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HARVARD COLLEGE 






LIBRARY 






iSBl 






nOM TBI BEQUUT Of 






JAMES WALKER 






(CUm oI 1814} 























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THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



THE 

VORSHIP OF THE DEAE>,/ 

OR 

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF 
PAGAN IDOLATRY 

AND 

ITS BEARING UPON THE EARLY HISTORY 
OF EGYPT AND BABYLONIA 



BY 



COLONEL J. CARNIER 

Late Royal Engineers 



LONDON 
CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED 

1904 



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l\i^7o»^ 



zzr, / 





i^aJJdjL^ 



PREFACE 



The intimate relation of the ancient Paganism to the early history 
of mankind, and its influence on the fate and fortunes of the human 
race, gives no little interest and importance to any inquiry into its 
origin and nature, and many learned men, during the last sixty 
years, have carefully collected and compared the traditions and 
archaeological remains relating to it in various countries. But, 
although their works form a valuable literature on the subject, they 
are not only too voluminous to be consulted by the ordinary reader, 
but they fail to supply a succinct and comprehensive history of its 
origin, development and exact nature, without which its true 
character and significance cannot be fully recognised. 

In the present work the author has endeavoured to supply 
this want, and, while availing himself of the researches of previous 
writers, has endeavoured to compress into a moderate compass and 
readable form, the facts and archaeological discoveries which show 
the relation of the gods and religious systems of various nations to 
each other, and to point out the significance and interpretation of 
the ancient traditions and mythological stories, and their bearing 
on the events of actual history. 

Attention is called to the fact that the numerous testimonies 

referred to by the author are not those of one people and one age, 

but of many individuals living in different ages, and of different 

nationalities ; and that one and all are without the slightest evidence 

of artificial construction or systematic purpose. They are, for the 

most part, the statements of persons without relation to each other, 

who simply record the statements and opinions of the people of other 

countries, or briefly allude to the general belief current in their own. 

They form, therefore, a number of perfectly independent witnesses, 

whose testimony is all the more valuable because they are often 

entirely unaware of the import and significance of their own 

evidence. 

It will be seen, also, that their statements mutually explain and 



vi PREFACE 

confirm each other, while their very mistakes and misconceptions, 
due to their ignorance of the matters to which they refer, are a 
guarantee of the genuineness of the statements themselves, and often 
help to explain their significance. 

In the face of this total absence of all evidence of design and 
system on their part, it might be thought that their testimony would 
be regarded as valid and conclusive. But of late years a school of 
criticism has ariseu, which seeks to discredit this testimony, and 
boldly asserts it to be mere invention and forgery. This is especially 
the case with regard to the evidence which proves that the originals of 
the Pagan gods were human beings who had once lived upon the 
earth. These critics say, without the slightest justification, that 
this is merely an invention of the later Pagan writers, and assert, 
equally mthout a shadow of real evidence for the assertion, that 
every testimony in support of it is a forgery. 

This kind of destructive criticism has indeed been extended, more 
or less, to all ancient history and tradition, including that of the 
Old Testament. But it will be observed that it mainly depends 
upon mere assertions and plausible suggestions, such as those which 
represent the prophecies of Scripture to be merely the utterances 
of imaginative and patriotic men, whose wishes were fathers of their 
thoughts, or that certain prophecies were so exactly fulfilled, that 
they must have been written after the event. 

This school of criticism also seizes upon every point and feature 
in sacred and profane tradition which is out of the common, or 
difficult of explanation, to impugn the veracity of the whole. In 
the case of sacred history, most of these attacks have been fully 
replied to, and shown to be without foundation, although they con- 
tinue to be repeated. But in the case of ancient profane history 
and tradition, it is evident that, while fable and exaggeration would 
be almost certain to collect round the memories of celebrated persons, 
yet they are no proof that these persons never existed. This is the 
case with the fables which have collected round the history of the 
celebrated Arthur, King of the Silures, and which have afibrded an 
excuse for saying that he never existed. But Gibbon, sceptic though 
he was, warmly repudiates such a conclusion, which is quite 
unwarranted. 

Niebuhr, again, rejected the whole history of the kings of Rome 
as fabulous, but without any sufficient reason for so doing; and 
recent researches have confirmed the history and proved this hyper- 
criticism to be false. 



PREFACE vii 

There are also people who assert that Herodotus, " the father of 
history," was the very "father of lies." Yet every page of his 
chronicles bears the impress of a man who is honestly and faithfully 
relating exactly what he saw and heard. But because some of his 
stories — which he simply relates as he was told them, and, as was 
natural of the age in which he lived, often believed himself — were 
mythological fables, therefore he himself is stigmatised as a liar, as 
if he had been the inventor of them ! Such assertions only illustrate 
the superficiality and injustice which characterise much of this 
destructive criticism. Moreover, some of the myths related by 
Herodotus are probably of no little value, as indicating actual facts 
concealed beneath the allegoric€J language of mythology. 

In the case of those who assert that every testimony in support 
of the human origin of the Pagan gods is an invention or forgery, 
it may be asked, " What possible reason or motive could there be 
for such inventions and forgeries ? " It is quite inconceivable that 
Pagans, whose writings evince their reverence for their religion, 
should invent a theory, the only tendency of which was to belittle 
their own gods by bringing them down to the level of human beinga 
For it was this very thing, that the Pagan gods were only deified 
men, which the early Christian apologists cast in the teeth of their 
Pagan opponents ; and the latter could not deny ii 

Moreover, if it was an invention unfounded on fact, how could 
the inventors have persuaded the rest of the Pagan world to accept 
a belief so opposed to its previous convictions ? Is it not certain 
that many would have opposed it, and that full records of the 
controversy would have existed ? But there are no such records. 
The later Pagan and early Christian writers, who have summarised 
or have referred to the general belief of their day, never give the 
smallest hint of a suspicion that it was an invention, and it is 
impossible that they should not have been aware of it, if it had been 
the case, and equally inconceivable that they should uot have noticed 
or referred to it. 

It was the secret teaching also of the most solemn feature in the 
Pagan religion, "The Mysteries," and it is impossible to suppose 
that the very priesthood combined to support an invention which 
tended to diminish the mystery and solemnity which surrounded 
their gods, and on which their own influence depended. 

The Greek and Latin testimony in support of it is also corroborated 
by similar evidence from Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian, Hindu, 
and other sources. It is absurd to suppose that the people in 



Tiii PREFACE 

these different countries, and in different ages, all combined to 
fabricate it. 

Even the monumental evidence corroborates it, aud we find the 
kings of Babylon, Egypt and India claiming to be descended from 
these gods whom they speak of as their ancestors or forefathers. 

But when, in addition to this, we see that the testimony in proof 
of the human origin of the gods is not only consentient, but entirely 
devoid of the method and artificialities which characterise invention, 
we may ask why should there be such hostility to the evidence in 
its favour ? Why, when no just grounds for the assertion can be 
given, should these evidences be declared to be inventions and 
forgeries, when we have before our eyes the fact that the worship of 
the dead, or of men celebrated for their power, wisdom or piety, 
has always, and in all ages, been one of the predominant tendencies 
of human nature ? 

In the face of these considerations, the reader may reasonably 
ask for some better evidence than the mere assertion or suggestion 
that these testimonies are fabrications and forgeries, before rejecting 
them. 

It will be seen that much of the force of the conclusions arrived 
at in the course of our inquiry, especially those connected with the 
human origin of the gods, depends on the evidence in proof of the 
identity of the various gods and goddesses, and it will be observed 
that the evidence is accumulative. For instance, the identity of A 
with B may be shown, and that of B with C, and of C with D, and 
of D with E, and from this the identity of all might be fairly 
inferred. But when, in addition to this, the identity of A with C, 
D and E, and the identity of B with D and E, and that of C with E 
is shown, the force of the conclusion is enormously increased. 

But although the identity of the various Pagan gods and goddesses 
with each other is the general conclusion arrived at by all the most 
learned men who have studied the subject, yet, as might be expected, 
it is strongly opposed by some who, in spite of the accumulative 
evidence referred to above, seize upon every superficial point of 
difference in the character of the gods as a reason for rejecting it. 

Now it is quite evident that certain differences and local names 
and accretions would naturally gather, in time, round the gods of 
those nations who originally obtained them from other nations. 
This is the case with the gods of Greece and Rome, who obtained 
most of their gods and religious ideas from Egypt, Phoenicia and 
Babylon. They not only misunderstood the allegorical language, 



PREFACE ix 

and misinterpreted the symbolism which revealed their true 
characteristics, bat they naturally attributed to them many of 
the characteristics of their own race and country. But, this being 
recognised, it is manifestly absurd to make these local and generally 
superficial differences a reason for rejecting the far stronger and 
broader proofs of the original identity of these gods, nor is it probable 
that any unprejudiced person will do so, in the face of the accumu- 
lative force of the evidence in support of that identity. 

To some readers the details of this evidence may seem to be 
tedious, but a certain degree of acquaintance with it will be found 
to be necessary for the proper understanding of the general argument 
and the conclusious which follow from it. 

Much of the interest of the inquiry will be the light which it 
appears to throw upon the early history of Egypt and on the identity 
of the mysterious Shepherd kings, and it will be seen that the 
conclusions arrived at are confirmed by the monumental records of 
that country, which have been hitherto rejected for the uncertain 
testimony of the Greek records of Manetho. The inquiry also into 
the occult aspect of the Pagan gods, and the true nature of Pagan 
magic and sorcery, and their relation to the phenomena of modern 
Buddhism and Spiritualism, will be of interest to many, while the 
author's analysis of the true moral aspect of the Ancient Paganism 
may be worth the attention of the thoughtful Christian. 

In the Appendices the author has examined Sir Gardner 
Wilkinson's view of the Egyptian gods and religion ; certain modern 
theories respecting the antiquity of the human race, the Deluge and 
the Glacial Period ; the ancient Accadians and Turanians and their 
religion, the Cushite Empire of Nimrod, the monumental records of 
that monarch, the distribution of peoples after the Deluge, the early 
influence of the Semitic race, and the authenticity of Sanchoniathon's 
history. 



CONTENTS 

List of the Principal Works Consulted or Quoted, and Notices of 
ANT Particular Editions Used page xxix 

PART I. 

The Pagan Gods and Goddesses. 

Chapter I. Introductory. — The Deluge. The common origin ol Pagan 
Idolatry — ^The events of the Deluge interwoven with it — Memorial of 
the Deluge in all nations — ^The Feast of the Dead on the 17th day of 
the second month — The rising of the Pleiades — Correspondence of the 
Pagan Systems of all nations — Pagan Idolatry originated at Babylon — 
Testimonies to the common origin of the religions of Babylon, Egypt, 
Qreece, Rome, etc. — Chaldee the sacred language: Etymology of 
names explained by it . pages 3-11 

Chapter II. — The Gods of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, etc. All the gods 
and goddesses resolve themselves into a trinity of Father, Mother and 
Son — Sun and Nature worship the distinguishing feature of Pagan 
Idolatry — Consentient testimony of ancient writers that the gods were 
human beings who had once lived on Earth, and after death had become 
the inhabitants of the Sun, Moon and Stars — Worship of the sons of 
^oah — Objections to the human origin of the Pagan gods are without 
foundation — Testimony of Professor Rawlinson — Belus, the chief god 
of the Assyrians, stated to be first king of Babylon — The inscriptions 
show that there were two gods of the name of "Belus" — ^The first 
and second Belus and the first and second Cronus of Greek and 
Phoenician writers — Bilu Nipru and Bilta Niprut, the Hunttr and 
Huntress, Nimrod and his Queen — Etymology of Niprut — Bilu Nipru 
called by Rawlinson Bel Nimrod — Etymology of Nimrod^ **the Leopard 
Sabduer " — Nimrod not deified under his own name — Must be identified 
by his deified attributes — Testimony that the various gods were only 
the deified attributes of two original gods — Only one original goddess 
called Dea Myrionym'OB^ **the Goddess with Ten Thousand Names " — The 
god Nin the same as Ninus, the second king of Babylon — Nimrod a 
giant — Nin the Assyrian Hercules — Nimrod and the giant Orion — 
Origin of horns and crowns as symbols of sovereignty — Evidence that 
Ninas was Nimrod — Nineveh, ** the habitation of Nin " — Bel Merodach 

xi 



xii CONTENTS 

and Nergal — Remarks of Mr George Smith on the deification of 
Nimrod — Evidence that Cosh was the first Belus, Bel Nimmd the 
lesser, the first Cronus, or Saturn the father of the gods — Also Hea, 
" the All-wise Belus," and the Prophet Nebo— Sin and Nebo— Dumuii 
or Tammuz corresponds to Nin and Bel Merodach — Relation of Hea 
and Nebo to Hermes or Thoth — Hermes or Mercury the cause of the 
confusion of tongues at Babel — Janus, Chaos, Vulcan, Hephaistus — 
Cronus, Uke Vulcan, king of the Cyclops, the inventors of Tower 
building — Moloch and Mulkiber — Origin of human sacrifices and 
cannibalism — Nimrod the god of Fire, identified with the Chaldean 
Zoroaster and Tammuz — Moumis — Osiris and Tammuz — Adonis — 
Bacchus and the spotted fawn of Bacchus — The "Nebros" — Figure 
of Assyrian god — Its symbolism — Bacchus the son of ^thiops or 
Cush — Figure of Bacchus and its symbolism — Osiris and Bacchus — 
Leopard skins insignia of the god and his priests — Osiris son of Seb 
or Saturn — Osiris a Cushite — Origin of names " Mizraim " and " Egypt ** 
— The Egyptians were Cushites — Conquests of Ninus, Osiris, Bacchus 
and Deo Naush — Nimrod as Jupiter — Mars and Bellona — Anu, IMs 
and Pluto, gods of the dead — Pan, Mendes and the Egyptian Khem, 
gods of Generation — Animals symbolic of the gods — ^sculapius — 
meaning of the name — Cush as Dagon and Cannes — Story of Cannes 
by Berosus — Bacchus Ichthys — Osiris, Noah and the Ark — Ham the 
Sun God of Egypt — Khem, Pan, Cnouphis, Pthath and Vulcan — Seb 
or Saturn — Hermes and Bel — Anubis and Mercury, conductors of the 
dead — Horus and Apollo — Cupid god of the Heart — Its meaning — 
Remarks of Bunsen and Wilkinson — Names of Cush as the father of 
the gods and great teacher of Paganism — Names of Nimrod as the 
Great Hunter and king — All the gods are declared to be the Sun — 
Legend of Izdubar — His identity in all respects with Nimrod — His 
equal identity with the Chaldean Sun god and god of Fire, and with 
the god Nin or Bar, the Assyrian Hercules — The relationship of Izdubar 
with Hea bani and the identity of the latter with the god Hea. 
This is a proof that the originals of these gods were Nimrod and Cush 
— Portrait of Izdubar — Possible etymology of the name Izdubar 

pages 12-57 
Chapter III. — The Great Goddess. Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, suc- 
ceeded Ninus on throne of Babylon — Her identity with Rhea the 
Great Gkxidess Mother — Semiramis builder of the walls of Babylon — 
Origin of turreted crowns of goddesses — Rhea, wife of Saturn or Cush 
and also of Nimrod — Diana or Artemis Despoina — Astarte — Asbtaroth 
— Etymology of Ashtart — Ishtar — Venus Aphrodite — Ishtar, Queen 
of Heaven — Isis — Ceres — Minerva — Neith — Juno, Diune — Doves 
sacred to Juno — Semiramis " The Branch-bearer " — Its meaning — 
Semiramis and Zirbanit — Remarks of Rawlinson on the Pagan goddesses 
— Revelation of goddess to Apuleius — Dea Myrionymus — History of 



CONTENTS xiii 



Niniis and Semiramis by Ctesias — Objections to it without foandation 
— Its correspondence with the history of Nimrod — Semiranus, wife of 
Oannes, married by Ninus — Story of Vulcan, Venus and Mars — ^The 
wcniES undertaken by Semiramis after the death of Ninus pages 58-69 

Chaftbb rV. — Thx God Kings of Egypt and Babylon. Cush as Hea, 
the All-wise Belus, Hermes, etc., was the first teacher of Idolatry — 
Its nature, Sun, Moon and Stars and phallic worship, also Magic 
called "Accadian" — The land of Cush — The two ^thiopias — Arabia 
the first land of Cush — The Aribah and Adites — ^Their language, 
called Himyaric, similar to the Accadian or ancient Chaldean — 
Originators of Idolatry and mighty builders — Djemschid and the Aribah 
or Adite conqueror Zohak the propagator of Phallic worship^His 
conquests — Djemschid identified with Cush and Zohak with Nimrod — 
Modem theories concerning the Accadians — Sesostris — The Mizraimites 
and Egyptians — Cushite origin of Egjrptians — ^gyptus is Osiris — 
JEgyptus a title of Sesostris — History of Sesostris similar to that 
<tf Ninus — Error of Greeks in attributing history to Rameses II. — 
Sesostris a Cushite — Sculpture of Sesostris on face of Rock in the Pass 
<tf Karabel — Sesostris a giant like Nimrod — The giant Sesochris — 
The names Sesostris, Sesoris, Sethothes, and remarks of Rawlinson — 
Story of Sesostris same as that of Osiris — Both the son of Belus or Cush 
•» Belus also king of Africa — Thoth or Belus made king of Egypt by the 
second Cronus or Nimrod — Same story of Hermes and Osiris — Evidence 
that Belus and Ninus, the first kings of Babylon, were also the first kings 
of Egypt — Same succession of god kings in Egypt as in Babylon — First 
human kings Meni and Athoth — Meni, like Thoth or Hermes, the 
institutor of the worship of the gods — ** Meni the Numberer" and 
"the Lord Moon," a title of Thoth— "Men," from mens, "mind"— 
Hermes the god of Intellect — " Mind " the same as Saturn or Belus — 
"Number" the father of the gods — Pan, the father of the gods, the 
same as Menes — Athoth, the son of Meni, was the son of Thoth — The 
handwriting at Belshazzar's Feast — The correspondence between the 
reigns of Belus and Ninus and those of Meni and Athoth pages 70-88 

Ohapteb V. — The Gods op India. The Aryan race worshippers of one 
god and opponents of Cushite Idolatry — Later Hindu Religion com- 
bined with Cushite Idolatry — Isi and Iswara, Isis and Osiris Iswara 

the Phallic god — The Lingam — Deonaush — Siva the same as Iswara 
and Osiris — Cushites first settlers in India — Opposition between the 

worshippers of Brahma and Siva — Mighty temples of Siva Worship 

of Lingam — Dasyus black and Demon worshippers — Traditions of 
Divodesa, Capeyanas and Deonaush, similar to those of Ninus, Osiris, 
etc. — Connection of Eg3rpt and India — Rama and Sova are Raamah 
and Seba, sons of Cush — The Rameses — Cushite emigration to Egyp 



xiv CONTENTS 



The gods of the Vedas — Surya the Sun — Agni god of Fire, the same 
as Siva — Fire worship — Diespiter, Jupiter — Juggernaut — Dyaus and 
Prithiri, Heaven and Earth — Chrishna the Indian Apollo— Ramadeva 
the Indian Cupid — Parvati Doorga the Indian Minerva — Luksmi 
the Indian Venus — Yuni the Indian Juno — The sacred Bulls of Egypt 
and India — Cali, the wife of Siva, the same as Parvati Doorga — 
Yama, judge of the dead, the Indian Pluto — Cama, another form of 
the Indian Cupid — His identity with Horus and Osiris pages 89-98 

Chapter VI. — The Gods of Eastern Asia — Buddhism. Sakya Muni, the 
Reformer, called Buddha — ^The existence of previous Buddhas — The 
one supreme Buddha — Sakya Muni a Brahmin — Brahmins acknowledge 
a Buddha distinct from Sakya Muni — Southern Buddhists, with whom 
Sakya Muni is the chief Buddha, regarded as heretics — Amitabha the 
Buddha of Thibet, distinct from Sakya Muni — Amitabha is Iswara, the 
chief god — Sakya Muni is only a prophet — Variations of the name 
Buddha — Bud, Bond, Pout, Pot, Pho, Poden — Buddha, called Deva 
Tat and Deva Twashta, also Mahi-man, "the Great Mind" — Other 
Buddhas — Professor Baldwin on the primitive Buddha — Thibet the 
seat of the primitive Buddhism — The Grand Uama, the incarnation of 
the primitive Buddha, acknowledged as his ecclesiastical superior by 
the Emperor of China — Identity of primitive Buddhism with other 
forms of Paganism — The Buddhist Trinity — Buddha, Dharma and 
Sangha — Dharma the same as the goddess Kwanyin — Denial of the 
gods by Sakya Muni — Represented them as impersonal — Sangha, " the 
Voice of the Serpent god" — Buddha the Sun god — Sakya Muni, the 
son of the Sun — His birthday, December 25th, as in Pagan Rome — 
Sakya Muni identified with Sangha as the Voice of the Dragon — AU 
Pagan gods identified with the Serpent or Dragon — Similar worship of 
Serpent in China — Amitabha as the Serpent god — Sakya Muni as 
Sangha is " King of the Serpents " and *' the Tree of Elnowledge " and 
the Sun — Similarity to Hea and Hermes — The Triratna of Buddhism 
and the Caduceus of Hermes — Antiquity of the Buddhism of Thibet — 
The Grand Llama the same as the Pontifex Maximus of other Pagan 
systems — His titles — The mitre of Dagon — The celibate priesthood of 
Thibet — ^Their tonsure as priests of the Sun god — The Aureole or 
Nimbus as the token of divinity — Buddha the Sun god — Bowing to 
the East — The goddess Kwanyin, the Queen of Heaven and goddess 
of Mercy, represented, like other Pagan goddesses, with a child in her 
arms — ^Tree worship similar to that of Western Paganism — Buddhist wor- 
ship of the dead — Saint worship — Prayers for the dead — Purgatory — Con- 
secration of Idols — Rites of initiation similar to the Egyptian Mysteries 
— Baptism — Buddhist demonology and magic similar to that of Assyria 
and Western Paganism — Magic constitutes the chief influence of 
Buddhism — Necromancy — Supernatural powers of Buddhist priests — 



CONTENTS XV 



The Shamanas — Description of their powers — Attained by Asceticism 
— Mesmerism — Origin of magic from Accadians — Accadian the sacred 
language of Assyria — Similar magic of Ugric and Altaic races — 
Shamanas of Bactria and Persia — Similarity of Accadian language to 
Turanian — ^The Accadian and Thibet Llamas — Meaning of term "Llama" 
— Qeneral identity of Buddhism with other Pagan systems — Origin of 
the primitive Buddha — The mysterious A.U.M. — Colossal images of 
gigantic foot and teeth — The Budd of the Arabs has no relation to 
Sakya Muni — Teaching of latter — Magic — Symbols of esoteric doctrine 
— The Svastika of Buddhism found in Scandinavian inscriptions — The 
Chinese " Fo, the Victim " — Similarity to Brahma, Bel us and Osiris — 
Buddha and Menu — Menu, the Man, or Mind, Nuh (Noah) — Maya, the 
Great Mother, identified with the Ark — Mother of Menu and also of 
Buddha — Also the wife of Menu and of Buddha — Both called Dharma 
Bajah — Buddha as Deva Datta, the divine Dat — Ab Boud Dad, Father 
Boud Dad, the first sacred Man bull — " Taschta," the second Man bull 
of Zend Avesta — " Twashta " a title of Buddha — Mahabad, the great 
Bad or Bud — Monarch of the whole world — Identified with Menu — 
Dat or Tat, son of Hermes, Nimrod — The Solar and Lunar races of 
Paganism — Buddha the head of the Lunar race in India — Said to live 
in the Moon — The Moon chief god among the Germans, Celts and 
Arabians — Hermes the Moon god Meni — Mane and Mani the Moon 
god of Anglo-Saxons — Hermes or Taautus called Teut and Tuisto by 
Germans — Tuisto, from Tuasta or Twashta, the name of Buddha — Maia 
the mother of Hermes or Mercury, and also of Buddha — Mercury's 
day same as Buddha's day — Star Mercury called Buddha — Both 
represented by conical black stones — Both conductors of the dead — 
The Triratna of Buddha the same as the Caduceus of Mercury — Mean- 
ing of name " Buddha," prophet, sage, teacher, wisdom, intellect, mind — 
Identical with character of Hermes or Meni, Hea, etc. — The Serpent 
symbol of both — Buddha called Dagon — Dagon the same as Cannes or 
Hea — Buddha, like Hea, god of Magic — The sacred books of Buddha, 
Hermes, etc. — The Serpent the symbol of wisdom and divination — The 
Python of Apollo — The Celtic Hu — The Obi of Canaanites — Janus — 
Cronus and Buddha — Buddha represented as black and of Cushite 
race ....... pages 99-132 

Chapter VII. — The Gods op Other Nations — Ancient Germans, Celts, 
Mexicans and Peruvians. Gothic Mythology — Woden, Vile and Ve 
— Sons of Patriarch Noah, bom of a Cow, the symbol of Ark and the 
goddess mother — Woden identified with Hermes — Woden author of 
sacred books, inventor of letters, god of Magic, conductor of dead — 
Wodensday, Mercury's day — Woden father of gods — Freya, like Rhea, 
mother of gods — Teut, Tuista and Twashta or Tuasta — Woden same as 
Poden or Buddha — Odin, Vile and Ve — Balder, son of Woden or Odin, 



xvi CONTENTS 



slain like Osiris, Tammuz, etc. — Same lamentations for him — Thor son 
of Odin — The Buddhist Topes and Scandinavian Haughs — ^The Scandi- 
navian Svastica and Nandavesta same as Buddhist — ^The Cobra symbol of 
Great Father in Scandinavia — Dragon the royal standard as in China — 
Scandinavians came from Asia, called Asas — The Moon their male deity. 

The Celts. Druidical religion — Chief god Teutates — Their god 
Hesa — Buddha called Mahesa, the Great Hesa — Celts worshipped also 
Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Minerva — Human sacrifices of Druids same 
as Phoenicians — Fire worship — Beltane — Baal fires on first of Tammuz 
— Tree worship — The Cross — ^Druidical Cromlechs, Stone Circles, etc., the 
same as Phoenician and Cushite — Worship of Buddha by ancient Irish 
as Bud, the Phallic god, called also Tatt or Tat — First of Thoth called 
la Tat, Tat's day — Saman, judge of the dead — Samano, title of Buddha 
— ^The Celtic Hu called Budd and Menu — The Bull and Serpent his 
symbols — ^The Irish also worshipped Bacchus. 

Mexicans. Language Phoenician — Names of gods compounds of 
Baal or Bel — Vast numbers of human sacrifices — Sacrifice of children — 
Hearts of victims sacred to Sun god — Image of god painted black — 
Mexican Pyramids similar to that of Babylon — Worship of the Cross — 
Lenten fast of forty days in honour of the Sun as in other Pagan 
countries — Mexican god, like other Pagan gods, crushes head of the 
Serpent — Mexican tradition that Woden, their ancestor, was grandson 
of Noah and one of the builders of Babel — Proof that Woden, Buddha, 
etc., was Cush — Objection of Prescott to tradition shown to be without 
foundation. 

The Peruvians. Worshippers of Sun — Sacred Fire— Vestal Virgins 
— Incas only marry their sisters, as in Egypt — Ra, name of Sun god, as 
in Egypt — Ra3rmi, the festival of the Sun — Augurs — Festival of dead 
on November 2nd. ..... pages 133-143 

PART II. 

Obioin and Natube of Pagan Idolatby. 

Chapter VIII. — The Teaching op Hermes — Magic, Necromanct, etc. 
Cush and Nimrod did not originate their own worship, but the Idolatry 
instituted by them was the same in principle as that afterwards 
established — Chief characteristics of the primitive Idolatry — ^Magic 
and demon worship — Buddhist countries the chief seat of modem 
Hermetic teaching — The books of Buddha — Claim of supernatural 
powers — Modem Theosophy — Intuitional memory — Previous astral 
existence — Clairvoyance— Power over forces of nature — Projection of 
soul through space — The Divine Essence — Incantations — Powers of 
magicians of Egypt — Agency of spirits — Pagan gods were devils or 
daimonia — The Delphic Oracle — Its celebrity — The Pythoness possessed 
by a god or spirit — Pagan gods supposed to be spirits of the dead — 



CONTENTS xvii 



State of the dead — Pagan gods stated by Scripture to be daimonia 
siinilar to those cast out by Christ, and whose chief was Satan — Power 
claimed by the latter — Theosophy — Intercourse with spirits — Testimony 
of Cyprian and Clement — Temples of health — Remarkable cures — 
Theomanteis — Daimonia leptoi — Enthousiastai — Dreamers of Dreams — 
The prophetic faculty — Capacity for receiving impressions from spiritual 
agencies — Physical conditions — Similar to those inculcated in the foretold 
apostasy from Christianity which commenced with the worship of the 
dead — Explanation of dreams and visions — Instances of these— Real 
nature of intuitional memory — Spiritualism — Number of its adherents 
— Testimonies to reality of phenomena — Mixed up with trickery — The 
spirits personate the spirits of the dead — Similar belief of Pagans — 
Description of Spiritualistic phenomena — Analysis of — Levitation — 
The same in Paganism — Roman Catholic Saints — Magical power of 
Pagan Idols — Proof that phenomena of Spiritualism due to spirits — 
Clairvoyance and Mesmerism due to same agency — Use of Mesmerism 
by Pagan priests for consulting the gods — Part played by the Mesmeriser 
—Self Mesmerism — Indian Fakirs — Colonel Townshend — Electro 
Biology and Hypnotism due to same agencies — Mesmeric power 
independent of force of will — Powers of adept due to possession by a 
spirit — Phenomena of Electro Biology not due to Biologist — Similar 
Phenomena of Hypnotism — Pagan divination by table-turning — The 
Trinity of Theosophy same as that of Paganism — Supernatural pheno- 
mena which are not due to daimonia — Distinction between the two 
classes of phenomena — Other phenomena — Haunted houses and localities 
under a curse — **The Doune murderers " — Modern efforts to revive inter- 
course with spirits — Spiritualism, Theosophy and Romanism only a 
revival of Paganism ..... pages 147-181 

Chapter IX. — The Nephilim. Description of Cannes and the Annedoti 
before the Deluge— The antediluvian Chrysor or Hephaestus the first 
Hermes — Distinct from the first Cannes — Chrysor or Hephaestus one 
of the gods of the postdiluvians — Postdiluvian Idolatry a revival of 
antediluvian — The buried writings — Tradition of Berosus, Manetho, 
Josephus — The Indian traditions — The books of Vishnu, Buddha, 
Mahabad, Menu, Prydain — Interpretation of these traditions, and 
other mythological stories — Fanciful fables of Greeks due to their 
ignorance of the esoteric meaning of Pagan allegory and symbolism — 
Correspondence between Pagan traditions and the Scriptural account 
— The ten antediluvian kings — The giants of Gothic, Celtic, Indian, 
Chinese, Buddhistand Greek mythology — Scriptural account — The "Sons 
of God" — Meaning of the term — The giants or Nephilim — Meaning of 
NephHim^ the " Fallen Ones " — Intercourse with women — Testimony of 
ancient writers — Iranian tradition of Djemschid — Reference to the 
Nephilim by St Peter — Nature of their sin — Hindu tradition that the 

6 



xviii CONTENTS 



gods became incarnate — The Nephilim and daimonia the same — Form 
taken by the Nephilim — Oannes and the Annedoti — Oannes the Serpent 
— Nephilim intercourse after the Deluge— -The giant races of Canaan ; 
not Canaanites — The Rephaim — Means taken for inviting intercourse 
with the Nephilim — The temple of Belus at Babylon and the temple 
at Thebes — Spirit marriages of Spiritualism — Persian tradition that 
black race arose from this intercourse — Its sudden appearance in the 
world — Unaffected by climate — Traditions of the marriage of Djemschid 
with a demon-bom woman — Nimrod a giant — Naamah, sister of Tubal- 
Cain, and Nemaus, wife of Ham — Semiramis, daughter of goddess 
Derketo and wife of both Cush and Nimrod — Hence title ''Son and 
Husband of the Mother " — " Naamah," " beautiful " — Possible origin of 
postdiluvian intercourse with Nephilim — Derketo, wife of Dagon — 
Black colour of Cushite race possibly the judgment of €k)d on the 
Nephilim intercourse — "Children of darkness" and "seed of the 
Serpent." 

" History of Sanchoniathon" — The ten generations before the Deluge 
— Appearance of giants in the fourth or fifth generation, the first 
evidence of Nephilim intercourse — Repetition of this intercourse — 
Chrysor of Nephilim descent — Agruerous the husbandman, father of 
the Titans in the tenth generation shown to be Noah — The Titans, the 
name given to sons of Noah — Titan, " Earth-bom " or not descended 
from the gods or demons — Name specially applied to Shem — Misor, 
and Taautus or Thoth — Break in narrative — HypsistUs and Beruth 
beget Epigeus or Ouranos (Heaven) and Ge (Earth) — Epigeus, " depend- 
ent on the earth " or a husbandman — Ouranos, father of the Titans 
— Evidence that he was Noah — The meaning of Hypsistus and Beruth. 

Confusion of gods in the subsequent narratiVe-^Cronus, Betylus, 
Dagon, Atlas — The Second Cronus — Jupiter Belus, Apollo — Hercules, 
Cupid, Rhea, Astarte, Typhon, Pontus — War of Cronus against 
Ouranos — The Tower of Babel — Its object, the worship of the demon 
gods — Ouranos the representative of Heaven — This war was the same 
as the war of Saturn and as that of the Titans against Ouranos — 
Reason given in Greek mythology for this war — Its interpretation — 
Mutilation of Ouranos — Comparison with Scriptural account. 

The human sacrifices of Cronus — The nj^ph Anohret — Meaning 
of the name ** Heavenly Image " or " Heavenly Mortal " — Comparison 
with story of Semiramis — Semiramis a Nephilim-bom woman— Story 
of Saturn devouring his children — Sacrificed them to the demon gods — 
Tradition of Zoroaster of the time of Cham or Ham — Sacrifice of the 
first-bom in Egypt to Osiris — Judgment of God in the Tenth Plague — 
Origin of these sacrifices — Story of swaddled stone given to Saturn 
instead of his son Jupiter — Hence stones became S3rmbols of the god 
— Story of Titan (Shem) and Saturn (Cush)— Its explanation — 
Recapitulation ...... pages 182-21S 



CONTENTS xix 



Chapter X. — ^The Sun, the Serpent, the Phallus and the Tree. Sun 
worship not a spontaneous product of the human mind — Knowledge 
and civilisation of the antediluvians — Knowledge of Ood by post- 
diluvians — Sun worship the invention of a subtle and atheistical mind 
— Teaching of Hermes — Male and female Creators — Pretence of 
spirituality in Paganism — Substitution of material type for spiritual 
reality — Sun and Fire worship^Esoteric and exoteric meanings — ^The 
Sun regarded as source of both material and spiritual life — Fire as a 
means of purification from sin — The Sun as the Divine Wisdom or 
source of spiritual light — The Serpent identified with the Sun as 
source of Life and Knowledge — The Phallus and Tree as manifestations 
of the life and Generation of which the Sun was supposed to be the 
source — Hermetic teaching of the present day — Dupuis, etc. — Spiritual 
influence ascribed to the Sun — ^The Cross as symbol of the Sun — Ode 
to the Sun god — Mystic letters of Sun god Bacchus, I.H.S. — Numbers 
as symbols of the Sun god — The numbers, 360, 365 and 666 — Scriptural 
significance of numbers — The number 666, the sacred number of 
Paganism and the evil number of Scripture — The Sigillum Solis or 
Magic Square — The Sun as the Creative Power or Great Father — The 
Earth as the Great Mother — Worship of the Phallus or Lingam — The 
Phallus, lone and Serpent, the three symbols in the Mysteries — I.O. 
the sj^bol of Bacchus — O, the cypher, the symbol of the seed and the 
disk of the Sun — The Asherah — The Tree and the Cross — True mean- 
ing of the Cross, the symbol of natural life and death — ^The Cross as 
symbol of the Tree— The Tree of Life and Knowledge — The Cross as 
symbol of the Sun and principal Pagan gods — The Crux Ansata or 
sign of Life — The Cross really the symbol of the Tree of Death — 
Emblem of worldly power and honour — Different aspects of the Cross 
— Worship of the Cross — The Cross and Phallus combined still used in 
Italy and Spain — The letters I.N. R.I. — The Serpent — Its worship 
originated by Thoth (Cush) — The Serpent the symbol of the Suu-^ 
The Winged Disk and Serpent — Its symbolism — The Serpent as the 
Creator — Identified with " the Word " or the Divine Wisdom — 
^sculapius the Sun and Serpent god, ** the Man-instructiug Serpent" 
and " the Life Restorer " — The Serpent and Egg, Father and Mother — 
The Serpent god of the Mysteries — The letter <t> the symbol of the 
Serpent god — The word " Phoenician " — The Python, the symbol of the 
Sun god Apollo — Bacchus or Dionusius identified with lao, the Serpent 
god of Phoenicia — Deonaush or Deva Nahusha, the Serpent god — 
NahcLsh, " Serpent " — Janus, the Sun and Serpent god — J'anus, Di'anus 
and Cannes — " Diphues," its esoteric meaning — Hea, the Serpent god, 
identified by Rawlinson with the Serpent of Scripture — Bel and the 
Dragon — Ethiopian, ** the race of the Serpent " — The Serpent the 
symbol of worldly dominion — The Dragon standard of Rome — The 
Serpent gods Cnouphis and Agathodsemon — The Serpent god Onuphis 



XX CONTENTS 



a title of Osiris — The Cadaceus of Hermes or Mercury — ^Aphthah or 
Phthah — Pharaoh or Phra — Egyptian kings as sons of the Sun and 
Serpent — Claim of Alexander the Great and Augustus to be sons of 
the Serpent god — The Serpent god Beelzebub— Symbolic figures of 
Serpent god — Oph, Ob, Obi, the Sacred Serpent of the Canaanites — 
Obi worship in Africa — Mexican worship of Serpent — Human victims 
sacrificed to it — Similar worship in Peru — The Serpent gods. Juggernaut^ 
Siva and Buddha — The Dragon god of China — Druidical Serpent 
worship— The Dragon god Hu, the Victorious Beli or Bel — ^Mond 
identity of the Serpent god of Paganism with the Satan of Scripture 
— The bestower of worldly dominion on those who worshipped him — 
The Cross his symbol and altar — Sacrificial death by fire or the Cross — 
Human sacrifices to Osiris in Egypt called **Typhos" — Seal of Priests 
— Human sacrifices in Mexico — Sacrifice of Infants — Murder, Mystery 
and Deceit the principles of Paganism . . . pages 213-245 

Chapter XI. — The Worship op the Stars. The precession of the 
Equinoxes and the signs of the Zodiac — The names of the constellations 
have no relation to their form — ^The Scripture asserts that they were 
given them by God — The precession of the Equinoxes and its relation 
to the period of man's life — The eclipse cycles of time— Their relation 
to the great prophetic periods and to geometry — Evidence that the 
universe is governed by exact mathematical laws — Evidence of pre- 
ordained design — The heavenly bodies given as signs — They mark 
the dates in human history — Statements of Scripture that the history of 
redemption until the time of the restitution of all things was foretold 
by the Stars and explained by the prophets — Evidences of this knowledge 
— It was made use of and perverted by Paganism pages 246-252 

PART III. 

Overthrow of the Primitive Paganism and its Relation 
to the Early History of Babylon and Egypt. 

Chapter XII. — The Death of the Pagan God. Extent of Nimrod's 
conquests — The intimate connection of Cush and Nimrod with Egypt — 
Manetho's god kings — The two races in Egypt, Mestraoi and Egyptians 
— Death of Nimrod — Exact similarity of the death of the various 
gods with whom he was identified — Ninus, Orpheus, Bacchus, torn in 
pieces — ^The Spotted Fawn — Death of Osiris — Mode of death imitated 
by initiates, by priests of Baal, by the Carians and Egyptians — The 
Pagan god also said to be killed by lightning — Death of Orpheus, 
^sculapius, Zoroaster, Phsethon, child of the Sun, Centaurus, Orion 
— Judicial death of Tammuz — Similar death of Osiris — His body cut in 
pieces by order of the Egyptian judges — Typhon (Shem), the over- 



CONTENTS xxi 



thrower of Osiris (Nimrod) — Titan (Shem), the overthrower of Saturn 
(Gush) — Set the real name of Typhon — Set a synonym of Shem or Sem 
— Set also called Semu — Sem the Greek form of Shem — Set worshipped 
as a god until time of the Rameses, and after that called Typhon, 
the principle of evil, as the enemy of Osiris — Means taken by Shem to 
overthrow Osiris — Shem a prophet of God — His warning against 
Nephilim worship, which had brought about the destruction of the 
antediluvian world — Set symbolised by a Boar — Tusks of a Boar 
emblem of the power of the mouth, or of words — Sem or Shem, the 
Egyptian Hercules, called also " Chon" " the Lamenter " — Hercules 
Ogmitis, " the Lamenter," and the god of Eloquence— Set or Typhon 
said to be the father of the Jews and builder of Jerusalem — General 
tradition of Jews that Shem was Melchisedek, king and priest of 
Jerusalem — The Sha emblem of Set — Set worshipped as " Set Nubti^^^ 
"Set the Golden" — Subsequent hatred of Set and his identification 
with Typhon, the evil spirit — Symbolised by a Red Ass — Red or ruddy 
complexion of Set — Men of similar complexion sacrificed to the black 
Osiris — Christ called Typhon in Egypt and symbolised by an Ass — Set 
as the god Bes — The power of words by which Typhon overcame Osiris 
represented as horrid yells and shrieks — Similar misrepresentation of 
Christians in after times — Story that when gods were overthrown by 
Typhon they assumed the shapes of animals by the advice of Fan, and 
went to Egypt — This refers to the secret resuscitation of Idolatry in 
that country — Shem, or Titan, said to be assisted by his brother Titans 
in his war against Saturn — Implies general co-operation of other 
descendants of Noah against the Cushites — War of giants against the 
Pagan gods refers to the same event — Its distinction from the war of 
the Titans against Coelus (Heaven), which was headed by Saturn — 
The giants represented with the long hair and beards distinctive of the 
Semitic Patriarchs — Chaldean legend of the war of the wicked gods 
against the Moon god (Cush) — Scandinavian tradition of the death of 
Balder by Loki the spirit of evil — Indian tradition of the overthrow of 
the gods by Durga — Exact similarity to the story of Typhon — Similar 
stories of Mahesha and Ganesa. 

Set, or Typhon, identical with the Shepherd king Set or Saites — 
The latter called Set Nubti in the reign of Rameses IT., and given 
same titles as the god Set or Typhon — Proofs that the Shepherd king 
Set was Typhon — City of Avaris built by him called Typhonian city, 
and the zone in which it was built the Sethroite zone — Story of the 
overthrow of Idolatry by the Shepherds identical with that of the 
overthrow of Osiris by Typhon — Description of Shepherds as " Wander- 
ing Phoenician kings" exactly descriptive of Semitic Patriarchs — 
Reason for building Avaris by Shepherd king Set — Same hatred to 
Shepherds as to Typhon — Identification of the Shepherds as the same 
race as the Israelites by Manetho — Shepherds called "Our Ancestors" 



xxii CONTENTS 



by Josephas — Destruction of temples of gods by Shepherds — Flight 
of Cushites to Ethiopia — Shepherd sculpture with long hair and 
beards like Semitic Patriarchs — Shepherds always so represented — 
Mystery hitherto surrounding Shepherd kings . . pages 255-273 

Chapter XIII. — The Shepherd Kings and the Pyramid Builders. 
Recapitulation of conclusions — The Shepherd kings the immediate 
successors in Egypt of the Gushite kings Menes and Athothes (Cush 
and Nimrod) — Shepherds represented as the first kings of Egypt by 
Josephus and others — Seemingly no record of them on the monuments 
— Mystery surrounding them — The Menthu kings in the Saite zone 
of Semitic race — Worshippers of Set — Constructed Sphinxes in his 
honour — The Shepherd king Apepi one of these Menthu — Distinction 
between Apepi and the first Shepherd kings — Apepi the Pharaoh 
under whom Joseph ruled — He rejected worship of the Egyptian gods, 
which had been restored, and chose Set as his god — Called a Shepherd 
in consequence — Shepherds had been an abomination to Egyptians 
previous to his reign — Long interval between him and the first 
Shepherds — Hatred to Shepherds — Every means taken to conceal 
their identity — Their names only nicknames — Cannot therefore be 
found on the monuments — Hatred to memory of Apepi — As a 
Shepherd king, he is said to be one of those who warred against Osiris, 
which is an additional proof that the overthrow of Osiris by Typhon 
and the overthrow of Egyptian Idolatry by the Shepherd kings were 
one and the same event — Real names of Shepherds carefully erased 
from monuments. 

Period of the first Shepherd kings — Testimonies to the beginning of 
Babylonian Empire in 2234 b.g. — ^Termination of the joint reigns of 
Menes and Athothes (Cush and Nimrod), in 2180 or 2177 b.g. — Date 
of Great Pyramid built by Suphis 2170 b.c. — Could not have been 
commenced at the very beginning of his reign — Proof that Set and 
Suphis were both immediate successors of Menes and Athothes — 
Consequent identity of Set and Suphis — Story of Pyramid kings 
exactly the same as that of Shepherds — Both overthrowers of Idolatry 
— Both said to have reduced inhabitants to slavery — Both regarded 
with the same hatred — Both commence to reign at the same period — 
Statement of Herodotus implying that Pyramid kings were called 
Shepherd kings — Pyramid kings stated to be of a different race to 
other Egjrptian kings — Reigns of first two Shepherds and first two 
Pyramid kings the same length — Period of the Shepherd dominion 
identical with the period during which Idolatry was suppressed by the 
Pyramid kings — Resuscitation of Idolatry by Mencheres synchronous 
with its resuscitation in Babylon by Arioch, the grandson of Semiramis 
— Mencheres and Nitocris — Evidence of hatred to Pyramid kings — 
Prenomen of Shepherd king Set the same as that of the Pyramid 



CONTENTS xxiii 



king Saphis— ^ris the predecessor of Suphis — His description answers 
to Uutt of Nimrod — Pyramid of Soris — Suphis placed by Manetho in 
4th Dynasty — Manetho's interpolated dynasties denied by the 
monuments — The name Suphis means " much hair," the distinguishiug 
feature of the Shepherds — Saophis Comastea or "long-haired " — Granite 
group of Shepherd period — Character and symbolism of Great 
Pyramid shows that it must have been built by one who was, like 
Shenif a prophet and priest of God — Recapitulation of evidence. 

pages 274-300 
Chaftsb XrV. — Thk Shkphbrd Sculptures. No sculptures of Set or 
Suphis — Due to hatred of priests — Granite group of Shepherds an 
evidence of hatred to them — This hatred shown only to Shepherd and 
Pyramid kings — Granite group probably represents those kings, but 
features destroyed — The Tanis Sphinxes— Sphinxes especially associated 
with Shepherds, constructed in honour of Set — Tanis Sphinxes all 
with same features — Must represent Shepherd king Set or Shem — 
Example of the antediluvian type — The Great Sphinx another strong 
evidence that Suphis was the Shepherd king Set — Description of its 
features — Must have been originally the same as those of the Tanis 
Sphinxes — ^Tradition that Great Pyramid is the tomb of Seth — Its 
significance— Symbolic significance of the Great Sphinx — Comparison 
of features of Tanis Sphinxes with those of granite group of Shepherds 
and with those of the statue of Shefra — Their apparent identity — Fair 
complexion of Set or Shcm — The true type of the Israelites — Identical 
with that of the Anglo-Saxon and Scaudinavian — The probable Semitic 
origin of the latter ..... pages 301-309 

PART IV. 

Resuscitation and Development of the Primitive Idolatry. 

Chapter XV. — Resuscitation op Idolatry. Flight of Saturn or Cush 
to Italy, where he founded the cities of Satumia and Janicula on the 
future site of Rome — Ancient Italy called the Saturnian land — Over- 
throw of primitive Idolatry among the Japhetic nations — Restoration 
of Idolatry at first secret — Gods said to have taken the form of 
animals by advice of Pan (Cush) — Establishment of priesthood by 
Ifiis for collection and worship of various portions of the dead body of 
Osiris (Nimrod) each represented by some animal — Influence of the 
knowledge of the true God in Egypt — Consequent necessity for 
caution in restoring Idolatry — The Egyptian Mysteries for the 
revelation of the god to the initiated — Not the same concealment in 
Babylon — Simultaneous restoration in both countries in reigns of 
Mencheres and Arioch — Death of god said to have been for good of 
mankind— Repre-sented to be the promised seed of the woman — This 
the real origin of the anthropomorphic gods of Paganism — The 



xxiv CONTENTS 



prophecies regarding Christ — Zoroaster, " the Seed of the Woman " — 
Zoro^ Zar^ Zero^ etc., meaning a circle and the seed — Sarus a cycle of 
time — Chusorus, " Seed of Cush " — " Asar," a title of Osiris — 
Nin, El bar, or "the Son "— " Semiramis," "the Branch-bearer" 
— "Zerbanit," "Mother of the Seed" — The god shown as a child 
in his mother's arms in all nations — The god also represented as 
the Slayer of the Serpent — Lamentations for the death of the god — 
Effect upon his worshippers — Rites of the god also for purification of 
sin — Became the false Christ of Paganism — The Ark a symbol of 
Christ — Events of the Deluge incorporated with the revived Idolatry — 
The Ark became the symbol of the goddess — Thebes, " the city of the 
gods, "from Thebe," "the Ark "— Thaba, "the Mother of the Gods" 
— The Deluge the type of regeneration — Baptism of the Lesser Mys- 
teries — Probable commemoration of Deluge previous to Idolatry — 
Names given to Pagan god to identify him with the true God — 
Double meaning of names — Eesuscitated Idolatry founded on per- 
version of Patriarchal faith — Principal features of the two rituals 
the same — Winged Lions and Bulls and the Cherubim — Summary of 
steps taken for the gradual restoration of Idolatry — Methods used for 
its propagation in the Japhetic races — Statues and homage to heroes, 
followed by their worship — Spiritual effects from material agencies — 
Gradual moral degradation. 

Sun worship — Sacrifice by fire — Supposed spiritual ef^cacy of 
fire — Fire regarded as divine and an emanation from the Sun — The 
Sun as God — ^The dead king, as the promised seed, regarded as Son of 
God and therefore as the Sun — Goddess regarded as the Earth and 
Moon — Process of development carried on from age to age — The 
work of one mind, "the spirit which worketh in the children of 
disobedience." 

The Sun as the source of Life and Generation — The Phallic worship — 
Moral characteristics of the Sun god identified him with the Prince 
of Evil — Identified also with the Serpent — Influence of this worship 
even in Christian times ..... pages 313-337 

Chapter XVI. — General Features op the Revived Idolatry. "Gods 
many and Lords many " — The Hero gods — The worship of the dead 
a stepping-stone to worship of daimonia — Influence of priesthood 
through their magical powers — The worship of idols an inseparable 
feature of Paganism — The reason of this — Idols the habitation of the 
daimonia — Testimony of Spiritualists and Buddhists — Haunted 
houses, etc. — Principle of image same as that of shrines, temples and 
sacred groves of the gods, and as that of the occult efficacy of certain 
symbols, amulets and charms — The Cross and Circle — The Tonsure— 
The Nimbus — The Sacred Heart — Holy Water — Human sacrifices to the 
Pagan god by the Cross or by fire, both being symbols or manifestations 



CONTENTS XXV 



of the god — No bloody sacrifices offered to the goddess — The Round 
Cake, the symbol of the Son god, offered for the sins of the people — 
Purgatory — Sacrifices for the dead — Penance — The Mysteries — 
Initiates prepared by fasting and confession — Description of Qreater 
Mysteries — Their object the revelation of the god — The dread secret, 
or " Apporeta" — Revelation of the god as the Serpent pages 338-351 

Chaptkb XVII. — The Moral Aspbct of Paganism. Mantle of Romance 
thrown round Paganism by Greek poets — Higher moral characteristics 
of Greeks and Romans — Influence of Israel — Decay of Pagan influence 
— Its full evil seen when in the zenith of its power, as in the case of 
the Canaanites — Conmiands of God to Israelites — Idolatry pronounced 
to be accursed — Modem excuses for Idolatry — False piety honoured — 
Why Idolatry is accursed — Not the result of an arbitrary decree but of 
a moral law — ^To be accursed is to be cut off from the protection of 
Qod — Partial and complete separation from God — Complete transfer 
by Paganism of dependence on God to created things — Substitution of 
the psychical for the spiritual — The Pagan idolater self-accursed — 
Liable to fall under influence of evil spirits — Pagans worshipped these 
evil spirits supposing them to be spirits of the dead — The complete 
moral degradation resulting from this, as described in Romans i. — 
Fascination of Idolatry — Likened to madness and drunkenness — 
Idolatry appeals to the natural inclinations of man — Substitutes the 
material and sensible for the spiritual — Faith a stumbling-block — 
Religion of sacraments and signs always an attraction — Danger from 
the presence of the images and symbols of Idolatry — Equal danger 
from adopting the ritual forms of Idolatry — Their symbolism — Certain 
to be followed by adoption of the doctrines symbolised — Propaganda by 
the priesthood of Idolatry — Idolatry places the idolater under the 
influence and dominion of evil spirits — Warnings against it by the 
Apostolic writers ..... pages 352-365 

APPENDIX A. 

Sir Gardner Wilkinson on the Egyptian Religion. 

His valuable facts, but sometimes incorrect deductions — His admiration for 
Egyptian art and civilisation has led him to idealise Egyptian Idolatry 
— Effects of purer religion in Egypt obliged Idolatry to put on a garb 
of righteousness and mystery. 

Idea of Wilkinson that the worship of true God was developed out 
of IdoUUry — Sun worship shown to be the later form of Egyptian 
Idolatry — ^The Sun as the Creator and god of Generation — Sun worship 
by Amenhotep III. and Rhamestes — Cnouphis likened by Wilkinson 
to the Spirit of God — But Cnouphis identified with the Sun god 
Amenra as the Creator — Animal worship of Egyptians — Commentary 
of the Apostle Paul on this Animal worship — Wilkinson^s excuse for 



xxvi CONTENTS 



Animal worship — Its fallacy — Metaphysical character of Egyptian 
Idolatry merely the result of the studied confusion of the material and 
spiritual in order to cover its evil — Wilkinson's opposition to the human 
origin of the gods — Plutarch's weak attempt to allegorise history of 
Osiris — Admission of Egyptian priests that the gods had been rulers 
of Egypt — Wilkinson's arguments self-contradictory . pages 367-377 

APPENDIX B. 

Oannes and the Annedoti. 

Universal law — Form expressive of moral and psychical characteristics — 
Every creature obeys this law — Conclusion that if spiritual beings 
took material forms they must be expressive of their characteristics — 
Form taken by fallen spirits — Form taken by Satan — Animal forms of 
gods in Greek mythology — The Annedoti the natural form of the 
Nephilim — Tradition of former world destroyed by fire^Previous exist- 
ence of mighty Saurians — Nearly all destroyed — Worshipped as gods 
at Babylon — ^Possible forms of fallen spirits . . pages 377-380 

APPENDIX 0. 

Speculations Regarding the Antiquity of the Human Race. 

Geological speculations — Thickness of stalagmites covering human remains 
— Fallacious deductions — Similar fallacies regarding the Stone Age— 
The Glacial theory — Many supposed traces of glacial action shown by 
Sir H. Howarth to be due to torrents of water — **The fountains of the 
great deep" — The abysses of water under the American Continent — 
Evidence by Catlin — The overflow of these abysses — The Great Lakes 
— The St Lawrence — The Gulf Stream — Universality of the Deluge — 
The Deluge followed by a Glacial Period — Evidences of this Glacial 
Period — The Mammoth — Countries formerly temperate now arctic — 
This Glacial Period sufficient to account for all evidences of Glacial 
action — Historical evidences of the remains of this Glacial Period 
2000 years ago — Permanent alteration of climate of northern countries 
which were previously temperate — Human remains previous to this 
Glacial Period were antediluvian — Disorder of superficial strata of earth 
in consequence of the Deluge. 

Speculations of modem archseologists — Their rejection of Old 
Testament history and chronology — ^The chronology of Berosus corrobo- 
rates Scripture — ^The date given by Nabonadius not to be depended on 
— Manetho's dynasties — Many of them contemporaneous — Manetho's 
interpolated dynasties — Denied by the Monumental lists — Evidence 
that they are repetitions of certain kings in certain relations — These 
facts ignored by those who desire to prove greater antiquity of the 
human race — Necessary to carefully examine the grounds of their 
assertions ...... pages 380*390 



CONTENTS xxvii 



APPENDIX D. 
The Accadians. 

Accttdum magic and nature gods similar to those of the Turanian races — 
Aocadian language also similar to that of Turanians — Later Chaldean 
language, Semitic — Hence it is argued that the Cushite language was 
Semitio — Language of Canaanites in later times also Semitic — Dis- 
tinction drawn between Cushite and Accadian religion — Argument by 
M. Lenormant Uiat Accadians were Turanians and not Cushitee — 
Replies to these conclusions: — 

(1). Evidence that inhabitants of Chaldea before Cushite conquest 
were Turanian — Impossibility that Turanians could have imposed their 
language and religion on their conquerors, and probability that they 
adopted the language and religion of the Cushites and carried it with 
them in their subsequent migrations to the east and north — Accadians 
were the authors of cuneiform writing, possessed high civilisation and 
knowledge of Astronomy, and were the originators of the learning and 
civilisation of the Chaldees — This wholly inconsistent with Turanian 
character — ^This is the argument of M. Renan — The force of it shown. 

(2). The question of language — Semitic races in the valleys of Tigris 
and Euphrates must have outnumbered the Cushites — Evidence of the 
decline of the Cushite power in the days of Abraham — Early Cushite 
migration to India — Consequent predominance of the Semitic people 
and language in the days of Amraphel and his successors. 

The language of Canaan — Powerful influence of Semitic peoples, 
and the conquest and dispersion of Hamitic Canaanites sufficient to 
account for its later Semitic character — Previous language similar to 
Accadian — The Hittites — The northern Amorites probably Aramaeans 
— Cuneiform writing used at first by Israelites. 

(3). Distinction by M. Lenormant between the Babylonian and 
Accadian religions — Nothing known of Accadian religion as distinct 
from that of the kings of Ur — Absence of outward forms among 
Turanian races is what might be expected. 

(4). Assertion that there was never a Cushite conquest of Babylon — 
" The Nimrod Myth '* — No mention of Nimrod on monuments — 
••Nimrod " only a soubriquet, not his real name — Identity of '^Sargani Sar 
Ali," king of Accad, with Nimrod — Nimrod must have been first king of 
Accad, Erech, Ur and Babylon — Lugal Sagyiai^ king of Erech, is " The 
king Sargani " — Inscriptions describing him identify him with Nimrod 
and show him to be King of Accad, Erech and Ur — Called son of 
Bel (Cush), and king of the children of Bel (Cushites) — Shown to have 
been deified — " Lugal Kigtib" king of Ur, and " Kienge Accad "is also 
Nimrod — " £n Sag Saggani,'^ king of Kienge, should probably read "^n 

Sar Sargani " — " Sumu Abi " and " Snmn la Ilti" first kings of Babylon 

Their probable identity with Cush and Nimrod — Their successor " Zabu^'' 
or *' Zamuy* is probably the " Zames " of the Greek lists — Correspondence 



xxviii CONTENTS 



of first Babylonian dynasty with that of Berosus — First three dynasties 
Kassite = Kissioi, the people of Chusistan — Date of Samu la Iln shown 
to be 2234 B.C. — All earlier dynasties contemporaneous — Date of Naram 
Sin — Second and third Elassite dynasties partly contemporaneous — Pro- 
bability that Ammurabi reigned at the end of first Babylonian dynasty 
— Exact correspondence with sacred chronology — Date given by Asshur 
Banipal for Kedor Nakhunta — Its probable explanation. 

(5). Assertion that Genesis x. is not a genealogy — Statements by 
Professor Sayce — That it has nothing to do with genealogy of 
descendants of Noah and is only a geographical description — Apparent 
direct contradiction of the meaning of Scripture — Supposed parallel of 
" daughter nations " — Its fallacy — The absurdity of the language used 
if the names are countries and not persons — Positive statement of the 
sacred writer — Countries called after people and not people after 
countries — Excuse for theory — Change of race in certain countries — 
Case of Amorites and Elamites — Later Elamites were Turanian. 

Notes on Chronological Table. 

Lugal Usumgal, king of Lagas — Sin Gkunil, king of Erech, and Naram Sin — 
Date of Sagarkti Buryas fixed by Nabonidus — The Bavian inscription of 
Sennacherib — Remarkable agreement between the termination of the 
third Kassite dynasty and the corresponding dynasty of Berosus — 
Uncertain position of Kadasman Bel the contemporary of Amenophis 
III. — Egyptian chronology not to be depended on — Evidence that list 
of corresponding Assyrian kings are out of order and some names 
missing — Date of Isme Dagon .... pages 390-411 

APPENDIX E. 

"History of Sanchoniathon." 

History translated by Philo Byblius — ^Only portions preserved by Eusebius 
— Attempts of modem writers to discredit it by asserting that it was 
a forgery by Philo — Internal evidence of the history opposed to this 
assertion — No motive for such a forgery — Motives suggested by 
modem writers forced and unlikely — Assertion that the history was 
forged to support Euhemerus — No evidence in support of this assertion 
— The assertion that Euhemerus invented the human origin of the 
gods opposed to all the evidence— The motive of those who make these 
assertions of forgery and invention — The fascination exercised by the 
ancient Paganism on many — The opposition to be expected from those 
with Roman Catholic proclivities . pages 411-413 

Index ....... pages 415-422 

PLATES. 
' Plate I. —Granite Group op Shepherds. 
, „ II. — Shepherd, Enlarged View. 
„ III. — The Tanis Sphinxes. 
„ IV. — Statue of Shefra or Num Suphis. 



List op the Principal Works Consulted or Quoted, and 
Notices op any Particular Editions Used. 

Aglio — ^Mexican Antiquities. 
Ammianus Marcellinus — History. 
Apoleitis — Opera. 
Asiatic Researches. 
Aogostine — De Civitate Deo. 

Da Citie of God ; translation by J. Healy. 1642. 

Baldwin — Prehistoric Nations. 

Bancroft — Native Races of the Pacific Coast of North America. 

Barker and Ainsworth — Lares and Penates of Cilicia. 

Beal — Catena of Buddhist Scriptures. 

Belzoni — Operations and Discoveries in Egypt and Nubia. 

Berofius — From Cory's Fragments. 

Betham (Sir W.) — Gael and Cimbri. 

Do. Etruscan Literature and Antiquities. 

Birch (Samuel) — History of Egypt. 
Brown (R.) — Great Dionysiac Myth. 
Brugsch — History of Egypt. 
Bryant — Plagues of Egypt. 

Da Ancient Mythology. 
Bunsen — History of Egypt. 

Caesar — Commentaries. 

Catlin — North American Indians. Edition 1876. 

Do. The Uplifted and Subsided Rocks of North America. 
Cicero— De Natura Deorum. 

Do. Tusculan Disputations. 
Colebrook — Religious Ceremonies of the Hindoos. 
Coleman — Indian Mythology. 
Colquhoun — Isis Revelata : Enquiry into Animal Magnetism. 1836. 

Do. Magic and Witchcraft. 1851. 

Computation of the Number 666 — Nisbet. 1891. 
Conder (Colonel R. K)— The First Bible. 
Cory — Ancient Fragments. 
Do. Do. Edited by Hodges. 

xxix 



XXX LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED 

Crabb — Mythology. 

Crichton — Ancient and Modem Scandinavia. 

Cumberland — History of Sanchoniathon. 

Cunningham (Major-Cen. Alexander) — Stupa of Bharhut. 

Da vies — Celtic Researches. 

Do. Mythology and Rites of British Druids. 
Deane — Worship of the Serpent. 
Diodorus Si cuius — Bibliotheca. 
Donnelly, Ignatius — Atlantis. 
Dryden's Virgil. 

Dupuis — Origin of Religions ; translation by Partridge. Bums. 
Dymock — Classical Dictionary. 

Edkins — Chinese Buddhism. 
Elliot — HorsB ApocalypticeB. 
Eusebius — PrsBparationes Evangelic89. 

Faber — Origin of Pagan Idolatry. 
Ferguson — Tree and Serpent Worship. 

Gall — Primeval Man Unveiled. 

Gibbon — Decline and Fall. One Volume Edition. Ball, 

Arnold & Co. 1840. 
Gill— Myths of the South Pacific. 
Gray (Mrs Hamilton) — Sepulchres of Etruria. 1843. 

Hales' Chronology. 

Herodotus. 

Hislop — Two Babylons. 7th Edition. 

Howarth (Sir H. H.).— The Mammoth and the Flood. 

Do. The Glacial Nightmare. 

Humboldt — Researches on the Ancient Inhabitants of America. 
Hurd — Rites and Ceremonies. 

Josephus — Whiston's. 

Kennedy — Hindu Mythology. 
Kennett — Roman Antiquities. 
Kenrick — Egypt under the Pharaohs. 
Kinns — Moses and Geology. 
Eitto — Illustrated Commentary. 



LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED xxxi 



Lang — Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 
Layard — Nineveh and its Remains. 

Do. Nineveh and Babylon. 
Lempri^re — Classical Dictionary. 
Lenormant — Ancient History of the East. 

Do. — Chaldean Magic and Sorcery. 

Lillie — Buddha and Early Buddhism. 
Lynam — Roman Elmperors. 

Macrobius — Opera. 
Maimonides — More Nevochim. 
Mallet — Northern Antiquities. 
Mankind, their Origin and Destiny. 
Maurice — Indian Antiquities. 
Moor*8 Hindu Pantheon. 

Nash — The Pharaoh of the Exodus. 
Newman (Cardinal) — Development of Christian Doctrine. 
Newton (Benjamin Wills) — Reflections on the Spread of 

Spiritualism. Boulston & Sons. 
Nimrod. 

Osbum — Monumental History of Egypt. 
Ovid — Opera. 

Pember — Earth's Earliest Ages. 

Perfect Way (The). 1882. 

Peter Martyr — De Orbe Novo. 

Petrie (Flinders) — History of Egypt. 

Piazzi Smyth — Life and Work at the Great Pyramid. 

Plato — Opera. 

Pliny — Natural History. Bohn. 1855. 

Plutarch — De Iside et Osiride. 

Pococke — India in Greece. 

Pompeii. 

Poole — HorsB Egypticae. 

Potter and Boyd — Grecian Antiquities. In one Volume. 

Griffin & Co. 1850. 
Prescott — CJonquest of Mexico. In one Volume. Routledge. 

Do. Conquest of Peru. Do. do. 

Purchas — Pilgrimages. 



xxxii LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED 

Quarterly Review, 1877. 

Ragozin — Stories of the Nations : Chaldea. 
Rawlinson (G.) — Egypt and Babylon. 

Do. Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient East 

Do. Herodotus. 

Rhys Davis — Buddhism. 
Russell — Egypt, Ancient and Modem. 

Salverte (Eusebe) — Sciences Occultes. 
Sanchoniathon — History : from Cory's Fragmenta 
Saville— Truth of the Bible. 
Sayce — Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments. 

Do. Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations. 

Do. Races of the Old Testament. 
Secret Doctrine (The)— By H. P. B. 2nd Edition. 1888. 
Sharon Turner — Anglo-Saxons. 
Smith — Dictionary of the Bible. 

Do. Classical Dictionary. 
Smith (George) — Chaldean Account of Genesis. 
Stukeley — Stonehenge and Avebury. 
Strabo — Bohn 
Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Wisdom. 

Tacitus — Manners of the Germans. 

Taylor — New Zealand and Its Inhabitants. 

TertuUian — Opera. 

Tolaud — History of the Druids. 

Tylor — Researches into the Early History of Mankind. 

Vaux — Nineveh and Persepolis. 

Virgil. 

Vysc (Colonel Howard) — Pyramids of Egypt. 

Wild — Spiritual Dynamics. 
Wilkins — Hindu Mythology. 

Wilkinson — Manners and Customs of the Egyptians. 6 Vols. 

1841. 
Do. do. Edited by Birch. 187& 

Yule — Marco Polo. 




GROUP OF SHEPHERDS 



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Hi 



J.. 



lb. 



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• j» 



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• 




SHEPHERD-ENUARQED VIEW 




-8HEFRA' OR ' NUM 6UPHJ8" 



PART I 

THE PAGAN GODS AND GODDESSES 



The Worship of the Dead 



GHAFTEB I 

nrTRODUCflOBT— VHX DILUQX 

There are some modem writexs who have represented the various 
religioos sQperstitioiis and idolatries of different nations as being the 
spontaneooB invention of eaeh raoe» and the natural and anil orm 
outcome of human nature in a state of barbarism. This is not the 
case ; the theory is wholly opposed to the conclusions of those who 
have most fully studied the subject The works of Faber, Sir W. 
JoneSi Pococke, Hislop, Sir O. Wilkinson, Bawlinscm and others 
have indisputably proved the connection and identity of the 
religious systems of nations most remote from each other, showing 
that, not merely Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Greeks and 
Romans, but also the Hindus, the Buddhists of China and of Thibet, 
the Goths, Anglo-Saxons, Druids, Mexicans and Peruvians, the 
Aborigines of Australia, and even the savages of the South Sea 
Islands,' must have all derived their religious ideas from a common 
source and a common centre. Everywhere we find the most startling 
coincidences in rites, ceremonies, customs, traditions, and in the 
names and relations of their respective gods and goddesses. 

There is no more convincing evidence of this fact than the common 
tradition in all these nations of the Deluge, as collected by Mr Faber, 
and more lately by the additional traditions of the Mandan and other 
North American Indians, in Mr Catlin's interesting work on those 

' Mr Lang quotes Sir Stamford Baffles and Marsden as stating that there was 
one original language common to the South Sea Islands and to Sumatra, New 
Guinea, Madagascar and the Philippines. He says that the language of the 
Polynesians has also a remarkable resemblance to that of the Chinese, and that 
their religious customs are similar to those of the Mexicans, Peruvians, Phoenicians 
and Egyptians, the name even of their Sun god being ^^Ra," as in Peru and 
'Egypt (Lang's PoljfnetM, pp. 19, 20, 41-44. See also Taylor's New Zealand and 
GUI's Mythi of the South Pacific) 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



tribes,' showing that, with the exception of the Negro races, there 
is hardly a nation or tribe in the world which does not possess a 
tradition of the destruction of the human race by a flood ; and the 
details of these traditions are too exactly in accordance with each 
other to permit the suggestion, which some have made, that they 
refer to different local floods in each case. Now Mr Faber has 
exhaustively shown in his three folio volumes that the mythologies 
of all the ancient nations are interwoven with the events of the 
Deluge and are explained by it, thereby proving that they are all 
based on a common principle, and must have been derived from a 
common source. 

The force of this argument is illustrated by the fact of the 
observance of a great festival of the dead in conmiemoration of the 
event, not only by nations more or less in communication with each 
other, but by others widely separated, both by the ocean and by 
centuries of time. This festival is, moreover, held by all on or about 
the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge 
took place, viz., the 8et)e7Ueenth day of the second month — the month 
nearly corresponding with our November. 

The Jewish civil year commenced at the autumnal equinox, or 
about September 20th, and the seventeenth day of the second month 
would therefore correspond with the fifth day of our month of 
November ; but as the festival was originally, as in Egypt, preceded 
by three days' mourning, it appears to have been put back three 
days in countries where one day's festival only was observed, and to 
have been more generally kept on November 2nd. 

Mr Haliburton says: — *'The festival of the dead, or feast of 
ancestors, is now, or was, formerly observed at or near the 
beginning of November by the Peruvians, the Hindus, the Pacific 
Islanders, the people of the Tonga Islands, the Australians, the 
ancient Persians, the ancient Egyptians and the northern nations 
of Europe, and continued for three days among the Japanese, the 
Hindus, the Australians, the ancient Romans and the ancient 
Egyptiana 

" Wherever the Roman Catholic Church exists, solemn Mass for 
All SouU is said on the 2nd November, and on that day the gay 
Parisians, exchanging the boulevard for the cemetery, lunch at the 
graves of their relatives and hold unconsciously their 'feast of 

' Faber, Pagan Idolatry^ book ill. chap. vi. vol. ii. ; Catlin, North American 
Indians. A general summary of these traditions has also been collected hy Sir 
H. H. Howorth in his work. The Mammoth and the Flood. 



I NT ROD UCTOR Y— THE DEL UGE 5 



mnoestors ' on the very same day that savages in far-distant quarters 
of the globe observe, in a similar manner, their festival of the dead. 
Even the Church of England, which rejects All Souls as based on a 
belief in purgatory and as being a creation of Popery, clings devoutly 
to All Saints." ' Again, with reference to the Peruvian festival of the 
dead, Mr Haliburton writes : — *' The month in which it occurs, says 
Rivers, is called *Aya Marca,' from ^ Aya* a 'corpse,' and ^ Marca* 
' carrying in arms/ because they celebrated the solemn festival of the 
dead with tears, lugubrious songs and plaintive music, and it was 
customary to visit the tombs of relations, and to leave in them food 
and drink. It is worthy of remark that this feast was celebrated 
among the ancient Peruvians at the same period and on the same 
day that Christians solemnise their commemoration of the dead 
—2nd November." ' 

Again, speaking of the festival of sericulture and death in Persia, 
Mr EEaliburton says, " The month of November was formerly called in 
Persia ' the month of the angel of death.' In spite of the calendar 
having been changed, the festival took place at the same time as in 
Pern;" and he adds that a similar festival of agriculture and death, 
in the beginning of November, takes place in Ceylon.^ A like 
ceremony was held in November among the people of the Tonga 
Islands, with prayers for their deceased relatives. 4 

The Egyptians began their year at the same time as the Jews, and 
cm the seventeenth day of their second month commenced their solemn 
mourning for Osiris, the Lord of Tombs,^ who was fabled to have been 
shut up in the deep for one year like Noah, and whose supposed 
resurrection and reappearance was celebrated with rejoicing.^ The 
death of the god was the great event in Paganism, as we shall 
explain later, and all the religious rites were made to centre 
round it. 

In Mexico " the festival of the dead was held on the 17th Novem- 
ber, and was regulated by the Pleiades. It began at sunset, and at 
midnight, as that constellation approached the zenith, a human victim, 
says Prescott, was offered up to avert the dread calamity which they 
believed impended over the human race. They had a tradition that, 
at that time, the world had been premoualy destroyed^ and they 

• "The Year of the Pleiades," by R. G. Haliburton ;— from Life and Work at the 
Ortai Pyramidy by Piazzi Smith, vol. ii. pp. 372-73. 

« Ibid,, p. 388. ' Ibid,, p. 390 

« Ibid,, p. 387. * Ibid., pp. 382-391. 

* Hiiilop, Two Babylon*, p. 136; Plutarch, De Ittide et On'ride, vol. ii. p. 336. D. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



dreaded that a similar catastrophe at the end of a cycle would anni- 
hilate the human race." ' 

In Rome the festival of the dead, or '' Feralia," called '' Dii Manes," 
or ''the day of the spirits of the dead," commenced on February 17th, 
the second month of their year. In more ancient times, the " festival 
of the spirits," believed to be the souls of deceased friends, was called 
'* Lemuria," and was held on May 11th. This also was the seventeenth 
day of the second month of the year at that time ; for the old Latin 
year commenced April 1st, which month consisted of thirty-six days, 
so that May 11th was exactly the seventeenth day of the second month.' 

A feast called the " Anthesteria " was also celebrated at Athens on 
February llth-13th, in honour of Bacchus, who was identical with the 
Egyptian Osiris, and there can be little doubt that it referred to the 
same event, the time being transferred to the second month of their 
year. 

A similar variation in the period of the festival occurred some- 
times in more modem times, but by far the most general period among 
the majority of nations is the beginning of November. 

Mr Haliburton has some interesting arguments to prove that the 
festival in many nations was fixed by the first rising of the Pleiades 
above the horizon. There are certainly strong grounds for connecting 
the two events, and the very name Pleiades, from Fleo^ "to sail," 
and the belief that their rising marked the best time to start on a 
voyage? is suggestive of the event to which the feast referred. 

But the Pleiades, as their other name, "Vergilise," implies, are 
spring stars in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas the Deluge com- 
menced in the autumn ; nor does it appear that the festival of the 
dead, among the nations of the Northern Hemisphere, was ever con- 
nected with the rising of the Pleiades. If their festival was in any 
way regulated by them, it must have been by their aetti/ng. Never- 
theless there was another event in the Mosaic account of nearly equal 
importance, which would be exactly marked by the rising of the 
Pleiades in the Northern Hemisphere, namely, the seventeenth day of 
the seventh month, when the ark rested on Mount Ararat. This also, 
being the commencement of the summer, would be the best time for 
starting on a voyage. 

In the Southern Hemisphere, where the seasons are the reverse of 
ours, Mr Hull, speaking of the Australian Aborigines, says, " Their 

' Haliburton, from Life and Work^ vol. iL p. 390. 
' IhicL^ p. 396, and Hales, Chrovuilogyy vol. L p. 44. 
^ Lempri^re, Pleiades. 



INTRODUCTORY— THE DELUGE 



grand corroborees are held only in the spring (oar autumn), when the 
Pleiades are generally most distinct, and their corroboree is a worship 
of the constellation which announces spring." Mr Fyers says that 
^ ihey dance and sing to gain the favour of the Pleiades (Mormodellick), 
the constellation worshipped by one body as ihe giver of rain" Mr 
Haliburton adds, *' Now the Pleiades are most distinct in the spring 
month of November, when they appear at the horizon in the evening 
and are visible all night." He further says, "We are told by one 
gentleman examined by the Committee, that all the corroborees of the 
natives are associated with a worship of the dead and last three 
daya"« 

The Society Islanders also held a festival of the dead, and a first- 
fruits celebration in the month of November, connected with the 
rising of the Pleiades, called by them " Matarii i nia," or " The Pleiades 
above," which marked the commencement of their year, or rather the 
first season of their year, the second being called " Matarii i raro," " The 
Pleiades below." This festival of the dead and of the first-fruits is 
evidently that referred to by Ellis as taking place " at the ripening, 
or completing of the year." He says, " The ceremony was viewed as 
a national acknowledgment to the gods. When the prayers were 
ended, a usage prevailed resembling much the Popish custom of Mass 
for souls in purgatory. Elach one returned to his home or family 
Marae^ there to offer special prayers for the spirits of departed 
relativea" * 

It is clear from these remarks that one or other of the two great 
events in the history of the Deluge, namely, the commencement of 
the waters and the beginning of their subsidence, were observed 
throughout the ancient world, some nations observing one event and 
some the other. It would also appear probable that the observance 
of this festival was intimately connected with, and perhaps initiated, 
that worship of the dead which, as we shall see, was the central 
principle of the ancient idolatry. So also the uniform character of 
the festival, the three days' mourning which preceded it, and the 
identical day on which it was held by nations separated from each 
other by periods of probably several thousand years, are evidences of 
the unity of the religious system from which it emanated. It shows 
also that nations like the Aborigines of Australia, the South Sea 
Islanders and others, now sunk in barbarism, were probably off-shoots 
from one or other of the highly-civilised nations of antiquity. 

Finally, the observance of this festival at, or about, the seventeenth 

' Hahborton, from Life and Work, pp. 3S4-3S6. ' Ibid., pp 3S6-387. 



8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

day of the second month of the recognised year in exact accordance with 
the Mosaic account, by almost every race and nation of the earth, in 
commemoration of a world-wide cataclysm in which a few survivors 
saw all their friends and relations swept away by a mighty flood of 
waters, is overpowering evidence of the reality of the Flood and of 
the truth of the Bible ; although for that very reason, in accordance 
with the spirit of the present day, modem criticism and modem science 
have done what they can to discredit it. 

The point,; however, which we have to consider at present is this : 
that the similar religious rites and beliefs of different nations so 
widely separated from each other, in all of which the tradition of the 
Deluge is so deeply interwoven, could not have been the separate 
invention of each race. Speaking of all the various systems of Pagan 
idolatry which he examines, Mr Faber writes: — ^** There is such a 
minute and regular accordance between them, not only in what is 
obvious and natural, but also in what is arbitrary and circumstantial, 
both in fanciful speculation and in artificial observance, that no 
person who takes the pains of thoroughly investigating the subject 
can avoid being fully persuaded that they must have all sprung from 
some common origin/' ' This is also confirmed by Scripture, which 
likens the effect of the idolatry to drunkenness, and states : — " Babylon 
hath been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord to make all the earth 
drunken. The nations have drunken of her wine, therefore are the 
nations mad" (Jeremiah li. 7). It is further confirmed by the 
researches of modem writers who uniformly regard Babylon and 
Assyria as the cradle of the ancient Paganism, Egypt receiving her 
religion from Chaldea, Greece from Egypt and Phoenicia, and Rome, 
partly from the Etruscans, an Asiatic colony from the same original 
centre, and partly in later ages from Greece. 

Egypt, as will be shown later on, was one of the first countries 
conquered by Nimrod, the founder of the Babylonian Empire. 
Speaking of the sciences of arithmetic and astronomy, Zonares 
writes : — " It is said that these came from the Chaldees to the 
Egyptians and thence to the Greeks," * and as the astronomy of the 
Chaldees was inseparable from their religion, and the very names 
they gave to the stars were the names of their gods, these facts imply 
that the religion of Egypt and Greece came from the same source. 

This is also the conclusion of Bunsen and Layard. Bunsen 
concludes that "the religious system of Egypt was derived from 
Asia and the primitive Empire in Babel." Layard also says, "Of 

' Origin of Pagan Idolatry^ vol. i. p. 69. ' Zonares, lib. i. vi. p. 34. 



INTR OD UCTOR Y— THE DEL UGE 



the great antiquity of this primitive worship, there is abundant 
evidence, and that it originated among the inhabitants of the 
Assyrian plains we have the united testimony of sacred and profane 
historians. It obtained the epithet of ' Perfect/ and was believed to 
be the most ancient of religious systems, having preceded that of 
Egypt. The identity of many of the Assyrian doctrines with those 
of Egypt is alluded to by Porphyry and Clemena" * 

Birch also on the Babylonian inscriptions writes : — " The Zodiacal 
signs show unequivocally that the Greeks derived their notions and 
arrangements of the Zodiac, and consequently their mythology, which 
was intertwined with it, from the Chaldees." ^ Ouwaroff, in his work 
on the Eleusinian mysteries, says that "the Egyptians claimed the 
honour of having transmitted to the Qreeks the first elements of 
Polytheism," and concludes his inquiry in the following words: — 
"These positive facts would sufficiently prove, even without con- 
formity of idea, that the mysteries, transplanted into Greece, and 
there united with a certain number of local notions, never lost the 
character of their origin, derived from the cradle of the moral and 
religious ideas of the universe. All these separate facts, all these 
scattered testimonies, recur to that fruitful principle which places in 
the East the centre of science and civilisation.'* ^ 

Herodotus also states that the names of almost all the gods came 
from Egypt to Greece. ^ 

Much of the religion of Greece was introduced by Cadmus the 
PhoRnician, who, it is said, taught the Greeks the worship of Phoe- 
nician and Egyptian gods and the use of letters,^ and according 
to Macrobius the Phoenicians derived the principal features of their 
religion from the Assyrians.^ The fact also that Cadmus built Thebes 
in Boeotia, calling it after the Egyptian city of that name, 
which was the chief centre of Egyptian idolatry, and especially en- 
titled Diospolis (the city of the gods), shows that his religion was 
also obtained from Egypt. Manetho, the Egyptian historian, also 
speaks of colonies which migrated from Egypt to Greece, and which 
would naturally bring their religion with them.^ 



• Bunsen's Egypt^ vol. i. p. 444 ; Layard's Nineceh and Its Remains, vol. ii. 
p. 440. 

' Layard's Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 439, 440. 

' OuwaroiF's Eleusinian Mi/sieries, sect. ii. p. 20. 

^ Herodotus, ii. 50. 

^ See Lempriere, Cadmvs. 

'• Macrobius, Stttumalia, lib. i. cap. xxi. p. 79. 

' See Manetho's Ih/nasties ; Cory's Fragments, 



lo THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Professor Rawlinson remarks : — " The striking resemblance of the 
Chaldean system to that of the Classical Mythology seems worthy of 
particular attention. The resemblance is too general and too close in 
some respects to allow of the supposition that mere accident has 
produced the resemblance. In the Pantheons of Greece and Rome and 
in that of Chaldea the same general grouping is to be recognised ; the 
same genealogical succession is not unfrequently to be traced ; and in 
some cases even the familiar names and titles of classical divinities 
admit of the most curious illustration and explanation from Chaldean 
sources. We can scarcely doubt but that, in some way or other, there 
was a communication of beliefs, — a passage in very early times from 
the shores of the Persian Qulf to lands washed by the Mediterranean^ 
of mythological notions and ideas." ' 

The religion of Rome, although in later times partly borrowed 
from Greece, was primarily obtained from the Etruscans, to whom 
their patrician youth was sent for instruction, and whose coins and 
monumental remains intimately connect them with both Chaldea and 
Egypt.* Colonel Conder, R.E., quotes Dr Isaac Taylor {Etruscan 
Researches and Etruscan Language) as showing that the Etruscan 
language was remarkably similar to the ancient Chaldean or Accadian. 
" Tarkon," or " Tarquon," the name of the first great Etruscan 
king and hero, which is repeated in "Tarquin," king of Rome, is 
frequently found both in the ancient Hittite language and in Turkish, 
signifying "a chief," and both these languages are intimately 
allied to the ancient Chaldean.^ 

This seems to indicate that the Etrurians were an ancient colony 
from Chaldea. In short, long before the foundation of Rome, Virgil 
represents his hero Mneas as finding on the site of that city, on 
either side of the Tiber, the ruins of two cities, called Satumia and 
Janicula, or the cities of Saturn and Janus, two names of the deity 
known as the "father of the gods," and Saturn was certainly of 
Chaldean origin.^ This shows that the ancient Paganism was 
established at a very early date in Italy, and in confirmation of this, 
there is the fact that Italy in most ancient times was called '' the 
Satumian Land," or Land of Saturn.^ 

The above constituted the principal civilised nations of ancient 

' Rawlinson's Five Oreat Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern Worlds vol L 

chap. vii. pp. 111> 112. 

* See Mrs Hamilton Grey's Etruria, 
J The First Bible, p. 72., and note 7 p. 207. 
4 ufih«a, lib. viii. lines 467, 470, vol. iii. p. 608. 
i Lempri^re, Satumia. 



■^' ■^'^*^^;¥r|^T"i=T 






rrORY^TJffS DELUGE ti 



Fuganinii, and we shall aee, in the ooorae of oar i&quixy thai the 
id^^bui of other Biore xemote natioiiay siieh aa the Hindos, the nataona 
of Bastem Aoa^ the andent Gtonnana, Celts, and tiie Mezieana and 
Peravians of Ameriea, are intiniately related to the religion of 
Bahjrlon, "Sg^i, Qxeece and Borne, and must have originally heen 
derived from tiie same aonroa 

Babylon haying heen the oentre from which the ancient F^kganiam 
Qt^riiiated, the names, in other countries, of many of the gods, and 
of terms eonneetod with religion, must have had a similar origin, and 
the meaning and etymology of these names and terms ought nol^ 
therefore, to be soii|^t from the language of those countries, but from 
that of Babylonia and Assyria, viz^ either the Semitic Assyrian or 
the andent Qialdean.' This is the more important, because the moat 
ancient language of Babylonia, viz., that of the Sumerians or 
Aeeadiana^ tiie founders of the dty of Accad, was r^^arded as the 
aaersd language. It was carefully preserved, and used for their 
incantations and magical sorceries by the Assyrians, and the sanctity 
tlina aitadied to it would naturally lead those nations who received 
their* religion frcmi Babjpionia and Assyria to preserve tiie namea of 
many of the gods when adopted by them. 

Moreover, the invention of letters and writing is universally 
atfadboted to the Bal^lonians and Egyptians, and as it was simul- 
taneous with the origin of their religion, the latter would necessarily 
exercise considerable influence on their language. Hence, instead of 
explaining the names of gods by the meaning of words in common 
use, it is probable that, in many cases, the words originated from 
some particular attribute of one or other of the gods. This is the case 
even with modem English, in which the word '' vulcanise '' is derived 
from the supposed characteristics of the god Vulcan, and this may 
have been much more commonly the case with the ancients. 

' The language known in later times as Chaldean was an Arameean or Semitic 
dialect, and distinct from the ancient Chaldean or Accadian. See Hawlinson's 
Five ChrecU Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 44, 45. 



CHAPTER II 

THE GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 

In coDsidering the origin and nature of the ancient Paganism, the 
first point to be determined is what, and who, were the gods wor- 
shipped. This point, indeed, is the key to the whole subject, and has 
been fully examined by the authors referred to in the last chapter. 
But their learned works are too voluminous and tedious for perusal 
by the general reader, and it is important therefore to present a con- 
densed summary of their researches. Limits of spcu^ prevent more 
than a brief reference to their explanations and conclusions, especially 
in the case of the etymologies of words and names, for a fuller 
explanation of which the reader is referred to the authorities quoted. 
The subject in itself is an abstruse one, but its discussion is necessary 
for the proper understanding of the conclusions based on it, whicfh are 
of no little historic and religious interest. 

Our sources of information respecting the ancient Paganism are 
the mythological traditions of Phoenicia, Greece and Rome, the notices 
of ancient historians, and the researches of modem archaoologists 
among the monumental remains of Assjnria, Egypt, etc. 

It is of importance to notice first, that all the various gods and 
goddesses of the ancients, though known by many names and 
difierent characteristics, can yet all be resolved into one or other of 
the persons of a Trinity composed of a father, mother and son ; and 
that this fact was well known to the initiated. It should also be 
observed that the father and the son constantly melt into one ; the 
reason being that there was also a fabled incarnation of the son, who, 
although identified with him, was yet said to be his own son by the 
goddess mother. Hence being the father of this supposed incarna- 
tion of himself, he was naturally sometimes confused with the original 
father of the gods, the result of which was that both father and son 
were sometimes called by the same name. 

It has been concluded by those who have studied the subject that 

the gods best known among the ancient Qreeks, Romans, Egyptians 

12 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 13 

aad Babylonians, mxh as Granns, Satnm, Bel, O, Thoth, Hermes, 
Bacohqs, Meronry, Osiris, Dionyrias, Thammns, Apollo, Hbms, Mars, 
Hercules and Jnpiter, are all one and the same god, eaeh being the 
separate deification of him under different aspects and attribates; and 
lb Faber quotes tiie statement of a multitude of andent Fsgan and 
mythological writers to this effect, vis., " that all the gods are ulti- 
mately one and the same person.'*' Bat a close examination shows 
that tiiough father and son are, as explained, constantly confused with 
each other, yet they may be generally recognised as two distinct 
persons, related to each other as father and son, as sage and con« 
queror, and as counsellor and great king ; while some, as Apollo and 
Horus, are more distinctively the titles of the supposed incarnation 
of the son. 

The great goddess, however, is always one, and for this reason was 
called ** Dea Jfyrionymtw ** — ^'^ the goddess with ten thousand namea*** 

The names of the gods varied also in some degree according to the 
various languages of the nations, as well as according to the particular 
attribute under which the god was recognised; and the poetry of 
Qreece still further multiplied and gave personality to each of Uiese 
attributea Nevertheless, the initiated were well acquainted with the 
fact thi^ all the different gods or goddesses were but different mani- 
festations of tiie same god and goddess, or of their son. 

The question is, however — What was the origin of the Pagan 
gods? 

It has been argued by some, that the great gods of the heathen 
were simply the powers of nature and the son, moon and stars 
deified. This is so far correct. Sun worship and nature worship 
constituted the essence of the Pagan system ; but there is, nevertheless, 
the strongest evidence to show that the first originals of the Pagan 
gods were men who after death were deified ; that this was the real 
foundation of the Pagan system ; and that these spirits of the dead, 
according to their difierent attributes, were subsequently identified 
with the sun, moon and stars, etc., which were regarded as their 
habitations, and which received their distinctive names from them. 

The evidence of the Pagan writers on the subject is conclusive. 

Hesiod, who was the contemporary of Homer, says that " the gods 
were ike sovl$ of nfien who were afterwards worshipped by their 
posterity, on account of their extraordinary virtuea" 3 

' Faber, Origin of Pagim Idolatry^ yol. iL bk. iv. chap. i. 

' WiDdnaon's EgypUa/M, vol. iy. p. 179. 

' Hesiod, Opera €t Diesj lib. i. yerses 120-186. 



14 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

The writer who adopts the name of " Hermes Trism^;istus " asserts 
that '' iSsculapius, Osiris and Thoth were all hxHy men^ whose souls 
were worshipped after their death by the Egyptians." ' 

Plutarch states that the Egyptian priests expressly taught " that 
Cronus, Osiris, Horus, and all their other principal deities were once 
viere men, but that after they died their souls migrated into some 
one or other of the heavenly bodies, and became the animating spirits 
of their new celestial mansions." ' 

Similarly, it is said by Sanchoniathon, that U, or Cronus, was once 
a mem, that he was deified by the Phoenicians after his death, and 
that his soul was believed to have passed into the planet which bears 
his name,3 viz., Saturn, who was the same as Cronus. 

Diodorus Siculus says that ''Osiris, Vulcan, and other cognate 
deities were all originally aovereigna of the people by whom they were 
venerated." ^ 

Cicero employs the same argument to the person with whom he is 
disputing : — " What, is not almost all heaven, not to carry on this 
detail any further, filled with the human race ? But if I should 
search and examine antiquity, and go to the bottom of this affair 
from the things which the Greek writers have delivered, it would be 
found that even those very gods themselves, who are deemed Dii 
Majora/m Gentium (the greater gods) had their originals here below, 
and ascended from hence into heaven. Inquire to whom those 
sepulchres belong which are so commonly shown in Greece. Re- 
member, for you are initiated, what you have been taught in the 
mysteries." ^ 

Cicero also quotes Euhemeros, who lived about three centuries 
B.C., as testifying to the same thing : — " What think you," he says, 
" of those who assert that valiant and powerful men have obtained 
divine honours after death, and that these a/re the very gods now 
become the object of ov/r adoration ? Euhemeros tells us when these 
gods died, and where they were buried." ^ 

The testimony of Euhemeros, like every other ancient testimony 
which tends to bring into contempt, or cast discredit upon, the Pagan 
system, has been held up to scorn by certain modem writers, more 

> Herm. Apud. Mede's Apost, of LoUer Times, pt. L chap. iy. 
* Plutarch, De Inde, p. 354. 

3 Euseb., Frcep, Evan,, lib. i. chap. x. 

4 Diodorus, BibL, lib. L pp. 13, 14, 16. 

s Cicero, Tiuc, Disp., lib. L chaps. ziL, xiii. 
^ De Nat. Deor,, lib. i. chap. xlii. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 15 

especially, for obyioas reasons, by those with Roman Catholic 
proclivities, and '' Enhemerising " is used by them as a term of 
contempt for those who support the human origin of the Pagan gods. 
Had Enhemeros been the only authority for that origin, there would 
have been some reason for questioning it, but his testimony is 
supported by that of every other Pagan writer who has referred to 
the matter, and his statements must therefore be regarded as a 
valuable and unquestionable expression and explanation of the 
general belief and opinion of those who were best acquainted with 
the subject. 

Alexander the Qreat also wrote to his mother that, '' Even the 
higher gods, Jupiter, Juno and Saturn and the other gods, were men, 
and that the secret was told him by Leo, the high priest of Egyptian 
sacred things," and required that the letter should be burnt after it 
had been revealed to her.' 

Eusebius says that, ''The gods first worshipped are the same 
persona, men and women, even to his time received and worshipped 
as gods."^ In short, the Christian apologists in their arguments 
with the Pagans taunted the latter with worshipping gods who were 
only dd/ied men, showing that the fact was generally admitted by 
the Pagana^ 

This is equally admitted by the Hindus of their gods,^ as, for 
instance, of their Menu, or Vishnu, who is regarded as having two 
aspects, the one as Vishnu in his character of the sun, the other as 
Menu Satyavrata, a human being.^ The supreme god of the 
southern Buddhists is likewise recognised to have been a man born 
about five centuries B.c. 

Hence the sun, moon and stars were regarded as " wise and 
intelligent beings, actuated by a divine spirit " ; and Posidonius 
represents the stars " as parts of Jupiter, or the sun, and that they 
were all living creatures with rational souls." ^ 

Maimonedes also declares that '' The stars and spheres are every 
one of them animated beings, endued with life, knowledge and under- 
standing." 7 

' Augustine, De Civ. Dei, chap. v. 

* Euseb., p. 31, from Bp. Cumberland's Hist, of Sanclioniathon^ pp. 8, 9. 

3 Clem. Alex. Cohort., p. 29 ; Arnob., Adv. Gent.,\\h. vi. ; Jul. Firm., De Error, 
prof, rd., pp. 4, 13 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 224, 226. 

* Moor's Hind. FantL, p. 14 ; Asiatic JUsearches, vii. pp. 34, 36 ; viii. p. 352. 
5 Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 479/ Faber, vol. ii., p. 228. 

«" Zen. apud Stob ; Posid. apud Stob ; Augustine, De Civ. Dei, lib. iv. chap. xi. 
' Jesvde Hattorah, chap. iii. p. 9. Apud Ciidw. Intell. Syst., p. 471. 



i6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

The Platonists held that all the superior gods were aspects or 
manifestations of the sun, and that the inferior gods were deified 
heroes who dwelt in the stars.' Thus Ovid, speaking of the death of 
the great warrior and hunter Orion, says, "He was added to the 
ata/ra" — that is to say, he was identified with that particular con- 
stellation which now bears his name.' 

It is thus abundantly evident that, although the gods of the 
ancients were identified with the sun, moon and stars, they were also 
supposed to be the spirits of dead heroes and ancestors who inhabited 
those planets ; that this was especially revealed to those who were 
initiated into the mysteries, and that it was the primary foundation 
of the Pagan system. The evidence of this will be seen to accumulate 
as we proceed. 

Diodorus Siculus, the Pc^an historian, who flourished about 44 
R.C., and who took especial care in collecting and recording the 
traditions of Pagan mythology, says, "Osiris (the principal god of 
the Egyptians) having married Isis, in many ways promoted the good 
of that kingdom (Egypt), but especially by building the chief city 
thereof, called by the Greeks Diospolis (Thebes), but called by the 
Jews * Hamon No,' and erected a temple to his parent, whom the 
Greeks call Zeus and Hera, but the Egyptians Ammon, and the Jews 
Hamon and Ham." ^ Ham, or Ammon, was the principal Sun god of 
the Egyptians, and was worshipped under the name of Jupiter 
Ammon. This fact is a clear proof that Ham was the human 
original of the Sun god of Egypt, although in later times Osiris held 
that position. It also shows that the Egyptian god Osiris was a son, 
or grandson, of Ham, and that the gods of the ancients were there- 
fore the immediate descendants of the patriarch Noah. When, 
therefore, these gods had been identified with the Sun, the Egyptian 
kings who could claim descent from them took the title of " Sons of 
the Sun," which, without such claim, would have been absurd and 
unmeaning. 

Cedrenus gives an account of the manner in which the worship of 
ancestors arose in other nations : — " Of the tribe of Japhet was bom 
Seruch, who first introduced Hellenism and the worship of idols. 
For he and those who concurred with him in opinion, honoured their 
predecessors, whether warriors, or leaders, or characters renowned 
during their lives for valour or virtue, with columnar statues, as if 

' Plot. Ennead.t ii. lib. ix. 

' Ovid, Fasti, lib. v. lines 640-544. 

^ Quoted by Cumberland, Hist, of Sanchonvathon^ p. 99. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 17 

they had been their progenitors, and tendered them a species of 
religious veneration as a kind of gods, and sacrificed. But after this 
their successors, overstepping the intention of their ancestors, that 
they should honour them as their progenitors and inventors of good 
things with monuments only, honoured them as heavenly gods, and 
sacrificed to them as such." ' 

EpiphaniuR, a Christian bishop of the fourth century, who trans- 
lated the Greek histories of Socrates, Sozomon and Theodoret, testifies 
to the same origin of idolatry among the Greeks, and he adds : — 
'* The Egyptians, Babylonians, Phrygians and Phoenicians were the 
first propagators of this superstition of making images and of the 
mysteries, from whom it was transferred to the Greeks from the time 
of Cecrops downwards. But it was not until after (their death), and 
at a considerable interval, that Cronus, Khea, Zeus, and Apollo, and 
the rest, were esteemed and honoured as gods." ' 

Eupolemus, quoted by Eusebius, writes : — " For the Babylonians 
say that the first was Belus, who is the same as Cronus (the father 
of the gods among the Greeks), and from him descended a second 
Belus, and Chanaan, and this Chanaan was the father of the 
Phoenicians " (Phoenicia being the name given to the land of Chanaan 
by the ancients). He adds : — " Another of his sons was Chum, the 
father of the ^Ethiopians and brother of Mistraim, the father of the 
Egyptians." 3 Chum, the father of the -Ethiopians, is clearly Cush, 
" Cushite " and " -Ethiopian " being synonymous. Belus, or Cronus, 
the father of Canaan and Cush, is therefore Ham, but Belus is more 
usually identified with his son Cush. For, owing to the tendency, 
before alluded to, of the father of the gods and his son to blend into 
each other. Ham sometimes took the place of Cush. Ham appears to 
have been worshipped in Egypt only. 

The most ancient portion of the Sibylline Oracles, the authority 
of which as an historical record was appealed to by both the Pagans 
and early Christian apologists in their controversies,'^ speak of 
Cronus, Japetus and Titan as the three sons of the patriarch Noah.s 
Here, again, Cronus is Ham, and as Japetus is Japhet, Titan is clearly 
Shem, and all were regarded as gods. 

Similiarly, in the Hindu mythology, " Sama," ** Chama " and " Pra 

* Cedrenus, from Cory's Fragments, p. 66. 
'Cory, pp. 54, 55. 
Euseb., PrcFp. Evan., lib. ix. ; Cory, p. 68. 

4 See article in Quarterly Remew, 1877, od the age and authority of this portion 
of the Sibylline Oracle. 

5 Cory, p. 52. 

B 



i8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Japeti " are said to be bom of Menu, and to be the haman names of 
the gods " Vishnu," " Siva " and " Brahma." * " Pra Japeti " means " the 
Lord Japhet/' and the final '' a " in Sama and Chama being quiescent, 
it is clear that Chama is only a form of Cham or Ehem, the Egyptian 
name of Ham, and that Sama is Sem, the Greek form of Shem. 

Greek mythology also speaks of Cronus, Japetus and Typhon 
as the principal sons of Ouranos, or Coelus, who must therefore 
be Noah ; and Euhemeros, quoted by Eusebius, states that in 
his travels he visited the Island of Panchrea, where '' there was a 
temple of Zeus (Jupiter), founded by him when he ruled over the 
habitable world, while he was yet a resident among men" In the 
temple stood a golden column, on which was a regular history of 
the actions of Ouranos, Cronos and Zeus. He relates that *' the first 
king (of the world) was Ouranos, a man renowned for justice and 
benevolence, and well conversant with the motion of the stars," and 
that " he was the first who honov/red the heavenly gods with sacrifices^ 
(a probable allusion to the statement in Gen. viii. 20), on which 
account he was called Ouranos " (Heaven). He represents Cronos 
as the son of Ouranos and father of Zeus, and says that the latter 
went to Babylon, " where he was hospitably received by Belus, and 
afterwards passed over to Panchea, where he erected an altar to 
Ouranos, his forefather. From thence he went into Syria to Cassino. 
Passing from thence into Cilicia he conquered Cilix, and having 
travelled through many nations, he was honoured by all and univer- 
sally fiwknowledged as god." * 

The objection made by modem writers to the human origin of 
the Pagan gods has no valid support. The only reason for this objection 
is that, if these gods were sun and nature gods, they could not be 
men. But it is not a question of what they could, or could not, be, 
but what they were believed to be. The Pagans believed many 
absurdities, and the consentient testimony of Pagan writers, and of 
those who lived when the Pagan system was still in existence, and had 
every means of ascertaining its nature and characteristics, is that the 
gods were believed to be men who had lived upon the earth, and who, 
after death, were supposed to inhabit the sun, moon and other planets, 
and to be their animating spirits. In all ages mankind have shown a 
tendency to worship their dead relatives, or pious and celebrated 
men, as is the case in Romanism and Spiritualism at the present day ; 

' Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. p. 255 ; Moor's ffind, ParUh, p. 173. 
' £u8eb., Prtpp. Evan., ii., as quoted from Diodorus Siculus, Ed,, p. 681 ; CJory*i 
Fragments, by Hodges, pp. 172-174. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 19 



and this was equally characteristic of the ages succeeding the 
Deluge. 

Professor Rawlinson remarks that, though in one aispect the 
religioo of ancient Chaldea was astral, or the worship of the sun, 
moon and stars, " it is but one aspect of the mythology, not by any 
means its full and complete exposition. The ^ther, the Sun, the 
Moon, and, still more, the five planetary gods, are something above 
and beyond those parts of nature. They are real 'persons with a life 
and history, a power and an influence, which no ingenuity can 
translate into a metaphorical representation of phenomena attaching 
to the air and to the heavenly bodies. It is doubtful indeed whether 
the gods of this class are really of astronomical origin, and not rather 
primitive deities, whose characters and attributes were settled before 
the notion arose of connecting them with certain parts of natwre. 
They seem to represent heroes rather than celestial bodies, and they 
have all attributes quite distinct from their physical or astronomical 
efaaracter."' 

Both Scripture and profane historians agree in attributing the 
origin of the Pagan system to Babylon and Assyria, and there is 
the strongest evidence to prove that the first originals of the gods 
were the founders of the Babylonian or first great empire of the 
world, Cush and his son Nimrod. 

In short, BeLus, the chief god of the Assyrians and Babylonians, 
is represented in the dynasties of Borosus and others as ihQ first king 
of Babylon.' 

Castor says, " Belvs was the first king of the Assyrians, and after 
his death was worshipped as a god." ^ 

Megasthenes, quoted by Abydenus, records a speech of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, king of Babylon, in which he refers to Belus and Beltis, the 
god and goddess of Babylon, as "my ancestors,''^ In like manner 
the Elgyptian priest and historian Manetho, in the dedication of 
his History to Ptolemy, calls the Egyptian god Hermes ** our 
forefather."^ From this it is clear that both the Egyptians and 
the Babylonians held the belief that their gods were human beings 
from whom they were descended. 

Eupolemus also states, ** The Babylonians say that the first of 

' Bawlinson's Five Great Monarchies, voL i. chap. riL p. 111. 
■ Chaldean Dynasties, Cory's Fragments, pp. 70, 71. 
' Castor, Cory's Fragments, p. 65. 
< Cory's Jnragments, p. 44. 
3 Ilnd., p. 169. 



20 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

their kings was Belus/' ' showing that this was not a mere invention 
of the Greeks, but the belief of the Babylonians themselves. 

The classical writers in the centuries immediately preceding the 
Christian era speak of '' Cepheus, the son of BdxiSy* as the first king 
of the Ethiopians, or Cushites, and Cepheus, they say, was, after his 
death, placed among the stars — that is, worshipped as a god.' This 
shows that it was the general belief of the civilised world at that 
time that the father of the king of the Cushite race, who under 
Nimrod were the founders of the Babylonian empire, was the human 
original of the Babylonian god Belus, and that both he and his son 
were deified after deatL 

The inscriptions show that there were two god-kings of the name 
of Belus, the first of whom is called by Sir H. Rawlinson ''Bel 
Nimrod the lesser,'' and it was his son, the second Belus or Bel 
Nimrod, who was by far the most important person in the Baby- 
lonian worship, and who, as we shall see, is especially identified with 
Nimrod. This would make his father, the first Belus, to be Cush. 

Nimrod was the first king of the Babylonian empirey " the first 
who began to be mighty on earth," but it would appear that his 
father Cush had previously been the ringleader in the attempt to 
build the Tower of Babel, and was the first founder of the city, 
which was commenced at the same time,^ and is therefore recognised 
in the dynastic lists as the first king, under the name of Bel or 
Belus. 

In strict conformity with the Assyrian inscriptions, we have 
seen that Eupolemus says that Belus is the same as Cronus, the 
Greek name of Saturn,^ and that from him descended a second 
Belus.^ 

Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician, also states that Cronus begat a 
son called Cronus.^ 

In the monumental inscriptions the two Bels, or Belus's, are 
called, according to the reading of Sir Henry Rawlinson, "BH/u Nipru" 
and they are associated with a goddess called "Bilta Nvprvi^ Bil, Bilu, 
or Bel signify " The Lord," and Bilta " The Lady," while Niprut is 
suggested to be a variation of the name " Nimrod." " P " and " b " 
are interchangeable letters in ancient languages, and so also are " t " 

' Eupolemua, Cory, p. 58. 

' Smith's Class. Dict.y " Cepheus." See also Lempri^re, who refers to Pausanias, 
Apollodorus, Ovid, Cicero, etc. 

3 Genesis zi. 4-8. See tn/m, p. 32, on the part taken by Cush in the building of 
Babel. 

4 Lempridre, Ckromts. ^ Eupolemus, Cory, p. 58. ^ History ^ Corj, p. 13. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 21 

and " d,** and Niprut might therefore be read Nibmd, and having 
practically the same phonetic value, might be so spelt by foreigners ; 
while as there is much uncertainty regarding the vowels intended by 
the inscriptions, which would also vary in different dialects, Niprut, or 
Nibrad, might be regarded as the same name as Nebrod, the name of 
Nimrod among the Greeks, and the name by which he is called in the 
Septuagint version of the Old Testament' Bilu Nipru and Bilo 
Niprut would therefore be equivalent to The Lord and Lady Nebrod, 
or Nimrod, and both Sir Henry and Professor Bawlinson therefore 
speak of the former as " Bel Nimrod.'* ^ 

Sir H. Rawlinson remarks in confirmation of this that Babylon, 
which was the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, is called in the 
inscriptions '' The City of Bilu Nipru,'' and that this was the case as 
late as the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, although the latter rebuilt the 
dty. Bilu Nipru and Bilta Niprut are also called "The Lord and 
Lady of Nipur, or Niffer," and, according to an Arabian tradition 
before the time of Islam, when Arabia was a Cushite country,^ Niffer 
was the ancient Babylon, the seat of the Tower of Babel,^ and 
beginning of Nimrod's kingdom. 

Nimrod was also a mighty hunter, and Bilu Nipru and Bilu 
Niprut are " The Hunter and Huntress," and the latter is represented 
as presiding over, and the protector of hunters.^ 

But while this tends to identify Bilu Nipru with Nimrod, it 
would seem that the etymology of the names Nipru and Nimrod is 
different. ** Nimrod " is later Chaldean, and means "The subduer of the 
leopard," from nimr, " leopard," or " spotted one," and rady " to subdue," 
in commemoration of him as the first to use the hunting leopard, or 
cheetah, for the chase of deer, etc.^ On the other hand, " Nipru,'' which 
is the same as *' Nipru," called also ^^Nvpra'' the chief seat of his wor- 
ship, would seem to be derived from napar, " to pursue," and to be 
the name given to him as " god of the chase." ^ 

Much uncertainty exists with regard to the phonetic value of the 

' In Egjpt, where the Septuagint was translated, "m" and "b" were often 
convertible (Bunsen, vol. i. p. 449), and Nimrod would thus become Nibrod or 
Nebrod in Egypt, and the Greeks no doubt adopted the name from the Egyptians 
Hislop, p. 47, note. 

' Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. i. essay x. pp. 594, 596. 

^ See infra, chap, iv., on Arabia as the first home of the (!uahite race. 

■♦ Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i. pp. 596, 597. 

5 Ibid., p. 598. 

'' Hislop, p. 44, note. 

' Rawlinson's Five Oreat Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 117, 118. 



22 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

cuneiform inscriptions, and alternative re€idings of these names have 
been suggested, while the ancient Chaldean or Accadian equivalent of 
Bel or Bilu is " Mulge " or " Enge" But for the purpose of identifica- 
tion, it will be preferable to retain the name " Bel Nimrod " in the 
following remarks, as being that used by both Sir Henry and 
Professor Rawlinson. 

It is not likely, however, that Nimrod would have been deified 
under his own name, but under a name or names expressive of some 
divine attribute, that is to say, not as being himself the mighty 
hunter, or the subduer of the leopard for hunting, but as the god 
or protector of hunters. Hence, as the voice of antiquity testifies 
to the fact that the originals of the Pagan gods were human beings, 
and that the gods of ancient Babylon were the first monarchs of that 
empire, the identification of the gods with those monarchs must be 
expected rather from their attributes than their names. When, 
therefore, we see that the attributes and relationships of those gods 
agree with the characteristics of those monarchs, it is what we might 
expect, and it confirms the testimony of the ancient writers. 

We have referred to the fact that the various gods of Paganism 
represent merely the difierent deified characters or attributes of, at 
the most, two original gods. This is fully recognised by those who 
have studied the question, and it is especially the case with the 
Egyptian Pantheon as pointed out by Sir Gardner Wilkinson,' and 
Professor Rawlinson refers to the same feature in the gods of Babylon. 
In short, the Pagan goddess was called " Dea Myrionymvs,'*, " the 
goddess with ten thousand names," implying that they were all one 
and the same being, worshipped under many different aspecta 
Therefore, as every god had a goddess associated with him,' it 
follows that these gods must also be different aspects of one and the 
same original being. The conclusion is, however, so far modified by 
the fact that the goddess is the wife of one set of gods, and both wife 
and mother of the other. This was the case with the Babyloniskn 
goddess,^ and the latter incestuous union, which will be more fully 
referred to hereafter, is therefore one of the distinguishing marks 
between the two sets of gods. 

Of the two gods called Belus, or Bel Nimrod, the first is spoken 
of by Sir H. Rawlinson as " Bel Nimrod the lesser" and he is the father 
of the second or greater Bel Nimrod. This first Bel Nimrod is shown 
by Sir Henry Rawlinson to be the same as a god called " Hea" ^ and 

' See infraj p. 61. ' Rawlinson's Herod.y vol. i. p. 589. 

^Ibid,, vol. i. p. 625, 62r>. ^ Hnd,y pp. 599, 601. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 23 



Hea is also shown on the inscriptions to be the father of a god called 
•* Nin" or " Nin^p'' who is especially represented at Nipur to be the 
husband of Bilta Nipmt.' Now, as Bilta Niprut was the wife of Bel 
Nimrod, and they were the Lord and Lady of Nipur, this tends to 
identify Nin with Bel Nimrod, and as Nin was the son of the first 
Bel Nimrod, he most be the second Belus, or Bel Nimrod the greater, 
i.e.,Nimrod. Nin is the same name as the Ninua of the Greeks with 
the Hellenic termination, and in accordance with the above Castor 
says that Belus, the first king of the Assyrians, was succeeded by Ninus 
and Semiramis, and the latter queen would therefore correspond to 
Bilta Niprut^ Velleius Paterculus in his History also represents 
Ninas and Semiramis as the first rulers of the Babylonian empire, 
and they would therefore be Nimrod and his queen.^ 

The characteristics given to Nin on the Babylonian inscriptions 
tend to confirm this. He is called " Lord of the Brave," '' The 
Champion," "The Warrior who subdues Foes," "The Destroyer of 
Enemies," " The First, or Chief of the Gods," " The God of Battle," " He 
who tramples upon the wide world." ^ All this is strictly descriptive 
of him who " first began to be mighty upon the earth." 

He is also called " The Eldest Son," and, as we shall see hereafter, 
it was in his aspect as "The Son" that the second person of the 
Pagan Trinity was especially worshipped. This also is the meaning 
of his name. He was likewise called " Bar " ; and Nin, or Non, is the 
later Chaldee, and Bar the Semitic for "a son."^ So also, like 
Nimrod the mighty hunter, and " Bel Nimrod the greater," he is the 
god of the chase as well as the god of war,^ and he must be regarded, 
therefore, as another deified aspect of Nimrod. 

Nimrod, moreover, is said to have been a giant, and in the 
Septuagint he is called " Nimrod the Giant." So also Nin is the 
Assyrian Herculean and is represented as a giant hunter overcoming 
by sheer strength a lion and a bull {see woodcut). This Hercules is 
also identified by Barker with Dayyad the hunter.^ Hercules is 
identified with Belus by Cicero, who says that Hercules Belus is the 
most ancient Hercules.^ There can be little doubt, therefore, that 
Nin or Hercules is simply another aspect of the second Belus or Bel 
Nimrod the greater, and his characteristics correspond exactly with 

* Rawlinson's Herod., p. 699, and Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 121. 
'Cistor, Cory'ft Fragments, p. 65. ^ Ihid., p. 66. 

♦ Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i. p. 618. ^ Hislop, p. 223, note. 
*• Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i., p. 619. ' Ihid., pp. 601, 624. 

• Barker's fyires and Penates of Cilicia, p. 131 ; Uislop, p. 34, note. 

* Maurice, Ind. Antiquities, vol. iii., p r>3. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



thoBe of Nimrod. It thas appears that Nimrod was the original 
of the Hercules of the ancients, whom the Greeks turned into a 
sort of knight-errant, and associated with so many fanciful legend& 

Birch also says that " the identity of Nimrod with the constellation 
Orion ia not to be rejected." ' Now Orion was a giant and a mighty 
hunter who boasted that no animal could compete with him, on which 
account he was killed by the bite of a scorpion, and, says Ovid, " added 
to the stars " ' — that is, regarded after death as that constellation and 
worshipped as a god. 

In a woodcut, given by Layard, of a Babylonian cylinder,' Nin, the 
Assyrian Hercules, represented as a giant, is shown first attacking 




and killing a hull, and then, crowned with the bull's horns as a token 
of his prowess, is represented attacking a lion and killing him. 

This is exactly in keeping with the character of the mighty 
hunter Orion. It will also be noticed that there is a fawn at the feet 
of the Assyrian Hercules, and as this was a usual way of symbolising 
the person represented, it is a further evidence that Hercules, or Xin, 
was Nimrod ; for a spotted fawn was one of Nimrod's distinctive 
symbols, and in Greece, where Nimrod was known as " Ndirod" the 
fawn, as sacred to him, was called " Nebros."* 

The feat of strength by the Assyrian Hercules is probably, as 
pointed out by Mr Hislop, the origin of the significance of a horn as a 
symbol of power and sovereignty throughout the world.' It is also 
probably the origin of the gigantic man-bulls in the Assyrian 
sculptures representing Assyrian deities. This is further confirmed 
by the fact that the Chaldean " Twr " means both " bull " and 



' Lajard's Nineveh, pp. 439-340. 
'Lempri^re, Orion, and Ovid, Fatti, lib. i 
^ Babylon and Nttt^veh, p. 605. 
s/Wi, pp. 33-36. 



* 640-544 ; Hislop, p. 67, note. 
* Hialop, p, 47 and note. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 25 



"prince" or "ruler," and "Tur" without the points becomes 
in Hebrew ''Shwr,'' a word having the same double significance.* 
Thus the homed man-bulls are simply symbols of The Mighty Prince, 
a title well expressive of him who " first began to be mighty on earth " 
(Genesis x. 8). This also explains the meaning of the title " Cronua " 
given to Belus, or Bel ; for Cronus, or Kronos, is derived from km 
" a horn," and thus means " the homed one." * The Latin caroria, " a 
crown," has evidently a similar derivation, and indicates the origin of 
the points, or " horns," by which crowns are surmounted. We are also 
told by Pherecydes that Saturn (i.c., Cronus or Belus) was " the first 
who wore a crown." ^ Saturn, however, was the^r*^ Belus, the father 
of Nin, or Nimrod, and was generally represented as the first king of 
the Babylonian empire. 

ApoUodorus, a famous Pagan writer on mythology about 115 B.C., 
emphatically asserts the identity of Ninus with Nimrod. " Ninus," he 
says, "is Nimrod."* 

Trogus Pompeius says, " Ninus, king of the Assyrians, first of all 
changed the contented moderation of the ancient manners, incited by 
a new passion, the desire for conquest. He was the ^r8^ who carried 
on war against his neighbours, and he conquered all nations from 
Assyria to Lybia, as they were as yet unacquainted with the art of 
war.5 This can only apply to Nimrod, who first " began to be mighty 
on the earth." 

Similarly, Diodorus Siculus says, " Ninus, the Jirst of the Assyrian 
kings mentioned in history, performed great actions. Being naturally 
of a warlike disposition, and ambitious of glory that results from 
valour, he armed a considerable number of young men that were brave 
and vigorous like himself, trained them up a long time in laborious 
exercises and hardships, and by that means accustomed them to bear 
the fatigues of war and to face dangers with intrepidity." ^ 

Mr Hislop has also pointed out that the words in Genesis x. 11, 
descriptive of the acquirement of empire by Nimrod, viz., " out of that 
land went forth Ashur and builded Nineveh," are forced and un- 
natural, for they appear, without any previous introduction, to re- 
present another great monarch setting up a kingdom in the immediate 
neighbourhood of Nimrod. Moreover, the Semitic Assyrians, the 

' Hislop, p. 33, note. ' /?«^., p. 32, note. 

3 Tertullian, De CoroTia Mih'tis, cap. vii. vol. ii. p. 85 ; Hislop, p. 35. 

4 Appollodori, Fragmerits, 68 ; Miiller, vol. i. p. 340 ; Hislop, p. 40. 

5 Justin's Trogiis Pompeius, Hist. Rom. Scrip., vol, ii. p. 615 ; Hislop, p. 23. 
* Diodorus, Bibl., lib. ii. p. 63 ; Hislop, p. 23. 



26 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

descendants of Ashur, did not rise into prominence until many 
centuries afterwarda For this reason some have proposed to render 
the passage — " Out of that land he went forth into Assyria and builded 
Nineveh;" but the original will not bear this translation, and Mr 
Hislop remarks that the word " ashur " is the passive participle of a 
word which in its Chaldee sense means "to make strong."' This 
would make the passage, " Out of that land, being made strong, he 
(Nimrod) went forth and builded Nineveh." Now if Nimrod built 
Nineveh it further identifies him with Ninus, for the word Nin-m^eveh 
means *' the habitation of Nin." ^ 

There are two other gods in the Babylon Pantheon who must be 
regarded as deified aspects of Nimrod. One of these is ^^BeL 
Merodach,'* or **Meridug." He is constantly spoken of by the 
Assyrians under the name of " Bel " only, and was worshipped under 
that name in the great temple of Belus at Babylon,^ which indicates 
that he was the particular form of the god Belus worshipped by the 
Assyriana At the same time he is spoken of in connection with 
another Bel as " Bel and Merodach." ^ We must therefore conclude 
that Bel Merodach was one of two gods known as Belus or Bel 
Nimrod, and, as he is stated on the tablets to be the son of Hea, 
or Bel Nimrod the lesser,^ he must be the second Belus, or Bel 
Nimrod the greater. This is confirmed by his title "The first- 
bom of the gods," ^ which is synonymous with that of " The eldest 
son," the title of Nin, or Bel Nimrod the greater. He is also the star 
Jupiter, and Jupiter was the son of Saturn, who, we have seen, to be 
the first Cronus, or Belus, and father of the gods.7 He was also the 
husband of a goddess called " Zerbanit,'' who is stated to be the queen 
of Babylon,^ and must therefore be another aspect of Bilta Niprut, the 
wife of the first Bel Nimrud, and mother and wife of the second. 
This relationship to the latter seems to be indicated by her name 
Zerbanit — from ZeVj or Zero, " seed," or " son," and banit, " genetrix," ^ 
i,e., " mother of the son," the " first- bom of the gods." 

« 

' Chaldee Lexicon in Clavis Stockii, verb ^'asher" ; Hislop, p. 24 and note. 

' Hislop, p. 25. 3 Bawlinson's Herod., vol. L p. 629. 

* BawlLnson's Five Oreat Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 13. 

sRawlinson's Herod,, vol. i. p. 630. ^Ihid,, p. 628. 

7 Assyriologists have suggested that Nin was represented by tlie planet Saturn, 
but there is no direct proof of this, bs in the case of Merodach and Jupiter, Nebo 
and Mercury, Nergal and Mars, etc., and as the classical authors always recognise 
Saturn as the same as Cronus or Belus, the father of the gods, we must conclude 
that they had strong grounds for doing so. 

' Ibid,, p. 630. *» Hialop, p. 18 and note. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 27 

•• Nergaiy like " Nin," is the god of war and of hunters. He is 
called " The Great Hero," " King of Battle," " Champion of the gods," 
and " Gk)d of the Chase." His character is thus precisely the same 
as that of Nin and Bel Nimrud the greater, and he is also the titular 
god of Babylon. He is identified with the planet Mars, and must 
therefore be regarded as the original of the Roman god of war. 
Professor Rawlinson considers him to be a deified form of Nimrod.' 

The tendency of the Pagans to invoke each god under various 
titles descriptive of his different attributes is illustrated by the case 
of Croesus referred to by Herodotus, who represents him as thus 
invoking Jupiter.^ This would naturally lead to the worship of the 
god under different titles, and in the case of nations who adopted the 
gods of another nation, the original identity of the god would soon 
be lost sight of. This was no doubt the case with the Assyrians, who 
adopted the Babylonian gods. 

It is not necessary to refer particularly here to other gods of the 
Babylonians, such as " Shamash," the sun, and " Iva" or " Bin*' the 
god of the wind, etc., and who may be expected to be merely aspects 
of one or other of the gods mentioned. In short, all the principal 
Pagan gods were eventually recognised as The Sun, as in the case of 
Belus, whose temple at Babylon was the Temple of the Sud.^ 

We may here refer to a remark of Mr George Smith which ex- 
presses the difficulty many learned writers have experienced in 
recognising the human origin of the Pagan gods. He says, " The 
idea that Nimrod was Bel or Elu, the second god in the great 
Babylonian triad, is impossible, because the worship of Bel was 
much more ancient, he being considered one of the creators of the 
universe and the father of the gods. Similar objections apply to the 
supposition that Nimrod was Merodach, the god of Babylon, and to 
his identification with Nergal, who was the man-headed lion. Of 
course Nimrod was deified, like other celebrated kings ; but in no 
case was a deified king invested as one of the supreme gods and 
represented as a creator ; such a process could only come if a nation 
entirely forgot its history and lost its original mythology." ^ 

To this it may be replied that the historical archives were de- 
posited with the priesthood, who alone had access to them, and, as is 
always the case, the common people had little or no knowledge of the 
past history of their country. Nimrod was certainly not deified at 



• Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i. pp. G31, G32. 
J RawlinsoD'g Herod., toI. i. pp. 627-629. 

* The Chaldean Account of Genetitt^ [». 181. 



' Herodotus, lib. i. cap. xliv. 



28 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

first as The Creator. He was simply worshipped as a hero. But 
there is a constant tendency in religion to development^^ and for the 
priesthood to magnify and exalt the powers and attributes of their 
gods. Everything points to the fact, as we shall see hereafter, that 
the ultimate aspect of the ancient Paganism was arrived at by a 
process of gradual development continued from age to age. The 
gods as first worshipped were not what they afterwards became. 
Their human origin was merely a stepping-stone to their ultimate 
aspect, and after it had served its purpose that origin was carefully 
kept out of sight, or revealed only to the initiated. Moreover, when 
the chief god had come to be regarded as the Creator and Life- 
giver whose manifestation was The Sun, the belief that he had once 
become incarnate, had reigned as a king on earth, and had been slain 
for the good of mankind by the principle of evil only enhanced the 
reverence in which he was held. 

Therefore, while it would have been absurd and impossible to 
have represented Nimrod immediately after his death as The Creator, 
there is nothing incompatible with this in the fact that he should 
have ultimately developed into the Sun god and Creator — a develop- 
ment which was natural and inevitable among a priesthood who, 
in order to recommend their religion, did everything to enhance the 
power and glory of their gods.* 

Turning now to the father of Nin, or Ninus, viz., the first Belus, 
or Bel Nimrod the lesser, it is evident that if Nin, or Bel Nimrud the 
greater, is Nimrod, then Bel Nimrud the lesser, or Hea, is CtLsh. It 
is indeed stated by the Sibylline Oracles, that the first Cronus, or 
Belus, was the son of Noah and brother of Japetus and Titan (Japhet 
and Shem), which would make him Ham. But this is an error arising 
from the identity of name of the first and second Belus, which caused 
them to be sometimes confounded together as one individual, and led 
later writers to regard the first Belus as Ham. As we shall see, there 
is accumulative evidence to show that the first Belus was Cush. It 
is also to be observed that the ancients called all the direct descendants 
of a person his sonSy and Cush, whose fame quite eclipsed his father 
Ham, would thus be the most prominent " son " of Noah in that family. 

Nimrod, as the human original of the different gods representing 

'This is illustrated by the present religion of the Roman Catholic Church, 
between which and that of primitive Christianity there is little resemblance. 
But, as Cardinal Newman has elaborately argued, the former has been developed 
out of the latter — Development of Christian Doctrine, 

' See description of this development, infra, chap. xv. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 29 

the various attributes under which he was deified, was the most 
prominent and important deity in the Pagan mythology, and Cush, 
as the father of these gods, was therefore known as ''Cronus," or 
'' Saturn," the " father of the god&" But he also held another equally 
important position. 

We have seen that the elder Belus, or Bel Nimrod the lesser, was 
called '' Hea/' and Hea is described as the source of all knowledge and 
science. He is '' The Intelligence," and is called '' The Lord of the 
Abyss or Great Deep," " The Intelligent Fish," « The Teacher of 
Mimkind" and ''The Lord of Understanding."' In these respects 
he appears to be identical with " Nebo" the prophetic god and " god 
of writing and science," and both gods are equally symbolised by the 
wedge or arrow head which was the essential element of cuneiform 
writing, as if both had been inventors of writing.^ Nebo, like Hea, 
is entitled " He who Teaches," " He who possesses Intelligence," " The 
Supreme Intelligence," " He who hears from afar," and is called " The 
glorifier of Bel Nimrod." ^ The latter title may mean that he was the 
counsellor or instructor of Bel Nimrod the greater, through which 
the latter obtained his power, and this, as we shall see, is the 
particular relation which the elder god bears to the younger. 

Moreover, the wife of Nebo is the goddess "Nana,** which was the 
Babylonian name of "Ishtar.'*^ Now Ishtsu: corresponds in all respects 
to Bilta Niprut. Bilta is called " The Great Goddess," and " Mother 
of the great gods." Ishtar is called " The Great Goddess," and ** Queen 
of all the gods." Bilta is " The Queen of heaven." Ishtar is called "The 
Mistress of heaven.'* Bilta is the goddess of generation or fecundity. 
Ishtar is the same. Bilta is " The Lady of Babylon." Ishtar is also 
" The Lady of Babylon." Bilta is the goddess of war and the chase, and 
so also is Ishtar.5 Ishtar must therefore be another aspect of Bilta, the 
Beltis of the Greeks, and although worshipped under a different name, 
it is quite impossible that the identity of the two goddesses should 
not have been recognised by the initiated. But if so, Nebo, the 
husband of Ishtar, must be either the first or second Belus, and as his 
characteristics are identical with those of the first Belus, or Hea, we 
may conclude that he is another form of that god. 

' Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i. p. 599, 600 ; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic and 
Screen/, p. 114. 

* Rawlinson's fferod., vol. i. p. 601. 

5 Ibid., p. 637 ; Lenormant, Cluddean Magic, p. 69. 

* Rawlinson^s Herod., vol. i. p. 635. 

5 Ibid., p. 635, and Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 120 and 138, 139. 



30 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

These characteristics of the elder Belas, viz., as the god of wisdom 
and teacher of mankind, distinguish him from the second Belus, the 
god of war and hunting, and they appear to be alluded to by 
Stephanus of Byzantium, who says that " Babylon was built by Babilon 
son of the aU'Vnae Belus "^ Now, as Nimrod was the founder of 
Babylon, it is clear that his father, " The all- wise Belus," was Cush, 
the first Belus or Hea, " The Lord of Understanding " and " Teacher of 
Mankind." 

Nebo appears to have taken the place of the Babylonian Hea in 
the Assyrian Pantheon. For although Hea is invoked in the incanta- 
tions in the old Chaldean language, Nebo, coupled with Bel, who in 
this case must be Bel Merodach, are the gods ordinarily invoked as 
the two principal gods by the Assyrian kings.^ This is also implied 
by the passage in Isaiah xlvi., " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth." 

**Sin,'* the moon god of the Assyrians, requires a brief notice. 
He is called " The King of the gods," " God of gods," titles which were 
peculiar to Hea, the father of the gods, or the first Belus, who was 
Cronus or Saturn. Sin is also called " Lord of spirits," and this was 
the particular attribute of Hea, who was always appealed to as the 
ruler of the spirits good and evil.3 This would imply that Sin, the 
moon god, wa^ another aspect of Hea and Nebo, i.e., Cush, and we 
shall see that there is further evidence that this was the case. Sin 
is also stated to have been the first divine monarch who had reigned 
upon earth, which can only apply to the first Belus or CusL^ 

It is true that both Sin and Nebo are sometimes represented as 
sons of Hea, but, as Professor Rawlinson remarks, " the relationships 
are often confused and even contradictory."^ This is what might 
be expected among a people who adopted the gods of another people. 
Hea was so evidently a god of the first importance, and being 
known as the father of the gods, it was natural that the Assyrians, 
when they did not fully recognise the identity of gods like Sin 
and Nebo, should regard them as sons of Hea. 

We may also refer to " Dumuzi,*' mentioned on the Izdubar 
tablets. The name might be written " Tummuz,'' and he is generally 
recognised to be the Babylonian and Phoenician god " TammuZy" for 
whom yearly lamentations were made. He was the husband of 
Ishtar, and must therefore be one of the gods known as Belus or Bel 

' Quoted by Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations^ p. 201. 

* Rawlinson's Herod,^ vol. i. pp. 637, 638. 

' Lenormant, Chaldean Magic^ pp. 42, 43, 59, 158, etc. 

< Ibid,^ p. 208. 5 /Yve Great Monarchies^ vol. i. p. 113. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 31 

Nimrod. The legends refer to his having suffered a tragic death and 
to the sorrow of his wife Ishtar, and this, a^ we shall see, was the fate 
of the younger god, which was always represented as being lamented 
by the goddess, besides being celebrated in every nation by annual 
lamentations.' He was also known by the title of '' The Only Son," 
which also tends to identify him with Nin, or Bar, " The Son," or 
" Eldest Son," and with Bel Merodach, " The First-bom of the gods." 
We shall refer to him again later on. 

The intimate relation of the gods and religion of Babylon and 
Egypt is generally recognised, and we shall show later on that the 
Egyptians, as distinguished from the Mizraimites or descendants of 
Mizraim, were a Cushite race who at a very early period introduced 
their religion and gods into Egypt. This being the case, it suggests 
the identity of the gods Hea and Nebo with the Egyptian " Thoth " or 
" tiermea" who was also the god of writing, science and intellect, and 
the great teacher of mankind. Hermes, or Thoth, was " The god of 
all Celestial Knowledge,"^ who, Wilkinson says, was ''The god of 
Letters and Learning ; the means by which all mental gifts were im- 
parted to men, and he represented the abstract idea of intellect." ^ 
He is described as " The Thrice Great Hermes, the inventor of letters 
and arithmetic " ; * " the god of writing and science, who first dis- 
covered numbers and the art of reckoning, geometry and astronomy, 
and the games of chess and of hazard " ; ^ " Thoth, famous for his 
wisdom, who arranged in order and in a scientific manner those 
things which belong to religion and the worship of the gods, first 
vindicated from the ignorance of the lower classes and the heads of 
the people." ^ There seems strong grounds, therefore, for concluding 
that Thoth, or Hermes, famous for his wisdom, the god of intellect 
and the first instructor of men in religion and science, is identical 
with " The all-wise Belus," Hea, *' The Intelligence," " The Lord of 
understanding and instructor of mankind," and with the prophet 
Nebo, "The Supreme Intelligence" and the god of writing and 
science. In short, Gensenius ideutities Hermes with the Babylonian 
Nebo as the prophetic god.^ Moreover, Nebo was represented by the 
planet Mercury,^ and Hermes was the Greek name of Mercury. 

' As in the case of the Israelitish women weeping f or Tanimuz (£zckiel viii. 14). 

* Wilkinson's EgifptianSy vol. ii. chap. xiii. pp. 9, 10. 

* Wilkinson's Egyptians^ hy Birch, vol. iii. p. 168. 

♦ Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. v. p. 3. 

' Bawlinson's Herod,^ vol. i. pp. 599-602. 

• Sanchoniathon*$ History^ Cory's Fragments^ by Hodges, p. 21. 

' Hislop, p. 26. * Rawlinsoii's Uerod.^ vol. i. p. 637. 



32 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Again Hemies means " the son of Her," * i.6., of Ham, for " Her " is 
synonymous with " jETam," both meaning " the burnt one," * and the 
first Belus or Hea, was Cush the son of Ham. On these grounds, 
which are confirmed by other relationships referred to later, we may 
conclude that Thoth or Hermes was the Egyptian form of the 
Babylonian Hea and Nebo. 

If then Cush was Hermes or Mercury, he would seem to have 
been, not only the teacher of mankind and originator of the ancient 
idolatry, or worship of the gods, but also the ringleader in the enter- 
prise undertaken to build the Tower of Babel, in order to " reach unto 
heaven " (Genesis xi. 4). This tower was not intended, as some have 
supposed, to be a place of refuge in case of a second Deluge, but as a 
central temple for the worship of the gods in order to keep the 
human race together and under the influence of these gods, '' lest 
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole eartL"^ Now 
Hyginus says, " For many ages men lived under the government ot 
Jove without cities and without laws, and all speaking (me language. 
But after Mercury interpreted the speeches of men (whence an 
interpreter is called ' Hermeneutes ') the same individual distributed 
the nations. Then discord began." ^ There is an evident contra- 
diction here in saying that Mercury interpreted the speeches of men 
when they were all of one language; but, a^ pointed out by Mr 
Hislop, the Chskldee pereah, meaning ** to interpret," was pronounced by 
the Egyptians and Greeks in the same way as the Chaldee peres, " to 
divide," ^ and the Greeks, knowing Hermes as " the interpreter of 
the gods," substituted the word ** interpreted'^ for the word ^'divided'' 
Thus the tradition, correctly rendered, would mean that Mercury, or 
Hermes (that is Cush), " divided the speeches of men," or was the 
cause of the confusion of tongues and subsequent " scattering abroad " 
or " distribution of the nations " which followed the building of the 
Tower of Babel ; that, in short, he was the ringleader in that enter- 
prise, and the consequent cause of discord or confusion. This is also 

* Ms or Afesy " to bring forth, or be bom ** ; Buosen, voL i., Hieroglyphic 
Signs, App. B. 43, p. 540, and Vocab. App. L p. 470. Thus Thothmes, "the 
son of Thoth,'' Rameses, "the son of Ba.'' The "m" seems to be omitted in 
certain cases, as in Athothes^ "the son of Thoth," and who by Eratosthenes is 
called " Hermogenes," i.c., "bom of Hermes," or Thoth. 

* Hislop, p. 25, note. 

3 Qenesis xi. 4. As a place of refuge the tower would only have accommodated 
a few hundred persons, and the low-lying plains of Babylon would have been the 
last place chosen for such a refuge. It was, as described by Herodotu,s for the 
worship of the gods. — Herodotus, lib. i. cap. 181-182. 

4 Hyginus, Fab. 143, p. 114 ; H., p. 2a ^ Hislop, p. 26. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 33 

ooofirmed by Gregory Tnronensis, who represents Cosh as the ring- 
leader in that apostasy.' 

It would appear also that, as the cause of discord, his name 
became synonymous with ''confusion/' for, whatever the original 
meaning of the word, *' Bel " came to signify " the conf ounder.'' ' 
Hence the significance of the passage in Jeremiah 1. 2, " Bel 
18 confounded/' which might be paraphrased *' The confounder is con- 
founded." In one of his deified aspects he was also known as " the 
god of confusion." As Cronus, or Saturn, he was " The father of the 
gods," and the father of the gods was also known as " Janus,' who was 
called *' The god of gods," from whom the gods had their origin.^ Now, 
Ovid makes Janus say of himself, '' The ancients called me Chaos" ^ 
and " Chaos " was the Greek god of confusion. 

It seemed highly probable, as suggested by Mr Hislop, that 
the very word " chaos " is a form of the name '* Cush," for Cush is 
also written " Khus," the '' sh " in Chaldee frequently passing into " s," 
and Khus in pronunciation becomes ''ELhawos," or without the 
digamma '' Ehaos " or " Chaos." ^ 

On the reverse of an Etruscan medal of Janus ^ a club is shown, 
and the name of a club in Chaldee is derived from the word which 
signifies to " break in pieces " or " scatter abroad," ^ implying, accord- 
ing to the usual symbolism of Paganism, that Janus was the cause of 
the human race being " scattered abroad." The title on the medal, 
" Bel Athri," also points to its Babylonian origin. Its meaning is 
" Lord of spies, or seers," an allusion to his character as " all-seeing 
Janus," for which reason he is represented on the medal by two 
heads, back to back, looking in all directions.^ This is also the 
character of Hea, the " Lord of understanding," Hermes, " The god of 
all celestial knowledge," and Nebo, " The prophetic god," or god of 



Another form of the " father of the gods " was Vulcan, ^/ho was 
called " Hephaistos," which has a similar signification to the club of 
Janus, for it is derived from Hepliaitz, "to scatter abroad," 
Hephaitz becoming in Greek ** Hephaisi" ^ This also is, no doubt, the 

' Gregory Turonensis, De Rerum Franc, lib. i ; Bryant, vol. ii. pp. 403, 404. 
' Ilialop, p. 26. 

* MAcrobiuA, Saturn,, chap. ix. p. 54 ; Col. 2. H ; Bryant, vol. iii. p. 82 ; Hislop, 
p. 96. 

« Ovid, Fasti, lib. i. ver. 104 ; vol. iii. p. 19. s Hislop, pp. 26, 27, note. 

* From Sir William Betham'a Etnuc. Lit. and Ant,, plate ii. vol. ii. p. 120. 
' Hialop, p. 27, note. " Ibid. 

* As in the caae of Mestr&im for Mitzraim, etc., Hialop, p. 27, note. 

C 



34 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

meaning of the hammer shown in the hands of Vulcan, meaning that 
he was " the breaker in pieces *' or " scatterer abroad," although the 
Greeks, as in the case of other gods adopted by them from Babylon 
and Phoenicia, being ignorant of their original characteristics, 
supposed the hammer to mean that Vulcan was simply a forger of 
metals. 

Vulcan, or Hephaistus, was the chief of the Cyclops, and this 
further identifies him with Cronus and Bel, for the former was also 
king of the Cyclops,^ who are called " the inventors of tower building," 
or the first who built towers,* thus identifying them and their king 
with the builders of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. 

Again, Vulcan was the god of fire, and as the word " Cyclops " 
(Greek, Kuklops) is probably of Chaldean origin, it would mean 
'' kings of flame," from khuk^ king, and khhy flame.^ 

This tends to identify Vulcan with Moloch, the god otfire, to whom 
children were sacrificed by burning. " Moloch," or " Molk," signifies 
''king," and it seems probable that "Mulkiber," the Roman name 
of Vulcan, is derived from the Chaldee MoUe, "king," and gh^ber, 
" mighty." 4 

To both Moloch and Baal human sacrifices were offered, and it 
was the universal custom for the priests to partake of the sacrifice 
offered, as in the case of the Jewish ritual to which the Apostle Paul 
refers,^ thus implying that, in the rites of the heathen gods, this was 
also the custom of the Pagan priests. In fact, the Cyclops, of whom 
Cronus was king, were said to be cannibals, and " to revive the rites 
of the Cyclops " meant to revive the custom of eating human flesh.^ 
This is still part of the religious rites of many of the Hamitic races of 
Africa. Mr Hislop also remarks that the word " cannibal," our term 
for eaters of human flesh, is probably derived from CaJina baZ, ** the 
priest of Bel " ; Cahna being the emphatic form of Cahn, " a priest." ^ 

Cannibalism appears to have been initiated by Cronus, i.e., Saturn 
or Cush. For we are told by Sanchoniathon that Cronus was the 
originator of human sacrifices: — "It was the custom among the 

* Hislop, p. 32 and note. * Pliny, lib. viL chap. Ivi p. 171. 

3 Hislop, note, p. 229. * Ibid,j pp. 32, 33, 229. * 1 Cor. x. 17-21. 

^ Ovid, Metam,y xv. 93, vol ii. p. 132 ; Hislop, p. 232 and note. 

' Hislop, p. 232 and note. " Cannibal " is said by some to be derived from 
Caribi the name of the people of the Caribbean Islands. But the derivation is very 
forced and unnatural. Shakespeare used *' cannibal" as a well-recognised term in 
his time for eaters of human flesh, and as the West Indies had only been dis- 
covered ninety to a hundred years before, and the name " Carib " was not known 
until much later, it could hardly have been corrupted into " cannibal," nor is there 
the slightest evidence that such a forced and unlikely corruption ever took place. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 35 

mncieDts in times of great calamity, in order to prevent the ruin of 
all, for the rulers of the city or nation to sacrifice to the avenging 
deities the most beloved of their children as the price of their 
redemption. They who were devoted for that purpose were offered 
mystically, for Cronus, whom the Phoenicians call II, and who after 
his death was deified and installed in the planet which bears his name 
(Saturn), when king, had, by a nymph of the country called Anobret, 
an only son, who, on that account, was styled leoud, for so the 
Phcenicians call an only son ; and when great dangers from war beset 
the land he adorned the altar, and invested this son with the emblems 
of royalty and sacrificed him.'' ' It would also appear that he partook 
of the sacrifice thus offered, for Saturn is represented as devouring 
his own children.' From this we may conclude that Cush was the 
originator of human sacrifices and of cannibalism, and identical with 
Vulcan, the chief of the cannibal Cyclops. 

It has been said that the characters of '' the Father of the Gods " 
and his son constantly blend, and Nimrod also appears, like Vulcan, to 
have been worshipped ba the '' god of fire." Nimrod is stated to be the 
first who initiated the worship of fire ; ^ and ApoUodorus says that 
Ninus was the first who taught the Assyrians to worship fire.^ This 
identifies Nimrod with " Zoroaster'' the head of the fire- worshippers. 
But this Zoroaster, called also Zeroastes, meaning " fire-bom," from 
2!ero, " seed," and ashta " fire," ^ was not, as pointed out by Mr Hislop, 
the Bactrian of that name who lived in the time of Darius Hystaspes, 
and adopted the title, but the Chaldean Zoroaster who is stated by 
Suidas to liave been the founder of the Babylonish idolatry.^ 

We have seen that Nimrod would seem to be identical with 
Tammuz. Tammuz, called also " Baal Tammuz," was, like Nimrod, 
the Fire god. Fire was regarded by the Pagans as the great spiritual 
purifier, from which arose the practice of passing children through the 
fire in the rites of Moloch in order to purify them, and TarriTnuz 
means the *' perfecting fire," from tarn, " to make perfect," and muz, 

* ffist, of Sanchoniathon, Euseb., Pr<ep, Evan,, lib. i. c. x. ; lib. iv. c. zvii. ; 
Cory'* FrxMgmenU, pp. 16, 17. 

' Lempridre, Satumus. ' Johannes Clericus, torn ii. p. 199, and Vaux, p. 8. 

* Miiller, Fragment, 68, vol. i. j). 440. 

' Hiftlop, pp. 18 and 59, note. Zero passes naturally into Zoro, as in the case 
of the name Zenibbabel, which in the Greek Septuagint is Zorobabel. The name 
Zoroaster is also found as Zeroastes. — Johannes Clericus, torn, ii ; De Chaldceis, 
aect. L c iL p. 194 ; Hislop, p. 59. 

^ Wilson's Panee Religuni, p. 398, note. Suidas, tom. i. p. 1133 ; Hislop, p. 
59, note. 



36 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



" fire," or " to bum." ' Again, in a Persian legend it is stated that 
"Hoshang, the father of TdhmurSt who built Babylon, was the 
first who bred dogs and leopards for hunting " ; * a reference which, 
although it makes the father of Nimrod the great hunter, identifies 
Nimrod himself with Tammuz. 

The name "Nimrod," which means " the subduer of the leopard, or 
spotted one," tends to further identify that monarch with the younger 
Babylonian god. For one of the names of the son of the Babylonian 
goddess was " Mov/mia" and Moumis^ like Nim/r, means " the spotted 
one." 3 

Again, a distinctive title of Nin, or Bar (the Son), who was the son 
of the elder Belus, or Hea, was *' the eldest son," while Bel Merodach, 
who was also the son of Hea, is called "the first-bom." So also 
Moumis is called " the only son," ^ and this was likewise the distinctive 
title of Tammuz.5 

Nimrod also appears to have been the human original of the 
Egyptian " Osiris" Osiris was the son of Saturn,^ t.e., of the first 
Belus, who was the father of Ninus, or Bel Nimrud the greater, which 
tends to identify Osiris with Nimrod. Again, Thoth, or Hermes, 
who is universally known as *' the counsellor " of Osiris, the god-king 
of Egypt, is stated by Plato to be "the counsellor" of "Thamus, 
king of Egypt," 7 thus identifying the Babylonian Tammuz, and 
therefore Nimrod, with the Egyptian god Osiris. The intimate 
connection of Nimrod and his father with Egypt will be shown 
hereafter. Tammuz is also the same as Adonis "the hunter," 
as stated in his commentary on Ezekiel by Jerome, who lived in 
Palestine where the rites of Tammuz were still celebrated.^ These 
rites were the same as those of Osiris, and the lamentations for 
Tammuz (Ezek. viii. 14) were also the same as those for Adonis and, 
Osiris.9 Thus it would appear that " Nimrod, the mighty hunter," 
was the original of " Adonis, the hunter," whom Lenormant identifies 
with the Sun god " Baal Tammuz,'' called also " Adon " (the lord), and 
concerning whom he says, " This famous personage, who to the Greeks 
was a simple Syrian hunter, was, to the Phoenicians, the Sun god 
himself." '^ 

* Hislop, p. 245, note. ' Sir W. Jones's works, vol. xii. p. 400 ; Hislop, p. 45. 
3 Hislop, p. 47. * Damascius, Cory*s Fragments^ p. 318. 

* See arite^ p. 31. ' Lempri^re, Ogiris, 

7 Wilkinson's EgyptiaTis^ vol. ▼. p. 3 ; and chap. xiii. p. 10. 
" Jerome, toI. ii. p. 353 ; Hislop, p. 314. 
^ Lucian, De Dea Syria, vol. iii. p. 454 ; Bunsen, vol. i. p. 443. 
" Lenormant's Anc, Hist, of the East, voL ii. pp. 218, 219. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE. ETC. 37 

The rites of " Bcuxkua " were also identical with those of Tammaz, 
Adtmis uid Osiris, &nd Herodotus always speaks of Osiris as Bacchus, 
which implies that Bacchns was another title of the deified monarch 
Nimrod. We have seen that the tatter's name means "the leopard 
■abduer," and in the rites of Bacchus leopards were trained to draw 
his c&r, while his priests, who were always representatives of the god, 
were clothed with leopard skins, or, when these could not be obtained, 
with spotted fawn skins.' The name of the spotted favm in Greece 
is also mgnificnnt It was " Nebros," and the name by which Nimrod 
waa known in Greece was " Nebrod." The spotted fawn was in fact 
a symbol of the god as " the subduer 
of the spotted one," and in the rites 
of Bacchus a spotted fawn was torn 
in pieces in commemoration of the 
death of the god,' the history of 
which death will be dealt with here- 
after. This further identifies Bacchus 
and Osiris with Nimrod. Pliny also 
BtAtes of Bacchus what is said of 
Cronus, viz., that he wa« "tlie first 
who wore a crown."^ 

The spotted fawn, the emblem of 
Nimrod, appears to have been the 
usual symbol of the deified monarch, 
as in the case of the bas-relief 
portraying the exploits oE Nin, the 
Assyrian Hercules, where the fawn 

shown at the feet of the god is ' ^^^^ ^^^ 

evidently introduced for the purpose 
of identifying him. This is also the case with the Assyrian god in 
the accompanying woodcut,* which muat, therefore, be regarded as 
a representation of Nimrod ; for the branch in his left hand is a con- 
ventional one, and is the usual symbol for a son or child, and hence 
symbolic of " the Son," or " Nin," the distinctive aspect under which 
Nimrod was deified, while the spotted fawn with horns further 
identifies the god with the mighty hunter. 

The name " Bacchus " is of Chaldean origin and means " the 
lamented one," from baJckfia, " to lament," and Hesychius says, " Among 

' Hialop, p. 46. ' Photiua, Le^cicon, [mra. i. \i. £91 ; I[i»lop, p. .'ifi. 

•■ Pliny, \i\>. xvi. p. 317. 

• Vftux, Ifatevth and Pertepotu, cliap. viii. p. 233. 




38 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



the Fhoeniciana Bacchos means weeping." ' Lamentatione for the god 
were a principal featnre of hiB worship, as in the case of Tammaz, 
Adonis and Osiris, and " the lamented one " is evidently another form 
of the same god. Again, "Gush," says Eusebiua, "is he from whom 
the ^Ethiopians came,"' while Epiphanios calls Nimrod " the son of 
Cuah, the ^tliiop."^ Now Dionysias, one of the names of Bacchus, is 
called " ^thiopais," i.«., the son of ^thiops,'* which further identifito 
Bacchus with Nimrod. Bacchus is also connected with the Chaldean 
Zoroaster, " the Fire - bom," by the 
titles " Pyrisporus " and " Ignigena," 
meaning "Fire-bom,"* 
I The identity of Nimrod with Bacchus 
admits of still further proof. By the 
Greeks, Bacchus was regarded merely as 
the god of wine and revelry, and the 
reason that he was so regarded is 
doubtless due to those symbolic repre- 
sentations of the god which they ob- 
tained from Chaldea but could not 
correctly interpret («ee figure).* " The 
Son" was one of the most important 
deified aspects of Nimrod, and Bacchus 
was portrayed as a boy clothed with 
a spotted robe, symbolic of Nimrod, 
and with a cup in one hand and a 
brtuich in the other. On the principle 
universally followed by the priesthood 
of paganism of using symbols which could have a double con- 
struction, this meant to the initiated, "the Son of Cush;" for the 
Chaldee for "cup" is Wiamb, a form of "Cush," and a branch is 
the recognised symbol for a 8on7 Bacchus was worshipped in Rome 
under the name of the "Eternal Boy."' 

■ HesjchiuH, p. 179 ; Hielop, p. SI. It is poaaible, bowever, that, in EMCord&nce 
with the mysteiy used by the Pagan priesthood bj means of the double meaning 
of words, the name Bacchus had a twofold sigaification, and that while "the 
lameDt«d one" was its outward or exoteric meaning, its secret or esot«ric meaning 
to the initiated was "the son of Cush," frnm Bat, "son," and CAim, a common 
form of "Cush." 

' Euaeb., CHronwon, vol. i. p. 109. 

I Epiphanius, lib. i. vol. i. p. 7. « Anacreon, p. 296 ; Hislop, p. 48. 

I See ant«, p. 35, " Zoroaster," and Hislop, p. 69, note. 

* From Smith's CUut. Diet., p. SOS. 

' Hislop, p. 48. ' Ovid, Xttam., iv. 17, 18 ; Hislop, p. 73. 




GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 39 

The relationship of Baccbns to Cash ib further shown by one of 
the names of the former, viz., " Kissos." Kisses is the Greek for ivy, 
•nd ivy in conseqnence was always present in the worship of Bacchns, 
and was sacred to him. Now Strabo, speaking of the inhabitants of 
Sosa, the people of Chnsistan, or land of Cush, says, " the Sasians are 
Kissioi," that is, the people of Kissos, or Bacchus. .Sachylua also 
calls the land of Cush " Kissinos." ' 

We have said that the rites of Bacchos and Osiria were identical, 
and that the lameDtations for each were the same as those for the 





H:oH Pbiist or Osiris. 
(WUkiMon, vol. iv. p. 3*1.) 



(Wilkiiu 



Babylonian Tammoz, whose identity with Osiris and with Nimrod has 
already been pointed out. Like the priests of Bacchus, the Egyptian 
High Priest of Osiris had to he clothed in a leopard's skin (see figure). 
" Leopard skins," says Wilkinson, " were worn by the High Priest at 
all the most important solemnities, and the King himself adopted it 
when engaged (ns High Pontiff) in the same duties." ' Leopard's skins 
were the insignia of the god, and Osiris liimself, like Bacclius, ia 
represented as clothed with a leopard's nkin (sm figure), white the 



> St»bo, liK XT. p. 091 i 
■ WUkiiuon'B Bgyptiant. 



Mac)\y\v!i, Pert., 
by Bireli, vol. iii. 



1& ; Hiilop, p. 49. 






40 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

sacred Apis, or bull calf, symbolic of the god, was similarly clothed.' 
This further identifies Osiris with Nimrod, the "leopard subduer" 
and "spotted one." The figure of Osiris, given by Wilkinson, is 
described by him as Asar, or Osiris, son of Seb, the father of the gods, 
whom he identifies with Cronus, the Saturn of the Greeks, i.e., Cush, 
the father of Nimrod.* 

Bacchus, the Greek Osiris, was the son of iEthiops, and Plutarch 
records the tradition that Osiris was black,^ and therefore an Ethiopian 
or Cushite, the black colour being peculiar to the Oushite race as 
implied by the prophet Jeremiah, " Can the iSthopian (Cushite) change 
his skin " ( Jer. xiii. 23). The features of Osiris in the woodcut are 
evidently those of a negro. The sacred bulls Apis and Mnevis are 
also stated to have had black hair,^ and both were sacred to Osiris.^ 
Apis especially was worshipped as Osiris himself.^ iElian also says 
that at Hermonthis the Egyptians worship a black bull, which they 
call " Onuphis," ^ and Onuphis, according to Plutarch, was a title of 
Osiris.^ Macrobius calls the sacred bull of Hermonthis "Bacchis," 
which further tends to connect Osiris with Bacchua^ 

The land of Egypt was called Ehemi or Ehami; and Ehami 
signifies black.'^ Herodotus always speaks of the Egyptians as black, 
and particularly remarked the thickness of the skulls (a negro char- 
acteristic) of those who fell in battle against the Persians." The 
monuments show that there were two races in Egypt, which is what 
we might expect from the distinction made in the historical records 
between " Misraimites " and " Egyptians." " Egypt or iEgypt was not 
the original name of the land of Misraim, but was given to it after 
" iEgyptus, ihj& son of Belua" '^ Now as Belus was Cush, iEgyptus 
must be Nimrod, or Osiris, the latter being the son of Saturn, who is 
the same as Belus. In short, Diodorus Siculus states, "The 
Ethiopians, i.e., the Cushites, say that the Egyptians are a colony 
drawn out of them by Osiris," and that the laws, customs, religious 

' See figure of the Apis from copy made by CoL Hamilton Smith from the 
French Institute of Cairo ; Hislop, p. 46. 
' WilkvMon^ by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 59-62. 

3 De Iside et Osiride, vol. ii. p. 359. 

4 Herod., lib. iii. cap. zxviiL s Diodorus, L 21. 

* WUkinsoTiy by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 86-91. 
7 ^lian, Nat, An.y zii. 11. 

* De Iside^ s. 35 ; Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 69, 70. 
9 WUkintoUy by Birch, vol. iii. p. 307. 

'° Ibid., vol. iiL p. 198. 

" Herod., Thalia^ lib. iii. cap. xii. 

" /n/m, chap. iv. 's Lempri^re, jEgyptus, 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 41 

obeervances and letters of the ancient Egyptians closely resembled 
those of the Ethiopians, " the Colony still observing the customs of 
their ancestors." ' 

Ninns, like Nimrod, is stated to have conquered all Asia, Egypt, 
and part of Europe. Osiris is also said to have done the same. An 
inscription found on certain ancient monuments reads as follows : — 
" Saturn, the youngest of all the gods, is my father. I am Osiris, who 
conducted a large and numerous army as far as the deserts of India 
and travelled over the greater part of the world, and visited the 
streams of the Ister (Danube) and the remotest shores of the ocean, 
diffusing benevolence to all the inhabitants of the earth.'' ^ Here 
Osiris, like ^gyptus, is stated to be the son of Saturn, or Belus, 
ve., Cush. Moreover, the circumstantial account of his conquests 
is the strongest evidence that, although afterwards deified and 
identified with the Sun, the original of Osiris was a human king. 
Finally the same expedition and conquests are attributed to Bacchus 
or Dionusus, to the Indian " Deonauah " (who we shall see is identical 
with the Greek Dionusus), and to iSgyptus and to Hercules. 

The identity of Osiris with Ninus or Nimrod, and the intimate 
relation of the early history of Egypt and Babylon, will be more fully 
demonstrated in Chapter IV. 

"Jupitery* called " Diespiter," " Heaven Father," which is regarded 
as the original etymology of the name, seems to have been peculiar to 
the Aryan nations, the descendants of Japhet, and to have been the 
name of their god. The name may also possibly be a corruption, or 
adaptation, of the name of their ancestor Japetus, who, we know, was 
deified under the title of " Pra Japeti." When, however, the Cushite 
idolatry was introduced among them they appear to have called the 
chief divinity of that idolatry by the name of their god and regarded 
him as the son of Saturn, or Belus, and identified him with the planet 
Jupiter, which would make him the same, therefore, as Ninus, Bel 
Merodach, Osiris, etc. Jupiter was also identified with Bacchus, the 
Greek Osiris, both having the surname of " Sabavius" ^ 

The god " Mars" or ^'Area," seems to be likewise identified with 
Nimrod. For we have seen that Nergal, the Babylonian god of war 
and of hunting, who was regarded as the planet Mars, was probably a 

' Diodoms, quoted by Baldwin, Prehigtoric Nations, pp. 276, 276. 

' Lempri^re, OiirU, Shem, Ham and Japhet were, as we have seen, worshipped 
aa gods, which maj account for Cush, the son of Ham, when he had been deified as 
Saturn, being called the youngest of the gods. 

' Faber, toL ii. p. 292. 



42 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

deified form of Nimrod, and his identity with the younger Belus, or 
Bel Nimrod the greater, and Bel Merodach, who have also been shown 
to be deified forms of the same king, is confirmed by the name given 
to the wife of Mars. The death of the gods under whose names 
Nimrod was deified (Osiris, Tammuz, Bacchus, Adonis, etc) was 
yearly lamented, and these lamentations were the principal feature in 
their worship, and their wives are specially represented as lamenting 
their death. Now the wife of Mars was '*Bellona" a name which 
signifies "the lamenter of Bel" (from Bel and ohndhy to 
lament), ' which connects Mars with the second Belus, who is the 
same as Osiris, Tammuz, etc. The name also by which Mars was 
known by the Oscans of Italy was " Mamera** which signifies " the 
rebel/' or " causer of rebellion " ; and the name of the Babylonian god 
" Bel Merodach " appears to have the same meaning, viz., '' Bel, the 
rebel " (from Mered, to rebel),* which was probably given him as the 
champion of the gods against their opponents. 

" The god of the dead " worshipped under the name of "ilnu " or 
*'Ana " at Babylon appears to be another deified form of Nimrod. Anu 
was the Lord of Urka, the city of the dead, and Beltis, or Bilta Niprut, 
is associated with him as the Lady of Bit Ana, the temple of Anu at 
Urka. Sargon II. also associates Ishtar, or Astarte, with Anu, as his 
wife,3 and as Beltis and Ishtar are forms of the same goddess who 
was the wife of the two Bel Nimruds, we may conclude that Anu is 
a form of one or other of those gods, and the evidence seems to show 
that he must be the younger god, or Nimrod. 

Anu was also called " Die" which identifies him with "Pluto,^* the 
Greek god of the dead, who was called by the Greeks " Dis*' ^ and 
Pluto is identified with Osiris, who was the Egyptian god of the dead, 
by numerous Greek inscriptions which are dedicated " To Pluto, the 
Sun, the great Sarapis " ; 5 Sarapis being a combination of " Asar** 
a name of Osiris, with " Apis" the sacred bull by which Osiris was 
represented.^ Therefore as Osiris has been shown to be Nimrod, 
Anu or Pluto must be a deified form of the same monarch. 

The Greek god " Pan " appears to be a deified form of Gush. Pan 
was the chief of the Satyrs ^ (Greek " Saturs "), which is derived 

' Hislop, p. 44, note. * Ibid. 

1 Bawlinson's Herod., vol. 1. pp. 592, 593. 

♦ Lempri^re, Pluto. 

5 WUkinsony by Birch, vol. iii. p. 97. 

' /6ti., p. 87 — woodcut 519 of Osiris as Asarapis. 

^ Lempri^re, Pan. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 43 



from the Chaldean " Satur/' whence the name " Saturn/' who must be 
the chief of Satyrs and therefore identical with Pan. Pan is also 
the god of generation, or fecundity, like Mercury or Hermes, another 
form of Cush, and was represented under the form of a goat' 
Wilkinson identifies Pan with " Khem*' the Egyptian god of Genera- 
tion.' According to Herodotus, Pan was the same as the 
Egyptian god *' Mendes" who, he says, was also represented with the 
head and legs of a goat, and that Pan and a goat were both called 
Ifendes in Egypt.^ Wilkinson dissents to this because he can find 
no monuments of this god thus represented ;^ but this fact does not 
invalidate the more ancient testimony of Herodotu& The goat, the 
ram and the bull were all emblems of the principle of Generation, and 
Plutarch says the Mendesian goat had the name of "Apis," the sacred 
bnU of Memphis,^ while Diodorus states that the goat was chosen as 
the emblem of Generation.^ Birch says that, according to the 
inscriptions, Mendes was represented " with the head of a sheep, or 
goat," and that " the goat of Mendes was the living spirit of the Sun, 
the life of Ra, the generator, the prince of young women, the original 
male power of the gods." He was also represented under the form 
of a ram and as ram-headed^ We must, therefore, conclude that he 
was a form of Ehem, the god of Generation, and identical with Pan 
and Mercury. Pan is further identified with Saturn by the Orphic 
poet, who calls him " the Universal father and the Homed Zeus or 
Cronus," i.e., Saturn.*^ 

" jEsculapius" the god of Medicine, may more or less be identified 
with both the Babylonian gods, who, as pointed out, sometimes blend 
into one. The symbol of iEsculapius was a snake, which represented 
him as the " life restorer," because the snake, which obtains a new 
skin every year, was thus supposed to constantly renew its life.^ 
Now ** Hea," or " Heya," one of the names of Bel Nimrud the lesser, 
is the Arabic word for both "life" and " serpent," *° and the god 
was represented by a serpent." The etymology of the name 

' Lempri^re, Pan. * Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 186. 

Herod., book ii. chaps. 42, 46. 

* Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 187. Apparently no representation at all of 
Mendes has been discovered, so that the evidence in support of Wilkinson's 
objection ii wholly negative. 

5 De Iside, s. 73. '' Diodorus, i. 88. 

' Wilh'fison, ed. by Birch, vol. iii., p. 186 ; note by Birch. 

* Faber, vol. ii. p. 406. '^ Sanchoniathon's Historn ; Cory, Fragments, p. 18. 
•° Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i. p. 599. 

" Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 232. 



44 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

.^Sscnlapius tends to further identify him with "Hea," for "Aish 
shkul ape " (which would be written " Aishkulape," and "iGsculapius ** 
in Greek), means " the man instructing serpent," from ai^h^ " man," 
•AAntZ, " to instruct," and wpe or wpht, "serpent"* Similarly "Hea," 
the serpent god, is called " The Teacher of Mankind, the Lord of 
Understanding," * etc., and, like iEsculapius, he is " The Life-giver." 3 

But iEsculapius is represented as the child of the Sun,^ like Osiris 
and other Sun gods, or their supposed reincarnations as Horus, Apollo, 
etc. The Greek myth of the birth of .^oulapius is also identical with 
that of Bacchus. His mother was consumed by lightning and he 
was rescued from the lightning which destroyed her, just as Bacchus 
was rescued from the flames which consumed his mother.^ 
iEsculapius also is said to have died a violent death. He is stated 
to have been killed by lightning for raising the dead.^ This 
identifies him with Nimrod rather than with his father, the violent 
death of the former constituting a most important feature in the 
Pagan mythology. 

The characteristics, however, of iSsculapius and the etymology of 
his name tend to associate him more especially with Bel Nimrud the 
lesser, Hea, the prophet Nebo, " the all- wise Belus," Thoth, or Hermes, 
etc, and it is probable that the Greeks, confusing father and son, 
applied some of the traditions of the latter to the former. 

Cush, or Bel Nimrud the lesser, seems to be the human original also 
of " Ddgonl^ the Fish god of the Babylonians and Canaanites. One of 
the titles of Bel was "Dagon," ^ and under his name " Hea," Bel Nimrud 
the lesser is called " The God of the Great Deep," " The Intelligent 
Fish." This tends to connect Hea with another Fish god, viz., " Oannes" 
who is regarded as identical with Dagon. Oannes is represented as 
teaching the Babylonians science and religion, and is described as 
having a fish's head over his own head, and a fish's tail behind his 
legs.^ Dagon was represented in a similar way.^ M. Lenormant also 
identifies Hea with Oannes. '° 

Berosus, in his history, mentions several forms of Oannes, who 
were sea monsters with the reason and speech of men, but with a 

« Hislop, p. 278, note. * Ante, p. 29. 

3 Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, pp. 114, 115. 

4 Ovid, Metam., lib. xv. IL 736-745. sLempri^re ; Hislop, p. 236. 
^Mneid, lib. vii., 11. 769-773, pp. 364-365 ; Hialop, p. 236. 

7 Rawlinaon's Five Great Monarchies, vol. ii. p. 14. 

• BeroauB ; Cory, FragmefUe, pp. 22, 23. 

'* Layard, Babylon and Nineveh, p. 343 ; and Hislop, p. 215 

*"* Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 157, and Appendix I. p. 201. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 45 

fiah's head above a man's head and a fish's tail behind a man's legs. 
The firsfc of these beings, he says, '' appeared oat of the Erythraean Sea 
where it borders on Babylonia," and '* taught the Babylonians to con- 
stmct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them 
the principles of geometrical knowledge." ' Following him appeared a 
second, very similar in form to the first, whom he calls a '< sea dsemon," 
and after this one, "four double-shaped personages' appeared, and 
finally, '* another having the same complicated form between a fish 
and a man,"' whose name was ''Odacon," which is equivalent to 
« O'Dagon "— " the Dagon" or "the Fish." 3 All this, however, is 
described as occurring during the reign of ten kings previous to the 
Deluge, of whom the last was Xisuthrus, or Noah, whose escape from 
the Deluge he describes very similarly to the account in Genesis. 
These ten kings correspond with the ten generations mentioned in 
Genesis, and with the earliest history of things which has been pre- 
served in other nations, all of which describe ten kings, or generations, 
before the Deluge Berosus further says that Xisuthrus was directed 
by the deity to write the history of things, which would, of course, 
include the knowledge obtained from the various sea dsBmons, and to 
bury it at the City of the Sun at Sippara. These writings, he says, 
were found after the Deluge, at Sippara, upon which " they built cities 
and erected temples, and Babylon was inhabited again." ^ 

This story of the sea daemons has, at first sight, the appearance of 
Uttle more than fanciful fable, but it will be found as we proceed that 
many of the mythological traditions of the ancients, which have a 
similar appearance of fable, can be sh(jwn to be a record of real events, 
concealed indeed beneath allegorical language, and often encrusted 
with fabulous additions, but the meaning of which is plain when 
compared with other traditions and known historial facts. We shall 
have to refer to the above statements of Berosus again ; bat, for the 
present, the point to be noticed is that these sea daemons, who were 
■aid to be teachers of a certain knowledge to mankind, were the 
original " Cannes " and " Dagon," and that their names were probably 
given to Hea, that is to say, Bel Nimrud the lesser, or Cash, because 
he also was Nebo, the false prophet, and great teacher of the primitive 
idolatry. 

Nimrod, in his character of Bacchus, was also called '' Ichthyd'^ 

* Berosus, from Polyhistor; Cory, pp. 22, 23. 

^ Berosus, from Apollodorus and Ahydenus ; Cory, p. 30-33. 
3 Dag or Dagon is the Chaldee for fish ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 378. 

* Berosus, from Polyhistor; Cory, pp. 27-29. 



46 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

"the Fish,"' but he was so called for a different reason from that 
which gave to his father the titles of Oannes and Dagon. His death 
was the great event commemorated in the later form of idolatry, 
when he and his father were worshipped as gods, and the enemy 
of the god who compassed his death was called "Typhon," the 
name, among the Egyptians, of the evil principle. The ocean which 
destroyed the human race at the Deluge was also called Typhon, 
and the enemy of the god was thus identified with the ocean. Bacchus 
is therefore represented as plimging beneath the waves of the ocean 
in order to escape from his enemies, from whom he was rescued by 
Thetia' Hence his name " Ichthya" 

A similar story is told of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, but in 
this case the god is identified with Noah. He is represented as being 
shut up in his cofiin and set afloat on the waters of the ocean on the 
seventeenth day of the second month of the Egyptian year, i.e.,the day 
on which the Deluge commenced, and to have remained there, as did 
Noah, for exactly one year.3 The cofiin or ship in which he was 
preserved was called " Argo*' ''Ba/ria,** and " I'heba'' the latter being 
the word used for the ark of the Deluge by Moses.^ Thetis also, who 
received Bacchus, is shown by Faber to be identified with the ark,^ 
and just as Noah was, as it were, bom again in a new world out of 
the ark, so Bacchus is called " Thebe genus,** " Arkbom," and his heart 
was supposed to be carried in a box called " the ark " at his f estivala^ 

The reason why Bacchus and Osiris were thus identified with 
Noah was, firstly, to obtain for the god the veneration in which the 
father of the human race was held, and secondly, to associate his 
worship with the memory of the Deluge which had so solemn and 
profound an effect on the postdiluvians, that, as we have seen, it is 
to this day yearly commemorated in almost every nation under the 
sun.7 The latter event had also a particular bearing on the origin 
of Paganism, which will be duly noticed hereafter. 

It does not appear that ''Hann** or "ilmmon," was worshipped as 
a god except by the Egyptians. He was venerated by them under the 
name " Amon," or "Amen," at Thebes,® which in Scripture is called 
" No Amon," or the abode of Amon. He was identified with the Sun 
as " Amenra," and is represented with a ram's head surmounted by the 

' Hesychius, BacchuSy p. 114 ; Hislop, p. 114. 

' Homer, Iliad, vi, v. 133 ; Bryant's Mythology, vol. iv. p. 57 ; Hislop, p. 142. 

^ Plutarch, De Inde, ii. p. 336, D ; ApoUodorus, lib. liL cap. xiv. 

♦ Faber, vol. L pp. 21, 360-371. 

' Ibid,, vol. iil book v. chap. ilL ^ Jbid.^ vol. ii. pp. 265-267. 

7 See CMUe^ chap. i. " Ante^ p. 16. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 47 

disk of the Sun to symbolise the generative power of the Sun.' Under 
this aspect he is identified with " Ehem/' " Cnoubis/' or " Cnouphis/' and 
Osiris, all of whom represented the generative principle. " Khem," or 
"Kham/' whom Wilkinson identifies with the Greek god Pan,' is the 
Egyptian name of Ham, and therefore the same god as Amen in a 
different aspect, and he is represented by exactly the same figure as 
Amen.^ Gnoubis is also represented, like Amenra, with a ram's head,^ 
and by the Romans was known as Jupiter Amon Cnoubis.^ Birch 
says that the hymns of the eighteenth dynasty represent Amenra as 
the creator of men, animals and plants ; that they identify him with 
Khem, and aUy him in all respects with the Sun, while in the time of 
Darius he is identified both with Ra, the Sun, and with Osiris.^ 
Khem was also regarded eus the generating influence of the Sim, and 
in one of the hieroglyphic legends is called the Sun.^ Cnouphis 
likewise represents the Creative spirit in Nature.® The god " Phthah " 
also represented the Creative power, and was identified by the Greeks 
with Vulcan, the father of the gods, and Phthah, like Vulcan, was 
the father of the gods.^ He was represented by the ScarabsBUS 
beetle, which was an emblem of the Sun as being " the type of the 
Creative power, self-acting, and self-sufficient." '° 

** Seb" like Phthah, was also the father of the gods, and identical 
with Saturn," and must therefore be Gush, but with these exceptions, 
and that of Thoth, or Hermes, Gush does not appear to have been 
otherwise worshipped in Egypt, and Ham seems to have taken his 
place under the forms of Kneph, or Cnouphis, Amen, and Khem, as the 
god of Generation, like the Mercury and Pan of the Greeks. But it 
is evident that the different gods blend into each other, or, as 
Wilkinson says, "take each others characters and attributes."*^ 
Ammon, in short, as " Jupiter Ammon," was ultimately identified with 
Jupiter, the son of Saturn, and therefore with Osiris, and in Manetho's 
Dynasty of Gods Ammon is classed as merely a demi-god, show- 
ing that he had lost his position in later times, when Osiris had 

' WUHnson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 9 — pi. xix. ^ Ibid., p. 186. 

^ Dnd.y compare pi. xix, p. 8, and woodcut p. 25. 

^ Ibid., pi. xviii. p. 3. 

5 Ibid., p. 2. 

^ Ibid., p. 13, note by Birch. 

7 Und,, p. 26. 

* Ibid., p. 2. WilkinHon here tries to idealise the character of Cnouphis by call- 
ing him '• the Spirit," but the ram's head and other chaiucteristics given to him shows 
that he was the Phallic god, the supposed author of natural life and generation. 

"* Ibid., p. 17, note by Birch. '"^ Ibid., p. 15. 

" Ibid., p. 62. '' Ibid, pp. 9, 10. 



48 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

become the chief god of the Egyptians and was identified with the 
Sun.' 

We have seen that the Egyptian Thoth, or Hermes, was '' the Qod 
of letters and learning, the means by which all mental gifts were 
imparted to men, and he represented the abstract idea of intellect." ' 
Now the Egyptians regarded the heart as the seat of intellect, and 
HorapoUo describes the Egyptian Hermes as "the president of iht 
hea/rty^ The significance of this will be evident when it is re- 
membered that Hermes has been identified with Belus, or Bel, and 
that " Bel " is the Chaldee for " heart." Thoth is called by Jamblicus 
'' the God of all Celestial Knowledge," 4 i,e.^ celestial knowledge 
according to the Pagan idea of it^ which well accords with the 
character of Cush eus the teacher of mankind and the originator of 
Pagan idolatry. These characteristics also tend to identify Thoth 
with Phthah, who is called '^ Intellect, the Lord of Truth," ^ that is of 
truth in the Pagan sense. In short, Phthah was the '' father of the 
gods," and therefore the same as Saturn or Cush.^ In the rites of 
Osiris, Thoth is represented as his scribe and counsellor, and was 
called " Hermes Trismegislus," or " Thrice Great Hermes." ^ 

The god ''Anvhia " appears to be especially identified with Thoth, 
Hermes and Mercury, and therefore with Cush. Apuleius speaks of 
him as the interpreter of the gods, like Mercury or Hermes. He is 
also the god of the dead like Mercury, while, like Mercury, he is 
represented as holding the " caduceus" in his hand.® His office, as 
god of the dead, would seem to connect him with the Babylonian god 
of the dead Anu, Dis, or Pluto (i.e., Nimrod). But the two deities were 
gods of the dead in difierent ways, Mercury, or Hermes, and Anubis 
being the conductors of the dead, while Pluto, Osiris, etc., were jvdges 
of the dead.9 

There are one or two other gods who were regarded as re-incarna- 
tions of Osiris and other forms of the same god, and they are practi- 

* See Manetho'fl " Dynasty of the Grods " ; Cory, p. 94. 

* Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iiL p. 168. 

3 Ibid., p. 324. 4 Ibid., p. 168. 

5 Ibid., p. 16. ^ Ibid., p. 17. 

' Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iiL p. 169. Wilkinson makes another god out of 
Hermes Trismegistus because he is found with the additional title of " Lord of Pant- 
nouphis." But considering the variety of titles given to the gods and kings of 
Egypt, the reason has little weight as compared with the great unlikelihood of 
two godfli being given exactly the same name. 

» WUHnson, by Birch, vol. iiL p. 160. 

"* Ibid., p. 169 ; Anubis, p. 67 ; Lempridre, Osiris, Pluto, Mercury. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 49 



cally identical with him. Osiris himself was recognised as the Sun 
god, and both "Hotub " and ^'ApoUo " are represented as sods of the 
Sun and as the Son himself ; for when the god, as Osiris, was identified 
with the Son, the incarnation of himself became both the Sun and 
the son of the Sun. Thus ** Isia," the goddess mother and wife of Osiris, 
and mother of Horns, is represented as saying, ''No mortal hath 
raised my veil. The f rait which I have brought forth is the Sun." ' 

** Cupid," another incarnation of the god, is similarly identified with 
his father, but he is the son of the god and goddess from a difierent 
point of view. He is represented to be, as might be expected from 
the identity of so many gods and goddesses, the son of many of them, 
and this also accounts for the various genealogies given in Greek 
mythology to the different gods. Cupid, however, is more especially 
the son of Venus, in whose arms he is represented, just as Horus, 
under the name of '* Harpocratea,** is represented in the arms of Isis.' 
Cupid is also portrayed with a heart in his hands, or else with the 
heart-shaped fruit of the Persea,^ which caused the Greeks to regard 
him as the god of the heart, or god of love, just as the representation 
of Bacchus caused them to regard him as the god of wine. But in 
b(^ cases the real significance of the symbol was misunderstood. For 
the Chaldee for " heart " is " Bel," ^ which, on the principle of the 
double signification of words adopted by the Pagau priesthood to 
conceal the true meaning from the uninitiated, denoted that the child 
was the son of Bel, or Cash ; while he is further identified with ** the 
mighty hunter " by the bow and arrowa 

For the same reason the heart contained in an ark was carried by 
the priests in procession at the festivals of Bacchus,^ to identify him 
with the Babylonian god. The Roman youths also used to wear a 
heart-shaped amulet suspended round their necks, called the " Bulla," ^ 
which had evidently the same significance. Cupid, known also as 
''Eros," was lamented by the Egyptians, like Osiris and Tammuz, 
under the name of " Maneros" who, they said, was " the only son of 
their first king" ^ This first king, we shall see, was Thoth, or the 
elder Belus, which also identifies Maneros, or Cupid, with Osiris, or 

' Lempri^re, Ins, 

' Harpocrates means, as shown by Bunsen, "Horus the child" ; Hislop, p. 188, 
note. 

' Pompeii, vol. ii. p. 177 ; Hislop, p. 189. ^ Hislop, p. 190. 

s JuL Firm., De Error., prof, rel., pp. 14, 15 ; Arnob., Adv. Qent., lib. v. Faber, 
ToL IL p. 265. 

<- Kenneth's Atiquities, pp. 300, 301 ; Hislop, pp. 189, 190. 

7 Herod., lib. ii. cap. Ixxiz. 

D 



so THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Nimrod. Now Osiris was worshipped by the Qreeks as Bacchus, and 
Herodotos states that he was greatly surprised at the fact that the 
dirge which they used in lamenting Maneros was exactly the same as 
the dirge of ZintM, who was identical with Bacchus.' 

In spite of this necessarily brief examination, the consentient 
evidence of so many ancient writers is practically conclusive of the 
fact that the originals of the gods of Babylon, Egypt, Greece and 
Rome were human beings, the first great monarchs of the world, 
viz., Cush and his son Nimrod, the founders of the Babylonian empire. 
This is also confirmed by the very names of some of the gods; 
by their characteristics; by their having been the originators of 
fire worship and the first teachers of idolatry ; by their history as 
human kings, as in the case of Osiris, Bacchus and Ninus, which so 
exactly agree with that of Nimrod ; by the fact that they are repre- 
sented as reigning both in Babylon and Egypt ; by the claim of the 
kings of those countries to be their descendants; by various inde- 
pendent and undesigned references to them ; and by the accumulative 
evidence of the identity of the various gods with each other. This 
evidence will be found to be still more accumulative when we come 
to speak of the gods of other nations, and of the relations of the great 
goddess in her various forms to the different gods. 

The latter evidence is also confirmed by the testimony of ancient 
and modern writers to the intimate connection of the religious systems 
of each country, and to the fact that Egypt, Phcenicia, Greece and 
Rome obtained their religion either directly from Babylon and 
Assyria, or from each other. 

The intimate connection of these religious systems is also shewn 
by the fact that the Grecian mythology speaks of half a dozen or 
more Cupids, and various ApoUos, Mercurys, etc. This, on the face of 
it, would be inexplicable, for we cannot suppose that they invented so 
many gods of the same name, and all with similar attributes. But it 
is at once explained when it is considered that the Greeks obtained 
their religion from Babylon through Phoenicia, and Egypt. For 
it would necessarily follow from this, that each Cupid or Apollo would 
be represented to them as the son of various gods and goddesses, and 
not recognising that the latter were merely the deified attributes of one 
original God and Goddess, they would naturally suppose that the sons 
of each god and goddess were different persons, although of the same 
name. 

Herod., and Hislop, p. 22, note. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 51 

Wilkinson, speaking of the gods of Egypt, says, '' I have stated 
that Amanre and other gods took the form of different deities which, 
though it appears at first sight to present some difficulty, may be 
readily acconnted for when we consider that each of those whose 
figores or emblems were adopted, was only an emanation or deified 
(Mnbute of the same great Being, to whom they ascribed various 
characters according to the several offices he was supposed to 
perform." ' 

Bnnsen also says, " Upon these premises we think ourselves 
justified in concluding that the two aeries of gods were originally 
identical, and that in the great pair of gods all these attributes were 
concentrated, from the development of which, in various personifica- 
tions, that mythological system sprang which we have already been 
considering."^ 

Owing to the fact of the same names, such as " Cronus," '* Belus," or 
" BeV' being given to both father and son ; to the fact that both were 
r^;arded as gods of fire, and taught or enforced the worship of fire and 
idolatry ; and also to the fact that both had a claim to be founders of 
Babylon, — because Babel (the design of Cush), and the city, which 
was commenced at the same time (Gen. xi. 5, 8), were the beginning of 
Babylon, which Nimrod completed, — the distinction between the two 
has often been lost sight of. 

But the distinction is of great importance, and in spite of a trifling 
confusion at times, due to the above causes, may be readily recognised. 

Thus we have seen that the elder " Cronus," the elder ** Belus,'* or 
Saturn, who was the father of Ninus, Osiris and iEgyptus, was " Cush 
the iEthiop," the father of Bacchus ; and that he is more especially 
identified with " Vulcan," " Hephaestus," " Chaos," " Janus," " Pan," the 
%yptian " Phthah," and " Seb," as the "father of the gods " ; and that 
he is represented as the ringleader, or principal actor, in the building 
of the Tower of Babel ; while under the names of " The Prophet Nebo," 
" Hea, the Lord of Understanding," " Thoth," " Hermes," " Taautus " 
(the counsellor both of ''Osiris" and **Tammuz"), ''Mercury," 
" Anubis," " iEsculapius," '* Cannes " and " Dagon," he appears 
to have been the teacher of mankind and initiator of the Pagan 
religion. 

Similarly, Nin, or Ninus, the younger " Cronus," and the younger 
** Belus," or " Bel," or " Bel Nimrud the greater," Bel Merodach, etc., is 
Nimrod the Great King and Conqueror, who is more especially identi- 

' Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. iv. p. 245. 
^ Bunsf^n's Egypt, voL i. p. 418. 



52 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

fied with " Hercules," the giant hunter " Orion," " Adonis," " Adon,'' 
" Baal Tammuz," " Osiris," " iEgyptus," " Bacchus," " Jupiter," " Mare," 
" Anu," " Dis," " Pluto," etc. 

It is to be observed, however, that although the distinction 
between the two sets of gods is more or less clear, all were regarded 
by the ancients as the Sun, which was a consequence of the intimate 
relation to each other of the two sets of gods, viz., the relation of 
father to son, and the tendency of the one to blend into the other. 
Mr Faber quotes a number of ancient mythologists who assert the 
identity of the different gods with the Sun.' 

Thus Saturn, or Cronus, is declared to be the Sun by Macrobius 
and Nonnus. 

Jupiter is declared to be the Sun by Macrobius, Nonnus, and the 
Orphic poet. 

Pluto, or Aidoneus, is said to be the Sun by the Orphic poet. 

Bacchus, or Dionusus, is said to be the Sun by Virgil, Ausonius, 
Macrobius, Sophocles and the Orphic poet. 

Priapus is said to be the Sun by the Orphic poet. 

Apollo is said to be the Sun by Macrobius, Nonnus, the Orphic 
poet, Ovid, and by his own oracular responsea 

Janus is said to be the Sun by Macrobius. 

Pan, or Phanes, is said to be the Sun by Macrobius and the 
Orphic poet. 

Hercules is said to be the Sun by Nonnus and Macrobius. 

Vulcan, or HephsBstus, is said to be the Sun by the Orphic 
poet. 

iSsculapius is said to be the Sun by Macrobiua 

Mercury is said to be the Sun by Macrobius. 

Osiris, Horus, Serapis, are each said to be the Sun by Diodorus 
Siculus, Macrobius, an ancient oracle of Apollo, and the HorapoUine 
hieroglyphics. 

Belus is said to be the Sun by Nonnus. 

Adonis, or Attys, is said to be the Sun by Macrobius. 

The Hindus, in like manner, assert that Vishnu is the Sun at night 
and in the west ; that Brahma is the Sun in the morning and in the 
east ; and that Siva is the Sun from noon to evening.^ 

Mr Faber gives the names of other gods who were regarded as 
the Sun, but the above are sufficient to show the general character 

' Faber, Pagan Idolatry^ vol. iL bk. iv. chap. i. pp. 206-214. 
' Moor's Hindu Pantheon, pp. 6, 9, 13, 33, 277, 294 ; Asiat. Res,, vol. i. p. 267 ; 
vol. V. p. 264. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 53 

of the Pagan belief, and the subject will be more fully considered 
in future chapters.' 

Thus, although these gods can be identified with human origmals. 
this in ancient times was known only to the priesthood and to the 
initiated ; while to the common people the gods were merely beings 
possesBed of certain powers and characteristics, whose material 
manifestations were the sun and certain planets, and whose spirits 
were supposed to inhabit certain images and temples. The truth 
only became gradually known as the influence of, and veneration 
bestowed on, idolatry began to decay, and our present knowledge is 
doe to the facts thus revealed by ancient authors, and to the 
careful comparison by modem students of ancient myths and 
traditions. 



In conclusion we may refer to the legend of '' IzdAibar,^ translated 
by Mr George Smith from the Assyrian Tablets, as it would seem to 
be an indubitable evidence that the human originals of the Baby- 
lonian gods were Nimrod and Cush. 

Mr Smith identifies Izdubar with Nimrod. Izdubar, like Nimrod, 
18 a mighty leader, a man strong in war. Like Nimrod, he is called 
"the mighty giani" like Nimrod, he is a mighty hunter who slays 
by sheer strength the most formidable wild animals. In his time the 
whole of the Euphrates Valley was divided into petty kingdoms, and 
Izdubar, like Nimrod, establishes his dominion over them, the centre 
of his dominion being in the region of Shinar at Babylon, Accad, 
Ereck and Nippur, exactly corresponding with that of Nimrod.^ 
Moreover, Izdubar speaks of Noah as his father, a term of relation- 
ahip which would be equally applied to one who was his grandfather 
or great-grandfather. For Hasisadra,^ his father, is the person who, 
in the Chaldean Tablets of the Deluge, is preserved with various 
Animiil.q and beasts of the field in an ark, and who at its termination 
sends forth a dove and a raven to see if the waters had abated.^ His 
relationship, therefore, to Noah, together with his characteristics and 

' See chap, x., " Sun, Serpent, Phallic and Tree Worship." 

» Chaldean Account of Oenesis, pp. 174 and 203, 11. 44, 45. 

3 Ha Sisadra is evidently the Noah of Berosus's Huiory of the Deluge, the name 
being translated by the Greeks, " Xisuthrus " or " Sisithnis." Tlie Greeks con- 
stantly substituted " th " f or " d," as in "Theos"for "Deus," and always gave a 
Greek termination to names. Ha Sisadra would therefore become '* Ha Sisathrus," 
or without the prefix, ** Sisathrus." 

^ See Izdubar legend, Chaldean Account of Oenezis. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



exploits, makee it impossible to doubt tbat tbe legend is « romance 
foonded on the history of Nimrod. 

But although Izdabar is undoubtedly Nimrod, he is, as shown by 
M. Lenormant, the god of Sre, and the personification or incarnation 
of the Sun, while the twelve tablets on which his enterprises are 
recorded appear to symbolise the Sun god passing through the twelve 
signs of the Zodiac, and is probably the origin of the twelve labours 
of Hercules.' In short, jitst as Nin, the Assyrian Hercules, was the 
hiisbaod of the Assyrian goddess Bilta, or Beltis, so Izdubar is the 
lover and husband of Ishtar, another form of the same goddess.' 

We have also seen that the two Pagan gods are associated together 
in the respective characters of king and cotmsellor, hero and sage, 
warrior and prophet, as in the case of Thoth and Osiris, Thoth and 
Tammuz, Bel and Nebo, Ninas and Oannes, Nin and Hea. In like 
manner, Izdubar is associated with a wonderful sage named " Hta- 
hani" "famed for hia vnsdom. in all things and hia knowledge of all 
thai is visible and concealed," and whose name and characteristica 
therefore exactly correspond with those of Hea. The su£Bx bant 
signifietj "to make," 3 and as one signification of the name " Hea " is 
"lite,"* Hea-ba/ni would signify "life-maker," or " life-giver," which 
was the particular attribute of Hea, ^sculapius, etc. 

Again Hea-bani helps Izdubar in his exploits and the two are 
represented on a Babylonian cylinder (see woodcut) in exactly the 






TZDDBAB AMD HU-BAKI. 



' Lenormant, Chaldean Magie, pp. 188, 169. 

' Izdubar Tablets. i C/uUtUan Aeeoant of Genmt, p. 180. 

* BawlinsoD's Herod., vol i, p. 600. Hea was "the life-giver"; Lenormant, 
Chaldean Magic, pp. 114, 116. 

' Copied from Th« Chaldean AeeouiU of QtnetU, by the pertnissian of Uessra. 
Sampaon, Low, MsrstoD & Co. 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC. 55 

same style and maimer as the Assyrian Nin, or Hercules/ while the 
fawn, the particular symbol of Nimrod, at the feet of Izdubar also 
identifies Izdubar with Nin, and both with Nimrod. M. Lenormant 
also identifies Izdubar with the god Bar or Nin.^ 

IL Lenormant speaks of the legend as " a god transformed in epic 
poetry into a terrestrial hero, and not an historical king as Mr Smith 
would have him considered."^ But it is clear that Mr Smith is 
correct and that the legend is a romance founded on the history of 
the great king and giant hunter Nimrod, who was afterwards deified 
and eventually transformed into the Sun and Fire god of the Baby- 
lonian& It is the story of a terrestrial hero transformed into a god, 
and not the story of a god transformed into a hero. 

The legend, in short, is a further and conclusive evidence that the 
originals of the Babylonian gods, and of the gods of other nations 
who received their religion from Babylonia and Assyria, were the 
two first kings of the first great empire of the world, Nimrod and 
his father Gush. For while it is clear that Izdubar is Nimrod, it 
is equally clear that he is the Babylonian Sun god, and Nin the 
Assyrian Hercules and god of war and hunting, and that his friend 
and counsellor Hea-bani is the god Hea. 

Mr Smith gives a portrait of Izdubar from a Ehorsabad sculpture 
{dee woodcut,) ^ and he remarks : — " In all these cases and in every 
other instance where Izdubar is represented he is indicated as a man 
with masses of curls over his head, and a large curly beard. So 
marked is this and different in cast to the usual Babylonian type 
that I cannot help the impression of its being a representation of a 
distinct and probably Ethiopian type. " ^ But the Cushite type is not 
only displayed in the crisped hair. It is seen also in the flattened 
and distended nostrils, and in the thick, turned-out sensual lips, and 
it is just what we might expect to find in the progenitor of the black 
or negro race. This portrait, therefore, also tends to identify Izdubar 
with the Cushite monarch, and the sculpture is probably a fair like- 
ness of the giant hunter Nimrod. 

It will be seen that he is represented as not only strangling a lion, 
but as carrying in his right hand a dead serpent. This, as will be 
pointed out in another chapter, was the peculiar characteristic of the 

' Compare arUe woodcut, p. 24. 
* Chaldean Magic, p. 189. 

3 Ibid., p. 188. 

4 Copied from The Chaldean Account of Genesis, by the permission of Messrs 
Sampson, Low, Marston, & Co. 

^ Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 194. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



variooA forms of the god ander which Niinrod was deified. They 
were represented as the slayer of the serpent. 




IiDDBAi RBAHaLiNa A LiOR (from KhorwbMl SoolptDTe). 



GODS OF BABYLON, EGYPT, GREECE, ETC 57 

There is much uncertainty regarding the phonetic value of the 
signs which Mr George Smith has translated by the name Izdubar 
or Isdubar.' M. Lenormant has pointed out that " hwr " signifies fire. 
and considers the name " Izdubar " to mean " mass of fire " ; but '' bar " 
is also the Semitic for " son/' which is such a prominent feature in 
the titles of the younger Babylonian god. Again, the symbols for 
" 8 '* and " sh " are often the same in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and this 
is also the case with those of Babylon, in which case the first syllable 
of the name might perchance be read as " lah" or " Isha,'* signifying 
the " woman,'' the root of the name '* Ishtar." It may also be remarked 
that '^ d " and " t " are generally interchangeable, as in the case of 
" Dumuz," who was generally known as " Tammuz." Is it not possible, 
therefore, that the name may be a combination of the name of the 
Babylonian goddess lahta/r with the term "ba/r,*' or ''son," added, 
signifying 'Hhe son of Ishtar," which would represent Izdubar to 
be both the son and the lover, or husband, of the goddess ? 

This, as already pointed out, was the particular relationship of the 
younger god to the goddess. He was called '* the son and husband of 
the mother," and considering the evident identity of Izdubar with the 
god Nin, or Bar, there seems to be a possibility at least that this may 
be the correct meaning of the name. 

■ Later writers have translated the name as " Gilgames" but little dependence 
cmn aa yet be placed on the interpretation. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GREAT GODDESS 

It is necessary now to point out briefly the identity of the principal 
goddesses with each other and with the Babylonian Queen. 

The usual title of the goddess in Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt and 
in classical mythology is "The Great Goddess Mother" or "The 
Mother of the Gods/' but she is represented as being both the mother 
and wife of the gods, and as it is the uniform testimony of the 
ancients that the various goddesses were all one and the same person, 
it is a further evidence that the originals of the various gods were 
only two persons bearing the relation to each other of father and 
son. 

These two originals we have seen to be Cush and his son Nimrod, 
and the goddess would therefore seem to have been the wife of Cush 
and the mother of Nimrod. But, as we shall see, she was not only the 
wife of the former, but both the mother and the wife of the latter, 
and she is more generally represented as the wife of the younger 
god. 

As it seems clear that Nimrod is the Nin, or the second Bel 
Nimrod, of the monuments, and the Ninus of history, it follows that 
" Semvra/mis" the wife and queen of Ninus, must have been the wife 
of Nimrod, and that as he was the human original of the younger 
god, so was she the human original of the great goddess, Bilta Niprut, 
Beltis, Ishtar, etc., who are clearly different aspects of the same 
goddess. 

Both Justin and Castor state that Ninus was the second king of 
Babylon and the son and successor of Belus, and that, after the death of 
Ninus, his wife Semiramis succeeded him on the throne of Babylon.' 
This is also testified to by Eusebius and Africanus in their dynasties 
of Assyrian kings.' There was a second Semiramis who lived about 
the time of the Trojan war, and Sir. H. Rawlinson has found the 
records of this later queen at Babylon, and on this ground, but with- 

' Justin, ffutariOy p 616 ; Castor, Cory's Fragments, p. 65. 
' Cory, pp. 70, 71. 

68 



THE GREA T GODDESS 59 

out sufficient reason, has questioned the existence of the first 
Semiramis. Nothing was more common than for later sovereigns to 
take the name and endeavour to surround themselves with some of 
the glory of a celebrated predecessor. We are also told by both 
Diodorus Siculus and Athenagoras that Semiramis after her death 
was worshipped by the Babylonians and throughout the Elast as 
"RheaJ* "the great goddess mother."' She was also known in 
Ghreeoe as "Aramas"^ which is the Hellenic form of the Chaldee 
Ama, "the mother." This certainly could not apply to the later 
Semiramis. 

Cronus, i.e,, Belus, was king of the Cyclops, who are called " the 
inventors of tower building," 3 the first tower being that of Babel. 
Babylon also was surrounded by a wall with towers at intervals, and, 
according to Ovid, Justin and others, it was Semiramis who sur- 
rounded Babylon with a wall.^ This is equally ascribed by 
M^asthenes to Belus,^ but, as we shall see, Semiramis finished what 
the second Belus, or Nimrod, had commenced, and she was even more 
famous as a builder than her husband. It was in consequence of this 
that so many of the goddesses are represented wearing a mural crown, 
or crown of towers. Thus Rhea, known also as " Cybele" is represented 
with a turreted crown, and Ovid says that the reason why she wore 
this crown was because "she was the first who erected towers in 
cities,"^ which further identifies her with Semiramis. 

Rhea is usually represented as the wife of Saturu, the elder Belus, 
or Cush, rather than the wife of Nimrod, and we shall see that there 
are grounds for concluding that Semiramis was the wife of the father 
before she became the wife of the son, which may have been the 
primary reason of the title given to the latter, viz., " The Husband of 
the Mother." 7 

Like Rhea, or Cybele, " Diana" or " Artemia*' is also represented, 
with a turreted crown,® and a scholiast on the Periergesis of Dionysius 
makes Semiramis the same as the goddess " Artemis Despoina." ^ The 
title " Despoina " is the Greek for " the lady " and " Domina" " the 

■ Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii. p. 76 ; Athenagoras, Legatio, pp. 178, 179 ; Paschal 
Chronicle^ vol. i. p. 65. 

' Hesychius, mb, voccy " Ammas." 3 Pliny, lib. vii. cap. Ivi. 

♦ Ovid, opera Metam,y lib. iv. fab. 4. 1. 58, vol. ii. p. 177 ; Hislop, p. 308. 

5 Megasthenes, Cory, pp. 45, 46. 

'• Ovid, op. vol. iii. ; Fasti^ iv. 219-221 ; Hislop, p. 30. 

7 Bunsen's Egypi^ vol. i. pp. 438, 439, and Rawlinson's Herod., vol. i. oHsay x. pp. 
626, 626. 

" See figure from Kitto's CommerUaryy vol v. p. 205 ; Hislop, p. 29. 

9 Layard's Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 480, note. 



6o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

lady/' was the common title of Rhea or Cybele in Rome,' as was 
" Bilta," or " Beltis/' " The Lady/' of the goddess in Babylon. 

Semiramis is also identified by Athenagoras and Lncian with the 
Syrian goddess,^ and the Syrian goddess has been shown by Layard 
to be the Phoenician Aatarie? whose name " Astarte/* or " Ashtart,** 
was in Hebrew '' Ashtoreth,** and Astarte and Ashtoreth are the 
Phoenician and Hebrew forms of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.^ 
Mr Hislop remarks that it is generally admitted that the last syllable, 
" tart" of the Phoenician " Ashtart," is derived from the Hebrew tr, 
" to go round, surround, or encompass " ; the masculine tor being used 
for a border or row of jewels round the head (Parkhurst, sub voce No. 
11, and also Oensenius). Hence as " Aaha " is woman, Ashtart and 
Ashtoreth would mean "the woman who encompasses,'' alluding to 
her surrounding cities with walls and towers.^ This is further con- 
firmed by the fact that Astarte, like Diana and Rhea, is depicted 
standing on a lion, with a turreted crown,^ while Diana was called 
" Tateropoto^," from tor, '*^a tower," and pol, or poleo, "turn 
round," or "surround with towers or fortifications."^ If, as seems 
evident, both from the etymology and the turreted crown, this is the 
meaning of the names " Ashtart " and " Ashtoreth," we may conclude 
that it is also the meaning of "Ish^or," the goddess of war, "who 
defends from attacks," ® for " laha," like " Aaha" signifies " woman." 

Astarte, according to Sanchoniathon, was the Babylonian 
Aphrodite, or Venua,*^ and Ishtar was identified by the Babylonians 
with the planet Venus/° Pausanias also, speaking of the temple of 
Vulcan at Athens, says, " Near this is the temple of the celestial Venus 
who was first worshipped by the Assyrians and, after them, by the 
Paphians of Cyprus, and the Phoenicians who inhabited the city of 
Ascalon in Palestine." " Under the name of " Mylittay^ virgins were 
prostituted to her in Babylon, and the same was done in Cyprus in 
honour of Venus." 

Bel, under the title of ''Bed Samen" was called "The Lord of 

■ Ovid, Fattiy lib. iv. p. 340 ; Hislop, p. 30. 

* Athenagoras, Leg., voL iL p. 179 ; Lucian, De Dea Syria, vol. iii. p. 382 ; 
Hislop, p. 307. 

s Layard, Nineveh, vol. iL p. 456. 

« Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 138. s Hislop, pp. 307, 308. 

^ Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, vol. ii. p. 456. ' Hislop, p. 308. 

■ Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 139. 

9 Sanchoniathon, Cory, p. 14. '" Rawlinson, Herod,, vol. L pp. 619, 620. 

" Pausanias, lib. i. Attica, cap. xiv. ; Hislop, p. 157. 
<> Herod., lib. i. cap. cxcix. 



THE GREA T GODDESS 6i 

Heaven," ' Ishtar was called " The Mistress of Heaven," while Beltis, 
under the name of '' MeUccU Ashemin" was known to the Babylonians 
and Jews as *' The Queen of Heaven." ' This was also the title of 
the Egyptian " lais,'* who in later Egyptian mythology was identified 
with the moon, as was Osiris with the sun. Isis is, in fact, the Greek 
form of Isha, " the woman." ^ 

Isis also is the same as " Ceres" ^ and the rites of Isis and Ceres 
were similar,^ as were those of " Rhea," or " Cybele," and " Astarte." ^ 

Thus we have " Rhea," " Cybele," " Diana," " Astarte," or " Ash- 
toreth," " Ishtar," " Venus," or " Aphrodite," " Isis " and " Ceres," all 
more or less identified with Semiramis and the Babylonian goddess, 
and with each other, and the relationship of Rhea to Saturn, of Venus 
to Adonis, Isis to Osiris, etc., still further confirms this identity. 

We have seen that BaalTammuz was also called " Adon," "TheLord," 
who was the Greek Adonis, and Adon with the points is pronounced 
in Hebrew " Athon" Now, speaking of local names in the district of 
Laodicea, Eustathius states that " Athan is God." ^ The feminine of 
Athan is *'Athana" which, in the Attic dialect, is ''Athena" which 
signifiies " The Lady," as does " Adon," or " Athan," " The Lord." « This 
identifies " Mirterva" whose name in Athens was " Athena," with the 
wife of Adon, or Tammuz, viz., Ishtar, and therefore with Beltis, whose 
name also signifies " The Lady." Minerva was the " Neith " of the 
Egyptians, the goddess of Sais, and was called " the mother of the 
gods," 9 like Rhea, Isis and others. The Minerva of the Egyptians 
was also the mother of Apollo,^° who was the same as Horus, which 
shows that Minerva, or Neith, was identical with Isis, the mother of 
Horus. 

The name of the goddess ''Juno" is derived from the Chaldee 
D'luiie, which, without the article, becomes " June " or " Juno." 
" Diune," or " Dione," was a name given to Venus, and Ovid uses the 
title for the Babylonian Venus," while Julius Firmicus also identifies 
Venus with Juno. He says, " The Assyrians and part of the Africans 
wish * the air ' to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have 

• Hislop, p. 165. 

' JeremuJi, vii. 18 ; Parkhurst, Hebrew Lexicon^ pp. 402, 403 ; Hislop, p. 264. 

^ Hislop, p. 103, note. ^ Lempri6re, Jsis. 

5 Ibid. ^ Hislop, p. 304. 

' Eustathius, Periergesis of Dionysius, iv. 915 ; Apud Bryant, vol. iii. p. 140. 

" Hislop, pp. 20, 21, note. 

9 Wilkinson, vol. iv. p. 285 ; Hislop, p. 21 ; Lempri6re, Neith. 

" Lempri^re, Minerva. 

" Ovid, Fasti, Ub. ii. pp. 461-464 ; vol. iii. p. 113. 



62 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



consecrated the same onder the name of Jnno, or the virgin 
Venue." ' 

Diune is the Ghaldee for " dove." ' Dovea were sacred to Jono, and 
in a medal given hy Layard ^ the Babylonian goddeaa is represented 
with two doves on her head, while on the reverse there is a dove 
bearing an olive branch in its raoath. In another case * the goddess 
Cybele, or Rhea, is represented with a conventional branch in her 
hand, both representations symbolising the goddess as " the branch 
bearer " {see woodcats). Now the name " Semiramis " ugnifies " the 
branch bearer," being derived from Se, "the" «mtr, " branch,' 'amif, 
"bearer," the word in its Greek form becoming Semiramis;* and, 
according to Hesychins, Semiramis was the name given by the Qreeka 
to wild pigeons or doves.' This further tends to identify Semi- 




L&TABD. 



ramis with Juno, Rhea and Venus, and there can be little doubt, 
therefore, that Semiramis was a name or form of the Pagan goddess. 
It is not to be supposed, however, that " Semiramis " was the original 
name of the Babylonian queen, any more than " Ninus " was the original 
name of the Babylonian king. Even the very name " Nimrod," " the 
leopard sabduer," could not have been given him until after he had 
signalised himself as a great hunter ; while the name "Nin," or " Ninus," 
"The Son," could not have been given him until after his death, when,for 
reasons which will be noticed hereafter, he was deified under the title of 
" The Son." So also with the name " Semiramis," " the branch bearer," 
The branch is the recognised symbol of " a son," and olive branches in 
particular are, to this day, a term for children ; the name was there- 
fore given to the deified queen as " The Mother, or Bearer of The Son." 
She had also a similar name given to her in Babylon as the wife of 

' Jul. Firm., Dt Errore, cap. iv. p. 9. 

■ Hiatop, pp. 78, 79. 

> LaL^&rd, NinXMh and Babylon, p. S&U. 

* Bryuit, vol. iii. p. 84. 

' Hislop, p. 79. ° Uea^chiu*, SemiratHU. 



THE GREA T GODDESS 63 

Bel Merodach, vi2S., " Zerbanit" signifying " The Mother of the Seed," 
{rem Zero, "seed," and banity "genetrix." ' 

In accordance with the genius of Paganism, the symbol of the 
dove bearing an olive branch had a double meaniug. It is evidently 
taken from the incident in the history of the Deluge, the events of 
which, as before remarked, are so intimately interwoven with every 
ancient mythology, and, as is well known, the olive branch was the 
symbol of peace throughout the ancient world. The symbol, there- 
fore, as applied to the goddess, signified that she was not only the 
mother of the seed, but the goddess of peace and mercy. Hence she 
was called " Aphrodite" the " wrath subduer," from aph, " wrath," 
and radah, ''to subdue," radite^ being the feminine emphatic.' 
So also she was " Mylitta** " the Mediatrix ; " " Amanbaia" " the mother 
of gracious acceptance," from ama, "mother," and rutza^ the 
active participle of retza, " to accept graciously " ; " Bona Dea^' " the 
good goddess," etc., upon whose altars no bloody sacrifices were 
allowed to be ofiered.^ 

Other forms of the goddess might be mentioned, but the above 
is sufficient to identify the deified queen of Babylon with the 
principal goddesses of the great nations of antiquity, and to show 
their connection with each other. Rawlinson, speaking of the Great 
Goddess Mother, says, " She was Astarte in Phoenicia ( Cic not Deorv/m, 
p. 3) who is even said by Sanchoniathon to have had a cow's head, 
like Athor, the Venus of Egypt, whence called Astoreth Kamaim.^ 
She was Venus Urania, said by Pausanias to have been chiefly 
honoured by the Assyrians." He also identifies her with " Anaitis, 
with Ceres, with The Queen of Heaven, The Moon, Rhea, or Cybele, 
Juno, Diana, Lucina, Isis and Athor, the Phoenician Tanith, Minerva 
and the Egyptian Neith." s 

Apuleius, when he was initiated into the mysteries, says that Isis 
revealed herself to him in the following words, " I am nature, the 
parent of all things, mistress of all the elements, the beginning of 
ages. Sovereign of the Gods, queen of the manes, the first of 

' Rawlinson's Herod.^ vol. i. p. 630. 

' Hislop, p. 158, note. The Greeks supposed the name to be derived from 
their word aphros^ " foam," and hence said that Venus was born from the foam of 
the sea, bat such a derivation is unmeaning, and, like other Greek explanations of 
the characters of their gods, is based on ignorance of the original meaning, which 
should be sought from the language of Chaldea. 

3 Ibid, 

* £Lamaim, " horned," the word having the same derivation as kronos, 

5 KawliDson's Herod,, vol. ii. essay i. pp. 537-539. 



64 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

heavenly beings ; my divinity, uniform in itself, is honoured under 
numerous forms, various rites and different names. The Phrygians 
call me Pessimuntca, ' mother goddess ' ; the Athenians, ' Autochthones,' 
the Cecropian * Minerva * ; the people of Cyprus, * Paphian Venus * ; 
the arrow-armed Cretans, ' Diana Dictyana ' ; the Sicilians, ' Stygian 
Proserpine ' ; the Eleusinians, 'Ancient Ceres ' ; others, ' Juno,' ' Bellona,' 
' Hecate,' ' Rhammusia ' ; but the sun-illumined Ethiopians and the 
Egyptians, renowned for ancient lore, worshipping me with due 
ceremonies, call me by my real name, ' Queen Isis ! ' " ' 

It is worthy of note that this revelation especially speaks of the 
Ethiopians, or Cushites, and the Egypticuis, who were largely 
composed of the same race, as the true centres of the ancient 
idolatry. 

This revelation is also in accordance with a passage in the Acts, 
where Diana is said to be "She whom all Asia and the world 
worshippeth," ^ which could not mean that she was universally 
worshipped under the name of Diana, but that it was recognised 
that she was the same goddess who wsrS worshipped under a variety 
of names, and called in consequence '' Lea MyrionyTauSy' " the goddess 
with ten thousand names." 

The history of Ninus and Semiramis by CtesiarS corroborates 
much that has been deduced from other sources, ai^d explains, among 
other things, why so many forms of the great goddess are represented 
with a mural or turreted crown. It also throws some light on other 
points which have to be referred to hereafter. 

The objection which has been raised against the history of 
Ctesias, viz., that Ninus and Semiramis can be clearly identified with 
the Babylonian god and goddess, is the same objection which 
Wilkinson has raised to the fact of Osiris having had a human 
original.3 But the consentient evidence, showing that the originals of 
the great god and goddess were a human king and queen, is con- 
clusive, and cannot be set aside, or explained away. We might as 
well say that there was no such king as Nimrod, because he can be 
identified with various Pagan gods, or that the sons of the patriarch 
Noah, because they were deified, never existed ! 

The worship of ancestors and deification of heroes have been 
characteristic of mankind in all ages, and the actions ascribed to the 
gods are essentially those of human beings, while the conquests 
of Ninus, of Bacchus and of Osiris are those of a human king, and in 

» Wdkifuon^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 99. ' Acts xix. 27. 

^ See Appendix A, where the nature of these objections is considered. 



THE GREA T GODDESS 65 

exact accordance with those of Nimrod. The history of Ctesias, 
in shorty is in strict keeping with the rest of the evidence and 
corroboratory of it, and against that evidence nothing can be offered 
except the mere assertion that the originals of the Babylonian gods 
eould not have been a human king and queen. It is said, indeed, 
that the Assyrian monuments make no mention of Ninus and 
Semiramis as a human king and queen ; but considering the secrecy 
with which the human origin of the gods, who were subsequently 
identified with the sun, moon and stars and the powers of nature, 
was kept, it would have been a wonder if anything had been thus 
openly recorded which would have betrayed it. For the same 
reason we may be sure that the Chaldean priesthood would not 
have revealed to Herodotus the secret ; but it is significant that they 
ascribe some of the principal works of Babylon, attributed by 
Ctesias to Semiramis, to two queens, Semiramis and Neitocris ' 
(Neith, the victorious),* the names respectively of the deified queen 
in Babylon and in Egypt 

Finally, the fact that so many of the goddesses are represented 
with turreted crowns, and the reason given for this, viz., that they 
first erected towers in cities, implies not only a human original, but 
associates that original with the first builders of fortified cities, 
Nimrod and his queen. In short, if the human original of the Pagan 
god known as Ninus, Bel Nimrud, etc., was Nimrod, we must 
conclude that the goddess associated with him was his queen. 

Ctesias was physician of Artaxerxes Memnon, and had therefore 
access to the Babylonian archives, which, according to custom, had 
been in the charge of the Chaldean priesthood, and it is far more 
probable that he obtained the story, hitherto kept secret, from those 
archives, than that, without a shadow of reason for so doing, he 
invented it.^ 

The objection is made to his history that it is composed of Arian, 
Semitic, Egyptian and Greek appellations.'* But nothing was more 
common among the ancient writers when they understood the signi- 
fication of names, to translate them into their own language, as in 
the case of Eratosthenes* list of Egyptian kings, which is largely 
composed of Greek appellations. This is no more evidence of forgery 

' Herod., lib. i. caps, clxxxiv-clxxxviii. It seems clear that Herodotus confused 
the original Semiramis with the later queen of that name. 

» Eratosthenes translates " Neitocris," by " Minerva the victorious," Minerva 
being the Neith of the Greeks (Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. iv. p. 47). 

5 Lenormant, Anc, Hut. of East ^ vol i. p. 369. 

* Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies^ vol. i. p. 165, note. 

E 



66 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

than the fact that English writers translate into English the 
soubriquets of foreign kings — such as " Charles the Bold." Ctesias, 
no doubt, sometimes did this, leaving at other times the Semitic 
Assyrian names ; but it is far more probable that the Greek tran- 
scribers are responsible for the Hellenic names, the Greeks having 
always been the chief offenders in this respect. Ctesias may have 
made mistakes, especially in his dates, which might be expected from 
the fact that he had to interpret the Babylonian records without the 
aid of the Chaldean priesthood, but it does not invalidate the general 
truth of his history. 

The objections, therefore, to his history have no real weight, while 
the fact that Ninus and Semiramis can be identified with the god 
and goddess of Babylon is only in accordance with the evidence 
which shows that Nimrod and his queen were the human originals of 
those deities and it is the strongest proof of the authenticity of his 
history. 

M. Lenormant has suggested that Ctesias obtained his history 
from the Persians and that it is a Persian tradition.' There is 
nothing to support this and no trace of it in Persian records, although, 
if it was the tradition of a people living in such close contiguity to 
Babylonia, there would be every reason to believe that it was 
founded upon fact. But the Persians, as remarked by M. Lenormant, 
were no historians, and this history is exact, detailed and circum- 
stantial. The fact that it was questioned by Aristotle, who opposed 
everything connected with mythology and was yet generally 
accepted as true by the Greeks, is an evidence that its authenticity 
could not be shaken at the time. Moreover, the Greeks had heard of 
" Ninus, the son of Belus," the first king of Babylon before the time 
of Ctesias,^ and therefore Ninus was neither an invention of Ctesias 
nor of the Persians. 

Had M. Lenormant and others recognised the accumulative force 
of the evidence which proves that the originals of the great god and 
goddess of Paganism were a human king and queen, they would 
hardly have questioned the general truth of the history of Ctesias. 

But both the history of Ctesias, and all that we have hitherto 
deduced, will be remarkably confirmed when we come to consider the 
origin, rise and subsequent development of the ancient idolatry. 

Ctesias represents Ninus as first attacking and subduing the 
people of Babylonia with the aid of an Arab chieftain, who, like him- 
self, was jealous of the power of the Babylonians, i,e,, the people who 
» Ana. Hist of the Easty vol. i. p. 368. » Herod, lib. L cap. vii. 



THE GREA T GODDESS 67 

then occupied Babylonia, who were probably Medes, or people of 
Turanian origin. 

Ninus is said to have taken the king of Babylonia and his 
children and put them to death. Thence he marched on Assyria, and, 
having terrified the inhabitants by the sack of some towns, compelled 
them to submit. Thence he marched on Media, took the king 
prisoner and crucified him, and in seventeen years made himself 
master of the countries between the Mediterranean Sea and the 
Indus. 

After these conquests (" being made strong " ') he built Nineveh 
and called it by his name,' making it the capital of his dominions and 
surrounding it with a wall and towers of vast extent. It appears to 
have been at first simply an enclosed tract of country for defensive 
purposes, and its dimensions, as given by Ctesias, accord with the 
description of it in the Bible, viz., '* an exceeding great city of three 
days' journey" (that is round it); a day's journey being twenty 
miles, which would make it about sixty miles in circumference.^ 
Similarly Ctesias describes it as eighteen miles long by ten miles in 
breadth, and its circumference would thus be fifty-six miles. Hence it 
was capable of containing everything necessary for the lengthened 
support of the army and people of Ninus, with their families and 
their flocks and herds. This accords with the fact that at the time 
of the prophet Jonah it contained " 120,000 children who knew not 
their right hand from their left (representing a population of about 
600,000), and also much cattle " ; which shows that it was even then 
more of the character of an enclosed track of land than a closely- 
built city. 

It will be seen that the history so far strictly accords with the 
scriptural history of Nimrod. 

After this, Ninus attacked Bactria. In this war he met with 
Semiramis, the wife of Oannes, governor of Syria, which is the name 
by w^hich the ancients spoke of Assyria, Ninus took Semiramis 
from her husband and married her. Shortly afterwards he died and 
left her sole mistress of the empire. 

Now " Cannes '* was a name given to Cush as the great teacher, 
and it would appear from this that Ninus, or Nimrod, took his 
father's wife and married her. This is in exact accordance with the 

* See ante, p. 24. 

» Nin-neveh, " the habitation of Nin, or Ninus." The chief part of its ruins 
ire called ** Nimrod " to this day (Layard's Nineveh, vol. i. p. 7). 
J Smith, Diet, of the B^'ble, "Nineveh." 



68 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

story of Vulcan and his wife Venus, who wa-s taken from him by 
Mars.^ For, as we have seen, Vulcan was Cush, Mars was Bel 
Merodach, or Nimrod, and Venus was Semiramis. Other traditions, 
to be noticed later, confirm this conclusion. 

The first thing that Semiramis did on the death of Ninus was to 
build, or complete, the building of Babylon, and the £U^count proceeds 
to give the well-known dimensions of the city, with its walls and 
towers. The history also gives a detailed account of the vast works 
within the city, describmg the method of architecture, and the 
temporary diversion of the River Euphrates which flowed through it, 
in order to form a tunnel beneath the bed of the river. Ctesias also 
says that two gates of bronze which closed either end of the tunnel 
were in existence at the time of the Persian conquest. Semiramis 
then made an expedition against the Medes, who had revolted, and 
both there and in Persia constructed various vast works, making roads 
and canals for the supply of citiea She is also represented as subdu- 
ing Egypt and Ethiopia, although this was really the act of her 
husband. Finally she made an expedition against India, in which she 
was completely defeated with the total loss of her army, after which 
she devoted herself to the completion of her great building works.' 

Alexander the Great found her name inscribed on the frontiers of 
Scythia with the inscription : — " I ruled the Empire of Ninus, which 
reaches eastward to the River Hinaman (Indus), southward to the land 
of incense and myrrh (Arabia), northward to the Saces and Sogdians. 
Before me no Assyrian had seen a sea ; I have seen four that no one 
had approached, so far were they distant. I compelled the rivers to 
run where I wished and directed them to places where they were re- 
quired. I made barren lands fertile by watering them with my rivers. 
I built impregnable fortresses. With iron tools I made roads across 
impassable rocks. I opened roads for my chariots where the very 
wild beasts had been unable to pa8& In the midst of these occupations 
I have found time for pleasure and love." ^ It is well known that 
Semiramis was famous for her beauty and immorality, and was a 
fitting original for the goddess " Venus Aphrodite." 

' Lempri^re, Vidcan, 

* Lenormant, Anc, Hist, of EaU^ vol. L pp. 364, 367. 

3 Recorded by Polyaenus, Lenormant, vol. i. p. 367. M. Lenormant discredits 
this statement of Polyaenus, but to accuse every ancient author of deliberate and 
motiveless falsehood when his statements do not agree with the author's own 
theories is wholly unjustifiable. Polyaenus states as a fact what it is inconceivable 
he should, without object or reason, have invented, and his statement is therefore 
the strongest confirmation of the history of Ctesias. 



THE GREA T GODDESS 69 

The history oondudes by saying that Semiramis abdicated in 
favour of her son, and disappeared, being changed into a dove (the 
symbol of Juno), and was worshipped as a goddess. 

These accounts are confirmed by Strabo, who says that Ninus built 
Nineveh, which he describes as much larger than Babylon, and that 
Semiramis built the latter city. " These sovereigns," he says, *' were 
masters of Asia. Many other works of Semiramis besides those at 
Babylon are extant in almost every part of the continent, as, for ex- 
ample, artificial mounds which are called the mounds of Semiramis, 
and walls and fortresses with subterranean passages, cisterns for 
water, roads to facilitate the ascent of mountains, canals communicat- 
ing with rivers and lakes, roads and bridges." ' 

' Strabo, voL ilL lib. xvi chaps, ii and ilL 



CHAPTER IV 

THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 

We now propose to show more fully the identity of the Qod Kings of 
Egypt and Babylon, and the intimate relations of the early history of 
the two countries. 

We have seen that Gush, the first Belus or Cronus, was not only 
the father of the gods, but was '' Hea, the Lord of Understanding and 
Teacher of Mankind/' " The All-wise Belus," Hermes, or Thoth, " The 
God of all Celestial Knowledge," " The God of Intellect," who " first 
arranged in order and in a scientific manner those things which belong 
to religion and the worship of the gods," etc. ; which implies that he 
must have been the first originator of idolatry. This idolatry diflered 
indeed from its subsequent form, inasmuch as he and his son were not 
then deified ; but it appears to have been the same in substance. It 
would also appear that his son Nimrod, who conquered the habitable 
world, was the chief propagator of this idolatry. 

One of the chief features of the subsequent idolatry was the 
obscene Phallic worship, and Osiris, Bacchus and other forms of the 
deified king were pre-eminently Phallic gods, or gods of generation, a 
huge figure of the Phallus being carried in the processions made in 
their honour ; ' from which it would appear that Nimrod was the first 
propagator of this worship. He seems also to have been the first 
propagator of the SabsBan worship, which consisted of the worship of 
the sun, moon and stars, and was intimately connected with Phallic 
worship; the sun being regarded as the great creative power and 
source of life and generation, of which the Phallus was the manifesta- 
tion in the animal world. 

Speaking of Tammuz, one of the forms of the deified king, — 
Maimonides, who was deeply read in the learning of the Chaldeans, 
says, — " When the false prophet named Thammuz preached to a 
certain king that he should worship the seven stars and the twelve 
signs of the zodiac, that king ordered him to be put to a terrible 
death. On the night of his death all the images assembled from the 

' Herod., lib. ii. cap. xlviii. 
70 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 71 

end of the earth unto the temple of Babylon, to the great golden 
image of the son, which was suspended between heaven and earth. 
That image prostrated itself in the midst of the temple, and so did 
all the images around it, while it related to them all that had 
happened to Thammuz. The images wept and lamented all night 
long, and then in the morning they flew away, each to his own 
temple again to the ends of the earth. And hence arose the custom 
every year, on the first day of the month Thammuz, to mourn and 
weep for Thammuz." * 

This, of course, is the allegorical account of Pagan mythology ; 
but the violent death of Thammuz, Osirus, Ninus, Bacchus, and 
other forms of the deified monarch, is amply attested, and the 
memory of it formed the chief feature in the subsequent Pagan 
worship.* 

The account, however, implies that the religion originated by 
Gush and propagated by Nimrod consisted of the worship of the sun, 
moon and stars, which were regarded as the origin of the powers of 
nature. It would seem also that they were the originators of the ancient 
magic and necromancy which was one of the principal features of 
the ancient Paganism, and which received the name of " Accadian " 
from " Accad,'* one of the first cities built by the Cushite monarch. 

That they were the originators of these superstitions is confirmed 
by other traditions ; but before referring to them it is necessary to 
point out the original home of the Cushite race. 

The land of Cush, or iEthiops, was ^Ethiopia, and the word which 
in the Old Testament is translated " ^Ethiopia " is in the original 
" Gush," and " the ^Ethiopian " is " the Cushite." Now it is supposed 
by many people that ^Ethiopia was only the country of that name in 
Africa. But in Gen. ii. ^Ethiopia, or Cush, is said to be encom- 
passed by one of the four rivers which branched off from each other 
at the site of the Garden of Eden, one of which was the Euphrates 
and another the Tigris. The -di^thiopia there referred to must, 
therefore, have been in Asia, and as shown by the author of the 
article " Eden " in Smith's Dictionary of the Bihle^ included Arabia 
and also Susiana, or Chusistan, to the east of the Euphrates, which, as 
its name implies, was also the land of Cush.^ The names, '* Havilah " 
and " Sehal' two of the sons of Cush, and " Dedan'' his grandson, were 
the names respectively of portions of Northern, Southern and Eastern 

' More Nevochim^ p. 426. 

' See infra, chap, xii., " The Death of the Pagan God." 

5 Smith's Diet, of the Bible, " Eden " ; see also Hale's Chron., vol. i. pp. 354, 379. 



72 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Arabia, implying therefore that Arabia was the first home of the 
Cushite race. The reason why the African Ethiopia is best known 
to us is that the Asiatic Ethiopia was absorbed in the Babylonian 
Empire, which was not the case with African Ethiopia ; and the 
inhabitants of the latter, and probably many of those of the interior 
of Africa, are, to this day, the best representatives of the once great 
Cushite race. 

Strabo says that the ancient Greeks called the whole of the 
Southern nations toward the Indian Ocean ^' Ethiopia," adding that 
*'if the modems have confined the term to those who dwelt near 
Egypt this must not be allowed to interfere with the mecming of 
the ancients."' Again he says, " The Ethiopians were considered as 
occupying all the south coasts of both Asia and Africa, and were 
divided by the Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea, into Eastern and Western, 
Asiatic and African." ^ So also Stephanus of Byzantium says that 
" -Ethiopia was the first established country on earth " (t.«., it was 
the kingdom of Nimrod), and that *' the Ethiopians were the fij:«t 
who introduced the worship of the gods and established law." 3 The old 
Sanskrit geographers also speak of two lands of Cush, or Ethiopias, 
which they called " Cusha dwipa within " and " Cusha dwipa with- 
out." The first extended from the shores of the Mediterranean and 
mouths of the Nile to Serhind on the borders of India, and they 
make it one of the seven great dwipas, or divisions of the world. 
The other sub dwipa, or " Cusha dwipa without," was beyond the 
Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, that is. Upper Egypt, or African Ethiopia.^ 

Arabia is generally considered the home, and Arab the name, of the 
descendants of Ishmael. But Professor Baldwin has pointed out that 
there were two races in Arabia, viz., an old race called " Aribah," from 
whence Arabia received its name, and those of Mahomet's race called 
*' Moustaribes," who, according to tradition, were grafted on to the original 
stock by a marriage of Ishmael with a princess of the Cushite race. The 
language of the old race has been discovered, and is called " Himyaric." 
A remarkable inscription written in this language has been deciphered. 
It was found in the tomb of a Himyaric queen, and proves to be of 
the time of the great famine during the governorship of Joseph in the 
land of Egy pt.^ The language was still extant a century or two before 
Christ, and other inscriptions of that time have been found and 
deciphered. Professor Baldwin says, " It is found also in the ruins 

» Strabo, book i. chap. ii. § 28. * Strabo, book i. chap. ii. §§ 22-26. 

3 Baldwin's Prehutoric NationSy pp. 61, 62. ■♦ Ihid,^ p. 64. 

^ See text of inscription given by Saville, Truth of the Bible, p. 270. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 73 



of Chaldea, and in remote antiquity it seems to have been spoken 
throughout most of Western Asia, and abo in Hindustan, where it is 
probably represented at the present time, in a corrupted form, by the 
group of languages called * Dravidian.* ' It cannot properly be cleussed 
with the Arabic, but is closely related to the old Egyptian.* In the 
terminology of linguistic science this language is called iSthiopic, 
Cushite, and sometimes Hamitic." ^ It appears therefore to have been 
the same as that known as '' Accadian," or ancient Chaldean, which is 
the language found in the ruins of Chaldea, and which was that of 
the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia. 

Sir H. Rawlinson confirms this. He says that the Himyaric 
language is closely allied to the Ethiopian, or Cushite, and 
is believed to be Cushite. He further says that the most ancient 
records of Babylonia are written in a language, viz., that of the 
Accadia/ns, which presents an affinity to the dialects of Africa, 
and that it is more Hamitic than Semitic.^ Canon Rawlinson says 
that " this language is predominantly Cushite in its vocabulary/' 
and that " its closest analogies are with the Ethiopian dialects, such 
as the Mahra of Arabia, the Wolaitsa of Abyssinia, and the ancient 
language of Egypt." ^ 

Modern writers have proposed to call this language " Sumerian," 
because in later times it was confined to the people of Sumer, or 
Southern Babylonia, while the language of the people of Accad, or 
Northern Babylonia, had then become Semitic. But we shall retain 
the name " Accadian " as being better known, and because, as will be 
pointed out, it was probably the original language both of Accad and 
Sumer.^ 

This language, although a dead language in the time of the later 
Assyrian Monarchy, was still used by them for magical incantations, 
being regarded as a sacred tongue and of divine efficacy ,7 which 
implies that the Accadians were the originators of that magic. It 

' The languages known as " Dra vidian " belong to Lower and Central India, which 
are the chief seats of the Phallic worship, the origin of which can be clearly traced 
to the first Cushites, and where also exist those Cyclopean temples or other 
buildings which were so characteristic of that people. {8ee chap, v.) 

' There were two races in Egypt, the " Mizraimites," or descendants of Mizraim, 
and the "Egyptians," who we shall see were Cushites. Tlie ancient Eg}'ptian would 
therefore be closely related to the Cushite language. 

3 Baldwin, Prehist. Nations^ p. 75. 

* Rawlinson's Herod.^ vol i. p. 646, note 655-660. 
^ Bawlinson's Five Cheat MonarchieSy vol. i. p. 61. 

* See Appendix D, " The Accadians and NimrodJ* 
Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, chap. i. p. 2. 



74 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

wonld seem also that the Aribah, the ancient Cushite inhabitants 
of Arabia, were of the same race as the ancient Accadiana 

These ancient Cashites of the Arabian peninsula originally con- 
sisted of twelve tribes — Ad, Thamoud (probably so named after 
Thamus or Tammoz), Tasm, Cjadis, Amlik (Amalek), Oumayim, Abil, 
Djourhoum, Wabar, Jasm, Antem and Hashem. From this it would 
appecu: that the Amalekites who occupied the country to the extreme 
north of Arabia and the south of Palestine were of this race.' Ac- 
cording to the Arabian tradition, the father of this old race was a 
king called ^' Ad!* who built a great city that became rich 
and powerful, but it was destroyed on account of the unbeliev- 
ing wickedness of the people. " Old as Ad " is a term used in Arabia 
for remote antiquity,^ implying therefore that he was the first of the 
race and probably Gush himself. It may also be remarked that Ad is 
an Accadian word meaning *' father," ^ which would be just the name 
which would be given to the progenitor of these Cushites, and it 
further tends to identify them with the Accadians. 

Another account speaks of these Adites as very powerful, that they 
were giants, and that their king, Sheddad Ben Ad (the son of Ad), 
reigTied over the whole world,^ This exactly accords with the 
character of Nimrod, who was himself a giant. '' These traditions," 
says Professor Baldwin, '* quoted as authentic by all Mahommedan 
writers on Arabia, represent the Adites, Thamoudites and their con- 
temporaries as enterprising, rich and powerful ; that they had great 
cities and wonderful magnificence, and declare that they finally dis- 
appeared from the earth under the curse of heaven for their pride and 
arrogant idolatry." 5 

All this accords with the character of the Cushite or Ethiopian race, 
who, by all traditions, are represented to be the founders of the 
primitive idolatry. To this day the ruins of mighty cities are found 
in the interior of Arabia, and Professor Baldwin says that the Arab 
traditions speak of the Adites, or Aribah, as " wonderful builders," a 
characteristic peculiar to the Cushite founders of the mighty cities of 

' Amalek was also the name of one of the sons of Esau, but as the Bible speaks 
of the Amalekites as quite distinct from the Edomites, and as the Israelites were 
told to destroy the Amalekites, but not to meddle with the Edomites, we must 
conclude that the Amalekites were the Cushites of that name. {See Deut. iL 5, 6 ; 
xxiil 7 ; and Smith's Diet, of the Bible, "Amalekites".) 

* Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, p. 108, p. 72, note. 
5 Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 300. 

* Arabian account quoted by Col. Howard Vyse ; Pyramids of Ohizeh, voL iL, 
App., p. 136. 5 Baldwin, Prehist. Nations, p. 104. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 75 

Babylon and Nineveh, the colossal temples of Earnac and Lnxor in 
Upper Egypt, the chief seat of the Cushite Egyptians, and those of 
Salsette, Ellora, etc., in India. Such buildings are spoken of as 
"Cyclopean," the Cyclops being regarded as the great builders of 
antiquity, and, as we have seen, must be identified with the Cushite 
race. These traditions also speak of the Aribah as having magnificent 
cities and sumptuous palaces, and the architecture of the ruins of some 
of these cities is identical with that of ancient Egypt. The Greeks 
called the country " Sdbay' and the people " Sabceana" and the Sabsaan 
idolatry was instituted by the Cushite race. Sabay or Sebay was a son 
of Cush (Gen. x. 7), and the ruins of an ancient city of that name has 
been discovered in the interior of Yemen.* 

The Cushite race, as we have seen, were the original founders of 
the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, and the wisdom of the 
Chaldees was of world-wide renown. It is also well known that 
much of our knowledge of these sciences has been derived from the 
Arabians, who, we may presume, received it from the ancient Aribah, 
or Cushite, race. 

It would therefore appear that the Aribah or Adites, the ancient 
inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, previous to the arrival of the 
Semitic Arabs, were the Cushite founders of the first Babylonian 
Empire; and that Arabia, lying midway between African and 
Asiatic -Ethiopia, was the first home of the Cushite race. Hence in 
the account of Ctesias, it is said that Ninus was accompanied by an 
Arab, i.e., Aribah, or Cushite, chieftain (probably one of the other 
sons of Cush), when he started on his conquests, which also implies 
that he started from Arabia. 

This accords also with the Arab and Iranian traditions of 
''Djemschid*' and " Zohak." The Iranian tradition speaks of the 
reign of Djemschid, when there was a tendency "to build large 
cities and to organise religious worship with a tendency to natural- 
ism," or nature worship. Djemschid is also stated to have established 
idolatry, and the description, therefore, would perfectly apply to Cush. 
Immediately after this, the country, i.e., Iran, the original seat of the 
Bactrians, Medes, and other races conquered by Nimrod, was con- 
quered by an Arabian, i.e., an Aribah, or Cushite, conqueror called 
Zohak, who is described as a sanguinary tyrant, a corrupter of 
manners, and a teacher of a monstrous and obscene religion (Phallic 
worship) involving human sacrifices.^ 

' Baldwin, PrehisL Nations^ pp. 78, 80-84. 

' Lenormant, Anc. Hist, of East, vol. ii. p. 22. 



76 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

All this exactly agrees with the character of Ninus, or Nimrod, 
who crucified his prisoners, and was the propagator of the religion of 
his father, who originated human sacrifices. M. Lenormant considers 
that the tradition refers to the conquests of Ninuxxl. 

Zohak is C€dled " the Tasi/' and Taz is said to have been the father 
of the Tasis.' Now " Tasm," which is the plural of Taz, was one of 
the Adite tribes, and Zohak must therefore have been an Adite or 
Cushite. 

The Arabs have a similar tradition of Zohak. They say that 
his conquests extended eastward from Arabia, the home of the 
Cushite race, to the borders of Hindustan, which was equally the 
boundary of the conquests of Ninus. Moreover, they say that he and 
his successors ruled the empire for a period of 260 years.^ This 
is nearly exactly the period assigned by Berosus to the first Chaldean 
kingdom, which, of course, was that founded by Nimrod.3 

It is also stated that he dethroned Djemschid and married his 
sister, a story which has the appearance of being a slightly altered 
version of the account given by Ctesias of the relations of Ninus, or 
Nimrod, Cannes, or Cush, and Semiramis.^ 

Making allowances for the slight inaccuracies and misrepresenta- 
tions which are involved in all traditions of long standing, there seems 
to be little doubt that these traditions refer to the history of Nimrod 
and that he was the Aribah or Adite king Zohak, and that Djemschid 
was Cush. 

It seems clear, therefore, that Arabia was the first seat of the 
Cushite race and that they were the ancient Adites or Aribah from 
whom Arabia received its name, and that under Nimrod, who appears 
to be the same as Shedad-ben-ad and Zohak, they issued from Arabia 
and conquered the whole of Western Asia, including the peoples in- 
habiting the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. 

It appears to be equally clear that these Cushites were the same 
people as the Accadians or ancient Chaldeans. Accad, in short, was 
one of the cities founded by Nimrod at the beginning of his kingdom 
(Gen. X. 10), the name in later times being extended to a considerable 
district of country. Everything also points to the fact that Hea, i.e., 
Cush, was the originator of the magic, necromancy and sorcery which 
formed the principal feature of the worship of the gods, and the fact 
that the forms of this magic and sorcery were carefully preserved 

' Baldwin, pp. 108, 109. 

> "Chronicle of Tabiri," Baldwin's Prehutorto NcUiam^ p. 108. 

5 See chap. xiv. < See aw^ chap. iii. pp. 67, 68. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 77 

in the Accadian langaage implies that it was the language 
of the originator. Moreover, this language was the same, or similar, 
to the Himyaric, which was the language of the ancient Cushites of 
Arabia. 

Cush also, in his deified forms as Hea and Nebo, was the god of writ- 
ing and science, and the symbol of both these gods was the wedge or 
arrow-head, the distinctive sign of the cuneiform writing, indicat- 
ing that Cush was the inventor of that writing, and as this writing 
is universally admitted to have been of Accadian origin, the 
Accadians must have been Cushites. Hea, in fact, was an essentially 
Accadian deity, and the general voice of antiquity attributes the 
origin of Paganism and the worship of the gods, which archaeology 
traces to the Accadians, to the Cushite race and to Babylon, the 
beginning of Nimrod*s empire. 

But although on these grounds we must conclude that the ancient 
Accadians were the people of Cush and Nimrod, there are those who 
assert that the Accadians were not Cushites, but of Turanian race, 
while some even go so far as to deny that there was ever a Cushite 
conquest of Babylonia and Assyria. The facts, however, on which 
these conclusions are based are capable of a very different explana- 
tion, and as the question is of some importance it is more fully con- 
sidered in an appendix.' 

We will now proceed to point out the intimate connection of the 
Cushites with the early history of Egypt. 

Sir Henry Rawlinson and other writers have noticed the close 
resemblance of the gods of Egypt to those of Babylon, the similarity 
of their alphabets and vocabularies, and the fact that the origin of 
letters and writing is attributed to each. The cuneiform writing of 
the ancient Accadians or Cushites of Babylonia was used all over 
Western Asia and in Egypt before 1500 B.C., and Colonel Conder has 
shown strong reasons for concluding that it was even used by the 
Israelites at the time of their Exodus from Egypt.^ The term " Ra," 
the ancient Chaldean, i.e., Cushite, equivalent of the Semitic "/^,'* 
" God," was also the name of God in Egypt, who in that country was 
especially identified with the Sun, and the Accadian or Cushite term, 
*' Ka ral' " gate of God," was the ordinary suffix to the titles of the 
Egyptian kings, and signified " proceeding from God " (an evidently 
cognate meaning), and hence " born of " or " son of the Sun god." In 
short, as previously pointed out, the ancient Accadian or Cushite 

' Appendix D, " The Accadians and Nimrod J^ 
» Conder, The First BiUe^ pp. 5, 93 et seq. 



78 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

language was closely allied to the early Egyptian and to the 
Ethiopian dialects of Africa.^ It is also worthy of note that among 
the ancient Chaldean remains, figures, apparently of priests wearing 
a mitre, have been found holding in their hands the " crux ansata'* 
which in Egyptian sculptures is always shown in the hands of gods 
and kings as a symbol of their authority.^ 

We have also seen that Osiris was black, or of Cushite race, and 
this was the characteristic of the Egyptians. Herodotus speaks of 
the Egyptians generally as black and woolly haired, and in speaking 
of a certain woman who was called a dove, he says, '* But in saying 
that the dove was black they show that she was Egyptian." ^ 

There were two races in Egypt, viz., the Mizraimites who first 
colonised the country, and the black Egyptians, the latter receiving 
their name from " jEgypttus" the son of Belus, i.e., Cush. So also it is 
stated by Diodorus Siculus that " the Egyptians were an Ethiopian 
(Cushite) colony brought there by Osiris (who was also the son of 
Saturn or Belus), and that the laws, customs and religious observ- 
ances of the ancient Egyptians resembled those of the Cushites, the 
colony still retaining the customs of their ancestors;" also that *'the 
Egyptian letters were called by ancient writers Ethiopian letters, 
and Hermes, or Thoth, an Ethiopian " (or Cushite ).4 

This, therefore, is a further confirmation of the evidence which 
shows that Hermes or Thoth was the Egyptian form of the Babylonian 
Hea, the elder Bel Nimrod or " All- wise Belus," who was Cush the 
first king of Babylon and father of Ninus or Nimrod. 

We have also seen that Bacchus was the son of -^thiops or Cush, 
the father of the ^Ethiopians, but Bacchus is the same as Osiris, the 
son of Saturn or Belus, i.e., Cush, which confirms the statement of 
Diodorus that Osiris was a Cushite, and also shows that Thoth, the 
counsellor of Osiris, was really his father. 

There can be little doubt, therefore, that -^gyptus, the father of 
the black Egyptians and son of Belus, is the same as the bla^k Osiris, 
who led the Egyptians into Egypt, and who was also the son of 
Belus. Moreover, -^gyptus is stated to have been " the first king of 
Eham " (Ham), and therefore Nimrod, and that " he reigned in Egypt 
also"^ So likewise Belus, the father of Egyptus, although repre- 

» Ante, p. 73. 

' Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. p. 106. 

3 Herod., lib. iL caps. Ivii,, civ. 

* Diodorus Siculus, quoted by Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations, pp. 275, 276. 

s Pasch., Chron.y p. 4S ; Faber, vol. iL p. 473. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 79 

senied as the first king of Babylon, is stated to have been king of 
Africa aUOt^ which we shall see was the case. 

But if ^gyptus was the same as Osiris or Nimrod, then the 
famous conqueror " Sesoatris " was also Osiris or Nimrod. For Egyptus 
was the same as Sesostris, and the Greeks, who incorrectly attributed 
the deeds of Sesostris to Bameses II., called him both Sesostris and 
Egyptus,' while Josephus, speaking of Bameses, whom he calls 
Sethosia, a corruption of Sesostris, says, " The country of Egypt took 
its name from Sethosis (Sesostris), who was also called iEgyptus.^ 

M. Lenormant has shown how mistaken the Greeks were in 
attributing the name and actions of Sesostris to Bameses II., who, 
with the usual self-glorification of the Egyptian kings, probably 
adopted the name of that great conqueror. 

It is stated in the traditions of Sesostris that his father ordered all 
the children in his dominions to be trained for war with his son, so that 
when the latter came of age he had a band of warriors devoted to 
him. He then divided Egypt into thirty nomes and marched at the 
head of a numerous army to the conquest of the world. Ethiopia was 
the first country he conquered. He then invaded Asia, subdued Syria, 
Mesopotamia, Assyria, Persia, Bactria and India. He then subdued 
the Scythians as far .as the Tanais, and established the colony of 
Colchis in the country between the Black and Caspian Seas ; then, 
passing into Asia Minor, he crossed the Bosphorus and subdued the 
Thraciana-* 

All this was attributed by the Greeks to Barneses XL ; but M. 
Lenormant remarks that it represents Barneses as conquering 
Ethiopia, which was already subject to Egypt, and as marching over 
countries where Egyptian armies had never been seen.^ In fact, con- 
temporary history shows that such a conqueror could not have 
existed, either in the time of the Bameses, or in that of the twelfth 
dynasty of Theban kings, where the third king is also called Sesostris 
and the same conquests attributed to him, although the Theban 
kings at that period were only vassals, or viceroys, of the Memphite 
kings of Lower Egypt and had not then obtained the power which 
they afterwards acquired in the eighteenth and following dynasties. 
On the other hand, the conquests of Sesostris are precisely the 

' Lempri^re, Egyptus. 

* Lenormant, Anc. Hut. of Easty vol. i. p. 246 ; compare the Armenian and 
SyncelJus lists of Manetho's eighteenth dynasty ; Cory, p. 142. 

' Josephus, Contr, Appion.^ lib. 1. chaps, xiv., xv. 

* Lenormant, Anc, Hist, of East^ vol. L pp. 246-247 ; Lempri6re, Sesostris. 
5 Lenormant, vol. i. p. 247. 



8o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

same as those of Ninas, Osiris, Hercules, and Dionnsus/ and, in 
particular, the story of a number of youths being trained for war 
with him during his youth is precisely the same as the story of 
Ninus.^ In short, Wilkinson regards Sesostris and Osiris as the 
8ame,3 and the whole evidence confirms this conclusion. 

Sesostris, moreover, is said to have erected pillars in the countries 
he conquered to commemorate his conquests, just as Hercules did, 
and Herodotus speaks of seeing some of these pillars of Sesostris in 
Scythia. It is clear from the account of Herodotus, that these were 
Phallic pillars,^ which implies that, like the Arabian king Zohak, he 
was the institutor of the Phallic worship. 

Herodotus also says that the Colchians, the colony established by 
Sesostris, were evidently Egyptian, not only because they had 
similar customs, but because they were black and curly headed, 
which shows that they were Cushiteas This statement of Herodotus 
is therefore a further proof that Sesostris and his followers who 
founded the Colchian colony were Osiris and his Ethiopians, i.6., 
Nimrod and the Cushite& 

Again Herodotus says that he had seen two images of this king 
carved on rocks in Ionia, that they both represented a man four and 
a half cubits high with an equipment partly Egyptian and partly 
Ethiopian, and that from one shoulder to the other, across the 
breast, extended sacred Egyptian characters engraved, having the 
meaning, "I acquired this region by my own shoulders."^ M. 
Lenormant says that he has seen one of these images and that it has 
no appearance of Egyptian art7 If it had, however, we might 
confidently conclude that it was not a product of the time of Osiris ; 
for Egyptian art and sculpture began with the Pyramid builders, and 
attained its greatest perfection under them. Mr Sayce has also 
remarked with regard to this figure, that the characters by the side 
of a sculpture on the face of a rock in the Pass of Karabel, which is 
supposed to be one of these figures {see woodcut),^ are Hittite 
characters, and concludes therefore that Herodotus was in error in 
saying that the writing he saw was Egyptian.^ But the characters 
referred to by Mr Sayce are hy the side of the figure, whereas the 
sacred Egyptian characters seen by Herodotus were '^across the 

» Ante, p. 41. ' Ante, pp. 25, 66, 67. ^ Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. i. p. 69. 

* Herod., lib. ii, cap. cvi. ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 474. 

5 Herod., lib. ii. cap. civ. ^ Ibid,, cap. cvi. 

7 Lenormant, Anc, Hist, of East, vol. i. p. 247, note. 

• From Rawlinson's Herod., vol. ii. p. 174. 

'^ Sayce, Fresh Lights from Ancient Monuments, p. 90. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 8i 

hrttut" and niay liave since been obliterated by time, or by design, 
and the Hittite characters added. Moreover, the mode of engraving 
inscriptions across the body of a fignre ia essentially Babylonian, 
which is an additional proof that these fignres were those of the 




Babylonian monarch.' It may also be remarked that the Hittitea 
used the caneiform writiog of the Cnshite Accodiana and that their 
language was closely allied to the Accadian, ao that the supposed 
Hittite characters may really be Cuehite in \\s earliest and rudest 
form.' 

' lUwliosoD'a Herod., vol. ii. pp. 148-150 &□(! Dote. Mr RavlinsoD remkrka 
th»t the portion about the shoulders is mucli veaXherworv. The 6gure in of th« 
iune height fta t)i»t described by Herodotus, viz., two and a half nietres nearly, or 
(our And ■ half Bgjptiaa cubits of twenty-one inches. 

' See Colonel Cooder, The Ftrtt liiblt, pp. 70-72. 



82 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

There is no reason, therefore, to doubt the statement of Herodotus 
that these figures really were erected by the great Egyptian 
conqueror Sesostris, which appears to have been the Egyptian name 
of the great Cushite conqueror Nimrod; Herodotus records many 
fables generally believed in his time, yet it is evident that he truth- 
fully records them just as they were told to him, and in simple 
statements of fact he may be relied upon. His history bears the 
impress of being a truthful and exact record of the things he saw 
himself, or heard from others, told with an almost childlike 
simplicity. 

These figures may therefore be regarded as one of the few existing 
records of the time of Sesostris, or Osiris, and the words across their 
shoulders imply that he by his own personal strength had subdued 
the country, and that his strength lay in his shoulders. Now we 
know that Nimrod, the original of the Assyrian Hercules and of 
Orion the Hunter, was a giant whose strength was so vast that he 
is represented as slaying a bull and a lion unarmed, while Orion 
boasted that no creature on earth could cope with him.' In 
Manetho's second dynasty there is also a giant like that one 
mentioned by Herodotus, who is stated to be five cubits high and 
three cubits across the shoulders. Manetho, or his Greek transcribers, 
call him ** Sesochris" and give him the same length of reign, viz., 
forty-eight years, that they give to Sesostris of the twelfth dynasty, 
who is also described as a giant of about four and a half cubits.^ 
These striking points of similarity indicate that they are one and the 
same individual. 

These names, " Sesochris " and " Sesostris," are the Greek forms of 
the original name, and Josephus, who confounds Rameses II. with the 
same hero, calls him "Sethosis,** which is probably more nearly 
the correct form of the name. Mr Rawlinson says, "The frequent 
habit of putting a double * S ' as a prefix to the Egyptian names makes 
it probable that Sesochris, Sesorthus and Sesostris are all forms 
of O'siris, or He'siris, whose name is found with the sign signifying a 
double S beginning it." ^ He also thinks that the name " Soris" or 
" Sesoris" of the fourth dynasty is another form of the same name, 
and this, as we shall see, may also be concluded on other grounda 
"Sethosis*' is probably a corruption of " Sethothes" which would 

' Ante. p. 22. 

' Four cubits, three palms, two fingers. Manetho's DyncutveSf Armenian. See 
Cory, p. 111. 

^ Bawlinson's Herod., vol. ii. pp. 342-351. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 83 

naturally pass into '' Sethoses.** Now the prefix ^' 8e " before the name 
18 merely an emphatic substituted for the article " O," or " He/' and 
signifies " the great," or " the illustrious," or " the well-known," and 
the termination of '' Sethoth^ " would appear to be the Greek genitive 
signifying " of," or " proceeding from," as in the Cfiuae of " Athothes," 
which Eratosthenes says signifies " Hermogenes," i.6., " bom of," or 
" proceeding from," " Hermes," or " Thoth," or in other words, " The 
Son of Thoth." Similarly Se Thothes would mean " The Great Son 
of Thoth." 

The termination ^'chria" of Sesochris would be the Hellenised 
form of the Egyptian " chre" meaning " impersonation " or " incarna- 
tion/' and Sesochris might thus very well be a corruption of " Se,'* 
"51t>ro,"and ''chre** signifying "the great incarnate seed," which is 
one of the principal aspects of the younger Pagan god. 

There is reason to conclude, therefore, that both Sesochris and 
Sesostris are the same individual, and as no such conqueror as 
Sesostris existed since Osiris, that they both refer to the giant hero 
Nimrod or Osiris. In short, Africanus states of the Sesostris of the 
twelfth dynasty that " the Egyptians say that he is the first after 
Osiris," ' which, as Osiris was only recognised as a god by the 
Egyptians, would make Sesostris the first mortal king of Egypt, i.e., 
Osiris himself, or Nimrod. 

The height of the giant Sesochris or Nimrod, measured by the 
Egyptian cubit of twenty -one inches, would be eight feet nine inches, 
and considerably inferior to some of the giants of Canaan ; * but the 
proportionate breadth across the shoulders of three feet, makes it 
probable that his actual muscular strength may have been superior 
to theirs, and it tends to identify him with the original of the images 
described by Herodotus, whose strength lay in his shoulders. It was 
not to be expected that the Egyptian priests would altogether ignore 
the vast human powers of their hero god, and as the powers would 
not have been striking in a god, they introduced him into the list of 
their mortal kings. 

Sesostris was also the most famous king in the Egyptian annals, 

' Cory, p. 110. 

» Goliath of Gath was six cubits and a span, and as the Hebrew cubit was 
twenty-five inches, he would be about thirteen and a half feet high ; while the 
bed of Og, king of Bashan, was nine cubits " of a man " long, and four cubits broad, 
or fifteen feet nine inches by seven feet wide, implying a man of from fourteen to 
fifteen feet high ; which agrees with the description of the giant of Canaan by the 
prophet, " whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the 
oaks " (Amoe ii. 9). 



84 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

so that when the Persian conqueror Darius wished to place his statue 
before the statues of Sesostris in front of the temple of Vulcan, the 
priest of Vulcan refused to allow him to do so, because, great as had 
been his conquests, they were inferior to those of Sesostris ; and 
Darius, it is said, admitted the force of the objection.' 

Who then could this great conqueror have been whose conquests 
exactly correspond with those of Ninus, Osiris, Bacchus, etc., — of 
conquests there is no record in later Egyptian and contemporaneous 
history, — but Nimrod, the founder of the first great empire of the 
world ? 

It may also be remarked that the story told of Sesostris, exactly 
corresponds with that of Osiris. Both are said to have first estab- 
lished the government and laws of Egypt before departing on their 
expeditions. Moreover, just as Typhon, the brother of Osiris, is 
represented as having conspired against Osiris, while the latter was 
absent on his expeditions, and on his return captured him and put 
him to death, so the brother of Sesostris is represented as having 
conspired against Sesostris while he was absent on his expeditions, 
and on his return captured him with the intention of putting him to 
death. The only difference in the two stories is that the priests 
represented to Herodotus that Sesostris managed to escape the death 
prepared for him.^ 

It seems clear, therefore, that Sesostris, or iEgyptus, the son of 
Belus, and the father of the Cushite Egyptians, is the same as the 
Cushite Osiris, the son of Belus and leader of the Cushite Egyptians 
into Egypt, and the same as the Cushite monarch Ninus or Nimrod, 
the son of Belus or Cush. 

We have also seen that Hermes or Thoth, the counsellor of both 
the Egyptian Osiris and the Babylonian Tammuz, is the same as 
Belus, and therefore the father of Sesostris, or Osiris, ie., Nimrod. 
Now, Belus, although the first king of Babylon, is represented as 
king of Africa also, and this is confirmed by the history of Sanchoni- 
athon. Sanchoniathon represents Cronus as the ruler of the world, 
and, like Ninus, Osiris, etc., to have visited all its habitable parts, and 
he must therefore be the second Cronus or Nimrod. He says of him, 
that while on his qjrpeditions, " he gave all Egypt to the god Taautus 
(the Phoenician name of Thoth or Hermes) to be his kingdom." 3 
Exactly the same action is related of Osiris, who after establishing 

' Herod, lib. ii. cap. ex. 

* Compare Lempri^re, Osiris^ and Herod., lib. ii. cap. cvii. 

3 Sanchoniathon^s History, Cory, p. 16. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 85 

his rale in Egypt, and before proceeding on his expeditions, is said to 
have left Hermes, i.6., Taautus, in charge of the kingdom.^ 

It would thus appear that both Nimrod and his father Cosh were 
kings of Egypt, and that while Nimrod was the establisher of the 
laws and constitution of the kingdom, his father was king in his 
absence, and the first actual ruler. In all probability, the Cushite 
occupation of the country of Mizraim was not so much the result of 
conquest as of peaceful submission on the part of a people closely 
related to the Cushites, and who bowed down before the wisdom of 
the father and the military fame and abnormal strength of the son. 

In further evidence that these two monarchs were the first two 
kings of Egjrpt as well as of Babylon, we find that just as Belus was 
succeeded by Nvnvs and Semiramis on the throne of Babylon, so in 
Manetho's list of the god kings of Egypt, Cronus, i.e., Belus, is 
succeeded by Osiris and IsiSy Isis being the Egyptian name of the 
goddess queen of Babylon. 

But the evidence that both Nimrod and his father were the first 
kings of both Babylon and Egypt admits of still more decisive proof. 

Both in Manetho's dynasties and on the monumental lists, **Mena*' 
(written by the Greeks Menes) and "Athothy* or '*Athothes" are always 
represented as the first two human kings of Egypt. 

But who was Menes ? Menes has, indeed, been supposed by writers 
both ancient and modem to be " Mizraim," because the latter was the 
father of the Mestraoi, the original people of the country, and the 
early conquest of the country by the Cushite Egyptians, under 
Osiris, i.«., Nimrod, has not been taken into consideration by them. 
But by no ingenuity can Menes be made into a corruption of 
Mizraim. 

" Menes," it is said by Diodorus, " instituted the worship of the 
gods " — that is to say, he was the originator of idolatry.* He adds that 
a curse was inscribed in the temple of Amun Ra, at Thebes, by 
Tnephachtus, the father of Bocchoris the Wise, against Menes, for 
having changed the original simple manners of the Egyptians.^ But 
it was Thoth, or Hermes, i.e., Cush, appointed king over Egypt by 
Nimrod, who " first arranged those things which belonged to religion 
and the worship of the gods." ^ So also it was Hermes Trismegistus 
whom Manetho, the Egyptian priest, calls our forefather — ».«., he from 
whom the CusJiite Egyptians were descended — who " wrote the sacred 
books which were translated from the writings which were deposited 

' Lempri^re, 09in$, ' Diod. Sic, i. cap. xxxvii. 

' Ibiid,^ cap. xlv. < See anUy p. 31. 



86 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



by the first Hermes in the land of Siriad." ' So also Jamblicus says that 
** the Egyptian Hermes was the god of all celestial knowledge, which 
being communicated by him to his priests, authorised them to inscribe 
their commentaries with the name of Hermes ; '' and that '' he taught 
men the proper mode of approaching the Deity with prayer and 
sacrifice." ^ The principal books of this Hermes, according to Clemens 
of Alexandria, were treated by the Egyptians with the most profound 
respect, and carried in their religious processions.^ 

If, then, Hermes and Menes were both the first instructors of the 
Egyptians in religion and the worship of the gods, and both were the 
forefathers from whom the Egyptian kings claimed descent, it is clear 
that they were one and the same person. 

The very name " Mena " confirms thia The symbol used on the 
monuments for the last vowel of the name, represents both i and a, and 
the name may properly read " MenV* Now Hermes was worshipped in 
Egypt as *'the Lord Moon*'^ and "Meni** or "Men" was the name given 
to the Moon god throughout Asia Minor ^ and by the ancient Saxons 
also, with whom the moon was the male deity, he was called in the 
Edda "Mane** and in the Voluspa "ManV^ This is a further 
evidence that " Sin," the Moon god of the Assyrians, was a form of the 
first Belus or Cush who has been identified with Hermes. 

Meni is the Chaldee for " numberer " (Hebrew Mene)^'^ and it was 
said to be given to Hermes as the Lord Moon, because the moon 
nwmhera the months.® But it was evidently given to him also be- 
cause he was " the inventor of letters and arithmetic^* " who first 
discovered numbers and the art of reckoning, geometry and 
astronomy." 

Meni is a cognate term to the Latin "Mens^** or "mind** and to the 
term " men " given to the human race as distinguishing them from the 
animals by the possession of m,ind, or the power of thought and 
calculation; and Hermes or Cush was "The God of all Celestial 
Knowledge," " Thoth, famous for his wisdom," " The God of Letters and 

' Manetho, Cory's Fragments^ pp. 168, 169. 

* Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. v. chap. xiii. pp. 9, 10. 

' Clem. Alex., Strom.^ lib. vi. vol. iii. pp. 214-219 ; Hislop, p. 209, note. 

* Champollion, Egyptian Pant/ieon^ pp. 152, 153 ; PI. 30a ; Wilkinson, by 
Birch, vol. iii. pp. 166, 166. In later times the Egyptians identified Isis with the 
moon, and hence Plutarch (De Isidey s. 43) remarks that the Egyptians regarded 
the moon as both male and female. 

^ Lenormant, Chaldean IfagiCy p. 133. 

* Mallet, vol. ii. p. 24, and supplement to Ida PfeffeHs Iceland, pp. 322, 323. 
7 Hislop, p. 94. • Wilkinson, vol. i. p. 11. 



THE GOD KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLON 87 



Learning, the means by which all mental gifts were imparted to man, 
and he represented the abstract idea of intellect" ' Hermes has also 
been identified with " The All- wise Belus," " Hea," the " Lord of 
Understanding " and " Teacher of Mankind." 

As Belus, Cronus, Saturn, Hea, etc., Cush was deified as the father 
of the gods, and according to Proclus, " Mind " or " MeTis " is the same 
as Saturn, or Belus, the father of the gods,' while Wilkinson remarks 
that some considered " Number " to be the father of the gods and men.^ 
Wilkinson also mentions the fact, that Pan^ another form of the father 
of the gods, or Cush, although identified by the Greeks with Kham, 
was likewise considered by them to be Menes.^ 

Meni is also referred to in Isa. Ixv. 11 in conjunction with Oad^ 
as the two gods to whom the Israelites paid idolatrous worship. For 
the words translated "troop "and "number" should be respectively 
"Gcki" and "Jfeni" {see margin). The name "Gctd" means "the 
assaulter," ^ and would represent the god of war, that is either Nergal 
or Bel Merodach, and the names " Qad " and " Meni " would thus be the 
two Babylonian gods who are generally coupled together in Scripture, 
as in the case of the passage, " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth " 
(Isa. xlvi 1.) 

If then Meni was one of the names of the father of the gods in 
Babylon, it would explain the true meaning of the duplicated " Mene, 
Mene " in the handwriting which appeared on the wall at the feast of 
Belshazzar. The king, being both the representative and high priest 
of the god, was identified with him, and called by his name, as in the 
similar case of the kings of Egypt, who constantly took the name of 
one or other of the gods. Hence, in accordance with the interpreta- 
tion of the prophet, the prediction would read " the Numberer is 
numbered " — that is, as Daniel said, " God hath numbered thy kingdom 
and finished it." 

It is thus quite evident that Mena, or Meni, the first human king 
of Egypt, was identical with Hermes, or Meni, the Lord Moon, and 
with " Meni," " number," or " mind," the father of the gods, i.e., Saturn 
or Cush. But all doubt of the identity of Menes and Hermes or Thoth 
must cease when we consider the name of the 807i and successor of 
Menes, viz., Athothes, which is simply the Greek genitive of the first 
declension of Athoth, the monumental name of the king, and Athothes 
thus means " proceeding from," i.e., " born of, Thoth." In short, 



' Ante, chap. ii. p. 31 

^ Wilkinson, vol. iv. p. 196. 

^ Hislop, p. 94 and note. 



- Faber, vol. ii. p. 172. 

•* WilhinsoHy by Birch, vol. iii. p. 13. 



88 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Eratosthenes, in his canon of the kings of £gypt, says that Athothes, 
the son of Menes, is called by interpretation " Hermogenes," i.c., bom 
of Hermes,' and Menes and Hermes, or Thoth, are therefore one and 
the same person. 

It follows from this that Athothes, the son of Menes or Hermes, 
i.e.. Cash, is Osiris or iGgyptus, ».e., Nimrod, and that Cash and 
Nimrod were both the first two kings of Babylon and the first two 
kings of Egypt. 

It is also to be observed that Scaliger, speaking of the Babylonian 
kings, says that "Belus reigned sixty-two years, Ninus fifty-two 
years, and Semiramis, called Rhea, on account of her manifold 
atrocities, forty-two years."* In accordance with this, we find in 
the list of Egyptian kings, that both Manetho and Eratosthenes give 
Menes, like Belus, a reign of sixty-two years, and Athothes, who must 
be the same as Ninus, is given a reign of fifty-seven years by the 
former and fifty-nine years by the latter.3 

Belus is represented as the first king of Babylon, because he was 
the originator of the Tower of Babel, and the first founder of the 
city of Babylon, which was commenced at the same time (Qen. xi. 
6-8), and it is probable, therefore, that his sixty-two years date from 
that period, and not from the beginning of Nimrod's empire, which 
must have been some years later. 

This first Cushite dominion in Egypt was of short duration, 
and its overthrow was accompanied by the death of Nimrod and the 
flight of Cush, the circumstances connected with which will be fully 
considered in another chapter. 

' Eratosthenes, Cory, p. 84. 

* Scaliger, Cory, p. 76. 

3 Egyptian Dynasties^ Cory, pp. 84, 94. 



CHAPTER V 

THE GODS OF INDIA 

In any consideration of the gods of those nations more or less 
removed by distance and intercourse from the original sources of 
idolatry in Babylon and Egypt, it is to be expected that the con- 
fusion, which at times exists between the various gods identified 
with Cush or Nimrod, would be more pronounced. Making allow- 
ance for this, however, it will be found that there is ample data to 
identify the gods of other nations with those of Babylon, Egypt, etc., 
and with their human originals. 

The Aryan races of Bactria, Persia and India seem to have escaped, 
or to have thrown off in no small degree, the influence of the Cushite 
idolatry. We have said that Nimrod was overthrown, and that the 
commemoration of his overthrow and death were special features in 
the Pagan worship. This also seems to be referred to in the Iranian 
tradition of Zohak, which states that he was overthrown by a black- 
smith named Caveli, who headed a revolt against him. It is also 
added that he was succeeded by a grandson of Djemshid, who, if 
Djemshid was Cush, therefore continued the Cushite empire.* But 
it would appear that the Aryan races eventually recovered their 
independence, and rejected much of the Cushite idolatry, the Medes 
and Persians of later times being the most determined opponents of 
that idolatry. 

In India, the bulk of whose inhabitants are of Aryan origin, a 
purer religion at one time prevailed, and the fact that Semiramis was 
defeated in her attempt to conquer India after the death of Nimrod, 
and that Stratobatis, the king, threatened to crucify her if he was 
victorious,^ are evidences of the strongest hostility on the part of the 
inhabitants of that country, who were presumably Aryans, to the 
Coshites. 

M. Lenormant quotes the Vedas to show that the Aryans of 

• Ane. Hut, of East, vol. ii. p. 22. 

' Hist, of Ctetias; LenomiAnt, Anc. Hist, of East^ vol. i, p. 367. India here 
referred to does not mean Hindustan, but is the name given hy the ancients to the 
countries north of the Indus. 

89 



90 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

India had primarily a belief in a one and only GUxL' Nevertheless, 
as admitted by him, the parer religion was subsequently darkened by 
a debasing polytheism, although, as we have seen, the first human 
originals of the Hindu triad — Brahma, Vishnu and Siva — were not the 
Cushite kings of Babylon, but " Pra- Japetus," " Sama " and " Cama," 
1.6., Japhet, Shem and Ham.^ These, however, were eventually 
displaced by the influence of the Cushite gods. 

We find in India '' Isis " and '' Osiris," or Isiris, under the names of 
" Isi " and *' iBwa/ral^ and in the same relation ; for just as Osiris, 
in his re-incarnation as ''Horus," is represented as a babe at the 
breast of Isis, so is " Iswara " shown at the breast of " Isi " ; and just 
as Osiris is called the son and husband of the mother, so is the child 
''Iswara'' stated to be the husband of " Isi."^ Iswara also, like 
Osiris, was the Phallic god, or god of the " Phallus," or " Lingwrn*' 
The "Lingam" was his symbol, and was on his altars when they 
burned incense to him, while he himself was worshipped under the 
title of ''Ek Lingar ^ 

He is also identified by Mr Faber with the Indian '' Deonaush," 
who, like Osiris and Bacchus, subdued the world, and who is 
evidently identical with Dionusus, the surname of Bacchus, the Greek 
Osiris, who made simileir conquests.^ 

**Siva*' is identical with Iswara, which was one of his most 
common appellations.^ He is the god of destruction and is worshipped 
with bloody rites, like Moloch, Baal and Saturn, and the name 
" Laut" given to his image in the temple of Sumnaut, is a synonym 
of the Chaldee " Lat " and " Satur " or " Saturn'' both Lat and ScUur 
meaning " the hidden one." ^ Like Bacchus and Osiris, Siva wears a 
tiger's skin, and in his hand holds a small spotted deer or fawn* 
in the same way as the figure of the Babylonian god given by Vaux.^ 
Moreover, just as Osiris and Bacchus were Phallic gods, and the 
worship of the Phallus one of the most important in their rites, so 
the identical worship of the **Linga" or "Lingam" was followed in 
the rites of Siva or Shiva. '° 

' Ijenormant, Anc. HisLy vol. ii. p. 11. ' See antey pp. 17, 18. 

» Kennedy, Hindu Mythol.y p. 49, and p. 338, note. 

^ Col. Tod's Rajasthy vol. i. p. 79, from Pococke's Iridia in Greece, p. 224. See 
the account by Herodotus of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, as the Phallic god 
— Herod, lib. ii. cap. xlviii. 

5 AdoLt. Re8.y vol. vi. p. 503. ' Faber, vol ii. p. 274. 

' Borrow's Oypsies in Spain or Zincaliy vol. ii. p. 113 ; Hislop, p. 270, note. 

• Nightingale's Religions and Ceremoniesy p. 366. 

9 See ante, p. 37. ^^ Nightingale's Religions and Ceremonies^ p. 365. 



THE GODS OF INDIA 91 



Thus Siva, aJtbongh originally identified with Ham as one of the 
8ODS of the Patriarch/ was subsequently identified with his more 
famous grandson Nimrod or Osiris ; for not only were the bull and 
lingam his symbols, but be is also identified with Iswara or Osiris 
by the titles *' Iswara " and '' Mabe shwara/' or '* Maha Ishwara/' 
" The Great Iswara." * So also, like Osiris, who was fabled to be 
abut up in an ark for one year, Siva is represented as making a 
voyage during the Deluge on the ship Argha? He is, moreover 
called " Baghia,'* ^ which is probably the Indian form of ".Bacchua" 

Siva, in short, like Jupiter in Greece and Rome, eventually 
became, as his title "Maha deva," i.e., ''Great God," implies, the 
greatest of the gods, and although, as Siva, he is ** the Destroyer," yet 
he is identified with "Brahma" and "Vishnu" "as Creator" and "Pre- 
server."^ It is taught, however, that he is superior to Vishnu and 
Brahma, and Brahma, who is Pra Japeti, is little worshipped.^ 

The fact that the claims of Brahma and Vishnu were eventually 
overshadowed by those of Siva, and that the latter was identified 
with Osiris or Nimrod, instead of Ham, points to a revolution in 
religion at some time ; and also to the fact that, before that revolu- 
tion, the worship of the dead was a recognised part of religion. 
Now Nimrod and his father were not deified under their numerous 
appellations until long after their death, and not until they had been 
deified could this revolution have taken place. But the worship of 
ancestors seems to have been a part of the idolatry propagated by 
Nimrod, for we are told that Osiris built a temple in Egypt to his 
grandfather Ham, and, if so, he would inculcate a similar worship on 
the peoples he conquered. In the case of the Aryans who came under 
his influence, this would naturally be the worship of their ancestor, 
Japhet, who would be to them "Brahma," "The Father," with 
whom were associated Sama or Vishnu,^ and Cama or Siva, as the 
other sons of the Patrieu'ch. 

It would seem, however, that the bulk of the Aryan population 
of India did not arrive there until after the Cushite race had firmly 
established themselves in that country. Professor Kawlinson says 
that " linguistic research shows that a Cushite or Ethiopian race 

' See aiUe, chap. ii. pp. 17, 18. ' WiJkins' I/ituiu Mythol,^ p. 235. 

' Faber, vol. i. pp. 181, 182. * Ihid., vol ii. p. 292. 

^ Wilkina' Hindu Mifthd., pp. 229, 230. * Ihid.y pp. 88-90, 229. 

' Vishnu, a8 one of the triad, would naturally be identified with Shem. But 
Viahnu ia really the Sannkrit fomi of the Chaldee, "lahmuh," "The man of 
rent," or " The man Noah " ; while " Indra," the god of rain, another form of the 
god, is aUo called " Ishnu.''— llitlop, p. 136. 



92 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

extended along the shores of the Southern Ocean from Abyssinia to 
India ; that the whole of India was peopled by this race previous to 
the Aryans (i.6., previous to Hindus and Brahmins), and that the 
cities on the Northern shore of the Persian Gulf are shown by brick 
inscriptions to belong to this race." ' Euphorus likewise states that the 
Ethiopians occupied all the Southern Coasts of both Asia and Africa.^ 
Signor Gorrisco, the translator of the Ramayana, says that the Ante- 
sanskrit people of Southern India were of a Hamitic origin, that they 
had serpents, dragons, and other symbols peculiar to the Cushite 
religion, and Siva was their principal god. He also states that Siva 
was not a Vedic god, but adopted by the Brahmina^ Professor 
Stevenson similarly states that neither Siva, nor the Phallic worship, 
were Aryan; that the Lingayats, or Phallic worshippers, have a 
bitter hatred to the Brahmins, and that the Brahmins call them 
"Pakhundi" or heretics. The Aryans called the old inhabitants 
" Dasyus," " Raksharas," " fiendish creatures, demons and monstera" ^ 

The above extracts, quoted by Professor Baldwin, show that the 
Aryan immigration and Brahminism were subsequent to that of a 
Cushite race more or less hostile to them and to their religion. Pro- 
fessor Baldwin further quotes General Briggs and Professor Benfey, 
who consider it certain that a nation of high civilisation preceded the 
Scuiskrit race in India,^ and this is eminently characteristic of the 
Cushite race, who, wherever they went, left stupendous buildings and 
temples as memorials, which have received the name of " Cyclopean " 
from the Cyclops, "the inventors of tower building," whose king 
" Cyclops " has been identified with Cronus or Cush. Colonel Forbes 
Leslie writes : — " It will not be disputed that the primitive Cyclopean 
monuments of the Dekkan were erected prior to the arrival of the 
Hindus." Such are the famous rock temples at Salsette, Ellora 
and Elephanta, the latter name suggesting some intimate connection 
with Elephantine in Upper Egypt, the stronghold of the Cushite 
Egyptians. Now there are no rock temples to Brahma and Vishnu ; 
the temple of Salsette is a temple of Siva, and the Lingam and Yoni 
appear everywhere in its internal recesses, and Siva, the Phallic god, 
is also the only god worshipped at Ellora.^ 

We find Aryan traditions speaking of themselves as white, and 
the Dasyus as hlack — i.e., Cushite ; they call them " demons and devil 
worshippers, and lascivious wretches who make a god of the /Smia, 

' From Baldwin's Prehistoric Nations^ vol. i. p. 220. ' Ibid.^ p. 219. 

5 Ibid,, p. 221. ^ Ibid., pp. 221, 222. 

« Ihid.y p. 227. * Ibid., pp. 228, 233. 



THE GODS OF INDIA 93 

i.«., the Lingam or Phallus.' The translator of Ferisbta's Mahom- 
medan India says, " There is every day stronger reason to believe that 
the worship of the Bull, Linga, and Yoni, is the same as the Phallic 
worship of Egypt, and as that of the call and pillar, emblematic of 
Baal and the Sun, by the nations surrounding the Israelites ; that 
this worship was founded on Sabaism, and that the emblems are 
types of fructification (generation). Abundant proof exists of the 
antiquity of Tauric and Phallic worship over that of idolatry and 
demi-god heroes. All the temples of the latter are modem com- 
pared with those of Mahadeva,*' ^ i.e,y Siva. 

The Sanskrit books also speak of ''Divodesa, king of Cusha 
dwipa within " (i.6., Asiatic Ethiopia), as reigning over the Western 
districts of Asia from the Mediterranean to the Indus. Another 
tradition speaks of ^' Charvanayanas," king of Cusha dwipa within, 
who had a son called " Capeyanas,'' who had a passion for arms and 
hunting^ that he became a heroic warrior, was supreme ruler of 
Cusha dwipa, and made great conquests and ruled a vast kingdom 
with great glory. Similarly Deva-Nahusha or Deonaush (Diouusus) 
is mentioned as living at a time when Indra (i.e., Ishnuh or Noah) 
was king of Meru, and as having conquered the seven dwipas, and 
led his armies through all known countries, and made his empire 
universal.^ Another legend represents him as having attained the 
sovereignty of the three worlds, but that intoxicated by pride he 
became arrogant to the Brahmins and was changed into a serpent,^ 
which is probably the mythical way of saying that he became a god 
worshipped under the form of a serpent, the special symbol of the 
Pagan god. 

All these accounts, corresponding as they do with the traditions 
of Ninus, Osiris and Bacchus, and the Arabian and the Iranian 
account of Zohak, plainly refer to the establishment of the first great 
empire of the world by Nimrod, and with it the first form of idolatry 
at a period long anterior to the Aryan immigration to India. It 
would thus appear that the Sun and Phallic worship taught by 
Nimrod was firmly established in India previous to the Aryan 
immigration. Moreover, since Osiris, Belus and the other gods were 
not worshipped until long after the death of their human originals 
this must have been equally the case with the Phallic god of India, 
Siva or Iswara, whose worship was nevertheless firmly established at 
the time of the Hindu invasion. 

' Baldwin'u Prehistoric Natums, vol. i. p. 248, 249. ' Ilnd.y pp. 224, 225. 

3 Ibid., pp. 281, 282, 287. 4 Ihid., p. 291. 



94 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

On the other hand, the Indian conquests of Nimrod did not ex- 
tend farther than the Indus, beyond "which it was supposed there 
were deserts, while a few years later Semiramis received a severe 
check from the king of that country. It is therefore evident that 
the arrival of the Cushite race in India was subsequent to this, that 
a large number of them afterwards left Chaldea and emigrated to 
India and spread southwards over the whole peninsula, carrying 
with them the religion of their ancestors. The consequent diminu- 
tion of their numbers in Chaldea would partly account for the later 
predominance of the Semitic language in that country. 

The fact of the Cushite race having been in India previous to the 
Hindu invasion explains the reason of the strange mixture of 
Aryan and Cushite ideas in the religion of India. The former, as 
in the case of the Persians, were Sun and Fire worshippers, but 
modem Brahmanism, according to Stevenson, quoted by Professor 
Baldwin, is a combination of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and the 
ante-Brahman or Cushite religion. He says that the worship of 
Siva was an aboriginal superstition, and that the Brahmans adopted 
it to gain influence with the old race, but that the amalgamation is 
not perfect. He also states that no Brahman officiates in a linga 
temple in the Marathi country, where Saivas prevail, and that the 
same is the case in the Dekkan. Siva worship has its chief seats in 
those places where the Sanskrit has been weakest, namely, in the 
South and South-East, where the worshippers of Siva greatly exceed 
those of Vishnu.' 

We find also an intimate connection between the mythology of 
Egypt and that of India. Moreover, just as *' Bxi " is the Sun in 
Egypt, and " Ramesea** the name of several Egyptian kings, means 
"the Son of Ra, or the Sun," so Colonel Tod, speaking of India, 
observes, " From Rama all the tribes named the Surya Vausa, or race 
of the Sun, claim descent." ^ He also says that Rama was chief of the 
Suryas and that his two sons were Cush and Sova? It seems probable, 
however, that the genealogy has been confused, and that "Rama" 
and "Sova" are "Raamah" and "Seba," the two sons of Cush 
(Gen. X. 7). For " v " and " 6 " are interchangeable letters, and " Seba " 
would therefore easily pass into "Sova." But, just as the Sun god 
Osiris displaced the Sun god Ham and became the chief god of Egypt, 
so Rama, as the chief Sun god of India, was regarded as the father 
of the Surya race. 

' Baldwin, Prehist, Nations, pp. 258, 259. 

' Pococke, India in Greece, chap. xiii. p. 165. ^ Pnd., chap. xiv. p. 183. 



THE GODS OF INDIA 95 

It would seem also that the ultimate development of the Cushite 
idolatry in Egypt, although partly due to the Ethiopians of Upper 
Egypt, received a wave of influence from the Ethiopians of India, 
who came to Egypt at the latter part of the eighteenth dynasty, 
when, for the first time, the Pharaohs adopted the Indian title of 
" Barneses/' and the worship of Osiris was substituted for that of 
Set' The Hindus also have a tradition that their four sacred books 
were taken to Egypt.' 

The principal gods of the Vedas were " Indra** the god of rain, 
'* Sv/rya*' the Sun, and " Agniy' the god of fire,3 and Max Mliller says 
that these gods were not represented by idols. Ultimately, however, 
they were more or less identified with the Cushite god& Surya is 
represented, like the Sun god in Greece, as drawn by a chariot and 
horses.^ He is identified with Agni, the god of fire, and the latter, 
like Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, was represented as old and de- 
formed,5 and just as Vulcan, king of the Cyclops, was represented to 
be an eater of human fiesh, so also was Agni.^ Siva, although not 
mentioned in the Vedas, is by the Puranas declared to be " Rvdra,'* 
who is the same as Agni.7 

Fire also was recognised as having the same purifying efficacy as 
in other forms of the Cushite idolatry. The Suttees, who devoted 
themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands, were considered to 
become pure by buming,^ and a worshipper is represented, according 
to the sacred books, as addressing the fire, ** Salutation to thee, O Fire, 
who dost seize oblation, to thee who dost shine, to thee who dost 
scintillate, may thy auspicious flame burn our foes, mayest thou, the 
purifier, be auspicious to us/' ^ 

With regard to other Indian gods, it is evident that " Dyauspiter " 
(" Heaven Father"), the god of lightning, is identical with Jupiter, the 
god of lightning, who was also called " Diespiter."'"^ " Juggernaut " is 
the Indian Moloch, and, like him, required human victims. Again, 
although Saturn was the father of the gods in Greece and Rome, 
he was said to be the son of " Coelus " and " Terra," " Heaven " and 
** Earth," while Cronus was similarly represented to be the son of the 

» Egypt, Dynasties^ by Syncellus ; Cory, p. 142. 

» Asiat Res^f vol. iii. p. 75. 3 Wilkins' Hindu Mythol.y p. 7. 

♦ Ibid,, pp. 26, 27. s Ibid., p. 16. 

* Ibid., p. 23. 7 Ihid., pp. 220, 221. 
» Moor's Pantheon, '^Siva," p. 43 ; Hislop, p. 315. 

9 Colebrooke's "Religious Ceremonies of Hindus" in Asiatic Researches, vol. vii 
p. 260. 

*° Lenormant's Anc. Hist, of East, vol. ii. p. 12. 



96 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

same parents by their Greek appellations, "Ouranos" and "Ge." 
Similarly the Indian "Dyaiis'^ and *^Prilhivi" "Heaven" and 
"Earth/' are said to be the parents of all the gods.' 

" Krishna " is the Indian Apollo or Horns, and, as we shall see 
later on, is represented as taking the same part in the ultimate 
development of idolatry as Horus and Apollo. He is a herdsman 
like Apollo. He is represented with a flute, as Apollo is with a 
harp, is an archer like Apollo, and, like Apollo, is the destroyer 
of the serpent.^ 

" Cama deva " is a youth like Cupid, and, like Cupid, is the son of 
the Indian Venus, "Luksmi." lake Cupid, he carries a bow and 
arrows, and with his arrows creates desire, and, as the god of desire, is 
invoked by brides and bridegrooms. He is represented as sitting on 
a deer to show his swiftness.^ 

" Parvati Dvorgu " is the Indian Minerva. She derived her sur- 
name from the giant " Dvorgu" whom she slew, just as Minerva ob- 
tained the name of " PaUas " from the giant " Pailas " whom she slew.^ 
" LuJcsmi " is the Indian Venua She springs, like Venus, from the froth 
of the sea, and, as in the case of Venus, her beauty is so great that all 
the gods are enamoured of her, while, like Venus, no bloody sacrifices 
are allowed on her altars.^ " Yuni *' is the Indian Juno or June, and 
the symbol, the " Yoni," worshipped with the " Lingam," is evidently 
derived from her name. She is identified with the ship Argha (the 
Ark), and with the dove called ** Capoteawari" ^ as in the case of Juno 
and Semiramis. 

The gigantic bulls of Babylon and Assyria were, we know, symbols 
of their great god, and the same symbol existed in Egypt in the 
forms of the bulls Apis and Mnevis, the symbols of Osiris or Horus. 
Thus in a dedicatory inscription, in the temple of Luxor, to Amen- 
hotep III., who, as vice-regent of the god, was identified with him,^ 
it is said, " I am Horus, the strong bull, who rules by the sword and 
destroys all barbarians." He is " king of Upper and Lower Egypt, 

' Wilkintf Hindu Mythol., p. 10. 

' Nightingale's Religions and Ceremonies^ chap. x. p. 373, and Lempri^re, Apollo, 

3 Nightingale, chap. x. p. 375. 

4 Ibid,j p. 370. 5 Ibid,, p. 372. 
* Faber, vol. i. p. 372 ; vol. iii. pp. 31, 32. 

^ Lenormant remarks, "The Egyptian monarchs were more than sovereifirn 
pontifiis, they were real deities. They styled themselves * The Great Gkxi,' * The 
Good God,' they identified themselves with the great deity Horus, for as one in- 
scription says, 'The king is the image of Ra, the Sun god among the living."' He 
also quotes Diodorus Siculus as saying, ** The Egyptians respect and adore their 
kings as the equal of the gods." — Anc, Hitt, of Easty vol. i. p. 294. 



THE GODS OF INDIA 97 



absolute master, son of the Sun." ' Like the sacred bull '' Apis " in 
Egypt, the sacred bull " Nanda " was similarly the symbol of the god 
in India. His altar is attached to all the shrines of Iswara and of 
Siva.^ 

The wife of Siva, " Cali" is a form of the goddess " Parvati Dvorgu," 
" Doorga " or " Durgu," 3 the Indian Minerva. The wife of Siva is 
also known as " CTma," who, like Minerva, is the goddess of Wisdom.4 
Doorga is also known as MaJia Maia^ the Great Goddess Mother, 
who, like Minerva, is represented as slaying the giants who rebelled 
against the goda^ This episode, of which there are many traditions 
in the mythology of India, and which are in very exact correspond- 
ence with the similar traditions of Egypt and Greece, will be more 
folly noticed hereafter. 

The Indian " Yayifw, " seems to be another form of Osiris. Like the 
latter, he is the judge of the dead, and weighs their good actions 
against their bad actions, in order to decide their fate. He is also 
the Indian Pluto, or Dis, the king of Hades, another form of Osiris, 
Nin, etc., and, like Pluto, has two dogs to guard the road to his 
abode.^ 

The Indian Cupid, " Cama" is represented as having been seized 
by a demon, Sambara, and put into a box and cast into the ocean, 
where he is discovered by his wife " Reii" who was aho his Tnotlier, 
and who brought him up until he acquired strength to destroy the 
demon.7 In like manner Osiris was killed by Typbon, the evil 
spirit of the Egyptians, and shut up in the ocean for one year, when 
he comes to life again as Horus, and by his aid his mother, Isis, who 
is also his wife, overcomes Typhon. The identity of Cavia^ with 
Horus and Osiris is additionally confirmed by a remark of Plutarch, 
who says that the elder Horus, i.e., Osiris, was the god " Caiviis" 
and that his wife was '' Rhytia" '^ who are manifestly the same as 
Cama and Reti. So also Cama, like Osiris, dies and is shut up in the 
ship Argha, and is lamented by " lietij' ^° just as Osiris was lamented 

* Ijeuormant, Anc. llUt. of Ea^t^ vol. i. p. 237. 
' Pococke, Ind, in Greece^ pp. 224, 225. 

^Fay>er, Pag. Idol.y vol. i p. 375 ; Wilkins, IJuid. Myth., p. il'u-'Hy[. 
^Wilkirii*, Hind, Mijih., p. 240. 
^Ibid,,^Y). 247-250. 
*• Ibid,, pp. 67-74. 
7 Faber, vol. ii. pp. 407, 408. 

'*Cama was originally Khaiu or Hani, but, as in otli or cases, was ultimately 
identified with hia grandson Ninirod. 
''Faber, vol. ii. p. 408. 
'•^/^tk/., pp. 408-411. 

G 



98 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

by Isis, which further emphasises the identity of Cama with Osiris 
and Horus. 

From these remarks it is clear that the mythology and gods of 
India are practically identical with the mythology and gods of 
Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome, and must have been derived from 
the same original source. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE QODS OF EASTERN ASIA 

Buddhism 

The religion of the nations of Eastern Asia is known as Buddhism, 
and its followers are said to number nearly five hundred millions of 
the human race. For this reason, and because it has certain features 
which distinguish it from the religions of other Pagan nations, it 
requires particular notice. 

The principal representatives of this religion are the Chinese and 
people of Thibet, and its founder is generally spoken of as " Sakya 
Muni," or " Gautama," a Brahmin of India, who is supposed to have 
Uved about 500 b.c. But whatever influence Sakya Muni may have 
had upon the religion of these countries, it is quite clear that he did 
not originate it. In most of its salient features it is similar to other 
systems of Paganism, with an elaborate ritual, and, like them, it has 
orders of priesthood, gods and goddesses, idols, worship of the dead, 
etc Sakya Muni, on the other hand, was a reformer, opposed to 
ritual observances, priestly castes, sacrifices, and, as some assert, to 
the worship of the gods, although the latter point is doubtful. 

He taught a severe asceticism and the necessity of subduing 
every natural desire, not only those which are unlawful, but those 
which are lawful, requiring his followers to abstain from marriage, 
wine and animal food, and to relinquish all their worldly goods ; the 
ultimate object being the attainment of "Nirvana,'* or a state of 
placid indifierence to everything, which was supposed to be accom- 
panied by certain magical powers. His moral teaching included 
some excellent precepts of kindness to men and animals, together 
with others which were false and extravagant ; but, with the ex- 
ception of abstaining from taking any form of animal life, his moral 
principles have had very little influence on his professed followers. 

Sakya Muni is called " Buddluir But " Buddha '' is a title which 
was in existence before it was applied to him. It was a title of the 
Supreme God, similar to such titles as " The Almighty,'' '' The Self- 
Existent," and meant " The Omniscient " or " All Wise " ; and the old 

99 



lOO THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



Buddhist, Amirta Nanda Bandhya, told Mr Hodgson that the name 
in esoteric Buddhism always meant " God." ^ 

Sakya Muni, after a long course of asceticism, is represented to 
have become " Buddha,*' or " enlightened," i,e., he had attained to the 
wisdom of God, or had become as God, with a knowledge of good and 
evil.' He is represented to be one only of the seven mortal Buddhas, 
i.e.. Avatars, or incarnations of the supreme Buddha, and in a statue 
in South Kensington Museum, Buddha is represented with seven 
heads,^ while in the "Stupa of Bharhut," the oldest monument of 
Buddhism in existence, being constructed in the time of King Asoka, 
250 B.O., the seven sacred trees and thrones of the seven Buddhas are 
portrayed.4 

In the Chinese ritual the worshipper says, " All hail, Buddhas of 
the ten quarters ! " and in the Ceylon ritual,^ " I worship continually 
the Buddhas of the ages that are past, I worship the Buddhas All- 
Pitiful." ^ Sakya Muni himself, in short, is represented in " The White 
Lotus ofDharma " as acknowledging these other Buddhas ; he promises 
to appear before them when he has attained complete " Nirvana " ; 
and, in another passage, says that " He will execute what those sages, 
the Buddhas, have ordered ; " while in another passage he ** calls to 
witness the beatified Buddhas that exist." 7 Again, in the " Lalita 
Vistara** which is considered to be the oldest life of Sakya Muni, his 
various temptations which he has to go through before he attains 
''"'ft " Nirvana " are described, and in the final one, when he is attacked 
by the demon host, he calls upon " Brahma Prajapati, lord of 
creatures, and to all the Buddhas that live at the ten horizons to 
disperse them." ^ Finally, he is represented as repudiating his human 
parentage and claiming to be descended from the prophets, or 
"Buddhas," of old.*^ 

It would appear that all these Buddhas are regarded as " Avatars," 
or incaraations, of one and the same supreme Buddha. Thus, on the 
birth of Sakya Muni, it is pretended that an aged rishi (saint) called 
Asita, who, being possessed of the five classes of transcendental 
knowledge, recognises that the child is Buddha, takes him in his 
arms, and says, "The Buddha Bhagavat" (that is, The Supreme 

' Lillie, Buddha and Early Buddhism, pp. 20, 21. 

' Rhys Davis, Bttddhism, p. 40. ^ Lillie, p. 12. 

* Stupa of Bharhut, by Gen. A. Cunningham, p. 108. 

s Beal's Cate7ia of the Buddhist Scriptures, p. 409. 

^ Pattimokkha, pp. 5, 7 ; Lillie, pp. 27, 28. 

^ Lillie, p. 128. 

V6w?., p. 108. 'Rhys Davis, p. 65. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA loi 



Buddha) '' comes tx> the world only after many kalpas " (ages), and 
then declares that the child will be Buddha.' 

Sakya Muni was bom a Brahmin, and we see him acknowledging 
Brahma as the Supreme God. The Cingalese priests say there is a 
Supreme Being above all others, and although there are many 
gods, yet there is one who is God of the gods. This god is Brahma, 
but that when a Buddha was upon earth he became the Supreme 
God.* This is the teaching of modem Buddhism in Ceylon, but it is 
evident that the ancient doctrine of the Vedas made Brahma the one 
Supreme God. Sakya Muni, in becoming an ascetic, merely followed 
the example of the Riahia of Vedaism, who sought to subdue their lower 
natures by vigils, fasting, chastity and asceticism, their object being 
by these means to obtain *' a knowledge of Brahma, a knowledge of 
the universal self, and the universal soul." 3 This was just what 
Sakya Muni did, and what he thought he attained when he became 
"a Buddha," or "enlightened." In short, he called his followers 
"Brahmanas," or seekers after Brahma.4 But he did what the 
Rishis of Vedaism did not do — he opposed, or rather denied, the 
utility of a ritual and priesthood, and asserted that a person could 
attain " Nirvana " by his own efforts, or asceticism, without their aid. 
This, of course, was a blow to the iufluence of the Brahminieal priest- 
hood ; and accordingly Sakya Muni, instead of being regarded as 
Buddha by Brahminism, is to this day looked upon as a heretic, and 
his followers as infidels, with the result that a great hostility exists 
between the Brahmins and those Buddhists who acknowledge Sakya 
Muni as the Supreme God.5 

Nevertheless, the Brahmins acknowledge a Buddha, who is 
represented to be an Avatar of Vishnu, and in an ancient inscription 
at Buddha Gaya he is invoked by the sacred name " O. M.," or 
" A. U. M.," and declared to be the same as the triple god Brahma- 
Vishnu-Mahesa (Siva).^ The Chinese traveller Fa Uian, who lived 
in the fourth century a.d., also states tliat some of the Buddhist sects 
of India, near Savrasti, refused to acknowledge Sakya Muni, and 
only reverenced the three previous Buddhas, claiming to be followers 
oi '' Deva Battar ^ 

The religion of Guatama was introduced into China subsequent 

* Lalita VUtara^ Lillie, p. 76. 

^Statement of Cingalese Priests, Lillie, p. 122. 

3 Lillie, pp. 4, 5. ^Ibid., p. 116. 

5 AsicU. Res., vol. vii. pp. 55, 56 ; vol. viii. pp. 532, 533 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 328. 
^Ibid., vol. i. pp. 284, 285 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 328. ^Ehys Davis, p. 181. 



I02 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

to the Christian era,' but previous to this they had worshipped a 
Buddha under the name of " Fo " from the beginning of their national 
existence, and this " Fo " is shown by Sir William Jones to be identical 
with the primitive Buddha of Hindustan.' 

From these facts it is abundantly plain that there was a Buddha 
and Buddhism distinct from the worship of Sakya Muni. 

In Nepaul, on the borders of Thibet, and in Thibet, this Buddha 
is *'Amit(ibha" or ''Amida Bvddha,** called also ^*Adi Buddha." 
**Amida** in Sanskrit denotes " immeasurable "; ^ he is the Buddha 
of Buddhas, and quite distinct from Sakya Muni He is said to be 
'* without beginning, revealed in the form of flame or light, the essence 
of wisdom and absolute truth. He knows all the past, he is omni- 
present He is the creator of all the Buddhas. He is Iswara, the 
Infinite,"^ etc. 

In Thibet, the constant chant of the Llamas is, " I adore Tathagata 
Amitabha, who dwells in the Buddha region Devachan."^ Mr 
Edkins says that the name of " Amitabha " is constemtly on the lips of 
the Chinese and Thibetan priests, and is seen everywhere paints on 
walls and carved on stone, and that he is worshipped assiduously by 
the Northern Buddhists, although unknown in Siam, Burmah, and 
Ceylon.^ In the Chinese liturgy he is addressed, "One in spirit, 
respectfully we invoke thee. Hail, Amitabha Lokafit of the world ; " 
and again, **0, would that our teacher Sakya Muni, and our 
merciful father Amitabha would descend to this sacred precinct, and 
be present with us. . . . May the omnipotent and omniscient 
Kwanyin (the goddess) . . . now come amongst us, reciting these 
divine sentences." ^ Here Sakya Muni is clearly distinguished from 
Amitabha, the great father, and Kwanyin, the goddess mother, to 
whom we shall refer later. 

In " The White Lotus of Dharma'* one of the most important 
Buddhist works obtained by Mr Hodgson from the Buddhist Amirta 
Manda Bandhya, the omnipotence of Amitabha is dwelt on in some 
gathas : — " He sits on the Lotus throne in the centre of heaven, and 

' AsioU, Jies,j vol. i. p. 170 ; 1. vi. p. 262 ; vol. ix. p. 41 ; Faber, vol. ii. 
p. 242. 

* Faber, vol. ii. pp. 342, 343. 

3 A Stat. Res., vol ii. p. 374 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 342. 

* From old Sanskrit works by Karanda Vytilia and Nama Sangiti, quoted by 
the Buddhist Amirta Nanda Bandhya to Mr Hodgson ; Lillie, pp. 14, 15. 

5 Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Thibet ; Lillie, p. 13. 

^Edkins' Chinese Btuldhism, p. 171. 

'Beal, Catena o/Bttddhist Scriptures, p. 403 ; Lillie, pp. 13, 14. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 103 

goides the destinies of mortals," while Sakya Muni occupies "a 
sabordinate position, and is a saint and not a god." ' 

In China, Adi Buddha, or Amitabha, is called " (hmto Fo*' and his 
mother, the Sanskrit *' Maya" is called " Moyo" the '' o " in both 
eases being substituted for the '' &" It should also be noted that in 
Boutan and Thibet, Buddha is called " But;* " Put;* " Pot;* " Povi;' 
and *'Foto"; in Cochin, "JBti^," and in Siam, ''Pout;' while in the 
vernacular of Siam, " Povi,** or " Pot;' is pronounced " Po;' the " t " 
being quiescent as in the French. In China the '*p " is aspirated and 
becomes ''PAo" or^'^o."^ In the Tamulic dialect the name is pro- 
nounced **Poden;' or *'Pooden" ^ Mr Edkins gives some of the curious 
changes of pronunciation, as follows : — " Fuh;* old sound " But " ; in 
Amoy, "Put"; in Nanking, "Fuh"; in Peking ''Fo."^ In Japan, 
Buddha is called " Budao;' " Amita Fo;' " Toka Daibod;' or " Deua 
Bod" (the Divine Bod), and " Ab buto;' or " Father Buto."5 

Buddha is also known as " Heri Maha;' *' The Great Lord " ; ^ as 

''Datta;' ''Bern Tat;' and ''Beva Twashta" i^ as '' Mahv-man;'^ 

" man " being probably the same as men«, mind, or intelligence, as 

in ** Menu;' or " Men Nuh," " Mahi-man " would thus mean " the great 

Mind," which is exactly the character given to Buddha. He is also 

known as " Ma Heaa " and " Ear Esa;' " The Great Hesa," and " Lord 
Hesa."9 

There are other Buddhas represented in the Chinese temples, in 
addition to Amita, or Omito, viz., " Yo ahi Fo;' who is the Buddha of 
the Eastern Paradise, and " MUo Fo;* or " Maitreya Buddlia;* who is 
the Buddha to come. Then there is the ancient Buddha " Jang ten;' 
the instructor of Sakya Muni in a former "Kalpa," or age, and 
" Kwanyin;' the male deity corresponding to the goddess " Kwanyin." 
This male Kwanyin is called ''Chin Fo;* "the ruling Buddha," 
although Sakya Muni Buddha is regarded as the Buddha reigning in 
the present age or " Kalpa." '° 

Professor Baldwin says, " Buddhism was much older than Gautama, 
or Sakya Muni, the Buddha of the Ceylonese records. He was only 

' Lotui, pp. 266, 268 ; Lillie, pp. 128, 129. 

» Asiat, Res., vol. ix. p. 220 ; vol. vi. p. 260 ; vol. i. p. 170 ; Faber, Pag, IdoL, 
voL iL p. 342. 

3 Faber, vol. ii. p. 349. -» Edkins, p. 413. Faber, vol. ii. p. 348. 

* AnoU, Ees., vol. ix. pp. 212, 215 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 350. 

' Ibid,, vol. V. p. 261 ; vol. vi. pp. 263, 483 ; vol. x. p. 59. 

• Ihid,, voL iii. pp. 195, 201. 

9 Ibid,, vol. i. pp. 284, 285 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 350. 
» Edkins, pp. 240, 246, 261. 



I04 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

one of its prophets. A passage in the Bxi^a Taringini, a religious 
history of Kashmir, translated by Mr Tumour, shows that in China, 
Thibet, and Nepaul, six Arhatas, or mortal predecessors of Gautama, 
are recognised, and this accords with the fact that the Jainas, whose 
religious system originated in Buddhism, celebrate ' Kasyapa,' one of 
their predecessors, as their great prophet, claiming that the Buddhists 
themselves followed him before Gautama appeared." Again he says, 
" Buddhism was the growth of many ages preceding that in which 
Sakya Muni appeared. Its system of doctrine and practice was com- 
pletely developed before his time, and the fact explains why the 
various Buddhist sects have differed and disputed so much concerning 
the date of his appearance," which "varies from 2470 B.C. to 453 
B.a" ' 

It would thus appear that in Ceylon, Burmah and the south, 
where Amitabha Buddha is unknown, Sakya Muni is recognised as 
the chief god, but that throughout the north, in Thibet, Nepaul, 
China, and by the Brahmins of India, Amitabha is the supreme deity, 
although in Thibet and China, Sakya is recognised as a great teacher 
and an Avatar, or incaruation, of Buddha. It is plain also that the 
Buddhists of the south sprang out of Brahminism, for they more or 
less acknowledge the Vedic gods, although they place them in a 
subordinate position — Brahma, Vishnu and Siva being represented in 
some of the temples, and also in China, as disciples of Sakya Muni.' 
This, no doubt, is because the Brahmins regard Sakya Muni as a 
heretic, and the consequent hostility betweeu them and the followers 
of Sakya Muni has led the latter to elevate their prophet above the 
Vedic gods in retaliation for the charge of heresy. 

Everything, therefore, seems to point to the fact that the seat of 
the worship of the original, or mythological, Buddha Amitabha was 
in the north, especially in Thibet, where it has all the aspect of a 
perfected system, and where the magical powers of the priesthood are 
most famous. This is further corroborated by the fact that the 
Chinese recognise and reverence the Grand Llama of Thibet, who 
claims to be the living incarnation of Fo, or Buddha. The more 
remote Tartars regard him as the Deity, and call him God, the Ever- 
lasting Father of Heaven, and even the Emperor of China, who is 
Pontifex Maximus, or chief ecclesiastic, in China, pays him religious 
homage, acknowledging him as his ecclesiastical superior and great 

' Prehistoric Nations^ pp. 254, 255. ' Edkins, pp. 214, 215. 

3 Nightingale, Rites and CeremonieSy pp. 443, 448 ; Asiat. Res,, vol. i. pp. 207-220 ; 
vol. vi. pp. 483, 484 ; Le Compte, China, p. 332 ; Faber, Pa^. Idol,, vol. ii. p. 341. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 105 



spiritnal Father, or the living representative of his own god " Fo," or 
Bnddha.' 

As before remarked, the religious system of the great Buddhist 
countries, China and Thibet, resembles that of other forms of 
Paganism, and must be supposed to have a similar origin and 
antiquity. It has its Great Father, its Goddess Mother, and their 
Son, or incarnation, and these are represented by numerous idols to 
whom its followers pray. The Trinity consists of Amitabha Buddha, 
the goddess Dharma, or Kwanyin, and their son,^ the latter occupying 
precisely the same position as in other Pagan systems, which, we have 
seen, consists of the father of the gods, known as Belus, Bel Nimrud 
the lesser, Saturn, Cronus, Janus, etc. ; the goddess mother " with ten 
thousand names " ; and their son, known as Bel Nimrud the greater, 
Ninus, Osiris, Horus, Bacchus, Apollo, Tammuz, etc. 

The Buddhist Trinity is usually expressed as " Buddha," who in 
Northern Buddhism is "Amitabha," the goddess *' Dharma," and 
" Sangha." King Asoka, who lived about 250 B.C., expresses his faith 
in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as personal deities, and at the 
initiation of the Buddhist novice he recites the following text, "I 
salute Buddhanath, Dharma, and Sangha, and entreat them to bestow 
on me the Pravrajya."^ In later times in the South the personality 
of Dharma and Sangha were ignored, in consequence of the doctrines 
of Sakya Muni, which made salvation and the attainment of Nirvana 
to depend entirely upon a person's own subjugation of his natural 
passions and desires, and dispensed with the assistance and the 
worship of the gods involving the ritual and priesthood to which 
Sakya Muni was opposed. It is clear, however, that in the earliest 
times, as in the case of Asoka, they were regarded as personal deities 
and worshipped as such. 

The following prayers to Dharma are given by Mr Lillie : *' I 
salute Dharma, who is Prajna Paramita (Prajna, wisdom),^ pointing 
out the way of perfect tranquillity to all mortals, leading them into 
the path of perfect wisdom, who by the testimony of the sages pro- 
duced all things, who is the mother of all the Bodhisatwas " (holy 
men nearly emancipated). — (Baptismal Service in Nataiy 

" And thou ever present Kwan Shi Yin Bodhisatwa (our mother), 
who hast perfected wondrous merit, and art possessed of great mercy, 

• Lillie, p. 5. ' Ibid., pp. 56, 60. 

3 Edkins, p. 40. " Paramita" appears to mean " complete measure" or "attain- 
ment," "perfection." 

* Hodgson, p. 142. 



io6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

who in virtue of thine infinite power and wisdom art manifested 
throughout the universe for the defence and protection of all creatures, 
and who leadest us to the attainment of boundless wisdom," etc. 
(Chinese LiturgyY 

" Those Buddhas who are merciful and the teachers of the world, 
all such Buddhas are thy children. Thou art all good, and the uni- 
versal Mother." (Aahta Sahdsrika)* 

** Upon a lotos of precious stones sustaining a moon crescent sits 
Prajna Paramita" (Bhadra Kcdpa Vadana)? 

"The external and internal diversities belonging to all animate 
nature are produced by her, Buddha Matra.*' (JPancha Vinsati 
Sahaarikay Matra in the Sanskrit means " mother," and " matter," 
i,e., " the earth." 

'* Hitherto we have gone astray but now we return. Oh, that the 
merciful Kwanyin would receive our vows of amendment." (TermivO' 
tion of a Chinese Oeneral Confession).^ 

"I bow my head to the ground and worship Dharma. May 
Dharma forgive me my sin." {Cingalese Version of the PattiTnokkha, 
or RitvAil of Confession).^ 

"Hail, mother of the seven Eotis of Buddha." (Chinese Invo- 
cation),'' 

From the above, it is clear that Dharma, or Prajna, is a personal 
deity the goddess of wisdom, like Minerva, and is identical with 
Kwanyin. But modem Buddhism has substituted for this personal 
source of wisdom and knowledge, wisdom and knowledge itself, as 
taught by Sakya Muni, and Dharma has become a name for " Canon 
law " — I.e., the teaching of Sakya Muni. The original character of the 
goddess is, however, plain enough. She is not only the goddess of 
wisdom, but the great mother, and is identified with matter, or the 
earth. She is called the mother of Buddha, and also given the title 
of the goddess in other Pagan systems, viz., " The Queen of Heaven," 
and like them is addressed by the title of " Our Lady." * 

Sangha is said to be born from the union of " Upaya/' a name of 
God, i.e., of Amitabha Buddha, and "Prajna.** As " Padmapani" the 
son of Amitabha, he created the world, and is called " The Lord of the 
World." 9 He is called also " The Voice of the Dragon," '° that is to 

' Beal, Catena, p. 403. ' Hodgson, p. 86. J Ibid., p. 86. 

4 Ibid. 5 Beal, Cate^ia, p. 408. 

^ Dickson's translation, p. 6. 

7 Beal, Catena, p. 413 ; Lillie, pp. 21, 22. " Beal, Catena, p. 412. 

9 From the Scriptures of Nepaul, Hodgson, p. 88. 

'"^ Max Miiller, chap. i. p. 263 ; Lillie, p. 22. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 107 

»7. jnst as Christ is said to be " The Word of God," i.c., " the expres- 
sion " or '* manifestation " of God, by His words and life as man, so 
Sangha, as the incarnation of the supreme god and goddess, was 
regarded as " the voice " or " expression '* of the dragon, or serpent, 
with whom, as we shall see, the Pagan '' father of the gods " was 
identified. The symbols of Sangha were the Sun and the Elephant,' 
both of which are also the particular symbols of Buddha. 

Sangha is, moreover, one of the seven great prophets or Buddhas, 
bat in Southern Buddhism he represents " The body of dead and living 
saints*' * 

Sangha in Northern Buddhism is thus the incarnation of the 
supreme god, and, as in other Pagan systems, takes the position 
of a false Christ, and is practically a mystical aspect of Buddha 
himself, while in Southern Buddhism Sangha represents all the 
saints of Buddhism, and, in order to get rid of him as a personal 
deity, he is called "Congregation" But, as Mr Idllie remarks, the 
prayers addressed to him and Dharma become absurd when these 
terms are substituted for their names, as in the Ceylon ritual, in which 
the following prayers occur : — 

" May Sangha {congregation) forgive me my sin." " I have no other 
refuge ; Dharma {canon law) is my refuge." " I bow my head to the 
ground and worship Dharma {canon law), Sakya Muni is the best 
refuge." " May Dharma {canon law) forgive me my sin." ^ 

Amitabha Buddha, Dharma and Sangha may thus be regarded as 
the original or mythological Trinity of Buddhism. 

When, therefore, Sakya Muni was recognised as Buddha, he was 
naturally incorporated into the system and recognised as the son of 
the supreme god and goddess, and, indeed, as Buddha himself in 
mortal form. Therefore, in Southern Buddhism, which knew nothing 
of the original or mythological Buddha Amitabha, he became the 
supreme god to the exclusion of other deities. 

All the Pagan gods, as we have seen, were identified with the 
Sun, which was regarded as the Great Father, the generator of all 
life, while the goddess was the Earth, or matter, the passive 
source of generation. Their son, or incarnation, was the human 
expression of the Father, as manifested to man, and was therefore 
also regarded as the Sun. Hence it was fabled of Sakya Muni, after 
he had been worshipped as Buddha, that the Sun in the form 
of a white Elephant (the particular symbol of the Sun) entered 

« LiUie, p. 22. ' Ibid,, p. 23. 

3 Pattimokkha, pp. 3-5 ; Lillie, pp. 24, 25. 



io8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

into his mother Maya's side, and the result was the birth of Sakya 
Muni Hence also his birthday was said to be on December 25th, the 
time of the winter solstice, when the sun first begins to regain its 
power.' This was the birthday of all the Sun gods, and was celebrated 
in Pagan Rome as " Natalis invicti Solis," " the birthday of the un- 
conquered Sun." ^ 

In short, Mr Beal says that, "The ordinary representation of 
Buddha is the rising sun. His jewelled crest is called the ' rasmi 
culamani,' that is, the ray jewel crest, and the Ceylonese figures of 
him are generally provided with his crown of triple rays." ^ 

Sakya Muni thus took the place of Sangha in his aspect as the 
great prophet or teacher, the incarnation of the Sun, and as "the 
Voice of the Dragon." 

All the Pagan gods were eventually identified with the Serpent, 
which was also regarded, like the Sun, as the Great Father, and was 
a symbol of the Sun. The Serpent, in short, was regarded both as 
the source of life, and also of wisdom and knowledge, and as the 
instructor of men, as in the case of iEsculapius and the Babylonian 
Hea, the "Lord of Understanding" and "Teacher of Mankind," 
both of whom are represented by serpents. The name Hea also 
means " serpent," and this deity is identified by Sir Henry Rawlinson 
with the star " Draco," or " the dragon." ^ 

The terms "dragon" and "serpent" were practically synony- 
mous in ancient times, and the Dragon god of Greece and the Dragon 
standards of Rome are really serpents.^ The Dragon standard was 
adopted by the Emperor of Constantinople from the Assyrians,^ and 
it was an especial object of worship by the Babylonians.^ It was 
also worshipped both in China and Japan. The great Chinese 
Dragon was, as in Rome and Babylon, the banner of the Empire, and 
indicated everything sacred.^ Just also as the serpent was the 

' See account, Lillie, pp. 71, 73. He was born, according to the fable, on the eighth 
day of the second month, which, as the first day of the Hindu year was Nov. 1 7th, 
would be Dec. 26th ; Lillie, pp. 71-73. 

' Gieseler, Ecdes. Hist., p. 42, note. 

^ Beal, Biiddhist Lit. in China, p. 159, and frontispiece. 

< Rawlinson, Herod., vol. i. p. 600 ; Lenorniant, Chaldean Magic, pp. 232, 233. 
See also infra, chap, x., on the worship of the Sun and the Serpent. 

5 See PL " Dragon Standard," Elliot's Horoe Apocalypta, vol. iii. p. 14. 

^ Vossius, De Idol, lib. iv. cap. liv., citing Codinus ; Deane's Serpefit Worship, 
p. 46. 

^ " In that same place was a great dragon which they of Babylon worshipped." 
— Bel and the Dragon, 

* Stukeley's Ahury, p. 66. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 



109 



insignia of royalty and dominion in Egypt, so the dragon was " the 
stamp and symbol of royalty in China, and is sculptured in all 
temples."' "The Chinese," writes Cambry, "delight in mountains 
and high places, because there lives the dragon upon whom their 
good fortune depends. They call him 'the Father of Happiness.' 
To this dragon they erect temples shaded with groves." * " The 
dragon," says Mr Lillie, " represents the Indian cobra as a symbol in 
China for the supreme god." ^ He is called the " Dragon King," and 
prayers are regularly offered to him.^ 

Therefore, although the dragon is not actually identified with 
Amitabha, or Adi Buddha, yet it is plain that he occupies a similar 
position, and Sangha being at once " the voice, or manifestation, of the 
dragon," and the incarnation of Amitabha, an intimate connection 
between the two is implied. This also is the case with Sakya Muni 
when he takes the plcM^e of the mythological Sangha He is called 
"the King of the Serpents," " the Tree of Knowledge and the Sun,"s 
thus occupying, as Buddha, apparently the same position as the 
Babylonian Hea, or the prophet Nebo. 

Nor is this the only thing connecting Buddha with the 
Babylonian Hea, who, as we have seen, is identified with the 
Elgyptian Hermes or Mercury. For the " Tri- 
Ratna " of Buddhism, which is called " the three 
precious symbols of the faith," consisted of two 
serpents twining round a staff (see sketch), and 
forming a circle and a crescent, symbolic of the 
sun and moon, in exactly the same way as the 
''Caduceus*' of Hermes or Mercury, the only 
difference in the Caduceus being that the staff is 
placed below the serpents. Mercury was the 
Phallic god, and the whole emblem, the male and 
female serpents, and the Sun god and Moon 
goddess, are symbols of generation, the staff, or 
tree, being symbolic of the Phallus. It occupies 
the same position as the centre stroke in the letter 4>, which had 
a similar symbolism. ^ 




Tki-Ratna. 



' Maurice, Hist, ffind.j vol. i. p. 210. 

' Cambry, Monuments Celttques, p. 163 ; Deane, pp. 69, 70. 
3 Lillie, p. 31. ' Edkins, p. 207. 

^ Lalita Vistara, Lillie, p. 26. 

* Vide infroj chap, x., "Sun, Serpent, Phallic and Tree Worship," where a 
figure of the " Caduceus " is given. 



1 10 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

These, and other features of Sun and Serpent worship, show thai 
it must have existed in China and in Thibet, as it did in India and 
throughout the world, from the earliest ages, and that when Sakya 
Muni had been cM^knowledged as Buddha, he became incorporated 
into the system, and received many, if not all, the attributes of 
Amitabha, such as " Heavenly Father," " God of Gods," " King of 
Kings," " The Omniscient," " The Self -existent" » This was only 
natural, if a mythological Buddha with these attributes already 
existed, and Sakya Muni was regarded as his incarnation ; for, boUi 
being Buddhas, whatever was said of the one would be said of the 
other; as, for instance, the daily prayer throughout China, viz^ 
" May Buddha forgive my sins," * must have applied originally to 
Amitabha, or Omito Fo, the supreme Buddha, but would also be 
applied to Sakya Muni when he was recognised as Buddha. 

From the fact that the ecclesiastical superiority of the Grand 
Llama of Thibet is recognised by the Chinese, and even by the 
Emperor himself, it seems evident that the religious system of 
Thibet is of the greatest antiquity. It is also the most elaborate and 
complete. The Grand Llama occupies precisely the same position as 
the Pontifex Maximus, or Chief Priest of the hierarchies of Babylon, 
Egypt and Rome. They were always the King, or Emperor, who, 
like the Grand Llama, were regarded as divine, and as representative 
of the Divinity on earth. They were addressed as " Your Holiness," 
and their feet kissed by their subjects.^ The Llama also wears the 
fish-headed mitre, similar to that of the Babylonian Fish god Dagon.* 
The Emperor of Cliina, when, as High Priest of the nation, he blesses 
the people once a year wears the same mitre.s There is also in Thibet 
and China an established priesthood with regular orders, like those 
of the other Pagan nations, living apart from the rest of the 
community, and, like the priests of Isis in Egypt, and the priesthoods 
of Pagan Greece and Rome, vowed to celibacy.^ 

The priesthood of Buddhism is also distinguished by the ** tonsure,'' 
which was the particular symbol in other Pagan nations of the 

' See Lillie, p. 118. ' Ibid., p. 25. 

^ Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol . ii. p. 68 ; Layard, Nineveh and lu Remains, vol. 
ii. pp. 464, 472, 474 ; Gaussen on Daniel, vol. i. p. 114 ; see also Hislop, pp. 211, 212 
and note. 

* Nightingale, Religions and CerenwnieSy p. 453 ; Layard's Babylon and Nineveh 
p. 343. 

5 Bryant, vol. v. p. 384. 

^ See Lempri6re, Isis and Osiris; Potter and Boyd, Grecian Antiq,, bk. ii. chap, 
iii. pp. 208, 209. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA in 

of the Sun goA "The ceremony of tonsure," says 

Maurice,' " was an old practice of the priests of Mithra (the Sun god 

of Persia), who in their tonsures represented the solar disk." The 

priests of Isis likewise shaved their heads,' so did those of Osiris ; 3 so 

did those of Pagan Rome.^ '^The Arabians," says Herodotus, 

^ acknowledge no other gods but Bacchus and Urania, the Queen of 

Heaven, and they say their hair is cut in the same way as Bacchus' 

is cut. Now they cut it in a circular form, shaving it round the 

temples.^ Sakya Muni is said to have shaved his head, and directed 

his disciples to do so in obedience to a command of Vishnu.^ Hence 

their title, ''The shaved heads." The antiquity of the custom is 

shown by the commands given to the Israelites forbidding it.7 

It may be noticed also that the heads of all the images of Buddha, 

Kwanyin and other deities are surrounded by the ** aureole'' or 

** halOy' which was also a particular symbol of the Sun god in other 

nations. It was placed round the heads of the images of the gods 

and heroes in Rome and Greece, and also round the heads of the 

Roman Emperors, to whom divine honours were paid after death. It 

was regarded as the token of the divinity of the person represented, 

that is to say, of his being a son of the Sun god, as implied by the 

lines: — 

*^ Twelve golden beams around his temples play, 
To mark his lineage from the god of dayP " 

The author of Fompeii notices it in a painting of Circe and Ulysses, 
and says it is defined by Servius as '' the luminous fluid which 
encircles the heads of the gods." *^ 

Considering then that the Sun is Buddha's special emblem, that 
he is called '*The Sublime Sun Buddha whose widespread rays 
brighten and illumine all things," and that he is reported to have 
said that bowing to the Ek^t (the usual act of adoration to the Sun 
god) was ''the paramita of charity," that is, the perfection of 
righteousness,'" it is very evident that the ancient Buddhism, like 
other Pagan systems, was founded on Sun worship, and that the 

* Maurice, Lui. Antiq., vol. vii. p. 851. ' Lemprifcre, Isu and Isiaca. 
' Macrobius, lib. L cap. xxiii. 

* Tertullian, vol. ii., Carmina, pp. 1105, 1106. 
' Herod., lib. iiL cap. viii. 

* Kennedy, Buddha in Bvidu MytL, pp. 263, 264 ; Hislop, pp. 221, 222. 
' Leviticus xix. 27, 28 ; Deut ziv. 1. 

* Dryden, Virgil^ book xii. pp. 245, 246 ; vol. iii. p. 775 ; Hislop, p. 237. 

•On .^nMy lib. iL ver. 616 ; vol. i. p. 166 ; Ilialop, p. 87. '"Lillie, p. 1^3. 



112 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



original or mythological Buddha, whose attributes were given to 
Sakya Muni, was, like the other Pagan gods, a Sun god. 

The character of the goddess ** Kwanyin " also corresponds with 
that of the goddess in other systems, who, known by many names 
indicative of her various attributes, or aspects, was yet one and the 
same deity. Just as Buddha is *' the Sun," so is Kwanyin, *^ matter," 
or " the earth," ' and these were the principal aspects of the god and 
goddess throughout Paganism. Just also as the god was called 
" Lord of Heaven," so was the goddess called " Queen of Heaven," and 
this, as we have seen, was equally the title of Kwanyin. Like 
Minerva, she is the goddess of wisdom.' Like Vefavus Mylitta, 
" The Mediatrix," Aphrodite. " The Wrath Subduer," Bona Dea, *« The 
Good Goddess," the title of Ceres in Rome, and other forms of the 
great goddess, the character of Kwanyin is always one of mercy. 
She is called "the goddess of mercy," and this is the attribute 
especially applied to her in the Chinese liturgy, and in Buddhism 
"no person holds so large a place in saving mankind as Kwan 
shi yin." 3 

Finally Kwanyin is represented with a child in her arms,^ and in 
China the Holy Mother, "Shing Moo," who is probably a form of 
Kwanyin, is represented in the same way.^ Now this peculiar mode 
of representing the goddess and her son was common throughout 
Paganisfti. In Egypt, she was represented as Isis with the child 
Osiris or Horus in her arms. In India, as Isa and Iswara. In Asia, 
as Cybele and Deoius. In Rome, as Fortuna and the boy Jupiter. 
In Greece as Ceres with a babe at her breast, or as Irene with the 
boy Plutus.^ 

' See Prayer, antCy p. 106. ' Ibid, 

^ Edkins, pp. 382, 385. Dr Edkins seems to think that Kwanyin was once a male 
deity, and that his sex hjis been clianged. But this is unlikely, and it is more 
probable that, as was constantly the ca.se in Paganism, there was a god and goddess 
of the same name, the latter being the feminine counterpart of the former and 
possessing similar attributes. The male Kwanyin was really a form of Buddha 
and called Chin Fo. Tlic ancient liturgies clearly address Kwanyin as a 

goddess. 

^ Edkins, p. 242. 

5Ci-abb'8 Mythologtf^ p. 160; Da vies, Chvia^ vol. ii. p. 66; llislop, p. 21 and 

note. 

''^ceHislop, woodcuts of godde.ss and child from Babylon and India, pp. 19, 
20. In Mr Edwin Longs picture "Anno Domini,' there is a golden figure of Isis 
with Horus in her arms, carried in a long procession of priests from an Egyptian 
temple, while in the foreground is the infant Jesus with Mary and Jaseph. It is 
the meeting of the true and false Christe, for, as we sliall see, eveiything was done 
to identify the Pagan god with the promised " seed of the woman." 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 113 

But while this indicates the intimate connection of Buddhism with 
»iher Pagan systems at some previous period, it is yet evident that 
he period must have been very remote, for the Chinese have 
Itogether lost the real significance of the mother and child ; 
[wanyin being now simply regarded as " the giver of sons." * 

It is possible that Sun worship and the distinctive features of 
Western Paganism were never fully received by Eastern Asia, and 
rere probably in part derived from the mythology of India. 

There are, however, many points of identity between the two 
ystema Tree worship, for instance, is as characteristic of Buddhism 
s it was of Western Paganism, in which the Grove worship, so con- 
iantly referred to in the Old Testament, and the worship of certain 
acred trees, were prominent featurea' Buddha is represented as 
itting under a tree, and the same homage was paid to the tree as to 
Suddha himself. In the edicts of King Asoka, veneration to the 
loly Fig-tree is strongly inculcated, and the Stupa of Bha/rhut 
epresents the Bodhi trees of the seven Buddhas, each being 
worshipped. General Cunningham quotes Quintus Curtius as saying 
hat the companions of Alexander the Great noticed the fact that 
the Indians reputed as God whatever they held in reverence, 
(Specially trees, which it was death to injure." ^ 

The worship of the dead was, as we have seen, the distinguishing 
eature in Western Paganism. This was not merely the case in the 
■worship of the greater gods, but also in the worship of minor deities, 
who were illustrious men, and called " hero gods." It is still more 
tharacteristic of Buddhism, in which, besides the Buddhas and 
roddesses, there are a multitude of Bodhisat was, or holy men, 
whose images are also worshipped after their death. In short, the 
leads of the Cingalese monasteries assert that their main rites are 
'saint worship." 4 There is also a special day set apart for the 
worship of their ancestors by the Chinese, viz., the fifteenth day of 
,heir seventh month,^ which therefore nearly exactly corresponds with 
iie date on which the festival of the dead was held in many other 
lations, viz., the seventeenth day of the seventh month.^ 

There are also prayers for the dead as in Egypt, where large sums 
were paid for the celebration of prayers and sacrifices for the dead ; 

* Edkins, p. 3S3. - See iVi/m, chap. x. 

^ Stupa ofBharhut^ by Gen. Cunnin<?ham, pp. 106, 100, 113-116. 

4 Upham's Sacred and Historical Books of Ceyloiiy p. 161 ; Lillie, pp. 27, 43, 45. 

sEilkins, p. 268. '' Gen. viii. 4 ; hcc ante^ chap. i. 

' Wilkin»on'8 Egyptinvjty vol. ii. p. 94 ; vol. v. pp. 383, 384. 

H 



1 14 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

and as in Greece, where the greatest and most expensive sacrifice was 
the mysterions sacrifice called " Tdete" offered for the sins of the living 
and the dead' In India the service of the '' Sraddha " for the repose of 
the dead was equally costly.^ It was the idea among the Pagans that 
the dead went to a purgatory which Plato describes as a subterranean 
place of judgment, where they underwent various sufferings until they 
were cleansed from their sins,^ and these sufferings were supposed to 
be shortened by the prayers and services held by the priesthood. 
Similar services called "Kurigte*' (merit) are performed by the 
Buddhist priests for the dead They profess to have the power to 
save the soul, and by their mediation to " redeem the deceased person 
from the punishment due to his sins." This is expressed by the 
phrase " Shu tsibi** " redeem from guilt" ^ 

The Pagans of the West consecrated their images and believed 
that, by so doing, the god they represented entered into them and 
dwelt there. 5 The Buddhist idols are also consecrated by a 
ceremony called " opening to the light," and directly the crystal eyes 
are put into an image the spirit of the god, or departed saint, is 
supposed to animate it.^ 

There are other minor points of resemblance, as, for instance, the 
rite of initiation, similar to that of " The Lesser Mysteries" in Egypt 
and Greece, by which, after a confession and a baptism of water, the 
initiate was supposed to be reborn and forgiven all his sins.^ In 
Buddhism the initiate is also baptised after a confession of his sins 
and certain vows, and is considered regenerated, the change being 
called " the white birth." ^ A sutra of Sakya Muni Buddha entitles 
it "The baptism that rescues from life and death, and confers 
salvation." ^ 

But the feature in which Buddhism most closely resembles the 
Paganism of the West, and especially that of Assyria and Egypt, is 
its demonology and iiiagic, M. Lenormant has collected from the 
cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia a number of incantations and 
spells used by the Chaldean priesthood, by which they invoked the 
aid of a multitude of beneficent spirits, to defeat the actions of evil 

* Plato, vol. ii. pp. 364, 365 ; Suidas, vol. ii. p. 879. 
'Asiat. Res.y vol. vii. pp. 239, 240. 

JDrydcn'8 Vm/U, book vi. 11. 995-1012 ; vol. ii. p. 536 ; Plato, Phcedrus, p. 249. 

* Edkins, pp. 385, 386. 

5 Arnobiurt, lib. v. caps. ix. and xvii. '^Edkins, p. 252 ; Lillie, p, 39. 

7Tertullian, De Baptismo^ vol i. pp. 1204, 1205; Gregory Nazianzeo, Opem, 
p. 245. 

•* Lillie, pp. 56, 67. "* Joum. Anaf. Soc., vol. xx. p. 172. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 115 



spirits, and dispel the effects of sorcery, disease, misfortune, etc.' 
The extreme antiquity of these incantations is shown by the fact 
that they are expressed in the ancient Accadian language, which it 
was thought gave them greater efficacy. So with Buddhism. "It 
was plainly," says Mr Lillie, " an elaborate apparatus to nullify the 
action of evil spirits by the aid of good spirits." ' Even the liturgical 
prayers of the Buddhists are incantations. Mr Edkins says, " They 
are chanted by the priests," and " consist of extracts from sutras, or 
special books, containing charms. They are not prayers in our 
sense. They work a sort of magical effect." 3 The Tanists, a 
Buddhist sect,^ " occupy themselves with writing charms for driving 
demons out of houses, and with reading prayers for the removal of 
calamitiea" The Tanist magician '*will undertake to drive 
out a demon from the body of a madman, and from a haunted 
house, to cure the sick by magic, and to bring rain in time of 
drought." 5 

Mr Edkins remarks that the present popularity of Buddhism 
certainly does not rest on the doctrines of the faith, but on the 
supposed magical powers of the priests, " because the people believe 
in the magical efficacy of Buddhist prayers." ^ These powers were 
due to ^necromancy'* The aid of beneficent spirits was sought 
" through the instrumentality of the corpse, or portion of the corpse, 
of the chief aiding spirit." " A saint dies, and is buried in a tumulus, 
or under a tree, and under this tree, by-and-by, sits another holy man 
who periodically gets obsessed by the dead saint, and in that state 
exhibits the various marvels of clairvoyance, fortune-telling," etc.7 
" The Buddhist temple," says Mr Lillie, " the Buddhist rites and the 
Buddhist liturgy all seem based on this one idea, that a whole, or 
portion, of a dead body was necessary." ® Hence " a portion of the 
relics of Buddha was a sine qua non in each of its temples. This was 
plainly for magical purposes. When Yung Shin, the Chinese 
pilgrim, visited the King of Oudeyana he gave such a flattering 
picture to that monarch of the divination, alchemy, medicine and 
magic practised by the Buddhists of China that he made the king 
eagerly desire to visit that land of marvels. To this day the 
Buddhist temple is the home of marvels; and in front of many 
statues of Buddha there is a table in China on which an apparatus 

* Lenormant, Chaldean Marfic. » Lillie, p. 47. 

> Edkins, p. 257. * Ihid.^ chap. zziv. 

* Ihid.y p. 382. '' Ihid., pp. 380, 381. 
7 Lillie, pp. 37, 47. » Ihid,, p. 47. 



ii6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

similar to a planchette is used for ghostly commonications. This 
planchette has been known for many hundred years." * 

The magical powers exercised by the Buddhist priest are attributed 
to asceticism. " Six supernatural faculties were expected of the 
ascetic before he could claim the grade of Arhat He had to rise 
into the air, to rain down water and then fire from his body, to make 
that body expand and then grow indefinitely small ; the sixth exploit 
was to disappear in the heavens and return to earth and then rise 
once more aloft.'* ^ 

The Samanna Phala Sutra, which is said to have been written by 
Sakya Muni, enlarges upon the exact object of the ascetic " Man," 
he says, " has a body composed of the four elements. It is the fruit 
of the union of his father and his mother. In this transitory body 
his intelligence is confined. The ascetic therefore directs his mind to 
the creation of the Manas. He represents to himself in thought 
another body created from this material body. This body, in relation 
to the material body, is like the sword and the scabbard, or a serpent 
issuing from a basket in which it is confined. Then the ascetic, when 
purified and perfected, commences to practise supernatural faculties. 
He finds himself able to pass through material obstacles — walls, 
ramparts — and he is able to throw his phantasmal appearance into 
many places at once ; he can walk upon the surface of the water, and 
fly through the air. Another faculty is now conquered by the force 
of will. He acquires the power of hearing the sounds of the unseen 
world as distinctly as those of the phenomenal world. By the power 
of the Manas he is able to read the most secret thoughts of others. 
Then comes the faculty of * divine vision/ and he sees all that men 
do on earth and after they die, and when they are again reborn. 
Then he detects the secrets of the universe," etc.3 

The name given to these ascetics was " Shamana^s" or '' ShramanaSy'* 
a word meaning "quieting of the passions," "* the object of asceticism 
being the complete subjugation of every natural desire as a means to 
the attainment of these supernatural powers. Mr Lillie remarks, 
" The marvels of the Shaman are so well known to readers of travels 
in Buddhist countries that they need not be dwelt on here. Messrs 
Hue and Qabet report that they saw a Bokt6 rip open his own 
stomach in the Great Court of the Lamaserai of Rache Tchurin, in 

' Beal, Diuldhist Pilgrims^ p. 190; Strange Staries from a Chinese Sivdio, vol. 
ii. p. 295 ; Lillie, pp. 38, 39. 

* The Lotus, p. 270, Appendix, p. 476 ; Lillie, p. 45. 

J Quoted by Lillie, pp. 45, 46. ^ Edkins, p. 89, note. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 117 



Tartary. After a copious flow of blood had deluged the court, the 
Boktd closed and healed the wound with a single pass of his hand. 
'These horrible ceremonies/ say the good fathers, 'are of frequent 
occurrence in the Great Lamaserais of Tartary and Thibet, and we do 
not believe there is any trick or deception about them ; for from all 
we have seen and heard we are persuaded that the devil has a great 
deal to do with the matter.' " * 

In Yule*8 Marco Polo there is also reference to the magical powers 
of the Buddhist priesthood in Tartary. The Khan is described as 
favourably disposed to Christianity, and it is added, " Since he holds 
the Christian faith to be best, why does he not attach himself to it 
and become a Christian ? Well, this is the reason that he gave to 
Messer Nicolo and Messer Mafieo when he sent them as his envoys to 
the Pope, and when they sometimes took upon them to speak to him 
about the faith of Christ, he said — *How would you have me to 
become a Christian ? You see that the Christians of these parts are 
so ignorant that they achieve nothing, whilst you see the idolaters can 
do anything they please, inasmuch that when I sit at table the cups 
from the middle of the hall come to me full of wine, or other liquor, 
without being touched by anybody, and I drink from them. They 
control storms, causing them to pass in whatever direction they please, 
and do many other marvels, whilst, as you know, their idols speak 
and give them predictions on whatever subjects they choose. But if I 
were to turn to the faith of Christ and become a Christian, then my 
barons and others who are not converted would say, " What has 
moved you to be baptised and take up the faith of Christ? What 
powers or miracles have you witnessed on His part ? " You know that 
the idolaters here say that their wonders are performed by the 
sanctity and power of their idols. Well, I should not know what 
answer to make, so they would only be confirmed in their errors, and 
the idolaters, who are adepts in such surprising arts, would easily 
compass my death." ^ 

These powers, if they were real, did not exceed those of the 
sorcerers and magicians of Egypt, who, up to a certain point, were 
able to imitate, by their enchantments, the miracles performed by 
Moses and Aaron in the presence of Pharaoh, and we may presume 
that the Chaldean priesthood, whose wisdom was as famous as that 
of the Egyptian priests, had similar powers, the knowledge 

» Lillie, p. 47. 

* Ramusis' edition of Marco Polo ; Yule's Marco Polo \ bk. ii. chap. vi. vol. i. 
p. 339. 



ii8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

of attaining which had been handed down from the ancient 
Accadians. 

The Buddhist doctrine is that by asceticism and intense self- 
absorption and mystic meditation, it is possible to attain a mental 
state by which six kinds of supernatural wisdom called *' ahhinna^'' 
and ten supernatural powers called " Iddhi" are acquired ; and there 
are four stages, or "Jhanas," of this self -induced mystic ecstasy 
before the perfect state is attained. In addition to this, there 
is the state of " Samadhi,** or self -induced mesmeric trance, which is 
supposed to be a proof of superior holiness, and of which there have 
been well-authenticated instances.' Similar states of extasia and 
mesmeric trance were customary with the Greek prophets and 
diviners, and the devotees of Brahminism.^ 

Mr Lillie says, "The Buddhists are the great adepts of 
mesmerism. To this day the ministrations of Buddhist monks out- 
side the Yiharas are almost exclusively confined to this magnetic 
healing. * Aka&a^ the mesmeric fluid, and the spirit of God, are one 
in the East." 3 

Mesmerism was equally used by the Egyptian priesthood to pro- 
duce a state of trance, or extctsia, in which the spirits of the gods 
were supposed to enter into the person and speak by him.4 

The knowledge and powers, however, obtained by means of 
mesmerism were distinct from, and supplementary to, those pos- 
sessed by the ascetic himself, the conditions for acquiring which 
were celibacy and abstinence from wine and meat, combined with 
solitude and self-absorption. The reason given, according to the 
teaching of Sakya Muni, for abstaining from meat is that flesh " pre- 
vents charms and other magical devices from taking effect," 5 and we 
may presume that the other forms of abstinence were considered to 
be equally necessary. This, however, will be more fully considered 
in another chapter. 

It is clear that the magic and sorcery used by the priests of 
Buddhism are similar to those made use of by the priesthoods of 
Chaldea and Egypt, and by the necromancers, wizards, sorcerers and 
magicians of the Canaanitish nations, and to the magic, divination, 
and other methods used by the Greeks for consulting the gods.^ The 

' Rhys Davis, Bvddhismy pp. 174, 175. 

* See Potter and Boyd, Greek AiU.y book ii. chap, xviii. 3 Lillie, p. 140. 

* See tw/m, chap. viii. s Edkins, p. 204. 

* These are more fully described iu chap. viii. See also Potter and Boyd, Orcck 
ArU.<i book iL chaps, vii.-xviii. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 119 

original source of this magic, as shown by M. Lenormant, is to be 
traced to the Accadian race, the primitive Gushite inhabitants of the 
Enphrates and Tigris valleys, as is clear from the fact that the 
later Chaldeans used the Accadian language as a sacred tongue, 
which they regarded as of special efficacy for their charms and in- 
cantations. Moreover, M. Lenormant has pointed out that the 
Turanian and Mongolian races use the same magic, and that the 
Ugric and Altaic tribes have their "ShamaTias** like the Buddhists, and 
and that a similar magic existed among the people of Media.' It 
may also be remarked that the priesthoods of Persia and Bactria are 
also called " SamaTieanSy* ^ the name given by Strabo and Porphyry to 
the Buddhists of India,^ and by which, as we have seen, the followers 
of Sakya Muni were called. This is the name now given by 
German philosophers to all who believe in an intercourse with the 
spirit world. 

M. Lenormant has also pointed out the intimate relation of the 
Accadian language to that of the Turanian, or Ugric — Altaic races,^ 
implying therefore that the Mongolian people of Northern Buddhist 
countries, Thibet and China, were at some remote period intimately 
associated with the Accadians. ^ 

It is also worthy of remark that in the Chaldean demonology 
there were two classes of demi-godSy one of which was called in the 
Accadian language " LlaTnma/* and in Assyrian '^LaTnaSy* meaning 
^'gianty* ^ the name by which the Nephilim and Nephilim races, of 
which we shall speak hereafter, were known, and which would be 
equally applied to those who claimed either descent from them, or the 
possession of their powers. Considering therefore the connection of 
the Accadian and Mongolian languages, we have probably here the 
origin of the name "Xamas," who are the Buddhist priests and 
magicians of Thibet. 

Taking these things into consideration and the fact that Shamanas 
and Shamanism, which are the principal features of Northern 
Buddhism, exist in countries where Sakya Muni is unknown, together 
with other points of identity between Buddhism and the religious 
systems of Western Asia, it is clear that the religion of Northern 
Buddhism and of the Turanian or Ural-Altaic races must have been 

' Chaldean Magicy chaps, xiv., xv., and chap, xviii., pp. 263, 265. 
* Cyril, Openxy lib. ii. p. 133 : Clem. Alex., Strom.y lib. i. p. 305. 
3 Strabo, lib. xv., pp. 712-714 ; Porph. de Abstin., lib. iv. p. 17 : Faber, Pag, 
Idol.y vol. ii. pp. 351, 353. 

^ Chaldean MagiCy chaps, xviii, xxiii. 

^ See Appendix D, 77ie Accadia^is, '' Chaldean MagiCy cliap. ii. p. 23, 24. 



I20 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

derived from the same source as that of Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, 
etc., but that having separated from the peoples of those countries at 
an early period, it had only partially adopted their later and more 
complicated mythological developments. 

If so, we must look for the origin of the primitive or mythological 
Buddha from the same soiirce. We may also presume that the 
colossal images by which Buddha is represented, and those by which 
he is shown as a triple deity, like the Buddha of Brahminism, who is 
the mysterious A, U, M., and which appear to be quite incongruous 
with the character of the teacher and reformer Sakya Muni, were 
originally representative of the mythological Buddha, although they 
were subsequently identified with Sakya Muni. The same may be said 
of the gigantic impression of Buddha's foot which is shown in various 
places, and his gigantic teeth (probably the fossil teeth of a mammoth 
or mastodon) which are treasured as relics. They are quite incon- 
sistent with the character of an ascetic and teacher, and are evidently 
the rude expression of a belief in a being of abnormal power. 

The Arabs, who are not Buddhists, have also a god, the impression 
of whose gigantic foot is treasured as a sacred object in the Caaba of 
Mecca. They worship him as the great father and call him *' ThetUh- 
Ares,'' or " Thoth-Areay and they also call him " TTucW," or « BvM;' 
and no doubt he is the primitive mythological Buddha.' 

It would appear that Sakya Muni, beyond being recognised as an 
Avatar of Buddha, has had little or no influence on the religion of 
Northern Buddhism. Its priesthood and ritual, its magic and sorcery, 
are probably the same now as when first derived from the ancient 
Accadians, while the moral teaching of Sakya Muni is not only with- 
out effect upon the people of these countries but, as Mr Ed kins 
remarks, the books containing his teaching " are never, or almost never, 
read in the liturgical services, and as to trying to be good, the 
Buddhists (of China) do not evince much indication that this aim is 
vital and vigorous among them." ^ Asceticism, or the denial of every 
natural and legitimate desire, does not appeal to the majority of man- 
kind, nor will a barbarous and cruel race, or indeed any race, consent 
to forego any form of retaliation on those who injure them, even to 
the extent of forgiving criminals, as taught by Sakya Muni. It is only 
a few who will even undertake the self-denial required to enable them 
to attain those magical powers which are believed to be associated 

' Maxim. Tyr., Dissert., chap, xxxviii. p. 374 ; Asiat. Res., vol. ii. pp. 8, 9 ; vol. 
iii. pp. 304, 305; Faber, vol. ii. p. 390. 
' Edkins, p. 381. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 121 

with it, and it may be safely asserted that the teaching of Sakya Muni 
would have had little or no influence had it been without the promise 
of those powera Mr Ekikins says that Buddhism (not the teach- 
ing of Sakya Muni) is believed in by the people because they " believe 
in the magical efficacy of Buddhist prayers and in moral causation, or, 
in other words the law of moral retribution which Buddhism teaches." 
What that morality is he explains : — '* It is on these accounts that 
money flows into the Buddhist treasury for the erection and repair 
of temples and pagodas, and for the support of innumerable priests. If 
I give money to gild sacred images, the law of causation will give me 
back happiness."' In other words, it is the morality which the 
priesthoods of Paganism have taught in all ages, viz., the promise of 
salvation to those who support the priesthood and temples of the 
gods. 

Mr Rhys Davis rather deprecates the idea that his hero, Sakya 
Muni, should have believed in, and advocated, magic, because it might 
seem to be inconsistent with the supposed high morality of his teeush- 
ing.* But that teaching, although certain of its features are not 
unlike the precepts of Christianity, is in spirit diametrically opposed 
to it, for it appears to make man the author of his own salvation, 
which, when supposed to be attained, can only exalt the pride and 
self-confidence which is so opposed to the spirit of Christ, while the 
adulation and worship which these supposed holy men receive from 
their followers cannot fail to conduce to the same result. Nor can that 
result be altered merely because self-righteousness is condemned and 
humility enjoined. The humility in such cases will only be affecta- 
tion, the pride that apes it. 

Moreover, certain features of this morality, or righteousness, 
taught by Sakya Muni are a travesty and exaggeration of that of 
Christianity, and condemned by it, while the asceticism he enjoined 
is identical with that of the apostasy from Christianity foretold by 
St Paul, the authors of which are described as condemning marriage, 
and commanding to abstain from meats ; '* teaching " which, the 
Apostle says, is that " of seducing spirits and doctrines of devils " 
(daimonia). — (1 Tim. iii. 1-3). It would seem indeed that this abstiuence 
Lb a necessary qualification for attaining those powers wielded by the 
priesthood and magicians of Paganism, and which powers are not of 
God. 

Without doubt, Sakya Muni was not the originator of the 
methods for attainiog these magical powers, which clearly existed 

• Edkius, p. 381. ' Rh>B Davu, BvMhitm, p. 177. 



122 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

before his time, but there is not only no evidence that he ever 
opposed them, but it is impossible to believe that he could have 
attained the influence he has had, if he had made no claim to them. 

Remusat, quoting from a Japanese Encyclopaedia, says that, 
" Buddha (Sakya Muni) before his death committed the secret of his' 
mysteries to his disciple Maha Kashiapa. The latter was a Brahmin 
bom in the kingdom of Magadha in Central India. To him was 
entrusted the deposit of the esoteric doctrine called ' Chefa fa yen 
taang* the pure secret of the eye of right doctrine." ' Mr Edkins 
says that the symbol of this esoteric principle commimicated orally 

without books is ^-U " mxinl' or ** tcwm," and implies the posses- 
sion of ten thousand perfections. It is usually placed on the heart of 
Buddha in images and pictures of that divinity. It is sometimes 
called "jSinym," "heart's seat" It contains within it the whole 
mind of Buddha. In Sanskrit it is called " Svastika" ^' It was 
the monogram of Vishnu and Shiva, the battle-axe of Thor in 
Scandinavian inscriptions, an ornament on the crowns of the Bonpa 
deities of Thibet, and a favourite symbol with the Peruvians." * 

Here, then, is evidence of the existence of an occult doctrine 
distinct from the moral teaching of Sakya Muni, and shown by the 
"Svastika" to be connected with the mysteries of other Pagan 
nations, and which, we may presume, was the secret of attaining the 
magical powers which constitute the chief feature of Buddhism, and 
are the real source of its influence. 

It is probable that this secret doctrine was originally that of the 
primitive mythological Buddha, and that, like other characteristics 
of the latter, it was afterwards attributed to Sakya Muni, when he 
was recognised as Buddha. It seems certain, as we shall see, that 
such occult teaching concerning magical powers was attributed to the 
primitive Buddha, but as Sakya Muni could never have had the 
influence he has had by his moral teaching only, we may presume 
that his reported association with these occult and magical powers is 
correct. 

Sakya Mimi was a product of Brahminism, the devotees of which 
followed a similar asceticism, and laid claim to similar magical 
powers. He acknowledged the Vedic gods and advocated the 
worship of the Chaityaa,^ and we must presume that his teaching 

> Quoted by Edkins, p. 62. > Edkins, pp. 62, 63. 

3 Chaiti/cu, sacred trees, images, etc. ; See Stupa of Bharhutj pp. 108 109. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 123 



and aeoeticism were the product of his religions enyironment, viz., of 
Brahminism and the Northern Buddhism of Nepaul and Thibet, 
which, as we have seen, was acknowledged and honoured by the 
Brahmins, Buddha being regarded by them as identical with the 
triple deity Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and known by the sacred and 
mysterious name A. U. M.' 

Professor Baldwin quotes Eugene Boumouf as saying that, " he 
found it difficult to understand the intimate connection that existed 
between Buddhism and Siva worship."* But the difficulty is 
removed when, as we shall see, both are found to have originated 
from the same source, and were recognised therefore by the Brahmins 
as merely different aspects of the same religious system. 

Sakya Muni's influence is paramoimt in Southern Buddhism, 
which sprang out of Brahminism. In Southern Buddhism he holds 
the position that Amitabha holds in Northern Buddhism, and the 
reason of this is, no doubt, because his teaching was anathematised 
by the Brahmins, and his followers excommunicated, which led them 
to repudiate the Yedic gods and exalt Sakya Muni to the position of 
the supreme God. 

It is clear, however, that Buddha and Buddhism existed before 
Sakya Muni ; that the characteristics of the supreme, or mythological, 
Buddha are similar to those of the sun and serpent gods of other 
Pagan nations ; that the Buddhist Trinity of Father, Mother and 
Son is similar to their Trinities ; that the principal features of the 
religion of Northern Buddhism are identical with those of other 
Pagan systems, and that their origin must therefore be sought for in 
a remote antiquity. 

The question is — Can we identify and ascertain the origin of the 
primitive and mythological Buddha ? 

The Buddhists of Thibet insist that their religion has existed 
from the beginning, and that it has remained unchanged for the last 
3000 years; 3 and the fact that the name of their Pontifex and 
priesthood, viz., '^ Lamas y' who wield such remarkable magical 
powers, is the same as that of the demi-gods of the Accadians, the 
originators of magic, suggests the common origin of both. 

The Buddha of the Chinese, "Fo," called also "Fo Hi," i.e., "Fo, 
the Victim," is stated to be " the first Emperor, who was manifested 
on the mountains of Chin, immediately after that great division of 
time which was produced by the Deluge ; " that " he carefully bred 

» Antey p. 101. - Prehistoric NatioTis^ p. 255. 

^ Faber, vol. ii. pp. 329, 343 ; Nightingale, Rites aiid Ceremonies^ p. 445. 



124 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

seven different kinds of animals which he used to sacrifice to the 
Great Spirit of heaven and earth/' and that he was **bom of a 
rainbow." ' Here he is evidently identifiecT with Noah, and his 
sacrifice is clearly an allusion to the sacrifice by Noah of the different 
kinds of clean animals which he took into the Ark by sevens, while 
the rainbow is an allusion to the covenant made by Qod with Noah 
and his descendants. The events of the Deluge were, as shown by 
Mr Faber, incorporated into the mythologies of all the Pagan nations, 
while their gods, though subsequently identified with Cush and 
Nimrod, were primarily identified with Noah, as in the case of Osiris, 
who was fabled to have slept a year on the deep, just as Noah was 
shut up in the Ark for that period. 

The title " Fo, the Victim," tends to identify him with Brahma, 
also called " the Victim," who was decapitated, and also with Belus, 
who was likewise decapitated, and with Osiris, the search for whose 
head was yearly commemorated, — the death of each being represented 
as having been undergone for the good of mankind.^ 

In the story of Menu Satya Vrata, translated by Sir William 
Jones from the Bh/igavat, there is the account of the great Deluge, 
and the preservation of Menu with seven saints in an Ark sent by 
Brahma in the form of a great fish, called '* Maya!*^ Menu {Men 
Null, or " the mind Nuh "), like Fo Hi, is, of course, Noah ; and Vishnu, 
who is the same as Ish-Nu, the man 'or mind Nu, or Nuh, is the 
same person, and is represented issuing from the mouth of a fish,^ 
which is a symbol of the Ark. So also Buddha is called " Narayanan* 
or " Buddha dwelling in the waters," and is called by the Hindus 
''Machodar Nath** or " The Sovereign Prince in the belly of the Fish." ^ 

The Mother of the gods and men is constantly identified with 
the Ark, as that out of which they were, so to speak, bom again 
in a new world, and the great fish which saved Menu and out of which, 
in his character as Vishnu, he was born, was called Maya, and Maya is 
said to be the Mother of Universal Nature and of all the inferior 
gods — that is to say, she is the same as the goddess mother of 
Paganism, who was identified with the Ark. ^ 

So also the mother of Buddha was called "Maha Maya" ** The 

» Faber, vol. ii. pp. 343, 344. 

' Asiat. Jies.j vol. v. pp. 379, 386 ; vol. vii. pp. 251, 252 ; Moor, Bind, Panth., 
p. 102 ; Berosus, Apxid. BunseUy vol. i. p. 709 ; Faber, vol. i. pp. 210, 211, 491-495. 
3 Asiat, Res., vol. i. pp. 230, 234 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 113, 116. 
^ Maurice, Mist, ffind.y vol. i. p. 507. 
5 Asiat. Res., vol. vi. pp. 479, 480 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 117. 
'^ Faber, vol. i. p. 223. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 125 

Great Maya." This was also the name of Parvati, the mother of 
Siva. The author of ArMiracoahci says that Buddha was the son of 
the Lunar god, and that he married Ila, and Ila was also both the 
daughter and wife of Menu.' Both Buddha and Menu are also called 
^ Dhanna Rajah" " King of Justice/' and it is thus clear that Buddha 
and Menu are regarded as different aspects of the same god in Indian 
mythology, and that their character aa Noah is the same as that 
of the Chinese Fo Hi. 

As many of the gods of Western Paganism were at first more 
or less identified with Noah, this does not reveal the real human 
original of Buddha, but it tends to show that it was similar to theirs. 
Buddha, as we have seen, is also identified with the triple deity — 
Brahma, Vishnu, Siva — and is especially called " Iswara," who has 
been identified with Osiris. 

We have seen that some of the Buddhists of India who refuse to 
acknowledge Sakya Muni, worship Buddha under the name of Deva 
Datta, •' The Divine Datta " ; ^ and Buddha is known also by this 
title in China, as in a Buddhist temple at Pekin wherein is shown 
the impression of the foot of Buddha, and it is called the impression 
of the foot of Datta.3 

We have also seen that the sacerdotal orders of the Persians and 
Bactrians were entitled "Samaneans" — the general name given to 
the priesthood of Buddha — and "Samaneans" must therefore be 
another name for the Persian " Magi,'' The name, in their Zend 
Avesta, of the first sacred Man-bull (which was a representative of 
the Pagan god in Babylon, Egypt and India) was '' Abovdad/' which, 
like the Abbuto of the Japanese, is plainly Ah -bond dad, "Father 
Bond Dat," or " Datta," the " d " and " t " being interchangeable. The 
name also of their second Man-bull was " Tasclday which is plainly 
a form of another title of Buddha, viz., Tivashta.^ So likewise, 
according to the Dabestan of Mohsan, they held that the first 
monarch of Iran and of the whole world was *' Mahahad" and that 
there were, or would be, fourteen Avatars of this Mahabad. Sir 
William Jones remarks that " Mahabad " is Sanskrit, and he identifies 
him indisputably with Menu, who also was supposed to have fourteen 
Avatars, and has been identified with Buddha. This identifies 
Mahabad with Buddha, and his name '* Mahabad " is evidently " The 

* Asiat Res., vol. vii. 
' Ante, pp. 101, 103. 

3 Asiat. Res., vol. ii. pp. 482, 483 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 347. 

* Faber, vol. ii. p. 353. 



126 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



Great Bad," or " Bud." * The head also of the priesthood in Persia 
and Bactria, who was always the earthly representative of the Pagan 
god, is called " The Chief Bad " or " Bud." ^ 

Now, as Nimrod's was the first great empire of the world, and 
included the country called '' Iran/' this would make Maha Bad to 
be Nimrod, and the name given to Buddha, viz., Datta, or Tatta, 
and Deva Tat, or "The Divine Tat," is evidently the same as 
"Ta^," the name given by Manetho to the son of Hermes. ^ This 
would represent Buddha, or Datta, to have been Nimrod ; but the 
characteristics of father and son so constantly blend that they are 
often confused together, and we shall see that there is strong evidence 
to identify Buddha with the gods known as Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, 
Hea, Nebo, and with the various forms of the father of the gods 
whose human original was Cush. 

There were two great sects among the Pagan nations of the West, 
one of whom regarded the Sun as their chief god and the Moon as 
the goddess, and the other with whom the Moon was a male deity 
and their chief god. The former was represented by the nations of 
Western Asia — the Assyrians, Phoenicians, etc. — and by the Egyptians, 
Qreeks and Romans, who represented the more civilised nations of 
ancient times, and the latter by the ancient Germans, the Celts and 
by the Arabians. 

These two sects existed together in India, and are noticed by 
Strabo and Porphyry. They were called the Solar and Lunar races, 
and constituted the two great dynasties in that country, viz., the 
Swrya Vanaa, or Solar dynasty, and the Chandra Vansa or Lunar 
Dynasty ; Rama being regarded as the great head of the Solar race, 
and Buddha of the Lunar race.'* It is true that in later times Buddha 
was regarded as a Solar deity, through his association with the Vedic 
gods ; but in the more distant Buddhist races, such as the Kalmuck 
Tartars, Buddha was believed to live in the moon,^ and there seems 
to be little doubt that the Woden of the ancient Germans and Anglo- 
Saxons (with whom the moon was the chief diety) is identical 
with Poden or Buddha.^ The Arabs also worshipped a god called 
Wudd, or Budd, and have the impression of his foot in the Caaba 
of Mecca, just as the impression of Buddha's foot is shown in 

* Asiat. Res.f vol. ii. pp. 58, 60 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 353, 354. 

* Vallancey^a Vindic, Apud Collect, de reh. Hihem,^ vol. iv. No. 14, pp. 429,437 ; 
Faber, vol. ii. p. 454. 

3 Corj, Fragments^ p. 173. 

* Pococke, India in Greece, chap. xiii. pp. 160, 161 ; chap. xiv. p. 183. 
5 Rhys Davis, p. 197. ** See infra, chap. vii. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 127 

Buddhist countries.' All these, together with the Celtic Gauls, con- 
stituted those races with whom the Moon was a male deity and their 
chief god. 

But it has been shown that Hermes, or Thoth, was the Moon god, 
and that he was worshipped in Egypt and throughout Asia Minor as 
Meni, The Lord Moon, while his name among the Anglo-Saxons was 
Mime or Mani. He was thus the Moon god of the Lunar races, and 
it would therefore appear that Buddha, the head of the Lunar race in 
India, was the same god, viz., Thoth or Cush. In short, one of the 
names of Buddha, or Budd, among the Arabs was Thoth-Area.^ This 
conclusion is confirmed by other evidence. 

The Latin writers state that the chief god of the German and 
Celtic nations was Mercury or Hermes. He was called by the Goths 
" Tuisto " and " Teut;' and by the Gauls " Teutates " 3_names which 
are evidently forms of Taut or TaautiLS, one of the names of Thoth 
or Hermes — and the name Twaahta (Tuaata), one of the titles of 
Buddha, would easily pass into Tuisto, The mother of Hermes or 
Mercury was Maya, or Maia,^ and this was also the name of the 
mother of Buddha. The fourth day of the week was called 
" Mercury's day " by the Celtic nations, as it is now by the French 
" Mercredi," and by German nations " Wodensday " or " Wednes- 
day." 5 In Buddhist nations the same day is called " Boodwar," or 
" Buddha's day." ^ The star Mercury is also called " Buddha " by the 
Hindus.^ Mercury was represented by a conical black stone : Buddha 
is likewise represented by similar black stones.^ 

Mercury was the conductor of the dead. So also Buddha, in his 
character as Naravahana, is represented as conveying the souls of the 
dead over the river of Hell,^ and Menu Satyavratta, who is identified 
with him, is also depicted as the god of funeral obsequies. ^° Again, 
the sacred symbol of Buddha, the Triratna, composed of two serpents 

' Ante, p. 120. ^ Ibid, 

' Lucan, Pharsal, lib. i. vers. 444, 446 ; Lactaut, Instil., lib. i. cap. xxi ; Faber, 
vol. ii. p. 361. 

^ Lenipri^re, Mercury, 

5 Iceland, Woiisdafjj Swedish, Odin^dag ; Dutch, Woenndag ; English, Wednes- 
day — Junii, Etymol. Anglic, fol. 1748. 

' Afiat, Res., vol i. p. 162 ; vol. iii. p. 562 ; Maurice, niat. Hind,, vol. ii. p. 481. 

7 Asiat. Res., vol. i. p. 162 ; vol. ii. p. 375 ; vol. iii. p. 258 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 
359, 360, note. 

* Maurice, Hist. Hind., vol. ii. p. 481 ; Ind. Ant., vol. iii. p. 31 ; Faber, vol. ii. 
pp. 339, 340. 

•* Asiat. Res., vol. ix. p. 173 ; Ramayun, bk. 1. sect. 5. 

'" Faber, vol ii. pp. 119, 298, 299. 



128 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

making a circle and a crescent, is evidently a slightly diflTerent form 
of the Caduceua of Mercury, which is also two serpents forming a 
circle and a crescent. 

The title "Buddha" is synonymous with "prophet," "teacher," 
" sage," and it signifies " wisdom," " intellect," " mind," " and has 
therefore the same significance as " Mens" " Mind " or " Intellect," 
the " Men " of " Menu;* and as " Meni," " the Numberer," the title of 
the Moon god Thoth or Hermes, who, like Buddha, was the great 
instructor and prophet. Buddha was also called " Mahi Man^** " the 
great man or Mind," and this was exactly the character of Hermes, 
celebrated for his wisdom, the god of science and intellect, the great 
mind of the ancient Paganism. Hea, the Babylonian form of the same 
god, called also "the All-Wise Belus," has the same charcwster. He 
is the instructor of mankind, the "Lord of Understanding," "The 
Intelligent Fish," and his special symbol was a serpent* So also 
Buddha is called " The King of the Serpents" " The Tree of Know- 
ledge," 3 and his special symbol is the serpent.^ 

" Hea," " The Intelligent Fish," is also identified with the Fish god 
"Cannes," 5 called by Berosus "O'dacon," le., "The Dagon," or "The 
Fish On," from the Chaldee " Dag^* a fish, and " On" the name of the 
sun,^ and he is clearly the same as the Fish god Dagon. Now some 
of the temples of Buddha are called the temples of Daghope and 
Dagon.7 In Pegu there is a temple of Kiaki, who is the same as 
Dagun, and this Dagun is represented by a gigantic figure sixty 
feet long, in a sleeping posture,** just as Buddha is represented by a 
sleeping figure of nearly the same length in one of the temples of 
Ceylon.9 It is clear, therefore, that Dagun, or Dagon, is a title of 
Buddha. The names Buddha Narayana, or " Buddha dwelling in 
the Waters," and Machodar Nath, " The Sovereign Prince in the belly 
of the Fish," ^° and the name of Buddha in Thibet, viz., Dag Po, i,e., 
Bag Buddha, or "The Fish Buddha,"" further identifies Buddha 
with the Babylonian Dagon and Oannes, or Hea. 

' Edkins, p. 413. ^ Ante, pp. 43, 44, 108. 

3 Ante, pp. 107-109. 

^ Colonel Tod, Rajast, vol. i. p. 250 ; Pococke, Indrn in Greece, p. 189. 
5 Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, appendix i. p. 201. 
^' Faber, vol. ii. p. 378. 

' Asiat. Res., vol. vi. p. 451 ; Purch, PiL, bk. v. chap. iv. p. 468. 
» Hamilton, Ace. of East Ind,, vol. ii. p. 57 ; Syme^a Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 
110 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 379. 
9 Asiat. Res., vol. iii. p. 451. 

'° Thid., vol. vi. pp. 479, 480; Faber, vol. ii. p. 117 
" Faber, vol. ii. p. 379. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 129 

Hea was also the god of Magic, the source of the Chaldean magical 
powers, whose assistance was always sought in times of need. '' He 
alone possessed the inviolable secret, the magic word by which he 
could restrain the powers of the abyss." ' So also Buddha was the 
god who was the supreme source of the magical power of the 
Samanean priesthood, and the possessor of ''five holy Scriptures 
which give the power of knowledge and retrospection, the ability of 
accomplishing desires of hearts, and the means of carrying words of 
the mouth into effect," ^ or, in other words, the knowledge of magic 
and magical incantations. 

These holy Scriptures are said to have been received by him 
from above. In like manner Menu is said to have left a book of 
regulations or divine ordinances, which the Hindus hold equal to the 
Vedas, and the language of which they believe to be that of the 
god&^ Mahabad, " The Qreat Bud," the first king of Iran, is also 
said to have received from the Creator a sacred book in heavenly 
language which he promulgated among men.4 

Brahma is said to have lost the sacred books while he slumbered 
at the dose of a prior world, that is during the year in which he 
was shut up in the Ark at the close of the antediluvian world. 
Vishnu, therefore, became incarnate in a fish, under which form (ie., 
the Ark), he preserved Menu while the whole world was inundated 
by a Deluge, and when the waters retired he recovered the holy 
volumes from the bottom of the ocean.^ Hu, or Prydain, the British 
god, was also the author of the sacred writings, and he, as we shall 
see, was called Budd, Budwaa and Menu ; and Taliesen, speaking of 
these Scriptures, says that " should the waves disturb their foundation 
he would again conceal them deep in the cell, a holy sanctuary there 
is upon the margin of the flood." ^ 

In the history of Berosus, the Fish god Cannes, whom M. 
Lenormant identifies with Hea, "The Intelligent Fish,"^ is said to 
have instructed the antediluvians in letters and science, and the 
construction of cities and temples, or the worship of the gods, and 
that Xisuthrus was directed before the Deluge to bury the records 
of this knowledge at the city of the Sun at Sippara, by Cronus, and 
after the Deluge to search for them at Sippara when they were made 

' LeDormant, Chaldean MagiCy pp. 108, 158, etc. 

• Adai. Res.y vol. ii. p. 386. 

3 Ilnd., p. 69. ' Ibid, 

5 From first Avatar of Vishnu, Faber, vol. ii. p. 150. 

* Taliesen, Min, Dinhyeh. Afntd Daviesj Faber, vol. ii. pp. 131, 132. 

' Lenormant, Chaldean Ma^giCy chap. ziii. p. 183 ; and Appendix I. p. 201. 

I 



I30 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

known to all mankind/ Finally, the sacred writings of the first 
Thoth, or Hermes, before the Deluge were said to be recovered by 
the second Hermes and deposited in the penetralia of the temples 
of Egypt,^ and this second Hermes, or Thoth, was he who first 
" arranged in order, and in a scientific manner, those things which 
belong to religion and to the worship of the gods," that is to say, 
the principles of that magic and sorcery by which the aid of the 
gods was sought. 

Thus we have an exact correspondence in the characters of 
Buddha, Menu, Mahabad, Hu, or Budd, with those of Oannes, Hea 
and Thoth, or Hermes, whose human original was Cush. 

We have seen that the particular symbol of Buddha, the teacher 
of magic, and of Hea, the great teacher of mankind and god of 
magic, was a serpent. Now the serpent was deemed "sym- 
bolical of divine wisdom and power and creative energy, and of 
immortality and regeneration."^ "It was the general opinion in 
Hindustan," says Maurice, "that the serpent was of a prophetic 
nature,"^ and Deane remarks that the same word which denotes 
" diviriation " in Hebrew, Arabic and Greek, also denotes " a serpent.^' ^ 
Consequently Apollo, the god of the Delphic oracle, was worshipped 
under the form of a serpent, and the Dragon or serpent Python, 
according to Hyginus and iSlian, formerly uttered the oracles at 
Parnassus,^ while the tripod of the Pythoness, called by Athenaeus 
the "Tripod of Truth," was formed of a triple-headed serpent of 
brass.^ 

The Celtic Hu, or Budd, was also called " The Dragon Ruler of 
the World" his car was drawn by serpents, and his priests were 
called " Adders" ^ In short, the Druids called themselves " prophets 
and serpents," 9 and in the rites of Uther Pendragon (the Dragon god) 
i.e., Hu, he was invoked under the name of " The Victorious Beli" *° 
which tends to identify him with " The All- Wise Belua," another form 
of the same god of whom we are speaking. 

In Canaan, the priesthood of which constituted the magicians, 

» Berosus, from Alex, Polyhistor ; Cory*s Fragments^ pp. 23, 27, 29. 

* Writings of Manetho from SynceUus Chron,^ p. 40, and Euseb., Chron., p. 6 ; 
Cory, pp. 168, 169. We shall see, chap, ix., that the Jlrst Hermes was an 
antediluvian. 

3 Bryant, Plagties of Egypt, p. 200 ; Deane, p. 127. 

4 Maurice, HisU Hind.y vol. v. p. 343 ; Deane's Serpent Worship, p. 66. 

5 Deane, p. 228. 

* Hyginus, Fab,, 140 ; iElian, Var. Hist, lib. iii. cap. i ; Deane, pp. 209, 210. 

' Herod., ix. 81 ; Deane, pp. 211, 212. " Davies, Druids^ pp. 116, 122, 210. 

^ TaUe$eny from Deane, p. 254. '° Deane, p. 256. 



THE GODS OF EASTERN ASIA 131 

wizards, necromancers and sorcerers, alluded to in Scripture, the 
name of the sacred serpent was Aub^ Ob, Oph and Op, which is 
the word used for wizards and persons having familiar spirits in 
Levit zx. 27, Dent. xviiL 11, and the witch of Endor is likewise 
called an Ob, or Oub;^ while in Africa, which to this day is 
the home of magical marvels, the serpent is the great object of 
worship and the worshippers are called Obi.^ 

It is thus plain that the serpent was regarded as the source or 
symbol of prophetic and magical power, and as the symbol, there- 
fore, of those gods who represented the great prophet of Paganism, 
i.e,, Hermes, or Cush, who was the teacher of those magical powers. 
The serpent is also the especial symbol of Buddha, while the caduceus 
of Hermes, formed of intertwined serpents, is evidently identical with 
the triratna of Buddha. 

Again, Janus, the father of the gods, who has been identified with 
those gods of whom Cush was the original, is called " The All-seeing 
Janus," or *' The Seer," indicative of his prophetic character, and he 
was also worshipped in Phoenicia under the form of a serpent.^ It 
is, moreover, to be noted that Buddha is called " CcUa" or " Time," 4 
which is the equivalent of the title " Cronus," or " Time," given to 
the father of the gods (i,e,, Cush) in Greece and Rome. 

The primitive or mythological Buddha is, therefore, identified 
with the prophetic god, and the author of magic and sorcery of 
Western Paganism, known under the name of Thoth, Taautus, 
Hermes, Mercury, Hea, Cannes, " The All-wise Belus," and the British 
Hu, or Budd, whose human original was Cush. The evidence of 
this identification is, it will be seen, accumulative, while the fact 
that the origin of magic is traceable to the early Cushite inhabitants 
of the Euphrates and Tigris valleys, whose language is so intimately 
allied with that of the Turanian and Mongolian races who worship 
Buddha, leaves little doubt that he is the same as the prophetic god 
of the primitive Cushites, or Accadians. 

But there is yet another reason why Buddha must be identified 
with those gods whose human original was Cush, the great prophet and 
teacher of the ancient Paganism, the father of the bUick or Ethiopian 
race, whose son Nimrod established, shortly after the Deluge, the first 
great empire of the world in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. 

■ Deane, pp. 81-84. 

" Ibid., pp. 160-178. He quotes BoBfln&n on Guinea Acta Erud., Leips., 1706, p. 
165 ; PitrcAa*, PH., part L p. 768 ; Lander's Records, pref. and vol. ii. p. 198, etc. 
> MacrobiuB, lib. L cap. ix. 
4 Adat. Rei.^ vol. L pp. 839, 240 ; Faber, voL iL p. 393. 



132 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Baddha, although the chief god of the yellow race, is constantly 
represented as blacky with woolly hair and negro f eaturea " The 
representative of Buddha at the period of Chrishna/' says Colonel Tod, 
" was Nema Nath ; he is of black complexion, and his statues exactly 
resemble in feature those of the yoimg Memnon. His symbol was 
the snake." ^ " It has ever," says Ferguson, " been one of the puzzles 
of the people of Buddhism that the founder of their religion should 
always have been represented in sculpture with woolly hair, like 
that of a negro." ^ '* Buddha Jain, or Mahiman," says Mr Faber, " is 
perpetually represented by his Oriental worshippers with the com- 
plexion, the features, and the crisped hair of an African negro, so 
that many have argued that Buddfia Taust have been cm Egyptian^ or 
Ethiopian^ "The Brahmins," he says, "who highly reverence 
Buddha, although they esteem his votaries (the Southern Buddhists) 
as heretics, are not a little offended when this resemblance to the 
African race is pointed out. When the crisped hair of their god was 
pointed out to them by Mr Mackenzie, with the inquiry whether it 
was meant to represent the hair of an Abyssinian, the priests 
answered in the negative with abhorrence. But, as Mr Wilford 
justly remarks, no evasions respecting the hair will account for the 
flat noses and thick lips of many of the ancient statues which occur 
in Hindustan, for these are clearly the well-known features of the 
genuine African negro." ^ 

There is but one explanation, viz., that the human original of 
Buddha was the same as the human original of the god who was 
the great prophet, teacher and magician of Paganism, worshipped 
under the forms of Thoth, Hermes, Hea, Oannes, the prophet Nebo, 
and the all-wise Belus, i.e., Cush, the Ethiopian, the father of the 
black race. 

' Eajast, vol i. p. 250 ; Pococke, p. 189. 
* Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 122. 
3 Faber, vol. ii. pp. 463, 464. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE GODS OF OTHER NATIONS 

Ancient Germaria^ Celts, Mexicans and Peruviana 

In the Gothic mythology ** an impious race of giants " (see Qen vi.) 
are represented as having perished at the great Delage, with the ex- 
ception of one man who escaped in his boat ; also that at that time 
a great cow begot Bore^ or Bure, who begat Woden, Vile and Ve.^ 
Now the mystic word for " cow " was " theba," and " tliebh " is also 
the word used in Scripture for the Ark of Noah, and, as the incidents 
of the Deluge were interwoven with the Pagan mythology, the great 
goddess mother was identified with the Ark, and a cow became her 
symbol, just as the bull was the symbol of the great god.^ Bore, 
therefore, and his three sons are simply the Patriarch Noah and his 
three sons bom out of the Ark. 

But the result of thus representing the goddess mother as the 
mother Ark is to make her the mother both of the Patriarch and of 
his sons, and his wife also, as in the case of Osiris, who is called the 
husband of the mother and is also represented as floating on the 
ocean for a year in a ship called Argo, Baris and Theba.^ Hence the 
Egyptian and Babylonian god is sometimes confused with his father, 
grandfather and even great-grandfather, and we shall find that 
Woden, though here represented to be one of the sons of the Patriarch, 
is more especially identified with his grandson Cush. 

Thus Tacitus says that the chief god of the Germans, who was 
Woden, was Mercury or Hermes.^ Woden also, like Hermes and 
Buddha, is represented as the author of the sacred writings, the 
inventor of letters, and the god of Magic.s Like Mercury and Buddha, 
he receives the souls of dead warriors, and conducts them to the 

' Edda, Fab. iii. ; Faber vol. ii. p. 356. 
' Faber, vol i. pp. 19-21. 

i Plut., De liide, p. 359 ; Faber, vol. i. pp. 370, 371. 
* Tacitus, Manners of the Oermans, chap. ix. 

5 Mallet, North. Ant., chap. xiii. pp. 371, 372 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 357, 358. 

133 



134 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

mansions of the Blessed.' Just also as the fourth day of the week 
is called Mercury's day and Buddha's day, so it is also Woden's day, 
and the name of the Qothic god Tuisto, or Teut,' is evidently the 
same as Taautus, or Taut, the Fhceniciau name of Thoth, Hermes or 
Mercury. Woden is also identified with the same god in his aspect 
as father of the gods. For he is the husband of Freya^ or Frea, who, 
like the Babylonian Rhea, wife of Saturn the father of the gods; is 
Mother Earth and mother of the gods.^ 

The Tamulic pronunciation of Buddha, or Bodhi, is Pooden, or 
Poderif and as the B of the one dialect is the F of another dialect, and 
W and P are identical letters in Sanskrit,^ the Budd, or Foden, of one 
people would easily become the Wudd, or Woden, of another people. 
Moreover, Twaahta, one of the titles of Buddha, would just as easily 
pass into TvAtata, or Tuisto, one of the titles of the German god. 

It is well known that Woden is the same as the Odin of the 
Scandinavians, who are a branch of the great Scythian nation from 
whom the ancient Germans sprang. The sons of the Patriarch in the 
Scandinavian tradition are Odin, Vile and Fe, instead of Woden, Vile 
and Ve, and Wednesday is called in Scandinavian Odinsday, instead 
of Wodenaday. It would also appear that Woden, or Odin, who 
seems to be identified with those gods of whom Gush was the human 
original, had a son " Balder'^ who was slain by Loki, the spirit of 
evil, just as Osiris was slain by Typhon, the spirit of evil. Just also as 
the deaths of Osiris, Bacchus, Thammuz, etc., are lamented, so is 
Balder lamented by his mother, Freya or Frigga, who was told by 
Hela, the goddess of Hell, that he would be restored to life if every- 
thing on earth wept for him.^ Again, just as the war god Mars 
or Nergal was another manifestation of the younger Babylonian god, 
so "2%or," the war god of the Scandinavians, was another son of 
Odin, the name " Thor " being probably, as suggested by Mr Hislop, 
a cognate term to the Greek TJwuros, " the seed," ^ a title particularly 
characteristic of the younger Pagan god. Odin, Freya and Thor, in 
short, are the Scandinavian Trinity, corresponding to the Egyptian 
Trinity, Osiris, Isis and Horus, and other forms of the same Trinity, 
and, like Horus, Apollo and Chrishna, Thor is represented as bruising 
the head of the serpent.' 

« Edda, Fab. vii, ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 357. ' Faber, voL il p. 861. 

3 Edda, Fab. v. ; Faber, il p. 367. 

* Professor Holmboe quoted hy Lillie, Buddha and Early Buddhism, chap. xiv. 
p. 231. 

s Scandinavia, yoL i. pp. 93, 94 ; Hislop, pp. 57, 58. 

^ Hislop, p. 312. ' Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. iv. p. 395. 



THE GODS OF OTHER NATIONS 13s 

Mr Lillie qnotes Professor Holmboe, as proving many remarkable 
similarities between the worshippers of Odin, or Woden, and those 
of Buddha. He shows that the principle on which the Scandinavian 
" houghs " are constructed is precisely the same as that of the Buddhist 
" topeSy* that they contain the same relics, that their origin is attri- 
buted to Woden in the one case and to Buddha in the other, and that 
the Bnddhist symbols, the "Svastica" and '^ Nandavaata" are con- 
stantly fonnd in them,' while the Svastica, according to Mr Edkins, 
is constantly found in Scandinavian inscriptions.^ 

Moreover, the Indian cobra, which was the representative of the 
great Father, or creative power, in Eastern religions, is represented on 
almost every sword and bracelet of the worshippers of Woden. This 
snake in China was the dragon, and the dragon was also the symbol 
of the Scandinavian great Father, and was the figure-head of their 
warships, as it is of the Chinese war-junks.^ In short, just as it 
was the stamp and symbol of royalty in China,^ so it was the royal 
standard of the Danes, Normans and the English kings.^ 

It is easy to understand how these nations received their religion* 
They called themselves ^^Aaas** and came from Northern Asia, from the 
shores of the Euxine and Caspian, where they were in intercommuni- 
cation with the Tartar races, and also with the Bactrians and Persians, 
races which, as we have seen, were more or less of the same religion 
as the Buddhists, the Magi of the Persians being evidently the same, 
and known by the same name, as the Samaneans of Buddhism. The 
only difference between Woden and the Southern Buddha is that the 
former is a war god in accordance with the martial character of his 
worshippers, while the followers of the Southern Buddha are supposed 
to be peaceable and gentle. This, however, they are not, and we may 
well believe that the Buddha of Northern Buddhists, such as the 
warlike Bactrians, was of a very different character. 

We are told by Caesar that the Germans only worshipped the Sun, 
the Moon and Fire, and that they knew of no other deities,^ and with 
them, as with other nations who worshipped the god whose original 
was Cush, the Moon was the male deity and the Sun female.^ Their 
Yule Day or " Child's Day," ^ on the 25th of December was, therefore, 

' Lillie, chap. xiv. pp. 230, 235. ' Edkins, p. 63. 

3 Lillie, p. 356. ^ Maurice, Hist. Hiiid,, vol. i. p. 210. 

5 Deane, Serpent Worship, pp. 70, 249, 269. 
* Csesar, Com., book vi. chap xxi. 
7 Sharon Turner, Anglo Saxons^ vol. i. p. 213. 

" "Yule," probably from the Chaldee ''Evi;' pronounced " Yeol," "an infant" ; 
Hislop, p. 93, note. 



136 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



with them the birthday of the Moon, instead of being, as in other 
Pagan nations, the birthday of the Sun, and this day, as we have 
seen, was also the birthday of Buddha. 

This was also the case with the Arabs, with whom the Sun was 
female, €uid the Moon god Meni was the chief diety. They kept 
December 24th as his birthday.' We must conclude, therefore, that 
Woden, the chief god of the German nations, was the Moon, and 
that this was the ,case also with the Arabian god Wudd, or Budd, 
who is evidently Buddha, and who, like Buddha and Mercury, was 
represented by a square stone.* 

The identity of the Drtiidical religion with that of Babylon and 
Phoenicia is generally admitted. It differed considerably from that 
of the Scythian races, the Scandinavians and ancient Germans, 
and was more especially the religion of the Celtic nations who pre- 
ceded them in their emigration to Western Europe. The Celts, 
unlike the Germans, paid great respect to sacrifices, and had many 
images of their chief god,^ who is stated by Caasar and others to have 
been the same as the German god, viz.. Mercury, and was called 
Teutates,"^ a name which, like the German Teit^, is evidently a form 
of the Egyptian Taut They also worshipped Heaa^ called by the 
Latins Hestuss which is the same as Ma Heaa, " the great Hesa," a 
title of Buddha. Caesar says that they also worshipped Apollo, Mars, 
Jupiter and Minerva.^ Dionysius also says that the rites of Bcuschus 
were celebrated in the British Islands,' and Strabo, quoting 
Artemidorus, says that there is an island near Britain (Ireland) in 
which they performed sacrifices to Ceres and Prosperine in the same 
fashion as they did in Samo Thrace.® It is well known that the 
Phoenician element was largely represented among the Celtic IrisL 

The Phoenician gods, Baal T/ia/mmuz, Baal Moloch, Baal Zehuby 
and Baal SameUy required human victims, and the human sacrifices 
of the Druids, like those of the Phoenicians, were by fire and of the 
most bloody nature. Speaking of these sacrifices at Carthage, M. 
Lenormant writes, " These barbarous sacrifices took place every year 
and were frightfully multiplied on the occasion of public calamities 

' Stanley, JItst. Phil., p. 1066, col. L ; Sharon Turner, vol. i. p. 213. 
» Afaxim. Tyr., Dissert, xxxviii. p. 374. 
3 Cseaar, Com., bk. vi. chaps, xvii, xxi. 

* Caesar, bk. vi. chap. xvii. ; Minucius Felix. Octav., p. 293 ; Livy, HisL, lib. 
xxvi. chap. xliv. ; Lucan, Pharsal., lib. i. vers. 444, 446 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 36, 362. 

5 Faber, vol. ii. pp. 361, 363. ''ffesus" is the Latin form of ''EesaJ* 

* Ciesar, bk. vi. chap. xvii. 

' Periergesis, v. 666. " Sirabo, lib. iv. chap. iv. r. P 



THE GODS OF OTHER NATIONS 137 

to appease the wrath of the gods " ; he also says that " in every place 
where the Phoenicians carried their trade and their arms, not only 
at fixed periods, bnt at all critical conjunctures, their fanaticism 
celebrated these horrible sacrificea"' So also Cassar, speaking of 
the Druidical religion in Gaul, says, "They who are engaged in 
battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they 
will sacrifice them, and employ the Druids as the performers of these 
sacrifices, because they think that unless the life of a man be offered 
for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods cannot be 
propitiated, and they have sacrifices of that kind ordained for national 
purposes. Others have figures of vast size, the limbs of which formed 
of osiers they fill with living men, which being set on fire, the men 
perish enveloped in the fiames." So also he says that at their funerals, 
like the similar practice of Suttee in India, '*all things, including 
living creatures, and slaves, and dependents, which they suppose to 
have been dear to them when liviug, are burnt together with 
them." » 

Toland says that the Druids offered sacrifice by fire on the 1st 
of May, in order that the harvest might prosperously grow, and at 
Midsummer on June 24th, to obtain a similar blessing.^ The remains 
of these rites still exist in some parts of Britain, where men and 
women assemble round a fire at an ancient Druidical circle of stones ; 
after casting lots, one has to jump through the fire. The fact that 
this takes place on May Ist, which is still known as Beltane^ is a 
clear proof of the Babylonian origin of the Druidical religion. 
Similar Baal fires take place still in Ireland on June 24th, as 
described by Charlotte Elizabeth, on which occasion the peasantry 
pass through the flame and children are thrown across it.^ The day 
chosen for doing this also confirms the Babylonian origin of the 
Druidical rite, for June 24th is the first of the month of Tammuz, 
the god of fire, on which the principal festival of that god was 
celebrated.^ The Celtic Gauls offered their human sacrifices to 
Teutates and Hesa, or Hesus,^ that is, Mercury or Taautus, who was 
another form of Saturn or Cronus, the father of the gods, or Cush, 
and who appears to have been the originator of such sacrifices.^ 

' Anc Hist, ofJEcut, voL ii. p. 280. ' Cammentarieiy lib. vi. cape. xyi.-zix. 

1 ToUnd's I>nadi, p. 107 ; Hislop, p. 116. 

4 Lord John Scott, quoted by Mr Hialop, pp. 104, 105. 

i WayguU Pictures, p. 225 ; Hislop, pp. 115, 116. 

« Stanley'! Sabctau Fhilotophy, p. 1065 ; Hislop, p. 113. 

' Faber, vol. ii. p. 361. 

* SoHchoniathon^s Hiitaty^ Cory's FragmenU^ by Hodges, pp. 90-22. 



138 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

It is cle€ur also that the Druids regarded the Sun as a deity, and 
fire as having a divine efficacy, as in the worship of Tammnz and 
Moloch. Thus, in the Druidical hymn to the Sun, it is said, '* They 
celebrated the praise of the Holy One in the presence of the purify- 
ing fire which was made to ascend on high." > It is worthy of remark, 
moreover, that while "^" is the Hebrew for God, "ili" the Semitic, 
and "iZ" the Chaldee, so ''Haul" is the Welsh for "fire," " HW the 
Maeso Gothic for the Sun, and " EU " the Gothic for " fire." * The 
" Grove worship " of the Druids is a further evidence of the Baby- 
lonian origin of then: religion, and so is their worship of the cross 
with which it was combined, for throughout Paganism the latter 
emblem was the sacred symbol of their god. 3 " The Druids in their 
grove worship were accustomed to select the most stately and 
beautiful tree as an emblem of the deity they adored, and having 
cut off the side branches they affixed two of the largest of them to 
the highest part of the trunk in such a manner that the branches 
extended on each side like the arms of a man, and together with 
the body presented the appearance of a huge cross, and on the bark 
in severfiJ places was also inscribed the letter Thau " (or T).* 

Considering that the Scythian or German ancestors of the British 
only recognised some of the primary features of the old idolatry, 
any remains of the Druidical worship are, as might be expected, 
principally found at the present day in the southern and western 
parts of England, to which the previous Celtic inhabitants were 
driven by the Belgic British and other German invaders, and in 
those parts which were easily accessible to the Phoenician traders. 
These remains are of the same character as the memorials of the 
Cushite race in India. Colonel Forbes Leslie, speaking of the 
Cushite or " Cyclopean excavations in mountains of rock, Cyclopean 
fanes, barrows containing human remains, stone circles, cromlechs, 
dolmens," etc., says, "they are incontestably of the same character 
as those of Syria and Western Europe. These monuments in the 
Dekkan are found in all the varied forms in which they are found 
in France and Britain." s Professor Baldwin also remarks that 
among the Cushite races of Southern India, where the Dravidian 
dialects prevail, the word ''mag" like the Celtic "mac'* means 
son. ° 

« Davies, Druids, pp. 369, 370. 

' Rawlinaon^s Herod., vol. i. p. 546. ^ See chap, x, 

4 Maurice*8 Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 49. 

5 Baldwin, Prehistoric Nations^ i. p. 227. ^ Ibid,, p. 240. 



THE GODS OF OTHER NATIONS 139 

In Ireland also where the Celtic (and probably Phoenician) 
population seems to have been in excess of the Qerman Belgae, and 
other tribes of similar origin, there are more evidences of the former 
prevalence of the religion of Babylon and Phoenicia. General Valiancy 
says that the ancient Irish were worshippers of Buddha. " Bod'* or 
" Bwd,** was their god who presided over Tnarriage and was probably 
the phallic god like Mercury. He was also known as " Tath," or 
Taie," and his identity with "Tat," or "Buddha," and with 
"Taautus," or "Thoth," is clear from the fact that the 1st of 
August, which was the beginning of the Egyptian month of Thoth, 
was called by the Irish, " la Taty' i.e., Tats day.* " Samano** a title 
of Buddha, is also evidently the Irish " Soman" or " Shamma" who, 
like Buddha, was the god of the dead and judge of departed spirits, 
while the festival of Shamna, or Shony, was a festival of the dead, 
held in November, at the same time as the feast of All Souls, in 
both Ireland and the Western Isles of Scotland. At this festival 
peasants waded into the sea to search for the head of the god, 
just as in the lamentations of Osiris, and other forms of the god, 
there was a search for a lost portion of his body.* 

It was also said by Demetrius, quoted by Plutarch, that the 
islands of Scotland were inhabited by the gods of the natives. Now 
Bute, Arran, Islay, lona, Skye, etc., may very well be synonymous with 
''Bud"; ''ArJvan;' a title of Buddha; "/Za," his wife; the Indian 
" Yune" " lone" or " Juno " ; and " Sakya" one of the most general 
titles of Buddha.3 

Again, " Hu" the god of the Celtic nations, was also called 
''Buddy" "Budher" and " BudwaSy" and just as we have seen that 
Buddha was identified with Menu, so the Celtic Hu was also called 
" Manon" " Menu " and "Menroad" ^ Like the gods also of Babylon 
and Egypt, the symbols of Hu were the bull and serpent, and he is 
called " The Bull of Flame " and " The Solar Bull." ^ 

The Pagan Irish likewise worshipped Bacchus under the title of 
" Ce BacchCy" and that he was the same as the Bacchus of Greece and 
Rome is evident from his title " Browin" for both the Greek and 
Latin Bacchus was called "Bromus'' or "Brumua."^ 

These facts show that the Celtic religion, while clearly from the 

« Collect de reb, Hihem,y vol. iii. No. 12, pp. 469, 470 ; vol. iv. No. 13, p. 43 ; 
Faber, vol. ii. p. 365. 

' Faber, pp. 449, 460. ^ Plut., De Defect Orac., Faber, vol. ii. p. 366. 

4 Mythology of Brit, Druidsy pp. 116, 118, 176, 228, 364, 428, 468, 557, 568, 584 ; 
Faber, voL iL pp. 363, 364. 

5 Faber, vol. ii. pp. 304-306. * Ibid.y p. 279. 



I40 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

same original source as the other branches of Paganism, yet differed 
considerably, especially in the names of its principal gods, from the 
Phoenician religion, the gods of which were Baal Tammuz, Baalzebub, 
etc, and that the Celts therefore did not, as some have supposed, 
obtain their religion wholly from the Phoenicians, similar as the 
latter religion was to that of the DruidicaL It is clear also that, 
like the rest of the nations at a distance from Babylon and Egypt, 
the chief god of the Celts was Buddha, t.6., Mercury, or Thoth, the 
human original of whom was Cush. 



Tht Ooda of Meodco and Peru. 

Turning now from the old world to the new, we find, according 
to Mr Kennedy, that the language of the Mexicans was largely 
Phoenician.' like the ancient British, they had a god called "Hu 
the Mighty," while the names of others of their gods were compounds 
of Baal or Bel, viz., Balan Quitze, Bcdan Agal^ etc.^ Their bloody 
human sacrifices, amounting, it is said, to fifty thousand a year, were 
also in strict keeping with those of the Celts, Phoenician and the 
Canaanitish nations, and, like them, they sacrificed children. The 
remarkable custom also of the sacrificing priest tearing out the heart 
of the living victim and holding it up as an offering to the Sun god,3 
who in Chaldea was Bel, is a further proof of the origin of the 
Mexican religion ; for the " heart," which in Chaldee is " 6rf," was, as 
we have shown, especially sacred to the Pagan gods.^ 

The Mexicans had also pyramids, not like those of Egypt, but con- 
structed in exact conformity to the tower of Belus at Babylon, viz., 
with a winding ascent outside and resting-places, while just as the 
temple of Belus was at the top of the great tower of Babylon, so on 
the top of the Mexican tower was their temple, and the altar on 
which they sacrificed their victims,^ while the features of the image 
of the god to whom they were sacrificed were hlnck^ indicating its 
Cushite origin.^ The Mexicans also worshipped the cross. The 
Spaniards found it as a sacred symbol in the Mexican temples, and, 

' Vide Kennedy's Atlantis, chap, vii., in which he points out this identity of 
language. 

* Ibid.f chap. iv. 

3 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, bk. i. chap. iii. pp. 24-26. ^ See ante, p. 49. 

5 Herodotus, lib. L cap. 181 ; Humboldt's Mexican Researches, voL L p. 82, and 
Prescott's Ckmqti/sst of Mexico, book iii. chap. vi. p. 167 ; bk. iv. chap. 3U. p. 213. 

^ Prescott, bk. iiL chap. vi. p. 168. 



THE GODS OF OTHER NATIONS 141 

as in other Pagan nations, it was a general object of adoration/ So 
also, jost as in the Lesser Mysteries of Paganism, which consisted of 
a baptism of water, the initiate was pronounced ''regenerated and 
forgiyen all his perjuries," ^ so the Mexicans baptised their children 
and pronounced them to be '* bom anew " by the rite.^ 

Again, throughout the Pagan world a forty days' lenten or spring 
fast was held, and it is stUl held by the people inhabiting ancient 
Assyria, the Yezidis, or devil worshippers of Eoordestan.^ It was 
held in Egypt in honour of the Sun god Osiris,^ and in Rome to 
commemorate the sorrows of Ceres.^ So also in Mexico " three days 
before the vernal equinox," says Humboldt, " began a solemn fast of 
forty days in honour of the Sun." ^ 

Moreover, just as Apollo, Horus, Thor and the Indian Chrishna are 
represented as crushing the head of the serpent who is the genius of 
evil, so Humboldt writes, " The serpent crushed by the great spirit 
Teotl when he takes the form of one of the subaltern deities is the 
genius of evil/' * 

It is worthy of remark also that both the god Pati, who was one 
of the forms of the Pagan god in Greece and Rome, and the goddess 
Maia were well known in Mexico under those very names, and Pan 
was adored throughout Mexico and Central America.^ 

Finally, the statement of Francis Nufiez de la Vega clearly proves 
the origin of the Mexican religion. '* According to the ancient tradi- 
tions collected by Bishop Francis Nunez de la Vega, the Wodan of 
the Chiapenese (Mexicans) was the grandson of that illustrious old 
man, who, at the time of the great Deluge in which the greater part 
of the human race perished, was saved on a raft together with his 
family. Wodfiui co-operated in the construction of the great edifice 
which had been undertaken by men to reach the skies ; the execution 
of this rash project was interrupted ; each family received from that 
time a different language ; and the great spirit Teotl ordered Wodan 
to go and people the country of Anahuac (Mexico)." " 

* Preacott, Appendix, part i. p. 466 ; compare infra^ chap. x. 
' Tertullian, vol. i. p. 1204. 

^ Humboldt's Mex. Res,, vol. i. p. 185 ; Prescott's Conq. of Mex., Appendix, 
part i. p. 495 ; Hislop, pp. 132, 133. *♦ Layard'a Babylon and Nineveh, p. 93. 

^ Wilkinson's Egyptian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 278, and Landseer's Sabcean 
ResearcheSy p. 112. 

* Julius Firmicus, De Errore, p. 70 ; Amob., Adv, Gent., lib. v. p. 405. 

7 Humboldt, vol. i. p. 404 ; H., p. 105. " Ibid., p. 228 ; Hislop, p. 60. 

9 Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg's Introduction in Landa's Relacion, quoted in 
Kennedy's Atlantis, p. 145. 

•*> Humboldt, Mex. Res., vol. i. p. 320 ; H., p. 134. 



142 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

This tradition, preserved by a people separated by long ages from 
the people of the old world, comes to us like a voice from the dead, 
not only corroborating the Mosaic account, but showing that the 
human original of the god worshipped as Buddha and Woden was 
indeed Cush, the grandson of Noeih, and that, as indicated by the 
Greek tradition, he was chiefly responsible for the attempt to build 
the tower of Babel.' 

Prescott has objected to this tradition as too much in accordance 
with Scripture, but this is no real objection, and the entire absence of 
artificiality about it obliges one to reject the idea that the author 
invented it ; nor could any reason be conceived for his doing so at 
the time, and under the conditions, in which he lived. But besides 
this, it evinces a knowledge which has only come to light within the 
last few years ; for how could the author have known, or conceived, 
that the original of the Gothic and Scandinavism god was Cush, the 
grandson of Noah ? But the authenticity of the tradition is placed 
beyond doubt by the fact that, like the Goths and Scandinavians who 
called Wednesday, Wodansday, and like the Buddhists who call it 
Buddha's day, so the Mexicans call it after the name of their ancestral 
deity, Wodan.* 

It will be observed that, although their gods Hn and Wodan 
associate the Mexicans with the Buddhist races, their other gods, 
and their language, ritual and customs, and the form of their temple 
towers, connect them more intimately with the Phoenicians and 
Babylonians, while their festival of the dead on November 17th ^ is 
more especially Egyptian. 

The Peruvians, like the Mexicans, were worshippers of the Sun 

and fire, and Prescott describes the magnificent temple of the Sun at 

Cuzco in which was a representation of the Sun, consisting of a human 

countenance on a burnished plate of gold, studded with precious 

stones, and so arranged that the rays of the rising Sun fell directly 

upon it and lighted up the whole temple.^ The sacred fire was tended, 

as at Rome, by vestal virgins, who, like those of Rome, were bound 

to perpetual virginity, and, like them also, were punished by being 

buried alive for any violation of their chastity. So also, as at Rome, 

the sacred fire, being regarded as an emanation from the Sun god, was 

kindled anew from the rays of the Sun by means of a polished metal 

mirror.^ 

' iln/tf, pp. 32, 33. ' Humboldt, Mtx, /2m., vol. i. p. 319. 

3 See aiUe^ p. 5. « Prescott, C<mque%t of Peru^ bk. i. chap. iiL p. 41. 

^ Compare Lempri^re, Vesta and Vestales ; and Prescott, Peru, bk. i. chap. iii. 
pp. 46, 47. 



THE GODS OF OTHER NA TIONS 143 

The Egyptian monarchs, being regarded as sons of the Sun, were 
only permitted to marry their sisters, and this was the custom of the 
Ptolemies down to the time of Csdsar. This was equally the custom 
with the Incas of Peru, who were also regarded as children of the 
Son.' So also, as in the case of the Egyptian monarchs, the bodies 
of the deceased Incas were embalmed and placed in the great temple 
of Cuzco/ A yet more striking evidence of their connection with 
Egypt was their name for the Sun, namely, '' Ra" while they called 
the great festival of the Sun " Rami." 3 As in the case also of the 
festival of the Egyptian Sun god Osiris, it was preceded by three 
days' mouming.4 

As in Pagan Rome, so also in Peru, there were Augurs who pro- 
fessed to foretell events by examining the entrails of the sacrificial 
victims.^ These and mskny minor details of their religion as collected 
by the author of Atlantis, together with their festival of the dead on 
November 2nd,^ show that they must have separated from the old 
world at a time when the religious system of Paganism was fully 
established and before it had commenced to decay, and that they must 
have been especially connected with the Egyptians. 

It is not necessary to pursue this portion of the subject further. 
It might be shown, as Mr Faber and others have done, that clear 
evidences of the same religion existed in New Zealand, Otaheite and 
among the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and even among the more 
barbarous tribes of Africa and South America, although, as might be 
expected, their greater ignorauce and degradation and long separation 
from civilisation has obliterated any intelligent remembrance among 
them of its meaning. The large islands of the Eastern Archipelago 
are generally Buddhist, although in some cases leavened by Mahom- 
medanism. The latter, however, has never entirely replaced the 
previous system, most Mahommedans being still worshippers of the 
Sun, Moon, etc. 

' Prescott, Peru, bk. i. p. 8, note. - Ilnd., p. 14. 

3 Ibid,, chap. iii. pp. 44, 45. 4 Hid, 

5 Atlantis, p. 144. ' See ante, p. 5. 



PART II 

OBIGIN AND NATURE OF PAGAN IDOLATRY 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE TEACHINQ OF HEBMES — MAQIC 

A VEB7 interesting point in our present inquiry, the importance 
of which has hitherto been insufficiently recognised, is the true 
character and essential nature of the ancient Paganism, and the way 
in which it first arose. This we now propose to consider. 

We have seen that Cush, or Hermes, was the master mind and 
originator of this idolatry. His books were held in the highest 
estimation in Egypt, and the similar books attributed to the various 
deified forms under which he was known in other countries were 
equally honoured. The teaching of Hermes has, in short, been recog- 
nised in all ages as the great authority on the nature and mysteries 
of Paganism. 

It is true that he and his son did not establish their own worship, 
and that anthropomorphic gods were not introduced until later. For, 
as Epiphanius says, '* It was not until a considerable time afterwards 
that Cronus, Rhea, Zeus, Apollo, and the rest, were esteemed as gods." » 
But in all essential poiuts it is evident that the religion which he 
taught during his lifetime must have been the same as that contained 
in the Hermetic books, which in after ages constituted the recognised 
authority on all matters of religion. 

It would seem, indeed, that the worship of the Babylonian monarch 
and his father was merely the stepping-stone for the re-establishment 
of the religion they had themselves instituted. For although all who 
have studied the records of ancient Egypt and Assyria are agreed 
that the primitive religion of those countries consisted of the worship 
of the Sun, Moon and Stars and the powers of Nature ; yet, as we 
have seen, the human originals of the Pagan gods were identified 
with these material objects and powers, and were regarded as their 
incarnations or human manifestations. 

In short, the history and characteristics of Belus, Hea, Nin, Nebo, 
Merodach, Nergal, etc., and those of the Babylonian goddess are so 
essentially personal and human, that we must conclude that they 

» Cory's Fragments, " Epiphanius,'' p. 55 

147 



148 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

did not come into existence until the deification of their human 
originals, and that the primitive religion of the Cushites or Accadians 
was simply the worship of the Sun, Moon and Stars and the powers 
of Nature, the latter being represented by a multitude of spirits 
supposed to be possessed of various powers for good or evil, whose 
aid, by means of certain arts, sorceries, or incantations, could be 
obtained, or their power controlled. 

Everything points to the fact that " the thrice great Hermes," or 
Cush, who was the author of the first form of Paganism, was a man 
of no ordinary mental capacity, deeply versed in the secrets of Nature, 
and the author of the far-famed wisdom of the Chaldeans. The 
question is. What was the nature of this wisdom which gave him, as 
" Hea," the title of " the Lord of Understanding," " the Teacher of 
Mankind," " the All- Wise Belus " ? Hermes is said to have " arranged 
in order and in a scientific manner those things which belong to 
religion and the worship of the gods," and as the oldest form of this 
worship was that of the Accadian people, who were the primitive 
Cushite inhabitants of the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, we 
may conclude that it chiefly consisted of the Magic, Sorcery, Demon 
and Nature worship of the Accadians, the texts and incantations of 
which, in the Accadian tongue, were carefully preserved and adopted 
by their successors, the Assyrians. We have already referred to this 
worship as portrayed by M. Lenormant from the Assyrian tablets,' 
and there can be little doubt that it was identical with the Shamanism 
of the Ural-Altaic races, and with that of the Tartars and Mongols 
of Eastern Asia — that is to say, with the magic and necromancy 
practised by the Shamanas or priests of Buddhism. 

It has also been shown that there are strong grounds for identify- 
ing the most ancient or mythological Buddha with Cush, i.«., Hermes. 
In short, the votaries of Theosophy and Spiritualism, who draw their 
occult knowledge from the teaching of Buddhism, speak of it as " the 
teaching of Hermes.'* It is from their publications, therefore, that 
we may learn the nature of the knowledge which constituted the 
teaching of Buddha or Hermes, i.e., Cush. 

The tradition of the original Buddha is that he received " five 
holy Scriptures which gave knowledge of retrospection and ability 
of accomplishing the desires of the heart and means of carrying 
words into efiect." Here is an assumption of vast knowledge and 
power which, as far as this world is concerned, might be supposed to 
make its possessor independent of God and of the limitations of 

' Chaldean Magic* 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 149 

human nstnre. It is, however, strictly in accordance with the teach- 
ing of modem Buddhism and Theosophy, and the first of these occult 
powers is evidently based on the belief, common to Brahminism and 
Buddhism, that every person has passed through a series of previous 
existences and will have to pass through a series of others, until he 
attains "Nirvana" or perfection. Buddhism professes to enable a 
person, by a course of asceticism and self-absorption, to recall the 
memory of these past forms of existence. 

Theosophists declare the identity of their teaching with that 
" which was given to the initiate in the sacred mysteries of 
antiquity." " Now, as of old, these mysteries comprise two classes of 
doctrine, of which one class only, that which, being historical and 
interpretative, belongs to the Lesser Mysteries, may be freely com- 
municated. The other known as the Greater Mysteries is reserved 
for those who in virtue of the interior unfoldment of their conscious- 
ness contain within them the necessary virtues." ' This " unfoldment 
of the consciousness " is called the " Intuitional Memory," which is 
explained as follows : " The intuition then is that operation of the 
mind whereby we are enabled to gain access to the interior and 
permanent region of our nature, and there to possess ourselves of 
the knowledge which in the long ages of the past the soul has 
made its own."* 

Speaking again of the soul, the writer says, " All that she has 
once learnt is at the service of those who duly cultivate relations 
with her ; " and again, " It is not his own memory alone that, thus 
endowed, he reads. The very planet of which he is the offspring is, 
like himself, a person^ and possessed of a medium of memory, and he 
to whom the soul lends her ears and eyes may have knowledge, not 
only of his own past history, but of the past history of the planet 
as beheld in the pictures imprinted in the magnetic light of which 
the planet's memory consists. For these are actually ghosts of events, 
manes of past circumstances, shadows on the protoplasmic mirror, 
which can be evoked again.3 He, say the Hindu scriptures, who in his 
lifetime recovers the memory of all that his soul has learnt, is already 
a God." 4 

This, then, is the power of " retrospection " alluded to, and it will 
be observed also that the teaching accords with the general belief of 
Paganism, which held that the stars were " intelligences '' and the 

' "The Perfect Way," p. 13, from Pember's Earth's Earliest Ages, p. 405. 

' Ibid,, pp. 3, 4 ; Pember, p. 406. 

3 Ibid,, pp. 8, 9. ' Ibid, pp. 22, 23. 



ISO THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

abode of the gods. Moreover, as Mr Pember remarks, " It falls in 
with a common fancy, that on rare occasions some dim memory of 
a former acquaintance with persons or places has been known to 
flash across the mind ; " and he quotes Bossetii and Mrs Hemans as 
expressing this,' which is probably the experience of many others 
also. If so, it is impossible to regard it as mere fancy, and its tnie 
significance will be considered later. 

With regard to the next power — viz., that of ''accomplishing tiie 
desires of the heart" — this also is explained by the teaching of 
Theosophy. The conditions imposed on the initiate into the ancient 
mysteries were a severe form of preparation, consisting of fasting, 
absolute chastity and solitude, and sometimes the drinking of some 
powerful potion. These are equally prescribed to the seeker for the 
powers and knowledge oflFered him by Theosophy. Ma/rriage, 
Alcohol and Flesh are forbidden,^ and to "cultivate relations with 
the soul " is that mental concentration and absorption by which the 
Buddhist ascetic attains his powers,^ and is probably similar to that 
by which, it is said, some Indian fakirs are able to throw themselves 
into a trance, a process which must require no little resolution, as 
well as the stimulus of a strong desire, so that few perhaps are able 
to attain the result. 

That result is described as to " so bring his body under the control 
of his own soul, that he can project his soul and spirit, and, while 
living on the earth, act as if he were a disembodied spirit." He who 
attains to this power is called an " Adept," and his powers are thus 
depicted : He " can consciously see the minds of others. He can act, 
by his soul- force, on external spirits. He can accelerate the growth 
of plants, and quench fire, and, like Daniel, subdue ferocious beasts."^ 
He can send his soul to a distance, and there not only read the 
thoughts of others, but speak to, and touch, these distant objects ; 
and not only so, but he can exhibit to his distant friends his spiritual 
body in the exact likeness of that of the flesh. Moreover, since the 
adept acts by the power of his spirit, he can, as a unitive force, create 
out of the surrounding multiplex atmosphere the likeness of any 
physical object, or he can command physical objects to come into his 
presence." 5 This is all in exact accordance with the powers laid 
claim to by the Buddhist Shamanas.^ 

' Pember, pp. 459, 460. ' Ibid.y p. 406. 

5 See antCy pp. 99, 101, 116, 118. 

^ Daniel, it may be remarked, is not said to have done this by his own power. 

5 Wild's Spiritual Dynamics; Pember, p. 262. 

* AfUCy p. 116. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 151 

Hr Pember remarks that, though the powers here mentioned may 
be exaggerated, yet " the existence in all times of the world's history 
of persons with abnormal faculties, initiates of the great mysteries, 
uid depositaries of the secrets of antiquity, has been affirmed by a 
testimony far too universal and persistent to admit of denial."' 
The above, at anyrate, is the teaching of modem Buddhism and 
Theosophy, and may therefore be presumed to be a fair presentation 
of the nature of that power, the attainment of which the five holy 
books of Buddha claimed to teach. 

It is also stated that this ** wisdom of Hermes," by which these 
results are attained, "consists in the discovery of a certain pure 
matter, that is a divine element, which, being brought by art to per- 
fection, converts to itself proportionately all imperfect bodies which 
it touches. This light, discovered and perfected by art, applied to 
any body, exalts and perfects it in its own kind, and that not only 
is man reputed able to discover the divine nature, but, in the forcible 
language of Asclepian dialogue, to effect it. It is the obtaining a 
divine essence."* 

As regards the last feature of this teaching, viz., " the means of 
carrying words into effect," it would imply that by the utterance of 
certain words, or incantations, certain results would follow. This, 
of course, is the well-known method of the sorcerers and wizards of 
old, and is fully illustrated by the numerous Accadian incantations 
which have been found on the Assyrian tablets, as well as by the 
similar inscriptions on the monuments of ancient Egypt. The object 
sought, and professed to be obtained, by these means, were certain 
supernatural effects — such as the death of an enemy at a distance, or 
the direction of some person's actions, or the presence of some 
"familiar spirit," or other result, — to effect which the enchanter 
depended, not on his own volition, but on the efficacy of certain 
words uttered by him to set in motion certain spiritual agencies. 

If, then, these were the powers which the sacred books of Buddha, 
or Hermes, claimed to reveal the means of acquiring, the question to 
be considered is, — how far we are to regard that claim to be worthy of 

credit ? 

Here we have the unequivocal testimony of Scripture to the 
reality of the powers possessed by the priesthood and magicians of 
Ecrypt, who, up to a certain point, were able " by their enchant- 

' Pember, p. 262. 

' A Suggestive Eiiqmry into Hermetic Wisdom^ p. 68, from " The Computation of 
the Number 666," pp. 2, 3. 



152 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

ments" to imitate the miracles performed by God at the word of 
Moses. It is evident that, in this case, the effects are represented as 
real, and not as the effecta of conjuring or jugglery, and it is also 
clear that they were not produced by the personal volition of the 
magician, but by enchantments or incantations which set in motion 
other agencies, viz., the powers of their gods. 

Now Augustine quotes Hermes Trismegistus as stating "that 
visible and tangible images, i.e., idols, are, as it were, only the bodies 
of the gods, and that there dwell in them certain spirits which have 
been invited to come in them, and which have power to inflict harm, 
or to fulfil the desires of those by whom divine honours and services 
are rendered to them." ' 

This would imply that the knowledge by which Hermes or Buddha 
claimed to be able to " fulfil the desires of the hearts " referred to the 
means used to obtain the assistance of certain spiritual beings. This 
was also certainly the case with the magicians, wizards, necromancers, 
diviners, sorcerers, enchanters and persons with familiar spirits who 
were the priesthood of the Canaanitish nations, and whose religion 
was identical with that of Babylon smd Egypt. The spirits whose 
assistance they sought were their gods, who are stated in the Old 
Testament and by the Apostle Paul ^ to be devils, literally " daimonia" 
or demons — a word which the Greeks used to denote those spirits 
of the dead who had become their gods, and which afterwards 
was used to denote any supernatural being,^ as in the case of 
Socrates, who believed that he was guided by a good demon, or 
spirit. 

In the case of the oracle of Delphi, the priestess, who was called 
" the Pythoness," after the god, " the Pythian Apollo," sat on a tripod 
over a chasm whence proceeded a peculiar vapour which threw her 
into a frenzy. In this frenzy she uttered predictions and was 
supposed to be possessed by the spirit of the god. The veracity of 
the oracle was so famous that its answers came to be used as ''a 
proverbial term for certain and infallible truth," and Cicero argues, 
"Would that oracle at Delphi have ever been so celebrated and 
illustrious and so loaded with such splendid gifts from all nations 
and kings if all ages had not had experience of the truth of its predic- 
tions ? Let this fact remain — which cannot be denied, unless we will 
overthrow all history — that that oracle has told the truth for many 

' De Civitate Dei, viii 23 ; Pember, p. 307. 

' Lev. xvii. 7 ; Deut. xxxii. 17 ; Psa. cvi. 36-38 ; 1 Cor. x. 20. 

3 Smith, Diet of BihU, "Demons." 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 153 

ages."' The remarkable accuracy of its answer to Croesus is well 
known, but it induced that monarch to consult it again, when it 
returned the ambiguous answer, "Croesus if he crosses the Halys 
will destroy a great empire." It turned out, indeed, to be correct, for 
Croesus, having interpreted the empire mentioned to be that of 
Persia, entered upon the war and thereby destroyed his own 
empire. 

That " the Pythoness " was possessed by a real spirit is implied 
by the story in the Acts of the Apostles of the damsel possessed of 
" a spirit of divination," literally " a spirit of PythoUt* which was cast 
out by Paul, with the result that her powers of divination, which 
''brought no small gain to her masters," were lost. So also the 
Israelites were commanded to put to death wizards, witches and 
those possessed of familiar spirits, showing that it was no pretended, 
but a real intimacy with, or possession by, spirits of evil for which 
they were condemned. 

From the testimony also of MM. Hue and Gabet and that of 
Marco Polo, which have been already quoted, it would appear that 
the Buddhists of Eastern Asia possess a full knowledge of the means 
of attaining these Hermetic powers.^ 

We have seen that the idolatry of the Pagan nations was pro- 
fessedly the worship of the spirits of the dead, and the rites of the 
Canaanites, for joining in which the Israelites were punished, are 
spoken of as "eating the sacrifices of the dead." But it does not 
follow that the spirits they invoked, and by whose agency wonders 
were performed, were really those of the dead. The dead are con- 
stantly spoken of throughout the Scripture as " asleep," " sleeping in 
the dust," and the righteous dead are said to be "at rest," "asleep in 
Jesus," etc. The resurrection is therefore spoken of as " awaking," 
" rising from the dead," and while this does not absolutely deny a 
state of consciousness, it is certainly opposed to one of active exist- 
ence. The souls under the altar are represented in Rev. vi. 9 as 
crying out, " How long, O Lord," etc., and they are told that they 
must "rest for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and 
their brethren that should be killed a« they were, should be fulfilled." 
But it may be remarked that this cry of the souls under the altar 
occurs in a prophecy which is professedly told in the language of 
metaphor, and it probably has the same significance as the words 

» Cicero, De Div.y xix. ; Potter and Boyd's Grecian AjitiquttieSy "Delphic 
Oracle," bk. iL chap. ix. p. 273. 
» See ante^ pp. 116, 117. 



154 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

addressed to Cain, "Thy brother's blood cridk unto me from the 
ground." 

To suppose that the dead can take an active part in the affairs of 
the living is explicitly denied by the statement, " Neither have they 
any more a portion for ever in anything that 'is* done under the sun, 
for there is no work nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the 
grave whitber thou goest" (Ecclea ix. &, 10). The isolated case 
of the appearance of Samuel by the especial permission of Qod is no 
proof to the contrary, while his reply to Saul, "Why hast thou 
distv/rbed me ? " shows that his state had been one of rest — " where 
the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest" (Job 
Hi. 17). 

The human originals of the Pagan gods were, at the most, three 
individuals, and in order to have been present at all the shrines of 
their numerous deified attributes all over the ancient world, they 
would have had to be omniscient and omnipresent. It is true that 
the priesthood believed, or professed to believe, that they were 
deified human beings, but what the people generally worshipped 
were certain beings clothed with certain characteristics, powers and 
attributes, whose spirits were supposed to inhabit certain images, 
shrines, temples or other places, and these, both the Old Testament 
and the Apostle Paul say, were devils, i.e., "daimonia," or evil spirits,' 
similar to those which were cast out of many persons by Christ and 
the apostles. 

It is clear also that the spirits primarily invoked by Hermes or 
Buddha, for obtaining the desires of the heart, were not those of 
the persons afterwards worshipped as gods, of whom he himself was 
one. If not, they must have been simply the same daimonia as 
those mentioned in the New Testament, namely, spirits of evil who 
produced in those they possessed various forms of disease or insanity ; 
or who, as in the case of the man possessed of a legion of these spirits, 
endowed the person with superhuman strength, like the " Berserkers " 
among the Scandinavians; or who, through their human mediums, 
revealed hidden things, as in the case of the damsel out of whom 
Paul cast the spirit of Python. All these are spoken of as evil spirits, 
and their chief prince, recognised by both the Jews and Christ as 
Beelzebub, the name of the chief god amongst the Canaanites, was 
identified by Christ with Satan himself, " the Prince of the power of 
the air" (Matt. xii. 24-28). 

» 1 Cor. X. 20. See also Levit xvii. 7 ; Deut xxxii. 17 ; Psa. cvi. 37 ; 2 Chron. 
xi. 15. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 155 

That these spirits may be possessed of vast powers, as far as 
earthly things are concerned, and be capable of bestowing them on 
their faithful worshippers, is not only conceivable, but is implied by 
Satan's remark to Christ when he showed Him " all the kingdoms 
of the world, and the glory of them." '' All these things^** he said, 
" a/re delivered unto me and to whomaoever I will I give them; " and 
Christ did not deny his claim. It is these powers which are songht 
by the followers of modem Theosophy, who are reviving, in the 
present day, the so-called " Worship of the Dead," by which worship 
the ancient Pagans invoked the powers of the spirit world. Hence 
a recent writer says, ''Unless we mistake the signs, the day is 
approaching when the world will receive the proofs that only ancient 
religions were in harmony with Nature, and ancient science embraced 
all that can be known. The cycle has almost ran its course ; a new 
one is about to begin, and the future pages of history may contain 
full evidence, and convey full proof, that if ancestry can be in aught 
believed, ' descending spirits have conversed with man and told him 
secrets of the world unknown.' " ' 

The early Christian writers testify to the same effect. Cyprian 
of Carthage, speaking of the Paganism of his day, says, "These 
spirits lurk under the statues and consecrated images. These inspire 
the breasts of their prophets with their afflatus, animate the fibres 
of the entrails, direct the flight of birds, rule the lots, give efficiency 
to oracles, are always mixing up falsehood with truth, for they are 
both deceived and they deceive. They disturb their life, they disquiet 
their slumbers. Their spirits also creeping into their bodies, secretly 
terrify their minds, distort their limbs, break their health, excite 
diseases, to force them to the worship of themselves, so that when 
glutted with the steam of the altars, and the piles of cattle, they 
may unloose what they had bound, and so appear to have effected a 
cure. The only remedy from them is when their own mischief ceases ; 
nor have they any other desire than to call men away from God, and 
to win them from the understanding of the true religion to super- 
stition with respect to themselves ; and since they themselves are 
under punishment, to seek for themselves companions in punish- 
ment whom they may by their misguidance make sharers in their 
crime. * 

' Itis Unveiled, vol, i. p. 38 ; Pember, p. 397. 

* Cyprian on " The Vanity of Idols," from Reflections on the Character and Spread 
of Spiritualismj by Benjamin Wills Newton. (Boulston & Sons, Paternoster Build- 
ings, 1876.) 



156 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

So also Clement of Alexandria, speaking of the Pagan oracles, 
says, *^ It is evident, since they are demoniac spirits, that they know 
some things both more quickly and more perfectly (than men) ; for 
they are not retarded in their learning by the heaviness of a body, 
and therefore they, as being spirits, know withont delay, and with- 
out difficulty, what physicians attain after a long time and by much 
labour. It is not wonderful therefore if they know somewhat more 
than men do ; but this is to be observed, that what they know, they do 
not employ for the salvation of souls but for the deception of them, 
that by means of it they may indoctrinate them in the worship of 
false religion," etc* 

In the above quotations allusion is made to the healing of diseases. 
This was done in the Pagan "temples of health,'' of which there were 
many specially set apart for that purpose, and in which the patients 
had to observe certain rules and conditions. They had to fast for 
twenty-four hours, and abstain from wine for three days, after which 
they went to sleep in the temple lying upon the skin of one of the 
sacrificial victims, and received an answer by dreams.^ In the temple 
of Isis at Busiris the goddess herself, according to Diodorus Siculus, 
appeared to the sleeper and prescribed remedies. "Numbers," he 
says, " are thus cured after they have, through the malignancy of 
their diseases, been given up by their physicians, and many persons 
who have been absolutely deprived of sight, or disabled in any other 
part of the body, are restx)red to their previous soundness as soon as 
they have recourse to this goddess." 3 Cicero also speaks of the 
number of votive otferings to the shrines of the god and goddess as 
incontestable evidence of the reality of their powers. This ** temple 
sleep " was a mesmeric trance induced by the priests, or by the fumes 
of a particular sort of incense, and the cures were thus in exact 
accordance with the cures effected by modem mesmerism, in which 
the mesmerised patient states the means to be used to effect the 
cure.^ 

Besides the divination obtained through the temple sleep, there 
were other diviners called " Theomantei^" who did not require to be 
mesmerised, but were free and unconfined, and able, after offering 
sacrifices and the performance of the usual rites, to prophesy any- 
where. These, when they received *'the divine inspiration," were 
possessed by a frenzy, swelling with rage, foaming and gnashing with 

' Reflections on the Spread of Spiritualism^ p. 26. 

* Potter and Boyd, Grecian Antiquities^ "Other Grecian Oracles," bk. ii. chap. xL 

5 Diod. Sic, i. 26 ; Pember, p. 291. * Pember, p. 289. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 157 

their teeth as if mad. Some used to eat the leaves of the laurel, 
which was thought to conduce to this state, from which it was called 
" the prophetic plant." ' The same symptoms occurred in the case of 
the Pythoness of the Delphic Oracle, and as it is clear, from the notice 
in the Acts, that this was due to possession by a demon, we may con- 
clude that the Theomanteis were similarly possessed. 

'' One sort of the Theomanteis," says Potter, '' were possessed with 
prophesying demons which lodged within them and dictated what 
they should answer to those who inquired of them, or spoke out of 
the bellies or breasts of the possessed persons, they all the while 
remaining speechless. These were called * daimono-leeptoi' 'pos- 
sessed with demons.' " ' They are referred to by the prophet Isaiah, 
whose words, according to the Septuagint Version, are, " And if they 
say unto you, seek unto them whose speech is in their belly, and those 
that speak out of the earth, those that utter vain words, that speak 
out of ihei/r belly, should not a people seek unto their God." ^ 

" Others," says Potter, " called ' Enthovsiastai* were not possessed 
by the demon, but only governed, actuated or inspired by him, and 
instructed in the knowledge of what was to happen." These are 
evidently those spoken of in Scripture as having a familiar spirit A 
third sort, called ** Ekstatikoi" (from whence our word "ecstasy") 
were cast into a trance where they lay as if dead, and on returning 
to themselves gave strange relations of what they had seen and 
heard." 

Then there were the " dreamers of dreams," who fasted one day 
and abstained from wine for three days, as it was considered that no 
dreams which were affected by a full meal, or undigested food, were 
prophetic Besides this, they used to sacrifice to Mercury, i.e., 
Hermes, before going to sleep.^ That these dreams did often fore- 
shadow future events is implied by a notice in Deut. xiii : " If there 
arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee 
a sign, or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder cometh to pass 
whereof he spake unto thee, saying, let us go after other gods which 
thou hast not known, and let us serve them," etc. 

It is here implied that certain individuals might possess a pro- 
phetic faculty. It is plain, however, that this faculty did not consist 
of a power inherent in themselves of foreseeing the future, but of a 
capacity for receiving impressions, either sleeping or waking, from a 

' Potter and Boyd, Theomanct/, bk. ii. chap. xii. 

' Ibid,^ bk, ii, chap. xii. p. 290. ' Isa. viii. 19. 

^ Potter, bk. ii. chap. xiL p. 291. ^ Ibid,, bk. ii. chap. xii. p. 296. 



158 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

power outside themselves ; for in all the nomerous cases recorded in 
Scripture in which persons were warned or instructed in dreams or 
waking visions, the power producing those dreams and visions was 
the Spirit of God.' 

Hence we must conclude that prophetic dreams and visions, which 
tend to support, or advocate, idolatry or other evils, as in the case 
mentioned in Deut. xiiL, are the work of spirits of evil, and that this 
must have been the case with the dreamers of dreams among the 
Pagan nations who worshipped devils or demona 

It may be asked, "How can an evil spirit know the future?" 
To this it may be replied that they cannot always know it and may 
often be in error. But if their powers are such as are implied by 
Scripture they may largely influence future events, and be permitted 
to do so by Qod in the case of events affecting those who worship 
them and seek their aid. In this way they may produce the very 
events which they have before foretold. So also with the diseases of 
which they reveal the cure. Many of these diseases are ascribed by 
Scripture to the agency of evil spirits, who, as Cyprian says, are then 
able to " unloose what they had bound, and so appear to have effected 
a cure " in order to induce men to seek their aid. 

It will be observed that the conditions required for attaining the 
prophetic faculty and the magical powers wielded by the Pagan 
priesthood and the Buddhist ascetics, are abstinence from marriage^ 
wine and meat, and this we are told by the Apostle Paul was to be 
the teaching of the foretold apostasy from the Christian faith, and 
that the persons concerned in this apostasy would give "heed to 
seducing spirits and the doctrines of devils." ' It is thus clear that 
this abstinence is a necessary preparation for communicating with the 
spirit world, and that it placed those who practised it under the 
control and guidance of these seducing spirits who by dreams, visions 
or other forms of communication would be able to lead their deluded 
votaries into every form of error. The beginnings of this apostasy 
may be traced as early as the second and third centuries of the 
Christian era, but it was not until after the purifying effect of 
persecution had cessed — that is, after Constantine and his successors 
had professed Christianity — that it became fully developed. Isaac 
Taylor, in his Ancient Christianity^ has exhaustively portrayed from 
the writings of the so-called "Fathers " of that time the characteristics 
of this apostasy, which became fully developed in the fourth and fifth 

' See also 1 Cor. xii. 9, xiv. 30. 
* 1 Tim. iv. 1-4. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 159 



oentories, showing how celibacy and abstinence from meat were then 
insisted apon as the highest form of holiness, while at the same time 
the worship of the dead, i.€., of the saints, was equally inculcated, the 
result of which, as is well known, was the gradual re-adoption, under 
the cover of Christian names and incidents, of all the other features 
of the ancient Paganism, so that the rites and ceremonies of modem 
Romanism are now practically identical with those of the old 
idolatry. 

It is thus clear that this predicted apostasy was effected by the 
teaching of demons or spirits of evil, through the agency of men who, 
by the means spoken of, fell or placed themselves completely under 
the guidance or influence of these spirits ; that when calling on the 
supposed spirits of the dead, who could not hear or answer them, they 
were replied to and deluded by beings who were identical with the 
devils or demons, cast out by Christ and the apostles from those 
possessed or afflicted by them ; and that the prince of these demons 
was Beelzebub or Satan. 

It would appear that the prophetic faculty or capacity for receiving 
mental impressions, either sleeping or waking, from agencies external 
to man, when not specially bestowed on a person by Qod, as in the 
case of Balaam,^ is dependent on certain physical conditions which 
may be, either constitutional, or self -induced by the various methods 
employed by the magicians and ascetics of Paganism, in order to 
obtain communication with the spirit world. 

But it is evident that individuals, without any intention on their 
own part, may happen to temporarily fulfil these conditions which 
seem to depend on fasting and great mental absorption, and under 
such circumstances may experience prophetic dreams and visions. 
There are, indeed, numerous well-authenticated cases of persons having 
such dreams and visions, some of which are only curious and even 
trivial, while others have proved to be remarkable warnings against 
temporal dangers or moral evil which the person has in consequence 
been able to avoid. We might presume that the latter were of Qod, 
but others only tend to produce superstition and a belief in dreams 
and occult agencies which are not of God. If, then, the heathen 
oracles constantly gave true replies in order to induce men to believe 
in them, so it may be with those prophetic dreams which beget in 
those who experience them a belief in the reliability of other dreams, 
by which, perhaps, their thoughts, opinions and actions are powerfully 
influenced. This, indeed, is the case with many, who, even without 

Numb. xxiv. 15, 16. 



i6o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

any experience of prophetic dreams are strongly influenced by 
ordinary dreams. 

The point, however, is this, that if a person's mental and bodily 
conditions are at any time favourable for the reception of these im- 
pressions from spiritual agencies during sleep, he may dream of 
certain events in his future life which perhaps are of no great import- 
ance, and which are forgotten on awaking. Nevertheless, when the 
events take place in accordance with his dream, the impression left 
by the latter is partially revived, and he is conscious of a strange 
conviction that he has passed through the same circumstances before, 
which begets in him that common impression, before alluded to, of 
some past existence. 

That this, and nothing else, is the true explanation of the common 
experience which Theosophy has made use of in order to build 
thereon the theory of a past existence, is supported by the circum- 
stances related below.* 

There are other persons, perhaps, who may recognise the correct- 
ness of this explanation ; but it is clear that, as a rule, the triviality 
of the events, together with the bustle and cares of everyday life, 
and perhaps the length of time which elapses between the dream and 
its fulfilment, would, in most cases, drive from the memory all but 
that faint impression of the dream which is revived by its fulfilment ; 
for how constantly the most vivid dream is completely forgotten at 
the moment of awaking in spite of every effort to recall it, and yet 
perhaps is suddenly recalled a few hours afterwards. 

But the effect might be very different if a person, by fasting and 
the arts practised in Paganism, placed himself in a state of receptivity 

' The author can vouch for the truth of the following : A young man who 
for some time lived alone with hardly any other companions but his books had, 
during that time, several experiences of dreams coming true. In the midst of 
ordinary events he would suddenly become conscious of this strange impression of 
having passed through those events before, and then would recall the fact that they 
were the events of a dream which, a short time before, had made a stronger im- 
pression on his mind than usual. In some cases he could not thus identify them, 
and was only conscious of the strange impression referred to, but in other cases 
he could, not only recall the dream, but could remember the nature and sequence 
of the events in the dream, and although incredulous at first of their prophetic 
character, found them, to his surprise, literally fulfilled. The events were gener- 
ally of an unimportant and trivial character, and, with the exception of one or two 
cases of greater interest than the rest, they soon passed from his memory. His 
experiences ceased when his solitary condition was changed for a more active life, 
in which the memory of such dreams, if he ever had them, would be speedily 
obliterated by other cares and interests. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC i6i 

to, and earnestly sought the influence of, spiritual agencies. Not 
only might the dreams produced by these spirits have a prophetic 
character like those of the Pagan seers, but after the dreamer's con- 
fidence in his dreams had by this means been established, the same 
agents might produce powerful and vivid impressions of events and 
scenes, and of converse with spiritual beings in another state of exist- 
ence, which the dreamer would be only too ready to believe were the 
realities of the past thus revealed to him, according to the teaching 
of the Hermetic philosophy. 

In modem " Spiritualism " we have an apparent revival of the 
ancient forms of necromancy and magic, and its rapid progress 
amongst all classes is a proof that it is not the mere imposture and 
trickery which some persons try to persuade themselves it is. The 
British Quarterly of 1876, pp. 456, 457, thus writes: "The revival 
in the nineteenth century of the long-disused practices of necromancy 
is a startling fact. Since the year 1848 the number of persons in 
the United States who have betaken themselves to what, in the 
language of the Pentateuch, is styled " Seeking after the dead," is 
stated to amount to three millions. In this country they may be 
estimated at many thousands. The pursuit under the appropriate 
name of Spiritualism has been promoted by an active propaganda — 
not only literature but art has been appealed to for the re-establish- 
ment of ancient sorcery. The development of the asserted pheno- 
mena has been more rapid in England than in America. The earliest 
observers told of muffled knocks or sharp electric crackles. Tables 
and other articles of furniture were endowed with motion, musical 
instruments sounded in the dark. To these, it is asserted, have now 
succeeded more direct appeals to the senses ; faces, hands and figures, 
resembling those of departed friends, have been visible in subdued 
light ; articulate sounds have been breathed through flexible tubes ; 
medicines, tangible substances, manufactured clothing, and vigorous 
resistance to attempted violence, have been displayed by what is 
said to be a disembodied spirit." ' The writer of the above has, 
however, probably underrated the number of adherents of Spiritualism 
both in England and America in the year 1876. At the present day 
it is said to influence a large proportion of the upper classes in this 
country. 

Mr Wallace, the naturalist, and second only to Mr Darwin as an 
evolutionist philosopher, has carefully and scientifically examined 
and collected the phenomena of '^ Spiritualism," and has come to the 

' Quoted from R^/Uction* on the Character and Spread of Spiritucdistn, pp. 4, 5. 
L 



i62 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

following conclusion : " My position, therefore, is that the phenomena 
of Spiritualism in their entirety do not require further confirmation. 
They are proved quite as well as any facts are proved in other 
sciences/' Similarly Professor Challis writes: "The testimony has 
been so abundant and consentaneous that either the facts must be 
admitted to be such as are reported, or the possibility of certifying 
facts by human testimony must be given up." Mr Pember also 
quotes other learned and able men to the same effect, including a 
man of such legal acumen as Lord Brougham.' It would indeed be 
folly, in face of the evidence, to reject the reality of the phenomena, 
and those who do so will generally be found to be either ignorant of 
the facts, or else, through dislike, or fear of facing the conclusion to 
be drawn from them, they refuse to look into or listen to the 
evidence. There have also been, as might be expected, many in- 
stances of trickery which has been resorted to by persons who 
have pretended to exercise these powers cks a financial speculation, 
but these have always been exposed directly they were really tested, 
and do not affect the reality of the phenomena that have stood such 
tests. Nevertheless, these instances of trickery form a sort of refuge 
for those who shrink from admitting the evidence, and enable them 
to dismiss the matter from their minds. 

It may be observed, also, that were not this the case, — if all who 
now shrink from, and disbelieve, the phenomena of Spiritualism were 
convinced of their reality, — they would rise up against this new 
religion and invoke the strong hand of the law to crush it. Nothing 
is so potent an influence as fear, and there are many who, because 
they dread having the truth forced upon them, are filled with anger 
at the mere mention of supernatural phenomena. This was well 
illustrated in the case of the Davenport brothers, who, on their first 
visit to this country, were nearly torn to pieces by the people of 
Liverpool, merely because they implied that they were assisted by 
supernatural agency. So it would be also with even many of the 
present votaries of modem Spiritualism, were it not presented to the 
public as a mere harmless drawing-room amusement, with a suspicion 
of trickery about it which conceals its more sinister aspect. 

But the principal means by which its true nature is concealed, 
and the fear and shrinking, which it might otherwise create, is 
effectually allayed, is the fact that the spirits invoked are supposed 
to be, and claim themselves to be, the spirits of departed relatives or 
friends, or of celebrated persons. Interviews with these, instead of 

' Pember, p. 327 and note. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 163 

creating fear, would naturally be regarded with pleasure and interest, 
while some who had lost some dearly-loved relations would even 
ardently desire renewed communication with them. 

Necromancy was regarded in a similar way by the ancient Pagans, 
and a passage from the ClementiTie HomUiea, quoted by Mr Pember, 
very clearly shows what was generally believed at the time they 
were written. Clement, who is supposed to be the person of that 
name mentioned by the Apostle Paul, says that before he became a 
Christian he was perplexed with doubts regarding the immortality 
of the souL " What then," he says, " should I do but this. I will 
go to Egypt and cultivate the friendship of the hierophants and 
prophets of the shrines. Then I will inquire for a magician, and 
when I have found one, induce him by the offer of a large sum of 
money to call up a soul from Hades, by the art which is termed 
necromancy, as though I wished to consult it upon some ordinary 
nature. But my inquiry shall be to learn whether the soul is im- 
mortal, and I shall not care to know the reply of the soul that it is 
immortal, from its speaking, or my own hearing, but simply by its 
becoming visible." ' 

This was the character of the magic taught by Hermes Tris- 
megistus. The spirits invoked by the necromancers and the 
magicians were supposed to be the spirits of the dead, and this 
may have been the beliief of the first great magician, Hermes himself. 
The whole system, in short, of the ancient Paganism was professedly 
the worship of the dead. lu this, however, the ancients were clearly 
mistakcD, and the error was the cause, in no small degree, of their 
delusion. The spirits who replied to their invocations were not the 
spirits of the dead, but the daimonia of Scripture, evil spirits, the 
messengers or angels of the prince of the demons; and if so, 
there was sufficient reason for this misrepresentation of their true 
character. 

It is equally clear that the spirits who reply to the deluded 
votaries of Spiritualism, and personate the spirits of their dead 
relatives, are not the spirits of the dead, but identical in every 
respect with the daimonia of Scripture, and the demon gods of the 
Pagans. 

In both cases we see the sinister wisdom of these spirits of evil 

Their personation of the dead, and the teaching by which they 

support the imposture, is simply a means to quiet the alarms and 

attract the affections of mankind, in order to bring them under their 

' Clementine Homilies, vol. i. p. 5 ; Pember, pp. 294, 295, 



i64 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

influence and power. It is what we might expect from those sedncing 
spirits who are opposed to Qod, and their hostility to Qod is manifest 
For, covered as their teaching may be by a thin veneer of truth 
and righteousness, it denies or explains away the leading doctrines 
of Christianity and advocates the salient features of the ancient 
Paganism. 

The following, among the more important manifestations of 
Spiritualism, as tested by Mr Wallace, require a few observa- 
tions : — 

1. Sound, from a delicate tick to blows like that of a sledge- 
hammer. Altering the weight of bodies. Moving bodies. Raising 
bodies into the air. Conveying bodies to a distance, out of, and 
into, closed rooms. Preserving from the effects of fire. Writing and 
drawing without human agency. Playing on musical instruments 
without human agency. Spiritual forms, often visible and teingible 
to all present, clothed with robes, pieces of which have been cut off, 
but which melt away. Flowers, ditto. Other flowers which remain. 
Photographs of spirit forms, etc. 

2. Manifestations by a medium who is either in a trance, or in a 
passive state, in which state the manifestations take place without 
the exercise of volition on his part — viz.. Clairvoyance. Perceiving 
events at a distance, or through opaque substances. Predictions of 
future events, either by word of mouth or by a planchette, sometimes 
in a language the medium does not understand. Speaking also 
in unknown tongues, and the general manifestation of remark- 
able powers and knowledge which the medium personally does not 
possess. 

It will be observed that the first class of phenomena is independent 
of human agency, although as a rule it is necessary, either that a 
medium should be present to invoke the spirits, or that several per- 
sons should jointly use the recognised methods of doing so. The 
second class is produced by means of the body of the medium who 
is in a passive state. The two classes are also sometimes combined, 
as in the case of Mr Home, who seems to have been more or less an 
" adept." He was raised into the air, floated out of windows, etc. 
in the presence of a committee of twelve gentlemen who were 
€wsembled to report upon the phenomena, and which report was pub- 
lished in the daily papers a few years ago. 

The " levitation" as it is called, manifested by Mr Home, is 
remarkably in accordance with what is related of the ancient Chaldean 
magic. CaBlius Rhodoginus says, " that, according to the Chaldeans, 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 165 

Imninons rays emanating from the soul do sometimes divinely pene- 
trate the body, which is then of itself raised above the earth, and 
that this was the case with Zoroaster,"' while the "disciples of 
Jamblicos asserted that they had often witnessed the same miracle 
in the case of their master, who when he prayed was raised to the 
height of ten cubits from the earth." * When, therefore, it is remem- 
bered that the gods to whom the heathen prayed were daimonia, 
supposed to be spirits of the dead, the identity of modem Spiritualism 
with ancient magic will be evident. 

The same effects have taken place with others, who, in more 
recent times, have been worshippers of the dead and of images, and 
who, the Apostle Paul says, are in reality worshippers of devils 
(demons) — (1 Cor. x. 20). This was the case with the so-called 
^ saints," Francis of Assisi,^ Petrus a Martina,^ and Francis of Macerata, 
the latter of whom was not only raised from the earth when he 
prayed, but his body became luminous, "a flame resting on his 
head."^ Similar phenomena are reported in the case of St Philip 
Neri. ^ Philip was often seen with his whole body raised in the air : 
among others, Paulo Spondrato, Cardinal of St Cecilia, saw him 
in prayer raised several spans from the ground, indeed almost to the 
ceiling as he told Paul V. a little before his death." On one occasion 
he "was praying in St Peter's at the tombs of the apostles (i.e., 
worshipping the dead), when his whole body was seen to rise suddenly 
into the air with his clothes gathered up as they had been when 
kneeling, and then to descend with equal suddenness. He was 
repeatedly raised into the air when he was saying Mass. Sometimes 
when saying Mass he was seen with rays of glory around his head.^ 
Cassandra Raidi says, " I reckoned Father Philip to be a saint because 
the first time I went to St Giralmo to confess to him, before I had 
said a word, he told me all my thoughts and everything that was in 
my mind. He used even to tell me what prayers I had said, and 
the intention for which I had said them," 7 Antonia de Pericollis also 
says, " Two years before the holy Father died, while we were talking 

* Eusebe Salverte, p. 37. The Zoroaster here referred to ij the Chaldean 
Zoroaster, not the Persian of that name. 

' Ibid. Jamblicus was probably an ^*adept." He lived in the time of Constantine, 
and wrote a book on the Egyptian Mysteries which is still extant, mde Lempri^re, 
JaiMicui. 

3 Ibid, * Flores, Seraphicij p. 15S. 

5 Ibid, p. 391 ; Hislop, pp. 258, 259. 

* Life. TransUted from the lUlian by Father Faber, pp. 295-297. 
' Ibid, p. 365. 



i66 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

together, he disclosed to me some of my thoughts which I never 
mentioned to him, or told even in confidence to anyone. Seeing my 
heart thus laid open before him I was overwhelmed with astonish- 
ment." She also goes on to say that " there was not one person who 
was intimate with Philip who does not affirm that he knew the 
secrets of the heart." ^ He is also said to have seen '' things which 
happened at a distance." ^ 

These phenomena would, in former days, have been discredited 
by many as fables invented to glorify a saint of the Church of 
Rome, but their exact accordance with the phenomena of modem 
Spiritualism and Theosophy, and with the powers of the ancient 
priesthoods of Paganism, not only prove their possibility, but make it 
exceedingly probable that they are accurately reported. 

With regard to other phenomena of Spiritualism, such as causing 
heavy bodies to move of themselves^ spirit forms and other magical 
appearances, the reader will recognise their resemblance to the powers 
of the Buddhist priesthood which made the Great Ehan afraid to 
profess Christianity. So also Salverte says, " The Theurgists caused 
the appearance of the gods (i.6., daimonia) in the air in the midst of 
a gaseous vapour disengaged from fire. The Theurgis Maximus 
undoubtedly made use of a secret analogous to this when in the 
fumes of the incense which he burned before the statue of ' Hecate/ 
the image was seen to laugh so naturally as to fill the spectators with 
terror." 3 So also Psellus says that, when the priests used their 
magical powers, " the statues laughed and lamps were spontaneously 
kindled."'* Similarly, the statue of Isis shook the silver serpent on 
her forehead and nodded assent to her worshippers.^ Both Lucan 
and Virgil also speak of the images of the gods weeping as foretelling 
misfortune to the country : — 



And again : — 



" Tears shed by Gods our country's patrons 
And sweat from Lares told the city's woes." 

" The weeping statues did the wars foretell, 
And holy sweat from brazen idols fell," * 



' Life. Translated from the Latin by Father Faber, p. 365. 
^ Ibid.^ p. 341, quoted from Beflectums on Spread of Spiritucdiam^ pp. 67, 68, and 
note. 

3 Eunapius, p. 73. 

4 Psellus on Demons, pp. 40, 41. 

5 Jwvenal Satires, vol. vi. 1. 537. 

* Lucan, Civ, Bell., lib. L v. pp. 356, 357, p. 41 ; Oeorgica, bk. L 1. 480; Hislop, pp. 
267, 268. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 167 

With regard to the phenomena of Spiritualism, it will be 
observed that the first class of effects which have been enumerated 
are clearly done by the direct agency of the spirits ; yet the second 
class of effects, viz., those which take place in, and by means of, the 
body of a medium, must also be produced by the same agency. This 
might be inferred from the intimate connection of the two classes of 
phenomena, but it also follows from the character of certain of the 
second class of phenomena, viz., those in which the medium 
manifests a knowledge of languages, or of science, or philosophy, 
which he himself has no knowledge of whatever. The medium as he 
is naturally, and the medium under the influence of the spirit trance, 
or spirit power, are two different individuals. Numerous examples 
are given of this duality in the same individual in the histories of 
persons manifesting similar phenomena under the kindred influence 
of catalepsy, hysteria and somnambulism. It would take too long 
to quote such cases which have been collected by Mr Colquhoun in 
his two works upon the subject,^ in which ignorant and uneducated 
persons have manifested a knowledge of language and science while 
under one or other of these states, but of which they are otherwise 
totally devoid. Nor have they had any remembrance afterwards of 
what they have said or done while in that state. 

It would thus appear that the medium, who, by certain methods, 
makes himself susceptible to the power, and invites the aid of the 
spirits, becomes for the time the habitation of one who speaks and 
acts through, and by means of, his body to describe things at a 
distance, foretell the future, and work various wonders, in the same 
manner as the spirit of Python did in the Pythoness. 

Certain conclusions appear to follow from this. If the clair- 
voyance and prescience of the medium are derived from a spirit, how 
are we to regard the person who is simply mesmerised and who, it is 
well known, manifests in various degrees the sarae phenomena ? The 
general belief, as the word " clairvoyance " implies, is that the spirit 
of the mesmerised person, freed from the veil of the flesh, is able to 
perceive events taking place at a distance, or that it can leave the 
body and pass in a moment of time to a distant place, and describe 
accurately what is peissing there. It is, however, more diflBcult to 
explain on this assumption how it can, in this state, perceive the 
past history of other persons and even, in some cases, foretell the 
future. The Pagans believed that it was the spirits of their gods, 

* Isis Revelatay published in 1836, 2 vols. 8vo ; and Ma^ic and WiteJicrafty 
published in 1851, 2 vols. 8vo. 



i68 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the daimonia of Scripture, who spoke in their oracles ; and, as it was 
a real spirit who spoke by the Pythoness, it seems quite impossible to 
suppose that in the case of ancient magic and sorcery these powers 
should be due to the agency of daimonia, and in the one exception 
of the mesmerised person should be due to that person's own spirit ! 

Mesmerism is, in fact, often used to entrance the spiritualistic 
medium ; it was also used to produce the temple sleep by the Pagan 
priesthood; and was one of the most ordinary practices of the 
ancient magicians, and, as we have seen, it is still used by the 
Buddhist pries^ood. TertuUian writes : " Moreover, if even magicians 
produce apparitions and bring into evil repute the spirits of men who 
are now dead ; if they Tnesmeriae boys to obtain an oracular response ; 
if they perform many wonders in sport by their conjuring illusions ; 
if they even send dreams by the aiding power of angels and demons 
who they have summoned to their assistance, through whose influ- 
ence also demons * and tables have been made to divine, how much 
more will that Satanic power be zealous to do with all its strength, of 
its own will, and for its own purposes, that which it does to serve the 
ends of others." * 

The above passage, quoted by Mr Pember, gives a good idea of the 
methods of magicians in the age of Tertullian. Mr Pember also 
quotes a passage from Apuleius in which the practice of mesmerising 
boys by certain spells is spoken of as a well-known method of 
obtaining occult knowledge from them while in that state.^ 
Eangsley also, speaking of the Neoplatonists, who were great 
magicians, in his book AleaaTidra and Her SchoolSy describes similar 
methods : " So they set to work to perform and succeeded, I suppose, 
more or less, for now one enters into a whole fairyland of those very 
phenomena which are puzzling us nowadays— ecstasy, clairvoyance 
insensibility to pain, cures produced by the effects of what we now 
call mesmerism. They are all there, these modem puzzles, in those 
old books of the long bygone seekers for wisdom. . . . But again 
their ecstasies, cures and so forth, brought them rapidly back to the 
old priestcrafts. The Egyptian priests, the Babylonian and Jewish 
sorcerers, had practised all this as a trade for ages, and reduced it to 
an art. It was by sleeping in the temples of the deities, after due 

' The word used by Tertullian is "seirim," i.e., "satyrs," a word used, as 
pointed out by Mr Pember, to denote a certain order of demons. "Satyr ia 
evidently the same as the Chaldee * Satur * — * hidden god.' " See Hislop, Saturn^ 
p. 269. 

' Tertullian, J/>o/., xxiii. ; Pember, pp. 301-303. 

^ Apul., De Magiay xlili. ; Pember, p. 303, note. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 169 

mesmeric manipulations, that cares were even then effected. Sorely 
the old priests were the people to whom to go for information. The 
old philosophers of Greece were venerable. How much more those 
of the £ast, in comparison with whom the Greeks were children! 
Besides, if these demons and deities were so near them, might it not 
be possible to behold them ? They seemed to have given up caring 
much for the world and its course : — 

' Effugerant ady tis templisque relictes 
Di quibus imperium steterat.' 

The old priests used to make them appear — perhaps they might do it 
again." ' 

If then mesmerism was one of the arts, or spells, by which the 
Pagan priests and magicians obtained answers from their gods, or 
demons, through the medium of a human being, it is clear that the 
mesmerised subject becomes the temporary habitation of a spirit. It 
will be observed that there are different stages in the mesmerised 
state, and that the first one of simple sleep is not accompanied by any 
phenomena, but that as the sleep, or state of unconsciousness, 
becomes deeper, so does a new state of consciousness become apparent, 
and finally the person, although insensible to pain, can yet speak and 
reply to questions. It was in this state that questions were put to 
the Pythoness, or to other persons mesmerised by the Pagan 
magicians, and the conclusion to be drawn, therefore, is, that until 
the mind and will of the person is in a state of complete subjection, 
the alien spirit cannot so entirely take possession of the body as to 
use it as its own. It may also be observed that all the appearances 
of death take place in the completely mesmerised person, the face 
taking the peculiar grey pallor of death, as if the connection between 
the true spirit and its body was for the time completely severed. 

It is popularly supposed that the mesmeriser's power is merely 
a natural power inherent in himself, due to superior psychical 
energy asserting itself over persons who are naturally wanting in 
that energy, or who are exhausted or weakened by illness ; for it is 
such persons who are most susceptible to the mesmeriser's influence ; 
and consequently many mesmerisers seek to exhaust the psychical 
force, or nervous energy, of the persons they act upon, by making 
them gaze steadily at a bright light for a certain time, or at a disk 
of metal held in the hand, etc. It is to be observed, however, that 
by whatever means the natural powers are weakened, the person so 

' From Pember, pp. 299-300. 



I70 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

weakened becomes more susceptible to spiritual influence, and that the 
conditions prescribed for holding intercourse with the spirit world 
are fasting, abstinence, solitude, etc., by which, either the psychical and 
mental forces are reduced, or the susceptibility increeused. The body 
of man which veils from his sight the spirit world is also that which 
protects him from the influence of the spirit world, and the proverb, 
"Mens Sana in corpore sano," will apply to preservation, not only 
from insanity, but from these kindred evils also. 

In accordance with this, we find that persons of a certain physical 
constitution and susceptibility are able to throw therriselves into a 
mesmeric trance by methods similar to those used by mesmerisers. Thus 
Apuleius relates that '' when the inhabitants of Tralles were making 
inquiries by a magical process in regard to the issue of the Mith- 
ridatic War, a boy, who was gazing upon the reflection of a statue of 
Mercury in the water, uttered a prophecy of the future in a hundred 
and sixty rhythmical lines." ^ In other words, he threw himself, or 
fell, into a trance, or, speaking more correctly, by gazing steadfastly 
into the water he unconsciously did what mesmerists often require 
persons to do as a preparation for receiving the mesmeric influence. 
He simply placed himself into that state of susceptibility which is 
the preparation for spiritual influence, and the spirit of the god, or 
demon, entering into him, spoke by him. 

Bemier says that voluntary somnambulism is frequent among the 
Indian Brahmins and Fakirs, and that even the means of producing 
it are taught.^ Cardanus also states that he could voluntarily place 
himself in a state of ecstatic insensibility ,3 and Augustine relates the 
same thing of a priest called Restitutus.'* Dr Cheyne also mentions 
the case of a Colonel Townshend, who was subjected to the most 
accurate medical observation. Colonel Townshend could, to all 
appearance, die at will, by composing himself on his back, and lying 
in that position for some time, during which his pulse gradually 
sank and his breathing decreased, until both heart and lungs became 
absolutely motionless, and the doctors were convinced that he had 
carried the experiment too far and had actually died. After some 
hours, however, life gradually returned as it had ebbed.s 

With regard to some of the cases above-mentioned, especially that 

' ApuL, De Magia^ xliii. ; Pember, p. 302. 

* Ceremonies at Coutumes Religietms, torn vi. p. 188. 

3 De Rerum Venetate, lib. viii. cap. 43 ; Colquhoun's Isis ReveUUa; Enquiry into 
Animal Magnetism^ vol. i. p. 146, note. 

* De Civitate Dei; Animal Magnetising vol. i. p. 147. 

s Cheyne, English Malady y etc. ; Animal Magnetism^ vol. i. pp. 147-149. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 171 

of the Indian Fakirs, who are professed followers of the ancient 
Paganism, it is probable that the results obtained were largely dae 
to those arts by which the magicians of old sought the aid of 
daimonia. It is asserted by those who have studied modem Spiritu- 
alism, that it is by no means an easy thing to become a medium, 
and that fasting, and the absorption of the mind and desires upon 
the end sought, are necessary before any relations with the spirits 
can be obtained. Hence, we may presume that where that relation 
has been established, and the person heus become willingly and fully 
susceptible to the influence of a spirit, the state of trance may, at 
any time, be at once produced by the direct agency of the spirit, who 
takes possession of the body which is thus placed at his disposal. It 
would appear, in short, that a state of mesmeric trance may be 
produced independently of the aid of a mesmeriser, and that the state 
itself is in tw) way due to the agency of the meamerisery but to the 
possession by a spirit of the body of a person who has been brought 
into a state of susceptibility to the spirit's influence. 

But if so, — ^if the mesmeric trance consists of nothing more or less 
than the temporary possession of the body of a person by a spirit, — 
how are we to regard the power which some men seem to possess of 
throwing certain persons into a mesmeric trance by a few waves of 
the hand. It is not the spirit of the mesmeriser that enters into the 
body and displaces the spirit of the mesmerised person, but a foreign 
spirit, which effects its entrance by means of the action of the 
mesmeriser. Since therefore mesmerism was one of the principal 
arts by which the magicians and necromancers of Paganism sought 
the aid of daimonia, the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that 
the mesmeric power itself was due to the agency of one of the 
spirits whose aid was thus sought, which spirit, entering into the 
mesmeriser himself, seemingly gave him abnormal powers, but really 
acted through, and by him, to subject the mind and will of another 
person, in order to possess completely the body of that person. It 
seems impossible to avoid this conclusion if, as is clearly the case, 
the mesmeric trance is due to the temporary possession of the 
mesmerised person's body by a foreign spirit. 

The mesmeriser, moreover, would be wholly unconscious of this 
possession of himself, because the effects sought to be produced are 
wholly in accordance with his will, which would not be the case if 
they were opposed to it. This is seen, not only in cases of inter- 
mittent mania, in which the patient often struggles vainly against 
the strange desires which assault him, and is conscious of a dual 



172 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

spirit within him, bat it is also seen in cases of '' electro biology " 
and " hypnotism " in which the same straggle constantly takes place. 
In all such cases there is clear evidence of another spirit which is 
directly antagonistic to the person's natural character and inclinations. 
The New Testament, in fact, attributes mania, as well as many of the 
diseases to which the human race are subject, to the agency of 
daimonia, and it is well known that mania and the prophetic spirit 
were regarded by the Pagans as intimately connected, and that 
madmen were in consequence looked upon as divine, and as 
possessed by "the spirit of the Gods." 

What part then does the mesmeriser play in producing the 
mesmeric trance, beyond the movement of his hands or by the 
use of other arts, a<2ting eus a preparation for the influence of the 
real mesmerising spirit ? Probably none at all. Men of great force 
of will and energy of character, combined with the gift of oratory, 
a sonorous voice and histrionic talent, may powerfully influence a 
multitude whose minds are awed and subjected by this display of 
power. So also men of strong will when brought into contact with 
those of weaker will attain a power over the latter, who recognise 
their inability to oppose a resolution stronger than their own ; and 
this is often so marked that, after long association, a word or look 
from the stronger person is sufficient to reduce the weaker to 
obedience. But in all such cases the effect produced is on the mind, 
which is awed or cowed into submission, whereas the effect of 
mesmerism is wholly physical, or psychical. 

It is certain also that the mesmeric power is not by any means 
proportionate to the psychical or will force of the mesmeriser ; for 
not only are there persons whose natural force of will exercises 
a powerful mental influence on those with whom they are thrown, 
who yet are incapable of producing the mesmeric sleep, but there 
are others who, although powerful mesmerists, are by no means 
remarkable for will or psychical force. In some also of no remark- 
able psychical energy, the power has come quite suddenly, without 
any seeking on their part, and to their own surprise ; while in other 
cases it is only obtained after continued efforts and practice. This 
is just what we might expect. For while a few persons are from 
certain causes^ naturally susceptible to spiritual influence, as in 

' It would be interesting, but outside the scope of this inquiry, to consider more 
fully the psychical and physical conditions which are favourable to spiritual 
influence, but it may be noted that boys before the age of puberty and virgins 
were always selected as mediums of communication with the gods by the Pagan 
magicians. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 173 

the case of the subjects of mania, "electro biology/' etc., yet the 
majority of mankind are protected against that inflaence, and it 
is only by assiduous efforts that some are able to break through 
that protection and establish relations with the spirit world. 

If, however, the mesmeric power is due to the agency of a spirit 
of evil, it might be expected that, in many cases at least, its attain- 
ment would be intimately connected with certain moral characteristics. 
Mesmerism is the endeavour on the part of one person to subdue, 
or overcome, the spirit of another person, and an act therefore 
which, in itself, and apart from other moral and higher considerations 
which may actuate some mesmerisers, is of a malignant character. 
The lust of power, dominion, riches and position, or, in a word, 
of self-exaltation, has ever been a ruling passion in the human 
race, and this desire is most strongly manifested by persons of 
overweening pride, vanity and desire for self-assertion, who (more 
especially if they are wanting in other elements of superiority) 
would be the first to avsdl themselves of a power which gave them 
dominion over others. The spirit which actuates them is that 
very spirit of pride which we are told was the condemnation of 
him who is "the prince of demons" (1 Tim. iii. 6) and who, we 
may be certain, would be only too willing to gratify the ambition 
of those who seek to follow in his footsteps, and by so doing "give 
place" to him, or to his subordinate spirits to enter into them. 
Their abnormal powers may seem to be their own, but so does the 
superhuman strength of the maniac, like the one mentioned in 
Mark v., seem to be the result of his own volition, and in every 
case in which " seducing spirits " give their assistance to man, they 
will naturally seek to lead him on by flatterincr his pride with the 
idea that the powers which he wields are his own.' 

Similarly, we must regard the reported powers of the " Adept " to 
be, not the result of the supposed " cultivation of the soul," as taught 
by the Theosophists, but the result of the inhabitation of a familiar 
spirit, for whose entry the Adept has prepared himself, and who 
carries out the desires of those who earnestly seek his aid. For the 
rigid abstinence enjoined on the would-be Adept, by which his natural 
inclinations and desires are weakened, are simply a means by which 

■ It may be noticed that just as an unhuman, malignant, wild-beast glare in 
the eye is the peculiar characteristic of madness, so there is often (but whether 
always we cannot say) a very similar appearance in the eye of the mesmeriser 
while exercising his art, which is perhaps startlingly foreign to his natural 
character. It is the expression we might expect from the presence of a spirit of 
evil. 



174 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the mind can be concentrated on the attainment of these occult 
powers. Such a state of intense and continual desire is like earnest 
prayer for the possession of these powers, placing the person in the 
same state of receptivity and relation to the daimonia, that earnest 
prayer for spiritual gifts places the Christian with regard to God ; 
and it is doubtless true of one, as of the other, that '* they which ask 
shall receive ; they which seek shall find, and to him that knocketh 
it shall be opened." 

The powers thus attained by the Adept may seem to be his own, 
but in this, as in every other form of man's alliance with spirits of 
evil, the latter will seek to blind their victim, and lead him to suppose 
that he is their master, instead of being, as he really is, their helpless 
captive with a seeming power for a very little while, and which power 
he holds entirely on sufferance. 

Again, with regard to the allied phenomena of so-called " Electro 
Biology,'* in which persons, being partially mesmerised by some 
method of exhausting the psychical energy, are made to do various 
absurd actions, and believe things opposed to the evidence of their 
senses, at the command of the " Biologist." They are not in a state 
of trance, but wide awake and seemingly in full possession of their 
faculties, and yet, when they recover from their biologised state, they 
are wholly unconscious of what they have been doing and of the 
delusions they were under. What they did was, not only without 
their consent, but opposed to their own wills, as is evident from the 
efforts made by many to resist the command of the Biologist. To all 
intents and purposes they were, for the time being, "out of their 
minds," and seemingly possessed by a spirit which was not their own. 

The received explanation of these phenomena is that it is the will 
of the " Electro Biologist " which produces the result. But there are 
insuperable objections to this. In order to produce continuous and 
varied action there must be continued and varied action of the will, 
and, if so, then it is not the will of the " Biologist " which produces 
the result, for he has often five or more persons performing various 
sets of actions at the same time, to some of which he is paying no 
attention, and would be incapable of doing so to all at once. As a 
matter of fact, he exercises no volition on the subjects of the delusion 
after the delusion is effected. Moreover, although we speak of the 
effects produced as the result of dduaion, it is not what we mean by 
delusion — that is to say, the effects produced are not the result of 
the delusion of the biologised person's mind. People in certain 
states of health may become possessed of strange and unreasonable 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 17S 

fancies, but on recovery will recognise them as such, and similarly 
the events of a dream may appear vividly real and yet be recognised 
as absurd on awaking, bat these and every other delusion of the 
person's mind are impressed upon the consciousness and memory. 
But in the completely biologised person, in spite of the often pro- 
longed, violent and absurd actions which he performs, there is no 
consciousness or memory of what he has been doing, and in this 
respect the phenomena are identical with those of the mesmeric 
trance. When, therefore, it is considered that the methods of 
"EUectro Biology" are similar to those of mesmerism and ancient 
magic, and that the phenomena produced by the latter are confessedly 
due to the agency of daimonia, it seems only reasonable to conclude 
that the similar phenomena of " Electro Biology " are produced by the 
same agency. 

"Hypnotism" is merely a form of " Electro Biology," and if asked 
to decribe its effects we could not do so more exactly, or concisely, than 
by saying that they consisted of acts due to the presence of a spirit 
or influence in a person which was not his own, and by which he is 
made to act and to think in a manner entirely opposed to his own 
mind and spirit To say that it is the spirit of the hypnotiser would 
be absurd, for no one pretends that the spirit of the hypnotiser is con- 
stantly present with the hypnotised person directing his thoughts and 
actions. Therefore, as there can be no effect without a cause, and the 
spirit which produces the effects is neither that of the hypnotiser nor 
that of the hypnotised person, it must be some other spirit. 

The phenomena of Mesmerism, " Electro Biology," " Hypnotism," 
and the powers of " Mediums " and " Adepts," are merely the reproduc- 
tion of the phenomena of ancient magic, produced by exactly the same 
arts as those by which the Pagan magicians, sorcerers, wizards, necro- 
mancers, etc, sought the assistance of the demons who they regarded 
as their gods ; and the distinctive feature in the modern phenomena 
is that there is, in one and all, clear evidence of the presence and 
agency of spirits which can neither be those of the " Mediums," the 
" Hypnotisers," " Biologists," " Mesmerisers " or of the persons on 
whom they exercise their arts, and we are therefore forced to con- 
clude that these foreign spirits must be the same daimonia as those 
which the ancient Pagans invoked by similar methods. 

It is worthy of note also that even such methods of invoking the 
spirits as table turning and of receiving their answers by means of a 
planchette were equally methods of ancient magic. Tertullian, in 
the passage before quoted, speaks of the Pagans of his time " making 



176 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

iahles to divine," ' and a particular instance of this divination by tables 
is quoted by Mr Pember from Ammianus Marcellinus, in which two 
persons, Hilarius and Patricius, sought to ascertain the successor to 
the reigning Emperor Valena The spirits spelled " Theod," and con- 
cluding that Theodorus was intended they made no further inquiry, 
but being found out, they were forced to confess, and, in consequence, 
Theodorus and other persons whose names commenced in a similar 
way were put to death.* Nevertheless, the spirits proved to be 
correct, for after the defeat of Valens by the Qoths, TheodosivA was 
proclaimed Emperor of the East. Mr Pember also quotes Zahnan 
Zebi as defending table-turning in his day, 1615 A.D. ; 3 and Mr Lillie 
says, " In China there is in front of many statues of Buddha a table 
on which an apparatus similar to a planchette is used for ghostly 
communications. This planchette has been known for many hundred 
years." ^ No doubt these methods have been handed down to the 
present time, and are merely revived by the followers of Spiritualism. 
It is also worthy of notice that the teaching of Spiritualism and 
Theosophy remarkably accords with that of ancient Paganism, in 
the fact that, unlike the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit, its Trinity consists of a Father, Mother and Son. The ancient 
Paganism, with its Father and goddess Mother, from whom proceeded 
a Son who was identical with the Father, also represented the Mother 
as herself proceeding from the Father, the Father being regarded as 
Hermaphrodite, or possessing within himself both male and female 
principles, so that each separate manifestation of the god, as the 
deification of his various attributes, had always a corresponding 
goddess who was his " manifestation " ; 4 as in the case of Isis, who 
proclaimed herself to be " the first of the celestials and the uniform 
manifestation of the gods and goddess whose sole divinity the whole 
orb of the earth venerated." ^ So also in modern Theosophy and 
Spiritualism it is taught that " God is dual. He and She, Father and 
Mother. Hindu teachers obtained a golden glimpse of this impersonal 
truth." ^ In like manner it is said, " Man being made in the image 
of God is male and female," and as Christ is spoken of by the Apostle 
Paul as the second Adam, so it is taught by Theosophy that " there is 
yet to be expected a second Eve who is to be the Queen of Heaven 

' Ante, p. 168. 

' Ammianus Marcellinus, ffist., xxix. i. 29 ; Pember, p. 305. 

3 Pember, p. 308. ^ Buddha and Buddhitm, p. 39. 

4 Lenormant, Anc. Hist, of East, vol. ii. pp. 221, 222. 
s ApuleiuB, Wilkinson^ hy Birch, vol. iii. p. 99. 

6 A. J. Davis's " Great Harmonia," from Pember, p. 363, note. 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 177 



and to absorb the worship of the human race." ' This is the more 
remarkable, because it is well known that the goddess mother of 
ancient Paganism eventually absorbed the worship of the Pagan 
world to the practical exclusion of the god. 

In conclusion, it is important to allude to a class of supernatural 
phenomena which, although similar in many respects to those we 
have been considering, are not necessarily of demoniacal origin. 

Scripture speaks of prophecy, or the power of foretelling the 
future, as a gift possessed by certain persons who were generally 
righteous men and the servants of God ; but this was not always so, 
and the case of Balaam, and the allusion in Deut. xiii. 1, etc., to 
prophets who, although able to foresee the future, made use of 
their power for evil purposes, are illustrations of the exception. 
This prophetic faculty appears to have been bestowed by God on 
certain persons, and on particular occasions, and its nature may be 
gathered from the account of Balaam's prophecy : '' Balaam, the son 
of Beor, hath said, and the man whose eyes are opened hath said. 
He hath said which heard the words of God and knew the knowledge 
of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty falling into 
a trance, but having his eyes open '* (Num. xxiv. 15, 16). In this 
and other cases the future seems to have been revealed to the pro- 
phets, either by a vision or by the words of God heard by their 
minds, if not by their bodily ears. They also possessed at times 
" clairvoyance," as in the case of Elisha, when he perceived the mes- 
senger of the king of Israel coming to him before he entered his 
house (2 Kings vi. 32), or as in the case when his spirit witnessed 
the transaction between his servant Gehazi and Naaman, the Syrian 
(2 Kings v. 26). 

But there are a multitude of well-authenticated cases of persons 
having possessed similar faculties in our own times. There are the 
cases, for instance, in which persons have seen a friend, or a relative, 
at the moment of the latter's death, perhaps thousands of miles 
away. There are also cases in which persons have received warnings 
of* future danger by means of eveuts or appearances, which were of a 
more or less supernatural character ; and there are the well-known 
cases of " second sight " which used to be common in the Highlands of 
Scotland. These faculties of clairvoyance and second sight exercised 
by persons in full possession of sense and consciousness, although due, 
no doubt, to some spiritual influence, are quite distinct from the clair- 

* "The New Revelation" and "The Perfect Way," quoted by Pember, Appen- 
dix B, pp. 377, 380. 
M 



178 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

voyance and other phenomena manifested by the mesmerised person, 
who is wholly unconscious and clearly possessed by a spirit which lb 
not his own. 

It is true that these abnormal faculties have been exercised by 
the Adepts of Buddhism and Spiritualism, and by the magicians and 
sorcerers of Paganism, but they were sought and obtained through 
magical art from the spirits or daimonia, whereas in the cases re- 
ferred to above, the power, or faculty, has always come unsought 
This does not, however, prove these faculties to be from God, for, 
unless prevented by God, an evil spirit might seize the opportunity, 
when a person is in the state susceptible to spiritual influence, to 
enter into him and give him these and other powers or faculties, in 
order to create a desire for them and produce a belief in powers 
independent of God. 

Solitude and abstinence are conditions for producing this state of 
susceptibility, and these conditions are often satisfied by the people 
in the Highlands of Scotland and elsewhere. Great mental tension 
and absorption, such as that accompanying grief and anxiety, may 
produce a similar state, and this condition would also be fulfilled in 
some of the cases of clairvoyance referred to. But the state thus 
produced is equally susceptible to the influence of the spirit of God, 
and it would appear that Daniel, before his visions, was in this state 
of mental absorption, and that before one of his visions he had been 
fasting " three full weeks " (Dan. x. 2 and ix. 3). 

Under these circumstances it would appear diiEcult to determine 
in every case whether these faculties are from God or due to 
daimonical agency. As a rule, however, their origin may be recog- 
nised by the following distinctions. The powers and faculties be- 
stowed by God are given unsought, and although their object may 
not always be recognised, they are not conducive to evil. The powers 
obtained from the daimonia have been generally bestowed on their 
devoted worshippers, and have only served to exalt the pride and 
power of the recipient, and to increase the influence of superstition 
and idolatry, or they have been sought and obtained by persons of 
exceptional wickedness to enable them to satisfy their evil desires. 

Other supernatural phenomena might be mentioned, such as 
apparitions and haunted houses, or localities, which have been the 
seat of former crimes, and are supposed to he haunted by the spirits 
of murderers or their victims. But if the daimonia personate the 
spirits of the dead in order to deceive their living friends and 
relatives, they may also do so in the case of haunted houses. Satan, 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC 179 

the prince of the demons, is spoken of as the tempter, and Christians 
are warned not to " give place to him " ; that is to say, not to allow 
his suggestions and temptations to obtain a hold of the mind and 
affections, because having thus obtained a footing, he might possess 
the person, as in the case of Judas, of whom it is said, when he went 
out to betray our Lord, that " Satan entered into him." 

It is thus implied that persons of exceptional wickedness, such as 
murderers, are possessed by an evil spirit, who dominates their minds 
and induces them to carry out their deeds of evil. Such spirits being 
wholly evil, glory in the evil they have brought about, and may be 
conceived to cling to the scene of their evil and be allowed by God to 
haunt it This is implied by the statement, '' For blood, it defileth the 
land, and there is no expiation for the land of the blood that is shed 
therein, but by the blood of him that shed it " (Num. xxxv. 33). The 
place, in short, is " accursed," and the evil spirit, permitted by God to 
haunt it, and, as in some cases, to rehearse before the eyes of the 
living the wicked deed, may be regarded as a sign and a warning of 
Ood that the blood of the murdered person still cries for vengeance. 

A case in illustration of this was brought to my own notice 
when quartered at Athlone in 1879, in the vicinity of which, 
it is said, more murders have been committed than in any other 
part of Ireland. I had occasion to visit an out-station at some 
distance and was driving there accompanied by my sergeant-major, 
a most matter-of-fact and unimaginative man, who had been stationed 
at Athlone for some time previously. About four miles out, there 
was a police station, and some three miles further on was a gentle- 
man's place called '* The Doune," which, like many other places in 
Ireland, was let for a nominal sum, the owner refusing to live 
there. For a full mile before coming to " The Doune " the road was 
perfectly straight and level, but for a hundred yards, or so, before 
reaching the lodge gates of " The Doune," the road was dark and 
overhung with trees. While still in the open part of the road before 
reaching this spot the sergeant-major remarked, — 

" A curious circumstance happened to me here, sir, a little time ago, 
at about this part of the road. I was returning from visiting the 
out-station to Athlone on an outside car, and had passed * The Doune,' 
when I saw a car at some distance driving towards us on the same side 
of the road, and with four men and a driver on it I thought very 
little about it at first until it was within a hundred yards or less. 
We were on our right side of the road, and I expected this car every 
minute to turn to its proper side, but instead of that it seemed as if 



i8o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

it intended to drive right into us. I shouted to my driver to turn 
aside, but he took not the slightest notice and appeared to be com- 
pletely dazed. I shouted again to him without result, and was pre- 
paring to jump off the car to avoid the certain crash which appeared 
imminent, when Just as the other car reached us, it completely vanished, 
and there was not a trace of it to be seen in any direction. At the 
same instant our horse, seemingly maddened with terror, ran away, 
nor could it be stopped until it pulled up streaming with perspiration 
at the police station. I there learnt that I had seen what was called 
' The Doune ' Murderers. It appeared that some years before, the 
owner of * The Doune,' having incurred the enmity of certain people, 
was waylaid and murdered at the dark part of the road near his 
house by four men who drove there on an outside car and had never 
been apprehended, but that, at certain times since, different people had 
met with the apparition described, which disappeared just as it 
reached them. My driver's terror was due to the fact that he had 
heard of this apparition and recognised it." 

Such was the sergeant-major's story, but I was not sufficiently in- 
terested at the time to take the trouble to verify it, which might have 
been done, for the driver was still in Athlone, and the people at 
the police station could have been questioned. But the little circum- 
stantial incidents of the story, omitted for the sake of brevity, were 
so devoid of artificiality, and the driver's paralysed terror so unlike 
what would have been invented, and yet so true to nature, that the 
story has all the appearance of truth, and the narrator was not only 
the last person to invent such a story, but very unlikely to have told 
such an invention to his superior officer when it could have been 
easily proved to be false. 

Moreover, there are many well-authenticated stories of a similar 
nature, which have all the appearance of truth, being wholly devoid 
of that systematic and artificial construction which always accom- 
panies invention. In this case, the apparition was not of the 
murdered man, but of the murderers ; some of whom were probably 
still living, and the apparition was not therefore produced by the 
spirits of the dead. The terror of the horse is also similar to that 
which, in the case of other apparitions, is said to have been produced 
on dumb animals. But, while there would be no reason for such terror 
if the apparition was the spirit of a human being, there would be every 
reason for it, if the apparition was produced by a wholly malignant 
spirit, " greater in power and might " than man. 

The Scripture describes the dead as '' asleep in the dust," that 



THE TEACHING OF HERMES— MAGIC i8i 

they ^ know not anything, neither have they any more a portion in 
anything that is done under the sun," and we must therefore conclude 
that these apparitions are not the spirits of the dead, but evil spirits 
who, for the reasons mentioned, are allowed to personate them. 

Every effort, however, is being made at the present day to revive 
the Pagan belief in the powers and activity of the spirits of the dead, 
and their influence on human affairs, and thence, to introduce, under 
religious and other pleas, intercourse and relationship with them. 
The belief also that they are the spirits of dead friends and relatives, 
able and willing to aid the living, and reveal to them the secrets of the 
onseen world, together with their affectation of a certain righteous- 
ness and truth, exercises a fascination upon many. But, from an 
analysis of the phenomena, compared with the testimony of Scripture. 
it is evident that the intercourse with the dead by the modem 
votaries of Spiritualism and Theosophy is merely the revival of 
the old Pagan worship instituted by Hermes, whose teaching indeed 
they profess to follow, and that the beings who reply to them arid 
show signs and wonders, although they personate and are supposed 
to be the spirits of the dead, are the same daimonia, or evil spirits, 
who were the real gods of the Pagans, and whose one desire is to 
obtain inilueuce and control over the bodies and souls of men. It is 
also evident that the allied phenomena of Hypnotism, Faith-healing, 
etc., are equally revivals of the methods used by the Pagan magicians 
and sorcerers, and are due, not to any powers inherent in man, but 
simply and solely to the aid of the same daimonia. 

But if so, it would seem that the Roman Catholic, or at least the 
{levotees ' of that religion, although they, like the Pagans, believe that 
the beings they invoke are the spirits of " holy men," must also be 
under the influence of daimonia ; and that the spirits who reply to 
them and influence their minds and imaginations, and in some cases 
perform signs and wonders in order to confirm their faith in them, 
are not those of the Virgin and saints, but spirits of evil ; and, as im- 
plied by the Apostle Paul, this would appear to be true of every wor- 
shipper of idols and the supposed spirits of the dead (1 Cor. x. 19, 20). 

• See t/i/ro, chap. xvii. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE N£PHILni 

The next point of our inquiry is the way in which the worship of 
and intercourse with evil spirits, supposed to be spirits of the dead, 
arose. How was it introduced to the human race ? 

Berosus, the Babylonian historian and priest of Bel, who is 
supposed to have lived in the time of Alexander the Great, has left 
us an account of the Deluge, and of certain features of antediluvian 
history. Allusion has already been made to his account of a being 
called "Oannes," ''the Annedotus," partly human and partly fish, 
who appeared to the people of Babylonia and taught them " letters 
and science and every kind of art He taught them to construct 
houses, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them 
the principles of geometrical knowledge. From that time, so uni- 
versal were his instructions, nothing material has been added by way 
of improvement." ' The mention here of an antediluvian Babylonia 
is probably only for the purpose of identifying the locality which, 
on account perhaps of its antediluvian associations, being close to 
the site of Eden, was selected to be the centre of the postdiluvian 
idolatry. 

Berosus, like the historians of other Pagan nations, mentions ten 
kings as ha\nng reigned before the Deluge, just as the Mosaic account 
describes ten generations during the same period, and according to 
his history, as given by Pdyhistor, this Cannes appeared in the 
reign of the first king, but according to AjxAlodonis in that of the 
fourth king. In addition to the first Oannes, Berosus mentions other 
Annedoti of a similar form who appeared in the reigns of other kings, 
and who " related to the people whatever Oannes had informed them 
of," ^ that is to say, they instructed the people in the same knowledge. 
From these statements Berosus implies that the principles of idolatry 
were taught to mankind before the Deluge, and that Hermes, or Cush, 
therefore merely revived that teaching. 

• Berosus, from PolifhUtor^ etc. ; Cory's Fragments^ pp. 22, 23, 
' Berosus, from PolifhUtor and Apollodoru* ; Cory's Fragments, pp. 22, 30, 31. 

182 



THE NEPHILIM 183 



In addition to these Annedoti, who are described as 6«mt- 
djouerrMms^ we learn from Sanchoniathon's history that the sixth 
descendant from ** Protogonus** i.e., "the first-bom," or Adam, was 
" Chryscyr*^ who, he says, is the same as Hephaestus. " He exercised 
himself in words and charms and divinations, wherefore men wor- 
shipped him after death as a god and called him Diamichios the 
great inventor." * Now Gush, or Hermes, who was the great teacher 
of the same knowledge after the Deluge, was in one of his deified 
manifestations, " Hephaestus," or Vulcan, and, according to Manetho, 
quoted by Syncellus, there were two Hermes, or Thoths, the one 
before, and the other after the Deluge.^ Hence we may assume that 
just as the postdiluvian Hermes and Hephaestus were one and the 
same, so also the antediluvian Hermes was Hephaestus, or Chrysor, 
the sixth descendant from Adam, and that Chrysor was called by 
these names in after ages, because he was the chief teacher among 
the antediluvians of the knowledge taught by the second Hermes 
after the Deluge. For it must be remembered that the names under 
which Cush and his son were deified were not given them until long 
after their deaths. 

We have suggested that the name " Oannes " was also given to 
Cush because he, like the first Oannes, was the teacher of this know- 
ledge, but there seems to be no reason for identifying Chrysor with 
the Annedotus Cannes who, like the other Annedoti, is described as 
a daemon. 

Chrysor, the antediluvian Hephaestus, having been worshipped as 
a god after his death, we may be certain that he would be also 
recognised as a god in the postdiluvian idolatry. Now Manetho's 
list of the god kings of Egypt begins with an Hephaestus, who is 
given a reign of 724 years,^ a period which is not only irreconcilable 
with the reign of any king after the Deluge, but is in striking 
contrast with the reigns of other god kings which ate of normal 
length. But these 724 years might perfectly accord with the life- 
time of an antediluvian, and we may conclude therefore that the 
Hephaestus mentioned in Manetho's list is the antediluvian Hephaes- 
tus or Chrysor, the first Hermes, introduced by the priesthood as 
being the first human teacher of their religion. 

All tradition points to the fact that the idolatry established by 

' Berosus, from Ahydenus; Cory, p. 32. 

* Sanchoniathon's History; Cory's Fragments^ pp. 7, 8. 

3 Cory's Fragments^ pp. 168, 169. 

4 See Manetho's Dynasties ; Cory's Fragments^ p. 94. 



1 84 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Cnsh and Nimrod was a revival of antediluvian idolatry. Thus 
Berosus says that the knowledge obtained before the Deluge was 
carefully preserved, and that Xisuthrus, or Noah was directed to 
'' commit everything to writing and bury the account in the city of 
the sun at Sippara," and that after the Deluge, having found these 
writings at Sippara, ''they set about building cities and erecting 
temples, and Babylon was again inhabited." ' Similarly, Manetho, 
the Egyptian priest, claims to have based his writings on certain 
inscriptions "engraved on columns by the ^r8< Thoth (i.e., Chrysor) 
before the Deluge in the land of the Siriad." ^ This is probably the 
foundation, in part, of the statement of Josephus that the sons of 
Seth, in order that their scientific discoveries might not be lost, 
engraved them upon two columns, one of brick and the other of 
stone, and that the latter remains to this day in the land of Siriad 
(i.^., Egypt). He has probably here confused the preservation of the 
antediluvian knowledge of idolatry with the knowledge, astro- 
nomical, cosmogonic and prophetic, which is recorded by the Great 
Pyramid.3 

Again, Brahma is said to have written the Vedas, but they were 
stolen from him by the demon " Hayagriva " while " he slumbered in 
a prior world," i.e., while shut up in the Ark. After which " Vishnu 
became a fish and recovered them from the bottom of the ocean." * 
This is simply a way of saying that they were recovered from the 
bottom of what had been the ocean. In other traditions the sacred 
writings came from heaven, as in the case of Buddha, who is said 
to have flourished at the time of the Deluge, "when the Earth 
poured forth the flood in order to assist him against the Assoors or 
giants, — five holy scriptures descended from above which gave know- 
ledge of introspection and ability of accomplishing the desires 
of hearts and means of carrying words into eflfect."^ This has 
already been referred to. So also " Maha Bad," " the great Buddha," 
who is said to have been the first monarch of Iran, " received from 
the Creator a sacred book in a heavenly language."^ Again, Menu 
Satyavrata is represented as being saved with seven saints from the 

" Berosus, from Abj/dentu, p. 33. The preservation of this knowledge thus 
attributed to Noah is characteristic of the methods of Paganism, which not only 
identified their gods with Noali, but made use of his name as the venerated father 
of the human race to obtain credit and respect for their religion . 

* Cory, FragmenUy p. 168. 

3 Josephus, Ant.y bk. i. chap. ii. It may be remarked that the name Seth is 
synonymous with Shem, who appears to be called Sheth in Numb. xxiv. 17. 

4 Faber, vol. ii. p. 150. ^ Ibid,, p. 149. * Ibid. 



THE NEPHILIM 185 



Deluge by Heri, the Preserver of the Universe, in the shape of a large 
fish (the Ark), and after the Flood he received a book of divine 
ordinances in the language of the gods.' The Druids have a similar 
tradition. They say that the Patriarch was saved with seven 
companions on a floating island with a strong door. They also 
speak of the sacred books of Pherylt, or the writings of Hu, or Pry- 
dain, of which Taliesen says that '* should the waves again disturb 
their foundation he would conceal them deep in the cell of the Holy 
Sanctuary." * 

Now it is, of course, utterly absurd to suppose that Noah, or any- 
one else, recorded and buried the principles of Pagan idolatry 
previous to the Deluge in order that they might be recovered and 
idolatry re-established after the Deluge. But, on the other hand, it 
is very probable that Cush, the originator of postdiluvian idolatry, 
may, like the votaries of modem Spiritualism, have received instruc- 
tions from the spirits he invoked as gods, as to the means of com- 
municating with them and enlisting their powers on his behalf; — 
or, in other words, the principles of magic and sorcery ; — and that 
this was *' the special revelation from the gods " said to be received 
by Buddha, Menu and other forms of the Pagan god. We may 
also presume that the uniform tradition of the recovery after the 
Deluge of the secrets of the Pagan religion has some foundation, and, 
taking into consideration the tradition of the first Hermes, or 
Hepha^tus, and the first Oannes, as the primary teachers of idolatry, 
it implies that the worship of the gods, or communication with evil 
spirits, first originated in the antediluvian world, and was merely 
revived by the Harnite descendants of Noah from the traditional 
knowledge preserved by their father Ham. 

It is nece&sary here to call attention to the fact that the traditions 
and histories bearing upon the subject are derived from writings 
dated 2000 years or more after the events of which they treat, and 
that they emanate from priests, or priestly castes, who represent them 
in accordance with their religious belief. Thus Bel, the chief god of 
the Babylonians, Osiris, the god of the Egyptians, and the Jupiter of 
the Greeks and Romans, are by these writers entirely removed from 
the events of human history, as being the supreme gods of these nations 
and the orderers and arbiters of those events. For instance, we find 
in the lately - discovered account of the Deluge on the Assyrian 
tablets that Bel, who was the first king in Babylon many years after 
that event, is represented as arranging the circumstances of the Flood 

' Faber, vol. ii. pp. 113-116 and p. 149. ' DM., p. 160. 



1 86 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

as the supreme god. The same is the case with Osiris and Jupiter 
when they are spoken of in relation to the events of history. It is 
only in those myths which treat of the histories of the gods themselves 
that their true relations are revealed, although, for the causes before 
mentioned, their particular relationship to their human originals is 
sometimes misplaced. 

We have also to take into consideration the dual character of 
Pagan idolatry. It consisted, as we have said, at first of magic, 
demon and nature worship, the worship of the Sun, Moon and Stars 
and the Phallic or generative principle ; and afterwards the authors 
of this worship were themselves deified and identified with the 
demon and Nature gods they themselves had instituted, and therefore 
with the Sun as the Great Father and the Earth as the Great Mother. 
So also they were identified with the progenitors of the human race, 
and Belus, Cronus, Saturn, etc., being the Father of the Gods and of 
men, were therefore represented as, not merely the first rulers of 
Babylon and Egypt, but as Noah, and even Adam, whose histories 
were more or less interwoven with theirs. 

In like manner the goddess Mother was not merely Rhea, the 
Earth and the Moon, but the Ark from which the human race 
had been reborn. So also she was Eve, " the Mother of all living," 
and hence was called " Idaia Mater " (" the Mother of Knowledge " % 
that is, the woman through whom came the knowledge of good and 
evil. Again, because Eve was formed from Adam, and the Ark (the 
symbol of the goddess) was constructed by Noah, the goddess Mother 
is sometimes represented as the daughter as well as the wife and 
mother of the god, as in the case of Ila, who is both the daughter 
and wife of Menu, while, as the mother of the supposed reincarnation 
of the god, she is his mother as well, as in the case of Isis and 
Osiris. 

The Greeks, knowing these things only in their allegorical form, 
and failing to understand their mystical import, turned them into a 
multitude of fanciful fables which, in a large number of instances, 
have completely obliterated their original significance. Nevertheless, 
by making due allowance for these confusing elements, the under- 
lying truth may still be extracted from many of these myths by 
carefully comparing them with each other, and with the statements 
of ancient authors. 

There is much in the antediluvian traditions of the various 

* Called so from Mount Ida, " the mount of knowledge." Dymock's CUusieal 
Diet — siib voce; Hislop, p. 111. 



THE NEPHILIM 187 



nations which is in accordance with the Scriptural account. M. 
Lenormant writes: "In the number given in the Bible for the 
antediluvian Patriarchs we have the first instance of a striking 
agreement with the traditions of various nations. In Chaldea 
Berosus enumerates (en antediluvian kings. . . . The legends of the 
Iranian race commence with the reign of 'ten Peisdadien kings, 
men of ancient law, who lived on pure Homa (water of life), who 
preserved their sanctity.' In India we meet with the nine Brah- 
madikas who, with Brahma, their founder, make (en, and who 
are called the (en Fetris or Fathers. The Chinese count ten 
emperors, partakers of the divine nature, before the dawn of 
historical times, and finally, not to multiply instances, the Germans 
and Scandinavians believed in the (en ancestors of Odin, and the 
Arabs in the (en mythical kings of the Adites, the primordial people 
of their peninsula."^ To this we might add the ten kings of the 
antediluvian Atlantis, the story of which was related to Solon by 
the Egyptian priests,^ and also to the nine generations before Noah, 
mentioned by Sanchoniathon in his history, and to which we shall 
presently refer. 

In the Scriptural account of the antediluvian world mention 
is made of "giants" who were the predisposing cause of the wicked- 
ness which led to the destruction of the world by the Deluge. The 
traditions of the Pagan nations are also iu remarkable accordance 
with this. The Gothic legend speaks of a fret world called " Mus- 
pelsheim" the abode of Surtur, which was destroyed hy fire, and of 
a second world in which all the families of the giants were destroyed 
by a fiood except one who saved himself and his household in a ship. 
His three sons born of a Cow, i.e., the Ark,^ were the gods of the 
Goths.^ Another tradition mentions the giant " Ymer," whose blood 
destroyed all the other giants except one, Bergelmer, who escaped 
on board his bark. "Ymer** is represented as, in the first place, 
the Earth, from whose body (when "the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up ") came the Deluge and who afterwards made 
the ocean.5 He is evidently the same as " Typhon," the ocean, and 
the evil principle of the Egyptians. 

The Celtic Hu, who is said to have lived at the time of the 

' Lenormant, Anc, Hist, of East, vol. i. pp. 12, 13. 

* Recorded by Plato, The Crittas, 

3 " Theba " means both " cow " and " ark," and hence a cow was the symbol of 
the goddess Mother as a bull was of the god ; Faber, vol. i. p. 21. 

♦ Faber, vol. i. p. 133. s /j^vf., pp. 216-219. 



1 88 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Deluge, and who is also called '^Noe," is represented as the con- 
queror of the ^tanfo and "after patience in affliction became the 
father of all the tribes of the Earth." ' 

The Chinese tradition, although it does not speak of giants, 
yet attributes the Deluge to the moral evil of the human race. 
It mentions first a golden age, after which "men despised the 
Monarch of the Universe, disputes arose about truth and falsehood 
which banished eternal reason, in consequence of which they fixed 
their looks on terrestrial objects to excess, and became like them. 
Such was the source of all crimes. Then the pillars of heaven 
were broken, the Sun, Moon and Stars changed their motions, 
the earth fell to pieces and the waters enclosed within its bosom 
burst forth with violence and overflowed it." * It will be remarked 
that the above attributes the moral evil which led to the Deluge 
to the loss of the knowledge of Qod and consequent disputes about 
truth and falsehood, the result of which was that men fixed their 
looks, i.e.^ directed their attention, wholly to earthly things, or to 
the satisfaction of their natural lusts and inclinations, and the law 
of self, or selfishness, becoming thus predominant, the demands of 
righteousness would be ignored, which, as the tradition says, was 
the source of all crimes. As stated by the Mosaic account, " violence 
filled the earth." 

Buddha, who, in certain aspects, is also Noah, is represented as 
living at the time of the Deluge, and it is said that the earth poured 
forth a flood to aa^^ist him afjainst the Assoors or Asuras, who were 
giants and were the demons of Indian mythology.^ 

According to Hesiod, Neptune, or the Sea, shut up the Titans 
in a central cavity of the earth, surrounding them on all sides 
with the ocean, and overwhelmed the wicked race of Phlegyae 
and their island beneath the sea.^ This is an allegorical way of 
saying that *' the Tituns,'* the name by which Noah and his descendants 

• Faber, vol. ii. pp. 305, 306. Hu is evidently in the above tradition identified 
with Noah, but, as in the ca.se of Jupiter of the Aryans, he was aft-erwards 
identitied with the Babylonian god just as the latter was often identified with 
Noah. 

' Faber, vol. iL pp 139-141. 

3 Asiat, Res., vol. ii. p. 386 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 149. It is worthy of note that 
these traditions all speak of the earth and not the rain as the chief source of the 
waters of the Deluge, which is also in accordance with Mosaic account, which says 
that "the founUins of the great deep were broken up," or, in other words, the 
subsidence of the dry land gave vent to the subterranean waters. See also 
Appendix C. 

♦ Faber, vol. ii. pp. 176, 177. 



THE NEPHILIM 189 



are spoken of in claBsical mythology, were shut up in the Ark 
and surrounded by the waters of the Flood which destroyed the 
wicked antediluvians. 

The impious Phlegyse were said by the Greeks to be descended 
from Mars and Chry%a^ while Phavorinus represents them to be 
Cashitea^ The latter, of course, could not be the case, as Gush 
was not bom until after the Deluge, but both traditions have a 
corresponding significance. The first seems to connect the Phlegyss 
with the antediluvian ChrysoVy who, according to Sanchoniathon, 
introduced magic and intercourse with evil spirits.^ The second 
connects the Phlegyae with the Gushite race, who resuscitated that 
magic and intercourse after the Deluge. The two traditions point, 
therefore, to a general recognition of the fact that this unholy 
intercourse with evil spirits was the cause of the wickedness which 
brought on the world the judgment of the Deluge. 

If now we turn to the Scriptural account of " the giants^' through 
whom it is implied that the human race became thoroughly corrupt 
and violence filled the earth, we find it stated that they were results 
of marriages contracted between the sons of God and the daughters 
of 'men (Gen. vi.) The popular interpretation of the statement is 
that the "sons of God" were the righteous descendants of Seth, 
and the "daughters of men" were the descendants of Gain. But 
it is manifestly absurd to suppose that the result of the marriage 
of the righteous with the unrighteous should be a gigantic race of 
men ! Nor is there any precedent in the Bible for calling the 
unrighteous, "Sons or daughters of men," in contrast to the 
righteous, or people of God. Such an interpretation cannot be 
supported by any valid argument, and the rule of Biblical inter- 
pretation, namely that laid down by the Apostle Taul of comparing 
spiritual things with spiritual,^ or of considering the meaning which 
Scripture attaches to the terms used, in other passages, obliges us to 
interpret the passage in a very different way. 

The term " Sons of God " is only used in the Old Testament to 
express the angels^ or those Ixiings who are the direct creation of 
Gud,*^ and it is thus applied in the New Testament to Adam" and to 
Christ. It is also applied in a ^piritual sense in the New Testament 

' Paurtan., Boeot.^ p. 597 ; ApolL, BibL, lib. iii. c. 5. 

' Phavor., Apud Steph. Byzant, de Crb, p. 60 ; Faber, vol. ii. pp. 176, 177. 

1 See infra, Sanchoniathon*s History ^ pp. 200, 201. 

♦ 1 Cor. ii. 13. 

^ Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7. ^ Luke iii 38. 



I90 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

to those who are spiritually bom of Ood, or regenerated, but in that 
sense it was unknown in the Old Testament, and cannot be made 
use of to explain its use of the term. Again the original word 
translated " giants " is not " giants " but " NephUirrif' meaning " Fallen 
Ones," although it afterwards became a term to express giants, because 
the result of these marriages was a race of gigantic beings. The 
statement in Gen. vi. is therefore as follows : — " There were Fallen 
Ones in the earth in those days" (i.e,, before the Deluge), ''and also 
after that, when the sons of God " (the angels) " came in unto the 
daughters of men and they bare children to them ; the same became 
mighty men which were of old, men of renown " (ver. 4). The result 
of this union of the human race with beings who are said to be 
'' greater in power and might " ^ was a mixed race of fallen angels and 
men, and this race were of vast stature and strength, and wholly and 
irredeemably wicked. Various races of these giants are mentioned 
in Scripture as existing amongst the nations of Canaan. 

There is, however, among many, a singular hostility to the admis- 
sion of the possibility of the supernatural in anything which im- 
mediately affects the human race ; and this has led them to oppose 
the manifest conclusion to be drawn from the Scriptural statements, 
and to fall back on the weak and inconsequent hypothesis that ** the 
Sons of God " were merely the more pious antediluvians. They will 
accept the miracles of Christ as a fact of the past which does not 
affect people living now, but the possibility of spiritual agents, such 
as the Nephilim, able to communicate with and influence mankind, 
disturbs their minds, and rather than admit the plain teaching of 
Scripture, they shut their eyes to the evidence. The same hostility 
is seen in the refusal to admit of spiritual agency in the phenomena 
of Spiritualism, Hypnotism, etc., and the endeavour to explain such 
things, however illogically, by natural causes which may be con- 
trolled by the aid of human knowledge and science. It is the old 
Sadducean spirit, which revolts against the idea of spiritual powers 
outside the knowledge and control of human power and wisdom. 
To attempt to combat this sceptical spirit is useless, and we can only 
point out the testimony of Scripture to those with whom that 
testimony has greater weight than the laboured and illogical explana- 
tions of others, who desire to explain away its meaning. 

The intercourse of these " fallen ones " with the human race in the 
past and the possibility of its recurrence was the general belief of the 
Jews and the early Christian Church. Josephus states it as an 

' 2 Peter ii. 11. 



THE NEPHILIM 191 



tmdoabted fact,' and Augustine speaks of the folly of doubting it.^ 
It was also the general belief throughout the Elast, and the Persians 
say that " Djemschid " married the daughter of a dev, i.6., a demon.^ 
Now ** Djemschid/' or " Ghemschid," is stated to be the fowrth king of 
Iran, and the ancient Iran extended from the Caucasus to the Indus, 
including the valley of Shinar — that is to say, it consisted of the 
empire conquered by Nimrod, who was the fov/rth from Noah. The 
Persian account says that the father of Ghemschid founded the cities 
of Babylon and Nineveh, which is in accordance with the various 
records of the dynasties of the Assyrian Empire. These nearly 
always place Belus or Gush as the first king, and Ninus or Nimrod 
as succeeding him. The Zendaveata says that ''Ghemschid, that 
wonderful king of Iran, built a place of enormous extent in the form 
of a square, and within it was a tower or castle and also a conspicuous 
palace." ^ This is clearly Babylon, the beginning of the kingdom of 
Nimrod, showing that the Ghemschid, or Djemschid, of these traditions 
was Nimrod. In the Arabian traditions Djemschid would appear to 
be Cusb,^ but the history and subsequent mythology of the two deified 
kings are so interwoven, that the one is constantly confused with the 
other. 

This tradition of the marriage of Gush or Nimrod with the 
daughter of a demon will be referred to again, and it is here quoted 
as a record of the union of the human race with demons, which, as 
we shall see, and as is implied in Gen. vi., took place after the Deluge, 
as well as before that event. 

The original authors of this intercourse, the Sons of God or fallen 
angels mentioned in Gen. vi., would appear to be alluded to by the 
Apostles Peter and Jude as " the angels which kept not their first 
estate hut left tlieir first Iiabitation " ; for this is exactly what the 
Nephilim were guilty of, and their sin is likened to that of the 
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, who " tuent after strange flesh,** 
These fallen angels are said to be '' reserved in chains of darkness 
unto the judgment of the great day" (Jude 5, 6). But if these 
''fallen ones" had thus established communication with man, it is not 
necessary to seek further for the original source of that knowledge 
of the spirit world and the means of invoking the assistance of its 
inhabitants, which has been handed down to the present day. In 

' Antiq.y chap. i. p. 6. 

' Smith's DkU oftht BihU, '* Giants." » Ibid, 

^ Zendavesta, tom. iL p. 275 ; Compn, 666, p. 31S. 

^ See ante, chap. iv. pp. 75, 76. 



192 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



fact, it is the tradition of the Hindus that the gods (i.e., the daimonia) 
at first became vticamaie and conversed with men, and taught them 
arts and science and the nature of the pla<^e where they were to go 
after an earthly probation.' The latter, it may be remarked, is the 
special subject of spiritualistic revelation at the present day.^ 

The Nephilim were thus spirits of evil, the same as the daimonia, 
whose prince was Satan, and who were the real gods of the Pagans, 
the beings who replied to their invocations. If, then, some of them 
had intercourse with the daughters of men, they would not fail to 
teach men the means also of communicating with them. It is said 
these " Fallen Ones " were " in the earth in those days," which plainly 
implies that their presence there was abnormal, and therefore that 
they were not human beings, but nothing is said in Scripture about 
their actual appearance, and it seems very unlikely that they had the 
power of taking the form of man, who is made in the image of God, 
and living amongst men as human beings. In modem Spiritualism 
the spirits have been known to take the form of some relative or 
friend of the person invoking them, but it is temporary and evanescent, 
and even then depends on certain peculiar and exceptional conditions. 
Had the Nephilim indeed lived among men as men, and been known 
by them by distinctive names, features and characteristics, wo may 
be certain that they would have been worshipped by the idolaters 
under those names and characteristics as their chief gods, whereas 
Chrysor, who was worshipped after his death, was seemingly the first 
of the Pagan gods. 

On the other hand, it docs not follow that they were unable to 
take any material form in order to converse with men. Who was 
Oannes and who were the other Annedoti ? Are we to dismiss the 
tradition handed down by Berosus as a fable without fouudation ? 
If so, the fable is puerile and objectless, and only worthy of the 
imagination of a child ; and this, as we shall see, is not the character 
of the generality of the Pagan myths when they have not been 
encrusted with fable by the imagination of the Greeks, who did not 
understand their true significance. Now, Berosus speaks of Oannes 
and the Annedoti as " dniVfwns** which is but another name for the 
Pagan gods, and we find that Oannes was actually worshipped in 
after ages as one of the chief gods of Paganism under his own name, 
Oannes, or as Dagon, the Fish god. 

If Satan assumed the form of a serpent in order to converse with 

' Maurice, llisi. IliiuUutan^ vol. i. p. 371 ; Faber, vol. ii. p. 16. 
- Pember, pp. 359-368. 



THE NBPHILIM 193 



man and withdraw him from his allegiance to Gkxl, there would be 
nothing anomalous in the assumption of a form like that of Oannes 
by his angels, the Nephilim, for a similar purpose. It may be asked, 
why should the Nephilim have assumed these forms, and why did 
Satan assume the form of a serpent instead of that of a man, in 
which form, we might suppose, his arguments would have been listened 
to much more readily by human beings ? In both cases the forms 
assumed give an air of fable and grotesqueness to the story, which, 
with many, may seem to impeach its credibility. But there may 
be a deep reason, arising from the very nature of things, for the 
assumption of these forms; and, if so, the aspect of fable and 
unreality is removed, and the tradition of Berosus is in accordance 
with what we expect from the statements of Scripture.' In short, we 
might well conceive that in the ages before the Deluge, when 
fallen angels allied themselves with men and a race of demon-bom 
beings was the result, some of these Nephilim, or possibly Satan 
himself, did assume the shapes described by Berosus, in order to 
deceive mankind and communicate to men the knowledge of evil. 
Satan is said to be him who 'Meceiveth the whole world" (Bev. 
xii 9), and the chief of these Annedoti, who in after ages was 
worshipped as Cannes, may well have been Satan himself. For '' " 
is the Greek article ''^The," and O'annie^ might be the Hellenised form 
of "JSTa Nahaah'*^ — "the Serpent," with whom the other forms of 
the Pagan gods, as we shall see, were eventually identified. 

The Scriptures say that the gods of the heathen were devils 
(daemons), and we shall see that both Chrysor and the other human 
originals of the Pagan gods were probably of Nephilim descent. If 
so, there was a deeper reason than the fact of their being the human 
originators of idolatry for deifying them after death ; for they were 
in very truth the incarnation of the daemon gods, and their descend- 
ants therefore may have rightly claimed to be the children of the Sun 
and Serpent god. 

It will be observed that the intercourse of fallen angels and 
women is said to have occurred, not only before the Deluge, but 
"after that," or at some subsequent period, and that "sons were 
bom unto them who were mighty men of old, men of renown/' In 
accordance with this we read of certain strange races of giants in 

» See Appendix B, where the question is more fully considered. 

' Oannes is the Greek form of the name, and as A is not represented by a 
letter in Greek, Ha Nahash would become anaas or anas, and with the article 
O&nas, or Canes. Moreover, Berosus says that Oannes ^r«^ appeared in the reign 
of ihefint king, who we shall see was Noah, (infra, pp. 199-201). 

N 



194 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Palestine, the Rephairrij Enim, AnaJcim and Zuzi/rrVy concerning whom 
the writer of the article on " The Giants/' in Smith's Dictionary of 
the Bible, says, " They were not Canaanites, as there is no mention 
of them in the genealogies in Qen. x. 15-19."' This omission 
would be incomprehensible if they were descendants of Canaan in 
the male line, but it would not be so if they were the result of the 
intercourse of '' the sons of Ood " with the women of Canaan. This 
would succoxmt for their gigantic stature and strength, and the 
existence of whole races of such giants cannot be explained on any 
other grounds. 

The word " Rephaim " occurs in two other places in Scripture, in 
one of which it is said that the path of the woman '' which f orsaketh 
the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her Qod," 
'' inclineth to the Rephaim" and in the other that " the man that 
wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the 
congregation of the Rephaim" ^ In the A.y. the word is translated 
" the dead" which, no doubt, conveys the general meaning, such persons 
being spiritually dead, i.e., separated or alienated from God;^ but 
the particular use of the word " Rephaim " in these passages implies 
that the state of the Rephaim was one of irredeemable evil, or a 
state of hopeless spiritvxil death, which is not that of men by nature, 
however wicked they may be in other ways. It would thus appear 
that, just as the state of the fallen angels is irreversible ^ so also is 
that of the Rephaim, and of men who have allied themselves with 
them. This also may account for the commands given to the 
Israelites to destroy them utterly, as being wholly evil themselves 
and the source of untold evil to the rest of the human race. 

If Gush knew from antediluvian tradition, or from other sources, 
the means of establishing intercourse with the spirit world, we may 
be certain that he would not neglect the method of inviting their 
companionship by means of women, and that it would indeed be a 
salient feature of the unholy arts of Paganism, and if this was the 
case, it would fully account for the existence of the giant races of 
Canaan. This receives strong corroboration from the description of 
the Tower of Belus at Babylon by Herodotus. On the top of it was 
the temple of Belus in which was " a handsome couch and table of 
gold." " No mortal," he says, " passes the night there, except one woman 
chosen by the god out of the whole nation" He adds that the priests 

« Smith's Diet, of the Bible, " Giants." 

' Prov. ii. 17, 18 ; xxi. 16. J Eph. iL 1 ; iiL 18. 

^ As implied by Peter and Jude, " Gk>d spared not the angels who sinned." 



THE NEPHILIM 195 



" aasert that the god himself comes to the temple and reclines on the 
bed in the same manner as the Egyptians say happens at the temple 
of Thebes in Egypt, for there also a woman lies in the temple of the 
Theban Jnpiter, and both are said to have no intercourse with men." 
So also he says that the priestess of the oracle at PatersB in Lycia 
18 *^ shot ap daring the night in the temple with the god." ' 

This shows that, both in Babylon and Egypt, the two great 
centres of Paganism, as well as in other places, this intercourse with 
daomons was openly invited, even so late as the time of Herodotus ; 
and it is well known that, among the followers of the revived magic 
and necromancy in modem times, spirit marriages are advocated 
and are said to take place.^ These facts would seem to show 
that the Grecian mythology, which is full of accounts of the amours 
of the gods with mortals, may be founded on something more than 
fable. 

The Persian tradition, before alluded to, which speaks of Djem- 
schid's marriage with the sister, or daughter of a dev, or dsBmon (by 
which we ought probably to understand a Nephilim-bom woman), 
says that from this marriage sprang '' the black and impious race." ^ 
The origin of the black colour of the Cushite or Ethiopian race has 
been long a source of conjecture. Men may become very dark from 
generations of exposure to a tropical sun, but the Hindus, who have 
probably lived three or four thousand years in India, are not only 
not black, but their dark colour is of a superficial character as com- 
pared with that of the negro, and fades in some degree, even during 
a lifetime in a colder climate, while the women are decidedly fairer 
than the men. This is not the case with the negro races, and their 
colour is entirely unaffected by climate, as implied by Scripture, 
^ Can the Ethiopian change his skin ? " (Jer. xiii. 23). Some of the 
lower castes of Hindus are no doubt black, but this may be easily 
accounted for by their marriage with the former Cushite inhabitants. 
Moreover, climate cannot account for the fact that iEthiops, or Cush, 
and his descendants were black from the first, although living in the 
same countries, and under precisely the same conditions, as the other 
descendants of Noah. 

Nimrod is called in the Septuagint "Nimrod the giant," and 

' Herod., i. c. 181, 182. 

* Pember, pp. 385-390. The Chaldean incantations also refer to daemona who 
were supposed to bring men and women into their embraces daring sleep. Thej 
were called ** Incubus and Succubus," or ** The Lilith.'' S%e Lenormant's C%aldean 

3 Smith's Diet, of the BxUe, ''Oianta." 



196 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Osiris, i.6., Nimrod, is always represented as black, while Orion, with 
whom Nimrod has been identified, was represented as a giant of such 
vast strength that he boasted that no animal on earth could cope 
with him. This is also the character of another form of the god, the 
Assyrian Hercules,' and this gigantic stature and strength implies 
therefore his Nephilim descent, while the cruelties related of Ninus 
to those who resisted him were inhuman, and quite in keeping with 
a demoniacal origin. Zohak is represented as equally inhuman. It 
is amongst the black or Cushite races of Africa, the land of Ham, 
that ''Obi," or demon, worship, of which strange tales are told, is 
most fully established ; and the word '* Obi " is clearly cognate with 
" Ob," the Hebrew word for the demons,^ with whom the magicians 
and necromancers of Canaan had communication; and among no 
races do we find such habitual and fiendish cruelty as amongst the 
Obi worshippers of Africa. 

In connection with this subject, a suggestion of Bishop Cumberland, 
in his analysis of the History of Sa/nchoniathon, is, at least, worthy of 
notice. We are told that the intercourse with the Nephilim did not 
take place until *' men began to multiply on the earth," and we may 
conclude that this unholy intercourse, and the wickedness it gave 
rise to, although extending to all, would be most fully developed 
among the godless descendants of Cain. Now it is remarkable that 
Moses, in recording the names of some of the descendants of Cain, 
should mention the birth of one woman, and one only, as of direct 
descent from Cain in the eighth generation, namely, " Naariuih*' the 
sister of Tubal-Cain. This is a departure from the usual manner 
of recording genealogies in Scripture, which only mentions those 
daughters who became wives of men of some other family ; and we 
can only suppose that this mention of Naamah is because she became 
the wife of some person of importance. Bishop Cumberland suggests 
that she was the wife of Ham, and quotes Plutarch, who says that 
the wife of Cronus was " NematuSy* which would be just the Greek 
form of the Hebrew " Naamah." ^ Cronus was indeed one of the 
names of both Cush and Nimrod, but for the reasons before stated 
it was often applied to Ham. 

We may presume that Naamah of the last generation mentioned of 
the descendants of Cain would be more or less influenced by the exist- 
ing Nephilim intercourse, and if she was the wife of Ham it would help 
to account for the transmission, through her, of the occult knowledge 

> See antSy chap. ii. pp. 23, 24. ' Ante, chap. v. p 131. 

3 Cumberland, SanchonicUhan^s History^ p. 107. 



THE NEPHILIM 197 



of the antediluvians, and also for the tendency in her sons Cush and 
Canaan to revive their unlawful practices, and repeat the sin which 
had brought on the world the judgment of the Deluge. 

Now Semiramis, who was first the wife of Oannes, king of Syria, 
i.e., Assyria, was said to be the daughter of the goddess " Derketo," or 
Atergatis,' which may either mean that she was the daughter of 
a Nephib'm-bom woman, or of a Nephilim and a woman, and 
therefore regarded as a goddess or daughter of the gods; and 
as she afterwards bcame the wife of Nimrod, this would confirm 
the Persian tradition that Djemschid, who was either Cush or 
Nimrod, married a woman of demon origin. But, as we have seen, 
Nimrod was himself a giant — i,e., one of those beings which were the 
result of these Nephilim marriages, and in all probability the most 
powerful of them all. This would imply that he was of Nephilim 
descent, a supposition which is supported by the fact that Semiramis 
was first the wife of the Syrian chief Oannes, who was probably 
Nimrod's own father, Cush,^ from whom he took her ; the story being 
in exact accordance with the Grecian myth of Vulcan, Venus and 
Mars.3 If so, Semiramis may have been the mother, as well as the 
wife, of Nimrod, which would not only make him of Nephilim 
descent and account for his gigantic strength, but, in accordance with 
the often-repeated statements of mythology regarding the various 
gods under whose names he was deified, it would make him in actual 
fact " The Son and Husband of the Mother." 

Again, if Nemaus, the wife of Ham, was Naamah the descendant 
of Cain, and therefore thoroughly acquainted with the principles of 
Nephilim intercourse, it is at least possible, even although she herself 
may have been in no sense of Nephilim descent, that she may have 
invited or submitted to Nephilim intercourse. The name " Naamah " 
means "beautiful," and it was because "the Sons of God saw the 
daughters of men that they were fair," that they "left their first 
estate " and took them for wives. Is it possible then that Semiramis, 
celebrated for her beauty, was the daughter of the beautiful Naamah 
by a Nephilim father ? Semiramis is said to be the daughter of the 
goddess " Derketo,'* and Derketo was the wife of Dagon, who is the 

* Lucian, De Dea Syria, vol. iii. pp. 460, 461 ; Hislop, p. 86. 

* See ante, chap. III. p. 67. 

3 Venus was first the wife of Vulcan (i.e., Cush), and was taken from him by 
Mars («.«., Nimrod), see Lempri^re, Vulcan, Mars, etc. If both Cush and Nimrod 
married a Nephilim-born woman, this perhaps would account for the fact tluit 
Djemschid, who married the daughter of a " dev," or daemon, is, in the traditions, 
seemingly identified with both father and son. 



198 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

same as Oannes. The name Oannes may have been applied to Cush 
for the reasons that have been stated, but Oannes and Dagon 
have a distinct personality of their own, and were probably wor- 
shipped as the dsBmons who first taught mankind the principles of 
the Pagan religion. Hence the name Oannes, or Dagon, may have 
been given to a Nephilim husband of Naamah as being of the same 
nature as the antediluvian daemon, and Naamah in consequence 
would be known in mythology as "Derketo," the wife of Dagon, 
Derketo being the feminine form of Dagon.' This is only a sugges- 
tion, but it accounts for the facts connected with the case, while in 
the face of the mutually supporting testimony of profane and sacred 
history, and the facts of Spiritualism, the general conclusions arrived 
at cannot be rejected. 

If then Nimrod and Semiramis were of Nephilim origin and the 
progenitors of the Cushite or Ethiopian race, may it not be possible 
that the black colour of that race, characterised as they ever have 
been by daemon worship, was the result of an ordinance of Ood, or of 
one of those natural laws which, by the f oreordainment of the Creator, 
stamped the descendants of such an union as *' children of da/rlcMss " 
and as the " seed of the Serpent " ? We see, moreover, that just as 
those Scythian races, ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons, who were most 
free from the debasing idolatry of Cush and Nimrod, have become, 
in spite of their orginal barbarism, the highest type of the human 
race at the present day, so the Cushite descendants of Nimrod, in 
spite of their original wisdom and power, have become both morally, 
intellectually, and in their facial type, the most degraded. 

If we now turn to the history of Sanchoniathon the Phoenician,* 
in which he describes the first generations of the human race, we 
find much that confirms the general conclusions arrived at. 

Sanchoniathon lived a few years before the Trojan War, and com- 
piled his history from the records kept in the temples of the gods in 
various cities. It was translated into Greek by Philo, a native of 
Byblus. The portions still extant are fragmentary and disjointed, 
and manifest the general confusion in the history and identity of 
the gods which is characteristic of mythology, but they are in strict 
accordance with the mythologies and cosmogonies of other nations 

' Hislop, p. 264. 

' " Hist, of Sancboniathon," from Cory's FragmenU, Some modem writers have 
sought to discredit this history by suggesting it to be a forgery, but the reasons they 
give for such a suggestion are weak and inconclusive, and their objections are pro- 
bably dictated by the animv>s possessed by certain writers of modem times against 
anything which tends to confirm the human origin of the Pagan gods. See App. £. 



THE NEPHILIM 199 



and with the general testimony of the Pagan writers that have been 
quoted, while they confirm and explain much of the early history of 
the Old Testament. 

He begins by saying that the first mortals were begotten by the 
wind, K<^na and his wife, Baau or Baaut, signifying " Night" It has 
been suggested that Eolpia is the Hebrew " Kol pi Yah" " the voice, 
or the mouth, of Tah, or Jehovah," ^ and the wind is the ancient meta- 
phor for expressing the Spirit of Qod. This, therefore, would simply 
mean that creation was the result of the Word and Spirit of God 
bringing forth life out of darkness and chaoa 

One of these first mortals was called " Protogonus" the Greek for 
" first-bom." This must be Adam, and the other, ^on, is said to have 
** discoveridfruAtfTam trees!' which is evidently a confused tradition of 
Eve's plucking the forbidden fruit, "^on" " age," Greek, a;«», meaning 
^ living, or existence, for a space of time," ^ would be synonjrmous 
with " Eve," which means " living " or " existence." 

"From these descended Genus and Genea." ** Genus" or "be- 
gotten " has the same signification as " Cain" which means " increase 
by generation." "These in times of great drought stretched forth 
their hands to heaven towards the Sun, whom they supposed to be 
the only god, and called him * Beel Samen * " (the PhcBnician for " Lord 
of Heaven "). It would appear that at first there was no rain and 
that the earth was only watered by night dews ; 3 the consequence 
of which would be great drought except in the neighbourhood of 
streams and rivers, and the ground would not yield food except by 
extreme labour, which was the result of the curse pronounced by 
God. This is confirmed by the fact that the rainbow, which is caused 
by the Sun's rays reflected through rain, did not appear until after 
the Deluge, when it is also stated that the curse on the ground 
was removed.4 Hence the Sun, as the cause of great drought, was 
worshipped as a god whose wrath was to be deprecated. 

" To Genus were bom * Phos, * Pur ' and * Phlox ' (meaning * Light,' 
* Fire ' and ' Flame '), who discovered the means of generating fire by 
rubbing together pieces of wood, and taught men the use of it (i.e., 
fire). These begat sons of vast bulk and height, who gave their names 
to the mountains which they occupied — Cassius, Libanvs, Antilibanus 
and Brathu." This is the first mention of giants, and it would appeeur 

» See note, Hodge's Cory, p. 4. The names used, however, are generally the 
Greek equivalents of the Phoenician. 

» Bullinger, Critical Ckmcardance of Greek Test, " Age." 

3 Gen. ii. 5, 6. ^ Gen. viii. 21, 22. 



200 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

that they must have been in some way the result of Nephilim inter- 
course. What follows is significant and may explain this, for San- 
choniathon goes on to say, " These begat, by connection with their 
own mothers, Hypswrani/iis and (or) Mefm/rv/wAis; the women of those 
times without shame having intercourse with any men whom they 
might chance to meet." The names " Hypsuranius " and (or) " Mem- 
ramus" clearly refer to the same person, as they have the same 
signification, namely '' is&wefrom above " (t.e., descended from the gods), 
the one being Greek and the other Phoenician.' The history also 
goes on to say that Hypsuranius had a brother " Usous" but no 
farther mention is made of << Memramus." 

The explanation of this appears to be as follows: The giants, 
although in the generation following that of Phos, Pur and Phlox, 
were not their sons, but the sons of their daughters by Nephilim 
fathers, and these sons again begot Hypsuranius and Usous by their 
own mothera In forsaking God, and in supposing the Sun to be the 
only god, the race of Cain had become without moral restraint, as shown 
by the shamelessness of the women, and were thus defenceless against 
the temptations of evil spirits, and the women, having foUowed the 
paths which lead to the Bephaim, from which there is no return, 
would probably prefer as husbands their heaven-born sons to any 
who were merely men, more especially if, as implied by the Apostles 
Peter and Jude, their angel husbands had met with swift punishment 
for leaving their " first estate." 

After some mention of Usous, who is described as a hunter, the 
history goes on to say, "When all these were dead, those that 
remained consecrated to them staves of wood, and worshipped stelae, 
or pillars, and celebrated feasts in honour of them every year." 
This implies that these Nephilim-descended men were recognised 
to be something more than human. 

" In times long after there were born, of the race of Hypav/ranius, 
Agreus and HaZievs " (i.e., Hunter and Fisherman). The expression 
"of the race" would seem to imply that they were not the sons 
or descendants of Hypsuranius and Usous, but of the same Nephilim 
parentage, and that the Nephilim intercourse had therefore been 
continued or renewed. Of these were begotten two brothers, one 
of whom was Ghryaor^ who is called Hephaestus, and who would 
thus be of Nephilim origin. " He exercised himself in words and 
charms and divinations, wherefore he was worshipped after his 
death as a god." 

' Cumberland, p. 261, and Hodge's Cory^ p. 6, note. 



THE NEPHIUM 201 



This implies that Chrysor, like Hermes and Hea, was a magician 
and sorcerer skilled in the arts of invoking the spirits, and it seems 
probable that he was the means whereby a general intercourse 
with them was established, with the result that the numbers of 
the Nephilim-begotten race rapidly increased, and, being wholly 
wicked, filled the earth with violence. It seems evident that the 
Greek story of the impious PhlegysB descended from Chrysa and 
who were destroyed at the Deluge is a traditional remembrance 
of this.' 

"Of his race were bom TechnUea'' i.c., "the artificer" (who, 
Bishop Cumberland suggests, corresponds to Tubal-Cain) and OeinuB 
AntockOum. These invented bricks and tiling. 

Of these were begotten Agms and AgroueroSy or Agrotea, 
meaning "husbandmen." Agroueros had a wooden statue which 
was much venerated, and "at Byblus, he is called by way of 
eminence the greatest of the god&" 

This Agroueros belongs to the tenth generation from Protogonus, 
or Adam, counted as follows : — 

1. Protogonos. 

2. Genus. 

3. Phos, Pur, Phlox. 

4. Daughters of above.* 

5. The Giants, or Nephilim race. 

6. Hypsuranius and Usous. 

7. Agreus and Halieus. 

8. Chrysor, or Hephaestus. 

9. Technites and Genus Antochthon. 
10. Agroueros, the husbandmen. 

The history proceeds to say that from Agrus and Agroueros, 
** husbandmen and such as hunt with dogs derive their origin," 
and that they are called " Titans, "or " Aletce^ Now the principal 
Titans are said to be "Saturn," i.e., Ham or Gush, "Japetus" or 
Japheth, and " Typhseus " or " Typhon," ^ who would therefore appear 
to be Shem. These are the three sons of Noah, and the Sibyl similarly 
speaks of the three sons of the Patriarch as " Cronus " or " Saturn," 
"Japetus" and "Titan," 4 which would identify Titan, i.e., Shem, 

• The name " Phlegyee " seems to indicate their character. It is probably 
derived from rX^^w, "to inflame with madness or violence," which is also the 
characteristic of those who are possessed by evil spirits. 

' It is significant that it was in the reign of the fourth king that Berosus says 
" Oannes '' the Annedotns appeared. 

Lempri^re, Titanes. ^ See ante, chap. ii. p. 17. 



202 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

with TyphoiL The term " Titans" which was a general term given 
in after ages to the sons of Noah and their immediate descendants 
means "earth-bom/' and was probably given to them as being 
unaffected by the Nephilim intercourse, and in contradistinction to 
those who were, whom the Pagans regarded as " heaven-bom." Hence 
it was a term of contempt, and appears to have been given especially 
to Shem, who is called also by the still more opprobrious name 
of ''Typhon," the name in Egypt given to the evil spirit as the 
enemy of the Pagan gods. 

By this it would appear that Agroueros, ''the huabandToan" 
the father of the Titans, was Noah, and Noah is particularly 
described as a husbandman in Qen. ix. 20. So also, because certain 
of the family of Ham became the originals of the Pagan gods, 
Noah, as their ancestor, became the first or father of the gods, 
and hence is sometimes identified with Saturn, and his history is 
interwoven with that of the gods. This will explain the statement 
of Sanchoniathon, that at Byblos, Agrueros is called " the greatest," 
i.e., the Father " of the goda" 

Sanchoniathon continues, " From these (ie., Agrus and Agroueros) 
were descended Amynvs and Magus and by these were begotten 
Sydyk and Miaor" Misor is clearly Mizraim, the grandson of Noah, 
for Mizraim, the Hebrew name for Egypt, is in Arabic "Miar or 
Misor" ' " From Misor," says the history, " descended Ta^iuttLS who 
invented the writing of the first letters. The Egyptians call him 
ThooTy the Alexandrians Thoyth^ and the Greeks Hermes" Now 
Thoth or Cush was not the son of Misraim who was the father of 
the Mizraimite Egyptians, but Sanchoniathon says afterwards that 
Cronus " gave all Egypt to the god Taautus or Thoth that it might 
be his kingdom " — that is to say, Nimrod, having conquered Egypt 
among other countries, made his father king over it, thus super- 
seding Misor, or Mizraim, and Sanchoniathon therefore represents 
Thoth as the son, or successory of Misor. 

It will be observed that Sanchoniathon, or the priestly chronicles 
from which he obtained his information, make no mention of the 
Deluge which destroyed the Nephilim, or, according to Pagan ideas, 
the gods and god-descended men of the antediluvian world ; for to 
have done so would have condemned their own gods. Instead of 
this, having traced the descent of Thoth, he breaks the narration 
and succession and proceeds: *' Contemporary with these was one 
EliouUf called Hypsistus (that is, 'the Most High') and his wife 

' Hodge's Caty, p. 9, note. 



THE NEPHIUM 203 



Beruih" (or Covenant)/ ''By these were begotten Epigeus, or 
Antocihon, whom they afterwards called 0v/rano8 (Heaven), so 
that from him that element which is over us by reason of its 
excellent beauty is named Heaven, and he had a sister of the 
same parents called Ge (Earth), and by reason of her beauty the 
earth was caUed by the same name."^ 

Now •• Ouranoe " and " Ge," called in Latin " CsbIus " and " Terra " 
were, like Agrueros, the father and mother of the Titans,^ and 
therefore were Noah and his wife, and Ouranos, or Epigeus, is 
therefore the same as Agroueros, as his name Epigeus^ "from, or 
dependent on, the earth," i.e., a '' husbandman," implies. Moreover, 
Sanchoniathon afterwards relates an incident in the history of 
Ouranoe which is evidently the same as that in the history of Noah 
mentioned in Gen. iz. 21-27. 

Ouranos and Ge are stated to be begotten by Elioun, "The 
Most High," and by Beruth "The Covenant." This is simply 
the mystical way, usual to Paganism, of saying that they were 
" bom again " in the new world by " the covenant of God.** ^ For 
throughout the Pagan world the Deluge was regarded as the re- 
generation of the world and the human race. Thus the Brahmans 
claim to be "twice bom" because descended from Brahm, who was 
the father of the Hindu gods Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, whose 
human originals were the three sons of Noah.^ 

In the subsequent history there is much confusion consequent on 
representing these two Noahs, and their respective descendants, as 
distinct, but more especially from the number of different gods who 
are introduced, and to each of which a distinct history is given, 
but whose names are only different deified forms of the same human 
original. Thus the Sons of Ouranos are said to be Cronus or 11 
(i.e., Saturn), BetyhiSy Dagon or Siton^ and Atlas, Betylus, or 
Baiiulos, is a surname of Jupiter. It was the name of the stone 
which Saturn is said to have swallowed in mistake for Jupiter, 
who was consequently called Baitulos.^ Dagon, or Cannes, has been 
identified with Saturn, i.e., Cronus. Atlas is generally represented 

« Beritk, Heb. for " covenant.*' Mumn, "the most high." El Ely 011^ is the word 
translated in Oen. ziv. 18, " the moat high God." Hodge's Cory^ p. 10, note. 

* It will be remembered that Euhemerus says that the name Ouranos was 
given to him because he was the first who honoured the heavenly gods with 
sacrifice. This is the more probable origin of the name, and it is in accordance 
with the statement in Gkn. viii. 20. 

» Lempri^re, Qdw. ^ Gen. vi. 18 ; ix. 9-17. 

5 Ante^ pp. 17, 18 ; Hislop, p. 136. ' Faber, vol. ii. p. 375. 



204 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

as a son of Japheth, but, as he is represented here to be the son of 
Ouranos, he is probably Japheth himself. 

Cronus is said by Sanchoniathon to have begotten three sons, 
" Cnmtw," " Jupiter-Bekus " and " Apollo" who are all different forms 
of the same god. Then we have ^scvlapius, another form of the 
same god, mentioned as the son of Sydyk ; so also HercvZes, Cupid, 
Rhea, Asta/rtey Minerva, and others, are mentioned as contemporary 
with the above and in various relations with them. This is just 
what we might expect from an historian who coUected the stories 
concerning them from various sources in which the same god or 
goddess was mentioned under different names. *'Typhon" and 
" Pontus ** are also mentioned as contemporary with these, and Nereus, 
the father of Pontus. As Pontus is the same as Oceanvs,^ who 
was a son of CsbIus and Terra, this would make Nereus to be Noah, 
and the name " Nereus," which means " watery," is probably a name 
given to him in connection with the Deluge. If then Typhon is 
Shem, Pontus, or Oceanus, would be Japheth. By the Greeks, 
Japetus, their ancestor, was regarded as the father of mankind, and 
similarly Oceanus was called by them " the father of the gods," which 
is, of course, the same thing. Japetus also became a term for 
extreme old age, and Oceanus is also represented as an extremely old 
man.^ The countries first inhabited by the descendants of Japheth 
were the shores of the Pontus Euxinus and Mediterranean, which 
constituted *' the isles, or shores of the Gentiles." Hence the titles 
Oceanus and Pontus given to Japheth. 

Sanchoniathon speaks of the elder Cronus as the son of Ouranos, 
whereas he was really his grandson. This is due partly to the 
tendency before alluded to, to confuse Ham and Cush together, and 
also to the custom among the ancients of speaking of all the 
direct descendants of any important person as his sons. 

The rest of the history is principally concerning the war between 
Cronus and Ouranos, in which Thoth is represented as the counsellor 
of Cronus and as stirring up the allies of Cronus to oppose Ouranos, 
Here there is evidently a confusion of the first and second Cronus, as 
it would seem to be the elder Cronus who is here spoken of, and he is 
the same as Thoth, i,e., Cush. Thoth was the counsellor of Tammuz 
and of Osiris, and both the latter are the same as the second Cronus, 
i.e., Nimrod, which accounts for the mistake of Sanchoniathon or of 
Philo, his transcriber. 

This war which the elder Cronus made against Ouranos or Noah 
' Lempri^re, Pontus. ' IhidU — Japetus and Ooeanus. 



THE NEPHIUM 205 



requires notice. We have seen that the elder Cronos, or Cnsh, was 
the ringleader in the building of the Tower of Babel. That tower was 
not, as some have supposed, an attempt to erect a place of refuge 
against a future Deluge. At the most, it could only have afforded 
room for a few hundred persons, and if it had been intended for 
that purpose the builders would have chosen a mountain rather than 
the low-lying plains of Babylon. It was, as is evident from the 
description of it by Herodotus, for the purpose of idolatrous worship, 
or for seeking communication with the demon gods of Paganism,' 
by which they thought to ''reach heaven" and become immortal 
This is further proved by its name. '' Bahel " has now become a term 
for confuoiom,^ but it is well known that its original meaning is 
" hah eJ," or ''Bah il" " the gate of God." 

It was the custom among the Pagans to select " high places " and 
" every high hill " as places of worship,* from which it would seem 
that such places were supposed to possess special advantages for 
seeking the aid of the daimonia. Perhaps it was supposed that the 
higher regions of the atmosphere were more especially the abode of 
these spirits ; and the expression used by the Apostle Paul, '' the 
spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places" and the title given 
to Satan, " The Prince of the power of the air" 3 tends to confirm 
this view. But it is also probable that they were chosen on account 
of the solitude and secrecy they afforded. 

The professed object of the builders of Babel, — " lest we be scattered 
abroad upon the earth," — implies that, by the erection of a mighty 
central temple, it was thought to attract the worship of all and bring 
them together ; but the real object of the proposer was probably to 
bring them under the dominion of the daimonia, and be himself the 
high priest of their religion. This receives support from his after 
history, when, having been foiled in his first attempt, he endeavoured, 
through the strength and military prowess of his son, to establish 
their worship and bring the world under their dominion. 

The building of Babel for the purpose of idolatrous worship was 
an act of open rebellion against Heaven, which Noah would certainly 
have opposed, and being the first who offered sacrifices to Heaven, 
he would be the representative of Heaven^ and it was this, rather 
than the reason given by Sanchoniathon, that was more probably 
the origin of his name "Ouranos," or "Heaven." For men were 

' Herod., lib. I cap. 181, 182. 

' As in the case of the idolatrous Israelites (Ezek. vi. 13, etc.). 

' Eph. vi. 12 ; ii. 2. 



2o6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

called after the name of their gods, as in the case of the Brahmins, 
Buddhists, etc., and the name '' Heaven " probably originated in the 
fact that Noah worshipped the god of those heavens which had 
poured forth the Deluge on the eart;h, and against whom the idolaters 
rebelled. 

The building of Babel, in which Cush (ie., Cronus or Saturn) was the 
ringleader, was no doubt the origin of the war of Cronus against 
Ouranos or Heaven described by Sanchoniathon. This war must be 
the same also as the war in Grecian mythology of the Titans, who 
were the descendants of Noah, against Ouranos, and in which war 
Saturn {i.e., the elder Cronus) is said to have been the ringleader.' In 
the account given by Sanchoniathon, Cronus is represented as successful, 
and Ouranos was obliged to fly from his dominions. This may very 
well have been the case, for the building of such a tower as Babel 
could not have been undertaken while the Patriarch was supported 
by the bulk of his descendant& Thoth, it will be remembered, is 
mentioned as stirring up "the allies of Cronus," i.6., the other 
descendants of Noah, to oppose Ouranoa 

In the Qreek story the war of Saturn and the Titans against Coelus, 
or Ouranos, is represented to have been undertaken on account of the 
cruelty of Coelus, who confined all his children in the bowels of the 
earth ; while Sanchoniathon represents Ouranos as endeavouring to 
kill his children. This is the colouring given to the story by the 
idolaters, who have ever adopted the method of misrepresenting and 
vilifying the followers of the true God, as in the case of the early 
Christians, who were represented by the Pagan priesthood as enemies 
of the human race. Ouranos, or Noah, must have protested, as he 
did in the days before the Deluge, against the demon worship ad- 
vocated by Cush (i.e., the elder Cronus), and must have condemned 
the seeking of that occult knowledge which promised to enable men 
to obtain the satisfaction of their natural lusts and desires, and make 
them seemingly independent of God. This limitation to the condi- 
tions of earthly existence as ordained by God, and submission to Him 
who had destroyed the antediluvian world, was no doubt represented 
by Cronus, or by the priesthood who in after ages related the story, 
as confining men in the bowels of the earth and endeavouring to kill 
them. 

Both Sanchoniathon and the Greek story agree in representing 
Cronus as mutilating Ouranos in order to prevent him having any 
more children. This may be an exaggeration of the incident related 

* Lempribre, Titanes and ScUumtu. 



THE NEPHILIM 207 



in Gen. ix. 21-24 ; but by the expression used in ver. 24 it would 
appear that aamething was done to Noah, and it also appears [that he 
had no more children. 

The next point of importance in the History of Sanchoniathon is 
the statement that Cronus slew two of his own children, and that the 
act created '' great amazement/' and that afterwards, " when a plague 
or mortality happened, Cronus offered up his only son as a sacrifice to 
his father Ouranoa" This, as already pointed out, seems to have 
been the origin of human sacrifice. 

We must here refer again to Porphyry's account of the origin of 
these sacrifices: — ^''It was the custom among the ancients in times 
of great calamity, in order to prevent the ruin of all, for the rulers 
of the city, or nation, to sacrifice to the avenging deities the most 
beloved of their children as the price of redemption ; they who were 
devoted for this purpose were offered mystically. For Cronus, 
whom the PhcBnicians call H, and who after death was deified and 
installed in the planet which bears his name (Saturn), when he was 
king had by ' a nymph of the country* called ' Anobret,' an only son, 
who on that account is styled * leoud,' for so the Phoenicians call an 
only son, and when great danger from war beset the land, he adorned 
the altar and invested his son with the emblems of royalty and 
sacrificed him."' An example followed by the king of Moab.^ 

Great attempts, especially by Bryant,^ have been made to prove 
that this mystical sacrifice was done to foreshadow the death of 
Christ, the only-begotten son of Oody who in Hebrew is called M, 
while the name of the nymph " Anobret " is said by some to mean 
"Grace," in order to identify her with the Virgin Mary, who was 
addressed by the angel as "much graced." By Bryant the name 
"Anobret" is said to mean " fountain of light," implying thereby that 
she prefigured the Virgin, as she from whom came Christ, " the light 
of the world." But the suggestions are forced and unnatural. The 
terms mentioned are only found in the New Testament, and were 
therefore unknown at that time, and it supposes that the idolatrous 
Phoenicians had a special revelation of things to come, unmentioned 
in Scripture and unknown to the chosen people of God. 

The name " Anobret " has probably a very different signification. 
Both Philo and Porphyry, from whom Eusebius obtained his history 
of Sanchoniathon, invariably give the Greek equivalents of Phoenician 
names. The name " Anobret " would therefore appear to be derived 



* Sanchoniathon, from Porphyry, Cory, Fragments^ pp. 16, 17. 

^ 2 Kings iii. 27 ; Micah vi. 5-7. ' Hodge's Cory, pp. 19, 20. 



2o8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

from "^i-w," "heavenly," and ''Bm&g" or "jS/^otrft." The word 
"Ppir&g" means "an image/' and "the heavenly image" wonld 
signify "the image, or likeness, of the gods," according to Pagan 
ideas. It is quite possible, however, that the name has been altered 
in the several transcriptions from the original author, and that 
" Anobrot " was the real name. If so, the name would have a 
peculiar significance, for PpoHg is "mortal," and Anobrot would 
therefore be "the heavenly mortal," which, according to Pagan 
ideas, would signify that she was the daughter of a Nephilim 
father. It is possible, however, that the name was given because, 
in accordance with the principle of Paganism, by the change of a 
letter it could be given this twofold meaning. 

Now " Anobret," the wife of Cronus or Cush, must be Semiramis, 
who is said by Ctesias to have been " a foundling child " (" a nymph 
of the cowntry "), the daughter of the goddess Derketo ; and that 
Oannes (i,e.^ Cush), governor of Syria, married her on account of her 
beauty, and took her with him when he accompanied Ninus to the 
Bactrian War. There she was seen by Ninus, who took her from 
Oannes and married her himself.^ The name of the nymph Anobret, 
or Anobrot, thus tends to confirm the Nephilim origin of Semiramia 

The sacrifice of his son by Cronus, t.6., Saturn, is the origin not 
only of the human sacrifices of the Phoenicians, Cflirthaginians, 
Hindus, Mexicans and Celtic nations, but of ca/riTUxbaZiam. For 
Cronus was king of the Cyclops,* with whom the practice is said to 
have originated. In the Greek story Saturn is said to have obtained 
the kinojdom of Coelus, or Ouranos, by the consent of his brother, 
" Titan/' i.e., Shem, on condition that he did not bring up any more 
male children, and that, in order to conceal them, he devoured them 
as soon as they were born. Another account says that he devoured 
them because he had been informed by an oracle that they would 
avenge his cruelty on his father Ouranos.^ We know that it was the 
universal custom for the priests to eat the sacrifices. " Are not they 
who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar ? " ^ It would thus 
seem that the charge against Saturn was true, and that, in order 
to propitiate his demon gods, and probably in obedience to their 
teaching, he offered his sons in sacrifice to them, and, as sacrificing 
priest, ate the sacrifice thus offered. The author of Nimrod says, 
" The tyrant Zoroaster, of the line of Cham (Ham), was one of the 
founders of the Tower of Babel ; he sacrificed innumerable victims to 

' LenormaDt, Anc. Hist of Easty p. 365. * Ante^ p. 34. 

3 Lempribre, Satumus, ^ 1 ()or. ix. 12, 13; z. 18. 



THE NEPHILIM 209 



the daamons ; " ' and the same is recorded of Zohak.' This Zoroaster 
is plainly the Chaldean Zoroaster, who we have seen to be Nimrod, 
who might be expected, from his Nephilim origin, to surpass even his 
father in these bloody sacrifices. Hence we find that the sacrifice of 
the first-horn to the Son god Osiris, that is, Nimrod, was one of the 
most notorious of the Egyptian rites.3 This gives a peculiar signi- 
ficance to the judgment of God on '^ all the first-horn " in Egypt in a 
single night. 

This was also the origin of the human sacrifices to Baal and 
Moloch, to whom child/ren were especially acceptable, and we may 
presume that the priests of the Canaanitish nations were also 
cannibals. The fiendish character of all these sacrifices gives strong 
probability to the suggestion that they were the result of demon 
teaching ; and yet, just as may be observed in the " spirit " teaching 
of the present day, which makes a pretence of righteousness and 
quotes the Bible, so it is probable that the former spirit teaching 
with regard to the sacrifice of children was mixed up with the 
original promise of the Redeemer, who was to be ** the seed of the 
woman." For it was plain from that promise that, in overcoming 
the enemy of the human race, He was to suffer in so doing, and this, 
coupled with the institution of sacrifice for sin, recognised by Qod as 
such, may well have suggested, even to men, that the Redeemer 
would have to die in order to accomplish the redemption of man. 
How much more might this be known to the prince of the demons, 
who would be only too ready to make use of the knowledge to give 
an appearance of mystical sanctity to a sacrifice which has been the 
cause of such appalling sufiering to millions of the human race ! 

The Greek story of Saturn devouring his children goes on to say 
that Rhea (i.6., Semiramis), the wife of Saturn, in order to save her 
children, gave him a stone instead of .Jupiter (i.e., Nimrod), when he 
was bom. Jupiter, or Diespiter, was the supreme god of the Aryan 
nations, but the Greeks, who subsequently adopted the religion of 
the Phoenicians and Egyptians, bestowed the attributes and history 
of the chief god of the latter on Jupiter, and called him, like Osiris, 
the son of Saturn, thus identifying him with Nimrod. Hence the 
story implies that Semiramis, when Nimrod was born and was about 
to be sacrificed to his gods by Gush, substituted a stone for him, and 
as the sacrifice was by burning after the child had been killed, it 

* Nimrod^ vol. i. p. 146 ; Compn. 0/666, p. 25. 
' Lenormant, Anc. Hist, of East, vol. ii. p. 22. 
3 Transactions Victoria Institute, vol. xiv. p. 113. 



2IO THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



would not have been difficult to deceive the father, or the priest in 
charge of the sacrifice, by placing a suitably-shaped stone bound in 
swaddling clothes on the altar. Now this, according to Hesiod, is 
just what Rhea did. She presented her husband with a stone bound 
in swaddling bands to represent a child.' 

This stone was called in Grecian mythology " Baitulos," and was 
a surname given to Jupiter.* " Betylus " was another name for this 
stone. In Rome, Jupiter was called ''Jupiter the Stone" and 
** Jupiter Terminalis," " Terminus " being another name for the stone 
which Saturn is said to have swallowed instead of Jupiter.^ " Ter- 
minus/' a " boundary/' was worshipped in Rome as a distinct deity, 
and was represented by a square stone. He was called '' the god of 
boundaries/' ^ the idea being evidently based on the mistaken signi- 
fication which the Romans gave to the bands with which the stone 
was bound in order to represent the " swaddling bands " of a child. 
From this it appears arose the worship of stones, which were the 
symbols of so many of the gods.5 They were representations of the 
god, and of the means by which his life was spared. Hence also 
the name BaitvZoa given to the swaddled stone, which means " life 
restored child/* ^ 

In the Greek story, Titan, or Shem, is said to have allowed his 
brother'' Saturn the empire of the world on condition that he reared 
no more male children, but that when the birth of Jupiter, i.«., 
Nimrod, was concealed, he made war against him and overpowered 
him.® The actual facts were, as we shall see, that in consequence of 
the cruelties of Nimrod and the obscene idolatry and demon worship 
which he forced upon the nations whom he conquered, Shem obtained 
the condemnation and judicial execution of Nimrod in Egypt, of 
which country Nimrod had made his father king, and the latter had 
in consequence to fly to Latium in Italy .9 The Greek story is mani- 
festly a misrepresentation, inasmuch as it was through Nimrod that 
the empire of the world was obtained by the Cushites, and that 
empire, therefore, did not exist before his birth. But it would appear 
that the priesthood, in order to conceal the real truth, which would 

' Hesiod, Theogonia, lines 485, etc., pp. 38, 41. 

' Priscian, lib. v. vol. i. p. 189 note; and lib. vi. vol. i. p. 249; Hislop, 
p. 300. 

3 Faber, vol. ii. pp. 375-377. ^ Lempridre, Terminiu. 

5 Faber, vol. ii. pp. 375-377. ^ Hislop, p. 300, and note. 

7 Saturn was really his nep/iewj but by the ancients such relationship was spoken 
of as brother. 

* Lempri5re, Titan. ^ See chap, xii., "The Death of the Pagan God." 



THE NEPHILIM 211 



have thrown discredit on their religion, ascribed the action taken by 
Shem to the fact that the life of Nimrod was concealed or spared, 
which was true in a sense, because it was in consequence of the life 
of Nimrod and the idolatry propagated by him that Shem obtained 
his condemnation, and that Saturn or Cush lost his kingdom. More- 
over, we may well conceive that Shem protested against the Nephilim 
intercourse instituted by Cush, and the rearing of a Nephilim race 
of beings, which had before brought upon the world the awful 
judgment of the Deluge. 

The reason why Titan is represented as making war against 
Saturn, i,e,, Cush, rather than Nimrod, is because the overthrow of the 
latter and of idolatry was in Egypt, of which Cush was king. 

The conclusions arrived at may be briefly recapitulated as 
follows : — 

Idolatry, or the worship of spirits of evil, supposed by the 
idolaters to be the spirits of the dead, originated in antediluvian 
times, and seems to have been the result, in the first case, of the 
teachings of fallen angels, and possibly of Satan himself, which pre- 
pared the way for their intercourse with the daughters of men and 
the consequent production of a race of giants, who, being wholly 
wicked themselves, corrupted the rest of mankind and filled the 
world with violence. This idolatry was further advanced by Chrysor, 
who was the first Hephaestus, and the first Thoth or Hermes, and he 
was probably himself of Nephilim descent 

The same idolatry was revived after the Deluge by Cush, who 
was the second Thoth, the " Thrice Great Hermes," the " Inventor of 
Letters and the Worship of the Gods," " Meni," the " Numberer," " the 
All-wise Belus," " Hea, the God of Understanding," etc. That he ob- 
tained the knowledge, as tradition says, from writings buried before 
the Deluge is absurd, and this was probably invented in order to give 
the sanctity of antiquity to his teaching. It is more probable that 
he obtained it through, and was influenced by, his mother Nemaus, 
who, there is strong reason for believing, was the same as Naamah, 
the sister of Tubal-Cain. 

As in one of his deified forms he was known as '* Saturn," the 
father of the gods, who was the husband of '* Rhea," that is, Semir- 
amis, it seems certain that he was *' Cannes," the first husband of 
Semiramis. Tradition seems to show that the latter, so celebrated 
for her beauty, her talents and energy, her lasciviousness and cruelty, 
was of Nephilim parentage, and that Nimrod was probably her sou 
and was subsequently her husband. There also seems a strong pro- 



212 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

bability that the blackness of the iEthiopian race was due to this 
Nephilim parentage, as stated by the Persian tradition, and was the 
result of a law of God by which He stamped them as '' children of 
darkness " and " seed of the serpent." This would account for its 
avdden appearance in the human race, which would otherwise be un- 
accountable. That this first appeared in Cush, or " ^thiops/' which 
means " blackness/' ^ is doubtful, for the name may have been given 
him merely because he was the father of the Ethiopians, or black 
race.^ Nimrod was certainly black, and the blackness may have first 
showed itself in him as the son of a Nephilim-bom woman. 

The statements of Herodotus seem to show that it was a recog- 
nised custom of the Pagan priesthood to invite this Nephilim inter- 
course by means of especially selected women. Perhaps this was one 
of the conditions on which the priesthood obtained their unquestion- 
able powers, and by which they obtained dominion of the rest of 
mankind. If also, as implied by Solomon (Prov. ii 18, 19 ; vii. 24-27), 
unrestrained debauchery is the surest way of destroying all moral 
principle in man, and, therefore, of blinding him to the evil of the 
grossest idolatry, then the obscene Phallic worship, of which Cush 
and Nimrod were the originators, was doubtless also the result of 
demon teaching, as being the surest way of bringing mankind under 
their dominion. So likewise we must conclude that the cruel and 
unnatural human sacrifices which Cush instituted, and which were 
offered to the demon gods, were likewise the result of their teaching, 
and a condition on which their aid was purchased. 

' Cruden, "Cush," "Ethiopia." ' See ante, p. 195. 



CHAPTER X 

THE SUN, THE SERPENT, THE PHALLUS AND THE TREE 

The daimonia, supposed to be spirits of the dead, the worship of 
and intercourse with whom was initiated by Hermes, were, as we have 
seen, the real gods of Paganism ; but an equally important feature of 
the Hermetic teaching, and one which gave it a yet more sinister 
aspect, was the worship of the Sun and Serpent, with which were 
associated the PhaUus and the Tree or Cross, and by means of which 
the idolaters were eventually led, by a gradual process of develop- 
ment, to worship the Prince of the demons himself. 

Some writers have superficially concluded that the worship of the 
Sun is a spontaneous product of the human mind in the case of 
people in the state of barbarism, because this worship is found in 
most of the savage races at the present day. But it is evident to 
those who have studied the question that these barbarous races must 
have been emigrant offshoots of the great nations of antiquity, from 
whom, therefore, they inherited their religious ideas. This is proved 
by numberless peculiar and arbitrary habits, customs and religious 
rites, which they have in common with those nations and by the 
evidence of language and tradition. Their barbarism has been the 
natural result of centuries of isolation from the centres of thought 
and civilisation, and the absence of all stimuli for improvement ; but 
their reUgion has been inherited and not invented. 

The immediate descendants of Noah were not barbarous, but the 
possessors of the knowledge and civilisation of the antediluvian world 
which, according to tradition, in its great centres at least, must have 
been of a colossal character.' This, indeed, we might expect from the 
great longevity of antediluvian man ; for what decree of knowledge 
might not be attained if, instead of the experience of some sixty or 
seventy years, each possessed in himself the knowledge and experi- 
ence of centuries ! Now, according to tradition, this knowledge was 

' As in the story of Atlantis, related by the Egyptian priests to Solon, and 
recorded by Plato. 

213 



214 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

preserved by the postdiluvians, and Cush, the great Hermes, the all- 
wise Belus, was the author of the famous wisdom of the Chaldeans. 
Consequently we find that civilisation, as in the case of Egypt, was 
at its highest in the earliest period of its history. 

The first descendants of Noah also possessed the knowledge of the 
true God ; and the fear of Him, which the destruction of the ante- 
diluvian world produced on their minds, and for long afterwards, is 
evidenced by the fact that the record of that event is preserved even 
to the present day by nearly all nations, including the barbarous 
nations before mentioned, which is a further proof that they were 
ofishoots of the great nations of antiquity. It is absurd to suppose, 
therefore, that the worship of the Sun was the result of a general and 
spontaneous superstition on the part of the first descendants of Noah, 
while on the other hand everything points to the fact that the first 
form of Sun worship weis the product of an ingenious and atheistical 
mind, using sophistry to persuade others to worship the powers of 
nature and withdraw men from the worship of the true God. 

There are men now who, in spite of the evidences of the truth 
of Christianity, rebel against the idea of a God who is the moral 
governor of the world, and who seek to prove, and to propagate the 
belief, that the first cause of all things is a mere law, pursuing with 
undeviating regularity the course of nature, unheeding, and unaffected 
by moral considerations. So it may have been with Cush and 
Nimrod, the first great rebels of the postdiluvian world, against the 
authority of God. 

For the better understanding of the subject it will be as well to 
give first a short summary of the teaching of Hermes with regard to 
the worship of the Sun and the Serpent. 

The cosmogonies of the various Pagan nations all speak of a msde 
and female principle in the production of the world, and in this they 
are so far supported by the letter of Scripture, which, in the account 
of Creation, speaks of the earth as if it were a mother ** bringing 
forth " both vegetables and animals, and the waters, in like manner, 
as " bringing forth " the creatures which inhabit them. If then the 
earth was the great Mother, might not the Sun, without whose heat 
and light, life, both animal and vegetable, perishes, which seems to 
quicken the dead seed, and even to call into being innumerable forms 
of the lower orders of animal life — might not the Sun be the great 
Father and origin of all life ? We know indeed that there can be no 
life except as generated by previous life, and therefore that the first 
origin of all life must be " The Ever Living." But the above and 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 215 



similar argDments would not be without weight on those who " did 
not wish to keep God in their knowledge " (Rom. i. 28). 

It would not have been possible, however, to lead men to reject 
the true God, and to regard the great planet as the Creator of all 
things, by merely representing him to be the author of natural life. 
The consciousness of sin and ill desert, and the apprehension of future 
evil, which burdens in a greater or less degree the whole human race, 
demands relief, and therefore, in order to meet this need of the human 
mind, the religious rites of Paganism purported to be for " the puri- 
fication of sin,'' and the Sun god was represented to be the source of 
that purification. 

The means by which men were persuaded to believe this is char- 
acteristic of the whole genius of Paganism. 

The essential principle of its teaching was making use of the 
double meaning of words, a common weapon still in the arguments of 
sophistry, which by a sudden and unrecognised change of meaning 
leads the hearer to adopt entirely false conclusions. This double 
meaning of words is characteristic of all language ; for spiritual and 
moral things are always expressed by words, the primary meaning 
of which relates to material things. Thus we speak of "eating," 
" digesting," " drinking in " knowledge, " growing in it," etc., and in 
no book is this metaphorical language more used than in the Bible, 
the great object of which is to teach the meaning of spiritual truth. 
To understand such language in the letter is entirely to lose its 
meaning ; it is to substitute the material type for the spiritual reality. 
Hence the Apostle says that " the letter killeth but the spirit (i.«., the 
spiritual meaning of the words) giveth life." The very metaphor of 
" the Sun " is used by Scripture for God, as in the case where Christ is 
called '* The Sun of righteousness " ; but to read such passages in the 
letter, would naturally lead men to worship the visible material Sun, 
instead of the unseen God. 

Sun and Fire Worship. — By designedly confusing the material 
with the spiritual, the Pagans substituted the material for the spiritual. 
Everything with them had an " exoteric " or outward meaning, and an 
" esoteric " or inward meaning. The Sun was exoterically the sup- 
posed source of natural life, but esoterically it was represented to 
be the source of spiritual life. Hence tire, as the great purifier of 
material things, and regarded also as an emanation from the Sun, was 
represented to be also the purifier of the soul from sin. Fire is 
indeed used as a material type for spiritual purification throughout 



2i6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the Scripture, and, from the first, the typical sacrifices for sin were 
burnt by fire. It was doubtless the general recognition of this that 
afforded the originators of idolatry a basis on which to work, in order 
to persuade men that the material type was itself the source of 
spiritual purification. In this, as in others of its features. Paganism 
was based, not on error unsupported by truth, but on error founded 
on the perversion of recognised truth. 

Thus in the rites of Zoroaster it was said that " he who approached 
to fire would receive a light from divinity*' and that " through divine 
fire all the stains produced by generation would be purged away." ' 
Hence the practice of passing children through the fire to Moloch. 
Among the Hindus the sacred fire, kept perpetually burning, is thus 
invoked : " Fire, thou dost expiate a sin against the gods, may this 
oblation be efficacious. Thou dost expiate a sin against mcui ; thou 
dost expiate a sin against the Manes, thou dost expiate a sin against 
my own soul, thou dost expiate repeated sins, thou dost expiate every 
sin which I have committed, whether wilfully or unintentionally; 
may this oblation be efficacious." ^ The same sacred fire, kept always 
burning, and attended by vestal virgins, and kindled anew every year 
from the rays of the Sun, weis, as already shown, a prominent feature 
throughout Paganism, and was regarded as divine, an emanation from 
the Sun, or Great Father, and a^s a source of spiritual life and 
regeneration. But although this spiritual aspect was given to the Sun, 
and to fire as the emanation from the Sun, in order to quiet the con- 
sciences of men, the real aspect of the Sun was as the source of natural 
life and natural generation. Hence the deification of the Phallus as 
the manifestation of that natural life and generation in the animal 
world. 

In like manner the Sun as the source of natural liglit was repre- 
sented to be the source of spiritual light and of divine wisdom and 
knowledge, which, as in the case of the Sun god Apollo at Delphi, 
and other oracles, was believed to be revealed at his shrines. It was 
nnder this aspect that the Sun was especially identified with the 
Serpent, the form which the Prince of the Demons took when he 
persuaded Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good 
and evil, and the Serpent was thus represented in Paganism to be 
the bestower of knowledge and wisdom on man. But that know- 
ledge and wisdom related only to the things of this world, the 

' Proclus in TimceOy p. 805 ; Hislop, p. 120. 

' Colebrook, " Religious Ceremonies of Hindus,'' in Asiat. Res.y vol. vii. p. 273 ; 
Hislop, p. 121. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 217 



knowledge by which Hermes taught men the means of attaining the 
natural desires of the heart, the wisdom which the Apostle speaks of as 
" earthly, sensual (psychical), devilish " (demoniacal) — (Jas. iii. 15). 

Similarly the Serpent was identified with the Sun as the source 
of life, but the life of which the Serpent was said to be the source 
was, as we shall see, natural life and generation, the knowledge of 
producing which he is represented as revealing to man. 

Finally trees, and the cross as the symbol of a tree, were held to 
be sacred as symbols of the Sun god, because the tree was regarded 
as the manifestation of the principle of life in the vegetable kingdom, 
just as the Phallus was regarded as the manifestation of that life in 
the animal kingdom. 

The revived Hermetic teaching of the present day affords a fair 
illustration of its general character, and a few extracts from it will 
therefore be quoted. 

Dupuis writes : " The religion of Zoroaster, which has given us 
the key of Qenesis and the explanation of the enigma of the 
destroying serpent, is that also which gives the explanation of the 
Lamb, or the Sun triumphant over darkness. The vernal equinox 
being the time of the celebration of the festival of Hilaria, the 
Sun of Spring has the power of attracting virtuoua aovla towards 
himself. This gives the explanation of the following passage from 
the Gospel, ' I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things 
with me.' " ' 

This is the sort of modem teaching on the subject, and is an 
illustration of the method alluded to, by which the material influence 
of the Sun is represented as spiritual, and identified with that of 
Christ. So again, the author of " Sun Worship " quotes the Gospel 
of St John, " In him {the Sun) was life, and the life was the light of 



men.*' ^ 



Again, the last author, speaking of the proposed liturgies for the 
worship of the Sun, says, "The second prayer should specially 
be an adoration of the Sun, the sermon, or discourse, after the 
singing of another hymn, would be varied as they now are in the 
churches, with the exception that the prophet of Nazareth would 
be delegated to his true position, and not appealed to or worshipped 
as God." He also says, " All the various deities, as Jehovah, Jupiter, 
Hercules, Mithras, Ammon, Adonis, Baal, Bel, Horus, Buddha, 
Chrishna, Jesus, and many others, are but different names, in 

' Dupuis, pp. 33-35, quoted from Compn. ofQ66, p. 24. 
* " Sun Worship," from Compn. 0/666, p. 33. 



2i8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



various ages, for the Son and his phenomena and various mani- 
f estations." ' 

Another modem Theosophist, speaking of the Rosy Cross of the 
Rosicrucians, says, "This (the Rosy Cross) is the Narutz, Natzir, 
or Rose of Ishuren, of Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water Rose, the 
Lily, Padma, Rema, Lotus, crujcijied for the scUvcUian of Man^-^ 
crucified in the heaven at the vernal equinox." 

To understand what follows, it must be remembered that Uie 
numerals of the Greeks and other nations were represented by 
the letters of their alphabets, and they in consequence represented 
their gods by the numerical value of the letters composing their 
names, which number was therefore called "the number of their 
names "^ {vide Rev. xiii 17) Certain numbers also had often a 
natural symbolic relation and significance as regarded their gods, 
and the letters expressing such numbers became also a symbol of 
the God. 

The above writer goes on to say that, "The symbol of the 
Narutz or Rose was P2S (RSX) = 360 ; and the BP2 (XRS), or cross, 
or crs, or with the letter e (epsilon) added, the Rose = 365, in short 
the god of day, or Divine Wisdom,**^ 

It will be observed that this writer identifies the cross with 
the Sun. This is quite in accordance with the ancient Paganism, 
in which the cross was the symbol of the Sun god, the cross being 
the symbol of the tree, and the tree being the manifestation in 
the vegetable world of the life of which the Sun was the supposed 
source.^ 

The ode to the Sun of Martianus Capellus gives perhaps the 
best view of the ancient adoration. " Latium invokes 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 formes t the numbers of the months 
and that number of hours. They say that thou guidtst four winged 

' **Sun Worship,'' from Compn. 0/666, p. 33. 

- Lt'normaiit remarks: "One of the tablets in the Library of Nineveh gives 
a list of the priucipiU gods, each with his mystic number" {Chaldean Magic and 
Sorccn/, p. 25). 

i 2fiinluHi: T/ieir Origin and Destim/, pp. 303, 304; Compn. of 666, p. 246. 
H (xi) = 60 : R (rho) = 100 ; 2 (sigma) = 2o6 ; total 360, the number of days in the 
Egyptian year, or with the addition of E ^epsilon) = 5, 365. These numbers, denoting 
the real or supposed length of the solar year, were used by the Pagans as symbols 
of the Sun god, called by the writer ^Uhe Divine Wi^domJ* 

* See infra, p. 226. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 219 

steeds, because thon alone mlest the chariot of the elements. For 
dispelling darkness thou revealest the shining heavena Hence they 
esteem thee Phoebus (Apollo), the discoverer of the secrets of the 
future, or because thou preventest nocturnal crimes. Egypt worships 
thee as IscBan Serapis, and Memphis as Osiris. Thou art worshipped 
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 barren Libya, and the Adonis of Byblos. 
Thus under varied appellations the whole world worships thee. 
Hail, thou true image of the gods and of thy father's face, thou 
whose sacred name, surname, and omen, three letters make to agree 
with the number 608." ' 

What these three letters were, we learn from the author of 
The Origin and Destiny of Man: "The Sun," he says, "had 
the mystic surname of Bacchus, I. H. S. This mystic name consists 
of three letters the numerical value of which is 608. This number, 
608, is one of the cycles." ^ 

The meaning of the above seems to be as follows : — I (iota) stood 
for Bacchus, called also lacchus, or for lairia, the Egyptian form of 
Osiris or Bacchus ; H (eta) stood for Helioa the Sun ; and 2 (sigma) 
for ZoTO, or Zero, the seed ; ^ thus signifying " Bacchus," or " lacchus," 
"the son, or incarnation of the Sun." But in using these three 
letters a double mystification seems to have been introduced. Their 
actual numerical value is only 218; for 1=10, H = 8, and 2 = 200; 
but the B, V and I were interchangeable with the Greek T (upsilon) 4 
and as T = 400, the numerical value of TH2 would be 608. 
The letters I. H. S., which are here said to represent the mystic sur- 
name of Bacchus, appear to have been a sacred symbol in India, from 
the Cushite Barneses of which country the Egyptians seem to have 
obtained much of their later idolatry. The symbol has been found on 
coins of the Maharajah of Cashmere.s 

The names of the Sun gods were given them so that, while the 
word expressed some supposed attribute of the god, its numerical 
value should be symbolic of the Sun, as in the case of the HP2 of 
the Rosicrucians. Thus the Sun god Mithra, or Mithras, was wor- 
shipped as the Mediator, and was symbolised by a Lion with a 

' From Compn. 0/6G6, pp. 152, 153. 

' Origin and Destiny of Man, p. 580 ; Compn. of 666, p. 87. 
5 See anie, p. 26. 
^ Compn, of 666, pp. 332, 333. 

^ Bon-wick^^ Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought , {\MotQ6. by the author of The 
Compn. 0/666, p. 87. 



220 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Bee in its mouth to identify him with "the Divine Wisdom"; for 
the Chaldee for "bee," dabar, signified both a "bee" and "The 
Word," ' and the numerical values of MithraSf sometimes writt^ 
Meithras, are respectively 360 and 365. 

The Sun was also connected with the number 666, which was a 
sacred number in Egypt, and Higgins, in his Anacalypsis^ states 
that every heathen god had the name of 666, and that this number 
" was the name, or I ought rather to say, the designation, of every 
one of the planetary bodies."* This of course could only be the 
case by representing each by some mystic surname. This number 
666 has also a special but very different import in Scripture, for 
it is the "number of the name" of the Antichrist, and it is well 
known that, throughout the Bible, numbers are used in a symbolic 
sense, which sense also is not arbitrary, but natural and essential 
A short explanation of their symbolism in Scripture may be sum- 
marised as follows :— 

1. Is the symbol of unity, and therefore of the Qodhead, the 

Creator, the One God. 

2. Is symbolic of union, of Christ who was both God and man, 

and therefore of the union of God and man. 

3. Is symbolic of individual completion and individual action, 

of the threefold aspect of God to man as Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit, and of man himself as body, soul and spirit. 

4. Is symbolic of the world, and nature, and of man by nature. 

5. Is symbolic of imperfection, or incompletion generally. 

6. Is symbolic of sin, of death natural, and of death spiritual, 

or eternal ; which three aspects are united in the number 
of the name of the Antichrist, viz., 666. 

7. Which equals 3 + 4, is symbolic of the primary moral re- 

lation of God to man and the world. It is the number 
symbolic of the dispensation of the Law or of Justice, 
and it is the number symbolic of judgment, 

8. Which equals 4x2, is symbolic of the intimate union of 

Christ and the Christian which is salvation. It is also 
4 + 4 and is thus symbolic of a twofold state of the world 
and man, the natural and the spiritual, and thus symbolises 
regeneration, or renewal and resurrection. Thus just as 
the name of the Antichrist, who is the destroyer of men's 
souls and bodies, is 666, so the name of the true Christ 

' Hifllop, p. 194. 

' AnaoalypsiSy vol. ii. p. 241 ; Compn. o/QG^ pp. 33, 34. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 221 

in Qreek is Jesus, in^oug, the Saviour, the numerical value 

of which is 888. 

9. Seldom occurs in Scripture, but it is an important number 

in Magic, and seems to symbolise idolatry, and the world 

and man in a state of incompletion — 4+5 — ^that is without 

God. 

10. Is symbolic of natural perfection and completion in general. 

12. Is symbolic of spiritual perfection and completion. It is 

4+8, or the world and man renewed. It is also 4x3, 

or the world and man in intimate union with God, and 

it is 6x2, symbolic of Christ taking upon Him the 

sin of man, and becoming subject to death for the sake 

of man's redemption. 

Illustrations of the use of numbers with the above signification 

may be found throughout Scripture, and as the symbolism attached 

to them is not arbitrary, but essential, the significance attached to 

them by Paganism is the more important. Thus 6, the evil number 

of Scripture, is the sdcred number of Paganism, and the Egyptians, 

in consequence, especially venerated the Crocodile and regarded it as 

fiui image of their chief god, the Sun ; because they said that the period 

of the gestation of its eggs was 60 days, the number of its eggs 

was 60, they were hatched in 60 days, and its life was 60 years ; 

also that the animal itself had 60 vertebrsB, 60 nerves and 60 

teeth.' "The number 6x6 = 36 was also called a sacred quaternion, 

and 6 lay at the root of the symbol of a god."^ This also gives a 

special significance to the worship of the Sun god, whose symbolic 

number was 360, which equals 6 x 6 x 10, indicating the fulness or 

completion of sin and death. 

In connection with this may be mentioned the remarkable magic 

square composed of the numbers from 1 to 36 or 6 x 6, the total of 

which makes 666. 

1 32 34 3 35 6 

30 8 27 28 11 7 
20 24 15 16 13 23 
19 17 21 22 18 14 
10 26 12 9 29 25 

31 4 2 33 5 36 

' Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. v. pp. 236, 237. 

- TranMctio7is of Victoria Listitute, vol. xvi. p. 136 ; Conipii. 0/666, p. 23, note. 



222 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

It was a symbol of the Sun and was called the " Sigillam Solis/' or 
Solar Seal, and was mystically sacred. It will be observed that each 
of the six rows, whether taken horizontally or vertically, amounts to 
111, and that the arrangement depends on the essential properties of 
numbers. Moreover, if we take the ctobb made by the two diagonals 
they also consist of two amounts of 111 each, which together equal 
222, a number significant of Christ, and which added to 666 makes 
888, the number of Christ as the Saviour from sin ; thus seemingly 
symbolising the fact that sin crucified by Christ is salvation — a 
mystic symbolism of the square, and yet not at once apparent. 

The Hermetic teaching with regard to the Sun as the Creator is 
thus described by Jean Marie Bagon : " It is not alone in that grand 
star, refulgent in the heavens, that is comprised all that the cuicients 
tell us of the Sun. By this word hierophants and philosophers under- 
stood the latent cause of all creation, of all vegetation, of all motion. 
Their Sun is that life-giving fire, that principle of heat expanded 
throughout all nature, and without which matter would have 
remained eternally buried in chaos. Here is the explanation of 
their first principles upon the allegorical formation of the world 
which we find in the Hermetic philosophy: One single force, one 
single principle, one single active cause, could never have given 
energy and life to the universe. The generation of bodies is the 
result of the action and reaction of their constituent parts. She 
(Nature) works by fermentation, and fermentation supposes on the 
face of it two powers. The hierophants believed then, or at least 
pretended to believe, that two primitive principles had worked 
out the development from chaos; and, as they noticed that 
everything in the universe is only fire or water, humid or warm, 
they named these principles (the one fiery, male, active) Form, 
Heaven, or Sun, and the other (humid, female, passive) Matter, 
Earth, or Moon. These are the Osiris and Isis of the Egyptians, 
the Elyon and Beruth of Sanehoniathon, and the Uranus and Ge of 
the same author. You may recognise them imder the names of Odin 
and Frigga, and of Aske and Emla, among the peoples of the North : 
of Adam and Eve amongst the Hebrews — in short, there is no theo- 
gony in which they are not clearly marked out.' 

The Phallus. — It will be seen that the Hermetic teaching, deny- 
ing the existence of the One God, ascribed creation to a male and 

' Maoonnerie Occultey chap, on "The Sun," p. 202 ; from Compn. of 666, pp. 
160, 16L 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 223 

female principle — the chief manifestation of the former being the 
Sun, through which all things by a supposed natural evolution had 
eome into existence. This male principle was therefore Qod, the 
being to be adored, together with all forms and manifestations of 
that principle. From this arose the worship of the PhaUua, as the 
distinctive emblem of generation in man, and the similar worship of 
trees as its manifestation in the vegetable kingdom. Hence figures 
of the Phallus were always carried in the processions at the festivals 
of the Sun gods, Bacchus and Osiris, and the Lingam (its Indian 
name) was always found in the most holy places of the Indian 
templea' Similarly the cross, as the symbol of the tree, was, as we 
shall see, equally sacred. 

Besides the Phallus, the female emblem was also carried in the 
mysteries. " The three most sacred emblems carried in the Greek 
mysteries were the Phallus, I, the Egg, O, and the Serpent, 4>, or 
otherwise the Phallus, the lone or Umbilicus, and the Serpent. The 
first in each case is the emblem of the Sun, or of fire, as the male or 
active generative power. The second denotes the passive nature 
or female principle, or the element of water. The third symbol 
indicates the destroyer, the reformer, or renewer, the uniter of the 
two, and thus the preserver, or perpetuater, eternally renewing 
itself." > 

The deity was, in fact, regarded as both male and female, or 
Hermaphrodite, and the female was regarded, as in the case of Eve, 
to have been produced from the male. Similarly the Ark from 
which the human race were, so to speak, bom again, was a symbol of 
the goddess mother, and yet, having been made by Noah, was repre- 
sented as having been produced by him. 

The author of " The Perfect Way " says, " The wise of old who, by 
exalting the woman in themselves, attained to full intuition of God, 
failed not to make recognition of her in the symbols whereby 
they denoted deity. Hence the significance of the combination, 
universal from the first, of the symbols I O, the unit and the 
cypher in the names designative of deity. For, as the line of force 
and the circle of comprehension and multiplication, these two repre- 
sent at once energy and space, will and love, life and substance, 
father and mother; and, although two, they are one, inasmuch as the 
circle is but the line turning round, and following upon itself, instead 

• Vide Lexicon of Freemasonry, p. 353 ; Cotnpn. 0/666, p. 76. 

' Uargrmve Jennings, The Jtoncrucians, vol. i. p. 876 ; Compn, 0/666, p. 396. 



224 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

of continuing into the abyss to expend its force in vain. Sex, says 
the Kabbala, is the true Lord of hosts." ' 

These symbols, I O, as emblematic of the organs of generation, 
explain the well-known salutation to Bacchus, the Phallic God — 
"10 Bacchus." They had, moreover, a further meaning. For, in 

accordance with the principle of the double meanings attached by 
the Pagans to words and symbols, the O was the symbol of "the 
seed " ; for " Zero " signified in Chaldee both the seed and a circle ; * 
and zero is the modem term for the O, or cipher, which is explained 

by the fact that our system of numerals was obtained from the 
Arabians, the successors of the Aribah, the ancient Adite or Cushite 
race, the father of whom was famous as the inventor of astronomy 
and mathematics.3 The circle, O, also represented the disk of the 
Sun, and was one of the principal recognised symbols of the Sun. 
Thus "10 Bacchus " signified both " Bacchus, the god of generation," 
and also " the seed, or incarnation of the Sun." The combination of 
the two in 4> (Phi), the symbol of the Serpent, will be referred to 
later. 

The " Asherah " of the Hebrews was also the Phallus and its worship, 
and the erection of figures and obelisks of it in the grove or tree 
worship, with which, as we have seen, it was intimately connected, 
is referred to in many places in the Old Testament.^ The Israelitish 
women are also mentioned as making gold and silver phalli.5 

The obscenity and vice to which this worship gave rise are well 
known, and were the natural consequence of deifying these powers 
of nature, by which the sanction of religion was given to sexual 
immorality. Yet it will be observed that the symbolism and analogies 
made use of are by no means false in themselves, save in making the 
Sun the male principle in nature and ultimate origin of life. The 
Sun and the power of generation in the animal and vegetable king- 
doms are intermediate causes of life, but, as in the case of the Sun, 
its rays cannot give life unless the principle of life is there to be 

' " The Perfect Way," p. 69, from Cojnpn. of 666, p. 108. 

' Hislop, p. 18, note. 

3 See chap. iv. pp. 72-76. The Aribah, and pp. 86, 87. Cush, or Meni, the 
numberer. 

< Asherak is translated in the A.V. "grove," but it was plainly an image 
symbolic of the Phallus and distinct from "the groves" which, however, were 
symbolic of the same principle. See 1 Kings xxi. 7 ; xxiii. 4-6, and Smith's 
Diet, of Bible—'' Asherak." 

^ Ezek. xvi. 17. See margin. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 225 

quickened. But the chief fallacy lay in representing the natural to 
be also spiritual, in identifying natural life with spiritual life, and 
the material light of the Sun with the Divine wisdom, or spiritual 
light, and thus giving the sanctity of religion to that which is 
natural only. 

The Tree and CROsa — Man as bom into the world is natural 
and a part of nature, although he alone of all things in nature has 
a capacity for becoming spiritual. But the natural and spiritual are 
diametrically opposed to each other, and man cannot obey the de- 
mands of the spiritual law without doing violence to his natural 
inclinations. For the law of nature is the law of self ; it is the law 
by which " might " is " right," the law of " the survival of the fittest," 
by which the strong prey upon the weak, and the law therefore of 
continual struggle and warfare and consequent suffering, without 
which natural existence would be impossible. It is thus the law of 
natural destruction and reproduction of which, as we have seen, the 
Serpent in Paganism was the symbol. Where this law is supreme, 
its fruits are selfishness, self-assertion, pride, anger, envy, emulation, 
covetousness, etc., etc. ; in a word it is the law of sin and moral evil, 
and this is what the religion of Paganism sanctified. 

Christianity therefore required that the lusts and affections of 
the flesh should be crv/yified, nor can the natural man become spiritual 
unless he dies to those natural inclinations which are the cause of 
sin; in other words, the law of nature and of sin, of which the 
Serpent is the symbol, must be brought to the cross, as implied by 
the hidden symbolism of the Sigillum Solis, and as is equally implied 
by the symbol of the Serpent lifted up in the wilderness by Moses, 
which was the type of the cross of Christ, who in His own body bore 
our sins to the cross (1 Pet. iv. 24), dying unto sin (Rom. vi. 10), 
crucifying in His own flesh the body of sin. Sin crucified is Salvation, 
but it is only by one cross that the power to do so is obtained, and 
that cross is the cross of Christ ; the Christian must die with Christ 
(2 Tim. ii. 11). 

But the cross was, as we have said, a distinctive symbol of 
Paganism ; it was the symbol of a tree, and was the original form 
of the letter T, the Greek T (" tau "), and from the references made 
to it in Paganism it is clear that the origin of the idea was the tree 
of life in Eden. Thus among the Buddhists the cross is called " the 
divine tree, the tree of the gods, and the tree of life and knowledge, 
and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed in 
P 



226 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



the terrestrial Paradise." ^ Hence also, throughout Paganism, the 
gods had certain trees which were especially sacred to them, as 
the palm tree in Egypt, the fir tree in Rome, the oak among the 
Druids.* 

The Tree, like the Phallus, was the manifestation of that natural 
life and generation, the supposed source of which was the Sun. 
Hence the cross as the symbol of the Tree, and therefore of the same 
natural life, was combined with the circle, the symbol of the Sun's 
disk, and both were united together in Paganism as the symbol of 
the Sun god, as in figures 1, 2, 3, or in the form of the Maltese cross, 





Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 





o o o 

o o o 



o 



Fig. 3. Fig. 4. 

Fios. 1, 2, 3, 4~0ro88 and Cibole. 



as in fig. 4, which is a representation of the Sun and seven planets 
found on the Royal tablets discovered at Bavian by Layard.' 

The cross in form of the "Crux Ansata," fig. 5, was 

f carried in the hands of the Egyptian priests and 
Pontiff kings as the symbol of their authority as 
priests of the Sun god and was called "the Sign of 
Life." * In the figures below,^ which were the symbols 
of the gods identified with certain planets, it was 
sometimes combined with the crescent, the symbol of 
the Moon, or goddess Mother. 



Fig. 5. 
Cbdx Ansata. 




Saturn, 
Father uf the Gods. 



') 




O 




Jdpiter. 



Mars. 



Venus. 



Mkrcury, 
The Phallic God. 



But the crosSj although it was called " the Sign of Life," and was 
professedly a symbol of " the tree of life,** was in reality a symbol 

« Wilford's Asiat. Res., vol. x. p. 124 ; Hislop, p. 200. ' Hislop, p. 97. 

^ Layard, Bahyloii and Nineveh, plate, p. 211. 
* Wilkinson's Ancieivt Egyptiaiu, vol. v. p. 283. 
^ From Deane*8 Serpent Worship^ p. 148. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 227 

of the tree of death, "the tree of knowledge of good and evil/' 
through eating the fruit of which death came into the world. For 
the life of which the cross was the sign, was the natv/ral life of 
which the Sun was the supposed source, the full indulgence of which 
life leads to death, both natural and spiritual. The act of eating the 
forbidden fruit was an act by which our first parents cast off their 
allegiance to Qod and sought to become self-dependent, to be in short 
" as gods.'* But S6Z/-dependence, which is the antithesis of faith in 
Ood, is the very principle and law of all natural life; it is the 
principle of the law of self, of the law that " might is right," and it 
is thus the root of all moral evil, or sin, the wages of which is death. 
Thus the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, although 
*^ pleasant to the eye, and good for food " as far as natural life was 
concerned, was in reality the fruit of the tree of spiritual death, and 
the cross, as the symbol of natural life was the symbol therefore of 
the same spiritual death. 

This natural life as the emanation and manifestation of the Sun 
god, was sanctified by Paganism. All therefore that conduced to it, 
and contributed to its fulness, became sanctified likewise. Power, 
riches, worldly honour, rank, position, dominion and earthly material 
and psychical pleasure, all that the Christian has to crucify, were there- 
fore to be worshipped. This was the very spirit of Paganism, and 
the cross, as the symbol of the fulness of natural life, was therefore a 
fitting emblem of worldly power and success ; and it was so regarded. 
From the cross-headed standards of ancient Rome, to its use as a 
badge of earthly honour and merit at the present day, the cross, 
throughout all nations, is the symbol of worldly power and 
success. 

Some have claimed a special fitness in the cross to be the sign of 
natural life. Thus one writes : " Indeed it would seem that the cross 
is at the beginning and end of all the great phenomena of nature. 
Wherever Force is in connection with matter, and nature's products 
have been undisturbed, i.e,, where no destructive hand has been at 
work, whether in the animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdoms, 
wherever nature's grand formative power has been at work, there you 
may find the cross, that beauteous emblem of the life which proceeds 
from God, and which His mercy has employed in the death of His Son 
as the only means of making us perfect." ^ 

There is a tendency here to confuse the natural and the spiritual, 
and it is not by any means clear that the cross is at the beginning and 

' Corrypn, 0/666, p. 228. 



228 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

end of aU phenomena. Many, indeed, of the illustrations which the 
writer gives of his statement appear to be laboured and far-fetched. 
Nevertheless the tree, of which the cross is the emblem, would appear 
to be a true symbol of natural life and natural generation. For 
the tree is the constant manifestation of this life and generation, 
generating^ or producing, from itself cross branches, which again 
throw out, or generate, other cross branches, and "a branch" the 
product of this generation, has in consequence become throughout the 
world, ancient and modem, the synonym for " a Son" 

Moreover, the idea of the cross is in all natural life. For the law 
of natural life is the law of self, of struggle, warfare and death, the 
law by which the life and happiness of one is supported by the death 
and sufferings of others, and it is the law, therefore, by which the in- 
terests and happiness of each cross the interests and happiness of 
others. Even in the vegetable world this is exemplified ; for the life 
of the tree and the plant is supported by the sustenance they obtain 
from the death and decay of other vegetation. This being the law, 
and the only possible law of natural life, the cross is the fitting 
emblem of that life, and it may be said that all natural existence is 
made up of either inflicting, or bearing the cross, the one tending to 
the advancement and fulness of natural life, the other to its extinction, 
or death. But the cross in its latter aspect comes sooner or later to 
all, and after a brief space, the life of those who have drunk most of 
the fulness of existence is itself crossed. Death is the fate of all 
things that are natural only, for death is the essential law of nature ; 
and thus the cross, while the symbol of natural life, is equally the 
symbol of the death with which all natural life is inseparably 
connected ; the symbol of the death which, by the law of God, 
is the necessary consequence of all moral imperfection; and 
this moral imperfection is the essential characteristic of all merely 
natural life. 

Thus the cross may have a different aspect to different persons. 
To those with whom this world, and this life, with its honours, power, 
dominion and pleasure, is the highest good, the cross, as the symbol 
of that life, is honoured, and, like the " crux ansata " of the Egyptian 
priests, may be said, metaphorically, to be ** carried in their hands," 
while it is actually worn by them as a badge of worldly honour, 
distinction, authority, or dominion. These are they who honour the 
cross. To others with whom the spiritual is the highest good, and 
who recognise that, in order to attain it, they must die to the natural, 
the cross is the emblem of that death, and therefore a thing of evil, to 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 229 

which, nevertheless, they must bow in order to attain the spiritual. 
These are they who endure the cross and who regard it, in its true 
aspect, as the symbol of that death which, by the law of Qod, is the 
consequence of all moral imperfection. 

Nevertheless, to those with whom natural life is the only life and 
their highest good, who exalt the natural and despise the spiritual, 
the cross, which is their " sign of life," the symbol of the life they 
glory in, is really to them, though unperceived by them, the symbol 
of a double death. For it is the symbol of the physical death which 
must befall all that is natural, and the symbol also of that spiritual 
and eternal death which must be the fate of those who live for this 
life only. 

These are the two aspects of the cross. To those who live for the 
present it is the symbol of earthly good. To those who do not it is 
a symbol of evil, the symbol of that which crucifies, and of that which 
has to be crucified. The one are the wearers of the material cross, 
the others are the bearers of the spiritual cross. 

A modem Theosophist, speaking of Salvation, says, " The symbol 
of its triumph will still be the cross of Jesus, whether borne before 
him by, or in the name of, an Osiris, a Mithras, a Chrishna, a 
Dionysius, or a Buddha, or any other, who overcoming, by love, the 
limitations of matter, have been faithful unto death, mystically called 
the death of the cross, and thereby, attaining the crown of eternal 
life for themselves, have shown to man the way of salvation." * But 
while the cross of Christ was that which was endv/red by him, Ninus, 
or Osiris, seems to have been the first who inflicted death by it,* and 
the salvation spoken of, and the so-called " love " by which the 
limitations of matter are to be overcome and eternal life attained, are 
merely the means by which Hermes taught men to attain the desires 
of the heart, or the satisfaction of natural passions and ambitions, 
and led them, as the Serpent did with Eve, to fancy that they could 
become as gods and independent of God. Hence another writer says, 
** The religion which we profess is the law of nature which is the law 
of God, for Nature is God." 3 

In Romanism, which has retained, or readopted, the forms and 
principles of the old Paganism, there is the same tendency to make 
the cross the symbol of spiritual life, and to substitute the natural for 
the spiritual. It is the recognised symbol of the power and authority 

' " The Perfect Way," 1882, p. 37 ; Compn. of 666, p. 38. 

^ AtUc. p. 67. 

3 Mr YaughaD, from Nimrod, vol. iv. p. 516 ; Compn. 0/666, p. 60, note. 



230 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

of the priesthood of that religion, as it was before of the priesthood 
of Paganism, and the one, like the other, has sought, and claimed, 
and, for a time obtained, the dominion of the civilised world. We 
need not therefore be surprised at the following : '^ No images of the 
gods were reckoned by the ancients so sacred as the lingam, yoni, and 
phallic ones. . • . Even in the present day, in obscure parts of Italy 
and Spain, may be seen phallic amulets and charms eigainst the evil 
eye, worn by village maidens and youths, and consisting of nothing, 
more or less, than representations of bisexual deities, or actual phalli 
carved in gold, silver, ivory, or other material. I myself saw in a 
village, not far from Naples, a young girl with a silver phallus 
hanging round her neck under which were carved the initial letters 
I.N.B.I. and which she devoutly kissed on passing a cripple, making at 
the same time the sign of the cross ; and on another occasion, when 
passing a group of leprosy -stricken Arabs near the outer gate of the 
town of Tangiers in Morocco, I met a Spanish sefiora who, directly 
she perceived the lepers, commenced hurriedly to say her prayers, 
counting at the same time her beads, at the end of which hung a 
well-carved androgynus Christ nailed to a cross composed of four 
phali, and having the usual I.N.B.I. above and a conspicuous ' crux 
ansata' over the fork of the body thus OH"'"' 

Here the cross and Phallus, the symbols of natural life and genera- 
tion, are connected with Christ in such a way as to imply, at first 
sight, that He was the Phallic god and to associate the spiritual life, 
to give man which He died, with natural life, but in reality it repre- 
sents Him as the victim of the Phallic god, crucified by him. The 
letters I.N.R.I., although the initial letters of the Latin part of the 
inscription which Pilate placed at the head of the cross of Christ, viz., 
" Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews," are probably, considering 
its connection with the Phallus, an ancient Pagan symbol, viz., that 
of the fire-worshippers, " Igne Natura Renovatur Integra," " By fire 
nature is renewed in its integrity " ; ^ fire, as we have seen, being 
regarded by the Pagans as the male principlcy the source of the life 
and generation of which the Phallus was the symbol. For it was the 
policy of the teachers of the fourth, fifth and following centuries, in 
order to make Christianity palatable to the Pagans, to retain as far 
as possible the Pagan rites, ceremonies and symbols, and simply give 
them a Christian meaning, as in the case of Gregory's well-known 
instructions to his missioner Augustine, whom he sent to the Pagan 

' Herbert Junius Hardwicke, M.D., quoted from Compn, 0/666^ p. 103. 
' Compn. of 666, p. 70. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 231 

Anglo-Saxons, telling him to allow the latter to retain their ancient 
rites and customs, but that henceforth they were to do them in honour 
of Christ and the saints; which was, in effect, to retain the old 
Paganism and merely call it Christian. It is possible that the symbol 
LH.S., to which a Christian significance is now given, but which is 
stated to have been a Pagan symbol, may also have been adopted in 
this way.* 

The Serpent. — We have seen that the Serpent was the especial 
symbol of the prophetic god Thoth, Hermes, Hea, Buddha, etc, who 
was Cush, the great teacher of magic and demonology, and that the 
later Hermetic writers identify the Serpent of the Garden of Eden, 
whom Scripture speaks of as " the devil," * with " the divine wisdom," 
or " logos," and the author of man's salvation, i.e., with Christ. The 
worship of the Serpent appears to have been originated by Thoth, i.e., 
Cush himself. The primary teaching of Thoth on the subject is thus 
stated by the Phoenician historian Sanchoniathon : ^'Taautus (t.6., 
Thoth) first consecrated the basilisk and introduced the worship of 
the Serpent tribe, in which he was followed by the Phoenicians and 
Egyptians. For this animal was held by them to be the most inspirited 
(spiritual) of all the reptiles, and of a fiery nature, inasmuch as it 
exhibits an incredible celerity, moving by its spirit, without either 
hands or feet, or any of those external members by which other 
animals effect their motion. And in its progress it assumes a variety 
of forms, moving in a spiral course, and darting forward with what- 
ever degree of swiftness it pleases. It is, moreover, long-lived, and 
has the quality not only of putting off its old age and assuming a 
second youth, but receiving at the same time an augmentation of its 
size and strength ; and when it has fulfilled the appointed measure 
of its existence it consumes itself, as Taautus has laid down in the , 
sacred books, upon which account this animal is introduced in the 
sacred rites and mysteries." ^ 

In the later development of Paganism the Serpent was identified 
with the Sun, as the source of spiritual light or divine wisdom. " In 
the mythology of the primitive world," says Owen, " the Serpent is 

' It has been supposed by some persons that the symbol represented 
the Egyptian Trinity, Isis, Horus, Seb, but there would have been no particular 
object in such a symbol, and if it was a Pagan symbol, it is more likely to 
have had the meaning given at p. 219, which was of important religious 
significance. 

* Rev. XX. 2. 

5 Sanchoniathon, from Cory's Fragments, pp. 17, 18. 



232 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



universally the symbol of the Sun." ' Bunsen says, " In Egypt one 
of the commonest symbols of the Sun, or Sun god, is a disk with a 
serpent around it."^ It was also represented combined with a 
winged disk of the Sun, as in the figure,^ and this was a prominent 




Globb with Wingb and SBBFBirr. 



symbol in the Persian, Egyptian and Mexican hieroglyphics.4 

Eircher says of this symbol that in the teaching of Hermes, " The 
globe (t.6., the disk of the Sun) represents the simple essence of 
God, which he indifferently called The Father, The First Mind, The 
Supreme Wisdom, The Serpent emerging from the globe was the 
vivifying influence of Qod which called all things into existence. 
This he called The Word. The wings implied the moving penetrative 
power of God, which pervaded all things. This he called Love. The 
whole emblem represented the Supreme Being as Creator and Pre- 
server." 5 As the life and existence here referred to can only be 
natv/raZf it is evident that the love spoken of is really that symbolised 
by the Phallus. 

A similar figure without the wings was the sym- 
bol among the Greeks for a daemon, or the Deity .^ 

Bryant remarks that the Serpent was " deemed 
symbolical of divine wisdom and creative energy 
and of immortality and regeneration."^ These, it 
may be remarked, are the characteristics which the 
Disk AKD Sebpknt. g.^j^ ascribes to Christ, "The Word" and "the 

Wisdom of God"; and in this and other ways, which will be 

mentioned hereafter, the Sun and Serpent god became the false 

Christ of Paganism. 

" Owen apud Davies, Druids^ note, p. 437 ; Hislop, p. 227. 

« Bunsen, Hieroglyphics, vol. i. p. 497. 

3 From Bryant ; Deane*8 Serpent Worship, p. 51. ♦ Ibid, 

5 Kircher, " Pamph. Obel. 399," from Deane's Serpent Worship, pp. 55, 56. 

* Selden on Arundel Marbles, p. 133, cited by Stukeley ; Ahury, p. 56 ; Deane, 

p. 53. 

' Bryant, Plagues of Egypt, p. 200, 




SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 233 

The modem Theosophist writers who seek to resuscitate the Her- 
metic wisdom, also glorify both the Serpent and the cross. Thus one 
writes : " The first Christians never perceived that not only was there 
no sin in this disobedience (of Eve), bat that actually the Serpent was 
the Lord Qod HiToaelf, who, as the Ophis, the Logos, or the bearer 
of divine creative wisdom, taught mankind to be creators in their turn. 
They never realised that the cross was an evolution from the tree 
and the Serpent, and thus became the salvation of mankind. By 
this it would become the very first symbol of creative cause, applying 
to geometry, to numbers, to astronomy, to meetsure and to animal 
reproduction."' This, although illustrating the character of the 
philosophy which seeks to substitute Satan for Qod, to exalt the 
natural and glorify the beginning of human sin, is clearly false. The 
power and instinct of generation is natural, and was implanted in both 
men and animals by the Creator, and not taught them by the Serpent. 

" ^sculapius," one of the names given to the Babylonian Sun 
god, signified ''the man-instructing Serpent,"^ and the Epidaurian 
snake, worshipped with the sacred fire in Rome, was regarded as 
the divine representation of ^sculapius,^ who, in consequence, is 
represented as holding a stafi* with a serpent twining round it, and 
serpents were especially sacred to him.^ Thus the Sun god iEscula- 
pius was identified with the Serpent, who was the instructor of man 
in the knowledge of good and evil, implying by a confusion of the 
material and spiritual, that the Sun was the enlighteTier of men in the 
same sense as the Serpent was. 

Macrobius, speaking of the mystic doctrine of the ancients, says 
that " iEsculapius was the beneficent influence of the Sun which per- 
vaded the souls of man." ^ This also implies that the influence of the 
Sun god of Paganism, which can only be physical, was spiritual. 
Just also as the Sun was the supposed author of Life and Generation, 
so iEsculapius, the Serpent god, was " The life restorer " ; ^ a belief 
which was no doubt based on the teaching of Hermes or Thoth 
regarding the supposed power of serpents of renewing their youth. 
The Greeks, not recognising the true esoteric doctrine, made iEscu- 
lapius merely the god of healing, 

' "The Secret Doctrine," by H. P. B., 2nd edit. 1888, vol. iL p. 216, from Compn. 
0/666, pp. 38, 39. 

' Ante, p. 44. » Ovid, Metam,, lib. xv. 11. 736-745 ; Hislop, p. 236. 

* Lempri^re, jEtadapiiu, 

s Macrob., Sat., lib. i. cap. 23 ; Hislop, pp. 278, 279, note. 

* PauBanias, lib. ii., Corinthiaoa, cap. 26 ; Virgil, jEnM, lib. vii. IL 769, 773, 
pp. 364, 365 ; Hialop, p. 98. 



234 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 




The aspect of the Serpent as " the life giver " 
or god of generation, was likewise symbolised by 
an egg with a serpent twining round it ; the egg 
being the symbol of the goddess, as " the Mother 
of Gods and Men/'* and the serpent being the 
Great Father, or the vivifying influence which 
gave them life. 

Both the attributes of the Serpent god, viz., as 

" the life giver " and as " the revealer of wisdom," 

EoG AND Skbpbnt. wcrc recognised in the Mysteries, for the initiate, 

when he had passed the ordeal, Imd a golden 
serpent placed in his bosom as a token of his supposed spiritual 
regeneration, or new life,^ and of his initiation into the hidden 
wisdom, or solemn secret, the *^ Apporeta" the revelation of which 
was punished by death. This is also the teaching of the modem 
Hermetic philosophy, which, as we have seen, boldly affirms that 
the Serpent of Eden was the divine logus, or wisdom, who, "by 
means of the tree, had become the salvation of mankind " and taught 
them to be "creators"; that is to say, he is represented as "the 
enlightener" and "the life giver." 

The nature of the knowledge and life which the Serpent was 
supposed to have given to man was the knowledge of generation, or 
of producing natural life. This is represented by the symbol of the 
Serpent carried in the mysteries, viz., <I>, which is clearly the union of 
the I and O, the symbols of the Phallus and Yoni. The letter ^ (phi), 
is the root letter of the word ^'Aphe" and "OpAe," a serpent, the 
Hebrew " ep/ieh," " tzep/ta," " shephiphon," and the Coptic " NoupAion," 
which have the same meaning, and $ is said not to have been an 
original letter but to have been added af terwards,^ probably to effect 
the symbolism ; for it must be remembered that Thoth or Hermes 
was both the inventor of letters and the originator of idolatry, and 
we might expect therefore that they would be adapted to each other ; 
while the Greeks obtained their letters from the Phoenicians and 
Egyptians.'* The O being also a symbol of the seed, and of the disk 
of the Sun, the three symbols <I>, 0, I, in their full esoteric meaning 
would signify " The Serpent, the incarnation of the Sun, the Phallic 
God." 

* Vide Hislop od the Sacred Egg of Paganism, pp. 108, 109 ; and Faber, vol. L 
pp. 175-190. 

* Faber, vol. iii, p. 116. ^ Compn. 0/666, note, p. 366. 

* Sayce, Ancient Empiret of the Eastf pp. 189, 190 ; from Compn. o/QQ6y p. 354. 
See also before pp. 8-10. 



«< 



€t 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 235 

These symbols also occur in the word " ooinikea," " Phcenicia," 
and it is evident that it is composed of " OOI " and " nike," " victory," 
which looks as if the name was given to the country to indicate the 
triumph of the Sun and Serpent god; a name therefore peculiarly 
suitable to that country, and to the nations of Canaan generally. 

The Sun god Apollo was identified with the Serpent Python, for 
although Apollo is represented as slaying the Python, the spirit of 
the god which entered into the Pythoness who revecJed the oracles 
at Delphi was said to be the spirit of Python. But, according to the 
principle of Paganism, the term " slayer of the Serpent " had a double 
meaning. Mr Faber remarks that the word, which in its exoteric 
meaning is ''slayer/' is in its esoteric meaning ''priest." Thus 
Argiphontes,** a title of Mercury, which in its exoteric meaning is 
'slayer of Argus," is derived from "org," "ark," and ^*phont" 
priest," and thus meant esoterically " priest of the Ark." * Similarly, 
while Apollo was exoterically identified with the promised " seed of 
the woman" as the slayer of the Serpent, he was revealed to the 
initiated as the priest of the Serpent and therefore as the Serpent 
himself ; for the priest was both the representative of, and identified 
with, the God he served. Hence at Delphi, Apollo was worshipped 
under the form of a python, and a hymn of praise was sung to it 
every seventh day.^ 

BcLCchua^ or Dionuaea, is identified with the Sun by the Orphic 
poet in the line " The Sun, whom men call Dionusus as a surname," 
and he is also identified with the Serpent. The Greek myth repre- 
sents him as begotten by Jupiter in the form of a serpent. The oracle 
of Apollo Clarius, speaking of the difierent aspects of the Sun god, 
declares that lao, the highest of all the gods, is Aides in winter, Zeus 
in spring, Helius in summer, and lao in autumn, while the Orphic 
poet substitutes the name of Dionusus for lao in the line " One Zeus, 
one Aides, one Helius, one Dionusus," ^ showing that the Sun god 
Dionusus was the same as lao, and lao by the PhcEuicians was 
identified with the Serpent.^ So also the Indian form of Dionusus, 
viz., Deo Nauahf or Deva Nahuaha, is fabled to have become a serpent.^ 
and Deva Nahusha is clearly derived from Deva, " God," and NaJiashy 
" serpent," and thus means " The Serpent God." 

' Faber's Masteries of the Cabiri; Compti, of 666, p. 355. 

* Protegomena to the Pythia of Pindar, cited by Bryant ; Anal., ii. 147. 
3 The Great Dionysiac Myth, vol. i. pp. 44, 45 ; Compn, 0/666, p 348. 

♦ Cooper'a Serpent Myths, p. 18 ; The Great Dionysiac Myth, Robert Brown, vol. i. 
p. 70 ; Compn. of 666, p. 347. 

5 Wilford's Anat, Res,, vol. iii. pp. 450, 452. 



236 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Janus was worshipped in Phoenicia under the form of a serpent 
with its tail in its mouth, which was supposed to typify self-existence 
and eternity.* In Etruria he was called Dianua and was the husband 
of Bianay and appears to have derived his name from " Ha Nahaahy* 
** The Serpent." For, as already pointed out, Ha Nahash would pass 
in Greek into " Ama'as " or " Anaa" the A, or aspirate, not being ex- 
pressed by a letter, and " Anas," in which the article is combined with 
the word, would easily pass, according to varying dialects, into Anna 
or Anea. This, with the Greek article 1 or O again placed before it, 
as in "I'siris," "O'siris," would become "Tantw" or '"Janus" and 
''O'anes'* or ''Oann^*' and with "JDi," "God," would become 
"Dianus.*' The latter name also, on the principle of the double 
meaning of words, served to identify Janus with the Sun, for 
" Annus " is the Latin for " year," and the Etrurian " Dianus " would 
thus mean " The God of the Year," the number of days in which was 
the usual symbol of the Sun ; hence Janus or Dianus was called ** The 
God of Day." 

Janus was also called AI<I>TH2 (Diphues), or geminus, the exoteric 
meaning of which is "twice born," or regenerated, which was also 
said of the initiate into the Mysteries. But the word is made up of 
Al (Di), god ; <l> (phi) the symbol of the Serpent ; and TH2, the symbol 
of the Sun god ; the whole word having thus the esoteric meaning of 
" The Sun and Serpent god." 

The title also of Bel Nimrud the lesser, viz., "Hea," is evidently the 
same as the Arabic, or Adite, word " Heya^^ which means both " life " 
and "serpent,"^ and the serpent was one of the principal forms of 
Hea. 3 By this name, therefore, the God, who was known as "The 
Lord of Understanding," " The Teacher of Mankind," and is the same 
as iEsculapius, " the man-instructing Serpent," was identified with the 
serpent who was regarded as " The Divine Wisdom " or ** Logos," who 
taught man the knowledge of good and evil. Speaking of " Hea," 
Mr Rawlinson says, "He was figured by the great Serpent which 
occupied so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on 
the black stones recording Babylonian benefactions. There are very 
strong grounds for connecting him with the Serpent of Scripture and 
with the Paradisiacal tradition of the tree of knowledge and the tree 
of life." He was known also as the star Kimmut, which was the 
same as " Draco," the Dragon, and was the father of Bel Merodach 

' Macrobius, lib. i. chap. iz. 

* Rawlinson's Herod,^ vol. i. essay x. p. 600. 

^ Lenormant, Chaldean MagiCy p. 232. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 237 

and Bel Nimrud.' Thus these first idolaters were represented to be 
in very tenth " the seed of the Serpent." 

The worship of the Serpent was general in Babylon, the central 
seat of the Cashite idolatry, as implied by the apocryphal book of 
Bel and the Dragon, where it is said, '' In that same place was a 
great Dragon which they of Babylon worshipped." In short, as 
remarked by Bryant, the etymology of the word " Ethiopian " (Cushite) 
would appear to be " the race of Ophe," or " race of the Serpent," from 
" ethnos" or "ethos" "& collection of persons associating together 
from habit,"' and ''aphis** "a serpent"; and the Arabians call the 
Ethiopians "Nagashi" i.6., " serpents," from " Nahash " or the Indian 
" Naga** a serpent.3 

In Egypt the Serpent of the Sun, called " The Basilisk** or " Royal 
Serpent** was regarded as '' the type of dominion," and as such was 
worn on the head-dress of the Egyptian monarchs.^ Hence the term 
''Basilica** "a Royal Palace," the form of which was adopted for 
Christian churches. The Sun, as identified with the Serpent, was 
called " Pov/ro" meaning at once "Fire" and "The King," thus 
identifying the Serpent with the God of Fire.^ In Rome it eventu- 
ally became the Imperial standard, which was a Dragon, or Serpent, 
elevated on a pole and coloured red to represent it as a symbol of 
fire.^ The Egyptian god Chnov/phis, the root of whose name is aphe, 
or aphis, " a serpent," was called Agathodcemon 
(the good daemon), who was the son of Hermes,^ 
and must therefore be Osiris or Nimrod. He 
is represented by a serpent with an egg in 
its mouth, while a serpent in a circle, and 
passing diametrically from circumference to cir- 
cumference, was his distinctive symbol, and was 
the origin of the Greek (theta),^ 

Chnouphis represented the creative power in the world, and as 
such was identified with Amenra, the Sun, who also represented the 
creative power, and with Khem, the god of generation.^ The Serpent, 
as identified with the Sun, also represented the same creative power, 

' Bawlinson's Herod., vol. i. pp. 600, 601. * See Donnegan, Wuos. 

' Bryant, Anal., ii. p. 206 ; Deane's Serpent Worship, p. 160. 

* Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. iv. p. 239. s Bunsen, vol. iv. pp. 407, 457. 
' Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xvi. cap. xii., c. 39 ; Elliot, Horce Apocalypticce, 

vol. iii. p. 14, plate. 

^ Manetho from Syncellus ; Cory, p. 168. 

* Kircher, JSdip. jEgypt, vol. iii. p. 46 ; Deane, p. 120. 
^ See ante, chap. ii. pp. 46, 47. 




238 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



and, according to Horapollo, was the spirit whicli pervaded the oni- 
verae.' All these attributes were given to Osiris in the later Egyptian 
mythology, and he became the chief Sun god and god o£ generation' 
Now one of his titles was " Onupkia,"^ which is plainly made ap of 
" On," the name of the Sun at Heliopolis, and " Opkie," the serpent* 
In short, OnuphiB, which in modem Coptic is " Nouphion" sigQi&es 
a serpent ia that language. ^ " Chnouphis," which is the same as 
" Nouphis " with the K or Ch prefixed, as in the case of Eham for Ham, 
is merely a form of 




The Caduoeus. 






' Willdraon, by Birch, vol. 
J WilldiiKon, by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 307, 308. 
' Wilkinson BUggesta a different etymology in order t 
Egyptian idoUtry, but it ia unsatisfactory. See App. A., 
i Ibid. 
' PauHanisa, quoted by Kircher \ Deane, p. 155. 



Onaphis, the Sun and 
Serpent god. In Her- 
wart's table of Egyptian 
hieroglyphics, and also 
in the Isaic table, an 
Egyptian priest is shown 
ofiering adoration to a 
serpent, who was doubt- 
less the Serpent god 
Onnphis, as PansanioB 
says that " in the Egyp- 
tian city of Onnphis they 
worship the asp." * 

The "Caduceua" 
which is shown in the 
hand of Anubis and 
Mercury, was a winged 
wand entwined by ser- 
pents, as shown in the 
accompanying fig., so as 
to form a combination 
of the crescent, the circle 
and the cross, as in 
the symbol of Mercury,^ 
It was regarded as 
powerful "for paralys- 
ing the "mvnd and raia- 
' See App. A. 



cith his ideal of 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 239 

vng the dead,** by which is probably meant mesmeriaiTig and calling 
up the supposed spirits of the dead, i.e., the daimonia.' 

The name of the Egyptian Vulcan, viz., " Apkthah*' or " Phthah" 
the prefix being usually dropped, has for its root Aphe, " serpent." 
The title of the Egyptian kmgs— " Phxi/raoh," " Phra," or " Aphra," 
the '' a " being quiescent, is also compounded of Aphe, '' serpent," and 
iJa, "the Sun,"* by which they claimed descent from the Sun and 
Serpent god, while the serpent which they wore on their foreheads 
was the type of the power and dominion which they equally claimed 
in virtue of that descent. The name " Amenoph," by which some of 
the Theban kings were known, is also compounded of " Amon,* or 
" Amen*' the Sun god, and Ophe, " serpent." 

The divinity attached to the serpent, and the claim, especially of 
the Theban kings, to be descended from the Serpent god, is explained 
by the fact that they were of the race called "Egyptian," i.e., of 
Cushite or Ethiopian origin^ (the race of Ophe), who were the 
originators of this idolatry. This claim on their part is also a strong 
proof, if other evidence was wanting, that the originals of those gods 
were human beings, men who claimed to be of Nephilim descent; 
for unless this was the case, there was nothing to suggest such a 
parentage. So intimately, indeed, was descent from the Serpent god 
associated with worldly power and dominion throughout Paganism, 
that we find Alexander the Great claiming, by means of an oracle, 
to be begotten by Jupiter Ammon in the form of a serpent, in order 
to give him the prestige of victory before undertaking the conquest 
of Asia.* So also Augustus pretended that he was the son of Apollo, 
and that the god had assumed the form of a serpent for the purpose 
of giving him birth.^ 

" BeeLzebvh,'* the god of the Canaanitish nations, was also repre- 
sented by a serpent. Like the Indian Siva, he was worshipped, firstly, 
as the Destroyer, and then as the Renewer and Life Giver. The 
name "Beelzebub" signifies "the Lord of the fly,"^ and the fly 
represented the god in both his aspects; for flies by their larvsB 
consume dead carcases, and in so doing produce life again in another 
form. Hence, as " Lord of the fly," he is represented in the woodcut 

« Deane, Serpent Worship, pp. 135, 139. 

^ Witkmson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 44, gives a partly different etymology, but it 
is not so satisfactory as the above. 

3 Vide chap. iv. 

*» Nimrod, vol. L pp. 364, 365. 

5 Suetonius, Augustus ; Hislop, p. 277, note. 

*• Hislop, pp. 279, 280 ; Kitto's illustrated Commentary, vol. ii. p. 217. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



below ' by the doable figores of swallows pnreuing flies and by 
serpents ; the one representing the exoteric aspect of the god, the 
other his real or esoteric character. 





Sun and Skbfbnt Godh. 

"0-pK "OK "Oub" 



Thi Lohd ov the Fli. 

' ?'^''yn j i:™-l' "^^^ "^ ■^ somewhat similar double 

J »w "^^^^^Itii^ L representation is g^ven in another 

woodcut from PoTiipeii? The two 
gods in the upper compartment, 
who are being sacrificed to by a 
priest, are shown by the rays 
around their heads to be Sun gods, 
while their black faces identify 
them with their Coshite originala 
In the lower compartment are 
shown two serpents, as in the 
other picture, to represent their 
true esoteric character, 
and " Epk" were the names given to 
the sacred Serpent among the Canaanites, and " Oph " is the same 
word as that used in Deut. xviii. 11 for a familiar spirit, while 
the Witch of Endor is called an " Ob " or " Oub." ' " Obion," composed 
of " Obi," and " On," the name of the Sun in Egypt, is still the name of 
a serpent in that country.'' It is well known that throughout Africa, 
which seems to have been peopled by the descendants of the Cushite 
and Canaanite races,s Obi, or Serpent worship, still exists. In Whidah 
and Congo the most celebrated temple is called " the Serpent's house," 
and the rites of the gods are performed by priests, priestesses and a 
pontiff. The priestesses call themselves " Children of Ood," and in 
token thereof mark their bodies with the figure of o serpent, thus 
claiming to be the " seed of the Serpent." Victims arc daily broaght 
■ From Pompeii, vol. ii. p. 141. ' IbiJ., p. 105. 

1 Ueano, pp. 172-176. * Ibid., p. 176. 

5 The iiutice in Geo. i. 18, "afterward were the Canaanites scatttred abroad" 
iniplieB that at some period of the history, prolwibly after the conquest of the 
country by the Israelites, they emigrated in large numbers, and Africa, aa a com' 
paratirely uuoccupied country, nould oatur&lly promise them great advantages. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 241 

to the god, and oracles required of him.' The Eboes, who worship 
the Qoana, say that the most acceptable offering to him is a human 
victim. The Eoromantynes, who worship a serpent which they call 
" Oboni/' also assert that when he is angry nothing will appease him 
but a human victim.^ 

The gods of the ancient Mexicans were also identified with the 
serpent, and a huge figure of a dragon was placed on the summit of 
the pyramid temple on which human victims were sacrificed to the 
Sun, which implies that their Sun god was also the Serpent god, as in 
other Pagan countries.^ The Spaniards, on first landing, found at 
Campeachy a large serpent idol, still warm with the blood of human 
victims,^ and, according to M. Aglio, there was scarcely a deity who 
was not symbolised by a dragon or serpent.^ Mexitlij the Mexican 
Creator, or " giver of life," was also represented in a similar way to 
.^Isculapius, " the life restorer," viz., as holding a staff with a serpent 
twined round it^ 

At Topira, in Peru, there was a temple with a vast image of a 
serpent with its tail in its mouth, like the Egyptian representation of 
the Serpent of the Sun. A man was sacrificed to it every year7 

In India, Juggernaut was sometimes worshipped under the form 
of a seven-headed dragon, and the "Naga," or five-headed hooded 
serpent, is constantly represented as the object of special adoration 
in Indian sculptures.® Siva Mahadeva and the goddess Parvati are 
represented with serpents about their necks and waists.^ Buddha 
was also represented by a serpent, and a serpent was the sign of his 
worshippers. '° 

In China the great dragon was the banner of the Empire, and 
indicated everything sacred in it. Like the basilisk in Egypt, it was 
the stamp and symbol of royalty, and was sculptured in all temples." 
According to Cambry, "the Chinese delight in mountains and high 
pUicea, because there lives the great dragon upon whom their good 

* Bosman on Guinea, Acta Erud, Leip.^ 1705, p. 265 ; Deane, p. 165. 
^ Deane, p. 178, vide full account, pp. 160-180. 

3 Bernal Diaz de Castillo, quoted by Deane, pp. 295, 297. 

4 Peter Martyr, De Orhe Novo, p. 291 ; Deane, p. 298, 299. 

5 M. Aglio, Mexican Antiquities; Deane, p. 299. 

* Faber, vol. i. p. 270. 

' Purchas, part iv. p. 1560 ; Deane, p. 302. 

* Faber, vol. i. p. 452. See also plates in Ferguson's Tree and Serpent Worship, 
9 Moor's Hindu Pantheon^ p. 22. 

"» Deane, p. 66. See also anie, chap. vi. 

" Stukeley's Ahury, p. 56 ; Maurice's Hist Hindustan, vol. i. p. 210. 

Q 



242 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



fortune depends. They call him the father of happiness, and erect 
temples to him shaded with groves" * 

Serpent worship was equally a distinctive feature of the Druidical 
religion. The Celtic Hu was called " The Dragon Ruler of the World," 
his car is represented as drawn by serpents, and his priests were 
called " adders." * In the sacrificial rites of " Uther Pendragon," the 
Dragon god Hu is invoked under the name of " Victorious Bdi,** a 
title which indicates its Babylonish origin,^ 

Sun, Serpent and Daemon worship were thus integral parts of the 
same system, and constituted the substance of that Hermetic wisdom, 
the fruits of which were unbridled lust and cruelty, and which 
eventually spread over the whole earth from its centre, Babylon, 
and made the Prince of the DsBmons in very truth " The God of this 
World" (2Cor. iv. 4). 

The Sun and Serpent god of Paganism was also moraUy identical 
with ffim whom the Scripture calls " The God of this World." The 
latter, in the form of a serpent, had, at the first, persuaded man to 
choose self-dependence, which is the principle of natural life, instead 
of faith and dependence on God, which is the principle of spiritual 
life, and had made it appear that this self-dependence was the only 
true life, and that those who ate of its fruit would be " ow gods'* In 
like manner the Pagan god was the god of this natural life, and all 
that tended to exalt it and conduced to its satisfaction — " the lust of 
the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life " — were regarded 
as his gifts. 

Hence, when the Prince of the Demons, whom Christ identified 
with the Pagan god, showed Christ " all the kingdoms of the world 
and the glory of them," the tempter said to Him, " All these things 
will I give unto thee, for that is delivered unto m^, and to whom- 
soever I will give it If therefore thou wilt worship me, all shall be 
thine" (Luke iv. 5-7). Nor was the claim denied; and we therefore 
find that worldly power and dominion, which constitute the glory 
and satisfaction of this life, were possessed by those kings and 
priesthoods who served the Pagan god and his angels, the daimonia ; 
and they wore the cross, his special symbol, and the emblem of this 

' Cambry, Monuinents Celtiques, p. 163 ; Deane, pp. 69, 70. The correspondence 
between the " high places" and "groves " of the Chinese and those of the Canaanite 
nations, adopted by the idolatrous Israelites, will be noted. "High places" were 
supposed to be especially the abode of the gods, and trees were symbolic of 
the gods. 

' Davies, Druids, pp. 116, 122, 210. 

^ Owen's Dictionary ; Deane, pp. 254, 266. 



SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 243 



worldly glory and power, as a token of their allegiance. On the 
other hand,,/Sr0 and the cross, both of which were symbols of the god, 
and of natural life, were used to inflict death on the enemies of, or 
rebels against, the god and his servants. For the human sacrifices to 
the Pagan gods were not only made by fire, as in the case of those 
made to Moloch and Baal, but by the cross, and crucifixion and 
burning were the two forms of death throughout the Oriental world 
meted to offenders against the state or king, who was the earthly 
representative of the god.' These sacrifices consisted not only of 
malefactors, but of captives taken in war, or of those who had been 
spared and made slaves of, and crucifixion, instituted by the founders 
of Pagan idolatry, was not only the fate of the former, but of the 
latter also, if they rebelled. Thus the cross, the symbol of the Sun 
and Serpent gods, became the very altar of "The Prince of this 
World " (John xiv. 30). 

Christ described Satan as a {tor, and the Father, or originator, of 
lies, and as a w/OA^derer from the beginning (John viii. 44), and both 
characteristics were essential features of the Pagan system and its 
god. As ''the Spirit who works in the children of disobedience" 
(Eph. ii. 2), " who deceiveth the whole world " (Rev. xii. 9), he was 
the real author of the whole system of Paganism, which constituted, 
therefore, those " works of the devil " which Christ was manifested 
to destroy (1 John iii. 8). That system was a system of lies, of doctrines 
founded on subtle perversions of truth, by which good was made to 
appear evil, and evil good — a system of which the essence was 
Taystery and deceit, having an outward appearance of truth and 
righteousness which veiled a hidden and mystical evil, blinded men 
to its true character, and led them to substitute the fruit of the tree 
of knowledge of good and evil, or the tree of death, for that of the 
tree of life. So, also, it was a system of murder, which not only 
killed men's souls, but which, in the zenith of its power, demanded 
and obtained hecatombs of human beings as sacrifices to its gods, 
who could only be appeased by their tortures, by the shrieks of 
children devoted to Moloch, and the agonies of their parents and 
relatives. 

Human sacrifices appear to have been a custom in Egypt. Por- 
phyry, priest of Sebennjrtus, says that three men were daily sacrificed 
to the Egyptian Juno, after having been examined like clean calves 
chosen for the altar.^ Plutarch says, " We are informed by Manetho 

' Bawlinson's Egypt and Babylon, vol. i. pp. 190, 191. 
» Porphyry, De Ahst., ii. p. 53. 



244 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

that they were formerly wont in the city of Idithya, to bum men 
alive, giving them the name of " Typhos," and winnowing their ashes 
through a sieve."' Diodoros also states that it was formerly the 
custom to sacrifice men of a red complexion to Osiris, from their 
supposed resemblance to Typhon.^ Wilkinson remarks that this 
"could only have been at a very remote period and before the 
Egyptians had become the highly-civilised nation we know them 
from their monuments."^ But civilisation is no preventive of the 
cruelty which always accompanies superstition. The Assyrians, an 
equally civilised nation, fiayed their prisoners alive, or tore out their 
tongues with pincers,^ and the burnings and tortures of the Inquisition 
in Spain occurred at a period when the Spaniards were the foremost 
among the civilised nations of Europe. The fact that the victims 
were given the name of Typhoa by the Egyptians proves that it 
must have been at a period when Set or Typhon, instead of being 
worshipped as a god as at one time, was hated and his name 
erased from the monuments. This was not until after the advent 
of the Cushite Rameses from India,^ under whom, and by whom, 
the great temples of the gods and principal monuments of Egypt 
were erected. "" 

It is also a strong evidence of the existence of human sacrifices in 
Egypt, that the seal of the priests, with which they stamped the clay 

affixed to the band round the neck 
of the animal destined for sacrifice, 
was a figure of a man with his arms 
bound behind him and a sacrificial 
knife pointed at his throat, as in 
Skal op Egyptian Priests. woodcut, which is a copy of the 

figure found by Wilkinson in the 
hieroglyphics of sculptures relating to the sacrifice of victims.^ 

Human sacrifices to the gods, it is well known, were common 
amongst all the principal Pagan nations and were only discontinued 
in Pagan Rome at a late period. In Mexico it is said that 50,000 
victims were sacrificed every year.^ Just as new-bom babies were 
sacrificed to Moloch, so also in Mexico children were oflTered to the 

' De Iside, s. 73 ; Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 30. 
' Diod., i. p. 88 ; Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 143. 
3 WUkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 30. 

^ Layard's, Nineveh andBahylony pp. 457, 468, and woodcuts, s See chap. v. p. 96. 
* Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. v. p. 352. Wilkinson says that Plutarch on the 
authority of Castor describes the same seal. 

^ Prescott, Ckmqtiest of Mexico, chap. iii. p. 26. 





SUN, SERPENT, PHALLUS AND TREE 245 

god Haitzilopochtli and their blood was mixed with the sacred cakes 
eaten by the worshippers ; and in Lord Eingsborough's collection of 
Mexican antiquities, a group of Mexicans are represented adoring 
the cross, while a priest holds an infant in his arms as an otfering 
to it' 

These gods were Serpent gods, and wherever Serpent worship has 
been pre-eminent, as among the ancient Phoenicians, and the Hamitic 
races of Africa at the present day, this system of Murder, or 
Human Sacrifices, has attained its fullest development 

It should be remembered, however, that the ancient idolatry had 
two phases or forms. The first was that instituted, and openly 
promulgated in all its evil, obscenity, and cruelty by Cush and 
Nimrod, but which received a speedy and world-wide overthrow, the 
history of which will be shortly described. The second form was 
that which it attained, after having been gradually and secretly 
resuscitated, in after ages, by a process of steady development, in 
the manner which will be hereafter described. In this form Cush 
and Nimrod were themselves worshipped as incarnations of the Sun 
and Serpent god. It would appear, however, that when the worship 
of the latter had been firmly established, and the god was identified 
with the Prince of the DsBmons, the human originals were kept out 
of sight of the common people, having served their purpose as stepping- 
stones, or a basis on which to build the ultimate development 

* "The Mexican Messiah," OefUleman's Ifagcuine, Sept. 1888, pp. 242, 243. The 
author of this article suggests that the Mexican religion was a form of Christianity 
introduced hy a Christian who they called Quetzalcoatl. His reasons for this con- 
clusion are that the Mexicans, like the Roman Catholics, worshipped the cross, 
supposed their children regenerated hy a water baptism, believed in a purgatory 
after death, ate sacred cakes like the Roman Catholic wafer which they believed 
to be the body of their god, had a celibate priesthood to whom the people made 
confession, inflicted penances, including flagellation and piercing the flesh with 
sharp thorns, etc. But all these were Pagan customs long before they were adopted 
by the Church of Rome, and although Quetzalcoatl may have been a Roman Catholic, 
yet as all the other customs of the Mexicans, including the worship of the Serpent 
and Human Sacrifices, were essentially similar to those of the Pagan nations of the 
East, it is pretty certain that all their religious customs were derived from the 
same source. 



CHAPTBB XI 

THE WOBSHIP OF THS STABS 

In oonclnding this portion of our inqiniya few romaiks may be msde 
on the worship of the seven stars snd the twelve signs of the Zodise^ 
which, aooording to Maimonides, was institoted by Tamimia/ tA, 
Nimrod. 

There appears to have been little moral sfgnilkaincft in this wonhifb 
beyond the fact that the planets were part of the solar qrstem and 
satellites of the Son, and might therefore be regarded as having some 
relation to the San. The Pagans merely called these by one or other 
of the names of their gods, Saturn, Jupiter, Mereory , Man, eie. TIm 
Son also passed through the signs of the Zodiac in the comee of the 
year, while at the same time it had a slow retrograde movement fay 
which it retired through them in the course of 25,827 years, or the 
period of the " precession of the equinoxes " ; and if this was known 
to the ancients, the signs of the Zodiac would be regarded by them 
as having a special relation to the Sun. But these relations of them- 
selves do not appear to have been the real reason of the original 
worship of the stara Neither the signs of the Zodiac, nor the com- 
binations of stars called ''the constellations," have the remotest 
approach in form to that of the things by which they are called, such 
as the Scorpion, the Virgin, the Twins, the Balance, etc., and the 
suggestion that men by gazing at them thought they saw in them 
the forms of these things is therefore inadmissible. They are per- 
fectly so'bitrary names which have no relation whatever to the form 
of the constellations and signs themselves.^ It is equally difficult 
to perceive any relation between their names and the moral 
significance of the religious system which has just been explained ; 
it suggests no explanation for the arbitrary names by which they 
are known. 

■ More, Nevochim, p. 420. 

' This applies of course only to the ancient names of the stars, "hlodeim popular 
names have no doubt been given them on account of a certain rough resemblance 
to the things denoted by those names. 

84e 



THE WORSHIP OF THE STARS 247 

On the other hand it is stated in Scripture that GoD gave these 
constellations their namea '* He telleth the number of the stars, He 
calleth them all by their names." ^ *' lift up your eyes on high and 
behold, who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by 
numbers, He calleth them all by their names by the greatness of His 
might." * If, then, their names were given them by God, we may 
understand why their forms were made to have do relation to those 
names. It would have been the strongest temptation to worship 
them had their forms exactly portrayed the things after which they 
were named. 

It has been pointed out by Mr Guinness that the allotted period of 
man's life, 70 years, plus the 40 weeks of gestation, is exactly 25,847 
days, and that this number is probably the exact number of years of 
the precessional cycle ; so that man's life, putting a day for a year, is 
a type of the precessional cycle. Moreover, the i?5,847 solso* years of 
the precessional cycle is equal to 26,640 lunar years, which equals 
30 X 888, and also 40 x 666, numbers which have a special significance 
in Scripture, the one being significant of God and Redemption, the other 
of the world and evil ; indicating that both enter into the history of the 
world, and, on account of the relation between the cycle and the life 
of man, that either may symbolise the history of the individual. 

There are also certain eclipse cycles, the first consisting of 18 years 
and 10 to 11 days, in which 70 eclipses take place, and which recur 
in the same order in the next 18 years and 10 to 11 days; but on 
account of the extra days of the cycle, each eclipse will be those 
number of days later in each succeeding 18 years, until a period of 

325 years has passed, when each eclipse will again take place on the 
same day as at first; and this will be the case again in another 

326 years, or 651 years in all. Now, there are 1260 eclipses in the 
cycle of 325 years, and 2520 eclipses in the cycle of 651 years, and of 
these eclipses 666 are total, or annular, and 594 are partial. There 
is a final eclipse cycle of 5860 years which equals 2300 + 2520 
( = 2 X 1260) +1040 years. All these are also great cycles, and they 
are also the numbers of the great prophetic periods, which, if measured 
in years, are therefore exact astronomical cycles. The only inter- 
pretation of so exact a correspondence is that the prophetic periods are 
astronomical cycles. 

The 2520 and 1260 years are multiples of 7 and 10, which are 
numbers expressing the completion of God'.s acts towards mau ; 
thus 1260 years = 70 + 7 X 10 + 490 ; and the latter number which = 
' Psa. cxlvii. 4. Isa. xl. 26. 



248 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

7 X 7 X 10 enters into the history of the world and of the chosen 
people of God previous to the commencement of the prophetic periods. 
Thus, from the commencement of the building of the Ark and the 
precM^hing of Noah 120 years before the Deluge, to the Exodus, is 
2 X 490 years, and from the Exodus to the Captivity is 2 x 490 yeara' 
Again, from the Deluge to the Covenant with Abraham is 430 years, 
which equals 5328, or 666 x 8 lunar months, numbers symbolic of the 
growing evil and idolatry of the human race, followed by a new state 
of things, or the commencement of the first steps taken for the 
regeneration of majikind in the call of Abraham. A similar period of 
430 years, or 666 x 8 lunar months, intervened between the Covenant 
and the Exodus, symbolic of the temporal evil undergone by Abraham 
and his descendants during their sojourning in a strange and hostile 
country, followed by their redemption. 

It may also be remarked that there are various relations between 
the eclipse cycles and the geometrical properties of bodies, one of 
which is the following : The diagonal of a square exceeds its side by 
a number which, omitting fractions, is to the side as 12 to 29, or 
29 to 70, or 70 to 169, etc., which form a series — allowing for the 
omission of fractions : — 

12 : 12 + 17 : : 29 + 41 : 70+99, etc., 
and these numbers, expressing the relation of the diagonal and side of 
a square, also express the relation of the various eclipses to each 
other. Thus in the first eclipse cycle there are: — 

Total eclipses of the Moon . .12 

Partial „ „ ,, . .17 

29 
Eclipses of the Sun . .41 

Total . -12 

Other remarkable relations might be mentioned, but these are 
suflBcient to indicate the accuracy of the following statement : " All 
things are ordered by number, weight and measure ; God, as was said 
by the ancients, works by geometry : the legislation of the material 
universe is necessarily delivered in the language of mathematics. The 
stars in their courses are regulated by the properties of conic sections, 
and the winds depend on arithmetical and geometrical progressions of 

' The exact date of the Exodus is slightly uncertain, but according to the 
corrected Scripture Chronology it was about 1670 b.c. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE STARS 249 

elasticity and pressure." ' To this may be added that chemical com- 
binations are based on similar mathematical laws, that harmony in 
form, harmony in sound and harmony in colour are all analogous and 
also based on similar laws;' that the phenomena of light, heat, 
electricity and sound depend on differentiation of force, and that 
even the structure and functions of the human body exhibit similar 
laws, as in the well-known case of the periodicity of vital phenomena, 
which are in multiples of 7x12 hours.^ Hence the significance of 
Christ's remark, " But I say unto you that the very hairs of your 
head are nv/mheredP 

These things show that there is no such element as chance, but 
that everything is the result of exact and pre-ordained design. Al- 
though we may not always be able to discover the significance of the 
exact relations which exist between geometry, natural phenomena, 
astronomy, and the history of man, it is sufiicient to know that these 
relations do exist, and that the movements of the heavenly bodies and 
the events of human history have been so arranged as to have this 
exact relation to each other. 

This being the case we have an explanation of the statement in 
Oen. i., that the Sun which marks the years, the seasons, and the days, 
and the Moon which marks the months, were not only appointed for 
these purposes, but were to be also for " signs " (ver. 14), that is to 
say, they were to mark the cycles which correspond with the great 
events of human history. But they are not suflBcient in themselves to 
mark the date of events in human history. It is in combination with 
the changes which take place in the position of the constellations and 
signs of the Zodiac, in consequence, in short, of the " precession of the 
equinoxes," that they enable the astronomer to fix the date of those 
events exactly ; as in the case of the Great Pyramid, the date of 
which is known by these means to be precisely 2170 B.c. 

Thus the Sun and Moon, in connection with the Stars, are 
" signs," given by God to man ; and as God also called the Stars by 
their names, then the names of the constellations and signs of the 
Zodiac must have a bearing on the events of human history. 

Now the Apostle Peter, speaking of Christ, says, " Those things 
which God before had shewed by the mouth of all His prophets, that 

' "Astronomy and General Physics with reference to Natural Theology," 
WheweU-Bridgewater Treatises^ 7th edit. pp. 6, 7 ; Compn, 0/666, p. 259. 

' Natural Principles of EwrrMmy and their Analogy in Sound and Colour, by 
Professor Hay. 

5 Guinness, Approaching End of Age, pp. 263-267. 



250 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. Whom the heaven must 
receive until the time of the restitution of all things, which God hath 
spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began " 
(Acts iii. 18, 21). The same thing is stated by Zacharias : " Blessed 
be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His 
people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of 
His servant David ; as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets 
since the world began " (Luke i. 68-70). 

Thus it would appear that there was a continuous stream of 
prophecy, concerning Christ and the restitution of all things, from 
the beginning of the world ; but beyond the promise of the seed of 
the woman, and the quotation by Jude of the prophecy of Enoch, we 
have no record of those prophecies. Yet Peter speaks of the ultimate 
destruction of the world by fire, which is also recognised in the 
various cosmogonies of the Pagan nations, as if it was a well-known 
thing. So also the Apostle Paul, speaking of the preaching of the 
Gospel to the Gentiles, and of the redemption of man, says, " Have 
they not heard ? Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth, and 
their words unto the ends of the world " (Rom. x. 18.) — that is to say, he 
quotes Psalm xix. to prove that these things had already been preached 
throughout the world. That Psalm is as follows: "The heavens 
declare the glory of God ; and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. 
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth know- 
ledge. There is no speech nor langvxige where their voice is not 
heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to 
the end of tlie world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the Sun." 
Thus it is plainly taught, that the prophecy of a redeemer and of the 
restitution of all things had ever been preached by the signs in the 
heavens, or by those Stars which God had called by their names, and 
that their meaning was as plain as if uttered in words and by voice, 
and being seen all over the world there was no speech nor language 
where that meaning might not be recognised. 

We may therefore presume that, in the absence of any written 
revelation, the prophets of these things, in the earlier ages of the 
world, pointed to and explained these signs in the heavens as 
prophetic, by the regular and foreknown changes in their position, of 
the varying events in the future history of the world. This also 
seems to be hinted by Josephus, who says that " the sons of Seth who 
were of good dispositions lived in the land without apostasising and 
in a happy condition. They were the inventors of that peculiar sort 
of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies and their 



THE WORSHIP OF THE STARS 251 



order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were 
sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be 
destroyed at one time by the force of fire and at another time by the 
violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of 
brick and the other of stone; they inscribed their discoveries on 
them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed, the 
pillar of stone might remain and exhibit those discoveries to mankind. 
Now this remains in the land of Siriad (i.e., Egypt) to this day." ^ 

This ancient knowledge of astronomy is further confirmed by the 
evidence of modern astronomers. ** It is impossible to doubt," says 
Cassini, "that astronomy was invented from the beginning of the 
world; history, profane as well as sacred, testifies to this truth. 
Bailly and others have asserted that astronomy must have been 
established when the summer solstice was in the first degree of Virgo, 
and that the solar and lunar Zodiacs were of a similar antiquity. 
This would have been about 4000 years before the Christian era. 
They suppose this science to have originated with some ancient and 
highly-civilised people who lived at that time about latitude 40°, but 
who were swept away by some sudden destruction, leaving, however, 
traces of their knowledge behind them. Origen tells us that it was 
asserted in the book of Enoch, that in the time of that Patriarch the 
constellations were already divided and named. Volney informs us 
that everywhere in antiquity there was a cherished tradition of an 
expected conqueror of the Serpent, who was to come as a divine 
person born of a woman, and he asserts that this tradition is reflected 
in the constellations, as well as in all the heathen mythologies 
throughout the world. Dupuis also and other writers of the same 
school have collected ancient authorities abundantly proving that in 
all the nations the traditions always prevailed that this Divine 
person, born of a woman, was to sufl'er in His conflict with the 
Serpent, but was to triumph over it at the last. He also asserts that 
this tradition is represented in the constellations."^ 

The latter writer has indeed argued that both Christianity and 
Paganism are nothing but astrological superstitions produced by the 
imagination of ancient astrologers; but the fallacy of such a 

' Antiq.f bk. i. chap. ii. It is evident that the stone one referred to here by 
Josephus is the Great Pyramid, which is also a cosmogonic and prophetic record. 
But it was not built in antediluvian but in postdiluvian times ; and the mistake 
of Josephus is probably due to his confusing Seth with Shem, the two names being 
synonymous, both meaning " the appointed one," and Shem, as we shall see, was 
the real builder of the Great Pyramid. 

' Primeval Man Unveiled (Gall), pp. 204, 206. 



252 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

conclusion is evident, when it is considered that there is no relation 
between the forms of the constellations and the names given to 
them. There must be a cause for every effect, and no reason can 
be discovered in Paganism for these names ; for while it might be 
natural for the Pagans to call the planets and every other known 
star by the names of one or other of their deities, there is nothing in 
the nature of their religion which can suggest a reason for the 
arbitrary names given to the constellations and signs of the Zodiac 

But that religion being, as we have seen, founded on perversions 
of the truth, its founders would be certain, when perverting and 
incorporating that truth into their system, to make use of these 
recognised prophetic signs in the heavens to obtain a fictitious 
credit for their religion. Hence, instead of regarding them as signs 
by which God had revealed to man the future history of redemption, 
they associated them with their false gods, and thus hid from 
maokind their spiritual meaning. The principle of this perversion 
will be more fuUy considered when we come to treat of the 
subsequent development of Paganism. 

Firstly, however, it is necessary to consider the history of the 
overthrow of the primeval form of idolatry as established by Cush 
and Nimrod. 



PART III 

OVERTHKOW OF THE PEIMITIVE PAGANISM 

AND ITS RELATION TO 

THE EARLY HISTORY OF BABYLON AND EGYPT 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GODS 

From the various traditions of the conquests of "Ninus/* "Osiris," 
"Sesostris," "Bacchus," "Dionusus," " Deva Nahusha," Hercules and the 
Arabian, or Adite, conqueror and sanguinary tyrant " Zohak," " the 
teacher of a monstrous and obscene religion," it appears that Nimrod 
extended his conquests and religion over the whole civilised world. 
The accounts limit his conquests by the Indus, beyond which were 
the so-called " deserts of India," and it is exceedingly improbable that, 
at that period, emigration had extended farther south, but that the 
Cushite race subsequently migrated there and formed the first inhabit- 
ants of Hindustan. To the eastward, these conquests extended to 
Bactria ; to the north, to Thrace and Scythia, and Herodotus speaks 
of seeing some of the pillars of Sesostris in the latter country,' while 
the similar pillars of Hercules at the entrance to the Mediterranean 
Sea seem to show that his conquests extended westward to that 
point, including therefore those "shores of the Gentiles" colonised 
by the Japhetic race (Gen. x. 1-5). It would also appear that he 
established his religion in some at least of these countries, like 
Mahomet, by force of arms. 

It is Egypt, however, which is chiefly connected with the later 
history of Nimrod. We have seen that he made his father king of 
that country, and accordingly we find both him and his father 
mentioned among the first of the god kings who ruled over Egypt 
in the lists of Manetho.^ Of these the first, " HephceshvSy** whose 
length of reign is given as 724 years, is probably the antediluvian 
Hephaestus, "Chrysor." The second is *' Helios the Sun'' probably 
Ammon, or Ham, who in early times was the Sun god of the 
Egyptians, and of them only. The third is '' Agatho-dcBmon" the 
name given to the good serpent in contradistinction to " Kakodwmon " 
the evil serpent. This Agatho-daemon is plainly Nimrod, for he is 
stated by Manetho to be the son of the second Hermes,^ i.e., Gush. 

* Herod., lib. ii. cap. cvi. ' Manetho^s lists, Cory's Fragments, p. 92. 

3 Cory's FragmentSy p. 173. 
265 



256 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Then follows Cronus or Saturn, i.e,, Cush, and then Oairia and /«w, 
after which are the repetitions of these gods under the various other 
appellations by which their human originals were deified. 

All tradition tends to prove that the first kings of Egypt were 
Ethiopian or Cushite. It is true that many of the monuments 
represent a brown or yellow race, with straight hair, and features 
very different from the Ethiopian type ; but this is just what we 
might expect, for the first settlers in Egypt were the descendants of 
Mizraim, and were therefore the people conquered by Osiris or 
^gyptus ; while at a subsequent period, as we shall see, Egypt was 
for a considerable time delivered from the ^Ethiopian yoke "by 
men of a different race" 

Thus there were two races who alternately had the dominion, 
and the ancient historians, in consequence, distinguish between the 
kings of Mizraim origin, whom they call " Meatraoi" and those of 
Cushite origin, whom they call " Egyptian" 

We have now to consider the circumstances which led to the 
overthrow of the Cushite idolatry in Egypt, and in a greater or 
less degree throughout the world, which overthrow, although only 
temporary, obliged its advocates to adopt other methods for propa- 
gating their religion, and consequently gave its subsequent develop- 
ment an entirely new aspect. 

NinvSy according to Ludovicus Vivos, was torn in pieces.^ The 
same is said to have been the case with Orpheus, who is identified 
with the Egyptian and Babylonian god by Bryant and Hislop, and 
is called one of the Titans by Lucian.^ A similar fate is recorded of 
Lycv/rguSy^ whom the Phrygians identified with Bacchus."^ In the 
rites of Bacchus a spotted fawn was torn in pieces in commemoration 
of the death of the god, and the spotted fawn was called Nebros^ and 
was the symbol of Nehrod^ the name of Nimrod in Greece. So also 
Osiris was cut in pieces, and the great feature in the rites of the god 
was the lamentation for his death at the solemn festival called " The 
disappearance of Osiris.*' Julius Firmicus says that " in the solemn 
celebration of the mysteries, all things in order had to be done, which 
the Youth either did or suffered at his death ; " ^ therefore the 
initiates were required to cut and wound their bodies. This is what 
the priests of Baal did when they called on their god,^ and the same 

' Commentary on Augustine, lib. vi. cap. ix., note, p. 139 ; Hislop, p. 66, note. 
* Bryant, vol. ii. pp. 419-423 ; Hislop, pp. 46, 65 ; Appollodorus, Bibltotkeca, 
lib. i. cap. iii. and vii., p. 17 ; also Lempri^re, Titanes, and Hislop, p. 124, note. 
3 HyginuB, Fab. 132, p. 109. '• Strabo, lib. x. cap. iii. p. 17. 

5 Julius Firmicus, p. 18 ; Hislop, p. 152. '' 1 Kings xviii. 28. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 257 

thing is still done by the devotees of Paganism in various parts of 
the world at the present day.' Herodotus speaks of the Carians 
doing the same.^ The Egyptians who died were, in a manner, 
identified with Osiris, and were called by his name, and therefore 
their mourners also cut themselves. Hence the command to the 
Israelites: '* Ye shall make no cuttings in your flesh for the dead."^ 
There is thus a singular unanimity in the traditions with regard to 
the way in which the god met his death. 

OrpJieuSf whose name, according to Hislop, is a synonym for 
JSe2,4 is said by Diodorus Siculus to have introduced the rites of 
Paganism into Greece,^ and, like Bacchus and Osiris, to have been 
torn to pieces.^ But he is also said to have perished by lightning.'^ 
jEscidapiua is also said to have been killed by lightning for raising 
the dead? that is to say, for invoking the demons who personated 
the dead. The same death by lightning is said to have been the 
fate of Zoroaster? and some other forms of the god. "Phostlum*' 
the child of the Sun, who can also be identified with Nimrod,'^ was 
likewise struck by lightning, and cast from heaven to earth when, 
it was said, he was on the point of setting the earth on fire," the 
significance of which will appear later on. Centav/rus, another form 
of the god," was likewise struck by lightning for pride and pre- 
sumption,'^ and Orion^ the giant and mighty hunter, who boasted 
that no animal could compete with him, and who has also been 
identified with Nimrod, is said to have been killed by a scorpion 
for similar pride and presumption.'^ Death by lightning is probably 
a metaphorical form of expressing the judgment of heaven, but 
the death of Bacchus, Osiris, and other manifestations of the god 
point to a special form of that death. 

' As witnessed hj the author among the Malays. 

« Herod., ii. 61. ' Levit. xix. 20. 

4 Mr Hislop says that Bd signifies "to mix" or "confound," and that "Orv" 
in the Hebrew, which becomes " Orph " in Chaldee (hellenised into Orpkeru), has 
a simUar meaning ; Hislop, p. 124, note. 

s Btbltotheca, lib. i. p. 9. 

* Ludovicus Vives, CommerUary on Augustine^ lib. vi. cap. ix., note, p. 239 ; 
Hislop, p. 56, note. 

7 Pausanias, Bcsoticay cap. xxx. p. 768 ; Hislop, p. 234, note. 

« Ovid, Metam., lib. xv. 11. 736-745 ; jEneid, lib. vii. 11. 759-773. 

9 Suidas, vol. i. pp. 1133, 1134 ; Hislop, p. 234, note. 

« Hislop, p. 317. " Ihid. 

" Scholiast in Lycophron^ v. p. 1200 ; Bryant, vol. iii. p. 315, and Hislop, pp. 42 
and 297. 

'3 Dymock, tub voce " Ixion " ; Hislop, p. 297. 

•* Ovid, Fastiy lib. v. 11. 540-544 ; Hislop, p. 57, note. 

R 



258 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Now **Tammiuz^** the name under which the god was more 
especially known and lamented in Syria and Palestine, suffered a 
judicial death. Thus Maimonides, deeply re€td in the learning of 
the Chaldees, writes : " When the false prophet, named Thammuz, 
preached to a certain king that he should worship the seven stars 
and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, that king ordered him to be put to 
a terrible death. On the night of his death all the images from the 
ends of the earth assembled in the temple of Babylon to the great 
golden image of the Sun which was suspended between heaven and 
earth. That image prostrated itself in the the midst of the temple, 
and so did all the images around it, while it related to them all that 
had happened to Thammuz. The images wept and lamented all the 
night long, and then in the morning they flew away each to his own 
temple again to the ends of the earth ; cmd hence arose the custom 
every year on the first day of the month of Thammuz to mourn and 
weep for Thammuz." ' 

Now as Tammuz is Osiris, the conqueror of Egypt, the question 
is, who put him to death ? This is explained by the Egyptian account 
of the death of Osiris, which is as follows : Typhon, the great enemy 
of their god, overcame him, " not by force or open wcur, but, having 
entered into a conspiracy with^eyentyriwo of the leading men of 
Egypt, he got him into his power and put him to death, and then cut 
his body into pieces and sent the different parts to so many different 
cities throughout the country." ^ Egypt was divided into Nomes, each 
with a ruler or judge over it, and these judges in later times amounted 
to seventy-two. Of these thirty were the civil judges who had power 
over life and death, and decided the punishment of those who had 
been guilty of crime ; while a further tribunal of forty -two decided 
whether those who had been found guilty should have burial or noi^ 
The story thus implies that Osiris was condemned and judicially 
executed by the chief men in Egypt at that time. The cutting up 
the dead body and sending it to different cities was an ancient 
method of expressing both warning and command, as in the case of 
Saul when he cut up a yoke of oxen and sent the pieces to the twelve 
tribes of Israel with the message, " Whosoever goeth not forth with 
Saul and Samuel so shall it be done to his oxen." ^ This, it is plain, 

* More, Nevochim^ p. 426 ; Hislop, p. 62. The images, that is, the demon gods, 
are here represented as lamentiDg the death of Tammuz, Implying that it was 
regarded as a most severe blow to their worship. 

* Wilkinson's EgyptiariSy vol. iv. pp. 330-332. 

^ Diodorus, lib. i. pp. 48-68 ; Hislop, p. 64, note. 

* I Sam. xi. 7. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 259 

is the origin of the characteristic feature in the funeral rites of the 
god in which a spotted fawn was torn to pieces. 

Typho, or Typhon, the enemy of Osiris who accomplished his 
overthrow, was the name of the evil principle among the Egyptians, 
and was a word meaning pride or arrogance. Nevertheless, he is 
said to be the brother of Osiris,' and the term was applied to him 
therefore as a term of reproach by the incensed idolaters. Typhon 
was, as we have seen, one of the principal Titans, or sons of Noah, 
and identical with Titan or Shem. Typhon is said to be the brother 
of Osiris, and Titan is said to be brother of Saturn or Gush, who was 
the father of Osiris ; but the ancients called all the parallel branches 
of a family " brethren," irrespective of their particular generation. 

Just as Typhon overcame Osiris, so Titan is represented as 
making war against Saturn, i.e., Thoth, or Cush, and we have 
seen that Thoth was made king over Egypt by his son, the 
second Cronus, i.e., Osiris or Nimrod. In perfect accordance with 
this we are told, in the story of Typhon and Osiris, that the latter 
left Hermes, t.6., Thoth, in charge of the kingdom of Egypt during 
his absence, and that Typhon, taking advantage of the absence of 
Osiris, raised sedition and inflamed the minds of the people against 
him, thus overcoming the influence of Hermes.' It is thus clear 
that the war of Titan against Saturn and that of Typhon against 
Osiris refer to the same event, and that Typhon is simply a term of 
reproach given to Titan, or Shem. This is confirmed by the name by 
which Typhon was commonly called, viz., Set or Sethy^ which is 
synonymous with Shemy both meaning "The appointed one,"^ and 
Shem is spoken of as Stieth in Nu9(^ xxiv. 17. In short, exactly 
the same story is told of Set : " Sej^**1nd brother of Osiris, rebelled 
against him and cut his body in piA^*^^ Birch says the name of 
the conspirator against Osiris was "«wiu,*'^ the root of which is the 
same as Shem, or "Sem," as it is in Greek; and Plutarch also gives 
to Typhon the titles of " Seth " and " Smy," and the latter in Greek 
would be Smu, which is evidently the same as Semu.^ 

The Saite or Sethroite Zone of Egypt, called so after Set, or 

' Lemprifere, Osiris — Typhon. * Ibid, 

3 Epiphanius, Adv, Hceresy lib. iii, ; Hialop, p. 65. 

* Hislop, p. 65, note. ^ Rawlinson's Egypt and Babylon, 

*" Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 138, note. 

7 Ibid, Wilkinson rejects all the traditions about Osiris and Typhon which 
represent them as human beings, but apparently he has no other reason for doing 
so except that they do not accord with his idealised view of Egyptian idolatry. 
Ses App. A. 



26o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Seth/ was, as we shall see, especially connected with him, and hence 
"Avaris" in that zone is said by Josephus to have been called in 
ancient theology a Typhonian City.* Typhon, which was also the 
name given to the ocean which destroyed the antediluvians, was 
represented by a hippopotamus among the Egyptians, and we 
consequently find Manetho saying that Menes, i.e., Thoth, whose 
kingdom was, of course, overthrown at the death of Osiris, perished 
by a wound from a Hippopotamus.^ 

Set was worshipped as a god and was long held in the highest 
honour in Egypt, which would be only natural if he delivered the 
Mizraim Egyptians from the Cushite yoke. Bunsen says that he was 
regarded as one of the most powerful of their gods until the time of 
Rameses IL, after which he was regarded as the foe of Osiris and all 
the gods of Egypt,^ and was therefore given the name of Typhon, 
the principle of evil, and everything was done to blacken his memory 
The period of Rameses II. was that in which a new element of 
Cushite influence was received from the Cushites of India.^ 

It may be remarked that although Set, or Sutech as he is said to 
have been sometimes called, was worshipped as a god, it does not 
follow that in all cases of his reputed worship it was Shem himself 
who was so worshipped. There is no doubt that he was worshipped 
by the idolatrous Egyptians after idolatry had been restored, just as 
Cush and Nimrod were worshipped. But when we are told in the 
" Sallier Papyrus " that Apepi, the Pharaoh under whom Joseph was 
ruler, changed his religion and, rejecting the Egyptian gods, chose 
Set only as his god, we must conclude that it was the God of Set 
whom he chose, by whose servant Joseph he had been warned of the 
coming famine, and not only been enabled to provide against it, but 
through it had acquired unprecedented riches and power. But the 
idolatrous priesthood who recorded the fact in after ages, failing to 
recognise the distinction, would naturally represent the opponent of 
their gods and worshipper of the god of Set, as the worshipper of 
the god Set or Typhon, the great enemy of their own gods. 

It would have been quite impossible for Shem to have overthrown 
the powerful Cushite race in the zenith of its power, by force of 
arms. But it is clear that he might have done so in the manner 
described, viz., by convincing the Egyptians of the deadly character 

» See Manetho's fifteenth dynasty, from Africanus ; Cory, p. 114. 
» Josephus, Contra Apionj Cory's Fragments^ p. 177. 
3 Cory, p. 94. * Bunsen's Egypt^ vol. i. p. 466. 

5 See dynasties of Manetho by Syncellus ; Cory, p. 142. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 261 

of the idolatry advocated by Cash and Nimrod, and thus destroying 
their influence. He oatlived all the Patriarchs of the antediluvian 
world, and with the weight and authority of centuries, and as the 
eye-witness of the terrible judgment that fell, as in a moment, 
upon the world which had despised the warnings of Noah, he could 
refer with startling force to the awful cataclysm that destroyed 
every living thing on the earth, and dwell on the cries and agonies 
of a perishing world when his own friends, relatives and acquaint- 
ances, with all ''the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich 
men, and every bondman and every freedman," all who had hitherto 
scofied and derided, were swept away by the flood of waters. He 
could solemnly and earnestly point to the crimes on account of 
which that judgment was sent, to the rejection of God, to the 
Nephilim intercourse and idolatry, and to the violence which, 
following in their train, covered the earth. He could refer to the 
prophecy of Enoch, which foretold that just as God had once 
destroyed the world by water, so yet again, in the future, he would 
destroy it hy fire ; while to prove that the god of whom he spoke 
was indeed the living God who could not be mocked or despised 
by man with impunity, he could refer to the recent confusion of 
tongues at Babel, as an earnest and warning of his power. Finally, 
he could show that the idolatry, the Nephilim intercourse and 
worship, and the unbridled lust and cruelty which accompanied 
it, and which were advocated by Cush and Nimrod, were simply a 
repetition of the crimes on account of which the old world had 
been destroyed. " Choose you therefore," he may have said, " whom 
ye will follow. If you will follow him under whose tyranny and 
cruelty you groan, and whose wickedness calls for judgment, and 
who is himself of this very Nephilim race which has been the cause 
of such untold evil, then be assured that the God of Heaven, who 
once destroyed the human race by water, will again take vengeance 
on such wickedness inflximingfire" 

That Shem did make use of these warnings and that the people 
whom he addressed fully believed that had the idolaters succeeded 
in firmly establishing the worship of the dsemon gods throughout 
the world, it would have been destroyed a second time by fire, is 
implied by the story of Phsethon, who was killed when on the point 
of seUing the world on fire. 

It is quite conceivable that such an appeal to the conscience, 
the fears and interests of his hearers might well have roused them 
to energetic action, and that on the return of Osiris, they seised him 



262 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

and condemned him to death. Yet it must be regarded as a wonder- 
ful triumph of truth, a victory gained by moral force over the 
mightiest king of the world. Doubtless a triumph gained by means, 
seemingly so feeble, as compared with the power against which they 
were arrayed, gave rise to the tradition that the god was slain, not 
by human hands, but by lightning, or the judgment of heaven, or 
power of Qod. This indeed was the case, inasmuch as the victory 
was gained by the power of truth, which is of God, and the power 
and efficacy of which depends on the spirit of Qod. 

This overthrow of the god by the power of truth is mystically 
taught in the story of the death of Adonis or Tammuz. He was 
said to have been slain by the ivish of a hoar} A tusk in Scripture, 
and in ancient times, was called a horn,' and a horn was the universal 
symbol of pov^er. Just, therefore, as a horn on the head was the 
symbol of physical and worldly power, so a horn in the mouth was 
a symbol of spiritual or moral power, the power of the mouth, or 
of words and arguments. Hence in the legends of Horus, Set is 
represented as having transformed himself into a boar in order 
to destroy the eye of Horus.3 The pig was therefore an emblem 
of evil, and pigs were sacrificed in consequence to the Moon (Mem 
or Menes) and to Bacchus,^ 'i.e., to Thoth and Osiris. So also boars 
were sacrificed to the goddess who is represented as overcoming 
Typhon, i.c., Set, and Diana is generally shown with a boar's 
head as an accompaniment, and as a token of her victory .^ So 
also the continental Saxons used to ofier a boar in sacrifice to 
the Sun, which with them was the goddess, in order to propitiate 
her.^ In India likewise a boar's face is said to have gained such 
power through his devotion that he oppressed the devotees of the 
gods, who had to hide themselves.^ 

The same idea of moral power seems to be expressed in some 
of the characters given to Hercules. Hercules in later times became 
a synonym for strength or powery and the name was in consequence 
applied to others than Nimrod, and it would be quite in accordance 
with the ideas of the ancients that it should be applied to one who 
had overcome the great god of Paganism. This appears to have been 
the case in Egypt, where one of the names of Hercules was Sem,* 

' Lempri^re, Adonis. 

* Ezek. xxvii. 16 ; Pausanias, EUaca^ lib. v. chap. xii. ; Hislop, p. 65, note. 

3 Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 298, note by Birch. 

4 Ibid.y p. 297. ^ Lempri^re, Diana; Hislop, p. 100. 
6 Mallet, vol. i. p. 132 ; Hislop, p. 100. ^ Moor's Pantheon^ p. 19. 

• Wilkinson's EgyptianSy vol. v. p. 17 ; Hislop, p. 66, note. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 263 

i.e., Skern^ He was also called Chxmy and we find that Chon was also 
called Sefm.^ The meaning of " Ghcm " is '' The Lamenter/' which 
might well have applied to Shem, who witnessed this renewed 
apostasy of the human race, and who alone most fully recognised 
all that it threatened, while in all probability he lived to witness 
its partial revival, in spite of its temporary overthrow in Egypt. 
Just as Lot is said to have " vexed his righteous soul " at the iniquity 
of Sodom, so may the righteous Shem have lamented the growing 
apostasy of his kinsfolk and descendants. 

The name " Chon," " The Lamenter," also tends to identify Sem, or 
Shem, the Egyptian Hercules, with Herculea OgrmuB, " Ograiiis " also 
meaning "The Lamenter." The latter is represented followed by 
multitudes with chains of gold and amber proceeding from his mouth 
to their ears, and he subsequently became known as the God of 
Eloquence.^ A character so entirely opposed as this is to that of the 
Babylonian and Grecian Hercules could only apply to one whose 
power, like that of Shem, was moral, and was probably applied to 
Shem by those who worshipped Set, or the god of Set. 

As a further proof that Typhon was Titan, or Shem, it is related 
by Plutarch that when Typhon was subsequently conquered, he fled 
away and begat Hierosolymus and JudaBUs,^ that is, Hierosalem, or 
Jerusalem, and Judea. This is but the mystical way of sajdng 
that he was the founder of Jerusalem and the ancestor of the Jews. 
This tends to identify Shem with Melchisedek, whose name means 
"righteous king," and who was king of Salem 
or Jerusalem. As "priest of the Most High TtTtT 

God " * he was evidently the origin of the name 
Jerusalem, or Hierosalem, " Hieros" or " Hierev^" 
meaning " priest." 

Set or Typhon was represented in Egypt by 
a somewhat nondescript figure called "fifAa" 
with long truncated ears and a tufted tail, 
bearing a strong resemblance to an ass (vide ^^ „ f^Mfj ^^s^, 
woodcut).5 The same figure in a sitting posi- 
tion was the usual hieroglyphic for Set, as in the woodcut below.^ 
The hieroglyphics. No. 1, read ''Nubti Set" and No. 2, '' Nubti Lord 

' Hislop, p. 66, and Lemprifere, Ogmiiu, 

» Sir W. Betham's Oael and Cimbrij pp. 90-93. 

3 Plutarch, De Iside, S. 31 ; Cumberland's Sanchoniathon, p. 108. 

4 Heb. vii. 1. It was a common tradition among the Jews that Melchisedek 
was Shem. See Smith, Diet, of BihUy " Melchisedek." 

5 Wililnni<mj by Birch, woodcut, vol. iii. p. 311. 
^ Wilkinson's HgyptianSf vol. vi., plate xzxviii. 




264 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



of the Earth." It will also be seen that the fignre of the god himselt 
has a head similar to that of the Sha, and this is the way he is 
repreBented on other moaumente.' 

In the hieroglyphics, No. 4, a human figure in a sitting poaition 
with the head of the Sha is substituted for the Sha itself, and reads 
" Set son of Nut." A similar 
figure occurs in the cartouche 
} No. 3, which reads, " Osiris, 
Aroeria, Set, laia, Nerptkys" 
The figure of the other god 
with the doable head is a 
combination of Hat Has, or 
Horns and Set. The title 
" Nvhti " given to Set means 
" The Qolden," and it is quite 
clear that at the time these 
monuments were erected, 
which was at least as late as 
the reign of Thothmes IIL, 
Set was worshipped as a god 
and the term Typhon had 
not been applied to him. 

In later times, when a 
feeling of hatred had been 
fostered against him by the 
idolatrous priesthood, and he 
was identified with Typhon, 
the ass was regarded as an 
emblem of the evil deity,' 
probably on accoant of its 
resemblance to the Sha, the emblem of Set. So great was the detesta- 
tion of the ass on this account, that the Coptites were in the habit 
of throwing one down a precipice as a mark of their hatred, while 
the inhabitants of Abydua, Busiris and Lycopolis scrupled to make 
use of trumpets because their sound was supposed to resemble the 
braying of an ass.^ 

The ass was also considered an appropriate emblem of Seth because 
it was usually of a red colour, and the complexion of Seth, unlike that 




NuBTi Str, Son of Ndt. 



' WilkinHon' 
Thothmes III. 

' WUkiiuon, bj Birch, vol. 



Bgypliant, vol. vi., plate szzix., wher 
p. 143. 



Set ifl shown inatmctiDg 
J Ibid., p. 300. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 265 

of the black Coshite Egyptians, was said to be red or ruddy/ which 
shows that he was ^ of a different race." For the same reason men 
of a red complexion, from their supposed resemblance to Typhon, 
were formerly sacrificed to Osiris, and on a similar principle they 
offered red oxen in their sacrifices.* It is also worthy of note that 
the Pagan opponents of Christianity in Egypt represented Christ as 
a man with the head of an ass, in order, no doubt, to identify him 
with Typhon. 

Set or Typhon was also represented by a hideous deformed figure 
under the name of the god " Be%l^ who is shown with his mouth open, 
as if shouting or declaiming,^ with the object, no doubt, of bringing into 
contempt that " power of the mouth " by which Set overthrew Osiris. 

In Greek mythology, Typhon, who is also called Typhoma, was 
represented as a giant with a hundred heads like a dragon ; the force 
of truth, or the power of his words by which he overcame the idolatry 
instituted by Osiris, was likened to '* fiames of fire darting from his 
mouth,*' and his words to " horrid yells like the dissonant shrieks of 
different animals." 4 << There is no new thing under the sun,'' and 
such misrepresentation was equally the weapon used by the idolatrous 
Jews against their own prophets ; ^ by the same Pagans against the 
early Christians, and by their successors in more modem times against 
those who exposed their errors and superstitions. In short, just as 
Christ was accused of being possessed by a devil, and as being 
energised by the Prince of the Demons, so he who overthrew the head 
of the dsomons worshippers was represented as Typhon, the principle 
of evil.^ 

The story of Typhoeus goes on to relate that the gods were so 
frightened that they fled away and assumed the shapes of various 
animals for concealment.^ This refers to the manner in which 
idolatry was restored, when the dead king and his father were sub- 
sequently deified under various names, representing different attri- 
butes. But this had to be done secretly, by the use of words with 
double meanings and mystic symbols, and secret rites like "The 

' Watinson, by Birch, pp. 143, 300. * Ibid,, pp. 30, 143. 

3 Ibid,, pp. 148, 149, woodcuts. 

< Lempri^re, Ttfphonajid Typhxxus, ^ Mat. v 11, 12. 

* It is suggested by some that Set is the origin of the Hebrew *' Satan," " an 
adversary." This would be possible, considering how completely Set became the 
name for the principle of evil throughout Egypt, and if it could be shown that the 
Israelites adopted the term from the Egyptians. But this is most unlikely, seeing 
that Set was honoured in Egypt until the time of the Rameses, their persecutors, 
and in whose time the Exodus took place. 
Lempri^re, Typhoeus, 



266 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



Mysteries/' in order to avoid the exposure which woald have followed, 
had this idolatry been openly taught while the memory of its 
exposure remained in men's minda Now one of the principal ways 
by which the worship of the dead king was introduced was by 
representing him under the forms of different animals as symbolic of 
him. This was especially the case in Egypt, and accordingly we find, 
in another story, that when the gods fled and assumed the shapes of 
these animals, they went to Egypt^ Their assumption of this disguise 
we are told was by the advice of " Pan " ; * and the story would thus 
imply that it was Gush who devised this method for the secret 
resuscitation of idolatry. 

Although Shem was the moral power by which idolatry was over- 
thrown in Egypt, yet his advice was carried out, not only by the 
Egyptians, but by others also. For, in the war of Titan against 
Saturn, it is said that the former was assisted by hia brother Titans, 
the name given to the descendants of Noah generally, from which we 
may conclude that the effect of the overthrow was by no means con- 
fined to Egypt. Hence, just as Shem was represented as the gtarU 
Typboeus with a hundred heads, so it would be natural that his 
brother Titans should be similarly represented. Accordingly we find 
an exact parallel of the conflict of Typhceus against the gods, in the 
war of " the giants " against the gods. These giants are represented as 
having fifty heads and a hundred arms, and, like Titan and Typhoeus, 
they are described as of Titan race and sons of Codus and Terra. 
Just also as in the war of Typhoeus against the gods, so in 
the war of the giants against the gods, the latter, terrifled 
by the attack, fled to Egypt and assumed the shape of various 
animals, while, in both cases, Jupiter is represented as finally gaining 
the victory ; just as in the war of Typhon against Osiris, Horus 
finally defeats Typhon.3 This victory of the gods is merely the 
mystical way of saying that idolatry was finally triumphant. 

Some have confounded another war, viz., the war of the Titans, 
with that of the giants, who were also Titans ; but the war of the 
Titans was against Codus (i.e., Ouranos or Heaven), who was Noah as 
the representative of Heaven, or of the True God ; and Saturn, the 
father of the gods, was the ringleader of the Titans in this war ; < 

' Lempri^re, Oigantes, * Ibid. — Pan. 

3 Lempri^re, compare Oigantes, Typhoeus, Typhon. 

♦ Lempri^re, Titans. The war of the Titans headed by Satvm or Gush against 
Ccelus is clearly the same as the war of Oronus against Ouranos mentioned by San- 
choniathon {ante p. 204-206), and evidently refers to the rebellion against Heaven 
at the building of Babel. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 267 

but the war of the giants was agaimst the luathea gods and, therefore, 
against Saturn himself. The first was a war of the Titans against 
Coelos or Noah, the second was a war of the Titans against the 
heathen gods, for the giants were Titans who, through the influence 
of Shem, now opposed the idolatry of the Cushite race. 

One other feature in the description of the giants requires notice. 
They are represented as of terrible aspect, their hair hanging loose 
about their shoulders and their beards suffered to grow untouched. 
The Egyptians shaved every part of their bodies except their heads, 
and considered the appearance of the smallest hair a disfigurement, 
but the Patriarchs of the Semitic race and also many of the Japhetic 
race are represented with flowing hair and beards. 

The giants are represented as piling Mount Pelion on Ossa in order 
to reach Heaven. This seems to imply that the Titam, war, or the 
war against Ccelus or Heaven, in which Cush sought to build a tower 
'* whose top should reach unto Heaven," has been mixed up with the 
war of the giants. It is very possible that the enterprise at Babel, 
which was frustrated by the Qod of Heaven, was advisedly associated 
with the war against the heathen gods, in order to throw the dis- 
credit attached to the former on the latter. 

The overthrow of the chief and leader of the primitive idolatry is 
also a prominent feature in the traditions of other nations. 

It seems to be referred to in the Chaldean legend of the war of 
the seven wicked gods against the Moon ' (i.6., against Meni or Cush), 
and which corresponds with the war of Titan against Saturn when 
Titan was assisted by his brother Titans, or the other descendants of 
Noah who in the various traditions are represented as seven in 
number. 

In the Scandinavian traditions Balder was slain through the 
treachery of the god XoH, who, like Typhon, is the spirit of evil, while 
it is said that the eTwpvre of Heaven (i.e., the empire of the Pagan 
gods) depended on the life of Balder. His father, Odin or Woden (i.e., 
Cush), is said to have learned the terrible secret (i.6., the means of 
establishing relations with the daimonia) from the book of destiny.^ 

In India it is said that a giant named Durga *' dethroned Indra 
and the other gods, and abolished sacrifice. The Brahmans gave up 
reading the Vedas; fire lost its energy, and the terrified stars dis- 
appeared." 3 This is an exact parallel to the defeat of the gods in 

' Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, chap. ziii. App. II. pp. 204-207. 

' Scandinavia, vol. i. pp. 93, 94. 

^ Wilkins, Hindu MythoL, pp. 247, 249. 



268 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Grecian mythology by the giami Typhoeus or Typhon, which, in other 
words, was the overthrow of the worship of fire, and of the stars, and 
the practice of human sacrifices. The remainder of the story is in 
similar accordance ; for just as Minerva is represented as slaying the 
giant PaUaa in the war of the giants against the gods,' so the goddess 
" Parvati " slays the giant Durga and " the gods regained their former 
splendour." * Another account says that "MaJieshay king of the giants," 
overcame the gods in war and they had to wander about as beggars, 
but Vishnu formed a woman called " Maha Maya " (which is another 
name of Parvati), who slew Mahesha.3 A third account says that 
Heaven was invaded by men who overcame the gods, and the latter 
were forced to wander about, and ''sacrifices, ascetic practices and ordin- 
ances ceased." " 0am£8a*' son of Siva (who, we have seen, was identical 
with Osiris), was created by Parvati, and he advised the gods to allure 
men back to earth again by means of wives, children, possessions and 
wealth, and by these means restored the gods.^ So also Isis is said to 
have restored the gods by means of her son Horus, the son of Osiria 

It will be observed in all these traditions, written long afterwards 
when the worship of the Pagan gods was firmly established, that 
the overthrow of the great king and his father, who were the originals 
of those gods, is represented as the conquest of the gods, although at 
the time of the overthrow their worship had not been instituted. 
Nevertheless, the death of Nimrod and flight of Gush was the over- 
throw of the worship of the daimonia instituted by them, and those 
daimonia were eventually identified with the gods of which Cush and 
Nimrod were the human originals. 

The remarkable way in which all these traditions, preserved by 
different nations far removed from eojch other and related in different 
forms of allegory, mutually confirm and corroborate each other, is an 
incontestable proof of the reality of the event to which they refer. 
It is an evidence also that the myths of the ancients are not mere 
fables, for the invention of which there would have been no con- 
ceivable reason, but that they refer to real events related in the 
allegorical language of mythology. 

All these traditions of the overthrow of the gods evidently refer 
to one and the same event, viz., the overthrow of Osiris or Nimrod, 
and his father Thoth or Cush, and of the idolatry established by them 
in Egypt, through the influence of Set or Shem, who was afterwards 
known as Typhon and Titan. 

» Smith's Clas. Diet. Athena, * Wilkins, Hindu MythoL, pp. 247, 249. 

3 Ibid., pp. 249, 260. •• Ibid., pp. 272, 273. 



THE DEATH ^ OF THE PAGAN GOD 269 

But Set was iht fi/rst Shepherd hmg, called Saite, or Saitea, by 
the Greeks, and in an inscription on a tablet of red granite made by 
an officer of State in the reign of Rameses 11., which was found among 
the ruins of Tanis by Mariette Bey, this Shepherd king is mentioned 
as having built the City of Avaris and founded there the temple of 
Set. In this inscription he is entitled " King of Upper and Lower 
Egypt:' ''Seta a peh peh" ("Set the powerful"), "Son of the Sun," 
" Nubti Set:' and is done homage to as " Set a a peh peh Son of 
Nut."' 

The name of this Shepherd king is also found together with that of 
King Apepi, both partially erased on one of the Shepherd sculptures, 
and it reads like the above — ** Nubti Set a a peh peh" or "Set a a 
pehuti" i.e., " Nubti Set the powerful" * 

Now these titles, " Nubti Set, son of Nut," are the exact titles 
given to the god Set, afterwards known as Typhon ; while the City 
of Avaris, built by the Shepherd king Set, was called a Typhonian 
city, and the zone in which it was built to the east of the Bubastis 
Channel of the Nile was called the Sethroite zone.^ There seems to 
be little doubt therefore that the Shepherd king Set was the human 
original of the god Set or Seth, and therefore the same as Typhon, or 
Shem, the enemy of Osiris or Nimrod. 

Moreover, the story of the overthrow of the Cushite dominton 
and idolatry by the Shepherd kings exactly corresponds with the 
overthrow of Osiris by Set or Typhon, and with the story of the 
judicial execution of Tammuz as told by Mainonides. 

" There was a king of ours," writes Manetho, " whose name was 
Timaua." " This name," says M. Lenormant, " is an evident corrup- 
tion of the Greek Copyists ; " ^ and Bishop Cumberland has suggested, 
with much likelihood, that Timaus is a corruption of Tammuz,^ in 
which case the king would be Osiris or Nimrod, who was overthrown 
through the influence of Set or Typhon. 

Manetho proceeds, " Under him it came to pass, I know not how, 
that God was averse to us, and there came in a surprising manner 
men of ignoble birth out of the eastern pa/rts, and had boldness enough 
to make an expedition into our country, and with ease subdued it by 

' Lenormant, Anc. HUu of JScut, vol. i. bk. iii. chap. ii. sect. iii. p. 221 ; Petrie, 
ffut, of Egypty vol. i. p. 244 ; Record* of the Paet^ vol. iv. pp. 33-36. 

» Brugsch, HieU of Egypt^ vol. i. p. 238. 

3 Josephus, Ckmtr. Apion; Cory, p. 177 ; and Manetho's dynasties, fifteenth 
dynasty, from Af ricanus. 

* Anc, Hist. ofEaxty vol. i. p. 219. 

s Cumberland, Hiet. SanchonicUhan, pp. 359, 360. 



270 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

force^ yet withoiU ov/r haza/rding a hcMe with them." In this state- 
ment there is an evident anomaly. The country was subdued by 
" force," and yet apparently without the exercise of force ! Neverthe- 
less, it very exactly accords with the description of the overthrow of 
Osiris by Typhon, who overcame him, " riot by force or open war" * but 
through the moral influence exercised by him on the Egjrptian people, 
and their consequent united judicial action. The account proceeds, 
" So when they had gotten those who governed tw (i.e., Tammuz, or 
Nimrod, and his father) under their power, they afterwards burned 
down our cities and demolished the temples of the gods^ and used all 
the inhabitants in a most ba/rbarous manner, nay, some they slew 
and led their chUd/ren and wives into slavery. The whole nation was 
called Hyksos, that is, Shepherd kings." ^ 

It might be expected that the idolatrous priesthood would 
exaggerate the power which overthrew their religion and mis- 
represent its subsequent action. The point to be observed, how- 
ever, is that they v}ere Shepherds who ca/me from the East. Some 
have supposed that they were Philistines, and others have sought to 
identify them with the Hittites, because both Africanus and the 
Armenian call them ** Phoenician kings " ; but neither of these nations 
were shepherds, but dwellers in cities and followers of the same 
idolatry as the Cushites, and therefore the last people who would 
have been likely to oppose and overthrow it. On the other hand, 
those who were especially shepherds, with large flocks and herds 
wavdering from, place to place, were the Patriarchs of the Semitic 
race, who were particularly associated with Phoenicia, or Palestine, 
and who exactly answer the description of the Shepherds in the 
Armenian record of Manet ho's seventeenth dynasty, viz., " Wandering 
Phoenician kings" ^ 

The account goes on to say that the Shepherd king "chiefly 
aimed at securing the Eastern frontier, for he regarded with suspicion 
the increasing power of the Assyrians, who, he foresaw, would one day 
undertake an invasion of the kingdom. And, observing in the Saite 
zone, upon the east of the Bubasite channel, a city — called Avaris — 
and finding it admirably adapted to his purpose, he rebuilt it, and 
strongly fortified it with walls, and garrisoned it with a force of 
250,000 men, completely armed." This was just what Set, who had 

» Ante, p. 268. 

> Manetho, from Josepbus, Contr, Apion, lib. i. chaps, xiv. xv. ; Cory, FrctgmenUy 
pp. 170, 175. 

3 See Manetbo's dynasties ; Gory, p. 115. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 271 

overthrown the Coshite idolatry and put to death the king of the 
Babylonian Empire, might expect, and Avaris, which seems at first to 
have been more a fortified camp than a city, was situated exactly 
opposite the Isthmus of Suez, by which an army from Assyria woald 
have to enter Egypt. 

In after ages, when idolatry had been re-established and the 
Shepherd king. Set, as the overthrower of that idolatry and the 
enemy of the Egyptian gods, was identified with Typhon, the prin- 
ciple of evil, the priesthood called the city built by him a Typhonian 
city. This in itself is a clear proof that the Shepherd king Set was 
the human original of Set or Typhon. The hatred also of the idolaters 
to the memory of the Shepherds is implied by the statement in 
Genesis xlvi. 34, that "every shepherd is an abomination (i.e,, an 
object of religious hatred) to the Egyptians"; showing that the 
Shepherd Set, who overthrew Tammuz or Nimrod, and the idolatry 
established by him, was regarded with precisely the same religious 
hatred as was Set, the enemy and overthrower of Osiris. 

The exact correspondence and mutual corroboration of these 
various stories make it clear therefore that the Shepherd king Set 
was the hated Set or Typhon who overthrew Osiris or Nimrod ; that 
the overthrow of idolatry and of King Timaus or Tammuz by the 
Shepherd king Set, and the overthrow of Osiris by Typhon are one 
and the same event, and that Set, or Saites, was Seth, the synonym 
of Shem or Sem. 

Manetho says that the Shepherds were finally prevailed upon to 
leave Egypt, which they did without molestation, and went to Judea, 
where they built the city of Jerusalem, and " that this people, who 
are here called Shepherds, in their sacred book are also styled 
captives,'*^ It is clear that he here refers to the Israelites, whose 
history he associates and mixes up with that of the Shepherds. The 
Israelites were not only descendants of Shem, and would be regarded 
by the Egyptians as worshippers of the God of Shem, but they also 
were Shepherds, " Thy servants are Shepherds " they said to Pharaoh 
on their arrival in Egypt (Gen. xlvii. 3). This association by Manetho 
of the Shepherd kings with the Israelites is a further proof of the 
Semitic character of the former, and of the identity of their first king 
with Set or Typhon, who is also stated to have been " the Father of 
the Jews and builder of JemsaXem,*' ^ In short, Josephus, the Jewish 
historian, calls the Shepherds " our ancestors,^' 3 

' JosephuB, Contr, Apiorij lib. i. chap. xiv. ; Cory, p. 173. * See ante, p. 263. 

3 Josephus, CorUr, Apion, lib. i. chap. xvL ; Cory, p. 138. 



272 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

" The study of the monuments/' says M. Lenormant, speaking of 
the Shepherd kings, " proves the reality of the frightful devastation 
consequent on the invasion. With one single exception, all the temples 
built prior to that event have disappeared, and nothing can be found 
of them but scattered ruins, bearing traces of a violent destruction." ' 
This was what might be expected from the servant of a God who 
afterwards commanded His people to " destroy the altars and 
break down the images, and cut down the groves, and bum 
the graven images with fire, and quite pluck down all the high 
plaices" of the heathen, "lest they should become a curse" to 
them.* 

M. Lenormant continues, *' Very soon after the first subjugation of 
the whole land by invaders, the native kingdom of the Thebaid was 
re-constituted and afforded refuge to all the patriots who had at first 
fled to jEthiopia" ^ We have seen, however, that those whom he calls 
" the patriots " were the real invaders, and those whom he calls the 
"invaders" were the real patriots of the race of Mizraim, who, 
through the influence of the Shepherd king, Set, threw off the yoke 
of the Cushites and the idolatry imposed by them. It would thus 
appear that it was the Cushite invaders who fled to ^Ethiopia, the 
natural refuge of their race and the plaice from which they had come. 
For Manetho, while he makes Menes the first king of a Memphite 
dynasty, and says that his son Athothes built the palace at Memphis, 
yet calls him "Menes, the Thinite," from This, or Abydos in the 
Thebaid, and similarly Eratosthenes calls him " Menes, the ThebaniteJ' 
both Abydos and Thebes being in Upper Egypt on the borders of 
^Ethiopia, and in all probability were originally part of African 
^Ethiopia, or " Cusha dwipa without." 

M. Lenormant adds, **We have finally, of the age of the 
Shepherds, only the remains of sculptures, but not one single 
architectural work ; the principal fragments, all in the Museum at 
Cairo, are first, a group in granite of most perfect execution, 
representing two personages in Egyptian costume, but with a large 
beard and long hair, absolutely unknown to the true Mizraite (or 
Egyptian) blood. Also four large Sphinxes, in diorite, bearing the 
name of Apepi, the king whom Joseph served. The sculptures of the 
Shepherd period represent moreover a race of radically different type 
to that of the Egyptians, a race evidently Semitic, with angular and 

* Lenormant, Anc, Hut, of East, vol. i. p. 220. 
' Numbers xzxiii. 52 ; Deut. vii. 5, 25, 26. 
3 Lenormant, Anc* Hist, of East, vol. i. p. 220. 



THE DEATH OF THE PAGAN GOD 273 

sharply - cut features." ' Thus, everything tends to identify the 
Shepherd kings with the Patriarchs of the Semitic race, and it also 
suggests the reason why ihe giants, who overthrew the Pagan gods, 
were represented with flowimg hair and bea/rda. 

Much mystery has hitherto surrounded these Shepherd kings, but 
that they were powerful Egyptian kings is clear, both from their 
complete conquest and dominion of Egypt, the high estimate in which 
Set was held for many ages, and from his title " Set Nubti," and 
" Set the Powerful." That they were the most powerful and cele- 
brated of the Egyptian kings we hope to show in the next chapter. 

' Anc Slit, of Eout^ vol. i pp. 222, 223. See also tn/ro, chap, xiv., 
"Shepherd Sculptures." 



GHAPTBB XIII 

THK 8BXPHIBD KntOB AHD TBS FTBAMID BUILDBBS 

Tbs evidenoe thttt has been brought forwud mppBam to thiaw a 
light aa the esrlier and more obaeoze pertoda of the EgypSat, aod 
Babylonian kingdoms. The eonclqaions arrived at may be briei^ 
recapitulated as follows : — 

The evidence seems to affiord condnsive proof that the ftrnt kingi 
of the Egyptian monarchy^ viz., Menes or Mena» and Athothes or 
Athoth, were also the first kings of Bal^lon, and £cmndfirB of the 
great Coshite Empire, viz., CSash or Belns, and Nimrod or miiii^ the 
latter being also known in Egypt as Osiris, Sesostxia and B^Tptos; 
that he, having conquered Egypt^ made his bther king over i^ aod 
that they and the Coshites were the progenitors of the black or 
Egyptian race, as distingoished from the descendants of Hizxmim. 

It has also been shown that they were afterwards deified, Gosh 
being worshipped in Egypt as "Thoth" or "Hermes," "Anubia," 
"Cronus" and "Seb," "the Father of the Gods," "Phtath," "Meni 
the Lord Moon/' etc. ; and Nimrod as Osiris. In Babylon, Gush was 
known as " the All- wise Belus," the elder " Cronus," the elder '* Bel 
Nimrud," "Hea, the Lord of Understanding and Teacher of Man- 
kind," " the Prophet Nebo," the Moon God " Sin," and the Pish God 
" Cannes " or " Dagon " ; and Nimrod as " Nin " or " Ninus," " Bel 
Nimrud the greater," " Bel Merodach," " Hercules," " Tammuz," ** Dis," 
etc. In other countries Cush, keeping his character as " Father of 
the Gods," was " Saturn," " Cronus," "Vulcan," " Hephaestus," "CJhaos," 
"Janus " and also " iEsculapius," "Mercury," "Buddha " and "Woden." 
while Nimrod was deified as " Bacchus," " Jupiter," " Mars," " Pluto," 
" Dis," and in Lidia as " Siva," " Iswara," etc These and other names 
given to each being titles representing them under various aspects 
and characteristics. 

It has also been shown that " Semiramis," the wife and queen of 

Ninus, was the human original of the great goddess known as " Dea 

Myrionymus," " the Goddess with Ten Thousand Namea" 

We have also seen that, although the gods wero eventually identi- 

874 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 275 

fied with the Sun and the male power iu nature, and the goddess with 
the Earth and Moon and the female principle, yet they still retained 
much of their human character and personality, and that their human 
origin was fully recognised and admitted by the priesthood and the 
initiated. 

We have further seen that the dominion of the two kings, Cush 
and Nimrod, who were the human originals of these gods, was over- 
thrown in Egypt, Nimrod being put to death, and that the record 
and memory of his death were carefully preserved in every Pagan 
nation, and made use of for promoting his worship. 

Finally, it seems to be clearly proved that the person by whose 
influence the Cushite power was overthrown in Egypt was " Set the 
Powerful," the first of the Shepherd kings, called in af tertimes by 
the priesthood and known in Grecian mythology as "Typhon," 
under which name he is shown by Manetho as the immediate sue- 
cesaor of the God kings, " Cronus " and " Osiris," who we have seen to 
be Menes and Athothes, and that Set was identical with the Semitic 
Patriarch Shem, known also in mythology as " Titan," who overthrew 
Saturn, i,e,, Cronus or Cush. It follows, therefore, that these 
Shepherd kings must have been the iTtimedicde successors of Menes 
and Athothes. Tet, in spite of the fact that their dominion is said to 
have lasted 518 years, there appears ta be no record of them on 
the monuments, save the notice in the reign of Rameses II., while 
according to the Greek copies of Manetho the only record of them 
is as a fifteenth or seventeenth dynasty, to which a duration is given 
of from 103 to 259 years.' 

In the extract, however, from Manetho by Josephus,^ these kings, 
although also called the seventeenth dynasty, are represented as com- 
mencing the Egyptian monarchy, and this is the case with other 
records, like " The Old Chronicle," in which the previous dynasties, 
except the one immediately preceding them, are represented to be 
those of the gods, and are therefore mythical. 

But although this tends to confirm the conclusions we have 
arrived at, it affords no further light on their history, and the 
mystery which seems to surround these kings is admitted by all who 
have studied the subject. 

Mr Nash writes, " The monuments bear no record of them, and we 

have the remarkable fact of a people, whose duration was nearly as 

long as the Romans, planting itself firmly on the soil of the most 

monumental country in the world, and leaving behind them no 

' See Manetho's dynasties ; CJory, pp. 114, 116. * Cory, p. 136. 



276 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

monuments of their existence." Again he quotes Gliddon as saying, 
"It would be indifferent to me to sustain that the Hyksos once 
occupied Lower Egypt, or that they were never there at all. The 
latter view might result from the totaJ absence of direct allusion to 
the Hyksos in the Hieroglyphics, and the necessity of interposing 
an immeasurable gap between the royal names 39 and 40 in the 
tablet of Abydoa" Again, " In the period of 500 years, surroonded 
by Egyptian arts and civilisation, and what that must have been at 
the commencement, the grottoes at Benihassen inform us, subjected 
to softening and civilising influences, they must in that long period 
of time have become Egyptianised ; all history tea^ches us that it must 
have been so." Similarly Mr Kenrick writes, " Without the testimony 
of Manetho we should have been wholly ignorant of this most 
important event (the Hyksos invasion) in the history of Egypt"* 

Yet the first Hyksos king, Set or Saites, is expressly mentioned 
on the inscription in the reign of Bameses II. as " Set the Powerful," 
and as a great Egyptian monarch, while Bunsen remarks that until the 
time of this Bameses, the god Set was one of the most powerful of 
the Egyptian deities,^ implying that until then the influence of the 
Shepherds must have been more or less predominant. 

Brugsch says that " the conclusions to be drawn from the monu- 
ments are, that Egyptian kings of the family of Menti (or Meniku) 
reigned for a long time in the Eastern Delta, or Saite zone, that they 
had Zoan and Avaris (the city of Typhxm) as capitals, that they had 
the same customs and manners and the same official language and 
writing as the other Egyptians ; that they were patrons of art and 
erected statues and monuments in the same way, and that they 
worshipped the god Set or Sutech and constructed Sphinxes in his 
honour." 3 These Menti or Menthu are also identified as having been 
inhabitants of the land of Ashur, or Assyria, and this we know was 
the first home of the Semitic race until Abraham was called by (rod 
out of Ur of the Chaldees. Moreover, Apepi, or Apophis, is associated 
with the Menti, his name was engraved on four Sphinxes, and he is 
represented as the last of the Shepherd kings. This, therefore, tends 
to identify these Menti with the kings classed by Manetho as 
" Shepherd kings," 

Apepi, or Apophis, was, however, different from the rest of the 
Shepherd kings. Unlike the others, numerous monumental records 
of him exist, and he is recognised to be one of the greatest of the 

' Nash, Pharaoh of the ExoduSy pp. 172, 180, 183, 184. ' See aaUe^ p. 26a 

3 Brugsch, Hut, of Egypt, vol. i. pp. 236, 237. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND P YRAMJD BUILDERS 277 

Egyptian monarcha He is different also from the others in that he 
seems to have ehcmged his religion. A papyrus in the British 
Musenm says, " The king Apepi chose the god Sutekh (t.6., Set) as 
his Lord, and did not serve any other god in the whole land." ' Now 
Syncellns says that it was a tradition, " received by the whole world," 
that Joseph ruled the land in the reign of King Apophis or Apepi,' 
and the evidence on the subject confirms this. If so, it would 
account for his rejecting idolatry in favour of the God of the 
shepherd Joseph, and which god would naturally be identified in 
later times with the god Set; for it was through the God of Joseph 
and Shem, or Set, that his kingdom was saved from famine, and 
he became the arbiter of the destinies of all Egypt. 

This fact of his changing his religion distinguishes him from the 
rest of the Shepherd kings. Moreover, we learn that in his time, that 
is before Joseph was ruler, ''Shepherds were an abomination to 
the Egyptians " (Gen. xlvi. 34). This, of course, would be the con- 
sequence of the destruction of the heathen temples and gods by the 
Shepherd kings, and the word ** abomination " implies that the hatred, 
which would otherwise have been unmeaning, was of a religious 
nature. If, then, Apepi was the Pharaoh of that time, we must con- 
clude that the idolatry destroyed by the Shepherd kings had been 
restored between their time and the reign of Apepi, and that the 
name of Shepherd had become by that time only a hated memory. We 
also learn from the " Sallier Papyrus " that Apepi, after his change of 
religion, endeavoured to force the worship of Set, and the repudiation 
of the Pagan gods, on all the Egyptians,^ which further confirms the 
fact that previous to that time the worship of the Pagan gods had 
been general. 

This shows that there was a great gap between the first 
Shepherds and Apepi. In short, the total length of the reigns of the 
Shepherd kings was, according to the highest estimate, only 259 
years, while some records give them only 103 years, whereas the 
actual time from the first Shepherd king to the last is stated to be 
511 or 518 years. This implies that there was a gap somewhere of 
at least 250 years, which is perfectly accounted for by the fact that 
Apepi was not at first a worshipper of the God of the Shepherds, but 
of the gods of Egypt, just as his predecessors had been for probably 

' " Sallier Papyrus." ' Brugsch, vol. i. p. 260. 

3 Letter from Apepi to Skennen ra, or Ba Sekenen, vassal king of Southern 
or Upper Eg3rpt, commanding him to repudiate his gods (" Sallier PapTrus "), 
Brugsch, ffitt. of Egy^t^ vol. i. pp. 239-241. 



278 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

centuries before him; but that, for the reason stated, he had 
repudiated idolatry and worshipped the god of Set, and by so doing 
had earned for himself in after ages the opprobrious title of 
'* Shepherd king." 

It is thus clear that Apepi must be distinguished from the other 
Shepherd kings, of whom, apparently, not a trace or record remains, 
but the notice in the reign of Rameses of " Set the powerful," and the 
statements of Manetho. 

It is important, however, to remember the hatred with which the 
Shepherds were regarded in later times by the idolatrous priesthood. 
There is abundant evidence of this hatred, and of the fact that every- 
thing was done to obliterate their memory. It was indeed only to be 
expected that the priesthood, who were the sole recorders of their 
country's history, and custodians of its archives, would do their best 
to discredit and conceal the fact of the overthrow of their religion 
and the death of their God king. The Shepherd kings, as we shall 
see, were in reality some of the greatest Egyptian kings, kings who 
had made Egypt what it was, and for the priesthood to have admitted 
that it was they who accomplished this overthrow would have been a 
lasting and indelible disgrace on their gods and religion, tending to 
create constant doubt and suspicion of the whole system. If, then, 
they mentioned them at all in connection with the overthrow of their 
religion, it would be in terms of contempt and hatred. Thus we see 
Manetho describing them as " men of an ignoble race," just as, in 
Greek mythology, the giants who opposed the gods are described in 
terms of similar opprobrium. 

In accordance with this, Mr Osburn has pointed out that the 
names given by Manetho to these Shepherd kings are really 
opprobrious epithets. Thus " Solatia " means " many lies," which is 
just the kind of epithet which would be bestowed by the idolaters on 
one who had overthrown their god by the force of Truth. " Beon " 
means " filthy fellow," and " Apachnas'' " bond slave," ^ while Apophis 
appears to be an intentional corruption of Apepi, viz., Ap, and ophe, 
a serpent, to identify him with the malignant serpent Apophis slain 
by Osiris in his avatar as Horus.^ These are the only names given in 
some of the copies of Manetho, and the other names recorded by 
Josephus are placed after Apophis, and appear to be intimately 
associated with him, while their names, " Staan," " Janias," etc., 
are also titles of contempt. Now it is very evident that we may in 

' Osburn, Monumental Hist, of Egypt ^ vol. ii. p. 51. 
" Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 163, 154. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 279 

vain search the monnments for these names, and unless we can 
identify them by some other means it would be hopeless to discover 
them. 

This being the case, it is a matter of some surprise that Apepi 
has been included among these Shepherd kings under the name by 
which he is known in the lists and on the monuments. There are 
plenty of evidences of the hatred with which the idolatrous priest- 
hood regarded him. His name occurs in a vast series of tombs and 
grottoes, all of which are systematically mutilated, while in the 
same place those of the Theban kings of the twelfth dynasty are 
untouched.' Apepi was not, however, as we have seen, one of the 
original Shepherd kings but an Egyptian Pharaoh reigning at a 
time when the Shepherds had become a hated memory. The events 
of his reign made him of world-wide celebrity, and it was alike 
impossible to conceal his identity, or to ignore his change of 
religion ; all that the priesthood could do was to include him among 
the Shepherd kings, and thereby cover his memory with the 
opprobrium attached to them. 

It may be remarked that Plutarch says that Apepi, or Apophis, 
was one of those who warred against Osiris.* Now, as the period 
from the first to the last Shepherd king is said to have been over 500 
years, and Apophis was probably the last Shepherd king, he could 
have had nothing to do with the overthrow of Osiris by Set or 
Typhon. Nevertheless Plutarch's statement is of importance, because 
it shows that the Shepherd kings were recognised as identical with 
the Typhonians, and that the overthrow of Egyptian idolatry by the 
Shepherds was identical with the overthrow of Osiris by Typhon, 

Brugsch says that the names of the Hyksos kings, or of some of 
the earlier kings before them, have been carefully obliterated, or 
chiselled out, on the life-size statue at Tel Mukkdam, on the lion found 
near Bagdad, the sacrificial stone in the Museum at Boulak, and the 
borders of the stand of the colossal Sphinxes in the Louvre, although in 
one case the names of Set and Apepi have escaped complete erasure.^ 
Apepi was closely connected with the latter form of sculpture 
(sphinxes), and it is pretty certain therefore that these obliterated names 
were those both of himself and the other Shepherd kings. Wilkinson 
also observes that the name Amunre has been substituted for some 
other name on many of the oldest monuments, the latter name being 

' Osburn, vol. ii. p. 81. 

' Cumberland's Sanchoniathon^ p. 165 ; Plutarch, S. 36. 

3 Brugsch, vol. i. pp. 237, 238. 



28o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

erased with scrupulous care, and that these erasures were confined to 
monuments 'preceding those of Amenophis III. of the eighteenth 
dynasty.' Now it was in his reign, according to Syncellus,* that the 
Cushites from India came to Egypt, and that the Cushite influence, 
and therefore the influence of the Cushite gods, began to gain the 
upper hand. It would therefore appear that, as the name sub- 
stituted for the erased name was that of Amun, the Sun god, 
the erased name was that of the rival god Set. The hatred to the 
Shepherds is also shown by the way in which the Egyptians always 
represented herdsmen and shepherds as dirty, unshaven, and of 
ludicrous appearance.^ 

These facts all tend to show that everything was done to 
obliterate the memory of the Shepherd kings, and to represent them 
as everything contemptible. If then they do appear in the lists and 
on the monuments as great Egyptian kings, every care will have been 
taken by the priesthood to dissociate these kings from the hated 
enemies of their god and religion. 

The question then is — Is it possible, by any means, to identify, 
and learn the history of, these Shepherd kings ? 

We may learn something about the Shepherd kings by a con- 
sideration of the period at which their conquest took place. 

It is sufficiently evident that Saites, or Set, the first Shepherd 
king who obtained the sovereignty of Egypt, after getting the then 
rulers of the country into his power, is Set or Typhon, who overcame 
Osiris or Nimrod. If then we can approximately ascertain the date 
of that monarch's death, we shall also know the date of the accession 
of Set. Now, there are a remarkable number of independent testi- 
monies proving that the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was 
about the year 2232-2234 B.C. 

Firstly, there is the list of kings of the Assyrian Empire given by 
Berosus. The first of his dynasties, consisting of eighty-six kings 
reigning 34,080 years, may be regarded as similar to the reign of the 
gods in Egypt, to which a similar exaggerated period is given. The 
latter was composed of the human kings Menes and Athothes (i.e., 
Cush and Nimrod), under their names as gods, viz., Agathodaemon, 
Cronus, Osiris, Horus, Ares or Mars, etc., to which are added the 
antediluvian Hephaestus or Chrysor, Helius the Sun, and some others, 
— the total length of their years added to those of the human kings 
being made up to be exactly 36,525 years, or twenty-five Sotbic 

' Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. iv. p. 244. ' Cory, p. 142. 

3 Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. iv. p. 126 ; Nash, p. 238. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 281 

cycles of 1461 years, to the Persian conquest.' It is evident that the 
reigns of these gods are purely fictitious, and merely added to make 
up this vast mythical period. 

In like manner we find Evechius, the first king of the mythical 
dynasty of Berosus, given a reign of four neri, or 2400 years, and 
Comosbelus a reign of four 'oefri and five BO%si^ or 2700 years, etc. 
It is evident that these are equally fictitious, and that the dynasty of 
34,080 years is merely added to make a great mythical period, or an 
exact number of 8ari, each consisting of 3600 years.^ 

The first dynasty must therefore be regarded as entirely mythical, 
and the remainder stand as follows : — 

Mythical dynasty, 34,080 years. 

8 Median kings, 
11 Chaldean 
49 Chaldean 

9 Arabian 
45 Assyrian 

Oaaon of f Assyrian 

^''^^ \ Chaldean 

Overthrow of the Baby- 
lonian Empire by the 
Medes and Persians . .... 538 



» 



9> 



» 



» 



» 



» 



. 224 


f> 


234 Marg. Arm.^3 
(2) 48 Marg. Arm./ 


2458 B.( 


. (258) 


» 


2234 „ 


. 458 


» 




1976 „ 


. 245 


» 




1518 „ 


. 526 


» 




1273 „ 


. 122 


» 




747 „ 


87 


» 




625 „ 



Total, 36,000 years. 



The ancient home of the Cushite race was, as we have seen, 
Arabia, and the Babylonian portion of Nimrod's empire being 
previously occupied by Turanian races allied to the Medes who 
eventually threw off the Cushite yoke,^ Berosus probably gave the 
name of this afterwards dominant race to the first inhabitants of 
Chaldea. The Median kingdom would thus represent the period 
when the country was occupied by these races before their conquest 
by the Cushites, and the first Chaldean kingdom must of course be 
that of Nimrod. 

The number of years representing the duration of the first 
Chaldean kingdom in the canon of Berosus has unfortunately been 

' "The Old Chronicle," Cory's Fragments, pp. 89-93. 

' According to Berosus a sarus consists of 3600 years, a neroi of 600, and a 
i088U8 of 60 years. 

3 Bawlinson, Five Oreat Monarchies of the East, vol. L p. 151, note. 

^ Lenormant's Anc, Hist, of East, vol ii. pp. 22, 23. See also Appendix D, "The 
Accadians." 



282 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

erased, and the period given to it, viz., 258 years, is that deduced by 
Dr Brandis, as making up, with the other dynasties and the mythic 
period of 34,080 years, exactly a total of 36,000 years/ For the 
particular period which Berosus uses as the basis of his chronology is 
a 8artt8 consisting of 3600 years,^ and as he represents the reigns of 
the ten kings of Babylon before the Deluge eus exactly 120 sari? it 
appears certain that, like the Egyptian historians, he made the dura- 
tion of the Babylonian monarchy after the Deluge, including the 
mythic period, to constitute an exact number of 6ari, which in this 
case could only be 10 sari, or 36,000 years. 

The correctness of this period of 258 years also receives strong 
confirmation from Arabian history, which fiissigns to the first great 
empire of Western Asia founded by the Aribah, or Adite, conqueror 
Zohak, who has been identified with Nimrod, a period of 260 year&^ 

It receives also some further confirmation from the marginal 
numbers given by the Arttitniam Chronicle of Eusebius to the Median 
and first Chaldean dynasties (see table). It is evident that the period 
of 48 years given to the eleven kings of the latter dynasty is alto- 
gether too small and that the first figure must have been erased. The 
general accuracy of Berosus is proved by the fact that the Assyrian 
inscriptions give a list of exactly eleven kings as constituting the 
first Babylonian dynasty, and as the total of their reigns amounts 
to 292 years,^ it is pretty certain the duration of the dynasty must 
have been between 200 and 300 years, and that the missing figure in 
the margin of the Armenian is " 2," which would make the period 
248 years. This is ten years less than 258 years, but it will be seen 
that the Armenian gives ten years more to the Median dynasty, 
indicating therefore that the total of the two dynasties was 
recognised to be the same as that given in the table ; and as the 258 
years is corroborated by Arabian history, it may be taken as the 
more correct period. 

The only other point in the table which requires notice is this. 
Eusebius in the Armenian Chronicle, after enumerating the successive 
dynasties mentioned by Berosus to the end of the forty-five kings 
reigning for 526 years, proceeds, "After (or Mast of) whom he 
(Berosus) says that there was a king of the Chaldeans whose name 

' Rawlinson's Herod,, vol. i. essay vi. pp. 433, 434. 
' Berosus, from Ahydeniu; Cory, p. 32. 

3 Ihid., p. 33. * See antey chap. iv. p. 76. 

5 See Appendix D. Berosus probably terminated his dynasty at a slightly 
earlier date than that given by the Assyrian inscriptions. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 283 

was Phulns, of whom also the historical writings of the Hebrews 
make mention under the name Phulus (Pul), who they say invaded 
the country of the Jews " (Euseb., ArT^. Ghron.y p. 39). 

Phulus or Pul was the predecessor of Tiglath Pileser/ the com- 
mencement of whose reign (749 B.c.) corresponds with that of 
Nabonassar, the first king of Ptolemy's canon. It seems evident, 
therefore, that the object of the Chronicle in mentioning Pul was 
simply to bring down the chronology of Berosus to the recognised 
chronology of Ptolemy, and that Pul was the last king of the last 
dynasty mentioned. 

The first Chaldean kingdom which follows the Median is mani- 
festly that which was established by Nimrod, and the date of that 
according to this canon is 2234 B.C. 

Concerning this date, Sir Henry Rawlinson writes: "We have 
here a fixed date of 2234 B.c. for the commencement of the great 
Chaldean Empire, which was the first paramount power in Western 
Asia; and this it must be remembered is the same date as that 
obtained by Callisthenes from the Chaldeans at Babylon for the 
commencement of their stellar observations which would naturally be 
coeval with the empire. Thus : — 

" Date of visit of Callisthenes to Babylon 331 B.C. 

" Antiquity of stellar observations . 1903 „ 

" 2234 B.c.^ 

"It was the same date also which was computed by Pliny 
adapting the numbers of Berosus to the conventional chronology of 
the Greeks. Thus : — 

" Greek era of Phoroneus . . . 1753 B.c. 

" Stellar observations at Babylon before that time 480 „ 



" 2233 B.C.3 

" It is likewise probably the same which was indicated by Philo 
Byblius when he assigned to Babylon an antiquity of 1002 years 
before Semiramis (that is to say, the second Semiramis), who was 
contemporary with the siege of Troy. Thus : — 

' 2 Kings XV. 19-29. 

^ Simplicius, Ad Arist. de Ccdo, lib. iL p. 123 ; Kawlinson's fferod,y vol. i. 
pp. 422, 423. 

3 Plinjr, H. N., vii. 66 ; Clinton, F. H., vol. i. p. 139. 



284 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

" Siege of Troy, and Semiramis, whose reign 

probably began a year or two before 1229-1232 B.c. 
" Babylon previous to this . . . 1002 „ 

" 2234 B.c.« 

Sir H. Bawlinson also shows that the chronology of Ctesias 
makes the beginning of the reign of Ninus (i.e., Nimrod) 2231 B.C.* 

The uniformity of this date deduced from five different calcula- 
tions seems to place its general accuracy beyond question. 

It is also strictly in accordance with the chronology of the Old 
Testament, which represents the date of the Deluge to be about 2430,3 
and as Nimrod, the grandson of Noah, was the sixth son of Cush, and 
is implied to have been bom some time after the other sons of Cush, 
his birth may very well have been some 160 years after the Deluge, 
and the foundation of his empire 30 to 40 years later.^ 

Finally, the date appears to be remarkably confirmed by the 
records of the dates and reigns of Babylonian kings discovered on the 
Assyrian Tablets. See Appendix D. 

Syncellus represents the reign of Ninus, or Nimrod, who is the 
same as Athothes, as 52 years, but Manetho gives Athothes a reign of 
57 years, and Eratosthenes gives him a reign of 59 years. In his 
dynasty of God kings, Manetho also gives Agathodsemon, who is 

» Steph. Byz., ad voce "j3(£/3uX(&'." 

* Eawlinson's Herod,^ vol. i. essay vi. pp. 434, 435. The details of the last 
calculation are given in his Notes on the Early History of Babylonia^ p, 7 et seq. 

3 The chronology adopted in our Bibles, which makes the Deluge to have been 
2348, is that of Usher, but it is well known that he has omitted certain periods of 
the time of the Judges, which, according to St Paul, should be 450 years. This 
450 years, however, appears to include the whole of Samuel's judgeship to his 
death, and of this period the last eighteen years, according to Josephus, was during 
the reign of Saul. See work by the Author, The Oreat Pyramid and Its BuUdefy 
chap, v., " Sacred Chronology *' ; which makes the date of the Deluge 2432 ac. 

* The tendency of scientific thought at the present day is to treat the 
chronology of Scripture with contempt, and to place greater reliance on the specula- 
tions of geologists, who affirm that the creation of man must have been thousands 
of years before the period assigned for it in the Old Testament. In support of 
this theory, modern archaeologists have assumed that the numerous dynasties of 
Manetho, representing a period of over 5000 years, are sttccessivey while some go 
so far as to assert that the mythical reigns of the Egyptian and Babylonian gods 
in the histories of Manetho and Berosus, represent periods of human history 
before the historical period. But both the speculations of geologists and the 
arguments of archaeologists are based upon data which, upon examination, will 
be found to be capable of a very different explanation, nor do they afford any 
logical support for their conclusions, many of which are indeed mere assumptions. 
See Appendix C. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 285 

identified with Athothes, a reign of exactly 56j^ years and 10 days, 
which would count as 57 years, and we may therefore take the period 
of 57 years as the true period of the reign of Ninus or Athothes. 
Taking then 2234 B.C. as the commencement of the empire of Nimrod, 
and deducting from it the length of his reign, the remainder will 
give the date of his death in Egypt : — 

Commencement of empire 2234 B.C. 

Keign of Ninus or Nimrod 57 „ 

2177 B.C. 

It may be observed, however, that the period from which this date 
is derived is the establishfnent of Nimrod's empire and the com- 
mencement of stellar observations at Babylon, both of which would 
necessarily be a few years subsequent to the commencement of the 
conquests of Nimrod, and it would be in accordance with the 
practice of the ancients to date his reign from the commencement of 
those conquests, which might be three or four years earlier. This would 
make the beginning of his reign about 2237-2238 B.C., and his death 
and the overthrow of the Cushite dominion in Egypt about 2180 B.C.' 

This date is some ten years before the date of the Great Pyramid 
built by the ELhufu, or Shufu,^ of the monuments, the Suphis of 
Manetho's fourth dynasty, the Saophis of Eratosthenes, and the 
Cheops of Herodotus. This Pyramid, as proved by Piazzi Smyth, the 
Astronomer Boyal of Scotland, records a certain conjunction of stars 
which took place at midnight at the autumnal equinox 2170 B.C., and 
which conjunction only takes place once in 25,847 years. 

The conjunction is recorded by the particular position and angle 
of inclination of the first descending passage of the Pyramid, and as 
that position and angle of inclination could not have been determined 
before the conjunction actually took place and had been carefully 
observed, the Pyramid could not have been commenced until that 
event, and this portion of the plan of construction must have been 
designed to record it. Now the Pyramid could not have been com- 
menced by Suphis until a certain period after his accession; and 
if we assume that period to be only ten years, it would make the 
date of his accession to be 2180 B.c. or exactly the date of the over- 
throw of the Cushite dominion in Egypt, by the Shepherd king Set. 

' This date muBt he regarded as approximate only. It requires a certain small 
correction, which does not affect the conclusions drawn. 

' In Lower Egypt Sh was substituted for the Kh of Upper Egypt. 



286 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

But, if so, iht Pyramid king Swphia and the Shepherd king Set were 
both the im/mediate succeasors of Nimrod or Athoihea, amd of his father 
Cuah or Menea, In any case, it is quite impossible that the Shepherds 
who succeeded Menes and Athothes, and whose rule is said to haye 
lasted from 103 to 518 years, could have intervened between that of 
the Cushite and Pyramid kinga 

Is it possible then, that the Pyramid builders, who were among 
the greatest of the Egyptian kings, were identical with the Shepherd 
kings, but that the priesthood, for the reasons before mentioned, 
sought by every means to obliterate this identity ? It would indeed 
seem to be so, and the evidence in support of it accumulates as we 
proceed. 

If Suphis was " Set the powerful," nicknamed " Salatis," then the 
admission of Manetho, that '' he was arrogant to the godsy' ^ is as much 
as we could expect. But the priests, his predecessors, who were 
consulted by Herodotus, were more communicative; "Cheops," i.e., 
Suphis,* they said, ** plunged into every kind of wickedness. For 
that, having shut up the temples^ he first of all forbade themn, to offer 
sacrifices, and afterwards he ordered aJl the Egyptians to vx^rk for 
hvrrtseif** Then follows the description of the building of the Great 
Pyramid and the preparation of the stone for it. He says that, 
" they worked to the number of a hundred thousand at a time, each 
party during three months. The time during which the people were 
thus harassed with toil lasted ten years on the road which they 
constructed, along which they drew the stone, and in forming the 
subterraneous apartments on the hill on which the Pyramid stood," 
and he says that "twenty years were expended in erecting the 
Pyramid itself." 3 

Is not the above an exact parallel of the acts of the Shepherd 
kings, who are described as " demolishing the temples of the gods," and 
reducing the inhabitants to slavery t^ 

Cheops, says Herodotus, was succeeded by his brother Chephren 
(i.e., Suphis 11.),^ who followed the same practices as his predecessor, 
both in other respects and in building a Pyramid, and that during 
their two reigns, amounting to 106 years, " the Egyptians suffered ail 

' See table of Egyptian dynasties ; Cory's Fragments^ p. 102. 

* Cheops is a corruption by the Greeks of the Egyptian name Shufu or 
Khufu. 

3 Herod., ii. c. 124. ^ See ante, p. 270. 

5 Suphis II., or Num Shufu, the successor of Suphis I., was also known by the 
name of Shefra or Khefra, and just as Shufu or Kuphu I. was hellenised into 
Cheops, so was Khefra changed into Chephren, 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 287 

lAndB of calamities, and for this length of time the temples were closed 
and never openedJ* ' In other words, all idolatry was suppressed 
daring that period. 

This is the account of the idolatrous priesthood centuries after 
the event, who of course would do all they could to cast reproach on 
the enemies of their religion, by accusing them of cruelty. On the 
face of the account itself this cruelty is greatly exaggerated. 
Herodotus says that he himself saw an inscription on the Pyramid 
of the amount expended on the food provided for the workmen, 
wJio were not slaves, but only worked three months out of the 
twelve.* 

Speaking of Cheops and Chephren, Herodotus says, "From the 
hatred they bea/r them the Egyptians are not very willing to mention 
their names." Thus there is the same hatred evinced towards the 
Pyramid builders as to the Shepherd kings, and as to Set or Typhon. 
There are the same accusations of cruelty and oppression. There is 
the same overthrow of idolatry in both cases ; and the period of the 
commencement of their rule in Egypt would appear to synchronise 
exactly. 

Again, like the Shepherds, the Pyramid kings are said to have 
been " men of a different race," But there is no mention of them 
being foreign conquerorSj and this exactly accords with the story of 
Set or Typhon. For it was the judges or rulers of the different 
nomes who condemned and executed Osiris or Nimrod, by the advice 
of Set or Typhon, and Manetho, speaking of the Shepherd kings, says 
that after they had destroyed the temples they chose one of their 
number (i.e., Saites or Set), to be king, who, it is clear, was the 
Shepherd prince Shem, the righteous king of Salem, who, with his 
flocks and herds and followers, went to Egypt to warn the people 
against the wickedness and idolatry of their tyrant conqueror. In exact 
accordance with this, Herodotus says, " From the hatred they bear 
them (Cheops and Chephren) the Egyptians are not very willing to 
mention their names but call the PyraTYiids after Philition, a sliepherd, 
who at that time kept his cattle in those parts." ^ Now from the 
inconsequence of this statement it looks as if there was some error. 
If they called the Pyramids after the name of a shepherd, how 
would it enable them to avoid mentioning the names of the kings 
who built them ? Unless indeed they spoke of them as huilt by this 
shepherd ; which would be equivalent to saying that Cheops was that 

' Herod., ii. c. 128. * Ibid., c. 126. 

i Ibid., ii. c. 128. 



288 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

shepherd. But it is certain that the Pyramids were never called after 
Philition the shepherd, and it is more probable that what the priests 
really said to Herodotus was, "The Egyptians call them" (i.a, the 
kings who had built the Pyramids, and not the Pyramids themselves), 
" after Philition, a shepherd," or, in other words, they called those 
kings (i.e., the builders of the Pyramids), " Shepherd kings." ' 

The fact also that Manetho describes these Pyramid kings aa **of 
a different race,*' * which was just what the Shepherds were, implies 
that their accession was the result of some kind of revolution. 

Here then we have two sets of powerful Egyptian kings, both of 
a different race to the other kings; both ascending the throne in 
consequence of a revolution ; both overthrowing the worship of the 
gods; both accused of reducing the inhabitants to slavery; both 
doing these things at apparently exactly the same period of Elgyptian 
history ; both regarded with the same hatred, while from the notice 
of Herodotus, it would seem that, at one time, the Pyramid kings 
were actually called " Shepherd kings." 

How is it possible to avoid the conclusion that the hated Pyramid 
kings are the same as the hated Shepherd kings, the evidences of whose 
identity the priestly historians have taken such care to obliterate ? 

If Manetho had never told us the story of the Shepherd kings yet 
a careful examination of dates and the recognition of the identity of 
the first two Egyptian kings, Menes and Athothes, with the founders 
of the Babylonian Empire, together with a comparison of the story of 
Typhon and Osiris, and of Titan and Saturn, and that of the Pyramid 
builders related by Herodotus, would have forced upon our minds the 
fact that these stories related to the same events. But the story of 
the Shepherd kings, related to cast upon foreigners the wickedness 
of having overthrown the idolatrous religion supported by the priest- 
hood, is just what was required to make this conclusion certain, and 
explain the exact nature of the event. 

The reigns of the Shepherd kings are given by Josephus as 
follows : — 

Salatis . . .19 years. 

Beon ... 44 years. 

ApachnsLS . 36 years and 7 months. 

Apophis . .61 years. 

» ^^ PhUitton" is evidently a Greek word composed of ^^ Philo^ and ^^tttus," 
meaning "a lover of rectitude or right" ; a fit name for "the righteous king." 
* See Manetho's dynasties, Cory's Fragments, p. 102. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 289 

and Manetho gives the reigns of Saphis and his saccessor as 
f oUows : — 

Saphis ... 63 years. 
Saphis II. 66 years. 

Now the names of Saphis or Shof a, and of Nam Shafa or Saphis 
IL, are foond together in the monumental inscriptions with the 
symbol significant of reigning conjointly, and both are found in 
the Qreat Pyramid,' showing that they must have been contemporary, 
and that the first Saphis mast have made his son, or saccessor, 
co-regent with him at some period of his reign. A portion of 
the 66 years of the Saphis IL mast therefore be included in the reign 
of Saphis I. If, then, the Shepherd king Set, or Saites, was 
Saphis I., the second Shepherd king Beon must be Suphis IL, who 
reigned conjointly with him, and the length of the two reigns 
of Saites, 19 years, and Beon, 44 years, exactly equal 63 years, 
the length of the reign given by Manetho to Suphis I. 

Moreover, as it was only Suphis I. and Suphis II. (le., Cheops 
and Chefren), who suppressed idolatry, they would be the only 
two kings besides Apepi to whom the hated name of " Shepherd " 
would be applied. Hence we may presume that the third Shepherd 
king Apachnas, which is only a nickname, is the name given to 
the second Suphis to represent the period when he reigned alone, 
it being the usual custom to give a king some special title or 
titles when he ascended the throne. Thus : — 

Fourth Dynasty 

Pyramid kings Shepherd kings 

Suphis 33) ^o ^^^'^^ ^^ I 

Suphis IL co-regent 30i ^^ ^^'' Beon 44 1 J J | ^3 years 

Suphis II. alone 36 years Apachnas 36 years 

The extra 14 years given to Beon over and above that given 
to Suphis II. may represent the period previous to the latter's 
actual co-regency, during which period his father may have made 
him his coadjutor at Memphis without giving him a separate 
jurisdiction; for his name by which he is called on the monu- 
ments, viz., Shefra (Greek, Sephres), appears as one of the kings 
of the fifth, or Elephantine, dynasty of Upper Egypt, which, from 
this time, had always a separate king or viceroy. On account of 

» Osburn's Monumental History of Egypt, vol. i. pp. 279-281. 
T 



290 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the distance of the two seats of government from each other, and 
of each being the point at which attack from without might 
be feared, the necessity of a viceroy for one was obvioua 

There is a farther confirmation that the Shepherd kings were 
among the first rulers of Egypt. We have seen that Josephus 
places them as the fvrst kings of Egypt, calling them the seven- 
teenth dynasty ; and similarly The Old Chronicle places the seven- 
teenth dynasty as immediately succeeding the sixteenth dynasty 
of Tanites, previous to which are the mythical dynasties of gods.' 
These Tanites appear to represent the period during which Mizraim 
and his descendants possessed the northern part of the country 
about the Delta, where Tanis is situated, before Nimrod's con- 
quest. The Old Chronicle gives this sixteenth dynasty a period 
of 190 years, and the seventeenth, which it calls Memphites, 
after Memphis, their seat of government, 103 years. Similarly, 
in the Armenian canon of Manetho, the sixteenth dynasty is 
given a period of 190 years, while the seventeenth dynasty, which 
follows it, is called ShepherdSy and given also a period of 103 
years.* 

The period of the Shepherds is also given by Eusebius as 106 
years, 3 showing that there was a more or less general recognition 
of a period of 103 to 106 years connected with the Shepherd 
rule. Now this latter period of 106 years is exactly that 
assigned by Herodotus to the Pyramid builders, Cheops and 
Chephren, (i.e., Suphis I. and Suphis II.), during which the temples 
were closed and the worship of the gods suppressed.^ 

In the face of all this evidence it seems impossible to doubt 
that the Pyramid kings of the Memphitey or fourth, dynasty of 
Manetho were the Shepherd kings of the seventeenth dynasties of 
Josephus, the Armenian, and The Old ChroniclCy both of which are also 
called MemphiteSy and that the Shepherd king " Set the Powerful " 
was the Shepherd Philition and the Pyramid builder Suphis I. 

Herodotus says the successor of Cheops and Chefren, viz., 

' Cory's FragmentSy p. 90. * Cory ; compare pp. 90 and 116. 

3 Ibid.y 115. This period of 103 or 106 years does not exactly agree 
with the period given to Saites, Beon and Apachnas, viz., 99 years, but Herodotus 
speaks of this period as that during which the temples were closed during the 
reigns of Cheops and Chephren, and this would naturally extend into the 
reign of their successor, Mencheres, who re-opened them, for we might expect 
that he would wait a few y cat's before he made so great a religious 
revolution. 

4 Herod, ii. c. 128. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 291 

** Myoerinus/' who is the " Mencheres " of Manetho's fourth dynasty 
and "Menkara" of the monuments, re-opened the temples and 
restored the worship of the goda It is also stated that no open 
idolatry was ventured upon in Babylon until the reign of Arioch, 
the grandson of Semiramis.' Now the restoration of idolatry in 
Babylon would be the signal for its restoration in Egypt 
also, and if Set, the overthrower of Ninus or Nimrod and the 
idolatry instituted by him in Egypt, is Suphis, then the reign of 
Mencheres in Egypt would exactly synchronise with that of 
Arioch in Babylon,* This is a further remarkable confirmation of 
the fact that Set was the Pyramid king Suphis. 

Under Set or Suphis, and his successor Suphis II. or Chefren, 
Egypt was probably the most powerful kingdom in the world 
and the idolaters would not venture on any open attempt to restore 
their religion during their lives, but directly the restraining influence 
of these kings was removed, steps would naturally be taken both 
in Babylon and Egypt to do so. 

Mencheres, who is credited with having restored the worship 
of the gods in Egypt, received the name of Horus, and he is also 
B{)oken of as ''bom of Neith," the goddess of Sais, called Minerva 
by the Greeks, and who was also a form of Isis. This would 
seem to imply that he was the human original of the god Horus, 
the son of Isis, who is the same as Neith, and who by his aid is 
said to have overcome Typhon. Neitocris also, whose name is a 
compound of Neith, and is translated by Eratosthenes as " Minerva 
Victris," 3 is associated with him. For Manetho says that she was 
the builder of the third Pyramid, while Herodotus says it was built 
by Mencheres or Mycerinus, the successor of Chefren.** Nitocris is 
said by Herodotus to have been queen of Babylon and aUo queen of 
Egypt, and that she revenged her brother's death, who was king of 
Egypt and had been put to death by his subjects,^ This clearly 
identifies her with Isis, or Semiramis, the wife of Ninus or Osiris, 
and Manetho says that, like Semiramis, she was celebrated for her 
beauty. Semiramis is said to have quelled a rising rebellion among 

« Cedreni, Compevditm,, voL i. pp. 29, 30. 

* The reigns in Babylon after the death of Nimrod, or Ninus, were — 1st, Semi- 
ramis ; 2nd, Ninyas, or Zames ; 3rd, Arius or Arioch. The reigns iu Egypt were — 
Ist, Suphis I. ; 2nd, Suphis II. ; 3rd, Mencheres. See Manetho's dynasties, and 
Dynasty of Awyrian Kingsj by Africanus and Eusebius ; Cory's Fragments, 
pp. 70, 71. 

i Cory, BratostheneSj p. 86. ^ Herod., ii. c 134. 

5 Ibid,y ii. c. 100. 



292 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

her subjects by her beauty on suddenly appearing before them, and 
that a statue was erected to her in Babylon to perpetuate the memory 
of that beauty which had so fascinated them.' Nitocris was also 
said to have been of a florid complexion with golden hair, and the 
goddess mother is always represented by the classical writers as fair 
with yellow hair.' Herodotus, on the information of the priests, 
ascribes many of the great works constructed by Semiramis to 
Nitocris, being led to suppose that she was a different queen,^ but it 
is evident that, like Neith and Athena, Nitocris is only another name 
for Isis or Semiramis, who, as we shall see, was the founder of the re- 
vived idolatry.4 Hence as the overthrower of the influence of the 
hated Set, the god of the Shepherds, Nitocris was placed by Manetho, 
or the Greek copyists, at the end of the sixth dynasty, after Apepi, 
which was the termination of the Shepherd rule. 

It must be remembered that these are stories told by the priests 
ages after the event, and the statements that Mencheres was bom 
of Neith, and that he re-opened the temples and restored the worship 
of the gods, are manifestly false. For neither Neith, nor any other of 
the gods and goddesses afterwards worshipped, had as yet come 
into existence. It is evident, therefore, that the title of ''Horus 
the son of Neith" or "Isis" must have been given to Mencheres 
long after his death, in commemoration of his having been the 
first to restore idolatry in Egypt, and that the monuments thus 
describing him were erected by his successors in after times. 

Reference has been made to the numerous obliterations of 
the names, and mutilation of the statues and monuments of the 
Shepherd king Apepi, and of those who were hateful to the idolatrous 
priesthood, and we might expect that similar attempts would be 
made to mutilate and obliterate the names of the Pyramid kings. 
This is the case, for in the list of kings found in the chamber at 
Eamak, at Abydos and elsewhere, the earliest names have all been 
more or less obliterated. 

Again, Mencheres, following the example of Cheops and Chef ren, 
also built a Pryamid, but while the Pyramid of Mencheres remained 
untouched until comparatively modem times, the two built by Cheops 
and Chefren (Suphis and Sephres) were early desecrated and their 
casing stones torn off*, showing, as Mr Osbum remarks, that the 

» Valerius Maximus, lib. ix. cap. iii. leaf 193, p. 2 ; Hislop, p. 74 and note. 
» Hislop pp. 85, 86. Mr Hislop quotes Ovid, Anacreon, Homer, etc 
^ Herod, i. c. 186. 
Sm chap XV. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 293 

memories of Suphis and Sephres were ^^ eixecnxble in ancient 
EgypV*^ Statues of Shefra, or Chefren, have also been recently 
fomi4 thrown down a well in an midergromid building near the 
Great Sphinx.' 

In spite, however, of this systematic obliteration of names, 
done to prevent identification, a record has been found of the titular 
name, or prenomen, of the first Shepherd king. That name 
according to the Turin Papyrus and the list of Chenoboscion, is 
'' Nufrehar ^ This title enters into the composition of many of the 
prenomens of the earlier Memphite kings, but hardly ever into those 
of the Theban kings of Upper Egypt, the original seat of the Cushite 
I)0wer.4 As it was the custom of the kings of Egypt to adopt titles 
derived from a predecessor whom they especially honoured, or from 
whom they claimed descent, this of itself suggests the conclusion that 
Saites was one of the earliest kings of Egypt. The title '* Nufreka " 
is also singular in the fact that it is without the Ra which terminates 
the prenomen of every recognised Pharaoh and which follows this 
prenomen in nearly every other case, and it has been observed by 
many, that while the names of the Egyptian gods Ra, Amon and 
Phtah enter into the composition of the names of nearly every other 
Egyptian king, they do not form part of those of Suphis and his 
successor Num, or Noh Suphis. 

" Ra," the Sun god, with Aph, the Serpent, is " Aphra " or " Phra," 
the Egjrptian for Pharaoh, and it is thus distinctive of every recog- 
nised Egyptian king. The prenomen of Saites being without the Ra, 
it is the distinguishing mark of that king by which he may be identi- 
fied, and, as Mr Poole remarks, it indicates that the compilers of these 
lists refused to recognise Saites as a true Egyptian king, which is just 
what we might expect from the hatred bestowed on his memory in 
later times. When the worship of the Sun and Serpent god had been 
fully re-established, the "ra," or the name of some other Sun god, 
would, as a matter of course, be added to the title of every Pharaoh 
recognised as such, and not identified with one of the hated Shepherds. 
If, then, any recognised Pharaoh ever had a prenomen which was 
without the ra, it would only be found on monuments of the time of 
his reign, or immediately subsequent to it. Now, a monument does 

' OsbnrD, vol. L p. 324. ' Brugsch, vol. i. p. 78. 

3 Poole's JETorcp MgyTptictJRy part ii. sect. iii. p. 133. It is the title of the first 
king of a dynasty corresponding to Manetho's fifteenth dynasty which is that of 
the Shepherds. 

* See LUt of Ahydosy Poole, part ii. sect. iii. p. 101. 



294 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

exist which records this very title '* Nufreka " and it is the title of 
Suphis I. 

This title '^Nufreka" occurs in the mention of an estate of a 
Prince Cephrenes (75 Qhizeh), and as it was the regular custom of 
Egyptian notabilities to call their children after the reigning king, 
Prince Cephrenes must have lived during the reign of Suphis IL or 
Chefren. The reference in the inscription is to the king *^8hufu 
Nufreka'' ' Therefore, as nearly all the Egyptian kings have been 
identified by their titular names, this exceptional title, common to 
both, is an additional evidence, although not in itself conclusive, of the 
identity of Set the Powerful, and the great Pyramid king Suphis I. 

With regard to the predecessor of Suphis I. in Manetho's fourth 
dynasty, viz., Soria, it is evident that he should be Nimrod, or his 
father (^.e., either Athothes or Menes). Soris would be the Hellenised 
form of euro or soro^ " the seed " or " son," and as this was the title 
especially given to the deified monarch,^ we may conclude that Soris 
represents Osiris (i,e,, Athothes or Nimrod). This is confirmed by the 
monuments. In a tomb which is said to be of the time of the fourth 
or fifth dynasties the names Shura, Nufrekara and Nv/ni Shufu are 
found together, and in another tomb Shura^ Nufrekara and a third 
king are found together.^ Now, as Num Shufu is Suphis II. and 
Nufrekara is the prenomen of Suphis I. with the ra, as the title of a 
Pharaoh, added, Shura would be Soris, and as the Greeks always put 
" S " for " Sh " and substituted their own termination — as in " Suphis " 
for " Shufu " — SoriSy or Suria, would be exactly the Hellenised form of 
Shura, It is very possible that these tombs are later than the fourth or 
fifth dynasties, but even if they are of that period, the ra, by which 
the Egyptian kings claimed to be descended from the Sun god, would 
be added to the prenomen of every recognised Pharaoh after the time 
of Mencheres, the successor of Num Shufu, inasmuch as Mencheres 
reopened the temples and restored the worship of the gods. 

Mr Osbum mentions the following notices of Soris or Shura : In 
one inscription he is spoken of as " Lord of festivals, king of Upper 
and Lower Egypt, Soris (Shura) everlasting." Another inscription is : 
" The priest and chief of the scribes to the Pyramid of Soris (Shura) 
in the land of Sho" ^ and as the Sh and Kh are interchangeable, it is 

' Osbum, Monumental Hist.y vol. i. p. 278. 
» See ante, chap. ii. pp. 23, 26, 31, 36, and chap. xv. 

3 Foole, Horce JEgypticoey pp. 106-111, and Plate n Appendix, where the car- 
touches of the above kings found on these tombs are shown (Figs. 1 and 2). 
^ Osburn, vol. i. pp. 268, 269. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 295 

probable that the Pyramid referred to is that mentioned as built by 
OuenephM of the first dynasty near Ehokhome, which might be 
written " Sho Shame." ' No one of the name of " Ouenephes" can be 
identified on the monuments, but it has every appearance of being a 
corruption of Onuphia, a title of Osiria Neither can any place of the 
name of Ehokhome or Shoshome be identified now, but Mr Birch says 
that at Sakkarah there is a Pyramid built in terraces like the tower at 
Babylon, and that this is the oldest monument in Egypt.^ This would 
be just the description of building erected by the king of Babylon, 
and may therefore very well have been the Pyramid of Soris. It is 
also significant that Shura or Soris is the first God king mentioned in 
the tombs of Qhizeh. He is called Ood, and is represented as van- 
quishing enemies, and addressed as ''Horus the divine and great," 
who strikes all enemies and ''subdues all countries." ^ All this is 
completely in keeping with the characteristics of Osiris or Nimrod. 
Finally, Soris is given a reign of twenty-eight years by Manetho, 
and Osiris is stated by Plutarch to have also reigned twenty-eight 
years in Egypt.^ 

It should here be remarked that, although the Egyptian priest 
Manetho places the Pyramid king Suphis in a fov/rth dynasty, yet — 
with the exception of Menes and Athothes, who head the first dynasty, 
and the mention of the giant Sesochris, who appears to be Sesostris 
(i.6., Nimrod or Athothes), together with the names Sethenes (Seth or 
Set ?), Souphis and Nufrekara (Suphis I.) and Sephuris (Sephres ?) — 
the other names in the first three dynasties cannot be identified on 
the monuments. It is evident that everything was done by the 
priestly historians to conceal the identity of the Shepherd kings, and 
some of the subsequent dynasties of Manetho are plainly repetitions 
of the kings of other dynasties representing them in different 
relations. In short, the interpolation by Manetho of dynasties of 
Shepherd and other kings between the twelfth and eighteenth 
dynasties is absolutely at variance with the older monumental lists of 
Seti and Rameses II. at Abydos, whose authority must be regarded 
as far superior to that of Manetho. These monumental lists show 
that there were no dynasties between the twelfth and eighteenth 
dynasties, but that the kings of the latter dynasty immediately 
succeeded those of the former.^ 

' See Manetho's dynasties, Cory, p. 96. 

^ Birch, Hiit, of Egypt, p. 26. 3 Osburn, vol. i. pp. 268-270. 

4 Plutarch, De Isidej S. 41 ; Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. Hi. p. 80. 

5 See Appendix C. 



296 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



This is in exact accordance with the evidence here brought 
forward which proves that the Shepherds were not atibaequent to 
the kings of the twelfth dynasty, bat the immediate successors of 
Menes and Athothes, and identical with the first kings of the fourth 
dynasty. 

This evidence of repetition and interpolation makes it probable, 
therefore, that the kings in the first three dynasties are also re- 
petitions of kings under one or other of the numerous titles which 
were assumed by the Egyptian kings. 

There is a feature in the names of Suphis I. and Suphis II. which 
tends to further identify them with the Shepherd kings. Shufu, 
or Shuphu, the Egyptian form of their names, means " nvueh Aair," ' 
a characteristic which distinguishes them in a radical manner from 
the Egyptians proper, who carefully shaved. Similarly Eratosthenes 
calls Suphis, '^Saophis Comastea" which is the Greek for ''long- 
haired." This was a distinguishing characteristic of the Semitic 
Patriarchs and Shepherd kings, and Shepherds were always re- 
presented by the Egyptians with ragged locks and unshaven. It 
seems extremely probable, therefore, that the group in granite, 
stated to be of the Shepherd period^ now at the Museum of Cairo, 
of two persons with long hair cmd flowing beards, are these two 
kings, Suphis I., or Set, and Suphis II. {See Plate L). The group is 
said to be of the most perfect execution^ and this alone tends to 
identify it with the Pyramid era, the sculptures of which far 
exceed in perfection everything which followed it.^ This question 
and the identity of the Tanis Sphinxes are discussed in the next 
chapter. If these figures are of Suphis I. and Suphis II., then one 
of them was probably, when first executed (it is now much 
shattered) a faithful representation of the antediluvian Patriarch 
Shem himself, while the other would be his son, or other relative,* 
whom he made co-regent at an early period, in order that, by 
preparing him for the sovereignty, he might himself resign and 
return to Jerusalem. The Shepherds are said to have made one 
of themselves king after the conquest of the country, and it is 
certain that he, by whose wisdom and influence the tyranny and 

' Osburn, Mon, Hist.^ vol. i. p. 276. 

* Lenormant, Anc, Hist, of East^ vol. i. pp. 222, 223. 

3 Ibid,, pp. 208, 209. 

< Suphis II. is generally regarded as the son of Suphis I., but Herodotus calb 
Chephren the brother of Cheops, which would be equally the term given to a 
nephew, or grand-nephew, and it is quite possible that Suphis II., or Cephren 
may have been a son of Mizraim. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 297 

idolatry of the Cnshite inyaders were overthrown, would be asked 
by the Mizraimites to role over them until the kingdom was 
established, after which, as implied by the notice of Set or Typhon, 
he went to Jerusalem.' 

Finally, the character of the Great Pyramid, built by Suphis L, 
shows that it could only have been constructed by one who, like 
Set or Shem, was not only a worshipper of the One God, but a 
priest and a prophet of that God. 

Mr Flinders Petrie, the Egyptologist, has written a book on the 
Great Pyramid, with the object of overthrowing the conclusions of 
Mr Piazzi Smyth, regarding the sacred and cosmogonic significance 
of its construction; but, although Mr Petrie has given the world 
many valuable measurements of the building, his arguments against 
its sacred and cosmogonic significance are based on incorrect 
assumptions and reasonings and leave that significance entirely 
unshaken.' 

*f^ The Great Pyramid is a building the measurements of which 
symbolise the exact length of the solar year, the variation from a 
true circle of the earth's circuit of the sun, the precession of the 
equinoxes, the length of the earth's polar axis, the weight of the 
earth, its distance from the sun, the length of the sacred cubit 
used in the construction of the Ark and the Temple, besides various 
mathematical and other laws; and the knowledge of these things 
was not only absolutely unknown to the ancients, but the astonish- 
ing thing is that these things, many of which seem to have no 
relation or connection with each other, are symbolised by the 
relations to each other of, at most, two or three simple measure- 
ments, — a result which no human prescience could have conceived 
to be possible. X It shows that there is one form of Pyramid, 
and one only, which possesses this remarkable significance, and 
even if the measurements of Mr Piazzi Smyth and others, who 
have discovered this significance, had been proved to be wrong, 
there would still remain the unexplained miracle that they had 
discovered, hy dcddent, a Pyramid whose theoretical proportions 
possessed this astonishing significance! 

In addition to this, the interior galleries of the Pyramid, when 
their symbolism is interpreted in accordance with the principles 
laid down in Scripture, represent exactly the length of the Jewish 

' Ante, p. 203. 

* See by the Author, The Cheat Pyramid and Its Bmlder, with an Analysis of 
Professor Petrit^s Measurements, 



298 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



and Christian dispensations, the latter terminating in the seeond 
coming of Christ at a period in strict accordance with the termina- 
tion of the great prophetical periods, and in the 6000th year of the 
world's history according to Scripture chronology.' 

Finally, the Great Pyramid, whose ** top-stone " or " head corner- 
stone" is missing, is the only building which answers to the 
description of that spiritual building of which Christ is the ** head 
comer-stone"; and which Head-stone is yet to be "brought fwih 
with shoutings, crying grace unto it " (Zech. iv. 7). Moreover, standing 
as it does in the midst of the land of Egjrpt, and yet on its border, 
towards the desert, it also answers the description of the prophet, 
*' In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord, in the midst of the 
land of Egypt, and a Pillar at the border thereof, and it shall be 
for a sign and a witness unto the Lord in the land of Egypt " (Isa 
xix. 19, 20). 

But if so, then no human wisdom or prescience could have 
designed it, and its constructor, Suphis, must, like Moses in the 
construction of the Ark and Tabernacle, have received his instruc- 
tions from God, and, like Moses, must have been a priest and prophet 
of God. Such characteristics can apply to no Egyptian king, except 
to the Shepherd king, **Set the Powerful," who was Shem, the 
righteous king of Salem, and "priest of the Most High God." 

We may here briefly recapitulate the evidence in proof of the 
Shepherd kings being the Pyramid builders, Suphis I. and Suphis IL 

Firstly, it has been showTi that ilenes (i.e., Mena or Meni), the 
first king of Egypt, is identical with Thoth or Meni, whom the second 
Cronus, or Nimrod, made king of Egypt, and that Thoth is identical 
with the first Cronus or Belus, who was also the first king of Babylon, 
viz., Cush. 

Secondly, that Athothes, the son of Meni or Thoth, is identical 
with Osiris, the eon of Saturn or Belus, and that Osiris was the first 
Cushite concjueror of Egypt, and the same as Egyptus and Sesostris, 
and identical with Nin or Ninus, the son of Belus, and with Bel Nimrod, 
or Nimrod the son of Cush, and the founder of the first great empire 
of the world. Therefore, that the Babylonian and Egyptian kingdoms 
commenced at, or about, the same time, and the first two kings of the 
one were also the first two kings of the other. 

Thirdly, that the overthrow of Osiris by Set or Seth, whose 
name is synonymous with Shem, and who in after ages was 

' See The Oreat Pyramid and Its Builder, etc. 



SHEPHERD KINGS AND PYRAMID BUILDERS 299 

identified by the idolatrous priesthood with Typhon, the Evil 
Principle, is the same event as the overthrow of Saturn by Titan 
or Shem, and the same as the conquest of Egypt by the Shepherd 
king, Set or Saites, who is also identified with Typhon, and with 
Shem, the founder of Jerusalem, while his memory was equally 
abhorred. Therefore, that the Shepherd kings were the immediate 
successors of the Cushite kings, Menes and Athothes, and they are 
in consequence represented as the first rightful kings of Egypt, by 
Josephus. 

Fourthly, that the story of the Shepherd kings, their overthrow 
of idolatry and their supposed oppression of the people, is identical 
in every respect with the story of the Pyramid kings by Herodotus. 

Fifthly, Herodotus implies that these Pyramid kings were actually 
called Shepherds. 

Sixthly, the fact that Apepi, although a pure Egjrptian king, who 
came to the throne long after the first Shepherd kings, and at a 
time when their memory was held in abhorrence — and was yet called 
a Shepherd king, because he changed his religion and suppressed 
the worship of the Egyptian gods — is a further powerful evidence 
that Suphis I. and Suphis II., who also suppressed the worship of 
the gods, must have been also regarded as Shepherd kings. Manetho, 
moreover, says that, like the Shepherd kings, the Pyramid kings 
were of "a different race" (i.e., from their predecessors), showing 
that their accession, like that of the Shepherd kings, had been 
accompanied by some revolution. 

Seventhly, the Pyramid kings, as shown by Herodotus, were held 
in the same abhorrence as the Shepherd kings by the Egyptian 
priesthood of later times. 

Eighthly, the date of the Great Pyramid proves that the Pyramid 
kings, like the Shepherd kings, must have been the immediate 
successors of Menes and Athothes, and that the Shepherd and Pyramid 
kings must therefore be identical. 

Ninthly, the period during which Egyptian idolatry was sup- 
pressed under the first two Pyramid kings is the same as that given 
to tlie Shepherd kingSy and the respective lengths of their reigns, 
excluding the co-regency of Suphis II., is seemingly identical with 
those of the first two Shepherd kings. 

Tenthly, the prenomen of the first Shepherd king is the same as 
that of the first Pyramid king. 

Eleventhly, the Pyramid kings were distinguished by being long- 
haired and bearded, a thing unknown in the kings of pure Egyptian 



300 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

race, but a special characteristic of the Shepherds and of the Semitic 
Patriarchs. 

Twelfthly, the sacred and cosmogonic character of the Great 
Pyramid built by Suphis L, and the profound knowledge it reveals, 
is an evidence that the builder could only have been a prophet, in- 
spired by God — such as Shem, the righteous king of Jerusalem, and 
one, therefore, who, like the Shepherd king Set and the Pyramid 
king Suphis, would be the stem opponent of idolatry. 

Considering, therefore, that the Shepherd kings can never be 
identified under the nicknames given to them by Manetho, and that 
they were nevertheless some of the most powerful of the Egyptian 
kings, and tthust therefore he identical with certain of the more 
famous kings whose true names are known to us, there seems to be no 
question that they were the Pyramid kings Suphis I. and Suphis IL 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SHEPHEBD SCULPTURES 

The evidence of the hatred of the priesthood for the Pyramid king 
Suphis or Set is probably the reason why no sculptures appear to 
remain of him. For the sculptured likeness of nearly every other 
king of any importance has been carefully preserved. This hatred 
is, of itself, the strongest evidence that the two figures in granite of 
the Shepherd period shown in Plate I. were Set or Suphis and his 
successor Shef ra. It is perfectly clear that the features of both have 
been wilfully and violently destroyed — broken away by iron hammers 
— for the rest of the figures are as smooth and finely chiselled as on the 
day they were completed and show no signs whatever of disintegra- 
tion by weather. An enlarged photograph of the left-hand figure is 
given in Plate II., and it will there be seen that one side of the head, 
the lower part of the forehead, the eyebrows and the eyes, with the 
exception of their lower lids, and the nose and upper lip, have been 
completely smashed and destroyed, indicating a vindictive malice 
which nothing but religious hatred can explain. 

There is no record of such hatred, except in the case of the 
Shepherd and Pyramid kings, and as these figures have also the long 
hair and beards peculiar to the Shepherd and Pyramid kings, and to 
them alone, there are strong grounds for concluding that they are the 
figures of the first two of these kings, during whose reigns idolatry 
in Egypt was wholly suppressed. 

The hieroglyphics between the supporting columns read as 
follows : — 

'' Life to the perfect Ood Amen Ra, Son of Mut Lady of Asher, 
King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Aa Kheper Ra, Sotep en Amen, 
Son of the Sun Mer Amen." 

The inscription has nothing to do with the two figures themselves, 

and is evidently an after addition. It is a dedication to the god 

Amen by a king whose prenomen in the oval reads Aa Kheper Ra, 

301 



302 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



or, according to Osbum, whose reading is confirmed by the Greek 
renderings of this and other prenomens, Aa Cher ra. It is the pre- 
nomen of Amenhotep II. of the eighteenth dynasty, and the other figures 
in the oval are probably a variation of his nomen " Amenhotep." 

The dedication of this sculpture to the Sun god Amen by Amen- 
hotep, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, indicates that it was un- 
injured at that time (Set being still at that time highly honoured), 
and that the persons it represents were regarded as of great import- 
ance, which is a further evidence that they were the famous kings 
whose memory was so hated by the priesthood of later timea 

But, although the features of these figures have been nearly 
destroyed, there are other sculptures in good preservation which, it 
is almost certain, represent the features of the great Shepherd and 
Pyramid king, Set the Powerful, or Suphia These are the Sphinxes 
or human-headed lions, discovered at Tanis (Plate III.)> c^d ^^ 
reason why these have escaped the vindictive malice of the priesthood 
is probably because Tanis was so far removed from the central seat of 
idolatry at Thebes. 

Sphinxes were the particular form of sculpture associated with 
the Shepherd kings, and were constructed in honour of Set, while 
the Great Sphinx seems to be especially associated with the Great 
Pyramid built by Suphis, and as the Tanis Sphinxes are unmistak- 
ably the likeness of one particular individual, it seems certain that 
they represent the features of the first great Shepherd king, Set the 
Powerful, the overthrower of the mighty king of Babylon. 

The nose of the nearest Sphinx is slightly broken, but with this 
exception the features of all three are identical. The sculpturing is 
of high excellence, the features admirably chiselled, and they are 
evidently a truthful likeness of the person they portray. It is a 
kingly face, truly leonine in its calm dignity and massive strength, 
bearing the expression of conscious power combined with benevolence 
and rectitude. 

The features also present a type which, in its full strength and 
virility, is seldom, if ever, met with at the present day, and the 
features of the later Egyptian kings, as delineated in their statues, 
are weak and puerile compared to those of these Sphinxes. The great 
development of bone, the massive nose, jaws and chin, breadth of 
head and cheek-bones, indicate, to use a phrenological term, great 
" vitativeness ** and physical stamina, more especially as all the 
features are admirably proportioned and clearly cut, vigorous without 
coarseness. 



THE SHEPHERD SCULPTURES 303 

If, then, these heads are likenesses of the great Shepherd king 
Set, they represent the exact features of the antedilavian Patriarch 
Shem, and we behold in them something of the type of primeval man 
as he first came from the hands of Qod, possessed of a vitality that 
could endure for nigh upon a thousand years. It is also just such a 
face as we might expect to see in one who was not only of the 
mighty antediluvian stock, but the sole and fearless witness for Ood 
amidst the surrounding idolatry, the overthrower of the dominion 
and tyranny of the powerful and merciless Cushite monarch, and 
afterwards the guardian of the Truth he had restored. In represent- 
ing him, therefore, as a Uon with a human head, there was a certain 
fitness, and the idea was probably borrowed from the Cherubim, the 
form of which seems to have been generally known. 

It is also remarkable, and not what we should expect to find 
in the sculptured effigy of a great king, nor is it seen in the sculp- 
tured figures of any other Egyptian king, that the face is slightly 
turned upward, and there is a far-away look in the eyes, as if 
appealing from earth to heaven. This also is fitly representative 
of one who overcame " not by might nor by power," but by the 
Spirit of God.« 

The fact that Sphinxes were peculiarly characteristic of the 
Shepherd kings, and were representative and constructed in honour 
of Set, is a feature which intimately associates them with the 
Pyramid kings. For there can be little doubt that the Great Sphinx 
lying under the shadow of the Great Pyramid was constructed by 
one of the Pyramid kings, and that it was therefore the first 
original Sphinx on the model of which the Tanis Sphinxes were 
constructed. This is the conclusion of all who have carefully 
examined it, as in the case of Belzoni, who says, "It appeared 
to me that the Sphinx, the Temple and the Pyramid were all three 
erected at the same time, as they appear to be all on one line, and of 
equal antiquity." ^ In short, the Great Sphinx has been supposed 
to have represented the features of Shefra (Suphis II.),3 from his 
name being found on it in a dedicatory inscription by Thothmes IV.; ^ 

' It maj be remarked that the hieroglyphics contained in the existing part of 
the oval, at the bottom of the breast of the left-hand Sphinx, are the same as the 
concluding portion of the title of Amenhotep II. on the pedestal of the two 
figures previously mentioned, viz. "(Son of) the Sun Mer Amen." They were 
probably inscribed by that king. The hieroglyphics higher up probably read 
*' The good god.'' One is partially obliterated. 

' Belzoni's TraveUy vol. ii. p. 405. s Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 310, note. 

^ Colonel Howard Vyse, Pyramids of Ohiieh^ vol. iii. pp. 114, 115. 



304 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

but in another inscription it is shown to have been abready in exist- 
ence in the reign of Shefra,' and considering its position in relation 
to the Great Pyramid built by Shufu (Suphis I.), it is evidently 
far more probable that it represented the features of the latter 
king. It appears to have been originally e^tactly similar to the 
Tanis Sphinxes. It has the same lion's body, and although its 
features are now nearly obliterated, they are described by ancient 
observers as having the same caimi dignity as we see in those 
of the Tanis Sphinxes, and AbdoUatiph, in whose time the Great 
Sphinx was entire, says that "the admirable proportions of its 
features excited his astonishment above everything he had seen 
in Egypt."' The beard has now disappeared, which has led some 
persons to suppose that it was the face of a woman ; but the portions 
of its enormous beard were found lying beneath its chin by 
M. Caviglia,^ showing that in this respect also it was similar to 
the Tanis Sphinxes. The general proportions and massive breadth 
of the features, and the curves of the cheeks, and contours round 
the mouth, are also identical with those of the Tanis Sphinxes, 
and there is the same upturned position of the face. 

But if the features of the Great Sphinx representative of Suphis I. 
were originally the same as those of the Tanis Sphinxes, then the 
Pyramid king Suphis and the Shepherd king Set are one and the 
same person. 

Now it is not a little remarkable, and it tends to confirm this 
conclusion, that the Sabseans believe the Great Pyramid to be the 
tomb of Seth 4 or Shem, for this shows how closely tradition connects 
the Pyramid king with the Shepherd king Seth, and it is just the 
sort of tradition which would arise if Set or Shem, having completed 
the Pyramid, abdicated the throne and disappeared, having retired 
to Jerusalem. 

If again, in the last days, the Great Pyramid was to be "an 
altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar 
at the border thereof to the Lord, for a sign and a witness to 
the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt," there was a remarkable 
significance in this memorial of its builder, the great king and 
prophet and priest of the Most High God, placed like a watchful 
guardian by its side, in the form of a great human-headed lion, 
as if emblematic of that Spirit of God, symbolised by the Cherubim, 

> Brugsch, Ei8t. of Egypt^ vol. i. p. 80. 

' Russell's Egypt AncietU and Modern, p. 125. 3 Ibtd.y p. 119. 

* Uri's Cat., MS. 786 ; Vyse, Pyramids of Ghizeh, vol. ii.. Appendix, p. 364. 



THE SHEPHERD SCULPTURES 305 

and of which Set was the mouthpiece and manifestation. For, 
in spite of the violence of man and his desecration of the Great 
Pyramid by tearing off the polished white casing stones that 
covered it, an act which in itself may be symbolic/ the building 
was yet to preserve the secrets of its structure in their integrity 
until the time came for their revelation. 

The Sphinx was regarded by the Egyptians as emblematic of 
the union of intellect and power,' but the various forms of Sphinxes 
with heads of women and of rams and other animals adopted 
by the idolatrous Egyptians of later times shows how degraded 
the idea ultimately became. 

If, now, we compare the features of the Tanis Sphinxes with 
those of the left-hand figure in Plate I., an enlarged view of which 
is given in Plate II., it will be seen that the proportions of the face 
in each are identical. There is the same breadth of face, massive 
cheek-bones and jaw, precisely the same curves round the mouth, 
the same proportionate height and breadth of head, while the 
full lower lip, which alone remains, is in every way identical with 
that of the Tanis Sphinx. The only difference is that the con- 
ventional long hair characteristic of Set or Suphis has been 
replaced in the Tanis Sphinx by the lion's mane. 

The right-hand figure, although possessing the same broad, full 
eye and massive cheek-bones as in the Tanis Sphinx, is of inferior 
type. The forehead is neither so high nor so broad, nor is the 
jaw so massive. There is indeed a general likeness, such as might 
exist between persons of near relationship, but the features indicate 
a man of weaker and less commanding character. This is just what 
we might expect if they cure those of Shefra or Khefra, and if we 
compare them with those of this king in Plate IV., it will be seen that, 
as far as their injured condition admits of comparison, there is a 
striking resemblance. There is the same broad eye and massive 
cheek-bones in each, but in both the face narrows towards the lower 
part, while the forehead in each is of similar proportions. 

There is, therefore, every reason to conclude that they are figures 
of the two hated Shepherd kings, the one on the left hand being 
Set or Suphis, and the one on the right hand Num Shufu or Shefra. 

' If, as seems to be the case, the Great Pyramid is symbolic of the earth and 
man, then the white casing stones by which it was covered, like the white raiment 
of Rev. iii. 18, xix. 8., etc., may be emblematic of the purity of man when first 
created in the image of God ; but which purity man himself, through sin, has 
torn off and desecrated. 

' WUhvMon^ by Birch, vol. iii. chap. xiv. p. 309. 

U 



3o6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

From the fact that the human sacrifices offered to Osiris, and 
especially selected to represent the hated Typhon or Set, are 
described as being men of red or ruddy colour,' it would appear 
that the Shepherd king Set, or Shem, and possibly the Israelites also, 
who were regarded aa the same race, were, unlike the black 
Egyptians or Cushites, of a ruddy or fair complexion. For while 
persons of a dark complexion only turn darker, those of a fair 
complexion become red in a hot climate. It seems also that Shem 
must have had red or auburn hair, for the Egyptians had the 
same hatred and contempt for people with red hair, and 
evinced this dislike by representing them in humiliating posi- 
tions,^ just as, in a similar way, they expressed their hatred of 
shepherds. 

This is certainly opposed to our usual idea of the Semitic type, 
as represented by the Jews in Europe. But from the incidental 
mention of Sarah, Moses, David and Esther as being exceptionally 
fair, it would appear that it was not an imcommon type amongst the 
ancient Israelites.^ In Holman Hunt's great picture of "Christ 
in the Temple," he has represented our Lord with auburn hair 
and blue eyes, and he did so because, after the most careful obser- 
vation and inquiry, he ascertained that this was the most prevalent 
type among the Jews in the East, although, like the Creole descend- 
ants of English and French parents in the United States of America, 
a residence for generations in the warmer climate has given a darker 
tint to their complexion. 

This is confirmed by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. He says, "The 
Jews of the East to this day often have red hair and blue eyes, with 
a nose of delicate form and nearly straight, and are quite unlike 
their brethren of Europe, and the children in modern Jerusalem have 
the pink and white complexions of Europeans. It is the Syrians 
who have the large nose that strikes us as the peculiarity of Western 
Israelites. This prominent feature was always a characteristic 
of the Syrians, but not of the ancient nor of the modem Jews 
of Judea."4 

The authority of this learned traveller and archaeologist is a 
proof that Holman Hunt was correct, and that red or auburn hair 

' See ante^ chap. x. pp. 243, 244. 

* Wilkimony by Birch, vol. iii. p. 403. 

^ Euaebius quotes Artahanus, a Jew who lived in tlie first century before 
Christ, as stating that Moses was of a ruddy complexion with white hair 
(Eusebius, lib. x.); Cory, p 189. 

^ Wilkinson's Egyptians^ vol. ii. p. 198. 



THE SHEPHERD SCULPTURES 307 

and blue eyes was an ordinary type among the Jews, and may have 
been still more marked among the other tribes, the type of the 
European Jew being evidently due to intermarriage with Syrian or 
other races. It is, therefore, confirmatory of the fact that it was the 
original Semitic type as represented by Set or Shem. 

Now this is remarkable. For this type at the present day is 
confined to the British or Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian races, and 
it has always been characteristic of those races. Gibbon remarks of 
the ancient Germans and Scandinavians, who by successive waves 
invaded or peopled Britain, " Almost the whole of modem Germany, 
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Livonia, Prussia and the greater 
part of Poland were peopled by the various tribes of one great nation, 
whose complexion, manners and language denoted a common origin 
and preserved a striking resemblance." ' 

Tacitus says of them, " I concur in opinion with those who deem 
the Germans (i.e., the ancient Germans) never to have intermarried 
with other nations, but to be a race pure, unmixed and stamped with 
a distinct character. Hence a family likeness pervades the whole, 
although their numbers are so great ; eyes stem and blue, ruddy hair 
large bodies," etc.* 

Strabo also describes the people of Belgica, who in the days of 
Csdsar had occupied the southern portion of Britain, and were the 
people who resisted his invasion, as being of great stature and yellow 
hair, from which it is evident that they were not Kelts as commonly 
supposed, but of the same race as the Germans. In short, Strabo 
says that in every respect they were similar in nature, laws and 
customs to the Germans east of the Rhine ; ^ while Caesar represents 
them as of quite a different race to the Kelts of Gaul,** and that they 
told him that they had " sprung from the Germans " and were the fore- 

" Gibbon, chap. ix. p. 85 ; 8vo. edition in one volume. 

^ Manners of Oermansj chap. iv. It should be remembered that, although many 
of the ancient Germans remained behind, both in North Germany and Scandi- 
navia, yet the principal portion of them went to England and Scotland, and that 
the English and Scots are now the purest representatives of the ancient race, and 
possess its leading characteristics — fair complexion, red or yellow hair and great 
stature. This is not the case with the modern Germans, who, it is well known, are 
largely descended from Tartar races, Sarmatians, Huns, Sclavonians, etc., who at 
different periods occupied Central Europe after the departure of the bulk of the 
ancient Germans. As a consequence of this, although many of them are fair, the 
prevalent type in modem Germany is the broad head and moderate stature of the 

Tartar race. 

3 Strabo, bk. iv. chap. iv. pp. 2, 3 ; book iv. chap. v. p. 3. 
* See Ccesar, bk. i. chap. ;. 



3o8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

most of the German tribes who had crossed the Rhine and dispossessed 
the Kelts in Belgiea.' 

These Belgse eventually spread over the greater part of Britain, 
for we find Caractacus, king of the Silures in South Wales, who 
fought against Suetonius, A.D. 51, recalling to his followers the fact 
that they were the people who had resisted Julius Ceesar a hundred 
years before ; ^ and a large portion of them seem to have crossed over 
and conquered Ireland. The Iceni, also in Norfolk, who were defeated 
by Suetonius, were evidently of the same race, as their queen, 
Boadicea, is described aa of great stature, with yellow hair.3 The 
Caledonians and the Albanians, who came from Germany to Scotland, 
and constituted the chief portion of its population,^ the latter giving 
their name, ''Alban," to the country are also described as yellow- 
haired.^ 

It seems clear, therefore, that a fair complexion and red or yellow 
hair were the distinguishing characteristics of those ancient German 
and Scandinavian races, who were the ancestors of the British, and 
that it was not a Keltic characteristic; although the fair BelgSB, 
because they occupied a part of Keltica, formerly inhabited by the 
Gauls, are incorrectly spoken of as Kelts by Strabo, an inaccuracy on 
his part which has given rise to much misconception, and which is 
entirely denied by the more accurate Caesar. The true descendants 
of the ancient Gauls or Kelts are the French, who are generally of a 
dark or sallow complexion, and the only exceptions to this are to be 
found among the Bretons and the people of Normandy. But the 
former are the descendants of a portion of the Belgic Britons, who, 
driven by the Saxons to the west of Cornwall, emigrated to Brittany, 
the ancient Armorica, which they called " Little Britain " ; while the 
latter are the people of a part of France originally occupied by the 
Normans, a Scandinavian race, and which for many generations was 
a British possession. These exceptions only emphasise the fact that 
the true Kelts, as represented by the bulk of the French, were of a 
dark complexion. They claimed to be descended from Dis or from 
Hercules,^ whom we have seen to be one and the same person — viz., 
Nimrod, the son of Cush. From these traditions it would appear thai 

' Ihid.^ bk, ii. chap. iv. 

» Lynam's Roman Emperors^ vol. i. pp. 334-336. 
3 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 406-410. 

■» Davies, Welsh Triads, vol. ii. p. 154 ; Celtic Researches, vol. ii. p. 204. 
5 Gaelic Poem of the Eleventh Century (Wilson, Archaology of Scotland, part 
iv. p. 463). 

^ Ccesar, bk. vi. chap, xviii. ; Toland's Druids, p. 129. 



THE SHEPHERD SCULPTURES 309 

the Kelts were of a mixed Cnshite and Japhetic race, which would 
aocoont for their dark complexion. 

It is probable, therefore, that the term " Keltic," as applied to the 
different dialects called by that name, may really be a misnomer, 
and, as the French and Iberians are the purest descendants of the 
ancient Kelts, that the French and Spanish languages, although 
largely leavened with Latin, should be regarded as more truly 
representative of the ancient Keltic. 

It would also seem that the British may be of nearly pure Semitic 
origin, and although the features of Set or Shem are more massive 
than any now met with, yet it is evident that they more nearly 
resemble the Anglo-Saxon type than that of any other race. 

It is clear, however, that there was a Keltic race in Britain before 
the arrival of the Belgic British, and that the latter may have inter- 
married with them, and have adopted many of their customs. CaBsar 
speaks of a race different from the Belgic Britons as inhabiting the 
interior of the island, and says that they were *' bom in the island," 
i.e., that they were aborigines ; and it is well-known that Britain was, 
originally, a principal seat of the Druidical religion, which was essenti- 
ally Celtic and quite distinct from that of the Germans. {See CsBsar, 
bk. V. chap. xii. ; bk. vi. chaps, xiv.-xxi.) As the number of the 
Belgic British increased and they spread over the island, they seemed 
to have driven the Kelts to the extreme west and north of Wales — 
the people of Anglesey defeated by Suetonius, a.d. 61, being evidently 
of that race, as proved by their human sacrifices, which were an es- 
sential feature of the Keltic religion. {See Lynam s Rorrmn ETnperora, 
vol. i. p. 486 ; Caesar, bk. vi. chap, xvi.) 



: ?! 



,ij 



PART IV 

THE RESUSCITATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAGAN IDOLATRY 



CHAPTER XV 

THE RESUSCITATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAGAN IDOLATRY 

We have now to consider the character of the ancient idolatry as it 
was resuscitated after the death of Nimrod, and the methods by 
which it was developed. 

On the death of Nimrod, his Cushite followers are said to have fled 
to iEthiopia, but Saturn {i.e., Menes or Cush) is said to have fled to 
Italy,' and not only do the ruins of the two cities, Satumia and 
Janicula, mentioned by Virgil,^ attest to the fact, but Latium is also 
said to have received its name from " latere*^ " to lie hid," because 
Saturn was supposed to be hidden there.^ 

Latimbs or Lateinos, the ancient king of Italy and father of the 
Latins, seems also to be the human form of Saturn. For Sativm 
signifies ''the hidden one," and this also is the meaning of "Latinua,'* 
which is evidently derived from "Latere** which is itself derived 
from the Chaldee " Lat" " the hidden one."'^ ^neas represents Latinus 
to be the grandson of Satum,s but this may only be the natural 
consequence of regarding him as a human king, and, therefore, distinct 
from the god Saturu, and a similar distinction between the gods and 
their human originals may be observed in other cases. Latinus was 
also deified as a son of the Sim god,^ and this, together with the fact 
that Saturn, Latinus and Latium have all the same signification and 
that Italy was formerly called '*The Saturnian Land," seems to 
indicate that the ancient Latins were a Cushite colony founded by 
Cush. The fact also that the Etrurians, the most ancient people of 
Italy, seem to have been of Accadian or Cushite origin tends to 
confirm this.^ 

The fact that Cush was obliged to conceal himself implies that the 
moral eflect of the overthrow of idolatry in Egypt extended to the 
Japhetic people occupying the shores of the Mediterranean, 

' Lempri^re, Saturn, * /Eneidy lib. viii. 11. 467-470, vol. iii. p. 608. 

3 Ovid, Fcutiy lib. vii. 1. 238, vol. iii. p. 29 ; ^neid, lib. viii. 1. 319, etc., p. 384. 
* Hialop, p. 270, note. 

^ y£neid, lib. viL 11. 45-49 ; Hislop, p. 271, note. 

^ Dryden, VtrffUf bk. xii. 11. 245, 248, vol. iii. p. 775. ' See onto, p. 10. 

813 



314 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

The statement also that Titan (i«., Shem), in hia 
Saturn, was assisted by his brother Titans,' impHea that aome of flw 
descendants of Japhet combined with Set^ or Shem* and As 
descendants of Mizraim against the Cnshite idolaten, and that Goih, 
the originator of that idolatry, was therefore in aa much danger ci 
his life as his son. The complete defeat also of Semiramia by tiia 
king of India and the destmction of her army preTented any 
assistance from Babylon.* 

It is manifest, therefore, that any attempt to restore idolaftiy could 
only have been made secretly at first We are told that the godi^ 
when they were overthrown by Typhon, fled to Egypt^ where, by the 
advice of Pan, that is, Cnsh, they assumed the shape of varioos 
animals to conceal their identity,' which implies that the ra a nacitat iop 
of idolatry was in a great measure due to me&ods devised by OoriL 
Its ultimate triumph, however, is represented as due to Kris (i&, 
Semiramis), with the assistance of her son Horns. On the deatk of 
Osiris she is said to have collected the various portiooa of her 
husband's body, and erected a statue to each, and then to have 
established a priesthood, bound to secrecy and celibai^, whom die 
endowed with lands to support them, to pay divine honours to him. 
Each body of priests was to represent the god under the form of 
such animal as they chose; by which we may conclude that she 
acted under the advice of Cush. One portion of the body, the 
Phallus, she failed to discover, and therefore made a wooden repre- 
sentation of it, and paid it special honour.** In consequence of this 
there were many burial-places of Osiris in Egypt, at each of which a 
shrine was erected containing one of the relics, or supposed relics, of 
the god.5 

It would thus appear that Isis, or Semiramis, was the founder of 
a priesthood for the purpose of resuscitating the fallen idolatry, and 
especially the Phallic worship, and that this worship was initiated in 
Egypt by representing the dead monarch under the form of certain 
animals to which a secret homage was paid ; the result of which was 
that animal worship became the distinguishing feature of the 
subsequent idolatry in that country. 

" Lempri^re, Titan, * AfUe^ p. 68. 

3 Ovid, Fasti., lib. i. 11. 393-404 ; Diod., BihL, lib. i. p. 16 ; Hyg., Poet. AMtrotL, 
lib. ii. cap. xxviii. ; Hyg., Fab. 196 ; Eratos., Catast,, cap. xxvii. ; Faber, voL iL 
p. 406 ; Lemprifere, Typhon, Pan, Oigantes. 

* Lempri^re, Isis, PhaUiea, 

^ There were several cities in Middle Egypt called "Busuris," meaning the 
burial-place of Osiris ; Osbum, vol. i. pp. 328, 329. 



THE RES USCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOL A TRY 315 

In Egypt the worship of the true Gk>d and the suppression of 
idolatry appears to have continued in full force for over a century, 
and must have had a powerful effect on the minds of the people. 
Moreover, the worship of the Pagan gods was again suppressed in 
the reign of Apepi, and this, with the influence of Joseph and the 
Israelites, and the judgments of God at the Exodus of the latter, 
could not fail to have deepened the effect previously produced, and it 
is therefore probable that there were always a certain number of the 
descendants of Mizraim who clung to the purer religion. In short, it 
is recorded that Tnepachtus, the father of Bocchoris the Wise, who 
is called a ''Saite," or follower of Set, and who reigned as late as 
the twenty-fourth dynasty, protested against the idolatry established 
by Menes,* and was burnt alive by the Cushite king Sabacon, who 
appears to have dethroned him.' 

There was thus a necessity for a caution and reserve in the propa- 
gation of idolatry in Egypt which did not exist elsewhere, and which 
obliged its propagators to take every means to associate it with the 
purer religion, and to give it an outward appearance of a righteous- 
ness which was wholly foreign to it ** Mystery " was in consequence 
the prominent feature of Egyptian idolatry, and it was in Egypt 
that the celebrated '' Mysteries,** the object of which was the revelation 
of the god to the initiated, were first instituted. 

This also accounts for the highly metaphysical character of 
Egytian theology, and it was by this means and by the use of 
allegory, metaphor, and the double meaning of words that its true 
nature was concealed. 

The idolatry of Egypt was therefore very different to that of 
Babylon. Speaking of the magic, or worship of spirits in Chaldea, 
M. Lenormant says, " The belief in spirits is seen there in its most 
ancient form, without any philosophical refinements as to the divine 
substance, without any allusion to the vast number of mythological 
legends which fill the Egyptian formulse. They (the magical 
formulae of Chaldea) contain tw mysteries^ and the sacerdotal secret, 
if there was one, consisted in the precise knowledge of the exact 
forms of the incantations, sacred from their antiquity, and no doubt 
also from the idea that they were of divine origin."^ 

For the same necessity for reserve and secrecy did not exist 
among the kinsfolk and descendants of the dead monarch in Babylon. 
They were the supporters of the idolatry established by him, and the 

' See ante, chap. iy. p. 86. ' Manetho's dynasties, Gory, p. 190. 

^ Chaldean Magic and Sorcery ^ chap. yruL p. 109. 



3i6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



glamour produced on their minds by his vast prowess and conquests 
would have prepared many of them to pay homage and honour to his 
memory, and eventually to regard him as a god. But even with 
them this belief would make but little progress while the memory of 
his overthrow and death was still fresh, and we are told that no open 
idolatry was ventured upon in Babylon until the reign of Arioch, the 
grandson of Semiramis/ a king who was apparently the contemporary 
of Mencheres, the restorer of idolatry in Egypt. We are also told 
that it was not until " long after their death that Cronus, Rhea, Zeus, 
Apollo and the rest were worshipped as gods," * although, no doubt, 
the Accadian worship of spirits and Nature gods established by 
Nimrod and his father continued in force among the Cushites of 
Babylonia. It is evident, however, that the other descendants of 
Noah, who had been instrumental in overthrowing the cruel dominion 
and obscene idolatry established by Nimrod, would only hold him in 
abhorrence, and that special means would be necessary to remove the 
opprobrium attached to his memory, Nor could any world-vdde 
success in resuscitating idolatry be hoped for until the true story of 
his judicial execution as the enemy of God had been lost sight of, and 
the lapse of generations had weakened the memory of the evil he had 
wrought. 

The first and principal means by which, in after generations, the 
abhorrence attached to his memory came to be obliterated, was by 
representing his death to have been voluntarily suffered for the good 
of mankind, and that he was none other than the promised ** seed of 
woman.'* This was the foundation of the whole system, and was, no 
doubt, the real origin of the avatars and anthropomorphic gods of 
Paganism, and which suggested the idea of representing them as 
having become incarnate, and to have lived as men upon the 
earth. 

The promise of the Messiah, and of the restitution of all things 
through Him, had not only been '* foretold by holy prophets since the 
world began," but, as we have seen, the heavens themselves had 
revealed it to all ages and nations. The prophecy of EInoch is 
recorded by Jude, and both this, and the statement of Job, is 
evidence that the promised Redeemer was recognised, not only as the 
seed of the woman, but as the Son of God also. " I know," says Job, 
" that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day 
on the earth and after I shall awake, though my body shall be 

' Cendreni, Compendium, vol. L pp. 29, 30 ; Hislop, p. 69, note. 
' Epiplianius, Cory's FrctgmeiUa^ p. 55. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PAGAN IDOLA TRY 317 

destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God** ' Job here asserts that 
his Redeemer is God himself, and yet that He is one who should 
stand as a man upon the earth in a material form, visible to the eyes 
of the flesh. 

It is in the last degree improbable that the idea of the Creator 
taking human form should have suggested itself to the mind of man. 
All the ancient cosmogonies recognise a primary creator of all things, 
but what is there in creation that could have suggested the idea that 
the Creator Himself should become created ? It is wholly opposed to 
every conclusion based upon the knowledge of the things which are 
seen. Man was so evidently merely a higher animal, a partaker with 
them of the same nature and instincts, that, looking only on the 
material side of things, and the numberless gradations of life from 
the vegetable to man, evolution became the natural conclusion. But 
the more the unity of man with nature was recognised, the more 
improbable would it have seemed that the Creator should become 
incarnate, and allied, like man, to the lowest organisms of nature. 
And yet it was amongst those who were essentially materialists, and 
who regarded nature, and the life of nature, as everything, that we 
first find the realised idea of an incarnate God. 

It is true that the discoveries of modem science in geology, 
comp€u*ative anatomy, biology, etc., show that all nature manifests 
the steady and continuous evolution of am idea; inasmuch as the 
lower organisms which precede are prophecies of the higher organisms 
which follow them, each of the former possessing the rudiments of 
organs of no possible use to itself, and for the existence of which it is 
absolutely impossible to discover a natural cause, but which in a 
more perfect development are necessities to higher organisms.^ From 
this point of view. Nature herself demands a further evolution beyond 
man, with all his imperfections and evil, an evolution which a race 
allied to man, as man is to the animals, and yet partaking of the 
moral perfections of the Creator, would satisfy. But geology is a 
science of modem growth, and the data for such a conclusion were 
therefore absolutely wanting to the ancients. Hence, as every 
effect demands a cause, we are forced to seek a cause for their 

' Revised rendering of Job xix. 26-27. 

' This fact, while it emphatically implies the existence of intention in a creative 
power outside, and distinct from, the organism itself, is absolutely fatal to a belief 
in natural evolution. For how could an organ be evolved naturallt/ without a 
ncUural cause ? The doctrine of chance might be invoked by some to account for 
one or two such evolutions, but not when they can be enumerated by the million 
and are all parts of one ruling idea. 



3i8 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

ideas of avatars and ineaniati<nis of the Deilr^ ontaide sf 
nature. 

Sneh a eanse, aooording to Seriptore, existed in the praphacMS ci 
the Redeemer, who was to be the seed of woman and the Son of God. 
and who was to be the destroyer of the serpent^ and to snffiar in so 
doing. These prophecies, known thronghoat the worid, were joit 
smted to the purpose of the advocates of the new idolatiy, £or ao 
better method could be devised for recommending that idolafay to As 
world, than by representing the dead monaieh to be the tame seed of 
the woman, the hoped-for Redeemer who was to destroy the aaqMBt 
and suffer in the conflict 

Therefore, one of the names given to the god in Babylon was 
Z&roaxA»r or J?eroa8^.' This name in its secret or eaoterie "^^»f"^f 
signified ''Firebom," or ""seed of fire,'' frcmi *'MfV»'' ''seed,* and 
''aahta*' ''fire;'' bufosUa" also signified «* woman," and the name 
was thus made use of in its exoteric sense to pretend that the god 
was the promised ''seed of the woman." Zoroaister was also known 
as Zaradas and Zerocuitea,^ and in the Pand religion he is caUad 
Zaroadaa and Zarades, signifying " the one, or only seed,"' a tiile 
which could only apply to the promised Messiah The great refbnner 
in the Parsi religion is also called Zarathuatra, a word of Chaldean ' 
origin meaning "the delivering seed/'^ which is equivalent to the 
title given to Phoroneus, "the emancipator." 

It would thus appear that zar, zoro and zero are variations of a 
word which means both " the seed" and " a circle/* and is derived from 
the Chaldee " Zer" to " encompass " or " enclose,"^ from whence is derived 
the Chaldean " Sams " (so called by the Greeks), meaning " a circle or 
cycle of time," and it is also clearly the origin of the Hindu word 
" Sari** the name of the long scarf used by Hindu women for 
encircling, or winding round the body.^ The Greek word " Sevra,** " a 
noose " or " encircling band," appears to be derived from the same 
root, and as kisses was a title of Cush,^ the chaplet of ivy called 
" Seira Kissos," which the worshippers of Bacchus wore, would, in its 
esoteric meaning, signify " the seed, or son of Cush."^ The name also 
of the second person in the PhcBuician Trinity, viz., " Chusorua " 9 has 

' Ante, p. 36. 

' Johannes, Clerictu, torn. iL ; De ChalcUpu, sect i. cap. ii. pp. 191, 194 ; 
Hislop, p. 59, note. 

^ Wilson's Parsi Religion, p. 400 ; Hislop, p. 59. 

< Wilson, p. 201 ; Hislop, p. 59, note. ^ Hislop, p. 50, note. 

^ Chambertfs Dicticna/ry, " Sari." ^ See <mU, p. 39. 

• Hislop, p. 60, note. « Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. iv. p. 191. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOL A TRY 319 



evidently a similar signification viz., chua-sorus, " the seed of Cosh." 
Zero, the circle, also represented the disk of the sun, which was the 
especial emblem of the Son god, and thus, while Zoroaster appeared 
to be exoterically the seed of the woman, he could be revealed to the 
initiates as the Sun and Fire god. 

The name '' Asa/r,*' by which Osiris is designated on many of the 
monuments, and the title *' Sarapis " or ^^Aacur-apia" appear to be also 
derived from the Chaldean Zar or Zer, and, as suggested by Mr 
Hislop, O'siris, or He'siris, may have the same signification, viz., the 
'' seed," ' while in India Osiris was known as Elsar, Iswar and Elswara, 
which appear to be also compounds of Sar or Zar. Hence the enemy 
of Osiris " the seed of the woman," was represented as Typhon, the 
evil principle, and Apophis, the evil serpent. 

The names of the god in Babylon, " Nin " or " Ninus," " the Son," 
and " El Bar," " the Son of God," and the titles '* the eldest son," '* the 
first-bom," " the only son," and those of the Qoddess Mother, " Semi- 
ramis," " the branch bearer," and " Zerbanit," " Mother of the Seed," 
have the same doctrinal signification.' 

This aspect of the god, as ''the Son," or promised seed of the 
woman, was therefore constantly kept before the minds of the wor- 
shippers, by representing him as a child in his mother's arms. Thus, 
in Babylon, the image of the Qoddess Mother is represented with a 
child in her arma^ In India, Indrani, the wife of Indra, is similarly 
represented.4 In Egypt, although Horus was the son of Isis, yet being 
the same as Osiris, the Goddess Mother, represented with a child in her 
arms, were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris.s In Asia, 
mother cuid child were worshipped as Cybele and Deoius.^ In 
Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter puer, or Jupiter the boy.^ In Greece, 
as Ceres, the Great Mother, with a babe at her breast,® or as Irene, the 
goddess of peace, with the boy Plutus at her breast.^ In India to this 
day as Isi and Iswara,^° while in Thibet, China and Japan the 
Jesuit missionaries found the counterpart of the Roman Catholic 
Madonna in the Holy Mother, Shing Moo, with a child in her arms 
and a glory round her." 

' Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. iv. p. 103, note. ' See ante, chaps, ii., iii. 

3 Eatto's Illustrated Commentary, vol. iv. p. 31 . 

♦ AsicU, Res., vol. vi. p. 393. s Bunsen, vol. i. pp. 433-438. 

<• Dymocks Clas, Diet., " Cybele," " Deoius." 

7 Cicero, De Divinatume, lib. ii. c. xli. 

» Sophocles, Antigone, v. 1133. 9 Pausanias, lib. i. ; Attica, cap. viii. 

'° Kennedy's Hindu Mythol., p. 49, and p. 338, note. 

" Oabb's Mythol. , p. 150. The above are quoted from Hislop, pp. 19-21. 



320 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

As the promised seed of the woman who was to bruise the serpent's 
head, the god, although slain in the conflict with Typhon, the principle 
of evil, was represented as becoming reincarnate in the person of 
Horus, Apollo or Cbrishna, etc., in order that he might slay the ser- 
pent and restore true religion. " The evil genius," says Wilkinson, 
" of the adversaries of the Egyptian god Horus is frequently figured 
under the form of a snake, whose head he is seen piercing with a spear. 
The same fable occurs in the religion of India, where the malignant 
serpent Calyia is slain by Vishnu in his avatar of Chreeshna, and the 
Scandinavian Thor was said to have bruised the head of the great 
serpent with his mace." ^ Chreeshna or Crishna is also represented in 
India crushing the head of the serpent with his hed.^ Similarly, among 
the Mexicans " the serpent crushed by the Great Spirit Teotl, when he 
takes the form of one of the subaltern deities, is the genius of evil"' 
So also in Babylon, Eugonasis, " the Serpent Crusher," described by 
the Greek poet Aratus, crushes the serpent's head with his foot,^ and 
Izdubar is represented with a dead serpent in his right hand.^ 
The Greeks also represented their Sun god, Apollo, as slaying the 
serpent Pytho. 

In the case of Chrishna and Thor, the death of the god and the 
destruction of the serpent are combined, and the god is represented as 
dying himself after the conflict.^ The death of the god was also 
represented to have been voluntarily undergone for the good of man- 
kind. Zoroaster is said to have prayed to the supreme God to take 
away his life.7 Belus commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, 
that from the blood thus shed by his own command and consent, when 
mingled with the earth, new creatures might be formed, the first 
creation being represented as a sort of failure.® Vishnu the Pre- 
server was worshipped as the Great Victim, who offered himself as a 
sacrifice before the worlds were, because there was nothing else to 
offer.^ So also it was in conflict with the serpent as the principle of 
evil, that others were slain, and Osiris, Bacchus and other forms of 
the god are always represented as the great benefactors of mankind, 
which enhanced the value of their death. 

Hence, periodical lamentations for the death of the god were 

» Wilkinson's Egyptiaiu, vol. iv. p. 396. ' Coleman, Iiid. Mythol,^ p. 34. 

^ Humboldt's Mex. Res., vol. i. p. 228. 

^ See the whole account in Hislop, pp. 60, 61, and note. 

^ Arite, p. 56. '' Hislop, pp. 60, 61. 

7 Suidas, torn. i. pp. 1133, 1134. 

* Berosus, from Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p. 709. 

9 Kennedy, Hindu Mythol., pp. 221, 247, and note. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PAGAN IDOLA TR Y 321 

instituted, and when his worship had become general, the rites were 
invariably funeral rites in commemoration of his death. 

Maimonides describes in metaphorical language the consternation 
and grief at Babylon on receiving the news of the death of the false 
prophet Thammuz (i.e., Nimrod). " The images of the gods," he says, 
'^ wept and lamented all the night long and then in the morning flew 
away each to his own temple again to the ends of the earth, and hence 
arose the custom every year on the first day of the month of Thammuz 
to mourn and weep for Thammuz."' The same lamentations took 
place in Egypt for Osiris, and " his wife and sister Isis " is also repre- 
sented as lamenting her brother Osiris. The name ''Bacchus," the 
Greek Osiris, referred to its original Chaldean source, means " The 
lamented one," from Bakkah, "to weep," or the Phoenician 
Bacchoa, "weeping."^ Just also as Isis wept for Osiris, so did 
Venus for Adonis, and throughout Scandinavia there were similar 
lamentations for the death of the god Balder. 3 There is the same 
thing even in China, at the dragon boat festival, when the people go 
out to search for Watyune, which, Gillespie says, " is something like 
the bewailing of Adonis, or the weeping for Tammuz mentioned in 
Scripture." ^ 

These lamentations were accompanied by singing, and especially 
by '* the dirge of Linus" who is the same as Bacchus and Osiris.^ 
This dirge is said to have been singularly sweet and mournful, and, 
according to Herodotus, was sung in all countries.^ Nothing could 
have been better calculated to excite an emotional sympathy and 
sentimental reverence for the slain god, and to invest his memory with 
a false sanctity ; for when the emotions have been powerfully excited 
by such means, people do not stop to inquire whether they are based 
on truth and righteousness, but will rather turn with anger against 
anyone who ventures to cast a doubt upon the justice and reality of 
that which evoked them. 

The rites with which the god was worshipped were also repre- 
sented to be for the purification of the soul from sin,^ and thus the 
idolatry in its revived form appealed to that consciousness of sin and 
ill desert and fear of future retribution which is general in man, and 

« More, Nevochin^ p. 426. ' Hesychius, p. 179 ; Kislop, p. 21. 

3 Scandinavia^ vol. i. pp. 93, 94 ; Hislop, pp. 57, 58. 

♦ Gillespie, Sinim,j p. 71 ; Hislop, p. 57. 

s Hislop, p. 22, note, and p. 156, note. ^ Herod., ii. c. 79. 

7 Ovid, Fastiy lib. iv. 11. 785-794 ; Colebrooke, " Beligious Ceremonies of Hindus,'' 
in Asiat. Res.y vol. vii. p. 273 ; Servius in Gkorg., lib. i. vol. ii. p. 197 ; and JSneid, 
lib. vi. vol. 1. p. 400. 

X 



322 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

its followers were set free from this burden by the supposed efficacy 
of its rites to obtain forgiveness and purify the soul from sin. Hence 
the initiated into "The Mysteries" were declared to be "Emancipated/' ' 
and this was the effect for which these rites were designed, and which 
they tended to produce on the minds of the devotees, who, by par- 
ticipating in them, were more or less emancipated, or set free, from 
the fear of God as the punisher of sin. Spiritual effects which are 
wholly future cannot be disproved, and men are always ready to 
believe on the slenderest evidence in any source of forgiveness which 
will relieve their conscience, and to think they are freed from the 
guilt, while still under the power, of sin. 

But not only was the chief god of Paganism made, by these means, 
a false, or anti, Christ, but the events of the Deluge were made use of, 
and connected with the death of the god, in order to further recom- 
mend his worship. 

The Ark was recognised as a divine symbol throughout Paganism, 
and it is so recognised, even at the present day, in countries where 
remains of the old Paganism still exist, as in the case of many of the 
North American tribes.^ We may therefore conclude that its sacred 
symbolism was known and understood from the first In Scripture 
the Ark is a symbol of Christ. Hence Israel, being a type of the 
people of God in all ages, were led in all their wanderings €uid under- 
takings by " the Ark of the Covenant." ^ It was carried in their 
front to battle, and was borne before them in their passage through 
Jordan, the waters of which rolled back at its presence, and 
as if to show that it alone had effected the result, it was directed 
to be placed in the midst of the bed of the river until all Israel 
had passed over, and not until it also had passed did the waters 
return.^ 

The sanctity of the Ark was such that Uzziah was slain for pre- 
suming to touch it,5 and the men of Bethshemesh for looking into 
it.^ Dagon, the god of the Philistines, fell down at its presence,^ 
while the same presence was a blessing to the house of Obed Eldom,^ 
and all places were holy where it had been,^ just as the presence of 

* Hence the name Phoroneus, "The Emancipator," from Pharo^ to "set free," 
which waa given to the god. The goddess Pheronia, or Feronia, was similarly 
" the goddess of liberty" but it was a liberty which was practically licentiousness 
and lawlessness ; Hislop, p. 52, and note. 

* See Catlin's North American Indians. ^ Numb. x. 33-36. 
4 Joshua iii. 13-17 ; iv. 18. s 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7. 
<^ 1 Sam. vi. 19. ' Ibid., v. 3-5. 

» 2 Sam. vi. 11. "" 2 Chron. viii. 11. 



THE RBSUSCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOL A TR Y 323 

. . _ ■ Mil- 

Qod before Moses and Joshua made the place where they stood '* holy 
ground." ' 

Solomon, in his prayer to God for Israel, beseeches His presence, 
and that of ^Hhe Ark of his strength" — "Thou and the ark of thy 
strength." ' The term used has evidently a similar meaning to " the 
arm of his strength," ^ "the rock of thy strength,"^ and "the rod of 
thy strength," ^ all which refer to Christ. The simple word "strength" 
is also used with a similar signification, " Let him take hold of my 
strength that he may make peace with me," ^ and the same word is 
used to denote the Ark, "Thou didst divide the waters by thy 
strength" referring to the passage of Jordan.7 

From this we perceive the meaning of the expression, so often 
used in the New Testament, to be "in Christ," as denoting salva- 
tion. It is evidently a metaphor taken from the Ark which saved 
Noah, who, it is said, " Prepared an ark to the saving of his house." ^ 
Just also as it is stated to be necessary for the Christian to "die 
with Christ " to the present world, so did Noah die to the world in 
which he lived ; and just as the Christian is said to be " baptised into 
the death of Christ," and to receive a new life thereby, so Noah, in 
the Ark, peussed through a symbolic baptism of death, and he and the 
Ark emerged again from that symbolic death to a new life, when, 
on the first reappearance of the new earth out of the waters of death, 
the Ark rested on Mount Ararat on the seventeenth day of Nisan 9 
This was three days after the Passover, which was on the fourteenth, 
and the seventeenth was therefore the very day on which Christ 
rose from the dead.^° Thus the history of the Ark and the Deluge 
was symbolic of Christ in His relation to the Christian, and it is so 
recognised by the Apostle Peter," while " the Ark of the Covenant " 
was a clearly recognised type of Christ, and of salvation through Him. 

It is also clear that something of the sacred symbolism of the 
Ark was recognised throughout the postdiluvian world. But what- 
ever was known concerning the typical character of the Ark, it 
was perverted to the service of the revived idolatry. Thus the 
Goddess Mother was identified with the Ark as that from which 
the human race had been " bom again." Nevertheless she was also 

' Exod. iii. 6 ; Joshua v. 13-15. * 2 Chron. vi. 41. 

3 Isa, Ixii. 8. * Ibid.y xviL 10. 

5 Ps. ex. 2. ^ Isa. xxviii. 6. 

7 Ps. Ixxiv. 13. * Heb. xi. 7. 

9 Nisan, which had been the seventh month, was made the first month at the 

institution of the Passover (Exod. xii. 2). Compare Gen. viii. 4. 

" Smith's Did. of BiUe, "Passover." " 1 Peter iii. 20, 21. 



324 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

identified with the earth and the female principle in nature, the 
passive source of that natural life which Paganism glorified instead 
of spiritual life, and she was regarded in consequence as the godd^s 
and patron of sexual lust. In this way, the Ark, the type of Christ, 
:through whom man was to be redeemed, became the type of woman 
through whom man fell, and was associated with that sexual im- 
morality which is a prominent feature of human sin, while all the 
attributes of the true Christ as the friend and saviour of sinners, 
and mediator between Qod and man, were bestowed on the goddess. 

Similarly, the god was identified with Noah, of whom Osiris 
and then Horus were supposed to be reincamationa Therefore, 
as Noah was "bom again" out of the Ark, the title "Ark bom" 
was given to many manifestations of the god, as in the case of 
Bacchus, who was called "Thebe genus," or "Ark born," and his 
heart, the " sacred Bel," was carried at his festivals with the other 
sacred emblems of the god in a box which was called " the Ark." ' 

The name of the city Thebes, or Thebe, appears to have been 
given to it to identify it with the Ark. Wilkinson says that the 
name was derived from " Taha** which at Memphis was pronounced 
" Thoeba" converted into " Thebai " by the Greeks, and that it had 
no connection with the Hebrew " Thebh'* " the Ark." But in this he 
is incorrect. He says that " Thaba," or " Taba," was the name of the 
guardian goddess of Thebes; that it was derived from "Ape,'* or 
" Aph,'' which, with the feminine article T prefixed, becomes " Tape,'' 
pronounced ''Taba*' or "Thaba'*; and that "Ape," or "Aph," was 
" the mother of the gods," ^ whom we have seen was identified with 
the Ark, as the house, or habitation, from which the gods were bom. 
In the same way Thebes was called " Araunei," the abode or habita- 
tion of Amon, and was therefore called by the Greeks Dioapolis, " the 
City of God," and the Hebrew name for Thebes, viz., ''No aTnon" 
had the same meaning.^ 

Thus " Thaba " was the name of the mother of the gods, and the 
mother of the gods was identified with the Ark, or Thebe. There- 
fore, although the etymologies of " Thaba,'* the " Ape," or " Aph," and 
" Thebh," or " Thebe," the Ark, are different, yet in accordance with 
the Pagan principle of giving double significations to words, it 
would seem that the name was chosen in order that, as " Thebe," 
it should exoterically mean the Ark, or house of God, while its 

' Faber's Pagan Idolatry, vol. ii. pp. 266-267. 
' Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 210, 211. 
3 Ibid., p. 211. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOLA TR Y 325 

secret esoteric meaning should be ''Thaba/' the '' Aph," t.6.,the female 
Serpent, under which form the Egyptian goddess is constantly 
represented, as in the case of "Rannu/' "the great producer," 
or mother of the gods.' 

The death also of Osiris was represented to have been on the 
seventeenth day of the second month, by which it was identified with 
the symbolic death of Noah,^ which was a type of regeneration, and 
recognised as such throughout the ancient world. For, both among 
Jews and Pagans, baptism by water was the rite of regeneration, 
and the initiates into the lesser mysteries of Paganism were plunged 
underneath the waters^ in imitation of the death of the god, and 
were then pronounced to be "regenerate and forgiven all their 
perjuries." 

It seems probable that, quite apart from the idolatry instituted by 
Cush and Nimrod, the Deluge was held in solemn remembrance by 
the postdiluvians, both in memory of those who had perished and 
as a thanksgiving for their own preservation. For, as we have 
seen, its memory is preserved by nearly every nation under the 
sun. If so, it was important for the revivers of the primary idolatry 
to connect their own religious rites with it, and thus make use of 
it, and of the reverence in which it was held, as a basis on which 
to gradually rebuild that idolatry. Hence the Ark was introduced 
into the mysteries, it was identified with the goddess, and Osiris, 
as an avatar of Noah, obtained the respect with which the latter 
was regarded, while his death, like that of Noah, was represented 
to be the necessary preparation for his regeneration and reincarna- 
tion as Horus, the restorer of the worship of the gods. 

Thus the revived idolatry appears to have been wholly 
founded on the Patriarchal faith and religion, which it gradually 
perverted. 

The god was called also by many of the same titles as the true 
God. For "Baal" and "Adon" were merely Phoenician terms for 
" The Lord," which wa-s the ordinary expression for God among the 
Israelites. So also "Baal Shaman," "The Lord of Heaven," was a 
title equally applied to the true God, and " Baal Berith," " The Lord 
of the Covenant," was a title which unquestionably had reference to 
the Qod who had made the covenant of mercy with Noah ; for Baal 

« Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 212-214, Plate XLV. and Plates XL. 
and XLI. 

' Ante, p. 46. 

3 Hence immersion was the distinguishing feature of Pagan baptism. 



326 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Berith is represented as seated on a rainbow, the sign of that covenant' 
So also in Egypt, Cnouphis was called " the Creative Spirit," Phthah 
was called '* Lord of Truth," ^ and Osiris was entitled " the manifesta- 
tion of good," and said to be "full of goodness, grace and trath."^ 
But this did not prevent the latter being recognised as the Phallic 
god, and identified with, and worshipped as, an animal, the type^ 
of natural life and generation ; or from being a god of cruelty to 
whom human victims were sacrificed.^ Nor need it be said that 
the " goodness " ascribed to him was goodness according to the Pagan 
idea, which sanctified natural life and the good of this world, and 
that the "truth" was a belief in idolatry and superstition. These 
titles and epithets constituted that garb of outward righteousness 
with which error ever clothes itself in order to quiet the conscience 
of those whom it seeks to deceive, and wanting which, it would have 
little success. 

It was not in these names and outward characteristics that the 
true God could be distinguished from the supreme God of Pskganism, 
but in those actual moral characteristics which made the former 
a God of mercy, of truth and of righteousness, eund the other a God 
of vindictive cruelty, falsehood, mystery and false righteousness, 
and which caused his most devoted followers to become like him. 

In other respects, in its ritual and superficial aspect, the 
revived idolatry was not dissimilar to the Patriarchal worship. 
There were the same sacrifices by fire for sin, the only diflFerence 
being that human victims, as well as animals, were offered on the 
Pagan altars, which gave the ritual of Paganism a still more solemn 
and elBScacious aspect. Sacrifice by fire was the recognised mode 
of seeking the favour and mercy of the true God, and it was natural 
that many should content themselves with, and put their trust in, 
the mere performance of the outward rite, as if it had some occult 
spiritual eflScacy in itself. Such persons would be easily persuaded 
by the priesthood of idolatry that this spiritual efficacy lay in the 
fire itself, and that the offering " purified by fire " was made acceptiLble 
to God. Thus, like everything in the revived idolatry, the sign was 
substituted for the thing signified by it, the material type for the 
spiritual reality. 

The outward similarity of ritual between the true and the false 

* See illustration of Baal Berith from Thevenot, Voyages^ partie ii. chap. viL p. 
614 ; Hislop, p. 70. 

^ Wilkinaony by Birch, vol. iii. p. 2 and p. 15. ^ Jhid,^ p. 69. 

^ Herod., ii. c. 48. ^ g^e ante, pp. 243, 244. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOLA TR Y 327 

religion was, of course, much greater when the ritual of the Israelites 
had been ordained, but the existence, previous to the ordainment of 
that ritual, of a priesthood and of temples among the Pagans, instead 
of detracting from the Pagan ritual, gave it an appearance of greater 
awe and solemnity. 

We find also that Apepi when converted to the true Ood erected 
a temple to Him,' while Joseph made special provision for a priest- 
hood who could only have been for the services of the same God.* 
Thus the principal features of the two rituals were the same. Each 
believed in a Redeemer, the only difference between them being that 
the Pagans represented him to have already lived and died and be- 
come re-incarnate, and asserted that he might be beheld by those 
who duly prepared themselves by fasting and self-denial. This 
fasting and self-denial was equally recognised in the Jewish and 
Patriarchal faith as a necessary preparation for invoking the assist- 
ance of God on great and solemn occasions. 

It seems probable also that the winged lions and bulls with the 
heads of men, which were symbols of the Deity in Paganism, were in 
their exoteric aspect derived from the Cherubim, the form of which 
appears to have been generally known, and recognised as a sacred 
emblem. The triune form also of the Godhead was imitated by the 
Pagans in their god and goddess and the re-incarnation of the former, 
and in vesting a woman with the divine nature they had the seeming 
warrant that she, who was the mother of a god, must be herself 
divine. In other respects, the solemnity and mystery of the Pagan 
ritual, which far exceeded the simple worship of the the Patriarchs, 
and even that of the Israelites, and the undoubted powers possessed 
by their magicians, wizards and necromancers, seemed to be unanswer- 
able evidence of the power and majesty of their gods. 

Thus Paganism, while it strongly appealed to the senses and 
imagination, had also so many features based on what all recognised 
as truth, that it was eminently calculated both to attract and deceive. 
It was, in short, a subtle perversion of that truth, and yet based upon it, 
and the repeated lapses of the Israelites, who constantly succumbed 
to its influence in spite of every warning and chastisement, and in 
spite of the striking evidences of the power of Jehovah, are a 
sufficient proof of its fascination. It is a proof also that although 
other nations may have at first rejected the gross idolatry of Cush 
and Nimrod, yet that succeeding generations, without the warnings 

' See the " Sallier Papyrus " ; Lenormant, Anc, Hist, of East^ vol. iL p. 223. 
' Gen. xlviL 22. 



328 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

and punishments received by the Israelites, must have speedily fallen 
under its power, when revived in this more insidious and deceptive 
form. 

The conclusions arrived at may be briefly recapitulated as 
follows : It would seem that the first step taken was merely a homage 
paid to the relics of the dead monarch. Then it was pretended that 
he had died for the good of mankind, and that he was really none 
other than the promised Bedeemer, the seed of the woman ; and when 
this point had been attained, and the lapse of several generations had 
obliterated the memory of his true character, the growing reverence 
for his memory would naturally develop into the belief that he was the 
Son of God and God Himself. At the same time, the solemn events of 
the Deluge were subtly interwoven with his worship, and the reverence 
with which it and the Patriarch Noah were held was made use of 
to give a sanctity to the worship. 

In Egypt, however, the revival appears to have taken a different 
form from that in Babylon. It was in Egypt that the Cushite king 
was overthrown and condemned to death by the people themselves, 
and the knowledge of the true God implanted by Shem must have 
been preserved in the minds of the people for at least two or more 
generations. It is therefore probable that, while the people still 
worshipped the god of Set, who, we know, was honoured to a late 
period, a priesthood was instituted, as in Babylon, and temples for 
the secret worship of the dead monarch, but that this was done at 
first under the plea of doing honour to his supposed relics, as a re- 
cognition of his great achievements and a protest eigainst the 
suggested injustice of his death ; that his actual worship was con- 
ducted under the cover of words and symbols having a double 
meaning, and that he was represented by various animals, each of 
which was supposed to typify one or other of his attributes ; that 
when this religion of mystery had excited the curiosity and imagina- 
tion of many, they were cautiously initiated into the secret, the dead 
monarch being represented to them as in reality an incarnation of the 
Supreme God and the promised seed of the woman ; that gradually, 
as the mystery and solemnity of the worship appealed to the religious 
sentiments of the pious, the numbers of its adherents steadily increased, 
while its growing magnificence, and the number and piety of its 
devotees, overawed the senses and imagination of others and impelled 
them to follow in their footsteps, until at last, while still retaining 
its principle of mystery which so powerfully impresses the imagination 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOLA TR Y 329 

of men, the worship of the dead monarch, under various names, became 
general. 

When, therefore, this worship had become established, those kings 
who could claim descent from the god were recognised as his repre- 
sentatives on eckrth, and as vice-gods, and were therefore always the 
High Pontiffs, or chiefs of the priesthood, were spoken of as " His 
Holiness," and were also worshipped after their death. 

Similar methods would be followed by the propagandists of 
idolatry in other countries. It seems probable that the Japhetic 
races at first worshipped the true God under the name of " Dius piter," 
" Jupiter," or " Heaven Father," and that they subsequently, in after 
ages, identified Him with, and ascribed to Him the characteristics of, 
the Babylonian god. This, and the fact that some of their sacred 
writings, such as the Yedas, although encrusted with subsequent error, 
evince more or less knowledge of the true God, is further evidence 
that the development of error was gradual. 

The tradition quoted by Epiphanius describes the different forms 
of religion as — 1st, Barbarism up to the time of the Deluge, by which 
is meant probably religion without specific religious forms; 2nd, 
Scythism, from Noah to the building of Babel. This was probably 
something of the same nature as that which is termed barbarism ; 
8rd, Hellenism, which, according to Cedrenus, consisted, at first, only 
of honouring celebrated warriors and leaders with statues, and tender- 
ing them a kind of religious veneration, but afterwards their successors 
" overstepping the intention of their ancestors, honoured them as gods, 
following forms of canonisation and inscribed their names in their 
sacred books and established a festival to each." According also to 
Epiphanius, the Egyptians, Babylonians, Phrygians and PhcBnicians 
were the first who made images and introduced the mysteries.^ We 
may therefore suppose that the way was first prepared for idolatry 
by merely suggesting the duty of honouring the memory of heroes 
and celebrated men, which would gradually be developed into a 
religious homage paid to their statues and shrines, and a belief that 
their spirits were able to watch over and protect the interests and 
destinies of their faithful votaries. Then, when the worship of the 
dead had thus been established in principle, it would be easy to 
introduce the worship of the mighty Nephilim Prince of Egypt and 
Babylon, as the incarnation of the Supreme God and the promised 
Redeemer of man. 

But what must have chiefly favoured the propagation of idolatry 

' Epiphanius and Cedrenus, Cory's FragmentSy pp. 53, 55, 56. 



330 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

among the nations, is the fact that it was in accordance with the 
natural desires of man. The Apostle Paul, speaking of the develop- 
ment of idolatry among the heathen, ascribes its initial principle to 
the fact that they " diA not like to keep Ood in their knowledge" that 
" when they knew God they glorified him not as God, neither were 
thankful ; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish 
heart was darkened — and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God 
into the image of corruptible man and birds, and four-footed beasts 
and creeping things." ^ The consciousness of sin and consequent sense 
of ill-desert and apprehension of future evil causes men, as in the 
case of our first parents, to shrink from God, and seek to forget Him. 
At the same time the consciousness of sin is a burden which demands 
relief, and a religion which seems to promise him forgiveness and 
righteousness by means of material agencies and ritual acts under the 
will and control of man, and which thus avoids the necessity of seek- 
ing them from God, is therefore readily accepted. 

This was the character of the revived Pagan idolatry which assured 
its followers of all spiritual good through the agency of material and 
created things, the result of which was that they quickly lost all 
true knowledge of God. Then, having come to regard material 
agencies as of divine efficacy, they were easily persuaded that material 
representations of God had a divine sanctity, and thence to associate 
Him with these representations, and to regard Him as inhabiting 
in some special manner the consecrated image, temple, shrine, or 
even animal. 

Such must have been the moral causes which, beginning in the 
race of Cain before the Deluge, eventually led to a general idolatry, 
and finally to the intercourse with and worship of the Nephilim. In 
the case of Cush and Nimrod there seems to have been a bolder 
unbelief and rebellion against God (a heritage probably of ante- 
diluvian teaching) which led them to openly advocate the same 
worship and intercourse, and this was probably also the case with 
their adherents after their overthrow, and with the priesthood 
ordained by Semiramis. But amongst the other nations of the world 
the process would be gradual, each generation adopting one or more 
of the errors and superstitions offered for their acceptance, while each 
error, as accepted, would darken their hearts and consciences, and 
prepare the way for their acceptance of other and grosser supersti- 
tions. At the same time it must not be forgotten that, as implied by 
Scripture and confirmed by profane tradition, there must have been 

' Rom. i. 21, 23, 28. 



THE RES USCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOL A TRY 331 

an active propaganda emanating from the central seat of idolatry at 
Babylon, which, acting on the receptive spirit of human nature, 
gradually established idolatry throughout the ancient world (Jer. 
li. 7). 

Together with the gradual introduction of the worship of the 
dead monarch there was the restoration of the Sun and Nature 
worship instituted by Cush. There was no natural connection 
between these two forms of idolatry, or between the personal and 
human attributes of the gods and the powers of nature with which 
they were identified,' and neither was dependent on, or gave support 
to, the other. They must therefore have had a separate mode of pro- 
pagation. Yet they were always the two distinguishing features of 
idolatry. 

Sun worship, according to Sanchoniathon, was the initial feature 
of antediluvian idolatry, and the antediluvians also worshipped the 
spirits of those whom they believed to be of Nephilim origin. The 
idolatry instituted by Cush and Nimrod appears to have been similar. 
Tammuz, that is Nimrod, was put to death, according to Maimonides, 
because he taught the worship of Sun, Moon and Stars, and allied to 
this was the worship of the Phallus as the manifestation in the 
animal world of the life and generative power of which the Sun 
was the supposed source. But one of the principal features of the 
primary Accadian worship, which must have been that initiated by 
the Cushites, was also the worship of spirits, whose guidance and 
assistance they sought in every time of need, and with whom they 
invited sexual intercourse. In both this and the antediluvian 
idolatry, the spirits whose aid and communion were sought do not 
appear to have been merely the supposed spirits of dead men, but 
spirits of the same nature as the Nephilim — beings whom they had 
reason to believe were possessed of vast powers, the inhabitants of 
the spirit world, and identical with the daimonia, or devils, of 
Scripture. 

In the case of the revived idolatry, the worship of Nimrod and 
his father was probably suggested because of their Nephilim origin 
or associations, and these two, being afterwards worshipped under a 
variety of names, each representing some different attribute, came to 
be regarded as so many different gods. It was the same with the 
goddess, although it was fully recognised by the initiated that they 
were only so many forms of the persons of a Trinity, consisting of 
father, mother and son. But the worship of the Sun, Moon and 

' See remarks of Professor Bawlinson, arUey cbap. ii. p. 19. 



332 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Stars, which was equally a feature of the revived idolatry, had this 
difference from the previous form of idolatry, in that it was com- 
bined with the worship of the above Trinity, all the gods being 
ultimately recognised as the Sun or incarnation of the Sun, while 
the goddess was identified with the Moon and the Earth. 

Sun worship was a prominent feature of the Hermetic philosophy, 
which explained all phenomena by supposing that they were due to 
the action of a male and female principle in nature ; the Sun, Fire 
and Force in general being the manifestation of the male principle, 
and the Earth, Water, etc., the manifestation of the female. This 
teaching, therefore, must have been cautiously and gradually revived, 
simultfimeously with the homage paid to the memory of the dead 
king. It seems evident also that it was supported by certain perver- 
sions of truth. 

The divine institution of sacrifice for sin by fire must be regarded 
as the foundation of the supposed spiritual efficacy of fire to purify 
the soul, the material type being substituted for the spiritual mean- 
ing. The supposed spiritual efficacy of fire was recognised through- 
out Paganism. Continual fires were kept burning before all the 
altars of the Sun god, and, in the case of the Incas of Peru, were 
kindled anew every year from the rays of the Sun by means of a 
concave mirror of polished metal.' In the rites of Zoroaster it was 
stated that " He who approached to the fire would receive a light from 
divinity," * and again that " Through fire all the stains produced by 
generation would be purged away." 3 " Fire," says Ovid, " purifies 
both Shepherd and Sheep." 4 So also in the sacred books of the 
Hindus fire is thus addressed, " Thou dost expiate a sin against the 
Gods, thou dost expiate a sin against the Manes (departed spirits), 
thou dost expiate a sin against my own soul, thou dost expiate 
repeated sin, thou dost expiate every sin which I have committed 
whether wilfully or unintentionally ; may this oblation be pro- 
pitious." 5 

The supposed spiritual efficacy of fire and the apparent connection 
between Fire and the Sun as the source of the world's heat would 
furnish an argument for Sun worship. For if fire, as an emanation 
from the Sun, was divine, then the Sun was the source of all that is 
divine, and therefore God Himself, the source of spiritual life and 
regeneration. The Sun is also used in Scripture as the material type 

» C<mquest of PerUy chap. iii. p. 46. * Taylor^s JambltchtUy p. 247. 

3 Proclus in Timceo^ p. 805. •♦ Fastiy lib. iv. U. 785-794. 

s Colebrooke's " Religious Services of Hindus," in Asiat. Res., vol. vii. p. 260. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PA GAN IDOLA TRY 333 

of God, and the general recognition of the type was no doubt made 
use of to give authority to the belief that the type was the reality. 
Now, when the Sun had come to be regarded as the manifestation of 
God, the dead king, as the promised seed of the woman and the in- 
carnation of God, would, of course, be identified with the Sun, and 
the two forms of idolatry would be combined. 

It was also a natural consequence that when Nimrod was 
worshipped as a god, his wife should be regarded as a goddess, and 
that if he, as Osiris, was identified with the Sun, she, as Isis, or Rhea, 
the Goddess Mother, should be identified with the Elarth, or with the 
Moon. Moreover, if the Sun had become once incarnate as Osiris, 
so might he become again. Hence, for the purpose of overcoming 
Typhon, he was supposed to become re-incarnate as Horus, the son of 
Isis, and Isis is represented as saying, '^ I am all that has been, or 
that is, or that shall be. No mortal has removed my veil. The fruit 
which I have brought forth is the Sun." ' For as the Son was the re- 
incarnation of the Father, he was identified with him, and hence the 
term given to him, *' the Husband of the Mother." 

This combination of the worship of the dead king and queen with 
that of the Sun and powers of Nature gave a human personality to 
the latter, and in place of an abstract power, or law, unaffected by 
the necessities and desires of man, the gods were regarded as having 
passions and feelings like men, and therefore able to sympathise with, 
and willing to aid them in the attainment of their desires. 

It would be absurd to suppose that the ultimate form taken by the 
revived idolatry was the result of a scheme carefully prepared and 
premeditated from the first by evil men, and gradually carried out by 
their successors from generation to generation. It must rather have 
been the work of the guiding spirit of evil, viz., of him " who de- 
ceiveth the whole world " (Rev. xii. 9.), " the spirit which worketh in 
the children of disobedience" (Eph. ii. 2), who either directly, or 
through his ministers, the daimonia, led those who sought their aid 
and guidance, from error to error. It was a work of gradual develop- 
ment carried out by men who were probably ignorant of the ultimate 
tendency of their errors, each of which became the basis for a further 
development. This has been the history of error in Christendom, in 
which, from little beginnings, we can trace the gradual resuscitation 

' Bunsen's Egypt^ voL L pp. 386, 387. Wilkinsun argues that Osiru was not 
identified with the Son or laia with the Moon. It seems probable that this was 
not the case at first, but it is quite certain that they were so eyentually, a fact 
which might be expected from what has been said. 8m Appendix A. 



334 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

of the same idolatry by a process of " development^" the initiators of 
errors in one age often opposing and protesting against the errors 
which were fully adopted in a later age, but of which errors their 
own were the foundation. 

So also it must have been with the ancient Paganism^ and it 
would seem that the anthropomorphic character given to the gods of 
Paganism was merely in order to introduce and recommend the 
worship of the Sun and the powers of Nature, which was the ultimate 
object of the system. For it was through Sun and Nature worship 
that men were led to sanctify sin, and finally to worship the Prince of 
Evil. 

The Sun, to whom a human personality had thus been given, was 
the supposed source of natural life and generation, and therefore of 
the honour and glory of this world, and of all those things which the 
natural man seeks to attain. So also he was the God of the Phallus, 
which became one of his distinctive emblems, and a huge image of 
which was carried by the priests in the rites of Osiris, as related by 
Herodotus.' Similarly, the Toni was a distinctive emblem of the 
goddess, and it was an essential feature in her worship to prostitute 
virgins in her honour. This s€uictification of vice tended, no doubt, 
to blind the conscience and prepare the way for a more sinister 
worship, as well as to make the resuscitated idolatry attractive 
to many, as in the case of the Israelites who worshipped Baal 
Peor.2 

Finally, the god was ultimately identified with the Prince of Evil. 
We have seen that, although, at the outset, the Pagan god was 
identified by name, and in other respects, with the true God and the 
promised Messiah, that his moral characteristics were wholly different 
from those of the latter. An unseen God can only be known by his 
moral characteristics, and a person who believes in a Christ to whom 
he attributes moral characteristics and oflSces which are opposed to 
those of the true Christ, believes in a false Christ, and this was the 
case with the Pagan worshipper. He worshipped a false Christ or 
Messiah. For not only as the Phallic god did the god of Paganism 
sanction immorality and vice, but as represent.ed by his priesthoods 
throughout the world, he was the approver of cruelty, tyranny and 
deceit, and men sought his favour by inflicting without remorse the 
most terrible sufierings on their fellow-men. He was the god of 

' Herod., iL c. 48. 

' Numbers xxv. Baal Peor, to the worship of whom the Israelites succumbed, 
was the Phallic god of Canaan. 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PAGAN IDOLA TR Y 335 

murder and falsehood, and these are the two salient characteristios 
by which Christ has especially identified the Prince of EviL' 

These also must have been the moral characteristics of the Pagan 
god from the first, and those who worshipped became like him. The 
system, with all its lust and cruelty, was in full force, and had 
evidently been long established in Canaan when the Israelites came 
there ; while the mention of the Bephaim, Zuzim and other Nephilim 
races, as early as the time of Abraham,^ shows that it was then well 
established, and that full intercourse with the daimonia must have 
been long carried on. Nations who were thus under the guidance of 
spirits of evil would rapidly adopt all the worst features of the 
system, and this was evidently the case with the Canaanites, who are 
said to have been guilty of *' every abomination." ^ Yet the remark 
made by Qod to Abraham, namely, '' The iniquity of the Amorites is 
not yet full," ^ shows that the ultimate result was reached by a process 
of development, each error being the foundation for the introduction of 
other and worse delusions. Hence we may conclude that, just in pro- 
portion as the god became more and more identified with the Prince 
of Evil, so were these nations conformed to the image of the god they 
worshipped. 

The principle of this development has already been noticed, and it 
may be briefly defined as the materialisation of spiritual truth, 
putting the sign for the thing signified, interpreting every spiritual 
symbol according to " the letter which killeth," instead of seeking the 
spirit of its meaning.^ Thus the material fire of the burnt sacrifice 
was supposed to be itself of spiritual efficacy ; then the Sun as the 
supposed source of the purifying fire became the manifestation of 
god ; then as the source of natural life and natural light he was 
regarded as the source of spiritual life and light, or ''the divine 
wisdom," and the natural and spiritual being thus confused, the 
natural, which was wholly in accordance with men's inclinations and 
desires, became the only object of attainment, and the satisfaction of 
the lusts of the flesh received the sanction of religion ; while the god, 
as the source and approver of everything which pertained to natural 
life, became the god of lust and of worldly power and ambition. 

Similarly, the Serpent was introduced at first as a symbol only of 
life and regeneration, and then as the symbol of the Sun, the supposed 
source of life and generation, and thence became identified with the 
Sun. Then as the source of natural light he was regarded as the 

■ John viiL 44. ' Gen. xiv. 6, e. > Deot ziL 31. 

' Geo. ZY. le. s 8 Oor. m ^ 



336 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

source of divine wisdom, the great enlightener of men, and finally was 
identified with him, who in the form of a serpent had given to man 
the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But although, 
when this was the case, the Pagans openly worshipped him whom 
Scripture calls " Satan, that old Serpent " (Rev. xii. 9.), and who is 
the adversary and enemy of both God and man, yet as moral charac- 
teristics are the principal evidence of the identity of a Grod, the Pagan 
god was, from the first, morally identical with the Prince of Evil. 

It does not appear that the Serpent was formally worshipped 
in Rome until a comparatively late period, when, at the time of great 
pestilence, ^sculapius, the Child of the Sun, was brought to Rome 
in the form of a huge serpent and became its guardian deity.' Bat 
in Pergamos, whither the Chaldean priesthood had fied on the capture 
of Babylon by Cyrus, -ZEsculapius had ever since been worshipped 
under the form of a serpent.^ Hence the significance of the state- 
ment in Rev. ii. 13 with regard to Pergamos, viz., ^' Where Satan* 8 seat 
is." In the great centres also of idolatry, Egypt, Babylon and Phoenicia, 
the Serpent seems to have been worshipped from an early period. 

In consequence of the worship of the Serpent god in Rome, 
serpents became sacred, so that in nearly every house a serpent 
of a harmless sort was kept, and they multiplied so fast that they 
became a nuisauce.^ 

In the time of TertuUian, so firmly was the worship of the 
Serpent established, that there were many who sought to combine 
it with Christianity. " These heretics " (the Oppiani), he says, 
" magnify the serpent to such a degree as to prefer him even to 
Christ Himself, for he, say they, gave U8 the first knowledge of 
good and evil. It was from a perception of his power and majesty, 
that Moses was induced to erect the brazen serpent to which 
whosoever looked was healed. Christ Himself, they affirm, in 
the Gospel imitates the sacred power of the serpent when He says 
that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must 
the Son of Man be lifted up.^ They introduce it when they bless 

» Ovid, M€tam,y lib. xv. 11. 736-745 ; Lactantius, De Origine Erroris^ p. 82, and 
lib. ii. c. 16, p. 108 ; Hislop, pp. 236, 237, 280. 

* Barker and Ainsworth's Lare8 and Penates of CUicia^ chap. viii. p. 232 ; 
Hislop, p. 278, 279. 

3 Pompeii, vol. ii. pp. 114, 115 ; Hislop, p. 237. 

4 It may here be remarked that the brazen serpent was not a symbol of Christ 
in itself, but of sin crucified by Christ. The serpent was the author of human sin 
and the symbol of evil, and Christ, in dying, is said to have "died unto sin " (Rom. 
vi. 10), and to have borne "our sins in his own body on the tree " (1 Pet. ii. 24 X 



THE RESUSCITA TION OF PA GAN I DO LA TR Y 337 

the Eucharist'" If this was done by professed Christians, it is 
no wonder that, in the Octateuch of Ostanes, it is laid down that 
*^ Serpents were the su/preme oj all gods and prvncea of the 
Universe.'** 

This shows dearly how the Serpent, and indeed Satan himself, 
was regarded in the Pagan world, and how the idolatry eventually 
developed into his worship, thus verifying the statement of the 
Apostle that he was in truth "the god of this world." 3 

' Tertullian, De Frescrip adv. Eer.^ cap. xlvii. voL ii. pp. 63, 64 ; Hislop, p. 278. 
> Euseb., PnxpanUio Evang.y lib. i. vol. i. p. 50. 
3 2 Cor. iv. 4. 



CHAPTER XVI 

QENSBAL FKATURXS OF THE RKViVKD EDOUlTBY 

In conseqaence of the number of different attributes under whidi 
Nimrod and his father were deified. Paganism became the wcnrahip 
of "gods many and lords many," some of which were regarded 
as superior gods and identified with the Sun and the Serpent, and 
the others as inferior gods. In consequence also of the deificaticHi 
of these first monarchs, the custom arose of elevating other m^ 
remarkable for their position or attainments, to the rank of 
demi-gods, their apotheosis being decreed by the priesthood, or 
sacred college of pontifib. They were regarded as mediators between 
men and the higher gods, and each person selected one or other of 
these demi-gods as their particular patron, whose power and 
mediation he implored in times of need and distress. 

Thus the system became essentially and professedly the worship 
of the dead, although the beings who replied to the invocations 
addressed to them were, as stated by Scripture, the daimonia, or 
evil spirits, whose prince was Satan, and with whom the chief gods 
were identified. 

It would seem, in short, that, by leading men to worship the 
dead Cushite monarch and his father under a multitude of deified 
attributes, and by adding to the number of gods and demi-gods 
the supposed spirits of other men, the master-spirit by which the 
development of the ancient Paganism was guided, used this worship 
as a stepping-stone to induce them to worship himself and his 
subordinate spirits. Man would have shrunk at the outset from 
intercourse with alien spirits, the servants of the great enemy of 
the human race, but it was very difierent when he believed that 
they were the spirits of his own race and ancestry, allied to him 
by the experience of common infirmities and common hopes and 
sympathies. 

The powers of these beings, called into play by the diviners, 

observers of times, enchanters, wizards, sorcerers and necromancers 

338 



FEA TURES OF THE RE VI VED IDOL A TRY 339 

of Paganism, although limited, were real, as clearly intimated by 
Scripture, and it was this, no doubt, that gave such influence to 
the ancient Paganism. It seemed to give the priesthood control 
over the powers of the unseen world and the powers of nature, 
enabling men through them to obtain the accomplishment of their 
natural lusts and desires, and to be seemingly independent of a 
Qod from whom the consciousness of sin caused them to shrink, to 
become in short that which initiation into the mysteries professed 
to make them, viz., " Emancipated," i.e., from the fear of the true 
God. 

These powers, being wielded by the priesthood, and confined to 
the temples and shrines of the gods, caused them to be regarded 
as second only to the king himself, who in Egypt, Babylon and 
Rome was their head, or chief Pontiff. Hence, any extraordinary 
diviner, like Daniel, was regarded as having in himself " the spirit 
of the holy gods " (i.e., the heathen gods), and Daniel was exalted 
in consequence to be the third ruler in the Kingdom.' 

The principal feature in the worship of the gods and daimonia of 
Paganism was that they were worshipped through, and by means 
of, their images, or other symbols and representations of them. 
Image worship, in short, was inseparably connected with the worship 
of the Pagan gods, and therefore, although the ancient Paganism 
was the worship of the spirits of the dead, it received the name of 
'' Idolatry " ' (i.e., the worship of idols or images). This it was in its 
outward aspect, and the great mass of its followers so regarded it 

It is important to notice the real underlying reason of the 
construction of images for the worship of the Pagan gods, and 
in which the constructors acted, no doubt, under the guidance and 
teaching of the spirits they worshipped. 

The Pagans denied that the images of the gods were the gods 
themselves, and asserted that they worshipped the god through the 
image, and that " the spirit of the god was called into the image 
by the divine " (i.c., the priestly) " consecration." The spirits which 
they worshipped were neither omniscient nor omnipresent, and 
to have invoked their aid at all times and in all places would there- 
fore have been useless. Hence the necessity for some local habitation 
for them, such as an image, a temple, grove, or sacred symbol, which, 
when consecrated by the priestly adept who had already established 
communication with them, might become the special abode of some 

' Dan. iY.9, 18; v. 11, etc. 

' From Eidolon^ ** image," and LaJtria^ ^ Mnrioa," or ** worship." 



340 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



one spirit who would then be ever at hand to reply to those who 
sought his aid. 

Hence it is asserted by the followers of modem Theosophy and 
Buddhism that the idol, or the symbol, which has once been 
the habitation of a god, or spirit, will always remain so, and may 
at any time evince its power. The same thing is also recognised 
by Spiritualists, who find that particular tables, chairs or planchettes, 
which have been once used as mediums of communication with the 
spirits, are always more susceptible to their influence than similar 
articles which have not been so utilised. 

Augustine quotes Hermes Trismegistus as saying that, ^ Visible 
and tangible images are, as it were, only the bodies of the gods, 
and that there dwelt in them certain spirits which have been invited 
to come into them, and which have power to inflict harm or to fulfil 
the desires of those by whom divine honours and services are rendered 
them." ' 

This being the case, we might conclude that any country or place 
where the people are idolaters, and which therefore abounds in 
images and temples, would be more or less subject to those mani- 
festations which are associated with Paganism and Spiritualism ; and 
experience proves that this is the case.^ It is, as before remarked, a 
difficult thing to establish communication with the spirits, but when 
once established, '''place is given to them" (Eph. iv. 27), and they are 
loth to surrender the power of exercising the influence which is thus 
afibrded them. 

We may also deduce a further conclusion which has already been 
referred to, viz., that houses or places which have been the abode of 
persons of exceptional wickedness might become the scenes of similar 
phenomena.3 For when men give themselves over to such exceptional 
wickedness, it is implied, as in the case of Judas, that an evil spirit 
enters into them and possesses them, and " the place " thus given to that 
spirit, and the relation established by it with the human race, is 
retained, and the locality, or house itself, becomes " accursed " — 
haunted, not by the spirit of the wicked dead, but by the evil spirit 
to whom their wickedness has given power. 

The development of image worship seems to have been gradual. 
From the mention of the gods, when overthrown by Tjrphon, having 

' De Civ, Deiy viii. 23. 

= This is also illustrated by the fact that witchcraft and sorcery abounded 
before the Reformation, and since then have gradually disappeared. 
3 See ante, chap. viii. pp. 178-180. 



FEATURES OF THE REVIVED IDOLATRY 341 

taken flight and assumed the forms of certain animals, and the 
worship of the dead Babylonian king under similar forms, it is 
probable that these were regarded at first as symbols only of the god, 
and that they then were looked on as sacred, and eventually as 
special forms or manifestations of the god in one or other of his 
attributes. This was also the principle of the image or statue, which 
at first seems to have been regarded only as a memorial of the 
individual it represented, and afterwards was supposed to be in- 
habited, in some sense, by his spirit. 

The same principle was involved in the case of images of the 
Sun, the special symbol of the Serpent god. There was a golden 
image of the Sun in the temple of Belus at Babylon,' and a similar 
image of gold was found in the temple of Cuzco, in Peru.^ Brilliant 
metal reflectors, or " Sun Images," were placed over the altars of 
Baal, the Sun god of the Canaanites.^ Similar disks of the Sun 
were also placed for worship in the Egyptian temples, and in a 
grotto near Babian, in Upper Egypt, a representation has been 
found of priests worshipping an image of the Sun placed above the 
altar.4 The obelisks, or pointed columns of masonry, as well as 
minarets, and even the spires of Christian churches, were originally 
symbols of the Sun's rays, and also of the Phallus, as representing 
the same principle of generation. 

The principle of the image is manifestly the same as that of 
the temples, shrines, sacred trees and groves of the gods, which were 
also regarded as their particular habitations. The principle was also 
extended to other material things symbolic of the gods, and supposed 
to be, in some sense, possessed by them, and were therefore regarded 
as amulets or charms, by which their assistance could be invoked. 
Thus, as the tree was divine, there was a virtue in the cross, its 
symbol. If the brilliant metal images of the Sun were worthy of 
worship, then a simple circle used in a religious sense was also holy. 
C!onsequently, the cross and circle, the former surmounting the 
latter, or inscribed in it, became, throughout the Pagan world, the 
sacred signs of the Sun god ; and both were supposed to possess a 
divine efficacy. 

From this also arose the " tonav/re " of the priests, as servants 

' " Maimonidea," More Nevochimy p. 426. 

' Prescott, Conquest of PerUj chap. iii. p. 41. 

3 2 ChroD. zxxiv. 4. See margin, " Sun Images." 

* Maurice, Indian Ant, vol. iii. p. 309; Hislop, p. 162. See also Wilkinson, 
Plate XXIII., where Amenophis III. and his family are represented worshipping 
an image of the sun. 



342 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

of the Sun god, and the " nwnhvbs^' or glory, or circle of light, round 
the heads of images and other representations of the gods and demi- 
gods. Concerning the tonsure, Herodotus says, "The Arabians 
acknowledge no other god but Bacchus, and Urania, the Queen of 
Heaven ; and they say their hair is cut in the same way as Bacchus' 
is cut. Now they cut it in a circular form, shaving it round the 
temples."^ The priests of Osiris in Egypt likewise shaved their 
heads,^ and so also did those of Pagan Rome.^ Quatama Buddha 
directed his disciples to shave their heads, and did so hioiSelf in 
obedience to the command of Vishnu.* " The ceremony of tonsure," 
says Maurice, referring to the practice in India, *' was an old practice 
of the priests of Mithra, who in their tonsures imitated the solar 
disk/' ^ Reference is also made to the practice in Leviticus, where the 
Israelites are forbidden to make any baldness for the dead.^ It 
was the recognition that the dead had passed into the hands of the 
Sun god, as was the case in Egypt, where the dead were always 
spoken of as "in Osiris." 

The niTnhua was also commonly placed, not only round the heads 
of the images of the gods and heroes, but round those of the Roman 
Emperors, to whom, after death, divine honours were paid. It was 
regarded as betokening the divinity of the person represented. Thus 
Virgil, speaking of Latinus, says : — 

'* Twelve golden beams around his temples play 
To mark his lineage from the god of day.'* ? 

The author of Poinpeii, speaking of one of the paintings 
representing Circe and Ulysses, says, " This picture is remarkable 
as teaching us the meaning of that ugly and unmeaning glory by 
which the heads of saints are often surrounded. This glory was 
called the nimbus or aureola, and is defined by Servius to be the 
luminous fluid which encircles the heads of the gods." * In India the 
infant Chrishna and his mother Devaki are both represented with a 
glory round their heads,^ and throughout India and China, wherever 

' Herod., lib. iii. c. viii. 

* Macrobius, lib. i. c. xxiii. 

^ TertuUian, vol. ii., " Carmina," pp. 1105, 1106. 

4 Kennedy, " Buddha," in Eindu Mythology ^ pp. 263, 264. 

s Maurice, Indian Ant., vol. vii. p. 851. 

^ Levit. xix. 27, 28 ; xxi. 5 ; Deut. xiv. 1. 

7 Dryden's Virgil, book xii. 11. 245-248 ; vol. iii. p. 776. 

" On ^neid, lib. ii. v. 616, vol. i. p. 165 ; Hislop, p. 87, note. 

' Moor's Pantheon, Plate LIX. 



FEATURES OF THE REVIVED IDOLATRY 343 

Buddhism prevailed, both the god and goddess mother were similarly 
represented/ 

The principle of the image and symbol was extended to other 
things. Thns, those objects, the names of which had a double 
meaning, and one of which referred to the god, were regarded as 
sacred. This is exemplified in the case of the worship of the 
Sacred Heart The- Roman youth wore a golden ornament suspended 
from their necks, called the ''bulla." This was heart-shaped,^ and 
was an especial symbol of the god. It is stated of Dionysius 
Eleuthereus, one of the names of Bacchus, that when he was torn to 
pieces, his heart was preserved by Minerva, and " by a new regenera- 
tion again emerged, and being restored to pristine life and integrity 
afterwards filled up the number of the goda" ^ Here is the old story 
of the death of the god and his re-incarnation by the aid of the 
goddess. From this arose the worship of '' the Sacred Heart," as a 
distinctive symbol of the god. In Mexico, where the ancient idolatry 
seems to have been retained with little modification, the image of 
the great god wore a necklace of alternate gold and silver hearts, 
and the hearts of human victims were especially sacred and pleasing 
to him, being torn out from the living victim by the sacrificing 
priest, and waved aloft as an offering to the Sun and Serpent god.^ 
Now the esoteric reason of the heart being thus reverenced, was 
that in Chaldee, the sacred language, the word for "heart" was 
** Bel," 5 and on the principle of using words with a double meaning, 
under the veil of which the priesthood of Babylon introduced the 
revived idolatry, the heart became thus a symbol of the god, and 
the worship of the Sacred Heart was, to the initiated, the worship of 
Bel. 

The value attached to Holy Water by the Pagans seems to have 
originated in the symbolism deduced from the Deluge. By that event 
the old world was purified of its wickedness and regenerated, so that 
the human race was, so to speak, '' born again." The Apostle speaks 
of the event as a sign, or symbol, of Christian regeneration similar to 
that of baptism,^ and it was regarded in a similar way throughout 
the ancient world. Bryant remarks, " In the Babylonian mysteries 

' See illoBtrations given, Rom/e Pagan and Papaly by Brock, pp. 141-147. 

* Rennet's Antiquitiesj 300, 301 ; Barker's Lares and Penates of CHicia^ p. 147 ; 
Hislop, pp. 189, 190. 

3 Taylor's Mystic Hymns of Orpheus^ note, p. 88. 

* Prescott, Conqtust ofMextoo^ bk. L chap. iii. p. 25 ; bk. iv. chap. ii. pp. 214, 
215. 

* Hislop, pp. 190, 191. ' 1 Pet. iii. 21. 



344 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the commemoration of the Flood, the Ark and the great events in the 
life of Noah were mingled with the worship of the Queen of Heaven 
and her Son. Noah, as having lived in two worlds, both before the 
Flood and after it, was called 'Diphues,' or 'twice bom,' and was 
represented as a god with two heads looking in opposite directions, 
the one old and the other young." ' In India, Vishnu the Preserver 
is celebrated as having saved one righteous family when the world 
was drowned, and he is also identified with Noah himself. For 
Vishnu is the Sanskrit form of " Ishnuh," " The Man Noah," or " The 
Man of Best." The name of Indra, the king of the gods, is also found 
in precisely the same form, viz., as "Ishnu." Hence the Indian 
Brahmans, who represent and claim the prerogatives of the god, 
claim to be "twice bom" or regenerated.^ 

The same idea is found in the rite of initiation into the Lesser 
Mysteries, which was a baptism by immersion, after which the 
initiate, '' If he survived, was then admitted to the knowledge of tke 
mysteries, and was promised regeneration and the pardon of all bis 
perjuries." 3 In token of this he was clothed in white, a custom which 
has been imitated by Boman Catholics and Bitualista The Pagan 
Anglo-Saxons baptised their new-bom infants,^ and the Pagan 
Mexicans did the same, and believed their children to be regenerated 
by the rite.s Thus water, in accordance with the genius of idolatry, 
came to be regarded, like fire, as having an occult spiritual efficacy. 
" Every person," says Potter, " who came to the solemn sacrifices was 
purified by water. To which end, at the entrance of the temples, 
there was commonly placed a vessel full of holy water." ^ Holy 
water was also used to sprinkle the dead, and to purify houses and 
temples, and in certain cases wells, which were called " holy wells," 
and rivers, as in the familiar case of the Ganges in India, were 
regarded as having a divine efficacy. 

The sacrifices of the Pagans were of two kinds ; those offiared to 
the Sun god consisted largely of human victims, of which Gush 
seems to have been the originator. They were especially offered 
to Kronos and Saturn, under which names Cush was deified. New- 
bom babes were also offered to Baal and Moloch, and in certain cases 
men immolated themselves. 

* Bryant, vol. iii. pp. 21, 84 ; Hislop, p. 134. 

* Hislop, pp. 135, 136. 

3 TertuUian, De BaptismOyVol. i. pp. 1204, 1205 ; Gregory Nazienzen, Opera ^ p. 245. 

^ Mallet on Anglo-Saxon Baptism, Antiquities^ vol. i. p. 336. 

5 Prescott's Conqiiest of MexicOy bk. i. chap. ii. p. 21 ; Appendix, p. 465. 

^ Potter, Oreek Antiquities, bk. ii. chap. iv. p. 223. 



FEATURES OF THE REVIVED IDOLATRY 345 

These sacrifices appealed to the consciousness in man that sin 
deserves punishment, and thence led him to conclude that suffering 
expiated its guilt, and that the greater the suffering the more the 
anger of the gods would be appeased. This idea was used, no doubt, 
to lead men to believe that the value of the sacrifices ordained by 
Gkxl consisted in the suffering of the animal put to death, and, if so, 
how much more e£Scacious might be the sacrifice of a human being I 
These victims, however, were usually confined to captives taken in 
war, slaves and criminals,* and in Greece and Rome human sacrifices 
were gradually disused. The Romans offered human sacrifices until 
the year of the city 657 (90 B.C.), when a decree was made by the 
Senate abolishing them. In spite of this, however, Augustus sacri- 
ficed 400 persons, who had sided with Antony, on the altar of Julius 
Csesar, to whom divine honours were paid. Moreover, wherever the 
ancient religion remained in its original form, as in Mexico, the 
number of human victims sacrificed to propitiate the god was 
enormous, but, as with other nations, these were chiefiy criminals and 
prisoners of war. These being regarded as enemies of the State, and 
therefore enemies of its god, were sacrificed, either as a propitiatory 
offering, or as a thanksgiving for victory, and the mode of death 
throughout the ESast was either crucifixion or burning.^ This shows 
that death on the cross, or tree, which was a symbol of the Sun god, 
was a sacrificial death, the cross being the altar of the god ; which 
may explain the fact that, in the Levitical law, the victims of such 
death were held to be accursed, or cut off from God. It was, in fact, 
the manifestation of their being wholly given over, as far as this life 
was concerned, to the power of the god of Paganism, who, as we have 
seen, was identified with Satan. 

The sacrifices offered on the altars of the goddess were quite 
different. Her worship gradually superseded that of the god, and 
exercised an extraordinary fascination over the people, chiefly, no 
doubt, on account of her milder attributes, and as the Mediatrix for 
the sins of the people with her sterner husband, or son.3 There were 
no bloody sacrifices allowed on her altars,^ and the usual ofiering was 
a round cake, the symbol of the Sun. " The thin round cake," says 
Wilkinson, " occurs on all altars." ^ This round cake was, of course, a 

' Smith's Diet, of Bible, "Moloch." 

3 Rawlinson's Egypticm cmd Babylonian Hist,, voL i. pp. 190, 191. 
3 She was known as " Mylitta,'' " The Mediatrix," in Babylon. HeroA, lib. i. 
cap. cxcix. ; Hislop, p. 167, and note. 

< Tacitus, Historioy lib. ii cap. iii. vol. iiL p. 106 ; Hislop, p. 156. 
s Wilkinson's EgypHanSj vol. v. p. 353, note. 



346 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

symbol, both of the Sun, and of his Son, or incarnation, for the circle 
represented both the Sun's disk and " The Seed." > 

Isis was worshipped in Rome as Ceres, and was called "2%« 
Mother of Com." The reason of this was that she was known in 
Babylon as " Hie Mother of Bar** Bar being a name of the god, and 
signifying ** The Son." But " Bar " also meant " Com" which was its 
exoteric meaning.^ Hence the round cakes made otflov/r which were 
sacrificed to the goddess represented in their mystic sense, '* the Son," 
or ''promised seed," the false Christ of Paganism. In Greece and 
Bome, whose religions were derived from Babylon and Egypt, much 
of the mystical sense was lost sight of, and Ceres was regarded simply 
as the goddess of plenty ^ or of the f rtiit» of the earth generally, just 
as the cup and branch with which Bacchus was represented led them 
to regard him as the Qod of Wine.^ In Egypt another symbol for 
" the Son " was a goose, which was regarded as the favourite offiaring 
to Osiris,^ and Juvenal says that in Rome, Osiris, if offended, could 
only be pacified by a large goose or a thin cake.^ As these were 
both symbols of a Son, it would seem that both god and goddess 
were supposed to be propitiated by the symbolic offering of the 
promised seed. The round cakes were also offered on all the Ghnecian 
altars, and were called '^Popana"^ The Israelitish women are also 
spoken of as offering cakes to "the Queen of Heaven," known by 
them as " Ashtoreth." ^ In Rome they were called " Mola" a word 
derived from irrimolarey "to sacrifice," which shows that, like the 
goose, they were a propitiatory offering, and in fact this sacrifice was 
said to " eface the sItis of the people,** ® 

But though this imbloody sacrifice may have been sufiicient to 
satisfy the conscience of the Pagan worshippers under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, the whole spirit of Paganism was characterised by that 
perverted idea of sacrifice which led them to suppose that the anger 
of the gods could be appeased by the sufferings of human victims. 
They naturally concluded that if such sufferings could expiate sin, 
then the sufferings of the sinner after death would in time expiate 
his own sins. Hence Virgil, speaking of the after existence of sinners, 
says : — 

' Ante, p. 224. * Hislop, p. 160. 

3 Ante, p. 38. * Wilkinson's EgyptiarUj vol. v. pp. 227, 363, note. 

5 SatireSy vi. 539, 540. 

^ Grecian Antiquities, Potter and Boyd, bk. ii. chap. iv. p. 217. 
' Jer. viL 18. 

■ Pollux in Onom, lib. i. cap. i. s. 25 ; Ed. Seb. Francf ., 1608, p. 9 ; Alex, ab Alex., 
lib. iv. cap. xvii. ; Lug. Bat., 1673, p. 1103. 



FEATURES OF THE REVIVED IDOLATRY 347 

*' For this are various penances enjoined, 
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind. 
Some plunged in water, others purged in fires, 
Till all the dregs are drained and all the rust expires. 
All have their manes, and those manes bear 
The few so cleansed to those abodes repair. 
And breathe in ample fields the soft Elysian air. 
Then are thej happy when bj length of time 
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime. 
No speck is left of their habitual stains. 
But the pure ether of the soul remains.'' ■ 

So likewise Plato says, that of those who are judged after death 
" some must first proceed to a subterranean place of judgment where 
they shall sustain the punishment they have deserved." * The sup- 
posed existence of a Purgatory suggested, no doubt, the possibility of 
appeasing the anger of the gods by costly sacrifices made by the 
friends of the deceased person, or arranged to be made by the person 
himself before he died. " In Greece," says Suidas, " the greatest and 
most expensive sacrifice was the mysterious sacrifice called Telete? 
This, according to Plato, '' was offered for the sins of the living and 
dead," and was supposed " to free them from all the evils to which 
the wicked are liable when they have left this world" ^ *' In Egypt," 
says Wilkinson, '' the priests induced the people to expend large sums 
on the celebration of funeral ritea For, besides the embalming pro- 
cess, the tomb itself was purchased at an immense expense, and 
numerous demands were made upon the estate of the deceased for the 
celebration of prayers and other services for the soul." He adds, 
" These ceremonies consisted of a sacrifice similar to those offered in 
the temples " (i.e., the sacrifice of the round cake), and " they con- 
tinued to be administered at intervals as long as the family paid for 
their performance."^ In India, in the services of " The Sraddha** 
for the repose of the dead, it is urged that "donations of cattle, land, 
gold and silver €ind other things " should be given by the dying man, 
or, " if he be too weak, by another in his name." ^ In Tartary also at 
the present day the Asiatic Journal says that " The Ourgwmi, or 
prayers for the dead, are very expensive," ^ and, as we have seen, 
prayers for the dead are characteristic of all Buddhist countries." 

' Dryden's VirgO, bk. vi. IL 996-1012 ; vol. ii. p. 636. 

' Plato, Phradnu, p. 249, A.B. ; Hislop, pp. 167, 168. 

' Suidas, vol. ii. p. S79, B. < Plato, vol. ii. pp. 364, 366. 

' Wilkinson's EgypUanty vol. ii. p. 94 ; and vol. y. pp. 383, 384. 

* AnaU. Rm,^ vol TiL pp. 239, 240. ' Asiatic Journal^ vol. zviL p. 143. 

* AnUy chap. vL pp. 113, 114. 



348 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



Another belief, springing directly from the idea that suffering 
expiated sin, was that a man might expiate his own sins by under- 
taking voluntary suffering during his lifetime. The whole principle 
is very exactly expressed by Balak, king of Moab : " Wherewith," he 
says, '' shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high 
God ? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of * 
year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with 
ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-bom for my 
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? " « Here 
the idea expressed is that the greater the cost and suffering to the 
sinner, the more will the sacrifice propitiate God. 

Hence it was that, throughout the Pagan world, men sought to 
propitiate the gods by self-inflicted penances and self -mortification. 
The Egyptians at the feast of Isis at Busiris, after the ceremonies 
of sacrifice, assembled themselves to the amount of many thousandB 
and scourged themselves.^ So also Callimachus, speaking of sailors 
who visited the shrine of Apollo, says, '' Nor do the crew presume to 
quit thy sacred limits till they have passed a fearful penance, with 
the galling whip lashed thrice around thine altar."^ Similarly, the 
priests of Baal, to propitiate their god, '' cried aloud and cut them- 
selves after their manner with knives and with lancets until the blood 
gushed out." ^ The Corybantes, or priests of Cybele, the priests of 
Bellona, and the Balusses in their nightly processions also scourged 
themselves." ^ 

Speaking of the penances done by the " Fakirs " and " Sunayases "* 
of India, Nightingale says, " Of the first, some vow to continue for life 
in one unvaried posture, others undertake to carry a cumbrous load, 
or drag a heavy chain, some crawl on their hands and knees for years, 
some swing during their whole life in this torrid clime before a slow 
fire, others suspend themselves with their heads down for a certain 
time over the fiercest fiames. They imagine," he adds, "that the 
expiation of their own sins and sometimes those of others consists in the 
most rigorous penances and mortifications. " ^ The Sunayases have their 
tongues and sides split, or hooks are placed through the skin of their 
shoulders, and by these they are suspended from a pole twenty or 
thirty feet high with a horizontal beam by which they are swung 
round. "This penance," says Nightingale, "is generally voluntary, 

» Micah vi. 6, 7. * Herod., lib. iL cap. Ixi. 

3 Callimachus, v. 318-321, vol. i. p. 137. -» 1 Kin^s xviii. 28. 

5 Lactantius, lib. i. cap. ii. p. 52 ; Hurd's Ritei and Ceremoniesy vol. iii. p. 251. 
^ Nightingale, Religions and Ceremonies, chap. x. p. 398. 



FEATURES OF THE REVIVED IDOLATRY 349 

in performance of some religious vow, or inflicted for the expiation 
of sins committed/' ' 

So also in Pagan Rome, Juvenal, describing a woman seeking to 
expiate her sins, says, " She will break the ice and go down into the 
river in the depth of winter; she will dip herself three times in the 
Tiber and bathe her timid head in its very eddies, then naked and 
shivering she will go and crawl on bleeding knees over the whole 
extent of the Campus Martins." ' So also Tibullus says, '' I would not 
hesitate, if I had done wrong, to prostrate myself in the temples and 
to give kisses to the consecrated floors and thresholds. I would not 
refuse to crawl over the floor on my knees and to beat my wretched 
head agamst the holy door posts." ^ 

The worship of the Serpent and the Prince of Evil himself seems 
to have been chiefly propagated through the celebrated Mysteries. 
They were the principal features of the resuscitated idolatry, and the 
secrecy and mystery which surrounded them, while it served to con- 
ceal their real significance when they were first established, at the 
same time tended to impress and awe the minds of the initiated. 
They were conducted with great solemnity, and were divided into 
"The Lesser" and ''The Greater Mysteries," the former being the 
preparation for the latter, and consisting, as has been said, of a puri- 
fication by holy water, or of a baptism by immersion, which was often 
of a dangerous character.4 

Initiation into the Greater Mysteries was more solemn, and was 
preceded by fasting and by confession to the priest, which was an 
essential part of the rite. The first question put to the aspirant was 
whether he was fasting, this being considered indispensable before par- 
taking of the sacred rite.s The other questions related chiefly to 
matters of sexual impurity, and were evidently designed to place the 
person in the power of the priest lest he should be tempted afterwards 
to divulge what he saw or heard. " All the Greeks," says Salverte, 
** from Delphi to ThermopylsB, were initiated into the mysteries of the 
temple at Delphi. Their silence in regard to everything they were 
commanded to keep secret was secured, both by the penalties 
threatened to a perjured revelation, and by the general confession 
exacted of aspirants before initiation, a confession which caused them 

■ Nightingale, Rdtgions and Ceremames^ chap. x. pp. 379-385 and 399. 
' Satiresy vi. 622-526. 

3 Tibullna, i. ii, 83. 

4 Tertollian, De Baptismo, vol. L p. 1204 ; Elise Comment in S. Oreg. Naz., 
OrcU. IV,; Gregorii Na2denzeni, Opera, p. 245 ; Hialop, p. 132. 

^ Potter, Cfreek ArUiquitieSj bk. ii. chap. xx. ; Eleunnia, 



3SO THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

greater dread of the indiscretion of the priest, than gave him reason 
to fear their indiscretion." < 

The Greater Mysteries themselves were accompanied by every- 
thing calculated to awe the mind and impress the imagination of thi 
initiate: "The place seemed to quake and to appear suddenly 
resplendent with fire, and immediately afterwards to be enveloped in 
gloomy darkness; sometimes thunders were heard, or flashes of 
lightning appeared on every side. At other times hideous noises and 
howlings were heard and the trembling spectators were alarmed by 
sudden and dreadful apparitions." ' These things, preceded as they 
were by prolonged fasting in darkness, which broke down the mind 
and spirit of the initiate, could not fail to impress him powerfully, 
invest the rite with awe and solemnity, and prepare him for what 
was its chief object, the revelation of the god. 

It seems evident that the '' Apporeta," the carefully-preserved secret 
revealed in the Mysteries, was the revelation of the god in his 
ultimate aspect, as the Serpent who had brought sin and death into 
the world.3 It was " the revelation of a Qod superior to all those 
worshipped by the masses," ^ 'i.e., a god different from those known as 
Jupiter, Bacchus, Osiris, etc. The initiate was bound by the most 
solemn oaths never to reveal it, and was put to death without mercy, 
however high his position, did he do so, and it is said that the secret 
has never been divulged. Herodotus, who was an initiate, refuses to 
mention the name of the god, and says it was unlawful to do 80.5 

The appearance of the god is thus described by an ancient initiate: 
*' In a manifestation which one rauat not reveal . . . there is seen on 
the wall of the temple a mass of light which appears at first at a very 
great distance. It is transformed, while unfolding itself, into a 
visage, evidently divine and supernatural, of an aspect severe but 
with a touch of sweetness.^ Following the teachings of a mysterious 
religion, the Alexandrians honour it as Osiris or Adonis." 7 

Here, while giving the name of the god €is known to the general 
public, the writer takes care not to reveal the real secret. 

The initiated were supposed to be made partakers of the nature of 
the god, and as a serpent was placed in the bosom of the person s& 

> Eusebe Salverte, Des Sciences Occultes^ chap. zzvi. p. 428 ; Hislop, p. 9. 
' Lempri^re, Eteusinia^ and Potter, Eleusinia. 

3 A7ite, p. 234. 4 Compii, of 666, " Apporeta," p. 329. 

s Herod., lib. ii. cap. clxx., clxzi. 

^ This severe but sweet aspect, which might apply to " an angel of light," is 
quite in accordance with the statement of the Apostle, 2 Cor. xi. 14. 
7 DamasciuB, Apud Photium, Bibliotheca, Cod. 242, p. 343. 



FEATURES OF THE REVIVED IDOLATRY 351 

the token of initiation, it is evident that the god whose nature the 
person was supposed to receive, was the Serpent god. The initiated 
was also declared to be "enlightened" and "emancipated"; and 
considering the character of the god, it seems evident that the 
enlightenment referred to that knowledge of evil which was the 
subject of the Hermetic teaching, and which was symbolised by the 
fruit of the forbidden tree in Eden. Similarly, the initiate, being 
supposed to be freed from the consequences of sin, he was freed, or 
emancipated, from the fear of God as the Judge and Punisher of sin. 
Hence the significance of the title given to the Pagan god, " Phoroneus 
the Emancipator," "Jupiter the Liberator," and "Bacchus the 
Deliverer." » 

It may also be remarked that in the rites of Bacchus a serpent 
was carried in a box as the great and mysterious symbol, while the 
worshippers carried a serpent in baskets with honey cakes marked 
with the sacred " omphalos," the symbol of the goddess, and small 
pyramids symbolic of the rays of the Sun. So also in the Mysteries 
a consecrated cup of wine was handed round, called "the cup of 
Agathodaomon " (the good demon), who was symbolised by a serpent.' 

It is not necessary to allude further here to the augurs, diviners, 
magicians and necromancers, and other offices filled by the Pagan 
priesthood, and the various oracles through which they sought the 
aid and guidance of the gods, or the numerous temples of health 
under their direction, by which, through the same aid, they cured, or 
professed to cure, all diseases. These things have already been fully 
referred to in a former chapter, and, with what has been now said, is 
sufficient to indicate the general nature and character of the ancient 
idolatry. 

■ Faosaniaft, lib. L, Attica^ cap. xliv. ; Bryant, vol v. p. 26 ; Flauaaniat, Attica^ 
cap. zz. ; Hialop, pp. 62, 63, and note. 

' Nicola, De lUtu BaccLy Apud Gronov., vii p. 186 ; Deane^s Serpent WonAip, 
pp. 188, 189, 194. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 

Reference has already been made to the numerous forms in which 
the ancient Magic, Sorcery and methods of the Pagan priesthood, and 
the consultation of the supposed spirits of the dead, are being revived 
at the present day. For, not to mention the Saint worship practised 
in the Church of Rome, there are the constantly-increasing numbers 
of those who follow modem Spiritualism and Theosophy, and who 
seek the aid and guidance of spirits, which, although asserted to be 
the spirits of the dead, can only be the same daimonia who gave the 
Pagan priesthood their powers; while the associated practices of 
Mesmerism, Faith-healing, Hypnotism, etc, are identical with the 
arts by which the ancient sorcerers and magicians sought the aid of 
these daimonia. 

It may be therefore of some interest and importance to many if, 
in conclusion, we consider the true moral aspect of the ancient 
Paganism as it is regarded in both the Old and New Testament 
Scriptures. 

The poets and classical authors of Greece and Rome have done 
much to cover the ancient Paganism with a mantle of romance, and 
to conceal its more sinister features ; but both amongst the Greeks 
and the Romans, especially in the later periods of their history, the 
system had lost much of its pristine influence. In both peoples there 
was a recognition of the claims of justice and righteousness, which 
constantly placed the more thoughtful in a position of antagonism to 
their religion, and which led their rulers to check and modify the 
excesses of its priesthood, in much the same way as the kings and 
parliaments of England, from Alfred the Great to the Reformation, 
sought to check the excesses and abuses of the priesthood and 
religious houses who obeyed the See of Rome. 

Nor are these characteristics in the Greeks and Romans diflScult 
to explain, for it is impossible that the fame of the power, just laws 
and remarkable history of the people of Israel, who dwelt so close to 
Greece, and many of whom appear to have settled there, should not 

352 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 353 

have spread abroad those principles of righteousness and justice 
which appeal to the conscience of man, and by so doing have, not 
only raised the moral standard of Greece, and of Rome who obtained 
her laws from Greece, but prepared both peoples in later times to 
listen to and accept the precepts of Christianity. 

It must be remembered also that the evil effects of a false religion 
are not seen in those who pay little attention to it, and are more or 
less indifferent to its demands, and consequently fail to come fully 
under its influence. It is rather those with whom it constitutes 
the business of their lives, its priesthood and devotees, who manifest 
its full evil. . This is illustrated by the whole history of the world, 
and especially by that of the Jews at the time of Christ, and that 
of Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation. 

In the former case the publicans and sinners and the common 
people heard Christ " gladly," « and were open to receive the truth, 
but the Scribes and Pharisees and the priesthood, the devotees of 
a false righteousness and of the ritual and ordinances which they 
had made idols of, were not only deaf to the demands of truth and 
true righteousness, but were filled with a vindictive malice towards 
Him who told them the truth. So likewise in Reformation times, 
while the common people were only too glad to read the newly - 
printed Bibles and Testaments, and pitied and befriended the 
martyrs, the priesthood and devotees burnt every Bible they could 
seize, and without remorse tortured and burnt all who taught its 
doctrines. 

This was equally true of the priesthood and devotees of Paganism, 
and its full evil must therefore be sought in those countries where 
it reigned supreme, and at those periods when it was still in the 
zenith of its power. 

This was the case with the nations of Phoenicia or Canaan, when 
conquered by Israel, by which time the resuscitated idolatry appears 
to have attained full power. The Phoenician idolatry was pre- 
eminently one of blood, murder, and remorseless cruelty, and of every 
unnatural lust and crime,^ and it was against this idolatry that the 
God of Israel so solemnly warned His people. 

The stringency of the commands to Israel with regard to this 
idolatry and the idolaters is remarkable. Both were to be utterly 
consumed. Israel was commanded — "Te shall utterly destroy all 

' Mark xii 37. 

' It was probably mnch the same in Babylon and Aflsyria at the same period, 
and the tortures inflicted by the Assyrians on their prisoners exceed belief. 

Z 



354 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the places where the nations which ye shall possess served their 
gods, — and ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, 
and bum their groves with fire, and ye shall hew down the graven 
images of their gods and destroy their names out of that place" 
(Deut. xii. 2, 3.) " And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them 
before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thon 
shalt make no covenant with them nor show mercy onto them; 
neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter shalt 
thou not give to his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take onto thy 
son. For they will turn away thy son from following me : so will 
the anger of the Lord be kindled against you to destroy yon 
suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them. Te shall destroy 
their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves 
and bum their graven images with fire. — Thou shalt not desire the 
silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be 
snared therein; for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. 
Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thy house lest thou 
become a cv/raed thing like unto it, but thou shalt utterly abhor 
and detest it ; for it is a cursed thing " (Deut. vii. 2-5, 25, 26). 

So also the Israelites were told to destroy all the ^^ pictures'' 
of the idolaters, as well as their molten images, and "quite pluck 
down all their high places" (Numbers xxxiii. 52). Again they 
were commanded — "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any 
trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God" (Deut. xvi. 21). 
This was on account of the sacred significance which the Pagans 
attached to these groves and to trees generally, as symbols of 
their chief god. The prohibition shows that the least symbol 
of idolatry was regarded as a danger. 

So also with the Ritual of Paganism. Thus we read, " When 
the Lord thy God shall cut off" the nations from before thee, — 
take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them 
after that they be destroyed from before thee, and that thou enquire 
not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their 
gods, even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto 
the Lord thy God, for every abomination to the Lord which he 
hateth have they done unto their gods'* (Deut. xii. 31). 

Thus every symbol of idolatry was to be destroyed, not a 
feature was to be retained, not a single custom or rite was to be 
adopted and used in the service of Jehovah. The very presence 
of an idolatrous symbol might bring a curse, and the person in 
whose possession it was might become a cursed thing like tmto 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 355 

it. What was the reason of this? Why was the idolater an 
iucfwrsed being, and even the senseless s}rmbols of his idolatry 

The excuses made for idolatry and idolatrous piety at the 
present day are due, in no small measure, to the fact that ** religious- 
ness" has come to be more esteemed than righteousness, and, as 
in the case of the Pharisees of the Jewish Church, religious aseal, 
however misdirected, is regarded as the evidence of a person's 
holiness. Hence there are those who see no harm in adopting 
the ritual and many of the surroundings of idolatrous worship, 
and condemn and despise those who are more scrupulous. It is 
natural that such persons should be inclined to view the commands 
given to the Israelites as unnecessarily harsh and severe, and as 
representing Qod in a way which repels them, supposing that in 
commanding the destruction of the idolaters and pronouncing a 
curse against those who tampered with idolatry. He did so to 
satisfy His anger and offended majesty in the death and sufferings 
of the transgressors. 

But if we consider the matter, we shall see that the judgments 
decreed and the curses pronounced against certain sins are not 
the arbitrary inflictions of an offended judge, but the necessaiy 
consequence of the sin itself. 

The sin of a created being cannot affect Him " who dwelleth in 
eternity.'' '* If thou sinnest, what doest thou unto him ? or if thy 
transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him? If thou 
be righteous, what givest thou unto him ? or what receiveth he of 
thy hand ? Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art ; and thy 
righteousness may profit the son of man " (Job xxxv. 6-8.) " My 
goodness," says the Psalmist, " extendeth not to thee " (Pa xvi. 2.) 

It is true that Gkxi does sometimes visit sin in this world by 
direct punishment, yet this is rather the exception than the rule. 
The ordinary lot of the unrighteous in this world is prosperous: 
" They have more than heart can wish " (Ps. IxxiiL 7.) " Wherefore," 
asks Job, "do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in 
power ? " Job replies, " Have ye not asked them which go by the 
way, and do ye not know their tokens ? That the wicked is reserved 
to the day of destruction? They shall be brought forth to the 
day of wrath " (Job xxi. 7, 29, 30). 

If then a curse was pronounced on the idolater; and the 
Canaanite nations, having given themselves up to idolatry, were 
commanded to be destroyed, — and if the people of Qod were so 



3S6 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

solemnly wsimed against that idolatry, and so sharply and severely 
punished every time they fell under its influence, it implieB that 
there must have been a proportionate evil in it to the souls of 
men, from which God, by solemn warning and chastisement, sought 
to preserve His people. Gk)d is said to be "the Preserver (eotSr) 
of all men, especially of those who believe/' t.e., He keepe them 
from those innumerable dangers and temporal evils, to which they 
would be subjected by the malignity of the powers of darkness, 
did He not place a limit on that malignity. But to be " accursed," 
is to be cut off from this protecting power, to be "anathema,'' 
or given over to destruction ; and this is the state of the idolater, 
who, by his own act, has separated, or cut himself off, from GkxL 

It is a condition of the moral law, that just as weakness and need 
are attracted to power, so is power attracted to weakness. So also 
the pity and compassion, which are ever the accompaniment of 
goodness, are called forth by that weakness and need. Hence, the 
uniform testimony of Scripture is to the effect that God regards 
with especial favour the poor and needy, the broken in spirit, and 
those who tremble at His word. But there is nothing which so 
calls forth the pity and sympathy <if perfect goodness towards need 
and suffering, as trust and dependence on the part of the sufferers. 
It is the most powerful evidence of sympathy, and therefore bond 
of union between moral beings, and a bond which, when perfect, 
eternally unites the creature to the Creator. Hence, just as unbelief 
is the characteristic and evidence of man's spiritual death or separation 
from God, so is faith the characteristic and evidence of eternal life 
and union with God. 

Yet the greatest sinners, and the most irreligious, are not without 
some latent consciousness of their dependence on an unseen God, 
which, in times of earthly trouble and extremity, may be awakened. 
It is not imtil a person has transferred all his religious hopes and de- 
pendence to beings other than God, and whose aid and guidance he will 
therefore seek in times of trouble, that he can be said to be wholly 
cut off from God, and to have become " accursed." Hence, it is not 
only stated " cursed be the man who maketh a graven image " (Deut 
xxvii. 16), but it is also written, "cursed is the man who trusteth 
in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from 
the Lord " (Jer. xvii. 5). And the followers of Paganism came under 
the condemnation of both. 

The Pagan rites were regarded as a service done to the gods, as 
acts of homage which satisfied their demands and appeased their 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 357 

anger, while they were rites also which were supposed to purify 
the souls, and obtain pardon for the sins of the worshippers, who, 
nevertheless, for the most part, were merely spectators of the ritual 
performed by the priesthood. But no moral change in the sinner 
was required, or even thought of, and a reverent credulity in the 
efficacy of the ritual was all that was demanded, and men were 
actually encouraged in sin by the ease with which the gods could 
be propitiated. 

In like manner, all dependence for assistance, both temporal and 
spiritual, was transferred to visible, material or created thing& 
Holy water, relics, charms, images, signs, incantations and ritual 
acts were the ordinary objects of dependence. Holy water purified 
the sinner; the sacrifice of the round cake atoned for his sins; 
charms, relics and holy signs preserved him from worldly danger; 
righteousness consisted of ritual acts and ordinances or self-mortifica- 
tions; auguries and oracles revealed the will of the gods; and if 
he wished to pray to them, he did so by appealing to them through 
their imagea The special presence of each god was also connected 
with the inhabitant of a mighty temple, the surroundings of which 
impressed the worshipper's mind with the idea of a being of material, 
but therefore of Jmite, grandeur and power, who, localised in that 
temple, could be left at will 

For all guidance in religion, for instruction or advice, the pious 
Pagan depended on a human priesthood, on whom also devolved 
the whole performance of the ritual and the interpretation of the 
oracles. The priesthood, in short, stood in the place of God to their 
followers, as the sole channel through which all knowledge and 
spiritucd effects were to be obtained, and as mediators between the 
gods and men. Hence they necessarily obtained the entire trust, 
dependence and obedience of the people, and, as arbiters of their 
spiritual destinies, practically obtained the dominion of the world. 

Thus the mind and affections of the Pagan and his entire depend- 
ence were confined to created things ; and this is the whole spirit 
and principle of idolatry. It is ^^worshipping and serving the 
creature rather than the Creator '' (Bom. i. 25), seeking spirit from 
matter, life from that which is Without life (Isa. viii. 19), and placing 
the dependence due to God on men and created thinga 

The Word of God and the Spirit of God appeal to the heart and 
conscience and the moral and spi/ritual part of man, opening his 
eyes to the truth, to the good of righteousness, to the promises of 
the future, and to the mercy of God, changing thereby his mind 



358 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

and affections, and producing in him hope in, and love towards 
God. But the ritual of idolatry appealed only to the senses, imagina- 
tion, and the psychical or natural part of man. 

The word "psychical " is from •v|/i^;c/'xig, " the soul," or " natural life," 
and it is the term used by the Apostolical writers to distinguish that 
which is "Tvatural" or characteristic of man by nature, from that 
which is spiritual, and it is usually translated in the New Testament 
by the word "riaturaV It refers to the passions, sentiments and 
affections which are called forth by the things of time and sense, 
and includes, not merely the grosser passions, but the feelings and 
sentiments evoked by music and art and anything of merely material 
beauty and grandeur. This waa the character of the ancient 
Paganism. It appealed solely to the senses. Its splendour and 
magnificence, the stirring and solemn strains of its music, its 
sumptuous surroundings, its air of mystery and awe, its mighty 
temples, whose vast and silent aisles and ''gloom impressive told 
a god dwelt there," ' had a powerful effect on the senses and imagina- 
tion, calling forth in the more religious those temporary emotions 
and passing sentiments of piety, which men, at all times, have 
mistaken for spirituality, but which are purely psychical feelings, 
i.e., feelings produced, not by any appeal to the conscience smd 
moral faculties, which is the effect of religious truth, but entirely 
by these appeals to the senses and imagination. Hence, not only 
was the trust and dependence of the Pagan placed on material and 
created things, but his mind and affections were absorbed in that 
which was natural and sensual. His very piety was the outcome 
of imagination and psychical feeling, and the greater his devotion 
the more effectually did this false piety shut out from his mind 
everything of a moral and spiritual nature, and blind him to the 
demands of true righteousness. 

The Pagan devotee was thus wholly separated from the true God, — 
accursed, or cut off, from His guidance and protection ; and Scripture 
implies that there are legions of evil spirits ever ready to enter into, 
or delude and pervert, the minds of those deprived of that protection, 
and thus complete and confirm their separation from God. 

But that which made the Pagan devotee still more hopelessly 
accursed or cut off from God was the fact that the gods he wor- 
shipped and trusted in, and whose guidance and assistance he sought, 
were those very evil spirits. 

It is not to be supposed that the ancient Pagans, any more than 

' Ovid, Fasti, lib. iii. ; Potter, bk. ii. chap. ii. p. 201. 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 359 

modem Spiritualists, avowedly worshipped evil spirits, or that 
Paganism in its ultimate form, when its chief god was identified 
with the Prince of Evil, was the result of a deliberate and sinister 
design by a succession of wicked men, working with one accord from 
generation to generation with that purpose in view. Everything 
points to the fact that it was the result of a process of gradual 
development, in which men, ignorant of the true Qod, were led to 
adopt, little by little, the different features on which the system was 
built up; and that the guiding spirit, from first to last of this 
development, was him "who deceiveth the whole world," "the 
spirit which worketh in the children of disobedience," ' and who by 
this means obtained for himself the open worship of the bulk of the 
human race, and became in very truth, as stated by the Apostle, " the 
god of this world." * 

The foundation of the system was manifestly the worship of the 
spirits of the dead, on the supposition that they were the active and 
powerful inhabitants of the unseen world, willing and able to assist 
their descendants in the flesh. This delusion was carefully inculcated 
to the last, and it was, without doubt, the device of the guiding spirit 
of the ancient idolatry. Men would have shrunk from seeking the 
aid of alien and unknown beings who might be spirits of evil. The 
memory of the deception of their first parents, and of the "Nephilim " 
or " fallen ones," who were " in the earth " in the the days before the 
Flood, and who, it is implied, were the cause of the wickedness which 
brought on the destruction of the antediluvian world, were suflBcient 
warnings against such intercourse. In short, the existence of evil 
spirits, hostile to the human race, was fully recognised in the Pagan 
system, which consisted largely of incantations and other methods 
for averting their hostile influence. But it was very different with 
spirits which were supposed to be those of the human race, related 
to them, and possessed of common sympathies and experience, and 
whose aid might therefore be reckoned upon to avert the hostility of 
alien spirits. 

But in seeking the aid of these supposed spirits of the dead, men 
forsook God, and placed their trust in that which was not Qod, and 
having thereby cut themselves off from His guidance and protection, 
they fell under the influence of evil spirits personating the supposed 
spirits of the dead who could neither hear nor aid them. The worship 
of the dead, thus became a stepping-stone for bringing the human 
race under the influence and guidance of evil spirits ; the great enemy 
' Bev. xii 9 ; Eph. ii. 2. ' 2 Cor. iv. 4. 



36o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

of man, knowing well that, once men could be separated from the 
guidance and protection of God, they could easily and rapidly be led 
to give their entire trust and dependence to himself and his subor- 
dinate spmts of evil. 

Under the influence and teaching of these spirits of evil, the 
conscience and moral perceptions of the idolater became utterly 
darkened, and being ''past feeling, they gave themselves over to 
lasciviousness to work all uncle€mness with greediness," or, as God 
said to Israel, " Every abomination to the Lord which He hateth, 
have they done unto their gods " ; that is to say murder, human 
sacrifices, fornication, prostitution and unnatural crimes were 
practised by them as an essential feature of the service of their god& 
Hence the Apostle's description of them as ''given over to vile 
affections, to a mind void of judgment (margin), to do those things 
which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, 
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, 
murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of 
God, despiteful, proud, inventors of evil things, disobedient io 
parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natund 
affection, implacable, unmerciful" (Rom. i 24, 32). 

This description of the moral effects of the ancient Paganism is 
sufficient evidence of its evil, showing how completely it perverted 
the minds and destroyed the conscience of its followers. Their 
conscience became, in short, an ''evil consciences^ leading them to 
regard the evil, which their religion demanded, sis good, and to 
reject the demands of true righteousness as evil (Heb. ix. 14 ; 
X. 32). 

But the most marked characteristic was the extraordinary fas- 
cination and strong delusion which this religion exercised over the 
minds of its followers ; more especially in the case of its devotees^ who 
would, of necessity, fall most completely under the influence of the 
beings they worshipped. Even amongst the Greeks and Romans, as 
well as other civilised but idolatrous nations, such as those of 
Christendom before the Reformation, it was remarkable with what 
blind tenacity and affection the people clung to their delusions, as in 
the case of the people of Ephesus, who, in their enthusiasm, cried out 
for upwards of two hours, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." In 
fact, while every kind of sin was permitted, or condoned, the only 
unpardonable sin was speaking against the gods and the established 
religion, as was illustrated by the case of Socrates, condemned to 
death by the Athenians. 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 361 

i Nothing illustrates the power of this fascination or delusion more 

^ than the blind adoration bestowed by the idolater, whether Pagan or 

L Bomish, on the supposed spirits of the dead, and the images which 

represent them to his imagination. For it is well known that, while 

; blasphemy against God would have been passed over, a word spoken 

against the Virgin or Saints in some Roman Catholic countries, a 

few years ago, would have aroused the fury of the populace, and 

endangered the life of the speaker. 

The Scriptures therefore liken idolatry to dfnmkenne»» and 'mad- 
ii€S8: ^ Babylon hath been a golden cup in the hands of the Lord, to 
make all the earth drunken. The nations have drunken of her 
wine, therefore the nations are rnad^' Again, speaking of Babylon, 
the prophet says, " It is the land of graven images, and they are 'mad 
upon their idols " ( Jer. li. 7 ; L 38). The devotee of idols is thus 
beyond the reach of argument and reason. Truth and righteousness 
produce no effect upon him, and the Word of God which condemns 
his idolatry, only arouses his anger and hatred ; and this is true, not 
merely of those who have little capacity for reflection, but of the 
most intellectual. Hence the description of the prophet, ''He 
feedeth on ashes, a deceived heart hath turned him aside, so 
that he cannot deliver himself or say. Is there not a lie in 
my right hand?" (Isa. xliv. 20). In other words, the idolatrous 
devotee is completely hypnotised by spirits of evil, and no power 
on earth can prevail upon him to recognise and resist his 
delusions. 

The fascination exercised by idolatry is not merely due to the 
influence of spirits of evil on the minds of its followers, but to the 
fact, already referred to, that it appeals to the natural inclinations 
of human nature. The exercise of faith has always been a stumbling- 
block to those whose interests and affections are absorbed by the 
things of time and sense, and such persons find it impossible to trust 
to the promises of an unseen God in time of danger, distress and 
perplexity. Man, it is said, " looketh on the outward appearance," 
and, in consequence, he demands something visible, tangible and 
sensible, on which to rest his hopes. So it was with the Jews. 
The moral evidence of Christ's righteousness and truth, which con- 
vinced His own disciples that He was the Christ, " the Son of the 
living God," carried no weight to their minds. They demanded of Him 
" a sign from heaven," some palpable and sensible evidence to convince 
them of His authority and mission ; and Christ said that this was 
the characteristic of all who sought the satisfaeiioQ of the lusts and 



362 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



desires of the flesh. " An evil and adulterous generation," He said, 
" seeketh after a sign." ^ 

Hence, a religion of sacraments and signs, which professes to 
obtain spiritual results by physical acts and material means under 
human control, and a human priesthood which claims to be the 
visible and authoritative source of truth to which all may appeal, 
instead of having to seek the guidance of an unseen God, has always 
had a fascination to the majority of mankind who seek their portion 
in this world, and the sinner finds more satisfaction from the authori- 
tative "/ absolve thee*' of the priest than from the mcMst explicit 
promises of God to those who seek His mercy. 

This, as we have seen, was the essence of the ancient Paganism. It 
appealed to the senses of men, assuring them of spiritual results 
through material agencies, and instead of having to seek the help of 
an unseen God, the Pagan had before him a visible and tangible 
image in which he believed, and not without reason, that the spirit of 
a god dwelt. Herein lay the danger of, and the attraction exercised 
by, the ancient Paganism to every unspiritual Isrc^lite to whom faith 
was a stumbling-block. 

Were these images at a distance, and not at once accessible, the 
effort required to seek their assistance might deter the person from 
doing so, but if in the very house, or room, there was one of these 
images which were believed to be inhabited by the spirit of a crod, 
and to possess strange and remarkable powers, then in times of 
affliction and distress, when the mind is overwrought or unstrung, the 
thought that help might possibly be obtained from them would pre- 
sent a temptation, which those without true faith in God would 
certainly succumb to, and which, once fully yielded to, would separate 
them from the protection of God and render them defenceless against 
the influence of those spirits of evil which are ever ready to confirm 
the delusion. For if the Christian has to fight against " the hosts of 
wicked spirits in heavenly places," and to resist steadfast in the faith 
the suggestions and temptations which, as "fiery darts from the 
wicked one," assail him in times of weakness and affliction, we may 
be certain that these spirits would seize the opportunity thus afforded 
them to delude and " hypnotise " the mind of one whose " heart had 
departed from the Lord " (Jer. xvii. 5). 

There was a good and sufflcient reason, therefore, for the remarkable 

» Tlie word " adulterous " seems to be used by Christ here in the sense in which 
it is used in other Scriptures, to denote those who forsake God, the fountain of 
living waters, for false religions, or the interests and pleasures of this world, and 
who are guilty of spiritual adultery with regard to Qod, 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 363 



prohibition of Qod — '' Bring not an abomination into thine house lest 
thou become a cursed thing like unto it, for it is a cursed thing." 
" Facilis descensus est Avemi." Men's lives are moulded and decided by 
thoughts, words, or circumstances which appear trivial at the time, 
although, like the stone which has just commenced to roll slowly 
down a hill, but which gradually gets swifter and swifter, their fate 
is from that moment decided, unless they are arrested by some power 
external to themselves. This is rigidly true of all spiritual evil, and 
especially of idolatry. It is the first step, the first act, the first word, 
the first admission of the mind that determines all that follows, 
and once that step is taken the Rubicon is passed, and there is 
no return or recovery from that state of strong delusion which 
overtakes those who have fallen under the influence of spirits of 
evil. 

The Israelites were also forbidden to adopt any portion of the 
"RUvmI of Paganism in their worship of Jehovah. Wherever there is 
want of faith in God, men have a tendency to trust in the outward 
ordinances of religion, and those who do so suppose that their per- 
formance of these ordinances makes the«n more righteous in the sight 
of Qod and satisfies His demands. This was the case with the 
majority of the Israelites ; they made idols of their own ordinances, 
and in so doing accepted the very principle of idolatry. For it was 
to suppose that they could obtcdn spiritual good from that which 
was not God, or that God would " be worshipped " (" done good to," 
therapeuetai) by men's hands, as though he needed anything" 
(Acts xvii. 25), and that there was some spiritual eflScacy in material 
and created things. Such persons would be peculiarly susceptible to 
the influence and fascination of idolatry. 

It must be remembered also that there was the same outward 
resemblance between the ritual of the Israelites and Pagans, which 
there is between Romanism and true Christianity, and that, like 
Romanism, which is a perversion of Christianity, Paganism pro- 
fessed to be based on the same original truth and revelation which 
were acknowledged by the Israelites. The impressive and magnificent 
ritual of Paganism might well, therefore, have led the pious but 
unspiritual Israelite, like the unspiritual Protestant with regard to 
Romanism, to think that in adopting some of its features he might 
improve on his own ritual, give greater honour to Jehovah, and do 
more good to his own soul. But the Pagan ritual was polluted, because 
associated with every abomination which God hated, and just as the 
presence of one of the symbols of idolatry might make its possessor 



364 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

aeeiirsed, so also with equal eertainty the adoption of the idolatiow 
ritual would do so likewise. 

The retention of an idol, or symbol, of Paganism was the evidoice 
that some value was attached to it, and so abo the adopticm of soy 
portion of the ritual of Paganism implied the idea thai some spiritml 
good might be obtained by so doing. But onee that principle had 
been admitted the descent to Avemus had eommenoed, and it was 
certain that he who had fallen under this delusion would ad<^ more 
and more of that ritual and the doctrines which attributed to it this 
spiritual efficacy. 

For aymholimn was the eas^ice of Pagan idolatry, and every act 
and posture and sacred emblem had its mystical meaning, and in 
adopting any portion of the Pagan ritual, the Israelite, who had thus 
commenced to withdraw himself from the guidance and protecticHi of 
Jehovah, was certain to be led through the ritual to the doctrines it 
symbolised. 

It cannot be doubted also that every sophistry by which the foree 
of God's commands could be turned aside, evil made to appear good 
and falsehood truth, would be used by the priesthood of Paganism 
to propagate their religion amongst the Israelites, and to bewilder the 
minds of those who were already the subject of its fascination. In 
short, the ease with which, even in modem times, we see people per- 
verted to Romanism, a religion the errors of which their forefathers 
died to repudiate, is an illustration of the way in which the Israelites 
may have been just as easily beguiled by the idolatry of the Canaanites. 
to which, in spite of repeated warnings and punishments, they again 
and again succumbed. 

Considering, then, the strong delusion, the destruction of conscience 
and moral judgment, and the entire separation from God, which is the 
Nemesis of idolatry, we can fully perceive the solemn necessity for 
the stringent prohibitions against it, and God, in commanding 
the destruction of the idolaters, and in promptly punishing His 
people for every participation in their idolatry, kept many from 
falling under the power of the Pagan gods and brought others to 
repentance. 

This, then, is the real evil of idolatry and the worship of the sup- 
posed spirits of the dead. It makes those who succumb to its influence 
accursed, or cut off from the protection of God, and places them imder 
the guidance and dominion of spirits of evil, who constitute those 
"principalities and powers" — the real "rulers of the darkness of this 
world " — ** the wicked spirits in heavenly places " (Eph. vi. 12) against 



THE MORAL ASPECT OF PAGANISM 365 

whom the Christian has to fight, and whose one object is to delude 
and destroy the souls of mankind. 

Therefore, the Apostolic writers renew the exhortations of the Old 
Testament, and urge their hearers to "flee from idolatry," "to 
come out and be separate" from it, and not even to "touch the 
unclean thing " ; implying, as in the commands of God to Israel, that 
there was a danger in the least of its symbols and ritual observances. 
For the Apostle Paul asserts that the weak or ignorant Christian, who 
was tempted to " eat meat offered to idols," supposing that there was 
some occult efficacy in so doing, might thereby " perish." For such 
an act implied want of faith in Christ, and rendered the person liable 
to fall under the influence of the demon gods. " Eating meats offered 
to idols" was a representative act of idolatry,' and the Apostle's 
warning, therefore, extends to every feature of idolatrous worship, 
which, if participated in, would, but for the restraining power of God, 
gradually engulf those who did so in the maelstrom of idolatry, out 
of which, humanly speaking, there is no return. 

> *' Meats offered to idols." The victims sacrificed to the Pagan gods were 
supposed to be representative of the god to whom they were offered, and those 
who partook of the sacrifices were believed to receive the spirit of the god. 
Hence, "eating meats offered to idols'' was an act of trust and dependence in the 
god, and is used as a representative term for idolatrous worship, as in Eev. ii. 3. 



APPENDIX A 

SIB QABDKEB WILKINSON ON EGTPTIAN BBUGION 

The immense value of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's researches among the 
monuments of ancient Egypt naturally gives considerable weight to all his 
statements and opinions on the subject. But the deductions he has drawn 
from the facts, and the reasons by which he supports them, must be dis- 
tinguished from the facts themselves, and may be legitimately questioned 
when they appear to be open to objections. 

Like many other persons, he was naturally impressed by the stupendous 
labour, the high art and civilisation which are evinced by the monumental 
remains of Egypt, and considering that a people with the qualities necessary 
to perform such great works must have a religion of corresponding excellence, 
he has been inclined to idealise their idolatry and to give it a moral and 
spiritual aspect to which it has no real claim. 

He argues that the Egyptian idolatry was not that of Sabseanism, or the 
Sun and Nature worship of the Cushite race, but that the attributes of the 
Egyptian gods were metaphysical conceptions of the true God, and he 
implies that Osiris, in particular, may have been a preconception of Christ.' 
In support of this view he repudiates the idea that the originals of the 
gods were human beings, and rejects the evidence of Pagan authors when 
they do not agree with his ideal. 

This much may be said in seeming support of his ideal, that after the 
primary overthrow of idolatry in Egypt,* the Misraimite people had, for a 
time, a knowledge of the true God, a knowledge which was again revived in 
the reign of Apepi, and this knowledge must necessarily, for a long time 
afterwards, have influenced the religious thought of the people. But it has 
been shown that the Cushite (i.6., the Egyptian), as distinguished from the 
Misraimite element, was in later times predominant in Egypt,^ and it is from 
the priesthood of the former, or Egyptian race, that we obtain our knowledge 
of Egyptian idolatry. On the other hand, the effect of the knowledge of 
the purer religion would be to retard the progress of the Cushite idolatry, 
and oblige it to assume an outward aspect of righteousness which it had not 
in reality. It would appear, in short, that there was, for a long time, more or 
less conflict between the sidherents of the god of Set, and those of idolatry 

' There is, of course, an element of troth in this, inasmuch as Osiris was the faUe Christ 
of Paganism. See chap. xv. 

' Vide chap. xii. ^ Vide chap. iv. 

367 



368 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

whose god was Osiris ; and that although, amongst the majority, the former 
worship eventually became degraded into the worship of Set himself, there 
was a similar opposition between his followers and those of Osiris. But it is 
quite certain that the latter triumphed in the end, and that Set, once known 
as "Set Nubti," was subsequently identified with Typhon, the principle (^ 
evil. 

It was the opposition from the adherents of the purer religion which, no 
doubt, was the cause of that m^^fery and resiefro^ which distinguished the 
Egyptian idolatry from the Babylonian. The advocates of the Egyptkn 
idolatry had to overcome and quiet the scruples of the believers in the true 
God, and for this purpose they adopted a language of words having a 
double meaning, the exoteric sense of which woidd not offend the conscience 
of the scrupulous, while the revelation of its esoteric meaning was reserved 
for the initiated. It was also necessary for their success that their god 
should outwardly, and in name, be given the attributes of the true Qod, or 
be made to appear as " an angel of light," and " his ministers as ministers of 
righteousness," which has ever been the method by which error has been 
propagated and men deceived since the beginning of the world (2 Cor. xL 
13, 15). Hence also the establishment of the celebrated '' Mysteries " which 
appear to have been initiated in Egypt, and the final act of which was the 
revelation of the god in his true character. 

That this "mystery," which is so attractive and suggestive to the 
imagination, together with the outward appearance of righteousness which 
characterised Egyptian idolatry, should deceive one who was only too ready 
to believe good of a people of such high civilisation as the Egyptians, is 
perhaps natural, but the cause of, and necessity for, this mystery and 
outward righteousness, viz., the previous existence of a purer religion, must 
be taken into consideration, and the facts prove that the adherents of the 
latter were regarded with the most bitter hatred by the idolaters, and 
apparently put to death without mercy, showing that, in spite of the 
benevolence attributed to the Egyptian gods, their idolatry was as cruel and 
vindictive as in Babylon, Phoenicia and other countries. 

The latter end of the eighteenth dynasty appears to be the period when 
the final change of religion commenced," but it is sufficiently evident from 
the sculptures, that the religion of Set had, before that period, become 
degraded, and that he was only one of the many gods worshipped under the 
form of various animals.^ This is in accordance with all history. Religious 
truth known in one generation becomes quickly leavened with error, and in 
a few generations is lost, even though it may still exist in name. 

Wilkinson says, " If the Egyptians, like some other Eastern people, 

* The title Set or Seth was taken by more than one of the earlier kings after Rameses L, 
showing that the influence of Set was not at once overthrown. 

^ Vide Willdn&(m^ by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 186-138, and Plate XXXI., where Set is 
figured as an animal-headed god and represented as the instructor of Thothmcs III. Sa 
also anity chap. xii. pp. 263, 164. 



APPENDICES 369 

adopted at first a Sabsean mode of worship, and afterwards substUtUed for U 
the deification of the various attributes of the Deity himself, there would 
be reason to suppose that the Sun once held the first place in their Pantheon, 
and was not removed from it until they hctd learnt to consider the divine 
mind superior to the works he had created." ' But when did any nation, 
of itself, ever develop the knowledge of the true God out of idolatry^ as 
Sir Q. Wilkinson suggests? On the contrary, as in the case of the 
Israelites, nations have a constant tendency to pervert the truth and 
return to error. 

Sir G. Wilkinson, in the above passage, implies that Sun worship may 
have once been the religion of the Egyptians, but that they ultimately 
rejected it for a purer faith. But everything shows that Sun worship was a 
central feature of the later Egyptian religion, while the deified attributes 
which were worshipped were Nature gods and constituted the very Nature 
worship of Sabseanism. 

The principal monuments, portraying the religion and gods of the 
Egyptians, are those of the eighteenth and following dynasties, and Wilkinson 
gives a Plate of Bekenaten, or Amenophis III., of the eighteenth dynasty, 
worshipping an image of the Sun with rays " emblematic of its demiurgic or 
creative power." * These rays were called the " Aten Ra," and the Aten is 
described as "the sunlight which is the Amen of Thebes and the maker 
of all beings, the great living Aten, Lord of the Sun's Orbit, the Disk, Lord 
of the Heaven, Lord of the Earth." ^ The god Amen Ra, the Sun god of 
Thebes, is also described in the hymns of the eighteenth dynasty as, — " the 
creator of men, animals and plants; they identify him also with Elhem 
(the god of physical generation), and ally him in all respects to the Sun."^ 
What is this but the Sun and Nature worship of Sabseanism ? 

On an obelisk from Heliopolis, the Sun is described as addressing King 
Rhamestes : " I, the Sun, the Great God, the Sovereign of Heaven, have 
bestowed on you life. Horus, the brave Lord of the Diadem incomparable, 
the Sovereign of Egypt that has placed the statues of the Gods in this Palace 
and has beautified Heliopolis in like manner as he has honoured the Sun 
himself, the Sovereign of Heaven. I, the Sun, the God and Lord of Heaven, 
have bestowed strength and power over all things on King Rhamestes," etc., 
etc.5 If this is not the Sun worship of Sabseanism it would be difficult to 
say what is. Sir G. Wilkinson himself says, "It appears that the Egyptians 
made of the Sun several distinct deities; as the intellectuaX Sun, the physical 
orb, the cause of heat, the author of light, the power of the Sun, the 
vivifying cause," etc.^ In other words they worshipped the Sun. 

" Vide Wilkimony by Birch, voL iii. pp. 47, 48. 

* Ibid., Plate XXIII. JV. J?. —Modern Egyptologists make Bekenatem or Kuenatem to 
be a fourth Amenophis. This, however, is opposed to the testimony of the two tablets 
of Abydos, and there are other reasons for questioning the conclusion. 

3 Ibid,, p. 62, note by Birch. ♦ Ibid., p. 13, note by Birch. 

5 « Ammianus Marcellinns," Ck>ry's Fragmenii, pp. 170, 171. 

6 Wilkvnaonf by Birch, vol. iii. p. 53. 

2A 



370 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Chnomnis, or Cnouphis, was also the creative power, and is likened bj 
Sir G. Wilkinson to " the spirit of God which moved upon the face of ti» 
waters."' But, as he remarks, ** Amenra, like most of the gods, freqnentlj 
took the character of other deities, as those of Khem, Ra, and Chnomnis';' 
that is to say, the latter were identified with Amenra, the Son, as the creatbe 
cause, and as gods of physical life and generation. What is this but the 
worship of the powers of Nature, of which the Sun was supposed to be the 
supreme source and cause 1 ^ In addition to this, the Egyptians worshipped 
their gods under the forms of animals, beasts, birds and reptiles, which thej 
regarded, as in the case of the bulls Apis and Mnevis, as the very gods them- 
selves and adored them accordingly.^ The only effect of this was to asBodate 
the gods with the principles of natural life and generation of which sodi 
animals were the manifestation. 

So also they portrayed the gods as human beings with the heads of beaets, 
birds, serpents, etc. Thus, as the Apostle says, << they became vain in their 
imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be 
wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into 
an image made like unto corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts 
and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to ancleannesi 
through the lusts of their hearts. Who changed the truth of God into a 
He, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator."^ 

Sir G. Wilkinson tries to excuse the worship of animals by suggesting 
its origin to their utility ; ^ but the excuse is lame. For if they worshipped 
them for their utility, they would not have selected such creatures as wolves, 
serpents and beetles, and would not have excluded such useful animals as 
the horse and the camel ; but it is also sufficiently evident that the animals 
worshipped were chosen, not because of their utility, but because they were 
regarded as manifesting the physical, or nature attributes of the gods.^ 

He further tries to distinguish Egyptian idolatry from the Sabsean 
worship, by pointing to what he calls " the metaphysical nature of their 
religion." He says, " The existence of an early Sabsean worship in Egypt is 
merely possible, while the metaphysical nature of their religion is proved 
both by the ancient writers and the monuments."® 

It is true that, except for a brief period at the beginning, when the 
Cushite idolatry was implanted in Egypt, the early Egyptians had a know- 
ledge of the true God,^ but it was quickly perverted into that very Sun, 
Nature and Animal worship which Sir G. Wilkinson tries to distinguish 
from Sabseanism. The metaphysical character which he attributes to their 
religion consists in the titles given to certain gods, as " The Lord of Truth " 
given to Phthah,^° the "Manifestation of Goodness" given to Osiris, who, he 

' PTi^Hrwon, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 2. ' /Wd, p. 9. 

3 iSc« chap. X. "Sun and Serpent Worship." 

4 WxLUmon, by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 89, 91, 92. s Rom. i. 21-25. 
* WHlcvMon^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 251. ' iWd., p. 256. 

' /Wd., p. 48. 9 Stt chap. xt. 

'" WHkimon^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 16. 



APPENDICES 371 

saySy " is described as full of goodness, grace, and truth." ' So also he says 
that Amenra, in one of his aspects, is ''the intellectual Son."^ «.«., the 
source of wisdom, which was an especial aspect of the Sun and Serpent god. 

We might as well ascribe intellect and wisdom to the rocks and earths of 
which the earth is constituted, as to the Sun, but this was the principle on 
which Paganism acted. It advisedly confused the spiritual with the physical, 
and the teaching of Hermes, the author of Egyptian idolatry, represented 
the material light of the Sun as also spiritual light, and the Sun and Serpent 
god of Paganism was in consequence identified, eventually, with the Divine 
Wisdom, or Logos.3 

Men do not accept religious error because it is error, but because it is 
presented to them in the garb, or outward appearance of truth, and Christ 
therefore warned His disciples that false teachers would come to them clothed 
outwardly in the garb of His true followers, while the Apostle says that the 
ministers of Satan are transformed into ministers of righteousness.^ So it 
was in Egypt where the Cushite idolatry had to contend with a greater or 
less knowledge of the truth. It was therefore necessary that such titles as 
*' Lord of Truth " and '' Manifestation of Goodness " should be given to the 
Egyptian gods, in order to blind and deceive the people. 

But the question is, what was really meant by this ''truth" and 
" goodness " t The " truth " was the truth as recognised by idolatry, and 
the " good " was that material good and worldly power which the god of 
this world bestows on his worshippers. The titles in themselves were mere 
words, but the gods on whom they were bestowed were Nature gods. 
Phthah, the "Lord of Truth," like Amenra, Gnouphis and Khem, was 
the creative power, the source of which was supposed to be the Sun, and 
he was identified with the Greek Vulcan or HephflBstus.^ The later texts 
ally him to the Sun,^ and the scarabeous beetle, which was his particular 
emblem, was the emblem of the Sun and its supposed creative power. ^ 

Osiris, the "Manifestation of Goodness," was also identified with the 
Sun. That he was not so identified at first is wholly in accordance with 
the way in which Egyptian idolatry was developed as described in this 
book ; ^ but the evidence of ancient authors is conclusive that he was so 
regarded in later times. Diodorus says that the Egyptians imagined that 
there were two chief gods, the Sun and the Moon, the first of whom was 
caUed Osiris, and the other Isis.^ Macrobius also calls Osiris the Sun, and 
Isis the Earth or Nature. '° Plutarch says that Osiris represented " Mas- 

' WUkintont by Birch, vol. iii. p. 69. * Ibid, p. 11. 

3 Ftc2<chap. X. <' San and Serpent Worship," pp. 232, 233. 

4 Matt. vii. 15 ; 2 Cor. xi. 15. 5 Wilkinson, by Birch, iii. p. 16. 
^ Ibid., p. 20, note by Birch. 7 Jbid., pp. 15 and 345, 846. 

' See chap. xy. 

9 Diod., i. 11 ; WiUnnton, by Birch, yol. iii. p. 46. The god Thoth was also the Moon, 
and in consequence of Isis being eventually identified with the Moon, the Egyptians re- 
garded the Moon as both masculine and feminine (Plut., De Itide, S. 43). 

'^ Macrob. , Saturn, i. 26. 



372 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

cfdine nature, or the prime cause " (that is, the creative power which the 
Egyptians regarded as the Sun), and that Isis represented the earth, " the 
feminine part of nature, the second cause or the receptive power." ' 

Sir G. Wilkinson objects to these statements, but his only reason for doing 
so is that they do not agree with his erroneous ideal. He does not recogniie 
also the gradual development of Egyptian idolatry, and that its later aspect, 
as it was known by the above authors, was not necessarily the same as it had 
been at a previous period. The intimate acquaintance and interoourse of 
the Greeks, in later times, with Egypt, from whom they received their 
religion, and where they went to be initiated into the Mysteries, oblige ub to 
accept the statements of the Greek authors, which, if so utterly incorrect ai 
Wilkinson tries to make out, would have been denied at the time. 

The Sun was called '* the Lord of Heaven," and Isis, the wife of Osiris, 
was called *' the Lady of Heaven," ^ while Horus, the son of Osiris and Im, 
was regarded as the incarnation of the Sun, and was symbolised by the 
Hawk, the emblem of the Sun.3 Horapollo says that Horus is the Son,^ and 
Isis is represented as saying, " No mortal has raised my veil, the fmit which 
I have brought forth is the Sun,"^ that is, the incarnation of Osiris. Horns 
was therefore supposed to be born at the time of the winter solstice, December 
25th, when the Sun first begins to regain its power.^ Osiris, as identified 
with Apis, the sacred bull, was worshipped as " Asar Apis," or " Sar Apis,"' 
who was identified with the Sun,^ and numerous Greek dedications to 
Sarapis are inscribed, "To Pluto the Sun, the great Sarapis."^ 

Again, 360, the number of days in the solar year before the epsct 
was added, was a symbol of the Sun throughout the Pagan world, *° and 
at the Sepulchre of Osiris at Philae, priests especially appointed for the 
purpose filled daily 360 cups with milk, uttering a solemn lamentation, 
and the most solemn oath taken by the inhabitants of the Thebaid is to 
swear by Osiris who lies buried at Philse." This is a clear proof that 
Osiris was recognised as the Sun god. Osiris was also the judge of the 
dead. He was supposed to receive them after death, and they were 
said to be "in Osiris." Hence the invocation to the Sun on behalf 
of the deceased can only apply to Osiris, who was the chief god of the 
Egyptians : ** O thou Sun our sovereign Lord, and all ye Deities who have 
given life to man, receive me and grant us an abode among the eternal 
Gods."^^ 

The Sun was also identified with the Serpent, which was the particular 

' Plut., De hide, S. 38, S. 56 ; WUkinson, by Birch, vol iii. p. 101. 

' WUkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 100, Plate XXVI. 

3 Ibid., p. 314. ^ Horapollo, i. 317 ; Wilkinscm, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 125. 

5 Bunaen, vol. i. pp. 386, 387. ^ Plut., De Itide, vol. ii. pp. 377, 378. 

7 WHkinsoHf by Birch, vol. iii. pp. 87, 89. 

^ MacrobiuB, Saturrif i. 25 ; WUkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 97. 

9 Wiikmsmi, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 97. " See chap, x., **Sun and Serpent Worship." 

" Diod., i. 22 ; WilkintOHf by Birch, vol. iiL p. 85. 

" WiUcimon, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 479. 



APPENDICES 373 

symbol of the Sun throughont Paganism,' and one of the titles of Osiris was 
''Onuphis"^ from On (which was the name of the Sun at Heliopolis, 
called On by the Egyptians), and opA^, " serpent." Wilkinson indeed derives 
Onaphis from outm nqfre^ the "opener of good,"^ This derivation, however, 
is not only far less satisfactory than the other, and is probably suggested by 
him in order to accord with his ideal of Osiris, but as Onuphis was symbolised 
by a serpent, and this name, or its Coptic equivalent, is still the term for a 
serpent, it is evident that it was given to Osiris as the Sun and Serpent god.'* 

Osiris, as the Sun, was of course the creative power of which the Phallus 
was the symbol. Hence he was the Phallic god, and at his festivals huge 
figures of the Phallus were carried in procession.^ Plutarch also says that 
the festival of Pammylia in honour of Osiris resembled the Phallophoria, or 
Phallic festival, in Greece, and adds that "from the manner of celebrating 
it, it is evident that Osiris is in reality the great principle of fecundity.''^ 

It is thus evident that Osiris, the Manifestation of Gk>odness, was in every 
way identified with the Sun and Serpent, and with the obscene Phallic and 
Nature gods of Sabseanism, and, as in their case, there is ample evidence to 
show that in ancient times human sacrifices were offered to him.^ 

The latter is repudiated by Wilkinson as inconsistent with the citn/i^o- 
tion of the Egyptians ! ^ But civilisation is no restraint to the most cruel 
bigotry and superstition. The Assyrians were as highly civilised as the 
Egyptians, but that did not prevent them flaying their prisoners alive and 
tearing out their tongues ;9 nor did the high civilisation of the Pagan 
Romans in the time of the Emperors prevent them from torturing and 
burning alive the early Christians ; nor did the high civilisation of the Roman 
Catholic Spaniards, Italians, and others, prevent them from torturing and 
burning Protestants as a religious duty, in obedience to the dictates of a 
false Christianity. 

The argument here used by Sir G. Wilkinson is an illustration of the errone- 
ous pleas by which he defends his ideal, and there are therefore no reasonable 
grounds for rejecting the statements of ancient authors which show that, in 
times stibseqiLent to the eighteenth dynasty, when Set had come to be hated 
and regarded as Typhon, human sacrifices called Typhos were offered to Osiris, 
just as similar sacrifices were offered to the Pagan gods in other countries. '° 

But just as Set, the name given to the god of the Shepherds and 
Israelites, was subsequently identified with Typhon the devil, and symbolised 
by an ass, just in short as Christ was called a devil by the Jews, and in 
later times symbolised by the Pagans as a man with the head of an ass to 

* Chap. X. pp. 231-242. * Wilkinson, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 308. 

3 Ibid,, p. 70. * See chap. x. p. 238. s Herod., ii. 48, 49. 

6 Plut., De hide, S. 12, S. 36 ; WiUdnton, by Birch, vol. iii p. 88. 

7 See chap. ix. p. 209 ; chap. x. pp. 243, 244. " WilkvMon, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 30. 
9 Layard's Babylon and Nineveh, pp. 457, 458. 

>° It is said that haman sacrificea were discontinued in the reign of Amoeis, the first king 
of the eighteenth dynasty, which implies that they existed also before that time, but that 
through the influence and vast power exercised by Apepi, they were for a time put a stop to. 



374 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

identify him with the same Typhon, — so, on the other hand, Osiris, the Sim 
and Serpent and Phallic god, who was worshipped under the form of an 
animal, was " transformed into an angel of light " and called '* the Manifesta- 
tion of Goodness," " full of goodness, grace and truth ! '' In short, Osiris, 
like others of the Pagan gods, was represented to he the promised " seed of 
the woman," the destroyer of the Serpent and the redeemer of man,' whik 
the rites of Bacchus, the Greek name of the Phallic god Osiris, in which the 
worshippers indulged in sensual excesses, were said to be for the ^^pwrifioih' 
turn of aovZs ! " ^ " There is no new thing under the Sun " (Ecc. i. 9). 

Sir G. Wilkinson says further, " Osiris in his mysterious character was the 
greatest of all the Egyptian deities, but little is known of those undivulged 
secrets which the ancients took so much care to conceaL So caatious indeed 
were the initiated that they made a scruple even of mentioning him, and 
Herodotus, whenever he relates anything concerning this deity, ezcoaes 
himself from uttering his name."^ And again he says, ''If their meta- 
physical doctrines, divulged alone to the initiated, are not within our reach, 
sufficient is shown to convince us that the nature of the great Gkxl was not 
derived from mere physical objects." ^ 

It is evident from the above that Sir G. Wilkinson considers that if we 
only knew the secret of the Mysteries, we should be astonished and impressed 
at the moral and metaphysical attributes of the god revealed to the initiated. 
But the name of that god was not, as he supposes, Osiris, which was the 
name by which the god was poptUarly spoken of ; nor did Herodotus hesitate 
to mention the name of Osiris, for he expressly does so, and says that he is 
the same as Bacchus.^ 

So far, the secret name of the god has never been divulged, but it is 
sufficiently clear that the Pagan gods, who were recognised by the initiated 
to be merely different forms of one and the same god, were identified with 
him whom Christ called the Prince of the Demons ; that he was worshipped 
under the form of the Serpent; that this was the god revealed in the 
Mysteries ; and that the betrayal of this dark secret, called the " Apporeta," 
was punished with immediate death.^ 

If the god revealed had been the God of righteousness and truth, there 
would have been no need to conceal the fact, but the revelation of a god 
which would shock the conscience, and alarm the minds of men before they 
had been gradually and cautiously prepared to receive the secret, necessarily 
required to be guarded and concealed with the utmost care from the general 
public. Men whose "deeds are evil love darkness rather than light, for 
everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest 
his deeds should be reproved ; but he that doeth truth cometh to the light 
that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God."^ 

* See chap. xv. pp. 316-321. ' Wilkinson^ by Birch, vol. iii. p. 70. 

3 Ibid., p. 65. * Ibid,, p. 48. 

^ Herod., ii. 42 and 144. Sec also ante, chap. ii. pp. 36, 87. 

6 Vide chap. x. p. 234. ^ John iii. 19. 21. 



APPENDICES 375 

Mystery and darkness are the fitting accompaniments of " the kingdom of 
darkness." 

This, then, was the ultimate character of the god revealed in the 
Mysteries, and the way for this revelatioa was prepared by identifying him 
with the Son and powers of Nature, by representing him as the god of the 
Phallus, and by adoring him as an actual beast of the field ; for by these 
means the minds and consciences of his worshippers were blinded and 
degraded, for they directed them to that which was wholly earthly and 
sensual, and the sanction of religion was given to the things of the world 
and the lusts of the flesh. At the same time, in order to quiet their scruples, 
the god, in his superficial aspect, was made to appear as ''an angel of 
light," ' by calling him " the pure and holy Osiris," " the Manif ester of Good, 
full of grace and truth," by representing him as the promised seed of woman, 
the Overcomer of the Spirit of Evil, and by pretending that his rites were 
" for the purification of souls ! " 

It has been shown in the earlier chapters of this book that the originals 
of the gods of Paganism were human beings, which gave them the attractive- 
ness consequent on their supposed human sympathies, and served as a basis 
on which to build up their ultimate development as Sun and Nature gods. 

It was natural, however, that Sir G. Wilkinson, regarding only the 
superficial and pretended goodness of the Egyptian gods, should reject the 
evidence in proof of the fact that the original of Osiris was a human being ; ^ 
for to have admitted this would have denied the view that Osiris represented 
the goodness and truth of the true God. Here again he rejects the evidence 
of the ancient authors which oppose his view, and only accepts those which 
support it. 

Thus Plutarch relates the story of the capture and death of Osiris by 
Typhon, the cutting up of his body and search after, and collection of, the 
pieces, except the Phallus, which, in consequence, was specially consecrated, 
etc. But the Pagan author, in defence of his religion and in order to 
repudiate the death of Osiris, attempts to allegorise the story. 

He says Osiris, who in other places he called " the first creative cause" 
represents the Nile/ The conspiracy of Typhon, who the Egyptians 
identified with the ocean^ he says represents the force and power of drought I 
Isis, the irrigated land ; Horus, the offspring of Osiris and Isis, who over- 
came Typhon, he represents as the exhalation from the irrigated land ! The 
box in which the body of Osiris was placed, the banks of the Nile ! His death 
on the seventeenth day of Athyr (the seventeenth day of the second month) 
as the time when the moon begins to wane ; which of course is not the case, as 
it varies from month to month, etc., etc. Other allegorical interpretations 
are given by Plutarch,^ but one and all are so puerile, absurd and con- 
tradictory, that it is surprising that anyone could give them any consideration. 
But Wilkinson, rather than admit that Osiris may have been an actual 

' 2 Cor. xi. 14. > TFtfib'twon, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 73. 

3 Ibid,, ill pp. 76-80. 



376 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



human king, regards them with approval, in spite of the fact also that 
they represent Osiris as a sort of minor Nature god^ and therefore contradici 
the assumption that he represented the true God ! * 

It was natural that the Pagan priesthood in later times, after it had 
served its purpose, should endeavour to conceal from the vulgar the human 
origin of their gods, which, if admitted, would then have diminished their 
aspect of importance and power. Augustine refers to the care taJcen bj 
the Egyptian priesthood in later times to conceal or deny the human 
origin of Serapis or Osiris. He says, "They made a law that whoever 
should say he had been a man should die the death. And because that 
in all the temples of Isis and Serapis there was an image with the finger 
laid upon the mouth as commanding silence — this was, says Varro, to 
show them that they must not say that those two were ever mortal."* The 
secret was only revealed to the initiated, and, as shown by the letter of 
Alexander to his mother, was kept until a late period, but the testimony 
of facts and the statements of ancient authors are conclusive evidence 
of its being eventually the recognised belief.^ 

Sir G. Wilkinson, however, asserts that " no Egyptian deity was supposed 
to have lived on earth and to have been deified after death as with the 
Greeks and other people." He alludes to the statement made to Herodotus 
by the Egyptian priests, that no god had lived upon the earth as a man.^ 
But he totally ignores the reason for this statement and what the priests 
afterwards told Herodotus. The account of Herodotus is as follows : — 

The Greek historian Hecatseus when he visited the Egyptian priests 
on a previous occasion had claimed to be descended from a god. The 
priests regarded the Greeks as mere children compared with themselves, 
and this claim on the part of a Greek they therefore refused to admit, 
and in support of their argument they denied that a man could be bom 
from a god. Nevertheless they were perfectly aware, as shown by 
Wilkinson himself, that the gods had not only wives and children like 
other men, but that every Egyptian king, who was also Pontifex Maximus 
and head of the priesthood, was believed to be descended from the gods, 
that their particular title was " Sons of the Sun god," and that they were 
in consequence worshipped as gods. 

Moreover, Plutarch, whom Sir G, Wilkinson extensively quotes, says that 
the Egyptian priests expressly taught that all their principal deities were once 
mere men who had reigned upon earth. 5 This is also in exact accordance 
with what the priests afterwards admitted to Herodotus, viz., that their gods 
had once been kings of Egypt and that the last God king was Hortts, the son of 
Osiris y who had deposed Typhon!^ In addition to this there is the plain 
fact that Ham, the son of Noah, was worshipped in Egypt under his own 

' It is a question whether the attempted allegorisation of the story of Oairia by PlatarcL 
does not belittle him more than the admission of his human origin. 
' The Citie of Qod, translated by J. Healey (1642), vol. ii. p. 165. 

3 Ante, chap. ii. pp. 13-20. *» WUkimon, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 68 ; Herod., it 142, 14S. 

5 See anUt chap. ii. p. 14. ^' Herod., ii. 144. 



APPENDICES 377 

name as Ammon, the Sun god, and as ELhem, the god of generation. Set 
or Typhon is also referred to in the reign of Rameses II. as a former king 
of Egypt. 

The conclusions of Sir G. Wilkinson are often self-contradictory, and 
they are at variance with the facts which he himself furnishes. His 
arguments are, in most cases, little more than assertions, and, at the most, 
rest upon these ascriptions of good and truth by which the Egyptian 
priesthood sought to give their idolatry, and their gods, a superficial 
veneer of righteousness. In this respect he is a fair illustration of many 
other writers, who, fascinated by the art and magnificence which is the 
unfailing accompaniment of idolatry, are ready to give credence to every 
assertion and excuse made by its sidherents in its defence, and to ignore 
or reject the evidence which reveals its true nature. 



APPENDIX B 

OAimES AND THE ANKEDOTI 

It will be observed that, throughout creation, every living creature 
has its own proper body, which is the manifestation and expression of 
its own particular character. The law of ** expression " is uniform. 
Cunning, ferocity, courage, generosity, loyalty, love, hatred, etc., have 
all their proper forms of expression, which all mankind, and even some 
of the higher animals, instinctively, and at once, recognise. Physical 
characteristics are also expressed by distinctive form and shape. The 
elephant, the tiger, the ox, the horse, the snake, and the various forms 
of birds and reptiles, have each their distinctive form which enable us 
at once to determine their distinctive characteristics. The outward form 
of each, from the noblest of mankind to the lowest animal, is the exact 
expression of its individual spiritual, or physical, capacity and characteristics. 
As is the spirit of each, so is the flesh which clothes it. 

So absolute is this law, that changes in the moral and intellectual 
characteristics of races of men, and even of individuals during their life- 
time, are reflected in their bodily form and expression. Hence we must 
conclude that spirit is the determining cause of all material form. Between 
the embryo of the man and the embryo of the lowest animal there is 
no outward difference, and yet it is impossible for the embryo of the 
man to become anything else but a man, or for the embryo of the animal 
to become anything but the one particular animal of which it is the 
seed. There is manifestly a spiritual principle in each which determines 



378 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the growth and development of each, and the particular form which each 
minute accretion of matter shall take during that growth. This has all 
the appearance of heing one of those essential laws which have their 
origin in the very nature of things and of God. 

If, then, there is no exception to this law, it woidd appear that spiritiuJ 
beings, like the angels, if they took a material form, would be obliged 
to take one expressive of their true character. What, then, would be the 
form of a fallen angel? 

"Greater in power and might" than man, their material form would 
probably express that power and might ; but in every moral respect they 
have fallen far below the level of man, who is made in the image of 
God. 

We are told that men who, after they have received the knowledge 
of the truth, have rejected it, are incapable of repentance, or change of 
mind, and therefore incapable of redemption. The same would appear 
to be the case with fallen angels, who, as purely spiritual beings, have 
the power of perceiving the truth at once without the necessity, as in 
the case of men in the flesh, of going through the process of gradually 
learning it. Therefore, if they fall, they fall irredeemably, because they 
sin against the full knowledge of the truth. Hence it is written that 
'' God spared not the angels who sinned." They had no longer any moral 
principle, or moral capacity, but having wilfully separated themselves 
from, and rejected, righteousness and truth, they were for ever cut off 
from God, and were morally on the same level as the animals, who are 
ungoverned, and uninfluenced, by moral considerations. 

Hence we may conclude that Satan and the first angels which fell, being 
wholly separated from God, and without conscience, or the recognition of 
righteousness as that which is good, and of wickedness as that which is evil, 
would become like ferocious animals, solely governed by the desire to assert 
and manifest their power in the destruction of others ; as we see in the case 
of such animals as the tiger, to whom the sufierings and cries of its victim 
seem to afford the keenest pleasure, because they are a tribute to, and 
expressive of, its superior power. 

If, then, it be asked, Why did not Satan, when be tempted Eve, take the 
form of a man, which would certainly have been far the fittest to have ob- 
tained her confidence ? — the reply is that it was probably because he could 
not take the form of man, which is declared to be the image of God, the 
expression of the wisdom and righteousness of God. Instead thereof, he had 
to take the form of a serpent, which most perfectly expressed his true character 
of malignity and subtlety. 

Similarly, in the case of those angels who left their first estate in order 
to co-habit with the daughters of men. They being actuated merely 
by sensual, or animal, lust, the forms which would best express their char- 
acteristics would be that of animals ; and it is possible that this may explain 
the statements so constantly met with in the Greek mythology, which are 



APPENDICES 379 

otherwise inexplicable, that the gods (t.e., the demons), in their amours with 
mortal women, invariably assumed the form of some bird, beast or reptile. 

On the other hand, if fallen angels, or Satan himself, wished to draw 
fallen men yet farther from Ood and induce them to worship themselves (i.e., 
the daimonia), and made use of all the resources of natural knowledge in 
order to recommend their teaching, then they might well be represented by 
the form of the annedoti, combining that of a man with that of a voracious 
fish. In short, if Satan once took the form of a serpent in order to deceive 
man, so might he, or other fallen angels, take the form of an annedotus for 
a similar purpose. It would indeed have been strange if, in those early days, 
he did not take some such measures for the purpose of communicating to 
mankind the principles of that idolatry by means of which he would be 
enabled to carry on and complete the ruin he had commenced. 

In connection with this subject it may be worth while to allude to 
another statement of Berosus. Reference has been made to the various 
traditions of a former world which was destroyed by^re, and the records of 
geological research have many evidences of a former world, in which those 
mighty Saurians and sea monsters, some of the skeletons of which exist in 
our museums, flourished and were lords of creation, but all, or nearly all, of 
which have been destroyed. By what means this destruction was effected 
geological science does not determine ; but as these inhabitants of the sea 
could hardly have been destroyed by waleTy it may have been by great heat, 
which, while obliterating all trace of many, left the remains of some, as 
records of their existence. It is certain that some were suddenly destroyed, 
for, like the antediluvian mammoth, individuals have been found with un- 
digested food in their stomachs.' 

Now Berosus, in his history, speaks of such a former world, inhabited by sea 
monsters, and the shapes of these monsters he describes. But, no doubt, by 
that time, tradition and imagination had greatly exaggerated and altered 
their form. He says they were presided over by a woman named " Omoroca," 
or " Thalath," which means ** the sea " ; in other words, they were inhabitants 
of the sea, and many appear to have been amphibious, which was the case 
with many of the extinct Saurians. But the point to be observed in his 
statement is that representations of all of them were preserved and por- 
trayed on the walls of the Temple of Belus at Babylon.* This implies that 
they were either objects of worship, or of religious veneration, by the Baby- 
lonians, and therefore, in some way, allied to the gods, or daimonia, whom 
they worshipped. 

Is it possible, then, that these mighty Saurians were the bodily forms 
which the first angels who rebelled against God were condemned to take, in 
order that^ in them, they might manifest their true characteristics, and that 
this was known to those who first worshipped and sought intercourse with 
the Nephilim ? This is but a suggestion, but it receives some support from 

' 8tt Kin*B Mof and Oeology, ch»p. viii. pp. 282, 288. 
* Cory's PragmenU; HUt., Beroea*), pp. 23, 24. 



38o THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

the fact Uiat the Powers of Bvil are spoken of in the Scrlptore under the 
terms of ^'Dragons" and "The Leviathan," and tiiat the description of the 
latter, although not nnlike some of the extinct sea monstersi oorreapoodi to 
no living creatnre known to man (Job zlL). Just also as the Seriptars 
speaks of die Prince of Evil as '<The Old Serpent," the form of which he 
took, so he is likewise spoken of as *'The Oreat Dragon" and "Leviathan* 
(Isa. xxviL 1 ; Bev. xx. 2), which, althonj^ metaphors also of the world 
powers wielded by him, may have the same fitness of application to him si 
" the Serpent" 



APPENDIX 

SPBOULATIONS B1GABDIKG THI AHTIQUITT OF TBI HUMAH BACK 

It is impossible within onr present limits to do more than notice a few of 
the arguments which are used to prove the great antiquity of the humsn 
race. 

As an example of geological speculation, we may mention the periods 

calculated from the thickness, in inches, of stalagmite deposits covering traces 
of human existence. It having been found, in certain stalagmite deposits 
during the historical period, that the rate of deposit must have been at an 
infinitesimal rate per hundred years, it is argued that other depoeits must 
have been at a similar rate, and therefore that the human remains covered 
by them represent a period ages before the hitherto supposed creation of 
man. 

But such a conclusion entirely ignores the fact that under favouraUe 
conditions, such as the extreme moisture, etc., which must have succeeded 
the Deluge, these deposits may be produced of many inches in thickness in a 
very few years, and can indeed be artificially produced in that time. Under 
such conditions, the greater portion of the stalagmite covering human remains 
may have been produced very rapidly, and when these conditions ceased, the 
subsequent addition in thickness would be at an infinitesimal rate. To build 
a theory on such data is therefore most illogical. 

Much weight is also attached to the remains of what is termed "the 
Stone Age '' of man, when flint was used as knives, arrow-heads, etc, as 
indicating a period long before the '* Bronze," and still further remote from 
the " Iron " Age. But it is quite evident that such a Stone Age may have 
existed in remote countries far removed from the centres of civilisation, 
simultaneously with a Bronze or Iron Age in other countries. Where men 
have left the centres of civilisation and penetrated to remote regions cut off 
from communication with other people, they are not only forced to improvise 



APPENDICES 381 

tools and weapons from flint or fish-bones, but after a few generations of isola- 
tion they lose all traces of civilisation and become barbarous. Such people 
existed a coaple of centuries ago in remote regions, and were contemporary 
with the highly-civilised nations of Europe. It is clear, therefore, that 
traces of people who used stone implements is no evidence of their antiquity. 

But the supposed sheet-anchor of the geological theory consists in the 
evidence of a glacial period, which at one time covered not only the Arctic 
and Alpine regions of the earth but a portion of the Temperate regions. It 
is argued that seons of years must have passed during its formation, and 
further aeons of years during its gradual subsidence; and yet human re- 
mains have been discovered which, it is shown, must have existed prior 
to it commencement. Now, Sir H. H. Howarth has clearly proved that 
a very large proportion of the supposed traces of glacial action have been 
due to the action of vast volumes of water carrying the largest rocks and 
other debris over the surface both of the lowlands and of the highest hills, 
and that these are mixed up with the traces of glacial action and must be 
distinguished from them.' They are, in short, just what would have been 
produced by such an universal Deluge as that described in Scripture, when 
not only torrential rains descended upon the earth, but ** the fountains of 
the great deep were broken up " ; by which it is implied that the surface of 
the earth sank and the vast volumes of water stored up beneath its super- 
ficial crust — ** the waters under the earth " — were forced out and rushed in 
mighty torrents over its surface. 

The vast volumes of water that may be stored up beneath the immediate 
surface of the earth is strikingly illustrated by Mr Catlin, in his interesting 
book, 7%6 Uplifted and Subsided Bocks of America, He there shows that of 
the whole prodigious rainfall on the Rocky Mountains, not one-tenth is 
carried off by rivers to the sea. The Mississippi and Missouri and other 
rivers are as large 1000 miles from their mouth as lower down. The 
mighty floods which often fill the valleys in which they run produce no 
effect ; 200 miles further down they have disappeared. In like manner, 
in the Rocky Mountains, he speaks of ravines full of rushing water from 
a flood, and yet half a mile down there is not sufficient for a horse to 
drink. All passes into the bowels of the earth. He also mentions instances 
of torrents pouring into clefts in the face of cliffs, and sub^monta^gne torrents, 
cataracts and cascades, hundreds of which are known in these mountains, 
and from some of which smoke and watery vapour ascend, as in the case of 
the Falls of Niagara. Sometimes there is an overflow of these subterranean 
waters, and a roaring torrent issues from them inundating the surrounding 
country and forcing the Indians to fly for their lives, while after its subsid- 
ence multitudes of eyeless fish are left behind, showing that they must have 
been bred in the darkness. 

The subterranean reservoirs which contain these waters are clearly of 
volcanic origin. Mountain ranges are thrown up in this way, and it neces- 

' The (Haeial Nightmare. 



382 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

sarily follows that after their upheaval, when the igneous masses have 
cooled, vast spaces are left beneath them which form these reservoirs. Bat 
it is not merely under the Rocky Mountains that these reservoirs exist 
The whole of North America is ufpliftedy and gradually rises from the sea- 
coast to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, indicating that these cavemous 
spaces between the upper and lower crusts of the earth may extend over the 
whole continent. That such is the case is proved by the existence of tiie 
subterranean sea in the mammoth caves of Kentucky, which was traversed 
for 20 miles without finding any limit, and similar subterranean lakes or 
seas have been discovered at the base of the Rocky Mountains.' 

But if these subterranean reservoirs receive year after year, and century 
after century, the greater portion of the prodigious rainfall, then, vast as 
they may be, they must in time overflow. This is exactly what happens. 
Mr Catlin has pointed out that if the rock masses which support mountams 
of volcanic origin were by any interior convulsion broken down, the mountain 
would sink back, but it would no longer fill the same space that it did 
before its upheaval; for thousands of ages of exposure to rain and frost 
would have continually disintegrated its rocks and reduced its bulk. There- 
fore, instead of merely sinking back to the general level of the surrounding 
land, it would form a vast depression. This is the character of the depres- 
sions which now constitute the great chain of lakes in North America. 
They are of volcanic origin, and the gneiss and granite boulders which in 
past ages rolled down the mountains, which once occupied their sites, are 
still strewn round their shores. Isle Royal, on Lake Superior, shows a 
scarp of stratified rock over 600 feet high, and the same rock appears on the 
opposite side of the lake, showing that the mass which once connected them 
has sunk down, as might be expected from its volcanic origin.* 

These great lakes are all on elevated ground which falls ^row them in all 
directions, as is evident from the great rivers which have their rise in their 
vicinity. The only exception to this is for 10 or 15 miles round tbeir 
shores, where the ground falls towards them, and the ridge of the watershed 
thus formed evidently marks the edge of the subsidence. (See diagram). 







Level of UaK^ 



Uatlin, Ujtlifted and Subsided Bockt of North America, » Ihid, 



APPENDICES 383 

It follows from this that little or no water falls into these lakes. The 
great rivers which feed other inland seas or lakes, as in the case of the 
Caspian, are only sufficient to supply their loss by evaporation ; but no 
great rivers flow into the North American lakes, and the small streams which 
do flow into them would be wholly insufficient to supply their loss by 
evaporation. Yet these great lakes are the source of the St Lawrence, one 
of the greatest of the world's rivers, and the volumes of water which are 
hourly carried by it to the sea would quickly drain them if they had no 
other source of supply. The only conclusion forced upon us is that they are 
supplied from subterranean sources, and form one of the great outlets of the 
ever-accumulating waters in the abysses beneath the uplifted crust of North 
America. 

The other great outlet for these surplus waters would appear to be the 
Qulf Stream, which has its rise in the Gulf of Mexico. Some have supposed 
that the equatorial currents were the source of the Gulf Stream ; but not 
only do they sometimes flow for weeks to the south, but their waters are of 
the same character as the rest of the sea, and wholly different to the waters 
of the Gulf Stream, the volume and peculiar characteristics of which never 
change, nor do its waters mix with those of the ocean. The Gulf Stream is 
a mighty ocean river, 32 miles broad, 1200 feet deep, with a current of some 
4 miles an hour, and its waters are not only much Salter and of greater 
density than the rest of the ocean, but its colour is of a deeper blue, while 
its high temperature, which it preserves with but little diminution through- 
out its course up the east coast of North America, and across the Atlantic 
until it strikes the shores of Scotland, is many degrees higher than that of 
the ocean through which it flows, and sufficient to modify the general 
climate of England and Scotland. It also issues avdden/y in its full 
volume, heat, force of current and other characteristics, from the western 
shore of the Gulf of Mexico, just where the Andes begin and the Rocky 
Mountains end. 

If, then, it is necessary that some outlet should exist in order to explain 
the enormous perennial overflow of the waters in the subterranean reservoirs 
of the American Continent, the Gulf Stream — presumably supplied by 
numerous streams issuing at the bottom of the sea from the foot of the 
great mountain chains, and warmed by contact with the heated rocks of 
that volanic region — exactly meets the conditions ; and its extreme saltness 
and deep indigo colour are precisely similar to the waters of the Great Salt 
Lake, which Mr Catlin has shown to be of volcanic origin. 

But if the mere overflow of the subterranean reservoirs is of such volume, 
what may not be the volume of water in the reservoirs themselves ! We 
have only to suppose the masses of rock which now support the uplifted 
rocks and strata of the American Continent to be overthrown by some con- 
vulsion of the earth's surface, and the whole land would sink, and the 
imprisoned waters, rushing forth, would bury it beneath their surface. 

The peculiar circumstances which reveal the presence of these subter- 



384 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

ranean waters beneath the North American Continent do not exist else- 
where ; but the evidence of their existence there forces as to conclude thsl 
similar subterranean waters exist beneath the uplifted strata and mountiin 
ranges of other continents, and that they constitute those '* fountains of the 
great deep," '* the waters under the earth,'' which, on the subsidence of the 
land, rushed forth and submerged the whole of the dry land at the Deluge. 

It is the fashion at the present day to deny the fact of an univeml 
Deluge, although nothing can be more explicit than the statement that it 
covered ** every hill under the whole heaven," and destroyed " every living 
thing" upon the earth that Grod had made (Gen. vii. 19-22).' Moreover, 
evidences of this destruction exist in all parts of the earth. Throughout 
Siberia and North America the carcases of the mammoth, preserved to this 
day, young and old, many with undigested food in their stomachs, is a proof 
of a sudden destruction, which, as Sir H. Howarth shows, could only have 
been by water. The Pampas of South America are also a reservoir of 
the bones of countless animals which nothing can explain but a sudden 
destruction by water, and Australia and other parts of the world furnish 
similar evidence.^ 

But if there was this universal Deluge, then it would appear to be 
certain, as pointed out by Mr Oeikie, that a glctcicd period must Aooe 
immediately succeeded it. For the surface of the earth is the great reservoir 
of the sun's heat, and the air heated by this means in tropical climates is 
constantly passing to the temperate zones to modify the cold which would 
otherwise exist there. If, then, the source of this heat was completely cut 
oflf, not only because the dry land was covered with water, but because the 
rays of the sun were unable to penetrate the masses of cloud and vapour 
which for months must have enveloped the earth, the most intense cold 
would follow, and an arctic climate would prevail in parts which had before 
been temperate, or even semi-tropical. Moreover, there is ample evidence 
to prove that such a glacial period did succeed the great Deluge. 

It is well known that at one time a much warmer climate existed both 
in the Arctic and Temperate zones, the ^ora sxidi fauna of temperate climates 
being found in the former, and that of semi-tropical climates in the latter. 
It is proved also by the food found in the stomachs of the mammoth that^ 
at the time of their existence, Siberia had a temperate, and in parts a 
semi-tropical, climate. But no sooner were the multitude of mammoths in- 
habiting Siberia, Northern Canada and America drowned, and before decay 
had commenced, than they were instantaneously frozen^ and they have been 
preserved in that condition embedded in the frozen soil of Siberia to this 

' Objections to the universality of the Deluge, Buch as those based on the difficulty of 
understanding how the various animals preserved in the Ark were assembled together from 
all parts of the world, and how, after the Deluge, they returned to the very places from 
which they came, are weak and superficial when regarded from the point of view that the 
Deluge was a special act of judgment and interposition of God. We might as well ask bow 
the beaver, the ant and the bee obtained their marvellous instincts. 

» Sir H. H. Howarth, The Mammoth and the Flood. 



APPENDICES 385 

day. What occurred there most have taken place in other parts of the 
Northern Hemisphere. A glacial period must have set in, and have con- 
tinued for centuries ; for the excessive moisture in the atmosphere converted 
into snow would speedily cover and add to the thickness of the ice formed 
in arctic and present temperate regions, and aid in resisting the effects of 
the sun's rays. 

Gradually, in the course of centuries, these ice masses would give way 
before the renewed heat of the sun. The ice on the low-lying plains in 
temperate zones would first disappear, and then the ice sheets clothing the 
lower hills and mountains in those regions would begin to descend their 
sides, producing in their descent those '* atricR " which are the evidence of 
their action ; while in the Arctic zone and the higher Alpine regions the 
ice masses would remain unmelted. How long this melting process took we 
cannot theoretically determine, nor do we know what thickness of ice had to 
be melted; but it would not of course be anything like the depth of the 
huge glaciers of the Alps, nor would such a weight of ice be necessary to 
produce the strioR which the ice sheets in temperate zones made in 
descending to the lower ground. In Scotland and Ireland, where there 
are so many traces of this glacial action, the influence of the Gulf Stream 
must have hastened the process, and there is no reason whatever to suppose 
that in the more temperate zones, where glacial action may be traced, 
the ice sheets could have resisted the renewed heat of the sun for any vast 
period. 

There are many evidences, however, that the remains of this glacial 
period existed 2000 years ago, and that both the climate of Europe and 
North America was much colder at that time than it is now. Herodotus 
describes the southern part of Russia, which has now a moderate winter and 
a hot summer, as so cold that it was impossible to penetrate very far north 
of the Black Sea. The winter even at the Black Sea it«elf was eight months 
long, or longer than it now is at St Petersburg, and the Sea of Azoff was 
frozen over every year, while the country to the north of the " Issedones," 
a Scythian tribe, appears to have been under snow the whole year.^ 

Diodorus Siculus, who wrote as late as 45 B.C., says that the winter 
season in Gaul was so severe, that all the rivers were frozen over and able to 
bear the passage of armies with their baggage and chariots, that during its 
continuance no rain but only snow fell, and that ''on account of the 
excessive coldness of the climate, there being scarce an interval of mild 
temperature, the counPn/ produced neither vines nor olives"^ It is thus 
clear that the climate of Europe was of an almost Arctic character 2000 
years ago. Moreover, this accounts for the fact that, while the human 
race spread abroad in every other direction, they failed even to attempt 

' Herod., lib. iv. cap. xxxi. 

' Diodorus, quoted by Sir W. Betham, Oad and Cimbriy pp. 177, 178. The climate of 
Britain, although more ta the north, and at the present time colder than that of France, 
was then warmer than France, owing, no doubt, to the influence of the Gulf Stream. 

2B 



386 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

to penetrate the northern portion of Europe and Asia until a little 
over 2000 years ago, and seem to have confined themselves to southern 
countries and those bordering on the Mediterranean. 

The traditions of the Indian and other races inhabiting Central America 
and the southern portion of North America point to a similar conditioa 
of things in the Western Hemisphere. 

The Thlinkeets of British Columbia have a tradition of the Great 
Deluge, and say that "after the waters went back and the dry land 
appeared '' the world was still in darkness, " without sun, moon, or stan, 
very dark, damp, and chaotic."' The Miztecs of Mexico also speak of a 
time when the world was in '* great darkness and chaos " ; when " the earth 
was covered with water and there was nothing but viiud and slime on the 
face of the earth.'' ^ The Popid Vuh, the national book of the Quiches of 
Tulan in Central America, speaks of a time when they "waited for the 
return of the sun " ; when " they kindled fires on account of the cold "; a 
time of " general dampness and cold, for the earth was moist, there being yet 
no sun." 3 « At last the face of the ground was dried by the sun. Before 
the sun appeared, muddy and wet was the surface of the ground, and it was 
before the sun appeared, and then only the sun rose like a man, but his heat 
had no strength. It is not indeed the same sun that appears now." 4 The 
Aztecs of Mexico also have a tradition when their ancestors sufifered from 
famine and '* trembled with cold," " though they stay by a fire they find little 
heat." 5 The Toltecs likewise speak of a time lasting 104 years when they 
suffered from nakedness, hunger and cold.^ 

Such a state of damp, cold and darkness, consequent on the watery mist 
and clouds which enveloped the earth and shut out the light and heat of the 
sun, is just what we might expect to have been the case after the Great 
Deluge, and if the cold was so great even in tropical and semi-tropical 
America, what must it have been in the north, although, even in Canada 
now, there is an almost tropical summer. It is evident that a glacial 
period must have prevailed throughout Northern America at the period of 
which these traditions speak. 

The fact also that the arctic conditions which existed in Europe just 
previous to the commencement of the Christian era have gradually abated 
up to the present day, is an indication of the far more intense cold which 
must have existed 2000 years and more before that era, and is a proof that 
4000 years ago a glacial period must have prevailed in countries which are 
now temperate with warm summers. It is also evident that the climate of 
northern countries has become, in consequence of this glacial period, and the 
increased masses of ice in Arctic and Alpine regions which have been left 
behind, permanently colder, and incapable of producing the^^ora, or of sup- 

* Bancroft's Native Raccsy vol. iii. p. 98. 

-' Ibid., pp. 71-73. -^ Ibid., p. 46. 

< Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, from Tyler's Early Hist, of Afankiiid, p. 308. 

s Bancroft's Native Races, vol. iii. p. 204. ^ N. Americans of Antiquity, p. 240. 



APPENDICES 387 

porting the life of \hQ fauna which we know existed in those countries 
previous to the glacial period. 

But if such a glacial period succeeded the Great Deluge, then, of course, 
we may expect to find the evidence of human life previous to its existence, 
but instead of being teons of ages ago, these human remains would merely be 
antediluvian. The glacial theories of geologists are based on the assumption 
that the ice masses of that period were of the same extent and thickness as 
those which now exist in Alpine and Arctic regions, and that both their 
formation and disappearance must have therefore taken hundreds of thou- 
sands of years. But it is evident that all the conditions of the case are 
perfectly satisfied — firstly, by a glacial period in which the ice masses 
formed in those temperate regions and low-lying lands from which they have 
now disappeared were of moderate thickness, and secondly, by a glacial 
period the commencement of which was almost instantaneous, while its 
gradual disappearance in temperate zones until they arrived at their present 
condition need not have occupied more than four or five thousand years, 
which the evidence of history and tradition implies was the extreme limit 
of its duration ; its remains being still evident in those portions of Arctic 
and Alpine regions which had previously a temperate climate. 

Although the great principles of geology are founded on solid data and 
reasoning, yet it is not an exact science like astronomy, and many of the 
speculations of modem geologists are like a pyramid supported on its apex, 
which the slightest external influence may overthrow. This appli^ to other 
theories besides that of the glacial period, and such a cataclysm as the Great 
Deluge, and the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, and the 
consequent disorder that may have been introduced in some of the upper 
strata of the earth, together with the vast masses of clay, sand, rock and 
other dibris mixed with evidences of human existence, uprooted and carried 
about by the waters, and deposited by them on their subsidence under a 
multitude of varying conditions, are factors which may introduce error into 
the most plausible theories. 

In conclusion, we may briefly refer to the speculations of some modem 
archseologists, which, like those of geologists, are often based on insufScient 
and slender data, and in many cases are mere assumptions or guesses, domi- 
nated by the desire to prove the great antiquity of the human race. Hence 
historical statements and traditions, however respectable their authority, 
are suggested by them to be forgeries, not to be depended upon, or to be 
viewed with suspicion whenever they appear to support Old Testament 
history and chronology, while those which tend to support a more ancient 
chronology are accepted without question. 

We have seen that the dynasties given by Berosus of Babylonian kings, 
subsequent to the Mythic dynasty of the gods, shows the first Chaldean king- 
dom to have commenced 2234 B.C., previous to which was a Median dynasty 
of 224 years, which may well represent the period between tlie Deluge and the 



388 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

empire of Nimrod, during which period Babylonia and Asayria were occnpfid 
by the Medes, Bactrians and other nations subsequently oonquered by him. 
This would make the date of the Deluge very nearly the same as that ol Old 
Testament chronology.' But such a corroboration of Scripture chronologj, 
being opposed to their views, the testimony of the historian Berosus is ignraed 
by these modem archseologists, and Babylonian chronology is made to depend 
upon an isolated statement of Nabonadius, the last Babylonian king, which 
speaks of the reign of a certain king, Naram Sin, as having been 3200 yean 
before his time (555 b.c.), or about 3750 B.C., which would make the date of 
Sargon, or Sargani, his predecessor, about 3800 B.C. The records of some 
other ancient kings have also been found, and as it is cLSiumed that Uiej 
preceded Sargon, the commencement of Babylonian history is placed about 
5000 B.C., or nearly 3000 years before the date of the Deluge according to 
the chronology of Berosus and of Scripture. But to reject these two exact 
and detailed chronologies, which not only corroborate each other, but are 
corroborated by numerous other profane testimonies, for an isolated state- 
ment like the above, seems very unscientific. 

The ancient priesthoods were the sole custodians of their countries* 
archives, and it was their one idea to add to their glory by magnifying the 
antiquity of their race. Moreover, the great cities of ancient Babylonia had 
each its own pateei or priest king, who without question at the time of 
Ammurabi (the Amraphel of Scripture) were contemporary rulers ; but 
nothing would have been easier for the priesthood, by representing these 
contemporary dynasties as successive, to greatly exaggerate the antiquity of 
an ancient king, and as Nabonadius must have obtained his information from 
the priesthood, this may very well account for the great antiquity assigned 
by him to Naram Sin. In like manner, modern archaeologists, following the 
example of the ancient priesthood, have still further added to the antiquity 
of the kingdom by regarding other dynasties as successive and anterior to 
Sargani, although a careful examination seems to show that they also were 
contemporary. This subject is, however, more fully treated in Appendix D, 
"Tht Accadians and Nimrod." 

Much dependence is also placed on the dynasties of the Egyptian priest 
Manetho by those who wish to prove the great antiquity of man. The 
dynasties of Manetho are lists of kings whose seats of government were at 
one or other of the great cities of Egypt, Memphis, Elephantine and Thebes, 
the names of such kings and the length of their reigns being given with 
exactitude. In addition to these, other dynasties are mentioned of kings 
who reigned at the less important cities, but neither their names or the 
length of their reigns are stated. They were considered, apparently, of not 
sufficient importance, and only the total duration of each dynasty is given. 
The duration of all these dynasties, if added together, on the assumption 

' The chronology given in the margin of our Bibles is that of Archbishop Usher, but it 
i.s well known that he has omitted from 50 to 100 yeui8 of the time of thtj Judges which 
ought to be included . 



APPENDICES 389 

that they were successive to each other, represents the heginning of the 
Egyptian monarchy, like that of the Babylonian, as some 3000 years before 
the Scriptural date of the Deluge. 

But in the first place, by regarding these dynasties as successive to each 
other, the evidence is totally ignored that Egypt was divided into Upper and 
liower Egypt, each having separate kings reigning contemporaneously, and 
that the Theban kings of Upper Egypt are proved to have been, at certain 
periods previous to the eighteenth dynasty, subordinate to, and viceroys of, 
the Memphite kings. It is also proved that there were other contemporary 
kings reigning over the more important cities or nomes into which Egypt was 
divided, such as the Heracleopolite kings of Manetho's ninth and tenth 
dynasties, but these being of secondary importance their names are not 
mentioned by Manetho. 

In the second place, Manetho enumerates no less than five dynasties 
between the twelfth and eighteenth d3niasties, among which are the Shepherd 
kings under their false names, while the rest are nameless. But the two 
tablets of Abydos, constructed by Seti Manephthah and Rameses II. of the 
eighteenth dynasty, 1000 years before Manetho's time, represent the kings 
of the eighteenth dynasty as the immediate successors^ of those of the twelfth 
dynasty, and thus deny the existence of any kings between the twelfth and 
eighteenth dynasties. Which are we to believe, — the kings of the eighteenth 
dynasty, who had no reason to conceal or pervert the truth, or the idolatrous 
priesthood of later ages who, as we have seen, have erased the names and 
done everything to destroy the identity of the hated Shepherds ? 

But some of these interpolated dynasties are manifestly mere repetitions 
of kings in other dynasties under certain relations. Thus, the sixteenth 
dynasty of Shepherds reigning for 618 years is plainly given as a record of 
the whole period from the first to the last Shepherd king, and this period 
is corroborated by Josephus. So also it is equally clear that the seventeenth 
dynasty of Shepherds and Thebans reigning together for 161 years is given to 
record the period of their joint reign, and is a proof, by Manetho himself, that 
many of the kings of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were contemporary. 
In like manner, certain other dynasties may equally have been interpolated 
to record the kings of previously mentioned dynasties in certain particular 
relations. 

All this is totally ignored by those who wish to make out that the human 
race has existed for some thousands of years longer than stated by the 
Hebrew Scriptures. But it is evident that the conclusions and assertions of 
men, however learned they may be, and however valuable their facts and 
important their archaeological discoveries, cannot be regarded as trustworthy 
while they are dominated by this desire, a desire which leads them to ignore 
every testimony which conflicts with their aims, and to disregard oven the 
authority of the monuments themselves. 

There are many who will regard the authority of the ancient monuments 
and the Old Testament Scriptures as of much greater value than that of an 



390 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

idolatrous priesthood who had every reason for misrepresenting facts which 
were hostile to their religion. But it is quite possible that Manetho never in- 
tended that his dynasties should be regarded as successive. In recording con- 
temporaneous dynasties, it was necessary to record them successively, and it 
was probably the Greek copyists who, being ignorant of the earlier Egyptian 
history, added up the totals of each dynasty and recorded these totals at the 
end of each of Manetho's three books on the supposition that they were all 
successive. 

On the other hand, it is to be remembered that the desire to enhance 
their nation's glory by attributing a vast antiquity to it was characteristic 
of the ancient priesthoods, as seen by the vast periods given by those of 
Babylon and Egypt to the reign of the gods. In the words of Ragozin, 
"they loved to magnify them by enshrouding them in the mystery of 
innumerable ages. The more appalling the figures, the greater the glory.'' ' 
This being the case, we are justified in receiving with caution dates and 
periods of years emanating from these sources, and it would be equally wise 
to subject to a careful analysis the grounds on which are based the assertions 
and conclusions of those modem writers who are animated by a similar 
desire to extend the antiquity of the human race. 



APPENDIX D 

THE ACCADIANS AND NIMROD 

M. Lenormant has shown that the Accadian magic and worship of Nature 
gods was practically identical with that of the Ugric and Altaic tribes, the 
Finns, the Mongols and other Turanian races, ^ and the intimate relation of 
the Accadian religion with the Buddhist religion of China and Thibet has 
been shown in Chapter VI. of this book. 

M. Lenormant has also shown that the language of these races is intimately 
allied to that of the ancient Accadians, while, on the other hand, he has 
pointed out that the people of Babylonia, the beginning of Ninirod's empire^ 
used a Semitic language for centuries previous to the advent of the Semitic 
Assyrians, and that the Accadian language was confined to the southern 
provinces bordering on the Persian Gulf, the land of Shumir or Shinar.^ 

From this it has been argued that the language of the Cushite conquerors, 
under Nimrod, was really Semitic, and that the Accadians were Turanians 
ccmquered by Nimrod and not Cushites. 

In support of this, it is also assert^ that the Canaanites, who were of 

* Ragozin, Hiii. of Chaldca^ p. 196. 

' Chald. MagiCf chaps, xiv.-xvii. 

^ Ibid.f chape, xviii.-xxiii., and chap. xxv. pp. 332, 333. 



APPENDICES 391 

Hamitic race, spoke a Semitic dialect^ and therefore that the language which 
has hitherto heen called Semitic is really Cushite or Hamitic. 

M. Lenormant has moreover pointed out that the Chaldean Babylonian 
religion, — ^in its form as afterwards adopted by the Assyrians, — was first 
established by likbabi (or Lugal kignb) and the ancient kings of Ur ; that 
the name of Likbabi is found on all the bricks at the base of the Pyramid 
temples of Chaldea at Ur, Ereck, Nippur and Larsa, and that there is no 
trace of any sacred monument previous to these ; that this religion was 
that of the Cushites, and M. Lenormant supposes that it superseded that of 
the Accadians, and that the latter had no temples or fixed public worship.' 

These facts would at first sight seem to prove that the Accadians were 
quite distinct from the Cushites, and that the latter spoke what is known as 
a Semitic dialect. The conclusion is, of course, directly opposed to the 
evidence which shows that the Cushites, or the ancient Aribah, or Adites, of 
Arabia, spoke the language, and were the originators of the cuneiform writ- 
ing and the religion of the Accadians. 

But there are several points which have not been sufficiently taken into 
consideration : — 

1. Kimrod, when he established his dominion over Central Asia, found 
various races in possession of the country. Berosus mentions a Median 
kingdom as preceding the first Chaldean kingdom, and as the latter must 
have been that of Nimrod, the Median kingdom must represent the period 
previous to his conquest when the Tigris and Euphrates valleys were 
inhabited by other races. M. Lenormant has shown that Media was in- 
habited, previous to its conquest by the Iranians, by a people whose 
language was closely allied to the Turco-Tartaric and Mongolian on the one 
hand and to the Accadian on the other. ^ We may presume that these 
Turanian people were the original Modes, the descendants of *' Madai," a son 
of Japhet, and that they gave their name to the country, which ever after- 
wards retained it, and there were doubtless similar tribes associated with 
them. We may conclude also that these Modes, or a portion of them, were 
the primitive Turanian inhabitants of Babylonia to whom Berosus therefore 
gave the name of **Afedian8** as representing the occupiers of the country 
previous to the Cushite conquest. Moreover, as the Turanians eventually 
spread over Eastern and Northern Asia, it is quite possible that the 
Turanian Modes of Babylonia subsequently migrated to Media and 
settled there. 

From the Scriptural accounts and the traditions of Ninus, Osiris, 
Bacchus, Zohak, and certain other conquerors with whom Nimrod may 
be identified, it is plain that he established his dominion over the whole of 
the tribes inhabiting Babylonia, Assyria, Media, etc., who at that period 
could only ha^e been few in number and widely scattered, and it seems 
quite inconceivable that any portion of these should have imposed their 
language and religion on their powerful Cushite conquerors. 

> Chald. Magic f chap. xxiv. pp. 818, 821-828. ' IbitL, obap. xv. p. 217. 



392 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



M. Lanoniiaiit ralera to the &et that the Giedn spdce erf the Ouhiftei 
as the **Cephen6$/' or people erf ** C/^pAtftM,'' the son erf Belns (i^, CndiX and he 
soggeetB ^t the Tonuiians were the ancieiit Chaldeee and distmct from the 
Coflhites, because Hellaniciis says Uiat there were CkaUeea whMting 
Ghaldea before the Cephenes.' But it does not foUow firom this that these 
Turanians, although ciJled " Chaldeee " by HeUaniouSi were the people knofwn 
in their own oountay as " Chaldees.'' It was the custom among the anoienti 
to call all the different peoples who suocessiTely inhabited a region after the 
recognised name of the country, and HeUanicus, when speaking of a people of 
Bal^lonia before the Cephenes, would therefcnne call them *' Chaldeee^** amply 
because Chaldea was the general name of the country among the Oredks. 
In the same way some people might speak of a '^Britidi " people In Britain 
prior to the arrival of the Britons who <^posed Julius Osesar, to wliom the 
name properly applied, and who were quite distinct firom the aborigines. It 
is a loose and inaccurate way of speaking, ccnnmon to both ancient and 
modem writers, as in the case of Strabo, who speaks of the Belgae aa Kdti 
because they occupied a portion of the country known as Keltioay althoui^ 
GsBsar, who wrote from personal acquaintance with them, ezpreealy state 
that they were an entirely distinct people from the Kelts.' 

M. Lenormant farther suggests that the cities of Babel and Ereck, Accsd 
and Oalneh in Chaldea were in existence preyiouato the arrival of Nimrod, 
and implies that they were records of the previous Turanian civilisation.' 
But from the statement in OenesiB that they were the beginning of Nimrod'a 
kingdom it seems evident that they were founded by him. It is true that 
Babel or Babylon had been previously commenced, but the building of it 
had been stopped, and all tradition represents Nimrod as the founder of the 
great city as it was afterwards known. Nor is it possible that these cities 
could have been built by the fourth generation after the Flood, and while 
the human race was few and scattered,^ without the forced labour which 
would be used by a conqueror. On the other hand, all tradition speaks of the 
Cushites as great builders, and the fact that it is expressly stated that Nimrod 
built the mighty cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah and Resen in Assyria, 
is an additional proof that he built those in Babylonia also ; nor can we have 
any doubt that for the purpose he employed the labour of the oonqueied 
peoples. 

The Cushites had little consideration for the people they subdued, and 
we may be certain that they imposed their language and religion on the 
Turanians, and not that the Turanians imposed their language and religion 
on them. This is in accordance with all historical experience, and it is 
quite impossible for the contrary to have been the case. 

But as these prolific Japhetic races increased in numbers they would 

» ChcUd, Magic, p. 338. 

' Ossar, lib. i. cap. 1 ; see also ante, chap. xiv. 3 Chald, MagiCy p. 339. 

4 In order to get over this difficulty some have suggested that the Turanians were the 
descendants of Gain, who, being more wicked than the rest of mankind, were catefoUy pre- 
served from the destruction of the Flood, together with righteous Noah ! 



APPENDICES 393 

natarally migrate to other countries, and the way westward being closed by 
the Gushite empire, they would spread toward the vast unoccupied regions 
of Eastern Asia, carrying with them the Gushite language and religion, and 
thus form the nucleus of those multitudinous Turanian races, some of whom 
eventually spread northward and from there westward to Europe. 

This seems the only natural and reasonable conclusion. Similarity of 
language and religion does not prove identity of race. The Hebrew is a 
Semitic dialect closely resembling the Phoenician, and the Israelites, in spite 
of every endeavour to prevent them, constantly adopted the religion of the 
Canaanites, who were a totally different race. But similarity of language 
and religion in two separate nations is an evidence that at one time there 
must have been intimate association and social relations between the two, 
and it is clear that this must have been the case with the primitive 
Turanian inhabitants of Chaldea and their Gushite conquerors. 

This perfectly accounts for the fact that the Turanian races possess a 
language and religion similar to that of the Accadian, and at the same time 
perfectly accords with the evidence that the cuneiform writing and the 
Accadian language and religion were of Gushite origin. 

It is admitted that the Accadians possessed a remarkable state of civilisa- 
tion and knowledge of astronomy,' and to suppose that the slow- thinking, 
stolid, unenterprising Turanian race should be the originators of the civilisa- 
tion, the writing and learning, which made the Ghaldeans so famous in after 
ages, and that the same heavy-witted, conquered people should have been 
inventors of a religion which was accepted by the most powerful nations, 
who regarded it with such* reverence that they even carefully preserved the 
language of its authors, is so utterly improbable that nothing but over- 
powering proof can warrant its acceptance. 

This is the opinion of M. Renan. He says, "It does astonish us to see 
that ancient substruction of the learned civilisation of Babylon assigned to 
the Turkish, Finnish and Hungarian races ; in one word, to races which 
have never done anything but pull down, and have never created a civilisa- 
tion of their own. If anyone can prove to us that the Turks, Finns and 
Hungarians founded the most powerful ante-Semitic and ante- Aryan civilisa- 
tions we will believe it. But the force of the proofs must be in proportion 
to the improbability of the result." * 

M. Lenormant, however, objects to these remarks as too severe upon 
the Turanian race, and he points to the intelligence, chivalry and eloquence 
of the present Hungarians in support of his objection. But, in taking the 
Hungarians as representative of the Turanians, M. Renan was hardly 
correct. No doubt, the original Hungarians were of the same race as the 
Turks, but not only have centuries of intercourse with the civilisation 
of the West greatly modified their previous character, but they have a very 
strong intermixture of Gothic and German blood. That part of Europe was 
for centuries occupied by Gothic races, many of whom must have remained 

* ChjoUd, Magic, pp. 354, 864 865, and note. > /bid. , p. 372. 



394 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



there; but beddes thisy many thonsaiids of oaptiires from other EnropeMi 
countries were imported by the Hungarians, and lastly the honours sod 
estates of the country were bestowed on (German nobles by the Hungarian 
king Geisa, who had married a Bavarian princess.' 

We must, therefore, look to the pure Turkish, Tartar and Mongoiiaa 
races before being brought into contact with Western dyilisation, for the 
proofe of M. Renan's contention, and they show that he is absolutely oomet^ 
and that it is impossible that such races could ha^e been the originatofB of 
the learning and ciyilisation of the Ohaldees. 

2. With regard to the question of lomquagt. Although it is evident thsl 
a portion of the primary inhabitants <rf Chaldea were Turanian, yet it it 
certain that Assyria and Babylonia was the original seat of the greater 
portion of the Semitic race. (Genesis xL speaks of Terah, Abraham sod 
Lot, the descendants of Arphaxad and Peleg, conung out of Ur of tiie ChaMees, 
where^ it is evident, therefore, their forefathers must have settled. It wss 
the gathering point of all the descendants of Noah shortly after the Dehige^ 
and it would appear that the descendants of Shem, viz., Elam, Asshur, Aram 
and Arphaxad, had remained there after the confusion of tongues. This is 
also implied by Joshua when he speaks of the ancestors of Abraham living 
*' beyond the flood," a term for the river Euphrates.* Abraham was the 
tenth generation from Arphaxad, and considering the long lives of the 
Patriarchs of this family, and the consequent number of children begotten fay 
each, the descendants of Arphaxad by this time must have been a numeroui 
and rapidly-increasing race ; Joktan, the brother of Peleg, being the only one 
of the family who seems to have migrated to Southern Arabia (Qen. x. 27-30). 
Asshur had settled more to the north, and his descendants eventually 
became the dominant race there, the country being called after them 
" Assyria," while the Elamites were in Eastern Ohaldea, and the Aranueans, 
or descendants of Aram, in Syria and Mesopotamia adjoining the Assyrians. 
These Semitic races, living in the heart of the Cushite Empire, although 
tributary to the Cushites and worshipping their gods,^ must have constituted 
the main population of the country, and were probably far more numerous 
than either their rulers, or the Turanians of Chaldea, while, considering the 
influence exercised by the Semitic race upon other races, we may conclude 
that, by the time of Abraham's departure to Oanaan, the influence of the 
Semitic language must have been predominant in Northern Chaldea and 
Assyria. 

Arabian tradition says that the empire founded by Zohak lasted 260 
years, and as this appears to be almost exactly the period assigned by 
Berosus to the first Chaldean kingdom, it is probably the correct duration 
of the first Cushite Empire. 

Now as the Median kingdom of Berosus, which lasted 224 years, must 

' Gibbon, chap. ly. p. 1025. ' Joshua xxiy. 2. 

s Ibiid, The "other gods" worshipped by the anoestors of Abraham ooold caly 
ba^e been those of their Cushite rulers. 



APPENDICES 395 

represent the period from the Flood to the Cnshite conquest, the end of the 
Cushite Empire would be 484 years after the Flood, and as Abraham left 
Harran and came to Canaan 427 years after that event, it would be some 57 
years before the close of the Oushite power when decay had begun to set in. 

This is proved by the account in Genesis, when, a year or two after 
Abraham's arrival in Canaan, we read of Amraphel, king of Shinar or 
Babylonia, with Chedorlaomer, king of Elam (the Kedor-Laghamar of the 
inscriptions), Arioch, king of Ellasar (Larsa), in South Babylonia, and Tidal, 
king of Gutium,* the country to the north of Babylonia, making war against 
five kings of Canaan. Professor Sayce suggests from this that Amraphel, 
the "Ammurabi" or " Hammurapi,'' of the inscriptions, was a vassal of 
Chedorlaomer. But the account does not imply this, but rather that he was 
an independent king, and an ally of Chedorlaomer, for the inscriptions show 
that his daughter had just previously married a prince of Elam, while a 
few years later he made war with and defeated Chedorlaomer in battle. The 
account in Genesis, however, shows that the Cushite Empire of Nimrod had 
been completely broken up, that the kings of Babylon had rule over only a 
portion of Babylonia, and were only just able to hold their own against the 
Elamite kings. Moreover, Arioch, the '* Eriaku " of the inscriptions, king 
of Larsa, is shown by the inscriptions to have been a son of an Elamite 
king, Kedor Mabug, implying that the Elamite kings had already established 
their power over part of Babylonia.^ We may also conclude from this that 
the capture of Erech and the overthrow of the first Babylonian kingdom by 
the Elamite king, Kedor Nahkhundi, which is referred to on an inscription 
of Asshur-banipal, did not take place until some years after this. Professor 
Sayce supposes that the conquest of Babylon by Kedor Nahkhundi was 
previous to the reign of Amraphel, but this seems very improbable, as 
Ammurabi, or Amraphel, was evidently an independent and powerful king, 
and the overthrow of Babylon must have been at the end and not in the 
middle of the first Babylonian dynasty. 

The decay of the Cushite Empire is probably largely accounted for by the 
fact shown in Chapter V., that at an early period there was a considerable 
migration of the Cushites to India. It must be remembered also that only 
a certain portion of the Cushite race came to Babylonia and established 
the empire of Nimrod there. The greater proportion evidently remained 
in Arabia, and those in Babylonia and Assyria, after the emigration of 
many of them to India, would be completely outnumbered by the Semites 
and gradually succumb to their power and influence. Hence, while the 
apathetic Turanians of Babylonia, few in number as compared with the 
Semites, might be expected to fall completely under the influence and 
adopt the language of the Cushites, and eventually, following their 
nomadic tendencies, migrate to the north and east — the Semites, remain- 

' "Tidal, King of NaXvmz,'' or "Goyim," a probable miBrcading for "Gatium." 8«t 
Sayoe, FraSi lAghU, p. 56. 
' Sayoe, Freih LighU, p. 65. 



396 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

ing in the oountry and poBaeased of an energy and enterprise entirely 
wanting in the stolid, heavy-witted Toraniansi would speedily make timr 
influence felt, and in propcnrtion as they increased, and the Cnshites de- 
creased, in numbers and power, so would the Semitic language replace thai 
of the Cushite, in much the same way as the Anglo-Saxon in Britain hii 
replaced the French of the Normans. 

This, therefore, may fully account for the fact tibat in the time of 
Amraphel, when the Cushite Empire had been broken np, the Semitie 
lAQg^uige should haye become predominant^ although tiie Coahite^ or 
Accadian, was still used, and the Cushite religiim being retained, tiie 
Cushite or Accadian language was especially preserved as the sacred 
tongue. 

Again, it is argued that the language of Canaan, which was Semitic^ wu 
the language of the Handtic Canaanites, and therefore that what is csDad 
Semitic was really fiamitic. But here again the influence of tibe Semitic 
races has not been sufficiently taken into consideration. 

The Hamitic Canaanites were surrounded by, or intermingled with, 
powerful Semitic races who had conquered condderaUe portions <tf the 
country. There were the Semitic Moafaites, Ammonites and Edomites ia 
iSastem Canaan, the Aramseans in Northern Syria, and the Ishmaelitei, 
Midianites, and other descendants of Abraham to the soutii, and finally the 
Israelites conquered the remaindw of the country, and destroyed or dis- 
possessed the remaining Hamitic peoples. 

In Genesis x. we read that " afterwards were the Canaanites scattered 
abroad," and this would be the natural effect of the Israelitish conquest, so 
that by the time of David and Solomon the remaining Hamitic inhabitants 
could only have been very few in number. This would quite account for the 
fact that the language of Canaan, as it is known to us in the form of 
Phoenician and Hebrew, is Semitic, but it does not prove that the previous 
Hamitic peoples spoke Semitic. On the contrary, we know that the mcst 
powerful of them all, the Hittites, used a language closely allied to the Ac- 
cadian or Cushite,^ and although some of the Northern Amorites are said to 
have used a Semitic dialect, this may be fully accounted for by their associa- 
tion with the Aramaeans, or, what is more probable, that the people supposed 
to be Amorites were really Aramaeans who had occupied their country, and 
were therefore called by their name. For this is a contingency which must 
always be taken into consideration. A country receives its name from 
its first inhabitants, and the name thus received is in nearly every case 
retained, so that when the first inhabitants have been dispossessed by 
another race, the surrounding nations continue to speak of the new in- 
habitants by the same name as the former ones. This is the case with 
the modem Germans, a large proportion of whom are descended from the 
Huns, Slavs, and other Tartar tribes, while the bulk of the ancient (Germans, 
who gave their name to the country, probably passed over to Britain. 

» The First BMe, by Colonel Oonder, LL.D., M.R.A.S., R.E., pp. 72-74. 



APPENDICES 397 

It is possible that the language of the Israelites in the time of Moses may 
have been influenced by their long sojourn with the Hamitic Egyptians, but 
the words of Psa. Ixxxi. 5, " Where I heard a language that I understood nof ; 
and again, PSa. cxiv. 1, " When Israel went out of Egypt from a people of a 
strange language," show that it was not the same as the Egyptian, and 
therefore not Hamitic. The language of Abraham and his immediate 
descendants must have been Semitic, which was the predominant language 
of Chaldea when Abraham left that country, and both Abram and Sarai are 
Semitic names, and we may therefore conclude that the language of the 
Israelites was Semitic. Colonel Conder has shown indeed that the cuneiform 
writing was in use throughout Western Asia and in Egypt, and must have 
been used by the Israelites in the time of Moses,' but this proves nothing as 
regards the language, as this writing was used both by the Semites and by 
people like the Hittites speaking the Accadian language. Hebrew letters 
appear to have come into use about the time of Solomon, although the 
cuneiform writing still continued to be used.^ No doubt the language of 
the other nations of Canaan underwent several modifications before it arrived 
at the form in which we know it as Phoenician, but the whole tendency of 
such changes would be to Semitise it through trade and association with the 
Semitic Israelites, Assyrians, Aramseans, etc. 

3. M. Lenormant makes a distinction between the Chaldean-Babylonian 
religion, as established by the kings of Ur, and that of the Accadians. He 
admits that the gods worshipped and the essence of the religion were the 
same, but he draws attention to the elaborate forms, the temples and ritual of 
the kings of Ur, and these, he assumes, were wanting in the original Accadian 
religion. But what do we know of any Accadian religion previous to and 
distinct from that of the kings of Ur 1 What evidence is there that such a 
religion existed previous to that of the kings of Ur ? The only reason for 
such a supposition is that the Turanian races, in subsequent ages, have been 
found to possess similar Nature gods and magic to those of the Accadians, but 
without the temples and elaborate forms of the latter, and, on the assump- 
tion that the Turanians were the Accadians, it is concluded that their religion 
was the primary religion of Chaldea. 

But there is no ground for this assumption, and if the Turanians were 
the people conquered by the Cushite Accadians, and had adopted their 
language and religion, and afterwards migrated to Eastern and Northern 
Asia, then the absence of elaborate religious forms and temples among 
them in later ages is just what we might expect. Such temples and 
elaborate religious forms, which would be natural with a highly- civilised 
and settled race like the Cushites, would be quite inconsistent with the 
general characteristics and nomadic tendencies of the Turanian races. 

There is nothing, therefore, to prove that there was an Accadian religion 
previous to, or distinct from, that of the kings of Ur. If the Accadians 
were the Cushites, then the Accadian religion was that established by the 

' The First BibU, pp. 5 and 93. ' Ibid., pp. 61, 80-84, 98. 94. 



398 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Cushites, and, as we shall now point out» there is eyery reason to ccmdiide 
that the first king of Ur, whose temples and monanientsarethe oldest known, 
was himself the founder of the Onshite Empire and religion. 

4. Later Assyriologists are now asserting that the Cnshites never con- 
quered Babylonia and Assyria^ and in spite of the consentient testimcmy of 
antiquity speak of " the legend of Nimrod " as a probaUe myth. Assanung 
the Accadians to have been Turanian and not Cushite^ and recognising thai 
their language and power was succeeded by that of the Sbmitesy tiiere was 
evidently no room for a great Cushite Empire between the fall of the <»ie and 
the rise of the other. But the evidence that the Accadians were the 
Cushites, and that the Turanians were only a conquered race associated with 
tihem, seems to be conclusive. 

Professor Sayce, however, who seems to lean to tihe modem theory, 
remarks that no evidence has been found on the monuments iA Babylonia and 
Assyria of any such person as Nimrod. 

It is most unlikely that there would be any record of him under that 
name. ^^ Ninvrod^^ is Semitic-Babylonian, or later Ohaldee, and means 
'' The Subduer of the Leopard." It was merely a iobriquei by which he was 
popularly known in after times. His actual Accadian name must have been 
quite di^erent, and the first king of Accad — "Sargon,'' ** Sharrukin,' 
*' Sargina " or " Sargani " — answers in every respect to him. 

If the Gushites were Accadian, and Nimrod, who is stated to have been 
the founder of Accad, was their first monarch, then he was the first king of 
Accad, and Sargcmi Sar Ali was that king. Sargani Sar Ali was called by 
the later Babylonians " The Founder," " The World King," ' and is spoken 
of as the conqueror of Elam, while in an inscription he is made to say of 
himself, "The mighty king, the King of Accad am I." Like Ishdubar, he 
is the lover of the goddess Ishtar, a relationship which not only tends to 
identify him with the gods of Babylon, whose characters accord with that of 
Nimrod, but also indicates the human origin of those gods. The inscription 
goes on to say, ** For forty-five years the kingdom I have ruled, and the 
black head (or black) race I have governed. In multitudes of bronze 
chariots I have rode over rugged lands. I governed the upper countries 
(Assyria, etc.) Three times to the sea I have advanced." He is also stated 
to have made successful expeditions to Syria and Elam, and that with the 
conquered peoples of those countries he peopled Accad, and built there a 
magnificent palace and temple, and that on one occasion he was absent three 
years when he advanced to the Mediterranean, and, like Sesotris, Hercules, 
etc., left there memorials of his deeds, returning home with immense spoils.' 

The fact that Sargani brought conquered peoples to inhabit Accad 
implies that it was a city newly built by him, that he was Nimrod, its 
founder, and that, as king of the black race, he was a Cushite, while his 
expeditions and conquests and empire exactly correspond with those of 
Nimrod and with the traditions of Ninus, Zohak, Osiris, Sesostris, etc. If, 

' The First Bible, Appendix, p. 217. ' Ragorin's CluUdea, pp. 206-207. 



APPENDICES 399 

then, the Accadiahs were Chishites, there appears to be every reason for con- 
cluding that Sargani was Nimrod, the founder of the Cusbite Empire. 

It has been shown that many of the Egyptian dynasties were those of 
contemporary kings, ruling either in Upper or Lower Egypt, or over the 
more important of the different nomes into which Egypt was divided. The 
same must have been the case in Babylonia and Assyria. Nimrod, in 
order to secure his conquests, built great fortified cities at various points 
of his dominions, by which, with a comparatively small garrison in each, 
he could hold the surrounding country in subjection, and, as the founder 
of these cities, he was the first king of Accad, of Erech, of Ur and of 
Babylon,' although the titles given to him as the respective king of each 
may have been different. 

In Professor Sayce's list of Babylonian kings, the first king of Ur is 
called " lAAgal Kigub," and this name associates him with " Lugal Zaggisif^* 
the first king of Erech, who is recognised as the founder of the Babylonian 
Empire,' and should therefore be Nimrod, or Sargani, the first king of 
Accad. Now, Colonel Conder has shown that this first king of Erech is 
Sargani, the first king of Accad. For the first part of the name " Lugal," or 
*' UngcUf" is the Accadian for ** Great Lord, ''and is equivalent to the Semitic 
" Samt," " Bang.*' The second sign is more properly read ** Sar,'* and the 
third, " gi,** has also the sound of " kanuy'* and may be rendered " gina " 
or *^gana" Hence, iMgal Zaggisi is " The Great Lord (or King) Sargina" 
or " Sargani." ^ 

There is a long inscription in his honour, written in Accadian, in a temple 
at Nippur. It speaks of him as " The mighty man, son of the god Ea, 
(Hea, or Gush), prince of the moon god, begotten of Tammuz and Ishtar." 
This, of itself, indicates that he was the human original of the Babylonian 
gods, who are entitled "The Eldest Son,'' "The First-born of the Gods," 
" The Only Son," although as a human king he is spoken of as the son of 
Tammuz instead of being Tammuz himself. 

The inscription goes on to say that the god Enlil "had made him 
the grant of royalty on earth, allotted to him in the sight of the world, 
the hosts of the land being obedient to him from east and west. He has 
added every land by conquest." 

" From the Upper Sea (which can only mean the Mediterranean), the 
Tigris, Euphrates, down to the Sea of Elam (the Persian Gulf) the multi- 
tudes have been allotted t<4 him." 

He is also called " Patesi (i.e., priest king) of the royal city of Accad, 
powerful ruler of the city of Erech, he has obtained a throne not to be 
removed. Being chief ruler of Erech, he wields henceforth the power 
of them of Ur."3 

He is thus the king of Accad has well as of Erech, while his conquests 
exactly correspond with those of Sargina, king of Accad. There can be no 

» Sayce, EArly Itrad and the Swrounding Nationsy Appendix II., p. 280. 
' The Pint BibU, note xvii. pp. 217, 218. 3 /^d., p. 218. 



400 THE WORSHIP OP THE DEAD 

reasonable doubt, therefore, that The Great L(»d Sargiii% the first king of 
Erech, is Sargma» the first king of Accad, while it seems equally certain that 
he ruled over and was the first king of X7r, and was therefore tihe same 
as lAkg(i, Kigub^ ''The Great Lord Eigub." 

The conquests and dominion of Sargina of Accad, Breoh and Ur, the 
first founder of the Babylonian Empire, exactly correspond with the con- 
quests and dominion ci Nimrod, and, like Nimrod, Sargina was deified. Is 
the inscriptions quoted above, the mention ci the Assyrian goddeas Ishtsr 
implies that the inscription, while written in the sacred AiwmAi^f% language 
was made when Assyrian infiuence and power had displaced tiie BftbykxiiaD 
or Gushite. In this inscription Sargina, although intimately connected with 
the gods, is yet, as a human king, distingmshed from theoL This diatinctioD 
may be also observed in other inscriptions. In a very rude archaic in8crq>- 
tion in Accadian, on an ancient door socket in ihe same temple, his name 
reads ''Ungal Sargin nil ul ul," ''King Sargina the illustrious," while a later 
text on the same door socket, in Semitic, reads ''The divine Lord, the great 
SLing, King Sargina, the illustrious King, the just, ihe King of Agade 
(Accad)." So also a seal found in C]rprus, supposed to be aboot the date 
2000 B.a, has an inscription in whidi the writer, Abilsar, calla himadf a 
worshipper of " The divine Sargani, the illustrious King." Another Semitic 
text reads "The divine Sargani, the illustrious King, a son of Bel the just^ 
the King of Agade and of the children of BeL" ' In this last text he is 
clearly identified as a son of Bel or Belus (t.0.. Gush), and king of the 
children of Bel, or the Cushites. 

Thus we see that, in these later Semitic texts, Sargani, the first king of 
Accad and Erech, is deified and identified with those gods who are repre- 
sented a.s the son of the first Belus or Hea, and there can be little doubt, 
therefore, that Sargina is Nimrod, the founder of the Babylonian Empire. 

Again, Lugal Kigub, the first king of Ur, called by Professor RawlinsoD 
** Urukh '' as a tentative name, is the oldest king of whom any architectural 
remains exist. His bricks are found in a lower position than any at the 
foundations of buildings, and the inscriptions on them are the most simple 
and archaic. He is known to us as a builder of gigantic works, and the 
basement platforms of the temples at Ur, at Calneh, at Erech and EUlaaar, 
were all built by him,^ implying that he must have been the founder of these 
cities, and therefore the same as Nimrod or Sargani of Accad and Erech. 
In short, he calls himself "King of Ur and of Kienge Accad ";3 and as 
M. Lenormant has shown that "Kienge" is the equivalent of "Sumir," 
"Kienge Accad" would therefore mean "Sumir Accad," the name ccm 
stantly used to describe the whole of Babylonia, the kingdom of Nimrod,^ 

It is worthy of notice also that just as Ninus, or Nimrod, was succeeded 
by Semiramis, who was the human original of the Babylonian goddess, so 

' The Pirti Bible, note xvii. pp. 219, 220. 

» Five Great Monarchic, vol. i. pp. 155, 166. a Jlnd,, p. 169. 

4 CfwUd, Magic, Appendix, ** Sumir and Aooad," pp. 899-402. 



APPENDICES 401 

one of the immediate successors of Lugal Kigub is a Queen Gula, and Gula 
is one of the names of the Babylonian goddess. 

Professor Sayce also mentions another king who is ruler of Kienge, or 
Sumir, and whose name he gives as " En Sag Sagana." But from the remarks 
of Colonel Gonder on the name '' Lugal zag gisi,'' which should read '< Lugal 
Sargani," we may conclude that "En Sag Sagana" should read ** En Sar 
S<irgana," or Sargani^ and that he also is the same as Sargani Sar Ali of 
Srech and Accad. 

On these grounds, the first kings of Erech, Kienge, Accad and Ur must 
be regarded as one and the same person, viz., Nimrod, the founder of these 
cities and of the Babylonian Empire. {See Table of Kings). 

It is also to be noted that the most ancient Accadian king of Nipur, 
whose texts in the Accadian language have been discovered, is called 
** Tur-cua-u^^* and as tur is the Accadian for "son," the name would read 
••Son of Gush " (i.c., Nimrod).' 

But Babylon was the chief city of Babylonia and the beginning of 
Nimrod's kingdom, and its first ruler must also have been the same as the 
first ruler of Erech, Accad and Ur. It is, however, probable that Gush, as 
the first originator of the Tower of Babel and the city which was commenced 
at the same time, would be shown as the first king of Babylon on the 
monumental lists, as in the case of the dynastic lists preserved by the Greeks, 
where Belus is the first king and Ninus the second. This seems to be indi- 
cated by the names of the first two kings on the monumental lists, where 
the first king is called " Sumu Abx," and the second *' Sumu la Hu" 

•• Sumu " is an Accadian term, and the name of the god of the sky, or 
heaven, corresponding with the Hittite " Sumuj" the god of storm, and with 
the Semitic **Rimman^"^ while ^*Abi" is the Accadian for "father," 3 and Sumu 
Abi might, therefore, very well apply to Gush, or the elder Belus, who was 
deified as the father of the second and more important Belus, and hence as 
the father of the gods. The second Sumu is called "la Hu," and '* ilu " was 
the general Accadian name for " god," corresponding to the Semitic "el," 
and the name would, therefore, especially apply to the deified king Sargina 
or Nimrod. Moreover, the successor of Sumu la Ilu is a king called " Zabu^*^ 
and the successor of Ninus or Nimrod and Semiramis in the Greek lists of 
Babylonian kings is a king called " Zame$y Now, as the Egyptians and 
Greeks appear to have substituted "m" for "6" (as in the name Nebrod 
for Nimrod) Zabu would be written ^^ Zamu" which, with the Greek ter- 
mination, would be " Zamet.^^ This, therefore, is a strong confirmation that 
Sumu Abi, Sumu la Hu and Zabu are the Belus, Ninas and Zames of the 
Greek lists. 

It will also be noted that this first Babylonian djmasty consists of eleven 
kings, and this corresponds with the first Chaldean dynasty of Berosus, which 

> Guilder, Tki Hrti Bible, pp. 166, 167. 

* Ihid., note ziv. p. 214 ; note zriii p. 224. 

1 LcDonDaai, CMd. Jfo^, p. 800 ; Sajroe /mm emd Ike 6utroundUtg iVfllionc, p. 212. 

2C 



402 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

also consists of eleven kings and which must be that of which Nimrod 
was the founder. The duration (292 years) is rather longer than the 
258 years of Berosus, but it is very possible that the overthrow of the 
Babylonian kingdom by the Elamites, which would be the natural termina- 
tion of the dynasty, took place at the beginning, or during the reign of the 
last king, and that this was taken by Berosus as the termination of the 
dynasty, in which case the length of the two dynasties would practically be 
the same. Colonel Conder says that this first Babylonian dynasty and the 
second or Sisha, dynasty also are both " Kassite,** ' a term which M. Lenor- 
mant identifies with " Cissian" or *^ Kissian,*' ^ which is clearly the same as 
the "Kissioi" of the Greeks, one of the names by which the people of 
Chusistan, or the land of Cush, were known. Hence it would appear that 
the Elamite conquest was only temporary, as the Cushites continued to rule 
in Babylonia, the seat of government being merely removed to Sisku, so that 
there was no real break in the succession. (See Table). 

Now a boundary stone recently found at Nippur states that the interval 
between the accession of the Kassite king of Sisku, " ffuZ^wor," and the death 
of Nehuchadnezza/r I, was exactly 636 years,^ and it can be proved that the 
date of the latter's death was about 1140 B.C., which would make the date 
of Gulkisar 1776 b.c., and that of Samu la Ilu 2234 B.C., in exact agreement 
with the date of Berosus for the beginning of the first Chaldean Kingdom or 
Empire of Nimrod. {See Table.) This, therefore, is a further confirmation 
that Samu la Ilu and Samu Abi are Nimrod and his &ther, the founders 
of the first Cushite Empire and the same as Lugal Sargina, the first king of 
Erech, Kienge, Accad and Ur. 

As these dynasties of Erech, Accad, Lagas, Ur, etc., must be regarded 
as contemporary, it will account in part for the exaggerated estimate of the 
date Naram Sin by Nabonidus. No doubt he, or the priesthood, assumed 
all these dynasties to be successive and added the totals together. More- 
over, if the first dynasties were contemporary, it is possible that other 
dynasties were also contemporary or partly so ; as, for instance, the third 
Kassite dynasty may have been partly contemporary with the second ELassite 
or Sisku dynasty. For, if we estimate the period between the accession of 
Gulkisar and the death of Nebuchadnezzar I. according to the number of 
kings in the second and third Kassite dynasties and the length of their 
reigns, supposing the two dynasties to be successive, it will be found to 
be considerably in excess of 636 years. It will be seen that the length of 
the reigns of twenty-two of the kings of the third Kassite dynastv are 
unknown, and, excluding the abnormally brief reigns of those of two or three 
kings, the average length of the remainder would appear to be about 16 
years, and, taking this as the average length of the unknown reigns, it 
will give 352 years to be added to the total of the known reigns from 
Gulkisar to Nebuchadnezzar. Thus : — 

* The First DibU, chap. ii. p. 27. ' Chald. Magic, pp. 827, 410, and note. 

3 The Pint BibUy note vi. p. 203. 



APPENDICES 

Sisku dynasty from accession of Gulkisar, .187 years 

Kings of third Kassite dynasty to death of Nebuchad- 
nezzar I., ..... . 285 

Add kings without reigns, .... 352 



403 






824 years 

This is 188 years in excess of 636 years, and suggests the probability 
that the third Kassite dynasty was partly contemporary with the Sisku 
dynasty, possibly from the time of Gulkisar, which appears to have been a 
marked epoch. For, if we suppose that Gandis, the first king of the third 
Kassite dynasty, was contemporary with Gulkisar, the period from Gandis 
to the death of Nebuchadnezzar would be almost exactly 636 years. Thus : — 

Third Kassite Dtnastt. 

Length of known reigns to death of Nebuchadnezzar, . 285 years 
Length of unknown reigns, .... 352 „ 

637 years 

This contemporaneous period, regarded as successiye, would further help 
to account for the excessive estimates of Nabonidus. (See Table). 

There is also great uncertainty with regard to the the exact position 
of some of the kings, which in certain lists are confessedly not in the 
proper order of succession,' and Professor Rawlinson remarks that, 
although the order of some of the earlier kings may be determined by the 
position of the bricks, the records of other kings are so "scattered and 
unconnected" that their relative order "rests on little more than con- 
jecture." ^ This is the case with Ammurabi or Amraphel, who is placed 
in the middle of the first Babylonian dynasty. He and his son Samsu Iluna 
are neither connected with the kings before them nor with the kings 
which follow, and there are reasons for suspecting that they should be 
placed at the end of the dynasty. In the Greek lists, Ninus or Nimrod 
is shown to have been succeeded by Semiramis, who reigned for 42 years, 
and her death must therefore have taken place some 70 to 80 years after the 
foundation of the empire in 2234 b.c. Now, it seems impossible that 
within 40 years after the death of this powerful queen the great Cushite 
Empire should have been completely broken up, as it is shown to be in 
the days of Ammurabi or Amraphel. Such a state of things, showing as 
it does the growing power of the Elamites in Babylon, would be the 
natural precursor of the Elamite conquest, but not of a period 100 years 
before that event. 

Ammurabi's expedition to Canaan as the ally of Chedorlaomer appears 
to have been in the thirtieth year of his reign, and his quarrel with the 
Elamite king in the thirty-second year, previous to which they were on the 
most friendly terms, a daughter of Ammurabi having married a prince of 

' Tkt Firtt BiUe, p. 152. ' Five Qrtal Monarchist voL i p. 165. 



404 THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



I 



2002 
1787 
1572 
1532 



Elam.' Is it not possiUe, therefore, that this qoaircl w^ Elam was the 
beginning of the war with that country, and that^ although Ammniali 
at first defeated Chedorlaomer, it resulted in the temporary overthrow ol 
the kingdom by Kedor Nakhonta a few years lator t In this otn^ 
Ammurabi and Samsu Hona would be tiie two last kings of the fint 
Babylonian dynasty, and the thirtieth year of Ammurabi when he aooom- 
panied Chedorlaomer to Oanaan would tihen be 2005 B.a (vide TsUe of 
^^gs), which would be almost exactly tihe date of Amraphel's expeditioD 
to Oanaan according to corrected Scripture chronology; this expedition 
being a year or two before the covenant with Abraham. Thus : — 

Abraham's departure to Oanaan .... 2005 &G. 

Second Expedition and Defeat of Amraphel — 
Oovenant with Abraham 
Period of 215 years 

Jacob and his Sons go to Egypt 
Israel in Egypt 215 years 
Exodus and giving of the Law ^ 
Israel in Wilderness 40 years 
Entrance to Oanaan 
Period of Judges — 450 years, less 18 > ,^^ 

ye«8of Samuel duriagreignofSwilf ^^''^ 
Accession of Saul ...... 1100 

Eeign of the kings of Judah to — 

The First Oapture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadneszar 

two years before he came to the throne . . 608 

Final Capture of Jerusalem .... 589 

Capture of Babylon by Cyrus and accession of Darius 

the Mede ...... 538 

Accession of Cyrus . 536 

Some have supposed that Israel's sojourn in Egypt was 430 years; 
but this is quite impossible as it was to be only for four generations — 
Levi, Kohath, Amram and Moses (see Gen. xv. 16), and the whole 
period from the Covenant to the Law is stated to be exactly 430 yean 
(Gal iii. 17), while from the Oovenant to the arrival in Egypt was exaetlj 
half that period. 

The period of the Judges is stated to have been "about 450 years" 
(Acts xii. 20). But Samuel, the last of the Judges, who is said to have 
"judged Israel all the days of his life " (1 Sam. vi. 15), did not die, according 
to Josephus, until the eighteenth year of SauFs reign, and these 18 
years must therefore be included in the 450. This period also corresponds 
very exactly with the total of the different periods of rest and captivity 
given in the Book of Judges, although there is one brief period between 
the death of Joshua and the first captivity which has to be estimated. 

' Bu ohronological record of Ammurabi's reign, Tht FirU Bi^U, pp. 204, 205. 



APPENDICES 405 

If the capture of Erech by Kedor Nakhunta, mentioned by Asshur- 
banipal, took place in the last years of Ammurabi's reign or in the first 
year of his snccessor, then, according to the arrangement of kings on the 
monumental Hst given by Professor Sayce,' it would have taken place 
in the year 2094 b.c., but Asshur-banipal says it was 1635 years before 
his time (645 B.C.), which would make it 2280 B.C. This discrepancy 
would, however, be accounted for if, as suggested, the third Kassite dynasty 
was partly contemporaneous with the second for a period of 180 to 190 
years,' and that Asshur-banipal regarded them as successive. For if we 
subtract 186 years from 1635 the period would be only 1449 years, which, 
added to 645, would be exactly 2094 b.c. 

These are only suggestions, and with the present imperfect lists of 
kings and the uncertainty as regards their actual oraer of succession, it is 
impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion; but no doubt further 
discoveries will elucidate the question. The date, however, of Gulkisar's 
accession in 1776 B.O., and that of Samu la Ilu in 2234 B.C. seems to be 
fairly certain, and the apparent identity of the latter king with Nimrod, 
whose empire is proved by various testimonies to have commenced 2234 B.C., 
confirms this. 

There are also certain other dates in the accompanying list of kings 
which, as explained in the Notes on the Chronological Table, appear to be 
fairly well established. 

5. In connection with this subject we may notice the modem theory, 
or oAieriion^ that Gen. x. is not a genealogical description of the descendants 
of Noah, but simply an enumeration of certain countries from which the 
people inhabiting them took their names, while some go so far as to say 
that the sacred historians invented progenitors of these different races, 
calling them by the names of these races in order to account for those 
names. Professor Sayce supports this theory. He asserts that Canaan 
was not a son of Ham whose descendants were cursed by Noah, but that, 
as it is a name meaning " low,'' it meant " low-lands '' and was first given 
to the plain country near the coast of Palestine and afterwards extended 
to the whole country! But] there is no evidence whatever that this was 
the case. So also he says that when we are told that Canaan begat Zidon 
his first-bom, all that is meant is that the city of Zidon is to be found in 
the country called Canaan. 

In like manner, he implies that Cush and Mizraim are not to be 
regarded as sons of Ham, but the countries Ethiopia and Egypt; that 
Elam was not a son of Shem, but a word meaning " high " or '< exalted " 
given to the mountainous country on the east of the Lower Euphrates. 
Arphaxad he derives from Arpha Chesed, meaning " bordering on Casdim," 
or Chaldea, and says that it only signifies the country of Chaldea. 

' EarlAf lirady Appendix II., p. 281. In this list Ammurabi and Samsi Ilnna are shown as 
looceeding Sin Mnballidh, in which case the beginning of Ammurabi's reign would be 
2137 B,a, and the first year of his son, Samsi Iluna, 2094 B.o. 



4d6 the worship OF THE DEAD 



He endeaTonrs to explain the origin of some other names in a simikr 
way, and sums up by saying that Oen. x. ^^lays no claim to being 
an ethnological record. On the contrary, it tells ns as plainly as langosgo 
can speak that with ethnology it has nothing to da" ' 

This is like telling a person to his face, who says a tiling Is whiter 
that he clearly means by his words that it is blabk. For if language hii 
any meaning, the intention of the writer of €to. x. is to reeord ths 
descendants of Noah. He is speaking of peraom and not of plaeeM^ sad 
when he speaks of the latter he clearly distinguishes between them sad 
the persons inhabiting them. 

Professor Sayce asserts that in speaking of these supposed ooimtrin 
as sofw of Shem, Ham and Japhet^ Scripture merely follows the Usui 
Semitic method of calling colonies ^^daughters'* of a motiiernatlon. Bat^in 
the first place, while it is still a c(Hnmon form ci speech to speak ol 
colonies as *^daughier nations" of a mother country, there is no preoedsnt 
for the term **aon nations"; and in the second place, when the term 
** daughter " is used, it is thepeoph who have sprang frcmi mrndkarpeopU^ 
and not the p|aces they inhabit that is intended. The t&cm **daii|^iter'' 
is strictly descriptifej^f^lony which has sprang from a mother natico, 
but to say that a oenam tract of land has sprang from, or is ihe dangfatflr 
o^ a nation, or an indiyidoal, is clearly absurd. 

Moreover, the language used by the sacred writer will not admit of 
Professor Sayce's interpretation. Shem, we are told, begat Arphaxad two 
years after the Flood. Did he beget the country Arphaxad in those 
two years, and did the counVry Arphaxad at the age of thirty-five yesn 
beget the country Salah, and, after that, beget sons and daughters or 
numerous other cotmtriea, male amd female? And did the country Salah 
after thirty years beget the country Eber and numerous other male amd 
female countries ? Apparently also each of these countries lived so many 
years and then died, or ceased to exist ! On the same principle also we 
must suppose Terah to be a country and that Terah took the countnj 
Abram and the country Lot, and the female country Sarai, and thai 
these countries left the country of Chaldea and came and dwelt in the 
country Haran ! 

But if the absurdity of this interpretation shows that the writer is 
speaking of persons and not of places, it is clear that the other sons of 
Shem are persons and not places which are plainly distinguished from the 
persons inhabiting them ; as when it is said of the sons of Joktan thst 
" their dwelling was from Mesba as thou goest into Sephar a mount of the 
East."* 

The chapter closes with the words, ' These are the families of the sons 
of Noah after thevr generations in their nations, "3 and these words cm 
only apply to people and would be unmeaning if applied to countries. 

' Frttk Lights, pp. 40-42 ; The Raeet of the Old Testament, chap. iii. pp. 40, 6S. 

' Gen. X. 80. 3 G^eQ. x. 32. 



APPENDICES 407 

Moreover, with a few exceptions, it has always been the custom of the 
human race to call countries after the name of the people inhabiting them, 
as in the case of Gaul after the Gauls, Germany after the Germans, Britain 
after the British (originally Brythons), Scotland after the Scoti, etc., or in 
some cases after the discoverer, as in the case of America and numerous 
islands and places discovered during the last three centuries. This was 
equally the custom in ancient times — " They call the lands after their own 
names" (Psa. xlix. 11), and we may therefore be perfectly certain that the 
districts inhabited by the various tribes and families of the descendants of 
Noah, each of which was distinguished from the other tribes by the name 
of its particular progenitor, would be called by the names of the tribes 
inhabiting them, and that those names would not be relinquished for totally 
new ones based upon some superficial characteristic of the country, such as 
the people of the " high country," or the people of the " low country," which 
could only produce hopeless confusion, as the terms would be equally applic- 
able to numerous other districts inhabited by quite distinct races. 

The only exception to this would be when some celebrated city like 
Babylon, or Accad, was founded on the first occupation of the country, 
although, even in this case, the country was also known by the name of its 
inhabitants, the Kaldi or Chaldeans. 

The origin given by Professor Sayce of names such as " Canaan " " Zou;," 
hence "lowlands"; "Elam," "Ai^A," hence "a mountainous district"; 
Arphaxad, or " Arpha Chesed," " bordering on chesed" hence ** the land of 
Chaldea," are very forced and unnatural. The only excuse for the theory 
is that in one or two cases the people inhabiting a country have been found 
to speak a language, or possess characteristics, different from those of the 
people by whose name they are called. But it should be remembered, 
as pointed out by Professor Sayce himself, that language is not of itself 
a proof of race, and that countries, although still retaining the name of 
the people who first occupied them, may have been inhabited later by a 
totally different race who were yet called after the original name 
of the country. 

Thus some of the people called Amorites, who were descendants of 
Canaan, spoke a Semitic language and are represented by the Eg3rptians 
as of a brown complexion with brown hair and blue eyes, but this ex- 
ception to the general character of the Canaanitish nations may be due, 
as pointed out, to the occupation of the country of the northern Amorites 
by the Aramaeans, or other Semitic tribes, who were called by the Egyptians 
after the original name of the country they occupied. 

The most marked instance, however, is that of the Elamites, who are 
said to have spoken an agglutinative language similar to the Accadian, 
while the racial type was similar to that of the primitive inhabitants of 
Babylonia, — rotmd, broad head, low receding forehead, prognathous jaws, 
frizzly hair, short stature and very little hair on the face,^ a type which 

' The Races of the Old Test, pp. 137, 138. 



APPENDICES 409 

The arrangement of the other kings is in accordance with certain dates 
fixed by the inscriptions : — 

1. Sagarkti Buryas is stated by Nabonidus to have reigned 800 years 
before him/ and as the elements of error which led Nabonidus to fix the 
date of Naram Sin 3200 years before his own reign, do not exist in later 
periods, the statement may be taken as more or less accurate.^ Therefore 
as Nabonidus began to reign 555 B.C., the date of Sagarkti Buryas would be 
1355 B.C. This date is confirmed by another inscription. 

2. Sennacherib, in a rock inscription at Bavian, states that in his tenth 
year he recovered certain images of the gods from Babylon which had been 
taken there by Merodach Nadin Akhi, king of Babylon, after his defeat of 
Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, 418 years before. ^ Sennacherib's date of 
accession is taken as 703 B.C., and his tenth year as 693 B.a, but the grounds 
for this conclusion are doubtful. The exact chronology of the Bible makes 
bis expedition against Hezekiah to be in the fourteenth year of the reign of 
the latter, or 713 b.c., and there seems to be no reason for questioning the 
date. If then we suppose that the expedition was made by Sennacherib in 
the first year of his accession, which would also be in accordance with the 
usual custom, it would then be 713 b.c., and his tenth year would be 703 B.C., 
and 418 years before this bring us to 1121 b.c., which is three years before 
the death of Merodach Nadin Akhi, according to the dynastic lists."* 

The date of Nebuchadnezzar I. is taken by Colonel Conder as 1154 b.c.,5 
and the dates of the kings between Nebuchadnezzar and Sagarkti Buryas 
are in accordance with the known lengths of their reigns, the only un- 
certainty being the four kings whose names are missing to whom it is neces- 
sary to give a period of 97 years, or an average of 24 years each, which is 
high but not excessive. It will be noticed that the date of the termination 
of the third Kassite dynasty by Bel sum iddin, agrees almost exactly with 
the date of the termination of the corresponding dynasty of Berosus, which 
therefore tends to confirm its accuracy.^ 

3. The dates before Sagarkti Baryas are in accordance with the known 
lengths of the reigns to Kurigalzu III., but the reigns of the 18 or 20 
kings previous to him have not been ascertained and can only be estimated. 
But even at the low estimate of 14 years for each king, it makes the 
first king of the dynasty to have been the contemporary of Gulkisar as 
already suggested. 

4. Professor Sayce has made Kadasman Bel the successor of Elara-indas, 
but this is clearly incorrect, as shown by an Assyrian tablet which records 
a succession of five Babylonian monarchs as contemporary with certain 

' Early hrad. Appendix II. p. 282. 

' The 800 years would appear to be a round number, and the actual period may have 
been a few years more or lees. 

3 Pit^ Great Monarehits, vol. i. p. 164. 

^ Sayce, Early Itrael, p. 232. See also Chronological Table. 

s The First Bible, p. 203. See also Sayce, Early Itrael, Appendix II. p. 282, and note. 

<* See anUf p. 281. 



4IO THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 



AmjrimoL kingi widi whom they ipbto on tenoB of fnetadAdp. KuMndii 
is tko flratj^ and condnded » trasty of dlianne with Aslivr bd nin n, 
and tiini tmly is i B tta w iwl bj tlie Buar Admr, the niinrfim of Admr 
bol mud an with Boma BuyMi tiie snooenor of Kan-indaa. Bmna 
Bniyaa eontiftw the friendahqp with the a o cc e w a r of Bonr Aahor, na^ 
AOaat npalKti and manM tiie dans^ter of the latter. The imie of 
tfaia manriage is a Erinee Kaga^rhaidaa, idio on the death of Bnnia 
BuiyM^ ro eeee d i to Ae thrane of Bahjion, bat ia mnrdered by a 
eertain VmdAmgim^ who nsaips the thtooe^ whereapoo Ashiir Upslfit 
in^adea Babjkn, kiUa the nsuper and {daees Kvri-galso, a younger soo 
of Boraa Buiyasi upon the throne.' This, thereloreb ia the tme anoeeanan 
{ms TiibfeX and as Kara4dhardas was murdered and the vaiuper wis 
qoiddy deposed, the interval between Buna Bniyaa and hia son Knii-galn 
was probaUy under a year and need not be taken into eonaideration. 

There ia nothing to show the poaitian of Kadasman Bd, but as the 
sweceswon is oontinnoos after Knri-galaa L, Kadasman Bel mnst have 
been previoiis to Kara-indas. Kadasman Bel was a oontenqporary of the 
Itgyptian king Ammnophis UL, by wiiom the petaeontioa of the Isradites 
i^pears to ha^e been b^gnn, and as the Bzodiis was in the reign of 
Meaepthah, 80 to 100 years atterwarda, it wookl inqply that Amenophis 
UL rmgoBi 80 to 100 years before 1572 ao^ whieh is the date of the 
Bxodva aooording to oorreeted Scripture dironology. Both Scriptnre and 
Babylonian chronology are tiieref ore oomjdetely at variance with tlM aesomed 
Egyptian chronology, upon which very little dependence can be placed. 

4. It will be seen that the contemporary Assyrian kings, from Ashor 
bel nisi su to Tiglath Bir, the contemporary of the Babylonjan king Rimmon 
sum uzur, are very few as compared with the number of Babylonian kings 
during the corresponding interval, while the kings after Tiglath Bir to 
Asurdan I., the contemporary of the Babylonian king Zamana sum iddin, 
are much too numerous for the very short interval of 45 years. So also 
there is only one king between Assurdan I. and Assur ris isi, the con- 
temporary of Nebuchadnezzar I., which is wholly inconsistent with the 
interval, which could not have been less than 125 years. Therefore, as 
the dates of the Babylonian kings are fairly well established, it implies 
that the succession of the Assyrian kings is considerably out of (Mrder, and 
that some of the earlier kings are probably missing. 

5. There is one other date which can be approximately fixed, viz., that 
of Isme Dagon, king of Isin. Tiglath Pileser I. states that he rebuilt a 
temple which had been taken down 60 j^ears before, after it had lasted for 641 
years from its erection by Shamas Yul, a son of Isme Dagon. ^ The re- 
building must have been at the beginning of Tiglath Pileser's reign before 
his defeat by Merodach nadin akhi, or about 1130 B.C., and its first 
erection would therefore be 1130-1-60-1-641 = 1831 B.C., and, as we must 

' Five Oreat Monarrhiet^ vol. i. p. 169. 
» Ibid., ToL I. p. 164. 



APPENDICES 4" 

Buppoee that Isme Dagon began to reign not less tban 30 years before, 
it would make the date of his accession about 1860 ac* 



APPENDIX E 

"HISTORY OF SAKCHONIATHON '' 

Sanchoniathon was an ancient Phoenician historian who lived about the 
time of the Trojan War. He is referred to by Athenseus, by Porphyry, 
Theodoret, Suidas, and by Eusebius. His history was translated into 
Greek by a Pagan writer called Philo Byblius, who wrote at the end of 
the first century A.D., but both the original and translation are lost, and 
the only existing remains of the history are portions of the translation 
quoted by Eusebius and his Pagan opponent Porphyry. 

But certain modem writers have tried to discredit this history by 
suggesting that it was a forgery by Philo Byblius. We naturally ask, 
however. What evidence is there of such forgery? An invention would 
show evidence of system and artificial arrangement. But there is nothing 
of the kind in this history. It is a statement of dry facts such as would 
be made by a person who, having collected them from various sources, 
recorded them without even understanding their true relation and 
significance. 

Again, What object could Philo Byblius have in constructing a forgery 
which could only tend to bring his religion into contempt before the 
Christians ? 

The latter is evidently a crucial question, and felt to be so by the 
opponents of the history. It is, therefore, suggested by some that it was 
forged out of enmity to the Christians, in order to prove that the Pagans 
had something to show of equal antiquity to the books of Moses. Such a 
suggestion is weak and absurd. The history, so far as it goes, corroborates 
the Mosaic account, and the only effect of the forgery would, therefore, 
be to support the religion they hated. 

Again, the Jesuit Father Simon suggested that it was forged to support 
Paganism, by expunging from the latter its mythology and allegories. But 
it does not even do this, and, as the writer of the article in the Encyclopedia, 
Britannica remarks, the Christians did not object to the Pagan allegories, 

' Professor Sayce represents Isme Dagon as a high priest distinct from the king Isme 
Dagon. He does this, no doubt, beoause to admit that he was king of that name would 
completely upset his arrangement of kings, which is constructed to give colour to the 
exaggerated date of Naram Sin by Nabonidus. No doubt the king Isme Dagon was a 
high priest, for all the early Babylonian kings were ** patesis " or priest kings, and heads of 
the priesthood, or high pontiffs, which tends to prove that Isme Dagon, the high priest, 
was Isme Dagon the king. 



4ia THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

bat to the immonility of the Pi^gaa gods and goddeflses, which tiiis history 
has done nothing to remove. This suggestion is equally fcMnoed and weak. 

There axe others again who assert that Philo was » particnlar adherent 
of EnhememSy who, as we have seen, is stated to have searched the archives 
of namerons Pagan temples, and, on their authority, to have represented 
the originals of tiie Pagan gods to have been men who had lived upon the 
earth as hmnan kings. It is asserted that Philo, in order to sapport the 
teaching of Eohemems, foiged the history and pretended that it was taken 
from the history of Sanchoniath<m. These are mere assertions nnsnpported 
by evidence. It is a wholly groundless assertion to say that Philo was a 
special disciple of Euhemerus (another pretended forger), for we have seen 
i^t the teaching of Euhemerus was the common belief throughout the 
Pagan world, that it existed long before his time, and in countries which 
he had probably never seen, and that it is supp<»rted by a multitude of 
inoidentid and perfectly undesigned corroborations by numerous ancient 
writers. 

The assertion that the human origin A the gods was invented fay 
Euhemerus is not only disproved ^ these facts, but^ as befcMEe remarked, 
it would have been impossible for anyone to have invented a theory wholly 
qppoaed to the previous belief A Paganism without calling forth » storm 
A opposition, of which ample records would have remained in contemporary 
and subsequent literature^ together with ample evidence that it was ful^^ 
recognised at the time to have been invented. There are no such records, 
because, although Euhemerus might be charged with impiety for publishing 
matters only revealed in the Mysteries, they were recognised as true bj 
every initiate of those Mysteries. 

In like manner with the history of Sanchoniathon. How is it that 
it was not opposed at the time and represented to be a forgery by those 
most interested in opposing it and best able to judge of its authenticity f 
If it had been a forgery for the purpose of misrepresenting the general 
Pagan belief, it would certainly have been opposed at the time and its 
authenticity questioned. The history of Sanchoniathon was well known 
at the time, and if Philo Byblius had forged his translation, the deception 
would have been quickly recognised and exposed. But instead of this, it 
was accepted at the time as genuine by both Pagans and Christians. 

How is it again that Pagans, some of whom evince the greatest respect 
for their religion, should be the very people who insist on the human origin 
of their gods, which, if false, could only tend to lower the estimation in 
which they were heldl Instead of the charge of invention and forgery 
being brought against them at the time by their co-religionists, who were 
most interested in the question and the best able to judge of its truth, 
it is not until quite modem times that these charges have been brought 
by people who have nothing but assertion to support their indictment. 

There could be no motive for Pagans who believed in their own religion 
invwAvng the human origin of their gods. 



APPENDICES 413 

On the other hand, when we see modem writers defending Paganism 
against the Pagans themselTes, and, without any just grounds, calling 
every ancient document which admits the human origin of the gods an 
invention or forgery of the writer, one cannot help suspecting that an 
underlying animus is the cause of such charges. This suspicion is increased 
when we see that, in cases where one motive for the supposed forgery seems 
to be insufficient, another is suggested, as if there was a determination to 
use any and every means in order to throw discredit on the testimony. 

In the case of Sir Gardner Wilkinson, it would seem that, fascinated 
by the art and grandeur of ancient Egypt and the outward attributes of 
righteousness given to its gods, he refused to admit any evidence which 
tended to lower his ideal, although his theories were often directly opposed 
to his own admissions. 

In like manner, the halo of romance and antiquity, which surrounds 
the ancient Paganism, exercises an undoubted fascination over many 
classical scholars and might naturally create in them a feeling of antagonism 
to evidence which tends to dispel or diminish it ; and this may lead them 
to accept, without sufficient inquiry, the suggestion that such evidences were 
forgeries. The attributes also given to the Pagan gods and their identifica- 
tion with the great powers of nature may seem to justify them in refusing to 
believe that these gods were merely the supposed spirits of the dead. In 
this they are so far right, for, as we have shown throughout, the gods 
eventually worshipped retained little identity with their human originals, 
who merely constituted the stepping-stone on the basis of which the 
system was ultimately developed. 

But the originators of these charges of forgery will be probably found 
elsewhere. The worship of the dead is the central feature of the Roman 
Catholic religion and of those allied cults which are gaining such a hold 
upon the upper classes in this and other countries, and it must be expected, 
therefore, that the advocates and propagators of these creeds, and all who 
admire or lean to them, will be the chief opponents of evidence which, 
by identifying their doctrines with those of the ancient Paganism, throws 
discredit on their teaching. 

In spite, however, of the opposition that must be expected from these 
sources, the accumulative evidence in proof of the human origin of the 
Pagan gods will, no doubt, convince many of its truth and lead them to 
conclude that the portions of Sanchoniathon's history which have been 
preserved are, in all probability, the genuine statements of that writer. 



INDEX 



Aboudad, " Father Boud Dat," first 

Man-buU of the Zend Avesta, 125. 
Abuto, "Father Bud," 103. 
Accad, Accadians, 11, 71, 73, 76, 77, 

119, 148, 390-402,407, 408. 
Ad, Adites, 74-76, 391. 
Adept, a possessor of magical powers, 

150, 173, 174. 
Adon, Adonis, 36, 52, 262, 321. 
^gyptus, 40, 41, 78. 
^sculapins. Sun and Serpent god, 

14, 43, 44, 51, 54, 108, 233, 257, 

336. 
Ethiopia, the ancient country of, 71- 

75. 
^thiops, or Gush, the father of 

Bacchus, 38, 78, 212. 
Agathodsemon, "the Good Serpent," 

the son of Hermes, a title of 

Cnouphis, 237, 255, 351. 
Agni, the Indian Vulcan, god of 

Fire, 95. 
Agroueros, father of the Titans, 201, 

203. 
Akasa, the mesmeric fluid, 118. 
Alexander the Great, 15, 239. 
Amarusia, " Mother of Grace," 63. 
Amenra, or Amunre, Egyptian Sun 

god, 46, 47, 51, 369, 370. 
Amita ; see Amitabha. 
Amitabha, Buddha, 102-110, 123. 
Ammas, or Rhea, 59. 
Ammon, or Amon ; see Ham. 
Amraphel, or Ammurabi, king of 

Babylon, 388, 395, 403, 404. 
Annedoti, sea daemons, 182, 183, 192, 

193, 377-380. 
Anobret, or Anobrot, "heavenly 

image," or " heavenly mortal," 35, 

207, 208. 
Anu, 42, 48, 52. 
Anubis, 48, 51. 
Apepi, the Pharaoh under whom 



Joseph was ruler, 277-279, 327, 
367. 

Aphrodite, or Venus, "the Wrath 
Subduer, 60-63, 346. 

Apis, the sacred Bull of Osiris, 40, 
370. 

Apollo, 13, 44, 49, 96, 130, 235. 

Apophis, "the Evil Serpent," name 
given to the Shepherd king ApepL 

Apporeta, the secret of the "Mys- 
teries,'' 234, 350, 351, 374. 

Arabia, the first land of Cush, 72-76. 

Ares ; see Mars. 

Argo, Argha, "the Ark," 91, 96, 
124, 133, 136, 216. 

Arhat, title of Buddhist Adept, 116. 

Aribah, name of the first Cu^hite in- 
habitants of Arabia, 72-76. 

Arioch, grandson of Semiramis, 291, 
316. 

Arioch, king of Larsa, 395. 

Ark (the), 322-325. 

Artemis, or Diana, 59. 

Asar, name of Osiris, 40, 42, 319, 
372. 

Asas, name of Scythian tribes, 135. 

Asshur-banipal, inscriptions of, 395, 
405. 

Astarte, or Ashtoreth, the same god- 
dess as Ishtar, 60-63, 346. 

Athena, or Minerva, 61. 

Athoth, or Athothes, 83, 85, 87, 88. 

Augustus Csesar, 239. 

Aum, or Om, mystic title of Buddha, 
101, 120, 123. 

Baal Bkrith, "Lord of the Cove- 
nant," 325. 

Baal Saman, "Lord of Heaven," 
136, 199, 325. 

Baalzebub, " Lord of the Fly," PhcB- 
nician Serpent god, 136, 239, 240. 

Babel, or Bab-il, " the Gate of God," 



415 



4i6 



INDEX 



20, 21, 32, 34, 61, 206, 206, 208, 

392. 
Baoohia, the sacred Boll o( Hermon- 

this, sacred to Osiris, 40. 
Bacohiis, 37-41, 44-46, 49-62, 78, 

90, 111, 139, 219, 236, 321, 346, 

361, 374. 
Baghis, or Siva, the Indian Baodhus, 

91. 
Balan Qnitse^ Balan Agal, Mexican 

gods, 140. 
Balder, son of Woden, 134, 267, 321. 
Baptism, Pagan,. 344. 
Bar, 23, 31, 319. 

Baris, a name of the Aric, 46, 133. 
Bel, Belas, or Baal, <'the Lord," 17, 

20, 22, 23, 26-27, 29-31, 33, 40, 
44, 61, 62, 64, 69, 78, 84, 88, 
90, 128, 130t 132, 140, 266, 320, 
341, 392, 400, 401. 

Bel, Ohaldee for « hearty" the sacred 
heart a symbol of Bel, 48, 49, 140, 
343. 

Beli, a title of tiie Oeltio god "Ho." 

Bellona, <*the Lamenter of Bel," 
wife of Mars, 42, 64. 

Bel Nimrod, 21-23, 40-46. 

Beltis, or Bilta, 19, 42, 54, 58, 60, 
408. 

Bes, a form of Set or Typhon, 265. 

Betylus, or Baitulos, '* the Life Re- 
stored Child/' a title of Jupiter, 
203, 210. 

Bilta Niprut, Babylonian goddess, 20, 

21, 23, 29. 

Bilu Nipni, Babylonian god ; %ee Bel 

Nimrod, 20, 21. 
Boar (the), emblematic of the enemy 

of the Pagan gods, 262. 
Bocchoris the Wise, king of Egypt, 

burnt alive by Sabacon, 315. 
Bod, Bud or Budd, the Celtic Buddha, 

129, 139. 
Boddhisatwas, Buddhist saints, 105, 

113. 
Bore, or Bure, the Gothic Noah, 

133. 
Brahma, 18, 52, 90, 91, 100, 184, 

187. 
Broum, or Broumis, a title of Bac- 
chus, 139. 



Baddha, 99-122, 133^ 134, 148, 184, 

241. 
Baddh% yariations of name^ 103. 
Bndd, or Wndd, AraUaa Buddha, 

120, 136. 
Bnlla, heart-shaped amulet^ a Symbol 

of Bel, 49, 343. 

Caduobus, magic wand of Merauy 

and Anubis, 48, 238. 
OaimiB, a title of Osiiis^ 97. 
Gala, " ISme," a title A Chxmus^ ISL 
Oali, wife of Siva, 97. 
Oama deva, Lidian Onpid, 96. 
Oama, Ham, 18, 90. 
CannibaliB, Kohna JBal, ^'priest ol 

Bel," 34, 36. 
Cannibalism, origin o^ 34, 36, 906, 

209. 
Oapeyanas, the hunter and wankr 

son of Charvanayanas, 93. 
Capoteswari, the dove^ symbol of 

Indian Jnna 
Centanms, 267. 
Cepbeos, son til Belns and king of 

the Cnshites, 20, 392. 
Ceres, 61, 64, 112, 136, 141, 319, 

346. 
Chaityas, Indian objects of worship, 

122. 
Cham, or Khem, Egyptian name of 

Ham, 18. 
Ohanaan, 17. 
Chandra Yansa, lunar dynasty of 

India. 
Chaos, Greek god of Confosion, a 

title of Janus, 33, 51. 
Charvanayanas, king of Asiatic 

Cusha Dwipa. 93. 
Chef ren, Greek corruption of " Khe- 

fra," the successor of Snphis L, 

266, 267, 290-292. 
Cheops, Greek corruption of the 

name of the Pyramid king 

'* Kuphu,*' or Suphis I. ; tee 

Suphls. 
Chin Fo, or Kwanyin, the rating 

Buddha, 103. 
Chon, '*the Lamenter," the 

Hercules, 263. 
Chrishna, Indian ApoUo^ 96, 320. 



INDEX 



417 



Chrysa, mother of the antediluvian 
Phlegyse, 189, 201. 

Chrysor, the antediluvian HephsB- 
stus, 183, 189, 201, 255. 

Chusorus, "Seed of Gush," Phoeni- 
cian god, 318. 

Cnouphis, or Chnoumis, Egyptian 
god, 47, 237, 238, 370, 371. 

Ccelus, Latin name of Ouranos, 
" Heaven " ; 9ee Ouranos. 

Colchians, 79, 80. 

Cronus, 14, 17, 18, 25, 28-30, 33- 
35, 37, 51, 52, 59, 84, 85, 95, 129, 
131, 196, 203-208, 274, 275. 

Cross (the), 138, 140, 217, 219, 222- 
223, 225-230, 341. 

Crux Ansata, 78, 226, 228. 

Ctesias, his history, 64-68. 

Cupid, 49. 

Cush, 17, 19, 20, 28-30, 32-34, 38, 
40, 41, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51, 53, 55, 
58, 59, 71, 76-78, 84, 88, 89, 94, 
130-132, 142-147, 182-184, 204- 
209, 214, 266, 267, 313-315, 330, 
331. 

Cushites, 71-80, 91-95. 

Cybele, or Rhea, 59, 112, 319. 

Cyclops, Khuk Lobhy "Kings of 
Flaine," the people of Vulcan, the 
god of Fire, 34, 35, 92, 138. 



Daoon, Babylonian Fish god, 44, 45, 

51, 110, 128, 203. 
Dagun, a title of Buddha, 128. 
Daimonio-leptoi, Greek prophets pos- 
sessed by dsemons, 157. 
Datta, or Tatta, a title of Buddha, 

101, 103, 125. 
Dayyad, the hunter, 23. 
Dea Mjnrionymus, " the Gxxidess with 

Ten Thousand Names,'' 13, 22, 64. 
Dedan, son of Cush, 71. 
Delphic Oracle, 152, 153, 157. 
Deluge (the), 3-8, 187-189, 380-387. 
Deonaush, or Deva Nahusha, the 

Indian Dionusus, 41, 90, 93, 235. 
Derketo, the goddess, mother of 

Semiramis, 197, 198. 
Despoina, "the Lady," a title of 

Diana. 

2D 



Dharma, the Buddhist goddess, a 

title of Kwanyin, 105-107. 
Diana, 59-63, 236, 262. 
Dianus, a title of Janus, 236. 
Diespiter, or Dyauspiter, the Indian 

Jupiter, 41. 
Dionusus, or Dionysius, the surname 

of Bacchus, 38, 41, 52, 90, 235. 
Diphues, "Twice Bom," a title of 

Noah, 344. 
Dis, a title of Pluto, 42, 48, 62. 
Diune, or Dione, " the Dove " ; see 

Juno, 61, 62. 
Divodesa, king of Asiatic Cusha 

Dwipa, 93. 
Djemschid, 75, 76, 89, 191, 197. 
Domina, "the Lady," a title of Cybele, 

59, 60. 
Draco the Dragon, 108 ; «ee " Hea." 
Druids, 130, 136-140. 
Dumuzi, Tammuz, 30. 
Dvorgu, or Doorga, the giant, 96, 

267, 268 ; see Parvati. 

Ekstatikoi, Greek diviners by means 

of trance, 157. 
Elamites, 407, 408. 
Elu, or Bel, 27. 

Engonasis, the Serpent Crusher, 320. 
Enthousiastoi, Greek prophets with 

a familiar spirit, 157. 
Epigeus, " Dependent on the Earth," 

a title of Ouranos, 203. 
Eros, or Cupid, 49. 
Estruscans, 10, 313. 
Euhemeros, a Greek writer on mjrtho- 

logy, 14, 18, 414. 

Festival op the Dead, 4-8. 

Fire worship, 35, 95, 215, 216,233,332. 

Fo, Chinese name of Buddha, 103, 

104, 123, 124. 
Freya, Gothic goddess Mother, 134. 

Gad, the god of War, 87. 
Ganesa, son of Siva, 268. 
Gautama, a title of Sakya Muni, the 

modern Buddha, 99. 
Ge, wife of Ouranos, 96, 203. 
Gilgames ; see Isdubar, 57. 
Glacial Period, 381, 384-387. 



4i8 



INDEX 



Golf Stream, 383-385. 
Gurgumi, Buddhiat prayers for the 
dead, 347. 

Halo, the nimbiiB or aureole, symbol 

of the Sun god, 111. 
Hammurabi, or Ammuzabi, king of 

Babylon, me Amraphel. 
Ham, or Ammon, 16, 17, 28, 32, 46, 

47, 78. 
Harpocrates, or Horua, 49. 
Hasiaadra, Uie Chaldean Noah, 53. 
Haunted places, 178-180, 340. 
Havilah, son of Cush, 71. 
Hea, 23, 26, 28-31, 33, 36, 43-45, 61, 

76, 77, 108, 109, 129-132, 399. 
Hea Bani, « the Life GiTor," the 

friend and counsellor of Isdubar, 

54, 56. 
Heart (the), sacred to and symbol of 

Bel, 48, 49, 140, 343. 
Hecate, 64. 

Helius, the Sun god, 235, 255. 
Hephaistos, or Hephsastus, a title of 

Vulcan and Ohrysor, 33, . 51, 52, 1 

183, 255. 
Hercules, 23, 24, 41, 52, 54, 55, 82. 
Hercules (Egyptian), 262, 263. 
Heri Maya, *Hhe Great Lord," a 

title of Buddha, 103. 
Hermes, 19, 31-33, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, 

78, 84, 88, 109, 128, 130-133, 183. 
Hermetic teaching, 147-163, 181-206, 

217-219, 222-224, 229, 231-234. 
Hero gods, deified men, 338. 
Hesa, or Hesus, a title of Buddha and 

a Celtic god, 103, 136. 
Himyaric language of the Aribah or 

Cushites of Arabia, 72, 73, 77. 
Horus, 13, 44, 49, 52, 112, 262, 314, 

319, 320, 333, 369, 372, 375, 376. 
Hu, or Prydain, British god, 129- 

131, 139, 185, 137, 138, 242. 
Human sacrifices, 35, 95, 136, 137, 

140, 207-209, 240, 241, 243-245, 

343-345, 373. 
Hypnotism, Electro Biology, etc., 

174, 175. 

Iao, Sun and Serpent god, a title of 
Bacchus, 235. 



Ichthys, '' the Fish," a title of 

Bacchus, 45, 46. 
LH.S., Pagan ^mbol, 219, 231. 
Ha, wife and mother of Menu and 

Buddha, 125. 
H, Chinee for god, Fhaamcian name 

of Cronus, 35, 207, 401. 
Indra, god of Bain,aform of Ishnuh, 

93, 95. 
lone, or Yoni, 233. 
Ishnuh, "the Man Noah," 93, 124. 
Ishtar, 29, 31, 42, 54, 57, 58, 60, 

398 399 
Isis, 16, 49, 61, 63, 64, 90, 314, 319, 
. 321,333,371,372. 
Isi, tiie Indian Ids, 90, 112, 319. 
Iswara, the Indian Osuis, 90, 112, 

126, 319. 
Ivy, sacred to Bacchus, 39. 
Izdubar, 53-57, 320, 398. 

Jahus, 33, 51, 62, 131, 236. 
Japetus, Japhet^ 17, 18, 61, 64. 
Juggernaut^ the Indian Molodi, 95, 

241. 
Juno, 15, 17, 18, 61-64. 
Jupiter, 15, 41, 47, 52, 112, 136, 209, 

319. 

Kassites, kings of Babylonia, 402, 

403. 
Elienge, or Sumir, Southern Baby- 
lonia, 400, 401. 
Kissioi, the people of Chusistan, 38, 

402. 
Kisses, '* Ivy," surname of Bacchus, 

38. 
Khem, Egyptian god of Generatioii, 

43, 47, 369-371, 377. 
Khrishna ; see Chrishna. 
Khufu, Egyptian form of the name 

Suphis ; see Suphis. 
Kwanyin, Buddhist god, 103, 112. 
Kwanyin, Buddhist ^Kidess, 102-105, 

111,112. 

Latinus, " the Hidden One," 313. 

Laut, or Siva, 90. 

Levitation, 164-166. 

Lhama, the Grand Lhama of Thibet, 



INDEX 



419 



the incarnation of Fo or Buddha, 

104, 110. 
Lhama, or Lama, Accadian for giant 

and daemon, 119. 
Lhamas, Buddhist priests, 119, 123. 
Lingam, Indian name of the Phallus, 

90-93. 
Linus, a title of Bacchus, 50, 321. 
Loki, the evil spirit of the Scandina- 
vians, 267. 
Lugal Kigub, first king of Ur, 399, 

400. 
Lugal Usumgal, first king of Lagas, 

400. 
Lugal Zaggisi, or Sargina, ** the 

Great Lord Sargina," first king of 

Erech, 399. 
Luksmi, the Indian Venus, 96. 
Lycurgus, identified with Bacchus, 

256. 

Machodab Nath, a title of Buddha, 

124, 128. 
Mahabad, first king of Iran, 125, 

129, 130, 184. 
Maha deva, Iswara or Siva, 91, 93. 
Mahesha, the giant conqueror of the 

gods, 268. 
Mahi-man, "the Great Mind," a 

title of Buddha, 103, 128, 132. 
Maia, the goddess Mother, mother of 

Menu, Buddha and Vulcan, 97, 

124, 127, 141. 
Mamers, or Mars, 42. 
Mane, or Mani, Moon god of the 

Goths, 86. 
Maneros, son of first king of Egypt ; 

see Eros. 
Manetho, Egyptian historian, his 

chronology, 388-390. 
Man, or Wan, symbol of Buddhist 

esoteric doctrine, 122. 
Mars, 41, 42, 52, 68, 134, 136. 
Melkat Ashemin, ''Queen of 

Heaven." 
Mena, Meni, or Menes, first king of 

Egypt, 84-88, 260, 262, 267. 
Mencheres, Egjrptian king, restorer 

of the worship of the gods, 290-292. 
Mendes, Egyptian god of Generation, 

43. 



Mene, " the Numberer," father of the 

gods, 86, 87. 
Meni, the Moon god, a form of 

Thoth, 86. 
Mens, or Mind, the father of the 

gods, 87, 128. 
Menu, 15, 18, 123, 124, 127-130, 139, 

184. 
Mercury, 31, 32, 43, 47, 48, 51, 109, 

127-133. 
Merodach, or Meridug, 26, 27, 30, 31, 

36, 41, 51. 
Mesmerism, 118, 167-174. 
Mexican religion, 140-142, 244, 245, 

320. 
Mexitli, Mexican Creator, 241. 
Milo Fo, or Maitreya Buddha, the 

Buddha to come, 103. 
Minerva, 61-64, 136. 
Misraimites and Egyptians, the two 

races, 40, 73, 85, 256, 367. 
Mithras, Persian Sun god, 219, 220. 
Mnevis, the sacred Bull, 40, 370. 
Mola, the round cake offered in sacri- 
fice, 346. 
Moloch, 34, 35. 
Moumis, son of the Babylonian 

goddess, 36. 
Mukiber, a title of Vulcan, " Mighty 

King," 34. 
Mylitta, Babylonian goddess, 60, 63, 

112. 
Mysteries (the), 14, 114, 149, 151, 

223, 234, 344, 349-351, 374. 



Naamah, sister of Tubal-Cain, 196- 

198,211. 
Nabonidus, last king of Babylon, his 

dates, 388, 402, 403, 408, 409. 
Nana, or Ishtar, 29. 
Nandavesta, Buddhist and Scandi- 
navian symbol, 135. 
Naram Sin, successor of Sargani of 

Accad, 388, 402. 
Narayana, a title of Buddha, 124, 

128. 
Nebo, Babylonian prophetic god, 29- 

31, 33, 44, 45, 51, 54. 
Nebrod, Greek form of the name 

"Nimrod,"21, 24, 401. 



420 



INDEX 



Nebros, luune of the Bacred fawn of 
Bacchus in Greece, 37, 256. 

Neith, the Egyptian IChiervai 61, 63, 

Neitocria, qaeen of Babylon and 
I^t^ 65, 291, 292. 

Nema Nath, a title of Buddha, 132. 

Nemaua, wife of Ham, 196, 197, 211. 

Nephilun (tiie), 189-198, 200, 208. 

Neigal, Babylonian god of War and 
Hunting, 27. 

Nimbus, or hido^ symbol of descent 
from the Sun god, 342. 

Nimrod, Nvmt^ '< leopard"; Bad^ 
« subdue," 19-28, 3542, 45, 61, 53- 
58, 59, 66-68, 70, 74-76, 79-85, 88, 
89, 91, 93, 195-197, 209-212, 255, 
256, 330-333, 390-392, 398-403. 

Nin, the Assyrian Hercules, 23, 28, 
31, 36, 41, 54, 55, 58, 319. 

Nineveh, Sw neoeA, 'Hhe habita- 
tion of Nin," 25, 26, 27. 

Ninus, 23, 25, 35, 50, 51, 54, 58, 64- 
67, 80, 88, 208, 256, 401. 

Nipur, or NiflBar, a city of Bal^lonia, 
21, 401. 

Nuf reka, prenomen of the first Shep- 
herd kmg and of Suphis I., 293, 
294. 

Number, or the Numberer, " Mene," 
father of the gods, 86, 87. 

Nam Shufu, or Suphis II., successor 
of Suphis L, 289, 291, 294. 

Cannes, 44, 45, 51, 54, 67, 128-132, 

183, 192-193, 197-198, 203, 211, 

236, 277. 
Obi, Serpent worshippers of Africa, 

131, 196. 
Ob, Oub, Oph, name in Scripture for 

persons with familiar spirits, 131, 

140. 
Odin, Scandinavian name of Woden, 

134. 
Ogmius, "the Lamenter," a title of 

Hercules, 263. 
Omorca, the sea, 379. 
Onuphis, a title of Osiris, 40, 238, 

296 373 
Orion,' 16, 24, 52, 82, 257. 
Orpheus, identified with Bel; his 

death, 256, 257. 



Osiris, 14, 16, 364^2, 54, 78, 80^2, 
84, 90, 91, 111, 112, 141, 209, 856, 
258, 259, 266, 269, 274, 275, 314, 
319, 321, 325, 326, 333, 346, 367, 
370-876. 

Ouianus (Noah), father of the Titaiis, 
18, 96, 203, 206, 208, 266, 867. 

Padhapani, a title of Sangha, 106. 
Pallas, the giant^ a surname of Mm- 

erva, 96, 268. 
Pan, 42, 43, 47, 61, 68, 141, 266, 

314. 
Parvati Dvorgu, ox Doorga, the 

Indian Minerva, 96, 125, 241, 268. 
Patesi, aiwiest king of Babylonia, 388. 
Penances, Pagan, 348, 349. 
Peruvian religion, 148, 143, 841. 
Phallic gods, 70, 80, 90, 283, 824, 

370, 372, 373. 
Phallus, Phallic worship, 70, 76, 80, 

92, 93, 'l\% 217, 823, 834^ S14, 

334, 373. 
PiMstiion, child of the Son, hk death, 

257, 261. 
PhiUtion, the Shepherd, 887, 888. 
Phthah, 47, 48, 51, 239, 326, 370, 

371. 
Pleiades, 5-7. 

Pluto, 42, 48, 52, 112, 319, 372. 
Poden, a variation of the name 

Buddha, 103, 134. 
Popana, name of the round cakes 

offered in sacrifice in Greece, 346. 
Prajna, a title of Kwanyin or Dhar- 

ma, 105, 106. 
Purgatory, Pagan, 346, 347. 
Python, the Serpent of Apollo, 130, 

153, 235, 320. 
Pythoness, 130, 152, 153, 157, 235. 

Rama, Kaamah, son of Cush, 94, 

126. 
Rami, Peruvian festival of the Sun, 

143. 
Rannu, Egyptian Serpent goddess, 

mother of the gods, 325. 
Reti, wife of Cama, 97. 
Rhea, 59-62, 209, 211. 
Rhytia, wife of the Indian Caimis, 

97. 



INDEX 



421 



Rishis, Indian saints, 100, 101. 
Round cake, sacrifice of, 345, 346. 
Rudra, a title of Agni, the Indian 
god of Fire, 95. 

Sabayius, surname of Jupiter and 

Bacchus, 41. 
Sacrifices, human ; Bee Human sacri- 
fices. 
Sacrifices for the dead, 347, 348. 
Sakya Muni, the Buddhist teacher 

and supposed incamo^tion of 

Buddha, 99-110, 116, 123. 
Sama, Indian name of Shem, 18, 90, 

91. 
Saman or Shamna, Irish god, 139. 
Samanseans, Persian and Indian 

magicians, 119. 
Sanchoniathon the Phoenician, his 

history, 14, 20, 183-196, 198, 231, 

414-416. 
Sangha, the third person of the 

Buddhist Trinity, 105-107. 
Sarapis or Osiris, 42, 52, 372, 376. 
Sargani, or Sargina, king of Accad, 

Erech, Kienge and Ur, 388, 398, 

401, 408. 
Sams, Chaldean cycle of years, 281, 

282, 318. 
Saturn, "the Hidden God," 15, 20, 

25, 26, 30, 33-35, 40, 41, 43, 48, 

51, 52, 59, 78, 206, 208-211, 259, 

266, 313. 
Satumia, city of Saturn, ancient city 

on the site of Rome, 10, 313. 
Satumian land, the ancient name of 

Italy, 313. 
Satyrs, 42, 43. 
Seb, Egyptian father of the gods, 40, 

47, 51. 
Seba, son of Gush, 71, 94. 
Second sight, 177, 178. 
Seira kissos, " Seed of Cush," a title 

of Bacchus, 318. 
Semiramis, " the Branch-bearer," 23, 

58, 62, 64, 69, 88, 208-210, 314, 

401, 403. 
Sem, or Shem, 17, 18, 90, 91, 184, 

201, 202, 210, 211, 259, 263, 266, 

269, 271, 275, 298-300, 303-304, 

306, 307, 309, 406. 



Semu, or Set, the enemy of Osiris, 

259. 
Sennacherib, his chronological in- 
scription, 409. 
Serpent worship, 108, 109, 131, 135, 

216, 217-224, 231-242, 335-337, 

373, 374, 379. 
Sesochris, the giant, 82, 83. 
Sesostris, or Sethosis, 79-84. 
Set, or Seth, 259, 260, 265, 269-273, 

276-277, 280, 281-289, 292-294, 

297-307, 368. 
Sethosis, or Sethothes ; 9ee Sesostris. 
Sha, emblem of Seth, 263, 264. 
Shamanas, Buddhist magicians, 116, 

119. 
Sheddad ben Ad, the Adite king and 

conqueror, son of Ad, 74. 
Shefra, Khefra, Chefren, or Num 

Shufu, successor of Suphis I., 289, 

290, 293-296, 305. 
Shem ; see Sem. 
Sheth, a form of the name Shem, 

184. 
Shing Moo, Chinese goddess, 112. 
Shufu, or Khuf u ; 9et Suphis. 
Sibylline Oracle, 17. 
Sin, the Babylonian Moon god, 86, 

267. 
Sinyin, symbol of Buddhist esoteric 

doctrine, 122. 
Siva, or Iswara, the Indian Osiris, 

18, 90-94, 241. 
Soris, or Shura, king of Egypt, the 

predecessor of Sup^ 82, 281, 282, 

318. 
Sova, or Seba, son of Cush, 94. 
Sphinx, the Great, 303. 
Sphinxes, Tanis, 302-304. 
Spiritualism, 161-167. 
Sumu Abi, first king of Babylon, 

401, 402. 
Sumu la Hu, second king of Babylon 

401, 402. 
Sumer, Sumerians, 11, 73, 390, 400. 
Suphis, Shufu, Khufu, or Cheops, 

builder of the Great Pyramid, 285- 

287, 289, 293-296, 300-307. 
Surya, the Sun god of India, 95. 
Surya V ansa, Indian race of the Sun, 

94, 126. 



422 



INDEX 



Sraddhaj Indian service for the dead, 
lU, 347. 

Svastika, Buddhist, Indian, Scandi- 
navian and Peruvian symbol, 122, 
135. 

Taautus, Phoenician name of Thoth. 
Taba, Egyptian mother of the gods, 

324. 
Tahmurs, the builder of Babylon, 36. 
Tammuz, 30, 35, 36, 38, 39, 51, 52, 

54,^70, 71, 246, 258, 269, 321, 399. 
Taschta, second Man-bull of the Zend 

Avesta, 125. 
Tat, son of Hermes, 126, 320. 
Telete, Greek sacrifice for the dead, 

114, 347. 
Teotl, Mexican god who slays the 

Seiyent, 141, 320. 
Terminus, surname of Jupiter, 210. 
Terra, Latin name of Qe, the wife of 

Ouranos. 
Teutates, god of the Celtic Gauls, 

127, 136. 
Thamus, king of Egypt, 36. 
Theba, a name of the Ark, 46, 133, 

324. 
Thebes, or Diospolis, "City of the 

Gods," 324. 
Theomantes, Grecian diviners, 156. 
Thor, son of Odin, 134. 
Thoth, or Hermes, 14, 31, 32, 36, 44, 

48, 51,54, 78, 84-88, 120, 130-132, 

136, 202, 204, 206, 231, 259. 
Titan, the name of Shem in Grecian 

mythology, 17, 28, 201, 208, 210, 

211, 259, 266, 314. 
Titans, sons of Ouranos, 188, 201- 

203, 206, 266, 267, 314. 
Tnepachtus, who protested against 

the Idolatry established by Menes, 

85, 153. 
Tonsure, symbol of the Sun god, 110, 

111, 341, 342. 
Tree worship, 100, 113, 225, 226, 

228. 
Triratna, the sacred symbol of 

Buddhism, 109. 
Tuisto, god of the ancient Germans, 

127, 134. 
Turanians, 67, 77, 390-397, 407, 408. 



Tur-cus-u, "son of Cush," king of 

Nipur, 401. 
Twashta, a title of Buddha, 103, 125, 

134. 
TyphoBus, 265, 266. 
Typhon, name given to Set and Shem, 

18, 84, 201-204, 244, 259, 262-271, 

276, 279, 314, 315, 368, 373-375. 

Uma, the Indian Minerva, wife of 

Siva, 97. 
Urania, a title of Venus, 63. 

Venus, 14, 33, 34, 47, 51, 52, 68. 
Vile and Ve, sons of Bore, the Gothic 

Noah, 133, 134. 
Vishnu, 15, 18, 52, 90, 91, 92, 184, 

320. 
Vulcan, 14, 33, 34, 47, 51, 52, 68. 

Wateb, holy, of Paganism, 343, 344. 
Wodan, the ancestor of the Mexicans 

and grandson of Noah, 141. 
Woden, god of the ancient Germans, 

126, 133-135, 141, 142. 
Wudd, or Budd, the Arabian Buddha, 

120, 136. 

XisuTHRUS, the Noah of Berosus' 
history, 45, 129, 184. 

Yama, the Indian Pluto, 97. 
Yoni, the, 92, 93, 334. 
Yuni, the Indian Juno, 95. 

Zabu, or Zames, the third king of 
Babylon, 401, 408. 

Zar, Zoro, Zero, Chaldee for " seed " 
and "circle," 318-319. 

Zaradas, Zeroastes, forms of Zoro- 
aster, 35, 318. 

Zer, Chaldee for "encompass," 318. 

Zerbanit, "Mother of the Seed," 
wife of Bel Merodach, 26, 63, 319. 

Zeus, or Jupiter, 18. 

Zohak, the Aribah and Iranian con- 
queror of the world, 75, 76, 89, 
196, 209, 394. 

Zoroadas, form of Zoroaster, 35, 318. 

Zoroaster, or Zeroaster, 35, 208, 209, 
216, 217, 257, 318, 320, 332. 



422 iNi 

Braddh*, Indian s^-vioe for th^ dead, 

lU, 3*7. 
9ra«tik&, Buddhifit, Indian, Scandi- 

oariui and PernTian symbol, 122, 

135. 

TAAirma, Phsnici&a mune of Thoth. 
Taba, Egyptian mother of the gods, 

324. 
Tidimurs, the builder of Babylon, 3fi. 
limmoit, 30, 35, 36, 3S, 39, 51, 52, 

54,.70, 71, 246, 25S, 269, 331, 399. 
IWachta, second Han-buU of the Zend 

Avesta, 125. 
Tat, son of Hennea. 126, 320. 
^lete, Greek sacrifice for the dead, 

114, 347. 
Teoll, ilexican god who sUvb the 

Se^^Kll^ HI, 320. 
Terminus, surname of Japiter, 210. 
Terra, Latia name of Ge, the wife of 

OannOH. 
Teatates, god of the Celtic Oauls, 

127, 136. 
Thanms, king of Egypt, 36. 
Theba, a na,me of the Ark, 46, 133, 

324. 
Thebes, or Diospotie, "City ot the 

Gods," 324. 
Theomantca, Grecian divinerv, 156. 
Thor, son of Odin, 134. 
Thoth. or Hermes, 14, 3!, 32, 36, 44, 

48, 51, 64, 78, 84-88, 120, 130-132, 

136, 202, 204, 206, 231, 259. 
Titan, the name of Shem in Grecian 

mythology, 17, 28, 201, 208, 210. 

211, 259, 266, 314. 
Titans, sons of Ouranos, 183, 201- 

203, 206, 266, 267, 314. 
Triepachtos, who protested against 

the Idolatry established by Menes, 

85, 153. 
Tonsure, symbol of the Sun god, 110, 

111, 341, 342. 
Tree worship, 100, 113, 225, 226, 

228. 
Triratna, the sacred symbol of 

Buddhism, 109. 
Tuisto, god of the ancient Germans, 

127, 134. 
Turanians, 67, 77, 390-397, 407, 408. 



Tnr-cos-u, "son of Cusb," king ol 

Nipnr, 401. 
Twashta, a title of Boddha, 103, 135, 

134. 
Typheeas, 265, 266. 
Typhon, name giren to Set and Shem, 

IS, 84, 201-204, 244, 259, 262-271. 

276, 279, 314, 315, 368, 37J.375. 

Uha, the Indian Hinerva, wife «f 

Siva, 97. 
Urania, a title of Venus, 63. 

Vkntis, 14, 33, 34, 47, 51, 52, 68. 
Vile and Ve, sons of Bore, the GoUue 

Noah, 133, 134. 
Vishnu, 15, 18, 52, 90, 91, 92, 184, 

320. 
Vulcan, 14, 33, 34, 47, 51, 52, 68. 

Watkr, holy, of Paganism, 343, 344. 
Wodan, the ancestor of the Mexicans 

and grandson of Noah, 141. 
Woden, god of the ancient Genuans, 

126, 133-135, 141, 142. 
Wudd, or Budd, the Arabian Boddha, 

120, 136. 

XtatTTBRua, the Noah of Berosm' 
hbtory, 45, 129, 184. 

Yama, the Indian Pinto, 97. 
Yoni, the, 92, 93, 334. 
Ynni, the Indian Juno, 95. 

Zabu, or Zamea, the third king of 

Babylon, 401, 40S. 
Zar, Zoro, Zero, Chaldee for " seed * 

and "circle," 31&J19. 
Zaradas, Zeroastes, forms of Zoro- 
aster, 35, 318. 
Zer, Chaldee for "encompass," 318. 
Zerbanit, " Mother of the Seed, 

wife of Bel Merodach, 26, 63, 319. 
Zeus, or Jupiter, 18. 
Zohak, the Anbah and Iranian con- 

qneror of the world, 75, 76, 

196, 209, 394. 
Zoroadas, form of Zoroaster, 35, 318. 
Zoroaster, or ZeroaatM-, 35, 208, 209, 

216, 217, 257,318, 320,332. 



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