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teTHE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF
WILLIAM
A.
NITZE
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Jl
I
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^xi
THE ORIGIN OF
PAGAN
Fag.
Idol.
IDOLATRY.
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11.
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To thus
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SitviuiJ
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hrFCMndJltii'iiuiionJ^hiuU i7iur,-hy,ird,LoruUm
THE
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY FROM
ASCERTAINED
HISTORICAL TESTIMONY AND
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
BY GEORGE STANLEY FABER, RECTOR OF
D.
B.
LONG-NEWTON.
Every reasonable Hj'pothesis should be supported on a
fact.
Warduiiton's Div. Leg.
vol. v. p. 433.
THREE VOLUMES. VOL.
II.
lontion; Printed by A. J. Valpy, Tooke's Court, Chancaj^ Lane,
FOR
F.
AND
ST. PAUL'S
C.
RIVINGTONS
CHURCH YARD.
1816.
;
V.
^B.R
/2.
AT A.
CONTENTS. BOOK
TIL
CHAPTER
I.
PAOE Respecting the fable of the four ages
Thk
are indifferently reckoned from the creation and the deluge
four ages
the golden age being that of the great father I.
The
fable itself properly relates to the period
deluge
:
-
it
was also made to
ib.
between the ages of
relate to the period
between the -
deluge and another yet future dissolution of the world
4
-
Arrangement of the ten postdiluvian generations, and extension of the iron
\l.
age,
when
it
was found
HI. The
that
.
Traditions of Plato
1. Traditions of 3.
Dicearchus
it
to have
been
in the tenth -
really the
o
-
age of
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
13
-
-
-
-
14 ib.
Traditions of Hesiod and Ovid
1
ib.
4. Traditions of the
Goths
-
-
-
-
5. Traditions of the
Hindoos
-
-
-
-
15
-
-
-
-
Iti
6. Traditions of the Jains .
-
-
descriptions of the golden age prove
Paradisiacal innocence 1
no fresh deluge took place
-
-
generation
1\
-
between the creation and the
but, from certain points of resemblance
i\dam and of Noah,
-
Saturn,
who
flourished in the golden age,
must have been Adam.
Yet he
CONTENTS.
VI
PAOE was
also
Noah.
Hence, when he was viewed as
age was placed after the flood 1.
Exeinphfication of
2.
The same mode
-
-
The same
also
fable
m
Hesiod
that of
-
-
-
-
-
-
19
(2.)
Summary of
-
31
Hesiod's arrangement
-
-
the deluge
Menu
-
period between the creation
and his three sons and -
Parallel traditions of the Atlantians
IV. Parallel traditions of the Iroquois
Atlas, Edris, Idris,
The The The
6.
37
-
-
-
-
38
-
-
ib.
-
-
39
-
-
40
-
-
ib.
-
3.
character of translation of
the
Enoch
Enoch -
a transcript of the Paradisiacal -
-
41
-
-
Adam
-
-
42 44
••
-
-
45
•-•
-
-
ib.
-
person as Idris
also into that
Buddha-Sacya
translation of Xisuthrus
Noah
-
same
Enoch melts
36 -
The character of Enoch Mount Atlas and Cader-Idris were each
4.
ib.
-
melts into that of
Thoth and Buddha were
-
murder of Abel
-
-
Ararat
murder of
-
-
translation of
Enoch
34
to the
-
the translation of
VI. Indian legend respecting the
32
II.
II. Parallel traditions relative to the three Cabiri and to the
V. Atlantian legend respecting
-
-
....
to the
-
-
may be gathered from
-
.
traditions relative to
Abel
-
-
high antiquity of the fable of the four ages
Hindoo
5.
18
-
23
and
1.
17
-
Miscellaneous traditions relative
2.
-
-
-
CHAFFER
VH.
ib.
Discussion of the Argonautic, Trojan, and Theban, epochs
Scripture
IH.
-
(1.)
The
I.
Hindoo
in the
-
of interpretation must be adopted in the fable of the
Jains S.
arrangement
this
-
-
the golden
tlie latter,
-
-
of
CONTENTS.
Vn
PAGE The legend of Annacus or Nannacus VIII. The longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs IX. The number of antediluvian generations
-
7.
CHAPTER
-
Avesta
On 1.
2.
III.
the authenticity of the
The
.
His hypothesis respecting Zeradusht the early history contained in the
Ahriman with
his rebel
angels
-
Arg-Roud
4.
Mount Albordi first man-bull The Aboudad is Adam The second man-bull Taschter with his
first
man-bull
is
viewed as reappearing
-
his three sons
8.
in the
Zend-
Zend-Avesta
He
(2.)
But he
Sum
is
-
-
-
declared to be the is
Sun
-
-
-
-
in the
person of the second
of the argument
-
IV. Mythological prayers of the Parsees
Moon
1.
Prayer to the
2.
Prayer to the sacred Bull
-
-
79 80 ib.
-
-
-Si
-
-
-
82
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
63
-70
three companions
-
-
-
-
also declared to be a remarkable Star
V. Remarks on the prayers
ib.
61
Zend-Avesta
Respecting the astronomical character of Taschter (1.)
58
-
-
The
7.
52
Zend-Avesta and the character of Zeradusht
3.
6.
49
-
history, as exhibited in tfie
Q.
5.
-
-
hypothesis of Dr. Prideaux respecting the Zend-Avesta
Remarks on 1
46
-
III.
Sketch of the antediluvian and diluvian history contained
II.
-
.-.-_-
On the antediluvian and dituvian
I.
-
-
is
Noah
with
-
-
-
-84
-
-
ib.
-
-
ib.
87
83
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
ib.
88
90
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
CONTENTS.
Vin
PAGE
On that On that
1.
2.
to the
Moon
to the Bull
-
-
-
-
-
90
-
-
-
-
-
93
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
94
-
-
-
-
ib.
(3.)
The regenerating rain The diiuvian serpent Ahriinan Mixed character of Oschen
(4.)
Characters of Oshander-Begha and Osider-Begha mingled with that
(1.) (2.)
of the Messiah (5.)
Reasons
-
for believing this
ledge of the ancient
(6.)
commixture
Hebrew
of Christ
from a know-
-
-
-
-
98
-
-
-
-
-
102
-
-
-
-
103
materials of the Zend-Avestaic history
work
itself
may be
a comparatively
seem
to
be genuine, though the
modern compilation
CHAPTER
-
104
-
IV.
Pagati accounts of an universal deluge
Pagan
9G
-
Sentiments of the later Zeradusht respecting the promised future deliverer
The
to have arisen
-
prophecies before the manifestation
-
(7.) Tlie river Voorokeschci
VI.
-
-
"•
-
107
-
accounts of the deluge have generally some reference to the creation
:
a circumstance, which originated from the doctrine of an endless succession of similar worlds I.
-
-
Babylonian account of the deluge from Berosus
II.
Syro-Grecian account of the deluge from Lucian 1.
Dove and Ark
2. DiflFerent places, 3.
III.
The name
the
is
said to
-
-
ib.
.
-
-
108
-
-
-
110
-
-
-
111
have landed
known to the Hindoos deluge, more or less literal
of Deucalion
Hindoo accounts of
-
-
where Deucalion
-
ib.
-
J2
-
-
1
-
-
113
CONTENTS.
ix
PAGE 1.
2.
3.
Legend of
the
first
Avatar
-
-
-
-
u^
-
-
-
-
116
(I.)
Form
(2.)
Intercommunion of character between
(3.)
Sleep and night of Brahma
(4.)
Menu
(5.)
Character of the
of the fish-god
constituted the
Legend of
-
and Vislinou
-
117
-
-
-
II9
-
-
-
ib.
-
.
.
f[|0 ib.
god of obsequies
demon Hayagriva
the second Avatar
It relates jointly to the creation
(2.)
Remarks on
-
-
-
-
i^i
-
-
(1.)
Legend of
Menu
and to the flood
the legend
-
-
-
.
jgS
the third Avatar
-
-
_
_
J24
-
-
-
227
the lotos -
-
-
ib.
-
-
128
(I.)
Paradisiacal water of immortality
(2).
Mount Mandar surmounted by
(3.)
Productions from the churned ocean
(4.)
Fire mingled with water in the destruction of the earth
IV. Druidical account of the deluge
-
-
-
1.
Specimens of bardic fragments
relative to the
2.
Respecting the genuineness of
tliose
deluge
fragments
-
129
-
-
ib.
-
-
130
-
-
134 136
V. Persian account of the deluge
-
-
-
-
VI. Egyptian account of the deluge
-
_
>
.
jgy
VII. Chinese account of the deluge
-
-
.
_
j^Q
VIII. American accounts of the deluge
-
-
.
_
141
1.
Mechoacan
2.
Peruvian
3. Brazilian
-----_---.. -----. -----
4.
Nicaraguan
5.
Terra-Firma
6.
Cuban
7.
Otaheitean
-
-
-
-'
-
"
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
_
145
Respecting the sacred books
VOL»
ib.
-
-
-
or preserved or recovered from the deluge
Idol.
144
V.
There was a general notion, that certain sacred books were
Pag.
ib.
-
CHAPTER
I.
ib.
j^g
by II.
either
the great father
147
composed -
ib.
b
X
GONTKNTS. PAGE Books of Xisuthrus
-
-
-
-
-
147
2.
Pillars of Seth
.
_
.
.
-
HS
3.
Pillars or
-
-
-
-
ib
4.
Books of Taut
-
-
-
-
ib.
5.
Books
of the Buddliic great father
-
-
-
149
.
-
.
ib.
ib.
1.
(I.) (2.) (3.)
-
Of Mahabad Of Buddha Of Menu
-
.
.
_
6.
Books of Minos
7-
Books of
8.
Books of Seth and Enoeh
Remarks on
If.
books of ThotU
-
Hu
-
the sacred books
Cities and mountains of the
1.
books
2. '^The fable of the sacred
by the S.
Israelites
book is
...
-
_
ib.
-
150
_
.
-
_
.
.
-
,
-
-
ib.
-
-
^
-
151
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
152
-
154
the books are ascribed
155
-
-
Respecting the character of Seth, to
whom
CHAPTER Pagan
the invasion of Palestine
older than -
-
VI.
accounts of the deluge, as erroneously conjined by local
appi'Opriation to particular regions
The
pagan accounts of
partial deluges
have
in a
-
great measure originated
...
from the phraseology of the commemorative Mysteries Local floods produced by
I.
.
tlie
157
-
alleged submersion of a city or an island
-
ib.
-
159
J.
Tables respecting the island Atlantis
'2.
Fables respecting Samothrace
.
.
.
_
163
3.
Fables respecting Orchomenus
.
-
-
-
i67
4.
Celtic fable of the submersion of a city beneath a lake
-
-
170
}6o
CONTENTS.
XI
PAGE 5.
II.
Remarks on
tlie
siibuieislon of
Sodoin beueatli the Dead sea
172
Local floods produced by an irruption of the sea 1.
Fable respecting
tlie
island of the Pbieg)2e
Fable of the island Maurigasiiiia
2.
-
17G
-
-
_
ib.
.
.
.
179
III. Local floods
produced by the bursting of a lake without mention being made of the submersion of an island .
1.
Tradition artificial
of the Arabs
lake
of
-
Yaman
respecting
.
2. Tradition respecting tiie disruption of
.
the
bursting .
_
the British lake Llion
1.
2.
3.
-
Egyptian legends
-
-
(1.)
That of Prometheus
(2.)
That of Menes
(S.)
That of Phoroneus
-
-
'
.
.
lf).i
ib. ib.
-
195
-
.
.
(1.)
That of luachus
(2.)
That of Athens
-
(3.)
That of Corinth
-
(4.)
That of Deucalion
in
(5.)
That of Ogyges
(6.)
That of the Rhodian or Cretan Telchlnes
in Argolis
in
197 ib.
Thessaly
198
Beotia
_
196 ib.
199 .
BOOK
.
200 201
IV.
CHAPTER
I.
Concerning the identity and astronomical character of the great gods of the Gentiles . _
All
189
194
Greek legends
Cilician legend
-
ib.
185
3. Tradition of the North-Americans respecting the bursting of a lake IV. Local floods not marked either by the bursting of a lake or by the
•inking of an island
180
of an
205
the gods of the Gentiles resolve themselves into one psrson, the great universal father lb.
CONTENTS.
Xa
PAGE I.
The
ancient myihologists unanimously assert, that each of their gods equally the
Saturn
1.
2. Jupiter
4.
Bacchus
5.
Priapus
6.
Apollo
7.
Jauus
8.
Pan
9.
Hercules
or
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Pluto
3.
---------»_---------
Sun
]
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib»
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
-.
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
-
207
-
-
-
-
-
Phanes
Amnuin
Esculapius, Asclepius
1
206
-
10. Vulcan, Hephestus, Phtha, 1
is
-
ib. ib.
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
ib.
Mercury, Hermes, Thoth, Herni-Anubis, Theutates, Tuisto, Twash-
2.
Tat, Datta, Buddha, Sacya
-
-
-
-
ib.
13. Mars, Ares, Theus-Ares
-
-
-
-
ib.
14. Osiris, Horus, Serapis
_
-
_
208
-
ib.
ta,
.....
15. Belus, Baal, Molech, Baal-Peor, Adramraelech, 16. Adonis, Attis
Dak-Po, Dagun, Pouti-Sat
17.
Dagon,
18.
Brahma, Vishnou, Siva
Siton,
19. Mithras
2a Hu, Beli,
-
BelatTicader, Abellion
_
Anammelech -
.
289
-
ib.
-
211 ib.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
21. VitzHputzli
-
-
-
-
-
S12
22. Virachoca
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
n. The
ancient mythologists assert, that
all their
CHAPTER
gods are the same person
213
II.
Respecting certain remarkable opinions which the Gentiles entertained of the
I.
Sun
The Sun was viewed
-
-
-
-
-
215
as a mariner, placed either in a ship or in the ac-
knowledged symbol of a ship
.
-
-
-
ib.
CONTENTS.
Xui
PAGE 1.
Eg)iptian legends
_
-
-
.
.
glo
2.
Hindoo legends
-
-
-
_
.
gjg
3.
Greek legends
-
-
-
-
-
217
4.
Ship of the sphere
-
-
-
-
-
218
5.
Gate or door of
Sun
-
-
-
-
the
The Sun was thought to have been plunged into the ocean III. The Sun, wlien pursued by the ocean, took refuge in a floating II.
1.
Legend of
2.
Legend of the Grecian Apollo
3.
Legend of the Peruvian Virachoca
the Egyptian
Horus
-
island
ib.
219 ib.
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
220
-
-
-
221
IV. The Sun delighted to dwell on the top of a sacred mountain, which
had been V. The Sun was
lelt
dry by the retiring flood
bom
_
upon
earth
-
-
-
VI. The great god of the Gentiles, though acknowledged to be the Sun, yet positively declared to be a deified mortal
2.
Origin of astronomical hero-worship
What
oog
out of a floating egg, triplicated himself, and reigned
a sovereign prince
1.
.
.
particular
-
-
ib.
is
-
-
223
-
_
£25
man was venerated by the Gentiles in union with
the solar orb
_
_
.
VII. Aptness of the physical character of the Sun for the deified great father
-
. its
-
-
CHAPTER
.
228
union with that of
231
III.
Respecting the division of the gentile mythologists into two great
primeval sects
1.
Paganism
-
-
divides itself into the
two
sects of
the former being prior to the latter
.
.
..
233
Buddhism and Brahmenism, -
-
_
ib.
CONTENTS.
VIV
FAC U. The
least siicieiit of thein
of the lower
and
:
tiie
camiot have originated later than the building
more ancient seems
to
have been a step,
the progres-s of <;orruption, preparatory to the otker
IH. The
luiniixed Scythians
vhile
stiti'Hi,
mixed
tribes rather
extent of country, throughout which
stition
they
:
great father I.
Horus, Osiris, 1.
Horus
2. Osiris,
IV.
Bacchic or Saivic or Brahmenical super-
differed only in
the
viewed as reappearing
Isis
That person was the
in the great father
_
.
237
the adherents of both super-
mode.
-----......
Adam
235
236
professed
the great father, as exhibited
same person was equally venerated by stitions
is still
......
human character of
in the Osiric or
The
-
-
Buddhism
CHAPTER Respecting the
23*
the Brah-
aft'ected
.
_
menicul superstition
IV. Wide
-
were •peculiarly attached to the Buddhic super-
various
the
in
-
Argo, Danaus, Jason, Theba
Noah
ib.
-
.
_
238
_
_
_
239 240
-
and Typhon
-
248
4.
Priapus, Phanes, Baal-Peor, Dionusus, Silenus, Adonis
-
5.
Typhon,
.
250 252
6.
Proper character of Typhon
3. Theocrasical identity of Osiris
7.
Typhon, Ahriman, ther
-
is
-
.
the ocean at the time of the deluge
Siva, Corybas, viewed as the
253
murderer of a bro-]
255
Thammuz
.
_
-
-
-
256
Legend of Adopis
-
-
-
-
-
258
II. Adonis, 1.
Osiris, Seth, Sothi
CON'TKNTS.
-------------_.-..
C. Getiealogy of Adonis
lir.
Attis, Atys,
_
_
Esmuni
-
Meiies
IV.. Asclepius, Esculapius^
*
_
2G0
-
-
-
2G2
-
_
-
2G4'
-
2.
His descent into Hades
-
-
3.
His Orgies
-
_
4.
His ark
5.
His birth on mount
Meru
_
G.
His nurse Hippa or Nusa
7.
His genealogy
8.
His character
VI. Deo-Naush
is
26S
-
-
ib.
-
_
2(>j
_
.
_
267
_
_
_
_
ggg
-
.
.
_
-
-
269 270
-
--
•
-
_
2j9
-
His dilaceratiou by the Titans -
PAGE
_
V. Bacchus, Dioniisus 1.
XV
compounded of Noah and Adam
VII. Ishuren^Iswaia, Siva, Brahma, Vishnou, Crishna
ib.
272 27 -t
1.
[ndian Bacchus, Seba, Maidashuren, Siva
-
-
-
ib.
2.
Death, Brahma, Brumius, Vagis, Bagis
.
-
-
277
3.
Vishnoii, Narayan,
.
_
.
279
4.
Crishna
-
-
-
28i
The Trimurti or triad of Hindostan is composed of the three sons of Adam, viewed" as reappearing in the three sons of Noah VIII. The Trimurti of Hindostan is the same as the classical triad of Jupi-
2S3t
Tamas -
-
. -
5.
ter, 1.
Jupiter (1.)
2.
.
_
-
285
-
-
-
-
-
286
Cretan Jupiter
-
-
Jupiter was universally worshipped
(3.)
Jupiter-Sabazius
(4.)
Jupiter-Triophthalmus
Phito
_
287
-
29O 092
-
-
_
(4.)
Proserpine
(5.)
Muih, Dis, Mot, Mannus, Maotus
.
-
-
(1.)
Exploits of Neptune
(G.)
Eumo)pus, Chion^
Dwy van,
No'e, Acdd.)n
.
-
-
_
-
Styx,
.
Menu, Charon
293
.
294 ogj
-
298 299 30O
.... ....
(3.)
IIu, Dylan,
.
-
Cabiri of Samothrace and India
Neptune
-
-
------
The door of hell, the three judges, The helmet of invisibility
(2.)
IX.
.
(2.)
(1.)
3.
_
Neptune, and Pluto
-
-
.
-
-
_
-
-
-
-
302
-
-
-
-
ib.
_
-
-
\\j_
$03 304
.
CONTENTS.
XVI
PAGE X. American
gods
Ho
-
.
-
_
_
-
-
-
-
-
Tlaloc
-
1.
Yo,
2.
Vitzliputzli, Mexitli,
3.
Virachoca, Pacliacamac, Manco-Capac, Con, Tangatanga
-
XI. Otaheitean Ooro and
....
triad
-
CHAPTER Respecting the in the
name by claiming
2.
His character melts into
3.
Legend of Buddha
4.
Character of Buddha
that of
to
A
333
V.
333
-
-
-
-
336
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
339 340
-
341
......
342
Fo, Teeshoo-Lama, Taranath -
-
Buddhism
China
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
343
2.
Introduction of
3.
Legend of Fo-Hi
4.
Fo-Hi
5.
Ancient Buddhism must have been the religion of China from the
6.
Buddha-Datta
into
-
.....
Fo
or
Buddha
VI. Buddha of Cochin-China, Tonquio, Japan, and Tartary sects of Buddhists
330
-
-
as
328
-
Passage of the name Buddha into the name Fo
same
-
-
V. Buddha of China
the
ib.
.
.
IV. Buddha of Thibet and Boutan.
is
327
comparatively modern im-
be one of his Avatars
Buddha of Ceylon. Gautameh Somono-Codom, Baouth III. Buddha of Siam.
VII. Three
317
Vishnou and Menu-Satyavrata
II.
1
-
of the great Jather, as exhibited
Discordant opinions respecting him. postor usurped his
.
31
Buddhic or Thoihic or Hermetic or Samanean theo-
Buddha 1.
ib.
-
-.--.-...-.
human character
logy
I.
-
307
:
first
-
-
345
346 347 348
proper Buddhists, Jainists, and Arbanists.
Jain and Arhan are the same as
Buddha
-
-
-349
CONTENTS.
XVU
PAGE The
VIII.
various
titles
Buddha have been
of
coniinunicated to his votaries
1.
Enumeration of his
2.
Notice of the two prinaeval sects by Greek writers
349
titles
ib.
IX. Buddha of Iran. Aboudad, Mahabad X. Buddha of the Goths or Scythians 1. Woden is the same person as Buddha
350
-
-
_
352
-
-
_
354
-
-
.
ib.
2.
The name Woden
3.
Character of VVodeUj and points of resemblance between him and
Buddha XI. Buddha of 1.
is
same appellation
the
Voden or Poden
-
-
356
-
the Celts
Teutates, Hesus, Taranis
2.
Budd, Man, Arawu, Tat, Saman
3.
Buddhic
titles
as
.
.
.
-
-
-
_
.
are yet preserved in the
names of various Scottish
.
361 .
1.
2.
Head Head
of Osiris of
_
.
-
.
367
-
_
-
_
.
368
-
-
.
.
-
-
-
-
_
.
371
-
-
_
373
.
_
374
_
377
XIII. Janus or Jain
-
1.
His history and character
2.
His
and
366
-
Summanus
ship, his dove,
362
islets,
agreeably to the express testimony of Demetrius
XII. Summanus
360
his
•
ib.
369
-
ib.
mystic door
XIV. Vadimon, Vandimon
-
XV.
-
_
-
-
-
-
-
-
_
_
378
-
-
_
ib.
Terminus, Betylus, Cappotas
Xyi. Dagon
or Siton
1.
Oannes, Annedot
2.
Dogon, Dagun, Dak-Po, Doca
-
3.
Dago, Taurico
-
-
_
-
_
380
4.
Dagh-Dae
-
_
_
_
_
ib.
XVII. Hercules 1.
2.
_____ --_...
In the garden of the Hesperides he
He
identifies
rajah
is
himself with Buddha,
Adam
Dagon, Menu, or Dherma-
4.
He He
5.
Hercules-Ogmius, Hercules-Magusan.
3.
was worshipped was an
infernal
in
god
Terminus and Mercury
Egypt and Phenicia _
He
_
Idol.
VOL.
ir.
ib.
382 .
. XVIII. Mercury, Hermes 1. Wide extent of Mercurial stone-worship
Pag.
ib.
381
identifies
.
_
383
himself with
-
_
.
384
_
.
.
386
.
_
_
387
XVm
CONTENTS.
Identity of
2.
...... --..-. ....
Mercury and Buddha proved from
titles
PAGE
the identity of their
388
3.
Proved further by
4.
Fabulous history of Mercury
-
_
_
.
396
5.
Mercury was an
.
_
.
.
398
-
-
-
-
Phtha, Vulcan, Hephestus, Aphthas, Twashta
-
-
401
XIX. Thoth 1.
Taut of Phenicia
2.
Taut
XX. XXI.
or
arbitrary points of resemblance
infernal
-
Thoth of Egypt
Mendes, Pan
ib.
S99
.
.
.
405
-
.
.
.
.
ib.
-
.
-
-
_
ib.
-
_
.
.
_
40(5
Cupid, Cama, Eros, Caimis, Camasson, Pothos, Maneros, Pappas
407
Pan
2.
Era of Pan
Pan
3. Character of
.3.
He He He
4.
His genealogy
5.
Lamentation for Maneros
6.
Cupid and Psyche
2.
ib.
.
Phallic
1.
395
-
1.
XXII.
god
between them
was the
first-born lord of the Universe
was exposed is
the
same
at sea in
an ark
Buddha
as
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
-
ib.
_
_
_
-
409
-
-
-
-
ib,
-
-
-
.411
------
The bow of Cupid XXIII. Mithras 7.
1.
He
2.
His Mysteries, and
3.
Persian triads
-
was symbolized by
-
-
-
-
ib.
-
_
-
_
412 413
a bull, a serpent,
and a lion
-
-
ib.
from a rock
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
-414
birth -
-
417
2.
Cadmus. He is the same character as Cadam or Somono-Codom The hypothesis of Bochart respecting him Cadmus was venerated in many countries besides Phenicia -
3.
His fabulous history
XXIV. 1.
XXV.
.
Mars-Camulus or Cadmilus
415
ib.
.
_
-
-
42O
.
_
-
-
422
1.
He
-
-
423
2.
Respecting the universal worship of the sword-god
-
-
425
3.
Mars was
-
-
430
Respecting the birth of the Buddhic god from a virgin
-
431
XXVI. 1.
2. S.
was the same
Mars Buddha Fo-Hi
as
Mercury and Hercules
-
__..-. --_...
the piscine navicular great father
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
432 434
CONTENTS.
.----.-----
4. Mexitii
XIX
PAGE 434
5.
Vulcan or Phtlm
-
_
-
-
.
435
C).
Perseus
-
-
-
-
-
ib.
7.
Zingis
-
-
-
436
-
-
437
.
_
_
439
-
_
-
440
-
-
ib.
441
-
XXVII. Perseus various parts of the in 1. He was venerated 2. He was represented like Mercury 3. He was the solar god exposed in an ark
world
4. Elucidation of some particulars in his history
He
5.
was a
XXVIII. The 1.
They were
They ;
three in
-
-
-
-
-
442
number
.
.
_
-
444
their chief being the is
the
three Cabiri
;
same
as
XXIX. Memnon Memnon On The
2.
(1.)
is
as
and are
said to
Nilus or Oceanus
Wilcan or Phtha
;
be infernal
445
-
-
the three Cyclopes,
as the
--.-....... Memnon
marches
to
Cyclopes
in the forehead of the
same character
the
legend of
He
same
-
447
-
448
and the seven Cyclopes, as the seven Cabiri
Fable of the single eye
4.
1.
-
-
are ascribed to the era of the deluge,
Cyclops
3.
-
-
giant, like
Cyclopes
2.
gods
Buddha
ib.
as
the oriental
Troy from
Mahiman
_
.
-
the African Ethiopia
or
ib.
Maiman-
_
-
449 450
-
-
ib.
who, to (2.) The difficulty of this story was felt by ancient writers mend the matter, would bring him out of Asiatic Ethiopia and exhibited just (3.) The Africans however themselves claimed him ;
....
45
;
as decisive circumstantial evidence of his being their countryman,
the Asiatics could do (4.)
He
is
also said to
have been a sovereign of Egypt
represented by a marvellous gigantic statue (5.)
The
perplexities in his
.
.
some
A discussion (1.) ,
He
vvas
of the legend of
give
_
-
-
up
all
his
-
4,57
-
458
-
459
-----the great god of the
therefore worshipped in Asiatic
Memnon
453
-
(6.) Utter impossibility of adapting his history to that of Troy
3.
452
and he was
-
history are such, that
expedition to Troy in toto
:
as
Chusas or Ethiopians; and was
their
settlements, whether African or ib.
(2.) Discordant opinions respecting the complexion of Buddha und
Memnon,
both
in ihe east
and
in the
west
-
-
-
4;)2
CONTENTS.
XX
PAGE (3.)
He was
(4.)
The
the
same
Osymandyas or Ismandes or
as
great father and the great
(,5.)
Respecting the
(6.)
The
pillars
funereal birds of
466
mother were represented by two
Various instances of
gigantic statues.
-
Sesostris
-
this superstition
467
and era of Sesostris
-
-
472
Memnon
-
-
476
were his
CHAPTER
priests
VI.
Respecting the union of the two great superstitions in the worship
of Jagan-Nath, Saturn, and Baal
As
the
------
same object was venerated
in
both superstitions, we find them at
length uniting together in the worship of
Baal I.
Jagan-Nath, Bal-Rama, Subhadra 1.
The worship
of Jagan-Nath
contending sects
2.
is
(2.)
Jagan-Nath
the
as either of
same both
as
-
He
is
adored
forms of these
conjunction with
deities united
(2.)
As
Om
The
483
-
-
ib.
-
.
.
434
The
But
Om
or
Awm
was
the
by whatever name he might be venerated
ib.
therefore, all sects agree in worshipping the triplicated her.
_
_
form of the god has been contrived on principles well -
to the ancient mythologists (4.)
ib.
-
produce the cypher Pranava, which repre-
maphroditic Jagan-Nath (3.)
-
-
Bal-Rama and Subhadra.
sents the holy monosyllabic divine name. triplicated great father,
ib.
Vishnou and Siva, but not the
them exclusively
in
,
Nature of the worship of Jagan-Natli (1.)
ib.
-
-
Antiquity of his temple in Orissa is
-
confessedly a point of union for all the -
.
Jagan-Nath, Saturn, and
-
-
(1.)
same
482
-
-
Jagan-Nath
is
the
same
as
Suman-Nath
_
435
known
-
-
-
-
-
-
486 488
CONTENTS.
The
(.5.)
tice II.
1
-----
of the Gentiles,
a disgraceful mixture of homicide and obscenity
is
Saturn, though immediately connected with the Jupiter,
Neptune, and Pluto, yet
identifies
god of the Buddhic superstition
Ua
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
490
Remphan
-
-
-
ib.
-
-
491
(1.)
Chiun, Chivan, Che-Kya,
(3.)
Satyaur-Ata, Sei-Suther, Seater, day of Saturn
----------
The name Saturn is most probably Babylonic or Chaldaic The character of Saturn proves him to be Noah viewed as a reappear-
(1.)
Adam
Character of Saturn as
(2.)
III, Baal,
2.
-
-
-
Character of Saturn as
Molech
Proofs of
Proof of
his identity with his identity with
Adam
Noah
-
Saturn
His
ib.
-
-
ib.
-
-
-
494 500
-
-
-
ib.
Jagan-Nath and Buddha from
his peculiar -
502
cliaracter ascertained from the hitherto imperfectly-understood sar-
casm, which the prophet Elijah employs in addressing his ministers.
Fag.
493
-
worship and sacred footstep on the top of the mount of Olives 3.
ib.
triad of
himself with the principal
(2>)
ance of
1
-
Brahmenical
489
-
II,
(4.)
2.
PAGE
present worship of Jagan-Nath, accorfling to the general prac-
Cronus
Saturn,
XXI
Idol,
VOL.
II.
ib.
/
XXll
EXPLANA ION OF THE FIGURES IN PLATE II. i
Fi£C.
1.
Vislinou floating in deep slumber on the folds of the great navicular sea-serpent,
while the whole earth
is
covered with water
BrahuKi springing from his navel
:
in the calix
Lacshmi chafing of the lotos.
his
From
feet
:
and
an Indian
painting in Moor's Hind. Panth. pi. 7. y.
Buddha
sleeping during the intermediate period between
statue .3.
Buddha
1
two worlds.
From
his
8 cubits long in his temple at Oogul-Bodda.
seated in a contemplative posture
;
of him, the mystic trident on his head.
bearing, as in the Inst
with the great father in the centre supplying to his statue in his
temple
at
representation
This represents the lunar ship Argha it
the place of a mast.
From
Oogul-Bodda,
4.
Two
/).
Crishna, an incarnation of Vishnou, with his three companions, his flocks, and his
colossal statues of the great father and the great
Memnon
in the
Thebais.
mother near the palace of
From Norden.
herds, taking shelter from an impending danger, in a vast serpent; wiiich the
hero-god had formed for that special purpose. pi.
G.
Front view of a Cherub, as described by Ezekiel.
7.
Side view of a Cherub, as described by Ezekiel.
8.
Ardha-Nari, or the hermaphroditic god produced by Isi,
From Moor's Hind. Panth.
64.
Origin of the
fabulous Amazon.
ilie
lateral
From Moor's Hind.
union of Isani and
Panth.
pi.
24.
\
THE ORIGIN OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY. BOOK
Pag.
Idol.
III.
VOL.
II.
CHAPTER
I.
Respecting the Fable of the Four Ages.
j\n
ancient notion has very generally prevailed both in the east and in
the west, that there have
been four successive ages,
symbolized by the
four metals of gold, silver, brass, and iron, during whirh ally
mankind gradu-
degenerated from a state of peace and holiness to one of violence and
But
wickedness.
form
:
served,
which
this notion is
in the fables that
which at in
reality
first
not always exhibited precisely in the same
have been founded upon
might seem to involve a
it
a variety
may be
ob-
sort of contradiction, but
was only the natural consequence of the doctrine of an
endless succession of similar worlds.
The
variety
is this
:
the series of the four ages
the creation, and sometimes from the deluge
are joined together, the series of the latter series of the
former terminates.
At
;
is
sometimes deduced from
when
so that,
commences
the two fables
precisely
where the
the head of each series however the
great father, in the west denominated Crotius or Saturn, and by the oriental
Hindoos Menu,
manner they
is
universally placed
:
so that the four ages, in whatever
are reckoned, always begin from the days of the great father
whence the golden age isproperly the age of the great at the
commencement of a new world.
father's manifestation
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
4 BOOK
III.
Now,
since world
was believed
sive manifestation of the great father
the
same personage
at the
and since each succes-
to succeed world,
was esteemed only a reappearance of
opening of each mundane system
the golden age,
;
being the age of the great father, was of course placed at the beginning of every world
and hence we perceive the cause, why the
:
ages, though always
deduced from Saturn or Menu,
duced from the epoch of the creation and
is
of the four
series
yet sometimes de-
at other times
from that of
tlie
flood. I.
The
between the creation and
fable itself properly relates to the period
the deluge
;
for the golden age,
the days of man's innocence and happiness in
who
mythologists,
can only be applied to
in absolute strictness,
Paradise
:
but the ancient
delighted to trace a resemblance between the two worlds
as tending to establish their favourite doctrine of an endless succession of per-
mundane systems, perceived, that after the flood there was what might be termed a new golden age. This was indeed but a faint and imperfectly similar
fect
image of
predecessor
its
purpose, and as such
They
:
yet the similitude was sufficient to serve their
was eagerly caught
it
observed, that the antediluvian world
happiness and innocence ; that the
he subsisted
a simple
in
state
first
on the
ject either to the artificial vices or
matters rapidly
agriculturist
;
period of
and that
of the earth, without being sub-
restraints of civil society.
They
was speedily corrupted
;
further
and that
passed from bad to worse, until at length a profligate and
lawless generation the corruption
commenced with a
man was an
fruits
observed, that his primeval innocence
was swept away by the waters of the
was gradual,
it
division of the period during
was
at.
was not unnatural
which
it
took place
aptly represented by the noblest metal, so
to
Now,
flood.
make a
since
chronological
and, as the age of purity
:
was an obvious idea
it
to
describe the subsequent progressive deterioration of manners by three metals,
all inferior to gold,
preceded
and each successively of
value than that which
less
it.
Such were the inclined to stop.
followed by a
first
observations of the ancients
The
;
but here they were
iron age ushered in the deluge
new world and
a
had commenced with a golden
new order of age,
things.
so likewise
;
little
and the deluge was
As
the old world then
must the new
:
and they
THE ORtGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. found, that
S
They observed, when compared to
a certain extent, was actually the case.
this, to
that the renovated system began with a period, which, the age of violence and
licentiousness that had immediately preceded
it,
might well be deemed a golden period of innocence and happiness, a period of restored integrity and of renewed siniplicity of manners. They observed, that the first
man
of this reproduced world, like the
world, was an agriculturist
;
gion of the globe which his predecessor had tenanted alike
from the vices and restraints of advanced
fi-eedom of rural
And
;
of the former
same Paradisiacal and that he
too,
re-
free
enjoyed the artless
society,
and subsisted on the productions of
life,
man
first
that he dwelt in the very
all-
bountiful nature.
they observed, that a deterioration of manners, which, in point both of
violence and licentiousness, bore a striking resemblance to the progressive
corruption of the antediluvians, speedily succeeded the golden age of the
Hence
great postdiluvian father.
no
less
would
than before
similarly
it
commence with
followed by those of II.
:
But here an obvious
was assumed, that every new world
it
a period of gold, which would similarly be
and
brass,
silver,
iron age was succeeded
the four ages were placed after the flood,
and hence
iron.
In the antediluvian world, the
difficulty arose.
in the tenth generation
new world
forthwith
commenced with
was easy
to specify the age of gold,
the
:
by the
flood;
but, in that
new
and a new
series
world, though
it
and though the progress of corruption
soon introduced what might well be esteemed an age of iron, no deluge occurred in the tenth generation, nor did another
place of
its
who
trifling nature,
which they,
similar worlds,
had to contend with.
and they found themselves rolled away,
mundane system occupy
Here then was a
lately renovated predecessor.
difliculty of
the
no
advocated the doctrine of a succession of
living in
They had pointed out an age of
an age of iron
:
gold,
but the tenth generation
and the world which they mhabited was destroyed neither by a
by a deluge of
flood of water nor
age of iron to be fixed
?
Had
extended to an indefinite length decisively, that
it
it ?
had commenced
Where then were the limits of the not as yet commenced or was it to be The manners of the times proved but too
fire.
;
:
and the
afforded a sufficient argument tor those, that the beginning of a
new
series
who
arrival of the tenth generation
delighted in analogical deduction,
might be expected, and that the reforma-
tion of another golden age might be
hoped
for.
cuap.
t.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOT,ATRV.
6
Now,
had occasion elsewhere
as I have already
this tenth generation
to observe,'
precisely in
a partial reform did take place, and an awful event oc-
curred which by those in
a season to have
vicinity appears evidently for
its
been mistaken for a destruction of the world by a deluge of
The
fire.
[ireter-
natural call of Abraham from Ur of Chald^a must have excited very general and, in the then early state of colonization, must Iiave been attention :
known throughout a
great part of the imperfectly peopled east;
because
Chaldea was the central point from which the rudiments of each future nation proceeded, and because most probably as yet they had by no means reached
The knowledge
the utmost extremities of the vast Asiatic continent. call
would be yet further spread by the wandering
himself. settled
And society,
to
life,
which withdrew him from the
this life,
and which
of
which he devoted artificial
habits of
some measure presented an image of
in
primeval simplicity of the golden age
the
united with the pristine in-
this life,
:
liis
tegrity and holiness of his manners, would readily suggest to those,
who
were already on the tiptoe of expectation, that Abraham was a reappearance of the great father, and that with him a
The
ing.
new age
of gold was
now commenc-
idea would be strengthened by the miraculous destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrha
and,
;
when
was found that the subversion of those
it
w as neither the end of the world nor the prelude to it, a new modificaof the fable of the four ages would be the natural consequence.
cities
tion
This
fable,
in
manners from the
its
described the gradual deterioi'ation of
original state,
commencement to
that each successive world
a
its
new
destruction either by
series of ages
to be not altogether true in matter of fact
must be contrived, which might mi"ht prevent the necessity of accordingly was devised
:
and taught,
;
would experience the very same deterioration,
which would regularly bring on
new world would usher in
the termination of a world
and, since
its
abandonment. it
or water,
when
a
but now the theory was found
and some
preserve
still
its total
;
:
fire
arrangement
different
plausibility,
and which
Such an arrangement
had been perceived that the postdi-
luvian iron age did not precede a second destruction of the world, but only
ushered in a partial reformation and a faint image of the golden age in one particular family (the national golden age of the people Israel) '
Vide supra
b.
i.
c. 2. sect. xiii.
;
it
was then
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
7
asserted, that the four ages succeeded each other in perpetual rotation, that
the iron age of one series that there
was ever followed by the golden age of another,
were naany such cycles
each world, and
in the duration of
that,
although an iron age would at length be assuredly the harbinger of a general
many
many
successive
degeneracies, previous to the awful catastrophe of a complete
mundane
deluge, there would be
reformations of manners and
dissolution.
This age
is
They
the doctrine of the Hindoos.
commence with
invariably
make
their golden
the appearance of a IVIenu, and they invariably suppose
the golden age to be followed by three others of progressive corruption but, in
each Manwantara or mundane reign of a Menu, they place seventy-
one cycles of four ages each at the
;
and
end of the iron age of the
complete Manwantara.
In
each cycle begin with a
this
Menu
:
believe, that every
last cycle,
that
is
arrangement, the for they
world
to say, difficulty
is
destroyed only
at the is,
end of the
how
to
make
were well aware, that the proper
golden age was the Paradisiacal age of the
first
Menu
or great father; and
they were no less aware, that the true epoch of the great father's appearance
was the commencement of each Manwantara or of each grand cosmical revolution. If then the great father was manifested in the golden age at the beginning of every Manwantara, immediately after the retiring of the inter-
mediate deluge, on the waters of whicK he had floated in a state of deep meditative slumber
:
ii
such was the true period of his manifestation,
golden age was invariably his peculiar age^ and seventy-one golden ages in the course of each
if
if
the
yet there were no less than
Manwantara; how, under these
circumstances, could evcrj/ golden age be the age of a
Menu, when
his real
era was the period immediately after the intermediate deluge or that Jirst
golden age with which
all
new worlds
are supposed constantly to open
?
The way, in which they managed the difficulty that necessarily resulted from they maintained, that every the new modification of the fable, was this Manwantara or entire mundane revolution was the reign of every Menu over his own proper world but that, as every INIanwantara comprized sevent}':
;
one cycles of four ages, and as in times of impurity,
and disappears
each
it
Menu
was incongruous
to place a holy
personage
only reigns personally in each golden age
in the three corrupt ages that follow
it,
continuing to dive
'^"^'-
'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
8 BOOK
III.
and emerge
a water-fowl (such
like
comparison)
is tlieir
of
until the close
Maiiwantara.'
his
It
is
obvious, that this opinion involves the belief, that every reformer of
mankind, who should age,
up
start
was a reappearance of
at the close of
Menu
what might be deemed an iron
or the great father.
Such, accordingly,
was the precise notion which the Phenicians, who were a colony of Scythic Hindoos, entertained of Abraham, as may easily be collected from the
They termed him Cronus
mythic history of Sanchoniatho. like
Menu was
shewed, what person they
sufficiently this Ilus
born
the proper appellation of the great father
once reigned
literally intended,
Now
circumcision.*
should they give him the
by
and yet they asserting, that
who was
that he first introduced the rite of
upon Abraham the title of Ilus or
the bestowing
him a reappearance of Menu
proves, that they esteemed
:
that he sacrificed his only son
in Palestine,
him of the nymph Anobret, and
to
or Ilus, which
name ? And
this opinion,
;
Menu
otherwise,
why
which they entertained of
him, exactly accords both with the speculations of their Indo-Scythic fore-
and with the
fathers,
Abraham's own
peculiarities of
in the tenth generation after the flood
the tenth descent after the creation
deemed
;
like
:
Noah,
history.
He flourished
or Menu-Satyavrata, did in
he lived at the end of what would be
:
Noah
the postdiluvian iron age, as
vian iron age
as
did at the end of the antedilu-
Noah, he had communication with God, and was a
preacher of righteousness
:
and,
like
Noah, he was a reformer of corrupt
manners, and was therefore considered as the introducer of the golden age of a new cycle.
We
shall
now
see the reason,
tenth generation after the flood
pagan
writers,
why is
the circumstance of his living in the
noticed so industriously by those ancient
who have mentioned
him.
Berosus and Eupolemus are alike
curious in specifying this genealogical particular and in dwelling on the juslice
and uprightness of Abraham.'
no doubt
but
;
it
was not a
record such particulars.
and
jfiere
love of accuracy, which induced them to
The appearance his
ii. p. 112, 126. Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib.
of
Abraham
eminent charactei *
Asiat. Res. vol. ^
In doing so they are 'perfectly accurate
i.
c. 7.
in the
for justice
tenth post-
and
integrity,
Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. lib. Euseb, Praep. Evan. lib. ix. c. 17.
iv. c.
l6.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. caused him to be deemed a new manifestation of
honourably distinguished,
by the
title
in tlie
writings both of
of Sadik or the just vian
in the tenth generation,
and
and
:
this
9
great fatlner
tlie
who
;
is
Moses and Sanchoniatho,
appearance of
his precisely
character which he bore of justice, are
this
mentioned by Berosus and Eupolemus, because to these points the atten-
who deemed him a new Cronus or Menu, was
tion of his contemporaries,
particularly directed.
Such then was the manner,
in
which originated the theory of many suc-
mundane
cessive cycles of the four ages in the course of each
Finding that in the tenth postdiluvian
revolution.
generation the then state of
the
world corresponded with the character of the iron age, finding however that
no deluge came to sweep away mankind from off the face of the earth, and yet finding that a just vailing iniquities
:
man
then arose to bear his testimony against the pre-
the ancient mythologists of the east
were reduced to
adopt the supposition, that the iron age was not always the harbinger of a flood
when one
but that,
;
menced with
cycle of four ages had expired,
the appearance of a
Menu
and with an attempt
another com-
at reformation,
which in some measure revived the integrity of the golden or Saturnian age.
Agreeably tion of
to
such a theory, the Hindoos are wont to esteem the manifesta-
any remarkable character the reappearance of a
or a Salivahana,
and to reckon
Thus
all
which
titles
Menu
or a
are descriptive of one and the
this manifestation the
commencement of a new
Buddha
same person,
series of ages.
the oriental heretics early corrupted Christianity, by pretending that
Jesus was a Buddha or Salivahana
was thought Jesus and
:
thus the Arabian impostor
to be another Salivahana
Mohammed
Mohammed
and thus the appearance both of
:
was equally said to constitute a new chronological
era.'
Such a notion was the more plausibly adopted by those philosophizing converts of the east,
who sought
to engraft
Christianity
upon the old stock of
Paganism, because the evangelical prophet has foretold the birth of the Messiah in language borrowed from the imagery of the golden or Paradisiacal age.
The
future Saviour of
face of the earth,
and
mankind was
to introduce afresh the reign of equity
See Asiat, Res. vol.
Pag.
Idol.
to destroy the wicked from
is.
p.
212
ct infra, vol. x.
VOL. U.
p.
27
oft"
the
and righteous-
et infra.
B
*''**''
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
10 BOOK
III.
Justice
jjggg
was
The
his reins.
to be the girdle of
lamb; and the leopard was mysterious infant series of ages,
was to
who was
to lie
down with
vainly
deemed
on
to play, with perfect safety,
like the
:
was
that holy
Menu
the
child,
of a fresh
the lion, and the fatling
and was
;
The cow and
fearlessly
the bear were
Destruction was
mountain of Jehovah
religious knowledge,
;
which, hill
of
boundless as the interminable
sweep away every remnant of corruption, and should
diffuse itself over the surface of the
whole
earth.'
similar idea of an age of iron being succeeded by an age of gold
carried likewise into the west it,
joung
or Ida of the Hindoos, was a transcript of the sacred
and a flood of
diluvian ocean, should
A
calf,
the hole of the asp
to eat straw like the ox.
unknown throughout
Meru
Paradise
the lion
:
A
new-born
on the den of the cockatrice.
to feed together
again to be
faithfulness the girdle of
the kid.
the
band the
to lead with one
was
lay his hand
and
loins,
liis
wolf once more, as of old in Eden, was to dwell with the
and the
:
poet,
who most
was
distinctly exhibits
has been equally indebted to the mythological speculations of the oriental
sages and the glowing imagery of the
Hebrew
The PoUio
prophet.
of Virgil,
though replete with allusions to that mystic theology in which he was so profoundly versed,
is
Isaiah, that I think
yet so strongly tinged with the peculiar phraseology of
it
only not demonstrable that he had read and availed
himself of the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures.
In
this extra-
ordinary poem, he celebrates the expected birth of a wonderful child,
was destined
to put
who
an end to the age of iron and to introduce a new age of
gold.
The grand of one
last period,
series
sung by the Sibylline prophetess,
of ages, that
mundane
is
nmo arrived: and
which recurs again and again
series
Now
revolution, begins afresh.
in the
propitious on the birth of a boy iron,
and introduce throughout
;
who
the xvhole
shall the herds no longer dread the '
4
a
:
now a new
thou, Lucina, smile
close the
present age of
world a new age of gold.
fury of
Isaiah xi.
Do
holiness.
will bring to
S,
course
the virgin Astrea returns
from heaven ; and the primeval reign of Saturn recommences race descends from, the celestial realms of
the
Then
the lion, nor shall the poison
of
JHE ORIGIN OF PAGAy IDOLATRY. the serpent any longer be
formidable
every venomous animal, and every
:
deleterious plant, shall perish together.
the grape shall distil
hang
in
11
Thejitlds shall be yellow with corn,
ruddy clusters from the bramble, and honey shall
spontaneously from the rugged oak.
The universal globe
the blessings of peace, secure under the mild sway of
shall enjoy
new and
its
divine
sovereign.
Thus,
and licentiousness, was the golden age
after a long period of rapine
appear again, and the ever revolving cycle to commence afresh
to
:
thus
accurately does the mythological poet express the sentiments of the oriental philosophers.
Nor
is
this all
:
while he exhibits to us the doctrine of successive cycles
occurring throughout
also at that great catastrophe,
which closed the
followed by a second imperfect age of gold.
every
mundane system terminates with a
the great father floats in the ship
Argha
According
doves, until they are manifested at the
the
Argha of the Hindoos
is
the
to
Hindoos,
deluge, on the surface of which :
and,
when
the waters retire, he
for
a season the form of
new world, as renovated human race.
commencement of
and through them of the
the parents of three sons
liints
and which was
real iron age»
and the vessel which had sustained him assume
Now
Manwantara, he
vast duration of a whole
tlie
the
palpably the Argo of the Egyptians and
the classical writers: consequently, the fictitious voyage of the
other than the diluvian voyage of the
Argha or Ark.
Hence
Argo
Virgil,
is
no
true to
the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, in each of which every event
was but a
repetition of a parallel former event, tells us, that,
series of ages
commences
when
afresh with that of gold, there shall
Argo manned with chosen heroes and another Tiphys
to steer
it
the great
be another safely over
the mighty deep, another eminent attempt at navigation, another beginning
of
civil society,
III.
The
and another Achilles
to destroy another Ilium.
several descriptions, which are given of the golden age, prove
very clearly, that, however
it
may have
been afterwards applied to represent
period immediately subsequent to the flood,
tlie
its real
prototype was the
age of innocence and happiness in Paradise. 1
.
Plato informs us, that, in the
ordained of God, there were neither
first
arrangement of things wliich was
human
politics,
nor the appropriation
^^*^'^-
•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
12
'"
of wives and children; but that
all
lived
in
common upon
productions of the earth.
They had abundance of
they were blessed with a
so rich, that
soil
it
and
trees
brought forth those
fruits
open
beasts
and they associated together without shame
air,
They conversed, not only with each
ness. :
yet
God was
their special guardian
provided them with
food, as
domestic animals.
He
an ancient fable aside,
until
Though
:
have become
men
are
;
their
and
:
spon-
time in
in a state
of naked-
other, but likewise
with the
and by a peculiar interposition
now wont
to provide for the inferior
mentions, that he had learned these particulars from
and concludes with saying, that such matters must be
some meet
it is
of Genesis
fruits
They spent
taneously and without the labour of cultivation. the
the exuberant
laid
interpreter of thehi should be revealed.'
not impossible, that Plato
in the
course of his travels
may
acquainted with the writings of ]\Ioses, and that the exordium
may
be the ancient fable to which he alludes, yet I doubt w hether
these opinions were exclusively borrowed from the Pentateuch
;
I
should
rather be inclined to believe, that, if ever the philosopher did indeed meet
with that venerable book, he was struck with finding in
it
a narrative that
remarkably accorded with the traditions which had been handed down by -
own
ancestors.
of uncertainty
;
his
That he ever perused the book of Genesis, must be a matter but, that he received his knowledge of the Paradisiacal age
from the legends of
his country, is indisputable,
declares that such was the case.
because he himself positively
Our forefathers,
immediately after the first revolution,
says he,
who sprang up
delivered these things unto us.
knowledge therefore was traditionally derived from
His
his Hellenic progenitors
:
and he wrote only from the common stock of information equally possessed by
all his
inquiring contemporaries.
speaks, can only, as
it
The
appears to me, be the deluge.
that Plato's notions of a primitive state of
or
may
great revolution, of which he here It follows therefore,^
happy innocence, whether we may
not suppose them to have been corrected and modified by an acquain-
tance with the divinely inspired theology of the Hebrews, were yet originally received, vians.
down
the stream of unbroken tradition, from the
first
post-dilu-
That he meant the age of Paradise by the golden period which he
so particularly describes,
is
manifest from
which I have already had occasion •
to notice.
one remarkable circumstance
He
Plai. Polit. p. 271, 272.
asserts,
that the deprava-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAhT IDOLATRY. by which
tion of the soul,
commenced this
was reduced
it
at the close of the
That
2.
however from
it
must
account of the
Plato's
are well assured, that
The age
peri6d was received traditionally,
first
might have been improved by extrinsical information, appears
coincidence with other similar narratives both in prose and
its
vve
scribe M'hat he calls
mode
tiie
ancient
appropriated to
own
its
of living
among
peculiar ancestors.
to this writer, were born near to the gods,
most holy
lived
modern race of
age. 3.
:
so that,
the Greeks, but
what
which every nation spe-
The
men, according
first
were of a most excellent nature,
when compared with
the degenerate
mortals, they might well be esteemed a golden generation.
that ti/ne, nothing
felicity
lives
in verse.
from Porphyry, undertook to de-
learn
really the life of the primeval antediluvian age
cially
At
we
inevitably be the fabled age of gold.
Dicearchus the Peripatetic, as
and
Now
depravation took place at the end of the Paradisiacal age.
therefore of Paradise
was
a state of spiritual bondage,
to
golden age.'
13
which had
life
was slaughtered
which then prevailed, the poets borrowed
:
and, from the universal
their pictures of the
golden
This age, Dicearchus adds, was the age of Cronus or Saturn.*
With such
accredited traditions agree the legendary
accounts of the
poets.
When gods and
mortal men, says Hesiod, were Jirst born together, the golden age commenced, the precious gift of the deities who acknowledged
Cronus as
from tormenting unknown. of disease
Mankind then led the and exempt from labour and
their sovereign. cares,
of the gods, free sorrow. Old age was life
Their limbs were braced with a perpetual vigour
were
unfelt.
When
at length the hour of
;
and the
evils
dissolution arrived,
death assumed the mild aspect of sleep, and laid aside all his terrors. blessing
was
Every The fruits of the earth sprang up spontaneousli/ Peace reigned : and her companions were happiness and
their oxvn.
and abundantly. pleasure.^
The manner,
in
which he accounts
for the
both clearly points out the period alluded
upon
it
the marks of primitive tradition. '
'
lies.
Oper.
et dier.
to,
this blissful condition,
and bears strongly impressed
Originally, says he, the tribes of *
Plat. Polit. p. 231.
change from
lib.
Porph. de abstin. lib. ver. 108 119.
i.
—
iv. sect.
2.
THE ORIGIN
14 nooK
III.
^g„
lived Upon
the earth, free
PAGAN IDOLATRy.
01"
from
and labours and
those evils
diseases
but the Jirst woman, endowed by the gods with
which protiuce old age:
every accmpUshment, yet destined to be the ruin of prying man, opened a
fatal casket, and
out miseries and calamities innumerable.
let
when her mischievous curiosity was and latidwere of the
?wzv alike replete
with
late,
but sea
evil; hope alone remaified at the
bottom
casket.^
I think
it
evident, that this legend contains a disguised history of the
for the whole connection, in which
Hence
such a supposition.
am
I
Cluverius, that that hope, which is
Too
replaced the lid:
satisfied, she
it
stands,
seems imperiously
said to
is
have been
once bruise the head of the serpent and be offered up
Hesiod
account, which Ovid gives of the golden age,
same primeval
the
:
simplicity,
are equally celebrated by the
:
not disposed to censure the conjecture of left
alone in the casket,
the never-forgotten hope of redemption through a Saviour
The
fall
demand
to
Roman
who
should at
as a sacrifice for sin.* is
but a transcript from
and the same universal happiness,
bard as essential characteristics of the
ancient reign of Saturn. 4.
A
The
similar idea occupied the
first
minds of our Gothic ancestors.
inhabitants of the world, according to the usual system of the
pagan nations which elevated the great father and his children to the rank of demon-gods, were considered by them as something more than human.
Their abode was a magnificent hall
The
of love, joy, and friendship.
glittering with burnished gold, the
ed of the same precious material; and the age of golden. piness,
which they were destined not long
innocence was soon contaminated.
integrity
In
itself
acquired the denomination
Such was the happiness of the primitive race of mortals
of the giants
and
and, by
;
a hap-
The blissful period of women arrived from the country
Certain
their seductive blandishments,
corrupted the pristine
purity.*
this tradition,
female agency •
;
to enjoy.
we may
observe, as well as in that of the fabulous Pan-
dora, the introduction of sin at the close of the golden age
'
mansion
very meanestof theirutensils were compos-
:
but
it
Hes. Open et dier. Ovid. Metam. lib.
is
ascribed to
seems probable, that the two legends do not relate to lib.
i.
i.
vcr.
ver.
59—105.
89— 112,
*
Cluver. Germ. Ant. p. 225.
* Edda. Fab.
vii.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. precisely the
same circumstance.
prototype of
the fatal curiosity
the country of the giants, and
The
pure line of mortals, can scarcely the
fail
is
but the arrival of
:
the obvious
women from
m ith a distinct and more
intercourse
tlieir
Eve
transgression of
of Pandora
15
of bringing forcibly to our recollection
maniages of the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain, which were the
principal cause of the universal depravity of the antediluvians.' 5.
The same
belief in a primitive state of holiness
may
be traced no less
distinctly in the fables of Ilindostan.
There can arise
little
words of Mr. Maurice, but
doubt, to adopt the
that by the Satya age or age of perfection, the golden age of classical
Brahmens
the
mytliology,
obscurely
and happiness enjoyed by man
allude
Paradise.
in
to
the state of perfection
It
is
impossible
to explain
•what the Indian xiriters assert, concertiing the uiiiversal purity of
and
the luxurious
and unbounded plenty prevailing
among
and
all the orders
in that primitive era,
Justice, truth, philanthropy,
without this supposition.
classes
manners
were then practised
There was then no extortion,
of mankind.
no circumvention, no fraud, used in their dealings with one another. tual oblations smoked on the altars of the Deity
praises
and every heart glowed with gratitude
;
;
Perpe-
every tongue uttered
to the
Supreme Creator.
The gods, in token of' their approbation of the conduct of mortals, condescended frequently to become incarnate and to hold personal converse zvith the yet undepraved race
to instruct
;
own sublime functions
arid
them
in arts
pure nature ; and
the economy of those celestial regions,
translated when
diately
Nor
is
this
to Strabo, held
much
the lapse of the
first
the
among
On ing
life.
the Hindoos:
Calanus, according particularizing
Formerly, ;
and
said he,
abundance,
kinds of wickedness; insomuch Gen.
vi.
2, 4.
la-
corn of all sorts abounded
the fountains pouredforth streams,
some of milk, some of honey, some of nine, and some of
to this luxurious
'
which they were to be imme-
same language, with the addition of
as plentifully as dust docs at present TiOter,-
make them acquainted uith
race and the consequent necessity of procuring by
bour the necessaries of
some of
to
sciences ; to unveil their
of their terrestrial probation cvpired^
the period
notion of late origin
into
and
man became
that Jupiter, disgusted *
and fell
corrupt,
zvith
Hiit. of Hind. vol.
i.
oil.
into all
such a scene, p.
371.
16 BOOK
III.
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
THF,
abolished to be
the.
and permitted the
ancient order of things,
necessaries of
life
medium of labour? A tradition thus cirbe little more than a transcript of the scriptural
obtained only through the
me
cumstantial seems to
to
account of Paradise, of the
Adam
and of God's denunciation against
fall,
that the ground should be cursed for his sake
and that
in the
sweat of his
face he should eat bread.'
The Hindoos sometimes express the in a figurative manner. The former become
salt
and
To
the preceding
mankind.'
sins of
Hindoo legends may properly be subjoined the
curious traditional fable of the Jains, a sect
under the
These suppose,
them
Brahmenists, that the great
like the
The
of
tlie classical
teristics,
ing
first
Menu
or
periods, :
and,
the subdivisions a cycle of
but, in addition to the
:
a remarkable particular
we
is
and that the people, who then
commonly
specified charac-
introduced into the account of
men
are told, that
flourished,
Dur-
it.
subsisted on the produce of ten
no kings; that
that there were
celestial trees;
mundane
to all eternity
of these ages exactly corresponds with the golden age
writers
continuance,
its
and again
among
they particularly notice
also,
four ages.
who worship Buddha
of Jain-Eswara.
title
as well as their subdivisions, revolve again like
either wholly disappeared,
and the colour of the white island has been
bitter:
changed into black on account of the 6.
(according to their allegorical
seas
and wine, have
writers) of milk, butter, honey,
or have
deterioration of the Paradisiacal state
all
were abundantly blessed
;
were distinguished by the appellation
of the supremely happy inhabitants of the earth.*
Perhaps
it is
almost superfluous to observe,
celestial trees has manifestly
that the notion of these ten
been borrowed from the fruit-bearing trees of
the semi-celestial garden of Paradise.
IV. Since then the in
first
or golden age
Eden, Saturn or Cronus,
name he may
in other
be distinguished,
consequence be
tiie
patriarch
ages before the flood
:
is
is
evidently that of man's innocence
words the great
Adam.
'
Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 715. Asiat. Res. vol.
viii.
p.
302.
who, by whatever
must by a necessary
Accordingly, Ovid places
and, after assigning the
'
father,
the prince of that age,
*
Gen.
first
iii.
all
the four
or the age of Saturn to
17, 18, 19.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
i.x.
p. 257,
258.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
17
the period which immediately succeeds the creation, he represents, in a
man-
ner perfectly corresponding with Scripture, the three following ages as gradually introducing a greater and greater degree of corruption and lawless violence, until at length the supereminent wickedness
of the iron age be-
comes the moral cause of the deluge.
Yet
the whole history of Saturn or Cronus or the great father equally
Noah
proves him to be the patriarch character, the golden age
must be placed immediately
find
The Brahmenical
1.
four
we
accordingly,
here,
when he
hence,
:
it
is
viewed under
this
And
after the flood.
placed by the Hindoos.
mythologists represent
it,
as synchronizing with the
Avatars or incarnate descents of Vishnou; the three former of
first
which, as Sir William Jones rightly observes, relate to some stupendous
But we must
convulsion of our globe from the fountains of the great deep.
not adopt in
Satya
Yug
its full
extent the opinion of this learned writer, which fixes the
exclusively to the period that immediately succeeds the deluge.
The Hindoos hold
the doctrine of a series of worlds, each of which
equally
is
preceded by a flood and by the escape of the great father with seven companions in an ark.
Consequently, in ascribing their Satya
after the deluge,
they by no means limit
they merely assign
it
it
to the earliest period of every world.
When
for an apparent contradiction in their theology.
they paint the Satya
scription,
Yug
in
In
world.
fact,
resemblance, as
we
:
find ourselves in
but,
This
will
Noah account
they descend to de-
when they arrange
their
the present or postdiluvian
new world bore a
the progress of corruption in the I
to the period
such colours as agree only with the
state of Paradisiacal innocence and happiness
four ages chronologically,
Yug
to the postdiluvian age of
have already observed, to that
in the old
world
the iron age of the former produced the catastrophe of the flood
;
:
strong
and, as
so,
at the
yet future close of the Call or iron age of the latter, the Hindoos place the tenth incarnation of Vishnou,
of the present
Such,
though
it
mundane
have
I
little
who
will
then be manifested for the dissolution
system.
doubt,
is
the original and consistent form of the legend
does not accord with that modification of
it,
which exhibits many
cycles of the four ages as revolving in the course of a single
mundane
reign of
Fog.
Idol.
Menu.
Sir
Manwantara or
William Jones has remarked, that the progress
VOL.
II.
C
««*«'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHY.
18 BOOK
III.
of time after the deluge naturally divides
the deluge obviously presents
of Paradise
is
we read
as
itself
the golden age
the Mosaical
the silver age
is
Nephilim, or tyrannical and gigantic oppressors of the :
and
'
may
it
history.
the age, which succeeded the
:
while as yet mankind were few in number,
brazen age
:
with equal propriety, that a similar division of time before
be observed
The age
four periods
itself into
line
fall
the age of the
:
of Cain,
the
is
and the age of the promiscuous intermarriages of the children of
Cain and the children of Seth, which speedily occasioned an universal lawlessness
The
2.
the
and depravity of manners,
is
the iron age.
*
legend of the Jains ought, I think, to be understood precisely in
same manner
though, as the Hindoo chronologers chiefly describe
:
postdiluvian time in their account of the four taries, like Ovid, have especially fixed
Yugs; so these Buddhic
sec-
upon antediluvian
their attention
time.
The
age, as
first
and the people of
it
we have
gifts
though they
were
still
was
that of the ten celestial trees
were distinguislied by the name of the supremely happy
On
inhabitants of the earth.
miraculous
recently seen,
the
commencement of
the second age, the
of the heavenly trees were less than in
supplied the wants of mankind: but the
the former age,
men
and longevity
inferior in complexion, stature, strength,
were called the moderately happy inhabitants of the earth. lowed by the third age: and, during straitened in the produce of
least
;
hence they
This was
period, the people wore
colour,
health,
and happiness
happy inhabitants of the earth.
periods there were born at different times fourteen
;
hence they
During these three
Menus
;
and the
last
fourth age, no miraculous fruits were produced by the heavenly trees;
destruction seemed to be nearly approaching to
their disappearance, Tirthacar
teenth
Menu.
By
became
his auspicious birth,
incarnate
and by
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
236, 237.
*
and,
mankind through
as the son of the four-
his instructions,
ledge of good and bad, of possible and impossible, and of the '
was
In the
the father of a personage denominated Vrishabhanatha Tirthacar.
when now
fol-
more
still
the celestial trees, as well as again inferior to
their predecessors in longevity,
were named the
its
of that age
See Gen.
vi. 4.
the
know-
mode
of
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
19
He
acquiring the advantages both of earth and heaven, was obtained.
arranged the various duties of mankind, and
all
He
stitutions,
did he esta-
delivering to their care the
blish the religion of the Jains in its four castes,
also
composed several books on the
improvement of mankind.
After he had settled laws and
charge of those sacred volumes.
regulations of
also
the several
Thus
mankind, and composed the four sacred books.
sciences, for the
men
In consequence of this arrangement, he became king
means of subsistence. over
allotted to
mankind, from that period, began to follow
sorts,
all
looking upon him, in every respect, as equal to
his departure from
G od
:
his in-
and, upon
world to the state of the Almighty, his image was
this
worshipped as Jain-Eswara.' It
is
easy to perceive, though no direct mention
that Tirthacar
who
is
same
the
made
of the flood,
who was saved in an ark, of a former world, and who was acknowmankind. The four ages of the Jains
as Menu-Satyavrata,
preserved the arts and sciences
ledged as the universal sovereign of therefore are antediluvian
is
but they are not exclusively so
:
;
for,
as there
have already been many similar cycles, so likewise will there be hereafter.
Numerous have been ancient Tirthacars,
all
the
of
Tirthacars of long-expired
whom
like
cycles
Noah were endowed
prophecy, foretold the future succession of other Tirthacars
:
witli
and these the gift of
who should be
manifested in the various worlds of the indestructible universe. 3.
These remarks
four ages, as
same
it
is
will
lead us to understand by analogy the fable of the
exhibited by Hesiod with a curious discrepance from the
fable as detailed by the
Roman
poet.
Hesiod derives the birth of Cronus and
his three sons,
together with
the,
whole generation both of mortals and of immortals, fi-om that watery chaotic mixture, out of which the habitable vvorld was produced. This watery mixture,
which
same
as the universal
is
described as being the origin of
all things,
certainly the
deluge, which the Hindoos place between each two
successive worlds and out of whicli the great father
mysteriously regenerated. father,
is
viewed either as '
The Cronus
Adam
or as
is
considered as being
therefore of Hesiod
Noah
:
for
is
the gi-eat
each of those patriarchs was
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 258, 259.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
20 '"*
equally supposed to have been born out of the watery Chaos at the com-
mencement of his own
Now
peculiar world.
Cronus, after his
of the golden age
:
and
birth,
is
said to have flourished during the period
is
described by Hesiod in a manner, which
age
tliat
The golden
obviously refers us to the age of Paradise. the silver age,
when a
partial deterioration of
are
now
said to have
and
in
understanding.
become
To
introduces a yet greater and
hearts were of
adamant
:
manners takes place
now brought
both in nature
The men, who
more extensive depravation. and
strong, warlike,
fierce,
their corporeal strength
to the age
will
follow and that the
and
:
irresistible.
when we
World
dissolved in consequence of the irreclaimable wickedness of
its
unawares in
selves iuster
the
and better than
postdiluvian world.
is
When removed
earthly existence, the almighty father allotted to
:
then be
inhabitants,
During a
and we
These are
find our-
they^
from the present
them
arrangement of Hesiod
state of
for their residence
seei?is to
:
and thus the
correspond with the Hindoo theory, which
places more than one cycle of the four ages within the period of each It
wantara.
may
therefore be
assumed as indisputable, so
Man-
far at least as the
concerned, that these four ages of Hesiod are postdiluvian, and
consequently that his Cronus
But
who
of the blessed, which are seated at the very extremity of the earth
and which are washed by the eddies of the deep ocean.' Here then we have a reformation instead of a dissolution
letter is
We
generation of demi-gods,
their predecessors, springs up.
fought against Thebes and Troy.
the isles
effected
A
their
are in full
will
are suddenly presented with a very unlooked for amendment.
fourth age, not iron but heroic, a reformation
Their
insolent.
was immense
and,
of lawless violence:
expectation that the iron age
we
and men
:
the silver age succeeds the brazen age, which
nervous arms, firmly knit to their broad shoulders, were are
followed by
is
inferior to their predecessors,
were
lived during that period,
age
it is
is
Noah.
just so far as the letter, and no further.
If
we more
attentively
observe the tradition which he has handed down to us, we shall perceive, that the idea of antediluvian times is never once lost, that his four ages •
Hesiod. Oper, et
ilier.
lib.
i,
ver.
120—171.
THE OHIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. agreeably to the ference,
He dora
:
dogma of a
and that
in effect
succession of similar cycles have a double re-
he makes them
like
Ovid terminate with the
he
for
tells us,
had been
after her fatal curiosity
that,
and
affliction
to experience old age
;
free
decrepitude of old age:
The
similar exemption.'
dom from that
liable to the pains
for
;
such
is
evidently implied in the declara-
never tasted sickness and never grew old
with that period of the
woman's
first
answers only to the Paradisiacal age
life,
;
and to that age
If
certainly be
we next
confirmed.
and
But it
this description
minutely answers in
it
is
thus viewed, his Cronus
Adam.
pass to his silver age,
we
abundantly
shall find this conclusion
Men are now become mortal
:
but
still
their longevity
is
decidedly
He
the longevity, not of postdiluvianism, but of antediluvianism. tliem, as
coincided
it
Therefore the Paradisiacal age must inevitably be the
prototype of Hesiod's golden age ; and, when
must
:
which preceded her transgression
and the consequent introduction of death and calamity.* every particular.
and
they no longer enjoyed a
latter,
golden age of Hesiod then was marked by a free-
the penalty of death
men
during the
but,
the golden
During the former,
age terminated and when the silver age commenced.
men were
this precisely
when
accords with the change, which he represents as taking place,
from labour and trouble, and were not
men
gratified,
to neither of which
Now
they had been subjected before she opened the casket.
tion,
flood.
describes his golden age as synchronizing with the formation of Pan-
began to taste
first
21
speaks of
remaining infants for the space of a whole century, and as afterwards
having their lives shortened not in the
by the sword of
They
violence.
common
course of nature but solely
are cut off in the flower of their youth, after
a childhood of a hundred years, by bloody feuds and intestine discord, not
by a peaceful and gradual decay. •
Hesiod. Oper. et dicr.
*
Hesiod does indeed represent
gods; but
this involves
lib. i.
after all
nothing move than a
originally constituted immortal
were buried.
83
— 104.
ver.
his first race, as
108
— 125.
dying and as afterwards becoming hero-
a plain contradiction to what he had previously said, which clearly
implies an exemption from death. is
ver.
Could they have abstained from war and
They were
Yet even such a contradiction, palpable
literal :
statement of real matter of fact.
but, in consequence of sin, they died
as
The and
it
may
first
(as
seem,
race
was
Hesiod says)
also (as he no less truly remarks) subsequently deified, and wor-
shipped as demons by their posterity.
See ver. 120
— 125.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
22 BOOK
III.
niutual injuries, their adult lives might have been prolonged in proporlion to their infancy
:
whenever
their allotted
term was shortened,
own
the poet observes, in consequence of their
men were made
mortal
but
;
began to be abbreviated. occuired
was not
it
An
it
was
solely, as
Btfort the flood
folly.'
until afttr the flood,
that their lives
infancy of a century can only be said to have therefore Hesiod's silver age, not merely
in antediluvian times:
by
succession to his golden age, but likewise by internal evidence furnished
its
from
itself,
must be placed before the deluge.
His brazen age exhibits
Ovid
and
:
shewn
tlie
transactions of the brazen
to be antediluvian, as well as
and licentiousness, proves, that Yet, as
flood.
and iron ages of
succession to the golden and silver ages which have been
its
I
it
own
its
also
peculiar character of bloodshed
must be deemed antecedent
have already observed, when we might least expect
we
scene suddenly changes,
to
the
it,
the
are intioduced to the ostensibly postdiluvian
heroes of Thebes and Troy, and a reformation takes place without any literally specified dissolution of the world.
But, unless I
ken, such a dissolution, though not literally specified, this part
of the fable
:
ages, though apparently
it
From
appears, that his three
and with a secondary reference placed
properly antediluvian.
assigned to the era of Thebes and
The
covertly alluded to in
catastrophe of the deluge.
the preceding examination of his chronology
the reformation of
greatly mista-
and the corruption of manners, which Hesiod ascribes
to his brazen age, really ushers in the
are really and
is
am
first
after the flood,
This being the case, the reformation
Troy must coincide
in point of time with
manners or the new golden age which succeeded the deluge.
fabulous age therefore of Thebes and of Troy must be the age of the
deluge
:
or,
at least, there
must have been some
blance between the two ages, some
common
sort of analogical resem-
intermixture of tradition
;
other-
wise Hesiod would scarcely have placed the warriors of those two renowned cities in the precise
chronological epoch where
Ovid
places the flood.*
126— 13(^.
'
Hes. Oper. ct dier.
*
In exact accordance with such an opinion, while Hesiod makes his brazen age terminate
lib.
i.
ver.
with the fabulous epoch of the Trojan war, the scholiast on sent
a
flood to destroy the
men
of the brazen age.
coincides with the epoch of the deluge.
The epoch
Schol. in Horn. Iliad,
Homer
tells us,
that Jupiter
therefore of the Trojan lib.
i.
ver. 10.
war
THE OniGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. This point
not unworthy of a full discussion
is
S3
and the discussion
:
will
shew, that the arrangement of Hesiod was neither arbitrary nor accidental.
The
(1.)
heroic age of
Thebes and Troy must
as comprehending the age of the Argonauts niede,
is
been at the siege of Thebes; Theseus, the
said to have
of Helen,
is
inevitably be understood,
Tydeus, the father of Dio-
for
:
first
lover
described as contemporary with Etcocles and Polynices,
who
were conspicuous characters
at the
same
siege
Castor and Pollux, the bre-
;
thren of Helen, are enumerated among the Argonauts it
and Helen
;
herself,
need scarcely be observed, was flourishing
in
complete beauty during the
But Helen was born exactly
at
the
siege of Troy.
same time with Castor
Therefore Helen, according to the preceding statement, must
and Pollux.
have lived during both the Argonautic expedition, the siege of Thebes, and
Troy
the siege of
and these three celebrated events stand so inseparably
:
linked together in the traditions of the ancients, that they
must
deemed
utterly impossi-
either historically true or mythologically false.
ble to dissever
be
them from each other
and,
fictitious;
if
if
:
It
is
the rest must
the one be fictitious,
the one be true, the rest
must be true
jointly be
Thus,
also.
Diornede were really at the siege of Troy, there must have been a siege of Thebes, because there bis father
Helen were
really carried off
Tydeus
signalized himself
by Paris, there must have been a
:
and,
literal
if
literal if
Argo-
nautic expedition, because her brethren were two of the chosen mariners of the Argo.
Thus
again,
on the other hand,
a palpable mythologic fiction,
it
plainly impossible, that the
is
Thebes and Troy should be sober
the Argonautic expedition be
if
historical realities
because,
:
two sieves of if
Castor and
Pollux and their adventurous companions in the Argo be mythologic characters,
Helen cannot be a
and the other Grecian
real one,
Diornede
;
genuine history can have no concern with his father Tydeus and the
be false
;
or,
one and
we must be content
Now
Helen be not a
who reclaimed her at the point of the sword characters and, if Diomede be a mytholocical cha-
heroes of the war of Thebes. all,
if
chiefs
equally cannot be real racter,
one; and,
real
to
In short, the events all,
No
be true.
admit them
in the
question must, one and
middle way can be selected
:
mass, or to reject them in the mass.
the whole Argonautic expedition bears
strong impress of mythologic fiction.
in
The
sliip
upon the very Argo,
we
face of
it
the
are told, was the
^'•*"'* '•
THE ORICrN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
24 BOOK
III.
first
ship that was ever built.
the Baris or
Theba
inclosed by
Typhon
But, as Osiris tifies itself
theoue
is
is
was
It
we
likewise,
are assured, no other than
or lunilorm ark of the Egvptian Osiris, within which he was or the ocean and thus set afloat on the sacred river Nile.
palpably the same as Noah, so his character likewise iden-
Hence the ship Arj^o of The Argha however is in-
with that of the Indian Iswara or Siva.
certainly the ship
Argha of the
disputably the Ark, because
it is
other.
have sailed over the surface of the
said to
delude and to have been afterwards changed into a dove.
Tlicrefore the
Argo, as indeed necessarily follows from the character of Osiris, must also
be the Ark that
;
a conclusion, which exactly again corresponds with the notion
was the
it
Now,
first-constructed vessel.
since the
confessedly the ship of Iswara and Osiris, and since
its
Argo or Argha was
own legendary
history
as coiniected with the legendary histories of those deities proves
it
been the Ark of Noah;
Jason and
his
it
clearly follows, that the whole fable of
companions must have been a mere Hellenic which
gical system,
Egypt.
in
upon the theolo-
fiction, built
Jason have sailed to Colchis
literal
of Iswara and Osiris
?
have
degree the Greeks received from
a considerable
For how could any
first-built ship
to
And how
in the sacred
could the knowledge of a
petty voyage, performed by an obscure adventurer of a semibarbarous Hel-
we have abundant testimony
lenic state, have been diffused, as diffused, over the
whole both of
tiie
east and the west.
that
ii
was
Nothing but the
genuine Argonautic expedition could have been thus universally celebrated and,
when we
either
that the pretended voyage of
Jason
m
the very ship of Osiris
but a locally appropriated transcript of the mystic voyage of Osiris or
Iswara, and that Jason and Osiris and Iswara are
and the same character. Accordingly, the whole legend both of Jason and satisfactory internal evidence,
history of Osiris and the is
:
mythology of Greece was altogether derived
from the Scythic Pelasgi or the Phenicians or the Egyptians, we may
rest assured, is
recollect that the
Argo
that
it
is
all
fundamentally one
his ship affords the
most
nothing more than the Hellenized
or of Iswara
and the Argha.
said to have been inclosed in an ark during his
Jason himself
infancy like one that was
dead, in order that he might escape the fury of Pelias; just as Osiris and the infant
Horus were shut up
either in
an ark, or a floating
island, in order
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Typhon.
that they might escape the rage of
In
this situation, his
women
death was loudly lamented in the night-time by the just as the allegorical death of Adonis or
was bewailed,
deity)
Osiris (for they
during the celebration of
becomes the captain of the Argo, which was the
Egypt
into Greece,
Danaus and
imagined hisfamily;
were the same mysteries,
period of his
life,
he
identical ship of Osiris
in allusion to the introduction of the
and which,
of
nocturnal
tlie
At a subsequent
by the women of Byblos and Egypt.
25
Argonautic Orgies from
also feigned to have been the vessel which conveyed
is
his family
from the former country to the
latter
:
and, in the
course of his fabled voyage to Colchis, he on one occasion sends a dove out
of his ship, and on another receives a dove into
Argha
fly
Noah first we
find
away
in the
their shoulders
his
Iswara and
it
again into the Ark.
Lastly,
companions on the coast of Africa carrying the Argo on
precisely as the priests of
;
just as
form of doves at the close of the deluge, or rather as
sends out a dove and then receives
him and
it;
Ammon
or Osiris were wont to
bear in solemn procession the sacred ship of their oceanic deity.
Thus
accurately do these cognate legends correspond in every particular.
But, though the Greeks
seem
have peculiarly borrowed their Argonautic
to
expedition from Egypt, there was not a nation on the face of the earth which
was not more or the Argo,
less
if literally
acquainted with
it.
The
utterly impossible
which the not merely licentious imagination of the poets conducts
to
terious siiip
and a wonderful mariner were devoutly reverenced.
this account of the
voyage
facts exactly agree.
The Argo
:
and, in
from Thessaly little
to Colchis
with
the Baltic,
and
if
contemptible voyage being thus diffused over the face of the whole
globe?
Its
genuine prototype was assuredly the
the first-built ship inclosed Osiris
'
And
we admit a literal Argonautic expedition how can we account for the knowledge of this
But, ;
a mys-
these parts of the world, a ship and a ship-god
all
were equally venerated.
it,
visited the coast
of Africa, the western part of Asia, the Danube, the Po, the British isles
voyage of
understood, serves only to shew, that in every region,
See
lUis
Pag.
;
that ship,
voyage performed
in
w hich was the work of the eight Cabiri, which
when pursued by
matter discussed at large in
Idol.
first
the ocean, which bore Iswara in safety
my
VOL.
Dissert,
II.
on the Cabiri. chap.
viii. '
D
CUAP.
I.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATIIV.
S6 BOOK
III.
Qver the waters of the deluge, and which in the earliest ages was placed
among
the constellations with the raven, the hieroglypliical sea-serpent, the
and the
altar,
sacrificing Centaur.
The Argo,
'
was the Ark
in short,
and
:
the Argonautic expedition, which the Greeks ascribed to a band of Thessa-
which was celebrated in every region of the earth, had
lian adventurers, but
no
save as the voyage of
real existence,
Noah and
his family.
If then the Argonautic expedition was a mere mythological altogether on the history of the flood '
The
;
must
it
very position of these remarkable catasterisms
built
from the preceding
follow,
may
fiction,
serve to prove, that the history
of the Argo could not have been written on the sphere by the Greeks
whence
:
it
will follow,
that the fable of the Argonautic expedition was no further a Greek fable than
as
it
was
adapted to the neighbourhood of Thessaly.
Canopus, the principal star
in
the constellation Argo,
pole, and the greatest part of the constellation lies
is
only 37 degrees from the south
nearer to
still
courseof the Argoan voyage lay between 39 and 45 degrees of north sphere had either been constructed by
if the
the
or for the
fictitious
were bound. dwelt
The Argo must assuredly have been placed and
to
in the
which the constellaiion
alike
sphere by a nation, which itself
was
will follow, that the history of the
nation, anterior to
Argo must have been
known
its
own
to that
history.
southern
In other words, the Argonautic
localized adoption by the Greeks.
its
well
But the
visible.
Argo could not have been placed in the sphere, previous to the existence of it
Hellas,
a constellation,
Pagasae whence they are fabled to have set out, and at Colchis whither they
far to the south of Greece,
Hence
Consequently,
Argonauts of
framer would not have given the name of the ship Argo to
invisible, at
But the pretended
it.
latitude.
expedition, as detailed by the Greeks, could never have really taken place: but the whole story of
and
it
As
it
was borrowed from the southern
was only
so far altered as to
nation,
which
for the people that originally invented the sphere,
Cuthim
of Babylonia
first
placed the ship in the sphere
wear the aspect of a national Hellenic I
talc.
have no doubt that they were the
and precisely the same argument, which proves the origination of the
:
various mythologic systems of Paganism from the
prove the origination of the sphei'e from the
common centre of Chaldea, will equally To omit other coincidences, the
same region.
twelve si^ns of the zodiac perfectly agree both in appellation and in order of succession, wheBut this they ther delineated on the sphere of Hindostan or of ancient Egypt or of Greece.
could not have done, unless the several spheres of those nations had all been framed by one and the same people. Such then being the case, we can scarcely hesitate to pronounce, that that people were the architects of Babel, and that the sphere thus alike carried off by the
founders of different nations was
itself
invented before the dispersion.
This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by strong internal evidence. As the constellation Aroo is plainly the Argha or Ark, and as the neighbouring constellations all relate to the hislory of the deluge
:
so
what we now
call
Oiion and
his dogs are
apparently the great
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAV IDOLATRY.
27
wars of Thebes and Troy cannot be admitted as
train of reasoning, that the
portions of authentic history
:
for all the three,
as
it
has already been shewn,
are so inseparably linked together, that they must stand or if
one be a
literal
matter of
be purely fabulous, nautic expedition
is
fact,
must be
all
literal
must be purely fabulous.
all
the age of the deluge.
of Troy, as they are exhibited
conjointly
fall
matters of fact
;
if
one
But the age of the Argo-
Therefore the ages of Thebes and
us in poetry, must also be the a^e of the
to
deluge; whether we choose, or choose not, to suppose the existence of some piratical squabble, which may probably enough have taken place betw-een the
Greeks and the
of Thebes and of Troy
is
Accordingly, the whole history both
Ilicnsians.
diluvian
and
:
am
I
fabled wars of each city are, at least in the
first
inclined to believe, that
much
instance,
the
the
same
in
tliat
of
import as the allegorical wars of Typhon and the Titans.
The name
of the Beotian Thebes was confessedly borrowed from
Thebes
the Egyptian entirely
and the legendary account of
;
upon the worship of the sacred
brings out of
Egypt no
less
have been conducted
which had the
to
as
foundation
Cadmus, whom
heifer.
than out of Phenicia, and
was the same person
after see)
its
Mho
(as
we
Thoth or Hermes or Buddha,
is
built
tradition
shall hereis
said to
the place destined for his future city by a cow,
figure of the lunar crescent imprinted
on
its
side.
Now
this
precisely answers to the description of the bull Apis, which was marked by
a similar lateral stigma
cow were worshipped great mother.
:
and, as I have already shewn, the bull and the
conjointly as
Accordingly
we
symbols of the great father and the
tlie
are told, that the heifer of
hunter Nimrod and his hounds; while the bears, the the
game which he pursued.
Nimrod sphere
is
the
same person.
Hist.
lions,
the linx, and the hare,
Cedrenus accordingly scruples not
Compcnd.
to
I may add, that the Virgo of our present who was sometimes mystically deemed a virgin.
Isis, who was confessedly the same as Ceres and the Hindoos woman standing in a boat and holding in her two iiands a lamp and an last mode of delineation was, I am persuaded, the original one: but,
For the Egyptians called her
ear of corn.
This
though the Greeks
represent
pronounce Orion and
p. 14.
certainly the navicular great mother,
delineate her, as a
Cadmus was
lost the
concomitants of the female
mythological notions to which they said to have borne a
:
refer.
figure, they accurately
Their Ceres or
lamp during her nocturnal search
Isis
preserved the
was a ship-goddess: she was
for Proserpine,
whence lamps were
introduced into the celebration of her Mysteries; and she was described, as being peculiarly the goddess of corn.
'^"*^-
^•
^*0
BOOK
III.
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
TIIK
denominated Thcba ; which,
in
consequence of the hieroglyphical apph'cation
of that animal, denoted in the dialect of Syria and Egypt both a caw and
an ark: and we are likewise informed, that the Thebes both of Greece and of the upjjer Egypt received
name from
its
the
Theba
or that mystic arkite
cow, within which Osiris was once inclosed and set afloat on the Nile.
Such was the fabled precisely resembled
by an oracle should
lie
to build his projected city.
common
interpreted by the other
same, that we cannot doubt of their
In
Minor and
fact,
in
idolatry both of
world.
Ilus
the very
Greece:
and
less
the one
must be
respect to
the
must be the case with the Trojan
same mode of worship was
established in Asia
again identifies itself with the peculiar
this
Egypt and the whole
was no
Hence
Theban legend have
the
if
prevailing diluvian superstition, such also
legend.
*
mytliological source.
and,
:
was directed
guidance of a cow, and, wheresoever the animal
stories are so perfectly the
having arisen from a
and that of Troy or Ilium
:
the reputed founder of the latter,
Ilus,
it.
to follow the
down, there
The two
origin of the Beotian city
east,
or rather indeed of the whole
a Phenician, than a Trojan, hero-god
and he
:
is
represented by Sanchoniatho, as being the same as Cronus or the great
whose golden age every successive world invariably commenced.
father, with
The the
Ilus of
same
as
Troas and Phenicia
Buddha or Menu
:
who
is
and the feminine Ila of that country
is
is
the masculine Ila of Hindostan,
who was
described as being the wife and daughter of the ancient patriarch,
preserved in a ship with seven companions
when
the earth Avas inundated
She likewise bore the cognate name of Ida; and the
an universal deluge.
summit of the Paradisiaco-diluvian Meru was from her denominated vratta or Ida-tratta. culine and feminine hill
It
Ila
Theba and
Ila-
was from these two primeval characters, the masor Ida, that both the city of Ilium and the sacred
of Ida received their appellations.
and, as
by
Ida was the Meru of the Troas
the female Ila were the
same mythological
:
character,
Thebes and Ilium, agreeably to the connnon legend of their foundation, were only designated by two '
Ovid. Mctam.
*
ApoUod.
lib.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
iii.
ver.
c. 11.
different
1—23.
names of one
gi-eat
mother.
Tzctz. in Lycopli. ver. 1206.
Lycoph. Cassan.
ver. 29-
TzeU. Schol.
Etym. Magn. vox
in loc.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. In exact accordance with such
made
their
which the Thebans, the
fictions,
Ilicnsians,
and the Hindoos, have severally by local
the Phenicians, the Egyptians,
appropriation
29
own, the old
liistory
of the Trojans, which
is
so
genealogically connected with the war of
Troy
or rejected together, finally and
like the fabulous early history of
literally,
must be accepted
that they
other ancient nations, resolves itself into the deluge.
all
Thus Dardanus, one of
their first pretended
w as believed to have
kings,
previously been a king of Arcadia, and to have escaped from a flood which
Driven from Arcadia, he took refuge
inundated his dominions.
thrace, the peculiar country of the Cabiri
of
tlie
first ship,
;
and who were reported
the relics of the ocean or delude
:
who were esteemed to
have consecrated
Troy, having, according to some, escaped another
of the former: each
His
^
is
latter
is
to
Neptune
flood,
Avhich laid that
declared to have been the very same
escape
evidently a
is
mere reduplication
equally a local fable, the one Arcadian,
Thus
Samothracian, built on the history of the general deluge. another of the
Samo-
the builders
and from Samothrace he removed to
'
sacred island under water, and which as that of Deucalion.
in
the other
also Tennes,
of Troy, was said to have been set afloat in
fictitious princes
an ark on the surface of the ocean, and to have afterwards safely landed on the island of Tenedos.
Now
'
this is
nothing more than an exact counterpart
of the legend of Dionusus or Bacchus,
who was
specially venerated
by the
Thebans, and whose ^Mysteries were thought to have been brougiit by Cad-
mus out of
While
Eg}'pt.
the god
was yet an
he was inclosed
infant,
in
an
ark and cast into the sea; but, like Tennes, he drifted to land without receiving any injury from his perilous exposure.
All such parallel ancients
tales,
which occur perpetually
and which have thence been adopted
ecclesiastic
'
into
and heroic,* are nothing more than
general history; which equally concerns Dion. Halic. AiU. Rom.
lib.
i.
c.
all
in the
mythology of the
modern romance both
local
appropriations of a
mankind, because
6l. Euseb. Prsep.
Evan.
lib.
i.
c.
it
is
the his-
10.
Tzetz. in Lycopb. ver. 29, 69.
Conon. Narrat. xxix.
'
The holy Cuthbert and infra
book
v.
c. 8.
jj
I.
1.
the redoubtable II. 7.
Amadis were equally
set afloat in
an ark.
Vide
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAK IDOLATRY".
30 •ooK
jii.
Agreeably to
Thebes and of Troy
we
Hesiod,
this hypothesis,
upon
tlie
face of the earth.
find, places the
deceased heroes of
tory of the primitive ancestors of every nation
in the sacred isles of the blessed,
which he describes as
But those
being washed by the waves of the great western ocean.
M'e have already seen, were the fabled Elysium of the poets
Hence
doubly symbolized Paradise and the Ark.
somehow
or other,
tliere
was a
isles,
:
notion,
they were the same as the Egyptian Thebes
as
and they that,
by which
:
nothing more was meant, than that each of them shadow ed out a Tlieba or Ila-vratta.
By
the
Hindoos they are considered
tris or patriarchal forefathers of mankind,
preserved from the deluge.
makes them
was
Hence
the abode of those
a\
as the residence of the Pi-
ho d^elt in Paradise and who were
was not without
it
Theban and Trojan worthies
the age of the Argonautic expedition,
that Hesiod
reason,
whose history stands
ble connection with legends of the deluge, and
who
whose age
;
in insepara-
are placed in a period
of reformation immediately successive to a period of universal corruption
and of
that followed the two ages of silver
In
short,
if
gold.
Homer's poem has been founded on any predatory
\Aar
which
took place between the Hellenes and the Iliensians, a circumstance not improbable
;
he has certainly embellished
by an immediate connection with the
it
Such a mode of
hero-gods of the old diluvian theology.
by no means without
parallel
;
and
Avhicli all
is
and indeed was almost the necessary conse-
quence of that humour, which bestowed upon men the
sons
treating a subject
titles
of
tlie
considered the initiated as scenically exhibiting in their
the allegorical sufferings of the deified patriarchs.
of the ancient mythological Arthur,
who
Avas saved
Thus
gods,
own
per-
the actions
in a ship with seven
companions at the time of an universal inundation, have been blended with the history of the British prince
ated or disguised by that pagan tic
who title
:
at a long subsequent period
and thus the
was decor-
arkite demi-gods of Cel-
theology, and the mystic circle of Ida or Ceridwen, have
been con-
verted into the romantic heroes of chivalry and the far-famed military bro-
therhood of the round table.' '
It
docs not appear to inc, that Mr. Bryant's
really confuted.
Though
it
is
hading idea on
this subject
has ever been
only agreeable to the chaiacler of the times, that there
may
have been a marauding war between the warlike pirates of the two opposite coasts of Europe
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
On
(2.)
the whole, the four
sequent addition of his
first
ages of Hesiod, ^nlh the remarkable sub-
may
fifth age,
rious instance of the doctrine of a
hending similar cycles
:
for they
51
be considered as exhibiting a very cusuccession of similar worlds compre-
shew an attempt
to blend together into one
narrative the antediluvian and the postdiluvian series of ages.
He deduces
whole theogony from Chaos, which he makes the
his
World
ning of the
but his Cronus or great father, as evei-y part of that
:
god's history demonstrates,
Adam
and
;
is
at least as
his chaotic ocean,
much a
which appears as the
originally formed,
than the deluge out of m hich
what was esteemed
its
tically antediluvian
:
new
be
fairly in
Noah
them down
it
emerged
first
Argo
to the identical awful catastrophe
fifth
ages are characteris-
to a fourth heroic age
:
and
then,
it is
yet conscious that he himself Avas age,
is
when we view
livin<^
ia
name
of an iron
one
:
basis of his
as nearly allied to authentic history as the
Jerusalem of Tasso or even as ihc Orlando of Ariosto.
poem
in-
its
he proceeds to lament that he had been
impossible to admit, that the Iliad
ters themselves,
when we
which Ovid rightly places at the termi-
age which might well deserve the
as exhibited in the great
of the
or Argha, to be suddenly transported
and Asia, and though some such war may have been adopted by Homer as the ;
the time of
Lastly, as if the poet were thoroughly bewildered
own arrangement and
thrown into a
at
at which time he places a moral reformation, that,
any thing rather than a golden
poem
as of
parent of the
a postdiluvian period, \ve find ourselves, through
nation of his iron age.
with his
common
only occurred immediately after the flood
separable connection with the ship
back
His three
formation.
yet he brings
Theban and Trojan wars,
we know, to
transcript of
cannot be more deemed the Chaos out of which the World was
hero-gods,
seem
becrin-
The
actors in perhaps a literal
war
of the Hellenic bard, can scarcely be received as literal charactheir
immediate connection with the Argo, with the deluge, and I cannot but think it very inconclusive
with the gods of Egypt and Pheniciaand Hindostan. reasoning, though
it
has been hailed with loud applause, to argue the actual existence of
Ho-
mer's heroes, under the circumstances which he attributes to them, from the accuracy of his local descriptions, even if that accuracy had not been considerably exacoeratcd. By asimilar process
I
will undertake to demonstrate the exploits of Brute, Corincus,
worthies, to be manifest historical verities.
had
;
local
accuracy of a poet
and other British
may
prove that he where he lays his plot and that he had availed himself of the established but I see not what it can prove more.
visited the country
popular legends
The
CHAP.
I.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
32 • OOK
III.
but at the same time he uses language, which necessarily involves the doctrine
and
that each series of ages
;
that,
when
was always followed by another
the iron age had arrived,
it
similar series,
would be speedily followed by a
better age of gold."
V. The remote antiquity and veiy general reception of the four ages, also the application of
as a cycle ending in a reform of manners,
it
may, I think, be collected from Scripture
itself.
In Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the great image, breast and the arms of silver,
of
legs
iron,
fable of the
the belly
the head of gold, the
and the thighs of
and the
brass,
the four successive ages of four sovereignties
exhibit
:
and,
at length those four ages have fully expired, and « hen the four sove-
when
reignties
have been swept away from off the face of the earth
;
a
new age
and a new kingdom of pure and holy nianners, the age and the kingdom of
Messiah and his It
saints, are described as
worthy of observation, that in
is
legs of the
image are of pure
Such a mode of
clay. really
happened,
is
commencing.
this
his feet are of iron
iron,
though
painting,
symbolical prophecy, though the
it
admirably represents what has
yet in strict correspondence Avith ideas, which must have
been perfectly familiar to the pagan king of Babylon.
known
usually
the
as the age of iron,
is
The
though
last age,
denominated by the Hindoos the age of
Into the vision each hieroglyphic
earths
mixed with earthy
is
curiously introduced
:
and, by
combined use of the two, such a modification of the iron age
is
ex-
hibited as best shadoAved out the realities of futurity.
Even
the peculiar symbol of the great statue itself has been adopted with
the strictest regard to congruily.
which the king caused to be erected
It
nearly allied to the gigantic image,
is
in the plain
This image was
of Dura.
one of those stupendous statues of ]\Ienu or Buddha or Jain, m inch the of ancient Paganism delighted to set up.
toiling devotion larly in the
He
east,
are
still
in existence
:
and the personage,
whom
particu-
they rc-
expresses a wisli, that he had cither died before or lived after the iron ago, in which he
had the
ill
luck to be placed.
But,
if
his lot
would ha\e been mended by
of course he must have expected that his iron age would Uihcr
Oper. ct *
]\fany,
dier. lib.
i.
Asiat. Res. vol.
vcr. i.
172
— 174.
p. 236.
in a
living after
it,
then
renovated golden age.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY. presented, was he
;
who
reigned indeed through
visibly nmanifested himself only
glyphic in '
who
As a
in
Thus exact
that of gold.'
being inseparably
Dwapara, and Kali, depend on each of those four ages.
connected with them. the conduct
Sleeping, he
is
of the king
the Kali age
;
he
is
Jll the ages, called Safya, ;
is
himself represented by them conjointly.
Pag.
Idol.
VOL. n.
I^Ienu,
described in the Institutes
Treta,
declared in turn to represent
uaking, he Instit.
is
of
the
Dwapara ;
Menu. chap.
In a similar manner, Nebuchadnezzar's great image extends or reigns through is
the hiero-
of the universal sovereign
who
himself in action, the Treta; living virtuously, the Satya.
»Dd
is
all its parts.
king was esteemed the immediate representative
as
who
the four ages, but
all
reigns either visibly or invisibly through all the four ages,
of Menu
33
exerting
ix. p.
all the
284.
four ages,
*^"'*^''-
CHAPTER Miscellaneous
pagan
traditiotn relative to the period between the
and
creation
1 HE
II.
the deluge.
Gentiles have preserved various traditions relative to the period be-
tween the
creation
and
the
which from
deluge,
miscellaneous
their
nature will best be noticed conjointly under a single division
of
my
sub-
ject. I.
I have frequently had occasion to observe, that, according to the theory
of a succession of similar worlds, the great father and his three sons constantly reappear
dane system a revival of
:
by transmigration
whence Noah and
Adam and
commencement
of every
new mun-
were considered only as
his triple offspring; while the latter
thing more, than one of the
great
at the
his triple offspring
were deemed no-
numerous manifestations of the
self-triplicating
fatlier.
Thus Brahma, Vishnou, and
Siva, the three sons of the Indian
are proved to be the three sons of tory which
is
ordinary
Ham and Cama
titles
:
for
Vishnou
is
called
which correspond with the scriptural
Brahma, Pra-Japati or the lord Japhet. the sons of the
first
large part of their his-
and by the very names which they bear
clearly diluvian,
dition to their
Noah, both by a
Brahm,
Menu, who
is
Yet
Soma
or
Ham
and
Shem
;
in
ad-
Siva,
Cham ; and
are they also declared to be
denominated Swayambhuva
;
and not only
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. sons, but likewise,
his
Pra-Japati, the sons of the
Menu
first
he bore the
under the very names of Sama, Cama, and
ei^erj/
plain therefore, that he
is
was called moreover Adima
Now
;
w hile
was known by the appellation of Iva.*
Adam.
the scriptural
Sama, Cama, and Pra-Japati,
sons, the
without exception.'
son of the Self-existent, whence
tlie
He
of Swayambhu-oa.
the consort, assigned to him,
Menu
transmigrating
declared to have been
is
title
still
35
Consequently, his
is
three
world, are Seth,
peculiar
of his
It
Cain, and Abel
Such a conclusion
is
by a curious legend, which I have
firmly established
With
already had occasion to notice at large.
Menu had three distinguished. What became
told in one fable, that the first
were particularly
manner
his brethren
were distinguished,
it
we are daughters and two sons, who respect to this legend,
of the third son, or in what
does not inform
us,
except that
the Deity descended from heaven to be present at a sacrifice which they of-
But the
fered up.'
deficiency in both respects
From them we
fables.
learn,
that,
Brahma becoming
woman Satarupa or Iva sprang out of man Adima or Menu-S\vayambhuva out three sons tion of
:
Dacsha, or B)-ahma
Cardama
in a
one half of
title
Brahma
he was performing a
Adima it is
to
in
the
sacrifice,
two agreeably
Siva,
;
is
the
of Ruchi.
Cardam-Eswara, the destructive power united his brother
his
incarnate, the
body, and the
to
mortal character of
first
under the appella-
Mohammedan name Of these, Cardama or
a form of clay, finding
Dacsha,
slew him
and thus reduced the number of
to the specification of the
first
This pair had
of the other half.
human shape
or Capita or Cabil, which last
of Cain; and Vishnou, under the
amply supplied by other
is
former
tlie
fable.
Dacsha,
added, had previously reviled his antagonist, m ishing that he might
ways remain a vagabond on the face of the view,
Adima had
earth.*
as
sons of
al-
Thus, in one point of
three sons; and, in another, only two.
Now,
in exact
accordance with these varying numbers, the traditionary history of the Puranas
is
constructed.
It
> Asiat. Res. vol.
viii.
• Asiat. Res. vol.
ii.
p. Il6.
' Asiiit.
ii.
p. l\G,
Res. vol.
is
asserted in them, that from Cardama, Dacsha,
p. 254, 255. vol. viii. p.
254. vol.
v. p.
250, 252.
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi, p.
472^77*
""*'' "'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT,
35 BOOX
III.
and Ruchi, the earth was
filled
with inhabitants
yet in the
:
are told, that Brahma, being disappointed, found
we
sons to Adima, from
whom
at
last the
earth was
These two sons were Priyavrata and Uttanapada
same Puranas
necessary to give two
it
filled
with inhabitants-
who, as Mr. Wilford
;
justly remarks, appear to be the same with Cardama and Ruchi or Cain
and Seth.
Hindoo
In short, what sufficiently shews the true character of the famous
'
triad
which
is
manifested as the triple offspring of the great father at
commencement of every world,
the
of the Trimurti
and
;
is
it
were created by the Deity
fairly
it is
nical theologists, that the three sons of
acknowledged by the Brahme-
Menu-Swayambhuva
generally declared in to
are incarnations
Puranas, that
the
marry the three daughters of the
with a view to avoid the defilement of
human
first
they
man,
conception, gestation, and
birth.*
The classical Cronus or Saturn, considered as flourishing during the real golden age, when men were exempt from sin and disease and death, when they innocently appeared in a state of nudity, and the brute creation,
while he
is
no
is
evidently the
less evidently their
vian character.
first
Menu
when
or
Adima
Menu-Satyavrata,
Hence, as Swayainbhuva
they conversed with
if
of the Hindoos
considered in his dilu-
denominated Adima
is
learn from Stephanus of Byzantium, that one of the eastern
;
we
so
names of Cronus
was Adan.^ II.
The
may serve
preceding Hindoo legend
to explain a tradition respect-
in" the Cabiri.
These are sometimes described, as being the whole family of the great father biric
gods are spoken
of,
eight in
number,
in allusion to
sometimes, when the most ancient Ca-
;
and a female, who are the
as only two, a male
great father and the great mother; and sometimes as three brethren, in re'
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 249, 250.
* Asiat. Res. vol. '
Stcph. dc urb.
ference with Gale,
viii.
Von
p.
254.
Sav«.
It is
rather
a curious anecdote, that Bochart, in a con-
allowed the propriety of referring the character of Cronus
to
Adam
;
but
owned, that he had purposely omitted the stories which induced such an opinion, because they contradicted his system which would
make Cronus
chart possessed that key to pagan mythology,
he would have perceived,
that this
to be exclusively
Noah.
Had Bo-
the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds,
management was no
less
unnecessary than disingenuous.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
Their history proves
ference to the triple offspring of the gi'eat parents.
them
to
have chiefly been the arkite liero-deities
but,
:
37
since the doctrine
of a succession of similar worlds was the very basis of pagan theology, we
The
are not to imagine that they were exclusively diluvian gods. biric brethren wer<. the
same
Hindoos: they represent indeed the three sons of Noah; but they do
Adam.
that account, the less represent also the three sons of as one of the persons of the Trimurti,
Swayambhuva or Adima,
of
time of a solemn sacrifice:
when incarnate
said to have been slain
is
in the triple offspring
by
his brother at the
with a slight variation, one of the three Ca-
so,
represented as having been murdered by his two brethren.
added
in the legend,
by the
that after his death he was,
crated as a god at the foot of
on
not,
Accordingly,
biri is
mount Olympus
fratricides,
the slaughter of a brother by his brothers
the Orgies of the Corybantes.'
These
It is
conse-
he had been
that, stained as
;
with blood, the Thessalians worshipped him with bloody hands
;
and that
was esteemed a sacred mystery
in
particulars confirm the supposition,
that the fable originated from the death of Abel.
The
INIysteries
of the an-
were a scenic exhibition of the events of Paradise and the deluge transactions of two worlds were blended together into one
cients
the
Ca-
three
as the Trimurti or triplicated great god of the
early
drama, agreeably to the doctrine of a perpetual succession of similar mundane systems and mount Olympus, where the slaughtered Cabirus is feigned :
to have been consecrated, local transcripts of
diluvian It
is
Meru
as I
A\'as,
have already shewn, one of the many
or Ilapus; that
is
to say,
of the Paradisiaco-
mount Ararat. not impi'obable, that, on the same principle of double allusion,
murder of
Osiris by his brother
Hades
by his brother Jupiter,
history
of the deluge, have
Typhon, and the detrusion of Pluto
may
tlie
into
each, though severally adapted to the
an ultimate reference to the slaughter
of
Abel. III.
We
may
observe a similar fable in the early mythological history of
the Atlantians.
Hyperion, one of the sons of their reputed •
Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 23, 2
Cohort, p. 12.
1.
first
king Uranus,
Arnob, adv, gent.
lib. v, p.
169.
is
said to
Clera. Alex.
*^"*''-
"•
38
THfe
BOOK ui. j^^yg is
tjggj^
murdered by
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. his brethren:
but the legend, as
mingled with diluvianism; for Hyperion
is
described as being the father
of the Sun and the Moon, and his child the Sun
feigned to have been
is
This
plunged by the Titans into the sacred river Eridanus.' stance
is
same
the
usually the case,
is
last
circum-
as the consignment of Osiris to the Nile; for the Nile
and the Eridanus and the Ganges were equally deemed holy streams, were equally symbolical of the deluge, and were equally represented as bearing on their
waves the Argo or Argha or ship of the great
was astronomically the Sun
offspring of Hyperion,
mere human
;
and the many incongruous
character:
but
in reality
he was a
of the Sun being
tales
on the surface of the
in a lake or a river, being set afloat in a ship
plunged
Osiris, like the
father.
ocean, or being compelled to take refuge from the fury of the ocean in a
wonderful floating island, have
a
man
arisen from applying the literal history of
all
Thus,
to his sidereal representative.
Hdius and
children of Hyperion, though styled as being nothing
more than mortals
Selene,
have been received among the gods and to have been
The
and Moon.
actions
venly bodies, were
and
in fact
are
but, after their death,
:
two
in the present instance, the
sufferings therefore,
first
represented
they are said to
identified with the
Sun
ascribed to the two hea-
only actions and sufferings, which had once been
performed and undergone upon earth.
IV.
It is
a remarkable circumstance,
that the
it,
Iroquois,
a
if
we may venture America,
savage nation of
curately preserved a tradition of the primeval history
to give credit to
should
have ac-
now under
considera-
tion.
They
are said to believe, that the
dience to
God
and
;
that, in
—
More
were the ancestors of
V. In
children
all
it,
Diod. Bibl.
:
seduced from her obe-
she was banished from heaven.
of these, having
armed himself with an
who was unable to resist his afterwards sprang from the same woman, who
mankind.
other,
*
the legendary history of the Atlantians,
had many sons •
One
weapon, attacked and slew the
superior force.
woman was
consequence of
She afterwards bore twosons. offensive
first
Uranus
is
fabled to have
but three only are mentioned by name, Atlas, Cronus, and
lib. iii.
p. 191,
192.
'
Moeurs
des sauvages, torn.
i.
p. 43.
THE ORICIV OF PAGAN I0OLATUV.
S9
Hyperion; who, as we have just seen, was thought to have been murdered
by
These
his brethren.
Adam,
three sons of
three, standing in this connection, are evidently those
whom
of
the history
;
is
the
as
doubtless
it
his brethren divided
Of these former
as
among them
the
further in
After the death of
kingdom of
Atlas and Cronus were the most renowned
fell
we advance
according to the established system of
is,
theologizing, with clear references to the deluge. rion,
;
their father
and
name
his
Uranus.
to the lot of the
those western regions, which border upon the ocean.
a learned astronomer, and communicated
Hype-
to a celebrated
Atlas was
mountain
within his dominions, the top of which he employed as an observatory. his father
Uranus, he also had a numerous family: but, among them,
Hesperus was by
far the
most eminent
and philanthropy towards
tice
the
same philosophical
the
summit of Atlas
in piety
towards the gods and
Like his
son
in jus-
Hesperus addicted himself
his subjects.
pursuits as his parent
make
to
murder of the righteous Abel.
will receive additional strength,
mixed
down
alone the names have been handed
us; and the murder of Hyperion
Such an opinion
:
to
and, having one day ascended
wonted observations on the
stars, he was suddenly carried away by a violent whirlwind and never more appeared in the
to
The
haunts of men.
his
people, venerating his
traordinary virtue, enrolled
new
memory on account
of his ex-
him among the immortals, and worshipped the
deity in the beautiful star of evening.
almost superfluous to observe, that we have here commemorated, as the next remarkable event after the murder of Abel, the miraculous translaIt
is
tion of
Enoch
:
and, that the two Atlantian legends are to be thus understood,
will incontestably appear,
to shew, that the
whole
when we
as I shall presently have occasion
find,
series of events,
of which they form a part,
is
une-
quivocally placed before the submersion of the old world.
VI. Precisely the same circumstance occurs the Hindoos; and
A
son of
it
in the antediluvian history of
occurs also in the very same connection.
Adima and Iva
kills
his
brother at a sacrifice
death of that holy personage, the earth
One
two surviving brethren. •
cha*. u.
is
of these has a son
Dioil. Bibl. lib,
iii.
:
and, after the
peopled by the descendants of the
named
p. 193, l^i.
Z)/jn
who,
in
.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
40 BOOK
III.
consequence of the unjust partiality which
Uttama,
into a forest
retires
shews to
his father
his elder brother
on the banks of the Jumna.
Here he
gives
himself up to the contemplation of the Supreme Being and to the performance
of religious austerities. and, after delivering
His extraordinary piety gains the favour of
many
salutary precepts to mankind, he
heaven without tasting death
;
where he
is
God
:
translated to
shines conspicuous in the polar
still
star.*
The
close resemblance between these
Hindoos proves them
the
to
two legends of the Atlantians and
common
have originated from a
source
and that
:
source can only have been the ancient patriarchal history of Enoch, with
which the family of
Noah must have been
well acquainted long before the
composition of the Pentateuch.
VII. The character of the Atlantian astronomer Hesperus melts of his philosophical father Atlas
and Enoch, thus exhibited,
:
is
into that
manifestly
the Edi'is of the east and the Idris of the Celtic Britons.
Edris
is
declared by the oriental writers to be the same person as
who, like the Atlantian Hesperus,
and as making
his
is
Enoch
described as being a skilful astronomer
observations on the summit of a lofty
hill
:
and
Idris,
according to the old legends of the Druids, was also an eminent astronomer,
who pursued
his favourite studies
on the top of a high peak which from him
bears the appellation of Cader Idris or the chair of Idris.
still
This
personage was thought, like Atlas, to have been of a gigantic stature the general coincidence between the two fables
is
Mount
proved by
Atlas was by the Africans.
acknowledged that he
is
history to be
his
to
also
Enoch
;
'
and
:
such, that ^ve can scarcely
doubt Cader Idris to have been viewed by the Celts as
last
in exactly the
same
light
But the astronomer Hesperus
is
and the oriental astronomer Edris
be the same patriarch.
We
may
is
therefore safely conclude,
shadowed out under the character of the
British astronomer
Idris. 1.
At
this point,
the righteous
Enoch
Gentiles, to melt insensibly into a
patriarch '
will
be found, in the legends of the
more recent preacher of repentance,
Noah.
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 252.
* Davies's Celtic
Research, p. 173, 17^.
the
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATllY. reality of
Such a circumstance, the
which seems
fectly
harmonizes with the notion, that the great father
at the
commencement of every new
by transmigration
me
to
is
,41
indisputable, per-
not only manifested
world, but that he repeatedly appears
person of each eminent reformer during the conti-
in the
own proper mundane system. Thus, of the seven primeval Menus, we are told, that the first was IMenu-Swayambhuva or Adam; and
nuance of
the
his
Menu-Satyavrata or Noah,
last,
for he
is
described as having been pre-
Between
served in an ark during the prevalence of an universal deluge.
Adam
Noah, the Hindoos place
therefore and
five
Menus, or
five
supposed
manifestations of the great father in the persons of five principal antediluvian saints.
It
were an
idle
patriarchs they
five
am
per-
mean by
suaded, that the series of
waste of time to attempt to ascertain what precise these five intermediate
number
arl)itrary
scriptural
families
Enoch, and when we
firom the seven
when we
but,
:
I
seven, which equally occurs in the
Menus, has been borrowed
two great primeval
Menus; because
next
members of each of
the
recollect the holy character of the
find that the
memory
of his righteousness
and consequent translation has been accurately preserved at the two opposite extremities of Asia and Africa, we can scarcely doubt that he at least would be esteemed one of the therefore and
Noah
antediluvian appearances of
five
Menu.
Enoch
were each viewed as a manifestation of the great father
the one, to give timely warning to the world; the other, to preside over
its
destruction and Venovation.
The two
patriarchs being thus mystically identified,
it is
natural to con-
clude that their two characters will be so intimately blended together as nearly to be amalgamated the case
:
the history of
able event in that of
:
and
Noah
Enoch
is ;
this,
accordingly,
we
shall find to
have been
perpetually decorated with the most remark-
and Enoch, while we gaze upon him as exhi-
bited by the Gentiles, assumes imperceptibly the aspect of his successor
Noah. ^2.
Mount
Paradisiaco-diluvian Ararat to the study of
astronomy as
:
and Noah was supposed
Idol.
to
be as
From this intercommunion believed Edris or Enoch to be the same as F VOL. II.
his ancestor
of character, the early Christians
Pag,
Meru or the much addicted
Atlas and Cader Idris were each a transcript of
Enoch.
<="*'•"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
42 BOOK
III.
'pjjQj.ii
is
or Hermes.
Nor were
'
tlicy far
mistaken
Buddha; and Buddha or Menu,
certainly the eastern
cessive manifestations,
is
Adam
once
at
and
Thoth
in his different suc-
Idris
Idris
and Atlas, are
Noah and Adam, each on
but they are likewise
;
for
:
Enoch and Noah.
Cader
therefore and Hesperus, on the summits of
deed Enoch
opinion
in their
in-
the top of the
primeval Ararat.
The
3.
identity of
their history
Thoth and Buddha cannot be doubted can be as
little
doubted, that they are
is
primarily
Adam
and secondarily Noah.
severally the great father,
who
But the character of these
deities runs into that of Idris or Edris
they appear no less will
when
and,
it
inquired into,
is
:
than he to be the patriarch Enoch, so he no
prove also to be the great father
who was
manifested at the
less
and, as
:
than they
commencement
of both worlds.
In allusion
was believed
to the triple offspring of to
Adam
have triplicated himself, and
Mach
the triad springing from unity.
the
we may which was bestowed upon him for,
tertained of Thoth or est
Hermes,
as
:
distinctly
and Noah, the pronounced
is
to be the
same idea seems from the
Buddha
oriental
to
same
as
have been en-
title
of Thrice-great-
as his identity with
Buddha may be
collect
proved from other considerations, and as Buddha was esteemed a
triple deity,
the descriptive
title
of Thoth must obviously be understood as
relating to his supposed triplication.
Now we may At
trace the existence of a similar opinion
the foot of the British mountain which
once, like other lakes in the ries,
on
still
respecting Idris.
bears his name, there
same country, deemed
sacred.
is
a lake;
In the Myste-
a lake was a constant symbol of the deluge: a small island reposing
its
bosom, frequently an
and any
lofty hill in its
artificial floating island,
immediate
vicinity
represented the
each of these had a further reference to yet earlier times typified
the
hill
Ark
shadowed out mount Ararat. :
and,
while the
:
But hill
of Paradise which coincided indeed geographically with
Ararat, the lake was a copy of that lake of the hero-gods from which issued the four rivers of Paradise, and the island denoted the literal greater
which
like the smaller arkite
•
World was supposed
to float after the
Stanly's Hist, of Chakl. Philosoph. p, 36.
World
manner of
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr. The peak
a huge ship on the surface of the abyss. script of the Paradisiaco-diluvian
was devoted in old times precisely the
By
same
mountain
43
then of Idris was a tran-
and, with the neighbouring lake,
;
to the celebration of the Druidical Orgies,
as those of the Samothracian Cabiri
which were
and the Egyptian
the side of this lake, there are yet shewn three gigantic stones,
The popular
Tri Greienyn.
notion
which the vast giant Idris shook carelessly out of :
but
his
name from Greian which They were, I the Greeks.
Gryneus of
signifies the
Sun, whence
believe, three ambrosial or
by which Buddha or Thoth or
solar stones, of a similar description to those
Hermes w as
shoe before he ascended
Davies justly supposes,
IVIr.
that they derived their
the Apollo
called
that these were three grains of sand,
is,
the chair of his mountain observatory
Isis.
represented in every quarter of the globe
:
and they were dedi-
cated to the triple great father or to the three aboriginal patriarchs, each of
whom,
Thus
to the solar orb.
Sun
Siva, are the
the Hindoos
tell
us,
that
in his three diflerent altitudes
yet higher god Brahm,
Om
common
in inseparable conjunction with their
the
is
same
:
while
we
;
parent,
was elevated
Brahma, Vishnou, and
and that
their father, the
are additionally assured, that
or the Trimurti mysteriously unite together in the person of Buddha.'
In
tliis
opinion respecting the three stones of Idris I
am the more confirmed
by the existence of other points of resemblance between him and the herogods with
whom
I believe
he ought to be
identified.
His supposed gigantic
stature exactly corresponds with the similar gigantic stature,
which
is
ascribed
Buddha, Jain, Mahiman, and Atlas; and which probably came to be
to
thus ascribed, from the custom of representing the great father by enormous
stone images
:
while his reputed astronomical knowledge
ledge, which Thoth,
is
the very
know-
Buddha, Atlas, Edris, and Hesperus, were each be-
The mountain also of Idris corresponds with tlie African mountain of Adas and Hesperus, and When with the no less famed Ceylonic mountain of Buddha or Gautama!).
lieved to
possess in a peculiarly eminent degree.
used for religious purposes, disiacal
mountain
observations, '
it
Asiat. Res. vol.
p. 173.
174.
;
and,
it
was, I have
little
when employed by
doubt, a lunar or Para-
the Druids
for astronomical
was so employed by them as the legitimate successors and iii.
p. 144. vol, v. p. 251. vol.
i,
p. 284, 285, 28t).
Celtic Research,
*="*'"•
"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATHY.
44 JtOOK
III,
who was
representatives of the great father, character.
mixed application to
Its
were from the
first
deemed a
ever
highly scientific
and astronomy,
religion
whicli
two
inseparably blended together in the mythological system
of the pagans, perfectly agrees with the similar application of the
artificial
montiform temples of the ancients, and thus again connects Idris with the
The tower
Egyptian Thoth.
of Babel, the pyramids of Egypt, and the
pagodas of Hindostan, were
built
all
and commemorate the
to imitate
mountain, Avhere Paradise once flourished and where the Ark afterwards rested
;
Erahmens
for the
that form
is
rightly
to be esteemed a
believe, that they
have
all
and
that every edifice of
explicitly tell us,
copy of mount Meru
:
and there
is
been equally used as observatories.'
reason to
It
was the
early study of astronomy, that depicted on the sphere the history of the ship
Argo and orb,
the deluge, that elevated the great father and his sons to the solar
and that adopted the boat-like crescent of the INIoon as the most apt
symbol of the Ark. tain is
no
pyramid
other,
than the
scientific Idris scientific
while Thoth again
;
natural
the
The
is
the
on the top of
favourite
his
Thoth on the summit same
as Atlas or Hesperus on the top of
In
observatory of Mauritania.
fact,
I see
no reason why we
should dispute the universal tradition, which ascribes both to
Noah
The
an intimate acquaintance with astronomy.
diluvians almost precluded the possibility of ignorance at
no very remote period
assiduity 4.
and success both
Idris therefore,
festations of
of
Xoah
:
Babylonia and
or Edris, or Enoch,
Menu, melts
in
Enoch and
to
long lives of the ante:
after the flood, that science in
moun-
of the imitative
and we know,
that,
was cultivated with
Egypt.
being esteemed one of the mani-
insensibly into the character both of
and, on the other hand, for a similar reason,
we
Adam
find the
and
memo-
rable translation of the antediluvian saint, ascribed to that ancient personage
who was supposed to appear at the commencement of every renovated world. From the summit of the lofty hill in Ceylon, which bears the name oi Adains peak, Buddha is said by his votaries to have been miraculously snatched away to heaven yet one Buddha is most assuredly Noah or Menu-Satyavrata; :
and another,
his earliest predecessor,
'
Vide
infra
book
is
no
v.
c. 7.
less
assuredly
§ II.
1.
Adam
or JNIenu-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY. This legend
Swayambiiuva.
palpably the same as that of the rapture of
is
Hesperus from the top of mount Atlas IMohanimedans
Ceylonic
style the
who thence ascended
the person
character both of Singalese
the
hill
nor
is
without reason, that the
it
peak of Adam, and believe that Just as mount Atlas
is
deluge and with the Paradisiacal garden
flic
the Ceylonic hill the sacred abode of Buddha, in his
is
Adam
and of Noah.
and the great father
:
:
\vas the protoplast.
immediately connected both with of the Hesperides; so
45
is
It
the Ararat or
is
Meru
of the
been translated from
reported to have
its
summit, only because Enoch was believed to have been one of his intermediate antediluvian manifestations.'
The religion of Euddha or Sacya or Xaca has spread itself far northward among the Calmucks, as well as southward among the Singalese: and 5.
same legend of
the
than by the thej/
worship
Muni.
his translation has
prince in India;
hut,
taken him up to heaven yet he
:
his manifestations,
sovei'eign
on account of his unparalleled sanctity,
God had
Thus
alive.''
miriiculously
declared to have lived,
is
at the time of the deluge
dweller upon the xvaters
;
he
;
who communicated her name preserved
nu
is
an ark; and he
own
Precisely the
account for
it
story
precisely in the
styled
have
Narayana or who is called
said to have espoused
summit of Meru and whose
own daughter
Ila,
appellation that of Aluni or
same
is
a person,
is
to
father
the
the 11a,
was
himself that very father, both because I\Ie-
is
described as espousing his
porates with his 6.
to the
Buddha believed
is
during the period of one of
he
identified with
is
sovereign prince in the belly of the fsh; he
in
less
Van Strahlenberg, Xaca or Xaca-
says
idols,
four thousand years ago he was only a
say, that
been translated
other
a peculiar manner one, which they call
in
They
been preserved by the former, no
Among
people.
latter,
is
and because Xaca incor-
Menu.
'
told of the Babylonian Xisuthrus;
same manner.
When
and
I
the vessel, in which he
had been preserved from the fury of the deluge, grounded,
in
consequence of
the recess of the waters, on the side of a lofty mountain in Armenia, he quitted
it
with his wife and his children
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
Van
'
Abiat, Res. vol. vi. p. 479. vol.
vii.
p. 50.
;
and, constructing an altar, immediately
Purcli. Pilgr.
Sliahlcnberg's Siberia, p. 409. ii.
p. 376.
b. v,
c. 18,
p.
550.
THE ORIGIN OV PAGAN IDOLATRY.
46 COOK
III.
worshipped the universal mother Earth, and offered After these
gods.
who came
those
rites
had been duly performed, Xisuthrus, and
immortal
(it is
mentations on the
name of
Him however
Xisuthrus.
iiis
the gods, and informing
them that on account of
voice in the
I
'
air,
may
they saw no
rela-
more
:
admonishing them to venerate
but they distinctly heard
miraculously taken up to heaven.
called with
return,
added)
The many
with him out of the ship, suddenly disappeared.
mainder of the crew, finding that they did not
lated from the
sacrifices to the
his piety
he had been thus
remark, that Xisuthrus
summit of an Armenian mountain,
as
is
trans-
Buddha and Hesperus
respectively ascend from the tops of the Ceylonese and Mauritanian peaks.
The stories have all originated from the same source, and relate to the same compound personage. Mount Atlas, Cader Idris, the peak of Adam, and of a pyramidal form,
the various sacred buildings that
Armenian Ararat, which
are equally copies of
feigned to have witnessed the translation of
is
Xisuthrus. 7.
The preceding
observations
personage
called,
is
perhaps throw some light on a re-
whom, as mentioned has been some difference of opinion.
markable antediluvian character; traditions of the pagans, there
may
respecting
with a slight variation, Amiacus, Cannacus, or
in
the
This
Nan-
nacus.
According
who
to Zenobius,
relates his history fi-om
Hermogenes, Can-
naces was a king of the Phrygians before the time of Deucalion seeing the deluge, collected supplications
:
men
;
who, fore-
together into the temples to offer up tearful
whence arose the proverb, mentioned by Herod, of weeping
like Cannaces.''
A
similar narrative
is
given by Suidas.
h^jWas a person of great antiquity, prior
to the time
Nannacus, says
of Deucalion.
He is
said to have been a king, who, foreseeing the approaching deluge, collected
every body together,
for
and
led
them, accompanied with
them
many
pression about Aannacus, which
The same
legend
is
related
additional circumstances. •
to
a temple
tears. is
There
is
likewise a proverbial ex-
applied to people of great antiquity.^
by Stephanus Byzantinus,
though with some
They say, that there was formerly a king named
Syncell. Chronog. p. 30. Euscb. Chron. p. 8.
Suid. Lex, vox Navraxc;.
where he offered up prayers
;
*
Zenob. in epit. proverb.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Annacus, the extent of zvhose
who were
people,
oracle all
how
was above three hundi'ed years.
The
and acquainta?ice, had inquired of an The answer was, that, whtn Jtmacus died,
of his neighbourhood
long he was to
live.
mankind would be destroyed.
lamentations
life
47
The Phrygians on
this account
made great
whence arose the proverb of weeping for Annacus,
:
used
When the Jiood of for persons or circumstances highly calamitous. Deucalion came, all mankind was destroyed, as the oracle had foretold. Aftencards, when the surface of the earth began to be again dry, Zeus ordered Prometheus and Minerva
men :
and,
when they were
make images of
finished,
breathe into each and I'ender them
Concerning
to
form of
he called the winds, and made them
vital.
this ancient cliai'acter there has been,
mated, a difference of opinion.
clay in the
Mr. Baxter,
as I have already inti-
fi-om the circumstances of his
being placed before the flood, his being distinguished from Deucalion, and
Cannaces or Canac, argues, that he must be the Enoch or Ghanoch of Scripture Mr. Bryant, on the contrary, supposes him to be
his being called
:
the patriarch the latter
Noah
opinion
is
in
his antediluvian state.*
am
According
the former ought to be Avholly rejected.
Metempsychosis, Cannaces probably unites racters of
I
inclined to think, that
the most nearly allied to truth, though I doubt -whether
Enoch and Noah
rior reference to the first
;
in his
to the doctrine of the
own person
tlie
two cha-
while a part of his history contains a yet ulte-
Menu or Adam.
The
formation of
and the breathing into them the breath of life, refer us to the
men from clay, commencement
of the antediluvian world, though placed, agreeably to the doctrine of a succession of similar systems, at the opening of the postdiluvian world the :
name
of Canac, his apparent distinction from Deucalion, and the general
impression which he leaves on the mind, seem not unnaturally to point him
out as the scriptural Enoch or Chanoch
:
but his character, Avhen closely ex-
amined, leads us almost inevitably to conclude, that he
Noah
to
than either to Enoch or
Adam.
He
is
is
represented, as being a
preacher of righteousness to the very time of the flood. exactly agrees with the character of "
Noah, but not with
Stcph. Byzaiit. de Urb. vox Ixokov.
* Archceolog. vol,
i.
p.
207. Bryant's Anal. vol.
ii.
p.
204.
more nearly allied This description
that of
Enoch who
"^^^: "*
4S IMOK
III.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
was translated near
The deluge
is
answer
at all
Noah:
to the character of
new
either of
its
exactly
Enoch, but
it
forms, relates to it
quitted
of the forms, he xveeps or suffers as in the case
and the second,
:
'
:
but
much
relates altogether to
of a person
The
us.
seems to
did,
who had undergone
great
his lamentations are as bitter as the hmienta-
the Phrygian Attis,
to
modified,
Now
was
this
similarly
weeping
for
and the Celtic
Ilu.
When
the
be dead or to have descended into Hades or to have vanished
from the sight of mortals, they bewailed
no
As Mr.
was commemoratively inclosed by the priests within his ark, and
was supposed
were
like his
when he was taken out of
the ark,
:
proverb, in
minutely with the doleful Orgies of the Phenician Adonis,
tallies
the Egyptian Osiris,
tions
it
Cannaces
as
for Annacus, though somewhat differently applied to one who laboured under excessive grief.'
great father
The
more properly teaches
tions
Cannaces
it.
has nothing to do with the antiquity of Cannaces,
have been used proverbially afflictions
This does not
perfectly accords with that of
mourning on account of a calamity.
the erroneous supposition of Suidas
is
of the old world.
died.
and he revived, or was born
when he
certain memorable calamities, as Stephanus first
dissolution
when he
as his coffin;
state of existence,
Bryant rightly observes, which
tlie
language of the mysteries, he died when he entered into
was considered
the Ark, which
again into a
commenced
said to have
in the
for,
centuries before
five
sufFerincfs
:
his calamities
no tears were so
and was deemed
with loud lamenta-
bitter as theirs.
to
But,
have been restored to
life
or to have returned from Hades or to have once more manifested himself,
all
which he allegorically did at the commencement of the new world
the scene
'
Ta To
then
was changed, and the deepest woe was succeeded by the most
frantic joy.'
*
;
As
the distinction between
for
Annacus and Deucalion,
it
Kavvaicsu y.AaiEix. £iri
kwoLMu kKouuv.
Noah, though preserved, was yet deemed a man of eminent sorrows. / "sill adore, says Talicsin in his poem of The spoils of the deep, I xcill adore the sovereign, the supreme ruler 3
If he extended his dominion over the shores of the world, yet in good order icas The heavy in the iiiclosure of Sidi : no one before him entered into it. Gwair prison of
of the land. the
blue chain didst thou,
and
till
the
doom
shall
just man, endure: and for the spoils of the deep woeful it
remain
in the
Bardic prayer.
is
thy song
;
Thrice the number that would have
THE OHIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY. relate to the
seems merely to after the deluge
:
two
49
whence he was considered,
as being of a double nature,
This
and as looking backward and forward into two successive worlds. sion of one
man
two persons
into
is vei-y
common
the separation of Cannaces from Deucalion
separation of Horus from Osiris relationship of son
and
father,
and
different lives of the patriarch before
;
is
in
nothing more than the similar
each of whom, though exhibited
are equally
divi-
pagan mythology: and
Noah
viewed under two
in the
difl'erent
aspects.
VIII. Cannaces
is
said to have surpassed the age of three hundred years.
This agrees better with the duration of Enoch's
life
who was
translated
Noah who had
three hundred and sixty five years old, than with that of
completed six centuries
The
at the time of the flood.
when
legend however serves
to shew, in conjunction with other similar legends, that the longevity of the
early patriarchs was well
Such
is
known throughout
the gentile world.
the purport of Hesiod's assertion, that, in the silver age, which
immediately succeeded the age of Paradisiacal innocence and immortality,
men, this
at the
end of a century from
their birth,
passage Josephus seems to allude,
mony, which the ancients,
in perfect
to the longevity of the first race.
luvians
on
were
still
when mentioning
but infants.
To
the general testi-
accordance with the Pentateuch, bore
After stating the long lives of the antedi-
the authority of Moses, he observes. All those persons, whether
Greeks or Barbarians, zvho have zvritten en the sulject of antiquity, agree
For Manetho who composed an account of the Egyp-
with me in this point. Jilled
Fryduen, reentered
into the deep
;
excepting seven, none have returned from Caer Sidi.
Davics's Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 515. the Sida of the Hindoos,
The
prison of
the Saida of the Canaanites,
Gwair
or the inclosure of Sidi,
the Said of the Egyptians,
the Sito
or Ceres of the Sicilians, in other words the great mother represented by the circular inclosure
of Stonehenge that Druidical copy of the circle of Ila
Gwair or llu or
the just
man
is
;
the inclosure of Sidi
Noah, the Sadik of Moses and Sanchoniatho
:
is
the
Ark
the doleful
song on account of suffered calamity answers to the lamentations for Cannaces or Adonis or Osiris:
of
and the seven, who alone return with him
mankind had perished, are
seven Rishis of Hindostan,
who
his family,
at the
the
in safety
same
from the deep where
all
the rest
as the seven Cabiri or seven Titans or
end of each world are preserved with a
Menu
capacious ark during the prevalence of an universal deluge. ' .
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
II,
G
in
»
'^'*'^^'
""
^0 BOOK
III,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr,
and Berosus who compiled a narrative of the and Mochus, and Hestieus, and Jerome the Egyptian, tians,
of Chaldea,
affairs xclio
zvere the authors
of different histories of Phenicia; all these bear testimony to my veracity. Hesiod likezvise, and Hecaieus, and Hellayiicus, and Jcusilaus, and Epho-
and Nicolaus,
rus,
Of this rant
:
relate,
that the ancients lived a thousand years. ^
we
general tradition Varro, as
learn from Lactantius,
but he attempted to account for the supposed longevity of the primitive
race of mortals, by conjecturing, attained,
that the thousand years,
were only a thousand months or lunar revolutions.
however, as
it
well argued by
is
Lactantius,
according to the conjecture of Varro, those,
age
was not igno-
will fall considerably short
Every person, who
of what
lives a century,
many have done even
in
our own days.
twelve hundred of those lunar first
men, so celebrated
first
period
;
and con-
for their longevity,
by upwards of two hundred of such years.
But many moderns have
more than a century
more exceeded
and therefore have
;
still
for,
:
then reached the greatest
years to which Varro would reduce the years of the
sequently exceeds the age of the
Such a solution
wholly inadmissible
is
who
lives full
which they
to
lived
that age of the
primitive mortals, which tradition uniformly asserts to have been so great.*
Nor is this it
will
oning
all
:
if
the computation be
made by such
years as Varro proposes,
not be easy to point out the particular period, is
The
cease.
to
Holy Writ even beyond
ages of the patriarchs are regularly specified in
the days of Jacob
used, the absurdity will be evident
ham, when
amount
his
when that mode of reck-
:
for,
;
and,
if
lunar revolutions be
in that case,
son was born by a peculiar interposition of heaven,
to something
more than
still
the old age of Abrawill
eight solar years.
According to Couplet, the Chinese have precisely the same idea of the longevity of the antediluvians. the
Some
of these they suppose to have attained
age even of eight or ten thousand years; an age far surpassing
which Scripture assigns
to them.
ration of national vanity,
that,
This however must either be an exagge-
in order that their records
may extend
to an incre-
dibly remote period ; or the true ages of the antediluvians must have been
decupled, by '
way of making them more extraordinary; or
Joseph. Ant. Jud.
lib.
i.
c. 3.
*
Lactant.
Instit. lib,
else the years in
ii.
c. 12.
51
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATEY.
supposed the thousand years to question must really have been, what Varro which last suppositions, the lunar revolutions: according to either of be,
Mosaical and Chinese accounts will coincide with a
sufficient
racy to shew whence such a tradition originated.
It
that the
stance,
is
degree of accu-
a curious circum-
the chronology of China,
Emperor Hoang-Ti, who, by
when the life of man must have been contemporary with the patriarch Reu proposed an inquiry, in a mediwas shortened to about three hundred years, it happened, that the lives of book of which he was the author, frfience compared with the lives of the then present their forefathers xverc so long
cal
generation ?'
In
term of mortal existence, the rapid abbreviation of the ancient could not but have began to take place immediately after the flood,
fact,
which
greatly alarmed the early
postdiluvians,
and have
filled
their
minds with
Hence a singularly anxious conjectures and melancholy forebodings. abbreviation commenced, accurate recollection of the precise time, when this the life of man began was preserved by the Gentiles it was supposed, that
many
:
agreeable to this opifrom the days of lapetus.^ Exactly Immediately after the deluge, and consenion is the scriptural narrative. and his children flourished, the lonquently at the precise era when Japhet
to be shortened
gevity of the
human
race was
a gradual diminution,
until
first
curtailed
:
and
the present age of
it
henceforth experienced
man became
the average
standard.
From in the
the
same source
course of every
plainly originates the doctrine of the
mundane
becomes shorter and shorter; and until
it
again reaches
commences.
The
its first
first
revolution the
that afterwards
duration,
man, they
life
when
the
say, attained
it
of the is
Burmas, that
human
species
gradually extended
same abridgment once more an almost inconceivable age
successively shorter lives as they bebut his children and grandchildren had until men came to live came less virtuous; and this decrease continued, •
*
Couplet Prafat. ad Sin. Chronol. p. 5. Horace Horat. Carm. lib. i. od. 3. The language of
deser\e to be transcribed.
Semotiquc prius tarda nccessitas Letbi corripuit gradura.
is
so reir.arkablo. that h>s vofd-
'^"*''-
"
THE
52 BOOK
III.
PAGAV IDOLATRT.
ORIGIN- OF
only ten years, the span of mortal existence during the period of the greatest
The progeny
wickedness.
of these, considering the cause of such an awful
abbreviation, dedicated themselves
came worthy of
living
more
twenty years.
to the practice of virtue,
Afterwards their posterity, increasing
performance of good works, had their
in the
and be-
they again reached the age of the
first
lives protracted,
until at length
Then commenced another
man.
diminution, which was followed by another prolongation: and this alternate
decrease and increase must take place sixty four times after the reproduction
of a world, before that world will be again destroyed.
A
somewhat
similar idea prevails
ing the continuance of the present reflected
image of every former system, there
in the lives of five years
;
men,
A
all
will
are at the shortest, every one will rain will then
terrible
sweep from
except a small number of good people,
notice of the evil and thus avoid
be changed into beasts
will
appear and establish a new order of things.
specting
worlds
fable
tliis
it is
:
off the face of the
will receive timely
at length
Buddha, or the great *
Little
father,
need be said
re-
palpably built on the theory of a succession of similar
and, because the
;
mencement of
until
who
commit un-
All the wicked, after being drowned,
it.
will
:
be a successive diminution
reduced so low as not to continue beyond
until they are
when they
and,
heard of crimes. earth
among the Buddhists of Ceylon. Durmundane system, which is the faitlifully
life
of
man began
to be shortened
the present postdiluvian world, while
i\\e
from the com-
former world
termi-
nated with an universal flood, a parallel abbreviation and a parallel end by
made to characterize every fictitious mundane system. IX. The number of generations from Adam to Noah is represented
water
is
in
Scripture as being ten, each of those patriarchs being included in the series;
so that
Noah
ber was well
stands in the ninth place of descent from
known
to the Gentiles
added
it
lar worlds,
Abraham,
festation of
it
was from
their traditional ac-
as
we have
already seen, was esteemed a mani-
Cronus or Menu.
The Hindoos '
and
This num-
to the established doctrine of a succession of simi-
quaintance with that
:
Adam.
celebrate ten antediluvian children of Brahma, and describe
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi.
p. 181,
182.
* Asiat.
Res. vol.
vii.
p.
415.
THE ORIGTV or PAGAN IDOLATRY. them as being succeeded by the seven the
These
Rishis.
same as the seven Menus, exhibited anew under a
53
last I
take to be really
different modification.
The seven Menus are said to be sprung from the ten Brahmadicas or children of Brahma while the seven Rishis are pronounced to be the immediate offspring of Brahma himself. Now the seven Rishis, with an eighth person ;
the head of their family, escape in a boat from the general destruction pro-
The
duced by an universal deluge.
Menu
seven Rishis therefore with their leader
are plainly the eight arkite mariners.
supposed manifestations of the great
Hence
to that of the deluge.
Yet
seven Rishis.
numbers
and
:
it is
father,
mutual connection appears from the identity of the
their
so perfectly arbitrary to say, that there were seven
that the
mind
Noah had
Thus
far therefore they agree.
to
Menus
companions
really seven
Menus must have been pronounced
the Rishis were seven. call to
same as the
in this respect they are 7wt the
between the creation and the deluge, while in the Ark,
But the seven Menus are seven from the epoch of the creation
be seven because
And now, when we
the prevailing belief in transmigration and reappearance,
it
will
not be unreasonable to conjecture with Mr. Wilford, that, whatever distinction
may have been made between
Rishis are ultimately the
same seven
Menus and the seven The conjecture is persons.
them, the seven individual
rendered the more probable by our finding, that the Brahmadicas are pro-
nounced sometimes that Atri,
to
who must
as being at once a
be
ten,
in
number; and
evidently be identified with Edris or Idris,
Brahmadica and a Rishi.
must necessarily conclude, ten,
and sometimes only seven,
they shadow out the
that,
when
From
this last
is
described
circumstance
we
the Brahmadicas are represented as
ten antediluvian generations;
and
that,
when
tliey
appear as only seven, they coalesce with the seven Rishis and seven JNIenus.
Much gods
:
the
same
sometimes, by the
been ten
head of
;
may be observed in the number of the Cabiric name of the Idei Dactyli, they are said to have
variation
sometimes they are described as seven ; and sometimes, when the
their family
is
joined to them, they are spoken of as eight.
The
confusion originated almost necessarily fi'om the causes which have been just specified. race, except the
Every dynasty ends with a
Menu
total destruction
ef the human
or ruler of the next period, who makes his escape in
a boat with the seven Rishis.
The same events take place : the same per-
*^"*'''
"*
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
54 BOOK
III.
though sometimes under different names,
sons,
known
reappear.
that there v ere ten generations before the flood, and
It being thus it
being argued
more had elapsed
after the flood the world would be again
destroyed; Abraham, appearing
in the ninth postdiluvian place of descent
that wlien ten
Noah had
from Shem as
appeared
in the ninth antediluvian place
from Adam, and also flourishing when the
whelmed by a mixed deluge of
cities
of descent
of the plain were over-
and water, was thence pronounced to be
fire
new Cronus or Menu or Ilus. The Hindoos, having assigned seven Menus to the period before the
the expected manifestation of a
and strongly maintaining the mutual were
in
consequence led to place seven Menus after the flood
they produced a series of fourteen Menus.
There
Menu
or
fabled
mundane
Simorgh filled
Buddha tells
Mahabad
may be
successions of that nation.
In
Caherman, that she had lived instead of the reduplicate
is
to
seven which
other times they are said to have
as the reigns
no other than
when
this last case,
Brahma
or
is
the
we have
only the simple
numhev fourteen.
number of
been nine, which
Menu-Swayambhuva
tions, or rather subdivisions, of the original
connection of the seven
which
I
number
is
still
is
the
included
more than
;
are
so at
;
same
as ten
while at
three,
These are
ten,
all
who varia-
so contrived as to
numbers of seven and three
:
and the close
Brahmadicas, the seven Menus, and the seven
have contended with Mr. Wilford,
suflSciently
from the curious manner in which the Hindoos blend them From Adam
Brahma
the arkite Rishis
are then pronounced to have been the sons of Adima.
exhibit the equally important
the bird
to see the earth seven times
other times again they are declared to have been no
Rishis, for
same
clearly
observed, that, as the ten antediluvian children of
their parent
and thus
and they are likewise closely coimected with the seven
:
sometimes reduced
when
for
with creatures and seven times a perfect void,
number seven It
;
:
great reason to believe,
is
that the fourteen periods of this double series are the very
of the fourteen Mahabads of Iran
flood,
similarity of all the successive worlds,
appears
together.
The
Noah inclusive, were ten generations: and these were succeeded by ten Shem to Abraham also inclusive. Abraham therefore was the tenth as Noah was the tenth person of the first: but Abraham was the second decad, person of the ninth in descent from Shem, as Noah was the ninth in descent from Adam. '
to
other gcnemtions, from
THE ORIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. seven great ancestors of mankind were
Brahmadicas, created
first
purpose of replenishing the earth with inhabitants
when they had
;
became Menus or mundane sovereigns
their mission, they
age,
55
when they withdrew
and
:
for the fulfilled
old
in their
to solitary places to prepare for death, they
became
Rishis or holy penitents.
There the
is
yet another modification of
same studied
huva, or
among seven of
incarnate in
evident, that
is
Adima,
which we may
fable, in
and
ten, seven,
is
said
told of Priyavrata, the grandson of
one character
is
trace
Swayamb-
three.
have divided
to
still
tlie
while three embraced the eremitical
his ten sons,
exactly similar story it is
numbers
attention to the
Brahma
tlie
An
life.
Adima
represented by each of them.
world
;
whence This
se-
cond sto-y terminates with an ogdoad of sons, in whose time the earth was
To what
again divided.
era the last division
is
to be ascribed,
may be
col-
lected from the character of Ila the reputed sister of these eight persons
who
is
sometimes thought to be the daughter of Bharata, and
who was saved
sometimes
in
an ark at the time of
Such modifications teach us how we are
to understand the va-
described as the child of Satyavrata the deluge.
is
and now three
Brahma ten sons, now nine, now seven, number ten, but subdivide it so as to produce
which now assign
rj-ing legends, :
they retain the
to
the other sacred numbers.
The Hindoos however do tions in this
not always describe the ten antediluvian genera-
compound and perplexed manner
mysticism and condescend to
matter of
literal
successive descents precisely in
:
the
when they quit fact,
manner of
the regions of
they then draw out ten
Scripture, beginning with
Adim and Iva, and terminating with a pious prince named Prithu, who plainly the
gods and
same
as
Noah
men came
ance upon earth.
to
He
or INIenu-Satyavrata.
make obeisance was a highly
to agricultural pursuits.
or the great mother
:
and
He it
to
When Prithu
him and
to celebrate his appear-
religious character,
was thought was during
is
was born, both
and addicted himself
to have espoused a form of Lacshmi his days,
that his mystical consort,
in the
shape of a cow, ascended to the summit of the Paradisiaco-diluvian
Meru
or Ararat.
cow was the
Little
need be said
in
explanation of this legend.
universal symbol of the great mother,
two characters of the Earth and the Ark.
who
She was
The
united in herself
tlie
same
tlie
as the ship
56 BOOK
III '
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Argha
Aigo
or
;
and by the Syrians she was denominated Theba, which
The cow
properly signifies an ark.
Athm, when
the ninth in descent from
Ark
therefore of Prithu the
husbandman,
stationed on the top of
Meru,
of Noah, mystically united with the Earth,
when
resting
is
the
on the summit
of Ararat.' I
am
inclined to believe, that the precise
number of
the
Hindoo Avatars
of Vishnou has been determined to be ten in reference to the same ten ante-
They
diluvian generations.
and the
be yet future
last is believed to
commence with the when we recollect how
doubtless indeed :
but,
ly the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds
menical philosophers, Ave shall not find in
The
disprove such an opinion.
this
is
deluge, strong-
maintained by the Brah-
circumstance any argument to
tenth Avatar, in fact,
is
a complete diluvian
Vishnou, arrayed with the attributes of the destroying regenera-
symbol.
an armed warrior, to sweep away the incorrigible
tor Siva, appears, as
The white horse, which accompanies him, is one of the most common hieroglyphics of the great father, as the mare is of the great mother for this mode of representation has prevailed from Japan in the east to Britain in the west.* And, though the mundane inhabitants
of
the earth.
;
dissolution,
which he
is
according to a favourite past
to accomplish,
dogma
for they believe, as I
:
every world
world
is
;
ostensibly future;
it
is
nu with seven Rishis
A
among
i.
p.
ciiap. vii.
af-
was equally preserved
Plato informs us, that a marine hero-god, to
244—255.
vol.
ii.
p.
346.
Neptune, divided the
vol. viii. p. 286,
334, 335.
Instit.
of
p. 5.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
247.
and that world
;
overwhelmed by a deluge, from which a Me-
he gives the Greek appellation of Posidofi or
Asiat. Res. vol. v, p.
to observe, that
preserved in an ark.
the ancient Atlantians.
Menu. chap.
less,
has been preceded, by a perfectly similar
recollection of the ten antediluvian generations
whom '
is
is
must no
manifested as a destroyer at the close, and
as a regenerator at the commencement, of each system ter world, in endless series,
it
of the Hindoos, be considered as long since
have had occasion so frequently
succeeded, as
that the great father
is
i.
p.
236.
Maurice's Hist, of Hirtd. vol.
Davies's Mythol, of Brit. Druids, p. 257, 258.
ii.
Sec
p.
403.
my
Ksempfer's Japan,
Dissert, on
tlje
Cabiri,
THE
ORIGIN' OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
57
among his ten sons; just as Brahma or Adima similarly diThe first inhabitants of that island earth among his children.
island Atlantis
vided the
were remarkable
for their piety
but, afterwards degenerating
:
and impurity, they were overwhelmed, toge-
guilty of all sorts of violence
ther with their country, by the waves of the ocean.
earth
which Adima divided among his
vian world to
:
and,
nerations.
The
opinion
manners ascribed
Cosmas when
it
to
is
must have been the antedilu-
who
inhabited
it
its
inhabitants, it
and by an old
by
tradition preserved
was formerly tenanted by Noah, and
that,
sank, he sailed in an ark to the continent.'
very distinct remembrance of the same ten antediluvian generations
among
Alexander Polyhistor,
man Alorus
the ancient Chaldeans ail
:
for Berosus,
Abydenus, and
agree in reckoning ten inclusive descents from the
to the pious Xisuthrus,
who was saved
with his family in
an ark when the earth was inundated by the waters of an universal '
previous
confirmed, both by the gradual deterioration of
Indico-Pleustes, that
prevailed also
first
Atlantis then, like the
submersion, must be viewed as shadowing out the ten antediluvian ge-
its
A
offspring,
the ten sons of Neptune,
if so,
and becoming
See
my
Dissert,
on the Cab.
toI.
ii.
p.
283
— 288.
cuss the fible of the island Atlantis more at large.
I shall
Vide
flood.*
have occasion hereafter to
infra
book
iii.
c. 6.§. 1. 1.
*Syncell. Cbronog. p. 30, 38, 39.
Pag. Idol
VOL.
11.
G
dis-
«hap.ii.
CHAPTER On
the antediluvian
and diluvian
III.
history as exhibited in the
Zend-Avesta.
But
perhaps the most generally consistent detail of antediluvian history,
terminating with the catastrophe of the flood and the manifestation of the
second great father of mankind, has been preserved in the Zend-Avesta of the ancient Persians. I.
I
have already had occasion to notice their dividing the period of the
creation into six different intervals, analogous to the Mosaical division of into six days
:
and
observations on
I
then intimated
tliis
my
curious legend,
intention of offering
when a
additional
suitable opportunity should oc-
now proceed to fulfil my engagement. Where the cosmogony of the Persians terminates,
cur.'
some
it
I
their narrative of an-
is properly made to commence. In we have seen, man alone was created but he
tediluvian transactions last interval, as
:
the sixth is
and
supposed to
have been mysteriously divided into two characters, distinguished from each other as
the.
man and
the man-bull.
These were the
first
of beings, and
did not spring from the union of male and female, but were formed diately by the
hand of God. '
The man was
Vide supra book
I.
called
chapi 5.
§
V.
imme-
Kaiomorts or Key-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. ITmursh-' and the
spoke
:
stituting jointly
man
the
Abondad
A b- Bond-Tat.''
or
But the man and the one being
;
For some time
bull.
man was
:
nominated /Ihriman, con'upted the world. he descended
to the earth,
At
poisoned by
Dews
the
his
an
last
venom, and died
in
After having dared to
an
Karf
ele-
hea-
visit
intro-
The man-bull was
esters.
consequence of
in
of
evil one, de-
assumed the form of a serpent, and
duced a number of wicked demons called
of
of this intelligent being,
and the man-bull resided
vated region, which the Deity had assigned to him.
ven,
beginnini»
the pure and holy soul
after the creation
there was a season of great happiness
and
lived,
were compounded together, con-
bull
so that the
The man
That man was the
the bull died, and did not speak.
generations.
all
bull,
59
It
it.
was
that
said,
of I\Iaz ndran fought against the fixed stars, and that Ahriman,
independently of his machinations against Kaiomorts, had formed the de-
But the
sign of destroying the whole world.
four days and as many til
nights, fought against
at length they defeated
celestial Izeds,
and precipitated them
into
middle of Douzakh, Ahriman went upon the earth.
whole world into confusion.
during twenty
Dews Douzakh. From
Ahriman and
all
the
;
unthe
There he threw the
For that enemy of good mingled himself with
every thing, appeared every where, and sought to do mischief both above
and below.
The man-bull was now dead, but out of his left arm proceeded a being named Goschoronn. He is said to have raised a cry louder than the shout Approaching Ormuzd the Creator, he thus addressed of a thousand men. JVhat chief have you established in the zvorld? Ahriman is employed hini. in 7-apidly destroying the earth, in hurting the trees,
juices by the agency of scalding xvater.
have spoken ? Let him now prepare that has been done.
Ormuzd
to
fVhere
is
and
The
drying up their
the man, of
engage himself
replied to him.
in
to
bull,
whom you
make good the
O
evil
Goschoronn, has
Ahriman has injected him. But that for a time, when Ahriman will not be able to
jallen sick of the malady, with zvhich
man
is
reservedfor an earth,
exercise his violence.
'
M.
*
This name
Goschoroun was now
Anquctil writes the word ,Kaio>norts is
also a
compound.
:
full
of joy: he consented to
but the appellation
is
a compound one.
chap.
m.
THE ORIGIN
60 HOOK
III.
tj^at^
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
01'
which Ormuzd demanded of him
and he
:
said,
/ xvill
take care of all
the creatures hi the world.
After this
was resolved to put Ahriman to
it
those wicked persons
now an
whom
both as a isted
star,
and
he had introduced upon the earth
supreme
universal opposition to the
cond man-bull appeared,
flight,
who bore
and as the sun
:
the
yet he
;
tor there
was
God Ormuzd. At this time a seTaschter. He is spoken of,
name of
is
also mentioned, as
To
upon earth under three forms.
to destroy all
a person w ho ex-
Taschter was couiuntted the charge
of bringing on the deluge.
Meanwhile Ahriman went on
The
wicked race of the Darvands.
O
in the following words.
his rebellion,
in
and was joined by the
chief of thern accosted the evil spirit
Ahriman,
raise yourself
I go
up with me.
to
Oimuzd and the Anischaspands. Then he, the origin of evil, Ahriman wished twice counted the Dews separately, and was not content. to quit that abject state, to which the sight of the pure man had reduced The Darvand Dje said to him. Raise yoursclj with me to enter into him. What evils will I bring upon the pure man and upon the bull this war.
Jight and bind
I shall inflict upon them, they xvill no longer I will be in the water I will be thejire of Ormuzd: I will be in every thing that
After they have suffered what he able to
in the trees:
Ormuzd
I xvill
live,
I will
corrupt their light
be in
has made.
He, wliose every action
But the daring
to review his troops.
man was
put to
On this
it
flight
;
universal deluge of w aters, that as the second man-bull Taschter
work, he forthwith set about
On
is
rebellion
evil,
then proceeded twice
was speedily crushed
to bring over the face
this
was the person appointed
it.
occasion,
thirty
The pure
was
like
a large salver.
the height of a
man
:
and,
:
to effect this great
he had, as
it
souls watched with care
were, three bodies bull.
His
;
the light
days and thirty nights, and he caused rain to
descend under each body for the space of ten days. rain
of the earth an
Taschter was seconded by Bahman, by
body of a man, the body of a horse, and the body of a shone on high during
Ahri-
;
impurity might be washed away
all
Hom-Ized, and by Beni-Barzo-Ized. •
:
and the victory remained with Ormuzd.
was thought necessary
over his safety.
:
The
Every drop of that
earth was wholly covered with water to
and, the streams penetrating to
its
very inmost re-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. cesses, all the Kharfesters perished in the
was the quantity of
and
rain:
it fell
6l
So prodigious
mighty inundation.
each of which equalled in bulk
in droj)s,
the head of an ox.
and were again confined within
length the waters began to retire,
At
proper bounds
:
sides
upon the
from
the Arg-Roud.'
earth.
God
became
Albordi was situated, bore
tlie
The
visible.
the
Here another
We
abundance.
The mode
particular region,
body
them
all
II.
of their production
is
not a
ceding citation
is
:'
it is
:
bull
it
was then formed
and a cow.
From
Mr. Bryant
Hebrew
is
disposed to admit it
to
Perron's French
is
that the present
dans V Arg-Roud
as an authentic relic of
be a mere garbled compila-
who had been a
Daniel:* Sir William Jones, on the authority to think,
it,
work of Zeradusht, who
Scriptures, the
the time of Darius Hystaspis and
the Dabistan, seems
whence the pre-
not to be dissembled, that various opinions have
Dr. Prideaux strongly maintains
tion from the
M.
moon
The
remarkable.
to the genuineness of the Zend-Avesta,
taken,
been entertained.
*
little
kinds of animals, and birds, and fishes, originated.*
With respect
antiquity
which
and from them the Universe
:
and out of that body sprang a
:
in
was framed, which was
bull
seed of the first-mentioned bull was purified in the into a living
at last the
are likewise told, that two animals of this
species were produced, a male and a female
was derived.
and
:
name of Ferakh-kand: and there Ormuzd Kharfesters, who remained, and from whom all
things were destmed to spring. all
after-
All these mountains multiplied themselves from
surface of the whole earth
all
and
to appear,
the root of Albordi, as suckers are propagated from a tree
planted the germs of
all
the creator drove back all the waters
Then he caused mount Albordi
wards the other mountains.
the author of
them on
for a violent wind, during three days, agitated
IVIeanw hile
their
;
of
flourished in
servant of the prophet
Mohsan
Zend-Avesta
but the sense seems
to
the author of
is
me -to
a compdation
require, that the
original bhould have been translated /rom, not tn. *
Zend-Avesta, vol.
iii.
p.
348—371.
vol.
i.
p. 353, 351, 354, 334, 352, 356, 359.
Bryant. '
Anal.
vol.
iii.
p.
599, 600.
* Prideaux's Connect, part
i.
b. iv. p.
219
ct infra.
apud
^^*^" "''
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
62 kooK
111.
fpQjjj tjjg
Y,ork of Zeradusht which itself
Richardson broadly
asserts,
that
partialfabrication of modern
no longer
is
in existence
marks of the
carries palpable
it
Of
times.''
:'
these opinions,
it is
and Mr. total or
obvious, that
those of Bryant and Richardson form the two extremes.
Equally various have been the sentiments concerning
Hyde
Prideaux and
are wholly different
characters have so
:
and Richardson
resemblance to each other,
little
reputed author.
name Zoroaster and
the Greeks Zoroaster: Bryant maintains, that the
name Zeradusht
its
the existence of only one Zeradusht, called by
allow
that the
two
Dr. Hyde
aiid
tells us,
that, unless
the
other oriefitalists had resolved at all events to reco7icile the identity of their
we should have much
persons,
difficulty to discover
Amidst these discordant views of termine, what degree of credit
the subject,
it
a single similar feature.
requires
some caution
to de-
due to the mythological history of the
is
Zend-Avesta.
So
far
as I can judge, the moderate opinion of Sir William Jones bids
Internal evidence, to which alone
the fairest to be the truth.
mately
Richardson
:
me
appears to
resort,
for,
we must
ulti-
equally to set aside those of Prideaux and
though the outline of the Zend-Avestaic story corresponds
with the Mosaical narrative, the mode of telling
it
altogether pagan and
is
does not bear the least resemblance to the plain detail of the Jewish lawgiver
and
;
it is
so replete with those remarkable mythologic and symbolical
notions, which are
common
to the
whole gentile world, that
cannot possibly be a mere modern invention,
Richardson wishes us
to ascribe to his
if
groundzvork
its
such be the idea which Mr.
term fabrication.
This
last is
Mr.
Bryant's argument to prove the genuine antiquity of the present Zend-Avesta:
and
it
avails, I think, to
prove that the groundzvork of
it
must be authentic;
but
it
who
are best qualified to decide the point, the absolute authenticity of the
is
insufficient to
composition
which
it
especially
against
The Zend-Avesta may be
itself.
times, though hozv far terials,
prove,
modern
contains,
'
Discourse on the Persians.
*
Richardson's Dissert,
sect,
compilation of modern
I will not pretend to determine
may
:
yet the
ma-
nevertheless be most curious and valuable
Asiat, Res. vol, ii.
a
those able orientalists
ii.
p. 51.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Thus
fragments of real antiquity.
Greek
scholiasts are comparatively
63
writings of Tzetzes
the
modern
:
yet
and the other
they contain
some of
the
No one ever most precious rehcs, which we have, of old pagan mythology. suspects, that they invented the fables which they relate, though many of them now occur no where
else
:
I see not therefore,
in plain contradiction to internal evidence,
Avesta are a Sir
modero J'ab7'ication,
William Jones,
this
that the
imagine,
contents of the Zend-
term meaning invention.
do not misunderstand him, ascribes the original
if I
Zend-Avesta
to Zeradusht,
Prideaux.'
If
it
by
why we should
whom
he places a small matter earlier than Dr.
were the work of a person who was contemporary with
Darius Hystaspis, I should suspect that neither was he the inventor of
but that he had either copied from some yet older book (of which
it,
his pro-
duction might be esteemed a then modernized edition), or that (like Ovid)
he had collected together into one volume various scattered legends.
The
probability of this opinion will appear in the sequel: at present I shall con-
who roundly declares the Zend-Avesta Pentateuch made by a slave of Daniel in
sider the hypothesis of Dr. Prideaux,
to be a
mere compilation from the
the time of Darius Hystaspis. ].
This point I should conceive to be the most satisfactorily determined
(at least so far as the preceding citations are concerned, alo7ie I
am
interested)
in the fate
of which
by comparing them with the writings, whence they
are supposed to have been taken.
Now
it
ment of
appears to me, that, except the regular and systematic arrange-
the story and the
successive times, there as well
is
dogma
of the world having been created at six
not only nothing which might not have been just
borrowed from the general mythology of the old heathens as from the
Pentateuch
;
but nearly the whole narrative
is
couched
in terms,
have been taken from ancient symbolical mythology, and which sent form could not have been taken from the Pentateuch.
which must in their pre-
Zeraduslit had
no occasion to resort to the book of Genesis, in order to learn either the '
Dr. Prideaux, on the authority of Clemens Alexandrinus, represents Pythagoras as hav-
ing been his pupil, whereas Sir William Jones thinks
conversed together. Hystaspis.
They agree however
in
fixing
it
barely possible that they could have
him
to
the age of Gushtasb or Darius
CHAP.
III.
THE
64 BOOK
III.
an
man, or
first
evil
being
happiness of
in its great outline, or the Paradisiacal
history of the creation
the
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
OllIGlN OF
in consequence of yielding to the temptation of
his fall
who assumed
the form of a serpent,
ness of mankind before the flood
still
:
less did
he require to have received his
Hebrew
information respecting the deluge from the
or the universal wicked-
lawgiver.
These matters
whole world both eastern and western, though
were well known throughout tiie perhaps in no other ancient system are they
much
regularity
all
successively detailed with so
But Zeradusht
and method.
relates
them
in
a manner,
which he could not have learned from the Pentateuch, and which (supposing him to be entirely the author of the Zend-Avesta) he must have altogether
Thus Moses might have taught
learned from the old symbolical mythology.
him, that first
man
Adam was the first man
Noah
of the antediluvian world, and
the
of the postdiluvian world: but the idea of representing the one as
a sort of revival of the other and of considering the two as a
cond man-bull, while
it
first
and
se-
perfectly accords with the gentile notion of a succes-
sion of similar worlds
and with the
the transmigrating great father or
gentile practice of typifying
Adam
by a
reappearing in the person of
bull
Noah
;
such an idea could not have been borrowed from the book of Genesis. Thus also Moses might have told him, that the first woman was deceived
by a serpent, that a
that death
was the consequence of yielding
who should
Saviour was obscurely promised
to the temptation,
bruise the head of the
and that the flood was the punishment of antediluvian wickedness though Me y«c/* detailed in the Zend-Avesta coincide sufficiently with
serpent, but,
:
those related in the Pentateuch to prove their identity
which they are detailed,
is
narrative of Moses, that it
the manner, in
so peculiar, and differs so widely from the simple is
hard to conceive
From
been a mere transcript of the other. been learned, that certain
yet
;
evil beings
how
the one history could have
various gentile legends
had been cast out of heaven,
it
might have
that they were
opposers of God, and that they were closely connected with the serpent but Moses does not positively tell us any thing of the kind. In the story of Goschoroun, :
and
in the
promise of some holy
man who
should hereafter appear,
easily recognize a corrupted belief in a future Deliverer,
such a belief might originate
:
but
in the
we may
from whatever source
Pentateuch there
in detail bears the least resemblance to these legends.
is
The
nothing, that notion,
that
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
65
the evil principle was in the waters and that the deluge proceeded from him,
was prevalent both
in
Egypt and Hindostan and Greece
and the serpent Py-
nized in the fables of Typhon, Hayagriva, the Asoors,
thon
and may be recog-
;
but no such notion could have been drawn from the narrative of Moses.
:
When
Zeradusht
tells us,
that the second man-bull
was
assisted in the task of
bringing on the flood by thiee other personages, he might indeed have learn-
ed the existence of such characters from the Pentateuch
but the mythology
;
of perhaps every nation upon the face of the earth would have equally impressed him with the belief in a great diluvian triad, emanating from, and intimately blended with, a paternal
forms
us, that this
same man-bull
a man, that of a horse, and
when he
the contrary,
in-
triplicated himself into three bodies, that of
of a bull
tliat
opinion in the book of Genesis
On
monad.
:
but
believed to have been mysteriously
;
we do
we
find,
find nothing like such
that the great father
an
was
triplicated, as the ancient hierophanta
delighted to express the simple fact of his having three sons
;
we
do find, that
the bull and the horse were universally symbols of this primeval character,
by whatever name he might be venerated.
So again
Moon
seed or offspring of the man-bull within the
the purification of the
:
precisely at the time of
the flood, and the deducing the postdiluvian origin of
planet, quite agree with the universal heathen practice
representing the
Ark by
the lunette
:
but, in
whatever
things from that
all
of astronomically
Moon
light the
might
be considered by the early patriarchs, there are no traces of any such specu-
Moses.
lations in the plain historical narrative of
Equally improbable
is it,
that the Zend-Avesta should have been a fabrication from the Pentateuch, if
we
consider
deviations.
its
striking omissions, as
When
we have
hitherto
the pretended servant of Daniel sat
of forgery with the writings of the
Hebrew
done
down
palpable
its
to his labour
lawgiver before him, he would
obviously embellish his detail with the history of Cain and Abel, and would not
fail
rate,
to notice the specious miracle of the translation of
if
these matters were passed over in silence,
that in a professed account of the deluge he
the Ark. the
and
Yet such
murder of Abel
is ;
Idol.
at
:
any
impossible to believe,
totally neglect to
mention
the case witli the legend before us
:
nothing
Enoch
;
nothing, literally
nothing, of the rapture of
ostensibly, of the Ship within
Pag.
would
it is
Enoch
which the tauric patriarch and
VOL.
II.
is
said of
his family
I
cuAr.
III.
aooB
III.
66"
THt ORIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY.
were presen'ed.
This
mentioned
last is indeed
manner so purely
mystical, that none
what was meant.
The Arg-Roud
Moon, which
is
is
:
but
is
it
mentioned
in
a
but the initiated would understand
plainly
enough the ship Argha; and the
described as the parent of the Universe at the exact lime of
the deluge, will easily be recognized by the mythologist as the astronomical
symbol of the Ark if it
but suck a
:
prove ani/ thing,
mode
much
will
of noticing the Siiip of the great father,
rather prove, that the author of the Zend-
Avesta had not seen the Pentateuch, than that he had.
book be wholly the work of a Zeradusht who flourished Hystaspis, and
if
In short,
if this
in the time of
Darius
that Zeradusht had conversed with Daniel (which
is
allow-
ing the whole that Dr. Prideaux calls upon us to allow as necessary to his
much more than we
conclusion, and it
would appear
are any
way bound
even then
to allow):
me, from the mere force of internal evidence, that
to
of the legend beyond
its
little
systematic arrangement could have been borrowed
from the Pentateuch, and that the great mass of materials must have been derived from quite another source
namely the old and generally received
;
system of mythology, with which we must unavoidably conclude Zeradusht to
have been well acquainted.
Supposing then that the Zend-Avesta was the
sole
work of a
sole Zera-
dusht, as Dr. Prideaux contends, 1 should certainly conclude from internal
evidence, that try,
its
author had taken the sacred traditional fables of his coun-
and had wrought them up into a regular chronological form on the model
aflbrded
him by the Pentateuch
we admit
parallel instance, if
of the Seventy (which I think
:
or, to
that
explain
my
meaning by a somewhat
Ovid had perused the Greek
more than probable),
I
translation
should conceive that
he composed the beginning of his Metamorphoses, much in the same manNo one can properly say, ner as Zeradusht composed the Zend-Avesta. that the narrative of the Latin poet ture,
though to
propriety,
Hesiod
a mere garbled compilation from Scrip-
acquaintance with the Greek translation
his
that chronological regularity writings of
is
:
set aside
and
I
it
perhaps owes
and consistency, which we vainly look think
we
can,
unceremoniously and
with as
little
for in the
shew of sreason and
in the gross the
whole Zend-Avesta
of the Persian, even admitting his acquaintance with the exordium of Genesis.
Any
persrin,
even the most moderately conversant with old mythology,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. cannnot but
see, that,
consequence of matCT-ials
67
however Zeradusht may have systematized
Jews of the Babylonian
his intercourse with the
his
work in "*'•
captivity,
must have been boiTOwed from the ample fund of Paganism
no acquaintance with mythology
;
its
and
necessary to produce the conviction, that
is
they catinot have been furnished by the primeval history of the Pentateuch.
Such would be
was the
sole
my
conclusion, if
it
had been proved that the Zend-A Testa
who was contemporary
production of a sole Zeradusht,
Darius Hystaspis and who had conversed with the prophet Daniel: but point does not appear to that the present
me
There
:
have been proved.
is
a comparatively modern compilation from the
Zend-Avesta
but I
am
an original one, nor to believe, that there
that
it
was ascribed
author the sole Zeradusht.
to a primitive Zeradusht,
was the ground-work of a
am
I
work was not
as the sacred books of the
Menu
or
Buddha
it
it
Zend-Avesta,
I
:
am
even independently of Sir William Jones's citation from
Mohsan Persians who
informs us, that, according to the most intelligent of those professed the faith of Hushang, the
Mahabad.
first
it.
king both of Persia and of
all
This prince divided the people into four orders
sacerdotal, the military, the commercial, tions to them, unquestionably the
now
and that
totally different Zeradusht.
the Dabistan of Mohsan, which however remarkably confirms
earth was
;
opinion I lean from the mere force of internal evidence
disposed to adopt
Darius
strongly inclined
later (the parent of the present)
corrected and edited by a later and this
in the time of
was a yet prior and most remotely ancient Zend-Avesta
Brahmenists and Buddhists are to a primitive
To
reason to think,
is
strongly inclined to believe, that even this its
this
to
Zend-Avesta of a Zeradusht who probably flourished Hystaspis
with
same
and the
servile
:
the
and gave appella-
in their origin with those,
applied to the four primary classes of Hindostan.
;
the
He
is
which are
said to have
among men, a sacred that fourteen Mahabads
received from the Creator, and to have promulgated
book
in
a heavenly language
:
had appeared or would appear world.
The w hole of
this
and in
legend
it
was
believed,
human shapes is
modifications,
Buddhists.
The
is
alike
sacred book of
government of the
so palpably Hindoo,- that the system of
the ancient Persians must have been the very certain
for the
same
is
which,
under
Brahmenists
and
the code, which in one
word
maintained both
Mahabad
as that,
by
'"•
THE
68 BOOR
III.
jjjay
be denominated the Veda
Menus: and Mahabad is tliat
great father
;
PAGAN IDOLATRT.
ORIGIN' OF
the fourteen
:
liimsclf, the first
wiio
I^f ahabads
sovereign of Persia and of the earth,
thought to appear and to reign at tbc cointncnce-
is
ment of every mundane system, Mho
is
successively the xMenu-Swayambhuv.a
and the Menu-Satyavrata of Hindostan, and who supposed to be manifested anew
very evidently to be
Buddha and
is
:
appellation
in all respects the
is
plainly to be identified with
him
;
each
is
standard at
The
this
moment
of
primeval theology of the
adduced by Mohsan, was pure theism:
The
accession of
Cayumers
;
or
the gi'eat INIenu,
According then to
among
this
the Persians
William Jones does
Sir
Menu ;
a book, that
is
the
and moral duties among the Hindoos.
Persians,
was of no long duration among them
seems indeed
the great father successively
Zeradusht, which
all religious
It
Maha-Bad
account, there was an ancient sacred book received
not hesitate to identify with the Institutes of
Adam
William Jones
same mixed character as
manifested for the government of the Universe.
anterior to the time of the later
Sir
apparently Sanscrit.
compound
tlie
and Buddha
is
in plain language is
person of Noah.
in the
Mahabad
remarks, that the word
are the fourteen
if
but it
we may this
rely
simple
on the
authorities
mode
of worship
speedily gave place to polytheism.
to the throne of Persia, in the eighth or ninth
century before Christ, seems to have been accompanied by a considerable revolution both in government and religion
system of national
faith,
:
and he probably began the new
which Hushang, whose name
But the reformation was
partial
for,
:
it
bears, completed.
while the Persians rejected the com-
plex polytheism of their predecessors, they retained the laws of the sacred
book of Mahabad, and superstitiously venerated, the Sun, the Planets, and the element of Fire.
At
length, in the days of Zeradusht, the reformation
of the old religion was completed it
retained until the country
served some
own
;
and the system acquired that form, which
was subdued by the Musulmans.
of the ancient superstitious usages,
invention
:
Zeradusht pre-
and introduced others of his
but he was chiefly remarkable, as the author of a new work
which he pretended to have received from heaven, and as having established the actual adoration of one •
Supreme Being.
See below book
vi. Ct 2,
f
II. 2,
This Zeradusht, according to and Append. Tab.
v.
THE ORIGIN or PAGAX IDOLATRY. Mohsan, and he
flourished contemporaneously with said to have travelled into
is
theological
and
ethical information
Gushtasb or Darius Hystaspis;
Hindostan
for the
to
Now, seems
to
purpose of receiving
from the Brahmens
must be the person, who, with whatever reason, deaux
69
is
:
consequently, he
supposed by Dr. Pri-
have conversed with Daniel.' the preceding account of
if
me
Mohsan may be depended upon,
decidedly to confirm the opinion which I have advanced: and
I should conclude from
when
it,
view
I
it
in
connection even with the present
Zend-Avesta, that the immediate parent of that work, the pretended
book of Zeradusht, was nothing more than a corrected edition of the nal holy book of !Mahabad.
a later impostor, who, as a reformer
and a
name had been assumed
legislative prophet,
teemed a manifestation of the great transmigrating father;
same
as the jNIenu, to
whom
his holy book,
the remote
much
as the
the
same
Such a supposition
the Hindoos ascribe
i/ie
was
es-
he was the
and that
groundwork of the present Zend-Avesta, was
most ancient Veda. will
account satisfactorily for the strong resemblance
the Hindoos relative to the
same
The
period.
and the legends of
evil principle
the very same part with respect to the deluge, that the
does
tliat
Institutes ;
between the preceding extracts from the Zend-Avesta,
in
/lezv
origi-
In short, I should conclude, that ]\Iahabad
himself was the primitive Zeradusht; that his
by
it
Ahriman
acts
demon Hayagriva
one of the Hindoo traditions and the god Siva himself
in another of
The Dews, his associates, are the Dewtahs of Brahmenical theoMount Alboidi is the same as mount Mandar and mount Meru, logy. though the story may possibly have been corrected and rendered more simple them.*
from
tlie
inspired account of Ararat
:
yet the notion of
all
the
other
hills
being the offspring of Albordi nearly resembles the Hindoo idea, that every sacred mount, whether natural or ter of the original holy
bull;
mountain.
the horse, the bull, and
the
artificial,
And
is
a smaller j\Ieru and a splin-
the three forms of the second
man; appear conspicuously
man-
in the third
of the Hindoo Avatars, which evidently relates to the great catastrophe of the deluge.
'
Thus,
the
more
I consider the early history contained in the * Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol. 1. p. 503.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
'
See the print in Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol.
ii.
p. 60.
1.
p. 581.
'^"^''-
"'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKT.
70 '"•
Zend-Avesta, the more can
less I
of
}n<^s
brini«;
Moses
The
2.
deduce
I incline to
myself to believe that
made
first
it
from old mythology, and the
a mere transcript from
it is
me
present supposition necessarily leads
and Dr. Prideaux
in
another particular
whom
of only one Zeradusht,
tlie
writ-
time of the prophet Daniel.'
in the
mean
I
;
to contradict
Dr, Hyde
their belief in the existence
they place in the reign of Gushtasb or Darius
ITystaspis.
As
for the
name
whether Mr. Bryant's opinion, thnt Zoroaster and
itself,
Zeradusht are two entirely well or tlie
ill
founded
and whether
;
his
interprets to denote the
be right or wrong
bull,
prove the remote antiquity of a character,
have called Zei-adusht and ter,
'
is
most valuable and
whom
be
derivation of the word Zoroaster from
compound term Sor-Aster, which he
or the star of the
of one or more persons,
distinct appellations
bull-star
his circumstantial evidence to
:
whom
Persians appear to
the
the Greeks certainly denominated Zoroas-
Such evidence,
decisive.'
my
in
mind, far out-
Dr. PriJeau.x says, that Abraham, Moses, Joseph, and Solomon, are spoken of in the
This circumstance will only prove,
Zend-Avesta conformably with their scriptural history. that the
knowledge of those characters had been derived from the Jews, and that
Zend-Avesta had been indebted to Scripture
:
but
it
so far the
will not prove, in direct opposition to the
circumstantial evidence which has been adduced, that the early history contained in that book
was similarly derived. fire
Dr. Prideaux likewise imagines, that the Zoroastrian veneration of
was borrowed from the appearance of God
in
the Shechinah betwe«n the
Cherubim.
This epinion might have been deemed plausible, had such veneration been confined to Persia:
but the fact
is,
the veneration of the Sun, and thence of his
pervaded more or
less the
* Agathias certainly seems to warrant the opinion, that
themselves distinct appellations, although borne Tfoy
Tjtot
names.
ZajaJi);'
iitTij ya.^
Agath. de Pers.
emblem
iv aunu
lib. ii. p. 6"2.
Zoroaster and Zeradusht
by one man.
He
This Zoroaster
nrwyujji,ia,.
:
ther such testimony will quite warrant that the person,
fire,
whom
Mr. Bryant's
supposition.
Se i
are in
Zu}foar-
Zaradcs, fur he has two
is
evidently an attempt to
and we are
.poken of bore two names, Zarades (or Zeradusht ) and Zoroaster.
Qirof
says, is
In this passage, Zarades
express in Greek characters the Persian word Zeradusht
meant
the sacred immortal
mythology of every nation.
Yet
told, I
that
the person
greatly doubt, whe-
Agathias seems only to have
the Greeks called Zoroaster, was in his
own country denominat-
ed Zarades or Zeradusht ; ami that the real name had been so transmuted, that Zoroaster and
Zarades might well pass
for
two
of the passage, both because
distinct titles.
we know how
I
am
the
more
led to
adopt
this interpretation
strangely the Greeks were wont to corrupt any
THE ORIGIN OK PAGAX ILOLATRr. weiffhs that of
any comparatively modern Persian
7t
iiistorians,
have preserved the recollection of only the later Zeradusht
Mr. Richardson, no two
because, according to
so,
perfectly dissimilar, than the Persian history
:
who seem
to
and the more be more
histories can
from about the year 600 before
the Christian era to the Macedonian conquest as written by the Persians
same
themselves, and the (so at least
we
are told), no mention
occur, whose actions at
all
vestige of the battles of
is
made of Cyrus
resemble his
Cambyses
the expedition of
cal^
history as written by the Greeks."
:
there
'
nor does any prince
not a syllable respecting
is
against the Egyptians
;
In the former
:
nor can we discover a
Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plat^a, or My-
nor of the mighty force, wliich Xerxes led out of Asia to overwhelm
;
But
the states of Greece.
Holy Scripture;' and both foreign term
the great outline of the latter
who
confirmed by
and Scripture accord with the canon of Ptole-
it
which offended the delicacy of
valued connection of ray own,
is
their ears;
and because
allowed to be one of the
is
first
I
day, that the Persians are wholly ignorant of any such appellation as Zoroaster. grant, does not absolutely prove the non-e.\istence of such a
but
it
to the
renders the matter at least so suspicious,
it
is
the year before Christ 6\0, says
This,
name among their_/brf/aM«r*
I .-
imprudent to assign any etymology
word Zoroaster, which may be merely a Greek corruption of a very
From
'
that
by«
have been assured
orientalists of the present
Mr. Richardson,
till
the
different
name.
Macedonian conquest, ue
have the history of the Persians as given vs by the Greeks, and the history of the Persians at written by themselves.
ence of facts
;
Between those
classes
of writers, we might naturally expect some
but ve should as naturally look for a few great lines, which might
similarity of story
:
yet,
from
every search which
J have had an opportunity
differ-
mark some
to make,
there
seems to be nearly as much resemblance between the annals of England and Japan, as between
European and Asiatic relations ff the same empire.
the *
I
speak with the mouth of Mr. Richanlson: but Sir William Jones not only pronounces,
without fear of contradiction, that the Greek Cyrus that the actions ascribed to this prince in the epic
the actions ascribed to Cyrus by Herodotus.
he doubts the identity of will he
no
'
See Chronol. vol.
iii.
but
tells us,
Asiat. Res. vol.
ii.
p. 45.
I,
when then,
till
who am
between these two eminent scholars; Arcades ambo
the Persian histories be what
do not believe one syllable of their contents.
ject.
;
Firdausi minutely correspond with
Quatorze and Lewis the fourteenth, thtn, and not
orientalist, pretend not to decide if
the Persian Cai-Khosrau
In short, as he strongly expresses himself,
doubt the identity of Cyrus and Cai-Khosrau.
can only say, that, I
Jjouis
is
poem of
Mr. Richardson
represents
them
Dr. Hales has some good remarks on
!
I
to be,
this
sub-
p. 47. note *.
Exclusive of the direct mention of Cyrus or Choresh, and exclusive of the predictions
«"*'' "'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATaV.
71 BOOK
iif.
which
nriy,
founded on astronomical observations
is
the divine authority of the
them merely
Hebrew
as historical records,
:
so that, even putting
writings out of the question
and viewing
we must
two ancient
surely allow,
that
by the
testimonies, the one occidental, the other oriental, and both confirmed
mathematical evidence deduced from the actual calculation of eclipses, far
When
overbalance one comparatively modern testimony.
mind the
I call to
various revolutions which Persia has undergone, particularly that which in-
troduced the religion of least reliance
Ptolemy, and nnd history of
Mohammed,
I can never be
persuaded to place the
on a history so strangely contradictory both
Greek
to the
his tailing
But Mr. Bryant's evidence
historians.'
Babylon which remarkably accord with the Greek and assigns
of Xerxes into Greece,
foretells the expedition
to Scripture,
succession from Cyrus which profane authors do.
to
him
the very
for
to tiie
Daniel
writers,
same place
in the
See Dan.xi. 2. and Bp. Newton's Dissert,
in loc. '
According
to Sir
William Jones, who speaks with
his usual
good sense on the subject,
the present Persians have no authentic history which reaches higher than the accession of the
Sassanian dynasty
:
consequently, though they
may have
Cyrus which corresponds with the narrative of Herodotus, '
preserved a tradition of the great their history
down
to the
Macedo-
nian conquest, which Mr. Richardson confronts with the Greek history of the same period,
cannot be at
all
depended upon.
The matter seems
me of considerable
to
importance, because
Mr. Richardson exhibits the Persians as producing a history which can never be reconciled either with Scripture or with the
the verity
of the
latter,
Greek historians: unless therefore ae are willing
we must deny
But
the authenticity of the former.
let
to give up
us hear the
judicious observations of Sir William on the subject, and our faith will probably not be
shaken by the discrepancy It
may seem
much
in question.
strange, that the ancient history of so distinguished an' empire should be yet so
imperfectly known
;
but very satisfactory reasons
may
be assigned for our ignorance of
it
.-
the
principal of them are the superficial knowledge of the Greeks and the Je'ws, and the loss of
That the Greek writers before Xcnophon had no
Persian archives or historical compositions.
acquaintance with Persia, and that all their accounts of too extravagant to be seriously maintained
:
it
are
whoWy fabulous,
but their connection with
it
in
is
a paradox
peace or war had
indeed been generally confined to bordering kingdoms under feudatory princes; and the first
Persian emperor, whose
life
was the great Cyrus, whom I
As
and character they seem call,
to the Persians themselves,
to
have known with tolerable accuracy,
without fear of contradiction, Cai-Khosrau.
who were contemporary with
the Greeks
and Jews, they must
have been acquainted with the history of their own times and with the traditional accounts of past ages
:
but,
in the
numerous distractions which followed the overthrow of Dara, especially
in the great revolution on the defeat
ofYezdegird by the Saracens A. D. 657
— 651,
their civil
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. existence of a primeval Zeradusht
Greek
who
writers
deduced from
is
tlie
:
upon the testimony of authors
tively
modern
for a
book of
his
Buddha
or INIahabad or
who assumed
the
wlio
;
name and
no two
says, that
censures Dr.
I think,
bouring to identify them.
two persons, who
there
fact,
most part arc
is
to
Hence
of India have unhappily been.
;
and those of the
Cay ani family
eclipses, said to be
it
happened, that nothing
except a
intercourse nit h the emperors of
is
time of Cyrus
this ;
:
Rome and Byzantium,
Asiat. Res. vol.
ii.
p.
45
or the
Of the :
rustic tradi-
supposed to
Medes and Persians, as
Parthian kings, descended
but the Sasanis had so long an
that the period of their dominion
neither Jews nor Greeks seem to have
known much of
Persia before the
Are we then
to give
up
^/ieir
accounts, which undesignedly correspond ;
whose genuine
preserved by themselves, reaches no higher than the timeof Yessdegird
history, I think
?
rot. '
Richardson's Dissert, sect.
Pag.
may
— 49.
with each other, in favour of the mere fables of the modern Persians it is
still
but from his reign their accounts accord, and are checked by the astronomi-
canon of Ptolemy.
so far as
few
mentioned by Ptolemy, fix the time
of Gushtasb, the prince by whom Zeradusht was protected. from Arshac or Arsaces, we know little more than the names
The sum
who
All the annals of the Pishdadi or Assyrian race must be con-
though the lunar
be ctlled an historical age.
William
of Darius Hystaspis and to have been
in the reign
exist in the PaJilavi language.
:
have no
Sir
that later Zeradusht,
and fables, Khich furnish materials for the Shahnamah and which are
and poetical
than
and he very
nothing, very wonderful, that
is
remains of genuine Persian history before the dynasty of Sasan,
sidered as dark and fabulous
unlike, :
entirely distinct, should
The Persian Zeradusht, according
have flourished
histories zoere lost, as those
more
other orientalists for painfully la-
Jones and in the judgment of the Persian writers,
heroic
same
to that
imitated the heaven-descended
cliaracters can be
Hyde and In
'
for the
mutual resemblance.
to
the
was long anterior
and that of tlie Greek Zoroaster
that of the Persian Zeradusht
seems
brought forward hv Mr.
remote predecessor.
Mr. Richardson
justly,
cannot therefore hesitate
I
conclude, that there was a primeval Zeradusht,
I
Menu
later Zeradusht,
a compara-
in
with every record, sacred
to decide in favour of the evidence
Bryant: whence
personage as
deemed genuine.
that can be
moment
who, flourishing
;
are in complete discordance
age,
and profane,
cal
authentic source -of
while the opinion, that there was only one later Zeradusht
lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, rests, so far as I can understand
the question,
tions
73
Idol.
ii.
VOL.
II.
K
•="*''•
»'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
74 BOOK
III.
work whence the present Zend-Avesta has been taken.
the compiler of the
The
Zoroaster of the Greek writers, on the contrary,
a different and primeval Zeradusht
the
;
To
or the transmigrating great father.
descended Zend-Avesta was ascribed dians given
him, I conceive, the genuine heaven-
and,
Mahabad
of the Greeks) was no other than
rightly identifies with
the account of the
if
Mahaba-
am
altogether spurious, I
Menu
whom
or the great Buddha, ;
and of
predecessor the
its
Zeradusht pretended to be of heavenly
Zend-Avesta which the
later
was that sacred book
a celestial language which
At any
received immediately from the Creator.
Sir
and that the real prototype and
groundwork both of the present Zend-Avesta,
in
Menu,
as the Indian
primitive mythological Zeradusht (the Zoroaster
firmly persuaded, that the
William Jones
:
same character
Mohsan be not
the Dabistan of
in
generally speaking,
is,
Mahabad
rate,
is
origin,
said to have
the internal evidence,
afforded by the contents even of the Zend-Avesta which we now possess,
me
appears to
directly to contradict the opinion of Dr. Prideaux,
history of the early ages vvas a
is
composed of
curious fragments of genuine antiquity, wrought up into a
Avesta
;
much
or by the
in the
I
am
more modern compiler of
same manner
as Ovid,
certain
more regularly
who had conversed with
chronological form, either by a later Zeradusht captivity,
its
mere plagiarism from the Pentateuch.
willing therefore to rest in the belief, that this history
Jews of the
that
the
the present Zend-
probably from his having pe-
rused the translation of the Seventy, has arranged more systematically the materials afforded him by Hesiod and other old writers. If
we may
credit the testimony of the
Greek and Latin
several Zoroasters in different parts of the East
the
same
as the later Zeradusht of
plainly far anterior,
character
in
and seem at the bottom
who under
sal father.
Armenia, another
'
711.
in
Bactria,
All these
I
Suid. Lex. Arnob. adv. gent. Justii).
lib.
i.
c. 1.
Demons. Evan. prop.
some of whom appear
;
to
be
Prideaux, while others are
to be that
compound primeval
various appellations was reverenced as the great univer-
There was a Zoroaster
even in China. '
Hyde and
authors, there were
in
Assyria, another in Media,
another
Hyde
himself)
and another (according
take to be that one transmigrating ancient person lib.
i.
p. 31.
Clem. Alex. Strom,
Syncell. Chronog. p. 167-
iv. p.
to
89. cited by Bryant.
Hyde
de
lib.
rel. vet.
i.
p.
Pers.
399p.
lib- v.
315.
p.
Huet.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. by the name of Buddha or Fold or
t\ho,
worshipped so extensively imports no more than
75
Menu or Mahabad or
and the ascribing of them to
:
Saca, was
different countries
that a hero-god decorated with the attributes of
this;
the great father was every where adored, and that the genealogy of all nations ultimately terminated in
The Armenian
Noah and Adam.
Zoroaster was the reputed son of Armenius
chus, Osiris, and Adonis, he
and
is
said to
and, like Bac-
:
have experienced a renewal of
life
have learned many things of the gods during the time that he lay
to
This
dead.
tion of the
is
plainly a diluvian fable;
Hindoo
and
is
nothing more than a modifica-
legend, that, during the period between
two successive
worlds, the great father reposes in a deathlike sleep on the surface of an uni-
Armenia was the country where the Ark
versal inundation.
death and revival of Zoroaster father
his death,
:
entered into the
Adam
as
Ark
it.
Sometimes the egress was esteemed a new
Hence this Zoroaster
have been born on one of the Gordi&an mountains; that
from
He
it.
is
is
with
fire.
birth,
reported to
to say, precisely
where the Ark grounded, and where
also feigned to
is
Noah was
born
have had an intercourse with the Deity on a
mountain of Armenia, and to have been preserved unhurt though Tliis
and the
;
Menu of the antediluvian world, when he as Noah or the Menu of the postdiluvian
as well as a resurrection from the dead.
in that hilly region,
rested
the mystic death and revival of the great
or the
his revival,
;
when he quitted
world,
is
fable originated,
it
burned
agreeably to the double character of the
Cherubim before the garden of Noah, and his conversation with
great father, in part from the manifestation of the
Eden
of
God
;
and
in part
from the
sacrifice
revealed in the Shechinah, immediately on his quitting the Ark.
took place in the same mountainous country of Armenia ter
is
feigned to liave
Deity; there the
Ark
Adam
rested,
:
for,
Each
where Zoroas-
been born and to have held high converse with the
vias first created, there
Paradise once flourished, there
and there Noah was born a second time from the
womb
of
the mystic great mother.'
The
Bactrian Zoroaster
is
said to
have lived
have been a contemporary of Semiramis. '
Abulfeda apud Hyde,
p, 312.
in the time of
Ninus, and to
This likewise brings us to the
Dion. Chrysostom. Oiat. Borysth.
ji.
44S. apud Bryant,
CHAP.
III.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATUY.
76 «ooK
III.
(liiuyjajj ag(,
fabulous Seiiiiramis was supposed to be the daughter of
fpj. jijg
.
Dcrceto or Atargalis or the Syrian goddess, and
have been changed into
to
a dove; as her reputed parent, who was no other than the Ark, assumed the shape ofafisii to escape from
tlie
ragcof Typhon or
tlie
diiuvian ocean.
The son of Derceto, and therefore the imaginary brother of Scmiraniis, was
He
called Icthi/s or the Fish. for Icthys
is
Greek
a mere
was no doubt the same as Dagon or
Dagon ; and Dagon
translation of
under which the Philistines or Palli of old venerated the great their brethren the
do
Among
'
the latter,
Dc'o'w?/
or the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish
have been born
to
in the
that region, which,
is still
As for it
is
contemporary is
the period, in which the
it
without reason
the precise country of
mount Mcru,
Buddha or Menu or Dagon. Zoroaster of the Greek writers flourished,
same character
the very
Such are the charac-
nor Mas
:
as
Xanthus
cannot possibly be reconciled with the reign of Darius Hystaspis,
the
Lydian makes him
authority of an
six
hundred years prior
anonymous
writer,
him
places
less than five thousand years before the
Suidas, on' the
to that prince.
five centuries before the siege
Hermodorus, Hermippus, and Plutarch, concur
of Troy.
thought
comprehending Bokhara and Cashgar, may be distinguish-
for the land of his pretended nativity
and he himself
is
very same high region with the Bactrian Zoroaster
whom Zoroaster is made
with
as
father,
an appellation of
and Buddha
:
ed by the general appellation of the Indian Caucasus. ters,
:
title,
Chasas or Indo-Scythas of Bokhara and Cashgar and Ava
at the present day.
Buddha
Noah
the
is
same
era.
in fixing
him no
Eudoxus supposes him Pliny ascribes
to have lived six thousand years before the death of Plato.
him an antiquity many thousand years higher than that of Moses and represents him, from Hermippus, as being the pupil of Azonac, who makes a to
;
conspicuous figure in the Chaldean oracles, and the great father.
is
nativity
;
He
moreover
\,ol.
ii.
(lea
Syra. «cct. 14. Artemid. Oniroc.
Glyc. Annal. p. 184. Ovid. Metatn.
Dcipnos.
Zoroaster himself
on the day of
his
a fable, which exactly corresponds widi the Samothracian tradition
Luc. de
c. 10.
like
that he laughed
tells us,
Lastly, Plato supposes
of the laughter of the new-born Jupiter, •
who
lib. viii.
p. 110.
p. 346.
Dissert,
lib.
lib. iv.
on Cabiri.
vol.
i.
c. 9.
him
Euscb. Pia?p. Evan.
vcr. 44. Atbcnag. Legat. p. 33. i.
p.
to be
85—87.
Syraes's
Embass.
lib.
i.
Athen. to
Ava.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
77
Ormuzd, the highest god of the Persians who in the Zend-Avesta undoul)tedlv appears as the Supreme Being, but uho (I believe) was really the son of
''"^'''
;
no other than the great father clothed with the attributes of Deity.
These varying accounts, while they concur
proving that a primitive
in
Zoroaster ought to be placed in a most remote age, plainly shew, that such a character as that which
Darius Hystaspis;
for,
f^^Cj/
describe could not have lived in the reign of
a shigle Zcradusht (as Hyde
there had been only
if
and Prideaux contend) and he a contemporary of Darius, it is incredible that the western writers should have made such enormous chronological blunders respecting
him
;
they must have known, that both he and his religion were
comparatively modern.
In
fact,
who
the primeval Zoroaster,
suaded) was the same as Buddha or ]\Ienu, lived
an age or
in
(I
am
per-
speak more
(to
properly) in ages, to which the traditions indeed of the Gentiles extended,
though not their regular chronological history.
He
Menu, was
in the first instance
Adam
reappearing
he was a com-
lived, for
pound character, in the Paradisiacal and diluvian ages in
:
Buddha or person of Noah;
and, like
the
though, agreeably to the notion of every eminent patriarch or reformer being
an intermediate manifestation of the great father, he
Ham
identified both with
may
also be in
and with Cush, the ancestors of
some
sort
the Gothic or
all
Thus Cassian very reasonably thinks, that he was Ham; Scuthic and Annius of Viterbo makes his false Berosus assert the same while GreIndeed some such opinion "ory of Tours supposes him to have been Cush. * tribes.
:
must necessarily and
tlie
result
manner,
in
from his being ascribed
which
I
have stated
it,
that prevailed so extensively throughout the
to so very
remote a period
:
best accords with the doctrines
pagan world
;
Zoroaster was,
in
one word, the Buddha or J\Ienu of the Chusas of Iran. It
is
a curious circumstance, that the ancient Irish should also have had a
Zcradusht, and that both they and the Persians (who in this instance seem '
Diog. Laer.
Plut.
(If?
Chion.
Dissert,
p. 32.
proccm. p. p.
lib.
i.
369.
-T.
Suid. I.cx. Plin. Nat. Hist.
Plat, in Alcib. lib.
Syncell. Chronog. p. l6'7.
on Cabiri. vol.
* Cassian.
Franc,
in
Isid. et Osir.
CoUat.
ii.
c.
p. 153
—
1
i.
p. 1C2.
apud Bryant.
xxx.
c. 1.
p. 16, 4,7.
Eu-
lib.
Ptol.Heph. Nov. Hist.
lib. vii.
58.
21. apud VcUanccy. Beros. Ant,
apud Bryant.
lib. vii. c. l6".
Mos. Choren.
lib.
li.
fol.
25.
Greg. Turon. Rer.
'"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
78 SOUK
III.
to iiave
confounded together the primitive and the
liave designated
close resemblance between the religion of
was observed by Borlase
isles
stitions
of the
Zeradusht) should
later
mother by the name of Doghdu or Daghda*
his
Persia and that of the
and the complete
;
The British
identity of the old super-
Druids, the Magi, and the Brahmens, has been since sa-
tisfactorily established
by Vallancey, Wilford, Maurice, and Davies
:
so that
may be accounted for without much difficulty. Doghdu or Daghda or Dag-Deva signifies thejish-goddess. This fabulous personage, the allegorical consort of Dagon Buddha in one point of view and his parent in another, is certainly the or the appearance of this mythological character in Ireland
whence Buddha, whom
Ark
:
who
bears the masculine
title
contend to be the same as Zoroaster, and
I
of
Dagon
or
Among
sovereign prince of the belly of the Jish. as the fish-goddess Derceto or
Dagun,
is
sometimes styled the
the Syrians she appears
who was esteemed the universal who was the reputed parent of Icthys or Dagon, who was thence said
Atargatis
;
receptacle or hiding-place of the hero-gods,
the dove Semiramis and the fish-god
and who
to be contemporary with the primeval Zoroaster,
vratery goddess
Deargand Durga of the
is
evidently the
ancient Irish and Hindoos.
In the
old Celtic mythology of Ireland, the children of this Zeradusht were called
Mithr sian
Midhr ; an appellation palpably the same as the title of Mithras, who was reported to have triplicated himself. The or
therefore of Zeradusht
was Mithras
Zeradusht viewed separately from
which equally occurs ancient nation,
means
in the
triplicated his
offspring
as Mithras in unity
;
children
the Per-
:
and
was
this self-triplication,
mythology of Hindostan and indeed of every other
only, that the greatfather, whether
the parent of three sons, with
whom
Adam or Noah,
was
each similar successive world invariably
conunenced. '
Vallancoy's Vindic. of anc.
Hyde
198. *
dc
rel. vet.
Collect, de reb. Hibern.
of Ireland.
hist,
vd.
iv.
p. 1<)7,
Pers. p. 312.
Gen. Vallancey says, that the
Irish
have preserved and ascribe
to their
Zeradusht the
very prophecy respecting the advent of the Messiah, which Abulpharagius attributes to the Persian Zeradusht.
monks
in the
contained in
As
it is difficult
to conceive
middle ages, we seem obliged
to
how
this
could have been a forgery of the
conclude, either that the prophecy was really
some more ancient Zend-Avesta, or
that an emigration to
Ireland took placo
THE But though the
OllIOIX OF
PAGAN IDOLATRr. Magianism of Persia
classical writers justly ascribe the
a very ancient Zoroaster, long anterior
79
to the time of
Darius Hystaspi?
to for
;
Eudoxus does, and tells us Magi of Persia were prior even to the Egyp-
Aristotle places Zoroaster as long before Plato as
(very tians
truly, :
'
I believe) that the
they were not ignorant of the existence of a later Zoroaster,
Hyde, Prideaux, and
certainly the Zeradusht of
who seems Thus
who
is
William Jones, and
Sir
to have flourished during the reigns of Darius
and
son Xerxes.
his
Pliny ascribes a Zoroaster to the age of the latter of these princes; and
therefore of course distinguishes
himself places
many thousand
him from
that primeval Zoroaster,
years before the days of
who was
Alexandrinus mentions a Persian Zoroaster,
Moses visited
and thus Agathias speaks of a Zoroaster, who lived taspes,
though he confesses himself unable
in
to ascertain
All these seem plainly to be that Zeradusht,
:
thus
whom he Clemens
by Pythagoras;
Hys-
the time of
who
this
who reformed
person was.
*
the ^lagianism
of Hushang as he had reformed that of his predecessors, and
who was
pro-
bably the compiler and editor of the work whence the present Zend-Avesta
has been taken. tained in
of
it
it,
when
But,
I consider the texture of the early history con-
more persuade myself
I can no
or that he stole
it
either that he
was the inventor
from the Pentateuch, than I can believe that the
beginning of the Metamorphoses was the sole and original production of
Ovid or
was the author of the
that Tzetzes
fables contained in the scholia
on
Lycophron. III. I
may now proceed
which has produced dence afforded by thology
it
this
I
to offer
long discussion, and which from the mternal evi-
suppose to be a genuine
new modelled and corrected by
Such observations therefore teuch
;
a few observations on the curious legend,
in
order that
it
will
may
be
relic
of ancient eastern
the later Zeradusht
made
and
my-
his successors.
with a special eye to the Penta-
thus clearly appear, that the materials of the
subsequent to the time of Darius Hystaspis.
Viiid. in Collect, de rcb. Hib. vol. iv.
p. 196,
200, 5201. i Huet. Demons. Evan. prop. ^ ii.
iv.
Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxx. c. 1.
p. 62.
apud bryant.
p. 88,
89.
Diog. Laer. in procem.
Clem. Akx. Strom,
lib. i. p.
35?.
p. 6.
Agath. de Pers.
lib.
chap.ih.
THE ORIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
80 BOOK
m. Zend-Avestaic mythology could not have been borrowed from the sacred volume during the period of the Bahjlonian captivity. 1.
The Dabistan
of
Mohsan was
tion of the Iranian RIagi
Brahmens
substantially the
we
and, accordingly,
:
leads us to conclude, that the early supersti-
find
same
as that of the Indian
a very close resemblance between the
theology of the Zend-Avesta and that of the Puranas.
resemblance have already been incidentally noticed in the inquiry, will continue to present
From
numerous
celestial spirits
tliis
and others, as weadvance
themselves to our view.
we
the sacred records of Hindostan
the world,
;
Several points of
learn, that,
at the beginning of
were formed capable of perfection, but
with the powers of imperfect ion, both depending on their voluntary choice; that a considerable part of the angelic bands rebelled ; that they were cast,
Onderah or the abyss of intense and that there they continued for an inwicnse period in penal torHere the Mahasoor of the Brahmens is evidently the Ahriman of
together xvith ]\Iahasoor their leader, into
darkness ments.
;
and the Onderah and the Dewtahs of the former are no
the Zend-Avesta
:
less evidently the
Douzakh and
too close to be accidental
:
the
yet,
from the Pentateuch.
latter.
The resemblance
tenet, he certainly could not
M'e may indeed, from the
have no account of the manner, ;
nor
is
is
have received
INIosaical history of the
but
we
his original
pu-
covertly gather the existence of a malignant and evil spirit
fall,
rity
of the
from whatever source the compiler of the
Zend-Avesta might borrow such a it
Dews
in
which he deflected from
:
the least mention made, either of his daring associates, or of
any place of torment to which they were consigned. 2.
In the Zend-Avesta, the
first
man-bull Key-Umursh
and the second man-bull Taschter, who appears can only be Noah.
Of
vival of the former.
For the
is
clearly
Adam
at the time of the deluge,
was deemed a transmigratory reKey-Umursh, which in the Sanscrit de-
these, the latter title
notes the great lord of the World, k, throughout the legends of Persia, indifferently applied both to
Noah and
to
Adam.
Hence
it
Mill follow, that
Taschter was viewed as a reappearance of the primeval Key-Umursh.'
The whole
of this perfectly accords with the general tenor of old
'
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 530. vol.
ii.
p. 6\,
mytho-
THE ORIGIN' OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. logy
;
in
festation
which the second great father was esteemed a transmigratory maniof the first, and in which the symbol of a bull or a man- bull was
But we
invariably used to represent that ancient personage.
of any such speculations or practices in the Pentateuch
Adam
of
81
and Noah
is
the
:
find
no traces
naked history
there soberly and literally detailed, without the least
hint being given us either of the doctrine of the Metempsychosis or of the use
of any tauric symbol being employed to shadow out those two patriarchs.
Hence again the compiler of to Moses for his materials. 3.
While the Zend-Avesta
seem not a it
the Zend-Avesta could not have been indebted
little
however
is
extraordinary, that no direct mention should be
Ark
either of the
gives a very full account of the flood,
or of the preservation of the second man-bull.
doubtless the case
the ship of the deluge
is
:
yet, notwithstanding this
by no means passed over
obscurely and symbolically,
When mount
if
not ostensibly and
Arg-Roud.
Arg-Roud must is
emerge from the
to
flood,
evidently the scriptural Ararat; because each
is
similarly re-
The Arg-Roud
there-
Now
M.
Perron expresses is
name
its xt)
exactly accords.
Arg-Roud,
is
The word Arg-Rad,
Magus
or Druid.
Argha of the Magus: and by the understand the primeval Zeradusht, or Noah in Archimage."
This part of
tiie
been directly borrowed from
Avesta must have received '
Pag.
Idol.
it
it.
the
his fabled character
legend therefore,
coincides indeed minutely with the narrative of
Argha or Argo,
name Arg-Rad is Magus we are obviously
Hence
equivalent to the
first
Moses
;
Mhen
from some other source
Vallancey's Vind. Collect, dc reb. Uib. vol. ir.
:
of
analysed,
but could not l>ave
Consequently, the editor of the
VOL.
or
a Persic compound; of which the
the familiar appellation of the sacred ship
while the second denotes a
the
noticed
on the top of Albordi can only be the Ark on the top of Ararat.
first syllable
to
it is
necessarily have been something on the top of Albordi.
with such a conclusion (as
;
literally.
presented as rising out of the waters of the deluge. fore
apparent deficiency,
in silence
If then the waters retired from the
Arg-Roud, when the summit of Albordi began
But Albordi
Such
Albordi appears above the boundless inundation, the waters
are said to retire firom the
the
it may made in
Zend-r
and that other source
iv^ p.
198.
L.
chap.
m.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
82 BOOK
III,
can only have been the old theological system of the
same
as the general theological system of
his country,
Paganism
in
which was
every part of the
world.
The same remark
which the Ark
ner, in
apply with yet greater force to the symbolical man-
will
covertly pointed out by that writer in the accre-
is
We
dited phraseology of the ancient IVIysteries.
are told, that the seed or
offspring of the second man-bull was, during the prevalence of the
and that from
purified in the Jiloon;
proceeded.
Now
dusht,
is
The Moon,
fundamentally the same.
form of a boat during
its first
and
Noetic family within
nance, which 4.
Avesta,
is
resembles
or by Zerait
does the
:
and the confinement of
viewed
in the light
of a pe-
of the temporary prisoners.
eft'ected the purification
The name, which
as
extiibiting
Ark
Moon was
this floating
all
Moses
was universally adopted by
last quarters,
the Gentiles as the astronomical type of the tlie
nothing that at
is
yet the history, whether told by
:
flood,
every thing postdiluvian afterwards
Pentateuch there
in the
this extraordinary fable
it
the mountain
of the
Arg-Roud bears
in the
Zend-
Here again we have a proof, that at least the materials, work has been compiled, were ancient and original pagan
Albordi.
out of which that
documents.
The peak
which bears not the
of the
least
Ark
is
by Moses styled Ararat
the Zend-Avestaic appellation of the sacred
Pentateuch.
Yet
has been received
:
it
is
Hence
resemblance to Albordi. hill
is
real
names, bestowed upon the Armenian
is
a word,
clear,
that
has not been taken from the
sufficiently easy to discover the
and that source
it
;
source,
whence
it
The old mythological where the Ark was believed to
Paganism.
hill
have grounded, were Baris, Luban, and Lubar.
Of
these, the last
seems
compound of the other two and, if it be somewhat more fully expressed Labardov Albard, we shall have the precise appellation of the holy Persic mount Albordi. The import of the word, as I have elsewhere had occasion to observe, is the Ship of the Moon but the Moon, of which the diluvian peak Albordi was one of the many sacred mountains or high places, is that very symbolical Moon, within which the offspring of the second man*
to be a
:
:
bull
is
which 5.
feigned to have been purified at the time of the deluge, and from all
things were subsequently produced.
We learn
from the Dabistan, that in the old Iranian theology the uni-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. was
versal father
called
Mohsan
thus taught by
Maha-Bad
or the great
Buddha
:
83 and what we are
perfectly accords with the legend contained
in
the
Zend-Avesta.
The sacred bull, which was animated by the soul Key-Umursh just as the Egyptian Apis was supposed soul of Osiris,
compound for
Boud
Tat or
said to have been called
is
of the
man-bull
be animated by the
to
Aboudad.
first
Tliis I take to
be the
Ab-Boud-Tat, which s\gni^GS father Buddha-Tat:
appellation
many various modes of writing Buddha ; and name of this deity equally familiar to the Hindoos,
but one of the
is
or Teut
I'ttut
a
is
the Phenicians, the Egyptians, the Celts, and the Goths.
The
early worship therefore of Iran,
the worship of the
Buddha
human form
or
according to the Zend-Avesta, was
Tat under the form of a
bull
compounded with
But neither such names, nor
of the great universal father.
such notions, nor such an application of the tauric symbol, could have been
borrowed from the Pentateuch.
At
6.
the
the second
time
man-bull Taschter,
The Zend-Avesta
JBg
three
horse
Noah:
combined bodies
;
The
JNIenu-Swayam-
the character of the tauric Menu-Saty-
that of a
man, that of a
bull,
and that of a
in bringing
inferior associates ^vho were on the catastrophe of the deluge.
three associates of Taschter are manifestly the three sons of
but, to acquire the
demon-gods, the
knowledge of such a
was borrowed from
of pagan theology
this universal
which bears not the
the inspired penman. three companions
:
so,
tlie
compiler of the
Moses. Three
jirin-
of a yet older demon-god, were venerated :
and,
that
the fable
before us
veneration of a triad and not from the dilu-
vian history contained in the Pentateuch, it
triad,
to consult tlie writings of
ofi'spring
in almost every system
part of
tauric
the legend partially agrees, and partially disagrees, with the Penta-
Zend-Avesta had no occasion cipal
the
of
describes this transmigrating personage, as hav-
employed with himself
Here teuch.
in
in tlie character
and represents him, as attended by three
:
jointly
as
precisely
bhuva of Hindostan reappears avrata.
Aboudad reappears
of the deluge,
least
may
safely be inferred
resemblance to
As Taschter is when the same
tlie
hterally said to
from that
simple narrative of
have been attended by
idea was, expressed symbolically, he
feigned to have been a monster uniting three bodies in
a.
single form.
is
Now
chap.
m.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
.84 »ooK
III.
jj^pj^
g composition produces the exact figure of the Centaur, the equine man-
bull
of classical superstition
turn
bull.'
but, according
:
he was Noah.* ence
to
;
a horse
;
being had the head,
and the
tail
and
clo-
to be Chiron, the son of Sa-
Lycophron, he was Saturn himself
Between these two opinions however there
for Saturn
:
this liieroglyphical
man the body of By some he was thought
shoulders, and arms, of a
ven feet of a
for
:
that
;
no
is
and Chiron, though described as father and
is
to say,
real differ-
son,
are in
reality
one and the same personage viewed under somewhat
different aspects.
On the
sphere, the Centaur appears issuing from the ship
Argo and bearing
a victim towards an
altar
while the dove, the raven, and the great sea-ser-
:
pent, are in his immediate vicinity.
£uthic
Such a group, when we
recollect the
or Baby Ionic origin of the constellations as depicted on the celestial
globe, certainly represents, to adopt the phraseology of the Zend-Avesta, the
equine man-bull Taschter issuing from the Arg-Roud as
rested
it
on
tlie
summit of Albordi. There
7.
is
one more particular
in the early history of tlie
which deserves our attention, as alike connecting as shewing that the materials of which
it is
Zend-Avesta
composed could not have been
borrowed from Scripture: Taschter, though he existed upon spoken of both as the Sun and (1.) In the
celestial
human
those deities, whose
all
is
history
capacity the great father, were yet in their
Of
character venerated as being the Sun.
accordingly, Taschter
earth, is yet
as a Star.
theology of the Gentiles,
proves them to be in their
;
with old mythology, and
it
represented as partaking
:
he
this is
at
twofold nature,
once
Noah and
the orb of day. (2.)
But he
is
moreover said to be a Star
:
and
his light
is
spoken of as
shining on high during thirty days and thirty nights, while the waters of the
This notion of a Star appearing at the epoch of the
deluge were increasing. flood •
is
The
not confined to the early history of the Zend-Avesta. licence of painters
is
apt to lose sight of the tauric part of the Centaur, though
so clearly insinuated in the very
man
united to a fiery horse
of Hygin. Poet. Astron. * Lycopb. Caesao.
:
name
of the symbol, and to delineate nothing
but the true form
lib. iii.
wi.
Sanchoniatho
is
accurately exhibited in the print illustrative
o 37.
1200— 1203t
it it
more than a
Ktrfovfts, rjywy i Kfowj.
Taeti. in loc.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT. that, while Astart^ or the great arkite
tells US,
bended
that
an old tradition of a comet having appeared during the reign of Typhon, to say, during the prevalence of the diluvian ocean, the effects of
is
which were extremely tremendous
:
Hyginus informs
the son of Apollo, had set the whole world on
of his father
riot
Jupiter, to
;
quench the
fire
flames,
we
the ancient mythological writers
learn,
stars in the constellation of the Pleiades
when Phaethon,
us, that,
by mismanaging the chacaused a general inunda-
from which Pyrrha and Deucalion alone escaped
tion,
an ark
in
and from
were originally seven
that there
to
have been saved from a deluge
Arcadia and Samothrace, suddenly quitted her station
in
:
but that one of them, Electra the
;
mother of Dardanus, who was reported both
she found a Star
;
from the sky, which she afterwards consecrated at Tyre: Pliny men-
falling
tions
womb compre-
mother, whose
was rambling about the world
the hero-gods,
all
85
and wandering about with dishevelled hair became a comet.
in the
heavens,
Now
'
there
is
nothing set forth in the narrative of Moses to warrant the opinion, that some
unusual Star became visible at the time of the deluge
we
valent,
fore
in the gentile
see,
world
;
but
it
was very pre-
from primitive gentile tradition there-
:
must Zeradusht have borrowed the Star of Taschter.*
I think
it
probable, that this diluvian Star of Taschter, Astart^, Typhon,
and Dardanus, was the Star of Moloch or Remphan mentioned by the prophet Amos and the protomartyr Stephen.' The compound word Remphan or '
Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan.
Fab, 152, 61.
Taetz.
ill
Lycoph.
ver. 29.
It
became a comet on account of her
c. 10.
Plin. Nat. Hist. lib.
ver. 138.
Dionys. Halic. Ant.
lib.
192. Serv. in Virg. Georg. lib.
may
i.
i.
grief for the loss of her son
His
aphanism of Osiris
the inclosure of
that
The Hindoos,
allegorical loss or death.
once seven in number: the seven arkite Rishis. *
My
for they
Amos
v. 26.
AcU
and
like the
lib.
i.
c.
to
his
death
Noah
Dardanus
mean
within
the
;
and, according to
same
as
the
fabled
the Ark, which was his
Greeks, suppose the Pleiades to have been
be the sidereal representatives of the wives of
ventures, in his fine
43.
poem of Exodus,
being one of the causes of the deluge.
and the circumstance was probably a
on the subject. vii.
Mr. Hoyle,
of a comet, as
perfectly allowable in poetry, is silent
loss
make them
old friend and schoolfellow,
tie Pentateuch
25. Hyg.
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 85.
make Moses himself speak
'
say,
is to
c.
be observed, that, according to Hyginus, Electra
Servius, on account of his death. ;
ii.
Rom.
See Hoyle's Exodus, book
real vi.
This
matter of fact
ver.
627—6*5.
:
to is
but
*^''*''
"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
86 COOK
III.
Ram-Phan may
either signify the lofty
Rama
of the Indo-Scythic
Phanes, or may possibly be the name
united with that of Phanes or Pan.
This deity
judged by Selden and Beyer, either to be the same as Saturn, or to
is rightly
be immediately connected with him under the appellation of Chiun.
Pan
doubtless, I think, that great
or
ed the most ancient of the gods, and
famous ogdoad of navicular nusus,
whom
:
whom
they placed at the head of their
and Pan
Moloch, with
also as
is
same
the
whom
he
is
Phanes or Dio-
as ti
as cited
seems, in
like
fact,
by Paul Fagius,
his
face
He is
iad.
associated
again identifies himself with the Centaur Cronus or Taschter.
Rabbi Simeon
He is
'
the Egyptians reckon-
the Orphic poet makes one of his primeval
same
tainly the
deities
whom
Mendes,
:
cer-
and Moloch According to
was that of a
calf.
'
He
Taschter and the Minotaur, to have been a figure com-
pounded of a man and a
bull
;
for,
whether a
human
face and body was at-
human body, the we may pronounce him hieroglyphic is in each case radically the same The Star of Castor and therefore to be the man-bull of the Canaanites. They were styled Pollux is nearly allied to that of Taschter and Remphan. tached to the body of a bull or the head of a bull to a :
Dioicori, which
is
a
title
of the Cabiri
great gods of Samothrace
and, as the whole history of the
:
and Phenicia
refers
them
to the deluge,
so the
Star of the Dioscori was esteemed peculiarly auspicious to mariners.
The
in the midst of a tempest
which
origin of the notion
is
sufficiently
overwhelmed a Mhole world, the
no
baleful lustre
It
may
obvious
:
real or simulated Star of
Noah
shone with
on the favoured ship which preserved himself and his family.
not be improper to notice, at the close of these remarks, the period,
which the author of the Zend-Avesta ascribes to the increase of the waters
and
to the malignant influence of the Star of Taschter.
Moses simply
in-
forms us, that rain was upon the face of the earth forty days and forty nights.
Now,
if
the fabulous history of the
cript of the Pentateuch, I see
Zend-Avesta were a mere
servile trans-
no reason, why the compiler should not have
expressed himself precisely in the same manner as his supposed prototype.
But such is not the case '
Seld. de diis Syr. synt.
* Scld.
de
diis
Syr. synt.
:
while he curiously preserves the
14.
ii.
c.
i.
c. 6.
Beyer. Addit. in loc. ^
Gen.
vii.
12.
sum
total of forty
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. days, he
his
tells
been
:
a totally different
as
shew
to
that
During
source.
it
must have and
thirty days
the sidereal light of Taschter shone on high over a perishing
thirty nights,
world
manner
story in such a
derived from
87
and, during the space of ten additional days, he caused incessant
rain to descend
from under each of
the complete forty days
his three bodies.
mode
but the
:
Here we have indeed
of specifying them can never have
been borrowed from the Jewish lawgiver.
The
8.
enable us to judge, whether terials (I
which has been produced, may now perhaps
internal evidence,
we must
not necessarily conclude, that the ma-
argue only for the materials), out of which the early history of
the Zend-Avesta has been compiled, are genuine relics of ancient mythology.
The commencement of grand outline
the book of Genesis
while every part of
:
old mythologists in
all
it
it
resembles in nothing but
common
teems with the notions
Such notions the
parts of the world.
later
could not have borrowed from the plain narrative of Moses
:
its
to the
Zeradusht
and their
re-
markable coincidence with the theological speculations of Paganism forbids the incredible supposition, that they were the novel productions of his
Whatever
juyentive brain.
its
transferred
Zend-Avesta from the Hebrew Scriptures, the materials,
into the present
out of which
may have been
particulars therefore
own
early history has been framed,
must unavoidably be esteemed
fragments of primeval symbolizing tradition. If this opinion be well founded, and I see no reason to doubt scarcely observe, tediluvian
what a strong
we have
I need
to the veracity of the an-
and diluvian history of Moses.
IV. After
may be
these remarks on the Zend-Avesta, I
two prayers of the Parsees the sacred Bull.
and shew with solely
attestation
it,
:
the one addressed to the
They exhibit
;
the other, to
in strong colours the nature of their worship;
sufficient clearness, that the
and exclusively the
allowed to adduce
Moon
planet, but that
Moon it
which they adored was not
was the planet considered
as the
astronomical symbol of that vessel in which were preserved the rudiments of
a future world. 1.
The
I
adore
first
prayer
is
an invocation of the Moon.
Ormuzd; I adore
the
preserves the seed of the Bull:
Amschaspands ;
I adore,
I adore
looking on high;
the
Moon, which
I adore,
looking
THE ORIOIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
88 »ooK
111.
May
hcloxv.
of the Bull
I
As
Moon
the
days she increases
above
who
all,
who art
I regard
When :
Moon
looking on high
her
;
Moon, which
the
;
I adore, :
to
thou Mooii,
and great ;
who preservest
I make
increases,
adore her
our especial duty to adore her.
it is
looking
during ffteen
JVhen she
we ought
she decreases,
O
:
but,
Moon,
the seed of the Bull;
to thee izeschne.
I honour that Moon, which is elevated Moon : J honour the light of the Moon,
on high:
high the light of the
Moon
the light of the
with the full
I ntake izeschne to the
when
;
xvanest
of gold: she
colour
she,
to
elevated.
is
Moon
and
I adore,
:
I adore
during ffteen days she decreases.
holy, pure,
that
I regard on •which
;
zvhen she increases,
increasest
thou,
I make
increases, so she likewise decreases
to adore her
we ought
the only one of her kind;
Amschaspands ;
the
preserves the seed of the Bull below.
the seed
neaesch.
Ormuzd ; I adore
adore
who preseroeth
she,
proceeded animals of various descriptions.
and
izeschne
me :
be favourable to
who hath been created
she,
;
from whom
Moon
the
full
Moon,
diffuses heat, she causes trees to grow
upon the earth with the new
multiplies the verdure
Moon come
all productions.
new Moon,
to the
holy, pure,
of the
and great : I make izeschne make izeschne to the Moon,,
holy, pure,
and 'great
:
I
which caused every thing to be born, holy, pure, and great. I invoke the Moon, which preserves the seed of the Bull: I adore, looking on high 2.
;
I adore,
The second
looking
prayer
is
belozo.^
addressed to the sacred Bull
:
but
its
form
is
man-
datory.
Address your prayer
to the excellent
pure Bull: address your prayer
your prayer
to the rain,
to
the source
Bull, become pure, celestial, holy ;
Bull: address your prayer to the
those principles of all good: address
of plenty
:
addixss your prayer to the
who has never
been engendered,
who
is
holy.
When DJe ravages who
is
the world,
when
the impure
Aschmogh weakens man
devoted to him, the water spreads itself on high •
Pfrron's Zend-Avesta, vol.
iii.
;
p. 17. apiid Bryant.
it
descends in
THE ORlOrX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. abundance; that water
of
earth
:
still
a thousand, into ten thousand sho-uers
dissolves into
I tell you, O pure
rain.
Zoroaster, Let envy,
the water smites envy, which
death, which
upon the earth.
is
89
is
Let the
let
upon the earth
Dew
be upon the
death,
smites
still it
;
Dje multiply himself : if
it
be at sun-rise that he desolates the world, still the rain places every thinff in
order again when the day the world,
:
pure
;
if
it
be in the night that
Dje
the rain reestablishes every thing to Oshen.
still
abundance
is
then the water renews
renew themselves, health renews
the earth renexvs itself;
itself,
itself ;
who gives
he,
desolates
It falls in the trees
health, reneus him-
self
JPlien the water spreads itself in the river Voorokesch'e,
and mixes the grains with the earth and the earth
The by *
xvater, xvhich raises itself, is the mea7is
Ormuzd spring up and are multiplied.
it
raises itself,
xcith the
grains.
of abundance : the grains given
The Sun,
like
a vigorous courser,
darts with vuijesty from the summit of the terrible Albordi, and gives light
From
to the world.
Ormuzd, he
that mountain which he possesses, a mountain given by
rules over the world: this
the grains given in abundance
you have
do?ie the evil,
is
the xvay to the tzco destinies, above
and above the water.
By
water
I purify a
JVhen the water spreads itself,
it
be before
or before you have read the exxellent zvord,
every thing to spring up for you in abundance water.
JVhether
;
I,
I cause
who then wash you
I have given
thousand things, xvhich
itself in the river Voorokesche,
part of
xcith
to you. it
raises
which falling in rain mixes the grains with the earth and the earth
The water, xchich raises itself, is the means of abundance. Every thing increases, every thing multiplies itself, upon the earth given by Ormuzd. The Moon, the depository of the seed of the Bull, darts with majesty from the summit of the terrible Albordi, and gives light to the
with the grains.
From
tworld.
that mountain xvhich
Ormuzd,
she rules over the world
:
she possesses, a mountain given by
this is the
way
to the
two
destinies,
above thegrains given in abundance and upon the water.
JVhen the water spreads itself,
itself in the liver Voorokesche, part
of
it
raises
which falling in rain mixes the grains xvith the earth and the earth
with the grains.
The xvater, which
raises itself, is the
means of abundance.
The cruel Dje, master of the magic art, raises himself imperiously;
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
ir.
M
he
'"'•^*"-
'"•
THE OUIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
90 BOOK in.
i^risfics
away
But the rain drives away Aschere, Eghranm, drives aicay envy, drives
to exercise his violence.
Eghoiiere, drives uxvay
away
It drives
death.
the serpent,
V. These
it
:
drives axvay
is
prayers, wild as ihey appear, are evidently constructed on that
who used them,
manifest, that the persons,
acknowledged
Hence
received that history as the
This circumstance therefore
basis of their popular theology.
that the materials at least of the history are genuine
aftbrds another proof, relics
in
'
early history of the Zend-Avesta, which I have recently discussed. it
awaif
and impurity, which Ahriman has produced
the wickedness, corruption,
the bodies of 7nen.
drives aioay falsehood
drives
of pagan antiquity.
We
which distinguish
find the notions,
enter-
it,
ing into the forms of public worship: Avhichwe can scarcely suppose would
have been the case, had the whole from beginning to end been a novel figment of the later Zeradusht, differing altogether from the mythological speculations But, that the history does not differ from such specu-
of his predecessors. lations,
may
be safely inferred from the striking resemblance which
it
bears
The
to the peculiar notions prevalent throughout the whole pagan world.
very ideas, which characterize the theologies of Egypt, Hindostan, Phenicia,
Asia Minor, Greece,
Zend-Avesta and 1.
The Moon,
Italy,
and
in the prayers
Britain,
may
formed upon
be clearly recognized
in the
early history.
its
that preserves and purifies the seed or ofi^spring of the
second man-bull, while the waters of the deluge cleanse the earth from the abominations introduced by the serpent Ahriman as the great universal mother, as the
fruitful
;
holy birth-place of every postdiluvian production cisely
corresponds with the
as the mother of the
Moon
Moon,
the
parent of :
that
all
that
is
invoked
animals, as the
Moon, which
pre-
celebrated by the Hindoos and Egyptians,
World, and as the receptacle of him who was preserved
that Moon, I say, must an Ark during the period of a general flood plainly possess a character, superadded to its proper literal character of one in
:
If the second man-bull,
of the areat lights of heaven.
who
time of the deluge, and
be the patriarch
Noah '
:
the
is
who
flourished at the
described as having three inferior companions,
Moon, which preserved
his offspring while the
Zend-Avesta, vol.ii. p. 424. apud Brj'ant.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAJf IDOLATRY.
§\
waters covered the earth, and which subsequently became the parent both
of the animal and vegetable creation, must inevitably be the Ark
which the
;
old mythologists, in every part of the world, venerated under the astronomical
symbol of the navicular crescent.
As
the
Ark
thus typified by the
is
Moon
Noah
so likewise
;
or the second
man-bull, in exact accordance with the theological systems of other nations,
Sun
celebrated in the Zend-Avesta as being the
is
astronomically
is
the bright orb of day,
for that very person,
:
when
yet,
is
dinate persons and himself assuming three forms
who
assisted by three subor-
upon
earth, declared to
have been the delegated human agent that produced the deluge.
With
these Sabian speculations, which extended themselves from Babel to
every quarter of the earth, the two prayers agree
— In
the former of them,
we
now under
consideration perfectly
are explicitly taught, that the
which was the object of Persic veneration, was both of a terrestrial
heaven on high
to
In the
/ adore I adore
nature.
latter of
;
celestial
Moon,
and of a
the
Moon,
says the devout votary, looking up
the
Moon,
looking
down
Moon
them, both the Sun and the
to the earth
below—
are represented as pro-
ceeding from the summit of mount Albordi, and as thence ruling the whole
But
world.
this
can only be true of Noah, and of the
giver of health or
;
of the Ark, in which
who
with
new and more holy
Ormuzd and
of
was preserved and
first
Magus
Zeradusht.
was himself, no
to be
born again
For mount Albordi, the
less
gift
Sun
land which appeared above the retiring deluge, all sides
And
from the Arg-Roud or from the Argha
the primitive Zeradusht, as
than the second man-bull Taschter,
considered as a reappearance of
Aboudad.
was believed
it
state of existence.
the waters retreated on
of the
the
purified during
the favourite seat of universal dominion to the mystic
and Moon, was the
when
of Noah, the
nature renewed himself after the
all
his offspring
the prevalence of the waters, and from which into a
:
(according to the parallel mythology of Hindostan)
great regenerative physician,
deluge
Ark
Adam
or the
first
tlie
we have
seen,
patriaich Noal^
man-bull
Key-Umursh
Hence, we may observe, the prayer of the aspirant is addressed,
not only to the pure Bull, but likewise to the pure Zoroaster. '
M.
Perron uses the
word Zoroastre, which
1
have accordingly translated Zoroaster
but, whether he substitutes the classical appellation for
the oriental Zeradusht, or whether
c"**"-"'*
THE ORIGIN CV PAGAN IDOLATRY.
92 HOOK
III.
which
]3y tjjg use of such a key,
is
tlie
Zend-AvestEk
and by other concurring mythological systems, the two prayers are
itself
though partly obscured by a sore of mystic jargon.
sufficiently intelligible,
The whole
context of them, particularly
legendary history
itself
connection with the
in
a diluvian reference, mixed however,
with an allusion to the
like the history,
when viewed
w hich furnishes the best explanation of their mean-
decidedly proves them to have
ing,
equally aftbrded by
fall
of
man and
to the gross wicked-
ness which H as the procuring cause of the flood.
The Amschaspands, who
are invoked along with
were thought to be seven primitive to the general
celestial spirits.
of Hindostan,
as the seven inferior Rishis
head of
'
the
Moon,
Their number, joined
context of the prayers and of the history, points out very
unequivpcally what persons are intended by them.
same
Ormuzd and
their family in
an ark
;
tlie
same
They are palpably who were saved with
the
the
as the seven ancient personages,
who alone returned with the British just man Hu from the dale of the grievous waters, when he navigated an ocean without shore in the mystic ship which was a form of the great mother Ceridwen; the same as the seven Heliads,
whose father Helias or the Sun once crossed the sea
who was
in a
represented by the Egyptians sailing in a boat
seven Titans,
who were
the children of the older Titan,
;
golden cup, and the
same
as the
Cronus or Saturn or
same as the seven Corybantes, who were the offspring of Corybas by the nymph Theba or the Ark and the same as the seven Phenician Cabiri, who were the sons of Sydyk or the just man, who were thought to
Noah
*
;
the
;
have
built the first ship,
tune at Berytus. spirits
They
of the Japanese
:
also as those Karfesters,
and w ho consecrated the are the
same
relics
Nep-
of the ocean to
likew ise as the seven primeval celestial
and, to return to the Zend-Avesta, they are the
who
same
are described as escaping from the deluge
and
commencing the parents of a new race on the summit of mount Albordi. For, as Cronus and the seven Titans were exempted from the general de-
as
tbc very I
name Zoroaster here occurs in
the original, 1 have no means of positively ascertaining.
suspect however the former to be the case, as
unknown '
*
I
am assured
that the
name Zoroaster
is
wholly
to the Persians.
Lcs sept premieres esprifs celestes.
The Orphic poet addresses Cronus by
the appellation of a^xifte Tjrax.
Hyran.
xii.
THE OniGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT. struction
which
befell all the other Titans
:'
so,
in the
93
Zend-Avesta, amidst
the general destruction of the impious Karfesters by the waters of the deluge,
some of
same race were nevertheless preserved on the top of mount
the
Albordi to be the principles of the renovated world.
Accordingly, while the
Orphic poet,
race of mortals, places
in allusion to tlie
submersion of the
first
the Titans as a body beneath the earth in the deep recesses of Tartarus
yet speaks of thera as the ancestors and
of
of birds,
fishes,
tiie
Like the preserved Karfesters, they
were the germina whence the new world proceeded trace the Noetic
ogdoad
centaur Taschter at their head;
Cronus
is
than that of the (1.)
While
is
the equine man-bull of
the equine man-bull of classical mythology. the second prayer
which throughout
is
is
more
literally diluvian
highly symbolical.
the aspirant celebrates the cleansing and fructifying powers of
rain in general; his song.
first,
hippocen-
Amschaspands with the hippo-
as Taschter
for,
The -imagery however of
2.
and we may equally
:
in the seven Titans with their parent the
taur Cronus at their head, and in the seven
Persia, so
originates every ge-
he,
;
^
he
primordial fountains both of men^
and of beasts from you, says
neration throughout the Universe.
;
it is
easy to see, what particular rain
is
the real burden of
Supplications are to be addressed to the pure Bull and to rain, as
the principles of
all
good.
bring destruction upon
Though
man
the evil one
may ravage
so unhappily devoted to
diluvian tempest of desolation
is
abated,
when
the day
As we may
rain replaces everything in right order.
him is
the world, yet,
:
is
the
again serene; the
learn by
comparing the
prayer with the history, water, in exact accordance with the notions both of Hindostan and Britain,
when
and
mylholocrjcal
not only the instrument of ruin,
but likewise the agent employed for the purification and regeneration of a corrupted world.
The same
greater clearness and
idea
more pointed
is
afterwards expressed in the prayer with
application.
goes forth to the work of destruction rents
;
puts to flight the great serpent
The
evil principle furiously
but the rain chases away
:
;
and washes out those
hood, vice, and impurity, with which the bodies of
all his
stains of false-
men had been
by the machinations of Ahriman. •^
See
my
Dissert,
on the Cabiri. chap.i.x.
*
adhe-
Orpb. Hymn, xxxti.
infested
''"*'' '"'
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
94 BOOK m.
which Ahriman assumed
(2.) This serpent is said to be the form,
man-bull
to poison the first
from
:
its
influence likewise the deluge
order
iii
is
repre-
sented as [)rocceding.
Here then we are unequivocally and unreservedly informed, what
I
have
already intimated to be the case, that the Gentiles symbolized the flood by a vast serpent, because they believed ple.
The
'
it
from the
to have originated
evil princi-
serpent Ahriman, existing in the M'ater (to use the remarkable
phraseology of the Zend-Avesta), and thence producing the deluge, the same two-fold mythological character
Greek Python, the Indian Vasookee, and Midgard.
Plutarch rightly
fication of the
of the flood,
ocean is
clearly
the huge Gothic water-snake of
that the dragon
tells us,
is
Egyptian Typhon, the
as the
Typhon was
a personi-
and, that he represented the ocean at the precise time
;
evident from tis being the agent,
who compelled
Osiris to
enter into the ark and Horus or the renovated Osiris to take refuge in the
But he did not
sacred floating island.
he was distinguished evil principle.
like
also,
Hence
typify the ocean simply and c.vclusiveli/
Ahriman, by the characteristic marks of the
the Egyptians
and the Persians equally viewed the sea
with abhorrence, and were peculiarly unwilling to trust themselves on
waters
;
though
was highly venerated by both as a powerful
it
divinity,
its
and
though by the mystic theocrasia which is so prominent a feature of ancient Pacranism it was often esteemed one of the material forms of the great father. (3.)
As we proceed
in
our inquiry, additional light
character of the serpent.
will
Ormtizd the just judge said
be thrown on the to
Neriosengh
After having made this pure place, the beauty of which uisplayed itself afar, I was marching in the greatness of my majesty. Then the serpent perceived me : then that serpent, that Ahriman, full of death, produced abundantly ao-ainst me,
Yet
all
* by thousands and by myriads, universal envy and opposition.
his efforts
should eventually prove ineffectual.
desolate the world by bringing yet the rain
upon
it
the waters of a mighty inundation,
would reestablish every thing
in its right order against the
of Oschen. •
Vide supra book
*
Vendidad Sadi
ii.
chap. 7- #
I.
1.
iu Zend-Avesta, vol.
2. ii.
p.
Though he might
429. apud Bryant.
days
tUe origin of PAOATf IDOLATRY,
Wc
have here,
mistake not, a very curious, though not singular, in-
if I
Noah and
stance of the manner, in which the characters of
Messiah were sometimes confounded together
in
one of the most eminent types of Christ
so eminent
phraseology and machinery the
Greek Scriptures
may
(if I
in
so speak)
indeed,
both of the
Noah
is
that the
Hebrew and of
It
was
this
resemblance between the type
which produced that otherwise unaccountable coincidence
antitype,
many
:
the predicted
the gentile world.
measure constructed upon a continued
in a great
is
allusion to his eventful history.
and the
95
points of the character of our Saviour with that of the great father
of the Gentiles
a coincidence, which has been alleged for the worst of
:
purposes by certain modern infidel writers, and which cannot be wholly solved by the theory that s})urious gospels
eastern pagans.
in
particulars were pilfered
from the genuine or
and fraudulently employed to decorate the chief god of the
That much indeed has been done
moment be doubted which
many
:
many
that
but,
due season proved
to
way, cannot for a
in this
characteristics of
the great
served to distinguish the great father long before the advent of I think,
can,
be as
little
doubted.
which caused the very abuse closed, the resemblance
It
was
in question.
in
:
When
votaries
but unwilling to
Christianity,
was
the ministry of Christ
was soon observed by the curious
for the
tiie INIessiah^
fact this partial resemblance,
resernblance produced most of the early heresies, m east was infected
father,
be characteristics of the Messiah, actually
itli
orientalists.
This
which the speculative
of the great father, embracing indeed
relinquish
long-fostered superstition,
their
soon contended, that .Jesus was but one of the numerous manifestations of
him
;
who
ever appeared,
as a preacher of righteousness, as
an iron age, and as the introducer of a new age of gold.
were prepossessed with ciou!5,
fancy
;
this wild,
father:
but
retbruicr of
Wlien once they
thougli (according to t/ieir notions) spe-
The whole
the rest followed of course.
j^pplled to the great
tlie
it
was so
a])plied,
history of Christ
was
only because a certain
degree of resemblance had already been found to subsist between them.
Thus,
in the instance
evidently the
now
before us, the Ncriosengh of the Zend-Avesta
Hindoo Nara-Sing or
lion-avatar of \'ishnou:
from the context of the passage, must be against his days the waters of the deluge
Noah
;
because
we
is
and Oschen, are told, that
would reestablish every thing
in
ruAP. in.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
96 BOUK
III,
Egypt, Hindostan, and Greeccr
order.
Yet, since
Noah is
equally described as being pursued by the serpent or the evil prin-
ciple bringing
the inythology of
in
on the flood
;
and since the original promise foretold, that the
serpent should bruise the heel of him Avonian
we
:
find,
who should eminently be
with that strange degree of evidence which can scarcely be
controverted, that in the person of Oschen,
Magi fiom a very
father, the
man from
of
begha
said
is
been foretold by Zeradusht
to have
pear a malignant demon,
in the latter
In
his affairs
were is
injuries,
To him
table in their nature.
his
But Oshander-
in the
Zend-Avesta as a in-
time there was likewise to aphis plans
and trouble
Afterwards Osider-begha,
his
em-
who seems
and reestablish such customs as are immu-
kings were to be obedient and to advance
the cause of true religion
;
to prevail
;
was
to flourish
and discord and trouble were
easy to see, that
this
predicted Oschen
should be greatly restrained,
immediately upon the death of the
is
or Oshander-begha
when
promised by
first
man-bull
that every part of the two-fold character of
der-begha accurately corresponds
man Noah
thology, combating
and
finally
The
difference
being past, while
future.
this
But, after
is
it is
to
Goschoroun
equally easy to
Oshander-begha and Osicharacter of the just
represented in ancient
consists only in the struggle
the difference
the
first
mycon-
Typhon, or Python, or Ahriman, or
of Oshander-begha
all,
and
is
power of Ahri-
subduing, though not without being
strained to flee himself, the serpent Caliya.
:
the
Ormuzd
with the two-fold
antediluvian and postdiluvian, as he
peace and tranquil-
;
to cease.'
person, whose manifestation on earth, at a time
see,
deliverer
Oshander-begha under another appellation, was to revive the practice
of justice, put an end to
man
or the great
days to bless the world by the
who should oppose
pire for the space of twenty years.
It
Noah
some mighty
early period expected
troduction of holiness and religion.
lity
primarily
palpably the same as Oshander-begha.
is
just man, who should appear
to be
who is
the tyranny of the serpent and from the bondage of corruption.
Oschen
(4.)
the seed of the
is
is
of the great father
spoken of by Zeradusht as yet
rather apparent than real.
It
was
the grand doctrine of ancient Paganism, a doctrine which eminently pre-
'
See the original of this prediction in
Hyde de rel.
vet, Pers. c.
xxxi.
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. that "hat
vailed in the east,
the great father or the just
97
had once occurred was to occur again
man had
;
that, as
been revealed at the commencement of
the present world in conflict with the serpent which brought on the deluge,
him
so he would again be revealed similarly in conflict with
of another
age; that,
again be victorious
he had heretofore been victorious, so he would
as
he had already been an universal sovereign and
that, as
;
had introduced a golden age of over
and
at the beginning
religious holiness, so he
would again rule
the kings of the earth, and usher in a remarkable period
all
of justice
Al! this would have been taught by Zeradusht, merely in accord-
piety.
ance with the leading tenet of that ancient Babylonian superstition which spread
from
itself
Shinar
over the face of the whole earth, and without
any necessary reference to the expected
Messiah of Jews and Christians.
And
that this supposed prophecy at least had
first
sight
it
no such
reference, though at
might appear to have, may be very plainly collected from the
who
character of Oschen;
is
certainly
Noah, because
the waters of the de-
Hence, when
luge were to reestablish every thing in order against his days.
Zeradusht predicted a future Oschen, who should again successfully contend with the evil principle,
he
manifestation of a future
But,
if
we advance
in fact
Menu
merely asserted a future deluge and the
new
at the beginning of a
yet further, and
observe
how
this
world.
personage
addi-
is
tionally decorated in a more explicit prophecy also ascribed to Zeradusht,
we
probably be obliged to conclude,
shall
whatever
in
that,
light
might have been originally viewed, the character of the Messiah was at to
some time
him,
in
According
Abulpharagius, Zeradusht, the preceptor of the Magi, taught the Perconcerning the manifestation of Christ
sians
gifts to
in
or other, superadded to that of the great father.
Oschen
and ordered them
;
the latter days a pure virgin would conceive
child
was born, a
minished before
follow
star
Vau,
lustre.
offering
vhithersoever
your gfls
to
and
that, as
soon as the
my it
sons,
As
exclaimed the
seer,
will perceive its rising
soon therefore as you shall behold the star,
shall lead
you
;
and adore that mysterious
He
him with profound humility.
is
'
Pag.
Abulphar. apud Hyde de
rcl. vet.
VOL.
Pcrs.
II.
c.
child,
the Almighty
JVord, which created the heavens.^
Idol.
that
would appear, blazing even at noon-day with undi-
any other nation. it
;
to bring
He declared,
him, in token of their reverence and submission.
xxxi.
N
<=*'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
99 BOOK
III.
Now,
although from very remote times the great father was occasionally
believed
have been born from a
to
was often viewed
birth he
virgin,
although in reference to that
as existing in a state of infancy,
and although he
was frequently distinguished by a remarkable star possibly on account of though all these the appearance of a comet at the epoch of the deluge :
particulars are certainly to be found in the
father
;
when we consider them as
yet,
prophecy ascribed to Zeradusht, that the author of
The
it
it is
multifarious history of the great
thei/
stand connected together in the
almost impossible not to
feel
persuaded,
must have seen the predictions of Balaam and
only question therefore
Isaiah.
whether the plagiarism was effected before
is,
or after the nativity of Christ.
am
(5.) I
strongly inclined myself to believe, that
My
the Christian era. It
is
was
it
effected before
reasons are these.
well known, that an universal expectation of some mighty deliverer
prevailed throughout the east previous to the time fested in the flesh
:
and
it
certain,
is
when our Lord was mani-
that such a deliverer
was actually ex-
pected by the Magi, and that some unusual star was believed by them to be his
appointed harbinger, because we find them journeying
Now
as soon as they beheld the star.
traordinary transaction
in
is,
my
in
quest of him
the sacicd account of this very ex-
mind, a strong proof, that the later Ze-
radusht really delivered to the Magi some such prophecy, as that ascribed to
him by Abulpharagius
inspired
we seem
but
;
not,
:
to
have
disciples the predictions of
being his own.
The Magi, Judea
:
it
proved to
us,
that he
Balaam and Isaiah under
I trace the
proof
noticed by St.
this at
of course, that I suppose him to have been
in the following
Matthew,
communicated
the
to his
pretence of their
manner.
lived in a country directly east of
once shuts out Arabia, and directs our attention to Chald^a
They
Magi
name
no
and
Persia.
less
than their geographical locality, compels us to look to the same region
for
them
are especially styled
:
trated into
from Jud^a
ries.
therefore,
because, although there were numerous colonies of the INIaghas
;
to the east and south-east of Persia, and although
shall find
their
Europe by a north-westerly (the route
direction,
prescribed by St.
some of them had peneyet, if we travel due east
Matthew),
I
doubt whether we
any of them before we reach Babylonia and the Persian
If then they were Persians (and the
same conclusion
territo-
will follow,
if
THE
OIIIGIN OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
99
CHAP. they were natives of some other country), they must have been traditionally
taught by their predecessors, as taught by the later Zeradusht
if this
for,
:
said to have been
those predecessors are
were not the
case,
We
impossible to account for the grounds of their conduct. told, that,
knew
would be born king of the Jews
deliverer
the
tlicir
worshipping him and of offering to could have been done by them "oious to the
if
;
in
his
But nothing uf
presents.'
they had not
known is
said by Abulpharagius to
stolen prophecy, to their forefathers.
the king of the
Jews
;
that
it
announced
the
For, zvithout
star,
they never
a great deliverer
birth of
and, though they might have indulged in
tronomical speculations respecting
it,
they never would
wonderful infant
travelling into Palestine in search of a
this sort
the particulars, j&re-
antecedent knowledge, though they might have seen the
have imagined
and that
;
native land for the express pur[)ose of
him
advent of Christ, «hich Zeradusht
have revealed,
could
are explicitly
appearance the birth of the long-expected deliverer
its
they undertook a journey from
this
utterly
while they were yet in the east, they beheld an unusual star; that
they argued from that they
is
it
many
as-
have dreamt of :
all
this,
without
some antecedent knowledge, they would no more have done, than a modern astronomer would take a voyage to America on a similar errand, because
The whole
he had recently observed some remarkable comet. therefore of St.
Matthew supposes and
narrative
requires this antecedent knowledge
:
and, as he gives us not the slightest intimation that their acquaintance with the purport of the star was recently and specially derived from a divine com-
munication,
He
we have no warrant
for solving the
simply represents them as declaring, that they had seen the star in the
east,
and
that they well
knew what such a phenomenon
knowledge therefore they possessed before the it
question in that manner.
might be acquired by them,
which the sors.
later
They
Zeradusht
is
it
is
at
:
:
All this
and, however
any rate precisely that knowledge
said to have
communicated
acted, in short, in the identical
have acted, supposing Zeradusht to have question
signified.
birth of Cln-ist
really
manner
made
to tiieir predeces-
in
which they would
the communication in
and, as their actions imply previous knowledge acquired in some
manner, and as that precise knowledge '
is
See Matth.
said ii.
to
have been conveyed
to
III.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGANT IDOLATRY.
100 nooK
III.
them by Zeradusht which he himself might
have acquired from the
easily
Hebrew
Scriptures during the Babylonian captivity, I really see no sufficient
grounds
for
litigating the general authenticity of the prediction
him by Abulpharagius.
In
this
singular part of the declaration
Matthew
of the
am
the
ascribed to
more confirmed by a very
Magi themselves,
as recorded
by
St.
they not only know, that the star announced the birth of a deli-
:
verer in general, but that
it
How
king in particular. it
opinion I
some wonderful Jewish
signified the nativity of
did they learn this last circumstance; with which,
appears, they were already well acquainted before the manifestation of
Christ
The answer
?
radusht's prediction ed, if
:
perfectly easy, if
is
and the
we suppose (what
fact
is
we admit
precisely
in that case
the authenticity of Ze-
what might have been expect-
we must suppose)
that he
fabricated
Holy Writ. From come out of Jacob that the vir-
his self-appropriated vaticination out of the prophecies of
them he would gin-born fant his
was
learn, that the star
Immanuel was to
was
to
;
to be the sovereign of
be the Mighty
God and
Judah
;
that the expected in-
the Prince of peace
and
;
although
that,
government should ever be upon the increase, he should specially
sit
upon
Hence, I think, we may clearly perceive, Magi came to know that the star-annouriced deliverer was to be a Jewish prince, and how Zeradusht was enabled to communicate that
the throne of his father David.'
how
the eastern
knowledge to them long before the advent of Christ.
But there
yet another reason for believing, that the plagiarism of Ze-
is
radusht was effected previous to the birth of our Lord, and that the prediction ascribed to
quent to the
it.
Magi of
their rites
him by Abulpharagius
The connection between
the
not a forgery manufactured subse-
Druids of the British
isles
and
Persia was inferred by Borlase from the palpable identity of
and
tenets,
even before the progress
wards of the Goths had been is
is
of the Celts and after-
first
satisfactorily traced
from the East.
Now
it
a remarkable circumstance, that in the old Irish history a parallel prophe-
cy should be ascribed to a person called Zeradusht
:
and
markable, that the prediction should be said to have been
is
equally re-
first
delivered by
it
a Daru or Druid of Bokhara, which was the supposed abode of the Persian '
Compare Numb.
xxiv. 17, 18,
JJ).
Iskiahrii, 14. viii. 8.
ix.
6,7.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. how
I see not,
Zeradusht.'
101
minute coincidence can be
this
satisfactorily ac-
counted for on the supposition that the Irish legend was the mere forgery of
some monk of tion
had been
the middle ages the
guilty, in
because, even
:
nation, of the pious fraud of putting the
the
mouth of Zeradusht, he could not
prophecy was ascribed actually a
forgery.
Many
own
imagi-
prophecy of a future deliverer into
possibly have known, that that to a
very
Zeradusht who was
This circumstance, so
able to judge of evidence, removes the suspicion
paced
a person of that descrip-
by Abulpharagius
in the east
or Druid of Bokhara.
Daru
if
instance and entirely from his
first
far
am
I
of at least a thorough-
of the Popish saints are undoubtedly nothing more
than the gods of the Gentiles, whose
fabulous history has been strangely
transmuted into a pseudo-christian legend
:
but, if a
romancincr
monk
of
the dark ages had merely found an ancient personage, revered by the pagan Irish as a prophet under the
posed
name of Zeradusht, and
if
he had been
personage a prophecy respecting the Messiah
to ascribe to this
could not have moulded the prophecy and the history attached to
Supposing him
present form.
know
under the
the Zeradusht of
he
into their
was mentioned by the Greek and La-
of Zoroaster, he never could have imagined, that
title
Irish history
had any thing
in
common
with
this
Zo-
because he could scarcely have known that by the Persians Zoroas-
roaster^ ter
tlie
;
have possessed a sufficiency of learning to
to
that an ancient Persian legislator
tin writers
it
dis-
was
how he
called Zeradusht.
But, without such knowledge, which I see not
could well acquire,
it
firm, that the Zeradusht
of Bokhara. affirmation,
For the
Or,
if
who
it,
identical prophecy,
Zeradusht of Bokhara, ;
delivered the prophecy was a Druid or
af-
Ma^us
he had unaccountably and at hazard made such an
how happens
same person
never would have entered into his head to
is
that
it
should actually turn out to be the truth
which by the old Irish
given by Abulpharagius in the east to
a circumstance, of which a
monk
?
in the west is ascribed to
in the
the very
middle ages
could
scarcely have been aware.
The '
necessary result from this coincidence
SeeVallancey's Vindic of anc.
—201.
hibt.
is
both curious and important.
of Ireland. Collect, de reb.
Hibern. vol.
iv. p.
196
*'°*''*
"**
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
102
There must have been an emigration from Persia
by the usual
to Ireland,
north-westerly route, subsequent to the original production of the prophecy
But
of Zeradusht. to the time,
Jews of
when
the later
the captivity
stolen from the
prophecy could not have been manufactured prior
that
Zeradusht conversed with Daniel or with some
because
;
Hebrew
it
exhibits internal evidence of having been
Neither could
Scriptures.
tured subsequent to the birth of Christ
:
because the actions of the Magi,
as recorded by St. Matthew, prove, that they
knowledge which country.
Hence
it
conveys when they
the emigration from
have been manufac-
it
must have possessed the very
first
own
beheld the star in their
Persia to Ireland must have taken
place between the time of Darius Hystaspis, in whose reign the later Zera-
with reason believed to have flourished, and the birth of Christ,
dusht
is
which
called the expecting
Magi out
of Persia or Chald^a.
But,
took
if it
place before the birth of Christ, then the prophecy ascribed to Zeradusht
must
also
have been composed before the same era
been discovered
in Ireland,
christian emigrants
(6.)
I think m'B
it
because, since
:
it
has
can only have been brought there by the pre-
from Persia.
may
not obscurely collect,
that the sentiments of Zera-
dusht himself, respecting \h^ future deliverer, were entertained of him, by
many
much
the
same as those
of the early eastern heretics, after he had been
manifested.
Oschen, we have seen, was equally a
whom
of the just
man Noah,
Now,
ism, already
who was
again to contend with
tlie evil
principle in the last
since Zeradusht, agreeably to the prevailing
maintained,
would hereafter appear
dogma of Pagan-
Oschen or Key-Umursh or
that
at the beginning of a
new world
the great father
as he had heretofore
appeared at the beginning of the present and the antediluvian worlds since he further knew, that that
name
for
the world was renovated by the waters of the deluge, and of the ex-
pected just man, ages.
title
of Taschter or
Aboudad
same
or
;
and,
great father, whether designated by the
Mahubad
or Buddha, was eminently distin-
guished by a star and was sometimes thought to have been born of a virgin since these would be the doctrines
mon
and speculations of Zeradusht,
in
:
com-
with the other philosophizing theologists of the east, previous to his hav-
ing seen the prophecies of
Balaam and
Isaiah,
it
is
easy to anticipate the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
103
He would
theory which he would be apt to adopt after he had seen them.
immediately conclude, that the predicted Messiah, whenever he should be
would be nothing more than one of those reappearances of the great
revealed,
which
father,
own mythological system taught him at stated And such, which we may collect to have been the
his
vals to expect.
of Zeradusht from
Oschen
to the just
circumstance of
tiie
man whether past
applying the same
his
They
held,
title
of
or future,
was the precise idea
who
so early disturbed the
of those mischievous philosophizing heretics
peace of the church.
inter-
notion
as
successors have
their
done
after
them, that Christ was a descent of the virgin-born Buddha or Salivahana
and they garbled the already existing legend of the great troducing into
it
father,
by
in-
from the history of Jesus, and
various particulars
by
applying them to the character of their transmigrating hero-god.
Whether
the
Magi, vrho travelled from the east to worship the infant
Messiah, became converts to unadulterated Cliristianity and renounced the theory which vvas probably handed
They
informed.
returned to their
down to them from Zeradusht, we are not own country, and we hear nothing more of
But, whether they did or did not acquire more just sentiments by
them.
conversing with
Mary and
Joseph, the report, which they must have brought
back with them, would have a strong tendency
sow
to
in the
minds of
brethren, already impressed with the belief that the great father
their
was about
to
be manifested for the purpose of reforming a corrupt world, those seeds,
M hich afterwards produced so abundant a crop of Gnosticism and Manicheism. (7.)
The mighty
river
Voorokesch^, which
cuously in the second prayer, though
it
is
mentioned very conspi-
does not appear
in
the history,
take to be the principal sacred Paradisiacal river of the Persian
was
It
gists.
to them,
to the Celts, the
Babylonians
and
still
river, is
is,
:
it
to
of Avhich
certainly
what the Nile was
is
mytholo-
Danube
Tanais to the Tauric Scythians, and the Euphrates to
was
to them, in
short,
all
the others were but
the Euphrates; because
clearly the
Lubar
:
it
The
original chief sacred
locally-appropriated transcripts,
really
and,
arkite mountain,
tlie
what the Ganges has long been,
the Indo-Scythae and Hindoos.
diluvian region of Ararat or
Avesta
to the Egyptians, the
I
flows from the
Paradisiaco-
since the Albordi of the
whether the
Zend-
Persians supposed
it
**'*^- '"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRY.
104 BOOK in.
literally to coincide with the
Armenian Ararat or with the more eastern Meru
of Hindoo theology, the prototype of the Voorokeschfe must be the Eu-
though
phrates,
stream.
may
it
literally
been identified with some other
have
This sacred river, from the circumstance of
'
flowing fiom the
its
mountainous country where the Aric rested, was esteemed a symbol of the oceanic deluge
whence conversely
:
ancients to consider the sea as an
poet
Homer
tians
were wont
Ark
of Osiris
to designate
in
enormous
familiar notion
Thus
river.
floated,
by the very same
title
and the Nile, which supported on
'
which
it is
we may
with the
the mythological
:
*
thus the
Egyp-
on which the
the ocean,
thus also the Eridanus of the sphere, which by
:
to be the Nile, was, as
hood
became a
speaks continually of the streams of the ocean
Noah
of
it
waters the ark
its
some was thought
from the peculiar neighbour-
easily collect
placed, no other than the sea or the deluge
:
*
and thus,
to pass from profane to sacred, Jeremiah, when predicting the future state
of Babylon in consequence of the manner calls the
rain,
Euphrates the
which
away the
is
evil
sea.
'
in
which
it
was taken by Cyrus,
Accordingly, from Voorokeschfe arises that
appointed not only to fructify the earth, but likewise to drive
demons
that produce the deluge
and
to purify the
world from
corruption.
VI. Thus
I have argued, in favour of the genuine antiquity of at least
the materials out of which the Zend-Avesta has been composed, from the of the ideas, prevalent both in the history and in
total dissimilitude
prayers, to the simple nairative of Moses, on the one hand
perfect similitude to
the old mythological notions of
and from
;
tlie
the their
universal pagan
world, on the other hand.
The
points,
which
I wished to establish,
were these
:
that the early history,
contained in the present Zend-Avesta could neither be a mere transcript
from the book of Genesis, nor a *
The Oxus
wooden ^ '
arlt,
or Gihon for instance, on which
Darab
Hence our Milton has borrowed
ilxtavoio foawY.
Diod. Bibl. Hist.
is
modern
lib. 1.
his
ocean stream.
p. 12.
Eridanus.
Compare Jerem.
li.
times,
feigned to have been set afloat in a
on the Nile.
like Osiris
* Eratos. Catast. '
total or partial fabrication of
42. with Bp. Newton's Dissert, x. vol.
i.
p. 298,
309.
THK ORIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY. may be
whatever
the age of the compilation in which
the groundwork of this history, like the collected by Tzetzes and Ovid,
The Zend-Avesta
quity.
tively recent
production
all
appears
and traditions
but that
;
(for instance)
an authentic fragment of veiy remote
may
therefore, in its present form,
anti-
be a compara-
but internal evidence proves the genuineness of
:
the materials out of which
argument, and
is
fables
it
105
it
has been compiled.
This
is
my
sufficient for
that I wish to insist upon.
Now, from the examination subjected, I will venture to
to
which the history and the prayers have been
avow my
they can neither have been"
belief, that
the original arbitrary invention of a late writer, nor yet a garbled transcript
from the Pentateuch
though an acquaintance with the sacred volume
;
have produced a chronological regularity of arrangement. the Zend-Avesta, the early history contained in
The minute accordance
of
its
mythology
it is'
%vith the
may
Whoever compiled
no modern figment. ancient mythologies of
other nations, more especially in those particulars where the accordance has
very
little
that, let
the semblance of being industriously laboured or designed, shews,
who may
be
its
author, he must either have written from old materials,
or have been most profoundly skilled in the arcana of the pagan Mysteries.
The
theology, particularly in the doctrine of the reappearance of the great
father, in the exhibiting of
ing of
him
him under the symbol of a man-bull,
as being astronomically the Sun,
nion of the Ark and the IMoon
;
and
in the
in the describ-
mystic intercommu-
the theology, in all tliese pointS;
is
undoubt-
edly the same as the theology of Greece, Egypt, Hindostan, Palestine, and Britain; and, though (as I liave just stated) the author may have been enabled to reduce his story into
a regular chronological form through his becoming
acquainted with the writings of INIoses during or after the Babylonian captivity yet his
Nor
mode of is
telling that story
this all
:
is
not scriptural, but strictly pagan.
as the theological opinions, which pervade both the legend
and the prayers, are precisely those opinions, which have prevailed from the remotest ages throughout the whole gentile world; so they correspond with
and interpret the sculptured rock temples of Mithras, which are istence,
and which at
this very
still
in
ex-
hour bear testimony to the genuine antiquity
of those materials out of which the Zend-Avesta has been composed.
Thevenot has given a curious delineation of the carved front of one of these O VOL. Ti. Pag. Idol.
*^''*'''
"'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
106 BOOK
III.
sacred caverns; the imagery of which closely corresponds with the mythology
On the propitious sign of the rainbow is seated a winged
of the Zend-Avesta.
whom
Eros or Cupid,
On
the gods. rising
towards
the votary,
his
left
On
it.
the ancient hierophants rightly
his
right,
kneels an adoring Magus.
of a steer.
The head on
'
viewed, as the
gi'eat father
rative or regenerative
riding on
the bull of
world
;
altar
And, behind
and the whole groupe
that he
composed of
is
supported by
the duplicated
head
the pillar certainly represents the tauric Mithras
always was viewed, in the light of the chief gene-
power
;
for
Poiphyry
tells us,
Venus, who was the same
that bull, he %vas the lord
like
that,
:
the capitals of which are each
pillars,
the oldest of
seen a phallus or conical pillar surmounted by a bull's head.
is
Beneath these are eighteen naked men
two
deemed
hand appears the Sun, with the flame of an
that Mithras was depicted
as Isis, Astart^, or Mylitta
of generation and the creator of the
was immediately connected with the mystic
birth
and egress
Moon, symbolized by a cow and that he was styled Buclopus or the stealtr of oxen, which name that writer seems to consider as This tauric equivalent to one who by stealth attends to generation.'' of souls from the
Mithras
is
;
declared to be the Sun:' and there was a notion, that he
tripli-
cated himself or produced a triple offspring; whence the Greeks denominated
him
But the man-bull Taschter
Triplasius.
while, in his
human
one
is
also
said to
be the Sun
character of the producer of the deluge, he
have been assisted by three therefore
is
inferior attendants.
The
is
solari-tauric
said to
Mithras
evidently the solar man-bull Taschter; and the triplication of the
relates solely to the three attendants of the other.
Such and so varied are the
testimonies,
which may be brought
to the ge-
nuine antiquity of the mythological system, taught in the early history of the Zend-Avesta.
'
See the print in Bryant's Anal. yol.
"
Porph.de
^
Mi^as
ant.
nymph,
p. 260,
i iJAisf ffctfa Us^a-oiis.
ii.
p.
426.
26l, 262, 265.
Hesych. Lex.
CHAPTER
Pagan
We
IV.
accounts of an universal deluge.
have observed, that pagan accounts of the creation generally contain
some strong
allusions to the deluge
:
a similar manner
in
we
shall find,
pagan accounts of the deluge are frequently marked by references history of the
creation.
The cause
of this apparent confusion
is
that
to the in
both
instances the same.
Agreeably to the established doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, the creation of the antediluvian system
was not esteemed a proper creation
or a production of something out of nothing; but was considered only as a
new
organization of matter subsequent to a flood, which had destroyed a
former world, and on the surface of which the great father floated repose during the period that intervened between that world and
And, analogously
when a
to such
an
idea, the
in
profound
successor.
its
reappearance of the face of the earth,
the deluge retired into the central abyss, was viewed as the creation of
new mundane system out of
father with his seven
the fragments of a prior system
companions having again
floated
;
the great
upon the face of the
deep, during the appointed intermediate period, either on the lotos, or the
sacred
leaf,
or the navicular sea-serpent, or the mystic ship.
Hence, as the
proper creation was believed to have been preceded by a flood, which de-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
lOS BOOK
III.
stroyed a former world; and as our present sj-stem flood, it is
and was
some
in
was
really preceded by a
a new production out of preexisting materials
sort
obvious, that, according to the philosophy of Paganism, there was
between the
essential difference
real creation of the
Such being the
after the deluge.
accounts of the flood would be
due allowances
for
intermingled together,
we
shall
more ancient nations have preserved almost
literal
deluge, which correspond in a very wonderful as detailed I.
still
and heathen
in fact nothing
we make many of the
If however
naturally anticipated.
circumstance,
this
is
no
renovation
its
case, that heathen cosmogonies
much
more than what might have been
world and
:
find,
that
accounts of an universal
manner with
the history of
it
we have
it
by Moses.
I shall
begin with that of the Chaldfeans or Babylonians, as
handed down
to us,
from the now
lost
history of Berosus, by Eusebius,
Syncellus, Abydenus, and Josephus.
Xisuthrus, or (as his
Noah, the ninth In
system.
in
name
is
sometimes written) Seisithrus, was,
descent from the first-created
his time
man
of the former
happened the great deluge, the
histori/
like
mundane
of'
which
is
given in this manner.
The god Cronus appeared
to
him
in
a
vision ;
and gave him
notice,
that,
on thejifteenth day of the tnonth Desius, there zeould be a fiood, by xvhich He therefore enjoined him to commit to all mankind would he destroyed. writing a history of the beginning, procedure, and final conclusion, things,
down
term
to the present
;
and to bury
of
all
these accounts securely in the
of the Sun at Sippara or Sisparnis. He then ordered him to build a vessel ; to take xvith him into it his friends and relations ; and to trust himcity
self fearlessly to the deep.
The command was
implicitly obeyed.
having carried on board every thing necessary
to support
life,
Xisuthrus, took in like-
wise all kinds of animals, that either fy through the air or rove on the sur-
face of the earth.
He
then asked the deity, whither he
To
mankind.
Thus he obeyed
built,
thifig,
was five
:
stadia in length,
and
The
the divine admo?iition.
and
go
;
and was
his friends.
vessel,
zvhich he
Into this he put every
tzvo in breadth.
which he had got ready; and conveyed into
his children,
to
upon zvhich he offered up a prayer for the good of
answered,
the gods
was
it
last
of
all his wife,
After the flood had covered the earth, and
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATBr. xohen at length
it
began
to abate,
109
Xisuthrus sent out some birds from the
vessel; which, Jinding neither food 7ior place to rest their feet,
After an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second
him again. time
and they now came back with
:
time he made trial zvith them
hence he
formed a judgment,
He
above the waters. looking out, that
it
immediately quitted
he offered sacrifices
noxo therefore opened the
vessel
;
to the gods.
They who remained
third
and found, upon
Upon
of a mountain.
to the side
and
:
he
this,
attended by his wife, his children, and his
both Xisuthrus, and those
peared.
A
but they then returned to him no more
that the surface of the earth had appeared
was driven it,
;
their feet tinged with mud.
First he paid his adoration to the earth
ed,
returned to
pilot.
'
having built an altar,
then,
IVhen these things had been duly petfarmwho came out of the vessel with him, disap-
ftiding that their late companions
within,
did
now quitted the ship with many lamentations, and called inceson the name of Xisuthrus. Him however they saw no more but
not return, santly
:
they distinguished his voice in the air,
pay due regard his piety, he
children,
to the gods.
was translated to
and
his pilot,
and could hear him admonish them
likexeise
live
with the gods; and that his wife, and his
informed them, that on account of
had obtained the same
To
hoyiour.
this he
that he xvould have them make the best of their xvay to Babylonia, at Sipparafor the writings which were to be
The place, where
were
to all mankind.
Armenia.
The remainder,
sacrifices to the
gods; and, taking a
circuit,
to be seen in his time
in
xcith xvhich it
'
and search
Berosus remarks, that the remains of the upon one of the Corey r^an or Cordyean
Jouj'tieyed towai^ds Babylonia.
mountains
added,
made known
these things happetied, xvas in
having heard his words, offered
vessel
to
He
Armenia ; and that people were wont
had been outwardly
Mr. Bryant remarks,
that this
is
coated,
scarceli/
and
to scrape off the
to use
a true account.
it
bitumen
by xcay of an alexi-
Berosus would hardly suppose
a pilot (xv^i^Yijrrjs ), where a vessel was totally shut up, and confessedly driven at the will of the winds
I can
and waves.
easily imagine,
that a Grecian interpreter would run into the
mistake, when he was adu^iting the history to his
kgcnd of
Ark was transmuted
into the
He
same person
Sfcnis to be the
RIcnelaus,
and whose
star
own
taste.
the Argo, Tiphys
as Canobus,
on the sphere
is
whom
Thus, when the history of the
was made
the Greeks
its pilot.
Hyg. Fab. 14.
fancied to bt the pilot of
placed in the rudder of the Argo.
*^"^''' •''•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
110 BOOK
III.
pharmic and amulet.
In
this
manner,
they returned
having found the writings at Sippara, they began
Thus was Babylon inhabited again.
temples.
The Greek account
II.
Syrian,
is
no
less
as
it
to build cities
;
and,
and to
erect
'
of the deluge, which
explicit,
Babylon
to
may
stands preserved
also be esteemed the
by Lucian, than that of
the Babylonians. IViis
for
generation and the present race of men, says he, were not the first
all those
second race ;
of that former generation perished. But these are of a which increasedfrom a single person, named Deucalion, to its Concerning those men they relate the following
present multitude.
Being of a lawlessness.
:
violent
and ferocious temper, they were guilty of every
They neither regarded the
obligatioti
tale.
sort
of of oaths, nor the rights
of hospitality, nor the prayers of the suppliant : wherefore a great cala-
The earth suddenly poured forth a vast body of water ; heavy torrents of rain descended ; the rivers overflowed their banks ; and the sea arose above its ordinary level: until the whole world was inundated,
mity
befell them.
and
all that zvere in
Deucalion alone was
it
In the midst of the general
perished.
destruction,
left to another generation, on account of his extraor-
Now
dinary wisdom and piety.
He
his preservation zvas thus effected.
caused his sons and their wives to enter into a large ark, which he had provided ; and afterwards xvent into swine,
and
ho7'ses,
and
lions,
and
But, while he was embarking,
himself.
it
sei'pents,
and
all other
animals that
live
These he took in with upon the face of the earth, came to him in pairs. him: and they injured him not ; but, on the contrary, the greatest harmony subsisted betxveen sailed together
them through the
irifiuence
in one ark, so long as the
of the
deity.
Thus they
all
Such
the
waters prevailed.
is
narrative of the Greeks : but the Syrians of HierapoUs add to it a wonderful account of the zvhole deluge being swallowed up by a vast chasm in Deucalion, they say, xvhen all these matters had taktn place, their country. erected altars, this
'
c. 3.
and
built a temple to
chasm ; and, at that Syncell. Chronog. p. 30. ^ 6.
time, it
Juno over the chasm.
I
myself saw
was but a small aperture beneath the
Abyd. apud Euseb.
Chrori. p. S.
Joseph. Ant. Jud.
lib.
i.
THE ORIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. temple
whether
:
it
was once larger, and afterwards decreased
I shall not pretend
size,
Of
Ill
to
say
what
;
I at
least
saw
xvas but
present
to its
a small orifice.
the truth hozvever of this account they adduce the following proof.
Twice
in each
year water
from the sea to the temple : and not and Arabia, nay even many persons from
brought
is
only the priests, but all Syria
beyond the Euphrates,
take the trouble of going
they all binng a certain quantity of water.
down
to the sea
whence
;
This, as they convey
it,
they
frst pour out upon the floor of the temple. From the floor it finds its way to the chasm : and the chasm, small as it nozv is, swalloxvs up without difficulty a vast quantity of water.
ancient tradition, that
it
was
Respecting the ceremony they have an
once of his calamity and his deliverance.
'
In the preceding narrative Lucian does not introduce the emission of
J.
amply supplied by Plutarch.
the dove;
but the defect
his treatise
on the sagacity of animals, informs
is
us,
that
returned it
to him,
That
;
writer,
in
maintained
xcas
it
by mythologisfs, that Deucalion sent a dove out of the ark
saw
memory at
instituted by Deucalion himself, in
when
zvhich,
it
shewed that the storm was not yet abated; but, when he
no more, he concluded that the sky was become serene again.
How
'
strong indeed traditions of this nature were in Syria, remarkably appears
from a medal struck at Apamea,
in the
immediate neighbourhood of Hiera-
polis, during the reign of Philip the elder.
Upon
the reverse of
sented a kind of square chest floating upon the waters.
man and main bird,
a
woman
within.
Above
it
flutters
a dove, bearing an olive branch
probably designed for a raven,
The
it is
repre-
of the chest a
are advancing upon dry land, while two other persons re-
Ihc pannels of the chest appears the 2.
Out
appulse of Deucalion
is
is
perched upon
word Noe
in
:
and another In one of
its roof.
Greek
characters.
variously related agreeably to the
of local appropriation, wliich fixed ^he mountain of the
Ark
in so
humour
many
dif-
ferent regions.
'
Lucian do dea Syra.
'^
Plutarch, de solert. animal, p. 96S.
'
See the print in Bryant's Anal. vol.
ii.
p.
230.
At
the end of this great
expressly on the subject in answer to Mr, Harrington, Mr. troverted the opinion of
Mr. Bryant,
Combe, and
others,
work
is
a tract
who had
con-
chap.
iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
112 BOOK
III.
The
Syrians brought him to shore in the neighbourhood of Hierapolis;
probably upon
range of
tliat
which, Uke the mountainous tract in the
hills,
name
eastern part of Armenia, bore the
of Taui'us or Tabris, as being the
supposed resting place of the ship Baris: Hyginus represents mount Etna in Sicily as being the scene of his debarkation:'
on mount Athos to Parnassus.
and limited
:
Servius makes him land
and Apollodorus and Ovid concur in assigning that honour
'
Apollodorus however describes the deluge as being partial
'
Greece
to
;
but in
account detailed by Lucian. after placing in
it
Deucalion builds a large ark of wood; and,
every thing necessary
The deluge
with his wife Pyrrha. part of Greece;
the main particulars he agrees with the
all
insomuch that
sus; and Deucalion, quitting
he embarks himself along
perish except a few,
The it,
life,
then commences, and covers the greatest
all
tops of the highest mountains.
for
who escape to the mount Parnas-
ark in due time rests on
builds an altar to Jupiter the deliverer.
Ovid, on the contrary, speaks of the deluge as being universal
Yet he accurately adheres
ing Deucalion, like 3.
The name
common
in
Noah,
man
as a
to
it
in
is
called
conversation,
extraction entitled
him
Crishna, though
it
Cala-Yavana
;
to the epithet of in
:
and
Caucasi.
it
to
him
iq
"
or
Deo
Greece; in the
for
but
it
;
for
Lucian expressly
The Hindoos however do :
calls
to the
is
dialect
what
Deo-
name from
Deucalion a Scy-
Chasas of
all
the three
not ascribe to him any escape from a
but they have a confused legend of his perishing by a flood
Hyg. Fab. 152, 153.
Apollod. Bibl.
and
appears to
Deucalion
common
* Serv. in Virg. Eclog. vi. vcr. 41. ^
:
Syrians and the Hellenes certainly received the
was doubtless equally well known
deluge of water
to the Hindoos.
India on account of his presuming to oppose
was duly applied
the Chasas or Indo-Scythee
thian
known
His acknowledged divine
Dcva
a Hindoo would write Deva-Cala-Yavana, or
The
exhibit-
;
but, in the vulgar dialects,
Cali/un and Caljun.
have been vvithheld from him
Calyun.
another particular
of eminent piety and justice.
of Deucalion seems to have been well
In the Puranas, he
but he de-
by making Deucalion and Pyrrha escape only in
parts from the true history,
a small bark.
:
lib. 1.
c. 7.
§ 2.
Ovid Metam.
lib. 1.
ver.
317.
THE ORIGIN of
fire.
its
many
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
OI'
113
This has arisen from the notion, that the world, in the course of chap.
was
revolutions,
sometimes by an inundation of the
to be destroyed
one element, and sometimes by an inundation of the other. catastrophes
is
Pralayn.
in the Sanscrit called
Either of these
'
Hindoos do not speak of the preservation of
III. But, though the
their
Deucalion from the waters of the deluge, they have some most remarkable
and
traditions of that great event both direct
of the wild imagery of mythologic
much 1.
The
blended however with
indirect,
fiction.
who
following narrative respecting Menu-Satyavrata,
the seventh manifestation of the great father from literally translated
is
esteemed
Menu-Swayambhuva, was
by Sir William Jones from the Bhagavat; and
tutes the subject of the
first
Purana, entitled that of the IMatsya or
it
consti-
fish.
Desiring the p7'eservation of herds and of Brahmens, of genii and of virtuous men, of the Vedas of laxv and of precious things, the lord of the
many
universe assumes
a variety of beings
;
At
subject to change.
bodily shapes
yet he
is
the close
though he pervades,
but,
:
like the air,
himself unvaried, since he has no quality
of the
last Culpa,
there
was a general
des-
Brahma ; whence his creatures in different Brahma being inclined to slumber, ocean.
truction occasioned by the sleep of
worlds were drowned in a vast
desiring repose after a lapse of ages, the strong demon
near him, and
stole the
Vedas which had
fowedfrom his
Hayagriva came lips.
JPlien Heri,
the preserver of the universe, discovered this deed of the prince of Danavas,
A
he took the shape of a minute fish called Saphari.
holy king,
tyavrata, then reigned, a servant of the spirit which
and so devout that water was
Sun ;
and, in the present Calpa,
Menu, by he zvas
the
is
invested by
name of Sraddadeva or
making a
He
his only sustenance.
the
of his hand, he perceived a small fsh moving
in
was
Narayan
god of
libation in the river Critamala,
obsequies.
the child in
of the
the office of
One
and held water it.
named Sa-
moved on the waves,
day, as
in the
palm
The king of Dr'avira
immediately dropped the fsh into the river together with the water which he
had taken Jrom volent monarch :
it,
when
How
canst thou,
'
Pag.
Idol.
the Saphari thus pathetically addressed the bene-
O
who shewest
king,
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi.
VOL.
p.
affection to the op-
496.
II.
P
iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
114 HOOK
III.
pressed, leave
me
I am
in this river water, tvhere
monsters of the stream, who Jill me with dread ?
too
weak
to resist the
He, not knowing who had
assumed the fdrtn of ajish, applied his mind to the preservation of the Saphari, hath from good natitre and from regard to his own soul; and, having heard
its
very suppliant address, he kindly placed
But
small vase full of water. that
I am not pleased with
illustrious prince
:
rnansion,
it
in less
jar
thence, placed
it
where
I may
narrow
cistern
;
O
then removed
having ample space around
O
body,
its
thus again addressed the
it
dzvcll in comfort.
king,
it
but
;
pleases
it
little
vase
;
The king, removgrew three cubits
me not
to stay vainly
granted me an asylum, give me a
since thou hast
He
spacious habitation.
bulk was so increased,
its
living miserably in this
water of a cistern
in the
thanffty minutes, and said :
in this
and
;
under his protection in a
it
a single night
could not he contained in the
it
make me a large ing
in
and placed
it, it
became a
it in
a pool; zvhere,
fish of considerable size.
for me, who must szvim at large in the routers : exert thyself for my safety, and remove me to a deep lake. Thus addressed, the pious monarch threw the suppliant into a lake ; and, when it grew of equal hulk xvith that piece of water, he cast the vastfsh This abode,
king,
is
JVhen the fish
into the sea.
spoke to Satyavrata
Here
:
strength, will devour ocean.
me ;
zvas throzvn into the waves,
thou shouldst not,
Never
IFho
before have
O valiant man,
icho
thus again
leave
me in
this
had addressed him with gentle
me
art thou, that bcguilest
I seen
lie
and other monsters of great
the horned sharks,
Thus repeatedly deluded by thefsh
words, the king said : .ihape ?
not convenient
i?z
that assumed
or heard of so prodigious an inhabitant
of the zvaters ; xvho, like thee, hast filed up in a single day a lake of a hundred leagues in circumference. Surely thou art Bhaghvat, zeho appearest before
me ;
the great Heri, whose dwelling
in compassion to thy servants bearest the
Salutation and praise to thee, vation,
of destruction!
us thy adorers
O first
Thou art
who piously
:
form of
the natives of the deep.
male; the lord of creation, of preser-
the highest object,
seek thee.
give existence to various beings
was on the waves, and who now
yet
that shape has been assumed by thee.
O
supreme
ruler,
of
All thy delusive descents in this world
I am
anxious to knozo
Let me
not,
for what
O lotos-eyed,
cause
approach
in vain the feet of a deity, whose perfect benevolence has been extended to
all
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
115
hast shewn, to our amazenmit, the appearance of other bodies, not
when thou
The lord of the Universe, loving the pious man who thus implored him, and intending to presence him from the sea of destruction caused by the depravity of the age, thus told him in reality existing but successively exhibited.
how he was
In seven days from the
to act.
pi'esent time,
stand be/ore
of
seeds
Then
thee.
thou tamer oj
an ocean of death ;
enemies, the three worlds will be plunged in
midst of the destroying waters, a large
O
vessel,
but, in the
me for thy
sent by
use,
shall
shall thou take all medicinal herbs, all the variety
and, accompanied by seven saints, encircled by pairs of all brute
;
and continue
animals, thou shalt enter the spacious ark,
in
it,
secure from
the flood, on one immense ocean, without light, except the radiance of thy
JVhen the ship shall
holy companions.
thou shalt fasten
xvith
it
a large sea-serpent on
thee, drav'ing the vessel with thee
O
ocean,
Thou
chief of men,
shalt then
By my favour
know my
king,
answered, and thy mind abundantly
time,
its shores,
the directions
meditate on Cesava,
grant us prosperity.
who
zvill
had been ;
Madhu.
into
The
of Heri.
commanded by Heri, the
and He,
it
a fish.
of a
The
was soon per-
still
ineditating
and entered it with
ami
the medicinal creepers
saints thus addressed
The god, being invoked by
him
:
O and
the monarch, appeared again
fish, :
blazing like gold, extending
on which the king, as he
tied the ship xvith
and, happy in his preservation,
When
;
clouds.
it
of leagues, with one stupendous horn before
form of
surely deliver us from this danger,
distinctly on the vast ocean in the form
serpent
the
the vessel advancing ;
conformed
million
face towards the north, sat me-
augmented by shoxversfrom immense
Brahmens, hating carried
a
li is
deluged the zvhole earth
the chiefs of
king,
and
which the ruler of our senses had
god who had borne
command of Bhagavat, saw to
disappeared;
having scattered towards the east the pointed
and turning
blades of the grass darbha,
overwhelming
retnain on the
of Brahma shall be completely ended. true greatness, rightly named the supreme godhead.
ditating on the feet of the
on the
I will
be near
until a night
all thy questions shall be
The pious
ceived to be
;
and thy attendants.
Satyavrata humbly waited for the
sea,
my horn for I will
Heri, having thus directed the tiionarch,
instructed.
appointed.
an impetuous wind,
be agitated by
a cable made of a vast
stood praising the destroyer of
monarch had fnished
his
hymn, the primeval male
*'"*'*' ''
THE OllTGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
116 "'•
Bhagavat,
ivho watched for his safety on the great expanse of water, spoke
aloud
aun
to his
pronouncing a sacred Parana, which con-
divine essence,
tained the rules of the Sanchya philosophy
heard the principle of the
the preserving power.
Then Heri,
destructive deluge which
was
in the present Culpa, by the
monarch was
:
Maya
to
sitting in the vessel with
rising together with
abated, slew the
Menu, surnamed Vaivaswata religious
was an infinite mystery
the eternal being, proclaimed by
soul,
Brahma from
the
demon Hayagriva, and recovered
Satyavrata, instructed in
the sacred books.
was appointed
it
of Satyavrata ; who,
be concealed within the breast the saints,
but
:
and human knowledge,
all divine
favour of Vishnou,
the seventh
but the appearance of a horned fsh to the
or delusion ; and
this important allegorical narrative,
who
he,
will be delivered
shall devoutly hear
from
the bondage of
sin.*
Laboriously to particularize the points,
in
which
curious tradition
this
agrees with the Mosaical narrative, would be alike useless and impertinent it
must be obvious
to
every one, that the history contained
in
each
is
funda-
mentally the same, though severally told in a somewhat different manner.
The account
given by
Moses
in the first Indian Purana,
degree,
yet
is
is plain,
though
mingled with
literal,
literal
and unambiguous: that given
and unequivocal
hieroglyphical
allegory.
enough, that towards the close of the legend this
whole
is
I
.)
The
fish
it
:
consequently,
was therefore a
:
the
its
introduction into the
the votary as a naked matter of fact, but to be received agreea-
l)y
delineation of this
tfean
remarkable
fantastic delusion, not to be un-
bly to the well-known rules of hieroglyphical interpretation.
a man
is
being altogether delusion.
was a sacred symbol
story being figurative,
derstood
It
expressly avowed
termed an allegorical narrative, and the appearance of the horned
fish is peculiarly specified as
(
is
to a considerable
issuing out of the
Dugon
:
In the Hindoo
Avatar, Vishnou does not appear simply as a
mouth of a
fish.
'
fish,
Such was the form of the
but as Philis-
such also was the form of the Babylonian Cannes or Odacon
and such, allowing
for the diflference of sex,
was nearly the form of the
230—234.
•
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
See the print in Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol.
i.
p.
i.
p.
507.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. who was
Syrian goddess,
The male
gatis.
fish,
same
as the marine
deity represented
Noah
tlie
:
Sometimes the masculine
consort the Ark. the
the
and sometimes proceeding out
ot
Venus
The
tion probably constituted the genuine hieroglyphic
Noah
Yet
corruption if
the former ought
for,
:
:
his allegorical
appeared attached to
latter
mode
and
was used
it
of delineato depict
from the Ark, which was .symbolized not unaptly by a huge
issuing
sea-fish.
or Derceto or Atar-
female deity,
divinity
it.
117
not to be too hastily rejected as a mere
agreeably to the constant system of the old mvthologists,
the great mother were
typified
by a mermaid, the great father would of
At any rate, each figure was certainly used and, how we are to understand the hieroglyphic by the symbolizing pagans of a man issuing out of the mouth of a fish, may be collected very unequivocally from the name bestowed upon a supposed ancient king, whose tomb The Buddhists say, that he is Buddhar is shewn at Naulakhi in Cabul. Narayana or Buddha dwelling in the waters and the Hindoos, w-ho live in that country, call him Machodar-Nath or the sovereign prince in the belly Buddha however is the same person as Menu and the region, of thejish. tomb is shewn, is the precise tract of land, to which the Hindoos his where course be typified by a merman. :
:
:
and the Chasas unite therefore,
who
is
in ascribing the
literally said to
appulse of the Ark.
have been preserved
emphatically described as the dweller in the waters, as being the sovereign prince in the belly of the
fish.
in
That very
an ark and who
figuratively
is
Hence it
is
is
spoken of
sufficiently
Ark mean
obvious, that the belly of the fish and the interior of the
Menu
the
same
thing.' (2.)
These remarks
will serve to explain
the oreat father, which seems at
first to
a peculiarity in the character of
involve a contradiction.
In the preceding legend, Vishnou appears distinct from Menu, and personates the
Supreme Being:
yet,
single,
he
is
certainly
self; as one of a triad of gods springing from a fourth
son of
Noah
assure us, he
Noah
still
or
himis
a
and, in his astronomical character, as the Hindoos themselves
;
is
the Sun.*
For Vishnou, as
is
evident from the legend,
the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish; which nevertheless '
Menu
older deity, he
Asiat. Res. vol,
vi.
p.
479, 480.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
iii,
is
is
the precise
p. 144. vol. v. p.
254.
*^'*''
*•
THE ORIGIN
118 nooK
m. character, that belongs
to
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Menu-Satyavrata, the ancient prince who
to have been buried at Naulakhi
prince in the belly of the
OI'
fish,
is
:
Buddha, who
and
Hindostan and which may be readily traced
was
nations,
of mortals.
also the sovereign
is
at once an allowed incarnation of
and the very same person as the diluvian Menu. This intermixture, which is openly acknowledged
When
such were raised
ration of their posterity,
to
Vishnou
the mythology of
in
in the similar systems of other
no more than the natural consequence of the
in fact
feigned
is
deification
the rank of gods by the blind, vene-
consistency required, that the actions and attributes
whence some have
of the Supreme Being should be ascribed to them;
God;
groundlessly imagined, that the pagans really worshipped the true but, if
we
look
more
we
closely into the matter,
soon perceive, that
shall
own plainly enough were. The confusion in
other actions and a certain distinct character of their point out, what these pretended
question cerned. nas, an
is
noticed by
IVIr.
deities
properly
Wilford, so far as the Hindoo mythology
Satyavrata, considered as Vaivaswata,
incarnation
who
of that identical Vishnou,
con-
is
according to the Pura-
is,
in the
form of a
fish
preserves him fi-om the calamity of the deluge
;
thought to be mysteriously distinct from him
and, in a similar manner, the
Trimurti
is
supposed to be incarnate
as well as in the person of every
Menu
himself,
persons of the Trimurti
is
who
that
Vishnou
Sun
:
is
successively appears at
This distinction indeed
astronomically the
he
Menu,
in the triple offspring of every
commencement of each new world.' perfectly in point, because we are assured the
:
as Satyavrata,
while,
is
not
as well as the other
yet, since the attributes
of the Supreme Being are ascribed to him, while he ultimately resolves himself into the great father
who
with seven companions
during the prevalence of an universal deluge;
is
preserved in an Ark
we may
easily perceive
character the Gentiles worshipped in the place of the
thence learn the
no better than
strict
true
propriety of St. Paul's declaration that they were really
atheists.*
It
is
worthy of observation,
that,
account of the deluge, Cronus sustains the very same part Xisuthrus, that Vishnou does in reference to Satyavrata '
Asiat. Rqs. vol.
vi.
what
God, and may
p.
479»
:
' AS«o» iv tui x«»-/a^.
in the in
Chaldee
reference to
yet fundamentally
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Cronus was Xisuthrus himself;
whom
he was the parent of three sons among
for
he divided the whole world, and every part of his history proves hira
Adam
to be the great father or (3.)
119
The deluge
reappearing in Noah.
duration of the flood
from the
what
said to have continued during
is
Brahma, and the sleep of that god for he
:
awakes
is
made
at the
end of
it
and, rising with Vishnou
;
demon Hayagriva, and
retiring waters, slays the
called a night of
is
exactly commensurate with the
recovers the sacred
books.
This sleep of Brahma,
who
with Vishnou and Menu, Mysteries.
It
means the
is
acknowledged ultimately to identify himself
is
the
same
as the sleep or death celebrated in the
allegorical sleep or death of the great father within
the Ark, during the period which intervened between two worlds length
and
:
its
represented as being equal to a single night (a night indeed of
is
Brahma); because
in the eastern
phraseology a day stood for a year, and the
duration of Noah's gloomy confinement Mas limited to that space of time. It
also the
is
same
Ananta; which
is
as Vishnou's fabled sleep of a millenary
coiled
up
in the
on the serpent
form of a boat, and which thus supporting
the god floats upon the surface of the ocean
:
a year, and a mille-
for a day,
nary, Mere used as convertible terms. (4.)
quies
;
We
are told, that Menu-Satyavrata
that
is
what we are Ark,
we
to
find,
the
very remarkable; because
is
it
clearly serves to point out
avowedly the chief divinity of the infernal regions at the time of
Hades of
the deluge.
the Cientiles was the
death, or sleep, or descent,
womb
Hence, as
the ocean within
iiis
or disappearance, of
of some person, and his aftervN
They
On
principal deity tlie
Vide intra book
v.
still
the same.
c.G. §
III. 2. ^'1I.
surface of
account the
first
inclosure within an ark which was deemed
occasionally varied, but the object was
of the
and he
have already
I
this
described
the death his coflin
;
The phraseology was
ards they celebrated his revival and egress.
•
its
Noah on
reputed gi-avc or coffin the Ark.
ancient Mysteries were invariably funereal.
:
of the great mother: and
equally related to the allegorical sleep or death of
and
The hero-god
understand by the mythological Hades. is
was so constituted siiewn, the
he was made the presiding deity of the pagan Inferum.
to say,
This declaration
was constituted the god of obse-
'
Tims
the identical
*'"*''•
"*
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
Ii20
who
person,
up
in a state
an ark and
in
of death or death-Uke sleep was said to have been shut
upon the waters, was likewise feigned
set afloat
vanished or to have descended into the infernal regions: and he,
supposed to have been wonderfully restored to
to have
who was
and to have quitted the
life
ark within which he had been confined, was also thought to have reappeared
The
or to have returned from the reahns of Hades.
Hades and
into the
Ark
evidently
entrance therefore into
means the same thing
and
:
he,
who was
preserved at the time of the general deluge, was constituted the god of obsequies on account of his fabled descent into Inferum. this state
the night.
Nus
Thus
egg
is
the night of
the birth of
is
Brahma
Brahma from
;
floating of
Brahma during
The
night of
the birth of Bacchus from
the floating egg
of Bacchus in an ark on the surface of the ocean
is
;
equivalent to the mystic
the prevalence of the deluge in the cup of the
have been
indifferently said to
have been shut up
Menu-Satyavrata
who
;
is
tlie
and the exposure
In a similar manner, the Egyptian god of obsequies,
aquatic lotos.
to
in reference to
and of the Mysteries of
the mournful solemnization of his funeral.'
Bacchus or Bromius floating
was
Orphic poet speaks of the Orgies of Bacchus or Dio-
the
as being certain ineffable oracles of the night,
Osiris as being
and
It
of gloom and death, that the Mysteries were always celebrated in
in
slain
by the
an ark,
is
sea, to
who
is
have descended into Hades,
evidently the
same character
as that
literally
declared to have been saved in an ark at
who
allegorically feigned to have been consti-
the time of the deluge, and
is
tuted the god of obsequies or the regent of Hades.
As for the demon Hayagriva, he must doubtless be identified with Typhon of Egypt, the Python of Greece, and the Ahriman of Persia
(5.)
the that
:
is
and as
he
to say, finally
the evil piinciple, considered as producing the deluge
is
overcome by the great father when the waters
retired into the
central abyss. 2.
Such
is
the history, which seems to be veiled under the
Indian Avatars
When Adima him
:
and very nearly or
allied to
it is
first
of the
the second.
Menu-Swayambhuva was newly born, Brahma ordered with creatures of' his own species. Menu, submissively
to stock the xvorld
Orph. Argon,
ver. 28, 33.
THE OHIGiy OF PAGAN IDOLATRr.
121
iiitreatcd a place convenientfor the purpose
of residing aytdmidtiplijing his hind, time the zvhole as at that surface of tlie earth was covered xvitli water: for tlie (lemon Hiiinacheren had rolled it up into a shapeless mass, and had carried
it
down
and penance,
his posture
of contemplation
means of raising up the earth ; and pouredforth the almighty, in profound humility of soul. O
to obtain the
the folio-wing prayer to
Bhagavat!
Brahma resumed
to the abyss.
me from
since thou broughtest
non-entity into existence
particular purpose, accomplish that purpose by thy benevolence! situation, by the
being shaped like
grew
of an elephant of the largest magnitude, Brahma was astonished on beholding this figure ;
to the size
in the air.
end discovered by
the force of internal penetration, that
but the power of the omnipotent, lie
visible.
and he said
from my
now felt
to
that
;
and without doubt
They were engaged
in
suddenly uttered a sound all
is all,
and that
A
his sons ;'
it is
could be nothing
all
w fvm him and in him
;
wonderful animal has emanated it
has in one hour increased to
a portion of the almighty power.
when
this conversation, like the loudest
it
had assumed a body and become
zvhicli
at first of the smallest size,
this enormous bulk,
and shook
god
Mareechee and
essence
this
power of god, there issuedfrom the essence of Brahina a a boar, white and exceedingly sinalL This being, in the
space of one hour,
and remained
for a
In
that Vara, or boarform,
and
thunder,
the quarters of the universe
:
but
the echo reverberated
still,
under
this dreadful
awe of heaven, a certain xvonderful divine co?fidence secretly animated the hearts of Brahma, Mareechee, and the other genii ; who immediately began praises
The Fara figure, hearing the power of the their mouths, again made a loud noise, and became
and thanksgivings.
Vedas and Mantras from a dreadful spectacle.
Shaking the fullfiowing mane which hung down
neck on both sides, and erecting the
played his two most exceedingly coloured eyes and erecting his
and plunged headforemost
zvhite tusks ; tail,
tcrr'ficd,
began '
Pag.
Idol.
to
then,
his
his body, he proudly dis-
rolling
around
his a ine-
he descended from the region of the air,
The whole
into the zoater.
convulsed by the motion, and began
of the sea, being
humid hairs of
to rise in
zvaves
;
bodxj
zthile the
of water xcas
guardian
spirit
tremble for his domain and to cry out for
.Altenrl.iiit genii.
vol..
n.
Q
*^*'' "*
THE OftlGIK OF tAGAN iDOLATRr.
122 noox in.
At
mercy.
this the
and Rishis again commenced
devotees
their praises in
honour of Bhagavaf, who by one glance of his eye illumined the whole world
As
&f water.
power of the omnipotent had assumed
the
the body
of Vara,
on that account he coidescended to use the particular instinct of that animal and began to smell about, that he might discover the place where the earth was
At
submerged.
having divided the water and ai'riving at the
length,
he saw the earth lying a mighty and barren stratum. the
demon Hirinacheren,
and raised
it
bottonit^
Then he slew
took up the ponderous globe freed from the water,
One would say,
high on his tusk.
that
hi a moment,
blossoming on the tip of his tusk,
it
was a beautiful
xvith
lotos
one leap coming to
the surface, by the all-directiijg poxver .of the otnnipotent creator, he spread it,
like
a carpet, on the face of the water, and then vanishedfrom, the sight
of Brahnia.
Brahma, contemplating
the whole earth,
performed due reve-
rence to Bhagavat; and, rejoicing exceedingly, began the means of peopling
Menu and
the renovated world.
Brahma's order
to increase
Satarupa then,
and multiply
having again received
their kind,
began t9 people the
world, by means of the bond of marriage, in the kingdom of
They had two
Vreete.^ third
named Daksha who was
daughters, Akootee,
Roochee
slain
by
liis
brother at a sacrifice
Dcivehoote, and Presootee.
Deivehoote, to
;
Brahma- Verte-
Preeve-Veete and Outanabada, exclusive of a
sons,
Cur dam ; and
;
and three
Akoote was married to
Presootee, to
Daksha:* and by
them and their posterity, in succeeding ages, the whole world was peopled.^ (1.) is
Mr. Halhed
said to be
the deluge is,
Avatar
witli
them
Sir
that both opinions are right
:
the creation
relates to
more generally considered by Hindoo and
:
thinks, that this
it
but
it
historians as allusive to
William Jones inclines to agree.* for
;
The
fact
has a reference at once to the deluge
and to the creation.
Adam: and he is described as preceding Novv: Menu-Satyavrata, who as certainly is Noah.
Menu-Swayambhuva by several generations
is
certainly
the present Avatar has for '
Pyag, now caUed- Allahabad.
*
That
*
Purana apud Maur.
*
Waur.
is
hero
its
to say, to their three brothers
Hist, of
Hist, of
Hind,
vol,
i.
Hind,
\X\e
under
vol,
p. 57.5,
former Menu
i,
different
p.
409
—
j
as such therefore it
names.
-ill.
and Asiat. Res.
vol,
i.
p. 154.
THE OHIGIX OP PAGAN IDOLATRY, relate to the creation: yet
must
of which the latter
Menu
Agreeably to
the deluge.
is
placed successively to the
it is
the hero
as such therefore
;
this singular
p7'evious to that of the Jirst
two properly
bits the
or
Adam,
The
which has already been assigned
in the
•was
:
Avatar,
relate also to
or
now
and
tlie
Noah
given
is
before us exhiflood curiously
reason of such a niixture
that,
is
lower sense of renovation, the world
supposed to have been equally created
Noah
must
Menu
the legend
distinct accounts of the creation
and intimately blended together.
it
fish
arrangement, by which, in the enu-
meration of the Avatars, the history of the seventh
Menu
125
days both of
in the
Adam
and
and the mundane systems, over which each of those patriarchs seve-
;
rally presided,
and
delucre,
to
were alike believed to have been preceded by an universal have commenced by a precisely similar process and with
Thus Swayambhuva and Satarupa,
precisely similar events.
Iva, are clearly the
Adam and Eve
of Scripture
or
Adima and
and the emerging of the
:
earth from the water, when considered with reference to them, must mean
Yet,
the rising of the solid dry land out of the confused chaotic mucilage. since
we
find the very Avatar,
which
placed chrono-
treats of these matters,
logically subsequent to the first Avatar,
which almost
tory of the deluge in the time of the seventh
Menu
of the earth from the inundation which covered
it
literally details the his-
Noah
or
the emerging
;
must, in this case, be the
emerging of the dry land from the waters of the Noetic flood first
Avatar describe the deluge
itself,
:
for,
the
if
the second, which describes an emerg-
when
ing of the earth from a superfused inundation, must,
thus considered,
exhibit to us a circumstance which immediately succeeded the deluge. (2.)
With
this conclusion
agree, both as
it
has already been detailed, and as
sented in paintings.
on the
walls of
a large portion of the legend will be found to
The
some of
history of the present
the old Pagodas,
His
feet trample
tended
many
Avatar
Vishnou
man, having four arms and the head of a boar. sea-shell, the sacred
it is still
book of the antediluvian
is
still
ordinarily repre-
appears depicted
there described as a
His hands hold a sword, a
writings,
and the mystic
on the gigantic demon-prince Hirinacheren, who
a rood in the midst of the waters.
j
floats
ex-
His tusks support the cres-
cent or lunar boat: and, within the crescent thus supported, the Earth
ring.
is
the globe of
which characteristically displays buildings, mountains, and
trees.
CU\P. 11,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOLATRY.
iS4 BOOK
III.
Beneath, the
full
IMoon appears
the water, attached
in
to
a pole which
Hirinacheren holds in his hand.
The whole of this imagery
is
diluvian
and
:
applicable to the era of the
it is
creation no further, than as the proper creation
was
like the
kindred
demon hayagriva
itself
believed to have
The demon
been preceded by a flood and a yet prior world. in the JSfatsya
Avatar,
is
of the deluge considered as the work of the evil principle.
Earth therefore down to the bottom of the abyss mersion beneath the flood effects its recovery, its
is
became
the allegorical victory obtained over the deluge,
the astronomical symbol of the
which produced
when
all
Ark
and
:
it
tusks,
and
is
i.
I
the
doctrine
tlie
womb
shall
this
on the waves,
is
method of representing mythology.
in ancient
One
of
which Vishnou supports upon
common
is,
Moon was
alike
the mother of the JVorld
:
his
toEgypt
and the
that the regenerated Universe was produced
of the arkitc Ship.
now proceed
Avatur, which, ^V'illiam
was
floating
but a graphical representation of a doctrine
to Hindustan, that
from the I
the surface of the globe again
curiously exemplified in the upper part of the painting.
is
within the navicular lunette,
ineaning of
when
the various strange fables respecting the re-
gent of the night that occur so frequently
The Earth
sub-
its
In a similar manner, th eMoon, which Hirinacheren holds
visible.
these legends
His canying the
nothing more than
is
hand while both himself and the planet are
that vessel,
a personification
and the death of the monster by which Vishnou
:
waters Mere constrained to retire and
in his
Hirinacheren,
like tiie
Jones and
JNIr.
Courma
to a consideration of the
two preceding ones, seems Maurice,, plainly
to
to
relate
me, as
or Tortoise it
did to Sir
to the deluge,
though
mixed with allusions to the creation.
The Soars or good genii, being assembled
in solemn consultation upon the
sparkling summit of the great golden mountain tating the discovery of the to
Meru or
Amrita or water of immortality.
be deeply agitated by the impetuous rotation of
but, as the united U'ent before '
Sommeir, icere medi-
tite
The
sea
was
mountain Mandar:
bands of Dewtahs wer-j unable to remove this mountain, they
Vishnou zcho zvas sitting with Brahma, and addressed them in Sec the print of
this
Avatar
in
Maur.
Hist, of Hind. vol.
i.
p.
575»
THE
ORIGIN' OF
PAGAN IDOLATRV.
Exert, sovereign beings, your most superior wisdom
these words.
Mandar, and employ your utmost poxverfor our good.
the mountain
and Brahma having andzvas instructed
perform
together zoith all
its
remove
Vishnou
to
Jiwnta
appear.
arose,
work by Brahvia, and commanded by Narat/an'
in that
Then Ananta, by
it.
to
It shall be done according to your wish, he
replied,
with the lotos eye directed the king of serpents
to
125
hispozver, took up that king of mountains,
forests and every inhabitant thereof; and the Soors
accompanied him into the presence of the Ocean, whom they addressed, saying, JFe zvill stir up thy waters to obtain the Amreeta. And the lord of the •waters replied. Let me aUo have a share, seeing I am to bear the violent agitations that
zvill
be caused by the zvhirling
of the ?nountain.
The
Sooi's
and Assoors spake unto Courma-Rajah, the king of the tortoises, upon the strand of the ocean, and said ; 1 he tortoise
mountain.
So the mountain being whirl
it
about as
it zvere
My Be
replied.
I'rd it
so
:
upon the back
set
able to he the supporter
is
and
it zvas
the tortoise,
of
of
this
placed upon his back.
Eendra began
The mountain Mandar served as a churns
a machine.
and the serpent Vasookee for the rope : and thus, in J'ormer days, did Dezctahs, the Assoors, and the Danoos, begin to stir up the xcatcrs of ocean for the discovery of the Amrita.
on the side of the serpent's head,
The mighty
his mouth, }u
let it
nozv pull
forth
go: while there issuedJ'rom
andfro by the Soors and Assoors, a contiand smoke and Ziind ; zvhich ascending in thick clouds
fre
began
replete zvith lightning,
it
were already fatigued
zvith
from
and Assoors.
to
rain dozvn upon the heavenly bands
their labour,
In the mean
time,
zms
like
who
whilst a shoiccr of flowers zvas
the top of the mountain, covering the heads oj the roaring of the ocean,
agitated znth the whirling (f the mountain Aisoors,
Thty
tail.
thus violently diazcn to
stream of
shaken
and as ojten
the the
Assoo?^s zvere employed
Soors assembled about his
zohilst all the
Ananta, that sovereign Dezo, stood near Narayan. the serpent's head repeatedly,
to
Mandar
the bellozving of a mighty cloud.
all,
both Soors
whilst violently
by the
Soors and
Thousands of the va-
rious productions of the waters zvere torn to pieces by the mountain,
and
confounded zvith the briny food ; and every specifc being of the deep, and all the inhabitants of the
J
great abyss which
Tlie niQ-etr on t/ie waters,
a
is
below the earth, zvere annihi-'
title
of Vishnou,
chap.
iv.
\i6 apoK
III.
TIIL
lated
;
whilst,
from
ORIGIN OF PAGAV IDOLATRV.
the xioleut agitation of the mountain, the forest-trees
were dashed against each other and precipitated from all the birds thereon
was
p7-oduccd,
:
from
its
utmost height with
the violent cotfricativn of which a ragiyig fire
involving the whole mountain with smoke andfame as with a
dark blue cloud and the vividfash of lightning.
The
elephant are overtaken by the devouring fames,
lion
and the retreating
and every
vital being
every individual object are consumed in the general conflagration.
ragingfames, thus spreading destruction on
all sides,
and The
were at length quenched
by a shower of cloud-borne water poured down by the immortal Eendra. A7id
tioxv
a heterogeneous stream of the concocted juice of various trees and
plants ran down into the briny flood. juices,
produced from those streams,
It v as from this milk-like stream of
and
trees,
ocean,
now being
assimilated with those juices,
and a mixture of
plants,
melted gold, that the Soors obtained their immortality.
The
zvaters of the
were converted
into milk ;
andfrom that milk a kind of butter was presently produced when the heaveidy bands went again into the presence of Brahma, the grantcr of boo?is. :
end addressed him, saying
:
Except Narayan, every other Soor and Assocr
with his labour, and still the Amreeta doth not appear
isfatigued
the churning of the ocean
Endue them with
is
at a stand.
recruited strength,
rayan answered, and said : I
;
wherefore
Then Brahma said unto Narayan
for thou
will give fresh
art their support.
vigour
And Na-
to such as cooperate hi
Mandar be zvhirled about, and the bed of the work; When they heard the words of Narayan, they all steady. let
the ocean be kept
returned again to
the work, and began to stir about with great force that butter of the ocean
when
there presently arose
from
out of the troubled deep first the
:
Moon,
with a pleasing countenance, shining xvith ten thousand beams ofgentle light.
Next folloxced the waters
;
of fortune, whose
Sree, the goddess
seat is the white lily
then Soora-Devi, the goddess of wine;
called Oochisrava.
And
(fter these there
was produced from
mass the jewel Koxostoobh, that glorious sparkling gem his breast
:
then Pareejat the tree of plenty
granted every heart's
desire.
and the white
;
of
horse,
the unctuous
worn by Narayan on
and Soorabhee, the cow that
The Moon, Soora-Devi, the goddess
Sree,
and the horse as swift as thought,
instantly
marched away towards the Detvs,
keeping in the path of the sun.
Then
Dew
shape, came forth, holding in hi9
the
hand a white
Dhanwantaree,
vessel
in
human
filed with the immortal
THE ORIGIN
When
juice Aim^Ha.
I'AGAN IDOLAIRV.
OI-
the Assoors
137
hehdd these wondrous things appear, they
rained their tumultuous voices for the Amrita, and each of them clarnorously
This of right
exclaimed,
is
In the mean
mine.
phant, arose, now kept by the god of thunder
time, Iravat, a
mighty
and, as they continued to
:
churn the ocean more than enough, that deadly poison issued from burning
like
ele-
its
bed
a raging fire, "whose dreadfulfumes in a moment spread through
the world, confounding the three regions of the universe with its mortal
stench
;
until Siva, at the
word of Brahma, swallowed
thefatal
drug
to save
mankind.'
We
may, 1
think,
discover in this legend that mixture
of Paradisiacal
and diluvian ideas, which would naturally result from the circumstance of
Ark having rested in that Eden was once planted.
the
of
opens with a consultation of the hero-gods held on the summit of
It
(1.)
Meru
:
and the object of
may
mortality
must
tlieir
consultation
fable,
when
necessarily, I tliink, relate in the
Adam
and Eve.
life,
transcript of the Paradisiacal Ararat)
was, after the flood, restored (as
Eden
deluge, and
is
which was
it
Meru
new
Amrita
recol-
by the trans-
forfeited
Meru
is
but a locally appropriated
is
were) to a
is
instance to the obscurely
and as the world with
;
the recovery of the lost
:
first
Yet, as the mythological history of
completely blended with diluvianism (for
eincts of
the lost water of im-
Meru and Paradise
the identity of
promised recovery of that perpetual gression of
how
is,
be best regained.
This part of the lected,
mountainous region where the garden
identical
is
life
its
inhabitants
within the very pre-
placed at the close of the
thus studiously confounded or identified w-ilh the renovation
©f the desolated earth. (S.)
A
But Mandar both from
work
principal instrument in the
its
is
the very
same mythological
form, and from
is
hill
mount Mandar.
said to be
as
Meru.
This
is
manifest,
its locality.
Mandar appears as an inverted cone and by the divines of Thibet mount Aleru is The forms of both thought to. resemble an inverted conical pyramid.* In the Hindoo delineation of the
Courma
Avatar, mount
;
'
Wilkins's Geeta; p.
* See the print
in
—149.
146
Maur.
Hist, of Hind. vol»
i.
p. 581.
and Asiat. Res.
vol. yiii. p. 273.
<^"*p- •'•
THE ORIGIN CF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
128 nooK
III.
therefore are so perfectly alike, as to prove sufficiently,
Meru are but different names of one mountain. And this conclusion is decidedly established by The
literal
Meru, or the
the high country
a reference to geography.
Ararat of Hindostan, has been shown to be
local
the head of the holy
at
Mandar and
that
Ganges.
river
iMandar, which, precisely like Casi and Meru,
But the
literal
esteemed a favourite re-
is
treat of the ark-supported Siva
and the navicular hero-gods,
tuated at the source of the very
same
Thus we have ru and Mandar
both the import of the word JMandar, and
:
river.'
Me-
as distinct a proof as can be desired of the identity of
with
and,
it,
the use to wliich in the legend
The word
agree.
similarly si-
is
appellation, which
the
itself signifies is
hill
is
applied, will be found exactly to
a ynountain dividing the
most accurately descriptive of
waters:''
Meru
and
this
Albordi or
or
Baris or Ararat, clearly relates to the circumstance of the arkite mountain
being esteemed the
first
land that divided the waters of the subsiding de-
Hence
luge by emerging from beneath them.
ment of churning
We
mortality.
ing particular lar
is
the ocean,
shall be
rests
to be a
brought to the
Courma
of the
in the delineation
flood,
;
which
it is
top of (.•J.)
mount
As
they have
is
Now
hierogly[)hic,
The
here inti'oduced.
certainly
Noah
in the
the lotos
is
it is
lotos,
declared
father over the tiie
Ark.
easy to understand the
fish-god Vishnou, seated in
the
Ark
summit of the diluvian
when
it
grounded on the
Ararat.
for the various pretious things
all
interest-
Avatar, though that particu-
which wafted the great
the calix of this aquatic flower which rests on
mount of Paradise,
water of im-
and which therefore must certainly be
Such then being the import of the allusion, with
lost
Vishnou appears sitting upon a
itself.
symbol of the ship Argha r,etiring
the fabled instru-
very same conclusion by an
on the summit of mount Mandar.
waters of the
made
and of thus recovering the
not specified in the legend
which
it is
some reference
produced from the churned ocean,
either to the flood or to the sacred garden.
Tlie
;Moon, the cow of plenty, and the two goddesses of fortune and of wine,
shadow out the mundane Ark '
Asiat. Kts. vol.
iii.
p.
193.
:
the mystic fruit-tree, * Asiat. Res. vol.
and the white
iii.
p.
74.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
are but corruptions of the tree
vessel filled with the immortal juice Amrita,
of knowledge and the ambrosial the elephant, under which form
129
springing from the tree of
fruit
Buddha
life
while
:
believed to have been incarnate,
is
and the seven-headed horse, which has been a familiar symbol
many
in so
different parts of the globe, alike represent the great universal father as pre-
siding over the seven racter, that is to say,
members of
Adam
the water in the attitude of prayer
and near him, likewise on the water,
:
is
heal the deep (4.) is laid
We
the anathematized earth, he
is
:
wounds of convulsed
may remark
in the
versal creation
is
the
which
and, as the destined comforter
exhibited in the light of a skil-
who
is
well able to
nature.'
present fable, that, although the scene of
the ocean, although heavy torrents of rain are said to
in
As
to bear the vase,
Apollo and Esculapius of the west,
Avhile the hill INIandar
a
made
properly
contains the recovered waters of immortality
ful physician, the
ocean
the
be placed there in allusion to the rainbow.
to
restorer of the ruined world, he
and healer of
who emerges from
In the painting, he stands upon
hand the vessel of Amiita.
a bow, which seems
mythological cha-
manifested anew in the person of Noah, appears
Dev/-Dhanwantarce,
again as the physician
holding in his
The same
his family.
it
descend
impetuously whirled round, and although the uni-
is
represented as being overwhelmed in the great abyss; yet
is
terrible conflagration
is
spoken
as being the
of,
accompaniment of
this
destructive flood. It
is
curious to note,
particular,
and likewise
of the dtluge.
I
must
how
frequently the old pagan accounts agree in that
in the
appearance of some unusual star at the time
confess, that so general an accordance,
already had occasion to point out, strongly inclines
Mr. Whiston's
me
On
I
was the too
such a supposition, the prevailing notion, that
the deluge was either preceded or attended by a conflagration and that
remarkable star hung in the firmament during the period of will
be naturally and easily accounted
to assign
IV.
any satisfactory reason for
for:
Gen. Idol.
but, otherwise,
it
its
some
continuance,
will
be
diflicult
it.
Tiie diluvian traditions, w hich
Pag.
have
to the adoption of
theory, that the instrumental cause of the flood
near approach of a comet.
which
prevailed V.
among
the Celtic Druids,
29.
VOL.
II.
R
chap.
ir.
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
130 BOOK
III.
many
bear in
respects a close resemblance to those, which
The sum
prominent a part of the theological code of Hindostan. according to Mr. Davies,
The
is briefly
A
wind upon the earth.
At
was death.
this
of them,
as follows.
mankind had provoked the Great Supreme
profligacy of
pestilential
constitute so
still
pure poison descended
;
to send a
every blast
time the patriarch, distinguished for his integrity, was
shut up, together with his seven select companions, in the floating island or
Here
sacred inclosure with the strong door. Presently, a tempest of
injury.
The
great deep.
themselves on
from heaven
:
lake Llion burst
high,
its
bounds
life,
round the borders of Britain
and the water covered the earth.
and
to
:
the rain poured
The
down
But that water was intend-
wash away the contagion of
the chasms of the abyss.
asunder to the
the waves of the sea lifted
:
ed as a lustration, to purify the polluted globe, to render
newal of
were safe from
the just ones
It split the earth
fire arose.
it
meet
for the re-
former inhabitants into
its
which swept away from the surface of
flood,
the earth the expiring remains of the patriarch's contemporaries, raised his vessel or inclosure
on high from the ground, bore
the waves, and proved to
him and
it
safe
his associates the
upon the summit of
water of
and reno-
life
vation."
Such
1.
how
serve,
events of
the Druidical account of the deluge
is
plete
is
my
that
is
within
will
surround
chair in Caer Sidi.^ it.
It
is
'
Davies's Mythol. p. 226.
'
The
it is
curious to ob-
Neither disorder nor age
knoxvn to
Manawyd* and *
to
Hence
have sailed over the
sea,
is
Yet com-
the chief priests oj Ked.^
us,
inclosure of Sidi or Ceridwcn, that
once the Ark and the World.
*
and
it.
The immdation
was fabled
:
perpetually the bards, in their sacred poems, recur to the various
The
zoill
oppress him
Pi-yderi,^ that three loud
ship-goddess Ccridwen.
Stonehenge
;
the circle of which symbolized at
it the Ark of the World : and hence it under the guidance of Merlin, from Ireland to Britain.
the Druids styled
Menu-Ida, the arkite or mundane Menu.
He
is
said to have sailed through
the ocean,
inclosed within the curvatures of the ship-goddess Ked, which he formed for that special purpose.
same
Gwawd
Lludd y Mawr. apud Davies's Mythol.
as the Indian
Menu, who
a form of the ship-goddess '
Isi
p.
563
et
infra.
preserved with seven companions in
is
He
is
palpably the
an ark supposed to be
or Ida.
Witdom, 01 Mental Intellect
;
a
title
of Noah, equivalent to the Greek Nous, the San-
THE
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
OKIGIiV OF
Strains round the fire will be sung before
are round within
O
borders
its
it is
and the
it
131
whilst the currents of the sea
:
copious fountain
is
open
from
above, the liquor
sweeter than delicious wine.'
whom
thou proprietor of heaven and earth, to
buted, a holy sanctuary there is on the surface
hejoyful in the splendidfestival,
great wisdom
is attri-
May its
the ocean.
of and at the time when the sea
rises
chief
with ex-
Frequently does the surge assail the bards over their ves-
panding energy.
of tnead: and, on the day when the billozvs are excited, may this inclosure skim away, though the billows come beyond the green spot from the region of sels
A holy sanctuary
the Picts.''
with walls; the sea surrounds this
A
is
it.^
Demandest thou,
holy sanctuary there
They
A
hearsal, the
holy sanctuary there
is
will not
it is
:
and my
and wine out of
the deep crystal cup.
gitlf : there every one
there
is
with
its
is
the Soul or
'
Taliesin's Sons of Llyr,
*
The
*
A
inclosure
*
is j;i
is
Mind
of the splendid mover,
of the
gave me mead
his portion.
A
is
within the
holy sanctuary
:
p.
506.
here
it is
Here
it is
a lake, and yet the sea surrounds
evidently described as a ship.
used synonymously with the sea;
for
it.
the bard has been initiated into the Mysteries of the navicular
Ceridwen, the great father and great mother of Celtic theology.
'
The
*
The cauldron
sun, worshipped in conjunction with the great father.
of inspiration
;
an implement of such importance, that the term was used
metaphorically to describe the entire Mysteries of bardism.
For an account of
as used in the Druidical Orgies, see below, book v. c. 6. § VIII. 4. '
circle,
of the World.
Stonehenge, as before
The hierophant, by whom
Hu and
lays in
All these are similarly names of the great father,
apud Davies's Mythol,
lake symbolized the diluvian ocean.
the sanctuary
its
The xvritings of Pryanxious regard: should the waves disturb their of
Menu, and the Latin Mens, or Menes.
who was deemed
Smooth are
holy sanctuary there
kmdly presented with
its
the bonds
productioris of the vessel of Ked.^
dain^ are the first object
scrit
A
thy ox
rendered complete by the re-
lord,^ duly observant
before he entered his earthly cell in the border
let
Holy are
associate in
hymn, and the birds of the mountain.
its periodicalfestival:
protected
Britain, to what
upon the ninth wave.
is
inhabitants in preserving themselves. of pollution.
O
?iot
Before the lake of the son of Erbin
can be meetly applied?
be stationed.
on the wide lake, a city
there
Or Hu,
the helio-arkite
Noah.
this
cauldron
•="*'• '^'
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
132
I would again,
foundation,
holy sai2ctuary there
is
if necessary, conceal them deep in the
A
cell.
upon the margin of the flood : there shall every
one be kindly presented with his
zvishes.'
Disturbed is the island df the praise of Hu, the island of the severe remunerator / even Mofia of the generous bowls xvhich animate vigour, the island whose barrier
Aeddon,^ since
it is
is
the
Mena?
Deplorable
the fate of the ark of
is
perceived, that there neither has been nor will be his equal
hour of perturbation. IFhen Aeddon came from the land of Gwydion into Seon of the strong door,' a pure poison diffused itself for four succenin the
was as yet
sivc nights, whilst the season '
*
Min. Dinbych, or aviow of
Taliesin's
Noah,
in his
tlic
character of the destroyer
;
His contemporaries
serene.
fell.
bardie sanctuary, apud Davics.
and the Cronus of the
the Siva of the Hindoos,
Greeks. •"
The
*
Or Adonis,
'
The Ark, and hence
frith
between Anglesey and Wales, so called from Menu.
andJ^Icrmes or
a
title
of
Hu;
the
Greek Aidoneus.
the insulated fanes sacred to arkitc Mysteries.
Bnddha was
the same as
which was overwhelmed by the deluge
In
region beneath the abyss.
this
;
Hu
as
it
or Noah.
was
Gwydion was Hermes
His land may have been
his traditional office to
C.
He
3.
When
he was shut vp in this sanctuary, the Great
ous vapour to destroy the wicked world.
To
this
This inclosure was
Then
5.
ments: one of the
the great magicians with their magic
effects
of which, as described
•which split the earth to the great deep, this, the waters of
But
bane the bards often allude.
4. By ger of death entered not the inelvsure of Seon. the whole atmosphere, the patriarch's wicked contemporaries were destroyed
polluted.
The patriarch
Supreme sent forth a poison-
this pestilential
still
1.
entered the inclosurc of Seon or of
the nine sacred damsels, which was guarded by the strong door or barrier. the Ark.
the old world,
conduct the dead into a
passage we have much arkite mythology.
came from the land of Hermes or the old world.
:
in the triads,
wands
:
but the earth was
set free the
purifying
ele-
was the dreadful tempest of fire,
and consumed the greatest part of
Llyn Llion ur the great abyss burst forth.
the messen-
vapour, which filled
all that
lived.
Upon
6. These powerful agents would
have destroyed the patriarch and his family in Caer Seon, had nut Hermes counselled him to impress a mystical form, or to strike a peculiar signal, upon his shield. with the integrity of the just ones, preserved them
Hence an
itnilation
7-
This device, together
from being overwhelmed by
the deluge.
8.
of these adventures became a sacred institution, which was duly observed in
the Mysteries and conducted by the presiding priest. It is easy to sec, that the
Davies
in loc.
Arabic fable of the righteous monitory prophet Houd, and of the
cold pestilential wind Sarsar which destroys a wicked race that had long been warned in vain,
has originated from the same source as the British and Hindoo legends.
troduced the circumstance from D'Herbelot and Sale into
his beautiful
.Mr.
poem
Southey has of Thalaba.
in-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
133
The woods afforded them no shelter, when the winds arose in their skirts. Then Math and Eiuiydd, masters of the inagic wand, set the elements at large : but in the living Gwydion and Amacthon there was a resource of counsel to impress the front of his shield with a prevalent form, a form irresistible.
Thus the mighty combination of
'whelmed by the sea. Disturbed
circle ?
Thefour damsels, having ended
their last
office.''
But
long did they dzvell
the proprietor,
chiej,
re-
the rightillustrious
their lamentation, have performed
the just ones toiled
of their integrity
:
community of the Cymry
JVhat shall consume a ruler of the
Britain.
iti
the
dragon
in tranquillity ; he being the
ful claimant,
rank was not over-
his chosen
the island of the praise of Hit, the island of
Buddwas^ may
the severe inspector. Before
main
is
on the sea, which had no land,
:
was, that they did not endure the
it
extremity of distress.^
Am I not called Gorlassar, the etherial ? My belt has been a rainbow enveloping my foe. Am I not a protecting prince in darkness to him, who presents my form at both ends of the hive?* Am not la plougherP Have I protected my
not
wrathful ones
sanctuary, and with the aid of
Have I not
to vanish ?
bold warfare against the sons of the giant
of my guardian power a ninth portion
A title
'
as the 1
am
of
Hu, who was venerated under
supreme lord of
Britain,
where
Nur ?*
Have
in the pi-owess
caused the
not
I
iinparted
of Arthur ?
Did
the sj'mbol of a huge serpent and acknowledged
his chief-priest
persuaded, the same word as the oriental
my friends
shed the blood of the indignant in
governed as his vicegerent.
Buddha
or
Boudt or Budd-Isa, and
Buddwas as the
is,
Greek
Boiotiis or Butes or Bootes. *
These damsels were the arkile
the allegorical death of their god
of Syria, wept for
'Ihammuz
;
priestesses,
whose
as the Jewish
The same
or Adonis.
office
it
was
women, who had rites
in the
Mysteries to bewail
apostatised to the idolatry
prevailed
in
Egypt on account of
the supposed death of Osiris. '
Taliesin's
*
A
Elegy of Aeddon of Mona.
hive was a type of the
apud Davies.
Hence both
/Vj"k.
the diluvian priestesses
and regenerated souls
were called bees: hence bees were feigned to be produced from the carcilse of a cow, which also symbolized the
was much used both '
*
An
Ark
:
and hence,
in funeral rites
as the great father
and
in the
allusion to the agricultural character of
The wicked
was esteemed an infernal god, honey
Mysteries.
Noah.
race of the antediluvian Titans or Nephelim.
^^'^^- "'•
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN mOLATRY.
134 iiooKiK.
I give to
fiQi
Did
Hcnpeii the tremendous szeord of the enchanter?
when Hearndor' moved with
perfortn the rites of purijication,
not
toil to the
I
top
of the hill? I was subjected to the yoke for my ajjliction ; but commensurate the xoorid had no existence, were it not for my progeny. was my confidence :''
Privileged on the covered mount ,^
O
Ilu
thy son, thy bardic proclaimer, thy deputy,^ cited the death-song,
O father Deon
.*
my
voice has re-
where the mound representing the world is constructed of
Let the countenance of Prydain,
work J
stone
expanded wings,* has been
ivith the
let
Hu, attend
the glancing
to me.'
The
wrath securely went
birds of
the sorcerers
dawn of
:
to
Mona
demand a sudden shower of
to
but the goddess of the silver xvheel of auspicious mien,
serenity, the greatest res trainer
tons, speedily throws
round
of sadness,
in behalf
of the Bri-
of the rainbow
his hall the stream
;
which scares away violence from the earth, and causes the bane of
mount record no falshood.
and,
till
2.
which has already been adopted
may have been reduced
Iron-door,
Noah's state of
S(5i;fei9ufi;,
a
title
affliction
it
into their
contents of the bardic writings.
mode
in the case
the main question I think
'
hei'e:
remarkable fragments of
respect to the genuineness of these
*
form-
The chair of the preserver remains
Druidical mythology, I would adopt a
To
its
it continue in Europe!^
the doom, shall
With
a sti'eam,
The books of the ruler of
er state round the circle of the world to subside.
the
the
of arguing similar to
of the Zend-Avesta.
wholly immaterial, by
present^orw
Now, from
that
;
I
whom
the Triads
rest the matter
upon the
the minute resemblance between
of the Ark.
during the flood was symbolized by a bull submitting to the yoke.
The sacred mount or tumulus, that represented Meru or Ararat. * Thus the Orphic poet celebrates Dionusus, the first-born of the with his golden wings. Hymn. v. 2. '
*
The
^
Deon seems
'
One of
floating egg, as exulting
character of the god was sustained by his representative, the archimagus or chief druid. to be
an abbreviation of the Sanscrit Deonaush and the Greek Dionus.
the circular stone temples, probably Stonehenge.
notion of the Ida-vratta, represented, as
we
are here told, the
These, agreeably
World ; and,
informed, the mundane Ark, to adopt the phraseology of Druidism, '
Marnwnad Uthyr Pcndragon. apud
'
Cadair Ceridwen. apud Davies.
Davies.
as
to the oriental
we
are elsewhere
THE ORIGIN OP PAGAN IDOLATRY.
135
the mythology of the Druids, and that of the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and
other eastern nations, no person could have forged those remains in the middle ages without being well acquainted with the religious opinions of those
nations
and
:
not easy to say,
it is
how such an
acquaintance, such an
mate acquaintance, with them could have been procured not only find a general indefinite similarity
and even the same
bols,
titles,
but we meet with the same sym-
;
of persons, exhibited under exactly similar
out the east, not to mention Greece and Italy
emblems through-
they are no less so in the
;
If the initiated were thought to receive a second
writings of the bards.
and even a third birth
in the IVIysteries
of the Greeks and the Hindoos
very same potency was ascribed to the Mysteries of the Druids.
on the summits of the
Ark and of
If the Indian
or
is
sails
If circles
preserved from the deluge in a large vessel, well ;
the Druidical
Men-
through the grievous waters inclosed within the cur-
vatures of Ked, the forepart of which
connected snakes.
the
a notion exactly similar prevailed in Britain.
;
and bound with a vast sea-serpent
Menu-Ida
;
were throughout the east esteemed at once types of
World
Menu
stored with corn,
wydd
hills
the
We
at that period.
If a bull and a dragon were two eminent
circumstances.
inii-
If the old
Greek
stored with corn and
is
bound with
writers tell us, that Dionusus, Ceres,
and Proserpine, were venerated in Britain
;
same
on examining the bardic frag-
as those of the Samothracian
ments which have come down
to us,
Cabiri
we
:
find
and that
them
their orgies
were the
setting forth the worship of
those very three deities, and describing certain IVIysteries which closely resemble those
bards,
we
of Samothrace.'
In short,
we
if
advert to the writings of the
there find a religion delineated, which
dostan no more, than the religion of papal
remarked)
differs
from that of Geneva.
Rome
We
diflfers
(as INIr. Wilford has aptly
know however,
of the middle ages, posterior to the Christian era,
munication with Hindostan. series of coincidences
called
*
accident.
?
But,
We if it
Dionys. Perieg. ver. 565, 575.
ApoU. Argon,
lib. i. ver.
yi7.
How
then are
from that of Hin-
we
that the bards
could have had no com-
to account for this -strange
cannot reasonably ascribe
it
to
what
is
usually
be not accidental, then the substance of the
Artemid. apxul Strab. Geog.
lib. iv. p.
198. Schol. in
CBAP.
IV.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
136 BOOK
III.
bardic writings must exhibit to us the genuine theology of the ancient Druids:
because the bards of the age of Taliesin could not have borrowed their materials directly
On
from Hindostan.
the w hole, I see not
how we can account
of the Britons to the Mysteries of
which
twelfth century,
is
Hu
the violent attachment
for
and Ceridwen even so
a naked historical fact
we
unless
;
late
as the
sujjpose that
those Mysteries were the Mysteries immemorially celebrated by their fathers
agreeably to the positive declarations of
were
at the very time
Greek
tiie
remarkably tenacious of old customs
:
and
it
utterly incredible, that,
when they were gradually embracing
Christianity,
should suddenly strike out a novel superstition and embrace
we
shall
they stumbled upon the very theology which
trous
Many
propensities
;
new
still
superstition,
but that
so eminently prevails in
were the attempts made to wean them from their idola-
and many are the indignant allusions to the monks,
which are scattered through the writings of the bards. tainly describe
conjunc-
be compelled to adopt the inconceivable theory, that the
Britons at that precise period not only invented a
Hindostan.
in
it
they
Yet, unless we allow the genuineness of the bardic
tion with the Gospel.
materials,
Tlje Britons
historians. is
Those
what the Britons were then attached to
strained to believe, by an accumulated rnass
:
of evidence,
writings cer-
and I that
am
con-
what they
were so vehemently attached to was the very theology, to which their fathers from time immemorial had been attached before them.'
V.
have already had occasion to notice the Persian account of the de-
I
luge, as
contained in the Zend-Avesta: and, from the peculiar
which the great father
groundwork of
it is
ever, according to literal narrative little
there symbolized, I
am
a portion of genuine ancient mythology.
Dr. Hyde, appear also
of that event,
to
mode
in
inclined to believe, that the
have been
in
The Magi howmore
possession of a
though mingled with circumstances not a
impertinent.
The
orthodo.x part of the old
universal deluge
'
is
:
Persians, he informs
though some sects among them denied
Mr. Davies very reasonably argues the point
257,258,
•259.
us,
in a
believed in an it
entirely
somewhat similar manner.
;
and
Mythol.
p.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. Others maintained, that
Mas only
it
137
not extending beyond a mountain
partial,
The flood itself they supwoman named Zala-Cumountain where Noah dMcit previous
situated in the confines of Assyria and Persia.
posed to have burst
from the oven of an old
fortli
pha, whose house Mas situated on the Ko that calamity.
It
said to have been
is
asserted by Zeradusht,
deluge Mould never have taken place, had
it
that the
not been OM-ing to the wicked-
ness and diabolical incantations of IMalcus.'
This cause
The
substantially the sauje as that assigned in the Zend-Avesta.
is
strange notion of the waters bursting forth from an oven, the prototype
of which oven
conceive however to have been a sacred Mithratic cavern,
I
was not peculiar
Koran
:
to the Persians.
A
similar legend
and some pretended, that the oven was
is
that,
introduced into the
which
liad
been used
by Eve, and which had afterwards been possessed by the successive
pa-
triarchs of the Sethite line until at length
the
seems
tale
Mas employed
water,
in the
Mohammed
Arabic of the deluge
devolved to Noah.*
it
to be blended the very prevalent
:
opinion, that
destruction of the old Morld.
W'itii
no
fire,
Thus
less
than
the literal
oven boiled over Mith the waters of and thus the JeMish Rabbins have a tradition, that those v\aters says, that the
Such
were boiling hot'
fables are nearly allied to the boiling of the British
cauldron of Ceridwen, and to the churning of
the ocean
the
in
Courma
Avatar of Hindostan. It
M'orthy of observation, that the Persians described the patriarch
is
escaped, by the very san)e
One
Greeks. the
title
as that
in the books,
is
and the Druids.
It
is
'
Hyde
dc nl. vet. Pcrs.
'
Sale's
Annot.
Salurnus i.
c.
in
is
Call or
Time: CroimSy
affinity M-ith Chrorius,
which
and Sir William Jones was assured by a learned
:*
made of an universal deluge VI. The Egyptian mythology is
tion
»
Menu
Greek appellation of Saturn, has a manifest
lower of Zeradusht, that
lib.
employed both by the Hindoos and the
of the names of the Indian
also signifies Ti)/ie
clearly the
*
built
Koran,
same
of Time.'
Brahmens upon memorials of the deluge as that of the
:
c. xi. Sale's aniiot. in loc.
c. xi.
immulata
litera,
Kfovoj quasi Xfoyof vocatur.
Macrob. Saturn,
22. p. 214.
Asiat. lUs. vol.
Pag.
Idol.
i.
p,
fol-
which the Behdins hold sacred, men-
styled the deluge
most part
c. x.
Koian.
— a Grarcis,
for the
Mho
240.
VOL.
II.
S
^"'^'- "'•
138 BOOK
III.
THE ORIGIN OK PAGAN IDOLATllT.
•
and many of
peculiarities
its
who seem
kings,
Cuthim or PalH
to
were probably introduced by the Shepherd-
have been no other than a branch of those Chasas or
who, under different circumstances and at different periods,
;
and
carried both their arms, their pohty,
The
the glube.
consideration
:
their religion,
into every quarter of
character of the Egyptian deities I shall reserve for future
at present
it is
my
wisb, as
much
as
may
be, to confine
my-
self to traditions specially describing the deluge.
On
point,
this
that of the
an opinion, exactly similar to
the Egyptians entertained
Brahmens and
tbe Druids
or rather, I should say, the identical
;
opinion, which I have so frequently been led to notice as the very foundation
of old pagan mythology
many
namely, that the world was destined to experience
:
vicissitudes of destruction
and renovation, partly by the agency of
The
and partly by that of water.
priest,
who conversed
v\ith
fire,
Plato on the
subject, after discussing a dissolution of the earth by fire set forth (as he
imaorined) under the story of Phaethon, next proceeded to discourse of
The
submersion by a great deluge.
the earth by water, overxvhelmed
herdsmen and shepherds ivere
it
sailed
gods, said
lie,
tiozv zcishi/ig
On
with a flood.
this occasion,
certain
on the tops of the mountains : but they,
dwelt in the cities which are situated in our country, were swept
who
into the sea by the rising It
is
tions
of
away
the rivers.^
impossible not to observe the remarkable similarity between the no-
which enter into
a feature
:
and the
account, and those which constitute so prominent
this
in the tradition
destruction
it
Fire precedes water in the task of
of the Druids.
latter is considered,
desolation, but as an agent
which
its
to purify
employed
not merely as an instrument of
to purify the earth
had contracted by the wickedness of
its
from the stains
former inhabitants.
This
coincidence serves additionally to prove, that the writings of the bards contain fragments of genuine British mythology.
I
may
here properly remark, that the world
troyed by the joint operation of
fire
is
sometimes said to be des-
and water, and
at other times
is
repre-
sented as being successively dissolved by each of those two agents separately. I think it probable, that the notion of a deluge of fire, as well as of a deluge
of water, originated in the •
first
instance from
Pfeton. Tim.
fol.
tlie
22, 23.
scorching effects of the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. 'comet; which, by
its
too near approach to the earth, seems at length, on
dislodged the waters of the
physical principle of attraction, to have
the
139
great abyss and thus to have produced the flood.
VII. In the ancient empire of China, we do not find those peculiarly distinct notices of a general deluge, tries
yet there
:
is
which may be detected
in other
coun-
sufficient to prove, that the recollection of that awful event
has lieen by no means wholly obliterated. IVIariinius
informs
that the Chinese writers
us,
make
frequent mention of
the flood, though they do not enter into the causes which produced
it.
This
deficiency led that author to doubt, whether they spoke of the Noetic flood,
some other inundation
or of
however he ventures
peculiar to the realm of China.
to assert, that there
is
So
far as this
no great dissimilitude between
the two accounts, and that in point of chronology they nearly coincide, in
round numbers) about three thousand
The
(^hinese acknowledge, that, previous to
each having taken place (to speak years before the Christian era. the time of
f'olii,
who from
various circumstances appears to be the
name of
Scripture, their annals do not deserve the It
latter
of whicii succeeded the former.
of them, the
and
first
the second to
its
From
two heavens; the
the description which they give
world before the
fall,
During the period of the
first
to allude to the state of the
seems
of
well-authenticated history.*
that the Chinese authors frequently speak of
said,
is
Noah
condition at the deluge.
heaven, a pure pkasure, and a perfect tranquillity^ reigned over all nature.
There
made
xvas neither labour,
nor pain, nor
opposition to the will
happiness.
Everything was
were perfect
in their kind.
so7-rozv,
beautiful ;
In
this
tvithout
any effort or
philosophers,
opposition, to
who adhered
Tchouangse, say,
active
that,
171
'
to
state
There was no jarring in the
grew without labour ; and
ele-
uni-
and passive virtues conspired together,
produce and perfect the Universe.
these ancient
the state
of
every thing was good : all beings
ments, no inclemency in the air ; all things
The
Nothing
happy age, heaven and earth employed
their virtues jointly to embellish nature.
versal fertility prevailed.
nor criminality.
The whole creation etyoyed a
of man.
traditions,
The
and particularly
of the Jirst heaven, man was united
Mart. Hist. Sin.
lib.
i.
p.
X'i.
<=ha.p. iv.
THE OnrciN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
140 mooK in.
inwardly icorks
Supreme Reason,
to the
The
four seasons oj the year succeeded lach other regularly
The sun and the moon, without ever biing and brighter than
cence
The Jive plant
at present.
Jered any hurt from him all nature.
clouded, furnished a light ts
:
but an universal
to
man, or which
amiy and harmony
sitf-
reigned over
Tliese descriptions manifestly allude to a state of pristine inno-
and coincide with those notions of a gulden
;
purer
kept on their course without
There was nothing, which did hnrni
inequality.
and
There 7cere no impetuous winds and exctssiie lains.
without coiijusion.
any
and there was no mixture cf
Tl(e heart rejoiced in truth,
of justice.
Jalshood.
aijd that outwardly he practised all the
On
of mankind.
funiliar to tne bulk
which have been so
a
the other hand, the account which
they give of the second heaven clearly points out the dreadful convulsion,
which the world experienced
The earth shook
heaven were broken.
The
sank lower toxcards the north. 1 he earth Jell
their motions.
bosom burst
Jor th
xcilh
to its
and
and
:
It can scarcely,
convulsion of the world, here described, it is
zccis
the planets altered their course,
nature was disturbed.
and the
Man
it.
and
despising the supreme
dispute about truth and
He
reason.
monarch
;
He
and the
Such was the source of all crimes
the
the deluge
deluge was the ;
grand harmony of
The
the deluue.
(J the
n)oial cause
^11 these
Universe.
evils
of
arose
He would needs
;
became gradually transformed into
celestial reason entirely
and hence originated
which arejustly sent by heaven as a punishment
ered in
The sun
then Jixed his looks on terrestrial objects, and loved them to
the objects, which he loved
As
having rebelled
J alshood ; and these disputes banished the eternal
excess: hence arose the passions
ries,
changed
stars,
be doubted, that the great
assigned by the Chinese in a very striking manner.
from mans
of The heavens
totally disordered.
I think, is
pillars
the waters inclosed within its
overjioxced
against heaven, the system oJ the universe 7cas eclipsed,
very foundation.
sun, the jnoon,
to pieces
violence,
The
epoch of the deluge.
at the
was a principal chronological
commencement of time
to the
both the Greeks, the Hindoos, and '
abandoned him.
those various mise-
of wickedness.'
epocli,
ami as each
fictitious
mundane system which tlie
it
ush-
Persians, agreed iu bestow-
Kanisay on the mythol. of the pagans.
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. ing the appell vailed
among
of Time on the great father.
itioi)
/ may assure
the Chinese
1/
I\fach the
14]
same notion and
ajter fuil Inquiry
ui,
pre-
consi-
dtralion, says Sir WilHani Jones in an adihess to the Society over wliich he
so worthily presided, that the Chinese,
like
the Hindoos, believe this earth
to hirce been wholly vovered uith xvater, which, in
they describe as Jloiring abundantly, then subsiding, and separat-
thenticity,
ing the higher
Jrom
mankind ; that the
the lower age nf
division of' time,
xchich their pot tical history begins, just preceded the appearance of Fohi
from
on the mountains of Chin
Yao
zvas either
of
be not a fable),
it
works of undisputed au-
but that the great inundation
;
confned to the lowlands of his kingdom or (if
it
annalists.''
matter seems to be, that the early history of China, either
is
(if the
inytholojiical or largely
The
Noah)
truth of the
of
h]
blended u
otiier
all
mythology
ith
characters of Fohi and Yao, like tliose of the GreekO-f/ffes
for the
of
whole account
contain any allusion to the flood of
has been ignorantly misplaced by the Chinese
ancient nations,
the reian
iit
•
and
Deucalion, sufficiently prove them to be equally the patriarch Noah.
VIII. The same
western as well as in the eastern continent.
in the 1.
belief in the occurrence of an universal deluge prevailed
At
the time of the conquest of America,
TIascala, and Achagna,
overwhelmed by water
The IMechoacans
believed, that a priest called
all
much
natives esteemed the most. its
mouth
The same
Asiiit.
i)ird
named Aura, which
tradition
Res. vol.
After
did not re-
Last
smaller than the former ones, but which the
This soon appeared again with the branch of a
*
ing^to this writer, the
'
had also
next sent out several others, which likewise did not return.
he sent out a bird
tree in
into ^vhich he
and excellent seeds of every description.
the waters had retreated, he sent out a
of
Tezpi was preserved along
a great box of wooJ,
in
collected a variety of animals
He
Mechoaca,
consequence of the prevailing wickedness of the age.
in
with his wife and children
turn
the inhabitants of
preserved a tradition, that the world was once
still
ii.
is
given, with a slight variation, by Herrera.
Mechoacans supposed,
p.
3/6.
* histoirc generaie dcs voyages,
apud Howard.
that
a
single family
Accord-
was formerly
chap.
iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
142 HOOK
III.
p,ege,T,g(j in
an ark from the waters of an universal deluge, and that a num-
new world was saved
ber of animals sufficient to stock the
Dur-
with them.
ing the time that they were shut up in the ark, several ravens were sent out,
one of which brought back the branch
The
2.
Peruvians, as
manner, that
believed,
once rained so violently as to inundate
it
In consequence of
the country.
ol a tree.'
we are informed by Gomara,
who escaped
species took place, a few persons only excepted,
To
lest,
;
As soon
when
mud and
Hence they concluded,
them
dry, convinced
tors of the present race of
is
same
But
seven. its
head
was now
retired,
The number
men.
the Noetic family, exclusive of in the diluvian
that the earth
which they had
posed to have been tnus saved,
doubtless the
extinct.
they sent out two dogs, which returned to them
slime.
this they left the places into
famous
become
living
that the flood
had
After a certain interval they sent out more dogs, which,
not yet subsided.
coming back
into caves
number of
the waters abated, the whole race should
as the rain ceased,
besmeared with
human
these elevated retirements they had
previously conveyed a sufficient stock of provisions and a
animals
a similar
in
the lower parts of
an universal destruction of the
this,
situated on the tops of mount.iins.
all
:
l)abitable.
Upon
and became the progeni-
of persons,
whom
this is the precise
they sup-
number of
whence that number became so
The Peruvian
mythology of the ancients.
seven are
as the seven Cabiri, the seven Titans, the seven
Hindoo
Rishis, and the seven arkile companions of the British Arthur.*
In
this
account no mention
is
made
of the
Ark
:
but, if
we may
believe
Herrera, the deficiency was supplied by the more accurate tradition of the
mountaineers of Peru. cept six persons
They
who were
affirmed, that all perished in the deluge,
saved
in
a
ex-
From them descended the inha-
float.
bitants of that country.' 3.
The
Brazilians likewise had their account of a general flood.
that event took place,
excepted,
duced
all
mankind perished, one person and
who escaped on a
their origin.
Hcrrcr. Hist, of
Gomar. apud Purch. U'rrcr. Hist, of
From
his sister
only
this pair the Brazilians de-
Lerius informs us, that he was present at one of their
Amer.
'
*
Janipata.
When
trans,
by Stevens,
vol.
Pilg. b. ix. c. 8, 10.
Amer. Decad.
xi. b.
i.
c. 4.
iii.
p.
250.
THE OBIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
143
assemblies, when, in a solemn chorus, they chaunted a kind of requiem to the
In the course of the song, they did not
souls of their ancestors. tice the catastrophfe
some of
who escaped by
their progenitors
According
to no-
climbing high trees.'
Brazihans on the sea-coast were somewhat more
to Thevet, the
The
circumstantial in their detail.
^much
fail
of the deluge, in which the m hole world perished, except
deluge.,
says
lie,
which these savages talk
:
and of which they spoke so often to vie, was in their opinion They say, that Sommay, a Carrihee of great dignity, had two the name of the. one was Tamendonare ; the name of the other,
Ariconte.
These were of different dispositions, and therefore mortally hated
about,
universal.
children
each other. earth
:
The peacej ul Tamendonare
intent on the suljugation
relumed one day from
Tamendonare the arm of
having
sufficient
(
n
xcar,
and
of his neighbours not excepting his own brother. It
happened, as this warrior to
delighted in the cultivation of the
but Ariconte, despising agriculture, was solely bent
the battle, that he brought
and haughtily reproached him as not
his enemy,
courage to defend his xvfe and children.
Tamendonare,
hearing his brother speak thus, was much grieved at his pride, and said
to
him ; If thou wert as valiant as thou boast est, thou wouldest have brought thine enemy entire. Incensed at this reproach, Ariconte threw the arm against the door of his brothers house village
tarth.
the
:
where they were was carried up
Tamendonare seeing
ground
this, either
so violently, that out
of
it
from
to exceed the height
until the earth
was
it
Geiiipar.
clouds.
hills
Whilst they were there, in
and '
let it
and mountains,
brothers, solicitous to save
of the country, and there
icith
Tamendonare took refuge with one of his
named Pindona; Ariconte
off a piece of this,
The
It continued to flow,
zvith his
oi'der that thty
nije, in
might
were abated, Ariconte offered some of thejruit rf his tree
Break
the whole
astonishment or passion, struck
The two
themselves, ascended the highest mountains
wives in a tree
instant,
and they remained on
reached the
of the very
entirely covered.
their zvives climbed into the trees.
same
issued a vast stream of water.
stream rose so high, that in a short time
and seemed
at the
but,
into the sky,
b. ix.
named
see if the u aters
to his zrfe,
saying,
This being done, they knew
fall down.
Purch. Pil"
a tree
c. 5.
''^*'' '"'
THE OniGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATftr.
14t that
it
was not yet time They
high.
to
descend into the vallies, the waters being
that in thin deluge all
assert,
drowned, except the two brothers
sprang
tzvo different races
Besides an
eic
and
of people.
mankind and
all
very
still
animals were
from whom ajtcrwards
their wi-ces ;
'
we may
press mention of the flood, I think
discover in
the
present legend a manifest allusion to the two different antediluvian families of
Seth and Cain, whose place was supplied after the deluge by the peaceful
and the warlike descendants of Noah. 4.
So
again,
wc
when
learn from Peter Martyr, that,
the Spaniards
first
discovered Nicaragua, they attempted to persuade the prince of the country
embrace
to
who
Upon
Christianity.
this
he immediately inquired, whether those,
professed the religion of Jesus, had any knowledge of the flood; which,
according to traditional accounts received from
covered the whole earth, and had destroyed both 5.
A
his
predecessors, had once
men and
similar belief prevailed in the Terra-Firma
beasts.'
of Soutii
the tradition of the inhabitants of Castilla del Oro, that,
was
versal deluge happened, one
man
one lord
in heaven,
It
the uni-
Mith his wife and children escaped in a
canoe, and that from them the world vvas repeopled. that there was
America.
when
who
They
sent the rain, and
further believed,
who caused
the
motions of the celestial bodies; and likewise that there was in heaven a very beautiful
From
woman
with a child.
the symbolical
old continent
mode
of worship, which prevailecl throughout the
and which the Americans had by no means forgotten,*
I
am
inclined to ascribe the last particular to the arkite astronomical superstition.
The
ship of
Noah was
typified
who was supposed to have receptacle and common mother
by a female;
who was deemed the of tlie hero-gods, and who nevertheless was elevated to the sphere and idenOf this female Noah was reckoned sometimes the tified with the Moon. emerged from the
husband or
father,
sea,
and sometimes the
offspring.
he was represented as a venerable old man; '
Cosmog. Univcr.
*
Purch. Pilg.
vol. iv.
b. viii.
1.
xxi.
c. 4.
'
Herrcr. Hist, of Amer. Decad. xi. b.
More
on
in the
c. li.
*
will be said
In the former character,
i.
this point hereafter,
c. 4.
b. iv.
c.
4. f X.
latter,
as a
new-born
THE
ORIGIJf OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
145
celebrated as the offspring of the ship-goddess Aphrodite or Derceto,
is
same person
the
same
as
Buddha
therefore as the transmigrating great father:
celestial
He
or Osiris or Bacchus or Adonis'.
who in
marriage with Psyche,
and
his
is
is
the
union or
final
new
reference to her supposed
birth
depicted with the wings of a butterfly, seems to shadow out that ultimate
is
of the soul into the essence of the universal parent which
absorption
We
formed so prominent a feature of the old mystic philosophy.
must
observe, that Apuleius describes his heroine as falling from the enjoyment
of heavenly love through the impulse of a fatal curiosity, and as under-
going
toils
and troubles and hardships of every description ere she recovers
her forfeited happiness.
The whole
of this
perfectly consentaneous with the drift and awful
is
ceremonial of those Mysteries, respecting which he
treating.
is
During
the inclosure within the Ark, the great father and his offspring were thought
be
to
in a state of
death and darkness, to undergo heavy
unspeakable dangers and calamities
tain
tory progress to difficulties,
Eden
severe and appalling
and
or the isles of the blessed
iioliness
trials,
until
fasts,
all
literally to
encounter very
as w'e learn from
sorts of penal trials,
He was made
*.
opposing sword, and
to
and had thus ap-
to pass through fire
support the most austere
If his courage failed him, he
without shrinking or complaining.
rejected as unworthy,
and, in imitation of such
initiated into the Mysteries of the Persian
he had undergone
to brave the
:
No one,
was allowed to be accomplished.
proved himself holy and impassible
and water,
and to sus-
ere his mystic regeneration into light and liberty
Gregory Nazianzen, could be Mithras
made even
the aspirant was often
toils,
course of their transmigra-
in the
and cast out as profane
'.
wa&
Similar difticulties, though
operating rather upon the imagination than upon the bodily organs, were
They
objected to the candidates for initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis.
were required to grope
their darkling
the grave, while hideous phantoms
way through
flitted
a terrific gloom as of
before their eyes, and while their
ears were stunned with the loud hayings of the infernal dogs.
'
Vide supra book
iv. c. 5. § '
Pag. IdoL
*
XXII.
Maurice's Ind. Ant.
Greg. Naz.
vol. v. p.
VOL. in.
1
This
tasli
Oral, cont Julian.
991
T
cuap. vi.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr.
14-6
eooK
V.
being accomplished with due fortitude, they suddenly emerged from the horrors of the artificial Hades, and were admitted as regenerate souls into the overpowering splendor of the sacred isles of Elysium.
To
Theseus or Orpheus or Bacchus or
the initiated, whether Hercules or
all
Ulysses, are invariably said to have descended into
commencing hierophant was wont
ducts his hero into the realms below, identical formula
which the
were closing upon the profane sition
hell
to use while the doors
much oppo-
at length arrives in
Here Anchises, personating
phant, sets forth in a solemn oration the :
so the poet con-
his narrative with the
and through many appalling spectacles, En^a^
philosophy
;
After safely passing through
'.
the Paradisiacal fields of Elysium.
trials,
As
such a process Virgil alludes in the sixth book of the Eneid.
and, in the course of
it,
sum and substance
fails
the hiero-
of the mystical
not to describe those purgatorial
through which the aspirants were required to win their way, ere they
could transmigrate or be born again into the Paradisiacal islands of the blessed
*.
Now
these were the precise trials undergone by such as were initiated
They
into the Mysteries of Mithras.
the devotees
among
Hindoos
the
moreover the end was
are the
still
also as those, to
fanatically submit.
Such
the same.
still
same
austerities
which
In each case
were invariably
practised with a view to obtain that purification of soul,
or rather that
mind
enthusiastic abstraction from every worldly object and that union of
with the great father, which was believed to constitute the spiritual part
Hence, among the Hindoos, no
of the regeneration of the Mysteries.
among the Persians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Celts, who have submitted to such frantic austerities, are dignified with the
than
lation of the twice-born 2.
'
As
those,
appel-
'.
the purifying transmigration took place during the passage of the
Schol. in Apoll. Argon,
Arist. Ran. ver. 357.
Lycoph.
less
lib.
i.
ver. 916.
apud Warburton.
ver. 1328, 51.
Apollod. Bibl.
Scliol. in Equit. Arist. ver. 782.
Albric. de deor. imag. lib.
ii.
c.
5.
§
12.
c. xxii. p. 324-.
Virg. .Eneid.
Schol. in
Tzetz. in lib.
vi.
119—124, 258. *
Virg. jEneid.
'
Maur. Ind. Ant.
lib. vi.
ver.
723
— 755-
vol. v. p. 954.
Instit.
of Menu. chap.
ii.
§ 79, 108,
US— 150.
ver.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. World
regenerated souls from one
the prototype of this
as
to another,
147
imagined passage was the entrance of the Noiitic family into the Ark from
World and
the antediluvian
tiieir
egress from
into the postdiluvian,
it
and
as the Metempsychosis was from the earliest period immediately connected
with the Metamorphosis generally prevalent, that in order that
we shall not wonder to find an opinion very the human soul, after its departure from the body, :
might be penally cleansed from the various stains contracted
it
was destined successively
in the flesh,
to enter into the
forms of
all
kinds
of animals.
This doctrine of the Hindoos
down
it
:
to us of the old
is
taught likewise
'
:
and
rowed Mysteries, which were day
in the east
upon the tenet
built
which
in
this
Of
it
we can
does not immediately present
very eminent part
:
for,
was equally inculcated by
poem
Traces of
of Ovid
is
it
wholly
scarcely take up an oriental tale
itself to
we might
into those bor-
by Pythagoras*.
and, as the great
in question, so
the ancient Mysteries, as
it
was zealously ado|)ted
it
instituted :
of detail in the theology
remains which have come
in those
Chaldean philosophy*;
the Egyptian priesthood
remain to
much minuteness
set forth with
is '
our notice.
naturally expect,
it
constituted a
since the whole doctrine of transmigration
however
modified sprang from the passage of the great father out of one World into another,
it
would of course be treated of
in those
Orgies which professed
to detail the varied fortunes of the principal hero-god. Osiris was said to migrate into a bull
crocodile
Thus
;
and those of the other
also the hero of the
is
thus the British Taliesin,
divinities, into the
described as
when
the soul of
that of Typhon, into an ass and a
forms of other animals.
Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which
gether to the old Mysteries,
And
;
Thus
relates alto-
being ciianged into an ass.
detailing the process of his initiation
into the Orgies of Ceridwen, speaks of himself as assuming a variety of different figures, ere he
was
finally
born again and admitted into the order
of the epoptae. I think there
'
*
Instit
of
Herod. Hist.
is
reason to believe, that by the easy contrivance of masks
Menu. chap. lib. ii. c.
123.
xii.
*
Orac. Chal. p. 17. Opsop.
Ovid. Metam.
lib.
xv. ver.
165—175.
<="*»••
vi.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
148 •ooK V.
made
or vizors the aspirants were actually
the animals, into which they were said to be metamorphosed.
nion I have already had occasion to express, birds of
Memnon ':
and
it
forms of
to exhibit the several
when
This opi-
discussing the fabled
receives additional strength from a curious pas-
how
sage of Porphyry, which seems at once to shew,
distinguished a part
how
of the Mysteries the Metamorphosis was considered, and likewise the
was
them that Metamorphosis
of
celebration
actually
in
exhibited.
After stating that the Metempsychosis was an universal doctrine of the Persian tenet
Magi
;
he remarks, with no
set forth in the Mysteries of JNIithras.
was apparently
wishing obscurely to declare the
were wont
Hence lio7is;
who were
women,
the
lionesses
;
common
relationship of
that that
For the Magi,
men and
animals,
former by the several names of the
to distinguish the
the men,
ingenuity than truth,
less
initiated
into the Orgies, they
and the ministering
priests,
latter.
denominated
Some-
ravens.
times also they styled them eagles and hawks: and, whosoever was initiated into these leontic ]\Iysteries,
the forms of
all sorts
that person
of animals.
He
was constantly made
to
assume
adds, that Pallas, in his treatise on
the rites of Mithras, says, that this Metamorphosis was usually thought to relate to the different animals of the zodiac
origin
was
:
but he intimates, that
then, after instancing the
men
true
to be ascribed to the doctrine of the soul's transmigratory revo-
lution through the bodies of every kind of bird and beast
to
its
the
common
names of animals,
practice
among
and
reptile.
He
the Latins of applying
intimates, that the hierophants
were equally
accustomed to designate the demiurgic hero-gods themselves by
parallel
Thus they called Diana a she-xvolf; the Sun, a bull or a appellations. lion or a dragon or a hawk ; and Hecat^, a mare or a cozv or a lioness or a
hitch.
In a similar manner, they denominated Proserpine Pherephatta,
because the phatta or wild dove was sacred to her priestesses of the heathen gods ordinarily
butes of the deities
whom
mother was the same
they venerated, and as
as Proserpine
;
:
and, as the priests and
assumed the names and
Maia
they thence, as
or the great nursing
we
learn from Hero-
dotus, styled the oracular priestesses of the ship-goddess pigeons.
«
Vide supra book
iv. c. 5.
§
XXIX.
attri-
3. (6.)
For the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. reason, as Porphyry elsewhere teaches us,
same
149
the ancients called the chap.
priestesses of the infernal Ceres bees ; because they denominated their
great goddess the floating
Moon
pine the epithet of honied.
Moon
the
a
bol of the
They
bull: and, since
of the Moon, since the
a
they bestowed upon Proser-
>vhile
bee,
likewise, as he proceeds to remark, styled
new-born souls were said to be produced out
Moon was
called a bull or cozo
Theba or lunar ark of Osiris, and
which was the sym-
since the fable thence origi-
nated of the generation of bees from the body of a heifer;
new-born
all
souls or souls regenerated in the Mysteries were distinguished by the appellation of bees.
It
was on account of
this doctrine
of the transmigratory
Metamorphosis, as he further informs us, that the initiated were abstain from domestic birds
;
and
that, in the
and beans and pomegranates were
fishes
account of
this
same
to
strictly prohibited
'.
was on
It
doctrine also no_ doubt, that the Buddhists and Pytha-
goreans have inculcated abstinence from
on the same grounds, that the Syrians fishes,
wont
Eleusinian Orgies, birds and
And
was
still
religiously refused to eat doves
and
all
animal food.
it
because those animals had been the successive forms or vehicles of
their transmigrating great goddess. 3.
From
the foregoing passage of Porphyry, and from the other passages
•which have been referred to in conjunction with
how
the
and how
it,
it is
easy to collect, both
of the Metamorphosis was connected with the Mysteries,
dogma
in the celebration of
them
it
was
scenically
and therefore
literally
As the great father was born again from a floating Moon or from a wooden ark shaped like a cow and as he and his mystic consort
exhibited.
;
were feigned
to
fully migrating
have assumed the forms of
all
from one World into another
:
kinds of animals, while painso the souls of the imitative
aspirants were similarly said to be born again from the
Moon
or from the
body of a cow, and were declared to pass successively through the bodies of various animals in their progress towards Paradisiacal perfection.
Now tells uSj
"
this,
we
find,
Porph. de abstin.
lib. ii.
c.
was actually exhibited
in the Orgies, for
Porphyry
that the initiated were clothed in the forms of every sort of animals.
54, 55.
lib. iv. §
16.
Porph. de ant. nymph, p. 260, 261, 262.
Herod. Hist,
vi.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
150 His phraseology
is
remarkable": and
seems very clearly
it
to allude to the
particular mode, in which such metamorphoses were accomplished.
means of
bestial vizors
and garments aptly made out of proper
By
skins, the
aspirants successively appeared in the characters of whatever animals they to personate
were appointed
:
and
human
Beinbine table exhibits various
their tra)ismigra'
figures
with the heads of birds or
and, because the priests of Anubis disguised themselves with
:
canine masks, the Greeks, tale of there being in the like that
was denominated
Accordingly, as I have elsewhere observed, the
tory Metamor'phosis'-.
of beasts
this
who
dearly loved the marvellous, invented the
upper Egypt a whole tribe of
men who had heads
of a dog ^
VII. The ancient Mysteries then described the death and regeneration of the transmigrating great father, and with sical
it
system of an endless succession of similar worlds.
them was
of a doleful
or descent into
hell,
and
terrific
nature
:
and
phy-
set forth the received
this
The
shadowed
first
part of
out the death,
or entrance into the lunar ship, or painful purificatory
passage of the chief hero-god
;
together with the universal dissolution of
mundane frame, and the reduction of the World to its primeval chaotic The second part of them was of a joyous and lively nature and state. the
:
this exhibited the revival, or return
from
hell,
or egress from the lunar ship,
or accomplishment of the purificatory passage from World to World, or figurative regeneration, of the
same hero-god
;
together with his recovery
of Paradise when on the summit of Ararat he quitted the stationary Baris, and the production
of a new
womb
World out of
of the
now
the all-per-
vading waters which had inundated and destroyed the old World.
Such,
with the addition of the dependent doctrines of the Metempsychosis and the Metamorphosis, and with the declaration that at each great catastropbt;
'
^
'O Ti
tot,
Hence
the universal hermaphroditic parent
^ECVTlx£e vafxXocj/.0aniif, OTi^iTifierai
originated the notion, that the
themselves into birds. '
In
all
that Bp.
lib.
left
in
mundane
the solitary
jjit^tftxi,
Celtic Druids could
chango
xv. ver. 3.56.
Warburton says respecting the Metempsychosis and the Metamor-
phosis, he appears- to
Mysteries.
Ovid. Metam.
wanTosawa; ^uwt
Hyperborean or
was
me
to
be as
much mistaken
as he
is
in his general idea
of ths
;
THE ORIGIN" OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. majesty of demiurgic unity
such were the ancient Mysteries, so far as
:
compound personage
they respected the
151
of whose varied fortunes they pro-
fessed to give a scenical representation.
But besides
they held out the offer of a certain wonderful regenera-
this
attended with a vast increase of purity and knowledge, to
tion,
as, after
undergoing the preparatory
We
into them.
have
now
a point, which fectly
I
should be duly initiated
austerities,
therefore to consider the This,
the initiation of the aspirants.
have already
in
it
mode and nature of whoWy imitative;
be found, was
will
some measure
anticipated,
and whicii per-
harmonizes with the prevailing genius of pagan theology.
the great father did or suffered, that also the
do and
If the
suffer.
a passage
full
one entered
Whatever
mimic aspirant professed to
one descended into the infernal regions, and braved
of darkness and difficulty
into
so likewise did the other.
:
a sacred cave or floating ark
or bestial: so likewise was the other. his
passage from
World
to
:
said to
emerge from Hades or
so likewise was the other.
was the other.
be restored to
to
If the one
Para-
at length to land safely in
so likewise
:
human
If the one was said to be purified
World, and
dise or the isles of the blessed
If the
so likewise did the other.
If the one was reputed to transmigrate from body to bod\', w hether
by
such,
all
was
life
If the one
was
or to be born again
indifferently reputed to be
born
again from the door of a rocky cavern, from a stone cell, from the cleft of a rock, from a cow, from an ark or boat, from the INIoon, or from the of the great goddess
:
so likewise was
personated the denjiurgic father,
who
presided over
tlie
who
In every particular
the other.
short there w as a studied similarity between
them
womb
:
in
and, as the hierophant
World and World, who was esteemed
built the smaller floating
renovation of each larger
Magus or Druid and who as such was represented by every succeeding Magus or Druid; so all the initiated claimed, in virtue of their
the
first
initiation, to
become one with
the god, wliom they adored, and
whom
they
recognized as the common ancestor of mankind'.
VIII.
I
may now
substantiate
what has been
said,
by adducing such
accounts of the various modes of initiation into the Mysteries as have been
handed down
to us
from antiquity. '
Euseb. Pracp. Evan.
lib. iii.
chap.
n.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
152 BOOK V.
Here
1.
it
may be
premised, that the ordinary
was distinguished, was that of a descait
itself
by which
title,
initiation
into hell: for, as the great
father was thouglit to have gone down into Hades when he entered into floating coffin, so every aspirant
was made to undergo a
Hence some of the pretended Orphic hymns,
descent.
liis
similar imitative
that
were chaunted
at the celebration of the Mysteries, bore this identical title; which was
of the epoptce': and hence Virgil, in describing the descent of Eneas, uses the very formula by which the hierophaut excluded the profane, and expressly refers to the Orgies of the Eleusinian Ceres *. Hence also, in the Frogs of Aristophanes, when Hercules tells Bacchus that the inhabitants of Elysium were the initiated, therefore equivalent to the sacred discourse
Xanthius
I am
says, Jtul
the ass carrying Mysteries, alluding to the cir-
cumstance of the Typhonian ass being employed with
its
carry the sacred ark
to
contents; on which the scholiast justly observes, that the
of the mystae was to be sought for in the Orgies of Eleusis
'
:
and hence,
Lucian's dialogue of the Tyrant, when persons of every condition
in
Hades in life
are represented as sailing together to the infernal world, JNIycillus exclaims
Cynic,
to the
You have
been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries; does
not our present darkling passage closely resemble that of the aspirants ?
To
which
his
companion immediately
replies.
Most
undoubtedly'^.
(1.) Agreeably to such intimations, those ancient writers,
an
initiation, describe it as
a descent into
and
hell
who
describe
as a final escape into-
Elysium.
Thus Me death
;
find
Apuleius saying of himself,
/
approached the confines of
and, having crossed the threshold of Proserpine,
turned, borne along through all the elements. the dead of night with luminous splendor
I
celestial gods.
:
I
represents an aspirant, as
first
beheld the
I sazv
approached and adored them encountering
I at
length re-
Sun shining
in
both the infernal and the
'.
much
Thus
also Themistius
horror and uncertainty,
but afterwards as being conducted by the hierophant into a place of tranquil safety. '
Entering now into the mystic dome, he
Warburt. Div. Leg. ^
*
b.
Arist.
ii.
*
sect. 4. p. 102.
Ran. ver. 357.
Luc, Catap. p. SIS. apud Warburton.
is
filled with
Virg. iEneid.
lib. vi.
horror
ver. 258.
Schol. in loc. apud Warburton. '
Apul. Metam.
lib. xi.
apud Warburton.
:
THE ORIGIN- OT PAGAX IDOLATRY. Theba, Argha, and Baris or Baiit served
were fabled
in the Jish,
to
hence the books, which were really pre-
:
have been preserved
The town mentioned by Berosus appears neighbourhood of Babylon:' and some place
Moses
styles n
mountain of the east
eastward, and
rriore
have been the true and, likeSippara, It is probable,
of the
received
in all directions
nette which
fixes that
mountain yet
Whatever may
an arkite mountain
I believe,,
the sacred antediluvian writings.
mount Sephars,
memorials of the deluge
;
Noah
carried
wherever they
so,
mountain of that
loftiest hill as tlie
were
jubt as there
descendants of
as the
for,
:
was thought to have preserved the holy volumes.
account for the existence of other
will
«as,
it
situated in the
near mount Sephar, which
Arabia Felix.*
in
name from
its
Moon
of the
they consecrated the
tled,
hill,
it
in the ci/i/.
to have been it
though Wells
that there were several
many mountains with them
;
Bochart places
scite it
153
set-
floating
lu-
This humour
of the book, as well as the Ba-
cities
who called themselves &/>//^//7//2 or Book-men, their name as the lonim, the Arghim, the Area-
bylonian Sippara: for they,
were as much attached to
One
dim, the Thebim, the Albanim, or the Baritim.
seem
v.e
same
town of the Sepharvaim:
to recognize in the
which
as the Sippara of Berosus;
mentioned along with
cities,
second book of kings.'
Another of them we
Judah
in ancient times,
Debirwas
This then was
its
primitive
port of which
is
ceived
its
name
:
c.
'
Bochart. Phalcg.
*
Gin.
30.
lib.
i.
cities
be not the
by the author of the
Palestine, within the
find in
it
of the book?
Debir, the im-
\Vhat those books were from which
means the
city
its
it
re-
Chaldee name Kirjath-Archi.
of the archives
of the
Arkim
:
but
I
or Arkites,
am
rather
who were
c. 4. p. I'i.
Wells's Geog. of
O. Test.
part.
i.
c.
iii.
sect. 3.
§
12.
Boch. Phaleg.
lib. ii.
30. p. 144, 145, 146. '
ii.
.\.
it
but tho Israelites called
Bochart thinks, that this signifies the city it
it
are told by the writer of Joshua, that,
we may collect from
inclined to believe, that
indeed
called Kirjath-Sepher or the city
nearly similar.
appellation,
we
for
:
of these biblic
rendered probable by the names
is
of the other Babylonian
Hmits of the tribe of
if
p-
2 Kings xvii. 24.
Ptolemy
calls
it
Sippkara.
See Wells's Geog. of the Old Test. vol.
91, 92.
* Josh. XV. 25.
Pag.
See also Judg.
Idol.
i.
11, 12.
VOL.
II.
-
U
CHAP.
V.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
154 KooK
HI.
Otherwise distinguished by the
Kirjaih-Sannah or the the oriental
names of
lish 6'mw.'
I take
Sun
tion with the
it,
of the Sun:'' for
that luminary
prohable,
is
it
Sr/n,
was likewise called
It
Zan, or Zoaii, was one of
whence the Greek Zen and the Eng-
;
that the great father
and
:
city
name of Sepharim.^
was worshipped there
that
in conjunc-
the antediluvian writings were
thought to have been preserved in that town as well as in the Babylonian Sippara; for the same spirit of local appropriation, that fixed the appulse of the
Ark
to so
many
different regions,
would claim
for as
the honour of having preserved the sacred books.
Bokhara
signifies the
country of the book.
The
a part of that high mountainous
and which by the Brahmens
ru,
still
Bactrians were Scythians or Chasas tract,
is
is
cities
that the
word
said,
be the case,
If this
have no doubt that the same holy book was tion.
It
many different I
should
alluded to in the appella-
and
:
their territory
forms
which coincides with the Indian
Me-
esteemed the land both of Paradise and
of the Ark. 2.
From
these observations
we may,
I
think, venture to
conclude, that
the fable of the sacred books existed prior to the invasion of Palestine by tlie
Israelites
:
for,
they found there a
when they made themselves masters of
city,
that country,
which bore the very same appellation as the Baby-
lonian town, where the sacred writings were thought to have been deposited before the deluge; and,
since the
those writings, the presumption
wise conclude, that Berosus
is
is
one clearly received
that the other did
also.
its
name from
We may
like-
perfectly accurate in representing the fable as
known to the Babylonians from the earliest period of their history because we find, that, long previous to the days of Moses, a celebrated mountain of the east was known by the name of mount Sephar or the mountain of the :
book.
Such appellations
existence at the time
plainly refer to the fable
when they were bestowed.
*
Bochart. Plialeg.
*
Compare Josh. xv. 15. with ver. 47. Thus we read of a town called Beth-Shan, because San
^
lib.
i.
;
and therefore prove
But,
if
its
the fable be older
c. 4. p.-22.
sucb were indisputably the case.
Sun was worshipped
in its
believe, that neither Shan nor Sannah are
1 Sam. xxxi. 10. I Hebrew words any more than On ; though they haye
principal beth or temple.
or the
all
been very absurdly translated, as
if
•THE ORIGIN OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
than the time of Moses, I see not what date
we can
}55
reasonably assign to
it
except that of the apostasy at Babel.
There
3.
'
is
a curious part of the fable, as
yet remains to be accounted for
:
it is
sometimes detailed, which
and the desired explanation
be fur-
will
nished by the mythology of Egypt.
Typhon, though properly the deluge, was occasionally confounded or raw ith the god of the deluge. Hence he was sometimes pro-
ther identified
nounced the same
as Osiris,
and denominated Priapus or Peor-Jpis
hence likewise he bore another appellation, vvhich
He
was called Setk, and by that name was worshipped Egypt under the symbol of an ass.' But Seth, as a masculine title,
not belong to him. in
and
:
(strictly speakino-) did
which was variously expressed
Set,
Siton, Said, Saidi,
and Thoth, was a name of the great father was
vvhich
also variously expressed Sita,
Shittah, and Titea, this
Zeuth,
Saida, Sida,
Sidda,
From
tells us,
which properly belong
that the children of Seth
mers, and that they engraved their discoveries on two
Sidee,
title,,
Siio,
a misprision of to
have been strangely misapplied to Seth the son of Adam. have seen, Josephus
Tath,
while Setha, as a feminine
:
was a name of the great mother.
appellation, various traditions,
Soth,
the deluge,
Thus, as we
were great astronopillars in the
land of
Seriad, in order that they might escape the ravages of a deluge either of fire
and thus the Mohammedans have a notion, that some of the sacred antediluvian writings were composed by Seth. In both these legends,
or of water
:
Seth, I conceive,
is
not the son of
Thoth (as Seth was sometimes
Adam
written), to
;
Menu
but
whom
or
Xisuthrus
the sacred books
or
which
were preserved from the flood are properly ascribed. It
is
worthy of note, that Josephus further informs
us, that the pillars of
Seth were erected near mount Siderus or (as Glycas writes the word) Sidirus.
This
not a Greek name, neither has
is
ic
any thing
to
do with
iron.
Siderus or Sid-Ira was an arkite mountain, one of the high places of the great father and the great mother or of the lunar Seth and Sida
:
hence the
notion of the writings of Seth being engraved on two pillars, those primeval '
Plut.de
Isid. p.
367.
Epiph. adv. Hsr.
vol.
ii.
p. 1093.
'^"*^* ^'
156 BOOK
III.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
symbols of Thoth or Hermes, prevailed
in its
neighbourhood.
of Seth called themselves, as was usual, after the Satim, Settim, or Shittim
:
name
The
votaries
of their god,. Sethim,
and they are those children of Sheth,
for the
worshippers of the great father rightly claimed to be his descendants, the star of
Jacob was destined
to destroy or spiritually eradicate,
shoidd smite the corners of Moab.' '
Numb.
xxiv. \7,
whom
when
it
CHAPTER Pagan
accotmfs
VI.
of the deluge, as erroneously confined by local
appropriation to particular regions.
JXXany,
as
we have
seen, are the traditions of
in addition to these, the ancient
rently
more limited
cult to be
By an
description.
accounted
for,
But,
act of local appropriation not
diffi-
they have frequently confined the flood to a parti-
cular region, and have represented particular region.
an universal deluge: but,
pagans have preserved several of an appa-
when we
Noah
as a very ancient prince of that
find in various
parts of the world tales
of a local flood which at once closely resemble each other and bear a stron" general
s.iniilitude to
the flood of
Noah,
it
me more
appears to
reasonable to
conclude, that they are for the most part corrupted narratives of the
same
event, than that they really speak of local deluges posterior in point of time to the universal deluge.
Yet
it is
not impossible, that in some cases the
two may have been blended together, and that the history of the general flood may have been ingrafted upon a partial flood. It is not impossible, that the
Euxine
sea,
once a lake, may have burst
redundant waters through the
cleft
of the Bosphorus
that the Mediterranean sea may, in a similar
of cause and
effect,
have broken for
itself
have thus discharged the streams whicli
it
bounds and poured
its :
it
is
its
not impossible,,
manner, perhaps
in the
way
a passage into the ocean, and
had previously received from
the-
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
158 BOOK HI.
But, however this
Euxine.'
may
of such events have
the narratives
be,
usually been decorated with circumstances peculiar to the general deluge
which indeed was the natural and almost inevitable consequence of an ancient
method of symbolizing the Noetic
flood.
In perhaps every region of the world from Hindostan
sacred lakes, sacred tumuli, and sacred islands, were emi-
tain in the west,
The
nently venerated.
mount Ararat and often
:
lake typified the deluge
and the navicular
island,
no other than a
(I believe)
which reposed on the bosom of the
But each of
the Ark.
in the east to Bri-
wooden
large
lake,
raft
The
one
floating
covered with
was considered as a
fit
turf,
symbol of
complex nature of old my-
these, agreeably to the
thology, had a yet further reference.
the tumulus represented
:
sometimes deemed a
lake
shadowed out the
lake of Paradise, from which issued the four holy rivers.
pristine
The tumulus
hibited the mountain of Paradise, which geographically coincided with
And
land of Ararat.
The former was
the Earth.
the ancient pagans
were
the island
in idea peipetually
same ocean
;
the Microcosm,
the latter the
Megacosm, of
Earth, like the Ark, was a ship floating on the
and the mysterious vessel Argo or Argha or Theba
symbolized each
:
greater,
blended together, and were ever represented by the
The
hieroglyphics.
the
was not more a type of the Ark, than of
and these two Worlds, the smaller and the
:
ex-
indifferently
the Ark, like the Earth, was a floating world, though a
world in miniature
and the two were
;
alike typified
by the mundane egg,
the sacred circle or rotiform inclosure, the aquatic lotos, and the navicular island.
From such
luvian legends were
ideas
rushed from the
made
we may deduce to
assume.
central abyss
the form, which several of the di-
Instead of saying, that the waters
and overflowed the
shell
of the earth
;
the
hierophant taught, in the established phraseology of the Mysteries, that the lake broke
down
its
mounds, and that the island was submerged beneath
the waves.
Now
it is
obviousj that these speculations would naturally cause the his-
tory of the Noetic deluge to be attached to any flood which
'
Some such
tural
may have beeq
convulsion appears to be indicated, in the case of the Euxine, by present na-
phenomena.
See Clarke's Travels, vol.
i.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. produced by the bursting of the Euxine really
happened
;
more
especially
lake,
when we
if
159
indeed such an event ever
recollect the generally prevalent
doctrine of periodical inundations and successive similar worlds.
however
it
may
be thought, that the very converse of
the actual bursting of the
became symbols of
Perhaps
this is the truth
that
:
Euxine lake may have been the cause, why lakes
the deluge
not that the circumstance of lakes being
;
symbols of the deluge caused the history of that event to be attached to the This conjecture, though specious,
bursting of the Euxine.
We
tenable.
The
globe.
find lakes
employed
notion therefore
particular local event.
is
certainly un-
too general to have been borrowed from
a
In other words, the existence of the notion must
have been coeval with the
rise
of pagan mythology, and must have preceded
any supposed disruption of the southern bank of the Euxine it
is
to typify the flood in every quarter of the
:
consequently,
could not have originated from the bursting of that once vast lake.
In accordance then with the mystic phraseology of the hierophant,
we
are told in various ancient legends, sometimes that an island sank beneath the sea
:
sometimes that a lake broke through
neighbouring country
;
its
mounds, and overflowed the
and sometimes, by an union of the two ideas, that
the bursting of the lake was the cause of the submersion of the island.
Oc-
casionally the deluge
wa-
ters flow
is
represented as being itself universal, though
from a lake situated
in
some
particular country
:
and
it
its
may be
added, that the Greeks have various stories of partial floods not marked by
any of these
characteristics.
Since the
I.
Ark and
the Earth were equally typified by an island,
since (as
we
faith that
Europe and Asia and Africa were each an
ally expect,
learn from
Theopompus)
it
was an ancient sacred island;'
that the submersion of an island would be
article
we may
employed
and of
natur-
to describe
the submersion of the Earth at the time of the flood.
'
This matter
apud
is
said to
have been revealed to the Phrygian Midas by Silenus.
iElian. Hist. rer. var. lib.
iii.
c. 18. Virgil,
character of a mystagogue, discoursing learnedly on the wonders of deluge.
Eclog.
vi.
Theopom,
with strict propriety, exhibits Silenus in the llic
creation and the
chap.
vi.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
160 SO'JK IIT, 1
Of
.
these legends one of the most curious
is
that of the island At-
lantis.
According
country informed
was
to the lot of Neptune.
fell
man and woman, Euenor and
the dust of the earth
him ten sons.
his wife
and he espoused
:
Among
their
In
itself,
it
who sprang from only daughter Clito, who bore
name
The
to
wisdom and virtue
promote the
sixtii
:
and the
But
this original
of
were wont
its
to
;
and
its
ten provinces,
assemble
common
year alternately, to deliberate on the
fices to the gods.
:
glory and
and
he,
felicity. fertility
inhabitants were remarkable for
ten princes
interests of religion,
dominions.
his
to the island
much
was a most delightful region
and opulence were never equalled. their
it
Leucippfe,
and his posterity after him, long reigned there with for the country
which
that dtity found a
Neptune divided
these ten children
Atlas was the eldest of them, and gave his
As
Asia and
all
dividing the earth an)ong them, this vast island,
called ^tlanti.i,
single
to
of Hercules, an island larger than
pillars
The gods
Egypt, a learned priest of that
in
was once, at the entrance of the main
that there
iiini,
ocean beyond the Africa.
when Solon was
Plato,
to
in
each
anxious fifth
and
weal and to offer sacri-
purity of manners
was gradually cor-
became men of blood and rapine; and a lawless ambition instigated them to acts of violence and nggrcssion. Not satisfied with possessing a rich and beautiful country, and inflated with tlie pride of unrupteil
;
bounded
the Atlantians
they began to attempt the conquest of their neighbours.
prosperity,
First they
subdued Africa and
invaded Egypt and Greece.
triumphed over them
upon
their destruction.
inundation followed in the
by
:
it.
for
A
all
Europe as
far as
The Athenians Jupiter,
The
;
alone resisted, and in the end
enraged at their degeneracy, resolved
tremendous
eai
In one night, both
thquake took tlie
warriors
conquest of Greece, and the island Atlantis
tlje
T^ rrhenia and next they
itself,
(jiace,
and a vast
who were engaged were swallowed up
waters.
particular
Mediterranean
manner of the
sea, at that
was swelled above
its
island's
submersion was as follows.
Tiie
time a large lake w ithout any inlet into the ocean,
usual level by an extraordinary influx of the great
vers which disembogue themselves into
it.
The weight
ri-
of the waters, as-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAV IDOLATRY. sisted
by the earthquake, burst througli the
Europe and Africa
am
far as I
and by
sudden escape overwhelmed those exten-
their
aide to judge, this curious tradition sufficiently explains
Indeed even M.
itself.
which then connected
which once constituted the island Atlantis.'
sive tracts of land,
As
;
istlimiis
l6l
Bailly,
midst of his laborious attempt to
the
in
prove the Atlantians a very ancient northern people far anterior either to the
Hindoos or the Phenicians or the Egyptians,
Cosmas
Indico-Pleustes, which
additionally serve to teach us,
putable, though not exactly on the principles
The
Atlantians were
the antediluvians
in fact
a legend preserved by
who
this
Their claims to superior antiquity are indis-
really were.
primitive nation
may
cites
of the French philosophist.
and the submersion of
;
country was no other than the submersion of the old world
Noah
:
hence the
dition of
Cosmas
Atlantis,
hut that at the time of the deluge he was carried in an
rightly teaches us, that
their tra-
formerly inhabited the island
Ark
continent which has ever since been occupiec^l by his posterity.''
age of the great father was not from an imaginary island
to that
This
in the
voy-.
Atlantic
ocean to the eastern continent; but from the old world, the real island Atlantis,
to that
this opinion,-
new world which
his
now
descendants
And
inhabit.
with
whatever be the fate of the legend preserved by Cosmas, the
whole tradition respecting that supposed maritime region
will
he found
mi-
iiutely to correspond.
In the story, as
from
the earth,
it is
told
are plainly
by Plato, the primitive
Adaaj and Eve
;
while in
man and woman, sprung ttie ten children of Nep-
the ten patriarchal lords or Pituis of the Hindoos,
tune, as in
the ten antediluvian j>atriarchs through the line of Seth.
lence of the degenerate Atlantians giants: and the deluge,
that
is
recognize
lawless vio-
the lawless violence of the scriptural
overwhelms the country of the former,
deluge, that inundated the old world and swept tion of the invasion of Africa
made by
The
we
away
the latter.
is
The
the tic-
and Greece and of the successful resistance
the .Athenians has been patched to the genuine legend from a totally
different history.
Tim.
'
rUit.
''
H.iilly's Lcttrcs
Peg.
ful.
Idol.
It relates,
2'.;.
ct infra.
I believe, to those early
Su-ab. Gco!^.
lib.
ii.
p.
and violent irruptions
102.
sue rAllaiitidi-. p.SGl.
VOL.
II.
X
''"»'"•
"
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
162 BOOK
III.
Qf
tjjg
Scythic or Gothic tribes
M-hich established the dominion of the Shep-
;
Egypt, which founded
herd-kings in
the empire of the African
and wiiich planted the Chasas under the name of Atlantians
:
and they related the fortunes of
Hence
in
such very
who were
western
dift'crent
we
that
it is,
find Atlas
Nimrod
they
first
invented at
and the Atlantians so well known
quarters of the world
:
same
the
enterprizing race,
the authors of the daring apostasy in the plains of Shinar, not only
extended their empire generally over the other descendants of Noah, but wise
in
like-
a separate state planted their colonies equally in Africa, in Europe,
in Phenicia,
and
is
resemblance between
under the same
title.
his character melts
manifestations of
I
The many
the transmigrating great father.
Adam Atlas
and
Noah produced
commonly appears
or
their systematic
as the latter
;
deification
and sometimes
Menu
but here, as an antediluvian and as the
:
certainly the former.
is
We
are by no
have just observed, to confine him to Africa and the fabled
The priests of Egypt were who were of the same race
land Atlantis. the Phenicians,
as the Shepherd-kings, have con-
who
received their theology from the equally Scythic
and
Pallic Egj'ptians, claimed first
king of Arcadia
him :
is-
well acquainted m ith his history
spicuously introduced the astronomer Atlas into their mythology
been the
points of
Enoch, considered as one of the various
into that of
Buddha
of the ten Atlantians, he
means, as
Atlas himself, like
of the interior of Asia."
in various parts
Cronus and Menu,
eldest
is-
antediluvian forefathers in the
their
phraseology of those Mysteries, which under
Babylon.
in the
From these originated the whole legend of the
region of Mauritania.
land
Ethiopia,
as their
Pelasgi,
:
the Greeks,
Phenicians,
own, and reported him to have
and the Celts or Hyperboreans, who mi-
grated from Asia under a Scythic nobility and priesthood, no less asserted
him
to
have tenanted their northern country, where
cal appropriation they likewise placed
the Hesperides.' east under the '
c. 4,
He was
name of
These matters
famous
the
in the usual spirit
of
lo-
Paradisiaco-diluvian gardens of
alike in Britain
Idris or Edris or Jtri
and throughout the w hole :
and the mountain,
will hereafter be discussed at large, b. vi. c. 2. §
I,
III,
IV, V.
c. 3. §
on VI.
5.
* Sanchon.
apud Euseb. Pra;p. Evan.
-ApoUod. Bibl.lib.
ii.
c. 5. J
11.
lib.
i.
c. 10.
Dion.
Italic. .\nt.
Rom.
lib.
i.
c.
Cl.
THE ORIGIN OK PAGAN IDOLATRY.
165
which he pursued his astronomical researches, whether situated Africa or in Cashgar,
in
Wales or
in
but a transcript of the geograpliically coincident
is
mountains of Eden and Ararat.
There was another legend of an exactly similar nature respecting the
2.
island Samothrace, so
famous
for the Orgies of the Cabiric or diluvian hero-
gods.
We
are told by Diodorus Siculus, that the inhabitants of that country had
preserved an account of a great deluge, which once overwhelmed their
deemed of higher
land, and which they
was thought
It
to
have been produced by the bursting of the Euxine
which previously was a large tlie
third that
Nonnus
lake."
had taken place
same as that from which Deucalion escaped
must likewise be the flood of Noah really burst
its
it
was the very
who
considered
it
far
as being of
If then this flood was the flood of Deucalion,
the very highest antiquity.'
Euxine ever
us, that
an opinion, that accords
;
better with the legend of the Samothracians,
it
sea,
represents this deluge as being
but Tzetzes informs
:
is-
antiquity than any other local flood.
;
or at
bounds, a local
least, flootl
if
we suppose
that
the
must have been decorated
with incidents which belonged only to the general flood
:
because every part
of the history of Deucalion clearly proves his identity with the scriptural
The Greeks,
Noah.
the scene of
his
it
is
true,
claimed Deucalion for themselves, and laid
deluge and of his appulse
:
tains
he was reputed to be a Scytliian,
;
in
whole story of
his
as well as a Thcssalian
same
;
and the
escape was preserved with such a degree of accuracy by
the Hellenic Syrians of Hierapolis, as to leave the
Thessaly and on mount Par-
but he was likewise feigned to have landed on various other moun-
nassus
as that patriarch.
no room
to
doubt of
his
being
But enough has already been said respecting
this
ancient personage.
Wiien Samothrace was inundated, the hero-god preserved from destruction self,
is
said to have been
Dardanus
:
and, as the imagery of the deluge
namely the bursting of a lake and the submersion of an
borrowed from the IMysteries
'
Diod. Bibl.
*
Nonii. Dionys.
lib. v. p.
lib.
;
so likewise was the peculiar
322.
iii.
Tzetz. in Lycopli, ver. 72, 73.
island,
mode
it-
was
of his pre-
"«*'•*'•
—
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRV.
164 BO"K
III.
According to Lycophron and
scrvation.
escape to the opposite shore of Asia
he made his
his scholiast Tzetzes,
a leathern coracle,
in
and
his
compared to the swimming of a wild hoar across the Danube.' these matters are devoid of signification.
Aspirants
among
voyage
is
Neither of
the
Hyperbo-
rean or Celtic tribes, whose priesthood and nobility at least seem to have
been of the same
faniilv as the
Pclasmc or Pallic or Scvthic aborigines of
Greece, were wont to be initiated into the diluvian themselves to be inclosed
in leathern coracles
arm of the sea and in make a very conspicuous figure
cross an
the Cabiric Mysteries
and thus boldly attempting
Avas the
Ark, and the former the hero-
Samothrace was celebrated
its
And
these Mysteries were
which were established among the Celtic
as those,
INInaseas, as I have already observed, informs us, that Ceres,
Proserpine, were reckoned in the
number of
;
and Artcmidorus yet more
tribes
:
for
Bacchus, and
the Samothracian Cabiri; Dio-
nysius asserts, that the Orgies of Bacchus were celebrated isles
attachment to
and as leaving the realm of the
Corybantes, when he escaped from that island.*
same
for
whence Nonnus and Lycophron represent Darda-
:
nus, as abdicating the sceptre of the Cabiri
the very
to
as sacred symbolical animals; the latter
which ship
Now
divinity of that siiip.'
by suffering
those same Orgies the boar and the sow-
:'
clearly typifying a ship
ISIvsteries
definitely declares,
in the British
that in an islet close to
Britain Ceres and Proserpine were venerated with rites similar to those of
Samothrace.'
The accuracy
of such assertions has recently been shewn in
a very curious manner by Mr. Davies from the remains of the ancient bards themselves
in rites
whence
:
and
appears, that the Druidical worship was in fact the
it
and that the
Cabiric,
gi'eat
in character
find, that tiie
mode,
in
gods of Samothrace were precisely the same both
as
which
those of Britain. tiie
Celtic
Accordingly we shall soon
Brahmens described
the flood, mi-
nutely corresponds with the legends respecting the islands Samothrace and Atlantis.
— 82.
•
Lycoph. Cassand.
"
Davies's Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 161, l6'2, \63.
'
Ibid. p. 42ff, 430.
*
Nonn. Dionys.
'
Mnas. apiid Sthol.
Strab. Geog.
vor.
72
Tzctz. in loc.
Dissert, on Cabiri, vol.
HI), iii.
in
lib. iv. p. ]<)8.
I.yc Cass. Apoll.
i.
p.
220— 224.
vor. 78.
Argon,
lib.
i.
ver.
yi7.
Dionys. Pericg. ver. 565
i>7i.
;
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. As
165
the former of these islands thus connects itself with the old Druidical
worship of Britain, on the one hand
on ihe other hand,
so,
;
it
no
les.-.
con-
nects itself with the famous tradition which details the sinking of the latter
To
island.
say nothing of the p^dpal^le similarity of the two legends, the
submersion of Atlantis by the bursting of the Mediterranean sea and submersion of Samothrace by the bursting of the Euxine
Dardanus was himself by
reinited descent an Atlantian
:
tlie
sea, the fabulous
wlience
it
will fol-
low, that, as the guds of the imaginary island beyond the pillars of Hercules
cia
;
so are they equally connected with the hero-deities of the Iliensians.
Dardanus
is
said to have been the grandson of Atlas
relationship of
may sus;
Deonaush
who was one
the
is
same
two names are no
than the two persons
less identical
naush or Danaus united
Brahmen.
deluge
There
is
Arcadia, the
in
in
composition with
in
the identical
We
Deonaush or Dionu-
who was an
for
:
Dam,
is
and British Atlas.
as
of the Samothracian Cabiri, and
on the sea inclosed
which
;
to Atri or Idris, the oriental
conclude therefore, that Dardanus
lieved to have been set afloat
or
Greece, and Pheni-
with the gods of Egypt,
are immediately connected
ark.
similarly be-
In
fact,
the
Dar-Danus is Deosignifies a Druid
which
a story, that Dardanus had already escaped from a
fictitious
kingdom of
This however
to that in Samothrace.'
is
his grandfather Atlas,
previous
a mere local reduplication of the
Since Dardanus escaped from the universal deluge of Deuca-
same
event.
lion,
and since Deucalion alone escaped from that deluge, Dardanus must
be the same as Deucalion under a different name
be
Noah
:
in other words,
he must
a conclusion exactly agreeing with that, which recently identified
;
him with Deonaush, Dionusus, and Danaus. deed of Dardanus
is
the early Trojan kings,
purely mythological
and, in the
:
pretended line of
the Egyptian, the Phenician, the Grecian, the Italian, the Celtic, and
The
Indo-Scythic, superstitions.
Samothrace, and Troas,
dia,
is
;
Ilus
and Assaracus Rom.
'
Dionys.
*
Tzctz. in Lycoph. vir. 29.
llalic.
Ant.
;
lib.
as follows
Laomedon i.
c.
the
descent of this fabulous prince of Arca-
teemed a Pleiad or mystic arkite dove
Tros
in-
easy to trace the connection of the Atlantian,
is
it
The whole genealogy
:
Atlas
Dardanus
;
;
Priam.'
6\.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib. iii. c.
11.
;
;
Electra, Ilus
Now,
who was
es-
and Erichthonius as
we have
already
«^"*''-
*'
THE ORIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY.
]66 BOOK
III.
was celebrated throughout the whole world
seen, Atlas
even by name, both the north of
in the island Atlantis,
Europe among the Hyperborean
though she bore Dardanus to Jupiter, by
ritus king of Hetruria,
This Jasion
sion.
nus
in
whom
fabled,
is
in
is
and
in Phenicia,
Arcadia,
in
and was placed,
;
His daughter Electra,
Celts.
been the wife of Co-
said to have
she was also the mother of Jasius or Ja-
one legend, to have been
by Darda-
slain
whence he migrated
Italy;
Samothrace, and
to
But, in
afterwards synchronically with the flood of Deucalion to Troas. others,
who
a quarrel respecting the succession to the kingdom of Hetruria,
was thereupon banished from he
represented, as the
is
of Cybelfe or the great mother great mother, of Plutus,
Firmicus)
is
the
equally the
(according to Cicero, Fulgentius,
and Julius
the infernal
Osiris
of the
as the father
;
as having been struck with lightning for attempting the
and yet
chastity of Ceres, first
;
as the consort
;
who
as the parent by Ceres,
same as Pluto or
Samothracian Cabiri
and as the
own brother of Dardanus
is
;
who
in
husband of that goddess
the favourite and
as
as translated to heaven
agriculturist;
and as the
;
father-in-
law of the Cilician Theba or the Ark, in consequence of her allegorical
As
nuptials with his son Corybas.'
conducted by a cow to the
scite
for Ilus,
there
a legend of
is
his
being
of Ilium so precisely resembling the legend
of the foundation of the Bcotian Thebes by Cadmus, that
doubt of their origination from a
common
it is
impossible to
Tliat source, so far as
source.*
the Greeks and Ilicnsians are concerned, was probably Phenicia and Egypt:
both because
Cadmus
brought from each of those countries into Beotia;
is
because in Egypt and Syria a cow was called Tkcba, the
Ark
;
and
cording to '
Sanchoniatho)
Virg. /Encicl.
V. p.
323, 31-3.
lib.
dto«-. lib.
ii.
story
vcr.
Strab. Gcog.
c. 2().
in Lycopli. ver. 29-
who
iii.
.AiJKn. Dtipnos.
lib. V.
lib.
l63
as
being a symbol of
— 170.
lib. vii. p.
xiii. p.
566.
Fulgcn. Mythol.
The
Cronus, and the brother of that very Atlas
Cilician
lib.
Scrv. in loc. Conon. Narrat.
331.
C'li'in.
Schol. i.
in
Thcoc.
c. 4. Jul.
Thcba was
fundamentally the same
Bibi. lib.
Nonni Dionys.
Idyll, x. ver. 19.
Cicer. de nat.
Cohort,
p.
Firm, de error, prof.
rcl. p.
IJ. Tactz.
the daughter of Cilix the brother of it
in both cases;
and one character
Apollod. Bibl.
lib. iii. c. 11.
name of Theha. *Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 29.
x.\i. Dior].
21.
Alex.
himself founded the Beotian Thebes, being conducted to is
aa-
because Ilus was himself a Phenician deity, the same (ac-
J 3.
by a 1 heba or is
set forth to
Cadmus,
heifer.
The
us under the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
whom
the
Greek
remote progenitor.'
fable exhibits as his
The male
Hindostan, both as a mascuHne and a feminine name. the great mother.
is
But we are not
Ila occurs in the mytliolojiy of
to confine Ilus either to Phciiicia or Troas.
great father; and the female Ila
167
11a
is
the
Tlie latter was the
who m as preserved Her name, as I have
daughter and wife of Ila or Buddha or INIenu-Satyavrata, an ark from the waters of an universal deluge.
in
elsewhere observed, denotes the JVoiid the Earth and the
Ark
she w as at once a personification of
and the imaginary circle of
:
"the Paradisiaco-diluvian
:
Meru,
whicii
on the summit of
hills
was copied by the circular temples of
the Druids and which equally represented the Microcosm and the IVIcoracosm
of old mythology, was termed from her Ida-vratta or Ila-vratta, that say,
Hence
the circle of Ila.
Hindoo
arkite gods
both of Ilium and of
alike
whole
short of the early :
Olympus
is
to
or Ilapu of the
its
reputed founder Ilus were
from the Mysteries of Ila or Theba or the bovine Ark.
borrowed
mythological
the
so was Ida, itself denominated Olympus, of the Ilien-
;
sian:' and the names
in
Meru was
as
history of the Iliensians can only be
and the true key to the interpretation of
it is
The
deemed
afforded by the
legend of Dardanus and the Samothracian deluge. 3.
island
Sometimes we ;
because a
city,
the sacred circle of the
Meru uas
submersion of a city substituted for that of an
find the
surrounded by a wall, was equally deemed typical of
World: hence the fabled
likewise called either the
citi/
circle of Ila
of Ila or the
city
on the summit of
of Brahma ; and
hence the Druids indifferently used the word Caer to describe both a city and the inclosure
of
Sidi or Stonehenge.
manner or another, connected
Still
either with
however
it
is
usually, in
some
an inundated island or with an
inundating lake.
Of cities,
such a nature
w liich bore
is
this
the
Greek legend of Orchomenus.
name
:
This, along with
some other towns, was thought
by a flood
time of Cecrops
in the
There were four
and the most ancient w as styled Miiiyean.
:
to
have been swallowed up
and a pool or chabm was shewn near the
'
Euseb. Praep. E\an.
*
Strab. Geog. lib. x. p. 470.
'
Strab. Gcog. lib. viii. p. 338. lib. ix. p. 4l6. Plin. Nat. Hijt.
lib.
i.
'
c. 10.
lib. iv.
c. X.
c"*'"-^"-
THE
168
more modern town of been
and
lost,
The
into
ORlCirX
OF PAGAN IDOLATUr.
same name,
the
which the
which the waters were said to have
in
river IMelas
still
continued to empty
v\hole connection of the present legend sufiiciently shews,
Orchomenus, from whom the submerged
orisiiuated.
have received
its
name,
was thought
city
Lycaon, whose daring wickedness produced the general deluge.
which occurred
in
whence
it
to
by the Greeks to have been the son of that
said
is
itself.'
the days of
Orchomenus and
was the same as that of Deucalion
consequently,
:'
This
his brother it
delu"-c,
Nuctimus,
was the same as that
Dardanus escaped, when Samothracc was inundated by the Orchomenus is fmther said to be the supposed eruption of the Euxinc.
from which
father of IVlinyas, the general progenitor of the
Tzetzes
tells us,
is
no difference
Argo
ship
is
;
the
Mlnyean.^
danus and Deucalion,
Ark
evidently,
is
same
him as a countryman of
own
their
:
history of the
common
appellations of
Dar-
as appears from every circumstance of
The Greeks
patriarch. ;
but
and the fabulous Argonauts
as well as his imagined contemporaries
himself,
no other than the
his legend,
The
they both relate to the deluge.
a perverted history of the
Orchomenus
:
the city
In the import of these two traditions
were called Minyce from Menu, one of the most
Noah.
came from
that they were so called, because they
Orchomenus sirnamed there
Minyce or Argonauts
indeed claimed
and pretended, that the
city whicli lie
founded was swallowed up by a flood: hence, as was their custom, they so
name as to give it an Hellenic aspect. logical Orchomenus himself, r.or yet (a^ we may Nonnus tells appellation, was of Greek original. modified his
But neither the mythotherefore conclude) his us,
that he
was a Pheni-
cian (consequently an Indo-Scythic) deity; that he was coeval with Tetliys
and Oceanus; and that he was worship[;ed on mount Lebanon tion with a
Star.
nvmph Bcroe, '
He
also describes
the Beruth
of
iiiiilst
iii;;
w-alcrs of
llif
conjunc-
him as being contemporary with the
of Sanchoniatho, and the
Buris or
Argo of
Liician mi-ntions a similar tradition respicting a
Sliah. Gcoc. lib. ix. p. 407.
the
in
Icmple of tho Syrian gndrlcss, which was supposed
to
have
thasm
Deucalion's flood.
*
Apollod. Bibl.
'
Anton. Liber. Metani.
lib. iii.c. S. c. x.
f
1,
2.
Ovid. Mctam.
Apoll. Argon,
lib.
i."
lib.
vcr.
i.
229. Tzctz.
in
in
rco.'ivfd the rclif-
Lycoph.
ver.
874.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOLATKY. From Phenicia
Egypt.'
16y
legend and his
therefore both his
name must
have been brought into Greece, most prol)abIy by the Cadinonitcs and the
Hermonites; as they were originally brought into Phenicia from the Indian
He
Caucasus by the Cuthic ancestors of the Plienicians.
seems to have
been the same as Remphan, Chiun, or Saturn; whose star was so famous
and
oriental mythology:
I
take him to have been the corresponding male
whom
divinity to Astoreth or Astartfe;
a
and who
star,
in fact is
in
Sanchoniatho similarly connects with
no other than Beroe
or Theba.
oi Baris
Mount
Lebanon, as the name imports, was one of the sacred mountains of Lebanah or the j\Ioon
but
:
Moon was
symbolical
this
Ark
the
under the hieroglyphic of the navicular lunette
elevated to the sphere
and Lebanon, where
;
it
was
worshipped, was a copy of that Armenian mountain, on which the Ark rested after
Orchomenus,
the deluge.
at the era of Deucalion's flood,
whom
in short,
was Noah
:
and
the Greeks rightly placed
name,
his
I apprehend,
pronounced by the Phenicians of Lebanon, just as they received Indo-Scythic ancestors, Orcha-Afenu or
Menu Ila
which
;
Ila
of
the is
He was
Argha.
name
a
the
Argha-Menu
same
Menu and
of exactly similar import, for
upon the ocean
Argha
Thus
it
is
it
from their
which denotes
Argh-
the masculine
This personage the Greeks styled Heracles, and the Latins
were one.
the ship
title,
as their maritime Arcles or
Hercules, though without forgetting his real character to have sailed
;
a
was
the
in
one of
;
for they
supposed him
tliose large navicular cups,
which from
Hindoos denominate Arghas.''
easy to discern the import of the tradition, respecting the sup-
Orchomenus and
posed submersion of the ancient
city
near the more modern
name.
city of that
But
it
is
the lake or
chasm
worthy of notice,
the legend goes on to introduce the inundation of an island.
A
that
certain
wicked race of men, denominated Phlegyce, are said to have anciently come out of the land of Minyas and in the pride of their heart to have quitted city of
They
Orchomenus.
Neptune, enraged at
afiervvards
their impiety,
settled in
an island
:
tiie
and at length
overwhelmed them with the waters of the
sea.'
'
Nonni Dionys.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
c. 5. '
lib. xli.
lib. v. c.
21.
Allien. Deipno-. lib. xi. p.
iGp.
ApoUo'd. Bibl.
# 10.
Paus. Baot. p. 597- Nonni Dionys.
Pag.
Idol.
lib. xviii.
VOL.
II.
Y
lib.
ii.
'^"•"•'^'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
170 4.
Stories of a similar description entered largely into the
old Celtic Druids
and traditions of the submersion of
:
various lakes of the country are
The in
which ancient
cities
is
Llyn Savaddan
in Brecknockshire.
ginary formation
is
cities
beneath the
current throughout the whole of Wales.
still
Camden mentions
annotator upon
mythology of the
the
names of no
less
are reported to have been drowned.
To
not forgotten: and
this
it is
than six lakes,
One
'
of these
day the old legend of
its
ima-
most curiously and deeply tinged
with the mythological notions of other times, which prevailed over so large
Some
a portion of the globe. the
of
its
as related by an old
incidents,
man
in
town of Hay, are thus detailed by Mr. Davies.
The
scite
of the present lake was fonnerlxf occupied by a large
city
;
but
the inhabitants xvere reported to be very wicked.
The king of the country
sent his servant to examine into the truth
this
rumour, adding a threat,
that, in case it should prove to be wellfounded, he
would destroy the place as
an example
of
The minister arrived
to his other subjects.
evening.
Not
ing in excess.
in the
one of them regarded the stranger, or offered him the
of hospitality. At last he saw the open door of a mean which he entered. The family had deserted it to repair to rites
mult, all but one infant, xvho lay weeping in the cradle. sat
town
at the
All the inhabitants were engaged in riotous festivity and wallow-
down by the
side
of
habitation, into
the scene
of tu-
The royalfavourite
this cradle; soothed the little innocent;
and
zvas
grieved at the thought, that he must perish in the destruction of his abando?ied
In
neighbours.
this situation the
stranger passed the night
:
and, whilst
he was diverting the child, he accidentally dropped his glove into the cradle.
The next morning he departed tidings to the king.
He had
before
but just
it
zcas light, to
left the tfftvn,
carry his melancholy
when he heard a
noise
behind him like a tremendous crack of thunder mixed zvith dismal shrieks
and lamentations. of
zvavcs
:
He
stopped
and presently
happened, as
it
for
his gloves
;
dead
silence.
was dark, and he felt no
so he pursued his journey
till
Noxo
to listen.
all zvas
sun-rise.
it
sounded
He
like
the dashing
could not see what had
inclination to
return into the city
The morning was
cold.
:
He searched
and, finding but one of them, he presently recollected where '
Gibson's Camden,
ceil.
706.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY. he had
He
These gloves had been a present from his sovereign.
the other.
left
171
determined to return for that, which he had
IVhen he was
beJiind.
left
come near to thescite of the town, he observed nith surprise that none of the buildings had presented themselves to his view as on the preceding day. He advanced a few
was gazing middle
of'
had
at this novel
and
terrifc scene,
it
JVhilst he
lake.
he remai^ked a
The wind gently wafted
the zvater.
As
he stood.
The whole plain was covered with a
steps.
spot in the
little
towards the bank whei-e
drezv near, he recognized the identical cradle, in which he
it
His joy on receiving
left his glove.
heightened by the discovery, that the
ed the shore alive and unhurt.
He
this pledge
little
object
of
of royaljavour was only his compassion
had reach-
carried the infant to the king ; and told
him, that this zvas all which he had been able to save out of that wretched '
place.
Mr. Davies remarks, of one of those
tales,
that this nan'ative evidently contains the substance
which are called Mabinogion, that
instruction of youth in the principles of Bardic mythology
tales
is, :
and
it
for
the
seems
to
and impressive commemoration of the destruction of I think him perfectly in tlic a profligate race by the waters of the deluge.
havefor
right
for,
:
fiction
its
;
object a local
in all countries,
servation.
hall,
has at length found refuge
But the preceding legend deserves more than
in the nursery.
in
mythology has been the substratum of romantic
which, gradually banished from the
In
it
we
rious to note,
birth
how
The
from the great universal mother,
as an infant
:
and, as the
sions, that the
egress from the
Noah was
Ark was deemed
dying to the antediluvian world, so
was viewed as born
It
faithfully this ancient mythological idea has
to the present age.
it
ob-
an infant floating
find the great patriarch, represented as
a cradle or small ark on the waters of an inundating lake.
down even
this single
is
most cu-
been handed
Ark being esteemed a
thence naturally considered
his coffin
when he was viewed
as
was equally deemed his cradle when he
into the postdiluvian world.
It
was under such impres-
Egyptians represented the god Helius, or
Noah
elevated to
the solar orb, as an infant sitting in the calix of the aquatic lotos, which by
them
as well
as by the
'
Hindoos was thought an apt symbol of the ship
.Mythol.
ot"
r>rit.
Druids, p. 146,
147.
'
TH£ ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
172
Argha:"
and
it
was under similar impressions, that the Druids of Britain
composed the preceding
The
5.
fable.
destruction tlien of the old world by the deluge being represented
under the image, either of an island or a
a lake
and
;
Dead
tire
:
it
Sea, would be considered by those
The
all
it
was from
righteous
Noah The
vale
the
production of the
floods, general
cities
of the plain
resemblance, as
this
and who
lived
or
particidar,
are equally denominated by the
Abraham, who was the tenth
after the creation,
as
of which
I
is
tlie
Hindoos
antediluvian
pointed out by Christ himself:
have already observed, that the
after the flood as
Noah was
contemporaneously with the
the tenth
latter
pralaya
did with the former, was called by the Phenicians Ilus or Cronus.
very names of Sodom or
Sedam and of Siddim or Seddim,
as the
was heretofore called which now forms the bed of the asphaltite
mode
serve to point out the
subverted
have
easy to perceive, in what
close analogy between the destruction of
world and that of the
and
is
to
whose mythology was eminently
;
founded on the doctrine of a succession of igneous or aqueous,
commonly supposed
Sodom and Gomorrha, and
overthrow of
Pralaya.
inundated or swallowed up, by
that destruction being likewise very
been partly effected by the agency of light the
city,
cities.
The
lake,
of idolatrous worship which prevailed in the of them venerated the great father and
inhabitants
the sreat mother under the titles of
Sed or Seth and Siddi or Sila
from the plural form of the word Siddim,
we may
collect,
:
and,
that they adored
the hero-gods generally under the appellation of Siddim, as others did under tliose
They
of Baalim or Titans or Cabiri.
ol)scenities,
which prevailed
in the
greedily adopted
all
the gross
worship of Seth or Baal-Pcor: and to
these they added those last abominations, which
were religiously practised
consequence of the doctrine, that inseparably united the great generative
in
father
and the great generative mother
hermaphroditic parent. '
'
in
the single character of the great
This compound being, at once the male and female
Pint, de Isid. p. 355.
26—30.
^
Liikuxvii.
'
The occurrence of
the
title
Sid or Set, Sida or Sita, in so
many
different regions of the
globe, as an appellation either of the great father or the great mother or the androgynous divinity
composed by
the vinion of the two,
seems
to indicate the
very high antiquity of
its
ORIGIN or VAGAN IDOLATKY.
THf.
Zeus of the Orphic theology and
principle of the Universe, the arrhenothelyc tlie
173
Ardha-nari of the Hindoos, was practically served by
such a manner as they deemed most consentaneous to his fabled cha-
ries in
racter; an awful instance of the
may
wretched vota-
his
when he
sink,
own
prefers his
man
deep depravity into which speculative
inventions to the pure behests of revela-
tion.
ori"in it
will be
As
unless
for,
:
no easy
we suppose
account
iniittcr to
we
import.
He
bignifies
a Jish
Justin at once mentions that Sidon
tells us,
and to
:
this
this is
and gives us what
it
it.
both in protimc and
have no doubt was
I
or Said-On.
The
is
plainly the
historian fancies, that
its
lib. xviii.
c.
a mere gloss of his own, which the curious fragment of Sanchoniatho
That
ently proves to be erroneous.
writer informs us, that
first
received
it
which was caught there (Just. Hist. Phil.
fish
real
its
the Phenician language
in
day the city bears the name of Said, which
appellation from the abundance of
but
it,
a frequent reference to
was so called from Sidun which
compound word Sid-On
half of the
find
from Babel,
to the dispersion
almost universal adoption of
for tlic
previiiling througliout Palestine,
sacred writers.
3.):
have been used even prior
to
it
suffici-
Dagon, so highly
the fish-god
venerated by the Scythic Philistim and their brethren the Phenicians, was likewise called Sitoa
:
and he adds, that
i.
dance of
fish
lation: and
submerged
thought to
named
was from the similar worship of the hermaphroditic
cities
es-
have been born out of the sea (Euseb. Pra'p. Evan,
viewed as an article of food, that the city of Sidon received
it
who was
Sidon,
was from the god and goddess Siton or Sidon then, not from the abun-
It
10.).
c.
people also worshipped a goddess
who was
teemed a mermaid, and lib.
this
of the plain borrowed
its
cognate
name
of
of the sea, Sidon was sometimes adored under the feminine
distinctive appel-
its
Sodom or Sedom.
title
one of the
fish-god, that
As
a goddess
Hence we
of Saida or Sitta.
read of the towns of Bcth-Saida and Beth-Sitta; each of which, like Beth-Dagon or Beth-
BaaJ, certainlj received
So
vii. 22.).
tion of
its
name from a
belh or temple of the fish-goddess (Matt.
Sad or Sid
or Sit, the younger hero-gods with their great [uuent
venerated under the plural
or Sid, just as Baalim
title
of Sadim or Siddim
(Deut. xxxii. l6, 17.
;
h formed from Baal. Sadim, who are represented Psalm
cvi.
Moab where
find
distinctly points out to us
llie
8.);
and hence,
(Numb. xxv.
1.
This
xxxiii. 49-).
it is
nature of these Sittim or Baalim.
alluded
to
Sad
last
by the Psalmist
in
in
the
we meet
remarkable
ylbcl-Sittim denotes
and that mourning was the same as the mourning
Accordingly,
head were
a sacred vale of the Siddim, in
the impure rites of Sclh or Baal-lVor eminently prevailed,
the mourning of the Sittim: Osiris or Adonis.
their
the singular
as being the false gods of the Canaanitcs
35—38.): hence we
with a place called Sittim or Abil-Sittim
compound
21. Judg.
the idolatrous Israelites sacri-
immediate neighbourhood of Sodom and Gomorrha (Gen. xiv.
plains of
lit
name formed from
a
Hence we read of
ficing their children to the
the
.\i.
again, as the principal hermaphroditic hero-god was wori^hipped by the appella-
for the
the account,
dead
which he
ClIAF. \l.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
174 BOOK
III.
who appear
peculiar punishment of the abandoned Sodomites,
'pi^g
have
to
carried their religious enormities to a greater length than their brethren in any
other part of the world, was not, I apprehend, aibitrarily selected by the
Supreme Being
of the doleful though lascivious Orgies of the principal Sit divinity Baal-Pcor:
gives us,
The
original word,
translated
apostates eat were the offerings
during
this part
his seven If
made
Me
dead,
to the
in
is
of the ceremony, that mourning took place for the ark-inclosed Osiris and
Typhon, who
Osiris
adv. hsr.
lib. iii. p.
Dagon
:
was called
who was worshipped
and the Isis or Neith,
by the feminine name of Saida
used in the same
Baal-Peor,
(Plut. de Isid.
p.
at Sais or
Epiph.
367, 375.
1093.).
we next proceed
to India, still the
same
was likewise called
of the Philistim
Thibet yet bears the
Se(h
find the title
blends himself with Osiris and
ultimately
was denominated Sothi
Said, was distinguished
If
what the
so that
dead Sadim or mystically defunct hero-gods; and,
from Palestine we pass into Egypt, we shall again
:
number:
plural
the
companions, which gave occasion for the name o( Abel-Sittim.
manner. Set/i
he
that the Israelites, while celebrating them, cat the oflFerings of the dead (Psalm cvi.
tells us,
28.).
but was chosen, as speciality testifying his abhorrence of
;
title
of Sati
:
title will
Sit on
so
;
present itself to our notice.
Dae
the
as the Derccto of the Syrians
sea-nymph Sidon or Sitta; so the Durga or
of Hindostan
Isi
womb
Sita or Sati, as comprehending within her
As
the
of their Cuihic brethren in
was worshipped described by
is
as the
also,
the
name
the whole family of the hero-gnds
of
and,
:
were by the Canaanites denominated Sirfrftm; so the
as the mystically
dead arkitc
spirits of deified
mortals are by the Buddhists of the sect of Jain yet styled Siddhas (La
Croze p. 491. Asiat. Res.
we
If
father
divinities
vol. vi. p.
X77
.
vol. ix. p.
return step by step to the utmost
280.
Moor's Hind. Panth.
we
limits of the west,
p.
107, lOS.).
shall equally find the great
The
and the great mother venerated under the same ancient appellation.
consort of the
god Belus, the Bali of Hindostan, the Bel of Babylon, and the Baal of Palestine, have been called Sida
;
in other words, she
goddess
who was worshipped
synt.
c. 4.
ii.
p. 220.):
at Beth-Saida
is
said to have borne the identical
and Beth-Sitta (Cedren. apud Seld. de
the primeval king and father of the
lib. vii. c.
was revered by the the
title
122.
Lycoph. Cass.
of Sitn
ver.
583, I161.):
(Athen. Deipnos.
lib. iii.)
:
the Ceres
Hu
and the
(if
said to
lib. vii.
5j///jn,
ver. 4,66.
the Syracusians
and the Ceridwen of
Druids were known also under the appellations of Saidi and Sidi (Davies's Mythol.
197, 199,
2J.2,
their
p.
292, 557.).
In all these cases, father
the
diis Syr.
Gothic Thracians was
whence the whole region of Thrace was denominated Sithonia (Ovid. Met. Herod. Hist.
is
name of
we
find
the
same persons venerated under
and the great mother were viewed
as
the
same names.
a merman and a mermaid
emblematical forms, they were distinguished by
titles
;
which,
Cuthic Phenicians, the descendants of those Nimrodian Cutliim who into the postdiluvian world, denoted,
we are
told,
a fish.
:
The
great
hence, in allusion to
in the old dialect first
of the
introduced idolatry
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. tliat
idolatry, whicli originated
every quarter of the globe.
Babel and which thence diffused
at
As
and of water
fire
own
system, as
was
and as they impurely
;
by the agency of which the world was
principle,
thought to be firom time to time regenerated their
itself to
they were devoted to those Mysteries, which
taught a succession of floods both of
venerated that twofold
175
:
they were so far punished upon
God
consistent with the oath of
not be again destroyed by a deluge of water
that the earth should
an oath, the more carefully
;
recorded by Moses, as directly contradicting the fundamental theory of Pa-
A
ganism.
flood of liquid fire inundated their cities
hadstood, became a spacious inland sea
the plain, where they
:
and, instead of anv
:
happy renova-
tion being accomplished by the two fructifying principles, a once
the garden of Paradise,
fertile as
w as
'
fertile land,
visited with the curse of perpetual
sterility.
Agreeably
to these remarks,
the lake of
symbol of the deluge by the neighbouring
we may
Sodom
Avas
This, if I mistake not,
idolaters.
As
gather from various particulars.
viewed as an eminent
the waters of the flood were
fabled to be of a poisonous nature, as lakes were esteemed natural hieroglyphics of the flood, and as the dove sent
any resting place typical lakes.
;
out by
Noah was
a notion arose, that no birds could
fly
unable
over the sacred
Such was the idea entertained of the lake Avernus, near
which there was supposed to be a passage to the infernal regions
was the idea entertained of many of the cisely the
same mythological
This inference
will
fiction respecting the
to
it.
such also
there was prcr
potency of the
Dead Sea
have originated from the same
if
or Acherusian pool of the Canaanites and their neighbours
was the sacred river of their theology
:
we attend to the peculiarities The Dead Sea was the Avernus
be strengthened,
of the principal river which flows into
Now
British lakes.
which may therefore be reasonably inferred cause.
to find
:
and the Jordan
just as the Styx, the Nile, tiie
;
Ganges,
the Euphrates, the Po, or the Danube, were the sacred streams of the
Hence
theological system, as professed in other countries.
of mountains, from which tain of the
Moon
:
it
springs,
the country,
'
bore
tiie
name
through which Gen,
xiii.
10.
of
same
the lofty range
Lebanon or the moun-
it first
flows,
was denomi-
CHAP.
\i.
:
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
17G nooK
III.
Argob
nated near
its
which
;
hind of the serpent god of the Jrgfiu
signifies the
source, and skirting
of the Cadinouites, was
territory
tiie
Herinon; so called from Hermes or Ilermaya, one of the or Menu, as
Buddha
of
C'adnionites received their appellation from Cadtim or Co-
tlic
dom, another
titles
mount
title
same
of the
and the
deity:
river itself
was designated by a
name, which denotes the river of Dauaus or Deonaush
;
agreeably to
Indo-Scythic legend, that Deonaush travelled over the vvhole world,
communicated
his title to all the principal rivers
tlie
and
both of Europe and of Asia
and of Airica.'
The proper and complete form
II.
considering,
have been
we
of the traditions which
now
are
a form borrowed from the language of the Mysteries, I take to
this
a lake or inland sea bursts
:
its
bounds and overfioxvs an
islatid;
by which was shadowed out the eruption of the waters of the abyss, and the But, as a city was sometimes substi-
consequent submersion of the earth. tuted for an island, so the sea itself
is
occasionally substituted for the lake
and there are instances again, in which the bursting of a lake
is
have
said to
produced a general deluge or a particular inundation, while no mention
made of the sinking of an island. 1. One of these stories I have nection with
We
danus. llic
already had occasion to notice from
Orchomcnus and thence with
its
the flood of Deucalion and
Nonnus, that formerly a
are told by
:
is
con-
Dar-
certain island inhabited
by
impious Phlegyas was violently torn up from the roots by the marine
and plunged with
deity Neptune,
the sea.
*
If
we
waves of
these Phlegjas were, we are informed that they
who
inquire
vvhole population beneath the
its
were a branch of the Minyas or Orchomenians, and that they had separated themselves from their brethren selves,
through a
mad
:
in other
words, they had separated them-
fool-hardiness, from those
more righteous Minya; or
children of Menu, w ho were the navigators of the sacred ship Argo.
'
Jor-Dan, or the river of Dan,
is
'
a word of ihe same origin as Dnnavi or Danube,
After Tanu'is,
Tunis by which appellation one of the outlets of the Nile was distinguished, and Eri-Dan
which the
signifies the
lunar Dan.
town of Dan received
Abraham, long
It
was from
appellation.
its
biforc the patriarch
*
Nonni Dionys.
lib. xviii.
'
I'aus. Baeot. p.
597-
this
Dan, not from the patriarch so
Accordingly,
Dan was
born.
it
is
mentioned even
Sec Gen. xiv. 14.
called, that
in the
days of
THE OUTGIV OF PAGAN IDOLATRr. while
this separation,
in that
Argo or Argha
some of the Minyae were whicli (according to the
the waves of the universal deluge
name
safely wafted over the
Hindoo mythology)
others of them,
;
177
who bore
deep
on
floated
the additional
of Phkgyce, were suddenly overwhelmed by the waters on account of
Such a legend, so
their Mickedness.
far as I
can judge, sufficiently explains
itself.
As
the supposed father of the Phlegyae, he
for Phlcgyas,
is said by the have been the son of !Mars and Chrysa the Beotian, who was the We learn however from Phavorinus, that he was not daughter of Almus.
Greeks
to
'
a Greek, but an Ethiopian or Cuthite
;
and that he and another personage,
called Mitliras, were chiefly instrumental in introducing that mystic worship
of the gods which
commenced
in
Ethiopia or the land of Cush.
This fable
'
merely serves to shew, that the Cabiric Orgies originated from that widespreading family die Cushim of Nimrod, or (as the Hindoos
The
Cliasas or Chusas. celebrated, is
was the Asiatic, not the African, Ethiopia.
denoniinattd Ciisha-clxvip
or Cusha dwip
The
very
that
we must
:
and
them) the
the
it
first
Hindoos
African
it
Cusha
included Babel and the whole laud of Shinar. the
companion of Phlegyas, teaches
us,
look, not to Africa, hut to Asia, for the origination of the
If ever there
were
from the pretended
Brahmens or
By
ziithin, in contradistinction to the
name indeed of Mithras,
Mysteries. distinct
xvithoiii
call
Ethiopia, within the limits of which they were
INIagi
;
literally
first
such persons as Phlegyas and Mithras,
hierophant Noah, they were most probably
the latter of
JMithras, agreeably to a practice
great father and the great mother.
whom had assumed the very common among the
title
of
liis
god
votaries of the
Phlegyas himself appears to have been a
character sustained in the celebration of the Mysteries, which was designed to represent that of the great preacher of righteousness.
His
office
was
gravely to admonish the initiated, that they should practise justice and venerate the gods.
Virgil accordingly ascribes this function to
'
Paus. Baeot. p. 597.
*
Phavor. apud Stcpli. Byzant. de Urb. p. 6o.
Pag.
Idol.
Apoll. Bibl.
lib.
iii.
VOL.
c. 5,
II.
him
in
that part
§ 5.
Z
c"*^'--*»-
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
178
of the Eneid, which has been thought, and (I behove) rightly thouglit, to
shadow out the ancient
]\Iysteries.
Tlie connection of the Ethiopian Phlegyas with the Mithratic Orgies and
thence with the deluge
is
intimated not obscurely, both by his special union
with Mithras or a priest of Mithras, and by a circumstance
which the Greeks have preserved and related
The raven
accused her of
falsely
a fit of jealousy
infidelity
This fable
misrepresentation.'
Mysteries.
Mithras of the Persians both
;
upon which the god slew her
in
way
The :
of punishment for his malicious
Apollo of the Greeks was the solar
solar
the raven
was esteemed equally sacred
to
them
were from that bird denominated ravens
Yet, in allusion to the circumstances which preceded
and holy ravtns.^ the egress of
Coro-
wholly founded on a perversion of a
is
priests of ISIithras
and certain
:
own manner.
but, afterwards discovering his error, he changed the colour
:
of the raven from white to black by
part of the
history
was the motlier of Esculapius by Apollo.
the daughter of Phlegyas,
nis,
after their
in his
Noah from
the
Ark, the raven, though a sacred
bad news
ill-omened carrier of
ever esteemed an
:
while the
was
bird,
dove, from
was reckoned
which the arkite priestesses were themselves called doves, highly propitious.*
With
and the whole both of
He
deluge.
Baris
On
:
his
:
was a Phenician or Indo-Scythic
respect to Esculapius, he his
history
was worshipped
and genealogy
in BerytuS;
relates
vian hero-gods,
Bacchus, he was
whom
the
I
understand /Eneid.
inc to be the monitor:
Phlegyae; and
for
why should
lib. vi. ver.
why
:
Apoll. Bibl.
^
Coraces and Hierocoraces.
Mythol.
vol.
Herod,
^
i.
lib. iii. c.
p.
lib. ii.
6l8, 619.
man
;
whence San-
Phlegyas, not Theseus, clearly seems to
should Theseus, rather than any other person, admonish the ?
10. § 3.
289. c.
Da-
and he was esteemed the youngest
the Pblegyae, already condemned, be fruitlessly admonished
*
solar
Phenicians called Astarle or Jstoreth, by
of the Cabiric ogdoad, and the son of Sydyk or the just So
circle of the
beloved by the great mother of the dilu-
niascius written hellenistically Asironoe
'
:
so called from the ship Barit or
mother Coronis was the Cor or sacred arkite
like Attis or
deity
immediately to the
54—57.
Myrsii. apud Antig. Caryst. Mirah. Hist.
c. xvii.
Banier's
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY. choniatho informs
Thus
way
every
in
us, is
that he
179
was denominated Esmuni or the eighth.
'
the submersion of the Phlegyan isle connected with the
deluge. 2.
Nor
is
mode
such a
fined to the west
of describing the ruin of the primitive world con-
the Chinese relate,
:
a very similar manner, the preser-
in
vation of the virtuous Peiruun and the sinking of the island Alaurigasima,
which may well be styled the Atlantis of the eastern hemisphere.
Maurigasima, says Kaempfer, was an island famous
and fruitfulness of
the excellency
its soil,
particular clay exceedingly properfor the viaking
go by the name of Porcellane or China ware. enriched themselves by this manufacture
in
former ages for
which afforded among the of'
rest a
now vcfy much
those vessels which
The inhabitants
but their increasing zvealth gave
:
and contempt of religion ; which incensed the gods that by an irrevocable edict they determined to sink the whole
birth to luxury
to thai
degree,
island.
Hozvever the then reigning sovereign, whose name was Peiruun, being a very virtuous and religious Prince, no ways guilty of the crimes of his subjects, this decree
of the gods was revealed
to
him
in
a dream
manded, as he valued the security of his person,
and
to
fee from
the two
:
wherein he was com-
to retire
on board his ships
the island, as soon as he should observe, that the faces
which stood at the entry of the temple, turned
idols,
of
So press-
red.
ing a danger impending over the heads of his subjects, the signs whereby they might know
its
approach, in order to save their lives by a speedy fight,
he caused fort hzoith lo be
made public
:
but he xcas only ridiculed for his
zeal, arid grezv contemptible to his subjects.
fellow,
further
to
Some
titne after,
nobody observing him, and painted the faces of both
morning which, it
notice
little
was given
imagining
as a miraculous event
now
loose idle
to the king,
it to
idols red.
The next
that the idols faces were red
him
;
vit.
Isid.
upon
island's destruction being
and
all
and, with crowded saiU, hastenedfrom the fatal shores
towards the coasts of the province Foktsju in China. Damas.
:
be done by such wicked hands, but looking upon
and undoubted sign of the
at hand, he went forthwith on board his ships, with his family
that wouldfolloxv
'
a
the king's superstitious fears, went one night,
expose
apud Phot.
Bibl. p. 1073,
Jfter the kings de-
Eusob. Prsep. Evan.
lib.
i.
c. 10.
<^"*''' ^!-
THE ORIGIN OF PyVGAN IDOLATRY.
180
ooK
III.
part lire the island sunk ; and the scoffer
icilh his
would be attended with
sive that their frolic
acxompUccs,
not apprehen-
was
so dangerous a consequence,
szvallowed up hy the waves, with all the unfaithful that remained in the island
and an immense quantify of porccllane ware. The king and his people got safe to China, where the memoty of his arrival is still celebrated by a yearly festival
on which the Chinese, particularly the inhabitants of the southern
;
maritime provinces, divert themselves on the water, rowing up and dorm in
were preparing for a flight, and sometimes crying
their boats as if they
name of that prince. The same Chinese into Japan ; and is now celebrated
with a loud voice Peiiuun xvhich zvas the festival has been introduced by the
there, chiefly on the western coasts It
easy to see,
is
that
of that empire.^
this tradition
respecting the island Maurigasima,
though adapted to the manners and habits of China, has originated from the
same source
Samothrace, and the
as the legends respecting Atlantis,
isle
of
the Phlegyae.
As
III.
the submersion of an island
is
sometimes celebrated
mythology without any mention being made of the bursting of a lake bursting of a lake
ancient
in ;
so the
sometimes spoken of without any mention being made of
is
In this latter case, the deluge produced
the submersion of an island. casionally described as
partial,
and occasionally as universal
we may
said to be partial,
where
it is
in the
midst of local appropriation.
discover
some
:
but,
is
oc-
even
traces of primitive truth
The Arabs of Yaman had a story of this nature, which they incorporated with the history of their own tribe, assigning the occurrence to one 1.
particular region. literally,
and
fixes
same manner,
as
Mr. it
to
Sale, its
some
in
whose words
I shall give
it,
supposed proper chronological epoch
understands ;
much
it
in the
writers have attempted to determine the era of the
Argonautic expedition and the age of the flood which was said to have over-
whelmed Samothrace tailed in
leads
me
it,
to
in the
time of Deucalion
:
but every circumstance de-
as well as the particular form into which
it
has been moulded,
adopt a very different opinion.
The flrst great calamity that '
befell the tribes settled in
Ktempfcr's Japan. Append, p. 13.
Yaman was
the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. inundation of
Arum, which happened soon
and iifanwus
great,
forced
to
in the
Arabian
potamia by three
chiefs
Beer,
provinces of the country are
called
N'o
this occasion,
And
named Diyar
;
from zvhom the city
built
made a vast mound or dam
j\Iarel>,
the three
Beer, Diyar ^lodar,
Abdshems, sirnamed Saba, having
Saba and afterwards
some of which gave was probably the
this
which were led into Meso-
colo7iies,
Modar, and Rabia still
Alexander the
than eight tribes were
less
kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira.
time of the migration of those tribes or
Diyar Rabia.
after the time of
history.
abandon their dwellings upon
rise to the tu-o
181
and
from him
to serve as
a
bason or reservoir to receive the water which came downfrom the mountains, 7iot
and watering
only for the use of the inhabitants
keep the country they
water.
had subjected
This building stood
like
their lands, but also to
greater axce by being masters of the a mountain above their city, a?id was by in
them esteemed so strong, that they were
in no apprehension
of its ever failing. The water rose to the height of almost txccnty fathoms, and was kept in on every side by a work so solid, that many of the inhabitants had their houses built
upon
Every family had a
it.
But
by aqueducts.
certain portion of this water distributed
at length God,
pride and insolence and resolving
to
being highly displeased at their great
humble and disperse them, sent a mighty
food, which broke dozen the mound by night while the inhabitants were asleep,
and carried axvay the whole
towns and
city xcith the iieighbouring
people.^
This story bears such a resemblance without descending to
tiie
involuntarily led to pronounce; that
them, that
it is
alone,
but that
world.
The
to other parallel traditions,
minuteness of nearer observation, it
relates to
an awful
that,
even
are almost
must have had a common origin with
no narrative of an event which concerned the it
-vvc
visitation
persuasion however will be
tribes of
Yaman
which equally affected a whole
much
strengthened,
if
we note
the
j^articulars of the legend.
In respect to the probability whicli circumstances, I cannot but think
it
it
may
not a
claim as a
little
unlikely,
should build a city immediately beneath an enormous
"
Sale's Prelim. Disc,
to
Koran,
literal detail
sect.
i.
mound
p. 10.
of local
that a body of men
that
formed an
""*'''
^'''
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
182
from
lake,
They must have been aware,
lake of great extent.
artificial
very nature of
tlie
its
situation,
by those mountain torrents which were
was so
swelled, there
was
was
feeders
its
be suddenly swelled
liable to
at least a considerable
and
;
that such a
whenever
that,
it
degree of danger that the
mound might not be strong enough to bear the increased pressure of the water. They would hope that it might be equal to the weight but they would ^
:
scarcely have built their town in a place, where
mound
dated, if the
taken pains to place themselves in danger
might just as well have dwelt
So again
the lake.
must inevitably be inun-
it
way
unfortunately ever should give
:
is
it
they would not have
;
beneath the mound, when they
in safety either at the
head or on the side of
how
not easy to conceive,
these Arabs, consider-
ing what has ever been the state of society in their country, could have been
The
equal to the accomplishment of so stupendous a work.
a few
in the very
tribes,
keeping
its
midst of a hostile region and partly with a view of
inhabitants in a state of dependence
slender means to construct a like
a mountain above
houses upon idea of
its
lake
artificial
mound
his city
broad summit
I
upon him,
ing for the
is
fall
and was equal
We
may form however
valley must, on the outer side of
of the
mound must
equalled, drals."
'
The
if
its
bed, the
Now
it
at least
have been 120
six
feet:
its
length was across the valley,
:
but
feet
that
we
we may
be more than 120.
is
:
I believe,
the loftiest
the most
it
the height therefore to say,
it
must have
loftiest cathe:
but
we
Abbey and York Minster
their external height therefore to the top of the battlements
These two are,
be
at least con-
are not informed
internal height of the naves and choirs of Westminster feet:
mound
What may
by that English measure to which
a fathom contains
of the
next to the city which
not exceeded, the altitude of the bodies of our
What
from 99 to 101
The depth
Mr. Sale expresses by the
English word Jathom, I pretend not to determine clude, that he designated
many
a yet more distinct
more than twenty fathoms in height.
the precise length of the Arabic measure which
nearly approaches.
it
rose
consequently, allow-
:
of ground in the valley which formed
lay beneath, have been
it
the supporting of
to
said to have been near twenty fathoms
built across the
yet able with his
is
of such ample dimensions, that
bulk by calling in the aid of mensuration.
its
chief of only
is
can scarcely
buildings of the sort in England.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT. may presume
it
183
to have been so great, as utterly to destroy the credibility of
the story considered as detailing an absolute local matter of fact.
may mound
it
may
be said, that the story itself be a palpable exaggeration.
bulk of the
mound and
To
this I reply,
therefore the size of the lake
we diminish
the
we proportionably
di-
tiiat, if ;
minish, though in another way, the credibility of the narrative.
are the alleged effects of the failure of the
under water the
cellars or the
mound ?
lower rooms of a
which the bursting
do
but
;
Nor yet does it sweep away a single city same destruction many neighbouring towns. Nay more which it
city.
:
involves in the
a calamity,
it is
affects a considerable proportion of the tribes settled in
Yaman
their dwellings
;
Now
contain a population sufficient to establish two kingdoms.
ing of a mere mill-dam could not have produced such results
body of water
sweeps away
it
it
:
compels no fewer than eight of them to abandon
For what
It does not merely lay
village,
forth of such a pool as a large mill-dam might easily
a whole
Perhaps
be true, though the bulk of the
:
we
at least as large as that which the story sets forth.
for
;
and these the burst-
require a
Thus we
are brought back to the original difficulty of admitting the construction of
such a stupendous
mound by
the inadequate agents, to
I allow, that vast tumuli in various parts of the
whom
it is
ascribed.
world do indeed prove the
wonderful perseverance of the early idolaters and demonstrate what
done by the united
mound by
efforts of multitudes
:
may
be
but the aggestion of the Arabic
the subjects of a petty Sheich surrounded with hostile neighbours
exceeds every limit of moderate credibility.
For
my own
cannot believe a syllable of the matter,
part, I
terally
esteemed a proper local circumstance
which
details
fixes the
it
does
to the age
was the
earliest calamity
which
The chapel
of King's College in Cambridge
equals
it
the length of the
it
the
befell
the precise mode, in which the flood
cept that
its
ow n
interpreter.
is
may
Yamanic
tribes.
Mr. Sale
give one
pendous mass would a
solid
mound
that
this is
some idea of the Arabic mound, ex-
would depend upon the breadth of the
it
Now
it,
described in every local appropria-
not in height, and muit be deemed far inferior to
mound,
li-
immediately following that of Alexan-
der: but the tradition seems to have been, even as he himself details it
be
but I think, that the Iccrend
;
a great measure act as
in
supposed event
if it
it
in breadth.
valley.
As
Yet what a
of earth be of the dimensions even of that chapel!
for
stu-
*'"*''•
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATK\'.
184 iKxiK
III.
Qf
(i(,,,
Yhc event
|{
itself
inoieover was not the result of
The mound
called an unlucky accident.
was produced by a deluge,
tion
did
vvliat
indeed burst: but
by the gods
specially sent
in
Numbers
?
perish
:
disrup-
its
order to punish
the pride and insolence of an impious and degenerate race. the consequence of this divine visitation
usually
is
And what
but eight tribes
preserved, although constrained to quit their former habitations
are
Do we
these eight tribes emigrate under three leaders.
i.s
;
and
not here detect an
evident allusion to the arkitc ogdoad and to the triple offspring of Noah, so
famous
the traditions of every ancient nation?
in
siderably strengthened by the
deluge,
gion of Arabia,
and the three
Now
try.
names exhibited
though said to have occurred is
yet called
i/tc
in
deluge of
And
this
in the legend.
opinion
Yaman or the south-western reAram or Jllesopotumian Syria
chiefs are represented as leading the emigrants into tliat
the country of
Aram was famous
Hierapolis, which
comprehended w ithin and which extended
river Euphrates,
From
ter of the
globe
this centre the arki te :
to the primeval Cuthic
empire of Ba-
Mysteries were carried to every quar-
and with those Mysteries Sabianism, or the astrononiical
cordingly, a clear reference to is
We
Sun.
:
The
Arabian legend.
in the present
it
find,
reported to have been called Saba from the sirname of
posed founder Abdshems. Sabianism
Apamea and
limits the sacred Paradisaical ri-
worship of the host of heaven, was immemorially blended.
dated city
coun-
for meuiorials of the deluge.
which, viewed as including Syria, contained its
con-
The pretended
It is the district;
bylonia.
is
But Saba denotes a
and Abdshems or Abed-Slicmesh
host,
inun-
its
sup-
whence the term
the
signifies
ac-
servant oj the
In a similar manner, with reference to a symbol of the great father
held in high veneration throughout the whole pagan world, one of the three leaders of the eight emigrating tribes tion, in short,
down
seems
in the very
to
me
is
Beer or
called
to relate to the very
same mystical phraseology,
same
as
the ox.
event,
and
The to be
tradi-
handed
the parallel legends wliich
have been already considered.' '
Arkite Sabianism was established in Arabia by
grated from Babel under Cuthic leaders
pia or Chu$i»tan or the land
-of
Cuih.
;
Jor
we
find
its
first settlers,
who appear
to
have mi-
a part of the country denominated Ethio-
The inundated
city in
the legend was called Saba
:
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
TIIK '2.
As most of
the sacred British lakes were thought to iiave
on account of
certain cities
\S5
overwhelmed
wickedness of their inhabitants
tlie
ne
so
;
find,
that the Druids ascribed the general deluge to the bursting of the lake Llion, thiis
mingling what they acknowledged to be universal with some degree of
The
local appropriation.
first
of the three awful events, which are said in
the Triads to have befallen the British island, was the bursting Jorth of the lake of Llion
and
the otcy-whclming of the face
(f
all lands
so that all
;
mankind were drowned, excepting Dv^yvan and a naked vessel (or a vessel without tain
was
repeopled.'
sails),
With respect
Dwyvach, who escaped in and by whom the island of Bri-
«e
to this vessel
are further
that
told,
one of the three chief master-works of Britain was the ship of Nevydd- A^ax:Neivion, which carried in
it
and
is
in the
book of Job mention
The holy man
worship.
made both of
the
in terms,
it
ofifer
up
was a
festival
:
countrymen.
his
and the pious father dreaded,
illicit
lest the feasts
Such
ly.
my I
I
deem
and cursed God
luge,
couched
ver
said to have been suddenly
in terms
which not a
in this ancient
is
time, a river
xxii.
1
j
me
— 19.
!
Yet
Who said
Who
Every
practices.
to bless the
i.
The righteous saw
idol
gods
more open-
afterwards perhaps
may
be, that
15. xxxi. 26, 27, 28.
it,
as follows.
i.
The
ri-
pas-
Hast thou marked
good:
but, counsel
us,
and what
of the wicked,
and were glad ; the innocent man laughed
the ocean
5.
to the de-
were laid hold on before their
unto God, Depart from
hc_filled thtir houses with
.^mong the ancients,
that the
it,
resemble those of the Arabian legend: a mighty
little
was poured on theirfoundation.
be thou farfrom
take
book a manifest allusion
somewhat more accurate version of Bp. Stock, runs
can the yilmighty do for us?
utter abhor-
poured out upon the foundations of the wicked.
tht path of old, which iniquitous mortals hale trodden ?
Job
first,
See Job
in their hearts.
cannot refrain from observing, that there
sage, in the
secretly at
I
the proper import of the passage rendered in our translation. It
tons haxe sinned,
is
his
of his children should be
so perverted in imitation of the Sabian feasts, that they should be tempted ;
of
sons during the days of their feast-
sacrifices in behalf of his
(the false gods of the apostates) in their hearts
the lake
the grand objects of their
Noah, declares
ing originated from a fear of their secretly hankering after these sacrifice
when
which shew that the practice of adorino
Sun and Moon was very generally prevalent among
caution used by Job to
living
Sabeansandof
himself, adhering to the religion of
rence of such superstition: but he does the
and afemale of all
a male
at them.
was esteemed a vast river: and, on the
other hand, a large river was considered as a symbol of the ocean at the time of the deluge.
Such was
the case with the rivers Siyx,
formed (according
to the legend)
Nile, Euphrates^ and
Ganges
by a mouud built across the bed of a
and overwhelmed the dwellings of the unrighteous, had,
I
believe,
:
and the Arabian lake,
river,
when
which burst forth
stripped of
its
locality,
the very same reference. '
Davies's Celtic Research, p. 157.
Pag.
Idol.
Mythol.of
VOL. u.
Brit. Druids. p. 95.
2
A
c^^-
^'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
186 BOOR
III.
And
L/ion burst forth. ^ the
it is
added, that another of these master-works vvas
drawing of the Avanc (or mystic beaver)
land out of the lake by the
to
branching oxen of Hw-Gadarn, so that the lake burst no more.^
Such legends, which
plainly relate to the Noetic deluge,
key. to the other British stories,
th« sacred lakes
some
may
which so frequently connect with each of
tradition of a
As
flood.
have already observed,
I
they are only multiplied accounts of one event, adapted to
Every lake was a symbol of the deluge
gions.
reposed on
bosom and which was
its
presented the
mundane
ship
serve as a
Argha
:
particular
and the small
which
island,
often feigned to have once floated, re-
hence, in most of those recesses where
:
the diluvian Mysteries were celebrated,
we
find
a story, of a flood which
overwhelmed a wicked race of mortals while some ancient personage caped
in
es-
a boat or ark.
Respecting the legends the just
re-
now under
remarks of Mr. Davies, as
nishes sufficient proof, that they
Such memorials as
consideration, their locality, zvell
to
adopt
as their other peculiarities, fur-
must have been ancient national
traditions.
these cannot be supposed to have originated in the perver-
of the sacred records, during any age subsequent to the introduction of Christianity. The contrary appears from their ichimsical discrepancy with
sion
The Britons then had a
historical fact.
overwhelmed
all lands
tradition of a deluge, which
but this deluge, according to them, was occasioned by
:
One vessel had escaped the catastrophe : man and woman were preserved : and, as Britain and
the sudden bursting of a lake. this
a
single
inhabitants were, in their
world; so we are pled by the
told,
estimation, the
tradition,
that a vessel
serve a single family
luge
:
its
that this island, in an especial manner, was repeo-
man and woman
zvho
had
escaped. :
This has no appearance of it is
such as was common to most heathen nations.
had a
in
most important objects in the
having been draxcn from the record of Moses tion,
had
and
a mere mutilated tradi-
So again
:
the Britons
had been provided, somewhere or other,
the race of anitnuls from the destruction
but they possessed only a mutilated part of the real history
tradition positively affirmed that their
;
to
pre-
of a deand, as
own ancestors were concerned
in
the
building of this vessel, they naturally ascribed the achievement to that coun'
Davies's Otitic Research, p. 157-
Mythul. of Brit. Druids,
p. 9i.
*lbid.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. try, in
which their progenitors had been
lastly they
had a
worldfrom a tory,
tradition, that
it
remote antiquity.
And
some great operating cause protected the
They had lost sight of the true hisupon the promise of the Supreme Being ; and to thejeat of a yoke of oxen, which drew the avanc or beaver repetition
which rests
ascribed
settled from
187
this security
And
out of the lake.
of the deluge.
the
want of more accurate vformation gave them an
opportunity of placing this ideal achievement in the island of Britain.
In
such tales as these we have only the vestiges of heathenism/
The whole
mythological history of Hu, whose oxen draw the beaver out
of the lake and thus prevent a repetition of the deluge, sufficiently proves
him
to
ginally
have been the British Dionusus or were three
in
Noah
and
:
his oxen,
bol of the great father, formed allusively to his triple offspring.
legend
among
itself,
the
perstition,
it
which
ori-
number, are but a multiplication of a well known sym-
exists not only in the Triads,
but
As
for the
traditionally preserved
is
Welsh even to the present day. Of all the objects of ancient susays Mr. Davies, there is none which has taken such hold of the
Hu.
populace of JVales, as the celebrated oxen of
gorous in every corner of the principality, asfar at
guage has 7naintained extraordinary
its
ground.
and that they
size,
Tradition
Their fame
is still vi-
least as the JVelsh lan-
tells us,
that they were of an
tvere subjected to the sacred yoke.
I have
pagan Britain some rites in commemoration of the deluge, xvherein the agency of sacred oxen was employed, were periodically celebrated on the borders of several lakes. In replying to a tale which seems utterly impossible, we use an old adage which says. The Ychen Banawg cannot draw the Avanc out of deep waters. This imports, that they also several reasons to suppose, that in
And popular and local
could draxc him out of waters of a certain depth. traditions of such an achievement are current
hardly a lake in the principality, which
where
is
all
over JVales.
There
is
not asserted in the 7ieighbourhood
Such general traditions of the populace must have arisen from some ceremony, which was familiar to their to be that,
ancestors.
heathenish
And 7-itcs.
this feat xvas
performed.
this cei-emony seems to
Air.
'
Owen
Mythol. of
tells us,
have been performed
that there
Brit. Druids, p.
is
xvith
several
a strange piece of music,
CHAP.
VI.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
188 Still
Banawg
kno-um to afew penons, called Cainc yr Ycliain
which was
;
in-
tended as an imitation of the lowing of the oxen and the rattling of the chains in drawing the
By
Avanc we
the
A vane out of
the lake.'
are generally to understand the beaver
the present instance tradition makes
that in
we
but
:
are told,
an animal of prodiiiious bulk
it
name implies, an animal of the beaver kind, otherwise there is no reason why it should be particuMr. Davies conceives the Avanc to be ultimately referlarly called J vane ^ or to the Ark considered as his shrine and suppatriarch to the himself, able and force
yet
;
I should
still,
apprehend,
the
as
posed to have been exti'icated from the waters of the deluge by the aid of the
am somewhat
Tlie propriety of this conjecture I
sacred oxen. doubt, though
by no means devoid of
it is
lake in order that
was produced by well either to
mon, which
may
burst no
more ; which
or the
Ark
:
but
is
implies,
drawn out of the
that
disruption
its
This character does not answer very
his instrumentality.
Noah
accurately corresponds with that de-
it
many
so conspicuously introduced into
is
The
deluge.
it
The Avanc seems
plausibility.
to have been esteemed the cause of the deluge, and he
inclined to
flood being the consequence
old tiaditions of the
and punishment of
and
sin,
sin
having been brought into the world by Satan, the old mythologists appear to
have ascribed the flood is
distinctly
to the operation
in the
of the
Zend-Avesta
;
it
but at the close of the deluge
the ocean,
is
slain
by Vishnou.
another Hindoo fable, a monstrous serpent and a host of
prominent part
Typhon, who
is
in the
clearly the
that Plutarch declares
:
him
Greek Python, personates yet
is
would interpret the
and would '
less
is
In
all
either slain
the
in
act a
Egyptian
the evil principle and
oi'
these various
subdued
Brit. Druids, p. 128, 129.
fables,
at the
the
end of
it.
Avanc in the same manner, Typhon or Hirinacheren of the
British stoiy of the
consider that mystic animal as the
Mythol. of
Thus,
demons
he so closely connected with the deluge,
to be the sea.
monster, which produces the flood,
evil
Thus
submersion of the old world.
appears as a huge dragon
I
more or
occurs, with
in
fable,
Now
Such a notion
evil principle.
and
many of the legends of pagan antiquity. Thus, in the Hinthe demon Hirinacheren carries down the earth to the bottom of
clearness,
doo
avowed
* Ibid. p.
129, 130.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. The adoption
Druids.
of the beaver as a symbol of the evil principle, ra-
a mishapen demon, naturally
or
than a sei-pent
ther
to be typical of the deluge.
world
bursts in
but
it
followed from
the
The lake bursts and inundates a consequence of the mound which restrained its wa-
making a lake :
189
being weakened and undermined by the destructive operations of a vast
ters
The beaver is at length drawn out: and more, because the mound is no longer liable to the
then the lake bursts no
beaver.
3.
It
is
remarkable, that the same cause
savages of North America
ravages of that animal.
assigned to the deluge by the
is
a circumstance, which serves to shew
;
how
very
widely the prevailing notions of the Cabiric Mysteries had spread themselves.
A spirit,
called
Otkon by the Iroquois and Atahauta by the other barbarians
at the
mouth of the
world
:
new
der the
Laurence,
river St.
and they assign
its
is
thought to be the creator of the
appellation of Messou.
a hunting one day, his dogs
They
say, that,
themselves in a great lake; which, thereupon
lost
overflowing, covered the whole earth in a short
They
world.
same Otkon unMtssou or Otkon being
reparation after the deluge to this
add, that this
ti??ie
and swallaived up the
Messou or Otkon gathered a
ther by the help of some aniinals,
and made use of
little
this earth to
earth togerepair
the
world again.^
We
may
observe
in the present
legend
all
principal
the
mark
the sacred fables of the whole eastern continent,
some
early period
The tion
;
gic
and each mundane system
god
in
short,
the character of
appearing the lake, repetition
in
who like
is
is
whence no doubt
is
considered as a
ascribed to one and
the
at
Menu
and other
new
crea-
same transmiThis demiur-
clearly the great father of paganism.
Cronus and
Adam
Noah
which
was carried into America.
it
reproduction of the world after the flood
grating divinity,
features,
siuiilar deities,
supports
the parent of the antediluvian world, viewed as re-
the parent of the postdiluvian world.
and the inundation of the whole earth by of those traditions
its
The
disruption of
waters, are but
which have already passed
in
review
a
be-
fore us.
Nor
are the dogs introduced into the story accidentally and without rea'
Hennepin's Discov. of Norih Amor.
p.
54.
^^*''
""'
'
190 BOOK
III.
son
;
nor
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
yet,
I
to
any devotedness of the
find
them here immediately
suspect, merely in reference
North-American savages
We
the chase.
to
connected with a tradition of the flood
and we
:
find them,
the eastern
in
hemisphere, esteemed sacred animals, associated with the arkite goddess,
and generally making a very conspicuous
figure
were immediately commemorative of the deluge. tain canine
tiated
phantoms never
Pletho
very justly in
my
deemed
of similar apparitions
;
and informs
Virgil,
bowlings of dogs were
Dogs were
tinctly heard through the gloomy shades of Hades.'
sacred to that Hecatfe or Diana,
who was thought
thracian Cabiric grotto of Zerinthus
;
to
dis-
likewise
preside in the
Samo-
which (according to Ly-
grotto,
tliat
that part of
in
the Mysteries, speaks
allusive to
us, that the
ini-
opinion, supposes that one
of these phantoms was the infernal dog Cerberus.' the Eneid which has rightly been
that cer-
tells us,
be exhibited before the eyes of the
failed to
and Bp. Warburton,
:'
those Mysteries which
in
cophron) Dardanus quitted when driven thence by the flood of Deucalion.*
Hence Apollonius
resounding through the midnight before his eyes.*
air,
Hecat^ herself
is
and speaks of
;
was no unimportant character
represented by the :*
;
and he bore
for
:
same
many
as
hand the caduceus of
Plutarch
as Cronus.' I believe
He was
them
to
tells
sacred
emblems of the great
Cronus or Osiris
;
The dog seems father
:
so the dog Cerberus
have been in the
to
is ulti-
have been one
whence, as Anubis is
that
us,
he was no other than the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, who
mately one god with Cronus and Osiris. of the
and the barking Anubis
in his
Hermes, round which two snakes were intwined.
right
yellings
Orphic poet, as
in the diluvian Mysteries of Osiris.'
depicted with the head of a dog
some esteemed him the same
their shrill
while the torches of the Orgies gleamed
having the heads of a dog, a horse, and a lion
•
when
properly describes the goddess as attended by them,
she appeared to the Argonautic Jason
often represented
is
the
upon
medals as couching at the feet of Serapis, who was esteemed the same as '
Orac. Chald.
p. po.
'
Virg. ^neid.
lib. vi. ver.
'
Apoll, Argon,
'
Latrator Anubis. Virg. /Eneid.
lib. iii. ver.
257.
1211
— 1220. lib. viii. ver.
698.
*
Divine Legal,
*
Lycoph. Cassand.
b.
ii.
sect. 4. p. 123.
ver.
'
Orph. Argon,
'
Plut. de Isid. p. 368.
ver.
973
72
— 85.
—976-
THE ORIGIN OF FAGAW IDOLATRY.
Nay we
Pluto, and the Sun.'
Osiris,
was the Sun, or Pluto, or Orcus Osiris in his celestial capacity
character he
he was therefore Osiris also
:
;
because
human
less clearly the great father.'
he employs his dogs
;
are assured, that Cerberus himself
declared to be the Sun, while in his
the North- American god
But dogs
no
is
is
191
of the deluge
is
not merely attended by
This peculiarity also prevails in se-
in hunting.
Hecat^ or Diana was
veral of the mythologies of the eastern continent.
esteemed the goddess of hunting, and was represented as followed by her
hounds
yet she
:
and thence
was one of the principal Samothracian or Cabiric
American god Messou immediately connected with the
like the
Moon
In heaven she was the
flood.
deities,
Moon, from
but that
:
the navicular
form of the crescent, was the astronomical symbol of the Ark. Accordingly, she
declared by
is
more than one
Venus, and Ceres
to be in reality
;
amply points
out,
same
as the maritime Isis,
no other than Rhea or Cybel^, the uni-
mother of the diluvian hero-gods
versal great triplication
writer to be the
to
;
be therefore, as her
the threefold Indo-Scythic Devi,
who
as Par-
Hence
vati floats on the surface of the flood in the form of the ship Argha.'
we
that this patroness of hunting, this lunar deity,
find,
is
own
styled never-
of the waves, the maritime goddess, the preserver of ships.* In a similar manner, Typhon, who (as we learn from Plutarch) was the same
theless the queen
Oceanus or the
as
when he found nis likewise,
sea, is said to
have been employed
"
lib,
*
much
who
c.
is
undoubtedly no other than Osiris, and
Lucian.
ii.
represented as be-
part
ii.
p. 186, 189.
Plut. de Isid. p. 36l, 362.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib. xi.
* Inscrip. vet. p.
lib.
iii.
c.
10. p. 68.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
c.
20.
Sil.
845.
dial. deor. p.
Apul. Mptam.
*
vol.
Porph. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan.
Lacon.
is
who was thought
20.
Ilal. lib. xiii. ver. ^
Ado-
addicted to hunting and as finally receiving his allegorical death
Montfauc. Ant. i.
hunting the boar,
the luniform aik which contained the body of Osiris.'
to have been during his infancy inclosed within an ark,
ing
in
123. Clem. Alex. Strom,
Serv. in Virg. Georg.
apud Gruter.
208. Stvab. Geog.
Plut. de Ibid. p. 344,
p. 37.
lib.
i.
lib.
Artem. Oniroc.
lib. viii, p.
36l.
i.
p. 322.
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
p. 21.
ver. 5. lib.
ii.
c.
42. Paus. Acbaic. p. 437.
CHAr.
!.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
192 HOOK
III.
from the tusks of a boar.'
Exactly
same
tlie
notions, respecting the sacred-
among
ness of dogs and a certain mystical hunting,
prevailed
Druids, and thence appeared
Orgies of Britain.
in the diluvian
denoted the celebration of the Mysteries ever affected the
titles,
and claimed
forms, of the. great father.'
In
:
when about
to
;
who
in the
this subject,
American
fable,
engage in the exercise of hunting, chooses for the place
of his diversion the vale of the boat or ark.
In the midst of the pursuit,
same no doubt
deep, the
as the infernal dogs of the Eleusinian and Chaldaic Mysteries.
of them informs him, that he the Arkite.
chase
to themselves the various hieroglyphical
a curious legend relative to
he meets with a pack of hounds, termed dogs of the
Arawn or
The
and the dogs were the epoptas
which singularly coincides with the ideas exhibited Pwyll,
the ancient
He
is
lord
of the deep, and that
The master his name is
then proposes, that Pwyll should assume his form,
and thus rule over the vast deep during the space of a complete year ; the time during which
Noah was
Pwyll remains a year
when
and,
The
confined within the Ark.
a tenant of the palace of
in the great deep,
at length he emerges, after a
solemn
festal sacrifice,
ed with the beautiful phenomenon of the rainbow.'
'
Lucian. de dea Syra. § 6,
7- Plut. delsid. p.
offer is accepted
he
is
Arawn
:
:
astonish-
These various coinci-
357. ApoUod. Bibl.
lib.
iii.
4.
Non-
when a
boar,
13.
c.
§
ni Dionys. lib. xli. *
When the
boars.
a dove, doves '
great father was a dog, his votaries were dogs;
In a similar manner, ;
when
when a
lion, lions
;
the great mother was a bee, her priestesses were bees
;
when
when a mare, mares.
Davies's Mytbol. of the Brit. Druids, p.
418
— 424.
From
this
source has clearly ori-
ginated the popular superstition respecting evil spirits appearing in the form of black dogs.
When any
impious wretch has sold himself to Satan and celebrates
his yearly conference
with
him, the loud bowlings of these infernal attendants are heard through the dari«ness of the night
no small terror of the peaceful
to the
were
literally devils, has
creed of the vulgar.
caused
Mr. Grose has
Mauthe Doog, and which
call the
a large black spaniel.
villager.
much
The demon,
is
him; but the adventure
seems, was wont to
him
his
life.
A
mode
come and
drunken
He
three days. Laving never been heard to speak more.
has arisen from the Druidical
Manks
believed to have once haunted Peele castle in the shape of
it
cost
early notion, that the gods of Paganism
given a curious legend of the spectre, which the
passage, which led into certain ancient vaults.
follow
The
of old mythology to be ingrafted upon the ghost-loving
soldier
was so I
have
retire
terrified, little
by a dark winding
had once the audacity that
he
to
died within
doubt, that the whole tale
of celebrating the Mysteries, which was the very same as
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. eftect of accident
minute to be purely the
dciiccs are too
193
and
:
I
conclude
from them, that our American tradition describes the catastrophe of the deluge in the well-known phraseology of the iVIysteries.'
IV. There are however certain
of a partial and local de-
otlier traditions
which are not marked by the circumstances either of the bursting of a
luge,
These
lake or the sinking of an island.
I ascribe to the
same source
as the
former, and interpret in the same manner. 1.
The Egyptians had more
than one legend of such a nature, to say no-
thing of the whole history of Osiris. (1.)
Thus we
from Diodorus,
learn
men were
Egypt, the greatest part of
that,-
destroyed by a
indeed ascribed to the overflowing of the Nile
which
to a matter,
at
is
Prometheus reigned
while
but
:
flood. is
it
The
tradition
the Egyptians entertained
and they esteemed
is
is
the inhabitants of
no doubt originated from the seniiments, which
They
of the sacred river.
called
the ocean^
it
a symbol of the deluge, as we may clearly gather from
it
the circumstance of the ark of Osiris being set afloat their hierophants
all
in
absurd to attribute
once annual and beneficial, an inundation, which
said to have destroyed at a very remote period almost
the country.''
This deluge
were obviously led
to describe
the
upon
its
flood of
waters
:
hence
Noah under
the image of an overflowing of the Nile.
The
present fable connects, with the old mythology of Egypt, the legend
of Atlas and the island Atlantis on the one hand, and the cognate superstition
of the Celtic nations on the other. singly,
is
the great father
brothers, Atlas
:
but,
and Epimetlicus,
that of celebrating the Orgies of Eleusis. p.Tssagcs, ere
through darkness
I
visible,
suspect, ihat the
light as the last
Mammoth
considered
if
.ispiraDt passed
through various dark winding ;
and, in his progress
heard the bowlings, of the dogs of
hell,
—201.
American savages viewed
A vane.
They have a
the
enormous
Mammoth much
in the
same
tradition, that, at the close of the deluge, the
sprang at a single leap over the lake Superior, and vanished for ever into the
Diod. Bibl.
Pag.
The
like Atlas,
conjunction with his two
the scholiast on Aratus assigns to
he beheld the forms, and
198
Druids did the
wilds of Canada. ^
whom
in
he emerged into the celestial light of plenary initiation
(irose's Ant. vol. vi. p. '
Prometheus,
when viewed
He was
lib. i.p.
Idol.
probably their symbol of the diluvian
evil principle.
10.
VOL.
II.
2
B
*^"'^''-
*''*
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
194
of one of the three sons of the transmigrat-
him, he appears
in the character
ing patriarch.
That w riter makes him the offspring of Uranus hy Clymen^
'
daughter of Oceanus to
Uranus a
and Gyges, occupy
Cronus meanwhile
Uranus was
:
and we may observe, that Hesiod similarly ascribes
:
In
triple offspring.
we
but
genealogy therefore, Cottus, Briareus,
made
to belong to
another branch of the family of
learn from the Orphic poet, that the diluvian
same person as Cronus the universal
the very
and Epimetheus.
Prometheus,
place of Atlas,
the is
this
Prometheus
father of mankind."
His
descent, in short, no less than the Egyptian fable, immediately connects
Uranus and Cronus, each
with the flood
:
are certainly
Adam
for
him
the head of his three sons,
at
Hence we some-
reappearing in the person of Noah.
reckoned the offspring of lapetus or Japhet; an
limes find Pronietheus
error indeed, but an error which serves to throw light on his real character.'
The Egyptians
then,
sovereigns, and fixed
an Egyptian
;
he
is
appears, esteemed him one of their most ancient
it
him
of a great flood
to the era
:
but he was not exclusively
celebrated in countries very far removed from Egypt, and
with good reason, inasmuch
Sometimes he was reported
as to
he
was the general parent of
at other times, like his supposed brother Atlas, he
;
the country of the Celts or Hyperboreans, and
Scythian Caucasus, which, no region of the
Ark and of
father of that Deucalion
Lucian) was a Scythian
;
less
Paradise.
*
He
was bound
in
an ark ; who (according to
and who was equally claimed by the Greeks, by the
observe, that Prometheus
It is
'
and Deucalion were
almost superfluous to
in reality
alike relates to the flood of
that the history of each
to a crag of that
further said to have been the
is
and by the Hindoos.
Syrians of Hierapolis,
mundane
was transported to
than the Indian Caucasus, was the very
who was preserved
:
men.
have been one of the Cabiri or Samothra-
cian divinities, and to have officiated as the priest of Ceres or the
Ark
all
one person,
and
Noah.
In another Egyptian legend, Menes or Manes occupies the place of
(2.)
'
Schol. in Arat. Phaen. p. 34, 35.
• Hesiod. '
'
Theog.
147—153. Orph. Hymn.
ver. 137,
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
Pausan. Boeot.
p.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
c. 2.
579. i.
§ 3.
Proc. in Hesiod. p. 23.
Apollod. Bibl.
c. 7.
§
2.
xii.
lib.
i.
c. 7.
§ 1.
Hyg.
in praef. fab.
.I^schyl.
Prom,
vinct.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY,
He
Prometheus. tlie
said to have reigned the
is
men
and, in his days,
:
its
back
whence
:
was saved by a crocodile, which conveyed him that animal
a symbol of the Ark; as we the very tells
name by which
came
may
Campsa
it
same
crocodile.*
and Menes,
*
sacred.
from the story
was plainly
and from
itself,
wont to designate
but Hesychius assures
:
It
it.
Herodotus
us, that
Campsa
Accordingly, the canine deity Anubis,
^
circumstance serves to shew also the identity of Anubis
Tiiis
and likewise to point out the real character of the latter.
who (viewed
by the symbolical
who was
;
and who
Egyptian hero-god) was attended
(like the
Mannus ; and
was thought to be a great
law'giver
;
and the Celts had a
:
goddess Ceridwen.
In
this
Lydia,
in
Mams;
Menwyd.
He
tradition, that
he
Afenii or
in Britain,
constructed a large ship, which they denominated their
Menu) was esteemed
In Crete he Avas called Minos
bull.
Scythian Germany,
Menes
preserved in an ark from the
as a reappearance of the elder
the primeval legislator,
oned a form of
in
to land
Cronus or Noah, was represented standing upon a
as
was the Indian Menu-Satyavrata deluge,
deemed
collect both
properly signifies an ark or chest. the
to be
the Egyptians were
us, that they called
who was
have been
to
This ancient personage narrowly escaped drowning
He
the inundation.
in
of
whole of Egypt, except the nome of Thebes, was reputed
one immense marsh."
on
first
195
Kyd and
which was reck-
he passed through the dale
of grievous zvaters, having carefully stored the fore part of
it
with corn.
The Egyptians had yet a third story of a partial deluge, in which the hero bore the name of Phoroneus, and in which he is described as the person (3.)
He
eminently called the Jirst.^
said to
is
have been the son of Inachus,
whose days likewise there was thought to have been a deluge. ' telk us, that he was the '
Herod. Hist.
lib.
" Diod. Bibl. lib. ^
Herod. Hist.
which properly
ii.
i.
lib.
'
c.
Isid. p.
6^.
Tim.
fol.
Kafi^/a,
an ark, was used
368.
fir^y.ij.
to
Hesjch.
Le.x.
denote a cow,
In a similar manner, Theha,
because a cow was one of the
Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.
Montfauc. Ant.
Davies's IMythol. p. 176.
' Plat. ''
de
Yet Acusilaus
an ancient poet, cited by Clemens Alex-
;
c. 4.
hieroglyphics of the Ark. * Plut.
man
p. 80.
ii.
signifies
first
in
22, 23.
Tzetz. in Lycoph. rer. 177.
vol.
ii.
part
ii.
p. 197.
c"*!*'^'*
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
IDf)
HOOK u I.
aiuhinus, sty]cs h'nn
He is
of 7nortal men
tlte pai'etif
and
:
Anticlirlcs, transfemnsf
from Egj'pt into Greece, makes him the oldest king of that country.'
hiin
most ancient deluge
said to have flourished in the time of the
is
reputed to have
brought
first
men
plainly
compel us
aJso as his
own
of mortals that ever reigned.
earliest
to identify
him with Noah, and
Phoroneus
history of Inachus and
in their
and
to
characteristics
pronounce him the same
to
of certain partial floods,
new
they brought
settlements,
the dikivian
importing at the same time, and similarly
;
Hence we have numerous Hellenic
localizing, various other parallel fables.
accounts
sacrificer,
Such
'
colonized by emigrants from Egypt,
and afterwards localized
with tiiem,
and he
mythological father Inachus.
When Greece was
a.
'
together into one place, to iiave been
the grand arranger of nations, to have been the primeval
have been the
:
which were feigned
have taken place
to
M ithin the country of Greece. (1.)
One
of these was thought to have occurred in the district of Argolis,
during the reign of that Inachus
Neptune and Juno contended
who was
the reputed father of Phoroneus.
for the sovereignty of
the sea and the dove strove for the possession
Argos
Juno
:
who decided
in favour
of
upon which Neptune immediately inundated the greater part of the
country.
Juno however
and the Argives
at length persuaded
in gratitude built a
god of the deluge,
was an
their appellations,
and Thebes did similarly from the same ship Baris and Theba.
matter in dispute was referred to Inachus,
The
in other words,
of the ship Argha or Argo
from the worship of which Argos and Argolis received as Berytus
:
at
artificial hill
him
to cause the sea to retire
temple to Neptune the Inundator or the
the place w here
the waters began to abate.
sacred to Argus, the reputed son of Jupiter
the daughter of Phoroneus
;
:
Near this by Niob^
and a temple of the Dioscori, who, according to
Sanchoniatho, were the same as the diluvian Cabiri.*
The whole
of the
present story originated from the mystic commemorative rites of the Ark. Inachus and Argus were equally Noah or the god of the Argha and the :
•
Clem. Alex. Strom,
lib.
^
CU-m. Strom,
p.
^
Paus. Corinth, p. 112.
lib.
i.
Paus. Corinth, p. 125.
i.
p.
321.
3C1.
Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56.
Syncell. Chronog. p. 125.
Hyg. Fab. 143, 27
1-.
'
:
THK OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. mount of Argus,
throM-n
up
immediate
in the
197
where the
vicinity of the place
dchige Avas thought to have abated, was a copy of that Armenian mountain,
where
tlie
Ark
rested
There was a
(2.)
and wliere the
real
Argus disembarked.
parallel story told at Athens,
which Minerva occupies
in
place of Juno, and into which the propitious diluvian olive
tlie
ously introduced.
A
contest,
once arose between Neptune and
said,
is
it
conspicu-
is
Minerva, which of them should build the
town
first
in Attica.
Jupiter de-
cided in favour of Minerva, because she was the original planter of the olive-
Upon
tree in that country.
an inundation of the
sea,
Neptune
this,
in
some inform
or (as
a rage began to bring over us) actually did inundate
but Mercury was dispatched by Jupiter to compel him to desist. that the contest
says,
between the two
deities
was
for the land
;
it
it
Pausanias
'
that
is
to say,
whether the patroness of the olive or the ruler of the ocean should possess whether
it,
it
should be dry and habitable or laid under water by an inunda-
tion of the sea:
and he mentions, that among the
offerings there
presentation of Minerva with the olive-tree and of raising the waves in order to (3.)
and
This
The
was a very similar story at Corinth
Corinthian fable exhibited the Sun as con-
Neptune; the Troezenian,
tending with
like
that of
Athens,
Helius or the Sun was the great father elevated to the solar orb
Neptune
struggle with
respecting
his
human
:
is
must of course be understood as In the Troezenian contest,
in
his
solely
which was
who was
a floating island, Minerva does not,
over Neptune, but agrees to divide the country with
broadly observe, that, in
all
these parallel legends, the ruler of the
represented, as striving for the possession of the land, and as sometimes
inundating
it
;
while he
is
opposed either by the divine dove, or by the god-
dess of the olive-tree, or by the Sun
who was
certainly the astronomical
bol of the great father. '
and
yet, notwithstanding this evident corruption of the genuine tradition,
we may sea
:
or the sea
compelled by the ocean to seek refuge
him
Minerva.
character.
thought to have taken place immediately after the time of Horus
as at Athens, prevail
re-
in the act of
produce a deluge.*
last writer tells us, that there
likewise at Troezen^.
Neptune
was a
Hyg. Fab. \6i. ApoU. Bibl.
lib. iii. c. '
13.
^1.
*
Paus. Corinth, p. 86, 141.
Pau«. Atlic. p. 43.
sym-
chap. n.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
198 BOOK
^4^ The
III.
it
the Greeks localized
own
their
in
it,
and appropriated the whole Thcssaly
laid in
The
a wooden ark.
to have been then inundated
few who
and nave
;
Noah:
tlic
yet
to a particular district in
scene of that flood, from which
Greece they supposed
greatest part of
and most of the inhabitants perished, except a
;
the tops of the highest
fled to
considered
alreadj'
relates to the general deluge in the time of
They
country.
he escaped
we have
history of Deucalion
clearly shewn, that
hills.
Deucalion himself,
after hav-
ing been nine days exposed to the perils of the deep, landed safely on the
summit of mount Parnassus, and Deliverer. thian
:
'
Yet
and he
this
is
there oft'ered a
very Deucalion
made
is
sacrifice
to
Jupiter the
said by Lucian to have been a Scy-
the son of the Egyptian king Prometheus, who,
having himself seen the greatest part of his subjects destroyed by a flood,
was fixed
to a peak of the Scythian
Caucasus or Meru.
Deucalion, through his reputed father Prometheus,
is
immediately con-
Dagon
nected with Atlas, with the submersion of the island Atlantis, with or the sovereign prince
Buddha in
the belly of the
fish,
with Beruth or Baris,
with the Cabiri, and with the various diluvian gods of Phenicia. rate account of his escape
Hierapolis
:
Etna and Athos,
accu-
from the flood was preserved by the Syrians of
and, in the prevailing
thought to have landed
An
as well as
humour of
local appropriation,
neighbourhood of that
in the
city
he was
and on the tops of
on the summit of Parnassus.
His deluge was
which inundated Samothrace and which constrained Dardanus to flee and it ^vas thought by some to have comthe opposite shore of Troas
that,
to
:
menced at Helic^ and Bura, and to have been caused by the action of violent winds upon the clouds which there collected together. of
The moral
occasion
was the wickedness of Lycaon, who cut Nuctimus limb from limb and
it
sacrificed
him
This fable
to Jupiter.'
Osiris and Dionusus by the Titans, of
is
nearly allied to the disreption of
Orpheus by the Thracian Bacchantes,
and of Absyrtus by Medea in the course of the Argonautic expedition it is plain however, since the fame or the family connections of Deucalion ex:
tended to Egypt, Phenicia, Syria, Scythia, Thrace, India, the mythologic island Atlantis, and the real island Sicily, that he cannot have been a mere •
Apoll. Bibl.
lib.
i.
c. 7-
§
'2.
*
Taetz. in Lycopb. ver. 72, 73.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr. petty prince of Thessaly, nor
199
deluge have been confined to Samothrace or
liis
Greece.
TheThebans,
(5.)
their story of a flood
pected
;
as well as the Thessalians and the Athenians, had also
nor
;
is
this
for their city, like the
superstitious veneration of
any thing more than might be naturally ex-
Egyptian Thebes, received
Theba
or the bovine Ark.
name from
its
the
Ogyges, the supposed
son of Neptune and Alistra, was esteemed the most ancient sovereign of Beotia
Varro
:
and
in his
time a great deluge was thought to have occurred, which
the Noetic flood, was brought, like
Egypt
:
for the Beotian
that Ogj'ges
more ancient Thebes,
With
in Beotia,
when
He
Greek
it
fables,
in the
days of
that he transfen'cd the
name
;
I\f enes
Cadmus came from this name to the city which he
Ogyges he
called
gates
its
of Thebes, he informs us, that
Theba
that in the Syriac language
of the flood, cities
signifies
a cow
;
being led by a cow to the scite of his
It is not difficult to
of that
is
Noah
decypher :
name were
and
is
Ogygian.
was borrowed
it
flourished,
and he adds,
:
whence originated the
new
fable
city.*
Ogyges, who lived at the time
this legend.
his allegorical wife
called,
tells
the rest of the coun-
according to Lycus, immediately after the flood of Deucalion
of
from
of that Thebes, which
from Theba the daughter of Jupiter and the wife of Ogyges, who
Cadmus
relates to
further tells us, that
and that from
respect to the
though
Accordingly, Tzetzes
was king of the Egyptian Thebes
was one great marsh.
founded
other of the
the Egyptian Ogyges.
alone arose above the water, try
many
fable,
Thebes and the Beotian Ogyges are a mere copy of
the Egyptian Thebes and us,
This
ascribes to an inundation of the sea."
Theba, from
whom
the two
which the Hebrews and Pheni-
the Ark,
cians and Chaldeans denominated Theba, and which was universally sym-
bolized by a
cow or
heifer.
Hence we may account of Corybas and
These, as their
the
for another fable, in
which Theba
is
made
mother of the Samothracian Corybantes or Cabiri.
whole history
sufliciently shews,
were diluvian gods:
were made, consequently, the children of Theba or the Ark. '
Varr. de re rust.
lib.
the wife
iii.
' Tzetz. in
c. 1. *
Diod. Bibl.
lib. v. p.
323.
Lycoph.
ver.
1506.
they
'"*''•
"•
'
no'JK
111.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
•
200 In
the Egyptian goddess
fine,
Theba was
same
the
as
her husband Ogyges was no other than Osiris;
Baris;
Ogyges must
tells us,
that
nevertheless reported to be the
The Corybantes
and the deluge of
first
or Cabiri,
man and
in exact
Clemens
human
the father of the
who were sometimes thought
we
accordance with their general character,
race.
to be
the
of Curctes,
title
They were equally venerated
Daclyli, or Tetchines.
whence,
for
:
days of Phoroneus, who was
in the
children of Tiicba, were worshipped in Crete under the
Ida
oi*
Phoroneus and Ogyges were contemporaries, and
Ogyges happened
that the deluge of
Argo
or
Isis
clearly be identified « ith the deluge of Phoroneus
Alexandrians
(6.)
' :
in
Rhodes Cretan
find a
or Rhodian legend of a partial deluge immediately connected with them.
Nonnus
informs us, that they were the sons of Neptune
what amounts
He
to the
same
Neptune was committed
likewise tells us, that
and that they educated him
fant,
daughter of the ocean.
Cabira
'
in conjunction
the
is
mother: and the infancy of Neptune
same
is
sometimes
literally
exposed on the ocean
upon the mysterious aquatic
lotos
Theba
Noah was in
an
in-
with Caphira or Cabira the or the sea-born great Helius, Bac-
thought to have been
hence he was represented as an
:
sea.
when an
to their care
the infancy of Osiris,
chus, Jupiter, and the other diluvian gods.
born from the Ark as from a mother
as
and Diodorus,
:
were the offspring of the
that they
thing, says,
ark,
and sometimes
which among the Hindoos
is
infant,
floating
avowedly a
type of the ship Argha or Argo.
Now who
these Telchines, thus allied to the Ocean, were reckoned magicians,
could produce clouds and rain at pleasure.
where having
foretold a deluge,
The
various regions of the world. their prediction
;
they
left
They
inhabited Rhodes;
first
the island and were scattered into
flood punctually took place according to
and a few persons only escaped, among
whom
were the
sons of Jupiter so famous in Cretan story.
In
this
legend
we may
easily perceive,
through the disguise of local appro-
a very distinct reference to the monitory prophecy of
priation,
I
Clem. Alex. Strom,
^
Nonni Dionys.
'
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
lib.
i.
xxvii.
lib. v. p.
p. 3.'!.
Dioil. Bibl, lib. v. p.
3:6, 327.
3C6.
to
Jupiter occupies
the dispersion of his descendants from the plains of Shinar.
'
Noah and
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHY. the place of the patriarch
and
;
Nor
that of the Noetic family.
he
mount
which, like
Ida,
Ararat
;
and he
who
chihhen,
esca[)e
this inconsistent
is
have been nursed, while an
said to
is
his
from the
deliifrc,
with his character: for
by doves on the summit of the Hindoo Ida-vratta or Meru, was a transcript of infant,
feigned to have been at once the father and the lover of
is
Theba, who was the w ife of the diUivian Ogy^es.
that
201
I3y her
he was the
parent of Egyptus and Danaus, Danaus being the brother of Egyptus.
Danaus was
this
Argo
Theba was sometimes reckoned
3.
Cadmus and
which
;
mother of
tlie
in
Egypt was
the ship of
Hindostan the ship of Siva.
in
*
the daughter of Cilix, the brother of
the reputed father of the Cilicians
said to be the
is
the navigator of the
Greece the ship of Jason, and
Osiris, in
But
'
:
and then
it
was, that she
As she is thus transCadmus shews) in palpable Egypt and Beotia, we shall find a story of a
Corybantes or Cabiri.'
ported into Cilicia, thouah (as her relatiunship to
connection with the theology of local deluge at Tarsus.
The
Tarsians, in their account of this catastrophe, asserted, that,
waters began to
tlie
retire,
which stood Tarsus,
first
Greeks who delighted
Hence
appeared.
Tersia or the city of dryness
;
it
In
its
which was afterwards,
immediate
name of Polis we may believe the their own language*
acquired the if
to resolve every appellation into
corrupted into Tarsus.
when
the tops of the Tauric mountains, at the feet of
vicinity another tradition prevailed,
which has evidently been borrowed from the emission of the Noetic raven.
A
neighl)ouring town, called Mallus, w as supposed to have received
its
de-
nomination from the circumstance of a raven's having brought a lock of wool there. *
The Tauric mountains, which
which the Tarsians,
to
Tzetz. in Lycoph. vcr. 1206.
'
father for
to
Bdus
what
Ark
be
Bolus,
and
or
name
common ApoU.
Bibl. lib.
From
name
w ere
the ridge,
of local appropriation, fixed the
spirit
mother Anchinoe.
tiuir
or Baal was an oriental
different appellation.
clude the
ii.
c. 1.
But
§ 4.
this
ApoUodorus makes
amounts
of Jupiter, and Anchinofe was
the evident personal identity of
of the latter to be a corruption of Arehinoi or
to the
tlieif
same thing:
Theba under a some-
Theba and Anchinoi,
I
con-
Archa-Nuc, which denotes the
Argha of Noah.
* Schol. in Apoll. '
in the
rose above their city,
Diod. Bibl.
Argon,
lib. v. p.
lib.
i.
ver. 4.
Idol.
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi. p.
323.
* Eustath. in Dionys. Pericg. ver. 870,
Pag.
Plut. de Isid, p. 359.
875.
VOL.
II.
2
C
523.
<^hap. yi.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
aOa suoK
III.
appulse of the Ark.
There was another
similarly connected with the
eastern
Armenia
history of the
into Bactriana.
The
but Tabris or Tebriz or Tabaris.
is
as
Theba or Argha
or the
Ark.
it is still
accurately
not Tauris, as the Greeks wrote
This word,
in perfect
the Cilician tradition, denotes the place of the Baris
same
same name and
which extended from
deluge,
real appellation, as
preserved by the natives of the country, it,
ridge, bearing the
:
agreement with
but the Bans was the
THE ORIGIN OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY. BOOK
IV.
CHAPTER
I.
Concerning the identity and astronomical character of the great gods of the Gentiles.
HOUGH
JL
the Gentiles were ostensibly polytheists
in absolute strict-
compound
ness of speech, they worshipped only one great the reputed parent of the Universe.
yet,
;
deity,
who was
All their gods ultimately resolve them-
who was esteemed the great father all their goddesses finally prove to be only one goddess, who was accounted the great mother and these two beings at length appear as a sole divinity, who was thought lo partake of both sexes, and who was venerated as alike the father and the selves into a single god,
:
:
mother of the whole world. Yet, while the Gentiles were thus worshippers of one deity, they did not
The
worship the Almighty Creator of heaven and of earth. they adored, was not the Unity of the real
revered as God,
butes ascribed to led
many
it
which
unity,
though, since
;
had thence by a necessary consequence the divine
it.
But, decorated as
writers to mistake
it
in the place
it
was
for the genuine
creature, or rather a very remarkable
worshipped
Godhead in
Deity
This
was
attri-
such a manner, which has ;
it
compound of
of the Creator.
it
will
was
after all
creatures, distinctly
a mere
which was
appear from
every part of the character of the great UJiiversal parent of heatlien mythology,
when
it
shall
have been carefully traced through
all
its
various ramifi-
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
206
and astronomical
inquiry with discussing the identity
I begin the
cations.
character of the gods of the Gentiles.
The
I.
ancient mytliologists of
all
nations are
each of their chief masculine deities
is
equally the Sun
less explicitly tlian consistently maintain,
rently distinct, are fundamentally one
unanimous
in asserting,
that all these deities, though appa-
and the same.
Their testimony there-
what may be called the astronomical or
fore sufficiently establishes
that
and thence they no
:
celestial
character of the pagan hero-gods.
Thus, to descend to particulars, Saturn or Cronus
1.
declared to be the
is
Sun by Macrobius and Nonnus.' Jupiter
C.
name
\he poems whicli bear the
Pluto or Aidoneus
3.
Sun by IMacrobius, Nonnus, and
said to be the
is
is
from
position follows also
of Orpheus.'
said to be the
Sun by
the Orphic poet
it
and
this
who
are
established, that Eusebius asks in
who were one and
astonishment, on what grounds Pluto and Sarapis,
same
:
his declared identity with other deities
So well indeed was
avowedly the Sun.
the author of
the
infernal deity, could yet be identified with the solar orb.
Bacchus or Dionusus
4.
is
Macrobius, Sophocles, and 5.
Priapus
is
represented as the Sun by Virgil, Ausonius,
Orphic poet.*
tlie
said to be the
Sun by the Orphic
who
poet,
identifies
him
with Protogonus and Dionusus.' 6.
That Apollo is the Sun,
it
may seem almost
specially the eolar deity of classical
be
so,
one of
if
needless to prove, as he
He
mythology.
is
is
asserted however to
proof be required, by Macrobius, Nonnus, the Orphic poet, and
his
own oracular responses
:
and Ovid
inditferently calls
him Phoebus
and the Sun.^ '
Macrob. Saturn,
lib. i. c.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
Fragni. p. 364. Edit. Gesn. ^
*
Orph. Fragra. V'irg.
Fragm.
Georg.
edit.
p.
lib.
c.
lib. xl. p. lib. xl. p.
683, 684, 6S5.
683, 684, 685.
Orph.
13.
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
lib. iii. c.
13. p. 76.
Orph. Fragm. apud Macrob. Saturn.
ver. 6,7, 8.
Gesn, p. 363, 364.
Antig. vcr. Il62
vii.
Nonni Dionys. Nonni Dionys.
23. p. 215.
Hymn.
364. i.
52. p. 214.
Auson. Epig. 30.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
lib.
i.
i.
c.
18.
c. 18.
Orph. Soph.
— 1170-
'
Orph. Hymn.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
v.
1, 8,
lib.
Orac. Vet. Opsop. p. 6.
p. xxix. 1, 2. i.
c. 17.
Nonni Dionys.
Ovid. Metam.
lib, i. ver.
lib. xl.
751, 752.
Orph. Hymn, lib.
ii.
ver. 1.
vii,
12. xxxiii.
'
THK ORIGIN' OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Janus
7.
Pan
8.
poet.
be
said to
is
or Piianes
cw^f-
Sun by IMacrobius.
tlie
also said to be the
is
207
Sun by Macrobius and
the Orphic
*
Hercules
9.
Vulcan or Hephestus
10.
whom
The
the Orpliic poet.
the
same
as
they professedly venerated as the Sun.*
Esculapius or Asclepius
11.
Sun by
said to be the
is
Phtha and Ammun ; and esteemed him
Egyptians called him Osiris,
Sun by Nonnus and Macrobius.'
said to be the
is
said to be the
is
Sun by Macrobius.
This
opinion was so fully recognized by his worshippers, that Eusebius ridicules as a well-known absurdity, on the ground that he
Apollo,
who
himself also
under the two-fold relation of son and
tually represented
12.
was viewed under
Orphic poet he
is
said to be the
is
who
is
similarly pro-
He
;
who was reckoned
was also the Theutates of the
Buddha or Sacya
and Buddha again
:
is
same as
the
the Tuisto of
Celts,
the Goths, and the Twashta or Tat or Datta of the Hindoos. as
perpe-
This deity was the Herm-Anubis, or Thoth, or
Taut, of the Egyptians and Phenicians
same
is
according
father,
Sun by Macrobius; and by the
declared to be the same as Bacchus,
to be the Sun.
Cronus or the Sun.
deity
ar-
different aspects.'
Mercury or Hermes
nounced
the offspring of
The same
rangement of the genealogies of the pagan gods.
as he
made
Such hoivever was the constant
the Sun.
is
is
it
Tat
is
the
ultimately allowed to be
Surya or the Sun.* 13.
Theus, Theuth, or Thoth, was likewise a
name of Mars
or Arcs.
Hence Macrobius joins the god of war with Mercury, and declares him to
The
be equally the Sun. Scythic tribes
and
:
warrior
Mercury was
Wudd or Budd
'
Macrob. Saturn,
lib. i. c.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.i.
'
Nonn. Dionys.
*
Orph. Hymn.
lib. xl.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.i. c.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
10.
i.
c.
into
Wudd
of the
Europe by the Gothic emigrants
Orph. Fragm. apud Mac. Saturn,
Macrob.
'
or
17. p. 195. c. 9. p. 157.
c.22,
Sat. lib.
Jamb, dc Myster.
Ixv. 6.
Woden
was the same as the Indo-Scythic Buddha,
whose worship was brought from Asia
*
the
20. 19-
Moor's Hind. Pantb. p. 2i9.
i.
c.
lib.
i.
c.
18.
Hymn.
v. S.
20.
sect. viii. c. 3.
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
lib. iii. c. 11. p.
Plut. de Isid. p. 36S.
75.
Euseb. IVa-p. Evan.
lib.
i.
c. P,
>•
'
XHK OHIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
208 BOOK
IV.
a
^rej or Heres was among the eastern nations
Cashgar and Bokhara,
fpQj^
of the Sun
title
word,
but
is
the solar
and
:
Ma- Arts
as the Latins compoundedly expressed the
J\fars,
As Mars, from
or the great Ares.
Each of
dred appellation of Dus-Ares. the Sun: and
borrowed
it
their
may
these
names
be observed, that from Thoth or
word Theus as the Latins did
their
God
has been taken from another appellation of
we
1
same
the
Siculus,
this
Our
same
English word
deity,
which toge-
are varied
titles
of
Wudd
or
God,
Buddha; and
Thoth or Hermes.'
Horus, and Serapis, are each said to be the Sun by Diodorus
Osiris,
4.
as
Greeks
received from our Indo-Scythic ancestors.
Ghaut, Godama, and Gautama, is
77?c«//j the
Deiis, which they seve-
used by way of eminence to denote the godhead.
ther with our language
kin-
Thoth-Ai'cs or Thoth
is
rally
Buddha
with
his identity
Taut or Mercury, was called Theiis-Ares ; so Dionusus bore the
Macrobius, Eusebius, an ancient oracle of Apollo, and the author
of the HorapoUine hieroglyphics.
Belus or Baal
15.
denoting
Lord ;
is
just as
said to be the
Moltch
names of the same
clearly
solar god.
riences similar modifications, as signifies the
a mere
title,
King: and jBflfl/ and Motcch were The former is variously compounded, of the deity who was known by it; as
Baal-Peor, Baal-Zebub, Baal-Berith, and the
which
is
signifies
the various attributes
in allusion to
Baal
Sun by Nonnus.
like
:
the latter also expe-
Adrammelech, Anammelech, and Melchom
burning king or the king the Sun.
were the same as Jupiter, Cronus,
Osiris, or Priapus.
Baal and Molech
Thus
the chief god
of the Carthaginian Phenicians, whose bloody sacrifices plainly shew him to
be Molech,
is
said to have been
Baal-Peor identity him with
Cronus or Saturn
Osiris,
whose name some have supposed "
Lex.
©«u(raf>if, rour'
ern
flso;
This ancient particle
Afijj. Suid. is
Aiovua-ov. "^
compound Peor-Apis
Lex. Macrob. Sat.
lib.
Hebrew Mad,
i.
c.
:
and thus
19. Mou, \i.iya. Hcsych.
the Sanscrit Malta,
descrihe greatness or excess.
the
Greek
AoiKrafijv, tov
Hesych. Lex.
Diod. Bibl.
c. 12, 13.
to be the
of which
all
thus the phallic rites of
Bacchus, Seth or Typhon, and Priapus
the basis of the
Megas, and the Latin Magnus;
:
lib.
i.
p. 10.
Macrob. Saturn,
llorapoll. llierog. lib.
i.
§
71-
lib.
i.
c. 20, 21.
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
lib. iii.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. the Babylonic Belus
wise pronounced
tiie
spoken of as the Assyrian Jupiter or Zeus, and
is
same
Adonis or Attis
16.
Sun by Macrobius ; and he
may
but we
clearly gather
it
way of
in the
repeat-
is
Dagon was
the
in effect
is
Sun
:
induction.
Sanchoniatho represents him as the brother of Cronus or Molech
on the principles of heathen mythology,
same
like-
as Osiris or Dionusus.'
I cannot produce any positive declaration, that
7.
is
Cronus and the Sun.'
as
said to be the
is
same
edly declared to bethe 1
209
which,
;
pronouncing him to be the
and he adds, that he was Jupiter or Baal, considered as the patron
:
of agriculture
however, and Baal, and Cronus, were equally the
Jupiter
:
Sun.
We
may
Jerome
was a
also infer, that he
that he esteemed
it
god from the import of
of affliction : whence a compound word, and did not imagine it
that
tells us,
solar
signifies the fish
it
from a simple Hebrew radical by the addition of the
produce then the sense, which
we must
this
and On, or
at least that
proper rendering of the
latter
distress or trouble: but
which manner
it
On
word.
affliction
be the
Hebrew
signify
I doubt,
the
names of
what ought
and Jerome or
to
that,
;Encid. *
ii.
lib.
§ i.
by the
56. vcr.
lib. xl. Pescenii. Fest.
Herod. Hist.
of a very
Thus,
supposing
ear,
it
it
to
be compounded of
accordingly.
Thus
expressed the Egyptian
also
On
the
by their
Idol.
lib.
i.
c.
apud Lactant.
181.
Hieron.
Instit. lib.
comm.
in
i.
Hos.
c. 21. ix. 10.
lib.
i.
c.
Serv. in Virg.
21.
VOL.
II.
it
Porph. de Ab-
733.
Macrob. Saturn,
Pag.
own language
then, with the usual vanity of their nation, fancying that
Nonni Dionys.
stin. lib.
the sound frequently lead-
in their
two proper Hebrew words, has translated
'
the false gods of the Gentiles
have been written Dag-On, they wrote
his interpreter,
Platonists, similarly writing
in
more than one passage of
the original sense has often been wholly mistaken.
in the present instance,
conjec-
does indeed in the
express such names by words
own On ; and
The
was likewise an Egyptian name of the Sun,
The Jews wrote
different import,
:
it
his informer.
Dag
whether
though
;
To
Dagon,
title
be made up of the two words
and the consequence has been,
:
ing them to
Dagon
to
clearly ought to be understood in
Scripture.
by the ear
it
formed
to be
servile letters.
ascribes to the
such was the opinion of
ture I believe to be perfectly right
Holy
commentator
conclude, that he supposed
evident,
is
it
name.
his
2D
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATItY,
210 BOOK
IT.
Greek word, they explained
nnust of course be a exists.
it
meaning that which
as
In absolute strictness of speecli, the origin of the
not to be sought for either
in Palestine
The
or in Egypt.
Dag-On
title
is
Philistines, like the
Phenicians and the Shepherd-kings, were of the family of the pastoral Palli or Indo-Scythfe
and they brought with them into
:
whom, they had
the worsliip of that god,
their western settlements
accustomed to adore
l)ecn
in their
Meru and under the name
In the high region of the Indian Caucasus or
native Cashgar.
Buddha
the extensive empire of Ava,
Dakpo and Dagun famous Hindoo
:
On
and the Egyptian
triliteral
monosyllable
Hebrew
nify a fish in the
is still
them from the confines of
but,
;
Om
venerated
or
or
Aun
the
is
Dag
Aum.
same word
must have received
of
as the
does indeed
sig-
name
with
as the Philistines brought the
India, they
in
it
in the first in-
stance from their Cuthic ancestors of Babylonia, where tlieChaldee, a dialect
of the Hebrew, sense of ajish,
Dagun,
is
is is
known
That they received character of their god Buddha
have been spoken.
to
manifest from the
;
styled the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish.
further manifest from the character of Vishnou,
incarnate in the person of Buddha, and
Now the form of
identified with him.
of a
man joined
to or issuing
with the preceding the
same as
that of
title
from a
of Buddha.
Vishnou
Buddha-Dagun, according
in the
who
Vishnou
fish
;
who
it
in the
wiio, as
This
is
yet
allowed to have been
is
therefore must ultimately be in the
Matsya Avatar
is
that
a form, Avhich exactly corresponds
But the form of Dagon was
Matsya Avatar ;
the
same
precisely
also, as that
of
to his title of the sovereign prince in the belli/
of
Odacon or Anne-Dot mode of worship originated. Hence the Philistines is the Buddha-Dagun of
thejish; the same moreover, as that of the Oannes or
of Babylon, whence
this hieroglyphical
Dagon of Buddha however is pronounced to be the same as the the Indo-Scythas. Hindoo triad Brahma- Vishnou-Siva conjointly. The title therefore of Om is equally bestowed upon Buddha and upon this triad and Buddha and the triad are alike declared to be astronomically tlie Sun. But, among the Egyptians, On was a name of the solar deity. Consequently, the import of the word Dagon will be the Sun xvorsliipped under the form of a jish. It may be observed, that the oriental Buddha is not only called Dagun and Dak-Po, but likewise Pouti-Sat. Tliis serves additionally to prove, that the name of the Philist^an Dagon was brought by his worshippers into Palestine, I think
it
evident, that the
:
'
THE
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
ORIGIN' OF
noi frmned subsequently to their arrival there.
one of the
of
titles
composition
Dagon was
On
witii
Sanchoniatho informs
But Siton
Siton.
and Seth, which
:
is
211
or Sid united in
Setli
is
name of Typlion,
the Egyptian
The Dagon and Siton, in plainly the Buddha-Dagun and
evidently the Indo-Scythic Sat.
is
and Phenicians are
Philistines
us, that
of the
short,
the Pouti-Sat
or Buddha-Sat of the Cuthic Hindoos.
That Dagon
is
astronomically the Sun,
may be
yet further argued from the
character of Atargatis or Derceto, the Syrian Venus.
form precisely the same as Dagon, allowing only
Now
Derceto
is
declared to be the same as Isis
by Diodorus, was the
may
:
This goddess was
for the difference of sex.
and
as
Isis,
we
are assured
If then the female deity was the INIoon,
IVIoon.
in
we
from the genius of old mythology, that the correspond-
safely conclude,
ing male deity was the Sun.
The
18.
very same astronomical character
the Hindoos,
Brahma- Vishnou-Siva
god, but likewise by
all their
;
is
sustained by the triple god of
and not only by
other male deities.
sured, ultimately resolves himself into
Brahm;
unity springs the subordinate triad,
acknowledged
is
this
Each of
preeminent tliese,
triple
we are
as-
while Brahm, from whose
The
to be the Sun.
peculiar mode, in which the Hindoos identify their three great gods with the
a curious specimen of the physical refinements of ancient my-
solar orb,
is
thology,
jlt flight
the east
and
1 he Persian
19.
Slatius,
and
The
20.
is
in
'
;
from
who
Druidical Hu,
is
c. 3. p.
Ausc. Phys.
is
203.
lib. iv.
Hu
Diod. Bibl.
Moor's Hind. Pantt.
'
Strab. Gcog. lib. xv. p. 732. i.
ver.
715
clearly the
to
is
Siva.
Brahma,
in
'
have been the Sun
same character
the mighty, in the world's lib.
i.
c. 10.
Hicron.
Parkhurst's Hcb. Le.\. vox HJi.
*
Thebaid.lib.
known
is
he
:
and
as the
Greek
who is thence rightly so called by Dionysius, is anowho in his celestial capacity is undoubtedly the Sun.
Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan.
in Arist.
he
;
an ancient inscription preserved by Martianus Capella.'
smallest of the small
ii.
Vishnou
to evenitig,
INIithras also is well
or Dionusus and
Syr. synt.
noon
is
declared to be so by Strabo, Hesychius, Suidas, Nonnus,
ther of the gentile gods,
The
Sun
in the "west, the
in the mornii/g
accordingly he
Huas
and
p. 6, 9, 13, 33,
et iufra.
lib.
i.
Comm. apud
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
Seld. de diic
285.
Symes's Einbass. to Ava. vol.
p. 10.
277, 294.
judgment, says
Asiat. Res. vol.
Ilesycb. Lc.\. Suid. Lex. Soli invicto Mithrce.
i.
p. 267. vol.
Nonni Dionys.
Inscript.
ii.
Simp, p.
v. p.
1
10.
254.
lib. xj.
Slat.
apud Mart. Capell.
lib. iii.
'^"'*'- '•
212 BOOK
IV.
Rhys Brydydd, meaning,
the bard
ible in the
we
over us, sxcift
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
THIi:
.
I
eyes of the evangelized Britons
the greatest zvhom
I
is
is
He
his car.
L ight is his
is
Beli,
to him, the
supreme
great and bountiful.
and
seas,
Let us beware
Sometimes
Baal : and,
alike celebrated as the sovereign of
lord of Britain,
manifest, that
it is
among
appears,
course
this
which the Romans wrote Belivus ; an appellation,
and the Sun, were
The name
and lord
great on land and
plainly deducible from the oriental Bel, Belus, or Beli,
the greatest
shall behold, greater than the worlds.
of offering mean indignity god was called
ytt he
:
and our god of mystery.
sincerely believe,
a particle of lucid sun-shine
:
apprehend, that he had become contempt-
Hu
since IIu,
heaven and the
or Beli was the solar deity.
the different Celtic tribes, to have been variously
expressed Beli, Belis, Belen, Belatucader or the illustrious Beli, and Abel-
father Baal the Sun ; which
lion or
same compound
may be
varied,
title
Selden rightly refers
nounces the god who bore
The same
21. its first
last,
mistake not,
its
:
is
precisely the
however
but,
it
and pro-
origin to the eastern Baal,
be the solar divinity of the Hyperboreans.'
to
it
I
if
Apollo or Apollon
as the classical
mythological ideas prevailed also in America at the period of
discovery.
The Mexicans worshipped
offspring of their principal
god
But
Vitzliputzli.
him the
the Sun, esteeming this
circumstance, by the
general analogy of Paganism, shews, that Vitzliputzli was himself the Sun.
Thus
the
Hindoos considered
their triad as the offspring of
Egyptians reckoned Horus the son of Osiris, and HeHus
Vulcan
;
Brahm and
the son of Plitha or
the solar orb.
to be the son of
the great triad, Osiris and Horus,
Apollo and Esculapius, Cronus and Jupiter, were
22.
thus the
;
and thus the Greeks feigned Esculapius to be the son of Apollo,
Apollo to be the son of Jupiter, and Jupiter again while yet
Brahin
all
Cronus
:
Phtha and Helius,
equally and severally
*
The Sun was
likewise the principal god
worship was joined with that of Virachoca
:
of the Peruvians
a junction, by which
timated, that Virachoca himself was the Sun,
when
his character
;
it
and
was
his in-
was viewed
astronomically.'
'
Dionys. Pericg. ver.
336, 562.
565—574.
Seld. de diis Syr. synt'.
*
Purch. Pilgrim,
b. viii. c.
^
Purch. Pilgrim,
b. ix. c.
ii.
11. 10, 11.
Davies's c. 1. p.
Myth, of 143.
Brit.
Druids, p. 110, 116, 117, 120,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
213
II As most of the great gods of the Gentiles are declared by the old mythological writers to be each separately the
Such accordingly
arcane theology of Paganism.
appears, as
this
we
we may
so
;
naturally expect
would be a prominent feature
to find, that their general unitual identity
name, by which
Sun
the case
is
in the
and the special
:
mystic intercommunion of deities was usually designated,
learn from Damascius, to have been in the
Greek language
Theocrasia.^
Many
are the declarations to this purpose, Avhich are
Damascius and Suidas
us,
and Adonis
assert the identity of Osiris
Dionusus and Attis
Alexandrinus teaches that of
neus, were but one and the
and Clemens
;
while Macrobius informs
Horus, and Liber, were
that Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
and Ausonius, that Bacchus,
:
Thus
extant.
still
all
equally the
Sun
;
Phanac, Dionusus, Liber, and Aido-
Osiris,
same god under
different names.
*
In a similar
manner, the Orphic poet declares, that Jupiter, Pluto, and Bacchus were only varied appellations of the Sun
and Diodorus and Suidas
:
Osiris and Bacchus were one divinity. learn from Jamblichus,
was the same as Osiris
by Diodorus, was the same as Serapis, Jupiter.*
Thus
likewise
So agiin
'
Osiris,
:
:
Vulcan or
tell
us,
Plitha, as
that
we
and Pan, as we are taught
Ammon, and
Dionusus, Pluto,
Anubis or Hermanubis, the Egyptian Thoth or Mer-
cury, was no other, we are
told,
than Cronus or Saturn;
one deity with the Molech or Baal of Palestine.
wiio himself again
With
'
the Egyptian
was
Thoth
or Taut, the oriental Tutor Buddha clearly identifies himself: and, as Brahma,
Vishnou, and Siva, are mutually the same deity; so they are severally declared to be one with Buddha.*
Nigidius, turn,
'
was the same
though the
Oirifiv
ovra,
Janus, in like manner, as
as Apollo;
nai Aowviv
xara
ri)v
learn from
and thence the same as Cronus or Sa-
was reputed to have been
latter
we
/Ai/vrocijy
his host.'
©EOKPAHIAN.
Mars
Dainas.
again, in
vit. Isid.
apud
Phot. Bibl. p. 104.9. *
Damas. ut supra. Suid.
Saturn, '
* '
stin.
lib.
i.
c.
Orph. Fragm. Gesn.
jAmb. de Mysler.
vox
p.
364.
Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12.
'Hfa'iVxoj.
Diod. Bibl.
sect. viii. c. 3.
Plut. de Isid. p. 368. lib. ii.
Le.\.
Macrob.
Ausoii. Epig. 30.
21, IS.
lib.
i.
Diod. Bibl.
p. 13.
lib.'i.
Pcscen. Fest. apud Lactan.
Suid. Lex.
p. 22.
Instil, lib.
i.
c.
21.
Porphyr. de Ab-
§ 56.
'
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 6, 9.
'
Nigid. apud Maciob. Saturn,
Asiat. Res. vol. lib.
i.
c. 9>
7.
i.
p.
285.
vol. v. p.
254.
CHAP.
I.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
214 MOOK
IV,
judgment of Macrobius, was one with Bacchus and Mercury; and Apollo,
the
according to the Clarian oracle,
So
Sun.' Britons
;
likewise Dionysius tells us, that Bacchus
But we
or Beli, that he had
that the national
find,
specially adored in the
immense
and Apollo, then were one god
chus and Apollo ascribed to him
worship of these two hill
a vast
Hu
and that he
Ajjollo,
Hu, Bucchus,
had the attributes both of Bac-
we
as
latter deities prevailed
in
learn from
Macrobius, the
mystic union on the sacred
Parnassus/
But, on a subject like Suffice
nus
so,
;
Hu
in
of this deity was
circle of Stone-Hengc.'
and, as
:
title
Bacchus and
the attributes of
all
and the
was the great god of the
and Diodorus, that they worshipped Apollo or the Sun
circular temple.'
was
with Horus, Osiris, JBacchus,
it
this,
to say in conclusion,
or the first-born,
it
were almost endless to multiply
authorities.
according to the Orphic poet, Protogo-
that,
Phanes, Priapus, Titan, Helius or the Sun, Jupiter,
Pan, Hercules, Cronus, Prometheus, Bacchus, Apoilo, Pean, Adonis, and Cupid, are the
same
one divinity
all
:
as that Prometheus,
according to Sophocles, Titan or the Sun
whom
is
the Orphic poet declares to be Cronus;
according to Statius, Titan, Osiris, and iMitliras, are only different names
of the solar god Phoebus or Apollo Belus,
Ammon,
Apollo, are
all
:
and, according to
Nonnus, Hercules,
Cronus, Jupiter, Scrapis, Phaethon,
Apis,
fundamentally one and the same god
;
jMithras,
and that god
and
is
Helius
p. 36-1.
Hymn,
or the Sun.* '
Macrob. Saturn,
*
Dionys. Perieg. ver. 565
*
Davies's Mythol. p. 113,
*
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
'
Orph. Hymn.
1, 8,
xxxiii.
1, 3.
v.
lib.
Iv. Ivii.
Nonni Dionys.
lib. .\I.
i.
i.
c. 19.
— 574.
c.
Orac. Vet. Opsop. Diod. Bibl.
lib.
p. 6. p. 130.
ii.
126, 562. 18.
9. vii. 2, 13. x. 1,
Soph. (Edip, Colon,
12.
xi. 1.
vcr. 57-
xii. 2, 7-
Stat.
Fragm.
Thebaid.
lib.
i.
ver
727—741.
CHAPTER
II.
Respecting certain remarkable opinions which the Gentiles entertained of the Sun.
I Hus
I.
it
sufficiently appears, that the chief
was the Sun, adored, agreeably great variety of
names both
which names,
try;
But,
gods.
in the
A\hile the
masculine deity of the Gentiles
to the mystic theocrasy of
in different countries
Paganism, under a
and even
in the
popular worship, were erected into so
Sun was
their
acknowledged principal
same coun-
many
distinct
divinity,
they
some very remarkable opinions concerning him, which are by no means applicable to the literal Sun and the origin of these opinions is in
entertained
:
by themselves
fact explained
1.
Among man
of a
the ancient Egyptians, the
sailing in a ship
upon
ed on the back of a crocodile ship,
but at
Clem. Alex. Slrom.
nymph, *
p.
in a
manner, Avhich
sufficiently in-
is
Sun was represented under the
the ocean.'
:
256.
lib. v.
Dut. dc
Clem. Alex. Strom,
Jamb. deMyster.
his vehicle,
Isid.
p.
566.
tlie
man
appeared, floating in the
the aquatic lotos
ship being omitted.'
Jamb, de
figure
Sometimes the ship was support-
sometimes the
the same time seated upon
was simply
the lotos
'
and that
;
and unambiguous.
telligible
INIyster. sect. vii.
:
and sometimes
At other times
p. 151.
Porph. de ant.
p.36i.
lib. v. p.
sect. vii. p. 151.
566. Porph. apud Euseb. Praep. E\an.
lib. iii. c. 9- p. 69..
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATIO
.
216 DooK
IV.
again he was depicted, not as a
grown man, but
full
within the calix of the mystic lotos
:
and
man
that amphibious animal the frog, which, as
it
must
lotos,
Bembine
in the
another variety; for there the place of the
as a child, yet
table
or the infant
is
we
seated
find yet
occupied by
similarly appears floating
considered as a symbol of the Sun.'
similarly be
still
on the
The
later
heathens attempted to give various refined physical reasons for such an extraordinary
mode
very easy to
mariner
;
why
of hieroglyphical representation
conceive,
why
the literal
the literal
:
but
yet remains not
it
Sun should have been esteemed a
Sun should have been placed
a ship, and set
in
why the literal Sun should use the aquatic lotos as his most proper vehicle why the literal Sun should be supported in his ship on why the literal Sun should be most aptly symbolized the back of a crocodile on the ocean
afloat
;
;
;
by a watery frog or a new-born infant
in the calix
of a lotos.
This
last part
of his character seemed so thoroughly ridiculous and unnatural to Julius Firmicus, that he could not forbear exclaiming, JVho ever beheld the
personate a boy?'' literal
How
And
Sun were intended
well indeed might he ask such a question,
but just as well might
:
it
the
be additionally asked>
can the fiery Sun be a xvatery frog, and with what propriety can he
be viewed as floating in the cup
of a
or as steering
lotos
a ship over the
waves of the ocean ? 2. Yet, however singular these notions may be, they are
lizing still prevails
among
the Hindoos
ginated from a similar train of ideas. equally declared to be the Sun
that country, either seated
:
and doubtless
:
The
but
on the lotos
still ;
far
Just the same
peculiar to the Egyptian school of theology.
all
if
Sun
in
from being
mode
of symbo-
both nations
it
ori-
three great gods of Hindostan are
we
find them, in the
mythology of
or sailing over the ocean in a ship
upon the surface of the great deep, sometimes on the leaf of a sacred tree, and sometimes on a huge sea-serpent coiled up in the form of a or floating
boat.'
So completely indeed do such speculations enter
the Brahmens, that one of the
bom •
as
an infant out of the
Plut. de Isid. p. 355.
members of
lotos,
is
said to have been
while another specially bears the * Jul.
Fig. in tab. Berab. *
their triad
into the creed of
See Plate
II.
Fig. 1.
Firm, de error, prof.
name of
rel. p. 19.
'
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Narayan
or he "who moves on the waters.
217
In exact accordance with
part of his character, their solar god, under his
of
title
Narayan,
this
repre-
is
sented upon a krge scale in the royal gardens of Cathmandu, as reclining on
a sort of bed which appears to
water of an
float in the literal
tank
artificial
or fountain.
This same floating Sun was not unknown to the Greeks, whose theology
3.
was
radically the
of Stesiciiorus
is
same
as that of Eg}'pt
yet extant, wherein he celebrates a voyage of the solar deity
over the broad expanse of the ocean story
who was
told of Hercules,
is
justly remarks, that his cup, as
These
employed
be easily traced
avowed
in
which
himself the
Sun
exactly similar
on which IVIacrobius
;
cup of Bacchus, was a
well as the
The
mythology of Greece and Egj'pt, but
in the
the ship of the solar Siva
cup or dish
An
a golden cup.
to represent the ship of the Sun.
We
that of Hindostan.
in
in
ship.
from the circumstance of the yellow or golden cup of
fables originated
the lotos being
A curious fragment
and Hindostan.
mean
fruit
the
are told, that the
same thing
;
the deities, are distinguished by one appellation
;
it is
cup of the
may
distinctly-
lotos
and
and the sacred
that this ship,
and flowers are wont to be
notion
sacrificially
offered to
and that the cup, being
thus designed to represent the ship, ought properly to be shaped like a boat,
though
it is
prevailed
sometimes made of a round or of a square form.
among
Macrobius not only
the Greeks.
Hercules, Bacchus, or the Sun, was a ship
known by navigation
name of
the
Carches'ta,
and he adds, that
:
it
;
lost, that
bius, that at
we may
collect
one period
it
Similar ideas that the
cup of
but he asserts, that the goblets,
were so called
in
reference to the art of
was one of these Carchesia, which Jupiter
gave to Alcmen^ the mother of Hercules. being
tells us,
So
far
indeed was the notion from
from a fragment of Menander cited by Macro-
was not unusual among the Greeks
to designate
much perhaps in the same manner as we are The maritime Venus-Colias, who was astronomi-
ships by the appellation of cups,
wont
to call
them
cally the jNIoon,
vessels.
had her sacred navicular goblet, no
Hercules and the Sun
though
its
than Bacchus and
place was often supplied by a large circular
within which the goddess appears standing upright
sea-shell,
'
;
less
Asiat. Res. vol.
Pag.
Idol.
viii.
p. 52. vol.ii. p. 313.
VOL.
II.
:
and wc must
Moor's Hind. Pamh. passim. i2
E
*^"'^''*
"•
'
218 BOOK
IV.
OUIGIV OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
THF.
not omit to observe, that these boat-like cups or imitative ships of the solar deity were sometimes adorned with the figures of doves perching
upon
their
covers. 4.
So strongly was
this
idea of a mariner
Sun impressed upon the minds of
the ancient pagans, that they even transferred
with making the Sun
sail
solar system as one large vessel
;
These eight
Not
to the sphere.
which the seven planets act as
in
while the Sun, as the fountain of ethereal tain.
it
content
over the ocean in a ship, they considered the whole
presides as the pilot or cap-
light,
who
mariners,
celestial
sailors,
navigate the ship of the sphere,
are clearly the astronomical representatives of the eight great gods of Egypt; of
all
whom,
including the
Sun
were wont (according to Por-
as their head,
phyry) to be depicted, not standing on dry land, but sailing over the ocean in a ship.* 5.
To
the Sun, thus steering his planetary ship through the midst of hea-
ven, the old theologists ascribed the guardianship of a gate or door, assigning
another similar door to the protection of the Moon. they placed in the two opposite tropics
These imaginary doors
and from them, they taught, that
:
human
souls were mysteriously born
deemed
the male and female principles of generation.
esteemed the creative Nous or Mind
while the
;
:
Sun and
the
Hence
and, just as the solar
all
Moon were
the former
was
Brahm of
the
Hindoos, and the solar Mithras of the Persians, were each believed to have triplicated themselves,
each of
whom was
and thus to have produced three subordinate gods,
nevertheless the
Sun
so the solar Nous,
;
who was
reck-
oned the Life or Soul of the World, was thought to have especially begotten three younger Noes,
though
all
human
were generally born from the
souls
astronomical door over which he presided with his seven planetary companions in his celestial ship.' '
Much
the
same notions respecting
Fragm. Stesich. apud Athen. Deipnos.
Apc'lod. Bibl.
lib.
ii.
c. 4.
§ 10.
lib. xi.
Asiat. Res. vol.
p.
vi.
this
birth of souls
Maciob. Saturn,
469.
p. 521.
Athen. Deipnos.
lib. v.
c.
lib. xi. p.
21.
474,
487, 490. *
Martian. Capell. Satyric.
lib.
ii.
p. 43.
Herod,
lib.
ii.
c.
145.
Porph. de ant. nymph, p.
256. '
Hence,
in reference to the birth of
Noah from
the door, he,
or Intellect of the Unncrse, was wont to be denominated
Nom
who was esteemed
from
the door.
the
Nou&
ITffi Ss rr^y
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATllY. may be
and that
;
one of these
in
which are destroyed by a deluge either of great period, are born again this
We are told,
traced in the sacred writings of the Hindoos.
are seven worlds or heavens
world of births
On
divinity, the
whence
:
fire
of the Egyptians
nounces the sacred word Om,
Om!
following meditation.
is
there
creatures,
And
called the xvorld of' births.
it is
for the
;
all living
*''**''
tiiat
or water at the close of each
Om
immediately connected with
is
219
or the triple solar
devout aspirant, whenever he pro-
employ
directed to
his thoughts
with the
earth! sky! heaven! middle region! place of
births! 7nanslo?i of the blessed! abode of truth.' II.
Sometimes we
find the
particular specification
Thus,
in the
made a road
in
is
aspirant
who
made of
closely united with the ocean, though
the regent of the waters
is
said to have
untrodden space to receive the footsteps of the Sun, whose
we
daring profligacy of the wicked
are told,
is
and
:
this
mysterious
the most proper subject of meditation for the
about to purify himself by swimming.
is
Thus, in the mytho-
logy of the old Atlantians, the Sun was thought to have been plunged
Po; which,
the Eridanus or
symbolizing the ocean nifestly
been borrowed
of the Sun, was
no
his ship.
Hindoo mythology,
office it is to restrain the
circumstance,
Sun
a
:
;
story,
whence the
classical tale of
made by
but Phaethon, though
Sun
into
Nile of Egypt, was a sacred river
like the
And
Phaethon has ma-
the poets the offspring
in the
mythology of the
ancient Mexicans which their fathers certainly brought with
them out of Asia,
Sun
the
is
III.
its
Sun was pursued by and that he
this description 1.
and when
close,
Herodotus
drowned
all living
in the sea,
when
a former
things perished by water.
*
is,
the Ocean, that he escaped by taking refuge in a finally
vanquished his aqueous enemy.
Fable*
occur in Egypt, in Greece, and even in America. that near
tells us,
Gregor. Nazianz. de Spirit. Sanct. after him, that '
thus,
Sometimes again we meet with legends, the substance of which
floating island,
of
himself.
feigned to have once been
world came to
that the
really the
Buto there was a deep and broad
Gregory unhappily
fancies,
as
many
lake,
raadcrns have don«
by the mundane Nous the pagans darkly meant the Holy Ghost.
Porphyr. de antr. nymph,
Proc. in Plat. Tim. p. 93,
9-i,
p.
95.
263
— 268.
Macrob.
in
somn. Scip.
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 348, 351.
lib,
i.
c.
20. p. 69,
Macrob. Saturn,
lib. i.
C.18. p. 201. *
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 360.
Filgriin. b. viii, c. 13. p. 8O6.
Died. Bibl.
lib. iii. p.
I90. Sophoc. Elect, ver. 826.
Purch.
"'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOLATUY.
220 BOOK
IV.
ip
which was a reputed floating
ple dedicated to the Sun,
the Greeks did tars,
Phabus
its
whom
the Egyptians
most usually called Horus as
The temple was
or Apollo.
furnished with three al-
agreeably to the prevailing opinion that the Sun triplicated himself or
produced out of it
In this island there w as a large tem-
island.
his
was not supposed
own
have been always
to
As
essence three younger divinities.
to be
but to have lost
in a floating state,
When
firmness in consequence of the following circumstance.
w hom the Egyptians acknowledged
no other
for the island,
tlian the sea,
Typhon,
was roaming
round the world in pursuit of the solar deity Horus, Latona, who was one of the primitive eight gods and w ho dwelt in the city Buto, received him in trust
from
Isis,
and concealed him from the rage of
cred island Chemmis, which then
first
began
his
adversary in the sa-
Afterwards he became
to float.
Typhon who had then commenced in the place of
suflSciently powerful to quit his place of refuge and to expel
usurped his dominions
and
:
his
own
reign
the temporary usurped domination of the ocean.' 2.
The Greeks had
specting their
Apollo
;
the solar god, that the
a story, in
main points
all
substantially the same, re-
who, as every schoolboy well knows,
names of Apollo and
The
poets convertibly and indifferently.
Sun
the
is
so decidedly
are always used by the
Hellenic fable indeed
is
palpably
nothing more than a repetition of the Egyptian one, adapted to a different country.
Python, we are
told,
was an immense serpent, the
While Latona was
by the deluge.
earth, gendered of the slime produced
offspring of the
pregnant with Apollo and Diana, or the Sun and the Moon, ster so implacably
caused the island of Delos
to
emerge out of the
sea,
Sun and
the
posed to have floated
in
therefore
order that an asy-
Moon, grasping an
At
during the pains of parturition.
in
Neptune
Here she brought
afforded to the persecuted goddess.
safety her double offspring, the
her hands
mon-
pursued her, that no place could be found upon the sur-
face of the whole earth where she might be delivered.
lum might be
this
this period
forth in
olive-tree in
Delos was sup-
an erratic state on the surface of the waters
Apollo afterwards rendered
it
stable
;
which had pursued his mother with so
•
Herod,
and
at length slew the serpent
much
lib. ij.c.
implacability.
156, 144.
:
but
Python,
THE
OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
ORICilN
In the present legend, Python ocean, the infant Apollo
is tlie
is
Python or Typhon
that
the flood
the
the floating island Delos oc-
infant Horus,
Chemmis, and
We additionally learn
the Egfean sea
from the
sub-
is
classical fable,
not the ocean simply, but the ocean at the time of
is
that the reason,
;
Typhon or
obviously the Eg}'ptian
cupies the place of the floating island stituted for the lake of Buto.
221
why Latona could
no resting place, was, be-
find
cause the M hole earth was subjected to the dominion of Python, or in other
w ords was the
Moon
laid
under water
were born
when
must be understood
the solar god
Chemmis, was
was that of the deluge.
the floating island,
in
since the classical tale
being the case, the latter
and that the precise period, when the Sun and
;
in a similar
Horus was obliged him
The time
manner.
consequently,
to take refuge in the floating island
that of the general flood
the agent that thus compelled
Such
palpably the same as the Egyptian,
is
:
Typhon
and, as
to conceal himself, the
or the ocean was
ocean at the epoch
of the flood must evidently have been intended.' 3.
We
find another parallel legend
among
the Peruvians
;
tends to prove, that their theology must have sprung from a
When
w ith that of Greece and Egypt.
'
Hyg. Fab. 140. Ovid. Metam.
i5ineid.
lib.
iii.
lib.
i.
ver.
all
which strongly
common
mankind were swept away by
434—440.
lib.
vi.
332—334.
ver.
Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 401. Callim. llyraii. ad
ver. 75.
Tzetzes says, that Asteria, the sister of Latona, was
terwards into the erratic island Delos.
origin
first
metamorphosed
Dian.
Virg.
ver. 35.
into a tjuail
and
af-
Asteria however was the same as Latona herself, as
is
evident from the circumstance of that goddess being equally said to have been changed into a quail.
Serv. in
^neid.
the floating island.
lib.
iii.
ver. 72.
Latona
th'-Ttfore
must ultimately be
identified
with
In fact, both she and Asteria (the Astoreth of the Phenicians) were
equally the great mother or receptacle of the hero-gods, here symbolized by a floating island.
As
the raven was a bird sacred to Apollo, though
deemed a messenger of
evil tidings:
suspect, that in this part of the legend a quail has been substituted for a dove. to be the case,
we
shall
have an exact inversion of the Hindoo
time of the deluge Parvati dove.
I
am
the
much
in the
same manner
i.
ver. 2.
in
my
conjecture, because
have taken the shape of a quail no
to
as Siva
vi.
we
less
which
relates, that at the
p. 523.
into the female of that bird.
ApoHod.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
find,
that Jupiter himself
than his paramour Latona,
metamorphoses himself into a dove
Argha when changed
Asiat. Res. vol.
fable,
I
this
assumed the form of the ship Argha and afterwards that of a
more confirmed
was sometimes thought
join his consort
first
so
Supposing
in order that
he
may
still
Schol. in Pind. Nera. Od.
c. 10. § 3.
*^"^''*
"'
THE OaiGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
222
named Virachoca emerged from the 'llien tfie human great lake Titiaca, and became the founder of Cuzco. multiply the of the earth. The worupon face once more to species began
the waters of the deluge, a personage
ship of this Virachoca was joined
that of the
with
Sun
viewed astronomically, he was himself the solar god.
feigned that the struction of
hid himself,
mankind by the
Chemmis and Sun
Sun
the
Greek
and the place
;
Accordingly,
same sacred lake Titiaca a small
ruvians shewed in the
we
island
where
;
Pe-
tliC
tliej
and was thus preserved during the general de-
flood.
In
was a temple dedicated
was accounted
Here
holy.
then,
tiie
to the
symbolical
Sun concealed him-
are liteially informed, that the
self in a small island, in order tiiat
Egyptian island
this island, as in the
island Delos, there
itself
serpent being omitttd,
or rather, v\hen
;
he miglit be saved from the fury of an
universal deluge.'
IV. As cup of the
the
Sun
thus set afloat by the old mythologists in a ship, in the
is
lotos, or in
a small
erratic island
expressly referred to the time of the floud
he
is
first
:
and as his eventful voyage
;
so
we may
is
further observe, that
represented as peculiarly delighting to haunt the sacred mountain, which raised
summit
the
Thus
its
head above the
retiring waters,
and which received upon
Ark of him who was preserved trom
the favourite residence of the Greek solar deity was Parnassus,
where Hellenic legends
fixed the appulse of the sliip ot
Deucalion
the solar Siva of the Hindoos, the mariner of the ship Argha,
is
or Cailasa, where the ark of :
and
thus,
in the
the world from the top of
Menu
and
his
thus
:
exhibited
as dwelling conspicuous in his eight forms on the Cashgarian peak of
deluge
its
the general destruction.
Meru
seven companions rests after the
Zend-Avesta, the Sun
mount Albordi, which
is
is
described as ruling over
have been the
said to
first
land that appeared above the waves of the retreating flood.
V. Nor yet are these the whole of the wonderful tile
mythologists
The
tell
things,
which the gen-
us of the Sun.
old Orphic poet, the priests of Egypt, and the
Brahmens of Hin-
dostan, agree in maintaining, that he was born out of an egg, which floated
on the ocean, and which had been tossed about *
Cieza apud Purch. Pilgrim, b.
ixi c. 9. p.
at the
874.
had
mercy of the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT. elements
and he was thus produced, both
:
223
simple state of unity, and
in his
become three by a mysterious act of self-multiplication.'
as he had
Certain
powerful families, both in Hellas, Hindostan, and Peru, which claimed a
proud sacerdotal and military preeminence above the subject multitude,
and
fected to trace their descent from him,
themselves Hdiadce or Sinya-bans or
whom
men, the primeval being from
who
or
of these
Ares or Horus or Helius,
of the Sun
all
yet was he
:
father both of hero-gods
and of
were equally born, the personage
Under
himself was specially the first-produced.'
Sames
an eminent manner styled
in
Cliilclreii
common
likewise acknowledged to be the
af-
as the
Greeks
the
names
either of
rightly translated the last
of which equally denote the Sun, he was claimed by the
titles all
Assyrians and the Egyptians as one of their most ancient fabulous sovereigns
and
:
and, as the latter gave him a crocodile for the vehicle of himself
his
shi[)
and as
their ancient king Meni-S
was sa\ed on the back of a
crocodile during the prevalence of an imaginary local deluge, as the Egypt-
animal Campsa and as the word
ians
denominated
tliat
fied
an ark ;
evident, that
it is
and that the
son,
mean
the
same
deity,
who
began
his devotion
is
hieroj;!
tiling
s
In
'
Menes and
Sun must be
the
crocodile and the ship of the
pliical
the
fine,
the
Campsa
Hindoo Brahmens
di.^tinguished by such various
assert,
also signi-
same per-
Sun must
that the solar
and remarkable characteristics,
immediately after the flood, and continued
it
clLring the
space of a hundred years.*
VI. Notions lief,
that,
like these
when
would
themselves be sufficirnt to induce a be-
in
the Gentiles worshipped the
Sun and the Host of Heaven,
they did not worship them simply, but associated with them certain characters
who had
performed the actions which were thence ascribed
really
Such a conclusion would be the almost inevitable
to the celestial bodies.
result of the preceding inquiry, even
'
Orpb. Hjmn,
v. 1,
Euseb. Pr«p. Evan.
ii.
Orph. Hymn.
^
Chron. Paschal,
c. 4,
69-
V. 1, 3,
8,
p. 37.
t)iod. Bibl. lib.
* Asiat. Res. toI.
iii.
if
no direct information had been
Fragm. apud Olympiod. Coiiim.
2, 8.
lib. iii. c.
»
human
1
t).
1.
Iiistit.
Instil,
of
Died. Bibl. i.
p. 157.
p. 80.
of
Menu.
Menu.
lib.
i.
Ka/x\)/«,
c.
c. 1. § i.
p. 13. fijjx^j.
§ 9,
9-
in Phileb.
Gcsn.
edit. p.
af-
410.
12.
31, 32, 33.
Palxph. Fragm. llesych. Lex.
p. C5.
llerod. lib.
'"*''• "•
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAK IDOLATRY.
2i24 BOOK
IV.
forded us on the subject
but, so far
:
is
from being the case, that the an-
this
cient mythologists have been as unreservedly communicative as could well liave
been desired.
Hesiod informs
us, that the
demon-gods were the souls of those men, who
lived in the first or golden age,
and who were afterwards worshipped by
posterity on account of their extraordinary
virtues.'
under the name of Ha'mes-Trismegistus,
asserts,
The
when he
tells us,
IMuch the same account
the fathers were
wont
to
by
after their death
effect given
by Diodorus,
and other cognate deities, were
that Osiris, Vulcan,
originally sovereigns of the people,
is in
whom
reproach the Gentiles with their adoration of what
selves
:
acknowledge, that their gods were once
fairly
men
like
and the Buddhists, though they claim the highest honours
deity, confess that after all
and
atic
coffins
were
In a similar manner, some of the more intelligent among
relics.*
the Hindoos
all
Hence
they were venerated.'
were no better than so many dead men, whose very bones and
shewn as
writes
that Esculapius, Osiris,
and Thoth, were aH holy men, whose souls were worshipped by the Egyptians.*
who
author,
their
them-
for their
he was but a mortal.* But perhaps the most system-
explicit testimony to this
purpose
found
to be
is
in
the writings of
Cicero, because he positively declares that such was the occult doctrine taught in the Mysteries.
After enumerating various instances of
men
being ele-
vated after their death to the rank of gods, What, says he to the person with
whom he is
engaged
in disputation, is not
on this detail any further, jilkd xvith the
almost all heaven, not to carry
human
race ?
But, if
search and examine antiquity, and go to the bottom of this affair things which the Greek writers have delivered, those very gods themselves,
those sepulchres belong, which are so
member, for you are
initiated,
120
Hesiod. Opcr.
*
Hcrm. Trism. apud Medc's Apost. of
»
Died. Bib),
*
Clem. Alex. Cohort,
*
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 14.
ct dier. lib.
lib. i.
the Dii
i.
ver.
the
majorum gentium, had
into heaven.
commonly shewn
what you have been taught
'
from
would be found, that even
and ascended from hence
their 07'iginal here belozv,
whom
who are deemed
it
I should
Inquire
in Greece.
in the
to
Re-
Mysteries
— 125. latter times, parti, c. 4.
p. 13, 14, 15.
p. 29.
Arnob. adv. gent. Asial. Res.
vii.
lib. vi.
p.
Jul. Tirni. dc error, prof. lel. p. 4, 13.
31,33.
vol. viii. p.
352.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. you
will then at length understand,
Accordingly, he himself
us in another place, that such was the univer-
am
in eflFect proves the very point I
contending for
tems of pagan mythology originated from a
same
matter may be carried.^
this
Mysteries, wherever they might be celebrated
doctrine of the
sal
tells
how far
225
common
JVhat think you, says
speculative notions.
namely that
;
he,
all
which
:
the sys-
source, and taught the
of
famous or powerful men have obtained and that these are the very gods now become the
who
those,
assert,
that valiant or
divine honours after
death,
object of
Euhemerus
tion?
I forbear
ried.
when
tells us,
to
our adora-
and where they were bu-
these gods died,
speak of the sacred rites of Eleusis, into which the rnost
Ipasi by Samothrace and the Mysteries of Lemnos, whose hidden Orgies are celebrated in darkness and amidst the thick
remote nations are initiated
shades of groves andforests things, than that
of
came
to be
The
since
learn
from them rather
means
the nature
properly be esteemed gods^
Sun and
in conjunction with the
are by no
the
is,
how
they
Host of Heaven.
at a loss for the desired information.
notion, that the souls of the
celestial bodies or
we
may
Gentiles being thus mere men, the question
worshipped
Here again we
:
of beings xcho
The gods of the
1.
;
hero-gods were either translated to the
were emanations fi'om them, constituted a very prominent
part of ancient Paganism.
Thus we
find
it
be a prevailing idea, that the Sun, the Moon, and the
to
Stars,
were not mere
ligent,
and actuated by a divine
inert matter
;
on the contrary, beings wise,
but,
Posidonius
spirit.'
supposed each Star to be the body of a deity
'
Ciccr. Tusc. Disp.
1.
de nat. deor.
Warburton
to
i.
c. 12, 13.
lib.
establish
c. 42.
i.
his theory
Gentiles worshipped dead men. things,
he
reft-rs
tells us,
no doubt
that the Stoics
and Austin represents them
that the Stars were parts of Jupiter or the
as maintaining,
* Cicer.
:
intel-
See also the apocryphal book of
Sun,
Wisdom
that they xiv. 12.
These two citations from Cicero are adduced by Bp. respecting the Mysteries
When
:
they certainly prove, that the
Cicero speaks of the Orgies teaching the nature of
to that part of
them, which set forth the doctrine of a succession
of similar worlds, or which described (as Jamblichus speaks) the conturbation of the heavens, the revealing of ihc secrets of the resting of the ship Baris. *
TTUf .
Toy r{k\w,
KM
ffeXyriv, xai
Isis,
the display of the ineffable wonders of the great abyss,
Jambl. de Rlystcr.
sect. vi. c.
ruy aWiuv avT^uiv
SKaa-Toy, sivai voe^ov
xcci
pf ovijuoi' x«i
TTUgiViP
Zen. apud Stob.
I'ag. Idol.
VOL.
II.
and
51.
2
F
CHAP.
II.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
22S BOOK
IT.
^vere all living creatures,
mentions
ter also
and
tliat
to have been
it
they
all
had rational
souls.'
an established opinion,
that,
est circuit of heaven to the sphere of the IMoon, there arc
This last wrifronv the higli-
numerous ethereal
souls which ought to be worshipped as celestial gods, and that these souls
are the Stars and the Planets which
may
but even perceived by the eye.*
intellect
the Plienicians
with Cumberland,
for,
:
The
by the
same notion prevailed
I think
animals, which
the intelligent oviform
not only be comprehended
it
among
abundantly evident, that
Sanchoniatho
calls Zopheseniin
or
Overlookers of the heavens, are the Stars, and not, as Bochart imagines, the
We
angels.'
find
it
also amoi>g the ancient Babylonians
dean oraeles, the great father erratic animals,
is
:
for,
in the
Chal-
said to have constituted a septenary of living
which are the seven Worlds or seven Planets.*
Even some
of the Jewish writers did not escape the general infection, but were led to I
adopt the theologically philosophical reveries of the Gentiles. the Stars divine images his also
Philo calls
and, in what sense he calls them so, appears fi-om
:
denominating them incorruptible and inunortal
souls.'
So
likewise
^laimonides declares, that the Stars and Spheres are every one of them animated, being endued with
life,
they acknowledge him, at whose
knowledge, and understanding
command
the world was
;
made,
and that each, of
them, according to their degree and excellency, praising and honouring him as the ancrels do.*
The was
reason,
their
why
the heavenly bodies were thus
deemed
living intelligences
and, as the
Sun
was naturally thought the peculiar
resi-
This opinion was
stre-
supposed union with the souls of deceased heroes
was the brightest of those bodies,
it
dence of the parent and chief of those hero-gods.
nuously held by the Platonists of the Alexandrian school.
:
All the superior
gods they equally esteemed to be the Sun: and the inferior gods they ima'
Aff-rjov Eivai (p^cri a-uiua. Ssioy.
* August, de civ. Dei. lib. ^
vii. c.
PosiJ.
lib.
ii.
c. 2. p.
*
Fran. Palric. Orac. Zoroast.
Ayx>Ma.ra
tit.
Phil, de opif.
* Jesudc Hattorah. c.
iii. §
9-
1 1.
lib.
i,
c. 10.
Cumberland's Sanchon.
p. 21.
Bo-
706.
*
biia.
civ. Dei. lib. iv. c.
6.
Sanchon. apud Euseb. Pra;p. Evan.
chart. Chanaan.
apud Stob. August, de
Oujavoj. p. 44. edit. Stanley.
mund.
apud Cudw.
Kf^m^Tw;
xai aSavara;
Jntcll, Syst. p.
471.
•^luyjx.;,
Phil, de
somn,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
227
gined to be deified heroes, whose souls dwelt in the bodies of the Stars.'
supported by the whole tenor of ancient mytho-
this doctrine they are fully
The Egyptian
logy.
mere men
;
we
priests, as
Horus, and
that Cronus, Osiris,
Sun
;
new
other principal deities, were once
but that, after they died, their souls migrated into some one or
became
the genii or animating spirits of
Since therefore Osiris was declared to be the
mansions/
celestial
it is
learn from Plutarch, taught expressly,
all their
other of the heavenly bodies, and their
In
evident, that, according to this system, the soul of the
was thought
man, who
was distinguished by
that appellation,
into the Solar Orb.
In a similar manner we are told by Sanchoniatho, that
Ilus or Cronus was once a man, that he was his death,
and that
his soul
was believed
among
deified
to
have been translated
by the Phervicians
after
which
to have passed into the Planet
who
bears his name.'
So
were preserved
an ark with Menu-Satyavrata, now animate the seven
in
again,
Stars of the great bear
the
while the souls of their wives shine conspicuously
;
These were the gods,
in the Pleiades.*
whom
cause their residence was in the Stars.
once
illustrious
mounted
men
;
but
it
whom
the Latins called Deastri, be-
They were thought
was supposed, that
to the Constellations as a
was Julius Cesar,
Hindoos, the seven Rishis,
their
to
have been
souls after death
reward of their exalted
Such
virtue.
the flattery indeed of the Augustan court elevated
to a Star, yet a flattery perfectly accordant with the prevailing speculations of Paganism inentioned in
From
this
:
and such doubtless were the Baalim or Siddim, so frequently
Holy
Scripture.
source plainly originated the primeval disposition of the hea-
venly bodies into distinct Constellations,
some hero or of some mysterious celebrated upon earth,
still
each bearing the name either of
hieroglyphic.
They, who had been most
retained their preeminence on the sphere
omit other more obscure Catasterisms, the warrior Nimrod
to
aloft in the constellation
-•
Plot. Ennead.
*
Taj
^
Euseb. Prap. Evan.
ii.
Orion
;
lib.
i.
Plut. de Isid.p. 354.
c. 10.
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 83, 85.
and,
towers
while, in the remarkable groupe of the ship
lib. 9.
is li/u^aj Xa^irEjy affrqa..
still
:
Moor's Hind. Paiith. p. 85.
•"'*''•
"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
Q28 »ooK
IV.
Argo, the dove, the raven, the
we may
still
altar, the victim,
and the
sacrificing Centaur,
read the well-known history of the deluge.
Sometimes, by a yet further refinement, the genius of the Sun was thought
from heaven, and
to descend
the emperor Julian,
who was
become incarnate
to
deeply versed
in the
in
human
a
Thus
body.
Mysteries of that fantastic
theology which he preferred to the rational simplicity of the Gospel, maintained, that Esculapius
was manifested upon earth
generative power of the
Sun
that the fabled
Sun
for
;
by other mythologists Esculapius
And
himself.'
nature to their
Menu
Sun
to
is
the
in the
positively declared
thus the Hindoos distinctly assign a two-fold
one point of view, he was a mere man
in
:
another, he was an emanation of the Sun.*
man was
human form by
in a
to understand, I conceive,
god of healing was an emanation of the Sun incarnate
body of a man to be the
from which we are
:
but,
;
in
But, whether the soul of the
thought to be translated to the orb of the Sun, or the genius of the
animate the body of the man,
clearly traced throughout the
this notion
of a double nature
whole mythology of the pagans, and
may be
is
in fact
the history of their gods one and
necessarily required by every page in
many.
The
2.
inquiry having been conducted thus far,
man was
•what particular
it
venerated by the Gentiles
only remains to learn, in close
union with the
solar deity.
As
cribed to the
Sun
will enable us to
with him. '
*
;
have, in consequence of this union, been as-
the various remarkable opinions entertained of the
determine the man,
who was worshipped
Hence we may gather from
Sun
in conjunction
the preceding investigation, that the
Cyril, cont. Julian, lib. vi. p. 200.
WAeiierer the deity condescends to be born of woman, the person
natures.
To
this
distinction
tradictions in the Puranas;
rata,
nou
man
the attributes of the
who are acknowledged
in hit
ae
and more
;
and Satyavrata
act independently of each other, and
Res. vol.
vi. p.
479.
pagan mythology.
one, but there arc two
many seeming con-
particitlarly so with respect to Vaivaswata
The
to be but one person.
character of the Sun
is
7nust carefnlli/ attend in order to reconcile
may
is
the
exist at the
divine nature
human nature same lime
This distinction must equally be attended to
is :
and Satyav-
an emanation of Vishthese two natures often
in different places. in
evi'iy other
Asiut.
system of
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. man age
must have been one, who performed an extraordinary voya ship with seven companions represented by the seven planets who
in question in
;
was compelled sea
;
229
to hide himself in a small floating island by the violence of the
who was born from an egg or from the calix of the
by which can only be meant that sailing in his ship,
this
lotos,
who mysteriously
thence occasionally depicted as an infant;
man was
triplicated himself,
to
;
who,
human
souls
the father of three sons
presided over a gate or door, from which
were born; who delighted
and who was
all
haunt a lofty mountain, where the ark of one
preserved during an universal flood was thought to have rested
once plunged
in a
remarkable manner into the ocean
rent, not only of a powerful family that early
we
time when these circumstances occurred, was,
when
except cal
all
the world
With
manner
in
respect to the
are told very explicitly, that
was inundated by water, and when
personage and his companions
this solar
who was
claimed and acquired a decided
but even of the whole race of mankind.
superiority,
;
and who was the pa-
;
:
all
men
it
perished
and, as for the hieroglyphi-
which they are sometimes detailed, we may clearly enough
perceive, even independent of
many
positive assertions to that purpose,
that
the egg, the cup, the lotos, the crocodile, and the floating island, in whicli or
man
out of which the thing as his ship.
man,
whom
either sails or is figuratively born,
Such being the
the Gentiles have in
case,
all
it
mountain must,
Noah
through which
in the first instance,
be the same
ages and countries worshipped in con-
the Ark must be the door of the Ark elevated ;
all
sufficiently obvious, that the
is
junction with the Sun, must be the great father that tb« sidereal door,
must
all
;
that his ship
souls are
living
the sphere; that his
to
must be born,
favourite
be Ararat ; that his three sons must be
Ham, and Japhet that his seven nautical companions must be tliat his birth from the lotos or e^g or floating island the family of Noah allegorical birth of Noah from the Ark, an idea which netlie mean must Shem,
;
;
cessarily involves the fable of his infancy
;
that his
victory over the ocean
must denote the recovery of the earth from the wide domination of the that his being reputed the
first
followed from his being the
human
race
;
sovereign of every ancient
common
ants tliough tliey admitted that
all
people naturally
father and patriarchal king of the
and that the family, ^\hich peculiarly claimed
men equally
must be the family of Cush, which, under
flood
to be his
whole
descend-
derived their origin from him,
the auspices of
Nimrod,
esta-
^°*''- "•
—
THE onrcrN of pagan idolatry.
230 soon
IT.
blished the only real universal empire, and wliich ever since has retained the
sovereignty over the other children of Noah.'
This would be the inevitable conclusion from the preceding inquiry, even if
the old mythologists had been silent
silent
they more than once positively
who,
:
in his
human
Thus,
destruction.
that their solar god was he,
us,
tell
himself was preserved
in the
But they are not
point.
was reckoned the subordinate agent
capacity,
on the deluge, and who
upon the
Zend-Avesta, the man-bull Taschter, who with
three associates causes the whole earth to be inundated, and that earth in three forms
Thus
the
is
yet spoken of as
Hindoo Menu-Satyavrata, who
Rishis at the time of the general deluge, tion of the solar dtity
Thus
;
hieroglyphical crocodile and
who
is is
clearly be identified with the Sun,
using the crocodile for his vehicle.
who
is
ocean that has no shores when
his character
Thus, so
Vide
the Sun. first
in
is
far as I
an ark with the seven be also an emana-
to
Menu
certainly the
because the Sun
And
all
Menu,
is
exhibited as equally
Menwvdd or Menu, Menus, who is celebrated
thus the British
who
in the ship
mankind perish
is
of the Brahmens, must
Ked
sails
exce[)t himself
Menes must
over an
and seven
necessarily be
yet positively declared to be the
Sun
viewed astronomically.* can judge, no position can be more satisfactorily esta-
infra b. vi. c. 2, 3.
* Davies's
the
saved
declared
therefore like the Egyptian
identified with the Indian
'
being celestially the Sim.
described as the head of three subordinate
companions, and who
upon
exists
saved from a flood on the back of the
as the primeval author of the Mysteiies,
when
is is
who
whence he bears the additional name of I'awa.wata.
Menes, who
the Egyptian
in bringing
an ark from the general
in
Mythol.
p.
106, 110, 121, 176.
Menwydd was
Bp. Cumberland and Dr. Shucklord think, that
king of Egypt, was the scriptural Rlizraim.
It is
what the leading doctrine of Paganism was, that Mizruim,
Abraham, may have been deemed one of but the primitive Menes,
who was
the
same
Menes,
as IIu
whom
not improbable, like
:
but IIu was
Herodotus makes
when we consider
Enoch, Cush, Nimrod, and
the subordinate manifestations of the great father;
saved from drowning at the era of an inundation by a
Camp.ia, a word whirh indifferently signifies a« ark and a crocodile, must clearly have been
Noah
or the Menu-Satyavrata of Ilindcstan.
ford's
Connect,
vol.
i.
book
iv. p.
SO/.
Cumberland's Sancbou.
p,
54
60.
Shuck-
THE OaiGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr. blished than this
when
that,
:
the Gentiles worshipped the
cipal divinity, they did not worship
liiin
231
Sun
as their prin-
simply and absolutely as the mere
chief of the heavenly luminaries; but they adored in conjunction with him,
and perpetually distinguished by
name, the patriarch Noah, whose soul
have migrated into
after death they feigned to
intellectual regent of
his
orb and to have become the
his
it.
Yet, although they venerated
Noah
as
the solar deity or (to adopt the
phraseology of the Chaldfean oracles) as the one
fire
from which
were produced, they did not venerate him exclusively as such.'
things
all
Agreeably
to the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, each of which alike
menced with an
father and three sons
universal
who had
com-
on the
floated
of a preceding deluge, the person worshipped in the Sun was not
surface
Noah Noah as
simply Noah, but
nor yvt merely
viewed as a transniigratory reappearance of a reappearance of
Adam
but
alone,
Adam; Noah consi-
dered as one of the numerous or rather innumerable manifestations of the In a^'solute strictness of speech then, according to
great father.
of the [)agan hierophants, their floating solar deity or transmigrating personage, f)f
gods and
iiitn,
that fabled
compound
they denominated the gi^eat father both
and wiiom they deemed at once the destroyer and repro-
ducer of the world.
Noah
whom
is
system
tiie
What,
in
naked truth,
does indeed largely predominate in
tributes are eminently diluvian
taining the character of
Adam.
;
we
this
properly the character of
is
personage
:
but,
though his
at-
find him, in various instances, also sus-
He may
ble of an endless succession of worlds
is
be viewed therefore, when the traced
up
to
its
real origin,
fa-
as
a
who unites \\ his own person the characters of the two great fathers of the human race. VII. There is much even in the physical character of the Sun; which mixed
being,
led the Gentiles, according to their tavourite
him
His daily descent below the horizon and exiiibited to the
god.
mode of
speculating,
to
adopt
as the best astronomical representative of their great father.
By '
this
Eiff-
his daily rising
above
it
visibly
devout aspirant the aphanism and reappearance of their chief
was
really
meant the entrance
isa.vrn tv^o; ivos
enyiyoiurx.
into,
Orac, JMagie,
and the quitting
Z«roaiit. p; 22.
Opsop.
of,
the
CHAP.
II.
;
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
232 BOOK
IV.
Ark
the great father vanished out of one world, and manifested him-
when
;
another
self again into val, as
a
new
:
but
it
was variously described,
a deep sleep and an expergefaction, as an entrance into the birth,
shadowed out the great
rizon, he
as an
father,
coffin
Hades and
as
restored to
and
life
liberty.'
day, at his rising and setting, he displayed a lively image of his hu-
Each
associate, the diluvian patriarch,
Each year, by
the mighty ocean. his return with
allegorical
new
life
Ark
solar
;
death and revival of
float
on the surface of
his departure into the southern tropic
his
mortal antitype within the precise
days excess, of the confinement of
which the Hindoos celebrate
that period,
Brahma's sleep within the egg as
termediate deluge.* as his
by seeming to
and
and vigour into the northern, he again exhibited the
period, allowing for a few
his
his
while he was visible above the horizon, he represented the same
that,
great father as emerging from
the
infernal god, or as inclosed
which was deemed
in a state of temporary death within his ark
man
womb and
while the Sun was invisible beneath the ho-
that,
are told,
revi-
and a return from them.
as a descent into the infernal regions
Accordingly we
but
and a
as a death
And
it
lastly, as the ruler
floats
literal
Noah w ithin
as the great year of the
on the surface of the
of the seven planets with
companions he navigates the great ship of the heavens, he aftbrded
enraptured votaries the edifying astronomical spectacle of the great
ther presiding over
:
to fa-
the seven gods and with them jointly constituting that
primeval ogdoad of deities so highly venerated
pagan world
in-
whom
in
Egypt and throughout the and evening,
while, in his three altitudes of morning, noon,
he displayed himself as a mysterious
triplication of
one and the same Sun,
analogous to the generative triplication of the patriarch in the persons of his three children.' 200.
Macrob. Saturn,
The Hindoos declare, that Brahra or the Sun
lib.
i.
c. 18. p.
pears at these three altitudes first
the three sons of
:
yet, in their
Adam, and
*Macrob. Saturn,
c. 21.
'
'
lib.
i.
c.
18. p.
200,201.
is
the triad Brahma-Vishnou-Siva as he ap-
human
capacities, these three gods are evidently
afterwards those of Noah.
CHAPTER
III.
Respecting the division of the gentile mythologists into two great primeval sects.
A HOUGH
I.
all
the Gentiles in every quarter of the globe worshipped the
great father as their principal divinity, and tliough ultimately resolve themselves into that ancient
all
their various
compound and
gods
transmigrating
personage viewed as multiplying himself by a mysterious act of triplication yet
we may
distinctly trace the existence of
who
indeed to venerate the same being, but venerating him. plexity of the tility
neva
The
:
they are not
the Christian world.
in
cably blended together
:
Of
these,
we may term
Samanean.
:
are found in decided hos-
has been nearly lost between them
all distinction
their respective votaries in
other, the
Throughout India' they yet
I
Idol.
exist in a separate state,
and
XI.
their
bigotry
use the word India in the large sense of the ancients.
VOL.
Brah-
Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or
adherents view each other with sentiments of the most malignant
Pag.
:
common.
the one the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or
and the
com-
more unlike than those of Rome and GeVery frequently however they have ami-
and the two have immemorially enjoyed menical superstition
differed in the
when they
and, even
:
who agreed peculiar mode of
sects,
difference chiefly consists in the greater or less
two systems
to each other,
two principal
2G
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
234 bnoK
IV.
from the palpable similarity of the two
yet,
no doubt, as
1)6
religions in essentials, there can
has justly been observed, either that the one
it
the child
is
common
of the other, or that the two have branched off from a
original.
This has occasioned much discussion, whether of them ought to be esteemed
most ancient
the
conducted,
its
It
established
w
not
fact
in
is
is
which the discussion,
in
at all
to
bear upon
Hindoos
the
but
:
this,
At the same
latter,
without being so
in
which he
more ancient
usually posterior to that, which
respects crude, and simple, reverse.
The presumption
is
therefore
is,
original ifistitu-
somewhat
Buddhism was
finished
irrelevant
:
while Bralnnenism
that the latter
exhibition of the former; and, consequently, that
is
in the first
and elaborate
But Buddhism
less so.
and unformed
its
in
treats the subject, tends strongly
The more
instance antecedent to Brahmenism. is
legard to
propriety of the hypothesis, that
to establish the
tem
in
time, one of his arguments, though
according to the limited manner
preceded
so far as I can judge, leaves the
true question wholly undecided; for the former might be
Hindostan than the
v^as
with Mr. Joinville,
considerable reason for believing that Buddhism
Brahmenism among
tion.
two
of
them could abstractedly and from
I certainly think
priority.
has been
the real merits
which of the
a dispute,
rather
India, than which of
primeval origin claim the
that there
mode,
the
me
appears to
the question. first
but
:
is
is
in
sys-
many
the very
only a more finished
Buddhism
is
more ancient
than Brahmenism.' II. Yet, although the priority
hism, such priority can only be
ought perhaps to be conceded to Budd-
trifling.
We
find
each system existing
in
almost every part of the world, dither separately, or conjointly with the other system.
Hence, every argument, which
have originated
^^
will equally
I
all
mankind formed but one community
in
must
one region,
The
of both must be referred to a period not later than the era of
building of the tower under the auspices of
am
that the one
prove that the other cannot have had a more recent origin.
ri?e therefore tlie
hen
proves
inclined to believe, that the
Nimrod.
more simple Buddhic
On
the whole,
superstition
was
Ihe first political corruption of Patriarchism, the commc72cement of what
*
Asiat. Res. vol.
vii. p.
398
et infra.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Epiphanius
Cut hie heresy
Scythic or
the
calls
plex Brahmenical
superstition (though
many subsequent
additions)
in
:
235
while
probability
all
more com-
the
has received
it
was the completion and perfection of that
heresy, denominated in this latter
by the same writer Hellenism or
state
lonism.' III. In
Goths or Scythians
the warlike Chasas or Chusas or
ages,
all
the Buddhic
have peculiarly attached themselves to
These
superstition.
are the comparatively unmixed descendants of the original sacerdotal and
Cuthim of Nimrod.*
military castes, the genuine children of the Babylonic
On
the other hand, the various tribes,
their allotted settlement
who
retired to the several places of
under a Cuthic priesthood and nobility of an en-
race from themselves, appear to
tirely distinct
have either affected
Brahmenical superstition or to have carried off both systems which
The
were reconciled and blended together into one.'
modes of worship
all
positively declare, that the
sects, the
Germanes
in
votaries of these
two
India, separate from each other, so
of Strabo, Porphyry, and Clemens Alexandrinus
the times
early as
they
certainly existed
the
time
in
Hindoo
for
:
theologists were divided into
two
Brachmans or Brahmens and the Saman^ans or Sarmaneans or and, while
;
Clemens
specifically
mentions the god Buddha by
name, Strabo very accurately remarks that the Brachmans were more regular
and systematic
scheme of doctrine than the
in their
others.*
Clemens
further observes, that the Samant;ans were peculiarly the priests of the Bactrians
and such they continue even
:
Bokhara and Cashgar are of
Buddha
like their ancestors,
The Buddhists
or Saman.'
for the
this,
I believe
tem was not of novel
them
insist,
to speak the truth,
Vide
infra b. vj. c. 2. §
'
Vide
infra
* Strab.
b. vi. c.
Geog.
provided It is
that their re-
IV.
2. §
lib. .\v. p.
VI.
712.
*
2. c. 3.
§
Vidu
we
infra b. vi. c. 2. §
whom IV.
lib.
i.
p.
305.
I
1. c. 4.
have just $
I, II.
VL
Porpli. dc abstin. lib.
iv. §
17.
Clem. Alex. Strom,
305.
Clem. Sironi.
In
limit the begin-
evident, that their sys-
origin in the days of the authors to
'
'
Chasas of
devoted to the worship
of that country
ning of their tiieology to the era of Nimrod.
p.
;
no modern figment, but has existed from the very beginning.*
ligion is
saying
still,
day
to the present
*
Asiat. Res. vol. vi.
p.
531.
lib.
i.
"*'•
'"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
236
MOK
IT.
referred
:
and, in searching for
its
I
first institution,
sec not
how we can
reasonably stop short of the great Babylonian apostasy.
IV. By the destruction of Asia,
reigns at present over a
Buddhism
The
Brahmenism.
latter is
shares that country with island of Ceylon,
principal seat
is
idolatry throughout
it,
Europe and
the west of
larger portion of the globe than
confined to India
while the former not only
:
but prevails from the very north of Tartary to the
and from the Indus
to
Siam and China and Japan.
Thibet, Boutan, and Cashgar
countries,
:
Its
which have ever
formed one of the chief settlements of the Chasas or Scythians, and which are thence consistently
take not,
is
deemed
Yet
the cradle of Buddhism.
but a local appropriation.
this,
if
I mis-
As Paradise and mount Ararat have
been transferred from Armenia to the high land of Cashgar and Bokhara at the head of the
Ganges
exactly similar removal. in
an unmixed
state
:
so has the origin of Samanianism experienced an
When
a branch of the warlike Cuthim migrated
from the plains of Shinar to the
dian Caucasus, they brought with them
was so immediately founded on the to that peculiar form ciously adhered in all
that
lofty region of the In-
Buddhic
history of Paradise
superstition
which
and the deluge
;
and
of old mythology their house seems to have pertinaits
other settlements, until
the light of Christianity or for the imposture of
it
relinquished
Mohammedism.
it
either for
CHAPTER human
Respecting the
character of the great father, as exhibited in
the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or
J\ll deity, told,
IV.
Brahmenical
superstition.
the great gods of the Gentiles ultimately resolve themselves into one
known by many is
names ;
different
and that
deity,
The
character was not purely Sabian or astronomical.
the language of the Orphic poet, was but the heavenly
god Helius.'
we
are positively
Yet, though the Sun was their principal male divinity, his
the Sun.
And
this god,
under
solar orb,
to
adopt
body of the splendid
his various appellations,
is
confessed by
the Gentiles themselves to sustain a second and mortal character.
But the
character, which he thus sustains, will be found on examination to identify itself,
of
by no unequivocal tokens, with that of
Adam
mon
:
hence he
is
celebrated,
Noah viewed
as a reappearance
with perfect accuracy, as the great com-
father both of hero-gods and of men.
In
this
capacity he was equally
venerated by two sects, into which the ancient idolaters appear to have been divided as early as the building of the Babylonic tower
:
for,
whatever
differ-
ence there might be in the 7node of worshipping or describing the great father, the person
was
alike
adored by the votaries of each superstition.
I shall at present consider the
'
human
character of the great father, as ex-
Fragm. Orph. apud Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
c.
18.
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY'.
238 BOOK
IV.
countries and under various appellations, by the adhe-
hibited, in different
may be termed
rents of what
the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or
Brahmenical
superstition.
In Egypt, the transmigrating patriarch was denominated Osiris; and
I.
Horus was esteemed
the yotmger god
mythological
:
for,
as Osiris and
in their astronomical capacity
If
a floating island If
ark.
is
purely
is
be the Sun each
capacity, they are
by him
to enter into a floating
and afterwards
to suffer death
to
be restored to
thought to have experienced a perfectly analogous death and
If Isis wanders over the world in quest of
revival.
the
similarly compelled
is
Horus be reputed
Osiris
life;
;
Osiris
human
in their
so,
but this descent
:
alike declared to
Hence we find a very strong resemblance between Horus be constrained by Typhon to take refuge in
plainly the great father. their several legends.
;
his offspring
Horus are
same search
Horus
;
she makes exactly
If she carefully collects the scattered
for the lost Osiris.
limbs of Horus, and afterwards reanimates his at length united frame
performs also for the murdered Osiris the self-same good
be torn into seven pieces by the Titans into fourteen pieces,
enemies are the same
their
and
their final
triumph
single character it
which number
;
and
:
this
Osiris
similarly torn by the Titans
is
mere reduplicate of seven.
They
plainly, in short, constitute but a
different lights
yet one person was
;
A\as represented
ty[)ify
table) after the
manner of
the
mummies
the diluvian god, as born again from the as returning to
upon a new
life
:
or swathed (as in the
and he seems designed
Ark
like
a child from
after the period of his mystical death,
slate of existence in a
new world, and
every attack of the ocean; designed, that
is
its
to
mo-
as entering
as finally triumpliant over
to say,
more peculiarly
bit the postdiluvian, or mystically regenerated, great
to exhi-
fatlicr.
on the contrary, appears to be the same person considered more
Osiris, geiitrallij
still
as an infant, cither sailing in a ship, or floating in
the golden cup of the lotos, or seated on a crocodile,
ther,
same
out by each.
shadowed
Bembine
Thus,
character was divided between two deities, because
was viewed under two somewhat
Hoius
;
the
she
Horus
If
the calamities, which they endure, are the
the same.
is
is
ofiices.
;
:
he
is
and postdiluvian.
Noah
in
Thus,
every part of his character, in
one point of view,
Noah
Noah
both antediluvian
the antediluvian,
when
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHY,
289
considered with reference to the second great father's existence aftei' the
him; and
flood, pixcedes
mysterious mother himseh":
he
as such,
fant Horus.
botli
is
then the parent and husband of the Ark,
Noah
another point of view,
But, in
of the great father
the consort of Isis and the sire of the in-
Osiris,
is
world and
of the renovated
that
when
the postdiluvian,
considered with reference to the great father's existence be/ore the flood, succeeds him
;
and, proceeding from the
father's consort, is
Horus or
Some
womb
of the
Ark which
displays himself in the character of their son
the younger Osiris,
is
the great
as such, he
:
the oft'spring of Isis and the elder Osiris.
refinement of this nature, which indeed was the almost inevitable
consequence of the various degrees of relationship sustained by the great
may be
father towards the great mother,
the
traced with sufficient clearness in
avowed notions of the Egyptians themselves.
esteemed Osiris as the beginning, completion
:'
and he speaks of
Isis
Isis,
Simplicius ascribes the
Derceto or Atargatis of the gods
;
for
:
and he adds,
tells us,
mundane house
the nurse of the world,
same character
when
like the
that,
Egyptian
w ith
Isis
deities.
whom
Horus
is
though, as the great father was
Adam
no
vvhich
was ever associated
World
ancient hierophants with the is
Noah
Ark
anterior
considered, must relate to the less
;
minds of the
in the
or the smaller World. to
the mythological son of Osiris and
womb
Ark
than Noah, without excluding
the deluge; yet,
Isis,
history shews,
as his
without excluding any other pait of that patriarch's character
born as an infant from the
she ought
womb, what he
Such phraseology,
'
the history of Osiris and
Osiris then
or habita-
the universal
he represents her, as being the place or habitation
proper natures of many
the Earth or the greater
as the
to the Syrian fish-goddess
doubtless to be identified, she contained, inclosed within her calls the specialities or
that they
Horus
as the receptacle, and
as being the
tion of Horus, the seat of generation, recipient.'
Plutarch
:
represents to us the
while Horus,
same person,
of the Ark, and finally prevailing over the
ravages of the ocean. 1.
Agreeably to such an arrangement, Horus, as we have seen,
as taking refuge '
in
a floating island from the fury of
rUit. dc hid. p. 37-t. ^
*
Typhon
is
or the sea,
Pint, do hid. p. 072, 374.
Simpl. in Aristot. dc auscul. phys.
lib. iv. p.
150.
described
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
240 BOOK
IV.
and as afterwards expelling his enemy and as assuming that sovereignty which
had
the overwhelming monster
have been
by the Titans, and
slain
water ; where,
him
restored
mother
his
to
left
same event
relate to the
The
manner.
different
whence Typhon, by whom Horus
by them for dead
by her divine power
floating
:
island
driven into
is
they are merely told in a
it,
shadowed out the Ark is
rightly declared to
and they are generally represented, as being
:
in the
be
In a similar manner, the Titans were the whole race
the personified ocean.
of antediluvians
have been
also said to
is
and immortality.'
life
These legends both
somewhat
to
at length finding him,
Isis,
He
a season usurped.
for
in
arms against
the navicular hero-gods, but as being finally subdued by them and as being
Yet
then plunged into the watery depths of the great central abyss.
an evident
made between the impious Titans and certain others of character who yet bore the same appellation for Horus or :
and
Apollo, Cronus or Saturn, Hercules, Prometheus,
fundamentally one person, were
all
equally called Titan
ticular family of Titans, which, with their parent
precisely to eight persons.*
gods of Egypt
:
The supposed
temporaries. is
and the distinction
closely allied to
ed a
is
coffin
and we
;
Cronus
made, because the
at
that
new
Horus
which
life,
midst of the waters
Noah
head,
death of Horus then by the hands of the Titans
Typhon's inveterate pursuit of him.
in the
their
xvhole race of ante-
it,
The Ark was esteem-
his death:
hence arose the
various fables of the death and burial of the principal ship-god. Isis finds
find a par-
as well as their irreclaimable con-
and the inclosure of Noah within
;
Helius, as being
These are doubtless the eight great
comprehended the Noetic family
diluvians
is
distinction
a very different
amounted
there
;
and forthwith bestows upon him
when he
received
Thus dead,
quitted his floating coffin the
Ark.
The
2.
fabled persecution, which Osiris experiences from Typhon,
dently the same, as the exactly parallel persecution, from Diod. Bibl.
•
* lib.
lib.
Orph. Hymn. i.
ver.
738.
as
Sydyk
Cabiri.
They
same,
may
same
it
i.
evi-
which Horus
is
p. "22.
xi. 1. xii. 2,
7- xxxiii. 3.
Soph. (Edip. Colon,
Sanch. apud Euseb. Proep. Evan. or the just
are the
is
man Noah,
same
lib.
i.
c. 10.
ver. 57.
As Cronus
his seven children the Titans are the
also as the seven
Stat. is
Thebaid.
certainly the
same as the seven
Heliad» and the seven Rishis of Hindostan; the
be added, as various other parallel septenaries.
:
THE
PAGAV IDOLATUr.
ORIGIN' OF
to take refuge in the floating island
compelled
ark of Osiris for the island of Horus tified.
The
tarch.
Its
Chemmis.
and the two
;
241 Substitute only the
stories are palpably iden-
very curious legend of Osiris has been detailed at large by Plu-
substance
Typhon, we are
as follows.
is,
conspired against this hero-god of the Egyptians
told,
with an intention to slay him and to usurp the whole of his dominions.
For
this purpose he contrived an ark of extraordinary workmanship, and per-
suaded him to enter
into
The
it.
credulous deity having assented,
Typhon
shut him up, and cast him into the Nile which was mystically denominated
Thus
the ocean.
deemed
inclosed in what was
waves conveyed him
as one
him
the world in search of
dead :
to Phenicia.
the winds and however rambled over all
his cofBn,
Isis
and, having at length found the lost object of
her tenderness, she succeeded in liberating him from his confinement and in
him
restoring
to
life.
Here we perceive an ancient personage driven
'
an ark by the violence of the dominions
:
and we
light of death,
which
sea,
for a time occupies the
learn, that, as his entrance into
so his liberation from
it
into
whole of
was viewed
in
his
the
was considered as a revival or as a
it
return from Hades.
The
ark of Osiris, in which he was set afloat by his adversary Typhon^
was thought by the Egyptians
to have been constructed in the
or a boat with two similar extremities.*
modern and
it
life-boat,
was adopted, because the
have entered into
entered into the festivals
same
Moon
Moon
:
in
her
first
Osiris accordingly
to
But they
inclosed
Noah
him and then
set
•
Plut. de Isid. p. 356.
*
Aaj yaxa
'
Plut. de Isid. p. 366, 368.
Tag.
Idol.
was sometimes said
into the
Ark
:
botli alluded to
for the
Moon,
into
the
which
have entered, was no other than the wooden lunette,
the ark (as Plutarch fairly speaks out) sha[)ed like the
Typhon
was made
and the Egyptians regularly commemorated by yearly
each of these mysterious entrances.'
was thought
or last quarter
luniform ark, and at other times was fabled to have
this
event, the entrance of
Osiris
form of a lunette
shape was in short that of the
which resembles the lunar crescent floating on the water
the astronomical symbol of the Aik. to
Its
/xr^voeiii).
him
afloat
Plut. de Isid. p. 368.
VOL.
ir.
Moon,
within which
on the water.
See Plate III. Fig.
1.
2
H
CHAF.
IV.
THE
242 BOOK
The
IV.
ORIGIN' OF
PAGAN IDOLATHr.
day, on whicli the Egyptian priesthood supposed Osiris to have been
shut up in the ark, was the seventeenth day of the month Athyr when the
Sun
is
Scorpio
in
civil
which time the overflowing of the Nile had ceased, and
become
the country had
bytlie
at
;
dry.
Now,
'
year of the Jews wliich
if
e suppose INIoses to have reckoned
v\
commenced from
the autumnal equinox",
Noah
be the precise day of the precise month on which
this will
the Ark.*
Or,
if
he reckoned by
the vernal equinox (a point, incapable perliaps of being
from
we
with absolute certainty),
though
in that
gend of
Osiris.*
shall
still
entered into
which commenced
their ecclesiastical year
now decided
have the memoi"}' of the precise day,
case not of the precise mojith, accurately preserved in the le-
improbable, that the Egyptians tlicmselves laboured
Itis not
under some degree of doubt respecting the true mode of computation they seem to have taken pains to provide against
appointment of two annual
festivals
Osiris into the
Moon, and on
two
as
festivals,
I\Ioon of Osiris perly,
it
I
error by the
all liability to
at the opposite seasons of the year,
spring and autumn; on one of which they
*
commemorated
the entrance of
But these
the other his entrance into the ark.
have just observed, related to the same event
was the
IVIoon only in a mystical sense
was not the planet, but a luniform
have floated down the Nile and
boat, in
:
festival,
for the
and pro-
literally
;
which he was feigned to
By
have crossed the sea to Phenicia.
to
expedient therefore of a double
for
:
this
they were sure to celebrate what
they called the inclosure of Osiris uithin his coffin on the very day of the
ery month of Noah's inclosure within the Ark. »
Plut. de hid. p. 356.
*
In the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the tame day
of the great deep bruhen up, and the entered '
Noah
Gen.
into (he ark.
Abp. Usher supposes Moses
vii.
to
'Jiindoxis
11,
think
it
civil year,
however more probable, that he reckoned by the
that case,
Noah would
while, in
the other case, he
approaching winter. expose him and
his
land from the
Now
Ark
would land
it is
in the spring
in the
which would make the
Usser. Annal.
with the whole
to
tough branch of a whole year's growth.
A. P.
It
summer
J.
2365,
because, in before
him;
the dismal prospect of
not likely, that the good Providence of
seems
-in
ecclesiastical year:
autumn with
family to so serious an inconvenience.
twig, plucked off by the dove,
thefountaim.
13.
have reckoned by the
tradition of the Egyptian priesthood accurate even to a day. I
iff re all
— Jn the selfsame day
of heaven were opened
may
God would
an
needlessly
be added, that the olive
have been a. young and tender vernal shoot, not »
THE ORIOIK OF PAOAM IDOLATRY. That within
vessel being
it,
when he
sumed
esteemed the
843
of Osiris, while he remained confined
coffin
he was reputed to be dead, and was bewailed accordingly quitted
he was thought to return to
it,
and the
life,
festival
but,
:
then as-
the appearance of the most extravagant mirth and exultation.
likewise,
during his inclosure in the ark, he was considered as lost; but,
Mhen he
left
festival,
this latter
he was reckoned to be found again.
it,
In the commemorative
event was celebrated on the nineteenth day of the month,
The Egyptians
or on the third day after his inclosure.
sea by night, the priests bearing the sacred vehicle. vessel in
So
tlie
down
then went
to the
This contained a golden
form of a boat, doubtless that kind of boat which the Greeks
called (wiphiprymndis, a boat with similar extremities resembling the lunar
crescent.
some of
Into the boat they poured
the river water
and then,
;
supposing Osiris to be found, they raised a shout of joy.'
The day of the egress of Osiris does not correspond with that of the egress of Noah: but I think it not difficult to ascertain the reason, why the third day
inclosure
after the
was peculiarly
selected.
In the sacred Orgies the
whole history of the deluge was designed to be represented
mained
in the
Ark
commemorative
a year and ten days
festival to
upon which they went, shut up in the
comp7xss
I take to
part: in that case, he
will
have quitted
it is
well known, were
we may
still
it
it
was necessary
in it
during the whole of another year
wont mystically
Now the
to call years days
many of the prophecies of Holy tliey could not more aptly represent
compressed form, than by making Osiris enter
teenth day of Athyr and quit
Noah
it
and he
ancients, as
Scripture.
Under
the diluvian history
into the ark
on the third day following
been related
;
a practice, which
;
behold in
the preservation of
principle then,
As Noah was if we divide the
and consider the unbroken year as the middle
at the beginning of the third year.
such circumstances,
therefore in the
The
ten additional days,
re-
have entered into the Ark at the close of one year;
have been confined
will
in a
will
:
period of time.'
have been the following.
Ark a whole year with
entire period into three parts
he
this
Noah
but
:
:
for,
on the sevenin fact,
in prophetic phraseology,
had
he would
have been said to disappear on one day and to reappear on the subsequent '
Pliit.de hid. p. 366.
•
Gen.
vli.
11, 13.
viii. 14..
'^'**'''
"•
THK ORIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATttV.
844 nooK IT.
In
third day. is
unless I
this respect,
much
mistake, he, no less than Jonalj,
a most cmuicnt type of the death, burial, and resurrection, of our blessed
As Noah,
Saviour.
up
in the
tliree
Ark
days
according to the Jewish
mode
of computation, was shut
three years or three pro{)hetic days; and as
of the cctu§, that constant symbol of the
in the belly
did our Lord continue three days in the
womb of
by the same hieroglyphics as the Ship of Noali. peared on the third day after ;
Noah, on
his
disappearance
That
to avoid the fury of the deluge,
ark by Typhon, the
who
:
same
;
Osiris
is
is
sa
each reap-
to say,
Christ and Jonah, on the
Noah
enters into the
also compelled to enter into
mythology of Egypt
in the
as the ocean
:
the prophetic or mystical third day.
Since then, on the very day of the month in which
Ark
Ark
the Earth, which the an-
and which was thence constantly represented
cients considered as a vast ship,
natural third day
Jonah remained
(as Plutarch assures us)
an is
Osiris must, by the strong evidence of circumstance,
be deemed one character with Noah.
Such being the
case,
ark of Osiris, which was sometimes mystically denominated the
be the same as Noah's Ark
:
the luniform
must
Jllooti,
and the peculiar shape of a crescent must have
been adopted, and the name of the
Moon
applied to the machine so con-
structed; because, in the union of Sabianism and Diluvianism, the boat-like
horned
figure of the
Moon was
thought the best astronomical representative
of the Ship of the deluge.
Now
the luniform ark of Osiris, in which he floated on the surface of the
waters, was certainly the sacred ship of Osiris
Egyptians placed the Sun, and
that ship, in
which they depicted
in
sailing together over the ocean.
;
But
which the
their eight great
the ship of Osiris, as
we
gods
are plainly
taught by Plutarch, was that very ship, which the Greeks called Argo, and
Mhich they feigned to Colchis in
:
to
be the vehicle of Jason and his adventurous companions
for he tells us, that the
honour of
tlie
ship of Osiris.
'
Argo was placed among the
Hence it
will follow, that the
coastellations
Argo must be
the Ark, and that the whole fable of the Argonautic expedition must be a
mere romance founded on the mystic voyage of
de
Isid. p,
359,
Osiris,
that
is
to say,
on the
THE OKiaiN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. voyage of Noali.
real
have
Danaus who was reputed to Argo, and that Jason who was
It will also follow, that
from Egypt
sailed
245
thought to have sailed
to Argolis in the ship in
must each be mere
to Colchis,
it
And
character of Osiris or Noah.'
variations of the
such an opinion there
for
sufficient
is
evidence, distinct from that which arises from both of them being, like Osiris,
Some
the reputed navigators of the Argo.
Danaus an ark
:
and from others we
an ark,
in
Now,
Thcba; which
the son of
one dead,
like
since Jason
well
learn, that Jason,
known,
when
literally signifies
a child, was inclosed
he might escape the fury of Pelias.*
in order that
in
mythologists rightly esteemed
it is
and Osiris are equally said
was inclosed
since each
M'ord, as
to be the captains of the Argo,
an ark, since each was persecuted by a relentless
enemy, since each was bewailed by females as one dead, and since each
upon
quitting the ark
conclude, that
tliese
character, that the
and
counts indeed, which it
it
:
is
Greek hero
to
Various persons were reputed
out.
whether
its
mount Ossa
in ;
ac-
shew plainly enough what primeval
the Argo,
shadow
but,
The
are equally the god of the Ark.
to be
was Danaus, or Jason, or
architect
Minerva, or Typhon
Argus, or Hercules, or Melicertes, or
was framed
inevitably
both cases the Ark, and that the Egyptian deity
in
we have of
was designed
the builders of
we must
to be restored to life:
two famous Argonauts are fundamentally the very same
Argo
his transcript the
ship
was thought
whether
;
it
Egypt, or at Argos, or at Pagasae, or in Phenicia, or on
still
a constant notion prevailed, that
it
was
ihe /irst ship
which
was ever constructed, the Jirst ship that divided the waves of the hitherto impassable sea, that remarkable ship with which the science of navigation cojnmaiced, the ship in short which on that very account was thouglit worthy
of being placed '
among
the constellations.'
Schol. in Apollon. Argon,
* Tzc'tzcs
lib.
nuntions a writer,
i.
and was thought
to
the
Ark of Noah,
'
iv.
Compare
only the Jifst ship:
Egypttis, the brother of Danau.s, to be the son of
Ihis Tbeba was the mythological wife
have given her name to the Kgyptiau Thebes.
flourished at the time of (he flood;
Find. Pyth.
it
vcr. 4.
who makes
Thcba: consequently, Danaus was likewise her son. 01 Ogyges,
Nor was
and Thcba
the very name, by which
is
Tzelz. Schol. in Lycoph. vcr.
li206V 175.
But Ogyge$
Moses designates
Tzetz. Chil.
vii.
hist.
96.
ver. 197.
Schol. in Apollon. Argon,
Tzetz. in Lycoph. vcr. 883.
lib.
Ptol. Hephaest.
i.
ver. 4.
Nov,
Ovid. Metam.
Hist. lib.
li.
p. 310.
lib.
viii.
ver.
302.
Atheu. Deipnos.
lib.
^haf.
xv.
'
TUE ORICIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRY".
246 •>0K
IT.
yyag also the ship,
ij
which Danaus the son of Th^jba, who was thought
in
from the
to liave flourished synchionically with the dehige of Ogygcs, fled
rage of Egyptus his brother; the ship, into which Osiris was equally driven
by the fury of his brother Typhon or the sea;
who was similarly
When
the ship, from which Jason,
persecuted by Pelias, was believed to have sent out a dove.
to these highly characteristic circumstances
Argo of
identity of the
the Egyptian Osiris
added the manifest
is
and the Argha of the Indian
Eswara, and when we recollect that the Argha was supposed to have floated
on the surface of a dove;
and
tlie
deluge and afterwards to have been metamor|)hosed into
almost impossible not to recognize in the Argo the Ship of Noah,
it is
in Osiris the patriarch himself.*
But to be
not merely the diluvian history of Osiris, which points him out
it is
Noah
character likewise corresponds minutely with that of the
his
:
second great father of mankind, and
Noah, but Noah viewed
We learn
same time no
at the
from Plutarch, that he was a husbandman, a ;
that he
drew the Egyptians from the wildness of a savage to use the fruits of the earth,
merely
Adam.
legislator,
and a
first, who withwho taught them how
was the
life,
and who enacted laws for the preservation of
Diodorus Siculus gives much
social order.'
minutely with
to be not
as a transmigratory reappearance of
zealous advocate for the worship of the gods
tells us,
less
Hence we may pronounce him
that of the first great father.
that he did not confine himself merely to
He
same account of him.
tlic
Egypt
;
but that he travelled
over the whole world, was the universal civilizer of manners, and every
where appeared
in
the light of a general
Arabia, Ethiopia, Asia, Thrace, Greece, and
Deo-Naush, with whom he over
all
p. 296.
Tcr.
238.
'
Orph. Argon,
ver.
India,
Like the Hindoo god
clearly to be identified, he not only passed
66
— 69.
Plut. do
Eratos. Catast. A^yta. Lucan. Fliars.
ApoUon. Argon, Apoll. Bibl.
lib.
ii.
lib.
i.
the Cabiri. c.
vcr.
c. 1. § 4.
* Tlif- reader will find the
»
Italy.
in
those regions^ but penetrated to the very source of the Istcr or
vii.
403.
is
He was
benefactor.
\iii.
Plut. de Isid. p. 356.
551.
Tsiil.
lib.
iii.
p.
356.
Schol. in Apoll. Argon,
ver. 193.
Manil. Astron.
lib.
Dalib. i. i.
vcr.
Schol. in Aral. Phaen. p. 46.
ApoUon. Argon,
lib.
ii.
ver.
ioj.
Argonautic expedition treated of at great length in
my
Dissert,
on
'
THE ORIGIN' OF PAGAN IDOLATftr.
He was
nube.
247
particularly a skilful cultivator of the vine
climate did not suit the growth of that tree, he taught
tlic
:
and, wherever
men
the
method of
Though an Egyptian divinity, he was of Egypt. The Indians asserted, that he
makinc^ a vinous liquor from barley.
not always reputed to be a native
was born
at
Nusa
of Hindostan
country
in their
and modern researches
:
demonstrate
sufficiently
the accuracy
into the mytholoa;y
of this statement of
Diodorus, by shewing that Deo-Naush, whence the Greeks borrowed their
Dionusus,
is
the
same person
He was
planted the vine.
Thebes, so famous for
:
was Theba or or
I
apprehend
Arijo
Theba,
in
and he bestowed upon it
it
name
the
was called Tliehes only
in
after
Rhea or the great universal mother. It was from Greek and the Egyptian cities derived their name
that both the
Greek Dionusus or Bacchus,
been
;
to be a mistake.
Diodorus further assures
of Tliebce. the
us,
that he
was certainly the same as
that mythologists
supposed him
have
to
every quarter of the habitable globe, and that both Greeks and In-
dians equally believed him to be the original inventor of wine and the instructor of
mankind
in the art
This universality of character of those, alike
who have imagined
culturist,
who was
is
in itself sufficient to
overturn
Moses
'
Osiris to be
opinion
He, who was
the_/r>5Hnventorof wine, thejfr^Megislator, the^Vi^ navigator of civilizer
of niankind, can only be a person in ^vhom the
whole habitable globe was equally interested. applicable to him, universal father or
Diod. Bibl. 1
or Joseph.
tlie
celebrated throughout the whole world as the Jirst agri-
a ship, the Jirst great
•
first
of cultivating vineyards.
claimed by every nation, who was thought to have visited all parts of
the earth,
*
first
\\
;
the prototype of Isis or this
and there to have
reckoned to be the original founder of the Esj^fptian
The allegorical parent of Osiris who as likewise said to be the mother of the Araonaut Deo-Naush and the wife of the diluvian Ogyges, and who was
but this
Danaus
Arabians, on the other hand,
in their country,
Diodorus adds indeed, that
of his mother. ages
Nusa
hundred gates
its
The
as Osiris.
supposed him to be a native of
lib.
i.
whom Adam p. 13-
But such a character
is
solely
the Ci entiles venerated as the great transmicriatincr
reappearing in the person of Noah. 18. lib.
It.
Him
tach
p, 210.
allude to Gale, Huet, and Sandford,
men
taken in their views of the character of Osiris.
of great learning, but certainly
much
mis-
—
248 BOOK IV
TilE ORIGIN' OF in the
nation,
PAGAK
IDOLATIir.
usual spirit of local appropriation, claimed peculiarly to
as its earliest king, its earliest instructor in the arts of civil
lawgiver and
He,
benefactor.
in short,
itself,
its earliest
life,
was that primitive husbandman,
who was known in every quarter of the world as the mystic son of Nusa or Theba, who was at once the child of the Earth and of the Sliip jointly venerated under common symbols, who was thought to have lived two successive lives, and who was believed to have primitive cultivator of the vine;
tliat
been driven into an ark on the seventeenth day of the second month by the furj of the overwhelming ocean. 3.
I
have already had occasion to notice the mystic theocrasy of the old
niythologists,
by which
more singular
all
their principal deities
were ultimately resolved
In no part of heathen lore does this theocrasy appear in a
into one person.
than
light,
racters are clearly
in
the legend of Osiris and Typhon.
Their cha-
enough discriminated from each other: and, as Osiris
evidently the transmigrating
Noah, so Typhon
is
is
and indeed avowedlv
plainly
Yet, though described as open and irreconcileable
the ocean or the deluge.
enemies, they are nevertheless (such was the flexible nature of ancient de-
monolatry) sometimes strangely intermingled with each other. withstanding in his astronomical capacity he
human
withstanding in his
capacity he
is
is
said to
is
be the Sun, and not-
palpably the great father,
declared to be the same as both the ocean and
marine god of the deluge
the river Nile.
confounded with the deluge
itself:
very ocean and with that very river
identified with that
with that very ocean in short, of which his
on the character of OiTjfiv
Lex.
p.
Osiris.
He
is
the
and Osiris
is
mystically
in
his ark;
Typhon was
lib.
i.
p. 12,
17.
similarly encroaches
positively declared to be the
Tovroy CSecamvJ
—
sivai
ocean or the Suid.
rov NiiXov.
Isaiah expressed Sihor; which, as Selden justly re-
as Osiris or Isiris,
73—76.
Typhon, Typhon
This deity being esteemed one with the Nile, we find
name of Sim, by
same word
• Diod. Bibl.
is
Plut. de Isid. p. 364.
i^x£«vov.
Serapis was the same as Osiris.
that the Nile bore the
marks,
yet
personification.
Osiris thus invading the character of
'
arch adversary
is
Here the
'
itself
denominated the ocean,* over the waters of which he floated
deemed a
Osiris, not-
Isaiah
X.xiii. 3.
Sold, de diis Syr. synt.
i.
c.
4.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. deluge
he
is
;
he
249
represented as a being most violent and unruly in his nature ; and
is
thrown the Universe into confusion, and to have
said to have
sea and land with evils unutterable.
When
'
filled
both
added
to these particulars are
the circumstances of his having forced Osiris into an ark and of his having
we can scarcely doubt of Yet this very demon was sometimes
constrained Horusto take refuge in a floating island, his being
in the light of the great father or the principal helio-arkite divinity.
viewed
Plutarch
He
a personification of the flood.
tells us,
Typhon
that the Egyptians esteemed
rejects indeed the opinion as palpably absurd,
confusion which
Typhon
an opinion/ cal capacity
involves
it
:
then
the
same
as the Sun.
on account of the manifest
but he does not dissemble the cvistence of such
:
is
strangely blended with Osiris in his astronomi-
and, what might thence be naturally expected, he
blended with him
in
when Typhon was
his
human
Thus we have a
capacity.
born, he broke violently through the
is
equally
legend, that,
side of his
mo-
ther.' Now his mother was Rhea, who was likewise the mother of Osiris.* The birth therefore of Typhon is the same as the birth of Osiris. But Rhea is the lunar ship of the deluge, which was esteemed the receptacle of
the hero-gods and the great mother from which they were
Typhon,
quently, the birth of
Noah from
birth of
the ancients.
Rhea was
This however
no
as the god of the deluge,
less is
is
of Osiris, relates to the allegorical
not the
than the
matter, to which
sole
Ark
and, as Typhon,
:
born from the side of the Ark;
Hence he
the son of the Earth.
and Typhon
Conse-
so,
it
alludes.
when viewed
when viewed
he bursts violently from the M'omb of the Earth or the
itself,
great central abyss.
Osiris
born.
the door in the Ark's side, so famous in the Mysteries of
the Earth,
as the deluge
like that
all
:
is
sometimes
Rhea was deemed
'
literally
declared to have been
the mother of
Isis,
as well as of
but, as all the old mythological \\Titers agree, they
were
fundamentally the same character; for they were each the house or receptacle
Accordingly
of the hero-gods. '
this general
mother, considered in a different
Plut. de Isid. p. 3()3, 3/1, 36l.
* Tuiv
JgTu^cova
'ffoiovyrujv
^
Plat.de
'
Anton. Liber. Metam.
Isid. p.
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
rov 'HXiov ouJs axousiv ajiox.
Plut. de Isid. p. 372.
355. i.
p. 13. c. xxviii.
ApoU.
Bibl. lib.
i.
c. 6. § 3. '
Fag.
Idol.
VOL.
II.
2
I
'^"ap-
'
-50
THE became
point of view,
PAGAX IDOLATRY.
OllIGIV or
rent
:
and
yet,
in
Thus
the consort of the chief arkite deity.
Rhea
generally thought to be the wiie of Osiris, though as
was
Isis
she was his pa-
consequence of the mystic thcocrasy by which Osiris and
Ty[)hon were blended together, a notion also prevailed,
that she
was the
Typhon and only the adulterous paramour of Osiris. The same curious theocrasy blended Typhon with others of the iicliodiluvian gods; all of whom, as we have seen above, are mutually declared to
consort of 4.
be one character both with each other and with Osiris. Accordingly we are
Typhon was
that
told,
same
the
same
Dionusus or Bacchus
as
who was
;
who were
;
same
lastly the
who was
as Priapus,
himself the same as Protogonus and Phanes and the Sun
again the
as Osiris.'
Now
Priapus was no other than Baal-Peor the phallic god of the Moabites, both
we
as
Jerome and
learn from
Priapus
is
as the very
name
the lord of opening, under which
title
over generation or the opening of
was the same
Typhon
as
were most detestable
:
Noah was
tiie
but the origin of that
vile
and Dionusus
Osiris,
whence
;
;
for
Baal-Peor then, or
adored, as the god presiding
which again unites him
;
seems to import
'
great arkite mother
the divine vengeance on the apostate Israelites,
Typhon,
itself
probably a mere corruption of Peor-Jpis.
witli
:
Baal-Peor
this
His
Osiris.
worship, which called
rites
down
indifferently
ascribed to
their characters plainly
amalgamate
is
with each other.*
The Mysteries quity, originated
of
Typhon
from the
or Baal-Peor, like
all
the phallic Orgies of anti-
that the transmigrating
idea,
dane Ark were the two great parents of the Universe. ingly,
Peor ries
in
'
He
to the deluge.
;
the
mun-
Philo Judtus, accordr
a very curious passage, immediately refers the Mysteries of Baal-
opened
without
Noah and
their
mouths
and that by
Jul. Firm.
tells us,
this figurative action
them
was poured
all his
vota-
them from
into
they represented the plunging of
error, prof. rcl. p. 4.
*
Diod. Bibl.
^
Hicron. Comment, in Hos.
lib. iv. p.
a random guess of
St.
214.
lib.
same
* Diod. Bibl. lib.
;
Jerome.
p. 214.
p. 1
13, 15,22.
is
Orph. Hynin.
v.
1, 8, p.
xxi-v. 1, C.
think Bp. Horsley somewhat too hasty in calling this
When we when we
their identity iv.
i.
c. ix.
declared to be one character, and tally the very
that in the celebration of
to receive the water that
find the principal
find both their
surely something
gods of the Gentiles uniformly
worship and history to be fundamen-
more than a random
guess,
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Nous
the governor beneath
tiie
waters of the flood and the impelling of him
That Philo here
to the lowest abyss of Chaos.' to the deluge,
Baal-Peor that he did
is,
refers
sufficiently plain
I think,
He
consciously.
it
251
:
the Mysteries of
but
I
Nous meant
Nous does
word Menu,
it
nothing
some mystical
or Intelligence, and that the whole related to
act of mental abstraction and meditation. but, like the Sanscrit
saj-^,
himself probably might not fully understand
the term which he was using; but might imagine, that
more than JMind
do not
indeed denote
Mind
only acquired that signification, because
the
man Nous or Nus or Nuh or Noah was, in the material system, deemed Mind or Intellectual Soul of the World. The Nous in question however
was
to be plunged into a deluge of water,
the
racter: and he
evidently the
is
in their
language
in
much
cha-
Orphic or Platonic Nous, the
Noes
whose history the Greeks have
refining
;
on the
which the word acquired
sense,
consequence of the great father being esteemed the Soul
or animating principle of the Universe.
Peor were the same
his real
as 'the
same
parent of the royal triad of younger well nigh ruined, by too
which demonstrates
The
rites
of the Typhonian Baal-
as those of Osiris in yet another respect
they were not
:
only highly impure, but they were also of a funereal nature
;
whence the
Psalmist rightly connects them with what he calls sacrifices of the dead.''
The
expression
is
exactly similar to that, which the Orphic poet employs in
speaking of the doleful infernal
rites
of Osiris.
Peor, Adonis, and the Egyptian divinity, were
The
'
all
Mysteries of Baal-
the
same
:
the dead in
if used plurally as it is by the Psalmist, mean the Noetic who were regarded as dead while inclosed within their coffin the Ark, and who were thought to return to life when they quitted it. As for Priapus, who (as we have seen) was identified with Typhon, however he may by later mythologists have been degraded into a mere scarecrow,
each instance,
family ;
he was a god of high dignity and antiquity. •
OJroi Si reKsrai; rou; xvis^otf
ftyiug ayujre^tu rroua, SsfjuaTOj), Phil. Juil.
apud
'rat;
He
is
celebrated by the Orphic
'Bukfryuii reXsj-iivTe;, xai ra rou
xartxXu(r«vT8y ijy£/x9»a tJivv, xou
Seld. de diis Syr. syut.
i.
c. 5.
p. 85.
I
(rwfj.xros
STriiea-av ei; /3u5ov
«(ryaroy.
have for obvious reasons given only
the partial sense of this passage. *
Psalm
'
©fijvoL/f
cvi. 58.
r Aiyvimu/y, x«t OwfiJoj i«fa p^wrAa.
Orph. .\rgon.
ver. 33.
*^"*^*'-
'^•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKY.
252 booK
IV.
poet, as being no other than Phanes, or Dionusus, or the first-born
who was produced
male
out of the tern pest- tossed egg or ovicular arkite machine.'
Phurnutus justly supposes him
be the same as Pan; and observes, that
to
they were both accounted primeval demon-gods.*
But Pan was thought by
the JMendesians to be one of the eight great deities, and indeed the oldest
or head of them
all
and he was reckoned the same as
:
Ammon.'
or Dionusus, or Pluto, or Zeus, or
back
to
Osiris 5. find,
whence we
the point
Thus
Osiris,
we
are
or Serapis,
again brought
the mystic theocrasical identity of
set out,
and Typhon.
Their characters being blended together, we shall not be surprized to that they bore the
same appellation
likewise be plainly traced in the
The Egyptians, we
name of
the
was also a
title
Now
is
reason to believe,
was called
places
it
Balak conducted Balaam for the purpose of cursing
Baalim
the plural of
is
Sid, or Soth, rites
Baal
whom Noah, principal. To them
were the arkite gods, of
was the
Is-
the
Jerome
Sittim, or (as
hard by mount Peor; which was
one of those high places or local Ararats of the Prothyrean Baal,
plural of Seth, as
from
differing
The place, where the Moabitish women seduced them into
nefarious Orgies of that obscene deity,
He
there
of Baal-Peor.
were encamped when the
wovd) Settim.
Seth,
radically but one word, con-
same fundamental though mutable consonants, and
that Selk or Soth
writes the
Typhon by
These are
Sothi.*
each other only in the unessential vowel.
raelites
and that appellation may
;
worship of Baal-Peor.
are told, designated
and Osiris by that of Soth or taining the
also
:
which
to
Sittim
Israel.'
the
is
and these Sittim or Baalim
under the singular
name
Seth,
Sit,
the region of Sittim, where the
of Baal-Peor prevailed, seems to have been dedicated
and
:
Balaam
himself calls the RIoabites, in the generally received phraseology of Paganism, the children of Seth.^ '
Orph. Hymn.
»
Herod. Hist.
* Tov
Tvfwva
'
Numb.
Seth he meant Typhon or Baal-Peor, to *
46, 145.
lib. ii. c.
Irfi
au
oi
Typhon was XXV.
this
V.
1.
Phurn. de
Diod. Bibl.
Ibid. p. 375.
i.
p.
nat. deor. c. xxvii.
22.
Epiphanius says
likewise called Seth.
xxii. 41. x.xiii. 28.
lib.
Plut. de Isid. p. 367-
AiyuTrrio; xaXoua-i.
fairiv, «i Je ScuSi AiyuTTritrTi.
sacred ass of
By
*
Epiph. adv.
Numb.
tlic
ha;r. lib.
xxiv. 17.
O!
/xsv Ocrictv,
o'l
ie
te-
same; and adds, that the iii.
p.
1093.
;
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. whose of'
lascivious Orgies they
25:5-
were so notoriously addicted
who
Seth were the votaries of that deity,
:
and the children
truly claimed their descent
The
from him as the great universal father both of gods and men.
place of
was sometimes denominated compoundedly Abel-Sittim.^
Israel's seduction
It doubtless received the
name from
were there celebrated.
Abel-Sittim denotes the mourning of the Sittim:
and
mourning was the same,
this
the mystic death of Adonis or
the mournful Orgies of Baal-Peor, which
as that of the Syrian
Thammuz, and
similarly lamented the death of Osiris.
bewailed
as that of the Egyptians
who
was here accordingly, that the
while they joined themselves to Baal-Peor, partook of those sa-
Israelites, crifices
It
women who
of the dead, which are mentioned by the Psalmist as forming an
eminent part of his worship. 6.
But the genuine and most usual character of Typhon
mendous monster, who waged war
against Osiris and
is
that of a tre-
the hero-gods, and
M'ho involved the whole world in anarchy and confusion.
What we
He
servedly told us by Plutarch.
Typhon
assures us, as
we have
is
unre-
already seen, that
abundance of circumstantial evidence to ocean was meant the deluge. Typhon was thought to be
the ocean: and there
is
demon
are literally to understand by this mythological
prove, that by this
is
the son of the Earth, because the waters of the flood issued from the great central abyss
:
and,
in
a
hymn
ascribed to
Homer, he
produced from the vapours which Juno caused His bulk was his shoulders
terrific :
He
serpents.
and
:
his
his
heads were
many
in
said to have been
is
to exhale
number
:
from
tlie
earth.
he had wings on
thighs terminated in the volumes of
not only inclosed Osiris within an ark, drove
two enormous
Horus
into the
Chemmis, and (under the name of Python) constrained Latake refuge in the floatmg island Delos where she became the parent
floating island
tona to
of Ajwllo and Diana flee into
:
but he likewise compelled
all
the arkite divinities to
Egypt, where they assumed the forms of the various sacred animals
At
of that countiy. with mount Etna the Arimi
;
;
length, Jupiter
overwhelmed
submerged him, according to
hini;
others,
according to some, in
the country of
confined him, according to others again, in a cavern of Cilicia
'
Numb,
xxxiii. 49.
<^"'^''-
'"•
THE ORIGIN OK PAOAN IDOLATRT.
2.54 BOOK
IV,
plunged him thunderstruck, according to others, beneath the lake Ser-
0,.
bonis.'
All this wild superstructure of romantic incident, which mytholoijists have
erected on the allegorical character of Typhon, will require tion,
we
if
steadily
keep
mind
in
For a time he
diluvian ocean.
themselves by a precipitate
that that poetical monster
prevails,
flight
Accordingly, the scene of his overthrow luvian legend,
nations
:
in
whatever different countries
by which they severally Thus, he
of the Ark.
name of Python, is
submerged
Syrians
:
di-
similar to
the
that
a[)pulse
over« helmed with Etna: but some imagined, that
is
upon that moimtain
in the skirts
of Parnassus
:
lie
but the
under the
slain,
is
Greek mythologists
was the mountain on which Deucalion's ark
that this
us,
some
might be laid by different
it
local appropriation,
localized the history of the deluge and
the ark of Deucalion rested
tell
of which he originally issued.
usually connected with
is
was the mere vanity of
for this
subdued himself, and
is finally
womb
plunged beneath that eirth from the
avozvcd/y the
is
and constrains the hero-gods to save
but he
:
explana-
little
He
rested.
land of the Arimi, vUiom Strabo pronounces to be the
in the
but the ark of Deucalion was also thought to have grounded on a
mountain of Syria
and
;
in that country,
wc
as
learn from Lucian,
dition of his
voyage was preserved with yet greater minuteness of
elsewhere.
He
plunged
is
immediately connects him with the deluge, as
detail than
his
Egyptian history
sufficiently
appears from the
lake Serbonis
in the
the tra-
but
:
part which he acts against Osiris and Horus.
Typhon
when
in short,
which blended him with
his legend
Osiris,
is
is
not obscured by that mystic theocrasy
the ocean at the time of the flood, as the
Egyptian priests themselves acknowledged
Moses
accurately the language of tion of Apollodorus.
"
lies. Thcot;. ver.
xwiii. lib. ii. c.
820—868.
Ovid. Metam. 30.
Moses
tells us,
784.
Herod,
p.
in the lake Serbonis
lib.
i.
c. 6. §
321—331, 346—355.
lib. ii. c. ;
it is
curious to observe,
how
that the waters of the deluge prevailed
Apoll. Bibl.
lib. r. ver.
phon lay hid
and
coincides with the hieroglyphical descrip-
jEschyl. Prom. Vinct. ver. 3al
Geog.lib. -wi.
:
144.
— 355. lib.
iii.
Homer. c. 5.
3.
Anton. Liber. Mctam.
Ilyg. Fab. 197. Iliad, lib.
c.
Hyg. Poet. Astron. ii.
ver.
783.
fetrab.
Herodotus indeed says, that Ty-
an expression, which seems rather
to relate to
him
character of the arkitc deity: but Stephanas says, that he was thunderstruck thero.
in
his
THE OKI GIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY. exceedingly upon the earth, that
the high
all
were covered, and that the waters rose loftiest
under the whole heaven
hills
fitteen cubits
Apoliodorus says, that
mountains."
955
above the tops of the
arms of Typhon reached
tlie
from the utmost boundaries of the west to the extremity of the east, that height he surpassed the summits of the tallest
Nor
to strike the stars/
is
the very
name
7.
am
it:
the Arabs
Typhon
inclined to suspect, that even
e\ iciently
a strong
deluge,
I
express the general
mystic intercommunion with that of
its
am
led
has been carried.
it
the
atiinity to
From
destroying Siva of Hindostan.
Zend-Avesta,
the
relates thus chiefly to the flood, I
Osiris does not exhibit the full extent to which
tlie
in
al Tiifan.^
Yet, while the character of
Typhon has
still
in
head seemed
his
word Typhon even yet obsolete
sense which the Egyptians ascribed to
deluge by the
and that
hills,
Ahriman of Persia and the
the former therefore, as he appears in
to conjecture,
that
Typhon was not simply
but the deluge viewed as the work of the evil principle
a remarkable part of
tlie
legend of Siva,
am
I
the
and, from
:
further induced
to
think,
agreeably to the prevalent doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, that in
Typhon, viewed
as the brother
and murderer of
Osiris,
ultimate reference to the primeval fratricide Cain. that fratricide
of
Adima
;
w hen he
or the
a memorable sacrifice
hence,
:
Hindoo and Egyptian
Siva at least
trace
an
certainly
is
manilested upon earth, as one of the three sons
is
Menu, and as
first
we may
the murderer of his brother
when we consider
superstitions,
and when we
scribed as the murderer of his brother Osiris
;
Dacsha
at
the palpable identity of the
Typhon
find
the presumption
similarly deis,
that a
si-
milar ultimate reference was intended, though the death of Osiris chiefly related to the entrance of the great father into the Ark.
Various other pa-
may be mentioned, all of which ought, I think, to be ascribed same origin. Thus there was a notion, that one of the Corybantes
rallel stories
to tlie
or Cabiri was slain
by the hand of
his
two brothers
Dardanus
17-20.
'
Gen.
'
Anc. Univ.
vii.
by
his brother
Hist. vol.
:
» i.
p.
200. note E.
:
thus lasion
and thus the
life
Apollod. BibL
lib.
is
of
i.
said to
have fallen
Danaus c. 6.
§ 3.
is
feigned
^"''^''- '*•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
256 BOOK
IV.
to
have been sought by his brother Egyptus.'
we have as
Siva,
but a repetition of the murder of Osiris by is
Argo
in
or
or of
Dacsha by
were eminently diluvian gods, Dardanus
for the Cabiri
:
Typhon
instances
by every one of the agents being immediately connected
plain
with the deluge
caped
In each of these
es-
a ship at the time of a flood, and Danaus was the navigator of the
Argha no
The Hindoo a member both of the
less than Osiris or Siva.
the double manifestation of Siva as
Menu
and of the seventh
distinctly set
is
which
in
first
serve as an expla-
will best
forth,
legend,
family of the
nation of those other fables, which have so clearly sprung from the same source.
The
II.
drifted cian,
which Typhon inclosed
ark, within
on shore
in
Phenicia
:
Osiris,
connects with the Mysteries of Adonis or
was, that the god was found again.
and
its
Then,
after
arrival put
account of his reinvention.' lost,
and then recovered
:
Now
the
It
i.
us, that, the
the
Alexan-
the purport of which
the due performance of to drift sponfor the
joy on
only supposed to have been
he was also annually bewailed with funereal ;
rites,
and he was afterwards welcomed with loud
fictitious return to life.*
celebrated in honour of Osiris, were of an exactly similar
rites,
lib.
;
tells
Adonis,
was reported
Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 23. Serv. in ^Eneid. lib.
Apoll. Argon,
seven days to
in
frantic expressions of
Nor was Adonis
as a person that had been slain
acclamations, on his
form represented
an end to the lamentations
Adonis, and changed them into the most
lost
*
weep
for
earthen vessel
into the sea.
it
He
Thammuz.
the Byblians began to
drians inclosed a sealed letter in an
:
in
This ceremony Procopius immediately
Byblos by a supernatural impulse.'
taneously to Byblos
;
which
and which was feigned to be wafted
certain mystic rites, they cast
have
supposed event by com-
this
mitting to the winds and waves a papyrine vessel
same day on which
to
and the Egyptians, as we are informed by Lu-
had a custom of yearly commemorating
the head of the deity,
was thought
ver. 4.
*
Luc. de dea Syra.
'
Procop. in Esai.
*
Luc. dedea Syra. § 6.
§ 7.
c. xviii.
Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12. See pTale
I.
Fig. 12.
apud Selden. Phurn. de
nat. deor. c. xxviii.
iii.
ver.
l63
— 17O.
Schol. in
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. nature
;
257
the god was for a time bewailed, as one lost or
murdered
after-
;
wards he was thought to be found or to be reanimated, and the wild sorrow of his votaries was exchanged for yet wilder joy.'
Thus
it
appears then, that the Mysteries of the two deities were
points substantially the
same
and
:
it
in
all
further appears, that they were avowedly
connected with each other, both by the imaginary drifting of the ark of Osiris to the
Phenician coast, and by the annual voyage of the papyrine or earthen
Hence we maybe sure,
vessel to Byblos.
and Adonis are equally
that, as Osiris
human
the Sun, so they are equally one character likewise in their
Accordingly Lucian
was buried
some of
that
tells us,
and that
in their country,
the Byblians maintained, that Osiris
their Orgies
was undoubtedly
tory to assert, that
the hero of their
names of one
deity,
gloomily funereal and
first
Such being the
in
honour
ISIysteries
:
yet
it
right,
was nuga-
Adonis was therefore not the hero of them. Adonis and
Osiris were in fact one person ferent
were instituted not
Their opinion was so far
of Adonis but of the Egyptian divinity.' that Osiris
capacity.
or rather Adonis
:
and Osiris were but
venerated alike in Egj'pt and Phenicia with
dif-
rites
afterwards tumultuously joyful.
case, as the Mysteries of Osiris
were the same as those
of Seth or Typhon or Baal-Peor, the Mysteries of Adonis must also be identified with the Orgies of that god.
which the
Israelites
To
up
to
him during the time of
of the rites
:
of the dead,
to be
for Ezekiel speaks
many abominations
of Adonis were well
memorials of the deluge;
his
supposed death or
of idolatry, which prevailed alike in Egypt
this species
and Phenicia, they continued days of Moses
sacrifices therefore
partook of in the worship of Baal-Peor, must have been
those that were offered
disappearance.
The
pertinaciously attached long after the
of
women weeping
Thammuz, as one The mournful famous for its many
for
of his degenerate countrymen.'
known hkewise in
at Argos, so
which place, as elsewhere,
bewailed by the females.*
He
prus, where, if I mistake
not, he
his loss
was
statedly
was equally venerated in the island of Cy-
was known by
Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rcl. p. 4, 5, 6.
Ovid. Metara.
his
lib.
scriptural
ix. ver.
692.
name of lib. x.
ver,
725—727. *
Luc. de dca Syra. §
Pag.
Idol.
7.
^
Ezek.
viii.
14.
vol.. II.
Paus. Corinth, p. 121.
2
K
'^'^
^*'-
THE ORIGIN
258 nooK
IV.
Thammuz
:
for the sacred
that country to
l)is
peculium of
tlio
temple, wliicb was dedicated in
paramour Venus, was denominated Tamascum.^
Adonis being the same as
1.
PAGAN lUOLATUV.
01-
and
Osiris,
sponding with those of the Egyptian deity,
Mysteries perfectly corre-
his
we
shall find that their respective
legends have a considerable degree of resemblance to each other.
Adonis was thought
to have been
by a wild boar or (according
slain
tlie
to
lover of Venus, and to have been
Nonnus) by Mars
shape of a
in the
Typhon was said to have been in pursuit of a boar at the time of the Moon, when he found and rent asunder the wooden ark which contained
boar. full
When
the body of Osiris.*
Adonis was
by the boar, he
slain
at
the
same
time disappeared : in consequence of which he was sought for by Venus io various countries, and at length found in Argos a city of Cyprus.'
milar manner, the lost Osiris was sought for by
Isis
the
:
and mythologists accordingly inform
Each was equally
same goddess.
born Veaus, just as Osiris Avas
us,
is
is
the
summit of Lebanon,
scripts of the true lunar
is
be omitted
in the legend of Adonis.
beauty while he was yet a
worshipped with the sea-
we
find
:
and, as the
them
Moon
peculiarly ve-
many
tran-
circumstance however in the history
child,
ark
:
this,
accordingly, could not
But here he sustains the additional
Venus, we are
told,
being struck with his
concealed him from the other gods in an ark,
That goddess became
which she committed to the care of Proserpine. equally enamoured, and refused to restore him. lie
one and
the hero-gods,
which was one of the
certainly his inclosure in an
character of the infant Horus.
to Jupiter,
the part of
mountain Ararat or Luban.*
Tlie most prominent and definite
of Osiris
si-
mangled body
they were
that
with the navicular Isis
the astronomical symbol of the Ark,
nerated on
his
the receptacle of
Hence Adonis
or the ship of the deluge.
and
Isis,
Venus here performs
at last discovered by her in Phenicia.
In a
The matter
being referred
decreed, that Adonis should spend four months with him,
'
Ovid. Mctam.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
'
Ptol. llcph.
lib.
x. ver. 6-ii.
lib.
i.
Nov, Hist.
c.
21.
Nonni
lib. vii. p.
Dioiiys. lib. xli. Plut.
336.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
354.
lib. c.
2\^
THE ORIGiy OF PAGAN" IDOLATRY. four with Proserpine, and four witli Venus.'
gorical death
and,
:
have also
to
In
was
self
as the arkite divinity
under whatever name was gener-
these cases the inclosure within the
was supposed
to
in safety
Ark was meant,
from
ivhich
Noah remained
therefore consistently esteemed a coffin.
somewhat more than a year and
really the time of his alle-
and to have returned
visited the infernal regions
all
the ark, as
in
have experienced such a death, we usually find him reputed
ally feigned to
them.
This inclosure
from the parallel fable of Osiris, was
as appears
259
it-
shut up
hence Adonis, as we learn from Theocritus,
:
have continued a year in Hades before he emerged to
light
liberty.*
2.
Hesiod represents Adonis as being the son of Phenix and Alphesib^a
common
but the more
opinion
that he
is,
was born from the incestuous
own daughter Myrrha. Babylonia, who in a state of
course with his daughter.
The consequence
of
it
was the son of Belus
or Thoth,
;
and he
tells us,
had
intoxication
was the
But, according to Antoninus Liberalis, this Cinyras,
in-
Cinyras was said to
tercourse of Cinyras with his
be a king of Assyria or
:
inter-
birth of Adonis.
whom
he
calls
Theias
Myrrha was born
that
in
mount Lebanon.'
The whole
legend curiously connects
itself
both with the preceding his-
tory of Adonis, and with other parts of ancient mythology which I have al-
ready had occasion to notice. equally the
Ark
Moon of
the
Alphesib^a and iNIyrrha are both, I believe,
or the great mother
:
name
and, as the
of the latter denotes
the water; so that of the former, which
is
a compound of
two synonymous words, Phenician and Greek, the one apparently added to explain the other, signifies the heifer, an animal, which, from bol of the Ark, the Syrians were
same arose
•
as
the
notion of her being peculiarly born
*
lib. iii. c.
lib. iii. c.
Anton. Liber. Mctam.
Murrha seems
to
*
13. § i.
Hesiod. apud Apoll. Bibl.
l54, 24!3.
also to call Theba.*
being a sym-
She was the
the horned Astartc or bovine Venus of the Phenicians
Apoll. Bibl.
'
wont
its
bu Mou-Rha.
Thcoc.
13. J 4.
:
whence
on the summit of Le-
Idyll, xv. Ter.
Fulgent. Mythol.
101—103.
lib.
iii.
c. 8.
Hyg. Fab.
c. xx.xiii. 'I
lie
word Rha or Ira equally
signifies the
Moon
in tlie
Cbaldoc and iheoldCclto-Scylhic -.and such an etymology perfectly accords with her supposed birth
on Lebaoon or the mountain of ihc Moon.
Alphaibia
is
compounded
of Alcph and Bous.
chap,
iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
260 BOOK
IV.
banon, which was their local mountain of the Moon, and Architis the
paramour of Adonis was
to
Phanac
divinity.
Bacchus
:
of the principal arkite
title
or Pheriij; was an appellation of Osiris, Adonis, or
Adonis was the very same character as
for
and the whole fable of
his mythological father;
his incestuous birth originated
But the legend
bear to the Ark.^
is
thfit in
a manner not a
little
curious
Semiramis,
Now
The
or canoe, such as was used in the
the birth of
it,
like the revival
Noah from
in
tree,
which condition she
the
same
as Rhea, Venus, Atargato have
been metamor-
tree alluded to was an excavated tree
and the birth of
:
of Attis from the hollowed trunk, means only
the Ark.
Argha which answers
and a notion prevailed,
;
Mysteries of Cybel^
In the Hindoo mythology, Parvati, during
the period of the deluge, similarly ship
Adonis
a remarkable circumstance, that
was variously feigned
phosed into a tree and a dove.
Adonis from
it is
who by many was esteemed
or the Syrian goddess,
tis,
thought to
for the reputed father of
:
fabulous mother was changed into a
brought him into the world.
re-
carries us also into Assyria or Babylonia,
said to have been the son of the Assyrian Bclus
that his
from the complex
Noah was
lationship of father and son, which the intoxicated
and
consort or
but which
Phenicians,
the
all
they themselves seem to have assumed from a
which Vemis-
Her
specially venerated.'
name common
lover Phenix bears a
in
assumes the forms of a dove and of the
to the excavated tree.
;
III. Throughout Phrygia, Osiris or Adonis was worshipped under the
name
of Jitis or Alys: and he was there supposed to be the favourite of
Cybel^
;
who,
like
Venus
or
Isis,
was the great universal mother.
The
rites
of Attis were of the same alternately melancholy and joyful description as those of Adonis and Osiris
by
Cybelfe, just as his
and he was supposed
two kindred
deities
Attis Avas slain by
cording to Diodorus, belfe:
:
to
have been bewailed
were by Venus and
Meon
or
Menes
upon which the goddess wandered over the whole world,
velled hair like one insane,
on account of the murder of her
'
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.e. 21.
Diod. Bibl. Hb.
iii.
c.
21.
p. 191, 192.
*
Ac-
Isis.'
the father of
Auson. Epig. xxx,
Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rcl. p. 20.
Cy-
Avith
dishe-
lover.*
This
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHV. is
Menes
is
plainly a
legend
Sun
mere variation of the fables of Obiris and Adonis
the primeval Alenes or
tan and Britain
261
Menu
or
Menwyd
for
:
Egypt and Hindos-
of
and the imagined shepherd Attis was astronomically the
;
of the classical Apollo-Nomius and the Indian pastoral
in his character
Crishna, while in his
human
character (as
we
Ma-
are specially informed by
same person with Bacchus and Ado-
crobius and Clemens) he was the very
Accordingly, the frantic Bacchantes were wont to exclaim, in honour
nis.'
of their god, Evoe, Sabui, Hues, Attes, Attes,
Hue.s.^
Attis being the great arkite father, Catullus justly describes
him
as sailing
over the ocean in a swift ship before he took up Lis abode in Phrygia.'
This voyage was the same as the imagined voyage of Cronus to of Osiris to Phenicia: they were
all
the voyage of
and
Italy,
The
Noah.
propriety
of such an opinion will appear from the manner, in which this navigation of Attis was introduced into the rites of Cybelfe. at the annual celebration of the
fast in the
was dexterously excavated
made from within a
the cuttings of the
coffin.'^
of Egypt
Thus
it is
same mythological
Argo
inclosed within
it
as a dead
Cybele of Phrygia
evident, that the
the inclosure of Attis in the boat
:
made out
allusion, as the inclosure
and the imaginary death, and
that in
the trunk of
a.
canoe, and an image of Osiris
like a
wood was
for
;
and the Attis of Phrygia, the Osiris of Egypt.
;
that
These Mys-
it.
and he adds,
:
was observed
the Orgies of Isis a similar ceremony
ship
middle of
he says, were sacred to the mother of the gods
pine-tree
tells us,
Phrygian Mysteries a pine-tree was cut down,
and the image of a young man bound teries,
Julius Firmicus
is
body
is
the Isis
Consequently,
of the pine-tree must have the of Osiris within the aik or the
burial,
and
revival, of Attis
must
be the imaginary death, and burial, and revival, of Osiiis.
The
son of the Phrygian Attis,
cient personage as the
whom
I believe to bo the very
god Attis or Menes, was feigned
of Lydians and Pelasgi into Tyrrhenia.
They
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
c.
have led a colony
seated themselves on the banks
of the lake Cotyl^, which had a floating island like that
'
to
named Chemmis
21. Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12.
* Evoi, "La-^oi, "Trjs, Arrrjs, Arrvjj, 'Ti;?. '
CatuU, Eleg. 60.
Jul. Firm,
di;
same an-
error, prof. rd. p. 53, 5^.
in
<^"'""- '"•
'
th£ origin of pagan idolatry.
262 nooK
IV.
ti,g
sacred Egyptian lake near Buto.
Sometimes however Hercules was
who sailed over the sea in a golden cup; and sometimes, Telephus, who when an infant was exposed with his mother in The meaning of the legend is sufficiently plain. Hercules, Attis, an ark. thouglit to have been their captain,
and the ark-exposed Telephus, are
all
one person: and, under the supposed
guidance of the ancient deity who was venerated by these different appellations, the
new colony
carried with
Attis or Adonis or
them
Italy their paternal diluvian rites of
into
of the consecrated lake, and of the symbolical
Osiris,
floating island.
IV. The if
identity of Attis
we once more return
and Adonis
We
into Phenicia.
the
Greeks and Romans under the name
ing
whom
and
a story
thus, while
it
be shewn in a yet stronger
light,
there find a deity, worshipped by
of Asclepius or Esculapim, respect-
which blends together the fables of those two gods,
told,
is
will
proves them to be mutually the same, proves also that
they are each the same as Esculapius.
According to Sanchoniatho, Sydyk or patriarch
of the
Noah, was
first
tfie
the father of the seven Cabiri,
Argo
ship or the ship
:
and
to
who is clearly the who were the builders
just man,
them an eighth brother was added,
Esmimi, but properly called Asclepius.
tlience deirominuted
Respecting
him Damascius relates, that, although worshipped by the Greeks, he was really neither
Greek nor Egyptian, but a Phenician god
peculiarly adored at
Berytus or the city of the Baris, where the Cabiri had consecrated the of the ocean or tlte
tiic
deluge
:
that he
was a youth
ot such beauty as to
the mother of the gods
affections of the goddess Astrono^,
:
relics
engage
and
that,
finding himself perpetually followed by her while engaged in the chase, he at length, to avoid her importunities, castrated himself with a hatchet.*
Every thing as
tlie
in this
legend combines to shew, that Asclepius
is
the
same
emasculated or hermaphroditic Attis and Adonis, and that Astrono^ or
Astoreth
is
the
a diluvian god
same :
as
Venus and Cybcl^.
and the whole of
Hence
it
will follow,
that he
is
mythological history will confirm the
his
opinion. Dionys. Malic. Ant.
274. *
Rom.
lib.
i.
c.
15, 19.
Plin. Nat. Hist. lib.
iii.
c. 12.
Hyg. Fab.
Tzctz. in Lycoph. vcr. 1237, 1242, 13J1.
Eusib. Prap. Evan.
lib.
i.
c. 10.
Dainas.
\it. Isid.
apud Phot.
Bibl. p. 1073.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
He
was the great healer and
263
human
restorer of the
race:
and, in his
astronomical character of the Sun, he was worshipped in conjunction with Salus or the
Moon;
was a symbol of that Ark, which
for the lunar boat
forded health or safety to the Noetic fl^mily.
He
'
af-
was curiously connected
both with the dove and the raven, which are introduced so conspicuously into
He
the Mosaical account of the flood.*
was thought to have returned from
the infernal regions, and to have possessed the
from the same place to
nis,
Argo
he was supposed,
to say,
And
;
and Ado-
and which
Osiris,
is tiie
conveyed the Indian Siva over the waters of
safely
Rome
In reference to this part of his character, his temple at
*
built in
tliat
like Osiris
he was one of the navigators of
which was also the ship or Baris of
Argha
as the
the deluge.
was
is
have died and to have revived.*
the ship
same
that
:
power of bringing back others
an island of the Tiber; and the island
been commensurate with the temple
in point
of
which seems to have
itself,
size,
was curiously fashioned
with a breast-work of marble into the form of a ship, the higher part of imitating the stern, and the lower part the prow.
god peculiarly delighted
was that of a serpent
to assume,
was one of the chief emblems of the great father
Thus Macrobius lapius
tells us,
that a serpent
as the universal
V.
We are
name
it
shape, which this :
but the serpent
in every quarter of the globe.
was subjoined
and Salus, considered as the Sun and Moon.*
poet invokes the former by the ter,
The
^
Escu-
to the statues of
Of
these the
Orphic
of the Saviour ; and celebrates the lat-
queen and the great mother of
all.'
assured by Clemens Alexandrinus, that Attis was the same as
Bacchus or Dionusus Bacchus, were
all
;
one
'
Macrob. Saturn,
*
Paus. Corinth, p. 133.
lib.
i.
and by Macrobius, that deity.*
c.
Attis,
and
Osiris, Adonis,
Diodorus likewise concurs
in asserting the
20.
Arcad.
p.
Lactan.
496.
Iiisiit. lib. 1. c.
10.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
c. 10..
jii.
* Hyg. Fab. 251.
Diod. Bibl.
*
Hyg. Fab.
'
Liv. Hist. Epit. lib. xi.
Plin.
Nat. Hist.
lib. iv. p.
273.
ApoUod.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
c. 10. § 3.
14.
lib.
xxix.
"
Macrob. Saturn,
'
Orph.'
'
Clem. Cohort,
Hymn.
c.
lib.
i.
i.
c.
Ovid. Metara.
lib.
xv. ver. 739.
Dion. Halic. in excerpt, a Vales. 20.
Ixvi. Ixvii.
p. 12.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib. i.'c.
21, 18..
Valer.
Maxim,
lib.
i.
c. 8.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
264 BOOK
IV.
:
identity of the classical
we examine
Bacchus and the Egyptian
the fabulous history of Bacchus,
we
Osiris.'
Accordingly,
if
shall plainly see, that the old
mythologists were not mistaken in entertaining such opinions respecting him.
The same enemies,
1.
that assailed the Egyptian deity, were thought also
He
to have turned their fury against Bacchus.
who
Cabiri his
was attacked by the Titans,
obtained him through a stratagem from his guardians the Curetes or
was
;
by them
slain
mangled carcase,
mountain Parnassus
;
and was divided
like that of the elder :
Caspian
Corybas, was buried
members were Nonnus says, that
but at length his
Rhea, and joined together again. * the vicinity of
into seven pieces.
mount Parnassus, but
in the region
Afterwards in the arkite
carefully collected this
by
happened, not in
of Bactriana near the
or in that very tract of country where the Hindoos place the
sea,
garden of Eden and suppose the Ark to have grounded cus lays the scene of the tragedy in Crete,
:
while Julius Firmi-
and represents Juno as being the
instigator of the Titans. 2.
Such varying
tales are built
upon mere
local appropriations, similar to
own
that by which the Egyptians placed the sufferings of Osiris in their
country
:
and they
all
fabled to have occurred, were the
was meant
that descent,
The death
equally relate to the events of the deluge.
and dilaceration and burial of the ship-god,
same
in
whatever region they were
as his descent into
his entrance into the
Ark.
supposed to have been slain and torn in pieces wise feigned to have visited the world of
and
spirits.
Hades
:
and,
by
Hence, as Bacchus was interred
;
so was he
The Greeks
like-
believed this
event to have taken place at Lerna in Argolis, doubtless because the comniehiorative Mysteries of the infernal Ceres situated near the sea ;
lo or pine.
Isis into the
Here
also
and
it
was
were there celebrated.
It
symbolical heifer, and of the mythological rape of Proser-
Danaus was thought
to have landed
from the ship Argo
and here was a temple dedicated to Bacchus the Preserver and Venus •
*
Diod. Bibl.
Clem.
lib.
'
i.
Nonni Dionys.
float-
p. 13.
Cohort, p. 12.
apud Proc. inTim.
was
at once the scene of the metamorphosis of
Phurn. de nat. deer.
lib. iii. p.
lib. vi.
c.
xxx.
Plut, de Isid. p. 368. Orph. Fragm.
184.
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p, 521. Jul, Firm, de error, prof. reJt p. 13, 14.
PAGAN IDOLATUr.
ORIGIIJ OF
THE
Noah and
ing on the sea, or, in other words, to
^65
The
the Ark.
reason,
on
account of nliith Bacchus descended into the infernal regions, was, that he
might fetch
his
This he accomplished, and was
mother from thence.
after-
wards translated with her to heaven.' Tiie Lernean Orgies, in which the history of the great father and
3.
tlie
great mother was scenically represented, are said to have been instituted by * and they were the same as those at Eieusis.
the hierophant Philammon:
Like Adonis,
wards -on
Osiris,
and
Attis,
tells us,
Minerva preserved in plaister
his heart,
joy
Julius
torn in pieces by the Titans, his sister
and afterwards made a representation of him
within Mhich she inclosed
Cretans had an annual
after-
:
frantic exclamations of riotous
Similar rites prevailed in Crete.
revival.'
when he was
that,
lamented as one dead
v^•as first
the most
broke out into
his votaries
account of his supposed
Firnncus
Bacchus
festival,
in
In commemoration of
it.
which
all
that
this the
Bacchus had done and
They made
fered was regularly exhibited by proper actors.
the
woods
suf-
re-
sound with loud lamentations, and studiously assumed the character of In their phrenzy they tore a living bull with their teeth, and bran-
maniacs.
Above
dished serpents in their hands.
all,
with the sound of pipes and the
which Minerva was sup-
tinkling of cymbals, they carried about the ark in
posed
have concealed
to
4. This ark of
his heart.*
Bacchus
Amnion, which Diodorus Egypt
navicular gods. that
it
;
a number which
Schol. in Apoli. .Argon,
*
Pans. Corinth,
*
Lugc'te
p.
same ship,
as the
ark of Osiris or
and which was similarly
the decuple of their ogdoad of great
is
however, that Firmicus
was the heart of the god which
Paus. Corintli. p. 155, 156.
'
674.
a
pretended impulse of the deity by eighty of the
I greatly fear
'
the
certainly
expressly calls
carried about under the priests of
is
lib.
it
contained
Strab. Geog. lib. i.
vcr. i.
viii. p.
:
371.
Apollod. Bibl.
is
for
mistaken in saying
we
learn from Cle-
.Eschyl. Prom. Vinct. ver.
lib. iii. c. 5.
§ 3.
155.
Libtrum, lugete Proserpinam, iugcte Attin, lugete Osjrin. Jul. Firm, de
prof. rcl. p. 20. * Jut. '
Firm, de
Diod. Bibl.
Pag.
Idol.
err. prof. rcl. p. 14, 15.
lib. xvii. p.
Arnob, adv. gent.
lib. v.
528.
VOL.
II.
21L
error,
'"*''•
"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRl'.
266 IIOOK IV.
mens, that
was no
it
on the contrary,
heart, but,
that disgraceful hieroglyphic
of the great father, which was so very generally introduced into the ancient
Yet Bacchus was sometimes represented
Mysteries.'
more decorously.
Pausanias mentions a sacred ark, which, at the capture of
Troy, was thought to have fallen to the lot of Eurypylus. have been the Mork of Vulcan, and the it
was placed a
was carried
in
same manner
and therefore
literally,
gift
solemn procession by the
as that of
Ammon who
Orgies of the Hetruscans,
from Phrygia; likewise
of Jupiter to Dardanus.
Bacchus-Esymnetes
ligure of
in the
was
It
and
priests
A
or Osiris.'
Within
at a stated festival,
and,
:
said to
similar ark
it
much
in the
was used
in the
priestesses
are supposed to have received their theology
Mysteries of the Samothracian Cabiri
:
and
it
contained the same hieroglyphic of the great father, to which I have just alluded.'
That by the ark of Bacchus we are
to understand a ship,
is
sufficiently
plain from his legendary history, even independent of that ark being palpably
the
same
told,
as the
Argo of
Osiris.
When
an
he was inclosed, we are
infant,
with his mother Semel^ in an ark, and thus cast into the sea.
ark, floating
on the surface of the waters, bore him
Epidaurus.
Here he landed
:
and Ino or
Isis,
in safety to Brasiae near
having come in the course of
The
her wanderings to the same place, became his nurse.
which she performed her Ark, was in
still
shewn
office,
and which
itself
in the days of Pausanias.*
as sailing in a ship decked with vine-leaves and ivy that once,
when he was performing a voyage
sacred cave, in
symbolized the mundane
Nor
He is
which that deity appears as a navigator.
The
is
this the
only instance,
represented by Philostratus :
and there was a
to Hetruria (by
tradition,
which was meant
the introduction of the Bacchic Mysteries into that country), and was in dan-
ger from the treachery of the mariners '
Clem. Alex. Cohort,
p. 12.
;
he changed the mast and the oars of
Diodoius justly deduces the impious
from the allegorical calamities which
befell Osiris
and Bacchus.
To
equal propriety refers the worship of Priapus, Typhon, or Baal-Peor.
214.
lib. i.p. 19.
*
Paus. Achaic. p. 435, 436.
'
Clem. Alex. Cohort, Paus. Lacon. p. 209.
p. 12.
Euseb. Pra;p. Evan.
lib. ii. c. 3.
the
rites
of the phallus
same source he with
Died. Bibl.
lib. iv.
p.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
267
the vessel into serpents, the vessel itself into a stone rising out of the sea,
and the mariner
As an
5.
sinto dolphins.
was highly venerated at Thebes, and was some-
arkite god, he
times thought to have Ijeen born there
whence he was
;
but the Theba of his real second nativity was not the
which the
city received its
who,
Ino or
like
Theba was
name.
was feigned
Isis,
have received him into her
womb
called Tkebegtnes
but the
city,
same as Hippa;
certainly the
have been the nurse of Bacchus and to
to
second birth from what the Greeks
at his
by an odd misprision of terms called the thigh of Jupiter.' which
to be the first oblique case of the word,
thigh
but
:
name of
also the
it is
from which Deo-Naush proceeded on is
same
certainly the
Dionusus
arkite
no
is
observes,
lently
a
conveyed
to
common
in
a Greek
strangely transformed into a thigh
and
Now
of victory.
Greeks
and the
;
The Meru
the Arghanath Siva.
then,
with the thigh of Jupiter
As Diodorus
ear.
was the Indian mountain so
it
signifies
after the deluge,
his celebrated career
whence Bacchus was born^ has nothing it
language
in their
as the Dionusus of the
less evidently
beyond the sound which
Me?'u happens
the famous sacred mountain of the Hindoos,
which was the favourite abode of the mariner-god Siva
Deo-Naush
:
Ark from
excel-
which the poets
called,
but of that mountain Ararat was the true
:
prototype, for there the real Bacchus experienced his second birth from the
womb of '
629
Philost. Icon. lib.
—700.
c. Ip.
Nonni Dionys.
*
'O
'
Diod. Bibl.
tion,
i.
ii.i
p.
ApoU.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
Meru,
us that
tells is
Aio; Tf^tsKTiv
123.
mount
really the
are equally
titles
same
Ovid. Metam.
c. 5. § 3.
Strab.
lib. iii.
lib.
xv. p. 687.
It is
Argillus was the place of his nativity.
Meru:
as
for the
word
is
not unworthy of observa-
Plut. de flumin.
compounded of Argha and
Argillus
Ila,
The
which the divines of Thibet
bestow upon mount Meiu.
With
the
still
propriety of this opinion
transposition ot Arghiel,
same reference
were called ^rg-jfe. the British
name
which
of the ship-goddess that delights to haunt the summit of the holy mountain.
lla-vratta or the circle of Ila.
literal
ver.
Dionusus was born on mount
Accordingly, the top of Meru, where the ship Argha rested at the closeof the deluge,
mere
is
Proc. in Tim. apud Gesn. Orph. p. 401.
si; avrr^v.
Geog.
that Sosthencs, as cited by Plutarch, instead of saying that
however
second birth
this
lib. xlvii.
ii aita Tov iJ-r^^ou rov lib.
What was meant by
mother.'
his allegorical
lo the
of Argyle
;
lib.
v. p.
They caW
'\t
their
From
styled
Righiel, which
is
a
Argil or Argillus.
the sacred caverns of the old
244.
is
manifest from the appellation,
whence the Greeks formed
mystic ship,
Strab. Geog.
is
Cimmerii
in Italy
a similar source likewise proceeded
which the Cimmerian Druids have bestowed upon a
district in
Scotland, abounding in holy lakes, and in the immediate vicinity of their sacred islands.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
258 BOOK
IV.
sufficiently evident
pressly refers
means
it
:
yet
it is
wortliy of observation,
epoch of the deluge
to the
;
so that
tliat
Diodonis even ex-
true import
its
was by no
though obscured by the humour of physical
lost in the gentile world,
Considering Bacchus as a personification of the vine, he
allesorizins.
tells
us, that the god died at the period of the flood of Deucalion Avhen the whole
earth was ravaged by the waters
and that he revived with other natural
;
productions when the inundation retired. deity
same
who had vanished
who was
daughter of Danaus,
but, according to the
or Cybelfe.
Hippa
*
She was
some
Greece
feigned to have sailed to
Orphic poet, she was the same
same
doubtless the
men,
the
is
also as Isis
;
to be the
in the ship
as Proserpine
for that goddess
and
are indifferently said to have been the nuise or recipient of Bacchus.
of the Universe, and ascribes to her the characaccordingly, in the mythology both of Greece and of
Proclus styles her the of Ceres
teristics
Britain
to the eyes of
the
birth.
respect to his nurse Hippa, she was thought by
With
Argo:
appeared again
as his second
he asserts,
thing,
6.
for a season
when
Tiiis restoration to life,
:
life
and of Hindostan, Ceres or Ceridwen or
was supposed
Sri
assumed the form of a Hippa or mare, and thus
to
Hippa,
Bacchus, was the same say, she
in short, the
who had taken fabled nurse of
Ceridwen or Argo or Argha
as the ship
have
have received the em-
braces either of the ruler of the ocean or of the navicular Sun, the corresponding shape of ahorse.'
to
:
that
is
to
was the same as Theba or the Ark, that mythological goddess, who
common receptacle of all the hero-deities. Sometimes she was called Nusa ; as Bacchus himself was denominated Nusus or DioNusus, by the Hindoos expressed Deo-Naush. Dio-Nus is evidently the divine Nus or Noah ; and Nusa is but the feminine form of the same ^\ord. The appellation Niisa was no less famous than Theba or Argha and from this imaginary nurse of Bacchus many different places were thought to have Thus there was a mount Nusa in Beotia, in Thrace, received their names. was esteemed
the
:
in Arabia, in India, '
Diod. Bibl.
lib. iii. p.
Lex.
* Proc. in
Tim. apud Gosn. Orph.
Mytbol.
p. 2jr»
258.
in
Naxus
;
a
city
Nusa,
in
Caria, in
196.
Orph. Hymn,
* Ilesych.
'iTTTrfioy.
and
in Lybia,
p.
Asiat. Res. vol.
xlviii.
401
iii.
.
Ptol. lleph.
p. I68.
Nov, Hist.
lib. iii>
p.
312. Davies's
;;
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATllY. mount Caucasus, and polis
India ; and an island Nusa, in the Nile.
in
was once called Nusa
thearkite Parnassus
;
and there was a Nusa in Ediiopia, where the Mysteries
was the fancied scene of Jupiter's
put to
flight
and
:
much
ith
was over the
was thought
Nusa, that
plains of
dismay from Lycurgus, ere he plunged into
not,
one of the sacred
mundane Ark
the
islands, which, like
the several cities of that
:
likewise
to have
been
this deity fled in
wild
Erythrtan sea where he was
tlie
protected by Thetis from the rage of his enemy.'
doubt
Nusa
devotion.
triumph over Typhon or the ocean
final
as well as the other hero-gods,
it
Scytho-
such also was the name of one of the peaks of
:
of Bacchus were formerly celebrated w
by whom Bacchus,
36^
Nusa
Tlie island
was, I
Dclos and Chemmis, typified
name were
so called in honour
of the great universal mother Nusa, Theba, Argha, or Baris: and the various
which were similarly designated, were each a high place of the transmi-
hills,
grating diluvian god, each a copy of Ararat where the primeval
and where the deity Nusus experienced the old mythologists.
As
for the flight of
plunging into the Erythr^an sea, I take
from Typhon
:
that
each relates to the
it
second
rested
famous among
Bacchus from Lycurgus and
same event
to be the
his
as his flight
Noah underwent
which
perils,
birth so
Nusa
during the
prevalence of the deluge. Diflferent accounts are given of the birth of
7.
was
said to be the son of Jupiter
himself,
Bacchus.
was reckoned a Cabiric deity
;
in
like
which case, allusively to
descent into Hades, he was esteemed an infernal god
and Scmelfe:
Sometimes he
and Proserpine, each of whom,
sometimes, of Cabitus, which
is
:
Bacchus
his
mystic
sometimes, of Jupiter
clearly
an erroneous reading
for Cabh'us: sometimes, of an Asiatic or Indian prince named Caprius this
was Bacchus-Sabazius, the Siva or Seba of Hindoo mythology
times, of Nilus or river),
Oceanus
who was thought
to
have built one of the ;
'
c. 4.
Nonui Dionys.
lib. x.\.
iii.
denominated Kusa
:
in the
form of the sinp Argha on the
and sometimes, of Jupiter and the Moon; by which
Scliol. in Iliad, lib. vi. vcr. 134. Ilc'iod. Hist. lib.
cities
the Di-Youi or female principle of the
Brahmenical superstition, which floated :
some-
(as the Egvptians called their sacred symbolical
sometimes, of Nusus and Thyone
waves of the deluge
:
c. *)".
Plir. Nat. Hist. lib. v.
Apollod, Bibl.
lib.
Strab. Geog. lib. xiv. p. 6^^.
i.
c. 6.
c. IS.
Apollod. Bibl.
Horn.
Iliad, lib. vi. vcr.
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi. p.
lib. iii.
500, 501.
130.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Q70 BOOK
IV.
was meant the Ark symbolized by the lunar fundamentally the same
crescent.
and they equally serve
;
These
'
fables are all
to teach us, that, in
whatever
countiy he might be worshipped, he was a Cabiric god born from the Ark.
We
8.
Noah was
are told by the sacred historian, that
the
first
man
of
the renovated world, that he was a cultivator of the ground, that he was the original postdiluvian planter of the vine,
and that he was unhappily betrayed
into drunkeness.
The Though
character of Bacchus here again corresponds with that of Noah. the Greeks so far corrupted his real history, as to represent
one of the younger gods
;
He
day from the
was the oldest then of
floating
all
the
first
first-
who came
forth
egg within which he had been inclosed. *
the divinities
:
and, immediately after his mystic
which he was supposed
have
birth
from the egg, previous
after
an ineffable manner, he became the inventor of wine.
to
to
Semel^ herself was sometimes fabled to have been a vine legend
is
Setting out from
Thebes
Thebaor Ark from which he was thought, world
;
to the planting of the
full of allusions ;
by which was
the city received
like Osiris,
really its
first
name
and
:
his
whole
vineyard by Noah.*
setting out
:
hidden
lain
His mother
'
meant, not the
city,
but the
from Thebes,
have travelled with an army over the whole
to
mankind
and, in his progress, he was supposed to have taught
and of receiving
art of cultivating the vine, of expressing the juice,
Wherever he went, he was attended by a host of
vats.
him as
was the
that he
tells us,
name of Diomisus he was
born, and that under the to the light of
yet the Orphic poet
Satyrs,
it
Sileni,
the into
and
Bacchantes, inflamed with wine, and infuriated with enthusiastic devotion.
He first
himself at their head, driven to a state of phrenzy by Juno, wandered
over Syria and Egypt; in the latter of which countries he was hospitably
Thence he went
received by king Proteus. initiated into the
'
*
Mysteries of Rhea or Cybel^.
Arrian. de exp. Alex.
Ampel.
c, ix.
C.23. ApoUod. Bibl.
lib.
*
Orph. Hymn.
^
Orph. Hymn. xxix.
* Schol. in
lib.
Nonni Dion.
iii.
v. 1, 2.
ii.
c.
lib. v.
c. 4.
xxix. 2.
l6.
Diod. Bibl.
Orph. Hymn,
From
lib. v.
p.
xxviii. xxix.
Athen. Legat.
c. xix.
Ciccr, de Nat. deor.
lib. iii,
342.
Fragm. apud Macrob. Saturn,
Athen. Legat.
c.
xix.
he was
Phrygia he proceeded
Etym. Magn. Zayffuj.
3.
Hes. Theog. ver. 940.
Phrygia, where
into
lib.
i.
c. 18.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Wherever he went, he erected upright
whole of India. symbols of
his disgraceful
Thebes and Argos
to
regions,
was
made a
passing through Scythia, he
into Thrace; and,
:
commence,
the traditions of every country,
the constant
length he returned
These
'
either
grounded, or from some
Ark was thought
was feigned
region where the god
travels, which, in
from some place denomi-
nated after the Ark, from some mountain where the
afloat in
pillars,
and, having brought back his mother from the infernal
with her translated to heaven.
finally
progress through the
At
worship from east to west.
271
to have
to
hare
been set
an Ark, relate very evidently to the origination of mankind from
mount Ararat and
the ship of the deluge and to their subsequent dispersion
As demonolatry was
over the face of the whole earth.
wherever the degenerate children of
dispersion,
Noah
introduced before the
migrated, they carried
with them the ark of their deity, and believed themselves to travel under his
immediate influence and protection. visited every part of the globe
have
:
the special ancestor, and the tutelary
On
this principle,
doos at of
all
Nusa
;
of
all
the nations of the earth.
cities
claimed the honour of
though the Cretans believed him to have been
Egypt or
the Egyptians in
in Crete,
divinity,
though many different Greek
having given birth to Bacchus
born
Hence Noah himself was feigned to and hence he was made the first king,
near mount IMeru
:
at
Nusa
yet, since he
in
Arabia, and the Hin-
was the common progenitor
mankind, with the sole exception of the Armenian Ararat we are not to
seek his true origin in any one country rather than another.*
With
the character of
Noah, Bacchus
likewise sustains that of
the Gentiles esteemed the one patriarch a
Hence, as the he
is
first
man, as the
first
mere reappearance of the
agriculturist,
not more the former of these than the
double character, which
may be
Adam
and as the universal
latter.
;
for
other. father,
In conformity with
this
traced throughout the whole of ancient Pa-
ganism, his Mysteries seem to have been purposely contrived.
They, who
celebrated them, were crowned with snakes; a serpent was the peculiar symbol of initiation; and the votaries of the god, as '
Diod. Bibl.
Instit. lib. *
i.
c.
iii.
p.
197-
Oiph. Hymn.
xli.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib. iii.
c. 5.
Lactan.
10.
Diod. Bibl.
c. 144, 145.
lib.
Clemens remarks, perpetu-
lib.
iii.
p.
195— 20G.
Jul. Firm, de err. prof. rel. p. 13. Herod. Hist. lib.
Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 1008.
ii.
THE ORIGIN Of PAGAK IDOLATRV.
272 jjooK IV.
upon the name of
ally called
that Eva,
Wlien
entered into the world.'
by
whom
the pristine error of
man
I consider the prevalent doctrine of heathen
mytholoiiy relative to the successive manifestations of the great father in difterent
though similar worlds,
Eva
respecting the word
VI. Diodorus
cannot esteem the conjecture of Clemens
I
by any means improbable. that the Egyptians considered their
tells us,
god Osiris to
be the same as the Greek Dionusus, and that the Indians similarly supposed
him
to
latter
have appeared
Hence,
in their country.
in the
people ascribed those identical actions to their
the former did to Osiris and the Greeks to Bacchus.
together into communities, gave them
He
making wine.
was
worship of the gods
own Dionusus,
He
laws, and taught
likewise their instructor in
and he was the
;
days of Arrian, the
first
person,
first
vviiich
brought
them the
men of
art
agriculture and
in
who yoked oxen
to the
the
plough.*
Such being the
case,
the
name of Dionus
Dco-Naush;
with the Hindoo
clearly leads us to identify
him
though the legend of that personage does not
at present coincide so minutely with the classical and Egyptian accounts of
Bacchus and
Osiris,
flourished.'
Still
lizing the
as
it
however he
little
is
described, as similarly subduing and civi-
Descending, according to the Puranas, from the
whole world.
elevated plains of
appears to have done at the time when Arrian
Bokhara, the arkite and Paradisiacal
inenical theology, he invaded with a
Mcru
of Brah-
numerous army the countries of Samar-
cand, Bahlac, and Cabul, then inhabited by the Sacas and Sacasenas, the
Saxons of our western part of the globe. Egypt, and Ethiopia or Chusistan
:
Afterwards he conquered Iran,
and then, proceeding through Varaha-
dwip or Europe, he subdued Cliandra-dwip or the rite
abode of the god Lunus or Chandra.
British isles,
Next he advanced
the favouinto
which includes the northern parts of Europe and the whole of Siberia at length,
having
'
Clem. Cohort,
*
Diod. Bibl.
'
This
!>od
made himself master
all
:
and
the countries which
lie
p. 9.
lib. iv. p.
210.
Arrian. Hist. Ind. p. 321.
was styled by the old
of their idolatry to
of China,
Cum,
th;it
Irish Bac/i
and Dia-Nos, a clear proof of the cloie
of Greece and Ilindoitan.
Vallaucey's Vindic.
p. '266.
afliuity
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. and the whole of Hindostan, he returned
to the south of it,
Meru through the Naush are evidently
same
the
same
certainly relate to the
god equally
his expedition
all
the
Greek and
the Egyptian
the
Ark
so the
:
Hindoo
from mount Meru, where by the vanity of
was said
to
and a mythological
;
really
com-
deity
local appro-
have grounded as the waters retired
Meru
For Thebes and
from off the face of the earth.
and they
Osiris,
denominated Theba, by which was
men from
priation the ship of the deluge
and mount Ararat
Dionusus and
As both
events.
to the high plains
These fabulous conquests of Deo-
as those of
out from a city
sets
the origination of
mences
Hard war.'
pass of
of
meant
S73
tale is
Ark
substitute the
changed into authentic
history.
What own
the
Brahmens say of Deo-Naush throws much and on the
particular character
Naush, we are
told,
was
became a Deva or god: the vulgar dialects.
Like the
light
both on his
of demonolatry.
mere mortal; but on mount Meru he
at first a
hence he
general principles
called
is
Deva-Naush
spiritual rulers of
or
Deo-Naush
in
Tartary and Tibet, which
countries include the holy mountains of Meru, Deo-Naush did not properly
speaking die; but his soul shifted
its
habitation and entered into a
new body,
whenever the old one was worn out either through age or sickness. ^ transmigrating Deo-Naush, siacal
and
and, as he
arkite is
Meru,
This
who became a god on the summit of the Paradisame as Menu or the great father
evidently the
is
ultimately no other than Buddha, the
Lama
of Tibet
is
his
imagined living representative. Doctrines of such a description were not altogether unknown in the west.
The
soul of Osiris
was thought successively
to
animate each living bull Apis
;
and, even at a comparatively late period, Cleopatra and her brother affected
what the Hindoos would
to be
call
Avatars of
Isis
and Dionusus. '
This
claim of transmigratoiy godhead perfectly accorded with the old theological
system of Eg\'pt.
Diodorus has preserved a curious account of the birth of
Bacchus, in his character of a descendant from Cadmus.
Cadmus and '
his
daughter Semele lived at Thebes ia Egypt;
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi. p.
Idol.
*
503. '
Pag.
He
Pint, in
vit.
tells us,
that
Semel6
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 292.
Anton.
VOL.
II.
2
that
M
f"'^*"-'*-
THE ORIGIN OK PAGAN IDOLATRY.
274 iwoK
IV.
who hore
a son,
and
that at the
all
the
marks which are attributed
by advice of an
this,
end of seven months she was delivered of
;
pioved with child
new-born god, and
gave him out to be a manifestation of Osiris among men. tation
is
plainly no other than
Cadmus upon
to Osiris.
sacrifices to the
instituteil
oracle,
Siicii
'
a manifes-
what the Hindoos denominate an Avatar
and
:
the story seems to prove not unequivocally, that the ancient Egyptians some-
times produced a living child and asserted that
in liim their favourite divinity
had become incarnate.
VII. Deo-Naush then on the top of
must certainly be the Greek
jNIeru
Nusa
Dionus, who was supposed to have been born at
But Siva or Ishuren
same mount Meru.
in the region
of the
equally described as the chief
is
"od of Meru, where he appears with all the attributes of Dionus. Hence it will follow, that, as Deo-Naush and Siva are alike the classical Diunus, they must be mutually the same as each other
common humour
accordinsi to the
persons
up
and
:
I
though the single hero-deity,
;
of the Hindoos, has been divided into two
make
strongly suspect, as the characters of the two exactly
that of Bacchus,
and as we are
told by Arrian that the
Indian legend
respecting that deity perfectly corresponded with the Grecian, that the division in (juestion had not taken place in his days,
then a mere
title
of Siva.
Cicero informs us, that
1.
it
was specially the Indian Bacchus who was
name was
called Sabazius or Sabazi, though the
west.
His intelligence was accurate
*
:
for,
Hindostan, united in composition with the
equally well
in the Seva,
title
hi
trace the nanje of the Egyptian
or Iswara, which
is
Osiris or Isiris in the
one of the most
was supposed
to
common
We
identification,
with what refer the
'
is
the
we may not may similarly
appellations of Siva.
have penetrated into India no
Greek and
in
Brahmenical Isluiroi
less
and as Osiris and Bacchus are confessedly the same god, wc in Siva or Ishuren both the
known
Siva, or Seba, of
or Isani,
obscurely recognize the Sabazi of Thrace and Hellas.
as Osiris
Deo-Naush was
but that
the Egyptian deity.
Now,
than Bacchus,
at once recognize
Agreeably to
this
the most prominent parts of his history will be found to agree related of
human
Died. Bibl.
Bacchus and Osiris
;
and they similarly teach us to
part of his character to the great transmigrating father.
lib.
i.
p. 20,
* Ciccr.
de nat. deor.
lib.
iii.
c.
?3.
THE According
was born
at
tic stature,
with wine.
ORrGI>r OF PAGAN- IDOIATRr.
Tamuli of Tranquebar, Maidashuren or
to the
Nisadabura
in the vicinity
had the horns of a
of
He was of a gigan-
mount Meru.
and was accustomed
bull,
who
drawn by leopards or
we have
the
bore the
name
of Kobaler
to intoxicate himself
Nusa and
and he rode
:
Meru, where many even of the western
the
have been born
to
horns, and the precise vehicle, of the classical god
of intoxication, the same attendant Kobali
Tamuli speak, are doubtless the same
:
The
complete the fable of ancient Greece.'
:
:
we have the bovine we have the same love
nothing in short
the Indo-Scythic Palli, is,
and Egyptian
As
first
Osiris
called themselves
Cai-PalU or Co-PaUi, of the Greek
was inclosed within an ark and was the
was likewise inclosed within mighty deep; so did Siva
Nor is this The same indecorous mode of
in the mysterious ship
the only point of resemblance between them.
Argha.
symbolizing the great father and the great mother, which prevailed the
Greeks and Egyptians,
seen, that
is
and
the deity
*
to the waters of the
on the surface of the deluge
the
while the pastoral Kobali are
ship Argo, and as Bacchus
an ark and thus comnjitted
whom
tell us,
in other particulars is his character to that
divinity.
navigator of the
float
:
the Illustrious or Royal Shepherds.
Equally analogous
wanting to
as the eight great gods of Egypt,
summit of Meru
who proudly
is
of
eight attendants,
as those eight forms of Siva in which, as the Brahmens shines conspicuous on the
in a chariot,
Here, as professor Bayer justly re-
lions or tigers.
mythologists supposed Bacchus
that
great Ishuren
tlie
His attendants were eight demons of the race of those Indian or
Scythic shepherds,
marks,
275
familiar likewise to the Hindoos.
among
We
have
Bacchus or Osiris sometimes contained a figure of
the ark of
the deity, and sometimes only an ineffable hieroglyphic of him
;
for
so the
symbols, adopted into the diluvian worship, were with reason called by the votaries themselves. •
'
We
have moreover seen, that the ancient my-
Bayer. Hist. Bactr. p. 2, 3.
A
branch of
tlicse,
herd-kings, of Egypt.
The
festival,
as
we
Vide
shall hereafter see,
flie
during which the sacred arks were carried
rofc^iu, as the author of the Etymologicuui or, as
were
Suidas informs
us,
Philitim, or IIuc-Sos, or Shep-
infra b. Ti. c. 5.
Magnum
einiSr) roc mifiriTix sy
in procession,
was called
Appij-
says, Sia ro appijTa xa< juvrrri^ta, fsoety,
xttrTMs ef tfoy tj Ssm
a,i
Tta^iyoi,
chap.
iv.
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
276 BOOK
IV.
thologists agree in deriving the
base superstition, to which
the fabled sufferings of Bacchus and Osiris
Now
diately connected with the deluge.
prevalent
among
find exactly the
the Hindoos, with respect to their
They
the ship Argha.
same notions
god Siva and
his consort
sailed indeed conjointly over the waters of the flood,
and each of them subsequently assumed the form of a dove
:
but their spe-
cial symbols are the generative powers of nature, male and female
when
at the period of that eventful voyage, dissolved,
from
which sufferings are imme-
;
we
I allude,
were reduced, we are
;
which
mundane system was Other
their simplest elements.'
to
told,
the whole
hieroglyphics of a less offensive description, which arc conspicuously intro-
duced into the worship of with Bacchus and Osiris. der,
is
not less famous in
this eastern divinity,
equally serve to identify
the tauric form of Bacchus are in the recondite lore of
Egypt and Greece
the serpents of the Dionysiaca yield not, in point of celebrity,
with which Siva infernal gods
;
is
adorned
:
and,
if
in the character
Siva,
him
The sacred bull Nandi, of which Siva is the riHindoo mythology, than the Apis of Osiris and to
those
Bacchus, Adonis, and Osiris, are
Yama,
of
is
all
equally the sovereign lord
of Patala or Hades.' Siva
is
esteemed not only the god of generation, but likewise the avenging
deity of destruction
and the eastern sages,
:
in
a manner not much unlike
that of Plutarch and Macrobius, have indulged in
on
this contrariety
of attributes.
much
It certainly originated
a successive destruction and reproduction of worlds
:
Noah
from the doctrine of
and the diluvian cha-
racter of Siva clearly points out the manner, in which stood.
refined speculation
it
ought to be under-
beheld the ruin of one world, and the production of another
out of the wreck which was
left
behind
:
he was no
less the universal father
of the present race of men, than he was in a subordinate sense the destroyer of the
first
race.
Hence, when he was erected into a
divinity,
he was con-
sidered at once as the tremendous agent of destruction, and as the prolific
author of generation.'
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi. p.
This
pjart
of the character of Siva coincides with the
523.
-
Moor's Hind. Pamh. p. 3G6.
'
To
destroy, according to the
Asiat. Res. vol.
Vedantu of India,
i.
p.
230.
the Sqfis of Persia,
and many philosophers
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. fable of Saturn devouring
The Orphic
general father of the hero-gods. the very spirit of a
and reproduced
Hindoo
Cailasa or Meru,
not
it is
is
evidently the
:
but, since the fa-
whence the idea
life,
as
was the case with
his successive manifestations
of deaths and revivals
is
summit of the sacred mountain
the
is
:
thought by the Hindoos
I cannot find, that Siva is
any more than
hence, as Siva
:
disfigured this curious
MateriaUsm
difficult to perceive,
afterwards to have returned to
eight
They have indeed
vourite abode of the eight forms
gions, he
Ark was
in the
arbitrary refinements of
tradition by the
ries
successively destroyed
Hindoos have a notion that he multiplied
himself into eight different forms.
;
who
all things."
the god of the ship Argha, the
Bacchus
poet indeed celebrates him, in
divine, as the god
The number of persons preserved
a.
to
originated.*
have died and
Osiris, Adonis,
may be deemed
and
a se-
considered as the god of the infernal re-
but,
same as the Pluto or Hades of the Greeks, the
Stygian Osiris of the Egyptians, and the
and indeed by the
Muth
or
Death of
the Pheni-
of these names, he
spo-
cians.
In
this character,
ken of
in
a very remarkable manner by the
tell us,
that the Universe was once incircled by Death eager to devour
and yet that Death himself was an or a Menu,
Here self
«"*•'•>''•
except three, and yet being the
his children
all
377
who sprang from
with Brahma, agreeably
Hindoo
mundane
to the Indian
is
Nous
to say a
triad,
identifies
him-
that the three great gods
dogma
same
They
egg.'
and not as one of a
are but a triplication of one and the
is
mythologists.
intellectual being, that
the golden
Siva, viewed individually
last
great
father
:*
for,
as Death,
or Siva in his character of the infernal destroying power, was born out of the golden
mundane egg subsequent
of our European schools, is
only to generate and reproduce in another form.
is
holden in this country to preside over generation.
'
Orph. Hymn.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Asiat.
having devoured the whole world
i.
* Asiat.
xii. 3.
Res. vol.
Asiat. Res. vol.
is
;
styled
His production also succeeded one of the great mundane
the first tnale.
destruction
to his
same egg was produced Brahma, who thence
so likewise out of the
p.
viii. p. viii.
Res. vol.
i.
p.
Hence
Asiat. Res. vol.
253. vol.
viii.
i.
ike
p.
god of
250.
p. 369.
439, 440.
p.
396, S97.
241, 267.
Moors Hind.
Panth. p. 13, 33, 7, 44, 277, 294-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY,
27§ COOK
IV.
revolutions
for tlie egg
:
said to have
is
on the waters of the vast
floated
abyss, whicli always overspread the face of the globe between the destruc-
and reproduction of each two successive worlds, antecedent
tion
same account of
the
whom
The Orphic
inclosed god."
birth to the
the ancient personage,
driven about
mercy of
whom
who was
he represents as
identifies
with Plianes and Pria-
e^g.*
are to understand by this egg,
both of the World and of
floated
mundane
period between two successive
and Dionusus are equally thought
The reason
must be the Ark.
is
Ark, which
tlie
But that egg, which
miniature
whom
he makes the universal pa-
long concealed in impenetrable darkness, was produced,
Death and Bralima, from an
What we
the Jii'st-born,
calls
This mysterious being, »ho uas twice-
pus and therefore with Diunusus. born and
he
he
bull,
whom
winds,
tlie
rent both of gods and men, and
like
whom
he describes as bearing the form of a at the
an ark, has been shewn to be
sufficiently plain. itself
It
is
of the flood.
upon a boundless ocean during the systems, and from which
to have been
tlie
Agreeably to
Hindoos
produced by a second
Noah; and
Siva, ^^ho floated on the waters
s
the
which he floated
said to have
If
an of
Menu.
'
Instit.
Asiat. Res. >ol
* Asiat. Res. vol.
deep
Nor
c.
this all
is
is
birth
we
is
Noah
:
but
:
cradle,
308.
likewise re-
of the lotos
is
;
which,
undoubtedly the
be the cradle
no
less
;
of Brahma,
and he himself tlian
Orph. Hymn.
Moor's Hind. Pantli. p. 9.
be v.
is
from the egg.*
Brahma himself must be
also declared to *
i.
Brahma
the ship
in singular coincidence with the
supposed to
from that flower,
is
Noah from
once a symbol of the World
at
on the surface of the ocean
But he
p.
find
in the calix
.p. 243. viii.
of
therefore in the lotos
be esteemed a
infant.
^
this interpretation, niigiity
lotos
been born
then the lotos
teemed
must be the
Brahma
as Siva in the ship.
theology of Egypt, in
birth,
Diunusus, who was exposed in
obvio
as with the Egyptians,
and of the ship Argha.'
same
Brahma
:
is
the navicular egg
presented as sailing on the with
in
only a moditicaiinn of the character of Siva: therefore the birth
Brahma from
of
was a type
was esteemed a World
of the deluge in the ship Argha, has also been shewn to be
Brahuja
to its giving
poet has furnished us with exactly
the Sun.
es-
Therefore
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
279
Sun
the Hindoos, as well as the Egyptians, represent the
as an infant sail-
ing over the sea in a lotos.
which the former
said
is
Brahma and Bacchus from an
birth of
Tiie similar allegorical
have remained shut up
to
the time of Noah's confinement within the Ark, their
to say nothing of their
identity,
and as the universal parent: hence or Brumius, which was one of the
Brahma
as
gan
or Bruluiia, as
which
Irish,
it IS
Brahma:
not unreasonable to conjecture,
Bacchus and the Bagis, which is
what
is
rejected at jileasure
Hindoo
titles
the
without at
the
Tiie
same appellation
Broum
illustrious
of
pa-
tlie
Bacchus, ap-
and, in a similar manner, appellation of the classical
in the Sanscrit
word
Vao-'is
or
such etymologies may be accepted or
:
affecting
all
is
But the circumstantial evidence
of Siva.
wish to dwell upon
I chiefly
that
Bacche may be traced
Irish
one of the
shew
not improbable, that Bromius
it
Ce-Bacche or
pears to be another slight variation of
in itself sufficient to
of Bacchus,
titles
their
egg, in
complete year,
each being described as the first-born
I think
sometimes wiitten.
it is
name of
a
is
is
a
the general
argument.
The
Vaishnavas or special worshi[)pers of ^'^ishnou say, that
sect of the
Bralima was born from a lotos which sprang from the navel of Vishnou This however
is
a mere variation of the
genuine legend, which indifteiently exhibits him as
being produced from a
while sleeping in
lotos or
The
is
equally typified by botli those svmbols.
character of
same almost
Each of floated
vast abyss.'
an egg, and therefore by a necessary consequence from the ship
Argha which 3.
tlie
insensible
Brahma melts into that of Vislinou, much manner as Siva identifies himself with Brahma.
the two gods,
whom
I
have
upon the surface of the ocean
other in the calix of the lotos which
The same
striking circumstance
Vishnou.
He
and he
is
is
called
Xarayan
considered,
The
'
Abiat. IVs. vol.
viii. p.
-
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
o2.
p.2t'2.
occurs also repeatedly in the history of or the being that moves on
reason of his bearing
Sec
Pl.-itc [I.
Jnstit.
of
thought to have
declared to be a type of the Ar^ha.
likewise denominated the first male
long to Brahma.^'
is
the one in the ship Aroha, and the
;
is
last
in the
Fig. 1.
Menu.
c.
i.
;
both which
the xcaters,
titles
such appellations
equally beis
clearlv
^hap.
iv.
THE ORtGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
280 COOK
IV.
shewn by the mode
in
which he
represented, and by the fables which are
is
Sometimes, as in the great reservoir at Catmandu, he
told respecting him.
appears, fashioned of blue marble, in a recumbent posture on a sort of bed or cradle
by the
which
;
literal
is
so placed, as to exhibit the semblance of a boat upborne
water which surrounds
sculptured rock in the
Ganges and
it.
Sometimes, as on a remarkable
in various
Hindoo
him sleeping on
the folds of the great sea-serpent
into the precise
form of a boat, wafts the deity
the boundless ocean.'
Sometimes he
lies in
we behold
paintings,
Ananta; which, in safety
coiled
up
over the waves of
a posture of deep meditation,
with his foot inserted in his mouth so as to shadow out the circle of eternity as exemplified in an endless succession of similar worlds, on leaf of the Indian fig-tree
And sometimes,
deep.
which similarly
;
floats
the naviform
on the surface of the great
with his consort Lacshiui, he sleeps secure in his buoy-
ant paradise of Vaicontha
;
which favoured abode and the summit of Meru are
the only places that remain free from water, while the wholeearth If such
modes of representing
inundated.'
is
the great father required any explanation,
we might receive it from the Hindoos themselves. On the death of Brahma, we are told, all the worlds are overflowed by a deluge and Cailasa and Vaicontha, or the summit of Meru and a certain floating Paradise, alone remain amidst the universal devastation. At that time Vishnou places himself on the leaf of the Banian tree, or (as some say) on that of the lotos or tlie :
betel
;
and
in this navicular cradle,
on the sea of milk with the toe of this
posture he remains, until
springs forth from his navel.
under the figure of a
his right foot placed in his
who
a
floats in
he
floats
mouth.
In
Brahma is born again from a lotos which Thus it is, that the ages and worlds succeed
each other, and are perpetually renewed.' is he,
little child,
Vishnou then or the great
symbolized by a serpent, a
ship, variously
or a lotos, during that period of universal inundation, which intervene between each two worlds
;
in other
words he
is
is
Noah
leaf,
father
an egg,
supposed to :
but,
since
a deluge equally precedes the old world and the new worjd, and since the great father equally floats upon the surface of every deluge, he '
Sec Plate
^
Asiat. Res. vol.
not more
II. Fig. 1. i.
p. 26l.
p. 23, 26, 27, 82, 103, '
is
Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol.
418, 429- plate
Moor's Hind. Panth.p. 103, 104.
7, 8, 20, 75.
i.
p.
401. Moor's Hiud. I'antb.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Noah
The
Adam.
than
Vishnou
sleep of
281
doubtless
is
death-like repose of Osiris in the ark, and as that rest of
egg or
floating
lotos-cradle, which
his
the great father
is
supposed
periences a second tliat birth,
in
he
is
deep repose
when he
:
and men, the Ark
is
Ark
mother
his
Ark
the
infant,
in his
is
is his
coffin
:
when he
ex-
when, in consequence of
:
his cradle
when he
:
sleeps
venerated as the universal parent both of gods
is
his consort.
is
account, which the Hindoos give us of Vishnou-Narayan,
The
When
he awakes into a new world, the Ark serves him for a
until
couch or a bed
Ark
birth, the
Brahma
be born again into another.
to die, then the
esteemed an
as the
sometimes expressly described as
is
may
his death in one world only that he
same
the
diately connected with chaos
and darkness
and, as
:
is
commonly
imme-
is
the case in
ancient mythology which was specially built on the doctrine of a succession
of similar
mundane
systems,
which we deem that of
the primeval state of the world at the period
creation,
its
and
disorganized condition during
its
They
the prevalence of the deluge, are intimately blended together.
present the
first
in the
the
him moving, as male and
Thamas of
implies, on the waters, in the character of
the principle of all nature
Tamas
beginning by
Greek
name
his
or darkness,
mythologists, the
re-
Thammuz
which was wholly surrounded
;
Chaos and primordial night of
the
of Scripture, and the
Thaumaz
or
This name Tamas, under all its various may probably be deduced from Theom or Thaum, which, in
the old Egyptians.'
modifications,
the language of the
of dark waters. by them exactly
It in
Hebrews and equally a
is
the
same
the Babylonians, denotes the great abyss
title
of Adonis and
sense, as the ocean is
Typhon
wara, as Osiris no less than his adversary with the sea, as Janus
is
Buddha
said to be the
the tears of Saturti, and as Saturn
same
:
and
it is
deemed a form of is
is
Is-
sometimes identified
as Chaos, as the sea
himself
borne
is
cfdled
esteemed the element of
water.^ 4.
In the Avatar of Crishna, the fabled
suff'erings
and ultimate triumph
of Vishnou are precisely those of the Egyptian Horus and the '
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
Strom,
lib. v. p.
Pag.
Idol.
iii. i.
Greek Apollo.
p. 126.
p.
255. Plut. dc Isid. p. 364. Ovid. Fast.
571- SiiUust. dediis
et
muiul.
c. iv.
VOL.
II.
Macrob.
iii
lib.
i.
ver. 103.
somn. Scip.
lib.
Clem. Alex. i;
c.
aN
11.
<>"*p- 'v-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
282 BOOK
IV.
jjg ^pgg
an infant
\fQj-n
whom it He was him.
had been predicted that a child born
tyrant Cansa, to
would destroy and
his wife
and he spent
:
fostered therefore in
his
borne over the sacred
upon
his
sea-nymphs
ject to this persecution, he
in his behalf;
pose.'
is
Me
herdsman
dancing away the
womb
but he afterwards
:
and, at a more advanced age, that he
all his
flocks
was sub-
Moon
said to have hid himself in the
;
and
and herds, to have
of a vast serpent which he created for the pur-
rescued the children of his preceptor from an inundation of the
which had carried them down
sea,
in
During the period
also fabled, with three companions and
taken refuge in the
a
the midst of the waters, notwithstanding the
he put to death his cruel enemy Cansa.
is
and
flute,
serpent Calya following him with inveterate malice
fought and slew the monster in
he
Mathura by
When conveyed from the fury of Cansa, he was river Yamuna in a navicular cradle or Argha, the
aaily revolving hours.
intercession of the
time
at that
youth in sporting with nine rural damsels of
in playing
extraordinary beauty,
(Treat
but his birth was concealed through fear of the
;
supported a mountain upon
to
the infernal dominions of
his finger during the prevalence of
Yama: he
a deluge
:
and
he appears as the tutelary genius of an Argha, which equally bore him away from the rage of his enemy and is thought to have been filled with all kinds of animals.*
In
this
legend
it
easy to perceive, that Crishna's escape in the Argha
is
from Cansa and Calya
is
island from the serpent
the place of the final victory
Egean
of Crishna
and Egyptian
deities.
the
same
as that of Apollo
Python or Typhon
;
sea and the sacred is
no other than the
The
and Horus
that the river
in the floating
Yamuna occupies
lake near Buto
;
and that the
parallel final victory of the
outline in short of
all
the three fables
Greek is this.
The great father is exhibited as an infant, in allusion to the mystic birth of Noah from the Ark. A monster, which the Egyptians plainly tell us is the ocean, which the Greeks ascribe to the epoch of the deluge, and which the
Hindoos represent
as being slain in the midst of the waters, seeks his
For a season he
constrained to hide himself from his
'
*
64.
See Plate
II.
is
enemy
:
and
life.
this
he
Fig. 5.
Moor's Hind. Panth. Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
p.
197, 199, 201, 202, 213, 280, 287, 394. plates 38, 59, 6l, 62,
259—262.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Argha which
does, either in the ship island,
Moon, or
or in the
Here he spends
purpose.
him
in a large serpent his
him
are inclosed along with
serves
time
in
who
is
the
;
and remains
5. rally,
But at length he prevails over
himself with the
identifies
his
enemy;
inveterate
and,
by the retiring
de-^
effects his total destruction.
Thus
it
appears, that the great gods of Hindostan,
are mutually the
universal father:
older divinity
same
conjointly,
while yet he remains but one, each
equally the
they exhibit a somewhat
member
which has most unhappily been thought
to
becomes three
self-triplication,
of the triad being ultimately re-
Whfit we are to understand by
monad.
solvable into the
all
seve-
then constitute a triad emanating from a fourth yet
who, by a mysterious act of
;
when viewed
and that they are
as each other,
when viewed
but,
They
different aspect.
tional
under
safe
same person as himself viewed
either in the midst of the great waters or in the slime left luge,
in a floating
the midst of flocks and herds, which
under a different aspect, just as Osiris ultimately infant Horus.
a cradle, or
which he constructed for that
same machine
in the
the care of an ancient shepherd,
for
283
this
phraseology,
have originated from some
knowledge of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
is
tradi-
best ascertained by
the declarations of the Hindoos themselves and by the legendary histories of their three great gods.
Their doctrine
is,
Brahm and
system,
a human
that,
at
commencement of every new mundane
the
the three subordinate divinities, appear
form, in the persons of
Menu
and his three sons
gration regularly takes place at certain great intervals
every revolving period, the world and flood of water
'
;
all its
that the universal father,
;
;
on
earth,
under
that this transmi-
that,
at the
end of
inhabitants are destroyed by a
comprehending within himself a
Since the knowledge of Christianity has been diffused over Asia, the legend of Crishna has
been interpolated by the Brahmens with various circumstances taken from the gospels, so that the whole exhibits a tolerably accurate account of the escape of Jesus from
more simple
narrative,
spuriousand what probably
to the
p.
273.
genuine.
time of
teration, with the
palpably
is
which
is
This narrative existed long anterior
Homer; nor have
Greek and Egyptian
refers us to the era
Herod
:
but the
here given, enables us easily to distinguish between what
I
the least
fables of
of the deluge.
to the birth of Christ,
doubt of its identity, previous
Apollo and Horus.
See Sir
W.
to its
is
and
adul-
Every particular in
Jones's Dissert, in Asiat. Res. vol.
it i.
"*^''
'^*
; ;
284 BOOK
IV.
PAGAN IDOLATUY.
THE' ORIGIN OF
tpjad
and existing
in eight forms,
then alone remains, floating in a state of
deep meditation or death-like sleep on the boundless ocean; and the deluge retires and a
awakes from
his
the father
systenij
new world emerges from beneath
slumber, and manifests himself as the first
Menu
that,
when
the waves, he
of the renovated
of three sons and afterwards through them of the
whole human race.
One might
that so plain an account as this could scarcely be misap-
think,
The evident purport of it is, that the triplicated god of HinNoah at the head of his three sons viewed as the parent of the
prehended. dostan
is
Adam
present generation of men, and
similarly at the
head of
Of these,
viewed as the parent of the antediluvian race of mortals.
sons
his three
the for-
mer monad and triad is deemed a transmigratory reappearance of the latter monad and triad and, as the succession of worlds is fancifully maintained :
to be endless, because one world has really been succeeded by another
same monad and triad is exhibited, and mencement of each new system. Such
is
the doctrine of the
not the slightest allusion to
Hindoos
tlie
god
will
monad
:
at the
scriptural doctrine of the Trinity,
human
and with
triads
their doctrine the
When
be found exactly to correspond.
or Menu-Satyavrata, who (we are
Noah
same events occur,
the
com-
which, so far as I can judge, contains
;
wholly relates to a succession of mere yet anterior
the
;
but which
each springing from a
history of their triplicated
viewed as the three sons of
was preserved with
literally told)
seven companions in an ark at ihe time of the general deluge, Brahma,
Vishnou, and Siva, are declared to
be
Shama, Cliama, and Pra-Japati
and are each severally represented,- as having waters, either in a ship, or in certain vehicles to be
symbols of that ship.
Adima
or
mencement of and Seth.
doomed
tiie
surface of the
as the three sons of
same three
deities
Adam
or
appear at the com-
the antediluvian world with every characteristic of Abel, Cain,
One
to be a
event, the
the
on
which are positively asserted
when viewed
But,
Menu-Swayambhuva,
floated
first
of
them murders
his
brother at a solemn sacrifice, and
wanderer upon the face of the earth. race of
men
is
described as springing only from two brethren
the third, although fabled to be half restored to to be incapable of
is
In consequence of this
producing children,
until
life,
being so debilitated as
he appears again in renovated
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. vigour at the beginning of the present
mundane
285
On
system.
the whole,
nothin" can well be less ambiguous than the origination of the Brahmenical triad
and I cannot hut lament, that learned and ingenious men should have
:
advocated the groundless conceit of
having sprung from a corrupted
its
primeval tradition of the Holy Trinity.
VIII. The Hindoo
triad of
Brahma, Vishnou, and
suaded, fundamentally the same
and Pluto.
I
mean
to
each
same manner
:
Hindoo
deities
the belief of their having originated from a Jupiter, Neptune,
Saturn
;
I
am
each shall distinctly
;
and, notwithstanding
common
is
some
such, as to vvarrant
source.
Brahm
Siva,
when viewed
or as the three sons of
conjointly as the
Menu
;
are certainly
the triple offspring of the great transmigrating universal father of gods
whom
va-
and Pluto, when viewed conjointly as the three sons of
and Brahma, Vishnou, and
three emanations from
men, by
per-
Neptune,
but the three classical gods melt into one another just in the
as the three
the general resemblance beUveen the two triads
rieties,
is,
not to say, that every person of the one can be perfectly
identified with a corresponding person of the other, so that
answer
Siva,
as the classical triad of Jupiter,
the Gentiles
meant
Adam
and
reappearing in the person of Noah.
Yet, by a species of genealogical confusion which pervades the whole of ancient mythology, the three are other and with the parent from race
may
whom
they sprang
;
the
same both with each the whole
for, as
human
be resolved genethliacally into the triad, so the triad ultimately re-
solves itself into the
In
deemed mutually
this point
monad whence
mankind derived
all
their
common
origin.
of view therefore, the three, when beheld separately, are alike
the great father; and, as such, are considered as being essentially but one character, acting as
it
were in the three different capacities of the renovator,
the preserver, and the destroyer, of the eternally mutable Universe.
The
ancient pagan sages delighted to express themselves mysteriously, and thus to
throw a shade of awful obscurity over the simplest matters.
Instead of
merely saying that their principal hero-god was the father of three sons, they
were wont to speak of him as a being who had wonderfully
Thus
triplicated,
he had three forms
fundamentally but one deity.
;
triplicated himself.
which yet were esteemed, as being
Hence wc sometimes have an account of only
a single god springing from the egg, which during the space of a year was
*^"*^*
"^•
::
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
285 HOOK
IV.
tempest-tossed on the surface of the ocean
same
told of three gods being born out of the this studied darkness,
mystery
the truth
occasionally dropt
is
is
and we are
;
hierophant, that the self-triplicating deity
of
mankind, who
all
father of three sons. literal
mode
only the
we
means only
the primeval ancestor
commencement of every world is always The Hindoos have retained both the mystical and :
This circumstance
a right understanding of the Hindoo
cation of
Brahm
same
the
is
:
among whom he
highly useful in leading us to
for,
:
Saturn
self-triplication of
as the three classical gods
gods, the mysterious self-tripli-
nothing more at the bottom than the birth of three sons
is
And
from Saturn.
triad
Hindoo
the three
as
the
discarding the former, have used
the Greeks,
are simply told, that he was the father of three sons,
divided the whole world.
are certainly the
for the veil of
:
by the interpreting
explicitly told
Hence we hear nothing of any
latter.
apparent
at the
of expression
are
In the midst however of
egg.
sufficiently
still
we
at other times,
while,
:
accordingly the Brahmenical divines themselves
that the self-triplicating
Brahm
parent of a triple offspring, from
Menu
no other than
really
is
whom
tell us,
viewed as the
after every deluge all
mankind are
descended.
The
1.
character of Jupiter
but a more ancient and a
we meet with a more
is
evidently not that of a single individual
ancient god of that
less
ancient and a less ancient
name
spoken
is
Menu
of,
or Buddha.
just as
This
arose from the universally prevalent doctrine of transmigratory reappearances
and
I think
father
who
clear, that Jupiter,
it
is
manifested at the
of that triad of sons which is
Adam
same
as
Ham
;
for
have mutilated '
Noah
:
at
once the great
world, and a
as the latter, he
member
As
the former, he
is
apparently the
he was worshipped by the Egyptians, themselves of the
under the appellation of Hamnion, and
his father
The most
same person
is
successively born from him.
Saturn after
ancient Jupiter
Cronus or Saturn
as
first
;
him
who
throned, and whose glory was eclipsed by '
intoxicating
Avas thought to
him with honey-
mentioned by Diodorus, as anterior to
is
the other in time, though surpassed by the
thus considered,
commencement of every
reviving in the person of
line of that patriarch,
mead.
is
when
Orph, apud Porph. de
in point is
of celebrity
himself said to
his oftspring the
ant. nyraph. p.
Sfiip.
:
and he
is
have been de-
younger or Ham-'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. monian jhabits
Probably the
Jupiter.
from the retired and devotional
fiction arose
more
of Noah, and from the
veneration of his posterity, usurped as this,
it
Cush
:
when Ham,
were the regal honours of
the old Chaldean oracles
mistake not,
if I
Ham
enterprizing temper of his son
his descendants, particularly those of the line of
To
287
and
in the
his parent.
when they speak,
refer,
agreeably to the notions respecting a mortal demiurge, of the great father
having created
Nous whom the Nous, by whom
and of having afterwards given them
things,
all
tribes
of
men
agree to venerate as the
to the
first.
the world was reproduced after the deluge,
is
second
The elder he who was '
;
younger Noes, who with them was born from a declared to be the same as the arkite Dio-Nus or
said to be the parent of tluee
and who
floating egg,
Jupiter or Cronus that
is
is
and the second Nous,
:
younger Jove or
Hammon, who
to
whom
he resigned his sceptre,
similarly represented as acquirino-
is
the sovereignty of his father. (1.)
Diodorus informs
us,
that the
first
Jupiter was the king of the whole
world, though the Cretans pretended that their island was peculiarly the
He
place of his residence.
Id^a
by
;
Cabiri.
was the brother of Uranus and the husband of
whom he was the father of the Curetes, the Id^i Dactyli, He bestowed the name of his wife upon his favourite island, and the same appellation, with a
from her he called Idea
:
was applied
mountain of Crete.
in Crete, It
is
to the sacred
and that the ruins of
evident,
dane sovereign
many was
that that part of the legend, in Crete,
sacred islands
that,
his sepulchre
:
is
religion of
its
tlie
Avhich
slight variety,
Diodorus adds, that he died might
which
still
be traced.*
fixes this universal
a mere local appropriation.
and the
or
mun-
Crete was one of the
inhabitants, originating at Babel,
which was carried to every quarter of the globe by them of the
dispersion.
.
When
a branch of these colonists fixed themselves in Crete,
though they were conscious that the god
whom
they worshipped had really
been the king of the whole world, yet they made that island the peculiar seat of their great father and of his consort the great Idtan mother, just as their
brethren in
all
other parts of the earth similarly localized the
The Cretan Id^a '
is
the Phrygian Idfea, for such was the
Oiac. Zoroast. Fr. Patric. § Pater
et
Mens.
^
Diod. Bibl.
same
deities.
name of Cybel^
lib. iii. p.
104.
chap. iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
£88 BOOK
IV.
no
less
than of
Phrygian mount Ida have received
and the
mount Ida
fabled consort of Jupiter; just as the Cretan
this
common
a
prevalence of the same theological notions.
appellation from the
Both the goddess and the
mountain of these two countries, as well as the sacred mount Ida of Gothic
may be
or Scythic superstition,
traced to the Ida or Ila and the Ida-Vratta
The goddess was w here the Ark rested,
or Ila-Vratta of the Hindoos and the Buddhic Chasas. the
Ark
:
and the mountain was a copy of Ararat
and where
in
consequence the great father and moiher were fabled
Hence
been born or exposed or educated. having been once a boy, and of cave of mount Ida.
him
to
;
be viewed
The
'
his
and thence the Ark
Noah from
a child
on which account
;
originated the stories of Jupiter
having been nursed in the sacred Dictfean
birth of
in the light of
have
to
:
the
Ark
necessarily caused
and a cave represented the World
the diluvian
god was often thought
to
have been born out of a cave or a rock, and the imitative aspirants in the Mysteries were deemed to experience a new birth by issuing forth from the
door either of a stone
The
cell
pretended nurses of Jupiter have
more or
less
obvious as being more or
after his birth
mundane
new-born souls
Mysteries.
in the
Venus
'
Cic'jr.
The
de div.
lib.
ii.
for a hive
is
described as
from the circumstance of
was one of the many
sa-
and bees were thought to represent the The great mother herself was styled a bet :
Ship,
is
borrowed from Melissa or
who was
the
same
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
:
because
'
all
those animals, like the cow, the
Giuter. Inscrip. Ixxvi. n. 6, 7.
subject of the mystic cave c. 1. § 3.
vfill
lib. iv. ver.
149.
Lactan.
v. c. 7.
J
Instit. lib.
I- 2. i.
c.
22.
26 1, 262.
Porph. de ant. nymph,
'
Agathoc. apud Athen. Deipnos.
p.
be discussed hereafter at large, book
Virg. Georg.
*
337.
said
and the nymphs Adrastca
of the Babylonian CuthiteS;
sow, a she-goat, or she-bears
*
is
At other times, he was reported to have been nursed by a
as Ida or Ila.*
lib. V. p.
:
Dict^an cave, he
and sometimes he
the Greek, the name of that animal
Melitta the generative
in the
Tliis originated
'
the arkite priestesses being called bees
cred symbols of the
;
Sometimes,
or symbolical.
to the care of the Curetes
having been nourished by bees.
*
a similar respect to the deluge,
less literal
and Ida, the daughters of the Melissae
and, in
all
from Rhea or the great mother
have been consigned
to
or of a rocky grotto temple.^
lib. ix.
p. 375.
Arat. Phaenom. p. 8, 23.
Died. Bibl.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. So
mare, and the ceto, were employed to typify the Ark. sion to the Noetic dove and to the priestesses doves, he
who from
likewise, in allu-
took the
it
further said to have received his infant nourishment
is
that species, which carried ambrosia to the sacred
mighty streams of the ocean.
Odyssey
the
289
We
'
find
a reference to
He
voyage of the Argo.
tells us, that the doves,
name of
from birds of
Cretan grotto from the this
curious fable in ^
and the scholiast remarkably and justly connects
:
'^"^^^^^^
when employed
with the
it
in carrying
ambrosia to Jove, flew between the tremendous Symplegades; through which the
Argo was barely navigated
the
tail
Nor
way of experiment.*
of a dove that had been sent out of the ship by
only fable, in which we find doves introduced into the mythic
this the
is
and which had previously lopped
in safety,
In prosecuting an amour with Phthia he
history of Jupiter.
changed himself into a dove, just as the Hindoo Siva and
is
his consort
assume the form of doves when the waters of the deluge begin
As
for the
tomb of
Jupiter,
tombs of Buddha, Argus,
it
was an
Osiris,
edifice of the
same
and other cognate
said to have
to abate.'
an arkite temple
Buddha
within which he
is
Like the
deities.
feigned to be buried,
like the it
was
where Mysteries of a funereal description, such as the
;
rites
of Baal-Peor and Osiris, were wont in old times to
That
the edifice really existed and
certain,
»
nature, as the
pyramids of Egypt which were similarly esteemed sepulchres, and raontiform pagodas of
Argha
be celebrated.
was shewn by the Cretans as a tomb,
is
both from the testimony of Diodorus, and from that of Callimachus,
Cicero, and Julius Firmicus, not to mention other writers
pointed out
the real sense in
which
it
was
:*
called a tomb,
and, that I have
may,
I think,
be
not unequivocally collected from what the last-mentioned author says of the
tomb of
He
Osiris.
intimates, that the mournful
by the hand of Typhon was annually lamented, were cele-
M'hich his death
brated at his tomb which was
'
Moero apud Athen. Deipnos.
^
Horn. Odyss.
'
Athen. Deipnos.
* Callim.
lib. ix. p.
in Jov.
i.
still
lib. xi. p.
to be seen in
Egypt.'
Now,
since the
491.
63. Schol. in loc.
lib. xii.ver.
Hymn,
Orgies of that deity, in
395.
ver. 8.
Cicer. de nat.deor.
lib. iii. c.
21.
Jul. Firm, de error,
prof. rel. p. 19. '
Jul. Firm. p. 4, 5.
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
II.
20
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
290 BOOK
IV,
rites
of Osiris were thus connected with his tomh, and since those
related to the deluge, the reason
why
lected from the nature of the rites
:
tomb was
the
and, since the
rites clearly
so called must be col-
tomb of
Obiris was thus
connected with the diluvian Mysteries, and since the theology of Crete and
Egypt was fundamentally
the same,
it
seems necessarily
to follow
from ana-
logy that the tomb of Jupiter must be understood in the same manner. Jupiter in fact was no other person than Adonis and Osiris
Crete was but a repetition of that find, that at
in the
in
and the tomb
;
in
Accordingly we
Egypt and Phenicia.
Argos the supposed death of Adonis was bewailed by the women
temple of Jupiter the Preserver
;
so called,
apprehend, from the
I
wonderful preservation of the Noetic family in the Ark.' (2.)
Though
Jupiter
thus fabled to have been born and to have reigned
is
he was equally the local god of many other countries
in Crete,
observe some curious traces of a close intercommunion
The
we have
Cretans, as
and they had a
:
ed the god to have been born and not equally laid claim to Jupiter,
him one of their ancient kings So
Arcadia.*
Nous
in reality the
and they had a
city,
the Phenicians had their agricultural Jupiter
Dagon
or
whence
II us
and we
:
Astartfe or the Phenician
Thammuz
also put in
country denominated
same to
The Egyptians
'
as Osiris,
making
which they gave the
likewise, in reference to the agricultural character of
Noah,
Cronus or
and
:
or Noah, where they assert-
in the island of Crete.
who was :
The Arcadians
*
district in their
Cretea, through M'hich flowed the river of
n^xiiQ oi
worshippers,-
just seen, claimed Jupiter to themselves
they had a city in their island called Arcades. their claim to Jupiter
and we may-
:
among his
find in
who was
mount Lebanon a
Venus, who was adored
or Adonis, received the
title
of Architis ;
the
same as
city called
in
we also
Area,
conjunction with find in the
same
country a race of Crethim or Cretans (as the Seventy well express the name),
Paus. Corinth, p. 121.
'
The
subject of tomb-worship will be resumed hereafter, b.
v. c. 7-
III.
§
'^
Steph. Byzant. de urb. p. \66.
^
Paus. Arcad. p. 517, 518.
all
This river Nous was one of the
many
sacred western streams,
of which, according to the Hindoos, received their names from the god Deo-Naush. *
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
p. 12.
Steph. Byzant. de urb. p. 167.
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. who
391
with their brethren the Pelethim or Palli submitted to the rule of the
^hap.
Israelites.
Some
writers adopt, as a literal historical matter of fact, the account of
Jupiter being an ancient sovereign of Crete trary to reason
and evidence.
It
is
but this seems to
:
incredible, that
me
aliite
con-
a petty Cretan prince
should at the same time be king of the whole world, and that he should be venerated as the chief of gods in so
many
different countries
:
for
it
is
well
known, that he was claimed as a local deity, not only by the Cretans, but by the inhabitants of
all
those different regions where he was worshipped.
To
say nothing of Arcadia, Egypt, and Pheuicia, which I have just mentioned,
Pausanias informs
that
us,
it
would be almost impossible
nation, which pretended that Jupiter was born within
Why
then should the claim of the Cretans
limachus
calls
them when speaking of
tion of the pretended
this
its
enumerate every
to
particular territory.
the Cretans ever liars,
;
*
as Cal-
very claim urged from the exhibi-
tomb of the god-king
why should
:
the claim of the
Cretans be specially allowed to the exclusion of the parallel claim of almost every other people?'
The
truth of the matter
was
this
wherever the arkite priests and nobility
:
with their idolatrous adherents were scattered from the tower of Babel, or
wherever they might migrate
them
traditions of the
the mountain Ida or deluge.
subsequent ages, they carried along with
in
polyonymous great
father,
Argo or Theba,
the ship
Meru, the Titans and Typhon, the sacred dove and the
These, though they equally concerned
all
mankind, the vanity of
each people, apparently warranted by local commemorative ordinances, constantly appropriated to their
own
Agreeably
country.
such an opinion,
to
Jupiter was both thought to have been king of the whole world,
Cretans pretended that he fixed
his seat
though the
of empire in their island
;
and was
likewise supposed to have travelled over every part of the earth, destroying
robbers and giants, and establishing just and equal laws.* '
de
Sanchon.apiut Euscb.Pia^p. Evan.
bell.
Jud.
lib. vii. c.
21.
c.
10.
Bochart. Chanaan.
lib.
lib.
i.
In
Joseph. Ant. Jud. i.
c. 15. p.
422.
this particular
lib. v. c. 1.
C. 21. *
Paus. IMessen. p. 278.
Diod. Bibl.
lib. iii. p.
^
194.
lib. v. p.
338.
Callim.
Hymn,
Joseph,
Macrob. Saturn,
in Jov.
i.
ver. 8.
lib. i,
'
iv.
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN TDOLATRV.
'292.
BOOK
IT.
he coincides with Hercules, Deo-Naush, Bacchus, Osiris, and Buddha nor
is
without reason that he does so
it
;
for
these various deities, under
may be arranged, are all equally and fundamentally universal sovereign, who reappearing after the flood became
whatever superstition they the
same primeval
the
common
parent of the second race of mankind,
Considered then as Noah, we find Jupiter both esteemed the father
(3.)
of the three most ancient Cabiri, and himself also reckoned the primitive Cabiri, Bacchus being associated with
however son
of
in the
to
have been joined together
same manner as
Osiris
Hence Jupiter bore
Isis.
of the two
This
a mere reduplication, for Jupiter and Bacchus are the same per-
is
and they seem
:
much
first
him as the younger.'
the
in the Samotiiracian Orgies,
and Horus are connected
in the
Hebrew Sabaoth as some have * a name of the Indian Iswara.
word, not derived from the
from Siva or Seba which
That such
is
is
Mysteries
of Sabazius as well as Bacchus
title
:
a
imagined, but
the real origin of the word, as I have already had occasion to
me
intimate, appears to
be traced to Greece.
sufficiently evident
Cicero
from the manner
of Asia; by which was meant the large
which
it
may
Bacchus was a kins
that the Sabazian
tells us,
in
tract of country that the
ancients
called India or Indian Ethiopia, for the Asiatic Bacchus was doubtless the
far-famed Indian Deo-Naush.'
But,
deity, then his foreign title Sabazius
not surely Sabazius
among
is
same
names Bagis and
the Thracians, from
logy '
:
Macrobius
for
Schol. in
* Valer.
A poll.
Maxim,
2a/3a?ioj.
The
srisen, partly
Argon,
lib.
in this case, since the
the Hindoos,
god Bacchus-
how we can respectively
very same appellation was in use
among
the Greeks borrowed a large part of their theo-
tells us,
lib. i.e. 3.
among
names Bacchus and Sabazius are
The
Siva.
whom
for
as the god Bagis-Siva, I see not
well avoid concluding, that the
the
Bacchus-Sabazius were an Indian
must be sought
And,
the Israelites.
clearly the
if
i.
that they venerated
vcr.
917.
Diod. Bibl.
opinion, that Sabazius
Bacchus under the name
is
lib. iv. p.
212.
derived from thu
Orph. Hymn,
xlvii.
Etym. Magn.
Hebrew Sabaoth, appears
from the similarity of the words, and partly from
to
the circumstance
have
of the
Rabbins and some of the early heretics bestowing the name of Sabaoth upon an eastern demongod. '
What
they hebraized into Sabaoth was,
Cicer. de nat. door.
lib. iii. c.
23.
I
believe,
no other than the Indian Seba.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. ofSebadius; and
writers agree, that the
all
Now
Saboi, are of barbaric origin.'
Scuths are
words Sabazius,
known by
tliere
Sabizo,
and
the Thracians were a branch of the
whose grand settlement was on the northern
;
293
the denomination of
frontier of India,
who
Chasas or Chusas or Lido-Scythce,
and who thence spread themselves into many
different regions of the earth.
Greeks received the name Sabazius from the Thracians, since they brought it from India into Europe, the word must obviously be of InBut,
the
if
dian extraction.
As
Jupiter and Bacchus each bore the that each of
dition,
By
terate enemy.*
(4.) Perhaps
Thetis, the goddess of the ocean,
bull of Siva
:
inasmuch as
it,
was meant
his invetlie
is
there
is
it
tion
;
is
I'reat
and therefore, although the coincidence it
does not peculiarly
equally proves the ultimate and fundamental identity
another point, which must by no means be omitted it
:
feigned to have carried off Europa,
of Jupiter, Siva, Bacchus, Osiris, Molech, Baal, Mithras, and Hu.
arbitrary nature,
Ark
Astart^, Derceto, Theba, or A'rgha.
Isis,
serve to prove the identity of Jupiter and Siva,
prove
so there was a tra-
because that animal was the symbol of the
fkther in every part of the globe;
may
;
scarcely necessary to point out the coincidence between
it is
the taurine form under which Jupiter
and the white
of Sabazius
them was preserved by Thetis from the rage of
was the same as Venus,
for Thetis
title
curiously decisive of the matter
:
since,
now under
and likewise serves to shew, that the three persons of the
But
from
its
considera-
classical triad
melt into each other just in the same manner as the three persons of the
Hindoo think,
triad.
The god
Siva
is
represented with three eyes; doubtless, I
from the circumstance of
his virtually containing within himself the
essence of the triple Indian divinity, whose three persons imperceptibly (as
were) are blended
in one.
'
Now
there
the native Jupiter of the Trojans; similarly depicted with three eyes
as Siva '
tfog.
*
is
Macrob. Saturn,
Horn.
'
according to Pausanias,
whence he bore the
title
was
of Triophthalmus,
lib.
i.
c. 18.
Etym. Magn.
2a/3a?iOf.
Hesych. Lex. Sa^a^sic, lafia-
2a/3a?iof.
Iliad, lib.
p. 437, 458.
who,
Jupiter, called
same reason denominated Trilochan.
for the
8uid. Lex.
:
was a very ancient
it
ver.
i.
394.
Nonni Dionys.
Asiat. Kes. vol.
i.
p. 248.
lib.
Phurn. de nat. deor. xx.
c.
17-
Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Horn.
chap.it.
'
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
2y4 BOOK
IV.
Greek
Ti^e cause, assigned by the is
highly worthy of notice
says, that three eyes
is
is
it
therefore the
whom
on the following account.
All
to Jupiter
same
as
but he also reigns
:
in
whence Homer speaks of the
;
he connects with Proserpine
therefore the
calls the
as Pluto
of representation,
He
were assigned
same
mode
certainly appears to be the true one.
agree, that Jupiter reigns in heaven
men " ter,
and
;
writer for this
:
he moreover reigns
Hades, and
infernal Jupi-
and
in the sea,
Neptune; whence Eschylus the son of Euphorion
god who presides over the ocean by the name of Jupiter.
Such
being the case, says Pausanias, the artist gave three eyes to the deity, by
way
of shewing, that
it is
one and the same person, who
supreme
in
right; because the fact
on
is
alike
those three great divisions of the world.
In
this conjecture,
which like
it is
built,
I
have no doubt that he
namely that Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, melt into each other,
Brahma, Vishnou, and
They were wont,
as
we
mode
are told by Plutarch, to represent Osiris,
hieroglyphic of an eye and a
Hence, when the world was divided into three
the great father
was thought
to
conjecture
of symbolizing used by the Egyp-
the sovereign lord of the world, under the sceptre.'
The
and indisputable.
Siva, is clear
also perfectly corresponds with the tians.
is
parts,
and when
have multiplied himself into three sons who
were yet esteemed only variations of one primeval Nous, the obvious mode of representing the triplicated deity would be by the image of a sceptred prince having three eyes.
to this mystic theocrasy, Pluto
and Jupiter himself
the infernal Jupiter, again, while Jupiter
Agreeably
is
declared to
is
identified
with
is
Hades
called :
and
be the primeval Nous, who (according
the Platonic and Orphic theology) produced from himself
Noes; he
is
to
three younger
yet represented, as presiding over the sea in the character of
Neptune. 2. tlie
From
the figurative
entrance of
Noah
mode, adopted
into the
Ark, and
in
the
Mysteries, of describing
subsequent egress to
his
of
tlie Jiglit
heaven, the chief deity of the Gentiles, as I have often had occasion to »
Paus. Corinth, p. 129.
*
Plut. dc Isid. p. 354.
'
Orph. Hymn.
xvii.
Ptssert. xxix.]p.290.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
c.
21.
Orph. Fragm. apud Macrob. Saturn,
Cicer. de nat. deor.
lib. iii. c.
25.
lib.
August, de
i.
c.
18.
civ. Dei.
Ma.\.
Tyr.
lib. iv. c.
1
1,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
295
observe, was either esteemed an infernal god, or was thought to have de-
scended into Hades and afterwards to have returned from
may
conclude, that Pluto, or the Stygian Jupiter,
Hence we
it.
the great father while
is
mystically dead, or, in plain terms, while concealed within the ship of the
deluge
;
to light
and that the and
life
same person, when he returns
celestial Jupiter is the
by quitting the place of
which the hierophant was wont
his
dark temporary confinement,
to style bis floating
With
coffii^.
this
sup-
position the whole character of Pluto will be found to agree. (1.)
The
Cabiric gods, whose
number
variously represented according to
is
the various lights in which they were viewed, mily, sometimes including sufficiently
are certainly the diluvian fa-
and sometimes excluding the Ark
appears from the whole of their fabulous history.
This
itself.
Now
the
Ca-
biri of Samothrace are said by Mnaseas to have been called Axieros, Axio-
cersa,
and Axiocersus ; and he severally
serpine,
To
and Pluto.
identifies
these he adds a fourth,
nister or officiating priest of the other three
tion of Casmilus,
which
is
dostan
Yama
is :
exhibited in the very for I
must
and applies
;
he makes the mito
him the appellaPluto
as such be also a diluvian god.
same character by the mythologists of Hin-
hesitate not to identify the
We
or infernal Siva.
whom
equivalent to the infernal jMercury.^
therefore, being a Cabiric god,
He
them with Ceres, Pro-
are
told,
sovereign queen of the serpents, by
Ocean she bore a daughter,
classical
Pluto with the
that in Patala or
name
Asyoriica.
Hades
Indian
resides the
To Samudr
called Asyotcersha or Asyotcrishta
;
or the
who
is
who like a jewel remains concealed in the sea. With these are associated Dharma-Rajah or the king of justice and his servant Carmala or Cashmala. The former is the sovereign of the Pitris or beautiful as the day,
seven patriarchal called Atcersa,
but
and the prince of the infernal regions.
spirits,
which
is
He
a word of the same import as Asyotcersa
holds a court of justice, with certain
:
is
also
and he
kings for his assessors, to determine
the fate of the departed.^
Here '
"^
avc
have obviously the prototypes of the Samothracian Cabiri, as
Mnas. apud Schol.
in
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p.
ApoU. Argon,
297—299.
lib.
i.
ver.
917.
CHAF.
ir.
: ;
the origin of pagan IDOLATay.
2Q6 BOOK
IV.
enumerated by Mnaseas Axiocersa
:
for
Axieros or Ceres
is
Asyotcersha the
Proserpine
or
Axiocersus or Pluto
is
Atcersa or Asyotcersa
Mercury
is
Carmala or Cashmala.
or infernal
the Hindoo Dharma- Rajah
;
Asyoruca or Asyorus
is
daughter
Asyoruca
of
and the ministering Casmilus
The
Pluto then
classical
is
but Dharma-Rajah, the Sydi/k of Sanchoniatho
:
and the just man of Moses, who is described as the sovereign of the seven Pitris or Rishis, is palpably the same as Buddha or Menu, considered in his
who
character of the god of obsequies; for the identical seven personages,
companions of the other when he was
are the associates of the one, were the
preserved in the
Ark
Pluto therefore, as an infernal god,
:
is
in fact
on that
very account an arkite god.
Such being
we can
his character,
racters of his
entertain
little
doubt respecting the cha-
The mother and
two female companions.
Ceres and Proserpine, are one reduplicated person intimated to
Hades
:
us,
who
that person
Ark is made an
logies both of
:
;
infernal god, the judge of the dead,
Greece and Egypt and Hindostan) the
the daughter
made
is
mixed character of claration, that
:
consort of Vishnou,
is
who
is
Rama-Devi
one of the
is
who
floated
tliree
who
forms of the
no other than
the ship
She
in the
Argha or
Argha
or the
is
is
Baris.
So
said to
have
removed by the de-
Now
triple is
Lacshmi, the
Devi or
Isi
:
and,
same as Argha and af-
in fact the
form of the
therefore,
evidently the Cabiric
is
mytho-
of the souls of
ferrier
or Lacshmi.
on the deluge
terwards changed herself into a dove. the ocean and
(in the
in
a personification at once of the
as the three jointly constitute but one goddess, she
Parvati or Sita,
interior
This can only correspond with the
but any doubt on that point
Asyotcersha
and
the offspring of the Ocean, and
that goddess,
Earth and of the Ark
enough
whence the primeval character preserved
lain concealed like a jewel in the sea.
is
plainly
the queen of Patala or
is
the defunct over the sacred lake of hell in the ship
again
it is
but the Hades of the ancient Mysteries was conjointly the
of the Ark and of the Earth the
The mother
is.
and
:
the daughter, like
who
lay concealed
Proserpine of Samolhrace,
mundane Ark
;
while
iii
is
Dharma-Rajah
Menu, or Noah, or the god of the Ark. Hence,
the
in classical
mythology, Pluto, as the great father,
husband of Proserpine
:
is
feigned to be
and, since the astronomical symbol of the
Ark
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. was the lunar
Proserpine or Axiocersa, notwithstanding she
crescent,
said to have lain concealed in the ocean
as the ship Argha,
Moon.
pronounced
yet
is
QQT
and
is
have sailed over the deluge
to
same
to be the
Libera and the
as
This circumstance, when connected with the fable of Pluto's rape
of Proserpine, led Julius Firmicus to ridicule the mythology of the pagans
by asking
Who
IF/io ever ravished the
:
ever made her the wife
meant was
initiated
crescent in the heavens
The
of'
Moon? Who god of hell?
who supposed
unnaturally put by one,
what the
the
at
the literal
any time
Moon
that primeval ship, of
was the astronomical
coficealed her ?
Such questions were not
'
to
be intended: but
which the boat-like
representative.
rape of Proserpine, and the mournful search for her by Ceres over
the whole world,
but the converse of the descent of Osiris into
is
made
of the similar search
for
him by
Ceres and
Isis.
the
same
as the Indian Sree or Isi or
the
same
event, the temporary
Devi
laid in Sicily near
there,
into vvhich Pluto
blooming prize down
Enna
the city of
was thought
to the
their Mysteries related to
The
to
:
sometimes
artificially
made
have plunged when he carried
This was
;
\^hilc
to float,
his
in
exact accord-
whom
lakes were es-
small islands, sometimes natural and
were deemed apt representations of the
Tlie Orphic poet however alludes to the story with a
Earth and the Ark. curious variation
;
com-
is
and a sacred lake was shewn
regions.^
infernal
scene of the rape
ance with the notions of the old mythologists, among
teemed symbols of the deluge
were one person,
aphanism of the mundane arkite god and
goddess and their subsequent reappearance.
monly
and
;
Isis
Hades and
both because
curious,
it
what we are
points out
to
un-
derstand by the lake, and connects the Sicilian goddess with the Eleusinian
worship of Ceres.
He
describes Pluto as bearing
away Proserpine
in his
chariot over the sea, as conveying her to Eleusis in Attica, and as tliere car-
rying her
down
to the infernal regions through a sacred cave.'
of the two accounts is
somewhat
the former •
precisely the same, though the
different.
Firm, de error,
Orph. H^mn.
Pag.
The
mode of
rel. p.
p. 17.
relating
is
equally meant, on
19.
Ovid. Metam.
lib. v. ver.
385
— 437.
xvii.
Idol.
them
sea in the latter supplies the place of the lake in
but both by the sea and the lake the deluge
Jul. Firm, dc error, prof.
* Jul. '
:
is
The purport
VOL.
II.
2
P
^"*''-
'*'•
THE OniGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATllY.
298 ijooiiiv.
surface of which the arkite god and goddess floated in mysterious union.
i^j^g
likewise, in the latter, the place of descent
So
descent
through a cave
is
and the god
;
while, in the former,
sometimes thought
is
sometimes through a chasm
to
Eleusis,
is
the scene
is
Enna,
laid at
have descended through the lake, and
made when he The fact was, that The cave where a
the earth which he himself
in
found that he was opposed by the river-nymph Cyane. the
and the mode of
same worship prevailed both
in Sicily
and
Attica.
road to Hades was shewn, and the chasm through which Pluto was feigned to
have descended, were equally sacred grottos devoted to the celebration
of the Mysteries. of the
Ark
the
;
They represented the gloomy interior of the Earth and Hades of old mythology, ^vhence the great father was sup-
posed to have been born or to have returned to (2.)
As Pluto
or the infernal Jupiter
Noah
is
from the nether world.
light
during the period of his
aphanism or inclosure within the Ark, and as the kingdom over which he presides
is
mundane Ark
the
lative to the
we
itself,
shall find almost every particular re-
pagan Hades borrowed from the history of the deluge.
The door of
which was shewn at the entrance of every Mithratic ca-
hell,
vern, and through which the aspirants were variously said to be born again
or to return from the infernal regions, was no other than the door of the
Ark; a
Menu
conclusion, which necessarily follows from Pluto, like the infernal
Yama
or
of the Hindoos, being the god of the Ark.
The
three
judges of hell, ^vho are described as the assessors of Pluto, are the triple offspring of
accordingly
Noah is
a doubt, that
with the patriarch himself at their head.
feigned to be the this ancient
Minos of Crete
personage
the
is
same
:
One
of them
but there can scarcely be
as the
Menu
of Hindostan,
the Manes or Menes of Phrygia and Egypt, the Minuas of Greece, the
Menu
So again in the
the
Menwyd
or :
of Britain, and the
the infernal river Styx
same
Ganges
light is
is
the deluge
;
of the Goths or Scythians.
and
it
was viewed precisely
by the Greeks, as the Nile was by the Egyptians, and as
by the Hindoos.
of Hades or Patala
who
is
Mannus
;
Each of
and each has
its
those celebrated streams
Noah
a river
sacred boat and ferryman of the dead,
evidently the prototype of the classical Charon, but
evidently the scriptural
is
floating in the
Ark.
under the name of Salivahana and Narava/iana,
who
Thus Buddha is
is
no
or
Menu,
less
described as the con-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. veyer of souls in the larger boat over the river of hell
doo
infernal river
is
which he exercises person, tlie
who was
deluge
:
But
imaginary occupation."
and, since the Hin-
must be the water on
the Ganges, that sacred stream his
:
299
this
Menu
preserved in an ark with seven companions at the time of
and he doubtless discharges
his function
of ferryman of the dead
Thus
character of Sraddadeva or the god of obsequies.
in his
the very
is
Egyptian Charon was similarly "thought
ferry the souls of the
to
also
the
deceased
over the Acherusian pool, which was formed by the overflowing of the Nile.
The
which he employed
vessel,
for this purpose,
was no other than the Ba-
or Argo; and the Nile was esteemed by the Egyptians a type of the ocean
ris
But the Baris or Argo was the ship of
or deluge. set afloat
on the
which he was
river during the period of his allegorical death
trance into that vessel,
which was formed
symbolized by the heifer Isis called scent into the infernal regions.^ Osiris, just as the
he
Osiris, in
Menu
is
his en-
a lunette, and which was
like
Theba or the Ark, was
Charon therefore
Hindoo ferryman
and
:
or
is
Buddha
fabled de-
his
same person
the
as
in other words,
:
Pluto or the diluvian Noah, considered in his infernal character of the
is
god of obsequies. (3.)
The
allegorical death of
aphanism or disappearance
the patriarch
he was
:
first
was sometimes
bewailed as one
On
wards rejoiced over as being found again.
styled his
and
lost,
after-
Greeks seem
this idea the
to have constructed the fable of Pluto's wonderful helmet, which under different modifications has tales
for that
;
been adopted into so
war or
fairy-
god was undoubtedly and avowedly the same person as the
Osiris or Serapis of Egypt. tanic
many romances and
(in other
Tliey
tell
us,
that,
at the
epoch of the Ti-
words) of the general deluge, the Cyclopes forged a
helmet for Pluto, which possessed the faculty of rendering
wearer
its
in-
visible.
Heraclitus reasonably enough remarks, that this
which a man '
is
no longer seen by
Asiat. Res, vol. ix. p. 173.
his kindred.
Ramayuii.
fancied Christ to have been an incarnation of title
*
and character. Diod. Bibl.
lib.
j.
p. 82, 83, 86, 87.
b.
i.
sect. 5.
Buddha
helmet
is
death, after
His observation When
is
just in
the Manich^ans strangely
or Manes, they applied to
him
the
same
^^*^^'
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
300 HOOK
IV.
main
ti)e
but the death or disappearance denoted hy the helmet, as
:
mav
be collected from the whole mythological history of the Cabiric Pluto, was tlie
mystic death or aphanism of Osiris when he was shut up in the ark
and the helmet
itself, if
was a symbol of that
cap and
which produced the fabled
vessel
the sacred shield,
invisibility.'
Such being the apparatus and import of the pagan Hades, we
(4.)
shall
to find the character of Proserpine perfectly harmonizing with
not wonder
said respecting Pluto, the three infernal judges, Charon,
what has been
his
or Argo, and the sacred stream whether denominated Styx or
Baris
ship
I mistake not, like tbe^
Nile or Gattges.
The Orphic poet speaks of mortals
her, as being the mother,
course with Jupiter, of Eubulcus or Bacchus, his infancy
exposed
in
thologists tell
us, that she
lay concealed within
its
with Maia or the great
Ocean
;
is
said to have
Homer
sea.'
just as the ;
been
Hindoo my-
and that she
And Porphyry, while he identifies mother whom the Hindoos make the parent of
cumstance of her feeding that sacred
or wood-pigeon
that the dove
name of Pherephatta from
bird.*
This fable
is
of a
in
represents
recesses.'
cred to her, and that she received the
with the Indian
and the death ineffable inter-
was the daughter of the Ocean
Buddha or Menu, remarks,
diluvian
who
an ark on the surface of the
the daughters of the
her, as sporting with
life
by an
of her, as being at once the
and celebrates
;
her
was
the sa-
the cir-
common
origin
which describes the great mother as assuming the form
tale,
of the Argha during the prevalence of the deluge, and as afterwards flying
away
in the
shape of a dove while the waters were
was the Muth of the Piienicians and the
(5.) Pluto
ther of the ancient Celts,
whom say,
retiring.
whom
infernal great fa-
they claimed as their progenitor, and upon
Cesar bestows the name of Dis ; though perhaps we ouglit rather to
that they themselves designated
other than the '
ApoUod.
*
Orph.
Bibl. lib.
i.
Htrac.de Incred.
c. 2. f 1.
'
*
Porphyr. de Abstin.
'
This
infer
this appellation,
which
is
no
Hindoo or Indo-Scythic Deva, Deus, or DeoJ
Hymn, xxviii. xxix. Homer. Hymn, in Cerer. apvid I
him by
c. xxvii.
Paus. Messen. p. 273.
lib. iv. § l6.
from the circumstance of one of the sacred rivers of the British Celts being
THE ORIGIN" OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. The word Miilh
Death
signifies
said by Sanchoniatho to have
nounced by taken,
his translator
if this
:
301
and the person, who bore the
been the son of Cronus by Rhea, and
Philo to be the same as Pluto.
I
am
title, is
pro-
is
greatly mis-
Mutli be not the same also as the ]Mot mentioned at the be-
ginning of the Phenician history, in which the process of the original crea-
and
tion of the world
the usual
manner of
its
renovation after the deluge are mingled together in
Mot
the old mythologists.
is
described, as the chaotic
mixture produced by the union of the primeval Cupid with the wind Kol-
Now,
pias.
according to the system of ancient IMaterialism by which the
various parts of universal nature were esteemed but the different the great father, the original or, in the
deities,
language of the Hindoos,
Osiris
was confounded with
Janus,
who
is
Chaos was accounted the same
certainly the
his
same
adversary as
Noah,
was one of
it
Typhon is
members of
as that oldest of
Thus
his forms.
or the ocean
:
and thus
introduced by Ovid declaring
himself to be the primitive Chaos out of which the world was framed.
Si-
milar ideas appear to have been entertained by the Phenicians
the
various conjectures that have been
Mot,
I think
teemed the clude,
most agreeable
it
original
that the
;
Mot
Muth
and
for, after
respecting the import of the
to the genius
Chaos and the diluvian or
names
word
of old mythology, which infernal
god the same,
are also the same.
The
es-
to con-
Celts
of
Ceridwen or the great navicular mother the goddess of
Britain esteemed
death
made
:
consequently, like their brethren of Gaul, they must have venerated
the great father as
manner,
Death
personified."
a god,
vvorsl>ipped
whom
The
Celts of Gades, in a similar
Death
Philostratus calls
:
and the
Hindoos, as we have already seen, equally venerated their egg-bom divinity
under the same appellation.
and the
This Gadetanic
Muth mentioned by Cesar and
of the infernal Baal-Peor before
whom
Death
evidently the Dis
is
His
Sanchoniatho.
rites, like
those
the Israelites eat the offerings
the dead, appear to have been mingled with obscenity
;^
of
a circumstance,
systematically universal throughout the gentile world, and arising from the called
Dee or Deva
in
honour of the great mother and from
Hu
himself being styled Deun.
Sec Davics's Mythol. of Brii. Druid, p. 152, 153, 119, 121.
Myth.
'
Davies's
*
They were
p.
231.
the origin,
1
suspect, of the Spanish dance Fandango.
*^"*'' "'•
;
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
302 BOOS
IV,
notion entertained of
The
ation.
Noah and
Ark being
the
two presidents of gener-
the
god Mantiis ; which
old Etruscans called this
is
but a compound
Menu, Manes, and Mannus, of the Hindoos, Egyptians, and Mantus is equivalent to the god Manu. He was the infernal
variation of the
Goths
for
:
same time the diluvian Menu
Pluto, and at the
in his character of the
god
of obsequies.' 3,
Pluto, driving Proserpine in his chariot over the sea, melts into the
Neptune again melts
character of the oceanic god Neptune, as that of the marine Jupiter
Hence we
find
He
(1.)
and the fabulous regent of the sea
:
specially viewed as floating
great father,
is
him throughout
said to have brought a flood over Attica at the time
t auric god and
to
and he
:
is
still
when
Theba or
surrounding them on
earth,
the
the Ark.'
have shut up the Titans or impious antediluvians
cavity of the
the
denominated by Hesiod the
celebrated as the peculiar defender of
also feigned to
central
is
on the surface of the mighty deep.
closely connected with the deluge.
mystic olive-branch was produced
He is
similarly into
in the
sides with the ocean
all
have overwhelmed the island and the whole wicked race of the Phlegyae
beneath the waves of the sea
have been the
to
;
himself to the boundless deep
mariner that ever trusted
have brought a flood over the land of
to
;
first
Ethiopia together with a ceto, which
is
a well-known symbol of the
have similarly inundated, and similarly sent a ceto tlie
Iliensians
horse,
;
and
to
first
'
c. 2. p. *
The reluctant into a
i.
711.
Asiat. Res. vol.viii. p.
Bibl. lib.
^Hesiod. Theog.
ApoUod.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
ver.
ii.
lib.
Bochart. Chanaan.
ver. 103.
ApoUod.
mare
:
goddess, vainly wishing to escape
and, afterwards beholding her
Arcadian fountain of Styx, near which
Sanchon. apud Euseb. Prasp. Evan.
Fast. lib.
the territories of
of these forms he had intercourse with Ceres, while in search
from him, changed herself form
to
bull.'
of her daughter Proserpine.
in the
;
have assumed the various symbolical arkite forms of a
a dolphin, and a
In the
into,
Ark
c. 13.
811
c^i.
i.
lib.
c. 10. i.
439,440.
c.
this
amour was
new
carried
Caes. de bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 18. Ovid,
33. p. 584.
c.
34.
p. 609, 6lO. lib.
ApoUon.
Philost. in vit.
p.
ii.
211.
Hesiod. Scut. Here. ver. 104.
— 819.
Nonni Dionys.
^ 3. c. 4. § 9-
lib. xviii.
Ovid. Metara.
Diod. Bibl.
lib. vi. ver.
US,
lib. v. p.
120, 115,
337.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
303
on, she in disgust miraculously tinged the water with black.' says, that she received
or Fury
ought
:
but there
is
tlie
no
embraces of Neptune in the shape of an Erinnys
real discrepance
between the two accounts, which
be joined together in one fable.*
in fact to
Ceres-Hippa was the nurse
of Bacchus, and was certainly the goddess of the Ark.
mother
Apollodorus
She was the great
form of a mare, while Neptune was the great father
in the
In
form of a horse. Parvati, one of
this particular
whose numerous
as a ship on the surface of the
in the
she coincides with the Hindoo Devi or
figures
was a mare, though she
deluge.'
also floated
But, viewed as a fiend-mare, she
more remarkably with Ceridwen, the Ceres of the ancient Briwho, like herself, is evidently the same as the Sree or Devi of the tons One of the forms of Ceridwen was a mare, or rather a monstrous Hindoos. coincides yet ;
animal compounded of a mare and a hen
been likewise a ship well stored with corn,
:
yet she was supposed to have
in
which an ancient personage was In the first of these
preserved during the period of a great inundation.
shapes, she was esteemed a fiend-mare and an infernal exactly corresponds with the classical Ceres,
who
is
mare
:
and thus she
indifferently feigned to
have received the embraces of Neptune as a mare and as a fury; for
two be (2.)
united,
As
the
and we have the British fiend-mare Ceridwen.*
the consort of Ceres and
Neptune
is
the sea
and much the same story
:
let
said to
therefore as the great diluvian father,
have been plunged is
in his infancy
beneath the waves of
from him transferred to
his
son Eu-
molpus.
This person was the
oflfspring
of the oceanic god by Chion^
;
who, to
avoid detection by her father, threw the child, as soon as he was born,
Neptune however preserved him from destruction and, bearing him safely away to Ethiopia, committed him to the nurture of Ben-
into
the
sea.
:
thesicyna and Amphitritfe.'^ It is
easy to
Ptol. lleph.
Nov. Hist,
*
ApoUod.
^
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Davies's '
perceive,
Bibl. lib. iii.
Mythol.
iii.
p.
whence these kindred
lib. iii.
c. G.
l68.
-vol. viii. p.
4U.
p. 229, 260, 256.
Hyg. Fab. 139. Apollod. Bibl,
lib.
iii.
c.
14. § 4.
fables
have originated.
I
*^''*'' '^'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
304 nooK
IV.
need only observe, that the
many
latter, like
connected with Ethiopia or Cusha-dwip
was
;
Greek
other of the
legends,
is
which, whether African or Asiatic,
a principal settlement of the daring tribe that appears to have been the
grand corrupter of religion after the deluge.
IX. The
and Dionysius, that Ceres and Proserpine and Bacchus were worshipped by the Celts of Britain with rites assertion of Artemidorus
similar to those of Samothrace, has been
most amply confirmed by a recent
inquiry into the theological system of the British Druids,' instituted from original
native documents with equal learning and
ingenuity.'
thence
It
appears, that their Orgies had just the same relation to the deluge as those of the Samothracians, and that they worshipped a triad consisting of the god
Hu
and the two goddesses Ceridwen and Creirwy
;
who,
like
the classical
Now
Ceres and Proserpine, were viewed as a mother and a daughter. character of
Hu
is
thus generally
summed up by Mr. Davies from
which are denominated triads
thological compositions of the bards, like
that of Osiris or
those
Bacchus or Siva,
it
palpably the
is
:
the
myand,
character of
Noah.
He
lived in the time of the flood
and with
:
his
oxen he performed some
He was
achievement, which prevented the repetition of that calamity.
doubly symbolized by a the primitive race
;
bull
and formed them
gave traditional laws
He
and by a serpent.
collected together
first
for the regulation
and government of
society.
He
eminently distinguished for his regard to peace and justice. the several families of the
first
bandry previous
With
this
to their
conducted
race to their respective settlements in the va-
But he had instructed
rious regions of the earth.
He first He was
into communities or families.
this race in the art
of hus-
removal and separation.'
character of
Hu, every
thing that
is
him
said of
will
be found
exactly to correspond.
He of
was called the mighty, the sovereign, the ready protector, the giver
wine, the emperor of the land
the world.
plough.
and
He was said to have held He was denominated Dylan, apud Strab. Geog.
'
Artcraid.
*
Mythol.of
Brit.
lib. iv. p.
198.
the seas,
the
life
of
after the deluge the
the son of the sea. Cion. Perieg.
Druid, p. 106, 107, 136, 56l, 562.
ver.
565.
all that
are in
strong-beamed
He was
thought
THE
PAGAN IDOLATUY.
ORIffIN OF
when
to have sailed in a wonderful ship,
the floods
reason assigned for
its
being so styled
that
is,
by the violently convulsive throes of
it
the lofty cause, as the
and
name
when with thundering din
He
was
to
have been saved
in
a ship without
He
the waters of lake Llion inundated the whole world. title
or
which are evidently those of the great father
in these characters,
sented, under the
Dwyvan
called
of his mystic consort was Dxvyvach or the lesser
and mother, they were supposed
when
heaven
was a day rendered dreadful
nature,
all
the billows forth proceeded against the shore.
:
forth from
His peculiar day was styled a day of vengeance: and the
to the great deep.
cause
came
505
sails,
was repre-
of Noe, as presiding with his consort Eseye or Isi in
that stupendous temple, which
is
indifferently called the
great stonefence of
common sanctua)y, the A7-k of the World, the circle of the JVorld, mundane circle of stones, the mound constructed of stone-tcorli iypfying JVorld, the mundane rampart, thestallqf the cow.^ As venerated in this
their
the the
bovine
he was denominated Beo'-Lled or the bull of fame
stall,
say, the solar bull or the great father worshipped in the Sun.'' lar reference to his tauric character, he to the
yoke for
had no
my afiiction, were
existence,
it
is
my
that
is
to
described as saying, I'xcas subjected
but commensurate was
not for
;
With a simi-
my confidence ;
progeny: and,
the JVorld
in allusion to
an
attri-
bute specially ascribed by Moses to Noah, an ancient bard apostrophizes him, The heavy blue chain didst thou, spoils
circle
of stones was not the only temple of
and an island
in the sea or in a lake, equally
the Ark; so his sanctuary tide,
endure; and for the
of the deep doleful is thy song.^
But the cle,
O just man,
is
Hu
•
Ibid, p, 100, 101,
*
Mythol. of
said to have been in an island surrounded by the
Brit.
billow,
described as the rock of the supreme pro-
105, 108, 109, 113, 114,
Druid, p. 120, 137-
121, 562, 568.
Air. Davics observes, that this title has
ing in the British language: but he conjectures from the context, that at a very remote period, of two Babylonic words
have retained '
as both that cir-
or on a wide lake, or on the surface of the ocean, or on the ninth wave,
or on a rock beyond the
I
:
symbolized the World and
his
explanation: yet Btcr-Llud
it
Beer and Let, which import
may
no roean>
has been compounded, the bull ufjiume.
perhaps rather denote the generative
Ibid. p. 137.
Pag.
Idol.
VOL. n.
2
Q
bull.
^"^^'
•^•
30(5
HOOK
IV.
TKr,
prietor
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
and as the chief place of
Here he dwells
tranquillity.'
the rainbow for his girdle, and presiding over the
which once
summit of a
toiled to the
secure, having
ship with the iron door
mountain.^
lofty
In reference to the same primeval vessel so particularly described by Moses,
he
is
further celebrated as the door-keeper of the partial covering, as the
god
of the door or gate, as a protector in darkness, and as the defender of his seagirt sanctuary.
He is
'
a reaper; as the
also represented as a
ploughman
cow
sacrificer of the mystic
or
husbandman
after the deluge;
;
as
and, though
astronomically revered in the Sun, as being able to protect his chair of pre-
He
sidency in the midst of a general flood. giants or antediluvian Titans; Osiris,
and Jupiter
affliction,
who
and we are
:
he became the father of
Sometimes
this tauric
was like« ise the conqueror of the
are similarly overcome by Bacchus, Siva,
he had been patient
that, after
told, all
in
the tribes of the earth.*
and ophite deity
is
described, as seated on the covered
mount which shadowed out mount Ararat, and as refulgent with expanded wings. ' Here he is evidently the same character as the primeval Eros or Cupid, as the Orphic winged and ox-headed first-born Dionusus, and as the
winged serpent Cneph of the Egyptian theology or Deofi, which
is
— Sometimes he
equivalent to the divine On.^
is
:
for
On
was the Egyptian name
great father venerated in the
Om or Awm,
doo is
which
is
Sun
;
and
it is
Egypt and
of the Sun, or rather of the
clearly the
same
title
as the
called the sacred triliteral monosyllable,
a special appellation of the solar Trimurti
On
Here again we may ob-
serve the close connection of the British mythology with that of
Hindostan
styled
Hin-
and which
—
Brahma Vishnou Siva SomeHere likewise we
times he was supposed to have had two origins or births.'
may
trace his clear identity with the Orphic Bacchus or Protogonus
as the son of the Ark,
is
said to
have been born a second time from the
;
who,
womb
of his nurse Hippa or Ceres. Lasltly,
was almost
as
universally the case with the great father in every
quarter of the globe, he was venerated as an infernal deity, and was thought '
Mythol. of
•
Ibirl. p.
'
Ibid. p. 120,
*
Ibid. p.
Brit.
Druid,
p.
120, 507, 508, 509, 537. '
leo.
121, 122.
526— 531,
562.
Ibid. p. 199, 200, 120.
'
Ibid. p. 56l, 562.
'
Ibid. p. 528.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV. to liave lived
In sustaining this part of his character, he
and died alternately.
bore the ivy-branch
307
person of his representative priest
in the
;
agreeably to the
accurateassertionof Dionysius, that the Britons covered themselves with leaves of that plant while celebrating the
by
or Adonis.
under the
of their national Bacchus
or Aeddoii
and which
his officiating minister, '
rites
Acdd
designated by the appellation
evidently the
is
Yet, while revered as an
name of Aeddon
The Ark
ship of
Aeddon
strong door,
perished
:
:
he
is
is
he
Adoneus
tide as is still
described
little
mistake
Hindoos make the
the
expressly said by Taliesin to have been
tiie
celebrated as having entered into the inclosure of the
is
what time the elements were
and he
same
infernal deity,
Menu whom
and he was
:
was likewise assumed
such a manner, that we can as
in
bis real character as that of the diluvian
god of obsequies.
whicli
;
let
loose and his contemporaries
described as the chief of the toiling just ones,
dwelt on a sea which had no shore, and of whose integrity
it
was
who
long
that thev
did not endure the extremity of distress/
X. The same system of theology prevailed throughout America
have been some
to
indeed
it
of
relics
it
in the
corroborated
to establish the position,
:
the continent of
and there appear
back settlements to a very
be even yet altogether extinct.
Americans themselves,
seem
by the Europeans
at the time of its lirst discovery
The
late period, if
universal tiaditions of the
by recent geographical discoveries,
that their ancestors crossed the narro^v chan-
which separates Asia from the new world, and thus gradually spread
nel
unknown
themselves over a country long
in the west.'
But
the religion, to
which they had been devoted while inhabiting the Asiatic continent, they
would doubtless bring with them into
And
this circumstance,
which might have been anticipated from the very
course of their emigration, 1
.
Mr. Adair,
who
their recently acquired settlements.
is
clearly established
long resided
among
by a reference to
facts.
the natives that occupy the districts
behind the United States, imagines, that they are descendants of the longlost ten tribes of Israel.
I
cannot help suspecting however, that
his curious
narrative has been heightened by the love of a system perhaps too hastily
'
Mythol. of
^
Robertson's Hist, of
Brit.
Druid,
p. 122,
Amcr.
259, 574.
b. iv, sect. 8. p.
* Ibid. p. 118, 55-i,
41, 42, 43.
555, 557.
THE ORICfN' OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
308 BOOK
IV.
adopted
;
and that
to a
mind preoccupied with
Israelites because their priests carried
tom prevalent among them served had,
This ark the it
priests
to bring additional
were wont to bear
on the ground
rite
and cus-
They
conviction.
to
Tliey entertained an implicit faith in
they esteemed chieftain
and
it
attendant,
his
it
be had, upon short logs of wood.
the power and holiness of to touch
their ark it
:
and
except the
and they only on very particular occasions.
deity of this ark they invocated
Mr. Adair supposes
to be had, they rested
no one presumed
so sacred, that
They never
in solenin processions.
where stones were
but,
:
where they were not
upon them;
The
about a small ark, every
seems, a consecrated ark, in which they kept various holy vessels.
it
placed
the idea, that tiiey must be
by the name of Yo-He-JVah ; which
to be a slight variation of the
Jehovah of the Hebrews,
while he pronounces the ark to be a transcript of the ark of the covenant.'
Such a conjecture would be highly probable, were people upon record, whose priests were accustomed solemn procession
:
so far
but,
this
is
Ark and
that the ark of these
Ammon,
the deluge.
to bear a sacred ark in
from being the case, that the
vailed in every part of the gentile world, originating tradition of the
the Israelites the only
Hence
rite
pre-
no doubt from a strong
I feel thoroughly persuaded,
Americans was no other than the ark of
Siva, Osiris,
Adonis, Bacchus, Attis, Hu, and IMenu; and that their theology,
so far from being a corruption of the Mosaical Institutes, was in reahty that
very Diluvianism which constituted so large a part of the religion of the pagans. It
must be confessed, that Yo-He-JFah, as Mr. Adair writes the
ark-god, bears a considerable resemblance to the
title
of the
name Jehovah: but I more
than suspect, that he has combined into one word what ought to be consi-
Purchas, giving an account from
dered as two distinct invocations. lain of the
same American
region, tells us,
celebrating their sacred rites,
naked, and
had
in this condition
finished, they
their garments.
'
See
iv
work
all
that,
when
Champ-
the inhabitants
were
the females present stripped themselves
joined in a frantic song and dance.
exclaimed with one voice. Ho, Ho,
Ho ;
When
they
and then resumed
After a while they again cast them aside, again performed
intitled
The History of
with eke Indians an(l resident
m
the
American Indians, hy James Adair, Esq, a trader
the country for ^Oyearst
'
THE ORIGIN OF PACAX IDOLATRY.
women
of the country, when they attained the age of
fourteen or fifteen years, prostituted themselves to
and
tliat
they followed this course of
when they entered
He
same exclamation.
the dance and the song, and again joined in the
adds, that the young
309
for the
lite
whomsoever they pleased;
space of
or six years,
five
With respect to their
into the matrimonial state.
theology,
they venerated one god, one son, and one mother; and these they associated
The first of them
with the Sun, thus making their deities four in number. also styled the father :
and they had a notion, that
their goddess,
they
whona
up both her
they eminently called the mother, once devoured or swallowed offspiing and the Sun.
In
tliis
Mr. Adair would doubtless have discovered the Trinity;
narrative
and would have pronounced the god, denominated the or
filial
Word
of the ancient Targumists
more than the
forth to us nothing
yet
:
religious notions
son,
to be
distinctly
it
Mimra
tlie
enough
sets
and practices of the old
pagans, and thus confirms the supposition that the sacred ark was the ark of
Bacchus or called
Ho ;
The
Osiris.
and they
whom
deity,
thrice invoked
him
these
He is
so highly celel)rated by the gentile hierophants. as the
Hu
of
tlie
is
Huas
Mr. Adair writes Yo.
evidently what lain,
Britons and the
tlie title
of the god
:
Americans venerated, was
in allusion to that
of the Greeks
This then, as
but the natives,
it
mystic triplication
the same, even in ;
we
and the name collect
Bacchic cry of
Ho
Hevah
He-JVah, which
is
is
ilu or Bacchus, so
Ho
is
from Champ-
appears, used also another
exclamation, which Mr. Adair expresses dividedly He-JVah. to believe, that, as
title,
we have here no
I
am
inclined
other than the
or Evo'e ; and consequently that the exclamation Yo-
thought to be a corruption of Jehovah,
is
in fact nothing
more than Ho-Hevah, which is equivalent to Huas Evo'e or inversely Evo'e With such an opinion the indecent rites of the god exactly correBacche. spond.
The
songs and dances of the naked
women
of the Bacchantes and priestesses of Flora;
their
are the songs and dances
denudation corresponds
with the similar religious denudation of the Egyptian females, before the bull
who was the same as Isis or the Ark was probably much of the same nature, as that of the
Apis, and at the festival of Bubast^
and
their prostitution
'
Eurch. Pilgr.
b. viik c. 4. p. 760,
',
751.
chap,
i
v.
3\i)
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Bain Ionian uoineii
iu
honour of
J.Iylitta,
of the Armenian in honour of Anai's,
of the Cvjjrian and Lyclian in Ijonour of Venus, and of
honour of Baal-Peor.
These
'
which were always associated with the arkile worship, and which were
rites,
Asfortheark,
the universal disgraceof thelicentious theology of the Gentiles. whicli no one might touch save the chieftain or his deputy,
(he Bacchic ark
M hich none
;
open with safety except the initiated.
niiglit
She
mother.
Of
the relation of father and son.
Egyptian
Horus
triad,
composed of
the sun.
Woden
ther,
Such
also
was the Gothic
Thor
triads,
from the same souice.
whom,
mother or the great bear to each other
mother, Osiris the father, and triad,
mo-
consisting of Frea the
And
the son.
The number
nearly allied to
They have all,
three
sons of the transmigrating great father
to
who
;
one
it is
which comprehends Subhadra the great mother, and
Jagan-Nath and Bal-Rama two brethren.
mundane
suppose
an exactly similar description was the
Isis the great
the father, and
of the oriental
two
and shrine of the goddess
associated with two other deities,
is
and
his worship,
Tliis ark I
the other pagans, they emphatically called the
all
clearly, I thinic,
it is
Mhich contained the syinhols of the god and
to have been here, as elsewhere, the token like
in
are very evidently the phallic
in short,
rites,
Canuauitish
tlic
and
arkite great mother,
different periods of his
life,
number of
the
made up of
the
taken from the
is
but the triad
:
I believe, originated
itself is
the great father considered with reference
during the former of which he appears as
the consort and during the latter as the offspring of the maternal goddess.
With
the worship of this triad
is
joined that of the Sun; an arrangement,
which again perfectly corresponds with the mythology of the Gentiles in the
These remarks
old world. fiction,
which the American savages have received from
lative to the
whom
they revere as the great mother.
suaded, to the entrance of the solar god stantially the
precisely
same
similar
imitated in his Herod.
their ancestors,
devouring or swallowing up of the Sun and the
female deity
'
a right understanding of the wild
will lead us to
as the absorption of
occurs
in
own person
lib. ii. c.
60.
Noah
filial
Ark
Mysteries:
the
all the sufferings of the great father,
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
;
and
Bacchus by Ceres-Hippa.
the Druidical
p.
76.
god by the
It alludes,
into the
Strab. Geog.
re-
I
am
per-
it is
sub-
An
idea
aspirant,
who
was sometimes
lib. xi.
p. 533.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
313
feigned to be swallowed up by the ship-goddess Ceridwen and to be after-
wards born again as an infant from her womb.'
That Mr. Adair
mistaiven in
is
the Israelites, and that
have rightly
I
in civilization, or (as I
new
we ought
is
Hu
if
rather to express ourselves) had the
from the
least degenerated into the savage state
It
with
we examine the theology of which had made the greatest progress
world,
suspect
Ho
identified their ark-god
more decidedly,
or Huas, will appear yet those two nations of the
deducing the northern Americans from
institutes of their ancestors.
conjectured by Sir William Jones, though he has not
excellently
pursued the investigation resulting from such an opinion, that the religion of
Mexico and Peru was Hindostan, Greece,
we
see reason to
that the ark-god,
is
:
same
and substance, as that of Egypt,
What he
has omitted I shall
and, since the theology of those two
same
clearly the
adopt
in origin
China, and Japan. ^
Italy,
endeavour to supply
American nations
the
his
conjecture as the truth,
whose character
as the ark-god of E^'Vpt,
more
civilized
as that of their northern brethren, if
\vc
have
it will
last discussed,
obviously follow,
must be the same
and those other countries enumerated by Sir Wil-
liam Jones. 2.
The
tradition of the Mexicans, at the period
when
their country fell
under the Spanish yoke, was as follows.
While
their ancestors in a
gions that
and
lie to
state of
the north of Mexico, their gods bade
specified distinctly the signs
we reduce
their supputation to
eighth century.
nomade barbarism were
inhabiting re-
them seek new
by wliich they should know them.
our era, occurred about the beginning of the
Thev proceeded southward
in quest of the predicted signs
so leisurely, that the last of the seven tribes, of which their family
posed, did not reach
Mexico
mencement
joumey.
of
the
in less than three
From
claimed to be peculiarly descended. called Vitzliputzli or Mexitli
:
this
The
•
hundred years
tribe the
god,
and he promised
possessions of the six other tribes, and to lead
with riches.
lands,
This, if
them
after the
com-
Mexican Americans
whom to
was com-
they venerated, was
make them
lords of the
into a land
abounding
Relying on his promise, they set forth under the immediate
Davies's Mythol. p.
229—259.
* Asiat.
Res. \ol.
i.
p. C68.
^"'^^- '^•
THE. ORIGIN OF PAG-AN IDOLATRY.
9-lS:
Bw
'»•
auspices of this deity
made and
for,
:
having placed him
in
an oracular ark or coffer
who bore him
of reeds, they consigned him to the care of four priests,
his vehicle
their directions
on
tlieir
shoulders and pretended on every occasion to receive
immediately from him.
It
was
speaking in an audible
he,
who pointed out their line of march, who charged them who commanded them to advance it was he, who prescribed halt, or them the whole ceremonial of their religion. The leader whom they fol-
voice from his ark, to to
:
lowed, or rather the god himself, was called ceived the appellation of Mexicans. sent to the lord of Culbuacan,
of the
tribes that
readily
who seems to have been the to demand his daughter,
granted: but,
the
very night of her arrival,
placed near the idol and
and arrayed
in
consecrated as the
territory of
were,
a,
;
god.
A
and the name,
by
their
our great mother.
signifies
Culhuacan, they advanced
fish,
and abounding with the
cordingly, the following night, priest
:
to
the place
the signs,
all
final
Vitzliputzli
where
v.hich the
settlement.
These
meadows,
Ac-
water-lily or lotos.
appeared
and commanded, that they should seek a
was
attire,
clear stream of water or rather a lake, surrounded with
well replenished with
slain
and a young man,
:
mother of
Mexico is now situated. Here their priests found god had pointed out as marking the scite of iheir
request
she was
her feminine
youth thus attired was worshipped by them ever since
which they distinguished him, was Toccy, which
in order that
The
their god.
Afterwards she was flayed
heiag covered with her skin
Leaving the
chief of one
had preceded them,
by order of the deity.
re-
In the course of their progress,' they
she might be their queen and the mother of
was
whence the nation
3Iea.'i ;
tree,'
in
a dream to an agedT
which grew out of a
rock in the midst of the lake, and upon which they should observe an eagle feeding on small birds, since that was destined to be the place where they
The
should build a city famous throughout the whole world.
duly made
;
and the ominous eagle was discovered
described by the god.
'
Forthwitij^ by
,CGmmon
Purchas says tunal, which from the coDtext seems
not the precise import of the word.
to
in
consent,
search was;,
the very situation
they erected a tem-
mean some kind
of tree; but
I
knoW'
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
313
porary building on the insular rock, that the ark of their deity might rest there until they should be able to construct a sumptuous temple for
re-
Next, they with much labour enlarged the area of the rocky
ception.
by casting into the lake around
island
its
stone,
it
timber, lime, rubbish, and
When
such other materials as they could manage to procure.
they had thus
gained a sufficient surface above the level of the water, they built upon
it
the temple of their god and the future capital of their empire.'
We may readily discover in
this curious tradition
almost every idea, that
prevailed in the old diluvian worship.
The
oracular ark, containing the god and borne by the priests,
the very
is
same as the oracular ark of Amnion or Osiris or Bacchus, and as the Argo The great mother of and Argha of the Greek and Hindoo mythologies. the deity
that
is
same great mother,
And
throu^liout the gentile world. cient
whose
rites
prevailed
the lake with the rocky island
symbol of the deluge and the mundane Ark, which we
venerated in every quarter of the globe.
It
is
alike, as I shall
nous deity priests
was formed by the
and priestesses were supposed
power
to personate
much
They
esteemed
for their androgy-
;
union of the two
close
Mexican
idolaters.
have occasion hereafter more largely to specify,
of their worship, they gave them as their
find so highly
This also was per-
and practice of the old
the great father and the great mother an hermaphrodite
that an-
is
observable, that the
great mother was personated by a boy in female attire. fectly agreeable both to the notions
universally
:
whence, as their
and represent the objects
of this mixed nature as
was
it
in
to do.
The manner
in
which the Mexicans were brought to the place destined
for the foundation of their city,
and the marks by which that place was to
be known, afford another proof of the identity of their theology and that of the old continent.
It is
easy to collect from the tenor of the tradition,
the ancestors of the Mexicans were a wandering horde of Tatars
:
that
who, at
a comparatively recent epoch, passed over from Siberia into America, and,
advancing southward, at length founded no contemptible empire. likewise, that they journeyed
'
Pag.
Idol.
under the direction of their priests
Purch. Pilgr.
b. viii.
VOL.11.
c.
It ;
appears
who bore
10.
2R
*'»*'' '*•
THE ORIGIN Of PAGAN IDOLATRY.
814 J.OOKIV.
much solemnity the figure of their god inclosed witliin an ark or boat, and who from time to time pretended to receive from him oracular responses ^.jtjj
specifying the course of their journey.
were the migrations of the
an exactly similar description
arkite theologists in
when
Wilford justly observes,
Of
the old Morld.
As Mr. Argha
tracing the connection of the Indian
with the Greek and Egyptian Argo and with the sacred ship of the Ger-
manic or Gothic Suevi, the mystic boat was held by some of the first emigrants from Asia
Palladium or pledge of safety, and as such was
to be their
carried by them in their various jourtieys ; whence the poets je.igned, that the
We Argo was borne over mountains on the shoulders of the Argonauts. may also remark, that, when the ancient colonists were about to establish '
a settlement or to build a
they were wont to consult their god, and that
city,
he in return pointed out certain specific marks by which they might know the
These marks were usually
destined place.
religion, the artful priests contriving to
manded by an
oracle to build
cow should
down
lie
Ilus
and Cadmus were each com-
Troy and Thebes on
the exact spot where a
and thus the Phenicians laid the foundations of Car-
:
dug up the heads of a
thage, where they
their
blend superstition even with their very
Thus
existence as a settled nation.
in close connection with
and a horse
bull
;
the latter of
which, according to Virgil, was the express sign which their guardian deity
had declared
The
to them.*
icans were, in the
stored with fish
first
instance, a lake
;
Now
it.
getable both in Egypt and India
mundane
ship
its
Argha
The
calix.
were highly venerated t"he
lotos
and well
and we are
whence, from
its
was a well-known sacred vetold, that it
fish
was a symbol of
property of always
represented sitting
and the eagle were also sacred
in every quarter of the
world.
floating
;
and, as such,
These additions
to
lake and the island are almost the only particulars, in which the direc-
tions given to the
'
:
;
the lotos
the water, the diluvian gods were
on the surface of within
abounding with the
and, in the second, a rocky island in the midst of the lake
with an eagle perched upon
the
by the ark-god of the Mex-
signs pointed out
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Eustath. in
Mexicans by
iii.
their ark-god diflfer
from those marked out
p. 137, 138.
Dion. Pcrieg. ver. 195. Virg. iEncid.
lib.
i.
ver.
445
—449.
to
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAV IDOLATRY. awandering colony of the
commanded by an
ancient Pelasgi or Scythic
oracle to shape
until they should find a lake with
their course to
They were
Palli.
and not
a floating island in the midst of
to settle
The
it.'
and most probably the ingenuity of the supplied the symbolical floating island, which seems to have been one
lake proved to be that of priests
The form stool in
Cotyl^
:
Chemmis
of the same description as
of Vitzliputzli was that of a
an ark or
Egyptian lake near Buto.*
in the
man
and a band of azure passed under
his
seated on an azure-coloured
which there was a piece of wood
at every corner of
litter,
carved into the shape of a serpent's head.
his
Italy,
3 f5
His forehead was likewise azure
Upon
nose from one ear to the other.
head he had a rich plume of feathers covered on the top with gold.
his left staff"
hand he held a white
target
:
and
in
his right
In
he grasped an afure
The box
carved into the semblance of a waving snake.
•
or ark or
within which he was seated, was covered with linen clothes, feathers^
litter,
jewels, and ornaments of gold lofty altar.
it
was conspicuously placed upon a veil, by way of exciting the
Such was the ark-god of
greater veneration.
worthy of
and
;
Before him was drawn a curtain or
notice,
Mexicans
and
;
it
is
that they supposed all his ornaments to have a certain
In
mystical sense attached to them.'
been perfectly
the
The dark
right.
this
opinion I believe them to have
azure or blue approaching to black
is
a sa-
;
most
cred colour highly venerated both by the Hindoos and the Egyptians
probably as being the hue of the watery element, on which the great father
and the Ark once casting
its
floated.*
The
serpent,
which possesses the faculty of
skin and appearing again in renovated youth,
was a very general
symbol of the transmigrating diluvian god, who was supposed perienced a second birth
were •
*
:
hence
it
initiated into the jSIysteries, as
Dion. Halic. Ant. Rom.
Mr. Southey,
in his
artificial floating islands
a sacred lake.
He also
poem
lib.
of
i.
'
bosoms of those who
a token of their regeneration.'
The
describes the forefathers of the
Mexicans
as having
covered with turf and flowers, on which they ferried over the waters of speaks of their god Mexitli or Vitrliputzli as born from the great
the spirit of old mythology.
Purch. Pilgr. b.
in the
have ex-
c. 15, 19.
Madoc,
ther without the concurrence of a father.
'
was placed
to
viii. c.
Both
mo-
these particulars are strictly accordant with
His authorities are the Spanish writers. 11.
Clcra. Alex. Cohort, p. 11.
* Asiat.
Res. vol. i.p. 26l. Kuscb. Praep. Evan.
lib. i.e.
11.
cnxr.
iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
316 BOOK
IV.
Spanish writers
stool, as the
to have
been
call
in reality J-he calix
it,
on which the deity was seated,
of the lotos
;
which was placed
the Egyptians, to symbolize the sacred oracular navel
my
confirmed in
it
exhibits, is seated
am
more
the
medal
medal
in
the triple divinity, stool
:
but the most
convince any person,
will
has paid the least attention to the mythological antiquities of Egypt and
Hindostan, that the supposed stool
is
no other than the sacred aquatic lotos
and the god himself the
triplicated great father.'
medal was found,
the precise country which
is
by the ancestors of the Mexicans previous rica
that
says,
upon a low sopha or
careless inspection of the foe-simile of the
a
I
to the curious Siberian
He
the cabinet of the Russian autocrat.
whose form
and
:
opinion by an evident mistake of a precisely similar nature,
which Dr. Parsons has made with respect
this
in the centre
agreeably to the practice both of the Greeks, the Hindoos, and
of the ark,
who
I take
we may
:
lotos,
flower,
Now
the region, where
must have been occupied
to their crossing over into
therefore be tolerably sure, that, if the stool on the
the stool of the
Mexican god must be a
lotos
pour of inspiration
:
to be closely
and, in a similar manner,
This same
also.
on
cleft the va-
the curtain of Vitzliputzli
connected with the curtain of the Pythian Apollo and
with the mystic veil of Isis and
In conjunction Mith
whom
medal be
unless I greatly mistake, was nearly allied to the Delphic tripod,
which the priestess sat when she received from the sacred rocky
seems
Ame-
Hymen.
Vitzli|)utzli the
they called Tlaloc.
Mexicans worshipped another god,
These two were always placed together
:
for
they
esteemed them companions, and ascribed to them an equal degree of power/
The
triad
and
whom
was completed by the goddess,
whom
they styled the great mother,
they venerated as the goddess of the waters.
'
As
I
have already
observed, like the chief female deity of the pagans in every quarter of the globe, she
was a personification of the mundane Ark
of the ocean Osiris
:
while the two other
members
Remains of Japhet.
'
Purch. Pilgr.
p. 184, 187.
b. viii. c. 10.
*
Parch. Pilgr.
b. viii.
or
Jagan-Nath
c. II.
This goddess of the waters was personated by a priest in
female attire precisely in the same manner as the Mexican great mother they vfere one goddess.
on the surface
of the triad correspond with
Woden andThor,
and Horus, Jupiter and Dionusus,
'
floating
:
whence
I infer,
that
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. These were accounted the peculiar
and Bal-Rama. lake
317 of the sacred
divinities
and the Mexicans annually propitiated them by a very characteristic
:
human
On
sacrifice.
the day appointed for the ceremony, they
embarked number of canoes, carrying with them a boy and a When arrived in the middle of it, they placed the unhappy victims in a girl. and caused it to sink with them in such a manner, that it never boat little The rite needs but little explanation the two children again appeared. upon
the lake in a great
;
'
:
and mother on the surface and the whole ceremony bears a resemblance
to represent the infant great father
were designed
of the intermediate deluge
;
which can scarcely be mistaken to the Hindoo practice of committing the goddess to the water, the Egyptian custom of precipitating a virgin into the Nile and setting Osiris sacrificing 3.
men
afloat in
to the diluvian
Cronus by throwing diem
Religious notions and practices,
Mexicans, prevailed in every
and the ancient
his ark,
more or
otlier part
Roman mode
into the Tiber.
of
*
resembling those of the
less
of America:' but I must hasten to
the theology of the second civilized empire in that quarter of the world.
The 7nac.
principal god of the Peruvians
The
latter of these titles I
was
called Viracocha
suspect to be
and Pachaca-
compounded of
the Indian
Baghis and Cama, the Bacchus and Caimis of the Greeks and Egyptians but the former denotes, in their language, the froth of the sea. time god was esteemed by them the great author of nature
:
:
This mari-
and, next to him,
or rather (as I believe) in conjunction with him, they worshipped the Sun.
The
rites
the sea,
of Viracocha, agreeably to his name, had an immediate relation to
whence he was thought
to
posed to have sprung from the great lake Titiaca these legends
is
substantially the
He was
have been born.
same
;
for
a lake was a symbol of the deluge,
and the sacred lake of the Peruvians appears to have received from the great mother Sita or Tit^a.
Accordingly
we
its
find both
choca immediately connected with their traditions of the deluge. posed, that,
when
waters of a flood, '
Purch. Pilgr.
all it
likewise sup-
but the import of both
:
appellation
it
and Vira-
They sup-
the inhabitants of the world were destroyed by the
was repeopled by
their ancestors;
who, at that period,
b. viii. c. 13.
"
Asiat. Res. vol.i. p. 251.
^
See Purch. Pilgr.
b. viii.
Niebuhr's Trarels. sect.
and
ix.
ii.
c. 8.
Lactant.
Instit. lib.
i.
§ 21.
'"*''•
^•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
318 B»UK
IV.
came out of a cave another legend,
that,
within which they
when
had been concealed
manner
'
These two
;
after
which time mankind began
same event in a somewlrat
fables relate the
the
different
but they are both conceived perfectly according to the genius of
:
ancient Paganism.
The
forth after the deluge, grotto,
and they had
men were drowned, Viracocha emerged from
all
lake Titiaca, and thence proceeded to Ciisco to multiply.
:
whence the ancestors of the Peruvians came
cave,
means
Ark
the
;
which was symbolized by a gloomy
whence the great father and such
were thought to be born again posed to have emerged when diluvian ocean, of which he lake, as I
as
and the
:
were
lake,
initiated into the
Mysteries
whence Virachoca was sup-
mankind perished by water, symbolizes the
all
was esteemed the mystic
In
offspring.
this
same
have already had occasion to mention, the Peruvians shewed a
small island, where they believe that the Sun once hid himself and was thus
Hence
preserved from impending danger.
provided
it
they built a temple to him upon
it,
with an establishment of priests and women, and there offered to
men and
him
great sacrifices both of
how
exactly these notions coincide with those which
Gentiles of the eastern continent.
of animals.
We
It is curious to observe,
prevailed
among
the
have here the symbolical lake and
sacred island, a lake avowedly connected with the deluge and the repeopling
of the earth, so that the import of the legend cannot be mistaken.
We have
here also the Sun, or Viracocha worshipped in conjunction with the Sun, sheltering himself from danger in the small island; precisely in the
manner
as the
Greek Apollo and
the Egyptian Horus, each of
same
whom was
enemy The correspondence
confessedly the Sun, severally received shelter from their implacable
the ocean in the floating islands of Delos and Chemmis.
between the three fables doubted
:
and,
have had a
is
such, that their identity
if their identity
common
cannot reasonably be
be allowed, then the religion of Peru must
origin with that of
Greece and Egypt.
With Viracocha or Pachacamac they worshipped the Earth under the name of Pachamama, esteeming her the mother of all things and the sea under the cognate name of Alamacocha, which denotes the mother sea. By ;
the
first
of these they meant '
tt)e
great universal mother that once floated
Purch. Pilgr.
b. ix. c. 9- V-
^74.
oa
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
whom
the ocean, between
319
and the Earth there existed throughout the mytho-
logy of the Gentiles a systematic intercommunion of personality
and the
:
second, from the circumstances of the deluge, was ever reckoned the general
parent both of gods and men.
'
That such was the
case,
may
be collected
from the character of another symbolical deity who was associated with them. This was the rainbow with a snake attached to either extremity of it.
seems
It
the
same
to
me
as those
sufficiently evident,
that
Pachacama and Pachamama
are
two remarkable personages, from %vhom they deduced
both the family of their Incas and the foundation of traditions inform us,
that,
Their
empire.
tlieir
while their ancestors roamed naked in the forests,
strangers to every species of cultivation or regular industry, attached to no
and unacquainted with those sentiments and obligations which
fixed residence,
form the
bonds of
first
social union
;
a
man and a woman,
of majestic form,
and clothed in decent garments, suddenly appeared on the banks of the lake
They
Titiaca.
were sent by
ed, that they
and
declared themselves to be the children of the
them from
to reclaim
sion, enforced
Sun
their beneficent parent to instruct the
the irregularities of savage
by reverence for the divinity in whose
life.
name
At
to Cusco,
v>
assert-
human
race
their persua-
they were supposed
to speak, several of the hitherto dispersed natives united together
them
and
;
and followed
here they founded the capital of their future empire.
The
names of these extraordinary persons were Manco-Capac and Mama-Ocollo.
The former
instructed the
women
men
in agriculture
and other useful
Nor
arts,
while the
Manco attend
only
to the first objects of necessity in an infant state, such as food, raiment,
and
latter taught the
habitations
founded
by
;
:
and
to weave.
did
he was likewise the great lawgiver of the empire which he
and, by precisely defining the functions of those in authority and
estat)iishing
down
to his
body
politic
Any
to spin
a due subordination of ranks
in the
governed, he handed
descendants and successors the Incas a well-ordered and regular
oile in the least
degree conversant with
tlie
mythology of
tlie
pagans
cannot avoid being struck «ith the perfect resemblance of character between
Manco-Capac, and
Osiris, Dionusus,
Hu, Phoroneus, Cronus, and Janus,
Sl-AitMW It &tujv yivimv, xKi iKfrc^a, TijOuv, precisely expresses the Peruvian notion.
'^"*''«
"•
THE
320 BOOK
IV.
Qn the one hand
;
OttlGIN OF
IDOLATllY.
and between Mania-Ocollo, and
and Cybel^, on the
otlier
Isis,
Ceres, Ceridwen,
This circumstance alone might lead us to
hand.
what persons we ought
suspect,
PAGAN
by them
to understand
:
and the suspicion
will acquire additional strengtii from the apparent identity of ^lanco-Capac
and Pachacama,
and
consequently
Manco and Pachacama and the
of
Mama-OcoUo and Pachamama.
are each desciibed as being the offspring of the Sun,
latter is additionally said to
ing his production from the sea and the lake Titiaca feigned to have
first
father
:
Manco-Capac or the mother
OcoUo
the offspring of the Sun, larly feigned to
is
the arkite
the diluvian
is
the Peruvian
And,
Magna
Menu
Manco-Capac
if
infer, that
of the
Manco in short, Hindoos, who is simi-
The
venerated under the appellation of Vaivaswata.
differently expressed
title,
Menu, Menes,
which by
Manes,
Mama-
Mater.
be an emanation from the solar deity, and who
seems to be a mere variation of that
may
certainly the transmigrating great
is
be the great father, the analogy of Paganism requires us to
OcoUo
and they are each
allegorical nativity
must be the same.
therefore
:
monarch of
first
But Pachacama, whose various modes of
easily be reconciled with each other,
notwithstand-
they are each also
:
appeared on the banks of that lake
celebrated as the founder of Cusco and as the
empire.
Moon
have been born of the
very
is
thence
name indeed
different nations
was
Mannus, Man, Menwyd,
Minos, or Manacan. It
is
curious to observe the numerous points of coincidence between the
superstition of the Peruvians
and that which prevailed throughout the whole
of the eastern continent.
Both they and
their neighbours
Mexicans had consecrated
the
virgins,
whose functions and whose vow of celibacy precisely resembled those of the vestal virgins at
The
bull
Rome.
was venerated by the Peruvians no
Europe, Asia, and Africa.
less
This animal, I have
than by the idolaters of
little
doubt,
was the sym-
Manco-Capac or Pachacama; as it vvas of Bacchus, Osiris, Menu, and Siva and we may remark, that one of the sacred bulls of Egypt actually bore the name of Pads, which %vas compoundedly expressed Pacha-Cama
bol of
:
by the Peruvians. chus,
Pads
is
the
same
and the Hindoos express Baghis
title, :
as
and,
what the Greeks wrote Bacif I
mistake not,
it
forms the
1
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAV IDOLATRY. second appellation of the Sun-born jManco
;
Capac
for
is
32
probably no other
than the Ce-Baeche of the ancient Irish or the Ca-Baghis of the Hindoos, the import of which
In
all their
is
the illustrious Bacchus. the
sacrifices
Peruvians
daughters of the Ocean, while the sea
mother of waters.
I
suspect,
that
used itself
calling
shells,
them
the
they denominated the great
the shells which they employed on
such occasions were of an oval form resembling boats
and
:
I
am
the
more
inclined to this conjecture from the obvious resemblance between the Peruvian
custom and a
parallel
one of the Hindoos.
In every sacred
description these last constantly use the vessel called
rite
of whatsoever
Argha, which
is
an
avowed copy of
the mystic ship Arglia which floated with Siva on the surface
of the deluge.
With a
employed
their paterae
Oval or round
similar reference and in a similar manner, ihe
and fashioned
shells then
their sacred
Greeks
cups in the form of boats.
were the arghas or paterse of the Peruvians
:
and,
may easily be collected from their stvlinc them daughters of the Ocean. They were symbols of that sea-born goddess, whom the Greeks and Romans ^\orshipped under the name of Venus or in
what
light they considered
Aphrodite
;
them,
the Syrians, under that of Atargatis or Derceto ;
Rama-Devi
and the
Lacshmi or Asyotcersa or Parvati or In each case was equally meant the Ark, represented by the ship
Hindoos, under that of
or
Durga. Argha or Argo and by the navicular dish or shell and hence it is, that the Venus-Anadyomen^ is so frequently depicted standing in the midst of a large :
circular shell resembling in form that of a cockle.
Both the Mexicans and the Peruvians had another custom, which must by
no means be passed over
Their sacred virgins were wont from
in silence.
time to time to prepare certain loaves or cakes for the idol which they venerated.
These were sometimes made
in the
sometimes were so moulded as to imitate
form of hands and
tlie
Such lumps of paste they considered as the bones and
They
feet,
and
shape of the idol himself. flesh
of their god.
served them up in large golden dishes, which the Hindoos, I presume,
would have called arghas devoutly partook of them.
:
and, in the course of the ceremony, they "\V'e
may
all
here again trace the palpable identity
of the American theology and that which prevailed so widely throughout the eastern continent.
Fag.
Idol.
These cakes were evidently of the same nature VOL.
II.
as those,
2S
c"'^*"-
i''-
THE ORIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRV.
322 BOOK
IT.
which the Canaanitish women were accustomed to make in honour of Astoreth
A
or the lunar arkite queen of heaven.'
The
Greece and Egypt. formed with two
They were loaf,
Isis,
the Earth, the Ark, and the lunar Crescent.
Moon
Mexican
and, as the
:
which was an imitation of the god, was composed of maize moulded
with honey
;
We
flour.'
so these sacred cr.kes were
may
made
ner, as
we
of honey kneaded with fine
American devotees were
observe, that the loaves of the
solemnly set out before the idol on a table
:
and precisely
in the
tice, as
he justly observes,
apostates
Gad
same man-
learn from St. Jerome, were the cakes, together with wine
To
other victuals, set out on a table before the deities of Egypt.
for
in
sacred cakes were called Boiis from their being
every seventh day to the
offered
custom prevailed both
horns, so as to imitate the mystic heifer, which was
little
once the symbol of
at
similar
Isaiah alludes,
when he speaks of
this
and
prac-
certain Jewish
who, forgetting the holy mountain of Jehovah, prepared a table
;
or the Cuthic Ghaut, and
the lunar ]\Ienu.'
may add,
I
who provided
a drink-offering for
Paul clearly
that St.
refers to the
Meni
or
same ancient
custom, when he points out the utter incompatibility of Christianity and
Paganism, by asserting, that we cannot consistently drink of the cup of the
Lord and of
tlic
cup (that
is,
the Patera or
Argha) of demon-gods,
that
we
cannot at once partake of the Lord's table and of the table of hero-divinities.*
The
curious apocryphal
upon the
now under
rite
and the Dragon
story of Bel
consideration
:
and
it is
is
evidently founded
vahiable, as presenting an
apparently faithful picture of the old serpent-worship of the Babylonians. .Jeremiah calls the cakes, which were offered to the queen of heaven, Chonim,
Chon.
in the singular,
name
I take
that this appellation
it,
of Cliimi, which the Egyptians varied into
illustrious
Chon.
They
applied the
title
to the great father,
sometimes called Htrcules and sometimes Cronus. a god denominated '
jtTom.
*
Hcsyth. Lex. Bsuj.
vii.
oblique ca?cs
is
J
8. xliv.
Con 15
whom
Diog. Laert. in
Buiin, or (as the Latins
Bun
which wesiilJ
retain, of selling
:
they
made
borrowed from the
whom the Greeks
The Peruvians had
the offspring of the Sun,
also
and to
— 19.
English word
'
;
is
Chon and Gigon or the
vit.
Emped.
would write
it)
The name Run.
of the cake in one of the
Hence we have borrowed our
and from the same pagan source has originated the old popish custom, a sort of consecrated cakes named Buns on good friday.
Ibaiahlxv.il. Hitron. Comment, in
loc.
*
1
Corinth, x. 21.
:
THE
whom
PAGAN IDOLATRr.
ORIGIN' OF
they ascribed the
first
production of bread and of
3'23
things necessary
all
They speak indeed of a contest between Con and Pacbicama, which may perhaps have some reference to the struggle between Osiris and Tyjjhon to
life.
but both the character and the origin of these two gods plainly bespeak their be recollected, that, by the mystic theocrasy of the ancients,
It will
identity.
even Typhun and Osiris were sometimes considered as one deity.
As the chief god of the Peruvians was the great father adored in the Sun, we shall not wonder to find, that, like all the other pagans, they venerated a certain divine
This was properly composed of the three sons of that
triad.
transmigrating primeval personage, whose production was considered by the mysticizing genius of Paganism in the light of a wonderful self-triplication
of their parent
:
but, since the great father
was revered
Sun, and since
in the
in the progress of pantheistic theology the different parts of creation were
esteemed
was an
his different
transferred to the
Sun and
named Tangatajiga
idol
doos
members, the Peruvian
Thus, while they worshipped
they likewise multiplied the Sun into three persons, the father Sun,
:
air,
traces of the
in the island of Otaheite it
Sun
and venerated three images of the god of
;
considered as presiding in thunder, rain, and snow.'
XI. Evident that
of the Hindoos,
or Three-in-one, the exact Trimurti of the Hin-
the son Sun, and the brother the
to the elements.
triad, like that
:
same
and
it is
would likewise be found
may
theological system
probable,
to prevail
if
be observed also
minute inquiry were made,
throughout the other islands scat-
tered in clusters over the vast Pacific ocean.
When
captain
Cooke
sacred chest or ark.
of
it
The
lid
which has been given to
palm-nut leaves.
on
first visited
little
The
ark
of
Otaheite,
tliis
us,
itself
one end of
it
it
from place
machine, according to the description
:
on,
was fixed upon two
to place, in the
was a square hole
natives venerated a kind of
was nicely sewed
arches of Avood very neatly carved.
be to remove
tlie
and
in the
The
and thatched with
poles,
and supported
use of the poles seemed to
manner of a
sedan-chair.
At
middle of the hole was a ring
touching the sides but leaving the angles open, so as to form a round hole Purch. iii.
p.
Pil.;r. b. ix. c. 9,
21—34,
200, 201.
10,
U,
12.
b. viii. c. 12, 13.
Robertson's Hist.
olAmer. wl.
CHAP.
IT.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
324 liooK IV.
The
within a square one.
time that Sir Joseph Banks saw this ark,
first
end was stopped with a piece of
the aperture at the
touched to avoid giving
cloth,
Avhich he left un-
Probably there was then something
oft'ence.
Avithin
:
when he afterwards examined it, the cloth was taken away, and the The same machine is noticed in the narrative of coffer was found empty. but,
some
captain Cooke's last voyage, and
interesting particulars are added.
Joseph Banks had been informed, that but we are
symbol supposed repository was in
form
and of
whom
it
was de-
but they learned, that Ooro, or rather a
:
was concealed within
This sacred
it.
of the twisted fibres of the husk of the cocoa-nut
Captain Cooke and
rite
of the god, to
English were not allowed to go near enough to ex-
contents
to represent him,
made
god:
called the house of the
:
and
was somewhat round, but with one end much thicker than the
it
other.
The
The
mysterious
its
was
name
further told, that the
was Ooro.
dicated,
amine
now
it
Sir
was performed
burial.
his attendants
were present at a
Moral, which
in a
'u
at once a place
That, where the English witnessed the
principal one in the island
and
;
mid with a square area on each
sacrifice to
Ooro.
of worship
sacrifice,
was the
form was that of an obtuse oblong pyra-
its
At
side.
a small distance from the end of
it
nearest to the sea was a large scaffold or lofty table, on which the offerings of fruit
and other vegetables were
constituting a rude altar.
frequently
men no
less
laid
Here
:
and by the side of
it
was a heap of stones
the sacrifices were offered up, which were
than animals
:
and here the ark of the god Ooro was
placed during the performance of the ceremony.'
Dr. Hawksworth, who arranged for publication the minutes of captain Cooke's
much
first
in the
voyage, seems to have been struck with the ark of the Otalieiteans
same manner
for he observes,
as
Mr. Adair was with the ark of the northern Amegeneral resemblance between that sacred
ricans
;
coffer
and the Jewish ark of the Lord
still
more remarkable,
house of the god. I think
it
I
that
that
the
it
is
remarkable
:
and he considers
should be called Ezvharre no
do not wonder at
his noticing the
Eatua
it
as
or the
resemblance; though
no proof of the Hebrew origin of the Otaheiteans, any more than of
the northern Americans.
'
The
additional particulars relative to this ark-god,
Cooke's First voyage, b. i.e. ?0.
Thjrd voyage,
b.
iii. c.
2.
.,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
385
afterwards furnished by captain Cooke, shew pretty evidently, that he wa*. the great universal father of the gentile world, venerated alike throughout the
The ark,
eastern and the western continent.
furnished with staves for the pur-
pose of being carried by the priests in solemn procession, boat, as the
Argo of Anitnon or
Bacchus, Hu,
Ho,
and
Vitzliputzli.
is
the
same sacred
and the ark of
Siva,
square aperture or door,
Its
fur-
no other than the sacred oracular navel or And the god, who was thought to lie concealed within it, is
nished with an interior ring, ornpiialus.
Argha of
the
Osiris,
'
that primeval character,
prominent a feature
is
whose mystic concealment or aphanism formed so
in tlie ancient Orgies.
was not however so much
It
god himself who was thought to be hidden within the
What
representation.
for the Otalieiteans,
it
ark,
symbol was, we are not able
this
as his
symbol or
positively to say;.
appears, were as unwilling to expose the contents
their sacred ark to the eyes of the profane,
tlie
of.
as the hierophants of the Dionysic
but I more than suspect, that
was the very same as that, which was inclosed within the ark of Bacchus, and which was so generallyIVIysteries
:
it
The name of
esteemed by the pagans the peculiar type of the great father. this
yet,
ark-god was Ooro.
when
Now,
though I wish not to build upon etymology;,
I observe such decided
marks of resemblance between the Ota-
heitean theology and that of Egypt, I that
the
this Ooro
Horus of
The mode
is
am
strongly inclined to
in appellation,
no
less
conjecture,
than in character, as
and the Auri of the Hindoos.
of conducting the worship corresponds with the deity.
on which were placed the offerings of
fruit,
is
The-
but a copy of
on which the sacred bovine cakes and drink-offerings were wont
Menu and
be set out to
to
same even
the Egyptians
scaffold or table,
that table,
the
pyramid serves ship just in the
the lunar
queen of heaven
:
while the obtuse
to shew, that the Otaheiteans represented the
same manner
mountain of the
as their idolatrous brethren of Egypt, Hindostan,
and Babylonia, Their worship of
tlie
ark-god produced as
veneration of a triplicated deity. recently adapted the
'
titles
It
its
natural consequence the
seems probable, that the natives have
of this divinity to the doctrine which they have
Respecting the ompbalus more will be said hereafter.
Vide
infra b. v, c. 4. J III.
ciiAf. iv.
'
THE OBIGIX OF PAOAK IDOLATRY.
S36 sooK
IV.
from the Missionaries; who in
j-eccived
have been too hasty
their turn
in
fancying, that the Otahcitean theology exhibits traces of a primeval belief in
the
Holy
Trinity.
They have been
misled,
much
in the
same manner
the fathers were by a specious decoration of the old Orphic triad.
as
If the
grand outlines of the Otaheitean religion did not afford the best comment on its triad, %ve
should have a very satisfactory one in the tradition
a man was born of the sand of the
by her became the parent of married
:
and with
sea,
who married
three males
allegorical daughter,
own
and three females.
their descendants the earth
three sons of him, who, Irke the Indian
his
;
that formerly
daughter, and
These
was gradually peopled.
Menu
or Buddha,
Mission. Vqjage tp the south sea. p. 344.
Tiie
espoused his
were the true prototypes of the triad of Otaheite. '
inter-
CHAPTER
V.
Respecting the human character of the great father, as exhibited in
Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or Samanean theology.
the
NOW
JL
proceed to consider the
hibited in different
human
character of the great father, as ex-
Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or Samanean
superstition.
parts of the world subsist distinct from the Brahmenists
I.
;
each of which, as
may
Tn the ninth Indian Avatar Vishnou
our western characters.
Vishnou or Bacchus or and men. so
much
ject
:
These
in
the
some
but in the west they there
we may
be argued from
its
trace
univer-
must be as old as the dispersion from Babel. is
said to have appeared in the
name
of Buddha, Boudha, Boudh, or Bouta, as the in
:
Yet even
appear to have been early blended together. the vestiges of two systems sality,
may be termed
countries by the adherents of what
Hence
Buddha
Osiris.
therefore
Each
the adherents of
in the object
is
tlie
is
variously expressed
really the
is
same person as
alike the great father both of
two primeval superstitions
of their worship, as in the
mode
and hence again, since the very same person
is
form
gods
differ
not
of exhibiting that ob-
venerated by each class
of sectaries, and since consequently in the grand outlines the god of the one-
must correspond with the god of the in the
other,
two systems a strong tendency
has actually taken place in the west
:
to
Me
shall not be surprised to find
amalgamation.
This conjmixture
and, even in India, however the Brah-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
S28 BOOK
IV,
menists
may
detest the Buddhists, the orthodoxy of the former
discriminated from the lieterodoxy of the
latter
but faintly
is
and Buddhism, as
;
has
it
been justly remarked, melts insensibly into Brahmenisni.'
No
1.
more
part of old mythology
intricate,
intricacy
may
more
is
though
curious,
than the character and worship of
Buddha
we
mind
be unravelled,
if
steadily bear in
properly no other than the transmigrating great father
;
in
:
some
yet
respects
much of this
that that divinity
and
if at
the
is
same
time we carefully remember the established gentile doctrine, that the great father
is
repeatedly manifested afresh, not only at the
commencement of
each world, but in the person of every eminent legislator or reformer
who
appears during the continuance of a mundane system.
The Brahmens
say, that the religion of
Buddha
heretical
is
have just seen, they represent him as an incarnation of Vishnou .ancient Sanscrit inscription at
rested
;
;
and
Om
triple
;
is
god
upon the face of the milky ocean, and who reposed upon the
have been an Avatar of Vishnou told, that
Nevertheless he
:
is
sometimes said not to
he were an incarnation of that deity,
or, if
he ought not to be reckoned among the Avatars, inasmuch
was manifested
as he
as
described, like Vishnou, as the divinity,
is
navicular serpent Sesa or Ananta.*
we are
celebrated as a portion of
that
Brahma- Vishnou-Mahesa
who
is
we
as
and, in an
:
moved upon the waters is invoked very same as the Hindoo Trimurti, or the
Narayan, or the being declared to be the
Buddha-Gaya, he
yet,
;
solely to seduce the people into erroneous doctrines.
Hence he is considered as the promulgator of an heterodox religion, and his Lastly, we find many acknowledging Buddha votaries are deemed infidels.' as the ninth Avatar of Vishnou, but maintaining him to be a different person from the heretic Buddha who is worshipped in Ceylon, Bootan, Thibet, ;
China, and the eastern peninsula of Siam and Malaya.*
In these discordant opinions we may, truth
The primeval Buddha is the same as Vishnou, or while the Buddha, who is reprobated as a ha-etic and who
:
by the Brahmenists to be an incarnation of the great * Asiat.
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 241. •
where the
easily perceive
lies.
Osiris '
I think,
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
vii. p.
viii.
p.
55, bG. vol.
532, 533.
viii.
p. 532,
533.
father,
Res. vol.
i.
was
p. 284,,
Siva, is
or
denied
a religious
285.
THE ORICI^f OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. adventurer; wlio assumed the
be one of his numerous
title
and character of the god, who claimed
terrestrial manifestations,
certain obnoxious changes in the old
precise era of this impostor
329
and who as such made
Buddhic theology.
To
ascertain the
Some
perhaps no easy matter.
is
to
place him,
or at least an Avatar of Buddha, about a thousand years before Christ:
but
am inclined
I
to believe, that the person,
whose modification of Buddhism
gave such offence to the Brahmenists, must have flourished very considerably nor Clemens,
later; for neither Porphyry, nor Strabo,
all
of
whom mention
the two great Indian sects, give the least hint of any animosity subsisting
Agreeably to such an opinion, what
between them.
Buddha than
in
commonly supposed
is
the course of the
to
deemed the heresy of
have been introduced into China no
At any
century after Christ.'
first
is
earlier
rate, I certainly
impostor in question was an entirely distinct
think with Georgi, that the
person from the proper and original Buddha. Accordingly, whatever might be the era of this pretended Avatar of the god, the Buddhists themselves justly the beginning
:
and,
in
that at a very remote period or,
as
we ought
that their religion existed from
insist,
support of their assertion,
we have cogent
prevailed throughout the whole of Hindostan
it
rather to say, that
it
extended
itself
more western
parts of Asia and Europe.
within this ample range
Buddha
votaries of
ary nations
;
in
its
establishment
of the countries
yet continue to flourish throughout China and
Asam,
and generally
many
prevails either wholly or partially
the great empires
Siam, Pegu, Ava, tribes,
still
it
In
and
of those vast and numerous islands which farther Indian promontory.
The whole
'
among many of
of the Ganges
in all regions east
lie
and the
:
its
tribut-
of Cochin-Cliina, Cambodia,
states
Boutan;
Thibet,
;
to the east
legend of
the Tatar
and throughout most and the south of the
Buddha indeed
sufficiently
proves him to be the great transmigrating father, and thus tends to demonstrate the high antiquity of his
recent impostor assumed his is
worship
name and
:
and, in supposing that
some more
character, I suppose nothing but
perfectly consistent vvith the accredited doctrines of Paganism.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Asiat.
Res. vol.
Fag.
Idol.
ii.
p.
vi. p.
123
— 126.
591. vol,
vii, p.
398
et infra.
VOL.
II.
;
from the north of Tar-
tary to Ceylon and from the Indus to Siam, even omitting in the
proofs,
Moor"s Himl. Panth.
p.
240.
2
T
what
'"*'•
*•
THE
330 tooK
IV.
PAGAN IDOLATUV.
OftlGiN OF
Since the principal god of the Buddhists then of the Brahmenists
the principal god
contending idolaters
after all,
will,
;
we may
is
same person as
the very
naturally expect, that these
be separated by only a narrow
Accordingly, between the two systems there
demarcation.
general resemblance, that there can be no doubt, as
observed, that the one
is
IVIr.
is
so
of
line
close a
Joinville lias well
Buddhism
the child of the other; and, since genuine
excites the idea of something crude
and unformed while Brahmenism wears
a finished and systematic aspect, I
am
Yet would
to the former.'
the Babylonian tower;
I
inclined with
concede priority
to
because on no other principle can we satisfactorily
Buddhism then seems
account for the universal prevalence of both.
me
him
carry back the origin of both to the epoch of
to
to be the Jirst coiTuption of Patriarchism, the commencement of what
Epiphanius
Scythic heresy
calls the
:
while Brahmenism
Some
completion and perfection of that heresy. preferred the one
the two together.
:
some chose rather
of the architects of Babel
to adhere to the other
This religious dissention was,
apparently the
is
if
and some mixed
:
I mistake not, the second-
ary and subordinate cause of the dispersion,
In the Matsya-Avatar, which relates to the deluge and to the preser-
2.
vation of Menu-Satyavrata in an ark, Vishnou appears under the form of a
man
issuing out of the
mouth of a
fish
:
and he
is
supposed, when the waters
abated, to have recovered the sacred books which had been lost. itself,
we
fish
Maya, by which the Hindoos understood delusion: Satyavrata, he was invested by Narayan in the office of Menu,
are told, was
and, as for
under the name of Sraddadeva or the god of
Now
The
obsequies.''
circumstantial evidence clearly demonstrates,
avowedly a manifestation of Vishnou, so he
is
Buddha
is
same person
as
that,
likewise the
as
Menu-Satyavrata or Noah.
A
tonjb
is
ancient hero
shewn is
at
Naulakhi
supposed
to
in the country of Cabul,
where some very
The Mussulmans
be buried.
call
him Peer-
Maitlam and Maitri-Burkhan, which in the dialect of Samarcand signifies The Buddhists say, that he is Buddha Naray ana or the lord and master. Buddha dwelling in the waters. And the Hindoos, who live in that country,
'
call
him Machodar-Nath or the sovereign prince
Asiat. Res. vol.
vii.
p.
398
et infra.
*
in the belly
Asiat, Res. vol.
i.
p.
of the fish.
230—234, 239.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUT. Some
was the father of Satyavrata
fancy, tliat this person
Wilford justly observes, such father
By
Lamech.
cavity or inside
And
that vessel.
natural or
chodara. certainly
Ark;
are applicable to
of
the fish, he
Vishnou
Mr.
but, as
:
alone,
not to his
they understand the
the cetus or large sea-fish being a symbol of
which can afford shelter to
artificial,
Noah
tells us,
he adds, that any place in the
Buddha
'
titles
the belly
the
of
331
middle of waters, either
living beings
is
Ma-
called
then, as the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish,
out of the mouth of a
is
Matsya-Avatar, where that deity appears issuing
in the fish
and, since a fish was an acknowledged type of the
:
Ark, Buddha and Vishnou must equally be the same as Satyavrata or Noah.
His identity with Menu-Satyavrata further appears from another particular.
The
author of
tiie
Amaracosha
and that he married
was
Ila the daughter of the ark-preserved
who was saved from
fish,
of
title
is
Hence,
described, as resting
hence,
Ila,
King of justice;
or
and each
to have floated
Hence
to
also,
sea,
in his
Asiat. Res. vol.
vi. p.
Asiat. Res. vol.
vii.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
as they
Buddha
to,
and as being Sradda-
temple at Oogul-Bodda,
And
be sleeping on a sort of navicular bed.*
when esteemed an incarnation of Vishnou-Narayana; he
sitting in the calix of the
'
is
on the waters
already referred
upon the face of the milky
image appears
'
Satyavrata
Buddha who
they must dearly be the same person.
in the Sanscrit inscription
deva or the god of obsequies.* his colossal
Ila
have been inclosed in the belly of
Dharmarajah
are each reported to have married
oftheocean.'
;
to
Yet
fundamentally one with Menu-Satvavrata, we find
thus
them each bearing the
As
the deluge in an ark, and as
are each the husband of Ila
Buddha being
Menu. *
father Menu-Salyavrata.
upon the waters and
said to have floated
a
own
likewise the wife of her
therefore
was the son of the lunar god,
that he
tells us,
sacred aquatic lotos.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p.
479, 480.
is
depicted
*
411. vol.
ii.
p.
376.
p. 39. vol. ix. p. 88.
p.
284
—286.
I
conclude him to be Sraddadcva, which
is
a
title
of
Menu-Satyavrata, because the inscription attributes a peculiar efficacy to the performance of the Sradda in the temple at Boodha-Gaya, and because under the the
Charon of Hindoo mythology.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
'
Maur.
vi.
p. 451.
Hist, of Hind. vol.
See Plate ii.
p,
480.
II.
Fig. 2.
name
of Salivahana he
is
°"*'-
''•
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATtlY-
332
3. According to an inscription in the Maga language communicated by Lord Teignmouth, Buddha was born of Maha-AIaya, the wife of SootahDannah Rajah of Cailas. As soon as he saw the light, he was placed by
Brahma
in a
golden vessel, and delivered to a female attendant
child, alighting
but the
;
from her arms, walked seven paces without assistance.
intelligence of his birth
was speedily circulated
The
and a sage, who had re-
:
paired to the palace of the Rajah for the purpose of visiting him, wept and
laughed alternately as soon as he beheld the wonderful infant, because
appearance he divined something both of good and bad import. departed
but,
:
when
five
had marks on
a Rajah-Chacraverti dignity of Avatar. tlie
:
He
then
days had elapsed, he assembled four Pandits for
Three of them conclud-
the purpose of calculating the destiny of the child. ed, that, as he
in his
his
hands resembling a wheel, he would become
and a fourth determined, that he would arrive
The boy was now named Sacya
:
and,
when he
at the
attained
age of sixteen years, he espoused the daughter of the Rajah Chuhidan,
with w hom he repaired to his
own
place of residence.
One
day, as certain
Mysteries were revealed to him, he formed the design of relinquishing his
dominions; and accordingly
He
horse.
directed his servant to leave
armour.
left his
palace with only one attendant and a
crossed the river Ganga, and arrived at Balucali
He
him and carry away
then adopted the manners and
life
his horse,
;
where, having
he
of a mendicant
laid aside his ;
and clothed
himself with some pieces of wearing apparel, which he discovered in one of the five flowers that appeared at the creation of the world. that a traveller passed by and presented to
Sacya accepted the
of grass.
offering,
him an
offering of eight bundles
and reposed upon
it.
golden temple appeared, containing a chair of wrought gold.
mit of the
Sacya
;
temple Brahma
alighted,
It happened,
Suddenly a
On
the sum-
and held a canopy over the head of
Naga
while Indra with a fan in his hand,
prince of serpents,
and
the four tutelary deities of the four corners of the universe, attended to
him reverence and with
all
At
the
same time the chief of the Asoors
his forces to give battle to Sacya
and the other
was
service.
deities,
left alone,
:
do
arrived
upon which, Brahma, Indra,
forsook him and vanished.
Sacya, perceiving that he
invoked the assistance of the Earth.
She attended at
his
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. and suddenly brought a mighty deluge over which the vanquished Asoor and
Then
to retire.
descended from above; and Sacya was dignified with the
five holy Scriptures title
the ground, by
all
were compelled
his forces
333
of Buddha- Avatar.^
much
In the midst of
that
idle
is
and impertinent,
yet easy to disco-
it is
ver in the present fable traces of genuine primeval tradition.
Buddha
Cailas or Cailasa, where
said to
is
As Olympus
mountain of Indo-Scythic superstition. and
his kindred divinities
inestimable gem, fact,
is
have been born,
is
the sacred
the seat of Jupiter
is
so Cailasa, every splinter of whose rocks
:
the peculiar residence of the diluvian Siva.*
one of the three holy peaks of Meru
;
is
an
It is,
in
which thence is similarly described
as being the favourite haunt of the mariner of the Argha, and which
Deo-Naush
brated as the birth-place of
prototype of
Meru was
Maya, we
an appearance
grea^ when' Buddha to suspect, that
added, sense of
fish
But
the
history of the deluge. is
find the
Maha
Maha- Maya he is I am much inclined ^
but only the super-
not the original,
is
The Hindoos
Maya.
and we
Since therefore
'
said to be the son oi
Delusion
:
of Vishnou, which makes so conspicuous
be the son of the Great Delusion.
in effect said to
however
Hindoo
in the
cele-
the Paradisiacal Ararat.
are told, in the Sanscrit signifies Delusion
term applied to the symbolical
signifies
or the Indian Bacchus.
is
themselves inform us in a jargon,
which has clearly arisen from the doctrine of successive similar mundane
Maya we
systems, that by
godhead
to diversify
himself by creating worlds
told by a Cashmirian, that
of
all
among
the inferior gods.*
the
mother.'
Greeks.
Asiat. Res. vol.
ii.
between the manner of
p.
arising
—
and Sir
of the William Jones was inclination
universal nature
and
This exactly agrees with the import of the word
Maia
383
:
Maya herself is the mother of
properly denotes a grandmother or a great
It likewise signifies a
meaning of the term, '
are to understand the first
386".
this legend
nurse
:
but
this I take to
be only a secondary
from the circumstance of a nurse being
It
is
fre-
impossible not to observe the general resemblance
and that of many of the old mythological Welsh romances
produced by Mr. Dav;es. '
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Ibid. p.
223.
i.
p. 248.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
'
Maia,
ita.r^oi
i.
p. 234.
nou lirir^of
fA')ri)f .
Hesych. Lex.
CH.IP. V.
THE OUfGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
334 >;ooK IV.
quently addressed
among
the ancients by the
then will be equivalent to the great allegorical parent of
Buddha, who
thought to have floated the Jish
of
belli/
same
difficult
Hindoo
on the ocean, and who
conceive
to
from unsatisfactory.
far
symbolical
mode indeed
the
fish to
is
styled the prince in the
the whole world.
sense of Delusion, of
It
is
Maya
Maya was
or the
Hence,
lusion.
fication:
I
Maya
By
or delusion. to
this
or the great
question, whether
Noah, must ship
fish,
a sow, and a lunar crescent. :
his
Maya
title.
Maya, seem
delusive. ;
by a
Each of
these
acquired an additional signi-
It is
equally to lead us to
however of
compound
little
moment
be right or wrong in this speculation
:
the to
true pri-
the
main
Buddha be
if
mother Maha-Maya, however we are to understand the name,
character, according to the universal
in
we must
but each of them was likewise mere de-
apprehend, the word
I
not
represented by a great variety of symbols
Magna Mater
mitive meaning of the
it is
him; but that the
but both the history of Buddha, and the remarkable
Maha-Maya
the
there said, that the appearance of the
Menu-Satyavrata was
woman, a cow, a mare, a was
How
introduction into the
its
form assumed by Vishnou was purely hieroglyphical, and therefore the arkite
is
be the mundane Ark, the
evidently understand^ that no fish //^era/Zi/ appeared
Now
who
deluge seems to account for the circumstance in a
history of the
manner
:
mother, the
this gi'eat
as Menu-Satyavrata,
Magna Mater of pagan mythology throughout word Maya may have acquired in Sanscrit the very
and
:
great mother can only
this
;
mother
the
is
name of mother. Maha-Maya
Argha or
analogy of Paganism, be the
the Ark.
With such an opinion the remainder of the legend The golden vessel, in which the new-born Buddha
exactly corresponds. is
placed by Brahma, I
take to have been that sacred navicular dish or cup, which the Hindoos call
Argha, and which they esteem a copy of the ship of Iswara.
The cause
alternate joy
in his
and sorrow of the sage when he- beheld the
infant, be-
appearance he divined something both of good and bad import,
precisely accords with that part of
gotten by his descendants.
He
the god of regeneration to the
Noah's character which was never
was the god of destruction
new world
:
he was the
for-
to the old world,
terrific
devourer of
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. his children
335
man-
yet he was likewise the venerated parent and restorer of
;
kind.
Buddha
the hands of
The wheels upon
are those mystic rings or circles,
which most of the Indian Avatars are depicted as holding. They were alike and they were considered as resacred in Britain, Samothrace, and Egypt :
presenting at once the circle of the Universe and the inclosure of the Ark.
They
are types in short of the Ida-vratta on the
summit of Meru, whether
it
symbolize the mundane ring, or shadow out what the Druids were wont to
Ark
call the
The
of the TVorld.
Buddha we may reasonably
Mysteries said to have been revealed to
conclude to be those astronomico-diluvian Orgies, which were the basis of
Noah, or
gentile theology.
mystagogue
first
was deemed
:
the
principal
and each succeeding hierophant assumed
moment when Sacya
is
assists
the
its
and
At
special attention.
In
this
is
Earth
distress the
and, discharging a deluge of water from the central abyss,
;
This fable requires but
speedily puts his enemies to flight
so far as
titles^
solemnly inaugurated as Buddha-Avatar, he
attacked by the Asoors and their gigantic chief.
him
his
his representative.
But the concluding part of the legend demands our the
was accounted the
arkite deity,
import
is
concerned
but
:
way of comparison and analogy.
little
comment,
much that is interesting in The Asoors, who are put to flight by
it
contains
the deluge, are introduced into the Courma-Avatar as churning the troubled
ocean with the mountain JVIandar is
;
summit of
while, on the
How
seated in the calix of the liieroglyphical lotos.
how Mandar
diately connected with the flood, in the lotos is
Noah
in the
is
the
this
Avatar
Ararat, and
literally said to
imme-
is
how Vishnou
Ark, has already been shewn at large
gend of Buddha, these Asoors are
Vishnou
hill,
:
in
the le-
be routed by an inundation,
which the Earth pours forth against them.
The legend
finally tells us, that,
when
holy Scriptures descended from above.
the Asoors were put to the rout, five
These are those ancient volumes,
which the mythology of Paganism so generally supposed to have been preserved at the lime of the flood, and which were thought to have handed to the
new world
the collective
wisdom of
the old.
Thev
are the
down
books,
which Xisuthrus was feigned to have buried during the prevalence of the
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr.
336 BOOK
IV.
waters,
and which Vishnou
the ocean
when
is
thought to have recovered from the bottom of
They descend trom heaven,
the deluge began to abate.
Moon
cause they were preserved in the hieroglyphical the Dioscori
is
theSyiian Venus
They
dropped from the lunar
said to have
history of the great father,
Among the Hindoos and
we
and as the egg of
generally find introduced into the
by whatever name he
may
the general character of
and benevolent prince, who came fices,
circle,
reported to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates.'
is
are the books, in short, which
4.
be-
just as the egg of
:
be celebrated.*
Buddha
is
that of a mild
to abolish the cruelty of sanguinary sacri-
animated beings.'
to preserve the lives of all
This notion probably originated from a perversion of the history of Noah.
The
patriarch did not indeed abolish sacrifice
up the
first
victim after the deluge
:
on the contrary, he offered
;
but his benevolent character seems to
correspond with that of Buddha; and, as in one sense he was the undoubted preserver of the lives of
all
the Samanfean opinion respecting
creatures, so
the illegality of shedding blood
may
much At first
perhaps have arisen from a too
extended interpretation of the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. the soul of
man was
of man, as
believed only to reappear in the person
each new world introduced a perfect repetition of the history of a former
world
:
afterwards, partly from the use of bestial symbols, and partly
but
fi-om a notion that the essence of the
the
human
was thought
soul
great father entered into
all creation,
to experience a penal transmigration through a
long succession of animal forms.
Such an opinion would naturally produce
a horror of slaughtering the brute creation
;
lest
haply the limbs of a parent
should be served up at the table of a son, or a wife perish beneath the blows
of an unconscious husband.
The
doctrine in question, and with
sion to the slaying of animals, was brought by Pythagoras
where II.
it
took deep root and had long flourished
The Buddhists
'
Athen. Deipnos.
*
Vide supra
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
b.
Ovid. Metam.
iii.
lib.
out of the east,
in full luxuriancy.*
5/.
Hyg. Fab. 197.
5. p.
the aver-
'
of Ceylon are the descendants of the continental
lib. ii. p.
iii. c.
it
iy7, 198, 201.
xv.ver.
153—477.
Maur.
Hist, of Hind. vol.
ii.
p.
481.
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. who emigrated
Buddhists,
at the revolution effected
337
by the Brahmenists."
Tliese, on the old principle of the destruction and reproduction of similar
Morlds, have imagined no less than twenty two Buddhas, of lot
five
already appeared
and a
;
The Buddha, whose
to be yet future.
He
Gautauieh-Buddha. ponscquently he
like the last
fifth,
Avatar of Vishnou,
now who was born
is
prevails in
religion
the person,
is
they
al-
Four of them have
government of the present world.
for the
whom
thought
Ceylon,
is
of IVIaha-IMaya
the fabled husband of Ila or Argha, the sovereign prince
is
and the destroyer of the Asoors by the de-
in the belly of the arkite fish,
luge which the Earth poured out
to his assistance.*
The Buddhists themselves do in effect explain this multiplication of their The renewal of the world after the deluge, vvith many circumstances god. resembling those which occurred at the commencement of the antediluvian vi'orld, led to the belief in a succession of similar mundane systems. At the beginning of each appears a Buddha or Menu Avhose office it is to replenish the new world with inhabitants, and who is accounted the universal Hence, if we omit the intermediate father both of hero-gods and of men. ;
descents of this personage which for the most jart are of uncertain application, to
we may
two; and
ultimately reduce
tliese
two are
Gautameh-Buddha those patriarchs
Noah,
ditions of
though, as
;
his legend
Gautameh
that,
is
their island
Adams peak
heaven.
The
Asiat. Res. vol.
Pag.
Idol.
p.
case with gentile
tra-
was
entirely overrun by evil spirits;
mark of
For
and this
:
and, having succeeded in
his foot
on the summit of the sacred
or Sammanelkh-Sree-Pade, and thence ascended to
to its being
vii.
the
the latter of
of Ceylon have a notion, that before the
doctrine however of three other
Ceylon previous
•
commonly
to that country
dislodging them, he planted the called
very
deemed
incarnate, he determined to expel them.
purpose he took three voyages
hill
the JNlenus,
has been erroneously decorated with Enoch's
The people
when he became
all
and Noah.
ought, I think, evidently to be
translation to heaven. arrival of
Adam
the Buddhas, like
all
406.
overrun by
Buddhas had prevailed
evil spirits
:
and
its
occupation by
* Atiat. Res. toI. vii. p. 32, 33.
VOL.
II.
in
2
U
338 i:ooh iv.
OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
THJi
demons was
those malignant
the cause of the religion of Gautaraeh
being
there promulgated."
When we
consider the character of this deity as established by other cir-
cumstances,
will not
it
be very
In the imagined
sent fiction.
difficult to ascertain
the import of the pre-
that occupied Ceylon previous to
evil spirits,
Gautameh and subsequent to the maniwe recognize the Asoors of the Brahmens,
the mystically triplicated voyage of festation of the former Buddhas,
the Kharfcsters of the Zend-Avesta, and the Titans of
They were
tian mythology.
Greek and Egyp-
those wicked antediluvians, that intervened be-
tween the only two Buddhas whose existence was real and they are destroyed by a hero-god
ingly,
Accord-
literal.
who performs a voyage for the own religion in
;
express purpose of eradicating them and of introducing his
and who at the close of
lieu of their impieties,
the summit of a lofty mountain ere he
What we
is
his
voyage plants
his foot
on
miraculously translated to heaven.
are to understand by the voyage by the mountain, need scarcely
be pointed
As Buddha
out.
flourished at the period of the deluge,
and was
the husband and navigator of the ship Ila or Argha, the voyage undertaken to destroy
will follow, tion, is
Whence
an impious race can only be the voyage of Noah. that the mountain,
the local
Agreeably
Meru
on whose summit he completed
it
his expedi-
or Paradisiacal Ararat of the Cingalese.
to the prevailing belief in a succession of similar worlds,
over
€ach of which presides a Buddha or Menu, the inhabitants of Ceylon suppose, that, towards the end of the present
mundane system,
long wars, unheard of crimes, and a portentous diminution of
human
all
except a small number of pious persons,
the evil
drowned, will
life
;
that a terrible rain will then
and thus be enabled will
to
avoid
be changed into beasts
;
it
there will
be
of the length
sweep from the face of the earth
who ;
will receive timely notice
that the wicked,
after
of
being
and that ultimately Maitri-Buddha
appear and establish a new order of things.*
The whole
of this
is
palpably a mere repetition of the history of the deluge applied to a yet future epoch
'
;
and
Asiat, Res. vol.
it
vii. p.
serves to confirm the opinion,
49, 50-
* Asiat.
that the multiplication.
Res, vol,
vii.
p.
415.
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATllV.
339
both of Buddhas and of worlds has altogether originated from the succession of
Noah and
the Noetic world to
Buddha-Gautameh
III.
divinity as the
Such
Samano
occur perpetually in
varieties
Thus,
in the present instance,
Suviano or Suman
or Saman,
but they
:
to be written
Somono-
orthography of the
tiie
Sotnono
is
pronounced either
and thus Gautameh
:
be the same
to
Pegu
or Pooti-Sat of Siani and
Somono-Kodotn ought properly
title
oriental nations.
and the Adumitic world.
acknowledged by the Cingalese
Somono-Kodom
contend, that the
Gautameh.''
is
Adam
is
indifferently
Gautame or Godama, Kodom or Codum, Codam or Cadam.'' Throughout the Burma empire, the temples of Buddha are of a pyramidal
expressed
form
and, like
:
all
other buildings of that shape, they are copies of the sa-
Mcru or Mienmo; The statues of the god
cred mount
in
Ararat.'
are sometimes small, but frequently of a
stupendous
other words, they are transcripts
Dr. Buchanan saw one
size.
solid block of white marble.
was
It
in
a
of
in old
Ava, consisting of a single
sitting
posture
:
and
fingers
its
he
guessed to be about the length and thickness of a large man's leg and thigh.*
There
is
another of these statues, though
Its
head
same
is
that
exactly resembles the
of the same form
attitude
concerning
it
it
and
;
:
its
no means of equal
Mr. Gentil, who published
plain of Virapatnam.
1775, says,
l)y
;
it
has the same features ;
Brahmens had abolished the people's faith.'
who was now no
his
What
worship and had
its
He made
arms are
in the
various inquiries it
re-
longer regarded, since the
made themselves
the French traveller writes
DO other than Bout, Biidh, or Buddha : and the
Baouth
masters of evidently
is
tradition respecting the di-
seems necessarily to imply, that the worship of Buddha was esta-
blished in India prior to the superstition of the
quently however the only representation of
* Asiat. Res. vol.
"
Asiat. Res. vol.
Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. ii.p. 110, 183, 222. Asiat. Res. vol.
248. vol.
iii.
vii.
vii.
p. 213.
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p. 38.
p. 293,
and Plate p. 169,
295, 399. II. Fig. 3.
Brahmenists.
Somono-Kodom
*
'
of the Siamese.
and the answer, which he universally received, was, that
presented the god Baouth,
vinity
his travels in the year
Somono-Kodom
ears are exactly similar.
in the
size,
vii.
See Plate
is
Very
fre-
a large black
p. 413. III.
Fig. 14.
See also Symei's Embass. to Ava. toI.
ii.
p. 247,
'^'**'''
^'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
340 BOOK. IT.
stone.'
This
sometimes carved with various hieroglyphics, and
is
exhibit the impression of his feet lese,
said to
the Siamese, no less than the Cinga-
for
:
have a notion that the print of
is
his foot
was
left in their
country.*
The
practice of representing Buddha, either by colossal images or by large blackstones,
is
of considerable importance
by which we may trace as
it
worship
his
since
:
it
;
were, into Brahmenism.
In many of the temples of Somono-Kodom there of female is
two special marks,
atibrds us
a worship however, perpetually melting,
figures,
on her knees,
exhibiting a princess
in
is
danger of perishing in a
Burmas
say,
that once,
when
he was saved by a princess,
river,
A
of her long hair.'
:
Magna Mater,
circumstance not very
those of Syria, the goddess
appears seated upon a rock,
Sometimes a dove
surrounding ocean.
out of the
upon her head
On
the west of Siam.
lie far to
Cybele, or the mountain-born rises
princess
introduced into the device of several ancient coins, stamped in
countries which
which
The
with her attendants.
sculpture the
this
who threw him a rope made dissimilar
a sculptured groupe
and appears to be offering up her long hair to the deity.
Respecting the import of
Godama was
is
is
perched
and sometimes the fabulous Centaur, that well-known type
of the great father,
is
quently blazes an altar
Near
placed in the same situation. :
but a
man
her not unfre-
universally represented at her feet in
is
the midst of the water, imploring that assistance which the goddess from her insular rock seems prepared to hold out to him.*
and character of Buddha
I
have
little
legends are fundamentally the same.
Masna Mater the river
is
resting
the
man,
The supposed
on the summit of Ararat
whom
From
the general history
hesitation in concluding, that the
:
princess
is
Godama
and
two
the arkite
saved from
the Syrian medals exhibit as plunged in the
ocean and as receiving assistance from the goddess of the rock.
IV. The high region
to
the
north of India, which comprehends Cash-
mire, Boutan, Thibet, and Bokhara, settlements of the Buddhic Chusas Hind.
vol.
'
Maur.
*
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p.
295.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
295, 296.
Hist, of
vi. p.
ii.
p.
:
was one of the and
it still
481. Ind. Ant. vol.
Symes's Embass. vol.
iii.
ii.
first
retains
and most eminent
a spiritual preemi-
p. 33.
p. 183, 197, *98.
* Sec several representations of these coins in Bryant's Anal. vol.
ii.
p. 386.
THE ORX6IN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
341
nence, not very dissimilar to that once exercised by the Arabian caliphs or
Roman
the
pontiffs.
A
The name, by which
of a living and visible incarnation of Buddha.
human
is
known,
usually
once the
at
is
deity
is
and the
spiritual
Lama
Teeshoo
or the priest Teeshoo
superior
civil
of
this
and he
:
the country.
Yet,
throughout the wide extent of Tartary, there seem to be other pretended
may
incarnations of Buddlia, as well as this whicli
and resolved to set forth
on
visit
In pursuance of
the living Fos.
his travels
;
and well known
tioned in Bell's travels,
mine of Taranath
maps between noticed
by Le Compte
and Orgun.
unless indeed
;
Thibet within the limits of Tartary
which
:
he
is
Lama-
the
Fo, men-
living
in the northern parts of
place of whose residence
the
;
the rivers Selinghei
his tribe,
this determination,
Combo, adored
and, in the country of
Afterwards he proceeded to worship another
Combo.
Fo,
the para-
Mr. "Wilford mentions a Brahmen, who had renounced
mount.
the
be esteemed
India by
marked
in
the
may be the Tatar we suppose him to include This
last
not improbable, since he
is
professes to speak of the
most famous seat of the god Fo particularly ve-
nerated by the Chinese
a description exactly answering to the living
;
Teeshoo-Laiiia of Thibet, ecclesiastical superior
whom
and as
This
unquestionably the
is
mother of Fo, as
Maya
is
the mother of
Buddha
Moye
both from the circumstance of
evident,
or
his great spiritual father.'
V. The Fo of the Chinese is
Fo
the monarch of China acknowledges as his
of the Hindoos.
being said to be the
Buddha and from ;
the religious re-
verence paid by the emperor to the Teeshoo- Lama as an incarnation of the
god Fo
:
because, since
and since the is
Lama
is
Buddha
also the living representative
l)lainly
'
be
tlie
is
adored as the
the gi'and
Boutan and Thibet,
of the Chinese Fo,
Buddha
;
as he
Buddha and Fo must
same person.*
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
207—220.
ii.
p.
375.
vol. vi. p.
When
483, 484.
Le Compte's China,
the Chinese deputies to
Buddha-Gaudma, they immediately recognized him him accordingly.
deity of
living representative of
Symcs's Embassy to Ava. vol.
ii..
as their
p. 318.
own
Ava beheld
p.
the
332.
Burman god
national Fo, and worsbippcu
chap.
v.
;
THE onioiN OF pagan idolatry.
34Q 1.
It
is
not very
by which the name of
trace the steps,
difficult to
Biidclha has been transformed into Fo.
In Boutiin and Thibet the word
Pout, and Poti;
in
But ; and
Cochin-China,
iii
tions are according to those rules of etymology,
B
tliroughout the whole world. severally letters of the
Italianized
mode of is
Mot
French
A
or I
enunciation
is
is
sound
indifferently
O and
and
Po
into
Fo by a
natural and obvious
:
the second
:
its final
just
which
in
the
was expressed by Pot,
consonant was sounded like Po,
nation which could not pronounce the for
F
is
merely
P
aspirated
From a
Immeasureable,
Sanscrit denotes
and Maya, the Hindoo name of the god's mother, 2.
The
religion of
Fo
or
Buddha
China, subsequently to the Christian
Thibet
;
whether believe,
most probably, I it
think,
was then introduced
that the particular
and the
;
similar in-
is
into
0-mi-to
into
said to have been introduced into
era,
from India or Ceylon or
either
from the
Yet
latter.*
for the first time.
I
am
I greatly donbt,
rather inclined to
modification of ancient Buddhism, which
logical system
canied at that period into China and Buddhism thus modified was one, who had assumed ;
claimed to be an incarnation, of the god
;
that the
facilitate the introduction
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 220. vol. vi. p. 260. Asiat. Res. vol.
* Asiat. Res. vol.
ii. i.
p.
theo-
apostle or
the name,
the Christian era were the Chinese well acquainted with
'
tlie
is
and who
an imposture perfectly in character
Long
both with the theory and the practice of gentile mythology.
"
title
Mo-ye?
viewed with such abhorrence by the intolerant Brahmenists, was
acquaintance would obviously
the
as
capacity of pronunciation, the Chinese have converted the Buddhic
Amita,
are
In the vernacular
rejected.
same, whetiier we write Fo or Pho.
will be the
U,
added or omitted, as an
When Buddha
pronounced MoJ^
the change from
P was
OU
less
therefore mutually interchangeable;
quiescent, is
varia-
which prevail more or
and T,
adopted or
and when Pot by the quiescence of
letter
Such
Siam, Pout.'
word experiences a yet further change and Pout or Pot is pronounced Po ;
dialect of Siam, the
consonant
D
and P,
same organ, and
while the final short vowel
Put, Bot, Pot,
pronounced But,
is
Fo
:
and
of a system
* Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
before
this ;
very
which,
17O.
374.
p. 170.
vol. vi. p. 262. vol. ix. p. 41.
Le Coropte's China, p. 319.
THE OHIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY.
J
343
SO far from being altogether novel, was but a viodification,
haps called a reformation, of the
speciously per-
from their ancestors.
faith inherited
Fo, as Sir William Jones well remarks, and as I have already shewn to be the case,
is
unquestionably the
Buddha
of Hindostan
genitor and reputed first emperor of the
Fo-Hi
;
Victim,
is
Now
named by them
also
Fo, sirnamed
the history of this primeval
such as plainly to shew, that he
Buddha, and consequently that he identity
is
of which compound word the second monosyllable denotes, we are
a Victim.^
told,
Chinese
but the great pro-
:
of Fo and Buddha can
the
is
it,
as
as the god Fo; since the
Hence, unless we un-
scarcely be disputed.
new-modelled
warrantably suppose, that the Chinese placed Fo-Hi at the head of
same
or the
same character
the vei^
is
Hi
their
history,
when, subsequently to the Christian
era,
and they
Buddha hence, I say, it necessarily appears to follow, that under the name of Fo or Fo-Hi they had venerated Buddha from the very commencement of their national existence and that it was first
received the religion of
:
;
simply a modification of their ancient religion, which they admitted at a later period either fiom India or Ceylon or Thibet.
But
3.
let
us proceed to examine the legend of Fo-Hi.
This ancient personage
and
been the
said to have
is
his character sufficiently demonstrates, that
we
are told that his mother
was sirnamed Flozcer- loving.
As
t
he must be referred to the
age of mythology, not to that of genuine history. birth,
emperor of China
first
With respect
to his'
was the daughter of Heaven, and that she the
nymph was walking
alone on the bank
of a river with a similar name, she suddenly found herself encircled by a
rainbow. years,
had
Soon
after this she
became pregnant
was delivered of a son radiant
that of Sui, or
on the mountains of Chin immediately
''
who, among other
That son was Fo-Hi.
add, that he was born in the province of Xeusi
bred seven ditferent kinds
and, at the end of twelve
as herself;
Star of the year.
which was produced by the deluge.
:
after
;
and that he was manifested
that grand division
They moreover
relate,
of animals, which he used
Asiat. Res. vol,
ii.
p.
375^
titles,
The Chinese
to
of time,
that he carefully sacrifice to the
*="*•'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
344 HOOK
IV.
gi-cat spiiit
of heaven and earth
:
and they
Shin-Nungh had
that of a serpent, wliile his son
All these particulars serve to identify
by the Chinese, as by fabled grandfather, self,
ther
viewed only the
is
Ark
all
liave a notion, that his
the licad of an ox.'
or Arhan,
the
is
and she
:
;
is
His
of their kings.
first
same person
in a diftercnt relation to his allegorical
time of her conception
He is esteemed
Fo-Hi with Noah.
other ancient nations, the
Heaven or Uranus
body vas
as
him-
That mo-
mother.
feigned to have been walking near a river, at the
we have repeatedly
because, as
seen,
the holy river
of each pagan aation was a symbol of the deluge considered as retiring from
Moon
the mountain of the
which both she and the river were named,
The rainbow
requires no comment.
:
they are therefore
inclosed within the Ark.
the
The
brings to our recollection a very
The
twelve years of his mother's
their star
:
not of the Sun,
but of the
during which
Noah was
of Star of the year, borne by Fo-Hi,
common accompaniment
of the arkite god
Chiun or Saturn, Astarte, Taschter, and the Dioscori,
and goddess.
and
I
from
take to have been the lotos.
twelve months,
title
flower,
I
gestation are twelve revolutions, I apprehend,
Moon
The
or the paradisiacal Ararat.
cannot refrain from thinking
il
probable,
all
had
that the idea
The
originated from the appearance of a comet at the time of the deluge.
seven classes of animals, out of which Fo-Hi was wont to offer sacrifice to
God, seem
plainly to be the clean beasts
and birds which
to take with
him
His
mixed
into the
Ark by
sevens.
partly to his being the
relation,
such story as that w hich the Hindoos built perhaps
on some
title
ordered
of Victim has apparently a
first sacrificer, tell
Noah was
and partly
of their victim
Brahma
to ;
some
a story
primeval tradition of the future sacrificial self-devotion
of the seed of the woman.'
And
the fabled forms of himself and his
my-
thological son exhibit to us the symbols, under which the great father
was
represented in every quarter of the globe.
The Chinese
further relate of Fo-Hi, that, the
to inundate the whole country, he restrained '
Asiat. Res. vol.
p. 313. *
ii.
p.
375, 376.
Martin. Hist. Sin.
Couplet. Praef. ad tab. chron. p. 3.
Vide supra
b.
ii.
c. 8. S III. 2.
its
Yellow
river being
wont
destructive overflowings with lib.
i.
p. 21.
Le Compte's China,
:
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOtATRY.
A
proper embankments.
similar story
is
told of the
345
Ganges: and
the
two
are not very unlike that of the Egyptian Prometheus and the overflowing of I have
the Nile.'
little
doubt but that
tlie
same event
is
alluded to in
ail
of them.
Yet
4.
it
may
be
that,
said,
although these matters prove Fo-Hi to be
Noah, they no further prove him to be the same as Buddha or Fo, than as all the other chief gods arc the same person as that deity. That is to say, they are
fundamentally the same as Buddha, only because they arc
all
all
equally the great father.
As
I"can judge, Fo-IIi
as
far
no
is
less intimately
and immediately the
same as Fo or Buddha, than Gautameh or Sacya or Somono-Kodom whence
I
infer,
Buddhism must have been the primitive
that
:
idolatry of
China, and that the religion introduced subsequent to the Christian era was
same
the
what already existed
as
some novel
there,
except only that
it
had undergone
Let us see then, what arguments can be adduced
modification.
to prove the direct identity of
Fo-Hi and Fo, and
therefore by necessary
consequence the direct identity of Fo-Hi and Buddha.
What lations
will first strike
Fo and Fo-Hi
an inquirer
:
for
tiie
is
the palpable identity of the
only difference between them
is
two appelthis;
the
name of the god in an uiicompoundcd state, while the latter is the very same name associated with a word which signifies Victim. Since therefore Fo and Fo-Hi are equally Noah, so far as personality is concerned; the presun)ption is, that in each case the title Fo is the title Buddha expressed agreeably to the Chinese mode of pronunciation. Hence it will follow, that the first emperor of China is no other than Buddha both in name and in character. But this is not the only argument. The Chinese story of former
is
the
the birth of
Fo-Hi bears so
close a resemblance to one of the
of the birth of Buddha, that they must have originated source.
was
The nymph
the favourite
One
of her
titles
Abiat. Res. vol.
Pag. Idol.
stories
who presides over the fourth lunar mansion, mistress of Soma or the masculine "eniu s of the Moon. is Cumudanayaca or She who delights in the xoater-Jlouer Rohini,
and the particular water-flower, from which she takes her '
Hindoo
from a cominon
vi. p.
478.
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
VOL.
title,
is
a species
p. \6.
II.
2
X
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
346 HOOK
IV.
Their offspring was Buddha, the sidereal
of \qios that blossoms in the night.
Thus
regent of the planet Mercury.'
nymph
tion of 77/6
^owxt-Zowwo-
be deemed
sufficient to establish the point
5.
me
If then
Fo-Hi be
in
y
Buddha
appears, that Fo-IIi and
it
are alike descrihed as the offspring of a
celebrated under the appella-
an arbitrary coincidence, which
might
in itself
of their proper identity.
every respect the very same as Buddha,
seems to
it
almost inevitably to follow, that Buddhism in some form must have been
the religion of China from the very
This
will
account satisfectorily
first.
for the
ready acquiescence
Buddhism
usually been esteemed the earliest introduction of
in
what has
into that vast
empire, an introduction placed after the Christian era: the Chinese did not receive a fiew religion,
but were only led to embrace certain modifications or
Of
corruptions of that theology which was already familiar to them. particulars indeed of that theology
consider the evident identity of
more easy
to suppose,
we
can glean but
Fo-Hi and Buddha,
little
:
yet,
when we
cannot but think
I
which prided
to believe that a large proportion of a great empire,
remote
its
it
far
that the Chinese, in adopting the superstition of Fo,
adopted only what they deemed an improvement of their old system
antiquity,
the
was
led,
in
consequence (as
alledged) of
it is
mercial intercourse with Hindostan and Ceylon, to reject
its
than
;
itself its
on
com-
primeval
reli-
gion in favour of the religion of foreigners.^
"
Asiat. Uc>. vol.
*
The
ii.
cxc<'llent Sir
thesis of lUulilhism
p.
vol.
hnngfust introduced
The importation, says must lead
375, 376.
m, to suppose,
he,
virtue,
p. l6'2.
into
China
iii.
25S.
p.
be not a
little
embarrassed by the hypo-
after the Christian era.
that the former system, whatever
it
in the Jirst
eentury of our era,
was, had been found inadequate to
of the people from those offences against conscience
which the civil power could not reach
'restrictions anii
vol. to
of a new religion into China,
the purpose of restraining the great bo(k/
and
i.
William Jones seems plainly
:
and
it is
hardly
possitilc,
government could long have subsisted with ftlicity
;
that without such
for no government can
long subsist without equal justice, and justice cannot be administered without the sanctions of religion.
The
inference therefore to be d.rawn from these premises
the Chinese including the governing pov^ers, in the
first
in
that a considerable proportion of
century of our era, finding the political
insufficiency of the religion of their fathers, deliberately
and that,
is,
and philosophically renounced
hopes of mending the matter, they made the atheistical superstition of
tlie
it;
later
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
On
the Mhole therefore
am
I
inclined
conjecture, that the Cliinesc
to
brought their ancient theology directly from Babel
some one of
tively late period,
Brahmens
;
to overset the
that this produced a struggle
modern Buddhists
persecution drove the
an opinion, the
latter part of
which
is
who new-modelled
name of Dliarma, which
the
a
Brahmens themselves; faith,
Buddha
of
and that the
;
Such
into various distant regions.
Samanean
title
whole system of the
and a persecution
and
:
for the
im-
said to have taken the
is it
undoubtedly reconciles
which cannot otherwise be very easily accounted
a contradiction,
Brahmens
is
assumed the name
adopted by Sir William Jones, seems
to be confirmed by the assertions of the postor,
but that, at a compara-
:
the Samani^an hierophants
and character of Buddha, and laboured
347
The
for.
universally speak of the Buddhists with all the malignity of an in-
tolerant spirit: yet the
most orthodox among them consider Buddha himself
and esteem him the Trimurti-Om or Brahma-
as an Avatar of Vishnou,
Vishnou-Siva united.' In Cashgar, as
6.
Nath
we have
seen,
Buddha
is
sometimes called ]\Tachodar-
Whether
or the sovereign prince in the belly of the Jish.
name does not appear recently-mentioned Brahmen who had abjured his
have borrowed
of the god
precise
this
in that character.
and worshipped along with
It
is
caste,
the Chinese
according to the they have a statue
placed in a temple near the wall of Pekin,
Maha Cala
Iswara, Satyavrata, and Cronus.
but,
;
or Great
Time
;
who
is
In one part of the temple
Charan-Pad or the impression of the
foot of
same as
the is
shewn the
Datta or Datt-Atreya
;
just as
pretend to exhibit it on the summit of Adam's peak, and the Burmas on a large stone covered with hieroglyphics.* Hence it is evitlcnt, that Datta is one of the names of Buddha or Somono-Kodom because the the Cingalese
;
legend of the impressed foot belongs to the history of Buddha.
Mr. Wilford
as
justly observes
and as
I shall
But Datta,
have occasion hereafter to
Buddhists the paramount religion of the court and the nation.
I
can with
difficulty belicvt-,
either the occurrence of so unparallclied a circumstance, or the superior efficacy of an atheistical
by
system over any other (however bad
its
it
action on the consciences of men.
"
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
ii.
284, 285. vol.
p. 48'2,
483.
might be)
to
subserve
Asiat. Res. vol. ii.
ii.
p. 1'23, 12t. vol.
p. Jii.
llie
purposes of government
376. p.
iy6. vol.
vi.
p.
262.
'^"'*'''
34S HOOK
IV,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
poiAtout more
at large,
clearly the Tat,
is
Taut, or Thoth, of Egypt and
Phcnicia,
VI. The
Buddha has equally spread
religion of
itself into
Cochin-Ciiina,
Tonquin, Japan, and the most remote parts of Tartary." Japan, like China, is said to have received the religion of Buddha or Budsdo subsequent to the Christian era but I cannot refrain from susi)ccti
same
no properly novel theology was imported, but only a modijlcation of that ancient superstition to which they had long been prethe very
;
that
Ka;mpfer says with much propriety, that, both from the affinity of the names and from the similarity of the religion, he has no doubt, that the Budsdo or Fo-Tokfe of Japan is the same as the Buddha of Hindosviously addicted.
Sometimes the Japanese
tan.*
than Saca, Sacya, or Xaca, as expressed
Deva-Bod, or the one of
ascribe to
common
of
title
Buddha
no other
is is
variously
Buddha
divine
sometimes they
:
call hi in
Abbuto or Fa-
and sometimes again they denominate him Aniita, which
:
his
this
which appellation
S'uilca ;
sometimes they designate him by the appellation of Daibod, or
:
ther Buto
him
call
Hindoo
titles,
is
Chinese pronounced 0-]Mi-To.
by the
him a holy book, which they suppose
to
They
have been brought over
they represent him, like the
to Japan on the back of a white horse:
also
Buddha
of Ava, by a gigantic figure sitting cross-legged in the calix of the tarate or lotos
:
they suppose
him
to be the
god of the ocean
^vont to tie small coins to a piece of
wood and
an offering to him, in order that they
voyaoe
:
and they esteem
hinj,
may
;
to throw
whence mariners are them
obtain j)ropitious
into tlie sea as
w inds and a
safe
according to the universal persuasion of the
human souls, deeming him who happily transmigrate from
ancient hierophants, the patron and protector of
more this
particularly the
god and father of those
world into the Elysian abodes of the blessed.'
In Cochin-China, Buddha
same manner
as
he
is
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
'
Ibid. p. 247, 243.
vi.
p.
in
This arrangement
is
263.
book
v.
multiplied into three divinities,
comprehend
said to
Brahma-Vishnou-Siva.
is
*
p. 468, 552, 553.
much
in the
own person the trij)le god by no means uncommon and his
Kaeropfer's Japan,
:
book
iii.
c.6. p. 241.
TH£ OHIGJN O* PAGAN ICOLATKy. the triad of Buddha,
evident from
tlic
349
like all the otlier triads of the Gentiles,
whole tenor of his history,
the three
to
relates,
as
is
Noah
sons of
viewed as a reappearance of the three sons of Adam.'
The
A^II.
Buddlia has produced three different sects of
triplication of
Buddhists;
\vho severally worship their favourite divinity under the
Buddha
Gautama, Jain
or
kindred religionists,
the votaries
(I appreliend) the i)roper Buddhists,
gions to the north and east of
on the borders of Hindostan
it
:
names of
Mahiman. Of these of Buddha, by whom we are to understand
or J'ma, and
:
Arhan
or
are found in Thibet and other vast
I'c-
the followers of Jain are chiefly dispersed
and the adherents of Arhan, who are said to
have been once the most powerful of the
three,
now
Siam and other kingdoms of the eastern peninsula.
principally reside in
There
*
is sufficient
proof however, that Jain and Arhan are ultimately the same as Buddha,
Brahma and Vishnou
just as
same
are ultimately the
as Siva
and the three
:
viewed conjointly form that triad of great gods, which was thought to be produced by the mysterious self-triplication of the universal father.'
VIII.
An
Many
are the
titles,
enumeration of them
may
by which Buddha
is
known
to
his votaries.
prove useful in further discussing the present
subject. 1.
His special name Buddha
Boudh, Bod, Bot,
is
pronounced and expressed
variously
Budd,
Bad,
But,
Buddou, Boutta, Bota, Budsdo,
D
The Siamese make the final T or quiescent, and sound the word Po : whence, as we have seen, the Chinese still further vary it to Pho or Fo. In the Tamulic dialect, the name is proPot, Pout, Pota, Pot I, and Pouti.
nounced Podcn or Pooden ple of
Sumnaut
sound of the
nounced
Ah
or Suinan-Nath,
U or Ou or
whence
:
Au
:
or
and,
Oo
is
the city, which once contained the temcalled
'
Asiat. Res. vol. vi, p. 263.
On
193, 195, 196, 201. vol.
320, 360.
vol. ix. p.
vi.
p.
manner, when the
i.
p.
248, 285. vol.
295, 463, 483,
143. 145, 173,
Hind. Pamh. p. 223, 237, 253, 256.
P
is
pro-
sounded B,
All these are in fact no niore than a ' Asiat. Res. vol.
this point, see Asiat. Res. vol.
Tiie broad
passes in the variation Patten into J,
in a similar
we meet w ith Bad, Bat, and Bhal.
'
Patttn-Sumnaut.
ii.
525—530.
210—217, 222, 256,
p.
iii.
p. 195,
122, 369
vol. vii. p.
201.
—376.
vol.
414. vol.
iii.
viii.
259, 264, 272, 280, 281.
p. 51,
p. 305,
Moors
cw'»p-'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
350 BOOK
IV.
linslntT
of chanofcs on the connate letters
names
his
X(it/i,
is
Suman, which
is
Sumanbans ov Sannaneans''
Cardama.
this
—A
T
D — Another of '
and
Samana, Suman-
was borrowed the sectarian appellation of
third
Godama,
Gautameh,
expressed
and P,
varied into Somon, Somono,
From
and Sarmatut.
B
Gautama; which
is
Godam, Codain, Cadam,
This perpetually occurs in composition with the
indifferently
is
Cardam and
last,
as SoiJiono-
—
A fourth is Saca, Sacya, Siaka, Sliaka, Codom or Samana-Gautama Xaca, Xaca-AIuni or Saca-Menii, and Kia which is the uncompounded form of Sa-Kia* A fifth is Dherma, or Dhanna, or Dheniia- Rajah A sixth is Hermias, Her-Moye, or Heri-Maya^ A seventh is Dalta, Batt-Atreya, That-Daliia, Date, Tat or Tot, Deva-Tat or Dcva'
—
'
—
—An Eswar^ — A Txvashta
'
eighth
Om be
Min
is
3fan
same Gomat' Esivara " title
or
or is
Mahi-Man, Mai-Man, —A —An eleventh Alin-Eswara, formed by
Jrhan^ added) Mai-Man-Om^° ninth
Chin-Deo, or Jain-
Jain, Jina, Chin, Jain-Deo,
is
or
—A
tenth
or (if
is
is
Menu
joined to Eszvara"
thirteenth,
when he
is
—A twelfth
is
Eswara or
considered as
the
Gomat Siva,
Har-Esa ; that is to say, tht great Esa or the lord Esa A fifteenth is Tara-Naih'^ fourteenth is Dagon or Dagun or Dak-Po'* is Arca-Bandhu Kinsman And a sixteenth or of the Sun.'^ £. Among the ancients, it was a common practice for the ministers of a
Ma-Esa
''
or
—
A
—
Asiat. Res. vol.
'
p. 32,
vii.
vi.
p.260, 262.
220.
vol.
i.
p. l62, l63,
l66, l6r, 170. vol.
398.
' Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. »
vol, ix. p.
38,413.
Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 38, 413, 414. vol.
Asiat. Res. vol.
ii.
p. 123. vol. vi. p.
p. 199-
iii.
262, 263.
vol. vi. p.
259.
Kaempfcr's Japan, p. 247.
Hamilton
s
account of East-Ind. vol.ii. p. 57. 5
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. S3,
'
Comp.
Asiiit.
Res.
vol. vii. p. 39- vol. vi. p.
vol. ix. p.
» Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p.
264.
212, 215.
483, 263.
vol. v. p.
26l. vol. x. p. Sg.
»
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 143, 303, 272, 280, 259- vol. vi. p. 526.
9
Comp.
Asiat. Res. vol.
vii. p.
414. vol.
vi. p.
295, 483. vol.
p. 305. vol.
viii.
iii.
p.
195,
196.
° '^
Asiat. Res. vol.
iii.
p.
"
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 253, 256. Hamilton's account of Ea»t-Ind.
IS
" Moor's Hind.
195, 201.
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 124.
vol.
ii.
Panth. p. 256.
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p. 57- Symes's Embass.
"
Asiat. Res. vol.
p. 284,
to
ii,
Ava.
p. 124.
285. vol.
ii.
p.
110.
THE ORIGTK OF PAGAX IDOLATRY. god
to call themselves
by the name of the deity
mode
accordingly was the
whom
n^ans confessedly derived natural to conclude, that
tlieir title tlie
are told, that
Samana
or
antiquity.
so
;
Brahmens or Brachmans borrowed
Somona
is
their appel-
writers
:
and
the name, by which the god,
still
the priests of the god, and thence the whole
most
it is
Brahma-Vishnou-Siva.
their Trimurti
more than one of the Greek
Tliese two sects are mentioned by
we
Brahme and As the Sama-
from Samana or Buddha
from Brahme, the parent of
lation
Such
they venerated.
of distinction, which the votaries of
Buddha adopted, probably from very remote
of
351
body of the Buddhists, are
alike
distinguished.'
Porpliyry does not seem to have been aware of any such rivalship and
which subsists between the present Brahmenists and
animosity,
as that
Buddhists
for he speaks of the Brachmans and Samanfeans as being only
two
;
sects of those Indian divines,
common observed, it may
whom
the Greeks were wont jointly to
Hence, as I have
designate by the
appellation of Gymnosophists.
already
be doubted, whether the impostor, who introduced
into the ancient Buddhic theology those alterations which
ious to the Brahmenists, flourished earlier than the
Porphyry appears
Christian era. the
Saman^ans with those wliile j-et his
assis ;
Much two
He
sects.
truly observes,
is
to the account,
who
whom
eremetical
to
are
so obnox-
have confounded
now
called
Sany-
curiously accurate/
which Strabo gives of these
that the system of the
and coherent than that of the Samantans
orderly latter,
enthusiastic devotees,
it
century after the
first
some measure,
account of the Brahmens
same remaik applies
the
also, in
made
:
Brachmans was more and he describes the
with a slight variation he denominates Germanes, as leading an
woods and
the
life in
as voluntarily submitting to the
most painful
austerities.'
Clemens Alexandrinus, though he Samaneans or
modern
(as he calls
Sanyassis,
distinguishes
Asial. Res. vol.
'
Strab. Geog. lib,
vi.
p.
274, C.iO.
.\v. p.
certain branch of the
them from the Brahmens with a much
greater degree of precision than Porphyry
•
makes a
also
them) Sarmaneans to be plainly the same as the
712, 713, 714.
'
*
:
for,
after
he has said,
Torphyr. de abslin.
lib. iv.
§
like that
\J.
*^''^'''
^•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
3o2 COOK
IV.
author,
Brahmens and Saiinantians
that the
he adds, that the
are two sects of Gyinnosopliists,
whom
obey the precepts of Butta,
latter
holiness they venerate as a god.'
on account of
his
any more
Neitlier Strabo nor Clemens,
than Porphyry, give the least intimation that the two sects were then hostile to each other.
IX. The
liigh
country of Cashgar, Boutan, Thibet, and Bokhara, which
has been shewn to be the proper geographical INIeru both of the Brahmenists
and the Buddhists, was one of the chief settlements of the Chusas or Scuths, and therefore one of the principal and Buddha,
stition of
Yet
earliest seats
which that great family was ever peculiarly devoted.
to
The
of the Saman^an theology.
was not absolutely the cradle
it
of the unmixed super-
Ximrod and the Cushim comprehended tlie central region; which, when viewed at its greatest extent, was
primeval empire of of that
fertile
denominated Ircin or Cusha-ihvip within
of Scuthic extraction.
still
and the mountaineers of Persia,
:
which the name of Iran seems more peculiarly
to
part
were evidently
to belong,
Hence, as both Brahmenism and Buddhism branched
out from Babylonia to every quarter of the globe, and as the long-lived
Cuthic empire was the earliest empire of Iran, we large intermixture of
Such,
*
am persuaded
I
guous, so far as the idiom Airrov Se
ro-jtuiv
rujv '^a.^jj.avuiv
oi
Strom,
wtvs^
Some have supposed, insinuates, that,
Btcn is
oV
vyy EyjtjarvjTai
Vide
it
is
a
Boxyy.a.vo'.i,
Oixouiriy,
xa\ovjj.svor
book
vi. c. 2.
the
somewhat ambi-
wri
£ij
Eicri
Sa tujv
Oeoj'
Kai
^aXouij.evoi.
c-riya.; sy^ova-tv,
'"
"'*>'<'"<'"'
IvSwv
TErt/xijxao-*.
isv-
yoi.iJ.CiY,
Bourra
roij
oi
Clem.
Brachmans and
to
to
the
who
Alex.
Sarman^ans, Clemens
venerate
Buddha; thus
Sarman^ans did not worship Buddha.
name of Buddha and
seems also necessary
tmv Iviwv ought
infra
ie
o'l
it'j'Aai;
h' Jiref/SoArjv (r£p.yorijrof
Brachmans and
some of the Indians. *
a.uTwv,
axjoJfua vnwvrai, xat vSmo rai; X^?"^'
Porphyry and Clemens are the same clause
'S.a.^fj.ot.va.i
that, after speaking of the
that Samaiia
or Samandans,
o!
is
subjoin the passage.
besides these, there are certain of the Indians
in eflfect saying, that the
we consider
J^a'
a
305.
p.
i.
u.iv
I
n^otra.yo^euoy.iyoi ours
ipXoms,
Tta.oa.yyihij.cx.inv,
lib.
oi
to find
in the old Persic theology.^
concerned.
ro ysvo;-
eu rca.ihvaiia.v, laacrtv,
may expect
the meaning of Clemens, though his language
is is
AWo^tot
S^vjv is ai>.
irsiSoy-Bvoi
Buddhism
that his votaries are
still
But, when
called
Samana
conclude, that the Samaiieans or Sannaneans of
as the
modern Samana; and consequently,
that the
be rendered these are they of the Indians, not there are also
THE OUIOtW OF PAGAN IDOLATKY. From
earliesttim.es,
tlie
the hiffh lands of Persia
from
Bactria or Bokhara was closely connected with
for the inhabitants of
:
same enterprizing race
tlie
of Iran,
same race
each
district
were descended
and Zoroaster himself, the great prophet have resided in the lofty region of
to
But Zo-
was likewise the favourite haunt of the Magi.
Bactria, which roaster and
;
most commonly said
is
353
Buddha
as the
Noah
are equally
and the Magi seem
:
Buddhic Maghas or Moghas of Magadha
clearly to be the
who
;
derive their
name from Maga the grandson of Twashta, and among whom Buddha, whom we must identify both with Maga and Twashta, is feigned to have been Accordingly, both Cyril and Clemens Alexandrinus agree in telling
born.'
But the Samaneans were the
Persia.* is
both in Bactria and in
that the Samanfeans were the sacerdotal order
us,
known, that the sacerdotal
well
Magi
therefore the
:
Magi and
and consequently Buddha or
the
Maga
priests of
Saman
class of Bactria
or
Buddha
;
and
and Persia were
it
tlie
Samaneans must have been the same or
Saman must have been
venerated in
those regions.
With
the mythologic history of the Zend-Avesta, which
this conclusion,
I have before
The name
had occasion
to discuss,
will
of the most ancient bull, that
Key-Umursh,
is
said
to
Abbuto of the Japanese, father Buddh-Datta.
have been is
plainly-
This Aboudad
be found
in perfect accordance.
was united with the
But Aboudad,
Aboudad.
nothing more than is
the
first
like
man the
Ab-Boud-Dat
Buddha or Adam, who
or is
Buddha-Gautama or Noah for he is named Taschter, who flourishes with three
described as being prior in time to
succeeded by a second man-bull,
first
:
subordinate coadjutors at the period of the deluge.
Nor
is
According
this the
to the
only proof of
the
Buddhism of
Iran and of the whole world was Mahaba(^
people into four orders, the religious, servile
guage
'
that he received
;
;
the ancient Persians.
Dabistan of Mohsan, they held, that the
and that there
;
that
Mahabad
monarch of divided the
the military, the commercial,
from the creator a sacred book either
first
and the
in a heavenly lan-
had been or would be fourteen Mahabads
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 32, 74, 80.
* Cyril.
Oper. vol,
Pag.
Idol.
ii.
p. 133.
Clem. Alex. Strom.
VOL.
II.
lib.
i.
p. 305.
2
Y
cha.p. v,
THE OIUGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
354 i-.ooK IV.
apparent at different intervals.
Mahabad is
He
Menu.
as
whom
is,
Buddh
the great
I believe, ;
indisputably the
is
same
opinion: iov Malta- Bad
perfectly right in his
and the fourteen Mahabads are the fourteen Menus, of
Menu-Swayambhuva
the principal are
rata or
William Jones remarks, that the name
and that the person so called
Sanscrit,
is
Sir
or
Adam
and Menu-Satyav-
Noah.'
Agreeably to the usual practice of calling the priests
Maga were Magas ; so the
after the
names of
gods, as the ministers of Saman or
in
denominated Sa^natieans or
head of the hierarchy,
their
Persia and Bactria generally as the
immediate representative of the great father who was ever esteemed the primeval
Maga
or Druid, assumed the loftier
of
the Ifidian Caucasus, a large colony of those,
or Sacasenas and Chusas their descendants
India, the
which
;
have been known
.
As
to subvert the
Woden
Asae or Asiatics
it
:
identical divinity,
for
*
ii.
from the Indian Caucasus,
their descendants positively declare the
p.
58
their in
book
vi. c.
4
Woden was
the
ancestors had venerated while yet occupying the
But
that divinity
was certainly
the god of the Chusas of
mount Meru.
east.
— 60.
See Vallance/s Vindic. apud Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol.
* Sefebelow
wor-
have been brought into Europe by a colony of
Buddha has ever been
» Asiat. Res. vol.
empire and to found
seems impossible not to conclude, that
whom
original settlements :
to
Roman
its ruins.'
the Goths and Saxons then emigrated
ship of their god
Buddha
more modern times by the
in
Greeks celebrated under the appellation of Sacce and Scuths, and
and as the Scaldic traditions of
their
the Hindoos call Sacas
These are the progeny of those warlike
a republic of independent states upon 1
classical writers
which, in the course of their westward progress from upper
due time were destined
in
whom
by the
Cushas, gradually penetrated into Europe,
or
names of Saxons and Goths. oriental tribes
Mu-Bad,
or
same elevated region of Cashgar and Bokhara and northern
the
Persia, which coincides with the tract denominated
where
Eas-Bad
the chief or the great Buddha.*
v/\i\ch ditnoie?,
X. From
title
.§ II.
iv.
numb.
14. p.
429, 457.
ORIGIN-
Tlir.
We are compelled same
are the
Saxon
To
therefore to believe even a priori, that
3.5.5
Buddha and Woden
*"*''•
and consequently that the theology of the Gothic and
deity,
was a modification of Buddhism.
tribes
conclusion
this
OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
it
ferocious and military
may
naturally be objected, that the character of the
Woden
bears no great resemblance to that of the mild
and philosophic Buddha whose
shedding even of animal
religion prohibits the
blood.
Such an
objection,
In the
swer.
however
admits of a sufficiently easy an-
know not why we
I
place,
first
plausible,
are bound to suppose that the
very ancient theology of the Buddhists was akvays distinguished by characteristics
:
on the contrary,
were imposed upon place, even if
it
that the
present
And,
in the
second
Buddhic theology was always a theology Cuthic extraction
yet, that the military tribes of
;
its
seems probable, that those characteristics
at a comparatively late period.'
we admit
abhorrent of blood
it
in the
course of a long period of erratic warfare should have transformed the mild
Indian deity into the god of
battles,
is
nothing more than might have been
obviously anticipated from their peculiar circumstances.
adapts
divinities
its
to
its
own
favourite pursuits
which led the Christian Goths of Europe
Dennis and
St.
George
:
Superstition ever
and the same humour,
to venerate St.
as accomplished cavaliers,
James and
would induce
St.
their ad-
venturous pagan ancestors to worship the blood-abhorrent Sacya under the
new but more appropriate in short, as these
Buddhist and
two
in that
I)rove that they are
With
2.
ff''oden is
mode
'
On :
may now appear
one god both
simply the Tamulic niode
Buddha same word as
of enunciation,
this supposition
however,
because the system of
it
tluit
is
name and
Vide supra, book
iv. c. 5.
is
in person.
of pronouncing
Buddha
expressed Pooden or Podeti Ifodcn.''
Sir
1,
;
:
Bod ; and
for,
in that
and Poden
is
William Jones, ac-
must have been imposed previous is
Hindoo
yet sufficient evidence to
variation of
philosopher
§ VIII.
Different
Vod\s a mere
J^oden or
Buddliism. *
in
Woden.
in the creed of a
of a Gothic chieftain, there
respect to name, JVod ov
undoubtedly the
goras
character of the sanguinary
deities
to the
days of Pytha-
palpably a modification of blood-abhorring
'
^'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
366 r.ooK IV.
Woden
cordingly, hesitates not to identify the Gothic
Buddha
and, so far as
:
can judge, he
I
But etymology, though an
3.
deemed. sufficient
useful
respond with that differ
perfectly right in his decision.'
is
auxiliary,,
can never
in
itse/f
we must therefore name of Buddha can be shewn
to establish a matter of fact:
whether the person as well as the
may
with the Indo-Scythic
of
Woden, however
from each other.
This
he
inquire,
cor-
to
one characteristic the two gods
in
will lead nie to
touch upon the history of
the Scandinavian divinity in connection with that of the Cuthic Buddha.
The Buddha
of the east
as a triplicated divinity
means of central
ascribed to the time of the deluge
is
and
;
is
said
In
a
similar
manner
is
viewed
have overwhelmed the Asoors by
to
a prodigious inundation, which the Earth poured
abyss.
;
forth from
the
was supposed by the Scythian
it
mythologists, that the whole impious race of the giants perished in a mighty flood,
except one
who escaped
in his bark
that, at this
;
period, a vast
was produced; and that from the cow was born Bure, the
cow
father of Bore,
who begat three sons Woden and Vile and Ve.' The names of Bure and Bore are so evidenriy the same, that we need not scruple to identify the two persons who respectively bear them. Hence the purport of the legend will be, that, at the
epoch of the general deluge, a patriarch and
his three sons,
afterwards worshipped as the great gods of the Gentiles, were born from an
immense
ship which
all
nations agreed to symbolize by a cow.
In the oriental mythology, Buddha ter as
Menu-Satyavrata, and
personage, that
is
to say,
is
his
is
acknowledged
own daughter
history of
Woden.
Res. vol.
'
.Asiat.
'
Edda Fab.
his three sons,
nus
is
iii.
).
and we
;
That
divinity
find is
who were
de mor. Germ. § 2.
Ila
is
The import of
the
.'son
of
reputed to have this
it
legend has
in the fabulous
him who was born from the
p. 425.
Bore and
Mannus
whence
:
something similar to
his triple offspring are the
venerated in the time
said to have been the offspring of Tuisto,
observe, that
same charac-
said to have married Ila the daughter of that
been the consort of her own father Menu. already been considered
to be the
is
Menu
of"
same pcrsonnges
as that
Mannus and Man-
Tacitus by the Scuthic Germans.
the child
or Noah, and that Tuisto
is
of the Earth. the elder
I
need scarcely
Tuut or Adam.
Tacit,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGANf IDOLATUY. cow
Symbolical
and he
;
Now,
goddess Frea.
is
also described
between the Earth and the Ark as
;
as the
Buddha
Earth and less
tlian
Menu
or
word Ida or Ila denotes the Earth
bears
personage as the ship Argha, and as she of
a certain mystic intercommunion
to
who
goddess
the
is
that
at
appellation
once the m
ife
is
the
same
and the daughter
Goths denominated the mother
so Frea was by the
:
being the husband of the
exact accordance with those mythological notions
in
Mhich so widely prevailed relative
or the JVorld,
as
357
mother of the gods, and was supposed to be the offspring no The very name indeed of Ida was the consort of Woden.' the
known
perfectly well
Scythian ancestors,
our
to
expected from their eastern extraction top of their holy
of Ida on the
naturally
niight
be
the Hindoos call the circular
for, if
:
as
Ida-^ratta, the Goths equally bestowed the appellation
hill
higli central
plain which
was thought
to be tenanted by their
diluvian hero-gods.*
Considered as Menu-Satyavrata, Buddha obsequies
;.
and, as such, he
as the conveyer of souls
character of
of those
Frea
to
Woden
who
is
Sraddadeva or the god of
name of Nara-vahajia, vessel, over the infernal river.' The
represented under the
is
in
is
a large
not dissimilar.
He
was thought
to receive the
He was
conduct them to the mansions of the blessed.'
and triumph.*
was
plainly
esteemed a Stygian or infernal deity.
described, as being the inventor of letters, as the conveyer of
knowledge, and as the person
which he communicated
to
who
mankind.
book from heaven
received a sacred
Woden
In like manner
appears, not
only as the god of war, but likewise as the god of literature. attributed the discovery of the
been eminently poses of
life,
as
Edda. Fab.
Runic characters
skilled in the art
of writing,
for the operations
poet, cited by Bartholin,
'
in safety
In short, according to the general notion entertained of the
arkite god, he is
also feigned
descended into Hades, and thence to have returned
to have himself
Buddha
souls
bravely perished in battle, and in conjunction with his consort
v.
Mallet's Noith. Ant. c.
*
speaks
Edda. Fab.
vi.
p. 89, <)4.
and he
Hence an
Runes ^
'
common
which the
Asiat. Ucs. vol. ix. p. 173. ii.
p.
pur-
ancient Gothic
as being /e/?cr*
Ibid. vol.
is
reported to have
is
as well for the
of magic.
of the
vii.
:
To him
220, 221.
chap.
v.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
358 BOOK
IV.
great ancient traced, •which the gods
of the gods engraved.
cot7?posed,
eastern Buddhists sometimes
The
which Woden the sovereign
'
gave a horse to their deity
:
for that
animal was early and very widely adopted, as one of the sacred
symbols
;
whence originated the many
and mother
fables of the great father
Thus
assuming the forms of a horse and a mare.
the Japanese have a
temple of Buddha, which they call the temple of the white horse the holy book of their god
arkite
;
because
supposed to have been brought over on an
is
The Gothic Buddhists, in a similar manner, and it was proIt had eight legs ascribed a wonderful horse to Woden. duced, when the gods were in great danger from the attacks of those impious giants who were swept away by the deluge. Mounted on this horse, Woden, animal of that colour.'
:
the father of inchantments, descended into
reconveyed by him to light and
Woden,
horse of
the infernal regions
;
and was
The
from the drear abode of Hela.'
life
horse of the Japanese Budsdo, was, I have no
like the
doubt, what the old Scandinavians were wont to call a horse of the sea, by
which they meant a ship
Greek and
:
and that ship was the Ark or the Ceres-Hippa of
Nor
British mythology.
the primeval vessel solely under hieroglyphics literal allusion to
Gentiles.
As
it,
floated
name
the
direct
and
in the superstition of the
xiii. p.
:
so the
and under
in the ship Argha,
when
the rest of
Goths assigned
to their
apud Mallet,
p.
deities,
of
371, 372.
Japan, p. 247.
Edda. Fab. xxi,
lour of the horse of
conclude, that
same
and as Buddha under the name of
on the surface of the deluge
Mallet's North. Ant. c.
may
find that
of Menu-Satyavrata was preserved in an ark
' Kaempfer's ^
we
the Egyptians depicted their hero-gods, not standing on dry
mankind perished by w ater '
:
which occurs so perpetually
land, but sailing together in a ship;
Iswara
shadow out
did the Gothic hierophants
in ihe
iv.
Bartholin,
Woden
or
lib. iii. c. 2.
Buddha,
as
is still
it
west as well as in the east
it
vol.
emblazoned
was thought
ii.
220.
in the
From
the co-
arms of Saxony,
to be white.
A
I
similar inference
be drawn from the stupendous representation of the same mystic animal in the English
vale of Ihe while horse.
Woden
Mr. Gray,
speaks of this horse as being
in
his beautiful poetical translation
coal-black
:
but the
t-pithet
is
the origiuaJ, as preserved by Bartholin, does not define the colour.
of the descent of
entirely his
own
addition
;
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
whom Woden
was
a wonderful ship, which with ease contained them
chief,
when completely armed, and which never
all
359
vourable wind to the place of
its
failed to
be wafted by a
fa-
destination.'
There are yet two other points of coincidence between Buddha and
Woden them
which, as they are both purely of an arbitrary nature, carry with
;
the greater weight of evidence.
Nothing more singularly marks the
superstition of
Buddha, than a
belief
that the deity left in various quarters of the globe impressions of his gigantic
He
foot.
is
said to have travelled into very
a large stone covered with hieroglyphics,
Chinese
in
the temple of
Mecca:
in
short,
superstition
was not forgotten by the Goths
Herodotus concludes
in
a
man
but
:
its
size
was
This piece of westward.
account of the ancient Scythians by in-
his curious
It
at
which the
in
their progress
forming us, that near the river Tyras or Dneister they of the foot of Hercules.
by the
Machodar-Nath, by the Arabs on a stone
numerous are the temples of Buddha,
exhibit an ill-formed impression of the holy foot.'
priests
his
shewn by the Cingalese on the top of Adam's peak, by the Siamese
is
Burma empire on
of the
Thus
one of these sacred marks.
to have bequeathed to his votaries
footstep
remote countries, and generally
was cut
a rock, and resembled the footstep of
in
gigantic, for
was no
it
shewed an impression
less
than two cubits in length.*
This Gothic Hercules was undoubtedly the Cuthic Buddha, metamorphosed
god of military prowess, and venerated under the name of JFoden,
into the
The
identity of the
two In the
bitrary coincidence.
of the week, which from
'
east,
him
is
appears also from another point of ar-
Buddha
gives his
Bhood-TFar
called
:
name
to the fourth
day
Woden
has
in the west,
Edtla. Fab. xxii.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi.
Ava. '
divinities
vol.
ii.
Herod. Hist.
like the
vol. vii, p.
414.
vol. viii. p.
305.
Symes's Embass. to
would indeed
82.
of Thibet.
at present
way
says, that the people of the country,
named Casjon was
Asiat. Res. vol.
establish the point
in the
Mr. Wilford
where
this
was shewn, were certainly Buddhists, and that their high-priest who
mount Gocajon
Lama
concluded
295, 483.
lib. iv. c.
footstep of Hercules
resided on
p.
p. 183, 197, 198.
iii.
p. 196.
believed
to be regenerate,
of the Scuths being Buddhists, which
of argument and induction.
exactly
If this assertion be well-founded,
may
it
reasonably be
*^'''^''' ^
•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
860 BOOK
IV.
communicated
name
his
the very
to
same day, which by
that have eminently retained the
nations
the
all
Gothic
language of their ancestors
is
designated by an appellation similar to the English Wednesday.''
Thus,
I think, there is sufficient
or Scythians was
Buddha, and that the
some measure
in
manner
altered during their progress
who assumed
the
same as
the
is
westward precisely
command
title
of a chieftain or
and claimed
such a
in
Whether
from a warlike and roving people.
they migrated literally under the chieftains,
Woden
was corrupted and the character of the god
religion
as might be expected
Goths
evidence, that the religion of the
pure Buddhism, that
originally
succession of
to be incarnations of
Buddha,
or figuratively under the supposed protection of the hero-god of their fathers; is
a question, which at
The genius bable
this distance
of Buddhism renders the that
at least I think,
:
of time cannot be positively determined.
means impro-
supposition by no
first
Mr. Pinkerton
is
too positive in his
far
mode
of advocating the second.'
XI. The Buddhism of in ancient
difficulty,
The
Goths
the
explain a
will
mythology.
religion of the Celts,
as professed in
Gaul and
the same as that of the Hindoos and Egyptians the Canaanites, the Phrygians, the Greeks,
;
the
intervene between the north of Hindostan is
Now
under each system. at the
"
Asiat. Res. vol.
Swedish Odinsdag, English fol.
the
wonder
line
is,
i.
p.
Wednesday
in ;
162. vol.
iii.
to say,
;
reli-
countries which
though the same hero-
on the Goths,
at
Hindoos
some remote period by
in
is
p. ISO, 181.
Hind.
called in
vol.
ii.
p.
481. The
Icelandic Wonsdug, in
Anglo-Saxon Wodensdag, and
day of Woden or Odin.
1748.
* Pinkerton's Dissert,
but the
establishment in the
the
p. .562. Maurice's Hist, of
Bhuod-War of Hindostan,
is
:
should have adopted the very same super-
low Dutch IFoensdag, that
also as that of
that the Britons and the
and should have been theologically united
fourth day of the week, the
palpably
and the great mother, are equally venerated
two extremities of the
stition,
is
and the eastern boundary of
manifestly of a very different school
divinities, the great father
same
final
empire spread themselves irregularly over
Europe,
Britain,
and the Romans
gion of the Goths, whose tribes previous to their
western
point of considerable
in
modern
Junii Etymol. Anglic,
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. a very frequent intercourse middle of the
line
36l
and yet that the Scuths, who occupied the
;
and who therefore intervened between those two
nations,
should have professed a religion of a materially different contexture.'
The preceding Those
stance.
from
discussion will
for the circum-
that either remained in Babylonia or that emigrated
tribes,
a mixed
it in
some measure account
in
those, that retired from
advocated the Brahmenical system
chiefly
state,
Shinar in
an unmixed
Now
simple theology of Buddha.
preferred
state,
the mixed tribes
while
:
more
the
were universally so
mixed, by being under the rule of a Cuthic priesthood and nobility the unmixed tribes were altogether composed of certain
who
:
and
Cuthim or Scuthim,
under some impressions of disgust had separated themselves from their
The
brethren.
professed the
mixed
Celts then and the Hindoos, being equally
same mode of
religion
:
while the
tribes,
unmixed Goths or Cuths,
being descended from a race of pure and genuine Buddhists, pertinaciously refused to abandon the peculiar theology of their forefathers.
Yet, since
the military and sacerdotal castes both of India and of Britain were of the
same
great Cuthic family as themselves, they freely allowed the passage of
devout pilgrims
whom
they recognized
as
their brethren
common
by a
descent from one patriarchal ancestor.* 1. is
The Goths then brought
to say, pure so far as
menisra
:
but,
it
with them into Europe pure Buddhism; that
was unblended with the
peculiarities of Brah-
what shews the very great antiquity of the former mode of
worship, they found
it
already established
among
the Celts
length drove to the utmost extremities of the west that mingled form, in which
;
whom
was perhaps universally carried
it
they at
though established in off"
by the
Brahmenical theologists.
The Gauls
'
The
human
But the Celtic Teutates
ranis.'
Tuisto
venerated with
:
is
and, in both these words,
striking difference
sacrilices
Teutates and Hesus and Ta-
clearly the same as the Gothic Teut or we recognize one of Buddha's well-known
between the Gothic and Celtic theologies has been observed and
pointed out by Bp. Percy and Mr. Pinkcrton,
who judiciously expose
the gross error of Clu-
veriusand Pelloutier on that topic. See Pref. to Mallet's North. Ant. and Dissert, on the Goths. "
These topics are discussed at large
'
Lucan. Pharsal.
Pag.
Idol.
lib.
i.
ver.
in
book
444—446.
vi. c. 3. §
VI. and
Lactant. Instit. lib.i.
VOL.
II.
c. 4. c.
21.
2
Z
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
S62 4ooK
IV.
Tat, Datta, or Twashta.
titles,
In a similar manner, Taranis
each of those names, compounded or uncompounded,
another of the
seems
is
Hesus, both
another of Buddha's
in
titles
;
Hesa, and Har-Esa, which
is
name and
but he bears
it,
He
is
being esteemed the same as Siva or Iswara.
his
name
properly a
character,
in
The
in
This
consequence of Esa,
called
Ma-
sanguinary
of Siva, the
cruelty of whose imagined character of the destroying
responds with that of Hesus.'
:
between the two superstitions.
the connecting link
to afford
appellation
of Buddha,
titles
Thor and
is
equally Tara-Nath,
is
power accurately cor-
identity of Tuisto
and Teutates
is
further proved from the circumstance of their being each called by the Latin
Tacitus says, that the Germans,
Mei'cury.
writers
votaries of
Woden
or Tuisto, worshipped
Mercury
and Cesar, Minucius Felix, and Livy, agree
who adored
Nor
Teutates.*
is
Teutates and Mercury
:
slight
this divinity, as
and
we
At
same of
thrown out partial
:
the Gauls,
random, or
at
resemblance between
much
shall presently see,
dignity has been lowered in classical mythology,
the oriental Buddha.
as their principal deity
in saying the
this assertion
hazarded merely on account of some
who were Goths and
as his
was the same character as
present I shall only notice the arbitrary coinci-
dence of the fourth day of the week bearing the name of Buddha among Hindoos, of
the
Woden among
Mercury among
the
in a large sense, as including the
two
the Goths, and of
Romans. 2.
If the
Hindoo
religion
be taken
systems of Brahmenism and Buddhism, Mr. Burrow assertion, that there are signs
every national
mode
of
it
in
lieve,
for the
country
:
me
most part carried
in
in his
every northern country and in almost it
overspread
Bokhara or the region of mount Meru,
equally certain.
Pure Buddhism was various
directions
indeed, I be-
from that
tract
of
but we must look for the primeval origin of both systems to the
land of Shinar and to the
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
Tacit, de mor.
295.
be right
of worship: but, that the centre whence
the whole earth was the high land of
does not appear to
will
i.
first
Scuthic empire under Nimrod.
From
this
p. 272, 285. vol. viii. p. 355, 359.
Germ.
c. p.
Casar. de
Liv. Hist. lib. xxvi. c. 44.
bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 17.
Minuc.
Fcl. Octav. p.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Buddhism and Brahmenism must have been
centre
363
alike carried into the
west long before the march of the Goths or more modern Scuths from their
Yet Mr. Burrow maj' not be
native seats in Casligar. asserting, as
an evident and palpable truth, that Stonehenge
of Buddha.'
no
In a modified sense,
shipped him
much
Buddha,
we
as
lable
may but
and
Om.
is
the
is
is
a temple
The
Celts,
but then they wor-
:
Hindoos and Egyptians, that
Brahmenism,
of
enmity of the Brah-
yet acknowledged to be an incarnation of Vishnou
is
:
confessedly identified with the triple god Brahma-Vishnou-
venerated,
In
as
Buddha
peculiar superstition with
his
to the Buddhists,
;
safely be admitted.
liave seen, notwithstanding the violent
and, as such, he
Siva
may
same manner
in the
namely by blending
mens
this
than the Goths, were worshippers of
less
mistaken in
far
this
as the personage described by the mystic
monosyl-
manner, I apprehend, the chief deity of the old Druids
be admitted to be Buddha, and Stonelienge to be a Buddhic temple in
it is
this
partook
nature,
manner only
much more
:
for the Celtic theology,
largely of
though of a mixed
Brahmenism than of Buddhism
very circumstance, which produced the striking difference between
;
the
it
and
Gaul and
Bri-
that of the Gothic tribes.
That such a mixture had taken place tain as well as in the idolatry of
in the superstition of
Hindostan, seems to
me
to
be abundantly
In addition to the titles Hems, Teutates, and Taranis ; the names and of Arhan, and of Man or Mahi-Man, Avere well Buddha both of known to the ancient Celts. Budd, Buddugre, Bud-Ner, and Buddwas, were varied appellations of evident.
the principal Celtic god
Hu, who was adored
Stonehenge: consequently, Stonehenge
may
in the
in this
stupendous circle of
manner be
justly said to
have been a temple of Buddha and a representation of the Sakya-valya or mundane ring of Saca.* This divinity, considered as Buddha or Teut, is rightly
pronounced by Cesar, Minucius
Hermes
:
but, in his
Felix,
and Livy,
Brahmenical character, he
is
to be
Mercury or
with equal propriety de-
clared by Diodorus to be Apollo, and by Dionysius to be Liber or Bacchus.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
Davies's Mythol. of Brit. Druid, p. ii6,
ii.
p.
487, 488.
us,
364, 468, 557, 584.
GHAf.
T.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
36ii
BOOK
IV.
Tlie word
Arhan
Mr. Davies Arartm, and
written by
is
supposed by him to denote the arkile god.' exactly accords with such a conjecture
mighty deep, and
Hu
his wliole story relates
and Buddha, he
same
the
the
is
same character
and (I believe) also
in person,
in
The
Aravvn
for
:
not improbably
is
legend of this hero at least is
the king of
immediately to the deluge. as
Noah
:
Man,
and consequently he
or (when expressed compoundedly) the
Man, of the oriental Buddhists. The same system of theology and
it
Buddha
:
and likewise
to
this triad
was believed
fact nothing
titles.
which seems to
Re
to have the disposal of
the
venerated in
Moon
:
and
good and bad weather.'
Buddhic
variation of the
mc
over marriage,^
He was
the god of the waters, and
more than a
or great
the Celts of Ireland,
to preside
be the maritime deity of the winds.
Mananan
Here we
Mahi-Mau
this opinion,
Bad, Bod, or Bud, was thought
conjunction with
is
the ancient Irish were votaries of
that
us,
and he adduces many proofs of
to be a just one.
is in
among
prevailed also
was accompanied by the use of the same sacred
General Vallancey assures
Like
name, as the oriental Arhao,
This deity was sometimes called Manon, Menu, or Memvyd.''
have the
the
It
Bud, consi-
triad.
dered as the great father, was esteemed the masculine president of generartion, exactly
on the same principle that that character was ascribed
Peor, Osiris, and Siva
;
he was obviously made a maritime
deity.
(we are
Man,
the aquatic
told) signifies
the oriental
Buddha and jNIahi-Man
He
and ]\Ian-Anan, whose name
are but one person
are one
:
and
this
Manes, Menes, Menu, or Mannus, whose name and ried to evei-y quarter of the globe. this Irish triad, is largely
male, the
Buddha himself
son of the sea
is
the god is
it
•
Davies's Mythol. p. 198, 417, 4S0.
^
Ibid. p. 584., 228, 428, 176, 568.
^
Orient. Collect, vol.
prcf. p. 49. vol. iv.
ii,
numb.
precisely as
is
the diluvian
is
the third person in
introduced into the fabulous genealogy of Buddha.
nor
:
man
;
history have been car-
The Moon, which
the arkite crescent
If a female divinity,
to Baal-
and, in his diluvian capacity of the arkite navigator,
numb.
i.
Soma
is
doubtless intended by
or Lunus.
it
;
if
a
Mananan was esteemed
without reason, that such a descent was
p. 18,
xiv. p. 491, 509.
19.
Collect, de
leb. Hibern. vol.
iii.
numb.
x.
THE OKIUIN OF PAGAN IDOLiVtKY. ascribed to him
for
;
he
is
the
who was preserved in an arli The name Tat or Tath or
Bud
Tat
and 3fan.
of
The
first
month of
7'ak was as well as the
This point
known
to the ancient Irish as
Hindoo Tat or Datta and the established, not
is
for a
an
merely by the
arbitrary nature.
commenced on
the calends of
honour of the deity of that name
'T/iolh in
day of August was,
same
Egyptians, which
the
August, was called
Mai)i-Man or Buddha or Menu,
by a curious coincidence of
but
title,
as that
at the time of the general deluge.
the
is
Egyptian Thoth or Taut. identity
same
365
similar reason,
by the old
called
and the
:
Irish la Tat.
He
This god was supposed by them to preside over the harvest.'
same
as the agricultural Jupiter, Bacchus,
the prototype of
all
Another of the
was
familiar to
Menu-Satyavrata,
Noah the husbandman. Saman or Soviono : and this likewise
Buddha
of
is
pagan inhabitants of Ireland. is
Buddha, considered as
god of obsequies, agreeably to the
the
notion of the Gentiles, that the arkite god had descended
was the principal Irish
infernal deity.
Such accordingly
He was
Saman, Sanihan, or Shamhna.
and the judge of departed
November,
-ivhcn sacrifices
But
of the deceased.* the infernal
Menu
was the
and Deo-Naush; or as
Osiris,
those kindred divinities,
titles
tlic
first
or
Hades and
the character of the
esteemed the lord of death,
festival
this infernal divinity
flourished
Traces of
preserved in a large ark.
univei-sal
occurred in the month of
of black sheep were offered to him for the souls
Buddha
that primeval superstition lays on the
land and in the western
His
spirits.
is.
into
at;
liis
just as
;
was
the time of the deluge, and
worship, such
human mind,
of Scotland.
isles
was likewise a sea-god
At
still
is
the strong hold
remain both
in Ire-
the time of his festival, which
coincides with the Popish feast of All-Souls, the peasants ^vade into the sea
purpose of searching for the head of
for the
have corrupted from Shamna ale,
'
Collect, de reb.
Hiberii.
Orient. Collect, vol. *
To
this
black ram. '
into Shout/.*
which he throws into the water,
The
infernal
ii.
numb.
vol. i.
iii.
p. 18,
numb.
this god,
One
of
whose name they
them bears a cup of
after invocating the
xii. p.
469i ^70. vol.
iv.
demon numb.
reason,
Saman,
p.
43.
as sacrificing
a
lib. xi.
why is
xiii.
send
19.
Cimmerian or Celtic Pluto, Homer accurately describes Ulysses, Odyss.
to
the feast of All-Souls was appointed to supersede the festival of the
sufficiently obvious.
"'^f-
•
THE ORIOIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY.
366 BooKtv.
abundance of sea-ware
to enrich their
ground during the ensuing year.
ceremony, as was the case with the ancient Mysteries,
They then proceed
night-time.
to
the church
and,
:
is
performed
This in the
having extinguished
a burning candle which had been placed upon
tlie
communion-table, they
spend the
and
singing.'
It often happens, that local
S.
and
rest of the night in drinking, dancing,
theological revolutions,
and thus continue
There
the religion of former days. this nature has
occurred
names survive the shock both of
is
political
to attest to the remotest ages
reason to believe, that something of
in several instances within the limits
of the present
British dominions.
Plutarch speaks of a certain traveller
had
led
him
to visit the
named Demetrius, whose
islets
islands of the
demons and heroes venerated by :
and
singular proof of the ancient prevalence of
titles
isles,
which
in
Ila,
titles
scattered
His account
the natives.^
it
I
enables us to produce a very
Buddhism among
Of
the Celts.
;
bear the denominations of Bute,
the direct attestation of the traveller
and the existence among the Celts of the
Budwas, Budd, Arawn, Teutates, and Taranis, on
we can
the other
hand
scarcely doubt, that those four islands were so called in honour of
Buddha, Arhan,
Ila the arkite consort of
a similar manner,
it is
Man-Anan
or the aquatic
whom
I
settled in the isle of
of these was
in fact
have
Man, who
a holy island
'
Collect, de reb. Ilibcrn. vol.
O
jvtaj JaijOtOKwy xai
Manx,
that
is
described as being the son of the
Hindoo Mahi-Man or Menu,
Man, and thence conferred
*
sifrj
In
identified with the
sanctuary surrounded by the sea
Je Ai;jxi;rf(i}f
Buddha, and Saca or Sakya.
the ancient tradition of the Irish and the
ocean and
^
still
Now, when
and Skye.
considered, on the one hand
is
number of
the time of Demetrius were designated by the
of the British demon-gods, four
Arran,
described
and he added, that some of these were expressly called the
;
believe to have been perfectly accurate
these sacred
He
most distant extremities of Scotland.
that part of the country as being surrounded by a great
and desert
curiosity
twv te^i
iii.
numb.
or,
iv.
in
xii. p.
it.'
Each a
the language of the bards, tiie
mundane Ark
449, 460. ynjirwv Eivai
Plut. de defect, orac.
numb.
name upon
each represented
Tijv BicrTccviacv
-f^qtuMv oyo,aa?eo-6a(.
Collect, de reb. Hibeni. vol.
:
;
his
xiv. p. 509,
tfsXAaj t^t^^Wi
CTt0^a,iu,Si
w}*
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
367
each was considered as the residence of the deified patriarchs bore the
titles,
by which the great father or
his
and each
:
mystic consort were distin-
guislied.
XII.
Samana, which
that in the Celtic festival of
Such sacred
many
wild tales
devoted to the celebration of the funereal Mysteries, have given
isles,
yet extant among the Welsh and the
The family of Gavran obtained
that
title
of the islands
voyage of Merlin and
Lady Morgana
known by
This expedition was not heard of afterwards
the ocean.
became
of the three faithful
told,
by accompanying him
discover some islands, which, by a traditionary memorial, were
Green Islands of
lost to
Camb.
the Britons.
his bards in
rise to
Irish.
Gavran, Cadwallon, and Gwcnddolau, were the heads, we are tribes of Britain.
is
the head of the
superstitiously observed in the western isles of Scotland,
still
'
We have just seen,
The
Biog.
and
the boat of glass,
to the delights of an insular fairy-land.
legend
to the
is
the
to sea to
name of Tht
and the situation
;
closely allied to the
abreption of Arthur by the
It originated
from the circumstance
of some aspirants being cast away, while undergoing the process of the navicular initiation See below book
into the Mysteries.
These Green Islands are thought souls of those virtuous Druids,
v.
VIII.
c. 6. §
who cannot
4. (4.)
abode of the Fair Family
to be the
heaven of their own.
In their better moods they often
Welsh
He, who
in their boats.
been absent only a few hours
;
visits their
when,
which
;
consists of the
enter the Christian heaven and therefore enjoy this
come over
the ocean, and carry the
holy islands, imagines on his return that he has
in reality,
whole centuries have passed away.
We
have
here a variation of the wonderful story told by Tzetzes respecting an instantaneous voyage of the dead from the coast of If
may
you
Gaul
to that of Britain.
See above book
ii.
upon
it
take a turf from St. David's church-yard, and stand
An
behold the Green Islands.
and using
in his boat
relates to the artificial floating islands covered with green turf,
Similar notions prevail
among
See below book
the Irish.
qualifications of
sable
I.
and become
it
as a footstool.
This tale
which make so prominent a
v. c. 7. § I. 3.
They have a
of Ireland was. swallowed up by an inundation of the often arise out of the waves
J
adventurer, we are assured, once actually reached them
by the happy contrivance of placing the turf
figure in the ritual of the pagans.
c. 3.
on the sea-shore; you
visible to those
a strong sight and a strong
tradition, that great part of the north sea,
who faith.
but that the submerged regions
unite together the two indispen-
These regions are sometimes
esteemed an inchantcd Par
is
upon the waves.
sufficiently
which once contained within one of the rock temples. the Ark.
The connection of
the legend with the old Druidical supersti-
apparent from the popular belief, that the magical key of
I
its
compass
all the riches
of the world,
lies
this
navicular city,
buried beneath some
need scarcely observe, that the prototype of the city or island was
See Southey's Madoc. vol.
ii.
p.
146
— 149.
*"'*'•
^'*
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
368 liOftK IV.
god was sought
lost
was peculiarly
diluvian father
and, as
it is
The
for in the sea.
notion, that the
has extended
set afloat,
of a nature altogether arbitrary,
it
head of the great
itself
very widely
thence tends to prove the
namely the common origination of the
point for which I specially argue; various systems of pagan mythology.
Thus
1
Egypt a papyrine
in
head of Osiris
vessel
was yearly made to represent the
which, being cast into the waves, was thought to be carried
;
When
in the course of seven days to the shores of Phenicia.
it
reached
its
made over the lost divinity as being found again Samana concluded their search for his head with riotous
destination, rejoicings were
just as the votaries of
mirth and debauchery.'
Thus
2.
also
Romans; which
we meet with a
similar legend respecting a
together with the
name
of the deity to
head among the
whom
it
belonged,
they most probably borrowed from that ancient and remarkable people the
The god himself was called Summnnus or (omitting the Latin and both his name and his character prove him to be termination) Summan the oriental Suman or Buddha, the Samana or Shamhnaof the other than no The Romans, who, like the Greeks, were fond of resolving Irish Celts. foreign words into their own language, fancied, that Summanus was so called Tuscans.
:
from
was
his
his
\:ie.mgSummus Manium or
character
;
for
tlie
Prince of the Manes.''
S uch no doubt
he was certainly the diluvian god of obsequies
but,
:
since we find the principal infernal deity called by the same appellation both among the Hindoos, the Cingalese, the Burmas, and the Celts, the etymology
of that appellation cannot be reasonably sought for
Ovid
says,
that the
worship of
Summan Mas
Romans, when they were threatened by to confirm the opinion, that
cans
:
a curious
fable,
with the Celtic
introduced
the arms of Pyrrhus
was borrowed from
;
among
the
which seems
their neighbours the
however, preserved by Grater, identifies him with Pluto detailed by Cicero,
Samana and
Luc. de dea Syra.
* Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ^
the Latin tongue.
Tus-
yet he expresses himself as being ignorant of the character of the god.'
An inscription
'
it
first
in
Ovid. Fast.
Procop. in Esaiam. ii.
lib. vi. ver.
c.
52.
sufficiently proves his
the Egyptian Osiris.
lib.
731, 732.
xxix.
c. xviii.
c. 4.
and
close connection
He says,
apud Selden.
:
that, xvhen the
See Plate
I.
Fig. 12.
THE ORIOIM OT PAGAN ICOLATRT.
Summan was
earthen image of
cast
down from heaven, and when
could no M here be found, the soothsayers declared
Tiber
and, accordingly,
;
was discovered
it
369
have
to
it
his
head
fallen into the
the precise place which they
in
pointed out.'
XIII. Pursuing
to the
worship of Buddha, the
Romans, and
to
extreme
limits of the west our inquiries after the
we have been
led to pass
conclude that the
Summan
the Suman, Saman, or Somona, of the
Summan
think, that
we may
One
Cut
by no means the only classical
names of Buddha
of the
same
Such being the
as that of Hindostan.
and
:
of Italy case,
To
this
whose v\orship
it
has been
termination
is
omitted,
is
the
same word
Jain
as
are alike the transmigrating great father. father,
were from the reigning superstition
have been superadded
part of
it.
Of this
to
it,
:
like
and
;
equally led by simi-
and both Jain and Janus
:
according to that universal manner, in which
it
is
not only the great the chief gods of
all
Buddha, he stands
light
than to have formed an originally constituent
whence he asks
Romans, acknow-
Yet, though like Jain or Buddha he stands de-
tached from the great family of classical gods like that oriental deity,
He was
:
he ought to consider the god Janus; since the
theology of the Greeks, which was radically that of the
ledged no such divinity.'
he
is
the
his history sufficiently proves,
same character
supposed, at a very remote
Platoni Summano, aliisque Hit Stygiis.
;
period, to
Grut. Inscrip.
fol.
as
Noah.
have passed over into
10J5.
Cicer. de div.
€. 10. »
0»id. Fast.
Pag.
lib.
Idol.
i.
vcr. 89i
insu-
worship appears rather
his
circumstance Ovid was fully conscious
not unnaturally, in what
Janus;
Janus, when the Latin
But Janus
Paganism thus ultimately resolve themselves lated as
amply
was substantially
seems highly pro-
it
am
opinion I
of appellation, and by unity of character.
larity
•
inclined to
Suman, the Romans apparently horro- ed from
like that of
the Etruscans or ancient Latins.
1.
no other than
am
deity, in
Jain or Jain-Esa
is
William Jones, that the mythology
Sir
whose worship,
that,
is
I
that the oriental Jain ought to be identified with the western
bable,
to
of the latter
orientals.
recognize the old Taautic superstition.
shewn by the
is
from the Goths and Celts to
90.
VOL.
II.
3
A
Jib.
n
sbif.
r.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHy.
370 Italy;
of wliich country, in conjunction with the aboriginal Cameses,
Here he received Saturn
obtained the sovereignty.
he
who, after wandering
;
over the whole world, debarked at length from his ship and brought his
Some
tedious voyage to a successful termination on the coast of Tuscany.
that Janus received from this god instructions in the art of agriculture,
say,
and that through gratitude he admitted him however that may
but,
into a copartnership of
empire
be, precisely the sanje actions are attributed to him,
He was
as the Greeks ascribed to Dionusus, and the Egyptians to Osiris. the it
first institutor
of
He flourished
civil polity.
at so distant a period, that
was a matter of doubt, whether he were a demon or a
mankind from a rude and barbarous mode of life He was their instructor in order and civilization. first,
He
that built
to
their presence
when
He
king.
He was
the deities freely
rites
the
of religion.
mixed with mortals,
on the earth was a thing common and familiar
the frequency of crimes had not yet chased justice from the world
decent sense of shame
brought
submit to the laws of
agriculture.
temples to the gods, and ordained the sacred
reigned in those early days,
and when
:
supplied the place of legal restraint; and
;
when when a ;
when war
and rapine were yet unknown.'
The
rest
of
corresponds with this primeval character.
his history exactly
In the ancient songs of the
Salii
he was celebrated, not as some obscure
To him was
the universal parent of mankind.' the end of
He was
but as the god of gods.*
local divinity,
all things.*
He
was invoked
him
:
and,
as Osiris
is
and
as tlie parent
as the general father,
of the Universe, as the beginning of the several hero-gods.' the whole world was assigned to
as being
called Consiviiis,
attributed the beginning
The charge of
sometimes identified
Typhon or the deluge, and as the ocean is said to be one of the forms of Siva so we are told by Ovid, that the ancient mythologists designated Janus by the name of Chaos.^ Under this title they jointly referred him to with
;
the era of the creation and the deluge '
Plut. in
Ovid. Fast. *
vit. lib.
Num. i.
v.
233, 234,
Macrob. Saturn,
Rom. 247—253.
Pint. Quaest.
lib.
i.
p.
lib
i.
117—120.
as every part of his character
Macrob. Saturn,
269.
e.g. p. 159-
ver. 103,
for,
Macrob. Saturn,
4 Albric. Philos. de deor. imag. c. xiv. p. 317.
Ovid. Fast,
:
lib.
i.
lib.
c. 9- ?•
i.
c.
7-
157.
'
Ibid.
'
Versic. Septim. Seren. Falisc.
p.
151.
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
371
abundantly shews, he was the primeval transmigrating great father
Noah viewed
to say, 2.
that
;
Adam.
as a reappearance of
Noah
In the mythologic composition, however, of the great father,
seems
to
Hence we
have predominated.
^"'^'
is
generally find
him in some manner
connected with a story of a ship and a voyage.
The
coins of Janus exhibited on one side the double face of the god, and
on the reverse
Ovid
either a ship or the stern or
say, that this device
ship of Saturn inquires,
ship.
is
and
j\facrobius
was adopted to commemorate the
but Plutarch
:
why such
prow of a
arrival of the
not satisfied with the solution
and
;
a symbol should adorn the medals of Janus.'
In
still
fact, if
Saturn be esteemed a distinct character from Janus, the device of the ship
ought rather to have been stamped on the coins of the former than on those of the latter
;
by Plutarch
:
and
but Saturn, and Janus, and Cameses, were
properly that
first
The
true
world.
not improbably produced the question, which
this
who was
navigator,
reason, in
may
impression of a ship,
He
respecting him.
short,
asked
equally and
the king and the instructer of an infant
why
the coins of Janus exhibited the
what Athenfeus
best be collected from
says, that
all
is
he was the
tells
inventor of barks and ships
first
us ;
a
circumstance, which at once accounts for the reverse of his medals, and points out with sufficient clearness his real character.
we
aboriginal chapel he had an ancient ark, as
much
in the
Siva,
Hu, or
severally
•
same manner, Mexitli.'
Noah
;
Macrob. Saturn,
Quaest.
Rom.
p.
lib.
bius mentions a play
apprehend, as Dionusus,
151,
152.
Ovid. Fast.
These medals of Janus seem
274.
among
even to the present day.
learn from Septimius Serenus
to
lib.
Athen. Dcipnos.
'
Jane Pater,
O
lib.
cate rerum sator,
Adonis,
ver.
229— 242.
common
:
for
Plut.
Maero-
children exactly similar to one, which prevails in this country
They threw
the coin
up
into
the air;
xv. p. 6^2.
O
i.
have been very
ground, crisd out after the manner of a wager. Heads or ships. ^
Osiris,
associated together as partners in empire, they
c. 7. p.
i.
Accordingly, in his
Yet, although Saturn, Janus, and Cameses, be
when
still,
I
*
principium dcoruro,
Tibi vetus area caluit in aborigine© sacello. Vcrsic. Septim. Seren. Falisc.
and, before
it
fell
to
the
-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
372 BOOK
IV.
seem further
to
shadow out that sacred
Agreeably to sjoddcss
dovt the
triad, so
in the
Brahme-
Janus was called Junonius from the
Juno whose name Mr. Bryant
resolves into Junth, which
:
and who
;
his diiuvian character,
Hence he has not
principle
Voni or
branch
He
a
which at the time of the flood
Kw/zi,
Argha and
only his ship or ark, but he
on the reverse of some of in its bill,
sifrnifies
decidedly pronounced by Mr. Wilford to be the same as
is
Hindoo female
successively assumed the forms of the ship
for,
famous both
and Buddhic systems of theolopy.
nical
or.
his coins,
is
the dove Capoteswari,'
likewise attended by a dove:
that bird appears, either holding
surrounded with a chaplet of olive leaves.
was further thought
to be the governor of the mystic
Hades
;
believed to have the power of opening and shutting the door, by
was approached.'
This part of his character
the door in the side of the Ark, through which
I have
relates,
Noah and
a
*
and was which
it
no doubt, to
his family issued
the reputed regions of death and darkness to those of light and
life.
from
Hence
the altars of Janus were placed before the doors of his temples, to shew that he presided, as Macrobius observes, over entrance and exit: hence also he called
Patulcius and Clusius, or the god of optn'mg and shutting
hence, considered as the solar Apollo, he bore the
title
:
was and
of Thyreus or the
divinity of the door.*
name of
Similar to this was a
was
Prothyrea or the goddess before
called
stance of the quitting of the divinities,
the great mother of the hero-gods.
she was
the door
Ark being considered
and, from the circum-
:
as the birth of the
esteemed the female president of generation.
was the same as Diana, or Venus, or Juno, or Lucina similarly accounted the goddess of parturition.'
appellation of Jana.
tiie
really the
same name
'
ISlacrob. Saturn, lib.
* See
Anal. '
:
i.
for c.
£).
;
each of
Noetic
Prothyrea
whom was
She was immediately and
naturally connected with Janus, the god of the door
from him
She
:
and she then assumed
Jana and Diana are be nothing more than a com-
I apprehend, that
Diana appears
to
p. 159.
a plate representing such coins from Gorlaeus, Spanheim, and Paruta, in Bryant's
vol.
ii.
p.
260,
Macrob. Saturn, JMacrob. Saturn,
lib. lib.
i.
i.
c. y. p. 158. c. 9. p.
Arnob. adv. gent.
158, 159.
'
lib. iii.
Orph. Hymn.
i.
TH£ ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. pound word, denoting the divine Jana. Nigidius, that Jana
Moon, though
that
:
the great father and
tlie
is
we
are informed by
to say, they are astronomically the
Noah and
literally
rate,
same person as Diana, just as Janus
the
is
character as Apollo
At any
373
is the same Sun and the
Janus and Jana
the Ark.'
in short
are
great mother, celebrated by the ancient mythologists
under so many dificrent names.
XIV. Janus
appears to have been sometimes called Vadimon or Vandi'
mon, particularly by the inhabitants of Tuscany
dimon
is
the
same
for
:
we
Va-
are told, that
as Janus- Vertumnus.*
The Etruscan fragn)ent, said to have been found by Inghiram, in which Vadimon is at once declared to be Janus and to be the same person as he
whom do
the Syrians call Noa,
know what
I
can scarcely perhaps be cited as genuine
:
nor
mouth
authority Annius of Viterbo had for putting into the
of the spurious Myrsilus an assertion, that the ancient Tuscans alone wor-
whom
shipped Janus and Vesta,
tain
much
as truth
ciently
forgeries of that writer certainly con-
also that undesignedly has
by the inquiries of more recent authors.
that one of the
bore the
much
curious matter,
Tuscan
now
lakes,
name of Vadimon
:
called
This at
Lago
been established least
to
certain,
di Bassanello, formerly
and, in bearing such an appellation,
Among
him.
bol of the deluge; and an
believed to float for tliey
it
:
and
it is
the ancient mythologists a lake was a
island,
of the Ark.
probable, that in
seem very frequently
to
timber-work and covered with
suffi-
but, according to the account
many
turf.
instances
really did float;
it
one, framed of
artiflcial
Whether such was I
absolutely the case
shall not pretend to
which Pliny gives of
it,
several
it
was esteemed sacred, doubtless
to
determine
islets,
with reeds and rushes, and in form resembling ships, floated upon while the lake itself
sym-
Sometimes the island was
have constructed an
with the islands in the lake of Vadimon,
its
covered
bosom;
the god
whose
bore.*
'
Maciob. Saturn,
*
Vadimon, Janus- Vertumnus.
Ilibern. vol. *
is
shews both the character of the deity and the nature of the worship
which was paid
name
Janib-
in their peculiar dialect they called
The
Vadimon and Labith-Horclua}
iii.
lib.
i.
numb. XII.
Myrsil. de bell. Pelasg.
c.
J),
p. 158.
See a catalogue of Etruscan words
in
Collect,
p. 633, c. vi.
*
Plin. Epist. lib.
viii. cpist.
20,
de rcb.
*^"*'''
'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGA>f IDOLATRY.
374 BOOK
IV.
As
have conjectured that Janus
I
am
so I
some measure disposed
in
is
the
same
to think,
divinity as Jain or Buddlia
that the conjecture
is
ened by the name Vadimon. the question to be
;
strength-
It is certainly an old Tuscan appellation but whence the Etrurians themselves borrowed it. I suspect it
is,
an oriental
;
imported by the wandering Pelasgi, who seem to have
title
been a tribe of the Indo-Scythic Palli and who early settled
in Italy:
for
it is
name Bad or Buddha in composition with Among the many variations of that name we find Bod, Bad,
apparently no other than the
Mon
or
Man.
Now
fVod and IVad.
Bad
or
the syllable
JVad ; whether they be
or not: and the syllable
is
the
same
syllable as
really connected together in point of origin
Mon or
Alan
Mahi-Man
sometimes called
is
Vadimon,
in
F<5f
is
a well-known
or the great
Man.
title
of Buddha,
who
In addition therefore
to identity of character, Vadimon affords a double coincidence of name,
because
compounds together two of
it
however lay any undue
stress
upon
improbable one, I wish to build
the titles of Buddlia.
Though
this derivation.
my
I
would not
I think
it
not an
system upon facts rather than upon
words.
XV.
There with
character,
to esteem the
We
is
another ancient Latin or Etruscan deity of a very singular
whom
same
Janus
as that
is
to preside over the beginning,
Terminus was esteemed the god of
man and man
;
in
that had
life.*
for
:
sometimes Janus
and the preserver of peace be-
justice,
His original
sacrifices
to preside over
were bloodless,
Numa
In most of these particulars he so closely resembles Buddha,
led at once to believe
very appellation of Terminus
The
inclined
incongruous to the character of such a deity to offer him any thing
it
am
am
and Terminus over the end."
which capacity he was aptly made
boundaries and landmarks.
deeming
that I
I
things were ascribed
all
This however was not invariably the case
to Janus.
whom
god and therefore the same as Buddha.
are told, that the beginning and the end of
was reckoned tween
and
closely connected,
Buddhists think
it
is
them the same, and
borrowed from a
to conjecture that the
title
of the oriental deity.
impious to venerate their god with sanguinary oblations
an idea, which naturally arose from the doctrine of the Metempsychosis '
August, do
civ.
Dei.
lib.
iii.
c. 7-
*
Plut. in vit.
Num.
THE OKXOIN
PAGAN IDOLATUV.
Ol'
375
and, in his character of the god of justice, his followers call him
Rajah
;
an ark
at the time
a name, which he bore, as that just
with the
now
it
I
Greece and
not unreasonable to guess, that Terminus
is
pound Dher7n-Menu written
manner of
after the
have not yet mentioned
the character of
preserved in
coincidence of attributes, joined
this
established position that the theology of
theology of India,
But
From
of the deluge.
Menu who was
all
Dherma-
Italy is
the
the
is
com-
the Latins.
the circumstantial coincidences between
Terminus and that of Buddha.
Somono-Codom a large black stone
Buddha
or
and
:
this
frequently represented by nothing except
is
mode of
exhibiting both the great father
the great mother has spread itself over an amazing extent of country.'
was the primeval form of Terminus
:
and
to
this
and
Such
form, as consecrated by
Nunia in the Capitol, Virgil, if the criticism of Lactantius be just, alludes when he speaks of the immoveable stone of that famous citadel.' The epithet,
which the poet applies to the stone, renders
When
criticism is just.
Tarquin wished
the precincts of the Capitol, his project was pels dedicated to different gods.
they would give place to Jupiter:
it
probable that the
to build a temple to Jupiter within
impeded by the numerous cha-
They were but, when
severally consulted, whether all
the others yielded a ready
Teiminus remained immoveable, and kept possession of
assent,
his
temple
with the sovereign of the deities himself.' It
is
a curious circumstance, that Terminus was thought to be the stone,
which Saturn swallowed instead of
and
its
name
This stone was called Betylus
Jupiter.'*
evidently connects the worship
of Terminus
with
:
the old
Betulian rock-worship, which in fact was the worship of Buddha.'
In the Phenician mythology, Betylus was the brother of Cronus, Dagon,
and Atlas
:
and
Uranus
their parent
Betulia, which possessed the life.*
c.
power of motion
as if they
These were most probably sacred rocking
'
Maurice's Iml. Ant. vol.
*
Ovid. Fast.
20.
said to have contrived stones called
is
lib.
ii.
vcr.
p. 31.
iii.
641.
Anc.
stones, M'hich
Hist, of Ind. vol.
Tibull. Eleg. lib.
i.
ii.
^
Lactant.
Instit. lib.
Lactant.
Instit. lib. i.e.
'
Euseb. Prasp. Evan.
i.
20.
c.
Ovid. Fast.
20.
lib.
i.
lib. '
c. 10.
ii.
ver.
666— 67O.
Hesych. Lex.
were held
in
481.
p.
elcg. 1. ver. 12.
Virg. .Emicl. lib. ix. vcr. 448.
*
were instinct with
Lactant. Instit.
lib,
i.
THE OUIOIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHV.
376 BOOK
IT.
Terminus then
high veneration in the Druidical superstition.
same person
as Betylus
not only because a stone was
;
which Saturn swallowed
clearly the
tlie
form under which
is
expressly declared
each of them was worshipped, but because Terminus to be the stone
is
and which
in lieu of Jupiter
itself
bore the appellation of Betylus.
That
name and
only from his form, but likewise from his I
may be
Betylus however was the same as Buddha
this
his
inferred, not
genealogy,
once thought with Bochart, that Betylus was the scriptural compound
Bdh-El
or the house of
God:
but yet, like Terminus, he
certainly appears to be
it
it,
have already seen, is
that,
among
pronounced, one
that his consort
is
Ila
well as a feminine
as to the propriety
is
title,
Paganism, that one of
we
and, however the Phenicians
:
a compounded
the various
modes
Bat, Bait, or Baiuth.
w hence, even
:
pillar
spoken of as a god, not as a place of worship.
is
expressed the word Baitulos
The Greeks
Buddha
now my doubts
Betylus w as indeed represented by a stone
of such a derivation.
might write
but I have
if
we knew not
title.
Now we
which the name
in
We
that Ila
is
have also seen a masculine as
uiight infer, according to the analogy of ancient
his appellations
must be // or
Such circum-
Ilus.
stances render the conjecture probable, that Baitulos or Betylus
is
in reality
name Bait or Buddha with the title // suffixed to it. This last title was well known to the Indo-Scythic Phenicians: and thty bestowed it on the person, whom the Greek translator of Sanchoniatho denocninates Cronus.^
the
The
state of the question in short,
is this.
We
large stone
Bat was
know, that Buddha was worshipped under the symbol of a
and we likewise know, that
:
or Bait, and that one of his
stances,
we
with respect to the etymology of Betylus,
his
titles is
name
is
// or Ila.
are told, that the stone, which represented
called Baitylus: for this
is
frequently pronounced
Under such circumTerminus or Buddha,
the express assertion of Laclantius.
Now,
it is
was the appellation of the stone which syuibolized Budd-Ila, surely more reasonable to suppose that it borrowed its name from the
god
whom
since Baitylus
it
confessedly represented, than to imagine that
derived from the action of a '
Hebrew
patriarch
Euseb. Prap. Evan.
lib.
i.
it
ought to be
who was a worshipper
c. JO.
not of
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAX IDOI-ATRY. At any
Buddha but of Jehovah. symbol of the god
Atlas
;
whom
with
would
certainly the
described as being the brother of Dagon, Cronus, and
is
one person,
all
equally the transmigrating
all
every new world commences.
indifferently call
god Dagon, who,
This person
in allusion
Noah, was
by the Greek translator of San-
said
choniatho to be the same as Jupiter-Arotrius
Terminus or Betyius, though
father
writers
find, that the fish-
to another part of the history of is
gi-eat
classical
tlie
Hence we
Cronus and Jupiler.
esteemed the patron of agriculture,
that
was
rate, the stone Baitylus
J5ail-Ila.'
Though Betyius they are
377
:
his office
and hence we likewise
was
latterly confined
find,
to the
guardianship of boundaries, was in reality no other than Jupiter himself.
One
of the
Terminus,
names of
this deity
was TerminaUs
and he was thought,
Accordingly, while
preside over landmarks..
to
;
we
Lactantius, Ovid, and Plutarch, that Terminus was the god to
dedicated landmarks
:
;
and
uudei this tbrin, he was called Cappotas
Buddha
to
When
Pout
or
Fat
a
:
title,
Jupiter
was venerated
which again brings us
name oi that god is frequently pronounced and the compound Cappotas will denote the illustrious
for
;
whom Noma
by Cicero, that one of the most
solemn oaths was by Jupiter the stone.*
back
are told by
we are informed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that
was Jupiter-Tcniiinalis
that gud
like
or Poti,
tlie
Pout.'
XVI. With
respect to
Dagon,
his
form was so precisely that of the Chal-
dean Oannes and of the Indian Vishnou
in
the fish Avatar, exhibiting, to
use the language of the Buddhists, the sovereign prince
of the belly of tne hieroglyphical his identity
v\ith
each of those
fish,
Buddha
that we, cannot for a
moment doubt
His worship seems
deities.
issuing out
to
have been
by the Indo-Scythic Phenicians, when they migrated
brought into Palestine
westward from Babylonia and the confines of Hindostan of country, designated by the appellations
;
that large tract
of the oriental Ethiopia and
Cusha-dwip within,
'
Lactant.
"
Dion. Haiic. Ant. Rom.
'
Piius.
Instif. lib.
i.
Lacon. p. 204.
Pag.
Idol.
c.
20. p. lib.
ii.
1
11, 112.
Bochart. Canaan,
Epist. ad famil.
lib.
ii.
c. 0. p.
707-
Ep. ad Trebat.
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 260.
VOL.
II.
3
B
'«*''•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
878 HOOK
It,
1.
The Oannes
Erythr^an sea
mermen
merman
feigned to have emerged from the
is
man and
mingled form of a
in the
the instructor of a
these
of the Chaldfeans
new race
every useful
in
a
and
fish,
We
art.
have been
to
are told,
that four of
successively appeared, or rather, I apprehend, that the
exhibited
himself at four different times
;
he bore the name of Dacon.'
his manifestations,
and In
that,
this
same
under one of
legend
we may
evidently trace the doctrine of a transmigrating great father, appearing at the
commencement of each mundane system of the intervening deluge
Oannes-Dacon Oannes was
is
as
and
it
is
he had floated on the surface
almost superfluous to observe,
palpably the Pliiiist^an and Phenician
likewise called Annedot.
Dagon,
that
same Jain-Dot ov Jain-Datta. title
:
after
Oannes
is
It
same
the
Dacon
as Jain-Esa, and
All these are appellations of
Each
Dagon.
not unlikely, as
is
that
the
is
Annedot as
Buddha: so
that
both the names and the character of the Babylonian or Philistean god clearly identify
him with that ancient Indo-Scythic
2. Equally well
known
it
the
The word
the east of Babel. syllable of
is
title
divinity.*
Dagon
in the regions
itself signifies the fish
being the Chaldean
Dag ;
of the triplicated great father venerated
On
or
which
Om
lie
the
:
to
first
and the second, the mystic name
in tlie
Sun.
in the figure of a Some dome or egg surmounted by a pyramid, are still called Daghope and Dogon} And this mode of designating them is perfectly agreeable to the principles of The Ark was symbolized by a fish, and was considered in old mythology.
of the temples of Buddha, which are constructed
the light of a temple
:
whence, Paganism being for the most part founded on
a commemoration of the deluge, nerally copies of
god Buddha
is
Hamelton speaks of two temples
fish.
principal seats of the
Buddhic
superstition,
likewise of the
in Pegu,,
The Greek translator, by prefixing the article, has changed Dacon oriental name of the god was clearly Dacon or Dagun. '
Syncell. Chronog. p. 29.
^
Asiat. He*, vol.
431.
Euseb. Chron.
Purch.
one of the
which so much resembled each
'
vi. p.
were ge-
agreeably to his character of the sovereign prince in
himself,
the belly of the
ten)ples of the diluvian gods
mundane Ark or ship of Noah. not only the name of the temple, but
llie
Dogon however
tlic
into
Odacon
:
but the
p. 5.
Pilgr. b, v. c. 4. p.
468.
See Plate
III. Fig. 23.
THE OaiGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
379
Other in structure that they seemed to be built by the same model.
The
former of them stands temple of Kiaki
:
in
a
the hitter
is
is
Kiaki-Jck or the
called
low plain, and
built in a
is
called the temple
of the one are always open
The doors and windows
Daouii.
and
lofty situation,
and every
:
body has free permission to see the gigantic image of the deity within is
sixty
fee.t
of deep repose six
doors and windows are always
These refuse
priests.
that his form
say,
world
that
is
They
to
have
none can enter except the
describe the precise shape of
to
supposed
m hich
;
But of the other the
millenaries.
shut, so
not human.
is
Dagun
;
and only
when Kiaki awakes,
teach, that,
Dagun
the
will
form a new
of this superstition can scarcely be mistaken.
Kiaki and
anaihilated
is
posture, and
reclines in a sleeping
that state
in
lain
long,
of
but that out of
;
its
fragments
one.'
The import
Dagun
represent the great father in his two characters of the destroyer and
the renovator of the woild
:
and the mysterious opening and closing of the
doors of their respective tem[)les seem to be founded on notions similar to those,
The
which form the basis of the worship of Janus.
the famous allegorical sleep of the transmigrating patriarch sal
mode of
sleep of Kiaki :
and the colos-
representing him, as well as his posture of repose, would leave
us no room to doubt of his being the same as Buddha, even
Kiaki or Sakya and the country decide the point for he
valent to
Dag- Pout
Bhavani ; who
which he
in
His companion Dagun
Dae or Dak-Po
certainly the
is
or
on the deluge
floated
in the
there
is
It
may
"
is
;
and Dak-Po
de reb, Hib. vol.
equi-
said to be the father of
and there
is
a notion, that he presides I think, to
understand
Buddha
eighteen cubits long, which appears in the
as the statue of Kiaki described by Hamelton.'
iv.
Asiat. Res. rol. vi. p. 451.
is
form of the ship Argha, and who was
ii.
p. 57.
ii.p. 110.
*
sutficiently
a mere reduplication of himself:
Doca; by which we ought,
Hamelton's Ace. of the East Ind. vol.
• Collect,
name
be observed, that in one of the temples of Ceylon
a colossal statue of
same sleeping posture
:
if his
worshipped did not
of the Thibetians
the universal mother of the hero-gods
Moon.*
is
is
Dag-Buddha. This Dak-Po
over a celestial mansion called the arkite
is
numb.
14, p. l6l.
See Plate
II. Fig. 2.
Doubt-
See also Syraes'j Embass. to Ava. vol.
THE OKIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRS".
380 liooK IV.
less
a similar mythological opinion consigned the god to a deep slumber both
among
the Buiinas and the Singalese.
It
3.
Dason
should alike have been
The
Ocean.
name and
a curious circumstance, that the
is
found
in
one of the islands of the Pacific
two large stones one of which
natives of Easter Island adore
;
is flat
and broad, and the otlier erect and about
of the
latter
is
is
Dago and
called
or Terminus
the precise worship of
is
and the combined veneration of Dago and Taurico
:
But the worship of Dagon not-only prevailed
The
also far into the west.
Dagh-dae Dagon,
the
ancient
god Dagh: and he
or the
Siamese Dagun, and
They esteemed him
arts
They
and sciences, and
He
made
was
their
over the produce both of the
|)reside
him
to
have been
skilled in the
and the art of
:
mother and the general father of
suflficiently
mark the prototype,
to
all
their
which we ought
Dagh-dae.
is
said to have been the brother of Hercules-Ogmius;
the Celts.'
two mythological brethren
to
literature,
and who was no
name
less highly
Identity however of attributes will prove the
be really one and the same person
to demonstrate, that the ancient hero,
venerated under the
or Dag-Buddha.
and, extending his influence to the
likewise reckoned
-who was also the reputed parent of
ample evidence
Dak-Po
and as such, he was
divinity
among
they called
same as the Phenician
tlie
Thibetitin :
whom
Dia-Teibith or god of the Ark
refer the character of
venerated
evidently
dtity,
extended
letters
Such particulars
XVII. This
had a
in the east: it
to have taught their ancestors
the consort of their great
deities.'
is
the god of fertility
«ea and of the land.
poetry.
Irish
the
vatery element, they supposed him to
is
This
Tcturico.^
:
not dissi«iilar to the joint adoration of Kiaki and Dagun. 4.
io
The top
feet in height.
t^en
carved into the form of a man's head crowned with a garland
and the two are
Buddha
the superstition of
whom
:
and there
the Greeks
of Heracles or Hercules, but whose worship
spread over the face of the whole earth, was no other than the oriental
Buddha.
'
Account
* Collect, '
of discov. in Pac. ocean.
de
ri-b.
Hib.
vol.
iii.
numb.
Collect, de rtb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 503.
London, 1767. 12. p. 5^4,. vol. iv.
numb.
14. p. l6), 502, 503.
THE 1.
I
OlirOIN OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
38J
have already had occasion to notice those legends, which coanect
Hercules with the Paradisiacal garden of the Hesperides and with the pent that was fabled to be the keeper of the golden apples.
we
Buddha of
most of the hero-gods, he
like
Noah.
father or the scriptural
far
is
In such tales
Adam, the Alenu-Swayambhuva Saman^an superstition but,
behold him sustaining the character of
of the Hindoos and the elder
ser-
the
:
more celebrated
It is in this
as the second great
capacity therefore, that
have
I
at present chiefly to consider him. 2.
Under
name of Menii-Satyavrata
the
or Dherma-rajah,
appears as the sovereign prince in the belly of the
Ark
gator of the
and as the navi-
fish
Here he
at the time of the deluge.
Buddha
at
once
identifies
himself with Daijon and Hercules.
A tradition by a large
was swallowed up
prevailed, that the latter of these deities
fish,
and that he remained three days within
or Cetus was nothing more than a symbol of the
Ark
it'
This large
fish
whence we are
;
formed by Hesychius, that Ceterii denotes a ship large
like
a xvhale
:
in-
and
the three days related to the three years of Noah's inclosure within the Ark,
manner so long preserved among the Jews. The confinement was a year and ten days so that he entered
calculated after the ancient
whole period of the
Ark
his
:
remained within
in one.year,
the third year. Hence, by the old
have been three the
same manner,
of the
That
Jonah to
fish,
be inferred
He
was given
which
is
lain three
fable
to
it
in
said to
years within the whale; precisely in
is
days in the tomb.
similar to that of Buddha's inclosure
declared by his votaries to be literally the Ark,
from what we are also is
literal
is
reckoned to have been three days in the belly
is
have
the import of this
within the
cules.
as
and Christ
fish,
an entire second year, and quitted
mode of computation, Hercules
days or three
n)ystic
it
literally told
may
respecting the maritime Her-
feigned to have sailed over the ocean in a golden cup, which
him by Apollo
to have been a ship
Jupiter presented
;
:
but
this
cup
and the same author
Alcmen^ '
is
rightly declared by
tells
Macrobius
us from Pherecydes, that
the mother of Hercules with another golden
Tictz. in Lycoph. rer. 34.
'^"'*''" '•
tHE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IPOLATIiy.
38fi-
****
"^*
cup which was shaped
Argha of
The cup
a boat.'
like
and which was transformed into a dove when the waters
In the sacred rites of Hindostan
subsided.
which ought always to be shaped
that,
is
Argo of
the
the
ship
is
represented by a cup or
is
a boat, though Arghas
even square.*
circular, or
Greeks and Egyptians
Hindoo sacred
as the
it
like
sometimes be seen of different forms, oval, vessel
certainly the
is
the Indo-Scytliic mythology, in which Siva floated on the surface
of the delude,
dish,
of Hercules
and accordingly we
:
sometimes said to
is
He
have been at once the builder and the captain of the ship Argo.'
;
whom
Danaus, each of
Osiris and
Argo
same common progenitor of mankind
in fact the
likewise
is
though on the whole he appears
than to the gods of the Brahmenical family. character, thraj
upon
it
was usual
to depict
him
it
from Tyre
Thus
raft,
sha-
Jason and
as
the captain of the
Agreeably
in a boat.
he was represented on a vrooden
made
be more nearly
to
find,
by a navicular cup, and as Her-
typified
cules also sailed over the ocean in a navicular cup, so he
dowed out
may This
allied
to
Buddha,
to this part of his
in his
temple at Ery-
and was supposed to have
sailed
Pausanias truly remarks, that the image of
in Phenicia.
the god resembled neither those of Egina nor those of Athens, but that
had a near
affinity to
those of Egypt.*
similar to that of Osiris or 3.
Both
in
Egypt and
remote antiquity.
Ammon
in
'
Apollod.Bibl.
Herodotus
lib.
'
Ptol.
iii.
ii.
c. 5.
Heph. Nov. Hist.
this raft.
which
is
lib. ii. I
was one of the
oldest gods of
was reckoned among the twelve who were
p. 310.
think
it
lib. xi. p.
470. Macrob. Saturn,
it
Apollod. Bibl.
however right
lib.
i.
to observe,
c. 9- §
lib. v. c.
21.
19-
that the unfortur>ate ambi-
somewhat uncertain, whether Hercules
it,
he appears rather
Mr. Bryant's opinion,
tale of
to
mean
that Hercules
rendered the more probable by the
and by the annexed p- 323.
that he
tells us,
or
Minerva wah
In the beginning of the passage, Pausanias seems to speak of the latter;
but, at the conclusion of
clined to assent to
the holy ship Baris or Argo.
in
Athen. Deipnoe.
guity of the original Greek renders
on
was a representation
p. 133, 134.
* Paus. Achaic. p. 405.
strated
it
Phenicia the worship of Hercules was of very
the former country, and that he
* Asiat. Res. vol.
Doubtless
it
the former.
On
the whole
I
am
was the person seated on the
known veneration
in-
raft:
of the Tyrians for that deity,
an imagined voyage from Phenicia.
Bryant's Anal. toL
ii.
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAX IDOLATRY, produced from the famous Ogdoad
he was
but his history shews,
:
head of the eight primeval
really the
was sometimes reputed
383
Accordingly, he
divinities."
have been the parent of eight children
to
Noah,
as
tiiat,
;
and, at
other times, the father of three sons.* In Tyre he had a magnificent temple,
which
asserted to be coeval with the city, and
his priests
days of Herodotus
to
which
the
in
The
they ascribed the age of twenty three centuries.
curious historian took a voyage on purpose to
visit it
and from every
;
cumstance was convinced, that Hercules was a most ancient deity.' the Phenicians he « as esteemed the god of navigation
The Greeks borrowed
Palemon and Melicarth.*
working them up into a fable which
Among
and they called him
:
names
these
explains
sufficiently
who bore them
they represented the maritime deity
cir-
its
own
and,
;
origin,
as being the son of the
Thel>an Ino the nurse of Dionusus. 4.
Hercules however appears not only
in the character
maritime, but also in that of an infernal, deity.
once resembles Buddha and
all
In
ancients, the
Satyavrala,
aa ark
who
is
the
same
as
Noah,
it
is
in
Hence Afenu-
said to be Sradda-deva or the god
is
a part of the office of
convey the souls of the dead
for reasons
mythology of the
Buddha-Gautama and who was preserved
time of the deluge,
and hence
:
the
god of obsequies and the sovereign of Hades.
at the
funerals
in
particular he at
this
the other arkite divinities.
which have been already assigned, was esteemed,
of a warlike and
Buddha
in
of
or Salivahana to
a large vessel over the sacred Gangetic river
of Patala or Orcus.
Agreeably
to this notion, the diluvian
and
chus, Osiris, Adonis,
Once he descended Admetus another :
Pirithdus, or, as
Woden,
to
Hercules was supposed,
like
Bac-
have visited the infernal regions.
into the nether world to bring back Alcestis, the wife of
time he liberated from the shades of hell Theseus and
some
say,
Theseus
only.
On
both these occasions,
he
dragged to the realms of day the three-headed dog Cerberus.' '
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
43.
'
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
44.
*TicU.
*
Hesych. Lex. Euseb. Praep. Evan.
*
Albric. do dcor. imag. c. xxii. p. 324.
Diod. Bibl.
lib. iv. p.
232.
lib.
in
c.
i.
Lycoph.
ver. 38.
Herod. Hist.
lib. it. c.
9.
10.
Hyg. Fab. 51.
^polled. Bibl.
Txcti. in Lycoph. ver. 51, i328.
lib. ii. c.
5.^ 13.
oap.
^•
THE OKIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
384 BOtt* IT.
It is
into
worthy of observation,
that,
Mysteries of Ceres.'
This
tiie
The
design.
initiation into the
previous to his descent, he was initiated is
not said of him at
random or without
Mysteries scenically represented the mythic
descent into Hades and the return from tlience to the light of day
;
by which
was meant the entrance into the Ark and the subsequent liberation from
Such Mysteries were established
dark inclosure.
pagan world
:
in
almost every part of the
and those of Ceres were substantially the same as the Orgies
They
of Adonis, Osiris, Hu, Mithras, and the Cabiri. the allegorical disappearance, or death, tlieir
its
commencement and ;
or descent,
equally related to
all
of the great father, at
to his invention, or revival, or return
from Hades,
at their conclusion.*
As Hercules was thought have quitted
gloomy regions
its
esteemed an infernal deity, fered to him.
to have descended into hell,
in
in safety
;
so he
which capacity
and afterwards
to
was sometimes decidedly
sacrifices for the
dead %vere
of-
This was in his character of a Cabirus or Id^an Dactylus
:
and here he exactly accords with Buddha, or Menu-Sraddadeva, or BaalPeor.' 5.
We
have seen, that the columnal deity Terminus or Janus was one
of the forms,
under which Buddha was adored
in
the west
Mercury was another of those forms.
presently see, that
being also, as I contend, a form of Buddha,
we
;
and
shall
Hercules therefore
shall find, that his character
curiously melts into that both of Mercury and Terminus,
as the character
of Terminus similarly melts into that of Mercury.
In the collection of count Caylus, there are two representations of the Celtic Hercules-Ogmius or Hercules-Magusan, copied from an urn found at Sisteron a small
perfect
Terminus
pillar, is
town :
in Provence.
The god appears
in
each of them as a
human trunk, which surn)ounts the upright stone man clad in the skin of a lion. In one of the
but the
that of a robust
representations, he holds a club in his hand, thus uniting Hercules with Ter-
minus
:
in the other, he holds the
caduceus round which two serpents intwine
themselves, thus blendino toaether the characteristics of Terminus,
'
Apollod. Bibl.
'
Cicer. de nat. deer.
lib. ii. c. 5. §
12.
lib. iii. c.
l6.
*
Vide
infra
book
v. c. 6.
Her-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. coles,
and Mercury.
upper extremity
its
both
holding
Biiddha-Sakya,
may be
a ring or
observed, that the caduceus terminates at
Most of
among
sacred circle of his consort Ila
;
Hindoo gods are delineated, and the Sakwell, or ring of
the
numerous hands
their
greatly celebrated
is
This hieroglyphic was much used
circle.'
in the west.
one of
in
it
in
and
in the east
It
:
the Buddhists.
It exhibits the
which upon an immense scale
on the summit of mount IMeru, and which
to exist
385
alike
supposed
is
symbolizes the
Earth and the Ark. In another plate taken from the collection of count Caylus, Hercules
on a large stone playing on the
lyre,
while his club
lies
by
The god appears
faucon gives a somewhat similar representation of him.
leaning upon his club and standing near an olive-tree, a branch of which
On
holds in his hand.
one side of him,
fine arts
:
he
a blazing altar; and, on the
Here he assumes
other, lies his lyre at the foot of the tree.'
of the patron of literature and the
is
sits
Mont-
his side.*
character
tlie
and, while he bears in his hand
a branch of the sacred dikivian olive esteemed by the Celts a symbol of that universal knowledge which issued from the Ark, or
by which Terminus and Buddha were
alike
sits
upon the massy stone he seems to claim
represented,
the invention of the lyre which classical writers ascribe to Mercury.*
Nor
this
is
resemblance merely accidental or imaginary.
It w;as pointed
whom
out by Lucian, and fully acknowledged by a Gallic mythologist to
made
the observation.
minated Ogmius
tells u's,
that Hercules
that they depicted
;
and yet that he had skin,
He
all
him, as an ancient
man
nearly bald
the air of the Grecian deity, being clad in
and armed with a club and a bow.
he
was by the Gauls deno-
But, what appeared to Lucian
most singular circumstance was, that he was represented drawing
;
a lion's
after
tlie
him a
number of men by small golden chains, fastened at one end to their ears at the other to his own tongue. Slender as the chains were, not one of
and '
14-
Cayl. Ant. vol.
P-91,92. and
* Cayl. '
Ant. vol.
i.
i.
iMont. Ant. vol.
* Herat.
Astron.
lib.
Od. ii.
Pag.
lib.
pi.
SS.
apud Vallan. Vindic.
in Collect,
dc reb. Hibern.
vol. iv.
numb.
pi. 2. in fin.
p. ij.
ii. i.
p.
lbi
224. apud Vallancey Ibid. p. S7.
od. 10. ver. 6.
ApoUod.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
c. 3.
i
5.
c. 10. § 2.
Hyg. Poet.
c. 7.
Idol.
VOL.
11.
3
C
THE oniGIJI OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
38(5 HOOK
IV.
whom
the persons to
they were attached seemed to
make
the least effort to
break them or to express the least wish to extricate himself. they
trary,
all
On
the con-
followed the god with evident pleasure and eaiferness
for
;
the chains were slack, and therefore had not the least semblance of dragging
them along by
Lucian naturally enough concluded, that
violence.
an allegorical mode of expressing the powerful therefore that the god of eloquence
mentioning
among
effects
of eloquence, and
On
Gauls was Hercules.
the
he was informed by a
opinion and declaring his surprize,
his
was
this
Gallic pliilosopher, that his conjecture was perfectly right, that the attributes
Mercury were ascribed by the Gauls
of the Grecian
to Hercules,
and that
with them the warlike god of strength was also the god of eloquence.' This
whom
evidently that principal deity of the Gauls,
Mercury, and who was sometimes called Teutates and Hesus.''
Woden
He
ancestors in Cashgar and INIagadha.
of
all
Buddha
or Tuisto of the Goths, and the
was
is
Cesar pronounced to be
He
was the
or Tat or Tzvashta of their
in short the primitive fountain
the knowledge of the postdiluvian world, the real instructor in letters,
and the true author of
He was
social order.
was the primeval god of the ocean, and who
who
that ancient character,
sailed over its
mighty waters in
the vessel which his posterity symljolized by a sea-fish and a navicular cup.*
XVIII.
A
notion prevailed, that one of the exploits of Hercules was the
casting of certain
enormous stones
some
the approach of wild animals, or, as
bridge over which he might drive the herds
scene of
mouth of
into the
this action is laid in the straits
the ocean to prevent
make a sort of rude of Geryon from Erythia. The say,
to
which separate Europe from Africa,
and the stones themselves are called Hermata.'' This fable bears a near
rela-
tionship to the similar tale of the construction of Bal-Rama's bridge, which
'
Lucian. apud Banier. Mythol.
*
Casar. de
'
From
borrowed Potitius
:
bell.
Gall.
vol.
*
vcr.
p.
liercules-Pot or Hercules-Pouta their
but
name of this
Putitii.
was the
title
lib.
i.
c.
I
am
inclined to believe,
of the god himself, assumed is
the
26S— 2S2.
Bochart. Canaan,
263, 264.
that his Latin priesls
Virgil places at their head an archimage,
scarcely remark, that Put or Poula viii.
iii.
17.
lib. vi. c.
37. p- 644.
same word
as
by
whom
his chief minister.
Buddha.
he calls I
See Virgil, ^neid.
need lib.
IK'S
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
387
joined together the continent and the island of Ceylon. It was formed of vast stones,
same
and was fabled to be the work of his
name of the giant's causey am much inclined to believe,
superstition the
rently borrowed.
I
the monkeys.
allies
in Ireland has
From
been appa-
Hermata were of Buddha and
that the
the terminal kind, and were closely allied to the worship of I think
most probable,
it
same mode of
referred to the
:
famous columns of Hercules ought
that the
They seem
idolatry.
to
the
to
be
have been reckoned
two stupendous natural Termini or sacred pillars, and were perhaps originally
deemed forms of Buddha or Hercules
who, we know, both was and
;
still
continues to be venerated under the symbol of a large stone or rude column.
have been the nature of the Hermata, as we
Such
at least appears to
infer
from the very name
Terminus
to that of
;
may
which curiously joins the worship of Hercules-
Hermes
or Mercury, and thus brings us by a less direct that the
course to the long-established position,
Hermes of
Buddha of the east. 1 The peculiar and primeval form of Mercury was .
the west
is
the
a large stone, fre-
quently square, and without either hands or
feet.
Sometimes the triangular
shape was preferred, sometimes an upright
pillar,
and sometimes a heap of
From
rude stones.
the use of
form Kircher was naturally led to
this
He
pronounce, that Mercury was the god Terminus of the Egyptians. I believe, perfectly in the right
and as Buddha Hercules.
bore the
;
:
IMercury was at once the same as Terminus
just as Terminus,
Buddha, and Janus, are
These stones were aWed
name
Hermean
of
heaps.
So
of Mercury,
that,
specially indeed
whenever
was by the Greeks joined
in
it
Herma
The
tom of each passenger throwing a stone of the god.
last
alike the
same as
and Ilermea ; and the heaps were accumulated by the cus-
to the daily increasing
mass
in
honour
was the stone column esteemed the
was comnmnicated
composition with their names
was represented with the
attributes
figure
name we have a Sometimes the Mer-
to other deities,
Herm-Apollo, a Herm-Athene, and a Herm-Eros. curial pillar
was,
:
his
thus
of Priapus
:
nor was
it
without reason, for ultimately and fundamentally INIercury and Priapus were
each the great universal mystic abominations.
complex form
:
father,
and were each worshipped with the same
At other times
two stone
pillars
the symbolical column was of a
were placed erect
in the
more
ground, and were
'^^'^' ^'
388 1101)11
origin of ?agan idolatry.
thil
IV.
surmounted by a
third laid horizontally
precise form of the
immense
three separate upright
case the
number
three
who was adored
upon
trilithons of
pillars
two summits.
their
Stonehenge, as the other
at Borough-Bridge,
was selected
as the great father
in
This
take
I
honour of the
it,
the
is
that of
is
that in each
self-triplicated
deity
and the occurrence of such monuinents
:
certainly corroborates the opinion, that Stonehenge
Buddha, yet of Buddha venerated
was a primeval
in conjunction with
tem|>le of
deities of the
the
Brahmenical pantheon,' It
mode
astonishing to what a wide extent this
is
of worship has spread
and liow frequently the rude form of Mercury has been communicated
itself,
to other deities.
common mode of reasons, may be inferred
have already observed, that exactly such was the
I
representing Buddha: whence, exclusive of other
To a
Buddha and Mercury.
the identity of
similar source
the Betulia of the Phenicians
mentioned
stone columns (as
remarked) which are
I
have
just,
we must
ascribe
by Sanchoniatho, and the vast to be
found
in various
parts of this island.
As Buddha was
the great father and the reputed consort of Ila or the
great mother, and as the several forms of the male deity Avcre constantly
ascribed to the female
goddess
when
;
also represented
is
god bears the semblance of a
the
Thus
by the same symbol.^
after the flood
;
'
vol.
i.
sect. 4. p.
p. 16,
lib.
c.
Herod. Hist.
lib.
life.'
It
ii.
ii.
c. 51. Buxtort'.
c.
Kirchcr. CEdip. ^Egypt_
1.5.
Sanhcd.
c.
vii. fol.
60. Maciob.
See also twoelaboratenotcsof Ouzelius on the Octaviusof Minucius Felix,
19.
the great father
a bull, a
cow
;
is
when a
ciple, fully recognized in the
a merman, his consort boar, a west,
sow is
Arnob. adv. gent.
lib. v. p.
157.
;
or,
when
explicitly
markable passage from one of the Vedas '
to be instinct with
184.
When
when
i.
392.
was supposed
and was probably one of those vast oviform stones,
;
Phuriiut. de nat. deor. c. l6. Seld. de diis Syr. synt.
Saturn,
*
size
•
which Deucalion and Pyrrha cast behind them
and was by superstition believed
was of an immense
the
the Phrygian stone
Agdus was venerated, as a form of the mountain-born Cybel^. to have been one of those,
stone,
is
a
mermaid
;
when
a horse, a
a male dove, a female dove.
avowed
in the
Hindoo theology.
in Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p.
440, 441.
mare
;
This prinSee a re-
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
THF.
of which specimens are to be found perhaps
on two smaller ones,
artificially
this country.
in
leave a narrow door or passage,
World and
lized the
Magna Mater
the
and they were designed,
initiation:
which equally symbo-
and of which the great mother
the Ark,
genius or personification.'
Manah
a ship on the stocks; so as to
like
doubt, to represent the mysterious egg,
little
They were placed
through which the body of the aspirant
might be pertruded during the process of I have
389
a similar manner,
In of
ancient Arabs, were
tlie
the figure of a stone either square or pyramidal
esteemed sacred to Rhea, we
may
Venus,
and
worshipped under
all
and, from the cube being
:
that the
infer,
female
Avas the
INIinerva,
same shape was
attributed
to her likewise.
The intcicommunion
of deities, and the frequent mixture of the
Brah-
menical and Buddhic superstitions, caused the form of Buddha to be ascribed to
many
of the gods no less than of the goddesses
:
and the symbol
a square or conical stone equally represented Apollo, Neptune, and Her-
fii
cules."
Pausanias
tells us,
that the Athenians claimed to be the inventors
of the pillars called HcnncE, which were appropriated to the very same
Romans
purposes as the Termini of the instances of
Greek
of worship proves dispersion of
Not only
national vanity
it
to
;
have originated
prevail both in Asia
it
plain connection with the worship of
the vast pacific ocean.
worship of Dagon
in
Buddha
I
and
in
;
another of them.
Totorro and two other children Borlase's Cornwall, p. 174.
Proleg. c.
iii.
Achaic. p. 441. p. 52.
:
it
also in
over
I
may now mention
the similar
Tatooma and Tapuppa, who
are
These were the parents of
and from them sprang both the world, and
See Plate III. Fig. 27.
Maxim. Tyr.
Sale's Prelim. Disc, to
Pausan. Attic, p. 42, 43.
find
in the islands scattered
Tiie inhabitants of Otaheite ve-
Dissert, xxxviii. p. 374, 375. Seld. de diis Syr.
Koran,
sect.
collected by Gen. Vallancey. Collect, de reb. Hib. vol. '
to precede the
Europe, but we
supposed to be a male and a female rock.
* Pausaii.
and
many mode
have already had occasion to notice the stone
nerate as the most ancient of their gods
•
only one of the
globe.'
Buddha
one of those islands in
is
in the earliest times
mankind over the surface of the
did
adoration of
but this
:
the very general adoption of such a
iv.
i.
p. 17-
numb.
See also
14. p. 21 6.
many
instances
<="*•'• "•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUT.
390 B(ioK IV.
Such
whole race of hero-gods.'
ji^g
religious opinions, attached to such
names, seem to indicate, that those clusters of islands received both their theology and their population from the south-eastern regions of Asia.
only
is
the principal deity of Otaheit^
blance of a stone, but in
Buddha
comprehend
to
whence the
:
his
in
very
Tatooma appears and the name of
the essence
Om
same
virtually the
venerated under the imagined sem-
name two of the most ancient Buddha is called Tat, and is
own person
monosyllabic
triliteral
fundamentally and stone-god
Buddha
liis
are accurately preserved.
Egyptians.
In
Aum
of the is
be the stone-god
Aur
declared
Now
the
is
Tat-Om
or
probably the same
or Auri, the
Horus of
the Otaheiteans have a tradition, that two
fact,
of
Plindoo Trimurti
Brahma- Vishnou-Siva. to
titles
applied to him, as beino-
mythologic son Totorro
Tat or Taut compounded with
title
or
as
evidently
his
Not
the
ferocious
males, and an equally ferocious female whose moutii was furnished with two tusks of a prodigious size,
whence they came, and
but,
These were reputed dead, was ranked
made
formerly in
appearance
in the
island
:
what manner they arrived, Mas unknown.
to be devourers of
among
their
their deities."
human I
am
flesh
:
yet the
woman, when
inclined to suspect, that she
was the Calee or black goddess of the Hindoos, the Diana Taurica of the and the black infernal Venus of the Orphic mytholo-
Scythians or Chasas, gist
;
while the tradition relates to the introduction of those bloody
rites,
which were the never-failing concomitants of Cuthic devotion.
The male and
female stone-deities of Otaheite are doubtless the great
and the great mother
father
;
corresponding with the stone Mercury and
Cybel^, and with the stone god and stone goddess of the Arabs.
These
not only venerated the great mother under the symbol of a square stone, as I
have just observed
styling
They also denominated him JVudd Buddha : for, that this deity was the
him Tlieus-Ares or Thoth-Ares^
or Budd, that
same
but likewise the great father under the same symbol,
;
as
is
say,
to
Woden
or
Buddha, and consequently that the worship of Buddha was esta-
blished in Arabia,
evident,
is
'
Cook's third voyage, b.
'
Maxim. Tyr. Dissert
iii.
c.
both from the circumstance of his symbol
S-
xx.wiii. pi 374.
* Ibid.
Suid. Lex. 0£u;-Af1J'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
Si>
I
being a black stone, and from the sacred impression of his foot being shewn in the
Caaba of Mecca."
The
Hermes
classical
or Mercury, whatever liberties
with his original character,
is
of Phenicia, the Tholh of Egypt, and the Teutates
names and
One Tat
is
him
attributes alike prove
of the said,
of Buddha, as
titles
in
one of
taken
as the
Taut His
Buddha.
to be
we have
his incarnations,
same
of the Celts.*
seen,
is
Tat, Date, or Datta.
to have been a son of Atri,
Hindoo Trimurti was manifested.
triple offspring the
may have been
positively declared to be the
This
is
in
whose
nothing more
than the perpetually repeated story of the transmigrating great father and his three sons
:
same reappearing primeval
for the
triad is equally alluded to in
the several cognate triads of the Brahmenical and Buddhic systems of theology.
But what we are
at present chiefly
concerned with
is
the destination
of Datta or (as he seems to have been patronymically designated from Atri)
In the division of the world, the countries bordering on the
Dattatreya.
Nile or
fell to his
share
Thoth of Egypt
Hermes
hence, as Mr. VVilford justly remarks, he
:
are indisputably the
Indian Tat or Buddha.'
heaven immediately after the deluge. irvtCK
the ancients.'
on
A
Hermes
been the author of four sacred it is
may
point
votaries of
Buddha
notion of some books of this
or
Thoth was reported
books, which
to
none have
of astronomy
treated
;
a
well known, immediately connected with the mythology of
He
is
also said to have decyphered the inscriptions written
the pillars in the land
of Siriad previous to the flood
immediately connects him with Xisuthrus and '
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
lib.i.c.C.
Taut
classical
the theology of almost every nation, and into
largely than that of Egypt.*
science, as
this
the
holy books were divinely communicated to him from
pretend, that certain
more
But
The
be further proved by another curious circumstance.
description enters
is
and consequently the Egyptian Thoth and the
;
p. 8, 9.
ii.
Liv. Hist.
lib.
lib.
i.
Tol. viii. p. c. 10.
xxvi. c. 41.
;
a matter, which
Chaldean account of the
tlie
304, 305.
Clem. Alex. Strom,
lib.
Cicsar. de bell. Gallic,
i.
p. 303.
lib. -vi. c.
Octav. p. 49, 295. '
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 261.
*
Clem. Alex. Strom,
lib. vi. p.
Vide eupra 633.
b.
iii.
c. 5.
Lactam. 17.
Instil.
Minuc.
Fcl.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
S92 BOOK
IT.
So again
deluge.'
:
find Taut, invested
sovereignty of Egypt, and superintending the books written by the
witli the
Taut
seven Cabiri and their eighth brother Asclcpius.* the
we
Phenician mythology,
in the
same
therefore
doubtless
is
as Thoth, as Sanchoniatho indeed expressly informs us
:
and the
books of Taut and the maritime Cabiri, who were the builders of the complete that,
same
are the
ship,
as the books of
as the books of Thoth.
Thoth are
Now
it is
first
remarkable,
number; so the
said to have been four in
Hincloos have a tradition, that their four sacred books were formerly carried
which the Buddhists ascribe to
certainly those books,
Brahmens with equal of
These were
part legitimately and in part clandestinely.'
into Egypt, in
Menu, who
zeal to
the
They were in short the holy volumes Buddha and, in every instance, the story
Brahma.
same as
the
is
Buddha and
:
equally runs, that they were either Avritten or recovered at the time of the deluge.
Some
mythologists modestly ascended no higher than that great
made them coeval with the world, or even placed them before the creation. Thus we are again led to the conclusion, that the Thoth or Taut of Egypt and Phenicia is the Tat or Buddha or Ab-Boudevent:
others
Tat of Hindostan and Persia and Japan. Another
title
of
to say, the lord
is
Heri-Mai/a and contractedly Hermaya, that
Buddha
is
Maya
for both
:
he and
his
the word
appellation of 3faya, according as
mother equally bear the
is
masculine
or
feminine.
Greek Hermes and of the Phenician Baal-Hcrmon : and we may observe, that, if in the Hindoo mythology Maya is the mother of Buddha, in the Greek mythology she is no less the
This
title is
clearly the prototype of the
mother of Hermes or IMercury.
Another of
his titles is variously
This was also a name of Hermes
expressed Codom, Gautama, or Cadam.
who was
;
venerated by the
Beotians,
Samotin-acians, and Tuscans, under the kindred appellations of Cadinilus,
Casmilus, and Camillus* '
Synccll. Chronog. p. 40.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
* Tzetz. in
iii.
Lycoph.
crob. Saturn, lib.
iii.
similar manner, their
p.
obvious and close resemblance of these •*
.
Euseb. Pnvp. Evan.
lib.
i.
titles
c. 10.
75.
vcr. c.
The
8.
l62.
Mnas. apud Schol.
Serv. in
jEntid.
Cadmaol or Casmaol.
lib.
in Apoll.
xi. p.
650.
Argon,
The
lib.
i.
aiicient
vt-r.
yi7.
Irish had,
Collect, dc reb. Ilib. vol. iv. p. 494..
Main a
THE to
each other renders
of pagax idolatry.
onxtsirr
it
more than probable,
and name differently pronounced Cadam and Ilus. Another of the names of Buddha connected,
This
in
like
in
manner
or Ilus and
Cali,
in other
:
for there
:
as there
Menu
to
a goddess 11a and a god
is
this title
Buddha
whom
or Thoth or
the
Noah and
made of an is
Cal or
He
Taut or Teutates.
word
:
of Bule, Arran, Ila,
The
compound form
name of Hy, and
so
of'
Coll,
which they bestowed
was
their
Hercules-Mercury,
only a slight variation of the
is
that
to say Hercules- Mercury,
The name
name, as we learn from de
itself
designated,
is
Coll,
lie
between that
as they have given to others the
lona, from Buddha, Arhan, Ila,
same word
la Stonosa,
vviio
of oriental extraction
they worshipped Hercules
was the same
as
JVoden or Buddha.
:
for the ancient
Colls or Culis.
Chaldtians venerated
Their Culis was certainly
Cal-Esa of the Hindoos, and the Goles oiihe Celtiberians.
Asiat. Ues. \ol.
Idol.
Hu,
in the appa-
however, like most of those by which the Celtic gods were
Mercury under the appellation of the Cala or
same
of Goles, which naturally resolves itself into Col-Esa.
this
Pag.
;
universal inunda-
equivalent to thcdeluge
Celts of Spain used the
Under
'
mundane
and, in honour of him, cither they or their Celtic brethren of
and Yoni or loneh.
is
the
Goths or Scythians venerated under the name of JVitdd or JVoden.
country and Ireland by the
rently
who
throughout the pagan
titles
Scotland, designated one of the small sacred islands which
titles
Cala
have already seen to be the same as
Sometimes they called him Cull, which radical
Ilus.
of Buddha; unless I greatly mistake, that the
whom we
god Tat or Taut,
their
is
which
old Irish borrowed the sacred appellation
upon
closely
Hindoos gave the name of Cala
as the
that,
find,
the deluge of Time,
was from
It
Cala.''
title,
^\ho was saved at the period of a general deluge
books of the Persians mention
named
there
tion,
a
a goddess Cali as well as a
is
words, they are the transmigrating
or Buddha,
in the sacred
;
are that great universal father and mother,
Ila,
Accordingly we
Ark.
be compounded of
Cala or Time
is
were jointly venerated under so many different world
talie to
I
same
with the Cronus or Chronus of the Greeks.'
form of Call
the masculine
is
god Cala,
and
point of import,
Menu
or
that they are one and the
name
that
:
393
i.
p.
^
239, 240.
VOL.
II.
Ibid. p. 240.
3D
chap-
^•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.
394 BOOK
This widely spreading name
IV.
will furnish
and who equally
identify
perhaps the true etymology of the
who were fundamentally one divinity, themselves w ilh Buddha or Taut. Since the Baby-
both of Hercules and Mercury
titles
;
lonians and the Celts styled that deity Cull or Cules or Golex, if
the Sanscrit
names of
the
Hercules
may lord,
we
shall in
among
Mercury
Hindoo if
we
again
we
gods,
shall immediately
prefix to the
Maha
compounded of
possibly be
prevailed
or
the
and,
:
we
prefix
Heri or Lord, which perpetually enters into the composition of same word
the
Colis or
At
MercoHs.
application of the names,
it
This
last title actually
they indifferently called the god Taut
for
:
Mcr, which
title
and Htri, thus denoting the great
a similar manner have ]\Ier-Cules. the Chaldeans
have Ileri-Cules or
least,
if
was no more
there were any difference in the tiian this
and MercoUs was the rude terminal statue of the
Colis
:
was the
deity,
That statue consisted
deity.
of three huge rough stones, two of them placed upright, and a third trans-
Mercury or Hermes then being
versely on their suiumits.
we can scarcely doubt name Mercolis.^
deity as Colis or Mercolis,
a
mere corruption of the
From
same
name JMercury
that the
is
Cala, Cull, or Coll, the Greeks formed Cullenius or Cyl-
this title
which they used as an epithet of Mercury.
lenius,
certainly the
Sometimes he was
re-
named Cullene at other times he was said to have been born of Maia, w ho in the cave CuUen^ submitted to the embraces of Jupiter and there are mythologists, w ho make one at least of the Merported to be the son of a female,
:
:
curies to be the offspring of Quillenus variations of one original
Cala or Cula,
title
;
w hich
or Culenus.^
in the
Hcb. Lex. and De synt.
ii.
c.
15.
la
iv.
p.
82,
84,
p. 1 j.
type of those sepulchral demons of Arabic
Plantavil.
Scld. de diis Syr.
See likewise an elaborate note of Ouzel on the
The expression by
Goles, used as a vulgar oath,
This deity, who was ever esteemed an infernal god, seems
are feigned to dig
291, 480.
Stonosa on anc. Span, medals, apud \'allanc. ibid.
Beyer. Addit. in Seld. ibid.
Octav. of Min. Fcl. obsolete.
these are only
in tiie feminine Ca!i or Culi.
Vallanccy's Vind. apud Collect, de reb. Hib. vol.
'
All
masculine form was expressed
fiction,
to
is still
not quite
have been the proto-
which are denominated Goub, and which
up and devour the bodies of the dead.
They
frequently occur in the
Arabian Nights entertainments. ^
9.
Schol. in Stat. Thebaid.
ApoU.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
lib. iii. ver.
c. 10. § Z.
483.
Serv. in .Eneid. lib. iv. vcr. 577.
Ampcl.
c.
THK ORIGIV OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Buddha
likewise called Sac or Sacya
is
and,
:
SpJ
in a similar
western counterpart was denominated Soc or Socus.'
manner,
This Socus
I
his
take to
be the same term as Souchus or Suchus, which, as Damascius informs us was a name of the crocodile.* The appellation was doubtless communicated
on account of
to that animal,
Accordingly we
its
being one of the sacred diluvian symbols.
that Anubis or Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury, was represented standing upon the crocodile, and that Menes the first kino of find,
have saved himself on the back of one of those aquatic monsters during the prevalence of an inundation.* The crocodile in
Egypt was supposed
to
short was an hieroglyphic of the Ark, as
an ark or
Hindoos
the Ark, the
But
3.
On
chest.*
Buddha and Mercury
evident from the circumstance of
still
it
call the
not similarity of
it is
is
Campsa, which Hesychius assures us signifies the same account, as Menu or I\Ianes m as the sjod of
Egyptians denominating
tlie
there are
:
sacred allegator of the Ganrjes Maui.' alone,
titles
many
the latter deity, which also demonstrate, that,
who
which proves the identity of
particulars in the legendary history of
as
he
one with Hercules
is
has been sliewn to be Buddha, so (what indeed necessarily follows) he
Buddha and consequently the same as Noah. The mother of Buddha is said to have been called Maya
the
is
same
as
Mercury bears
name
the
The day of Buddha
of Maia.
Hindoos denominated the
by the Latins
:
day of Mercury, as by the Goths the day of IVodcn." revolves in the orbit nearest to the Sun,
by the appellation of Buddha Phurn. de nat. deor.
•
:
the mother of
is
it
is
by the
was called the
The planet, which among the Hindoos
distinguished
west the very same planet was denomi-
in the
Nonni Dion.
c. l6.
:
fourth day of the week
lib. xiii.
Horn. Iliad,
lib.
xx.
ver. 73.
Suid.
Lrx. •
Damas.
'
Moutfauc.
'
>it.
hid. apud Phot. Bibl. p. 1048. Aiit.
Exp.
vol.ii. part
Herod. Hist.
lib.
Moor's
Panlh. p.
lli:.d.
c.
ii.
ii.
Hisych.
691-13.
p.
197.
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
Typhon
Koah was shut up *
passed into a crocodile.
in the
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
Ark.
iElian. Hist.
p. l62. vol.
p. go.
Typlxim being mystically the lame as Osiris, Osiris having
iitered into an ark, and a crocodiic bting a symbol of that ark that the soul of
i.
Li-.\.
iii.
p.
o62.
By
Anim.
this lib.
;
we
find a notion prevalent
nothing more was meant, than that x. c. 21.
Maurice's Hist, of Hind.
toI.
ii.
p.
481.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
396 Bueitiv.
nated, and is
still
Maaoy
continues to be denominated,
represented by a large stone, frequently of a black colour
represented
Buddha
or Stilbon.'
Mercury was
:
a large stone, likewise frequently of a black colour.
l)y
Such arbitrary coincidences as these cannot be purely accidental
seem
me
to
to prove, with as
much evidence
as the
subject
admitting, that the western Mercury, Hermes, or Tlioth, racter as the oriental Mercolis,
Hermaya, or Tat;
the
same cha-
the
is
they
:
capable of
is
same therefore as
Euddiia.
The
4.
fabulous history of
tlie
classical
plainly leads us to that ancient personage,
Though
father of the renovated world.
Noah
who was
to believe,
I incline
may
may
more than one
be ultimately reduced to
all
Adam.
The
legend however of the
western INIercury seems peculiarly to refer him to Xoah, and thus to
him
the
He
same as the younger or diluvian Buddha of the
was variously reported
to
be,
the mythology of the west acknow-
that they
considered as a reappearance of
it
the head and universal
INIercuries, as that of the east recognizes
ledged several
Buddha,
Hermes, corrupted as
make
east.
be the son of Jupiter and Maia, of Bacchus
and Proserpine, of Uranus and Hemera, of Cronus and Maia, of Jupiter and CuUene, of Valens and Phoronis, of the river Nile, and of Quillenus In
or Cullenius/
he was
reality,
offspring of the great universal arkite
tiie
mother however denominated, and the same person as
named
father
:
Noah, according
for
reputed many-
his
to the different lights in
which he was
viewed, was indifferently esteemed the parent, the husband, the brother, or the son, of the vessel in which he was preserved
Phoronis, and are
all
Cullenfe whether considered as a
World and
equally the
is
:
her very
name denotes
From Maia Mercury was by Res. vol.
equally the general mother both
Maya
Asiiit.
Schol. in Stat. Thebaic!, lib. iv. vcr.
Asiat. Res. vol.
iii.
p.
577. i.
lib. iii.
Ampel.
p. 223.
in the east
and
the old Etruscans called in the masculine vol.
vcr. '183.
c. 9.
or Maia,
the great mother.^
25S. vol.i. p. l62.
'
*
'
as a sacred cavern,
most commonly reckoned the parent of the god, both
in the west
jCneid.
all
and Maia, Proserpine,
Such accordingly was the character of
of gods and men.
who
the Ark,
;
nymph or
Lactant.
Macrob. Saturn,
ii.
p.
375.
Cicer. de nat. deor. lib. Instit. lib.
lib.
i.
i.
c. 12.
c. 6.
iii.
c.
22.
Serv. in
THE ORIGIN OF PASAN IDOLATRY. Buddha
form Mains, exactly
as
Maius
to
supposes
this
is
believe
I
reason for his conjecture, than his finding
Etruscan
The
deity.'
and Maius and Maia,
Maya or Moye.
denominated
be Jupiter: but
title
Maius
like
Osiris and Isis,
31)7
him
Maius was
that
Macrobius
have no better
to
the principal
evidently the masculine form of
is
Maia
Adonis and Venus, Janus and
Jana, and other similar duads, are the two great parents of the Universe,
Noah and
the transmigrating
May
month of
the
when
the
Sun
received
entered into
As Mercury
mundane Ark.
denomination
its
the
:
to
lator
to
He
:
convey
in
we
father,
civilizer of
mankind
distributor of
first
the
same
in the first infant
their higli behests to the ears of sinful mortals
offspring Phoroneus
;
:
in the
ship was launched on the
first
and he was the peculiar messenger of the gods, w hose
the age of Inachus the son of
le
into national communities
;
Hence we
office
it
was to
in other words,
he
denounced the venfind
him placed
in
Ocean, of the nymph Archia or Argha, and
who was deemed
the
first
of men.
Originally,
are told, mankind used but one language, and lived under the empire of
'
JIacrob. Saturn,
*
iMr. Slrutt,
lib. i. c. 12. p.
in his
171.
romance of Quccn-IIoo Hall, has given a cuiious account
games as celebrated by our ancestors
in the
middle ages.
accidental similarity of names, the bold outlaw R/ibin Celtic
Budd
Horat. Od.
p. 203.
Wudd, and
or Scandinavian
cue age becomes the
10.
much
find
have composed certain ancient sacred books, when
geance of heaven to an irreclaimable world.'
*
are a
he was the primitive
:
fruitlessly
of their
jNIay-games
man, when rude
was that preacher of righteousness, who long
we
honour those
their
was the inventor of music, astronomy,
days of \he seven Cabiri or Corybantes the
ocean
commencement,
obsolete
he was the author of language
:
he was the
:
he was said
its
him, as were wont to be given to Dionusus, Osiris,
he was the general
state of society
god and croddess
and, at
:
now almost
was the great
or ISIaius then
Phoroneus, Inachus, or Cronus. letters
this
relic.''
actions ascribed
and
From
Taurus, were celebrated
which
phallic Mysteries, of
transcript and a
the
lib.
Lactan.
festive i.
strongly suspect,
Hood has usurped
maid Marian that of Maia.
that,
these
ol"
from an
the place of the
The mythology of
romance of another.
od. 10.
Instit. lib.
the
1
i.
Diod.Bibl.lib. i.p. 15..
Phurnut. de nat. deor. c. 6.
Nonni Dionys.
Manil. Astron.
lib.
i,
c. l6.
lib. .xiii.
p. 2.
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
Euseb. Praep. Evan,
1 Pet.
iii.
20.
i.
c. ly.
lib,
2Pct.ii.5.
i.
c.
THK
39s oouiv.
Jove without languaijcs,
but
ttie
lionour,
OF PAGAN IDOLATBV.
Ollir.rN
and witliout laws.
cities
But Mercury taught them various
and divided Ihein into separate nations.
e.irlie-^t
sovereign was
because he
first
Thence arose discord
Phoroneus, who was dignified
Juno
instituted sacred rites to
;
with
:
that
Juneh of Holy
the
Writ, and the Yoni or Argha of the Hindoos, who, after floatingas a ship
away
on the surface of
tlic
rious history
not very easy to mistake the import.
is
it
deluge, flew
in the
Of
shape ef a dove.'
this
cu-
Tiiere could liavc been
only one primeval universal sovereign and legislator:
and, whether he be
thenonof Ocean, or Phoroneus the offspring (j'.lrcliia, or Mercuii) the child 0) Maia ; still we may plainly enough perceive that the person >u Nhadowed out as existing in the infancy of the world when as yet called liiachus
there was hut one lanjiuacje, thou!»h that Idnizuage was afterwards subdivided into various di dects. can be no otiier than the patriarch
haps .5.
in the last instance as I
Noah, viewed
reappearing in the character of Nimrod.
have repeatedly had occasion to notice the circuuistance of the great
father beiny deemed an infernal god
interior of the
while the
;
Earth uas esteemed the region of Hades, and the deluge Thus, in the
river.
was preserved
in
Hmduo
souls of the deceaseil
Patala or Orcus
He was
mythology,
its
the goti
of oosequies and
i-.
to
this
was the
office
the conductor of the dead from the
he also possessed the power ot evocating
01
liijilier
tlie
of Phenicia and
ihe
tliciu fro
Tlioth of
nounced by the translator of Sanclioniadio
to be
tlie
u Mades.
As
and
such the
same
as the
Egypt
pro-
Her nes of
Indian Tat or
Hence
the cha-
precisely such, as miglit be anticipated.
In Phenicia,
Taut was reputed
to
be the original inventor of
the counsellor and secretary of Cronus, the IJyg. Fab. 143.
stiemi of
Egypt are righth
is
'
vene-
*
also be palpably identified vvith the
is
is
ferry the
wesiern Mercury.
Datta, who, like Taut, racter of each
to
notv
Greece: ami they must
said to have reigned in
tlooii,
to the nellier v\wili(,
Orphic poet makes him the same as IJacchus or Osiris
XIX. The Taut
sacred lake or
lliwuiilil
over the Ganges considered &> the
Si.mlar
Ark or the
Menu-Satyavrata or Huddha, who
an ark during the prevalence of an universal
rated as Sraddadeva or
1.
per-
*
Orph. Hymn.
first
who
letters,
corjalructed images of
Ivi. .flneid. lib. iv. ver.
242, 343.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
399
mode
the gods, and the primitive contriver of the hieroglyphical
He was
who
associated with the Cabiri,
And
author of certain wonderful books.
and
built the first ship.
In a similar manner, Thoth was supposed by the
been the autiior of literature relative tu
was the
all
the arts
tlie
:
knowledge of divine
He
proper name.
things, in wiiich
versed vine
iind
:
He was
he held so high a rank
reputed to be the
among
He
special appellation of the Deity.
The
common
die
self-existent
is
seem
parent and origin of them
hmi with the
Egy|)tians honoured
have litde donbt, that
which prevailed so
commonly
lie
in the
title
Trismegistus
tlie
all.'
when
of Thrice-greatest; and,
name Hermes-Trismegis-
at other times,
:
that the
Accordingly we
first
the idea
Magnus
more simply
and most ancient of the that
find,
M'as
it
Buddha
generally worshipped in a kind of triad, and
is
most ancient
This opinion was sometimes expressed under
tradition,
hero-gods begot three sons.
name
borrowed their
received the appellation from
the nolion of a mystic self-triplication set forth
to have
througliout the gentile world, that the
Pater was a three-fold being.
truly
cultivator of the
first
was even esteemed
united with this adjunct, the Greeks expressed his I
and without any
the immortals, that from his
Thciilh or Tlieus both the Greeks and Latins
of the guds,
he sets forth the majesty
was a character of [profound antiquity, and was deeply
every science.
in
Egyptians to have
and was thought to have written many books
of the Supreme God, and declares that he
and
He
he was the parent of
sciences.'
ii.
tus.
of writing,
is
or
Hermes-
declared to be
fundamentally the same as the great triple divinity of the Hindoos.
In re-
ference to this part of his character, which (as I believe) procured for him the
title
whence Lycophron heads related to
Eiiscb. Pra?p.
E\an.
CicLT. de
deor. lib.
n;it.
Euseb. Piu'p. Evan.
Theus and Dtits.
Divinity from '
lib.
Godam
Lycoph. Casaan.
lib.
i.
i.
c.
iii.
6S0.
Lactant.
22.
Instit.
lib.
1 he Sanscrit Devii and
Saxons
or Catid, which ver.
Tzetzes thinks, that his three sea,
and the
earth,
10.
c.
c. 10.
We
him sometimes represented with three heads;
dominion over the heaven, the
his triple
•
find
him Triciphalus.^
calls
*
witli
we
of Trismegistus,
liavo, is
a
in title
i.
Dcu
c.
6.
Anthol.
arc words of a
a similar manner, borrowed our of Buddha.
lib.
i.
common name
p. pi.. oiigiji
of die
chap. v.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
400 liooK IV.
or to his empire physical, ethical, and rational.'
But these are mere
refine-
Noah, viewed
as a reappearance of
Adam,
ments upon primitive
was esteemed
tiic
tradition.
of
liiis
:
and
fi'om that
idea of a threefold world, and
:
but the idea
from the very same source as that of the
triplication of the great father himself.
three sons of Noaii
the three
call
of the Universe divided into three parts
division originated
triple
Hindoos
universal sovereign of what the
xvorlds, that is to say,
The
earth was partitioned
amonc the
circumstance the ancients borrowed their expressed in the Orphic
their notion (as
That such was the evidently appears from the nature of the three kingdoms assigned to
writings) that case,
all
things were divided into tliree parts.
Neptune, and Pluto, the three sons of Cronus or Saturn.
Jupiter,
Every
Noah
part of the history of this last deity proves him to be the transmigrating
whence,
in tlie relationship in
which they stand to him,
be the three sons of that patriarch.
among them
:
and the earth or
must
But those three sons divided the world
fell
to the lot of Jupiter, the sea to the lot of
Now
infernal regions to the lot of Pluto.''
Neptune,
these tliree king-
are precisely the three worlds of the Hindoos, and the three divisions of
Hermes
the Universe over which the three-headed likewise the three kingdoms of
Saturn are the three sons of will
:
and. in the fabled division of the Universe between the three
sons of Saturn, heaven
doms
his three sons
ultimately be found to
Shem, Ham, and Japhet
Noah.
Hence
But they are
presided.
the fable,
:
for the three sons of
mentioned by Tzetzes,
mean, that Hermes-Trismegistus, the original
sovereign of the world and the most ancient of the gods, reigned over three divisions in the persons of those three sons into
Tzetzes however assigns yet a
himself.
Hermes
:
additional
whom
he has triplicated
third reason for the triple
he says, that he had three daughters by Hecate. light
on the
form of
This throws
Hecat^ was the same as
preceding remarks.
Proserpine, Ceres, or the great infernal mother
its
:
and, as seven Cabirae or
Titanides were sometimes added to the seven Cabiri or Titans, so with more arithmetical propriety were the three daughters of the great father assigned as wives to his three sons. '
Tzctz. in luc.
* Till' laith
and the infernal regions were used by
probably from the opinion that the
latter
tiic
were placed
the infernal gods were called Chtlionii or terrcslrial.
old mytlinlogists as
in the
synonymous
very heart of the former.
terms,
Hence
THE ORIGIN OF PAftAN IDOiATRY. The character, which Thoth bore among summed up by Diodorus Siculus.
He
held the
same
peculiar adviser in
all
he was his writer of the sacred
:
difficult
no names.
He
invented letters
;
to
many
and arranged
in
decent order every matter,
He was
the
first,
that
and that observed the nature and
distributed the stars into constellations,
He was
his
which before had
things,
that respected the worship and sacrifices of the gods.
harmony of sounds.
and
mankind.
and gave names
;
letters,
He possessed a wonderful He first taught the mode
emergencies.
talent of discovering all things useful to
of articulating distinctly
Egyptians, has been well
the
about the person of Osiris, as the Phenician Taut
office
did about that of Cronus
401
the inventor of the lyre
to
;
which he gave
three strings, acute, grave, and middle, in imitation of the three seasons of
He was
the year, summer, winter, and spring.
no
tree,
the planter of the olive-
than the original cultivator of the vine
less
vested the administration of Egypt in the hands of
be her most trusty adviser.
to
asserted, that he
In
fine,
XX.
Thoth
can properly belong to
Noah
is
Cronus
to the first
the Cabiri, and the
alone.
Mercury-Socus, or Buddha-Saca, or Thoth,
father of the seven Corybantes or Cabiri
Taut
But these are
which, considering
characteristics,
;
placed, that of Osiris,
is
to education,
which every ancient nation ascribed
of their gods or the oldest of their kings
first ship,
the Egyptian priests summarily
of the arts and sciences.'
circle
precisely the characteristics,
Osiris
he appointed hiui
was the inventor of every thing which related
and the author of the whole
the age wherein
and, \vlien
:
Isis,
:
M'as
supposed to be the
and, in the Phenician mythology,
represented as imposing on the seven Cabiri the task of transcribing
his sacred book,
while those Cabiri are said to be the children of Sydyk
or the Just Man."
Now
we
learn
from Pherecydes, that Vulcan espoused
Cabira the daughter of the oceanic Proteus, who bore to him the three Cabiri
and the three Cabirfe
;
and, from Herodotus and Hesychius, that he
Hence, as Thoth and Vulcan
esteemed the father of the seven Cabiri.'
and Sydyk arc '
Diod. Bibl.
p. 14,
Nonni Dionys.
'
Pherec. apud Strab. Geog. Idol.
Cabiri, they
15, 41.
*
Pag.
same
alike exhibited to us as the parents of the
lib., i.
was
lib. xiii. p.
233. lib.
Euseb. Prasp. Evan. x. p. -tZS.
lib. i. c. 10.
Herod. Hist.
VOL.
II.
lib. iii. c.
3".
Hesych.
3E
Lck..
'"*''•
'*•
THE OU/IGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATllV.
402 iiouii IV.
We
must evidently be one mythological character.
conclusion, that Vulcan also must be identified with
Jamblichus informs
maker of
that as the
us, that
are led therefore to
thf?
Thoth or Buddha.
the Egyptians called this divinity PIdlut,
and
good things he bore likewise the name of Osiris
all
;
but that the Greeks retained only that part of.his character, which respected being an artizan.'
his
mode
I suspect,
that
word PIttha
this
is
only
a quick
of pronouncing Biitta or Putta, and at the same time that
it
As
foundation of the Greek Hephaistus and of the Jphl/uis of Suidas. the identity of Phtha and Osiris, I take
Buddha and Iswara their votaries
saw
and that person,
The
in his
human
capacity,
that he
is
Noah, which
mechanic and the constructor of the Ark, ;
Egyptians additionally ascribed to him. great architect
Maga,
as
Twashta; who
Vulcan
his being the
same
is
ful artizans this
:
He
is
made
is
They
artist
figures, gallies
the
his
like their father,
whkh
is
evident,
both
close connection
were reckoned first ship.
Herodotus mentions, that
deities,
tlie
children the Cabiri were in form like the Pataici.'
liis
as the
the father of
skil-
Over
Vulcan, as the parent and head of the Cabiri, no
represented accordingly.
and
artist,
Hence, as being decidedly maritime
doubt presided.
Vulcan
the progenitor of Magus.^
Noah, and from
also,
profound
Buddha, considered
but their grand work was the building of the
work the chief
in
which the
attributes,
mythologically said to be
as Osiris or
with the maritime Cabiri.
enough
is
that which the classical
is
Phenician history
in the
there
relates to his being a
But, on what account he was specially esteemed an
from
fire,
Greeks omitting those other
the
Noah.
certainly the transmigrating
is
also a maritime deity.
part of the character of
peculiarly exhibits
as that of
enough that fundamentally they were one person
Accordingly, though Vulcan be celestially the solar his history to
for
they are gods of different superstitions indeed, but
:
plainly
shew
same nature
to be of the
it
the
is
we
statues
find
them
of Vulcan
These were small
the Phenicians were accustomed to place at the heads of their
on account of
same manner
their
as the
'
Jamb, de mystcr.
*
Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 74.
^
Herod. Hist.
supposed influence
in
maritime
Greeks did those of the Dioscori or
sect. viii. c. 3.
lib. lii. c.
affairs,
37.
Euseb. Prsep. Evan.
lib. i. c.
Ibid.
10.
precisely in
Cabiri.*
The
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOI.ATRV. Pataici indeed
venerated ries
seem
among the
been no other than the Cabiri, who were highly
to have
Phenicians, and
from the violence of tempests.
pound Pat-Isa or Bad-Isa
whom
'
who were thought to secure their votaThe name itself is probably the com-
at least the chief
:
Buddha
the orientals call
Pataicus or Cabirus was he,
or Budd-Isa or Potiti-Sat.
designated, the primitive eight gods of
one of them
The names
Egypt/
:
They were
clearly
This ogdoad Pherecydes, as
I
tlie
and, as such,
floating together in
have recently stated, exhibits to us
form by making Vulcan the father of
Cabirae by
among them both Vulcan
the arkite ogdoad:
were represented, not standing on dry land, but
fect
of these eight
by Herodotus, except that he mentions Pan as being
but the great Chronicle enumerates
and Helius.'
Vulcan and
names they may have been
the seven Cabiri constitute, by whatever different
deities are not given
403
tlie
they
a ship.
in its per-
three Cabiri and the three
sea-nymph Cabira.
Vulcan's character as an
artist,
exactly in the
same manner
as that of the
grand artizan Twashta, was supposed by the Egyptians to extend to the
whole world.
Hence Jamblichus speaks of him,
as being the demiurgic
Nous, the wise president of generation, the being who brings
to light the
Nous w ho was esteemed like Menu the Soul or Mind of the Universe, who built or created the smaller World or the Ark, who was reckoned the plastic father of the greater World when renovated after the deluge, who was the god of generation because all things were produced anew from his consort the Ark, and who was repreobscure power of
all
This
hidden matters.*
;
sented by the old mythologists as bringing those things light
from darkness into
because he brought them from the dark interior of the diluvian Ship
into the light of
Nous
Nous is certainly the same as that primeval who was himself produced from an egg wrapt in by tempests, and who afterwards generated from his own
open day
this
:
of the Platonists,
storms and tossed
essence three younger Noes.
In each particular, Vulcan or Phtha or the
creative Intelligence of the Egyptians agrees with the
and Platonic
schools.
He
was thought
'
Aristopli. Iron. ver. 275.
'
Chron. Magn-. apud Banier. Mylliol.
*
Jamb, du
to
*
Schol. in loc.
inyii. sect. viii. c, 3.
vol.
i.
p.
Nous
of the
Orphean
have been born from an egg, Herod. Hist.
493.
lib.
ii.
c. 43.
chap, v.
THr ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
404
which procfcded out of the mouth of Cneph; and he was the father of three
named
sons
In
Cahiri.'
tlic
mythology Vulcan
classical
is
be the husband of Venus
said to
which makes him the consort of Cabira the daughter of Proteus.
nymph Cabira and
and the planet Venus
oriental
both of the goddess
title
and Astarte, the Phenician Venus, was reputed
:
Venus however was not
Cincius
even
god
is
Maia
is
Now
or Ceres or Parvati. :
while Piso
;
Maia was
title
the mother of
Maya
of
Buddha
character, differing
Buddha and Vulcan
that
are the
or
we
whence, according to the system of niythologic genealogies,
are again brought to the conclusion,
in
united in composition with Sita,
both a Hindoo, a Sicilian, a Phenician, and a Celtic,
Argha
Mercury
Maiesta
for
called
These accounts are
proper denomination was Maiesta.^ ;
Cronus.*
was
that his consort
tells us,
to
mythology
classical
and thatfrom her was derived the name of the month of May
substance the same
which
whom
the only goddess,
esteemed the wife of Vulcan.
affirms, that her
each
names
their very
be the mother of the seven Titanides or Cabirae by the
Jllaia,
:
sea-
This identity appears, not only from
them both with the ocean, but from
Cabira or Cahar was an
themselves.
The
Venus were the very same person
the maritime
was tqually the Ark or great mother. the connection of
or
but
:
does not differ in effect from the preceding account of Pherecydes,
this
same
no more from each other than Buddha, Jain, and Mahi-
man. Agreeably to
Vulcan or Phtha
this conclusion,
esteemed the father of the gods
:
whence
there
portal of the temple at Heliopolis, dedicating
city/
In the Phenician history he
has led
some
ter is the
writers into the opinion, that
Tubalcain of Scripture,
prove, that his location triarch
Noah
:
for he
is
is
a genealogical
Porph. apud Euscb. Praep. Evan.
*
Euthym. Zegab. Panop. apud lib. i.e.
But
it
was an to
inscription
him
Ch?yson
:
in that express
and
Vulcan both
his
upon the
in
name and charac-
very attributes seem to
error,
capa-
his location there
and that he
is
me
truly the pa-
lib.
iii.
c. 11.
Seld. de diis Syr. p. 211.
C'cdreii.
Chronog. Euseb. Praep.
10. ^
*
Macrob. Saturn,
*
Hermap. apud Marcellin,
lib.
i.
c.
to
said to have been a great mechanic, to have been
'
Evan.
called
is
by the Egyptians
v\as
12. lib. xxii. c.
15.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. skilled in metallurgy,
to
have been a profound divine or prophet,
been the original inventor of
and above
light boats,
men that sailed upon the ocean.' XXI. As Vulcan was deemed by the
first
have been the
Egyptians the parent of the gods,
him one of
deities
so
:
Pan or Mendes primeval divinities who preceded
same character ascribed by them the eight
and even esteemed him like
to
all
have
to
of
and was thought to be the father of the Cabiric the
40J
to
we
find precisely
reckoned
for they
;
the twelve inferior,
They placed hia» therefore, ogdoad whence it will follow, that
the most ancient of
Vulcan, at the head of the Cabiric
all."
:
he must be the same person as Vulcan, and consequently the same also as
Thoth or Buddha. Phurnutus speaks of him as being a very ancient demon
1.
the indecent
mode
in
superstitions
:
Pan was thought
and, as
he was really the great father matical
manner
Mercury
as
;
Unhappily the phallic worship was common
Priapus.'
allied to
and, from w hich he was represented, suspects him to be nearly
to be the son of
to both
Mercury, and as
he was depicted in the very same emble-
;
himself,
and was esteemed the masculine
presi-
dent of generation.* 2.
With
respect to the period in which he flourished, since he
declared to be the eldest even of the eight primitive gods, rightly placed
age of Dionusus,
in the
Osiris,
is
we
expressly
Typhon, and the Titans.
Like Anubis or Thoth, he was supposed to have attended Osiris travels
;
and
classical
When
Bacchus, and the Satyrs.
goat and a
fish,
into the sacred
in
his
mythology ever makes him the companion of Silenus,
or the ocean, he advised M'hich occasion he
him
find
them
to
the hero-gods were attacked by
assume the forms of
Typhon
different animals
;
on
metamorpliosed himself into a monster compounded of a
Under
the Capricorn of the zodiac. river Nile, itself a
this
symbol of the deluge
shape he plunged
;
and thus escaped
the threatened destruction.'
'
^ '
c.
Sanchon. apiid Euseb. Praep. Evan. Pburn. de nat. deor. Ovid. Fast.
28.
lib.
i.
c. 27.
ver.
*
393—404.
Hyg. Fab. 196. Eratos.
lib. i. c.
10.
Diod. Bibl.
lib.
Diod. Bibl.
Cafast. c. 2?.
* i.
lib.
Herod. Hist.
p. 7S, 79. i.
p. l6.
Clem.
lib.
ii.
c. 4(5,
145.
Ale.x. CoLorf. p. 40.
Hyg. Poet. Astron.
lib. ii.
^''*'- *•
406 HOOK
IV,
3.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
•
The Orphic
poet celebrates him, as the universal father, the lord of
the world, and the true horned Zeus or Jupiter: and he describes him, as
He
being an infernal god, the helper or conductor of ghosts like IMercury.'
him as delighting
also speaks of
which
is
common
to nearly all
caves
to reside in
:
a part of his character
who
the arkite-gods,
are continually repre-
sented, either as dwelling in caverns, as being nursed in caverns, or as being
Porphyry has written a whole
born from caverns.
which he gives many instances of
this
mode
of worship
mystic intercommunion
in
shadowed out the
latter as
much
great father from a cave denoted
:
birth
Hence
Moon
the birth of the
:*
He
meant, that he was the husband of the Ark.
who borrowed both
the ship
Argha
their
name and
and we
By
notion prevalent, that he gained the love of the Moon.'
the Arcadians,
find
this
and who delighted
was
it
was highly venerated by
from
their superstition
as a sylvan deity,
roam upon
to
who
presided over herds of cattle,
he was represented with a
He
the summits of the loftiest mountains.
was likewise esteemed a guardian of orchards and a planter of vines sickle or pruning-knife in his
hand
fit
and
;
for the pur-
In short, to use the language of Scripture
pose of dressing vineyards.* it
a
insomuch that he was peculiarly styled the god of Arcadia.
;
Here he was venerated
when
us,
Porphyry men-
from the Ark.
Arcadia dedicated to Pan and the
tions a cave in
subject, in
and he informs
the consecrated grotto therefore
as the former.
his
:
on the
But the World and the Ark
that the sacred cave represented the World.
were venerated
treatise
speaks of his prototype, he was a husbandman or
Yet, while the Arcadians adored him
man
in conjunction with the
of the earth.
Moon
;
they
had a remarkable opinion among them, that they themselves were prior to that planet.'
This was true of them as a family
were of course prior
to the vessel,
mically represented by the
'
*
5
Porph. de ant. nymph, Ovid. Fast. liK
ii.
i.
jv. ver.
264.
lib.
p.
ver.
ver.
for
the primeval arkites
and which was astrono-
Moon. hymns seems
to
me
to render (fav-
Orph. Hymn. x.
properly by larvarum.
Ovid. Fast.
built,
learned translation of the Orphic
The very curious and
' TCLtnuiv
which they
:
'
263.
271
— 278.
469, 470.
Lycoph. Cassan.
ver.
Virg. Georg.
Phurn. de
lib. ii. vcr.
482.
lib. iii. vcr.
392, 393.
nat. deor. c. 27.
SgO.
lib. v.
Tzetz. in loc.
ver. 89, 90.
ApoU. Argon,
lib.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLAfRV.
XXII.
the mother of
as
Maya
In the mythology of Hindostan,
407 not only
represented,
is
Buddha, but likewise as the parent of the amatory god
Cama, who must evidently be identiiied with the Cupid and Eros of the The Indian and the classical writers have agreed in sinking the chawest.' racter of this deity into that of a boyish mischievous urchin, who peculiarly delights in the cross purposes of love
were by no means forgotten
:
yet his genuine primeval attributes
:
and both those
and
attributes,
his birth
from
JMaya, prove him to be the same personage as Buddha. 1.
when
Hesiod celebrates him, as born the earth
at the very
time,
emerged from that chaotic deluge which regularly
first
tervenes between world and world.*
of him
commencement of
in-
Aristophanes gives a similar account
but adds, that he sprang from an egg produced in the bosum of
;
Erebus by Nijfht or the black Venus, that he was the general father of the
human
and that he called them forth
race,
darkness into
He
Exactly accordant
light.'
some remarkable manner from
in
is
the language of the Orphic poet.
speaks of him, as having the keys of the Universe, and as alike presiding
over the sea and the air and the earth equal power
in
Hades, or as being an infernal god
styles him the double divinity
sonage
whom
he represents him
:
he
;
a
title,
calls the first-horn,
a tempest-tossed egg and as being the
:
as
also,
having
and he mysteriously
which he similarly gives
to tlie per-
whom he describes as issuing from common parent both of hero-gods and
and
of men.* 2.
These
of the western mythologists,
tales
attire,
floating
machine
stripped of their sym-
out of a
at the close of a general deluge, that his family at that time
emerged from darkness mankind whether
all
when
denote only, that the primeval Cupid was born
bolical
to the light of day,
and that he was the ancestor of
deified or not deified.
Agreeably to such speculations when rightly understood, the Hindoos say, that their
Cama wns
once seized by a
chest or ark, and tl>en cast
a large '
fish
:
him
terrific
demon, who placed him
into the ocean.
but, the fish being taken, the ark
Asiat. Res. vol.
i.
p.
255.
'•Aristoph. Av. vcr. 694.
The
in a
ark was swallowed by
and the
*
Hesiod. Theog. vcr.
*
Orph. Hymn.
child
1
Ivii, v.
16
which
— 122.
it
con-
chap.
v.
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
408
Cama.
tained were discovered by Reti the consort of
within
privately brought
it,
is
Henceforth, though Reli
his death.
she was considered also as his mother.'
his consort,
This
he had sulVicicnt strength to destroy
until
Sambara who had sought
the malignant
was
him up,
the precise story, which occurs so repeatedly in the legends of the
hero-gods, and which can admit of only one interpretation
resembles the fable of Osiris, Horus, jjoint
Isis,
and Typhon
where the two superstitions blend together.
Horus was
the elder
seeing an infant
She,
the
same
as the
;
but
:
which
Plutarch
god Caimis,
and that
peculiarly
it
is
in fact the
that
us,
tells
his consort
was
named Rhytia. These are manifestly the Cama and the Reti of Hindoos. By the elder Horus I specially understand Buddha but, :
fable being
common
on
traditions relative to the deluge,
Tdus
and the younger Horus.
told of Osiris
the
the great superstitions inasmuch as they were
to both
both chiefly founded
the
Typhon, and
inclosed in an ark by Srnu or
which represented the ocean
:
to
Osiris
is
we
fi
n
it
equally
said to have been
have been cast into the Nile
and thus Horus, when pursued by the same
monster, was hid by Latona in the sacred island Chemmis, which was sup-
posed to places
shew, what deity
sufficiently
received
Cama
deep lake near the
a
float in
its
Buddha
He
;
Cameses,
worshipped there.
Horus who ;
is
the
of these
Chemmis same
as the
Cames or Chemosh of the Moabites, Italians who was venerated with Janus and
the Hindoos, the
and the Cameses of the ancient Cronus.*
was
appellation from Caimis, the elder
Cam-Isa of
or
The names
city Butos.
was indeed Janus himself,
whom
I have already
shewn
to
be
god into two persons, Janus and
though the Etruscans divided
this
whom
most ancient sovereigns, the country
made jointly
they
their
being called Catnesene from the one, and the city being denominated Janiculiim from the other.'
Buddh
:
and
it
In a similar manner, Butos
was supposed
those eight primary deities,
*
Asiat. Res. vol.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
whence Milton
calls
tion, ' '
Macrob. Saturn, Herod, Hist.
iii.
to
is
the city of
But or
have been the residence of Latona, one of
whose head was Pan or Buddha or
Thoth.'*
p. 183, 184,
lib.
i.
c. 7. p.
him
151.
Chemosh was
tht obscene dread
i.
c. 7.
lib. ii. c.
156.
the Moabitic god of love or genera-
of Moab's
sons.
THS ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. Plutarch accordingly
Pan once dwelt near Chemtnis, where
that
us,
he was originally worshipped.
doiil)tless
3.
tells
409
ancient Cupid or Caiiiiis being the
The
same
Buddha, we
as
him designated by the veiy name of that god, while Buddha
shall find
in return is dis-
tinguished by his special appellation.
Thus
Abbuto or
the
Camasson, where he
father
is
Buddha of
the Japanese
China called
in
is
venerated as the god that presides over navigation
:
and thus the primeval Cupid was sometimes styled Pothos, from which the
Greeks formed a verb signifying to be, like
but which
to love or to desire,
Btitos, a mere variation of Pot, Bof, or Buddha.^
as Buthos, which the
same word
mentally the
itself I
It
Greeks applied
take
funda-
is
to the vast
This application they learned from their Pelasgic or Scythic
aqueous abyss.
who came from the northern region of India for, among the Hindoos as among the Egyptians, water was esteemed a form of the great
ancestors,
Hence,
father.
Chaos
;
is
is
was no
less a
it
as a female
:
same
said to be the
The
declared to be no other than Buthos.*
Baut, and spoke of ter
Janus
in the west,
but
this is
of
Chaos
as
;
while
Phenicians expressed
little
it
consequence ; for wa-
form of the great mother than of the great
father,
and
Buddha or Ila was an hermaphrodite.' 4. The various genealogies of Cupid will all be found to lead to the same conclusion, that he is the fod Buddha or Noah as worshipped by the Buddhists.
Me birth
have already seen, that Aristophanes and the Orphic poet deduce his
from a wonderful egg, which was driven about by the winds on the
surface of a watery
makes
his
Chaos
nativity
;
synchronical with the emerging of the earth from the
bosom of the hoary deep. the Phenician
Jarrige Hist, dcs Indes.
Similar are the doctrines, which were taught in
According to Sanchoniatho, the principles of the
school.
Universe were a dark
'
while Hesiod, though he mentions not the egg,
air
and a turbulent Chaos, from
liv. v. c.
31.
Euseb. Prasp. Evan.
lib.
i.
c.
the mixture of
10.
Phurn. de nat.
deor. c. 25. *
Ovid. Fast.
*
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
Pag.
lib.
Idol.
i,
ver. 103.
Epiph. adv.
haer. vol.
i.
p.
\6i.
lib. i. c. 10.
VOL.
II.
3
F
'"'^'''
*
THK OniGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
410 aeoK
IV.
was born Pothos or
^viiich
Eros
Ciij^id
and afterwards he
:
says, that Potlios
(for he groundlesi^ly divides this ancient being into
Here we have
the sons of Cronus and Astartt.' the floatinij e
in effect,
In classical mythology, Cupid
was born from the
he
in that capacity
As
sea.
as
Maia
such, he
a maritime deity,
is
like
sail to the wind, and sometimes
Dagon
fishes,
on the sea
floating
who informs
the last seems to be explained by Elian,
in
at
him threw him
that the elder
us,
and gave
into the sea
same person
as
Venus or Mylitta or
the
Ark
;
hiin
a
Cu-
Sun being
shell
of
tiie
for his
tainly the sacred navicular
As
of the deluge. in his
arms
mother, he
is
cup Argha, which
a maritime god, Cupid
is
are assigned to him as well as difterent mothers
,
He
is
cer-
an avowed copy of the Ship
when
always attended by the arkite dove.*
bottom of each account.
and
sometimes appears receiTing
as she rises out of the sea; and,
and Night, of Cronus and Astarte
:
great father
the shell or the cup, which transports Cupid over the mighty deep,
lurks at the
and
which was indifferently es-
wife, or the daughter,
teemed the mother, or the
his
:
Lucina hoAvever, or the goddess of parturition, was the very
habitation.'
Venus
fish,
a large con^
pid was the son of Lucina and the lover of Venus, and that the
once displeased
and
sometimes
All these representations have one and the same meaning
shell.*
who :
cup or pitcher while he expands
gliding along the surface of the ocean in a
cave
the Ark.
upon the back of a
sometimes driving over the waves a chariot drawn by two
his little
or
generally reckoned the son of Venus,
is
depicted, sometimes riding
is
vvere
the agitated dehigc, and,
was the same
for Astaitt
:
two persons)
and
;
in
company with
Different fathers
but the same
trutii
still
was not only the son of Chaos
of Maia, and of Lucina; but likewise
Mars and Venus, and His reputed parent Diana was doubtless the maof Jupiter and Venus.' ritime Diana, who was venerated as the queen of the waves, and who was By the ancient Italians she was called Jana : the same as Venus or Maia. of [Mercury and Diana, of ^Mercury and "\^enus, of
'
* ^
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
lib.
Montfauc. Ant. Expl. jElian. lib. xiv, c. 28.
*
Pausan.
'
Cicer. dc nat. dcor.
1
i.
c. 10.
vol.
i.
p.
Ill
et infra.
Sec Asiat. Res.
vol.
iii.
p. 186,
187.
Eliac. p. 307. lib. iii. c.
23.
Lactan.
lustit. lib.
i.
c, 17.
.
",
THK OUIOIN OF PASAN IDOLATRY, and indeed
tlie
compound Diana
but equivalent to
is
was therefore the corresponding female
we have
was Buddha.
seen,
Mercury, and Mars
The death
also
but Janus, as
:
Cronus, and
the character of
is
was Mercury or Thoth or Buddha.
of the Hindoo
Cama
by the hand of
Isvvara,
previous to
the ark and set afloat on the ocean, was solemnly la-
his being inclosed in
mented by
Janus
divinity to
She
divine Jana.
whence, agreeably to the system of mythologic ge-
:
nealogy, Cupid himself 5.
Such
i/ie
411
his consort Reti
:
and one of the sweetest measures
in Sanscrit
prosody bears the name of Rett's dirge.^ This
is
identical lamentation of the
certainly the
account of the supposed death of their Cupid,
and
it
tis,
and Dionusus
Egyptian
women on
tliey called
Alancros
not a
little
The
in Phenicia,
song,
it
either the words
how
it
to
other places
air, :
was of old
and Herodotus
Egyptians acquired
the
sonc
this
was of the remotest antiquity among them
he says, that they themselves called it
or the
He
resemble the dirge of Linus as used by the Greeks.
confesses however, that
believed
many
Cyprus, and
perplexed to learn,
so exactly did
it
the song
of'
Maneros, and
and
:
they
that
have been composed on account of the premature death of
Maneros who was
the only son of their
first
king.*
Maneros
therefore
the fabled offspring of Menes, or Phtha, or Helius, or Thoth; eay,
:
corresponds with the similar lamentations over Osiris, Adonis, At-
equally used is
whom
he was the same as each and every of these cognate gods.
was the allegorical death of Osiris or Noah: and he was Menes or
Menu
;
for
Maneros
is
his very
name
that
was
is
to
His death shews, that
equivalent to Cupid the
Menu-
Accordingly, like Noah, he was thought to have been the inventor of hus-
bandry; and, agreeably to the character of INIercury and the Celtic Hercules, 6.
he was esteemed the disciple of the Muses.'
As
the primeval
Cupid was the great
father,
he sometimes bore the
Vulcan and Pan, he was occasionally iden-
r]a.me
of Pappas.
tified
widi the Universe, and was esteemed the most ancient of
voL
Hence,
'
Asiat. Res.
'
Jul. Poll. lib. iv. c. 7.
iii.
p.
1
87-
like
*
Herod. Hist.
lib. ji. c.
79.
all
beings
*"'"'• '•
THE OniCIX OF PAGAN' IDOtATRV.
412 hence also
His amour
was reckoned the god of love and generation.'
lie
with the beautiful Psyche has been variously wrought up by different authors, ancient and modern, into an elegant mythological tale
seems
:
but the whole of
have been founded upon the allegorical love of
to
Psych^ was represented with the wings of a
mother.
womb
and the mystic regeneration from the
arkite consort,
Noah and
made
and
and
his restoration to life
When
7.
and, from
:
tlie
Egyptians
a symbol of the death of Osiris, his inclosure within his limiform
it
coffin,
liberty.
the waters of the deluge had retired,
God
set his
how
heavens as a token that they should never return to cover the earth the rainbow naturally
In the character of necting
it
became a concomitant of the
Iris
who
the
is
same
hend
import
its
;
as the navicular
this sign,
Yoni or Argha,
put bows into
fell
into the
same
error, giving
But,
bows
what was
by the bow of Cupid, and thence analogically by the bows of
really uieant
the other arkite deities,
is
decidedly shewn by the curious carvings in the
front of an ancient Mithratic grotto,
of which Thevenot has given us a de-
In the upper compartment appears a winged Cupid, not armed seated upon the arch of a rainbow.
bow and arrow, but
hand
to
Durga, and Bal-Rama.
a similar manner to Cama,
right
liave
most part they misappre-
Thus they were wont
The Hindoos
with a quiver of arrows.
with a
I
Diana, and Cupid, furnishing them also
the hands of Hercules, Apollo,
lineation.
for the
con-
transforming the rainbow into an offensive weapon, and
the arkite divinities into archers.
in
But
to be the waters of the flood. ^
hence
:
god and goddess.
arkite
the Greeks have faithfully preserved
both with Juno,
the
in
and with the oath of the hero-gods by the waters of Styx, which
shewn
his
of the great
butterfly
the remarkable physical changes which that insect undergoes,
it
is
On
his
seen the mysterious conical pillar or phallus, surmounted by
the head of the Mithratic bull circular columniform
on
:
his left,
altar blazing with fire
a
second phallus, and near
it
a
which ascends towards the solar
orb.'
'
cies,
Phurn. de that
nat. deor. c. 25.
Cupid received
the
Pappas
name from
^
Hesiod. Thcog. ver. 780.
*
See the plate in Thevenot par.
ii.
is
the
Homeric Jppa.
Phurnutus whimsically
the sound produced by kissing.
p.
145. or in Bryant's Anal, vol.
ii,
p.
426.
fan-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY. XXIII. From
manner
the conspicuous
in
413
which the Persian Cupid
is
exhibited on the very front of a Mithratic grotto, where he occupies the principal place pliant votary,
and appears
I think
god Mithras himself.
same
Buddha
as
stance,
we may reasonably infer, that he In this case we must conclude,
and
;
the act of receiving the adoration of a sup-
in
the conclusion
will
is
no other than the
that IMithras
the
is
be confirmed by the circum-
Buddha having been once estaancient Mahabad or great Buddha,
already noticed, of the worship of I take
blished in Persia.
the primeval
him
to be the
Aboudad who reappeared at Time
character of Taschter, and the Cala or
the time of the deluge in in
the
whose days the sacred books
of the Behdins assert that an universal flood took place.' Tiic .symbol of -Mithras
1.
man-bull
the Zend-Avesta, a
the heifer Isis or Astarte, crescent,
ized
was a
in the
we may
collect
from
those of
like
were thought to have a reference to the lunar
w hich was the a.stronomical type of the less
than by a bull
He
Ark.'' ;
was symbol-
agreeably to the
old
Mysteries which speaks of these two sacred animals as being
Sometimes also he was represented by a
mutually parents of each other.' lion,
or rather, as
and the horns of the animal,
:
however by a serpent, no
chaunt
bull,
which was very frequently used as an hieroglyphic of the solar great
father
:
and sometimes,
Egyptian Thoth or Buddha, he was exhi-
like the
bited in close connection with the
famous symbol of the globe, serpent, and
wings,'' 2.
of
His Mysteries appear
Isis,
ditions
and astronomical
have been of the very same nature as those
to
Ceres, and the Cabiri
chiefly
;
founded on a mixture of diluvian
Tliey were celebrated in deep caverns or grottos, sometimes natural
sometimes
artificial
the earliest of which
;
is
said by
Porphyry
consecrated to the god in the mountains of Persia. Mithratic grotto was a symbol of the World, and
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
^
Stat.
^
Jul. Finn, de error, prof. rel. p. 52.
Thebaid.
i.
p.
lib.
that
He it
to
and
have been
tells us,
that the
was dedicated
to
240.
i.
* Horapoll. Hieroz. lib.
M}'thol. vol. ii.p. 110.
tra-
reveries.
ver.
i.
720. Schol.
sect. 71.
in loc.
Clem. Alex. Cohort,
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
p. 11. c. •21.
Montfauc.
in
Banicr.
chap.
v.
414 lidUK IV.
THE ORIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Mithras as the great universal father who made the World.' lieve
him
Ark, as
Hence
ot the ^Vorld.
common
to
World
the
:
same symbols and
the
same
The
larger ship the
personirications aro
Consequently the grotto represented at once the just as
of
Ila the wife
Buddha
Universe and the diluvian ship Argha
sails
it
the
them both.
circle of tlie
though
this I be-
have frequently observed, was esteemed a Microcosm or epilom^
I
Ark and
In
be accurate, provided his assertion be rightly understood.
to
on the waters of the \V'orl(l,
flood,
;
both
is
wiiile the
Argha
yet considered as
is
the great itself,
being that
uhich Mas supposed to have once floated on the
bosonl of the mighty chaotic deep.
This seems necessarily to follow from the fabled birth of Mithras.
phyry the
that the cave was consecrated to him, because
says,
World which he created:
from a rock, that
is
to say,
it
yet he was also su|)posed to have been born
from a cavern hewn out of
we
are properly to understand the divine Creator of
could he himself be born out of that very cavern sented the
World
that Mithras
from
it.
first
But
this
him
as created by
It
.'
created the World,
in the
Now,
a rock.^
the greater world were alone intended by the Persic cavern, and thras
Por-
was a type of
ail
rock,
it'
if
by Mi-
things
how
;
which repre-
a contradiction in terms to say,
is
and was alteruards himself produced
contradiction will vanish,
if
by the cavern we mystically
World or the Ark. Of that Woild the diluvian god was indeed the creator yet was he himself, in the language of the understand
the smaller
:
Mysteries, born out of
The
it,
as from the
birth of Mitliras in short
the birth of
womb
of a great universal mother.
from the rocky cavern
is
The cavern and
the
egg each symbolizetl the World
the World, from which those kindred deities were born,
3.
same
that
same
as
Protogonus, of Eros, of Brahma, and of the Orphic Jupiter,
from the egg.
cosm
the very
:
but
was the Micro-
once floated on the waters.
As Mithras
is
the
same
as the transmigrating
as
Buddha
or
Menu, and consequently
Noah, an opinion
prevailed, that he triplicated
himself or multiplied his essence into three deities
'
Porph. de ant. liyniph. p. 253, 251.
* Just.
Mart. Dial,
cum
the
Trypli. p. :'j6.
:
whence he was called
THE OlUGI^r OF I'AOAN IDOLATRY.
A
the triplasian Mithras.
or Horniusdt
who uas
;
Jlormusdt,
the Persians had yet
Oromasdes
respecting
also thouijht, as Plutarch expresses
And
himself.
increased
similar notion prevailed
415
a third
it,
have thrice
to
composed of
triad,
and Ahriman.'
IVIithras,
many
All these triads are but so
arbitrary multiplications of one circum-
which was believed to occur at the beginning of every, new world
stance,
and they are severally the same both as the Buddhic menical
The
tiles.
and indeed as each and
triad,
triad
of the various triads of the
all
great father's triple multiplication of himself
plain language, than that he begot three sons after his
masdes does indeed appear
Satan
in that of
consequence of elevating men of the primeval tcujpter was
Gen-
means no more n likeness.
in
Oro-
the Zend-Avesta in the character of the Su-
in
preme Being, and Ahriman
o\\
:
and the Brah-
to the
at the
but this
:
is
only the necessary
rank of deity, w hile some recollection
same time preserved.
When
the sup-
posed transmigrating patriarch was profanely made to usurp the place of though he retained
the godliead, real
pagan
in
mythology the whole of
his
and original character, yet he was thence also inevitably compelled to
personate the Divinity and to claim his attributes.
XXIV. One
of the most connnon
Gaiitam, as the same radical intonation
we thence
and, since
:
find,
Now
Ilus.
letters are
Buddha
tells us,
of
Buddha
is
Codom
or
Cadam
or
i)ronounced with a slightly varied
undoubtedly Hermes or Mercury or Taut,
is
that that deity
Tzetzes
titles
was sometimes called Cadinilus or Cudam-
Cadmus and
that
Cadinilus are the
same
title
:
and he adds, that Cadmus was the name of Ilermes among the Beotians,
whose bore
capital city
Since
it.*
Cadmus
is
Thebes was feigned
Hermes
:
;
then was certainly the
be the same as Hermes
declared to
same as Buddha Cada??i or Codom
and, since
we know
there can be
hero was taken from
to have been built by the person that
this
little
Buddtiic
that
It
;
tjiat
seems
as
Buddha, and since
Cadmus must
Buddha
doubt,
title.
same
is
the to
also be the
even yet denominated
name of
the fabulous
have been written by
the Egyptians and Phenicians Cadmoii or Cadam-Oti, which denotes
'
Cudwoith's
*
Tzctz. in Lycoph.
Intell. Syst. b.
i.
vcr. 2 1 9-
c. 4.
p.
288.
Cadam
'^"^p-
•
THE OniaiN OF rAGAN IDOI.ATKY.
4lfi
Sun
the
and from
:'
monites of Palestine,
title
tlie
compounded
thus
who were prohably a branch
Philistim or Shepherds, derived their appellation
worshippers the Cad-
his
of
Scylhian Paih or
tlic
same manner as
in the
;
Cadmon
the Sacas called themselves so from their god Buddha-Saca.
Baal-Hermon
have been likewise denominated
pears to
ap-
whence another
:
name of Hermonites. Hermon is the Hermes of the Greeks, and the Hermaya of the Hindoos: but Hermon, Hermes, and Hermaya, are mere variations of one and the same Buddhic title. From this appellation the Greeks formed their //«r?»o«w; and made the person, who bore it, the wife of Cadmus or Hermon. As a kinch^ed tribe of his worshippers took the
female, she was the
Ark was
for the
same
indifferently
of the great father.
ter,
as
Maya
esteemed the parent, the
Hence we
the Luminary of
mother and as
or Heri-I\laya, the mother of
the
Buddha
and the daugh-
wife,
her celebrated, as the universal
find
World
lunar Crescent: hence
or the
spoken of as being one with the sea-nymph Nais,
also she
is
the old
Armenian Sacae and the Neith of the Egyptians
famous holy books of Hermes are likewise said
to
the Anais of
and hence the
:
be the books of
Harm-
These, like the Indian Vedas which the Brahmens assert to
onia.*
been carried into
may be
Egypt by Thoth or Hermes, were four
added, that, as they are indifferently ascribed
Harmonia, so ported to
letters themselves,
number
in
to
the reputed invention of
have
and
it
Hermes and
to
:
Hermes, are
re-
have been brought by Cadmus into Greece either from Egypt or
Cadmon then or Baal-Hermon being the deity of the Ark, mount Hermon was undoubtedly his high place; in other words, it was a Phenicia.'
transcript of the Paradisiacal Ararat.
of
this
tain
'
name.
of the
One
There seem
to have
been two
hills
of them was a peak of Lebanon, the Phenician moun-
Moon, where Venus and Adonis were worshipped, and which
Steph. Byzant. dc urb. p. 415.
he acknowledges, that
it
is
'The editor has indeed corrected Cadmon
contrary to the reading of every copy
to
Cadmus
:
but
both printed and manu-
iicript.
*
Nonni Dionys.
Schol. in '
A poll.
lib. xli. p.
Argon,
lib.
Hyg. Fab. 277. Herod.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
p. 200.
ii.
1068, IO7O. ver.
lib. xii.
p. 328. Lactant. Instit.
lib.
i.
c. 7- p. 'iO.
992.
Hist. lib. v.
c.
58.
Plin. Nat. Hist.
lib. vii. c.
56.
Diod.
THE ORIGi:^ OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. •abounded with the Mercurial columns denominated Bultijlia
neighbourhood of Tabor,
in the
or a holy place of the
itself also (as
417
.
:
the other was
word imports) a Ta-Baris
the
sliip Baris.'
Bochart, like myself, supposes an immediate connection between the
1.
names Cadmus and Harmonia, and lestine
me
but he seems to
:
hypothesis
in his
respecting the
Cadmus and Harmonia,
Insteafl of viewing
of that connection.
viode
have erred
to
Hcrmointes of Pa-
the Cadmoiiites and
as
the gods of the Cadmonites and Hermonites, and as having conferred their
own
on those neighbouring
divine appellations
be two
who
literal mortals,
Tiie one was
Joshua.
Cadmus
or
Cadmon
:
birth
of the land of Canaan
birth a
whence he was
;
Hermonite
;
Tradition, accordingly,
Cadmus
for
:
Cadmonite
a
was by
the other
denominated Harmo7iia.
similarly
he conceives them to
;
Greece when Palestine was invaded by
fled into
by
tribes
is
represented,
styled
whence she was brings tlicm out
as being an emigrant
from Phenicia.^
The
2.
dition
who
Tyriaus,
reverse of will
theory of Bochart would have been sufficiently plausible,
if tra-
had uniformly and exclusively described Cadmus and Harmonia as left their
which
this,
own country and
Cadmus was indeed
but he was likewise venerated
:
brought him into Greece no
Thus Diodorus
same account of
less
Greece
:
but the very
his origin
:
in
a Phenician, or rather a
Egypt
;
and popular fable
from that country than from Palestine.
was of Thebes
that he
tells us,
in
so necessary to the system of that eminent writer,
is
prove to be the case.
Phenician god
settled
in
Egypt
and Nonnus represents
his
:
Tzetzes gives
father Agenor,
tlie
who
made a king of Phenicia, as lesiding in that city.' It is remarkConon blends the two accounts together. He says, that the Phenicians once possessed the empire of Asia that they made Egyptian
is
usually
able,
that
;
Thebes
their capital
;
and that Cadmus, migrating thence into Europe,
Beotian Thebes, and called
it
Well's Geog. of O. Test. vol.
i.
'
'Bochart. Canaan, '
Diod. Bibl.
*
Conon. Narrat.
Vag.
Idol.
lib.
i.
lib.
i.
c.
p. 20.
x.xxvii. p,
18,
after the
p. 3i27>
name
built
Tli£re
of his native town.'*
328.
19.
Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.
Nonni Dion.
lib. iv. p,
126.
279> Euscbius and SynccUus similarly connect the two eoun-
VOL.
I.
3
G
chap.
v.
418 iiouKiv.
is
THE ORIGiy OF PAGAN IDOLATHV.
•
much genuine
history conlainctl in this curious tradition, which connects
together Egypt and Pheuiciu in a
manner not unlike
The
logic narrative of Sanchoniatho.
Piienicians, the
the Palli, and the Egyptian Shepherd-kings,
tim,
mytho-
that of the old
were
Anakim, the
same people.
the
all
Philis-
They were of the line neither of Canaan nor of Mizraim, but descendants They were the founders of the first universal empire at Babel of Cush. and, under the name of Scut hs or Goths, they overran Palestine and Egypt, and more than once acquired the empire of Asia.'
Cadam
or
Buddha
Cadmus
hence
:
He
Egyptian and a Phenician.
Their great god was
have been an
indiflferently said to
is
was both, so
as his worship
far
was
esta-
by the adventurous Palli; but no further:
blished in either country
wherever the Scythians penetrated, there we
of Cad-
the veneration
find
for,
mus.
According world
to the
Hindoos, Buddha or
Cadam
over the whole
travelled
and they give much the same account of Siva and Deo-Naush.
:
Greeks and Egyptians
tell
The
and Bacchus and Cronus.
similar tales of Osiris
All these relate, not to any actual travels of Noah, but to the diffusion of idolatry in the infancy of the world
;
when each colony
travelled
under the
protection of the great father, whose oracular image was borne before them
Now,
in his consecrated ark.
as
Cadmus was
also said to have been an eminent wanderer ferent countries,
;
yet he
the lake Tritonis in Africa.*
Pelasgi
;
him
He was
is
likcAvise in
Thrace
in
many
is
dif-
are told,
among whom he had
and he even be-
:
a son called IlljjriusJ :
for Thrace, Sa-
were equally settlements of the Scuths,
who were indeed
the
ancestors
of a
Synctll. Chronog. p. 152.
This subject will be resumed hereafter, book
BibK
lib. v. p.
Apollod. Bibl.
vi.
329, 323. Nonn. Dionys.
lib. iii. c. 4.
§ 1. c. 5-
§4.
Palli,
or
considerable part of the
bringing Phcnix and Carlmus from Egyptian Thebes to Phenician Tyre.
* Diod. '
Cadam, he
Thus we
nothing more than might have been expected
mothrace, and Illyricum,
'
find
as
having espoused her at
also described as
is
the king of the lUyrians,
All this
p. 27.
and we
besides Phenicia, Greece, and Egypt.
married to Harmonia
tries,
same
Samothrace he was initiated into the Cabiric Mysteries and was
that in
came
:
the
c. 5. lib. xiii. p.
Strab. Gcog. lib.
372. .xiv.
p. 6S0.
Euseb. Chron.
THE ORIGIN' OF PAG.AN IDOLATRY. Hence we
Greeks,
find
the
Gette reckoned
419
among
the Thracians
\\\^p
;
spread themselves far beyond the narrow limits of geographical Thrace, and
who were
so numerous that Herodotus reckons them as nalionall}- inferior
Nor was
only to the Hindoos.'
The
thrown out at random.
this assertion
Gctae are undoubtedly the Goths: and the Goths are no less undoubtedly the Scuths, Scythians, or Cliasas in Casligar
or
{1(1)71
nicia,
The same god
and Bokhara.
Buddha
one of whose principal settlements was
;
By
Egypt, Cashgar, Thrace, and Illyricum.
made only a
whom
therefore,
sojourner
in
Thrace
who
the military caste and
thus subjected the lower ranks of people pro-
and adjuring him alone.
whom he Woden;
Thracian god,
Wud
was
equally the
or
same
Phenician deity
;
new
carried to the
Cadmeans
ple,
so,
and both
Hermaya
or
when Carthage was
settlement.
The
:
same name occurs
find,
in
the
is
in
same
temple of Stonehenge
and near
is
Herod. Hist.
lib. v. c. 3.
^
Horod. Hiit.
lib. v. c. 7-
Mos. Cliorcn.
'
Euseb. Chron.
ill
Hist. p.
;
Colchis
in
Colchians were a
the
their chief deity.*
A
another called Sida
it
Cadmus was
come
fabled to have
town of
:
and we
into that
Cadmea was so called from Sita, who in the mythology of
the goddess Sida or
called the circle
Armcn.
:
Argha.
for the
circle
She was venerof the Buddhic
of Sidee, while Sidee herself ,
Dionys. Pprieg. vcr. 195.
Eustath.
this
as Ida or Ila or Parvati or
'
'
As Cadmus was a name and worship were Cadmea ; and the peo-
w hich there was a notion that Cad-
ated under a kindred appellation in Britain
*
his
search of his sister Europa.*
Cadam, and Sida from Hindostan
the
was called
Cadam was
in Cilicia,
that Phenix the brother of
country while
Hermes Grecian Hermes were
Cadam.'
or
built,
but the reason was
colony of the Indo-Scytha;, and the
city
him
but the Gothic
:
There was likewise a Cadmea
or Cadnionites.^
established himself
Htrmes
or
worshij)ping
what Herodotus says of the
is
Woden and
below the high country of Armenia,
mus
Tliis
Mercury
calls
Buddha
as
Cadmus is who formed
the Greeks
bably of Japhetic origin, esteemed him their great father, principally,
Chasas of Phe-
but the Thracian nobility,
:
Ca-
thev called
Saca, was equally worshipped by the
or
Sil. Ital. lib.
i.
lib.i. c. 9j 10. Tzctt. in
ver. 6.
Lycoph.
30. Eustath. in Dion. Pcriug. vcr. 874.
Tcr. IJi.
is
de-
THE
420 liuoKiv.
OUrOlNT OF
PAGAN IDOLATRT.
Hu
clarcd to be the great mother and the ship within which
In
time of the deluge.
at the
Cadmus
siiort,
Buddha was venerated
or
from the extremity of Siam to the remote western
Codom
of Pegu, the
Egypt,
the
Gautam of
Cadmus and Cadmilus
Chadmel of
the ancient
Irish,
of 13eotia and
were
all
in the
for the
:
of Phenicia and
Samothrace, and the
one and the same character.'
might mention various other places, where
come
of Ireland
isle
Cadam-On
Ceylon, the
was preserved
Cadmus was
I
thought to have
course of his wanderings, such as Rhodes, Thera, Thasus, Eu-
hha, Sparta, Attica, Lesbos, and Ionia
:
but I must not neglect to observe,
some bring him from Egypt or Phenicia; others, preserving genuine tradition Avith greater accuracy, represent him as coming from Babylonia, the region whence also in their progress westward the Phenicians or
that, while
This was the seat of the
Palli migrated into Palestine.'
Chasas or Cuthites under Nirarod, superstitions branched
Buddha commenced
or
in
oft' :
the centre
every direction.
empire of the
first
whence the two primeval
Here
Cadam
the w orship of
and, in each country where they afterwards settled,
the enterprizing Shepherds of the Scuthic stock were always peculiarly de-
voted to 3.
it.
Cadmus
being the same divinity as
Cadam
being the husband of Ila or the nmndane Ark, the whole history of
Cadmus
built
we
or Buddha, and Buddiia shall not
wonder
to find
upon the hieroglyphical worship of the
great mother.
Europa, the daughter of Agenor king of Tyre, was carried off into Crete
by Jupiter
;
who assumed
for that purpose the
Agenor dispatched
her became the father of ]\Iinos.
mus and
Phenix,
in search of her.
over the whole world, at
lengtii
form of a
Cadmus, having
bull,
his
and who by
two sons, Cad-
fruitlessly
wandered
consulted the oracle of Apollo; and was
directed to settle in a country where he should find a heifer unbroken to the
yoke, and to build a city on the spot where that
The prophecy was accomplished and the
city of
Thebes was
'
Collect, dc rcb, Hib. vol.
*
Mos. Chorcn.
Hist.
Arm.
iii.
lib.
built,
in the
heifer should lead him.
region afterwards called
agreealjly to the directions
Bcotia
;
which he had
p. 636., i.
c. 9.
Herod. Hist.
lib.
i.
c.
1,
Just, Hist. lib. xviii. 0.3.
THK ORTGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRY,
421
Afterwards, he and his consort migrated into Illyricum
received.
and, at
:
they were both changed into serpents and transported by Jupiter
length,
into the Elysian fields or the islands of the blessed.'
At
period of the discussion, the present fable cannot
this
Cadmus was
elucidation.
denoting
a?i oj:
or a heifer
and, in
:
his
conductor,
(we are
told)
cient city of the if
a heifer
signifies
same name
in
Cadmus came from Phcnicia
tlie
sequently
upper Egypt
Hence
with
same
the former
the
also
Tzetzes expressly informs wliicii
respected
it
cote,
signifies
lunar
l)ccause a
IMneuis,
asserted, that,
latter
must have been imposed.
:
which was
was thought
to
name of
and
cow was used
it
as
Con-
was imposed, Accordingly,
Beotian Tlicbes and every
were convertible:
and the cow,
crescent,
it
the Egyptian Thebes.
whatever idea the
that the
an Ark
Syrian dia-
evident, that the
thing
Now
the
only acquired the secondary a symbol of the Ark.
on the sphere, the Ark was typified by the Moon. ship Theba,
find
was a studied copy of the Egyptian Tiiebes.*
word Theba properly meaning of a
us,
in the
had previously come from
it is
Thebes was borrowed from that of sure, that, wiih
which
and we
:
into Greece, he
we may be
Bos or Bou
or
But there was a more an-
likewise.''
Egyptian Thebes into Phenicia.'
the Beotian
Bous
a similar manner, he was supposed to
have called his new-built city Thebes from Theba, lect
much
generally thought to have denominated the coun-
from the animal which was
try Beotia
require
Hence
the
But,
Moon,
the
and hence the figure of the
impressed on the sides of the bulls Apis and
have likewise adorned the flank of the heifer that
a clear proof of their theological connection with each conducted Cadmus The city of Theba therefore, whether in Greece or in Egypt, is the other.' ;
city of the
that leads
Ark
and both
:
'
bull that carries off Europa,
Cadmus, involve symbolical
the vessel within which he
*
tlie
Ovid. Metam.
was
lib. iii. lib. iv. ver.
Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.
^
Diod. Bibl.
*
Tzetz. in Lycoph. vcr. 1206.
'
Pausan. Bocot. p. 559.
lib.
i.
p. 20.
allusions
to the great
and the heifer father
inclosed.
566
—602.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib. iii.c. 5.$-*.
Etym. Magn. vox. ©ijSa.
Euscb. Chron. p. 27. Syncell. Chronog. p. 152.
and to
'"*•"• '•
422
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Tl.'E
Agreeably to
TUeha
a conclusion,
siicli
sometimes said to have been
is
an ancient king both of the Egyi)tian and the Grecian
the wife of Ogyges,
Thebes, who flourished at the time of the deluge.'
doubt as the heifer Osiris
inclosed
same
;
Isis,
who
same
the
similarly described as the consort of the ark-
is
also as
universal mother
tlie
likewise as the Tauric Europa.
by the poets the daughter of
She was the same no
This
personage
last
Tyrian Agenor
liie
Cadmus
at Hierapolis in Syrin, as the sister of
Harmonia
;
and she was worsliipped
the
:
made
ujiually
is
the
;
pi^iest-i
however assured
Luciun, that she was the self-same character as Astarte and Rhea.'
was the great mother or
Astartfe
receptacle of the hero-gods
floating
as the heifer Baalath, was clearly no other than the heifer
The
transformation of
that these
two tauric
of tiiose reptiles points
may
It
:
them out
Cadmus and Harmonia
deities
and
as the deified
Mars, to this:
whom
tenants of the insular
him
Cadmilus, were
Cadmus founding
all,
or
as
for
:
it is
title
Cadmus and
another of his
titles
that
god,
the
whom
lib.
Apollon. Argon, ^
is
an
Cadmus: but she
The
fact \vas
iii.
lib.
Grutcr. liiscrip. vol.
c.
ii.
i.
that one of the titles of
same name somev\hat
Mercury or Buddha,
the oriental
Codom
12.
differently
the
or Cadam.'
same
in
Hence
was Theus or Theuth: for the Cushites
^
989— 99'1-
p. Ivi.
precisely
M'ife,
name
of Theus- Ares
Luc. dc dca Syra.
Pherccyd. apud Schol.
;
and shewed
Taut or Thoth or
Tzetz. in Lycoph. vcr. 29-
11. ver.
of
and
Camillus, Casmilus, and
they venerated, was
Tzttz. in Lycoph. vcr. 1206.
Apollod. Bibl.
find,
Camulus,
well known, the
of Arabia w^orshipped him under the
'
Ilium
Thebes.'
the wife of
Hence we
Menu.
and that name was a
find, that
evidently,
of the blessed
have been at once the daughter and the consort of
or Cadmilus
substance as the word
we
only,
Paradisiacal Ararat.
the double relation of daughter
in
Buddha
Mars was Camulus
;
isles
she bore the fabu'ous race of the Amazons.*
to
as Ila does to
jjronounced
to
and,
Ares was the same person as Cadmus or Buddha; and Har-
INIars or
monia stands
also
abreption to the
Harmonia was not only reckoned
was likewise thought
means
into serpents
to add, that the legend of Ilus founding
exact repetition of the legend of
XXV.
or
:
Isis.
were occasionally worshipped under the figure
their ultimate
not be improper
Theba
But
in loc.
THE ORIGIN OF PACAiV IDOLATRY.
423
Theuth or Duddha, by representing him under the prevailing Hermetic
He was
of a square black stone.' the Babylonians
we are
for
:
column or Mercurial
adored under the very same symbol by that they were the
told,
Mars and worshipped
pillar to
figure
it
first,
who
erected a
as the representative
Their notion of him was, that he was an ancient king of
of the god.*
Rhea
Assyria, the brother of
or the great mother, and the son of
Sames
and they supi)osed him to have been called Thourras, before he received the
of Ares?
He
which occur
in his
name
titles,
His father was the Sun, oriivinal tide
was one of
for
such
is
the import of the
Buddha
to be
;
in short
;
same
the
and
:
his
Tor and Tara-Nath
for
their
Thor and
was the same as I\lenu-Vaivaswata,
so called because he was esteemed the child of the
the Egyptian Phtha
word Sames
whence the Goths and Celts had
deity,
This sun-born god
Taranis.*
and the
:
genealogy, sufficiently point out his real character.
Thourras shews him
were names of that
their first fabulous sovereigns
in reality as
Sun
;
same
the
also as
Helius, for Ares was himself
astronomically no other than the solar orb. 1.
His connection with Mercury further appears, from the name which was
given to him, and from the worship which was paid to him at Edessa in Syria.
We
learn from the
emperor Julian, that the inhabitants of that place
venerated a triad composed of the Sun, iMonimus, and Aziz
on the authority of Jaml)lichus, that Monimus Mars.'
This
I
believe
Monimus and Aziz the Sun.
here advanced.
He
and he says
;
Manu.
is
Max. Tyr.
'
Chronic. Pasch.
*
Thourras
for
is
the
Julian. Oidi.
to
Monimus is
have been
perfectly risht in his
will tend directly to
or ^lonim
is
prove what
Mercury
but a variation of the oriental
or
is
Buddha:
name JMenu
JNIonim has been pronounced by more than one
Dissert, xxxviii. p. 374. p.
me
examined,
Monim
*
Suid. Lex.
Chronic. Alex. p. S9.
37.
Thor-Asa or Asa-Thor of the ancient Goths.
the corresponding feminine deity '
if
to
says, that
Accordingly,
'
triad
being mutually the same god, and each being one with
opinion: and that opinion,
or
and he adds,
:
Mercury, and Aziz
have been no other than the Buddhic
to
Jamblichus seems
truly
*v£is
apud Bochai:.
;
for the Phenicians
Can.
lib.
i.
Astoreth or Asa-Torath
were a Gothic or Indo-Scythic
c. 4'^. p. 6"6C,
66i.
tribe.
"^'^'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
4!i4
i-.i)OK
IV.
writer to be
JManu or Maiii of Thibet, the Mercury (us they express
tlic
themselves) of that country
Menu
doubtedly
but the Thibctian legislator and god
:
So likewise he determines Aziz
Duddha.'
or
Mars nor is he wrong in his opinion, though it will lead Aziz is certainly the Hesus of the that Mars is Mercury. their deriving the
Hesus from guage
:
Bochart
greatly doubt the propriety of
I
word from the Hebrew.''
The Celts received the name who spoke the Hebrew lan-
and I think
same god
clear, as I
it
Now Esa
have already observed, that
it is
Esa
the
one of the names of Buddha: and Hesus was
is
as Teutates or Teutat-Esa, the
Taut of Phenicia, the Thoth of
Egypt, and the Tat or Datta of the Indo-Scythaj. is
Celts, as
the Scythians, not from a people
of the Hindoos. the
be
to
to the conclusion
:
and Schedius have well remarked, though
un-
is
the war-god of the Gothic or Teutonic tribes
Aziz or Mars therefore
whom
;
they called
JPud
or
JFoden, and whose character melts into that of Hercules, Mercury, and
He
Mars.
was the same as each of those
mutually the same as each other.
sometimes times
and we likewise
:
three divinities were
them.
Hence we
and
;
all
all
find,
those deities were
that the classical writers
find,
northern war-god Hercules, sometimes
call the
Mercury
deities
that in their
Mars, and some-
own mythology
reputed one, however the poets might have divided
Thus Macrobius informs
us,
that the
Roman
pontifices,
who
ceived the body of their theology from the old Etruscans, pronounced to be the
same
as Hercules
and he highly praises Virgil
:
knowledge which he displays
matter,
many arguments that the
Hercules.^
*
planet
Thus
Bayer. Osrhoen. p. 8.
Boch. Can.
lib.
suppose Aziz to be ^
of
or Buddha.
i.
c.
called that
that
god though
Varro proved
this
in corroboration of the
by the Chaldeans
the planet
Mars and Mercury were but one
Georg. dc Alph. Tibet, p. 507, 508. apuJ Vallanc.
iv. p.
Mars
Vind. in
507, 508.
42. p. 662.
Sched. in Lactant. Ins.
lib.
i.
c.
21. p. 113.
They
|iy?.
Macrob. Saturn,
Wud
and he further remarks,
Mars was
also he tells us,
Collect, dc rcb. Ilib. vol. ^
:
.He adds,
re-
for the antiquarian
in assigning the Salii to the latter
they are usually given to the former. point by
these
lib. iii. c. 12.
They probably
called
it
Bali or Pali, which was a
name
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. we have
god, wliich god was the
Sun: and
bears the Mercurial
of Camulus and Theuth.^
Nor
2.
we know
to
some
sort be
Mars with
recently seen,
Mars
the war-god of the Scythians,
whom
have been Woden, purely fanciful and imaginary, amounting
no more than
to
titles
the identity of
is
thus, as
this
deemed
war-god of one pagan nation may always
that the
;
the
same as the war-god of another
perly one primeval character the Greeks, and
that
there
is
jft
sufficient
are truly and pro-
worship among the Romans,
their
Goths, must have originated from a
common
source.
from Herodotus, that the Scythians or Goths venerated Mars, VVoden, under the symbol of a sword
to say,
is
tlie
and that
;
:
Woden
of an arbitrary nature to prove, that Mars and
We learn
425
;
which they placed on
the top of a rude pyramid constructed with faggots, and to which they sacrificed not only shee|)
The
Thracians, m
lio
and horses but likewise every hundredth captive.*
were of the Scythic race, or wlio
at least
were under
the government of Scylhic chieftains, used the same hit'roglypliic to represent
Ammianus
Marcellinus
tells us,
that they worshipped a naked
upright in the ground, considering tries
Woden
god of war, who was doubtless no other than WucI or
their
:
for
sword fixed
and Mars as the guardian of the coun"
it
through which they roved.'
Now origin,
the
Romans, whose ancestors
have
(I
adored their god Mars precisely
little
the
in
doubt) were of Scythic
same manner
:
for
we are
informed by Varro, Plutarch, and Arnobius, that he was worshipped under the form of a spear
mode
of worship
;
and Arnobius and Clemens very naturally mention the very
in
same sentence,
in
this
which they speak of the
Scythian veneration of a sword.*
A
similar superstition ()revailed at Cliei'ont^a in Bcotia,
have already seen) strongly addicted for Pausanias
was thought
tells us,
to
'
Macrob. Saturn,
Amm.
*
lib.
i.
c. 19.
^
we
worship of ('adam or Buddha:
that divine honours were there paid to a spear,
have been the sceptre of Agamemnon.*
'
* Varr.
to the
a country (as
Herod. Hist.
which
By AgamemnoO'
lib. iv. c. 6'2.
Miirccll. lib. x.xxi. c. 2.
apud Clem. Alex. Cohort,
p. 29, 30.
Plut. in
vit.
Rom. Arnob.
a
Paus. Bacot. p. 6o6, 607.
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
II.
3H
c>l\p.v.
THE ORIGIN OP PAGAN IDOLATRY.
426
f
we
they meant their principal deity: for that he
Lycophron and Tzetzes,
learn from
was the Jupiter of the Spartans, though fabled
have been at the
to
siege of Troy.'
The sword-worship
mentioned by Justin as being both very ancient
is
and such, no doubt, was the case
for the Scythians,
and very general
:
different periods,
from the building of Babel to the subversion of the
empire,
iiave penetrated into
first
universal
monarchy
at
Roman He says,
almost every quarter of the globe.
that from the very origin of things
the
;
(now the Scythians were the founders of worshipped spears
after the deluge) the ancients
as the representations of the immortal gods
and he attributes
;
to this super-
stition the practice of giving lances to the statues of the deities.*
It
is
curious to observe,
how
may
the Gothic war-god and his sword
be
traced not only to the settlements of the Chasas on the northern frontier of
Hindostan, but even to the island of Ceylon
and that too
;
in close
We
Somono-Codom.
tion with the worship of
Buddha
the Brahmanda-Purana,
that Shadanasa or Carticeya, the Indian
six faces,
was born
in the
or
mountains to the
to say, in the high tract of land,
connec-
are informed in
Mars with south and south-west of Meru ;
which has ever formed and which
that
is
still
forms the principal settlement of the Chasas.
Here he took
the re-
solution of going to the mountains of Crauncha, which coincide geographically witii
Germany and
part of Poland, in order that he miglit recreate
Having
himself after his fatigues in the war of the gods with the giants. arrived in this remote region of the uest, skirts
of Crauncha: and this weapon
is
he threw away that,
asserted, that he had found under a clod of
was placed
in his
tomb.'
Now
his
s^vord in
earth,
and which
after his death
the sword, which Attila pretended to have
Mars
found, was the well-known symbol of the Scythian
:
and the
prince, aware of the vast influence of superstition, interpreted
'
Lye. Cassan.
vpr.
1123, 1124.
believe, as the celebrated
Tzetz.
in
suspect to be a corruption oi Saca-Memnon
;
loc. et in
13fi9.
ver.
likewise brought to
Memnon, who was
Buil Iha
presently sec, was no other than the oriental
* Just. Hist. lib. xliii. c. 3.
the
which the conqueror Attila
:
for the
He was
Asiat. Res. vol.
Troy; but who,
viii.
p.
371, 372.
artful
accord-
the same, as
name Jgamenmon
and Saca was Buddha or Woden. *
it
I
we
1
shall
strongly
JHK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IJUOLATUY. iiigly
as the
and,
;
427
possessor of this roprescntation of the national
rii;litfiil
asserted his (hvinc and indcfcasihle claim to the dominion of the em'th.'
Siod,
Tlie sword
tiieii
of the In(han Carticeya
Mars
the sword of the Scythian
is
:
and the war-god, who travels far into the west from the land of the Indo-
must undoubtedly be that same war-god, who was worshipped
Scyti)a%
Roman
Ceylon he
In
empire.
Coomaura according to deity is clearly tlie same denominated
-S'cc/Wrt
in
subjugators of Europe and subverters of the
the west by the Scythian
Kandtkoomareyo,
called
is
mode
the Sanscrit
of writinsi the
as the Carticeya of the Chasas,
which
a
is
Scand-
or
name
for this
:
both because
of Carticeya, and because he
title
is
lie is
repre-
sented precisely in the same manner, namely, as having six heads and as
He
rfding on a peacock.
humour of
the prevailing in tiie
distinguished indeed from Buddha, agreeably to
dividing the
mythology of Ceylon, he
said to have obtained
is
is
into different persons: yet, for
;
he
from him very extraordinary powers which led to
The Indian
suljsequent adoration.*
his
same god
immediately connected with him
is
Carticeya then
is
certainly the
sword-god of the Scythians, and the spear-Mars venerated by the Romans.
'
Sec Gilibon's
*
Asiat. lies. vol.
those
compound
Ilist.
of the decline and
vii. p.
so
titles
wc do not
52, 53. vol.
i.
common among
if
Romans,
the Greeks, and the Esjyptians.
expected: for
tlie
iii
it
tlie
43.
The name of Carticeya seems when
the Hindoos: but,
Nor
in fact
is
Romans Mars, by
Antioch. Antholog.
vi.
The war-god
Italy.
the
apud Seiden.
it
is
resolved,
to
be one of
I
am much-
Greeks
yircs,
any thing more than might be
tiiis
Scytliian Shepherds once conquered Eiiypt
OT Pelasgi, colonized Greece and called by the
252.
rudiments of the war-god's appellation both among the
mistaken
find
fall. vol. vi. p.
p.
then,
and by
and, under the
;
name
of Palli
whose synibid was a sword, was Egyptians
tiie
lie appears also to have been
Velt. Val..
/tries.
denominated Ares by the
Cuthites of Babylonia: for we are told, that he was called by them T/iourras previous to bis
Chron. Pasch.
receiving the appellation of Ares.
He
p. 37.
is
likewise pretty evidently the'
Ileres or Ares of the Canaanites: and, from the circumstance of his being worshipped in the
Sun, the word Heres came altogether ditllrent.
same
the
Artes
I
title,
denote that luminary; though the primitive idea
properly expressed Art as
take to be Art-Esa, and
Art occurs
in Carticeya,
which
Mars is
to
the
be
to
me
word occurs
M'Ares
in
I
the
suspect,,
one and
the obli(|uc cases of Mars..
or the great Arcs.
probably no other than
is,
to be only variations of
But
this
same
title
Egyptian Artes with be pre-
Carticeya being C' Art-Esa or the illustrious Art-Esa, and Artes more simply Art-Esa
fixed
;
as
have remarked above.
I
to
Mars, Ares, and Aries, appear
As
for the
word Art,
it
signitied
among
the old Scythians a
*^"^
4t^
OU!Ciy OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
Tffli I
liOUK IT,
The sword or spear being thus the symbol of tlie war-god, we shall find, tliat the name of the deity was applied to the weapon both among the Romans and the Goths and the appellations, which they used, will serve :
additionally to establish the point contended for, that
Plutarch
that the
tells «s,
adds, that Quirinus was a
Romans
title
Mars was Buddha.
called the sacred spear
Mars
:
and he
of that god afterwards applied to the deified
Romulus, that the word was derived from Quiris, and that Quiris among the old Sabines denoted the head or dagger of a spear.^
same account,
Ovid
a Greek would
writing the word Quiris, as
much
gives
was
therefore, or (with a slight variation) Qt/irimis or Ciiretuis,
the
Curis
do, Curis.^
once the
at
name of the god and of the spear. But Quirinus was not only a title of Mars and Romulus, it was likewise one of the many designations of Janus. That god, as we learn from Macrobius, was called, as being the god of war, Quirinus from Curis the old Sabine name of a spear.' Tlius it appears, that jMars is the same as Janus, each bearing tlie name of Quirinus, and each being reputed the god of battles but Janus, as we have already seen, :
is
the Jain or
From
Buddha of the
the god Curis the
east.
Romans were
called Quirites, which
is tlie
name
same
and that
word
as Curetcs.
name
they seem to have borrowed fi-om the sword-god Curis; for they are
These were the Cabiri under a
different
.
represented as dancing with drawn swords in their hands,
whom
the
Roman
pontifices associated with
Mars
or
:
same
Buddha
or
as
the import therefore of the war-god's
doubt
to
name :
will be the illustrious ship-deilt/ Eta.
him who was worshipped
in the is
Sun. said
I
Rom.
^
Macrob. Saturn,
vit.
lib.
* i.
c.
Ovid. Fast.
p. 159.
lib.
ii.
vcr.
title
Sun
This
sailing in
a
suspect, that the Cuthite
by the Rabbins
a peacock, was no other than the Carticeya of the Indo-Scythae. Plut. in
its
sword-god.
for the ancients represented ihe
god Tarlak, worshipped with Adraramclech, whose form
'
are
This Cres I
Minos and Minotaur, Cres being the
in his quality of the
will exactly accord with his solar character ship, allusively no
They
and from the same god Cuiis both the island and
:
believe to have been the
ship
Salii
worshipped under
fabled original sovereign Cres or Cures borrowed their names.
of Minos or Menu
the
like
Hercules.
usually placed in Crete, because the Cabiri were there that denomination
:
475—477.
to
have been
THE OUIGUV OF PAOAX IDOLATRY.
We As
sliall
be brought to just the same conclusion,
we turn
if
Goths,
to the
the old Saxons or Sacas \vorshij)pcd their war-god under the symbol of a
sword
so the name, by whicii in their language they expressed a dagger,
;
was Sa.ra or
Sea.ra.*
and reputed father: tiieir
to
429
war-god and as
But for his
Buddha
fhem
called
is
Saca qt Saxa
own
their
it
national
;
many wonderful
own by some
his
was
name
was not unnatural
it
properties to those sacred weapons.
heroes were wont to stamp them with mysterious characters designated his
as he
and,
title.
ancient Scythians thus deifying their swords,
to ascribe
of their great god
symbol was a sword, they at once applied
a dagger and took from
The
this is the precise appellation
:
for
Their
and each
formidable proper name, which he thought likely
to inspire his enemies with
terror/
Hence, when mythology melted into
and almost animated swords of the
romance, originated the inchanted
Gothic cavaliers: such, for instance, as the Caliburn of king Arthur; and the Durindana, the Fusberta, and the marvellous golden lance, which
so conspicuous a tigure in the divine
poem
I greatly mistake, sprang the warlike superstition,
of Orleans to refuse
all
vulgar swords, and to
weapon which would be found of
St.
Catharine de Fierbois
covery of the sword of
;
in
Hence
of Ariosto.
make unless
also,
which prompted the maid
demand a mysterious holy
a tomb behind the high
altar of the
church
a circumstance strongly resembling the dis-
Mars by
So again
Attila.^
the sword
:
being the
symbolical war-god of the Scythians, they were led from the earliest times to
swear by
it
Hence Shakespeare, with
as by a deity.*
presents his prince
Hamlet
as requiring his companions to take an oath
The custom was
secrecy upon his sword.'
singular propriety, re-
preserved,
of
when the weapon had
ceased to be worshipped by the Christianized warriors of the north.* '
At
the war-cry of
Nemed
under Henoist suddenly drew
cure Saxet or Take your daggers, our perfidious forefathers
and assassinated at
iheir swords,
p. 161, 162. *
MalK t's North. Ant.
* Mallet's *
and Davies's Mythol.
I
am
North. Ant.
vol. vol.
i.
i.
p.
three
hundred of the i.
308. '
p. 239. p.
least
See Turnt-r's Hist, of the Anglo-Saxons, vol.
unsuspecting Briiish nobility at Stonchcnge.
'
217.
Gifford's Hist, of France, vol.
Hamlet Act
i.
ii.
p.
548.
scene ult.
not without suspicion, that the old chivalric oath before the ladies and the peacock,
by which the knights bound ihcrasclvcs
to
attempt some haiardous adventure, has originated
from the peacock of the war-god Cariiceya.
chap.
v.
THE OniGIN or PAGAN JDOLATKV.
430 I!(I()K
IV.
Mars,
3.
like
in the character
Woden and
Hercules, being the diluvian patriarch viewed
logical propriety represented as the
was born from the the hero-gods
:
wc
of the lord of battles,
him always with
find
strict
mytho-
paramour of Venus; the goddess, who
and who was esteemed the maritime receptacle of
sea,
whence, in the old
rites
of the Romans,
they were
shipped conjointly, he as the great father, and she as the great mother the idea was so familiar, that his tion
Mars
Marspitcr ov father
As an
the shape of a
Dagon,
as
Vishncu
is
in the
war of the gods with Typhon or
said,
This points him out
fish.*
to
like
of the
as
to
Buddha
Nor
fish.
when he
the period,
:
Venus,
have assumed
be the same as the fish-god
Matsya Avatar, and
of the sovereign prince in the belly purely accidental or imaginary
and
frequently expressed in composi-
in the
and, on that occasion, he
:
;
to denote his paternity.'
he was engaged
arkite deity,
the deluge
name was
all
wor-
himself, sufficiently explains the import of the fable
;
it
is
thus
in his this
character
resemblance
metamorphosed
was the age of Typhon
who compelled Osiris to enter into an ark, and who for a time put to flight the whole body of the hero-gods. The war of the giants alludes to the same event as the war of Typhon and here we have the escape of Mars described in a somewhat more literal form. or the unrestrained ocean,
:
Those
allegorical children of
Neptune
or the sea,
\\
hose growth increased so
rapidly that they soon overtopped the highest mountains, are said to have
forced
Mars
to enter into a tub.'
This
What
repetition of the fable of Osiris
is
manifestly nothing
more than a
the classical mythologists have con-
verted into a tub, was the round dish or goblet which the Hindoos consider '
Macrob. Saturn,
lib.
i.
c.
12. p. 170. c. ip. p. 203.
gods were simihirly compounded,
when analyzed, shews him
to
jind,
I
believe, for the
be the great father.
The names
of
many
other of the
same reason: the character of each,
The
title
of Jupiter or Jovispiter
familiar to every one: but Lucilius will teach us, that he was by no
bore the appellation oifather.
Ut nemo
sit
nostrum, quin paler optijniis divum.
Ut Neptunus
pater, Liber, Saturnus pater,
Janus, Quirinus pater,
nomen
Lucil, "
Anton. Liber. Metam.
'
Hyg. Poet. Astron.
c.
dicatur ad
apud Lactan.
lib. ii.
c.
40. p. 415.
Mars,
unum. Instit. lib. iv. c. 3. p.
28.
Hyg. Fab. 28.
is
means the only god who
353.
THE ORIGIN as a copy of the ship Argha.
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
01'
4J
was the same as the cup of Hercules and
It
Helius, in which tiiey vvere thou^lit to have sailed in safety over the surface
of the ocean
in other
:
words,
it
was the Ark,
preserved the great
wiiicli
father from the fury of those Maters, the mighty children of the sea,
that in
the short space of forty days prevailed above the summits of the loftiest
That which
was
the circular tub of JMars it
occupies on the sphere
really
we
for
:
a cup,
is
hills.
evident from the place
some supposed
are told, that
be the goblet, which appears near the Centaur and the ship Argo.' opinion seems to
me
very probable
sedly a copy of the Argha,
it is
:
since the sacrificial cup
for,
is
it
to
This profes-
reasonable to believe, that the mythological
astronomers should have placed the one in the immediate vicinity of the other.
XXVI.
There
a remarkable peculiarity in the fabled birth of Mars,
is
which must by no means be omitted, chain, which binds together
Italy,
as
it
forms a link
in a
mythological
China, Hindostan, Greece, Egypt, and
the various countries that profess the religion of Buddha. 1
.
Mars
is
sometimes said to have been the son of Juno by Jupiter
;
but
he was likewise thought to have been born of the goddess alone without the
Ovid informs
instrumentality of a father. Jupiter's production of
husband
to the
comfort her
:
us,
Juno,
that
Minerva without a mother, went
On
Ocean.
her
way she met with
to
indignant
at
complain of her
who attempted
Flora,
to
but Juno declared, that nothing could give her consolation ex-
cept a complete conjugal retort
;
as Jupiter had produced a daughter without
a mother, she would compass heaven and earth to retaliate by producing a
son without a father.
Flora, pitying the whimsical distress of the exasperated
goddess, undertook to gratify her wishes, provided she would swear by the
waters of Styx faithfully to keep her secret from Jupiter.
Juno complied
and Flora forthwith produced a flower of marvellous potency.
me
this,
said she, told
should become a inother
The experiment was
me :
to touch xvith
I
obeyed ;
and,
a barren lo,
heifer,
and
it
;
journeyed into Thrace
Ilyg. Poet. Astron. lib.
ii.
assuredly
the heifer became a mother.
repeated upon Juno, and with equal success.
Flora in a state of pregnancy
'
it
lie zvho gave
c. 40. p.
;
414, 415.
and
in
She
left
due time,
*^"*''- *•
THE OKIOIN OF PAGAN'
43S HOOK
ly.
^^Q
gijjQj^g
became
Scythians,
warlike
IDOI-ATttV, exulting mother
tlie
god
of the
Mars.'
This curious, though somewhat ludicrous, fable relates to the allegorical
Noah
birth of
from the Ark or great mother, a birth obviously effected
without the intervention of a father
and
the heifer introduced into
Ark,
accidentally
it
Nor
in hieroglyphics.
the goddess journeyed into Thrace fable originated
it
;
meet with a
same
Yoni or
as
mens of
It
the sect of
more or
but the story of
is
yet are M-e told without reason, that
circumstance shews, whence the
this
:
adorned by the pen of
story,
less
worshipped,
is
Buddha maintained
god
their
to
have been born through
Tliis virgin, like the sole parent of Mars, was the
Noah The
birth of
through the door, which was fashioned in the side of that vessel.' Ovid. Fast.
Ratramn. de
lib.
v.
'
It is
231—258..
ver.
He
nat. Christ, c. 3.
putablc, that he meant
we
Mars
resembling that of the nativity of
and the birth of Buddha through her side was the
•
is
was long since observed by Ratramnus, that the Brah-
the side of a virgin.*
*
Isi
Nor
that animal symbolized the
almost every region where Buddha
tale
without a father.
:
as
:
was a Scythian or Gothic
2. Accordingly, in
Ark
the
is
but truly relating to the Cuthic god Buddha.
classical writer,
shall
Juno
supposed parturition by the touch of the flower
its
Juno repeated
a
for
:
took the form of the ship Argha at the time of the deluge.
Isi
by mistake Bubda; but
calls the deity
it
indiV
is
Buddha.
easy to see, that this fable in particular and other points in the legend of Buddha,
produced that monstrous heresy, which the Manicheans
whole
spreail over the
east.
Christ was pronounced to be an incarnation of Buddha, and Christianity was strangely uigrafted
and gave himself out
to be
name Manes, by which he J\Iencs,
I
it
to be
Oxon.
generally
a
is
known title
This
is
first
at
of
no proper name, but rather a
be an appearance
it
leiist in liie
the west,
the
Buddha.
ark-god
title
is
titles
of the Paraclete
Ten
binthus
author of the heresy.
same appellation as Bp. Pearson rightly
assunud by the heresiarch
:
from the Hebrew and in supposing
he it
is
to
how-
denote
This circumstance
is
is
said to have had a master denominated Scyihianus,
Bp. Pearson on the Creed.
extremely curious.
of Christianity upon a Scythian superstition
;
Theheresy
for the
Art.
I.
;
The
he assumed.
evident from the appellation assumed by his predecessor Terebinth us,
called himself BudJ/is.
was the
is
conceive, totally mistaken in deriving
aheretic.
to
an incarnitlion of the god Buddha, whose
Menu ; which
Manes, oi
pronounces ever,
Manes himself claimed
upon Paganibni.
note
c. vol.
itself consisted of
ii.
p.
who who 76.
an ingraftation
Chusas were by the Greeks called Scy-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRV. same notion
Buddha and Mahiman
prevails in the east.
still
indeed indiscriminately said to have stood father and son
thtaiis
but the
:
and, what evidently shews
;
ginated,
birth
his
is
common
in
Buddha
that
Buddha had no
fable of Alars ori-
According to the
Lamas
him of a
not only that
insisted,
Manes had twelve
disciples
;
and educated
virgin,
their master also
was called Salivahana, which
the second
Maya
Salivahana; Bhat or Baddas, to identify Christ
with
Buddha was
is
one of the
way
Hermas
tlie
who
German
in
which part of
titles
of that god.
Of
these
of copying' the Buddhic triad, he called
or Hcrmias, and the third
Thomas or
rather
three sons of
or Heri-Maya, and Thaimaz or Thamaz.
The attempt
is
still
to be
Tashta or Twashta, who was though
further.
represented as being the parent of
Manu
from
whom'
undoubtedly the Teutat of the Celts and the Tuisto of the
Tuisto
was esteemed the great ;
is
In imita-
a transcript of the
carried
have journeytd into the west, who
were born three sons, and (for
was
and, being esteemed an incarnation of Buddhu,
For Mr. Wilford rightly pronounces them
of the Ark
like
but that he himself was afterwards born again, in the same manner with
;
Buddha or Addas,
Germans
bom
Buddha,
twelve he gave the precedence to three: and, by
Thaimaz.
is
did the matter stop here: the disciples of Maries, and those
of Thibet, in the person of his successor Buddas-Addas or Adda-Menes.
in India
he thence
Nor
he had perverted, strongly
regenerated
tion of Christ,
sons),
is,
Buddas-Tcrebinthus, closely copying the doctrines of his Scythian
a mountain.
whom
Christians
to
idea
whence the preceding
Chusa or Scuth.
by angels
first
relation of
similarly connected with a flower."
instructor, pretended to be an incarnation of
the
are sometimes
in the
hence the instructor of Terebinthus was thought to have been one Scythianus, that
:
to say, a
the
each other
to
a species of genealogical confusion, which I have frequently
;
observed and accounted for father
433
artist
is
Mannus who had
said to have been the father of
three
and fabricator of the world, because Noah was the builder
his character
he coincides with the Pluha or Vulcan of Egypt.
This artizan Twashta the mischievous ingenuity of the Buddhists of the Manichean school converted into the carpenter Joseph, the husband of the virgin
Mary
:
and, blending the an-
cient worship of the serpent with Christianity, they asserted, that Christ, the reputed son of
the carpenter, was, like Salivahana or Saca, an incarnation of the great serpent.
His mother
conceived at the age of a year and a half, the sacred serpent gently gliding over her while she
was asleep
in her cradle.
They have various other
legends,
which seem evidently
been borrowed from the crude fables contained in the apocryphal gospels. to pursue the matter
any
further,
I
subject in Asiat. Res. \ol. ix. p. 212 '
The
Dalai
Prester
Lama
John
He
— 221.
and vol. x.
me
p.
to
hill,
where the Ark was feigned
Pag.
Idol.
wish
27
et infra.
have been clearly no other than the
was frequently supposed to reside
of the Moon: but there was an Ethiopia or Cusha-dwip every
hav^
beg to refer him to Mr. Wilford's Dissertations on the
of the middle ages seems to
of Thibet.
to
If the reader
to
in
in
Ethiopia near the mountain
Asia as well as in Africa; and
have landed, was esteemed a lunar mountain.
VOL.
II.
3 1
Such
THE ORIGIff OF PARAN TDOIATHA'.
434 fcouK IV,
Buddha
j^jn^Qo account, which has been already given at large, reofion of souls in the
When
Mava. in a
month of Magh, and entered
labour came upon her
:
but
in
was walking
Buddha
whom
Fo-Hi,
into the world.'
have identified
I
As
said to have been born without a father.
like him,
is,
IMaha-
spontaneously declining their branches,
similar legend occurs in China.
with Buddha,
the
Suddenly the pains of
gathering flowers.
the trees,
concealed her venerated person while she brought
A
womb of
the time of his nativity approached, his mother
garden and was employed
3.
into the
left
his
mother was walking on the bank of a lake, that constant symbol of the deluge,
she was suddenly encompassed by a rainbow
That
but the deficiency
:
sumamed The flower-loving
:
been born from the
Moon
by
Buddha
that
ISIartini,
supplied by de Premare.
mother of Fo-Hi was
worthy of observation,
it is
mythological system of the Hindoos,
in the
that,
sometimes feigned to have
is
and the nymph Rohini, one of whose
titles is
or She that delights in the y:aterfloxcer?
Cumudanayaca 4.
is
father adds to the narrative of Martini, that the
and
result was,
Tliis tale, as given
she conceived and brought forth Fo-IIi."
does not mention the flower
and the
:
Just the same notion was entertained by the Mexicans respecting the
birth of their great
god Mexitli.
While
mother was walking
his
in the
court
©f the temple, she suddenly beheld a plume descend from heaven bright with Receiving it as it floated down, she placed the various hues of the rainbow. it
in her
bosom
it
there,
it
and the
Lama.
an ornament for the
was no wliere her
fruit of
accordingly the
as
is
to be found.
womb was
the character of
'J'lie
altar of her
Mexitli
for
Meru, which geogmphically coincides with
a Christian priest or pope.
both by the ingraftation of Christianity upon applied to this celebrated personage
which approximates
when she sought
who, as we have seen above, was
;
striking resemblance between the ceremoniul of the
Lama
but,
:
She herself however became pregnant
of the Romish church has often been noticed, so that
mistake the
god
:
so nearly to the
1
Buddhic
travellers of the
am
the
more confirmed
John seems
French Jean as
to
and that
dark ages would easily
to be the
in this opinion,
name which was
Buddhism, and by the very
his appellation
the dominions of religion
Buddhic titk 7a«»,
be in fact the same word.
Just as
there were two Ethiopia?, so a notion prevailed, that there was a Prester John both in Asia
and
in Africa.
See Purch. Pilgr. p. 400, 4-03, 428, 410, 6'6S, 67O.
'
Asiat. Res. vol.
ii.
p.
383—386.
*
Asiat. Res. vol.
ii,
p.
375, 376.
*
Martin. Hist. Sin.
lib.
i.
p.
51.
THE ORIOTN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. earned by as the
Amnion
Doubtless the ancestors of the Mexi-
or Osiris of Egypt.'
cans brought with them out of eastern Asia
vir^n-bom ark-god have altered the Hindostan,
and
:
fable,
as
it it
how
in all the colours
tliey
very slightly they
Greece, China, and
exists in the mythologies of
For an impregnating flower
of feathers steeped
remarkable worship of a
this
to observe,
curious
is
same manner
in the
an ark from place to place, just
his priests in
43.^
have merely substituted a plume
of the rainbow.
The nativity of Vulcan or Phtlia, whom I have shewn to be the same as Buddha and consequently the same as Mars, affords another example of The Greeks made him, the widely-extended tenet now under consideration. 6.
Mars, the son of Juno, and believed him
like
goddess without a father
to
have been born from that
him
the Egyptians supposed
:
an egg, which ])roceeded out of the mouth of the
These two accounts are explain the other
;
same
substantially the
for the
is
have sprung from
and the one may serve to
egg was a symbol of the Ark
assumed the form of the ship Argha of observation, that Juno
;
to
primeval god Cnepb.*
and Juno or Yoni
;
at the time of the deluge.
equally said to have produced
It
is
worthy
Mars and Vulcan
without a father, because she was indignant that Jupiter should have produced
Such a coincidence tends additionally
Minerva without a mother.'
to
prove
the identity of those two divinities,
We
6.
seus
find a similar speculation prevalent with regard to the birth of
and the reason of
;
as Mars and Buddha,
Danae
its
prevalence
He
is
that Perseus
is,
commonly
the daughter of Acrisius
;
Per-
was the same character
eaid to be the son of Jupiter
but Justin Martyr
tells us,
that he
by
was
likewise feigned to have been born of a virgin and to have had no father,* 7,
Such an universal opinion respecting the mysterious
birth of the chief
made by the conqueror The Scythian worship of
hero-god will serve to explain the singular appeal Zingis
the superstition of his countrymen.
to
Buddha
prevailed
Torquemad,
'
Claviger.
*
Apollod. Bibl.
Evan, '
lib,
iii.
among most of
lib,
i,
lib, vi, c, 1,
c, 3.
j 5.
the Tatar tribes, and has penetrated to
See Southey's Madoc. vo',
Hyg.
Praef.
in Fab. p. 9,
ii.
p. 39, 40, 199.
Porph. apud Euseb. Praep.
c. 11.
Hesiod. Theog.
ver.927—929.
* Just. Dial,
cum Tryph,
p.
297.
THE OaiOIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
436
Aware of
the utmost recesses of Siberia.'
sure stabihty to his empire, erected
on the
it
gave out, that he was born of a virgin
an Avatar of Buddha.
god
in the
this
to
whom
readily acknowledged that miraculous conception of
him above the
name of
level of
human nature
the deity invested
he pretended to be
the successive births of the
Lamas were
Asiatic
persons of the various
He
basis of popular belief.
in other words,
:
His followers,
circumstance, Zingis, to iiv
his
perfectly familiar,
mother, which raised
who
: and the naked prophet,
him with the empire of the world,
in the
that empire
which every nation ascribed to the great father as an universal sovereign^ pointed the valour of the ^loguls with irresistible enthusiasm.^
XXVII. Though
the
Greeks considered the virgin-born Perseus only as
he was really a a hero, and though they transferred his history to Argo:, most ancient god both of l\gypt and Babylonia. There was a temple dedi;
cated to him at Chenmiis
time of Herodotus, the inhabitants
in the
and,
:
affirmed that he often visibly appeared
pretended to find one of his sandals, and represented tic
len"th of two cubits.'
It
is
not
foot,
which
|->earance
of fact,
far
exceeded
among
his travels, there in size
the inhabitants of
If
we may
the Hungarians
and
;
his
Ih'
a literal matter
I believe,
Buddha
in the
further asserted, that he
was a
iiUowcd to draw a conjecture from identity of names,
The
frequent ap-
similarity of their language
it
seems also to have
and accent
Laplanders
theinsi-lvcs
call
Samen-Almatjah
their national appellation.
borrow
Somen
is
:
et infra.
I
think
it
all
undoubtedly a
the north of that vast continent.
likely, that the Siberian
Samoeds
of
title
vol. vi. p.
42.
of
Now
;
This seems at
Buddha.
and we know, that Buddhism
Sec Coxe's Travels, vol.
also took
their
name from
Saman. Gibbon's Hist, of the Decline,
men
and, from whatever source they might
be certain, that they migrated at some period from Asia
has overspread almost
'
to those of
such, as to have led a native of Lapland and anative of Hungary, both
is
to adopt the same opinion, that the La|)landcrs were originally a tribe of Huns.
letters,
least to
an impression of his sacred
was,
The Egyptians
been established among the Laplanders.
the
left
into whatsoever
that,
belief,,
mere mortal
Chemmis
as being of the gigan-
it
bcin" indeed no other than the similar appearance of
person of the Dalai Lama. '
that of a
he
also
account for these notions
difficult to
the fable of the vast sandal originated from the
country Buddha directed
They sometimes
among them.
'
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
91.
iv. p.
58
the god
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. native of their country
whicii
;
same
sense, that
Cadmus
but he was not more
:
was the god of every nation where Buddha was supposed
their deity, than he
have travelled and where
consequence he was worshipped.
in
Herodotus accordingly
1.
true exactly in the
He was their chief deity
and Osiris were Egyptians.'
to
is
437
tells us,
that Perseus
Persians as to the Greeks antl Egyptians
was
for the Persians
:
known
as well
to the
contended that
he was by birth an Assyrian or Babylonian, just as the Greeks and Egyptians
him
respectively claimed
We
as their countryman.^
hnd him
also
among
the Hyperboreans assisting at a sacrifice of asses to Apollo, and afterwards in the
same country
have expected seus
is
for
:
slaying the Gorgon.'
Buddha was
This
is
what wc
precisely
the great god of the Scythians
mitrht
hence Per-
;
naturally transported into the country of those blessed vien, as Pindar
calls the
widely-spreading family
among
the different branches of which the
We
worship of Buddha especially prevailed. of which
Cilicia;
founder
according to Solinus and
city,
but Eustathius makes
:
in search of lo
it
when
in
Antipatcr,
at
Tarsus
in
he was the
who were sent came Cilix, the
a colony of those Argives,
the daughter of Inachus.'^
brother of Cadmus,
him
likewise find
To
this
city
These various
quest of his sister Europa.'
legends amount to the same thing: for Perseus and Caduius and Inachus
were
all
one person, just as lo and Danae and Europa were equally the
great mother; hence there was a very vivid tradition of the deluge at Tarsus.*
He
was also
in
both the Ethiopias, eastern and western
:
and, in the former
of these regions, he was thought to have slain the cetus and to have delivered
What
Andromeda.^
minate the land of Cusli
Cuthic regions. Ilcrod. Hist. lib.
'.
Find. Pyth. Od. x.
ii.
c.
Eustath.
^
Ovid de
lie is
.lit.
amand.
in
*
Eustalh.
Dion. Pcrieg. lib.
i.
in
is,
refers.
"
Metani.
See Mctam.
lib.
the two Ethropias, being peopled by the
common.
lib. vi. c.
Dionvs. Pcrieg. vcr. SfO.
vcr. 87-i.
vcr. 53.
Herod. Hist.
54.
Anlip. Epig.
Euststh. in Dion. Pcrieg. ver. 87-t. lib. iv. ver.
often thought to have performed the exploit
himself more than once fact
deno-
and they make mention of more than one of these
;
91.
* Solin. Polyhist. c. 58. in
\vriters
In exact accordance with them the Hindoo geographers
'
^
Greeks called Ethiopia, the sacred
the
in the
iv. ver.
same
668. comp.
670.
race,
lib. v. ver. 17.
Yet
African Ethiopia, to whicli Ovid
had
lib. v. vcr.
17, 75, 137.
their legends
The
and superstitions
<'"*»'•
*•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAK IDOLATRY.
438 HOOK
IV.
speak of Cusha-duip within and
Cmha-chvip mthoul
meaning by the
:
former the vast tract of country which comprehends Persia, Babylonia, Boutan, and Thibet
Bactria, Cashgar,
India,
African
districts
name
oriental
by the
Perseus therefore
of Ethiopia.
Cusha-dwip: and,
whom
at present exclusively apply
eminently to be sought for in the
is
in that country,
both by the old Buddhic Persians to
we
doubtless find him, venerated
be eommunicated his name, and
The
scene
sometimes
laid,
by the warlike Chasas or Indo-Scythae of Cashgar and Thibet. of not
his
Andromeda and
adventure with
in India,
The
ascertained.
the sea-monster
Of this
but at Joppa in Palestine.'
tlie
is
reason
whose country Joppa was
Philistim, in
may
easily
be
were a
situated,
who subjugated Egypt; and
Palli or Scythian Shepherds,
branch of the
those
iutlcr,
separated from tliem by the sea, which were also colonized
by the descendants of Cush, and to which we the
and,
;
they were members of the very same family as the Cliasas or Goths of
Hence Tzetzes
northern India.
calls
Joppa a
of Ethiopia or Chusis'
Being thus brought into the land of Palestine, he there espouses
tan.''
Astart^ or Astoreth, the Astartfe are
one character
Brimo or Hecat^, who
is
Magna Mater
the triple Cali or is
afterwards
island Dclos, a legend which requires no
Diana of
brother of Eetes king of Colchis.'
origin.*
Hence
its
and
triplq
still
into the floating
Brimo
Cali or
child
tlie
Thus we are
Buddha, the great god of the Scythians for
metamorphosed
and, accordingly,
described as being also a king of Taurica,
Colchis was one;
for Asleria
;
Devi of the Hindoos and the
comment.*
Tauric Soythians:
the
of the Plienicians
and by her he becomes the father of the
:
His wife Astcria
Chasas.'
the
city
we
of the
is
find
clearly
Perseus
Sun, and the
led to identify
in all their settlements.
him with
Of these,
inhabitants are said to have been of Indo-Scythic
there was a
mount Caucasus
Coh-Chasa near
or
Colchis,
as well as one in northern India and another to the south of the Caspian or
Chasic sea.
We
find
him
also
penetrating to the western ocean, to the
utmost extremities of Africa and Spain
:
and here
it
was, according to some,
Paus. Messen. p. 284. Tzetz. in Lye. vcr. 836.
^
Tzttz. in Lye. ver. 836.
^
Lycoph. Cassan.
"
Hyg. Fab.
53.,
'
Schol. in
lib. iv, p.
248.
•
Tzeta. in Lye. ver. 174.
'
ver.
1175, 1176. Tzetg. in loc.
ApoU. Argon,
lib. iii. ver.
199.
Diod. Bibl.
THE
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
OJIIOIN OF
Gorgons and cut
that he destroyed the
/^S9
Medusa's head.'
off
theology of the Atlantians and that of the Scythians were the
Perseus
is
indifferently
said
to
In
the
fact,
same
hence
:
have slain the Gorgons upon the western
ocean and among the Hyperhoreans, just as Atlas himself and
tlie
garden of
the Hesperides are sometimes placed in Mauritania and sometimes in Scythia. 2.
Since Perseus then was the same as
why
readily perceive
Buddha
or
Mercury, we
Greeks represented him precisely
the
in the
shall
same man-
ner as their Hermes.
Mercury was depicted with a winged helmet on
with winged
his head,
sandals on his feet; with a bag and a crooked sword suspended to his side,
and with a rod
in his
in
a w inged globe and encircled
his expedition against
winged sandals
Gorgons, the nymphs furnished him with
lent
him
Meicury
;
To
his
adamantine sabre
these he afterwards
calls
;
the helmet
of
an ark, depended
added the Gorgon's head surrounded
with serpents, which I suspect to be nearly allied to the head of Osiris the hieroglyphic
liy
he set out
the
Pluto guarded his head; and a wallet, which Tzetzes at his side.
When
Such also was the equipment of Perseus.
two serpents.' on
hand terminating
The helmet
of the globe serpent and wings.'
and
of Pluto
unequivocally intimates the infernal character of Perseus, and points him out to be, like Mercury, the fabled conductor of the dead. to possess the
power of rendering
him the black shades of
night.*
its
This,
was thought
It
wearer invisible by diffusing around if I
mistake not, alludes to the cele-
brated a[)hanism or disappearance of the great father, which subject of
the mournful part of the Mysteries.
same
ascribed the
virtue
'
Tzetz. in Lye. ver. 838.
Albric. Philus. de door. imag.
'
Tzetz. in Lye. vcr. 838.
Sometimes the ancients
a ring, as in the romantic story of Gyges
to
^
formed the
Oviii.
Metam.
lib. iv. vcr.
;
a
6l5— 6Gl, 770— 7S4.
c. 6.
What
Tzc-tzes calls xijSturoj
and
xijSicrij,
llcsiod ca.\h y.i^vinf.
See his spirited dt.bcripti(;n of Perseus in the usual attitude of feathered INIertury. Scut. Here. Ter.
2l6
— 237-
lod. Bibl. lib.
of Mercury. *
It is
ii.
According
Herac. de Incied.
Apoll. Bibl.
c. 19.
observable that he gives his hero two serpents
c. 4.
lib. ii.
c. 4.
c.
§ 3.
to Ileraclitus,
the
in his belt.
See also Apol-
winged sandals of Perseus were the
gift
<)•
Hesiod. Scut. Here. vcr. 2'i7.
Hyg. Poet. Astron.
lib.
ii,
'^""^^ v-
THK OKTOiy OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
440 BOOK
IT.
fiction,
which has been duly transferred into various modern
fairy-tales.'
reason was, because a ring was a symbol of the Ark, Mithin the inclosure
The
Hence
of which the great father lay for u season invisible.
Buddha
was sacred to
:
and hence
esteemed the lla-vratta or mundane
the ring or circle
navicular consort Ila or
his
circle of the
Ark on
the
Argha was
summit of mount
Meru.
We
3.
only in the same manner
that
astronomical, and the great father in
This
that
:
liis
is
was the Sun however
Osiris,
Bacchus, and
to say,
he was the Sun in
Buddha, Iswara,
the other chief gods of the Gentiles were liis
He
are told, that Perseus was the Sun.*
human,
character.
evident from the fable of his exposure in the ark, which has been
is
They inform
by the Greeks.
faithfully preserved
us,
that his grandfather
Acrisius king of Argos, enraged at the dislionour tjrought
Danae, placed her and her infant sea
but
:
all
an
.son in
and was
drifted to the island Scriphus,
it
a person named Dictys?
its
that this
on the
is
the
is
but
by
tiie
by
many femi-
the reputed builder and navigator of the Argo, which
Danaus
communicated
afloat
safely brought to land
and that Daoa^
;
his family
which be set
I need scarcely observe,
times repeated story of Osiris or Bacchus
nine form of
ark,
upon
name
to the city
where Perseus was feigned
to
have been
born. 4.
'
It
is
probable, that wings were attributed to Mercury and Perseus in
Gygcs, according to Plato, found a brazen horse
in
Within the horse was the
a cavern.
body of a man of
gigantic stature, having a brazen ring on his finger.
and found that
rendered the wearer invisible.
it
whence
pretty evidently,
who Ark.
The
bore
Hu
in safety
The dead inclosure of
giant
rites
is
the gigantic
him within
the
the
Buddha during
mare amounts
wooden cow.
And
to the
the period of his deathlike slumber.
same thing
as the inclosure of the
dead
the cavern was one of those sacred grottos, within
of the great father were perpetually celebrated, and from which both he and
his initiated votaries
were feigned to be born again.
*
Tzetz. in Lye. vcr. 17.
^
Strab. Geog. lib. x. p. 487-
Apollod. Bibl.
of Ceres or Hippa,
was also a form of the ship-goddess Ceridwen,
through the waters of the deluge: the mare therefore symbolized the
Osiris within the ark or
which the
it
Thi? ring Gygcs took,
cavern, the ring, and the giant, shew
The mare was a form
this fable originated.
mystic nurse of the ark-cxposed Bacchus;
The
lil>. ii. c.
4.
Nonni Dionys.
lib.
x.w. p. 425.
Tzclz. in Lye. ver. 838.
THE OUIOIN OV PAGAN IDOLATRy.
44!
and consequently that they mark those
allusion to the sails of ships,
deities
Albricus seems to insinuate some such idea, uhen
to have been navigators.
he compares the winged Perseus to a ship running before the wind and
who
describes him as a powerful king of Asia
The
and conquered Africa.'
fable of his turning
ing before their eyes the formidable head of
of the production of
and
flood,
to that of
the rock-worship of
men from
many
men into
Medusa,
is
stones,
by display-
stones by Pyrrha and Deucalion after the
Buddha, Mercury, or storj-
different regions
nearly allied to that
Saturn swallowing the stone Baitylus
In a similar manner, the
IMithras,
of his liberating
upon the symbolical worship of the
is built
sailed to
fish
seems
each of them
in
:
to
be alluded
Andromeda from
repetition of the Iliensian tale,
from a sea-monster
is
which a
in
The It
observe, that the crooked sword, given alike to called
Harpe
From
this
;
and that Harpe
am
circumstance I
5.
From
priests of
identity of Cronus,
the
size
may
not be improper to
IMercury and Perseus,
a scythe or
is
sickle.''
led to suspect, that the faulchion in question
was no other than the scythe of Cronus
by the common
story itself is a complete
also said to denote
is
sacrifices
deUverance of Hesion^
parallel
ascribed to Hercules.
Buddha
within whose belly
once lay concealed, with a reference perhaps to those bloody human
which so generally disgraced the pagan world.
to.
the cetus
:
and the conjecture
is
strengthened
Mercury, Perseus, and Buddha.
of the sandal of Perseus, according to the Egyptian
Chemmis, the hero must have been some
six yards high.
have
I
considered the ascription of such a stature to him as one of the proofs of his
being the same as Buddha,
who
is
usually represented either under the form
of a massy stone or as a person of gigantic altitude.
We find
evident traces
of both these modes of representation, wherever the worsliip of Buddha prevailed.
Thus, from such a
style of exhibiting the god,
popular notion, that the vast columns of Stonehengc giants
:
stupendous image of Nebuchadnezzar.
less
indeed of Colossus points out the deity,
'
Albric. Philos. de deor. imag. c. 21.
*
Schol. in Iliad,
/alx.
Poet. Astron.
Pag.
were the work of
and thus we may trace to the same source the stupendous Rhodian
Colossus and the no
name
originated the
Idol.
lib. xix.
ver.
lib. iii. c.
350.
Ilcsj'ch. Lc-x.
who was
The
very
so represented from
Hyginus expressly
calls his
sword
11.
VOL.
II.
3
K
<""*•'• *•
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY.
442 BOOK
IV.
Hindostan
Coll or Cala, and another
One
Britain in the west.
the east to
in
Esa
is
of Buddha's
titles Is
from Col-Esa, the compound of these
:
two, was probably derived the word Colossus.
These remarks
will serve as
a clue to the real history of the Cyclopes.
XXVIII. The ture,
Cyclopes are usually described as being of a gigantic
and as each having a
single eye in the centre of the forehead.
were shepherds and musicians cruelty, devouring without
thought
to
also
most
skilful
mechanics
Stonehenge, so to them
have framed
They were
Mycen£E,
They
and Hermione.
same
as the Telchines,
they could
and, as giants are
They were
the builders
forged the thunder of Jupiter, the miracu-
They were
evidently
Id^i Dactyli, or Corybantes: both because they
are similarly represented as very skilful workmen, and because there
manifest correspondence
bantes are called by
neus,
and Cdmis
Delas
:
in the
calls the three Idei or
were the
Virgil calls one of the three Cyclopes
The
poets
commonly
common
Ovid. Metara.
Troad. Dionys. '
vtr.
1087.
lib. xli. p.
Nonni Dion.
'
Hyg. Fab. 153.
a
is
of the Cory-
Danmamtneus : the Acmon, Damname-
workers
in brass
and iron
v\as
and
:
Pyracmon^ and partly carry on
without reason, that
it
mount Etna,
this
country
is
have very early received a colony of
with them a tradition of the deluge, and
local appropriation asserted in after ages that their country-
lib. xiii.
to the
Homer. Odyss.
Senec. Thyest.
233.
lib. x. c. 6.
Yet
summit of Etna.'
act.
lib. ix.
ver.
ii.
1068. Strab. Geog.lib.
lib. xiii. p.
Euscb. Pra;p. Evan.
Nor
who brought
man Deucalion escaped '
first
for Sicily appears to
Scythian Shepherds, M'ho by a
Telchines
their occupation of shepherds,
their business of artizans. :
or
Two
place them in Sicily in the region of
where they partly follow assigned to them
bear.
Eusebius denominates them Telmis, Damnamtneus, and
and says, that they
;
names which they
Nonnus Acmoji and Danmeus
author of the Phoronis
re-
likewise the architects of Argos,
lous helmet of Pluto, and the trident of Neptune." the
:
whom
were ascribed many
markable works by the superstition of the ancients. of the vast walls of Tiryns.
They
yet they are said to have been monsters of
:
remorse every stranger upon
They were
lay their hands.
sta-
ApoUod.
4C6.
viii. p.
Here.
Lucian expressly
calls
Bibl. lib.
ii.
fur. act. iv.
372, 373. Apollod. Bibl.
Phoron. apud Schol.
Virg. jEocid. lib.
the preceding remarks,
viii.
ver.
in
ApoU. Argon,
c. 2. § 1.
ver.
996.
lib. i.e. 2.
lib.
i.
ver.
424.
Deucalion a Sct/thian.
Luc. dc dea Syr.
Eurip.
Nonni $
1.
1129.
THE ORIGIN' OF PAHAN IDOLATUV. may be added
even exclusive of others which
443
to them, are sufficient to shew,
we must by no means confine tlie Cyclopes to Sicily. ApoUodorus says, that, when they had built the walls of Tiryns, they inhabited the whole They were likewise, according to Aristotle and the country of Argolis.' that
scholiast
on Euripides, a Thracian or Scythian race
that they were excellent
They
Cyclops.*
workmen and its
an ancient king of the country.' deities
:
latter adds,
name from their king we are told by Hermip-
received their
Egypt
are also to be found in
pus, that the river Nile received
and the
;
:
for
appellation from Nilus the son of Cyclo|>s
They were
and the gigantic Cyclops
in short
their chief,
Cuthic or Scythian
who was
venerated by the
Thracians, was no other than Coll or Buddha.
Sometimes he was called Polypheme, as the Greeks wrote the word, and was described as a shepherd; an occupation, which
The
understanding of the name.
we
But
tlie
pyramids
;
occupied
own language is PalU, Pali, or Bali : hence by whose name the Egj-ptians distinguished and hence we find a country, the southern part of which name
in their
read of a shepherd
their
Scythians delighted to style themselves
under which appellation they once conquered and
Shepherds,
Egypt.
will lead us to the right
Philitis,
was colonized by the Scythic Philistim, designated by the appellation of Palestine or (as
tlie
Hindoo geographers
write the word) PalUsthan,
The shepherd
to say the land of the PalU.*
Philitis
was the same as
Egyptian king Cyclops, and as the Sicilian shepherd Polypheme
Greeks have formed the herd.
Polyphema from Pali which
title
That Polypheme
is
to be
and
Illyrius;
rians, ter,
He
is
from
whom
'
Apollod. Bibl.
"
Aristot. dc niir. ausc. p. 732.
lib.
ii.
c. C. J
ApoU. Argon,
Herod. Hist,
is
sufficiently evident
This genealogy at once points out
already shewn to be the Scythic
*
a Shep-
from
his
the nations of the Gauls, the Celts, and the Illy-
and identifies him with Hercules and
Schol. in
for the
said to have been the father of three sons, Galatus, Celtus,
were descended.'
'
signifies
is
old
esteemed a Scythian and therefore of the
same race as the Egyptian Shepherd-kings, offipring.
:
that tlie
lib. ii. c.
Buddha
:
his real charac-
Cadmus, both of whom have been for the Cuthic Hercules
1.
Schol. in Eiirip. Orest. ver. ^66.
lib. iv. ver. C6£).
128.
'
Natal.
Com.
lib, ix. p.
510,
was
simi^
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
444
larly the father of three sons,
been called Celtus very lUyrius,
who
one of
and Cadmus
;
also
is
must
also have
This
may be deduced,
been the
is
whom
said by Parthenius to have
is
described as being the parent of that
made one of the children of Polyplieiue." Cyclops same as Cronus and have been worshipped in Crete.
not only in a general manner from the identity of
Cronus and Buddha, but likewise from the correspondence of the Cyclopes
These Telchines or Corybantes were the same
with the Telchines.
But
Curetes of Crete.
]
latter.
we
If vve further inquire into the history of the Cyclopes,
.
same
Cronus the head of the former must be the same as Cyclops
as the Cyclopes,
head of the
Cretan Curetes sacrificed children to Cronus as
Therefore, since the Curetes or Telchines were the
their chief deity.*
tile
tlic
as the
shall
still
be
led to a similar conclusion.
Hesiod and ApoUodorus represent them as very ancient personages, three in
number, and the children of Uranus and
Ge
Hesiod and the scholiast on Eschylus agree
that
or Argus, which
A general
is
and
:
may be remarked,
it
in calling
one of them Arges
a name of Buddha as the mariner god of the Argha.'
notion indeed prevailed, that there were three of them, born from
a yet older deity their
common head and father.
Since then the three Cyclopes
were the sons of Polypheme, and since they were also the sons of Uranus
Polypheme and Uranus are obviously the same
Arhan or Buddha like
Ge,
greater is
and
:
signifies the
World
consort
his
Earth or the
Ge
is
Ila the wife of
IVorld.
Ila
the wife and daughter of one universal deluge.
Ge means
and arily
from
The
Noah and
birth therefore of the three
from
for Ila,
or the
Ark
;
as
Adam
the prevalence of an
Cyclopes from Uranus
and the Earth, and second-
the Ark, agreeably to the doctrine of the transmigratory
lib. iv. c.
10.
"
Porphyr. de abstin.
*
Hesiod. Thccg. vcr. 139,
^a.351.
;
and from her being esteemed
reappearance of the great father and his three sons
Herod. Hist.
World
who was saved during
their birth, primarily
Buddha
;
is
however was not only the
or the Earth, but likewise the smaller
evident, both from her being the ship Argha,
But Uranus
person.
lib.
ii.
Partlicn. Erot. c. 30.
and, since their parent
:
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
iii.
c. 5. « 4.
§ 56.
MO.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
c. ].
^
2.
Schol.in Prom, vinct.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. Arhan
is
Noah
we
considered as a
This point
2.
investigate
safely conclude
like all the other triads
which originated, of
we may
or Buddlia,
new
them
445
to be the
Buddhic
triad
;
of the Gentiles, from the three sons
Adam.
manifestation of the three sons of
be the more firmly established, the more thoroughly
will
their history.
We find
them esteemed, not only the sons of Uranus, but likewise the children of the Ocean by which was meant Noah, for in the pantheistic ;
theology the water on which he floated was reckoned
whence Typhon or the
him
sort identified with
Argha,
is
who
sea, ;
yet said to be the ocean
They
same event
itself.'
We
also
some
in the ship
them ascribed
find
to
the arkite gods, reputed to be infernal
all
assisted Jupiter in his
as the
of his forms
and Iswara, who sailed over the ocean
the era of the deluge, and, like deities.
one
forced Osiris into the ark, was yet in
war against the Titans, which was the
war of the hero-gods with Typhon
and the
:
altar of the
upon which he took a solemn oath by the waters of Styx previous to attacking his enemies or (as some more justly say) after he had conquered
sphere, his
them, was their workmanship.*
Noah
offered
up a
But
this altar
was
waters should no more prevail to cover the earth placed close to the ship Argo and taur
is
it,
Eratosthenes observes from old tradition.' his three sons built this altar,
other than the transmigrating
As
infernal gods, the
their father artizans,
Uranus
see not
Noah and still
for they built the lofty walls
Eurip. Cyclop, vcr.
in
for, ;
the
that
the sphere,
it
is
and the fabulous Cen-
a great proof of his piety,
as
Since therefore the Cyclops and
how we
can esteem them to be any
his triple offspring.
Cyclopes are said to have been cast into Tartarus by
and here they
:
The
ness from those of misery."*
'
I
:
near the raven
depicted as the sacrificer upon
upon which
when God swore
the deluge,
sacrifice after
certainly that
•2\, .22.
Homer,
continued to exercise their craft as
which separated the regions of happi-
descent however into in like map.ncr,
hell, as
we have seen
makes Polyphcme the son of Nep-
tune or the sea. *
Apollod, Bibl.
lib.
i.
c. 2. § 1.
Ilyg. Poet. Astron. lib.
ii.
c.
39.
p. 52. ^
*
Eratost. Catast. 40.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
c.
1.
\'irg.
/Encid.
lib. vi. vei. C.JO,
631.
Schol. in Aral. Ph.-cil.
c"*''- ^•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
44(> BOOK
IV.
^ remarkable uniformity in the various histories of the arkite
^^,jj|^
same
the
as the fabled death of Osiris or Bacchus
:
deities,
and that death means
only the inclosure within the Ark, which was viewed in the light of a
Hence
who
must denote the
perish,
sides of the
which the ancients occasionally described as the sacred and these sides or
by the same ascribes
and the
walls,
A
architects.'
similar allusion
city of
Argo
or the
Ark
Sometimes we
styles
Buddha
this
Argos, like
Argos.
city with its walls
:
and gates
and door.
sides
Polypheme the one-eyed Charon
for
infernal regions
Thus Lyco-
Tzetzes rightly
r.
luarks,
But Charon and
one-eyed Charon he meant the Cyclops.'
are alike described as the conveyers of souls over the infernal waters
the Ganges, the Nile, and the Styx, hell,
ot
legend uf the Cyclopes.
in the
gods:
city of the
two ideas of the deluge and the
find the
immediately connected together
by
its
Ark,
contained in the fable, which
and a
:
was a symbol of the Ship of Noah with
phron
is
who
were doubtless constructed
sacrificial altar,
Cyclopes the building of the walls
to the
Theba, was the
that
coffin.
the walls of Hades, which irrevocably separate between those
are preserved and those
is
are equally the rivers of ihe
:
mystic
and equally shadow out the streams of the widely-prevailing deluge
and the ship of Charon Baris,
is
declared
by Diodorus
which was also the ship of Osiris,
to
be no
Argo of
the
otiier
the
than the
Greeks and
Egyptians, the Argha of the Hindoos.'
The
principal Cyclops then being the
to ferry souls in the Baris over the
dations of
the
which corresponds with a part of noticed.
'
as Charon,
must be esteemed Egyptian their genealogy that has
Cyclops was reckoned the son of Nilus
The answer
protection of
:
walls,
is, I
think, clearly constructed
deities
;
been already
but the Egyptians called
of the oracle to the Atheniatis, that they should
wooden
who was supposed
Acherusian marshes formed by the inun-
the Cyclopes
Nile,
same
commit themselves
to the
upon the established principles of
old mythology, which symbolized the inclosure of a ship by the inclo^ure of a city and therefore the sides of the
As a maritime
one by the walls of the other.
plrtcly naturalized the phrase in
our
own
language
;
phical. *
Lycoph. Cassand.
ver.
'
Diod. Bib),
p. 87.
lib.
i.
659,660.
Scbol. in loc.
but the
turn
nation,
of
it
we have now cnm-
is
purely hierogly-
THE their sacred river the
Ark of
Ocean, because
the
same reference
to the
and
;
the solar
The Nile
Noah.
Buddha: and Buddha sented by the
Nile,
is
is
their |)antheistic diluvian
hence we find the origin of the
Nile and sometimes from the Ocean.
tJie
Hindoos
call
that the
feign,
the Nila or blue
Sun resided on
its
name of Buddha, considered founder of a new era and Buddha himself is
banks immediately after the flood. as the author of time or as the
:
deluge, the
stream of Africa the river of Call
447
symbolized the deluge on which the
it
the real Osiris was once set afloat
Cyclopes deduced sometimes from
With
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
OIIIGIN OF
Call
is
a
;
therefore, being the river of Cali,
the god
Nilus
;
Water
for
is
the river of
or the Ocean, repre-
thought by the Hindoos to be one of the forms of god.
Egyptians the greatest of gods.
Theuth, and as
Siris or Osiris.
withstanding he
is
said to be the
Accordingly, the Nile was esteemed by the
He He
was reckoned the same as Zeuth or was also
Ocean
:
identified with the Sun,
not-
a circumstance apparently involving
a contradiction, yet perfectly according with the notions of the old mythologists
;
for the
same person, who was the Ocean and
was astronomically the Sun.' being a very ancient prince sea,
;
the god of the Ocean,
From this source arose the fables of the Sun who sailed in a ship over the waters of the
and who flourished on the banks of the Nile immediately after the
deluge. 3.
The Cyclops
then being the god Nilus,
we
shall easily trace
the con-
nection of his children the Cyclopes with Vulcan.
As each of whom, as we such, he must be identified with Thoth and Vulcan Accordingly Vulcan, who is have already seen, was the same as Buddha. Nilus or Cali was esteemed one of the oldest sovereigns of Egypt.* ;
sometimes said to have been produced from an egg, sented as the Sun of Nilus or Cyclops.' three Cabiri or Telchines
:
He was
is
at other times repre-
esteemed the parent of the
but these were the same as the three Cyclopes:
consequently Vulcan was the chief Cyclopian deity.
Hence we
find
him
presiding over the three Cyclopes, and directing their labours.*
'
*
Parmcn. apud Athcn. Deipnos.
lib. v. p.
203. Eustath.
in
Dion. Perieg. ver. 221, 223.
Eustath. in Dion. Perieg. vcr. 221.
^Cicer. de
iiat.
dtor.
lib. iii. c.
22.
* ^ its. .Eneid. lib. viii. ver.
4l6.
'^" ^'*
^'"
THE ORrciN' of pagan idolatuv.
448 nooK
IV.
This however
we may
liis
connec-
number and ;
head of their family, they make up the eight great gods of Egypt.
But of those great gods Vulcan was reputed the chief and pying the place of the venerable patriarch, w ho
is
that,
the oldest, as occu-
inditierently described as
Now
being born from the ocean and from the arkite egg.
cumstance,
trace
Tiie Cabiri are sometimes said to be seven in
tion with them. thus, with the
not the only moilc, in which
is
it is
a curious
cir-
although the Cyclopes arc generally represented as being
tlu'ee brothers, the children of one father
they are sometimes also spoken
;
of as constituting a company of seven persons, for such was the supposed
number of
the Cyclopes
who
built the walls
dered therefore, that they were Egyptian
Nilus or Cali or Vulcan, we
deities,
can scarcely doubt,
were the seven Cabiri, and that with
their
"When
of Tiryns.'
and that
it is
consi-
their chief
was
that the seven Cyclopes
head they constituted the eight
Their parent in short, the principal Cyclops, was Buddha
great gods.
his character of the wonderful artizan their being expert
workmen
Twashta or Taut
:
in
and the notion of
originated from the Notitic family being the
builders of the Ark. 4.
One
thing remains to be accounted for in the legend of the Cyclopes,
the circumstance of their each having only a single eye in the centre of their foreheads.
This mode of representing them seems to have arisen from the attach-
ment of the ancients
to symbols,
stood and perverted.
Plutarch
tells us,
in his quality of the universal lord
eye and a sceptre
:
size,
the Egyptians
:
that the Egyptians depicted Osiris,
and governor, by the hieroglyj)hic of an
this
manner of exhibiting
fable in question probably originated.
of a gigantic
niisundei"^
whence an eye was frequently carved over the
From
of their temples.*
which the Greeks perpetually
and a
single eye
The
portals
their principal deity the
statues of
Buddha
or Pali were
was the hieroglyphic of the great god of
the Greeks united the two ideas, and thus of the vShepherd
Pali they formed the one-eyed Shepherd Polypheme.
XXIX. oflfering
such arguments in favour of
lect togetlier
•
have supposed the chief Cyclops to be
I
:
my
viii.
p.
372, 373.
or Buddha,
opinion as I have been able to col-
and, agreeably to this conjecture,
Strab. Geog. hb.
Mahiman
it is
excellently observed
' Plut. de Isid. p. 354.
by
THK ORFGIX OF PAOAX IDOLATRY. Mr. Wllford, Ji7id
many
of Persia, Syria, and Asia Minor,
that, in the counti-ies
Mahiman and
traces of
/lis
foUffwers in the stupendous
remarkable for their magnificence and to
Memnon and :
solidity,
Zi-hich
But, as he afterwards truly states,
the Cyclopes.^
buildings were also given I think
to the
we have
whom
person,
xve
edifices,
the Greeks ascribed
many
of these same
the classical writers call
only to investigate the history of this fabulous
hero to assent to his opinion, that IMemnon and
name and
445
character, and consequently that
Mahiman
Memnon
is
are one both in
same
the
as Cyclops
or Vulcan.
The word Mahiman signifies the great Manes ox Menu and the Sanscrit Maha, which denotes great, was pronounced by the Greeks as one 1.
:
syllable
Hesychius
for
;
Indians, and
tells us,
Mai
that
bears the same import
it still
Mahiman
is
in
great
in
the language of the
Now
modern Coptic.
one of
Mahimna or Maimna, which the Greeks could have pronounced in no other way than Maimna or Memna and hence, Mr. ^Vilford supposes, that the name of Memnon originated.* I am willing to assent to his conjecture with a slight alteration or rather addition. Buddha or Mahiman is allowed by the Hindoos to be the triad expressed by their sacred monosyllable Om. But Om is evidently the On the oblique cases of
or
Alaiman
is
:
of the Egyptians
;
which was a
title
of the Sun, from the circumstance of
the great father and his triple offspring being venerated in that luminary. Me77i7ion then
Maiman compounded with On, than from the oblique case Mai77ina : whence MaimanOn, Maim7i-0n, or Menm-On, will signify the great solar Menu. This
Phenicia
is
was the father of
Hindoos,
the
Samana-Cadam by his we have already seen,
or
dam, as
while
should conceive to be formed rather from
according to
I)erson,
dama
I
wife is
]Maha-Manya.
Cadmus
the
and the Somono-Codom or
;
Maha-Manya,
which
is
the great arkite mother, the
clearly
But Samana-Ca-
of Greece, Egypt,
Buddha
the
of
of
Mahi-Man,
both of the east and of
the west.
'
Fag.
Asiat. Res. vol.
Idol.
iii.
-
p. i^OO.
VOL.
II.
and
Pegu and Ceylon
feminine form
Maya and Mania
Sharmana-Car-
Ibid. p. 19$.
3
L
<^h*''' ^'•
THE OnlGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
'^50 BouK
IV.
2.
Etymology however must by no means be allowed
though
it
may
be usefully added to circumstantial evidence as a secondary
Let us proceed then
and subsidiary argument.
Memnon
to decide a point,
which have come down
to us,
that
to
examine the accounts of
we may be enabled
how far we are warranted in adopting the conclusion that he Mahiman or Buddha. ( .) The general story is, that Tithonus was the brother of 1
is
to judge,
the
same as
Pi iam king of
Troy, that he engaged the affections of Aurora, and that by her he became the father of
Memnon.
Aurora conferred upon him the
but unluckily forgot to render her
gift really
was, that he experienced
the inconveniences of Swift's immortals of Laputa, without
of being released from them
of immortality,
valuable by exempting him from
The consequence
the infirmities of old age.
gift
tiie
by the friendly hand of death.
all
possibility
At
length
Aurora, pitying his deplorable situation, changed him into a grasshopper.
During
the period of their mutual passion she had,
to Ethiopia
which
lies
son Memnon, though tant
make
to the southward of
himself sovereign. :
:
seems, conveyed him
and of
this
country his
a foreigner by descent and a mere cadet of the dis-
royal family of Troy,
lucky circumstance
Egypt
it
for,
contrived
in
some unaccountable manner
His uncle Priam experienced the benefit of as
we
to
this
are told in the true history of the siege of
Troy, the swarthy warrior brought a considerable body of Ethiopian troops In
to the assistance of the Iliensians.
this
noble
field
of chivalrous adven-
ture he approved himself the worthy successor of Hector
an
evil
hour having
slain
much
until at length, in
Antilochus the son of Nestor, he himself
the invincible hand of the vengeful Achilles. funeral pile with
:
solemnity
:
fell
by
His body was burned on a
and, at the request of his disconsolate
mother Aurora, Jupiter conferred upon him an honour of a very peculiar nature, such as
the blazing pile
had never been heretofore bestowed on mortal man. While
consumed the
earthly remains of the hero, a flight of birds
suddenly issued from the flames.
which had given them birth
:
they fought with such fury that into the
fire.
But
this
Thrice they circled the burning mass
when, dividing themselves into two armies,
was not
more than half of them dropped dead all
:
the sanje mysterious occurrence took
THE ORTOIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
451
Memnon was
place every year, and the angry gliost of
annually propi-
by the blood of the winged combatants.'
tiated
When
(3.)
the ancient historians seriously considered the legend of
how he
non, they naturally enough wondered
army of Ethiopians
way from
the
all
the banks of the Hellespont
Memnon seems to me
which
is
placed
all
by
far the
;
manage
could
to
the southern extremity of
Mem-
march an Egypt
to
and well they might, considering the age in
:
though
making himself king of Ethiopia at
his
most marvellous exploit of the two.
However,
by way of mending the matter, they shifted the scene from the African to
Thus Diodorus
Ethiopia.
Asiatic
the
army fiom Troas
into
tells
tlie
Memnon who
afterwards assisted his uncle Priam with a body of Asiatic
He
Ethiopian troops.'
however
elsewhere gives the narrative more at large, dropping
entirely the emigration of
petty sovereign of the Iliensians,
Memnon
who had
prince,
Greeks.
many
was dispatched by In
this
Susiani
;
called
upon
expedition he
his his
name was
tiiat
and Priam, the
his vassals.
Persia,
At
that time
and was held
master to the assistance of the Trojati superior lord for protection against the ten thousand Ethiopians and as
out of Persia and
Hindoos
As a
their head.
at
the Asiatic Ethiopia, out of
Cusha-dwip within, Diodorus
call
he built a palace in the citadel of Susa
styled
;
invading the territories of Priam,
commanded
that country, in short, which the
informs us,
Asia
and at length perished, fighting bravely
Memnon came
proof that
all
was one of
Agamemnon
high esteem by the king.
in
over
was captain-general of
the son of Tithonus,
When Teutamus
Tithonus from Troy.
was king of Assyria, his empire extended
Memnon,
an
Aurora being the mother
as Ethiopia, and that this gave rise to the fable of
of
that Tithonus led
us,
eastern regions of Asia, that he penetrated as far
Alemnonia, and which continued
He
Persians obtained the sovereignty of the east.
in
;
which after
his
own
existence until the
also constructed a very
magnificent public road, which even in the days of the historian continued to bear '
the appellation
Tzctz. in Lycoph. vcr. 18.
Mosch.
Idyll,
iii.
Alian. deanini. *
Diod. Bibl.
vcr.
43—15.
lib. v.
lib. iv. p.
276.
of
To
Mevmonium.
Apollod. Bibl. Ovid. Metani.
lib.
lib.
iii.
c.
these circumstances 1
xiii. vcr.
1
.
§ 4.
Strabo
Hesiod. Tbeog. ver. 58t.
576—622.
Hyg. Fab. 270, 112.
'"*''•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUr.
452 iiooK IV.
adds,
who
tliat his
tomb was siiewn
province of Susiana
in the
likewise brings him, not from the African Ethiopia,
march
the banks of the Choaspes, says, that his hne of
to
questionably established by the traditions of the Phrygians,
nued
to
point
out to
curious
the
traveller
and Pausanias,
:
but from Susa and
Troy was un-
who
still
conti-
several successive
his
en-
campments.'
The
(3.)
story
now
of genuine history
:
more of the semblance
begins to assume something
but unluckily the airy fabric
dissipated, ere
is
it is
well
The Ethiopians Upper Egypt obstinately refused to subscribe to the truth of this detail. They claimed the redoubtable Memnon as tlicir countryman and, more constructed, by the candid statement of Diodorus himself.
of
:
than their Cuthic brethren of Asia, they added to his twenty thou-
liberal
sand infantry two hundred war-chariots.
But •
to this claim those brethren
stantial evidence
:
might demur on the score of circum-
and they might shame the nationality of the Africans by
Memnonian
adducing, as stubborn witnesses, the road, and the
Menmotiian tomb,
all
palace,
the
Jllemnoman
within the limits of the province Su-
siana.
So we might imagine
much
:
but
we
shall find,
that the Africans have just as
They
evidence of this description to produce as the Asiatics.
equally, as Diodorus
and Strabo
name of Memnoniwn
:
fairly allow,
had.
a palace illustrated by the
and they could moreover boast of a stupendous
colossal statue of the hero,
which possessed the singular quality of uttering
musical sounds when the morning and evening rays of the Sun played upon
They were likewise every fifth year witnesses to the mysterious battle of the Memnonian birds, which occurred in their country no less than in it.
Troas
:
and they could even produce one of
signated by the appellation of
Thus
it
tribes,
which was de-
appears, that the claims of the two rival Ethiopias, the Cusha-
(Uvip within
and the Cusha-dwip without, are balanced with the
"
Diod. Bibl.
*
Diod. Bibl.
c. '26.
their
Memnones.^
109.
Strab. Geog.
p. 109.
Strab. Gcog.
lib. ii.p. lib.
ii.
Plin. lib. vi. c. 30.
lib.
xv. p. 728.
lib. xvii. p.
813.
Pausan. Phoc.
nicest accu-
p.
669.
Ciement. apud Plin.
lib.
ii.
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. racy
453
each adduces tradition, and each corroborates tradition by circum-
:
Yet
stantial evidence.
the Greeks,
lieve
anxiety of appropriation,
this
all
we
are to be-
of an emigrant
was occasioned by the son
brother of a petty prince, whose territory
if
younger
was situated on the eastern shore
of the Hellespont.
But we have not yet finished the history of our fortunate adventurer.
(4.)
This captain-general of the Persians,
prince of Asiatic Ethiopia, and
this
this sovereign of African Ethiopia, contrives to add to the latter
the ancient kingdom of Egypt
and thus we
:
the Egyptians and the Ethiopians
over
;
that
is
find
we
to say,
find
Hindoos
whole of that country which the
the
him reigning
at
monarchy once over
him presiding
style
Cusha-dwip
mthout. Eusebius, following Africanus, says, that the INIemnon, whose colossal
was a king of Egypt
statue uttered musical sounds,
to be a prevailing opinion, that the
at the siege of Troy,
Ismamks
or
:
and Strabo
Egyptians called the
states
it
Memnon, who was But Mendes or
Maindes or Meudes.^
Pan, as we have seen, was an ancient god and fabulous prince of the coun-
same
the
try,
have
built
Buddha
or
Labyrinth
the
Thoth or Menu or Minos.^
:
same
which
Memnon,
as
to
and we have a story of another Labyrinth
in
only
Memnon Mai
or
Memnonium
;
by
understand a temple contrived with numerous intricate passages for
I
Mennon
INIendes therefore being
Labyrinth must have been a
the
In fact Metides and
the celebration of the Mysteries. title,
He
was thought
connected with Minos and the Minotaur.
Crete,
the
as
somewhat
difierently
is
Alai-Men-On.
or
Menon, which
Greats There
is
compounded
This is
Mai-Men-On
much
the
:
for
Mendes
last appellation
same
Memnon is
are one
Mend-Esa; and
was occasionally written
with the omission of the epithet
difference
between the appellations
Mendes and Istnandes, as there is between Jllenoti and Memnon for Mendes is Mend-Esa, and Istnandesh Isa-Mend-Esa. Memnon being thus identified with Mendes or Ismandes, and Memnon and Mendes being alike declared :
•
Euseb. Chron.
^Diod. Bibl. '
J'lin.
p. 72.
lib. i. p.
Nat. Hist.
Strab. Gcog.
lib. xvii.
p. 811,
813.
35.
lib. vi. c.
35.
lib.
xx.wi.c. 7- Harduin.
<^"'"'' *•
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
454 BOOK
IV.
an ancient sovereign of Egypt, we
to be
Ismandes
racter attributed also to
am
:
for the
appellation,
dyas
Ismandes and Osymandyas being evidently one
;
I
bears that com-
persuaded, no other than the renowned
Osyman-
differently written
title,
Memnon
according to a somewhat different pronunciation.
same
who
person,
pouod
is,
same cha-
shall find precisely the
therefore
the
is
as Osymandyas and the fabled tomb of Osymandyas was really a Memnonian temple. Thus decidedly was Memnon esteemed an Egyptian king. :
Accordingly, the description, which Diodorus gives of the colossal statue
Osymandyas
of
entrance of the magnificent building said to be his
at the
tomb, clearly proves
to
it
Memnon.
have been a statue of Ismandes or
In
a passage, which appears to have suffered some corruption,' he says, that At
'
eiiroSoy
least
avJfiavraj
eiva.i rjeif,
the central colossal statue
they
now
stand,
statues, all
The words of Diodorus
such has been thought to be the case.
^t Memnon
as follows,
of a single stone, [ihe work] of
reading, proposes the following emendation.
The
stone. is
that
is,
the Sucnite
Ethiopia, were
makes excellent
it.
;
Why
traordinary edifices to the Cyclopes.
suppose that
am it,
this statue
was reputed
may
observe,
I
have
little
in the
then
it
may
is
be doubted, whether there
and
in
statue
called the
African
the
many
ex-
common meaning, and works of Memnon ? It was, I
not retain the
;
both from the description given of
Memnon and Osymandyas
artist
vavra; XiSsa
same manner as the Greeks gave
may we
the
hewn out of one block of Syenite
works, both in the Asiatic
Memnonian
duubt that
that the supposed
sense: but
is
with the
dissatisfied
rcEij, ej ivo; rou{
tivdi
all
be one of the various
to
persuaded, in point of design, a
and because
AvS^ixvra;
Many stupendous attributed to Memnon just for
accordingly, such
:
But Salmasius,
There are three statues,
alteration certainly
any occasion
Ti;y
since
the avenue of entrance there are three
sense given to them in the annexed Latin translation.
:
Ss
Now,
afterwards said to be the image of Osymandyas, these words, as
is
must be translated
VBI/.VOJJ.SVOUS 2(;);vir(5u
ITafa
are,
rouj Ttavfxs AjSsu, MBfj-vovos rou Suxvirou.
ef eVaj
title
A
reason to suspect, that Salmasius has been too hasty in his correction.
or African Ethiopians were called Suchim, according to
gives
me
additional
tribe of the
Masoretic
the
We
were the same person.
This
Sucnite.
Cushim
punctuation
and
:
they are mentioned with the Lubim, as forming part of the army of Shishak king of Egypt.
2 Chron.
whom
xii. 3.
These seem evidently
to be
what Ptolemy has Grecized
he places after the Ethiopia Memnones. Geog.
calling
Memnon
title
clearly of Scytiiic origin.
is
p. 1X4.
I
take
it
a Sucnite, means to say, that he was an Ethiopia Suchi or Scenite.
The Suchim,
and
into the Scenites,
then, that Diodorus, in
This
or Sachim, or Sacanites, or Scenites, arc a
branch of the great Scythian family, called by the Hindoos Sacas and Sacasenas, and known in their
European settlements under the denomination of Saxe and Saious.
name from
the god
Saca or Sacya,
as the
They took
the
Memnonites did from the god Maiman-On or Memn-
,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. was
this Statue
measure of figures of
and that
in a sitting attitude,
foot
its
much
exceeded seven
was hewn out of a ;
a
single stone
and
:
his
as high as
The whole stupendous group
I am
was inscribed,
it
assumed on account of
title
on account of
particularly
and reaching
according to the popular account, for
Osymandyas.
the mother and daughter of
were two other
either side
inferior dimensions, standing erect
the knees of the colossus, designed,
king of kings
bulk was so vast that the
its
On
cubits.
4:55
Osymandyas,
conquests, and
his extensive
wars with the Scythians of Bactria or upper
India.'
Such was the colossus of Osymandyas statues of
us
let
:
now compare
Memnon.
Memnonium
According to Mr. Norden, who himself surveyed the palace in the
that
Memnon
Thebais, the vocal statue of
its
with the
it
original posture cannot be
is
now
so wholly dismantled,
determined by bare inspection
:
for the
body
alone remains formed out of a single piece of black granite, and at present
thrown down and half buried curately marks out as
made up by it
was
in
as being
a
in the precise place
scite
its
when complete
made
posture
when he
and Pliny and Philostratus agree
:
relates his visit to
mysterious music, clearly intimates, :
for
that
it
its
he says, that the upper parts
from
to
seat.^
Nor
issue every
within or Asiatic Ethiopia.
Diodorus as the genuine one:
whom
Perhaps then we in
which
may
case, his
ihe Hindoos apply the titles of
'
Diod. Bibl.
Paus. Aitic. p. 78. Plin. Nat. Hist.
*
Strab. Geog.
i.
in
upper Egypt
:
for, as
are expressly told, that the African Cuths, and consequently
*
lib.
day from that part
be distinctly traced from the mountainous
the Memnonites, emigrated out of the very
Sachim and
personage, to
we
may
it
the seat had fallen down,
need we \¥onder at finding a race of Sachim or Saxons
regions of northern India; so
the
So
in describing
likewise the language
posture was that of a person
of the colossus which remained upon the
the progress of the EuropJsan Saxons and Golhs
amply
is
for the purpose of hearing the
and that a melodious sound was believed
On.
deficiency
this
of a black or iron-coloured stone.*
used by Strabo,
sitting
but
:
Pausanias expressly says, that
the testimony of the ancients.
sitting
which Philostratus most ac-
venture
same country of Cusha-dwip
to retain the
Memnon-Sucnites
will
common
reading of
be no other than the
Mahiman and Sacya.
p. 44.
lib. xvii. p.
310.
lib.
xxxvi.
c. 7- Philost. in rit.
ApoU. Tyan.
lib. vi. c. 4.
^"^''•
THE
456 BOOK
IV.
gjjjj ^yg
have to learn, whether the statue of
figures standing
tion given
OF PAGAJT IDOLATRY.
OlllGI^'
on
each side of
by Diodorus of the statue of Osymandyas.
cannot be positively ascertained .
mark, that we in the
Memnon
may
:
Mr.
Norden
This point,
we may come
yet
consider the question as
affirmative.
had two smaller
so as to answer perfectly to the descrip-
it,
little
an
gives
I believe,
so very near to
tiie
short of being determined
engraving of two stupendous
colossi, which yet remain in a perfect state, at a very short distance from
the palace
Memnonium.
They
are
removed asunder no more than twenty
one paces, so that they must clearly be considered as connected with each other
:
Greek
and upon the
legs of
one of them are
still
to be seen a
had heard the musical sounds
inscriptions, attesting that the writers
which issued from the neighbouring statue of the hero. can be the musical' statue
Neither of them
because, to say nothing of their situation,
itself ;
Memnon was
they are each entire, but the celebrated image of
broken short from the seat even in the time of Strabo.' their
no
variety of
With
already
respect to
form, they represent, the one a man, and the other a woman. They are
less
than
fifty feet in
height
each
:
in
is
a
sitting attitude
and each,
:
actly according to Diodorus's description of the statue of Osymandyas, has
ex-
two
smaller figures standing on either side and reaching with their heads to the
knees of the large statue.* colossi,
It
a male and a female
:
is
and
appears to have been the usual ther.
We learn
dyas, or (if I
to be observed,
mode
in
venture to say so) of
tached statue of a woman, hewn like the
this
and wearing upon
the statue
of
Strab. Geog.
And,
Memnon lib. xvii.
its
See Plate
'
Diod. Bibl.
II.
Fig. 4. lib.
i,
in a similar
Memnon, firsc
head
there was
To Mcmnone
p. 44.
this
another de-
out of a single stone, twenr^^ tliree
diadems, to denote that
manner, we are
told
did not stand alone, but that near
p. 8l6.
Dimidio magicEe resonant ubi ^
here two
which they were associated toge-
supposed mother of Osymandyas was the daughter, the
parent, of a king.'
"
we have
from Diodorus, that near the colossal statue of Osyman-
may
cubits in height,
that
a remarkable circumstance, that such
it is
wife,
and the
by Strabo, that it
was a second
circumstance also Juvenal alludes, when he says,
chorda;.
Sat. xv. vcr. 5.
THE ORIGIN OF PAG.aX IDOLATRV.
having escaped the mutilation which had been
at that time entire,
colossus,
the fate of
Hence, when we consider the perfect resem-
companion.'
its
457
blance both in sex and form which subsists between the two yet remaining colossi
can
and those described by Diodorus
tomb of Osymandyas, we
at the
scarcely, I think, doubt, that the three pair,
namely that
at the
nium, that near the Memnonium, and tnat at the tomb, were with the
same
idea
;
presented
Memnon, him
representing
as undoubtedly ;
which
If then one of the male statues re-
be.
did,
it
exactly
And
the three
all
coincides
Osymandyas, being the same as Ismandes,
Memnon.
is
widi
must be considered the
similarly be
(5.)
Memnon himself,
;
that
same
again, if one of the female statues represented the
as
mother
the three
all
esteemed as representations of the same personage. being thus a king of Egypt, as well
of Asia and Africa, a fresh perplexity arises origin
opinion,
thence also the
of Osymandyas, that daughter, wife, and parent, of a king
must
constructed
and consequently that each represented the same male
and female, whoever they might
as
all
Memno-
;
as an Ethiopian both
how he could be
and how he could bring succours to Priam.
of Trojan Perizonius,
esteeming the war of Troy a portion of genuine history, endeavours to
make
out,
thatTithonus was the Proteus mentioned by Herodotus as being
the king of
Egypt
only
serves
to
render
Memnon was
and that
at that period,
confusion
confounded
worse
:
his son.*
for
the
But
this
Egyptian
Proteus received the diluvian Bacchus when he wandered over the whole world, long before the siege of Troy, supposing such a siege to have taken
olace
;
Proteus
in short,
the old
man
of the ocean, was the same as Phtha
^nd Buddha.' Wearied out probably by these
eternal contradictions,
cut the Gordian knot instead of loosing
some
writers have
Thus, as the Egyptians assured
it.
Herodotus, that Helen never came near Troy, but was detained by Proteus while
was sent home without her
Paris
Memnon had '
Strab. Geog.
* Periz. ^
Pag.
:
so
Philostratus declares,
that
no concern with the siege of that place, but that he quietly p. 8l6.
Orig. ^'Egypt. c. xv. p. 28*).
ApoUod.
Idol.
lib. xvii.
Bibl. lib.
iii.
c. 5. § 1.
VOL.
11.
3M
THE ORIGIN OF TAOAN IDOLATIIV.
458 and died
lived
He
ations.
war
that he
indeed,
allows
but he
:
where he reigned during the space of
in Ethiopia,
that the
saj's,
was contemporary
Memnon, who
so
him a god, and duly
IMemnon, the Egyptians and Ethiopians esteemed brated sacred
We have
(6.)
honour of him
rites in
of
its
is
the legend
and as the paramour of Aurora
count of him widely different to shew, that the
father of
Hersa, engaged the into Syria
;
affisctions
was the
nous, of Sandochus
father of
:
Phaethon
(if this
the
same
in
the difference between
them
is,
substituted for
is
Memnon, and
transported into Cilicia,
then
that
it shifts
for
He
Phaethon, of Astyndus
genealogy
for Cinyras,
;
is
into Assyria, ;
whose
off
adds,
Asty-
and
;
be esteemed sober
to
It
is
evident,
substance as that of the Trojan Tithat
The scene
Cephalus
the one occupies
in
maimer
similar
in a
is
laid
is
said to
is
by which
Syria
in
:
next
it
is
have migrated into that
I take
it
that the province of
and the son of the wandering Sandochus
suddenly becomes king of Assyria ;
him
Aurora becomes the parent of Tithonus
Sandochus
Babylonia was specially meant
Cyprus
;
the other, that Tithonus
of being his paramour.
:
Mercury and
of
the goddess carried
that
;
sufficient
is
usually esteemed the
is
with his people into Cyprus, of Adonis.'
the place of Tithonus in
instead
there
Sandochus, of Cinyras king of the Assyrians
;
that the preceding legend
country
of Aurora
who most unaccountably
truth) emigrates
thonus
meant, who
yet
and that there she bore him a son called Tithonus.
that Tithonus
Cinyras,
is
;
that Cephalus, the son
tells us,
as the bro-
Apollodorus gives an ac-
:
in all these particulars
same Tithonus
He
Memnon.
Laomedon,
the son of
not always represented as
ther of Priam,
it
to admit
siege into the page of genuine history.
Tithonus
in
Troy and
to
we be ad-
to encounter, if
difficulties
Memnon
venturously determined to bring
cele-
Mcro^ and Memphis.'
at
however yet further
with the Trojan
much distinguished himperson. As for the Ethiopic
Greeks, Avas quite another
self against the
gener-
five
:
lastly
it is
erratic propensities
once more removed into
seem
to
have been as strong
as his father's, not satisfied with his splendid eastern monarchy, both emi-
grates himself, and contrives to persuade his people to emigrate \\ith him. '
c.
Herod. Hist.
iii.
§4,.
lib.
ii.
c.
113
— 120.
Philost. in vit. Apoll. *
Tyan.
Apollod. Bibl.
lib. vi.
lib.
iii.
c.
4. Heroic,
c. 13. J. 3.
THE
the daughter of the Cyprian king,
Here he marries yet Adonis
He
is
ORIGI.V OF PACrAX IDULATKV.
also said to have been
born both
459
and by her has Adonis:
in
Assyria and Phenicia.
was moreover, as we have already seen, the same person as Osiris and
Bacchus, the same
in short as
Noah who was
preserved in an Ark.
Such are the mythologic genealogies of the ancients understood,
will
Adonis or Osiris
:
consequently,
3.
The
to be the scriptural
is
siege
tlie
of the Phenician and Assyrian deity,
lias
if
yet
literally
made
into
usually
is
the remote ancestor of
of Troy long j)recedes the epoch
whose whole history plainly demon-
Noah.
truth of the matter seems to be, that in
insensibly melted
who
In the present instance, Tithonus,
represented as the brotlier of Priam,
him
which,
ever be found to bid defiance to the utmost efforts of the
most acute chronologer.
strates
;
all
countries
mythology
romance, and that the age of the hero-gods
is
separated from that of the heroes by a line as imperceptible as that which colours of
divides the
war, the superstructure
which can never be
Memnon
have
to
certainly a
is
tried
Whatever be the
rainbow.
tlie
basis of the
mass of disguised ancient mytholog}',
by the rules of authentic history.
literally
Trojan
If
we suppose we must
fought and died in the plains of Ilium,
be content to give easy credence to a tissue of impossible absurdities if
we adopt
both in
title
and person as
be removed, and each
difticulty will
with curious
(1.)
Mahiman
written by the
or Buddha,
part of the fable will
accommodate
Greeks
:
Cissia, as
the
name was
but Cissia was doubtless so called as being the land
of Cush; which the Greeks denominated Ethiopia, but which
the
doos, accurately preserving the scriptural name, term the country of
word Chusistan.
distinguish
It
by the appellation of Cusha-dxvip within, as being
the
disthiguished
Buddha wonder
or
name of
;
Chusa
the eastern or Asiatic Ethiopia,
him
at Susa.
of the
as specially contra-
ever the great god of the Chasas,
to rind such distinct traces of
full
and which the Greeks
from the south-western or African Ethiopia.
Mahiman was
Hin-
was a part of the large region, which they
various settlements of the Chusas, Chasas, or Scuths
knew by
every
facility.
Susa was the capital of the province of
or in one
but,
the opinion that he was an ancient god of the Chasas and that
he was the same
itself
:
Hence, since
we need not
There was not only a
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAJ^ IDOLATRY,
400 iiooK IV.
palace, or rather temple,
cent road, attributed to
we
at that place,
tlie
called
and called
hero,
Memnonia
after
and a magnifi-
;
him Alemnonium :
as
but,
are told by Herodotus vvho flourished long prior to Diodorus, Susa itself
of Memnon and the royal habitation of Memnon.^ The Chasas also penetrated into Asia Minor, and as usual carried
was
styled the
cili/
Hence we
religion with them.
hence we may
satisfactorily
find a
Memnon
connected with Troy
their
and
:
account for the various encampments pointed
out by the Phrygians as the works of that hero, which were to be seen in the route from
Babylonia or eastern Ethiopia into the
They were thrown
up, not by
of their progress westward.
Hindoo
us by the
writers.
Memnon,
district
of Troas.
but by his worshippers in the course
This exactly accords with the account given
They
which
say, that Bactria,
is
part
of the
high Indo-Scythic tract of country that constitutes the sacred mountain of
Meru crowned
with the holy circular lange of Ida-vratta,
try of the Sacas or Sacasenas chis
;
in the
:
and that they also emigrated bulous history of Troy led
is
of the same enterprizing family
Cadmus
is
11a or Ida.
the
same
the
Cadam
Ilus, the
of his future
scite
Cadmus, of whom an exactly
similar story
of the Buddhists
;
Cadmon and
reputed founder of Ilium,
city,
is
is
the
same person as
told in regard to
and Ilus
Both are the same as Buddha or
also as the
is
Thebes.
the husband of their
Memnon
or Saca
:
both are
Ilus of the Phenicians, the latter of
whom
Dagon or Siton for Chasas, who came from Babylonia
represented by Sanchoniatho as being the brother of
is
the Phenicians were another colony of
and the borders of the Erythr^an '
the
Herod. Hist.
same word
by the
is
lib. v. c.
53, 54. lib.
*
to be
vii. c.
151.
to say,
is
In the :
denominatad
Hence, when
his palace^
Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 5l6.
;
from the in)mediate
Memnon was
vi-
Hebrew or Babylonic language,
and the ancients were wont
of a house, both the ordinary habitation of a mortal
erected in honour of a god.
came
sea, that
used to denote a palace and a ttinple
common name
r
Accordingly, the whole fa-
Saca-dzvip.*
Indo-Scythic.
by a cow to the
hill
Placsha-dwip or Asia Minor, which from
into
them was afterwards denominated
is
the native coun-
neighbourhood of which we meet with another Caucasus or
of the Chasas and numerous indications
who
is
from thence they penetrated into Col-
that
to
call,
and a building
degraded into a hero, his temple
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN" IDOLATRY.
46l
and out of the eastern Ethiopia or Cusha-dwip.
cinity of Siisa
uiaiiner, the appellations of the
In a similar
Trojan, the Cretan, and the Gothic,
mount
were alike brought by different branches of the same potent family
Ida,
from the Ida-vratta of Cashgar and Bactria
for the Iliensians, the Cretans,
:
and the Goths of more modern times, were equally Scythians, or Chasas, or eastern Ethiopians, from to the north of
our
own
mount Meru or
Hindostan. Hence the favourite
ancestors in
Ila or Ida
Chusfean origin.
as the ship
since they were
this,
as I
;
Argha
:
is
less,
all
have frequently had occasion to observe, was, :
The
that
common emblems. Now it into the history of Memnon, no
The
Buddha.
birth of
Memnon
from Aurora or the
goddess of the dawn certainly means no more than that his origin in the east
We
'
or (as the Hindoos
must look
call it)
scribed as the son of Ida.
for
him
Mahiman
it is^
:
and
country
in that
She
in
we
or Buddlia by being de-
fabled) he left the
whom
had a daughter named Ida,
the emigrant Trojan prince.
to be
Teutamus, king of Assyria or Babylonia,
Tithonus repaired when (as
brother Priam,
is
therefore in eastern Ethio-
Cusha-duip within
shall find him, evidently identified with
whom
Ark
the
were perpetually represented by
less than into that of
pia,
reason
whence the two Worlds, the greater
a curious circumstance, that Ida enters
sought for
She
circle of the
be a symbol.
to
is
equally of Scythic or
and she was accounted the
was esteemed an epitome^ of the World and the
Romans and of
of the
was the wife and daughter of Buddha.
World, of which the Argha was also supposed of
fiction
the middle ages, that their forefathers were Trojans,
not altogether void of foundation
was the same
the high region which stretches
kingdom of
to his
he gave in marriage to
due time became the mother of
Mem-
non the captain-general of the Persians, who led a body of Ethiopic and Susan warriors that
Memnon
saine account
to the assistance of his uncle
Priam. ^
Now we
is
given of each of
them being born from Aurora,
agreeably to the pagan system of fabulous genealogies, the one as the son of the other.
'
have seen,
and Tithonus must be the same person, because exactly the
See Diod. Bibl.
lib.
iv. p.
The 276.
introduction of Ida however
^
Han.
Mj tUjl.
is
described
seems
\ol. iv. p.
though,,
Z^J.
to nic
*'"**• *•
THE OUICIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
462 BOOK
IV.
hists
She
settle the matter.
finally to
evidently the
is
and the notion of her complicated relationship
:
will best explain the character
which she supports
Menu
to
or
Budd-
Buddha
The
in the present fable.
the mother, the wife, and the daughter of Noa'h, accord-
Ark was esteemed
ing to the different aspects under which is
or Ida of the
I la
the triple relationship, in
which Ida
it
was viewed
and exactly such
:
She
here exhibited.
is
the mother
is
Memnon, the wife of Tithonus, and the daughter of Teutamus. But Memnon, Tithonus, and Teutamus, as their history and their names alike for Tithon is Tath declare, are all equally Buddha or Mahiman or Taut
of
:
On, the Titan of the Greeks and the Teithan of the old and Teutam is the same word pronounced Teut in composition with
in composition with
Celts
;
Om,
which
is
Hindoo mode of
but the
writing
On ;
Teutam are in fact one appellation. Another colony of the Chasas established themselves hence we
;
to
another v^hich bore the
membrance of
this
tribe of Ethiopians
name
Memnon,
This
herd-kings southward.
Thebais
:
and
will it
tlie
called
of Sachim or Sacas.
migration has been distinctly preserved
of the African Cushim was formed by
in the
:
have been an ancient prince, and who was venerated
hence likewise we meet with a
nones, and
IVIemnon
African Ethiopia
in
find also in that country very vivid traditions respecting
who was supposed as a god
so that Tithon and
:
Mem-
The
re-
and the nation
secession of a part of the Shep-
account for the statue and temple of
will likewise
account for that hero being
equally esteemed a king of Egypt and of Ethiopia.' (2.) first
Though
the Ethiopians of Africa doubtless brougiit with
instance the worship of
dwip
;
Memnon or
subsequent to their settlement
modern geography. The
intercourse
by the Erythr&an ocean, or through
Hence we may The
them
in the
the Asiatic Cusha-
yet they seem also to have kept up a considerable intercourse with
their oriental brethren,
'
Mahiman from
was probably carried tlie
medium of
trace the origin of a singular
settlement of African Ethiopia will be discussed
iJV. 6.(1.)
in the
Ethiopia
of
on, either directly
the Arabian
Cushim.
discordance respecting the
hereafter.
Vide
infra b. vi. c, 5.
THE ORIGIN OF PACiAX IDOLATRV. and complexion of Buddha
features
Buddha, Jain, or Mahiman,
which perfectly resembles
in the east,
Memnon
a similar discordance respecting those of
463
in the west.
perpetually represented by his oriental
is
worshippers uith the complexion, the features, and the crisped
Yet
African negro.'
no means
this
mode of exhibiting
Sometimes he
universal.
him, however
hut formed into neat
straight
is
without any hair.
I think
it
Sir
prevailed.
complexion
William Jones
Buddha
of
is
plaits,
:
diffeient tribes,
among which
but I doubt,
v\
who
The
a Tatar.
hether
much
the
ingly,
humour
we have
as
this,
recently observed,
others have argued just
is
is
:
it
whom
and
cast,
that the worship of
Buddha has
that India and Cashgar have from time
;
ern
limits of
Tatars,
unsatisfactorily,
because his comin ap-
and certainly no more
prevailed in different countries,
modes of exhibiting the god and immemorial been the centrical point ;
and the many wandering
Hence
originated
tribes to the
these
utmost north-
were votaries of Buddha and his worship was by the Indo-Scythic or Shepherd kings into Egypt and
Siberia,
equally imported
African Ethiopia. opposite modes
But
and, accord-
:
and dress Ethiopic
is this,
of intercourse for his widely extended followers.
The
was
had Buddha been imiver-
or Ethiopian
such variations really prove,
in
seems to have been very
and just as
his features
the
(so far as I can
the natives of which lesemble the several
varieties.
ruddy
more towards we are warranted
by no means the case
as strenuously,
his hair woolly,
What
pearance. this
black,
white and
of idolaters to depict their gods like themselves.
Buddha must have been an Egyptian
plexion
than
valid,
represented with such a complexion; for
jfl//y
that
have been
his
worship
his
great legislator and god of the
calls the last
inference might
by
exhibitin<^
lie
adopting his inference from thence, that Buddha,
judge) he erroneously
is
sometimes
:
modes of
rightly observes, that the
that of the Tatars,
north than his Indian votaries
common,
and sometimes he appears
evident, that these different
him have been borrowed from the
of an
represented with a yellow com-
is
plexion, and sometimes with a complexion white and ruddy hair
hair,
We
:
may therefore be
tolerably sure, that the
of representing the god have been borrowed
'
See Plate
II.
Fig. 3.
two
directly
from Tatary
"''^''* ^•
THE
464 HOOK
IV.
Africa
j^p(j
mode
Of these
the complexions are yellow or tawney, and the hair
lati-
long
is
of them, as the Chinese, shave the head except a single
Some
straight.
braid pendent from behind
:
and we may add,
both priests
dotus, the Egyptians, that,
the intermediate
that
sure,
has been taken from nations inhabiting intermediate degrees of
tude.
and
we may be equally
and, I think,
:
PAGAV IDOLATUV.
OllIGIN OF
and
laity,
of Hero-
in the days
that,
wore the hair so closely shorn,
had they been represented by the statuary, they must have appeared
bald.'
The
very great antiquity of the worship of in opposition to those
be decidedly proved, tively
late origin to
Buddha seems
who would
me
to
to
ascribe a compara-
by the circumstance of the intercourse between
it,
African Ethiopia and Hindostan having long been suspended and apparently forgotten.
The Brahmens
attribute,
cient statues, which have the hair but,
as they highly
retics,
truth, those an-
and features of negroes, to the Buddhists
little
offended, whenever this resemblance to the Afri-
Nor
is pointed out.
they peculiar in thus expressing their
are
abhorrence of such a surmise, which might perhaps be accounted
on
for
the ground of their being Brahmenists in contradistinction to Buddhists for the decided Buddhists of ticular.
When
Ceylon perfectly agree with them
the crisped hair of their god was pointed out to
Mackenzie, with an inquiry whether
it
attempted to account for
them by Mr.
was meant to represent the hair of
peculiar appearance by saying, that
its
signed to exhibit the hair of
Buddha
Mr. Wilford
But, as
statues
which occur
in
after
he had cut
justly remarks,
hair will account for the thick lips
Hindostan
and ;
:
in this par-
an Abyssinian, the priests answered in the negative with abhorrence
sword.
:
venerate Buddha, though they esteem his votaries he-
they are not a
can race
and (I believe) with
flat
At
and
was de-
short with a golden
no evasions respecting the
noses of
for these
features of the genuine African Ethiopian.
it
it
;
many of
the
ancient
are clearly the well-known the
same
time, for the rea-
sons above given, I can see no solid grounds for his inference, that a race
of negroes had
formerly
the
preeminence
in
that country.
blance, which he mentions as subsisting betweeu that race
'
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
tually delineated as bald.
36.
The
resena-
and some of the
Accordingly, the priest of tbe tauric Osiris sometimes
See a prinkin Bryant's Anal. vol. ii.p. 432.
is
ac-
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRV. Indian mountaineers even to that Hindostan
this day,
was once subject
cannot, I think, establish his opinion,
to the sceptre of the Ethiopians of Africa.
common
Since the Chasas and those Ethiopians were of (as the classical writers
us) they resembled each
tell
but their hair and dialect
46.5
origin,
and since
other in every thing
since moreover the supposed ancient intercourse
;
between them would both produce many emigrations, and bring into India
Buddhic statues with African
Mr. Wilford may
hair
and features
accounted
easily be
events, if
history
ancestors of the
for the
:
That
any such invasion took place,
Asiatic Ethiopia
;
to the
who subdued Egypt, and who pene-
after»vards turned their
the land of their ancestors.
subjugated
the similarity mentioned by
without having recourse
for,
hypothesis, that the Scythian warriors, trated southward into Ethiopia,
:
is
this
arms eastward and
must be the order of
certain
fi-om
testimony of
tlie
African Ethiopians migrated
from the
Egypt which they once held
and, passing through
in sub-
jection, established themselves in the torrid region, which, until their arrival,
was not known by the name of Ethiopia.
Nay more:
must have remained under the burning sun long enough l)efore
aspect,
their
descendants
to acquire the negro
they returned and conquered their native country, for that
aspect they could have inherited but partially from their Indo-Scythic forefathers
;
and yet such
is
the precise aspect, which
On
by the oriental statues of Buddha.
the
different course, at the conclusion of Sir
of Mr. Wilford.
Though
I
is
so frequently exhibited
whole,
I arrive,
though by a
William Jones, rather than that
see no sufficient proof for believing, that India
was ever conquered by the Ethiopians of Africa yet it ;
is clear,
both that the
Chasas and the western Ethiopians were of the same great family, and that
much
intercourse
must have subsisted between them
at a very
remote
period.'
The same
variety of opinions respecting the complexion of ISIemnon pre-
vailed in the west.
who was
Virgil, tells
'
us,
that
Memnon
See Asiat. Res. vol.
vol. vii. p.
a profound mythologist as well as a great poet, expressly
i.
p.
was a negro 427- vol.
ii.
;
though,, like Diodorus, he brings
p. 32,
122. vol.
iii.
p. 122, 198. vol.
vi.
p.
422, 423.
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
II.
tJ
N
him 452.
466 HOOK
lY.
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATItV.
THli
from the regions of the the same, though
testimony
his
that the vocal statue
What
east.'
Philostratus says appears to intimate
not
is
was of black stone
Memnon
whicli prevailed, that
;
himself was metamorphosed into a stone of
because a massy black
Buddha or Mercury apparently without any
stone was the symbol of his
complexion
though
it
strongly tends to prove the point for which I
so that the supposed
namely that that hero
tending,
is
same
the
Buddha
as
not perhaps equally prove that he was esteemed of his vocal statue being black, like
of
by
repre sent
as
it
appeared
it
lostratus tells us, that
and that
his
stathius,
who
skin
ought, (3.)
the
that I
The discrepancy
and, as I believe
I think,
am
as
to be to
priests already no-
and that the statues
In a similar manner, Phi-
was
also of a fair complexion
This
is
mentioned by Eu-
it
to
in the
same manner.
or Ismandes,
likewise so
greatly inclined to consider
verally to identify
much them
whom we
the
as
have seen
to be
counterpart to Sesostris,
one person, and thence
se-
them with Buddha.
Both Osymandyas and
Sesostris
are described as conquerors,
trated to almost every part of the habitable world,
•
^i^ncid. lib.
'
Eustath. in Dioii. Perieg. ver. 248.
ver.
thus
have originated from the same source,
accounted for
is
the Ethiopians was
all
resembles that respecting the complexion
Osymandyas
Memnon, he
i.
in Philostratus,
cut off his hair as a votive oflFering to the
prevailed, that he
and he adds, that he alone of
:
With respect
same
I think
informs us, that, although he was an Ethiopian by birth, his
was white
:
off with a golden sword,
Memnon
himself.
seen, for the crisped hair of their deity
person was singularly handsome.
distinguished.'
of Buddha
it
will
Memnon
after that operation.
Yet an opinion
god Nilus.
it
we have
saying, that he once cut
Mahiman,
or
was crisped from a passage
also collect that his hair
Thej/ account, as
con-
Yet the colour Buddha in the east,
which singularly resembles the legend of the Buddhic ticed.
am generally
a negro.
many images
seems to shew what complexion was ascribed to
we may
refer-
metamorphosis of Memnon,
ence to
:
informs, us,
and he further mentions a notion
I call this testimony less decisive,
that colour.*
He
equally decisive.
493.
* Philost. in vit.
who pene-
and yet whose exploits ApoU. Tyan.
lib. vi. c. 4.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. can only be referred consistently to the age of
who
character they closely resemble Buddha,
whole earth, leaving
in every country
The conquests
his gigantic foot.
In
fable.
over the
where he reposed himself the print of Sesostris are the verj
Each subdues
same with regard to the regions over which they extend. whole of Asia
of their
this part
travelled
similai-ly
Osymandyas and
of
467
the
each penetrates far eastward into the country of the Chasas
:
or Indo-Scythffi
whom
each upbraids the effeminacy of the enemies,
:
vanquishes, in a manner nearly similar
:
and the prowess ef each
is
he
cele-
brated almost by the same inscription.'
of Osymandyas and his supposed mother form the same
(4.) Tlie statues
duad, as the two colossal statues described by Norden near the palace of
Memnon, and
as the vocal statue of
M emnon himself and
ciate which Strabo mentions as being close by
resemblance to each other we
their decided
what the one
pair
was intended
Now, from concerning Memnon,
describe.
pair
was designed
to say,
to describe,
is
to exhibit the great father
or
Buddha and
:
all
is
Ila.
of the
he says, that she was celebrated, as the
Such was Ida, the mother
the daughter of Teutamus, and the consort of Tithonus
;
whom
one and the same character, namely Teut, or Mahi-
The
man, or Buddha.
that
;
confirmed by the character, which Diodorus gives
have shew n to be
ther,
be a doubt, that each
and the great mother
parent, the wife, and the daughter, of a king.
Memnon,
safely conclude, that,
the others were also intended to
there can scarcely, I think,
pretended mother of Osymandyas
I
may
a retrospective view of the whole that has been said
Mahiman and Mahamania,
This opinion
of
gigantic asso-
these pairs of
which represent a male and a female, I have already remarked, that
statues,
from
its
On
side.
its
description
is
precisely that of the great arkite
according to the different degrees of relationship,
in
mo-
which she was
supposed by the allegorizing genius of ancient mythology to stand to the
He was
diluvian patriarch. tion,
as being indifferently the father, the son,
rious female,
•
that universal sovereign so
Diod. Bibl.
vol. vi. p. 455.
whose history lib.
i.
p.
44.,
45,
is
ever found
48—51.
in
every na-
and the husband, of a myste-
more
Herod. Hist.
famed
or less to
lib.
ii.
c.
be connected with
102—105.
Asiat. Res.
*^***»'-
'•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
468 BOOK
IV.
a ship and a tradition of a deluge
:
and from
originated, as I have often remarked,
complicated relationship
this
those numerous fables which
we meet
with in the mythology of the Gentiles respecting certain incestuous connections
and
The god and goddess
alliances.
who were but two
Cabiri,
number, and whose joint veneration occurs
in
The
every region of the globe.
with those of the Earth and the
M'ith
Heaven and which he
pairs, us,
that the
Moon,
pronounces
Uranus and
and the Ida or
Ila or
Ge
or
Gaia
that
;
these were the great polyonymous deities,
and
as the Serapis
is to
Isis
Greeks
say, the Cailas or
Arhan,
He
states,
that
whose worship formed the
basis
and he adds, that they were the
:
of Egypt, the Tautes and Astart^ of the Phe-
and the Saturn and Ops of the old Etruscan
nicians,
tells
as the
or,
Gaya, of the Chasas and Hindoos.
of the Cabiric Mysteries of Samothrace
He
fundamentally the same.
to be
most ancient gods were Coelus and Terra,
called them,
same
as that of the great father does
Varro accordingly enumerates many of these
Sun.
rightly
in
character of the great arkite mother blends
itself
the
thus eissociated were the most ancient
Latins."
The Indo-Scythag delighted to represent them by stupendous colossal images nor can we be surprized to find such statues occur in oriental Ethiopia, when we recollect that the framers of those images in the Thebais, which we are now considering, were themselves a colony from the eastern Cusha-dwip. Of these I may mention the two colossal statues of :
Gomat-Esvvar or Jain highly revered India
:
one of them, thirty eight
times the height of a man.^
feet
may
I
[)y
his votaries
in
height
;
in
difterent
and the other, eighteen
also mention two of vast dimensions iu
Japan, the one at Dabis, and the other at Meaco, representing
Amida,
that
to say, Buddlia
is
parts of
and Mahiinan
:
the chair alone,
Xaca and upon which
Memnon, in a sitting posture), Nor must I omit the image of Dai-
the larger of these sits (for they are both, like is
seventy feet
Bod
higli
and eighty wide.'
or the god Buddh, also in a Japanese temple
;
stupendous, that, according to Kaempfer, three mats the palm of
its
He
hand.
•
Varr. de
'
Bryant's Anal. vol.
ling. Latin,
describes
lib. iv. p.
iii.
p.
17.
569, 370.
the bulk of which
may
lie
is
so
conveniently in
as sitting cross-legged on a Tarate
it,
'^
Abial. Res. vol. ix. p. 256, 285.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IPOLATUV. flower which
be a species of the aquatic lotos, and as having the
I take to
hair short and curled.'
Sacva
in
But father
is
no
less
nor does
them, as
likewise notice the colossus of Kiakiack or
man
sleeping in a recumbent posture,
than sixty feet in length/
Buddha
these are single statues, designed to exhibit
all :
may
I
Pegu, which represents a
and which
is
appear, that a second female statue
it
the case with the Memnonian images
mayan however, which Mr. Wilford
469
is
is
in the
or the great
added
of the east, there are two
any of
At Ba-
and which
the holy city of the Buddhic Chasas,
justly calls the Thebes
to
Thebais.
colossal statues
close to each other, which perfectly accord with the duplicated images ot
From
Egypt.
Their posture
their
is
have been hewn.
erect
magnitude they are seen at a considerable distance.
and they adhere to the mountain, out of which they
;
They stand
equal to the tliickness of the statues size has
been exaggerated,
is
the depth of which
in a sort of niches, :
and
their true
yet allowed to be
fifty
is
height,
much
cubits
or seventy five
as
their
tioned them, agree neither about their sex nor their
who have menThe Hindoos, names.
who
Bhim and
It
feet.
seems, that the natives, and the Persian authors
live in their vicinity,
that they represent
say,
Buddha assert, disciple Salsala. The Mussulmans Samana and his or Key-Umursh and his consort, or Adam and Eve and
while the followers of
:
third smaller statue,
Seth
;
as old as cient
which stands
whose tomb, or the days of
woman
called
tenance of a vulture.
at
at least the
According
near Bahlac.
insist,
they pretend,
some distance from them,
place where
it
Noah
who
They
is
•
:
is
zeal of the
much
defaced, partly by time,
Musulmans, that
a beardless youth
whence there
KsEinpfcr's Japan, vol.
ii.
son
shewn
more generally depicted with the coun-
are at present so
that the swelling of the breasts
wards the east
is
and he supposes the third to represent an an-
:
Nesr,
at least
that a
their
is
formerly stood,
ascertain their sex, yet perhaps not altogether inipossible.
them
that they are
to the author of the Pharangh-Jehanghiri, they are
and partly by the iconoclast
that one of
his consort
that they are the images of Shahama
p. 553.
is
:
difficult to
it is
Travellers agree,
and some particularly
remarkably obvious.
They both
insist,
look to-
prevails a wildly romantic opinion, that they
*
Bryant's Anal, xol,
iii.
p.
558.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
470
smile at sunrise, but
a
that
gloom overcasts
terrific
Mr. Wilford did not view them himself: but the account, which
evening.
Mohammedan who had
he received from a well-informed and opulent
them
sited
their features in the
mine, that the one
is
a male, and the other a female.
municated by him was, that the two statues are about forty paces distant from each other
in
The two
information comdifferent
that the drapery
:
vi-
seems positively to deter-
at least ten or twelve different times,
is
niches,
covered with
embroidery and figured work formerly painted of different colours, traces of
which are colour
still
visible
to have
that the one appears
:
been painted
of a red
and that the other either retains the original hue of the stone, or
;
was painted grey
:
one of them certainly represents a female, from
that
the beauty and smoothness of the features and the swelling of the breasts that
statue of their supposed son
tlie
twenty feet high
nearly half a mile distant and about
is
and that between the
:
door leading into
legs of the
male figure there
a temple of extraordinary dimensions,
is
a
but dark and
gloomy.' It
is
impossible, I think, not to be struck with the palpable resemblance
between
Osymandyas and male
his
Diodorus indeed
monument
:
but I have
little
manner
as
ramids of
it
doubt, that
male colossus,
is
structed with
teries
;
a place of wor-
its
being a
toijib originated
is
by a door between
certainly no other than a Mithiatic grotto
temple behind Osymandyas,
which has been discovered
all
in reality
much in the same the similar notion respecting the temples of Buddha and the pyThe Egypt, which are clearly what the Hindoos call pagodas.
believe, that tlie
were
were, the entrance into the
was
it
rock-temple at Bamayan, to which the access of the
fe-
behind the two images a tomb
calls the building
and that the notion of
ship,
In both, we have a colossal male and
mother.
and, in both, these statues guard, as
:
temple. or
and that which Diodorus gives of the statues of
this description,
a similar idea
in the heart
and
and each of them devoted
and
the
to
AsiaU Res.
vol. vi. p.
—
464
466.
and
I
were con-
purposes.
the celebration of the ancient
which scenically exhibited the death of the great
'
:
legs
gloomy cliamber
of the great pyramid,
for similar theological
tiie
They Mys-
father, his inclosure
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
471
within an ark or coffin, his descent into the infernal regions, and
Hence arose
quent revival or regeneration.
may be proved
opinion which
ramids were
similarly originated
mandyas and respect to
the idea, that the
two images
the
literal
and
I
his consort,
mania
:
Typhon
and the
is
to say,
I
third
A
or Hayagriva.
the statues of Osy-
seems
Buddha and
Ida,
or
sta-
Saman Mahiman and Mahato represent
strongly inclined to consider as the effigies of
close resemblance between certain mythological
in various
tural misprision of terms.
With
formed the several pairs of
names of the most early
appellations and the in Scripture
am
and hence
or place of sepulture.
have no doubt of their being designed that
:
Bamayan, which were constructed by the
at
oriental branch of the wonderful people that
tues in Egypt,
Egyptian kings
temple behind
monument
mother, was his
his
the very old opinion, though an
wholly without foundation, that the py-
to be
tombs of certain
literally
his subse-
patriarchs that are mentioned
instances to have given rise to a not unna-
Thus, because the Canaanites and other eastern
nations worshipped the solar arkite god under the
name
of Abel or Abellion
which me&ns Jather Bel, an imaginary tomb of Abel the brother of Cain is^
shewn
in the
land of Palestine.*
And
thus, in several cases, because the
Egyptians called Typhon Seth, the patriarch has been confounded with the
demon-god.
Hence
I suspect,
that the
third statue, traditionally said to
be the image of Seth the son of Adam, was really the image of Seth or
Typhon
;
whose children or
that Seth,
votaries are mentioned
in the pro-
phecy of Balaam, who was the same as Baal-Peor, and who was sometimes also identified with Osiris because water
stance of the masculine
name
was esteemed one of the forms of
This opinion
the pantheistic diluvian god.'
6'e//i
is
confirmed by the circum-
or Sida being actually used by the Indo-
Scythse of the east, no less than by the Pallic shepherds of the west.
See Maundrell's Journey, p. 133, structure on ihe top of a
high
hill,
be proportioned to the size of Abel.
tomb on the top of
134.
He
describes the supposed
thirty yards in
length.
Belus; and the god was most probably there exhibited, as
*
Numb,
xxiv, IJ.
east,
was
This account does not require
the hill was a high-place of the gigantic
occur throughout the
It
tomb
as an ancient
traditionally thought
much comment.
Buddha, or Mahiman, or in
many
under the form of a colossus wrapt
in
Siva,
parallel instances
a dL-athlike sleep.
to
The father
which
"*'
*'•
472 iiooK IV.
jijg
ORIGIN Of PAGAN IDOLATRy.
TIIK
mariner of the ship Argha,
frequently styled Sida-Siva
is
feminine form of the word, Sita or Seta or Set/ia,
who
of his consort Parvati,
at the
is
:
while the
one of the appellations
time of the deluge metamorjihosed herself
into that celebrated vessel."
Mr. Wilford remarks, described to hin),
is
that the dress of the statues at
much
same
the
Tuct-Rustum near Istachar
There
that the female figure has no head-dress is
worn by the supposed
as
it
was
as that of the two figures, half buried at
Persia.
in
Bamayan,
;
is
however
but the male has such a tiara, as
Tuct-Rustum.*
female figure at
this difference,
Here then we have
another pair of similar statues, male and female; and in a region likewise,
where the worship of Buddha was early established by a branch of the Chasas or Cuthites eastern Ethiopians
we have them,
:
Memnon, and produced
to
in short,
in the
very country of those
who, equally with the Ethiopians of Africa, laid claim
;
as
much
circumstantial evidence of his having
resided at Susa. (5.)
Nearly
allied to
these statues, though not absolutely the same, are
the pillars, which Sesostris was said to have erected in the various countries
That such ancient monuments
that he subdued.
disputed
;
for
Herodotus declares, that he had himself seen them
whether they were erected by a
They
quite another question.
them
to be,
literal
king of Egypt
being so marked,
is
for the tale, by
;
:
which the Greeks accounted
:
to
man, holding a spear
have
for their
one was
in the
road from
Phocea, and the other was between Sardis and Smyrna. :
is
Herodotus particularly
unworthy of serious confutation.
were but of small dimensions
but,
Sesostris,
and they evidently appear
mentions two of them, each hewn out of a rock to
named
:
were marked in a manner which designated
some male and some female
been phallic Hernife
Ephesus
actually existed, cannot be
They
and both of them represented the figure of a
in his right
hand and a bow
in his left,
partly after the Egyptian and partly after the Ethiopic fashion.
and armed
He
adds,
that across the breast, traced from shoulder to shoulder, there was an inscription in the sacred characters of qf'viy '
arms I subdued
Mor's Hind.
Panth.
Egypt
this country.
\>.
41.
to the following effect;
The *
Bi/ the force
historian acknowledges, that there Asiat. Res. vol.
vi. p.
465.
THE ORIGIN or PAGAN IDOLATRY.
473
w as great uncertainty respecting the person thus represented
and he
:
tells us,
though he peremptorily rejects their opinion, that some asserted these statues to have been designed for
suspect however, that, although he
I
pronouncing them to be representations of Sesostris, he
right in
is
Memnon.'
Memnon was
hasty in rejecting the tradition that
the subject of
If
we
we
and Memnon, are
Sesostris
supposed to have reigned,
is
we
if
further pursue our investigation,
Eusebius
the sacred ship Argo.
the whole world, and then Sesostris
conquered the world, though
The
decessor.'
it
who
;
yet
is
who conquered
represented as having again
was already subdued by
his
immediate pre-
who
scholiast upon Apollonius omits Thules,
the same person as Sesostris
Vulcan reigned
that after
tells us,
the Sun, then Sosis, then Osiris, then Horus, then Thules
Theopompus Scsosti'is,
The author of
And John
of Antioch adds to this
Cham
character of Sesostiis, between
whom
lib.
* Joseph, coiit. *
sufficiently point
and the scriptural Sesac
He
of father, brother,
Ramesses or Ram-Esa: which
Euseb. Chron.
that reigned in Egypt.'
the
is
same
at
I
out the real can scarcely
once as Buddha
for mythological genealogies perpetually represent
:
the different lights
*
Ham
particular, that he was contemporary with
discover even a shadow of resemblance.
Diod. Bibl.
or
These various testimonies
or Thoth.*
and as Danaus
to be the first navigator of the
the Paschal Chronicle says, that Sesostris was
the earliest king of the family of
Hermes
and he adds, that he was the bro-
;
Danaus or Armais, who was reputed
ship Argo.*
p.
i.
p. 50, 51.
'
lib.
i.
a Buddhic
Herod. Hist.
".
Apion.
is
c. 15.
Hence he
and son. title,
lib. ii. c.
the
same
one person is
Idol.
\02, 106.
ApoU. Argon,
'
Schol. in
'
Chron. Pasch.
VOL.11.
called
in substance as
p.
lib. \y. ver.
IS.
Johan. .Antioch. Opcr. p. 28.
Pag.
that
he denominates Sethosis as Diodorus styles him Seikoosis,
was the same as Ramesses and Egyptus ther of
whom
was he
Josephus informs us from Manetho,
calls Sesostris?
whom
evidently
is
and places that hero under the name of Seson-
;
chosis next in succession to Horus, telling us that Sesonchosis
*
for I
shall be brought into the mythologic age of the fabulous first kings of
Egypt and
in
:
generations between the accounts given
and,
:
them
one person.
when
many
shall find a discrepancy of
by Herodotus and Diodorus
we
ell
inquire into the period
far too
Osymandyas, Ismandes,
think there are strong reasons for believing, that Sesostris,
is
3
27?.
THK OHICllN OF PAGAK IDOLATRY.
474
Bal-Rama, and which was brought by the
may
collect
from
were constrained
its
name of one
being the
Greek Hermes and
is
denominated Armuis
Hindoo Hennaya
the
to us, as the navigator of the ship
declared to be contemporary with first
of the
Egyptian king of the
of
line
which
:
Hermes
is
nounced
and both
the
And hence
and
-S'o.y/*
is
therefore to conclude, that Sethosis
This conclusion
Isa.
is
It is also
Osiris.
Ram-Esa, and by
is,
in short,
the
same
Sethosis or Scmosis
Sos-Isa or Thoth- Isa is
as
Thoth or
evidently in a
is
:
we may venture
warranted by his being declared to be contemporary
his lieing ascribed to the
The
tlie
same
list
with Vulean, Helius,
His history
age of the ship Argo.*
various remote conquests, which he
have made, are but a repetition of the
pillars,
said to
Bacchus and
which he erects as marking the boundaries of
progress, are no other than the
:
Hercules and Bacchus, which occur both for Hercules, Bali, Sesostris,
his
Hermae or Buddhic columns which make so
conspicuous a figure in old mythology
Bacchus seems properly
is
Buddha and Cronus, and of
travels of
the military exploits of Hercules and Osiris and Thules and
The
pro-
warranted by his being identified with Ramesses or
accords with his name.
Deo-NaMsh.
is
Se-Thoth-Isa or the illustrious Thoth-
with Hermes, and by his being placed in
and
he
which occurs in the fabulous dynasty between
title Sosis,
Helius and Osiris;
described as the
name, and the various particulars related of him,
his
perfectly accord with this supposition.
compound form
is
is
namely Vulcan or Phtha, Helius,
;
He
Sothis or Thoth, Osiris, and Horus. :
exhibited
is
same dynasty, as those clearly mythological princes
to belong to the
the Egyptians venerated as gods
Hermes
title
equivalent to his being re-
presented as the earliest sovereign of the country.
whom
same
the
also,
Hence moreover he
or Thoth, and
Ham, which
is
Hence
and thus he
:
Argo or Argha.
we
that the Israelite*
cities
by the tyranny of those intruders.'
to build
considered as Danaus, he as the
Sliephercl-kings into Egypt, as
they are the far to the
and Buddha, are
all
same
as the pillars of
west and far to the east;
one person
;
and, though
to belong to another system of mythology,
yet both
those systems are closely blended and connected together, and Bacchus and Osiris,
transmigrating '
Buddha and Hercules, are The age, in which he patriarch.
as well as
Exod.
i.
11. xii. 37.
*
ultimately the is
placed,
is
Tzetz. in Lycoph. vcr. 1206.
same great
that of Thoth,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRr. and the Argo;
Danaiis,
Ark
:
we
and, accordingly,
Theba
heifer-goddess
Egyptus
;
who
is
his
the age of the deluge and the
it is is
said to have been the son of the
declared to be the same as Harnesses and
Argonautic brother Danaus were the children
truly represented as flourishing at the period of Deucalion's
is
Such being
flood.'
;
that he
find,
he
for
and Egyptus and
of Theba,
other words,
in
475
among
his place
the ancient kings of Egypt,
we may
naturally expect to find him, like Tiioth, Vulcan, and Pan, connected with
whose prototypes are doubtless the eight persons
primitive eight gods,
tlie
Ark
preserved in the gives us
and
his
much
and
:
that Herodotus, though undesignedly,
He
reason to believe that this was the case.
queen as being the parents of
him the head of an ogdoad against
I think,
him by
and he
:
which
his brother,
six children,
represents
and consequently makes
relates a story respecting a plot
I suspect to
him
formed
have originated from the same
source as the fable of Typhon's machinations against his brother Osiris.*
Now, when we
consider that Sesostris belongs to the age of Theba, Argo,
Thoth, Osiris, Inachus, and Deucalion
It is a curious circumstance,
Ionia to be statues of statues of Sesostris
;
we can
;
scarcely,
I think,
hesitate
ogdoad over which he presides.
as to the interpretation of the
that, just as
some pronounced
the statues in
Memnon, which Herodotus contends
so that vocal statue
in the
universally said to have been a representation of
to
have been
Thebais, which
Memnon, was
is
yet,
almost accord-
ing to Pausanias, sometimes thought to have been an image either of Sesostris
These coincidences were not the
or Phamenophis.'
the different accounts
discordant
;
Memnon,
of
various
•
were equally representations of Sesostris and
for all the statues
One and
Osymandyas and Buddha. Hence we
find
Memnon
The pretended voyage of Danaus
importation of the worship of
to
Danau and
all,
man
of that period
*
;
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
Vide 107.
infra
Greece
in
the ship
:
.
to
have occurred at
but the character Danaus was no his
votaries
vi. c. 5. $ V'l. 1. *
.
same age
Argo means very evidently the
The fact seems
the sacred ship.
book
same person under
carried back exactly to the
he was the deified hero of the Ark, and
Danauas or Danai.
the
whatever part of the world
in
the era of the final expulsion of the Shepherds from Egypt
called
of pure accident
were, I believe, perfectly right, though apparently
names was the subject of them
they occur.
eflFect
Pauian. Attic,
p. 7f^.
were from him
<^"'*'''
"•
THK
476 HOOK
IV.
ORIGliV Oi
which Sesostris
as that in
PAGAN IDOtATRV. If the latter be ascribed to the period
placed.
is
of Argo, Theba, and Deucalion
and
;
consisting exactly of eight persons
if
he be placed
yet said in the Great Chronicle to have been one,
at the siege of Troy,
is
and indeed the
of the great gods of Egypt.'
first,
He
associate of Pan, and Thoth, and Vulcan, and Osiris
was the
principal Cabiric
we
deluge,
invention
share of which
Cadmus
the apparently contending claims
Cadmus, and Menmon, are
all
may
Memnon
I
:
mean
over his funeral
but
:
it
that there the notion, that, their
epoch of the
invention likewise for a
this there is
be easily reconciled
no
real rivality
pile,
:
Buddha, Hermes,
:
to
be noticed in the fabulous history of
the curious legend relative to the birds, which
first
fought
and which afterwards annually renewed their combat
in honour of the deceased hero.
Troas
to the
words, he
one person.
A single particular yet remains
(6.)
In
puts in his claim.'
was therefore the in other
:
inventor of the alphabet; an
original
Buddha and Hermes, an
given to
also
Thus thrown back
deity.
him described as the
find
head of a family
notwithstanding his exploits
the former,
:
at the
This mysterious transaction occurred
in
likewise occurred in African Ethiopia, only with the difterence
There was
also a
Troas, they every year
made
combat took place only every besides their annual
appearance on
one particular
fight in
fifth
day, and
year.
cleansed a space of ground
about the tomb of jNIemnon, suffering neither shrubs nor weeds to grow there,
and afterwards watering Esopus.
who
Such,
it
with their wings which they dipped in the river
according to Pausanias,
was the account given by those
inhabited the shores of the Hellespont
were shaped
birds were black, that they
:
and Elian informs
like
us,
that the
hawks, and that they came
every autumn from Cyzicus on the Propontis.' Actions like these are evidently the actions, not of birds, but of and, since the same ceremonies also took place in Ethiopia, sure that men were the agents, and we may perhaps throw some light on the nature of what they did.
The
find
it
we may
men
:
both be
not impossible to
theology of the ancient Babylonic Cuthites or Scythians dealt
much
in
symbols or hieroglyphics, partly arbitrary, and partly borrowed from the '
Chron. Magii. apud Banier's Mythol. Anticlid.
^
apud
Pausan. Phoc.
Plin. lib. p. 66£).
vii.
c.
vol.
i.
p. 49."}.
56.
/Elian, de animal, lib.
v.
TH£ OKICIN OF i-AGAN IDOLATRY, Hence originated
and the deluge.
histories of tiie creation
Among
of Egypt, Persia, India, and Assyria. the eagle, and
:
among
and
fishes
dog
:
the raven, the dove,
:
the cetus
reptiles,
mention these as a few only among many
the sacred animals
among beasts, the lion, among insects, the bee and
hawk, were highly venerated
horse, the goat, and the
the bull, the
the butterfly
tlie
birds,
477
for
:
and
serpent,
tlie
I
such was the propensity
of the old Ciithic idolaters to bestial synibolizatlon, in the understanding
of which their boasted M'isdom largely consisted, that the language of the
prophet
no
is
exaggeration,
poetical
beholding ina Mithratic beasts.'
Now
cell
name
whom
it
:
as the priests called themselves
for,
Venus was JMylitta
Hence
or
Thus
word Melitta came
the
Horus was
name of that
being nourished in his infancy by bees,
the lion.
animal.
.
Hence
Exactly
as dogs, swine, and ravens
Of
doves. tus.
The
this last
Thus
we have
priestesses of
;
the priests
in the
to signify
;
and declared
of Mithras were called by the
same manner we
it
find priests described
and priestesses assuming the appellation of
Dodona,
The
it ;
seems, asserted, that two black doves of which the one took up
The
to be the will of Jupiter,
latter
and
it
was
fully
that
abode
in
perched on a
that an oracle should
;
and
Such was the narrative of the Dodon^an
explained to Herodotus in the
transaction given by the
its
former, which flew into Africa, similarly enjoined
the inhabitants of that country to establish another oracle
of Jupiter- Ammon.
to various
likewise the symbol of Mithras
Africa, while the other settled with themselves.
be there established.
and
rise to
a very curious elucidation given us by Herodo-
once flew from Egyptian Thebes
beech-tree
the
Melissa, and her symbol
properly denotes the female principle of generation
other fictions of a similar description. or
have
to
and hence her priestesses were called Melissa or bees ; which gave the story of Jupiter
as
they worshipped, so they appropriated to
appears to have been a bee. that insect, though
himself
emblems by which he was designated.
the peculiar
of the Assyrian
represents
most instances, seem at once
represented the deity and his priests
themselves
he
every form of creeping things and abominable
these animals, in
by the name of the god
when
priests of the
two priestesses were carried '
off
Theban
literal
this
was that
priestesses
account of the same
Jupiter.
These told him,
from Thebes by the Phenicians
Ezek.
viii.
10.
;
that
«"*'•
*•
TUK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
478 ROOK
IV.
one of them was sold into Greece, and the other into Africa
them the foundation of the two oracles was doves then were priestesses
to
and they were said
;
to
and that to
;
The pretended
be ascribed."
be black, because
sucli
was the colour of the two Egyptian or Ethiopic females. Thi»,relation will lead us to the right understanding of what
Memnonian
the
They were
birds.
priests,
who
in another quinquennially,
performed certain
Memnon.
his high-place
Troas
This tomb was
was on
it
tlie
originated from the
top of a mountain
same
:
rites at the
pretended tomb of
accordingly, Elian
and the notion of
;
meant by
is
one region annually, and
in
tells us, that in
its
being a
tomb
cause, as the similar notion respecting the ()yramids
and the vast building behind the statue of Osymandyas.
Doubtless what
the psalmist calls the offerings of the dead formed a part of the worship of
Memnon, no was
of Baal-Peor, Adonis, and Osiris.
less than
regularly bewailed at certain stated
was supposed
lamentations took place,
as those over the slain or lost Osiris
same season of the
themselves were,
it
two Egyptian
into the ark to
of Cyzicus imitated
priestesses,
I
cither
it,
am
also
who assumed
vizors
by staining
much
the
made of
the
same
which com-
Moon
for Elian
;
The
birds
hawk and
:
both cases. :
and
it is
their skins or
and the reason
The
sacerdotal
probable, that those
by arraying themselves
inclined to believe, that the priests
names and characters of
wood
or pasteboard
such a conjecture.
:
the sacred animals,
at least,
it is
not difficult
Plutarch expressly
the ball were sacred to Osiris
and the hippopotamus, were to Typhon
;
;
as the ass,
and the dog,
tells us,
the cro-
to Anubis.'
Now,
in
table,
various semi-human figures occur in attitudes of adoration before
•
that curious
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
relic
54, 55.
and
might be, their figures by means of certain
light
to give plausible reasons for
that both the
into the
Dodona and Jupiter-Ammon
actually imitated, as far as
masks or
festivals
Troas every autumn.
birds of Ethiopia were of a black complexion
codile,
and
opinion was, I believe, the same in
in black robes.
They were
seems, of a black colour, like the two doves or priestesses
that established the oracles of for this
where such
the edifice,
and they were performed at the very
came from Cyzicus
says, that the birds
;
tomb.
to be his
:
year, as one of the
memorated the entrance of Osiris
seasons
Since his death
of Egyptian antiquity, the Bembine or Isiac
* Plut. de Isid.
tlic
THE OIUOIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV. ofCuthic
bestial deities
the head of an
sacred bull
Among
superstition.
and I think
:
which they were thus disguised was by
They :
the one with
worships the
first
figures thus disguised
mode
that the
likely,
of the ancient pageants in the middle ages
in
strongly resemble the
and
not improba-
it is
assumed by those buffoons were borrowed from the
that the disguises
ble,
it vei-y
vizors.
the
The
the second, the mystic scarabeus.
;
therefore are certainly priests
mummers
these are two;
hawk :
the other with that of a
ibis,
479
obsolete superstition of our Scythian ancestors.'
The
canine phantoms of
the Mysteries, mentioned by Pletho and Psellus, and alluded to by Virgil,
seem and
to
have been
them
I take
officiating ministers
of Thoth or Anubis, of
The
decorated with the heads of dogs
to be nearly allied to the cynocephali or
whom
there
dog-headed
was a whole college
in
black hawks of Cyzicus then were certainly priests of
priests
upper Egypt.
Memnon
:
and,
while thev officiated, they probably wore vizors imitating the heads of hawks, like the priests
But
who appear
Bcmbine
in the
table.
what we are to understand by the bloody
the question will be,
still
which they are represented as annually or quinquennially fighting in
battles,
honour of
A very moderate acquaintance
their deity.
with the
of pagan
rites
superstition will be sufficient to aftbrd an answer to this question.
The up
priests, in the
worship of their gods were wont to work themselves
to a sort of phrenzy.
Attis
death, as
is
still
the worship of
Mr.
Sirutt, in his ;
in
ponderous
Memnon, who
and Jagan-Nath.
mummers
John
in
Of
fact
was the very same deity
priests first
the
Bembine
table
group of these
birds, bulls,
and agreeably
to
buch pageants were fashionable
faithfully paints the
as
wound themselves up
work on the ancient pastimes of the English,
and Shakespeare
Falstaff with a
to certain
such a nature, I apprehend, was
which they appear with the heads of dogs,
disguises of the priests to have been, :
car.
His disguised
closely resembling the figures on
Elisabeth
of
madly throwing themselves beneath the
propitiated by his votaries
is
in the contest
and sometimes devoted themselves
;
Cybel^,
the case in the bloody suicidal adoration of Jagan-Nath
rolling wheels of his
'
sometimes mutilated them-
sometimes gashed themselves with knives, as
;
the priests of Baal with Elijah
who
this state, they
as at the time of their dedication to the service of Bellona,
selves,
and
While in
to a high
gives a print of these
and
lions, in
what
I
a manner
conjecture the
so late as the days of
manners of the times
fantastic apparition!.
Buddha
in terrifying his Sir
See the merry wives of Windsor.
chap, v,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUV.
480
pitch of religious enthusiasm
many
until
and then turned
;
perished in the furious contest.
the practice of cutting the flesh with knives
which
strictly prohibits to
it
their
arms against each other,
Scripture
of allusions to
is full
a superstitious abomination,
;
the priests of Jehovah
and Herodotus has
:
preserved an account of an Egyptian ceremony, which perfectly resembles the battle of
Memnon's hawk-priests
Meranon and Mars
are one deity.
;
or rather which
He
is
same
the
rite,
for
during the festival of
tells us, that,
Mars which was celebrated at Papremis, and towards the close of the day, a small number of priests were accustomed to arrange themselves as attendants upon the statue of the god. Meanwhile a greater number, armed with planted themselves at the door of the temple.
clubs,
also with
might be seen at least a thousand men,
Opposite to them
clubs in their hands,
tumultuously assembled to discharge the vows by which they were bound.
These preparations being completed, the attendant ministers of the deity placed his gold-enshrined image on a four-wheeled carriage, and bi gan to draw
it
Those, who were stationed at the door of the temple, endea-
along.
voured to prevent
its
entrance
:
who were under
but the others,
the obligation
Upon
of vows, immediately rushed forward to the assistance of the god. this,
a furious battle took place between the opposite parties
:
and many
indi-
Hero-
viduals never failed to have at least their heads broken in the scuffle.
dotus supposes, reasonably enough from the nature and obstinacy of the conflict,
that several lives must also be
Egyptians positively denied any such
lost
:
he adds however, that the
consequences.'
fatal
It
seems to
me
sufficiently evident from the preceding account of the Egyptian Mars, that
he
is
the
same
as
the Indian
who may The mode,
Jagan-Nath
;
Buddha, and consequently with Memnon. solemnly drawn in his car on the high day of rites
attendant upon his
worship though they
reason to doubt of their
the Orissan deity
the
two
is this
:
common
the votaries •
original.
in
liis festival,
differ
in
which he was
and the bloody
some respects from
too clgse a resemblance to the
those of Ja»an-Nath, bear on the whole horrid manner, in which
be identitied with
is
venerated, to leave us
In fact, the sole difference
much
between
of Jagan-Nath throw themselves beneath the
Herod. Hist.
lib.
ii.
c.
63,
THE wheels of
liis
huge
worshippers of
bore of '
it
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
and propitiate
Mars attended upon
their
481
god by a voluntary suicide; the
his image,
as the sacred car similarly
along in solemn procession, and honoured him, like the hawk-priests
Memnon, by Tht
car,
OllIGIN OF
reader
shedding their blood
may see
in furious conflicts.'
the terrific worship of Jagan-Nath
amply described by an eye-witness
in Dr. Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia.
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
II.
3
P
'""*'' *•
CHAPTER
VI.
Respecting the vnion of the two great superstitions in the worship of Jagan-Nath, Saturn, and Baal.
J.
HOUGH
the ancient idolaters were early divided
they differed rather in the
mode, than
in the object,
into
two great
sects,
The
of their worship.
various gods both of the Buddhic and of the Bacchic superstitions were
mately one and the same person
:
great father, who, under different names,
Such being the
case,
we may
traces of a point of union shall
we be disappointed
was
alike venerated
by each party.
not unnaturally expect to find some distinct
between the adherents of the
in
ulti-
and that person was the transmigrating
our expectation
:
Nor
rival systems.
these traces occur with remark-
able clearness in the very extraordinary worship of Jagan-Nath; nor are they
wholly obliterated in the notices,
which have come down
to us, respecting
the western Cronus or Saturn and the Asiatic Baal or jNIolech. I.
The
Adonis,
present observation might perhaps be further extended to Attis,
Hu, and Mexitli
:
but the propriety of
it
consideration of the avowed principles, on which
will best
the god
appear from a
Jagan-Nath
is
venerated. 1.
In
all
parts of Hindostan, save Orissa, sectarian distinctions are care-
fully observed,
and the difference of castes
is
sedulously attended to
:
but
the temple of Jagan-Nath, the famous resort for pilgrims of every sect and
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. caste,
is
a converging point,
may
whatever terms
with the Sudra
father
was
for a season
(1.)
is
is
upon
century after the destruction of the
every quarter of the globe,
here
:
all
Here
points.
join together in worship-
its
have been built in the eleventh
to
it
erection to the very beginning
temple of Sumn-Nath.'
determine the point, which in fact
and
in
mysterious great
Respecting the antiquity of Jagan-Nath's pagoda, contrary opinions
of the Cali age, and others supposing
cussion
or
sects,
equally the god of each system of old Babylonic idolatry.
have been entertained; some carrying back
to
The same
modes and subordinate
in
confessed, and acted
who
tribes,
castes,
renounces his superiority to mix
by every idolater
whatever differences might exist
ping him,
all
object of pagan adoration.
alike venerated
the principle
do
harmony
and here the Buddhist kneels by his side before the acknow-
:
common
ledged
the contending parties unite in
best include the whole race of Hindoos, eat and drink
Here the Brahmen
together.
all
Here, and here only,
each other.
with
where
483
of
is
little
moment
presume not
I
to the present dis-
but shall rather proceed to inquire into the character of
:
into the nature of that
bond of union by which pilgrims of
this idol,
all sects
are
equally induced to venerate him. (2.)
The word Jagan-Nath
itself is
denotes the lord of the Universe.
not a name, but a
Hence
it is
title:
it
simply
obvious, that, as each sect-
arian venerates the great father under that character, each will be equall}"
Mr. Moor informs
prepared to worship him under the name of Jagan- Nath.
Vishnou
us, that Crishna or
Maurice
that
says,
adored as Jagan-Nath
chiefly
is
Jagan-Nath
is
:
Siva or Iswara, and that he
while ^fr.
may
clearly
be recognized as such by the vast bull which projects out of the eastern side of his pagoda.*
In
botii these
shape of a
fish at the
the navicular
opinions
Jagan-Nath
not the whole truth.
is
we
have, I believe, the truth,
certainly Vishnou,
time of the deluge, and
He
Moon.
is
who once
certainly likewise
who assumed
but the
lay concealed within
the maritime Iswara,
who
was the navigator of the ship Argha w hen the waters of the ocean overspread the face of the whole earth.
'
Maurice's
*
Moor's Hind. Paiilb.
Irul.
Ant.
vol.
p.
iii.
p. C6,
Accordingly,
in
the
neighbourhood of
'17.
IVi, 213, 338.
Intl.
Ant.
vol.
iii.
p. 27.
his
'"*''•
^ '•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
484 BOOK
IV.
swam
temple, an old tradition prevails, that he
by which
region;
I
think
it
to
it
from some more westerly
evident that Armenia and
mount Ararat myst
be intended.'
But, although such opinions be just, they will not account for
the worship of
Jagan-Nath being the centre of theological unanimity.
worship must involve some points agreed upon by
all sects,
the acknowledged fundamentals of each jarring system
the case,
On
2.
Jagan-Nath be
if
solely either
this curious topic
:
which
will not
he
is
Mr. Paterson has been so
not venerated there exclusively
are adored in conjunction with him.
be
Crishna or Siva. peculiarly happy, that
we have little more to do than to adopt his opinion. (1.) Though the worship of Jagan-Nath is commonly spoken vailing in Orissa,
That
as constituting
Now, when
:
of as pre-
for tw o other deities
the sacred images of these
three divinities are stripped of their ornaments, they prove to be a triad of
a very peculiar conformation.
In the centre
is
the goddess Subhadra, a form of Devi or Isi
words, the diluvian ship Argha left,
is
Jagan-Nath.
same shape, differ
in
:
on her
right side,
is
Bal-Rama
Bal-Rama and Jagan-Nath have each
:
;
in
other
and, on her
precisely the
order to shew the identity of these reputed brothers
:
they
only in the colour of their faces, which exhibit the respective tints of
Siva and Vishnou, namely white and black
;
while the countenance of Sub-
hadra displays the bright yellow of the lotos, the colour of the short skirts in
which the Hindoo deities, if
body
it
On the
division of Subhadra's body,
Nath
of each of the three
can be called, seems to be composed of two eggs, the one
surmounting the other.
of arms.
The body
divinities are usually clad.
is
But the superior egg
top of the egg, which constitutes the upper
placed her head in the similar
supports the navicular lunar crescent
the head of the deity.
The
;
;
and she
bodies of
is
entirely destitute
Bal-Rama and Jagan-
and within each crescent appears
crescent itself exhibits the rude semblance of
arms, as the two-fold egg does that of a body
but a sort of standard,
:
attached to the frame on which the three divinities are seated, sufficiently
shews that the apparent arms are really a lunette
;
a black ground the mystic crescent with a circular
in
ing the head of the deity '
hid. Ant. vol.
iii.
p. 27-
for the standard displays ball within
.^
*
Sec Plate
I.
Fig. \6.
it
lepresent-.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Now
a curious circumstance,
it is
and what tends
485
to tiirow
much
the present subject, that the Pranava or mystical hieroglyphic, which
is
used
name, has manifestly been borrowed from the form of
to express the divine
the remarkable triad before us.
crescent containing a
ball
:
The upper
and
beneath
part of this hieroglyphic
the crescent
imperfect
the
is
a
is
if this
character,
Mr. Paterson observes, be made intoa cypher; we shall have two
crescents,
appearance of two eggs as
on
light
each containing a
ball
But,
laterally joined to a third.'
and each surmounting two imperfect
The
connected with another egg placed between them/
eggs, laterally
cypher however,
thus produced, graphically exhibits the triad of Bal-Rama, Subhadra, and
Here then we have a key
Jagan-Nath.'
to that singular principle of union,
which the worship of Jagan-Nath holds out to sects otherwise mutually
The form of
agreeing.
the triad
hieroglyphic, by which the mystic triliteral monosyllable Oni
and here, consequently,
same
;
:
the jarring sects finally meet together as in a
Om as
Aum
or
the
On
generally,
is
or
Aun
and with much reason, supposed to be the
that triad, into
god was thought
to
triple deity
the
word denotes
this
at
adored in conjunction with
which the fourth more ancient or proper humano-solar
Here
have multiplied himself.
therefore
all
the different
for the worship of the triplicated
sects are at length found to symbolize:
Om, and
But
of the old Egyptians.
once the Sun, and the Trimurti or
him
expressed
is
whether they be Buddhists, Jainists, Saivas, or Vishnavas.'*
centre, (Q.)
all
dis-
now under consideration has produced the
veneration of the lunar boat, was the foundation of
mythology of Paganism, however
it
might be varied
in
detail.
all
the
In the
hieroglyphical group of Bal-Rama, Subhadra, and Jagan-Nath, the devout
Brahmen beholds
Om,
that triple god,
whom
he reveres under the joint
united with the great universal mother:
god Vishnou,
of
the no less devout Saiva con-
templates Iswara and his consort the ship Argha favourite
name
:
the Vishnava adores his
safely concealed within the protecting lunar crescent
the Buddhist worships that ancient Buddha, the child of the jNIoon and the
sovereign prince hidden witliin the belly of the really the
same
'
See Plate
I.
'
See Plate
I.
as
Brahm
multiplied into
Fig. 17. Fig.
19 compared with Fig. \6.
whom
fish,
he knows to be
Brahma- Vishnou- Siva, and whom *
See Plate
*
Sec Asiat. Res.
I.
Fig. 18. vol. viii. p.
6\, 62, 63.
<^"*''- ^"•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
486 BOOK
IV.
he similarly decorates with the sacred
Jain or
The
Mahiman.
Om
title
nian views, with equal enthusiasm, the
and
:
the Jainist or IVIahima-
Trimurti incarnate in the person of
mythology was the astronomical worship
basis of old
of the solar great father, and of the lunar great mother.
The one was Noah,
viewed as a transmigratory reappearance of Adam, and multiplying himself into three
w orld
the beginning of each
sons at
:
was the Earth
the other
considered as an enormous ship floating on the vast abyss, and the
Ark
consi-
Of
these,
dered as a smaller Earth sailing over the surface of the deluge. the former was astronomically typified
by the Sun; while the
symbolized by the boatlike crescent of the Moon.
On
or
racter
boat
was invented,
and hence the ancient
:
the solar divinity
and
to express both his astronomical
hence the head of the god was placed m
:
was
to have mysteriously triplicated himself: hence the name
was supposed
Om
Hence
latter
deity,
whom
pagoda of Jagan-Nath, was believed
to
swum
have
wonderful
ithin the
sects agree
all
his triple cha-
lunar
to venerate in the
to his temple, necessarily
of course when the whole intervening continent was laid under water, from
some region (3.)
The
to express
to the north-west of Hindostan.
strange form of the god was contrived with sufficient ingenuity
what
Like
his votaries intended.
the Greeks led
Nor
glyphic.
them is it
parallel symbols,
from
an hieroglyphic peculiar to India alone
which may both throw
upon
it,
and such
is
the
is
World and
plainly an hiero:
there are other
and borrow
light
Such was the
in the
mundane Ark.
Courma
Avatar.'
The combination
Sec Plate
I.
Fig. 11, 21, 22.
in
ques-
crescent equally repre-
But the form of Jagan-Nath '
;
which graces the head of Call or Parvati or
but a double symbol, for the egg and the
sented the
figure of the
such also was the figure of the Lunus of Carrhae
;
ornament,
Argha, as she appears
the arkite smaller
not the only combination, which
surmounted by the crescent.
god Lunus of Heliopolis
is
light
greater
literal
and the form of Jagan-Nath
exhibits the egg
tion
is
In the mythology of almost every ancient nation, an egg was em-
it.
:
not the greater knowledge, of
the image of Jagan-Natli
to reject,
ployed to shadow out both the
World
the oriental representations
all
of the hero-divinities, which the purer taste,
displays, not only
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATnV.
487
the egg surmounted by the crescent, but the crescent itself containing a head,
Neither
is
of the Carrhenians, whose addiction
hieroglyphic of the Egyptians shews the to
me
to
of Lunus
the worship
to
known, exhibits a crescent containing a head
seems
A
combination peculiar to the Hindoo god of Orissa.
this
coin
so well
is
and more than one ancient
:'
same remarkable combination.
It
be explained by the superstitious practice, which Lucian has
described to us, and
which 1 have already had occasion to notice as con-
necting together the worship of Osiris and the Mysteries of Adonis.
Every
year a vessel was formed of papyrus representing the head of the Egyptian deity
;
and, being solemnly committed to the waves, was thought to be wafted
to Byblos in seven days by a supernatural impulse.
Judging, both from the
hieroglyphics which seem to describe this superstition, and from the crescentlike
form of the ark within which Osiris was inclosed and which was sup-
posed
to
have drifted on shore with him
that the papyrine
vessel
am
in Phenicia, I
inclined to believe,
mentioned by Lucian did not represent a head
The
merely, but a head placed within a lunette.*
head, from
its
circular
form, was apparently used to symbolize the Sun or perhaps the Star which
was so general a concomitant of the
arkite deities. In
the Indian character,
which expresses the word Om, and which seems to have been borrowed from the form of Jagan-Nath, a mere point, resembling the stop called a period, is
placed between
tlie
horns of the crescent
but, in a coin representing the
:
lunar god of the Carrhenians, the crescent incloses a star. coin of that
people
is
singularly curious
sponding with the form of Jagan-Nath,
it
import of that remarkable hieroglyphic.
;
for,
may
Jagan-Nath, as we have seen above, lunette,
between the horns of which
that deity
is the,
is
serve to explain the
its
all
Hence
real
an egg surmounted by
horns,'
Now
the form of
a double egg surmounted by a
placed a head
is
centre of union, where
devotions in mutual harmony.
by almost exactly corre-
It exhibits
a lunette, which comprehends a star between
This second
:
and the temple of
the contending sects offer up their
I interpret his
symbolical
figure
to
denote that astronomical hermaphrodite deity, which the genius of ancient
Paganism contrived by blending '
See Plate
I.
Fig. 20.
^
Adam
See Plate
I.
with the Earth and
Fig. \Z.
^
Noah
See Plate
I.
with the
Fig.
!22.
c-^p-
^''•
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKV.
488 iioitKiv.
Ai-k
.
that
Jagan-Nath
words, by joining together in one compound
say, in other
to
is
great universal
hieroglyphic the
and the protecting Moon, Buddha and
He
mother.
Hu
Isis,
Adonis and
and Ceridwen,
Woden and
hermaphrodite Iswara, the hermaphrodite Jupiter,
the
is
universal
Osiris and
Ila,
Venus, Attis and Cybel^, Janus and Jana, Frea.
the great
Vishnou-Narayan and the Lolos, Crishna
Siva and Argha,
is
and
father
the
hermaphrodite Osiris, the hermaphrodite Attis, the hermaphrodite Venus,
He
and the hermaphrodite Adonis.
at
once the solar god
father multiplying himself into three sons,
and the masculine
or Soma.
But, at the
same
is
time, he
is
also the mystic egg;
Om,
the great
Lunus
divinity
which floated
on the waters of the vast abyss, and which produced the Brahma and the sacred triad of the Hindoos and the Dionusic Protogonus and the three pri-
For he
meval kings of the Orphic poet. but he
is
also Luna, or Isi,
transmigrating
(4.) I think
in conjunction
Mr. Maurice
Sumnath
or
is
They
title
of
Buddha
of Sumnath formerly stood •
Mohammedan Suman-Nath
;
theists,
:
ere
was
:
while the idol, as was
as
I
the
same
have already
and Suman-Nath,
Now Suman, city,
polluted and
common fifty
in a similar
Saman, or Soman, where the temple plundered by the
with the representations of
cubits in length, forty seven
Whether
of which were buried in the ground.'
the pagoda contained any
hieroglyphic resembling the figure of Jagan-Nath,
mode of symbolizing
is
clearly
in the theology both of Carrhag
'
is
was called from him Patten-Sumnath or Boiidhan-
Buddha, consisted of one enormous stone
such a
Jagan-Nath
and accordingly the it
represents the
are doubtless one deity, adored
Jagan-Nath,
equivalent to the lord Suman.
a well-known
it
sometimes in conjunction with
right in supposing, that
Suman-Nath.
observed, denotes the lord of the Universe is
In short, the
with a Star.
under somewhat different appellations.
manner,
or Argha.
mundane Ark astronomically
placed Vvithin
:
Sun and sometimes
divinity as
the
Moon while the head Noah astronomically revered
venerated with the
not only Lunus, or Iswara
or Sita, or Parvati,
crescent surmounting the egg represents
the
is
we
are not informed
no modern invention, because
and of Egypt.
Mauiicc's Ind. Ant. vol.
iii.
p. 26, 27,
36
— 42.
it
:
but
occurs
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. present worship of Jagan-Nath
The
(5.)
cruelty and obscenity.
It
is
is
a
same
in fact the very
489
disgraceful
mixture of
as the adoration of the
great father and the great mother, viewed as the two principles of fecundity,
which has prevailed from
The supposed Orgies
and
:
tire
character of the deity
his favour
is
eveiy quarter of the globe.
earliest times in
marked, as of
is
by the phallic
old,
thought to be the most effectually procured by the
Like the Egj'ptian Osiris, the god of Orissa
self-immolation of his votaries.
has his sacred bulls which familiarly mingle with the deluded pilgrims the Assyrian Mylitta, the Cyprian Venus, and the propitiated by female lewdness agricultural god of Phenicia, he
drawn on
is
like
Armenian Anais, he
and, like the war-god of
:
:
is
Egypt and the
his high festival
day
in
solemn
procession seated on a towering car.'
The Jagan-Nath of Orissa seems to me to whom the Greeks and Romans venerated under the II.
and Saturn
:
god
for this
is
be the identical deity,
Cronus
appellations of
equally the great universal father
;
this
stands equally connected with each of the two primeval superstitions.
Neptune and
Pluto,
with the ancient self-triplicating Brahme
have been classed with the Bacchic nutely to his character,
him
same
the
we
rather to
have been placed
Brahme
is
sufficiently
Bacchic hero-gods,
Buddha. liarities 1.
As
I
human
for his
as such therefore,
Yet,
divinities.
shall find
it
if
we
he ought to
attend more mi-
almost impossible not to pronounce :
such therefore, he ought
as
Buddhic Pantheon.
in the
Since his unity with
proved by his being the father of the three younger
am
only concerned to establish his
This, accordingly, shall
of his
:
Buddha, Thoth, or Saca
as
As
who are certainly the same Brahma-Vishnou-Siva, we may rightly identify him
the parent of Jupiter and as the Indian Trimurti
god
character
identity with
first
may
be done
;
identity
with
and, afterwards, the pecu-
properly be exhibited.
Buddha, we learn from Plutarch, that some
mythologists maintained him to be the same
as
But Herm-Anubis or Thoth was
same as Buddha or Datta.
Cronus
therefore,
certainly the
Herm-Anubis or
I'hoth.*
agreeably to such an opinion, must likewise be the same
as that oriental deity.
'
See Buchanan's Christ. Res. in Asia. p. 129
Pag.
Idol.
VOL.
— U7. II.
*
Piut. Jc Isid. jj.368.
J
Q
^"-^^^ ^'•
THK
4y0 jKx.K IV.
Nor was
(1.)
PAGAN IDOLATKA'.
OllXGIN OF
the opinion taken
up
random
at
on the contrary, there
:
much to confirm it. The Greek translator of Sanchoniatho tells us, among the Phenicians, Cronus was denominated II : and he is clearly us this piece of information
in giving
such, as to leave
Each
Saturn.
triple offspring
is :
room
us no
doubt of
Phenicians were Indo-Scythae
denominate
who
bears the
But the
from upper India
first
the Indo-
and they
:
same
Hence
appellation.
II
is
the
II
it
is
manifest, that the Ila
of their brethren the Pheni-
proves him to be the classical Saturn.
must inevitably be
identified with the Ila or
Agreeably to
of the Indo-Scythas.
There-
this
we
conclusion,
Buddha
find him,
in the Phenician mythology, immediately connected with Taut or Thoth
he
is
said to have extended his sovereignty to the south over
The
have given the sceptre of that country to Taut.' torically
Phenician or Cuthic Shepherd-kings of Taut
among
characters of
whose
rites
II
may have
itself, if his-
Egypt by the
in a
manner very common
divided his national god into the two
and Taut, they were
in reality
one and the same person,
were brought by the Scythian Shepherds from upper India
Palestine and ultimately
same
deity as
Buddha, we
find
him bearing
not only the appellation //, but likewise another of the sacred Buddhic
Chiun, whose star
is
mentioned by the prophet Amos,
Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan.
V.
*
See below book
'
Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan.
vi. c. 5. §
to
to Egypt.
(2.) Saturn being thus the
'
for
but these were professed worshippers
:
Buddha; and, however Sanchoniatho
the old mythologists
:
Egypt, and to
legend
considered, relates no doubt to the conquest of
or
Ba-
to
hero-god Ila, and assign to him a daughter-
this
But the legend of
Menu
The Cronus
his father.'
of the Phenicians.
II
II is
parent of a
Menu
ages been
fore the classical Saturn
or
the
is
worshippers of Buddha or
all
(pronounced II) of the Indo-Scythag cians.
each
:
Now
both
consort
Punic
of the
and afterwards from Babylonia to Palestine.*
Scythas have in still
the
is
who migrated
;
that, riorht
identity with the classical
his
said to have mutilated
is
then of the classical mythologists
bylonia,
for the legend
Heaven and Earth
the son of
each
to
;
is
lib.
i.
c. 10.
1, 2. lib.
i.
c.
10.
is
rightly,
titles.
by Selden
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATIIT. and Beyer,
Now
with him.'
immediately connected
identified witli Saturn or at least
eitlier
this star, as
we have elsewhere
491
seen,
is
manifestly the dilu-
vian star of the Persic Mithras or the second man-bull Taschler
and the
:
Aboudad has been shewn to be the same as Accordingly, we are told by Aben-Ezra, that the
Persic Mithras or Taschter or
Mahabad
whom
god,
hy
or Buddha.*
Arabs and the Persians Chivan
the
which
;
Nor was Aben-Ezra
Chiun of Amos.'
the
Cronus or Saturn, was
the classical writers denominate
palpably the same
is
mistaken in
styled title
this assertion
as for
:
both the centauric form of Chivan or Taschter, his connection with the deluge, and his being placed at the head of three subordinate associates,
serve alike to identify him with that Saturn,
But Chiun or Chivan seems
be eminently the Centaur.*
Buddhic
title
Saca or Sacya,
distinguish their
Kya, it is
Cya
more simple shape
in a
am
for, since the
Chinese
really a
is
compound term denoting the
illuitrious
Ata be
still
bring us to a similar result.
same person
as the younger oriental
flourished at the time of the deluge,
him from the elder Menu or Adima.
distinguish
is
Menu.
But
this
called Satyavrata,
Now,
the
if
to
termination
separated from Satyavrata, the remaining word Satyaur or Satur
will point out to us not equivocally the
The same
Saturn.
appellation
was no
origin
less
epoch of the general
name Se-Suthr
flood,
Amos
V, 26.
de
Lycoph.
Se,
Scld. de diis Syr. synt.
book
iii.
ii.
c. 3. § III. 7. (2.)
diis Syr. synt.
Cassaii, ver.
ii.
c.
1203,
M.
Roman
title
Satur or
to the ancient Babylonians.
who was saved
in
an Ark at the
was called by them Xisuthr or Seisuthr.
or Cai-Suthr
with the eastern prefix Cai or
* See above
of the
known
learn from Berosus, that the person,
* Seld.
name of the The younger oriental
inclined indeed to think, that even the ordinary will
clearly the
is
Menu, who
*
be only the
or Chiun.
Buddha
'
to
god Fo or Buddha by the name of Che-Kya or the great
probable, that Sacya
(3.) I
the
:
pronounces to
writing the Indian appellation Sacya in two words instead of one;
Latin deity
We
whom Lycophron
is
But
no other than Satur or Satyaur united
which
signifies
c. 14.
Beyer. Addit. in loc.
and book
great or illustrious
iv. c. 5. §
XXIII.
:
so
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
492 BOOK
IV.
that Scisuthr title less
is
equivalent to the
in fact
Gothic
familiar to the
tribes,
empire and established themselves
standing on a
This
rites,
the
real
pail
is
constantly
all
and a long beard,
hair
and
fruit,
wheel or ring
flowers.
As
Argha cup of
the
in his right
Hindoos
;
he
which, in
Such coincidences throw much Satyaur-Ata, is
Sei-Suther,
light
Seater,
concerned, the patriarch
believe, that the four titles are all
That name, however, being well known
of a single name.
left
during the performance of their sacred
equally, so far as personality
seems only reasonable to
and
:
In his
of water, witliin which were flowers and
filled,
character of Saturn.
Saturn, are it
calls a
last vvas certainly the
with water,
Their god Sealer
which was placed upon an upright column.
fish,
a similar manner,
Nor was the subverted the Roman Salu7\
west of Europe.
held, like the Indian divinities, a
bore wliat Verstigan fruits.'
in the
finally
meagre old man, with long
vvas represented as a
hand he
illusti'ioiis
which
on
and
Noah
:
mere variations to the
ancient
Babylonians, and yet at the same time being used in a precisely similar application
by other
western direction
the presumption
:
nate the great father by the carried
away from
Scythians conveyed
that
it
it
was
first
Cuthim of Nimrod, and
an eastern and a
employed
that
it
to desig-
was afterwards
them of the dispersion along with
One
was attached.
their settlements in
to
it
in
branch, accordingly,
upper India
;
of the
where they fixed
appulse of that ark, which preserved the person distinguished by the
title in
question.
Another branch of them, under the name of Palli or
Pelasgi, similarly carried the
is,
the plain of Shinar by
the idolatry to which
the
removed from Chaldfea both
tribes far
same
spirit
it
to their western settlements in Italy
of local appropriation, they
And,
their divinity to terminate. their pristine seats at the
bore the
many
;
title
and the god
made
Agreeably
where, in
wonderful voyage of
at length, a third branch, emigrating
from
head of the Indus and on the north of Persia,
whom
to
it
was applied
carefully preserving every characteristic
them both.
the
;
to this hypothesis, the
Saturn and the Gothic Seater
;
which
last
into the forests of
mark of
Ger-
the Asiatic origin of
proper identity of the
Roman
must inevitably be the same as the
Indo-Scythic Satyaur-Ata, because the worship of him was brought by our
•
Verstig. Restit. of decayed intell. p. 64.
THE OniGlN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. Europe from the Indian Caucasus
forefathers into
493
the proper identity of
:
Saturn and Seater, and thence of Saturn and Satyaur-Ata,
is
proved by one
of those arbitrary coincidences, which so often occur in the old mythology
The
of the Gentiles.
of Saturn
and we,
:
extraction, are
or
t/ie
was
nicians (4.)
tiie
week was
styled
by the Latins
called Ila,
Roman
Saturn,
also be
Buddha.
must
respect to the appellation
who by
itself,
as
Ila,
Now,
nians.
name Satur
it in
the
Chaldee, the verb Sater
it
one
it is
most
was spoken by the Babylosignifies
to
hide
:
hence the
rendered the
is
exact accordance with the mystic character of the god,
its
title.
is
appears to have been
Such a derivation
denote the hidden one.
more probable by
who bore
that Chaldee dialect which
in the
will
day
the Indo-Scythic Phe-
used by the Babylonians previous to the confusion of tongues,
natural to seek
the
with other European nations of Gothic
But Menu-Satyaurata, or the masculine
therefore the
;
With
day of
common
accustomed to denominate the very same day Saturday/
still
day of Seater.
with Buddha
first
last
in
We
may suppose
bestowed upon the great father
in
the appellation of Satur to have been
allusion
to
what the epoptae called
his
aphanism or disappearance from mortal eyes, while he lay concealed within
Ark
the
and the present conjecture may be thought
:
from the etymology of Latium
; for
from Lateo, and the alleged
reason
country.' But, whatever
may
name,
Noah
sure of 2.
related, I
have no doubt,
Having thus attempted which
that
is
to
some weight
have been so denominated
Saturn once lay hid in that
whence Latium like the
is
said to have
aphanism of
borrowed
Osiris, to the inclo-
within the Ark.
person as the oriental ter,
said
be thought of the proposed derivation of Satur,
the fabled concealment of the god, its
it is
to derive
to establish the position that Saturn
Buddha
or
Menu,
will evidently identify fiim
is
the san;e
I proceed to consider his charac-
with
Noah
viewed as a reappearance
Adam.
of
(1.)
That part of
it,
which respects
his unity with the protoplast
manifestation in the antediluvian golden age, has already been discussed.'
'
V'irg.
Avoiding therefore a needless repetition of
^neid.
lib. viii. ver.
322, 323.
*
See above book
my iii. c.
and
his
sufficiently
former argu-
i. §
IV.
«'"*'"• ^'«
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY,
494 nooK
IV.
ments, I with
may now
whom
a
rather view
him
as the second
new world commenced
after the first
great father of mankind,
had been destroyed by the
waters of the flood. (2.)
In
of his character,
this latter part
it
is
impossible not to see, that
almost every circumstance minutely corresponds with the history of Noah.
Saturn
is
said to have been the parent, by his wife
A
sons and three daughters.
heads of
this family
Rhea
impending over the
dreadful calamity once
of eight persons,
its
or Opis, of three
chief constructed a wonderful insu-
lar
cave or grotto in the midst of the ocean. Here he concealed his children
in
perfect safety
the
until
;
danger,
which
threatened them, was over.'
After the Saturnian family had emerged from their gloomy confinement within the sea-girt cavern, the aged god was intoxicated by the youngest of his sons
and, during his stupefaction, lay in a state of exposed nudity. the Egyptians
named
unresisting father while in this indecorous situation.
that Saturn enacted a law,
naked.*
Jupiter, by
Hamiiion, approached, and barbarously mutilated, his
In consequence of
by which
it
this event, the
Hence
was forbidden god, being
the poets fabled,
to behold the
now no longer
gods
able to
maintain his pristine authority, was compelled to abdicate the sceptre of the
World and
to divide
these however
ample dominions among
his
Hammonor Jupiter obtained a
his three sons.
Among
decided preeminence; becoming
in fact himself an universal sovereign in the persons of his enterprizing descend-
With respect to the origin of Saturn, he is commonly said to have been the son of Heaven and Eartli and a notion prevailed, both among the classical writers and among the Phenicians, that his father had previously experienced from him the same inhuman treatment which he himself afterwards ex» For tliis opinion, though utterly false, it is not perienced from Hammon.' very difficult to account. As the theory of similar successive worlds taught, ants.
:
that every event,
which occurred
at the
beginning of one world, would
equally occur at the beginning of every world fered from his
'
own
offspring as the
Porph. de antr. nymph,
*
Orph.apud Porph. de
'
Apollod. Bibl.
lib.
i.
p.
;
the insult, which
nymph,
c. 1. § 3.
p.
suf-
Gentiles told the story, he was himself
254.
antr.
Noah
260.
Euseb. Praep. Evan.
lib.
i.
c.
IQ,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. feigned to have already offered to his
own
and Rhea and tis
their kindred deities
Ark
or of the Sea and the
that
Noah and
in a sea-girt cave
;
the ocean in a ship.
he
tells us,
not
that he
Bochart well observes,
Accord-
were born allegorically from the deluge.'
his family
ingly, while Saturn is
Plato
:
is
were the children of Oceanus and The-
thus intimating, as
;
Saturn however
parent.
always reputed to be the son of Heaven and Earth
495
sometimes mystically said to have hidden his children is,
The
at other times, literally represented as sailing over
old Italians indeed pretended, that his voyage termi-
nated on the shores of Latium, and that he was there received by Janus but Ovid, as the faithful depository of ancient tradition,
Tuscan
us, that his vessel did not reach the
wandered
in
was a ship
;
it
over the whole globe.*
In
memory
carefully instructs
until the
river,
:
god had
first
of this voyage, his token
which appeared on the reverse of the coins stamped with the
double face of Janus.'
The
inclosure of the great father within the Ark, symbolized by an insu-
lar cavern in the
and he
himself,
midst of the ocean, was viewed as a state of confinement particularly throughout the east,
was thought doring the
time of his incarceration to be wrapped in a profound deathlike slumber.
Both these ideas occur
We
dif-
bound with chains
in
his
temple during the whole of
except one particular day which introduced the festival of the
3'ear,
Saturnalia
:
but that on this
day, which occurred in
December and which
eminently dedicated to him, he was solemnly set at liberty by the re-
Having
moval of
his fetters.*
the later
Romans attempted
its
two
are told by Macrobius, that, according to the Latin ritual, the image
of the god continued
•was
in
mythologies.
ferent
every
though
in the fabulous history of Saturn,
real
to
memory
account
for
it
of the origin of this custom,
by resorting to physics
import was, that the deity of the Ark was confined w ithin
during a year, and was liberty,
lost all
let loose at the
up
the people gave themselves
Plat.
Tim. Boch. Phaleg.
*
Ovid. Fast.
lib. i. ver.
'
Ovid. Fast.
lib.
*
Macrob. Saturn,
i.
ver.
lib.
i.
lib.
i.
end of
it.
When
to mirth, jesting,
c. 1. p.
c. 8.
lib.
i.
his vessel
and ebriety
4,.
Macrob. Saturn,
but
Saturn was set at
233, 234.
229, 230.
:
c. 7-
;
ex-
chak
m
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAX IDOLATRY,
496 BOOK
IV.
ulting
much
was found
same manner,
in the
again, or as
when
as the Egyptians did
the lost Osiris
Persians and Babylonians did during
tlie
the con-
tinuance of an exactly similar festival which they denominated Sacea from their
'
god Saca or Se-Sach or Buddha-Sacya.'
Stat.
Sylv. lib.
i.
in Cal.
The annual
Decemb. Saturn.
the days themselves being called the Sacian days
During
mente or supernumeraiy days of the year.
Sac^a lasted
festival
and they were evidently the
:
both
this eastern festival,
gave themselves up to the most unrestrained drunkcness and lasciviousness
who were
place with their servants,
their superiors sustained their part
by the
for the occasion -
robes of royalty.
The
:
festival
and one of these temporary
lords,
It it
has been inquired,
with the
was celebrated wherever there was a temple of Anals; who
why in
this festival
was called Sacia
commemoration of a
thian Saca;, and that the Babylonians borrowed
But
ject to their empire.
there
commemoration of a victory the Babylonians
like the
Babylonian Mylitta de
Seld.
diis Syr.
;)?7"or to
:
and there
is
it,
much
their subjugation
without giving the least hint that
on the Persians, speaks of
it
in
was
it
though
I
am
its
is
name Sacia
:
resemblance to the it
among
prevailed
Berosus, in a fragment
as a
introduced by Cyrus
had any thing
calls it a Scythian festival
tiiat
least
Babylonian institution,
and Ctesias,
in his
Hence Selden with much reason concludes,
persuaded, that
the god of the Sacs,
which bears the
reason for believing, that
by the Rledo-Persians.
first
neither instituted by that conqueror, nor
Hesychius
and some have imagined, that
work
one of those books of his history which treat of the times that
long preceded the empire of Cyrus.
the Sacae.
:
which he obtained over the Scy-
victory
from the Persians when they became sub-
it
nothing in
is
preserved by Athenfeus, mentions the festival by
;
distinguished
c. 13.
was instituted by Cyrus
nion
masters changed
who was
and the Cyprian Venus, by the solemn prostitution of female chastity. ii.
men and women
the part of king and was decorated
was the Magna Mater of the Persians, and who was honoured,
synt.
days,
Epago-
then allowed to act the part of their superiors, while
Zoganes, played
title
:
five
five
it
:
and
I
believe
was styled Sacia, not so
Saca or AYoden.
The
that
it
was
to do with his alleged victory over
him
to be right in his opi-
much from
ancient Persian
the Sacae, as from
mountaineers were un-
doubtedly a branch of the Scuths or Goths: and the Cuthic empire of Nimrod, the builder of Babel, was founded by the same intrepid and adventurous race pressly called a Scythian empire.
;
whence we
find
it
ex-
Saca or Buddha therefore was equally worshipped by the
Chusas of the Indian Caucasus, the old Iranians, the Scuths or Chusdim of Babylonia, and the Gothic and
Saxon conquerors of Europe.
Accordingly, Hesychius
the Babylonians Seches was the appellation of the planet
tells us,
Mercury or Buddha
that
among
and the pro-
:
phet Jeremiah speaks of Sesach as a well known principal idol of Babylon; denominating him
Melech Sesach or King Sesach, agreeably
to the
custom prevalent among the
bestowing upon their gods the appellation of King or Lord.
Compares Kings
idolaters of
xviii.
33, 34,
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRV. For the sleep of Saturn we must Celts.
497
iiavc recourse to tlic tlicolojzy of
names of
North-Britain received their appellations from
whom
the hero-gods to
guarded by
whom
Briareus
and attended
is
doubtless
Hu
The
sufficiently obvious.
is
bound and
by many ministering demons.'
Plutarch here denominates Cronus,
yet the identity of these deities
where the image of Saturn was thus exhibited, was a
The Buddwas
or
:
insular cavern,
local transcript of the
fabled grotto, within which he was thought to have concealed his family gigantic guard
Briareus,
Typhon
who
placed upon him the mystic
Ahriman or Hayagriva
or
the
they were dedicated, goes on to mention,
that in one of those islets Saturn lay in a state of deep sleep, fast
British
old
Plutarch, after telling us that the various islets which are scattered
near the main land of
god,
tiio
:
and
his
fetters,
:
his
was the
slumber was the same
the intermediate deluge, as
tliat
Brahma and Vishnou on the surlacc of of Buddha or Siaka from one great nuni-
dane revolution
and
as
allegorical deathlike sleep,
as that of
to another,
that of Osiris
while floating
in his luni-
form ark on the waters of the oceanic Nile.
Noah
Living as Jeicm.
55.
did at the period of the destruction and renovation of the
41. XXV.
li.
c;().
2 Chron. xxxii. 13, It.
Sechcs and Sesach are clearly the same deity wliose F.sa,
honour
the festival SacJ'a
wlrile Sesac/t
Sacan-Esa seems vowel sound
who
is
was instituted
:
;
Isaiah xxxvi. 18
for Seches
is
Sc-Saeh or Cai-Sach which denotes the
to be only another variation
like the western
— 20.
x\xvii. IJ, 13.
and they are both as clearly that Saca,
of the same
the
illustrious Saca.
title,
in
Buddhic compouiul SachZogancs or
pronounced with a broader
Soc or Socus, wiiich was equally a name of Mercury.
The slave,
bore thut appellation with the assumed character of a king, played the part of the regal
great father: and, in the celebration of the Sacea,
Latin Satuinulia, the primitive
which
is
plainly the same festival as the
times immediately succeeding the creation and
the deluge
were designed to be represented; when as yet the distinction between masters and slaves was
unknown, and when
the only rule acknowledged was that of the transmigrating patiiarch the
true so\ereign of the world.
From
this
old Persico-Gothic festival our Christianized forefathers of the middle
whose ancestors emigrated out of the noith of Iran and Ilindostan, borrowed tical
tion.
nnmimcry
of <^e Abbot of misrule and other strange profanations of a similar descrip-
The same origin may be ascribed
king and queen
;
unless
we choose rather
to
to
our Christmas gambols and
to
the twelfth-day
deduce them from a Roman source.
Age, U-
hrrtate Dcccmbris, qtiaiido ita nnjore) roluerunt, uttre. '
Plut. de defect, orac.
Pag.
ages,
their ecclesias-
Id'jI.
vol..
II.
3 II
^•OK
IT.
oiaaiN
liii.
4I>8
world, and marked as his
eminently was with the commencement of a
life
chronological epoch, we
new
pagan xuolauuv.
oi'
sluill
find these circumstances strongly alluded
The Orphic
to in the history of Saturn.
poet celebrates him, as the father
both of gods and men, as destroying and reproducing
whose sway extended over the whole world, and
versal patriarcli
parent of a
new age
Macrobius speaks of him,
or era.'
gods, and as the author of time
Much
came, time commencerl/
riation
the
Greek name of
the
for, as
:
which
:
lie
same idea
;
blended in the characters of Saturn and Noah.* a certain extent
:
yet
we must
heathen theology, Saturn
is
With no
ascribed to Bacchus,
is
little
Osiris,
more than a
mode
niankind to a civilized inculcating
and the or the
maxims of
fruits
justice
of the earth
As
god of dung.
:
repetition
'
Orph. Hymn.
Macrob. Saturn,
^
Idira KfovOj' ct X^cvo;.
tcra,
Kf«yoj
ilfor. c. 6. *
Noah answer to
of
the
of
character otlier
gen-
life;
and
and
travelled
simplicity.
He
over the whole world,
presided over agriculture
whence he was called by the Romans Stercutus
such, he was the Zeus-Arotrius of the Greeks, :
for the title
Baal-
xii. lib.
i.
c. 7. p.
K^oyoy ^tv tcv X^oyoy. i.
150. c. 8. p. liC, 157.
Macrob. Saturn,
quasi Xfovoj vocatur.
Asiat. Res. vol.
just to
Like these kindred hero-gods, he brought
and the Baal-Zebul of the Phenicians and Canaanites
^
is
with his three sons or ema-
Phoroneus, Inachus, and various
transcripts of the great father.
tile
His observation
exactness does the postdiluvian character of
that of Saturn; which
real
intimately
is
not exclusively Noah, but that imaginary trans-
who was thought to appear commencement of et'en/ world.
less
Sir
not forget, that, on the avowed principles of
migrating personage nations at the
Hence
father.'
was the period where
and remarks, that the idea of Time
;
the ancient
Brahmens bestow the ex-
so the
William Jones concludes, that the general deluge Indian chronology begins
among
declared to be only a va-
is
Cala or Time on the great
actly similar appellation of
as the first of
but that, when Saturn
;
prevailed
the god
of a word which signifies Time
as the
explains by teaching us, that,
was Chaos, there was no time
while the world
Jlindoos
as an uni-
all things,
p. 234, 2-10.
lib.
i.
c.
c. 8.
Ibid. c. 22. 'O ;^f*voj
Schol. in Hesiod.
22. p.
2M.
Saturnus a Graecis, iinmutata
h
roiovToy cvtiy.
Phurn. de
li-
nal-
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRV, Zebul
is
exactly equivalent to the
Latin Stercuius, and most probably was
the appellation which Sanchoniatho's translatcu has not
He
and Agruerus^
He
trees.
was the
taught
men
tlie
vine,
and the
As an
pressed and fermented the juice of the grape.
person
first
A^^rotc.'i
:
fruit-
who
ex-
he was
agriculturist,
with a scythe or sickle in his hand
usually represented
rendered
ill
method of grafting and training
planter of the
first
499
and, in allusioii
having mystically devoured his children and afterwards having dis-
to his
He
gorged them, he frequently appeared grasping a naked infant.
teemed the
first
and oldest of the gods
mark of advanced age
:
;
v.as es-
whence he was painted bearing every
yet a notion prevailed, that he once experienced a
wonderful renewal, and that from an old doubtless alludes to the figurative birth of
man he became a Noah from the Ark
This
boy. ;
which led
the ancient mythologists to represent the diluvian god, as an infant floating
on the
As
lotos.
the chief of the divine ogdoad, he vvas sometimes said to
be the parent of three sons and three daughters by his consort Rhea: and, at other times, he was supposed to be the father of the seven Titans or Cabiri
and of
their sisters the seven Titanides or Cabirae.
Rhea
tight was esteemed sacred to the flood, a
new
:
the
number
and, since the world began again after
when
of the Universe was dated fiom the time
creation
she and her husband were thought to have, flourished.
Saturn
nician mythology,
Hence
is
reported to
Lastly,
in the
Phc-
have been contemporary with
Dagon and Pontus and Typhon and Nereus, and to have given the Berytus to Neptune and the Cabiri who there consecrated the relics of ocean. The import of such a legend can scarcely be misunderstood. teaches us, that the epoch of the deluge
was the
removing the transactions on mount Ararat which derived
Bcriiii
nant,
it
crifice to
represents
God
name from
its
Noah
at the
true epoch of Saturn
to the Phenician
:
city
the It
and,
Berytus or
the Barit or diluvian ship of the cove-
Lead of
his family oftering
of what had been preserved in the
Ark from
up a solemn
sa-
the fury of the
waves.*
'
I (loiibf,
whether liaal-Zebul be a mere contemptuous Rabbinical variation of Baui-
Zcbub, as many liave -
Diod. Eibl.lib.
siippQ.5etl.
v. p.
334..
1
rather take them to be diftcrent
Macrob. Saturn, lib.
i.
c.7, 8.
titles.
Virg. vEncid.
lib. viii. vcr.
321,
'^'**'' *'•
500 lUIWK IV.
OKIGIN or PAOAN JDOI-ATUy.
-tHL
The names, by which Saturn
III.
Baal and Mokch
aie
ture,
way
applied to him by
is
orduiarily mentioned in
but these are mere
:
Holy
which
titles,
of expressing his supereminent dignity
Scrip-
his votaric'*
the one sim-
;
ply denoting Lord, and the other King. 1.
His Morship was of a peculiarly bloody and inhuman description, agree-
ably to his fabled character of the destroying power
and the
:
a|)pellation
upon the Punic god, who was venerated with such worship, abundantly proves that the classical Saturn was the same divinity as the bestowed
Baal or IMolech of the inspired writers.
We
are told by INIinucius Felix, that in
and that
their parents to Saturn,
by
sacrificed
some
parts of Africa infants were
caresses lest they should appear to be unwilling
mode
the precise
of propitiating
Molech
were prevented by
their cries
Now
victims.'
was
this
and the Africans, who thus wor-
:
shipped Saturn, were undoubtedly the Carthaginians, who brought with them the bloody rites of the oriental deity from their native Phenicia. ingly
we
great calamity to sacrifice a
man
niatlio as his authority;
clear,
or Buddha,
who was
Molech and
Baal.''
it is
to Saturn
that this Saturn
by the
distinguished
He
and, since he refers to Sancho-
:
is
the
additional
sprinkled
human
Pescennius Festus
prevailed.'
he adds,
altar with
liis
that,
when
same person honorary
blood in commemoration of in
lib. vii. vtr.
imag.
c. 1.
lib. i.e. 1.
Phalcg. '
lib.
we might
its
Min.
having once
Lactantius gives the same account
subjoin, were
179. Fulgent. Mythol. lib.
Martian. Capcll.
lib.
i.
Damas. apud annot. i.
:
it
c. 2.
in
i.
and
and many others
Euseb. Proep. Evan.
Phurn, dc
nat.
Fel. Octav. p. 201, 293. lib. ii. }
27.
*
To
necessary, those of Diodorus
Pint. Quast.
c. 5.
noljility."*
Rom.
lib.
6.
i.
c.
;
who
all
con-
42. Albric. dc deor. 10. Apoliod.
Pint.
Parall.
Porphyr. de Abslinen.
Bibl.
Vide Boch.
c. 1.
,'Porph. de Abstin.
of
men
the Carthaginians had suftered a defeat from Agathocles,
Siculus, Tertullianj Eusebius, Athanasius,
022.
titles
discontinued, they
they at once sacrificed to Saturn two hundred children of the these testimonies
as. II
also tells us, that the Carthaginians sacrificed
Saturn; and that, when the practice was at length
to
Accord-
learn from Porphyry, that the Phenicians were wont in times of
lib. ii. J
56.
* Laeta:i. Instit. lib. i.e. 21. p. 115.
THE ORIGIN' OF PAGAN IDOLATkV. cirr
human
the assertion, that
in
and especially
victims,
501
were de-
infants,
voted to Saturn by the Piienicians and Carthiginians
Thus
it
appears, that
uho was eminently
tlie
principal god of the Tyrians and the ('aiiaanites,
by the sacrifice of children,
propitiated
unanimously by the writers of Greece and
But such was the mode,
the classical Saturn.
was venerated throughout Palestine
:
cestors, distinguished the god,
whom we
those identical appellations.
to
have been no other than
which Baal or Molech
in
and we have
that the Carthaginians, following the
lieving,
l)y
Rome
declared
is
sufficient reasons
custom of
for be-
their Phcnician an-
have seen pronounced
be Saturn,
to
Athenagoras says, that the
whom
deity,
own language Amilcas ; which is eviAm-Melech or t/ie burning Molech, sometimes
they worshipped, was called in their dently
the
compound
title
Milcom or Mekch-Am
written inversely
names of the gods, we
practice of assuming the
agreeably to the oriental
and,
:
find both the
word Molech
and the word Baal entering into the composition of many Carthaginian apsuch as Hamilcar,
pellatives,
Milic,
Asdrubal,
Hannibal,
and
who in Scripture is denomiMolech, and whose proper name among the Indo-Scythic
Hence
Ithobal?
Imilces,
nated Z?«rt/and
is
it
evident, that the god,
Phenicians was // or Ila, was the same deity
as the Saturn of classical
mythology.
Accordingly we find the triplicated Saturn venerated with precisely resemble those of the Baal-Shalisha or
tine/
Athanasius informs
Porphyry
devoting of infants.'
Saturn prevailed tim from
among
us,
among
triplicated
the Rhodians,
custom of
'i
substituted
figures of
man
to
but that they latterly chose the vic-
who were condemned to death.* And Lacancient Latins devoted men to Saturn, not by
slaughtering theui at the altar, but by precipitathig bridge into the
sacrificing a
by the
the malefactors
Jantius teaclies us, that the
they
Baal of Pales-
that the Cretans propitiated Saturn savs, that the
which
sacrifices,
He
iber. in
men made
the
adds, that,
place
of
it
when
'
^thcnaf;. Lfj^nt. c.
Athan. Oral. adv. gent.
*
lactan.
xii. p. b'Z.
I.nstit. lib. i. c.
this practice
In *
thir,
2 Kings
* J'orpli.
21.
was discontinued,
a custom of throwing into
of straw or bulrush.'
^
them from the Milvian
last
iv.
mode
the river
of sacrifice,
42.
dc AbstJn.
lib.
ii.
§
51.
'^"*'-
"-
502
ORIGIN
THi:
PAGAN IDOrATilY.
01-
the victim, I conceive, represented the arkite god the waves in coninicmoration of
Noahs
constantly symhohzed hy the sacred
;
and he was committed
The
river of the country.
closely analogical to that of committing to a holy lake or stream
Durga of
the Goths, the the Isis
a female
of the
the Hindoos,
When
of the Egyptians.
and the
Ark
rite
was
the Isis of
who shadowed out
virgin
the person, thus cast into the water,
commemorate
the design of the ordinance was to
;
to
which was
entering into the deluge,
the
was
launching
into the great ahyss of the deluge.
The Jagan-Nath of Orissa, as we have seen, is worshipped in conjunction with the god Bal-Rama and the goddess Subhadru of u precisely 2.
:
similar nature
When Solomon
was the adoration of Molech or Milcom.
turned aside to the abominations of the Gentiles, he venerated Astoreth,
Chemosh, and Milcom, on the three peaks of the mount of corruption or the
mount of
olives
which he adopted as the
;
of his apostasy, as
to the
that of Orissa
mountain where
it
and
it is
devoutly believed,
wandered, he
the solid rock
is
and a remarkable
as a manifestation of
that,
in
the
hill,
3.
On
Buddha.
its
In various
foot of that deity
fabulizing
monks of
the
:
for the consolation of his vo-
summit of the mount of
exhibited on the
still
priated a genuine pagan legend,
dermg pilgrim
peculiarity, attached
a curious circumstance, that the impression of a foot
is
consequence of our Lord having ascended
in
This triad
every region of the globe to which he
one of these divine prints
left
Now it
taries.
:
shewn a gigantic impression of the
is
Ida
was worshipped, proves decidedly, that one of
members was Jagan-Nath viewed parts of the east
I\Icru or
the idolatrous Canaanites and Perizzites.'
racter in the days of
was no other than
local tricoryph^an
had heretofore sustained the same mythological cha-
it
to
olives
;
in
but,
heaven from the top of that
holy sepulchre have childishly appro-
and thence point out the mark to the won-
as the last sacred footstep of the Messiah.^
the real character of Baal or
very remarkable passage
in
Molech much
Holy Writ, which,
so
light
far as
I
is
thrown by a
can judge,
lias
hitherto been but imperfectly understood.
Kings
xxiii. 13.
'
2
'
Sdiidys's Trav.
ji.
See Clarke's Trav. vol.
]65.
MaundrcU's Irav.
ii.
p.
p. 104.
578.
Adiichom.
Tlicat. icrr. sanct. p. 170-
TMV.
ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
In the contest between Elijah and the priests is
of that deity, the prophet
described as addressing them in a strain of what has usually been
sidered as nothins;
Cry aloud he
503
is
in
for he
;
a journey
Now
more than severe
;
a god
is
but the force of
scured by a somewhat faulty translation.
worship of the idolatrous priests
random
but
:
is
it
mere irony; and the sense of the passage
it
knowledged
lie is
or he
talking,
is
he
;
Elijah
is
is
he
not simply ridiculing the
not taunting them, as
is
thus
such a being
urging upon them the extreme
in the place
Cry with
a
in
engaged
in travelling
for he
prqfomid meditation
;
my-
and, "ith redoubled
absurdity of venerating
or he
;
certainly be a
7?iust
god
he
:
occupied in wandering
is
is
;
either
or he
is
or perhaps he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
;
Every one of these
were, at
of the all-wise and all-powerful Jehovah.
loud voice,
wrapped
it
upon their oum ac-
with singular accuracy, the
describing,
is
much ob-
likewise
ridiculing their senseless adoration,
pi^inciples ;
is
pursuing, or
greatly impaired byes-
thological attributes of the great transmigrating father
energy, he
is
or pcradventure he sleepeth, and must beaxvaked.^'
this is doubtless irony:
teeming
ironv.
either he
:
con-
so far
particulars,
from being casually mentioned,
enters prominently into the character of the great father of gentile theology,
and was devoutly received by
During
the intermediate
votaries as a mysterious point of belief.
his
period
between each two similar worlds, he was
supposed, and throughout the east of
tlie
taticn
deluge
;
either inclosed in a wonderful egg
on the surface
float
and engaged in deep
tnedi-
on his own perfections, or reclining on some aquatic vehicle and
wrapped
in
a profound and deathlike
while the waters prevail
:
but,
new world.
ticd with
Such
hov; ever
poignant ridicule by
to those frantic
tlie
is
and
retire,
is
prophet of the true God.
civilization,
1
he continues,
he azcakes froin his slumber
manifested as the
wanderings, for which Siva
*
this state
official
creator
not the only part of his character, speci-
than Bacchus and Altis were in the west travels of conquest and
In
sleep.
when they
to the energy of reno\ ated exertion,
of a
supposed, to
is still
:
is
no
alludes also
less celebrated in the
and he
distinctly
vhich the great
Kings xviii.i7.
He
father,
east
notices those
by whatever
cn.vts. vi
504
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN inorATRV.
name he might be distinguished, whether by that of Osiris and Dionusus or of Saturn and Buddha and Deo-Naush, was universally supposed to have achieved.
All these particulars are touched upon by Elijah in his sarcastic to the
priests of Baal.
Hence we must
poignancy, that the character of
tliat
infer,
to give
tlie
satire
address its
fall
god was the received character of the
great father.
IXD OF VOL.
n.
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