv.  p.  212  ;  Matter  on  Gnostics,  Vol.  I.  p.  104. 

2  In  p.  114.  3  Plato  by  Taylor.  4  Ibid.  «  Ibid.  p.  582. 


662  SALIVAHANA. 

/ 

CHAPTER  V. 

SALIVAHANA. THOMAS. SHARON     TURNER.  —  CHALDEE    TONGUE. — TAMAS.  —  JESUITS. — VICRAMADITYA. — 

RAMA. DANIEL.  — CRUSADES. — MOHAMED. — SUBJECT   CONTINUED. — M — OM— OMD. 

1.  Whether  it  were  originally  a  part  of  the  system,  that  there  should  be  only  one  Avatar  or 
Saviour  or  genius  of  each  cycle  for  the  whole  world,  or  that  there  should  be  a  number  for  each 
cycle,  dispersed  into  different  countries,  that  is,  one  for  each  country,  in  each  cycle — it  was 
almost  a  necessary  consequence  that  the  latter  supposition  should  have  prevailed  as  the  world 
became  divided  into  nations.    We  will  now  inquire  into  the  latter  Avatars  of  the  Eastern  countries. 

Some  time  after  the  history  of  Cristna  had  found  its  way  into  Europe,  the  learned  Orientalists 
were  surprised  with  what  appeared  to  be  another  version  of  the  same  story,  from  the  Southern 
part  of  the  Peninsula  of  India.  In  the  Asiatic  Researches,1  there  is  an  account  of  a  person  called 
Salivahana,  near  Cape  Comorin.  He  was  a  divine  child,  born  of  a  virgin,  and  was  the  son  of 
Taishaca,2  a  carpenter.  He  was  attempted  to  be  destroyed  in  infancy  by  a  tyrant  who  was 
afterward  killed  by  him  :  most  of  the  other  circumstances,  with  slight  variations,  are  the  same  as 
those  told  of  Cristna.  Mr.  Maurice  3  says,  "  The  manuscripts  from  which  the  above  is  taken 
"  have  been  carefully  examined  and  ascertained  to  be  genuine."  Again,  "  Sir  W.  Jones  has 
"  examined  the  age  of  these  manuscripts,  and  he  undertakes  to  prove  their  date  coeval  with  the 
"  birth  of  Christ." 

Col.  Wilford,  in  the  tenth  volume  of  the  Asiatic  Researches,  has  given  a  long  account  of  this 
Salivahana,  who  is  clearly  identical  and  synchronical  with  Christianity,  and  evidently  answers  to 
the  incarnation  of  the  ninth  age,  alluded  to  before  the  birth  of  Christ  by  the  Sibyls,  and,  as  most 
Christians,  but  not  all,  have  thought,  by  Isaiah.  There  is,  most  clearly,  the  origin  or  the  pro- 
duce of  Manichaeism  in  this  person,  and  perhaps  of  the  sect  called  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas. 
Salivahana's  crucifixion  is  a  very  striking  circumstance ;  but  this,  we  have  seen,  was  not  the  first 
crucifixion.  Balii  and  Semiramis,  or  Ega)£,  (Divine  Love,)  and  Buddha,  and  Cristna,  had  before 
suffered  in  like  manner. 

The  Brahmins  maintain  that  Salivahana,  or  the  Carpenter,  was  the  ninth  avatar  :  they  say  he 
was  also  (i.  e.  by  the  Buddhists)  called  Buddha,  or  divine  wisdom.  They  affirm  that  another,  the 
tenth,  avatar  will  come  or  has  come  in  the  shape  of  a  horse.  The  Japanese  say, 4  that  in  the 
reign  of  Syn-mu,  Budo  (or  Buddha)  otherwise  called  Cobotus,  came  over  from  the  Indies  into 
Japan,  and  brought  with  him,  upon  a  white  horse,  his  religion  and  doctrine.  This  is  the  tenth 
avatar  of  the  Buddhists. 

Thus  several  ninth  avatars  may  be  perceived,  without  having  recourse  to  the  necessity  of  sup- 
posing that  they  copied  from  one  another.  There  was  Salivahana,  with  the  Brahmins,  and  what 
they  called  the  second  Buddha  with  the  Peguese  and  Buddhists,  and  the  Teve-tat5  who,  they  told 
La  Loubere,  was  Jesus  Christ ;  and  among  the  Western  nations  Cassar  and  Jesus  Christ.  Each 
sect  said  that  the  ninth  avatar  had  appeared  to  it,  or  among  its  ancestors ;  and  when   they  say 


1  Vol.  IX.  Preface,  &c. ;  Maurice,  Bramin.  Fraud.  Exp.  p.  61. 

2  Ta-ish-aca.     Is  this  any  thing  but  TA  meaning  the,  and  isha,  and  Saca— The  Saviour  Saca? 

3  Bramin.  Fraud.  Exp.  p.  59.  4  Vide  Kjempfer's  Japan,  quoted  by  Bryant.  *  Divus  TAT. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    V.    SECTION    I.  663 

that  he  had  been  among  other  sects,  they  only  mean  to  admit,  that  he  was  claimed  by  other 
sects  as  having  been  among  them,  but  that  the  person  thus  claimed  was  not  the  Avatar  in  reality, 
but  an  impostor.  The  Brahmins  will  say  that  there  have  been  nine  avatars  with  the  Buddhists, 
one  for  each  cycle,  but  that  they  were  all  impostors.  The  Buddhists  will  say  the  same  thing  of 
the  avatars  of  the  Brahmins. 

Justin  says,  that  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  tells  all  things  which  will  happen  to  Jesus  Christ.  We 
find  an  island  of  Erythraea,  Ceylon  probably,  unknown  to  Justin  :  and  in  the  neighbouring 
country,  a  person,  in  many  respects  similar  in  character  to  Jesus  Christ,  is  found,  to  whom 
almost  all  the  things  ascribed  to  Jesus  Christ  are  ascribed,  long  before  the  time  of  Christ,  viz. 
Cristna  or  Crysen — and  again,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  to  Salivahana. 1  I  think  my  reader  will 
now  understand  the  nature  of  this  mythos,  which  has  hitherto  puzzled  our  orientalists.  I  beg 
him  to  recollect,  that  it  was  held  by  Ammonius  Saccas  one  of  the  most  early  and  respectable  of 
the  Christian  fathers,  that  the  religion  of  Jesus,  and  that  of  the  Gentiles,  were  the  same,  if  cleared 
of  the  corruptions  of  priests  :  and  the  Brahmins  constantly  tell  our  missionaries  that  our  religion 
is  only  corrupted  Brahmanism.  I  must  now  suspend  my  history  of  Salivahana,  to  introduce  to 
my  reader  a  very  celebrated  person — St.  Thomas  of  India. 

When  the   Portuguese  arrived  at  a  place  on    the    coast   of    Coromandel,  called   Malliapour, 
which  was  called  by  Ptolemy  Malliarpha,  they  found  the  natives  professing  a  religion  with  names, 
doctrines,  and  rites,  so  like  those  of  Christians,  that  without  much,  perhaps  without  any,  inquiry, 
they  determined  that  they  were  Christians ;  but  judging  from   several  points  wherein  these  na- 
tives differed  from  themselves,   they  considered  that  they  were  heretics.     They  supposed  that  the 
ancestors  of  these  people  had  been  converted  by  the  Apostle  St.  Thomas.     It  is  clear   that  they 
paid  their  adoration  to  a  Thomas,  who  was  slain  in  their  country,  and  whose  tomb  they  shewed  in 
the  church  of  a  monastery.     The  same  kind  of  people  were  found  by  the  Portuguese  on  the  coast 
of  Malabar,  called  Mandaites  or  Nazareans.     When   the  Portuguese  examined  them  they  found 
them  to  acknowledge  for  their  spiritual  chief  a  Syrian.     Of  course,   in  their  superficial  and  preju- 
diced way  of  examining,   they  concluded  that  he  must  have  come  from  Syria  of  the  West,   not 
from  one  of  the  Syrias  of  the  East,  either  that  of  Siam  or  Sion,   (La  Loubere,)   or  that  of  Syras- 
trene  :  of  these  Syrias,  in  fact,  they  knew  nothing.     The  mistake,  if  it  were  one,  was   a  very 
natural  one  for  them  to  make.     But  still  they  ought  to  have  examined  how  these  people  came  to 
worship  the  apostle  instead  of  his  master.     These  Christians  are  said  to  have  had  for  their  Bishop, 
a  Mar-Thome',  a  successor  of  the  Apostle  St.  Thomas,  whom,  to  complete  the  story,  they  make 
to  have  suffered  martyrdom  at  the  place  formerly  called  Betuma  or  Beit-Thoma  and  Calamina, 
and  by  Ptolemy  Maliar-pha ;  in  Sanscrit,   Meyur-pura  or  the  city  of  Peacocks.2     St.  Thome  is 
near  to  Jay-pour,  that  is,  I  should  say,  town  of  Jah,  on  the  Coromandel  coast,  where  the  tomb  of 
St.  Thomas  is  shewn.     The  Bithuma,  Bituma,  iiear  the  promontory  of  Tamuz,   we  have  formerly 
found  in  the  peninsula  of  Syrastrene,  as  the  birthplace  of  Cristna  and  Buddha.     The  Portuguese 
state  these  Christians  to  have  been  Nestorians  When  they  found  them,   and  that   they  were  origi- 
nally converts  made  by  the  Apostle,  but  afterward  corrupted,  by  a  colony  of  Nestorians    fleeing 
from  the  persecution  of  Theodosius  the  Second.     The  Papists  state  this  to  support  their  doctrine 
of  the  universal  establishment  of  the  Papal  church,  in  the  earliest  time,  and  the  fleeing  Nestorians 
account  for  their  not  being  of  the  Romish  religion.     Most  Protestants  turn  into  ridicule  the  idea 


1  There  was  also  noticed  by  ancient  authors  an  island  of  Erythraea,  not  in  Egypt :  where  this  was  is  unknown  :  it 
was  thought  to  be  near  to  Cades  :  but  I  believe  the  island  of  Erythraea  was  Ceylon,  the  place  in  which  the  Samaritan 
Pentateuch  places  Mount  Ararat. 

»  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  77. 


664  SHARON    TURNER. 

of  the  conversion  of  these  natives  by  St.  Thomas,  but  suppose  them  to  have  been  Hindoos  con- 
verted by  Nestorian  preachers.  But  the  story  of  Christians  in  India  was  known  to  St.  Jerom 
(ad  Marcellam  Epist.)  before  the  Nestorian  heresy  arose,  therefore  they  cannot  have  been  origi- 
nally Nestorians. x  This  is  not  surprising,  if  they  were  people  of  the  religion  of  that  person  con- 
cerning whom  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  had  foretold  all  the  things  which  should  happen  to  Jesus 
Christ.  They  are  said  by  their  priests  to  have  sent  to  Babylon  for  Patriarchs,  and  to  have  ob- 
tained them  from  there  so  lately  as  the  reign  of  the  Portuguese  Queen  Donna  Catharina,  not 
knowing  that  at  that  time  Babylon  must  have  been  for  almost  a  thousand  years  before  a  desert, 
capable  of  supplying  nothing  but  a  tiger  or  a  lion.  This  falsity  proves  that  no  dependance  can  be 
placed  on  any  thing  which  they  say.  In  short,  the  whole  story  is  full  of  absurdities  and  incon- 
sistencies, and  the  truth  is  completely  disguised.  Indeed  it  is  evident  that  our  Indian  travellers 
tell  us  respecting  the  religions  and  languages  of  South  India  a  number  of  strange  stories,  which  I 
do  not  doubt  they  believe  to  be  true,  although  apparently  inconsistent  with  one  another.  I  think, 
however,  they  are  all  capable  of  being  explained,  though  certainly  the  explanation  will  upset 
some  very  favourite  theories. 

2.  In  Mr.  Sharon  Turner's  History  of  the  Anglo  Saxons,  there  is  a  very  particular  account  of 
an  embassy  from  Alfred  to  the  Tomb  of  St.  Thomas  in  India.  Mr.  Turner  has  displayed  the 
talent  of  a  skilful  lawyer,  and  has  collected  all  the  evidence  on  the  subject  which  later  times 
afford ;  but  I  think  he  has  overlooked  some  of  the  earlier  ;  perhaps  he  was  afraid  of  proving  too 
much.  No  doubt  the  evidence  for  the  fact  is  very  strong,  and  in  any  common  case  where  religion 
was  not  concerned,  I  think  it  would  be  conclusive  to  prove,  that  the  Christians  had  a  settlement 
in  India.  But  in  this  case,  where  habitual  fraud,  added  to  the  greatest  prejudice  in  witnesses, 
has  rendered  all  evidence  doubtful,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  even  if  the  truth  be  told  by  them, 
they  have  alluded  to  the  Tamuz  of  Western  Syria  and  Egypt,  noticed  in  the  Bible,  and  of  the  pro- 
montory of  Tamuz,  which  was  the  Thomas  of  the  Manichaeans  :  and  that  every  thing  in  fact 
relating  to  the  Thomas,  was  to  that  person  of  whom  the  history  is  given  in  the  Erythraean  Sibyl. 
I  have  very  little  doubt  that  the  whole  promontory  of  India  was  once  called  the  promontory  of 
Tamas  or  Thomas. 

The  Indians  say  that  their  God  Narayana,  (which  means  moving  on  the  waters^)  in  the  begin- 
ning, was  wholly  surrounded  by  Tamas,  which  means  darkness :  Col.  Wilford  says,  perhaps  the 
Thamas  or  Thaumaz  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  Parkhurst  gives  one  of  the  meanings  of  DXD  tarn 
dark.2  This  I  shall  refer  to  and  explain  presently.  He  also  gives  the  meaning  of  twin,  or 
Dydimus  to  the  word  Tarn.  In  the  Hebrew  DND  tarn  or  DID  turn  means  twins.  See  Parkhurst, 
also  ib.  in  voce  IDD  tmz,  also  pp.  19,  789. 

It  cannot  be  doubted,  I  think,  that  the  Tamuz  of  the  Bible  or  Adonis  was  Buddha  under  a  dif- 
ferent name,  that  is,  under  the  name  of  the  Zodiacal  twins  or  one  of  them,  or  was  in  some  way 
closely  connected  with  them.  And  it  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  this  is  the  account  which  the 
native  Vishnuvites  of  Malabar  give  of  their  Thomas — calling  the  Christians  Baudhenmar  or  sons 
of  BaudhenJ  And  the  Christians  of  the  present  day  always  call  their  bishops  by  the  name  of 
Mar-Thome,  that  is,  son  of  Thome,  Thome-mar.  Manes,  whose  existence  I  much  doubt,  is  said 
to  have  had  for  his  ancestors  or  predecessors  a  Budwas  and  a  Thomas,  and  he  may  have  come 
from  Malabar,   or  from  the  Matura  of  Upper  India  or  Syrastra,   from  the  Bituma,   where  there  is 


This  fact  at  once  renders  incredible  all  the  other  histories  of  Nestorian  conversions  East  of  the  Indus.     Asiat.  Res. 
Vol.  VII.  p.  366,  n. 

■  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  358.  *  Bartol  System.  p.  161. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  3.  665 

the  same  mythos.     Bithuma  is  evidently  noyn-no  bit-tome',  house  of  Tome.     This  Bithoma  is  not 
far  from  the  promontory  of  Tamus  and  the  island  of  Chryse. 

3.  The  Portuguese  state,  that  the  St.  Thome  Christians  had  all  their  sacred  books  in  the  old 
Chaldee  tongue,  but  what  they  contained  we  can  never  know,  as  Menezes  and  the  Portuguese  in- 
quisition, after  having  held  a  Synod  at  Odiamper,  sought  them  out  with  the  greatest  care  and 
destroyed  them  all,  substituting  in  their  places  books  of  their  own,  but  yet  in  the  Chaldee  language. 
This  I  think  proves  that  the  common  vernacular  language  of  the  people  of  this  country  was  the 
Chaldee.  The  sailors  in  the  service  of  the  India  Company,  whom  Mr.  Salome  found  in  Wapping 
speaking  Hebrew,  must  have  come  from  the  country  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Calamina.  It  seems 
that  the  Roman  Catholics  in  this  instance  broke  the  rule  of  their  church,  to  have  the  service  in 
Latin,  in  order  to  indulge  these  Indians  with  the  Chaldee.  Nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  to 
suppose  they  should  have  broken  their  rule  with  respect  to  the  Latin  to  have  given  the  Indians 
books  in  a  language  not  their  own.  Therefore  it  is  pretty  clear  that  Chaldee  must  have  been  the 
vernacular  language  of  these  people.  Now  if  we  grant  that  they  were  converted  by  St.  Thomas, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  he  who  (we  must  allow)  was  endowed  with  the  gift  of  tongues,  would 
change  their  language,  although  he  changed  their  religion.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  their  lan- 
guage must  have  been  at  that  time  the  Chaldee.  Now  I  think  the  natural  inference  from  this  is, 
that  one  at  least  of  the  broken  dialects  of  India,  as  they  are  called,  must  have  been  the  Chaldee  or 
Hebrew.     It  must  be  observed  that  I  am  speaking  both  of  the  Chaldee  letter  and  language. 

I  apprehend  the  Nestorians  did  not  arise  till  the  Chaldee  was  a  dead  language  :  at  all  events  it 
was  not  their  peculiar  language.     Nestorius  was  a  native  of  Germany. 

For  various  reasons  which  I  shall  give  by  and  by,  I  am  satisfied  that  the  Chaldee  paraphrases  or 
Targums  were  not  written  till  after  the  time  of  Origen ;  how  long  after  I  will  not  undertake  to 
say ;  and  at  the  same  time  I  shall  shew,  that  there  is  a  very  strong  probability  that  the  Chaldee 
letter  never  was  in  common  use  in  Babylon.  Nestorius  lived  in  the  fifth  century,  and  I  appre- 
hend it  is  not  credible  that  this  German  should  have  established  a  sect  in  that  day,  which  would 
carry  along  with  it,  as  it  extended  itself,  the  peculiar  Chaldaean  language — this  language  not 
being  that  of  its  founder — instead  of  extending  itself  in  the  vernacular  languages  of  the  country 
into  which  it  penetrated.  There  is  no  instance  known  of  a  sect  extending  itself  into  any  country, 
and  changing  the  vernacular  dialect  of  it,  unless  it  was  attended  by  a  conquering  army.  I  believe 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Nestorians  of  the  West,  as  a  sect,  ever  used  the  Chaldee 
tongue. 

The  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  are  said  to  have  had  only  three  sacraments,  Baptism,  the  Eucha- 
rist, and  Orders.  These  were  all  Jewish  rites,  for  the  rite  of  orders  is  nothing  but  the  samach  l 
or  investment  with  office,  or  communication  of  the  holy  spirit  by  anointment  and  the  imposition 
of  hands.  The  two  former  1  shall  treat  on  at  large  by  and  by. 2  In  their  use  of  the  Chaldee 
they  are  the  same  as  the  remains  of  the  Ioudi  of  Rajapoutana  and  Afghanistan,  if  Sir  William 
Jones  can  be  credited,  for  he  has  stated  them  to  have  a  language,  to  use  his  words,  very  like  the 
Chaldaic. 3  The  laws  of  the  Chaldee-speaking  Malabar  Christians  have  a  near  affinity  to  those  of 
the  Jewish-looking,  Jewish-named,  Chaldee-speaking  Afghans  of  North  India  and  to  those  of  the 
Western  Jews.     This  affinity  is  far  too  close  to  be  the  effect  of  accident.     Their  laws  of  inherit- 

'  See  Celtic  Druids,  Chap.  IV.  Sect.  IX. 

*  I  think  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  copies  of  the  rituals  of  the  Christians  of  Malabar  must  have  been  sent  by 
Menezes  to  Rome,  and  that  they  are  preserved  there.  If  a  philosopher  could  get  hold  of  them  before  our  priests,  they 
might  yet  see  the  light,  and  they  would  be  very  important  indeed. 

'  I  observe  on  the  Malabar  coast  the  district  of  Chercull.    This  is  of  Hercul. 

4q 


666 


TAMAS. 


ance  may  be  specified  for  one  instance,  out  of  great  numbers,  under  which  the  land  goes  to  the 
next  male  cousin  or  uncle,  instead  of  the  daughter.  Our  ill-informed  and  prejudiced  writers 
assert,  that  these  Christians  have  not  yet  lost  all  their  old  habits,  but  that  they  still  follow  the 
Brahmin  custom  of  abstaining  from  the  flesh  of  animals  :  in  defiance  of  all  Portuguese  persecu- 
tions, these  people  abstain,  who  were  Christians  before  the  Portuguese  came  among  them  !  The 
fact  is,  it  is  evident  that  they  are  Brahmin  X^Tjg-iavo/,  having  nothing  to  do  either  with  Nestorius 
or  the  Pope.  They  were  of  the  same  religion  as  that  of  the  Youth  of  Larissa,  the  Sindi,  whose 
widows  were  burnt  on  the  death  of  their  husbands.  They  are  of  the  same  religion  as  the  people 
referred  to  by  the  Erythraean  Sibyl.  They  are  of  the  religion  of  the  XgTjs  at  Delphi.  Their 
churches  or  temples  were  mostly  destroyed  by  Tippoo  Saib.  But  some  of  them  were  very  hand- 
some, and  each  must  have  cost  as  much  as  a  lack  of  rupees.  T  cannot  help  entertaining  a  suspi- 
cion that  they  were  a  tribe  of  the  Ioudi,  from  Upper  India,  and  that  the  town  of  Odiamper  ought 
to  be  Ioudi-pore. 

4.  The  town  of  Malliapour  was  never  called  the  town  or  port  of  St.  Thomas,  till  the  Portuguese, 
under  Vasquez  de  Gama,  arrived  there. 1  It  is  quite  clear  that,  judging  from  the  legend  which 
they  learnt  from  the  natives  that  a  holy  Thomas  had  been  put  to  death  there,  they  instantly  con- 
cluded that  it  must  have  been  the  place  to  which  Alfred  sent  his  embassy.  And  they  distorted 
every  tradition  and  circumstance  to  make  it  fit  this  theory. 

If  my  reader  have  not  a  very  short  memory  he  will  recollect  that,  in  Ch.  II.  Sect.  9,  we  found 
the  island  of  Erythroea  in  Ceylon  or  Diu,  and  that,  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  we  also  found  the 
Erythraean  Sea,  and  a  country  of  Erythrasa  between  the  Indus  and  Ganges.  We  have  also  found 
a  Cristna  in  the  island  and  country  washed  by  this  sea,  of  whom  the  same  things  are  told  as  are 
told  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  have  also  found  that,  according  to  Justin  Martyr,  the  Erythraean  Sibyl 
foretold  all  things  which  should  happen  to  Jesus  Christ.  Now  we  have  likewise  seen  that  Adonis 
is  the  Tamuz  of  the  Bible,  and  that  on  the  coast  of  Malabar  was  a  promontory  of  Tamus,  as  re- 
ported by  the  ancient  Greek  geographers,  and  in  this  country  there  is  a  town  or  district  called 
Adoni.  Now  a  Thomas  is  said  to  have  been  found  in  India,  and  to  have  been  put  to  death,  and  a 
body  of  Christians  are  found  who,  it  is  said,  were  followers  of  this  Thomas.  Is  there  not  great 
room  for  suspicion,  that  this  Thomas  was  the  Tamus  for  whom  the  women  of  Judea  wept,  and 
that  his  followers  were  not  Christians,  but  Xpjf-tians,  followers  of  him  of  whom  the  Erythraean 
Sibyl  prophesied  ?  It  is  a  very  important  fact,  that  the  city  of  Adoni  should  not  be  far  from  the 
place  where  Thomas  was  put  to  death,  and  that  a  large  temple  should  be  placed  on  the  highest 
mount  of  the  country  called  Salem,  of  course  Upog-Salem2 

The  Portuguese  finding  these  Christians  worshiping  and  bewailing  a  Thomas  or  Tamuz — put  to 
death  at  the  vernal  equinox,  and  after  three  days  rising  again  to  life,  as  I  shall  shew  in  a  future 
book — to  whom  were  attributed  all  things  which  were  attributed  to  Jesus  Christ,  settled  it  in- 
stantly, that  there  was  a  mistake  ignorantly  made  between  St.  Thomas  (who  must  have  gone  to 
India  as  they  believed)  and  Jesus  Christ — a  mistake  before  made  by  Jerom  :  they  then  proceeded 
to  destroy  their  sacred  books  in  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  tongue,  the  language  in  which  we  have 
the  account  of  the  women  weeping  for  Tamus,  and  gave  them  their  own  gospels  :  these  they 
properly  gave  them  in  the  Chaldee  or  Hebrew,  that  being  the  language  which  the  natives  of  this 
country,  the  Lascars,  speak  at  this  day,  and  that  of  the  Mandaites  or  Nazarenes,  Christians  of  St. 


1  Chatiield's  Hist.  Rev.  Hist,  of  Hind.  p.  331,  n. 

*  In  the  name  of  Thamas  Kouli-Khan  we  have  an  example  of  the  adoption  of  a  sacred  name  after  the  Hindoo 


fashion 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  V.     SECTION  5.  667 

John.     From  this  quarter  the  Manichaeans  had  before  come  to  the  West,  bringing  with  them  also 
their  Apostle  Thomas. 

5.  Now  let  us  look  at  Madura  on  the  Jumna,  where  we  have  found  our  Cristna,  and  afterward 
towards  the  South,  near  Cape  Comorin  and  the  island  of  Ceylon  or  Erythraea,  where  the  Sibyl 
came  from,  and  we  shall  find  another  Pandion,  a  Madura,  a  Tanjore,  a  Tricala,  a  Salem,  an  Adoni, 
a  Colida  now  Cochin,  and  a  district  or  place  called  Aur,  Urr,  or  Orissa,  and  a  Trichinopoly.  At 
Madura  is  a  most  magnificent  temple,  probably  the  largest  in  India,  occupying  about  a  square 
mile  of  ground. 

The  Jesuit  Bouchet,  in  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Avranches,   about  the  year  1710,  has  given  an 
account  of  the  religion  of  the  Brahmins   at  this  temple,  where  the   Mohamedans  never  had  any 
power  or  influence  whatever.     This  immense  temple  was  the  property  of  the  government  of  the 
country,  not  of  a  sect.     According  to  their  doctrine,  from  the  Supreme  emanated  the  Trimurti, 
one  of  whom  formed  our  world  and  man,  and  placed  him  in  a  garden  of  delight,  where  were  two 
trees  of  Good  and   Evil.     This  story  was  accompanied  with  that  of  the  temptation,  &c,  &c. 
There  is  also  an  account  of  Abraham  and  Sarasvedi,  the  attempt  to  sacrifice  Isaac,  the  son,   and 
the  prevention  of  it.     Then  we  have  a  relation  of  Crishen  (Moses)  exposed  on  a  river,  and  saved  by 
a  princess  :  after  that  Crishen  exposed  on  a  river  and  the  river  opening  to  save  him  from  a  tyrant 
who  pursued  him,  and  which  closed  on  the  tyrant  and  drowned  him  and  his  followers.     After  this, 
the  Jesuit  goes  on  to  describe  the  Veda,   given  from  a  mountain,  like  the  law  at  Sinai,  and  many 
of  the  rites  and  laws  of  the  country  respecting  both  religion  and  property,  as  being  a  close  copy 
of  those  of  the  Jews.     He  describes  the  paschal  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  ;  and,  what  is  very  extra- 
ordinary, the  head  chiefs  of  the  nation,  but  no  others,  have  the  right  of  circumcision.     The  sub- 
stance of  this  is  repeated  by  Bartolomeus,  Tab.  XIX.,  who,  in  addition  to  what  the  Jesuit  has 
shewn,  has  proved,  by  quotations  from  Arrian,  Pliny,  &c,  that  this  country  was  anciently  known  by 
the  name  of  Pandion,  which  it  bears  to  this  day.     Altogether  this  is  a  most  curious  history  of  this 
Jesuit's,  though  evidently  full  of  mistakes,  and  well  worthy  of  further  inquiry.     All  the  Mosaic 
history,  and  much  of  the  Romish  Christian,  is  here  interwoven  with  the  oldest  Indian  customs, 
names  of  places,  laws  of  property,  as  existing  in  the  times  before  Christ,  as  proved  by  the  Greek 
and  Latin  authors.     I  have  before  observed,  that  some  of  these  people  called  Christians  in  India 
abstained  from  animal  food,   which  seems  to  shew  them  to  be  Brahmins.     This  they  could  not  be, 
unless  they  took  water  in  the  Eucharist,  nor  could  they  be  Jews  and  Brahmins  also  if  they  ate  the 
Passover,  except  on  the  grand  occasion  of  the  Yajni  or  Y-agni  sacrifice.1    At  a  little  distance  from 
Madura  in  Cochin  or  Colida,  and  the  place  called  Aur,  is  the  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  called  now 
Uri-ya  and  Orissa.     It  is  perfectly  clear  from  the  whole  text  and  context  of  the  letters,  that  these 
people  were  neither  Jews  nor  Christians  in  our  sense  of  these  words,  but  Brahmins — but  still  not 
Sanscrit-speaking  Brahmins — as  I  believe  they  used  the  language  now  called  Tamul.     The  fact  is, 
tbey  were  Christians,  of  the  sect  of  the  Youth  of  Larissa  in  Thrace. 

In  the  centre  of  this  country,  in  lat.  13°  46',  long.  79°  24',  stands  the  famous  temple  of  Tripetty 
or  Terputty  or  Tripati,  before  noticed  in  Bk.  IV.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  3,  where  is  the  crucified  Wittoba 
or  Bal-iji,  or  Rama  or  Tripati.     Pilgrims,  in  great  numbers,   come  hither  from  the  Batties  or  Bat 
tenians  of  North  India.     No  European  has  ever  penetrated  into  the  sanctum  sanctorum  of  this 
temple. 8 

1  See  Travels  of  Jesuits,  in  English,  1714,  Lond. 

*  Beyond  the  sacred  river  Don,  or  the  River  of  Wisdom,  was  a  country  called  Decapolis.  Beyond  the  River  Ner- 
buddha  or  the  River  of  Buddha  or  Wisdom  was  a  country  called  Decan.  The  topographical  similarity  of  the  holy  land 
of  India,  and  of  that  of  Western  Asia,  is  very  striking.    Hamilton's  East-India  Gaz.    2  Vols.     1828. 

4q2 


668  jesuits. 

Upon  the  account  of  the  Jesuit  Goguet  it  may  be  expedient  to  observe,  that  it  is  evidence  which 
cannot  be  impeached :  and  here  we  see  very  clearly  that  the  people  whom  he  describes  as  pos- 
sessing the  doctrines  of  Moses   and  Jesus  Christ,  or  Cristna,  are  Brahmins,  and  neither  Jews 
nor  Christians  in  the  usual  sense  of  these  words.     These  people  were  the  governors  or  head 
class  of  a  great  state   called  Madura;    therefore,  if  a  body  of  refugee  Jews  did  arrive,    as   a 
gentleman  of  the  name  of  Baber,  from  a  paper  read  to  the  Asiatic  Society,  in  March,  1830,  would 
have  us  believe,  in  the  year  of  Christ  56,  and  purchase  the  sovereignty  of  a  country,  (the  only 
instance  of  the  kind  in  the  history  of  the  old  world,)  this  must  have  been  a  totally  separate  affair. 
Mr.  Baber  produces  a  grant  to  Jews,  and  tells  us  that  the  Jews  of  the  present  day  admit  that  the 
Christians  were  in  the  country  before   them.     All  this  is  easily  seen  through.     The  Christians 
were  Crestians  of  Colida.     The  Jews  were  Crestians  of  an  earlier  incarnation  or  of  Moses.     The 
child  deserted  and  saved,  and  taken  by  the  Jesuit  for  Moses  alone,  is  nothing  but  the  story  which 
we  have  before   seen   of  Moses,  Cyrus,  Cristna,  Romulus,   part  of  the  mythos  of  Virgil's  new 
Argonauts  and  new  Troys.     Thus  when   the   Portuguese,  under  Gama,  arrived  at  Melliapour, 
they  found  a  story  of  Tamuz,  &c. ;  all  the  rest  followed  of  course.     The  people  of  the  tribe  of 
Ioudi,  and  the  Xp7]£-tians,  the  same  as  the  Chreestians  of  Delphi,  are  found   here  by  Western 
Jews  and  Christians :  but,  like  all  ancient  tribes,  they  know  little  or  nothing  of  their  very  early 
history.     The   new  comers  proceed  to  correct  what  they  call  the  mistakes  of  the  old  inhabitants, 
giving  them  Pentateuchs   and   Gospels  ;  thus  sects  of  each  are  raised.     The  Brahmins,  at  the 
immense  temple  at  Madura,  keep  the  old  history  of  Moses  and  Crishen,  the  sects  take  the  books 
of  the  new-comers  from  the  West.     The  story  told  to  Mr.  Baber,  of  the  Jews  having  bought  the 
country,  is  an  evident  lie,  to  account  for  what  was  to  them  an  unaccountable  fact,  the  Brahmins' 
government  being  Jewish.     The  grant  of  seventy- two  houses   to  exactly   seventy- two  families 
arriving  from  the  West,  as  Jacob  and  his  seventy-two  souls  arrived  in  Egypt,  proves  the  whole 
to  be  a  mythos.     So  decidedly  Brahmin  was  the  country,  which  had  in  its  religion  all  the  facts 
stated  above  respecting  Moses  and  Cristna,  that  the  Jesuit  Robertus  de  Nobilibus  and  his  asso- 
ciates, it  has  been  said,  and  as  I  have  formerly  noticed,  were  obliged  to  turn,   to  all  appearance, 
Brahmins  and  Saniasses,  which  they  certainly  did,  in  order  to  procure  attention — and  that  they, 
with  a  fraudulent  design,  pretended  that  they  were  of  the  same  religion,  only  from  a  distant  Brahmin 
nation,  called  Roum.     It  has  been  said,  I  believe  by  Voltaire,  who  pretended  to  prove  it  against 
them,  that  they  had  gone  the  length  of  forging  a  Veda,  which  actually  passed  for  many  years  as 
genuine  in  the  country  :  but  I  have  a  suspicion  that  this  Veda  was  not  forged.     He  only  judged 
it  to  be  so  from  its  contents,  consisting  of  doctrines  strikingly  similar  to  those  of  the  Christians. 
It  seems  to  be  as  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  learned  Brahmins,  the  only  readers  of  the  Vedas, 
should  not  know  their  own  Vedas,  as  it  would  be  to  assert  that  our  priests  did  not  know  their 
own  Pentateuch  or  Gospels.     The  Jesuit  Bouchet  complains  that  he  cannot  get  sight  of  the  secret 
books,  though  he  learns  the  contents,  as  detailed  above,  from  the  Brahmins.     The  Veda  afterward 
produced  by  Robertus,  was  probably  the  book  containing  this  history,  and  for  that  very  reason 
supposed  by  Voltaire  to  be  a  forgery,  and  for  that  reason  alone.     Mr.  Baber  thinks  he  has  proved 
the  Christians  to  have  been  in  this  country  at  Madura,  in  the  year  of  Christ  56.     I  do  not  dispute 
his  proof,  as  I  think  he  might  have  gone  back  to  some  year  of  a  cycle  a  thousand  years  sooner. 
It  seems  almost  certain  that  the  Brahmins  of  Madura,  in  their  sacred  books,  must  have  had  a 
history  of  a  Moses,  and  an  Exod,  and  also  a  history  similar  to  that  told  by  the  Sibyl.     Had  they  a 
Pentateuch  ?     Had  they  any  other  Jewish   books  ?     Had  they  any  books  about  Tobit,  or  Saul, 
David,  or  Daud-potri,  or  Solumannee,  or  Solomon  ?     I  do  not  mean  the  Solomon,  whose  magnifi- 
cent empire  was  invisible  to  Herodotus,  when  searching  for  kingdoms  in  Judaea,  but  the  Solomon 
who  gave  names  to  the  mountains  in  Rajah-poutana,  and  who  built  the  temple  in  Cashmere,  near 


BOOK  X.  CHAPTER  V.   SECTION  6.  669 

which  Moses  was  buried,  and  where  his  tomb  remains,  and  the  other  Tect-Solomons  in  India.  I 
will  now  suspend  for  a  little  time  what  I  have  farther  to  say  concerning  St.  Thomas,  leaving  these 
observations  respecting  him  to  my  reader's  reflections,  and  return  to  Salivahana. 

6.  The  ninth  Avatar  in  India,  was  known  by  the  name  of  Vicramaditya,  as  well  as  by  that  of 
Salivahana,  the  carpenter.  As  may  be  reasonably  expected,  many  events  of  his  life  bear  a  close 
resemblance  to  those  of  Cristna  and  other  incarnations,  which  we  have  seen  bore,  in  many 
respects,  a  close  resemblance  to  one  another.1  Salivahana  bears  date  the  identical  year  of  Jesus 
Christ :  yet  it  is  acknowledged  that  there  were  found,  as  Col.  Wilford  says,  on  close  examination, 
nine  persons  of  his  name,  having  nearly  the  same  history. 2  This  is  precisely  as  it  ought  to  be. 
There  is  one  for  each  of  the  nine  cycles.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  the  Buddhists,  as 
well  as  the  Brahmins, 3  claim  Salivahana  as  belonging  to  them.  Salivahana  and  Vicramaditya 
are  only  descriptive  terms  or  epithets,  mistaken  for  proper  names. 

We  read  in  Hindoo  books  of  nine  Gems,  in  the  court  of  the  monarch  Vicrama.  This  is  an 
allegory.  The  Gems,  like  the  Muses  of  Greece,  varied. 4  They  increased  as  the  cycles  increased. 
In  the  time  of  Christ  there  were  nine  of  them.  They  were  the  same  as  the  wise  men  or  sages, 
seven  of  whom  we  read  of  in  the  writings  of  the  old  Greek  authors  :  seven  only  had  then  passed  : 
the  Messiahs  were  Muses,  and  also  Curetes — in  like  manner  varying — the  first  from  yi£»  iso,  to 
save,  the  other  from  euro. 

Salivahana,  Sali-vahan,  Saliban,  or  Salban,  is  formed  of  the  word  Salib  or  Salb,  which  has  the 
meaning  of  the  Greek  oraupo^,  furca,  or  cross,  or  crucified,  and  vahana,  carried,  from  the  Sanscrit 
verb  vah,  Latin  veho,  to  carry. 5  Then  Salivahana  will  have  the  meaning  of  cross-borne.  Thus 
there  were  nine  cross-borne  Avatars,  let  them  be  who  they  may,  and  live  where  they  may.  And 
now,  if  we  look  back  to  the  Bk.  IX.  Ch.  III.  Sect.  6,  on  Semiramis,  we  shall  find  that  her  In- 
dian conqueror  was  called  Staurobates,  which  is  a  literal  translation  of  the  word  Salivahana  into 
the  Greek  language — as  if  we  should  find  a  person  called  Lucus  in  Latin,  and  should  call  him 
Grove :  or  Lignum  and  should  call  him  Wood. 

I  suspect  that  our  Salva-tion  comes  from  the  cross-borne  Sali-vahana  j  and  that  all  the  following 
words  have  a  close  connexion  either  by  derivation  or  translation  : 

Sali-vahana — salus-veho,  I  bring  health  or  salvation. 

Sally — the  name  of  the  wife  of  Abraham,  Sarah,  Saraiswati,  called  nt£»>  ise  or  Iscah  or  Eve  or 
Isis. 

Salus — health.     Salutis,  of  health  or  Salvation. 

Salus-bury  or  Sarum  or  Saresburie,  i.  e.  Sares-pore. 

Solym — the  Hebrew  obttf  slm,  Salem,  peace  or  salvation. 

Suli-Minerva,  the  Bath  Goddess  of  health. 

Sol — the  Saviour  or  Healer,  whence  the  spring  at  Bath  was  Fons  Solis  or  Fons  Suli-Minervae. 
The  early  Christian  Monks  were  called  Therapeutse  or  physicians  of  the  soul. 

The  words  Deo-Soli  are  to  be  seen  on  numerous  pictures  of  the  black  mother  and  child  in 
Italy — the  black  child  having  a  glory.  These  words  I  shall  explain  by  and  by,  when  I  return  to 
the  origin  of  letters. 

The  following  extract  from  Banier's  Travels  contains  some  striking  particulars,  and  will  con- 
firm what  has  been  said  above. 

T  i,i  —    — .  in  i  i      i      !■-■-■  ,  '■       ■—      -     ■  -  -■  -  — •■  —  —  ■       ■■        ■  "■    ■" 

1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  211.  *  Ibid.  p.  11/.  3  Ibid.  p.  211. 

4  Another  example  of  a  Greek  translation  may  be  found  in  the  name  of  the  city  Palaigonos  which  is  now  called 
Paliputra  and  Palibothra,  (Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  III.  p.  369,)  both  words  meaning  children  of  Pali  or  Bali. 
*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  p.  120. 


670  VICRAMADITYA. 

"  Moreover,  I  have  seen  the  Rev.  father  Roa,  a  German  Jesuit  and  Missionary  at  Agra,  who 
"  being  well  versed  in  their  Hanscrit,  maintained  that  their  books  did  not  only  import  there  was 
"  one  God  in  three  persons,  but  even  the  second  person  of  their  Trinity  was  incarnated  nine 
"  times.  And  that  I  may  not  be  thought  to  ascribe  to  myself  the  writings  of  others,  I  shall 
"  relate  unto  you  word  for  word  what  a  certain  Carmelite  of  Chiras  hath  lighted  on,  which  he 
"  related  when  the  above-mentioned  father  Roa  passed  that  way  to  come  back  to  Rome.  The 
"  Gentiles  (saith  he)  do  hold  that  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity  was  incarnated  nine  times, 
"  and  that  because  of  divers  necessities  of  the  world,  from  which  he  hath  delivered  it :  but  the 
"  eighth  incarnation  is  the  most  notable  ;  for  they  hold,  that  the  world  being  enslaved  under  the 
"  power  of  giants,  it  was  redeemed  by  the  second  person,  incarnated  and  born  of  a  Virgin  at  mid- 
,e  night,  the  angels  singing  in  the  air,  and  the  heavens  pouring  down  a  shower  of  flowers  all  that 
"  night."  He  then  goes  on  to  say,  that  the  incarnate  God  was  wounded  in  the  side  by  a  giant, 
in  consequence  of  which  he  is  called  the  wounded  in  the  side  ;  and  that  a  tenth  incarnation  is  yet 
to  come.  He  after  this  relates  a  story  that  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity  appeared  in  the  form 
of  fire.1 

The  observation  that  the  eighth  avatar  or  incarnation  is  the  most  notable,  is  indeed  very  truly 
so  ;  because  it  proves  that  the  mythos  or  history  of  the  eighth  was  precisely  the  same  as  the 
ninth,  precisely  as  it  ought  to  be,  according  to  my  theory,  and  according  to  Virgil.  The  words 
nine  times  which  I  have  put  in  capital  letters  prove  that  he  clearly  distinguished  between  the 
eighth  and  ninth  time,  thus  giving  us  a  proof,  which  we  have  no  where  else,  so  clear,  that,  in  se- 
veral respects,  the  avatars  were  the  same. 

Few  things  have  conduced  more  to  the  confusion  of  history,  than  the  mistaking  of  descriptive 
terms  for  proper  names.  Along  with  this  may  be  classed  the  addition  of  the  emphatic  article  to 
names,  by  which,  in  many  cases,  a  name  becomes  completely  disguised.  The  Koran  and  the 
Alkoran  furnish  a  pretty  good  example.  Mitzraim  is  probably  only  Osiris  or  Isiris  in  the  plural, 
as  Bishop  Cumberland  has  observed,  when  the  letter  M  (the  mystical  M,  which  he  did  not  pre- 
tend to  understand)  is  left  out.2 

Col.  Wilford  confesses,  that  Salivahana  and  Vicramaditya,  whom  he  shews  to  be  one  and  the 
same  person,  (though  he  afterward  contradicts  this,  and  makes  Salivahana  kill  Vicramaditya,)  are 
involved  in  impenetrable  darkness.  He  was  too  well  read  in  Indian  history  to  believe  that  Sali- 
vahana was  a  copy  from  Jesus  of  the  West.  It  was  against  his  faith  to  believe  that  Jesus  was 
copied  from  Salivahana.  Thus  it  was  very  natural  that  Wilford  should  be  in  a  state  of  great  per- 
plexity. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  aera  of  Salivahana,  the  Romans  became  possessed  of  a  large  part  of 
Asia,  and  penetrated  into  India,  with  which  they  carried  on  a  great  trade  ;  and  devotees  will  tell 
us,  that  they  carried  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  Christ  to  India,  from  which  the  history  of  Salivahana 
was  copied.  Of  course  this  will  be  very  satisfactory  to  persons  of  this  description.  But  philoso- 
phers will  doubt,  and  ask,  how  came  there  to  be  nine  Vicramadityas  or  Salivahanas,  or  cross- 
borne  Avatars  ?  Every  one  must  judge  for  himself.  It  is  only  necessary  for  my  argument,  to 
point  out  the  well-marked  Avatar  or  Cycle  correctly  in  its  proper  place,  and  that,  in  other  re- 
spects, it  resembles  those  which  preceded  it.  I  shall  therefore  dwell  upon  it  no  longer.  For 
more  particulars  my  reader  may  consult  the  ninth  and  tenth  volumes  of  the  Asiatic  Researches. 
If  these  histories  of  Col.  Wilford's  be  credited,  all  the  accounts  of  Cristna  will  have  been  taken 
from  Modern  Rome.  Perhaps  I  may  be  told,  that  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  getting  black 
Gods — Christs — from  Italy,  on  my  own  shewing,  so  many  of  them  being  yet  left. 


1  Tavernier's  and  Bernier's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  106,  Ed.  fol.  2  Orig.  Gen.  p.  100. 


BOOK    X.     CHAPTER    V.      SECTION  7-  671 

The  city  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  opposite  to  Chios  called  Erythraea,  is  supposed  to  have 
been  that  to  which  Augustus  sent  for  the  Erythraean  Sibyl,  but  there  was  at  a  very  great  distance 
from  this  an  Erythraean  sea,  now  called  by  the  Greeks  Oman  or  Om,   which   extended  as  far  as 
Taprobane,  Serindive,  Lanca,  or  Ceylon,  or  the  island  of  Rama,  the  sacred  Island,  where  the 
Samaritan  Pentateuch  says  the  ark  rested,  where  there  is  the  mark  of  the  foot  of  both  Adam  and 
Buddha,  where  there  is  also  a  town  called  Columbo,  the  same  as  is  found  in  the  sacred  island  o* 
Iona,  in  the  West,  all  which,  with  various  other  matters,  I  have  before  shewn.     In  this  island  the 
worship  of  Salivahana  prevailed.     Now  I  ask  the  question,  Is  it  not  probable  that  the  adventures 
of  the  carpenter  of  Syria,  which  we  find  repeated  or  duplicated  by  the  Erythraean  Sibyl,   may  be 
from  the  carpenter  the  cross-borne  Saliva-hana  of  India  ?     And  if  so,  the  Erythraean  Sibyl,  who, 
we  have  seen,   existed  before  Christ,   may  have  come  from  Serindive  or  the  holy  island.     In  a 
former  Section  of  this  book,  we  found  that  the  Sibyl,  as  Lardner  truly  states,  is  represented  by 
Justin  Martyr  to  have  foretold  not  only  the  coming  of  Jesus,  but  all  things  that  should  be 
done  by  him.     Now  it  is  evident,  that  the  Sibyl  may  have  copied  from  the  gospel  histories,  or 
the  gospel  histories  may  have  been  copied  from  the  Sibyl :  and  it  is  absolutely  incumbent  on  us 
to  enter  upon  a  close  and  very  careful  examination  into  the  genuineness  of  the  gospel  histories. 
Except  the  gospel  histories  be  earlier,  there  is   no  genuine  Christian  author  entire  now  existing, 
earlier  than  Justin's  first  Apology  :  (all  the  Apostolic  fathers,  Constitutions,   &c,   are  forgeries :) 
and  we  see  from  the  quotation  from  Lardner,  that  the  events  relating  to  Jesus  must  have  been 
interpolated  in  the  Sibyls,  if  they  were  interpolated  before  Justin's  time.     Justin's  observation, 
that  all  the  things  which  were  done  to  Jesus  were  to  be  found  in  the  Sibyl,  almost  proves  that  it 
cannot  have  been  interpolated  after  his  time ;  because,  if  these   things  were  put  into  the  Sibyl, 
they  must  rather  have  been  copies  from  the  old  copies  of  the  Sibyl  than  interpolations.     People 
could  not  interpolate  what  was  there  already.     It  is  truly  very  surprising  that  the  Sibyl  from  the 
Erythraean  sea  before  the  time  of  Christ,  should  contain  the  history  both  of  Jesus  and  of  Saliva- 
hana.    The  observation  of  Justin  Martyr  that  almost  the  whole  history  of  Jesus  Christ  was  to  be 
found  in  the  Sibyl,  must  not  be  forgotten,  as  hereafter  I  shall  return  to  it,  and  it  will  be  found  to 
involve  a  consequence  of  the  very  first  importance. 

7.  It  is  allowed  that  Rama  preceded  Cristna,  and  yet  they  are  both  said  to  be  the  same.  In 
Hebrew  DX*i  ram  means  Bull ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  from  Parkhurst,  (in  voce,)  that  it  also  means 
Ram  or  male  Lamb.  Thus  as  Rama  is  the  same  as  Cristna,  and  Cristna  is  the  same  as  the  sun 
in  Aries,  Rama  is  also  the  same  as  Adonis,  which  was  the  sun  in  Aries.  Adonis  is  the  same  as 
Tamuz,  killed  and  bewailed  in  Western  Syria.  Tamuz  is  found  to  have  died,  or  to  have  been 
killed  and  bewailed,  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel.  Jip-ios  and  *id  kr  mean  a  Lamb  Ram. 1  Man- 
dalam  means  a  circle  or  cycle:*  then,  coast  of  Cr-mandal  will  mean  coast  of  cycle  of  the  Ram 
Lamb.  In  the  language  of  the  West,  this  is  the  meaning  of  Coromandal.  The  language  of  the 
West  being  found  in  an  Eastern  country,  will  radically  still  retain  its  Western  meaning.  The 
locality  will  make  no  difference.3  The  Rama,  Adonis,  Tamuz,  was  the  Egyptian  Am-on  or  Indian 
Om,  worshiped  in  the  form  of  a  Lamb  or  Saviour  at  Sais  and  Thebes.4 

Serindive  means,  in  the  Sanscrit,  Sre-rama-dive,  the  Island  of  the  holy  Rama.  When  I  con- 
sider that  in  Hebrew  the  word  Ram  means  both  strong  and  a  Ram,  and  that  Rome  was  considered 
and  called  by  the  Heathens  a  sacred  city,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  it  was  the  city  of  the  holy 
Rama. 


1  And  also  a  circle.    Parkhurst,  in  voce  13  kr,  II.  pp.  337,  667 .  i  Trans.  Royal  Soc.  Ed.  Vol.  II.  p.  141. 

It  is  just  the  same  with  Nerbuddha.  *  Parkhurst,  in  voce  ID  kr,  II. 


3 


67^  DANIEL. 

When  I  recollect  the  farce  of  the  Pessinuncian  stone,  brought  from  Pessinus,  in  Phrygia,  to 
Rome,  to  ensure  its  safety,  by  Scipio,  the  best  man  in  that  eity,  and  I  contemplate  the  places  called 
Roma,  and  the  country  of  Asia  Minor  called  Roum,  I  cannot  doubt  that  there  was  a  mythos 
common  to  the  two  countries.  Long  before  the  time  of  Christ,  or  the  conquest  of  Asia  Minor  by 
the  Romans,  Creuzer  says,  !  the  Phrygians  claimed  to  be  the  most  ancient  people  of  the  world, 
and  to  have  been  civilized  by  the  Great  Mother  called  Ma,  or  Cybele.  In  the  Classical  Journal2  it 
is  said,  "  Nor  do  any  remains  of  this  language  appear  in  the  Northern  countries  of  Asia,  nor  in 
"  Roum  (that  is  to  say,  in  Asia  Minor)."  I  much  suspect  that  the  Rama  of  India  ought  to  be 
Roma,  or  the  Roma,  or  Pco/atj  of  Greece — Rama  or  Pajtt7j.  When  I  find  the  Satumias,  Pallis, 
Viterbos,  Ladies  of  Loretto,  &c,  &c,  &c,  in  Italy,  it  is  not  absurd  to  expect  to  discover  the 
Ramas. 

A  Dynasty  of  Egyptian  priests  once  reigned,  called  Piromis,  which  the  ancient  historian 
expounds  a  good  or  virtuous  man.  But  it  is  evidently  the  emphatic  article  Pi  and  Roma  or 
Rama.3 

One  of  the  Gates  of  Antioch  was  called  the  Romanesian  by  Seleucas  Nicator,  to  whom  Western 
Rome  could  be  known  only  by  distant  rumour.4 

I  now  request  my  reader  to  recollect  what  has  been  said  before,  in  different  parts  of  this  work, 
of  Roma,  or  Rama,  or  Ram.  In  the  Indian  accounts  of  the  Salivahanas  or  Vicramadityas 
frequent  mention  is  made  of  a  place  whence  they  came,  called  by  our  authors,  Roum,  or  Rom,  or 
Ram.  That  the  Salivahana  of  India,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  should  have  copied  from  the  Papal 
church,  not  established  till  three  hundred  years  afterward,  seemed  impossible,  but  how  to  account 
for  this  I  could  not  tell.  At  last  I  accidentally  learnt,  from  an  Indian  scholar,  that  the  celebrated 
Lanca,  Serindive,  Palisimunda,  Ceylon,  called  also  Taprobane,  was  the  sacred  island  of  Ram, 
which  I  doubt  not  was  corrupted  to  Rom  or  Roum :  this  removes  all  the  difficulties.  We  must 
remember  in  what  a  singular  way  the  God  Rama  or  Hercules  was  said  to  be  the  same  with 
Cristna;  and  here  we  find  him  connected,  in  a  striking  manner,  with  Salivahana;  for  both  Ram 
and  Salivahana  were  favourite  objects  of  adoration  with  the  Cingalese.  I  beg  my  reader  to  attend 
to  the  close  connexion  which  Mr.  Parkhurst  shews  existed,  in  words  and  in  sense,  between  the 
names  of  Pco//.ij,  Rome,  Valencia,  Rama  of  Syria,  the  Hebrew  word  dK*1  ram,  (meaning,  like  the 
Greek  Pa>/«j,  strength,)  the  English  Ram,  the  male  Sheep,  and  the  Lamb  Ram,  both  in  the 
Romish  religion  and  in  ours,  and  that  it  also  had  the  meaning  of  Bull — both  Bull  and  Sheep. 
We  must  also  recollect  the  double  Avatar  of  Rama  and  Cristna  :  and  here  is  the  double  Avatar  of 
Rama  and  Salivahana  or  Cristna,  for  Salivahana  was  an  incarnation  of  Cristna  or  Vishnu.  Rama 
preceded  Cristna  when  the  sun  entered  Aries.  Did  Rama,  in  like  manner,  precede  Tamus  or 
the  twins,  when  the  sun  entered  Gemini  ?  for  Tamus  means  twins,  the  Didymus  or  Thomas. 
Of  this  more  presently. 

8.  I  must  now  return  to  the  cycles  and  the  prophecies  of  Daniel. 

Daniel  is  said  to  have  lived  at  the  court  of  the  king  of  Babylon,  to  have  been  at  the  head  of  the 
Astrologers,  Magi,  and  Chaldeans,  and  to  have  flourished  both  before  and  after  the  taking  of  that 
city  by  the  Persians.  Who  and  what  he  was  seems  doubtful.  Several  books  of  prophecy  are  extant 
under  his  name.  They  are  patronized  by  the  Christians,  but  their  authority,  I  believe,  is  denied 
by  the  Jews.     Few  subjects  have  exercised  the  pens  and  wits  of  polemics  and  devotees  more  than 


1  Tome  II.  p.  57.  *  1828,  p.  290.  »  Univers.  Anc.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  Chap.  xx.  p.  312. 

*  Niuirod,  Vol.  III.  p.  302. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER   V.     SECTION    8.  673 

these  prophecies.  I  think  Daniel  understood  the  doctrine  of  the  renewal  of  Cycles,  as  Virgil  did 
in  a  later  day,  and  I  shall  now  endeavour  to  shew,  that  his  prophecies  had  a  reference  to  them,  as, 
in  fact,  the  Christians  say.1  Before  I  proceed  I  must  observe,  that  in  all  the  prophecies  of  Daniel 
and  the  Apocalypse,  a  day  means  a  year,  and  a  week  seven  years.  In  keeping  with  this,  in  the 
Oriental  cyclical  mythoses,  12,000  years  are  called  a  day  of  Brahm,  and  12,000x360=4,320,000 
are  called  a  year. 

I  think  the  greater  part  of  Daniel's  prophecy  may  be  explained.  I  suppose  it  will  be  allowed, 
that  the  Messiah  was  to  appear  and  be  cut  off  about  the  end  of  69  weeks  or  69x7=483  years, 
after  the  prediction  of  Daniel.  The  70  weeks  make  490  years.  He  was  to  be  cut  off  in  the  midst 
of  the  last  week,  that  is,  about  three  and  a  half  years  after  he  had  begun  his  ministry.  So  that 
we  must  find  486  years  from  the  twentieth  year  of  Artaxerxes  (as  stated  by  the  mystics)  to  the 
death  of  Christ.  The  Heathen  chronologers  reckon  354  years  from  the  death  of  Alexander  to  the 
nineteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius;  and  if  to  this  be  added  132  years,  the  time  from  the 
twentieth  year  of  Artaxerxes  to  Alexander,  we  have  486 — the  number  required.  I  suppose  that 
Daniel  calculated  the  cycle,  from  the  birth  of  Cyrus  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  at  600  years,  and  calcu- 
lated the  Messiah's  life  at  33  or  34  years.  This  might  be  the  reason  why  the  Christians  fixed  his 
life  at  33  years.  If  the  Messiah  were  to  be  cut  off  about  483  years  after  the  prediction  of  Daniel, 
then  if  483  years — 33  years  the  duration  of  his  life — be  calculated  back  from  the  conjunction  of 
the  Sun  and  Moon  in  the  third  or  fourth  year  before  Christ,  we  shall  have  the  year  in  which 
Daniel  made  his  prophecy,  which  every  astrologer  in  the  world  could  have  made  as  well  as  Daniel  j 
and  if  we  calculate  back  to  the  eclipse  of  Thales,  it  ought  to  make  up  the  600. 

The  Astrologers  and  the  Chaldeans  were  prophets,  or  rather  the  prophets  were  astrologers. 
Daniel  was  at  the  head  of  them  at  Babylon,  as  is  most  clearly  proved  by  the  Bible.  Isaiah 
foretold  the  Messiah  Cyrus — Om-nual,  Om-our-God.  Daniel  foretold  Jesus,  Ham-Messiah,  or 
Om — the  Saviour,  and  Jesus  was  believed,  as  I  shall  presently  shew,  by  the  Gnostics  and  Tem- 
plars, to  have  foretold  Mo-hamed  or  Om-ahmed,  Om  the  desire  of  all  nations.  Hence  it  was,  as 
I  shall  shew,  that  these  two  sects  or  orders  of  persons  were  both  of  the  Christian  and  Mohamedan 
religions.  I  have  often  wondered  why  the  word  Mo  was  prefixed  to  the  Ahmed,  but  here  we 
have  the  reason.  The  reason  is  the  same  as  that  which  causes  the  mysterious,  inexplicable 
M — 600 — to  be  prefixed  to  so  many  mystic  words,  such  as  M-Omptha,  M-uin,  &c,  &c. 

It  is  allowed  in  the  Dialogues  on  Prophecy, 2  that  we  are  now  in  the  seventh  millenary  of  the 
world.  This  is  exactly  my  theory.  When  Daniel  prophesied  to  Nebuchadnezzar  of  the  golden 
head  about  the  year  before  Christ  603, 3  he  clearly  speaks  of  four  kingdoms,  (ch.  ii.  39,  40,)  in- 
cluding that  then  going,  for  he  calls  Nebuchadnezzar  the  golden  head.  After  thee  (he  says)  shall 
another  rise,  (the  cycle  of  Cyrus,)  and  then  a  third  of  brass  (the  cycle  of  Jesus)  :  and  a  fourth 
strong  as  iron  (the  cycle  of  Mohamed).  And  then  (verse  44)  shall  a  kingdom  be  set  up  which 
shall  last  for  ever— the  Millenium.  These  kingdoms  are  cycles  of  600  years,  and  bring  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Millenium  to  about  the  year  1200,  according  to  what  I  have  proved,  that  the 
aera  of  the  birth  of  Christ  was  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  age  of  the  Romans  and  Sibyls,  and  the 
ninth  Avatar  of  India. 

If  the  learned  Nimrod  be  right,  that  the  beast  of  John,  with  ten  horns,  is  the  fourth  kingdom 
of  Daniel,  which  I  have  suggested  to  be  the  tenth  Neros, 4  then  the  beast  may  be  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  ten  Cycles.  The  beast  with  seven  heads  and  ten  horns  will  be  the  six  thousands,  and 
the  seventh  will  be  the  Millenium,  and  the  ten  Cycles  will  be  the  ten   horns.     The  beast  that  was 


1  Vide  Daniel  ix.  24—27.  2  Part  iv.  p.  338. 

3  Univers.  Hist.  Vol.  XXI.  p.  59.  *  Nimrod,  Vol  III.  p.  595. 

4r 


6J4  DANIEL. 

to  be  resuscitated  under  one  of  the  heads — the  beast  that  was,  and  is  not,  and  goes  into  perdition, 
that  is,  goes  to  destruction,  revolves  and  passes  away  as  the  former  had  done.  It  has  been  ob- 
served that  five  heads  were  passed  at  the  time  of  the  vision,  and  that  the  sixth  was  going ;  this  is 
as  it  ought  to  be — the  sixth  millenary  running.  This  answers  to  the  beast  with  seven  heads  and 
ten  horns. 

In  chap.  viii.  ver.  14,  it  is  said,  Unto  tivo  thousand  and  three  hundred  days  ;  then  shall  the  sanc- 
tuary be  cleansed.  The  present  fashionable  mystics,  Messrs.  Irving  and  Frere  agree  in  opinion 
that  the  2300  years  ought  to  be  2400.  They  are  justified  in  this  by  the  wording  of  the  LXX. 
where  it  is  written  Tsrpaxotriai.  The  way  in  which  these  mystics  and  calculators  accidentally 
and  unconsciously  support  my  system  is  very  striking,  and  more  convincing  than  any  calculations 
which  I  could  make ;  for  here  it  is  evident  that  Daniel l  alluded  to  the  cycle  then  running,  and  to 
the  next,  viz.  that  of  Cyrus  ;  then  to  the  two  after  Christ ;  in  all,  four  cycles  or  2400  years  ;  and 
to  the  six  which  had  preceded  them  ;  that  is,  to  6x600=3600+2400=6000. 

His  famous  time,  times,  and  half  a  time,  or  1260,  arose  as  follows  :  2160+2160+420+1260= 
6000.    The  420  years  we  must  observe  are  equal  to  better  than  5  degrees,  but  not  to  six.    Thus  : 

30  degrees 2160 

30  degrees 2160 

5  degrees  before  Christ ....     360 
And  a  fraction,  viz.  60  years      60 

4740 
1260 


6000 

It  is  necessary  that  there  should  be  a  fraction  of  a  degree,  in  consequence  of  the  two  cycles  of 
the  Neros  and  the  ten  Zodiacal  signs  not  running  pari  passu,  and  6f  course  not  coinciding  till  the 
end  of  the  great  cycle  of  21,600  and  43,200  years. 

The  490  years  are  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  ;  then  take  off  seventy,  the  space  to  it,  from 
the  birth  of  Christ,  and  we  have  360+60=420.  One  mode  of  calculation  proves  the  other, 
which,  if  it  were  true,  of  course  it  would  do.  It  must  be  observed  that  these  are  loose  cal- 
culations (not  pretending  to  accuracy)  in  whole  numbers.  I  shall  refer  to  this  by  and  by,  when 
it  will  be  more  clearly  understood. 

Daniel  says,  xii.  12,  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  to  the  1335  days. 

Volney  remarks,  "  According  to  these  principles,  which  are  those  of  all  astronomers,  we  see 
that  the  annual  precession  being  50"  and  a  fraction  of  about  a  fourth  or  a  fifth,  the  consequence 
is  that  an  entire  degree  is  lost  or  displaced  in  seventy-one  years,  eight  or  nine  months,  and  an 
entire  sign  in  about  2152  or  2153  years."  See  Bk.  V.  Ch.  II.  Sect.  5,  precisely  in  one  year 
50"  9'"  f . 

2153  30  :  2153  ::  5  :  358M=f. 

2153 
359 


4665 
1335 

6000 


1  If  the  number  2400  were  not  the  original,  it  must  have  been  corrected  in  the  LXX.  by  the  popes,  to  make  it  suit  a 
certain  mythos  which  I  shall  explain  presently. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   V.    SECTION   8.  6/5 

The  Messiah  is  said  to  precede  the  final  end  of  all  things,  a  time,  times,  and  a  half  time,  or,  as 
generally  admitted,  1260  years. 

If  we  allow  for  the  mistake  of  Usher  and  throw  back  the  birth  of  Christ  to  the  fifth  year, 
making  the  interval  between  his  birth  and  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  75  years  or  to  the  75th 
year,  and  add  the  1260  to  the  75,  we  shall  have  1335  which,  +  4665=6000.  If  Daniel  knew  the 
time  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  when  the  temple  would  be  destroyed,  and  therefore  when  the  Millenium 
would  commence,  counting  from  the  first  of  Taurus,  he  would  fix  the  sums  of  1260  and  1335 
without  any  difficulty. 

If  1260  (Dan.  xii.  7)  be  added  to  70,  and  the  4  years  of  Usher  allowed  for,  it  will  all  but  one 
make  up  the  1335.  The  destruction  of  Jerusalem  ought,  according  to  Calmet,  to  be  74,  not  70  : 
then,  1260+74=1334. 

In  the  eleventh  verse  there  seems  to  be  a  corruption,  or  something  alluded  to  in  the  Jewish 
history  which  has  not  come  to  us,  for  it  says,  or  seems  to  mean  that,  at  the  end  of  1290  years,  but 
before  the  end  of  the  1335  days  alluded  to  in  the  next  verse,  the  sacrifice  and  oblation  should 
cease.  In  Calmet's  Chronology  the  sacrifice  is  said  not  to  have  ceased  till  the  year  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  temple,  which  was  74  years  after  the  birth  of  Christ,  whereas  the  1290  would  bring  it 
to  about  45  years  after  his  birth,  when  nothing  particular  appears  to  have  happened,  at  least  the 
daily  sacrifice  does  not  appear  to  have  then  ceased.  As  we  have  formerly  seen  a  various  reading 
or  corruption  of  the  text  in  the  2300  and  2400  years,  it  is  not  unfair,  under  all  the  circumstances, 
to  suspect  one  here  also.  If  it  be  not  a  corruption,  I  do  not  understand  it.  But  as  it  contains,  in 
language,  a  contradiction  to  the  context,  I  am  justified  in  suspecting  another  mistake. 

The  number  666  is  called  Pseudoprophetical,  or  would-be  prophetic.  It  is  also  called  the  mark 
of  the  beast,  the  name  of  the  beast,  and  the  number  of  his  name,  *  and  the  knowledge  of  it 
wisdom.  If  I  had  used  those  words  I  should  have  been  said  to  accommodate  the  language  unfairly 
to  my  theory  of  the  first  letters  being  figures  ;  of  this  I  shall  treat  in  a  future  book. 

Almost  all  the  divines  now  fix  upon  some  year  between  600  and  615  for  the  beginning  of 
Daniel's  period  of  1260  years.  In  former  times  this  period  was  supposed,  and  rightly  supposed, 
to  begin  with  Christ,  which  makes  it  end  and  the  Millenium  commence  just  about  the  times  of  the 
Crusades  :  a  little  before  which,  all  mankind  ran  to  Palestine  to  be  ready  for  the  Lord's  coming. 
We  hear  nothing  of  this  now,  because  the  time  is  past  and  new  artifices  are  devised  to  conceal 
the  truth ;  but  the  Crusaders  were  right :  this  was  the  end  of  the  tenth  Neros  and  sixth  Millenary, 
and  we  are  now  in  the  seventh  Millenary.  The  way  in  which  most  of  the  modern  mystics  fix 
upon  some  year  about  608  for  the  period  is  very  striking.  Superstitious  persons  in  the  beginning 
of  Christianity  first  thought  the  Millenium  would  commence  about  the  year  600,  then  it  was  ad- 
journed to  1200,  and  then  it  came  to  1800,  and  it  will  shortly  be  adjourned  to  2400.  Long  before 
that  time,  like  the  Israel  Redux,  all  the  mystics  of  this  day  will  be  forgotten,  and  this  book  be 
burnt  by  the  priests. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Buchanan2  says,  "  In  the  year  1667,  Mr.  Samuel  Lee,  a  scholar  of  enlarged 
"  views,  who  had  studied  the  prophetical  writings  with  great  attention,  published  a  small  volume, 
"  entitled,  '  Israel  Redux,  or  the  Restoration  of  Israel.'  He  calculates  the  event  from  the  Pro- 
"  phecies  of  Daniel  and  of  St.  John,  and  commences  the  great  period  of  1260  years,  not  from 
"  A.  D.  608,  but  from  A.  D.  476,  which  brings  it  to  1736."  He  then  adds,  "  After  the  great 
"  conflicts  with  the  papal  powers  in  the  West,  will  begin  the  stirs  and  commotions  about  the 
"  Jews  and  Israel  in  the  East.     If  then  to  1736  we  add  30  more,  they  reach  to  1/66 :  but  the 


1  Vide  Mede's  Works,  792  ;  Rev.  xiii.  17,  18.  2  Christ.  Res.  Ed.  1819,  p.  245. 

4r2 


67Q  CRUSADES. 


times  of  perplexity  are  determined  (by  Daniel)  to  last  45  years  longer.  If  then  we  conjoin 
those  45  years  more  to  1766,  it  produces  1811,  for  those  times  of  happiness  to  Israel."1  I  do 
not  understand  this,  but  it  is  evident  from  what  Dr.  Buchanan  says,  that  the  number  608  was  the 
end  of  one  of  the  periods  to  which  the  mystics,  in  their  exposition  of  Daniel,  had  come.  But  how 
they  had  arrived  at  this  I  cannot  find  out.  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  the  book.  I  beg  to  refer 
my  reader  to  the  third  volume  of  Mons.  Dupuis'  work  on  all  religions — to  the  essay  on  the  Apo- 
calypse, where  he  will  find  a  great  number  of  most  interesting  observations,  and  where  he  will 
also  find  the  doctrines  of  Daniel,  Ezekiel,  and  John,  proved  to  be  identical,  and  all  to  be  drawn 
from  the  school  of  the  oriental  Magi.  I  am  convinced  that,  by  the  theory  which  I  have  suggested, 
if  the  numbers  in  these  books  be  free  from  corruption,  I  have  explained  the  meaning  of  them  all 
but  one ;  and  with  respect  to  it,  we  must  not  forget  the  various  reading  shewn  in  the  numbers 
2300  and  2400  j  and  if  there  be  one  corruption  in  the  versions,  a  fact  indisputable,  it  is  not  im* 
probable  that  this  may  be  another. 

A  deep  reflection  on  the  origin  of  nations  and  religions  has  induced  me  to  come  to  a  conclusion, 
that  all  religions  have  been  the  children  of  circumstances,  and  those  circumstances  arising  almost 
entirely  out  of  judicial  astrology.  The  first  object,  in  all  prophecy,  was  to  foretell  a  future 
Saviour,  or  the  commencement  of  a  future  cycle,  when  a  new  or  young  Saviour  was  to  bring  an 
age  of  happiness.  Of  course  the  astrologers  would  have  no  difficulty  in  nearly  fixing  the  time, 
and  from  this  arises  the  degree  of  plausibility  which  we  find  the  ancient  prophecies  to  possess. 
To  a  certain  degree  they  fitted  to  every  cycle.  Hence  has  arisen  the  specious  contrivance  of  a 
double  meaning ;  for  the  prophecy  which  would  apply  to  Cyrus,  would  equally  apply  to  Jesus. 
The  sectaries  of  religion,  in  each  cycle,  claimed  the  verification  of  the  prophecy  as  the  cycle  came 
round,  and  the  sectaries  of  each  sect  of  the  cyclar  religion  also  claimed  it,  that  is,  there  were 
several  eighth  and  several  ninth  avatars.  These  were  Antichrists  to  each  other.  From  this,  along 
with  the  belief  that  the  planets  ruled  the  affairs  of  men,  arose  magic  or  astrology  in  its  bad  sense, 
and  for  these  reasons  we  find  prophets  patronised  by  the  Jewish  law,  and  astrology  prohibited. 

9.  We  now  come  to  the  famous  Crusades,  the  real  origin  or  cause  of  which,  in  modern  times, 
has  never  been  understood.  They  will  be  found  to  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  the  complete 
development  of  my  system,  and  particularly  of  the  tenth  Avatar,  and  will  lead  to  a  variety  of  mat- 
ters which  will  greatly  surprise  my  reader. 

In  the  time  of  Richard  the  First,  about  A.  D.  1 189,  a  general  belief  prevailed  that  the  end  of  the 
world  drew  near,  a  belief  which,  in  a  great  measure,  caused  the  crusades  to  Palestine,  where 
the  devotees  expected  the  Saviour  to  appear.  This  is  attested  by  St.  Bernard,  of  Clairvaux,  and 
was  foretold  by  Joachim,  Abbot  of  Curacio  in  Calabria,2  a  most  renowned  interpreter  of  prophecy 
in  those  days.  Antichrist  was  to  appear  at  Antioch,  and  the  crusade  was  the  gathering  together 
of  the  kings  of  the  earth  to  the  battle  of  the  great  day  of  God  Almighty.3  It  seems  from  the  ac- 
counts that  the  possession  of  Antioch  was  made  a  great  point,  almost  as  much  so,  indeed,  as  that 
of  Jerusalem.     It  was  among  the  first  cities  taken  by  the  crusaders. 

Various  reasons  have  been  given  to  account  for  the  crusades,  but  these  were  the  true  ones.  In 
Mosheim,  a  detail  of  the  reasons  generally  assigned  may  be  seen,  but  they  are  admitted  by  him  to 
be  insufficient  to  account  for  these  wars.  Indeed,  every  cause  is  assigned  but  the  true  one,4  which 
seems  never  to  have  been  suspected  by  Mosheim  or  his  translator.  I  think  there  will  be  no  doubt 
in  future  upon  this  subject. 


'  Israel  Redux,  p.  122,  printed  in  Cornhill,  Lond.  1677.  *  Roger  Hoveden,  ap.  Script,  post  Bedam,  p.  681. 

3  Rev.  xvi.  12,  14;  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  393.  4   Cent.  xi.  Part  i.  pp.  446,  &c. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION  9.  677 

Tn  Baronius l  may  be  seen  an  account  that  both  Saint  Bernard  and  an  eminent  man  called  Nor- 
bert,  preached  the  speedy  end  of  the  world. 

The  celebrated  Roger  Bacon  was  born  in  the  year  1216,  and  died,  aged  78,  in  the  year  1294. 
He  was  a  most  extraordinary  man  for  the  time  he  lived.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  was  conversant 
with  all  the  secret  knowledge  of  the  ancients,  which  remained  in  his  day.  Gunpowder,  telescopes, 
the  art  of  perspective,  and  many  other  branches  of  philosophy  and  science  supposed  to  be  then 
unknown,  he  was  well  acquainted  with.  I  have  little  doubt  that  he  perfectly  understood  the  pro- 
phecies of  Daniel  and  the  Revelation  ;  but,  in  consequence  of  the  millenium  not  coming  at  the 
time  predicted  and  calculated  on,  he  was  induced  to  believe,  like  most  others  of  his  time,  that  he 
was  mistaken.  The  learned  Nimrod  affords  him  no  quarter,  but  the  following  account  which  he 
gives  is  enough  for  my  purpose.     He  says, 

"  When  Roger  Bacon  tells  us, 2  that  one  Artificius  was  then  living,  who  had  already  been  kept 
"  alive  1250  years  by  the  occult  powers  of  nature,  and  who  had  seen  Tantalus  on  his  golden  throne, 
"  and  received  homage  from  him,  it  is  only  another  way  for  that  man  to  say  that  Antichrist  was 
"about  to  return  in  ten  years  from  that  time.  Creditur,  he  says,  ab  omnibus  sapientibus3  quod 
"  non  sumus  multum  remoti  a  temporibus  Antichristi ;  and  in  another  place  he  says,  that  the 
"  time  of  Antichrist  might4  be  fixed  with  certainty  by  comparing  scripture  with  the  prophecies  of 
"  Sibylla,  of  Merlin, 5  and  of  Joachim,  of  Calabria,  with  history,  with  the  books  of  philosophy,  and 
"  the  courses  of  the  stars." 6 

If  we  knew  when  the  observation  respecting  the  1250  years  was  written,  we  might  pretty  nearly 
tell  on  what  year  he  supposed  the  calculations  made  out  the  millenium  as  about  to  happen.  By 
Artificius  he  probably  means  the  Ioannes  who  was  to  wait  till  Jesus  returned,  and  who,  from 
having  seen  Tantalus  on  his  throne,  was  evidently  a  renewed  incarnation,  or  perhaps  he  meant 
Salhivahana  the  carpenter  or  artificer,  or  it  may  be  a  mason. 

The  persons  who  were  initiated  into  the  Esoteric  religion  of  the  Vatican,  after  being  disap- 
pointed in  the  year  of  Christ  600,  imagined,  that  the  famous  6000  years  would  end  at  or  about  the 
year  1200  of  Christ,  when  the  millenium  would  commence,  and  it  was  this  which  caused  the 
crusade  against  the  Mohamedan  Antichrist,  who  had  arisen  against  the  new,  the  tenth,  and  the 
last  Messiah  or  Avatar,  patronised  by  the  Pope  of  Rome,  whom  I  shall  draw  from  his  obscurity. 
If  the  ninth  age  began  with  Christ,  then  the  tenth  would  begin  with  the  year  600,  and  finish  with 
the  year  1200;  and  then  would  be  the  manifestation  of  the  Lord  at  Jerusalem,  which  the  devo- 
tees wished  to  prepare  for  his  reception. 

These  circumstances  premised,  we  now,  at  last,  come  to  the  tenth  Avatar,  and  the  facts  re- 
specting it  are  not  less  remarkable  than  the  others.  My  reader  will  recollect  that,  in  the  Gospel 
of  the  mysterious  Ioannes,  Jesus,  the  Avatar  of  the  Sibillyne  oracles,  is  made  to  declare  that  he 
would  send  another  person  to  complete  his  mission,  called  in  our  translation  a  comforter,  and  also 
the  spirit  of  truth.  The  words  spirit  of  truth  would  well  justify  the  expectation,  that  this  person 
would  be  an  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom  if  he  appeared  in  human  form.     In  consequence,  we 


1  An.  1 106,  Tom.  XII.  p.  51.  2  Epistola  de  rairabili  Potestate  Artis  et  Naturae,  Cap.  vii.  p.  50. 

s  Opus  Majus,  p.  254. 

4  Ibid.  169.  Noto  hie  pronere  os  meum  in  ccelum,  sed  scio  quod  si  ecclesia  vellet  revolvere  textum  sacrum  et 
prophetias  sacras,  atque  prophetias  Sibyllae,  et  Merlini,  et  Aquilae,  et  Sestonis,  Joachim  et  multorum  aliorum,  insuper 
historias  et  libros  philosophorum,  atque  juberet  considerari  vias  astronomise,  inveniretur  sufficiens  suspicio  vel  magis 
■certitudo  de  tempore  Antichristi.     P.  16i>,  Ed.  Bowyer,  1733,  Lond 

*  It  seems  our  British  Merlin  was  in  the  secret.  6  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  178. 


678  MOHAMED. 

find  that  various  teachers  of  doctrines  were  believed,  by  their  followers,  to  be  this  person.  For 
instance,  Simon  Magus,  Montanus,  Marcion,  Manes,  were  all  so  considered,  and  in  consequence 
have  been  grievously  abused  by  the  Romish  writers  for  the  unparalleled  wickedness  of  giving 
themselves  out  as  being  the  Holy  Ghost — these  writers  never  attempting,  perhaps  not  being  able, 
to  explain  the  nature  of  the  case.  The  most  remarkable  of  these  Teachers  was  the  person  called 
Simon  Magus,  called  by  the  Romists  Magus,  probably  as  a  term  of  reproach. 

From  the  immense  mass  of  lies  and  nonsense  which  have  been  written  respecting  him,  I  think 
we  may  select  enough  to  shew  the  probability  of  his  followers  having  believed  him  to  be  the  per- 
son foretold  by  Jesus ;  and  the  Helene  or  Selene,  by  whom  he  was  said  to  be  accompanied,  and 
with  whom  he  was  enamoured,  was  what  Mons.  Beausobre 1  calls  La  Sagesse,  ge'ne'ratrix  de  toutes 
choses.2  After  Simon  Magus,  Montanus  was  held  to  be  the  person  promised;  and,  after  him, 
Mani :  and  this  brings  us  to  a  tenth  and  last  Avatar,  the  celebrated  prophet  of  Arabia — Mo- 

hamed. 

10.  Mr.  Faber,3  who  is  the  most  sensible  of  all  the  mystics,  makes  one  very  striking  observation, 
which  I  shall  give  in  his  own  words  :  **  Now  it  is  an  undoubted  historical  fact,  whatever  applica- 
"  tion  we  may  make  of  the  fact  itself,  that  in  the  year  608  or  609,  Mohamed,  dexterously  availing 
"  himself  of  the  unscriptural  demonolatry  which  had  infested  the  Christian  church,  set  on  foot  an 
"  imposture,  which  soon  overspread  the  whole  Macedonian  empire,  and  which  performed  the  very 
"  actions  that  are  ascribed  to  the  second  predicted  power,  both  in  the  same  geographical  region  and 
"  during  the  same  chronological  period."  This  forms,  to  my  mind,  the  finest  example  ever 
known  of  a  prophecy  causing  its  own  verification  or  completion.  In  the  Gospels,  Christ  is  made 
to  prophesy  that  one  should  come  after  him  to  complete  his  mission.  This  was  nothing  but  the 
repetition  of  all  the  Gentile  prophecies  of  a  tenth  and  last  Avatar.  Mohamed  was  believed  by  his 
followers  to  be  this  person,  whose  name  they  said,  in  the  original,  uncorrupted  gospel,  was  given 
by  Jesus,  as  that  of  Cyrus  was  by  Isaiah.  I  am  quite  certain  that  the  context  and  the  concomi- 
tant circumstances  are  such  as  to  induce  any  unprejudiced  person  to  think,  that  the  assertion  of 
the  Mohamedans  respecting  this  prophecy  is  true.  In  the  context,  a  person  who  was  to  come,  is 
repeatedly  referred  to. 

Then  what  was  the  fact  ?  Jesus  Christ  was  believed,  by  the  followers  of  Mohamed,  to  be  a 
divine  incarnation,  or  a  person  divinely  inspired,  and  to  have  foretold  the  next  and  the  last  Avatar, 
Mohamed,  to  complete  the  ten  periods,  and  the  six  millenaries,  previous  to  the  grand  Millenium, 


1  Liv.  vii.  Ch.  vi.  p.  511. 

2  I  learn  from  Beausobre,  that  it  appears,  from  a  passage  of  Plato  and  another  of  Sextus  Empyricus,  that,  according 
to  ancient  authors,  the  war  between  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  was  about  a  statue  of  Selene  or  the  Moon,  (I  suppose  the 
Palladium  or  image  of  Minerva,  which  probably  was  believed  to  have  come  from  heaven,)  and  that  Simon  maintained, 
it  was  for  the  love  of  the  Selena  or  Helena,  the  Moon,  that  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  had  gone  to  war,  and  that  the 
Helene  he  had  with  him  was  the  Trojan  Helen.  In  all  this  I  think  it  easy  to  see  the  mistake  constantly  made,  as  I  have 
noticed,  between  the  Moon  and  the  Maia  or  Magna  Mater,  the  female  generative  principle.  It  appears  that  the  Queen, 
the  Mother,  of  all  things,  the  Divine  Wisdom  (La  Sagesse)  which  produced  all  things,  was  equally  called  Luna,  Selena, 
and  Helena.     (Beausobre,  iO.) 

By  the  ancient  Egyptian  mystics,  Osiris  was  the  male  generative  principle— Isis  the  female,  his  wife.  In  judicial 
astrology  or  magic,  the  Sun  was  sacred  to  Osiris,  the  Moon  to  Isis ;  thus  it  was  that  the  mistake  continually  arose,  and 
the  emblems  and  names  of  the  female  generative  principle  were  attributed  to  the  Moon.  This  perhaps  might  not  be 
from  mere  mistake,  but  from  a  spirit  of  mysticism.  Thus,  on  the  1/th  of  the  month,  the  Sun  or  Osiris  is  said  to  enter 
into  the  Moon  and  impregnate  her.  But  this  notion  respecting  the  Moon  was  not  the  original  doctrine,  but  a  corrup- 
tion of  it,  for  the  Moon  was  often  masculine. 

3  Sacred  Cal.  of  Prop.  Vol.  I.  p.  73. 


BOOK    X.     CHAPTER   V.      SECTION  10.  679 

or  the  reign  of  the  X^jfof,  or  Christ,  on  earth,  for  the  last  and  seventh  period,  of  one  thousand 
years.  Irenaeus  and  the  first  Christian  fathers  said,  that,  during  this  period,  the  lion  was  to  lie 
down  with  the  lamb,  and  the  grapes  were  to  cry  out  to  the  faithful  to  come  and  eat  them! 

I  think,  in  the  expression  alluded  to  in  the  Koran, l  if  I  mistake  not,  there  is  a  proof  that  my 
doctrine  of  the  renewal  of  the  cycle  was  held  by  Mohamed,  or  was  thought  to  be  applicable  to 
him  ;  and  it  seems  that  the  writer  of  that  book  held  up  Mohamed  as  a  new  incarnation.  Divine 
Love,  coming  in  the  tenth  saeculum,  as  foretold  by  the  Sibyls,  by  Jesus,  and  also  by  the  Prophet 
Haggai,  (ii.  7,)  "And  the  desire  of  all  nations  shall  come"  "ion  HMD,  From  this  root,"  (says 
Parkhurst,)  "  the  pretended  prophet  Mohammed,  or  Mahomet,  had  his  name."2  Here  Mohamed  is 
expressly  foretold  by  Haggai,  and  by  name;  there  is  no  interpolation  here.  There  is  no  evading 
this  clear  text  and  its  meaning,  as  it  appeared  to  the  mind  of  the  most  unwilling  of  witnesses, 
Parkhurst,  and  a  competent  judge  too  when  he  happened  not  to  be  warped  by  prejudice.  He  does 
not  suppress  his  opinion  here,  as  he  did  in  the  case  of  the  Wisdom  of  the  Jerusalem  Targum,  be- 
cause he  had  no  object  to  serve  ;  he  did  not  see  to  what  this  truth  would  lead.  I  beg  to  refer  to 
what  I  have  said  in  the  last  section  ;  there  my  reader  will  see  that  the  end  of  the  tenth  cycle  was 
foretold  by  Christian  astrologers,  which  caused  the  fanatical  crusaders,  almost  by  millions,  to 
flock  to  Jerusalem  about  the  year  1200,  the  end  of  Mohamed's  cycle.  The  observation  of  Mr. 
Faber,  that  Mohamed's  mission  began  at  the  year  608,  is  important.  This  is  the  very  period 
when  the  tenth  Avatar  ought  to  commence,  according  to  one  of  my  two  Neros'  systems.  If  this 
be  accident,  it  is  surely  a  very  extraordinary  accident,  that,  among  all  the  numbers,  the  identical 
number  of  the  great  Neros  should  be  fallen  on ;  and  that  number  the  very  number  required  to 
support  my  system — nay,  to  prove  the  truth  of  it,  if  the  system  be  true. 

The  expression  which  the  Mohamedans  say  has  been  expunged  from  the  Romish  Gospels,  is  as 
follows  :  "  And  when  Jesus,  the  son  of  Mary,  said,  O  children  of  Israel,  verily  I  am  the  apostle 
"  of  God  sent  unto  you,  confirming  the  law  which  was  delivered  before  me,  and  bringing  good 
"  tidings  of  an  apostle  who  shall  come  after  me,  and  whose  name  shall  be  Ahmed."  Chap.  lxi. 
This  is  correctly  as  foretold  by  Haggai. 

On  this  Sale  says,  "  Whose  name  shall  be  Ahmed.  For  Mohammed  also  bore  the  name  of 
"  Ahmed  :  both  names  being  derived  from  the  same  root,  and  nearly  of  the  same  signification. 
"  The  Persian  paraphrast,  to  support  what  is  here  alleged,  quotes  the  following  words  of  Christ : 
"  I  go  to  my  Father,  and  the  Paraclete  shall  come : 3  the  Mohamedan  doctors  unanimously 
"  teaching,  that  by  the  Paraclete  (or,  as  they  choose  to  read  it,  the  Periclyte  or  Illustrious),  their 
**  prophet  is  intended,  and  no  other."4  Mr.  Sale,  in  page  98  of  his  Preliminary  Discourse, 
distinctly  admits,  that  Periclyte,  in  Arabic,  means  illustrious,  the  meaning  of  the  name  of 
Mohamed. 

Bishop  Marsh  has  observed  that  this  word  Paraclete  must  have  been  the  Syriac  or  Arabic 5 
word  E'^pnD  prqlit  translated  into  Greek.  I  apprehend  the  whole  argument  between  the 
Mohamedans  and  Christians  will  turn  upon  the  question,  whether  the  word  Q>bp~\D  prqlit  ought 
to  be,  when  translated  into  Greek,  rendered  by  the  word  7rapa.x7>7)Tos  or  7rspix'XvT0S.  Now  I 
maintain,  that  if  Bishop  Marsh  says  the  word  prqlit  was  the  word  used  by  Jesus,  and  that  it 
means  illustrious,  it  is  a  gross  mistranslation  to  render  it  by  xapaxXriros,  which  means  com- 
forter. 

The  passages  in  John,  ch.  xiv.  16,  26,  xv.  26,  xvi.  7,  and  in  Luke  xxiv.  49,  are  those  which  we 


•  Vide  Sale's  preface,  p.  98.  *  See  Parkhurst  in  voce,  nnn  hmd.  3  John  xvi.  7,  &c. 

4  Koran,  Vol.  II.  p.  423,  note.  *  Marsh's  Michaelis,  Chap.  iv.  Sect.  xiv. 


680  MOHAMED. 

translate  from  the  Greek  icapax^rog  comforter,  and  which  the  Mohamedans  say  ought  to  be 
Tspixhoros  illustrious.  This  Comforter  is  said  by  Christians  to  have  come,  as  described  in  the 
book  called  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  in  a  tongue  of  fire  settling  on 
each  apostle.  The  Mohamedans  say  this  is  ridiculous  as  the  sending  of  a  Comforter ;  and  it 
c  ould  not  have  been  necessary  to  enable  them  to  work  miracles,  because,  if  the  Gospel  histories 
can  be  believed,  Jesus  had  given  them  this  power  before,  as  appears  from  the  first  verse  of  the 
tenth  chapter  of  Matthew  ;  and  that  with  respect  to  the  mere  endowment  with  the  Holy  Ghost, 
it  could  be  as  little  needful,  since  it  appears  from  the  twenty-second  verse  of  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  John,  that  he  had  endowed  them  with  this  gift  prior  to  his  ascension,  not  two  months 

before. 

The  Mohamedans  further  allege,  that  the  book  of  the  Acts  nowhere  says  that  these  fiery 
tongues  were  the  promised  Comforter,  which  it  would  have  done  if  they  had  been  so  ;  and  further, 
that  the  object  of  the  miracle  of  the  tongues  of  fire  is  evident,  and  admits  of  no  dispute,  namely, 
the  endowment  of  the  apostles,  as  the  text  clearly  expresses,  with  the  power  of  speaking  all 
languages.1  Besides,  the  Mohamedans  may  fairly  ask,  how  came  Jesus  not  to  say  he  would 
send  them  the  rm  i£Hp  qds-ruh,  the  'Ayiov  Ylvsvjxa  or  Sanctus  Spiritus  ?  If  he  had  the  gift  of 
prescience  he  must  have  known  that  his  equivocal  expression  would  cause  infinite  mischief  in  the 
world. 

In  reply  to  the  demand  of  Christians,  Why  did  not  Mohamed  perforin  a  miracle  ?  the  answer 
has  been,  The  victory  of  the  Crescent  over  the  Cross  is  the  miracle.  If  the  cause  be  of  God, 
it  will  succeed  without  other  miracle.  But  on  the  victory  of  the  Russian  Cross  over  the  Crescent, 
it  will  shortly  fall. 

The  Mohamedans,  in  the  defence  of  their  doctrine  of  the  wilful  corruption  of  the  manuscripts  of 
the  Gospel  histories,  call  upon  the  Christians  to  produce  the  autographs,  or  very  old  manuscripts. 
But  to  neither  of  these  calls  can  a  satisfactory  answer  be  given.  There  are  no  autographs  and  no 
manuscripts  older  than  the  sixth  century.  The  Mohamedans  say,  your  churches  in  Rome,  being 
Roman  temples,  are  many  of  them  much  older  than  this  period,  where  the  MSS.  might  have  been 
preserved,  along  with  the  relics  which  abound  of  Peter,  Paul,  and  other  saints,  if  you  had  thought 
proper.  But  some  Christians  say,  these  relics  are  forgeries  ;  to  which  the  Mohamedan  replies, 
that  this  is  a  mere  subterfuge  to  evade  his  unanswerable  argument.  And  this  is  fair  in  the  mouth 
of  a  Mohamedan,  who  cannot  be  expected  to  make  distinctions  between  the  Protestant  and  Papist 
sects  of  Christians.  But  independently  of  this  argumentum  ad  hominem,  there  can  be  assigned 
no  good  reason  why  the  manuscripts  were  not  preserved  in  the  old  churches.  The  Goths  and 
other  conquerors  of  Rome  intentionally  destroyed  neither  the  temples,  churches,  nor  books.  The 
temples  are  there,  yet  existing  as  churches.  The  church  in  which  are  deposited  the  most  sacred 
things  of  the  religion,  the  bodies  of  Peter  and  Paul,  was  never  destroyed. 

But  though  the  Christians  cannot  produce  the  autographs  or  very  old  manuscripts,  they  say, 
that  the  quotations  of  certain  very  old  authors,  called  Fathers,  will  prove  that  the  word  was 
written  Paracletos  and  not  Periclytos,  long  before  the  time  of  Mohamed,  and  therefore  that  they 
cannot  have  been  corrupted  in  order  to  oppose  the  Mohamedans.  To  this  it  is  replied,  that  the 
word  was  not  corrupted  to  counteract  the  Mohamedan  Paraclete,  but  the  Paraclete  generally — the 
various  Paracletes,  as  they  called  themselves,  long  before  the  time  of  Mohamed — Simon  Magus, 
Manes,  Montanus,  and  Marcion,  who  were  all  set  up  as  paracletes  by  their  followers,  and  who 


1  In  allusion  to  the  idea  of  fire  and  language  being  connected  in  some  way  or  other,  we  have  the  proverb,  the  fire 
kindled  and  he  spake. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION   10.  681 

would  all  have  been  called  the  illustrious  prophets  if  their  heresies  had  prevailed  instead  of  dying 
away;  and,  that  it  js  the  peculiar  object  of  the  corruption  to  bolster  up  the  Trinity,  in  opposition 
to  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  by  making  the  pesron  to  be  sent,  into  the  Holy  Ghost.1 

Bishop  Marsh,  Michaelis,  and  divers  other  learned  men,  have  alleged,  with  much  plausibility,  the 
difficulty  and  almost  impossibility  of  corrupting  the  gospels  after  the  first  few  centuries.  But  the 
following  passages  from  the  pens  of  unwilling  witnesses  to  the  facts  of  which  they  inform  us,  will 
shew  how  little  dependence  can  be  placed  on  this  kind  of  specious  reasoning. 

In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  the  Bibles  were  corrected  by  Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  and  by  Nicolas,  Cardinal  and  Librarian  of  the  Romish  Church,  secundum  orthodoxam 
fidem.2  The  learned  Beausobre  has  the  following  passage:  "II  se  peut  faire,  dit  M.  Simon,3 
"  que  cette  histoire  ait  ete  prise  de  quelque  ancien  livre  Apocryphe,  ou  elle  etoit  commune  dans 
"  les  premiers  siecles  du  Christianisme,  et  peut-£tre  croyoit-on,  qu'elle  venoit  des  Apotres,  ou  de 
"  leurs  disciples.  C'est  pourquoi  ceux  qui  ont  ose*  retoucher  en  tant  d'endroits  les  premiers  ex- 
"  emplaires  du  Nouveau  Testament,  dans  la  seule  vue  de  le  rendre  intelligible  a  tout  le  monde, 
"  n'auront  fait  aucune  difficulte  d'y  ajouter  ces  sortes  d'histoires,  qu'ils  croyoient  etre  veritables. 
"  Je  mets  au  bas  de  la  page  le  jugement  d'un  autre  savant  moderne,  me  contentant  de  remarquer, 
"  que  si  les  Heretiques  6tent  un  mot  du  texte  Sacre,  ou  s'ils  en  ajoutent  un,  ce  sont  de  sacri- 
"  I4g4s  violateurs  de  la  saintete  des  Ventures.  Mais,  si  les  Catholiques  le  font,  cela  s'appelle  re- 
"  toucher  les  premiers  exemplaires,  les  reformer  pour  les  rendre  plus  intelligibles.  M.  Simon  fait 
"  l'honneur  aux  Benedictins  d'avoir  reforme  de  m£me  les  ouvrages  des  Peres,  afin  de  les  accom- 
"  moder  a  la  foi  de  l'eglise.  Mettons  le  passage  de  M.  Simon,  Dissert,  p.  51.  Nous  lisons  dans 
"  la  vie  de  Lanfranc,  Moine  Benedictin,  et  ensuite  Archev6que  de  Cantorbdri,  qui  a  ete  publiee 
"  par  les  Benedictins  de  la  congregation  de  St.  Maur,  avec  les  ouvrages  de  cet  archev6que, 
"  qu'ayant  trouve  les  livres  de  Vecriture  heaucoup  corrumpus  par  ceux  qui  les  avoient  copiez,  il 
"  s'etoit  applique  a  les  corriger,  aussi-bien  que  les  livres  des  saints  peres  selon  la  foi 

"  ORTHODOXE SECUNDUM    FIDEM    ORTHODOXAM."4 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  the  Benedictrine  Monks  of  St.  Maur,  as  far  as  the  Latin  and  Greek 
languages  went,  were  a  very  learned  and  talented,  as  well  as  numerous  body  of  men.  In  Cleland's 
life  of  Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  is  the  following  passage :  "  Lanfranc,  a  Benedictine 

1  Soon  after  my  Apology  for  the  Life  of  Mohamed  came  out,  my  former  friend,  Mr.  Beverley,  published  an  answer 
to  it,  part  of  which  (as  he  told  me  himself  when  writing  it)  was  written  in  my  breakfast  room.  I  will  not  deny  that  it 
caused  me  some  uneasiness,  for  I  felt  that  my  friend  had  not  written  of  me,  as  I  should  have  written  of  him.  In  his 
whole  argument  the  Prosopopoeia,  which  I  use  in  my  argument,  is  put  out  of  sight,  and  he  treats  me  as  giving  my  own 
opinion,  instead  of  giving  the  arguments  of  the  Mohamedans.  I  requested  him,  at  my  expense,  to  add  a  short  appen- 
dix, as  a  letter  from  me,  to  the  remainder  of  his  work  which  was  not  sold,  and  to  give  it  to  those  of  his  friends  to  whom 
he  had  given  his  book,  but  this  he  declined.  I  considered  his  conduct  to  proceed  from  a  little  Calvinistic  zeal  which 
had  got  the  better  of  his  kind  feelings,  and  which  I  lamented,  but  I  took  care  that  my  feeling  should  not  cause,  nor  did 
it  cause,  any  suspension  of  the  intercourse  between  us.  But  since  he  has  announced  himself  to  the  world  as  a  Calvinis- 
tic preacher,  he  has  sent  home  the  books  which  he  had  of  mine,  has  not  answered  my  last  letter,  and  has  dropped  my 
acquaintance.  Some  time  after  Mr.  Beverley's  book  was  printed,  I  opened  a  volume  in  my  bookseller's  shop,  and,  on 
reading  the  first  sentence  my  eye  met,  I  found  it  was  an  answer  to  my  Mohamed,  by  a  learned  friend,  ivho  had  not  sent 
me  a  copy.  From  the  sentence  which  I  read,  I  instantly  perceived  that  he  had  taken  the  same  line  of  argument  with 
Mr.  Beverley,  having  overlooked  the  Prosopopoeia,  and  that,  because  I  honestly  gave  the  arguments  of  the  Mohame- 
dans, he  concluded  I  adopted  them  for  my  own.  I  bought  the  book,  but  I  read  no  more  of  it.  I  had  before  deter- 
mined to  read  no  more  of  the  answers  of  my  friends,  and  I  adhere  to  the  same  determination.  Polemical  controversy, 
with  a  friend,  is  not  to  my  taste. 

*  Wetstein,  Prologom.  pp.  84,  85 ;  Gibbon,  Chap,  xxxvii.  N.  1 18.  3  Ap.  Sim.  Dissert,  p.  20. 

4  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  ii.  Ch.  i.  p.  343. 

4s 


682  MOHAMED. 

"  Monk,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  having  foixnd  the  Scriptures  much  corrupted  by  copyists,  ap- 
"  plied  himself  to  correct  them,  as  also  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  agreeably  to  the  orthodox  faith, 
"  secundum  fidem  orthodoxam."  The  same  very  learned  Protestant  divine  has  this  remarkable 
passage :  "  Impartiality  exacts  from  me  the  confession,  that  the  orthodox  have  in  some  places 
"  altered  the  Gospels."1  Lanfranc  was  head  of  the  Monks  of  St.  Maur  about  A.  D.  1050,  and 
it  appears  that  this  society  not  only  corrected  the  Gospel  histories,  but  they  also  corrected  the 
fathers,  in  order  that  their  gospel  corrections  might  not  be  discovered  :  and  this  was  probably  the 
reason  for  the  publication  by  them  of  their  version  of  the  whole  of  the  fathers.  To  the  observation 
that  they  would  not  correct  all  the  copies,  that  some  must  escape  them,  it  may  be  replied,  that 
they  thought  otherwise,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  the  Pope  and  the  Monks  thought  it 
worth  their  while  to  correct  the  Gospels,  they  would  spare  no  pains  to  make  the  correction 
universal. 

Thus  we  see  the  fact  proved,  not  only  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  have  been  corrupted  by  the 
united  exertions  of  the  Monks  and  the  Papal  see,  but  that  the  works  of  the  fathers  have  also  been 
corrupted  to  be  in  unison  with  them,  and  this  not  by  one  man,  but  by  a  very  great  and  powerful 
society  in  league  with  the  Pope.  Surely  after  the  proof  of  such  a  fact  as  this,  it  is  only  fair  if  a 
passage  be  found  which  compromises  the  moral  attributes  of  God  (which  a  passage  would  do  if  it 
established  the  atonement)  to  suppose  that  it  is  a  passage  which  has  been  retouche.  I  may  be  an 
obstinate  heretic  for  entertaining  such  belief,  but  I  can  sooner  believe  that  a  passage  is  one  of 
those  retouche  than  that  God  is  unjust  or  cruel.  From  the  observation  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  from 
Wetstein,  that  the  retouching  was  done  by  consentaneous  movement  at  Rome,  St.  Maur,  and 
Canterbury,  we  may  form  a  pretty  fair  judgment  that  an  universal  movement  of  the  Monks  of  the 
world  then  took  place  to  effect  the  desired  object.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  the  very 
fine  edition  of  the  fathers  which  was  published  by  the  Benedictins  of  St.  Maur  was  done  to  remove 
any  passages  which  the  old  books  might  contain  opposed  to  the  retouches  Gospels. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  correction  the  Gospels  are  said  to  have  undergone.  Lardner2  says, 
"  Victor  Tununensis,  an  African  Bishop,  who  flourished  about  the  sixth  century  and  wrote  a 
"  Chronicle,  ending  at  the  year  566,  says,  When  Messala  was  Consul  (that  is,  in  the  year  of 
"  Christ  506)  at  Constantinople,  by  order  of  the  Emperor  Anastasius,  the  holy  Gospels  being 
"  written  by  illiterate  Evangelists  are  censured  and  corrected."  As  may  be  expected,  great  pains 
have  been  taken  to  run  down  and  depreciate  this  piece  of  evidence  to  a  dry  fact,  the  truth  or  falsity 
of  which  the  narrator  must  have  known.  Victor  was  a  Christian  Orthodox  Bishop.  It  is  not  cre- 
dible that  he  would  in  his  Chronicle  record  a  fact  like  this  if  it  were  false.  His  evidence  is  ren- 
dered more  probable  by  the  casual  way  in  which  it  is  given  ;  and  he  must  be  considered  the  most 
unwilling  of  witnesses.  If  evidence  like  this,  to  such  a  simple  fact,  is  to  be  refused,  there  is 
indeed  an  end  of  all  history,  ancient  and  modern.  The  charge  against  the  ruling  power  of  cor- 
rupting the  Gospels  is  not  that  of  one  individual  only:  the  same  charge  we  see  was  made  against 
it  by  the  Mohamedans,  and  it  was  done  before  by  the  Manichseans.  It  is  worthy  of  observation, 
that  there  is  not  a  manuscript  of  the  Gospels  in  existence  earlier  than  the  sixth  century.  A  strong 
probability  arises  that  the  ancient  Gospels  were  destroyed  at  this  time. 

To  the  arguments  of  Bishop  Marsh,  Michaelis,  &c,  to  which  I  alluded  a  little  time  ago,  I  reply, 
that  in  the  times  both  of  Anastasius  and  Lanfranc  the  whole  world  was  in  a  very  considerable 
degree,  as  far  as  concerned  religion,  in  the  power  of  the  Emperor  of  Constantinople  and  the  Popq. 


1  Cleland's  Specimens,  &c,  p.  62.  !  Cred.  Gosp.  Hist.  Ch.  civ. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    V.    SECTION    II.  683 

I  have  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  monastery,  or  priest  of  some  sort,  in  every  small  district  of 
Northern  Africa,  Egypt,  Western  Asia,  and  Europe.  I  cannot  believe  it  possible  that  there  should 
have  been  a  hundred  copies  of  the  orthodox  Gospels  in  existence  which  were  not  within  the  reach 
of  the  Monks  and  priests,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  in  either  time,  an  order  to  correct  the  gospels 
given  out  at  Constantinople,  Rome,  and  Canterbury,  would  be  competent  to  cause  every  copy,  pro- 
bably altogether  not  two  thousand,  to  be  rewritten.  This  rationally  accounts  for  the  extraordinary 
fact  of  the  destruction  of  all  manuscripts  before  this  period.  Every  inquirer  knows  that  St.  Au- 
gustine is  looked  up  to  by  both  Papists  and  Protestants  as  one  of  the  first  luminaries  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church ;  and  he  not  only  professed  to  teach  that  there  were  secret  doctrines  in  the  religion, 
but  he  went  a  step  farther — for  he  affirmed,  Multa  esse  vera  quae  vulgo  scire  non  sit  utile,  et 
quaedam  quae  tametsi  falsa  sunt,  aliter  existimare  populum  expediat  i1  that  there  were  many  things 
true  in  religion,  which  it  was  not  convenient  for  the  vulgar  to  know;  and  again,  some  things  which, 
though  false,  yet  it  was  expedient  should  be  believed  by  them.  It  is  not  unfair  to  suppose  that  in, 
these  withheld  truths  we  have  part  of  the  modern  Christian  mysteries,  and  I  think  it  will  hardly 
be  denied,  that  the  church,  whose  highest  authorities  held  such  doctrines,  would  not  scruple  to 
retouch  the  sacred  writings. 

11.  As  I  have  formerly  said,  in  the  early  ages  of  Christianity  the  doctrine  of  the  Millenium  was 
the  universal  faith.  As  it  did  not  come  when  expected,  the  consideration  of  the  Ultima  Cumae 
carminis  aetas,  of  Virgil,  and  the  ninth  age  of  Juvenal,  and  circumstances  which  the  Romish  eso- 
teric policy  and  universal  power  have  concealed  from  us,  (but  which  Roger  Bacon  in  a  later  age 
partly  let  out,  2  )  taught  the  College  of  Cardinals,  that  the  tenth  age  would  not  come  till  about  the 
year  600,  and  would,  of  course,  not  end  till  about  the  time  which  we  have  seen  fixed  by  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux  and  Joachim,  viz.  the  year  1200.  How  far  this  knowledge  might  extend,  or  may 
extend,  it  is  not  possible  to  say,  but  the  Linga  in  their  temple,  with  its  Zeus  Soter,  &c,  seems  to 
shew  that  the  whole  is  understood. 

From  the  Mohamedans  we  can  learn  little ;  we  are  at  too  much  enmity  with  them ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  Turks  may  really  possess  nothing  of  the  Arabian  knowledge  upon  these  subjects. 
But  it  is  a  most  important  fact,  that  the  Brahmins  maintain  that  Mohamed  either  was  or  pretended 
to  be  a  Vicramaditya  and  Avatar.     This  will  lead  us  to  some  very  important  consequences. 

The  fact  cannot  be  denied,  and  a  very  important  fact  it  is,  that  when  the  Mohamedans  overran 
India  they  did  not  destroy  the  images  of  the  Buddhists.  The  reason  was  because,  in  the  simple, 
unadorned,  uncorrupted  icon  of  Buddha,  they  found  their  own  Om,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  they 
were  in  reality  Buddhists,  and  Mohamed  was  believed  by  himself,  (for  what  is  too  absurd  for 
human  folly  not  to  believe  ?  How  much  or  how  far  is  prosperity  capable  of  corrupting  even  the 
strongest  minds  ! 3  )  or  by  his  followers,  to  be  the  tenth  and  last  Avatar — incarnation  of  the  sacred 
Om — the  Amed  or  desire  of  all  nations.  On  this  account  it  was,  that  the  Afghans  and  the  moun- 
taineers of  Mewar  and  Malwa  came  to  be  among  the  first  of  Mohamed's  followers. 

If  we  reconsider  what  I  have  said  in  Bk.  VIII.  Chap.  V.,  respecting  a  tribe  proceeding  from 
India,  as  the  Mohamedans  say,  and  their  having  carried  back  the  religion  of  Mohamed,  the  tenth 

1  Civ.  Dei.  Lib.  iv.  Cap.  xxxi. 

2  Roger  Bacon  spent  the  greater  portion  of  his  life  in  prison.  This  was  not  for  knowing  too  much,  but  for  betraying 
the  secrets  of  initiation,  for  telling  the  secrets  out  of  the  conclave. 

3  When  I  consider  that  Alexander  was  born  exactly  when  the  Sun  entered  Aries,  and  that  Mohamed's  name  meant 
Great,  in  connexion  with  other  circumstances,  I  am  induced  to  suspect  that  they  were  both,  as  well  as  Constantine, 
called  Great,  because  they  were  thought  to  be  Avatars.  I  think  this  superstition  might  probably  make  them  con- 
querors. 

4s2 


684  THE    SUBJECT    CONTINUED. 

avatar,  we  may  observe,  that  there  was  no  great  man  in  their  own  country  to  answer  to  the  tenth 
whom  they  daily  expected ;  and  when  they  saw  this  Om-amed,  the  desire  of  all  nations,  con- 
quering all  Asia,  and  declaring  that  his  success  was  the  proof  of  his  mission,  it  was  very  natural 
for  them  to  receive  him :  it  was  no  change,  but  only  a  necessary  completion  of  their  religion, 
arriving,  as  they  would  learn,  to  the  very  year  in  which,  according  to  their  doctrines,  he  ought  to 
arrive. 

In  the  province  of  Oude  or  Judaea,  in  North  India,  the  people  still  flatter  themselves  with  the 
hopes  of  a  Saviour,  of  whom  they  know  nothing,  except  that  he  is  to  be  a  tenth  Outar  or  Ontar. 
He  is  to  be  called  the  "spotless,"  because  he  is  to  be  born  of  a  pure  virgin.  He  is  expected  to 
appear  in  the  province  of  Oude,  i.  e.  Youdia.  He  will  destroy  all  distinctions,  and  establish  hap- 
piness on  the  earth.1  As  these  people  did  not  accept  Mohamed  for  their  last  Avatar  or  incarna- 
tion, and  all  their  seminaries  of  sacred  learning  were  destroyed,  they  still,  like  the  Jews,  continue 
in  expectation  of  they  know  not  what. 

Col.  Tod  says,2  "The  libraries  of  Jessulmer,  in  the  desert  of  Anhulwara,  the  cradle  of  their 
"  (meaning  the  Buddhist  and  Jain  J  faith,  of  Cambay  and  other  places  of  minor  importance,  con- 
"  sist  of  thousands  of  volumes.  These  are  under  the  controul  not  of  the  priests  alone,  but  of  com- 
"  munities  of  the  most  wealthy  and  respectable  amongst  the  laity,  and  are  preserved  in  the  crypts 
"  of  their  temples,  which  precaution  ensured  their  pi'eservation,  as  well  as  that  of  their  deified 
"  teachers,  when  the  temples  themselves  were  destroyed  by  the  Mohamedan  invaders,  who  paid 
"  more  deference  to  the  images  of  Buddha  than  to  those  of  Siva  or  Vishnu."  Here  we  have  a 
part  of  the  secret  religion  of  Mohamed.  Among  his  followers,  as  among  the  Christians,  when,  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  stars  did  not  fall  from  heaven  or  the  sun  cease  to  give  its  light,  the 
doctrine  became  forgotten.  But  in  this  passage  the  Colonel  does  not  display  his  usual  acuteness 
of  understanding.  If  he  will  reflect,  he  will  see  that  the  idea  of  large  libraries  or  teachers  being 
preserved  in  crypts  unknown  to  conquerors  is  not  credible.  They  were  preserved,  because  the 
Arabians  were  the  patrons  of  literature  of  every  kind.  They  no  more  destroyed  libraries  in  India 
than  they  did  in  Egypt. 

I  have  before  observed,  that  the  term  Vicramaditya  is  merely  a  descriptive  term.  This  is  con- 
firmed by  the  mode  in  which  the  Hindoos  apply  it  to  Mohamed,  whom  they  count  a  Vicramaditya, 
and  whom  they  state  to  have  made  his  appearance  A.  D.  621 — and  whose  aera  began  from  that 
year ;  but  he  began  to  preach,  or  he  appeared,  as  Mr.  Faber  has  observed,  in  A.  D.  608. 3 

The  name  Vicramaditya  consists  of  these  words  :  Vicra,  which  means  Vicar,  the  same  as  Vica- 
rius  ;  the  word  Om,  and  Ditya  :  the  whole  meaning  the  holy  Vicar  of  the  God  Om,  or  the  Vicar  of 
the  holy  Om.  Mohamed  was  also  called  Resoul :  that  is,  the  Ras  of  Al,  or  the  wisdom  of  God. 
The  Hebrew  ION  amd  is  formed  of  the  word  Om  and  di,  the  holy  Om.  The  Mohamedan  sect  of 
the  Shiahs,  in  the  language  of  Siam  and  of  Malabar,  is  called  Rafzi.  This  is  evidently  from  the 
Hebrew  i?as— Rashees. 

The  prejudices  of  modern  Christians  entirely  blind  them  to  the  undeniable  fact,  that  every  Mo- 
hamedan is  as  really  a  Christian  as  themselves.  If  this  be  the  case,  it  is  in  perfect  keeping  with 
their  possession  of  the  magnificent  church  or  mosque  of  St.  John,  at  Damascus,  where  his  head 
is  preserved,  and  so  much  venerated,  that  the  Turks  will  not  permit  even  one  of  their  own  religion 
to  look  at  it,  and  never  permit  a  Christian  to  go  into  the  church  or  mosque. 4 


Col.  Brougliton's  Popular  Poetry,  notes,  p.  152.  *  *•  °-0. 

Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  160.  4  Maundrel's  Journey,  p.  170. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  V.    SECTION   12.  685 

Vicentius  Belovacensis  notices  the  custom  of  two  Indian  nations  making  Cams  in  honour  of  their 
Gods,  at  the  equinoxes.1  This  is  still  continued  in  Tibet,  and  what  is  very  remarkable,  he  says  the 
custom  passed  from  the  Indians  to  the  Arabians,  and  was  ordered  to  be  continued  by  Mohamed. 
This  seems  to  support  what  I  have  said  of  the  Arabians'  first  coming  from  India,  and  to  have  been 
connected  with  the  Mohamedans'  protection  of  the  Buddhist  images  in  India.2  Buddha  was 
spared,  because  he  was  the  male  generative  principle,  as  the  Lingas  were  spared  by  Cambyses. 
Late  travellers  have  found,  as  we  might  expect,  Cams  in  Western  Syria. 

The  fact  is,  Mohamedism  was  no  new  religion  ;  it  was  only  a  continuation  of  Buddhism. 
Mecca,  the  sacred  city  of  Mohamed,  was  well  known  to  the  ancients  by  a  name  which  had  the 
meaning  of  the  name  of  Mohamed.  It  was  called  Maco  or  Moca  Raba  by  Ptolemy,  or  Moca  the 
great  or  illustrious, 3  or  in  other  words,  the  city  of  Mo-hamed.  Guy  Patin  mentions  a  medal  of 
Antoninus  Pius  with  this  legend  MOK.  IEP.  AXY.  AYTO.  which  he  very  properly  translates 
Moca,  sacra,  inviolabilis,  suis  utens  legibus :  Moca  the  holy,  the  inviolable,  and  using  her  own 
laws.  This,  Wilford  says,  can  only  be  applicable  to  the  place  now  called  by  us  Mecca,  and  in  the 
Brahmin  books  Mocsha-st'han,  and  considered  a  most  holy  place,  to  which  the  Indians  formerly 
made  pilgrimages,  and  not  to  the  little  place  called  Mocha.4  The  medal  of  Antoninus  serves  to 
shew  the  universal  nature  of  the  Gentile  religion.  Col.  Wilford  informs  us,  that  the  Arabian 
writers  unanimously  support  the  doctrine,  that  the  present  Mecca  is  the  Moca  of  Ptolemy.  The 
sea-port  of  this  Moca  is  the  town  or  port  of  Bad-deo,  regia,  or  the  city  of  the  holy  and  royal 
Buddha. 

Mocsha  means  eternal  bliss  ;  then  the  name  will  be  place  of  eternal  happiness.  The  indubitable 
fact  that  Mecca  was  a  place  sacred  to  the  Amed  or  desire  of  all  nations  before  Mohamed,  the 
camel-driver,  was  born,  opens  to  our  view  a  new  aenigma,  which  cannot  be  solved  without  sup- 
posing an  esoteric  religion  in  Mohamedism,  as  well  as  in  all  other  religions,  as  held  by  the  cele- 
brated Avicenna  and  many  others,  and  into  which  I  shall  inquire  by  and  by.  The  whole  history 
of  Mohamed  furnishes  a  most  curious  example  of  a  prophecy  causing  its  own  verification. 

12.  The  Jews  well  know  that  there  is  a  very  peculiar  mystery  concealed  under  the  letter  M, 
as  M.  Cassini  has  shewn.  The  Jews  have  the  same  twenty-eight  letter  figures  as  the  Arabians, 
with  the  single  exception  that  they  want  the  last  for  the  number  1000.  This  is  contrived  for  the 
purpose  of  making  their  mystical  letter  M  the  central  letter  of  their  alphabet.  They  have  only 
twenty-two  letters,  but  they  add  five  finals  for  this  purpose.  And  similar  to  this  they  form  a 
sacred  cabalistic  word  DON  ami  or  DDK  amt,  which  has  the  meaning  of  truth.  It  comes  from  the 
root  (ON  amn,  which  is  the  Amen  and  Omen  of  Christians ;  the  Om-man  and  Amun  of  Egypt 
corrupted,  as  is  allowed,  to  Ammon  by  the  moderns,  and  it  is  the  Om  of  India.  It  is  the  first, 
and  middle,  and  last — similar  to  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  with  the  sign  for  600  in  the  middle ;  as, 
in  the  Crismon  Sancti  Ambrogii,  we  have  the  Alpha  A,  and  Omega  £1,  with  the  _£  in  the  middle, 
the  emblem  of  600.  The  figure  at  the  top  of  the  cross  is  the  Samaritan  Resh,  which  means  200, 
and  the  cross,  which  on  Samaritan  coins  is  put  for  the  Tau,  stands  for  400.     The  letter  Resh  is 


1  Parkhurst  in  voce,  nb"\  rme. 

8  The  Christians  accuse  the  Jews  of  blindness  in  believing  that  the  promised  Messiah  or  Saviour  was  to  be  a  temporal 
prince.  In  this  case,  it  is  necessary,  in  justice  to  the  Jews,  to  ask  in  what  sense  the  word  was  used  in  their  sacred 
writings.  It  had  always  one  sense,  and  I  believe  only  one  sense,  and  that  sense  is  at  once  seen  when  we  look  to  Isaiah, 
where  Cyrus  is  expressly  called  a  Messiah. 

3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IV.  p.  369.  4  Ibid. 


686  M— OM—OMD. 

read  from  left  to  right.  This  may  be  because  it  is  used  by  modern  Greeks,  or  it  may  be  from  its 
extreme  antiquity  ;  for  it  is  the  staff  of  Osiris.  If  letters  were  taken  from  figures,  as  they  were 
always  read  from  left  to  right,  of  course  here  used  as  a  figure,  it  would  read  from  left  to  right. 
It  is,  as  just  noticed,  the  Crismon  Sancti  Ambrogii,  in  the  church  of  Milan — A  _p  Qt,  I  have 
already  said,  it  is  the  same  as  the  sacred  word  of  the  Jews  for  truth  DON  amt,  but  I  suspect  it 
meant  both  truth  and  Wisdom — for  Truth  is  Wisdom — Wisdom  is  Truth.  The  Resh  as  here 
used  might  come  from  African  Ethiopia,  where  the  language  read  from  left  to  right,  and  it  is 
notoriously  the  staff  of  Osiris,  the  Monogram  of  Jupiter  Amnion,  and  the  Labarum  of  Con- 
stantine. 

In  the  Syrian  copy  of  the  Apocalypse,  for  our  Greek  Apha  and  Omega,  there  are  Atyha  and  Tau. 
Here  we  have  DDK  and. 

I  believe  no  one  disputes  that  the  Greeks  had  their  sixteen  letters  from  the  Phoenicians  or 
Hebrews.  Now,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  they  would  receive  the  letters  and  not  the  letter 
numbers,  though,  for  various  reasons,  they  might  not  come  into  common  use  ;  in  fact,  their  other 
system  was  more  convenient,  or  the  Hebrew  might  be  a  secret  and  mystical  system.  If  this  were 
the  case,  the  Rho  must  have  been  the  same  as  the  Samaritan  and  Chaldee,  and  have  stood  for  200. 
It  is  very  possible  that  the  Greeks  abandoned  the  use  of  the  Hebrew  Quoth  or  Koph,  from  its 
great  similarity  to  the  Kappa  ;  and  that  this  by  degrees,  made  their  Resh  or  Rho  stand  for  100, 
instead  of  200,  which  it  must  have  originally  done.  This  may  have  arisen  when  a  change  in  the 
language  took  place,  which  I  shall  explain  in  my  book  upon  the  origin  of  letters.  The  letter  M, 
the  middle  letter,  was  adopted  as  a  sacred  mystery.  It  was  the  Omphalos  or  AsA<j3u£.  It  was 
the  Monogram  of  Maia,  Maria,  Mary,  the  Regina  Coeli. 

The  Greeks  appear  to  have  copied  the  Hebrews,  for  they  have  (see  the  first  table  of  letters)  the 
same  Cadmean  alphabet  of  sixteen  letters,  but  they  have  twenty-seven  letter  figures  for  numbers, 
and  the  middle  one  has  I  think  formerly  been  the  M.  If  my  reader  look  to  the  Table  in  the  Celtic 
Druids  he  will  observe  that  the  Digamma  expelled  the  Vau,  which  took  up  its  place  after  the  Tau, 
making  a  seventeenth  letter,  and  not  being  one  of  the  letters  added  by  Palamedes  or  Simon  ides. 
Now  when  I  consider  the  close  connexion  which  must  have  once  existed  between  the  Sanscrit  and 
the  Greek,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  A,  U,  M,  has  been  the  A,  M,  Q — z\lpha  and  Omega — 
taken  from  the  Greek,  when  the  M  has  been  in  some  way,  which  I  confess  I  cannot  satisfactorily 
explain,  the  central  letter  as  it  was  among  the  Hebrews.  We  find  all  the  Indian  nations  admitting 
their  ignorance  of  the  etymology  or  meaning  of  their  sacred  AUM.  We  find  them  constantly 
using  it  as  Om,  which  they  acknowledge  to  be  a  corruption,  but  they  know  not  how.  Then  may 
it  not  as  easily  have  been  AMU  as  AUM  ?  If  they  knew  that  it  was  the  three  letters  corrupted 
into  two,  OM,  it  was  natural  to  take  the  AilM  for  the  original,  and  not  AMJ2.  All  this  re- 
specting the  OM  I  give  as  a  mere  suspicion.  It  does  not  affect  the  theory  that  both  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew  have  had  the  central  M.  We  may  observe  upon  this,  that  it  connects  well  with  the 
mystic  Amo,  I  love — divine  love — and  Mo-ahmed ;  in  short,  with  the  Om  in  a  hundred  senses  and 
mystical  relations. 

But  if  in  the  end  it  should  prove  that  my  suspicion  be  well  founded,  have  the  Indians  copied 
from  the  Greeks,  or  the  Greeks  from  the  Indians?  Neither.  The  Greeks  copied  from  the  Hebrew, 
and  the  Hebrew  was  the  language  of  South  India,  and  Coromandal,  and  the  Lascars,  before  the 
Sanscrit  was  formed :  but  not  before  their  mythology  was  formed.  The  Sanscrit  language  must 
have  been  perfected  since  the  sun  entered  Aries,  as  the  Buddhists  have  it  not;  and  great  ingenuity 
was  exerted  to  make  it  as  different  as  possible  from  its  parent,  in  order  to  keep  it  from  the  Budd- 
hist heretics,  as  the  Brahmins  called   them.     In  considering  the  question  of  the  probability  of  my 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    V.    SECTION    12.  687 

suspicion  relative  to  the  M,  all  the  mystical  particulars  which  we  have  before  seen  respecting  this 
letter,  and  the  cycle  of  600,  must  be  taken  into  consideration. 

In  the  word  DOK  amt  the  Jews  find  various  mysteries.  They  strike  off  the  ciphers  from  the 
numbers  which  these  letters  denote,  viz.  400  and  40,  and  they  have  4,  4,  1,  which  make  9,  which 
always  multiplied,  and  then  added,  always  make  9.  Thus  9-f9=r81,  and  8+1=9,  and  the  D,  the 
middle  letter  is  the  fourteenth  letter,  and  denotes  the  fourteen  attributes  of  God,  which  they  find 
somewhere  in  Exodus.  We  see  in  the  earliest  of  the  monuments  of  the  Buddhists  of  India  the 
number  nine  recur  continually  as  a  sacred  number.  This  shews  that  my  suspicion  is  in  perfect 
keeping  with  the  apparently  trifling  nonsense  of  figures  giving  names,  but  from  which  I  imagine  I 
shall  in  a  future  book  evolve  something  very  far  from  nonsensical. 

It  is  very  wonderful  how  prejudice  may  blind  the  understandings  of  men  upon  the  subject  of 
religion,  though  they  reason  well  upon  every  other  subject.  M.  Beausobre  says,  "  Besides  the 
"  fulfilling  of  the  ancient  prophecies,  the  Messiah  shines  so  conspicuously  in  the  writings  of  the 
"  New  Testament,  and  all  these  so  exactly  centre  in  Jesus  Christ,  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
"  a  mind  free  from  prejudice  should  not  be  affected  with  these  marks  of  truth  and  sincerity."1 
The  case  is  simply  this,  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Jews  written  from  time  to  time,  a  person  is 
predicted  by  the  name  of  Messiah.  The  meaning  of  this  word  is  over  and  over  again  explained  to 
mean  a  person  to  deliver  them  from  bondage.  If  there  could  be  any  doubt  of  its  meaning,  the 
examples  where  it  is  applied  to  persons  would  remove  it.  Cyrus,  for  instance,  is  expressly  called 
the  Messiah  of  God.  He  was  a  temporal  prince  and  a  conqueror.  How  surprising  that  Dr.  A. 
Clarke  should  not  be  able  to  see  these  conspicuous  prophecies  ! 

According  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Jewish  Pharisees  and  the  Christians,  the  works  of  the  prophets 
are  full  of  prophecies  of  a  Messiah ;  but  in  no  case  whatever  can  any  passage  be  pointed  out 
where  it  is  expressly  stated  that  the  Messiah  alluded  to  was  to  be  a  spiritual  not  a  temporal  king. 
The  meaning  of  the  word  Messiah  was  never  doubted  :  the  prophets  whom  God  had  sent  had  fixed 
its  meaning  by  repeatedly  declaring  different  persons  to  be  Messiahs,  such  for  instance  as  Cyrus. 
These  prophets,  it  is  said,  were  continued  at  different  times  even  to  the  presentation  of  Jesus  in 
the  temple  by  his  father  and  mother.  How  can  it  be  reconciled  to  the  goodness  of  God  that  even 
unto  the  very  time  when  the  last  prophets,  Zacharias,  Simeon,  and  Anna,  Luke  i.  &J,  ii.  25,  38, 
prophesied  of  a  Messiah,  he  should  never  have  inspired  one  of  them  to  explain  to  the  Jews  that  a 
new  Messiah  was  to  come  totally  different  in  character  from  all  the  Messiahs  they  had  had  before, 
and  that  the  visible  child  was  to  be  a  spirit  !  This,  it  has  been  said,  was  to  blind  the  Jews,  lest 
they  should  see  and  repent,  and  be  saved  j  that  is,  should  not  be  damned.  Did  any  one  ever  be- 
fore hear  such  shocking  impiety  ?  In  reply  to  this  last  observation  I  shall  be  told  that  the  passage 
is  in  the  sacred  book ;  to  which  I  rejoin — Indeed  it  is,  and  is,  like  many  others  in  the  sacred  books, 
a  corruption  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  as  in  my  next  volume  I  will  endeavour  to  shew.  I  can  more 
readily  believe  that  it  was  put  into  the  book,  by  Anastasius  or  Lanfranc,  from  hatred  to  the  Jews, 
than  that  it  was  put  there  by  divine  inspiration. 

The  difficulties  which  have  arisen  in  the  construction  of  these  prophecies  between  a  temporal 
and  a  spiritual  Messiah,  are  all  removed  by  the  fact  which  I  have  pointed  out,  that  the  Messiah 
who  was  to  deliver  the  Jewish  nation  from  bondage  was  to  be  an  incarnation  of  the  Supreme  Wis- 
dom, in  the  flesh,  like  Cyrus.  Thus  he  was  both  spiritual  and  temporal,  though  not  exactly  in 
the  sense  contended  for  by  our  divines ;  but  in  such  a  sense  as  justifies,  in  a  great  measure,  many 


Int.  New  Test.  Pt.  ii,  pp.  2,  3. 


688 


TEMPLARS,    OBSERVATIONS    ON. 


of  the  constructions  put  upon  great  numbers  of  the  passages  by  the  friends  of  both  opinions.  In 
fact,  it  shews  that  when  the  two  parties  have  been  opposing  each  other  with  the  greatest  bitter- 
ness, the  real  meaning  of  the  texts  justifies  both  of  them.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  persons  permit 
their  passions  to  mislead  their  reason,  as  well  in  India  as  in  Europe.  The  followers  of  Cristna, 
never  thinking  that  they  can  honour  their  favourite  too  much,  maintain  that  he  is  not  an  incarna- 
tion, but  Vishnu  himself.  This  is  exactly  followed  by  our  devotees,  who  contend  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  not  an  incarnation  or  a  person  divinely  inspired,  but  that  he  is  God  himself. 

Among  some  sects  of  the  Jews,  about  the  time  of  Christ,  an  opinion  prevailed  that  there  were  to 
be  two  Messiahs,  one  of  the  tribe  of  Ephraim, l  the  other  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  This  opinion 
referred  to  the  two  cycles  to  come,  of  which  these  people  had  obtained  some  information — in  fact, 
to  the  cycles  of  Jesus  and  Mohamed. 

One  of  these  Messiahs  was  to  be  a  suffering,  the  other  a  triumphant  Messiah.  How  curiously 
this  dovetails  into  the  history  of  Jesus  and  Mohamed  !  How  curiously  exhibiting,  in  the  case  of 
Mohamed,  an  example  of  a  prophecy  causing  its  own  fulfilment !  I  suspect  that  this  superstition 
has  caused  many  great  men  to  arise,  and  also,  as  I  conjecture,  it  caused  Napoleon  to  fall.  Nimrod 
thinks  that  Brothers  and  Southcote  were  instructed  by  persons  wiser  than  themselves:  the  time 
they  appeared  is  very  remarkable  and  suspicious.  It  is  not  impossible  that  vanity  or  priestly 
knavery  may  have  whispered  to  Napoleon  that  a  great  one  was  yet  to  come,  and  vanity  arising 
from  unexpected  success  may  have  re-echoed  the  whisper,  that  he  was  the  man. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

TEMPLARS,  OBSERVATIONS  ON. — CHAIR  OF  ST.  PETER.— GOSPEL  OF  JOACHIM. — ST.  FRANCIS.  ISHMAELIANS 
OR  ASSASSINS. — GIBLIM. — CASIDEANS. — TEMPLARS  RESUMED. — TEMPLARS  CONTINUED.— GOOD  AND  EVIL. 
MANES. — RASIT.  WISDOM.  —  TEMPLARS  RESUMED.  —  MASONS. — MASONS  CONTINUED. — MANES.  MASONS 
CONTINUED. — SOPHEES. — LOCKMAN.      ^ESOP. 

1 .  In  the  dark  and  mystical  learning  of  the  middle  ages  we  meet  with  many  very  odd  circum- 
stances which  have  never  yet  been  accounted  for,  but  which  have  in  vain  attracted  the  curiosity 
of  the  philosophers  :  until  at  last  the  inquiry  seems  to  have  been  given  up  as  hopeless.  The  cir- 
cumstances to  which  I  allude  seem  to  connect  the  learning  called  Gnosticism  with  the  Christian 
and  Mohamedan  systems :  but  though  a  connexion  evidently  existed,  yet  it  was  in  an  obscure, 
mystical  and  incomprehensible  way,  of  which  no  one  could  make  any  sense.  All  this  learning  was 
closely  connected  with  judicial  astrology — with  a  famous  prophetic  magical  demagorgon  or  brazen 


1  The  Editor  of  Mr.  Bruce's  Travels  has  observed,  that  the  word  phre,  which  he  says  means  the  sun,  occurs  com- 
monly in  the  composition  of  Egyptian  names.  For  instance,  Mephres,  Uebphres,  in  Greek  Ovapgw,  in  Hebrew  Hophra, 
priest  of  the  sun.     Vide  Marshami  Can.  Chron.  pass.;  Bruce's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  466. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER   VI.    SECTION    1.  689 

head,  and  various  idolatrous  and  Gnostic  emblems— with  the  well-known  mysterious  man  of  the 
mountain  or  Syrian  Assassins,  and  with  the  person  called  Johannes,  Butta,  and  Deus,  of  whom  we 
have  lately  treated.  On  charges  intimately  related  to  secrets  of  this  kind  the  famous  Knights 
Templars  were  destroyed.  The  accusations  brought  against  them,  as  well  as  their  defences,  were 
involved  in  mystery.  This  was  closely  connected  with  the  Millenium,  and  the  Crusades  in  the 
eleventh  and  the  twelfth  centuries  were  the  effects  of  that  doctrine.  The  foundation  of  this  was 
laid  in  the  Virgilian  doctrine  of  the  renewed  cycles — the  expected  commencement  of  the  Mil- 
lenium at  the  end  of  1200  years,  or  at  most  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  belief  that  Mohamed 
was  either  the  tenth  Avatar  or  Beast  of  the  Revelations,  or  Antichrist,  or  the  person  foretold  by 
Jesus,  by  Daniel  and  the  prophets,  and  referred  to  by  the  Magician  Virgil. *  And  thus  came  to 
be  united  the  doctrines  of  Magic,  Heathenism,  Christianity,  and  Mohamedism,  an  union  at  first 
sight  totally  incomprehensible,  of  things  to  all  appearance  absolutely  in  diametrical  opposition. 
The  expectation  of  the  Millenium  was  clearly  entertained  by  the  Papal  See,  which,  on  this  ac- 
count, encouraged  the  Crusades,  and  though  the  Cardinals  of  course  could  not  believe  that  Mo- 
hamed was  the  hero  of  the  tenth  age  or  cycle,  yet  they  believed  that  the  seventh  millenary  or  the 
Millenium  was  about  to  come,  till  the  thirteenth  century  had  considerably  advanced,  probably  till 
after  the  year  1260,  and  till  its  non-arrival  had  proved  to  them,  as  well  as  to  the  others,  their 
mistake.  Then  this  dogma,  from  its  evident  falsity,  was  despised,  and  by  degrees  almost  forgot- 
ten. Then  and  from  this  cause  arose  a  reaction  in  the  college  of  Cardinals.  From  this  disap- 
pointed superstition,  in  the  time  of  Leo  X.,  it  became  Deistical  or  Atheistical,  and  how  long  it 
thus  continued,  or  if  it  do  yet  so  continue,  may  be  matter  of  curious  speculation.  I  have  no 
doubt  whatever,  that  the  Romish  secret  religion  was  essentially  magical  or  astrological,  till  about 
the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  when  the  prophecies  of  the  Millenium  failed,  and  proved  its 
falsity.2  Perhaps  it  might  exist  in  a  doubtful  kind  of  way,  till  after  the  year  1260  had  passed 
over ;  then,  if  not  before,  astrology  became  heresy. 

In  the  prosecutions  of  the  Knights  Templars,  which  are  known  to  every  body,  a  certain  mystifi- 
cation and  secrecy  may  be  observed,  as  if  the  whole  of  the  charges  against  them  were  not  brought 
publicly  out.  This  arose  from  various  causes.  The  persecuted  were  really  very  religious,  and 
were  bound  by  the  most  solemn  Masonic  oaths  (and  Masonry  was  intimately  connected  with  these 
matters)  not  to  divulge  the  secrets  of  the  order.  This  caused  them  to  recant  at  the  stake,  when 
all  hope  had  fled,  what  they  had  confessed  when  on  the  wheel ;  and  by  this  means  they  endea- 
voured to  make  amends  for  the  secrets  betrayed,  and  the  oaths  involuntarily  broken  on  the  rack. 
But  yet  it  is  charged  upon  them  that  although  at  the  last  they  declared  themselves  innocent  of 
the  charges  brought  against  them,  yet  they  acknowledged  themselves  guilty  and  deserving  of  pu- 
nishment ;  but  the  wickedness  which  they  are  said  to  have  confessed  is  concealed  from  us.  I 
have  no  doubt  it  consisted  in  part,  at  least,  in  having,  when  under  the  torture,  accused,  and 
thereby  having  brought  on  the  ruin  of,  the  order.  The  Papal  See  having  first  come  at  the  secrets 
by  means  of  confession,  of  persons  who  had  gone  over  to  the  Heretics,  and  afterward  repented 


1  I  believe  a  life  of  Virgil  is  yet  extant  describing  him  as  a  great  magician.  And  he  is  said  to  have  been  consulted 
by  Octavius  on  astrology. 

*  Mr.  Gibbon  has  some  very  curious  and  striking  passages  in  Chap.  XV.  N.  64,  65  ;  Chap.  XX.  N.  59  ;  Chap.  XXI. 
N.  19,  24,  &c,  on  the  Millenium,  and  on  its  universal  reception  in  the  early  ages  of  the  church.  (See  Burnet's 
Sacred  Theory,  Ch.  V.  p.  iii.,  Justin  ag.  Trypho,  pp.  177,  178,  Edit.  Bened.;  Lact.  Lib.  vii. ;  Daille-  de  Usu  Patrum, 
Lib.  ii.  Cap.  iv.)  The  Trinitarian  doctrines  of  Philo  are  shewn  to  have  preceded  the  death,  or  probably  the  birth,  of 
Christ,  Ch.  xxi.  N.  ]  7,    It  will  be  of  importance  to  remember  this. 

4  T 


690 


TEMPLARS,    OBSERVATIONS   ON. 


and  confessed,  proceeded  with  the  greatest  certainty ;  but  at  the  same  time  in  a  way  which  ap- 
peared very  cruel,  and  also  very  mysterious  :  for  it  knew  the  truth,  but  it  would  not  divulge  the 
mode  by  which  it  obtained  it,  namely,  that  it  acquired  it  by  confession. 

Protestants  say,  these  persecutions  were  undertaken  for  the  sake  of  the  wealth  of  the  order. 
This  I  think  is  a  mistake.  The  ignorant  devotees  of  that  day  were  much  more  likely  to  give  to 
holy  mother  church  than  to  rob  her,  and  the  idea  that  the  Pope  would  authorize  the  robbery,  by 
the  kings,  merely  for  the  sake  of  giving  them  the  wealth,  of  the  well-trained  and  disciplined  light 
troops  of  the  church,  is  out  of  all  probability.  That  the  kings  might  be  tempted  to  take  some  of 
it  I  do  not  deny,  but  most  of  it  was  bestowed  on  other  orders,  with  whom  the  Templars  who  were 
not  murdered,  after  making  every  required  confession,  were  incorporated.  For  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  Popes  put  more  of  them  to  death  than  they  thought  necessary  to  eradicate  the  heresy, 
and  to  satisfy  the  bigoted  kings.  In  truth,  the  bitterness  against  the  Templars  was  with  the 
kings  more  than  the  Pope,  and  this  arose  from  the  knowledge  which  the  conclave  possessed  that 
the  doctrines  of  the  Templars  were  only  a  remnant  of  those  doctrines  which  itself  had  professed  a 
very  few  years  before,  as  we  shall  soon  see.     But  this  it  could  not  explain  to  the  kings. 

When  in  humble  life  a  cobbler  confesses  to  his  priest  that  he  has  stolen  a  fallen  apple  or  poi- 
soned his  parents,  the  secret  is  kept ;  but  not  so  when  a  person  of  high  degree  confesses  such  a 
fact,  as,  that  an  extremely  rich  and  powerful  body  entertain  opinions  dangerous  to  the  Roman  See 
and  to  the  holy  father :  then  the  case  becomes  very  different.  For  the  priest  must  confess,  and 
from  various  causes  he  begins  to  entertain  a  doubt  how  far  he  is  justified  in  keeping  such  dan- 
gerous, such  sinful,  knowledge  from  his  superior,  to  whom  at  last  he  states  the  doubt  which 
presses  upon  his  conscience,  or  his  superior  has  a  scruple  how  far  he  is  justified  in  keeping  such 
a  secret.  The  case  goes  to  Rome,  by  a  confidential  messenger  or  by  the  priest  himself.  An 
order  to  confess  in  full  returns  or  is  given,  and  along  with  it  a  plenary  absolution  for  betraying 
the  secret  of  confession.  In  this  way  it  arises,  that  there  are  very  few  things  done,  or  proposed 
to  be  done,  by  courts  professing  the  Romish  religion,  if  they  affect  the  interest  of  the  Papacy, 
which  are  not  as  well  known  to  the  Pope,  as  if  they  were  inserted  in  the  Diaria  di  Roma.  In  this 
manner  every  government  of  the  Romish  religion  is  prostrate  before  the  Pope  and  his  cabinet  or 
conclave  of  Cardinals,  who  are  all  bound  to  each  other  by  the  most  solemn  oaths,  and  these  oaths 
strengthened  by  the  knowledge  that  a  breach  of  them  would  be  followed  by  the  cells  of  the  inqui- 
sition, (still  retained  in  Rome  for  the  use  of  the  priesthood,)  the  poisoned  chalice,  or  the 
poniard. l 

The  doctrines  to  which  I  have  alluded  above,  are  visible  every  where  in  the  curious  mystical 
figures  always  seen  upon  the  monuments  of  the  Templars,  in  the  fishes  bound  together  by  the 
tails,  on  the  tombs  of  Italy — in  the  astrological  emblems  on  many  churches,  such  as  the  Zodiacs 
on  the  floor  of  the  church  of  St.  Irenaeus  at  Lyons,  and  on  a  church  at  York,  and  Notre  Dame  at 
Paris,  and  Bacchus  or  the  God  IH£  filling  the  wine-cask,  formerly  on  the  floor  of  the  church  of 
St.  Denis.  Again,  in  the  round  churches  of  the  Templars,  in  imitation  of  the  round  church  at  Jeru- 
salem, probably  built  by  them  in  the  Circlar  or  Cyclar  or  Gilgal  form  in  allusion  to  various  recon- 
dite subjects  which  I  flatter  myself  I  need  not  now  point  out  to  my  reader,  and  in  the  monograms 
IHS  and  XH  in  thousands  of  places.  In  these  mysteries,  not  only  the  Cardinals,  but  the  heads 
and  chapters  of  all  the  orders  of  knighthood,  and  of  all  the  old  orders  of  Monks,   were  more  or 


1  If  my  memory  do  not  deceive  me,  the  records  of  Florence  testify  that  the  Eucharist,  even  the  sacred  Eucharist, 
has  been  made  subservient  to  the  destruction  of  the  enemies  of  God  and  the  Papacy. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER   VI.   SECTION    2.  691 

less  implicated ;  and  from  that  part  of  them  more  intimately  connected  with  the  ancient  doctrines 
of  Ionism,  arose  the  profound  devotion  of  all  orders  of  knighthood  to  the  fair  sex  and  the  mother 
of  God.  That  the  Gnostic  doctrines  named  above,  that  is,  that  Christianity  was  only  a  species, 
or  an  uncorrupted  or  reformed  kind,  of  Paganism,  were  secretly  held  by  the  Cardinals  in  the 
Vatican,  I  can  scarcely  doubt,  and  I  think  I  shall  prove  it  by  and  by ;  and  their  refusal  to  be- 
lieve Mohamed  to  be  the  Paraclete  is  easily  accounted  for. 

In  none  of  the  modern  histories  of  the  church  which  have  been  written,  has  any  attempt  been 
made  to  penetrate  into  the  secret  mysteries  of  the  religion ;  although  every  age  exhibits  avowals 
or  admissions  of  the  heads  or  chief  persons  of  it,  that  there  were  such  secrets,  the  truth  of  which 
admissions  or  avowals  is  proved  by  circumstances  which  can  in  no  other  way  be  accounted  for.  In 
the  earlier  periods  we  have  histories  of  what  different  eminent  persons  have  stated  them  to  be  ; 
these  our  writers  have  handed  to  us,  credulously  believing  them,  and  never  adverting  to  this 
glaring  fact,  that  if  such  men  as  Origen  had  really  explained  them,  they  would  have  been  guilty 
of  the  blackest  perfidy  and  perjury,  and  would  soon  have  been  murdered:  whence  it  follows,  that 
the  explanations  which  they  gave  could  only  have  been  intended  to  mislead,  or  were  not  meant  to 
apply  to  the  secret  mysteries  properly  so  called.  And  with  respect  to  the  secrets  themselves,  they 
are  probably  like  those  of  the  Freemasons.  If  they  were  told  by  any  traitor,  so  many  other  false 
stories  were  told  along  with  the  true  ones,  that  their  secrecy  is  by  this  means  most  effectually 
secured.  It  is  also  pretty  certain,  I  think,  that  this  esoteric  religion  must  be  of  such  a  nature  as 
to  leave  room  for  heresies  and  philosophical  varieties  of  opinion  to  take  place  to  a  considerable 
extent,  without  much  affecting  it.  Now  I  think  in  the  Millenium  and  its  collateral  doctrines  of 
astrology  and  some  parts  of  Gnosticism  these  requisites  may  be  found,  and  most  assuredly  in 
almost  every  age  evident  proofs  of  these  matters  shew  themselves,  when  the  history  is  carefully 
looked  into.  These  are  the  causes  why  so  many  inconsistencies  may  be  observed  in  all  the  accounts 
of  the  church,  which  the  writers  of  them  have  been  unable  satisfactorily  to  explain.  When  a 
person  reads  Mosheim  or  other  ecclesiastical  writers,  nothing  is  more  easy  and  flowing  than  the 
history :  there  seem  to  be  no  difficulties.  But  when  he  examines  into  the  documents  on  which  it 
is  founded,  nothing  is  more  difficult. 

2.  At  every  turn  we  meet  with  some  remnants  of  Paganism,  any  one  of  which  taken  by  itself 
would  be  of  no  consequence,  but  which  becomes  of  consequence  when  united  to  many  others. 
Some  of  these  are  ridiculous  enough.  The  Pope  boasts  of  being  descended  from  St.  Peter,  Bar- 
Jonas,  or  Janus,  i.  e.  son  of  Janus,  and  as  he  held  the  keys  of  heaven,  so  the  Romanists  maintain 
that  their  Pope  holds  them,  and,  by  virtue  of  this,  possesses  the  power  of  granting  or  refusing 
absolution  for  sins — opening  or  shutting  the  gates  of  heaven.  This  is  evidently  a  grand  step 
to  universal  empire,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  great  exertions  should  have  been  made  to  esta- 
blish it.  Various  miracles  are  recorded  of  St.  Peter,  at  Rome ;  and,  to  support  the  credit  of  the 
chief  of  the  apostles,  the  actual  chair  on  which  this  Bar-Jonas  sat  was  formerly  exhibited.  As  Bar- 
Jonas  was  holy,  it  followed  that  the  chair  on  which  he  sat  must  also  be  holy  ;  therefore,  a  festival 
was  instituted  on  the  18th  of  January  to  the  holy  chair,  which  on  that  day  was  annually  exposed 
to  the  adoration  of  the  people.  This  continued  till  the  year  1662,  when  upon  cleaning  it,  in  order 
to  set  it  up  in  some  conspicuous  place  of  the  Vatican,  the  twelve  labours  of  Hercules  unluckily 
appeared  engraved  on  it.  "  Our  worship,  however,"  says  Giacomo  Bartolini,  who  was  present  at 
this  discovery,  and  relates  it,  "  was  not  misplaced,  since  it  was  not  to  the  wood  we  paid  it,  but  to 
the  prince  of  the  apostles,  St.  Peter.  An  author  of  no  mean  character,  unwilling  to  give  up  the 
holy  chair,  even  after  this  discovery,  as  having  a  place,  and  a  peculiar  solemnity  among  the 
other  saints,  has  attempted  to  explain  the  labours  of  Hercules  in  a  mystical  sense,  as  emblems 
representing  the  future  exploits  of  the  Popes.    But  the  ridiculous  and  distorted  conceits  of 

4t2 


692 


CHAIR   OF   ST.   PETER. 
it 


that  writer  are  not  worthy  our  notice,  though  by  Clement  X.  they  were  judged  not  unworthy  of 
"  a  reward." l 

When  the  wicked  French  got  possession  of  Rome,  they  did  not  fail  to  examine  this  celebrated 
relic,  and  lo !  in  addition  to  the  labours  of  Hercules,  they  discovered  engraved  upon  it,  in  Arabic 
letters,  the  Mohamedan  confession  of  faith. 2  In  these  two  facts  there  is  a  beautiful  exemplifi- 
cation of  the  doctrine  held  by  me  and  Ammonius  Saccas,  that  all  the  varieties  of  religions  are  at 
the  bottom  the  same — but  including,  in  the  collection  known  to  Ammonius,  the  modern  Moha- 
medan religion,  which  will  be  accounted  for  presently.  I  can  scarcely  conceive  a  more  marked 
proof  of  the  nature  of  the  secret  doctrine  of  the  Conclave.  The  story  goes,  that  this  chair  was 
brought  from  Constantinople  by  a  Pilgrim,  who,  of  course,  could  neither  see  the  Zodiac,  nor 
read,  nor  know,  when  he  saw  Arabic  letters,  that  they  were  the  letters  of  the  country  where  he 
had  been  travelling.  And  it  is  also  clear  that  the  Pope  and  all  the  Cardinals  who  adopted  this 
chair  were  equally  blind,  and  could  not  see  the  Zodiacal  signs,  and  equally  ignorant  of  the  Arabic 
letters.  Besides,  it  is  also  manifest,  if  they  did  see  them,  that  there  was  not  at  that  time  a 
carpenter  in  the  Roman  dominions  by  whom  these  offensive  emblems  might  have  been  removed 
from  the  chair,  or  who  might  have  simplified  the  matter  by  substituting  a  new  one,  if  one  must 
be  had,  and  if  the  emblems  proved  the  falsity  of  the  story  of  its  being  St.  Peter's. 

Irony  aside,  the  fact  is,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  under  these  mysterious  circumstances,  something 
lies  hid.  These  emblems  and  letters  did  not  come  there  by  accident :  nor  are  they  to  be  ascribed 
to  the  ignorance  of  the  Pope  and  the  whole  college  of  Cardinals,  and  the  priests  and  the  Propa- 
ganda employed  in  educating  youth  in  Arabic  and  other  languages  for  the  foreign  missions. 
All  these  circumstances  are  full  of  interest,  but  I  think  the  time  is  come  when  they  may  be 
explained.  The  whole  tenure  of  this  work  goes  to  explain  the  labours  of  Hercules,  the  symbols, 
as  Mr.  Parkhurst  calls  them,  of  what  the  real  Saviour  was  to  do  and  suffer.  For  the  other  I 
will  propose  a  theory  founded  on  a  conditional  fact,  which,  of  course,  if  the  fact  be  not  true,  falls 
to  the  ground. 

I  have  x-ead,  but  where  I  cannot  now  recollect,  and  which  at  the  time  I  thought  of  no  conse- 
quence, of  several  missions  having  been  sent  by  the  Popes  to  convert  the  Caliph  of  the  Moha- 
medans  to  Christianity.  This  was  the  ostensible  reason  given  to  the  Christian  world  for  the 
missions.  But  I  am  of  opinion  that  these  missions  had  also  the  secret  object,  if  conversion  were 
not  possible,  of  effecting  accommodation ;  and  this  was  in  a  great  measure  caused  by  the  expec- 
tation of  a  Millenium,  a  doubt  whether  Mohamed  might  not  really  be  the  person  foretold  by 
Jesus ;  and  a  fear,  whether  he  were  so  or  not,  that  the  warlike  Saracen,  his  successor,  should 
overrun  Italy  and  subvert  the  Papal  power.  We  must  not  forget  that  attempts  at  accommodation 
would  be  kept  in  the  most  profound  secrecy,  and  if  suspected  or  discovered  most  strenuously 
denied — perhaps  never  committed  to  writing. 

In  the  history  to  which  I  allude,  one  of  the  Popes  is  said  to  have  sent  a  most  arrogant  message 
to  the  Caliph  to  require  him  to  turn  Christian.  This  story  does  very  well  to  blind  ignorant 
people,  and  for  Protestants  to  laugh  at,  but  I  believe  that  the  truth  was,  that  a  negociation  was 
attempted  with  the  Caliph  by  the  Pope,  which  failed,  and  the  story  of  the  Pope's  arrogance  was 
told,  as  we  have  it,  to  conceal  the  truth.  I  know  that  the  idea  of  an  inclination  of  the  Roman 
See  to  an  union  with  Mohamedism  will  be  treated  with  ridicule.  However,  let  the  Arabic  inscrip- 
tion be  accounted  for;  not  by  a  pretended  accident,  the  great  resource  of  little  minds,  but  by 
some  rational  theory. 


1  Bower,  Hist.  Popes,  p.  7.  2  Lady  Morgan's  Italy. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER   VI.   SECTION  3.  693 

If  the  Pope  had  any  inclination  to  admit  Mohamed  as  the  person  to  be  sent,  as  foretold  by 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Arabic  inscription  might  be  placed  upon  the  chair  as  a  preparation  for  a  pre- 
tended miracle  to  establish  the  fact.  Or  if  the  Pope  feared  the  arrival  of  the  Caliph  at  Rome,  he 
might  be  preparing  for  a  march  out  to  meet  him  with  the  keys  of  the  Holy  City  and  of  Heaven  in 
his  hand,  with  a  pretence  that  he  was  at  last  convinced  by  the  miraculous  inscription  on  the  chair 
(an  imitation  of  the  inscription  on  the  wall  at  Babylon)  that  Mohamed  was  the  Apostle  of  God. 
The  march  to  meet  the  conqueror  would  find  an  exact  precedent  in  the  conduct  of  the  Jewish 
High  Priest  (as  described  in  the  lying  account  of  RollinJ  proceeding,  in  Pontificalibus,  in  com- 
pliance with  a  dream,  (to  betray  the  former  race  of  Messiahs  which  had  restored  the  temple,)  and 
to  deliver  the  keys  of  Jerusalem  to  Alexander  the  Great,  the  new  incarnation. 

We  shall  presently  see,  notwithstanding  the  boasted  immutability  of  the  Holy  See,  that  at  the 
time  of  which  I  am  now  speaking,  it  was  not  so  determined  against  all  change  as  its  followers 
pretend,  and  that  it  had  not  any  very  great  objection  to  a  new  incarnation.  I  think  when  the 
reader  has  perused  the  remainder  of  this  chapter,  he  will  not  consider  my  theory  so  improbable 
as  he  may  do  at  present.     The  Arabic  inscription  must  have  a  meaning. 

3.  About  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking,  there  seems  to  have  been  something  strangely 
unsettled  in  the  Roman  See.  This  is  proved  by  the  fact,  now  almost  concealed  by  the  priests, 
that  a  new  Gospel  was  preached  with  its  permission,  and  actively  and  energetically  supported  by 
it,  as  Mosheim  says,  for  above  thirty  years.  For  various  reasons,  which  will  be  detailed,  it  was 
at  last  suppressed,  the  zodiac *  and  inscription  on  the  chair  were  forgotten,  and  the  Templars 
were  burnt. 

When  the  Grand  Lama  of  Tibet  made  advances  to  the  Emperor  of  the  East — the  Emperor  of 
China — informing  this  wise  and  politic  prince  that  he  would  receive  him  as  the  eldest  son  of  the 
church,  the  cunning  monarch  accepted  the  offer,  acknowledged  the  Lama  for  his  father,  and  thus 
he  became  the  sovereign  and  protector  of  the  sacred  and  holy  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom  at 
Lassa.  When  the  Grand  Lama  of  Rome  made  advances,  if  he  did  make  them,  to  the  Emperor  of 
the  West — the  Caliph — this  prince  being  less  politic  than  the  Chinese,  the  Western  Lama  was 
less  successful  than  his  brother  Lama  had  been  in  the  East.  Had  the  negociation  succeeded, 
and  a  new  Gospel  taken  place  of  the  old  ones,  how  different  might  have  been  the  state  of  the 
world  !     That  the  world  was  ready  for  a  new  Gospel  I  will  now  prove. 

The  new  Gospel  of  which  I  have  spoken  above  was  called  the  Evangelium  Eternwn,  and,  after 
being  some  time  preached  in  the  12th  century,  was  first  published  in  a  written  book  by  one  Joa- 
chim, Abbot  of  Sora  or  Flora,  in  Calabria,  of  whom  I  spoke  in  Chap.  V.  Sect.  9,  from  which  it  was 
called  the  book  of  joachim.2  This  Gospel  was  called  the  covenant  of  peace.  It  was  intended 
to  supersede  all  the  old  Gospels,  and  by  it  an  union  was  expected  to  take  place  with  the  Moha- 
medans  and  all  the  other  sects,  which  caused  it  to  have  this  last  name.  It  had  the  name  of 
Evangelium  Eternum,  or  the  Everlasting  Gospel,  evidently  to  insinuate  or  intimate  to  those 
capable  of  understanding  it,  that  all  other  gospels  were  only  of  a  temporary  nature.  This  exactly 
agrees  with  the  Mohamedan  doctrine  of  the  Paraclete.  This  gospel,  known  and  preached  in  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century,  was  received  by  nearly  all  the  monks,  but  particularly  by  the  Domini- 

*  This  Zodiac  is  in  good  keeping  with  the  Zodiac  in  the  church  of  St.  Irenseus,  at  Lyons,  with  the  wine  cask  at  St. 
Denis,  with  the  Zodiac  on  the  church  at  York,  and  with  many  other  similar  matters. 

8  This  was  the  same  man  spoken  of  before  as  Abbot  of  Curacio.  Here  we  see  that  this  Io-akim,  that  is,  Io  the  wise, 
was  also  Abbot  of  Flora,  the  mystic,  perhaps  secret,  name  of  Rome.  These  mystic  names  betray  the  mystic  nature  of 
the  system. 


694 


GOSPEL   OF   JOACHIM. 


cans  and  Franciscans,  and  they  were  most  warmly  supported  by  the  Popes,  who  censured  their 
opponents,  and  particularly  one  St.  Amour,  and  caused  their  books  to  be  burnt. * 

The  Everlasting  Gospel  was  also  called  the  Gospel  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  had  its  name  of 
Evangelium  Eternum  from  the  fourteenth  chapter  and  sixth  verse  of  the  Revelation  of  Ioannes  or 
John,  of  which  it  was  the  completion,  and  in  which,  as  the  tenth  Avatar,  or  Cycle,  or  Age,  which 
would  come  or  be  completed  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  it  was  of  course  found ;  for 
the  Apocalypse  is  a  very  ancient  astrological  work  on  the  Zodiacal  Lamb,  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
ten  Cycles  and  the  Millenium.  Its  other  name,  given  above,  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Peri-clyte,  or 
Para-clete,  is  evidently  in  accordance  with  the  Mohamedan  doctrine.  The  Roman  See  supported 
the  Evangelium  Eternum  by  all  the  means  in  its  power.  This  gospel  announces  that  there  have 
been  two  imperfect  ages,  the  one  of  the  Father,  the  age  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  one  of  the  New 
Testament,  under  the  administration  of  the  Son,  and  that  the  third  or  the  perfect  one,  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  which  was  to  be  preached  to  all  nations,  was  at  hand.  Here,  most  clearly,  we  have  a  doc- 
trine which  assimilates  again  to  Mohamedism,  and  to  the  expectation  of  the  Millenium. 

The  Evangelium  Eternum  consisted  of  three  books.  The  Liber  Concordice  Veritatis,  i.  e.  the 
Book  of  the  Harmony  of  Truth,  the  Apocalypsis  Nova  or  Neiv  Revelation,  and  the  Psalterium 
decern  Chordarum,  Psaltery  of  the  ten  chords,  or  the  TES-stringed  Harp.  The  reader  will  please  to 
observe  that  this  being  a  new  Apocalypse2  will,  like  the  old  one,  be  intelligible  only  to  those 
initiated  in  the  mysteries ;  and,  this  understood,  I  think  I  need  not  explain  to  him  the  meaning  of 
the  Harp  with  ten  strings.  I  think  if  he  will  now  look  over  the  old  Apocalypse  again,  he  will  see 
that  its  doctrines  all  refer  to  the  revolution  of  the  different  cycles. 3  And  if  he  look  to  the  Grecian 
history  he  will  find  that  the  Lyre  of  Apollo  at  first  had  only  three  strings,  but  they  increased  till 
they  amounted  to  seven.  The  Muses  and  the  Curetes  also  increased  as  time  advanced,  till  they 
got  to  nine,  when  the  Greek  temples  were  destroyed.  They  increased  as  the  cycles  increased  in 
number. 

I  believe  that  throughout  all  the  Roman  Christian  world,  the  Gospel  of  St.  Joachim  was  re- 
ceived. Various  circumstances  convince  me  of  this.  In  the  latter  end  of  the  13th  century  when 
the  end  of  the  world  was  daily  expected,  the  Monks  increased  in  number  beyond  all  credibility, 
and  the  most  violent  commotions  arose  among  them  ;  but,    however  they  might  hate  one  another, 


1  Mosheim,  Hist.  Cent.  xiii.  Sect,  xxviii. 

2  Erasmus,  Luther,  and  Calvin,  had  little  esteem  for  the  Apocalypse.  St.  Jerom  saith,  (Ep.  cxxix.  ad  Dardanum,) 
that  some  churches  of  the  Greeks  would  not  accept  it.  Gregory  Nazianzen  has  omitted  it  in  his  poem  about  authentic 
Scripture.  The  Council  of  Laodicea,  (Can.  59,)  held  about  364,  giving  a  list  of  canonical  books,  hath  left  it  out, 
Amphilocus,  contemporary  with  St.  Basil,  saith,  that  though  some  inserted  it  in  the  legitimate  writings,  yet  the  majority 
did  slight  it  as  a  spurious  piece.  Vide  Euseb.  Eccl.  Hist.  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  xxviii.,  also  Eccl.  Hist.  Lib.  vii.  Cap.  xxv. 
Dorotheus,  Bishop  of  Tyre  and  a  Martyr,  owns  that  St.  John  writ  his  gospel  at  Patmos,  but  not  a  word  of  this  book, 
though  the  first  chapter  lets  us  know  that  he  was  in  that  isle  when  he  had  his  visions. — Discourse  on  the  Lord's-day,  by 
Rev.  Thomas  Morer,  1701. 

3  The  candlestick  in  the  temple  had  seven  branches.  The  Lamb  of  the  Apocalypse  had  seven  horns  and  seven  eyes, 
which  are  the  seven  spirits  of  God,  and  twenty-four  elders.  When  the  six  seals  are  opened  the  stars  will  fall ;  that  is, 
at  the  end  of  the  six  millenaries  the  Millenium  will  come.  144,000  persons  were  sealed,  12,000  of  each  tribe.  The 
mystery  will  be  finished  when  the  seventh  angel  begins  to  sound.  The  number  of  the  Beast  is  666.  The  city  is  12,000 
furlongs  square;  the  wall  144  cubits.  (Rev.  xxi.  16,  17.)  In  chap.  xiv.  1,  144,000  is  again  named.  There  is  a  river 
on  each  side,  a  tree  of  life  bearing  twelve  fruits,  one  each  month,  and  the  most  remarkable  thing  of  all  is,  that  the 
Lord  is  said,  ch.  ii.  ver.  8,  to  have  been  also  crucified  in  Egypt.  I  must  now  request  my  reader  to  look  back  to  Book 
V.,  and  he  will  not  then  be  surprised  that  the  chronology  of  the  tribe  of  Abraham  or  Judah  should  coincide  with 
that  of  the  Hindoos ;  as  it  is  very  evident  the  secret  histories  of  the  two  nations  are  the  same. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VI.     SECTION  4.  695 

they  all  joined  in  supporting  the  evangelium  eternum.  An  instance  of  this  may  be  found  in  the 
works  of  St.  Amour  which  I  have  not  been  able  to  see,  for  though  he  attacked  the  Mendicant 
orders  with  the  greatest  bitterness,  he  founded  his  proofs  against  them  on  the  everlasting  gospel ; 
he  attacked  them  with  their  own  weapons. l  The  reason  why  we  have  very  little  left  respecting 
this  gospel  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  of  its  universal  reception,  for  all  parties  being  equally  ex- 
posed to  ridicule  when  the  failure  of  the  Millenium  took  place,  all  were  equally  interested  in  let- 
ting the  subject  die  and  be  forgotten.  But  I  think  such  as  retained  any  of  the  doctrines  were 
persecuted  as  Manichaeans. 2 

4.  After  the  devotees  and  followers  of  the  new  Gospel,  in  the  13th  century,  had  in  vain  expected 
the  holy  one  who  was  to  come,  they  at  last  pitched  upon  St.  Francis  as  having  been  the  expected 
one,  and,  of  course,  the  most  surprising  and  absurd  miracles  were  said  to  have  been  performed  by 
him.  Some  of  the  fanatics  having  an  indistinct  idea  of  the  secret  doctrine  of  renewed  incarna- 
tions, or  letting  their  knowledge  of  the  principle  of  renewed  incarnations  escape  in  the  heat  of 
controversy,  maintained  that  St.  Francis  was  "  wholly  and  entirely  transformed3  into  the  person  of 
"  Christ — Totum  Christo  configuratum."  4  Mosheim  says,  by  some  of  them  the  Gospel  of  Joa- 
chim was  expressly  preferred  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ.5 

The  Gospel  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Evangelium  Eternum  of  the  book  of  Joachim,  was  never 
censured  or  in  any  way  suppressed  by  any  act  of  the  Pope,  but  only  the  introduction  to  it,  which 
deduced  from  it  the  downfal  of  the  Holy  See.  Joh.n  of  Parma,  General  of  the  Franciscans,  who  was 
one  of  the  most  violent  of  its  supporters,  has  a  place  among  the  saints  in  the  acta  sanctorum. 6  He 
preferred  the  Gospel  of  Joachim  to  that  of  Christ.  Nothing  can  be  more  erroneous  than  the  re- 
presentation of  Dr.  Maclaine,  that  it  was  only  supported  by  a  few  Franciscans,  called  spirituals, 
when  it  was  at  least  for  more  than  half  a  century  supported  by  the  whole  Romish  Church ;  how 
much  longer  I  do  not  know.  It  is  necessary  carefully  to  avoid  falling  into  the  mistake  of  supposing, 
that  those  who  wrote  against  the  Mendicant  orders  wrote  against  the  Evangelium  Eternum,  which 
was  received  by  them,  for  they  had  many  adversaries  who  received  the  gospel  as  eagerly  as  they  did. 

All  these  matters  shew,  with  the  Popes,  policy,  with  the  common  Monks,  fanaticism.  As 
might  be  expected,  among  the  monastic  fanatics,  who  were  not  entrusted  with  the  High  Secrets 
of  the  Conclave,  different  opinions  and  the  most  violent  controversies  arose,  each  claiming  for  his 
own  order  the  chief  merits  of  the  new  gospel.  After  a  certain  time  this  placed  the  Holy  See  in  a 
most  awkward  dilemma.  It  could  not  condemn  the  gospel  which  it  had  supported,  and  on  which 
it  had  so  far  relied  as  to  believe  that,  at  the  commencement  of,  or  some  time  in,  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  millenium  and  the  completion  of  the  ten  cycles,  or  the  completion  of  the  famous 
1260  years,  would  arrive.  But  after  the  failure  of  its  prophecies,  the  Holy  See  could  no  longer 
support  it.  It  could  not  explain  to  the  intemperate  monks  the  real  secret,  and  it  did  not  like  to 
persecute ;  perhaps  did  not  dare  to  persecute  the  light  troops  of  the  church — the  united  Domi- 
nican, Franciscan,  and  Augustinian  Monks,  all  of  whom  supported  the  new  gospel. 

1  Mosheim,  Hist.  Cent.  xiii.  p.  ii.  Sect,  xxviii.  8  Ibid.  Sect,  xxxviii. 

3  The  word  transformed  is  used  here  to  conceal  the  metempsychosis  and  renewed  incarnation.  It  has  the  same 
meaning  as  the  word  transfigured  in  the  gospels. 

For  particulars  relating  to  St.  Francis  see  the  works  of  Bartholomew  Albizi  or  de  Albizis,  particularly  that  called 
Liber  conformitatum  Sancti  Francisci  cum  Christo,  Venice,  fol. ;  or  Antiquitates  Franciscanae  sive  Speculum  Vitae 
beati  Francisci  et  Sociorum,  &c,  Cologne,  1623 ;  also  the  work  of  Peter  of  Alva  and  Astorga,  entitled  Naturae  prodi- 
gium,  Gratiae  portentum,  &c,  Maduti,  1651,  fol. 

*  Vide  Litera  Magistrorum  de  Postilla  Fratris  P.  Joh.  Olivi  in  Baluzii  Miscellan.  Tom.  I.  p.  213 ;  Waddingi  Annal. 
Minor.  Tom.  V.  p.  51 ;  Mosh.  Hist.  Cent.  XIII.  Pt.  ii.  Sect,  xxxvi. 

*  Ibid.  Sect,  xxxiv.  note.  6  Tom.  III.  Martii,  p.  157. 


696  ST.    FRANCIS.      ISHMAELIANS   OR  ASSASSINS. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Machine  says,  that  the  Evangelium  Eternum  consists,  as  productions  of  that  na- 
ture generally  do  (how  true  an  observation  !)  of  ambiguous  predictions  and  intricate  riddles.   This 
is  what  we  might  expect.     After  it  had  been  published  some  time,  and  had  received  the  greatest 
support  possible  from  the  Popes  and  all  orders  of  Monks,  the  Franciscan  fanatic  Gerhard  pub- 
lished the  work   called  an  introduction  to  this  Gospel,  in  which  he   censured   the  vices  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  in  set  terms  prophesied  or  deduced  from  the  Evangelium  Eternum  the 
destruction  of  the  Roman  See.     This  appeared  in  the  year  1250,   close  upon  the  last  period  to 
which  the  Millenium  could  be  delayed,   viz.  1260  years.     As  this  dreaded  moment  approached, 
the  passions  of  the  different  orders   of  Monks  were  excited  to  the  greatest  height.     Gerhard's 
book  was  burnt  and  its   author  was  persecuted,  though  his  followers,  among  the  Franciscans, 
claim  for  him  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  place  him  among  the  saints.     The  followers  of  St.  Francis 
generally — the  great  supporters  of  the  new  gospel — and  Gerhard  maintained,  that  he,  St.  Francis, 
who  ivas  the  angel  mentioned  in  the  Revelations,  ch.  xiv.  6,  had  promulgated  to  the  world  the  true 
and  Everlasting  Gospel  of  God  :  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  was  to  be  abrogated  in  the  year  1260, 
and  to  give  place  to  this  new  and  everlasting  gospel,  which  was  to  be  substituted  in  its  room  :  and 
that  the  ministers  of  this  great  reformation  were  to  be  humble  and  barefooted  friars,  destitute  of  all 
worldly  emoluments. l      This  was  stripping  off  the  veil  and  shewing  the  meaning  of  the  eternal 
gospel  without  disguise.     It  excited  the  most  lively  feelings  of  surprise,  of  hope,  or  of  indigna- 
tion, according  as  it  suited  or  opposed  the  opinions  of  the  different  fanatics.     The  Pope  did  not 
according  to  the  usual  plan  burn  the  author,  the  book  only  was  burnt,  and  its  author  mildly  cen- 
sured and  banished  to  his  house  in  the  country.     This  took  place  in  the  year  1255,  when  the  par- 
ties, expectants  of  the  Millenium,  must  have  been  in  the  highest  state  of  fear  and  anxiety. 

The  year  1260  arrived  and  passed  away ;  but,  wonderful !  the  sun  did  not  cease  to  give  its 
light ;  the  moon  and  the  stars  did  not  fall  from  heaven  ;  nothing  particular  happened ;  the  pious 
fools  stared  one  at  another,  and  the  impious  rogues  laughed.  The  Pope  and  Cardinals  at  Rome, 
half  rogues  half  fools,  and  the  fools  every  where  else,  finding  themselves  all  in  the  wrong,  soon 
began  to  charge  the  folly  upon  one  another,  and  as  they  had  quarrelled  before  who  should  display 
the  most  zeal  for  the  new  glad-tidings,  they  now  began  to  quarrel  about  who  should  bear  the 
blame — each  shuffling  the  odium  on  to  some  other.  Dr.  Maclaine,  feeling  the  extreme  degree  of 
ridicule  in  which  the  whole  thing  involves  the  church,  and  not  understanding  the  truth  in  the 
slightest  degree,  or  not  suspecting  that  it  had  any  connexion  with  the  Millenium,  in  endeavouring 
to  throw  the  whole  blame  on  an  obscure  small  sect  of  Franciscans,  only  exposes  his  unavailing 
wishes  and  contradictions.  He  and  Mosheim  have  clearly  proved  the  great  and,  indeed,  I  may 
almost  say,  the  universal  reception  of  the  Everlasting  Gospel.  After  some  time,  the  fanatics 
having,  by  degrees,  ceased  to  preach,  and  the  Popes  to  support,  the  new  gospel,  the  old  gospels 
recovered  their  credit,  and  the  friends  of  the  new  one  died  away,  or  were  burnt  as  they  came  to 
be  considered  heretics.  We  must  not  forget  that  the  exact  period  when  the  1260  years  of  Daniel 
were  to  commence  was  always,  as  it  yet  is,  a  matter  of  great  doubt  with  devotees  :  and  it  seems 
pretty  clear,  that  in  the  encouragement  of  St.  Francis  or  of  the  Gospel  of  Joachim,  the  Pope  went 
upon  the  idea  that  the  tenth  avatar  was  to  commence  at  the  end  of  1260  years,  not  to  end  at  that 
time.  At  all  events,  uncertainty  is  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  and  it  appears  very  probable 
that  the  court  of  Rome  endeavoured  to  guard  against  whatever  might  happen.  This  was  exactly 
in  character  with  the  Arabic  inscription  on  the  chair. 

It  is  very  curious  to  observe,  that  this  gospel  is  now  so  completely  forgotten  or  concealed,  that 


And,  I  have  little  doubt,  along  with  this,  the  Spencean  doctrine  of  equality  of  property  among  all  its  votaries. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  4.  697 

there  is  not  throughout  Europe  one  in  a  thousand,  of  commonly  well-educated  persons,  who 
knows  that  there  ever  was  such  a  gospel ;  though  it  is  very  certain  that  if,  with  our  present  mys- 
tics, the  1260  years  had  been  foretold  to  end  in  1860,  instead  of  1260  years  after  Christ,  the  whole 
religion  of  the  Christian  world  might  have  been  completely  changed,  and  a  new  gospel  would  have 
been  received,  and,  in  St.  Joachim  or  St.  Francis,  we  should  have  had  a  rival  of  Paul,  another 
apostle  born  out  of  due  season.  If  we  look  back  to  the  history  of  the  world  in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries,  we  shall  find  that  the  Monks  in  that  day  swarmed  almost  beyond  credibility.  This, 
like  their  increase  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  arose  from  the  expectation  of  the  Mil- 
lenium about  the  year  600,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  thousands  of  the  order,  a  little  later,  joined 
the  armies  of  the  prophet  of  Arabia.  After  the  time  fixed  for  the  Millenium  to  commence  had 
passed  away,  it  appears  that  various  writings,  called  the  Gospel  of  Joachim,  were  handed  about 
Italy,  but  each  of  them  denied,  by  the  Papists  or  Monks,  to  be  the  real  gospel.  This  was  done  in 
order  to  enable  them  to  parry  the  ridicule  to  which  it  and  they  were  exposed,  by  saying,  in  each 
case,  that  it  was  not  the  real  book.  On  this  account  it  would  be  impossible  to  make  out  the  real 
gospel  if  it  were  worth  any  person's  trouble  to  attempt  it,  which  I  think  it  can  hardly  be. 

A  little  time  ago  I  observed  that  Mr.  Mosheim  had  said,  that  the  Evangeiium  Eternum  was  in 
fashion  or  was  received  for  more  than  thirty  years.  No  doubt  this  gospel  history  is  as  disagree- 
able to  Mosheim  as  to  the  priests  of  most  other  sects,  but  he  had  too  much  principle  or  too  much 
regard  to  his  own  fame  to  suppress  the  history  :  yet  he  softens  and  disguises  where  it  is  in  his 
power.  It  is  true,  as  he  says,  that  it  was  received  for  more  than  thirty  years,  for  it  was  preached 
(I  do  not  speak  here  of  its  being  written)  before  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  (how  long  before  I 
do  not  know),  and  the  introduction  to  it ;  and  the  explanation  of  Gerhard,  though  grossly  libel- 
ous on  the  Roman  See,  was  not  burnt  till  the  year  1256,  which  shews  it  to  have  been  preached 
for  more  than  fifty  years  at  leastj  so  that  before  the  Church  consented  to  burn  Gerhard's  book  and 
inflict  the  dreadful  punishment  on  him,  (how  different  from  its  general  treatment  of  heretics  !)  of 
sending  him  to  his  family  residence  from  Paris,  it  probably  made  itself  certain  that  the  great  ex- 
pected event  would  not  happen  according  to  their  reckoning  in  the  year  1260. 

After  the  expectation  of  the  Millenium  had  entirely  passed  away,  and  the  power  of  the  Saracens 
seemed  to  increase,  the  Popes  became  more  than  ever  embittered  against  the  Mohamedans,  and 
equally  furious  against  all  who  supported  any  thing  relating  to  the  now  become  obsolete  Gnostic 
or  Cyclic  doctrines,  or  the  expectation  of  a  Millenium.  This  accounts,  in  a  very  satisfactory 
manner,  for  the  zeal  of  the  Popes  up  to  a  certain  time  for  the  new  gospel,  and  their  bitterness 
afterward  towards  the  Templars  and  the  Albigenses,  among  whom  some  remnants  of  these  super- 
stitions remained.  The  peculiar  circumstance  that  a  great  part  of  these  doctrines  was  necessa- 
rily involved  in  the  greatest  obscurity,  and  kept  secret  with  the  greatest  possible  care,  being,  in 
fact,  the  esoteric  doctrine,  accounts  for  many  of  the  apparently  inconsistent  circumstances  which 
we  every  where  meet  with.     It  easily  accounts  for  them  all. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  adoration  of  the  Maria,  the  Regina  Cceli,  the  mother  of  God 
existed  before  Christianity.  But  it  was  brought  forward  into  more  notice  after  a  certain  time  in 
opposition  to  Mohamed,  and  I  cannot  much  doubt  that  it  was  on  this  account  adopted  peculiarly 
by  the  orders  of  knighthood :  for  the  religion  of  Mohamed  was  utterly  opposed  to  every  thing 
which  had  the  least  tendency  to  the  adoration  of  the  female  principle  or  Ionism.  This  has  given 
countenance  to  the  assertion  of  Protestants  that  it  did  not  come  into  the  Romish  Chm-ch  till 
about  the  eighth  century,  comparatively  speaking  a  recent  period.  But  they  have  fallen  into  this 
mistake,  from  their  zeal  to  make  it  out  to  be  a  modern  corruption,  fearing  that  if  they  admitted 
its  antiquity,  they  would  prove  it  to  be  an  integral  part  of  Christianity.  The  black  virgins  and 
Bambinos  of  Italy  are  far  older  than  Christianity.     For  these  reasons  the  Carmelites,  the  great 

4u 


698  GIBLIM. 

friends  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  female  generative  power  in  opposition  to  the  male,  were  brought 
forward  in  a  peculiar  manner  by  the  Popes,  and  became  their  favourites  to  so  absurd  a  length, 
that  those  Popes  countenanced  the  doctrine,  that  every  person  who  died  with  the  scapulary  of  the 
order  on  his  shoulders  was  certain  of  eternal  salvation.1 

As  we  have  seen,  the  grand  reason  which  caused  the  Crusades  was  the  expectation  of  the  Mil- 
lenium ;  the  desire  to  be  present  at  Jerusalem,  at  the  grand  day  when  the  Son  of  Man  should 
come  in  his  glory — the  great  day  of  God  Almighty.  Here  we  have  the  real  reason  of  the  Cru- 
sades. The  wish  to  protect  a  few  pilgrims,  was  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  cause  which  moved 
the  millions  to  the  Holy  Land. 

There  is  a  book  referred  to  by  Dr.  Maclaine  called  the  Alcoran  des  Cordeliers,  which 
shews  I  think,2  that  St.  Francis  was  set  up  by  his  followers  as  the  tenth  Avatar  in  opposition  to 
Mohamed.  At  all  events  it  certainly  is  designed  to  shew,  that  he  was  intended  to  supersede 
Jesus  Christ.  Every  sect  of  religionists  receiving  the  millenary  system  believed  themselves  to  be 
the  favourites  of  God,  therefore,  of  course,  they  believed  that  the  tenth  avatar  would  appear  among 
them  ;  they  were  therefore  ready  to  catch  at  any  extraordinary  person  as  he  whom  they  expected — 
as  he  who  was  the  desire  of  all  nations.  Thus  we  have  several  ninth  avatars,  and  several  tenth 
avatars  running  at  the  same  time  in  different  places. 

In  former  parts  of  this  work  we  have  seen  that  the  Jewish  patriarchs  were  said  to  have  had 
their  images  in  the  temple  at  Mecca  before  the  time  of  Mohamed,  along  with  an  effigy  of  a  Dove, 
which  Mohamed  himself  destroyed.  This  seems  very  singular.  We  have  seen  also  what  has  been 
said  of  the  Ishmaelites  having  brought  the  language,  at  that  time  the  same  as  the  Jewish  or  Chal- 
dean, from  the  mountains  of  Upper  India.  We  have  also  seen  that  the  Brahmins  count  Mohamed 
among  the  incarnations,  admit  him  to  have  been  a  Vicramaditya  or  a  holy  energy,  (as  Col.  Tod 
would  say,)  and  that  they  formerly  frequented  and  made  pilgrimages  to  the  temple  at  Mecca. 
May  not  Mohamed  have  been  merely  a  Deistical  reformer  of  a  mythos,  the  same  as  that  of  the 
Afghans  of  Upper  India,  corrupted  by  his  successors  ?  The  Koran,  forged  twenty  years  after  his 
death,  offers  no  impediment  to  this.  Or  may  not  Mohamed  have  been  announced  by  himself  as 
the  tenth  avatar,  and  the  Koran  a  made-up  article,  partly  invented  and  partly  formed  from  the 
memories  of  his  followers,  of  such  speeches  as  he  delivered  at  different  times  and  they  remem- 
bered, merely  to  deceive  the  vulgar,  to  whom  the  secret  mythos  was  never  trusted  in  any  country, 
and  which  was  never  known  till  it  got  out  by  degrees. 3  This  will  be  found  to  be  in  perfect 
keeping  with  the  secret  doctrine  of  his  religion,  which  I  shall  explain  by  and  by.  The  above 
theory  respecting  the  Koran  is  very  nearly  accordant  with  the  history  which  we  have.  That  it 
should  be  forgotten  since  the  failure  of  the  Millenium  is  no  way  surprising. 

5.  In  the  Western  part  of  Asia  in  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  sect  or  religious 
tribe  called  Ishmaelians  or  Battenians  or  Assassins  began  to  be  noticed.  Many  persons  have 
attempted,  and  some  are  now  attempting,  their  history,  which  is  in  a  high  degree  difficult  and 
mysterious  ;  but  the  number  of  these  historians  shews,  that  they  have  none  of  them  yet  given 
satisfaction.  As  usual  in  cases  of  this  kind,  the  reports  of  the  enemies  of  these  people,  almost 
without  discrimination,  have  been  received  as  historical  evidence  by  those  who  have   undertaken 


'  See  the  work  of  Benedict  XIV.  De  Festis  B.  Maria:  Virg.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  vi.  p.  472,  Tom.  X.  opp.  edit.  Rom.  Mo- 
sheim,  Cent.  XIII.  Part  ii. 

*  Tom.  I.  pp.  256,  266,  278,  &c.  ;  Luc.  Waddingi  Annales  Minor.  Tom.  III.  p.  380 ;  Mosb.  Hist.  Cent.  XIII.  Part 
ii   Ch.  xxx. 

3  It  is  a  very  singular  circumstance  that  not  one  of  the  four  great  teachers  of  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  in  the  Western 
world,  Socrates,  Pythagoras,  Jesus,  or  Mohamed,  left  any  memorial  of  his  existence  or  of  his  doctrines  in  writing. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VI.   SECTION  5.  699 

to  give  us  an  account  of  them.  This  renders  all  these  histories  doubtful  to  a  philosopher  who 
understands  the  value  of  evidence  and  chooses  to  attend  to  it.  The  case  is  very  difficult,  for 
we  have  scarcely  any  other  documents  than  those  reports  to  resort  to.  I  flatter  myself  that  it 
will  be  in  my  power  to  cast  a  ray  of  light  on  this  obscure  subject.  But  the  severity  of  my  rule  in 
cases  connected  with  religion  of  scarcely  ever  taking  the  testimony  of  an  opponent,  without  it 
have  some  other  support,  as  conclusive,  will  reduce  our  knowledge  of  them,  as  the  same  rule 
reduces  the  history  of  Mohamed,  to  a  very  small  compass.  I  believe  there  is  not  a  single  written 
document  of  the  Ishmaelites  in  existence.  They  were  equally  at  war  with  the  Mohamedan  Ca- 
liphs, the  Christians,  and  the  Jews.  They  are  now  nearly  extinct.  I  think  I  can  shew  how  this 
all  arose.  They  seem  at  one  time  to  have  been  considered  in  Syria  with  the  same  kind  of  horror 
with  which  the  imaginary  vampires  were  considered  in  Germany  formerly,  and  probably  a  horror 
not  much  better  founded.  If  we  may  believe  the  Arabian  historians  the  murders  which  they  com- 
mitted were  innumerable.  But  every  fire  or  robbery  seems,  without  disci'imination,  to  have  been 
attributed  to  them.  Of  some  of  the  crimes  with  which  they  have  been  charged  they  have  been 
proved  innocent,  and  it  seems  not  improbable,  that  their  name  has  been  used  as  a  very  con- 
venient cover  under  which  the  governors  of  the  Arabian  towns  might  revenge  themselves  with 
impunity  on  their  enemies. 

M.  Quatermere,  froman  anonymous  Persian  author,  says,  that  they  called  themselves  Partisans 
de  la  secte  qui  conduit  dans  le  droit  chemin,  and  Mirkond  calls  them  Les  Sectateurs  de  Babon. 

About  the  same  time,  at  least  in  the  same  Cycle,  when  St.  Francis  was  set  up  by  the  Cor- 
deliers for  the  last  manifestation  of  God  on  earth,  previous  to  the  Millenium,  these  Assassins  were 
first  noticed  in  the  Western  world  with  their  chief  Hakem1  Bemrillah  or  Hakem-biamr-allah, 
who  was  held  up  in  Syria  for  the  same  person.  He  was  said  by  his  followers  to  be  the 
tenth  avatar,  or,  as  I  suppose,  incarnation,  and,  as  I  have  said,  the  founder  of  what  his  enemies 
called  the  Assassins.  His  ideas  of  God  were  very  refined.  The  first  of  the  creatures  of  God,  the 
only  production  immediate  of  his  power,  was  the  intelligence  universelle,  which  shewed  itself  at 
each  of  the  manifestations  of  the  Divinity  on  earth ;  that  by  means  of  this  minister  all  creatures 
were  made,  and  he  was  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man.  They  called  themselves  Unitarians. 
This  intelligence  universelle  is  evidently  the  Logos,  Rasit,  or  App^jj  or  Buddha  or  Mtjtjc  of  which 
we  have  seen  so  much.  In  the  doctrine  of  the  ten  incarnations,  and  that  Hakem  was  the  tenth, 
and  in  the  intelligence  universelle,  we  have  the  complete  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  system  which 
I  have  been  developing  and  tracing  through  the  six  thousand  years  from  the  first  of  them.  It 
completes  my  proofs  if  any  were  wanted.  It  was  not  discovered  by  me  till  more  than  half  this 
volume  was  printed. 

I  think  it  seems  probable  that  the  followers  of  Bemrillah  were  originally  adorers  of  Taurus  or 
the  Calf  or  Calves,  which  they  continued  to  mix  with  the  other  doctrines  of  Buddha,  and  that 
after  Hakem's  death  they  returned  to  the  superstition  of  their  ancestors,  a  very  likely  effect  to 
follow  among  an  ignorant  people,  when  the  disappointment  of  the  expected  Millenium  happened. 
I  have  little  doubt  that  the  Templars  were  followers  of  this  Bemrillah.  Much  curious  matter 
respecting  these  people,  under  the  name  of  Druses,  may  be  found  in  the  3rd  Vol.  of  the  Transac- 
tions of  the  Academy  of  Inscriptions,  An.  1818,  and  in  my  Celtic  Druids. 


1  The  word  Hakem  is  nothing  but  the  word  DDn  hkm  which  means  wise.  All  physicians  in  the  East  are  called 
Hakem.  This  man  was  believed  to  be  the  tenth  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom  j  another  Solomon,  who  I  am  per- 
suaded was  an  incarnation  of  the  Rasit.  If  this  Ishmaelite  had  not  claimed  to  be  something  more  than  common,  the 
word  Hakem  might  have  been  considered  merely  a  title  of  honour.  It  is  curious  to  observe  how  constantly  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Wisdom  occurs. 

4u2 


700  GIBLIM. 

The  reason  why  we  have  such  a  horrible  idea  of  the  man  of  the  mountain  and  of  the  Assassins 
is,  as  I  have  said  before,  because  our  informants,  as  usual  in  religious  matters,  take  their  accounts 
from  the  enemies  of  the  persons  of  whom  they  write,  from  persons  blinded  by  bigotry  and  hatred 
to  their  enemies  to  such  an  excess,  as  to  think  it  meritorious  to  practise  any  fraud  to  injure 
them. 

Of  the  old  man  of  the  mountain  and  his  sect  or  society  of  Assassins,  a  history  has  lately  been 
written  by  Mr.  Von  Hammer,  of  Vienna,  who  has  from  his  command  of  books  and  knowledge  of 
languages  every  requisite  qualification,  one  excepted,  to  unravel  the  mystery  which  surrounds 
them,  but  unfortunately  the  wanting  qualification  is  indispensable — an  enlarged  and  unprejudiced 
mind.  He  was  the  author  some  years  ago  of  a  treatise,  in  the  Mines  de  l'Orient,  called  Myslerium 
Baphematis  revelatum,  but  which  was  in  reality  a  treatise  on  the  Knights  Templars,  in  which  the 
same  illiberal  and  narrow  mind  is  displayed  as  in  this  history.  Besides,  there  is  some  reason  to 
believe  that  he  is  merely  playing  a  game  to  please  his  enlightened  master  the  leaden-headed  Em- 
peror of  Austria.  But  certain  facts  may  be  gleaned  from  his  work  which  are  of  importance.  It 
is  very  certain  that  the  Ishmaelians  or  society  of  Assassins  is  a  Mohamedan  sect ;  that  it  was  at 
once  both  a  military  and  religious  association,  like  the  Templars  and  Teutonic  Knights  ;  and  that, 
like  the  Jesuits,  it  had  its  members  scattered  over  extensive  countries.  It  was  a  link  which  con- 
nected ancient  and  modern  Free-masonry. 

A  man  called  Hassan  Sabah  is  said  to  have  first  founded  the  dynasty  of  Assassins,  which  con- 
tinued for  seven  or  eight  generations,  in  1090,  at  Almawt  or  the  Eagles'  nest,  between  Cazvin 
and  Gilan.  He  was  called  Sheikh  al  Jebal  or  chief  or  elder  of  the  mountains.1  Saba  means 
wisdom,  as  I  shall  presently  shew.     Thus  we  have  Hassan  the  wise  and  Bemrillah  the  tvise.2 

The  Assassins  seem  to  have  shewn  themselves  to  the  Western  writers  about  the  same  time  in 
two  places  ;  one  party  consisted  of  the  Ishmaelians  from  the  North-east,  under  Hakem  Bemr-illah, 
and  the  other  under  Hassan  Saba,  Caliph  of  Egypt ;  and  I  think,  if  there  was  any  separation 
between  the  leaders,  it  is  probable  that  their  followers  united.  And  if  this  were  the  case  we 
should  have  two  Mohamedan  tenth  avatars  ;  but  this  is  not  quite  clear.  According  to  the  Ish- 
maelites  of  the  East  the  incarnation  descended  in  the  same  manner  as  it  does  in  the  Lama  of 
Tibet.  But  Hassan  Saba,  it  is  expressly  stated,  claimed  to  be  the  tenth  incarnation.  The  prin- 
cipal was  called  Sheikh-el-jKBKL,  of  which  Mr.  Hammer  says,  the  Latin  Fetus  de  Monte  is  a 
fair  translation.  Now  this  is  a  very  curious  corruption  or  example  of  a  devised  double  meaning. 
The  word  Jebel  translated  mount  is  the  Hebrew  word  b2i  gbl,  and  means  Cabala  or  tradition  of 
Wisdom,  and  was  the  name  given  to  a  mount  in  Palestine,  which  was  thus  the  mount  of  the 
tradition  or  Cabala,  whence  the  word  Gibel  came  to  have  the  meaning  or  to  be  translated  a  mount. 
It  is  often  called  Giblim — verbum  sapienti.  Thus  he  was  not  the  old  man  or  the  father  of  the 
mount  only,  but  of  the  tradition  of  Wisdom  or  doctrines  handed  down  by  tradition. 

D^DJ  Gblim,  Drummond  says,  "  were  master  Masons,  who  put  the  finishing  hand  to  the  Temple 
"  of  Solomon ." 3  In  1  Kings  v.  18,  the  word  in  our  translation  rendered  stone  squarers,  is  D'^QJ 
Gblim.  This  the  LXX.  render  Bu£\ioi.  This  is  said  to  mean  men  of  Byblos.  This  is  named 
Ezek.  xxvii.  9. 4  Byblos  was  the  city  of  the  Bible  or  the  Book  ;  which  contained  in  the  language 
of  parable  the  Cabala,  or  bH  gbl  or  cbl.  These  were  the  Masons  who  lived  at  this  town,  and  I 
dare  say  might  be  the  operatives  who  finished  the  temple,  of  whom   I  have  treated  in  Bk.  VI J  I. 


'  Ouseley,  Sir  W.,  Trans.  Soc.  Lit.  Vol.  II.  p.  22. 

*  See  Dulaure's  Hist,  of  Paris,  Tome  VIII.  pp.  87,  90,  &c 

3  Orig.  Vol.  III.  p.  192.  *  Maundrel's  Travels,  p.  45. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   VI.    SECT.   6.  701 

Chap.  IV.  Sect.  1.  We  must  also  observe  that  of  whatever  age  the  principal  of  the  Assassins 
might  be,  he  always  bore  the  name  of  old  man,  which  was  a  title  given  to  Buddha,  in  India  and 
Scotland.  In  fact,  it  was  only  a  Saga,  Sagax  or  Sage.  The  true  character  of  this  name  Christian 
writers  disguise  by  the  designation  old  man. 

Thus  we  have  here  a  tenth  avatar  descending,  like  the  Lama  of  Tibet,  from  the  East,  and  a 
tenth  avatar  in  like  manner  in  Egypt,  in  Hassan,  from  whom  the  Illuminati  are  descended.  The 
Ishmaelians  seem  to  claim  to  be  the  same  as  the  Imaums  of  Persia,  and  Mr.  Hammer,  I  think, 
gives  us  reason  to  believe  that  the  Koran  was  held  to  contain  a  secret  doctrine,  and  that  Mo- 
hamedism  was,  in  this  respect,  like  Christianity,  f"  which  was  in  its  origin  a  secret  society  ;"  x)  a 
fact,  as  I  have  before  observed,  which  was  maintained  by  the  Mohamedan  writer  Avicenna — a 
fact  of  which  I  have  no  doubt,  and  a  doctrine  which  I  shall  presently  explain. 

I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  Mohamed  was  considered,  in  his  day,  as  the  tenth  avatar :  and 
again  in  the  time  of  Saladin  and  Hakem  Bemrillah,  that  they  were  each  so  considered2  by  their 
followers,  and  as  such  were  considered  by  Christians  either  as  Antichrists,  or,  as  Joachim  of  Cala- 
bria informed  Richard  the  first,  the  last  head  of  the  beast,  the  immediate  forerunner  of  Antichrist 
— and  of  course,  as  Joachim  would  tell  him,  a  head  to  be  cut  off  by  him.3  We  will  now  endea- 
vour to  find  the  meaning  of  the  word  Assassins. 

6.  Duret  says,  Chascheddim,  qui  est  a  dire  le  nom  de  Chaldees,  sous  l'appellation  duquel  sont 
comprises  tant  en  general  que  special  toutes  les  sects  des  sages  de  Babylonne,  signifie  proprement, 
et  particulierement  dans  iceluy  Daniel  au  dire  de  S.  Hierosme  un  genre  d'hommes,  que  le  vulgaire 
des  Latins  appelle  en  langue  Latin  Mathematicos,  et  Genethliacos,  Mathematiciens  et  Geneth- 
liaques.  He  presently  adds,  Philon  Juif  au  liv.  d'  Abraham  en  parle  en  ces  mots. 4  We  have 
found  these  Chasdins  or  Casideans  in  the  country  of  Calida.  I  believe  they  were  followers  of  the 
holy  Lamb  that  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  of  the  college  of  nt^D  ksb  or  rw  se  a  lamb. 
Here  we  see,  Duret  says,  the  Chaldeans  were  called  Mathematici,  an  observation  which  will 
presently  be  found  of  much  consequence.  Duret  says,  Chascheddim  is  DnttO  csdum,  with  vowels 
casedirn.5  The  Chas-chisdim  were  the  Chaldeans  or  Assaceni,  or  Assacani  named  by  Rennell. 6 
The  WJ  ks  or  HDD  ksdi,  the  Chasdim  or  n  di  DD  ks  were  holy  numerators  or  calculators.  Cicero 
says,  that  Chaldean  implies  Sabasan.7  But  I  shall  presently  shew  that  the  word  Saba  means 
wisdom. 

The  word  Chaldeans  is  said  to  be  a  corruption  of  the  word  Chasdim,  and  this  is  most  clearly 
the  same  as  the  Colida,  and  Colchida,  and  Colchis,  of  Asia,  and  as  the  Colidei,  and  Culdees  of 
Scotland.  Now  all  this,  and  the  circumstances  relating  to  the  Chaldees,  often  called  Mathematici, 
to  the  Assassins,  the  Templars,  Manichaeans,  &c,  being  considered,  the  name  of  the  Assassins  or 
Hassessins  or  Assanites  or  Chasiens8  or  Alchaschischin  will  not  be  thought  unlikely  to  be  a  cor- 
ruption of  Chasdim,  and  to  mean  Chaldees  or  Culdees — Culdees  at  York,  a  certain  class  noticed 
in  my  Celtic  Druids — and  that  they  were  connected  with  the  Templars.  When  the  Arabic  em- 
phatic article  al  is  taken  from  this  hard  word  Al-chaschischin  it  is  Chas-chis-chin.  The  Assas- 
sins were  also  called  Druses  or  Druiseans  :  in  my  Celtic  Druids  I  have  proved  these  Druses  to  be 
both  Druids  and  Culdees.  In  all  accounts  of  the  Assassins  they  are  said  also  to  have  existed  in 
the  East  in  considerable  numbers.  They  are  also  stated  to  have  been  found  numerous  by  B.  De 
Tudela,9   not  very  far  from  Samarcand  or  Balk — where  he  also  describes  many  great  tribes  of 

1  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,  No.  II.  p.  471.  2  Nimrod,  Vol.  III.  p.  493. 

3  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  *  Orig.  des  Lang.  p.  329.  *  See  Duret,  p.  328. 

6  Mem.  p.  116.  7  Cleland,  Specimen,  p.  100. 

8  Vide  Benj.  Tudela,  Ch.  vii.  note.  9  Ch.  xv. 


702  CASIDEANS. 

what  he  calls  Jews  to  live,  speaking  the  Chaldee  language,  occupying  the  country,  and  possessing 
the  government  of  it.  He  says  that  among  these  Jews  are  disciples  of  the  wise  men.  He  says 
they  occupy  the  mountains  of  Haphton.  Here  are,  I  think,  the  Afghans  too  clearly  to  be  dis- 
puted. Under  the  word  Haphton  lies  hid  the  word  Afghan,  and  the  disciples  of  the  wise  man 
Hakem  frequented  the  temples  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere,  &c,  and  were  called  Hkem-ites,  Ish- 
maelians,  and  Batteniens,  that  is,  Buddheans,  of  whom  I  shall  say  more  presently. 

In  the  students  of  the  College  of  Cashi  or  Casi,  who  spoke  Chaldee,  I  think  it  probable  that  we 
have  the  Kasideans  or  Asideans,  the  word  only  aspirated,  who  make  a  figure  in  the  history  of  the 
Temple  of  Solomon,  and  of  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  the  Maccabees,  and  whose  origin  has  never 
been  satisfactorily  accounted  for.  These  Casideans,  speaking  Chaldee,  were  the  Chaldeans  called 
Chasdim,  and  it  does  not  seem  very  unlikely  that  they  may  have  been  a  branch  more  particularly 
devoted  to  operative  architecture  than  others  of  the  Chaldeans  or  Cali-dei.  A  learned  writer  in 
the  Edinburgh  Encyclopaedia  says,  "  The  Kasideans  were  a  religious  fraternity,  or  an  order  of 
"  the  Knights  of the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  who  bound  themselves  to  adorn  the  porches  of  that 
"  magnificent  structure,  and  to  preserve  it  from  injury  and  decay.  This  association  was  com- 
"  posed  of  the  greatest  men  of  Israel,  who  were  distinguished  for  their  charitable  and  peaceable 
"  dispositions,  and  by  their  ardent  zeal  for  the  purity  and  preservation  of  the  temple."  l 

The  Cambridge  Key2  says,  "  He  obliged  Mahadeva  the  son  of  the  first  created  to  retire  from 
"  the  city  of  Casi  or  the  splendid,  and  to  reside  on  the  Mandara  Hill,  or  Holy  Mount.  With  this 
"  body  of  evidence  before  us,  we  must  either  reject  the  Hebrew,  or  admit  the  Hindu  and  Chaldean 
"  account  of  the  Antediluvian  world.  For  this  coincidence  of  dates  may  be  considered  mathe- 
"  matical  demonstration/'  Here,  I  think,  in  this  city  of  Casi,  I  have  Gaza,  or  Gazamera  or 
Ajmere,  and  here  I  have  for  the  sacred  city,  the  Cyclopaean  Mundore  of  Mewar-Rajahpoutana. 
There  were  several  Casies,  as  we  have  several  towns  called  Universities,  as  we  have  others  called 
Colleges.3  The  word  college  was  probably  derived  from  its  being  the  place  where  the  Colidei 
resided. 

It  is  a  very  extraordinary  thing  that  the  Christian  Templars  should  call  themselves  Templars 
in  honour  of  the  Temple,  the  destruction  of  which  all  Christians  boasted  of  as  a  miraculous 
example  of  Divine  wrath  in  their  favour,  as  Christians.  This  goes  to  prove  the  Templars  much 
older  than  the  Crusades,  and  that  the  pretended  origin  of  these  people  is  totally  false.  I  can 
entertain  little  doubt  that  their  origin  is  be  sought  in  the  College  of  Cashi,  and  the  Temple  of 
Solomon  in  Cashmere,  or  the  lake  or  mere  of  Cashi.  I  do  not  think  the  Calidei  had  their  name 
from  the  Chasdim,  but  the  Chasi-dim  were  Calidei.  The  Gymnosophists,  the  Kasideans,  the 
Essenes,  the  Therapeutse,  the  Dionesians,  the  Eleusinians,  the  Pythagoreans,  the  Chaldeans, 
were  in  reality  all  an  order  of  religionists,  including  among  them,  and  consisting  in  great  part  of, 
an  order  of  Monks,  who  were,  in  fact,  the  heads  of  the  society. 

The  Teutonic  Knights  seem  to  have  been  the  first  instituted,  but  I  think  it  appears  that  they 
were  grafted  upon  a  class  of  persons — charitable  devotees — who  had  settled  themselves,  as  the 
historians  say,  near  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  to  assist  poor  Christian  pilgrims  who  visited  it;  although 
the  real  temple  had  disappeared,  even  to  the  last  stone,  for  a  thousand  years.  This  shews 
how  little  use  these  historians  make  of  their  understandings.  They  are  said  to  have  come  from 
Germany,  from  the  Teutonic  tribes.     The  word  Teut  is  Tat,  and  Tat  is  Buddha.     The  name  of 


1  Scaliger  de  Emend.  Temp. ;  also  Eleuch.  Trihseresii  Nicolai  Suranii,  Cap.  xxii.  p.  441 ;  also  1  Maccabees  vii.  13; 
Basnage,  Bk.  ii.  Ch.  xiii.  Sect.  4  ;  Encyclop.  in  voce  Mason,  Sect.  xxx. 

*  Vol.  I.  p.  309.  3  Cali-age-aji-ai. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  6.  703 

Buddha  with  some  of  the  German  nations  was  Tuisto,  and  from  this  came  the  Teutones,  Teutisci, 
and  the  Teutonic  Knights,  and  the  name  of  Mercury  Teuisco. l 

The  Knights  of  St.  John  are  first  noticed,  as  a  society,  existing  near  the  ancient  temple  of 
Jerusalem,  when  a  person  called  Raymond  Dupuis  distinguished  himself  among  them.  Our 
superficial  historians,  who  seldom  have  any  taste  for  deep  researches,  suppose  they  arose  then, 
but  it  requires  but  little  penetration  to  see  that  there  is  no  proof  whatever  that  they  then 
arose.  At  first  they  were  attached  to  no  one  of  the  orders,  but  were  probably  (without  having 
the  name  of  Carmelites)  of  the  Essenean  or  Therapeutic  ascetics  of  Carmel  in  the  West,  or  Tibet 
in  the  East.  It  is  probable  that  they  existed  in  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of  its  capture  by  the 
Saracens.     They  would  be  Xp^g-ianoi  or  Sophitae,  as  were,  I  do  not  doubt,  the  ancient  Carmelites. 

All  temples  were  surrounded  with  pillars  recording  the  numbers  of  the  constellations,  the  signs 
of  the  zodiac,  or  the  cycles  of  the  planets,  and  each  templum  was  supposed  in  some  way  to  be 
a  microcosm  or  symbol  of  the  temple  of  the  universe,  or  of  the  starry  vault  called  Templum.'1 
It  was  this  Templum  of  the  universe  from  which  the  Knights  Templars  took  their  name,  and  not 
from  the  individual  temple  at  Jerusalem,  built  probably  by  their  predecessors,  and  destroyed 
many  years  before  the  time  allotted  for  their  rise,  but  which  rise,  I  suspect,  was  only  a  revivifi- 
cation from  a  state  of  depression,  into  which  they  had  fallen.  I  shall  return  to  the  explanation 
of  the  word  templum  in  a  future  book. 

All  the  temples  were  imitative — were  microcosms  of  the  celestial  Templum — and  on  this 
account  they  were  surrounded  with  pillars  recording  astronomical  subjects,  and  intended  both  to 
do  honour  to  these  subjects,  and  to  keep  them  in  perpetual  remembrance.  We  have  records  of 
every  cycle  except  of  that  of  the  beast  666.  We  have  in  Abury  the  cycles  of  650 — 608 — 600 — 
60 — 40 — 30 — 19 — 12,  &c.  We  have  the  forty  pillars  around  the  temple  of  Chilminar,  in  Per- 
sia ; 3  the  temple  at  Balbec,  with  forty  pillars  ; 4  the  Tucte  Solomon,  on  the  frontiers  of  China, 
in  Tartary,  called  also  the  Temple  of  the  forty  pillars.  There  is  the  same  number  in  each, 
and  probably  for  the  same  reason.5  In  the  Temples  at  Paestum,  on  each  side  of  the  Temple 
fourteen  pillars  record  the  Egyptian  cycle  of  the  dark  and  light  sides  of  the  moon,  as  de- 
scribed by  Plutarch,  and  the  whole  thirty-eight,  which  surround  them,  record  the  two  Metonic 
cycles  so  often  found  in  the  Druidical  Temples.  All  temples  were  originally  open  at  the  top  ; 
so  that  twelve  pillars  curiously  described  the  belt  of  the  zodiac,  and  the  vault  of  heaven  the 
roof. 

Theatres  were  originally  Temples,  where  the  mythos  was  scenically  represented ;  and,  until 
they  were  abused,  they  were  intended  for  nothing  else  :  but  it  is  evident  that  for  this  purpose  a 
peculiar  construction  of  the  temple  was  necessary.  When  Scaurus  built  a  Theatre  in  Greece  he 
surrounded  it  with  360  pillars.  The  Temple  at  Mecca  was  surrounded  with  360  stones,  and  in 
like  manner  with  the  same  number  the  Templum  at  Iona  in  Scotland  was  surrounded.  The 
Templars  were  nothing  but  one  branch  of  Masons  ;  perhaps  a  bx-anch  to  which  the  care  of  some 
peculiar  part  of  Temples  was  entrusted,  and,  I  think,  that  the  name  of  Templars  was  only 
another  name  for  Casideans. 


1  Pownal  on  Antiquities,  p.  29,  says,  Now  ©£T7«Xia  ©«T7aX<a  and  ©£0-<raXia  are  the  same:  but  T'uat' dale  in  the 
"Celtic  means,  relatively  speaking,  northern  district.  Will  any  one  deny  that  Ga-rlaXta  and  T' uat' alia  are  the  same? 
This  Tuatalia,  which  is  Thessaly,  is  Twastu  the  name  of  Buddha ;  and,  with  the  ia  added  to  it,  Thessalia,  the  country 
where  we  have  found  the  Indian  mythos  described  so  clearly.  See  Book  V.  Ch.  I.  Sect.  2,  and  Book  X.  Ch.  II. 
Sect.  11. 

8  Templum  is  shewn  by  Cleland  to  be  a  Celtic  word.  3  Chardin.  *  Maundrell. 

*  Forty  is  one  of  the  most  common  numbers  in  the  Druidical  temples. 


704 


TEMPLARS    RESUMED. 


In  many  striking  particulars  Mr.  Von  Hammer  has  shewn  the  similarity  of  the  Assassins  to  the 
Templars,  so  that  they  might  be  mistaken  for  branches  of  the  same  order.  It  seems  very  certain 
too,  that  they  had  each  a  secret  doctrine  or  mystery,  which  was  guarded  with  the  most  anxious 
care,  and  with  the  most  sacred  oaths  ;  and  we  shall  see  from  circumstances,  that  this  secret  was 
probably  the  same  in  the  two  societies.  We  must  not  forget  that  the  Templars  were  an  order 
which  was  said  to  have  arisen  about  the  twelfth  century, 1  when  the  Millenium,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  daily  expected,  and  that  it  arose  in  the  country  which  was  a  part  of  that  in  which  the  old 
man  of  the  mountain  resided,  viz.  in  the  lofty  and  inaccessible  forests  of  Lebanon,  where  his 
followers  are  now  known  by  the  name  of  Curds,  or  Culdees,  or  Druses,  treated  on  in  my  Celtic 
Druids.  There  it  is  shewn  that  these  Druses  still  retain  the  adoration  of  the  golden  calf,  and 
have  some  other  religious  practices  (common  to  the  Israelites  in  the  desert  of  Sinai)  which  they 
are  said,  in  a  very  unaccountable  manner,  to  mix  with  both  the  Mohamedan  and  Christian  doc- 
trines— an  extraordinary  circumstance,  which  our  travellers,  not  knowing  how  to  account  for, 
attribute  to  ignorance,  and  thus  endeavour,  with  such  flimsy  pretences,  to  satisfy  their  own  minds. 
But  though  these  residents  of  Mount  Carmel  (the  residence  of  the  Carmelites)  may  be  ignorant 
now,  their  religious  rites  are  not  the  produce  of  ignorance,  but  of  ancient  learning. 

7.  I  will  now  point  out  a  circumstance  certainly  true  and  most  extraordinary.  The  Christian 
Knights  Templars,  the  enemies  of  all  Mohamedans  to  the  extreme  length  of  being  sworn  never 
to  make  peace  with  them  on  any  conditions,  entered  into  a  conspiracy  with  these  Mohamedan 
sectaries,  Ishmaelites,  Battaneans,  or  Assassins,  by  which  they  agreed  to  betray  to  them  the  rich 
city  of  Damascus,  in  return  for  which  the  city  of  Tyre  was  to  have  been  given  up  to  them.  The 
attempt  miscarried,  but  it  proves  the  connexion  between  the  two  bands  of  fanatics,  and  fanatics 
do  not  often  unite  except  there  is  something  in  common  in  their  fanaticism.  However,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  there  were  certain  points  of  religion  common  to  the  Ishmaelites,  or  these  Moha- 
medan sectaries,  and  to  the  Templar  Christians.  These  I  think  could  be  no  other  than  those  for 
which  the  Templars  were  persecuted  and  destroyed.  And  if  the  doctrine  of  the  Gnosis,  the 
Millenium,  or  of  the  renewal  of  cycles,  were  the  foundation  of  them,  as  I  believe  it  was,  we  see  at 
once  why  they  should  be  of  all  the  three  religions.  In  the  time  of  the  illustrious  Saladin, 2  the 
head  of  the  Assassins  was  called  Sinan,  and  claimed  to  be,  or  was  said  by  his  followers  to  be,  an 
incarnation  of  the  Deity.  Here  we  come  to  the  old  story.  As  we  have  seen,  the  society,  like 
most  others  of  its  kind,  had  its  secret  mysteries,  guarded  by  its  most  solemn  oaths;  and  Mr.  Von 
Hammer,  like  all  other  historians  of  societies  of  this  kind,  gives  them  to  us  with  as  much  precision 
as  if  they  were  daily  proclaimed  from  the  top  of  the  mosque  by  the  crier.  I  suppose  I  need  not 
follow  him.  What  they  were  we  can  never  know  :  but,  from  the  circumstances  or  facts  which  I 
have  described  above,  I  think  we  have  reason  to  believe,  they  were  all  of  the  same  kind  as  the 
mysteries  of  the  Millenium,  Gnosticism,  &c,  &c,  which  I  have  traced  over  such  a  large  part  of 
the  world,  and  from  such  a  remote  antiquity.  And  I  think  my  reader  now  will  not  be  surprised 
to  find  this  old  man  of  the  mountain  called  by  the  then  singular  names,  among  others,  of  Ioannes, 
Butta,  and  Deus.  It  was  of  the  first  importance  to  the  Templars  to  possess  Tyre  instead  of 
Damascus.  They  would  have  been  separated  in  Damascus  from  all  their  immense  estates  in 
Europe  ;  but  in  Tyre,  by  means  of  fleets,  they  could  extend  their  arms  every  where. 


1  Jerusalem  was  taken  by  the  Christians  in  1099,  and  retaken  by  Saladin  in  1188.  The  Knights  of  St.  John  are 
said  to  have  been  instituted  in  1099,  the  Templars  in  1118,  the  Teutones  in  1164. 

2  In  Reinaud's  History  of  the  Crusades,  p.  320,  an  account  is  given  of  .a  negotiation  between  Saladin  and  Richard, 
when  the  former  demanded  the  surety  of  the  Templars  for  the  performance  of  the  treaty,  which  the  latter  refraining  to 
give,  the  treaty  went  off.    They  would  trust  the  people  who  were  of  their  own  religion. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   VI.    SECTION   8.  705 

The  Templars  had  no  where  possession  of  a  city  as  a  sovereign  power,  though  they  had 
armies.  If  they  had  obtained  Tyre,  they  would  then  have  been  a  sovereign  power,  with  an  army 
of  devotees,  and  fanatical  traitors,  and  immense  wealth,  in  every  country  of  Europe,  which  the 
governments  dared  not  to  touch.  It  is  quite  clear  to  me  that  if  they  had  gone  on  till  they  got  one 
of  their  order  elected  Pope,  they  would  instantly  have  been  sovereigns  of  Europe,  and  all  the 
kings  their  vassals.  The  Templars  possessed  9000  manors  in  Europe,  the  Knights  of  St.  John 
19,000.  » 

Just  now  I  observed,  that  the  old  man  of  the  mountain  was  called  Ioannes,  Butta,  and  Deus, 
and  that  one  of  the  names  of  his  people  was  Battenians  ;  this,  of  course,  is  the  same  as  Buddaeans. 
It  is  very  clear  that  a  close  connexion  existed  between  them  and  the  Templars,  and  we  find  the 
Templars  adopt  for  their  emblem  or  distinctive  badge,  or  coat  of  arms,  a  very  peculiar  cross, 
which  is  that  worn  by  the  Manichaeans  who  were  followers,  as  we  are  told,  of  one  Buddaeus,  and 
also  of  Thomas  of  India.  The  doctrines  of  the  Manichaeans  are  also,  in  many  respects,  the  same 
as  those  of  the  Assassins  and  the  Templars.  This  cross  is  also  found  to  be  the  emblem  of  the 
Buddhists  of  India.  It  is  of  a  very  peculiar  and  striking  kind ;  it  is  red,  and  is  mounted  on  a 
Calvary.     It  is  an  emblem  of  the  tree  of  life  ;  it  is  the  tree  Taranis  of  the  Druids. 

I  much  doubt  the  existence  of  Manes.  At  all  events,  if  there  were  such  a  person,  he  was  an  Indian 
follower  of  Buddha,  or  of  the  Xp7j£-ism,  of  the  Tamuz,  of  India,  a  follower  of  the  God  Crisen  of  the 
Tam-uls.  His  sect  had  a  book  called  the  treasure  or  the  book  of  perfection.  This  was  probably 
an  imitation  of  the  Sophi  Ibrahim  of  Persia. 

I  am  not  a  Masonic  Templar,  but  I  have  ascertained  that  one  at  least  of  the  symbols  of  the 
Masonic  Templars  is  the  eight-pointed  red  cross  of  the  Buddhists  and  the  Manichaeans.  See  my 
figures  12  and  13.  This  completes  the  proof  that  they  are  a  remnant  of  the  same  sects  or  orders 
of  men.  When  I  inquired  into  the  history  of  the  Templars,  I  said  to  a  brother  of  the  order,  If  you 
be  a  remnant  of  the  ancient  oriental  philosophers  of  India,  you  will  have  the  eight-pointed  red 
cross  for  your  symbol ;  and  I  found  they  had  it.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Templars  or  Casidaeans 
were  resident  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem  when  it  was  taken  by  the  Christians.  Perhaps  in  former 
times,  after  the  destruction  of  the  temple  and  the  rebuilding  of  it,  or  of  the  present  building  which 
stands  in  its  place,  they  applied  their  services  to  the  new  temple  as  they  had  done  to  the  old  one, 
and  if  they  professed  the  Cabalistic  doctrines  which  I  attribute  to  them,  and  the  doctrines  of 
Sophism  which  I  shall  presently  explain,  there  is  no  inconsistency  in  their  doing  so. 

If  the  Knights  Templars  were  converts  to  the  belief  that  the  leader  of  the  Ishmaelites  was  the 
tenth  Avatar,  this  accounts  for  their  supporting  him  against  the  Caliphs,  as  well  as  for  their 
treachery  to  the  Christian  cause,  of  which  most  certainly  they  were  convicted.  They  are  accused 
of  Manichaeism.  What  did  the  Manichaean  eight-pointed  red  cross  look  like  ?  It  is  an  emblem 
which  has  no  antitype  but  itself.  I  consider  this  eight-pointed  red  cross  as  decisive  evidence,  that 
Buddhism,  Manichaeism,  and  Templism,  were  identical :  that  is,  Manichaeism  as  far  as  Manichaeism 
consisted  of  Gnosticism,  for  the  principles  of  both  were  the  same,  though  in  later  times,  in  some 
instances,  they  diverged  as  from  a  common  centre,  as  they  became  corrupted. 

8.  Faustus  is  made,  by  Augustine,  most  clearly2  to  admit  the  Triune  God  in  the  following 
words,  and  thus  he  connects  the  Manichaeans  with  the  Hindoos :  "  We  therefore  worship  one 
"  and  the  same  Deity,  under  a  triple  appellation  of  the  Father,  the  God  Almighty,  and  of  Christ 
"  his  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Igitur  nos  Patris  quidem  Dei  omnipotentis,  et  Christi  Filii 
"  ejus,  et  Spiritus  Sancti,  unum  idemque  sub  triplici  appellatione  colimus  numen."     When  it  is 


Hallam,  p.  38.  *  In  Chap.  xx.  of  Oper.  Aug.  Ben. 

4x 


705  TEMPLARS    CONTINUED. 

considered  that  Augustine  esteemed  a  belief  in  the  Trinity  to  be  meritorious,  and  that  he  never 
ceased  vilifying  the  Manichaeans,  his  evidence  in  this  case  is  unimpeachable.  The  Manichaeans 
being  Trinitarians  the  only  important  point  of  heresy  which  they  held,  and  a  most  important  one 
it  was,  consisted  in  denying  the  supremacy  of  the  holy  see.  Had  they  given  up  this  point,  there 
would  have  been  an  instant  coalition. 

I  must  now  make  a  few  observations,  but  they  will  be  very  few,  upon  the  celebrated  doctrine 
of  the  good  and  evil  principles,  Osiris  and  Typhon,  Oromasdes  and  Arhimanius.  This,  I  have  no 
doubt,  was  a  doctrine  taken  up  in  the  countries  West  of  the  Indus,  when  the  fine  philosophy  of  the 
sages  of  India  was  beginning  to  be  forgotten ;  very  probably  after  the  time  of  Cambyses.  On 
this  doctrine  Mr.  Knight  says,1  "The  ^Egyptians  held  that  there  were  two  opposite  powers  in 
"  the  world,  perpetually  acting  against  each  other:  the  one  generating  and  the  other  destroying :  the 
"  former  of  whom  they  called  Osiris,  and  the  latter  Typhon.  By  the  contention  of  these  two,  that 
"  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  of  procreation  and  dissolution,  which  was  thought  to  constitute  the  har- 
"  mony  of  the  world,  was  supposod  to  be  produced."  According  to  this,  which  was  in  fact  a  new 
system  of  the  Egyptian  and  Persian  doctrine  or  mythos,  there  was  an  original  evil  principle  in  na- 
ture, co-eternal  with  the  good,  and  acting  in  perpetual  opposition  to  it.  I  think  this  system  did  not 
take  its  rise  earlier  than  about  the  time  of  Cyrus  or  Cambyses.  On  this  Mr.  Knight  says,2  "  This 
"  opinion  owes  its  origin  to  a  false  notion  which  we  are  apt  to  form  of  good  and  evil,  by  con- 
"  sidering  them  as  self- existing,  inherent  properties,  instead  of  relative  modifications  dependent 
"  upon  circumstances,  causes  and  events:  but  though  patronized  by  very  learned  and  distinguished 
"  individuals,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  formed  a  part  of  the  religious  system  of  any  people  or 
"  established  sect."  Upon  the  modern  date  (comparatively  speaking)  of  this  doctrine  I  think  Mr. 
Knight  is  unquestionably  correct ;  but  it  may  be  doubtful  if  he  do  not  go  too  far  in  saying  that  it 
never  was  a  part  of  any  religious  system.  I  think  he  would  have  been  quite  correct  if  he  had 
said,  it  was  never  a  part  of  the  system  of  any  people  until  the  fine  system  of  the  Indians  and  of 
Orpheus  began  to  be  misunderstood  and  forgotten.3  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  system  of  Orpheus 
came  from  or  originated  in  Persia,  if  it  really  came  from  there,  before  the  rise  of  the  two  principles. 
This  subject  opens  a  most  extensive  field  of  discussion,  but  I  shall  at  the  present  decline  it,  resting 
upon  the  firm  support  and  authority  of  Mr.  Knight. 

It  clearly  appears  that  the  Manichaeans  did  not,  as  Christians  have  asserted,  hold  the  doctrine 
of  two  equal  and  co-eternal  Gods.  Faustus  says,  <(  Is  there  one  God  or  two  ?  Plainly  one. 
"  How  then  do  you  (Manicheeans)  assert  two  ?  Never  was  the  name  of  two  Gods  heard  in  our 
"  assertions.  But  I  wish  to  know  whence  you  suspect  this  ?  Because  you  teach  the  two  princi- 
"  pies  of  good  and  evil.  It  is  indeed  true  that  we  confess  two  principles,  but  one  of  these  we 
"  call  God,  the  other  Hyle  j  or  to  speak  in  the  common  and  usual  way,  the  Daemon.  But  if  you 
"  think  that  this  means  two  Gods,  you  might  also  think  that  there  are  two  sorts  of  health  when  a 
"  physician  disputes  about  health  and  sickness  :  and  when  any  one  names  good  and  evil  you 
"  might  think  that  there  are  two  goods  :  and  hearing  of  plenty  and  want,  you  will  suppose  there 
"  are  two  plenties.  But  if  when  I  am  disputing  about  black  and  white,  hot  and  cold,  sweet  and 
"  bitter,  you  should  say  that  I  shew  that  there  are  two  whites,  and  two  hots,  and  two  sweets,  will 
"  you  not  appear  to  be  devoid  of  reason  and  of  unsound  head  ?  And  thus  when  I  teach  two  princi- 
"  pies,  God  and  Hyle,  I  ought  not  therefore  to  appear  to  shew  two  Gods."4  It  is  of  no 
consequence  whether  the  argument  put  into  the  mouth  of  Faustus  be  absurd  or  not ;   the  fact 


1  Inq.  into  Anc.  Sym.  Lan.,  Sect.  105.  2  lb.  106. 

1  Orpheus,  Hymn  Ixxii.  ed.  Gesner.  Oper.  Aug.  Bened.  ed.  Vol.  VIII.  Chap.  xxi.  p.  349. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER   V.     SECTION  9.  JQfJ 

clearly  comes  out,  that  the  Manichseans  did  not  receive  two  equal  and  opposing  principles  as  the 
orthodox  Christians  have  calumniously  stated  them  to  have  done. 

With  respect  to  the  Pantheism  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much,  I  consider  that  the  doctrine 
of  Emanation  and  Reabsorption  into  the  Supreme,  of  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter, 
is  so  nearly  connected  with  the  Pantheistic  doctrine  of  God  in  all,  and  all  in  God,  in  their  first 
and  most  remote  principles  j  that  it  is  almost  impossible,  perhaps  quite  impossible,  to  separate 
them,  and  to  shew  exactly  wherein  they  differ.  When  they  diverge  from  the  common  centre,  no 
doubt  the  difference  becomes  perceptible  enough.  But  the  peculiarity  of  the  nature  of  the 
difference  in  many  instances  shews  the  close  affinity  of  their  origin.  The  existence  of  the  early 
Cabalistic,  Gnostic,  Mandaistic,  and  most  sublime  doctrine,  which  I  shall  presently  unfold,  can 
be  attributed  to  nothing  but  a  divine  revelation,  or  to  a  society  in  a  state  of  refinement,  vastly 
superior  to  the  state  of  the  generality  of  mankind  even  at  this  day,  however  vain  we  may  be  of 
ourselves  ;  and  unless  we  adopt  the  doctrine  of  revelation,  in  this  instance  unphilosophical,  because 
unnecessary,  to  account  for  an  effect,  we  must  admit  a  long  course  of  generations  to  have  brought 
this  doctrine  to  its  perfection. 

In  the  ancient  collections  we  often  meet  with  a  person  in  the  prime  of  life,  sometimes  male,  some- 
times female,  killing  a  young  bull.  He  is  generally  accompanied  with  a  number  of  astrological  em- 
blems. This  Bull  was  the  mediatorial  Mithra,  slain  to  make  atonement  for,  and  to  take  away,  the  sins 
of  the  world.  This  was  the  God  Bull,  to  whom  the  prayers  are  addressed  which  we  find  in  Bryant 
and  Faber,  and  in  which  he  is  expressly  called  the  Mediator.  This  is  the  Bull  of  Persia,  which  Sir 
William  Jones  and  Mr.  Faber  identify  with  Buddha  or  Mahabad.  The  sacrifice  of  the  Bull,  which 
taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  was  succeeded  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb,  called  by  the 
Brahmins  the  Yajna,  or  Agni,  or  Om-an,  sacrifice,  or  the  sacrifice  of  the  Agni  or  of  Fire,  by  our 
Indians.  This  doctrine  arose  among  the  Indians  in,  comparatively  speaking,  modern  times  :  it 
was  closely  connected  with  the  two  principles  spoken  of  above.  While  the  Sun  was  in  Taurus, 
the  Bull  was  slain  as  the  vicarious  sacrifice ;  when  it  got  into  Aries,  the  Ram  or  Lamb  was 
substituted.  The  Indian  histories  say  that  .Zeradust  came  into  India  and  brought  his  doctrines 
thither ;  but  this  must  have  been  from  North-eastern  Persia.  I  know  nothing  which  he  can  have 
brought  but  this  ;  and  if  he  existed  any  thing  near  the  date  usually  assigned  to  him,  though  they 
might  have  the  sacrifice  of  the  Bull  as  well  as  the  Ram  in  Persia,  he  would,  for  obvious  reasons, 
only  bring  that  of  the  former  into  India.  Gemshid  and  the  Ram  succeeded  Aboudab  and  the  Bull. 
The  modern  Brahmins,  the  Cristnuvites,  are  well  known  to  maintain  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment. From  them  and  from  the  Persians  the  Christians  have  copied  it.  If  this  heresy  cannot 
be  found  here,  I  know  not  where  to  look  for  it.  I  say  heresy  because  I  believe  it  is  no  part  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Romish  or  Greek  religion.  They  fortunately  know  nothing  of  this  pernicious,  de- 
moralizing dogma — a  dogma  than  which  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  devise  one  more  injurious  to  the 
morality  of  a  state, — an  assertion  proved  by  the  examples  of  the  overflowing  prisons  of  Britain, 
where  of  late  years  it  has  prevailed  more  than  in  any  former  time,  or  in  any  other  place. 

9.  The  very  remarkable  circumstance,  that  Hakem  Bemrillah  was  supposed  to  be  the  tenth 
incarnation,  tends  strongly  to  confirm  my  hypothesis  ;  for  why  should  he  be  the  tenth  ;  and  who 
and  what  were  the  other  nine,  according  to  his  system  ?  for  there  must  have  been  other  nine,  or 
he  could  not  have  been  the  tenth. l      I  cannot  help  believing  that  the  whole  doctrine  was  well 


1  Vide  D'Herbelot  in  Hakem  Bemrillah  and  in  Dararioun,  Diet.  Biog.  Vol.  XIX.  p.  321,  Paris,  1817;  Nimrod, 
Vol.  III.  p.  493. 

4x2 


708  GOOD   AND    EVIL. 

known  to  the  persons  who  held  this  of  the  tenth  avatar  or  incarnation.     All  this  is  but  the  mythos 
of  the  rytwn  rasit,  the  MrjTig,  or,  in  a  word,  divine  wisdom,  1'  Intelligence  universelle. 1 

A  little  time  ago  I  observed  that  the  sacred  book  of  the  Manichaeans  was  called  the  book  of 
Perfection.  Thus  it  appears  to  be  the  same,  as  the  nODPT  hkme  or  Ak^.7j,  or  perfection,  or 
Wisdom  of  the  Jews  and  Greeks.  On  this  word  riDDIl  hkme  or  Chokme  as,  according  to  the 
vicious  habit  of  the  moderns,  it  is  often  written,  I  must  make  another  observation,  which  I  think 
very  important.  We  every  where  find  the  words  Ap^rj  and  ryt#N"i  rasit  written  to  represent  each 
other  in  the  two  languages  j  and  they  both  mean  head  and  both  mean  wisdom.  The  word  noun 
hkme  means  wisdom,  that  is,  the  same  as  the  two  former  words :  but  the  word  nDDPI  hkme,  Akme, 
in  the  English  language,  means  head,  or  upper  end,  or  point,  or  top,  of  any  thing.  In  a  figurative 
sense  it  also  has  the  meaning  of  perfection.  Hence  we  see  that  the  word  riD3n  hkme,  which 
means  wisdom,  has  the  same  meaning  as  the  words  in  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  which  mean  Jirst  or 
beginning.  This  Rasit  or  nDDPI  hkme  is  the  nniNOpS  bqmaute  of  the  Samaritan  Genesis,  the  Ras 
of  the  Ethiopians,  the  Sophia  of  the  Gnostics,  the  Metis  of  the  Greeks,  the  Logos  of  Plato,  the 
Sofi  of  Persia,  in  the  book  of  the  Persians  called  Sofi  Ibrahim,  the  Buddha  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Saga 
of  the  Scandinavians,  and  the  Sagax  of  the  Latins,  whence  come  our  Sages,  and  the  Sagas  of 
India,  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Schegel. 2 

Perhaps  it  may  not  be  irrelevant,  in  reference  to  the  plurality  of  the  God  in  the  first  verse  of 
Genesis,  to  observe,  that  the  Gnostics  are  said  to  have  worshiped  a  being  called  Achamoth.  This 
is  evidently  nothing  but  the  Hebrew  word  nopn  Hkme  wisdom,  sapientia,  in  the  plural  number, 
and  it  is  feminine.  This  is  the  first  word  in  Genesis,  as  we  have  seen,  and  as  recorded  by  the 
Jerusalem  Targum,  and  the  Samaritan  version ;  and  here  I  conceive  these  learned  Orientalists, 
the  Gnostics,  worshiped  the  plural  of  the  Logos  for  the  whole  three.  If  this  be  not  the  meaning, 
why  is  not  the  word  in  the  singular  ?  For  this  Achomoth  the  Valentinians  had  a  great  respect. 
Of  this  Beausobre  says,  ie  Leur  Achamoth  est  la  Cochmah  des  Hebreux,  ou  la  Sagesse."3  It 
proves  that  the  Valentinians  explained  Genesis  by  wisdom,  &c,  like  all  other  early  Christians,  and 
as  the  Israelites  formerly  did.  Gnostici  enim  ipsam  Achamoth  spiritum  sanctum  arbitrabantur,  et 
sub  specie  columbae  reprsesentabant. 

The  unlearned  reader  must  be  informed  that  the  most  common  word  in  Hebrew  for  wisdom  is 
ilDDn  hkme,  and  for  wisdoms  in  the  feminine  gender  plural  niD3n  hkmut.  The  following  are  the 
two  first  words  in  the  Samaritan  first  verse  of  Genesis^:  SfAT/fciSPa.  B — kmaute.  Though  I 
have  no  Samaritan  Lexicon,  I  think  I  can  see  that  B  is  the  sign  of  the  ablative  case,  the  same  as 
in  the  Hebrew  language,  and  the  last  e  the  emphatic  article,  and  kmaut  the  same  as  the  Hebrew 


1  Besides  this  Bemrillah,  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  and  indeed  since  that  time  several  persons  have 
arisen,  pretending  to  be  the  tenth  incarnation ;  a  curious  account  of  whom  may  be  found  in  the  very  learned  and 
honest,  however  often  mistaken,  Nimrod.  Eudes  of  Bretagne  was  one;  Joan  D'Arc  was  another;  and  Brothers  and 
Southcote  were  others  ;  intended  for  the  year  1800,  or  the  year  1824,  or  the  third  cycle  from  Christ.  In  Ireland,  in 
the  year  1771,  a  Romish  Priest,  Vicar  Apostolic  of  the  Roman  See  in  the  midland  district  of  England,  of  the  name  of 
Walmesley,  under  the  feigned  name  of  Pastorini,  published  an  Exposition  of  the  Apocalypse,  in  which  he  made  out, 
by  some  mode  of  calculation  which  I  have  never  been  able  to  see,  that  the  millenium  would  take  place  at  the  end  of 
the  year  1824.  Here  we  have  exactly  three  great  Neroses  to  a  year,  from  the  birth  of  Christ.  Some  time  after  the 
year  1824  had  passed,  his  followers  found  out  that  it  was  a  typographical  mistake,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  1829,  and, 
to  save  the  credit  of  the  Roman  bishop,  they  say,  it  or  he  only  alluded  to  the  peace  which  was  to  be  given  to  the  Irish 
Romish  Church  by  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  famous  Emancipation  Bill  in  1829.  Thus  priests  deceive,  and  dupes  are 
deceived.     See  Times  newspaper,  for  a  letter  from  Dublin,  dated  April  24tb,  1829. 

*  Quoted  by  Dr.  Pritchard.  3  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  i. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION  9.  709 

word  for  wisdom  in  the  plural  feminine  :  then  it  will  be  by  the  wisdoms  God  created.     Thus  then 
the  old  Samaritan  justifies  my  rendering  of  Rasit. 

Philo  calls  the  Logos  Ap^yj.1  The  Logos  being  proved  to  be  wisdom,  Apx?)  must  consequently- 
mean  wisdom. 2  Onkelos  translates  the  word  by  -|DN  amr  verbum, 3  whence  comes  the  word 
N"10'0  mimra,  a  word  or  voice,  which  I  suppose  is  the  same  as  the  Bathkol  ^>pnm  bet-ql,  daughter 
of  voice.  As  the  Hebrew  name  for  God,  Al,  is  said  to  have  the  meaning  of  curse,  so  ql  has  the 
meaning  of  vile.  These  arise  from  the  misunderstood  idea  of  the  destroyer.  The  Amar, 4  Mimra, 
and  Bathkol,  have  all  the  meaning  of  Logos  and  Ras.  From  this  word  ql  voice,  comes  the  Greek 
xa'ksco  and  English  call,  which  Mr.  Cleland  has  shewn  has  the  meaning  of  wisdom  in  the  Celtic 
language  :  whence  comes  our  word  calling  or  vocation,  both  evidently  connected  with  the  idea  of 
voice,  word,  and  wisdom.5  The  Nestorians  have  their  service  in  the  Chaldean  tongue.6  Nes- 
torius  was  a  German  in  the  time  of  Theodosius.  This  brings  to  my  recollection  the  assertion  of 
Dr.  Geddes,  that  he  would  some  day  prove,  that  the  language  of  the  Saxons  (that  is,  the  Sacae, 
Buddha  was  Saca)  was  nearly  pure  Hebrew.  Here  a  reason  presents  itself  why  we  have  so  many 
Hebrew  words  in  English.  When  the  Saxons  arrived  in  Britain  they  must  have  spoken  almost 
the  same  language  as  the  natives.  I  recollect  nothing  in  history  against  this  conclusion.  I  shall 
have  much  to  say  on  this  subject  hereafter.  Ql  has  also,  I  think,  the  meaning  of  womb  xoiXia,  and 
thus  of  the  female  generative  power,  the  daughter  of  the  Logos  or  of  Wisdom,  and  also  of  the 
Greek  xaT^og,  good  or  beautiful.  Jehovah  by  wisdom  hath  founded  the  earth,  by  (Binah)  under- 
standing hath  he  established  the  heavens.  Pro  v.  iii.  19.  The  Targum  also  uses  the  word  DID  qdm 
for  the  Logos  or  Ras,  which  means  first,  and  Binah  for  the  following  word,  which  means  second, 
from  bis,  binus,  §/§u/ao£. 

Proclus,  on  the  Timseus,  says,  that  after  the  well-known  sentence  on  the  temple  of  Isis  were 
added  the  words  bv  sya)  xapTov  erexov,  rfhiog  sysvsro — The  fruit  which  I  have  brought  forth  is 
the  sun.  This  at  once  proves  that  Isis  was  Divine  Wisdom,  and  that  the  sun  was  not  adored  as 
the  Creator,  but  only  as  an  emblem. 

Athenae  is  only  Neithe  or  Neitha,  written  anagrammatically,  or  Hebraically  a  very  little  cor- 
rupted. Isis  was  called  Neith  or  wisdom  :  she  was  the  Goddess  of  Sais,  which  probably  means 
Saviour,  from  yt£»  iso  and  £ao>,  and  also  wisdom  from  scio  to  know  or  be  wise.  Wisdom  was  the 
Saviour ;  thus  they  all  dovetail  into  one  another. 

The  term  Sofi, 7  says  Knolles,  signifies  among  these  people  a  wise  man,  or  the  interpreter  of 
the  Gods.  This  word  is  the  same  as  the  Greek  Soviet.8  Forster  afterward  says,  "  Some  classes 
"  of  the  Shiahs  believe  that  Ali  was  an  incarnation  of  the  Deity,  who  perceiving,  they  say,  the 
"  mission  which  had  been  delegated  on  Mohamed  to  be  incomplete,  assumed  the  person  of  this 
"  Caliph,  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  the  Moslem  faith  and  power  on  a  firmer  basis."  9  Here,  again, 
the  doctrines  of  the  tenth  incarnation,   the  regeneration,   and  metempsychosis,   shew  themselves ; 


•  De  Confus.  Ling.  p.  267.    B.  «  Maur.  Ind.  Ant.  Vol.  IV.  pp.  94,  95. 

3  From  the  close  connexion  between  the  Logos  and  the  Lamb,  lambs  came  to  be  called  ni")DN  amrut. 

4  Qy.  Rama? 

4  The  absolute  identity  of  the  Celtic  and  the  Hebrew  has  been  maintained,  at  great  length,  in  the  Universal  History, 
in  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  363,  Vol.  V.  p.  411 ;  see  also  Dissert,  on  Hist,  of  Ireland,  Dublin,  1753,  p.  48. 

6  Sandys'  Travels,  p.  135. 

7  Given  to  a  man  called  Ishmael,  who  was,  I  think,  the  ancestor  of  the  Battaneans. 

*  Forster's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  127.  9  Ibid.  p.  130. 


710  RASIT.      WISDOM. 

but  the  time  of  the  tenth  incarnation  being  passed,  the  perpetual  renewal  or  regeneration,  like 
those  of  Tibet  and  Rome,  is  beginning  to  arise  ;  and  I  think  it  very  probable  that  the  perpetual 
renewal  of  Tibet  arose  only  since  about  A.  D.  1200. 

The  mission  of  Mohamed  was  not  complete,  because  it  would  not  be  completed  till  the  end  of 
his  cycle,  when  the  Millenium  commenced.  In  the  Indian  books  we  read  accounts  of  princes 
being  extremely  desirous  of  establishing  aeras  by  their  names.  This  has  been  mistaken,  I  think. 
They  wished  to  establish  themselves  as  incarnations  of  the  cycle  in  which  they  lived,  as  Caesar 
and  several  others  did.  The  sixty  year  or  Vrihaspati  cycle  was  only  a  decimal  of  the  600  year 
or  Neros  cycle,  and  it  made  no  difference  in  calculation  whether  one  or  the  other  was  used — ten 
Vrihaspatis  being  equal  to  one  Neros. 

Of  the  different  dreams  which  have  terrified  the  imaginations  of  the  weaker  class  of  mankind, 
there  is,  perhaps,  no  one  which  has  played  a  greater  game  than  that  of  the  fear  of  Antichrist,  a 
person  whom  I  believe  to  have  been  pretty  generally  misunderstood.  The  word  Avr^p^og  I 
believe  does  not  mean  a  person  opposed  to  Christ,  but  a  substitute  for  Christ — another  Christ,  a 
Christ  in  succession.  In  our  sacred  books  the  disciples  are  constantly  warned  against  false 
Christs,  but  no  where  is  it  said  that  there  shall  not  be  another  Christ.  This  is  all  in  unison  with 
the  prophecy  in  John,  that  Jesus  would  send  a  person  to  them  in  some  capacity  or  other.  Mo- 
hamed was  believed  to  be  this  Antichrist,  and  so  was  both  Hakim  Bemrillah  and  St.  Francis.  It 
is,  as  I  have  said  before,  nothing  but  the  Hindoo  system,  each  party  believing  that  the  tenth  in- 
carnation was  with  them.  The  circumstance  that  an  Antichrist  or  another  Christ  should  be  fore- 
told is  very  curious,  and  certainly  Floyer  and  several  other  Christians  have  shewn  a  striking 
similarity  between  the  prophecies  of  the  Christians  and  Mohamed  :  but  they  never  discover  that 
this  arises,  in  a  great  measure,  from  Mohamedan  devotees  doing  every  thing  in  their  power  to  aid 
the  Christians,  as  they  hold  that  Mohamed  was  the  real  Antichrist — the  person  foretold  by  John. 

10.  The  Templars  were  accused  of  worshiping  a  being  called  Bahumid,  and  Bafomet,  or  Kharuf. 
Mr.  Hammer1  says  that  this  word  written  in  Arabic  has  the  meaning  of  Calf,  and  is  what  Kircher 
calls  Anima  Mundi.  It  is  difficult  not  to  believe  that  this  Kharuf  is  our  Calf.  Bahumid  must 
be  Pi  the  Egyptian  emphatic  article,  and  TDK  amid  the  desire  of  all  nations,  that  is  Mohamed.  The 
Assassins,  we  must  recollect,  are  said  to  have  worshiped  a  calf,  but  our  travellers  who  tell  us  this 
story,  do  not  tell  us  that  they  saw  the  calf,  and  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  they  take  the  account,  as 
well  as  the  custom  of  the  Assassins  of  rising  up  to  play, 2  as  our  Bible  would  call  it,  from  their 
Mohamedan  enemies.  If  they  have  a  calf  in  use  as  an  emblem,  I  should  consider  it  a  proof  that 
they  are  a  tribe  of  extreme  antiquity,  which  though  holding  the  doctrines  of  the  ten  incarnations, 
yet  still  clings  to  the  ancient  worship  of  Taurus.  It  is  of  the  same  nature  as  the  picture  in  Russia 
of  the  holy  family  in  which  the  calf  is  found  instead  of  the  Ram. 

They  often  name  a  rite  or  doctrine  called  the  Baptism  of  Wisdom.     This  has  been  said  te  be 
the  meaning  of  the  second  word  Bafomet,  and  is  from  the  Greek  Ba<$>7j  Myrsog. 

The  story  of  the  Gnostics  and  Templars  worshiping  an  idol  called  Bafomet  and  Bahumid  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  commonly  use  the  word  worship,  I  look  upon  as  totally  incredible.  But 
Protestants  always  forget  or  shut  their  eyes  to  the  distinction  between  the  AsXe<a  and  Aarpsiot. 
If  they  had  a  figure  as  an  effigy  of  the  Ba^ij  Mtjtsos,  baptism  of  wisdom,  they  probably  paid  it 
the  same  kind  of  adoration  as  Protestants  pay  to  the  bread  and  wine  in  the  Eucharist,  and  as  our 
king  pays  to  the  black  stone  on  which  he  sits  to  be  crowned.  It  is  very  clear  that  this  Bafomet 
is  the  Logos,  to  which  they  gave  this  name— the  second  person  of  the  Trinity.     However,  the 


1  On  Anc.  Alp.  Prsef.  p.  xiii.  *  Exod.  xxxii.  6. 


BOOK  X.      CHAPTER   VI.     SECTION  10.  71 1 

circumstances  altogether  raise  a  strong  probability,  that  the  doctrines  of  the  Assassins  and  the 
Templars  were  the  same. 

In  the  fourth  number  of  the  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,  published  by  Treutel  and  Wurtz,  may 
be  found  a  very  interesting  account  of  the  Templars,  though  I  think  not  a  correct  one  j  for,  upon 
their  innocence  of  Gnosticism,  there  are  several  things  totally  unaccountable.  But  of  their  crimes, 
to  the  extent  charged,  I  do  not  believe  a  single  word.  Their  0a<B?j  pjTeot;,  or  baptism  of  wisdom, 
I  do  believe,  and  that  out  of  it  was  probably  formed,  by  their  enemies,  their  Bafomet,  the  name  of 
the  image  they  were  calumniously  said  to  have  worshiped,  and  which  is  alleged  to  be  a  corruption 
of  Mohamed,  or  meant  for  Mohamed,  which,  if  true,  as  I  allege,  must  have  been  meant  for  the  last 
incarnation  of  divine  wisdom,  until  the  failure  of  the  Millenium  proved  that  he  might  have  been  an 
impostor  or  fanatic,  but  no  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom — of  the  Deity. 

The  truth  creeps  from  under  the  veil,  in  the  instance  of  the  symbol  of  the  Red-cross  Knights 
Templars.  Their  badge,  the  red  cross  with  eight  points,  the  monogram  of  the  Buddhists 
of  Tibet  and  of  the  Manichaeans1  connect  beautifully.  This  badge  was  a  real  Talisman.  In 
peace  it  commanded  the  rights  of  hospitality.  In  battle  one  red  cross  would,  of  course,  never 
strike  another  j  though  they  might,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Ishmaelians  and  the  Templars,  from  cir- 
cumstances be  obliged  to  oppose  each  other. 

The  revenues  of  the  Templars  in  the  twelfth  century  are  said  to  have  amounted  to  six  million 
pounds  sterling  a  year.  Notwithstanding  this  immense  wealth,  it  is  very  certain  that  their  chiefs 
were  repeatedly  guilty  of  betraying  the  Christian  cause  to  the  Assassins,  and  to  account  for  this, 
in  one  instance,  a  very  miserable  pittance  of  money  is  stated  to  have  been  the  reward,  3000  pieces 
of  gold.  This  I  cannot  believe  of  a  man  of  such  immense  wealth  as  their  chief.  On  taking  the 
vows  they  took  the  most  solemn  oaths  of  fidelity  to  the  Christian  cause,  but  they  took  them  as 
administered  to  one  another,  and  in  the  sense  which  they  alone  might  understand.  How  is  all 
this  apparent  contradiction  to  be  reconciled  ?  I  believe  they  took  their  oaths  to  the  cause  of  the 
Xpjg-o£,  the  Chreestian  cause,  and  that  if  a  small  body  of  the  Knights  separated  from  the  Hos- 
pitallers to  form  the  order  of  Templars  of  the  Temple,  of  the  ancient  circular  or  cyclar  temples, 
not  of  the  church,  (their  churches  differing  from  all  other  churches  in  the  world  in  being  of  the 
circular  form,)  they  had  become  proselytes  to  or  were  of  an  opinion  in  its  nature  Manichsean,  that 
Hakem  Bemrillah  was,  as  he  was  claimed  by  his  followers  to  be,  the  tenth  avatar — they  were 
believers  in  some  sense  in  the  Evangelium  Eternum,  and  thus  they  continued  to  be  till  the  passing 
years  proved  the  falsity  of  their  system,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Franciscans.  Then,  though  they 
probably  abandoned  the  Millenium,  they  retained  part  of  their  Manichsean  or  Gnostic  doctrines. 
Thus  with  the  Assassins  they  were  enemies  of  the  Caliphs,  though  in  some  sense  Mohamedan ; 
and,  though  friends  to  the  Mohamedan  Ishmaelites,  they  were  still  Christians,  but  it  was  the 
Gnostic  Christianity,  which  was  in  fact  the  oriental  Buddhism  of  the  ancient  Gymnosophistae  or 
Samaneans,  of  which  we  shall  presently  see  more. 

The  Templars  were  divided  into  orders  exactly  after  the  system  of  the  Assassins :  Knights, 
Esquires,  and  lay  brethren,  answering  to  the  Refeck,  Fedavee,  and  Laseek,  of  the  Assassins  ;  as 
the  Prior,  Grand  Prior,  and  Grand  Master,  of  the  former,  correspond  with  the  Dai,  Dai-al-kebir, 
and  Sheik  of  the  mountain,  of  the  latter.  As  the  Ishmaelite  Refeck  was  clad  in  white,  with  a  red 
mark  of  distinction,  so  the  Knight  of  the  Temple  wore  a  white  mantle  adorned  with  a  red  mark  of 
distinction — the  red  cross.  It  is  probable  that  the  red  cross  was  worn  by  both,2  though  for  some 
reason  it  is  kept  back.     The  author  says,  "  As  the  Ishmaelite  Refeck  was  clad  in  white,  with  a 


Vol.  X.  Asiatic  Researches.  *  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,  No.  II.  p.  464. 


712  RASIT.      WISDOM. 

"  red  mark  of  distinction,  so  the  Knight  of  the  Temple  wore  a  white  mantle  adorned  with  the  red 
"  cross."  It  is  remarkable  that  they  were  called  illuminators  ; l  and  I  suspect  the  red  mark  of 
distinction  not  described  was  a  red  eight-point  cross,  or  a  red  rose  on  a  cross.  Why  has  not  the 
Reviewer  told  us  what  it  was  ? 

In  the  very  highest  orders  of  Freemasons,  viz.  the  Templars  and  Rossicrucians,  as  I  imagine 
them  to  be,  there  is  no  emblem  more  sacred  than  the  cross.     Here  I  stop.     Verbum  Sapienti. 

Mr.  Hammer  has  observed,  that  the  identity  of  the  symbols  of  the  Templars  and  of  the 
Architectonici,  by  whom  he  means  the  Freemasons,  are  demonstrated.  But  he  does  not  doubt 
that  the  Architectonici  existed  before  the  Templars  :  he  says,  Doctrinae  Architectonics  symbola, 
fio-urae  nimirum  mathematics  et  instrumenta  aedificatoria,  quae  in  picturis  ecclesiae  Templariorum 
et  in  sculpturis  Baphometorum  invenimus,  eadem  etiam  in  aedificiis  antiquioribus,  praecipue 
Scoticis,  et  in  monumentis  Gnosticis  ut  in  sigillis  et  Abraxis  conspiciuntur  (vide  Icones  ex 
Macario  desumptas,  et  in  ornatum  frontispicii  libri  sui  a  Nicolaio  adhibitas) ;  sed  eadem  jam  in 
monumentis  vetustioris  adhuc  aevi,  nimirum  Romanis  deprehenduntur  (vide  tabula  IV.  fig.  9,  in 
my  figures,  No.  33)  ex  quorum  inscriptionibus  nihil  arguere  licet,  haec  monumenta  ab  architectis 
aut  fabris  murariis  posita  fuisse. 2  Again  he  says,  Senatus  consulto  (irrito)  urbe  pulsos,  et  ex 
his  ad  orientalem  Philosophiam,  Chaldaicam,  Syriacam,  et  Egyptiacam,  referre  licebit.  Here  Mr. 
Hammer  refers  the  Mathematicians  to  a  Chaldaic  original.  In  the  former  part  of  the  sentence 
he  had  identified  the  Mathematicians  and  the  Architecti  or  Freemasons.  In  this  I  think  he  is 
perfectly  correct.  The  Chaldeans  and  the  Mathematicians  of  whom  we  read  in  the  Augustin  age 
as  being  the  fortune-tellers,  or  the  magicians,  or  judicial  astrologers  of  the  great  men  of  the  day 
in  Rome,  were  in  fact  Freemasons,  and  of  this  the  emblems,  above  copied  from  his  work,  in  plate 
IV.,  are  a  sufficient  proof.  I  need  not  tell  any  one,  ivhether  Mason  or  not,  how  large  a  space  the 
history  of  the  building  of  the  temple  of  Solomon  occupies  in  the  ceremonies  of  Masonry.  And  I 
think  I  need  not  remind  my  reader  that  the  temple  of  Solomon,  with  its  Jakim  and  Boaz, 
displays  evident  marks  of  Astrology  and  Astronomy  in  every  part.  All  the  sacred  numbers,  and 
these  astronomical  symbols,  relate  directly  to  the  building  of  the  temple  of  the  universe.  The 
whole  temple  is  a  microcosm  or  an  emblem  of  the  universe,  and  the  history  of  the  building  of  it 
is  a  Genesis  :  and  under  the  allegory,  a  beautiful  and  refined  cosmogony  is  concealed. 

In  the  building  of  the  temple  of  Solomon  the  most  profound  silence  prevailed  ;  not  a  nail  was 
driven,  not  a  blow  was  struck.  As  the  Creator  built  up  the  edifice  of  the  world  from  matter 
previously  prepared,  so  in  like  manner  was  every  thing  prepared  in  the  temple.  Wisdom,  the 
Logos,  was  the  Megalhistor  or  Grand  Architect  of  the  Universe.  Solomon  the  wise  was  the 
Grand  Architect  of  the  Microcosm  of  the  temple.  The  architect  or  builder  of  the  universe  was  the 
Logos,  the  Prince  of  Peace.  The  architect  or  builder  of  the  temple,  was  Solomon,  the  prince  of 
Iero-Salem  or  the  holy  peace.  By  his  Logos,  word,  or  command,  God  formed  the  world.  By  his 
word,  without  a  blow  of  hammer,  Solomon  formed  the  temple.  Dominus  in  Sapientia  fundavit 
terram;  disposuit  ccelos  in  Intelligentia.     Prov.  iii.  19. 

In  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  and  Ecclesiasticus  the  secret  doctrine  of  the  Ras,  or  Wisdom,  or 
Logos,  that  is,  of  the  Cabala  and  the  Gnosis,  is  continually  shewing  itself : 3  though  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  intention  of  the  translators  is  to  conceal  it  as  much  as  possible.  Perhaps  they 
did  not  understand  the  Cabalistic  doctrine.  I  think  I  cannot  well  wish  for  a  more  decisive  proof 
of  the  truth  of  my  system  than  that  Solomon  should  be  a  ten-month  child  like  Hercules,  Alexan- 
der, Caesar,  &c,  &c,  as  is  proved  by  Wisd.  vii.  2.  The  knowledge  of  the  doctrine  of  the  cycles 
and  of  the  aberrations  of  the  planets  is  shewn  ch.  vii.  vers.  18,  19. 


«  Foreign  Quarterly  Review,  No.  II.  p.  4G4.  *  P.  43.  3  Wisdom  i.  6,  iv.  9,  10,  &c. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VI.     SECTION  10.  713 

In  every  quarter  of  the  globe  we  have  met  with  a  curious  repetition  of  names.  We  have 
numerous  river  Dons,  Jordans,  mounts  Olympus,  Argo,  &c. ;  and  if  we  consider  them  attentively, 
I  think  we  shall  see  reason  to  believe,  that  this  was  in  consequence  of  each  tribe,  when  it  became 
fixed,  having  established  around  it  its  own  little  mythos  which  it  had  brought  from  the  East :  its 
sacred  mount,  its  Argo,  its  Don,  its  Labyrinth  perhaps,  &c.  Thus  when  the  Mandaites  or  the 
Nousa'ireans,  in  comparatively- speaking  modern  times,  arrived  in  Syria,  they  found  the  mount 
Carmel,  the  mount  of  the  garden  of  God,  the  sacred  Ir-don,  the  city  of  Nazareth,  &c.  I  strongly 
suspect  that  those  persons  were  only  descendants,  or  a  succession  of  the  first  Mandaites  or 
Nousa'ireans  or  Nazareans,  driven  out  from  the  city  of  the  Cyclopaean  Mundore  when  it  was 
destroyed,  and  of  which  there  still  are  the  immense  ruins.  The  Ishmaelians  were  a  succession  of 
the  same  people.  An  attentive  observer  cannot  fail  to  see  the  same  mythos  under  a  succession  of 
leaders,  perhaps  all  having  the  similar  doctrine  of  incarnations,  but  under  different  names,  and 
necessarily  with  some  variations.  When  I  consider  all  the  circumstances  relating  to  Elias — his 
great  miracles  when  he  overcame  the  priests  of  Baal — the  numerous  circumstances  which  tend  to 
prove  Nazareth  a  sacred  place,  and  the  laws  respecting  Nazarites,  the  rose  of  Sharon  being  called 
Nazir,  the  schools  of  the  prophets  which  were  on  the  mount  of  Carmel  or  the  vineyard  of  God,  I 
cannot  help  suspecting  that  these  Nazareans  were  the  same  with  the  Mandaites,  who  were  called 
Nousa'ireans.1     The  Arabic  Nuzur  means  prophet. 

I  had  long  sought  in  vain  for  the  meaning  of  the  word  Don,  which,  from  its  universality,  is 
evidently  a  word  of  great  importance  in  my  system,  when  I  found  it  in  Persia.  Dr.  Hagar  says 
that  the  Persian  name  for  science  or  knowledge,  which  I  call  wisdom,  is  Danush. 2  "Whence  comes 
the  Persian  word  Behar-danush,  or  the  garden  of  knowledge.  This  garden  of  Danush  is  the 
garden  of  Adonis.3  The  river  Araxes,  we  have  formerly  seen,  was  called  Don.  This  river 
was  anciently  called  by  the  Arabians,  Rosh.  This  is  Ras  or  Wisdom.  A  translation  of  the 
word  Dan.4  Arax  is  probably  only  Ras  with  the  emphatic  article.  The  ancient  name  of  the 
Persian  Ispahan  As-padana  exhibits  the  same  mythos,  as  that  of  the  Padus  of  India  and  Italy. 
I  am  satisfied  that  Pad  and  Bud  were  the  same  words,  and  as  Don  in  ancient  Persian  meant 
wisdom,  this  seems  confirmed.  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  Druidical  colleges  in  groves  were 
gardens  of  Adonis,  like  our  universities,  intended  to  educate  young  persons  in  science  as  well 
as  religion,  and  therefore  represented  by  other  sects  as  receptacles  of  vice.  But  they  might 
be,  like  our  universities,  not  too  good.  Dr.  Hagar  also  says,  "  Dana  in  Persian  signifies  a 
"  wise  or  learned  man." 5  This,  he  adds,  is  derived ;  that  is,  it  is  the  same  as  the  Chaldaic  ion  tna, 
a  learned  man.  From  this  comes  the  word  Titans.  They  were  Tat-tans.  Tat-tan  is  the  wisdom 
of  Buddha ;  and  from  this  word  tana,  wise,  came  the  name  of  the  laws  which  the  Irish  boast  of  so 
much  for  their  wisdom,  and  which  they  call  the  laws  of  Tanistry.  The  Persians  also  have  the 
word  Z)«ms/i-MEND  which  has  the  same  meaning  (this,  I  think,  is  learned  mind  or  man).  The 
Hindoos  of  Bengal  and  Bombay  use  the  word  Danish-MEtm  in  the  same  sense. 

A  little  consideration  will  serve  to  shew  that  in  every  case  Menu  has  a  reference  to  mind,  to 
understanding,  to  wisdom.  Here  we  at  last  come  to  the  origin  of  the  word  Man  and  Homo, 
hominis  and  Nemo,  neminis,  i.  e.  ne-homo.  Man  is  the  Mn  of  Om  homan,  or  human.  Inhuman  is 
the  negative  of  human.     The  Mend  of  Persia  is  Mn-di  holy  Mn  Om-mannus,   mind  of  Om.     In 


1  Matter,  Vol.  II.  p.  394.  *  Diss,  on  Bab.  Bricks,  p.  7. 

3  In  Western  Syria  is  a  river  of  Adonis ;  this  is  now  called  the  river  of  Abraham  or  of  Brahma.    This  seems  to  me 
a  striking  circumstance,  when  I  recollect  that  there  is  a  city  of  Adonis  in  Collida,  in  South  India. 

*  Paxton,  Illust.  of  Scrip.  Vol.  I.  p.  73.  *  P.  22. 

4  Y 


714 


RASIT.      WISDOM. 


Irish  Om  means  man,  Omona  human. l  Vossius,  Scaliger,  and  others,  derive  the  Amanus  or 
Omanos  of  the  Persians  from  Din  hum  Chom,  Calor ;  unde  non  hue,  Sol  et  Ignis. 2  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  they  are  the  same  words.  If  we  look  back  to  Bk.  V.  Chap.  V.  Sect.  2,  we  shall  find 
that  Noah  is  called  >3om>  inhmni.  I  have  never  been  satisfied  with  the  etymon  which  I  have  there 
given.  In  the  first  word  3>  in  or  ini  we  have  the  Greek  word  for  a  son.  A  prophet  in  India  is 
called  a  Muni  or  wise  man.  This  seems  to  be  the  same  as  Menu.  And  hence  I  think  has  come 
our  Nh  mind,  the  son  of  the  Muni.  Noah  was  an  Avatar  or  renewed  incarnation.  Mannus  a  man, 
name  of  Noah.3  Mind  and  Man  were,  in  fact,  the  same.  Man  was  an  incarnation  of  the  holy 
mind,  Mn-di=Mn=650.  The  root,  Man,  think,  remember,  makes  in  the  preterite  Mamana  cor- 
responding with  Meminit.  From  this  root  comes  Mana,  mens,  mind.  The  name  of  the  first 
human  being  Manu  is  obviously  derived  from  this  root,  and  signifies  endowed  with  reason.  Man- 
kind are  hence  named  Manava — a  man,  son  of  Manu ;  this  word  being  the  regular  patronymic  of 
Manu.  From  this  word  the  Gothic  word  Manu  is  manifestly  derived,  but  the  Germans  appear  to 
have  retained  some  tradition  of  Manu  himself.  Tacitus  says  of  the  Germans,  celebrant  carminibus 
antiquis  Tuistonem  deum  terra  editum  et  filium  Mannum  originem  gentis  conditoresque.4 

The  Mandaites  taught  that  from  the  throne  of  God  flowed  a  Jourdain  primitif,  of  the  pure  water 
of  life,  from  which  again  flowed  360,000  Jourdains.  When  we  consider  the  proof  which  I  have 
given  that  the  Jordan  only  meant  the  river  of  wisdom  or  of  Adonis  or  of  the  sun,  the  meaning  of 
this  will  be  sufficiently  clear.  The  observation  above  induces  Mons.  Matter  to  make  the  following 
curious  observation,  which  shews  that  without  my  theory  the  facts  upon  which  I  have  founded  it 
forced  themselves  upon  him  :  "  Le  nom  de  Manes,  Mani  ou  Manitho,  recoit  peut-£tre  ici  son  ex- 
"  plication.  II  s'appellait  Mano,  intelligence  de  lumiere,  comme  Simon  le  magicien  se  disait 
"  Ouvafxig  u-tyig-ou.  Peut-etre  un  jour  nous  parviendrons  a  savoir  si  Manes  a  fait  desemprunts 
'e  aux  Mandaites,  ou  si  ces  derniers  furent  en  quelque  chose  ses  disciples  ?  II  est  vrai  que  les 
"  Mandaites,  sont  les  ennemis  des  Manicheens  ;  mais  ils  sont  egalement  ceux  des  Chretiens  et  des 
"  Juifs,  et  ils  profitent  neanmoins  des  doctrines  des  uns  et  des  autres." 5 

Carcham,  so  celebrated  in  the  history  of  Mani,  is  called  Syria  and  Mesopotamia  by  the  Tartars. 
Kar  means  habitable  country.  Then  I  think  this  would  be  Kar  DSn  hkm,  country  of  wisdom, 
country  of  Mani  or  Mens,  Mind.  Georgius  says  of  this  Carcham,  Hoc  est  Regio  tue<rr)  tojv 
TraTa^aiV  inter-amnia. 6  He  afterward 7  shews  that  this  is  the  same  as  Cataia  (now  Cuthay),  and 
says,  Quidam  autem  Kathaiam  Sophitis  regionem,  qui  unus  fuit  ex  nomarchis  in  hac  Mesopo- 
tamia collocarunt.  This  was  the  Doab  between  the  Indus  and  Ganges,  which  he  calls  Soph-itis 
or  the  country  of  Wisdom.     It  was  the  Ioud-ia  or  Youdya  or  Oude. 

The  Mogul  was  the  Irish  Mog  or  Mogh  j  and  the  Mogh  was  the  head  priest — chief  priest. 
Zoroaster  or  Zeradust  was  an  incarnation,  a  genius  of  a  cycle.  He  was  called  Hakem,8  and  also 
Mog  or  Mogh,  which  meant  Sapientia.  He  predicted  the  Messiah9  by  the  name  Iosa,  in  Irish 
Eesa,  in  Arabic  Issa.  He  came  from  the  city  of  Bochara  or  of  wisdom  or  of  learning  or  of  the  Boc 
or  Book.  But  whence  comes  the  word  Mogh  ?  The  word  ogh  in  Irish  means  circle,  pure,  holy, 
a  hero,  and  eag  wisdom  ;  10  the  same  in  the  Sanscrit,  and  the  Sanscrit  Yug  or  Yog.  Now  I  think 
Mogh  is  the  wisdom  or  cycle  of  M :  then,   by  the  regimine,  it  became  Mogh.     The  highest  noble 


1  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p.  6J.  *  Ibid.  Vol.  IV.  p.  508. 

3  Introd.  to  Webster's  Dictionary,  p.  i.  note. 

4  Edinburgh  Review,  of  Dr.  Wilkins's  Arabic  Dictionary.  4  Matter  sur  Gnost.  Vol.  II.  p.  405. 
6  Sect.  cxvi.                       7  in  Sect,  cxvii.                       8  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  i.  p.  197. 

0  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  i.  pp.  199,  202.  ,0  Ibid.  p.  82. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER   VI.   SECTION    11.  715 

and  prime  minister  of  the  Mogul  was  made  by  him  an  Omrah,  Om-ray. l  The  Eesa  named  above 
is  the  Etruscan  Esar  iEsar  and  Caesar,  the  Brahmin  Eeswar.2  Among  the  Irish  3  and  Persians  4 
Mogh  was  equally  the  name  of  a  priest,  and  hence  Mogul-al-mogh,  the  priest  xclt  e^o^v.  Here 
we  have  the  origin  of  the  wood,  with  which  the  sacred  part  of  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  was  built, 
Almug.  It  was  the  wood  of  bx  al  Jo  mg,  the  tree  of  wisdom,  the  tree  of  the  Magus  or  wise  man. 
The  Chaldaeans  have  the  word  jd  mg,  whence  the  Greeks  made  Mayog.5 

The  Ishmaelites  are  the  same,  I  believe,  as  the  Nasareens  or  Nasourians,  or  Nesseenes  or  Nes- 
saries,  and  the  Yezeedis  or  Yezidis  or  Yesdes.  Mr.  Buckingham  has  observed  their  similarity  to 
one  another  and  to  the  Hindoo  castes.6  The  Yezdes  or  in  fact  Yes-des,  that  is,  the  followers  of 
the  holy  Yes  or  IHS  =  608,  are  said  to  worship  Satan  or  Sheitan.  Mr.  Buckingham  gives  an 
account  of  them  from  one  Pere  Garzoni,  who  says  of  them,  Us  n'ont  ni  jeunes,  ni  prieres ; 
et  disent,  pour  justifier  l'omission  de  ces  oeuvres  de  religion,  que  le  scheikh  Yezid  a  satisfait 
pour  tous  ceux  qui  feront  profession  de  sa  doctrine  jusqu'a  la  fin  du  monde.7  The  judgment 
of  the  father  and  the  dependance  to  be  placed  on  him,  may  be  estimated  from  the  following 
passage,  which  he  gives  a  little  previously :  Le  matin,  a  peine  le  soleil  commence-t-il  a 
paroltre,  qu'ils  se  jettent  a  genoux  les  pieds  nus,  et  que  tournes  vers  cet  astre,  ils  se  mettent  in 
adoration,  le  front  contre  terre.  These  people  are  found  at  present  in  the  Mesopotamia  of  the 
Euphrates,  near  a  place  called  Ras-el-ain,  (the  fountain  of  wisdom,)  at  the  foot  of  what  Mr. 
Buckingham  calls  Mount  Sinjar,  and  Ptolemy  Mount  Masius,  in  about  lat.  37|,  on  the  river 
Khaboor  or  Chaboras.  Garzoni  says,  they  hold  that  the  devil  whom  they  worship  has  resided  in 
Moses,  Jesus,  and  Mohamed  ;  that  the  devil  has  no  name  in  their  language,  but  "  Ils  se  servent 
"  tout  au  plus  pour  le  designer  de  cette  pe>iphrase,  scheikh  mazen,  le  grand  chef."8  I  have  a 
strong  suspicion  that  these  dwellers  at  the  Ras-el-ain,  call  their  chief  Scheikh  Raz-en,  not 
Maz-en  ;  and  that  the  latter  is  a  mistake  ;  or  M-Raz-en  has  become  Mazen.  They  are  a  very 
large  and  powerful  tribe.  In  their  country  a  Chalchos,  an  Houran,  or  Urriana  are  found,  and  in 
short  the  evident  remains  of  the  Chaldean  mythos.  In  their  doctrine  the  renewed  incarnation  in 
Moses,  Jesus,  and  Mohamed,  is  obvious  ;  and  the  creative  and  destructive  power  confounded  by 
them  or  by  Garzoni.     In  lat.  about  35i  is  a  Sulimania,  and  near  it  is  a  Jebel  Judee.9 

In  the  language  of  the  Yezeedis  Yesdan  means  God,  and  it  makes  Yesdam  in  the  plural.10  This 
is  evidently  a  Hebrew  termination.  The  author  of  the  Desatir  calls  God  Yesdan.  This  raises  a 
presumption  that  he  was  of  this  tribe — Yes-dan,  Wisdom,  of  YES,  or  THS. 

11.  Cleland  states  the  adherents  of  Druidism  to  have  had  various  names,  Guydelians,  Pauli- 
cians,  Manichceans,  Leogrians,  Oughers,  u  May's-ons,  besides  others.  But  as  the  word  May's-on 
is  here  the  particular  object  of  inquiry,  I  shall  confine  myself  principally  to  it ;  and  even  upon 
that,  without  pushing  the  analysis  lower,  I  shall  only  observe  that,  in  the  sense  of  the  bough,  or 


»  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  i.  pp.  34,  35.  *  Ibid.  p.  81.  3  ibid. 

4  Hyde,  de  Rel.  Vet.  Pers.  p.  357.  *  Ibid.  p.  242. 

6  Travels  in  Mesopotamia,  8vo.,  Vol.  I.  p.  210.  7  P.  212.  8  Ibid. 

»  Buckingham,  p.  474.  »°  Ibid.  Vol.  II.  p.  109. 

11  The  word  Paganus  derives  from  Payen :  this  answers  to  our  old  word  Paynim ;  which  meant  a  worshiper  of  the 
May ;  a  Payinhom,  or  as  the  labials  P  and  M  frequently  convert,  a  Maymhom,  May's-hom,  or  Mason,  words  not  more 
essentially  different  than  Henriques  Kenrick,  Henry  Harry,  which  are  at  bottom  all  the  same  name.  The  festival 
Mauime,  in  Syria,  near  Gaza,  abolished  by  Arcadius,  and  said  to  have  taken  its  name  from  a  country  village,  was  more 
likely  a  May-festival,  or  Mai-chomme  instituted  there  by  some  of  the  Northern  military  in  the  service  of  Constantine. 
This,  however,  is  only  a  slight  conjecture.     Cleland's  Attempt  to  restore  Celtic  Lit.  p.  121. 

4y2 


716  TEMPLARS   RESUMED. 

office  of  justice,  (the  thyrsus  or  the  wand  of  the  Magician  or  Druid  which  Cleland  shews  to  have 
been  identical,)  the  word  May  is  primitive  to  the  month  of  May,  to  Maia  the  Goddess  of  Justice, 
to  Majestas,  and  to  the  proper  name  among  the  Romans,  of  Mains,  Magus  or  Mqjius.  Consi- 
dering too,  that  the  May  (May  Pole)  was  eminently  the  great  sign  of  Druidism,  as  the  Cross  was 
of  Christianity,  is  there  any  thing  forced  or  far-fetched  in  the  conjecture,  that  the  adherents  of 
Druidism  should  take  the  name  of  Men  of  the  May,  or  May's-ons  ?  Here  the  on  stands  for 
homme,  as  it  does  in  the  very  politest  French  to  this  day,  on  dit  for  homme  dit ;  or,  as  anciently, 
Preudon  for  Preud-homme,  as  may  be  seen  on  the  tomb  of  one  of  the  high  constables  of  France.1 
Fx-ee  Mason  is  Ph-re — Ph  the  Coptic  emphatic  article  and  re  the  sun,  Mason  of  the  sun.  Re 
is  roi,  rex,  rai,  ray,  whence  Ph-aroah.  Cleland  observes2  that  the  Druids  taught  the  doctrines  of 
an  overruling  providence,  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul :  that  they  had  also  their  Lent,  their 
Purgatory,  their  Paradise,  their  Hell,  their  Sanctuaries,  and  the  similitude  of  the  May  Pole  in 

FORM    TO    THE    CROSS,3     &C,  &C. 

From  Cleland  I  learn  that  in  Celtic  Sab  means  wise,  whence  Saba  and  Sabasius,   no  doubt  wise 
in  the  stars.     From  this  comes  the  Sab-bath  or  day  dedicated  to  Wisdom,  and  the  Sabbat,  a  spe- 
cies of  French  Masonry,4  an  account  of  which  maybe  seen  in   Dulaure's   History  of  Paris.5 
Sunday  was  the  day  of  instruction  of  the  Druids,  whence  it  was  called  Sabs,  from  the  preachment 
of  the  Sabs  or  Sages  or  Wise,  Sagart  sacerdos.6 

The  discovery  of  this  meaning  in  the  word  Sab,  supplies  a  link  which  seemed  wanting  in  the 
chain.  And  I  now  beg  my  reader,  by  means  of  the  index,  to  review  and  to  reconsider  the 
different  passages  where  the  word  Sabaean  or  Saba  is  used,  and  he  will  instantly  see  how  it  sup- 
ports my  system  in  several  cases.  A  practice  in  the  French  schools  supplies  a  good  commentary 
upon  this.  They  had  Theses  performed  for  the  exercise  of  the  wisdom  or  understanding  of  the 
pupils,  called  Sabbatines :  but  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Sunday,  they  were  not  performed 
on  the  Sabbath,  but  on  any  day.  The  day  sacred  to  divine  ivisdom  was  the  day  of  Sab,  and  as  it 
was  a  day  of  rest  the  word  Sab  came  to  mean  rest.  And  as  the  planetary  bodies  were  endowed 
with  wisdom,  the  disposers  of  the  affairs  of  men,  they  were  Sab,  in  the  plural  Sabaoat,  our 
Sabaoth. 

Mr.  Hammer,  to  a  certain  extent,  does  not  err  very  much  in  his  explanation  of  Gnosticism  : 
Tota  gnoseos  doctrina,  ut  vidimus  circa  duo  praecipue  puncta  versatur,  Cosmogoniam  nempe  et 
Genesin,  ut,  quod  mortalibus  scire  haud  datum  esse  videtur,  quomodo  mundus  hie  genitus  sit,  et 
quomodo  per  Genesin  continuam  conservetur,  indagaretur. 

Of  the  earliest  well-recorded  Lodge  of  Freemasons  which  I  have  met  with,  Mr.  Hammer  gives 
the  following  very  interesting  account :  Majorem  merentur  fidem,  quae  de  prima  aedis  architec- 
tonica  seu  domus  salomonicce  institutione  ex  historicis  arabicis  referimus,  et  cum  nullum  testimo- 
nium historicum  nobis  innotuerit,  quod  melius  instituto  architectonico  congruat,  cedem  illam 
sapientics  (Darol-hikmet)  quam  Hakemus  in  fine  saeculi  undecimi  Cahirae  fundavit,  reveram  primam 
sraiQiav  (Lodge)  architectonicam  fuisse  credimus,  quam  historiae  testentur.  Erat  autem  haec 
aedes  sapientiae  (ut  ex  Macrisio  discimus)  academia  quaedam,  in  qua  ad  ostentum  omnes  Philoso- 
phise et  Mathesios  praecepta  tradebantur  regalibus  divitiis  aucta,  et  frequens  studiosorum  omnis 


1  Cleland's  Attempt  to  revive  Celtic  Lit.  p.  122.  2  Ibid.  p.  102. 

L'Escalopier  suggests  a  curious  etymological  conjecture.  His  words  are  these :  Pro  Heso,  quidem  Heum,  non- 
nulli  Esum  sine  aspiratione  substituunt,  vel  Jesum  sub  Hesi  nomine  cultum  volunt  futili  commento.  Cap.  v.  Cleland, 
ib  p.  103.    He  observes  that  Kruys  means  a  cross  in  the  Celtic  tongue. 

4  P.  44.  5  vol.  VIII.  p.  90.  6  Clel.  Spec.  p.  95. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER   VI.    SECTION    11.  ^YJ 

generis,  et  sexus  catervis.  Praeter  hanc  autem  publicam  doctrinam  arcana  etiam  ibidem  disci- 
plina  vigebat,  cujus  varii  erant  gradus,  per  quos  candidatus  deductus,  in  ultimo  nihil  credere  et 
omnia  facere  licere  docebatur.  *  Now  I  beg  my  reader  to  observe,  that  this  Lodge  of  Freemasons 
was  called  the  Lodge  of  Solomon  or  of  wisdom,  and  that  it  was  founded  by  the  Battanean  (query 
Buddaean,  Ishmaelian  Hakem,  i.  e.  ED3I7  Hkm  or  the  wise,  and  that  it  taught  the  mathematics, 
and  besides  this  that  certain  secret  doctrines  were  taught  there,  and,  among  other  things,  it  was 
taught  nihil  credere.  Now,  Mr.  Hammer's  object  being  to  run  down  the  Masons  and  Carbonari 
in  every  possible  way,  I  consider  a  little  before  I  construe  these  words,  and  I  go  to  the  authority 
of  Faustus,  of  the  Manichaean,  for  an  explanation,  as  I  find  it  was  also  their  doctrine,  according 
to  the  account  of  their  enemies  ;  but  I  find  they  say  it  was  nihil  credere,  except  after  careful  exami- 
nation, and  unless  it  was  consistent  with  the  moral  attributes  of  God,  and  the  moral  fitness  of 
things  ;  and  they  severely  censured  the  Papists  for  believing  without  inquiring  or  using  their 
understandings.  The  next  words  omnia  facere  licere,  must  in  a  similar  manner  be  qualified.  As 
they  are  given  without  qualification,  they  are  most  clearly  nothing  but  a  repetition  of  one  of  the  old 
calumnies  propagated  against  the  Gnostics  1500  years  ago,  and  repeated  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Reeves 
in  the  last  century, — such  as  that  all  heretics  eat  children.2 

Tn  the  school  of  Hakem,  at  Cairo,  (what  does  the  word  Cairo  mean,  and  how  ought  it  to  be 
spelt  ?)  we  readily  recognise  the  school  of  Pythagoras,  with  its  secret  numbers  and  its  mathesios, 
which  in  a  later  day  was  succeeded  by  the  Esseniens. 

The  striking  similarity  between  Masonry  and  Pythagoreanism  has  been  well  pointed  out  by  Mr. 
Clinch  in  his  Essays  on  Masonry. 3  The  best  account  of  Masonry  which  I  have  seen  is  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Londinensis  in  voce  Masonry  :  though,  as  every  Mason  must  see,  it  is  not  correct, 
and  particularly  respecting  the  York  Masons. 

I  think  it  may  be  discerned  that  there  were  formerly  several  lodges  of  Freemasons  in  Britain, 
whose  origin  cannot  be  traced  :  but  perfectly  independent  of  each  other,  though  now  united  under 
one  head,  the  Duke  of  Sussex — the  old  Lodge  at  York,  now  extinct,  being  clearly  the  oldest,  as 
far  as  can  be  traced. 

The  Chaldeans  are  found  in  Scotland,  under  the  name  of  Culdees  or  Chaldees,4  and  the  last 
notice  I  have  of  them  is  about  the  year  900,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter's  at  York.5  My  reader  will 
not  fail  to  observe  the  notice  in  one  of  the  above  passages  of  Mr.  Hammer's  of  the  emblems,  &c, 
found  in  Scoticis  ;  and  if  he  know  any  thing  of  the  history  of  Masonry  he  will  know  that  popular 
prejudice  has  supposed  Freemasonry  to  have  been  invented  in  Scotland,  and  to  have  travelled 
thence  to  France  with  the  Stewart  refugees.  That  the  Scotch  refugee  Masons  might  establish 
lodges  in  France  I  think  very  probable ;  but  they  were  not  then  new  ;  though  perhaps  they  might 
not  be  numerous  or  much  known. 


1  Mines  de  l'Orient,  Tome  VI.  p.  46.  —  Those  accounts  "are  entitled  to  greater  credit  concerning  the.,  first 
Masonic  institution  of  a  temple  or  house  of  Solomon,  which  we  obtain  from  Arabic  historians — since  there  is  no 
historic  testimony  known  to  us  which  better  answers  to  a  Masonic  institution  than  that  House  of  Wisdom  (Darol- 
hikmet)  which  Hakem,  in  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  built  at  Cairo,  esteemed,  we  believe,  to  have  been  the  first 
Masonic  brotherhood  (Lodge)  which  histories  attest.  But  there  was  a  House  of  Wisdom,  (as  we  learn  from  Macrisius,) 
a  certain  academy  adorned  with  regal  riches,  full  of  the  studious  of  every  extraction,  and  of  multitudes  of  the  sex,  in 
which  all  the  precepts  of  philosophy  and  of  the  mathematics  were  taught.  But  besides  this  public  instruction  there 
prevailed  in  the  same  place  a  secret  doctrine,  of  which  there  were  various  grades,  through  which  the  pupil  being  led, 
he  was  ultimately  taught  to  believe  nothing,  and  that  it  was  lawful  to  do  all  things." 

8  The  Templars  have  been  vindicated  from  the  calumnies  of  Mr.  Hammer,  by  Mons.  Raynoard,  in  the  Journal  des 
Savans,  for  March,  1819. 

3  Vide  Anthologia  Hibernica,  for  1 794.  4  See  Celtic  Druids.  *  Notitia  Mon. 


718  MASONS. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Masons  were  Druids,  Culidei,  or  Chaldei,  and  Casideeans.  The 
Chaldaeans  are  traced  downward  to  Scotland  and  York,  and  the  Masons  backwards  from  this  day 
to  meet  the  Culidei  at  York.  It  has  been  observed  that  the  Masons,  and  particularly  the  Tem- 
plars, always  held  their  lodges  or  chapters  under  the  crypts  of  the  Cathedrals  :  of  this  I  entertain 
no  doubt.  From  a  masonic  document  now  in  my  possession,  I  can  prove  that  no  very  long 
time  ago  the  Chaldees  at  York  were  Freemasons,  that  they  constituted  the  Grand  Lodge  of 
England,  and  that  they  held  their  meetings  in  the  crypt,  under  the  grand  Cathedral  of  that  city. 
The  circular  chapter  house  did  very  well  for  ordinary  business,  but  the  secret  mysteries  were 
carried  on  in  the  crypts.  I  think  it  is  very  probable  that  the  Gnostic  doctrines  were  held  among 
the  select  heads  of  all  orders  of  monks. 

Though  it  be  very  true,  as  Mr.  Hammer  says,  that  the  Templars  held  their  Lodges  or  Chapters 
in  the  crypts  of  the  churches,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  all  the  churches  in  which  Gnostic 
effigies  are  found  belonged  to  the  Templars.  These  Gnostic  emblems  are  found  in  numbers  of 
churches,  of  which  the  records  are  quite  perfect,  and  shew  that  with  them  the  Templars  never 
had  any  concern,  and  which  were  built  long  before  the  Templars  are  said  to  have  existed  with  us. 
These  effigies  prove  the  identity  of  Papism  and  Gnosticism,  for  I  cannot  for  a  moment  credit  the 
assertion,  that  they  were  placed  on  these  buildings  by  Gnostic  Freemasons  without  the  consent  of 
their  employers. 

J  2.  The  Chaldees  or  Masons  having  come  to  Britain  before  the  establishment  of  the  Papal  power 
here,  of  course  it  happened  that  when  the  Romish  Church  obtained  the  command,  it  found  them 
(the  monks,  "Xp7}$iavoi,  Chreesti&ns  probably)  in  possession  of  monasteries,  but  in  some  respects 
differing  from  itself.  But  it  did  not  burn  them  as  heretics,  it  only  seized  the  monasteries,  leaving 
them  a  corner  or  retired  place  in  the  church,  where  they  continued  to  perform  their  own  ceremo- 
nies and  religious  rites.  And  they  continued  thus  to  perpetuate  their  order  and  religious  service, 
for  many  hundred  years,  along  with  the  Romish  monks.  They  had  only  the  three  Jewish  and  old 
Mithraitic,  and  perhaps  Buddhic  sacraments — the  eucharist  or  sacrifice  of  bread  and  wine,  the 
ordination  of  priests,  and  baptism.  They  kept  their  vernal  or  paschal  festival  according  to  the 
Eastern  or  Jewish  time  ;  and,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  respectable  Presbyterian 
Jamieson  to  prove  to  the  contrary,  I  think  that  these  monks,  like  their  monkish  ancestors  in 
Tibet,  had  a  hierarchy.  I  have  no  doubt  of  it ;  they  were  nothing  but  Druids.  They  continued 
to  enjoy  their  Druidical  College  of  Iona  or  Columkil,  along  with  the  Romish  monks,  from  the 
most  remote  antiquity,  till  they,  their  monastery,  and  their  ancient  library,  were  destroyed,  as  far 
as  it  was  in  the  power  of  the  disciples  of  John  Knox,  at  the  Reformation. 

The  Eucharist  spoken  of  above  was  the  sacrifice  or  feast  of  bread  and  wine ;  and  I  apprehend 
the  reason  why  the  wine  instead  of  water  was  taken  at  this  sacrifice,  by  those  who  never  took 
wine  on  any  other  occasion,  was  the  same  as  that  which  causes  the  Brahmins,  (who  never  eat 
flesh  at  any  other  time,)  in  the  Paschal  festival  or  the  Yajna  sacrifice,  to  eat  the  flesh  of  the  lamb. 
It  was  to  be  a  feast,  that  is,  an  indulgence  in  something  more  than  usual — or  it  would  not  have 
been  a  feast.     All  sacrifices  were  feasts. 

"  The  Dionysiacs  of  Asia  Minor  were  undoubtedly  an  association  of  architects  and  engineers, 
"  who  had  the  exclusive  privilege  of  building  temples,  stadia,  and  theatres,  under  the  mysterious 
"  tutelage  of  Bacchus,  and  distinguished  from  the  uninitiated  or  profane  inhabitants  by  the  science 
"  which  they  possessed,  and  by  many  private  signs  and  tokens,  by  which  they  recognized  each 
"  other.  This  association  came  into  Ionia  from  Syria,  into  which  country  it  had  come  from  Persia, 
"  along  with  that  style  of  architecture  which  we  call  Grecian." 1      The  style  here  spoken  of,  I 

1  Robison's  History  of  a  Conspiracy  against  Government,  &c,  Chap.  i.  p.  21,  1798. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER   VI.    SECTION  3.  719 

apprehend,  is  that  of  the  temples  at  Paestum,  the  Parthenon,  and  the  temples,  which  may  be  seen  in 
Col.  Tod's  History  of  Rajahpoutana.  These  Masons  were  the  builders  of  Solomon's  temple,  and 
they  procured  the  wood  Almug  from  India,  whence  they  and  their  art  came.  As  Robison  says, 
they  came  into  Syria  from  Persia.  They  were  the  ancestors  of  our  Freemasons.  The  temple  at 
Jerusalem,  we  know  from  Josephus,  was  of  the  Corinthian  order.  This  had  the  capitals  of  its 
columns  ornamented  with  the  Ram's  horn  and  the  eternal  Phoinix  tree. 
Speaking  of  the  initiation  of  Moses  by  the  Egyptian  priests,  Schiller  says, 

"  These  ceremonies  were  connected  with  the  mysterious  images  and  hieroglyphics.  And  the 
"  hidden  truths  so  carefully  concealed  under  them,  and  used  in  their  rites,  were  all  comprised 
"  under  the  name  mysteries,  such  as  had  been  used  in  the  temples  of  Isis  and  Serapis,  which  were 
"  the  models  of  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis  and  Samothrace,  and  in  more  modern  times  gave  rise 
"  to  the  order  of  Freemasonry" 

I  doubt  not  that  what  Mr.  Schiller  says  is  true,  with  one  exception :  the  mysteries  were  not 
the  origin  of  Masonry;  they  were  Masonry  itself:  for  Masonry  was  a  part  of  them,  and  every 
part,  except  that  which  my  Masonic  engagements  prevent,  I  will  explain  before  I  finish  this 
work. 

We  know  very  well  that  there  were  no  arches  in  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  that  is,  radiated 
arches ;  but  we  also  know  that  there  were  vaults  in  which  there  were  great  treasuries,  (which 
were  said  to  have  been  concealed  by  Solomon  and  his  successors,)  and  from  which,  whoever  placed 
them  there,  the  subsidies  to  neighbouring  States,  much  too  large  for  the  temporary  means  of 
Judea  to  have  supplied,  were  drawn  in  later  times.  These  arches,  I  apprehend,  were  of  the 
nature  of  that  of  the  treasury  of  Atreus  at  Messina,  and  of  the  Cupola  of  Komilmar,  described  by 
Col.  Tod.  If  a  person  wanted  to  open  such  an  arch,  he  would  use  a  rope,  putting  it  round  the  cap, 
and  pulling  it  aside  ;  if  he  wanted  to  open  a  key- stoned  arch,  he  would  not  use  a  rope,  but  a 
hammer.  When  the  key-stoned  arch  was  discovered  it  superseded  the  ancient  one.  This  is  one 
of  the  parts  of  my  subject  on  which  I  do  not  choose  to  say  all  I  know. 

The  form  of  the  church  of  the  holy  Sepulchre  at  Jerusalem  is  round.  Vide  Adamnus  de  locis 
Sanctis  apud  Acta  Sanctorum. x  In  that  work  there  is  a  cut  of  the  old  church  at  Jerusalem.  The 
old  part  of  the  round  church  at  Cambridge  is  of  Saxon  architecture — therefore  of  a  style  older 
than  the  Templars  ;  in  fact,  a  corrupted  Grecian  or  Roman  style.  There  was  a  domus  templi  at 
Cambridge,  and  it  was  probably  St.  John's  College.  This  Saxon  round  church,  and  the  adjoining 
College  of  St.  John's,  called  in  old  books  the  house  of  the  Templars,  are  exactly  similar  to  the 
house  of  Solomon  and  the  College  of  Education  of  Hakem  at  Cairo.  The  church  at  Maplestead, 
in  Essex,  and  in  the  Temple  in  London,  are  round.  In  the  latter  there  have  formerly  been,  as  is 
evident,  only  twelve  arches,  each  containing  six  Stalla,  or  Stalls,  or  Cells,  making  seventy-two  in 
all,  and  six  smaller  and  inner  arches,  under  each  of  which  probably  sat  two  knights,  twelve  in  all, 
at  the  round  table.  I  entertain  little  doubt  that  St.  John's  College  is  a  college  of  the  Culidei, 
in  short  of  the  ancient  Druids,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  which  has  descended  to  us,  in  any  thing 
like  integrity. 

There  is  something  about  the  circular  churches  of  the  Templars,  which  seems  to  me  to  be  very 
remarkable.  We  have  only  four  in  England  I  believe  j  and  they  are  all  round.  This  form,  we  are 
told,  was  adopted  in  imitation  of  the  round  church  at  Jerusalem.  But  how  came  the  church  at 
Jerusalem  to  be  round ;  and  how  came  these  Christian  knights  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  the 
detested  Jewish  temple  ? 


1  Ord.  St.  Bened.  Sect.  iii.  Part  ii.  praef.  p.  505. 


720  MASONS. 

The  intimate  connexion  between  the  Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Templars  is  well 
known,  and  it  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  they  are  both  dedicated  to  St.  John  the  Baptist. 
Their  churches  are  mostly  round,  and  the  baptisteries  the  same.  The  followers  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist  are  called  Nazareens,  Mandaites,  and  Iohnites.  We  must  not  forget  the  Iohannes,  Butta, 
and  Deus.  Mr.  Britton  has  collected  every  thing  which  is  known  respecting  our  circular  churches, 
but  still  he  is  obliged  to  leave  them  involved  in  very  great  difficulties.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion 
that  the  Templars  took  their  name  from  the  Gnostic  doctrine,  that  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  was 
the  emblem  of  the  universe,  as  1  have  before  suggested,  which  had  a  close  alliance  with  the  Jewish 
Cabala.  Each  chapter  consisted  of  twelve  elect,  perfect,  or  initiated,  past  masters,  after  the  twelve 
signs — and  seventy-two  initiated,  after  the  Dodecans,  the  symbols  of  the  universe. 

The  Templars  had  no  objection  to  the  Jewish  temple,  for  the  same  reason  that  the  Mohamedan, 
the  Jew,  and  the  Christian,  all  sit  down  together,  as  I  have,  with  great  pleasure  experienced, 
at  a  lodge  or  chapter  of  Freemasons.  And  I  take  the  liberty  of  telling  the  Rossicrucians  and 
Templars,  that  if  there  be  any  thing  in  their  ceremonies  to  prevent  this,  it  is  a  heresy,  and  con- 
trary to  the  spirit  of  their  orders.  Let  them  remember  this  :  without  Jew,  that  is,  Judaite,  there 
is  no  Christian,  without  both  Jew  and  Christian  there  is  no  Mohamedan.  The  Christians,  that  is, 
Xprt$iavoi  of  Malabar  and  Coromandel,  are  founded  on  the  Ioudi  of  Trichinopoly. 

I  now  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  some  curious  circumstances  attending  the  number  ten.  It  is 
described  in  Latin  by  the  X,  which  X  in  Greek  stands  for  600,  and  is  one  of  the  monograms  of 
Christ.  It  is  also  one  of  the  monograms  of  Buddha  of  India.  Its  name  in  Greek  is  Iota,  in 
Hebrew  Iod,  and  in  old  Irish  Iodha,  and  gives  name  to  the  sacred  tree  called  with  us  Yew,  evi- 
dently the  leuo  of  Diodorus  Siculus.  The  tenth  letter  of  the  Hebrew  which  stands  for  ten  is 
»  iod,  and  this  is  commonly  written  for  the  name  of  God  by  the  Hebrews.  The  name  of  the  pole- 
star  was,  with  the  Chaldeans,  wiv  iuta,  and  with  the  Arabians  it  is  called  the  star  oijude'  r  ^.a. 
With  the  Tibetians  the  word  for  ten  was  Lamb,  and  was  described  by  an  X ;  and  in  the  West  the 
person  called  Christ  and  described  by  the  monogram  X  was  also  called  a  Lamb,  the  Lamb  of  God 
— and  was  described  by  a  Lamb  carrying  a  cross  in  his  paw,  and  by  the  head  of  the  sun  or  a  solar 
glory.  I  beg  my  reader  to  look  back  to  several  parts  of  this  work,  and  to  reconsider  what  is 
said  respecting  the  Arga,  and  the  Nabli  or  navel  of  the  earth,  of  the  Ie  of  Delphi  and  Moses,  and  re- 
specting Jason  or  Ies,  or  in  Greek  T73J-0V  or  Jesus  in  Latin,  and  the  Hellenic  worship  ;  to  recol- 
lect how  Moses  was  educated  by  the  Helleniens,  both  in  Egypt  and  at  Sinai,  and  that  the  church 
of  the  holy  sepulchre,  of  the  God  Ies-«£,  who  was  slain  and  after  three  days  rose  again,  was  built 
by  Hellen  the  daughter  of  Coilus.  Then  let  him  recollect  that  at  this  church,  to  this  day,  the 
death  of  the  God  is  lamented  with  the  same  cries,  and  his  resurrection  celebrated  with  precisely 
the  same  ceremonies  as  those  of  Tamuz  or  Adonis,  as  1  shall  shew  in  my  next  book.  All  this 
considered,  he  will  no  longer  be  surprised  to  find  the  church  of  the  holy  sepulchre  built  in  a  cir- 
cular form,  nor  that,  in  the  centre  of  it,  to  this  day,  is  the  Nabli  or  navel  of  the  earth,  as  is  de- 
scribed by  Dr.  Clarke.2  Here  we  have  the  union  of  the  worship  of  the  Linga  and  Yoni,  and  the 
reason  why  the  Templars  built  all  their  churches  round,  and  why  they  became  the  defenders  of 
unfortunate  females. 

I  consider  the  fact  of  the  superstition  of  the  Nabli,  the  Navel,  the  Omphale,  the  Umbilicus, 
still  being  continued  at  the  church  of  the  holy  sepulchre,  with  all  its  attendant  circumstances,  as 
decisive  a  proof  as  can  be  imagined  of  the  continuance  of  the  ancient  superstition,  and  of  the  re- 


1  Vail.  Col.  Vol.  V.  p.  196.  s  Travels,  Ch.  vi.  p.  228.  Ed.  8vo. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VI.   SECTION  13.  721 

union  of  the  worship  of  the  Linga  and  Yoni.  1  beg  my  reader's  attention  to  the  Tamuz  in  the 
last  page,  to  recollect  the  exclamation  in  the  Yajna  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb,  ivhen  will  it  be  that  the 
Saviour  will  appear !  in  both  India  and  Western  Syria,  and  the  same  adoration  of  the  Lamb,  the 
Saviour,  which  I  shall  shew  was  practised  among  the  Carnutes  of  Gaul. 

When  all  this  mysticism  has  been  well  considered,  and  also  the  singular  way  in  which  the  Tem- 
plars and  red-cross  Knights  honoured  the  fair  sex,  my  reader  will  not  be  surprised,  perhaps,  to 
find,  that  the  prophecy  in  Haggai  of  Christ  and  Mohamed,  was  delivered  by  a  word  in  the  femi- 
nine gender,  mon  hmdt,  as  Mr.  Parkhurst1  has  observed.  Surely  this  is  mystical  enough.  But 
I  consider  it  as  allusive  to  the  double  worship,  and  particularly  to  that  of  the  Ishmaelites. 

We  have  seen  the  surprising  affinity  between  the  religions  of  the  Indians,  Jews,  and  Western 
nations.  Every  one  has  remarked  in  the  character  of  Constantine  the  son  of  Helena,  an  extraor- 
dinary mixture  of  Christianism  and  Heathenism — a  mixture  hitherto  quite  inexplicable.  One 
little  circumstance  I  think  lets  us  into  the  secret.  His  Christianity  was  in  substance,  though 
perhaps  in  secret,  the  ancient  Gnosticism.  I  think  the  fact  that  he  dedicated  his  magnificent  new 
cathedral  at  Byzantium  or  Nova  Roma  built  on  seven  hills,  neither  to  God,  nor  to  Christ,  nor  to  the 
Trinity,  but  to  the  Sancta  Sophia  the  holy  wisdom,  lets  us  into  the  secret.  It  was  to  the  Lo^os 
Rasit,  Wisdom — the  creative  power,  by  the  name  of  So<£>/a  Sophia. 

13.  Col.  Wilford  notices  a  tribe  of  Battenians,  that  is  Buddhaeans,  a  tribe  named  by  Ptolemy 
long  before  the  Hegira,  and  whom  we  have  proved  to  be  the  Ishmaelians  who  emigrated  to  the 
West.  The  people  of  this  tribe,  the  Colonel  says,  were  followers  of  Salivahana  before  they  turned 
Musselmans. 2  If  my  theory  be  well-founded,  this  accounts  for  Hakem  being  the  tenth  Avatar  or 
Salivahana,  and  we  may  see  why  they  would  be  among  the  first  Mohamedans,  as  he  was  believed 
to  be  a  Vicramaditya  or  the  tenth  incarnation.  This,  perhaps,  accounts  for  the  early  conversion 
of  the  Afghans  to  Mohamedism.  Col.  Wilford  says,  "  Bhats  or  Bhatties,  who  live  between 
"  Dilli  (I  suppose  Delhi)  and  the  Panjab,  insist  that  they  are  descended  from  a  certain  king, 
"  called  Salivahana,  who  had  three  sons,  Bhat,  Maha,  or  Moye,  and  Thamaz  or  Thomas.  Moye 
"  settled  at  Pattyaleh,  and  either  was  a  Thanovi  or  Thawovi,  or  had  a  son  so  called.  When 
"  Amir-Timur  invaded  India,  he  found  at  Toglocpoor,  to  the  N.  W.  of  Dilli,  a  tribe  called  Soloun 
"  or  Salivan,3  who  were  Thonovis  or  Manichaeans."4  After  this  the  Colonel  goes  on  to  shew 
that  on  the  rocks  of  Gualior  is  a  group  of  thirteen  figures  called,  by  Christians,  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  now  very  much  defaced.  He  then  states  that  the  Hindoos  consider  Manes  to  be  a  Sali- 
vahana, and  he  observes  that  Manes  had  twelve  apostles  and  three  disciples,  exalted  above 

THE    REST,    CALLED    BUDDHA    OR    ADDAS,  HERMAS    OR    HERMIAS,  AND    THOMAS,   whom   he  Supposes 

to  be  the  same  with  the  sons  of  Salivahana,  called  Bhat,  Maha,  and  Thamaz.  He  then  goes  on 
to  say,  that  there  was  a  Christian  monastery  at  Sirhind,  and  monks  who  brought  silkworms  to 
Constantinople  in  the  time  of  Justinian,  in  the  seventh  century.  But  the  most  important  part  of 
Wilford's  information  consists  in  his  observation,  that  the  Bhats  existed  as  a  tribe  long  before  the 
time  of  Manes  or  probably  the  Christian  sera,  since  they  are  noticed  as  a  tribe  by  Ptolemy.  When 
I  look  on  the  map  and  consider  what  I  have  written  respecting  the  Jews,  the  tribe  of  Youde,  &c. 
&c,  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  that  the  origin  of  the  Manichaeans  is  found  here  as  well  as  the  Bat- 
tanians  or  Ishmaelians  and  Templars  of  Syria. 5     The  Jewish  Sanhedrim  consisted  of  seventv-two 


1  In  voce  inn  hmd,  II.  *  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  221. 

3  I  have  no  doubt  in  Soloun  we  have  another  Solomon.  4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  IX.  p.  212. 

s  We  have  the  same  mythos  as  this  which  we  have  seen  in  the  kingdom  of  Oude,  in  part  repeated  in  the  Carnatic  at 
Trichinopoly. 

4z 


722  MASONS    CONTINUED. 

persons.  It  had  three  presidents,  but  whether  they  were  included  in  the  seventy-two  is  not 
known.  The  first  President  was  called  >£>j  nsi,  the  second  po  sgn,  or  \n  din  na  bit  in  ab  or  Ab- 
bitdin,  that  is  Abbot,  Father  of  the  house  of  wisdom,  din  or  don,  and  the  third  DDn  hkm,  the  wise. 
Calmet's  Diet,  in  voce  San,  and  in  voce  Sagan.  Moses  was  a  Sagan  to  Aaron.  This  is  the  Latin 
Sagax  and  Scandinavian  Saga. 

The  three  first  disciples  of  Manes  were  Thomas,  Addas  or  Buddhas,  as  Cyril  writes  the  word 
Addas,  and  Hermes.  The  three  shew  the  nature  of  the  mythos  very  clearly,  and  the  explanation 
of  Addas,  by  Cyril,  shews  what  was  meant  by  the  God  and  King,  of  Western  Syria,  and  also  of 
Rajah-poutan  or  Eastern  Syria,  being  called  Ad,  and  Adad,  as  Ben-adad,  &c.  He  is  said  to  have 
sent  Thomas  into  Egypt,  and  Addas  into  Scythia  to  preach. 

The  word  Manes  has  been  derived  by  Usher  from  the  name  of  a  king  of  Israel  called  Menahem, l 
and  by  the  LXX.  Mava^,  which  has  the  meaning,  as  he  says,  of  Paraclete  or  Comforter,  or  ra- 
ther, I  should  say,  Saviour.  This  at  once  lets  us  into  the  secret— a  new  incarnation  of  Buddha, 
the  general  mythos — born  from  the  side  of  his  mother,  and  put  to  a  violent  death — crucified  by  a 
king  of  Persia.  The  teacher  with  his  twelve  apostles  on  the  rocks  of  Gualior  at  once  shews  that 
he  was  not  a  copyist  of  the  Jesus  of  Western  Syria.  2 

The  mistakes  of  the  fathers  respecting  Manes,  or,  more  correctly,  the  Manichaean  doctrine,  are 
wonderful.  One  says  that  the  doctrine  was  first  preached  by  a  man  called  Scythian  in  the  country 
of  the  Saracens  in  Arabia,  another  says  he  was  of  the  race  of  the  Brahmins  and  finds  him  at  a 
castle  called  Arabion,  on  a  river  called  Stranga,  in  Mesopotamia.  These  are  nothing  but  Indian 
Scythia  or  Indian  Arabia,  the  Doab,  the  Ganges ;  and  the  Saracens  are  the  Suraceni.  Another 
makes  him  to  have  come  from  Judea.  This  is  the  Indian  Judia.  Another  says  his  doctrine  was 
first  preached  in  Egypt  by  one  P-apis.  This  is  nothing  but  Apis  with  the  Egyptian  emphatic 
article  Pi-apis.  The  work  called  the  acts  of  Archelaus  is  generally  supposed  to  be  a  gross  forgery. 
If  my  reader  will  consult  the  first  three  chapters  of  Beausobre's  history,  bearing  in  mind  the  ex- 
planation which  I  have  given  of  the  mythos  of  Manes,  the  whole  will  unravel  itself  and  the  diffi- 
culties will  explain  themselves. 

When  a  Manichaean  came  over  to  the  orthodox  he  was  required  to  curse  his  former  friends  in 
the  following  terms  :  "  I  curse  Zarades 3  who,  Manes  said,  had  appeared  as  a  God  before  his  time 
among  the  Indians  and  Persians,  and  whom  he  calls  the  sun.  I  curse  those  who  say  Christ  is 
the  sun,  and  who  make  prayers  to  the  sun,  and  to  the  moon,  and  to  the  stars,  and  pay  attention 
to  them  as  if  they  were  really  Gods,  and  who  give  them  titles  of  most  lucid  Gods,  and  who  do 
not  pray  to  the  true  God,  only  towards  the  East,  but  who  turn  themselves  round,  following  the 
"  motions  of  the  sun  with  their  innumerable  supplications.  I  curse  those  persons  who  say  that 
"  Zarades  and  Budas  and  Christ  and  Manichaeus  and  the  sun  are  all  one  and  the  same."  By 
Zarades  is  evidently  meant  Zoroaster,  and  the  whole  shews  us  that  the  orthodox  believed  Mani  to 
be  both  the  sun,  and,  as  I  have  said  I  believed  him  to  be,  Buddha  of  India — the  tenth  incarnation 
of  Buddha,  whose  followers  arose  on  the  North  of  India,  and  became  very  numerous,  but  were  not 
able  to  overcome  the  Brahmins,  the  followers  of  Salivahana. 

Col.  Wilford,  in  p.  218,  gives  us  another  account  of  Manes ;  that  he  was  called  Terebinthus 
and  his  father  Scythianus,  and  that  Manes  propagated  his  doctrines  in  Tartary.  We  must  recol- 
lect that  Manes  is  said,  by  Christian  authors,  to  have  fled  from  the  West  to  India ;  and,  Col. 
Wilford  tells  us,  the  name  of  the  tree  called  Terebinthus  is  not  to  be  found  any  where  except 
beyond  the  Indus.     It  is  the  tree  sacred  to  Buddha,  on  which  the  Manichasans  held  Christ  to  have 


u 


1  Usher's  Annal.  Vol.  I.  An.  3032,  p.  m.  82  5  2  Kings  xv.  14,  16. 

s  Beausob.  Hist.  Manich.  Tome  I.  p.  71.  3  Cotelerii,  Pat.  Ap.  I.  p.  543. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION   13.  723 

been  crucified. l  See  my  figures,  Nos.  12, 13, 14.  This  story  of  a  Terebinthus  going  to  India,  as  told 
by  Epiphanius,  is  like  all  the  remainder  of  these  stories,  and  can  deceive  none  but  those  who  are 
determined  to  be  deceived.  How  absurd  is  it  to  suppose  that  a  sect  of  Christian  heretics  should 
have  fled  to  the  East,  and  have  returned,  bearing  Indian  names,  like  those  above  !  The  fact  was, 
the  fathers  found  them  coming  from  the  East,  and  fraudulently  or  credulously  assumed,  that  they 
must  have  first  gone  from  the  West.  Perhaps  they  never  suspected  it  possible  for  them  to  have 
arisen  in  the  East. 

Free-masonary  is  known  to  be  founded  on  principles  of  universal  benevolence,  and  not  to  be 
confined  to  one  class  or  to  one  religion.     I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  it  is  so  constituted,  that 
although  it  would  not  refuse  to  receive  a  simple  Deist,  no  test  being  required,  yet  all  its  forms, 
ceremonies,  and  doctrines,  are  so  constituted,  as,  in  a  very  peculiar  manner,  to  be  applicable  at 
the  same  time  to  the  doctrines  of  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Mohamedism.    Christianity  is  founded 
on  Judaism :  Mohamedism  on  Christianity.    Mohamedism  cannot  for  a  moment  exist  independent 
of  Christianity,  nor  Christianity  independent  of  Judaism.     We  have  seen  the  Rosy  cross  with 
eight  points  of  the  Templars,  the  Cross  of  Christ,  and  of  Manes,  and  of  Buddha,  and  the  rose  of 
Sharon,  symbols  of  the  Templars  and  of  the  Rossi-(Rosy)-crucians.     I  am  not  of  the  two  latter 
orders ;  I  have  abstained  from  becoming  a  member  of  them,  that  I  might  not  have  my  tongue  tied 
or  my  pen  restrained  by  the  engagements  I  must  have  made  on  entering  the  chapter  or  encamp- 
ment.    But  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  they  are  now  become  in  a  very  particular  manner  what 
is  called  exclusively  Christian  orders,  and  on  this  account  are  thought,  by  many  persons,  to  be 
only  a  bastard  kind  of  masons.     But  here  are  two  mistakes.     They  are  real  masons,  and  they 
ought  to  be  of  that  Christianity  which  is  found  in  India,  at  Delhi  and  at  Trichinopoly,   of  that 
universal  Christianity  or  Creestianity,  which  included  Jews,  Buddhists,  Brahmins,  Mohamedans, 
and  which,  before   I  conclude  this  work,  I  shall  shew,  was  a  sublime  and  beautiful  system — the 
secret  system  of  the  religion  often  alluded  to  by  the  Christian  fathers.    I  am  now  only  speaking  of  the 
Rossicrucians  and  Templars.     This  at  once,  and  very  naturally,  accounts  for  the  Knights  Templars 
being  Christians,  and  uniting  with  the  Battanians  or  Ishmaelians  or  As-chas-dim  or  Assassins. 
These  were  the  Chaldaei  of  Daniel,  of  the  Romans,  in  the  time  of  the  early  emperors,  called 
Chaldaei,  Mathematici,  Architectonici,  and  who  were  banished   and  persecuted  by  them.     They 
were  a  species  of  Sodalitates  or  a  secret  order,  of  which  the  government  became  jealous.     They 
are  the  Culdees  of  Iona  and  of  the  Crypt  of  York  Minster,  where  the  grand  Masonic  Lodge  of 
England  was  held ;  they  are  the  Gnostic  Manichaeans,  who  possessed  the  round  churches  at  the 
Temple  in  London,  Maplestead  in  Essex,  at  Northampton  and  Cambridge,  and  who  in  time  became 
the  Templars.     In  what  other  way  the  Templars  could  become  possessed  of  these  churches  I  do  not 
know.    Perhaps  they  might  be  built  or  more  probably  rebuilt  by  them  ;  but  the  Saxon  order  of  archi- 
tecture in  the  church  at  Cambridge  shews  a  date  before  the  usually  supposed  existence  of  the  Order 
of  Templars  in  England.     The  Templars  in  other  countries  did  not  build  their  churches  round, 
but  perhaps  they  found  them  here  in  the  hands  of  their  brethren  the  Culdees,  and  they  coalesced 
with  their  brethren  whom  they  found  here,  when  they  brought  their  doctrines  from  the  crusades. 
Thus  they  are  found  in  the  crypt  of  the  Cathedral  at  York.     All  our  old  establishments  of  col- 
legiate churches,  deans  and  chapters,  were  Culdee  establishments,  which  accounts  for  the  Culdees 
in  them  not  being  destroyed  by  the  Romish  church.     The  church  of  St.  Martin,  at  York,  was  built 
for  them  or  by  them,  and  this  accounts  for  an  extraordinary  pulpit  cloth  there  to  be  seen,  which  I 
shall  notice  presently.     All  the  round  chapter  houses  of  our  Cathedrals  were  built  round  for  the 


1  Asiat.  Res.  pp.  216— 218. 
4  z2 


724  MASONS    CONTINUED. 

same  reason  that  the  four  above-named  churches  were  round.  In  these  chapters  and  the  crypts, 
till  the  thirteenth  century,  the  secret  religion  was  celebrated  far  away  from  the  profane  vulgar. 
From  this  came  the  bridge  of  Ham  or  Om  corrupted  into  Cambridge,  and  Isis  and  Ox  or  Bull  of 
Oxford.  These  buildings  are,  I  think,  the  successors  of  the  Caves  of  India,  and  afterward  of  the 
cupola-formed  buildings  there,  which  we  see  in  Col.  Tod's  book, — of  the  Cyclopaean  treasury  of 
Atreus  at  Messena,  and  of  the  Labyrinths  of  which  we  read  in  Egypt,  Crete,  Italy,  &c.  These 
labyrinths  could  be  only  for  the  purposes  of  religion,  and  I  doubt  not  of  that  religion  of  the  Cy- 
clopes which  universally  prevailed.  The  underground  crypts  of  our  cathedrals  with  their  forests 
of  pillars  were  labyrinths  in  miniature. 

The  round  church  of  Jerusalem,  built  by  Helena,  the  Mystic  Helena,  (daughter  of  Coilus,) 
Mother  of  Constantine,  who  was  born  at  York ;  and  the  chapter-houses  at  York  and  at  other 
cathedrals  were  children,  grand  or  great-grand  children,  of  the  circular  Stonehenge  and  Abury  ; 
and  the  choirs  of  many  of  the  cathedrals  in  France  and  England  are  built  crooked  of  the  nave  of 
the  church,  for  the  same  reason,  whatever  that  might  be,  that  the  Druidical  temple  is  so  built  at 
Classcrniss,  in  Scotland.     Vide  Celtic  Dncids,  plate  28. 

I  think  I  have  stated  enough  to  raise  or  justify  what  the  Jesuits  would  call  a. probable  opinion, 
that  the  masonic  ceremonies  or  secrets  are  descendants  of  the  Eleusenian  Mysteries.  Every  body 
knows  the  now  ridiculous  traditionary  fancy  that  a  mason  is,  in  some  way,  marked  or  branded  or 
mutilated  before  he  can  be  admitted  into  the  order.  I  believe  this,  like  most  other  traditions,  had 
not  its  origin  from  nothing.  I  believe  the  higher  classes  of  Masons  were  originally  persons  who 
were  admitted  into  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis  and  Egypt,  and  that  they  were  Chaldaeans  and  Mathe- 
matici,  and  I  believe  that  what  the  above  tradition  of  the  branding  alluded  to,  was  Circumcision, 
and  that  they  were  circumcised.  Origen  and  Clemens  Alexandrinus  both  affirm,  that  the  secret 
learning  of  the  Egyptians  was  only  taught  to  such  persons  as  had  undergone  the  operation  of  cir- 
cumcision, for  which  reason  it  was  submitted  to  by  Pythagoras.  *  The  same  word  in  Hebrew 
means  both  initiated  ami  circumcised.  As  infants  are  admitted  into  Christianity  by  baptism,  so 
thev  were  admitted  amonir  the  initiated  bv  circumcision.     If  my  memory  do  not  deceive  me  the 

•  O  m  mm 

priests  only  of  the  Egyptians  were  circumcised ;  and  the  Tamul,  Chaldee,  or  Pushto-speaking 
priests  of  Cristna,  in  South  India,  are  circumcised ;  and  we  shall  find  the  rite,  by  and  by,  in  a 
place  where  we  little  expect  it.  Abraham,  the  Chaldean,  is  called  an  astronomer  and  a  mathema- 
tician by  Philo.*  Iu  the  twelfth  volume  of  the  Asiatic  Researches,  p.  461,  may  be  seen  an 
unit,  given  by  a  Mr.  Moorcroft,  of  a  society  in  Tibet  which  can  be  no  other  than  Free-masons. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  celebration  of  the  Gentile  mysteries  a  herald  proclaimed, 


Procul !  bine  procul  este,  profani ! 


Saint  Chrvsostom 3  savs,  when  we  celebrate  the  mysteries,  we  send  away  those  who  are  not  ini- 
tiated,  and  shut  the  doors,  a  deacon  exclaiming,  "  Far  from  hence,  ye  profane  !  close  the  doors, 
M  the  mysteries  are  about  to  begin.  Things  holy  for  the  saints ;  hence  all  dogs."  (From  some- 
thing allusive  to  this  has  probably  been  derived  the  custom  among  the  Mohamedans  of  calling 
Christians  dogs.)  M.  Dulaure,  in  his  history  of  Paris,4  has  observed,  that  the  explanation  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Eucharist  constituted  probably  the  Christian  mysteries,  and,  in 
part,  he  is  certainly  right.     But  he  might  have  added  the  Gentile  mysteries  also,  for  the  Gentile 


1  Origen,  Comment,  ad  8  Ep.  ad  Rom.;  Clemens,  Lib.  i.  p.  130;  Concordia  Xatune  et  Scripture,  Caput  t. 
Staakj*s  Hist.  Chald.  Phil  p.  796,  4to.  »  Homelia  23,  in  Matt.  '  Vol.  MIL  p.  $0. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    VI.    SKCT.     18, 

Trimurti,  I  need  not  describe  again,  and  the  Cliaristia  of  the  Ronmna  was  thl  Euohftfilt  of  •!" 
XpyS,  or  Latin  Christus — the  sacrifice  of  Pythagoras,  of  whloh  1  thill  way  more  by  and  l>\ 

In  M.  Dulaure's  8th  volume  of  the  history  of  1'aris  may  he  found,  R  very  IntfVtltlng  account  Of 
the  union  of  the  pagan  mysteries  or  crafts  of  the  ancients  with  those  of  the  Chrlltitni  In  thl 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries.  Any  person  who  has  read  this  work  with  attention  mutt  100  that 
the  mystery  or  craft  of  modern  trades  is  but  the  Raz  of  India,  all  continuing  until  thtjf  btOtmi  no 
longer  mysteries.  All  our  guilds  and  corporations  have  COOIA  from  t Itiu  nonree.  Heme  all  tin  [| 
mysterious  numbers — twelve  aldermen,  twenty-four  common  couneilnien,  &c,  rttc.  It.  nfll  blttl 
said1  that  the  Templars,  fleeing  from  the  persecution  of  Philip  It  Bilf  tooV  refuge  "i  Sootltndj 
and  that  some  apostates,  at  the  instigation  of  Robert  Bruce,  founded  thl  Order  of  Tomplan  In  that 
country.  All  this  may  be  very  true,  with  the  single  exception,  that  il-  »*  abbunl  to  <idl  them 
apostates.  They  were  evidently  emigres  bccatise  tiny  would  not  bt  apohl.al.eh,  and  tbfffl  Iftl  R0 
apostacy  in  opening  a  lodge,  and  initiating  Robert  Brace  and  otbtri  into  thl  mvtttrifff  tnd  tluib 
continuing  the  order  in  defiance  of  Philip. 

The  word  Raz,  in  India,  signified  masonry  or  mystery  Of  MOTtt  learning  or  fflfdOIRj  <<i  ,<  f§m 
emanating  from  the  sun,  as  I  have  formerly  shewn.  It  also  had  the  llgnlflcetion  of  Klngi  win  mi  I 
came  the  Raj-ah,  and  the  Rajah-pout-ans,  who,  v/ben  tiny  came  from  thl  ESatt  to  the  We.-i  v«, 
Syria  and  Egypt,  were,  for  this  reason,  RovAL-palli  or  Shepherds.  From  tbil  fMM  Mm  Raj  Oi 
Abyssinia;  and  more  to  the  West,  the  Rex,  a  EUgt,  of  Home,  and  the  Hoi  of  France,  and  "" 
person,  in  the  Roman  and  the  Kleu-.inian  mysteries,  called  a  king,  <>i  R#l  ;  bttt  who,  fa  H,- 
most  early  times,  was  a  Ras  or  person  in  whom  was  incarnate  a  ffftain  portion  ol  \>.  ....<■  Wo-.dom 
or  the  Logos.  Melchizedek  was  a  Ras,  and  an  Arche,  and  priett,  at  J  have  little  doubt  that 
all  kings  were  originally.     It  was  the  wi-  ,r  perbape  more  properly  Wtmklf)  that  made  tl. 

kings.     They  were  supposed  to  be  incarnations  of  irifdom  or  God,     '1  hie  v/a*  tl.-   • 

with  Alexander  the  Great. 

It  is  certainly  worthy  of  observation  that  in  tl.<    IT  language  of  the  , 

which  I  believe  masonry  had  its  rue,  a  mason  is  called  a  rOfy  and  hat  the,  meaning  of  mpiUw 
I  has  the  sane  meaning  as  the  rm  rat  of  Genesis,  the  hp/t,  of         M*<      1 
oral- Arch   Masons   were   the   Arcbi-tect-onici,   before  <,f  bff  or 

Arches,  the  Cydopaean  builders  of  the  onl;  Afemr  I  difiees,  at  that  time, 

It  was  not  till  comparatively  modern  times  that  private  ftr§om  h'aA  M 

-,;  .':•■     -      Ddi  .  o.'..;  darj  ere  atfll  rfrtri*/  Mai  ri  eaad  m  ana 
rere  also  framed  of  oak  timber,  6Ued  m  with  bri/ 
yet  are  from  a  few  poor  one*  which  are  left  in  England,  in  a  < 

that  nigb  civittzation  once  prevail*/: 
Cnaloaa,  tf*  GtK*ti«,  tne  M*tew*te,tt*HrM* 
Gofifcae  tMaWeags,  the  raws  of  which  now  remain  in  India,  ftemfafMh 
f«V  f  befiere,  the  nraaaiae  of  Kaavdore,  and  in  all 
rftawtrmplr  andperbapeof*  tbcpal 
of  tke  walk    Thus  at  ETna/ano*  and  Ireland  we  na. 
i  srsnat  XnsaV  and  .iff//  4rnjn*ae*€*  su  sienfa.  beat  not  liar  leant  aemear- 
mar  ejhej  ma  Mangle  pflw  ejfejMl  ^-^  *=v^j^  (aaarai  anoiu 
te  >,,«<.«.  iaaajaj  aj  |  ajher;  o.-,<  eevt  Mm  emw,  ^.  at  v. 


-''  ...    ...:     ..-.-    ,  P      ..M*. 


726  MANES,    MASONS    CONTINUED. 

form  roofs  for  houses  ?  It  is  the  deficiency  of  the  remains  of  houses  which  induces  persons  to 
think,  that  there  can  have  been  no  high  civilization  in  these  northern  countries.  I  desire  such 
persons  to  examine  the  Mosaic  floors,  three  or  four  feet  under  ground,  at  Aldborough  in  York- 
shire, the  ancient  Iseur  or  Isurium,  the  capital  of  Brigantia,  from  which  Boadicea  led  forth  her 
80,000  men  against  the  Romans  who  defeated  her,  and  destroyed  her  capital,  removing  it  to  Evora 

or  York. 

The  Masons  were  the  first  priests,  or  a  branch  from  them,  and  as  they  were  the  persons  em- 
ployed to  provide  every  thing  requisite  for  honouring  the  Gods,  the  building  of  temples  naturally 
fell  into  their  hands,  and  thus  priests  and  masons  were  identified.  This  was  the  first  practical 
attempt  at  Masonry.  Thus  the  Masons  were  an  order  of  priests,  that  is,  of  initiated.  Every 
initiated  person  was  a  priest,  though  he  might  not  exercise  the  functions  of  a  priest.  Thus  they 
became  identified  with  the  most  powerful  and  influential  body  of  society,  and  though  all  priests 
were  not  Masons,  1  think  that  all  Masons  were  priests  in  one  sense,  being  initiated.  I  think  they 
were  priests  originally;  and,  as  was  to  be  expected,  they  provided  good  houses  for  themselves, 
and,  when  many  of  them  consisted  of  Monks,  Monasteria.  In  many  instances,  from  superiority 
of  intellect,  the  consequence  of  the  constant  use  of  their  faculties,  they  acquired  the  sovereign 

power. 

14.  Having  shewn  how  the  Mohamedan  and  various  sects  were  connected  together,  it  is  now 
time  to  unveil  the  secret  doctrine  of  Mohamed,  which  will  be  in  a  great  measure  that  of  them  all, 
and  will,  I  think,  easily  account  for  the  rapid  diffusion  of  Mohamedism,  and  for  its  adoption  when 
first  promulgated  by  the  most  learned  and  talented  of  the  Arabian  philosophers — a  secret  doctrine 
yet  found  in  a  state  of  persecution  among  the  followers  of  Ali  in  Persia.  What  my  reader  has 
seen  I  had  principally  written  before  I  made  the  discovery  of  the  secret  doctrine,  and  I  think  it 
expedient  to  leave  what  I  had  written,  as  it  is,  to  shew  how  the  whole,  by  degrees,  unravelled 
itself — to  shew  that  there  was  no  preconceived  system  at  the  bottom  to  which  every  thing  was  to 
be  made  to  bend,  and  the  literal  meaning  of  which  I  had  determined  nothing  should  ever  persuade 
me  to  disbelieve.  We  must  never  forget  that  in  every  thing  respecting  Mohamedism  we  labour 
under  the  greatest  difficulties.  The  truth  is,  that  its  real  doctrine  is  now  confined  to  a  persecuted 
sect,  which  considers  that  to  unveil  its  mysteries  would  be  to  be  guilty  of  the  greatest  moral 
turpitude  ;  and  the  pretended  history,  as  we  have  it,  has  been  received  from  the  meanest-minded 
of  devotees,  or  from  zealots  of  another  sect,  the  Christians,  whose  malice  and  hatred  have  blinded 
their  understandings — zealots  so  mean  in  mind  too,  that  if  they  had  been  willing  to  exercise  any 
thing  like  criticism  they  were  incapable  of  it.  What  are  we  to  expect  from  even  such  men  as  the 
very  great  scholar,  but  mean-minded  Prideaux  ! 

It  is  well  known  that  almost  immediately  on  the  death  of  Mohamed  his  followers  divided  into 
two  sects,  that  of  Abubeker,  and  that  of  Ali,  the  latter  of  whom  had  the  twelve  Imaums — his 
successors — the  same  in  number  as  the  apostles  of  Christ  and  as  the  twelve  Caesars.  The  faith 
of  the  latter  of  these  sects  became  and  still  continues  the  religion  of  Persia.  This  I  have  no 
doubt  was  the  original  or  rather,  perhaps,  contained  the  original  esoteric  religion  of  Mohamed, 
which  is  yet  to  be  found  in  the  sect  of  the  SofeeS  as  they  are  called  by  Sir  John  Malcolm,  in  his 
History  of  Persia.  These  are  followers  of  the  ancient  So<pot,  one  of  whom  was  Mo-amed,  that  is, 
Mo  or  Om,  the  illustrious  or  desire  of  all  nations.  The  Sophoi  or  Sofees  are  allowed  by  the  vulgar 
or  present  orthodox  Persian  writers l  to  have  descended  from  the  ancient  Sabaeans  and  to  have 
been  contemporaneous  with  the  prophet,  that  is  to  say,  they  find  them  and  their  doctrines  to  have 


1  Sir  John  Malcolm's  History  of  Persia,  Ch.  xx. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER   VI.     SECTION  14.  727 

co-existed  with  him  from  his  first  appearance  or  from  the  beginning  of  his  empire,  but  they  know 
not  how  or  why.  Sir  John  judiciously  observes,  that  "  their  rapturous  zeal,  perhaps,  aided,  in 
"  no  slight  degree,  its  first  establishment." l  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  did.  But  this  acknowledg- 
ment conveys  along  with  it  the  admission  of  the  fact,  that  Mohamed  was  a  Sofee,  and  his  secret 
religion  Sopheism.  Sir  John  then  adds,  that  they  have  been  since  considered  as  its  most  dan- 
gerous enemies.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  thus  considered  by  all  the  vulgar  rabble — 
by  such  persons  as  believe  that  Mohamed  did  really  ride  a  horse  called  Borak  from  Mecca  to 
Jerusalem  in  a  minute ;  that  is,  by  the  followers  of  the  literal  meaning  of  the  forged  Koran.  By 
these  enlightened  persons  in  modern  times  the  Sophees  have  been  persecuted.  Whether  in  Persia 
the  sect  of  Sofees  possessed  the  power  without  intermission  from  the  time  of  the  twelve  Imaums 
to  the  time  of  Nadir  Shah,  it  may  now  be  difficult  to  determine  ;  but  certainly  they  ruled  Persia 
from  A.  D.  1500  to  1736,  when  the  kingdom  was  conquered  by  Nadir  Shah,  who  was  himself 
originally  a  Sophee,  but  who,  after  the  conquest  of  Persia,  is  said  to  have  abandoned  the  Sophee 
doctrines,  and  to  have  compelled  his  followers  and  his  new  subjects  to  change  their  religion  along 
with  him.  The  reason  of  this  is  very  perceptible.  The  Persians  were  no  longer  capable  of  appreci- 
ating the  refined  doctrines  of  Sopheism,  of  Wisdom,  of  Gnosticism.  Whatever  he  and  his  twelve 
Imaums,  if  he  had  such  a  cabinet,  might  believe,  the  trash  of  the  Koran  was  more  suitable  to  the 
vulgar  populace.  Sopheism,  the  secret  doctrine,  might  have  become  too  common  ;  it  was  neces- 
sary to  put  it  down — to  keep  the  people  in  ignorance.  This  was  what  the  Popes  did  with  Gnosti- 
cism— prohibit  it  publicly,  hold  it  secretly.  This  was,  perhaps,  the  original  reason  of  the  compo- 
sition of  the  Koran,  at  all  events  I  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  the  reason  which  caused  the  Caliph 
Othman  to  redact  the  Koran.  For  any  thing  we  know,  the  first  copy  of  it  may  have  been  an 
expose  of  the  doctrines  of  Sopheism  or  Wisdom  as  taught  by  the  Great  Mohamed,  and  if  we  jud^e 
of  it  from  his  high  character,  we  may  readily  believe  that  it  may  have  been  very  fine  and  worthy 
of  its  author  ;  but  we  really  can  know  nothing  about  it,  nor  is  it  likely  that  we  ever  shall  know 
any  thing  unless  some  copy  of  it  may  remain  among  the  Sophees  of  the  East. 

I  can  entertain  little  doubt  that  all  the  Caliphs  of  the  Saracens  were  secretly  or  openly  Sophees; 
and  that  Sopheism  continued  the  Esoteric  religion  of  the  state  till  the  Turkish  barbarians  overran 
their  empire,  and  came  over  to  the  religion  of  the  vulgar  Koran  from  their  own,  whatever  it  might 
be.  Whether  the  Sultans  and  the  upper  classes  of  the  Turks  are  at  this  day  in  any  respect  superior 
to  their  followers  upon  these  subjects,  I  have  not  the  means  of  acquiring  information.  It  is  pro- 
bable that,  like  the  Christians  and  the  Jews,  they  are  all  victims  of  the  policy  which  formed  or 
retained,  when  formed  by  accidental  circumstances,  a  refined  religion  for  the  cabinet,  the  conclave 
— a  base  one  for  the  people.  Alas  !  what  misery  has  this  brought  upon  the  world  !  But  its  day 
is  nearly  past. 

The  word  Soph,  in  Persian,  has  the  meaning  of  wool,  and  therefore  some  persons  have  thought 
the  doctrines  of  Sopheism  were  named  from  it — overlooking  what  I  should  have  thought  could  not 
well  be  missed,  the  word  %o<$ia  wisdom,  from  which  no  doubt  it  took  its  name.  We  are  also 
told  by  Sir  John  Malcolm  that  these  people  had  a  very  remarkable  name,  that  of  Philosaufs,  that 
is,  philosophers. 

The  sovereigns  of  Persia  have  the  titles  of  Sophi  and  Shah.  The  first  explains  itself;  the 
second  means,  protector,  preserver,  saviour,  from  the  Hebrew  word  yu?>  iso,  to  save.  From  Eli-sha, 
successor  of  Elijah,  of  the  God  Jah,  has  come  the  title  of  all  the  Shas  of  Persia  and  other  countries. 
The  Pa-sha  is  the  same  ;  the  word  Pa  is  either  Ba  or  Ab  father  or  the  Egyptian  and  Coptic  em- 


1  Sir  John  Malcolm's  History  of  Persia,  Ch.  xx.  p.  266. 


728  MANES,   MASONS    CONTINUED. 

phatic  article  Pi.     As  we  call  our  king  majesty  ;  and  as  the  Romans  called  their  emperor  Divus,  so 
the  Asiatics  call  their  kings  Shas. 

Om-rahs  are  Om-rays,  judges,  possessors  of  wisdom,  rays  or  emanations  of  Om.  In  Tait's 
Edinburgh  Magazine,1  an  account  is  given  of  some  young  Mohamedan  devotees  chaunting  in 
chorus,  in  praise  of  the  prophet,  the  word  Amber-ee.  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  he  is  here 
invoked  by  the  title  of  Om,  and  that  the  name  of  the  famous  palace  in  Spain,  Alambra,  has  been 
the  house  of  Al-am-bra,  the  holy  Am — the  bra  used  like  the  Latin  Divus. 

I  think  the  word  for  wise  may  be  found  in  the  Hebrew  nDitf  spe,  religious  sentiment.  See  Park- 
hurst  in  voce,  IV,  and  in  DEB0  spt,  judgment,  whence  came  the  Sufetes  or  judges  of  the  Tyrians. 
But  sv  sp  will  be  the  root,  the  n  mutable  or  omissable.     Hence  Sapio  and  Sapientia. 

Sir  John  Malcolm  takes  his  accounts  of  these  persons  from  their  enemies,  therefore  in  every 
part  of  it  an  evident  bias  against  them  may  be  perceived  ;  but  he  admits  that  they  have  had  among 
them  o-reat  numbers  of  the  wisest  and  ablest  men  and  finest  poets  and  literary  characters  of  Persia 
and  the  East.  He  says, 2  "  The  Mahomedan  Soofees  have  endeavoured  to  connect  their  mystic  faith 
"  with  the  doctrine  of  their  prophet,  who,  they  assert,  ivas  himself  an  accomplished  Sofee.  The 
"  Persian  followers  of  this  sect  deem  Ali,  his  sons,  and  all  the  twelve  Imaums,  teachers  of  Sofee- 
"  ism  ;"  3  and  they  claim  as  followers  of  their  sect  almost  all  the  great  men  of  the  ivorld.*  Here, 
if  I  do  not  greatly  mistake,  we  find  the  Esoteric  religion  of  Mohamed,  however  much  persecuted 
and  endeavoured  to  be  suppressed  by  his  vulgar  followers  the  present  Turks. 

Sopheism,  we  are  told,  is  divided  into  four  stages.  In  the  first,  a  man  is  required  to  observe 
the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  religion  for  the  sake  of  the  vulgar,  who  are  incapable  of  looking  to 
higher  matters.  In  the  second  stage,  a  man  is  said  to  obtain  power  or  force,  and  may  leave  his 
teacher  to  study  by  himself;  he  is  said  to  enter  the  pale  of  Sopheism,  and  he  may  quit  forms  and 
ceremonies,  which  he  exchanges  for  spiritual  worship.  This  stage  cannot  be  obtained  without 
great  piety,  virtue,  and  fortitude  :  for  the  mind  cannot  be  trusted  in  the  neglect  of  usages  and 
rites  necessary  to  restrain  it  when  weak,  till  it  hath  acquired  strength  from  habits  of  mental  devo- 
tion, grounded  on  a  proper  knowledge  of  its  own  dignity,  and  of  the  Divine  nature.  The  third 
stage  is  that  of  knowledge,  i.  e.  Wisdom,  and  the  disciple  who  arrives  at  it  is  deemed  to  have 
attained  supernatural  knowledge  ;  in  other  words,  to  be  inspired ;  and  when  he  arrives  at  this 
state,  he  is  supposed  to  be  equal  to  the  angels.  The  fourth  and  last  stage  denotes  his  arrival  at 
truth,  which  implies  his  complete  union  with  the  Divinity.5 

It  appears  that  by  their  teachers  they  "  are  invited  to  embark  on  the  sea  of  doubt;"6  unques- 
tionably this  must  be  heresy  in  every  religion.  They  hold  doctrines  respecting  the  existence  of 
matter  similar  to  the  refined  doctrines  of  the  illusion  of  India,  and  I  have  no  doubt,  from  what 
drops  from  the  gallant  knight,7  also  similar  to  the  doctrines  of  the  emanation  from  the  to  ov  of 
Plato  and  of  Orpheus,  and  of  the  Indians,  with  the  latter  of  whom  he  says  that  these  delusive  and 
visionary  doctrines  have  most  flourished.8  He  further  states  that  their  doctrines  may  be  "  traced 
"  in  some  shape  or  other  in  every  region  of  the  world."0  I  dare  say  they  may.  Again,  he  says, 
"  The  Sofees  represent  themselves  as  devoted  to  the  search  of  truth,  and  incessantly  occupied  in 
"  adoring  the  Almighty,  an  union  with  whom  they  desire  with  all  the  fervour  of  diviue  love.  The 
"  Creator,  according  to  their  belief,  is  diffused  over  all  his  creation.  He  exists  every  where  and 
"  in  every  thing. 10     They  compare  the  emanations  of  his  essence  or  spirit  to  the  rays  of  the  sun, 


1  No.  I.  p.  32.  8  P.  279.  3  P.  276.  *  P.  278. 

*  P.  270.  c  P.  268.  7  P-  269,  «. 

8  P.  268.  e  P.  267.  10  Iljit,<  P'  269' 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION   14. 


7^9 


*  which,  they  conceive,  are  continually  darted  forth  and  reabsorbed,  and  they  believe  that  the 
"  soul  of  man,  and  the  principle  of  life  which  exists  throughout  all  nature,  are  not  from  God,  but 
"  of  God."  x  Here  is  certainly  the  Gnostic  doctrine  of  emanations  which  I  have  in  part  ex- 
plained, and  of  which  I  shall  have  much  to  say  hereafter. 

The  Sofees  are  divided  at  this  day  into  many  sects,  and,  in  their  four  stages,  they  have  a  spe- 
cies of  Masonic  or  Eleusinian  initiation  from  lower  to  higher  degrees.  As  we  have  just  now  seen, 
Sir  John  says,  the  third  stage  is  that  of  knowledge,  the  fourth  of  truth.  I  suspect  that  it  ought  to 
he,  the  third  of  truth,  the  fourth  of  knowledge,  i.  e.  Wisdom,  Socjxa.  The  Sofees  of  Persia  are 
enthusiastically  attached  to  poetry  and  music,  both  of  which  I  have  no  doubt  owe  their  origin  to 
religion,  and  that  recitative  and  chaunting  are  not  modern  Italian  inventions,  but  that  they  have 
existed  from  the  most  remote  antiquity.  Sir  John,  after  stating  the  chief  part  of  what  the  reader 
has  seen,  admits  that  they  involve  their  tenets  in  mystery, 2  and  that  they  have  secrets  and  mys- 
teries of  every  stage,  which  are  never  revealed  to  the  profane,  and  to  reveal  which  would  be  a 
crime  of  the  deepest  turpitude.3  One  of  their  most  learned  works,  called  the  Musnavi,  which 
teaches,  in  the  sweetest  strains,  that  all  nature  abounds  with  divine  love,  was  written  by  a 
person  called  the  Moollah  of  Room.  I  have  no  doubt  under  this  mystic  name  more  is  meant  than 
meets  the  eye.4  Sir  John  says  Hasan  Sabah  and  his  descendants  were  (as  I  think  might  be  ex- 
pected) a  race  of  Sofees,5  and  that  they  were  of  the  sect  of  Batteneah,  that  is  Buddha.  They 
were  Templars,  or  Casi-deans  or  Chas-di-im,  or  followers  of  Ras,  or  Masons. 

The  use  of  the  Pallium  or  sacred  cloak  to  convey  the  character  of  inspiration  was  practised  by 
the  Imaums  of  Persia,  the  same  as  practised  by  Elias  and  Elishah,  Eli-Shah;  and  it  is  continued 
by  their  followers  to  this  day.  When  a  person  is  admitted  to  the  highest  degree,  he  will  receive 
the  investiture  with  the  Pallium  and  the  Samach,  which  is  the  Xsfporcovia.  When  the  Grand 
Seignor  means  to  honour  a  person  he  gives  him  a  Pellise,  a  Pall,  a  abs  pla,  a  sacred  cloak,  a  rem- 
nant of  the  old  superstition,  the  meaning  probably  being  forgotten. 

From  this  comes  the  word  palls  at  our  funerals.  One  of  the  names  of  the  chief  of  the  Assas- 
sins was  Old  man  of  the  mountain — Senex  de  montibus.  The  Buddwa  of  Scotland  was  called  old 
man,  and  Buddha,  in  Tndia,  means  old  man.  My  opinion  that  the  Assassins  were  Buddhists  re- 
ceives confirmation  in  part  from  this.  He  was  the  ancient  of  days,  whose  hair  was  wool,  of  a 
white  colour;  but  in  Persian  the  word  Sofee  means  both  ivisdom  and  ivool.6  Long  white  hair 
was  the  peculiar  emblem  of  wisdom. 

A  Careful  consideration  of  what  I  have  said  will  enable  my  reader  to  account  for  many  circum- 
stances which  he  has  seen  stated  respecting  Hassan  Sabah  and  the  Saracen  chiefs,  in  the  time  of 
the  Crusades,  though  the  subject  is  still  not  entirely  without  difficulty  :  and  will  furnish  a  satis- 
factory reason  why,  about  the  year  of  Christ  1200,  when  the  expected  completion  of  the  period  of 
cycles  arrived,  and  brought  nothing  with  it  but  the  usual  phenomena  of  nature,  the  expectants  of 
the  secret  system  lost  their  hopes,  and  gradually  sunk  into  the  vulgar  mass. 

The  true  character  of  the  Sofees  and  of  the  Esoteric  faith  of  pure  Mohamedism  may  be  clearly 
discerned  from  the  following  concluding  passage  of  Sir  John  Malcolm's  respecting  them  :  "  I  have 
"  abstained  from  any  description  of  the  various  extraordinary  shapes  which  this  mystical  faith  has 
"  taken  in  India,  where  it  has  always  flourished,  and  where  it  has  at  times  been  beneficial  in 
"  uniting  the  opposite  elements  of  the  Hindu  and  Mohamedan   faith:7    nor  have  I  ventured  to 


1  Sir  John  Malcolm's  Hist  p.  269. 
1  P.  2/9  s  P.  293. 

7  Shewn  in  the  case  of  the  Sikhs. 


v  P.  281.  3  P.  290. 

6  Malcolm's  Hist.  Pers.  Chap.  xx. 


5  a 


730  MANES,    MASONS    CONTINUED. 

"  offer  any  remarks  on  the  similarity  between  many  usages  and  opinions  of  the  Soofees  and  those 
"  of  the  Gnostics  and  other  Christian  sects,  as  well  as  of  some  of  the  ancient  Greek  philosophers. 
"  The  principal  Soofee  writers  are  familiar  with  the  wisdom  of  Aristotle  and  Plato  :  their  most 
"  celebrated  works  abound  with  quotations  from  the  latter.     An  account  of  Pythagoras,  if  trans- 
"  lated  into  Persian,  would  be  read  as  that  of  a  Soofee  saint.     His  initiation  into  the  mysteries  of 
"  the  Divine  nature,   his  deep  contemplation  and  abstraction,  his  miracles,  his  passionate  love  of 
"  music,  his  mode  of  teaching  his  disciples,  the  persecution  he  suffered,  and  the  manner  of  his 
"  death,  present  us  with  a  close  parallel  to  what  is  related  of  many  eminent  Soofee  teachers,  and 
"  may  lead  to  a  supposition  that  there  must  be  something  similar  in  the  state  of  knowledge  and  of 
"  society,  where  the  same  causes  produce  the  same  effects."  l      Indeed,   Sir  John,  there  is  something 
similar,  for  they  are  all  identical,  with  a  few  trifling  alterations,  produced  by  time  and  change  of 
country.     Here,  in  the  Soofees  of  Persia,  we  have  the  Esoterici  of  Buddha,  of  Moses,  of  Jesus, 
and  of  Mohamed,  however  disgraced  at  this  time  by  numerous  sectarian  divisions  and  mischievous 
absurdities  of  every  kind.     In  short,  Sopheism  is  Gnosticism ;  and,  if  we  can   discover  the  one, 
we  shall  discover  the  other. 

On  the  Sofees  Sir  William  Jones  says,  "I  will  only  detain  you  with  a  few  remarks  on  that  me- 
"  taphysical  theology  which  has  been  professed  immemorially  by  a  numerous  sect  of  Persians  and 
"  Hindus,  was  carried  in  part  into  Greece,  and  prevails  even  now  among  the  learned  Musselmans, 
"  who  sometimes  avow  it  without  reserve.     The  modern  philosophers  of  this  persuasion  are  called 
"  Sufis,  either  from  the  Greek  word  for  a  sage,  or  from  the  woollen  mantle  which  they  used  to 
"  wear  in  some  provinces  of  Persia :  their  fundamental  tenets  are,  that  nothing  exists  absolutely 
"  but  God ;  that  the  human  soul  is  an  emanation  from  his  essence,  and  though  divided  for  a  time 
"  from  its  heavenly  source,  will  be  finally  reunited  with  it :  that  the  highest  possible  happiness 
"  will  arise  from  its  reunion :  and  that  the  chief  good  of  mankind  in  this  transitory  world,  consists 
"  in  as  perfect  an  union  with  the  Eternal  Spirit  as  the  incumbrances  of  a  mortal  frame  will  allow : 
"  that  for  this  purpose  they  should  break  all  connexion  ( or  taalluk,  as  they  call  it  2 )  with  ex- 
"  trinsic  objects,  and  pass  through  life  without  attachments,  as  a  swimmer  in  the  ocean  strikes 
"  freely  without  the  impediment  of  clothes,  that  they  should  be  straight  and  free  as  the  cypress, 
"  whose  fruit  is  hardly  perceptible,  and  not  sunk  under  a  load,  like  fruit-trees  attached  to  a  trellis  : 
"  that  if  mere  earthly  charms  have  power  to  influence  the  soul,  the  idea  of  celestial  beauty  must 
"  overwhelm  it  in  ecstatic  delight :  that  for  want  of  apt  words  to  express  the  Divine  perfections 
"  and  the  ardour  of  devotion,  we  must  borrow  such  expressions  as  approach  the  nearest  to  our 
"  ideas,  and  speak  of  beauty  and  love  in  a  transcendent  and  mystical  sense  :  that,  like  a  reed  torn 
"  from  its  native  bank,  like  wax  separated  from  its  delicious  honey,  the  son  of  man  bewails  its 
"  disunion  with  melancholy  music,  and  sheds  burning  tears,  like  the  lighted  taper  waiting  passion- 
"  ately  for  the  moment  of  its  extinction,  as  a  disengagement  from  earthly  trammels,  and  the 
"  means  of  returning  to  its  only  beloved.     Such  in  part  (for  I  omit  the  minuter  and  more  subtil 
"  metaphysics  of  the  Sufis  which  are  mentioned  in  the  Dabistan)  is  the  wild  and  enthusiastic  re- 
"  ligion  of  the  modern  Persian  poets,  especially  of  the  sweet  Hafiz  and  the  great  Maulavi :  such 
"  is  the  system  of  the  Vedanti  philosophers  and  best  Lyric  poets  of  India — a  system  of  the  highest 
"  antiquity  both  in  Persia  and  India." 3      We  must  not  forget  that  the  above  is  the  figurative  de- 
scription of  the  poets,  the  real  doctrines  of  the  Sofees  are  a  profound  secret,  untold  by  Hafiz  or 
Maulavi,  and  only  very  partially  known,  by  guesses  or  inference,  by  Jones.     But  enough  tran- 
spires to  shew  the  nature  of  the  real  uncorrupted  system. 

'  Shewn  in  the  case  of  the  Sikhs,  p.  300.  8  That  is,  hold  no  conversation,  no  talk.    G.  H. 

»  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  pp.  62,  63. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    VI.    SECTION    14.  /3 1 

If  the  reader  consider  what  has  been  said  respecting  the  character  of  the  Caliph,  the  sacred  head 
of  the  Musselman  religion,  and  respecting  the  religion  of  the  Sophees,  evidently  the  secret  religion 
of  Mohamed,  and  of  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom  every  where  apparent,  then  carefully  examine  my 
table  of  alphabets  and  observe  the  way  in  which  the  Gamma  or  Gimel  became  C,  and  how  again 
the  C  and  the  S  became  confounded,  and  that  the  C  came  to  be  written  in  very  many  cases  by 
K,  *  I  shall  not  be  thought  guilty  of  a  great  paradox  in  maintaining,  that  there  is  a  strong  proba- 
bility that  the  word  Khalif  was  formed  of  the  word  Al-soph ;  that  the  Sphahees  or  Sipahis  had 
their  name  from  the  same  root ;  that  they  were  the  cavalry  of  Wisdom,  of  the  Suph.  Many 
words  might  be  pointed  out  which  have  undergone  much  greater  changes.  The  circumstances  in 
favour  of  this  are  peculiarly  strong.  But  it  may  also  come  from  Soph-Cali,  taking  Cali  in  the 
sense  either  of  Wisdom  or  Logos,  or  Kosmos  in  the  sense  of  heauty  arising  from  order. 

In  addition  to  the  Sophees,  who  are  the  same   as  the  Persian   Sophis,  we   have,  among  the 
Indians,  the  wise  men  called  Ras-ees  or  Rish-ees  :  these  are  evidently  taken  from  the  Hebrew 
Ras,  or  Rasit.     The  Pleiades  were  believed  to  be  different  from  all  other  stars  in  having  a  motion 
within  themselves.     Perhaps  it  might  be  for  some  reason  connected  with  this,  that  they  were 
called  Ri     .es  or  Rashees,  but  their  epithet  or  quality  of  wisdom  shews  what  they  were.     Arrian 
notices  these  Rashees  or  Sophees  by  the  latter  name  :  he  calls  them  Sophists  or  wise  men,  who,  he 
says,  are  few  in  number,  but  rank  first  in  the  country.  2     These  Sophists  are  found  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere,  called  Rashees.     The  identity  of  the  two  cannot 
be  doubted.     They  are  described  as  follows  in  the  Ayeen  Akberry:  "The  most  respectable  people 
"  in  this  country  are  the  Reyshees,  who,  although  they  do  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  fettered  by 
"  traditions,  are  doubtless  true  worshipers  of  God.     They  revile  not  any  other  sect,  and  ask  no- 
"  thing  of  any  one :  they  plant  the  roads  with  fruit-trees  to  furnish  the  traveller  with  refreshment : 
"  they  abstain  from  flesh ;  and  have  no  intercourse  with  the  other  sex.     There  are  near  2000  of 
"  this  sect  in  Cashmeer."3      Cashmere  is  all  Holy  land:  its  capital  Sirrynagur.     It  has  a  river 
called  Latchmehkul ; 4   that  is,  a  corrupt  way  of  writing  la,  or  el,  or  al,  nmn  hkme.    These  Rishees 
are  the  same  as  Sofees,  and  are  the  Carmelites,  Nazarites,  or  Essenians,  belonging  to  the  temple 
of  Solomon  in  this  country.     Cashi-college  can  be  nothing  but  Cashimere,  or  the  mere  or  island  of 
Cashi,  where  stood  the  temple  of  Solomon,  which  the  Mohamedans  destroyed,  and  the  tomb  of 
Moses.     We  have  formerly  seen  that  at  the  College  of  Cashi  the  Chaldee  language  was  spoken, 
which  was  studied  by  all  the  physicians  at  Delhi.     Abul  Fazel  says,  in  the  words  just  quoted, 
u  The  most  respectable  people  of  this  country  are  the  Reyshees,  who,  although  they  do  not  suffer 
"  themselves  to  be  fettered  by  traditions,  are  doubtless  true  worshipers  of  God."5       These  Rey- 
shees I  apprehend  are  Ras-shees  or  wise  men,  whom  Diodorus  calls  Sophites,6   and  places  at  a 
little  distance  between  Cashmere  and  the  Hyphasis.     The  Greek  word  Sophites,  is  but  a  transla- 
tion of  Ras-shees. 

In  the  Yogees  or  Fakeers  of  India  we  have  dervises  of  Mohamedism,  and  the  Hermits  and  Friars 
of  Christianity.  The  dervises  of  Mohamedism  are  copies  either  from  the  Christians  or  Hindoos, 
and,  in  fact,  corruptions  of  Mohamedism.  Mohamed  declared  that  he  would  have  no  monks  in  his 
religion,  and  it  had  none  for  the  first  two  hundred  years.  It  is  evident  from  Arrian  and  Porphyry 
that  these  orders  of  men  were  well  known  in  their  time ;  and  that  they  were  found  in  India  in  the 
time  of  Alexander.  They  existed  in  different  orders  before  the  times  of  Jesus  in  Egypt,  Syria, 
&c,  as  Essenes,  Coenobites,  &c. ;  and  those  on  Carmel,  described  by  Pliny,  became  Carmelites. 


'  The  first  part  of  Payne  Knight's  treatise  on  the  Greek  alphabet  may  be  consulted  on  these  changes. 

*  Hist.  Ind.  Ch.  x.,  xi.  *  Gladwin's  Ayeen  Akberry,  Vol.  II.  155. 

*  Ibid.  p.  156.  4  Rennel,  Mem.  p.  106.  e  Ibid.  p.  94. 

5  a  2 


732  MANES,    MASONS    CONTINUED. 

We  may  find  in  the  schools  of  the  prophets  O'Dltf  zupim1  in  1  Sam.  i.  1,  the  city  of  the  Sophim 
or  learned,  and  again  1  Sam.  x.  10,  11,  and  xix.  18 — 24.  Samuel  and  David  dwelt  in  the  city  of 
JT13  nuit  Naioth,  that  is,  the  city  of  Neith  or  of  wisdom,  and  in  the  country  of  Rama  no~»  rme.  The 
Raz  of  India  is  the  Ras  of  Genesis,  and  means  secret  wisdom,  or  knowledge.  It  is  the  mistur  of 
the  Hebrews.  The  head  or  chief  was  a  ras  or  raised  person  ;  the  first  emanation  or  Raj  was 
wisdom,  therefore  wisdom  was  the  first  or  head  or  <*f>Xrl'  He  was  the  first  existence  or  hypos- 
tasis in  time.  The  head,  the  seat  of  wisdom,  was  ras :  the  head  ruler  was  the  same  :  so  the  seat 
of  the  ras  was  the  sofa  or  divan,  sop-aia,  place  of  wisdom.  The  Hebrew  word  for  a  sopha  or  orien- 
tal divan,  is  nD3  nte,  as  often  written  nthe,  the  neith.  The  sopha  is  the  divan  in  eastern  countries, 
used  solely  by  the  Ras  or  prince  or  divine  incarnation  of  wisdom.  Divan  is  Div-ana,  place  of  the 
holy  one.  Our  word  raise  comes  from  the  word  Ras,  in  the  sense  of  head,  as  head  or  chief  of  the 
clan.  The  way  in  which  we  have  found  the  words  Ras  and  Sophia  used  as  a  title  of  honour  for  the 
kings  of  Persia  and  Abyssinia  is  very  curious,  and  I  think  it  will  not  be  thought  surprising  if  the 
same  system  be  found  carried  a  little  farther.  Adonis,  as  I  have  shewn,  has  the  meaning  of  Wis- 
dom. It  is  jn-K  a-dun  the  wisdom.  From  this  come  the  title  of  the  Dons  of  Spain  and  Portugal, 
of  the  Welsh  Adon  for  Lord,  and  the  title  of  O'Conner  Don  of  Ireland.  The  Rossi,  or  Rosy-cru- 
cians,2 with  their  emblematic  red  cross  and  red  rose,  probably  came  from  the  fable  of  Adonis  (who 
was  the  Sun,  whom  we  have  seen  so  often  crucified)  being  changed  into  a  red  rose  by  Venus.3 
Has  in  Irish  signifies  a  tree,  knowledge,  science:  this  is  the  Hebrew  Ras.  Hence  the  Persian 
Rust  an.4 

We  have  before  seen,  that  when  we  pursued  the  word  Don  to  the  utmost  point  to  which  we 
could  carry  our  researches,  we  found  it  to  end  in  Wisdom.  This  is  what  was  natural,  if  my  sys- 
tem be  true.  It  could  scarcely  be  expected  that  in  some  one  of  the  dialects  the  meaning  would 
not  be  found.  We  have  seen  that  Maia  was  considered  the  mother  of  Buddha  or  the  Logos  or  the 
same  as  the  Logos  and  divine  wisdom.  We  have  a  sea  called  Maeotis  or  Maietis  or  Maria.  It  is 
also  called  the  sea  of  A- soph  or  of  the  wisdom.  Into  it  runs  the  river  Tan-ais  or  Don,  also  called 
river  of  Asopus,  the  Soph,  on  which  is  a  town  called  Asoph  (or  Asow  in  Russian)  and  Tanais,  and 
it  is  in  the  district  called  B-achmut,  or  of  jnDXQ  b-hkmut,  or  of  Wisdom.5 

The  Red  Sea  is  called  the  sea  of  fjid  sup.  This  name  I  take  to  be  the  same  as  the  name  of  the 
Palus  Maeotis  or  Sea  of  Asoph,  and  to  have  been  rpx  asp  in  the  singular,  D'DitfN  aspim  in  the  plural, 
which  is  the  word  used  in  Daniel  for  Astrologers  or  wise  men,  or  Magi. 6  They  were  the  same  as 
the  Chasdim  or  Chaldeans.  The  root  of  this  was  the  same  as  the  Greek  2o<£>o£  or  wise  man,  and 
this  sea  of  Suph  was  the  sea  of  wisdom,  Sophia,  the  same  as  the  Maeotis,  and  came  from  the  same 
root.  I  think  it  may  also  be  found  in  Frey,  with  the  meaning  of  vertex,  in  e\>)}D  soip,  and  a»Dj?D 
sopim,  thoughts,  cogitationes,  from  the  root  r\yo  sop. 

Dr.  Stanley  says,7   "  Ashaphim  were  rather  the  same  as  Souphoun  in  Arabick,  wise,  religious 
"  person."     Again  he  says,8   "perhaps  from  the  Hebrew  root  Ashaph  comes  the  Greek  <ro<Po£. 
When  I  consider  the  propinquity  of  the  district  of  Bachmut,  and  the  town  of  Don,  and  the  Sea  of 


1  Called  by  Pagninus  Sophim. 

*  The  Jewel  of  the  Rossicrucians  is  formed  of  a  transparent  red  stone,  with  a  red  cross  on  one  side,  and  a  red  rose 
on  the  other.    Thus  it  is  a  crucified  rose. 

3  See  Drummond's  Orig.  Vol.  III.  p.  121. 

*  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  I.  p.  84.    The  ancient  Sardica,  in  Lat.  40  deg.  50  min.,  is  now  called  Sophia ;  the 
ancient  Aquincum  Buda  or  Buddha.    These  were,  I  believe,  old  names  restored.     Vide  D'Anville's  Atlas. 

*  Enc.  Brit,  in  voce,  Asow.  6  Duret,  p.  329.  7  Hist.  Chald.  Phil.  p.  764,  4to.  8  Ibid. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VI.    SECTION   15.  733 

Asoph  to  Cholcos,  and  Sindica  and  the  Chaldei, 1  and  other  circumstances,  I  cannot  feel  any  doubt, 
that  in  the  words  Don,  Asoph,  Bachmut,  we  have  the  ancient  mythos.  When  we  consider  that 
the  empire  of  the  Ras  is  on  one  side  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  Mecca,  the  capital  of  the  Mohamedan 
Sophees,  on  the  other,  we  cannot  be  surprised  that  it  should  be  called  the  sea  of  wisdom. 

Zoroaster  had  with  the  Parses  the  surname  of  Sapet-man.  When  I  recollect  that  with  the 
Northern  nations  Mannus  meant  man,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  Sapet-man  meant  ivise  man. 
Anquital  derives  it  from  Sapetme,  excellent.*  The  ED'St^N  aspim,  in  Chaldee,  mean  conjurers  or 
wise  men  j3  rpx  asp,  Asophim,  JODty  spt,  judgment ;  CD*DDW  suptim,  judges.  These  were  the 
Carthaginian  Suffetes  or  Judges. 

In  Book  IX.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  9,  I  have  derived  the  name  of  the  sea  of  Arabia  or  the  Red  Sea,  the 
sea  of  f]iD  sup,  from  f]i¥  zup,  which  means  correctly,  the  most  secret  place,  and  the  Holy  of  Holies. 
I  believe  it  is  the  same  as  rpD  sup,  from  being  the  peculiar  place  of  Wisdom,  which  is  said  to 
shroud  itself  in  darkness.  But  it  is  of  little  consequence  j  it  may  be  considered  an  erratum,  and 
that  it  comes  from  t]t^x  asp,  the  wise  man  or  Magus ;  but  it  is  evidently  the  same  thing.  No  one 
can  doubt  that  the  real  root  is  tm  sp.  From  the  Serpent  being  the  emblem  of  wisdom  in  Egypt  it 
was  called  Asp,  which  has  passed  to  us.  It  was  commonly  believed  in  Egypt,  that  it  never 
died.4 

The  famous  well,  Zem  Zem,  at  Mecca,  is  the  well  of  wisdom,  D02f  zmm. 5  In  the  refined  doc- 
trines of  Sopheism,  that  is,  of  Gnosticism,  and  in  the  doctrines  of  the  eternal  renewal  of  cycles,  we 
may  find  the  reason  why  the  greatest  men  of  the  oriental  world  turned  Mohamedans.  No  one  can 
deny  that  those  doctrines,  chastened  down  to  their  primitive  simplicity,  are  refined  and  beautiful, 
although  capable  of  being  carried  to  an  excess  pernicious  to  its  professors.  But  if  it  have  made 
self-tormentors  for  the  love  of  God,  it  seems  never  to  have  excited  its  votaries  to  the  cutting  of  the 
throats  of  those  who  did  not  profess  its  doctrines.  I  think  when,  in  the  latter  part  of  this  book, 
my  reader  shall  have  seen  the  whole  development  of  the  ancient  doctrine  of  Wisdom,  he  will  no 
longer  be  at  a  loss  for  a  reason  why  Mohamedism  prevailed  in  the  seventh  century  over  the  base 
Christianism  which  was  then  taught  to  the  vulgar  by  its  priests. 

15.  When  we  look  around  us,  innumerable  detached  circumstances  prove  that  a  former  very 
fine  and  enlightened  race  existed,  and  that  its  theology,  however  false  it  might  be,  was  not  only 
not  foolish,  but  very  refined  and  beautiful ;  and  this  I  shall  prove  at  large  presently.  But  look  at 
the  works  given  to  us  by  Mr.  Upham  and  others,  as  the  Indian  theology  of  this  day,  and  how  can 
any  thing  be  meaner  ?  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  priests  have  corrupted  even  the  Vedas,  the 
oldest  of  their  books,  in  the  different  ages  through  which  they  have  passed,  to  make  them  fit  to, 
or  to  raise  upon  them,  superstitions  suitable  to  the  degraded  taste  of  the  time.  But  there  is  one 
fine  work  come  down  to  us,  extremely  beautiful,  the  simplicity  of  which  is  in  perfect  keeping  with 
the  contemplative  icon  of  divine  wisdom,  called  Buddha  (Plates,  Fig.  34)  ;  with  the  simplicity 
of  the  circular  temples  of  Stonehenge,  Dipaldenha,  and  the  Pyramids ;  with  the  simplicity  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Trimurti,  and  the  renewal  of  Cycles,  &c,  &c,  &c. ;  and  that  is  the  work  called  the 
Fables  of  iEsop  or  Lockman.6 


1  Vide  D'Anville,  Anc.  At.  *  De  Salverte,  Essai  sur  Noms,  Vol.  I.  p.  90.  3  See  Parkhurst. 

*  The  Arabians  call  a  Serpent,  Supphon.    Parkhurst  in  voce  nattf  spe,  t]3W  spp.  p.  760. 

6  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  V.  p.  42. 

6  See  Univ.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  401 ;  see  also  D'Herbelot,  in  the  article  Lokman ;  Nimrod,  II.  p.  660. 


734 


LOCKMAN.       .ffiSOP. 


He  is  said  to  have  lived  in  the  time  of  Heber,  of  David,  and  of  Solomon  :  and  to  have  been  a 
Jew,  that  is,  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  or  Judah.  He  is  claimed  by  the  Greeks,  the  Jews,  the  Ara- 
bians, the  Persians,  the  Ethiopians,  and  the  Indians.  Much  has  been  written  about  him.  I 
believe  the  fables  of  JEsop  are  the  fables  of  the  £o$<a  and  of  Lockman,  of  L'hkm,  D3!"6  Ihkm,  the 
tvise.  His  residence,  if  he  ever  lived,  probably  was  in  Oudia.  The  nations  are  all  right,  because 
they  are  the  fables  of  Wisdom,  and  they  all  had  the  doctrine  of  Wisdom.  In  Arabia  there  was  a 
tribe  of  Lochmians  whose  general  name  was  Mondar. x  They  were  descended  from  Lakhm,  the 
son  of  Am-ru,  the  son  of  Saba.  Their  kingdom  lasted  600  years.  The  words  Lochman,  Mondar, 
Lakhm,  Am-ru,  Saba,  and  their  600- year  kingdom,  can  want  no  explanation  for  any  person  who 
has  read  this  book.     They  evidently  bespeak  the  universal  mythos. 

Hottinger  says,  "  Lokman,  vel  Lukman  est  hie  plane  7raf>suraxTos,"  (this  is  most  clearly  the 
Parasacti  of  India,  which  Hottenger  has  got  hold  of  and  misunderstood,)  "  quern  tamen  integra 
"  Suratd  commendat  Muhamed  quae  numero  est  XXX.  Quis  vero  fuerit,  a  Muhamedanis 
"  Arabibus  difficulter  obtinebis.  Muhamed  eum  facit  Davidi  cosetaneum.  Beidavi  in  comment. 
"  p.  651,  refert  ilium  fuisse  filium  Naora,  ex  filiis  Azed,  filii  Sororis  (nepotis  ex  sorore)  Jobi,  aut 
"  Materterae  ejus;  vivisse  autem  ad  tempora  Davidis,  a  quo  ille  scientiam  didiceret.  Ex  Chris- 
"  tianis  Lokmani  hujus  meminit  Elmacinus  diebus  ejus  (Josiae,  Regis  Judae)  fuit  Lokman  sapiens. 
"  Author  translationis  Alkorani  veteris,  eum  Aluchmen  appellat."  Georgius,  p.  97,  says,  Para- 
sachti,  prima  lux  sive  flamma  a  Deo  invisibili  manans.  But  Parasachti  is  Lachmi,  and  Lachmi  is 
Al  Acham,  DDI7  hkm,  bik  al — nODn  hkme  bt<  al,  Lochman  idem. 

Thus  Lochman  was  the  wise  man,  a  corruption  of  DDn  hkm  and  mannus.  He  was  known  to  be 
^Esop  the  author  of  the  fables.  The  latter  name  is  the  same  as  the  former  in  substance,  it  is  the 
emphatic  article,  and  Dttf  sp,  which  is  the  Hebrew  root  of  the  Greek  word  %o<pi&,  and  means 
wisdom  or  the  wise  man.  Thus  Lochman  DDf"6  Ihkm  and  Luchme  is  riDDI"^  Ihkme,  the  same  word 
in  the  feminine  form.  The  Parasacti  one  of  the  names  of  Lachmi  found  by  Hottinger  in  the  Greek 
is  very  curious.  It  means  to  insinuate  the  same  as  7rap£Kraya.  The  traya  is  the  Sagax.  The 
Scandinavian  Mercury  or  God  of  cunning,  that  is,  in  other  words,  wisdom,  was  called  Loke.  No 
one  can  doubt  whence  this  comes.2  Lughman  (Lochman)  is  a  district  of  the  Afghans,  between 
Peshawer  and  Cabul.  It  contains  the  mount  Suffaid  (i.  e.  Suf-ai-di).  The  language  is  unknown, 
but  it  has  many  Pushto  words.3 


'  Univ.  Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  429. 

*  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  VI.  p.  130.     Lokman  Al  Hakim.     Lokman  the  wise.     Univers.   Hist.  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  401. 


The  kings  of  Cochin  are  also  called  Hakim. 


Soph  is  a  common  title  in  India,  as  Asoph  ud  Dowlah.     Hamilton,  p.  132. 
3  See  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  660. 


London,  November  12,  1832. 


BOOK  X.      CHAPTER    VII.      SECTION   1.  /35 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AFGHANS. — TAMUL  LANGUAGE. — SUBJECT  CONTINUED. — OBSERVATIONS  ON  LANGUAGE.— BOEES,  BA1EUX. — 
THOMAS,  SHARON  TURNER. — TWINS,  TAMAS. — CRETE,  CRES. — MALABAR,  MEANING  OF. — CAMA,  CAMA- 
SENE. — TWO   TOMBS   OF  THOMAS. — JAGGERNAUT. — VEDA. 

1.  We  will  now  return  to  the  tribe  of  Afghans,  of  whom  we  noticed  many  circumstances  in  the 
4th,  5th,  and  6th  chapters  of  the  Eighth  Book,  and  in  which  pretty  good  proof  was  given  that  they 
were  the  ancestors  of  the  Jews.  The  author  of  the  Cambridge  Key,  whose  authority  cannot  be  dis- 
puted for  such  a  fact  as  this,  says  expressly,  that  the  Vedas,  in  the  Sanscrit,  are  now  believed, 
both  by  Persians  and  Hindoos,  to  have  been  originally  written  in  a  celestial  language,  long  since 
extinct. l  By  this  celestial  language  the  Pali  is  not  meant,  for  reasons  which  it  is  unnecessary  to 
explain,  and  also  because  it  is  not  extinct  or  lost.  Then  what  language  was  it  so  likely  to  be, 
as  the  old  Hebrew  language  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  or  Yud  or  Western  Oude,  whose  Samaritan  nail- 
headed  characters  Dr.  Hagar  traced  from  India,  and  from  which  the  Sanscrit  letters  descended  ? 
What  language  was  it  so  likely  to  be,  as  that  which  we  find  among  the  low-land  tribes  who,  in 
South  India,  mix  not  with  the  Brahmin  tribes,  and  whom  we  find  also  among  the  mountaineers  of 
North  India,  whose  retired  situations  have  prevented  their  intermixture  with  the  higher  classes  of 
lowlanders,  the  followers  of  the  Tamul  Woden  ?  What  language  can  it  have  been  but  that  of  the 
tribe  whose  names  of  God  we  find  in  the  Brahmin  service — Ie-peti,  Iaya — names  of  rivers  explain- 
able in  their  language,  NER-Buddha,  NER-ma-da,  River  of  Buddha,  River  of  Maha-deva — whose 
towns  and  kings  are  called  after  the  tribe,  loudi-pore,  Tuct-Soliman — whose  mountains  have  the 
same  names,  Montes  Ioudi,  Montes  Solumi  ?  And  the  very  oldest  temples  in  the  country  and  in 
the  world,  the  temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere  ?  Whose  language  can  it  have  been  but  that  of 
the  people  described  by  the  Jesuit  to  have  all  the  Jewish  ceremonies,  at  Madura,  in  the  Carnatic, 
near  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas  and  the  temple  of  Bal-ii  or  Triputty  ?  which  we  shall  now  find  to 
have  been  a  language  of  learned  men.  But  we  have  the  express  authority  of  the  sacred  writ  for 
another  equally  important  fact.  The  Geta  opens  with  informing  us,  that  "  this  immutable 
"  system  of  devotion  was  revealed  to  Vaivaswat,  who  declared  it  to  his  son  Menu,  who  explained 
"  it  to  Ishwacu.  Thus  the  chief  Reshees  knew  this  divine  doctrine  delivered  from  one  to  an- 
"  other." 2  From  this  we  see  that  it  was  held  that  the  doctrines  were  handed  down  for  several 
generations  by  tradition,  unwritten. 

The  translation  of  a  history  of  the  Afghans,  made  by  Dr.  Dorn,  has  been  published  by  the 
Oriental  Translation  Society.  It  is  like  most  oriental  histories,  a  collection  of  nonsensical 
stories.  On  the  similarity  of  the  names  to  the  Hebrew  the  learned  Doctor  says,  "  The  fact,  that 
"  the  Afghans  make  frequent  use  of  Hebrew  names,  as  Esau,  Yacoob,  Musa,  &c,  and  that  their 
"  tribes  bear  Hebrew  names,  as  Davudze,  &c,  is  as  little  a  proof  of  their  Hebrew  origin  as  the 
"  circumstance  that  their  nobles  bear  the  title  Melik,  which  title,  even  according  to  their  own 
"  assertion,  was  not  introduced  before  Mohamed's  time,  and  is  undoubtedly  the  Arabic  for  a  ruler 
"a  king."3 


1  Vol.  I.  p.  261,  Vol.  II.  pp.  128,  129.  *  Carab.  Key,  Vol.  II.  p.  121. 

3  Dorn,  Hist.  Afghans,  Pref.  p.  via. 


736  AFGHANS. 

Upon  the  assertion  that  the  word  Melik  stands  for  nothing,  I  must  observe,  that  I  do  not 
attempt  to  prove  that  the  Afghans  were  descended  from  the  Jews,  therefore  that  style  of  argu- 
ment does  not  apply  to  me.  But  the  admission  that  their  tribes  bear  Hebrew  names  is  most  im- 
portant; they  cannot  have  come  from  the  Mohamedans.  The  ancient  temple  of  Solomon  in 
Cashmere  was  destroyed  by  the  Mohamedans.  It  is  surprising  to  me  that  the  learned  Doctor  has 
not  attempted  to  account  for  the  identity  of  names,  which  he  admits.  Without  going  further,  the 
names,  which  he  admits  to  be  Hebrew,  are  alone,  under  all  the  circumstances,  quite  enough  to 
prove  the  original  identity  of  the  languages.  In  Dr.  Dorn's  work  it  is  stated  that  the  eldest  son 
of  Jacob  or  Yacoob  was  Juda.  Now  this  clearly  proves  that  though  the  mythoses  are  evidently 
the  same,  they  are  not  merely  copies  of  one  another,  and  that  the  Asiatic  author  was,  in  fact,  not 
giving  an  account  of  the  Jews  in  Western  Syria;  for  if  he  had,  he  would  not  have  made  Judah 
the  eldest  son  of  Jacob. 1 

The  first  attack  of  the  Mohamedans  on  India  was  made  by  Mohamed  of  Ghezni,  A.  D.  1000. 
It  does,  indeed,  seem  surprising:  that  any  one  can  believe  the  names  of  mountains,  tribes,  cities — 
such  as  temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere,  mountains  of  Solumi,  tribe  of  the  sons  of  David,  city  of 
Oude  or  Iudi  in  the  North,  and  Judia  and  the  Mosaic  Mythos  in  Siam,  Ceylon,  Comorin,  and 
Malabar,  a  thousand  miles  to  the  South — should  have  been  brought  by  the  Saracens  to  these 
countries,  some  of  which  they  never  possessed. 2 

Jamblicus  has  observed  that  the  real  ancient  names  of  places  are  still  to  be  found  among  the 
inhabitants.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  Marquess  Spineto. 3  He  says  he  could  prove  it  of  Egyp- 
tian places,  but  he  does  not  think  Jit  to  do  it.  But  this  I  very  much  regret.  I  am  quite  sure 
more  true  history  is  to  be  learnt  from  the  names  of  places  than  from  all  other  sources.  They  are 
historians  which  cannot  deceive  us.     The  observation  of  Jamblicus  is  most  important. 

Dr.  Babington  says,  that  the  Sanscrit  of  South  India  is  written  in  characters  derived  from  the 
Tamul. 4  It  must  be  extremely  difficult  and  perhaps  impossible  to  determine  which  form  of  letter 
is  derived  from  any  other,  but  the  important  fact  comes  out  that  they  are  all  in  system  really  the 
same.  In  a  future  part  of  this  work  I  shall  shew  why  the  forms  of  the  letters  have  varied  so 
much,  although  the  systems  were  identical. 

Mr.  Wilson,  I  suppose  a  very  competent  judge,  says,  the  Tamul  language  may  be  considered 
as  the  most  classical  of  the  languages  of  the  Peninsula.  It  was  the  language  of  the  kingdom  of 
Pandya,  Madura,  Regio  Pandionis, 5  now  comprehending  South  Arcot,  Salem,  Coimbatur,  Kum- 
bakonam,  Tanjore,  Trichinopoli,  Madura,  Dindigal,  Tinnivelli,  and  great  part  of  Mysur,6  con- 
taining five  millions  of  people.  According  to  Dr.  Babington  and  the  late  Mr.  Ellis,  it  is  a  lan- 
guage not  derived  from  the  Sanscrit,  but  of  independent  origin.  Wilson  says,  "  It  is  not  derived 
"  from  any  language  at  present  in  existence,  and  is  itself  either  the  parent  of  the  Teluga,  Malaya- 
"  lam,  and  Canarese  languages,  or  what  is  more  probable,  has  its  origin  in  common  with  these 
"  in  some  ancient  tongue,   which  is  now  lost  or  only  partially  preserved  in  its  offspring."     Again, 


'  The  same  kind  of  observation  may  be  made  on  the  book  of  Enoch  ;  it  makes  Jacob  the  son  of  Abraham,  passim? 
over  Isaac.  The  work  translated  Dr.  Dorn  was  evidently  written  by  a  modern  Persian,  who,  not  knowing  how  to  re- 
concile the  circumstance  of  two  Judeas,  has  mixed  together  the  traditions  which  he  met  with  respecting  the  two. 

*  For  proof  that  the  mountains  of  Solomon  in  India  were  so  called  before  the  Mohamedans  went  thither,  see  El- 
phinston,  p.  245.  In  the  Hindoo  books  we  read  of  a  great  war  carried  on  between  the  followers  of  Gautam  or  Buddha 
and  Wiswa-Mitra,  in  the  country  called  Yudha  Bhumi.  Is  it  possible  to  be  blind  here  to  the  Latin  Humus  and  the 
tribe  of  Judah  ?     Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  2 19. 

3  Lect.  on  Hier  p.  369.  «  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  Part  i.  p.  264. 

'  Ptol.  Geog.  6  Maha-sura,  Buchanan. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER   VII.   SECTION    1.  737 

in  another  place,  he  makes  an  observation  of  the  very  first  importance  to  all  my  theories,  as  fol- 
lows :  "  The  higher  dialect  of  the  Tamul,  on  the  contrary,  is  almost  entirely  free  from  Sanscrit 
"  words  and  idioms,  and  the  language  retains  an  alphabet  which  tradition  affirms  to  have  hereto- 
"  fore  consisted  of  but  sixteen  letters,  and  which  so  far  from  resembling  the  very  perfect  alphabet 
"  of  the  Sanscrit,  wants  nearly  half  its  characters,  and  has  several  letters  of  peculiar  powers."  He 
then  goes  on  to  shew,  that  there  is  a  very  close  affinity  between  the  Maharastra  and  Oddya l  and 
the  Tamul ;  and  he  observes,  it  is  extraordinary  that  the  uncivilized  races  of  the  North  of  India 
should  bear  any  resemblance  to  the  Hindus  of  the  South.  He  says,  "  it  is  nevertheless  the  fact 
"  that,  if  not  of  the  same  radical  derivation,  the  language  of  the  mountaineers  of  Rajamahal 
"  abounds  in  terms  common  to  the  Tamul  and  Telugu."  Rajah-mahal  was  Aja-mahal,  in  lat.  25, 
long.  87,  near  the  towns  of  Daoud  Nagur  and  Danapore  Afghan.  But  /  say  it  is  not  at  all  extra- 
ordinary, if  the  Tamul  be  either  the  sixteen-letter  Hebrew  or  its  first  descendant,  one  of  which  I 
have  no  doubt  that  it  is.  I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  the  various  examples  which  I  hase  given  of 
the  Hebrew  language  in  South  India,  and  of  the  Hebrew-speaking  Malays.  Mr.  Wilson  then  goes 
on  to  shew  that  the  Tamul  had  a  number  of  fine  writers  and  a  regal  college  at  Madura,  and  I 
believe  he  might  have  added  another  at  Muttra  on  the  Jumna,  and  another  at  Maturea  on  the  Nile, 
in  Egypt,  all  speaking  or  writing  the  language  of  Brahma  and  Saraiswati.2  Mr.  Ellis  states  that 
a  contest  took  place  between  the  Brahmins  and  inferior  castes  in  the  Tamul  countries  for  pre- 
eminence in  literature  and  knowledge. 3  No  doubt  it  did,  both  in  North  and  South  India,  and 
Abraham,  the  follower  of  Brahma  and  Buddha,  was  driven  out  by  the  Brahmins  and  obliged  to 
emigrate  to  the  West,  probably  bringing  the  book  of  Genesis  with  him. 

To  prove  the  learning  of  the  Tamulese  I  beg  to  refer  my  reader  to  the  Asiatic  Researches, 4 
where  he  may  find  a  translation  of  some  of  their  sacred  poetry  which  will  bear  a  comparison  with, 
and  also  strongly  remind  him  of,  the  books  of  Solomon  as  they  are  called,  and  perhaps  properly 
so  called.  These  writings  are  admitted  by  the  Tamulese  not  to  be  in  the  old  language,  and  there- 
fore, of  course,  a  translation.  They  recognize  a  divine  Son5  or  Logos,  and  direct  the  adoration 
of  Sarasbadie  (or  Sara-iswati,  wife  of  Abraham).  In  the  flower  of  Konnie  is  the  Kanya  of  North 
India  and  the  rose  of  Sharon.  The  wisdom  is  found  in  almost  every  line.  In  the  adoration  of 
Sarasbadie,  I  think  the  adoration  of  the  female  principle  shews  itself,  which  may  have  been  the 
reason  for  Abraham's  emigration. 

It  is  a  very  striking  circumstance  that  the  verses  in  one  of  the  poems  translated  by  Dr.  John 
begin  with  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  acrostically,  as  is  the  practice  with  some  of  the  Hebrew 
psalms  :  the  Doctor  admits  that  the  language  is  very  aenigmatical  and  difficult  to  understand,  even 
in  the  opinion  of  the  natives,  who  say  that  each  sentence  or  verse  may  be  translated  five  different 
ways.  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  the  Kalwioluckam,  one  of  the  Tamulese  sacred  works,  is  the 
wisdom  of  Solomon,  each  probably  much  corrupted  and  changed  from  the  original. 6 

The  observation  that  every  text  of  the  Kalwioluckam  would  bear  several  senses  is  a  fact  strik- 
ingly similar  to  the  Pentateuch,  which  scarcely  contains  a  passage  of  which  this  may  not  truly  be 
said.  The  double  sense  of  the  word  wisdom  is  very  apparent.  Nor  need  this  be  a  matter  of 
surprise,  for  the  practice  is  strictly  in  harmony  with  its  system  of  having  one  religion  for  the 
people,  and  another  for  the  learned  or  initiated. 


>  Qy.  Ioudia  ?  *  For  Tamul  language,  see  Transactions  Orient.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  Pt.  i.  p.  264. 

3  P.  xxxii.  4  Vol.  VII.  p.  350.  s  P.  355. 


6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VII.  p.  354. 

5b 


738  AFGHANS. 

If  at  a  future  time  a  person  should  read  in  an  author  of  the  present  day,  that  the  English  lan- 
guage was  spoken  in  Australia,  although  at  that  time  the  language  of  Australia  should  vary  greatly 
from  the  then  spoken  English,  I  think  he  would  have  no  difficulty.  Then  why  should  there  be 
any  difficulty  in  the  Pushto  of  Afghanistan  or  Eastern  Syria  and  the  Pushto  of  Western  Syria  ? 
It  cannot  be  forgotten  that  both  languages  must  have  been  diverging  as  from  a  common  centre. 
It  seems  extremely  probable  that  the  old  Hebrew  was  the  common  centre  from  which  the  Tamul, 
the  Afghan,  and  the  Western  Syriac  diverged.  It  must  also  be  remembered,  that  neither  the  Syna- 
gogue Hebrew  nor  the  Samaritan  is  the  original  language,  because  it  is  written  in  twenty-two — not 
in  sixteen  letters.  This  forms  another  reason  for  a  divergence  from  the  Pushto  or  the  Tamul.  The 
two  latter  must  have  been  diverging,  each  in  one  way,  from  the  common  centre,  while  the  Hebrew 
was  diverging  in  another.  Sir  W.  Jones  says,  the  Pushto  or  Pukhto  language,  of  which  I  have 
seen  a  dictionary,  has  a  manifest  resemblance  to  the  Chaldaic. l  This,  if  correct,  comes  as  near  as 
can  be  expected.  The  Syriac  has  been  thought  the  oldest  language  by  some  learned  men.2  From 
all  these  circumstances  I  am  induced  to  believe  that  the  Tamul  language  with  its  sixteen  letters 
was  originally  the  Pushto,  the  language  in  which  the  common  people  of  Tamul  who  are  Christians 
have  their  Gospels  and  Bible,  given  by  the  Portuguese.  In  not  one  of  the  books  treating  of  the 
Christians  of  Malabar  is  there  a  single  word  to  induce  any  one  to  suppose,  that  they  had  a  lan- 
guage different  from  the  other  people  of  the  country,  and  that  we  certainly  know  was  what  is 
called  Pushto,  Syriac,  and  Chaldee,  which  are  in  fact  all  the  same  ;  differing  in  nothing  of  conse- 
quence, but  in  the  forms  of  their  letters,  and  perhaps  in  the  direction  in  which  they  are  written. 

Mr.  Wilson,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  says,  that  the  Tamul  language  was  known  to  Arrian.  3 
And  now  we  will  ask  what  was  the  meaning  of  Tamul  ?  Was  it  Tarn  the  first  word  of  Tamuz, 
of  Adoni,  a  place  near  to  or  the  same  as  Tripetty  in  the  Tamul  country  ?  I  believe  that  the  old 
Tamul  is  what  Buchanan  and  others  call  the  Syro-Chaldee,  the  language  of  the  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians of  South  India  and  St.  Thome*.  It  is  the  language  of  the  physicians  of  Ayoudya  noticed  as 
being  spoken  at  Cashi,  and  of  the  physicians  of  Madura.4  There  is  a  dialect  in  this  country 
called  Shen  Tamizh. 5      This  speaks  for  itself. 

The  word  Tam-ul  itself  is  nothing  but  the  Hebrew  L-tam,  or  the  Syriac  Ol-tam,   the  language 
of  the,  or  the  country  of  the,  Twins  j  of  which  I  shall  say  more  presently. 

In  forming  a  judgment  upon  this  subject,  let  us  look  at  the  languages  of  the  nations  of  America, 
South  of  the  United  States,  and  I  am  informed  by  a  very  learned  friend,  whose  attention  has  been 
in  a  very  particular  manner  turned  to  them,  that  though  upwards  of  a  hundred  of  them  are  found, 
yet  it  is  really  impossible  to  discover  the  slightest  affinity  or  relationship  between  any  two  of 
them,  and  that  it  is  precisely  the  same  in  the  languages  of  Australia  and  the  Polynesian  islands. 
All  this  arises  from  these  languages  not  being  written.  We  must  also  recollect  that  all  our 
Asiatic  writers,  endeavour  by  every  means  in  their  power  to  disguise  the  fact  of  the  Hebrew  or 
Chaldee  language  being  in  these  countries  ;  and  they  do  this  not  from  a  wish  to  do  any  thing 
wrong,  but  from  a  rooted  persuasion  that  it  is  absolutely  incredible,  the  very  acme  of  absurdity,  to 
suppose  it  possible  that  the  Hebrew  language  should  be  spoken  in  these  remote  countries,  in  dis- 
tricts of  India.  Thus,  in  a  similar  manner,  in  the  account  of  the  Lama  of  Tibet  given  by  a  mis- 
sionary in  the  Oriental  Repertory,  he  calls  the  Mitre  worn  by  the  Grand  Lama  a  cap  of  ceremony, 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  76. 

2  Vide  Univ.  Hist.  Vol.  I.  p.  347,  and  Astle,  p.  3/.     For  Syriac  letters,  se-  Tuners.  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  293. 

3  P-  xxxii.  *  P.  xxxiv.  "  P.  xlvi 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER   VII.    SECTION  2.  739 

and  in  a  note  he  acknowledges  this  circumstance,  but  assigns  no  reason  for  it.  l  The  writer  seems 
to  have  had  no  ill  intention,  but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  use  the  Christian  term  mitre  though 
the  cap  of  ceremony  was  evidently  nothing  else.  This  feeling  has  operated  in  thousands  of  in- 
stances in  the  same  manner,  particularly  in  the  names  of  places,  which  has  done  more  than  can 
be  easily  conceived  to  keep  us  in  the  dark. 

2.  Nimrod  has  observed,  that  the  question,  What  national  or  local  language  is  the  least  altered 
from  the  language  which  was  spoken  before  the  confusion,  (by  which  I  suppose  is  meant,  what  is 
the  least  changed  from  the  primeval  language,)  is  a  question  to  which  the  greatest  linguists  will 
find  it  difficult  to  give  an  answer ;  and,  he  adds,  "  So  deceitful  and  slippery  are  the  paths  of  philo- 
"  logy,  that  perhaps  historical  and  traditional  arguments,  if  any  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  it, 
"  would  enlighten  the  question  more  than  those  of  grammar  or  those  of  etymology."2    The  obser- 
vation appears  to  me  to  be  excellent  and  deserving  of  the  most  serious  consideration.     In  this 
work  it  will  be  seen  that  the  plan  has  been  almost  invariably  adopted,  and  that  traditional  and  his- 
torical arguments  almost  supersede  all  others.     Grammar  is  entirely  omitted.     Upon  this  kind  of 
foundation  it  is  that  I  contend  for  the  very  great  antiquity  of  the  Chaldee  or  Hebrew.     In  the 
copy  locked  up  in  the  temple  of  the  Jews  we  have  an  example  of  an  old  language  in  its  old  state 
much  prior  to  any  other,  unless  the  Sanscrit  be  excepted  ;  and  if  we  give  the  Hebrew  in  the 
Temple  an  age  1500  years  before  Christ,  and  the  Sanscrit  2000  or  2500,  yet  we  can  never  know 
how  long  before  the  1500  the  Buddhist  Genesis  may  have  been  preserved  as  a  sacred  work;  and 
it  is  presumed  that  numerous  facts  are  visible  to  shew  that  the  names  of  Chaldee  gods,  places,  and 
persons,  are  found  in  the  Sanscrit,  so  as  to  prove  it  to  have  arisen  since  the  writing  of  the  Hebrew 
books  :  this,  of  course,  will  throw  back  the  writing  of  the  first  book,  or  Buddhist  book  of  Genesis, 
to  a  very  remote  period,  long  before  Moses  adopted  it  into  his  compilation,  as  it  ought  to  be  thrown 
if  it  be  really  a  Buddhist  work. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  what  would  be  the  first  step  which  would  be  adopted  by  man  in  the  for- 
mation of  language,  but  a  probable  near  approximation  to  the  truth  I  think  may  be  contemplated, 
merely  by  the  application  of  a  little  common  sense.     His  first  words  would  consist  of  simple 
sounds,  which,  by  our  present  letter  system,  might  be  represented  by  such  words  as  ba  bal ;  or  by 
our  vowels,  a  or  ah.     They  would  be  nouns  or  the  signs  of  things.     They  would  have  only  one 
number,  one  case,  one  gender.     After  some  time,  probably  by  very  slow  degrees,  the  words  which 
we  describe  by  the  other  parts  of  speech  would  arise.     But  the  noun  would  have  no  inflections. 
The  different  cases  would  be  formed  by  adding  words  in  the  most  simple  manner ;  as,  bit,  house ; 
le  bit,  to  house  j  be-bit}  by  house.     It  is  evident  that  this  would  be  regulated,  in  a  great  measure, 
by  caprice  or  accident.     I  can  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  written  language  which  comes  the 
nearest  to  this  simplicity  has  the  greatest  probability  of  being  nearest  to  the  first  language — and 
this  is  the  Hebrew  of  the  Synagogue.     Its  cases  are  made,  like  the  English,  by  words,  and  its  use 
of  the  rude  form  instead  of  a  genitive  case,  called  being  in  regimine,  is  a  peculiarity  which  marks 
almost  primeval  simplicity. 3     The  words  which  denote  the  past  and  future  times  may  be  used  one 
for  the  other,  and  which  is  to  be  adopted,  in  any  case,  can  only  be  known  from  the  context.     They 
have  been  attempted  to  be  subjected  to  rule  by  what  is  called  the  vau  conversa,  but  I  think  in  vain. 
Many  other  marks  of  rudeness  might  be  pointed  out. 


1  Vide  Orient.  Repertory,  Vol.  II.  p.  277-  8  Vol.  II.  p.  493. 

3  This  has  been  before  named  in  Book  V.  Chap.  V.  Sect.  2,  but  it  ought  to  have  been  more  fully  explained.  My 
reader  will  observe  the  words  ^KnO  bit-al.  They  mean  correctly  house  God,  and  when  in  regimine,  that  is,  when  the 
second  is  in  the  genitive  case,  they  mean  house  of  God,  the  words  remaining  exactly  similar.  This  shews  how  men  and 
places  came  to  have  the  names  of  gods.    The  priest  of  Jove  came  to  be  priest  Jove. 

5b2 


740  TAMUL   LANGUAGE. 

Maimonides  says,  Scito,  multas  egregias  scientias,  quae  in  gente  nostra  olini  fuerunt  de  veritate 
istarum  rerum,  partim  longitudine  temporis,  partim  infidelium  et  stultorum  populorum  in  nos 
dominatione,  partim  etiam  quod  non  cuivis  concessa  erant,  (sicut  exposuiraus,)  periisse  et  in  obli- 
vionem  devenisse  (nihil  enim  permissum  erat,  nisi  ea,  quae  in  libros  sacros  digesta  et  relata 
erant).1  1  know  of  no  written  language  which  exhibits  such  marks  of  rudeness  and  simplicity  as 
the  Synagogue  Hebrew  or  Chaldee,  and  on  this  account  has  such  a  claim  to  antiquity.  Probably 
the  first  language  and  letter  of  the  Culdees  or  Chaldei  or  Chaldeans,  when  they  came  from  India, 
was  the  Samaritan.  In  the  thousand  years  which  passed  between  the  time  of  Abraham  and  the 
return  of  the  tribe  from  Babylon,  the  Chaldees  of  the  East  had  improved  the  present  Chaldee 
letter,  which  Ezra  adopted.  The  discovery  of  the  Chaldee  or  Syro-Chaldee  language  yet  in  India, 
is,  when  well  considered,  almost  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  theory.  Whenever  the  natives  of 
Malabar  became  Christians,  whatever  the  nature  of  their  Christianity  may  have  been  or  may  be, 
they  must  then  have  used  the  Syro-Chaldee  language  and  letter.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion, 
arising  from  various  circumstances,  that  Buchanan,  who  was  unacquainted  with  Hebrew,  found  the 
people  speaking  that  language,  which  was  what  he  took  for  the  Tamul.  I  think  it  possible  that 
Wilson  and  Mackenzie  may  have  supposed  that  Buchanan  was  writing  about  the  language  of  a  few 
separate  Jews  and  Christians,  when,  in  fact,  they  were  all  writing  about  the  same  language.  That 
this  naturally  arose  from  none  of  them  having  the  least  suspicion  of  the  real  state  of  the  case,  and 
that  the  now  corrupted  Tamul,  is  the  Syro-Chaldee  or  the  parent  of  the  Syro-Chaldee,  and  that  it 
is  the  circumstance  of  the  sacred  books  being  written  in  the  Chaldee  that  has  preserved  the  Tamul 
or  spoken  Chaldee  or  Pushto  language,  from  changing  so  much  as  to  be  entirely  lost,  though  the 
form  of  its  letter  be  entirely  changed,  as  might  be  expected.  This  is  what  has  taken  place  with  the 
Arabic  in  other  countries  since  Mohamed's  time.2  Sir  W.  Drummond  says,  "The  Chaldaic,  the 
"  ancient  Syriac,and  the  Phoenician, appear  to  have  been  very  nearly  the  same;  that  the  two  first  were 
"  so  will  not  probably  be  disputed :  Chaldaicce  linguae  ita  affinis  est  Syriaca,  says  Walton,  ut  a 
"  plerisque  pro  una  eademque  habeantur,  sola  enim  dialecto  differunt  :  in  Scripturis  dicitur 
"  Aramasa  ab  Aram,  ut  Syriaca  a  Syria."  3 

The  natives  of  Cashmere  as  well  as  those  of  Afghanistan,  pretending  to  be  descended  from  the 
Jews,  give  pedigrees  of  their  kings  reigning  in  their  present  country  up  to  the  sun  and  moon  :  and 
along  with  this,  they  shew  you  Temples  still  standing,  built  by  Solomon,  statues  of  Noah,  and 
other  Jewish  patriarchs.  Concerning  these  matters,  when  our  travellers  are  told  of  the  descent 
from  the  Jews  they  make  no  inquiry;  at  the  same  time  they  are  occasionally  obliged  to  allow, 
that  the  descent  from  the  Jews  is,  for  many  reasons,  totally  incredible.  Then  how  is  this  to  be 
explained  ?  Simply  by  the  fact,  that  the  traditions  of  the  Afghans  tell  them,  that  they  are  de- 
scended from  the  tribe  of  Ioudi  or  Yuda :  and  in  this  they  are  right ;  for  it  is  the  tribe  of  Joudi 
noticed  by  Eusebius  to  have  existed  before  the  Son  of  Jacob  in  Western  Syria  was  born,  the  Joudi 
of  Oude,  and  from  which  tribe  the  Western  Jews  with  the  Brahmin  (Abraham)  descended  and 
migrated.  The  same  or  some  of  the  same  people  who  came  to  Thrace  burning  the  widows — the 
Orpheans  who  brought  the  Trimurti  to  Plato ;  and,  to  Syria  and  Egypt,  the  people  of  the  country 
of  Tarn,  i.  e.  Tamuz,  of  whom  Ezekiel  speaks.  "  The  Afghans  call  Saul,  Melic  Talut.  They  are 
"  called  Solaimani,  either  because  they  were  formerly  the  subjects  of  Solomon,  king  of  the  Jews, 
"  or  because  they  inhabit  the  mountain  of  Solomon."  4     I  quote  this  for  the  fact,  the  reason  for  it 


1  In  More  Nev.  Cap.  lxxi. 

*  The  Afghan  language  is  called  both  Pukhto  and  Pushto.    Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  63. 

3  Punic.  Ins.  p.  11.  "  Asiat.  Res.  Vol  II  p.  73. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VII.     SECTION  2.  741 

is  very  unsatisfactory.  How  extraordinary  that  it  should  never  occur  to  this  writer  to  inquire, 
how  these  subjects  of  Solomon  and  Saul  should  live  near  the  temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere,  or 
the  mountains  of  Solomon  in  Mewar  or  Malwa  ! *  In  the  fragments  xxxiv.  xxxv.,  Calmet's  editor 
shews,  that  a  great  part  of  the  Jewish  history  of  Samuel,  Saul,  David,  and  Solomon,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  history  of  the  Afghans.  From  this  I  have  been  led  to  a  suspicion,  that  the  reason  for  the 
monstrous  numbers  of  soldiers,  chariots,  horses,  &c,  of  which  we  read  in  the  Bible,  applied  not  to 
Western,  but  to  Eastern,  Judea ;  and  the  same  of  the  gold  used  in  the  temple.  All  this,  as  applied 
to  Western  Syria,  is  ridiculous  j  but  not  so  as  applied  to  the  state  and  the  enormous  city  of  Oudia 
of  India. 

It  is  quite  impossible  for  any  unprejudiced  person  not  to  see,  that  the  Jewish  history,  in  matters 
unconnected  with  miracle,  is  full  of  absolute  impossibilities.  The  use  of  6,900,000,000  pounds 
sterling2  in  the  temple,  is  one  out  of  many  examples.  Then  what  are  we  to  say,  unless  we  choose 
to  charge  the  whole  as  priestcraft,  except  that  the  object  of  the  book  was  neither  history  nor  chro- 
nology, but  as  was  the  case  in  all  other  nations,  the  concealment  of  a  mythos  under  apparent  his- 
tory, as  noticed  before,  by  me,  in  Book  VIII.  Chap.  VIII.  Sect.  5. 

So  completely  is  the  tribe  of  Afghans  Judaite,  that  in  the  time  of  Mahmud  of  Ghaznah,  the 
family  of  Saul  was  still  remaining  in  the  mountains,  and  eight  of  his  descendants  were  taken  into 
pay  by  Mahmud,  and  treated  with  high  respect.3  How  is  it  possible  on  any  principle  to  make  the 
descendants  of  Saul,  of  Western  Syria,  all  killed  by  the  Gibeonites,  to  pass  through  the  reigns  of 
David,  Solomon,  &c,  and  the  captivity,  and  survive  to  the  time  of  Mahmud,  here  in  India  ? 

In  Dr.  Dorn's  History  of  the  Afghans4  is  an  account  of  an  embassy  sent  by  one  of  the  first 
Caliphs  to  the  Afghans,  to  inform  them  that  the  last  of  the  prophets  had  come,  and  to  solicit  them 
to  turn  Mohamedans.  If  we  consider  that  the  originals  of  the  Jews  were  found  in  their  country, 
and  that  it  was  called  Arabia,  there  seems  nothing  improbable  in  this,  or  that  this  should  be  the 
reason  why  these  mountaineers  should  have  been  among  Mohamed's  first  proselytes.  If  we  sup- 
pose that  the  Arabians  in  the  time  of  Mohamed  were  acquainted  with  their  descent  from  the 
Afghans,  and  that  the  latter  were  expecting  a  new  incarnation  to  arrive,  this  does  not  seem  very 
unlikely  to  have  happened. 

It  is  also  worthy  of  recollection,  that  Saul  in  India  is  called  by  a  different  name,  i.  e.  Talut, 
from  that  which  he  bears  in  the  Bible,  but  it  is  the  same  name  as  that  which  he  bears  in  Arabia. 
This  has  a  strong  tendency  to  confirm  what  I  have  said  of  the  Arabians  coming  from  India,  and 
also  to  confirm  what  the  Mohamedans  say,  that  the  Afghans  sent  Abdul  Raschid  to  acknowledge 
Mohamed  as  the  Resoul  or  prophet,  among  the  first  of  his  followers.5  They,  in  short,  acknow- 
ledged him  for  the  tenth  Avatar.  This  was  the  Talisman  (from  us  concealed  by  such  of  our  priests 
as  knew  it,  with  the  greatest  care)  which  gave  to  Mohamed  the  conquest  of  this  world.  It  had 
done  the  same  thing  before  for  Alexander  and  Caesar. 6 

Respecting  the  word  Talut,  there  is  something  very  curious  and  worthy  of  observation.  In  the 
first  book  of  Samuel,  chapter  nine,  and  the  second  verse,  it  is  said,  that  Saul  was  higher  than 
any  of  the  people  of  Israel.  It  is  evident  that  the  word  Talut  is  a  formation  of  the  Hebrew  word 
bbn  til,  which  means  a  tall  man.  Here  we  have  an  Afghan,  an  Arabian,  a  Hebrew,  and  an  English 
word  all  representing  the  same  idea. 

1   For  Solomon's  temple  in  Cashmere  see  Forster's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  11,  also  p.  17.    For  more  respecting  Talut, 
refer  to  what  I  have  said  in  the  chapter  on  Freemasons 

*  Villapandus  has  proved,  that  Solomon's  temple  cost,  according  to  the  text,  six  thousand  nine  hundred  millions  of 
pounds  sterling.    Oliver,  p.  349. 

*  See  Asiat.  Res  Vol.  II.  p.  71.  4  P.  37-  s  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  71. 
6  Saul  vocatur  Taluth  in  Alkorano  Hotting  ,  de  Geneal.  Moham.  p.  112. 


742  SUBJECT   CONTINUED. 

The  Arabians  call  the  people  of  the  Afghanistan  Cashmere  and  Kandahar,  Soleymanye,  and 
there  is  a  district  near  Mecca  called  by  this  name  also,  the  inhabitants  of  which  have  a  tradition 
that  they  came  from  these  Eastern  countries. ' 

We  find  at  three  of  the  temples  of  Solomon — that  in  Upper  India,  that  which  I  suppose  to  have 
been  at  Salem,  in  the  Carnatic,  and  that  in  Western  Syria,  the  same  mythos  of  a  Moses  or  Sa- 
viour (for  the  word  Moses  means  Saviour).  From  this  I  think  it  probable  that  it  was  the  same 
or  nearly  the  same  in  the  secret  writings  in  every  one  of  the  fourteen  temples  of  Solumi  of  which 
we  have  read,  for  fragments  of  this  mythos  are  to  be  found  every  where. 

3.  If  we  reflect  deeply  upon  the  Sindi,  the  sacrificing  of  wives,   and  other  marks  of  the  most 
ancient  Indian  polity  in  Thrace,   we  cannot  help  seeing  that  they  must  have  gone  thither  long 
before  the  march  of  Alexander  to  India.     The  sacrificing  of  their  widows  by  these  Thracian  Sindi 
puts  their  Hindoo  character  out  of  all  doubt.     Let  us  reflect  a  little  on  the  consequences  which 
would  arise  among  mankind,  if,  as  I   suppose,  one  original  language  pervaded  the  whole  world. 
It  seems  the  natural  course  that  when  colonies  went  out  to  different  countries,  if  their  language 
were  in  comparatively-speaking   a  rude  and  unimproved    state,   they  should  take  their  language 
poor  and  rude,  and  that  after  they  were  settled,  and  began  to  get  rich,  and  to  become  civilized, 
they  should  improve  it.     And  in  this  manner  cases,  genders,  numbers,  would  come  to  be  formed 
in   all  languages,  but  the  means  by  which  they  would  be  formed  would  vary.     For  instance, 
in  the  cases  of  nouns  :  some  nations  would  form  them  by  changes  of  the  terminations,  like  the 
Greeks  and  Latins ;    some  by  the   substitution  of  what   we  call   prepositions.     Thus  different 
languages  would  vary,  but  yet  the  principles  of  nature  being  the  same  in  all  nations,  a  certain 
general   character  of  similarity  would  remain ;   for  all  nations  would  want  different  numbers, 
tenses,    cases,    &c.     Though   the   variations  are  considerable,   yet  the    similarity   among  most 
nations  is  so  great,  that  it  can  in  no  other  way  be  accounted  for  than  by  supposing  that  the  use  of 
the  same  system  of  letters  prevailed  among  them  all  in  very  early  times.     It  is  very  clear  that  at 
the  time  when  a  barbarous  people  first  received  the  sixteen  letters  would  be  the  first  beginning  of 
their  grammatical  speculations,  though  no  doubt  they  would  previously,   perhaps   unconsciously 
but  practically,  have  formed  what  we  call  in  grammar  numbers,  cases,  &c. ;  for  they  could  not 
have  done  without  them  :  but  they  probably  would  have  given  them  no  names.     I  think  when 
they  received  the  sixteen-letter  system,  they  must  have  received  some  information  respecting  the 
nature  of  the  grammar  of  the  country  from  which  they  received  it :  and  casualties  of  this  kind  no 
doubt  would  operate  in  various  ways.     The  intermixture  of  nations  for  purposes  of  commerce 
would  also  have  considerable  influence  in  many  cases,  which  may  be  more  easily  supposed  than 
described.     But  what  would  have  taken  place  if  the  art  of  writing  were  at  first  secret  and  confined 
to  one  order,  which  extended  over  all  the  world,   and  that  it  became  known  by  degrees  as  all 
secrets  of  this  kind  of  such  great  importance  to  mankind  in  long  periods  will  certainly  do  ?     This 
is  the  theory  which  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  rational  and  probable,   which  I  have  been  able  to 
devise,  to  account  for  many  anomalies.     This  fact  and  the  supposal  of  a  constant  wish  to  con- 
ceal doctrines  against  their  natural  tendency  to  obtain  publicity  or  to  become  public,  will,  I  think, 


1  Burchardt's  Travels  in  Arabia,  4to.  pp,  127,  128.  He  calls  the  Palm-tree  the  Dora-tree.  Here  we  have  the  old 
name  restored,  the  tree  of  the  holy  Om.  Rosetta  is  Raschid.  This  is  town  ofdi-ras,  holy  wisdom.  About  lat.  27,  in 
Arabia,  is  a  mount  Salma.  This  is  probably  a  Soluma.  Drummond's  Origines,  Vol.  III.  p.  243,  map.  One  of  the 
rivers  which  runs  into  the  Ganges  is  called  Solomatis.  Arrian,  Ind.  Hist.  Cap.  iv.  For  the  Solumi  or  Mylseans,  see 
Creuzer,  Liv.  Quat.  Ch.  iv.  p.  110;  Tome  II.  The  river  called  by  Rennell,  Selima,  in  the  same  country  with 
the  mountains  of  Juda  and  Solumi,  I  believe  was  a  river  of  Solomon.  This  was  anciently  in  the  country  of  Oude 
or  Ioudia.  Mem  p.  74.  Is  not  the  Turris  Lapidea  of  Ptolemy  in  42£  North  lat.  the  temple  of  Solomon  ?  The 
Sacee  or  Saxons  are  just  below  it.  The  Afghans  are  called  Rohillas.  This  has  come  from  the  Hebrew  Regimen. 
They  are  followers  of  the  Rohilla,  i.  e.  Ray-al,  or  ale. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER   VII.    SECTION   3.  743 

remove  every  difficulty  with  which  the  subject  has  been  encumbered.  I  believe  the  art  of  writino- 
was  at  first  strictly  magical  and  masonic,  and  many  of  the  anomalies  which  we  meet  with  mav  be 
accounted  for  by  the  unskilful  or  awkward  attempts  of  its  possessors  to  keep  it  so,  or  to  restore  it 
to  secrecy  after  it  had  become  partly  known.  In  India,  to  divide  themselves  from  the  Tamulese 
and  Buddhists,  the  Sanscrit  was  probably  invented  by  the  Brahmins.  Every  one  knows  that  this 
language  was  solely  confined  to  their  order  for  many  generations.  From  this  view  of  the  subject 
we  see  why  we  have,  in  great  numbers  of  instances,  the  same  words  for  the  same  things,  in  coun- 
tries the  most  remote.  I  know  no  instance  in  which  one  language  can  be  properly  said  to  be 
derived  from  another.  I  know  many  where  a  language  may  be  said  to  be  compounded  of  two  or 
three  others.  Our  own  is  a  compound  of  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  several  German  dialects,  and 
French.  I  have  not  named  the  Celtic,  because  at  the  very  early  period  when  Britain  must  have 
been  first  inhabited  by  its  Druids,  there  must  have  been  little  or  no  difference  between  it  and  the 
Hebrew.  The  rays  diverging  from  the  centre  cannot  at  that  time  have  had  much  length.  I  think 
this  theory  will  remove  all  difficulties,  and  that  my  reader  must  see  it  is  supported  by  almost  in- 
numerable facts,  and  by  circumstances  without  end,  which  are  otherwise  unaccountable.  The 
universal  prevalency  of  the  sixteen-letter  system  almost  of  itself  shews,  that  all  the  written  lan- 
guages ought  to  be  considered  but  merely  as  dialects  of  one  original. 

In  the  history  of  languages  there  is   a  circumstance  which  is  well  known,  but  which  has  not 
received  the  attention  which  it  merits,   and  this  is  the  universal  diffusion  of  that  of  the  Arabians. 
This  language  (of  course  with  some  dialectic  variations)   is  found  to  be  in  use  by  the  nomade 
tribes  throughout  all  Africa  and  a  very  great  part  of  Asia.     We  know  that  this  is  actually  trace- 
able back  to  Job  and  thus  to  the  Hebrew.     My  reader  cannot,  I  think,  have  forgotten  the  great 
number  of  cases  in  which  different  authors  have  stated  that  some  dialect  of  the  old  Hebrew  wa8 
found.     This  old  Hebrew  is  but,  in  other  words,  Arabic ;  and  this  accounts  for  traces  of  this  lan- 
guage where  Mohatnedan  Saracens  never  had  any  power.     It  is  found,  I  believe,  in  the  Polynesian 
islands  among  people  never  conquered  by  the  Saracens  and  not  professing  the  Mohamedan  faith, 
and  among  the  idolaters  of  the  interior  part  of  Africa.     The  length  of  time  which   the  Hebrew 
and  Arabic,  really  the  same  language,  have  lasted,  is   easily  accounted  for.     The  sacred  books, 
first  the  Jewish  canon,  preserved  it  to  the  time  of  Christ :  then  the  Targums  preserved  it  to  the 
time  of  Mohamed :  then  the  Koran  continued  its  preservation.     Each   in  its   turn   served  as   a 
standard  of  reference.     The  fine  works  of  Greece  and  Rome  operated  in  the  same  manner  with 
their  languages  after  they  became  dead  ones.     After  the  flood,  probably,  language  was  every  where 
the  same.     As  it  deviated  from  the  first  original,  nations  became  separated.     Of  course  this  sepa- 
ration would  be  aided  by  other  causes.     But  the  separation   again  tended  to  confound  the  lan- 
guages.    So  far  the  allegory  of  Genesis  is  very  clear.     The  confusion  of  language  caused  the 
separation  of  all  mankind.     Man  endeavoured  to  build  a  tower  to  reach  to  heaven.     Was  this  an 
observatory  accompanied  with  an  attempt  in  part  successful  to  discover  the  secrets  of  the  privi- 
leged caste  ?     Did  the  soldiers  rebel  against  the  priests  ?     This  suspicion  is  strengthened  by  what 
the  book  of  Enoch  declares,  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  sins  of  the  Antediluvians  was  the 
searching  into  and  the  discovering  of  hidden  secrets.     Was  the  story  of  the  dispersion  and   con- 
fusion of  tongues  a  local  mythos  ?     I  think  I  have  not  heard  of  it  in  India.     That  there  is  an 
allegory  cannot  be  doubted.     That  a  true  discovery  of  the  whole  of  its  meaning  will  ever  be  made 
is,  perhaps,  not  even  probable.     If  the  history  of  the  dispersion,  tower  of  Babel,  &c,  be  not  found 
in  the  Vedas  or  Pnranas,   I  shall  believe  that  I  am  correct.     I  have  formerly  given  very  powerful 
reasons  for  believing  that  hieroglyphics   were   comparatively  speaking  a  modern  invention.     I 
think  they  must  have  been  invented  after  this  mythos  came  to  the  West.     If  they  had  not,  we 
should  have  found  traces  of  them  somewhere.     Had  they  been  previously  invented,   it  is  impos- 


744 


SUBJECT    CONTINUED. 


sible  that  the  mythos  should  be  found  every  where,  and  the  hieroglyphics  no  where  except  in  one 
country. 

The  more  I  examine  ancient  geography  the  more  I  become  convinced  that  in  the  countries  of 
the  old  world,  a  certain  number  of  places  in  each  country  were  called  after  the  same  names,  or  by 
names  having  the  same  meanings.  For  instance,  mounts  Olympus,  Parnassus,  Ida.  Again  towns, 
Argo  or  Argos ;  again  rivers,  Don,  &c,  &c,  &c. ;  that  certain  mounts  or  towns  or  rivers,  in  each 
district,  as  I  might  say  each  parish  or  deanery  or  bishopric,  had  all  the  sacred  places  which  the 
universally- spread  mythos  required ;  and  that  the  names  of  these  places  must  have  been  at  first 
merely  religious,  the  places  for  common  use  having  other  names.  After  some  time  the  sacred 
names  in  different  places  would  come  into  common  use  by  historians  ;  they  being  at  first  the  only 
written  names,  all  early  writings  being  mythical  and  not  historical.  I  believe  most  of  the  early 
accounts  or  traditions,  what  we  call  histories,  such  as  that  of  Rome,  were  not  intended  for  a  real 
account  of  transactions  of  states,  but  were  a  mode  of  concealing  under  the  garb  of  history  (real 
facts  being  mostly  used)  the  mythos  which  every  person  initiated  understood,  but  which  passed 
with  the  populace  for  history.  The  mythos  was  Eleusinian  or  Masonic.  I  have  no  doubt  that  for 
many  generations  the  art  of  writing  was  part  of  it. 

In  the  Romish  church  the  whole  history  of  Jesus  Christ  from  his  birth  to  his  crucifixion  was 
formerly  and  is  now,  I  believe,  annually  represented  or  acted  in  their  ceremonies  :  and  it  was  for  a 
similar  purpose  that  all  the  places  in  the  different  countries  had  certain  similar  sacred  names  :  and 
it  is  also  in  many  cases  because  we  have  only  the  sacred  stories  which  we  take  for  histories,  (real 
history  not  being  then  invented,)  that  we  have  no  other  names  of  the  places  than  the  sacred  ones. 
If  a  person  will  pass  his  eye  carefully  and  slowly  over  D'Anville's  maps  of  ancient  geography,  I 
think  he  will  be  obliged  to  confess,  that  the  names  of  towns,  as  we  have  them  there,  cannot  have 
been  in  use  for  the  common  purposes  of  life.  How  should  we  do  if  in  every  parish  or  deanery  or 
district  the  principal  town  or  river  or  mountain  had  the  same  name  and  no  other  ?  We  do  very 
well  with  a  Don  in  Scotland,  and  one  in  Yorkshire,  but  how  should  we  do  if  the  chief  river  of  each 
small  district  was  called  Don  or  its  town  Argos,  and  no  other  name  ?  It  is  evident  that  if  all  the 
chief  towns  or  rivers  of  each  district  of  Greece  or  Britain  had  the  same  name  one  day,  they  would 
not  have  it  the  next.  Thus  we  have  great  numbers  of  Argoses,  of  Troys,  of  Heracleas,  of  Romes, 
or  (which  is  the  same)  Ramas,  of  Olympuses.  In  the  same  way  we  have  many  Homers — singers 
of  the  mythos  *  — many  Jupiters,  many  Bacchuses.  In  the  same  way  we  have  many  Sibyls,  pro- 
phesying in  each  larger  or  smaller  district. 

An  attentive  person  must  instantly  see  that  all  countries  were  divided,  as  our  country  is  at  this 
day,  into  districts  within  one  another,  with  their  boundaries  often  crossing  one  another — the  reli- 
gious district  independent  of  the  civil  or  the  military,  or  local  jurisdictions,  seignories  or  shires.2 
We  have  plenty  of  cathedral  towns,  we  have  plenty  of  parishes,  but  we  have  no  difficulty,  because 
these  are  only  sacred  names,  and  these  districts  have  one  name  in  England,  another  in  Germany, 
another  in  France,  besides  other  local  names.     The  sacred  places  are  called,  sometimes  and  in 


1  The  poems  of  Homer  were  collected  by  Lycurgus  and  Pisistratus  from  the  different  parts  of  Greece,  when  they 
had  become  dispersed  and  nearly  lost.  And  this  operation  was  again  performed  by  Aristotle  and  his  coadjutors  for 
the  use  of  Alexander.  This  accounts  for  the  state  in  which  those  poems  are  found.  It  is  quite  enough  to  account 
satisfactorily  for  all  the  pretended  interpolations,  and  for  the  difficulties  with  which  they  have  been  attended.  In  the 
search,  part  was  found  in  one  district,  part  in  another,  and  thus  nearly  the  whole  was  recovered  when  almost  lost. 
And  thus  we  have  it  exhibiting  the  marks  of  the  Lacunae  supplied  by  Aristotle  and  his  friends,  which  our  critical 
Grecists  call  interpolations. 

■  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxix. 


BOOK    X.    CHAPTER    VJI.    SECT.    4.  745 

some  places,  cathedrals — in  others,  minsters.  Thus  the  sacred  mount  was  Olympus,  in  some 
places,  Parnassus  in  others.  We  now  all  have  our  Christian  names.  I  believe  the  ancients 
had  their  Christian,  p^vjg-jav,  names  precisely  in  the  same  manner,  and  that  the  towns,  &c,  had 
Christian  names  also.  In  such  of  the  histories  as  are  evidently  mythical,  it  can  scarcely  be 
doubted  that  there  are  a  great  number  of  facts  stated  which  have  really  taken  place.  The  early 
history  of  Rome,  for  instance.  If  we  consider  the  matter,  we  shall  see  that  this  is  a  necessary 
consequence  if  it  were  desired  to  describe  the  mythos  under  the  disguise  of  a  history,  and  that  it 
was  the  very  best  contrivance  which  could  be  adopted  to  get  it  received  by  the  people  among 
whom  it  was  to  be  propagated.  And  if,  among  the  highest  or  initiated  classes,  it  was  really  con- 
sidered only  as  a  fable,  intended  to  lead  the  people  into  a  belief  in  the  renewal  of  worlds,  of  new 
Troys,  new  Argonauts,  &c,  the  very  best  plan  they  could  adopt  (and  it  was  a  necessary  plan) 
was,  to  make  all  their  ancient  histories,  as  we  find  them  in  certain  respects,  mere  copies  of  one 
another.  These  histories,  till  within  a  very  few  centuries  of  the  Christian  aera,  were,  I  believe,  all 
confined  to  certain  initiated  persons,  no  doubt  very  numerous,  but  having  different  grades  of  ini- 
tiation, precisely  like  the  orders  of  Masonry — the  highest  grade  or  order,  being,  in  fact,  very  few 
in  number,  and  consisting  of  the  governors  of  the  countries. 

I  cannot  have  a  doubt  that  a  real  Hierarchy,  like  that  in  Rome  and  in  Tibet,  at  one  time 
extended  over  the  whole  world.  But  whether  I  am  to  place  its  origin  in  Oude,  or  Tibet,  or  Baby- 
lon, or  Thebes  of  Egypt,  or  Ilium  in  Troy,  or  in  Rome  when  it  consisted  of  the  Cyclopaean  build- 
ings found  beneath  the  Flavian  Amphitheatre,  I  know  not.  Perhaps  Cashi-mere,  with  its  temple 
of  Solomon  or  Wisdom,  has  no  mean  claim.  But  at  all  events  the  t£>*n  Mas  or  Wisdom  and  the 
Trimurti  were  the  foundations  of  it.  Every  new  cycle,  a  renewed  incarnation  of  divine  wisdom 
took  place, — one  of  the  Trimurti  became  incarnate,  was  born  sans  souiliure,  after  ten  months, — 
was  attempted  to  be  killed,  but  miraculously  escaped, — spent  a  life  in  doing  good  to  mankind, — 
was  ultimately  put  to  death,  and  the  third  day  rose  again  to  life  and  immortality:  of  all  which,  I 
shall  say  much  more  by  and  by. 

4.  I  will  now  point  out  a  circumstance  not  a  little  curious.  I  need  not  repeat,  but  I  beg  my 
reader  to  recollect,  what  has  lately  been  stated  respecting  the  Manichaeans  having  come  from 
India,  their  connexion  with  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  who  are  found 
every  where  about  Goa,  and  also  respecting  the  X.prj?ta.voi  and  Chryson,  &c,  in  that  country: 
and  then,  if  he  will  look  into  my  Celtic  Druids,  in  Chap,  III.  Sect.  V.,  he  will  find  that  the 
Manichaeans  were  connected,  by  means  of  their  name  of  Pattarini,  with  the  people  of  Baieux  or 
Baiocassae,  in  Gaul,  and  the  worship  of  Bel  or  Bal. 

On  the  coast  of  Malabar,  about  Goa,  there  exists  a  race  of  people  called  by  the  natives  Bhoees. 
They  are  Hindoos  and  refuse  to  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Beeve,  &c,  &c;  but  still  they  are  called 
Christians.  I  learnt  from  a  medical  gentleman,  who  has  dwelt  long  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  that 
they  are  divided  into  two  classes  by  the  natives  ;  one  class,  consisting  of  modern  Portuguese  con- 
verts, are  called  Christians ;  the  other,  those  who  resided  there  before  the  Portuguese  came,  are 
called  Crestons  or  Craestons.  As  this  gentleman  had  no  theory  and  did  not  know  mine,  and  had 
not  the  least  suspicion  that  the  fact  was  of  any  consequence,  I  pay  much  attention  to  his  informa- 
tion ;  it  tends  strongly  to  confirm  my  theory.  The  Creston  is  exactly  the  same  name  as  the 
Creston  of  Italy  or  Crotona.  In  the  country  called  Belgaum,  in  which  these  people  chiefly  reside, 
there  are  remains  of  some  very  beautiful  and  curious  Buddhist  or  Jain  Temples,  which,  if  not 
destroyed  by  the  Brahmins,  must  have  been  destroyed  by  the  Portuguese.  The  distinction  made 
by  the  natives  clearly  marks  and  distinguishes  the  old  Christianity  from  the  new,  in  spite  of  all 
the  unceasing,  though  not  ill-intentioned,  attempts  of  the  missionaries,   both  Portuguese  and 

5  c 


746  OBSERVATIONS   ON    LANGUAGE. 

English,  to  confound  them.  The  Crestons  were  the  Christians  of  the  three  sacraments,  the 
Culdees  or  Chaldees  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  in  fact,  as  distinguished  from  the  Christians  of  the 
seven,  introduced  by  the  Portuguese.  Here  we  have  really  the  ancient  Brahmin  (flesh-refusing) 
followers  of  the  ^gijS — of  the  secret,  unwritten  religion  of  all  nations  ;  and,  after  all,  what  was 
this  religion  called  ?  not  Christian  as  a  proper  name,  but  as  an  appellative  ;  it  was  the  mitis, 
benignus  religion,  the  particulars  of  which,  in  process  of  time  had  escaped  from  the  mysteries — 
the  Cabala  by  degrees  becoming  public.  It  was  the  religion  of  the  Bloodless  Apollo  of  Delos,  at 
whose  altar,  called  the  altar  of  the  pious  because  no  blood  was  shed  there,  Pythagoras  offered  the 
sacrifice  of  bread  and  wine  or  water.  It  was  the  religion  of  the  Xg^  of  Delphi,  of  the  Sindi,  in 
Thrace  where  the  widows  were  burned,  and  of  the  Youth  of  Larissa. 

In  these  Bhoees,  Boicassse,  and  Pettyeyah  or  Pattarini,  I  think  we  have  the  origin,  or  a  colony, 
of  the  Manicheeans,  followers  of  Menu  in  Gaul.1  The  Jews  found  by  the  Jesuit  at  Madura,  in 
the  Carnatic,  are  far  removed  from  Samaritan  refugees,  and  the  country  never  was  conquered  by 
the  Saracens  ;  so  that  they  can  have  come  neither  from  the  Samaritans  nor  the  Arabians. 

In  Wilson's  catalogue  is  an  account2  of  a  Salivahana,  who  was  a  favourer  of  the  Bauddhas, 
being  obliged  to  return  from  Trichinopoly,  at  that  time  his  residence,  to  his  own  former  capital  of 
JBhoja  Mayapur  in  Ayodhya  or  Oude,  by  the  king  of  Pandya,  who  restored  the  temples  of  Ekdm- 
eswara  and  Kamakshi.  Wilson  says,  "  These  transactions  are  placed  in  the  Kali  year  1443,  or 
"  1659  B.  C,  and  1737  before  Salivahana  reigned,  agreeably  to  the  sera,  which  dates  from  his 
"  reign  or  A.  D.  78-"  Here  is  a  proof  of  all  I  have  said  respecting  the  nature  of  the  aeras,  i.  e. 
that  they  are  cycles,  each  sera  a  cycle,  and  of  the  Salivahanas.  Thus,  upon  the  evidence  of  the 
records  or  histories  one  Salivan  lived  long  before  Christ ;  therefore,  his  story  cannot  have  been 
copied  from  the  latter,  but  vice  versa,  if  either  be  a  copy. 

Mr.  Wilson  places  the  aera  of  Yudhishthira  at  the  end  of  the  Dwapar  and  beginning  of  the  Cali 
age,  3000  years  before  Christ.3  He  also  shews  that  Bhoja  (that  is,  I  suppose,  the  Baieux  tribe) 
is  said  to  have  existed  before  the  seras  of  Vicrama  and  Salivan,  who  must,  if  ever  they  existed, 
have  lived  before  him.  The  case  is  very  plain.  Their  seras  are  all  600-year  cycles,  of  different 
tribes,  crossing  each  other — recurring  over  and  over  again,  till  modern  times,  when  the  millenium 
not  coming  as  had  been  expected,  the  system  of  600-year  cycles  fell  into  disuse.  Calculations 
were  then  made  from  the  Salivan  or  Vicrama  who  was  the  last  in  vogue  about  the  time  of  Christ ; 
and  it  became  a  fixed  sera.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  a  reasonable  way  of  accounting  for  the  diffi- 
culty. We  are  told  that  now  they  calculate  by  cycles  of  sixty  years  :  this  is  the  same  as  the  600. 
It  forms  a  cycle  as  well  as  600,  with  the  21,600. 

Here  we  cannot  fail  to  observe,  that  the  Bhoiae  who  came  to  Gaul,  Baieux  of  the  Manicheeans, 
are  in  Ayodhya  or  Juda,  as  I  am  quite  certain  I  have  proved  it  to  be.  These  Baieux  or  Bhoiae 
we  find  on  the  sea-coast,  and  it  is  very  remarkable  that  these  persons  or  this  caste,  among  whom 
we  find  the  Manichaeans  and  the  St.  Thome  Christians,  are  a  tribe  of  fishermen.  It  is  impossible 
to  forget  that  the  first  Christians  were  most  of  them  fishermen  ;  and  the  Pope  calls  himself  a  fish- 
erman. In  the  above  we  may  observe  the  temple  of  the  Eswara-Ekam — or,  in  Hebrew,  Eswara 
the  wise.  It  would  have  been  remarkable  if  we  had  no  where  found  an  ODn  hkm  in  that  country 
where  there  are  a  district  and  a  town  of  Salem,  or  temple  of  Sophia  or  Wisdom,  among  the  other 
Chaldee  words.     The  temple  of  Buddha,  the  other  temple  of  Kama-kshi,  is  Cama,  Divine  Love, 


'  The  father  of  Cristna  or  Kanyia,  Yadu,  had  a  son  called  Druhya,  from  whom  descended  a  tribe.     1  cannot  help 
suspecting  that  in  this  tribe  we  may  have  the  origin  of  the  Druids.     Cambridge  Key,  Vol.  I.  p.  145. 
4  Vol.  I.  p.  184.  3  prefi  t0  Cat.  of  Mack.  MS.  p.  cxxiii. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  5.  JA7 

and  Isi  or  Issi  or  Ischa  the  name  of  Eve.     It  is  probably  a  different  name  for  the  same  God  Ischa. 
The  king  of  Cochin,  as  before  remarked,  is  called  Hakim. 

After  I  had  finished  the  above,  (March  19,  1830,)  I  was  introduced  to  a  gentleman,  who,  when 
resident  at  Madras,  had  frequently  visited  the  mount  of  St.  Thom6  at  Jaypour. 1  He  told  me  that 
the  church  or  temple  on  mount  St.  Thome  was  built  chiefly  of  very  large  stones,  without  any 
cement,  in  the  Cyclopaean  style  of  architecture  :  it  has  an  arched  roof  formed  not  by  wedge- 
shaped  stones,  but  by  stones  projecting  by  battering  over  each  other  with  a  flat  stone  at  the  top, 
in  the  manner  of  the  stones  in  the  dome  at  Komulmar.  2  This  church  or  temple  covers  an  ancient 
Carn  or  heap  of  stones,  on  which,  he  said,  in  modern  times,  it  was  supposed  that  chunam  had 
been  thrown  to  make  them  fast,  to  support  a  fiat  stone  which  is  the  altar  of  the  modern  monks. 
This,  he  supposed,  had  probably  been  placed  there  by  the  Portuguese.  Here  we  have  evidently  a 
Carn  and  Cromleh,  of  the  same  kind  as  those  described  by  Miss  Graham  in  her  book,  which  she 
found  in  this  part  of  India,  and  which  I  am  told  are  very  common.     Vide  my  figure,  No.  18. 

Bnt  this  gentleman  told  me  an  extremely  important  fact — that  though  the  Christians  have  got 
possession  since  the  arrival  of  the  Portuguese  of  the  tomb,  temple,  or  whatever  it  is,  yet  that  it  is 
considered  by  the  natives  as  an  ancient  Buddhist  temple,  and  that  great  numbers  of  Buddhists 
come  to  it  yet  in  pilgrimage  from  all  parts  of  India.  The  Brahmins  hold  the  place  in  detestation 
as  they  consider  this  Thomas  to  be  a  form  of  Buddha.  The  Chaldee  language  is  commonly  spoken 
in  the  country.  In  consequence  of  the  above  information,  I  was  induced  to  examine  Mr.  Sharon 
Turner  a  little  more  closely,  3  and  I  will  now  communicate  the  result  of  that  examination. 

5.  Mr.  Sharon  Turner,  in  his  account  noticed  in  Chap.  V.  Section  2,  has  given  all  the  later  au- 
thorities for  the  history  of  St.  Thomas  in  India,  and  passed  slightly  over  the  early  ones — in  this 
respect  shewing  himself  a  skilful  advocate.  He  well  knew  how  to  humour  the  weakness  of  his  case. 
There  are  two  accounts  of  a  mission  of  one  Pantaenus,  in  some  degree  contradictory  :  one  by 
Eusebius,  the  other  by  Jerom.  The  latter  says  that,  in  consequence  of  missionaries  having  arrived 
from  the  East  requesting  instruction,  Pantaenus  was  sent ;  the  former  says,  he  went  of  his  own 
accord.  Nothing  can  be  more  likely  than  that  missionaries  should  have  arrived  in  Egypt,  as  they 
had  often  done  before  ;  and  the  fact  of  the  pilgrimages  to  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas  being  made  by 
Buddhists,  points  out  to  us  who  these  pilgrims  were,  viz.  Samaneans,  who,  we  know  from  Clemens 
and  others,  had  before  repeatedly  arrived  in  Egypt.  This  I  think  reconciles  all  the  different  his- 
tories, both  of  the  missions  from  India  and  the  mission  of  St.  Bartholomew,  who  was  said  to  have 
gone  to  India ;  but  who,  as  Valesius,  Holstenius,  and  others  have  shewn,  went  to  the  Indians, 
though  not  to  the  East  Indians,  but  to  the  Indians  of  Upper  Egypt — Indians  as  they  were  always 
called  ;  and  who,  as  I  have  formerly  shewn,  spoke  the  Hebrew  language.  Mosheim  says,  it  is 
perfectly  clear  also,  that  he  went  into  Arabia.  These  accounts  are  consistent  with  one  another. 
But  it  is  very  remarkable,  that  the  East-Indian  people  who  were  Christians,  were  converted,  ac- 
cording to  the  accounts  of  these  early  writers,  not  by  St.  Thomas  but  by  St.  Bartholomew.  St. 
Thomas  is  never  named  by  either  Eusebius  or  Jerom,  (as  the  Christian  Protestant  authors  well 
know,)  and  this  is  the  reason  why  Mr.  Sharon  Turner  never  names  Eusebius,  and  only  barely 
notices  Jerom — the  two  authors  on  whose  authority  the  whole  fable  rests.  This  at  once  restores 
the  entire  story  to  the  Tamuz,  of  whom  I  have  before  spoken,  and  of  whom  I  shall  again  treat 
presently.  En  passant,  I  must  observe,  that  Pantaenus  is  a  very  suspicious  name  of  the  person 
to  be  sent  to  the  kingdom  of  Pandaea.  We  all  know  how  medical  persons  affect  the  God  Mercury 
or  Buddha  and  the  Caduceus  and  the  Serpent.  The  Essenians  were  called  physicians  of  the  soul 
or  Therapeutae  :  being  resident  both  in  Judaea  and  Egypt,  they  probably  spoke  or  had  their  sacred 


Printed  January  1833.  8  Vide  Col.  Tod,  p.  671.  3  See  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  X.  pp.  74—92. 

5  c2 


748  SHARON   TURNER. 

books  in  Chaldee.  They  were  Pythagoreans,  as  is  proved  by  all  their  forms,  ceremonies,  and 
doctrines,  and  they  called  themselves  sons  of  Jesse,  that  is,  of  >w>  isi. l  If  the  Pythagoreans  or 
Ccenobitae,  as  they  are  called  by  Jamblicus,  were  Buddhists,  the  Essenians  were  Buddhists.  The 
Essenians,  called  Koinohii,  lived  in  Egypt  on  the  lake  of  Parembole  or  Maria,  in  monasteries. 
These  are  the  very  places  in  which  we  formerly  found  the  Gymnosophists  or  Samaneans  or  Buddhist 
priests  to  have  lived,  which  Gymnosophistae  are  placed  also  by  Ptolemy  in  North-eastern  India. 

Mr.  Sharon  Turner  says,  '  It  is  not  of  great  importance  to  our  subject  to  ascertain  whether  St. 
"  Thomas  really  taught  in  India  :  we  know  of  the  circumstance  only  from  tradition,  and  tradition 
"  is  a  capricious  sylph,  which  can  seldom  be  allowed  to  accompany  the  dignified  march  of  au- 
"  thentic  history."  2  St.  Jerom  never  names  St.  Thomas,  but  says  expressly  that  Bartholomaeus 
had  preached  the  gospel  there  ;  however,  he  does  not  specify  any  place. 3  Eusebius, 4  in  his 
Ecclesiastical  History,  says,  that  Bartholomew  was  said  to  have  gone  to  India,  and  that  Pantaenus 
went  thither  also,  but  not  a  word,  that  I  can  find,  does  he  say  of  St.  Thomas.5 

In  the  edition  of  1823,  Mr.  Turner  wisely  leaves  out  nearly  all  he  had  said  about  St.  Thomas, 
and  apologizes  for  leaving  it  to  Buchanan  and  others  :  but  he  is  too  wise  to  say  that  he  had 
proved  that  St.  Thomas  was  ever  in  India :  he  contents  himself  merely  with  saying  and  shewing 
it  was  believed  in  the  middle  ages.  But  why  has  not  the  really  very  learned  Mr.  Sharon  Turner 
told  us,  that  Eusebius  and  Jerom  never  name  St.  Thomas  ?  Can  any  one  suppose  him  ignorant  ?' 
Sharon  Turner  ignorant !  Impossible.  Alas  1  Alas  !  Well  might  Roger  Bacon  say,  Omnia  ad 
Religionem  in  suspicione  habenda.  If  St.  Thomas  had  gone  to  India,  Eusebius  and  St.  Jerom 
must  infallibly  have  known  it,  and,  under  the  circumstances,  must  as  infallibly  have  named  it. 
But  the  fact  of  Eusebius  and  Jerom  having  attributed  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  to  St.  Bar- 
tholomew, and  not  to  St.  Thomas,  at  once  proves  that  the  whole  history  is  a  part  of  what  had 
come  to  the  West,  probably  with  the  prophecy  of  the  Erythraean  Sibyl.  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
there  may  have  been  some  place  in  Upper  Egypt,  to  which  Alfred  may  have  supposed  his  ambas- 
sador went,  and  who  probably  never  went  farther  than  Rome,  where  plenty  of  precious  stones, 
which  he  is  said  to  have  carried  back,  would  be  supplied  to  him.  And  Mosheim  6  has  proved  that 
Pantenus  never  went  to  the  East  Indies  at  all. 

It  may  not  be  useless  to  recall  attention  to  the  fact  noticed  a  little  time  ago,  that  we  have  most 
clearly  three  distinct  exemplars  of  the  same  mythos,  consisting  of  Noe  and  his  sons,  Abraham,  the 
Mosaic  history,  Saul,  David,  and  Solomon,  &c. :  first  in  Syria  of  the  West,  brought  thither  by  the 
Brahmin  Abraham  and  his  successors ;  secondly  in  the  North-eastern  Syria,  the  kingdom  of 
Pandsea  and  Mutra,  or  Madura,  the  land  of  Ur  or  Uriana,  of  Colida  or  of  the  Chaldees,  with  Noe, 
Ararat,  Saul,  David,  Solomon,  substantially  the  same  as  in  the  West ;  and  thirdly  in  the  kingdom 
of  Madura  or  Pandason,  in  Mysore  or  Maha-Sura,  i.  e.  great  Syria,7  as  described  by  the  Jesuit  in 
Southern  India.  In  these  two  parts  of  the  East  these  mythoses  are  the  foundation  of  the  religion 
of  the  Brahmins  :  but  it  is  a  most  important  part  of  the  story,  that  with  the  mythos  of  Moses,  in 
India,  is  intimately  blended,  so  as  to  form  an  integral  part  of  it,  the  history  of  a  person  of  the 


■  Jesus  Christ,  as  I  have  before  stated,  is  called  by  the  Arabians  Issa.    This  is  nothing  but  a  form  of  Isis,  vu>>  iso, 
to  save    Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  i.  p.  199. 
*  Ed.  1802. 

3  Cat.  Scrip.  Eccles.  Cap.  xxxvi. ;  see  Epist.  lxxxiii.  p.  656,  Op.  Tom.  IV.  Pt.  ii.  ed.  Benedict.  Fabric. 

4  Lib.  v.  Cap.  v.  or  x. 

1  The  Saxon  Chronicle,  Florence  of  Worcester,  Radulph,  Brompton,  Sinthelm,  Huntingdon,  Matthew  of  West- 
minster, Malmesbury,  have  treated  on  this  subject  the  fullest.  Fabricius  remarks,  that  Vulgo  India  Thomse  tnbuitur, 
and  cites  Ambrosius,  in  Ps.  xlv.,  Hieronymi  Epist.  148,  and  Nicetas,  with  others,  Codex  Apocryph.  I.  7,  687,  note 
22  of  Turner  on  Book  V.  p.  354.    Ed.  1802. 

6  Com.  Cent.  II.  »  Buchanan,  Index  Mysore. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  5.  749 

same  name,  Cristna,  and  containing  the  same  facts,  in  substance,  as  are  related  of  Jesus  Christ. 
All  this  is  ridiculously  attempted  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  lost  tribes  of  Samaria,  who,  to  the 
last  known  of  them,  spoke  a  language  though  a  dialect  of  the  old  first  language,  yet  not  intelli- 
gible to  the  Chaldee- speaking  people  of  the  three  settlements  at  Youdia,  Madura,  and  Jerusalem, 
who  all  spoke  the  Syriac  Chaldee.  Yet,  on  every  principle  of  sound  Biblical  criticism,  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  these  tribes  were  ever  lost  at  all ;  but  that,  till  the  time  of  John  Hyrcanus, 
they  continued  in  possession  of  their  country  and  temple,  when  the  latter  was  destroyed — the 
Cuthite  idolaters  and  the  Lions  being  only  a  story  of  their  enemies,  and  therefore,  independent  of 
its  innate  absurdity,  not  admissible  as  evidence. 

From  the  Western  colony  having  left  India  to  avoid  the  idolatry  which  was  introduced  with  the 
adoration  of  the  Lamb  or  Crishen,  about  the  time  of  the  Maha-bharat,  we  have  little  or  none  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  mythos,  or  of  Crishen  in  the  Western  tribe,  i.  e.  in  the  tribe  of  the  Jews. 
This  is  as  it  ought  to  be  if  my  theory  be  correct. 

On  the  Christianity  of  the  Southern  part  of  the  Peninsula,  beyond  all  doubt  the  most  important 
and  interesting  subject  which  could  be  imagined  to  an  Englishman  and  Christian,  or  a  philosophic 
inquirer,  Col.  Mackenzie,  in  his  collection,  is  perfectly  silent.  On  this  most  extraordinary  silence 
Mr.  Wilson,  the  Editor  of  the  Catalogue  of  Col.  Mackenzie's  papers,  has  the  following  passage : 
"  The  collection  is  also  silent  on  the  subject  of  the  native  Christians  of  the  Peninsula,  and  throws 
"  no  light  on  their  ancient  or  modern  history.  These  omissions  resulted  from  the  character  of 
"  Col.  Mackenzie's  agents,  who,  as  Hindus  and  Brahmins,  were  not  likely  to  feel  any  interest  in 
"  these  subjects,  nor  to  communicate  freely  with  the  persons  from  whom  alone  information  could 
"  be  obtained."  1  The  unsatisfactory  nature  of  this  excuse,  and  indeed  its  absolute  absurdity,  I 
scai'cely  need  point  out.  A  more  probable  reason  I  will  now  suggest.  Perhaps  Col.  Mackenzie 
was  too  honest  to  misrepresent  what  he  knew  of  the  native  Christians.  He  had  no  absolute  tie  to 
publish  the  truth,  or  indeed  any  thing  respecting  them.  He  knew  it  was  probable,  that  if  he  did, 
he  would  thereby  mar  all  chance  of  preferment  and  be  worried  to  death  by  a  pack  more  fierce 
than  the  hounds  of  Acteon.  But  to  me  it  is  incredible  that  his  immense  collection  should  not 
have  contained,  though  he  might  not  have  published  it,  something  relating  to  the  Christians  and 
Jews.  The  truth  is  evident — it  has  been  suppressed  by  somebody.  The  excuse  of  Mr.  Wilson 
shews  that  he  felt  that  an  excuse  was  wanting.     But  I  have  not  the  least  suspicion  of  Mr.  Wilson. 

Page  cv.  of  the  Catalogue  of  Col.  Mackenzie's  collection  contains  the  following  passage:  "The 
"  collections  of  Col.  Mackenzie  do  not  present  any  satisfactory  materials  for  tracing  the  ancient 
"  history  of  the  countries  North  of  the  Krishna,  on  the  Western  part  of  the  Peninsula ;  and  the 
"  fabulous  stories  of  Vikramaditya,  Salivahana,  and  Bhoja, 2  which  relate  to  them,  diifer  in  no  re- 
"  spect  from  those  common  in  other  parts  of  Hindostan,  and  reflect  little  light  upon  the  real  his- 
"  tory  of  the  country  or  its  princes."  Here  is  evidently  another  suppression  of  all  notices  relating 
to  these  persons — by  whom  made  I  know  not,  neither  do  I  care.  Whoever  made  it,  knew  well 
that  the  story  of  these  histories  being  copied  from  the  Western  gospel  histories  is  really  untenable 
for  a  moment,  and,  however  skilfully  or  artfully  disguised,  is  absolutely  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of 
every  unprejudiced  Indian  European :  and  therefore,  the  same  policy  which  induced  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  meaning  of  the  word  Rasit,  by  Parkhurst,  and  of  the  word  XpTjj-oj,  by  Lardner, 
operated  here.  Now  we  see  why  our  slave-trading,  church-building  government,  which  cares  as 
little  for  religion,  except  as  an  engine  of  state,  as  it  does  for  the  man  in  the  moon,  sends  bishops 

1  Mackenzie's  Collection,  p.  lxviii. 

*  Boise,  shewn  by  me  to  be  the  probable  originals  of  the  Manichseans. 


750  SHARON   TURNER. 

to  India.  They  are  sent  to  superintend  the  Asiatic  Society  and  the  press  at  Calcutta,  to  prevent 
them  from  falling  into  mistakes  in  what  they  publish.  The  truth  of  these  illiberal  reflections,  as 
they  will  be  called,  is  brought  to  an  absolute  demonstration  by  the  fact  that,  in  the  whole  book,  no 
account  is  to  be  found  of  the  rites  and  ceremonies  at  the  famous  temple  at  Tripetty  or  Tripeti,  of 
the  temple  of  Bal-ii,  of  the  crucified  Wittoba, 1  within  sixty  miles  of  Madras,  being  in  the  very 
centre  of  Col.  Mackenzie's  survey  and  his  most  particular  inquiries,  as  the  book  proves,  a  tem- 
ple paying  the  immense  sum  of  ^15,000  a  year,  as  Dr.  Buchanan  says,  for  the  privilege  of  being 
exempt  from  examination,  and  in  consequence  of  which  no  European  has  ever  penetrated  into  its 
sanctum  sanctorum.     Did  this  payment  excite  no  curiosity  in  Col.  Mackenzie  ? 2 

One  fact  escapes  from  Dr.  Buchanan  of  a  most  important  nature,  and  it  is  this,  that  at  a  Tem- 
ple of  Jaggernaut,  T  suppose  with  his  car,  &c,  at  Aughoor,  between  Trichinopoly  and  Madura, 
the  rites  of  the  Roman  Christian  church  were  celebrated  in  the  Syro-Chaldaic  language  (that  is,  I 
suppose,  the  Pushto)  by  a  priest  called  Joseph.3  Surely  this  speaks  for  itself,  in  spite  of  Bucha- 
nan's disguise,  and  confirms  every  thing  which  was  said  by  the  Jesuit  Goguet.  (Jaggernaut 
means  Great  Creator.)  Here  we  have  the  worship  of  the  tribe  of  Yudi,  the  father  of  Cristna. 
Here  is  true  Yuda-ism  united  to  Xp^-ism.  This  shews  why  the  Jesuits  turned  Brahmins,  and 
it  accounts  for  the  Brahmins'  telling  our  missionaries  that  they  were  of  their  religion,  only  in  a 
corrupted  state. 

In  the  well-established  fact  that  the  service  was  done  in  the  temple  or  church  (or  whatever  it 
was)  of  Jaggernaut  in  the  Syro-Chaldee  language,  and  in  the  delivery  of  Gospels  to  the  people  in 
Chaldee  by  the  Portuguese,  we  have  a  circumstance  deserving  of  the  most  serious  consideration. 
We  have  the  Chaldee  or  Hebrew  language  continuing  as  a  vernacular  tongue,  at  least  a  thousand 
years  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  so  everywhere  else.  For,  though  certain  Jews  speak  it  in  most 
nations,  as  in  most  nations  certain  people  read  and  speak  Latin,  it  is  their  vernacular  tongue 
nowhere,  and  in  no  country,  except  this,  do  they  commonly  speak  it  among  themselves.  Now 
I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  this  must  have  been  a  corrupted  Chaldee,  more  of  the  nature 
of  the  Aramean  Syriac — the  Pushto,  than  the  Chaldee  of  Daniel.  This  will  readily  account  for 
our  travellers,  not  well  skilled  in  the  Hebrew,  calling  it  Chaldee,  without  any  intention  of  deceiv- 
ing us.     In  the  Asiat.  Res.,4    Sir  W.  Jones,  who  examined  the  Pushto,  says,  it  had  a  manifest 

1  The  crucified  God  Wittoba  is  also  called  Balii,  and  in  Sanscrit  Vinkatyeish,  in  the  Telinga  country,  Vincratramna- 
Govinda.  In  Guzerat,  and  to  the  Westward  Ta'khur  or  Thakhur,  and  generally  the  same  among  the  Maharattas.  He  is 
worshiped  in  a  marked  manner  at  Pander-poor  or  Bunderpoor,  near  Poonah.  In  the  inside  of  the  palms  of  the  hands  of 
almost  all  Indian  Gods  a  round  mark  or  a  lotus-flower  is  to  be  seen.  Learned  Indians,  to  whom  I  have  spoken  on  this 
subject,  say,  it  is  the  discus  which  has  grown  by  degrees  into  this  figure.  Unfortunately  for  this  hypothesis,  the  mark  is 
on  the  feet  as  well  as  the  hands.  All  the  Gods,  it  is  admitted,  melt  into  one — the  Sun.  Of  course  Salivahana,  Wittoba, 
and  Buddha,  are  all  one,  and  consequently  cross-borne.  I  believe  this  is  nothing  but  the  nail  mark,  ornamented  like  a 
lotus.  If  the  marks  on  the  hands  and  the  soles  of  the  feet  of  the  Wittobas,  and  many  other  icons  of  the  Hindoo  Gods, 
were  meant  for  ornamental  Lotuses,  they  would  always  have  the  form  of  that  flower;  but  it  is  very  common  to  see 
them  with  the  appearance  of  a  nail-head,  but  not  the  least  appearance  of  the  flower.  This  shews  they  are  not  meant 
for  Lotuses.  Any  ornament  on  the  soles  of  the  feet  must  infallibly  have  prevented  the  God  walking.  It  is  as  absurd 
to  fix  a  figure  on  the  soles  of  the  feet  of  the  otherwise  naked  God  as  an  ornament,  as  it  would  be  to  tie  his  hands  behind 
him  for  this  purpose.  The  nails  were  honoured  in  India  as  they  are  in  Europe.  The  nails,  the  hammer,  pincers,  &c, 
are  constantly  seen  on  crucifixes,  as  objects  of  adoration.  On  this  principle  the  iron  crown  of  Lombardy  has  within  it 
a  nail  of  the  true  cross.     For  Bal-ii  see  my  Fig.  7« 

*  The  India  Company  gave  ten  thousand  pounds  for  Col.  Mackenzie's  manuscripts.  The  few  which  are  come  from 
India  are  in  a  most  disgraceful  state  of  confusion.  It  is  probable  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta  has  some  use  for  the  remainder. 
I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  if  they  were  all  together,  and  had  a  good  catalogue  referring  to  each  article,  they  would 
be  the  most  valuable  collection  in  existence.     The  liberality  of  the  Company  has  been  shamefully  abused. 

3  Pp.  151,  155.  4  Vol.II.  p.  76. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  6.  Jb\ 

resemblance  to  the  Chaldean.  Here  we  have  the  fact  with  Sir  William,  the  exaggeration  with  the 
priest.  The  manifest  resemblance  is  as  near  identity  as  can  be  expected.  The  Palli  (that  is  Phi- 
listines) were  of  the  Tamul  nation.  * 

I  have  formerly  observed  that  I  learnt  from  Mr.  Salome,  that  the  Lascars  spoke  Hebrew. 
Another  Jewish  friend  met  with  two  of  the  black  Lascars  from  the  Malabar  Cochin  in  London, 
who  were  both  Jews,  and  spoke  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  language.  They  were  quite  black,  and 
had,  in  every  respect,  the  Lascar  character,  not  at  all  like  the  Jews  of  the  West,  from  whom  they 
are  easily  distinguishable.  They  accompanied  my  friend,  the  English  Jew,  to  his  synagogue.  If 
the  black  Jews  were  a  colony  from  the  West  like  the  white  ones,  they  would  have  been  white  like 
the  white  ones.  It  is  out  of  the  question  to  pretend  that  difference  of  climate  can  have  made  them 
black,  because  they  are  black  in  the  country  above  the  peninsula,  where  there  is  little  or  no  differ- 
ence between  the  latitude  and  that  of  Western  Syria.  They  cannot  be  supposed  to  be  blacks 
converted  to  Judaism,  because  the  Jews  never  made  proselytes :  in  this,  as  in  some  other  matters, 
retaining  their  Brahmin  habits.2  They  cannot  have  come  from  the  ten  tribes  as  nonsensically 
pretended,  because  they  are  Jews,  having  the  Jewish  or  Chaldee  language,  and  not  the  Samaritan. 
The  Jews  of  Western  Syria,  in  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ,  were  not  black,  but  there  are  great  num- 
bers of  black  infant  Christs  and  black  crucifices  in  Italy,  and  Christ  was  a  Jew.  Was  he  of  a  black 
tribe  ?  Indeed  I  believe  that  the  Christ,  whose  black  icon  I  saw  in  Italy,  was  ;  and  I  believe  that 
he  came  to  Italy  when  his  black  mother  arrived  at  Loretto,3  from  Syra-strene,  from  Satrun-ja  or 
Regna  Saturnia  or  Pallitana,  even  before  the  foundation  of  the  Rome  of  Romulus.4  That  a 
colony  of  white  Jews,  fleeing  from  the  Romans,  should  take  refuge  among  their  ancient  country- 
men seems  not  improbable,  nor  does  it  seem  improbable  that  the  black  Jews  in  some  instances 
should  have  acquired  pentateuchs  from  their  white  neighbours  ;  for  though,  perhaps,  nothing 
would  induce  them  to  change  their  religion,  yet  they  would  easily  be  led  to  suppose  themselves  of 
the  same  religion  as  the  Western  Jews,  (which,  fundamentally,  they  were,)  in  the  same  manner 
and  for  similar  reasons  as  those  which  induced  the  Western  Christians  to  believe  the  Creestians  of 
Malabar  to  be  of  theirs.     But  yet  I  think  another  cause  will  be  found  for  it  presently. 

Christ  is  called  mn»  ieue  131  dbr  the  word  of  the  Lord,5  and  the  Targums  frequently  substitute 
»*T  N")Q>Q  mimra  dii,  the  word  of  Jehovah,  for  the  Hebrew  miT  ieue.6  Parkhurst's  proof  that  the 
Jews  had  the  Logos  in  their  doctrines  is  quite  complete ;  and  this  I  think  pretty  well  carries  with 
it  the  other  persons  in  the  Trinity,  or  the  Trimurti  of  India. 

6.  It  appears  to  me  that  soon  after  the  entrance  of  the  sun  into  Aries,  according  to  Brahmin 
time,  a  calculation  backwards  to  the  entrance  of  the  sun  into  the  equinoctial  Taurus  must  have 
taken  place,  to  settle  the  calculation  of  the  cycles,  which  gave  them  three  cycles  and  the  360  years 
or  life  of  Enoch  before  the  flood,  in  all  the  2160  years,  as  I  have  formerly  shewn.  I  never  sus- 
pected that  it  was  possible  to  carry  this  back  any  farther,  and  I  thought  that  the  equinoctial 
Taurus  was  the  beginning  of  the  mythos.     But  the  circumstances  which  my  reader  has  lately 

'  Buchanan,  Vol.  I.  p.  260;  Vol.  II.  p.  272.  *  Yet  see  Matt,  xxiii.  15 ;  Acts  ii.  10. 

3  Near  the  Fossiones  Tartarum,  or  Italian  Tartary. 

4  The  Jews  were  not  black  when  the  following  passage  was  written,  which  we  find  in  the  Song  of  Solomon,  i.  5,  6  : 
"  I  am  black,  but  comely,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  as  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the  curtains  of  Solomon.  Look  not 
"  upon  me,  because  I  am  black,  because  the  sun  hath  looked  upon  me,"  &c.  Had  the  Jews  been  black  when  this  was 
written,  the  colour  would  not  have  been  noticed  as  uncommon. 

s  Inter  al.  Gen.  xv.  1,  4 ;  1  Sam.  iii.  7,  21,  xv.  10;  Parkhurst's  Gr.  Lex.  in  voce  AOr,  &c. 

6  See  also  Gen.  xlix.  18,  Jerus.  Targ.,  "p^'a  mimrk,  thy  word  (i.  e.  of  the  Lord)  is  evidently  meant. 


752  TWINS.      TAMAS. 

seen,  and  some  others  which  I  will  now  point  out,  have  induced  me  to  believe,  that  I  can  perceive 
a  glimmering  of  light  a  little  more  remote  in  the  back  ground.  M.  Dupuis  thought  he  could  shew 
astronomically  that  the  mythos  of  the  equinoctial  sun  could  be  proved  backward,  till  the  bull  was 
in  the  autumnal  equinox.     But  I  must  refer  my  reader  to  Dupuis  for  his  remarks  on  this  matter. 

We  all  know  that  the  retrogradation  of  the  sun  through  the  Twins  or  Gemini,  if  the  signs  in  the 
Zodiac  were  then  invented,  must  have  preceded  the  Bull,  Taurus,  and  that  all  the  common  visible 
appearances  of  the  heavens,  must  have  taken  place  while  it  was  passing  through  the  sign  of 
Gemini  as  those  which  followed  under  Taurus ;  it  will  not,  therefore,  be  any  matter  of  surprise  if 
some  remnants  of  this  superstition  be  found.1 

We  have  seen  that  Adonis  was  the  Sun.  We  have  seen  that  he  was  Thamus,  or  Tamus,  or 
Tamas.  This  is  in  Hebrew  DNJ1  tarn,  which  means  to  connect,  to  cohere,  to  embrace,  as  twins  in 
the  womb  :  as  a  noun  n>oixn  taumim,  twins — and  sometimes  D'OID  tumim  without  the  letter  a  a, 
which  makes  of  it  tumim.  Parkhurst 2  says,  "  Hence  the  proper  name  Thomas  which  is  inter- 
"  preted  Ai$o[ao$,  or  the  twin,  by  St.  John,  ch.  xi.  16,  et  al."  But  it  may  be  said,  that  the  word 
twins  equally  applies  to  the  Pisces  tied  by  the  tails,  as  to  Gemini,  and  this  I  do  not  deny. 

The  Tamulic  language,  I  learn  from  Sir  S.  Raffles  and  Mr.  Chalmers,  in  a  particular  manner 
affects  the  termination  of  its  words  in  En.  From  this  the  Pood,  or  Wood,  became  Poden  and  the 
Woden  of  the  Goths.  The  Chaldee  makes  its  plural  in  n,  and  the  Greeks  use  the  n  in  the  termi- 
nation of  their  words ;  but  never  the  m.  From  this  practice  of  the  Tamulese  the  Cres  became 
Cresen,  their  name  of  Cristna. 3  Thus  it  appears  that  Woden,  the  Northern  God,  is  simply  the 
Tamulic  method  of  pronouncing  Buddha.  That  Woden  came  from  the  North,  not  the  South,  of 
India  cannot  be  doubted.  But  this  serves  to  shew  us  that  the  Tamul  language  formerly  prevailed 
in  North  India. 

By  the  ancients,  the  whole  promontory  of  India,  from  the  Ganges  and  Guzerat  to  Comorin,  must 
have  been  called  the  promontory  of  Tamus.4  We  find  various  places  called  Sura  or  Syria,  as 
Mysore,  Maha-Sura. 5  Coromandel  is  but  the  Manda  or  circle  of  Sur,  as  I  have  formerly  shewn, 
often  written  Tur — meaning  both  Taurus  and  Sol:  for  Tur  was  Sur,  and  Sur  was  Tur.  Now  the 
sign  Gemini  preceded  Taurus.  The  Twins  were  the  produce  of  two  eggs,  and  Taurus  broke  the 
vernal  egg  of  Siam,  well  known  to  Virgil,  with  his  horn.  The  twins  were  brought  up  at  Palli-ni. 
They  were  in  the  Argonautic  expedition  to  Colchos,  or  the  bay  of  Argo  and  Colida  in  India. 
Here  we  may  see  Virgil's  theory,  a  new  Argonautic  story  for  every  cycle. 

As  we  have  a  Staurobates  along  with  Salivahana  and  Semiramis  in  the  North  of  India,  and  as 


1  Eorum  Osiris,  alio  nomine  vocatus  est  a  Bacchus,  h  >3S  fletu  sic  dictus  :  ut  bene  demonstrat  clariss.  Golius,  ex  Abul- 
pharagio  indicans  apud  Sabaeos  (Phcenieiae  religionis  homines)  in  medio  mensis  Tammuz  celebrari.     (Festum  ni'Dll 

Bochioth  seu  mulierum  ejaculentiam)  vel  ut  ipse  Abulpharagius  ex  Arabibus  exponit Festum  Boucat,  erat 

fozminarum  flentium,  quod  celebrabatur  in  gratiam  Dei  Tammuz.  Ilium  vero  mulieres  deflent,  quomodo  interfecerit  eum 
dominus  suits,  et  ossa  ejus  in  mola  comminuerit,  et  ea  comminuta  posted  disperserit.  Nempe  nomine  Tammuz  intelligunt 
Solem :  quamvis,  referente  Maimonide,  Sabaitse  nugatores  (sui  ritus  usum  et  originem  obliti)  putent  se  lugere  aliquem 
prophetam  suum  dictum  Tammuz,  ab  aliquo  injusto  rege  occisum,  &c.  Dictae  autem  institutionis  meminit  propheta 
Ezechiel,  Cap.  viii.,  de  foerainis  plaugentibus  pro  Tammuz,  (seu  sole,)  cui  Julius  mensis  erat  sacer  et  ab  eo  denomi- 
natus  Tammuz  Syro  Phoenicibus,  utpote  mensis  ferventissimus  et  sole  saturatus.  Solis  vero  discessum,  quia  turn 
postea  declinare  incipit,  deflebant,  fingentes  eum  a  domino  suo  interfici  et  in  paries  dissipari.  Sed  initio  vernantis 
anni,  ejusdem  Osiridis,  seu  circuitoris  accessus  et  rursus  inventio,  haud  minimum  eis  gaudium  parere  solebat.  Et  sol 
dictus  Osir  seu  circuitor,  propter  ceremoniam  deflendi  eum,  alio  nomine  dicitus  quoque  Bacchus,  qui  dicente  Herodoto 
est  Osiris,  p.  165;  Oa-tpii  he  £?•'  Ajowo-o?  kut  'EXXahac  yXuaaav.    Hyde,  Itinera  Mundi,  p.  46. 

8  In  voce  a«n,  p.  782.  3  Raffles,  Emb.  to  Ava,  p.  301,  4to. 

*  Vide  Lempriere,  Ed.  Barker,  in  voce  Tamos.  *  Buchanan. 


BOOK    X.     CHAPTER    VII.      SECTION  6.  7^3 

we  have  found  most  of  the  same  mythos  in  the  South,  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  finding  also  a 
Semiramis.  To  the  Rev.  Mr.  Faber  we  are  indebted  for  the  observation,  that  the  Zamorin  or 
Samarin  is  nothing  but  a  Semiramis,  which  name  was  applied  to  many  princes.  The  termina- 
tions in  in  and  im  are  clearly  the  Tamul,  Chaldee,  and  Hebrew  terminations  :  and  the  rulers  of 
Cochin,  Cholcos,  or  Colida,  where  he  or  she  ruled,  were  called  Hakim — CDltl  hkm,  wisdom. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we  should  any  where  find  the  whole  mythos  of  these  remote 
times ;  but  we  find  all  that  could  be  expected — scraps  of  traditions,  little  bits  of  the  mythos,  for 
each  obsolete  cycle — sufficient  to  prove  one  universal  system  to  have  prevailed.  We  cannot  ex- 
pect these  detached  scraps  to  be  the  same  in  different  and  far  distant  countries.  Two  or  three 
thousand  years  having  elapsed,  we  cannot  expect  to  find  the  story  of  the  Argonautae  of  Greece 
in  every  respect  the  same  as  that  of  India ;  but  it  is  enough  if  we  see  the  same  mythos  to  be 
substantially  at  the  bottom. 

From  a  careful  examination  of  the  most  ancient  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Tamul  sixteen-letter  al- 
phabets, and  from  a  comparison  of  them,  together  with  the  inscription  exhibited  in  Stirling's  His- 
tory of  Orissa,  that  is,  Urissa  or  Uria,  I  am  satisfied  that  they  have  all  originally  been  one  ;  but 
they  may  all  be  more  properly  said  to  have  descended  from  one  alphabet,  because  there  is  not  one 
of  them  which  has  not  necessarily  changed  in  the  form  of  its  letters,  not  excepting  even  the 
Hebrew  before  it  was  shut  up  in  the  temple,  from  what  it  probably  was  about  the  beginning  of 
the  Cali  Yug — therefore  not  one  of  them  can  be  called  correctly  the  original.  I  have  little  or  no 
doubt  that  the  ancient  sixteen-letter  Tamul  was  once  the  Pushto  of  Upper  India,  or  the  Uddya 
or  Juddia  letter.  But  considering  the  long  time  since  it  first  took  the  name  of  Tam  or  language  of 
the  Twins,  there  must  be  expected  to  have  arisen  much  variation  ;  indeed,  quite  as  much  as  we 
find.  But  the  names  of  Pushto,  Uddya,  &c,  are  the  fading  shadows  of  the  nearly-gone  truth. 
The  country  of  Orissa  or  Or-desa  or  Oresa  is  called  the  Uria  nation  by  Stirling. l  This  must 
be  an  Ur  of  the  Chaldees. 

I  think  it  is  very  evident  that  the  terms  Syrian  and  Chaldean  have  been  confounded  when 
speaking  of  the  Malabar  Christians,2  by  several  authors.  And  when  the  close  similarity  of  the 
two  languages  is  considered,  this  is  not  surprising.  I  think  also  there  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt 
that  the  Chaldee,  the  Pushto  of  North  India,  the  Pushto  of  Western  Syria,  the  Syrian  and  Chaldee 
of  South  India,  and  the  higher  Tamul,  which  consisted  of  sixteen  letters  only,  have  all  been  the 
same  ;  and  with  a  reasonable  allowance  to  be  made  for  the  change  which  length  of  time  and  other 
circumstances  rendered  inevitable,  are  yet  nothing  but  close  dialects  of  the  same  language, — per- 
haps, if  written  in  the  same  letter,  not  varying  more  than  the  dialects  of  Greece.  The  matter  for 
surprise  with  me  is,  not  that  the  three  languages  should  vary  so  much,  but  that  they  should  vary 
so  little  as  to  be  mistaken  for  each  other  if  such  be  the  fact.3 

If  I  be  right,  the  mythos  must  be  expected  to  be  found  in  the  adjoining  island  of  Ceylon,  or 
Candy,  of  which  I  have  so  often  treated.  Candy  is  the  name  of  the  central  kingdom  of  Ceylon. 
It  seems  pretty  clear  that  the  island  formerly  had  this  name  among  its  others.  It  is  said  to  have 
been  conquered  by  Rama,  king  of  Oude.4  The  central  district  consists  of  what  are  called  the 
Corles  of  Ouda-noor,5  and  Tata-noox. 6  Now  here  we  see  a  wonderful  assimilation  to  the  Bri- 
tish Saxon  language,  for  the  Corles  are  nothing  but  German  circles  and  have  the  same  meaning, 
whether  accidental  or  not:  and  the  two   Corles  form  what   is   called  the  Conde  Udda.     This  is 


1  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  *  Vide  Last  Days  of  Bishop  Heber,  by  Robinson,  p.  31 1,  n.  G.,  &c. 

*  Dr.  Babington  says,  Sanscrit  founded  on  Tamul;  see  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  I.  p.  2  ;  and  I  doubt  not  both  were 
founded  on  Hebrew,  or  this  earlier  language,  whatever  it  might  be  called.     To  this  I  shall  return. 

4  Ham.  Disc.  Ind.  5  i.  e.  Jouda.  6  i.  e.  Buddha. 

5d 


754  TWINS,   TAMAS. 

nothing  but  County  of  Juda. 1  A  person  might  mistake  it  for  English. 2  In  the  island  is  a  river 
Maha-vali  Gunga,  and  the  race  which  inhabits  the  inmost  mountain  are  called  Vaddahs  and  Bedahs, 
i.  e.  Buddhas.  Are  the  Vaddahs  Yuddas  f  And  there  is  a  place  called  Batti-calo ;  this  is 
Buddha-c/o, 3  and  their  language  is  the  Tam-x\\.  There  is  a  town  called  Pala-bina  or  Palatina 
near  the  mount  called  Adam's  Peak,  where  we  formerly  found  the  foot  of  Adam  and  of  Buddha, 
and  Mount  Ararat.  The  principal  town  is  called  Columbo,  the  name  of  the  sacred  island  of 
Scotland.4  As  we  find  Tam  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  so,  on  the  opposite  coast,  we  find  a 
Tarn,  in  the  kingdom  of  Tamala.  5 

7.  Ceylon  or  Lanca  or  Serendive  or  Palisimunda  or  Candy,  was  a  sacred  island  ;6  we  will  try 
if  we  cannot  discover  it,  with  its  codes  or  circles  in  the  West.  Ceres 7  is  but  another  name  for 
Venus  Aphrodite,  and  the  Urania  of  Persia.  Ur-ania,  of  the  country  of  Ur  or  Urie.  Her  residence 
was  on  the  top  of  Mount  Ida,  in  the  island  of  Creta  or  Candia.  8  This  is  the  jn>  ido  which  Park- 
hurst  renders  very  correctly  Idea  or  yvaxrig,  or  Maia  of  India,  perhaps.  There  was  an  Ida  above 
Ilium,  as  well  as  this  of  Creta  or  Kriti  or  Candia.  9  It  was  thus  the  mountain  of  Knowledge,  or 
of  Manda  or  Mundo,  of  which  I  shall  say  more  hereafter.  In  this  island,  as  we  might  expect,  is 
all  the  oriental  mythos.  It  is  called  Candia,  and  we  have  places  called  Creta  or  Kriti,  Ida, 
Erythraea,  Dium,  Sulia,  Phoenix,  Hermseum,  Cnossus,  Tvaxrog,  Omphalium,  Didymus  or  Tamuz 
or  Thomas,  Chersonesus,  Dyonysiades,  Ampelos.  The  Island  Chrysb  is  adjoining  to  it.  But 
Ceres  had  a  very  remarkable  name,  allusive,  I  believe,  to  this  mythos  :  she  was  called  TAM-eios, 
and  from  her  and  this  name  a  plain  in  Crete  10  was  called  Tamesa  :  and  from  this  I  suspect, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  that  the  Tamarus,  near  Plymouth,  and  the  Thames,  had  their 
names — yitf>  iso  EDUH  tam. 

1  In  India  the  shrines  or  recesses  in  which  the  God  is  placed  are  called  Stalla— i.  e.  in  English  language  Stalls. 
This  Sanscrit  word  comes  from  the  Hebrew  bn\l?  stl,  a  settlement. 

4  These  English  words  are  here  because  they  are,  I  doubt  not,  obsolete  Synagogue,  not  Mazoretic,  Hebrew  words 
— the  old  English  or  Sawon  being  Hebrew.     Refer  to  Book  IX.  Ch.  I.  Sect.  6,  note. 

3  Similar  to  the  Heri-clo.  4  Discussed  at  large  hereafter. 

5  Vide  Ptolemy,  Geog.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  xiii.  and  Map. 

6  Ceylon  is  called  by  Bochart  Insula  Iaba-diu,  id  est,  insulam  Iaba,  vel  lava,  probatur  ex  Ptolemjeo,  Iabadiu  pro 
Iabaddiu.    Here,  I  think,  we  have  the  Diu-Ieue  or  Diu-Iava.    Ammiano  Serindivi. 

7  This  Ceres  or  Venus  was  Creusa,  the  mother  of  Ascanius,  who  was  thus  the  son  and  grandson  of  God,  as  one  of 
the  Gospel  Histories  makes  Mary  the  daughter  of  God  :  thus  Jesus  was  son  and  grandson  of  God. 

*  Candia — Can-di-ia  may  be  holy  priest  of  IE,  or  place  of  the  holy  Kan,  or  Kanya,  or  Cohen. 

9  In  the  Zend  Khret-osh  is  understanding,  /cparo?  nom.  xpa<;.  Asiat.  Journ.  June,  1830.  Here  we  come  at  another 
very  important  meaning  of  the  word  Cret  or  Kp^r,  whence,  I  take  it  or  in  like  manner  I  take  it,  that  the  word  Crete 
came.  For  the  word  there  represented  understanding  is  probably  wisdom.  These  words  are  commonly  used  for  one 
another  in  the  Bible.  Xpycns  and  Xp?j<ro«  have  the  same  meaning.  Vide  Dr.  Jones's  Lexicon.  And  Nestus  is  written 
Nessus.  See  Wilkinson's  Atlas.  This  completely  justifies  me  in  considering  the  city  of  Cressa  in  Creston-ia  as  the 
same  as  Creston.  Lempriere  calls  it  Creston.  Crestonia  was  the  country  of  Cres,  Cryssa  the  town  of  Cres.  Littleton 
says,  Cres,  Cretis,  Cressa  fern,  one  of  Crete.  Again,  the  Crestones  he  represents  as  a  people  among  whom  the  widow 
who  had  been  the  most  favoured  of  his  wives,  was  sacrificed  on  the  death  of  the  husband.  Homer's  mother  was  called 
Critheis,  and  one  of  the  rivers  of  Troy  or  Ter-ia  was  called  Cryssa.  Among  the  French,  where  are  to  be  found  a  sur- 
prising number  of  close  coincidences  with  the  doctrines  of  the  ancients,  in  the  word  Cretiens,  we  have  exhibited  the 
true  name  of  the  people  of  Crete.  My  view  of  the  origin  of  the  island  of  Crete  is  confirmed  by  Hesselius,  who  says, 
In  ea  Cres  Arionis  filius,  Demagorgonis  nepos,  regnasse  fertur,  eamque  de  suo  nomine  Cretam  appellavisse.  This 
Cres  was  the  eldest  son  of  Nimrod.    Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  15. 

10  The  Cretans  are  well  known  and  are  mostly  named  along  with  the  Philistines  or  Pallitini  in  the  Bible :  2  Sam.  viii; 
18,  xv.  18,  xx.  23. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   VIT.    SECTION  7»  7^5 

Plato  tells  us, 1  that  Thammuz  was  king  of  Egypt,  before  Thoth,  who  taught  him  letters.  Here 
are  the  twins  preceding  Buddha  or  Mercury  2  or  the  Bull.  And  the  inhabitants  of  Egypt  are 
said  to  have  descended  from  Thammuz.  Eutychius  says,  that  the  first  city  was  built  by  Noah, 
who  called  it  Thamanim.  3  This  is  most  important ;  I  shall  return  to  it  hereafter.  Indeed,  in 
every  part  of  the  world,  the  remains  of  the  worship  of  Tam  may  be  found. 

Tahmuras  taught  letters  to  the  Persians.  4 

The  Egyptians  had  certain  secret  books,  called  those  of  Amnion.  The  author  of  the  Concordia5 
says,  "Quicquid  vero  sit  de  Ammoneorum  libris,  illud  certum,  Platonem  in  Phaedro  commemorare 
"  libros,  artes  quasdam  continentes,  quos  ipse  Tautus  Regi  Thamo  obtulit,  Egyptiis  distribuendos 
"  aut  describendos."  Here  we  have  Taut  or  Buddha  receiving  his  learning  from  Thamo.  These 
books  were  called  owroxpixpa  Afxjxevecov  yga«,ju,aTa.  Here  we  have  the  Apocrypha  of  Ammon 
and  Thebes.  I  ask  my  reader  to  look  into  our  Apocryphal  books  and  doubt  if  he  can,  that  the 
doctrine  of  Wisdom,  which  I  have  been  unfolding,  is  the  Wisdom  so  often  treated  of  by  them. 

The  Jewish  Bible  contains  several  very  fine  works  called  Apocryphal  or  doubtful,  and  of  no 
authority,  by  Paulite  Christians,  who  fancy  themselves  reformed.  This  is  because  they,  in  a 
very  peculiar  manner,  teach  the  doctrines  of  Wisdom  or  the  Cabala,  which  was  heresy  to  the 
vulgar  Jews  and  Paulites.  It  is  very  extraordinary  to  see  all  our  scholars  admitting,  without 
thought,  that  Apocrypha  means  spurious  or  doubtful,  overlooking  the  real  meaning,  which  is, 
secret  doctrine.  I  am  quite  certain  that  no  person  can  look  into  the  Apocrypha,  after  having  read 
this  work,  and  not  see  that  most  of  the  books  are  aenigmatical  depositories  of  the  secret  doctrine 
of  wisdom.  The  Athenians  had  a  prophetic  and  mysterious  book  called  the  Testament,  which 
they  did  not  permit  to  be  seen,  nor  even  to  be  named  or  written  about ;  but  it  is  alluded  to  in  the 
speech  of  Dinarchus  against  Demosthenes.6  The  Romans,  I  believe,  and,  in  fact,  every  nation 
had  its  Apocrypha. 

Stanley  has  observed,  that  the  Sabaeans,  as  well  as  the  Jews,  had  the  custom  of  weeping  for 
Tammuz.  This  took  place  in  June,  the  month  called  by  them  Tammuz,  and  of  which,  in  the 
Zodiac,  the  Twins  are  the  sign.7  Narayana8  moving  on  the  waters,  the  first  male  or  principle  of 
all  things,  was  wholly  surrounded  by  what  they  call  Tamas  or  Thamas,  by  which  they  mean 
darkness.  This  is  correctly  one  of  the  meanings  of  this  word  in  Hebrew.  9  The  system  was  not 
established  till  the  sun  got  into  Aries ;  their  knowledge  extended  no  farther  back  than  the  begin- 
ning of  Taurus,  when  the  Mythos  was  made  to  commence.  Before  that  there  were  Tamas  the 
twins ;  but  here  all  was  darkness.  Hence  Tam  came  to  mean  darkness.  In  Arabia  was  a  nation 
called  Thamydeni  or  Thamuditae,  followers  of  Tamus.  10  The  Chinese  equally  adore  Tamo  or 
Thomas,  from  whom  Buddha  is  said  to  have  descended. ll 

If  Mr.  Ritter's  observation  be  right,  Dodona  ought  to  be  Bod-  or  Bud-ona,  the  Bud  meaning 
wisdom.  And  if  I  be  right,  every  incarnation  of  a  sign  of  the  Zodiac  would  be  an  incarnation  of 
wisdom,  as  it  comes  to  be  the  equinoctial  sign  :  thus  it  would  once  have  been  with  the  incarnation 
of  the  twins.  From  Potter  I  find  the  inhabitants  of  Dodona  were  called  Tomuri,  the  prophetesses 
Tomurae,  as  Potter  says,  from  an  adjoining  mount  called  Tomurus ;  but  why  had  the  mount  this 
name  ?     This  was  unknown  to  the  Greeks  who  were  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  origin  of  Dodona, 


1  Vol.  X.  pp.  379,  380,  Bipont.  8  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  475.  *  lb.  Vol.  I.  p.  230. 

4  Ouseley's  Coll.  Orient.  Vol.  I.  p.  1 13.  *  Naturae  et  Scripturae,  Lipsise,  1 752. 

6  Spineto's  Lectures,  p.  122.  7  See  Stanley's  History  of  the  Chaldaic  Philosophy,  p.  799,  4to. 

8  This  means  le-ana-ner,  or  ana-ie-ner — Ie  carried  on  the  water,  *im  ner,  Sanscrit  nar. 

9  Vide  Parkhurst  in  voce.  10  Drummond's  Origines,  Vol.  III.  p.  243,  Map.  n  Georg.  Alph.  Tib.  p.  20. 

5d2 


755  CRETE,    CRBS. 

except  that  it  was  founded  by  two  black  doves.  I  think  in  the  Tamuri  we  have  the  twins.  From 
Potter  x  I  also  learn  an  important  fact,  that  Dodona  was  placed  on  a  river  called  Don  by  Stepha- 
nus.  We  have  before  shewn  that  Don,  in  one  of  the  languages,  meant  wisdom.  In  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Dodona  are  several  places  connected  with  the  name  of  John,  for  instance,  Joannina. 
Almost  all  the  mythos  shews  itself  in  the  country  around  Dodona.  As  we  have  the  Twins  in  the 
Tamuri,  so  we  have  the  Area  or  Arga  in  Arca-dia,  and  in  Apia,  the  Bull  Apis,  or  the  Bees,  the 
Melissa?  or  Muses.  Strabo  says,  the  Oracle  of  Dodona  went  to  Epirus  from  Thessaly.  From  its 
evident  Indian  character  it  might  be  expected  to  have  come  from  the  side  of  the  country  where  we 
found  the  Sindi,  Thrace. 

Calmet,  on  the  word  Tho,  thus  writes :  "  It  is  said,  that  the  first  Christians  of  the  Indies,  con- 
"  verted  by  St.  Thomas,  relapsed  into  their  former  infidelity,  and  so  far  forgot  the  instructions 
"  they  had  received  from  this  apostle,  that  they  did  not  so  much  as  remember  there  had  ever  been 
"  any  Christians  in  their  country ;  so  that  a  certain  holy  man,  called  Mar-Thome,  or  Lord 
"  Thomas,  a  Syrian  by  nation,  went  to  carry  the  light  of  the  Gospel  into  these  parts."  I  think 
we  have  good  grounds  from  this  to  suspect,  that  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  mode  in  which 
the  Portuguese  mistook  the  followers  of  the  ancient  superstition  for  Christians  is  correct. 

Mons.  Creuzer  cites  the  words  of  Ezekiel  viii.  14, 2  and  observes,  that  the  most  and  the  best  of 
interpreters  have  construed  Tammuz  to  mean  Adonis,3  whose  feast  the  Jewish  women  solemnized 
after  the  manner  of  the  Phoenicians,  sitting  all  night  weeping  and  looking  towards  the  north,  and 
afterward  rejoicing  and  calling  it  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Tammuz.  But  he  observes,  that 
the  festival  fell  in  June,  the  month  called  Tammuz,  and  that  therefore  it  was  solstitial.  The  fes- 
tival, however,  did  not  fall  in  June,  because  the  solstice  fell,  in  the  time  of  Ezekiel,  or  now  falls  in 
June,  but  because  June  was  the  month  of  Tammuz,  or  the  Twins.  No  doubt  the  festival  was 
equinoctial  at  one  time ;  but  by  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes  it  had  become  solstitial,  as  calcu- 
lation shews.  Creuzer  observes,  that  the  worship  of  Tammuz  had  all  the  characteristics  of  that  of 
Adonis  and  Osiris,  and,  he  might  have  added,  of  the  Lamb  and  of  Jesus  j  the  weeping  on  Good- 
Friday  and  the  rejoicing  on  Easter-Sunday.3 

I  believe  the  island  of  Candia  had  its  name  of  Crete  from  the  word  Kp7jc,  a  Cretan,  all  the  oriental 

mythos  being  here  evident  from  the  names  of  places.    The  Kpyg  was  Ceres  and  the  bearded  Venus, 

the  Kanya  or  Apollo  Cunnius.     The  Ram  or  Aries  was  called  Kpioc.     Whence  comes  this  name 

Kp/o$  ?     I  suspect  it  had  relation  to  the  same  mythos.     The  Lunar  mansion  of  the  Lamb  in  India 

was  called  Kriti-ka.   But  the  Crit-i-ka  of  India  was  also  the  Bull,  and  we  have  shewn  that  the  Cres 

was  the  Lamb.     In  its  turn  the  Bull  Taurus  was  the  emblem  of  the  Xprjs  or  the  Christ  j  then 

the  Lamb ;  and,  lastly,  the  Fishes  ;  and  the  followers  of  the  fishes  were  Chrestiani  or  Pisciculi. 

But  before  the  Bull,  the  emblem  was  the  Tamas,  which  became  Adonis,  and  in  each  case  it  was 

the  emblem  of  the  Cres  or  benignant  Deity.     The  Golden   fleece  was  called  Crios-le  mouton  ou 

Crysomalle,  la  toison  d'or.     The  word  Can-dia  is   divus  or  dis,  Can  or  Kan.     Now  we  must 

observe  in  Crete  a  Tomas  or  Dydimus.     On   the  coast  of  Coromandal  there  were  Male-pour  or 

town  of  Male,  and  Salem,  and  Adoni,  and  W'ittoba,5    &c,  &c.     This  in  Greek  would  be  town  of 

the  fleece  or  of  the  apple.     We  must  not  forget  that  in  the  Peninsula,  where  this  town  of  the  fleece 

is,  we  had  a  Colchis  and  Sinus  Argo-ricus  and  an  Argari,  &c,  &c,  whither  the  twins,  or  Castor 

and  Pollux,  went  for  the  fleece  or  Male.     I  suspect  the  island  of  Creta  was  nothing  but  Cresta  a 


«  B.  ii.  Ch.  viii.  *  See  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  pp.  215-220.  *  C'reuz.  Vol.  II.  Ch.  iii.  p.  42. 

«  See  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  pp.  219,  230,  and  Creuzer,  last  Vol.  p.  210.  *  Witta-gemote-Witto-abba ! ! 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VII.   SECTION  7-  7&7 

little  changed,  like  Casmillus  into  Camillus. l  — a  practice  very  common ;  for  Xp >]£  was  the  Lamb 
of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  6ins  of  the  world.  The  change  of  such  words  as  Pelasgus  into 
Pelagos,  the  dropping  of  the  S  arose  from  the  habit  which  all  nations  acquire  of  dropping  the 
rough-sounding  letters  for  the  sake  of  euphony,  as  civilization  advances. 

It  is  also  extremely  curious  to  find  constantly  in  the  temples,  as  objects  of  adoration,  Gods,  of 
whom  it  is  said,  that  no  one  knew  the  history,  or  who  or  what  they  were.  Were  they  really 
unknown,  or  were  they  known  to  the  initiated,  and  their  history  kept  from  the  vulgar  ?  The  rites 
of  the  Aruspices  were  brought  into  Cyprus,  and  the  shrine  at  Paphos  founded  by  a  certain 
Cilician,  called  Tam-iras  ;  but  it  was  unknown  who  he  was.2  The  priests  of  the  isle  of  Cyprus 
were  called  Tamarides.  After  my  attention  was  turned  by  examination  into  the  evidence  of  St. 
Thomas  to  the  question  of  the  twins,  I  was  surprised  to  find  remains  of  them  in  every  part  of  the 
old  world. 

I  believe  the  word  Cam  is  the  Hebrew  pp  km,  which  Lowth  construes  hill  or  single  mount.3 
Pausanias4  says,  that  Apollo  Carnus  had  his  sirname  from  Carnus,  who  came  from  Acarnania; 
but  the  word  Acarnania  is  country  of  the  Cam.  He  says  this  Carnus  Apollo  was  worshiped  in 
the  house  of  the  prophet  Crius.  He  also  says,  that  not  far  from  the  temple  of  Carnus  Apollo 
(in  Lacedemon)  was  the  place  where  the  Crotani  disputed.  All  this  was  in  the  kingdom  of  Argo, 
in  Greece.  I  know  not  what  others  may  do,  but  I  cannot  help  seeing  here  the  same  mythos  in 
Carnate  and  Lacedemon. 

In  an  old  French  map  I  find  the  whole  of  the  lower  end  of  the  Peninsula  of  India  called  Carnate. 
When  I  reflect  upon  the  absolute  identity  of  the  Druidical  circles  of  India  and  Europe,  as 
exhibited  in  the  drawings  of  Col.  Mackenzie,  and  on  the  identity  of  the  earns  and  of  the  cromlehs, 
as  exhibited  in  the  example  copied  from  a  plate  given  by  Miss  Graham,  in  her  Travels,  and 
the  single  stone  pillars,  as  given  by  the  same  lady,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  the  country  had 
its  name  of  Carnate  from  the  Cams  of  the  Twin  Gods  or  of  St.  Thomas ;  this,  then,  would  be 
the  country  of  the  sacred  Cams — and  that  the  superstition  of  Carnac,  in  Morbihan,  France,  came 
with  the  Bhoiae  to  Baieux. 

I  consider  the  Carnac  of  Normandy  (see  plates  in  the  Celtic  Druids)  to  be  the  same  as  the 
Carnac  of  Egypt,  and  as  the  temple  of  the  Sun  at  Kanarak, 5  or  the  ancient  pagoda  near  Jagger- 
naut,  in  India.  In  Miss  Graham's  Journal  of  a  Journey  in  India, 6  may  be  seen  examples  of 
correct  cromlehs  and  earns  near  Mahabalipoor.  They  are  identical  in  every  respect  with  those  of 
Ireland  and  Britain.  See  my  plates,  fig.  18,  and  Book  V.  Chap.  IV.  Sect.  10;  also  the  account 
of  the  very  extraordinary  cromleh  described  by  Sir  A.  Carlisle,  Book  V.  Chap.  VI.  Sect.  6,  note. 

I  have  formerly  observed  it  is  said  by  my  informant,  that  the  Catholics  have  placed  their  altar 
on  a  flat  slab  at  the  top  of  the  heap  of  stones.  The  fact,  I  do  not  doubt,  is,  that  the  altar  is  not 
only  a  cam  but  a  cromleh.  It  is  like  the  altar  over  the  body  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome,  which  is 
placed  under  the  cupola,  the  templum — the  microcosm  of  the  world,  as  every  temple  was  supposed 
to  be,  which  I  shall  discuss  much  at  large  by  and  by. 

In  the  Preliminary  Observations,  Sect.  28,  I  have  stated,  that  the  ancient  method  of  dividing 
the  day,  was  into  sixty  hours.  It  appears  that  this  was  the  ancient  Tamul  practice,  thus  tending 
to  shew  an  identity  betwixt  the  East  and  West.7    This  subject  I  shall  resume. 

1  In  a  note  in  Book  V.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  7, 1  have  shewn  that  the  Golden  Age  was  called  Crita,  in  Sanscrit :  this  was 
X-Pliy  age  of  pious,  age  of  gold,  age  of  Taurus. 

*  Creuzer,  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  vi.  p.  21 1.  3  Parkhurst  in  voce.  4  Lib.  iii.  Cap.  xiii. 

4  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  p.  316,  and  Hamilton's  Description,  Vol.  II.  p.  247.  6  P.  168,  4to. 

7  Vide  Vedala  Cadai,  Miss.  Trans.,  Oriental  Translation  Society. 


758  CRETE,    CERKS. 

In  Argolis  there  was  a  temple  of  the  Kresian  Bacchus.     This  is  the  Xprjs,  IH£ — the  608,  the 
noinen,  cognomen,  et  omen — Bacchus  mitis,  henignus. 

Creuzer  says,1  Sous  ce  point  de  vue  Axieros  devient  Demeter  ou  Ceres,  Axiokersa  Persephone 
ou  Proserpine,  Axiokersos  Hades  ou  Pluton;  Casmillus  reste  Hermes,  mais  il  se  rapproche 
aussi  d'lacchus,  c'est-a-dire  de  Bacchus  comme  genie  attache  a  C6res.  Under  all  the  circum- 
stances shall  I  be  very  blameable  for  entertaining  a  strong  suspicion  that  Axieros  is  a  Greek 
corruption  of  the  Ceres — the  a  the  ancient  emphatic  article,  and  the  xieros  the  ceres  ?  We  have 
seen  the  IHS  the  monogram  of  Bacchus ;  and  the  IHS  born  at  the  temple  of  Ceres,  or  Beth- 
lehem. In  a  few  lines  after  the  above,  Creuzer  says,  D'abord  se  presente  a  nous  un  nouveau 
couple  de  freres,  Jasion  et  Dardanus.  How  can  Jasion  be  any  thing  but  the  IHS — tog,  or  the 
Latin  Iasus  ?  In  old  Irish  the  Sun  is  called  Creas.  There  yet  exists  a  hymn  to  him  in  that  name.2 
He  is  called  in  Trish  Creasan,  Creasna,  Crusin,  Crusna,  and  Crios.  The  word  Cyrus  meant  the 
Sun,  but  yet  I  think  we  cannot  doubt  that  there  was  once  such  a  person.  Ctesias  in  Persicis  says, 
Ka/  tiQstoli  to  ovofxa.  cluts  cltto  re  'H?U8.3  Plutarch  says  that  Cyrus  was  named  from  Cores 
the  Sun.4  For  the  way  in  which  the  Hebrew  W2  curs  became  the  Xpijs,  and  Kopog,  and  Cyrus, 
see  Whiter.  5  Every  thing  tends  to  confirm  my  suspicion,  that  Crishna  or  Cristna,  called  in 
Sanscrit  Sri,  has  been  the  same  as  Cyrus,  and  as  the  Goddess  Ceres  or  Venus  worshiped  at  the 
temple  of  Bethlehem,  the  house  of  Ceres,  and  that  Cyrus  is  the  male  Ceres,  and  Ceres  the  Xpr\g 
of  Bethlehem.  The  God  adored  at  Tripeti,  the  temple  of  the  crucified  God  Bal-ii,  is  called  Rama, 
or  Om  Sri  Ramdya  Nama.6  Here  is  the  Om  of  Isaiah,  and  his  Cyrus  and  Rama.  When  the  way 
in  which  the  S,  the  C,  the  CH,  and  the  H,  have  become  changed  for  one  another  is  considered,  this 
will  not  be  thought  improbable.  In  addition  to  all  this,  Crete  was  a  holy  island,  celebrated  for  its 
Mina-taur,  or  Bull  Mina,  or  Menus,  who  was  the  famous  legislator  equally  of  India,  Egypt,  and 
Europe.  We  have  his  laws,  the  laws  of  Menu,  translated  by  the  learned  Professor  Haughton,  for 
the  East  India  Company. 

D"in  hrs  is  the  solar  orb.  tynn  hrs,  which,  in  fact,  must  have  been  the  same  word  in  the 
sixteen-letter  alphabet,  means  deep  thought,  secret  contrivance ;  I  should  say  also  secret  wisdom. 
It  also  means  machinator,  megalistor,  artificer,  particularly  in  potters'  ware.7  It  also  means  a 
plough.  From  this  word  the  Greeks  had  their  Epa>£  or  Epo£,  the  plastic  or  formative  power — 
the  material  light.  From  this  come  the  Latin  ars  the  English  artificer.9  Who  can  doubt  that 
this  was  Ceres  and  Cyrus  ?  We  have  the  word  X.pr)£-os9  Mitis,  in  Greek ;  but  I  think  a  careful 
examination  will  prove  it  not  to  be  Greek,  or  at  least  very  unusual  or  obsolete  Greek.  It  is  the 
Crit-i-ka  of  India.  Ceres  was  the  same  as  Isis,  and  if  we  consider  Isis  only  as  the  female  form 
of  the  Saviour,  this  will  bring  us  again  to  an  identity  of  Cres  and  Ceres.  I  am  quite  satisfied 
that  we  very  seldom  sufficiently  bear  in  mind,  in  these  inquiries,  that  in  all  the  Gods  the  male 
and  female  are  united,  and  that  almost  all  that  may  be  reasonably  predicated  of  the  one  may  be 
predicated  of  the  other. 

As  might  be  expected  in  Candy  or  Ceylon,  in  ancient  time,  we  have  the  centre  mountain  called 
MALE-a,  the  rivers  Phases,  the  Soane,  and  the  Padacus  or  Po,  and  an  oppidum  Dionysii  seu 
Bacchi.    Salem,  lately  alluded  to,  the  capital  of  Salem,  is  disguised  into  Chelam  by  Hamilton,9  and 


'  Vol.  II.  p.  313.  *  Maurice,  Hist.  Vol.  II.  p.  170.  3  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  80, 

*  Maur.  Hist.  Ind.  p.  171.  «  Vol.  I.  p.  154.  6  Wilson's  Cat.  p.  333. 

7  It  is  remarkable  that  Jesus  was  said,  by  some  sectaries,  to  be  not  a  carpenter  but  a  potter. 

8  Purkhurst.  9  In  his  Des.  Hist. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  8.  /59 

placed  in  lat.  11°  3f'  long.  78°  IS''.  Here  is  the  highest  mountain  in  this  part  of  India—  Adoni 
disguised  from  its  old  name  into  Adavani  by  Hamilton,  situated  in  15°  35'  N.  lat.  77°  45'  E.  long. 
In  this  district  runs  the  river  Vada  Vati.     Has  Vada-vati  been  Pada-vati  ? 

Bethel  is  Bit-al,  house  of  or  temple  of  AL  In  the  same  manner  Beth-lehem  is  Bit-lehem,  house, 
or  temple  of  Ceres.  But  it  was  also  the  temple  of  Adonis  ;  thus  Adonis  is  the  masculine  Ceres  or 
Cres  :  and  it  was  here  where  the  magi  came  to  offer  gifts  to  the  new-born  Cres,  or,  if  spelt  with 
the  Sigma-tau  Crest.  Ceres  is  Cyrus  and  Crisna.  Ceres  is  the  feminine  of  Cyrus,  as  Juno  is  of 
Jupiter,  Jana  of  Janus,  &c.  I  have,  I  believe,  before  observed,  that  the  Sigma  and  the  Sigma- tau 
were  constantly  substituted  for  one  another,  in  the  early  times  of  Greece.  Take  off  the  terminating 
formatives  from  the  words,  and  make  a  just  allowance  for  the  corruption  of  the  n  H  into  the  CH, 
and  for  the  Sigma-tau,  commonly  used  instead  of  the  Sigma, — and  the  Crys-en  of  India,  the  Cyrus 
of  Isaiah,  re-incarnated  at  Bethlehem,  and  the  Xg?)£  at  Delphi,  the  temple  of  J  ah,  are  all  one 
word  or  name,  and  designate  Cyrus,  Cristna,  and  Apollo. 

8.  The  name  of  the  coast  which  we  find  washed  by  the  Erythraean  sea  with  its  Diu,  Chryse, 
Argo,  and  Colchis,  must  now  be  explained.  It  is  in  Greek  MaXov  Bapig,  the  Hebrew  n~iO  hire, 
(Parkhurst  in  -Q  br) — the  place  or  palace  of  the  fleece  or  apple — Mala-bar.  It  has  probably 
been  a  translated  term  from  the  native  language,  by  the  Greeks,  from  whom  it  has  come  to  us. 
I  know  I  shall  have  much  difficulty  in  persuading  my  Indian  friends  that  the  word  Male-bar  means 
any  thing  but  mountain  coast.  I  shall  be  told  that  Male  means  mountain  in  Upper  India.  I  am 
not  surprised  at  this,  since  I  find  two  Colidas,  two  Unas,  &c,  one  of  each  in  North,  and  one  of 
each  in  South  India.  But  it  means  mountain  coast,  because  the  coast  of  the  Male  is  mountainous, 
in  the  case  of  Male-bar.  But  what  is  it  in  the  case  of  Male-pour,  on  the  opposite  coast,  the  flat 
or  level  coast?  I  should  not  insist  on  this,  if,  on  this  coast,  I  did  not  find  the  Argo,  the 
Chersonesus,  Colchis,  &c, — in  fact,  the  complete  mythos.  But  suppose  that  the  word  Male 
should  mean  alike  mountain,  fleece,  and  apple.  This  is  not  more  extraordinary  than  that  the 
Latin  word  Hostis  should  mean  both  friend  and  enemy,  and  Argo,  in  Greek,  twenty  different 
things.  If  I  do  not  find  the  meaning  of  the  word  fleece  now  given  to  the  word  Male  in  the  San- 
scrit dictionary,  I  maintain  it  is  for  the  same  reason  that  I  do  not  there  find  the  meaning  of  lamb 
attached  to  the  word  Agni.  Dr.  Babington  says,  Maha-bali-poor  is  also  called  Maha-malai-pour, 
or  the  city  of  the  great  mountain,  although  there  is  no  great  mountain  near  it.1  The  learned 
Doctor  seems  to  forget  that  there  are  very  few  places  which  have  not  several  names.  Malabar, 
in  Sanscrit,  is  Kerala,  i.  e.  chora ;  in  the  old  language  Mala.2  When  I  recollect  that  we  have 
on  this  coast  the  Hericulas,  the  Agniculas,  the  Cres,  and  Crys,  &c,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that 
this  KE  has  originally  been  the  same  as  the  C,  the  CH,  in  Cyrus,  &c.  The  Tower  in  Jerusalem 
was  called  Baris :  this  shews  the  word  to  be  Hebrew  as  well  as  Greek.  We  have  found  Ararat 
and  U-avratta,  and  a  Baris,  and  a  mount  of  Naubanda,  in  India,  and  a  mount  Ararat,  called  Baris 
or  mount  of  the  ship,  in  Armenia,  from  which  the  Euphrates  was  supposed  to  flow.  I  suspect  that 
the  river  called  Euphrates,  is  the  Eu-phrat. 

The  natives  of  Western  Colchos  were  described  to  be  black,  with  curled  hair,  and  to  be  cir- 
cumcised. In  Madura  the  head  class  are  circumcised,  but  not  the  lower  orders.  This  seems 
to  raise  a  fair  presumption  that  the  rite  arose  here,  and  travelled  to  the  Egyptians,  among  whom 
Mr.  Parkhurst  has  shewn  that  it  existed  before  the  time  of  Abraham,  but  among  the  priests  or 
higher  class  only. 3      Is  it  possible  that  the  search  after  the  Golden  fleece,  the  Ram,  or  the  Golden 


1  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  Vol.  II.  Pt.  i.  p.  265.  *  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  VII.  p.  380. 

*  Parkhurst  in  voce,  bn  ml  III. 


/60  CAMA,    CAMASENE. 

apples  of  the  Hesperides,  by  the  Argonauts,  may  have  been  nothing  but  one  of  the  common 
mistakes  of  the  Greeks,  which  arose  from  their  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  Malabar  in 
the  old  language.  In  Hebrew  "D  hr  means  place,  or  residence,  or  house,  and  bn  ml  circumcision 
or  the  circumcised.  Then  this  would  be  country  of  the  circumcised,  or  initiated.  But  in  Greek 
MaX  means  either  yellow  or  golden  fleece,  or  yellow  or  golden  apple.  It  is  not  a  more  ridiculous 
mistake  than  their  Meru  for  thigh.  That  the  Argonautic  mythos,  with  its  golden  fleece  and 
apples  is  here,  no  one  can  deny :  and  he  must  be  credulous  indeed  who  believes  that  the  South 
Indians  copied  an  astronomical  mythos,  adapted  to  their  own  astronomy,  from  Greece,  to  whose 
astronomy  it  had  no  relation.  If  any  person  choose  to  object  to  my  explanation  of  Male-bar, 
let  him  consider  the  Sinus  Argoricus,  the  Colchis,  &c. 

9.  In  many  Roman  temples  in  Italy  there  were  figures  of  two  young  men  seated,  armed  with 
pikes,  said  to  be  Penates  and  Dioscuri;  but,  in  fact,  they  were  totally  unknown  :  they  were  pro- 
bably Dii  Obscuri,  Tamuses.1  They  were  said  to  have  come  from  Troy,  whence  everything 
unknown  was  said  to  have  come.     I  think  they  must  have  been  either  Gemini  or  Pisces. 

Creuzer  says,  a  king  of  Italy,  called  Camises,  Cameses,  and  Camasenus,  married  his  sister; 
and  adds,  that  Camasene  was  une  deesse  ou  femme  poisson  comme  Atergatis.  In  fact,  Camasene 
signifies,  in  old  Greek,  the  Fishes.*  I  think  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  we  have  here  in  Italy 
and  Greece  the  Indian  Cama  ;  and,  if  in  this  I  am  right,  as  the  Sun  entered  Piscis  350  years 
before  Christ,  it  is  quite  clear  that  the  communication  between  the  countries  must  have  been  very 
intimate,  even  up  to  that  very  late  date  ;  so  that  after  this  time  the  Sanscrit  may  have  gone  from 
one  to  the  other.  In  India  we  have  Comari,  and  the  Cape  of  Comari  or  Comarin,  near  to  the  tomb 
of  Tamas  ;  but  Kumari  means  the  Virgin,  and  the  Cama-deva  is  the  God  of  love.  As  divine  love, 
Cama  would  belong  to  every  incarnation  :  thus  the  Twins  in  India  were  Cama,  and  the  Fishes  in 
Italy  were  the  same.  Camasenus  came  at  length  to  mean  fishes  from  its  being  an  epithet  of  the 
constellation.  It  was  probably  Cama-isi,  with  the  Latin  termination.  Cama  is  Cupid,  Cama-deva 
God-Cupid  or  divine  love  ;  then  Camasene  will  mean  the  sign  Pisces,  the  emblem  of  divine  love, 
the  Saviour.  In  the  sphere,  the  Virgin  and  Child  constitute  one  sign,  and  form  together  Cama 
Deva.     I  suspect  the  forgotten  mythos  of  Tarn  or  the  Di-oscuri,  was  made  applicable  to  Pisces. 

La  Loubere  says,3  the  promontary  Cory  (Kopu  of  Ptolemy)  could  be  no  other  than  that 
now  called  Comori  or  Comorin.  On  this  promontory  is  a  large  nunnery,  and  here,  in  a  very 
marked  manner,  prevails  the  worship  of  the  Goddess  Cali.  Now  I  take  Cory  to  be  the  Greek 
Kopj,  the  name  of  Proserpine,  and  the  Marin  is  Marina,  the  Sea  Goddess.  Cora-Mandel  is 
Coramanda,  circle  of  Core.  The  coast  is  called  the  country  of  Calidi,  that  is,  of  Dei  Cali  or 
Holy  Cali. 4  The  learned  Oxford  Professor  of  Sanscrit,  Mr.  Wilson,  generally  calls  the  coast  of 
Coromandel,  Chola.  This  is  the  Manda  or  Circle  of  Cali.  But  in  p.  181,  it  is  said  that  Chola  is 
also  called  Chora-manda-l,  and  was  anciently  called  Regio  Sorce,  and  Soretanum.  The  Sura  or 
circle  (as  the  Germans  would  say)  of  Sura,  has  thus  come  down  to  us.  I  find  that  the  country 
of  Sora  or  Chola  was  ruled  by  a  king  raised  to  the  throne,  not  by  the  neighing  of  a  horse,  like 
Cyrus,  but  by  an  elephant,  and  that  his  name  was  Kerik'ala  Chola,5  as  written  by  Mr.  Wilson, 
but  which  ought  to  be,  I  suspect,  Hericlo  Sura,  the  Syrian  Hercules.  In  the  Javanese  the  word 
Cama  becomes  Como  and  Sama  Somo.6  Thus  Comorinus,  the  end  of  the  promontary  of  India, 
is  Cama-marina  ;  and  Cama  is  but  Ama  with  the  aspirate.  Thus  Cama-marina  is  the  Sea  Goddess 
Venus,   who  is  also  Cupid  or  Dipuc.     As  we  find  in  the  very  oldest  language  S  and  T  indiscri- 


1  Creuzer,  Vol.  II.  Liv.  v.  Ch.  ii.  p.  4!  6.  *  Vol.  II.  Liv.  v.  Ch.  iii.  p.  440.  3  P.  259. 

•  Cali-ja,  see  my  Book  IV.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  5.  *  P.  185.  6  Crawfurd,  Hist.  Ind.  Arch.  Vol.  II.  p.  4. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  9.  761 

minately  used  in  Asia  and  Greece,  as  Tur  and  Sur,  and  Nessus  and  Nestus,  Cryssus  and  Crestus  • 
so  we  find  a  similar  practice  prevailed  in  Italy :  their  first  Camasenus  is  constantly  written 
Camarenus.1 

We  find  the  Comarin  in  Italy,  in  the  plain  of  Camera,  in  Calabria — and  Camerinum  in  Umbria 

and  Camarina  in  both  Italy  and  Sicily.  2      Mr.  Bentley  says,  "  The  constellation  Gemini,  may 
"  I  think,  have  arisen  from  the  story  of  the  Aswini  Kumaras."3      The  close  connexion  between 
the  Twins  and  Comari  or  Kumari  is  important.     The  name  of  Comarin,  in  Sanscrit  is  Canya- 
Muri,   Cape  Virgin,  said  to  be  contracted  into  Comari.  4      But  the  Kumari  was  the  Virgin    and 
her  images  were  the  Kumarim.     It  is  said  that  Josiah  put  away  the  comarim  which  the  kings  of 
Judah  had  set  up ;  that  is,  the  images  of  the  female  generative  power,  in  opposition  to  the  male. s 
Cama  was  the  name  of  the  priestess  of  Diana,   and  as  the  priestesses  bore  the  names  of  their 
Deities,  of  course  Di-ana  or  Di-Jana,  was  Cama.     This  is  the  Cama-deva  of  India.6      Eusebius7 
says,   that  the  Uria  or  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  is  called  by  Eupolemus  Kcijaapjt/Tj,  and  the  priests  of 
that  country  anDD  kmrim.s  Here  we  have  my  theory  of  the  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  confirmed.     This 
Kmrim  is  evidently  Comarin.     In  none  of  the  cases  of  etymology  here  noticed,  should  I  consider 
my  explanation  sufficient  if  unaccompanied   by  the  circumstances  which  I  have  pointed  out.     It 
is  on  the  circumstances  I  depend,  not  on  either  the  sound  or  the  similarity  of  letters.     We  have 
the  Argonautic  mythos  in  the  languages  both  of  India  and  Greece.     Did  the  Greeks  invent  a 
mythos  which  is  not  the  least  applicable  to  themselves,  or  the  Indians  invent  one  which  in  every 
thing  (as  we  have  before  shewn)  is  applicable  to  them  ? 

I  now  beg  to  recall  to  my  reader's  recollection,  that  we  found  Culdees  both  in  Ireland  and 
Scotland,  and,  as  appears  in  the  fifth  Chapter  of  the  Celtic  Druids,  a  great  number  of  the 
Gods  of  India.     These  are  so  marked,  that  they  leave  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the 
two.     Now,  when   this  is  considered,  it  will  not  be  thought  surprising  that  the  doctrines  of  the 
inhabitants  or  the  Culdees,  of  the  Colida  of  Comorin,  should  be  identical  with  those  of  the  Culdees 
of  Scotland.     The  fact  is,  the  three  sacraments,  of  what  are  called  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas 
and  of  the  Scottish  Culdees,  and  of  the  Jews,  viz.  Orders,  Baptism,  and  the  Eucharist,  are  identical. 
When  Christianity  first  came  to  Britain  is  not  pretended  to  be  known  j  it  is  only  admitted  that 
it  was  found  here  by  the   Romish  missionaries.     I  suspect  the  Christianity  of  the  Culdees  of 
Ireland  and  of  Scotland  was  the  X.pr)<rev  of  Malabar  :  and  was  brought  from  the  city  of  Columbo 
in  Ceylon  or  its  neighbourhood,  to  the  Columba  of  Scotland ;  in  the  same  way  the  Hindoo  Gods 
were  brought  to  Ireland,  where  they  are  now  found — a  fact  which  cannot  be  disputed. 

A  very  learned  author  says,  Quid  obstat,  quo  minus  hoc  inventum  (he  is  speaking  of  the 
Zodiac)  Chaldaeis  tribuamus,  populo  antiquo,  et  a  primis,  post  reparationem  humani  generis,  in 
terra  Sinear  colonis,  oriundo  ?  Sane  Sextus  Empiricus, 9  famosus  ille  Scepticus,  qui  totum  hoc 
quod  scire  vocamus,  disputationibus  suis  evertit,  contra  astrologiam  disputaturus,  hoc  tanquam 
certum  et  indubium  assumit,  Chaldeeos  antiquos  eandem  Zodiacum,  quern  habent  Graeci  cum 
omnibus  animalibus  habuisse.  Chaldcei,  inquit,  Zodiacum  circulum,  ut  edocti  sumus,  dividunt  in 
duodecem  animalia,  &c. 10 

The  Ioudi  were  Alchymists  as  well  as  Magicians.    This  I  take  them  to  have  been  in  the 


1  Vide  Berosus  ap.  Annius  of  Vit.  Lug.  1554,  p.  248.  *  Lemp.  Class.  Diet. 

*  Hist.  Ind.  Ast.  p.  46.  *  Vincent's  Periplus,  Vol.  II.  486.    Is  Muri,  Mary,  Maria  ? 

*  Jurieu,  Vol.  II.  pp.  255,  256.  6  lb.  pp.  257,  707.  »  Praep.  Evang.  Cap.  xvii. 
8  Jurieu,  Vol.  II.  Treat,  vii.  Ch.  ii.  p.  198.                                9  Lib.  i.  con.  Astrol.  p.  339. 

'•  Nature  et  Scripture  Concordia,  Cap.  iv.  Lipsiae,  1752. 

5  E 


762  TWO   TOMBS    OP   THOMAS. 

character  of  Chaldaeans.  We  see  the  same  character  of  Chaldasans  continue  with  them  from 
beginning  to  end.  The  Egyptian  kings  gave  permission  to  the  Jews  alone  to  exercise  the  art  of 
making  gold. x  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  word  Callidus  for  cunning,  i.  e.  wisdom,  and  Callidus 
hot,  and  xaXoc  beautiful,  to  xaXov,  are  all,  in  their  root,  the  same,  and  all  arise  from  the  same 
original  idea :  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  in  the  numeral  or  arithmic  letters,  which  I  shall  explain  by 
and  by,  it  has  been  XL=650  or  Kula=72.  Call,  in  Welsh,  means  wise,  knowing,  learned.  This 
is  Cali.  That  which  a  man  is  learned  in,  is  denominated  his  vocation  or  calling.  Country  of  Ur 
of  the  Chaldees  is  Cali  or  Cali-deva  or  dei ;  Ur-ia  is  country  of  Ur  or  Urus  or  the  Beeve,  of  the 
holy  or  Goddess  Cali,  or  the  benignant  or  beautiful  Goddess  Cali — KaXoj.  We  have  Orissa, 
Uriana,  Uria,  Ur.     Mahakalee,  the  great  Cali,  is  the  same  as  Mahamya,  the  great  Maia.2 

Chola  and  Chora  were  two  names  of  the  same  thing.  Cora  was  Cory,  the  name  of  the  Indian 
promontory  in  Ptolemy  ;  but  Cory  was  the  Goddess  Kumari  and  Komari,  and  on  the  promontory 
stands  a  convent  of  Nuns,  just  where  it  ought  to  be.  Coro-manda  was  the  circle  of  Cory,  and 
Cola-manda  was  the  circle  of  Cola,  which  was,  I  believe,  nothing  but  the  Goddess  Cali,  another 
name  for  Cory  and  Komari — KaArj  or  KaXo$,  in  Greek,  mitis,  benignus,  having  precisely  the 
same  meaning  as  Xpj£.  Colida  was  the  country  of  Calie  or  Cali,  who  was  peculiarly  the  object 
of  worship  in  that  country,  and  Abraham  or  the  Brahmin  left  Ur  of  the  Cali-dei,  or  Cali-deva,  or 
Cali-da.  Abraham  did  not  leave  the  country  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  but  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  Ur 
is  also  ure  or  yore,  and  means  country.  Choro-mandel  became  Soro-mandel ; 3  one  the  circle  of 
Sur,  the  other  of  Cali.  Koru4  is  also  written  Kolis.5  That  is,  the  Virgin  was  Cali,  the  origin  of 
Cali-da.  Vincent  says,  "Koil,  Kolis,  and  Kolkhi,  and  Kalli-gicum  are  related,  I  have  no  doubt."6 
The  Koil  is  Coil  or  Coel,  meaning  the  same  as  Cun-ya,  the  father  or  mother  of  Helena,  the 
mother  of  Constantine — the  same  as  the  A-pol-lo  or  A-bal-lo  Cunnius,  of  Thrace  or  Athens. 
Calida  may  also  be  Cali-tana.7      From  Kalli-gicum  came  Chalcos. 

10.  I  would  now  draw  the  attention  of  my  readers  to  what  is  noticed  by  our  Indian  inquirers, 
but,  in  their  usual  style,  passed  without  reflection.  There  are  near  Madras  two  Tombs  of  St. 
TJiomas,  or  Tamus,  or  the  Twins,  with  a  Carn,  a  monastery,  &c,  at  each.  How  came  these  ? 
As  might  be  expected  the  Christians  are  permitting  one  of  them  to  go  to  ruin,  and  it  is  almost 
deserted :  but  it  is  there  with  its  Carn.  This  is  a  fact.  I  wonder  whether  the  monasteries  were 
tied  together  by  the  tails,  like  the  fishes  of  Italy.  Here  are  two  Tombs  or  Cams  for  the  Twins 
or  Gemini :  one  for  Castor,  and  one  for  Pollux,  who  were  both  in  the  Argonautic  expedition  to 
Male-pour  or  town  of  the  fleece  or  apples.  I  beg  my  reader  to  think  upon  this.  Were  the  Twins 
slain,  as  the  Bull  was  slain,  and  as  the  Ram  or  Lamb  was  slain  ?  Did  they  constitute  the  holy 
Thomas  or  Dydymus  martyred  on  that  occasion  ?  The  Thomas  of  the  Gospel  was  never  in  India. 
But  might  it  not  be  Thomas,  the  son  of  Budwas,  the  father  of  Manes  ? 

The  sovereigns  of  Orissa,  or  Uriana,  or  Urii,  or  Ur  of  Calida,  on  the  coast  where  the  tomb 
of  Thomas  stands,  were  called  Kesari  or  Caesars,  the  successors  of  Salivahana  or  Salivan,  the 
cross-borne,  or  crucified,  or  Vicram,  who  was  born  on  the  same  day  with  the  Roman  Caesar.  A 
family  of  Kesari  or  Caesars  reigned  in  Orissa  in  the  fifth  century. 8  All  these  various  circum- 
stances, and  the  agreement  in  the  pretended  dates  of  the  Salivahana  of  India  and  the  Cassar 
of  Italy,  prove  the  truth  of  the  cyclic  part  of  my  theory  beyond  a  doubt.  Can  any  one  believe 
the  princes  of  these  distant  countries  copied  the  title  of  Cassars  from  one  another  ? 


1  See  Classical  Journal,  Vol.  XX.  p.  77.  2  Gladwin's  Ayeen  Akbury,  Vol.  III.  p.  7- 

s  Rennell,  Mem.  p.  185.  *  That  is  the  Hebrew  mm  kore,  Virgo ;  the  Greek  Proserpine. 

*  Vincent,  Per.  Vol.  II.  pp.  502,  503.  6  lb.  p.  503.  7  lb.  p.  508.  •  Vide  Hamilton. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VII.    SECTION  10.  763 

I  have  formerly  pointed  out  the  circumstance,  of  which  Col.  Wilford  informs  us, — that  Saliva- 
hana  and  Vicramaditya  are  the  same,  and  afterward  that  Salivahana  killed  Vicramaditya.  The 
aera  of  the  later  began  when  that  of  the  former  ended— 56  years  B.  C.  It  has  also  formerly  been 
observed,  that  Mohamed  was  considered  by  the  Brahmins  to  be  a  Vicramaditya :  then  here,  in 
the  aera  of  the  Hegira,  we  have  another  sera  of  a  Vicrama-ditya  succeeding  that  of  Salivahana. 
From  this  it  is  clear  that  an  aera  of  Vicramaditya  means  an  cera  of  the  600  years :  and  that 
when  it  was  originally  said  the  tenth  or  twentieth  year  of  the  aera  of  Vicramaditya,  any  of  the 
nine  aeras  may  have  been  meant.  This,  indeed,  is  the  way  in  which  Hindoos  constantly  express 
themselves  :  for  instance,  the  tenth  year  of  the  sixth  or  seventh  cycle.  The  same  language 
applies  equally  to  the  sixth  or  seventh  600  of  the  ten  six  hundreds,  as  to  the  sixth  or  seventh  60 
of  the  600.  What  a  door  this  opens  to  mistakes  I  need  not  point  out.  The  same  thing  takes 
place  with  the  Chinese.  After  the  time  when  the  Brahmin  power  was  overturned,  and  their 
seminaries  destroyed,  they  lost  all  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  their  cycles,  along  with  their 
astronomy;  and  the  aera  of  Vicramaditya  now,  I  believe,  is  calculated  forwards  from  the  birth  of 
Caesar.  Some  of  them  have  learnt  the  meaning  of  their  astronomy  from  the  English,  and  are 
beginning  to  pretend  it  was  never  lost,  but  the  truth,  I  imagine,  is  too  well  known  for  them  to 
deceive  any  body  but  their  own  devotees.  From  a  consideration  of  these  facts,  I  am  led  to  a 
suspicion  that  when  the  Jews  or  tribe  of  Ioudi,  at  Cochin  and  Madura,  whom  I  have  lately  noticed, 
are  said  to  have  come  down  from  the  West,  bringing  seventy-two  families,  and  establishing  a 
Sanhedrim  of  seventy-two  persons, l  in  some  year  of  the  aera  of  Vicrama  or  of  the  Cycle,  allusion 
may  be  made  to  an  aera  long  preceding  both  our  time,  and  that  of  the  Xpyjr-ian  aera  of  the  Thome 
Chrestians.  It  follows  that  the  Cres  and  Colida  of  Tarn,  or  the  Twin,  should  have  preceded  that 
of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi,  for  Yuda  was  the  son  of  Cristna. 

I  read  in  Professor  Wilson,  that  there  was  in  Southern  Pandea  a  dynasty  of  seventy-two  Pan- 
daean  kings,  ending  with  Guna  Pandya.  Were  these  the  seventy-two  tribes  of  Jews  ?  In  the 
same  page  (lvi)  Wilson  says,  these  Pandaean  kings  came  from  Ayodhya.  I  believe,  in  spite  of 
rules  of  etymology,  that  Guna  Pandya  is  nothing  but  the  Pandion  of  Athens,  of  Delphi,  and  the 
Apollo  Cunnius :  and  that  Guna  is  Kanya  and  the  Cunnius.  What  is  Tvvr)  in  Greek  ?  Kan-ya 
is  the  name  of  the  Indian  Venus,  as  well  as  of  Cristna  or  Apollo. 

And  now  I  think  we  may  see  that  there  are  yet  some  real  surviving  remains  of  the  mythos  of 
Gemini  or  the  Twins,  as  well  as  of  the  three  posterior  constellations  in  the  precessional  cycle.  We 
have  Gemini  or  Tamus,  Taurus,  Aries,  and  Pisces.  When  I  consider  the  drawings  of  the  Gemini 
and  the  Pisces  tied  together  by  the  tails,  and  the  construction  put  on  the  passage  of  Genesis,  that 
Adam  and  Eve  were  one,  I  have  been  induced  to  suspect  that  the  Gemini  were  like  the  Siamese 
boys  :  the  drawings  are  exactly  like  them.  About  a  year  before  these  boys  were  heard  of,  I 
was  induced  to  make  a  visit  to  Newport  Pagnel,  to  inquire  into  an  incredible  story  which  I  had 
heard,  noticed  before  in  Book  IX.  Chap.  IV.  Sect.  1,  namely,  that  formerly  a  woman  had  lived 
there  with  two  bodies.  I  only  got  laughed  at  for  my  folly  in  supposing  such  a  thing  possible, 
but  I  found  the  monument  of  the  Lady  or  Ladies  in  the  church,  and  what  the  corporation 
considers  of  much  greater  consequence,  I  found  that  it  holds  large  possessions  under  the  will  of 
this  Lady  or  Ladies,  the  daughter  of  Fulk  de  Paganel. 

When  I  meet  with  evidence  from  learned  men  who  do  not  the  least  understand  my  system  I 
value  it  most  highly,  because  the  probability  of  its  truth  is  greatly  increased,  as  any  person  who 
understands  the  value  of  evidence  must  very  well  know.     Of  this  nature  is  the  following  extract, 


!  Buch.  Christ.  Res.  p.  222. 
5  e2 


764 


JUGGERNAUT. 


from  the  work  of  my  learned  friend,  Eusebe  de  Salverte  :  Apres  avoir  celebre  la  naissance  du 
Kioro,  de  1' enfant  celeste  qu'il  regarde  comme  la  tige  de  la  dynastie  mancbione,  le  poete 
empereur  Khian  Lung  peint  cet  enfant  animant  de  son  esprit  tous  ses  descendans,  et  agissant 
lui  m^me  dans  la  personne  de  la  plupart  d'entre  eux.1  C'est  une  veritable  Metempsychose, 
presque  aussi  nettement  etablie  que  celle  du  pontiffe  de  Buddha,  et  qui  n'a  pas  du  revolter 
davantage  la  credulite"  de  Tatars.2  He  must  be  blind  who  does  not  see  here  the  regeneration 
of  the  wisdom  of  Cyrus.  Here  we  have  most  undoubtedly  the  mythos  which  I  have  developed, 
existing  at  this  day  among  the  Chinese.  M.  De  Salverte  correctly  observes,  the  same  principle 
may  be  seen  to  prevail  in  many  sovereigns  who  always  took  the  same  name — for  example, 
the  Syrian  kings  the  names  of  Adad;  the  Egyptian  kings  the  name  of  Pharaoh;  and  many 
others  who  probably  do  not  understand  the  reason  of  the  custom.3  Very  justly  indeed  has 
M.  De  Salverte  observed,  that  there  is  a  strong  probability,  that  the  long  reigns  of  Djem- 
chid,  Feridoun,  &c,  are  only  dynasties  of  the  nature  of  Lamas,-— i.  e.  re-incarnations.  In  the 
same  way  Mohamed  was  a  renewed  incarnation  of  Jesus,  and  of  Buddha ;  and  this  was  the 
reason  why  the  images  of  Buddha  were  spared  in  the  East  by  the  Saracens.  The  Caliphs  and 
the  Sultans  all  professed  and  still  profess  to  be  the  same,  like  the  Lama  of  Tibet,  as  I  shall  prove. 

11.  It  may  now  be  useful  to  inquire  into  the  meaning  of  the  far-famed  Jaggernaut,  in  one  of 
whose  temples  we  lately  found  the  priest  named  Joseph  celebrating  what  Dr.  Buchanan  called 
the  rites  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church.  We  have  found,  in  the  district  particularly  known  for 
its  attachment  to  the  superstition  of  Jaggernaut,  a  crucified  Bal-ii  or  Lord  ii;  also  a  crucified 
Salivahana ;  also  a  Crysen  and  a  Cristna,  who  was  a  crucified  God.  In  Upper  India,  Cristna  is 
called  Can-yia  and  Nat-ii.4  The  Targum  of  the  Jews  calls  Jehovah  ii,  and  Apollo,  the  God  of 
the  people  of  Delphi,  where  the  XpTj^S  was  found  by  Dr.  Clarke,  was  called  IE,  and  the  Bible 
of  the  Jews  calls  Jehovah  IE.  The  first  word  of  Ja-gernaut  is  evidently  IA,  our  Jah,  and  the 
Jewish  n'  ie.  The  third  is  the  Nat  of  Upper  India,  and  the  Irish,5  and  Egyptian  Neiths,  both 
of  which  were  the  Deities  of  Wisdom,  and  the  Chinese  Tien,  as  before  stated  in  Book  VIII. 
Chap.  VI.  Sect.  5.  The  second  word  is  the  Hebrew  "ij  gr,  and  means  circle  or  cycle ;  and  lager 
has  the  same  meaning  as  the  title  of  Cyrus  p'^y-bx  al-olium,  aicov  toou  aicovcov,  Pater  or  Deus 
futuri  sceculi — the  wisdom  of  the  cyclar  la,  or  the  self-existent  cyclar  or  revolving  incarnation  of 
wisdom.     The  Brahmins  call  him  the  Great  Creator  ;  but  the  Creator  was  Wisdom  or  Logos. 

In  Travancore,  not  far  from  Madura,  a  very  peculiar  festival  is  celebrated  to  the  honour  of  the 
Trimurti,  called  by  Mr.  Colebrooke  Three  Persons  and  one  God,  or  of  the  Jewish  Aleim,  where 
all  distinctions  of  caste  are  laid  aside,  and  it  is  in  these  Southern  countries  that  the  worship 
of  the  crucified  Wittoba  chiefly  prevails.  I  apprehend  this  was  the  God  Jaggernaut.  Colida, 
to  the  South  of  Tanjore,6  where  this  God  is  often  found,  has  become  Kolram  and  Coleroon.  I 
must  repeat,  this  God  is  found  in  a  country  called  Uria  of  Colida  (Ur  of  the  ChaldeesJ.  Ur-ia 
is  n>-*iin  aur-ia,  country  of  fire,  or  the  sun,  because  it  was  also  called  Sur-ia  or  Syr-ia. 
Persae  Xvprj  Deum  vocant.  Colida  was  the  country  of  the  Chaldees,  or  Coli-dei,  or  Culi-dei,  or 
Culdees  of  Abraham,  and  of  the  Irish  and  Scotch  nations.  It  has  the  same  names  as  the  country 
of  North  India,  described  by  Col.  Tod,  and  referred  to  by  me  in  Book  VIII.  Chapter  VI.  Sec- 
tion 5.      It  is  the  KaX-o£  of  the  Greeks,  mitis,  benignus,   and  has  the  same  meaning  as  the 


1  Eloge  de  Monkden,  Preface,  p.  v.  et  pp.  13,  17,  47,  &c.  *  Essai  sur  Noms,  &c,  Sect.  59,  p.  396. 

3  Essai  sur  Noms,  pp.  397,  398.  *  Tod,  Hist.  Raj. 

*  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  V.  p.  183.  e  Wilson's  Cat.  Vol.  I.  p.  194. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER    VII.    SECT.    12.  765 

Greek  Xpyg.  It  is  the  Goddess  Cali  who  has  become  the  most  cruel  of  deities,  though  the 
beneficent  Creator,  for  the  same  reason  that  the  city  of  On  or  the  generative  power,  or  Heliopolis 
the  city  of  the  Sun,  was  called  the  city  of  destruction.  The  country  of  this  God  was  also  called 
Carnate.  This  is,  Carnneitb,  Carn-naut,  and  the  tomb  of  Tamas  was  a  earn,  and  was  the  earn 
of  the  Zodiacal  Twins,  the  emblem  of  Wisdom,  or  of  Neith,  or  the  Logos,  or  the  Creator.  How 
curiously  all  these  things  dove-tail  into  one  another !  We  have  Kali  often  in  the  West — in 
Ireland,1  and  in  Caly-DON-ia;  in  Cally-polis,  in  the  Thracian  Chersonesus,  where  were  the 
Sindi,  and  the  wives  who  sacrificed  themselves,  and  near  which  are  numbers  of  tumuli,  yet  said 
by  tradition  to  be  the  sepulchres  of  the  ancient  kings  of  Thrace. 2 

Jagan-nath  temple  is  called  Mandala  Panji 3  and  Sri  Krishna. 4  The  first  name  means  the 
universal  cyclar  ii,  or  IE,  or  Jah.  Col.  Broughton  says,5  Bodh,  under  which  form  he  is  now 
worshiped  by  the  title  Jugurnath.  Not  far  from  the  old  temple  of  Jaggernaut  is  an  immense  fire 
tower,  now  in  ruins  :  its  roof  was  supported  by  two  wrought-iron  bearers,  21  feet  long,  8  inches 
square.  6  They  lie  under  blocks  of  stone  16  feet  long,  6  feet  deep,  and  2  or  3  feet  thick.  I  think 
we  have  never  seen  a  beam  of  wrought-iron  of  these  dimensions  in  Europe. 

The  Brahmins  of  India  were  believed  by  Mons.  Bailly  to  have  been  Chaldeans.  In  the  minutes 
of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  dated  19th  February,  1767»  is  a  letter  from  a  gentleman,  at  Benares, 
to  Mr.  Hollis,  in  which  he  describes  an  university  called  Cashi.  In  this  he  states  that  the 
physicians  study  the  Chaldaic  language,  in  which  their  books  on  that  science  are  written.  This 
was  the  Chaldaic  astrology,  with  which  we  know  that  medicine  anciently  was  closely  connected.7 
Father  Georgius,  the  missionary,  states,  that  the  people  of  Tibet,  or  the  Indian  Scythians,  have 
among  them  the  Chaldean  divinities. s  Thus  we  have  the  Chaldee  language  both  in  North  and 
South  Colida  of  India.  Mr.  Wilson,  in  his  preface,  says,  the  Uriya  or  Urissa  language  is  spoken  in 
Cuttack.  Here  we  have  admitted  the  Ur  in  Colida,  (which  Mr.  Wilson  little  suspected,)  in  South 
India.9  Wilson  says,  the  Hindi  varies  every  hundred  miles,  and  presents  wide  discrepancies; 
but  I  feel  little  doubt,  that  the  Chaldee  or  Hebrew  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  dialects. 

12.  In  Book  III.  Chapter  II.  Section  9,  we  find  the  Brahmins  talking  of  the  Saman  Vedas 
These  are  the  Buddhas  of  the  Smin  or  disposers  of  our  system.  These  contain  the  wisdom  of  our 
system,  not  of  the  universe.  In  the  Sanscrit  the  B  is  continually  changed  into  the  V,  particularly 
in  the  dialect  of  Bengal ; 10  thus  the  Vedahs  become  Bedas.  n  Van  Kennedy  (p.  247)  says,  in 
the  Sanscrit  the  B  and  V  are  perpetually  interchanged,  and  the  change  is  optional.  Thus,  Fed, 
Bed,  Bud.  In  some  of  the  earlier  authors  the  Vedas  12  are  called  Beds,  Bedahs,  Baids.  I  have 
a  great  suspicion  that  Dud  or  David  ought  to  be  or  arose  from  the  Bud  of  India.  In  Mr. 
Whiter's  Etymologicon  Universale  13  may  be  seen  how  the  forms  D,  w-D,  vrD,  b-D,  or  BD 
"  pass  into  each  other."  This  never  occurred  to  me  till  I  was  told  that  the  learned  Ritter  had 
shewn  Dodona  to  have  been  originally  Bod-dona ;  nor  should  I  have  thought  of  it,  if  I  had  not 
found  the  sons  of  David  or  Dud  in  the  country  of  Buddha. 

Hyde,  in  his  eighth  chapter,  informs  us,  "  that  the  Persians  had  a  book  which  is  yet  extant, 


»  Celtic  Druids.  *  Sandy's  Travels,  p.  21.  3  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  p.  268. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  p.  318.  4  Popular  Poetry,  notes,  p.  152.  6  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  p.  331. 

•>  Vail.  Col.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  p.  157.  9  lb.  9  Wilson's  Cat.  p.  xlix, 

10  See  Wilkins's  Grammar.  "  Edin.  Rev.  Number  XXV.  Vol.  XIII. 

14  The  Vedas  have  been  mentioned  before  in  Book  III.  Chap.  I.  Sect  8,  and  Chap.  II.  Sect.  9. 

»  Vol.  I.  p.  865. 


766 


VEDA. 


"  entitled  Gjavidan  Chrad,  i.  e.  the  eternal  Wisdom,  which  is  older  than  all  the  writings  of 
"  Zoroaster,  and  ascrihed  to  one  of  their  kings  called  Hushang.  This  book  proves  evidently  that 
"  the  people  of  those  times  worshiped  the  only  true  God."1  I  think  the  Gja,  or  perhaps 
Ja-Vedan  is  the  Wisdom  of  Ja,  or  Je,  or  Jah.  The  Buddhists  are  said  to  have  Vedahs  as  well 
as  the  Brahmins.  The  sacred  books  of  most  nations  seem  to  have  been  called  the  books  of 
wisdom.  The  Persians  called  their  sacred  book  the  Sophi  Ibrahim,  that  is,  the  book  of  the 
Wisdom  of  Abraham.  The  Jews  call  their  book,  not  as  we  do  Genesis,  but  the  rvtWO  rasit,  that 
is,  the  book  of  Wisdom.  The  Scandinavians  called  their  sacred  book  the  Saga,  (Saga  is  the  same 
as  the  Latin  Sagas,  sagacious,  wise,)  that  is,  again,  the  book  of  Wisdom  ;  and  the  Brahmins  and 
Buddhists  call  their  sacred  book  the  Veda,  the  word  Veda  being  only  a  corruption  of  the  word 
Buddha,  and,  like  all  the  others,  it  means  Wisdom,  and  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  Edda  of  the 
Northern  nations  is  the  same,  being  V-edda,  and  the  Kali-ol-ukham  of  the  Tamuls  the  same. 

"The  third  order  of  the  British  Druids,  was  named  Vates,  by  the  Greeks  Ouateis  (Borlase). 
"  The  origin  of  this  name  is  preserved  in  the  Irish  Baidh  and  Faith,  but  stronger  in  Faithoir  or 
"  Phaithoir.     The   first  was  written    Vaedh  by  the  Arabs,  whence   the  Greek    Ouateis ;  hence 
"  Vaedh,  signifying  a  prophet,  became  a  common  name  to  many  authors  of  Arabia  (D'  Herbelot). 
"  Baid  is  the  Chaldeean   n*D  bda,  praedicavit.     Nihil  apud  alias  Gentes  (Hebraeas  antiquiores, 
"  Arabes,    iEgyptios,   Graecos,    omnes)    usitatius    quam   ut   sacerdotes,   prophetae,   divinatores, 
"  oraculorum  interpretes  essent,  et  responsa  Deorum  eorum  ministerio  redderentur.     Id  moris 
apud  Ilebraeos,  lege  Mosis  antiquiores  obtinuisse  probabile  habeatur,  quod  Jobus  et  Prophetae 
vocem  nnn  (bdim)  Badim  ad  divinatores  et  oracula  notanda  usurpaverint. 2      Ch.  N12  bda 
Bada,  Aral)  Bede  praedicavit  cum  Hebr.  nJ"Q  bta  congruat.     The   Irish  Faith  and  Faithoir  is 
the  Hebrew  "inD  ptr,  interpretus  est.     Solvit  aenigma,   Genes.  Cap.  xl.  -miD  putr  conjector, 
unde  Joseph  Poter  dicitur ;  et  Paterae,  Sacerdotes  Apollinis  oraculorum  interpres. 3      Hence 
the  Irish  Bro- faith,  i.  e.  the  ancient  prophets.    The  Scythians  or  Hyperboreans,  says  Pausanias, 
gave  the  first  LTpo^Tjra*  to  the  temple  of  Delphi,  and  they  came  from  beyond  the  seas  to 
"settle  at  Parnassus.4       Finally  it  is  the  Phoenician  xr\DK  apta.5      Again,6   Vallancey  says, 
"  From  Feadh  or  Feodh,  a  tree,  proceeds  Foedh,  Fodh,  knowledge,  art,  science,  which  in  the 
"  Sanscrit  language  is  written  Ved  ;  and  from  Hercules  being  the  inventor  of  this  Feadh  or  Feodh 
"  he  was  called  Fidius.     In  the  Bhagvat-Geeta,  translated  by  Mr.  Wilkins,  we  also  find  the  origin 
"  of  this  Ved  is  from  a  tree" 

In  Col.  Tod's  work,  we  have  a  description  of  a  class  of  persons  who  are  kept  in  the  houses 
of  the  great  men  in  India,  to  make  out  their  pedigrees,  and  to  write  or  record  the  transactions 
of  their  reigns.  It  is  not  possible  to  conceive  any  thing  more  like  the  bards  of  Ireland  and 
Wales.  But  what  is  the  most  remarkable  is,  that  they  are  in  Sanscrit  actually  called  by  the 
word  Bat,  the  T  being  marked  in  a  peculiar  manner  to  make  it  sound  like  the  RT,  and  the  word 
Bard.  I  cannot  attribute  this  identity  of  the  two  to  accident,  and  this  leads  me  towards  the 
opinion  which  will  be  thought  very  bold,  but  of  the  truth  of  which  I  every  day  become  more 
convinced,  that  most  of  what  we  call  histories  are  nothing  but  effusions  of  this  order  of  men  :  and 
that  the  early  poets  of  Greece  were,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  bards  of  India  in  that  country. 
What  was  the  Olen,  named  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  said  to  have  been  the  first  composer  of 
verses  ? 


a 
M 
(( 
(( 
U 
a 
a 


•  Biograph.  Brittan.  voce  Hyde.  *  Spencer  de  Urim,  p.  1020. 

3  Buxtorf,  p.  666.  4  See  Collect.  No.  12,  Pref.  clxiii. 

5  Vail.  Col.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  I.  p.  426  ;  for  origin  of  Baids,  see  ib.  p.  424.  •  lb.  p.  80. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VIII.    SECTION  1.  f&J 

Somewhere  in  Mr.  Whiter's  great  work  which,  though  printed  at  the  Cambridge  press,  has 
neither  table  of  contents  nor  index,  I  have  found  it  said,  that  almost  universally  the  two  letters 
B,  D,  meant  to  form  or  to  produce.  This  is  confirmed  by  Parkhurst,  who  says,  that  in  the  Arabic 
NT3  bda  means  to  begin,  to  produce.  The  Bda  is  the  Fila,  which  means  both  self-producer,  our 
Genesis,  and  Wisdom,  the  personification  of  the  first  production.  EDH3  bdim  are  conjurers  or 
wise  men,  whence,  says  Parkhurst,  perhaps  the  Latin  word  Vates.     Of  this  I  have  no  doubt. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FREEMASONS  OF  YORK  .AND  INDIA. — SOLOMONS.  KINGDOM  OF  SOLOMON  UNKNOWN. — CHALDEANS  IN 
BABYLON,  THEIR  LANGUAGE  AND  SANSCRIT. — SACRED  NUMBERS. — SEPHIROTH,  CHERUBIM,  SERAPHIM. — 
FIRST   VERSE   OF   GENESIS.  — MANI. — FREEMASONS   OF  YORK,    METEMPSYCHOSES. 

1.  I  shall  not  trouble  my  reader  at  present  with  any  more  observations  respecting  St.  Thomas. 
I  think  I  have  shewn  pretty  clearly  how  his  history  arose.  It  furnishes  a  beautiful  example  of  the 
way  in  which  religions  are  raised  by  an  union  of  weakness  and  roguery. 

After  I  had,  from  various  sources  and  by  various  means,  added  to  reasoning,  nearly  arrived  at  a 
conviction,  that  the  ancient  order  of  Freemasons  arose  in  India,  and  was  established  there,  as  a 
mystery,  in  the  earliest  periods,  my  conviction  acquired  wonderful  strength  from  a  knowledge  of 
the  fact  which  I  shall  now  mention.  I  shall  be  censured  for  stating  facts  in  this  way ;  but  I 
write  truly  and  for  the  truth,  and  for  this  purpose  alone.     The  style  or  order  in  such  a  work  as 

this  is  not  worth  naming.     At  the  time  that  I  learned  from  Captain ,  the  gentleman  who 

was  named  in  my  last  Chapter,  the  particulars  respecting  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas,  I  was  also 

told  by  him  that  he  was  in  the  strictest  intimacy  with  the  late  Ellis,  Esq.,  of  the  Madras 

establishment ;  that  Mr.  Ellis  told  him,  that  the  pass- word  and  forms  used  by  the  Master  Masons 
in  their  lodge,  would  pass  a  person  into  the  sanctum  sanctorum  of  an  Indian  temple ;  that  he, 
Mr.  Ellis,  had,  by  means  of  his  knowledge  as  a  Master  Mason,  actually  passed  himself  into  the 
sacred  part  or  adytum  of  one  of  them.  Soon  after  Mr.  Ellis  told  this  to  my  informant  he  was 
taken  suddenly  ill,  and  died,  and  my  informant  stated,  that  he  had  no  doubt,  notwithstanding 
the  mistake  which  his  friends  call  it  in  giving  some  medicine,  that  he  was  poisoned  by  his  servants 
for  having  done  this  very  act,  or  for  being  known  to  possess  this  knowledge.  Now,  when  this 
is  coupled  with  the  fact  of  the  Masonic  emblems  found  on  the  Cyclopean  ruins  of  Agra  and 
Mundore,  I  think,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  I  may  venture  to  assume,  that  the  oriental  origin 
of  Free-masonry  cannot  be  disputed — and  that  I  may  reason  upon  it  accordingly.  Every  person, 
at  all  conversant  with  inquiries  of  this  kind,  knows  that  our  ancient  and  beautiful  cathedrals  were 
built  by  societies  or  fraternities  of  men  supposed  to  be  monks  from  Spain,  to  which  country  they 
are  said  to  have  come,  along  with  the  Saracens,  from  the  East.  These  people  were  monks,  but 
probably  all  monks  were  not  masons.  But  the  two  societies,  if  separated  in  some  things,  were 
very  closely  connected  in  others.  They  were  Culdee  or  Calidei  monks,  from  Calida.  They  were 
Saracens  from  Surasena,  on  the  Jumna  in  India. 


768  FREEMASONS   OF   YORK   AND    INDIA. 

After  I  had  been  led  to  suspect,  from  various  causes,  that  the  Culdees,  noticed  in  the  Notitia 
Monastica  and  in  the  last  chapter,  and  there  stated  to  have  been  found  in  the  Cathedral  at  York, 
were  Masons,  I  searched  the  Masonic  records  in  London,  and  I  found  a  document  which  upon  the 
face  of  it  seemed  to  shew  that  that  Lodge,  which  was  the  Grand  Lodge  of  all  England,  had  been 
held  under  the  Cathedral  in  the  crypt,  at  York.  In  consequence  of  this  I  went  to  York,  and 
applied  to  the  only  survivor  of  the  Lodge,  who  shewed  me,  from  the  documents  which  he 
possessed,  that  the  Druidical  Lodge,  or  Chapter  of  Royal- Arch  Masons,  or  Templar  Encamp- 
ment, all  of  which  it  calls  itself,  was  held  for  the  last  time  in  the  crypt,  on  Sunday,  May  27, 
1778.  At  that  time  the  Chapter  was  evidently  on  the  decline,  and  it  is  since  dead.  From  the 
books  it  appears  to  have  claimed  to  have  been  founded  by  Edwin  in  the  year  926.  From  a 
curious  parchment  document,  formerly  belonging  to  the  Lodge,  and  restored  to  it  by  Francis 
Drake,  author  of  the  Eboracum,  as  appears  by  an  endorsement  on  the  back  of  it  signed  by  him, 
stating  that  it  came  from  the  Castle  at  Pontefract,  it  seems  probable  that,  according  to  the  tradi- 
tion to  that  effect,  the  ancient  records  of  the  Lodge  had  been  sent  to  that  place  for  safety  in  the 
Civil  Wars,  as  it  is  well  known  that  many  of  the  title-deeds  of  Yorkshire  families  at  that  time 
were,  and  on  its  destruction  were,  like  them,  destroyed  or  dispersed. 

Formerly  a  contest  arose  among  the  Masons  of  England  for  the  supremacy, — the  Lodge  of 
Antiquity  in  London  claiming  it,  and  the  York  Lodge  refusing  to  admit  it.  This  was  at  last 
terminated  by  an  Union  of  the  two  parties,  under  the  authority  of  the  present  Grand  Master, 
his  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Sussex.  The  Bishops  of  York,  in  their  great  and  similar  contest 
for  precedency  with  the  Bishops  of  Canterbury,  maintained  their  See  to  have  been  founded  by 
Scotch  Monks,  (Culidei  probably,)  entirely  independent  of  St.  Augustine. 

The    documents   from   which    I    have  extracted   the  above  information  respecting  the  York 

Masons,  were  given  to  me  by Blanchard,  Esq.,   and  transferred  by  me  to  the  person  who 

now  possesses  them,  and  with  whom  they  ought  most  properly  to  be  placed,  His  Royal  Highness 
the  Duke  of  Sussex.  It  appears  from  the  documents  above-named,  that  Queen  Elizabeth  became 
jealous  of  the  York  Masons,  and  sent  an  armed  force  to  York  to  put  them  down. 

I  have  formerly  shewn,  that  the  Masons,  or  Chaldei,  or  Culdees,  were  the  judicial  astrologers 
at  Rome  in  the  time  of  the  emperors.  They  could  be  of  no  small  consequence  when  they  were 
employed  by  Julius  Caesar  to  correct  the  Calendar.     This  I  shall  shew  hereafter. 

I  do  not  pretend  absolutely  to  prove  that  this  Druidical  Royal  Arch,  Chapter,  Lodge,  or 
Encampment  of  the  Temple  of  St.  John  at  Jerusalem,  or  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  temple  of  the 
holy  wisdom,  as  it  calls  itself,  of  Jerusalem,  was  actually  the  same  as  that  of  the  Culdees  of  the 
Monastica,  but  I  think  the  presumption  is  pretty  strong.  What  more  the  books  contain  may  be 
only  known  to  Masons,  of  high  degree.  But  if  I  do  not  by  mathematical  demonstration  connect 
the  Calidei,  or  Chaldaeans,  and  Masons  at  York — I  do  it  in  the  Mathematici  and  Chaldaei  at 
Rome.  I  will  repeat  here,  that  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  had  the  three  rites  (according  to 
Buchanan)  of  Baptism,  Orders,  and  the  Eucharist.  These  the  Jews  had ;  and  these,  according 
to  Jamieson,  the  Culdees  of  York  and  Iona  had.  The  use  of  the  word  Wisdom  here  for  the  name 
of  the  Lodge,  has  probably  come  from  a  very  remote  period.  In  modern  times  no  person  could 
have  known  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Rasit,  so  as  to  have  caused  him  to  adopt  it. 

However  far  back  I  search  into  history  I  always  find  traces  of  the  Chaldei,  and  this,  not  in  one 
country  only,  but  all  over  the  old  world.  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  they  were  correctly 
Freemasons  from  India.  What  I  have  said  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  respecting  them,  that  they 
were  not  a  people  but  an  order  of  priests,  is  confirmed  by  Diodorus  Siculus,1  who  says,  that  the 


1  In  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  iii. 


BOOK    X.   CHAPTER   VIII.   SECTION    1.  769 

Chaldeans  held  the  same  rank  in  Babylon,  that  the  Egyptian  priests  did  in  Egypt  j  that  they 
transmitted  their  learning  from  father  to  son ;  that  they  were  exempt  from  all  public  offices  and 
burdens  j  that  by  their  constant  study  of  the  stars,  they  learnt  to  foretell  future  events ;  and 
that  they  called  the  planets  counselling  Gods  or  Interpreters.  Here  we  come  back  to  my  explanation 
of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  of  the  Q'Dtt;  smim,  or  the  disposers  or  placers  in  order  of  Parkhurst. 
In  another  place  Diodorus   speaks,  as  of  a  matter  of  course,  of  the   Chaldeans  as  a  college  : 

Uspi    8g    T8    7T7i7jQsg    TCOV    STCOV  SV  0J£  ^OL(Tl    Tf\V    QstOpidV  TCOV    KCLTO.    TOV  X0(T[J.0V    7TS7I 'OnjO-Qa*    TO 

a-uo-TTjjtxa  tcov  XaXSoucov,  ex  av  rig  pahcog  Tng-zotreitzV  :  "  What  the  Chaldeans  (literally  the 
"  college  of  the  Chaldeans)  say  concerning  the  multitude  of  years,  which  they  employed  in  the 
"  contemplation  of  the  universe,  no  one  will  believe." l  1  have  little  doubt  that  they  were  the 
inventors  of  figures  and  letters,  and,  of  course,  of  astrology ;  and  that  this,  in  many  cases  at  least, 
conducted  them  to  the  possession  of  sovereign  power. 

The  Rajahpoutans,  or  a  tribe  of  them,  have  the  name  of  Rattores  ;  this  I  much  suspect  has 
originally  been  Rastores  or  Rashtores  or  Ratsores.  May  the  word  Rashtra,  in  Sur-ashtrene  or 
Zor-aster,  have  any  relation  to  the  Ras  ?  I  suspect  the  Zor  is  Sur— and  aster-ana— and  that 
Zo-radust  is  a  corruption  of  Sur  and  Ras-di,  the  rough  letter  S  changed  or  dropped  as  usual. 
We  must  not  forget  that  the  planets  were  all  believed  to  be  intelligent  beings,  to  possess  wisdom. 
They  were  all  Rashees  or  Rishees.  Sidus  is  the  proper  Latin  for  star,  and  aster  for  planet, 
and  aster  is,  perhaps,  formed  by  the  common  practice  of  the  anagram  from  the  word  rast  or  rasit. 
The  probability  of  this,  like  all  other  instances  of  conjectural  etymology,  must  be  left  for 
the  consideration  of  the  reader — each  case,  without  any  general  rule,  depending  on  its  own 
circumstances.  Zoroaster  in  the  Irish  books  is  called  Zerdust  and  surnamed  Hakim,)  and  he  is  the 
son  of  Doghdu.  Porphyry  says,  he  dwelt  in  Babylon  with  other  Chaldees  ;  and  Suidas  calls  him 
a  Chaldean.*  Vallancey  shews,  from  Strabo  and  other  authorities,3  that  the  Chaldeans  were 
the  first  astrologers. 

To  myself  the  truth  of  my  theories  has  several  times  been  proved  in  a  manner  the  relation  of 
which  to  such  persons  only  as  know  me,  and  have  a  dependance  on  my  integrity,  will  be  of  any 
weight.  After  I  have,  from  a  union  of  theory  and  reasoning  and  doubtful  records,  concluded,  that 
certain  events  must  have  taken  place,  I  have  afterward  found  proofs  of  another  kind,  that  such 
events  really  did  happen.  The  discovery  of  the  Masons  at  York  is  an  example  of  what  I  mean. 
I  concluded  that  the  Culdees  of  York  must  have  been  Masons,  and  must  have  held  their  meetings 
in  the  crypt  under  the  Cathedral.  I  examined  the  office  in  London,  and  I  found  a  document  which 
not  only  proved  what  I  have  said,  but  shewed  that,  as  might  from  all  circumstances  be  expected, 
it  was  the  Grand  Lodge  of  all  England  which  was  held  there.  Naming  this  to  one  of  the  oldest 
and  most  learned  Masons  in  England,  he  told  me  he  knew  the  fact  very  well,  and  that  if  I  went  to 
the  Cathedral  at  York,  and  examined  certain  parts  which  he  named,  I  should  find  proof  of  the 
truth  of  what  I  conjectured.     From  the  circumstances,  this  evidence  becomes  to  me  very  strong. 

I  request  my  reader  to  think  upon  the  Culidei  or  Culdees  in  the  crypt  of  the  Cathedral  at  York 
and  at  Ripon,  and  in  Scotland,  and  in  Ireland, — that  these  Culdees  or  Chaldeans  were  Masons, 
Mathematici,  builders  of  the  temple  of  Abraham's  tribe,  the  temple  of  Solomon ;  and,  that  the 
country  where  Mr.  Ellis  found  access  to  the  temple  in  South  India  was  called  Colida  and  Uria; 
that  the  religion  of  Abraham's  descendants  was  that  of  Ras;  that  Masonry  in  that  country  is 
called  Raj  or  Mystery  ;  that  we  have  also  found  the  Colida,  and  most  other  of  these  matters  on 
the  Jumna  a  thousand  miles  distant  in  North  India, — and  when  he  has  considered  all  these 


1  Lib.  i.  *  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  IV.  Pt.  i.  p.  197.  3  lb.  p.  221. 

5f 


7/0  SOLOMONS. 

matters,  as  it  is  clear  that  one  must  have  borrowed  from  the  other,  let  him  determine  the  question. 
Did  York  and  Scotland  borrow  from  the  Jumna  and  Carnatic,  or  the  Jumna  and  Carnatic  from 
them  ?  In  India,  there  were  two  kingdoms  of  Pandaea,  one  in  North  India  and  one  in  the  Car- 
natic, in  each  of  which  all  these  matters,  in  both  nearly  the  same,  are  found. 

I  think  I  may  venture  to  assume,  that  1  have  connected  the  Masons,  the  Templars,  and  the 
Ishmaelians,  and  I  beg  leave  to  observe  that,  by  means  of  the  red  eight-point  cross,  I  connect  the 
Templars  also  with  the  Manichaeans  and  the  Buddhists  of  India. 

The  extraordinary  similitude,  indeed  the  actual  identity,  of  the  religions  of  Rome  and  Tibet, 
have  been  constant  subjects  of  wonder  and  admiration  to  all  inquirers,  and  have  defied  all  attempts 
at  explanation.  But  I  think  my  reader  must  now  see  that  they  were  actually  the  same  religions, 
only  with  such  variation  as  length  of  time  and  distance  might  well  be  expected  to  have  produced. 
They  had  the  same  trinity,  the  same  incarnation  of  the  divine  wisdom,  the  same  crucifixion  and 
resurrection,  and  nearly  all  the  same  rites  and  ceremonies— the  same  monks,  the  same  vows,  the 
same  tonsure,  the  same  monasteries.  And  in  my  next  book,  if  I  do  not  shew  that  every  one  of  the 
remaining  doctrines,  rites,  and  ceremonies  of  the  Romish  Christians  were  identical  with  those  of 
Tibet,  I  shall  shew  that  they  were  identical  with  those  of  the  Gentiles,  I  believe  without  one  excep- 
tion. The  truth  is,  that  the  religion  of  the  Ras,  of  Buddha,  of  Metis,  of  Sophia,  of  the  Xprj^og, 
of  Bafomet,  of  Acamoth  or  the  Intelligence  Universelle,  extended  over  the  whole  world,  and 
was  the  universal  esoteric,  ancient  and  modern  religion  ; — the  religion  of  Tibet,  of  Sion  or  Siam, 
of  the  Monks  of  the  lake  of  Paremboli,  (Embolima  of  India,)  of  Dodona  or  Bodona,  of  Eleusis, 
of  Ephesus,  of  Delphi,  of  Virgil,  of  the  Gnostics,  of  the  Manichaeans,  and  of  the  Pope— for  which 
reason  he  very  properly  calls  himself  a  Catholic,  and  his  religion  Catholic  or  Pantheistic,  and  his 
followers  Catholics  or  Pandees,  or  Saints  of  Pan-ism  or  Catholicism. 

I  beg  to  repeat  to  such  of  my  readers  as  are  Royal- Arch  Masons,  that  Solomon  was  a  lias  or 
wise  man,  and  that  a  Mason  in  Rajapoutana  is  called  a  Raz,  which  also  means  mystery  j  and 
now  I  take  the  liberty  of  observing  to  my  brethren,  that  they  are  called  Royal-Arch  Masons, 
not  because  they  have  any  thing  to  do  with  kings,  but  because  they  are  Ruja-pout-an  Masons,  as 
the  persons  who  conquered  Egypt  were  lloyal  Shepherds  or  Shepherd  Kings,  or  Raja-pout-an 
Shepherds,  from  Pallitana.     Pout  is  Buddha,  who  is  Ap^rj,  who  is  Ras. 

2.  If  my  reader  recollect  that  the  Queen  of  Sheha  came  from  Ethiopia,  and  that  the  African 
Ethiopians,  the  Royal  Family  at  least,  pretend  to  be  the  descendants  of  Solomon  and  this  Queen, 
whose  name  was  Helena,  he  will  not  be  surprised  to  find  the  King  of  the  Ethiopians  taking  the 
name  of  that  virtue  for  which  this  prince  was  in  a  particular  manner  celebrated — Wisdom.  Thus 
he  is  called,  not  the  king  but  the  Ras  of  Abyssinia.  Why  was  Solomon  so  celebrated  for  this 
virtue  ?  It  was  no  doubt  from  being  the  protector,  or  perhaps  the  renovator,  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  emanation  of  the  Rasit.  He  removed  the  seat  of  the  Western  doctrine  of  Wisdom,  from 
the  stone  circle  on  Gerizim  to  Moriah  or  the  Western  Sion,  for  which  lie  has  been  cursed  by  the 
Samaritans,  and  blessed  by  his  followers,  who  in  consequence  assumed  the  name  of  the  whole 
tribe  exclusively  to  themselves,  that  is,  Juda-ites,  or  Yadu-ites,  or  Jews,  sinking  the  other  ten 
tribes  into  Schismatics.  It  will  be  said,  perhaps,  that  the  monarch  of  Abyssinia  was  called  Ras, 
because  he  was  the  head  or  the  first  of  the  country.  This  would  be  fair  reasoning  if  we  had  not  the 
word  explained  by  the  other  names  of  this  personage — Johannes,  and  Butta,  and  Deus — all  which 
we  have  seen,  or  shall  presently  see,  mean  wise. 

Speaking   of  the   Abyssinian    Christians    Scaliger1  says,    "  Ipsi  vocant   se  Chaklaeos,    neque 


1  De  Emend.  Temp.  p.  333. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VIII.     SECTION  2.  771 

"  frustra  :  lingua  Chaldaica  etiam  temporibus  Justiniani  eos  usos  fuisse."  !      Of  course,  if  all  the 
people  spoke  the  Chaldee  the  Christians  would  do  so  likewise,  as  they  do  in  Tamul. 

Sir  William  Drummond,  in  his  essay  on  a  Punic  Inscription, 2  has  proved  the  Geez  to  be 
nothing  but  Hebrew.  Sheba's  son  by  Solomon  was  called  Ibn  Hakim.  This  clearly  is  nothing 
but  ODPT  pn  e-bn-hkm,  the  son  of  Wisdom.  And  it  gives  us  a  probable  meaning  for  the  word 
Solomon.     Zeradusht   was   called  Hakim.3      Mr.  Hammer  says,4  "  Videntur  illic  pro  lapidibus 

angularibus  ac  clavibus  concamerationis  fignrae  obscenissimae,  omnes  ad  Genesim  seu  Gnosim 

ophiticam  pertinentes  :"  and  in  a  note  he  adds,  "  Haec  est  sapientia  divina,  de  qua  in  scripturis 

toties  mentio  occurrit  et  quam  Eusebius,  secundum  Hebraeorum,  principium  nominat. 5  Ego 
"  sapientia  habitans  in  consilio.6  Quid  autem  sapientia  et  quomodo  genita  est  ?7  Unde  autem 
"  sententia  inventa  est  ?"8  Again,  he  adds,  "  Hanc  sapientiam,  quam  Hebraei  Deo  in  creando 
"  ac  ordinando  mundo,  ut  principium  adsociaverant,  Gnostici  in  systema  suum  adoptaverunt.  Sic 
«  Theodotus." 

In  the  valley  of  Cashmere,  on  a  hill  close  to  the  lake,  are  the  ruins  of  a  temple  of  Solomon. 
The  history  states  that  Solomon  finding  the  valley  all  covered  with  water  except  this  hill,  which 
was  an  island,  opened  the  passage  in  the  mountains  and  let  most  of  it  out,  thus  giving  to  Cashmere 
its  beautiful  plains. 9  The  temple  which  is  built  on  the  hill  is  called  Tucht  Suliman.  Afterward 
Forster 10  says,  "  Previously  to  the  Mahometan  conquest  of  India,  Kashmere  was  celebrated  for 
"  the  learning  of  its  Brahmins  and  the  magnificent  construction  of  its  temple."  Now  what  am  I 
to  make  of  this  ?  Were  these  Brahmins  Jews,  or  the  Jews  Brahmins  ?  The  inadvertent  way  in 
which  Forster  states  the  fact  precludes  all  idea  of  deceit. 

Mr.  Wilson  says,  it  is  probable  that  the  Tartars  or  Scythians  once  governed  Cashmir,  and  that 
they  first  gave  the  sanction  of  authority  to  their  national  religion,  or  that  of  Buddha,  in  India.  n 

The  Tuct  Soliman  of  Cashmere  in  the  time  of  Bernier, 12  was  described  by  him  to  be  in  ruins, 
and  to  have  been  a  temple  of  the  idolaters  and  not  of  the  Mohamedans.  The  Mohamedans 
reported  that  it  was  built  by  Solomon,  in  very  ancient  times.  All  this  at  once  does  away  with 
any  pretence  that  it  was  a  building  of  the  modern  Mohamedans  ;  and  is  a  strong  confirmation  of 
the  Jewish  nature  of  the  other  names  of  towns — Yude-poor,  Jod-pore,  &c,  &c.  Bernier  goes  on 
to  say, 13  that  the  natives  of  Cashmere  had  the  appearance  of  Jews  so  strongly  as  to  be  remarked 
by  every  one  who  saw  them  j  that  the  name  of  Mousa  or  Moses  is  common  among  the  natives  j 
that  Muses  died  at  Cashmere,  and  they  yet  shew  the  ruins  of  his  tomb  near  the  town.  This  is 
curious  when  connected  with  the  fact,  that  the  Jews  of  Western  Syria  say,  no  one  ever  knew 
where  he  was  buried. 

On  the  frontiers  of  China  is  a  place  greatly  resorted  to  by  pilgrims,  called  the  Stone  Tower,  but 
of  what  religion  does  not  appear.  It  is  in  a  narrow  pass  called  Belur-tag,  not  far  from  where  the 
Gihon  and  Yerghien  approach  each  other.  The  pass  is  ascended  from  the  North  West:  and  on 
the  left  side  of  the  road,  the  face  of  the  mountain,  a  massy  rock  is  hewn  into  a  regular  form,  with 
two  rows  of  twenty  columns  each;  hence  it  is  called  the  tower  of  the  forty  columns  or  Chasotun,  ,4 

•  Nicephorus,  Lib.  ix.  p.  18;  Ouseley's  Coll.  Orient.  No.  III.  p.  217.  *  P.  28. 

3  Vallan.  Vol.  IV.  Pt.  I.  pp.  191,  196.  *  Mines  de  l'Orient,  Vol.  VI.  pp,  35,  100,  101. 

s  Praep.  Evang.  xi.  14.  6  Prov.  xiii.  12,  22.  »  Sap.  xi.  24,  xii.  22. 

8  Job  xxviii.  12.  9  Forster's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  11.  10  P.  17. 

»  Hist,  of  Casbmir,  Asiat.  Res.  Vol.  XV.  p.  24.  ,8  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  128,  Ed.  fol.  1688.  '3  p.  137. 

14  Tbe  last  temple  of  Solomon  was  in  the  mere  of  the  cashi  or  college;  this  is  in  the  town  of  the  cashi  or  college. 
The  Tun  of  this  Saxon  country  or  country  of  the  Sacae,  is  our  town.    See  Webster's  Diet. 

5f2 


77*2  KINGDOM   OF   SOLOMON   UNKNOWN. 

and  is  said  to  be  a  work  of  the  Jews.  But  it  is  more  generally  called  the  Tuct  Soliman  or  Throne 
of  Solomon.1  Here  we  carry  this  religion  over  the  Cashmerian  mountains  to  Tartary.2  Many 
persons  will  have  no  doubt  that  all  the  Tuct  Solimans  were  copied  from  the  building  in  Western 
Syria.     I  cannot  content  myself  with  this  supposition,  though  others  may. 

I  suppose  my  reader  will  have  observed  that,  besides  what  I  call  our  temple  of  Solomon,  there 
were  many  others.  One  for  instance  in  Mewar,  one  in  Cashmere,  one  on  the  frontiers  of  China, 
and  one  in  Asia  Minor,  at  Telmessus.  And  it  would  be  no  difficult  matter  to  shew,  from  circum- 
stances, that  there  must  have  been  several  others,  for  a  Tuct-Solomon  could  be  no  other  than  a 
temple  or  house  of  Solomon.  I  suspect  that  the  great  kingdom  of  Solomon  in  Western  Syria, 
whose  monarch  filled  the  whole  world  with  the  fame  of  his  glory  and  wisdom,  was  only  a  part  of 
the  Judean  mythos.  I  do  not  mean  that  there  was  no  temple,  but  that  the  history  was  accom- 
modated to  the  mythos,  as  was  the  early  part  of  the  history  of  Rome  to  its  mythos,  and  indeed  to 
the  same  mythos.  I  apprehend  that  the  temple  was  a  type  of  the  universe,  and  that  all  the 
temples  were  the  same  ;  all  parts  of  the  one  universal  mythos  which  extended,  as  is  evident,  from 
the  same  sacred  names  of  places  being  found  every  where,  to  the  farthest  points  of  the  globe. 

I  have  a  strong  suspicion,  but  I  name  it  as  a  suspicion  only,  that  the  fourteen  Maha-bads  of 
Persia,  on  which  Sir  W.  Jones  founds  his  Mahabadian  dynasty,  merely  meant  towns  of  the  great 
Buddha ;  that  the  fourteen  Solumi,  said  to  have  existed  before  the  flood,  were  the  same  fourteen 
Buddhas  or  incarnations  of  Wisdom ;  that  the  same  towns  are  meant  j  that  there  was  a  temple 
of  Solomon  at  each  of  them,  and  that  they  are  fourteen  certain  places  where  we  find  the  local 
mythos  visible  from  their  names.  I  entertain  a  persuasion  that  the  Solomonian  mythos,  which 
we  have  found  in  China,  in  Cashmere,  in  Oude,  in  Persia,  in  Asia  Minor,  and  in  Matura  of  the 
Carnatic,  as  described  by  Bouchet,  in  the  temple  of  the  Brahmins,  with  its  passage  of  the  sea,  &c, 
&c,  were  all  the  same  with  that  in  Western  Syria ;  that  they  all  had  at  the  bottom  the  same 
recorded  transactions ;  and  that  this  was  part  of  the  secret  Jewish  religion.  Look  back  to  Book 
X.  Chap.  V.  Sect.  5,  to  what  Bouchet  has  said  of  the  Moses,  &c,  at  Madura,  in  the  Carnatic. 

If  I  can  prove  only  one  of  the  Indian  towns  or  temples  having  Jewish  names  to  have  existed 
before  the  time  of  Mohamed,  it  is  enough,  under  all  the  peculiar  circumstances,  to  prove  my  case, 
viz.  that  it  is  probable  that  the  Jewish  names  of  the  other  places  may  have  been  given  before  his 
time.  It  opens  the  door  to  an  inquiry  into  the  probability  of  each  particular  case ;  and  I  am 
quite  certain  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  probability  will  amount  to  certainty.  The  temple  in 
ruins  in  Cashmere  is  a  most  complete  example  of  what  I  allude  to  :  and,  in  fact,  the  city  of  Oude, 
or  Ayodia,  or  Iuda,  is  another  :  for  no  one  will  contend  that  Oude  has  been  either  built  or  named 
since  the  time  of  Mohamed. 

3.  I  know  the  following  question,  previously  alluded  to,  will  not  be  answered,  but  will  be 
treated  with  contempt  and  ridicule ;  but  nevertheless  1  must  propose  it— Where  is  the  empire  of 
Solomon  the  Magnificent  first  read  of  in  the  works  of  the  Gentiles  ?  It  is  not  noticed  by  Hero- 
dotus, Plato,  or  Diodorus  Siculus.  It  is  a  most  extraordinary  fact,  that  the  Jewish  nation,  over 
whom  but  a  few  years  before  the  mighty  Solomon  had  reigned  in  all  his  glory,  with  a  magnificence 
scarcely  equalled  by  the  greatest  monarchs,  spending  eight  thousand  millions  on  a  temple,  was 
overlooked  by  the  historian  Herodotus,  writing  of  Egypt  on  one  side,  and  of  Babylon  on  the 
other, — visiting  both  places,  and  of  course  almost  necessarily  passing  within  a  few  miles  of  the 
splendid  capital  of  the  nation,  Jerusalem.  How  can  this  be  accounted  for  ?  A  few  generations 
after  the  reign  of  the  mighty  Solomon,  the  nation  was   conquered  by  the  Babylonians,  and  its 


1  Cab.  Cyclop.  Vol.  I.  p.  118.  *  The  sovereign  of  which  was  called  Prestre  John. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER   VIII.   SECTION   3.  773 

chief  persons  carried  into  captivity.  Before  this  time  we  have  books  which  purport  to  be  a 
history,  but  it  is  remarkable  that  they  are  found  to  contain  incidents  belonging  to  a  very  old 
nation  spread  over  all  India,  over  immense  countries,  and  accompanied  with  temples,  statues, 
towns,  and  mountains,  with  the  Jewish  names,  and  evidently  of  the  same  mythos.  The  dates  of 
the  statues,  towns,  names  of  mountains,  &c,  here  noticed,  are  so  remote  that  they  are  totally 
unknown  to  the  present  inhabitants,  and  even  to  their  history  or  traditions,  though  they  pretend 
to  have  regular  histories  to  times  long  anterior  to  the  time  of  the  Western  Solomon.  The 
towns,  names  of  mountains,  temples,  colossal  statues,  &c,  clearly  prove,  that  whenever  they 
were  fabricated  the  people  who  erected  them  must  have  been  masters  of  the  country.  Can  any 
one  believe  that  all  these  things  can  have  arisen  from  a  few  captive  Jews  or  Samaritans  from 
the  country  and  state,  so  small  as  to  be  overlooked  by  Herodotus,  and  that  they,  so  late  as  less 
than  1200  years  before  Christ,  can  have  possessed  those  places  in  India  unknown  to  the  native 
historians  of  the  countries  who  wrote  perfect,  regular  histories  of  them,  supported  and  confirmed 
by  astronomical  observations  ? 

In  reply  to  this,  I  am  asked,  Why  Homer  or  Moses  never  names  the  Pyramids  ?  The  cases 
are  totally  dissimilar.  But  I  suppose  they  did  not  name  them  for  the  same  reasons  that  the 
Roman  historians  never  named  Stonehenge,  Abury,  or  Carnac — each  of  the  two  latter  equal  to 
the  greatest  Pyramid, — and  for  the  same  reasons  that  our  early  English  historians  never  named 
Abury.  If  these  monuments  had  possessed  inscriptions,  which  conveyed  historical  information, 
they  would  probably  have  been  named.  If  the  historians  had  been  in  search  of  antiquarian 
curiosities,  the  case  would  have  been  different ;  but  they  were  in  search  both  of  ancient  and 
modern  empires,  and  it  is  totally  incredible  that  the  nation  of  Solomon  could  have  been  overlooked, 
if  its  history,  as  told  in  the  Bible,  be  true.  Herodotus  might  overlook  an  obscure  little  mountain, 
or  vassal  tribe  of  Babylon,  though  possessing  even  a  large  temple,  but  this  is  all  which  can  be 
admitted;  and  this  proves  that  the  object  of  a  chief  part  of  the  Bible  was  not  history  but  a  mythos, 
as  the  Bishop  and  Romish  Apostolic  Vicar  Dr.  Geddes  properly  called  it,  like  the  early  history  of 
Rome  and  Troy. 

Almost  as  unaccountable  as  the  ignorance  of  the  inquisitive  Herodotus,  is  the  slight  knowledge 
or  comparative  ignorance  of  Alexander  the  Great.  So  unsatisfactory  to  Josephus  was  Alexander's 
neglect  of  this  formidable  fortress  and  sumptuous  temple, — by  far  the  richest  which  ever  existed 
in  the  world,  that  he  felt  it  expedient  to  forge  a  story  to  fill  up  the  chasm  or  blank,  and  in  his 
work  it  may  be  found.  I  shall  not  enter  into  the  subject :  the  falsity  of  Josephus  has  been 
satisfactorily  proved  by  Mr.  J.  Moyle,  of  Southampton,  in  his  correspondence  with  Dean  Pri- 
deaux,  and  I  have  no  need  to  add  to  the  proof.  Mr.  Moyle  has  shewn  that  Alexander  was  never 
at  Jerusalem.  I  have  seen  the  ignorance  of  the  Grecian  historians  of  the  Jewish  nation  accounted 
for  by  the  pretence,  that  they  despised  the  Jews  too  much  to  notice  them.  The  reason  is  ridi- 
culous and  childish,  not  worthy  of  a  moment's  consideration.  If  the  Greeks  knew  any  thing  of 
them,  it  is  probable  that  they  knew  no  more  of  them  than  the  name,  or  than  they  knew  of  any 
other  obscure  mountain  tribe.  If  I  were  to  write  a  history  of  Britain  it  is  probable  that  I  should 
never  name  the  town  and  church  of  Bangor :  and  yet  I  should  not  despise  them.  For  a  similar 
reason  Herodotus  never  named  the  temple  or  empire  of  Solomon. 

All  these  circumstances  combined  give  the  lie  to  the  glories  of  David  and  Solomon,  and  reduce 
the  whole  to  the  history  of  a  petty  mountain  tribe  possessing  a  rich  temple,  similar  to  those 
which  were  to  be  seen  at  Heliopolis,  that  is,  Tadmor,  and  many  other  places.  The  whole  thing 
amounts  to  this ;  that  there  was  in  the  mountains  of  Syria  a  tribe  divided,  like  the  Ionians  of 
Asia  Minor,  into  twelve  municipalities ;  that  they  quarrelled  about  their  superstition,  and  in 
consequence  separated ;  that  it  was  a  tribe  which  came  in  very  early  times  from  India  j  that  it 


774  CHALDEANS  IN  BABYLON,  THEIR  LANGUAGE  AND  SANSCRIT. 

was,  until  it  settled  and  conquered  Judea,  exactly  like  the  present  Afghan  tribes  ;  indeed,  there  is 
the  greatest  reason  in  the  world  to  believe,  that  it  was  one  of  them,  probably  a  strong  tribe  ;  that 
its  sacred  books  are  a  mere  mythos,  exactly  like  the  Mahabarat  or  other  sacred  books  of  the 
Brahmins, — the  foundation  of  it  being  the  same  mythos  as  theirs,  accommodated  by  its  priests 
to  its  own  peculiar  history  and  local  circumstances.  And  this  was  most  likely  the  case  of  the 
secret  books  of  every  great  temple  or  cathedral  as  it  might  be  called, — which  was,  in  fact,  the 
archiepiscopal  see  of  each  arrondisement.  The  Jews,  of  whom  we  read  at  Alexandria  and  other 
places,  were  probably  partly  from  Judaea  and  partly  from  the  other  settlements  of  the  tribe  of 
Yudi,  wherever  they  might  happen  to  be — Telmessus,  Upper  Egypt,  Heliopolis,  or  other  places 
where  the  Tecte  Solumi  prove  that  they  were  settled.  No  doubt  the  Christian  sectaries  of  the 
Judsean  mythos,  have  done  all  they  could  to  destroy  written  evidence  of  the  truth;  but  the 
temples  of  Solomon,  the  names  of  places  in  North  India,  in  South  India,  in  Siam,  Ceylon,  China, 
&c,  prove  the  existence  and  the  great  dissemination  of  the  mythos,  which  was,  in  fact,  the  basis 
on  which  was  erected  the  Pandaean  kingdom,  and  that  was  a  Sacerdotal  kingdom.  That  the  tribe 
of  Juda  did  exist  almost  all  over  the  world  cannot  possibly  be  denied :  the  city  of  Judia  in  Siam, 
the  mythos  at  Cape  Comorin,  the  temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere,  the  Montes  Solumi  in  Mewar, 
the  great  city  of  Oude  or  Juda,  are  facts  which  prove  it,  and  admit  of  no  dispute. 

4.  I  must  now  call  my  reader's  attention  to  another  fact  of  very  great  importance.  We  have 
heard  much  about  Daniel  and  the  Chaldeans  of  Babylon,  and  about  the  rendering  of  the  law  of 
Moses  by  Ezra  or  Esdras  into  the  Chaldee  language,  at  the  gate  of  the  temple,  after  the  cap- 
tivity. But  there  is  another  book  extant,  said  to  be  written  by  Esdras,  which  declares  that  the 
book  of  the  law  was  burnt,  and  that  it  was  rewritten  by  him  under  the  influence  of  divine 
inspiration.  This,  for  very  obvious  reasons,  is  now  denied  to  be  of  divine  authority,  by  the 
united  sect  of  Jews  and  Christians — for  in  this  case  they  must  be  considered  one.  But  it  seems 
to  stand  upon  as  good  ground  as  the  other  books,  and  in  some  respects  upon  better.  But  this 
observation  is  rather  from  my  argument,  though  it  strikes  a  blow  at  the  credibility  of  the  fact  of 
the  explanation  of  the  law  at  the  gate  of  the  temple  :  for  how  could  Ezra  explain  the  law,  if  it 
were  burnt  ?  unless,  indeed,  it  were  the  new  law  revealed  to  Esdras. 

The  fact  to  which  I  have  to  draw  my  reader's  attention,  and  from  which  I  have  digressed,  is 
this,  that  though  we  are  told  that  the  Jews  brought  the  Chaldee  language  and  letters  back  with 
them  from  Babylon,  yet  that  among  the  great  numbers  of  inscriptions  of  different  kinds  found  in 
the  ruins  of  that  city,  one  in  the  Chaldee  letter  and  language  has  never  been  found.  This  seems 
clearly  to  prove,  that  if  the  Chaldean  language  and  letter  were  the  language  and  letter  of  Daniel 
and  the  magi  or  astrologers  with  whom  he  is  classed  in  the  Bible,  they  were  not  the  letter  and 
la?iguage  of  the  Assyrians.  The  letter  must  have  been  a  secret  of  the  Jewish  priests,  and  their 
language,  their  sacred  language  at  least,  probably  different  from  that  of  Assyria.  This  all  tends 
to  prove  the  tribe  of  Abraham  a  distinct  tribe  from  India,  of  comparatively-speaking  recent  date. 

On  the  most  mature  consideration  I  have  come  to  the  opinion,  and  it  is  very  important,  that 
the  similarity  between  the  Chaldaic,  or  Hebrew,  and  the  other  languages  noticed  by  Sir  W.  Jones, 
is  the  nearest  approximation  to  identity  which  can  be  expected,  and  indeed  more  than  could  be 
expected,  or  would  have  been  found,  if  the  copy  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the  Jewish  temple  had  not 
arrested  the  Hebrew  Chaldee  in  its  progress  of  change.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  evidently 
incredible,  that  the  original  from  which  all  these  languages  sprung  can  now  exist.  It  is  pretty 
clear  that  the  mythos  of  Moses  has  existed  from  very  old  time.  This,  I  think,  the  numbers 
of  temples,  houses,  or  mounts,  (all  the  same,)  of  Solymi  prove.  And  this  is  confirmed  by  the 
Sibyls,  each  of  whom  refers  to  this  mythos,  though  the  variation  among  them  is  so  great  as  to 
shew  that  they  cannot  have  copied  from  one  another.     If  we  go  to  the  African  Ethiopians  we 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER   VIII.   SECTION  4.  JJ5 

find,  in  the  descent  from  Solomon,  in  the  Ioannes,  Butta,  Deus,  and  the  use  of  the  Chaldee 
language,  remains  of  the  same  mythos.  We  find  the  same  both  in  North  and  South  India.  When 
I  consider  the  little,  obscure,  mountain  tribe  of  Jews  in  Western  Syria,  and  I  again  contemplate 
the  Judaea  in  the  mighty  cities  of  Agra,  Oude,  Mundore,  &c,  I  cannot  doubt  that  North  India 
must  have  been  the  birth-place  of  the  mythos  j  and  the  mistake  of  all  these  people  in  supposing 
themselves  descended  from  the  Jews  of  the  little  tribe  of  Western  Syria,  is  easily  accounted  for ; 
it  is  the  natural  effect  of  the  loss  by  them  of  their  real  history,  and  of  the  stories  told  them  by 
proselyting  Christians,  that  they  must  have  come  from  Western  Syria.  To  these  causes  of 
mistake  may  be  added  the  account  of  these  people  retailed  and  misrepresented  to  us  by  the  same 
Christians,  who,  from  prejudice,  overlook  important  facts,  (such,  for  instance,  as  that  of  the 
existence  of  an  old  temple  of  Solomon  in  Cashmere,)  and  who  misrepresent  others  to  make  them 
suitable  to  their  own  superstitions  and  creeds.  Thus,  to  believe  them,  all  the  Jews  or  Youdi,  scat- 
tered in  ancient  times  over  the  world,  and  forming  great  nations,  were  part  of  the  mountain  tribe 
of  Western  Syria,  which  Herodotus  did  not  observe,  or,  in  his  search  for  nations,  discover ;  the 
capital  of  which,  with  its  temple,  would  not  now  have  been  in  existence,  had  it  not  been  preserved 
by  Helena  and  the  Christians. 

To  return  to  the  assertion  I  have  so  often  made,  that  the  Hebrew  is  the  first  language.  This 
assertion  I  must  now  qualify,  in  order  to  answer  a  question  which  will  be  asked,  viz.  What  I 
mean  by  the  first  language.  It  is  very  clear  that  the  Hebrew,  when  a  spoken  language,  must  have 
changed  like  all  other  languages,  and  must  have  undergone  this  change  when  it  advanced  from 
sixteen  to  twenty-two  letters,  and  this  change  must  have  been  very  considerable.  We  have 
formerly  seen,  from  the  works  of  various  learned  men,  that  the  Afghan  language,  called  Pushto, 
is  very  similar  to  the  Chaldee.  We  have  seen  the  same  Pushto  very  similar  to  the  Tamul.  We 
have  seen  that  the  Tamul  is  very  similar  to  or  identical  with  the  Aramean  Syriac  or  Pushto  of 
Western  Syria,  and  that  this,  which  is  the  dialect  of  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  but  a  dialect  of 
the  Chaldee  or  Hebrew  in  which  the  Synagogue  Pentateuch  is  written.  All  these  similarities  are 
as  near  identities  as  can  be  expected,  and  the  fact  of  the  same  original  sixteen  letters  in  all, 
proves  their  original  identity.  Supposing  them  all  in  the  sixteen-letter  state,  they  must  neces- 
sarily all  have  diverged  from  it,  and  the  similarity  discovered  by  different  learned  men  is  as  much 
as  can  be  expected,  and  more  than  would  have  been  ever  discovered,  had  not  the  common  mythos 
operated  in  a  direction  contrary  to  the  tendency  to  change — the  natural  effect  of  time — united  to 
the  circumstance  of  the  recluse  Pentateuch  in  the  Jewish  temple  having  been  fortuitously  pre- 
served. In  fact,  all  the  written  languages  are  but  dialects  of  a  sixteen-letter  language,  as  Mr. 
Gilchrist  has  judiciously  observed.  The  language  which  Sir  William  Jones  and  others  call  Chaldee 
can  be  nothing,  in  fact,  but  the  Arabic,  before  the  change  in  the  letter  and  the  addition  to  it  of 
points,  by  one  of  the  Caliphs,  took  place.     It  is,  in  reality,  the  language  of  the  book  of  Job. 

After  much  consideration  I  am  induced  to  believe,  that  the  Sanscrit  has  been  a  language 
artificially  formed,  by  the  caste  of  priests,  upon  the  old  language  of  the  country,  and,  at  first,  as 
found  in  the  earliest  Veda,  in  a  more  rude  state  than  it  afterwards  arrived  at  j  and  that,  as  long 
as  the  Brahmins  were  in  power  and  prosperity,  it  kept  improving,  till  it  arrived  at  its  present 
perfection.  As  they  kept  copying  their  Vedas  they  kept  improving  the  language  of  them,  exactly 
as  we  do  with  our  Bibles.  We  all  along  keep  correcting  the  antiquated  mode  of  spelling  and  ex- 
pression, though  keeping  to  the  sense. 

I  think,  judging  from  all  history  and  from  all  circumstances,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
farther  back  we  go,  the  more  nearly  all  the  ancient  languages,  which  had  the  Cadmean  system  of 
letters,  will  be  found  to  assimilate ;  on  the  contrary,  the  more  we  advance  to  our  own  times,  the 
more  they  will  diverge  from  their  original  root.    In  our  endeavours  to  discover  the  meanings  of 


TJQ  CHALDEANS   IN    BABYLON,  THEIR   LANGUAGE   AND    SANSCRIT. 

the  old  languages,  this  consideration  will  be  found  of  the  greatest  importance.  It  accounts 
very  satisfactorily  for  the  great  number  of  old  Hebrew  words  which  we  find  in  almost  all  the 
Western  languages.  But  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  Sanscrit,  which  we  also  find  in  them  ? 
I  can  suggest  no  rational  theory  except  that  which  I  have  before  stated, — that  the  Sanscrit  must 
have  come  to  the  West  before  it  increased  its  sixteen  to  fifty-two  letters,  and  that,  in  fact,  it  was 
also  Hebrew  or  Saxon,  or  a  dialect  of  Hebrew,  before  it  was  improved.  I  still  feel  that  this  is 
scarcely  sufficient  to  account  for  the  closeness  or  the  similarity  of  the  Sanscrit  to  the  improved 
forms  of  the  Latin  and  Greek. 

I  confess  that  sometimes  I  cannot  help  suspecting,  that  the  opinions  of  Dugald  Stewart  and 
Professor  Dunbar  are  well  founded,  and  that  the  Sanscrit  was  formed  on  the  Greek  and  Latin, 
after  the  irruption  of  Alexander  into  India.  It  seems  to  me  that  our  Sanscrit  scholars  are  opposed 
to  this,  chiefly,  because  it  seems  to  compromise  the  antiquity  of  the  Indian  learning  :  but  this  is, 
I  think,  a  hasty  conclusion  ;  for  their  learning  both  in  astronomy  and  in  every  other  branch  may 
have  existed  in  the  Tamul  or  other  language  long  before  the  time  of  Alexander,  and  all  their 
works  may  have  been  very  readily  translated  into  the  Sanscrit.  In  the  sixteen-letter  Tamul  we 
have  a  refined  language  of  learning  and  of  learned  men,  and  in  the  Kaliwakam l  we  have  a  work 
which  will  not  disgrace  any  learned  Brahmin. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  Kaliwakam . 

THE  KALIWAKIM  OF  AYVAR. 

The  zealous  study  of  sciences  brings  increasing  happiness  and  honour. 

From  the  fifth  year  of  age  learning  must  begin. 

The  more  we  learn  the  more  understanding  we  get.  _, 

Spare  no  expense  to  learn  reading  and  writing. 

Of  all  treasures  reading  and  writing  are  the  most  valuable. 

Learning  is  really  the  most  durable  treasure. 

An  ignorant  man  ought  to  remain  dumb. 

He  who  is  ignorant  of  reading  and  writing  is  indeed  very  poor. 

Though  thou  shouldst  be  very  poor  learn  at  least  something. 

Of  each  matter  endeavour  to  get  a  clear  knowledge.  « 

The  true  end  of  knowledge  is  to  distinguish  good  and  bad. 

He  who  has  learned  nothing  is  a  confused  prattler. 

The  five  syllables  Na-ma-si-va-yah*  contain  a  great  mystery. 

He  who  is  without  knowledge  is  like  a  blind  man. 

Cyphering  must  be  learned  in  youth. 

Be  not  the  cause  of  shame  to  thy  relations. 

Fly  from  all  that  is  low. 

One  accomplished  philosopher  is  hardly  to  be  met  with  among  thousands. 

A  wise  man  will  never  cease  to  learn. 

If  all  should  be  lost,  what  we  have  learned  will  not  be  lost. 

He  who  loves  instruction  will  never  perish. 

A  wise  man  is  like  a  supporting  hand. 

He  who  has  attained  learning  by  free  self-application  excels  other  philosophers. 

Continue  always  in  learning,  though  thou  should  do  it  at  a  great  expense. 

Enjoy  always  the  company  of  wise  men. 

He  who  has  learned  most  is  most  worthy  of  honour. 

What  we  have  learned  in  youth  is  like  a  writing  cut  in  stone. 


'  Kali-Hakim,  Kali-akim,  Kali-ow-akim  ;  evidently  the  wisdom  of  Call  or  Kali. 

9  This  is  the  Roman  Nama  Sebadia,  often  found  on  the  Mithraitic  monuments  in  Italy.     I  think  this  cannot  be 
doubted ;  and  it  connects  the  Italian  and  Indian  mythoses  together  beautifully. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VIII.    SECTION  4.  777 

False  speaking  causes  infinite  quarrels. 

He  who  studies  sophistry  and  deceit,  turns  out  a  wicked  man. 

Science  is  an  ornament  wherever  we  come. 

He  who  converses  with  the  wicked  perishes  with  them. 

Honour  a  moral  master. 

He  who  knoweth  himself,  is  the  wisest. 

What  thou  hast  learned  teach  also  to  others. 

If  one  knows  what  sin  is,  he  becomes  wise. 

Well-principled  wise  men  approach  the  perfection  of  the  Divinity. 

Begin  thy  learning  in  the  name  of  the  divine  son.    (Pulleyar.) 

Endeavour  to  be  respected  among  men  of  learning.  , 

All  perishes  except  learning. 

Though  one  is  of  low  birth,  learning  will  make  him  respected. 

Religious  wise  men  enjoy  great  happiness. 

Wisdom  is  firm-grounded,  even  on  the  great  ocean. 

Without  wisdom  there  is  no  ground  to  stand  on. 

Learning  becomes  old  age. 

Wise  men  will  never  offend  any  by  speaking. 

Behave  politely  to  men  of  learning. 

The  unwise  only  flatter  others. 

Wisdom  is  the  greatest  treasure  on  earth.  ( 

The  wiser,  the  more  respected. 

Learning  gives  great  fame. 

Wise  men  are  as  good  as  kings. 

Do  not  deceive  even  thine  own  enemy.  , 

In  whom  is  much  science,  in  him  is  great  value. 

He  that  knows  the  sciences  of  the  ancients,  is  the  greatest  philosopher. 

Truth  is  in  learning  the  best. 

Wise  men  are  exalted  above  all  others. 

In  proportion  as  one  increases  in  learning  he  ought  to  increase  in  virtue. 

The  most  prosperous  good  is  the  increase  in  learning. 

Wisdom  is  a  treasure  valued  everywhere. 

The  Veda  teaches  wisdom. 

Speak  and  write  for  the  public  good. 

If  knowledge  has  a  proper  influence  on  the  mind  it  makes  us  virtuous.1 

The  very  important  circumstances,  noticed  in  Chap.  VII.  Sect.  9,  that  the  same  mythos  of  Pisces 
is  found  in  the  same  names,  Camasenes  in  South  India,  the  Tamul  country,  and  in  South  Italy, 
proves,  I  repeat  proves,  a  very  intimate  connexion  between  the  two  countries  of  which  we  have 
not  a  hint  in  any  Greek  or  Roman  historian,  (and  the  Nama  Sebadia  confirms  it,)  even  later  than 
the  time  of  Alexander,  because  it  must  have  been  after  the  sun  entered  Pisces  at  the  vernal  equi- 
nox, which  took  place  360  years  before  Christ.  This  connexion  can  have  been  no  slight  or  casual 
acquaintance  of  the  two  countries  which  could  establish  the  same  new  system  (as  to  the  populace 
it  would  appear  to  be)  of  religion  in  one  of  them.  It  may  be  observed  also,  that  this  system  was 
not  established  by  Sanscrit  speakers,  but  by  the  Tamul  or  one  of  the  broken,  that  is,  the  old 
dialects  of  India.  The  names  Comarin,  Coromandel,  &c,  are  all  common  names  used  by  the 
people,  and  if  they  be  found  in  the  Sanscrit  this  is  what  might  be  expected.  It  is  absurd  to 
suppose  the  Brahmins  would  not  write  the  old  names  in  the  Sanscrit  letter.  Whoever  they  were 
that  brought  the  Indian  names  of  the  Fishes  to  Italy,  they  at  the  same  time  probably  brought  the 
art  of  building,  and  the  beautiful  designs  of  the  temples  at  Paestum — which  are,  in  fact,  almost 
copies  of  some  of  those  in  Col.  Tod's  book — and  which  are  proved  to  be  the  same  as  the  Indian 

'  Asiat.  Transactions,  Vol.  VII.  p.  357. 
5g 


778  CHALDEANS    IN   BABYLON,   THEIR   LANGUAGE   AND    SANSCRIT. 

also,  by  the  Ling  Ioni's,  found  in  the  ruins  by  Col.  Tod,  and  particularly  in  the  hand  of  Ceres,  the 
Goddess  of  the  temple. 

Once  more  I  repeat,  that  I  know  I  shall  have  great  difficulty  in  convincing  Sanscrit  scholars 
that  their  language  is  comparatively  modern  :  but  its  close  analogy  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  cannot 
be  denied,  -and  I  feel  quite  satisfied  that  they  can  never  refute  the  argument  drawn  from  the 
smallness  of  the  number  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  letters.  If  the  Greek  and  Latin  had  come  from 
the  Sanscrit  in  its  present  form,  they  must  have  had  fifty-two  letters  instead  of  sixteen.  I  have 
proved  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  at  the  time  when  the  colonies  came  from  the  Indus,  they  each 
had  sixteen  letters  only,  and  the  same  sixteen.  In  this  alphabet  the  names  of  the  Indian  Gods  are 
found,  and  the  names  of  places  and  Gods  in  Greece  and  Italy, — Saturnia,  Pallatini,  &c,  &c,  and,  in 
the  names  of  the  Indian  Gods,  the  names  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews,  and  of  Syria — Jah,  Adoni, 
Taurus,  &c. 

When  the  Chaldean  tribe  of  Yuda,  or  tribe  of  Crestons,  with  its  Kan-ya,  or  Xpvjo-sv,  or  IE,  or 
Cristna,came,  under  its  Brahmin,  from  Uri- ana  of  Colida  or  Chaldea  to  Creston  and  Sindus  of  Thrace, 
(bringing  its  custom  of  sacrificing  widows,)  and  Creston  or  Corton  of  Italy,  and  mount  Meru, 
or  Sion,  or  Solyma  of  Syria,  and  the  other  Solymas,  about  2500  or  3000  years  before  Christ,  it 
brought  the  sixteen  letters  of  Cadmus  or  the  East  with  it}  perhaps  the  sixteen  letters  of  the 
Tamul.  Its  mythos  of  Meru,  and  its  Arga,  and  its  cycles  of  returning  Saviours,  Buddhas,  or 
Cristnas,  put  to  death  and  raised  from  the  dead,  &c,  &c,  were  renewed  and  located  under  every 
distinct,  independently-formed  government.  Thus  we  find  traces  of  these  things  with  the  cyclar 
temples  of  Stonehenge,  &c,  &c,  every  where.  Every  nation  had  its  Meru,  Moriah,  &c,  &c. 
And  the  tribe  of  Jews,  where  it  differs  from  the  others,  differs  in  consequence  of  having  had  a 
great  iconoclastic  leader  to  legislate  for  it,  in  a  particular  manner,  different  from  the  others. 

A  very  learned  oriental  friend  maintains,  that  the  languages  of  the  Chinese  and  other  Eastern 
countries,  and  of  the  Polynesian  islands,  have  all  the  most  complicated  and  artificial  forms  that 
we  meet  with  in  the  Sanscrit  and  Western  languages  ;  and  thence  he  would  infer,  that  they  are 
primeval  or  anterior  to  the  latter,  and  that  the  Hebrew,  on  account  of  its  rudeness,  is  what  he 
calls  a  broken-down  language  from  the  others.  The  contrary,  I  contend,  is  the  fact  in  the  case 
of  the  Hebrew,  because  in  its  case  we  take  it  in  the  temple  copy,  from  which  it  may  be  said  not 
to  have  deviated  for  thousands  of  years.  We  catch  it  in  its  infancy,  and  in  consequence  of  the 
curses  denounced  against  any  alteration  of  the  law  written  in  its  dialect,  it  has  been  kept  in  its 
infant  state  all  the  days  of  its  life.  Many  passages  may  formerly  have  been  corrupted  to  serve  the 
purposes  of  priests,  but  generally  the  language  would  not  be  changed.  In  corrupting  passages 
the  old  style  would  be  studiously  affected.  The  younger  a  written  language  is,  the  more  simple  it 
will  be,  and  it  will  acquire  complication  and  refinement  as  it  acquires  age.  What  can  be  more  rude 
than  the  synagogue  Hebrew  ?  What  more  refined  and  artificial  than  the  pointed  modern  Hebrew 
of  the  Mazorites  ?  The  language  of  the  barbarians  of  the  Polynesian  islands  is  complicated, 
because  its  possessors  have  arisen  from  the  overflowings  of  the  civilized  states,  and  they  took 
with  them,  when  they  migrated,  all  the  complicated  forms  in  use  in  the  country  which  they  left. 

The  important  fact  which  I  gleaned  from  the  learned  and  ingenious  Mr.  Landseer,  almost  the 
whole  of  whose  life  has  been  spent  in  the  study  of  Assyrian  antiquities,  that  among  all  the 
numerous  inscriptions  of  Babylon  nothing  like  a  Chaldaic  inscription  was  ever  found,  is  decisive 
proof  that  the  Chaldee  was  not  the  dialect  of  the  Assyrians,  nor  is  it  the  dialect  of  the  present 
natives  of  that  country  ;  but  it  is  the  dialect  of  several  tribes  in  the  country  of  the  Brahmin  Uria 
of  Colida,  both  of  that  near  Ayoudya  or  Oude,  and  that  at  Salem,  Adoni,  St.  Thome,  Uria  (in 
Orissa)  in  Colida,  near  Cochin.     Sir  William  Jones  found  Chaldean  inscriptions  in  Persia,  as  we 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER   VIII.     SECTION  5.  779 

should  expect.    See  his  Sixth  Discourse.    The  conveyance  of  the  Chaldee  language  to  the  Afghans 
and  the  Brahmins  of  Madura  by  Nestorians  of  Germany  is  absurd  enough. 

Dr.  Hagar  believes  he  has  traced  the  nail-headed  characters  to  the  Indian.  Now  if  this,  be 
true,  the  Samaritan  must  have  come  from  India  to  Melchizedek  before  the  time  of  Abraham ; 
and  when  Ezra  changed  this  character  into  the  Chaldee  letter  of  Daniel,  or  of  the  then  Chaldees, 
a  great  change  must  have  taken  place  in  the  letter  between  the  time  of  Abraham  and  that  of 
Daniel,  a  space  of  a  thousand  years.  Daniel  appears  to  have  been  not  a  Western  Syrian  Jew, 
but  a  Persian  Chaldean  of  the  Jewish  religion.  We  may  be  certain  that  the  Chaldei  of  Persia, 
(i.  e.  Cyrus,)  of  Assyria,  and  of  Judea,  were  all  the  same.  In  Book  IX.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  11,  I  have 
given  an  observation  of  Dr.  Murray's,  that  ocular  inspection  proves  the  identity  of  the  Chaldean 
and  Sanscrit  letters  -,  then  the  Samaritan  must  have  been  the  first  letter  of  the  Chaldeans, 
brought  by  Abraham  before  the  Sanscrit  was  perfected,  and  the  Chaldean  letter,  the  letter  of 
Daniel,  after  it. 

It  will  be  difficult  to  persuade  many  persons  to  agree  with  me  that  the  Chaldee  of  Daniel  was  not  the 
letter  or  language  of  Babylon  ;  (except  merely  as  the  sacred  and  probably  secret  letters  of  the  Chaldee 
order  of  Daniel ;)  but  they  must  answer  the  questions,  Why  are  there  no  Chaldean  inscriptions  in  the 
ruins  of  Babylon,  whilst  there  are  such  numbers  of  inscriptions  in  the  arrow-headed  characters  ? 
I  think  Dr.  O'Conor  says  very  truly, x  that  the  Chaldee  had  a  common  original  with  the  Phoe- 
nician, and  that  the  Chaldee  was  the  letter  and  language  of  Abraham.  I  think  the  Chaldee  was 
the  peculiar  and  probably  secret  letter  of  the  Chaldeans  till  the  time  of  Ezra.  The  Jewish  tribe 
were  correctly  Chaldeans  till  changed  to  a  new  system  by  Moses.  Abraham  brought  it  to  Egypt, 
the  Egyptians  taught  it  and  its  mysteries  to  Moses.  Mr.  Bosworth  and  Dr.  O'Conor  both  prove 
the  Gothic  and  Northern  letters  and  language  to  be,  in  fact,  the  same  as  the  Phoenician  or  Hebrew. 
Then,  if  the  Saxon  came  from  the  Hebrew,  of  course  when  it  came  to  Britain  it  would  bring  an 
increase  of  Hebrew  words,  and  justify  the  derivation  of  many  modern  English  words  either  from 
the  Hebrew  or  the  Saxon,  or  the  Sacae  of  India.  (Buddha  was  called  Saca-sa,  that  is,  Saca-isa, 
the  Saviour  or  Isis  Buddha — the  divine  son  just  named  in  the  Kaliwakim— the  Nama  Sebadia 
of  Italy.)     Every  thing  tends  to  draw  us  to  North  India,  the  country  of  the  Pushto. 

I  entertain  a  strong  suspicion  that  the  Chaldee  language  and  the  letter  of  the  Chaldees  were 
the  higher  dialect  of  the  Tamul,  and  that  the  Syro-Chaldee  of  Western  Syria,  called  Pushto,  and 
before  noticed  as  a  language  both  in  Western  Syria  and  Tibet  or  North  India,  was  the  lower 
Tamul  language,  and  the  spoken  language  of  the  tribe  of  Judaei  both  in  Eastern  and  Western  Syria. 

5.  I  shall  now  proceed  to  make  some  observations  on  the  sacred  numbers  of  the  ancients,  which 
will  not  only  confirm  what  has  been  said  in  several  instances,  but  be  of  service  in  our  future 
researches. 

Before  I  make  any  observations  on  the  sacred  numbers  of  the  Jews,  I  must  observe,  that 
generally  where  seventy  are  named,  seventy-two  are  meant.  This  is  most  important — for,  without 
it,  we  shall  lose  half  the  proofs  of  the  mythos.  The  truth  of  this  observation  will  presently  be 
sufficiently  clear.  This  is  no  new  discovery  of  mine.  Mr.  Astle2  says,  "  The  ancients  frequently 
"  expressed  sums  by  even  numbers,  adding  what  was  deficient  to  complete  them,  or  omitting 
"  whatever  might  be  redundant.  This  mode  of  reckoning  is  often  used  in  sacred  writings,  and 
"  was  thence  introduced  into  other  monuments." 

Bishop  Walton,  in  his  treatise  on  Hebraisms, 3  says,  "  The  Hebrews  are  accustomed  to  use 

round  numbers,  and  neglect  the  two  or  three  units  which  exceed  them  in  certain  cases.     They 

say,  for  example,  the  Seventy  Interpreters,  and  the  Council  of  Seventy,  although  the  number  in 


1  Bosworth's  Saxon  Grammar.  *  On  Writing,  p.  185.  3  Sect.  xiii. 

5g2 


780  SACRED   NUMBERS. 

"  each  case  was  seventy-two  ;  and  in  the  book  of  Judges  we  read,  that  Abimelech  killed  seventy 
"  of  the  children  of  Jerobaal,  although  he  had  but  sixty-eight." 

Every  one  has  heard  of  the  famous  Septuagint,  usually  written  LXX  ;  but  the  story  is,  that  the 
translation  was  made  by  seventy-two  men,  six  out  of  each  tribe,  though  it  is  called  the  Seventy  ; 
that  to  these  men  seventy-two  questions  were  put,  and  they  finished  their  work  in  seventy-two 
days. 

Peter  Comestor,  and  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  make  seventy-two  generations  or  nations  from  the 
three  sons  of  Noah.  According  to  the  recognitions  of  Clemens1  the  earth  was  divided  into 
seventy-two2  parts,  the  number  of  countries  specified  in  Genesis.  This  required  no  small 
ingenuity  j  and  mankind  was  divided  into  seventy-two  families  :  but  the  same  author,  in  the 
Homilies,  calls  them  seventy  tongues  and  seventy  nations.  Here  is  an  example  of  seventy  put 
for  seventy- two.3  The  number  of  nations  was  generally  stated  to  be  seventy- two  by  the 
Greek  fathers. 4  On  the  confusion  of  tongues,  Shuckford  says,  "  From  all  these  considerations, 
"  therefore,  I  cannot  but  imagine  the  common  opinion  about  the  dispersion  of  mankind  to  be  a 
"  very  wrong  one.  The  confusion  of  tongues  arose  at  first  from  small  beginnings,  increased 
"  gradually,  and  in  time  grew  to  such  a  height  as  to  scatter  mankind  over  the  face  of  the  earth."  5 
Again  he  says,  "  but  the  text  does  not  oblige  us  to  think  it  so  sudden  a  production."6  By  a 
long  train  of  argument  he  endeavours  to  support  his  opinion.  The  fathers  make  the  languages 
seventy-two,  by  adding  Cainan  and  Elishah,  according  to  the  LXX,  who  are  not  mentioned  in  the 
Hebrew.  This  is  thought  to  be  supported  by  Deut.  xxxii.  8.  The  text  says,  the  Most  High 
set  the  bounds  of  the  people  according  to  the  number  of  the  tribes  of  Israel — that  is,  seventy-two, 
the  number  which  went  down  into  Egypt.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  Targum  of  Ben-Uzziel. 
Horapollo  teaches  that  the  world  was  divided  into  seventy- two  regions.7  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
and  Epiphanius  both  say,  that  there  were  seventy-two  tongues  at  the  dispersion. 8  Josephus  and 
the  fathers  of  the  church  fix  the  languages  at  the  confusion  to  seventy-two.  9 

Enfield 10  says,  "  The  Jews  had  seventy-two  names  of  God." 

The  Rabbis  maintain  that  the  angels  who  ascended  and  descended  Jacob's  ladder  were  seventy- 
two  in  number. ll 

Lightfoot,  on  the  Temple  Service, 12  states  the  dress  of  Aaron  to  have  had  upon  it  seventy-two 
bells. 13    This  conveys  with  it  the  consequence  that  it  must  have  had  seventy-two  pomegranates. 

If  Bishop  Wilkins  can  be  depended  on,  there  were  seventy-two  kinds  of  animals  in  the  Ark.  M 

In  Numbers  xi.  16,  it  is  said,  that  Moses  was  ordered  to  take  seventy  men  of  the  elders  of 
Israel.     But  the  number  was  seventy-two,  six  out  of  each  tribe. 

The  Cabalists  find  seventy-two  names  of  God  in  three  verses — the  19,  20,  and  21,  of  the  four- 
teenth chapter  of  Exodus. 15 

In  Numbers  xxiii.  9,  Exod.  xv.  27,  we  read  of  seventy  palm  trees.     Of  course  the  number  ought 
to  be  seventy-two. 

In  the  book  of  Enoch  is  an  allegory,  in  which  seventy  shepherds  are  said  to  superintend  the 


1  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  xlii.  e  If  we  count  the  countries  we  shall  find  seventy-two. 

3  See  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  III.  p.  427. 

4  Clemens,  Alex.  Strom.  Lib,  i. ;  Euseb.  in  Chron.  Lib.  i. ;  Epiph.  adv.  Haer.  i. ;  as  also  Aug.  de  Civ.  Dei. 

*  Con.  B.  iii.  6  B.  ii.  7  Ency.  Britt.  art.  Philology,  Sect.  i. 

•  Clemens,  Strom.  Lib.  i.  p.  404  ;  Epiph.  adv.  Haer.  Lib.  i.  p.  6.  9  Vide  Ency.  Britt.  voce  Phil.  p.  486. 

10  Phil.  Book  iv.  Ch.  iii.  »  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  453.  "  L.  iii.  ,s  Moses  Lowman,  p.  125. 

]*  Olivier's  Illustrations  of  Masonry,  p.  96.  "  Basn.  Hist.  Jud.  Book  iii.  Ch  xv.  p.  202. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  VIII.   SECTION  5.  "81 

flock,  and  the  seventy  are  divided  into  three  classes,  37,  23,  and  12;  but  these  make  seventy-two. 
Here  is  an  example  of  the  common  Jewish  expression  of  seventy  for  seventy-two,  which  cannot 
be  disputed,  except  the  reader  be  disposed,  with  Bishop  Laurence,  to  throw  out  two  of  the  kings, 
because  they  reigned  only  short  periods  ;  and,  in  addition,  to  have  recourse  to  confounding  the 
number  of  the  shepherds  with  the  periods  of  time  ; 1  in  short,  to  corrupting  the  text  in  two  dif- 
ferent ways.  From  the  account  which  the  Jews  of  Cochin  gave  to  Dr.  Buchanan,2  he  infers  that 
they  were  governed  by  a  council  of  seventy-two  persons.  This  is  evidently  meant  for  an  imitation 
of  the  Sanhedrim  of  the  Jews  of  Judea :  and  strongly  confirms  what  I  have  said  that  by  seventy, 
almost  always  seventy-two  are  meant. 

Jesus  is  said  to  have  sent  out  seventy  disciples  or  teachers.  Now  it  has  been  universally 
allowed  that  Manes,  in  fixing  the  number  of  his  apostles,  and  of  his  disciples  or  bishops,  intended 
exactly  to  imitate  Jesus  Christ ;  and  living  so  near  the  time  of  Jesus,  the  tradition  could  not  very 
well  be  mistaken,  and  there  could  be  no  reason  whatever  for  any  misrepresentation,  and  he  fixed 
upon  the  numbers  twelve  and  seventy-two,  not  seventy.  This  shews  that  probably  the  expression 
in  Matthew  must  be  considered  the  same  as  the  Septuagint — seventy  for  seventy-two.  If  Manes 
had  had  any  reason  for  doubt  he  would  certainly  have  taken  the  seventy  and  not  seventy-two. 

These  sacred  numbers,  every  where  the  same,  clearly  prove  an  esoteric  religion — an  oriental 
allegory.  The  fact  cannot  be  doubted.  Jesus,  the  God  of  Peace,  sent  out  his  twelve  apostles  to 
preach  his  gospel.  The  God  Iao,  the  Sun,  had  the  year  divided  into  twelve  months,  into  twelve 
signs,  through  which,  in  his  annual  course,  he  passed.  The  year  was  divided  by  the  ancient 
Magi  into  two  hemispheres  of  light  and  darkness,  of  six  months  each  ;  during  one  period,  the 
genius  of  good  or  of  light  prevailed,  during  the  other,  the  genius  of  darkness  or  evil.  Each 
month  or  part  was  divided  into  twelve  parts,  and  this  multiplied  by  six,  gives  seventy-two,  the 
number  of  disciples  sent  out  by  Jesus.  This  number  is  the  root  of  almost  all  the  ancient  cycles 
or  periods  of  the  Chinese,  Hindoos,  Egyptians,  Magi,  &c. ;  multiplied  by  six,  it  gives  432,  &c. 
See  Drummond.     This  relates  to  the  microcosm  to  be  discussed  in  the  next  volume. 

The  Mohamedans  hold  that  the  world  was  divided  into  seventy-two  nations  and  seventy-two 
languages,  and  that  there  were  seventy-two  sects  in  their  religion.  I  believe  this  related  to  their 
esoteric  religion,  in  which  they  considered  Mohamed  as  the  tenth  Avatar  of  the  whole  world,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  that  what  is  above  called  a  sect  ought  to  be  divisions,  into  which  the  Pantheistic 
or  Mohamedan  Catholic  faith  was  divided. 

Nimrod  says,  "  We  have  shewn  who  Georgos,  God  of  war,  was,  and  that  he  died  at  the  royal 
"  city  of  Diospolis  in  Iran,  where  a  king  reigned  over  seventy  kings ;  this  is  the  number  of  nations 
"  who  constituted  the  universal  empire  of  Cush."  Again,  "  Then  did  Isis  go  forth  wandering. 
"  One  Aso,  Queen  of  the  Cushim,  was  his  accomplice,  cruvspyog,  in  this  business  ;  but  besides  her, 
"  there  were  seventy-two  confederates,  leagued  by  oath,  <rvva)fji.0T(u.,>3 

The  mystical  numbers  used  in  the  religions  of  the  sun,  are  constantly  found  in  the  religion  of 
Jesus.  The  number  of  the  twelve  apostles,  which  formed  the  retinue  of  Jesus  during  his  mission, 
is  that  of  the  signs,  and  of  the  secondary  genii,  the  tutelar  gods  of  the  Zodiacal  signs  which  the 
sun  passes  through  in  his  annual  revolution.  It  is  that  of  the  twelve  gods  of  the  Romans,  each  of 
whom  presided  over  a  month.  The  Greeks,  the  Egyptians,  the  Persians,  each  had  their  twelve  gods, 
as  the  Christian  followers  of  Mithra  had  their  twelve  apostles.  The  chief  of  the  twelve  Genii  of 
the  annual  revolution  had  the  barque  and  the  keys  of  time,  the  same  as  the  chief  of  the  secondary 


*  See  Laurence's  Enoch,  Pref.  and  Ch.  lxxxix.  vers.  1,  7,  25.  *  Christ.  Res.  p.  222. 

»  Plut.  de  Isid.  et  Osir.  p.  356  j  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  644,  Suppressed  Ed.,  Vol.  II.  pp.  448,  452. 


782  SACRED   NUMBERS. 

gods  of  the  Romans  or  Janus,  after  whom  St.  Peter,  Bar-Jona,  with  his  barque  and  keys,  is 
modelled.  At  the  foot  of  the  statue  of  Janus  were  placed  twelve  altars,  dedicated  to  the  twelve 
months.  As  Janus  was  the  chief  of  the  twelve  lesser  gods,  Peter  was  the  chief  of  the  apostles  • 
and,  as  I  have  said  in  Book  X.  Chap.  IV.,  as  Janus  held  the  keys  of  heaven,  so  does 
Peter.  The  Valentinians  supposed  that  Christ  commenced  his  mission  at  thirty  years  of  age 
because  it  was  the  number  of  degrees  in  a  sign  of  the  Zodiac,  and  that  he  was  crucified  in  the 
twelfth  month ;  so  that  his  career  had  one  year,  like  that  of  the  sun  in  the  Twelve  Labours  of 
Hercules.  It  is  very  evident  that  the  Valentinians  considered  Jesus  as  a  Ray  or  Emanation  from 
the  Sun,  and  that  he  formed  a  microcosm  of  the  Solar  orb,  each  being  a  microcosm  of  a  superior 
being.  The  Romists  evidently  do  the  same  in  their  annual  scenic  representation  of  the  acts  of  the 
Saviour's  life. 

It  is  said  that  Christ  fixed  the  number  of  his  apostles  at  twelve,  because  there  were  twelve 
months  in  the  year ;  and  that  John  the  Baptist  fixed  his  at  thirty,  because  the  months  have  thirty 
days.1  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  on  the  oriental  doctrine,  says,  that  the  Valentinian  Theodotus 
maintained  that  the  twelve  apostles  held,  in  the  church,  the  same  place  that  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac 
held  in  nature ;  because,  as  the  twelve  constellations  govern  the  world  of  generation,  the  twelve 
apostles  govern  the  world  of  regeneration.  In  Dupuis  many  other  striking  circumstances  relating 
to  the  number  twelve  may  be  seen. 

Why  did  Jesus  choose  twelve  apostles  and  seventy-two  disciples  ?  Why  did  seventy-two  men 
come  from  Medina  to  Mohamed ;  and  why  did  he  retain  with  him  twelve  as  his  apostles  ?  Why 
does  the  college  of  Cardinals  consist  of  seventy-two  persons  ?  Why  did  Ptolemy  take  seventy- 
two  men  to  translate  the  Pentateuch  ?     All  accident,  as  usual  ? 

The  Persians  had  twelve  angels  who  presided  over  the  twelve  months.  He  who  presided  over 
the  first  month  was  called  the  treasurer  of  Paradise.  2  Probably,  like  Peter  and  J  anus,  he  carried 
the  keys. 

The  Gentiles  had  precisely  the  same  astrological  mythos  as  the  Jews  and  Christians.  The 
commanders  of  the  Greeks  against  Troy,  including  Philoctetes,  who,  though  absent,  was  one  of 
them  in  the  league — one  of  the  confederates — were  seventy-two. 3  Osiris  was  killed  by  seventy- 
two  conspirators.4  According  to  Keating,  the  Irish  divided  the  languages  into  seventy-two. 
Proofs,  which  cannot  be  impeached,  of  the  astrological  character  of  the  temple  and  its  sacred 
numbers,  may  be  seen  in  Josephus. 5 

The  Greek  mina  or  pound  was  raised  by  Solon,  as  we  learn  from  Plutarch,6  from  seventy-two 
drachma?  to  a  hundred.7 

The  number  seven  is  equally  a  sacred  number  in  the  Gentile  religion  as  in  the  Christian.  The 
number  of  the  planets  has  been  copied  in  the  Christian  religion  in  the  seven  sacraments,  seven 
deadly  sins,  seven  gifts  of  the  holy  spirit. 8 

From  the  number  of  the  days  of  the  least  of  the  cycles,  seven,  being  identical  with  the  number 
of  the  planetary  bodies,  it  can  never  be  known  with  a  certainty  when  one  is  alluded  to  separately 
from  the  other.  But  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  numbers  connected  intimately  with  the  decans, 
dodecans,  &c,  7,  12,  72,  360  not  365,  432,  &c,  into  which  the  sphere  was  divided,  sufficiently 
prove  their  intimate  connexion.    They  are  all  closely  bound  together,  and  on  their  union  was 


1  Homil.  Clement,  II.  No.  23,  Ep.  No.  26 ;  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  pp.  160,  319,  4to.  •  Hyde,  p.  240. 

3  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  453.  4  Plut.  de  Isid.  et  Osir.  p.  356. 

*  Ant.  B.  iii.  Ch.  vi.  Sect.  7,  and  Ch.  vii.  Sect.  7,  ed.  Winston.  6  In  Solone. 

1  Walpole's  Memoirs  of  Turkey,  Vol.  I.  p.  435 }  also  see  Clarke  on  Coins,  94.  8  Dupuis,  Vol.  III.  p.  47- 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   VIII.    SECTION   6.  7$3 

founded  all  judicial  astrology  and  all  ancient  mythology.  The  peculiar  circumstance,  accidental  I 
will  call  it,  of  the  number  of  the  days  of  the  week  coinciding  exactly  with  the  number  of  the 
planetary  bodies,  probably  procured  for  it  its  character  of  sanctity. 

In  Ireland,  at  Wicklow,  we  meet  with  seven  churches ;  and  again,  near  Athlone,  with  seven 
more.  Seven  churches  are  described  in  the  Apocalypse  to  have  existed  in  Asia  Minor,  to  whom 
angels  or  messengers  were  sent ;  but  the  church  at  Thyatira  is  said  to  have  existed  only  in  name : 
and  in  the  Peninsula  of  India,  about  thirty-eight  miles  south  of  Madras,  at  a  place  called  Maha- 
balipoorum  or  the  city  of  the  great  Bali,  is  a  collection  of  ruins,  usually  called  the  seven  Pagodas. 
An  account,  but  a  very  defective  one,  is  given  of  them  in  the  fifth  volume  of  the  Transactions  of 
the  Asiatic  Society,  by  a  gentleman  named  Goldingham.  It  seems  to  me  that  they  are  the  work 
of  the  Buddhists.    The  Bull-headed  Bali  is  conspicuous. 

There  are  seven  sephiroths,  of  rank  inferior  to  the  first  three,  answering  to  the  seven  planets. 
There  are  seven  gates  of  the  soul ;  there  are  seven  gates  employed  in  the  creation  ;  there  are  seven 
sabbaths  from  the  Passover  to  the  Pentecost  j  and  seven  times  seven  sabbaths  for  the  year  of 
Jubilee ;  lastly,  the  seventh  Millenium  will  be  the  grand  sabbath. * 

In  the  Persian  mythology  every  thing  appears  to  have  been  closely  connected  with  the  numbers 
described  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  that  is,  with  judicial  astrology.     M.  Creuzer,  on  the  number  of  the 
planetary  bodies,  has  observed,  2  that  the  nation  was  distributed  by  its  founder,  Djemchid,  into 
four  classes,  and  into  seven  castes.     The  four  classes  I  take  to  be  allusive  to  the  four  divisions  of 
the  month,  and  the  seven  castes  to  the  seven  days  of  the  week.     The  seven  Amshaspands,  the 
seven  Enceintes  of  Ecbatana,  with  their  seven  colours,  are  all  in  like  manner  closely  allied  both  to 
the  planets  and  the  sacred  numbers.     The  body  of  Osiris  was  supposed  to  have  been  buried  at 
Elephanta,  in  the  Isle  of  Philoe,  in  Upper  Egypt.     Every  day  the  priests  offered  here  360  bowls  of 
milk  at  his  shrine,  and  sung  suitable  litanies.     An  usage  exactly  similar  obtained  at  the  city  of 
Acanthus.3      The  great  oath  of  the  Egyptians  was,  by  the  remains  of  Osiris  buried  at  Philoe.4 
Typhon  made  an  alliance  with  the  Queen  of  Ethiopia,  who  supplied  him  with  seventy-two  com- 
panions.5   Every  where  the  sacred  numbers,  that  is,  judicial  astrology,  is  to  be  found.    The  seven 
gates  of  Thebes  were  erected,  as  stated  by  Nonnus,  according  to  the  number  and  order  of  the 
seven  planets.6    Respecting  the  identity  of  sacred  numbers  among  Jews,  Gentiles,  and  Christians, 
enough  has  been  said ;  but  many  additional  examples  might  be  adduced  if  it  were  necessary. 

6.  I  think  on  careful  inspection  of  the  exoteric  religion  of  each  of  the  tribes  which  appears  to 
have  arrived  from  the  East,  we  may  see  in  all  of  them  occasional  proofs  escaping  from  their  mys- 
terious adyta,  sufficient  to  furnish  ground  for  a  rational  belief  that  what  I  have  asserted  is  correct, 
-—that  the  same  system  pervaded  them  all.  We  must  not  forget  to  make  a  large  allowance  for  the 
circumstance  that  they  are  the  secret  doctrines  to  which  I  allude.  We  cannot  expect  to  hear  them 
explained  from  the  top  of  the  Mosque,  by  the  Muizzim ;  nor  by  the  Pope,  from  the  chair  of  St. 
Peter.  In  almost  all  nations  the  system  of  which  the  Millenarian  is  a  part,  prevailed  j  and  if  I  be 
asked  why  we  have  not  clearer  proofs  of  it,  I  assign  the  same  cause,  since  the  thirteenth  century, 
as  for  the  Gospel  of  Joachim  or  the  Holy  Ghost  being  forgotten, — it  was  every  person's  interest 
to  conceal  it. 

The  reputed  books  of  Solomon,  such  as  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus,  are  full  of  allusions  to 
the  doctrines  of  wisdom.     A  person  who  has  read  the  preceding  part  of  this  work  will  perceive, 


1  Basnage,  Hist.  Jud.  Liv.  iii.  Ch.  xi.  p.  190.  2  Vol.  I.  p.  333,  ed.  Guiniaut. 

*  Diod.  Sicul.  I.  22;  ibid.  97.  4  Cruezer,  ed.  Guiniaut,  Vol.  I.  p.  393. 

*  Creuzer,  ibid,  p,  397.  6  Dionys.  Lib.  v. ;  Clarke's  Travels,  Vol.  IV.  p.  66,  4to. 


784  SEPHIROTH,    CHERUBIM,    SERAPHIM. 

in  a  moment,  that  they  use  the  word  wisdom  as  referring  to  an  unexplained  or  mystical  doctrine 
in  almost  every  page.  This  was,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Cabala,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Emanation, 
of  the  Sephiroth,  which  the  present  Jews  call  the  ten  emanations,  which  are  evidently,  on  the 
slightest  inspection,  nonsense — nonsense  designed  originally  to  mislead  ;  but,  perhaps,  latterly 
believed  by  the  ignorant.  Sephiroth  is  nnDD  sprut,  and  may  mean  ten  attributes  or  qualities, 
but  it  also  means  the  doctrine  of  the  ten  sacred  numbers  or  cycles  of  India,  or  of  Virgil.  IDD  spr 
is  to  cipher,  or  count,  or  calculate ;  and  nnDD  sprut  is  the  feminine  plural  of  -idd  spr,  and  means 
the  calculations  or  calculated  periods.  It  also  means  a  symbolical  or  hieroglyphical  or  emble- 
matical writing. l  This  actually  conveys  the  meaning  of  the  ten  mythic  or  emblematical  names. 
The  Psalmist  says,  lxxi.  15,  he  shall  praise  the  justice  of  God,  and  depend  upon  it  for  his  salva- 
tion, for  he  has  not  known  the  nnDD  sprut  or  Sephiroth ;  that  is,  the  calculations  of  the  cycles  ; 
as  Pagninus  says,  numeros.  The  text  is  rather  confused ;  but  this,  though  not  a  translation,  I 
think  is  its  meaning.  But  the  Sephiroth  are  correctly  rendered  numbers.  They  are  the  same  as 
the  feminine  forms  of  the  Seraphim,  CD»D1D  srpim,  alluded  to  in  Isaiah  vi.  2.  The  six  wings  of 
each  seraph  alluded  to  the  six  periods  just  gone,  in  the  time  of  Solomon.  In  verse  nine,  the 
tENTH  of  something  mystical — not  understood  and  not  named,  but  which,  it  is  said,  in  verse 
thirteen,  has  been  before,  and  shall  return — means  the  tenth  saeculum  or  cycle.  I  suspect  the 
Seraphim  and  the  Sepharim  have  been  used  promiscuously.  The  text  of  Isaiah,  if  correctly 
translated,  means,  that  above  the  throne  stood  winged  serpents  ;  for  seraph,  translated,  is  serpent. 
It  is  only  written,  in  our  translation,  in  the  Hebrew  word  seraph  to  disguise  the  word  serpent,  which 
our  priests  did  not  like.  I  need  not  remind  my  reader  that  the  serpent  is  an  emblem  of  a  cycle  or 
circle.  Serpents  are  constantly  seen  on  the  Egyptian  monuments,  as  described  by  Isaiah  j  *  but 
with  wings,  and,  in  India,  overshadowing  the  icons  of  Cristna  or  Buddha,  in  number  three,  four, 
five,  six,  seven,  eight,  or  nine,  according  to  the  number  of  cycles,  of  which  the  being  he  was 
protecting,  was  the  genius.  One  of  these  winged  serpents  may  be  seen  in  the  hand  of  the  Moses, 
found  in  St.  Mary's  Abbey,  at  York.  The  wings  are  manifest  in  the  original  icon,  but  in  the 
plate  published  by  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  they  cannot  be  distinguished ! !  !  Moses  is  there 
described  as  the  Messiah,  nttfO  msh  or  genius  of  a  Zodiacal  sign,  and  that  of  the  first  sign,  as  is 
evident  from  the  horns  of  Taurus  which  he  has  upon  his  head.  When  he  had  finished  all  his 
labours,  the  book  tells  us,  he  delivered  up  his  power  to  the  saviour  Joshua,  and  went  to  the  top  of 
Pisgah  to  die. 

The  word  Cherub  originally  meant,  and  yet  sometimes  means,  serpent,  but  this  is  only  because 
its  general  meaning  is  emblem  or  emblematical  figure.  It  is  a  compound  word,  formed  of  "D  kr, 
circle,  and  mx  aub,  serpent :  in  short,  a  circled  or  circular  serpent  or  serpent  with  its  tail  in  its 
mouth — nro  krub.  It  was  probably  the  first  sacred  emblem  ever  used,  whence  all  such  emble- 
matical figures  came  to  be  called  Cherubs  j  and  this  accounts  for  learned  men  having  made  them 
out  to  be  of  many  different  figures.  Hutchinson  explains  the  word  Cherubims  by  similitudes, 
which  confirms  what  I  have  said  above. 3 

The  ten  Jewish  Sephiroth  were  the  ten  cycles,  and,  in  honour  of  the  Trinity,  the  first  was  called 
-)j-D  ktr  Corona,  the  second  nDDn  hkme  Sapientia,  and  the  third  nJO  bine  Intelligentia— Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.    The  first  three  were  also  the  Trinitarian  Sol — the  Creator,  Preserver,  and 


1  Parkhurst  in  roce,  "isd  spr,  IV.  «  lb.  ver.  2. 

3  General  Vallancey  has  observed,  that  the  Hebrew  word  DV  turn,  translated  in  our  Bibles  a  day,  appears  to  be  an 
original  word,  signifying  a  revolution.  He  adds,  like  11  br,  bar,  vnr,  war.  This  being  admitted,  here  is  one  of  the 
difficulties  of  Genesis  removed  at  once.  But  this  will  not  be  liked,  because  it  is  the  observation  of  a  swordsman,  not 
of  a  gownsman. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VIII.   SECTION  7«  ?85 

Destroyer — and  the  other  seven  might  be  the  earth,  moon,  and  planets,  the  host  of  Heaven,  forming 
altogether  the  Ever-happy  Octoade  of  the  Gnostics :  the  whole  forming  the  Ilav,  or  system  of 
the  Pan-deva,  holy  Pan  ;  not  the  to  Yiav,  the  Ilav  of  the  universe, — but  the  Ilav  of  our  system 
only.  The  first  of  the  Sephiroth  called  VD  ktr,  Corona,  Circulus,  is  also  called  Arich-Anpin. 
This  was  a  name  given  (as  I  have  formerly  shewn)  to  Brahma  or  the  Brahmin  Abraham.  Arich  is 
A-PX^'  I*  's  a^so  called  ENsoph,  fountain  of  wisdom,  fountain  whence  wisdom  flowed.  Now 
I  suspect  that  both  these  terms  ought  correctly  to  have  been  applicable  only  to  a  power  which 
I  shall  describe  in  another  book.  The  author  of  the  Cabala  denudata  observes,  that  the  antiquity 
of  the  Cabala  cannot  be  disputed,  as  it  was  known  to  Parmenides  very  near  460  years  before 
Christ. 

The  second  of  the  Sephiroth  is  nmn  hkme,  Sapientia,  Nsj,  So$»a,  and  Aoyog,  by  Philo  called 
tov  7rpa)Toyovov  Qss  vlov,  primogenitum  Dei.  This  is  also  Epog  or  divine  love — Cama  and  Dipuc, 
of  India,  Cupid,  of  Greece,  the  Puck  and  Robin  good-fellow  of  Shakespeare. 

The  third  of  the  Sephiroth  is  ma  bine,  Prudentia.  This  is  the  Anima  Mundi  or  Psyche  or 
tijv  Qsiolv  ^u;£?jv  of  Plato.  I  believe  that  nJO  bine  is  a  feminine  form  of  p  bn,  son,  and  means 
daughter,  and  was  thus  the  daughter  of  "iriD  ktr,  and  sister  of  nDDn  hkme,  or  Wisdom,  or  Logos, 
or  Epa)£.  Thus,  with  the  Greeks,  we  had  Jupiter,  son  of  Saturn,  married  to  his  sister  Juno,  and 
Cupid  married  to  his  sister  Psyche.  The  Targums  often  treat  of  a  »*t  jnft'D  mimra  or  daughter 
of  voice,  that  is,  daughter  of  the  Logos  :  this,  I  think,  was  the  n30  bine,  not  the  Logos. 

There  was  also  a  Dseir  Anpin.  This  was  the  same,  viz.  *w  sr,  in  the  Hebrew,  as  the  Arich- 
Anpin  in  the  Greek.  Much  confusion  has  arisen  from  mistaking  translations  of  words  out  of  one 
language  into  another,  for  separate  words.  The  fourth  verse  of  the  Revelation  or  Apocalypse  of 
John,  which  speaks  of  him  that  was,  that  is,  and  that  is  to  come,  alludes  to  the  Solar  triune  God, 
and  to  the  seven  cycles,  as  the  author  of  the  Cabala  Denudata  says  ;  but  it  also  alludes  to  the 
same  Trinity,  and  to  the  seven  planets  or  spirits  which  stand  before  the  Sun,  the  throne  of  God* 
The  same  author,  in  libri  Druschim  Tractatus,  *  says,  Hie  tantum  inculco  decern  sephiroth  esse  ; 
ex  se  nihil  aliud  nisi  decern  aridas  Numerationes,  non  Emanationes  divinas,  vacuas  capsulas,  non 
aurum  margaritasve  illic  reponendas. 

7-  I  must  now  make  an  observation  of  importance  respecting  the  word  N"Q  bra,  of  the  first 
verse  of  Genesis.  We  have  hitherto  adopted  the  common  reading  created  or  formed;  but  I 
apprehend  the  word  N"Q  bra  or  *Q  br  has  the  meaning  exclusively  neither  of  creating  from  nothing, 
nor  of  first  forming,  or  giving  the  first  or  the  then  new  form  to  matter,  but  a  renewal  of  a  form ; 
that  it  means  renovare, 2  regenerare.  This  is  exactly  what  it  ought  to  be,  if  I  be  right,  that  the 
first  book  of  Genesis  is  a  Buddhist  work.  It  will  then  mean,  By  Wisdom  Aleim  renovated,  rege- 
nerated, or  renewed  the  planetary  bodies,  and  the  earth.  And  the  earth  was  ungerminated — not 
impregnated,  unprolific — and  without  any  beautiful  (animal  or  vegetable)  form.   That  is,  it  was  the 

Ihvg  or  Mud  of  Sanchoniathon. 

After  this  will  come  the  arrangement  and  peopling  or  stocking  of  the  world  in  six  periods  of 
time,  as  described  by  Moses  and  the  Etruscans,  and  as  Cuvier  has  shewn  most  correctly,  and  as  I 
have  shewn  in  my  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  IV.  Sect.  XVI.  All  this  harmonizes  with  the  fact  hitherto 
unexplained,  of  the  Pentateuch  containing  no  intimation  of  a  Future  State,  with  the  renewal  of 
cycles,  the  millenium,  the  prophecies  of  Saviours  from  time  to  time,  and  with  the  actual  natural 
history  of  the  earth,  as  laid  down  by  Cuvier, — and  proves  that,  whoever  selected  or  composed 


1  Vol.  I.  p.  55.  *  Parkhurst  in  voce  Kin  bra,  IV. 

5  11 


786  FIRST  VERSE   OF   GENESIS. 

Genesis  was  a  person  really  possessing  a  profound  knowledge  of  nature:  a  much  more  rational 
ground  for  claiming  for  him  divine  inspiration,  than  the  vulgar  anthropomorphitism  with  which 
Moses  has  been  charged  by  the  priests,  and  which  perhaps  has  been  intentional,  as  alike  suitable 
(as  no  doubt  it  is)  to  the  capacity  of  the  vulgar,  and  to  conceal  the  real  meaning. 

I  now  beg  to  refer  my  reader  once  more  to  what  I  have  said  in  Book  II.  Chap.  III.  Sect. 
3,  respecting  the  word  rytiWi  rasit  or  wisdom  of  Genesis.  He  will  there  find  that  in  the 
meaning  which  I  have  given  to  it,  I  have  said,  that  I  was  supported  by  the  opinions  of  Clemens, 
Origen,  &c.  What  I  have  said  was  true,  but  I  find,  on  reconsideration  of  the  subject,  that  I  have 
not  stated  the  whole  truth.  I  have  no  doubt  that  by  the  rendering  of  that  word  by  wisdom, 
which  meant  the  Logos,  the  first  of  the  iEons  or  Aicovsg  of  the  Valentinians  and  Manichaeans 
was  meant.  An  JSon  was  an  Aitov.  A  great  or  eminent  ^Eon  was  an  Aicov  tojv  aicovwv. 
Every  Mon  was  the  genius  of  a  cycle.  Thus  every  period  in  the  nature  of  a  cycle  had  its  Mon, 
with  its  small  or  great  portion  of  the  Divine  Spirit  or  Holy  Ghost,  in  proportion  to  its  little  or 
great  importance.  The  Persians  had  365  ^Eons,  one  for  every  day.  The  Valentinians  had  the 
same.  The  Romish  Church  has  also  its  365  saints,  or  persons  divinely  inspired  in  a  low  degree, 
one  in  a  peculiar  manner  for  each  day  in  the  year,  besides  many  others. 

Wisdom  was  one  of  the  persons  of  the  first  triple  iEon,  and  the  translation  of  the  word  rvtwo 
rasit,  by  the  phrase  wisdom,  was  universally  recognized  by  the  early  Christians,  not,  as  my 
expression  would  induce  a  person  to  believe,  by  a  few  only ;  but  it  was,  with  one  trifling  excep- 
tion, the  undisputed  meaning  attached  to  it,  both  by  Jews  and  Christians,  in  the  early  times  of 
Christianity,  and,  indeed,  until  a  change,  which  I  shall  hereafter  treat  of,  took  place  in  the  Romish 
Church,  when  it  fell  into  the  Paulite  heresy.  We  have  seen  that  by  the  Logos  God  formed  the 
world.  But  the  Logos  was  Christ,  and  Christ  was  the  Xp^j-oj.  And  this  X.pri?og  was  the  first 
Emanation,  the  benignant  Genius  or  Spirit — the  Xprj^og,  holt  e%o%yv. 

Faustus  is  made,  by  Augustin,  to  say,  Christ  is  the  wisdom  of  God. 1  Now  this  we  might  infer, 
from  what  we  have  before  observed  respecting  Gnosticism  and  Manichaeism.  (But  the  Christ 
ought  to  be  the  Chreest.)  As  the  Xpjs  was  the  Logos,  and  the  Logos  was  Wisdom,  it  follows 
that  the  Xp?j£  must  be  Wisdom.  Here,  in  either  case,  we  arrive  at  Rasit  again,  and  thus  Jesus, 
or  the  Logos,  is  the  Creator.  Here  we  have  a  key  to  much  of  the  recondite  and  misunderstood 
doctrines  of  the  Gnostic,  that  is,  the  initiated  Christians — the  initiated  Christians,  or  Gnostici, 
against  whom  St.  Paul  preached,  of  which  I  shall  say  much  more  hereafter.  Here  we  see  that  the 
Xp7)S7)£  on  the  monument,  on  the  tomb,  of  the  youth  of  Larissa,  and  all  the  other  inscriptions, 
in  Spon,  from  that  country,  connect  the  doctrine  with  the  mythology  of  Plato  and  Greece. 
(What  would  Ammonius  Saccas  say  to  this  ?)  They  connect  the  doctrine  also  with  the  Larissa 
and  the  other  circumstances  of  Syra-strene  and  of  its  Diu,  and  with  Ceylon  and  its  lava  Diu,  &c, 
and  the  Golden  Chersonesus  of  Siam,  with  its  mount  Sion,  its  Judia,  &c,  &c. ;  and  bind  the 
whole  together.  The  links  of  the  chain  are  not  only  there,  but  they  are  connected.  Need  I 
repeat  any  thing  of  Abraham  or  the  Brahmin,  from  the  land  of  Maturea  or  the  land  of  the  solar 
fire  or  aur— the  land  of  Urii  or  Uriana — Ur  of  Colchis  or  Colida— or  of  the  Cal  or  Culdees,  going 
to  Maturea,  or  Heliopolis,  in  Egypt — of  the  promontory  of  Tamus  and  St.  Thomas,  of  Bituma, 
of  Malabar,  Coromandel,  &c,  &c,  &c.  ?  No  !  I  need  say  no  more  :  if  my  reader  be  blind,  I  have 
not  the  power  of  working  miracles  j  I  cannot  restore  his  sight. 

No  doubt  the  assertion  that  the  translation  of  the  most  important  word  ryttfN")  rasit  by  wisdom, 


1  Faust,  ap  Aug.  Lib.  xx.  2. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VIII.   SECTION  7«  7&7 

was  the  admitted  and  undisputed  construction  of  the  word,  will  be  denied.  And  it  will  be  denied 
for  the  same  reason  which  operated  with  Parkhurst  to  make  him  suppress  the  knowledge  that  it 
was  so  translated  by  the  early  Christians  and  Jews.  It  will  be  denied  for  the  same  reason  that 
Lardner  suppressed  his  knowledge  that  the  early  Christians  were  called  Xpijsmvo*  not  Xpifiavot. 
A  learned  Jew,  who  will  shortly  publish  an  English  and  Hebrew  Lexicon,  informs  me,  that  the 
word  DtO  ras  has  the  meaning  of  wisdom  in  the  Talmud. 

Many  readers  will  think  it  quite  impossible,  that  all  the  modern  Lexicographers  should  have 
wilfully  concealed  the  meaning  of  the  word  rasit.  This  is  a  question  of  fact,  not  of  opinion. 
Have  they  or  have  they  not  given  the  meaning  as  stated  by  all  the  eminent  persons  whose  names 
I  have  exhibited  ?  I  affirm  that,  with  the  exception  of  one  slight  notice  of  Parkhurst's  in  his 
Greek  not  Hebrew  Lexicon,  in  order  to  misrepresent  it,  they  have  all  suppressed  it.  No  one 
surely  will  say,  that  all  the  learned  authorities  cited  by  me  are  unworthy  of  notice  ! 

My  reader,  I  imagine,  will  not  have  forgotten  that  a  place  supposed  to  be  Cortona,  in  Italy, 
was  called  Creston.  This  was  the  place  where  Pythagoras,  who  was  the  son  of  an  Apolloniacal 
Spectre,  Holy  Ghost,  had  what  was  called  his  school  of  Wisdom — that  Pythagoras  who  sacrificed 
at  the  shrine  of  the  bloodless  Apollo  at  Delos.  No  doubt  the  school  of  this  great  philosopher  from 
the  East — India,  Carmel,  Egypt,  Delphi,  Delos,  was  closely  connected  with  the  schools  of  the 
Samaneans,  Essenians,  Carmelites,  Gnostic  Christians,  or  Xpjfiavoi,  or  CRESTON-ians.  The 
Pythagoreans  were  Essenians,  and  the  Rev.  R.  Taylor,  A.  M.,  the  Deist,  now  in  gaol,  infamously 
persecuted  by  the  Whigs  for  his  religious  opinions,  in  his  learned  defence  of  Deism,  called  the 
Diegesis,  has  clearly  proved  all  the  hierarchical  institutions  of  the  Christians  to  be  a  close  copy  of 
those  of  the  Essenians  of  Egypt. 

If  the  Christians  be  called  by  any  author  before  Origen  by  the  term  Xpifiavo^  and  not 
Xpij^avo/,  except  as  a  term  of  reproach,  as  at  Antioch  ;  and  if  there  be  no  other  way  of  accounting 
for  it;  considering  that  they  are  so  called  in  the  teeth  of  the  authority  of  Clemens,  Justin,  all  the 
Gnostics  and  the  Gentiles,  and  considering  also  the  evident  policy  of  concealment  in  modern  divines, 
I  say  that  I  am  justified  in  maintaining  it  or  them,  to  be  one  or  more  examples  of  the  innumerable 
corruptions  of  manuscripts  by  Christians  in  a  later  day.  They  possessed  the  means  of  making  the 
corruptions  when  they  copied  the  manuscripts;  all  of  which  are  descended  to  us  from  them; 
and  their  numerous  forgeries  prove  they  had  the  inclination,  and  they  were  not  prevented  by 
principle  :  for,  so  far  from  thinking  it  wrong  to  corrupt  the  manuscripts,  they  avowed  that  they 
thought  it  meritorious  to  do  it.  The  end  has  sanctified  the  means  with  priests,  from  Bishop  Vyasa 
in  India,  down  to  Bishop  Laurence,  in  Ireland.1 

I  now  beg  my  reader  to  look  back  to  Book  X.  Chap.  I.  Sect.  18,  and  consider  the  circum- 
stances attendant  upon  the  monument  of  the  youth  of  Larissa — the  sacred  name  of  Xpri$o$ 
at  the  top,  and  the  sacred  word  Epa>£  or  the  first-begotten,  divine  love,  at  the  bottom  of  it :  let 
him  observe  that  this  was  in  Creston-ia,  at  Delphi,  whose  God  was  called  by  the  name  of  the 
God  of  the  Jews,  n*  IE.  Then  let  him  remember  the  doctrines  of  the  Trimurti  or  Trinity  of 
Orpheus,  whose  country  this  was.  Next  let  him  observe,  that  it  was  here  where  we  found  the 
females  sacrificing  themselves  on  the  death  of  their  husbands,  and  that  most  of  the  places  of  this 
country  have  the  same  names  as  places  in  India,  where  Cristna  or  Kan-iya  came  from,  and  that 
the  country  itself  is  called  Sindi.  All  this  being  duly  considered,  I  think  my  reader  will  conclude 
with  me,  that  the  Cristna  of  India  had  the  name  of  Crist,  for  at  least  one  reason,  the  same  as  that 


1  Vide  false  translation  in  preface  to  Enoch. 
5  h2 


788 


FIRST    VERSE    OP    GENESIS. 


which  caused  the  sacred  being  at  Larissa  to  be  called  Xpvjs—  that  is,  mitis,  benignus,  and  not 
solely  because  he  was  black,  the  colour  of  his  countrymen. 

We  have  seen  that  Buddha  was  the  Logos,  and  the  Epa^,  and  the  son  of  Maia.  But  Camdeo 
was  also  the  son  of  Maia.  This  was  the  Cupid  of  the  Romans  ;  and  Southey  l  has  shewn,  that 
Dipuc  and  Cupid  are  the  same  when  read  Hebraice.  His  history  is  clearly  an  incarnation  of 
Buddha,  his  exploits  or  adventures  in  the  fields  of  Muttra  succeeded  in  a  following  age  the 
adventures  of  Cristna,  celebrated,  Math  almost  the  same  circumstances,  in  the  same  places,  after 
the  expulsion  of  the  Buddhists.  This  Cama,  who  followed  Cristna,  is  the  Cama-sene  of  Italy, 
noticed  in  Book  X.  Chap.  VII.  Sect.  9,  the  incarnation  of  the  fishes. 

We  have  seen  it  held  that  Christ  or  Cristna  had  his  name  from  being  black ;  secondly,  from 
being  crucified;  and,  thirdly,  from  being  mitis,  benignus.     All  this  is  true,  and  I  do  not  doubt  it 
had  its  origin  from  the  word,  in  ancient  language,  having  had  the  three  meanings,  either  all  in  one, 
or  in   several  nations.     We  all  know  the  way  in  which  the  letter  17  h  of  the  Hebrews  has  been 
corrupted  into  ch,  in  both  ancient  and  modern  times,     win  hrs  was  the  solar  fire,  and  like  the  sun 
it  meant  also  machinator.     And,  as  I  have  before  shewn,  from  this  word  Parkhurst  says,  in  voce, 
V.,  the  Greeks  had  their  ijpoj$,  meaning  the  material  light  or  plastic  formative  power — the  word 
which  we  found  placed  under  the   Xp^og  0f  the  youth  of  Larissa.     It  does  not  seem  surprising 
that  this  chrs  or  XFX  should  thus  become  Xpj?,  benignus.     But  this  benignant  being,  divine 
love,  we  have  seen  crucified  several  times ;  and  Christ  was  said  to  be  crucified  in  the  heavens. 

This  crucifixion  of  divine  love  is  often  found  among  the  Greeks.  Ionah  or  Juno  was  bound 
with  fetters,  and  suspended  between  heaven  and  earth.2  Ixion,  Prometheus,  Apollo  of  Miletus, 
all  were  crucified.  When  the  sun  crossed  the  equator  the  last  time  in  Taurus,  was  he  crucified 
in  the  heavens  j  and  did  he  rise  again  as  Aries  ?  and  was  he  crucified  again  when  he  crossed, 
in  like  manner,  from  Aries,  and  rose  again  in  Pisces  ? 

Was  the  sun  born  at  the  winter  solstice  and  crucified  when  he  crossed  the  line  at  the  vernal 
equinox  ?     From  this  crucifixion  did  he  rise,  triumphing  over  the  powers  of  darkness,  to  life  and 
immortality  ?     Was  he  thus,  as  Justin  Martyr  said,  described  on  the  universe^  in  the  form  of  the 
letter  X  ?     The  word  w\n  hrs,  which  means  Sun,   also  means  the  East  wind,  by  which,  Virgil 
says,  the  mares  of  Thrace  were  impregnated.     What  does  this  mean  ?     The  Targum  of  Onkelos 
says  by  Dip  qdrn  or  |#mp  qdmin,  the  Aleim  formed  the  world.     But  this  word  means  also  East 
wind.     Then  this  Chaldee  word  is  only  a  translation  of  the  word  w~\n  hrs,  or  the  solar  fire,  or 
the  generative  power,  or  the  machinator.     This  is  all  very  mystical.     But  can  any  thing  be  more 
mystical  than  the  crucified  Semiramis  flying  away  as  a  dove;  than  the  crucified  Prometheus, 
Ixion,  Staurobates,  Cristna,   Salivahana ;  than  the  impregnation  of  the  mares  of  Thrace,  or  than 
the  crucifixion   of  Christ  in  the  heavens  ?     A  learned  devotee  once  said  in  reply  to  this,  "  I  care 
nothing  for  your  Christ  crucified  in  the  heavens;  it  is  not  in  our  canon."     And  I  reply,  "  I  care 
nothing  for  the  canon  of  a  sect  contemptible  enough,  till  it  had  power  given  by  the  sword  of 
"  Constantine.     I  only  look  for  the  truth  in  all  quarters ;  and  I  know  the  heretical  Gospel  must 
"  have  had  a  meaning,  and  a  mystical  meaning.     The  whole  is  evidently  a  system  of  the  most 
"  profound  mysticism,  and  profound  mysticism  will  never  be  explained,  or  its  meaning  discovered, 
"  except  by  means  of  the  most  profound  inquiries."     The  extraordinary  word  J>D7p  qdmin  whs 
adopted,  no  doubt,  because,  it  had,   in  some  degree,   both  the  meaning  of  Ap^ij  and  Aoyog, 


t( 


1  Notes  on  Curse  of  Kehama,  p.  333,  4to. 

*  Iliad,  0,  ver.  20,  ib.  0,  ver.  25 ;  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  372. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER   VIII,   SECTION  8.  789 

or  could  be  applied  in  some  way  to  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity,  in  imitation  of  the  word 
rasit  of  the  Hebrew,  which  had,  as  we  have  seen,  a  double  meaning. 

When  I  reflect  upon  the  numerous  proofs  which  have  transpired  from  time  to  time,  that  the 
polar  regions  were  once  much  warmer  than  they  are  at  present,  and  the  fact,  known  even  to  both 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  that  the  angle  of  the  equator  and  ecliptic  has  been  constantly  decreasing 
from  the  earliest  time,1  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  Justin  Martyr  alluded  to  this  angle,  when 
he  declared  that,  according  to  Plato,  the  Son  of  God,  or  Jesus  Christ,  was  expressed  or  decussated 
upon  the  universe  in  the  form  of  the  letter  X,  and,  that  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  being 
crucified  in  the  clouds,  alluded  to  the  same  thing.  For  the  cross  may  easily  have  been  thought 
to  allude  to  the  Soli-Lunar  precessional  Christian  cycle,  which  immediately  depended  upon  this 
Cross  or  Angle. 

8.  It  is  an  admitted  fact,  that  the  language  of  Mani  and  the  first  Manichseans  was  Chaldaic. 
After  the  observation  that  the  language  of  Babylon  was  not  the  Chaldee,  it  will  not  surprise  my 
reader  that  I  should  consider  this  fact,  (of  this  Persian,  as  he  is  called,)  as  strengthening  my 
opinion  that  he  came  from  India.  He  had  twelve  disciples  or  followers  who  were  called  perfect 
and  elect,  himself  making  the  thirteenth.  This  continued  after  his  death  to  be  the  system  of  his 
followers.  To  these  twelve  only  the  high  secrets  of  the  order  were  entrusted.  They  ate  no 
flesh,  drank  no  wine.  He  had,  besides  these,  seventy-two  followers,  disciples  of  a  lower  class, 
to  whom  all  the  mysteries  were  not  entrusted.  Like  the  Roman  Cardinals  some  of  them  married, 
but  I  think  it  probable  that,  from  the  unmarried  only,  the  twelve  elect  or  perfect  were  taken. 
Of  course  these  elect  will  be  said  to  have  been  taken  in  imitation  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  believe  they 
were  neither  of  them  copies  of  the  other  :  and  that  Mani's  were  taken  from  the  system  that  caused 
the  twelve  figures  and  their  president  to  be  carved  on  the  rocks  at  Oujein,  in  India — in  the 
Northern  India — in  the  country  of  Calida — in  Ur  of  the  Chaldees — or  very  near  to  it. 

In  the  circular  part  of  the  church  of  the  Templars  in  London,  the  Manichaean  heresy  is  beau- 
tifully displayed.  It  has  originally  had  twelve  arches  ;  one  on  the  East,  for  the  president,  a  little 
larger  than  any  of  the  others,  excepting  that  on  the  West,  for  the  door ;  and  they  have  six  seats 
in  each  arch,  making  seventy-two  in  all,  and  within  are  six  smaller  arches,  which  might  hold  the 
twelve  perfecti  or  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table. 

Among  the  Chinese  the  same  sacred  numbers  are  found,  as  those  among  the  Jews.     This  can 
be  no  accident.     Confucius  had  among  his  thousands  of  disciples  only  seventy-two  initiated : 2 
the  exact  number  of  the  Cardinals   of  Rome,  of  the  Manwantaras  of  India,  of  the  chosen  or 
distinguished  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  and  of  Manes.     Here  is  the 
universal  mythos — remains  of  the  kingdom  of  Pandaea. 

Between  the  decalogue  of  Moses  and  the  rule  of  morality  of  the  Buddhists  of  Tibet,  as  given  by 
Georgius,3  there  is  a  wonderful  similarity. 

Thou  shalt  not  kill  any  human  being  or  animal. 

Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery. 

Thou  shalt  not  steal. 

Thou  shalt  not  speak  ill  of  others. 

Thou  shalt  not  lie. 

Thou  shalt  honour  thy  father  and  mother. 

The  law  of  Moses,  which  we  translate,  "  Thou  shalt  do  no  murder,"  ought  to  be  rendered,  if 
rendered  literally,  Thou  shalt  not  kill.  It  would  thus  be  identical  with  the  Buddhist  rule  or 
commandment. 

1  Parkhurst,  pp.  730,  731.  *  Matter  on  the  Gnostics,  Vol.  II.  p.  83.  *  Alp.  Tib. 


790  FREEMASONS    OP   YORK,    METEMSYCHOSIS. 

Along  with  the  God  Kan-ia,  or  Iao,  or  Jah,  came  the  oriental  system  of  masonry  or  mystery  ; 
and  through  all  ages,  I  have  little  doubt,  the  Gnostic  doctrine  has  prevailed  with  its  Masons, 
or  Me<T8paveov,  or  Maceonry,  as  it  is  called  in  the  York  documents,  or  Monachism.  The  Monks 
of  Tibet,  at  Eleusis,  in  Egypt,  at  Jerusalem  or  Carmel,  in  our  circular  chapters,  were  the  preservers 
of  the  secret  Pythagorean  doctrines  of  numbers,  of  the  Ras,  or  Mystery,  or  Masonry,  or  perhaps 
more  properly,  the  doctrines  of  the  IE,  the  Jah, — the  mesos  or  ^tserov-ry,  or  the  Saviour,  or 
cross-borne — renewed  in  every  cycle,  as  described  in  Virgil.  I  need  scarcely  remind  my  Masonic 
reader  that  all  the  secrets  of  Masonry  are  concealed  in  the  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  language  ;  that  is, 
in  the  language  of  the  Brahmin  of  Ur  and  Colida,  where  Mr.  Ellis  was  poisoned  for  being  known 
to  possess  them.  Solomon,  the  Hakem  or  wise,  who  built  the  temple,  succeeded  the  Brahmin 
Abraham,  who  came  from  Ur  of  Colida. 

In  my  Celtic  Druids,  Ch.  V.  Sect.  33,  the  existence  of  the  Culdees,  or,  as  they  were  then  called, 
Colidei  at  Armagh,  in  Ireland,  was  shewn,  as  venerators  of  the  sacred  fire.  They  are  known  to 
have  had  a  monastery  in  Wales ;  and  in  both  cases  it  seems  the  priesthood  was  hereditary, 
descending  from  father  to  son,  and  they  were  Christians,  because  this  hereditary  custom  of 
passing  the  priesthood  was  complained  of  as  disgracing  Christianity.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  they  were  the  same  in  Scotland  j  and  their  continuing  to  possess  the  use  of  the  cathedrals, 
along  with  the  Romish  priests,  is  a  most  curious  circumstance.  It  is  also  a  most  striking  fact, 
that  the  Christians  found  in  the  country  of  Colida,  in  India,  should  possess  exactly  the  same  three 
rites  as  the  Colidei  of  Iona,  in  Scotland — Baptism,  the  Eucharist,  and  Orders — and  these,  the 
three  rites  of  the  Jews. 

9.  The  very  essence  of  Freemasonry  is  equality.  All,  let  their  rank  in  life  be  what  it  may, 
when  in  the  lodge,  are  brothers — brethren  with  the  Father  at  their  head.  No  person  can  read 
the  Evangelists  and  not  see  that  this  is  correctly  Gospel  Christianity.  It  is  the  Christianity  of 
the  Chaldees,  of  the  Patriarchs,  of  Abraham,  and  of  Melchizedek.  Every  part  of  Christianity 
refers  back  to  Abraham,  and  it  is  all  Freemasonry.  Jesus  Christ  at  table,  at  the  head  of  the 
twelve,  offering  the  sacrifice  of  Bread  and  Wine,  is  Abraham  and  Melchizedek  over  again ;  such, 
in  fact,  it  is  acknowledged  to  be  by  the  Romish  Church  ;  such  is  its  esoteric  religion ;  and  such 
was  the  custom  not  only  of  the  Chaldean  Abraham  and  Melchizedek,  but  also  of  the  Calidei  and 
Masons  at  York  j  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  of  the  Templars  in  their  secret  round  chapter-house  in 
London. 

In  all  the  ancient  systems  there  prevailed  one  universal  doctrine,  now  despised,  the  metempsy- 
chosis, or  what  is  called  in  old  Irish  the  Nua  Breithe.  This  became  corrupted  into  a  trans- 
migration of  souls  from  man  to  man,  and  from  man  to  beast ;  but  its  original  meaning  was,  a  new 
birth  in  another  cycle  or  world.  This  is  correctly  the  doctrine  of  Moses,2  of  Philo,  of  Plato,  of 
the  interpretatio  Novi  Saeculi  or  the  ^Eneid  of  Virgil,  and  of  the  secret  doctrines  of  the  fathers  of 
the  church.  It  is  in  many  places  to  be  seen  in  the  Gospels,  in  our  Liturgy,  and  particularly  in 
our  baptismal  service. 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  account  for  the  well-ascertained  fact,  that,  in  the  Pentateuch, 
there  is  not  the  least  trace  of  a  state  of  future  reward  or  punishment :  for  though  we  have  the  evil 
spirit  in  the  serpent  we  have  no  hell.  This  arises  from  the  doctrine  of  the  renewal  of  worlds 
having  been  the  esoteric  religion  of  the  tribe. 

If  a  person  would  think  deeply  upon  the  character  of  the  destroyer  or  the  third  person  of  the 


1  Vallancey,  Hib.  Coll.    This  is  really  the  English  new  birth,  both  in  word  and  meaning. 
*  Exhibited  in  the  word  N"Q  bra,  renovated. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  VIII.    SECTION  9.  79 1 

Hindoo  Trinity,  he  would  at  once  see  that  it  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  later  Arimanius 
of  the  Persians,  as  placed  in  opposition  to  the  Oromasdes.  I  consider  that  the  evil  principle 
per  se  of  the  Persians,  was  a  corruption  of  the  fine  Trinity  of  the  Hindoos.  *  It  betrays  a  degra- 
dation of  the  mind.  It  is  only  heard  of  along  with  the  good  principle,  in  opposition,  in  the  later 
ages,  when  the  Mithra  or  middle  principle  had  become  almost  lost  among  the  Persians.  The 
devil  or  future  state  is  never  found  among  the  Jews  till  their  return  from  Babylon,  and  this  has 
furnished  a  difficulty  to  our  divines  which  they  have  never  surmounted.  It  stands  a  glaring  fact 
in  the  face  of  all  their  theories  and  forced  explanations,  that  the  chosen  people  of  God  were  not 
taught  in  their  sacred  Pentateuch  a  single  word  respecting  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  a  state 
of  reward  or  punishment  after  death.  This  is  a  glaring,  an  indisputable  fact,  clearly  proved, 
among  others,  by  Bishop  Warburton.  My  theory  of  revolving  cycles  and  renewal  of  worlds  has 
satisfactorily  accounted  for  this,  which  has  never  been  satisfactorily  accounted  for  before.  The 
proper  translation,  or  at  least  the  translation  according  to  the  esoteric  doctrine  of  Genesis, 
explains  this  :  By  wisdom  the  Trimurti  renovated  or  regenerated  the  planetary  bodies  and  the  earth. 
But  not  the  stars ;  for,  though,  no  doubt,  they  were  subject  to  renewals,  yet  they  were  not  subject 
to  the  renewals  in  the  same  periods  as  the  planetary  system,  and  Genesis  only  applies  to  our  system. 
Consider  with  attention  the  sixteenth  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  where  the  stars  are  named,  and  an 
interpolation  must  be  admitted.  This  all  harmonizes  beautifully  with  my  system.  The  way  in 
which  the  stars  are  here  interpolated  shews  that  the  interpolator  admitted  the  meaning  of  planets, 
which  Parkhurst  has  correctly  given  to  the  word  n>0^  smim. 

In  Genesis  there  are  no  fallen  angels.  All  these  came  into  the  Mosaic  religion  on  the  return  from 
Babylon.  The  Destroyer  or  Serpent  of  Genesis  is  correctly  the  renovator  or  preserver.  In  Genesis 
there  is  a  tree  of  knowledge  and  a  tree  of  life.  This  tree  of  life  evidently  proves  the  meaning  of 
the  Mythos  to  be,  that  Adam  would  die  at  some  time — that  he  would  wear  out,  unless  he  ate  of 
the  fruit  of  that  tree.  The  serpent,  by  persuading  Eve  to  taste  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge, &c,  taught  her  what  is  meant  by  being  naked,  and  thus,  by  inducing  procreation,  was  the 
preserver  of  the  species  :  the  very  literal  meaning  of  the  words  shews,  that  this  is  one  of  its  mean- 
ings. Here  we  have  the  origin  of  the  Ophites,  or  oriental  emblematical-serpent  worshipers,  to 
account  for  whom  our  antiquarians  have  been  so  much  perplexed.  They  worshiped  the  saviour 
regenerator,  but  not  the  devil,  in  our  vulgar  meaning  of  the  word.  I  have  formerly  given  an 
extract  from  a  work  of  Mr.  Payne  Knight's  in  which  he  avows  his  belief  that  the  double  principle 
was  never  the  religious  belief  of  any  nation. 

In  figure  35,  taken  from  Spence's  Polymetis,  we  see  the  Mosaic  Mythos  in  Greece,  if  the  gem 
whence  it  was  drawn  be  Grecian.  Here  is  the  serpent  called  Heva  tempting  Adam.  Spence  calls 
it  a  drawing  of  Hercules,  after  he  has  killed  the  serpent ;  but  why  is  the  serpent  up  in  the  tree, 
instead  of  lying  dead  on  the  ground  ?  Where  are  the  club,  the  lion's  head  and  feet  ?  The  serpent 
is  evidently  whispering  in  Adam's  ear,  while  he  is  taking  an  apple.  This  quite  satisfies  me,  that 
after  all  the  labour  bestowed  on  the  Mythos  of  the  Ophites,  we  are  not  yet  quite  at  the  bottom  of 
it.  In  its  general  principle  we  are  right,  but  not  in  the  detail.  Parkhurst  has  given  a  passage 
from  Clemens  which  proves,  that  the  Greek  Bacchanals  were  well  acquainted  with  the  Mythos  of 
Eve,  since  they  constantly  invoked  her,  or  a  person  under  her  name,  in  their  ceremonies. 2 

I  recommend  my  reader  to  peruse  and  think  upon  several  observations  too  long  for  insertion 


1  If  ever  they  really  held  this  doctrine.    Hyde  does  not  allow  that  they  did.    We  have  seen  how  it  was  held  by  the 
Manichseans.    The  Persians  probably  held  it  in  the  same  manner,  that  is  to  say,  they  did  not  hold  it  at  all. 

*  Spence  refers  to  Lucan,  ix.  367,  Polymetis,  plate  XVIII.  and  p.  120,  Ed.  fol. 


/92  FREEMASONS    OF   YORK,    METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

made  by  Spence,  on  the  similarity  in  the  characters  or  labours  of  Hercules,  and  the  character  or 
works  of  Jesus  Christ;  the  ascension;  the  killing  of  the  serpent;  the  observation  of  Bacon  re- 
specting the  Christian  mysteries  and  the  cup  of  salvation.  Had  the  cup  any  thing  to  do  with  the 
celebrated  Sangreal,  so  much  the  object  of  search  in  the  middle  ages  ?  Has  the  refusal  of  the  cup 
in  the  Romish  sacrament,  so  much  sought  after  or  desired  by  devotees,  any  thing  to  do  with  this  ? 
Mr.  Spence  might  have  given  us  some  more  of  the  labours,  not  a  little  deserving  of  attention ; 
such,  for  instance,  as  his  being  swallowed  by  a  fish. 

One  of  the  Targums  says,  that  a>)n  huia,  a  serpent,  tempted  Adam  or  the  first  man,  and  not  mn 
hue,  Evehis  wife.  Parkhurst  renders  this,  not  a  serpent,  but  a  beast,  an  animal.  No  person  will 
doubt  what  animal  this  was,  except  he  who  will  not  see.  It  was  the  serpent,  and  here  we  have  it, 
in  the  drawing,  speaking  to  Adam,  not  lying  dead  at  the  feet  of  Hercules.  Here  we  have  Eva 
tempting  Adam,  and  we  see  what  Eva  was,  viz.  the  female  wn  huia,  serpent.  Here  we  have  the 
object  of  adoration  of  the  Ophites — the  female  generative  power — the  destroying,  regenerating 
power.  As  the  secret  doctrine  of  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer,  began  to  be  known  in 
the  middle  and  Western  parts  of  Asia,  at  the  same  time  it  began  to  be  corrupted,  and  the  absurd 
idea  of  a  fallen  angel  to  creep  in,  at  first  among  the  ignorant  vulgar  only,  but  at  last  among  a 
higher  class,  like  what  we  have  in  Europe ;  who  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  habouring  nonsense  so 
unworthy  of  the  Supreme  Being.  The  adoration  is  paid  to  Sumnaut, 1  Seva,  or  Cali,  as  the  severe 
and  impartial  judge,  ruling,  it  is  true,  with  a  rod  of  iron,  but  also  with  a  rod  of  justice.  The 
followers  of  Seva  and  Cali,  of  India,  answer  to  our  Calvinistic  dealers  in  damnation  of  Europe. 
The  same  causes  produce  the  same  effect. 

I  consider  that  the  way  in  which  my  theory  of  the  renovation  of  worlds  (that  is,  the  theory  of 
all  the  ancients)  agrees  with  the  Mosaic  doctrine  and  removes  its  difficulty,  is  a  very  strong  part 
of  my  case ;  for  I  request  those  who  will  not  admit  its  truth  to  account  on  any  probable  grounds 
for  the  fact  stated  above,  and  admitted  by  the  first  divines,  such  as  Bishop  Warburton,  Mr.  Bel- 
sham,  &c,  that  there  is  nothing  about  Hell  or  Devils  in  the  Pentateuch. 

There  being  nothing  in  Genesis  or  the  Pentateuch  of  the  nature  of  a  Devil  in  our  common  ac- 
ceptation of  the  term,  we  are  naturally  induced  to  inquire,  What  was  the  nature  of  the  being 
which  tempted  Eve  ?  This  being  is  described  in  our  translation  as  a  serpent,  and  properly  so 
described,  notwithstanding  the  attempt  of  the  learned  and  Rev.  Dr.  Adam  Clarke,  in  his  transla- 
tion, to  make  it  a  monkey.  The  serpent  is  the  only  one  of  all  the  animals  of  the  creation  which 
possesses  the  peculiar  property  of  renovating  itself.  To  all  appearance,  when  not  destroyed  by 
violence,  it  possesses  eternal  life.  Throwing  off  with  its  skin  its  old  character,  it  seems  to  become 
young  again  every  spring.  These  are  the  peculiar  reasons  why  the  Cobra,  the  most  deadly  of  the 
genus,  with  its  tail  in  its  mouth,  was  selected  as  the  emblem  of  renovating  life — of  the  eternal 
destroying  regenerator.  It  has  been  said,  that  it  was  the  vulgar  belief  in  Egypt  that  the  serpent 
really  never  died.  I  think  nothing  is  more  likely  than  that,  in  very  early  times,  it  was  thought 
never  to  die.  I  dare  say  my  reader  never  heard  of  one,  in  a  state  of  nature,  being  ascertained  to 
have  suffered  a  natural  death,  and  the  annual  change  of  skin  added  plausibility  to  the  doctrine  of 
its  perpetual  existence. 

Among  the  Ophites,  and  indeed  the  Gnostics  generally,  the  serpent  was  called  the  Megalistor 
or  Great  Builder  of  the  Universe.  Here  we  have,  under  another  name,  Ophites,  the  Cyclopes  or  the 
builders  of  the  circular  temples  at  Stonehenge  and  every  where  else.  With  the  tail  in  the  mouth, 
Serpents  were  the  emblems  of  the  eternal  creator  or  renovator  of  the  universe.    Shrouding  the  Linga 


1  This  was  the  evil  principle  or  Pluto,  in  Ireland,  Italy,  and  India.     I  shall  explain  its  meaning  hereafter. 


BOOK   X.   CHAPTER   VIII.   SECTION   9.  793 

and  the  Yoni  it  was  the  emblem  of  the  preserver  and  destroying  regenerator.  He  was  the 
Megalistor  or  ArjfjLispyog,  because  he  was  the  emblem  of  the  Logos,  the  creator  or  renewer  of 
cycles,  or  worlds  in  cyclic  periods. 

In  the  Church  of  St.  Martyn's,  Coney  Street,  York,  is  a  very  ancient  and  richly  golden  em- 
broidered pulpit-cloth,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  a  figure  of  God  Almighty — a  very  old  man  with 
a  dove  in  a  glory  on  his  breast,  and  supporting  in  one  hand  a  crucified  Saviour,  and  holding  the 
other  as  the  Lama  and  the  Pope  hold  their  hand  and  fingers  when  they  give  their  benediction  to 
the  people.  A  golden  sun  covers  the  head  of  the  old  man,  and  lifts  up  and  shews  the  human  head 
underneath.  I  can  scarcely  imagine  any  device,  except  writing,  better  calculated  to  tell  the 
initiated,  that  the  Sun  and  the  Creator  were  identical.  I  was  induced  to  go  to  see  this  by  a 
passage  in  Mr.  Allen's  History  of  Yorkshire.  x  There  never  were  Gnostics  as  a  sect  at  York,  but 
it  was  the  place  celebrated  by  the  mystic  mother  of  Constantine,  Helena.  One  of  the  churches 
in  York  has  a  Zodiac  upon  it.  In  St.  Mary's  Abbey  there  is  the  image,  before  noticed,  of  Moses 
horned,  with  a  winged  serpent  in  his  hand.  All  this  is  evidently  Romish  Christianity,  but  without 
doubt  it  is  also  Gnostic.  St.  Mary's  Abbey  and  the  parish  churches  could  not  have  been 
built  by  Gnostics,  exclusive  of  the  Romanists.     This  lets  us  into  the  Romish  secrets. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  see  that,  at  the  time  the  Romish  Church  was  every  where  declaiming 
against  Gnosticism,  it  was   every  where  privately  professing  it.     How  can  any  thing  be  more 
conclusive  than  the  sun  on  the  pulpit-cloth  ?     How  can  any  thing  be  clearer  than  the  Lamb  that 
taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world  ?     How,  than  the  prayers  to  the  Sun,  Son,  in  Saxon  and  San- 
scrit Sunu,  both  yet  retained  by  the  Protestants  ?     The  great  fault  of  the  Templars  seems  to  have 
been  in  believing  that  Hakem  Bemrillah  was  the  Paraclete,  instead  of  St.  Francis.     For  the  Cor- 
deliers  certainly  believed,   though  perhaps  secretly,  that  St.  Francis  had  been,  by  some  means, 
entirely  converted^  to  use  their  own  words,  into  Jesus  Christ,  and  had  suffered  all  his  five  wounds, 
called  the  stigmas  of  St.  Francis.     This  is  an  exact  repetition  of  the  nine  Salivahanas  of  India, 
one  renewed  every  cycle,  having  the  wounds,  like  St.  Francis,  and  called  the  wounded  in  t/ie  side. 
He  was  thought  to  be  the  incarnation  of  the  tenth  cycle.     Protestants  will  deny  that  the  Lamb  is 
Gnosticism.    But  it  is  Christianity — and  Gnosticism  is  Christianity.     They  cannot  separate  the 
Lamb  of  the  Hindoos,  of  Moses,  of  the  Egyptians,  of  the  Carnutes  of  Gaul,  of  the  Zodiac,  from 
their  Lamb  to  which  they  pray,  to  enlighten  the  world.     How  is  it  possible  to  doubt  that  the 
stigmas  of  St.   Francis  cover  the  same  mythos  as  the  wounds   of  the   side-pierced  Balii,   of  the 
Staurobates,  the  nine   Salivahanas,  the  Cristnas,  and  the  Buddhas  of  India  ?     The  same  mytho- 
logical history  is  renewed  for  every  cyclar  incarnation.     Every  sect  or  country  claims  the  Saviour 
as  having  favoured  its  sect  or  country  with  his  appearance — all  others  of  that  day  being  impostors. 
Thus,  in  the  West,  St.  Francis  was  the  preacher  of  the  true  Gospel  in  his  day,  which,  of  course, 
would  supersede  the  old  ones  of  the  preceding  incarnation,  and  Mohamed  or  Hakem  was  an 
impostor.  2 


1  Mr.  Allen  says,  many  similar  things  were  destroyed  at  the  Reformation,  and  regrets  that  this  pulpit  cloth  was 
not  among  the  number.     I  rejoice  that  it  is  yet  safe.    After  this  notice,  probably  some  pious  Mr.  Allen  will  remove  it. 

*  In  these  superstitions  there  is  always  apparent  an  attempt  at  a  repetition,  or  an  attempt  in  the  latter  to  imitate  pre- 
ceding Avatars.  This  is  in  strict  unison  with  the  doctrine  of  renewed  incarnations.  All  Avatars  came  to  an  untimely 
death.  The  last,  who  was  Mohamed,  was  poisoned.  In  compliance  with  this  superstition,  some  years  ago  several  nuns 
at  Paris  submitted  to  be  crucified;  and  near  Berne,  in  the  winter  of  1823,  1824,  several  persons  were  crucified,  and 
one  was  dead  before  the  police  interfered.  The  perpetrators  of  this  horrid  murder  were  tried  and  condemned  ;  an 
official  account  of  it,  which  I  once  possessed,  was  published.  The  house  where  it  took  place  was  razed,  and  a  monu- 
ment was  (I  believe)  erected  on  its  place  to  record  the  fact.    I  was  at  Geneva  a  few  months  after  it  happened. 

5i 


(    794    ) 


CHAPTER  IX. 

RASIT,  AfXI — ARGONAUTS. — NAMA  AMIDA  BUTH. — GNOSTICS. — GNOSTICS  CONTINUED. — GNOSTICS  CON- 
TINUED.—  VALENTINIANS. — ST.  JOHN,  ST.  THOMAS. — YES-DAN. — MYTHOS  IN  ASIA  MINOR. — SAMARITAN 
GENESIS. — ADAM  CADMON. — WISDOM  IN  GREECE  AND  EGYPT. — TIME. — To  Oy. — To  Ov  CONTINUED. — 
CHRISTIAN    MYSTERIES. 

] .  I  must  now  request  my  reader  to  reflect  deeply  upon  several  parts  of  what  he  has  read  in 
the  preceding  books.  The  JYttfN")  rasit  is  the  first  word  to  which  I  would  wish  to  recall  his  atten- 
tion. It  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  the  word  rasit,  the  meaning  of  which  has  been  so  studiously 
concealed,  we  have  in  uninterrupted  succession  the  Logos  by  which  the  world  was  created.  It  is 
the  Buddha  of  India.  It  is  the  Logos  of  the  Orpheans,  and  of  Zoroaster,  and  of  Plato.  It  is  the 
Minerva  of  the  Etruscans  and  Greeks,  issuing  or  emanating  from  the  head  of  Jove ; l  and  Jove 
himself  is  IEUE.  It  is  their  Mririg  or  divine  wisdom,  and  the  Sophia  of  the  Cabalists.  It  is,  as 
Mijt/£  or  divine  wisdom,  the  object  of  the  mystic  adoration  of  the  Gnostics,  of  the  middle  ages  j 
and  one  of  the  very  few  things  which  we  know  of  these  sectaries  for  a  certainty  is,  that  this  was, 
in  a  peculiar  manner,  the  name  under  which  they  represented  the  Creator  :  for  we  know  very  little 
else  of  them,  the  orthodox  having  left  us  nothing  of  all  their  works  which  we  can  be  certain  has 
come  to  us  unadulterated.  But  all  the  circumstances  which  we  know  relating  to  them  give  us 
reason  to  believe  that  they  were  a  race  of  persons  much  superior  to  the  Papiases,  Irenceuses,  and 
Justins,  the  founders  of  the  modern  Roman  religion.  All  we  know  of  them  we  have  from  the 
Christian  fathers,  whose  accounts  are  evidently  intended  to  depreciate  them  in  every  way  j  and 
these  fathers  thought  it  meritorious  either  to  defame  them,  or  to  propagate  falsities  respecting 
them.  Besides,  if  the  fathers  had  been  sincere,  their  hatred  to  the  Gnostics  and  their  bigotry 
were  such,  that  it  is  very  unlikely  even  that  they  could  have  understood  the  refined  and  abstruse 
doctrines  of  such  philosophers,  as  we  may  collect  from  circumstances  and  the  admissions  of 
enemies,  that  Basilides  was.  What  can  we  believe  on  the  testimony  of  those  who  asserted  that 
all  these  philosophers  ate  children  in  the  sacrament  ?  It  is  most  surprising  to  me  that  such  men 
as  Lardner  and  Beausobre  should  receive,  as  credible,  the  histories  of  the  fathers  :  very  certain  I 
am  that  no  judge  in  England,  France,  Germany,  or  America,  would  convict  an  accused  person  of 
the  lowest  crime  on  such  evidence. 

It  is  admitted  by  the  orthodox,  that  these  philosophers  were  men  in  the  highest  grade  of 
society.  From  this  and  a  careful  consideration  of  all  the  circumstances,  I  think  we  may  con- 
clude that  they  held  the  doctrines  of  the  orientals  respecting  the  renewal  of  cycles  and  incar- 
nations, and  that  the  millenium  would  take  place.  I  think  the  fact  of  their  designating  the 
Saviour  by  the  term  Xpri$o$  pretty  well  proves  this.  They  held  him  to  be  the  first  of  the 
emanations,  the  logos,  the  mind.  These  people  became  divided  into  a  number  of  minor  sects ; 
and  it  is  almost  certain  that  in  such  times  as  they  lived,  a  great  number  of  absurdities  must  have 
been  held  by  one  or  other  of  them.     They  were  not  free  from  the  common   weaknesses   of 


1  See  Figures,  No.  22. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   IX.   SECTION    1.  795 

humanity  :  as  the  remainder  of  the  species  retrograded,  they  retrograded  also.  I  feel  confident  that 
this  is  a  fair  and  impartial  view  of  the  subject  j  and  that  very  little  more  than  this  can  we  ever 
certainly  know,  though  the  nonsensical  stories  told  of  them  by  their  enemies  may  continue  for 
ever  to  be  retailed.  But  should  some  of  the  charges  alleged  against  them  be  true,  yet  as  we  have 
no  means  of  ascertaining  their  truth,  they  cannot  reasonably  be  admitted :  and  so  far  are  we 
from  possessing  proofs  in  justification  of  those  charges,  that  we  find  them  made  by  persons 
convicted  of  systematic  fraud.  The  natural  inference,  therefore,  is,  that  their  charges  are  as 
false  as  their  other  allegations,  proved  to  be  falsehoods.  But,  under  all  these  difficulties,  when  I 
find  their  opponents  stating  facts  which  combine  with  and  dovetail  into  the  system  which  I  have 
shewn  to  have  come  from  the  East,  the  acknowledged  birth-place  of  the  Gnostics,  I  think,  I  am 
justified  in  assuming  that  there  is  a  high  probability  that  they  are  true,  and  in  thus  treating 
them  in  my  reasoning.  In  all  subjects  of  this  kind,  demonstration  of  the  truth  is  very  seldom  to 
be  had. 

The  ancient  Jews  had  a  collection  of  tracts  called  the  Apocrypha,  concerning  which,  in  fact, 
very  little  is  known.  Of  course  they  will  tell  you  every  thing  is  known.  But,  if  St.  Jerom  may 
be  believed,  their  Scriptures,  both  what  are  now  called  Canon  and  the  Apocrypha,  were  for  many 
years  after  the  destruction  of  their  temple  by  the  Romans  nearly  lost,  scattered  in  divers  places, 
and  at  last  were  collected  and  preserved  by  the  Christian  fathers.  What  may  have  been  the  number 
of  the  tracts  of  the  Apocrypha  is  doubtful ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  some  of  those  now  in  the 
list  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  name  shews  that  these  were  the  books  in  which  the  secret 
Cabalistic  or  Gnostic  learning  was  concealed ;  the  word  Apocrypha,  not  meaning  doubtful,  but 
concealed.  The  meaning  given  to  the  word  of  doubtful  was  contrived  for  the  sake  of  concealing 
from  the  vulgar  that  there  was  a  secret  existing.  The  contrivance  has  succeeded  very  well,  for  I 
do  not  suppose  that  one  in  a  thousand,  even  of  modern  priests,  ever  suspected  the  truth.  The 
meaning  of  doubtful  or  uncertain  is  not  conveyed  by  the  Greek  word  Apocrypha. 

In  the  word  Attok§u<$>o£  the  cwro  seems  unnecessary  to  the  meaning  of  secret.  I  have  some- 
where seen  it  explained  to  be  a  corruption  of  Abba  father,  and  the  whole  word  to  mean  the  secret 
of  the  father,  or  miDDON  abikprut. x 

The  Gospel  history  of  John  is  said,  by  modern  priests,  to  have  been  written  against  the 
Gnostics.  How  this  can  be  I  do  not  understand.  Its  beginning  breathes  the  oriental  doctrines 
in  every  word.  Its  Logos,  i.  e.  Sophia,  or  Buddha,  or  Rasit,  or  Trimurti  made  flesh,  or  becoming 
incarnate,  is  strict  Buddhism,  Persianism,  Platonism,  and  Philoism  or  Cabalism.  Very  justly  has 
Mr.  Matter  said,  "  Cependant  S.  Jean  l'apotre  jouisse  d'un  credit  non  moins  Eminent  aupres 
"  de  plusieurs  ecoles  Gnostiques,  qui  ddcouvraient  dans  son  eVangile  et  dans  son  Apocalypse  tous 
"  les  elements,  la  termonologie  et  la  symbolique  de  leurs  croyances." 2  What  can  be  more 
striking  than  the  first  fourteen  verses  of  the  first  chapter,  or  than  the  promise,  of  the  tenth  incar- 
nation, of  a  person  to  come  afterward,  even  the  spirit  of  truth,  in  several  passages  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  chapters  ?  The  supposition  that  this  promise  was  fulfilled,  that  this  person  was 
meant,  by  the  twelve  tongues  of  fire  which  are  said,  in  the  Acts,  to  have  settled  on  the  apostles, 
to  give  them  the  power  of  speaking  all  languages,  does  not  deserve  a  serious  consideration. 


1  There  is  something  very  curious  in  the  word  i«  ab  or  natt  abe.  The  root  is  said  to  be  nUK  abe  with  a  mutable 
or  omissable  n  e  ;  that  is,  it  may  either  be  a«  ab  or  fDK  abe :  it  may  have  either  a  masculine  or  feminine  termination. 
This  seems  odd  enough,  for  the  word /other  ;  but  it  is  still  more  odd,  that  it  always  adopts  a/eminine  termination  for 
its  plural— always  DUK  abut  or  niN  abt,  but  never  a»  im.  Here  the  secret  doctrine  shews  itself.  It  was  feminine 
because  the  Father  was  feminine  as  well  as  masculine — androgynous— Jupiter  Genetrix. 

*  Matter,  Ch.  iv.  p.  305. 

5x2 


796  rasit,  Agp5. 

The  object  for  which  the  book  means  to  represent  that  the  tongues  were  sent  is  clear,  viz.  to 
give  the  apostles  the  power  of  speaking  languages,  to  them  new.  This  is  the  plain  literal  meaning 
of  the  text  and  context,  and  on  principles  of  common  sense  none  other  can  be  admitted.1  The 
person  to  come,  endowed  with  the  spirit  of  truth,  is  promised  by  Jesus.  I  know  not  a  single 
passage  in  our  canon  which  can  justify  the  construction,  that  twelve  tongues  of  fire  was  this 
person.  The  prophecy  of  another  person  to  come  connects  the  whole  with  the  system  of  the 
cycles  of  India,  of  Virgil,  and  of  Juvenal;  it  completes  the  system,  and  shews  that  the  millenary 
cycles  were  an  integral  part  of  Gnosticism,  and  that  Gnosticism  uncorrupted  was  Christianity. 

Once  more  I  repeat,  if  the  word  AfX7!  of  John  had  merely  meant  first,  7r^wrog  would  have 
been  used  ;  but  it  was  necessary  to  use  some  word  which  would  convey  the  additional  meaning 
which  the  word  ryt£>N~i  rasit  conveyed,  and  therefore  the  word  Ap^?]  was  used,  which,  like  ryiwn 
rasit,  means  head,  chief.  Being  used  here  as  a  substitute  for  wisdom,  rvi£>X"i  rasit  is  an  authority 
sufficient  to  fix  one  of  its  meanings,  and  so  it  would  be  taken  in  any  common  case,  by  every 
Lexicographer  in  the  world.  ApX7)  ryg  xriascog  the  beginning,  head,  or  efficient  cause  of  the 
creation.2  l^riascog  means  regeneration  and  renovation. 3  This  meaning  of  the  word  xrKrecog 
completely  justifies  the  rendering  by  the  LXX  of  the  word  ICQ  bra  by  £7ron<2<rsv,  fecit.  Parkhurst 
derives  Ap^>j  from  the  Hebrew  word  *ny  ord,  to  set  in  order.  Here  we  have  in  the  Hebrew 
our  word  to  order.  If  I  had  an  English  and  Hebrew  dictionary,  as  full  as  Parkhurst's  Hebrew 
and  English  Lexicon,  I  think  I  could  make,  out  of  the  two  languages,  a  language  in  which  con- 
versation might  very  well  be  carried  on  by  a  Hebrew  and  an  Englishman,  respecting  all  the 
common  concerns  of  life. 

Parkhurst,  in  his  Greek  Lexicon,  (though  he  has  entirely  omitted  it  in  the  Hebrew,  where  it 
ought  to  be  found,)  says,  Ap^4  in  this  application  answers  to  the  Hebrew  rvtt'm  rasit,  by  which 
name,  Wisdom,  i.  e.  the  Messiah,  is  called.  Again  he  says,5  authority,  rule,  power.  App^Tj 
most  usually  answers  in  the  LXX  to  the  Hebrew  t^N")  ras  or  mtwn  rasut  or  ri'ltfN")  rasit. 

The  observations  of  a  learned  friend  of  mine  respecting  the  word  Ap;£»j  are  very  just ;  but  yet 
the  mode  in  which  it  is  used  by  the  Gnostics  seems  to  shew  that  it  had  a  meaning  something 
more  than  merely  beginning.  We  have  seen  it  used  by  the  LXX  as  the  substitute  for  the  rviWO 
rasit.  It  is  also  used  by  John  hi  the  same  manner,  and  from  the  argument  of  the  Gnostics  it 
seems  to  require  wisdom  and  not  beginning,  at  least  more  properly  wisdom  than  beginning.  The 
connexion  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  philosophy  cannot  be  doubted,  and  the  application  of  the 
word  wisdom  to  ^■pXri  *s  wanted  to  complete  the  links  of  a  chain  which  seems  deficient  in  a  link, 
and  which,  being  of  the  same  manufactory  as  all  the  remainder  of  the  chain,  it  seems  very  well 
to  supply.  In  all  this  speculation  we  must  remember,  that  a  secret,  refined  system  is  to  be 
accounted  for  or  unveiled,  which  could  only  have  existed  under  a  vulgar  disguise,  such  a  disguise 
as  would  direct  common,  every-day  searchers  after  the  secret  in  a  wrong  road,  and,  if  possible, 
prevent  them  from  suspecting  even  that  there  was  a  secret.     If  the  Bud  and  the  Rasit  were  only 


1  I  do  not  speak  here  of  the  ridiculous  Paulites  named  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  chap,  xiv.,  who  have  been 
most  correctly  imitated  by  the  followers  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Irving,  and  of  whom  our  newspapers  have  been  lately  filled. 
Feb.  1833. 

4  Parkhurst,  Lex.  Gr.  in  voce  Apx-q.  3  lb.  in  voce  kt^u. 

*  Until  the  greatest  part  of  this  volume  was  printed,  I  did  not  discover  the  meaning  given  to  rasit  by  Parkhurst.  It 
never  occurred  to  me  to  look  for  the  meaning  of  a  Hebrew  word  in  his  Greek,  which  was  not  in  his  Hebrew  Lexicon. 
Parkhurst's  object  was  clear,  viz.  to  suppress  the  information,  and  to  avoid  the  charge  of  pious  fraud. 

*  On  the  word  Ap%7j,  V. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IX.    SECTION  1.  797 

contained  in  an  oriental  secret  language;  in  order  to  perpetuate  them  among  the  Western 
initiated,  a  word  which  would  convey  a  meaning  that  would  not  be  commonly  understood,  and 
different  from  such  a  word  as  "irpaiTos,  which  would  convey  a  different  meaning,  but  not  the 
secret  meaning,  ought  to  be  used :  and  what  word  could  be  so  proper  as  that  which  was  in  the 
language  of  the  Western  world  unknown,  but  which  had  the  meaning  of  the  emblem  of  the 
female  generative  power — the  Arg  or  Arc — in  which  the  germ  of  all  nature  was  supposed  to  float 
or  brood  on  the  great  abyss  during  the  interval  which  took  place  after  every  mundane  cycle  ? — 
the  vessel  in  which  the  Linga  and  Yoni  also  floated  j  in  short,  it  was  the  vessel  which  we  find 
every  where  in  the  sacred  mysteries,  under  different  names,  in  Greece,  Egypt,  India,  Judea,  &c. 
— it  was  the  Arc  in  which  the  Pola,  Palladium,  of  every  city  is  found,  the  emblem  or  imitation  of 
Meru — the  Arc  of  the  Nautse — the  Acropolis  or  Area  of  Jerusalem ;  indeed,  of  every  ancient 
city,  where,  from  religious  motives,  as  well  as  the  circumstance  of  its  natural  strength,  the  palla- 
dium of  the  state  or  of  the  religion  was  kept.  In  Rome  it  was  the  Caput-ol  or  Capitol.  This 
answers  to  the  Arabic  Rasit,  which  means  head,  chief,  top.  From  Pola  may  come  a  British  name 
for  head,  seldom  used  except  in  connexion  with  a  tax,  a  poll-tax.  Thus  all  these  things  connect 
together  in  a  very  peculiar  manner  when  searched  to  the  bottom. 

In  mount  Libanus,  Venus  was  called  Architis  ;  and  under  this  epithet  the  ceremonies  which 
are  stated  to  have  been  practised  by  the  Israelites  near  mount  Sinai,  Exod.  xxxii.  6,  are  said  to 
be  continued  in  her  honour. x  Here  is  the  Ap^ij  or  Arga,  which,  I  think,  can  allude  neither  to 
a  ship  nor  a  citadel.2  The  Greeks  had  what  they  called  the  Mtjv  Ap^aiog  and  kpxeuos. 
This  was  the  crescent- formed  Arga,  which  was  on  the  side  of  the  Theban  heifer.3  Eusebius 
calls  the  first  Menes  a  Thebinite :  "  Upcoros  s6a<nXeuo-sv  M^vrjc  07j£<viVijc,  07}£a<O£'  bg 
"  epy.rjVsusTot.1  Atoviog  :  The  first,  who  reigned,  was  Menes  the  Thebinite,  the  Arkaean  ;  which 
"  is,  by  interpretation,  the  Ionian. 4  This  Thebinite  and  Arkaean,  was,  we  find,  the  same  person 
"  of  whom  the  Iona,  or  Dove,  was  an  emblem."  That  the  Theba  was  the  same  as  Iona  cannot 
be  doubted  \  and  the  salacious  Dove  was  the  emblem  of  both,  of  the  male  and  female  generative 
power.  Mr.  Bryant  says,  that  Area  and  Argus  signified  the  Ark  ;  but  as  the  Ark  and  Deluge 
were  of  the  highest  antiquity,  and  every  thing  was  deduced  from  that  period,  Archaia  hence  came 
to  signify  any  thing  very  ancient,  and  Archa,  a  beginning* 5  Thus,  if  I  understand  this  learned 
gentleman  right,  he  admits,  that  the  meaning  of  first  for  upya.  or  Archa,  is  only  a  secondary 
meaning. 

If  we  consider  the  word  Ag^Jj,  it  is  in  every  respect  the  same  as  rvitfN")  rasit.  It  is  the  chief, 
the  head ;  therefore,  if  we  commence  at  the  top  and  proceed  downwards,  it  is  the  first.  Here 
we  see  the  reason  why  the  highest  place  of  every  town  was  called  the  Acra  of  the  city.  It  was 
the  head,  the  peculiar  seat  of  wisdom,  whence  Minerva  sprung.  As  Arga,  the  generative  power 
or  organ,  whence  all  things  descended,  it  was  also  the  first,  and  I  think  the  word  Arga  is  probably 
the  origin  of  Ap^a.  The  %  is  a  new  letter,  and  I  think  must  have  been  substituted  for  the  I\ 
as  Tepavog  became  Xpavo£.6  Col.  Tod  says,  "  The  expedition  of  the  Argonauts  in  search  of  the 
'*  Golden  fleece  is  a  version  of  the  Arkite  worship  of  Osiris,  the  Dolayatra  of  the  Hindoos :  and 
"  Sanscrit  etymology,  applied  to  the  vessel  of  the  Argonauts,  will  give  the  Sun  (arghaj  god's 
"  (nat'ha)   entrance  into  the  sign  of  the  Ram.     The  Tauric  and  Hydra  foes,  with  which  Jason 


1  Celtic  Druid's,  Chap.  VI.  Sect.  XXXI.  *  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  356.  3  lb.  358. 

*  Bryant's  Anal.  Vol.  I.  p.  321.  *  lb.  Anal.  Vol.  II.  p.  382. 


6  See  Parkhurst's  Greek  Lexicon,  in  voce  hpw\. 


798 


ARGONAUTS. 


"  had  to  contend  before  he  obtained  the  fleece  of  Aries,  are  the  symbols  of  the  sun-god,  both  of 
"  the  Ganges  and  of  the  Nile  j  and  this  fable,  which  has  occupied  almost  every  pen  of  antiquity, 
"  is  clearly  astronomical,  as  the  names  alone  of  the  Argha-Nat'h,  sons  of  Apollo,  Mars,  Mercury, 
"  Sol,  Arcus  or  Argus, l  Jupiter,  Bacchus,  &c,  sufficiently  testify,  whose  voyage  is  entirely 
"celestial."2 

But  Aqyig  is  the  same  as  the  Argha  of  India.  The  Argha  was  not  only  the  Yoni,  but  the 
surrounding  ether  in  which  the  Yoni  and  Linga  floated.  It  was  also  the  boat  in  which  the  male 
and  female  generative  principles,  when  reduced  to  their  simplest  form,  floated  during  the  sleep  of 
Brahma.  It  was  the  Ark  of  Noe,  or  of  Mind,  or  N«£,  or  Intelligence,  in  which  the  germ  of 
animated  nature  or  the  principles  of  generation  were  preserved.  But  it  was  in  one  sense  as  the 
Arga,  the  Preserver  or  Saviour,  viz.  as  the  Ark.  But  the  Saviour  was  Logos,  or  Rasit,  or  Ap^ij, 
or  Wisdom,  by  whom  the  Trimurti  renovated  the  world.  It  was  the  same  as  the  na»n  tibe  or  Ark 
in  which  the  Messiah  Moses  was  saved.  It  was  the  vessel  in  which  the  covenant  of  God  was 
carried.     But  the  most  important  point  is,  that,  as  the  ship  of  Noe,  it  was  the  Saviour. 

Every  one  has  heard  of  the  celebrated  boat  of  Isis  among  the  Egyptians,  Greeks,  and 
Romans.  But  the  Northern  nations  also  worshiped  her  in  the  form  of  a  ship.  This  ship  was 
placed  in  the  constellations  and  called  Argo.  In  Egypt  this  was  called  Sothis  or  the  Star  of 
Isis.3  This  very  well  connects  the  Arga  and  Isis  the  Saviour — the  ship  in  which  the  seed  of 
nature  was  preserved.  The  Egyptians,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  all  had  festivals  in  the  spring  season 
to  the  ship  of  Isis. 4      Ausonius  thus  speaks  of  it : 

Adjiciam  cultus  peregrinaque  sacra 
Natalem  Herculeum,  vel  ratis  Isiacse. 

2.  I  have  not  succeeded  to  my  mind,  in  unravelling  the  allegory  of  the  Argonautic  expedition. 
I  think  it  probable  that  we  must  look  for  a  translation  of  some  Eastern  words  into  Greek  :  such, 
for  example,  as  Salivahan  into  Staurobates,  or  Meru  into  the  thigh  of  Jupiter.    Now,  the  ship 
Argo  is  clearly  the  Arga  of  India,  or  Omphalos,  in  which  voyages  of  salvation  were  made.    Jas-on 
the  Captain  is  IHS-on  or  the  Saviour,  Sun,  Bacchus — and  Hercules  one  of  its  passengers,  (who 
took  the  command  after  the  death  of  IHS-on  or  Bacchus,)  is  Heri-clo.     Minerva  or  Divine 
Wisdom  invented  the  ship,  the  Argo,  or  Agpgij,  or  -Ap^a,  and  supplied  its  pole,  or  mast,  or  Linga. 
The  Nautae  or  sailors  went  to  the  Golden  or  Holy  Chersonesus,  to  seek  a  golden  or  holy  apple, 
or  golden  fleece  of  a  Ram,  or,  perhaps,  fleece  of  a  Golden  Ram  j  for  the  Greek  equally  means 
apple  and  Jleece.     I  can  have  no  doubt  that  the  allegory  relates  to  the  Lamb,  the  knowledge  of 
which  was  necessary  to  salvation,  or  to  the  apples  of  Genesis,  which  were  desirable  to  make  one 
wise   unto  salvation.     I   do  not  consider  it  of  very  great  antiquity,  and  perhaps  Newton  may  be 
right  as  to  its  date.     It  is  the  remains  of  a  history  of  sacred  character,  like  the  Iliad  and  Gesta 
Romanorum  or  jEneid.     "  All  the  religious  institutes  of  the  highest  antiquity,  of  which  we  have 
"  any  account,  were  delivered  in  poetry,  and  under  the  shape  of  history,  real  or  fictitious." 5 
IHS-on  or  Bacchus,  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  was  killed  by  the  Linga  falling  upon  him  j  but  Heri-clo, 
or  the  Sun  in  Aries,  survived  the  voyage  and  obtained  the  fleece.     In  all  this  there  are  evidently 
the  links  of  a  chain— but,  to  complete  it,   some  are  still  wanting.     The  plays  of  iEschylus  and 
Euripides  are  mystic  representations  connected  with  this  history  or  mythos,  and  I  much  fear  our 


1  Argha  the  Sun,  in  Sanscrit.  8  Tod's  Hist.  p.  601.  3  Hist.  Acad.  Ins.  An.  1729,  p.  87,  Abbe"  Fontenu. 

4  Vide  Apuleius.  *  Mason  Good's  Job,  Pref.  p.  Ixxxvi. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IX.   SECTION  3.  799 

learned  Greek  scholars  are  every  day  making  the  mystery  more  impenetrable,  by  endeavouring  to 
make  the  plays  speak  the  language  of  common  life,  and  by  not  attending  to  their  mysterious  or 
hidden  meaning.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  our  learned  men  can  safely  make  any  emendations, 
without  understanding  the  meaning  of  the  mythos,  which  is  what  they  never  attempt.  They 
merely  suppose  that  the  heroes,  for  instance  Prometheus,  are  men  deified — or,  the  seven  against 
Thebes,  the  story  of  a  war.  Not  a  single  word  ought  to  be  changed  from  the  old  manuscripts  ; 
all  corrections  ought  to  be  in  the  notes,  but  not  one  in  the  text.  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that 
the  first  books  of  Genesis,  the  Maha-bharat,  the  Argonautic  expedition,  the  Iliad,  the  plays  of 
iEschylus,  and  the  ^Eneid,  are  all  different  ways  of  telling  the  same  story. — Substantially  the 
same  mythos  was  at  the  bottom  of  all,  and  of  that  mythos  the  constantly-revolving  cycles  are  a 
most  important  part.  It  is  a  drama,  in  which  there  were  to  be  a  new  siege  of  Troy,  new  Argo- 
nauts, &c,  as  described  by  Virgil :  but  whether  these  renewals  were  to  take  place  every  6000, 
or  1000,  or  600  years,  cannot  be  known  with  certainty — the  book  does  not  tell  us.  It  seems 
probable,  I  think,  that  it  was  every  1000  years,  yet  this  is  attended  with  great  difficulty;  and 
even  if  it  were  every  6000  years,  and  exactly  the  same  things  were  to  recur,  morality  would  be 
destroyed, — such  a  degree  of  fatalism  would  follow  as  would  destroy  all  freedom  of  will  and  moral 
responsibility;  therefore,  I  think,  human  actions  must  have  been  left  to  a  certain  degree  of 
discretion.  But  perhaps  in  reply  to  this  observation  it  may  be  said,  and  I  fear  said  with  too  much 
truth,  that  morality  is  not  always  the  first  object  considered  by  the  projectors  of  religious 
systems.     The  Mohamedan  predestinarians  reconcile  fatalism  and  morality. 

It  is  possible,  I  think,  that  these  astronomical  religious  systems  arose  like  all  others  from 
accident  and  circumstance.  The  astronomical  basis  is  quite  clear,  and  probably  the  astronomers 
or  astrologers  were  the  first  priests.  Every  circumstance  tends  to  confirm  this.  The  more  early 
we  begin  our  investigation  the  more  clearly  we  find  the  astrological  taint  in  every  religion.  The 
Mosaic  system  forms  no  exception ;  for,  if  magic  were  forbidden  to  the  people,  like  the  casting 
out  of  devils  among  Christians,  it  was  reserved  to  the  priests,  as  the  Joachin  and  Boaz,  and  the 
recurrence  of  the  sacred  numbers  proves.  This  readily  accounts  for  any  little  incongruities  or 
inconsistencies ;  indeed,  I  think  these  inconsistencies  render  my  account  or  theory  the  more 
probable ;  for  we  have  certainly  never  yet  seen  or  heard  of  any  system  whose  origin  was,  or 
whose  present  form  is,  unaccompanied  by  inconsistencies.  Every  one  knows  that  our  favourite 
Protestantism  was  only  a  covenant  of  peace ;  and  if  I  were  a  zealous  supporter  of  things  as  they 
are,  I  would  recommend  the  King,  as  we  no  longer  persecute  the  Papists,  to  send  to  the  Romish 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  request  him  to  place  his  hands  on  the  head  of  his  brother  of  Canter- 
bury. These  two  Reverend  Fathers  in  God  will  know  what  I  mean ;  if  they  do  not,  they  may 
examine  the  once  famous  or  infamous  Lambeth  papers. 

3.  In  Japan,  Buddha  is  adored  with  the  words  Namo  Amida  Buth,  which  means  Adoration  to 
Amida  Buddha,  the  word  Namu  is  a  corruption  of  Nama,  meaning  adoration,  in  the  Japan  and 
Sanscrit  languages. l  This  Indian  word,  I  think,  will  exhibit  to  us  a  very  remarkable  proof  of  the 
identity  of  the  Indian  and  Italian  religions.  The  learned  Bartolomaeus  says,  Nama  Sehesio  Deo 
Soli  invicto  Mitres,  adoratio  Sebesio  (Shibae  vel  Shivae)  Deo  soli  invicto  Mitrae,  et  apud  Muratorum 
inscriptionem  repertam  in  Villa  Tiburtina  Hadriani,  quam  mihi  clarissimus  vir  G.  Zoeta  com- 
municavit,  et  quae  ita  se  habet :  Soli  invicto  Mithras,  sicut  ipse  se  in  visu  jussit  refici,  Victorinus 
Caes.  N.  verna  dispensator  numeni  prcesenti  suis  impetidiis  reficiendum  curavit,  dedicavitque  Nama 
cunctis Nama  adoratio  unde  sensus  inscriptionis   est:   dedicavitque   adorationem  cunctis, 


I  Barthol.  System.  Brach.  p.  308. 


800  NAMA    AMIDA    BUTH. — GNOSTICS. 

seu  ut  cuncti  eum  adorent.  Haec  inscriptio  ac  vocabulum  Nama  non  solum  inter  Brahmanes 
vulgarissimum  est,  sed  et  ipsa  adorationis  formula,  quam  semper  in  ore  habent.  Sic  Gannavadye 
nama  adoratio  Deo  Gannavadi.  Shiva  Shivaya  nama  Deo  Shivce  seu  Sebesio  adoratio,  dimanat 
enim  vocabulum  Nama  a  verbo — namadi  adorat,  namasi  adoras,  namami  adoro,  &c,  &c.1  The 
explanation  of  this  word  confirms  what  I  have  said  in  my  Celtic  Druids  respecting  the  Sanscrit 
language  in  Italy.  It  probably  came  along  with  the  God  Ganesa  or  Janus,  and  the  Saturn-ja  and 
the  Pallistini,  or  Palsestrina,  or  Sacrum  Preneste,  and  the  name  of  Itala  or  Bull.  Great  numbers 
of  very  ancient  pictures  of  the  Bambino  are  to  be  seen  in  Italy  with  the  inscription  Deo  Soli 
invicto,  and  also  numbers  of  inscriptions  with  the  words  Nama  Mitrse  invicto. 

I  must  now  request  my  reader  to  look  back  to  Chapter  VII.  Section  8,  page  758,  and  he  will 
there  see  that  the  name  of  the  God  worshiped  at  the  temple  of  Bal-ii  or  Tripetti,  the  crucified  God, 
called  the  wounded  in  the  side,  is  called  Om  Sri  Ramdya  Nama,  the  word  Sri  being  one  of  the 
names  of  Cristna,  and  Om  of  both  Buddha  and  Cristna ;  then  to  look  to  section  4,  and  consider 
the  five  sacred  and  mysterious  syllables  of  Avyar  in  the  Kaliwakam,  which  is,  in  the  Tamul 
language,  Na-ma-si-va-yah,  and  he  will  instantly  see,  that  they  are  the  same  as  the  Italian  Seba- 
dia,  a  most  extraordinary  and  decisive  proof  of  identity,  in  the  Mithraitic  Christian  mythoses  of 
India  and  Italy.  The  root  of  Sabasio  is  Sab,  the  plural  of  which  means  the  Planetary  bodies 
possessing  wisdom, — the  disposers.  The  word  Sab,  (see  Chap.  VI.  Sect.  11,  p.  716,)  Cleland 
has  told  us,  means  wisdom. 

4.  Many  of  the  Gnostics  maintained  that  Christ  only  appeared  to  be  crucified  :  in  this  they  also 
varied  from  most,  but  not  from  all,  of  the  Romists.  But  whether  the  faith  of  the  Gnostics  or  that 
of  the  orthodox,  from  whom  they  varied,  were  the  original  faith  of  the  Eastern  Cristnas  and  Sali- 
vahanas  I  cannot  discover — the  pious  or  the  prudent  Orientalists  of  Calcutta  have  kept  from  us, 
or  have  not  been  able  to  give  us,  the  Pouranas  of  Salivahana  or  Wittoba,  from  which  we  might 
have  known  it. 

Several  of  the  texts  of  the  Gospel  histories  were  quoted  with  great  plausibility  by  the  Gnostics 
in  support  of  their  doctrine.  The  story  of  Jesus  passing  through  the  midst  of  the  Jews  when 
they  were  about  to  cast  him  headlong  from  the  brow  of  a  hill,  (Luke  iv.  29,  30,)  and  when  they 
were  going  to  stone  him,  (John  viii.  59,  x.  31,  39,)  were  examples  not  easily  refuted.  These 
were  fair  argumenta  ad  homines  of  the  Gnostics,  even  though  they  did  not  receive  the  four  Gospel 
histories  of  the  orthodox.  But  though  they  did  not  admit  the  genuineness  of  these  histories, 
they  did  not  deny  the  authenticity  of  many  parts  of  them  :  in  this,  being  exactly  like  the  Mani- 
chaeans  and  the  Mohamedans. 

It  is  necessary  that  I  should  notice  another  doctrine  of  the  Tvaxrig,  which  like  the  doctrines 
developed  in  my  first  book  respecting  the  Trinity,  &c,  arose  from  the  application  of  common 
sense  to  the  objects  of  surrounding  nature.  The  philosophers  observed  that  all  animals  were  the 
same  in  respect  to  animal  life  as  man,  but  of  the  possession  of  reason  they  appeared  to  be  void. 
From  this  they  were  induced  to  believe  in  two  souls  or  animae — one  the  living  principle  dying 
with  the  body  ;  the  other,  the  superior  one,  which  first  emanated  from  and  then  passed  by 
metempsychosis  through  several  gradations  before  it  was  finally  absorbed  into  the  essence  of  the 
Creator.  That  this  should  be  found  in  the  Bible  is  what  we  might  reasonably  expect,  and, 
accordingly,  it  may  be  found  in  great  numbers  of  places,  under  the  terms  %|/up]  and  CTVeu/xa. 
This  has  been  very  satisfactorily  proved  by  Mr.  Ed.  King,  in  the  fourteenth  note  of  Vol.  III.  of 
his  Morsels  of  Criticism.     This  gave  rise  to  a  very  refined  part  of  the  doctrines  of  some  of  the 


1  Barthol.  System.  Brach.  p.  195. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   VIII.    SECTION   6.  801 

later  Gnostics — that  the  X^ij^oS  of  Jesus,  or  the  superior  anima,  descended  into  him  in  the 
form  of  the  Dove,  when  he  was  baptized  in  Jordan,  and  left  him  before  his  crucifixion,  and  that 
only  the  human  part  remained.  From  this,  I  think,  arose  a  very  recondite  species  of  mysticism. 
He  was  Xp?jj-o£,  the  being  xar'  e^offlv  benignus,  the  Logos,  the  %o$>ia,  the  nD3n  hkme.  He 
was  also  Xpi$og  the  crucified.  He  was  also  Ki]pu£  the  Herald,  the  Sent  of  God.  He  was  also 
Cris,  black,  his  native  colour,  as  we  find  him  both  in  India  and  Europe  ;  and,  when  identified 
with  the  Sun,  he  is,  as  Apollo,  &c,  &c,  always  black.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  busts  of  the 
twelve  Roman  Caesars,  are  often  black,  though  the  drapery  is  white — persons  having  the  same 
divine  character  as  the  twelve  successors  of  Jacob, l  the  twelve  apostles  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
twelve  Imaums  of  Persia,  the  twelve  apostles  of  Hakem  Bemrillah,  the  twelve  apostles  of  Mani ; 
but  above  all  the  twelve  Lucumones  of  Etruria  or  of  the  country  of  Razena,  who  are  shewn  by 
Mons.  Creuzer  to  have  been  Prdtres  de  la  Lumiere  posse'de's,  inspires.*  Here  the  Raz-ena  or 
Ras-ena3  is  very  remarkable.  All  these  were  supposed  to  have  a  certain  portion  of  the  divine 
spirit,  or  the  superior  anima,  incarnate  in  them,  more  than  other  men  j  or,  in  other  words, 
to  be  divinely  inspired. 

Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  Julius  Caesar,  born  at  the  same  time  as  one  of  the 
Vicramadityas  of  India,  was  thought  to  be  a  divine  incarnation,  and  that  when  he  was  assassinated, 
the  belief  in  an  incarnation  was  transferred  to  Octavius.  These  were  not  copies,  but  the  results 
of  astrological  calculations  respecting  the  renewed  cycles,  noticed  by  Virgil,  which  taught  the 
professors  when  the  new  cycle  would  come — and  then  superstition  taught  its  votaries  to  look  out 
for  some  person  — the  Ahmed  Om,  the  Desire  of  all  Nations.  And  the  times  of  the  Indians  and 
Romans  agreed,  because  Caesar  had  adopted  the  Chaldean  Calendar  and  Calculations ;  that  is, 
the  Calendar  of  North  and  South  Colida  of  India,  which  is  really  the  true  Calendar,  as  is  at 
once  apparent  by  calculating  backwards  from  the  equinox,  as  now  placed  in  the  last  degree  of 
Aquarius,  25x7^=1800.  The  circumstance  of  identity  in  the  period  of  the  Jews  of  Sion,  or  the 
Judaites  of  the  Siones,  as  proved  by  Cassini,  of  the  Chaldeans  or  Colidei  of  Cochin,  of  the  Romans 
and  Julius  Caesar,  and  of  the  Christians, — the  25th  of  December,  for  the  solstice  and  birth  of  the 
God,  is  no  bad  proof  of  the  universality  of  the  mythos.  If  this  be  not  proof,  what  would  con- 
stitute proof?     The  subject  of  the  Chaldean  correction  of  the  Calendar  I  shall  discuss  hereafter. 

The  Gnostics  held  that,  "  To  deliver  the  soul,  a  captive  in  darkness,  the  Principle  of  Light, 
"  the  Genius  of  the  Sun,  charged  with  the  redemption  {\otqid<ti$)  of  the  intellectual  world,  of 
"  which  the  Sun  is  the  type,  manifested  itself  among  men  ;  that  the  light  appeared  in  the  dark- 
se  ness,  but  the  darkness  comprehended  it  not ;  that,  in  fact,  light  could  not  unite  with  darkness  ; 
"  it  put  on  only  the  appearance  of  the  human  body :  that  at  the  crucifixion  Jesus  Christ  only 
"  appeared  to  suffer.  His  person  having  disappeared,  the  by-standers  saw  in  his  place  a  cross  of 
"  light,  over  which  a  celestial  voice  proclaimed  these  words  :  '  The  Cross  of  Light  is  called 
"  *  Logos,  Christos,  the  Gate,  the  Joy.'"  I  consider  that  the  book  of  John  contains  clear  and 
abundant  proofs,  that  the  original  doctrine,  though  perhaps  the  secret  doctrine  of  the  Romish 
Church,  was  uncorrupted  Gnosticism, — the  Pandaean  religion  of  the  Golden  age,  when  no  icons 
were  used,  and  when  the  Gods  had  no  names.  How  they  then  were  supposed  to  exist  will  be 
clearly  explained  in  a  future  book. 


1  Isfimael,  from  whom  the  Arabians  descended,  had  twelve  sons,  who  formed  twelve  tribes,  like  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  and  the  twelve  tribes. 
e  Liv.  iv.  p.  220,  Liv.  v.  p.  394.  3  I  construe  Raz-ena,  country  of  wisdom. 

5k 


802  GNOSTICS. 

The  doctrine  of  emanations  was  undoubtedly  the  universal,  though,  perhaps,  in  very  early 
times,  the  secret  doctrine.  The  passage  which  I  have  given  in  Book  II.  Chapter  III.  Section  5, 
from  Deuteronomy,  clearly  and  unquestionably  proves  that  it  was  equally  prevalent  among  the 
Jews  as  among  all  others  of  the  oriental  nations  ;  and,  as  a  proof  of  this,  and  strongly  confirma- 
tory of  my  whole  system,  the  passage  is  of  the  greatest  importance. 

The  Cabalistic  doctrine  of  the  later  Jews  is  exactly  consentaneous  to  the  construction  which 
I  have  put  upon  Genesis.  It  accounts  for  the  origin  of  things,  by  making  them  emanations  from 
a  First  Cause,  and,  therefore,  pre-existent.  They  suppose  all  things  to  be  at  last  withdrawn 
into  the  First  Being,  by  a  revolution  or  restitution  to  their  first  state  ;  as  if  they  believed  their 
*1)D  \>V  °in  SUP>  En  Soph, 1  Fountain  of  Wisdom,  or  First  Being,  to  contain  all  things.  This 
En  Soph  may  also  be  the  same  as  the  Greek  Ov  and  £o<p*a,  Wisdom  of  the  generative  power,  Ov. 
From  this  Being  all  things  are  supposed  to  proceed  by  effluxes  or  emanations,  like  rays,  and 
when  the  rays  are  redrawn  the  external  world  perishes,  and  all  things  again  become  absorbed  in 
God.  He  hideth  his  face  ;  and  they  are  troubled;  he  taketh  away  their  breath ,  they  die,  and  return 
to  their  dust.  He  sendeth  forth  his  spirit,  and  they  are  created ;  and  he  reneweth  the  face  of  the 
earth.*      All  this  harmonizes  perfectly  with  my  translation  of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis. 

The  expressions  in  several  places  are  decisive  in  my  favour.  Who  can  find  out  the  Wisdom  of 
God  ?  Wisdom  hath  been  created  before  all  things,  and  the  understanding  of  prudence  from 
evermore.  Ecclus.  i.  4.  Here  is  most  clearly  the  noarr  hkme  and  r\V2,  bine,  the  first  two 
Sephiroths.  Again,  The  word  of  God  most  high  is  the  fountain  of  Wisdom — Ecclus.  i.  5 — the 
En  Soph  is  here  most  clearly.  Again,  /  was  set  up  from  everlasting,  from  the  beginning,  or  ever 
the  earth  was.  Prov.  viii.  23.  Here  the  word  everlasting  is  clearly  a  mistranslation  :  the  Hebrew 
word  only  means  a  long  time,  but  not  for  ever,  without  commencement.     This  is  an  admitted 

fact. 

I  do  not  flatter  myself  that  I  can  unveil  all  the  secret  mysteries  of  the  Cabala  of  the  ancient 
Israelites,  long  since  buried  amidst  the  ruins  of  their  temples.  But  yet  I  think  we  may  be 
justified  in  believing  that  such  men  as  Moses,  Zoroaster,  Pythagoras,  and  Plato,  had  a  religion 
in  its  fundamental  principles,  consistent  at  least  with  common  sense,  and  altogether  different, 
as  they  themselves  always  asserted,  from  the  mythoses  which  they  tolerated  among  the  vulgar. 
If  we  take  this  view  of  the  subject,  we  shall  find  in  the  triune  doctrine  nothing  inconsistent 
with  reason  and  sense. 

The  following  is  the  form  of  adjuration,  which  Cyril  and  Justin  Martyr  give  to  Orpheus,  but 
which  John  Malela  and  the  author  of  the  Paschal  Chronicle  ascribe  to  Thoth  or  Hermes-Tris- 
megistus.  The  difference,  however,  is  immaterial:  for  the  Orphic  and  Tautic  systems  were 
fundamentally  the  same.  In  the  Paschal  Chronicle,  the  oath  is  exhibited  in  the  following  terms  : 
"I  adjure  thee,  the  Heaven,3  the  wise  work  of  the  great  God:  be  propitious.  I  adjure  thee, 
"  the  voice4  of  the  Father,  which  he  first  spake,  when  he  established  the  whole  world  by  his 
"counsel;5  the  voice  of  the  Father,  which  he  first  uttered,  his  only-begotten  word."0  I 
think  this  completely  proves  the  truth  of  my  theory.    The  doctrine  of  Hermes-Trismegistus  was 


•  Matter,  Ch.  iv.  p.  403.  s  Psalm  civ.  29,  30  ;  Universal  History,  Vol.  I. 
s  These  are  the  Samin  of  Genesis,  the  disposers  endowed  with  understanding  or  wisdom.    G.  H. 

4  Logos.  The  Targums  constantly  use  the  word  &ODD  mmra  for  mrp  ieue,  for  which  Philo  uses  Aoyo*.  I  believe 
this  m-mra  is  nothing  but  the  Maria,"  with  the  Monogram  preceding  it.  The  books  of  the  real  Apocrypha  are  full  of 
these  doctrines  of  Wisdom  and  of  Masonry.    G.  H. 

*  i.  e.  icisdom.    G.  H.  6  Logos.    G.  H.  j  Faber,  Pag.  Idol.  Vol.  I.  p.  229. 


BOOK   X.     CHAPTER   IX.     SECTION  5.  803 

precisely  the  same  as  that  of  the  Hindoos  respecting  the  destruction  and  renovation  of  the  world 
— that  nothing  is  destroyed,  but  only  changed  in  form.1 

5.  In  the  Christian  religion,  as  in  all  others,  the  tangible  or  worldly  sign  of  the  Holy  Spirit  or 
Ghost  was  supposed  to  be  wind,  or  air  in  motion  ;  the  Dove  its  emblem.  Thus  it  is  said  in  John 
xx.  22,  When  breathing  on  them,  he  said  to  them,  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost.  As  air  in 
motion  was  the  tangible  or  sensible  sign  of  the  third  person,  so  the  solar,  ethereal  or  spiritual 
fire  was  the  sign  of  the  second  person  of  the  Trinity—  Wisdom,  Buddha,  Protogonos.  By  Wisdom 
Aleim  formed  the  planetary  system.  By  Ruh,  nn  wnp  qdis  ruh,  the  Holy  Ghost  brooding  on 
the  waters,  he  communicated  the  generative  and  prolific  faculty,  which,  without  moisture,  can  in 
no  case  exist.  And,  in  all  cases,  by  the  Holy  Ghost  or  Spirit,  or  air  in  motion,  regeneration 
was  supposed  to  take  place. 

The  brooding  of  the  spirit  on  the  face  of  the  deep ;  the  brooding  first  explained  by  Bishop 
Patrick,  has  a  clear  and  direct  allusion  to  the  Orphic  Egg  which  the  Bull  opened  with  his  horn  : 

I  Taurus  cum  cornibus  aperit  annum. 

^  In  a  similar  manner  the  Logos  or  Word  had  its  rise.  How  did  God  proceed  when  he  made 
the  world  ?  (Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  man  has  his  image.)  Did  he  use  his  hands  ?  No : 
he  spake  the  word  and  it  was  made.  He  gave  the  word  and  the  effect  followed.  By  his  word 
he  made  it.  The  word  existed  before  the  creation.  The  word  was  first,  the  world  instantly 
followed.  Thus  John  says,  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  word,  and  the  word  was  with  God,  and 
"  the  word  was  God."  Here  we  have  the  Trinity  of  the  Oriental,  the  Platonic,  and  the  Christian 
mystics.  The  ancient  mystics  thought  that  God  gave  the  word  and  formed  the  world  from 
previously- existing  matter;  the  modern  ones  thought  he  created  it  from  nothing.  Hence  the 
anxiety  shewn  in  their  creeds  to  seek  for  terms  sufficiently  clear  to  express  this  idea.  Hence 
they  have  run  into  the  nonsense  of  begotten  before  all  worlds.  What  jargon  !  word  begotten  ! 
Let  us  suppose  a  second  person  of  the  Godhead.  What  should  cause  him  to  be  called  Word  ? 
Why  not  any  other  arbitrary  name  ?  That  which  I  have  described  was  the  origin  of  it.  When 
God  gave  the  word  it  was  wisely  given.  It  was  wisdom  itself.  Hence  again,  wisdom  was  the  first 
emanation  from  the  divine  power.  It  was  identified  with  the  word.  It  was  not  a  creation.  It 
was  an  emanation.  And  what  was  an  emanation  ?  No  one  knows.  Here  man  gets  out  of  his 
depth  :  and  whatever  he  might  do  before,  he  now  begins  to  talk  nonsense,  unless  he  avail  himself 
of  a  simile,  and  speak  of  an  emanation  as  a  ray  of  the  Sun. 

In  a  former  section  I  have  said,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer, 
arose  from  the  creating,  preserving,  and  destroying  powers  of  the  solar  ray.  This  was,  I  believe, 
the  origin  of  the  doctrine :  but  when  the  mind  of  man  improved,  and  he  discovered  that  the  sun 
was  a  creature,  not  a  creator,  he  was,  by  a  very  natural  process,  carried  up  to  another  being, 
from  whom  all  blessings  flowed,  the  Creator  of  the  Sun  itself,  and  of  whom  he  could  form  no 
idea  j  and  he  called  him,  perhaps  not  improperly,  Illusion  ;  for  the  moment  he  began  to  form  an 
idea  of  the  Creator,  like  a  phantom,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision,  it  vanished  away.  It  was 
Maia,  illusion.  2  But  to  this  unknown  Being  man  gave  the  attributes,  which,  in  the  first  instance, 
he  had  given  to  the  solar  ray,  and  he  gave  them  with  every  appearance  of  truth  and  justice — for 
we  all  know  that  our  Creator  is  our  Preserver,  and  that  destruction  is  creation  throughout  this 
our  world,  in  every  case  to  which  our  knowledge  extends.     From  this  sublime  doctrine  came 

1  Cudworth,  IntelL  Syst.  p.  326. 

*  Porphyry  says,  a  ring-dove  was  sacred  to  Maia,  who  is  the  same  as  Proserpine,  and  the  Goddess  Night,  and  is  at 
the  summit  of  the  intelligible  and  intellectual  order.    De  Abstin.  Lib.  iv.  Sect.  xvi. 

5x2 


804  GNOSTICS    CONTINUED. 

first  the  Father ;  secondly,  the  first-begotten  Son,  the  Logos,  Divine  Wisdom,  the  Saviour  • 
and  thirdly,  the  Epa>c,  the  Divine  Love,  the  Spirit  of  God,  under  the  emblem  of  the  mild  and 
affectionate  Dove,  the  type  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  passions.  The  passion  itself  is  closely 
allied  and  assimilates  to  the  character  of  the  Creator — the  spirit  of  God  though  destroying,  yet 
destroying  only  to  regenerate  and  restore  to  existence. l  Here  at  last  open  upon  us  views  of 
our  Creator  most  beneficent  and  profound :  hitherto  hidden  under  mythoses  and  incarnations, 
and  every  species  of  base  and  degrading  authropomorphism.  And  now  I  think  we  may  per- 
ceive two  creators,  preservers,  and  destroyers,  unceasingly  confounded  :  first,  the  immaterial 
Trinity,  a  Trinity  of  abstractions  or  attributes.  The  second,  the  Sun,  the  material  Trinity.  First, 
the  Father,  the  Logos,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  j  the  second,  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Seva — the  second, 
nothing  but  incarnations  of  the  first ;  the  second,  the  Sun  with  his  corporeal  properties  being  the 
object  of  vulgar  adoration — the  first,  the  Father,  Logos,  and  Holy  Ghost,  only  known  and  adored 
by  philosophers,  in  the  adyta  of  the  temples. 

With  most  of  the  ancient  philosophers  an  opinion  prevailed,  that  the  soul  of  man  was  a  portion 
of  the  universal  mind  ;  that  from  it  the  mind  of  man  emanated,  and  that  to  it,  ultimately,  it  would 
return.  From  this  very  refined  doctrine  arose  all  the  incarnations,  however  degrading.  A  portion 
of  the  universal  mind,  of  divine  wisdom,  of  the  protogonos,  became  instilled  into  a  human  being. 
Thus  it  is  evident  that  every  human  being  endowed  with  more  than  usual  wisdom,  talent,  or 
excellence,  might  not  inappropriately  be  said  to  exhibit  an  example  of  an  incarnation  of  the 
Divine  Mind,  or  of  a  portion  of  the  Divine  Mind.  Thus  he  was  of  two  natures — the  divine  and 
human  ;  as  the  first,  as  Divine  Wisdom,  he  was  7rpa)Toyovos,  the  first-born  Son  of  the  Father, 
into  whom,  at  his  death,  he  would  return.  In  these  refined  doctrines,  held  by  such  men  as  Plato, 
I  think  we  may  discover  a  Trinity,  neither  inconsistent  with  reason,  nor  incomprehensible,  like 
that  stated  by  Athanasius  and  others.  I 

In  Book  V.  it  was  observed,  that  there  were  thousands  of  incarnations.  This  was  because 
every  soul  or  mind  was  an  emanation  from  what  Plato  called  the  To  Ov  ;  thus  it  was  the  incar- 
nation of  a  part  of  the  To  Ov — an  emanation  from  the  To  Ov,  incarnate.  It  was  there  observed, 
that  Cristna  was  thought  to  be  something  more  than  a  common  incarnation.  This  opinion  was 
merely  sectarian.  Every  sect  thought  so  of  its  favourite  Avatar ;  though  it  did  not  deny  other 
sects  to  have  had  Avatars, — as  in  the  case  of  Mohamed. 

Thus  every  person  who  possessed  any  striking  superiority  of  mind  or  talent,  would  be  said  to 
be  inspired,  or  to  have  a  portion  of  the  Divine  Mind  incarnated  in  him  ;  and  this  accounts  for  the 
great  number  of  incarnations  both  among  the  Hindoos  and  Jews  j  for  some  of  the  Hindoos  say 
that  the  Supreme  has  been  incarnated  vast  numbers  of  times.  This  is  well  matched  by  the 
worthies  of  the  Jews,  who  have  either  been  born  miraculously,  or  translated  to  heaven,  or  in  some 
way  have  been  preternaturally  endowed.  Either  their  history  or  their  names  among  the  Jews 
shew  them ;  thus  Enoch,  Elijah,  Elisha,  &c.  And  it  was,  perhaps,  in  this  way,  that  Buddha 
and  Cristna,  who  were  merely  the  Sun,  were  confounded  with  the  minor  incarnations.  Then,  to 
what  do  all  the  incarnations  of  Buddha  at  last  amount  ?     Evidently  to  a  refined  Metaphysis — 


1  Jesus  Christ  says,  John  xii.  24,  "  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone:  but  if  it 
die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  And  Paul  in  allusion  to  the  esoteric  religion  says,  "  That  which  thou  sowest  is  not 
quickened  except  it  die ;  so  also  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  It  is  sown  in  corruption,  it  is  raised  in  incorruption." 
1  Cor.  xv.  36,  42.  Here  is  the  Metempsychosis.  Elias  was  thought  to  have  returned  again  in  the  person  of  Jesus. 
The  esoteric  doctrine  may  be  perceived  constantly,  but,  as  might  be  expected,  it  requires  close  attention  to  discover 
what  was  hidden  with  the  greatest  care.  The  Hindoo  doctrine  of  the  Metempsychosis  was  thought  by  ancient  Rabbis 
of  the  Jews  to  be  described  in  Genesis.  Dust  thou  art,  and  to  dust  thou  shall  return.  (Maur.  Hind.  Ant.  Vol  IV. 
p.  275)  Here  again  displaying  the  Hindoo  origin  of  Genesis. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IX.     SECTION  6.  805 

to  a  figure  of  speech,  an  allegory — but  an  allegory  in  its  foundation  true,  and  in  its  superstructure 
beautiful — the  Barasit  of  the  Cabala,  which  will  be  explained  hereafter. 

Plutarch,  in  the  treatise,  in  which  he  shews  that  pleasure  is  not  attainable,  according  to  Epi- 
curus, has  this  passage  :  "  When,  through  inspiration,  we  appear  to  approach  very  near  to  a 
"  divine  nature."1  The  incarnation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  not  unknown  to  the  ancient  Romans, 
as,  by  the  description  of  it,  it  may  be  found  attributed  to  them  and  the  ancient  Egyptians,  by 
Plutarch,  in  his  life  of  Numa.  The  following  is  the  answer  stated  by  Manetho,2  to  be  given  by 
the  Oracle  to  Sesostris  ;  and  whether  there  ever  was  a  Sesostris  or  not,  it  proves  that  the  doctrine 
existed  :  "  On  his  return  through  Africa  he  entered  the  sanctuary  of  the  Oracle,  sv  U7repr)<pa.via., 
"  saying,  Tell  me,  O  thou  strong  in  fire,  who  before  me  could  subjugate  all  things  ?  and  who  shall 
"  after  me  ?  But  the  Oracle  rebuked  him,  saying,  First,  God  ;  then,  the  Word  ;  and  with  them, 
"the  Spirit."3  Here  we  have  distinctly  enumerated  God,  the  Logos,  and  the  Spirit  or  Holy 
Ghost,  in  a  very  early  period,  long  previous  to  the  Christian  aera. 

I  expect  the  spirit  of  bigotry  will  excite  some  of  the  priests  to  represent  the  Trinity  here  dis- 
played as  horribly  wicked,  because  it  does  not  come  from  St.  Giovanni  Laterano  or  from  Lambeth. 
And  no  doubt  they  will  put  on  their  spectacles  to  discover  some  minute  differences  between  it 
and  their  Trinity  of  Incomprehensibles.4  But  I  would  fain  hope  that  the  liberal  part  of  Trini- 
tarian Christians  will  pay  no  attention  to  them,  as  the  two  systems  are  evidently  at  the  bottom 
the  same.  And  I  should  have  much  pleasure  if  I  could  entertain  hopes  that  it  would  (abandoning 
the  modern  doctrine  of  the  Atonement)  be  acceded  to  by  the  Unitarians ;  who  are  in  fact  a  society 
of  philosophers,  endeavouring  to  receive  as  much  of  the  orthodox  Christianity  as  their  enlightened 
understandings  will  permit  them.  I  hope  these  philosophers  will  not,  with  the  fanatics,  endeavour 
to  narrow  the  door  of  the  mansion  of  eternal  life,  but  will  endeavour  to  throw  it  open  as  wide  as 
possible.  The  mansion  is  large  and  has  room  for  all.  This  is  a  wish,  but  I  confess,  I  must  admit, 
that  it  amounts  not  to  an  expectation. 

6.  After  a  very  careful  consideration  I  feel  quite  satisfied,  that  the  doctrine  of  Plato,  of  Philo, 
and  of  Moses,  or  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  is  fundamentally  identical  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trimurti  of  India ;  but,  as  might  be  expected,  indeed,  as  it  must  necessarily  have  happened  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  case,  in  some  particulars  and  its  minor  details,  corrupted  or  changed.  But 
to  point  out  the  exact  particulars  in  which  they  differed,  in  their  minute  details  from  the  real 
original,  I  conceive  to  be  absolutely  impossible,  because  we  have  not  the  means  of  examining  both 
sides  of  the  arguments  used  in  the  disputes  which  arose  about  these  doctrines.  All  our  writers, 
and  the  authorities  from  whom  they  draw  their  materials,  are  partisans  ;  so  that  our  miscalled 
histories,  (miscalled  if  by  a  history  be  meant  an  impartial  account,)  are  not  to  be  relied  on.  I 
know  no  better  example  of  this  than  Enfield's  History  of  Philosophy.  The  partisan  is  visible 
in  almost  every  page. 

Mons.  Matter  has  given  an  account  of  the  Gnosticism  of  Philo.  Though  in  some  places  rather 
confused,  I  think  no  one  can  deny  its  identity  with  the  Eastern  doctrines  which  I  have  unfolded, 
and  with  the  first  chapter  of  John. 

L'j&tre  Supreme  est,  d'apres  Philon,  la  lumiere  primitive,  la  source  de  toute  autre  lumiere, 
1'  archetype  de  la  lumiere,  d'  ou  emanent  des  rayons  innombrables  qui  eclaireut  les  ames.  II  est 
Fame  du  monde,  et,  comme  telle,  il  agit  dans  toutes  ses  parties. 


'  Taylor's  Max.  Tyr.  p.  271.  i  Ap.  Malal.  Lib.  i.  Cap.  lv.  3  Nimrod,  Vol.  I.  p.  119. 

4  The  word  used  in  the  Athanasian  Creed. 


806  ST.   JOHN,    ST.   THOMAS. 

II  remplit  et  limite  lui-m6me  tout  son  etre :  ses  puissances  et  se  vertus  (aperou)  remplissent 
et  pene"trent  tout.  II  est  sans  commencement,  ayevvrirog ;  il  vit  dans  le  prototype  du  temps, 
aicov. 

Son  image  est  le  Aoyog,  forme  plus  brillante  que  le  feu,  ce  dernier  n'  e^ant  pas  la  lumiere  pure. 
Ce  Logos  demeure  en  Dieu  j  car  c'  est  dans  son  intelligence  que  1*  Etre  Supreme  se  fait  les  types 
ou  les  ide'es  de  tout  ce  que  doit  s'  executer  dans  le  monde.  Le  Logos  est  done  le  vehicule  par 
lequel  Dieu  agit  sur  1'  universe.     On  peut  le  comparer  a  la  parole  de  1'  homme. 

Le  Logos  etant  le  monde  des  ide'es,  le  xoo~[xog  voyrog,  au  moyen  duquel  Dieu  a  cree*  les  choses 
visibles,  il  est  le  ®sog  7rqe<rborspog  en  comparaison  du  monde,  qui  est  aussi  Dieu,  mais  un  Dieu 
de  creation,  &sog  veorspog.  Le  Logos,  comme  chef  des  intelligences,  dont  il  est  le  representant 
general,  est  nomine  archange  :  et  comme  type  et  representant  de  tous  les  esprits,  m£me  de  ceux 
des  mortels,  il  est  appele  P  homme  type  et  1' homme  primitif. 

Dieu  est  seul  sage:  toute  sagesse  emane  de  lui,  comme  de  sa  source  :  la  sagesse  humaine  n'est 
que  le  reflet,  1' image  de  la  sienne  :  ou  peut  appeler  sa  sagesse  la  mere  de  la  creation,  dont  Dieu 
est  le  pere.  II  s'  est  uni  avec  la  trofyia.  ou  la  science ;  mais  non  pas  a  la  maniere  des  hommes  : 
il  lui  a  communique"  le  germe  de  la  creation,  et  elle  a  enfante"  le  monde  material.1 

Here,  in  the  last  paragraph  is  very  clear  the  Wisdom  of  Genesis,  the  Buddha  of  India,  and  the 
Ap%?)  and  Logos  of  Plato,  Orpheus,  Zoroaster,  and  John. 

After  this,  in  page  66,  Matter  adds,  Dieu  crea  le  monde  ideal.  Ensuite  il  fit  realiser,  d'apres 
ce  type,  le  monde  material  par  son  Logos,  qui  est  sa  parole — that  is,  by  the  agency  of  the  Logos. 
Again,  Le  Logos  est  non-seulement  createur,  il  est  encore  le  lieutenant  de  I'  Etre  Supreme, 
e'est  par  lui  qu'agissent  toutes  les  puissances  ou  tous  les  attributs  de  Dieu. 

My  reader,  I  think,  will  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  why  Plato,  whose  doctrine  was  the 
same  as  that  of  Philo,  was  called  by  the  early  fathers  the  divine  Plato.  Of  the  monde  id£al  named 
above,  I  shall  presently  treat. 

7.  The  following  observations,  unwilling  observations  of  the  learned  Beausobre,  support  me  in 
my  opinion,  that  a  secret  and  mystical  meaning  was  intended  in  the  use  of  the  word  apx?} 
instead  of  the  word  irpoorog,  by  the  LXX  and  by  John,  on  many  occasions.  On  this  point  I 
think  we  may  safely  conclude,  that  the  whole  of  the  Gnostics  coincided  in  opinion  with  the 
Valentinians,  and  may  thus  be  added  to  the  very  weighty  authorities  which  I  have  before  given, 
that  the  word  JRasit  of  Genesis  meant  Wisdom.  Les  Valentiniens  n'  entendoient  pas  comme  nous 
les  premieres  paroles  de  St.  Jean :  selon  eux  FAp6tre  n'a  pas  dit,  (To  ev  apxy  t\v  6  "hoyog  .  .  . 
oi  owro  OucChevrive  eroog  exZe^ovrai.  app^v  yap  tov  pLovoyevrj  "heyscriv  .  .  .  tov  8s  "hoyov  tov  ev 
ry)  a.p%r)  TSTov  tov  sv  ra>  [xovoyevsi.  Eclog.  Theodot.  ap.  Clem.  Al.  No.  VI.)  que  la  parole 
e'toit  au  commencement,  mais  que  la  parole  4toit  dans  le  Principe.  Cette  explication  paroit  bizarre, 
absurde,  et  elle  m'a  paru  telle  a  moi-m£me,  avant  que  j'eu  eusse  reconnu  l'origine.  Je  ne  doute 
point,  qu'elle  ne  soit  fausse,  mais  on  ne  peut  la  traiter  d* absurde,  sans  condamner  celle  que  les 
peres  ont  donne*e  aux  premieres  paroles  de  la  Genesis.  Car  si  Moise  a  voulu  dire,  que  Dieu  a 
fait  le  Monde  par  le  Principe,  qui  est  son  Fils,  pourquoi  S.  Jean  n'auroit-il  pas  dit  aussi,  que  le 
Verhe  e'toit  dans  le  principe,  qui  est  son  Fils  unique  ?  II  est  evident  que  S.  Jean  imite  Moise. 
Si  done  le  Rasit  de  Moise  n'est  point  le  commencement,  mais  le  Principe  actif  de  toutes  choses, 


Matter  sur  les  Gnostiques,  Vol.  I.  p.  63. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IX.    SECTION  8.  807 

pourquoi  1*  arche  de  S.  Jean,  qui  a  la  m£me  signification,  ne  seroit-il  pas  aussi  le  Principe  et  non 
le  commencement  f    Voila,  si  je  ne  me  trompe,  l'origine  de  1' opinion  Valentinienne. ' 

Again,  in  another  place  M.  Beausobre  confirms  my  observation  that  Ap^>]  meant  more  than 
beginning  :  "  La  contradiction  ne  vient  peut-etre  que  de  1' equivoque  du  mot  Agp£»j  ou  Principe, 
"  que  les  uns  ont  pris  dans  un  sens  que  je  nommerai  Philosophique,  et  les  autres  dans  un  sens 
"Politique.  Dans  le  sens  Philosophique  Appgif,  Principe,2  signifie  un  £tre  eternal,  qui  a  eu 
"  lui-m£me  la  cause  de  son  existence,  et  qui  est  cause  que  d' autres  existent :  mais  dans  le  sens 
"  Politique,  Principe  veut  dire  un  6tre  qui  a  du  pouvoir  et  de  1*  autorite  sur  des  sujets  qu'  il  com- 
"  mande."3      Between  the  two  meanings  of  App^ij  here  is  a  fine  distinction. 

A  very  learned  and  excellent  friend,  one  of  the  priesthood,  in  Yorkshire,  once  warned  me 
against  drawing  any  consequences  from  the  word  App£?j,  a  word,  which,  he  said,  is  "  quite  clear 
"  and  perspicuous."  But  he  will  not  deny  that  this  word  was  the  Greek  fountain-head,  from 
which  all  the  streams  of  the  Gnostics  flowed — the  foundation  on  which  all  their  learned,  abstruse, 
and  ingenious  systems  were  built. 

The  Maia  of  India  is  correctly  the  Maia  of  Greece,  and  means  grandmother  or  first  mother,  Maia 
Ap%rj,  the  first  mother,  head  mother,  the  fountain  head — and  thus  it  became  the  chief  or  head, 
Acro-polis,  of  the  city — the  seat  or  residence  of  the  sacreds — the  place  where  the  Palladium  and 
Sibylline  oracles  were  deposited.  Ev  tt^Yj]  yv  '  Xoyoj,  xoli  '  T^oyog  t\v  vqag  rov  ®eov,  xcu  o 
®eo£  rjv  o  Xoyog .  Ovrog  r\v  ev  <*-pX$  irpog  rov  0sov.  Had  the  word  first  or  beginning  been  meant, 
7rp(orog,  as  I  have  before  observed,  would  have  been  used :  but  this  would  at  once  have  negatived 
and  overthrown  all  the  magnificent  and  beautiful  (however  defaced  in  later  times)  superstructure 
erected  on  this  word,  as  meaning  divine  wisdom.  Very  properly  was  the  book  containing  the 
exposition  of  this  word  called  Tevetrig,  from  the  word  Ttvopcu,  gignor,  nascor.  When  I  use  the 
terms  beautiful  and  magnificent  as  applied  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Gnostics,  I  beg  my  reader  to 
observe,  that  I  do  not  include  in  these  terms  the  nonsense  given  us  by  the  Greek  and  Latin 
fathers  for  their  doctrines.  Very  little  which  they  say  can  be  received.  We  know  very  little  of 
the  Gnostics  ;  but  the  little  we  really  do  know  is  beautiful. 

When  I  find  learned  men  believing  Genesis  literally,  which  the  ancients,  with  all  their  failings, 
had  too  much  sense  to  receive  except  allegorically,  I  am  tempted  to  doubt  the  reality  of  the 
improvement  of  the  human  mind.  What  says  the  celebrated  St.  Augustin  ?  "  That  there  is  no 
"  way  of  preserving  the  literal  sense  of  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  without  impiety,  and  attri- 
"  buting  things  to  God  unworthy  of  him."4  But  St.  Augustin  has  only  followed  the  learned 
Origen,  who  has  maintained  that  the  literal  sense  of  the  history  of  the  creation  in  Genesis  is 
absurd  and  contradictory,  and  in  this  opinion  M.  Beausobre  has  shewn  he  was  probably  supported 
by  St.  Basil  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa. 5 

8.  Long  had  I  despaired  of  finding  the  meaning  of  the  mysterious  John,  Joannes,  Jonas  three 


1  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  vi.  Chap.  i.  p.  291.  Apxn  scribitur  aut  pro  Apyn; :  aut  Hesychio  corruptura. 
Siracides,  Cap.  xi.  3,  exemplar  imposuit.    Perger.  Lex.  Hesychii. 

*  Ap%a$  I*  X£yoj!*£y  ha  tbto,  on  ovk  £?-»  Tl  vporepov,  e%  b  yevvarat.     Plut.  de  Plac.  Phil.  Cap.  ii.  p.  875. 

*  Beaus.  Hist.  Manich.  Liv.  iv.  Ch.  vi.  p.  89.  In  the  above-cited  passage,  Beausobre  is  speaking  of  Marcion,  who, 
I  have  no  doubt  whatever,  maintained  the  same  doctrine  of  the  Maia  Apxy— the  Trinity  and  Emanations  of  the  other 
Gnostics.    The  disputes  of  their  opponents  prove  it. 

*  De  Genes,  cont.  Manich.  Lib.  ii.  2,  ap.  Beausobre,  Hist.  Manich.  Vol.  I.  p.  285. 

*  Philocal.  p.  12,  ibid. 


808  ST.   JOHN,   ST.   THOMAS. 

days  buried  in  a  fish,  the  fish  Avatar  Vishnu,  or  Oannes  treading  on  the  head  of  the  serpent — bruising 
the  serpent's  head,  see  Fig.  32,  Janus  or  Jana,  Iona  or  Columba  having  the  same  name  as  Jehovah  Ii 
and  of  Jove,  the  Yoni,  the  opposite  of  the  Linga — the  sect  of  the  Jains  the  successors  of  Buddha 
John  the  Baptist,  John  who  should  live  till  Jesus  came  again,  Joannes,  Butta,  Deus,  the  Prestre 
Johannes, — persons  seemingly  so  difficult  to  reconcile  or  account  for — when  I  discovered  that  the 
old  Sanscrit  word  for  Wisdom  or  Tvmtrig  was  Jnana.  This  at  once  lets  in  a  flood  of  light  upon 
us, — gives  us  a  clue  to  all  the  mysterious  Johns.  It  is  no  difficult  matter  now,  to  see  what  was 
meant  by  John,  thought  to  be  a  second  Elias,  by  Baptism  communicating  the  ilJy  iune  or  dove  or 
divine  wisdom  (when  the  fire  was  kindled  in  the  water)  to  Jesus,  who  was  also  thought  to  be  a 
second  Elias, — to  Jesus  the  successor  or  (as  believed  by  the  Jews  the)  reincarnation  of  Elias, 
and  also  of  the  HWD  mse  or  Messiah  Moses — to  Oannes  or  Vish-nu  treading  on  the  serpent's  head. 
Hence  we  may  see  why  the  Ras  of  Abyssinia  was  called  not  only  Joannes,  but  also  Butta  and 
Deus ;  he  was  at  once  the  God,  Buddha,  and  Wisdom.  Like  the  Lama,  or  Lamb  of  Tibet,  he 
was  a  renewed  incarnation  of  Divine  Wisdom.  John  was  the  precursor  or  pre-possessor  of 
Divine  Wisdom ;  the  holy  inspiration  was  incarnate  in  him,  and  he  transmitted  it  to  Jesus.  It 
was  that  inspiration  which  Moses  transmitted  to  the  Savionr  Joshua  or  Jesus,  the  son  of  Nave, 
and  which  Elias  transmitted  to  Elisha  by  delivery  or  investiture  of  the  Pallium,  and  which  Mohamed 
left  with  his  cloak  to  Ali.  John  was  an  announcer  of  the  Saviour,  a  preparer  of  the  way,  a  fore- 
seer  or  fore-knower ;  hence  he  was  endowed  with  wisdom,  and  called  John. 

Georgius  mainstains  that  the  Tibetian  word,  which  he  renders  Gnios  in  Latin,  and  which  means 
Sapientia,  is  the  same  as  the  Tvaxrig  of  Greece,  and  Agnitio  in  Latin.  If  the  Gn  be  written  as 
the  Hebrew  letter  was  corrupted  in  Tibet,  it  will  be  V  o,  the  next  letter  will  be  »  i  or  yod,  and 
both  read  from  right  to  left  01  the  Deity  of  Wisdom.  In  the  same  way  the  Jnana  for  Wisdom 
in  the  Sanscrit,  is  Oana.  Here  we  have  the  Oanes.  We  must  not  forget  that  the  Pushto  or 
Syriac  is  the  dialect  of  Tibet,  where  IE  is  spelt  IO.  The  Gan-esa,  God  of  Wisdom,  of  India,  is 
Jan-esa,  Jan — the  Saviour.  The  Indian  Gnia  is  the  object  of  Wisdom  ;  Gnia  in  Irish  is  Wisdom. 
Gnia  is  also  a  tree,  synonymous  to  Feadh  or  Ved  also  a  tree. x  The  Gnia  is  evidently  Gnosis. 
Feadh,  or  Fiodh,  Foedh,  Fodh,  knowledge,  a  tree,  in  Sanscrit  Ved. 2 

It  is  a  very  striking  and  curious  circumstance  that  in  the  time  of  Banier  the  Christians  of  St. 
Thomas,  of  whom  I  have  so  largely  treated,  were  so  clearly  known  to  be  the  descendants  of  the 
Apostle  St.  Thomas,  that  they  were  called  the  Christians  of  St.  John  ! 3  Thus  we  have  those 
good  people  converted  by  Bartholomew,  Thomas,  and  John.  Now  I  believe  the  two  last  are  true. 
They  are  the  followers  of  the  Xpvjg-o^  or  Jnana  incarnate,  first  in  the  Twins  or  Tamuz,  then  in 
the  Bull,  then  in  the  Lamb,  then  in  the  Pisces  or  Comasene.  They  are  the  Mandaites  or  Nazou- 
reans  of  St.  John  of  the  East — of  the  coast  of  Cali  or  Core-manda-la.  They  were  the  Nazarenes 
or  Nasoureans  of  Carmel  of  the  Western  Syria,  and  the  Christians  of  St.  John. 

Nimrod,  amidst  an  immense  mass  of  nonsense,4  in  which  he  calls  those  silly  fellows  who  have 
not  all  his  advantages,  (such,  for  instance,  as  knowing  how  the  ghosts  of  the  dead,  at  this  day, 
move  from  place  to  place  by  passing  instead  of  walking,)  delivers  a  very  striking  opinion,  which 
shews  that  truth  will  sometimes  make  its  way  to  the  understandings  of  the  most  devoted  of 
devotees :  "  The  fanatical  votaries  of  king  Attila  the  Hun,  the  Christians  of  St.  Thomas  in  India, 
"  the  Stylite  Simeons,   the  apostate  Nestorians,  and  the  personage  called  Presbyter  Johannes, 


1  Vail.  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  IV.  Part  i.  pp.  81,  82.  *  lb.  p.  80. 

s  Tavernier's  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  74,  ed.  fol.  *  Volume  II.  p.  502. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER   VIII.   SECTION  8.  809 

"  appear  to  have  been  Manichsean  Buddhists.  The  worship  of  the  cross  was  coupled  with  that 
"  of  the  sword  and  of  fire ;  the  fiery  sword  being  cruciform."  I  do  not  doubt  that  this  sword 
was  the  cross.  It  was  the  Labarum.  It  might  be  a  sword  for  the  soldiers ;  it  was  a  cross, 
probably  a  crucifix,  for  the  initiated.  That  the  sects  above  named  were  Manichaean  Buddhists  I 
have  little  doubt :  but  they  were  also  Templars  and  Rossicrucians,  or  followers  of  the  eight-point 
Red  Cross,  or  Naazir,  or  Natzir-eans,  or  followers  of  the  United  Red  Cross  and  Rose  of  Sharon,  all 
the  same  under  different  names. 

What  could  induce  the  learned  Nimrod  to  suppose  the  Buddhists  Nestorians,  I  do  not  know  ; 
but  he  would  scarcely  have  made  the  assertion  without  reason,  and  it  agrees  very  well  with  the 
Buddhist  missions  to  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas,  &c,  &c.     I  have  no  doubt  that  he  was  right. 

The  Jains,  often  called  Jins,  are  admitted  to  be  a  sect  of  Buddhists.  I  suppose  they  took  their 
name  from  the  Sanscrit  word  Jnana,  knowledge  or  wisdom,  or  from  the  word  Gin  or  Jin,  which 
signifies  creating  spirit,  and  is  evidently  the  same  as  the  other — the  Buddha  or  Logos.  Thus  they 
are  followers  of  Jin  or  Jinistes  as  we  should  say. 

The  Jains  have  the  same  system  of  time  as  the  Brahmins.  They  divide  it  into  periods, 
which  have  been  succeeding  each  other  without  interruption,  as  Dubois  *  says,  for  the  sake  of 
making  them  Atheists,  from  eternity.  The  periods  are  divided  like  those  of  the  Brahmins  in  the 
proportion  of  4,  3,  2,  1  j  and,  as  usual,  disguised  under  millions  of  years.  They  hold  the 
existence  of  one  supreme,  invisible  Deity.  His  first  attribute  is  Ananta  Gnanam,  or  wisdom  infi- 
nite. This  Gnana  speaks  for  itself,  and  shews  us  that,  at  the  bottom,  the  Jains  are  precisely 
the  same  as  all  the  other  sects. 2 

We  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  admitted  fact,  that  the  Indians  have  as  many  sects  as  the 
Western  nations,  and  are  as  much  in  the  dark  respecting  the  origin  of  their  religions.  But  no 
person  can  observe  their  fine  astronomy  and  the  occasional  scraps  of  ancient  learning  which  are 
every  where  met  with,  and  doubt  that  they  have  had  an  ancient  system,  beautiful  and  refined, 
before  their  present  gross  idolatry  existed.  That  was  at  the  time  when  the  Abbe  Dubois  admits 
that  they  had  no  images. 3  If,  indeed,  it  were  not  for  the  hope  of  discovering  their  ancient  lore, 
their  present  nonsense,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  lately  given  to  the  world  by  Mr.  Akerman, 
on  the  Buddhists  of  Ceylon,  would  not  be  worthy  the  attention  of  any  man  of  common  sense 
for  a  single  moment.  Few  persons,  in  making  an  estimate  of  the  present  corrupt  state  of  religion 
in  India,  allow  enough  for  the  circumstance  of  the  country  having  been  for  thousands  of  years  a 
prey  to  civil  war  and  foreign  conquest. 

In  the  Ayeen  Akbery,  it  is  said,  that  the  first  fire  temple  was  built  by  a  man  very  famous  for  the 
austerity  of  his  manners,  called  Ma-hakmah.  Here  I  think  no  one  can  help  seeing  the  riDSn  hkme, 
or  wisdom  of  the  Hebrews  in  the  Sanscrit.4  There  is  a  country  of  Prester  John  in  Indian  Tar- 
tary.  This  is  nothing  but  the  Prestre  Jnana  or  John. 5  The  real  Prestre  John  is  probably  the 
Grand  Lama,6  and,  xar  e|o^ijv,  the  prestre— the  incarnation  of  Jnana  or  Wisdom. 

I  shall  again  be  told  that  this  is  very  mystical.  Indeed,  it  is  very  mystical,  just  as  much  so  as 
the  whole  character  of  John  the  Baptist  \  as  much  so  as  the  descent  of  the  Dove  upon  Jesus,  and 
the  fire  in  the  river ;  the  transfiguration ;  the  declaration,  that  while  John  decreased  Jesus 
increased ;  and  many  other  passages  in  the  Gospel  histories, — secret  doctrines  kept  by  the  priests 
from  the  people,  and  for  the  honest  explanation  of  which  to  them,  the  people  will  be  in  a  fury 
with  me. 


1  P.  557.  *  Dubois,  p.  552.  *  Part  iii.  Chap.  i. 

*  Vide  Vallancey's  Coll.  Hib.  Vol.  VI.  p.  135.  *  Marsden's  Marco  Paulo,  Ch.  liv.  n.  455.  6  lb.  p.  450. 

5  L 


810 


YES-DAN. — MYTHOS   IN   ASIA   MINOR. 


9.  In  the  Desatir,  which,  though  perhaps  in  some  places  corrupted,  is  a  very  ancient  book  of 
the  Persians,  the  Creator  is  called  Yesdan.  Here  we  have  the  THS,  608,  of  Martianus  Capella, 
and  the  word  Dan  or  dana  or  dani,  in  the  plural  Yesdanis.  In  Book  IX.  Chap.  VIII.  I  have 
shewn  that  all  the  sacred  rivers  had  the  name  of  Don  or  Adonis.  This  Adonis  is  the  Hebrew 
Adonai.  But  how  came  Adonis  to  be  called  Don  f  The  Don  is  the  Persian  Dan  of  the  word 
Yesdan,  and  means  Wisdom  or  Wise.  Thus  Adonai  is  used  for  the  Logos,  by  the  Jews,  instead  of 
fin*  ieue.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that,  generally,  when  the  names  of  God  in  the  different  lan- 
guages are  sifted  to  the  bottom,  the  Sun  or  the  idea  for  Wise-dom  is  found.  In  Yesdan  we  have 
Dan  the  Sun  Wisdom,  and  the  solar  Cycle  Yes,  608. 

From  the  meaning  of  the  word  Jnana,  which  is  evidently  the  same  as  John,  we  see  why  the 
chief  of  Abyssinia  was  called  by  the  words  Johannes,  Butta,  Deus,  and  Ras.  They  serve  admirably 
to  explain  one  another.  In  Persia,  as  it  has  been  observed,  the  chief  of  the  state  is  called  Sophi. 
This  is  evidently  the  Greek  %o<$>ia.,  and  is  the  same  word  as  the  name  given  by  the  Simonians 
to  their  object  of  worship,  which  they  called  by  the  two  words  Sophia  and  Achamoth.  These 
are  nothing  but  the  same  word  for  wisdom  in  Greek  and  Hebrew,  and  the  Samaritan  nniNDpi 
bqmaute,  the  first  word  of  Genesis. l 

Stanley2  says,  the  Chaldaeans  were  called  Ashaphim.  I  can  see  in  this  nothing  but  the  plural 
of  the  Sophi  of  Persia  preceded  by  the  emphatic  article.  It  is  the  Arabic  Sha])houn.  It  is  an 
example  of  a  Hebrew  or  Chaldee  word  to  us  lost.  It  is  the  plural,  perhaps  of  the  word  did  sup, 
(the  name  of  the  Red  Sea,  which  is  called  sup  or  weedy,  because,  as  I  have  said  before,  it  grows  no 
weeds, 3  and  red  or  Erythrcean  because  it  is  green  I)     Then  Ashaphim  will  mean  the  wise  men. 

10.     If  my  reader  look  back  to  Book  IX.  Chap.  X.,  he  will  find  a  prophecy  by  Apollo,  of 
Miletus,   of  a  divine  incarnation  crucified  by  Chaldaean  judges.     They  were  the  Chaldaeans  of 
Colida.     The  mythos  is  that  described  in  this  country  by  the  Jesuits.     It  was  the  crucifixion 
of  Crisen    and  Salivahana  and  St.   Thomas,   of  the  Christians  of  Crisen.      There   is   opposite 
to  Rhodes,  near  to  Miletus,  a  Aj/wjv  Xpjca,  Portus  Cresso  :  this  shews  the  Christian  mythos. 
After  this  we  can  scarcely  doubt  the  meaning  of  the  name  of  the  town  of  Jasus,   which  is  not  far 
from  Miletus.     There  is  also  a  place  called  Calinda,  which  I  suppose  is  a  Colida.     Not  far  from 
one  of  the  places  called  Ephesus,  in  Asia  Minor,  there  is  a  river  called  Indus,  near  a  port  called 
Cressa.     Here  there  were  a  Telmessus,  and  a  Termissus,  at  the  foot  of  which  was  a  Solyma,  in  a 
district  called  Caballa,  4  and  a  Carmylessus,  also  a  place  called  Callidua. 5      This  is  Callida. 
Not  far  distant  is  a  Calymna  or  Calmina.     This  is  clearly  Calamina,  the  name  of  the  Indian  St. 
Thome\     On  the  same  coast  there  are  Panionium,  and  a  mount  Chalcis,  and  the  island  Chalcia ; 
also,  a  little  inland,  a  Tripolis,  and  Thyatira,  called  Ak-Hisar — that  may  be,  Akni-JLsar,  wisdom  of 
Ccesar.   There  are  also  the  island  of  Argiae,  and  Erythraea,  Nyssa,  Phoenix,  Larissa,  Malea,  and,  in 
the  island  of  Chios,  a  Delphin.     In  short,  here  is  all  the  mythos  both  of  Thrace  and  Cape  Co- 
morin.     And  the  whole  of  it  is  in  the   country  known  to  the  Indians  by  the  name  Roum — the 
country  where   Troy  stood,    and   from  which  the   Romans    obtained  their  Pessinuncian  stone. 
The  Erythraea,  the  Solyma  under  Termissus,  in  Pan-Ionia  of  Asia  Minor,  its  Ararat  in  Phrygia, 
the  source  of  its  river,  with  its  twelve  provinces,  whose  inhabitants  all  came  to  worship  at  one 
temple — (probably  Di-jana,  Di-Iana  at  Ephesus — Qu.  Div-Ioni,  Div  of  Ionia  ?)  the  Pandaea  of 
Athens,  with  its  twelve  kings,  &c,  which  I  consider  as  a  part  of  Thrace,  where  we  found  the 
widows  sacrificed,  &c,  and  the  Pandaea  of  North  India,  with  its  Solyma  in  Cashmere,  &c,  and 


»  Matter,  Vol.  II.  p.  407.  8  Chal.  Phil.  Ch.  iv.  ■  Vide  Shaw's  Travels. 

4  D'Anville.  *  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxvii.  xxviii. 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  IX.    SECTION  11.  811 

the  Pandoea,  and  Salem,  and  Tripoly,  &c,  of  Cape  Comorin,  I  consider  of  nearly  the  same  date. 
There  are  also  a  lake  of  Sinda  and  river  Indus,  and  a  Myndus  and  a  Palaemyndus.  I  can  make 
of  these  nothing  but  the  Mundus  and  the  Paloe-si-mundus  of  South  India.  Also,  a  town  and 
district  called  Alabanda,  (like  the  Nau-banda  of  India,)  and  a  river  Chrysorrhoa.  *  In  Asia 
Minor,  not  far  from  Soluma  and  Cabala,  there  are  a  promontory  of  Cholidonia  and  Insula?  Chali- 
donias,  and,  at  some  distance,  on  the  same  coast  a  Chalcis  j  when  I  reflect  upon  the  Cullidei  or 
Chaldei,  and  the  island  of  Columbo  or  Iona,  &c,  in  Scotland,  I  cannot  doubt  whence  its  name  of 
Caledonia  was  derived.  Caledonia  was  the  sacred  name  of  the  country  of  the  Callidei,  their 
common  names  Scots  and  Picts. 2  This  was  the  country  of  Miletus,  whence  General  Vallancey 
found  from  the  Irish  records  that  they  and  the  Scots  came,  for  stating  which  he  only  got 
laughed  at.  How  can  any  thing  be  more  striking  than  the  two  Caledonias  ?  I  am  surprised  the 
General  overlooked  this. 

11.  The  first  word  in  Genesis  of  the  Samaritans  is  3CA  "K/e-^iV  9 

nrna  »pn 
ETUAMQB 

as  given  in  Drummond  and  Walton.  In  the  nfilNOpa  b-qmaut-e  of  the  Samaritans  we  have  most 
clearly  the  niODn-2  b-hkmut  or  by  wisdoms  of  the  Jews,  or  the  nDDP?  hkme,  wisdom,  in  the  plural 
number,  only  a  little  corrupted,  and  with  the  definite  or  emphatic  article  placed,  as  is  very 
common  in  the  oriental  languages,  at  the  end  instead  of  the  beginning  of  the  word  ;  and  herein  is 
an  additional  proof,  if  it  were  wanting,  of  the  truth  of  my  theory  of  the  first  word  of  Genesis. 
In  defiance  of  any  quibbling  about  the  Koph  in  the  Samaritan  instead  of  the  Heth  and  Caph,  I 
must  say  I  cannot  conceive  how  any  candid  Hebrew  scholar  can  deny  this.  But  this  most  ancient 
of  the  Versions  removes  all  doubt,  as  to  which  of  the  meanings  Wisdom  or  Beginning  ought  to  be 
adopted.  Simon  Magus  was  a  Samaritan,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Gnostic  doctrines  are 
more  apparent  among  the  Samaritan  heretics  than  among  those  of  the  Jews,  which  is  what  we 
might  well  expect,  from  the  first  word  of  their  Genesis. 

The  rendering  of  this  word  by  the  Chaldee  Targum  of  Onkelos  is  very  peculiar,  and  deserving 
of  a  little  more  consideration.  The  word  is  |>D*Tp2  b-qdmin ;  the  root  is  Cznp  qdm  ;  and  it  is  a 
noun  in  the  plural  number.  I  believe  it  may  mean  by  the  solar  powers,  as  we  should  scarcely  like 
to  say  by  the  suns,  Qnp  qdm,  meaning  East  or  Sun.  And  we  cannot  render  the  term  by  firsts, 
if  we  would  wish  to  go  to  the  sense  of  first.  Besides,  if  it  had  meant  the  adverb  formerly,  it 
would  have  been  Q*rp  qdm,  not  the  noun  plural,  J'DTp  qdmin.  But  why  has  not  Parkhurst  noticed 
this  rendering  of  the  Targum  ?  I  answer,  for  the  same  reason  that  he  has  not  noticed  the  meaning 
given  to  the  word  Rus,  of  the  Jewish  Genesis,  by  the  authorities  I  have  quoted  for  the  considera- 
tion of  the  reader.  Though  Q*rp  qdm  has  not  the  meaning  of  Sun  given  to  it  by  Parkhurst,  yet  I 
think  several  examples  might  be  shewn  where  it  must  mean  sun  and  not  eastern.  At  all  events, 
we  may  be  very  certain  that,  if  the  rendering  of  Beginning  could  have  been  supported,  Parkhurst 
would  have  given  it. 

12.  The  Jews  have  in  their  Cabala  a  being  called  Adam  Cadmon.  The  word  Cadmon  they  do 
not  understand,  but  they  make  him  a  secondary  being,  formed  by  the  Supreme  Being  to  make  the 
world.  It  is  evidently  the  ytytp  qdmin  of  the  Targums  just  treated  of,  which,  in  the  singular 
number,  is  t31p  qdm.  The  Jews  know  as  little  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  Adam — making  it  to 
mean  red  ;  but  in  the  Sanscrit  I  am  told  that  its  meaning  is  first ;  Adam  Cadmon,  then,  will  be 


•  Plin.  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xxix.  *  Consult  Lingard's  History  of  England,  Vol.  I.  p.  54. 

5l2 


812  WISDOM    IN    GREECE   AND    EGYPT. 

the  first  first,  which  is  nonsense  ;  therefore  we  must  go,  I  think,  to  my  explanation  for  the  Cad- 
mon  just  now  given.    As  the  words  rasit  and  arche  had  several  meanings,  so  had  the  word  Adam: 
it  meant  man  and  in  the  Sanscrit  it  meant  first,  and  in  the  Ethiopic  it  meant  beautiful — all  applied 
to    the   Adam    of   Genesis— differences   naturally   arising   from   distance   of  place   and  lapse  of 
time. 

We  constantly  read  in  the  Gospel  histories  of  denunciations  by  Jesus  Christ  against  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  Pharisees,  by  which  they  made  the  word  of  God  of  no  avail.  The  real  traditions  to 
which  he  is  meant  by  the  text  to  have  alluded,  were  those  which  were  afterwards  collected  and  made 
into  what  was  called  the  Mishna  and  Gemara,  and  collectively  the  Talmud — chiefly  a  collection  like 
our  Term  reports  of  adjudged  cases — by  which  decisions  and  forced  explanations  of  almost  every 
point  of  their  law  were  made,  I  doubt  not,  as  Jesus  Christ  said,  to  its  utter  subversion.  But  this 
our  learned  divines  know  very  well  was  not  what  was  meant  by  the  Jewish  Cabala,  or  at  least  (I 
care  not  about  the  term)  by  the  esoteric  religion,  which  was,  in  its  first  principles,  common  both 
to  Jews  and  Samaritans.  The  latter,  however,  had,  of  course,  nothing  to  do  with  the  Mishna  or 
Gemara.  But  the  word  noDTJ  hknte  of  the  Jerusalem  Targum,  and  the  qmut  used  in  the  Samaritan 
first  verse  of  Genesis,  serve  as  a  key  to  all  the  esoteric  religions  of  the  world.  The  Samaritans, 
as  we  have  seen,  and  as  might  be  expected,  utterly  rejected  what  were  commonly  called  the 
Traditions';  that  is,  the  judgments  in  Jewish  law-suits  :  but  they  did  not  reject  the  secret 
meaning  of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  which  carries  with  it  the  Hindoo,  Gnostic,  and  Manichaean 
doctrines  of  emanations.  It  was  to  conceal  this  fact,  that  the  Lexicographers  have  concealed  the 
most  important  of  the  meanings  of  the  word  Ras.  This  is  not  of  little  importance,  because  it 
completes  the  proof  of  the  ancient  nature  of  the  Triune  God,  which  was  in  reality  the  foundation 
on  which  all  the  mythoses  of  the  world  were  built. 

13.  Perhaps  my  reader  may  think  that  I  have  introduced  him  to  a  science  sufficiently  recondite; 
but,  nevertheless,  I  must  carry  him  a  little  higher — to  a  mystery  still  more  profound.  When  we 
reflect  upon  the  identity  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrines  of  Plato,  of  Orpheus,  or  the  Indian  or  Sindi 
Orpheans  of  Thrace,  and  on  the  Trimurti  of  the  Indians,  and  on  the  Trinitarian  explanation 
which  I  have  given  of  the  word  Aleim,  of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  we  cannot  deny  the  justness 
of  the  observation  of  Xumenius,  the  Platonician,  that  Plato  was  but  Moses  speaking  Greek,  which 
will  be  greatly  strengthened  by  what  I  shall  now  develop. 

Although  we  have  found  in  Egypt  the  Goddess  Ninth,  or  their  Minerva,  the  JTat  of  North 
India ;  yet  we  have  not  found  the  Ras  or  Wisdom  so  marked  as  in  most  other  countries :  but, 
nevertheless,  it  was  really  there,  as  we  might  expect.  Plutarch  says,  that  Isis  means  Wisdom  ;* 
that  her  temple  is  called  Iseion  :  alluding  to  that  knowledge  of  the  Eternal  and  Self-existent 
Being  which  may  be  there  obtained.  Again,  in  Section  3,  she  is  said  to  be  no  other  than  Wisdom, 
the  2o£<a  and  the  Mt,t/£  of  Greece,  which  is  repeated  in  Section  60.  She  is  also  called 
Athena,2  which  we  have  formerly  seen  was  the  same  as  Helena,  and  meant  Wisdom; — in  fact, 
Athena  is  only  the  reverse  way  of  reading  the  word  Xeithe  a  little  transposed.  Plutarch  adds 
that  Plato  asserts,  that  knowledge,  wisdom,  understanding,  had  their  names  in  the  Greek  language 
originally  from  a  word  having  the  same  signification  as  Isis.  But  if  Isis  were  Wisdom,  Wisdom 
was  the  Logos  or  Saviour,  and  then  my  derivation  of  Isis  from  ya»*  iso,  to  save,  is  very  appropriate. 
Again  3  he  observes,  that  Isis  is  frequently  called  by  the  Egyptians  Athena,  signifying,  in  their 
language,  I  proceeded  from  myself     In  the  same  section  he  says,  that  Typho  is  called  Seth.     In 


1  Squire's  Trans,  de  Is.  et  Osir.,  Sect.  2.  ■  Sect.  62.  ■  lb. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IX.    SECTION  14.  813 

section  9  he  says,  that  Isis  is  called  Minerva. l  We  must  also  observe  that,  if  Plutarch  be  right, 
the  word  Soviet  was  not  Greek.  As  we  have  found  this  word  in  use  among  the  Chaldeans,  the 
Persians,  and  the  Arabians,  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  this  remark  of  Plutarch's.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  names  Isis  of  Egypt  and  Isi  of  India,  were  derived  from  the  word  of  the  ancient 
language  w>  iso,  to  save,  and  meant  Saviour,  and  consequently  Logos  as  the  Saviour :  yet,  as  the 
Logos,  according  to  my  system,  it  ought  to  mean  Wisdom,  as  we  have  every  where  seen  the 
Logos  to  mean  Wisdom,  and  this  it  did,  as  I  have  just  shewn. 

14.  The  Brahmins  maintain  that  time  does  not  exist  with  God.2  Then  what  we  call  time  must 
be  created,  or  called,  or  produced  into  a  new  existence.  And  as  it  is  certainly  a  thing,  an 
existence,  or  ens,  of  the  very  first  importance,  why  have  we  not  heard  of  it  before  ?  The  ancients 
cannot  have  overlooked  it.  This  will  never  be  believed  :  then  where  is  it  in  their  histories  ?  I 
ask,  is  it  not  hidden  under  the  nn  ruh,  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity, — the  destroyer, — with  its 
emblem,  the  Cobra,  having  its  tail  in  its  mouth  ?  Every  thing  which  can  be  predicated  of  the 
destroyer,  both  as  destroyer  and  regenerator,  can  be  predicated  of  time,  past  and  future.  Of  this, 
deep  reflection  will  satisfy  any  one  who  will  use  it.  Then  I  see  no  other  way  of  accounting 
for  the  absence  of  all  notice  of  Time,  than  by  supposing  it  a  part  of  the  secret  doctrine.  Euripides 
says, 

FloXXa  yap  -nxTtt 
Moipa  TtXeoriCiuTtip' 
hioiv  T£  Kpavts  rai{.' 

"  Fate  that  bringeth  the  end  of  things,  and  JEon  (or  an  age)  the  son  of  Saturn  produce  many 
"  strange  events."  Saturn  was  the  father  of  Jupiter  as  Time.4  Seva,  of  India,  the  destroyer, 
was  clearly  Saturn  or  Time.  In  the  early  periods  of  the  world,  man  was  believed  to  have  been 
in  a  state  of  innocence  and  simplicity,  and  consequently  of  happiness.  This  was  the  reason  why 
those  times  were  called  Saturnian,  as  Saturn  meant  time  past  as  well  as  time  future :  and  as  we 
have  found  the  same  mythos  in  Guzerat,  Syrastrene,  and  Pallitani,  as  we  have  found  in  Italy,  we 
find  in  each  the  same  Satrun-ja  or  Saturn- ia. 

From  the  intimate  union,  perhaps  I  might  say  identification,  of  cycles  with  the  first  igneous 
hydrogenous  emanation,  visible  to  us  in  the  Sun,  I  think  Time  was  not  supposed  to  exist  previous 
to  the  Sun's  existence — they  were  supposed  to  be  contemporaneous — and  it  was  thought  that  the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future,  had  no  existence  with  reference  to  the  To  Ov.  I  believe  that 
Time  and  Space  were  considered  but  as  properties  or  qualities  of  the  first  emanation, — that  with 
it  they  existed,  and,  with  their  absorption  into  the  To  Ov,  they  would  cease  to  exist.  This  doctrine 
is  of  all  others  the  most  refined.  From  the  narrow  limits  of  our  faculties  we  can  form  no  idea  of 
the  non-existence  of  time  or  space.  I  believe  we  can  form  no  idea  of  the  state  of  the  Supreme 
Being  except  it  be  in  a  state  of  actual  rest,  or  of  moving  to  form  or  reform.  In  like  manner, 
in  our  present  weakness  of  understanding,  we  can  have  no  idea  of  happiness,  except  as  compared 
with  its  correlative,  misery.  God  may,  in  some  other  world,  cause  beings  to  exist  in  some  other 
way ;  but  if  he  cause  man,  he  must  cause  him  as  he  is,  or  he  will  not  be  man,  and  happiness  and 
unhappiness,  like  substance  and  shadow,  must  go  together,  and  go  along  with  him.  When  Mr. 
Schegel  says  that  nothing  can  be  more  opposed  to  each  other  than  Pantheism  and  Emanation,  I 


1  For  IsU,  see  Drummond  on  Punic  Inscription. 

»  Aaiat.  Res.  Vol.  II.  p.  115.  '  Heraclid.  900.  4  Cudwortb,  Book  i.  Ch.  iv.  p.  485. 


814  To  Ov. 

quite  disagree  with  him.1  When  we  get  to  the  foundation  of  the  two,  nothing  can  be  more  easy 
than  to  reconcile  them.  No  doubt,  among  the  theorising  philosophers  of  India,  doctrines  of 
Pantheism  and  Emanations,  like  those  described  by  Mr.  Schegel,  will  be  found  j  for  what  is  there 
that  is  absurd  or  wise  in  nature,  which  is  not  to  be  found  among  them  ?  But  if  the  fundamental 
and  refined  principle  have  been  lost  or  corrupted  in  the  debasement  which  took  place  in  later 
times  in  the  human  intellect  in  India, — if  the  real,  secret,  refined  doctrine  along  with  all  the 
sciences,  have  been  lost,  this  does  not  change  its  nature  or  prove  that  it  did  not  exist. 

15.  We  will  now  try  to  penetrate  into  the  Sanctum  Sanctorum  of  the  ancient  philosophers  of 
India,  Egypt,  Syria,  and  Greece  j  the  highest  and  the  most  important  part  of  whose  philosophy 
was  a  knowledge  of  the  Uaryp  ayvaxrTog,  called  by  Plato  To  Ov,  whom  no  person  has  seen 
except  the  son2  — the  Krai/  into  which  at  last  all  nature  was  to  be  resolved.  The  knowledge  of 
this  Being,  (so  clearly  marked  in  the  words  of  Jesus,)  which  I  now  proceed  to  exhibit  to  my  reader, 
is  named  or  mystically  alluded  to  in  almost  every  page  of  the  Gospel  histories  j  which  might,  not 
improperly,  be  called  histories  of  the  parables  of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  all  the  histories  of  the  early  Christians,  called  by  the  Paulites  of  Rome  or  Papists  heretics, 
we  read  that  they  held  the  doctrine,  that  the  God  of  the  Jews  was  not  the  Great  God,  but  only  a 
Daemon  or  Angel.  We  shall  now  see  the  origin  of  this  doctrine,  which  has  always  been  men- 
tioned by  Lardner  and  others  in  such  a  manner  as  completely  to  deceive  their  readers — themselves, 
probably,  not  seeing  the  nature  of  it :  and  in  the  explanation  will  be  evident  the  secret  doctrine  of 
the  Aleim  and  Rasit,  as  I  have  expounded  them  in  Book  II.  Chap.  III.  And  the  injustice  will 
be  apparent  which  has  been  done  to  the  sages  of  antiquity,  in  supposing  that  they  could  entertain 
a  belief  only  fit  for  minds  enfeebled  by  a  modern  education,  that  the  book  of  Genesis  was  to  be 
understood  literally. 

The  first  and  most  profound  secret  of  the  Cabala  or  Gnosis  was  the  knowledge  of  the  real 
Cosmogomy  of  the  universe,  as  held  by  these  philosophers.  At  the  head  of  all  beings  and  their 
works,  the  ancient  Gnostics  or  Sophees  placed  a  certain  person  called  Mia.  Ap^  ;  also  called 
Uurrjf)  oXcov,  TLarrip  ayvoog-og,  AxoLTOVo^a^og.  This  name,  mia  arche,  Mons.  Matter3  justly 
says,  "  Nous  rencontrons  dans  tous  les  systemes  Gnostiques,  et  en  general  dans  toutes  les  doctrines 
"  de  V  ancien  monde,  dans  V  hide  comme  en  Perse.  Tout  est  emane'  de  cet  etre,  tout  doit  rentrer 
"  un  jour  dans  son  sein." 

This  rsarrip  ayvaxrros  has  been  said  to  dwell  en  profunditate',  in  the  Bythos,  or  Bu5o£,  or 
Bafluc,  in  profound  darkness.  This  was  because  the  sun  and  light  itself,  as  well  as  all  other 
matter,  was  supposed  to  emanate  from  him.  Supposing  that  he  was  thought  to  be  light  itself, 
yet  still  the  light  was  thought  to  dwell  in  darkness.  If  I  be  asked  to  explain  how  this  could  be, 
I  answer,  It  is  illusion,  or,  in  other  words,  it  is  above  the  human  understanding — it  is  the  Illusion 
of  India. 

But  before  I  proceed,  I  must  make  an  observation  upon  the  ancient  Pantheism.  Every  person, 
who  has  reflected  upon  this  subject,  knows  very  well  the  impossibility  of  forming  an  idea  of  the 
mode  in  which  mind  or  spirit  brings  matter  into  existence,  if  ever  it  bring  it  ifto  existence  at  all. 
The  term  generation  is  but  a  figurative  expression,  used  to  describe  an  idea  which  a  person  does 
not  really  possess,  whatever  he  may  fancy — of  the  destruction  of  matter  man  is  equally  ignorant. 
The  result  of  deep  and  profound  reflection  upon  these  points  produced  the  doctrine  of  Pantheistic 
emanation.    Men  supposed  that  matter  emanated  or  flowed  from  the  Deity,  like  rays  from  the 


Pritchard.  «  Gospel  History.  s  Hist.  Gnost.  Vol.  II.  p.  266. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   IX.    SECTION    15.  815 

sun,  eternally  flowing  from  a  never-failing  spring,  and  perhaps  that  all  matter  consisted  of  rays  of 
light  or  fire  in  different  combinations,  or  under  different  circumstances. 

When  the  ancient  philosopher  reflected  deeply  upon  what  he  saw  constantly  going  on  around 
him  in  the  great  laboratory  of  nature,  he  could  not  help  perceiving,  that  by  one  process  or  other 
every  substance  was  capable  of  being  resolved,  and  was  in  fact  constantly  resolving,  into  an 
invisible,  impalpable  fluid.  As  this  fluid  was  too  refined  to  be  subject  to  any  of  his  senses,  of 
course  he  could  form  no  idea  of  it ;  but  yet,  reasoning  from  analogy,  he  was  induced  to  believe 
in  its  existence.  The  fluid  here  spoken  of  was  called  an  ethereal  or  a  spiritual  fire,  !  and  I 
suppose  more  nearly  answers  to  the  Galvanic,  or  Electric,  or  Magnetic  fluid  than  to  any  thing 
with  which  I  am  acquainted.  When  matter  was  reduced  back  again  by  igneous  purification,  or, 
in  other  words,  when  matter  was  resolved  into  this  invisible  fire  as  it  had  originally  flowed  or 
emanated  from  the  first  To  Ov  it  approximated  to,  perhaps  arrived  at,  a  state  to  be  ready  for 
re-absorption  into  the  first  To  Ov  again.  Thus  when  re-absorbed,  all  nature  was  God,  as  God  had 
been  all  nature  previous  to  the  emanation.  And  what  was  the  To  Ov  ?  A  Point,  the  centre 
of  a  circle  whose  circumference  is  no  where,  and  its  centre  every  where  j  Illusion  of  which  our 
senses  cannot  lay  hold. 

We  have  here  the  Pantheism,  the  grossness  of  which,  more  or  less  misrepresented,  serves  to 
horrify  those  priests  who  teach  literally  what  the  words  literally  express,  that  the  To  Ov  walked 
in  the  garden,  or  strove  to  kill  Moses  at  an  inn,  but  failed.  This  is  the  Indian  doctrine,  which 
its  professors  call  illusion— an  expression  which  appears  to  me  to  be  beautifully  characteristic  : 
for  when,  step  by  step,  we  arrive  at  last  at  this  point,  every  thing  appears  to  slip  from  under 
us,  or  to  pass  away  into  nothing — because  the  subject  is  beyond  the  reach  of  our  senses.  And 
now  we  may  see  what  these  ancient  philosophers  meant  by  their  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  matter* 
for  when  it  was  absorbed  into  the  To  Ov,  how  could  it  be  any  thing  but  eternal  ?  By  being 
absorbed,  it  was  not  supposed  to  be  destroyed.  I  need  not  point  out  how  admirably  this  eluci- 
dates the  doctrines  of  Ammonius,  that  all  the  sects  of  philosophy,  including  the  Christian  were  at 
the  bottom  the  same,  and  originated  from  one  and  the  same  source. 

I  think  much  of  the  objection  to  the  doctrine  that  ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit  has  arisen  from  the  meaning 
of  the  word  nihil  or  nothing  being  misunderstood.  According  to  the  doctrine  of  emanation,  I 
think  it  is  not  absurd.  If  I  possess  an  idea  of  emanation,  and  do  not  deceive  myself,  it  follows 
from  that  doctrine,  because  all  existences  emanate  from  the  To  Ov  and  re-immerge  into  it,  and 
it  always  exists ;  therefore,  matter  or  existences  will  always  exist,  and  without  the  To  Ov 
cannot  exist.2  As  the  To  Ov  cannot  but  exist,  matter  cannot  but  exist;  for  it  will  always  exist, 
either  as  an  emanation,  or  in  the  To  Ov. 

As  every  being  was  an  emanation,  and  would  ultimately  be  re-absorbed  into  the  To  Ov, 
so  every  being  was  a  part  of  the  To  Ov  ;  and  on  this  principle  the  adoration  of  animals  was 
attempted  to  be  excused.  On  this  principle,  also,  we  find  the  inferior  emanations,  the  Trinity, 
or  its  Persons,  receiving  epithets,  in  strictness  applicable  only  to  the  To  Ov.  For  instance  I 
am  Alpha  and  Omega.     And  under  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  IlarTjp  ayvaxrros,  concealed 


•  Unmeaning  words  as  here  applied,  because  applied  to  no  idea,  man  having,  in  fact,  no  idea  of  this  fire-too 
refined  to  be  cognizable  by  his  senses. 

»  This  has  been  well  explained  by  Thomas  Burnet,  in  his  Arch.  Phil.  Ch.  vii.,  and  shewn  to  be  the  doctrine  of  the 
Orientals,  and  of  the  Cabala  or  tradition  of  the  Jews,  and  of  the  Essenes,  who,  he  observes,  according  to  Philo  had 
their  knowledge  from  the  Brahmins.  ' 


816  To  Ov. 

every  where,  a  studied  mysticism  is  observable,  which  can  in  no  other  way  be  accounted  for. 
This  was  an  effect  which  must  necessarily  have  followed  the  concealment  of  the  First  Cause 
from  inquiring  but  uninitiated  philosophers,  if  the  secret  of  initiation  were  to  be  preserved. 

Mr.  Mosheim  has  judiciously  observed,  that  in  Philo  passages  in  direct  contradiction  to  each 
other  may  be  found,  for  the  evident  purpose  of  concealment. x  As  he  was  confessedly  of  the 
school  of  Plato,  which  used  this  practice,  as  I  have  shewn  in  my  first  Book,  it  is  what  might  be 
expected,  and  serves  to  account  for  various  difficulties,  otherwise  unintelligible.  It  was  for  the 
purpose  of  concealing  his  system  that  Plato  adopted  the  practice  of  maintaining  doctrines  in  direct 
contradiction  to  each  other ;  and  thus  he  furnished  plausible  grounds  for  misrepresentations  by 
his  enemies,  as  the  initiated  only  could  understand  him.  It  is  to  a  want  of  knowledge  of  this 
principle  or  practice  of  Plato's  that  many  of  the  difficulties  in  his  works  are  to  be  attributed. 
Let  this  be  kept  in  remembrance  by  his  reader,  and  they  will  instantly  disappear.  But  the 
practice  is  admitted  by  his  commentators.  So  completely  confused  is  his  Timseus,  that  the 
learned  translator,  Mr.  Taylor,  of  the  work  upon  it  by  Proclus,  in  order  to  make  sense  of  it,  is 
obliged  to  propose  1200  emendations  of  the  text.  Without  meaning  any  reflection  on  my  learned 
and  excellent  friend  Mr.  Taylor,  I  must  observe,  that,  as  we  know  he  had  a  system  to  support, 
and  that  he  is  not  exempt  from  human  frailty,  we  cannot  safely  admit,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that 
his  translation  and  amended  version  is  not  in  some  degree  coloured  by  his  system  and  his  1200 
emendations.  And  I  must  further  observe,  that  if  Plato  intended  to  write  enigmatically  or  in 
parables,  if  the  1200  emendations  have  for  their  object  the  rendering  of  the  text  clear,  I  much  fear 
that,  instead  of  emendations,  many  of  them  must  be  classed  as  corruptions. 

Plato  does  not  profess  to  have  been  the  inventor  of  his  own  doctrines,  but  in  his  epistles  he 
says  that  he  has  taken  them  from  ancient  and  sacred  discourses—  7ra\aiot  xai  Upoi  Xoyoi. 
Mr.  Colebrooke  says,  that  many  of  the  tenets  of  the  Hindoos  are  the  same  as  those  of  the 
Platonists  and  Pythagoreans,  and  admits  that  the  latter  appear  to  be  the  learners,  rather  than  the 
teachers  of  them.  2  It  is,  indeed,  very  notorious  that  those  two  men  went  to  the  East  to  learn, 
not  to  teach. 

To  return  to  my  subject.  It  must  not  be  expected  that  the  grand  secret,  the  knowledge  of  the 
highest  and  last  secret  of  the  initiated,  of  the  illuminati,  will  be  found  clearly  described  in  any 
work  written  by  one  of  the  initiated. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Cabalistic  ceconomy  was  similar  to  that  of  a  lodge  of  Freemasons, 
and  proceeded  to  the  top  by  gradation, 3  and  that  masonry,  which  was  a  part  of  it,  existed  long 


1  Comm.  Cent.  ii.  note  Vidal,  p.  170.  *  Asiat.  Trans.  Vol.  I.  p.  579. 

3  No  Royal-Arch  Mason  will  find  a  difficulty  in  seeing  that  part  of  his  refined  secret  mysteries  have  been  in  ancient 
times  closely  connected  with  the  profound  doctrines  exposed  to  public  view  in  this  book.  Whether  at  this  time  they 
be  the  same  as  those  described  in  this  book,  whether  they  be  changed,  and  if  changed,  how  much  changed,  and  when 
changed,  are  points  of  which,  for  very  obvious  reasons,  I  do  not  inform  my  reader;  and  I  now  warn  him,  that  from 
any  thing  here  said  he  will  not  be  justified  in  drawing  a  conelusion.  But  he  must  recollect  that  nothing  but  a  miracle 
could  preserve  Masonry  from  change  in  so  great  a  number  of  years.  If  he  be,  however,  as  I  hope  he  is,  an  honourable, 
upright,  and  benevolent  man,  and  wish  to  know  the  truth  by  working  himself  up  to  the  Royal  Arch,  he  then  will 
know  it.  More  I  add  not  here  :  the  uninitiated  have  no  business  to  know.  To  the  initiated  I  need  not  tell  it.  But 
every  one  may  rest  assured,  from  the  great  number  of  beneficed  and  respectable  priests,  both  of  the  Roman  and 
Protestant  Church,  who  are  admitted  to  the  highest  degrees  of  Masonry,  that  there  is  nothing  in  it  at  this  day  which 
can  militate  in  the  slightest  degree  against  the  Christian  religion  as  held  either  at  Rome  or  at  Lambeth. 

About  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  the  Masonic  societies  shewed  themselves  in  Germany  in  a  more  prominent 
way  than  they  had  done  for  many  generations,  and,  under  the  guidance  of  several  able  and  philanthropic  men,  both 
Catholic  and  Protestant  priests  and  laymen,  it  is  probable  gave  encouragement  to  resistance  to  the  united  despotism  of 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IX.     SECTION  15.  817 

before  the  time  of  the  Exod  from  Egypt.  In  the  time  of  Moses,  the  three  elders  of  what  might 
be  called  the  chapter,  were  Moses,  Aholiab,  and  Bezaleel,  the  son  of  Uri,  the  son  of  Hur  *  and 
to  them  only  was  the  highest  secret  confided.  When  Jesus  Christ  was  (what  is  called)  trans- 
figured or  metamorphosed,  (is  not  this  mysterious  and  esoteric  enough  ?)  there  were  present 
Jesus,  Moses,  and  Elias,  the  three  teachers,  and  the  three  apostles,  Peter,  James,  and  John 
the  three  learners,  of  the  Gnosis  or  secret  knowledge,  which  was  transmitted  by  them  to  posterity 
with  the  greatest  care. 

The  knowledge  of  the  High  Secret  could  only  be  obtained  by  the  uninitiated  by  implication ; 
but  still  from  unprincipled  high-priests,  or  high- priests  afflicted  with  insanity,  against  which 
accident  nothing  can  for  an  absolute  certainty  guard  a  secret  society,  it  may  have  transpired  in 
the  course  of  thousands  of  years.  The  close  similarity  of  the  Jewish  and  Indian  systems,  and  a 
comparison  of  them  with  the  mysterious  expressions  of  Philo  and  Plato  justifies  what  I  state  to 
be  the  high  mystery,  and  of  which  I  shall  presently  finish  the  explanation.  This  ignorance  of 
the  grand  secret  accounts  very  well  for  the  attributes  of  the  7rarr}p  ctyvai^ag  being  often  given 
by  writers  to  the  second  and  third  emanations — accounts  for  the  lines  of  distinction  not  being 
well  drawn,  between  the  different  orders.  A  confusion  of  terms  is  clearly  perceptible,  though  the 
principle  is  equally  clear  to  a  person  understanding  the  secret  doctrine.  This  confusion  arose,  I 
do  not  doubt,  partly  from  ignorance,  partly  from  design. 

The  ancient  Jews  maintained,  that  their  Cabala  was  revealed  by  God  to  Moses,  and  was 
transmitted  verbally ;  it  being  too  sacred  to  be  written.  (This  is  very  like  Freemasonry.)  This 
has  been  unmercifully  ridiculed  by  Christians,  but  though  often  discussed,  no  cool,  philosophical, 
and  unprejudiced  inquiry  into  the  meaning  of  the  tradition,  has,  to  my  knowledge,  been  attempted. 
This  has  arisen,  in  a  great  measure,  from  the  mistake  in  the  meaning  of  the  words  respecting 
traditions  attributed  to  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Gospel  histories:  his  justly-merited  anathemas  against 
the  traditions  of  the  elders,  as  just  now  described,  being  confounded  with  the  traditionary  Cabala. 
It  is  evident  that  the  Cabala  had  not  any  tendency,  in  any  way  whatever,  either  to  make  the  law 

the  Roman  Pontiffs  and  the  Royal  tyrants  of  Europe,  which,  in  France  and  Germany,  had  risen  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  be 
no  longer  tolerable.  The  activity  of  the  Masons  being  discovered,  it  produced  the  persecution  of  their  order  all  over 
the  continent ;  and  it  was  much  increased  in  consequence  of  several  publications  of  three  persons  called  Zimmerman, 
Baruel,  and  Robison.  The  first  was  decidedly  insane,  and  the  other  two  were  operated  on  by  groundless  fears,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  be  in  a  state  very  little  better,  and  which  rendered  them  totally  incapable  of  distinguishing 
between  the  destruction  of  religion,  and  the  destruction  of  the  base  system  to  which  the  professors  of  religion  had 
made  it  subservient.  They  all  admit  that  the  British  Masons  had  nothing  to  do  with  these  hydra-headed  conspiracies, 
and  endeavour  to  draw  a  line  between  them  and  their  Continental  Brethren,  being  unable  to  see  that  the  difference 
was  not  in  the  societies,  which  were  the  same,  but  in  the  countries — Britain  being  comparatively  free  and  happy, 
the  other  countries  enslaved  and  miserable.  Although  the  object  of  Masons  is  not  politics,  I  flatter  myself  that  if  our 
King  were  to  disperse  the  Parliament  by  means  of  a  body  of  Swiss  soldiers,  the  Freemasons  would  not  be  the  only 
people  in  England  who  would  not  len'd  all  the  assistance  in  their  power  to  effect  his  overthrow. 

Some  years  ago  a  treatise  was  written  on  Masonry  by  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Preston.  It  contains  much 
useful  information ;  but  as  he  had  not  the  least  suspicion  of  the  real  origin  of  Masonry,  and  as  his  book  is  merely  a 
party  performance  to  claim  for  the  London  Grand  Lodge  a  priority  over  the  Lodges  of  Scotland  and  York,  to  which  it 
had  originally  no  pretension  whatever,  except  the  possession  of  power,  I  need  take  no  more  notice  of  it  than  to 
observe,  that  it  is  very  well  done,  and  is  very  creditable  to  its  author,  who,  probably,  was  sincere  in  what  he  wrote. 
The  Masons  of  Southern  England,  until  amalgamated  with  those  of  York,  were,  in  fact,  only  a  modern  offset  of  some 
other  Lodge.  A  few  Masons  of  other  lodges  associating  formed  a  lodge.  The  reason  was  this — the  Druids  of 
Stonehenge,  Abury,  &c,  &c,  were  all  killed  or  banished  to  the  Northern  countries  or  Wales  by  the  Romans.  Thus 
we  have  no  Culdees  in  the  South.  For  though  companies  of  masons  came  to  build  the  cathedrals,  they  had  no  here- 
ditary settlements  after  the  time  of  the  Romans,  like  the  others.  The  Masons  or  Culdees  of  York  might  have  returned 
from  Scotland  after  their  persecution  was  over,  probably  in  the  time  of  Constantine  the  Pagan  Christian. 

1  Exod.  xxxi.  2—6,  xxxv.  30—34.    The  Jewish  Sanhedrim  had  three  presidents. 

5  M 


818  To  Ov. 

of  no  avail  or  not,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  what  was  meant  by  him.  Indeed,  I  maintain 
that  there  is  not  in  the  Gospel  histories  a  single  expression  of  Jesus  Christ's  recorded  against  the 
Cabala.  But  there  are  many  which  pretend  to  shew  that  he  was  perfectly  acquainted  with  the 
existence  of  the  Father,  who  dwelt  in  the  darkness,  whom  no  person  has  seen  except  the 
son,  and  that  he  considered  himself  as  an  incarnation  of  one  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity. 

The  Jewish  Cabala,  that  is,  the  Cabala  of  the  tribe  of  Ioudi — the  Cabala  of  the  numerous  temples 
of  Solomon  which  have  been  mentioned,  was  divided  into  two  parts — the  one  consisting  of  the 
natural  philosophy,  called  Mercavah ;  the  other  of  the  moral,  called  Barasith.  We  will  first 
explain  the  natural  philosophy  of  the  system  ;  and  first,  the  creation.  There  were  various 
creations.  The  first  creation  was  effected  by  way  of  emanation  ;  and  this  was  the  idea  or  plan 
of  the  universe,  not  the  little  globe  only  which  we  inhabit.  From  this  proceeded  the  second, 
which  was  the  Trimurti  or  Trinity  which  formed  the  O'Qttf  smim,  our  world  and  system,  (but 
not  herein  including  the  stars) 1  by  the  agency  of  one  of  its  own  persons,  who  was  the  Aoyog, 
or  Sophia,  or  Metis,  or  Buddha.  The  doctrine  of  the  divine  idea  is  distinctly  expressed  in  the 
laws  of  Menu.2  It  was  also  clearly  the  doctrine  of  Plato  and  Philo,  i.  e.  of  the  Cabala.  But  of 
course  it  was  not  expressed  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  which  professed  to  be  only  a  book  or  descrip- 
tion of  the  generations  or  cosmogony  of  our  globe  and  of  the  planetary  system  with  which  it  is 
connected — viz.  the  regeneration  of  the  planetary  system  and  the  earth.  It  would  clearly  have 
been  inconsistent  with  the  object  of  Moses  to  have  revealed  to  the  vulgar  Jews  the  sublime  know- 
ledge of  the  Mia  Ap%rj  or  the  cosmogony  of  the  universe,3  the  knowledge  of  the  IlaTrjg 
Ayva)£og,  the  Brahme-Maia,  or,  as  the  Hindoo  philosopher  called  it,  Illusion. 

The  Cabalistic  secret  of  the  7rarr\p  ayvaigog  of  the  Jews  and  the  Samaritans  was  identical 
with  the  first  principle  of  Buddhism.  The  institutes  of  Menu4  say,  "  This  universe  existed 
"  only  in  the  first  divine  idea,  yet  unexpanded,  as  if  involved  in  darkness,  imperceptible,  unde- 
"  finable,  undiscoverable  by  reason,  and  undiscovered  by  revelation,  as  if  it  were  wholly  immersed 
"  in  sleep  :  then  the  sole  self-existing  power,  himself  undiscerned,  appeared  with  undiminished 
"  glory,  expanding  his  idea,  or  dispelling  the  gloom."  From  these  two  beings  jointly  emanated 
the  Trimurti,  one  of  whose  persons  was  the  Sanscrit  Jnana  or  Dschnana,  which  is  Wisdom  or 
the  Buddha,  and  answers  to  the  Tvaxrig  or  Aoyog  of  the  Greeks.  Thus  the  Trimurti  was  not 
the  Supreme  Being,  but  an  emanation. 

At  the  top  of  all  existences  we  find  the  Brahme-Maya.  Here  I  think,  generally  speaking,  is  a 
mistake.  Maya  is  likened  to  the  wife  of  Brahme,  but  still  she  is  admitted  to  be  what  is  called 
illusion.  Now,  I  apprehend  Brahme  (not  Brahm)  is  the  To  Ov,  the  Monad,  and  Maya  is  the 
idea  or  plan  of  the  universe,  which  was  the  first  emanation  from  the  7rarr]f>  ayvwo-rog  or  to  ov, 
and  which  answers  very  well  to  the  idea  of  illusion,  into  which  all  inferior  existences  are  supposed 
to  resolve,  and  which  at  last  resolves  itself  into  the  to  ov.5 


1  I  beg  my  reader  to  recollect  what  I  have  said  of  the  interpolation  of  the  words  the  stars  also  in  the  16th  verse  of 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 

*  Asiat.  Res.  Advertisement  to  Vol.  V.  p.  v. ;  Inst,  of  Menu,  by  G.  C.  Haughton. 

3  And  it  was  on  this  account  that  the  stars  are  not  named,  but  were,  in  consequence,  interpolated  by  persons  who 
did  not  understand  the  system. 

*  By  the  learned  Professor  Haughton. 

3  This  is  no  doubt  very  abstruse,  and  will  appear  very  ridiculous  to  such  wise  people  as  believe  that  the  To  Ov 
"  walked  in  a  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  evening."  I  shall  be  sorry  if  they  take  the  trouble  to  read  it,  for  it  is  very 
unfit  for  them.    It  is  food  which  is  certain  to  disagree  with  their  stomachs. 


BOOK  X.   CHAPTER  IX.    SECTION  15.  819 

But  it  will  be  said,  that  the  first  emanation  from  the  Trimurti  was  Buddha,  or  Rasit,  or  Logos. 
True.      But  Buddha  or  Logos  was  Tri-Vicramaditya  or  the  triple   energy,  was    the  Trimurti 
itself,  which  Mr.  Colebrooke,  and  all  other  oriental  writers,  tell  us  the  Indians  held  to  be  three 
persons  and  one  God,  three  in  one  and  one  in  three — though  three,  yet  one  ;  though  one,  yet  three  ;. 
Buddha  in  India,  Logos  in  Greece,  Ras  in  Syria,  each  being  the  name  in  the  respective  countries, 
of  the  Creator  or  person  of  the  three  employed  by  the  three  or  Aleim  itself  to  form  anew  or  reform 
the  world.   Thus  Genesis  says,  by  Ras,  or  Wisdom,  or  the  Logos,  the  Aleim  or  Trinity  regenerated x 
the  world ;  but  it  does  not  name  the  Supreme  Being  by  the  word  Aleim.     The  doctrine  of  the 
warrjp  ayvcoa-rog,   the   /jua  apx^'  tne  7raT73P   oXojv,  the  axaTovo/tas-oj,2  the  Brahme-Maia  of 
India  was  never  written ;  it  was  only  entrusted  to  the  Cabala — to  tradition — to  the  *?2i  gbl,  in  the 
plural  CD^^'J  giblim.     It  was  not  necessary  in  order  to  explain  so  much  as  was  intended  to  be 
described  to  the  readers  of  Genesis,   (secret  as,  I  am  certain,  Genesis  was  kept,)  or  the  Persian 
book  of  Ibrahim  or  Sophia,  to  name  it.     This  was  divulged  only  in  the  highest  and  most  secret 
chapter  of  the  high  or  chief  priests,  the  three  past  principals  of  the  cabinet  of  twelve,  formed 
from  the  Seventy-two,  the  Sanhedrim,  seventy-two  in  number,  the  predecessors  of  the  seventy- 
two    (when  complete)   in  the  Romish  College  of  Cardinals.      The  name    of  this  God   was   like 
the    sacred  M  or  Om  of  India, — the  sacred  Om  to  be  meditated  on,  but  not  to  be  named — 
M=600. 

These  doctrines  constituted  the  grand  article  of  the  Cabala,  and  are  strictly  in  accordance  with 
the  dark  allusions  or  mystic  expressions  which  we  find  in  Philo,  Plato,3  and  the  Gospel  histories. 
As  no  religion  remains  unchanged,  the  complication,  which  is  found  in  the  present  Cabala,  was 
most  of  it  probably  added  afterward. 

All,  as  far  as  stated  above,  we  may,  I  think,  safely  take  as  the  Yvaxrig  :  whether  we  can  take 
any  part  of  what  is  further  stated  as  the  doctrines  of  the  different  sects  of  Gnostics,4  by  their 
enemies,  at  once  ignorant,  prejudiced,  and  malicious,  may  be  greatly  doubted.  It  is  certain  that 
numbers  of  subordinate  sects  among  the  Gnostics  had  arisen  in  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian 
aera,  and,  in  fact,  the  pure  oriental  Tvaxng  had  then  become  complicated,  corrupted,  and  degraded. 
This  was  a  natural  effect.  All  religions  as  they  advance  in  time  have  this  tendency.  What  were 
the  opinions  of  the  different  subordinate  sects  is  scarcely  worth  an  inquiry,  except  it  could  be 
made  conducive  to  a  more  perfect  discovery  of  the  ancient  foundation  on  which  the  whole  was 
built.     The  same  corruption  had  crept  into  the  Jewish  Cabala.     They  were,  indeed,  the  same. 

Philo,  in  his  book  de  Sacrrftciis  Ahelis  et  Caini,  lays  down  the  doctrine  of  the  Triune  nature  of 
the  Deity ;  at  the  same  time  he  states  it  to  be  a  secret  or  mystery  not,  in  all  its  parts,  to  be 
revealed  to  the  vulgar.  The  passage  is  discussed  at  length  in  Mosheim's  Commentaries,  Cent.  ii. 
Sect,  xxxv.,  and  it  is  there  shewn,  that  the  same  is  taught  as  part  of  the  esoteric  doctrine  by 
Philo,  in  many  other  parts  of  his  works.  How  strongly,  and,  indeed,  I  may  say,  decisively,  this 
supports  my  explanation  of  the  Aleim  and  the  whole  of  the  first  verse  of  Genesis,  I  need  not 
point  out. 

In  his  book  upon  the  creation,  Philo  every  where  supposes  the  prior  existence  of  Plato's  ideal 
world,  and  represents  the  Deity  as  constructing  visible  nature  after  a  model  which  he  had  first 


1  This  is  what  we  call  begotten  in  our  creeds.   This  degrading  word  is  used  to  conceal  the  secert  meaning  of  regene- 
rated, which,  if  used,  would  have  endangered  the  discovery  of  the  secret  doctrine  of  emanations. 

*  Qui  nominari  non  potest.  3  Matter,  Vol.  II.  p.  267. 

*  The  Jews  named  their  books  after  the  first  word  :  thus  Genesis  was  called  Barasit.    The  Persians  at  their  Tuct 
Soleiman,  I  have  no  doubt,  called  the  same  book  Sophia  or  Ev  2o<f>,  perhaps  meaning  by  Wisdom. 

5  m  2 


820  To  Ov. 

formed.  He  attributes  to  Moses  all  the  metaphysical  subtleties  of  Plato  upon  this  subject,  and 
maintains  that  the  philosopher  received  them  from  the  followers  of  the  holy  prophet,1  and  when 
we  recollect  that  Plato  studied  on  Mount  Carmel  this  seems  probable  enough  :  but  he  might  also 
get  his  doctrine  from  the  ^Egyptians.  Philo  maintains,  that  God  first  formed  an  intelligible  and 
incorporeal  model,  after  which  he  framed,  by  his  Logos,  the  corporeal  world.  He  supposes  the 
order  of  the  visible  world  to  have  been  adapted  to  the  Pythagorean  system  of  numbers  ;  but  how 
this  was  done  is  not  explained,  being  probably  considered  sacred  and  secret;  but  will  be  explained 
by  me  in  a  future  book.  But  I  think  my  reader  will  have  no  difficulty  in  believing  it  to  be 
connected  with  the  system  of  cycles  found  in  the  capitals  of  the  Pillars  Jachin  and  Boaz,  the 
priest's  garment  of  Pomegranates  and  Bells,  72x5r:360,  and  72x6=432.  The  language  of 
Philo  is  accused  of  being  obscure.  This  must  necessarily  be  the  case,  where  a  person  is  de- 
scribing part  of  a  secret  system,  which  he  must  not  betray.  This  consideration  also  accounts,  as 
I  have  formerly  said,  for  the  studied  obscurity  of  Plato. 

On  kvery  account  there  is  no  philosopher,  of  antiquity,  who  deserves  to  rank  higher  than 
Philo.  If  any  man  could  be  supposed  to  understand  the  Cabala  or  secret  doctrine,  it  was  Philo. 
He  was  in  the  first  rank  of  society,  and  of  unimpeachable  moral  character.  How  foolish  is  it  to 
permit  the  priests  to  run  him  down  by  their  ridiculous,  idle  assertions,  that  he  attempted  to 
Platonise  Moses, — that  he  was  tainted  with  the  Platonic  philosophy,  &c,  &c. !  No  doubt  he  was 
tainted  with  his  own  philosophy,  with  that  philosophy  which  he  had  learnt  in  the  adytum  of  his 
temple,  and  which  we  have  found  with  the  Buddhists,  with  the  Zoroastrians  or  Orpheans,  with 
the  followers  of  Hermes,  Pythagoras,  and  Plato,  and  which  was  the  same  as  the  secret  doctrine 
of  Moses,  a  fact  which  was  never  doubted,  (though  not  publicly  known,)  till  modern  priests, 
whose  minds  were  of  too  mean  a  class  to  understand  so  sublime  a  system,  denied  it,  though  at 
the  same  time  they  were  obliged  to  allow  that  the  Jews  had  really  from  the  most  remote 
period,  secret  doctrines.2  Their  only  reason  for  misrepresenting  the  doctrines  and  learning  of 
Philo  is  this,  that  his  doctrines  place  their  vulgar  nonsense,  only  fit  for  such  minds  as  their  own, 
in  the  shade. 

But  Mr.  Basnage3  has  examined  this  question,  and  has  shewn,  that  there  is  very  good  reason 
to  believe  that  Philo  did  not  copy  from  Plato,  but  that  he  got  his  Trinity  and  Hypostases  from 
Egypt  and  the  East,  as  might  be  expected.  Philosophers  very  seldom  went  from  the  East  to 
Greece  to  learn,  but  they  sometimes  went  to  teach. 

If  we  now  look  back  to  Book  III.  Chap.  I.,  and  carefully  read  what  is  there  said  respecting 
the  Trinities  of  Zoroaster,  Orpheus  or  Plato,  and  Philo,  and  what  is  extracted  from  Maurice, 
Michaelis,  Marsh,  &c,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  evident,  either  that  the  whole  doctrine  was  not 
exposed  to  the  public,  or  was  not  understood  by  them.  There  is  apparently  some  confusion  in  the 
accounts  of  these  esoteric  doctrines  as  might  be  expected  :  but  they  all  fall  short  in  the  Brahme- 
Maia,  the  /x<a  ap^y,  the  7rotTij£  ayvco^og,  the  axa.T0VQ[j.a(rros,  from  which  the  xpayroyovos,  the 
"Koyog,  the  ^XT)  xoa-ps  or  Triune  God,  proceeded.  They  do  not  go  so  far  as  this  grand  secret 
person,  the  Father  whom  no  person  hath  known  or  shall  know  except  the  Son,  and  those  to  whom 
the  Son  shall  reveal  him. 4  An  attentive  reader  will  not  fail  to  perceive  that  the  whole  of  this 
abstruse  doctrine  is  a  cosmogony,  that  is,  a  formation  of  the  universe,  a  building  of  it  up  by  the 
Grand  Megalistor,  the  greatest  and  first  of  Masons.     Verbum  sapienti. 

I  think  no  person  will  deny  that  the  system  of  emanation  which  I  have  unfolded  is,  whether 


»  Enfield,  Phil.  Ch.  i.  *  Enfield,  Hist.  Phil.  Book  iv.  Ch.  iii. 

•  Book  iv.  Ch.  xxiv.  4  Matt.  xi.  27  ;  Luke  x.  22. 


BOOK   X.    CHAPTER   IX.   SECTION    16.  821 

true  or  false,  very  refined  and  beautiful :  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the  later  Cabalists  and 
Gnostics  should,  by  only  half  understanding  it,  have  drawn  it  out  into  a  tissue  of  the  greatest  and 
most  childish  nonsense,  a  very  fair  account  of  which  may  be  seen  in  Basnage.1 

The  Conclaves,  in  which  the  Cabalistic  doctrines  here  treated  of  were  held,  were,  I  do  not 
doubt,  of  the  nature  of  Masonic  societies,  and  were  the  origins  of,  or  the  same  as,  the  Caldasi, 
Colidei,  Culdees,  Architectonici,  Mathematici,  Dionysionici,  Freemasons,  Templars,  and  Rosi- 
crucians.  In  these  societies  the  most  refined  doctrines  were  known  only  to  a  few  of  the  select 
or  perfecti  at  the  head  of  the  others :  to  this  elevation  they  rose  by  regular  gradation,  and  to  this 
small  chapter  only  the  sra'njp  ayvaxrros  was  known.  To  these  Masons  it  was  known  that  the  tem- 
ple of  Solomon  with  its  Pillars  and  Pomegranates, 8  was  only  a  type  of  the  universe,  a  microcosm  j 
and  the  Masons  themselves  were  only  workmen  and  servants  of  the  great  fabricator, — of  the  Jupiter 
Megalistor  of  the  Universe.     Masons  were  all  servants  toiling  in  their  respective  vocations,  and 

rising  by  degrees  to  the  knowledge  of  the     (&&)        (%$).     And,  in  imitation  and  as  types  of  the 

world,  all  their  temples  of  Solumi  were  built.  These  Masons  were  the  Cyclopes,  the  men  who 
first  fabricated  temples,  and  thence  became  Masons.  Look  but  at  their  circles  of  stones  in 
twelves,  sevens,  nineteens,  six  hundreds,  six  hundred  and  eights,  six  hundred  and  fifties,  their 
emblems  on  the  Cyclopean  ruins  of  Mundore,  Agra,  &c.  The  inferior  Masons  were  the  builders 
of  the  stone  circles  or  temples,  the  superior  ones  were  Megalistors,  Cosmogonists — builders  of 
worlds — or  planners  of  temples  in  imitation  of  them.  Nothing  can  well  be  devised  more  Masonic 
than  the  name  given  to  the  Trinitarian  Creator  Aijjoua^yoc,  of  which  Jesus  Christ  was  the  second 
person,  and,  therefore,  the  great  Megalistor,  or  fabricator,  or  Arifxispyos. 

16.  If  a  person  reflect  deeply  upon  the  circumstances  in  which  the  first  priests  must  have  been 
placed  when  the  earliest  attempt  at  building  a  temple  was  made,  he  will  perceive  that  it  was  quite 
natural  for  them  to  become  Masons.  In  order  to  place  their  structures  according  to  the  cardinal 
points,  and  their  large  stones  according  to  the  exact  number  of  their  cycles,  they  must  have  been 
possessed  of  all  the  learning  of  the  world.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  at  the  first  the  Monastic 
and  Masonic  orders  were  identical.  Monks  were  priests  3  regularly  initiati  or  regulars :  seculars 
were  priests  or  officers  of  religion,  not  regularly  initiati,  as  their  name  shews. 

I  cannot  conceive  how  it  is  possible  to  read  the  Gospel  histories  with  attention,  and  not  to  see 
that  a  secret  doctrine  is  taught.   There  is  scarcely  a  chapter  without  a  parable.    "In  parables  spake 
"  he  unto  them,  that  while  seeing  they  might  not  perceive,  and  hearing  they  might  not  understand."  4 
What  can  be  clearer  than  the  following  passages  ?     "  He  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Unto  you 
"  it  is  given  to  know  the  mystery  of  the  kingdom  of  God :  but  unto  them  that  are  without,  all 


1  Book  iii. 

8  The  pillars  Jachin  and  Boaz  had  around  each  of  their  capitals  one  hundred  pomegranates.  (1  Kings  vii.  20;  2 
Chron.  iii.  16, 17-)  This  fruit  was  selected  on  account  of  the  star-like  flower,  with  six  leaves  or  rays  at  the  top  of  the  fruit. 
Parkhurst,  in  voce,  HDT  rme  VII.  Thus  6  x  100=600.  The  same  fruits  were  hung  round  the  priest's  garment,  72  in 
number.  Thus,  72  x  6=432.  Can  it  be  accident  that  these  two  numbers  are  brought  out  ?  They  arise  from  Park- 
hurst's  observations,  but  that  is  a  consequence  of  which  he  had  not  the  most  distant  suspicion ;  for  he  understood  the 
nature  neither  of  the  600  nor  of  the  432.  The  pomegranate  was  as  sacred  among  the  Gentiles  as  among  the  Jews. 
Achilles  Tatius  says,  that  at  Pelusium  Zeus  Casius  held  this  mysterious  fruit  in  his  hand :  HjiteSk^rm  8e  Tip  %upa, 
tcai  e%«  'POIAN  «r'  avTi).     T»j?  Se  'Po*a<  o  "hoyt^  iav^ikoi;.     Ach.  Tat.  Lib.  iii.  p.  167. 

3  If  Eustychius  can  be  credited,  the  persons  who  took  the  lead  in  the  building  of  Babylon  with  its  tower,  &c,  were 
seventy-two  in  number.     Eutych.  Annal,  p.  51,  Oxon.  1658,  apud  Nimrod,  Vol.  II.  p.  492. 

*  For  a  complete  proof  that  there  was  a  secret  religion,  both  Mosaic  and  Christian,  concealed  under  vulgar  allego- 
rical histories,  the  last  chapter  of  Burnet's  Archaeologia  may  be  consulted. 


822  CHRISTIAN    MYSTERIES. 

•  these  things  are  done  in  parables :  that  seeing  they  may  see,  and  not  perceive ;  and  hearing, 
"  they  may  hear,  and  not  understand  ;  lest  at  any  time  they  should  be  converted,  and  their  sins 
"  should  be  forgiven  them."  Mark  iv.  11,  12;  Matt.  xiii.  13 — 15.  I  notice  this  passage,  ascribed 
to  the  essence  of  benevolence  and  charity,  by  our  books,  no  further  at  present  than  to  point  out 
the  doctrine  of  an  esoteric  religion  or  the  absolute,  direct  authority  for  the  opinion,  that  Jesus 
taught  the  existence  of  an  esoteric  religion.  On  other  accounts  I  shall  have  much,  very  much,  to 
say  in  my  next  volume  respecting  these  words  ascribed  to  Jesus.  The  part  which  I  have 
marked  by  italics  is  evidently  an  interpolation,  of  ignorant,  uninitiated  persons,  Paulites,  to  account 
for  or  explain  what  they  did  not  understand.  Mosheim J  being  obliged  to  allow  that  the  Christian 
religion  had  its  mysteries  like  all  other  religions,  disguises  it  very  ingeniously.  When,  perhaps, 
from  the  miseries  of  the  times  they  became  lost,  their  previous  existence  would  be  denied,  and 
this  was  much  aided  by  the  degraded  state  of  the  human  mind,  at  that  time  very  fit  for  devil 
driving  and  exorcising,  and  for  such  pernicious  nonsense  as  the  passage  in  italics,  but  very  unfit 
for  such  refined  theories  as  those  of  Plato,  Philo,  or  Porphyry. 

Indeed  no  one  can  deny,  that  a  certain  mysticism  reigns  in  every  part  of  the  Gospel  his- 
tories, as  well  as  through  the  Pentateuch.  Every  thing  is  taught  in  parables,  that  the  vulgar 
seeing,  might  not  perceive ;  and  hearing,  might  not  understand.  No  one,  I  think,  who  can  read, 
can  deny  this.2 

17-  The  transfiguration  or  metamorphosis,  as  the  Greek  word  means,  of  Jesus  Christ  has  puzzled 
all  modern  divines,  as  might  well  be  expected.  I  will  now  shew  what  it  means.  Surely  our 
divines  will  not  see  !     Do  none  of  them  read  the  early  fathers  ? 

The  Christian  religion  was  divided  by  the  early  fathers,  in  its  secret  and  mysterious  character, 
into  three  degrees,  the  same  as  was  that  of  Eleusis, 3  viz.  Purification,  Initiation,  and  Perfection. 4 
This  is  a  dry  matter  of  fact,  and  this  we  have  on  the  authority  of,  and  openly  declared,  among  others, 
by  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  who  it  cannot  be  believed  would  have  stated  this  if  it  were  false,— it 
being  a  falsity  without  any  object,  and  the  falsity  of  which  must  have  been  known  to  all  the  world. 

When  Jesus  was  transfigured,  an  operation  sufficiently  mystical  and  esoteric  I  should  think,  he  had 
with  him  only  three  of  his  disciples— James,  John,  and  Peter.  At  the  time  of  this  transfiguration  the 
secret  yvwcrig,  which  was,  at  least  in  part,  the  knowledge  of  the  fua.  ap^vj,  and  sj-arijp  ayi/axrros, 
was  believed  to  have  been  conferred  on  the  three.  And  this  we  have  again  on  the  indisputable 
authority  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus. 5  From  these  three  I  have  little  or  no  doubt,  that  the  Popes 
yet  believe  that  they  have  the  above- described  secret  doctrine  or  Gnosis,  handed  down  in  the 


1  Com.  Sect.  xiii.  xiv. 

2  The  word  mystery,  Mwpjfwv,  Mr.  Cleland  says,  comes  from  the  Celtic  word  wist  or  wise  ;  which,  in  the  sense  of 
knowing  or  knowledge,  which  it  has,  he  seems  to  think,  is  rather  opposed  to  the  definition  of  secrecy.  But  in  this  I 
cannot  agree  with  him.  He  says  it  is  the  radical  of  History ;  but  I  think  of  secret  history ;  for,  originally,  there  was 
no  other  kind  of  history.  It  is  istory  with  the  mystic  monogram  M  prefixed,  and  means  the  istory  of  Om.  He  says 
it  answers  to  Gheib,  which  means,  in  Arabic,  Fable.  This  is  aj  gb,  and  is  the  root  of  the  word  Cabala,  secret  or 
sacred  tradition  or  history,  and  of  Giblim.  Parable  is  par-habul.  Habul  is  Cabul,  Cabala.  This  is  also  the  same  as 
the  Faba,  a  fable ;  whence  the  Pythagorean  precept,  Abtain  from  Fabae— idle  stories.  Clel.  et  voce,  p.  1.  Parabl  to 
talk,  confabulari  to  talk  together.    Apologue,  Habul-laigh  a  fable  in  verse.    lb. 

3  Fabric.  Bibl.  Gr.  Vol.  VII.  p.  101.     The  systems  were  the  same. 

4  The  Perfection  applies  to  the  expression  of  Jesus  in  Matthew  :  If  thou  wilt  be  perfect,  &c,  and  alludes  to  dividing 
his  substance  with  the  poor,  as  the  perfecti,  or  monks,  always  did— that  is,  to  the  order,  who  no  doubt  did  distribute, 
after  supplying  their  own  necessities,  the  rents  to  the  poor,  keeping  the  capital  or  estate.    Niinrod,  Vol.  HI.  p.  419. 

*  Mosheim,  Com.  Cent.  ii.  Sect.  xxxv.  pp.  165,  167;  Matt.  xvii.  1,  2j  Luke  ix.  28,  29. 


BOOK    X.   CHAPTER   IX.   SECTION    IJ '.  823 

conclave.     Peter  was  the  first  Pope  or  Principal  of  the  sacred  chapter  of  twelve,  and  of  the  lodge 
or  conclave  of  seventy-two  or  Sanhedrim. 

The  Jews  have  among  them  the  very  interesting  ceremony,  (of  the  extreme  antiquity  of  which 
I  have  no  doubt,  as  traces  of  it  may  be  found  among  the  followers  of  Mithra,  and  of  Pythagoras, 
at  Delphi,  and  as  the  Roman  Church  so  far  very  properly  holds,  it  existed  among  the  Judi  in  the 
time  of  Melchizedek,)  of  the  sacrifice  of  Bread  and  Wine.  When  a  master  of  a  Jewish  family 
has  finished  the  Paschal  supper,  he  breaks  the  bread,  and  along  with  the  crater  or  cup,  (or 
perhaps  holy  Sangreal  refused  to  the  laity,  but  much  sought  after  and  desired,)  hands  it  round  to 
the  whole  of  his  family,  servants  and  all,  in  token  of  brotherly  love.  This  is  purely  a  Masonic 
institution,  and  was  practised  by  Jesus  Christ,  at  his  last  Paschal  festival  or  supper,  when  he 
handed  it  round  to  the  close  chapter  of  twelve,  of  which  he  was  Principal.  Each  chapter  ought 
to  consist  of  twelve  companions,  past  masters  of  Lodges,  and  each  Lodge  of  seventy-two  Bre- 
thren. *  Perhaps  the  piety  of  some  Christians  may  take  alarm  at  what  is  here  said ;  but  they 
will  not  readily  persuade  me  that  this  is  solely  a  Christian  ceremony — as  I  find  it  in  India,  in  Per- 
sia, at  Gerizim,  at  Delphi,  in  Italy,  and  yet  existing  in  its  original  and  native  beauty  and  simplicity 
among  the  Jews  all  over  the  world. 

We  will  now  explain  the  second  part  of  the  Cabala  called  Barasit ;  but  it  is  very  difficult 
entirely  to  separate  the  two  parts.  The  second  is  what  Clemens  Alexandrinus, 2  as  head  of  the 
sacred  college  or  catechetical  school  of  Alexandria,  professed  to  have  had  delivered  to  him,  by  his 
predecessors  ;  the  secret  doctrines  which  he  declares  were  delivered  by  Jesus  Christ  himself  to 
James,  John,  and  Peter.  Mr.  Mosheim  says,  "  What  those  maxims  and  principles  were  which 
"  Clement  conceived  himself  to  be  precluded  from  communicating  to  the  world  at  large,  cannot 
"  long  remain  a  secret  to  any  diligent  and  attentive  reader  of  his  works.  There  cannot  be  the 
"  smallest  question  but  that  they  were  philosophical  explications  of  the  Christian  tenets  respecting 
"  the  Trinity,  the  soul,  the  world,  the  future  resurrection,  Christ,  the  life  to  come,  and  other 
"  things  of  a  like  abstruse  nature,  which  had  in  them  somewhat  that  admitted  of  their  being 
**  expounded  upon  philosophical  principles.  They  also,  no  doubt,  consisted  of  certain  mystical 
**  and  allegorical  interpretations  of  the  divine  oracles,  calculated  to  support  those  philosophical 
expositions  of  the  Christian  principles  and  tenets.  For  since,  as  we  have  above  seen,  he 
expressly  intimates  that  he  would  in  his  Stromata  unfold  a  part  of  that  secret  wisdom  which 
was  designed  only  for  the  few,  but  that  in  doing  this  he  would  not  so  far  throw  off  all  reserve 
"  as  to  render  himself  universally  intelligible,  and  since  we  find  him,  in  the  course  of  the  above- 
"  mentioned  work,  continually  giving  to  the  more  excellent  and  important  truths  contained  in  the 
"  sacred  volume,  such  an  interpretation  as  tends  to  open  a  wide  field  for  conjecture,  and  also 
"  comparing  not  openly,  but  in  a  concise  and  half  obscure  way,  the  Christian  tenets  with  the 
"  maxims  of  the  philosophers,  I  am  willing  to  resign  every  pretension  to  penetration  if  it  be  not 
"  clearly  to  be  perceived  of  what  nature  that  sublime  knowledge  respecting  divine  matters  must 
have  been,  of  which  he  makes  such  a  mystery."  3      No  doubt  Mr.  Mosheim  is  right  as  far  as  he 


1  On  the  opening  of  the  Jubilee  year,  the  Pope,  who  holds  many  secret  things,  not  suspected,  in  his  fisherman's 
poitrine,  acting  as  Grand  Master  of  the  Masons  as  well  as  of  the  Fishermen,  striking  seven  blows,  with  a  silver 
hammer,  knocks  down  the  sacred  door.  This  I  saw  him  do ;  and  this  he  did  as  Grand  Master-Mason  of  the  world. 
This  he  did  as  the  head  of  the  Ras  or  Mysteries  of  the  world,  as  Vicar  of  the  Grand  Megalistor.  If  an  enemy  of 
Masonry  should  say  that  the  Masons  are  only  moderns,  copying  in  modern  times  from  the  Christian  doctrines  here 
developed,  I  reply,  that  is  impossible ;  for  these  doctrines  have  been  unknown  for  the  last  thousand  years,  therefore 
the  imitation  must  have  taken  place  before  that  date. 

*  Mosheim,  Com.  Cent.  II.  p.  164.  3  Ibid.  p.  166. 


824 


CHRISTIAN    MYSTERIES. 


goes ;  but  he  has  overlooked  or  concealed  the  most  important  point  of  the  yvowrtg,  and  that 
which  serves  as  a  key  to  all  the  remainder,  the  knowledge  of  the  zsarrjp  ayvco^og, l  in  this  respect 
exhibiting  the  sagacity  of  Clemens  and  his  own  want  of  it,  or  his  own  disingenuousness. 

Eusebius  says,  that  "  Our  Lord  had  preferred  Peter,  James,  and  John,  before  the  rest." 
Again,  "  The  Lord,  after  his  resurrection,  conferred  the  gift  of  knowledge  (this  should  be  wisdom) 
"  upon  James  the  Just,  John,  and  Peter,  which  they  delivered  to  the  rest  of  the  Apostles,  and 
"  those  to  the  seventy  disciples,  one  of  whom  was  Barnabas."  2  On  this  subject  Mosheim  says, 
"  Why  James,  and  John,  and  Peter  should  have  been,  in  particular,  fixed  upon  as  the  Apostles 
u  whom  Christ  selected  as  the  most  worthy  of  having  this  recondite  wisdom  communicated  to 
"  them  by  word  of  mouth  is  very  easily  perceived.  For  these  were  the  three  disciples  whom 
"  our  blessed  Saviour  took  apart  with  him  up  into  the  mountain,  when  he  was  about  to  be 
"  transfigured."  3  But  for  what  was  this  parable  of  the  transfiguration  adopted  ?  Surely  if  the 
uncontradicted  evidence  of  Ammonius,  Clemens,  and  Eusebius,  on  the  fact  of  the  meaning  of  the 
transfiguration  and  the  nature  of  the  secret  doctrine  is  not  to  be  taken,  nothing  can  be  believed. 
The  whole  forms  a  rational  explanation  of  the  meaning  of  the  transfiguration  which  has  never  even 
been  attempted  before. 

The  doctrine  that  the  Christian  religion  contained  a  secret  or  allegorical  meaning  is  so  clearly 
acknowledged,  laid  down,  and  treated  on  as  an  admitted  fact,  by  Justin,  Clemens  Alexandrinus, 
Origen,  and  indeed  by  all  the  very  early  fathers,  that  to  attempt  to  give  quotations  from  their  works 
would  be  wilfully  to  weaken  the  evidence  of  the  fact,  unless  I  were  to  fill  fifty  pages  with  them  : 
indeed,  I  must  copy  their  works.  I  shall,  therefore,  say  no  more  on  the  subject,  for  it  is  a  point 
which  cannot  be  disputed ;  and  so  the  Christian  religion  continued  till  the  time  of  Origen,  when 
the  doctrines  of  Paul  prevailed,  and  Origen  was  declared  by  the  Paulites  a  heretic  for  professing  it. 

The  following  passage  shews  the  character  of  Mosheim.  It  is  given  in  reprobation  of  Ammo- 
nius, while,  in  the  mind  of  every  philanthropic  person,  it  carries  a  panygeric  on  him.  But  the 
doctrine  of  Ammonius  would  bring  peace,  not  a  sword.  This  would,  indeed,  be  unpriestly.  "  But 
"  Ammonius,  conceiving  that  not  only  the  philosophers  of  Greece,  but  also  all  those  of  the 
"  different  barbarous  nations,  were  perfectly  in  unison  with  each  other  with  regard  to  every 
"  essential  point,  made  it  his  business  so  to  temper  and  expound  the  tenets  of  all  these  various 
"  sects,  as  to  make  it  appear  that  they  had  all  of  them  originated  from  one  and  the  same  source, 
"  and  all  tended  to  one  and  the  same  end."4  The  fact  is,  Christianity  was  no  other  than  the 
eclectic  philosophy  which  professed  to  contain  that  portion  of  truth  possessed  by  every  sect  of 
religion  or  system  of  philosophy.  How  is  it  possible,  in  a  few  words,  to  make  of  it  a  finer 
panegyric  ? — a  panegyric  which,  alas  !  it  did  not  long  deserve,  at  least  in  its  practical  operation. 
In  another  place  Mosheim  says,  "  The  favourite  object  with  Ammonius,  as  appears  from  the 
"  disputations  and  writings  of  his  disciples,  was  that  of  not  only  bringing  about  a  reconciliation 
"  between  all  the  different  philosophical  sects,  Greeks  as  well  as  Barbarians,  but  also  of  producing 
"  a  harmony  of  all  religions,  even  of  Christianity  and  Heathenism,  and  prevailing  on  all  the  wise 
"  and  good  men  of  every  nation  to  lay  aside  their  contentions  and  quarrels,  and  unite  together  as 
<c  one   large  family,  the  children  of  one  common  mother.     With  a  view  to  the  accomplishment  of 


1  Mosheim,  Com.  Cent.  II.  p.  166. 

•  Euseb.  Eccl.  Hist.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  i.  There  are  some  words  in  Mark  iv.  11,  which  might  justify  a  suspicion  that 
there  were  three  besides  the  twelve,  but  the  words  of  Eusebius  above,  shew  that  in  his  time  the  three  were  believed  to 
be  a  part  of  the  twelve.    Had  they  been  an  addition,  the  word  rest  would  not  have  been  used. 

»  Matt.  xvii.  1,  2 ;  Luke  ix.  28,  29.  *  Com.  Cent.  II.  p.  138,  N. 


BOOK  X.    CHAPTER  IX.   SECTION  YJ .  825 

"  this  end,  therefore,  he  maintained,  that  divine  wisdom  had  been  first  brought  to  light  and 
"  nurtured  among  the  people  of  the  East  by  Hermes  Trismegistus,  Zoroaster,  and  other  great  and 
"  sacred  characters :  that  it  was  warmly  espoused  and  cherished  by  Pythagoras  and  Plato  among 
"  the  Greeks :  from  whom,  although  the  other  Grecian  sages  might  appear  to  have  dissented, 
"  yet  that,  with  nothing  more  than  the  exercise  of  an  ordinary  degree  of  judgment  and  attention, 
"  it  was  very  possible  to  make  this  discordance  entirely  vanish,  and  shew  that  the  only  points  on 
"  which  these  eminent  characters  disagreed  were  but  of  trifling  moment,  and  that  it  was  chiefly 
"  in  their  manner  of  expressing  their  sentiments  that  they  varied."  l  In  this,  which  is  a  part  of 
a  gross  attempt  to  vilify  Ammonius,  are  admissions  enough  (which  I  have  marked  with  italics)  to 
the  truth  and  beauty  of  his  system,  and  to  the  truth  of  mine. 

Again  Mosheim  says,  that  Ammonius  taught  that  "  the  religion  of  the  multitude  went  hand  in 
"  hand  with  philosophy,  and  with  her  had  shared  the  fate  of  being  by  degrees  corrupted  and 
"  obscured  with  mere  human  conceits,  superstition,  and  lies  :  that  it  ought,  therefore,  to  be 
a  brought  back  to  its  original  purity  by  purging  it  of  this  dross,  and  expounding  it  upon  philoso- 
"  phical  principles  :  and  that  the  whole  which  Christ  had  in  view  hy  coming  into  the  world,  was  to 
"  reinstate,  and  restore  to  its  primitive  integrity,  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients — to  reduce  within 
"  bounds  the  universally  prevailing  dominion  of  superstition — and  in  part  to  correct,  and  in  part 
"  to  exterminate,  the  various  errors  that  had  found  their  way  into  the  different  popular  religions." 
Had  the  advice  of  Ammonius  been  followed,  the  prophecy  of  Christ  would  have  been  falsified,  for 
he  would  not  have  brought  a  sword  but  peace. 

I  now  beg  my  reader  to  recall  to  his  recollection  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  Xp^g-oj, 
and  I  think  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  agreeing  with  me  that  originally  the  religion  of  Jesus  was 
Xg^s-ianity,  and  that  it  was  not,  in  fact,  until  the  Paulites  got  possession  of  the  Papal  chair, 
by  a  compromise,  that  Paul's  pernicious  doctrines 2  were  admitted  into  it, — by  which  its  whole 
character  was  changed,  and  it  became  Christianity,  such  as  it  was  for  a  thousand  years, — quar- 
relling, persecuting,  and  devil-driving :  and  very  different  indeed  from  the  Chrestianity  of  the 
first  fathers,  and  from  the  secret  doctrines  of  the  temples  of  Eleusis  and  Jerusalem,  of  the  Gentiles, 
and  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  all  of  which  were  the  same. 

In  Mosheim's  Commentaries, 3  the  secret  doctrines  of  Plato  and  Moses  are  compared,  and  it  is 
shewn  that  hy  Clemens  Alexandrinus  and  Philo  they  were  held  to  be  the  same  in  every  respect  j 
and  that  it  is  also  held,  that  they  both  are  the  same  as  the  esoteric  doctrines  of  the  Christians,  which 
is  indeed  true,  if  the  early  fathers  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  plain  words  of  the  Gospels  can 
be  admitted  as  evidence  of  what  was  the  nature  of  the  esoteric  doctrines  of  Christianity.  Who 
can  deny  the  nrar-^p  ayvcogcog,  the  Father  whom  no  person  hath  seen  except  the  Son, 4  to  allude  to 
the  Gnosis  as  above  explained  ? 

There  was  no  man  in  the  first  two  centuries  of  the  Christian  sera  to  be  preferred  to  Clemens 
as  an  authority  on  this  dry  matter  of  fact,  that  there  was  a  secret  doctrine  and  of  what  nature 
that  secret  doctrine  was.  He  was  followed  by  Origen,  who  confirmed  his  assertion,  and  was  the 
most  learned  of  all  the  early  Christians;  and  he  and  Clemens  were  at  the  very  top — they 
were  in  fact  the  Patriarchs  of  the  Christian  community.  Mosheim  endeavours  to  disguise  the 
doctrine,  but  the  actual  existence  of  the  Tvaxrig  is  evident  enough. 


1  Com.  Cent.  II.  Sec.  xxviii. 

*  Paul  was  really,  as  is  evident  from  his  letters,  a  well  meaning  but  insane  fanatic,  in  no  respect  superior,  and  very 
little  differing  from,  Brothers,  Southcote,  and  Irving. 
1  Cent.  II.  Sect.  xxxv.  p.  167.  *  On  this  passage  I  shall  treat  hereafter. 

5n 


826  CHRISTIAN    MYSTERIES. 

And  now,  if  the  reader  reconsider  what  lias  been  stated,  and  compare  it  carefully  with  the 
Gospel  histories,  I  shall  be  greatly  surprised  if  he  do  not  find  many  passages  in  them  which  have 
a  direct  reference  to  parts  or  to  the  whole  of  the  system  which  I  have  developed.     And  I  think 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  however  varied  the  respective  sects  of  Gnostics  might  be  in  the  detailed  or 
minor  parts  of  their  systems,  that  the  Trimurti,  the  pict  a%%r)  or  unknown  God,  was  the  founda- 
tion of  them  all.     The  discovery  of  the  Triune  God  with  the  Manichaeans,  in  so  clear  and  marked 
a  manner,  perfectly  satisfies  me  that  this  was  the  doctrine  of  all  the  almost  innumerable  classes  of 
mankind  comprehended  under  the  term  Gnostics.     The  Manichaeans  were  but  a  succession  of 
Gnostics ;  and,  in  believing  that  their  founder,  Mani,  was  a  Messiah  or  an  Incarnation  of  the 
Divine  Power,  that  is,  in  other  and  in  their  words,  a  person  imbued  with  more  than  an  usual 
portion  of  the  Divine  Mind,  from  which  the  minds  of  all  men  emanated,  they  believed  nothing 
very  inconsistent  with  Christianity.     As  far  as  the  endowment  with  the  Divine  Mind  goes,  they 
were  succeeded  in  later  times  by  John  Wesley  and  his  followers,  whose  Christianity  no  one,  I 
suppose,  disputes.     Perhaps  it  may  be  difficult  to  shew  in  clear  and  distinct  terms,  from  the 
work  of  Faustus,  that  the  Manichaeans  acknowledged  the  M.ia  Ap%r\  ;  but  as  they  were  evidently 
nothing  more  than  a  succession  of  Gnostics,  and  as  this  secret  doctrine,  at  least  to  my  knowledge, 
never  came  into  discussion  or  was  expressly  denied  by  them,  it  is  perfectly  fair  to  suppose  that, 
like  the  other  Gnostic  doctrines,  it  was  held  by  them :  holding  one  part  of  the  system — the 
Triune  God — they  must  be  believed  to  have  held  the  other  part — the  Mia  Apyy\. 

The  whole,  I  repeat,  formed  a  sublime  and  beautiful  system.  At  the  head  of  it  was  the 
Uarrjp  Ayva)?og,  from  whom  emanated  the  first  created  being  or  hypostasis,  the  idea  or  plan  of 
the  universe. 

The  second  emanation  was  the  Triune  God,  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer,  three 

persons  and  one  God,  the  whole  proceeding  from  the  Ti.arr\p  ayvco^og — Brahme-Maia  or  Illusion. 

From  this  illusion,  in  some  way  or  other,  all  the  innumerable  host  of  suns  and  worlds  were 

supposed  to  have  proceeded,  by  a  gradation  of  emanations,  and  into  this  it  was  supposed  that  they 

would  all  ultimately  return. 

Thus  we  have  a  double  Trinity— -first,  the  Mia  Ap^y,  the  Divine  Idea,  and  the  Trimurti ;  and 
secondly,  the  Trimurti,  consisting  of  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Seva — the  Creator,  the  Preserver,  and 
the  Destroyer — Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  We  have  the  Mia  Apyr^  with  its  two  additional 
hypostases,  one  of  which  was  the  Trimurti ;  and  the  Trimurti  with  its  two  additional  hypostases ; 
the  last  of  the  first  constituting  the  first  of  the  last ;  thus  forming  a  chain,  and  in  this  manner  all 
nature  was  a  microcosmic  chain. 

As  it  was  believed  to  be  with  worlds,  so  it  was  with  man.  He  was  supposed  to  pass  from 
cycle  to  cycle,  from  world  to  world,  till  his  period  was  complete,  the  temporary  evil  of  one  cycle 
remedied  by  the  abundance  of  good  in  another,  till  the  universal  absorption  was  to  take  place. 
This  is  the  reason  why  we  have  no  hell  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  yet  that  the  moral  character  and 
justice  of  God  are  supposed  to  be  vindicated.  Thus  through  millions  of  ages  and  worlds  existences 
were  supposed  to  keep  arising  and  passing  away,  and  being  renewed,  until  the  final  absorption 
into  the  Divine  Essence.  And  the  Divine  Essence  itself  was  supposed  to  keep  on  its  endless 
course,  creating  new  existences  for  ultimate  happiness. 

Now  I  think  we  have  found  the  fountain  from  which  flowed  the  almost  innumerable  sects  in 
their  minor  details,  as  we  might  well  expect,  of  an  infinite  variety, — each  sect,  wherever  esta- 
blished, bearing  a  relation  or  being  in  proportion  not  to  any  principles  of  truth,  but  to  the  state 
of  refinement  or  degradation  of  the  human  mind.  As  the  minds  of  men  were  philosophical,  or 
vulgar,  or  of  inferior  grade,  they  formed  sects,  or  united  to  sects  assimilating  to  themselves.   It  is 


BOOK  X.     CHAPTER  IX.    SECTION  17.  827 

just  the  same  at  this  day,  as  every  philosopher  sees  and  knows.  But  I  do  not  expect  this  to  be 
admitted  by  a  Calvinist  or  a  Ranter.  But  all  this  proves  the  great  importance  of  education  to  the 
middle  class  of  mankind,  who  influence  public  opinion.  Our  priests  see  this  clearly,  and  are  now 
exerting  themselves,  as  they  cannot  suppress  education,  to  give  it  such  a  turn,  that  the  people 
may  not  be  led  to  doubt  the  necessity  of  bishops,  priests,  and  tithes,  in  order  to  ensure  their 
salvation. 

In  the  beautiful  system  which  I  have  developed,  I  have  opened,  I  doubt  not,  the  secret  system 
of  the  Conclave :  and  we  may  be  well  assured,  that  when  the  Popes  were  persecuting  Gnostics, 
it  was  the  holders  of  the  pernicious  dogmas  which  in  their  time  had  arisen,  as  they  are  described 
by  Epiphanius  and  others,  and  not  the  sublime  and  original  doctrines  of  the  oriental  Djnana  or 
rvtMH  Masit,  or  A %%?),  as  described  in  the  book  called,  and  properly  called,  the  Gospel  according 
to  Djnana  or  John,  the  doctrine  of  the  wisdom  of  India, — the  ancient  doctrines  taught  by  Menu  of 
India,  Menes  of  Egypt,  Minos  of  Crete,  Nuraa  of  Rome.  * 

I  think  it  seems  evident  that  the  current  of  Gnosticism  has  flowed  from  India  at  various  times, 
and  in  various  distinct  streams.  We  have  it  first,  I  think,  in  the  Cyclopean  builders  of  our 
Druidical  temples,  or  in  the  Hellenians  or  Ionians.  We  have  it  again  in  the  Exod,  owro<x/a, 
of  Abraham  and  his  tribe  of  Yudi. 2  We  have  it  again  in  the  Samaneans,  Essenians,  or  Gnostics, 
about  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  have  it  again  in  the  Manichaeans.  We  have  it  again  in  the 
Sophees  of  the  Mohamedans  ;  and,  lastly,  we  have  it  in  the  Chaldsei,  Ishmaelians,  the  As-chas- 
din,  the  Assassins,  of  the  eleventh  century.  The  last  were  our  Chaldaei  or  Freemasons  and 
Templars. 

If  my  reader  will  look  back  to  what  I  said  in  my  first  chapter  respecting  the  origin  of  the  Triune 
God,  he  will  now  be  able  to  form  an  opinion  respecting  the  mode  in  which,  from  principles  of 
common  sense,  it  had  its  origin. 

Of  the  various  streams  from  this  fountain,  the  system  of  the  Trimurti,  the  eternal  generation 
of  cycles  and  worlds,  the  Androgynous  nature  of  the  Deity,  and  the  final  absorption  of  all  into 
the  substance  of  the  first  principle,  seems  to  have  been  the  most  general,  indeed  the  subdivisions 
seem  to  have  been  so  far  almost  unanimous  in  admitting  an  uniform  system.  The  system  of 
dualism  seems  to  have  been  the  first  grand  subdivision  ;  and  I  must  now  make  one  more  obser- 
vation upon  it.  If  it  be  carefully  considered  or  reduced  to  its  first  principle,  it  will  be  found  to 
arise  almost  necessarily  from  the  nature  of  the  creating  and  regenerating  or  destroying  power,  as 
described  by  me  in  the  first  book.  For  creation,  in  the  sense  applicable  to  the  Trimurti,  must 
always  be  accompanied  with  destruction ;  the  Creator  and  Destroyer  must  always  be  in  oppo- 
sition and  simultaneous.  And  though  the  first  person  is  always  successful  by  the  agency  of  the 
second  person  in  preserving  the  world  which  he  has  formed,  the  destroyer  is  always  equally 
successful  in  effecting  its  destruction — which  destruction  is  still  only  a  renovation,  or  new  forma- 
tion. Thus  we  may  go  on  in  a  circle  for  ever,  or  till  we  really  arrive  at  the  Hindoo  Illusion. 
Hence  arose  the  dualists  of  whom  we  have  heard  so  much  from  Christian  divines,  but  who,  I  think, 
never  really  existed,  except  in  the  modified  sense  in  which  we  have  seen  that  the  doctrine  was  held 
by  the  Manichaeans.  Thus,  gentle  reader,  I  flatter  myself  I  have  laid  before  you  the  grand  outlines 
of  the  history  of  moral  man — the  foundation  upon  which  all  his  systems  have  been  built ;  the 


1  It  is  rather  remarkable  that  no  Christian  persecution  of  the  Gnostics  took  place  till  the  fourth  century  was  far 
advanced.    The  existence  of  the  Sicilian  councils  are  more  than  doubtful. 

*  Called  in  the  Desatir,  p.  188,  Jehudi,  Yehudi. 

5n  2 


828  CHRISTIAN   MYSTERIES. 

minutiae  of  the  different  subdivisions  I  leave  to  the  minute  philosophers.  No  doubt  a  good 
philosophical  and  critical  history  of  them  would  be  very  desirable.  But  it  is,  though  really 
a  desideratum,  not  very  likely  to  be  supplied. 

As  we  might  well  expect  from  the  holders  of  so  refined  a  theogony,  as  that  which  I  have  ex- 
plained, we  may  discover,  through  the  mist  with  which  they  have  been  enveloped,  that  they  held 
a  morale  the  most  beautiful  and  refined,  well  described  by  Mr.  Matter,  in  the  conclusion  of  his 
Treatise  on  Gnosticism,  in  the  following  manner,  in  which,  taken  in  its  uncorrupted  form,  I  quite 
agree  with  him:  "  La  morale  que  la  Gnose  prescrivait  a  1' homme  repond  parfaitement  a  cette 
"  destinee.  Fournir  au  corps  ce  qu'il  lui  faut,  lui  retranchir  tout  ce  qui  est  superflu  :  nourir 
"  Y  esprit  de  tout  ce  qui  peut  l'eclairer,  le  fortifier,  le  rendre  semblable  a  Dieu,  dont  il  est 
"  Y  image;  l'unir  avec  Dieu,  dont  il  est  une  emanation,  telle  est  cette  morale.  C  est  celle  du 
*'  Platonisme, l  c'est  celle  du  Christianisme.  Sans  doute  le  Gnosticisme  offre2  quelques  devia- 
"  tions  scandaleuses  de  cette  sublime  introduction  a  I'  immortality :  mais  le  soleil  aussi  a  des 
"  taches  :  il  n'en  est  pas  moins  un  foyer  de  lumiere."3 

Such  was  the  system  of  moral  doctrines  of  the  Gnostics,  and  such  was  the  moral  doctrine  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  and,  in  my  next  volume,  I  shall  endeavour  to  expand  it  in  its  native  beauty 
and  simplicity,  and  to  rescue  it  from  the  filth  with  which  it  has  been  loaded  by  the  meanest- 
minded  of  human  beings,  who,  in  the  dark  ages  succeeded,  by  force  of  their  numbers,  in  obtaining 
the  victory  over  the  enlightened  part  of  mankind,  to  the  subversion  of  religion,  and  the  exclusion 
from  it  of  every  thing  like  reason  or  philosophy.  But  Priestcraft  in  its  worst  form  flourished,  and 
the  performing  of  miracles,  and  the  driving  out  of  devils,  occupied  the  attention,  and  debased  the 
understandings,  of  mankind  for  fifteen  hundred  years  together.  In  the  next  volume  I  propose  to 
inquire  into  the  truth  of  the  system  which  I  have  explained. 

Gentle  reader,  as  you  have  gone  with  me  thus  far,  do  you  not  think  that  you  can  travel 
with  me  one  stage  more  ?  Come,  try  one  stage  more  ;  and  on  this  part  of  my  subject  I  have 
done.  You  have  seen  the  planetary  cycles  of  the  sages  of  India  extending  to  millions  of  years. 
What  think  you  of  the  Being,  the  Ilarrjp  ayvooc-Tos,  placed  in  the  centre  of  countless  millions 
of  stars,  suns,  and  worlds,  circulating  around  it  with  inconceivable  rapidity  in  boundless  space 
and  in  cycles  of  incomprehensible  duration  ?  Now,  at  last,  you  come  to  the  Illusion  of  the  sages 
of  India,  to  their  Illusion,  but  it  is  a  true  Illusion.  If  you  doubt,  raise  your  eyes  to  the  stars, 
and  think  upon  the  Wisdom  of  your  Creator  !     I  have  done. 


1  This,  of  course,  includes  Philo-ism  or  the  esoteric  doctrines  of  the  Israelites. 
*  He  should  have  added,  in  its  corruptions. 


Matter,  Hist.  Gnos.  Vol.  II.  p.  489. 


(    829    ) 


APPENDIX. 


In  a  note  to  Section  8,  Chapter  III.  Book.  V.,  I  have  made  an  observation  respecting  the  foot  of  Buddha.  This 
foot  was  called  Phrabat.  In  volume  III.  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Asiatic  Society,  page  57,  are  some  curious 
observations  on  the  Phrabat  or  foot-mark  of  Buddha  of  the  Siamese.  Here  we  have,  I  apprehend,  two  words — Phra 
and  Bat.  The  last  is  Buddha.  The  first  is  the  Pra,  noticed  by  La  Loubere  as  being  the  same  as  Bra — the  meaning  of 
which,  I  have  formerly  shewn,  was  Creator  or  Former,  from  the  Hebrew  word  Nil  bra.  Then  the  meaning  of  foot  of 
Bhra-bat  is,  foot  of  the  creator  Bud.  This  is  ^=608,  whence  came  the  title  of  the  Pharoahs  of  the  Copts.  The 
Phrabat,  as  the  sacred  signum  or  impression  of  Buddha,  proves  the  truth  of  his  having  been  in  India.  The  probat  is 
the  deed  marked  with  the  sacred  impression  of  the  Bishop's  seal,  or  of  the  seal  of  the  Christian  religion.  The  Bishop 
grants  probate,  when  he  is  satisfied  with  the  proof  of  the  truth  of  a  deed.  Phra-bat  is  the  impress  of  Buddha.  This 
bat  is  Bad,  and  Pad,  the  name  of  the  rivers  Po  and  Ganges,  and  from  being  the  place  where  his  foot  rested,  it  came  to 
mean  foot;  and  from  this  comes  our  pad  for  foot  :  when  a  man  walks  a  journey  he  pads  it.  The  word  PRA  is  the 
foundation,  the  root  of  all  the  words  above-cited;  and  it  is  from  this  that  the  Siamese  say,  the  French  are  the  same  as 
themselves,  having  the  same  name,  of  which  I  shall  say  more  hereafter.  From  the  same  root  come  the  Latin  probo, 
and  the  English  approve. 

In  Book  VI.  Chapter  I.  Sect.  10,  I  have  stated  a  remarkable  circumstance  respecting  the  Caspian  Sea,  namely, 
that  there  is  a  great  whirlpool  near  the  Southern  end  of  it,  by  which,  probably,  its  waters  are  discharged.  The 
following  account  of  the  Pere  Averil,  in  Harris's  Voyages  and  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  248,  will  explain  this  :  "  But  what 
"  has  puzzled  the  most  refined  naturalists  is,  that,  notwithstanding  the  continual  access  of  the  waters  of  so  many  rivers, 
"  this  sea  is  not  considerably  augmented,  or  ever  transgresses  its  bounds  :  some  have  been  of  opinion,  that  the  Black 
"  Sea  draws  a  great  share  of  those  waters  into  its  bosom  :  but  that  ridge  of  mountains  placed  betwixt  these  two  seas 
"  by  nature,  seems  to  separate  them  so  far  as  not  to  admit  of  any  probability  for  that  assertion.  On  the  other  hand, 
"  there  are  two  reasons  that  rather  incline  me  to  believe  that  this  lake,  (the  Caspian  Sea,)  how  far  remote  soever  from 
"  the  Persian  Gulf,  discharges  a  great  part  of  its  waters  there :  the  first  is,  that  on  the  South  side  of  the  Persian  Gulf,1 
"  opposite  to  the  province  of  Kilan,  are  dangerous  whirlpools,  the  noise  of  which,  as  the  water  is  thrown  into  the 
*'  Gulf,  is  so  great,  occasioned  by  the  rapidity  of  the  waters,  that  in  calm  weather  it  may  be  heard  at  a  great  distance, 
"  and  consequently  these  abysses  are  avoided  by  marines.  The  second  is,  that  by  the  constant  experience  of  those 
**  inhabiting  near  the  Persian  Gulf,  it  is  confirmed,  that  at  the  end  of  every  autumn  they  observe  a  vast  quantity  of 
*'  willow  leaves  thereabouts ;  and  it  being  beyond  contradiction,  that  this  sort  of  tree  is  not  so  much  as  known  in 
"  those  Southern  parts  of  Persia,  whereas  the  Northern  part,  bordering  on  the  Caspian  Lake,  and  especially  the 
*'  province  of  Kilan,  are  stored  with  them  near  the  sea-shore,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  those  leaves  are  not  carried 
*«  by  the  winds  from  one  extremity  of  the  empire  to  the  other,  but  rather  with  the  waters  that  carry  them  through  the 
"  subterraneous  channels  and  caverns  to  the  before-mentioned  Gulf."  It  will  not  be  denied  that  we  are  here  made 
acquainted  with  a  circumstance  in  a  high  degree  confirmatory  of  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  Caspian  Sea,  which  is 
again  confirmed  by  the  following  passage  from  Muller's  Universal  History. 

It  was  the  opinion  of  Pallas  that  the  Euxine  and  Caspian  Seas,  as  well  as  the  Lake  Aral,  are  the  remains  of  an  ex- 
tensive sea,  which  covered  a  great  part  of  the  North  of  Asia.*  This  conjecture  of  Pallas's,  which  was  drawn  from  his 
observations  in  Siberia,  has  been  confirmed  by  Klaproth's  Survey  of  the  Country  to  the  Northward  of  the  Caucasus. 
Lastly,  M.  de  Choiseul  Gouffier  adds,  that  a  great  part  of  Moldavia,  Walachia,  and  Bessarabia,  bears  evident  traces  of 
having  formed  part  of  the  same  sea. 

It  has  been  often  conjectured  that  the  opening  of  the  Bosphorus  was  the  occasion  of  the  draining  of  this  ocean  in 


1  This  is  a  misprint,  or  rather  most  careless  mistranslation  :  Caspian  Sea  must  be  meant. 
8  See  Pallas  Reise  durch  Siberian,  Book  v. 


830  APPENDIX. 

the  midst  of  Europe  and  Asia.  The  memory  of  this  disruption  of  the  two  continents  was  preserved  in  the  traditions 
of  Greece.  Strabo,1  Pliny,4  and  Diodorus,3  have  collected  the  ancient  memorials  which  existed  of  so  striking  a 
catastrophe.  The  truth  of  the  story  has,  however,  been  placed  on  more  secure  grounds  by  physical  observations  on 
the  districts  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Bosphorus.  See  Dr.  Clarke's  Travels,  and  particularly  a  Memoir  by  M.  de  Choiseul 
Gouffier  in  the  Mems.  de  l'Institut.  Royal  de  France,  1815.  The  above  observations  of  the  translator  of  Muller's  Uni- 
versal History    very  strikingly  support  what  I  have  said. 

I  think  a  careful  inspection  of  the  district  of  Troy  must  convince  any  unprejudiced  person,  either  that  Homer  is  the 
most  incorrect  of  topographers,  (which  is  directly  against  his  general  character,  in  other  respects  so  remarkable  for 
accuracy,)  or  that  its  face  has  been  considerably  changed  since  he  made  it  the  subject  of  his  poem.  Mr.  Payne  Knight 
attributes  this  to  earthquakes.4  This  may  be  true ;  but  I  think  I  am  justified  in  attributing  it  to  the  devastation  caused 
by  the  breaking  down  of  the  head  of  the  Euxine,  and  the  opening  of  the  passage.  The  breaking  down  of  the  head 
may  have  been  caused  by  a  convulsion  of  the  earth.  If  my  memory  do  not  fail  me,  there  is  no  undisputed  passage  in 
the  Poem  of  Homer  from  which  it  can  be  inferred,  that  the  Dardanelles  was  open  either  in  the  supposed  time  of  the 
war,  or  in  the  time  when  the  Homeric  songs  were  first  composed?  Now,  when  I  consider  the  very  fine  field  which  the 
Euxine  and  its  shores  offer  to  the  poet,  the  fact  of  his  not  having  availed  himself  of  it,  raises  a  strong  presumption 
that  from  being  closed,  it  was  not  in  his  power. 

In  Book  VI.  Chapter  II.  Section  8,  a  black  Multimammia  is  alluded  to,  and  described  in  Figure  19.  A  very 
beautiful  exemplar  of  this  black  lady  may  be  seen  in  Sir  John  Soan's  Cabinet  of  Antiquities,  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields. 

In  Book  X.  Chapter  VI.  Section  6,  I  have  made  some  observations  on  the  peculiarity  of  the  circumstance  that  the 
Christian  Templars  should  take  their  name  from  the  Jewish  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  also  on  the  fact  which  Mr. 
Hammer  has  pointed  out,  that  they  have  a  close  resemblance  to  the  Assassins  and  Casideans— O'TDn  hsidim.  I  believe 
that  Mohamed  (as  well  as  Hassan  Sabah)  was  considered  by  his  followers  to  be  the  tenth  Avatar,  and  a  renewed 
incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  at  least  of  the  ninth  Avatar ;  and  that  he  was  to  be  continued  by  renewed  incarnation  till 
the  time  when  he  was  to  come  in  his  glory  to  reign  at  Jerusalem,  which  is  an  event  which  the  Mohamedans  expect  to 
arrive,  as  Maundrell  says,  at  the  day  of  judgment;7  but  which  I  suspect  meant,  on  the  arrival  of  the  Millenium. 
This  doctrine  of  the  renewed  Avatar  we  see  most  clearly  in  the  followers  of  Ali  in  Persia  ;  and  it  was  for  this  reason 
that  the  temple  in  the  holy  city  (as  all  Turks  call  Jerusalem)  was  rebuilt  with  the  greatest  magnificence  in  their  power 
at  the  time,  and  is  considered  most  sacred.  For  this  reason  it  is  probable  that  the  rival  temple  of  Solomon,  (as  it 
would  appear  to  the  Western  Arabians,  or  Suraseni,  or  Saracens,)  in  Cashmere,  was  destroyed  by  them  when  they 
conquered  the  country.  Here  we  see  the  reason  why  the  Casideans,  that  is,  Templars  or  Chaldeans,  came  from  the 
ruined  temples  of  Solomon  in  the  East,  about  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  to  the  temple  in  the  West,  viz.  because  the 
temple  in  the  West  by  its  resurrection  from  its  ashes,  shewed  that  it  was  the  true  one ;  while  the  temples  in  the  East 
were  proved  not  to  be  the  true  temples  in  consequence  of  their  destruction  by  the  Mohamedans.  It  is  probable  that 
the  persons  who  were  the  originals  of  our  Templars  were  a  part  of  the  Sophitae  or  Sophees  of  Cashmere,  who  were 
persuaded  to  leave  their  country,  and  to  separate  from  their  countrymen,  whom  we  found  (vide  Book  X.  Chap.  VI. 
Section  14,  p.  731)  in  Cashmere  or  Casimere  and  its  neighbourhood,  and  who  could  not  be  converted  to  Mohamedism,  but 
who  now  remain  in  the  East  like  the  people  of  Oude  or  Ayoudia,  (vide  Book  X.  Chap.  V.  Section  12,  p.  684,) 
expecting  their  promised  Saviour.  The  reason  why  the  Saracen  and  Turkish  chiefs  constantly  take  the  names  of 
Abraham,  Solomon,  &c,  is,  because  they  consider  themselves  renewed  incarnations  of  these  Patriarchs.  Thus  at  last, 
I  believe,  I  have  discovered  what  I  in  vain  took  very  great  pains  for  a  long  time  to  discover,  viz.  the  reason  for  the 
rebuilding  of  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Mohamedans.  Here,  I  think,  we'may  see  that  the  Ishmaelians  or  Ishma- 
lites,  or  Assassins  from  Almawt,  or  the  eagle's  nest,  or  Almond,  as  Mr.  Klaproth  calls  it,  between  Cazvin  and  Ghilan, 
were  a  sect  of  the  Sophees  of  the  East,  probably  Cashmere,  claiming  to  possess  by  right  the  holy  city  of  Jerusalem, 
from  the  usurping  Calif;  for  they  were  at  constant  war  with  both  Christians  and  Saracens,  though  they  are  said  to 
have  united  in  their  religion  the  religion  of  both.  Besides,  I  am  not  quite  certain  that  Hassan  Sabah  did  not  claim  to 
be  a  descendant  of  Ali,  and  as  such  entitled  to  the  Kalifat ;  however,  it  is  admitted  that  he  claimed  to  be  a  tenth 

Avatar. 

These  Sophitae  or  Sophees  belonging  to  the  Temple  of  Solomon  in  Casimere  or  Cashmere,  must  have  been  the  Jews,  or 
a  sect  of  the  people  called  by  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  Jews,  not  Samaritans,  as  their  Temple  of  Solomon  proves,  whom  he 
found  in  very  great  numbers  in  the  countries  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cashmere.  Belonging  to  the  worship  of  the  temple 
of  Solomon,  and  speaking  the  Chaldee  language,  they  might  be  correctly  called  Jews.    But  they  were  also  Samaneans 


>  Lib.  i.  p.  49.  s  Nat.  Hist.  Lib.  ii.  Cap.  xc.  3  Lib.  v.  Cap.  xlvii. 

4  Vol.  I.  p.  32.  4  Hist.  Gr.  Alp.  p.  34. 

6  There  is  not  a  trace  of  the  Aigonautic  expedition  in  the  genuine  parts  of  either  of  the  poems  of  Homer.    See  Barker's 
Lempriere  on  the  words  Argos  and  Cyaneaj. 
i  Travels,  p.  170. 


APPENDIX.  831 

or  Sophees.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Jews  or  Ioudi  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon  in  Western  Syria,  were  the  same  as 
the  Jews  or  Ioudi  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon  in  Eastern  Syria  or  Cashmere,  and  as  the  Ioudi  of  Adoni  and  Salem  of 
South  India,  with  only  some  trifling  differences.  These  differences,  probably,  arose  from  the  difference  of  country, 
to  which  the  Western  Ioudi  were  obliged  to  accommodate  themselves,  and  to  other  adventitious  circumstances  arising 
out  of  the  different  fortunes  of  the  two,  after  their  separation  in  Ayoudia. 

After  Abraham's  tribe  came  from  the  East,  we  know  in  general,  from  the  accident  of  having  their  sacred  books 
preserved  to  us,  sufficient  of  their  history  to  account  for  their  peculiarities.  We  know  how  great  was  the  care  of  their 
Iconoclastic  leader  to  preserve  them  from  idolatry ;  therefore,  till  their  destruction  about  the  time  of  Christ,  they  did 
not  publicly  adopt  the  worship  of  any  other  or  new  Avatar  or  Messiah  ;  but  certain  passages,  which  I  shall  point  out 
in  their  Apocrypha  in  a  future  Book,  and  the  Papal  Fisherman,  and  the  Fishes  tied  by  the  tails,  &c,  &c,  shew  that 
they,  in  part,  did  it  privately.  On  the  contrary,  in  India,  or  the  Eastern  Judrea  or  Ayoudia,  the  Avatars  followed 
publicly  in  succession.  Cristna  or  the  Ram  followed  Taurus  or  the  Bull,  and  the  use  of  images,  for  which  Abraham 
left  India,  kept  increasing,  till,  by  degrees,  every  kind  of  ridiculous  emblematic  idol  was  admitted ;  until  at  last,  as  in 
Greece  and  Italy,  the  original  meaning  of  the  religion  was  lost.  I  have  no  doubt  that  at  every  temple  of  Solomon — 
at  that  in  China, — that  in  the  Carnatic, — that  in  Mewar, — that  at  Telmessus, — that  at  Eleusis, — and  the  five  in  Egypt, 
as  I  shall  shew  in  a  very  remarkable  manner,  there  must  originally  have  been  a  system,  in  its  foundation  and  great 
leading  features,  the  same  as  at  Jerusalem.  I  speak  not  now  of  the  minor  rites  and  ceremonies.  In  all  these  places 
we  find  some  remnants  of  the  system,  which  must  all  have  been  imitations  of  the  great  parent  in  the  mighty  kingdom 
of  Oude,  or  Ayoudia,  or  of  Pandsea,  for  it  was  all  the  same.  Jesus  Christ  was  set  up  as  the  ninth  incarnation  by  those 
who  understood  the  principle  of  the  mythos.  Mohamed  patronised,  and  his  followers  restored,  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem, in  preference  to  that  at  Telmessus  or  that  in  Casi-mere,  because  he,  in  fact,  belonged  to  the  sect  of  that  at 
Jerusalem. 

Dr.  Clarke  says,1  that  the  Mosque  at  Jerusalem  is  the  most  magnificent  piece  of  architecture  in  the  Turkish  domi- 
nions ;  much  more  magnificent  than  that  of  St.  Sophia  at  Constantinople. 

We  may  be  very  certain  that  when  the  present  magnificent  Temple  at  Jerusalem  was  erected,  splendid  as  it  is,  more 
was  originally  intended  to  be  done  by  its  builder,  than  what  we  find.  I  think  there  can  be  very  little  doubt  that  its 
builder  intended  to  restore  the  glories  of  Solomon,  in  the  former  existence  of  which,  of  course,  he  believed,  and  place 
the  seat  of  his  empire  there,  or  at  least  he  thought  that  in  rebuilding  the  temple  he  was  preparing  Jerusalem  for  that 
event.  This  intention  was  probably  suspended  by  the  divisions  of  the  Califat  into  three  or  four  states,  and  finally  pre- 
vented by  the  occupation  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Christians,  about  which  time  the  failure  of  the  Millenium  was  obvious  to 
its  expectants.  Then  were  blown  into  air  the  chimeras  of  Christians,  Ishmaelites,  Sonnites,  and  Shiites,  or  followers  of 
Ali.  Among  the  whole  of  them  the  doctrine  of  the  millenium  and  the  renewed  incarnation  may  be  most  clearly  seen. 
This  doctrine,  for  the  last  six  hundred  years,  they  have  all  endeavoured  to  secrete  or  deny,  for  the  same  reason  that  the 
Christians  of  the  West  have  endeavoured  to  secrete  the  Gospel  of  Joachim.  Here  we  begin  to  perceive  the  reason  for 
the  mission  of  Abdul  Raschid,  of  which  the  Mohamedan  historians  treat,*  who  was  sent  by  the  Afghans,  or  Arabians, 
or  Suraceni,  or  whatever  they  might  be,  from  the  countries  on  the  North  of  India,  to  Western  Arabia,  in  the  time  of 
Mohamed,  to  inquire  into  the  circumstances  of  the  new  Amid  or  Desire  of  all  Nations,  who,  they  were  told,  had 
appeared  in  the  West ; 3  and  who,  they  might,  perhaps,  have  heard  from  their  Tartarian  or  Chinese  neighbours,  was 
foretold  to  appear  in  Ayoudia  or  Oude,  which  was  West  to  them.  Here  we  begin  to  perceive  the  reason  for  the 
devotees  of  the  Eastern  temple  of  Solomon,  the  Afghans,  becoming  the  earliest  converts  to  Islamism.  The  word  Islam 
I  shall  explain  hereafter. 

I  think  it  not  unlikely  that  the  Casideans,  found  by  the  Christian  conquerors  of  Jerusalem,  (and  who  afterward 
became  their  Knights  Hospitallers  and  Knights  Templars,)  were  the  remains  of  persons  brought  from  the  Eastern 
temple  of  Solomon,  from  Casi-mere,  for  the  express  purpose  of  rebuilding  the  Western  Temple,  according  to  the 
mystic  plan  of  the  Eastern  one,  and  that  this  is  the  reason  why  they  were  found  by  the  Christians  as  an  appendage  to 
the  new  temple. 

The  mosque  or  temple  on  Mount  Moriah  was  built  by  the  Calif  Omar,  the  son  of  Caleb,  about  the  year  16  of  the 
Hegira,  A.D.  637.  Chateaubriand  says,4  La  Mosqu£e  prit  le  nom  de  cette  roche  Gameat-el-Sakhra.  It  has  a  large 
dome,  under  the  centre  of  which  is  a  cave,  and  at  the  top  of  it  the  sacred  stone  which,  in  all  these  religions,  is  generally 
found  in  or  close  to  the  temple  or  church. 

This  building  is  called  by  our  travellers  a  Mosque,  but  whether  it  be  considered  in  any  other  light  than  a  common 
mosque  by  the  Musselmans  I  know  not.  But  the  blindness  of  all  our  travellers  in  not  seeing  that  Mohamedism  is 
nothing  but  a  branch  of  Christianism,  as  Peter  Martyr  long  before  me  proved,  forbids  any  rational  dependance  on  any 


1  Trav.  in  the  Holy  Land.  Chap.  xvii.  p.  601,  ed.  4to.  *  Vide  ruy  Apol.  for  the  Life  of  Mohamed. 

s  Vide  Chap.  VII.  Sect.  II.  p.  74 1.  *  Travels,  Vol.  II.  p.  1 15. 


832  APPENDIX. 

thing1  which  they  say.  Surely,  if  any  thing  like  critical  acumen  had  existed  among  them,  they  would  have  inquired 
into  the  reason  for  the  profound  veneration  paid  at  Damascus  to  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist.  This  single  fact  proves 
the  truth  of  almost  all  I  have  said  respecting  the  Christianity  of  Mohamed.  But  people  seem  to  me  never  either  ta 
think  or  reason.  However,  I  am  rather  disposed  to  believe  that  as  the  Millenarian  system  of  the  Christians  changed 
after  the  thirteenth  century,  so,  in  like  manner,  the  Mohamedan  changed,  and  the  building  which  was  begun  as  a 
temple  for  the  whole  world,  has  dwindled  down  into  a  mere  mosque ;  and  neither  Jesus  nor  Mohamed  is  expected  now 
to  come  to  reign  in  it  at  the  end  of  the  6000  years. 

The  followers  of  Ali,  however,  still  cling  to  this  superstition,  and  have  various  fancies  about  it ;  some  saying,  that 
the  last  Imaum  continues,  but  in  secret.  The  idea  of  the  Imaum  being  somewhere  in  secret,  furnishes  food  for  ridicule 
to  our  travellers ;  who  generally  laugh  at  things  they  do  not  understand,  instead  of  inquiring  into  them.  I  apprehend 
this  means  merely,  that  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  last  Imaum  of  the  house  of  Ali  is  living  in  obscurity  j  that  the  line 
continues ;  and  that  the  lineal  descendant  will  some  day  resume  the  government.  This  I  shall  shew  is  the  opinion  of 
the  Sonnites  as  well  as  of  the  Shiites. 

In  the  description  of  the  Temple  given  by  Mons.  Chateaubriand  is  an  account  of  the  sacred  stone  to  which  I  have 
alluded.    In  this  Mohamedan  Temple,  there  are  in  the  stone  Pillar  and  the  Cave  both  the  Nabhi  or  Navel  of  the 
earth,  and  the  Yoni  and  the  Linga,  though  they  may  not  now  be  understood.    This  and  other  circumstances  induce  me 
to  believe,  that  though  the  Mohamedans  might  object  to  the  single  worship  of  the  Dove,  they  had  not  the  same 
objection  to  the  double  one.    Here,  if  I  understand  M.  Chateaubriand,  the  stone  is  placed  over  the  cave.    Now  I  do  not 
doubt  that,  in  the  ancient  temple  of  Solomon,  there  were  the  cave  and  the  mysterious  stone  pillar,  pedestal  or  whatever 
it  might  be,  the  same  as  at  Delphi  and  other  places ;  but  in  it  the  pillar  or  pedestal  was  probably  not  over  the  cave  but 
in  it,  as  described  by  Nicephorus  Callistus,  Lib.  x.  Cap.  xxxiii.  in  the  following  words  :  "  onyp  eyu  ev  asopprfr^  ck^uv 
"  htYiyv)<roy.a.i '  £%«  8e  oiru.    k.  t.  X.     "  At  the  time  when  the  foundation  was  laid,  one  of  the  stones,  to  which  the  lowest 
"  part  of  the  foundation  was  attached,  was  removed  from  its  place,  and  discovered  the  mouth  of  a  cavern  which  had 
"  been  hollowed  out  of  the  rock.     Now  since  they  could  not  see  to  the  bottom  on  account  of  its  depth,  the  overseers 
"  of  the  work,  wishing  to  be  perfectly  acquainted  with  the  place,  let  down  one  of  the  workmen  by  means  of  a  long 
"  rope  into  the  cavern.    When  he  came  to  the  bottom  he  found  himself  in  water  as  high  as  his  ancles,  and  examining 
"  every  part  of  the  cavern,  he  found  it  to  be  square  as  far  as  he  could  ascertain  by  feeling.    He  afterward  searched 
"  nearer  the  mouth  of  the  cavern,   and  on  examination  discovered  a  low  pillar  very  little  higher  than  the  water,  and 
"  having  placed  his  hand  upon  it,  he  found  lying  there  a  book    carefully  folded  in  a  piece  of  thin  and  clean  linen. 
"  This  book  he  secured,  and  signified  by  the  rope  his  wish  to  be  drawn  up.     On  being  drawn  up  he  produced  the 
"  book,  which  struck  the  beholders  with  astonishment,  particularly  as  it  appeared  perfectly  fresh  and  untouched, 
"  though  it  had  been  brought  out  of  so  dark  and  dismal  a  place.    When  the  book  was  unfolded,  not  only  the  Jews 
"  but  the  Greeks  also  were  amazed,  as  it  declared  in  large  letters,  even  at  its  commencement,  In  the  beginning,  &c. 
"  To  speak  clearly,  the  writing  here  discovered,  did  most  evidently  contain  all  that  Gospel  which  was  uttered  by  the 
"  divine  tongue  of  the  virgin  disciple."  *    What  credit  my  reader  may  give  to  the  whole  or  any  part  of  the  history  of 
Nicephorus  Callistus,  I  do  not  know ;  but  I  do  know,  that  I  never  saw  any  book  in  which  the  higher  part  of  the 
ancient  Jewish  Cabala  is  more  distinctly  marked,  than  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  Gospel  according  to  John.    Knowing, 
as  the  person  who  has  read  this  book  must  know,  the  doctrine  of  wisdom  as  a  key,  he  cannot  fail  to  see  that  it  is 
contained  in  every  line  of  the  first  part  of  this  Gospel.     If  a  book  were  to  be  concealed  in  the  Temple,  from  a  period 
long  anterior  to  the  Christian  tsra,  I  know  of  no  one  so  likely  as  the  Gospel  of  John,  or  at  least  as  the  first  part  of  it. 
My  reason  for  this,  which  my  reader  will  justly  think  very  paradoxical,  I  shall  give  in  a  future  book. 

Jesus  Christ  was  said  by  some  of  his  followers  to  be  a  renewal  of  Adam.  He  said,  before  Abraham  was  I  am,  that 
is,  /  was,  the  old  language  having  no  present  tense.  From  this  peculiarity  of  the  Hebrew  language,  in  the  past  and 
future  tenses  being  convertible,  the  equivoque  in  our  translation  arose,  but  it  ought  to  be,  before  Abraham  was  /  was. 
This  I  have  no  doubt  the  Popes  would  quote  to  establish  a  claim  to  universal  dominion,  which  1  shall  explain  in  my 
next  volume.  It  was  held  that  Jesus  would  come  to  rule  at  Jerusalem,  but  I  suspect  the  Mohamedans  would  say  as  a 
renewed  incarnation,  and  I  think  they  held  Mohamed  to  be  a  renewed  incarnation  of  Jesus,  and  Ali  a  renewed 
incarnation  of  Mohamed.  If  it  be  objected  that  Ali  and  Mohamed  lived  at  the  same  time,  a  devotee  will  quote  the 
example  of  Elias  and  Elisha,  and  say,  the  divine  spirit  did  not  enter  Ali  till  after  Mohamed's  death.  It  is  a  common 
expression,  that  when  Mohamed  put  off  his  cloak  he  gave  it  to  Ali.  The  holy  spirit  did  not  enter  Jesus  till  it  appeared 
as  a  dove  at  his  baptism,  and  till  the  fire  was  lighted  in  the  river.*  This  looks  as  if  the  author  of  that  book  meant  to 
describe  Jesus  as  not  a  divine  person  till  the  descent  of  the  Dove.  I  believe  the  words  Mum  Christo  configuratum 
applied  to  St.  Francis,  in  Chapter  VI.  Sect.  4,  were  meant  to  describe  a  renewed  incarnation,  but  were,  perhaps,  not 
wholly  understood  by  the  persons  using  them.    In  the  possession  by  the  Turks  of  the  head,  or  the  pretended  head  of 


1  I  have  some  particular  reasons  for  inserting  this  here.  *  Justin  Martyr. 


APPENDIX.  833 

John  the  Baptist,  before  noticed  by  me  in  Chap.  V.  Sect.  12,  and  again  just  now,  there  is  a  proof  that  we  are  in  general 
quite  ignorant  of  the  principles  of  their  religion.1 

To  deny  that  Mohamed,  who  admitted  the  existence  of  Jesus  Christ— his  divine  mission,  and  that  he  really  had  the 
power  of  performing  miracles,  and  that  the  doctrines  which  he  taught  were  true — was  a  Christian,  is  absurd,  and  only 
worthy  of  the  devotees  who  deny  it  j  and  it  does  not  deserve  to  have  a  moment's  time  wasted  upon  it.8 

In  Book  X.  Chapter  VI.  Sections  3  and  13, 1  have  said,  it  was  probable  that  St.  John's  College,  at  Cambridge,  was 
the  domus  Templi  of  the  round  church  of  the  Templars  there;  but  since  that  was  printed,  I  have  inquired  more  into 
the  church,  &c,  at  Cambridge,  and  I  find  that  the  present  St.  John's  is  only  of  modern  foundation.  There  is, 
however,  annexed  to,  or  connected  with,  this  church,  an  almshouse,  called  Bedes-house,  the  name  of  which  has 
puzzled  all  the  antiquarians.  This  I  have  little  doubt  was  the  original  Domus  Templi — the  house  of  Buddha  cor- 
rupted into  Bede,  and  meaning  wisdom,  i.e.  seminary  of  sound  learning  and  religious  education;  and  to  support 
this  religious  principle,  I  think  St.  John's  College  was  built,  and  the  ancient  Domus  Templi  converted  into  an 
almshouse.  The  Saxon  style  of  architecture  of  the  round  church  at  Cambridge,  and  the  pillars  upon  which  the 
pointed  arches  of  that  at  Northampton  are  built,  prove  them  to  be  far  older  than  the  tenth  or  eleventh  century.  The 
College  of  St.  John  at  Cambridge,  close  to  the  Temple,  is  a  similar  institution  to  that  of  Hassan  Sabah  at  Cairo. 
All  schools  and  colleges  in  ancient  times  were  considered  to  be  pious  foundations  for  the  education  of  the  priesthood ; 
and  I  have  no  doubt  that,  originally,  the  laity  was  considered  as  encroaching  on  the  priesthood,  by  learning  the  arts  of 
reading  and  writing. 

The  case  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  I  take  to  be  like  that  of  the  Inner  Temple  Church  in  London.  When 
you  ask  for  the  foundation  of  that  church  and  institution,  your  inquiries  are  instantly  stopped  by  being  shewn  the 
inscription,  which  declares  it  to  have  been  built  in  the  year  1185;  but,  on  close  examination,  it  appears  that  it  was 
rebuilt — brought  from  another  place,  somewhere  near  Holborn.  This  serves  to  shew  how  an  inquirer  is  liable, 
unless  he  use  great  caution,  to  be  deceived  by  his  informants,  (without  any  thing  wrong  on  their  part  being  intended,) 
and  the  real  age  of  an  institution  concealed.  I  suspect,  like  the  removed  Temple  Church,  that  St.  John's  College 
(which,  as  just  noticed,  was  of  the  same  character  as  the  house  of  Hassan  Sabah  at  Cairo)  was  rebuilt  in  the  place  of 
the  house  of  Bede  or  Bedes  near  to  it,  which  house  acquired  its  title  when  the  Buddha  Trigeranon  in  Wales,  and  the 
Buddha  of  Scotland,  took  their  names  in  those  countries,  and  when  one  university  and  river  were  called  Isis  and 
Oxford,  and  the  other  the  bridge  of  Cam  or  the  aspirated  Om.  When  the  improved  new  house  of  Buddha  or  Wisdom, 
the  present  St.  John's,  was  built,  the  old  one,  the  Bedes  house,  was  given  to  the  poor.  I  shall  return  in  a  future  page 
to  the  word  Templum  :  I  know  no  word  more  curious. 

Since  I  printed  the  observations  respecting  St.  Thomas,  in  Book  X.  Chapter  VII.  I  have  re-perused  the  work  of 
the  Jesuit,  Faria  y  Sousa,  on  the  Portuguese  history  of  India,  and  I  find  he  states,  that  St.  Thomas  built  churches 
in  China  as  well  as  India :  thus  proving  that  what  Bergeron  Des  Guines  and  Mons.  Paravey  said  was  true — that  the 
mythos  was  to  be  found  there.    The  Jesuits  found  it  there  when  they  arrived. 

In  Book  X.  Chapter  VII.  Section  7,  I  have  expressed  a  doubt,  whether  some  remains  of  a  period  earlier  than  the 
entrance  of  the  sun  into  Taurus  might  not  be  found  in  the  Twins,  alluded  to  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel.  This  arose 
from  a  mistake  which  I  made  in  the  meaning  of  the  word  Q«n  tarn.  I  hastily  ran  away  with  the  idea,  that  it  had 
reference  only  to  two  human  beings,  while  it  really  has  no  such  exclusive  meaning,  but  may  apply  to  the  two  fishes  of 
the  Zodiac,  or  even  to  a  pair  or  double  of  any  article  whatever.  This  removes  a  difficulty  which,  if  it  meant  Gemini, 
it  raised  in  my  system,  as  every  one  must  see,  who  has  attended  to  it  closely.  The  allusion  is  evidently  to  the  Buddhist 
incarnation  of  the  fishes ;  for  the  votaries  at  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  are  Buddhists.  The  Buddhists  had  all  the 
Zodiacal  incarnations. 

Faria  y  Sousa  says3  that  the  Portuguese,  when  they  arrived  at  Malliapour  or  St.  Thome*,  found  near  the  Tomb  of 
the  saint,  the  burying-place  of  a  Sibylla,  whom  he  calls  Indica.  But  we  must  not  forget  that  in  the  part  of  Italy 
where  we  found  the  traces  of  the  Camasene,4  there  lived  the  Sibyl  of  Cuma.  Now  the  country  where  the  Indian  lady 
lived  was  the  country  of  Cuma  or  Cama  as  well  as  of  Cali.  If  we  refer  as  above,  we  shall  see  that  the  same  mythos  of 
Cuma  or  Cama,  is  most  clearly  in  both  countries.  The  Sibyl  of  Italy  was  said  to  have  come  from  Chaldea,  that  is  Calida. 
I  also  request  attention  to  the  fact  named  in  Book  X.  Chapter  I.  Section  20,  that  all  the  things  related  of  Jesus 
Christ  were  related  by  the  Cumaean  Sibyl,  as  well  as  by  the  Sibyl  of  Erythraea.  From  these  circumstances  I  cannot  help 
believing,  notwithstanding  what  I  have  said  respecting  the  Gemini,  that  the  Didymus,  the  Tam,  meant  twin  fishes, 
not  twin  children.  Jonas  was  swallowed  by  a  whale.  This  fish  was  chosen  because  it  brings  forth  only  two  young 
ones  at  a  time,  and  suckles  them  like  most  animals.  It  seems  like  a  connecting  link  between  the  animal  and  the  fish 
creation.    Cama  was  the  male  and  female  deity  of  love.    Cama  might  be  Ama  aspirated,  and  Tam  might  be  only  Ama 


1  The  Turks  have  bodies  of  soldiers  called  Segmen  as  well  as  Sphahis.    These  are  men  of  Saga,  those  men  of  Sophia.    They 
still  give  to  the  Mosque  at  Constantinople  the  name  given  by  Constantine,  St.  Sophia.    Mauudrell,  p.  171. 

*  His  sect  of  Christians  seems  to  have  absorbed  nearly  all  the  other  sects,  except  that  of  the  Paulites. 

3  Vol»  *•  P-  272.  4  vide  pp.  760,  777,  783,  808. 

5o 


834  APPENDIX. 

or  Amor  preceded  by  the  emphatic  article,  T' Ama.    In  this  way  I  find  a  rational  meaning  for  the  word  Tarn,  in  perfect 
keeping  with  the  other  parts  of  the  system. 

But,  upon  the  whole,  I  incline  to  the  opinion  that  the  Camarinus  is  the  same  as  Tam-marinus,  and  the  Cam-masenus 
the  same  as  Tam-masenus.'  In  order  to  judge  of  this,  my  reader  must  refer,  by  means  of  the  Index,  to  the  places 
where  these  words  are  treated  of.  If  this  be  admitted,  a  high  probability  will  be  raised,  that  wherever  St.  Thomas  is 
found,  the  adoration  of  the  Fishes  or  of  Aries  may  be  looked  for. 

Ceylon  is  called  Lanca  or  Langa,  or  Ham  or  Salabham,  and  by  Ptolemy,  Salica.  The  coast  opposite  to  Ceylon,  to 
which  you  pass  over  Adam's  bridge,  is  called  Pescaria — evidently  the  fisherman's  coast.8  Bartolomeus3  says,  near 
Comorin  stands  the  temple  of  Ramanacoil  in  which  the  younger  Bacchus  and  the  Lingham  or  Phallus  of  Seva  is 
preserved.  The  Indians  believe  Ceylon  to  be  a  part  of  Paradise.  The  King  of  Ceylon  is  called  a  Rachia  by  Pliny.4 
Here  as  usual  we  find  the  Ras. 

I  suspect  the  fishery,  which  is  so  marked  here,  was  the  fishery  of  pearls ;  and,  paradoxical  as  I  may  be  thought,  that 
the  Pearl  fishing  town  of  Colchester  (not  Maldon)  was  called  Cama-lodunum  for  the  same  reason.  In  the  province 
of  Picenum,  on  the  shore  of  the  Adriatic,  was  a  town  called  C«/warino.  Both  these  names  I  think  arose  from  the  same 
superstition. 

Mr.  Cleland  says,  that  the  pearl  was  the  peculiar  emblem  of  peace.6  The  Indian  Cama  is  crowned  with  pearls. 
They  took  the  name  of  beads,  from  the  Vedda,  which  meant  Wisdom,  and  on  this  account  the  Celtic  Judge's  coronet 
was  surrounded  with  pearls.  I  think  the  fact  that  the  town  of  the  Roman  pearl  fishery  in  England  was  called  Cama, 
when  joined  to  the  other  circumstances,  raises  a  high  probability,  that  the  word  Cama  meant  pearl ;  and  that  Cama- 
lodunum  was  town  of  the  fishery  of  the  pearl-  But  Cama  or  Kama  Deva  has  for  one  of  his  epithets  Makara-Ketu, 
or,  he  who  bears  the  Makara  on  his  banner.  The  word  Makara  means  a  sea  monster,  and  Ketu  is  the  Greek  Kijtos  and 
the  Latin  Cetus,  the  whale.    This  completes  the  proof  of  identity  between  the  Cama  of  India  and  Italy, 

It  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  Hebrew  text  is  dislocated,  interpolated,  and  has  multitudes  of  lacunae  in  it ;  and  it  is 
an  admitted  fact,  that  the  celebrated  Urim  and  Thummim  were  lost  after  the  captivity.  From  the  union  of  these 
circumstances  I  am  led  to  believe,  that  part  of  the  text  respecting  these  words  is  omitted ;  and  when  I  recollect  that  we 
have  found  the  Judaean  mythos  in  Urii  of  Calida,  along  with  the  Tam-mim,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  Urim,  the 
plural  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  and  Taininim,  the  plural  of  the  Tain  of  the  country  of  Ur,  had  a  reference  to  some 
superstition  of  the  Tainul  country.  I  suspect  that  originally  two  of  the  words  Tarn,  Cam,  and  Sam,  were  corruptions 
of  the  other  of  the  three. 

Orion  was  the  son  of  Mercury,  Jupiter,  and  Neptune.  I  think  we  have  here  in  the  three,  first,  Buddha  or  the  Bull ; 
secondly,  Cristna,  or  the  Ram  ;  and  thirdly,  Neptune,  or  the  sign  Pisces.  He  was  born  from  the  salt  water  of  these 
three  Gods,  ab  Urina.  He  was  called  A quosus.  He  tvas  carried  on  the  back  of  Dolphins.  Was  he  Jonas  swallowed 
by  a  whale,  by  the  fish  with  two  Mammae,  which  brings  forth  only  two  young  at  a  time  ? 

In  Book  X.  Chapter  VII.  Section  7,  I  have  suggested  that  the  different  cams  there  mentioned  might  take  then- 
names  from  the  sepulchral  monuments  called  earns.  To  a  certain  extent  this  may  be  true ;  but,  on  more  reflection, 
I  think  we  may  go  a  little  farther,  particularly  as  the  cause  does  not  seem  proportionate  to  the  effect.  Every  cam 
which  I  have  seen,  has,  or  has  had,  at  least  one  circle  of  stones  around  it,  several  near  Inverness  two  or  three,  and 
those  in  the  favourite  cycles,  of  twelve  or  twenty-four.  Now  I  find  from  Mr.  Cleland,  that  the  Celtic  (i.  e.  Hebrew, 
as  I  have  proved  Hebrew  and  Celtic  the  same)  for  a  circle  or  cycle  was  Kern  or  Caern.  He  says  this  word  also  meant  a 
church— that  would  be  a  temple.  Here,  in  the  circle,  (or  Temple,  which  I  shall  explain  hereafter  to  mean  circle,)  we 
have  a  rational  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  word.  From  this  we  may  have  the  Carnutes  of  Gaul,  and  all  the 
mystic  words  which  we  have  seen  occur  so  often,  not  excepting  even  the  circular  horn  of  the  Apollo  Carneus,  taking 
its  name  from  the  circular  form,  of  whom  the  horned  Aries  was  an  emblem.    He  was  K?n>irpo<rom<;. 

Here  we  may  have  the  origin  of  the  mystic  shell  in  the  hand  of  almost  every  God,  having  as  many  circles  as  cycles 
had  run.  Cleland  says,  "  The  Druids,  above  all  figures,  affected  the  circular.  Their  Cir,  Hirs,  Shires,  Churches, 
"  all  took  their  appellation  and  form  from  the  radical  Hir  or  Cir  for  a  circle." 6  But  this  Cir  is  nothing  but  the 
Hebrew  "\  J  gr,  a  circle,  our  Kirk  and  to  gird. 

But  besides  these,  and  closely  connected  with  them,  is  another  word  before  unknown  to  me,  namely,  the  Greek 
nap  or  Kapvos,  which  signifies  a  sheep.7  This  word  in  Celtic  is  Caora,  in  Hebrew  13  kr.  The  Philistines  had  a  temple 
called  -13-n'a  bit-kr.  (1  Sam.  vii.  11.)  Jupiter  was  called  Kopajo*  by  the  Boeotians.  From  this  Caria  had  its  name. 
All  these  words  were  evidently  closely  connected— in  fact,  in  root  the  same.    We  have  formerly  seen  Apollo  called 


1  Cape  Comorin  is  called  both  Coraari  and  Canyamuri.    Forster's  translation  of  Bartholomew,  p.  425. 

*  From  this  coast  came  the  Boies  or  Bohees,  the  tribe  of  Fishermen  whom' we  have  traced  to  Baieux,  the  originals  of  the 
Manichaeans.    See  the  Index. 

3  Forster's  Ed.  p.  427.  Mb.  p.  432.  s  Spec.  p.  47.  Mb.  p.  117. 

»  Drum.  Origen.  Vol.  IV.  Book  vii.  Chap.  vi.  p.  131  ;  also  Hesychius. 


APPENDIX.  835 

Xj»j?.  Sir  W.  Drummond  says,  that  some  held  that  from  the  city  of  Chrysaoris  the  whole  of  Curia  had  been  called. 
I  believe  that  all  these  names  came  from  the  Greek  numeral  symbols  X  or  TP2  and  the  Hebrew  *D  kr,  when  the 
Hebrew  Resh  (as  I  shall  by  and  by  shew)  denoted  both  one  hundred  and  two  hundred.  Though  it  is  difficult  to 
say,  yet  I  think  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand,  why  all  the  countries  came  to  be  called  Cam ;  nor  why  a  sacred 
heap  of  stones,  with  a  circle  of  stones  in  the  number  of  a  sacred  cycle  in  it,  or  round  it,  was  called  by  the  same 
name. 

But  this  word  also  we  have  just  seen  meant  a  horn  :  but  what  horn  ?  The  horn  of  the  Ram,  which  was  also  the 
shell-horn  of  a  fish,  which  we  call  by  a  proper  mythologic  name  Cornu-Ammonis.  Here  the  mixture  of  Aries  and 
Pisces  shews  itself :  both  emblems  of  Apollo  or  the  Sun.  Callimachus  describes  a  temple  of  Apollo  as  having  been 
built  and  paved  with  horns.1  These  were  the  kind  of  stones  containing  petrifactions  of  the  large  Cornu-Ammonis, 
of  which  we  have  plenty  in  Yorkshire,  near  Whitby,  to  build  thousands  of  temples,  which  if  built  of  these  stones 
would  be  correctly  said  to  be  built  of  horns.  We  may  now  understand  what  is  meant  when  we  read  of  altars  to 
Apollo  built  of  horns,  which  at  first  seems  so  foolish.  But  we  may  be  certain,  that  these  kinds  of  mysteries  are  very 
seldom  foolish  at  the  bottom.  They  all  arose  from  the  rational  wish  to  perpetuate  doctrines,  before  the  invention  of 
writing.  This  serves  as  a  key  to  almost  every  thing.  From  the  songs  at  the  Karn  to  celebrate  the  death  of  the  God, 
plaintive  songs  came  to  be  called  Karan  in  Celtic,  and  Garan  in  Persian.2  These  songs  were  in  like  manner  invented 
to  perpetuate  the  mythos.     Coronach,  in  Scotland,  is  a  lamentation  for  a  deceased  person. 

It  has  been  observed  by  Mr.  Logan,  author  of  the  Scottish  Gael,  that  Crean  or  Creosan  was  a  Celtic  term  for  Sun,  and 
that  Carnac  was  said  to  have  been  built  by  Creans.  This  Crean  is  the  Irish  Grian.  Now  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that 
Crean  is  the  Xpys  softened  and  corrupted.  This  is  strengthened  by  the  term  Cill  Chriosde  being  rendered  by  Mr. 
Logan,  Christ's  Church.3  The  word  Crios  is  a  common  term  for  the  sun  in  Ireland.  The  ancient  word  Crios  might 
grow  into  Christ,  as  Elios  in  Greece  grew  into  Elias.  The  second  person  in  the  Trinity  or  Trimurti  is  designated  in 
the  very  Gnostic  work  called  the  Gospel  of  John,  by  the  word  Caro  (genitive)  Carnis,  and  described  thereby  to  have 
become  incarnate  in  the  flesh.  I  am  disposed  to  ascribe  all  these  names  to  the  divine  incarnation.  Apollo  was 
unquestionably  an  incarnation,  and  as  he  (and  Amnion,  Bacchus,  &c,  &c.)  wore  the  horns  of  the  Ram,  or  was  the 
horned  Apollo,  and  was  incarnate ;  the  word  cam  might  from  this  come  to  mean  a  horn,  among  the  uninitiated,  who 
knew  nothing  of  the  doctrine  of  divine  incarnation.  From  being  the  monument  of  the  incarnate  God,  the  monuments 
sacred  to  the  Gods  might  come  to  be  called  Cams.  I  think  it  probable  that  the  curled  weapon  of  offence  on  the  head 
of  the  animal  had  its  name  of  Car  or  Cam,  and  the  animal  was  called  earned  or  horned  from  the  earn  or  horn  being 
a  distinctive  badge  of  the  incarnate  God ;  that  the  God  was  not  called  from  the  Cam,  but  the  Cam  from  the  God ; 
and  that  the  God's  name  of  Cam  or  Carneus  came  from  his  being  in  came — incarnated.  I  think  it  is  very  certain 
that  the  doctrine  of  divine  incarnation  was  kept  a  secret  as  long  as  possible.  We  find  it,  now  that  we  understand  it, 
everywhere  distinctly  marked,  but  no  where  publicly  declared.  We  find  it  in  Greece,  in  Syria,  in  India  j  but  it  will 
not  be  found  in  the  Vedas.  Perhaps  it  may  be  in  the  Pouranas,  written  after  the  secret  became  public.  All  these 
explanations  of  the  word  Cam  are  in  better  keeping  with  the  other  circumstances  attending  the  word,  than  that  which 
I  formerly  gave.  It  is  not  more  recondite  than  many  explanations  of  words  which  are  known.  It  may  be,  like  so 
many  other  words  which  we  know,  Latin-Sanscrit.  And  if  it  be  not  in  the  Sanscrit  Lexicons,  it  may  be  like  other  old 
words  omitted,  probably  because  its  meaning  was  not  understood. 

In  Book  X.  Chapter  VIII.  Section  4,  and  in  Chapter  IX.  Section  3,  I  have  noticed  the  words  Nama  Amido  Buth, 
and  Nama-si-va-yah.  The  first,  I  think,  will  mean  adoration  to  Buddha,  (or  the  wisdom  of)  the  holy  Om.  The 
second,  adoration  to  the  Veda  or  Wisdom.  The  Deity  being  adored,  under  perhaps  the  finest  of  all  his  attributes, 
Wisdom,  in  a  pandaean  or  universal  or  Catholic  religion  or  system,  we  must  expect  it  to  be  found,  as  we  do  find  it, 
in  great  numbers  of  examples  in  every  country  of  the  world. 

I  believe  the  Xj»j?-tianity  on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  was  originally  the  X^s-tianity  of  Delphi  and  of  the  Erythraean 
Sibyl  of  Justin,  who  foretold  every  thing  that  should  be  done  by  Jesus  Christ,  which  the  Portuguese  Romish  Christians 
a  little  moulded,  and  which,  perhaps,  some  Syrian  Christians  might  previously  have  a  little  moulded  to  their  own 
tastes  or  superstitions.  This  inference  will  be  much  strengthened  by  the  proofs  which  I  shall  give  in  my  next  Book, 
that  every  rite,  ceremony,  and  doctrine,  of  the  Romish  Church,  was  taken  from  Gentilism,  without  a  single 
exception, — that,  in  fact,  the  present  fashionable  Christianity  is  nothing  but  reformed  Gentilism, — Gentilism  stripped 
of  its  grosser  corruptions. 

But  although  every  part  of  the  fashionable  Christianity  is  Gentilism,  every  part  of  Gentilism  is  not  Christianity — 
the  disgusting  bloody  sacrifices  for  example.  But  the  result  of  the  whole  draws  us  towards  the  doctrines  of  Ammonius 
Saccas,4  or  the  Philalethean  philosophical  Christians  of  the  first  century. 


1  Drum.  Origin.  Vol.  IV.  Book  vii.  Chap.  vi.  *  lb.  p.  165.  3  Scottish  Gael,  Vol.  II.  p.  284. 

4  I  consider  that  the  name  of  Ammonius  Saccas,  must  have  been  adopted  by  this  philosopher  from  mystic  motives,  and  not, 
as  it  is  said,  because  he  carried  sacks.    It  is  a  sacred  or  Xp>js--ian  name.    The  Saka  or  Saca  and  Amnion,  I  think,  shew  this. 

5o2 


836 


APPENDIX. 


In  my  next  volume  I  shall  shew  that  the  same  Jewish  and  X^r-ian  mythos  amalgamated,  which  was  found  in  India 
and  China,  foretold  by  the  Erythraean  Sibyl,  and  supposed  by  Virgil  to  recur  every  six  hundred  years,  existed  in  even 
greater  perfection  in  South  America,  when  the  Spaniards  arrived  there,  than  even  in  India,  carried  thither,  as  the  pious 
monks  say  they  suppose,  by  the  devil.  I  shall  shew  that  it  must  have  gone  to  America  before  the  fabrication  of  any 
written  document  now  in  existence. 

For  a  very  long  time  I  inquired,  and  the  more  I  inquired  the  more  proofs  I  found,  of  the  universal  dissemination 
of  the  Judaean  mythos  in  India  ;  that  is,  of  that  mythic  doctrine  which  we  find  among  the  Jews  and  their  sects,  for 
the  Christian  religion  is  that  only  of  a  Judaic  sect.  Then  what  had  become  of  the  sect  professing  it  ?  For  though 
it  was  every  where,  yet  it  was  not  found  any  where  in  such  large  numbers  as  it  ought  to  be,  if  its  system  were,  as  it 
appeared  to  have  been,  that  of  the  great  empire  of  Ayoudia.  At  last  it  occurred  to  me,  that  the  sect  must  be  similar 
to  the  Essenes,  who,  though  once  common  in  Syria  and  Egypt,  (and  in  Greece  as  Pythagoreans,)  are  no  where  now  to 
be  found,  because  they  became,  by  a  change  of  name,  the  Carmelites  of  the  Christians.  In  a  similar  manner,  when 
the  Equinoctial  Pisces  arrived,  the  Yudaites,  whatever  their  name  might  have  been  before  that  time,  then  became 
Vishnuvites.  We  have  no  sacred,  or  properly-called  canonical,  writings  either  of  the  Jews  or  the  Brahmins,  after 
the  year  360  B.  C,  the  time  of  the  entrance  of  the  equinoctial  sun  into  Pisces.  I  request  my  reader  to  refer  to  what 
I  have  said  in  Book  X.  Chapter  IV,  respecting  the  IxBvs  and  Pisciculi  of  the  Christians,  and  also  to  what  I  have  said 
respecting  the  God  Dagon  and  the  Vishnu  of  the  Indians  in  the  same  chapter.  When  I  consider  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  fish  Avatar,  or  Oannes,  or  Wisdom,  or  Dagon  the  Saviour,  and  the  similarity  to,  or  rather  identity,  both  in 
the  letters  and  sound  of  other  Sanscrit  or  Indian  words  with,  English  ;  such  as  sam  and  same,  stalls  and  stalla,  huly 
and  holy,  &c,  &c,  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  second  person  of  the  Trimurti  has  taken  his  name  of  Vishnu,  instead 
of  Cristna  or  some  other  name,  since  the  Sun  entered  Pisces  at  the  vernal  equinox ;  and,  as  he  was  feigned  to  have 
become  incarnate  in  a  fish,  as  we  see  in  Figure  32,  where  he  is  treading  on  the  serpent's  head,  so  he  took  the  name 
of  Fish  :  and  that  the  Vish  is  really  our  Fish.1  And  that,  according  to  order,  the  Lamb  or  Cristna  succeeded  to  the 
Bull,  and  the  Fish  or  l%6v$,  or  Fishes  tied  together  by  the  tails,  the  religion  of  the  Pope  the  great  Fisherman, 
succeeded  to  the  Lamb :  and  that  in  India,  as  well  as  in  Europe,  the  followers  of  the  Lamb  or  Cristna  and  of  the 
Fishes,  are  intimately  mixed,  or  rather  are  the  same — as  from  the  crossing  of  the  two  cycles  they  ought  to  be :  every 
Neros  cycle  might  bear  the  name  of  the  Lamb,  as  well  as  its  own  name,  whilst  the  Sun  was  passing  through  the 
Lamb.  The  example  of  the  Essenes,  well  known  by  the  Roman  Church  to  have  become  their  Carmelites,  is  similar 
to  that  of  the  Ayoudaites  becoming  Vishnuvites.  Thus  the  devotees  of  Cristna,  under  the  name  of  Yadu  the  father  of 
Cristna,  might  become  Vishnuvites,  and  this  may  be  the  reason  why  we  have  few  or  none  of  the  people  who  became 
Jews  in  Western  Syria,  by  that  name  in  India.  But  it  is  also  probable  that  they  never  went  by  the  name  of  Jews, 
or  by  any  name  connected  with  it,  in  India.  They  would  be  rather  Pandaeans,  which  answers  to  our  Roman  Catholic, 
than  Jews,  as  Pandaea  seems  to  have  been  the  sacerdotal  name  of  the  government;  as  Catholic  is  now  of  the 
government  of  Rome.  And  from  finding  the  name  in  Athens,  in  Asia  Minor  or  Room,  in  Italy,  as  Roma,  and  in 
North  and  South  India,  I  cannot  doubt  the  existence  of  this  Roman  or  Catholic  empire.  We  have  it  endeavouring 
to  raise  itself  again  in  Italy,  at  this  time,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  many  of  its  devotees,  in  all  ranks  of  society,  really 
believe  that  it  will  in  the  end  succeed,  and  rise  again  from  its  present  state  of  depression.  From  the  account  which 
I  have  given  in  Book  X.  and  Chapter  V.  Section  12,  p.  684,  and  in  several  other  places,  it  appears  that  the  mass  of 
the  people  of  Oude  or  Ayoudia  hold  precisely  the  same  doctrines  as  those  held  by  the  Jews  of  Western  Syria,  previous 
to  their  destruction  by  the  Romans.  These  must  have  been  the  Jewish  people  met  with  by  Benjamin  of  Tudela.  If 
my  reader  will  take  the  Index  and  peruse  all  which  has  been  said  before  respecting  Oude  he  will  find  innumerable 
proofs  of  the  Judaean  mythos. 

The  tribe  of  Colida  or  of  the  Chaldeans  was  the  tribe  of  Ayoudia  or  Yadu,  the  father  of  Cristna,  so  that  they  might 
by  strangers  be  called  Yaduites  or  Iudaites.  But,  as  I  have  just  said,  this  was  not  their  name  of  religion.  In  a  similar 
manner  I  think  we  may  have  had  a  tribe  of  the  same  religion,  or  nearly  so,  come  to  the  West  under  the  name  of 
Druids,  and  to  have  been  that  tribe  named  by  me  under  the  name  of  Druhya,  the  son  of  Yadu,  in  note  1,  page  746. 


Indeed  I  suspect  every  author  assumed  a  sacred  or  mythical  name.     We  know  how  common  it  is  yet  with  us  for  authors  to  write 
under  false  names. 

1  In  the  old  Irish,  Ischa,  which  is  the  Eastern  name  of  Jesus,  means  a  Fish,  and  the  Welsh  V,  is  our  single  F;  our  FF  is  the 
Welsh  F.    Ischa  with  digamma  is  F — ischa. 

In  addition  to  what  I  have  said  in  Book  X.  Chapter  IV.  Section  5,  I  have  to  observe,  that  Buddha  was  called,  not  only  as  we 
have  seen  elsewhere  Fo  or  Po,  but  he  was  also  called  Dak  or  Dag  Po — JT  dg,  which  was  literally  the  Fish  Po,  or  Fish  Buddha 
Pisces.  See  Littleton  in  voce  Piscis.  The  Pope  was  not  only  chief  of  the  Shepherds,  but  he  was  chief  of  the  Fishermen,  a  name 
which  he  gives  himself,  and  on  this  account  he  carries  a  Poitrine.  On  this  account  also,  the  followers  of  Jesus  were  Fishermen. 
The  name  Dag  Po  was  evidently  Buddha  in  his  eighth  or  ninth  incarnation.  The  Buddhists,  we  must  remember,  claim  to  have 
the  same  number  of  Incarnations  as  the  Brahmins.  It  is  very  difficult  to  discover  in  what  the  difference  between  the  two  sects 
consists. 


APPENDIX.  837 

This  tribe  I  think  came  from  the  country  of  the  Sacae,  and  brought  all  our  Eastern  Gods  and  Mythology  to  Ireland 
and  Scotland ; '  but  I  shall  discuss  this  point  at  large  in  my  next  volume. 

The  Cali-dei  or  Chaldeans,  who  had  their  name  from  the  Deity  Cali,  and  he  or  she  had  the  same  name  as  the  KaXo?, 
Mitis,  of  the  Greeks,  which  two  words,  I  am  persuaded,  had  the  same  meaning,  might  be  some  of  them.  Then  the 
KaX«-dei  would  be  the  same  as  the  Xj»?;-ians. 

It  is  quite  clear  to  me,  that  those  tribes  whom  we  call  Jews,  and  who  have  had  no  Pentateuch  till  modern  times, 
cannot  be  Mosaic  Jews.  I  think  most  of  the  Jews,  whom  we  find  scattered  about  the  world,  are  the  remains  of  the 
Brahmin  religion,  who  did  not  fall  into  the  adoration  of  the  Fishes.  If  violent  altercations  took  place  among  them  on 
the  change,  I  can  readily  conceive,  that  the  new  sect  of  Vishnuvites  would  detest  and  abolish  most  of  the  old  rites 
and  ceremonies  of  the  former  superstition,  as  we  have  seen  Moses  did  the  rites  of  the  Bull,  and  the  Protestants  the 
rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  Romish  Church.  Religious  devotees  always  run  into  extremes,  and  generally  hate  the 
sect  they  have  left,  and  every  thing  belonging  to  it.  I  consider  the  discovery  which  I  have  made  of  the  Yadu  in  the 
followers  of  the  Fishes,  as  of  great  consequence. 

I  suppose  the  tribe  of  a  person  who  is  called  Yadu,  father  of  Cristna,  came  to  Western  Syria,  and  took  the  name  of 
nap  obri,  or  Jews,  or  strangers.  But  their  first  name,  assumed  by  themselves,  was  Judah,  min»  ieude,  (hand  of 
God,)8  as  we  learn  from  Eusebius,  and  of  Samaritans,  or  worshipers  of  the  sun  under  the  name  of  Sam  or,  in 
Sanscrit,  Sydtna,  like  the  tribe  lately  named  in  the  West,  who,  I  suppose,  might  take  the  name  of  Druids  from 
the  Druhya  of  India,  the  son  of  Yadu.  Though  it  cannot  certainly  be  known,  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  the  leaders 
of  the  tribes  were  the  sons  of  princes  bearing  those  mythological  names.  If  the  Patriarchs  of  those  early  days  had 
hundreds  of  children,  like  the  Eastern  monarchs  of  the  present  day,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  they  should  have  sent 
them  off  with  gifts,  as  Abraham  is  described  to  have  sent  off  his  children  by  Keturah,  (instead  of  leaving  them  to 
be  murdered  by  their  elder  brothers,  the  fashion  of  the  present  day,)  and  let  them  take  such  people  as  chose  to  go 
with  them  to  form  new  tribes.  There  are  hundreds  of  tribes  of  Bedoueens  in  Asia,  but  I  never  met  with  an  account 
of  the  formation  of  a  tribe,  and  how  it  is  done  I  do  not  know.     They  all  have,  or  pretend  to  have,  long  pedigrees. 

I  attribute  the  loss  of  the  tribe  of  the  Iadu  in  India  by  us,  or  its  not  being  perceptible  to  us,  in  a  considerable 
degree  to  the  effect  of  the  prejudice  which  we  have  in  our  minds  (to  which  I  have  alluded  in  my  Preface)  to  any  thing 
of  the  nature  of  the  Jewish  religion  in  India ;  and  this  has  led  us  both  to  conceal  and  misrepresent  facts  and  circum- 
stances out  of  number,  without  really  having  any  intention  to  do  so,  or  to  do  any  thing  that  is  wrong.  It  has 
probably  only  acquired  the  name  of  Jewish  as  a  religion,  because  it  happened  to  be  the  religion  of  that  branch  of 
the  tribe  of  Yadu  which,  with  its  Brahmin,  emigrated  to  the  West.  If  it  had  a  name,  it  called  itself  Israelite,  or 
perhaps  it  called  itself  by  the  name  of  the  God  IE  or  IEUE,  which  was  the  same  name  by  which  God  was  called, 
and  his  praises  chaunted,  in  the  country  which  they  had  left,  Yeye, — or  as  they  call  him  in  both  Sanscrit  and 
Hebrew  the  God  of  victory.  I  beg  to  refer  to  Book  VIII.  Chap.  VI.  Sect.  6.  p.  429,  and  Book  X.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  14, 
p.  602. 

The  name  which  those  people  gave  themselves  is  very  difficult  to  find,  and  worthy  of  much  consideration.  If  we 
revert  to  Book  VIII.  Chap.  II.  Sect.  2,  p.  398,  we  shall  find  an  account  of  great  numbers  of  tribes  of  black  Jews  in  different 
parts  of  India, — Buchanan  counted  upwards  of  fifty  of  them.  Few  of  them  possess  Pentateuchs,  except  what  they 
acknowledge  that  they  have  received  from  Christians  or  Jews  of  the  West  in  modern  times.  These  are  nothing  more 
than  remains  of  the  Ioudi  or  Iadu,  who  are  to  be  met  with,  as  might  be  expected,  in  almost  every  part  of  India, — 
and  whenever  any  of  them  are  observed  by  our  travellers,  they  are  honoured  with  the  distinctive  epithet  of  a  tribe. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that,  if  carefully  sought  after,  five  hundred  such  tribes  might  be  found.  They  are  nothing  more 
than  remains  of  the  people  of  the  Pandaean  kingdom— or  of  the  Yadu,  who  have  not  become  followers  of  Vishnu— 
who  have  not  adopted  the  later  changes  of  any  of  the  various  sects  which  have  arisen  from  the  renewed  Avatars,  &c, 
&c.  The  new  sects,  as  might  be  expected,  have  over-rode  them — borne  them  down.  I  have  no  doubt  that  great 
numbers  of  those  whom  we  call  Jews,  and  whom  we  find  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  are  the  same. 

I  believe  that  if  Ptolemy  had  not  forced  the  publication  of  the  Pentateuch  in  Greek,  we  never  should  have  heard 
of  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem.  Had  their  books  continued  secret,  they,  like  the  sacred  and  secret  books  of  Athens  and 
all  other  places  or  temples,  would  have  been  lost.  For,  though  we  find  the  mythos  contained  in  Genesis  almost 
every  where,  we  no  where  find  it  in  writing.  But  we  have  no  writings  of  that  early  date.  I  think  it  not  unlikely  that 
it  might  be  found  in  some  of  the  temples  of  Jaggernaut  or  Baljii  in  South  India,  perhaps  in  that  in  which  Dr. 
Buchanan  found  the  Romish  service  in  the  act  of  being  celebrated.  Every  large  tribe  coming  from  the  East  would 
bring  with  it,  in  substance,  the  same  religious  rites  as  the  Brahmin  brought  to  Jerusalem,  which  have  all  been  lost. 
But,  about  the  temple  or  the  sacred  mount  of  each  tribe,  we  generally  find  some  traces  of  the  mythos. 

In  ancient  times,  we  all  know,  that  the  Jews  placed  their  sins  upon  a  scape-goat,  which  they  turned  into  the 
wilderness.    In  Tibet  the  same  rite  was  practised.    The  goat  and  the  sheep  were  of  the  same  species,  for  which 


1  Though  they  brought  the  Gods,  I  think  they  were  iconoclasts. 

»  The  name  Youdia  means  hand  of  God.    The  native  princes  of  India  often  carry  a  hand  as  their  crest,  as  do  the  followers  of 
AH  in  Persia.    Parkhurst  in  voce.   Do  our  Baronets  carry  a  hand  for  a  similar  reason  ? 


838  APPENDIX. 

reason  we  constantly  find  them  used  for  one  another.  From  Lord  Kingsborough's  Antiquities  of  Mexico,  Vol.  VI. 
p.  301,  I  learn  that  the  Jews  at  this  time,  instead  of  placing  their  sins  on  a  Goat,  place  them  on  a  Fish.  This  is  a 
very  striking  fact.  It  induces  me  to  believe  that  the  true  system  is  secretly  known  among  some  of  the  Jews.  It 
dovetails  into  my  system  in  so  extraordinary  a  manner,  and  is  of  so  peculiar  a  nature,  that  I  can  attribute  it  to 
nothing  but  the  continuance  of  the  mythos,  which  I  have  taken  so  much  pains  to  penetrate,  understand,  and  develop. 
It  renders  it  highly  probable  that,  as  I  have  just  observed,  it  is  yet  secreted  among  the  Jews,  and,  consequently,  if 
this  be  the  fact,  it  raises  the  probability  that  I  have  discovered  the  true  system  to  a  proof.  I  can  entertain  no  doubt 
of  the  veracity  of  Lord  Kingsborough.  Whether  he  has  acquired  his  information  from  oral  or  written  evidence,  I 
know  not  ,•  but  be  it  which  it  may,  for  several  reasons  I  can  rather  believe  (in  this  peculiar  case)  in  the  truth  of  the 
positive  evidence  on  which  he  has  received  this  secreted  fact,  or  piece  of  secret  doctrine  or  ritual,  than  I  can  in  the 
negative  evidence  of  ten  thousand  Jews,  let  them  be  in  what  rank  of  life,  or  of  what  country,  they  may.  Their 
present  denial  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine,  divulged  by  the  greatest  man  of  their  nation  who  ever  lived— Philo — 
proves  that  no  dependence  can  be  placed  on  any  thing  which  they  say,  where  their  religious  prejudice  is  concerned. 

This  apparently  harsh  judgment  will,  in  a  great  measure,  be  justified,  when,  in  my  next  volume,  I  shall  shew  that 
their  apocryphal  books  of  Wisdom  and  Ecclesiasticus  contain  some  secret  matters,  of  a  most  important  and  curious  kind, 
of  which  it  is  absolutely  impossible  that  their  learned  men  can  be  ignorant.  And  it  will  decisively  prove  that  their 
conclaves  have  the  same  Cabala  as  the  Romish  Conclave ;  and,  indeed,  the  same  as  the  conclave  of  every  temple  in  the 
world  formerly  had. 

Chardin,  in  his  Travels,'  states,  that  the  Mingrelian  Christians  celebrate  the  paschal  supper  by  eating  fish  instead 
of  lamb.  He  tells  a  nonsensical  story  about  the  change  of  the  fish  into  a  lamb  at  Jesus  Christ's  last  supper,  in  which 
it  is  evident  that  a  mistake  is  made — and  that  the  mythos  originally  had  the  story  the  other  way,  namely,  the  Lamb 
changed  into  the  Fish. 

When  I  find  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  who  was  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis,  letting  escape  him,  that  their 
rites,  or  the  doctrines  taught  in  them,  were  copied  from  the  laws  of  Moses,  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  what  they 
call  a  large  book,  which  contains  the  most  holy  part  of  their  doctrines,  and  which  was  made  ofttoo  stones,  and  called 
iterpufAa,  was  a  part  of  a  similar  history  to  that  of  the  two  stone  tables  of  Mount  Sinai.8  This  will  not  be  thought  so 
paradoxical,  when,  in  my  next  volume,  I  shall  produce  the  learned  Abbe*  Guerin  de  Rocher  undertaking  to  prove  that 
the  whole  Mosaic  mythos,  as  well  as  Jephtha's  daughter  in  Iphigenia,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Grecian  mythology. 

We  may  observe  that  there  are  three  great  prevailing  sects  in  India,  which  over-ride  all  the  others,  and  those  are 
the  sects  of  the  three  Zodiacal  signs— -first,  of  Buddha  symbolised  by  the  Bull ;  secondly,  of  Cristna  symbolised  by  the 
Lamb;  and,  thirdly,  of  Vishnu  symbolised  by  the  Fish.  The  first,  I  am  persuaded,  was  originally  Tur  or  Sur ;  the 
second,  Crios,  or  X^<;,  or  Cristna ;  the  third,  the  Vish  or  Fish.  All  these  names,  and  all  this  mixture,  seem  to  me 
to  have  arisen  from  the  state  of  man,  which  we  know  from  experience  is  natural  to  him.  In  the  first  period  I  believe 
they  adored  the  Trimurti  or  Trinity,  Brahma,  Tnria  or  Suria  or  Buddha,  and  Seva :  in  the  second,  Brahma,  Cristna, 
and  Seva :  and  now  they  adore  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Seva.  If  the  Brahmins  meet  this  with  denials,  then  I  tell  them,  it 
is  notorious  that  they  have  long  lost  all  knowledge  of  their  mythology ;  and  they  have  not  a  single  book  which  can  be 
expected  to  give  the  requisite  information.  The  Vedas  are  not  histories,  as  the  part  translated  by  the  learned  Profes- 
sor Rosen  shews,  and  are  long  previous  to  the  period  of  the  entrance  of  the  Sun  into  Pisces,  and  perhaps  of  Aries  also. 

I  am  quite  certain,  that  in  all  my  reasonings  I  have  not  given  sufficient  weight  to  the  absolute  and  complete 
ignorance  of  the  present  race  of  Indians  in  their  history  and  mythology.  They  are  really  as  ignorant  of  them  as  we 
are,  and  indeed  more  so.  For  their  pretended  genealogies  of  the  line  of  princes  up  to  the  sun  and  moon,  except  to 
a  very  little  way  back,  are  all  nonsense.  Of  real  history,  till  about  the  Christian  sera,  they  had  none,  like  the  Greeks 
before  Herodotus :  and  their  mythology  or  secret  religion,  when  written,  was  all  parable.  They  lost  even  their 
astronomy,  only  retaining  the  tables  which  were  in  daily  use  to  make  their  calendars  with,  and  to  calculate  the 
eclipses.  I  believe  that  it  is  the  order  of  nature, — that  it  is  one  of  the  effects  of  the  dissemination  of  superficial 
knowledge,  to  produce  a  tendency  to  the  destruction  of  real  and  deep  knowledge.  I  believe  it  is  an  order  of  nature 
not  ill  described  by  the  oriental  doctrine  of  the  Metempsychosical  renewal  of  cycles.  Science  comes  to  perfection, 
and  then  recedes,  then  rises  again  ;  and  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  if  the  common  use  of  the  art  of  printing  (a 
new  element  in  all  our  calculations,  the  effect  of  which  we  cannot  know,  having  no  experience)  do  not  prevent  it,  we 
shall  run  the  same  course  again. 

I  believe  the  aspect  of  Indian  affairs  presents  to  our  Indian  travellers  a  complete  chaos,  though  they  do  not  like, 
each  in  his  own  case,  to  confess  that  it  is  so.  There  is  nothing  like  a  standard  religion  any  where,  so  that  a  person 
may  say  this  is  the  religion.  Each  Pundit  tells  his  employer  the  story  of  his  own  theory  or  sect,  which,  of  course,  (as 
is  found  among  European  sectaries,)  is  always,  according  to  him,  the  admitted  and  acknowledged  truth,  and  there  are 
scores  of  sects.  Among  the  Brahmins  there  is  no  head,  no  individual  or  body  to  which  a  person  can  look  for  the 
locale  of  their  religion.    You  may  as  well  ask  for  the  seat  of  the  Protestant  religion  in  Europe.    Indeed,  the  Brahmins 


Vol.  I.  Chap.  ix.  *  Vide  Lemp.  voc.  Eleus. 


APPENDIX.  839 

are  as  much  divided  into  sects  as  other  parties.  When  the  establishment  went  to  pieces,  each  Temple  or  Church  kept 
its  own  property,  and  retained  its  devotees.  Sometimes  it  has  continued  nearly  the  same,  sometimes  it  has  changed, 
and  become  the  religion  of  Jaggernaut,  sometimes  of  Cali ;  the  devotees  have  generally  become  Vishnuvites.  In  some 
instances  they  have  taken  a  name  jointly  from  the  Lamb  and  the  beneficent  character  of  their  God,  and  have  become 
Crestons ;  and  in  others,  not  having  fallen  in  with  the  new  Avatar  of  Pisces,  they  have  continued  practising  the  old 
rites  of  Ayoudia.  Our  people  now  persuade  them  that  they  are  Jews,  which,  as  they  have  no  tradition  of  their  origin, 
and  no  sacred  writings  to  guide  them,  or  to  contradict  the  Christians  or  Western  Jews,  may  easily  be  done.  If  I 
understand  Dr.  Buchanan,  they  are  a  very  low  and  illiterate  race  of  people.  In  a  similar  manner,  probably,  most  of 
the  other  numerous  sects,  whose  names  I  do  not  know,  have  arisen.  In  five  hundred  years  the  religion  of  Britain  would 
be  precisely  similar,  if  the  establishment  were  abolished,  and  each  church  or  chapel  left  as  it  is,  in  possession  of  its 
property.  Some  would  be  Trinitarian,  some  Arian,  some  Unitarian,  some  Southcotian ;  but  still  all  Christian.  In  a 
similar  manner  all  the  sects  of  India  are  of  the  Brahmin  religion,  not  Buddhists,  as  we  are  all  Protestants,  and  not 
Papists.  On  the  whole,  it  comes  to  this,  that  when  our  Indian  scholars  say,  the  Brahmins  tell  us  this  or  tell  us  that, 
they  only  mean  that  their  Pundit  has  told  them  this  or  that :  and  in  every  case,  if  they  have  asked  the  opinion  of 
another  Pundit,  he  has  not  denied  what  the  other  has  said,  though  it  may  be  quite  new  to  him,  if  it  have  not  made 
against  his  sectarian  principle— if  it  be  not  against  the  credit  of  his  order  or  country.  And  this  will  take  place  from  a 
natural  cause,  without  any  wrong  intention  on  the  part  of  the  Pundit.  Not  knowing  any  thing  against  it,  he  will  sup- 
pose  it  true.  Besides,  there  are  a  great  many  persons  in  India  who  despise  the  doctrines  of  all  the  sects,  as  there  are 
philosophers  in  Europe  who  despise  sectarian  distinctions. 

Before  I  conclude  this  volume  I  request  my  reader's  attention  to  a  peculiar  system  of  Anthropomorphitism,  and  to 
the  general  anthropomorphitic  style  of  description  which  may  be  observed  every  where  in  the  Jewish  sacred  writings, 
and,  indeed,  in  those  also  of  the  Gentiles,  and  which  has  drawn  down  the  severest  censures  upon  them  from  modern 
philosophers,  ignorant  of  their  nature.    I  may  instance  the  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  evening.    If  we  are 
to  suppose  the  writers  meant  those  expressions  to  be  taken  literally,  and  that  they  did  really  believe  that  the  Supreme 
First  Cause  so  walked,  we  must  take  them  for  fools,  and  not,  as  circumstances  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  they 
were,  in  many  respects,  men  of  the  profoundest  wisdom.     But  the  case  becomes  very  materially  changed,  when  we  find 
the  First  Cause  here  spoken  of,  to  be,  though  a  person  of  a  very  high  and  transcendant  character,  yet  not  the  Supreme 
Being,  but  a  person  inferior  in  rank  and  dignity  to  the  Most  High,  to  the  ineffable  To  Ov.    This  view  of  the  subject 
instantly  removes  much  of  the  absurdity  of  the  expressions  alluded  to.    It  is  clear  to  me,  that  the  knowledge,  that  the 
meaning  of  these  expressions  did  not  apply  to  the  To  Ov,  was  a  part  of  the  secret  system ;  and  the  doctrine  that  the 
literal  meaning  did  apply  to  him  was  intended  merely  for  the  vulgar ;  and  that  it  was  fit  and  suitable  for  the  under- 
standings of  the  vulgar,  is  decisively  proved,  by  its  being  yet  received  by  hundreds  of  millions  of  them,  who  will  be  very 
indignant  at  me  for  letting  out  the  secret  doctrines,  so  much  above  the  grasp  of  their  faculties,  and  for  denying  that  the 
Supreme  Being  did  walk  in  the  garden.     But  nothing  can  be  well  worse  than  this  double  system.     It  has  not  only  kept 
the  bees  of  the  hive  in  ignorance,  but  it  has  ended  at  last,  as  might  be  expected,  in  the  ignorance  also  of  the  drones 
themselves,  and  in  the  debasement  of  the  intellect  of  both.    This  observation  I  consider  an  extremely  important  one, 
and  one  which  might  and  ought  to  have  been  before  noticed  in  my  work ;  but  it  was  not  perceived  by  me  till 
this  volume  was  nearly  printed,  a  blindness  which  I  attribute  to  the  extreme  difficulty  of  unlearning  the  nonsense  taught 
to  me  in  my  youth,  of  which  I  have  so  much  complained  in  my  Preface.  I  shall  be  told  that  my  observation  is  not  new, 
and  that  several  writers  have  observed,  that  the  God  Jehovah  of  the  Jews  was  supposed,  or  said  by  some  of  them,  not  to 
be  the  First  Cause.    This  is  true,  but  it,  like  many  other  things,  though  noticed,  has  been  noticed  only  by  being  mis- 
represented and  turned  into  ridicule ;  so  that,  for  the  cause  of  truth,  it  had  better  not  have  been  noticed  at  all.     As  it 
was  known  only  by  having  escaped  from  the  mysteries,  it  probably  was  not  understood  by  those  who  named  it,  to  whom 
it  might  have  appeared  in  the  contemptible  light  in  which  they  represented  it.    But  this  makes  no  difference  as  to  the 
fact  of  the  real  misrepresentation. 

The  idea  of  the  Person  of  whom  I  now  speak,  condescending  to  walk  and  talk  with  man,  seems  degrading  in  our 
estimation  at  first  sight;  but  yet  I  know  not  how,  in  idea,  to  separate  the  former  or  reformer  of  our  globe,  and  of  its 
small,  as  well  as  large  parts,  from  a  sensation  of  littleness,  or  from  anthropomorphitism.  We  can  scarcely  form  an 
idea  how  a  world,  or  any  matter,  was  to  be  formed,  or  moulded  into  shape,  without  organs.  From  this  difficulty,  I 
have  no  doubt  arose  the  expedient  of  calling  one  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity  by  the  term  Logos,— for  he  spake  the 
word— gave  the  word — and  the  world  was  made.  From  this  the  Logos  and  Lingua  came  to  be  united  to  the  Linga— 
words  identical,  I  have  no  doubt,  in  letters,  in  ancient,  though  a  little  varied  in  modern,  times.  The  connexion 
between  Linga  and  Logos,  as  generators  of  the  globe  or  system,  is  evident  enough.  I  can  entertain  no  doubt,  that  the 
whole  of  the  refined  doctrine  of  Emanation,  of  the  Trimurti,  of  the  To  Ov,  and  IIcJojp  ayv«rfl?,  was  a  Cabalistic  secret, 
creeping  out  of  the  crypt  by  degrees.  And  though  we  often  read  of  the  Cabala  about  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  aera,  yet  I  very  much  suspect,  that  its  real  existence  was  then  denied  by  the  initiated,  as  it  has  been  since,  and 
is  now  at  Rome  and  Moscow.  I  believe  the  Protestant  priests  are  perfectly  ignorant,  and  that  they  are  too  vain  of  their 
little  bit  of  Greek  and  Latin,  to  submit  to  be  taught.  And,  as  to  their  predecessors,  Luther  and  Calvin,  I  believe  they  were 
as  much  the  sufferers  from  monomania  as  Joha  Wesley,  who  fancied  he  had  miracles  performed  upon  him  almost  every  day. 
March  10,  1833. 


(    840    ) 


ON 

THE  VOWEL   POINTS   OF   THE   HEBREW   LANGUAGE. 


(From  The  Classical  Journal,  XXXIII.  145—153.) 

To  the  Editor. 
Sir, 

In  consequence  of  the  present  prevailing  fashion  for  the  study  of  the  Hebrew  language,  I  am  induced  to  offer  some 
observations  respecting  its  celebrated  vowel  points.  It  appears  that  a  new  school  of  divinity  is  arising,  which  is  chiefly 
founded  on  an  old  exploded  notion  of  the  antiquity  of  these  points.  The  object  for  which  this  obsolete  doctrine  is 
revived,  is,  I  think,  sufficiently  evident.  However,  with  your  permission,  as  concisely  as  is  in  my  power,  I  propose  to 
submit  to  your  readers  a  few  of  the  reasons  which  formerly  caused  it  to  be  exploded,  and  which,  I  flatter  myself,  will 
finally  consign  it  to  its  long  home.  The  Hebrew  language,  as  it  is  found  in  the  copies  of  the  Pentateuch  used  in  the 
synagogues,  consists  of  twenty-two  letters,  but  is  devoid  of  the  marks  which  are  known  by  the  name  of  the  vowel  points. 
The  present  Jews,  with  the  followers  of  the  new  divinity  school,  maintain  that  these  points  are  of  very  great  antiquity ; 
some  asserting  them  to  be  as  old  as  Ezra,  others  coeval  with  the  language.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  the  opinion  of 
most  learned  men  in  modern  times,  that  they  have  been  not  only  adopted  as  authority,  but  invented,  since  the  time  of 
Christ ;  that  they  were  invented  in  the  dark  ages  by  the  Jews,  in  order  to  enable  them  to  give  such  meaning  and  pro- 
nunciation to  the  text  as  they  thought  proper,  and  further  to  enable  them,  on  once  having  given  it  that  meaning  and 
pronunciation,  to  keep  them  from  all  change  in  future.  The  object  for  which  they  were  invented  is  evident  from  the 
circumstance,  that  they  not  only  added  a  system  of  new  vowels  to  the  language,  but  they  contrived  to  abolish  the  old 
ones,  and  render  them  silent  and  useless  as  vowels,  and  convert  them,  when  joined  to  the  new  letters,  into  consonants. 
Had  the  object  of  the  Jews  in  inventing  the  points  been  merely  to  fix  the  pronunciation,  they  would  not  have  done 
away  with  the  old  vowels,  but  only  added  some  points  to  them.  But  this  would  not  have  served  their  purpose ;  there- 
fore they  were  obliged  to  get  quit  of  the  sturdy  old  vowels,  which  would  not  be  made  to  bend  to  their  purposes,  and  to 
convert  them  into  consonants. 

The  simple  question  at  issue  betwixt  the  parties  is,  whether  these  points  be  new  or  old ;  and  this,  I  think,  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  settle.  If  what  Harris  says  be  true,  that  a  letter  is  a  sign  significant,  the  vowel  points  and  accents  or 
marks,  upwards  of  twenty  in  number,  must  be  letters,  for  they  are  certainly  signs  significant ;  and  it  is  pretty  evident 
that  the  addition  of  such  a  number  of  letters  to  any  language  must  enable  the  person  adding  them,  to  give  to  the  origi- 
nal text  nearly  whatever  meaning  he  thinks  proper.  This  is  the  object  for  which  they  were  invented  by  the  Jews,  and 
this  is  now  the  object  for  which  the  new  school  of  Christians  support  them. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  last  and  the  end  of  the  preceding  century,  the  question  of  the  antiquity  of  these  points  was 
discussed  at  great  length,  and  with  no  little  warmth  and  animation,  by  a  great  number  of  very  learned  men,  until  the 
subject  appeared  to  be  completely  exhausted,  and  the  question  settled.  To  enter  into  the  contest  again  would  be  use- 
less, and  evidently  would  occupy  too  much  space  in  your  miscellany:  but  as  Dean  Prideaux  has  summed  up  the  chief 
arguments  against  them  in  a  short  and  compendious  form,  it  may  be  useful  to  many  of  your  readers  who  are  misinformed 
by  their  Jewish  and  Christian  instructors,  to  see  what  has  been  said  by  him  against  them.  The  following  are  the  prin- 
cipal reasons  which  he  gives  against  their  antiquity: 

1.  "  The  sacred  books  made  use  of  by  the  Jews  in  their  synagogues,  have  ever  been,  and  still  are,  without  the  vowel 
points,  which  would  not  have  happened  had  they  been  placed  there  by  Ezra,  and  consequently  been  of  the  same  autho- 
rity with  the  letters;  for,  had  they  been  so,  they  would  certainly  have  been  preserved  in  the  synagogues  with  the  same 
care  as  the  rest  of  the  text.  There  can  scarce  any  other  reason  be  given  why  they  were  not  admitted  thither,  but  that, 
when  the  Holy  Scriptures  began  first  to  be  publicly  read  to  the  people  in  their  synagogues,  there  were  no  such  vowel 
points  then  in  being ;  and  that  when  they  afterwards  came  in  use,  being  known  to  be  of  a  human  invention,  they  were 
for  that  reason  never  thought  fit  to  be  added  to  those  sacred  copies,  which  were  looked  on  as  the  true  representatives  of 
the  original;  and  therefore  they  have  been  ever  kept  with  the  same  care  in  the  ark  or  sacred  chest  of  the  synagogue,  as 


APPENDIX.  841 

the  original  draft  of  the  law  of  Moses  anciently  was  in  the  ark  or  sacred  chest  of  the  tabernacle,  which  was  prepared  for 
it ;  and  they  are  still  so  kept  in  the  same  manner  among  them  to  this  day. 

2.  "  The  ancient  various  readings  of  the  sacred  text,  called  Keri  Cetib,  are  all  about  the  letters,  and  none  about  the 
vowel  points ;  which  seem  manifestly  to  prove,  that  the  vowel  points  were  not  anciently  in  being,  or  else  were  not 
looked  on  as  an  authentic  part  of  the  text ;  for  if  they  had,  the  variations  of  these  would  certainly  have  been  taken 
notice  of,  as  well  as  those  of  the  letters. 

3.  "  The  ancient  cabalists  draw  none  of  their  mysteries  from  the  vowel  points,  but  all  from  the  letters  :  which  is  an 
argument  either  that  these  vowel  points  were  not  in  use  in  their  time,  or  else  were  not  then  looked  on  as  an  authentic 
part  of  the  sacred  text ;  for  had  they  then  been  so,  these  triflers  would  certainly  have  drawn  mysteries  from  the  one  as 
well  as  from  the  other,  as  the  later  cabalists  have  done. 

4.  "  If  we  compare  with  the  present  pointed  Hebrew  Bibles  the  version  of  the  Septuagint,  the  Chaldee  paraphrases, 
the  fragments  of  Aquila,  Symmachus,  and  Theodotion,  or  the  Latin  version  of  Jerome,  we  shall  in  several  places  find 
that  they  did  read  the  text  otherwise  than  according  to  the  present  punctuation  ;  which  is  a  certain  argument  that  the 
pointed  copies,  if  there  were  any  such  in  their  times,  were  not  then  held  to  be  of  any  authority ;  for  otherwise  they 
would  certainly  have  followed  them. 

5.  "  Neither  the  Mistna,  nor  the  Gemara,  either  that  of  Jerusalem  or  that  of  Babylon,  do  make  any  mention  of 
these  vowel  points,  although  in  several  places  there  are  such  special  occasions  and  reasons  for  them  so  to  have  done, 
that  it  can  scarce  be  thought  possible  they  could  have  omitted  it  if  they  had  been  in  being  when  these  books  were 
written  ;  or,  if  in  being,  had  been  looked  on  by  the  Jews  of  those  times  to  be  of  any  authority  amongst  them.  Neither 
do  we  find  the  least  hint  of  them  in  Philo-Judaeus  or  Josephus,  who  are  the  oldest  writers  of  the  Jews,  or  in  any  of  the 
ancient  Christian  writers  for  several  hundred  years  after  Christ.  And  although  among  them  Origen  and  Jerome  were 
well  skilled  in  the  Hebrew  language,  yet  in  none  of  their  writings  do  they  speak  the  least  of  them.  Origen  flourished 
in  the  third,  and  Jerome  in  the  fifth  century ;  and  the  latter  having  lived  a  long  time  in  Judea,  and  there  more  especi- 
ally applied  himself  to  the  study  of  Hebrew  learning,  and  much  conversed  with  the  Jewish  Rabbies  for  his  improvement 
therein,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  could  have  missed  making  some  mention  of  them  through  all  his  voluminous  works,  if 
they  had  been  either  in  being  among  the  Jews  in  his  time,  or  in  any  credit  or  authority  with  them,  and  that  especially, 
since  in  his  commentaries  there  were  so  many  necessary  occasions  for  his  taking  notice  of  them ;  and  it  cannot  be 
denied  but  that  this  is  a  very  strong  argument  against  them." — Prid.  Con.  P.  i.  B.  v. 

The  Dean  has  not  done  justice  to  his  own  observations  respecting  Origen  ;  for  he  might  have  added,  that  numerous 
examples  might  be  produced  from  his  works,  where  he  has  quoted  the  Hebrew  in  a  manner  different  from  the  present 
masoretic  punctuation,  particularly  in  his  Heptacla,  in  writing  Hebrew  into  Greek  characters. 

This  short  compendium  of  the  Dean's  seems  to  me  to  be  quite  sufficient  to  decide  the  question.  Indeed,  the  well- 
known  fact  named  in  his  first  section,  of  the  text  in  the  synagogue  copies  being  without  the  points,  cannot  be  got  over. 
The  points  are  not  only  wanting,  but 

"  The  text  of  the  synagogue-rolls  of  the  Pentateuch  is  not  divided  into  verses,  and  is  also  without  the  points  of  dis- 
tinction (:)  called  Soph-pesuk.  Buxtorf,  in  his  Tiberius,  Ch.  ii.  p.  113,  quotes  the  following  note  from  Elias  Levitta: 
'  It  is  a  certain  truth,  and  of  which  there  is  no  doubt,  that  this  law  which  Moses  set  before  the  Israelites  was  plain, 
without  points,  and  without  accents,  and  without  any  distinction  of  verses,  even  as  we  see  it  at  this  day ;  and  according 
to  the  opinion  of  the  cabalistic  doctors,  the  whole  law  was  as  one  verse,  yea,  and  there  are  that  say  as  one  word.' 
Yeates's  Collation,  pp.  35,  36." — Townley's  Illustration,  Vol.  I.  p.  58. 

The  great  supporters  of  the  antiquity  of  the  points  were  the  two  Buxtorfs— no  doubt,  men  of  great  learning  and 
talent.  But  the  only  argument  which  they  produced  of  any  weight  which  is  not  answered  by  the  preceding  five 
paragraphs  of  the  Dean's,  is  this,  "  that  when  the  Hebrew  language  ceased  to  be  the  mother  tongue  of  the  Jews,  (as 
it  is  agreed  on  all  hands  that  it  did  after  the  Babylonish  captivity,)  it  was  scarce  possible  to  teach  that  language  without 
the  vowel  points." — Prid.  Con. 

This  argument  is  completely  refuted  by  the  fact,  that  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  as  well  as  the  Chaldee  paraphrases 
before  the  time  of  Buxtorf,  were  all  without  the  points,  and  the  former  still  remains  so.  It  seems  quite  absurd  to 
suppose  that,  if  the  Hebrew  had  once  had  them,  it  should  ever  have  lost  them.  And  the  argument  that  the  language 
must  have  had  them  because  it  could  not  be  read  without  them,  is  at  once  refuted  by  the  fact  of  the  Samaritan  being 
yet  without  them,  as  well  as  several  other  languages.  The  reader  will  find  much  curious  information  on  the  question 
here  discussed  in  Bishop  Marsh's  10th  and  12th  Lectures. 

On  this  subject  Dr.  Robertson  says, 

"  For  neither  the  obsolete  Arabic  characters  called  the  Cuphic,  which  fell  into  disuse  about  A.  D.  930,  nor  the  alpha- 
bet of  the  Sanscrit  in  India,  a  language  that  has  been  dead  or  not  currently  spoken  these  1200  years,  nor  the  Chaldee, 
Syriac,  or  Samaritan,  nor  any  other  ancient  Eastern  language  that  we  know  of,  ever  employed  vowel  points  as  the 
modern  Jews  and  Arabs  do.  The  Arabic  vowel  points  came  first  into  use  at  the  time  when  the  modern  Arabic  alpha- 
bet was  adopted  by  order  of  the  Kalif  of  the  Saracens,  Almuktadir,  A.  D.  390.  The  new  alphabet  was  invented  by  his 
vizir,  Ibn  Mukla." 

Much  pains  have  been  taken  to  shew  that  without  the  points  the  meaning  of  the  language  must  be  doubtful ;  that 

5p 


842  APPENDIX. 

some  words  will  bear  as  many  as  even  hundreds  of  different  meanings ;  and  thence  it  has  been  inferred  that  the 
language  always  must  have  had  them.  This  argument,  the  fact  stated  above,  of  several  languages  being  still  without 
them,  sufficiently  refutes.  The  imperfection  of  the  language  may  be  a  subject  of  regret,  but  it  cannot  be  admitted 
as  a  proof  of  the  antiquity  of  the  system  of  pointing  against  such  evidence  as  is  produced.  With  respect  to  the 
mode  of  obviating  this  imperfection,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  no  other  way  to  be  adopted  than  to  consult  and  compare 
similar  texts  with  one  another,  and  with  the  old  versions  made  when  the  language  was  still  living.  For  this  purpose, 
in  the  case  of  the  Pentateuch,  the  Samaritan,  and  the  Latin  Vulgate  (a  version  made  from  the  Hebrew)  may  be 
consulted,  and,  above  all,  the  Septuagint.  Persons  wishing  for  more  information  may  consult  Walton's  Prolegomena, 
his  Considerator  Considered,  and  the  works  of  Dr.  Grabbe. 

It  is  said  that  the  Jews  in  their  synagogues,  in  reading  their  law,  always  read  first  a  passage  in  the  Hebrew,  and 
then  the  passage  in  the  language  of  the  country,  that  it  might  be  understood.  And  in  order  to  pronounce  it  correctly, 
the  reader  for  the  day  always  on  the  day  preceding  practised  his  lesson  by  reading  it  over  from  a  pointed  copy.  From 
this  it  is  inferred  that  the  points  are  ancient.  But  I  do  not  see  how  this  can  prove  any  thing  of  the  kind  ;  for  the 
practice  itself  was  not  ancient  nor  general,  as  is  proved  by  a  curious  passage  quoted  by  Buxtorf  in  his  Lexicon  Talm. 
Rabbinicum,  from  the  Talmud  of  Jerusalem. 

"  Rabbi  Levi  ivit  Caesaream,  audiensque  eos  legentes  lectionem  '  audi  Israel,'  Deut.  vi.,  Hellenistice,  voluit  impedire 
ipsos."    Vide  Marsh,  Mic. 

The  fact  of  the  service  of  the  Jews  being  read  in  the  synagogues  in  countries  foreign  to  Judea,  and  after  then- 
last  dispersion,  in  the  Greek  language,  cannot  be  doubted,  and  may  he  proved  from  various  passages  in  Tertullian, 
Origen,  Philo,  &c. ;  but  the  matter  is  put  out  of  dispute  by  a  decree  of  Justinian,  A.  D.  550,  (Novel.  146 ;  Photii 
Nomocanon,  xii.  3 ;  also  Gothofredi  Corpus  Juris  Civilis ;  Novel.  146,  II.  i.  580,)  passed  for  the  express  purpose  of 
determining  the  question ;  for  disputes  had  arisen  amongst  the  Jews  on  the  question,  whether  their  service  was  to  be 
read  in  the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek  :  and  the  Emperor  settled  it  by  giving  them  permission  to  read  the  Hebrew  if  they 
pleased,  paying  a  tax  for  so  doing. 

In  the  synagogues  in  Egypt  and  other  places,  the  service,  ever  after  the  time  of  Onias,  was  read  in  the  Greek 
language.  When  the  Jewish  captives  taken  by  Titus  and  Vespasian  came  to  be  dispersed  over  the  empire,  they  were 
not  content  with  this  practice  of  the  Hellenistic  Jews,  which  they  considered  wrong— heretical ;  and  after  some  time 
they  endeavoured  to  change  it,  and  this  was  the  cause  of  the  disputes ;  similar  to  what  had  happened  before  at  Caesarea, 
when  Rabbi  Levi  found  them  reading  the  law  Hellenistice. 

The  doctors  of  the  new  school,  mirabile  dictu !  are  actually  in  support  of  their  system  driven  to  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  that  the  LXX.  was  burnt  in  the  time  of  Caesar  (though  Tertullian  witnesses  that  it  was  at  Alexandria  in 
his  time) ;  and  that  Origen  in  his  Heptacla,  Jerome,  Justinian,  and  all  the  Jews,  were  mistaken  ;  and  that  all  these, 
people,  quoting,  editing,  quarrelling,  legislating,  never  once  suspected  that  they  had  mistaken  the  version  of  Aquila 
for  the  Septuagint, — Greek  being  the  vernacular  tongue  of  Origen,  and  Hebrew  of  the  Jews  ! 

It  would  occupy  too  much  of  your  Journal,  or  else  many  passages  might  be  produced  from  the  New  Testament, 
and  the  works  of  Jerome,  Origen,  &c,  to  prove  that  their  authors  quoted  from  unpointed  copies.  But  they  may  be 
found  in  Walton's  Prolegomena,  and  in  his  Considerator  Considered.  Nothing  can  well  be  more  striking  than  this 
fact ;  yet  perhaps  one  example  may  not  encroach  too  much  on  your  space. 

In  the  last  verse  of  the  47th  chapter  of  Genesis,  Jacob  is  said  in  our  Bible  to  have  bowed  himself  on  the  bed's  head. 
The  Vulgate  renders  this  passage,  conversus  ad  lectuli  caput;  the  LXX.,  in)  rb  cUpov  t^?  pa^ov  xvtov,  in  summitatem 
virgce  su<s,  upon  the  top  of  his  staff.  Now,  the  word  in  Hebrew,  ntOD  mte,  means  both  staff  and  bed,  accordingly 
as  it  is  pointed ;  and  the  makers  of  the  LXX.  have  evidently  made  a  mistake,  which  if  they  had  had  a  pointed  copy 
they  would  not  have  done.  How  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  old  man  lying  on  his  death-bed  should  bow  his  head  on 
his  walking-staff!  The  truth  of  this  rendering  of  the  word  ntOD  mte  by  the  word  ledum  and  not  virga,  is  proved 
from  its  repetition  in  the  last  verse  of  the  49th  chapter,  where  it  is  said  collegit  pedes  suos  super  lectulum,  Vulg. ;  t«i)< 
irdSa?  avrov  eV»  ryv  kKIvvjv,  LXX. 

This  proves  that  there  were  no  points  when  the  LXX  was  made.  St.  Paul,  quoting  the  passage,  uses  the  word 
virga— a  proof  that  he  quoted  from  the  LXX  ,  or  else  that  he  made  a  mistake  in  the  Hebrew  ;  and  as  the  latter  will 
not  be  allowed,  it  tends  to  prove  against  the  new  school  that  the  version  which  we  have  is  really  the  LXX.  The  Samaritan 
text  and  version  and  the  Targum  have  the  same  reading  as  the  Vulgate,  ledum.  The  Arabic  and  Syriac  versions 
made  from  the  LXX.  of  course  fall  into  its  mistake  This  example  also  furnishes  one  proof  against  the  dogma  ot 
the  new  school  that  St.  Jerome  did  not  understand  Hebrew,  that  he  did  understand  it,  and  that  he  used  it  profitably 
too,  in  his  Latin  version. 

I  apprehend  that  when  the  Hebrew  became  a  dead  language,  the  points  were  invented  by  degrees  to  enable  the 
masters  in  the  schools  better  to  instruct  their  pupils,  and  after  some  time  they  began  to  have  authority  given  to  them 
by  the  Rabbies.  No  man  appears  to  have  taken  more  trouble  to  examine  the  question  than  Dean  Prideaux.  From 
him  we  learn  that  all  the  Rabbinical  authors  were  unpointed  in  his  time,  and  that  all  their  other  books  were  originally 
without  them ;  that  in  some  new  editions  points  were  put  to  them,  but  that  the  best  editions  were  without  them  ; 
that  they  were  added  to  the  Targums  by  Buxtorf;  and  that  they  were  only  a  little  before  his  time  added  to  the  Mistna 


APPENDIX*  843 

and  Machzor.  (Prid.  Con.  B.  v.  pp.  422,  429,  ed.  8vo.  1815.)  I  shall  not  now  intrude  any  further  on  you  than 
merely  to  add,  that  if  your  readers  wish  for  any  more  proofs  of  the  modern  date  of  the  masoretic  points,  they  may 
consult  the  works  of  the  following  persons,  who  all  wrote  in  defence  of  that  doctrine,  and  hy  whom  the  question  was 
considered  to  be  settled  : 

Capellus,  Elias  Levitta,  Thomas  Erpenius,  Isaac  Casaubon,  J.  J.  Scaliger,  Isaac  Vossius,  J.  Drusius,  Arnolde  Boote, 
Andrew  Rivet,  Lewis  de  Dieu,  Grotius,  Spanheim,  Festus  Hommius,  Theodore  Beza,  Selden,  Walton,  Sennert, 
Basnage,  Burman,  Simon,  Limborch,  Morinus,  Vitringa,  Le  Clerc,  Heuman,  L'Advocat,  Houbigant,  Louth,  Kenni- 
cott,  and  Marsh,  Theol.  Lee.  P.  ii.  Lib.  x.  p.  75 ;  also  see  Todd's  Life  of  Walton,  note  1,  Vol.  II.  p.  .322. 

Perhaps  it  is  unnecessary  to  observe,  that  it  is  not  so  much  my  object  to  discuss  the  question  on  which  I  have 
slightly  touched,  as  to  suggest  to  your  readers  who  have  lately  commenced  the  study  of  the  Hebrew  language  and  its 
history,  where  they  may  find  the  best  authorities  on  the  subject,  in  order  that  they  may  not  be  misled  by  the  specious 
and  plausible,  though  unfounded,  assertions  of  the  new  school. 

GODFREY  HIGGINS. 

Skellow  Grange,  near  Doncaster. 


/ 


5p  2 


(    844     ) 


APPENDIX     II. 


After  my  First  Appendix  was  printed,  I  received  Mr.  Von  Hammer's  French  History  of  the  Assassins,  published 
March  1833.  It  is  exactly  what  a  book  on  such  a  subject,  written  by  Mr.  Von  Hammer  under  the  patronage  of  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  might  be  expected  to  be  found.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  religious  malice  or  ignorant  preju- 
dice most  prevails.  I  shall  only  notice  one  passage  which,  in  a  very  striking  manner,  proves  the  truth  of  what  I  have 
said,  in  Book  X.,  respecting  the  College  of  St.  John's,  at  Cambridge.  When  all  the  other  circumstances  are  con- 
sidered, it  cannot  for  a  moment  be  believed,  that  the  same  dresses  should  be  adopted  at  Cairo  and  at  Cambridge,  without 
some  communication  or  without  a  common  origin.  After  describing  the  College,  or  Maison  de  Sagesse,  as  he  call? 
it,  at  Cairo,  in  page  55,  he  says, 

"  Souvent  les  Khalifes  y  pr6sidaient  des  theses  savantes,  dans  lesquelles  paroissaient,  suivant  l'ordre  de  leur  faculty, 
"  les  professeurs  attaches  k  cette  acad£mie,  logiciens,  mathematiciens,  jubistes,  et  medecins,  tous  revetus  dans 
"  leurs  habits  de  c£r6monie  (khalaa),  ou  de  leur  mauteaux  de  docteurs.  Les  manteaux  des  universes  Anglaises  ont 
"  encore  aujourd'hui  la  vieille  forme  du  khalaa  ou  du  kaftan,  qui  6taient  les  habits  d'honneur  des  Arabes."  He  shews 
that,  to  the  support  of  this  establishment,  the  tithes  were  appropriated ;  and  in  p.  58,  describing  the  doctrines  of  the 
Assassins,  he  unwittingly  lets  the  following  passage  escape  him :  "  On  enseignait  que  toute  legislation  positivement 
"  religieuse,  devait  fetre  subordonn^e  a  la  legislation  g£ne>ale  philosophique."  "  Les  Doctrines  de  Plato,  de  Aristote, 
"  et  de  Pythagore,  dtaient  cities  comme  des  preuves  logiques  et  fondamentales."  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing 
my  pleasure  at  this  presumptive  proof  of  the  truth  of  what  I  have  said  of  the  Assassins,  Templars,  &c,  &c,  &c.  It  is 
only  by  taking  advantage  of  such,  to  all  appearance,  trifling  casualties,  that  the  secret  truths  of  the  ancients  can  be 
wrested  from  the  hand  of  the  destroyers. 

The  work  of  Mr.  Von  Hammer  is  probably  intended  to  create  an  alarm  agaiust  the  orders  of  Carbonari,  Masons, 
Templars,  &c.    I  shall  probably  return  to  it. 


April  \bth,  1833. 


(     845     ) 


INDEX. 


Aaron,  16,221. 

Aarou  al  Raschid,  75. 

Aas-grad,  535. 

Abacus,  476. 

Abaris,  56,  391,405,  612. 

Abba,  795. 

Abd-al-Raschid,  75. 

Abdala,  421. 

Abdul  Raschid,  741. 

Aberdeen,  535. 

Abimelech,  82. 

Abodazara,  316. 

Abode,  464. 

Aboudab,  707. 

Aborigines,  20. 

Abram,  Abraham,  60,  62,  82,  84,  85, 

273,  304,  362,  389,  396,  391,  405, 

410,  411,  425,  435,  451,  461,  592, 

593,  724,  737,  769,  786. 
Abraham,  how  far  doubtful,  98. 
Abraham,  language  of,  480. 
Abraham,  meaning  of,  387,  390. 
Abraxas,  326. 
Abubeker,  726. 
Abughazi  Khan,  417. 
Abulfaragius,  561,  752. 
Abulfazil,  280. 
Abulmazar,  576. 

Abury,  179,  180,  225,  384,  524,  773. 
Abyssinia,   424,   458,   462,   463,  770, 

810. 
Abyssinians,  602,  654,  810. 
Acarnania,  337. 
Aceldama,  273. 
Achaia,  384. 
Achamoth,  708. 
Achilles,  352,  362,  519,  615. 
Acra,  406. 
Acrae,  422. 

Acropolis,  348,  355,  361,  807. 
Acrostic,  565,  567,  573,  576,  635,  737. 
Acts,  Apostles,  680. 
Adad,  402,  519,  722. 
Adam,  42,  280,  419,  420,   478,   626, 

791. 
Adam's  bridge,  684. 
Adam's  foot,  624. 
Adam  Kadmon,  661,  811. 
Adavani,  759. 
Addas,  721. 
Adim,419,  420. 
Aditya,  594. 
Adjudea,  462. 
Adjuration,  802. 
Adnath,  519. 
Adni,  65. 
Adon,533,732. 

Adoni,  666,  713,  732,  738,  756,  810. 
Adonis  Ceres,  49,  63,  171,  314,  359, 

537,  752,  756. 
Adrian,  625. 
Adriatic,  613, 
Adun,  65. 
.Elian,  344. 


.Eneas,  16,  47,  609,  624. 

.Enigmas,  514,  623. 

iEnon,  110. 

^Eneid,  609,  610,  614,  616. 

.Eolians,  361. 

.Eon,  588,  813. 

.Era,  617,  746. 

.Era,  Buddha,  192. 

Maw,  369,  610,  614,  617,  715. 

^Eschylus,  644,  798,  799. 

iEsculapius,  324. 

.Esculus,  398,  542. 

iEsop,  733,  734. 

Msus,  612. 

iEtes,  360. 

Afghans,  401,  414,  415,  416,  417,  418, 

419,  425,  429,  457,  634,  665,  684, 

702,  735,  737,  740,  773. 
Afghan  language,  416. 
Afghanistan,  415,462. 
Africa,  476\  604. 
African  Ethiopia,  465,  467. 
Agamemnon,  504. 
Age,  Golden,  452. 
Age,  ninth,  579. 
Ages,  four,  176. 
Ages,  eight,  205. 
Agni,  640,  707. 
Agni-cula,  584. 
Aguiculas,  263,  518. 
Agnim-ile,  262. 
Agnus,  260,  261. 
Agnus  Dei,  109. 
Agra,  406,  423,  432. 
Ahmed,  801. 
Ahmed-poor,  421. 
Ahmid,  673,  679. 
Aholiab,  817. 

Ahrimanes,  16,  35,  38,  121,  163. 
Aia,  350. 

Aia  Aia,  359,  378,  384. 
Aikin,  7. 
Ailon,  759. 
AioMones,  362. 
Air  in  motion,  113. 
Aitnistan,  346. 
Aius,  350. 
Aja,  606. 
Aja  Mahal,  737. 
Aja  Pal,  517. 
Ajemere,  364,  405,  407,  408,  418,  426, 

516,517. 
Aji,  604, 605. 
Ajimere,  702. 
Akerman,  809. 
Ak-Hisar,  810. 
Al,  65,  67,  71,  759. 
Al-ambra,  728. 
Alabanda,  811. 
Alba,  608. 
Albanact,  367. 
Alba  Longa,  368. 
Albert  the  Great,  314. 
Albumazar,  197,  315. 


Alcestis,  644. 

Alchemists,  346. 

Al  Choder,  198,  199. 

Alchymists,  761. 

Alcoran,  698. 

Aldborough,  385,  726. 

Ale,  65. 

Aleim,  64,  65,  326,  785,  819. 

Aleira,  Heathen,  66. 

Aleph  Trinity,  172. 

Alexander,  44,  274,  380,  411,  470,  471, 

508,  673,  725,  773,  776. 
Alexander  Aboinos  Techos,  361. 
Alexandria,  774. 
Alexandrian  MS.,  450. 
Alfred,  664. 
Algebra,  654. 
Ali,  726,  808,  830,  832. 
Ali  Jah,  429. 
Alix,350. 
Allegories,  16,  17,  34,  97,  98,276,  363, 

446. 
Allegories,  Jewish,  97. 
Allegory,  Genesis,  291. 
Allegory  in  France,  272. 
Allegory,  Maimonides,  98. 
Allegory,  Mosaic,  336. 
Allegories  of  Trees,  346. 
Allegory,  various,  209. 
Allen,  793. 
Allix,  68,  75. 
Alma,  309. 
Al  Mahmun,  197. 
Al-Mamon,  197. 
Al  Mansor,  249. 
Almaut,  700. 
Alma,  meaning  of,  110. 
Almug,  519,  653,  715. 
Alphabet,  Irish,  9. 
Alphabet,  17  letters,  11. 
Alphabet,  magical,  15. 
Alphabet,  right-linjed,  8, 16,  17,  19. 
Alphonso,  184. 
Alzarphet,  317. 
Am,  110. 
Amazoneum,  506. 
Amazonians,  409. 
Amazons,   332,   505,  506,   507,    508, 

512. 
Amber,  537. 

Ambrasius,  336,  337,  422. 
Ambrestan,  384. 
Ambrose,  223. 
Amelius,  308. 

Ameuophis  Memnon,  55,  57. 
America,  South,  292. 
American  calculations,  2,  28. 
Amiclean  inscription,  13. 
Amida,  156,  431. 
Amma,  313. 
Aramaea,  313. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  592. 
Aramon,  44,  266,  298,  318,  341,  653, 

755. 


846 


INDEX. 


Animonius  Saccas,  126,  160,  447,  553, 

556,  560,  573,  589,  663,  815,  824, 
825,  835. 
AMO,  686. 
Amor,  628. 
Amour,  494,  695,  696. 
Anipelo  Kepous,  537. 
Amphi,  422. 
Amphiareus,  337. 
Amphictyons,  632. 
Amphilochium,  336,  337. 
Amphilochus,  422. 
Amphipolis,  337,  422. 
Amphiprumna,  344,  345. 
Amphisbsena,  322. 
Amrawatty,  160,  230. 
Amulius,  322. 
Amt,  685,  687. 
Anaglyphs,  493. 
Anagram,  318,  412. 
Anagrams,  623. 
Anagramraatical,  412. 
Ananta  Gnanain,  809. 
Anastasius,  682. 

Ancients  and  Moderns  the  same,  510. 
Andes,  407. 
Androgynous,  37. 
Angle,  Ecliptic,  209. 
Angle,  Equator,  789 
Anima,  801. 
Animal,  22. 
Animals,  61. 
Anna,  284,  646,  656. 
Anna  Perenna,  305. 
Anna  Purna,  305. 
Annius,  489. 
Annunciation,  314. 
Anobret,  393,  413,  448. 
Anoubout,  448. 
Anquetil  du  Perron,  93. 
Answers  to  my  Mohamed,  681. 
Authom,  619. 
Anthony,  494. 
Authony,  Mark,  619. 
Anthropomorphitism,  839. 
Antichrist,  382,  676,  689,  701,  710. 
Antioch,  342,  352,  361,  382,  384,  573, 

676,  787. 
Antis,  (note,)  400. 
Antonines,  288. 
Anuchta,  407. 
Aod,  429. 

AflM,  686. 

Aos,  16. 

Aphanasia,  612. 

Aphrodite,  594. 

Apia,  333,  346,  756. 

Apis,  18,  25,  51,  319,  346,  756. 

Apocalypse,  180,  181,  401,  576,  609, 
673,  694. 

Apocrypha,  755,  795,  802,  831. 

Apocrvphal  gospels,  141. 

Apollo,  44,  45,  159, 189,  259,  324,  329, 
337,  358,  430,  586,  589,  591,  593, 
601,624,  694,  763,  801,  810. 

Apollo  of  Claros,  325. 

A|.ollo  Cunnius,  756. 

Apollo  Carneus,  834. 

Apollo  Miletus,  810. 

Apollo  Python,  361. 

Apolloniacal  spectre,  381. 

Apollonius  Rhodius,  16,  589. 

Apollyon,  337. 

Atcoikoi;,  433. 

Apostles,  627. 

Apostolic  Constitutions,  566. 

April  fools,  25. 

Apuleius,  35,  311,527. 

Ara  Cceli,  161. 


Ara  Cottii,  242. 

Arabi,  416,  419,420,  461. 

Arabia,  52,  53,  414,  416,  418,  419, 423, 

428,  449,  462,  465,  755. 
Arabia  of  India,  414. 
Arabic,  465,  467,  474,  692,  743. 
Arabic  figures,  13. 
Arabic  lauguage,  11,  67,  465,  467,  743, 

775. 
Arabic  numbers,  11,  12. 
Arabian  Hebrew,  443. 
Arabians,  16,  415,  421,  425,  742,  775. 
Arabs,  628. 
Aral,  294. 
Aramean,  416. 
Ararat,  353,  355,  358,  359,  372,  409, 

425,427,428,  759,816. 
Arc,  797. 
Area,  346,  348. 
Arcabandu,  159,  160. 
Arcadia,  337,  756. 
Arcanus,  347. 
Arcli,  651. 
Archangels,  32. 
Archaia,  346. 

Archbishop  of  Dublin,  799. 
Archduke,  492. 
Arches,  719, 

Apxn,  265,  347,  796,  807. 
Archimagus,  93. 
Architectonici,  712,  723,  725. 
Architis,  797. 
Arciae,  810. 
Ap%u,  338. 
Ares,  125. 
Arg,  797,  810. 
Argens,  402. 
Argeiphontes,  345. 

Argha,  170,  293,  335,  336,  337,  338, 
343,  347,  361,  410,  423,  626,  646, 
720,  797. 
Argha-natha,  344. 
Argives,  342. 

Argo,  24,  108,  752,  757,  759,  797. 

Argo  Argonautse,  652. 

Argo-polis,  337,  355. 

Argolis,  332,  337,  758. 

Argonauta  Argo,  345. 

Argonautae,  337. 

Argonautic,  334,  344. 

Argonath,  797. 

Argonauts,  333,  345,  446,  593,  596, 
627,  752,  760,  761,  762,  797,  798, 
799. 

Argos,  332,  333,  348,  384,  422. 

Argueis,  347. 

Argus,  333. 

Argyro  Castro,  422. 

Aria,  164,416,  593. 

Ariadne,  303. 

Arich  Anpin,  785. 

Aries,  24,  25,  148,  164,  238,  256,  319, 
429,437,  751,755,756,763. 

Archontes,  345. 

Arimauius,  706,  791. 

Arimasp,  513. 

Arion,  501. 

Aristo,  618. 

Aristotle,  362. 

Arithmetic,  511. 

Arithmetic,  origin  of,  1. 

Aijoou,  658. 

Arjun,  106, 155. 

Ark,  322, 346,  797. 

Ark,  size  of,  293. 

Ark  tower,  361. 

Armenia,  235,  427. 

Arms,  coats  of,  398. 

Arno, 463. 


Arnobius,  343. 

Aiol,  362. 

Aiolians,  362. 

Arrian,  142,  149,  236,  242,  274,  407, 

411,416,457,587,  738. 
Arrow  of  Apollo,  405. 
Arsinoe,  422. 
Artaxerxes,  673. 
Arya,  287. 
Arzeret,  426. 
As,  613. 
Asa,  52. 
Ascanius,  754. 
Aschaschisdim,  701. 
Ashaphim,  810. 
Ash  Wednesday,  287. 
Asia,  423. 
Asia  Minor,  612. 
Asiatic  Researches,  24. 
Asiatic  Society,  496. 
Asoph,  732. 
Asoph,  sea  of,  294. 
Asp,  733, 

Asphaltes,  412,  417. 
Asphodel,  378. 
Ass,  239. 
Assassins,  654,  689,  700,  704,  7 1 1 ,  723, 

729,  830. 
Assoors,  353,  465. 
Assumption,  313. 
Assyria,  353. 
Assyrians,    30,    51,    103,    353,    361, 

591. 
Astarte,  509. 
Asteroth,  433. 

Astle,  17,454,455,459,779. 
Astrologers,  6,  30,  31,  96,  207,  673, 

799. 
Astrology,  559,  616,  799. 
Athena,  341,  361,  812. 
Athaeneus,  325, 340. 
Athenians,  341. 
Athens,  384. 

Athos,  422,  541,  581,  583,  585. 
Atlas,  356. 
Atlantic,  299. 
Atlantides,  553. 
Atlantis,  301. 
Atonement,   90,   254,   279,  623,  644, 

707. 
Attica,  361. 
Attila,  631,  808. 
Atys,  310. 
Atys,  female,  306. 
Aub,  517,538. 
Augustin,  807. 
Augustine,  74,  167,  204,  218,  327,  545, 

554,  683,  705,  706,  786. 
Augment,  Greek,  469. 
Augustus,  44,  188,  193,  268,  373,  470, 

575,  610,611,620,629. 
Anpin,  785. 
Aulus  Gellius,  8. 
Aum,  45,114,  157. 
AUM,  686. 
Aur,  241. 
Aura,  504. 
Aurelius,  489. 
Aurengzebe,  419,  429. 
Ausonius,  44. 
Australia,  423,  738. 
Autographs,  680. 
Author  improves  on  Faber,  371. 
Ava,  322,  409. 
Avaris,  56,  405. 

Avatar,  676,  677,  698,  699,  804. 
Avatar,  ninth,  662. 

Avatar,    Pisces,    634,   635,   636,  676, 
677. 


Avatars,  159,  557,  558,  560,  561. 

Avatars,  several,  708. 

Avatars,  eight,  215. 

Avatars,  nine,  216. 

Avatars,  ten,  155. 

Aven,  110. 

Avenar,  315. 

Averil  Pere,  829. 

Avicenna,  315,  685,  701. 

Avyar,  800. 

Axieros,  602,  758. 

Axierus,  589. 

Axiocersa,  602. 

Axiokersa,  588. 

Axis,  30,  373,  552. 

Axis  changed,  30,  209,  552. 

Ayodhia,  763,  830,  831,  835. 

Ayodia,397,  405. 

Ayeen  Akbei  ry,  809. 

Azar,  611. 

Aziz,  125. 

Azof,  534. 


Baal,  258,  433,  589. 

Baal  of  Hosea,  103. 

Baal  Spalisha,  125. 

Baal  Zebub,  68. 

Baali,  259,  457,  467,  481. 

Babelmandel,  424. 

Baber,  429,  668. 

Babington,  470,  753,  759. 

Babon,  699. 

Babylon,  5,  47,  335,  355,  358,  362, 
368,  380,  384,  591,  624,  664,  672, 
769,772,  774,  778,821. 

Babylon  Iona  Vetus,  361. 

Babylonians,  214. 

Bacchantes,  523. 

Bacchic  Pomp,  361. 

Bacchus,  44,  163,  194,  238,303,316, 
318,  319,  321,  322,  351,  352,  402, 
422,  446,  458,  528,  586,  606,  639, 
643,  690,  797. 
Bacchus  Omestes,  108. 
Bacchus  Sol,  54. 
Bachmut,  732. 
Backebackus,  320. 
Back-reckonings,  140. 
Bacon,  22,  42,  230,  341,  446,  468,  792. 
Bacon,  Lord,  468. 
Bacon,  Roger,  677,  683,  748,  792. 
Bactria,  416,  417,  422. 
Bactriana,  422,  582. 
Bads,  fourteen,  410. 
Bafomet,  591,  710. 
Bagavan,  407. 
Baghis,  319. 
Baghistan,  359. 
Baghisthan,  321, 
Bahumid,  710. 
Baids,  766. 

Baieux,  274,  745,  757. 
Bailly,  3,  6,  30,  33,    168,   169,   271, 

479,511,530,577,622,  765. 
Bairds,  431. 
Baisampsa,  237. 

Bal,  257,  414,  457,  467,  481,  589,  613. 
Bala,  240,  241,  256. 
Bala  Deva,  238. 
Bala-hadra,  257. 

Bala  Rama,  159,  238,  240,  464,  648. 
Balbec,  259,  513. 
Batch,   93,  105,   164,  197,   232,   281, 

582.  ' 


INDEX. 

[     Baldaeus,  197. 

Bal-ii,  572,  596,  750,  758. 

Bal-iji,  479,  667. 

Bali-sama,  349. 

Balk,  422,  582,  701. 

Balkan,  422,  437,  582. 

Ballaji,  145,  147. 

Baltimore,  257. 

Baltis,  348. 

Baltistan,  348,  409. 

Bambino,  800. 

Bambino,  black,  173,  312. 

Bainian,  164. 

Baudhen,  mar,  666. 

Baugor,  773. 

Banks,  19. 

Baptism,  530. 

Baptist,  John,  808. 

Baptist  missionaries,  345. 

Baptize,  529. 

Baptizings,  529. 

Bara,  641. 

Barascith,  264. 

Barasit,     805,     818,    819,    823,    vld 

Berasit. 
Barat,  451. 

Bag  aro,  219. 

Barbari,  275. 

Barbarismus,  402. 

Bardesaues,  16. 

Bardesanes,  Syrus,  457. 

Bards,  431. 

Baris,  235,  759. 

Bar  Jona,  645,  691. 

Barker,  E.  H.,  470,  619,  789. 

Barnabas,  204,  304. 

Barnes,  364,  615. 

Barret,  608. 

Bartholomeus,  583,  592,  597. 

Bartholomew,  667,  747. 

Bartolomaeus,  799,  800. 

Baruel,  817. 

Basilidians,  40,  45,  324. 

Basnage,  44,  179,  226,  401,  542,  615, 

820. 
Bassus,  349. 
Batavia,  601. 
Bates,  8. 
Bathkol,  709. 
Bathsheba,  411. 
Bathos,  814. 
Batta,  536. 

Battenians,  698,  705,  721. 
Batties,  667,  721. 
Batuta,  402. 
Bayer,  14,  475. 
B.D.,  153,  154,348. 
Bda,  767. 
Beans,  822. 
Beast,  675. 
Beausobre,  49,  73,  103,  324,  325,  327, 

568,  681,  687,  708,  806,  807. 
Becanus,  Gorocopius,  428. 
Bechai,  Rabbi,  71,  261. 
Bed  of  Justice,  242,  255. 
Bedahs,  754. 
Bedes  house,  833. 
Bedoweens,  837. 
Be&u,  584. 
Bees,  346. 

Beeve,  18,  136,  509. 
Beginning  nonsense,  77. 
Begneeber,  452. 
Beitullah,  583. 
Bel-auor,  258. 
Belerophon,  409. 
Belgaum,  745. 
Belinus,  241,  257,  607. 


84? 

Bellamy,  67,  68,  461,  534 
Bellarmine,  565. 
Bells,  820 
Belsham,  792. 
Belur  Tag,  771. 
Belus,  355. 
Bemrilla,  699,  701. 
Benares,  218. 
Ben  David,  569. 
Benedictines,  682. 
Ben-Jehudah,  317. 
Ben  Jochai,  124. 
Benson,  Dr.,  170. 

Bentley,  3,   158,  175,   182,  183,   244, 
246,  247,  248,  250,  274,  364,  421. 
418,446,494,496,648,  761. 
Bentley  manuscript,  364. 
Berasit,  73,  444,  805,  818,  819,   823, 

826,  vid.  Barasit,  Brasit,  Rasit. 
Berkeley,  643. 
Berkley,  37. 
Berenice,  600. 
Bernard,  St.  676,  677,  683. 
Berne  crucifixion,  793. 
Bernier,  413,  670,  771. 
Bernouilli,  654. 
Berosus,  182. 
Betaisor,  539. 
Bethaven,  256. 
Bethel,  759. 

Bethlehem,  171,  315,  589,  758. 
Bethluisnion,  9,  14,  16. 
Betuma,  663. 

Beverley,  49,351,496,  651,681. 

Bezaleel,  817. 

Bhaganas,  185. 

Bhagavat,  129. 

Bhoes,  745,  746,  757. 

Bhoiae,  757. 

Bhoja,  749, 

Bharata,  585. 

Bhats,  721. 

Bhavani,  24,  162,  305. 

Bible,  466,  775. 

Bi-cheres,  602. 

Bi  mat  rem,  321. 

Bible  in  Odyssey,  543. 

Biblius,  Phiio,  46. 

Bingham,  570. 

Binah,  709. 

Biscawen'unn,  226. 

Biscawoon,  181. 

Bishop  of  Canterbury,  768,  799. 

Bishop  of  York,  768. 

Bituma,  786. 

Blacas,  493. 

Black,  135,  751,  801. 

Black  Buddhists,  255. 

Black  Bambino,  312. 

Black  Christ,  138,  751. 

Black  Cristna,  242. 

Black  Diana,  332. 

Black  deities,  134,  138. 

Black  God,  253. 

Black  Jews,  398,  418. 

Black  nation,  51. 

Black  Pelasgi,  264. 

Blackstone,  137,  614,  630. 

Black  tribes,  399. 

Black  Veuus,  253. 

Black  Virgin,  173,  307. 

Blanchard,  —Esq.,  768. 

Boadicea,  726. 

Boaz,  821. 

Bobr,  452. 

Bobuns,  254. 

Bochara,  417,465. 

Bochart,  170,  240,  314,  349,  371,  412 

587.  ' 


848 


INDEX. 


Bochart  on  Ethiopia,  55. 

Bodona,  422,  585,  599. 
Boeotia,  360,  362,  525. 

Boicassae,  745. 

Bol,  241,  258,  641. 

Bombay  Society,  426. 

Bonelli,  489. 

Book,  a  lost,  510. 

Books  burnt,  565. 

Books,  destruction  of,  382,  383. 

Book  of  Abraham,  93. 

Books,  secret,  386. 

Bop,  477. 

B-qdmin,  811. 

Bqmaute,  708,  810,  811. 

Borlase,  227. 

Bosphorns,  829. 

Bos  worth,  460,  779. 

Bottaea,  582. 

Bouchet,  667,  668. 

Bourdeaux,  273,  384. 

Bouta-Var,  269. 

Boves,  458. 

Bowditch,  603. 

Bowli,  516,  638,  641. 

Boyd,  644. 

B.  R.,  431. 

B.  R.  creator,  112. 

Bra,  274,  431,  451,  585,  785,  796. 

Bra,  meaning  of,  785. 

Brachmanes,  457. 

Brahm  Trinity,  160. 

Brahma,  35,  321,336. 

Brahma  Calpa,  175,  182. 

Brahma-pore,  355. 

Brahma-puri,  401. 

Brahme,  48,  321,  335. 

Brahme  Maia,  343,  345,  348,  818,  820. 

Brahmins,  30,  35,  4!,  42,  104,  254, 
358,  479,815. 

Brahmin  liberality,  289. 

Brahmins  Christians,  667. 

Brazen  Serpent,  522. 

Brasit,  73,  444,  451,  vid.  Barasit,  Be- 
rasit,  Rasit. 

Brechin,  535. 

Brennus,  398,  626. 

Bridget,  377. 

Brigantia,  408,  535,  726. 

Briggs,  481,  627. 

Brimham,  346. 

Britain,  301. 

British  Museum,  524. 

Britton,  720. 

Brouma,  321. 

Broumios,  321. 

Brothers,  708. 

Brothers  of  Jesus,  139. 

Broughton,  586. 

Bruce,  220,  300,  458,  459,  463,  544, 
688,  728. 

Bruce,  Robert,  725. 

Brutus,  367,  385 

Brvaut,  7,  25,  43,  44,  45,  271,  338, 
344,  347,  353,  366,  371,  389,  391, 
403,  405,  499,  502,  513,  523,  537, 
584,  586,  593,  596,  598,  600,  646, 
647,  648,  655,  660,  707,  797. 

Bryant  on  Omphe,  108. 

B.  T.,  153,  154,  348. 

Buchanan,  247,  254,  398,  399,  408, 
418,  473,  675,  738,  740,  750,  752, 
764,  837,  839. 

Bucharia,  427. 

Buckingham,  288,  715. 

Budea,  602. 

Budvarday,  246. 

Budwa,  729. 
Budwas,  314. 


Buddha,  33,  135,  161,  201,  202,215, 
224,  251,  257,  322,  351,  362,  383, 
402,  410,  414,  421,  427,  430,  441, 
444,  446,  618,  640,  684,  699,  701, 
721,747,  788,  804,  819,  829, 

Buddha,  sera  of,  168,  192. 

Buddha,  birth  of,  157. 

Buddha,  black,  52,  255,  284,  524.—" 

Buddha,  crucified,  159. 

Buddha,  God  of  Mercy,  157. 

Buddha,  meaning  of,  154. 

Buddha,  names  of,  153. 

Buddha,  Negro,  524* 

Buddha,  old  man,  154. 

Buddha,  Sun  in  Taurus,  152,  154,  169. 

Buddha,  ten  incarnations  of,  156. 

Buddha,  Wisdom,  154,  155. 

Buddhas,  fourteen,  410. 

Buddhist  Avatar,  269. 

Buddhists  do  not  sacrifice,  91. 

Buddhist  towns,  384. 

Buddhist  Veda,  274.  . 

Buddism,  253,  524. 

Buddism,  extent  of,  164. 

Buddists,  15,  35,  41,  343,  449,  450, 
454,  520,  809. 

Buddist  Decalogue,  789. 

Buffon,  210,  284,  292,  530. 

Buffoonery,  660. 

Buldan,  640,641. 

Baise,  Bhuidin,  181 . 

Bulbous  root,  490. 

Bull,  18,  149,  256,  259,  322,  556.  606, 
607,  640,  641,  642,  707. 

Bull,  days  sacred  to  the,  268. 

Bull  changed  for  Ram,  509. 

Bull-headed  Gods,  266. 

Bull,  Itala,  111. 

Bull  of  Japan,  25. 

Bull,  prayers  to,  257. 

Bull  Zodiac,  150. 

Bunderpoor,  750. 

Burckhardt,  301,  354,  464,   534,   583, 
742. 

Burgess,  11,  12,331. 

Burmas,  5,  409. 

Burmese,  409. 

Burnet,  577,  815,  821. 

Burnet,  Thomas,  29,  36,  123,  264,282, 
555,  577. 

Burnt-offerings,  89. 

Burrampouter,  357. 

Burrow,  59. 

Bury  St.Edmond,  519. 

Bussora,  646. 

But-di,  348. 

Butta,  656,  704,  705. 

Byron,  516. 

Byzantium,  541. 


Caaba,  463,  645. 

Cabala,  95,  96,   72,  75,  97,  264,  327, 

415,  564,   700,   712,   746,  755,  780, 

785,  802,  810,  811,  815,817,   818, 

819,  821,  822,  832. 
Cabalis,  414. 
Cabalists,  780. 
Cabul,  160,  164,  267,  274,  281,  416, 

418,  424,587. 
Cadiuean,  1,  449,  466. 
Cadinean  letters,  454. 
Cadmeau  system,  775. 
Cadmon,  811. 
Cadmus,  12,  13,322,455. 
Cadmus  letters,  9. 


Caduceus,  590. 

Caesar,  210,  369,  370,  519,  561,  586, 

591,  608,  610,  611,  612,  613,  614, 

615,  625,  801. 
Caesar  Augustus,  629,  801. 
Caesar,  Julius,  801. 
Caesarean  operation,  618. 
Caesars,  twelve,  80,  369,  490,  762,  801.  - 
Caesars,  black,  801. 
Cain  and  Abel,  an  allegory,  91. 
Cairo,  716,  717. 
Calabria,  761. 
Calamina,  663,  665,  810. 
Calani,  427. 
Calata  Comitia,  592. 
Calculus,  2,  12,  476. 
Calcutta,  479. 

Calendar,  314,  494,  618,  801. 
Cali,  241,  348,  592,  760,  776,  792. 
Cali,  meaning  of,  176,  592. 
Calida,  592,  596,  701,  752. 
Cali-dei,  702. 
Cali-di,  596,  760. 
Califat,  831. 
Califs,  12,  18,  437. 
Calinaga,  131. 
Calinda,  810. 

Caliph,  692,  699,  727,  764. 
Calirae,  716. 
Calisapura,  240,  405. 
Calistus,  832. 

Cali  Yug  165,  175,  182,  191,  321. 
Callan  inscription,  7. 
Callidei,  811. 
Calli-dei-ania,  367. 
Callidua,  810. 
Callidus,  762. 
Callisthenes,  364. 
Calipolis,  765. 
Caltnet,  147,  236,  276,  387,  404,  426, 

560,  636,  675,  756. 
Calves,  389,  699. 
Calvin,  623. 
Calvinists,  792. 
Calviuus,  413,  557,  562. 
Cal— wise,  592. 
Calydouia,  765,  811. 
Calymna,  810. 
C;ilyx,  339. 
Cama,  497,  583,   637,  746,  760,  788, 

834. 
Cama  Deva,  760,  761. 
Cama-isi,  760. 
Cama  Marina,  760. 
Camasene,  760,  777,  788,  808,  833. 
Camasenes,  637,  760,  761,  777. 
Camasenus,  760,  761,  777,  833,  834. 
Camber,  367. 

Cambridge,  385,  643,  719.  724,  833. 
Cambridge    Key,   i83,    187,  295,   309, 

615,  702,  735. 
Cambridge  press,  20. 
Cambyses,  19,  20,  201,  356,  486,  706. 
Camera,  761. 
Camillus,  626,  757. 
Camise,  637. 
Cainises,  760. 
Campbell,  170. 
Camalodunum,  834. 
Canaan,  388. 

Canaan,  bow  occupied,  95. 
Canaanites,  162. 
Canaanites  not  idolaters,  51. 
Cananah,  457. 
Cancer,  317. 
Candace,  503. 
Candia,  754,  756. 
Candlemas,  313. 
Candy,  753,  758. 


INDEX. 


849 


Cannibals,  255,511. 

Canon, 788. 

Canopus,  334,  346. 

Cansa,  132. 

Cantab.  309. 

Canterbury,  799. 

Canthi,  594. 

Canya,  761,  763. 

Caon,432,  517. 

Caones,  388,  502,517. 

Caonia,  422,  423. 

Capella  Martianus,  192. 

Capitol,  797. 

Capitolina,  608. 

Capitolium,  348. 

Capot  Eswari,  398. 

Capotesi,  352 

Capoteswari,  336. 

Capricorn,  3,  317. 

Carcham,  714. 

Carcharias,  240. 

Cardinals,  683,  690,  819. 

Cards,  playing,  16,  593. 

Carlile,  Richard,  322. 

Carlisle,  Sir  A.,  241,  517,  757. 

Carmel,  39,  151,  305,  329,  704,  731, 

820. 
Carmelites,  83,  304,  362, 564,  697,  698. 
Carnivlessus,  810. 

Cam," 685,  747,  757,  762,  765,  834,  835. 
Carnac,  384,  757. 
Carnate,  757,  765. 
Carnatic,  423. 
Carneus,  834. 
Cams,  409,  685. 
Camutes,  721,  834. 
Carpini,  657. 
Carribbeans,  2. 
Casa  Santa,  540,  565,  566. 
Casanbon,  320. 
Cashgar,  355. 
Cashi,  702,  765,  771.' 
Cashmere,  702,  731,  740,  771, 830,  831. 
Casi,  702. 

Casideans,  701,702,705,718,830,831. 
Casimere,  30,  408,  413,  548. 
Casimere,  temple  in,  405. 
Caspian  Sea,  28,  294,  301,  373,  829. 
Cassandra,  367,  623,  624. 
Cassini,  166,  169,  171,  183,  192,  213, 

561,  685. 
Castes,  783. 
Castles,  Lady,  535. 
Castor,  762. 
Castor  and  Pollux,  756. 
Cat,  241. 
Cataia,  714. 
Catholic  religion,  530. 
Catoulas,  514. 
Caucasus,  355,  829. 
Cave  temples,  268. 
Caveri,  658. 
Cawnpore,  432. 
Cazviu,  700. 
Cbl,  414. 
Cebao,  326. 
Cecrops,  502. 
Cedrenus,  45,  326. 
Celaenes,  427. 
Celestial  language,  735. 
Celestial  Virgin,  313. 
Celsus,  635. 
Celtic,  461,  518,  563. 
Celtic  dialects,  451. 
Celtic  Druids,  1. 12;  11.20,30,38, 158, 

166,  173. 
Celtic  Hebrew,  709. 
Celtic  nations,  116. 


Celts,  125,461,516,  518,563. 

Censorinus,  203,  205. 

Centaur,  525. 

Cephas,  645. 

Cerbura,  273. 

Cercasora,  405. 

Cercesura,  422. 

Ceres,  171,  303,  311,  313,  315,  319, 

343,  432,  456,  586,   587,  588,  601, 

632,  754,  758,  778. 
Ceres,  Bacchus,  49. 
Ceres,  temple  of,  171. 
Cerux,  590. 
Ceylon,  165,  233,  409,  428,  567,  596, 

601,  626,  641,  666,  671,  672,  753, 

754,  758,  761,  809,  834. 
Chachams,  189. 
Chair,  691. 

Chalchos,  715,  733,  752,  762. 
Chalcidius,  40,  190. 
Chaldaea,  591,  592. 
Chaldaeans,  618,  672,  673,  718,   762, 

778,  779. 
Chaldaei,  304,  473. 
Chaldaic,  789. 
Chaldea,  603,  762. 
Chaldean,  16,  60,  179,  308,  355,511, 

591. 
Chaldean  cycle,  182. 
Chaldean  judges,  810. 
Chaldean  Trinity,  123. 
Chaldean  year,  214. 
Chaldee,  473. 
Chaldee  Benares,  586. 
Chaldee  Targum,  811. 
Chaldees,  3,  17,  304,  353,  591,  769, 

779. 
Chaldei,  665,  701,  746,  747,  753,  774, 

778,  779,  789. 
Chaledonia,  811. 
Chalmers,  752. 
Chambers,  296. 

Champollion,  19,  482,  490,  632. 
Chancellor,  630. 
Chaudler,  liishop,  170. 
Chandra,  583. 
Chandravansi,  430. 
Chaonian,  502. 
Chapters,  718. 
Chardiu,  398,  838. 
Charistia,  725. 
Charlestown,  428. 
Chartres,  170,  314. 
Chaschesdin,  701. 
Chasdim,  701. 
Chasotun,  771. 
Chateaubriand,  831,  832. 
Chaucer,  450. 
Cheitore,  406,  407,  418. 
Chelum,  406. 
Cheres,  602. 
Chersiphron,  588. 
Chersonesus,  345,  596,  601,  756. 
Cherub,  784. 

Cherubim,  four  faces  of,  95. 
Chifflet,  324,  326. 
Child,  21. 
China,  28,  209. 
China,  Arabians  in,  5,  12. 
China,  Neros  in,  209. 
China  prophecy,  189. 
Chiuese,  40,  47,  330,  618,  755,  789. 
Chinese  God,  429. 
Chinese,  Shih  a  cross,  7,  18. 
Chios,  810. 
Chishull,  12. 
Choaspes,  424. 
Choder,  354,  449. 

5a 


Chod,  God,  640. 

Chcerilus,  412. 

Chohans,  517. 

Chola,  760. 

Cholcheda,  584,  592. 

Choledonia,  811. 

Choras,  587. 

Choro-Mandel,  762. 

Chrestus,  569. 

Chrisha,  587. 

Chrismon  Sancti  Ambrogii,  223. 

Christ,  16,  710,  786. 

Christ,  black,  444. 

Christs,  black,  751. 

Christian  arrogance,  126. 

Christian  fathers,  35. 

Christian  name,  787. 

Christian  names,  745. 

Christian  religion  a  sword,  50. 

Christians,  666. 

Christians,  St.  John,  808. 

Christianity,  790. 

Christus,  569. 

Chronologies,  two,  195. 

Chronology,  465,  511. 

Chronology,  false,  55,  59,  185,  465. 

Chronology,  Indian,  405,  407. 

Chruse,  585. 

Chrvsaor,  587. 

Chryse,  584. 

Chryses,  624,  665,  754,  759. 

Chrysippus,  203. 

Chryso-polis,  573,  581. 

Chrvsos,  586. 

Chrysostom,  591,  724. 

Chumla,  422,  437,  582. 

Chuse,  597. 

Cicero,  32,  46,  122,  202,  203,240,270, 

284,317,  351,574,576,  635. 
Ciconia,  315. 
Cimmerian,  15. 
Ciugales,  409. 
Cintius,  411. 

Circles,  stone,  160  ;  see  plates,  fig.  II. 
Circumcision,  304,  397,  436,  724,  759. 
Citium,  48,  224. 

Clarke,  Dr.  A.,  170,  562,  789,  792. 
Clarke,  Dr.  Dan.,  143,  144,  170,  173, 

219,  224,  229,  337,  360,  362,  476, 

500,  512,  571,  575,  582,  720,  831. 
Clarke,  Dr.  G.,  170. 
Classerniss,  226,  724. 
Classics,  42. 
Cleanthes,  202. 
Clearchus,  400. 
Cleland,  448,  682,  709,  715,  800,  822, 

834. 
Clemens,  786,  791,  825,  838. 
Clemens,   Alex.,  163,   170,   252,   324, 

343,  356,  400,  486,  489,  490,  724, 

786,  791,  822,823,824. 
Clenenney,  227. 
Cleopatra,  494. 
Cleophas,  316. 
Climax,  413. 
Clinch,  717. 
Clissobora,  240. 
Cloaca  Maxima,  374,  464. 
Cloaca?  Maximae,  624. 
Cloacina  Venus,  624. 
Cluverius,  464. 
Cneph,  46,  123, 134. 
Coat  of  arms,  398. 
Cobra  Capella,  147,  160,  238,253,  372, 

517,  521,  524. 
Cobotos,  338. 
Cobotus,  662. 
Cochin,  747. 


850 


INDEX. 


Cockayne,  340. 

Coenobites,  748. 

Coilus,  720. 

Coimbatoor,  241. 

Coin,  Phoenician,  224. 

Colchester,  834. 

Colchicus  Sinus,  596. 

Colchis,  333,  384,  756,  759. 

Colebrook,  426,  467. 

Colebrooke,    5,   244,    247,    248,   251, 
475,481,  764,  816,  819. 

Coleroon,  764. 

Colida,  584,  591,  592,  593,  596,  667, 
668,  759,  761,  786,  790,  810. 

Colidaei,  801. 

College,  719,  769. 

Collida,  752,  801. 

Collier,  Dr.,  245. 

Colony,  Indian,  253. 

Colossaeum,  625. 

Columba,  761. 

Columbo,  624,  761, 
Columella,  313. 
Colurakil,  718. 

Comarin,  760,  761,  777,  834. 
Comarinus,  760. 
Comforter,  628,  680. 
Comorin,  593 
Company,  India,  750. 
Compass,  mariner's,  341. 
Composite,  37. 
Concealment,  654. 
Conclave,  827. 
Conde  Udda,  753. 
Confession,  689. 
Confucius,  287,  789. 
Conon,  332,  475. 
Consortes,  628. 

Constantine,  360,  368,  369,  611,615, 
617,  625,  629,   631,  641,  721,  724, 
762,  788,  793. 
Constantinople,  360,437,  541,  542,  721. 
Coombs,  403. 
Cooper,  294. 
Cophes,  424. 
Cophrenes,  424. 
Copley,  Sir  Jos.  520,  583. 
Coptic,  173,455,484,  492. 
Coptic  article,  312,  318. 
Copts,  420,  424,  458. 
Cordeliers,  698,  699,  793. 
Core,  588,  762. 
Cores,  758. 
Coresh,  171. 
Corinthian,  37. 
Corles,  753. 
Corn,  317. 

Cornelius  Labeo,  325. 
Cornu  Atnmonis,  835. 
Cornwall,  226. 

Coromandel,  423,  671,  760,  762. 
Cortes,  21. 
Coitona,  580,  787. 
Cory,  760. 
Cosar,  618. 

Cosmogony,  Egyptian,  269. 
Costard,  595. 
Council,  694. 

Council,  Constantinople,  116. 
Councils,  565. 
Couplet,  47. 
Cow,  golden,  238. 
Cow's  belly,  424. 
Cow's  mouth,  424. 
Cowries,  476. 
Craestons,  745. 

Crawfurd,  3,  141,  155,  169,  233,  257, 
285,  340,  532. 


Creas,  758. 

Creation,  history  of,  31. 

Creator,  20,  35,' 37,  38,  42,  126,  803. 

Creeshna,  159,  242,  585. 

Crescent,  529. 

Creseans,  596. 

Cresen,  752. 

Cressa,  754,  810. 

Crest,  397. 

Crestian,  590. 

Crestologia,  571. 

Creston,  786,  787. 

Crestona,  585. 

Crestones,  754. 

Crestoniates,  585. 

Crestons,  745,  746. 

Crestos,  573. 

Crestus,  761. 

Cresus,  588 

Crete,  234,  333,  754,  756,  758. 

Creusa,  6U9,  754. 

Creuzer,  161,  262,  271,  336,  340,  505, 
588,  783,  H01. 

Creuzer  on  Buddha,  154. 

Criobolia,  607. 

Crios,  758. 

Crisean,  584,  586. 

Cr'rsen,  667,  749. 
Crishnu,  615. 

Crismon  Sancti  Ambrojii,  686. 
Cristas,  580. 
Cristian,  668. 

Cristna,  41,52,  57,  106,  121,  129,  145, 
148,   183,  241,  248,  250,  251,  273, 
303,   306,  323,  330,  344,  394,  405, 
407,  428,  430,  435,  444,  515,  524, 
560,  593,  627,  640,  648,  649,  688, 
763,  787. 
Cristna,  birth  of,  129. 
Cristna  black,  133,  242,  286,  444. 
Cristna,  Buddha,  165. 
Cristna  incarnate,  129. 
Cristna,  saviour,  129. 
Cristna,  Sun  in  Aries,  152,  169,  176. 
Cristna  Vishnu,  159. 
Cristna  Yadava,  344. 
Crita  or  golden  age,  188. 
Critias,  661. 
Critika,  758. 
Crius,  757. 
Crocodiles,  32. 
Cross,  17,  216,221,223,  224,  230,269, 

499,  590. 
Cross,  Buddhist,  230. 
Cross,  Egyptian,  217. 
Cross  on  a  mummy,  217. 
Cross  of  Plato,  218. 
Cross,  red,  809. 
Crossaea,  581,  584. 
Crost,  587,  588. 
Crotaui,  757. 
Crotona,  745. 
Crowns,  268. 
Crozier,  458. 
Crucifix,  145. 
Crucifixion,  145,  149,   231,   444,  479, 

503,  788,  789,  793. 
Crucifixion,  Berne,  793. 
Crucifixion  of  Cristna,  144. 
Crusaders,  679. 

Crusades,  559,  676,  689,  698,  729. 
Crux  ansata,  217,  220,  269. 
Crypt,  339,  769. 
Crysomalle,  756. 
Crysopolis,  337. 
Cteis,  38. 

Cudworth,  48,  325,  575,  587. 
Cufa  grass,  260,  632. 


Cufic,  462. 

Culdees,  353,  398,  723,  746,  7G1,  769. 

Culidei,  718,  790 

Cuina,  15,  566,  579,  833. 

Cuma  Chronicle,  374. 

Cumaeau  Sibyl,  505. 

Cumaean  verse,  579. 

Cumaei,  579. 

Cumaei  ^Etas,  188,  205. 

Cumberland,  226,392. 

Cumberland,  Bishop,  29,  258. 

Cunni  Diaboli,  346. 

Cunnius,  388,  502,  586. 

Cuno  Belinus,  627. 

Cunti,  358,  439. 

Cunya,  762. 

Cupid,  503,  583,  760,  785,  788. 

Curds,  654,  656,  704. 

Curetes,  629,  669. 

Curtius,  598. 

Cush,  Ethiopia,  52. 

Cushim  Ethiopians,  52. 

Cutaia,  596. 

Cutch,  594. 

Cuthites,  436. 

Cuvier,  21,  27,  210,291,  292,299,511, 

633,  785. 
Cvbele,  310,  528. 

Cycle,  445,  515,  518,  549,  553,  561. 
Cycle  of  seven  days,  3,  30. 
Cycle  of  432,  p.  6. 
Cycle,  eighth,  213. 
Cycle,  Hero  of,  213. 
Cycle  in  Druid  circles,  4. 
Cycle  of  28  days,  3. 
Cycle,  Metou,  4. 
Cycle  of  Metou  Dipaldinna,  11th  figure, 

160. 
Cycle,  Siamese,  171. 
Cycle  of  India,  180. 
Cycles,  653,  746,  763. 
Cycles  of  600,  pp.  177,  231,  746. 
Cyclo,  515. 
Cyclops,  Cyclopes,  337,  363,  423,  464, 

512,  513,  514,  515,517,   642,  643, 

792,821. 
Cyclopaeau  walls,  625,  626. 
Cyclopean,  422,  422,  513,  516,  582. 
Cyclopean  buildings,  363,  512,  513. 
Cynthus,  358. 

Cyprus,  216,  219,  224,  350,  757. 
Cyril,  163,  722,  802. 
Cyropaedia,  620. 
Cyrus,   118,  169,  171,  174,  201,  313, 

411,  561,  656,  673,  758,759,  760. 
Cyrus  a  Messiah,  86. 
Cyrus  an  Iconoclast,  51. 
Cyrus  restored  temple,  81. 


Dabistan,  105,  730. 

Dachanos,  421. 

Daemon,  325. 

Daemons,  277. 

Dagdhu,  192. 

Dagon,  153,  409,  432,  637,   638,  641, 

646,  656,  836. 
Dalai  Lama,  17,  232. 
Damascius,  351. 

Damascus,  48,  120,  124,  125,  704,  832. 
Damnation,  792. 
Dan,  389,  713,  810. 
Danapoor,  539,  737. 
D'Ancarville,  25,  270,  321. 
Dancing  girls,  404. 


INDEX. 


S51 


Dancle,  402. 

Daniel,  84,  86,  562,  672,673,  674,675, 
696,  774,  779. 

Daniel  betrayed  Babylon,  85. 

Danish-mend,  713. 

Dantzig,  537. 

Danube,  534. 

D'Anville,  337,  581. 

Daonae,  535. 

Daoud  Nagur,  737. 

Daoudpotra,  421. 

Daphne,  361,412,  537. 

Dar-al-salem,  414. 

Dardanelles,  830. 

Darius  an  Iconoclast,  51. 

Darkness,  616. 

Dasaratha,  405. 

Datta,  520. 

Daudpoutri,  414,  415,  438. 

David,  354,  401,  419,  423,  427,  432, 
641,765. 

David  Nagur,  406. 

David,  sons  of.  406. 

Davies,  15,  16,  156,  308,  593. 

Davity,  426. 

Day,  division  of,  757. 

Days  of  week,  names  of,  32,  268. 
Days  of  week  sacred  to  Bull,  268. 

Dead  Sea,  301,  417,438. 

Dea  Multimaniuiia,  604. 

Dea  Syria,  24. 

Debim,  she-bears,  64. 

Decad,  221. 

Decalogue,  289,  789. 

Decans,  6,  227,  315. 

Decapolis,  354,  421. 

Deccan,  421. 

December  24th,  577. 

December  25th,  577,  656. 

Decussated,  789. 

Dee,  463. 

De  Guignes,  48,  158. 

Deisul,  463. 

Deity,  double  nature  of,  33. 

Delhi,  25,  432,  721. 

Delos,  358,  631,  787. 

Delphi,  322,  327,  328,  337,  344,  384, 

422,  720. 
Delphi,  prophecy  of,  189. 
Delphin,  810. 
Delphus,  108. 
Delta,  296,  299,  424,  464. 
Deluge,  30,  292,  336. 
Demeter,  758. 
Demigod,  573. 
Demosthenes,  120. 
Deudera,  184,  494. 
Denis,  St.,  273. 
Dennis,  St.,  19,  384. 
Denon, 19,  272. 
Deo  Calyun,  363. 
Deo-naush,  238,  319. 
Deo  Soli,  325,  669. 
Dera-Ishmael  Khan,  421. 
Derceto,  588. 
Dervices,  731. 
Desatir,  163,  197,  257,  258,  390,  551, 

715,  810. 
Des  Prez,  618. 

Destroyer,  35,  121,  126,  330,  791. 
Destruction  of  matter,  106. 
Deucalion,  274,  332,  352. 
Deus,  705. 
Deva,  154,  330,  429. 
Devaci,  139,  330. 
Deva  Nagari,  16,  467,  472,  474. 
Deva-Nahusa,  319. 
Deve  Lanca,  309. 


Devil,  51,  98,  262,  521,  791,  792. 

Dewtahs  of  India,  32. 

Dhan  El,  534. 

Dherma  Rajah,  255. 

Di,  348. 

Dialect,  Syriac,  328. 

Dialects,  22. 

Diamperana,  398. 

Diana  black,  332. 

Didymus,  833. 

Diegesis,  320,  787. 

Digamma,  11,  595,  686. 

Dii  obscuri,  760. 

Di-Jana,  349,  350. 

Diodorus  Siculus,  44,  214,  235,  239, 
318,  320,  321,  324,  359,  364,  407, 
458, 485. 

Dionusos,  44,  319,  324,  351,  606. 

Dionysius  Exiguus,  174. 

Dionysius  Halicarnassus,  579. 

Dioscuri,  760. 

Dipaldenha,  733. 

Dipaldenna,  fig.  11,  p.  160,  230. 

Dipuc,  540,  760,  785,  788. 
Dis,  348,  536. 
Dis  Man,  636. 

Disingenuous  translators,  62. 

Disposers,  177. 
Disputed  chapters,  283. 

Dissolution  of  world,  210. 

Diu,  583,  593,  594,  759. 

Dium,  583. 

Diupeti,  330. 

Dius,  594,  595. 

Divan,  630,  732. 

Divespiter,  330,  595. 

Divine  Son,  777. 

Divine  Spirit,  41. 

Divus,431. 

Divus  Augustus,  44. 

Djainas,  165. 

Djagannath,  145. 

Djebel  el  berkel,  356. 

Djemchid,  783. 

Djion,  427. 

Djnana,  827. 

Doub,  388,  116,  429,  581,  582. 

Doctrine,  Koran,  289,  290. 

Doctrine  of  Brahmin,  289,  290. 

Doctrine  of  Buddha,  290. 

Doctrine  of  Peter,  289. 

Doctrines,  identical,  805. 

Dodecaus,  6,  183,  227. 

Dodona,  337,  497,  585,  599,  756,  765. 

Dodwell,  330,  537. 

Dogdu,  769. 

Dogs,  724. 

Dolayatra,  797. 

Dolphins,  834. 

D'Om,  502. 

Dome,  590,  591. 

Doiuiuus  sol,  323. 

Dom-tiee,  742. 

Don,  337,  533,  534,  535,  667,  713,  732, 

744,  810. 
Don,  wisdom,  533. 
Doncaster,  463,  535. 
Donna  Catherina,  664. 
Dood,  432. 
Doonara,  517. 
Door,  652. 
D' Ore,  361. 

Dorn,  Dr.,  422,  735,  736,  741. 
D'Orville,  232. 
Double  sense,  577. 
Douleia,  614. 
Doum-tree,502. 
Dove,  Mecca,  424. 


Dove,  22,113,  341,346,361,397,502, 
529,  646,  647,  698,  756,  804. 

Doves,  black,  137,  434,  502. 

Dow,  481. 

Dow  on  Vedas,  105. 

D'Oyly,  3. 

Druhya,  746,  836 

Druid,  meaning  of,  89. 

Druid  oak,  590. 

Druidical,  518. 

Druids,  15,  16,  45,  226,  432. 

Drummond,  3,  25,  71,  135,  185,200, 
214,  228,  239,  264,  279,311,  317, 
325,  341,  355,  369,  370,  379,  423, 
455,  458,  467,  477,  489,  528,  587, 
660,  700,  740,  771,  835. 

Druschim,  785. 

Druses,  654,  699,  701,  704. 

Dualism,  827. 

Dubois,  261,  267,  377,  809. 

Dubois  on  Om,  107,  112. 

Dud,  402,  423. 

Dugald  Stewart,  776. 

Du  Halde,  18,  189. 

Duke  of  Sussex,  717. 

Duke's  Place,  435. 

Dulaine,  724. 

Dun,  534. 

Dunbar,  469,  470,  776. 

Duoino,  Milan,  222. 

Dupuis,  25,  43,  50,  97,  122,  149,  184, 
237,  240,  268,  270,  313,  314,  307, 
344,  345,  352,  525,  533,  576,  676, 
703,  752. 

Dura  Yoosoof,  421. 

Durna  cotta,  230. 

Dwiua,  537. 

Dyonisius,  238,  579,  597,  718. 


Eagle,  273. 

Eanus,  350. 

Eartha,  335,  344. 

Earth  of  earth,  359. 

Easter  Sunday,  756. 

East  place  of  worship,  89. 

East  wind,  788. 

Ebal,  436. 

Ebal  for  Gerizim,  83. 

Ecclesiastes,  69. 

Ecclesiasticus,  712,  783. 

Eclectics,  824. 

Eclipse,  174. 

Eclipse  of  Thales,  655. 

Ecliptic,  185,  203. 

Ecliptic  obliquity,  203. 

Edda,  163. 

Eden,  16,  422. 

Eden,  tabernacle  iu,  89. 

Edinburgh  Review,  142,  483,  486,  621, 

622. 
Edom,  462. 
Edonis,  537. 
Edrisi,  603. 
Education,  826. 
Edwin,  768. 
Eeswar,  586. 
Egbatana,  359,  517. 
Egg,  518. 
Egypt,  19,  25,  253,  267,  319,  337,  344, 

360,  418,  479,  602,  632,  769,  817. 
Egypt,  inythos  of,  207. 
Egyptian  cosmogony,  269. 
Egyptian  mythology,  444. 
Egyptians,  21,  30,  434,  489,  755. 


8,52 


INDEX. 


Ei,  337. 

Eicton,  125. 

Eidon,  422,  437. 

Eight  ages,  268. 

Eion,  337. 

Eklinga,  593. 

El,  71. 

El,  Heathen  God  Sol,  67. 

El-Phtha,  657. 

Eleazar  ben  Damah,  316. 

Electric,  35,  815. 

Elephant,  243,  760. 

Elephanta  cavern,  114,  130,  132,  164, 

242,  243,  458. 
Eleusinian  mysteries,  266,  589. 
Eleusis,  13,  343,  361,  422,  456,  590, 

591,  822,  838. 
Elias,  250,  613,  655. 
Elias,  churches  of,  200. 
Elijah,  727. 
Elisa,  332. 
Elisha,  651. 
Elizabeth,  426. 
Elk  in  Dublin,  384. 
Elks,  291. 
Ell-omenus,  422. 
Ellas,  333. 
Ellen,  630. 
Ellipses,  432. 
Elliptic  orbits,  357,  562. 
Ellis,  449,  467,  737.  767,  790. 
Ellora,  164,  253,  267,  268. 
Elm, 273. 
Elm-tree,  16. 
Elohim,  Aleim,  64. 
Elphinston,   384,  415,  416,  419,  425, 

598. 
Elulim,  329. 
Emanatious,   41,    73,   159,    802,   813, 

814. 
Emblem,  238. 
Emblem,  idolatrous,  522. 
Emboli,  337. 
Emendations,  799. 
Emendatores,  450. 
Emeph,  125. 
Emphatic  article,  515. 
Empire,  Solomon,  772. 
Encratides,  416. 
Encyclopaedia,  460,  465. 
Enfield,  780,  805. 
Engaddi,  631. 
English  letters,  460. 
Ennuis,  13. 
Enoch,  192,  198,  407,  544,   545,  546, 

547,  548,  549,  550,  551,  743,  751, 

780. 
En*oph,  785,  802. 
Epiphanius,  316,  657. 
Ephesus,  332,  810,  811. 
Ephorus,  364. 
Epictetus,  288. 
Epicurus,  805. 
Equinoctial  calculation,  191. 
Equinox,  24,  801. 
Eratosthenes,  313. 
Erekoel,  241. 
Eridan,  240. 
Eridanus,  357,  528,  533. 
Erkles,  241. 

E/>o<r,  335,  499,  503,  524,  572,  589. 
Epos,  623,  804. 
Upas,  572,  582. 
Erymanthine  boar,  594. 
Erynnves,  499. 
Erythr'a,  567,  576. 
Erythraea,  576,  594,  595,  607,663,666, 

671,  759,  810,  833. 


Erythraean,  540,  575,  584,  595. 

Erythraean  sea,  392,  409. 

Erythraean  Sibyl,  664,  748. 

Erythraeans,  584. 

Esar,  586. 

Esau,  435. 

Esdras,  774. 

Esdrass,  72,  451. 

Esne,  184,  494. 

Esoteric  religion,  113,  276,  280,  325, 

338,  380. 
Essenes,  702. 
Esseneaus,  304. 
Essenians,  747,  787. 
Esther,  86. 
Estrangelo,  475. 
Esus,  610,  613. 
Eswara-Ekam,  746. 
Eternity  of  matter,  29,  33,  118,  126. 
Ethiopia,  357,  424,  455,  654,  770. 
Ethiopia  Cush,  52. 
Ethiopian  Arabia,  52. 
Ethiopian  writing,  286. 
Ethiopians,  53, 139,  239,  255,399,  400, 

465,  588,  770. 
Ethiopians  from  India,  54. 
Ethiopians  in  Egypt,  54. 
Ethiopias,  two,  51,  52. 
Ethiopia  letters,  459. 
Etrurians  Negroes,  166. 
Etruscan,  1,  8,  48,  113,  181,  205,  209, 

224,  307,  350,  351,  455,  476,  515. 
Etruscan  period,  206. 
Etymology,  23,  24,  379,  416,  594. 
Eubcea,  362. 

Eucharist,  718,  725,  823. 
Eudes  of  Brittany,  708. 
Eugubian  inscription,  13. 
Eumolphus,  506. 
Euphony,  625. 
Euphrat,  536. 
Euphrates,  357,  759. 
Eupolemus,  83,  329,  545,  761. 
Euripides,  644,  813. 
Europa,  bull  of,  139,  270. 
Eusebe  de  Salverte,  764. 
Eusebius,  121,  131,  183,  195,399,400, 

403,  458,  571,  574,  577,  747,  824. 
Eusebius  on  Ethiopians,  54. 
Eusofzyes,  407. 
Eustathius  on  Ethiopians,  54. 
Eutychius,  755,  821. 
Euxine,  294. 
Evander,  375. 
Evangelists,  790. 
Evangelium  Eternum,   693,   694,  695, 

696,  711. 
Evangelium  Infantiae,  130. 
Eva  Vau,  221. 
Eve,  523. 

Evil,  origin  of,  in  Genesis,  61. 
Evil  principle,  706. 
Evoe,  320. 
Evohe,  325. 
Evora,  422. 

Exoteric,  325,  338,  380. 
Ezekiel,221,  265,437. 
Ezra,  451,  774,  779. 


Faba  Egyptiaca,  431. 

Faber,  25,  34,  108,  126,  153,  154,  163, 
168,  190,  201,  235,  237,  271,  275, 
277,  280,  281,  293,  315,  347,  351, 


353,  355,  366,  371,  394,  409,  475, 

505,  678,  679,  707,  753. 
Faber  on  Sacrifice.  89. 
Faber  on  shepherd  kings,  56. 
Faber  on  Trinity,  125. 
Faber's  age  of  Phoenix,  199. 
Faber's  chronology,  186. 
Faber's  Trinity  of  Gentiles,  278. 
Fabii,  611. 
Fable,  822. 
Fabrette,  374. 
Fakeers,  731. 
Falaise,  170. 
Falasha,  459. 
Fallen  Angels,  792. 
Fan,  319. 

Faria  y  Sousa,  833. 
Fatalism,  799. 
Fate,  813. 

Fates,  origin  of,  189. 
Fathers,  Christian,  628,  680. 
Fathers  in  India,  232. 
Fathers,  the,  794. 
Faustus,  705,  706,  786. 
Fealty,  615. 
Fecit,  796. 
Ferguson,  374. 
Ferishta,  418,  420,  481. 
Feta-Hil,  657. 
Figures,  8,  14,  21,  75,  161,  222,  223, 

230,  231,  241,  272,  307,  310,  312, 

335,  336,  338,  340,  358,  377,  385, 

404,  411,  535,  593,  632,  638,   639, 

640,  723,  747,  750,  791. 
Fig-tree,  22. 
Figulus,  187,  233. 
Fileahs,  630. 
Filoquia,  337. 
Finlayson,  639. 
Firdausi,  101. 
Fire  God,  628. 
Fire  iu  Jordan,  648. 
Fire  worship,  377. 
Fire  worshipers  of  Persia,  93. 
Firmament,  335. 
First  Cause,  43. 

Fish  Avatar,  661,  777,  808,  836. 
Fish  days,  635. 
Fish  eaten,  638. 
Fisherman,  823. 
Fishes,  559,  635,  640,  641,  756,  760, 

777,  836. 
Fishnu,  640,  641. 
Fitzclarence,  18. 

Fitzclarence  on  Indian  Negroes,  57. 
Flameu,  504. 
Fleece,  golden,  333. 
Fletcher,  Giles,  426. 
Flood,  27,  293,  373. 
Flood  of  Noah,  291. 
Flora,  693. 
Florence,  690. 
Flour,  261. 
Flower,  red,  261. 
Floyer,  579,  710. 
Foot,  Buddah,  829. 
Footmark,  215. 
Forbes,  Mr.,  106,  133. 
Forgery,  249. 

Forster,  115,413,  709,  771. 
Fossils,  291. 

Fourmont,  13,  18,  489,  519. 
Foxes,  240. 
Francis,  426,  694,  695,  696,  697,  699, 

793,  832. 
Francis,  St.,  710. 
Franklin,  163,  166,  201,  231,  363,  388, 

403. 


INDEX. 


853 


Fraud,  492,  545. 

Fraud,  Lardner's,  578. 

Frea,  115,  594. 

Freemasonry,  790. 

Freemasons,  304,  519,  652,  |716,  717, 

720,  723,  767,  816. 
Freemasons'  tavern,  591. 
French,  557. 
French  Masons,  717. 
Frend,  271. 
Frere,  674. 
Freva,  594. 
Fry)  Mr.,  174. 
Fulk  de  Paganel,  505,  763. 
Future  state,  785. 


Gab, 296,  446. 

Gabala,  414. 

Gagasmera,  408. 

Gagasmira,  407. 

Gagra,  420. 

Gaia,  346,  430,  606. 

Galatinus,  71. 

Galatoi,  515. 

Gale,   109,  202,  349,   353,  358,  400, 

423,  457, 
Gallaeus,  576. 
Galli,  404. 
Galvanic,  35. 
Galvanism,  815. 
Gana-put  cunda,420. 
Ganesa,  351,  420,  446,  518,  651,  808. 
Ganesa-dvvara,  652, 
Ganga,  357. 

Ganges,  357,  358,  533,  536. 
Gardens,  359. 

Gargarus,  229,  360,  362,  423. 
Gargastan,  346. 
Garonne,  274. 
Garuda,  273,  274. 
Garumna,  274. 
Garzoni,  715. 
Gate,  651. 
Gaul,  16,516. 
Gauls,  626,  746. 
Gaza,  239,  352,  353,  384,  464,  516, 

519,  535,  602,  603,  604,  606,  702. 
Gazamera,  407,  516,  702. 
Gazimera,  602. 
Gbl,  414. 
Gdlim,  65. 
Geddes,  200,  237,  271,  306,  404,  709, 

773. 
Geddes,  Dr.  Alex.,  on  Aleira,  69. 
Geeta,  48,  115,289. 
Geez,  602,  771. 
Gemara,  812. 

Gemini,  672,  752,  760,  762,  763,  833. 
Gemshid,  390,  707. 
Genealogies,  440. 
Genealogists,  431. 
Generations,  41 ,  567. 

Generative  power,  37. 

Genesis,  24,  30,  33,  39,  41,  60,  97, 
182,  323,  380,  430,  464,  468,  478, 
521,785,791,807,811. 

Genesis,  Buddhist,  61,  390. 

Genesis,  different  works,  61. 

Genesis,  1st  verse,  49,  73. 

Genesis,  10th  chap.,  265. 

Genesis,  Teu-u-beu,  35. 

Geneva,  300. 

Genetrix,48. 

Gennaeus,  351. 

Gentiles,  446. 

Gentiles  copied  Moses,  60. 

Geology,  292. 


George,  463. 

George  of  Trebizond,  197. 

George  Street,  354. 

Georgius,  173,  230,  407,  413,  479,  602, 

765,  808. 
Georgos,  781. 
Gerar  and  Asa,  52. 
Gerhard,  697. 
Gerizim,  255,  362,  410,  423,  436,  498, 

770. 
Germ,  336. 
German  circles,  753. 
German  words,  449. 
Gestation,  617. 
Geta,  735. 
Gharipuri,  160. 
Ghengis  Khan,  631. 
Gherghistan,346. 
Ghezni,  736. 
Ghilan,  700. 
Ghost,  Holy,  113. 
Ghost,  Holy,  female,  112. 
Ghosts,  643,  808. 
Giadu,  Gioda,  Giodu,  407. 
Giants,  343, 
Gibbon,  622,  682,689. 
Gibelim,  18,207,259,414,538,590,591 
Gibeonites,  419. 
Giblini,  414,  700,  819,  822. 
Gibraltar,  16,299,300. 
Gihon,  771. 
Gilchrist,  20,  21,  75. 
Gilgal,  360,  423. 
Gillies,  333. 
Giocomo  Bartolini,  691. 
Gion,  357. 

Giovani  Laterano,  805. 
Girdlestone,  346. 
Gironde,  274. 
Giza,  296,  297. 
rwm;,  518,  657,  704,  817,  819,  826, 

827. 
Gnostic,  661,  689,  717,  729,  786,  793, 

794,  800. 
Gnostic  Christianity,  711,  819. 
Gnosticism,   16,   224,   688,    704,  705, 

711,793,  805,  827. 
Gnostics,  40,  120,  173,  396,  570,  801, 

802,  803,  804,  807,  814,  819,  826, 

827. 
Goa,  308,745. 
Goat,  408,  517,606,  837. 
Goat,  Scape,  837. 
God,  43. 
God,  a  fire,  628. 
God  Day,  313. 
God,  Fathers  on,  94 
God,  Hebrew,  Androgynous,  66. 
God  of  the  Jews,  814. 
Goddess,  Hebrew,  65. 
Goddesses,  48. 
Gods,  all  Black,  286. 
Gods,  all  the  sun,  271. 
Gods,  fathers  of  men,  380. 
Gods,  Heathen,  all  one,  49. 
Gods,  Hiudoo,  uncertain,  270. 
Gods,  no  names,  276. 
Gods,  numbers  of,  371. 
Gods  of  Jews,  several,  62. 
Gods,  unknown,  757. 
Godstone,  346. 
Coquet,  668,  750. 
Golden  age,  452,  600,  757. 
Golden  Calf,  94,  280. 
Golden  Fathers,  600. 
Golden  Fleece,  333,  346,  759,  760. 
Gold  Mines,  125,  625. 
Good  Friday,  756. 
Gopha,  424. 

5  R 


Gopi,  429,  589. 

Gopies,  510. 

Gorion,  Ben,  426,  428. 

Gorius,  48,  307. 

Goropius,  Becanus,  428. 

Gosaen,  593. 

Goseyn,  594. 

Goshen,  252,  405,  633. 

Goshen,  Shepherds  in,  56. 

Gospel,  129,  593,  679,  693,  696,  697, 

795,  796. 
Gospel  histories,  458,  671,  679,  680, 

682,  683. 
Gospel  histories  revised,  575,  593. 
Gospel,  New,  692,  693,  694,  695,  696. 
Gospel  of  Infancy,  399. 
Gospel  of  John,  795,  796. 
Gospel  of  Paul, 
Got,  269. 
Gotham,  594. 
Gouflier,  829. 
Govindgurh,  516. 
Grabe,  450. 
Graham,  747,  757. 
Grammar,  742. 
Grammars,  453. 

Grandamy's,  Father,  chronology,  167. 
Grass,  632. 
Great  Year,  177. 
Greaves,  296. 
Grebillon,  232. 
Grecian  mythos,  281. 
Grecian  Trinity,  123. 
Greece,  29,  32,  344,  362,  423,   616, 

778. 
Greek,  468. 
Greek  mysteries,  525. 
Greek  Mythos  in  Sanscrit,  362. 
Greek  names,  360. 
Greek  notation,  8. 
Greek  philosophers,  31. 
Greeks,  20,  30,  34,  333, 360, 416,  773. 
Greeks,  ignorance  of,  4. 
Greeks,  ignorant,  270. 
Greeks,  notation  of,  8. 
Gregorian  years,  167. 
Gregory,  807. 
Gregory  the  Great,  559. 
Grellman,  442. 
Grestonia,  581. 
Grueber,  232. 
Gualior,  721,  722. 
Guardafui,  602. 
Guatama,  157. 

Guerin  de  Rocher,  Abb6,  838. 
Guigues,  De,  58,  231,  618. 
Guinea,  603. 

Guiuiaut,  144,  161,  164,  257,  260,  271. 
Guios,  808. 
Guna,  763. 
Gunpowder,  341. 
Gupta,  424. 
Guptus,  424. 
Guyastan,  346. 
Guyatri,  287. 
Guydelians,  715. 

Guzerat,  422,  519,  582,  584,  752. 
Guzni,  429. 
Gymnosophistae,  584. 
Gymnosophists,  158,  246,252,264,457, 

464,  584,  598,  702. 
Gymnosophists  of  Egypt  from  Brahmins, 

54. 
Gypsies,  438,  441,  442. 


854 

Habides,  558. 

Hackpen,  225. 

Hadad-ezer,  402. 

Hadadhezer,  519. 

Hadrian,  613,  625. 

Haemus,  422,  582. 

Hafiz,  288,  730. 

Hag,  518. 

Hagar,  475,  476,  779. 

Hagar,   Dr.,  259,  355,  391,  423,  424, 

472. 
Haggai,  421,679,  713,  735. 
Hakem,  699,  701,  707,  708,  710,  714, 

715,721,734. 
Hakewill,  654. 
Hakim,  769. 
Hakim,  Bemrillah,  559. 
Hakpen,  518. 
Hales,  63,  175,  185,  659. 
Hales,  Dr.,  577. 
Halhed,  425. 
Hali-acmon,  582. 
Hallelujah,  329. 
Ham,  45,  111,315. 
Hania,  45. 

Hamilton,  417,  639,  758,  759. 
Hammer,  8,  12,  590,  700,   704,  710, 

712,716,717,718,830. 
Hamyar,  462. 
Hanbury,  267. 
Hannibal,  257. 
Hanuman,  147. 
Haphton,  702. 
Happiness,  813. 
Hara  Hara,  313. 
Hara-ja,  241. 

Hargarizim,  Hargerizim,  83. 
Har-gerizim,  389. 
Haris,  587. 

Haris,  preserver,  313,  587. 
Harpocrates,  45. 
Harris,  829. 
Harrowgate,  346. 
Hassan,  701. 

Hassan,  Sabah,  700,  729,  830. 
Hastings,  106. 
Haughton,  758,  818. 
Haughton,  Mr.,  236,  472,  477. 
Head  of  Jove,  75. 
Heart,  146,  572. 

Heathen  philosophers  exonerated,  50. 
Heathen,  revelation  to,  316. 
Heber,  406,  429,  439. 
Hebrew,  7,  13,   14,  20,  23,  66,  329, 
414,   425,  446,  449,  450,  468,  474, 
480,  534,  546,  739,  753,  776,  778. 
Hebrew,  Celtic,  709. 
Hebrew,  lost,  740. 
Hebrew  God,  Androgynous,  66. 
Hebrew  language,  66,  443. 
Hebrew,  Mazoretic,  451. 
Hebrew,  oldest  language,  443. 
Hebrew  Synagogue,  451,  465. 
Hebrew  words,  454. 
Heel,  306. 
Helen,  630. 
Helena,  341,  368,  369,  629,  631,  655, 

678,721,724,770,793. 
Helio-archite,  277. 
Heliogabalus,  44. 
Heliopolis,    110,    143,   237,   252,  259, 

405. 
Heliopolis,  on,  85. 
Heliopolitee,  351. 
Hellanicus,  136,  344. 
Hellen,  333,  403,  497,  498. 
Hellenes,  332,  341,  342. 
Hellenes,  Wisemen,  631. 
Hellenic  shepherds,  403. 


INDEX. 

Hellenic  worship,  361. 
Hellenism,  404,  604. 
Hellenismus,  403. 
Hemero-baptists,  656,  657. 
Hemisphere,  Greek  and  Indian,  334. 
Henry  [Henri]  Quatre,  242. 
Hephaistos,  344. 
Hephraim,  317. 
Hera,  350. 
Heraclea.  582,  584. 
Herald,  590. 

Herald,  Morning,  443,  490. 
Herbelot,  397,  475. 
Hercul,  665. 

Hercules,  44,  142,  144,  148,  184,  236, 
237,  238,  241,  322,  352,  525,  594, 
691,  760,  792. 
Hercules  after  Buddha,  149. 
Hercules  in  Gaul,  1. 
Hercules,  labours  of,  525. 
Hercules,  meaning  of,  176. 
Here,  588. 
Heres,  313,  587. 
Heretics,  814. 

Heri,  161,  241,  350,  430,  594. 
Heri-Cristna,  141,242. 
Heri-cula,  241,542,  584, 
Hericulo,  584. 
Herman,  471. 

Hermaphrodite,  48,  70,  279,  361. 
Hermes,  12,  162,  269,  317,  355,  431, 

721,  802. 
Hermes  Trismigistus,  163. 
Hermogenes,  235. 

Herodotus,  48,  60,  171,  266,  267,  296, 
300,   320,  407,  425,  432,  434,  458, 
585,  604,  772,  773. 
Herodotus'  account  of  Helen,  186. 
Heroes,  44. 
Hero  Gods,  620. 
Hero  worship,  247. 
Heshmon,  317. 
Hesiod,  183,  196. 
Hesperides,  760. 
Hesselius,  754. 

Hesychius,  240,  315,  344,  591. 
Hetruria,  187. 
Heuman,  568. 
Hevelius,  175. 
Hevelius'  system,  196. 
Heylin,  356. 
Heyne,  376. 
Hieralpha,  239. 
Hierapolis,  Ascalon,  361,  497. 
Hierarchy,  161,  745. 
Hieroglyphics,  17,  18,  19,  20,  455,  472, 

482,  485,  488,  632. 
Hieroinbalus,  325. 
Hiero-Solyma,  410. 
Hierosolyma,  405. 
High  places,  421,428. 
Hilaria,  306. 
Hill,  792. 

Himmalah,  30,  33. 
Hindi  language,  765. 
Hindoo  prophecies,  189. 
Hindoo  words,  22. 
Hindoos,  30,  41. 
Hindostannee,  476. 
Hipparchus,  178. 
Hira,  350. 

Historians,  credulous,  365. 
History,  281,822. 
History  all  a  parable,  366. 
History,  Bryant's  account  of,  371. 
History,  mythological,  368. 
History,  No,  638,  766,  822. 
History  not  all  fabulous,  370. 
History  of  Rome  fabulous,  622. 


Hkme,  708,  811,812. 

H.  M.  D.,  679. 

Hme,  45. 

Hnikiu,  304. 

Hoare,  Sir  R.,  180,  227. 

Hobbes,  22,  42. 

Holland,  Dr.,  423. 

Hollis,  586. 

Holy  Ghost,  114,  151,  263,  627,  628, 

786,  787,  803. 
Holy  Ghost,  female,  112. 
Holy  land,  423,  585. 
Horn,  588. 
Hom-ai,  501. 

Homer,  12,  46,  47,  202,  266,  295,  360, 
361,   362,  363,  364,  449,  454,  470, 
508,  536,  542,  552,  649,  773,  830. 
Homer  in  Egypt,  543. 

Homer's  poems,  744. 

Homo,  713,  714. 

Horace  de  la  Pona,  232. 

Horcomosium,  506. 

Horeb,  68. 

Hornius,  391. 

Hornsey  mere,  408. 

Horsley,  207,  578. 

Horus,  317,  323,  330. 

Hospitallers,  711. 

Hostes,  22. 

Hosts,  323,  355,  401. 

Hottinger,  734. 

Houlton,  490. 

Houran,  354,  715. 

Hradana,  Hradini,  538. 

Hriniya,  421. 

Hrs,  589,  758. 

Huet,  55. 

Hughes,  575. 

Huli,  25,  261. 

Humber,  302. 

Hu  Menu,  125. 

Hur,  817. 

Hurriana,  429. 

Hushang,  766. 

Hutchinson,  784. 

Hyads,  240. 

Hyde,  4,  103,  341,  396,  533,  565,  649, 

752,  765,  791. 
Hygeia,  324. 
Hyginus,  304,  497. 
Hyie,  706. 

Hypostases,  35,  80,  116,  119. 
Hyrcanus,  749. 


I,  350. 

la,  344. 

Iaba-diu,  754. 

lacchus,  312,  320,  362,  402. 

la-du,  344. 

Iamboli,  337. 

lao,  39,  223,  229,  320,  323,  329,  330, 

446. 
Iao,  solar  fire,  51. 
Iaoud,  405. 
late,  229,  323,  602. 
Iasus,  758. 
Iaya,  262,  425. 
Ibis,  315. 
Ice,  530,  531. 
Icons,  No.  160,276. 
Iconoclasts,  43,  51. 
Ictinus,  591. 
Ida,  229,  356,  360,  409,  422,  754. 


INDEX. 


S55 


Idavrata,  356,  423,  527. 

Identity  of  Gods,  330. 

Identity  of  religion  of  Moses  and  Magi, 

95. 
Idolatry,  339,  520,  522. 
Idv,  344. 
IE,  328,  343,  344,  428,  430,  468,  576, 

589,  627. 
Ieo,  326. 
leu,  326. 

Ieue,  158,  320,  323,  430. 
leue  Nissi,  319. 
Ieue,  Preserver,-  67. 
Ieue,  secret,  107. 
IEV,  326. 
Ie  victory,  429. 
Igni-cula,  584. 
Ignorance  of  Ancients,  653. 
Ignorance  of  European  Indians,  838. 
Ihd,  Ihid,  392. 
IHV,  223. 

IH2,  191,  221,  316,  323,328,  588,  758. 
II,  259. 
11a,  356. 

Il-avratta,  335,  356,  401,  759. 
Ilavratta,  364. 
Ileyam,  363,  364. 
Iliad,  46,  363. 
Iliad  in  Bible,  364,  542. 
Ilion,  202,  295,  364,  365,  422. 
Ilium,  422,  611. 
Illusion,  162,  530,  643,  803,  814,  818, 

826,  827,  828. 
I\v<,  336. 

Images,  47,  375,  376,  377. 
Imaums,  729. 
Immaculate  conception,  157,  252,  283, 

445. 
Immortality  of  soul,  791. 
Inachus,  348. 
Incarnation,  804,  805. 
Incarnations,  250,  283. 
Iucarnations,  Jewish,  198,  201. 
Incarnations  renewed,  364,  557,  560. 
India,  30,  234,  596,  602. 
India  House,  563. 
Indian  Chronology,  407. 
Indian  circles,  229. 
Indians,  589. 
Indians  in  the  dark,  809. 
Indra,  230,  231,  246. 
India  crucified,  231,  330. 
Indus,  357,  424,  461,  810,  811. 
Indus,  Ethiopians  from,  55. 
Infancy,  Gospel  of,  131. 
Infant  Jupiter,  312. 
Inhmni,  714. 
Inhmnu,  236. 
Initiated,  724,  304. 
Initiation,  304. 
Inspired,  804. 
Installation,  232. 
Intensitive,  328. 
Io,  234,  333,  528. 
Ioannes,  705,  770. 
Iod,  17,  231,  516. 
loda,  516. 

Iohannes,  689,  704,  705. 
Ion,  332. 

Iona,  5,  389,  409,  423,  429. 
I  on  a  or  li,  385. 
Iona,  646,  703,  718,  808. 
Iona  Vetus,  Babylon,  361. 
loni,  336,  397,  522,  586,  721. 
Ionian,  332,  342,  361,  439,  456,  502. 
Ionian  letters  8,  whence,  8. 
Ionian  sea,  332. 
Ionic  school,  352. 
Ionism,  691,  697,  698. 


Ioni-thus  or  chus,  195. 

Io  Sabboe,  229. 

loude,  429,  437,  465. 

Ioudes,  408. 

loudi,  401,  414,  415,  417,  418,  589, 

761,  831. 
I-Patri,  259. 
Iphigenia,  364,  615. 
Ipsambul,  272,  403,  479. 
Ireland,  590,  761,769. 
Irenaeus,  121,  163,  171,  204,  324,  554, 

609,  679,  690. 
Irish,  257. 
Irish  Buddhists,  15. 
Irish,  Cycles  of,  4. 
Irish  letters,  trees,  13. 
Irish  letters,  13,  14. 
Irish,  literature  of,  12. 
Irish  records  genuine,  190. 
Irving,  216,  562,  674,  796,  825. 
Is,  532. 
Isa,  274. 

Isaac,  199,  273,  392,  393,  413,  531. 
Isaiah,  64,  167,  170,  171,  445,  562. 
Iscah,  274,  583. 
Ischa,  583,  747,  836. 
Iseion,  812. 

Ishmael,  423,  424,  425,  462,  801. 
Ishmaelians,  698,  721,  770. 
Ishmaelites,  699,  715. 
Ishmaelstan,  424. 
Ishura,  163. 
Isi,  Issi,  747. 
Isidore,  of  Seville,  237. 
Isis,  32,  33,  137,  228,  310,  313,  352, 

384,  526,  528,  530,  531,  678,  709, 

747,  797,  812. 
Isis,  black,  170. 
Isis,  names  of,  312. 
Islam-nuggur,  419. 
Iso,  163. 
Ispahan,  25. 
Israel,  392. 
Israel  Redux,  675. 
Israelites,  395. 
Israelites,  Shepherds,  57. 
Ister,  534. 
Isurium,  726. 
Iswara,  326. 
Itala,  111. 

Italy,  47,  432,  613,  623,  624,  778. 
Itziris,  226. 
lulus,  609. 
Ium,  784. 
lune,  113. 
lune,  Dove,  112. 
Ixion,  500,  503. 
lynx,  503. 
Iyodhia,  405. 


Jachin,  821. 

Jack,  607. 

Jacob,  16,  23,  184,  296,  370,  392,  435, 

573. 
Jacob,  Judicial  astrologer,  184. 
Jacob's  prophecy,  200. 
Jagan-nath,  765. 
Jaggernaut,  148,  164,  233,  256,  268, 

271,538,  750,764. 
Jah,  67,  312,  320,  328,  429. 
Jah,  God  of  Victory,  429,  602. 
Jain,  350,  351,  624,  808. 
Jain  Apostles,  519. 
Jain  Esa,  350. 
Jajoohahs,  406. 


Jakuthi  Tartars,  125. 

Jalum,  406. 

Jamba  tree,  230. 

Jamblicus,  36,  39,  736. 

Jambulus,  5,  12. 

Jamieson,  109,  456. 

Jana,  312,  350,  384. 

Janampatri,  183,  249. 

Janicula,  584. 

Janiculum,  541. 

Janus,  316,  333,  349,  350,  384,  446, 
513,  516,  624,  645,  650,  652,  782. 

Jauus,  Peter,  650. 

Janus,  Sol,  651. 

Japan,  112,  115,  338,  431,  799. 

Japanese,  339. 

Japeti,  333. 

Japhet,  332,  349,  502. 

Jasher,  196,  393. 

Jasius,  660. 

Jason,  337,  660. 

Jasus,  333,  810. 

Java,  2,  165,257,  601.  • 

Java  Deva,  309. 

Javan,  332,  333,  349. 

Jave,  330. 

Jaxartes,  535. 

Jaya  Deva,  425. 

Jaypour,  747. 

Jebel,  700. 

Jehid,  413. 

Jehovah,  323,  326,  330,  425,  429. 

Jehovah,  destroyer,  329. 

Jehovah- Nissi,  423. 

Jehovah,  Sun,  330. 

Jenyns,  Soame,  40. 

Jeo,  323. 

Jeoffrey  of  Monmouth,  367. 

Jeptha,  [Jephthah,]  615. 

Jeptha's  [Jephthah's]  daughter,  364. 

Jeremiah,  497. 

Jeroboam,  498. 

Jerom,  158,457,664,  747. 

Jerome,  304,  356,  795. 

Jerombalus,  394. 

Jerusalem,  401,  405,  410,  413,  414, 
423,  428,  462,  698,  704,  709,  830, 
831. 

Jerusalem,  building  of,  84. 

Jescua  Hammasiah,  315. 

Jesse,  427. 

Jesulmer,  405,  408,  412,  429,  684. 

Jesuit,  Bouchet,  667,  750. 

Jesuit,  Goguet,  668,  750. 

Jesuit,  Roa,  670. 

Jesuits,  40,  232,  261,  335,  810. 

Jesuits,  fathers  in  India,  232. 

Jesus,  40,  303,  3 J  5, 329,  450,  558, 559, 
562,  647,  649,  655,  754,  800,  801, 
808. 
Jesus  a  fish,  636. 
Jesus  black,  138,  801. 
Jesus  Ben  Panther,  315. 
Jesus  Jehovah,  330. 
Jesus  Na^poj,  83. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  163. 
Jesus,  Sol,  331. 
Jethro,  342. 

Jeuda,  407,  417,427,  465. 
Jeudieh,  405. 
Jeve  Jeve,  328. 
Jevo,  329. 

Jew,  wandering,  654. 
Jewish  and  Gentile  laws  the  same,  271. 
Jewish  Gods,  several,  62. 
Jewish  Incarnations,  198. 
Jewish  language,  775. 
Jewish  religion  and  Gentile,  97. 
Jewish  temple,  741. 


856 

Jewish  tribe,  432. 

Jews, 32,  386,  387,  425,  431,  435,  509, 

589,  602,  615,  740,  751,  771,  774, 

789,  802,  820. 
Jews,  black,  398,  418,  436. 
Jews,  Ethiopic,  459. 
Jews,  Indian,  418. 
Jews,  origin  of,  446,  447. 
JH,  322. 
Jidde,  424. 
Jins,  809. 

Jnana,  808,  809,  810,  818. 
Joachim,  676,  693,  694,  697. 
Joan  D'Arc,  708. 
Joannes,  655. 
Job,  31,465. 

Jod,  prefixed  for  sake  of  a  mystery,  71. 
Joel,  la>tX,  Iao,  49. 
Johanna  Southcote,  620. 
Johannes,  Antiochenus,  403. 
Johannina,  422,  756. 
John,  117,  362,  540,   560,  646,  647, 
649,  654,  657,  658,  703,  737,  795, 
796. 
John  Baptist,  381,  422,  657,  719,  808, 

809,  832,  833. 
John,  Dr.,  737. 
John,  Evangelist,  656. 
John,  Gospel  of,  832. 
John,  Prestre,  809. 
John,  St.,  705,  801, 803,  807,  808,  809, 

810. 
Jonah,  240. 
Jonas,  638,  639,  645,  650,  655,  656, 

807. 
Jones,  Dr  John,  569,  570. 
Jones,  illibeiality  of,  105. 
Jones,  Jeremiah,  304,  398,  566. 
Jones  on  black  nation,  52. 
Jones  on  Canon,  304. 
Jones  on  Cristna,  129. 
Jones,  Sir  William,  23,  47,  103,  114, 
132,   178,  257,  270,  282,  287,  305, 
317,  334,  345,  350,  415,  425,  426, 
443,  457,  458,  465,  468,  474,  475, 
479,  551,  585,  730,  738,  774,  775, 
770. 

Jones,  Sir  W.,  on  Indian  Gods,  50. 

Jones,  Sir  W.,  on  Indian  Negroes,  58. 

Jones,  Sir  W.,  on  Pentateuch,  93. 

Joppa,  638. 

Jordan,  113,  333,421,532. 

Joseph,  461,502,  646. 

Joseph   married  the  daughter  of  Poti- 
pher,  82. 

Joseph  and  Mary  in  Egypt,  272. 

Josephus,  166,  189,227,357,387,412, 
415,427,566,  773,782. 

Josephus  a  partizan,  83.^ 

Josephus  on  shepherd  kings,  56. 

Joshua,  173,315,325,  604. 

Joshua  stops  the  sun,  196. 

Josiah,  761. 

Jondes,  406,  407. 

Joudia,  401,431. 

Jourdain  priniitif,  714. 

Jove,  75,  644. 

Jove-cresceuti,  593. 

Jubilee,  823. 

Juda,  408,  465,  754. 

Judaea,  772,  775. 

Judaeans,  511. 

Judaei,  602,  772. 

Judah,317,  392,  408,465. 

Judai,  393,  427. 

Judaisnius,  403. 

Jude  605,  720. 

Judia,  215,  309,  774. 

Judicial  astrology,  616. 


INDEX. 

Jugdes  poor,  419. 

Julian,  422,  571. 

Julian  period,  194,  495. 

Julian  year,  495. 

Julius,  261,369,  609. 

Jumna,  769. 

Juno, 349,  350. 

Jupiter,  44,  45,  46,  115,  324,  330,  355, 
414. 

Jupiter  Ammon,  219,  341. 

Jupiter,  mother,  49. 

Jurieu,  587. 

Justin,  41,  116,  121,  416,  502,  553, 
566,  569,  573,  574,  788. 

Justin  kept  Sabbath,  89. 

Justin  Martyr,  666,  671. 

Justiu  on  identity  of  Christian  and  Gen- 
tile rites,  100. 

Juvenal,  187,  579. 

Jyadeva,  428. 

Jy-deva,  429. 


Kaempfer,  340,  425,  431. 

Kalama,  422. 

Kalani,  400. 

Kali,  776. 

Kaliya,  147. 

Kali  Yug,  165. 

Kaliwakim,  776,  777,  800. 

Kalli-gicum,762. 

Kalwioluckam,  737,  776. 

Kama,  164. 

Kamaski,  746. 

Kanarak,  757. 

Kanya,  737,  746,  756,  761,778. 

Kanyia,  388,  430,  431,  517,  540,  583, 

586,  589,  591. 
Kasideans,  702. 
Kchetra,  145. 
Kdmim,  812. 
Keltoi,  515. 
Kemfer,  207- 
Kennedy,  765. 
Kenuedy,  Van,  426,  440,  448,  449,  452, 

454,463,466,581,  585,  592. 
Kennicot,  77. 
Kenrick,  599. 
Kerala,  759. 

Kerikala  Chola,  760. 

Kersa,  586. 

Kesari,  762. 

Keswick,  227. 

Ketu,  834. 

Keys,  351. 

Khalif,  731. 

Kharuf,  710. 

Khazar,  613. 

Kheser,  613. 

Khret-osh,  754. 

Kiack  Kiack,  320. 

Kiakiak,  639,  643. 

Kidder,  Bishop,  170. 

King,  Edward,  800. 

Kingsborough,  255,  511,  618,  338. 

Kings  of  Chaldea,  182. 

Kircher,  16,  239,  314,  315,  317,  326, 
455,461,  710. 

Kircher  on  Trinity,  70. 

Kircher,  quotation  from,  67. 

Klaproth,  452,  829. 

Klissobora,  422. 

Klissura,  422. 

Klo,  241. 

Klyber,  419. 

Knight,  35,  497,  530. 


Knight,  Payne,  607,  702,  703,  706. 

Knights,  705. 

Knolles,  709. 

Knowledge,  Aos,  16. 

Know  thyself,  29. 

Knox, 488,  718. 

Kolis,  762. 

Kolram,  764. 

Komilmar,  719. 

Komulmar,  411,  591. 

Konx,  253,  343. 

Koran,  289,  415,  426,  698,  701. 

Kouli  Khan,  666. 

Kresian  Bacchus,  758. 

Krishen,  587,  601. 

Kriti-ka,  756. 

Krs,  587. 

Krusos,  601. 

Ktetosopher,  444. 

Kuniari,  760,  761. 

Kuuya,  586. 

Kvpu  eXerjirov,  587- 

Kvptos,  329. 

Kvpo,  329,  587. 

Kutch,  428. 


Laban,  16. 

Labours  of  Hercules,  525. 

Labyrinth,  377,  378,  379. 

Labyrinths,  724. 

Lacedemon,  757. 

Lachmi,  734. 

La  Croze,  398. 

Lactantius,  113,  204,  544,  569. 

Laertius,  36. 

Laeshmi,  363. 

Lahore,  432. 

Lakhsmi,  273. 

Lalaude,  169. 

La  Loubere,  662,  760. 

Lama,  17, 161,  223,  230,  231,232,693, 

701,  764,  808. 
Lama,  grand,  809. 

Lamb,  17,  224,   325,  389,  405,  577, 
638,  642,  671,  707,  720,  721,  756, 
757. 
Lamb  of  God,  510. 

Lamb,  paschal,  261. 
Lambeth,  799,  805. 
Lamed,  273. 

Lamh,  231. 

Lamlem,  603. 

Lanca,  309,  624,  641. 

Landseer,  494,  778. 

Lanfranc,  593,  681,  682. 

Langevin,  170. 

Langley,  580. 

Language,  21,  743. 

Language  broken  down,  778. 

Language,  celestial,  735. 

Language  of  Copts,  458. 

Language,  Turkish,  415. 

Languages,  453. 

Languages  identical,  474. 

La  Place,  177,  184,  185,  209. 

Lar,  111,583. 

Larcher,  199. 

Lardner,  567,  571,  573,  578,  611,  641, 
671,  787. 

Larice,  422,  582. 

Larissa,  422,  428,  540,  541,572,  582; 
583,  786,  787,  810. 

Lascars,  666,  751. 

Lateinos,  609. 

Lateran,  556. 


INDEX. 


857 


Lateral),  St.  John,  510. 

Latin,  456. 

Latin  in  India,  410. 

Latins,  2,  20. 

Latium,  45,  240. 

Latreia,  614. 

Laurel,  537. 

Laurence,  23,  284,  544,  545,  548,  564, 

781,  787. 
Laurentius  Lydus,  377. 
Law  of  Jews  lost,  72. 
Lawrence,  [Laurence,]  28,  284. 
Laws  of  Moses  differ  from  those  of  the 

Persians,  why,  87. 
Lazarus,  441. 
Leake,  337. 
Learning,  777. 
Learning,  reprobated,  565. 
Leaves,  14,  16. 
Le — emphatic,  273,  325. 
Lebanon,  353. 
Lebtarickh,  187. 
Ledwick,  219. 
Lee  of  Cambridge,  190. 
Lee,  Samuel,  675. 
Leibnitz,  654. 
Lemnos,  378. 
Lempriere,  333,  337,  534. 
Leo  X.  314,  689. 
Leogrians,  715. 
Letters,  480,  483,  511. 
Letters,  astrological,  16. 
Letters,  Cadmus,  9. 
Letters,  change  of,  23. 
Letters,  Ethiopic,  4. 
Letters,  Hebrew,  14. 
Letters,  Irish,  14. 
Letters,  leaf,  17. 
Letters,  numbers,  660. 
Leucadia,  422. 
Leucas,  422. 
Leucothea,  304. 
Leuso,  325. 

Levitical  ceremonial,  276. 
Leyden,  473,  474. 
Libanus,  797. 
Liber  Solis,  44. 
Liberty  and  Necessity,  29. 
Libraries,  684. 
Libration  Equinox,  185,  203. 
Lightfoot,  656,  780. 
Lilly,  339. 
Linga,   38,  335,  336,  347,   389,  395, 

404,  427,  517,  522,  563,  586,  645, 

683,  721,  797. 
Lingham,  38. 
Lions,  436. 
Literal,  275. 
Lithoi,  38. 
Livy,  374,  621. 
Lmrbe,  168,  172. 
Loadstone,  341. 
Lobeck,  253. 
Lochman,  733,  734. 
Locke,  22,  29,  114. 
Locris,  362. 
Lodge,  716,  717,  718. 
Logan,  835. 
Logos,  119,  120,  121,  122,  308,  327, 

523,  589,  594,  629,  709,  712,  751, 

785,  786,  793,  794,  801,  802,  803, 

806,  809,  812,  813,  819. 
Logos,  Divine  Wisdom,  222. 
Logos,  rasit,  75. 
Logrin,  367. 
Lombardy,  535. 
Lophos,  409. 
Lord,  62,  329,  583. 


Loretto,  264,  11,  539,  540,  542,  565, 

751. 
Lost  doctrines,  284. 
Lot,  451,519,534,  554. 
Lot's  wife,  554. 
Lotus,  228,  307,  317,  339,  340,  355, 

359  446. 
Loube're,  166,  183,  184,  211,  215,  235, 

261,  308,408,409,  445. 
Loubere,  La,  662. 
Loukh, 417. 
Ao£*a?,  203. 
Luam,  231. 

Lucian,  199,  364,  539,  570,  581,  634. 
Lucifer,  537. 
Lucina,  350,  594. 
Lucretius,  170. 
Ludi  Sseculares,   205,   206,  211,   380, 

381 
Ludolf,  458,  459,460,  461. 
Luke,  283. 
Lumsden,  620,  621. 
Luna,  masculine,  583. 
Lunar  Mansions,  308. 
Luni-solar  cycle,  178. 
Lunus,  529. 
Lupanar,  404,  428. 
Lustrum,  206. 
Luther,  557,  562. 
Lux,  323. 
LXX,  325,  333, 338, 342, 386, 480,  494, 

545. 
Lyal,  300. 
Lybia,  298. 

Lycophron,  163,  240,  341,  367,  497. 
Lycurgus,  362. 
Lydia,  423. 
Lydian  Eclipse,  172. 
Lyons,  538. 
Lysias,  287. 


M,  350,  354,  658,  685. 

Ma,  309. 

Macedon,  125. 

Macedonia,  337,  625. 

Maceonry,  790. 

Macbinator,  589. 

Machinator,  Jupiter,  123. 

Mackenzie,  160,  749,  750,  757. 

Mackey,  636. 

Maclaine,  696,  698. 

Macrobius,  41,  44,  122,  284,  321,  347, 

349,  350. 
Madonna,  305. 
Madras,  469. 

Madre'  Soleiman,  Solyma,  411,  414. 
Madura,  667 
Madura  island,  257. 
Maera,  309. 

Magee,  Bishop,  90,  148. 
Magi,  5,  104,  314,  518,  561,  587,  589. 
Magic,  490,  799. 
Magicians,  761. 
Magicians,  what,  85. 
Magna,  Mater,  340. 
Magnetic,  35. 
Magnetism,  815. 
Magus,  518,  587,  716. 
Mahabad,  707. 
Mahabads,  235,  411. 
Mahabadian,  411,  772. 
Mahabalipore,  256,  295,  508. 
Mahabalipour,  757,  759,  783. 

6  S 


Maha-barat,  585. 

Mahabarat,  615,  774. 

Mahabarata,  162,  343,  429,  451. 

Mahabeli,  Mahabul,  258. 

Maha  Deva,  313,  336. 

Ma-hakmah,  809. 

Maha  Maria,  308. 

Maharastra,  737. 

Maha  Yug,  175,  177,  185. 

Mahavali  Gunga,  754. 

Mahesa,  165. 

Mahmud  of  Ghazna,  741. 

Mahmud  of  Ghnazna,  426,  432. 

Maia,  646,  803,  807. 

MaiaMia,  49,  156,  161,  162,  173,  306, 
308,  350,  586. 

Maid,  Jupiter  a,  48. 

Maimonides,  71,  74,  261,  282,  740, 
752. 

Maimonides  on  allegory  and  secret  doc- 
trine, 98. 

Maimonides  on  worshiping  to  the  East, 
88. 

Maius,  350. 

Mairse  Diae,  310. 

Mai-Thome,  663. 

Maitre,  233,  420. 

Malabar,  398,  507,  542,  584,  596,  665, 
759,  760. 

Malalas-Johannes,  414. 

Malays,  2,  432,  442. 

Malcolm,  520,  726,  729,  730. 

Maldon,  834. 

Malea,  758,  810. 

Malela,  John,  802. 

Male-pour,  756. 

Malepour,  762. 

Male  principle,  343. 

Male  Virgin,  49. 

Malliapour,  596,  663,  666. 

Malliarpha,  596,  663. 

Mallum  tarn,  534. 

Malwa,  539. 

Matna  Deva,  517. 

Mamun-al,  197. 

Man,  natural  tendency  of,  21. 

Manda,  538,  657. 

Mandaites,  656,  713,  714. 

Maudana,  213. 

Manes,  664,  705,  714,  721,  789,  826. 

Mani,  714,  789,  826. 

Mania,  309. 

Manichaus,  49,  158,  396. 

Mauichaeans,  646,  695,  705,  715,  722, 
745,  789,  791,  826. 

Mansions,  Lunar,  308,  316. 

Mansions  of  the  Moon,  316. 

Manu,  714. 

Manuscript,  in  golden  casket,  412. 

Manwantara,  395. 

Manwanteras,  179,  411. 

Maplestead,  719,  723. 

Marathus,  Julius,  189. 

Marcion,  807- 

Marcionites,  40. 

Marco  Paulo,  47. 

Marcus,  602,  603. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  17. 

Maria,  162,  305,  646,  697,  698. 

Maria,  Beeve,  309. 

Maria  Magiore,  501. 

Maria  Maia,  black,  313. 

Mark  Antony,  619. 

Mars,  610. 

Marsden,  48,  442. 

Marsilius  Ficinus,  122. 

Marsh,  120,  595,  679,  681. 

Marsh,  Bishop,  170,  249,  436. 

Marsh,  on  Hebrew,  67, 


858 


INDEX. 


Marsham,  175,  250,  251,  446. 

Martianus  Capella,  178,  191,  287. 

Martin,  St.,  723,  793. 

Mary,  303,  325,  316,  697,  698. 

Mary's  Abbey,  York,  784. 

Marys,  Maries,  three,  310,  593. 

Marwar,  517. 

Masaiel,  317. 

Masius,  715. 

Masonic  secrets,  341. 

Masonry,  590,  653,  716,  717,  718,  719, 
745,  790,  802,  816,  817. 

Masons,  519,  677,  689,  700,  703,  712, 
715,  716,  717,  718,  724,  726,  767, 
768,  769,  770,  790,  816,  817,  820, 
821,  823. 

Masorites,  318,  452,  460. 

Mass,  590,  591. 

Massacre,  Bartholomew,  280. 

Massih,  262. 

Mater  Dei,  305. 

Materialism,  813,  814. 

Materialism  of  ancient  fathers,  113. 

Mathematici,  17,  304,  723,  768,  769. 

Mati,  274. 

Matron,  Noble  of  Rome,  619. 
Matter,  795,  805,  814,  827,  828. 

Matter  created  or  not,  126. 

Matter,  Mons.  160,  814,  828. 

Matthew,  283,  325,  655. 

Matura,  130,  165,  218,  237,  245,257, 

772. 
Matura  Deorum,  142. 
Maturea,  242,  252,  388,  391,  405,  428, 

436,  480. 
Maturea,  derivation  of,  143. 
Maulavi,  730. 
Maundrel,  830. 

Maurice,  5,  18,   24,  25,  48,  104,  114, 
115,    118,   123,  131,  132,  171,  220, 
242,   245,   254,  260,  271,  276,  290, 
308,  310,  330,  334,  344,  425,  438, 
545,  585. 
Maurice  on  Indian  Negroes,  57. 
Maurice  on  Indian  Trinity,  105. 
Maurice  on  Miracles,  140. 
Maurice  on  Persian  religion,  100. 
Mauritania,  423. 
Maur,  St.,  593,  682. 
Maya,  308,  314,  350. 
May-day,  24. 
May-day  festivals,  32. 
Mayence,  307. 

May-pole,  25,  275,  651,  716. 
Maximus  Tvrius,  266,  364,  523. 
Mazorets,  429,  641. 
Mazoretic  Hebrew,  451. 
Mazorites,  778. 
Mecca,  338,  418,  421,  424,  425,  462, 

463,  583,  645,  685,  698,  703,  742. 
Mede,  204. 
Medea,  355. 

Mediterranean,  294,  300,  301. 
Medway,  406. 

Megalistor,  792,  820,  821,  823. 
Meghasthenes,  194,  238,  400,  434. 
Meithras,  608. 
Melchizedek,  39,  82,  94,  201,  255,  329, 

377,  389,  410,  790,  823. 
Melek,  736. 
Mijaov,  346. 

Mem,  final,  168,  172,  173,  174. 
Membrum  virile,  358. 
Memnon,  272,  501,  537. 
Memnon  of  Virgil  black,  56. 
Memnon  at  Troy,  55. 
Memphis,  299,  356,  516. 
Mendes,  235. 


Meneiadae,  502. 

Menes,  333. 

Menezes,  398,  665. 

Menu,  234,  235,  236,  247,  258,  279, 
293,  333,  425,  508,  644,  649,  713, 
714,  758,  818. 

Mercator,  412. 

Mercavah,  264,  818. 

Mercoles,  241. 

Mercury,  1,  241,  269,  308,  309. 

Mercury,  son  of  Maia,  156,  475. 

Mercurius  Trismegistus,  49,  122. 

Mere,  408,  604,  605. 

Meres,  534. 

Merkavah,  264,  818. 

Meroe,  158,  356,  403,  423,  461,  584, 
603,  605. 

Meropes,  356. 

Meroraphes,  320. 

Meros,  320. 

Merotraphes,  319. 

Meru,  235,  236,  319,  321,  344,  348, 
353,  355,  356,  358,  359,  361,  364, 
378,  401,  409,  421,  422,  423,  427, 
428,  529,  546,  605. 

Merupa,  356,  363. 

Merwa,  423. 

Mesopotamia,  357,  406,  467,  581,  582. 

Messiah,  171,  201,  317,  685,  687,  688. 

Messis,  590. 

Metamorphosis,  817,  822. 

Metempsychosis,  33,  38,  40,  41,  117, 
255,  395,  804. 

Metis,  156,  308,  708. 

Metis,  Wisdom,  49. 

Mvjtj?,  794. 

Metonic  cycle,  4. 

Mewar,  429,  430,  741. 

Mexican  Hieroglyphics,  486. 

Mexicans,  14,  17,  21,  292,  486,  532. 

Mexico,  511. 

Meya,  203. 

Meyur-pura,  663. 

M*a  Afxri,  814,  826. 

Mia  Maia,  49. 

Micali,  516. 

Michaelis,  416,  647. 

Michaelis  on  Esther,  86. 

Michash  Koheleth,  315. 
Microcosm,  594,  703,  757,  781,  821. 

Midian,  403. 
Midianites,  342. 
Midwar,  406. 
Mighty  years,  188,  306. 
Migrators,  257. 
Mihr,  Mihira,  103. 
Milcomb,  433. 
Miletus,  366,  810. 
Mill,  426. 
Millenary,  659. 

Millenium,    204,   216,  368,  445,  558, 
559,  562,  563,  673,  689,  691,  696, 
699,  704,  710,830,831. 
Millenium  did  not  come,,  696. 
Mimra,  523,  709,  751,  785,  802. 
Minataur,  [Minotaur,]  758. 
Minatzim,  25. 
Mind,  713,  714. 
Minerva,  234,  313,  337,  338. 
Minerva,  black,  312. 
Miuerva  in  France,  272. 
Mingrelian  Christians,  838. 
Minos,  333. 

Minus,  fourteen  of,  410. 
Minyeian  Archomenus,  361 
Miracle,  373. 
Miriam,  53,  304. 
Mirkond,  699. 


Misery,  813. 

Mishn'a,  812. 

Misletoe,  15. 

Missionaries,  286,  560. 

Mistakes  of  Indian  inquirers,  152. 

Mitford,  460. 

Mithra,  35,  44,45,48,  116,  163,  226, 

267,311,319,351,  707,  791. 
Mithra,  Saviour,  119. 
Mithras,  608,  645. 
Mithraitic  caves,  93. 
Mitr,  226. 
Mitre,  738. 

Mitzraim  Sanchoniathon,  137. 
Mn,  309. 
Mocha,  685. 
Mochus,  352. 
Moderatus  of  Gaza,  221. 
Moguls,  363,  420. 

Mohamed,   415,  425,    426,   427,   462, 
583,  678,  679,  683,  684,  685,  688, 
689,  691,  693,  697,  698,  709,  710, 
726,  727,  741,  764,  782,  808,  831, 
833. 
Mohamed  Akbar,  244,  249. 
Mohamed,  Answers  to  my  Life  of,  681. 
Mohamedans,  288,  289,338,  408,  415, 
419,  645,  704,  771,  799,  830,  831, 
833. 
Moloch,  60,  433. 
Momphta,  174,  673. 
Monad,  126. 
Mongoles,  286. 
Mongol  Tartars,  442. 
Monimus,  125. 
Monkey,  792. 
Monks,  161,   233,  362,  458,  564,  652, 

697,  752,  821. 
Monogram,  585,  658,  720. 
Monograms,  224,  445. 
Monsieur,  136. 
Mont  Blanc,  294. 
Montanus,  612,  678,  680. 
Monte  Santo,  541. 
Montfaucon,  146,  228,  272,   273,  310, 

404,  526. 
Moody,  Mr.,  65. 
Moollah,  729. 

Moon,  32.  33,  50,  345,  526,  528,  531. 
Moon,  mansions  of,  316. 
Moon,  masculine,  531. 
Moon's  age,  2. 
Moorcroft,  724. 
Moore,  145,  161,  164,  165,  261,  263, 

273,  336,  340,  479. 
Moral  doctrines,  286. 
Moral  evil,  33,  39. 
Moral  good,  39. 
Morals  of  Gnostics,  827. 
Morality,  287. 
Morality  of  Jesus,  827. 
Morea,  422,  519. 
Moriah,  344,  362,  409,  423,  427. 
Moriahs,  353. 
Morier,  411. 
Mornay,  Philip,  426. 
Morning  Herald,  443. 
Mortou,  12. 

Mosaic  incarnations,  187. 
Mosaic  mythos,  280,  633. 
Moses,  12,  16,  19,  20,  23,  39, 182,  280, 
324,  333,  403,  435,  465,  487,  667, 
669,  771,  773,  784,  790,  802,  817, 
818,  825. 
Moses  copied  Gentiles,  60. 
Moses  did  not  adore  fire,  92. 
Moses  not  the  author  of  Genesis,  61. 
Moses  had  two  wives,  53. 


INDEX. 


859 


Moshani  Fani,  100,  257,  163,  235. 

Mosheim,  50,  146,  554,  577,  676,  696, 
819,  823,  824,  825. 

Mosque,  830,  831. 

Mother  and  child,  311. 

Mother,  great,  528. 

Mother,  Jupiter,  49. 

Moyle,  117,520,  583,  773. 

MireS,  172. 

Mptolomeus,  619. 

Msih-al,  318. 

Muin,  174,273,  659. 

Muller,  340,  829. 

Mullik,  425. 

Multiraammia,  70,  173,  310,  830. 

Mummy,  19,  490. 

Munda,  517,  518,  538,  539. 

Mundaites,  540. 

Mundane  egg,  266. 

Mundane  revolution,  627. 

Mundatta,  520. 

Mundore,  432,  515,  516,  517,519,  541, 
638,  643,  653,  658,  725,  799. 

Mundus,  360,  605. 

Mundus  Cereris,  344. 

Mundus,  Kosmos,  627. 

Munster,  Earl  of,  385. 

Murder  of  infants,  140. 

Murray,  463,  469,  470. 

Musaeum,  339. 

Muse,  627. 

Muses,  515,  591,  615,  627,  629,  669. 

Muses  in  number,  629. 

Mushir,  425. 

Musnavi,  729. 

Muttra,  165,  237,  238. 

Mycenae,  363. 

Myndus,  811. 

Myrionymous,  311. 

Myrrha,  304,  314. 

Myseuae,  [Mycenae,]  411. 

Mysia,  625. 

Mysore,  603,  752. 

Mysteries,  320,  344,  577,  589, 653, 691, 

725,  744,  817,  819,  821,  822,  827. 
Mysteries,  Bacchus,  363. 
Mysteries,  Eleusis,  361. 
Mysteries  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  644. 
Mysteries,  Greek,  525. 
Mystery  in  Jod,  71. 
Mythology  from  India,  335. 
Mythology,  Greek,  321. 
Mythos,  281,  282,  433,555,  744,  745, 

748,  778,  799. 
Mythos,  Mosaic,  633,  791,  799. 
Mythos  of  Rome,  207. 
Mythos  of  Troy,  207. 
Mythos,  universal,  627,  799. 
Mythoses,  three,  748. 


Nabhi,  338,  720,  832. 

Nabi,  345,  346. 

Nabob,  23. 

Nabonassar,  617. 

Nachmanides,  Moses,  75. 

Nadab  and  Abihu,  92. 

Nadir  Shah,  727. 

Naga,  146,518,521. 

Nagari,  457,  476. 

Nagur,  406. 

Naida,  404. 

Nairs,  507,  508. 

Nama  Amida  Buth,  799,  800,  835. 


Nama  Sebadia,  758,  776,  777,  799,800, 

835. 
Names,  astronomical,  279. 
,    Names  changed,  388. 
Names  disguised,  438. 
Names,  mystic,  744 
Names,  new,  354. 
Names  of  Buddha,  153. 
Names,  old,  353. 
Names,  repetition  of,  713. 
Names  to  be  destroyed,  265. 
Nanda,  131,  267. 
Nandi,  508. 
Nanuus,  366. 
Napoleon,  688. 
Narayana,  159,  755. 
Narayana  Budda,  639,  755. 
Narayen,  115, 134. 
Nasus,  601. 
Nat,  812. 
Natagia,  48. 

Natalis  Solis  invicti,  577. 
Nath-ji,  429,  430. 
Natzir,  540. 
Natzireans,  809. 
Nau,  338. 
Naubanda,   203,   235,   293,  335,  347, 

759. 
Naurutz,  25. 
Nautilus,  345. 
Navarete,  123. 
Nave,  410. 
Navel,  338,  720. 
Navels,  346. 
Naves,  345,  404. 
Navis,  338. 

Nazareans,  656,  657,  663. 
Nazareth,  40,  540. 
Nazireans,  656. 
Nazoreans,  656. 
Nazoureans,  540. 
Neanthes  Cyzicenus,  584. 
Nebuchadnezzar,  47,  410,  673. 
Negro,  28,  284,  286,  434. 
Negro  God,  446. 
Negroes  in  India,  58,  59. 
Negropont,  299. 
Nehusthan,  518,  522,  524. 
Neilos,  135,  659. 
Neit,  732,  812. 
Neith,  35,  429,  528,  812. 
Neitha,  528,  539. 
Neithe,  709,  812. 
Nelumbo,  339. 
Nepaul,  230,  246,  346- 
Nerbudda,  421,  538. 
Neritus,  422. 
Nermada,  421. 
Nero,  559,  611,  613,  641. 
Neros,  4,  6,  30,  33,  40,  166,  168,  169, 
179,  183,  184,  209,  213,  228,  238, 
380,  613,  638,  649,  673. 
Neroses,  ten,  176. 
Nestor,  631. 
Nestorians,  399,  421,  663,  709,  778, 

809. 
Nestorius,  665. 
Nestus,  754,  761. 
Neuman,  465. 
Neuter  gender,  no,  329. 
New  birth,  790. 
New  Grange,  241. 
New  names,  406. 
Newport  Pagnel,  505,  763. 
Newton,  40,  334,  654. 
New  world,  281. 
Nh,  234,  247. 
Niagara,  295,  301. 


Nicene  Council,  116. 

Nicephoras,  832. 

Nichols,  Bishop,  170. 

Nicolas,  681. 

Nicolo  de  Conti,  188. 

Nicopolis,  422. 

Niebuhr,  111,  181,  206,  295,  369,  375, 
376,  620,  621,  622,  623. 

Nigidius,  350. 

Nilab,  424. 

Nile,  298,  300,  357,  418,  424,  463. 

Nile,  modern,  135. 

Nilus,  44,  357. 

Nimrod,  242,  340,  352,  354,  358,  366, 
380,  409,  410,  536,  558,  602,  629, 
643,  739,  754,  781,  808,  809. 

Nineveh,  214,  655. 

Ninth  Avatar,  269,  560,  662. 

Noah,  234,  236,  276,  280,  420,  421, 
519,  526,  548,  626,  639,  649,  714. 

Noah,  Janus,  349. 

Noah's  system,  196. 

Nobilibus,  Robert,  626. 

Nobility  of  Rome,  619. 

Nonnius,  181. 

Nonnus,  44,  304,  343. 

Norbert,  677. 

North  pole,  401. 

North,  sides  of,  401. 

Northumberland,  535. 

Nose,  340. 

Note  of  future  works,  447. 

Notre  Dame,  19,  273,  384. 

NousaVreaus,  656,  713. 

Nova  Troia,  620. 

Novels,  510. 

Nua  Breith'e,  790. 

Nubia,  272,  357,  403,  465. 

Numa,  47,  329,  350,  523. 

Numa  Menu,  376. 

Numbers,  Arabic,  11. 

Numbers,  letters,  660. 

Numbers,  sacred,  445,  779,  780,  781, 

782,  783,  789. 
Numenius,  36,  37,  203. 
Nurtia,  307,  476. 
Nyaya,  158. 
Nymphaea,  340. 

Nymphaea  Magna  Incarnata,  431. 
Nvmphs,  319. 
Nysa,  319,321,423,528. 
Nyssa,  810. 
Nysus,  422. 


Oannes,  588,  639,  641,  646,  648,  650, 

655,  656,  808. 
Oases,  298. 
Obad,  402. 

Obelisk,  38,  355,  490. 
Obelisks,  Egypt,  427. 
Obi,  643. 

Object  of  book,  510. 
Obliquity,  Ecliptic,  185,  203. 
Observations  on  language,  352. 
Oceanus,  335,  358,  359,  604,  644. 
O'Connor,  460,  779. 
Octavius,  579,  611,  620,  689,  801. 
Octoade,  785. 
Odiamper,  665. 
Odin,  610. 

Odin,  Vile,  and  Ve,  115,  125. 
Odomantes,  598. 
CEdipus  Judaicus,  264,  317. 
Oeuuphis,  109. 
Ogham,  Irish,  7. 


860 


INDEX. 


Ogygia,  319. 

Old  Testament,  its  character,  96. 

Olen,  766. 

Olive,  253,  372,  373,  421,  427,  428. 

Olivet,  410. 

Olvmpus,  108,  353,  356,  362,  409,411, 
414,  422,  428,  605,  624,  745. 

Om,  106,  108,  114,  157,  163,  170,  216, 
233,  312,  315,  319,  327,  337,  354, 
422,  440,  445,  520,  540,  581,  598, 
639,  644,  652,  683,  685,  686,  713, 
714,  758,  800,819,822. 

Oman,  262,  707. 

Omanos,  109,  110,318,  588. 

Omauum,  111. 

Omar,  831. 

Omber,  385. 

Ombri,  373. 

Otnbrica,  111. 

Ombrici,  456. 

Ombrios,  584. 

Om-di,  431. 

Om-eer,  364,  543. 

Omen,  174,  685. 

Ometo,  156. 

Ommanum,  464. 

Ommanus,  713,  714. 

Omnual,  170,  313. 

Om-nu-al,  673. 

Omologoumena,  546 

OMIIAH,  253,  343. 

Omphale,  335,  652. 

Omphalium,  422. 

Omphalos,  107,  341,  646. 

Omphe,  337,  343. 

Omphi,  44,  107,  108,  312,  318,  422. 

Om-pi,  108,  318. 

Om-pi,  Lhkm,  337. 

Omrah,  715,  721. 

Om  Sri  Ramaya  Nama,  800. 

Oms,  various,  354. 

Om-tha,  174,  222. 

On,  351. 

On  Heliopolis,  85. 

On,  meaning  of,  109. 

Onatus,  560. 

Onesicritus,  168. 

Ongar,  519. 

Onias,  252. 

Onkelos,  811. 

Onomacritus,  337,  593. 

Onomasticon,  317. 

Oomia,  651. 

Ophiou,  or  Ophioneus,  237. 

Ophites,  517,  521,  522,  791,  792. 

Opinion,  a  probable,  40. 

Opinion,  public,  827. 

Oracle,  805. 

Orb,  462. 

Orb-ia,  462. 

Orbis,  360. 

Ord,  338,449. 

Order,  7y6. 

Order,  Ionic,  37. 

Ordination,  232. 

Oriental  philosophy,  72,  73. 

Orientals,  16. 

Origen,  40,  151,  387,  522,  577,  578, 
724,  786,  807,  824,  825. 

Origin  of  ancient  opinions,  33. 

Original  Sin,  254,  279. 

Orion,  501,  834. 

Orissa,  268,  613,  753. 

Orme,  434. 

Oromasdes,  16,  35,  38,  117,  121,  706. 

Orontes,  342. 

Orpheans,  589. 

Orpheus,  16,  44,  45,  46,  49,  115,  120, 


124,  320,  322,  337,  598,  645,  706, 

787,  802,812. 
Orphic  argonauts,  360. 
Orphic  hymns,  48. 
Orus,  311,312. 
Osci,  456,  515. 
Osee,  200. 
Osiris,  35,  44,  112,  117,  120,  135,  145, 

162,  266,  310,  314,  319,  344,  351, 

384,  526,  678,  782. 
Ossian,  363. 
Otaheite,  14. 
Ottoman  Porte,  652. 
Oudanoor,  753. 
Oude,  215,  397,  405,  406,  415,  417, 

418,  429,  432,   446,  447,  462,  466, 

684,714,  753,  772,775. 
Oudipoor,  406,  407,  418,  652. 
Oughersj  715. 
Oujein,  519,  539,  789. 
Ouse,  302. 

Ouseley,  159,  242,  646,  700. 
Ovid,  181,  204. 

Oxford,  384,  385,  450,  724,  833. 
Oxus,  427. 
Oysters,  298,  299. 
Ozim,  she-goats,  64. 


P,  222. 

_£,686. 

Pada-Vati,  759. 

Padma,  344. 

Padma  Calpa,  175,  182,  344. 

Padus,  536. 

Paeans,  329. 

Pactum,  432,  433,  563,  586,  625,  777. 

Pagnel,  505. 

Pagus  Troianus,  536. 

Pahlavi,  467,  473. 

Pala,  630. 

Palace,  630. 

Palaeo  Orphauo,  337. 

Palaeoromaica,  117. 

Palaemyndus,  811. 

Palaesimunda,  596. 

Palaestrina,  516. 

Palatinus,  Mons.,  518,  542. 

Palee,  517. 

Pali,  457,  467,  473,  481. 

Palibothra,  5,  240,  669. 

Paliputras,  536. 

Palistine,  536. 

Palisimunda,  754,  811. 

Palitana,  515,  541. 

Palladium,  47.  624,  625,  630,  631,  797. 

Pallas,  629,  829. 

Pallatini,  754. 

Palli,    234,  352,  392,  516,   582,   624, 

628,  630. 
Palli,  origin  of,  57. 
Pallini,  752. 
Pallistan,  82. 
Pallistaua,  582. 
Pallium,  232,  729,  808. 
Palls,  729. 
Palmyra,  338. 
Pains' iMaeotis,  299,  534. 
Pamphylia.  409. 
Pamylia,  314. 
U.a.v,  785. 
Pan,  44,  643. 
Pauaugria,  327. 
Pancrysos,  600. 


Pandaea,  439,  468. 

Pandaean,  443,  774. 

Pandaean  kingdom,  242. 

Pandea,  625,  661,  763,  774,  811,  831.  ] 

Pandeism,  438. 

Pandeus,  438. 

Pandion,  438,  439,  440,  468,  667,  763. 

Pandi-maudalam,  438. 

Pandionium,  468. 

Pandu,  red  or  yellow,  441. 

Pandus,  468. 

Pandya,  746,811. 

Pan-Ionia,  810. 

Pan  Ionium,  332,  810. 

Panjaub,  439. 

Panji,  765. 

Pan-Patera,  337. 

Pantaeuus,  747. 

Pantheism,  36,  37,  440,  707,  813,  814, 

815. 
Pantheistic,  770. 
Panther,  315,316,  325. 
Papias,  121,  163. 
Papyri,  483. 
Papyrus,  15, 19. 
Parables,  441,  814,  822. 
Paraclete,  564,  679,  694. 
Paradise,  357,  358,  425,  427,  428. 
Paran,  saints  on,  73,  76. 
Parasacti,  734. 
Parasa-Rarna,  407. 
Parkhurst,  23,  25,  113,  120,  184,  237, 

327,  328,  472,  656,  787,  791,  796, 

821. 
Parkhurst  approved,  148. 
Parkhurst's  fraud,  80,  796. 
Parkhurst  on  Smim,  78. 
Parmenides,  122,  785. 
Parnasa,  422. 

Paruassus,  362,  422,  582,  745. 
Parsees,  733. 
Parsons,  Dr.,  2. 
Parthian  coronet,  145. 
Parthians,  587. 
Partridge,  22. 
Parvati,  159. 
Pasagarda,  412. 
Paschal,  335. 
Paschal  feast,  256,  261. 
Pasha,  727. 
Passover,  260. 
Pastorini,  708. 
Patera,  367. 
Paterae,  341,  350. 
Pater  Agnostos,  822,  825, 
Patirae,  646. 
Patriarchs,  380. 
Patricius,  367. 
Patrick,  366. 
Patterini,  745. 
Paul,  571,  573. 
Paulicians,  715. 
Paulites,  755,  796,  825. 
Paulus  Divus,  44. 
Pausanias,  47,  265. 
Payen,  715. 
Payue  Knight,  25,  324,  216,  217,  339, 

363,  484,  489,  524,  607,  648. 
Paxton,  338. 
Peace,  religious,  510. 
Pearl,  834. 
Pegu,  320,  639. 
Pelagonia  Tripolis,  422. 
Pelasgi,  258,  353,  456. 
Pelasgic  letters,  466. 
Pelloutier,  314. 
Pelopouuesus,  333. 
Pcneus,  422. 


\ 


INDEX. 


861 


Peniston,  346. 

Penistone,  346. 

Pentateuch,  14,  19,  118,  395,399,  451, 

545,  623,  775,  782,  790,  791. 
Pentateuchiati  mythos,  276. 
Pentecoste,  680. 
Perfecti,  789,  822. 
Perfection,  708. 
Pergamos,  542. 
Period,  Etruscan,  206. 
Period,  Roman,  206. 
Persees,  40,  117. 
Persephone,  67,  586. 
Persepolis,  25,  411. 
Perseus,  439. 
Persia,  411,473,  587. 
Persian  and  Chaldean  account  the  same, 

61. 
Persian  Gulf,  829. 
Persians,  32,  791. 
Persians,  of  the  religion  of  Abraham,  60, 

80,  85. 
Peruvians,  17. 
Peryclite,  694. 
Pcshito,  416. 
Pessinuncian  stone,  810. 
Pessinuutian  stone,  137. 

Pessinus,  672. 

Petalon,387. 

Peter,  571,  644,  645,  650,  691,  823. 

Peter  Comestor,  780. 

Peter,  fine  sentiment  of,  289. 

Peti,  330. 

Petriswara,  430. 

Petrus  divus,  44. 

Phaeton,  535,539. 

Phallic  festivals,  176. 

Phallus,  38,  395. 

Phamenoth,  314. 

Phan,  284. 

Phanacetn,  319. 

Phananin,  607. 

Phanes,  228,  500. 

Phanni,  402,  597. 

Phannoi,  603. 

Phanuel,  284. 

Pharaoh,  172,  432,  502,  629. 

Pharisees,  40,  117. 

Phaselis,  409,  412. 

Phen,  4,  169, 181,  199,  500,  587,  607. 

Phenniche,  4,  228. 

Philalethians,  835. 

Philiahs,  630. 

Philip  le  Bel,  725. 

Philip  Mornay,  426. 

Philistines,  352,  516,  754. 

Philo,  123,  124,  227,  709,  785,  790 
806,815,816,817,  819,  820. 

Philo  Biblius,  330. 

Philoctetes,  782. 

Philology,  739. 

Philosophers,  22,  29,  72. 

Philosophy,  Faber  on,  277. 

Philosophy,  oriental,  72. 

Philostratiis,  54,  321,  457. 

Phinehas,  198. 

Phliasians,  377. 

Phoenici,  422. 

Phoenician  coin,  224. 

Phoenician  numerals,  8,  24. 

Phoenicians,  224,  393,  455,  460,  603, 
756. 

Phoenix,  181,  184,  228,  441,  500,  502, 
810. 

Phoenix  age  of  Faber,  199. 

Phoenix  tree,  285. 

*HN  or  Phnn,  388. 

Phonetic,  484. 

Phornutus,  4, 32,  78,  270,  284. 


Phrabat,  829. 

Phre,  629,  688. 

Phree,  #m,  143,  223,  228,  608. 

Phrygia,  365,  427,  528,  612,  625,  672. 

Phrygians,  672. 

Phtha,  345. 

Phthas,  657. 

Pi,  312. 

Picus  of  Mirandola,  75,  172. 

Pierce,  Col.,  24. 

Pieria,  16. 

Pilate,  562. 

Pilgrimages,  233,  428. 

Pindar,  500,  503. 

Pindus  Arg-issa,  422. 

Pi-Om,  318. 

Pisces,  550,  634,  638,  642,  644,  649, 

760,  763,  777,  788,  803,  808,  835, 

836. 
Pisces  Avatar,  634. 
Piscina,  516,  683,  641. 
Pisciculi,  568,  635,  636,  637,  642. 
Pisistratus,  362,  542. 
Pla,  629. 
Placers,  32. 
Placians,  585. 
Plagues  of  Egypt,  275,  432. 
Planetary  bodies,  30. 
Planets,  31,  469,  769. 
Plates,  61,  161,  223,  241,  336,  338, 

340,358,411. 
Plato,  32,  36,  37,  40,  41,  43,  48,  117, 

118,   121,  124,  127,  202,  203,  280, 

288,    295,  296,  301,  363,  531,  553, 

588,  599,  618,  661,  755,  765,  772, 

790,  802,  804,  806,  812,  814,  816, 

817,  819,820,825. 
Plato's  age  of  Zoroaster,  86. 
Plato's  immaculate  conception,  150. 
Plato's  Prophecy,  189. 
Plato's  Trinity,  160. 
Platonists,  816. 
Play,  704. 
Play  fair,  3,  244. 

Pliny,  276,  411,  421,  439,  456,  596. 
Pliny,  Elder,  8,  13,  439,  596. 
Plotinus,  560. 
Pluche,  Abb6,  223,  307. 
Plurality  of  Godhead,  63. 
Plutarch,    5,    12,  47,  120,   202,  205, 

251,   266,  313/314,  318,  346,  528, 

621,758,805. 
Pluto,  792. 
Plylae,  356. 
Plymouth,  754. 
Po,  536,  758. 

Pococke,  243,  252,  320,  412,  462. 
Poden,  752. 
Poems,  Homer's,  744. 
Poitrine,  445,  823. 
Pol,  652. 
Pola,  651,  797. 
Pole,  652. 
Pole,  May,  24. 
Pole  Star,  401,  652. 
Pollen,  308. 
Pollio,  579. 
Pollux,  762. 
Polydore  Virgil,  580. 
Polynesian,  778. 
Polynesian  island,  743. 
Pomegranate,  265. 
Pomegranates,  820,  821. 
Pompeii,  343,  432,  489,  492. 
P'Ompha,  361. 
Pompey,  619. 
P-om-philius,  234,  361. 
Pomponius  Mela,  320. 
Pontifex  Maximus,  617,  618. 

5  T 


Pontine  Marsh,  294,  299. 
Pontus,  408. 
Poonah,  750. 
PoonaGir,  539,  540. 
Pope,  231,  319,  690, 693,  696,  770,  823. 
Popes,  615,  644. 

Porphyry,  5,  32,  46,  60,  102,  120,  121, 
134,  162,   260,  263,  319,  325,  346, 
363,  392,  394,  526,  573,  592. 
Porphyry  on  Jewish  religion,  102. 
Porphyrogenitus,  535. 
Pone,  652. 

Porter,  Ker,  307,  411,  412. 
Portuguese,  666,  745,  750. 
Portus  Cresso,  810. 
Poshkur,  516. 
Posidonia,  625. 
Postellus,  396. 
Potiphar,  252. 
Potipherah,  110. 
Potter,  755,  756,  758. 
Pouilly,  Mon.  De,  621. 
Pout,  770. 
Pownal,  703. 
P.  R.,  creator,  112,431. 
Pra,  274,  431. 
Praeneste,  516. 
Praeneste  sacrum,  541. 
Pramathasi,  424. 
Prana,  112. 
Pra-Pude-Dsiau,  431. 
Pratrap,  165. 
Precession,  149,  177, 178. 
Precession  of  Equinox,  149. 
Precessional  Year,  6,  24. 
Predestination,  799. 
Preserver,  35,  38,  126. 
Presidencies  in  India,  496. 
Preston,  817. 

Prestre  John,  654,  657,  809. 
Priapus,  497. 
Priapus,  female,  48. 
Prideaux,  288,  396,  436. 
Prideaux  on  Zoroaster,  91. 
Priest,  the,  Caiaphas,  562. 
Priest- craft,  372,  827. 
Priestley,  113,  124. 
Priest  -rule,  372. 
Priests,  372,  466,  474,  475,  545,  557, 

827. 
Printing,  233. 
Priichard,  117,202,  245,  285,  286,  292, 

305,  434,  473,  526,  527. 
Probability,  454. 
Probable  opinion,  335. 
Probat,  829. 
Proclus,  36,  46,  48,  119,  333, 364, 528, 

709,  816. 
Procopius,  604. 

Prometheus,  230,  274,  620,  644. 
Propertius,  361. 
Prophecy,  545. 
Prophecies,  233. 
Prophecies  of  the  Messiah,  187. 
Proselytist,  589. 
Proserpine,  67,  123,  303,  586,  588,  760, 

762. 
Protestantism,  799. 
Protestant  missionaries,  560. 
Protestant  priests,  271. 
Protogonos,  338. 
Protopapas,  422. 
Proverbs,  Rasit,  75. 
Psalms,  576,  784. 
Psalms  of  David,  93,  112. 
Psyche,  119,503,  785. 
Pthas,222. 
Ptolemy,  178,  201,  386,  407,  416,  485, 

494,  619,  625,  782. 


862 

Public  opinion,  827. 

Puck,  785. 

Pukhto,  416,  482. 

Pul,  651. 

Punderpoor,  146,  147,  750. 

Pundit,  838. 

Punjab,  424 

Purana,  466. 

Puranas,  245. 

Pushto,4l4,  416,  449,  482,  738,  750, 

753,  775,  779. 
Pyramids,  18,  296,  297,  488,  633. 
Pythagoras,  329,  598,  627,  717,  730, 

787,  802. 
Pythagoras,  doctrines  of,  7,  36,  39,  40, 

41,43,  89,  97,  103,  109,  125,  127, 

150,   168,  210,  211,  221,  252,  329, 

469,  553,  562,  563,  598. 
Pythagoras,  history  of,  150,  151. 
Pythagoras'     immaculate     conception, 

150. 
Pythagoras  in  India,  150. 
Pythagoreans,  264,  376,  588,  748,  816. 


Qdm,  811,812. 
Qdmim,  788. 
Q.L.,  709. 
Quatermere,  699. 
Queen  of  Heaven,  432,  503. 
Quindecim  viri,  205. 
Quintus  Curtius,  458. 
Quirinus,  322. 
Qzir,  590. 


Rabbi  Bechai,  261. 

Rabbi  Meir,  498. 

Rabbits,  509. 

Rabbis  14. 

Rached,  831. 

Rachia,  834. 

Had,  649. 

Radha,  429,  516,  589,  627. 

Raffles,  752. 

Rafzi,  (i84. 

Rainbow,  373. 

Raj,  516. 

Rajah,  627,  725. 

Rajahpoutana,  161,  402,  411,  412,  415, 

426,  437,  468,  515. 
Rajalipoutans,  520. 
Rajah,  royal,  402. 
Rajah-stan,  468,  589. 
Raja-iiiahai,  737. 
Rajapoutana,  770. 
Raja-  pou-tans,  725,  769. 
Raj-|).illi,  520. 
Rajpouts,  401,  405,  416,  417,  418,  425, 

426,  628. 
Raleigh,  4*7,  428,  546. 
Ram,  130,  224,  318,  319,  336, 671. 
Rama,    231,  373,  375,  405,  541,  560, 
584,  626,  648,  649,  67J,  672,  753, 
758. 
Rama  Buddha,  270. 
Ratneses,  648, 
Raiu-head  Gods,  266. 
Rami,  407. 

Raima?,  405,407,408,  416. 
Ras,  649,  709,  712,  732,  745,  769,  770, 

7h7,  790,811,  819,823. 
Raschid,  348. 

Rashees,  155,448,731,  769. 
Rashtores,  Rastores,  Ratsores,  769. 


INDEX. 

Rasina,  801. 

Rasit,  73,  75,  122,264,265,338,348, 
511,  564,  709,  712,  785,  786,    787, 
793,  794,  795,  796,  797,  798,  827. 
Rassees,  614,  684. 
Rattores,  769. 
Ravenna,  637. 
Raymond,  703. 
Raz,  725. 
Razena,  801. 
Recapitulation,  438,  443. 
Red  cross,  711,  712,  809. 
Red  Sea,  433,  464,  732,810. 
Regeneration,  126,  591. 
Regenerations,  38,  41,  42,  346. 
Regenerator,  121,  126,  254. 
Regimen,  739. 

Regimine,  235,  533,  590,  739. 
Regina  Cceli,  313. 
Regina  Stellarum,  307,  313. 
Rehoboam,  498. 
Reland,  330. 
Religion  of  Persia,  100. 
Religion,  proper  view  of,  128. 
Religion,  universal,  359. 
Religious  peace,  510. 
Remisius,  45. 
Renewal  of  worlds,  33. 
Rennell,  298,  424,  425,  426,  427. 
Requio,  79,  335. 
Reshees,  448,  735. 
Resoul,  741. 
Rest  uot  known,  51. 
Reuben  Burrow,  467. 
Review,  American,  428. 
Review,  Edinburgh,  621,  622. 
Rex  Sacrificulus,  628. 
Reyshees,  731. 
Rha-danus,  534. 
Rhada  Krishn,  586. 
Rhadise,  591. 
Rhapsodies,  363. 
Rhea,  322. 
Rhodes,  810. 
Rhone,  300. 
Riccioli,  315. 
Richard  I.,  676. 
Richardson,  369. 
Riddle,  643. 
Ridicule,  23. 
Ring  in  Scotland,  385. 
Rinnea,  421. 
Ripon,  769. 
Rishees,  769. 
Rites,  Romish,  770. 
Bitter,  422,  585,  599,  755. 
Ritual,  665. 
River  of  the  Sun,  588. 
River,  sacred,  529. 
Rivers,  Genesis,  427. 
Roa,  670. 
Robert  de   Nobilibus,  397,  560,   626, 

668. 
Robison,  817. 
Rocking  stones,  378. 
Rod  of  Aaron,  313. 
Roe,  Sir  Thomas,  25. 
Roger  Bacon,  341,  446,  748. 
Roi,  516. 

Rollin's  opinion,  86. 
Roma,  617,  672. 
Roma  Quadrata,  625. 
Roman  Calendar,  314. 
Roman  Emperors,  19. 
Roman  history  fabulous,  621. 
Roman  Religion,  559. 
Romania,  624. 
Romaus,  178. 
Rome,  29,  32,  206,  207,  281,  296,  373, 


374,  376,  516,  518,  541,  542,  560, 
584,  604,  616,  620,  621,  623,  624, 
626,  745,  770. 

Yum,  241,  375. 

Rome,  Mythos  of,  206,  207. 

Rome,  period  of,  206. 

Rome,  secret  name,  584. 

Romelia,  625. 

Romish  atonement,  148. 

Romish  church,  770. 

Romish  missionaries,  560. 

Romulus,  623. 

Rosamond,  378. 

Rosary,  224. 

Rosen,  477. 

Rose  of  Sharon,  809. 

Rosetta  Stone,  487,  488,  491. 

Rosh,  713. 

Rossicrucians,  723,  809. 

Rotten  ship,  280. 

Roum,  626,  672,  810. 

Royal  Arch,  770. 

Royal  Pastors,  516. 

Royal  Shepherds,  518,  520. 

Ruh,  112,  113,120,121,306,813. 

Ruins,  328. 

Runes,  7. 

Russell,  Dr.,  257. 

Rustan,  732. 

Rutherford,  334,  345. 


Sab,  716. 

Saba,  53,  352,  355,  401,  418,  424,  640, 

716,800. 
Saba  Hassan,  700. 
Sabaoth,  323,  355. 
Sabsean,  701,  755. 
Sabaeans,  355. 
Sabasio,  800. 
Sabasius,  323. 
Sabbath,  88,  716. 
Sabbatines,  716. 
Sabha,  401. 
Saca,  153,449,463. 
Sacae,  537,  597,  709,  771, 779,  837. 
Saccas,  663. 

Saciameuts,  665,  718,  790. 
Sacrifices  uot  ancient,  90. 
Sacrifices,  origin  of,  89. 
Sacrificulus  Rex  Sagart,  628. 
Saddai,  63. 
Sadi,  70,  287. 
Sadrass,  295. 
SaBculum,380,  609,617. 
Saga,  701. 
Sagan,  722. 
Sagax,  722. 
Sais,  310,  313,  709. 
Sakia,  China  Buddha,  189. 
Sakya,  159. 

Saladin,  701,  704. 

Salcette,  164,  457,  467. 

Sale,  679. 

Salivahana,    193,  269,  414,  662,   669, 
677,  721,  746,  749,  762. 

Salem,  410,  666,  746,  758,  811. 

Sallier,  492. 

Sallier,  Abbe",  621. 

Sally,  669. 

Salome,  432,442,  596,  665,  751. 

Salome,  Mary,  310. 

Salt,  Mr.,  488,  489. 

Salusbury,  669. 

Salvation,  voyages  of,  344. 

Salverte,  764. 

Samach,  173,  232,  665. 


Samached,  173. 
Saman,  705. 
Saraan  Natb,  642. 
Samanaut,  430. 

Samaneaus,  153,  162,  163,  603,  747, 
830.  '         '         ' 

Samaria,  423,  427. 

Samaritan,  708,  749,   751,   770,   779, 
811.  ' 

Samaritan  chronology,  193,  195. 
Samaritan  Pentateuch,  409. 
Samaritans,  220,  425,  436,  476,  498, 

770,  779. 
Samarkand,  3,  281,  308,  462,  546,  701. 
Samech,  413. 
Samen,  602,  765. 
Samim,  78. 
Sami-rama,  352, 496. 
Samos,  543. 

Samson,  200,  236,  239,  381. 
Samuel,  306. 
Sauchoniathon,  35,  325,  329,  336,  352, 

355,391,394,413,587,785. 
Sanctum  Scriotum,  472. 
Sandal  tree,  287. 
Sands,  296,  298. 
Sangreal,  792. 
Sanhedrim,  722,  819,  823. 
San  Pao,  123. 

Sanscrit,  110,  253,335,389,413,448, 
449,   455,  461,  465,  466,  470,  472, 
473,  481,  482,  640,  687,  737,  739 
743,  755,  757,  775,  777,  778,  793. 
Sanscrit  authors,  362. 
Sanscrit  Hebrew,  162. 
Sanscrit  in  Homer,  362. 
Sanscrit  Letters,  12,  52. 
Sanscrit  Pelasgic,  12,  16. 
Sanscrit,  the,  same  as  Latin,  2. 
Santa  Maura,  422. 
Saora,  180. 
Sapae,  593. 
Sapaei,  593. 
Sapieutia,  29. 

Saracens,  415,  423, 427,  461,  697,  764. 
Sarah,  387,  531. 
Sarah-iswati,  387. 
Sarasvati,  516. 
Saros,  6. 
Sataspes,  604. 
Sati-avrata,  325. 
Satrun-ja,  583,  813. 
Saturn,  31,  392,  608,  813. 
Saturnia,  584,  813. 
Saturnia  urbs,  518,  540. 
Saturn-ja,  518,  540,  583,  584. 
Satya,  175. 

Saul,  415,  418,  419,  740,741. 
Saurastra,  408,  515. 
Sava,  424. 
Savary,  130,  339. 
Saviour,  237,  313,  323,  326,  709. 
Saviour,  black,  312. 
Saviour,  infant,  593. 
Saviour  in  Wales,  385. 
Saxae,  449. 

Saxon,  449,  534,  537. 
Saxons,  709,  776. 
Sax-um,  645. 
Sayle,  463. 
Scala,  413. 
Scaliger,  546. 
Scandinavia,  631. 
Scandinavians,  154,  613. 
Scape  Goat,  837. 
Scapula,  580. 
Schegei,  165,  813,  814. 
Schiller,  329,  719. 
Schlegel,  471. 


INDEX, 

Scipio,  575,  672. 

Scipio  Africanus,  381. 

Scoticis,  712. 

Scotland,  701,  729,  761,  769. 

Scotus,  341. 

Scriptures,  795. 

Scylla,  579. 

Scytliia,  415. 

Scythians,  116,437,  597. 

Scythismus,  402. 

Sdi,  63,  69,  606. 

Sea,  Red,  810. 

Seapoys,  243,  267. 

Seba,  406. 

Sebadia  Nama,  776. 

Sebadius,  44. 

Seba  Rabbi,  261. 

Secania,  316. 

Secret,  689,  691,  819,  820,  821,  822, 

824. 
Secret  books,  755. 
Secret  doctrine,    186,   204,   205,  366. 

556,  790. 
Secret  doctrine,  Maimonides  on,  98. 
Secret  religion,  556,  637,  647,  790. 
Secret  rites,  265,  266. 
Sects,  three  in  India,  838. 
Seculars,  821. 
Seed,  306. 

Seed  of  the  Woman,  640. 
Seely,  253,  267,  268,  270. 
See va,  319. 
Seir-Anjiin,  661. 
Selden,  44,  135,  280,  320. 
Selene,  527,  678. 
Seleucidae,  275. 
Seleucus,  359. 
Seleucus  Nicator,  382,  400. 
Self-production,  336. 
Semirama  isi,  496. 
Semiramis,  237,   321,   359,  361,  365, 

398,  496,  497,  499,  669,  753. 
Semitic,  453. 
Seneca,  202. 

Senex  de  Montibus,  654. 
Sennaar,  307,  354. 
Sepher,  Hebrew,  8,  294. 
Sepher,  Jetzirah,  124. 
Sephiroth,  17,  75,  124,  265,  326,  784, 
785.  ' 

Sephiroths,  802. 
Septuagint,  68,  780. 
Serapis,  45,  180. 
Serapis,  temple  of,  219. 
Serendib,  428. 
Serendive,  309,  596. 
Serindive,  671,  754. 
Seringham,  658. 
Serpent,  306,  323,  361,  518,  521,  522, 

643,  784,  791,  792. 
Serpent  bites  the  foot,  144. 
Serpent's  head,  640. 
Servetus,  280. 
Sesostris,  805. 
Sestius,  506. 
Seth,  61,405,  813. 
2sus  XurYip,  172. 
Seva,  640,  792. 
Seven-day  cycle,  30. 
Seven  hills,  624. 

Seven,  the  number,  sacred,  782,  783. 
Seventeen-letter  Alphabet,  1 1 . 
Seventy,  779. 

Seventy  for  seventy-two,  227,  228. 
Seventy-two,  344,  402,  411,  413,  779, 
820,  821.  ' 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  133. 
Shah,  727. 
Shakespeare,  785. 


863 

Shall-gramu,  345,  449. 

Shama  Jaya,  236. 

Shamnath,  430. 

Shaphoun,  810. 

Sharon  Turner,  259,  664,  747. 

Sharpe,  65,  66. 

Sheba,  424,  459,  462,  770,  771. 

Sheep  heri,  241. 

Sheep,  male,  509. 

Shell,  602,  834. 

Shem,  175,  519. 

Shem's  System,  196. 

Shepherd  kings,  56. 

Shepherds,  628,  770. 

Shiahs,  684. 

Shibi,  424. 

Shiloh,  200. 

Shin  put  for  Tau  by  Chaldeans,  54. 

Ship  Argo,  160. 

Ship,  mystic,  344. 

Shipoflsis,  797. 

Shuckford,  46, 47, 57, 62,  198, 311, 330, 

356,428,546. 
Shuckford  on  Ethiopia,  54. 
Shuckford  on  Sacrifices,  91. 
Shuckford,  on  shepherd  kings,  56. 
Siam,  162,   166,  215,  226,  262,  309, 
345,    408,  409,  428,  425,  431,  601, 
614,  770,  774,  786. 
Siamese,  171,  201,  309,  408, 475,  505. 
Siamese  boys,  505,  763. 
Siamese  epocha,  168. 
Sibyl,  427,  563,  564, 565, 566, 574, 663, 

666,  671. 
Sibyl  of  Virgil,  167. 
Sibyls,  519,  540,  634,  635,  637. 
Sibylline  oracles,  613. 
Sicilian  councils,  827. 
Sicilides  Musae,  515. 
Sidon,  409. 

Sidon,  seat  of  black  empire  at,  52. 
Sidonians,  395. 
Sidus,  769. 
Sieur,  136. 
Sige,  45. 
Sikhs,  286. 
Simonians,  40. 
Simon  Magus,  678,  680,  811. 
Sin,  606. 

Sinai,  280,  354,  422,  423,  704,  797. 
Sinan,  704. 
Sind,  357,  424,  593. 
Sinda,  811. 

Sinde,  583,  593,  596,  598. 
Sindi,  596,  598,  666,  742,  787. 
Sindus,  598. 
Singing  men,  275. 
Siniica,  581. 
Sion,   215,   233,   309,  353,  402,  404, 

408,  409,  410,  413,  414,  770,  801. 
Sion,  Mount  of,  405. 
Sir,  136,  424. 
Siris,  44. 
Sir  Siriad,  136. 

Sir  W.  Jones,  750,  774,  775,  778. 
Siva,  35. 

Sixteen-letter  system,  753. 
Smim,  61,  178,  355,  526,  765,  791. 
Smim,  placers,  78,  112,526. 
Smyrnean  coin,  361. 
Soan,  538. 
Soan,  Sir  John,  830. 
Soane,  758. 

Socrates,  36,  43,  288,  523,  553,  560. 
Sodom,  464. 
Sofa,  636. 

Sofees,  407,  726,  727,  728,  729,  730, 
731,827,830,831.  ' 

Sol,  192,  313,  669. 


N 


864 


INDEX 


Solar  Fire,  33. 

Soleiman,  354,  425. 

Soleimans,  fourteen  of,  410. 

Solimanee,  417. 

Solinus,  199. 

Solomon,  364,  395,401,  411,413,  414, 

425,  427,  432,  438,  459,  547,  548, 

555,  702,  712,  741,  742,  751,  771, 

773,  830. 
Solomon,  Lemuel,  Jedidiah,  352. 
Solomon  Mountain,  407,  417. 
Solomon,  Temples  of,  633,  773. 
Solomon's  Temple,  519,  831. 
Solomon's  Throne,  417. 
Solon,  283,  661,  782. 
Solstice  of  Caesar,  191. 
Solumi,  742. 
Solym,  423,  669. 
Solyma,  405,  410,  428,  519,  810. 
Solymi,  401,  402,  409,  410,  417,  427. 
Solymus,  409. 

Sommono  Kodom,  162,  184,  269,  308. 
Sonnerat,  114,  115, 143,  270,  273,  340. 
Sons  of  God,  619. 
Soolimana,  604. 
Soors,  353,  465. 
2o<£,  462. 
Sophi,  705. 
Sophi  Abraham,  87. 
Sophia,  265,  630,  631,  721,  732,  746, 

810,  813. 
Sophia  Sancta,  625. 
Sophism,  705,  728,  729. 
Sophites,  598. 
Soracte,  611. 
Soretauum,  760. 
Sortes  Virgilianae,  16. 
Soul  of  man,  804. 
Souls,  two,  800. 
Sour,  389. 
South  America,  292. 
South  India,  465. 
Southcote,  620. 
Sozomon,  219. 
Speech,  origin  of,  739,  742. 
Spencer,  124,  223,  273,  275,  281,  282. 
Spence's  Polymetis,  791. 
Sphiux,  267,  311,506. 
Sphinxes,  311. 
Spineto,  482,  492,  493,  634. 
Spirit  of  God,  114. 
Spiritus  mundi,  122. 
Sport,  575,  786. 
Sprotsborough,  520,  583. 
Sr,  112,337. 
Sri,  765. 
Sri-Rama,  257. 
Stalla,  464,  754. 
St.  Amour,  694,  695. 
St.  Basil,  807. 
St.  Denis,  273. 
St.  Francis,  710,  793. 
St.  Jerom,  795. 
St.  John,  120,  323,  327,  540,  703,  704, 

705,  833. 
St  Mary's  Abbey,  793. 
St.  Maur,  682. 
St.  Peter's,  339,  650. 
St.  Thomas,  398,  399,  663,  733,  747, 

748,  761,  762,  767,  768,833. 
St.  Thom6,  738,  747,  763,  833. 
Stambul,  541. 
Stanley,  29,  732,  755. 
Star,    190,  560,   561,   605,   618,  620, 

791. 
Star,  wonderful,  190. 
Statues,  312. 
Staurobates,  669. 
Stella  Maris,  304. 


Stephanus,  478. 

Stewart,  238. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  776. 

Stillingfieet,  393. 

Stirling's  Hist,  of  Orissa,  753. 

Stobaeus,  583. 

Stoics,  202. 

Stoic  sect,  41. 

Stone,  black,  137,  463,  614,  630. 

Stone  tower,  771. 

Stouehenge,  225,  275,  384,  463,  725, 

733. 
Stonehenge,  Buddhist,  59. 
Stones,  801. 
Strabo,  110,  168,  319,  322,  402,  413, 

414,  416,  470,  484,  489,  490,  583, 

591,  756. 
Strahremberg,  125. 
Strawev  way,  317- 
Strymo'n,  337,  422,  536,  583. 
Stukeley,  53,  180,  227,  303,  313,  316, 

462,  524. 
Style  of  writing,  476. 
Suetonius,  189,  569,  610. 
Suez,  299,  301,  464. 
Sufetes,  728. 
Suffaid,  598. 

Suffaid  Coh,  407,  417,  424. 
Suffarees,  407,  424. 
Suidas,  45,  240,  346. 
Suli-Minerva,  669. 
Suman,  350. 
Sumatra,  512. 
Sumnaut,  430,  792. 
Sun,  32,  43,  164,  528,  803,  804,  813. 
Sun  Fire,  104. 
Sun  in  Taurus,  176. 
Sun,  prayer  to  the,  660. 
Suu,  river  of  the,  532,  533. 
Sun,  sole  deity,  44. 
Sun,  Saviour,  325. 
Sun,  Shekinah,  33. 
Suu  stopped,  in  China,  197. 
Sun  stopped,  in  India,  197. 
Sun  worshiped  by  Moses,  80. 
Sun's  period,  360  days,  6. 
Sunday,  89. 
Sunderbunds,  464. 
Sunu,  793. 
Sup,  462. 

Supererogation,  117. 
Suph,  732. 
Supreme  God,  48. 
Sur,  136,  607,  769. 
Sura-seni,  428. 

Suraseni,  142,  240,  423,  461,  830. 
Surastreue,  663,  769,  786. 
Suria,  764. 

Surya,  112,263,310,353. 
Surya  Siddhauta,  184. 
Susa,  359. 
Susa  Ethiopia,  54. 
Suson,  340. 

Sussex,  Duke  of,  519,  653,  717,  768. 
Swans,  539, 

Swayambhuma  Manu,  430. 
Syama,  837. 
Sybaris,  625. 
Syene,  603. 
Sykes,Dr.,  170,  399. 
Sylburgius,  569. 

Sylla,  205,206,  211,381,575,  635. 
Synagogue,  Hebrew,  465,  472. 
Svncellus,  199,  237,  353. 
Synesius,  40,  48,  120. 
Syu-mu,  662. 
Syra-pore,  428. 

Syra-strene,  310,  402,  582,,  584  603. 
Syrastrene,  663,  769,  786. 


Syri,  402. 

Syria,  12,  353,  402,  409,  412,414,  603, 

663,  699,  753,  764. 
Syria  Dea,  24. 

Syriac  dialect,  328,  449,  460. 
Syrian,  361,  639,  699,  753. 
Syrian  Antioch,  359. 
Syrians,  45. 
Syro-Chaldaic,  750. 
System,  Greek,  Hebrew,  Arabic  letters, 

16. 
System,  general,  783. 
System,  universal,  520. 
Systems,  22. 


Tabernacle  in  Eden,  89. 

Table  of  letters,  9. 

Table  of  letters,  explanation  of,  10. 

Tacitus,  16,  188,  350,  569,  575. 

Tad, 465. 

Tadcaster,  369. 

Tadjik,  465. 

Tadmor,  338. 

Tahmuras,  755. 

Taishaca,  662. 

Tait,  728. 

Takhta  lu  Solyma,  412. 

Taliesin,  16. 

Talmud,  604,  787,  812. 

Talut,  546,  740,741. 

Tarn,  738,  753,  833. 

Tamarus,  754. 

Tamas,  760,  765. 

Tam-eios,  754. 

Tamiras,  757. 

Tammuz,  70,  584,  596,  599. 

Tamnutz,  237,  584. 

Tamul,  467,  470,  482,  667,  705,  737, 

740,  752,  753,  771,  775,  776,  779, 

800 
Tamuls,  705. 
Tamus,  584,  762. 
Tamuz,  664,  666,  671,  705,  720,  752, 

755,  756,  762. 
Tanais,  337,  534,  732. 
TangaTanga,  125. 
Tangiers,  423. 
Tangore,  667,  764. 
Tanistry,  713. 
Tanks,  641. 
Tapana,  537. 
Taprobana,  595, 596. 
Taranis,  154,  590,  607,  705. 
Targura,  709,  811. 
Targum,  Jerusalem,  73,  76. 
Targum,  Smim,  78. 
Targums,  429,   430,  462,    751,    785, 

792. 
Tarns,  534. 
Tarquin,  575. 

Tartars,  339,  437,  536,  714,  764,  771. 
Tartary,  3,  415,  418,  426. 
Tat,  702. 

Ta  T,  221,  235,  269,  309,  465. 
Tata-noor,  753. 
Tatans,  713 
Tatian,  41,  364. 
Tau,  222,  269. 

Tau  for  Shin  by  Chaldees,  54. 
Tctv  o-qpeiov,  220. 
Taurobolia,  607. 
Taurus,  24,  25,   164,   176,  215,  238, 

256,  268,  437,  751,  763. 
Taut,  269. 


INDEX. 


S65 


Taylor,  39,  333,  816. 

Taylor,  the  Platonist,  333. 

Taylor,  Rev.  R.,  320,  568. 

Taylor,  Robert,  629,  659,  787,  816. 

Taylor's,  Calmet,  638,  816. 

Taylor's,  Diegesis,  308. 

Tbe,  346. 

Tecte  Solomon,  419. 

Telescope,  228,  341. 

Telinga,  750. 

Telmessus,  412,413,  810. 

Telugu,  737. 

Templars,   590,  673,   689,   690,    700, 

702,   704,  705,  710,  711,  719,  720, 

721,  723,  768,  770,  789,  790,  809, 

830,  831,  833. 
Temple  churches,  719. 
Temple,  Jewish,  741. 
Temple  of  Solomon,  in  Cashmere,  405. 
Temple  of  Solomon,  size  of,  438. 
Temples,  703,  711,  831. 
Temples  of  Egypt  churches,  272. 
Temples  of  Solomon,  405,  438,   742, 

772   773. 
Templum,  703,  757. 
Ten,  17. 

Ten  months,  612,  617,712. 
Ten  months'  birth,  212. 
Ten  months'  child,  212. 
Ten  Neroses,  284. 
Ten  Plagues  of  Egypt,  260. 
Ten,  a  sacred  number,  17. 
Tenth  Avatar,  560,  708. 
Terebinthus,  722,  723. 
Ter-iia,  422. 
Ter  Maguus,  123. 
Termessus,  Terraissus,  409,  810. 
Terminus,  269. 
Terputty,  147. 
Tertullian,  218,  570. 
Testament,  755. 
Tetragrammaton,  212,  588. 
Teuisco,  703. 
Teut,  115,534,  702. 
Teut-tat,  309. 
Teutates,  260. 
Teutones,  704. 
Teutonic,  702. 
Teutonic  knights,  700. 
Teu-u-beu,  35,  37,  336. 
Teve-liinca,  309. 
Teve-Tat,  662, 
Tewkesbury,  572. 
Tha,  125. 
Thabor,  426. 

Thales,  352,  511,655,  673. 
Thanianini,  755. 
Thamas,  433. 
Thames,  754. 
Thammuz,  755. 
Thamnath,  237. 
Thamuis,  237. 
Thamnuz,  237. 
Thamuz,  584. 
The  Jehovah,  326. 
Theba,  336,  527,  797. 
Theban  Hercules,  242. 
Thebes,  164,322,  348,  356,  360,  475, 

527,  755. 
Themeru,  412. 
Theodoret,  49,  343. 
Theodoiic,  632. 
Theodotus,  416. 
Theophrastus,  260. 
Theory  of  the  author,  270. 
Therapeutae,  324,  747. 
Theseus,  620. 

Thessaly,  362,  402,  572,  602,  703,  756. 
Thetis,  644. 


Thevetat,  309. 

Thibet,  30,  232. 

Thigh,  320. 

Thiod-ad,  309. 

Thirlby,  569. 

Thisbi,  606. 

Thomas,  235,  398,  584,  596,  599,  756, 
757,  763,  768,  786,  809,  833. 

Thomas,  Archdeacon,  222. 

Thomas,  St.,  663,  705,  738,  745,  746, 
748,  752,  755,  808,  833. 

Thom6,  St.,  738,  746,  763,  768,  833. 

Thonovis,  721. 

Thor,  115,  163,  607. 

Thorns,  crown  of,  145,  149. 

Thoth,  19,  269,  755. 

Thrace,  44,  299,  582,  593,  598,  616, 
625,  788,811. 

Thracian  coast,  16. 

Thre,  607. 

Thucydides,  337,  370. 

Thunder,  273. 

Thyatira,  810. 

Tibet,  30,  115,  230,305,348,372,409, 
693,  701,  710,  745,  724,  765,  770. 

Tien,  429. 

Tigranes,  364. 

Timaeus,  48. 

Time,  77,  813. 

Time,  ancient  division  of,  6. 

Timotheus,  45. 

Titans,  713. 

Tobba,  462. 

Tod,  Col.,  161,  343,  403,  407,  408, 
411,  412,  425,  426,  427,  428,  429, 
430,  432,  433,  439,  468,  473,  514, 
515,  516,  517,  519,  541,  586,  591, 
593,  604,  640,  652,  684,  719,  766, 
777,  797. 

Tolad  al,  Al  tolad,  358. 

Tolerating  spirit,  ancient,  50. 

Tolly,  358. 

Tomb,  Noah,  418. 

Tom  Thumb,  616. 

Tongues  of  fire,  628. 

Tooke,  22,  534. 

To  Ov,  804,  813,  814,  815,  816. 

Tonsure,  412,  458. 

Townsend,  362,  369,  469,  478. 

Town,  Tun,  771. 

TR,  659. 

Traditions,  351,  414,  812. 

Trajan,  489. 

Transfiguration,  817,  822,  824. 

Travancore,  764. 

Tree  of  life,  623,  791. 

Trees,  allegories  of,  17. 

Trees,  uames  of  letters,  13. 

Trent,  302. 

Triad,  Gentile,  126. 

Triads,  German,  310. 

Tribes  of  India,  384. 

Tricala,  422. 

Tricephalus,  163. 

Trichinopoly,  423. 

Triglaf,  123. 

Trilochan,  106,  513. 

Trimighty,  Saxon,  123. 

Trimurti,  35,  38,  62,  115,  162,  233, 
279,  348,  584,  599,  640,  725,  745, 
764,  791,  803,  804,  812,  818,  819, 
826,  827. 

Trinity,  35,  36,  37,  42,  62,  100,  106, 
116,  119,  121,  122,  125,  126,  331, 
553,  599,  784,  805,  812,  820,  826, 
834. 

Trinity  of  Brahma,  160. 

Trinity,  double,  804. 

Triuitv,  Egyptian,  117. 

5  u 


Trinity,  Indian,  117,  118,  127. 

Trinity,  Jewish,  71. 

Trinity  of  Plato,  627. 

Trinity,  Orphic,  Mithraitic,  100. 

Trinity,  Pantheistic,  123. 

Trinity,  Persian,  1 14. 

Triomph,  361. 

Triomph6,  624. 

Triophthalmos,  Zeus,  106. 

Trioptolemos,  431,513. 

Tripati,  147. 

Tripeti,  667,  750,  758. 

Tripetty,  667,  738,  750. 

Triple  inscription,  489. 

Tripods,  [Quipos,]  17. 

Tripolis,  651,  652,  810. 

Tripoly,  360,  365,  423. 

Triune  doctrine,  802. 

Triune  God,  826. 

Trivicrama,  431. 

Trivicramaditya,  819. 

Troas,  365. 

Trogus,  409. 

Troia,  363. 

Trojan  refugees,  365. 

Trojan  war,  363. 

Troy,   360,  362,  368,   422,   428,   4(i4, 

542,  552,  624,  754,  799,  830. 
Troy  in  Egypt,  364,  365. 
Troy  in  Wales,  377. 
Troy,  meaning  of,  365. 
Troy,  mythos  of,  207. 
Troys,  various,  365. 
TP2,  580. 
TT  22 1 

TTL,  six  hundred  and  fifty,  221. 
Tuct  Solinian,  372,  411,  413,  415,  419, 

771,772. 
Tuct  Soleimon,  819. 
Tudela,  426,  427,  554,  701,  830. 
Tudela,  Benj.,  de,  426,  427. 
Tun,  771. 
Tunnel,  Nile,  493. 
Tur,  607. 

Turks,  414,  415,  437,  465,  623. 
Turner,  232,  259,  409,  457. 
Turner,  Sharon,  664,  747. 
Tuscan  system,  209. 
Tuscans,  330. 
Tusci,  373,515. 
Tucte,  425. 
Tucti  Gerashid,  411. 
Twelve,  801. 

Twelve,  the  number,  sacred,  781. 
Twins,  664,  752,  753,  756. 
Tybur,  374. 
Typho,  813. 
Typhon,  35, 317, 405. 
Tyre,  704,  705. 
Tyrins,  363,513. 
Tzar,  610,  618. 
Tzetses,  135,  592. 
TZR,  618. 


Uanabhreit,  393. 
Udaya-pur,  407. 
Udya-dit,  517. 
Ultra- piorum,  283. 
Ulysses,  366,  517,  519. 
Umber,  408,  535. 
Umberland,  North,  111. 
Umbilicus,  338,  720. 
Unitarians,  331,  646,  805. 
Universal  history,  29,  327,  427. 
Universal  word,  322. 
Upanishads,  245. 


866 

Uphara,  383,  563,  733. 

Ur,  593,  596,  667,  754,  761,  762. 

Ur-ii,  429,  596. 

Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  429,  591,  592,593, 

596. 
Urania,  24,  754. 
Urauus,  528 
Urbs,  605. 
Uri,  817. 

Uria,  753,  761,  7C5,  786. 
Uriaua,  592,  593. 
Urim  aud  Thuuimiiu,  834. 
Urotalt,  280. 
Urriana,  715. 
Urus,  624. 
Usher,  174,  295,  369,  436,  494,  675, 

722. 


Vada-vati,  759. 

Vaddahs,  754,  765. 

Vaicontha,  130. 

Valentia,  362,  375,  385. 

Valeutiniau,  782,  807. 

Yaleutiniaus,  16,  40. 

Vallaucey,    7,   14,   17,   159,  180, 

242,   363,  367,  369,  370,  393, 

443,  461,  475,  566,  586,  594, 

6U1,  650,784,  811. 
Valmuc,  615. 
Vami  Nagari,  164. 
Vau  Keuuedy,  12,  364,  426,  440, 

449,  452, '454,  463,  466,  481, 

585,  592,  765. 
Van  Pout,  269. 
Vans,  6. 
Varaha,  469. 

Varaha  Calpa,  175,  176,  132,  469. 
Varahamira,  248. 
Varro,  205,  206,  327,  579. 
Vasques  de  Gama,  666. 
Vasu-deva,  139,330. 
Vasus,  262,  263,  629. 
Vates,  766,  767. 
Vatican,  556. 
Vatican  palace,  572. 
Vau  Eva,  221. 
Veda,  114,466,  472,  511. 
Veda,  date  of,  105. 
Vedah,  626,  765,  775,  777,  808. 
Vedanta-sava,  426- 
Vedas,  forged,  244,  397. 
Veii,  384. 
Veuus,  309,  350,  529,  583,  594, 

797. 
Venus  Aphrodite,  49,  594. 
Venus,  black,  137,  312. 
Venus,  Crescent,  529. 
Verbum  caro  factum,  121,  129. 
Vermuvdeu,  302. 
Vespasian,  189,  281,  407. 
Vesta,  306,  640. 
Vesta  E-ta.,  32. 
Vestal  Virgins,  312. 
Vettius,  205. 
Vettius  Valeus,  607. 
Vicraina,  669. 
Vicramaditva,  188,  193,  560,  614, 

684,  698,  763. 
Viciamaica,  195. 
Victor  Tunuuensis,  682. 
Victory,  God  of,  429. 
Vina,  589. 
Vincent,  Dr.,  363. 


228, 
429, 
597, 


448, 
581, 


760, 


669, 


INDEX. 

Viuceut  of  Beauvais,  780. 

Vinder,  477. 

Virgil,  309,  542,  565,  575,  579,  610, 

614,  615,  617,  689,  752,  786,  799, 

835. 
Virgil,  quotation  of,  14,  15,  16,  17,  45, 

188,  205,  209,  514,  515,  565,  575, 

579. 
Virgin,  139,  307,  313,  697,  698,  760. 
Virgin,  black,  312. 
Virgin,  passage  of,  314. 
Virgini  parhurae,  170,  314. 
Virgo,  308. 
Virgo  Dei  para,  315. 
Virgo  paritura,  170,  310,  314,  593. 
Visard,  613. 

Vishnu,  35,  638,  640,  641,  836,  837. 
Vishmnites,  836,  837. 
Vitala,  624. 
Viterbo,  541. 
Vitruvius,  591. 
Viturba,  541. 
Volney,  57,  133,  179,  200,  239,  240, 

290,  357,  360,  446,  511,  587,  674. 
Voltaire,  289,  329,  668. 
Volterra,  516. 
Von  Hammer,  700,  704. 
Voni-tza,  422. 
Vossius,  320. 

Vrihaspati,  206,  225,  260. 
Vrii,  428,  429. 
Vrij,  42S. 

Vultures,  205,  206. 
Vyasa,  244,  248,  553,  787. 


Waddingtou,  267,  356. 

Wales,  605. 

Wales,  Troy  in,  377. 

Walmsley,  708. 

Walpole,  337. 

Walsh,  615. 

Waltire,  225. 

Walton,  436,  501,  640,  740,  779. 

Warburton,  18,  276,  590,  791,  792. 

Ward,  156,  245,  345,  426. 

War  of  Troy,  362. 

Wars  of  India,  332. 

Wars,  religious,  332. 

Water,  529. 

Web,  Carteret,  416. 

Wells  on  Ethiopia,  53. 

Welsh,  16,451. 

Wen,  309. 

Wetherbv,  369. 

Whale,  240. 

Whigs,  787. 

Whiston,  329,  330,  357. 

Whitby,  535,  835. 

White,  Joseph,  571. 

Whitley.  835. 

Whiter,  20,  21,  22,  431,  758,  767. 

Whiter  on  Al,  65. 

Whiter  on  B   D.  Buddha,  155,  156. 

Wilberforce,  426. 

Wiltord,  175,  188,  215,  238,  240,  253, 
257,  274,  286,  335,  348,  349,  352, 
353,  356,  363,  392,  400,  401,  420, 
421,  456,  458,  466,  473,  481,  538, 
669,  721,  763. 

Wilford,  on  Buddha,  5Z. 

Wilkins,  Bishop,  780. 

Wilkins,  Dr.,  114. 

Wilson,  403,  465,  472,  737,  738,  746, 
749,  760,  763,  765,  771,  776. 


Window,  477. 

Wiuklemati,  513. 

Wisard,  613. 

Wisdom,  24,  41,  173,  234,  235,  250, 
308,  428,  444,  518,  533,  615,  629, 
658,  699,  709,  731,  755,  766,  768, 
777,  783,  784,  785,  786,  791,  796, 
802,  806,  808,  809,  810,  811,  812, 
818,  819,827. 

Wi.-dom  an  hypoostasis,  81. 

Wisdom,  Apxy,  74. 

Wisdom,  M»jt;«,  49. 

Wisdom  of  Buddha,  157. 

Wisdom  of  Solomon,  book  of,  783. 

Wisdom,  searchers  after,  34. 

Wise,  250,  822. 

Wiseman,  613. 

Witchcraft,  277. 

Witnesses,  316. 

Witsius,  568. 

Wittlesea  mere,  408. 

Wittoba,  143,  145,  146,  147,  750,  756, 
764. 

Wives  burnt,  583. 

Wives  of  Thrace,  583. 

Woden,  115,  158,  164,  246,  752. 

Wodeusday,  269. 

Woes,  367. 

Wolga,  427,  537,613. 

Wood  peeled  for  sacred  fire,  92. 

Woolsack,  630. 

Words,  Hebrew,  454. 

Worship  to  East,  88. 

Worsley,  Israel,  115. 

Wrangham,  331. 

Writing,  Ethiopian,  286. 

Writing,  magical,  466,  743. 

Writing,  masonic,  743. 


X,  221,218,234,350,720. 
Xaca,  231,463. 
XH,  221,  223,  234. 
Xpufos,  568. 

Xpw,  580,  585,  586,  588,  758,  759, 
785,  786,  787,  788,  825. 

Xpyj^piov,  219,  585. 

Xpiw,  226,  337,  382,  568,  572, 582, 

801.  ^ 
X^ij5"6i,  378. 
X^ijts?,  580. 
XP2,  452,  580,  788. 
Xpv<ro$,  337,  600. 


Ya,  627. 

Yacoob,  736. 

Yadavas,  344,  392,  458. 

Yadu,  263,  330,  344,  392,  429,  430, 

587,  746. 
Yadu  B'hatti,  428. 
Y — Agni,  667. 
Yahouh,  322. 
Yahuda,  392. 
Yai,  533. 

Yajua,  260,  389,  446,  584,  718. 
Yajni,  640,  667,  707,  721. 
Yamaua,  423,  428. 


I  NDEX, 


867 


Yao,  330. 

Yapati,  457. 

Yarmouth,  533. 

Yaranas,  274,  333,  342,  343,  456. 

Yarana  towns,  384. 

Yayati,  344. 

Yazeedis,  660. 

Year  of  precession,  6. 

Year,  length  of,  229. 

Yehudi,  827. 

Yeui-keni,  337,  338. 

Yerghieu,  771. 

Yes^lS. 

TE2,  r20,  810. 

THZ,  191,221,810,234. 

YHS,  660,  810. 

Yesdan,  660,  715,  810. 

Yesdes,  715. 

Yeve,  452. 

Yezd,  660. 

Yogees,  731. 

Youdia,  714. 

Yoni,  38,  108,  112,  113,  335,  336,  343, 

346,  347,  361,  385,  404,  563,  793, 

798. 
Yonijahs,  343. 
Yoodhist'hira,  250. 
York,  690,  693,  701,  717,  718,  724, 

768,  769,  770,  784,  790,  793. 
York  Masons,  717,  817. 
York  Minster,  723. 
Yorkshire,  302,  807. 
Youne,  Dr  ,   173,  449,  454,  456,  482, 

490,  491. 


Ysiris,  136,  344. 
Yu,  618. 
Yuda,  234,  517. 
Yudepoor,  771. 
Yudhisht'bira,  746. 
Yudi,  750,  827,  836. 
Yog,  144,  185,  714. 
Yues,  foor,  176. 
Yule,  25,  116,261,608. 
Yutis,  429. 


Zabol,  587. 
Zacharias,  687. 
Zagathai,  427. 
Zalmoxis,  563. 
Zamorin,  497,  596,  753. 
Zancle,  402. 
Zarina,  611. 
Zarrah,  417. 
Zeni  Zem,  733. 
Zend,  473,  474. 
Zeno,  41,  203,  349. 
Zeradusht,  190,  396. 
Zeradost,  649,  707,  714. 
Zeus,  45,  330,  595. 
Zeus  Ombrios,  584. 
Zeus  Soter,  172,  234. 
Zion,401.409. 


Zoan,  300. 
Zoar,  417. 
Zodiac,  18,  19,  20,  32,  184,  240,  308, 

315,494. 
Zodiac,  Arabian,  3. 
Zodiac,  Hindoo,  3. 
Zodiac,  Lunar,  3,  315,  316,  317. 
Zodiac,  signs  of,  6. 
Zodiac,  Chiuese,  3. 
Zodiac,  Israelitish,  96. 
Zodiac,  Solar,  3. 
Zohar,  Manasse,  401. 
Zona,  16. 
Zoroaster,  43,  51,  84,   103,   104,  117, 

120,   235,  499,  591,  649,  714,  722, 

766,  769. 
Zoroaster,  6000  years  before  Pliny,  86. 
Zoroaster,  derivation  of,  87. 
Zoroaster,  religion  of,  100. 
Zoroasters,  how  many,  91. 
Zophnat  Paneach,  502. 
Zoradust,  769,  771. 
Zup,  733. 


220. 


i±t 

-Q. 

220,  222. 


^I.ULKULD,    PRINTER,    HACKNEY. 


I        I 


t.' 


DATE  DUE 


m  ift  m 


£M4ML 


MAY  2  8  1998 


MAR    |   7 


J232_ 


JAN  1  '  «<* 


$FP 


0 


OCT  O* 


-S. 


MR  1 2  20Q0 


u 


OCT  1  2  7(?flf 


QCT  i  6 


WW*ff 


1 


1S 


W^& 


C  0  7  1996 


DFC  2  i  1995 


HAY  |  6  2005 


•  :    I    ,  2006 


OPT  ?  -  ?nng 


irift 


2JJ99£i 


9  IWS/ 


FEB  1  0  2007 


aup  i)  <  a 


r 


JAM  18  1937 


OCT  1  5  201 


JAN  3  0  1997 


&£- 


DEMCO,  INC.  38-2971 


3  1197  21054  7508 


-a