On Mankind: Their Origin and Destiny (1872)


Author: Arthur Dyot, Thomson
Publisher: Longmans, Green
Year: 1872 

BT AK 

M.A. OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD .

On Mankind: Their Origin and Destiny
By Arthur Dyot Thomson
Published by Longmans, Green, 1872
Original from the New York Public Library
Digitized Jul 27, 2006
780 pages

PREFACE. 



The Origin and the Destiny of Man are subjects which, 
though inseparably connected with each other, are usually 
treated of as distinct, because, while the one is now generally 
admitted to be the legitimate subject of scientific enquiry, 
the other is held to be removed from that mode of investi- 
gation by the existence of books which contain a revelation 
of the destiny of the human race. 

In ancient times this was not the case, as will presently 
be shown. Theology was based upon such science as existed 
at that time, and Science and Theology were consequently 
in harmony with each other. This harmony has long ceased 
to exist in consequence of the rapid progress which Science 
has made, while Theology has remained unchanged. One 
great cause of this has been that adherence to the literal 
interpretation of the Scriptures which has prevailed for 
more than a thousand years to the exclusion of every other, 
although St. Jerome has said: ^^The most difficult and 
obscure of the holy books contain as many secrets as they do 
words : that is to say too little : they conceal many things 
under each word." Several learned works have been written 
to explain the secret, that is the real, meaning of these books, 
and this volume contains a brief abstract of the most impor- 
tant of these, which are wholly unknown to English readers, 
combined with much original matter and information from 
other sources. 

The better instructed among the ancients, whether Jews or 
Pagans, never believed in the literal meaning of their 



VI PREFACE. 

sacred books and mythological traditions. Maimonides, the 
most learned of the Babbis, says of the book of Genesis, 
"We ought not to take literally that which is written in 
the Book of the Creation, nor entertain the same ideas of 
it as are common with the vulgar. If it were otherwise, 
our learned ancient sages would not have taken so much 
pains to conceal the sense, and to keep before the eyes of the 
uninstructed the veil of allegory which conceals the truths 
which it contains. Taken literally, that work contains the 
most extravagant and absurd ideas of the Deity. Whoever 
can guess at the true meaning should take care not to divulge 
it. This is a maxim inculcated by our wise men, especially 
in connection with the work of the six days. It is possible 
that by our own intelligence, or by the aid of others, some 
may guess the true meaning, in which case they should be 
silent respecting it ; or, if they do speak of it, they should do 
so obscurely, as I myself do, leaving the rest to be guessed 
at by those who have sufficient ability to understand me " 
(Maimon. MoreNevoch, part ii. cap. xxix.). He also says (ib. 
part i. cap. xvii.) that this enigmatic method is not peculiar 
to Moses and the Jewish doctors, but is common to them and 
to all the sages of antiquity. 

Origen (Philocal., p. 12) asks : " What man of good sense 
will ever persuade himself that there has been a first, a 
second, and a third day, and that these days have each of 
them had their morning and their evening, when there was 
as yet neither sun, nor moon, nor stars? What man is 
there so simple as to believe that God, personifying a 
gardener, planted a garden in the East? that the tree of 
life was a real tree, which could be touched, and the fruit 
of which had the power of preserving life ? " &c. He com- 
pares the story of the temptation to the mystic fable of the 
birth of Love, whose father was Porus, the father of abund- 
ance ; and in his answer to Celsus, he upbraids that sarcastic 
infidel with his total want of candour in treating this story 
as if it had been delivered as historical, Celsus not giving 



Vlll PREFACE. 

enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
his heel '* : ** Whoever thou beest that understandest the 
first elements of the Hebrew dialect, and the first elements 
of logic — say if thou findest in it any vestige of a seducing 
devil, or a redeeming Saviour ; then mayest thou turn to 
Calmet's commentary, or any other commentary of the same 
brand, and keep thyself from laughing if thou canst." Dr. 
Geddes also says : " The fall is an excellent mythologue, or an 
Egyptian allegory judiciously selected by Moses, in order to 
enable him to account for the introduction of evil, and of man's 
antipathy to the reptile race." This learned Hebraist concludes 
his commentary on the third chapter of Genesis as follows : 
" We have now got to the end of the Mythos of Moses, or 
whoever else was the author of this wonderful production. 
I trust I have done something like justice to its beauties ; 
and that it will appear, on the whole, to be a well-devised, 
well- delineated, well-executed piece — nay, that it has not its 
equal in all the mythology of antiquity; I mean, if it be 
considered not as a real history, nor as a mere mystical alle- 
gory, but as a most charming political fiction, dressed 
up for excellent purposes in the garb of history, and adapted 
to the gross conceptions of a rude, sensual, unlearned, and 
credulous people." 

As Burnet has observed (Arch., 1. II. p. 7), we receive these 
stories without examination because they are believed to 
have been written by Moses. K we found them in a Greek 
philosopher, or in the writings of a Babbi or a Mahometan, 
doubts and objections would arise. It is only because 
Moses is supposed to be inspired that we accept them. But 
when we see that these books are full of repetitions and 
contradiction, it becomes impossible to suppose that any one 
person, and certainly not an inspired one, can have written 
them. The following are a few of the principal repetitions 
and contradictions in the Pentateuch, omitting for the present 



PREFACE. ix 

those in the first chapters of Genesis, which prove that it 
cannot have been written by a single writer. 

The hesitation of Moses when he received the order to 
deliver the Israelites from the yoke of the Egyptians is 
mentioned twice in different terms. Conf. Exod. iv. 10 
et seqq. with vi. 28 et seqq. 

The miracle of the cloud resting on the tabernacle is 
related twice with different particnlars. Conf. Exod. zl. 88 
with Nnmb. ix% 15-23. The same is the case with the tables 
of the Decalogne, written first by Gk)d Himself (conf. Exod. 
xxiv. 12, xxxii. 16, and xxxiv. 1), and secondly by Moses after 
the dictation of Grod, Exod. xxxiv. 27 ; with the establishment 
of the council of the seventy elders, conf. Exod. xxiv. with 
Numb. xii. ; and with the situation of the tabernacle, which 
at one time is pitched outside the camp, Exod. xxxiii. 7, and 
at another time in the midst of it, Numb. ii. 2, 17. 

Jacob is made to be eighty-four years old when he took 
Leah to wife, while Dinah was scarcely seven years of age 
when she was violated by Shechem, and Simeon and Levi 
Were scarcely twelve and eleven years old when they ravaged 
a city and put all the inhabitants to the sword (Gren. xxxiv. 
25 et seqq.). 

Some of the laws are mentioned twice, and each time 
they are different. La Exod. xxi. 2, and Deut. xv. 12, it is 
enacted that the Hebrew slave shall be fii'ee after having 
served seven years, as Jeremiah, at a later period, also states 
(chap, xxxiv. 14). In Lev. xxv. 60 et seqq., on the contrary, 
the slave is only to obtain his freedom in the year of jubilee, 
or after the lapse of fifty years. The enactments respecting 
lepers in Lev. xiii. are quite different from those in the next 
chapter. The same is the case with respect to the unleavened 
bread of the Passover. In Exod. xii. 17-20 it is spoken of 
as a commemoration of the deliverance from Egypt, yet at ver. 
39 of the same chapter it is stated that " they baked un- 
leavened cakes because they were thrust out of 



X PREFACE. 

Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they {)repared for 
themselves any victual.** 

According to Exod. zz. 9-11, the Sabbath day is to be 
kept holy because '* in siz days the Lord made heaven and 
earth .. • • • and rested the seventh day." In chap, xziii. 12 
of the same book, however, this enactment is made a question 
of humanity and agricultural economy. ^^ Siz days thou shalt 
do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest, that 
thine oz and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, 
and the stranger, may be refreshed ; " and each time we are 
told that Grod Himself spake the words. In Deut. v. 15 God 
is represented as giving a third reason : ^^ And remember that 
thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord 
thy Grod brought thee out thence • • • • therefore the Lord 
thy God commanded thee to keep the seventh day." In ver. 
21 of thia chapter the order of the tenth commandment is 
altered, and an addition is made to it, ^^ Thou shalt not covet 
thy neighbour's field.** 

There is a very important passage in Origen's book against 
Celsus (1. 1.), which will be again referred to, in which he 
^ays : 

^^In Egypt the philosophers have a sublime and secret 
knowledge respecting the nature of God, which they only 
disclose to the people under the cover of &bles or allegories. 
• • • • All the Eastern nations — the Persians, the Indians, 
the Syrians — conceal secret mysteries under religious fables ; 
the wise of all nations fathom the tneaning of them, while 
the common people only see the symbols and the outside of 
them.** 

What this sublime and secret knowledge was will be 
developed in the following pages. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

State of Judsa in the reign of Josiah — Di8coT<>i7 of the Pontatcnch by Hilkaiah — 
Shaphan reads it before Josiah, who causes it to be read before the people — 
Revision of the Pentateuch by Ezra — .Selection of the canonical books of the Old 
Testament by the Grand Synagogue — ^The Shepherd kings — Origin of the 
Israelites — The languages of Egypt — Expulsion of the Shepherd kings — Story 
of Joseph — Discontent of the Israelites — Egypt sunk in idolatry — Moses — His 
real name — His education and life — Moses applies to Fbaraoh for permission to 
take the Israelites into the desert — The ten plagues of Eg;}'pt — Impossibility of 
the Pentateuch having been written by Moses — Departure of the Israelites from 
Egypt — Their sojourn in the Desert — Mount Sinai .... page 1 



CHAPTER n. 

The Masoretic points — The Hebrew alphabet — Origin of the Egyptian form of the 
word Jah or Jehovah — Origin of the words Adon and Adonai — Meaning of the 
name of Moses — The Zodiacal alphabet — Meaning of the word Aloim — Mean- 
ing of the name Satan — Moses a polytbeist — llie Egypti.-in cnsmogonic represen- 
tations — Explanation of the principal words in the first two verses of 
Genesis 36 



CHAPTER lU. 

Explanation of the secret or real meaning of the first chapter of Genesis — The 
Aleim — Explanation of the cosmogonic drama — the Ark of the Covenant — 
Kgyptian belief in immortality — Formation of man in the image of God — Hindu 
traditions respecting the Creation — Creation of man as an androgynous 
being 62 



CHAPTER IV. 

Secret meaning of the second chapter of Genesis to verse xir. — The sevonth 
day — Sublimity of the Egyptian representations of the Creation — The allegory 
of Adam and Ev6--:Genealogies in the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis — 
Differenors between the first and second cosmogonic narratives in Gfucbis — The 
giinlen of Eden — The tree of knowledge — the rivers of Panidisc . . 88 



XU CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

Secret meaning of the remainder of the second chapter of Genesis, and of chapter 
iii. to Terse v. — What initiation consisted in among the Egyptians — Moaning of 
the prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge — Allegorical 
nature of the creation of Eve — ^The Gjmnosophists — Typhon — The Tempta- 
tion PAGE 111 



CHAPTER VI. 

Secret meaning of the third chapter of Genesis concluded — The Fall — What the 

serpent really was — The curse upon Adam and Eve, and the serpent — The nature 

of the curse explained — The expulsion from Paradise — Moral meaning of 

• it 136 



CHAPTER VII. 

The New Testament — Origen on its allegorical character — The Council of Nice — 
The original form in which the Gt>spel8 were written — The genealogies and 
miraculous birth of Christ — Critical examination of the Gospel according to 
Matthew — Origin of the Lord's prayer 164 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Critical examination of the Gospel according to Matthew, continued — Original 
sources of this gospel — Quotations in the New Testament from the Old . 1 95 



CHAPTER IX. 

The critical examination of the Gospel according to Matthew, continued — Doublets 
in Matthew*s gospel — The Gospel according to Mark — Passages which have 
been inserted at a later date into this Gospel — Critical examination of the 
Gospel according to Mark ......... 218 



CHAPTER X. 

Mythical elements in the first copies of Mark's gospel — Origin of the miraculous 
narratives — Examination and allegorical mecming of these narratives . 243 



CHAPTER XI. 

Examination of the miraculous narratives continued — The Resurrection — Its 
meaning as understood in the earliest times — Elxamination of the narratives of 
the Resurrection 272 



CHAPTER Xn. 

The original disciples of John the Baptist — Who Jesus Christ was according to 
the Talmud — The Apology of Justin Martyr — What the ancients understood by 
the Holy Spirit — ^Immaculatซ conceptions of Pythagoras, Plato, &c. — lilxannna- 
tion of the Gospel narratives resumed — The Eucharist .... 292 



CONTENTS. xiii 



CHAPTER XIU. 

Eiamination of the Gospel narratives continued — The arrest of Jeso^ — ^His trial 
and condemnation — ^The punishment of the cross — ^The inscriptions on the cross 
— ^The death of Jesus according to the (Gospels, and according to the Talmud — 
The Resurrection — Irensus accuses the authors of the Gospels of forgery — ^The 
ascension — The fiery tongues — ^The conversion of Saul — ^The narrative in the 
Acts inconsistent with that in the Epistles — Contradictions and inconsistencies 
of the Gospel narratives paob 325 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Gospels which are no longer in existence — Quotations from some of them — 
Spiritual truths concealed under literal falsehoods — ^Identity of Christianity and 
Paganism according to Eusebius — ^The Gospel to the Hebrews the most ancient 
Gospel — Doubts as to the reality of the Crucifixion and Ascension from the 
earliest times — lists of the apocryphal Gt>8pel8, Epistles, Acts, Revelations, 
and miscellaneous writings — HypoUieees respecting the origin of the canonical 
Gospels — Examination of the authenticity of the Epistles — Mystical and alle- 
gorical meaning of ancient mythology ..ซ.,.• 369 



CHAPTER XV. 

The worship of Nature the basis of all the religions of antiquity — ^Worship of the 
heavenly bodies — Universality of the worship of Nature — ^The Jewish temple — 
Origin of temples — The Hebrew camp — Divisions of the Zodiac in ancient times 
— Origin of theology — Real meaning of the word — Worship of the sun, moon, 
and planets — The constellations 394 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The sun the king of heaven—The precession of the equinoxes — ^Theology of the 
Decans — ^Theory of the Faranatellons — Distribution of the elements in the 
Zodiac and the planets — The Orphic egg — Contest between Ormuzd and Ahriman 
— Sacred mythology entirely based on physical objects — Soul of the Universe — 
Souls of the stars — The archangels preside over the planets — ^The g^arden of 
delights — The good and evil principles — The Persian cosmogony ซ .424 

CHAPTER XVU. 

The Tuscan cosmogony — Persian allegories — The tree of life — The garden of 
Ormnsd — The reign of happiness and the empire of evil — ^The mysteries of 
Bacchus — ^The birth of the Invincible Sun — The Magi— The Virgin — ^The Nati- 
vity of Christ — ^The doorway of Notre Dame — Position of the sphere on the 25th 
of December 466 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The life of Osiris and Typhon by Bishop Synesius— The festival of the transitr— 
The Pervigilium Paschie— The Adonia— Great Persian festival of the Neurouz 
or new year— The Zodiac at SL Denis— The worship of Mithra— The Persian 
angeU — Historical sketch ojT the Apocalypse . . • . . • • ^86 



XIV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTKU XIX. 

End of tho world oxpcctod by the faithful — The Phrygian mysteries — Tlic sacrod 
nuinl>crB — The 8evปปn hoRVena — The eighth heaven — Flanivphero of the Apoca- 
lypse — The firmament — The Syrian and Arabian eosmogonic pystems — Tho Lanib 
— The woman clothed with the sun— Tho great dragon . . . PAoii dlซ> 



CHAPTER XX. 

Michael and Hercules identical — The Seal of the Sun — Tho Mountain of Sion — 
The seven angels — ^Triumph of the Lamb — The two deaths — Tho Ancient of Days 
— Ascent of the soul to the abode of light — Tho New Jerusalem — Luoiun's City 
of tho Happy — ^The E^^jrptian Elysium — The Theophany — Conclusion of tho 
Apocalypse 643 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Tho active and passive forces of Nature — Origin of human souls — The principle of 
Fire — ^The principle of Light — The double movement of souls — Influences of the 
planets — Origin of the fictions of Elysium and Tartarus— Travels of the soul 
through the signs of the Zodiac — Mortal and venial sins — ^Transmigration of souls 
— Progressive movement of souls . . 671 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Nature the first deity — The P^mids and obelisks: what they really were — 
Primitive conceptions of the Universe — ^Worship of the sun and of animals — 
Origin of idolatry — Origin of tho initiations and mysteries — The Fortunate 
Islands — Tho dungeons of Hell — Jewish teaching on this subject — The mysteries 
ofEleusis 603 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

The origin of man according to the ancients — ^Discourse on Initiation by Hermes 
Trismogistus — ^Eternity of tho Universe— The great cycles — ^The Chaldsean 
ikstrulogical period — Origin of tho fable of the conflagration of the Universe — 
Origin of the fiction of tho Deluge — Position of tho heavens at tho birth of tlie 
world — The myths of Deucalion, Noah, and Xixuthrus^The temple of Deucalion 
— The temple of Derceto 638 



CHAPTER XXIV, 

The Hindu Deluge^The Hebrew Deluge — Its astronomical nature— Worship of 
the Pleiades — The ark of Osiris — The four rivers of Paradise allegorical — 
Explanation of the allegory — Various dates assigned fur tho Creation — The con- 
flagration of the Universe — The reign of Fire— The Zodiac — Origin of astrology 
—Primitive position of the Egyptian sphere — Explanation of the signs of the 
Zodiac — Sacred calendar of the Egyptian priests — Origin of the days of tho 
week . 667 



ON 



MANKIND 



THEIR 



OHIGIN AND DESTINY 



BT AK 

M.A. OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD . 



LONDON 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

- • 

1872 

J// r/0A/i retirved 



XVI 



LIST OP ENGRAVINGS. 



PLATB 

XX. 

XXL 

xxn. 

XXIIL 
XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 
XXVII. 

xxvm. 

XXIX. 



PAGK 

An Egyptian Planisphere 430 

Distribution of the four Elements in the twelve Signs of the Zodiac 432 

The Garden or Empire of Ormuzd 465 

The Calendar of Isis. From Notre-Dame at Paris . . .478 

Planisphere of the position of the heavens at midnight on the 25th 
of December at the moment of the birth of the God of Day . 483 

A Planisphere explanatory of the Apocalypse . . . .527 

. 530 

. 530 

. 517 

. 699 



The Cosmogonic System of the Syrians 
The Cosmogonic System of the Arabians 
The Seal of the Sun .... 
An ฃ^g3rptian Planisphere . 



2 MANKIND: THEIR 

priests and Levites. Under Manasseh the altars of Jehovah, 
had been thrown down, to raise in their place the images of 
false gods. A carved image was set up in the temple. In 
the reign of Hezekiah it had taken eight days to cleanse the 
temple, and to cany into the brook Kedron all the filth 
which it contained. 

At the time of which we are now speaking, the disorder 
and impiety were not perhaps so great, but still the temple 
was in a state of degradation, and the law of Moses, which 
had been so little thought of during the preceding reigns, 
was not in its place by the side of the ark. It became 
necessary to restore the law, and Hilkiah the priest deter- 
mined to take advantage of this state of things. In order 
to second his views and prepare the way, Jeremiah, who as 
a priest, and son of a priest, (perhaps he was a relation of 
Hilkiah's, for the name of the prophet's father was also 
Hilkiah,) was necessarily under the influence of Hilkiah, 
began to prophesy against Judah (Jer. i. 18-16). The 
succeeding chapters are full of reproaches, menaces, and 
exhortations, and the misfortunes which overwhelmed the 
kingdom are always traced to the impiety of the Jews. 
Hilkiah on his side had made use of the time. Collecting 
all the writings usually attributed to Moses, which were 
generally forgotten by the Jews, and surrounding himself 
with all the foreign documents which were of a nature to 
facilitate his object, he succeeded in compiling the Penta- 
teuch. He also made use of Egyptian and Chaldaean 
traditions, such as the story of Jacob and Joseph, and placed 
at the head of the work a Genesis. 

When the book was ready, the king, Shaphan the scribe, 
Achbor the priest, Jeremiah the prophet, Huldah the 
prophetess, and two or three others, began to act as had 
been agreed upon between them, with the view of saving the 
nation. 

Notwithstanding Josiah's piety the temple was in such a 
state that it was &Iling into ruin, when, in the eighteenth 
year of his reign he suddenly conceived the idea of restoring 
it. At this time he was only twenty-six years of age, there- 
fore it is probable that he acted under the influence of the 
high priest. 

The Pentateuch at this period was, in parts, more than 
400 years old. Many of the words of the language had 



4 MANKIND: THEIR 

volumen. These skins, for which palm-leaves or papyrus 
were sometimes substituted, were common among the Jews, 
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even Indians. The use of 
them continued some centuries after the Christian era. The 
transcription of these books on prepared skins formed no less 
than 240 volumes or rolls in the time of Esdras. 

No canonical Hebrew book makes any mention of the 
Pentateuch before the captivity. The book of Joshua appears 
to have been written during the captivity, beforet he revision 
of the book of Moses by Esdras. The expression " the book 
of the law," or rather of the doctrine, which is supposed to 
refer to the Pentateuch, means a collection of laws^ and not 
of historical books such as Genesis and a great portion of 
Exodus. In this book, the book of the law which is twice 
mentioned (Josh. xxiv. 25, 26, and viii. 34) is not the Penta- 
teuch, for what Joshua wrote in it is not to be found there, 
any more than the benedictions of which he speaks. 

When the temple was completed the ark was taken to it, 
in which we are expressly told (2 Chron. v. 10, and 1 Kings 
viii. 9) that there were only th^ two tables of the laWy and even 
this is a later interpolation, as will be shown subsequently. 
The truth is there was nothing in it. It is most extraordinary 
to see Solomon abandoning the worship of the God in whose 
honour he had raised the temple, and to read that he '* built 
an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the 
hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Moloch, the abomina- 
tion of the children of Ammon " (1 Kings xi. 7). More- 
over we are told, 2 Chron. xii. 9, that fifty-seven years after 
the dedication of the temple, " Shishak, king of Egypt, came 
up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the 
house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house ; 
he took alV^ 

Under Jehoshaphat, fifty-seven years after the devastation 
of the temple by Shishak, a book of the law of the Lord is 
mentioned (2 Chron. xvii. 9) which does not bear the name 
of Moses. In 2 Kings xiv. 6 the book of Deuteronomy is 
quoted. But the books of Kings were compiled in the time 
of Ezra, about 150 years subsequently. The book of Deu- 
teronomy itself has indications that some portions of it were 
written towards the end of the captivity. 

The narrative continues thus : " Hilkiah the priest hath 
given me a book. And Shai>han read it before the king." 



ORIGIX AND DESTINY. 6 

Now this was a solitary manuscript or manuscripts of great 
antiquity, and which must have been in a very bad 
state of preservation. If it really contained the laws of 
Moses, Josiah (Deut. xvii. 18, 19) ought to have known it, 
but notwithstanding his piety, he knew nothing about it. It 
is said to have been the autograph of Moses. There were 
other copies then. How was it that they did not resemble 
the original 9 

Shaphan read the book, and the king, who had never 
heard the words which it contained, was surprised and 
frightened. He rent his garments, no doubt because Shaphan 
had taken care to read, not the whole Pentateuch, which 
would have taken at least a day, but only the twenty-seventh 
and twenty-eighth chapters of Deuteronomy, in which 
Hilkiah had taken care to insert terrible curses for disobe- 
dience. The twenty-seventh chapter is the one which the Jews 
are believed to have falsified as to Mount Ebal, in order to 
throw blame on the Samaritans, as they have done with 
Joshua viii. 30, for a similar reason. Josiah sent in great 
state Hilkiah, Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, Abdon, Shaphan, 
and Asaiah one of his servants, to a prophetess, who was 
very celebrated among the people, probably in order to con- 
ciliate the people. Huldah, who had evidently learnt her 
part beforehand^ spoke in the same sense as Jeremiah. 
Hillnitb kept in the background. Josiah, without enquiring 

into the authenticity of the book, read it in the temple. But 
the people paid little attention to it ; it only continued in 
favour during the twelve last years of Josiah's reign, after 
which it was forgotten, and disappeared in the burning of 
the temple at Jerusalem. 

Some copies of it remained however, for Daniel and Tobias 
read the Scriptures during the captivity. Shortly after the 
return from Babylon, Ezra, or Esdras, struck with the dis- 
credit — which a too great similarity between certain narra- 
tives of the Pentateuch and the worship of Egypt had caused, 
that Egypt which Moses had always respected, which he had 
forbidden the Hebrews to hold in abomination, and which 
passed, in the eyes of Isaiah and the prophets, for the true 
people of Gk)d, while Israel, brought by initiation to worship 
Jehovah, was only his heritage, — wishing to bring back among 
the lukewarm Jews the observance and the study of the Law, 
read it before the people assembled at the Water Gate 



mankind: their 

(Nehemiah viii. 1), after haying carefully modified all that 
could wound too much the ears of his fellow-citizens, revised 
certain passages, altered expressions which had fallen into 
disuse, replaced words which were out of date, — in a word, 
after having entirely remodelled the work of Hilkiah, or of 
the false Moses. We are told (Ezra vii. 6) that Ezra was a 
** ready scribe," and that he " had prepared his heart to seek 
the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel 
statutes and judgments," which shows that there was not 
any authoritative, " book of the law " then in existence. After 
this we find in Nehemiah xiii. 15, 22, the first authoritative 
enforcement of the Sabbath in Jewish history ; for it is 
clear from these verses that neither the ordinary Jews nor 
the Levites had known anything of this institution before. 
Ezra founded his dogmas on the literal sense of the stories 
and parables of the Pentateuch, and covered with a still more 
impenetrable veil than Hilkiah the concealed Egyptian sense, 
the allegorical meaning of which he only confided to a very 
small number of wise men. To effect this all he had to do 
was to remove one of the vocal signs where the Egyptian 
sense was too plainly marked by them, and to affix the literal 
sense and oral tradition himself, if the sense appeared doubtful 
or difficult to discover. This is what the Masoretic pointing 
attributed to him consisted in. The Hebrew alphabet con- 
tains twenty-tWo letters. As a word which has no vowel 
can be pronounced in several different ways, points have 
been Invented which serve for vowels, and which make no 
change either in the Hebrew letters, or in the sacred text. 
By this system the name of Moses, which is written MShE 
or MS!^, and which might be read MuSE or MuSEe, which 
in many places would throw much light on the subject, is 
limited by the Masoretic pointing to the pronunciation MoSE, 
and thus all attempts to discover the secret meaning are 
defeated. 

The second book of Esdras, chapters xiv. and xv., contains 
the account of this operation. The ancient Fathers of the 
Church considered, with reason, that the fact of the total loss 
of the Pentateuch would not have been stated in the presence 
of the learned Babbis of that period if it were not certain, 
and a matter of tradition. They concluded^ therefote, that 
Esdras was the author of the Holy Scriptures. St. Jerome, 
not being able to refute this opinion, treats it as a matter of 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 7 

indifference. When writing against Helvidius, he does not 
venture to cite the books of the law as the production of 
Moses, but he says, '^ whether you intended to say thsit Moses 
was the author of the Pentateuch, or that Esdras restored it, 
is a matter of indifference to me/* 

Although the second book of Esdras has been placed by 
the Boman Catholic Church among the Apocrypha, Irenapus, 
Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Basil, all 
beliered that Ezra or Esdras was really the author of it. St. 
Jerome, St. Chrysostom, St. Hilarius, and some others, are 
of the contrary opinion. The account of the revision of the 
books is thus described : — 

" Thy law is burnt, therefore, no man knoweth the things 
that are done of thee, or the works that shall begin. But, if 
I have found grace before thee, send the Holy Spirit into me 
and I shall write all that hath been done in the world, since 
the beginning, which were written in thy law, that men may 
find thy path, and that they which live in the latter days 
may live. And he answered me, saying. Go thy way, gather 
the people together, and say unto them, that they seek, thee 
not for forty days. But look thou, prepare thee many box 
trees, and take with thee, Guria, Dabria, Selemia, Echanus, 
and ALzrel, — these five, which are ready to write swiftly.'* 

Esdras divided the books, which he attributed to Moses, 
into fifty-four sections. These books appear not to have been 
in any order, previously ; and it would seem that Esdras put 
them together, and added such explanations as seemed 
necessary to him, such for instance, as Deut. xxxiv. 5 et sqq., 
where it is said, " So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died 
there, in the land of Moab, according to the word of the 
Lord." And he adds, ver. 6, that the Lord Himself " buried 
him in a vaUey, in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor.'* 

It must not be supposed, however, that we have the 
Scriptures as Ezra compiled them. The Pharisees, who 
are denounced in the New Testament as " blind guides," 
actually selected, and probably added to, and altered, what 
are now termed the canonical books of the Old Testament. 
The learned Jew Spinoza says, in his ^'Tractatus Theo- 
logico-Politicus,** "I presume to conclude, from all that 
precedes, that, before the time of the Maccabees, there 
was no canon of Holy Writ extant, but that the books we 
have were selected from amongst many others by and on 



8 MAYKIXD: THEIR 

the authority of the Pharisees of the second temple, who also 
instituted the formula for the prayers used in the synagogue." 
The Talmud says (Treatise Sabath.l. 2): "The wise men wished 
to suppress the book of Ecclesiastes, because its words con- 
tradict each other. But, having well considered the matter, ป 
they did not do so because the beginning and the end of it are 
words from the Thorah. They also wished to suppress, for 
ever, Solomon's Proverbs." It is not stated why this was 
not done, but perhaps Meghunia, the son of Hiskias, who 
prevented the destruction of Ezekiel's writings, preserved 
this work also. 

The views of Ezekiel were found by the Rabbis so discor- 
dant with those of Moses, that they had almost come to the 
determination not to admit his book into the Old Testament, 
as canonical (vide " Tractatus de Sabbato," c. i. fol. 13). 
His eighteenth chapter does not agree with Exod. xxxiv. 7, nor 
with Jer. xxxii. 18, &c. It is evident that this book is but 
a fragment, for the conjunction with which it begins refers 
to matters which have gone before, and is the bond between 
them and what is to follow, and Josephus (Antiq. 1. x. c. 9) 
relates how Ezekiel had foretold that Zedekiah should not 
see Babylon, a particular which we do not find mentioned in 
the book of Ezekiel as we have it ; on the contrary, we there 
read (c. xvii.) that Zedekiah should be taken captive to 
Babylon. 

The grand synagogue which decided upon the canon of 
Scripture^ did not assemble until after the subjection of 
Asia to the Macedonian power. In Dan. xii. 2, we find a 
prophecy that the dead should rise, a doctrine which the 
Sadducees repudiated, and this shows that the Pharisees 
alone selected the books of the Old Testament, and placed 
them in the canon of the sacred writings. 

Every Hebrew or Chaldee word has a meaning, and the 
five names of Ezra's scribes have meanings, which prove the 
ancient and Hebrew origin of the second book of Esdras. 
The termination ia. is Chaldee and plural. The termination 
eh is also Chaldaean, and may refer to the act of working, of 
performing a difficult task. 

GAR-IA signifies the marks which the ancient commen- 
tators used to indicate that the text is defective, or 
capable of bearing another signification. 



ORIGIN AXD DESTiyy. 

DaBR-IA (firom DaBR) are words comprising a phrase 

or text. 
TzeLeM-IA (from TzLM) signifies figures, things figured 

or indicated in an obscure manner. 
EChaNTJ (from ChNE) means " which have been changed, 

doubled." 

AZR-EL is the name of Esdras, 6ZEA or AZRA with the 

termination EL becoming AZRA-EL or AZ-REL, that 
is, the work of Esdras or Ezra. 

These five names therefore, read as a single phrase, signify 
" Marks of warning — of the words — figured in an obscure 
manner — which have been changed or doubled — ^which is the 
work of Esdras.'* 

The narrative continues as follows : — 

** And come hither, and I shall light a candle of under- 
standing in thine heart, which shall not be put out, till the 
things be performed which thou shalt have to write. And 
when thou hast done, some things shalt thou publish, and some 
things shalt thou shew secretly to the wise : to-morrow this hour 
shalt thou begin to write. 

** Then went I forth as he commanded ; . . . .and the next 
day, behold, a voice called unto me, saying, Esdras, open thy 
mouth, and drink that I give thee to drink. Then opened I my 
mouth, and behold, he reached me a full cup, which was full 
as it were with water, but the colour of it was like fire. And 
I took it, and drank : and when I had drunk of it, my heart 
uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for 
my spirit strengthened my memory " 

This drink and this cup are also symbolical. The holy 
doctrine was compared to a drink and to food for the soul. 
All those ideas are united in the name of the Holy Language, 
ShPh-E in Hebrew, and of the Holy Doctrine, ShBO in 
Egyptian (Horap.). Thus : — 

SPh is a cup, and food. 

ShPh or ShB is the act of quenching one's thirst with 
the pure water of a spring. 

ShB is to be satisfied, to be abundantly fed, and the Holy 
Doctrine (Horap.). 

ShPh is the human language, the Holy Language, nourish- 
ing and abundant, which quenches the thirst of the 
soul and the mind. 

SPh is a reed — the symbol of the Sacred Scribe and of 
Holy Writ (Horap.). 



10 ALiXKIND: THEIR 

The following is the conclusion of the narratire : — 

^^ The Highest gave understanding unto the five men, and 
they wrote the wonderful visions of the night that were told, 
which they knew not : and they sat forty days, and they wrote 
in the day, and at night they ate bread. As for me, I spake 
in the day, and I held not my tongue by night. In foriy 
days they wrote two hundred and four books. And it came 
to pass, when the forty days were fulfilled, that the Highest 
spake, saying, The first that thou hast written publish openly, 
that the worthy and unworthy may read it : hut keep the seventy 
last, that thou may est deliver them only to such as he wise among 
tlie people 

** Speak then in the ears of my people the words of prophecy, 
which I will put in thy mouth, saith the Lord : and cause 
them to be written in paper, for they are faithful and true. 
Fear not the imaginations against thee, let not the incredulity 
of them trouble thee^ that speak against thee. For all the 
unfaithful shall die in their unfaithfulness." 

The Talmud says (San. 1. iv.), "Rabbi Joses said ^Ezra 
was as fit as Moses to receive the law of Israel from God. 
He would, in fact, have received it if Moses had not anticipated 
him.' " 

A fragment of Manetho preserved by Josephus, says : " We 
had formerly a king whose name was Timaos. In his time 
it came to pass, I know not how, that God was displeased 
with us, and there came up from the East in a strange 
manner men of an ignoble race, who had the confidence to 
invade our country, and easily subdued it by their power 
without a battle. And when they had our rulers in their 
hands, they burnt our cities, demolished the temples of the 
gods,and inflicted every kind of barbarity upon the inhabitants, 
slaying some, and reducing the wives and children of others 
to a state of slavery. At length they made one of themselves 
king, whose name was Salathis : he lived at Memphis, and 
rendered both the upper and lower regions of Egypt tributary, 
and stationed gajrrisons in places which were best adapted 
for that purpose. • • . This nation was called Hyksos, that 
is, the Shepherd Kings, for the first syllable, Hyk, in the 
sacred dialect, denotes a king, and Sos signifies a shepherd 
(but this only in the vulgar tongue), and of these is com- 
pounded the word Hyksos ; some say they were Arabians." 
This event is supposed to have taken place about 2082 B.a 



ORIGIN AND DESTIXY. U 

Josephus also says (Jos. yer. Apion. 1. L ง 14) that the copies 
of Manetho differed, that in one the shepherds were called 
eapHves, not Tcingsj and that he thinks this is more agreeable 
to ancient history, that Manetho also says, the nation called 
Shepherds were likewise called Captives in their sacred books, 
and that, after they were driven out of Egypt, they journeyed 
through the wilderness of Syria, and built a city, which they 
called Jerusalem. 

The population of Upper Egypt was derived from Southern 
Ethiopia, situated to the west of the Bed ^ea, the Arabians 
having crossed the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and created a 
second Land of Cush ; by civilising the country long known as 
Barbara (Nubia), and afterwards famed as Meroe. It followed 
the course of the Nile, as that river rendered the soil of 
Egypt, which was composed of sand and pebbles, fertile by 
its inundations, and civilisation advanced northwards from 
the Thebaid to Lower Egypt. The Israelitish population of 
Lower Egypt was derived from Eastern Ethiopia on the other 
side of the Red Sea. The people of this latter are called 
Cushim in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and 
Ethiopians by the LXX. That they cannot have been the 
Ethiopians of Africa is evident from 2 Chron. xiv. 9-15, where 
they are said to have invaded Judah in the days of Asa, 
under Zerah, their king or leader. In 2 Chron. xxi. 16, it 
is said " and of the Arabians that were near the Ethiopians." 
This again shows that the Ethiopians were in the Peninsula 
or bordered on it to the eastwards. In Habakkuk iii. 7 the 
words Midian and Cushan are used as synonymes : " I saw 
the tents of Cushan in aflSiction : the curtains of the land of 
Midian did tremble." According to Arabian tradition, the 
old race, or the Cushites, consisted originally of twelve tribes, 
the name of one of which, Amlik, is Biblical, being the same 
as Amalek. Both the Ethiopian countries had adopted the 
reform brought about under the name of Abraham. This 
was why the Southern Ethiopians pretended (Euseb. Pnep. 
Evang. vii. 2, xiii. 1) to be the descendants of the ancient 
Hebrews who practised the law before Moses wrote it. 

This Israelitish population only became Hebrew through 
the mission of Moses and the revelation he made to them 
of the Hebrew language. The nations who dwelt near 
Palestine thought thus of them, and it is of them recog- 
nised as Egyptians that the Philistines speak in 1 Sam. ivซ 



12 MANKIND : THEIR 

8. " Woe unto tis ! who shall deliver us out of the haud of 
these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote ilie 
Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.^* 

St. Gregory of Nyssa remarks (Oratio 12), that the most 
learned men of his time knew positively that the Hebrew 
language was not so ancient as most other languages, and 
that the Hebrews never spoke it until after their departure 
from Egypt, 

The ordinary language of Egypt was called CBT, QBT or 
GBT, which have been pronounced CoBTe, GoBTe, CoPTe, 
GyPTe. This word designated the imperfection of the 
vulgar tongue compared to the sacred language. The sacred 
language took its name from the word OBR or ABB, which 
meant ancient times, the passage from one place to another, 
from one time to another, from one meaning to another,— -any 
transition, in short. It meant also the explanation, the inter- 
pretation, the allegorical meaning of things. Of this word 
OBR, generally pronounced ABE, the word AmBR has been 
made. The transcription of it given by Horapollo adds the 
termination es. AmBB-es is the name of the holy book, 
of the holy language, and of the holy doctrine reserved for 
those who were initiated in the mysteries of Egypt. 

Now OBR or ABR is the word which, with its Masoretic 
pointing, we are accustomed to pronounce -SlBeR. This points 
out the AmBRic, HEBRic, HEBRaic language, — Hebrew in 
short, the language which enables men to pass from one 
meaning to another, which explains, interprets, gives the 
allegorical meaning. By Hebrews, therefore, Moses does not 
mean the Israelites in general and without distinction of time, 
but men, Israelites or Egyptians, who were learned in the 
Hebrew language, in the knowledge of AmBR-es, the initiated 
and the initiators. It is of these latter that he speaks, not of 
the Israelites, when, annoxmcing his mission to the King of 
Egypt, he says, Exod. v. 3, " JEHOVAH the ALEIM of the 
AMBRIIM hath met with us." This must be translated 
according to the sacred meaning, " He who is the Gods of 
men skilled in Hebrew knowledge, in the allegorical ex- 
planation of things, — He who is the GoSs of the initiated, 
hath met with us." Pharaoh's previous question was perfectly 
natural, for the name Jehovah was new, and there was no 
impiety in it, as represented in our translation. He merely 
said, " Who is Jehovah, whose voice I am to obey ? I do not 
know Jehovah." 



ORIGIN AXD DESTIXY. IS 

The snccessors of Timaos, repeatedly defeated by the 
hordes which poured incessantly from the desert, retired to 
Upper Egypt, where they still had important possessions, and 
Thebes, which had been abandoned by the Pharaohs for 
Memphis, became again the capital. Thus two rival powers 
divided the kingdom, which had to suflFer from their antago- 
nism for 260 years. During this period, six monarchs sat on 
the throne of Memphis. It was under the fourth Shepherd 
king, Apophis, that Joseph appeared. His influence in 
religious matters was immense. Moses says expressly, that 
he was a Nazarite, an initiated person, and consequently 
acquainted with the most hidden mysteries of the Egyptian 
temples (Gen. xlix. 26), in other words, of the Ethiopians, 
for, as Diodorus Siculus observes, the laws, customs, religious 
observances, and letters of the ancient Egyptians closely 
resembled those of the Ethiopians, " the colony still observing 
the customs of their ancestors." 

It was under this same king Apophis that Joseph's father 
Jacob, the head of the tribe Beni-Israel, driven from the 
land of Canaan by seven years of famine, is said to have come, 
with his family and his numerous flocks, to take refuge in 
Egypt, where there was abundance. We know how the king 
received the patriarch, and gave him the rich pasturages of 
Baamses or Goshen. An Egyptian king would not have re- 
ceived him in this manner, for the aborigines of Egypt detested 
the shepherds as impure before the law. See Gen. xlvi. 34. 

The famine ceased, but the Israelites did not think of 
returning to their country. Having witnessed the Egyptian 
ceremonies, and mixing with two nations, one of which was 
passionately attached to its country, and the other to its 
conquests, they forgot their nomad habits, and even the 
name of the God of their fathers (Exod. iii. 13). They were 
already wealthy, and their wealth increased in Egypt, while 
they increased and multiplied so much themselves that we 
are told that the family, which, according to Gen. xlvi. 26, 27, 
originally consisted of seventy persons (without counting the 
women), had when they left Egypt 603,550 male descendants 
of twenty years of age and upwards, all able to carry arms 
(Numbers i. 45, 46), which would make, with the women, the 
children, and the old men, a caravan of 2,400,000 souls. 
Oleaster has calculated, that if this multitude marched in 
rows of five each, as the Hebrew text gives us to understand 



U MANKIND : THEIR 

they did, it would form a column 100 miles long ; so that if 
they had taken the direct road, the head of the column would 
have reached Palestine before the rest had thought of leav- 
ing the banks of the Nile ! We are also told in Dent. vii. 1, 
that the land of Canaan contained seven nations greater and 
mightier than the Hebrew people. If we suppose them 
only equal in number to the Israelites, Palestine, which only 
contains about 2,000 square miles, would have had a popu- 
lation of 16,800,000 ! 

In B.o. 1822, 260 years after the invasion of the Shepherds, 
the Pharaoh Amh6s or Amh6sis of the legitimate branch, 
summoned by the malcontents, and aided by the Ethiopians, 
attacked Memphis suddenly, defeated the Shepherds under 
their king Assis or Asseth, and compelled them to retire to 
Avfiris, a town of Lower Egypt, where they intrenched them- 
selves. Themosis or Thouthmosis, the son and successor of 
Amh6s, besieged the remains of their army there with 
480,000 (?) men, but, not being able to make himself master 
of it, he permitted the garrison to leave Egypt, taking with 
them all that they possessed. The Shepherds 240,000 (?) in 
number, crossed the Syrian desert, and fearing the Assyrians, 
who were then all-powerful in Asia, they established them- 
selves in the moxmtains of Juda3a, where, as we have seen, 
they founded Jebus, afterwards Jerusalem. That part of the 
nation which during their long occupation of the territory 
had become dispersed throughout the provinces, was obliged 
to submit to the conqueror. The Israelites, who were the 
guests of the Shepherds or Hyksos, underwent the same treat- 
ment as their allies, with whom they were henceforth con- 
founded. The Egyptians, who detested all pastoral nations, 
whatever race they belonged to, treated them all indiscrimi- 
nately as captives. The first syllable of the word Hyksos 
conveys, as Josephus observes, the idea of captivCy and this 
derivation shows that the title was given to them by the 
Egyptians. 

This must be the event mentioned in Exod. i. 8 : " Now 
there arose a new king up over Egypt, which knew not 
Joseph ;" and the mixture of the Israelites with the Hyksos, 
and their union under the common name of Hebrews, ap- 
pears to be the most rational interpretation of Exod. i. 7 : 
** And the children were fruitful, and increased abundantly, 
and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land 
was filled with them." 



ORIGIN AND DESTIXr. 15 

The Shepherd kings built nothing. They lived in the 
country and destroyed the cities ; they rejected the national 
religion. They permitted the fields to be cultivated, in order 
that they might impose grievous burthens on the enslaved 
people, and enable them to keep up the army and provide 
for the wants of the chiefe and the exigencies of v^ar. 

Joseph had married the daughter of the priest of On, that 
is ^ HXiov inXif (Heliopolis), the city of the Sun, called by the 
Mahomedans ^^ Am Shems '' or the Sun's eye, and in the 
time of Jeremiah " Beth Shemesh '' or the Sun's temple. On 
signified light, especially the sun* Aun or On in Hebrew 
means strength, power. In its religious sense it implies the 
idea of the Sun or the Creator as being masculine. On was 
called Zan, Zar, and Zoan in the land of Go-zan, the place or 
temple of the sun (Isa. zzx. 4). This is the land of Goshen, 
translated Eeliopolis by the Greeks. Joseph was a minister 
well suited to the Shepherd kings. He appears to have 
invented usury, which was afterwards (Deut. xxiii. 19, 20) 
permitted to be practised towards strangers. He profited by 
the famine to practise usury on an immense scale (Gen. xlvii. 
14-18). He then gradually enslaved the people, except the 
priests. He " bought them and their land for Pharaoh " 
(Gen. xlvii. 22), and gave them seed that they might sow it, 
providing that they gave the fifth part to Pharaoh, taking 
care, however, not to touch the land of the priests ; and to 
prevent the discontent of the people fi'om breaking out, he 
(ver. 21) "removed the people to cities from one end of the 
borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof." Not- 
withstanding all this, he was called Zaphnath-paaneah or 
" Saviour of the world," Gen. xli. 45. 

The story of Joseph is evidently a fiction. There would 
be no use in his taking possession of all the cattle if the 
barren earth did not produce sufficient to nourish them, and 
if it produced fodder it would also produce com. If the 
inundation of the Nile had ceased for seven years, as the 
whole soil of Egypt consists of sand, all the animals would 
have perished. Besides, this took place in the fourth year of 
the famine. What would be the use of giving the people 
seed which would produce nothing for three years more ? A 
species of marvellous legend has been found among the 
Theban MSS. anterior to the time of Moses, Egyptian in 
style, which presents some analogy to the story of Joseph. 



10 MAXKIND: THEIR 

Deprived of their wealth, and obliged, in consequence of 
their enslaved state, to abandon the pastnrages of Goshen, 
the Israelites, in conjunction with the Hyksos, drew near to 
the principal towns of Egypt. But being ignorant and idle, 
like all pastoral nations, and practising no industrial arts, 
they could not gain a livelihood. Some few however, hav- 
ing concealed money, were able to practise usury, but the 
majority were dying of hunger. This unsettled sbsite caused 
the Egyptians much anxiety, as did also the leprosy and 
uncleanliness of the people. In order to give them occu- 
pation, two treasure cities, Pithom and Baamses, the first 
situated in the midst of Bubastis, the other in the land of 
Goshen, were given to them to build. But they were too 
uneducated to be employed except as labourers. All scien- 
tific architecture was in the hands of the priests. In the 
recesses of the temples of Thebes and Memphis architects 
and engineers were educated who were specially destined to 
erect the temples of the gods, and the palaces of kings. They 
alone executed the principal works. Two architects* tombs 
have been found in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids, one 
the tomb of Emal, the chief architect of Baamses IL, and 
the other the tomb of Eimai, surveyor of the royal buildings 
of Cheops. Both were priests, as appears from the hiero- 
glyphical inscriptions. The Israelites had only to work " in 
mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field '* 
(Exod. i. 11). 

While matters were in this state the King of Egypt died, 
(Exod. ii. 23), and Amunothph U. succeeded him. This 
prince, urged by the priests, thought to render himself a 
favourite of the gods by persecuting the impure nation, as 
well as all the Egyptians whose faith did not appear to 
him orthodox. The increased severity in the treatment of 
the Shepherd race appears, however, to have been more the 
result of their murmurings, and perhaps threats, than of 
any special cruelty. The compilers of the Pentateuch have 
endeavoured to make out that the Israelites had a burning 
desire to escape to the Promised" Land, and the Egyptians 
are represented as being aware of this, and the captivity is 
represented as hard to bear, and oppressive, so that the 
future deliverance might be the more triumphant. But it is 
impossible to conceive that they really wished to exchange a 
magnificent country like Egypt for one like Palestine, which 



ORIGIN AND DESTLVY. 17 

is not a land flowing with milk and honey. Except in a few 
districts, the environs of Bethlehem and Jericho for instance, 
the greater part of the territory produces little. East of the 
Jordan the country is composed of black, melancholy-looking 
basaltic rocks, and it is only in the valleys that a few tribes 
can find some scanty pasturage. After the Babylonish cap- 
tivity, comparatively few Isiuelites took advantage of the 
permission given them by Cyrus to return to the mountains 
of Ccelo-Syria, and the banks of the brook Cedron. It was 
only the poorest portion of the nation that returned with 
Zembbabel. It is very remarkable that the Israelites are 
repeatedly told not to oppress strangers because they had 
been strangers in the land of Egypt. The word strangers is 
always used, never slaves. If they had suffered as much as 
it is pretended they did, such a recommendation would not 
have been given. Again, in Deut. xxiii. 7, they are told 
^^Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, for thou wast a stranger 
in his land." 

The next occurrence is the one mentioned in Exod. i. 15, 
16, where we are told that Pharaoh ordered the two mid wives 
of the Israelites to kill all the male children. They did not 
do this, however, but made an excuse that the Israelitish 
women were "very lively," and were delivered before the 
midwives could come to them. Pharaoh then ordered the 
Egyptians to drown all the male children. The Israelites 
must have been very few in number to require only two mid- 
wives, for it is expressly stated that they had no more ; and 
it is diflBcult to understand after Pharaoh's command how 
there could be any men of twenty years of age, and able to 
carry arms, left. The old men must have been the sole 
survivors. 

When Moses appeared the purity of the old Egyptian 
religion had been much impaired. Initiation was misunder- 
stood by the kings, the princes, and the nobles. The people 
followed the example of the Court, and actual idolatry was 
the result. Having lost by degrees the secret meaning of 
the allegories, they ended by taking them literally. They 
no longer understood the emblematic portions of worship — 
the material part alone remained, and the great doctrine of 
the unity of God became gradually lost sight of. Egypt 
no longer worshipped a single Deity, but hundreds — thou- 
sands — tens of thousands of gods, and plants, birds, and 

o 



18 MANKIND : THEIR 

reptiles had ascended from the rank of symbols to that of 
deities. 

Though most of the priests encouraged the people in their 
errors, a few endeavoured to bring about a reform. For this 
purpose they formed the project of initiating the whole 
people, that is, of revealing to them the profound truths 
which were usually reserved for a small number of privi- 
leged persons. But this revolution required cautious manage- 
ment. The majority of the priesthood profited by the 
existing state of things, looked upon esoteric teaching as 
a sacred and inviolable principle, and formed an organi- 
sation which kept in its own hands labour, thought, and 
even prayer. The Israelites, who from their position were 
peculiarly accessible to ideas of progress and moral inde- 
pendence, appeared to be the most fitted to commence with. 
To take them (Exod. iii. 18) three days' journey into the 
desert for the ceremonies of initiation was neither to take 
them back to the country of their fathers, nor to leave 
Egypt. But the permission of the king was necessary, and 
also the intercession of some one who possessed great 
political and religious influence. It was necessary that he 
should be an Egyptian, and yet that he should be in an 
independent position, that is, not in any hereditary profession 
which could bind him to his native land, and yet that he 
should not be ignorant of the dogmatic secrets of the initi- 
ating priests. 

The reforming party bethought them of Asersaph or 
Osarsiph, who lived in Midian on the shores of the Eed Sea, 
in retirement. This Midian is diflferent from the other 
Midian, and is situated in Arabia Petnca, the capital of 
which is Petra, which is near Mounts Horeb and Sinai, 
which are two peaks of the same mountain. Asersaph was 
known to have long meditated on founding a purified, 
perhaps even a new religion. 

Moses was twice married, and each time married foreign 
and idolatrous wives, which is quite inconsistent with his 
prohibiting the Israelites from doing the same thing. His 
parents (Clem. Alex. Strom, i. p. 412) called him Joachim, 
and the initiated {ol Mi/crrat), after he had been taken up 
to heaven, called him Melci. The Cabalists held that the 
soul of Seth had passed into Moses. Manetho, quoted by 
Josephus, says he was a priest of Heliopolis (ON), and that 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 19 

he afterwards took the name of Mosheh or Moses. Joachim 
is derived from lE-EQIM, ** the Eternal has helped him, and 
caused him to exist." MeLCI, MeLACY, or MeLCIlS 
means ** My ambassador, the person sent by Him,'* or the 
person sent by IE, by JEOVE, by the Almighty. ASheR- 
SaPh is ShaPhT-ASheR inverted, and means "iie language 
of perfection, of happiness; the holy doctrine — Hebrew." 
MSh, MoShE, Moses, independently of its other meanings, 
signifies '^ he who has been sent away, he who has been put 
out from (the waters), who has been made a missionaiy, an 
ambassador, an apostle." 

Moses was an Egyptian, bom and brought up in that 
country, and had been employed, as Josephus tells us, in the 
service of Egypt in a war against the Ethiopians. He " was 
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians " (Acts vii. 22). 
He was brought up at the court of Egypt. The king's 
daughter is said to have found him abandoned at the river's 
side, and to ซhave caused him to be nursed by his ^Iother, 
after which she adopted him. '^ And the child grew, and 
she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her 
son." The Epistle to the Hebrews pretends that Moses, 
** when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of 
Pharaoh's daughter, . . . esteeming the reproach of Christ 
greater riches than the treasures in Egypt," but, independ- 
ently of the impossibility of Moses knowing anything about 
Christ, the genuineness of this Epistle is more than doubtful, 
as will be shown subsequently. Moses was instructed in 
science by the Egyptian priests. The Acts of the Apostles 
state positively that this was the case. Simplicius says 
that Moses received frt)m the Egyptians in the Mysteries the 
doctrine which he taught to the Hebrews ; and Origen and 
Clemens Alexandrinus both afiSrm that the secret learning 
of the Egyptians was only taught to such persons as had 
been circumcised, for which reason it was submitted to by 
Pythagoras. The same word in Hebrew means "initi- 
ated" and "circumcised." It is for this reason that 
Abraham, whom Philo calls an astronomer and a mathema- 
tician, is represented as getting circumcised when he was 
ninety-nine years old. In fact, knowledge and the holy 
doctrine, called ShPhE or ShBO (Horap.) were only known 
to the priesthood, and only taught in the Mysteries. 
Strabo (1. XVI.) says that he formed one of the college of 

c 2 



20 MANKIND : THEIR 

priests, and that he was an Egyptian priest. He was the 
Bon-in-law of a priest who was a stranger to the worship of 
Jehovah (Ezod. xviii. 11). 

Cohen, the Jewish name for priest, pronounced by the 
Egyptians Cahen, was a priest and a prince. It was also 
expressed Con, as we may infer from the title of the 
Egyptian Hercules, Toi/ ^HfjaKXPjv ifyrfal Karh rifv Alryv/rTuov 
Sui\s/cTov KHNA XiyeaOai. Moses (Gen. ziv. 19) calls God 
Konah, n^p. 

Two Egyptian priests are associated with Moses in 2 Tim. 
iii. 8, and in Plmy. Clemens Alezandrinus and Philo say, 
** Moses erat theologus et propheta, sacrarum legum inter- 
pres ; '* therefore, as the Hebrew religion did not exist in 
Egypt, and the Hebrews had no written law, there could be 
no worship possible except the Egyptian worship. Moses, 
therefore, was a sacred scribe and an interpreter of the holy 
doctrine taught in the Egyptian temples. Ancient authors 
have considered him to be the real Hermes, and have 
attributed to him the foundation of one of the towns called 
Hcrmopolis. Diodorus Siculus says, that Moses pretended 
to receive his laws from the God called 'lAft. This shows 
that the Greeks considered the name of the Jewish god to 
be, not Jehovah, but ^n* ieuy or leo. ^Irjios is one of the 
names of Apollo, and *IAn means " I heal," " I make sound.** 
It was probably from this that the Essenian monks in Egypt 
and Syria were called Therapeutae, or physicians of the soul. 
On a solemn occasion relating to the reform of worship 
among the Israelites, he had for opponents two of his 
colleagues named Jannes and Jambres. Jannes and Jambres, 
as their names indicate, were two priests belonging to the 
class of initiators and guardians of the holy doctrine. 
Speaking of the sect of the magicians, Pliny says (1. XXX. c. i.) 
that Moses, Jannes, and Jotaj)ha were the founders of it. 
The antagonists of Moses are called in the Talmud by the 
names of Joehain and Manori. The Targum says they were 
sons of Balaam, and that they went with their father to the 
court of Balak king of Moab. Some Jewish authors call 
them Jonah and Jambres, and say they were drowned in the 
Bed Sea at the same time as the Egyptians. Others say 
that they perished in the plague mentioned in Numbers xxv. 
The apocryphal book entitled Jannes and Jambres, quoted 
by Origen, says that they were brothers, and Munorius, 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 21 

qnoted by Eusebius (Prsep. Evang. c. vii. v. 1), says that 
^'Jannes and Jambres had acquired great reputation by 
their interpretation of the mysteries of Egypt at the peripd 
when the Hebrews were driven out of the kingdom, and 
that in the opinion of all men they yielded to no one in 
skill and in magical arts, for by the general consent of the 
Egyptians they were chosen to eounterbalance Moses, the 
leader of the Israelites, whose prayers had an extraordinary 
power. They alone succeeded in causing the plagues with 
which Moses had overwhelmed Egypt to cease." 

Clemens Alexandrinus says that Moses learned arithmetic, 
geometry, medicine, music, and the hieroglyphic writing, or 
enigmatic philosophy. Philo says that he learned astronomy 
from the Chaldeans, and writing from the Assyrians. His 
education and his influence over the people, and even over 
the king, leave no doubt that he was a Nazarite, a man 
marked by sidereal light, a man with a shining countenance. 
. His brother Aaron was sent to him by the reforming part}*, 
and he soon persuaded him to follow a course which fell in 
with his own views, aud Asersaph returned with him to 
^S7P^ -^ ^^ k^g ^^s known to have been influenced 
against reform by the priests, it was considered necessary to 
take the people for a few days out of Egypt, and that 
permission to absent themselves should be asked in the 
name of the Supreme God, called by his new name of 
Jehovah. The literal and correct translation of Ezod. iii. 
18 is, ** Jehovah the Gods of the Hebrews hath met with 
ns, in order that now we may go into the desert three 
days* march, in order that we may sacrifice to him who 
is our Gods." Moses addressed to Pharaoh the words 
which had been agreed upon, and said to Him ** The 
ALEIM of the AmBRIIM (or the Gods of the Hebrews) 
have manifested themselves to us ; we wish therefore to go 
a distance of three days' journey into the desert in order to 
sacrifice to Him who is our Gods, lest He fall upon us 
with pestilence or with the sword," this latter expression 
having relation to the secret meaning of Jehovah as YIB 
BELLI. 

Porphyry says that the Egyptians considered it impious 
to leave Egypt. Permission to do so was only given by the 
king, to those who were charged with a mission, and even 
ihey, if they depaiied at all from the usages of their country, 



22 MANKIND : THEIR 

were exiled from it. It was for this reason that Pharaoh said, 
Exod. viii. 25, " Go ye, sacrifice to your Gods in the land.*' 
And Moses said, '^ It is not meet so to do, for we shall 
sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to Him who is 
our Gods ; lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the 
Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us ? 
We wsih to go three days* journey into the wilderness, in order 
to sacrifice to Him who is our Gods, as He shall tell us. And 
Pharaoh said, I will let you go that ye may sacrifice unto 
Him who is your Gods in the wilderness ; only ye shall not go 
very far away. Ye shall cause prayer to be made for me.'* 
The Hebrew is e6TIEI, expressing the act of ** causing to be 
made." Prayers were offered up for the king in the religious 
ceremonies. In Exod. x. 9 the object of the expedition is 
represented to be " to hold a feast unto Him who is on our 
side." It is evident, therefore, that Moses only intended 
to make an expedition of three days into the desert in 
order to hold a feast, for to attribute any other design to him 
would be to make him guilty of falsehood. 

Nothing appears to have been known of the ten plagues 
of Egypt until after the Babylonish captivity, or perhaps 
aft^r HiUdah made his pretended discovery of the Pentateuch. 
Several hundred years had elapsed since they left Egypt, and 
not only was it impossible to contradict the story, however 
improbable it might be, but it suited the national pride to 
believe it. Origen says that the Egyptians did not deny 
the miracles of Moses, but only said that it was an illusion 
of the senses, and not an effect of Divine power. Philo 
represents the Egyptian magicians as saying to Pharaoh 
and his courtiers : " Why are you frightened ? We are not 
ignorant of these marvels. It is even our profession to be 
able to perform them." 

A careful examination of the nature of serpents formed 
part of the far-famed wisdom of Egypt. A serpent ring was 
a well-known symbol of time, and to express dramatically 
how time preys upon itself, the Egyptian priest fed vipers in 
a subterranean chamber, representing the sun's winter abode, 
on the fat of bulls or the year's produce. 

The serpent-chaimers in Africa are able to render ser- 
pents as rigid as a stick. They effect this by touching 
the head in a certain manner, which causes a cataleptic 
stiffness. It appears to be a phenomenon of hypnotism. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 28 

The sacred snake in India and in Egjpt is a viper of the 
gab-genus Naja. It has a loose skin under its neck, whieli 
it can cause to swell out at will. Cuvier sajs that the 
Egyptian jugglers can put it into a catalepsy by pressing 
their fingers on the serpent's neck. 

How can Moses have had anything to do with this miracu- 
lous exhibition, for it is one of his fondamental laws that all 
workers of miracles should be put to death? It is said, 
Exod. vii. 11, after the rod of Aaron had become a serpent, 
^* Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers, 
(Mekaschphim) : now the magicians of Egypt, they also did 
in like manner with their enchantments. . • • but Aaron's 
rod swallowed up their rods." Now Moses says expressly, 
ESxod. xxiL 18, " Thou shaJt not snffer a witch to live," using 
the same word in the feminine gender, ** Mekaschepha." He 
also says, Deut. xviii. 10, ^^ There shall not be found among 
you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass 
through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of 
times, or an enchanter, or a witch " — mekaschef, the same 
substantive again. Again, in Deut. xxx. 11, he lays down 
formally a law which says, ^^For this commandment (doctrine) 
which I command thee this day is nothing mibaculous (Lo 
Nipleth), neither is it ฃar off." 

The following are some additional considerations, which 
show, according to Aben Ezra, in his commentary on Deu- 
teronomy, that Moses cannot be the author of the Pentateuch 
as we have it. Ist. The preface to Deuteronomy cannot be 
written by Moses, inasmuch as he did not cross the Jordan. 
2nd. The book written by Moses was inscribed on the circle 
of a single altar (Deut. xxvii. and Josh. viii. 32), which, 
according to the accounts of the Babbis, was composed of 
not more than twelve stones, and it follows that the book of 
Moses must have been much shorter than the Pentateuch. 
3rd. We find in Deut. xxxi. 9, the words, " And Moses wrote 
this law, and delivered it," &c., words which cannot be written 
by Moses himself. 4th. Gen. xii. 6, where the historian, re- 
lating how Abraham came into the land of Canaan, adds, 
" And the Canaanite was then in the land," contradicts Gen. 
X., where it is said that Canaan was the first who colonised 
the country, and therefore the writer must have lived at a 
later date than Moses. 5th. In Gen. xxii. 14, a mountain in 
the land of Moriah is called the Mount of the Lord, a title 



24 MANKIND : THEIR 

which it had not till after it was devoted to the building of the 
temple. 6th. The iron bed of Og, king of Bashan, mentioned 
in Deut. iii. was probably only discovered in the time of David, 
who subdued the city of Babbah where it was found (2 Sam. 
xii. 30). Deut. xiii. 14, is also added by the historian to 
explain to the Jews of his time the verse which precedes it. 

Again, not only have we an account of how Moses died 
and was buried, but it is added, " Never was there a prophet 
in Israel like unto Moses, whom God knew face to fitce.*' 
And when the place of his sepulture is mentioned, we are told, 
in the present tense, that " no one knows even unto this 
day." 

Tlie Pentateuch, therefore, was not written by Moses, but 
by one who lived many ages after him, and the books which 
Moses himself wrote, and which are referred to in the 
Pentateuch, are different from any of the five books now 
hscribed to him. His books are : " The War against the 
Araalekites," which we are told (Exod. xvii. 14), that Moses 
wrote by God's command; "The Book of the Agreement** 
(Exod. xxiv. 4, 7) ; and " The Book of the Law of God," sub- 
sequently augmented by Joshua by an account of another 
covenant (Josh. xxiv. 25, 26). The Book of the Agreement, 
which has perished, was to be esteemed imperative upon all, 
and even upon posterity (Deut. xxix. 14, 15), and Moses 
ordered the book of this second covenant to be religiously 
preserved for future ages. Since, therefore, it is not ascer- 
tained that Moses wrote any other than the books referred 
to, and since he himself directed no other book but that on 
the law with the canticle which he expressly composed for the 
whole people to learn by heart to be religiously preserved for 
the use of posterity, and since there are so many things in 
the Pentateuch which could not possibly have been written 
by Moses, it follows that it is impossible to uphold Moses as 
the author of the Pentateuch. 

Spinoza is of opinion that one and the same person, Ezra, 
wrote the whole of the Pentateuch, the book of Joshua, that 
of Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, for he was 
skilled in the law of Moses (Ezra vii. 6, 10, 11). So carelessly, 
however, did he do his work, that among other errors and 
mistakes, there are twenty-eight gaps in the middle of para- 
graphs, which have been religiously preserved by the Phari- 
sees in their transcripts of the Scriptures. E.g. Gen. iv. 8, 



ORIGIX A]VD DESTIXY. 26 

nms as follows : " And Cain said to his brother Abel 

and it came to pass whilst they were in the fields, that 
Cain," &c. This blank space, which is ingeniously passed 
over in the English bible as follows, " And Cain talked with 
Abel his brother : and it came to pass," &c., is left at the point 
when we might have expected to learn what Cain said to his 
brother. 

Passing over the first nine plagues as inventions, or ex- 
aggerations of natural phenomena, we will dwell a little on 
the circumstances of the tenth plague. In this plague we 
are told (Exod. xii. 29), the Lord smote all the first-born 
of the Egyptians, and the first-born of animals shared the 
same fete. Now the Jews who left the land of Goshen were 
600,000 men able to bear arms, which supposes 600,000 
&milies. The land of Goshen occupies about the fortieth 
part of Egypt; the rest of Egypt, therefore, must have 
contained 24,000,000 families. We are thus required to 
suppose that God slew with his own hand this frightful 
number of first-bom children, and a much larger number of 
animals. And this after the whole of the animals had already 
been twice destroyed ; once in the fifth plague, Exod. ix. 6, 
when " all the cattle of Egypt died," and again in the sixth 
plague, when, notwithstanding that " all the cattle " had just 
been destroyed, those that were in the field were killed by 
the hail, Exod. ix. 19-21. 

Pharaoh, alarmed, and urged by the people, gave per- 
mission to the Israelites to go and worship their God " as 
they said " (Exod. xii. 31), that is, for three days, taking with 
them their flocks and herds. The truth probably is, that 
Pharaoh was influenced by the representations either of the 
military chiefs, who were jealous of Moses, or of the super- 
intendents of public works, who feared the emancipation of 
the Hebrews after their initiation, or by the enlightened 
party among the priests. The Israelites having previously 
celebrated the Passover, then left Egypt. 

The Israelites left in several divisions (Exod. xii. 51), by 
night. They formed, as we have seen, a total of 2,400,000 
persons. A " mixed multitude also went with them, and 
flocks and herds, even very much cattle," Exod. xii. 38 ; and 
to add to all previous marvels, " there wa^ not one feeble person 
among their tribes," Ps. cv. 37. Yet we have the assertion in 
this same Psalm, v v. 1 1, 12, 13, " Unto thee will I give the land 



20 MANKIND : THEIR 

of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance when there were but a 
fefw men in number, yea, very few and strangers in it. When 
they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to 
another people," and the express declaration in Deut. vii. 7, 
** The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor chuse you 
because ye were more in number than any people, for ye 
were the fewest of all people.^^ 

The account given by several authors of this event is that 
the Israelites spread leprosy, with which they were infected, 
among the Egyptians, to whom they had also lent money at 
usurious interest. King Bocxjhoris (according to Diodorus), 
consulted the oracle of Ammon as to what he had better do. 
The oracle advised him to drive them out of the country, and 
he accordingly drove them into the desert, where they would 
have perished of thirst if some wild asses had not shown 
them where there was a spring. After seven days* march 
they invaded unfortunate Palestine, and God knows, say they, 
how bloody the invasion was. 

It would seem as if this was really the cause of their being 
sent out of Egypt, and that the account in Exodus was con- 
trived either to conceal the fact, or for religious purposes. 
Josephus (contra Apion. 1. I. cap. ix. 11, 12) says that Ma- 
netho, and Cheremontes, the Egyptian historians, assert that 
the Jews were driven out of Egypt for this reason ; that 
they chose for their leader a priest of Heliopolis named Moses, 
and that this event took place in the reign of Amenophis. 
Josephus also says that Lysimachus, the historian, was 
of the same opinion. Tacitus (Hist. 1. V. cap. iii.) says, 
following Lysimachus, that the Jews were driven out on 
account of their leprous condition, and that Moses, a priest 
of Heliopolis, was their leader. Justin (1. XXXVI. cap. ii.) 
repeats this without alteration. Strabo merely says that 
the Jews left Egypt under the guidance of Moses, who was 
an Egyptian priest. 

The following are the different dates at which the Exodus 
is supposed to have taken place : — 

B.C. 

Josephus and Hales 1648 

Usher and EngUsh Bible 1401 

Calmet 1487 

Vulgar Jewish Chronology 1312 

It is found, however, by adding together the age of each 
of the patriarchs at the time of the son's birth, that^ 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 27 

according to the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham left Haran 
in A.M. 2028, that the Exodus took place in a.m. 2668, 
and that Solomon built the temple at Jerusalem in 
A.M. 3148, corresponding to the year b.o. 978. This 
makes the creation to have taken place B.C. 4121, a number 
which does not correspond with the Samaritan computa- 
tion, or with that of Josephus, or Maimonides, or Gersom, 
or any of the authorities. The nearest to it is the computa- 
tion of the Asiatic Jews, viz. b.o. 4180 ; that of Usher, B.o. 
4004 ; and that of Hevelius and Marsham, B.o. 4000. 

Josephus, however, says, that the Hebrews left Egypt in 
the month Xanthrius, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month, 
430 years after Abraham came into Canaan, but 215 only 
after Jacob came into Egypt, thus making the Exodus to 
take place a.k. 2453. Our Masoretic copy groundlessly 
abridges this account in Exod. xii. 40, and ascribes 430 
years to the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, whereas it is 
clear, even by the Masoretic chronology elsewhere, as well 
as from the text itself in the Samaritan Septuagint and 
Josephus, that the 430 years date from Abraham's arrival in 
Canaan. 

Instead of taking the direct route, the Israelites went to 
Succoth, near old Cairo, evidently with the intention of 
going into the desert, and not to Palestine at all. Notwith- 
standing the permission to leave which had been given to 
them, they fled from Goshen, for the people had not even 
time to bake their bread. Before leaving they " borrowed,'* 
by God's command, their jewels of silver, their jewels of gold, 
and their raiment, from the Egyptians. Many facts in the 
history of Moses agree with what Plutarch relates of Typhon. 
Now tiie Egyptians looked upon the Jehovistical revelation 
as a robbery y committed upon the Sacred Science. They often 
called Tj'phon the thief, the robber, and attributed to him 
the revelation of the secret knowledge. A vague recollection 
of this tradition makes Clemens Alexandrinus say of philo- 
sophy, that it is not a gift of Grody but that it has been stolen, 
or given by a robber who has stolen it from Moses. Moses 
assimilated to Hermes the interpreter, the Mercury, and to 
Typhon, both robbers, renders the fact concealed under the 
representation of Clemens, easy to understand. Aristotle 
also said, that the science of the sophists is the art of stealing 
wisdom. If we are to take the transaction literally, it is 



28 MANKIND : THEIR 

utterly unjustifiable ; and the more so as it would then be 
probable that the jewels and raiment had been deposited 
with the Israelites, as pledges for the money lent to the 
Egyptians at usurious interest 

When the king heard of the flight of the Israelites he 
changed his mind with regard to them, and fearing that they 
would leave the country altogether, in which case he would 
lose their services as labourers, he put himself at the head 
of his army, and overtook them at Pi-Hahiroth, between 
the sea and Migdol, opposite Baal-Zephon. When Pharaoh 
came up with them, the Israelites had the sea in front of 
them. Moses re-assured the frightened people. The king 
did not attack them, but encamped quietly in the rear, 
thinking no doubt, that an Tindiaciplined army, caught aa 
it were in an ambush, would be an easy prey. The Israelites 
deceived the enemy by moving the fire, which was usually 
kept burning at the head of the army, to its rear, and crossed 
the sea in the night, favoured by a stormy east wind. By 
the morning the Israelites had encamped on the eastern coast 
of the gulf. At daybreak the Egyptians pursued them with 
six hundred chariots (notwithstanding that all the animals, 
and consequently all the horses, had been slain by the fifth 
plague), and God having taken oflf the chariot wheels (Ezod. 
xiv. 25), Moses lifted up his rod, upon which the east wind 
ceased to blow, and Pharaoh with all his host was drowned 
in the sea, after which Israel saw their dead cast upon the 
shore. The most wonderful part of this miracle, perhaps, 
is that 3,000,000 of persons, with a prodigious quantity of 
cattle, baggage, &c., were able to cross the sea in six hours. 
That the passage through a sea was not considered an 
uncommon event may be inferred from Josephus, who says, 
" The sea of Pamphylia opened a passage for Alexander, 
when God wished to make use of him, to ruin the Persian 
empire." 

The most natural and probable explanation is, that the 
Israelites crossed at low water, and that the Egyptians 
attempted to pursue them, regardless of the rising tide. This 
explanation was common among the Jews, since Josephus 
concludes his account (1. IT. c. vii.) in accordance with it. 
It was in this way that a Caraite writer quoted by Aben-Ezra 
explained the miracle. In 1660 this opinion was still called 
" an execrable impiety," and to prove it, it was said that the 



ORIGIN ANT) DESTINY. 20 

Red Sea, in its ebb and flow, never receded f5rom its basin, but 
always remained full up to the height of the tide at its 
height. Buonaparte crossed the Bed Sea on horseback with* 
as great success as Moses, but on his return he was nearly 
experiencing the fate of Pharaoh, for the tide having risen, 
the ford was no longer practicable. Buonaparte escaped, but 
General CajSietrelli, who had lost a leg, would have been in 
great danger had it not been for the intelligence and courage 
of a mounted guide, who was immediately raised to the rank 
of brigadier. (See the " Tableau de I'Egypte,'' 1. I. p. 111.) 

Moses had promised to return in three days, but the cata- 
strophe of the Red Sea prevented him from doing so. The 
people whom, by Grod's command, they were now to destroy, 
were, according to Genesis, the direct descendants of the 
patriarchs with whom God had made a covenant, and con- 
sequently of men who had a right to the Promised Land. 
The father of the Ammonites was Ben-Ammi or Ammon, 
bom of the incestuous union of Lot, Abraham's nephew, with 
his youngest daughter (Gซn. xix. 38). The father of the 
Moabites was Moab, the brother of Ammon, and the son of 
Lot, by his eldest daughter. The Edomites or Idumaeans 
were descended from Esau the son of Jacob. The Amalekites 
had Amalek for their father, who was descended from Ham, 
or Shem. The Midianites were descended from Midian, the 
fourth son of Abraham by Keturah, his second wife (G^n. xxv. 
1,2). Lastly the aborigines of Canaan were descended from 
Ham, Noah's son. 

Notwithstanding the flocks and herds which the Israelites 
had brought with them from Egypt, sheep, oxen, and animals 
in very great numbers, two tribes especially, Reuben and 
Gad, having a very great number (Numb, xxxii. 1), it is 
evident that they had only three days' provision, for when 
they were prevented from returning to Egypt, they began to 
suffer from hunger and thirst. 

The following are some of the incidents said to have 
occurred during the sojourn of the Israelites in the desert. 

After the adoration of the golden calf, Jehovah wished to 
destroy all the Israelites, but Moses interceded, and Aaron 
(Exod. xxxii. 25) having stripped the people naked, the 
Levites went among them and massacred 3,000 of them. 
Moses having desired to see the glory of God, the Lord 
answered, that He would not show his face, but that He 



80 MANKIND : THEIR 

would show him his back parts. In the Vulgate it is trans- 
lated : " ToUamque manum meum, et videtis posteriora mea." 
In Numb. xii. 8 it is said that " with him " Moses, " I " God 
" will speak mouth to mouth, even apparently *'..." And 
the similitude of the Lord shall be beheld," and in Exod. 
xxxiii. 11 it is said, ^^ And the Lord spake unto Moses face to 
face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Yet in ver. 20 of 
the same chapter we are told that the Lord said, ^Hhou canst 
not see my face : for there shall no man see me and live ;" 
and in 1 Tim. vi. 16 it is said, that God is He " whom no 
man hath seen, nor can see.'' 

Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu were burnt for having 
oflFered a sacrifice with strange fire. Whoever slew an ox, 
or a sheep, or a goat, intended to be consecrated to the 
Lord, was punished with death. The people having mur- 
mured, God sent a fire, which consumed a large number of 
them. Having complained of having no animal foodซ Grod 
sent quails for the second time in such numbers that they 
extended a day's journey round the camp, (of three million 
souls !) and lay two cubits, or from three to four feet deep, 
on the face of the earth ! This statement is worth ex- 
amination. It is stated in Numb. xii. 32, that ^' he that 

• 

gathered least gathered ten homers." According to Calmet 
the homer is equal to 2,988 Paris pints. The Paris, pint 
contains 46 cubic inches, and each pint would therefore con- 
tain at least seven quails. Now as ten homers make 29,880 
pints, there would fall to the lot of each individual 209,160 
quails ! No wonder that it is said in Ps. Ixxviii. 29, that 
" they did eat and were well filled." As soon as the people 
put the flesh between their teeth, however, and before they 
had chewed it, God smote them with a very great plague- 
Miriam, Aaron's sister, having murmured against Moses, was 
made leprous. Moses interceded for her, and God having 
remarked (Numb. xii. 14) that if her father had but spit in 
her face she should be ashamed seven days, consented that 
she should be restored to health after spending seven days 
outside the camp, during which time consequently the three 
millions of people remained encamped. 

The Israelites, having again murmured, all who were 
over twenty years of age were condemned to die in the 
desert. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and a portion of the 
people, having revolted against Moses, the earth opened and 



ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 81 

swallowed them up, and 250 men were destroyed by fire 
from the Lord. The people having murmured against Moses 
and Aaron on account of this, a plague was sent amongst 
them, which carried off 14,700 persons. The people having 
again murmured against God, and against Moses, God sent 
fiery serpents among them, which bit a great number of them. 
The people, by God's order, destroyed the Canaanites and the 
Amorit^, who, however, are met with again, as if nothing 
had happened (Josh. xvii. 12 ; Judg. zviL 12, &c.), and put to 
death Og kingof Bashan and all his people. 

The Israelites at Shittim having committed whoredom 
with the daughters of Moab, God ordered Moses to take all 
the heads of the people, and hang them up before Him 
against the sun, and Moses ordered the judges of Israel to 
^^ slay every one his man that was joined unto Baal-peor." 
The next incident is still more extraordinary, for 24,000 of 
the people died in a plague because one of their number had 
espoused a Midianitish woman. When Aaron's grandson 
saw them come, he took a javelin in his hand, and '^ thrust 
them both through, the man of Moab and the woman through 
her belly .'^ Yet Moses himself, Exod. ii. 16, 21, had married 
a Midiajiitish woman. 

Moses was ordered by God to punish the Midianites. 
Twelve thousand Israelites marched against them, headed 
by Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, with the holy 
instruments and the trumpets to blow in his hand. All the 
males were put to the sword, and the women and children 
made captives. The booty collected in this engagement after 
the portions destined for a heave-offering to the Lord and 
for the Levites had been deducted, was 675,000 sheep, 72,000 
beeves, 61,000 asses, and 32,000 virgins. The half, which 
was the portion of those that went out to war, was 337,500 
sheep, of which the Lord's tribute was 675 ; 36,000 beeves, 
of which the Lord's tribute was 72 ; 30,500 asses, of which 
the Lord's tribute was 61 ; and 16,000 virgins, of which the 
Lord's tribute was 32. This makes a total of 1,012,500 
sheep, 108,000 beeves, 91,500 asses, and 48,000 virgins! 
It is astonishing how a nation so unwarlike as the Israelites, 
and which in leaving Egypt was obliged (Exod. xiii. 17) to 
make a long circuit to avoid the warlike tribes, could all at 
once have become so valiant and so well accustomed to war, 
especially when they were dying of hunger and exhausted by 



82 MANKIND : THEIR 

fatigue. Yet they utterly defeat the Amalekites, Ac. with 
the greatest ease. 

These marvels continue after the Jews enter Palestine, 
which they did 601,730 strong. The whole of those that 
left Egypt had perished in the desert, except Caleb and 
Joshua, 188,153 of whom were massacred by the command 
of God, besides those who were slaughtered for murmuring, 
wishing for food, &c. The extent of habitable Palestine is 
said to scarcely equal in area the county of Nottingham, 
yet it contained a population of 6,674,000 men. The whole 
country is about one-sixth of the size of England ; and there- 
fore, if it had all been capable of being inhabited, the country 
would have been /our times a^ populous as England^ and this 
with a purely agricultural population ! The present popula- 
tion of the country is about a million, but from this the 
inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, and the Philistines have to 
be deducted. The real population of the cx)untry was 
probably about half a million, which would leave about 
80,000 men who could fight, and about 40,000 who would be 
available for aggressive purposes. These modern calcula- 
tions will enable us to judge of the veracity of the Jewish 
Chronicles. In 2 Chron. xiii. 3, Abijah goes to war with 
400,000 chosen men against Jeroboam with 200,000 chosen 
men. In 2 Chron. xxv. 6, we read that in Judah and Benja- 
min alone there were 300,000 chosen men above twenty 
years of age, while in 2 Chron. xxvi. 13, TJzziah goes to war 
with 307,500 men ! These had been counted by Jeiel the 
scribe and Masseiah the ruler, under the hand of Hananiah, 
one of the king's captains, and they were all furnished with 
shields, spears, helmets, habergeons, bows, and slings to cast 
stones. In 2 Chron. xiv. 8, Asa has out of the two tribos of 
Benjamin and Judah above 500,000 mighty men of valour ! 

In 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, a book supposed to have been written 
during David's reign, we read that the result of his number- 
ing the people was that there were 1,300,000 soldiers in a 
territory 200 miles long by 100 broad. In 1 Chron. xxi. 5, 
6, however, the same census, taken by the same person, Joab, 
gives 1,100,000 soldiers in Israel, and 470,000 in Judah, 
without counting the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, making 
1,570,000 soldiers in Palestine alone ! 

When the Israelites reached Sinai, the three days' initia- 
tion (Exod. xix. 10) began. The people were strictly confined 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. S3 

to the camp. Moses liad previously (Exod. xiz. 3) ascended 
the mountain, and had received God's orders to sanctify the 
people. " And Moses went down from the mount unto the 
people, and sanctified the people . • • And it came to pass on 
the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and 
lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice 
of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that 
was in the camp trembled.'' There is, however, no place on 
Mount Sinai where such a multitude as the Israelites are 
represented to have been could have stood. 

The preliminaries being ended, Moses brought the people 
out of the camp to meet with Gk>d, and they stood at the 
nether part of the camp. Moses received the ten command- 
ments written by God Himself in two tables of stone, of 
which such different and contradictory accounts are given 
in Exod. xx. and Dent, v.; and he received besides oral 
instructions as to the laws by which the Israelites were to 
be governed. Moses (Dent. xxxi. 26) wrote these laws in a 
book, which, after being greatly neglected, was lost, then 
found, and finally again lost sight of, so that no man knows 
what has become of it, unless it was burnt at the taking of 
Jerusalem by the Babylonians. 

A terrible voice gave forth the ten commandments. These 
commandments, however, being Jehovistic, were probably 
inserted in their present form at some later date. We are 
told that the people, more and more frightened by the 
thunder and lightning, the sound of the celestial trumpet,, 
and the voice of God, besought Moses to speak himself, 
which he accordingly did. Moses afterwards drew near to 
** the thick darkness, where God was,*' and received many 
other laws. When we are told that Moses and Aaron, 
Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders '' went up and 
saw the Qod of Israel, and there was under his feet as it 
were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the 
body of heaven in its clearness • . . also they saw God and 
did eat and drink" (Exod. xxiv. 9, 10, 11), we see in these 
words the traces of a ceremony of initiation. 

Diodoms Siculus says (1. XXXIV. and XL.), that "the Jews 
were driven out of Egypt at a period of famine, when the 
country was over fall of strangers, and that Moses, a man of 
superior courage and prudence, took this opportunity to estab- 
his people in the mountains of Judsea." What is most 

D 



84 MANKIND : THEIR 

remarkable is that Solomon, when he built and consecrated the 
temple at Jerusalem, never mentions Moses, or says a single 
word about his laws. The latter part of the passage 1 Kings 
viii. 9, is evidently by a later writer, for Solomon did not 
examine the contents of the ark, and knew nething of the 
law about the Sabbath day. There was nothing in the ark 
in his time, neither is there in the Old Testament a single 
allusion to the Decalogue, or to the revelation made at 
Mount Sinai. 

Although a promise had been given, Exod. xxiii. 2, that 
an angel would be sent to show them the way, Moses knew 
nothing of the land of Canaan, when they got near it. An 
astronomical system was followed by Joshua in the distribu- 
tion and nomenclature of the land of Canaan. It appears 
from Eusebius, that tradition, at least, represented Israel as 
an astrologer who believed himself to be under the influence 
of the planet Saturn. Even at this day the three great stars 
ill Orion are called Jacob's staff, and the Milky Way is fami- 
liarly termed Jacob's ladder. 

Moses is represented as keeping the people in the desert 
for a certain number of years, which is put at forty, because 
that number is symbolical of trials, of privations, and of 
moral regeneration. Among the Persians, the trials of those 
who were initiated into the mysteries, were tydce forty in 
number. The trials of the Egyptians in solitude, or in the 
desert, lasted forty days, and those by privation or fasting, 
lasted forty days also. Punishment by scourging consisted 
of forty stripes save one, for fear of exceeding the number. 
The judges Othniel, Ehud (Sept.), Deborah, and Gideon 
governed, each, forty years, and so did Eli, after the Philistines 
had ravaged the country during forty years. In 2 Sam. xv. 7, 
we find Absalom asking to go and pay his vow, after forty 
years. The apocryphal books go still further ; according to 
them, Adam entered Paradise when he was forty days old. 
Eve forty days later. Seth was carried away by angels at 
the age of forty years, and was not seen for the same number 
of days. Joseph was forty years old when Jacob came to 
Egypt. Moses was forty years old when he went to Midian, 
where he remained forty years. The same use of this term 
is made by the Phoenicians and Arabs. The Arbaindt (the 
forties) in Arabian literature are a sort of books which relate 
none but stories of forty years, or give a series of forty, or 



ORIOIN AND DSSTINY. 36 

four tiines forty traditions. They have a similar kind of 
books, which they call Sebaydt (Seven). Their calendar has 
forty rainy and forty windy days. In their laws, the numbers 
four, forty, forty-four occur very often. 

The Israelites are said by the Arabs to have lived in the 
desert call El-Trh, or Tyh-B6n6-Israel (desert of the wan- 
derings of Israel), which extends from the north to the south, 
as far as Ezion Greber {** the back-bone of the giant ") on the 
Elamitic Gulf, and from thence extends back again towards 
the north. Moses only reckons seventeen encampments 
during forty years, and, it is very likely that their wanderings 
only lasted a few months in reality. 

The first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures called the 
Pentateuch are : — 

Genems hi Hebrew SPhR BRAQhIT 

Exodua „ SPhR ChMOUT 

Leriticiis „ SPhR UIQRA 

Numben „ SPhR BMDBR 

DeuteroDomy .... „ SPhR DBRIM 

If any portions of these books were reaUy written by Moses 
they are i^^tian and of the time of Amunothph, for Moses, 
who is supposed to have lived in the reign of that prince, was 
an Egyptian, bom, brought up, and educated in Egypt. If, 
however, the date which Josephus gives for the Exodus and 
the passage of the Bed Sea be taken, the period at which they 
were composed may be much more ancient. St. Clement, 
Horn. iL ง 51, and Stromat. iii. ง 42, is of opinion that the 
Pentateuch was not written by Moses, and he says, " Your 
book of Genesis especially was never written by Moses." The 
name of Moses will, however, be used to signify the author of 
the Pentateach, to prevent confusion. 

The first book of the Pentateuch, Grenesis, contains ex- 
tracts from different historical works which can only have 
been found in the archives of the Egyptian temples. Never- 
theless, Genesis, as we have it, was not composed for Egyp- 
tians properly so called : the author prepares in it (Gen. ix. 
5, XT. 21, &c.) the right of one day invading the land of 
Oanaan. 

The following chapters contain an explanation of the prin- 
cipal words in the three first chapters of Genesis, and the 
secret or allegorical meaning of the events described in them, 
which form the foundation of our present beliefs. 



36 MANKIND: THEIR 



CHAPTER n. 

The Masoretic points which we have spoken of were not in- 
vented till about IfiOO years after the death of Moses. The 
original text is consequently something very different to 
what it has become since the invention of them by Ezra. 
An example of the change made by these points may be 
found in Heb. xi. 21, where the author of that Epistle has 
interpreted the text he quotes from Gen. xlvii. 31 very 
differently from the way in which it presents itself in the 
pointed and accented Hebrew text. The punctists with the 
assistance of their points read, '^ And Israel^ bowed him- 
self upon the bed's head ;" but the author of the Epistle 
reads, ^* Jacob worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff;" 
reading n^o matey instead of ni^p mitay a difference due 
enturely to the use of a vowel point. Jacob's death is not 
spoken of till the next chapter, and consequently, the version 
in the Epistle is by far the most probable one. This shows 
how little faith is due to our modem points and accents. 

The Hebrew alphabet contains twenty-two letters, six vowels 
and sixteen consonants. But it has not always contained so 
many letters. The words of the written language being 
known only to the priests, they became a ** learned language," 
a '* language of doctrine and of teaching," and, as it was 
only read and interpreted in consecrated places or in the 
temples, and for the priesthood, it was also called, ''the holy 
language," " the sacred language," and "the holy doctrine.*' 

The primitive Hebrew alphabet only contained ten letters ; 
as we are informed bylrenseus (Adv. Hser. 1. IE.) " AntiquaD et 
primsB Hebreeorum litterse et sacerdotales nuncupate, decem 
quidem sunt numero." He goes on to say that these ten 
letters are the first ten of the Hebrew alphabet, from A to I. 
This alphabet is of course much more ancient than that of 
Moses, which contains twenty-two letters. The characters 
invented for writing were concealed fi^m the people, lest 
they might use them in a profane manner, and were only 
made known to them in later times. To divulge alphabetic 



f 



ORIGIN AXD DESTINT. 87 

writings and the language which proceeds ฃrom the alphabet 
was looked upon as a pro&nation (Gen. iv. 26, and zi. 6). 
Only one of the sacerdotal characters has come down to ns 
without changing its form, though it has changed its signi- 
fication. It exists in Ethiopian, and in the Hebrew of the ^/ 
medals, and is imity yrith a bar across, the cruciform sign, + . ^ 
In the sacerdotal alphabet it answered to Sh or (^i. In 
succeeding alphabets it answered to T, but it kept its place 
notwithstanding. It was the last letter in the alphabet of 
ten letters, and it is the last in that of twenty-two letters. 

The vowels in the primitire alphabet were. A, E, I, and 
the consonants L, B, C, D, M, N, Sh. The three first 
letters correspond to the three first signs of the Zodiac, as 
being affirmative signs of existence, of life; the letter 
L is the sign of negation of life, which afterwards became 
LA, the Hebrew for not. The order in which the conso- 
nants, B, C, D, M, and N, which is the order in which 
they have been retained in our alphabets, is still that of the 
Zodiacal alphabet. The letter Sh holds the same position 
as the last letter in the Ethiopian alphabet, which its form 
indicates it should do, being that of unity with a bar across, 
of the end, of the sum total, of the number ten. 

As the most ancient Hebrew alphabet was only composed 
of ten letters, it follows that the primitive Hebrew roots and 
the primitive compound Hebrew words, must have contained 
these letters only. By bringing these words together we 
shall have the primitive Hebrew, or rather the words which 
have come down to us from that period, about 340 simple or 
compoimd words. The sacerdotal alphabet, considered sepa- 
rately from the language which it formed, will reveal to us 
the cause, or at any rate, one of the causes which made the 
numbers three, seven, and ten, be looked upon as holy and 
mysterious. 

The number three appears in the vocal signs A, E, I, the 
only ones which this alphabet represents by signs. Now 
voecU sounds, vaiees, or vowels^ only belong to animated beings 
— ^they are in fiu^t the expression of their sensations. The 
vowels represent, (in sacred language only,) positive ideas. 
A is man, E, woman, I, God, 0, the sun, and U the moon. 
Clemens Alexandrinus says that all who entered the temple 
of Serapi^ were obliged to wear on their persons in a con- 
spicuous position the name of I-ha-ho, or I-ha-hou, which. 



38 MANKIND : THEIR 

signifies the Eternal Gk>d. This temple was at Heliopolis, 
where Moses was edncated. The Jao Aleim fought for 
Israel (Judg. xi. 21), and Jao drove out the inhabitants of 
the mountains, but could not drive out the inhabitants of 
the plains, because thej had chariots of iron (Judg. i. 19). 
The three first signs, then, became symbols of the abstract 
idea of life, and consequently of the Invisible, Spiritual 
Author of all Being and Life. Hence it became customary 
to pray or to call upon God only by his name, that is, by the 
vowels of his name, from which the idea of alphabetic writing 
was derived ; (see Gren. iv. 26, which, correctly translated, is, 
*^ Then began men to call themselves by the name of the 
Lord.**) And the Egyptians, from a feeling of respect for 
this origin, retained the use of this invocation after the 
sacred language had become perfected. 

These vowels uttered without any interval between them 
by a single exertion of the voice, formed the word AEL This 
word, which belongs to primitive Hebrew, does not exist in 
the modem language, and it would be lost if it had not been 
accidentally mentioned in Exodus. It means literally, I am — 
I will be, and has found a place in the Greek language, where 
it signifies asiy ever, always. This was the first name of the 
Eternal, the holy and ineflFable name which God kept for 
Himself, which has no meaning on the earth, which God 
alone can use, as in Hosea xiii. 14, ^^ death, I will be thy 
plagues ; grave, T will be thy destruction." 

This ancient word, which was known, according to Genesis, 
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was given up and. forgotten 
after the death of those patriarchs, owing to the changes 
which had taken place in the alphabet. It was revealed to 
Moses, Exod. iii. 14, " Thus shalt thou say unto the children of 
Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you," but he wrote it AEI-E 
with the feminine termination E, meaning " the Being who 
generates," for God, according to ancient belief, was andro- 
gynous, and in the first part of the verse he repeats this word 
to give it its present and future meaning, AEI-E AShB 
AEI-E, I AM-THAT-I SHALL BE. This sacred word AEI, 
considered vdth reference to the idea of sanctitj', which sur- 
rounds it, and the number of letters which compose it, and 
which, nevertheless, terminate in unity, caused by insensible 
degrees the mystic ideas relating to the number tlu^e to arise. 
Hence the precept of Pythagoras, " Honour the ternary 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 89 

ntimber," Honora Triobolum. The triangular character A, 
which means union in the ancient Chinese hieroglyphics, is 
composed, according to the Choue-ouen, of Oe, to enter, to 
penetrate, and Fe, one, that is, three united in one. The 
number three came to be looked upon as the commencement 
of the world, the number seven as the end, as we shall see 
presently. The remote origin of the value attached to these 
letters is astronomical. According to Plutarch, A signifies 
the moon, E the sun, H Mercury, I Venus, Mars, T Jupiter, 
and fi Saturn. But the proper order, according to Achilles 
Tatius (Isagog. p. 136), is A the moon, E Mercury (the 
planet of Apollo), H Yenus (Jimo Cybele and Isis), I the sun, 
Mars (Hercules), T Jupiter (lo and Osiris), and fl Saturn. 

The temple of Apollo at Delphi being consecrated to the 
sun, the vowels relating to the sun and to Apollo or his planet, 
were joined, that is, E was joined to I, which gives EI. The 
Towel of the sun was often joined to those which represent 
the outer planets, which gave louo, a name which is given 
to the sun by the oracle of Claros (Macrob. Sat. 1. 1, c. xviii.), 
and which was often used by the Gnostics (Epiph. adv. 
Haeres. L I. c. xxvi. xxxi.). It is often found on their Abraxas, 
and conveys in their system the same idea as that which was 
expressed in the Mithraic religion by the seven gates through 
which the souls passed. 

These same vowels, combined in a difierent manner, be- 
came also formularies of prayers, and mystic invocations. 
They were pronounced singing, and the sound they gave 
corresponded to the tones of the lyre and of musical instru- 
ments among the Egyptians (Demet. Phalereus, sect. Ixxi.). 
They even formed a species of gamut or musical scale : — 

A J or the Moon, corresponded to B 

R, or Mercury, „ 

U, or Venus, ,, D 

I, or the Sun, „ F 

T, or Jupiter, „ G 

O, or Saturn, „ A 

Porphyry mentions an oracle of Apollo, or of the god on 
the front of whose temple the famous El was sculptxu'ed, 
which points out the use which should be made of the seven 
vowels in order to invoke the gods whom these vowels 
indicated (Euseb. Prcep. Evang. 1. V. c. xiv.). The invocation 
of Mercury, of the sun, of Venus, of the moon, and generally 



40 MANKIND: THEIR 

of each planet, should be pronounced on the day dedicated 
to each of these deities. 

The word Jeove, the Chaldee pronunciation of which is 
JEOYA, according to the Masoretic pointing, succeeded to 
Aoi, and this word Jeove proceeded from EOVE, pronounced 
in Chaldee EOYA. The letter J or I, which is prefixed, is 
the symbol of future existence. When it is doubled in the 
Samaritan, JI, it means ^* He ynU. be." In Chaldee it is, for 
this reasen, one of the names of the Eternal ; it has given 
place to the triple III, which also indicates Him, of whom 
one can say ^^ He will be," and one of whose names is IE. 
EOVE is formed from EOV, which belongs to the second 
epoch of the Hebrew alphabet, for the vowel OV (0 before a 
vowel) did not exist in the sacerdotal alphabet. EOVE has 
therefore been used for the EIE of the first period. Now this 
character, OV, is expressive of doubt, and has consequently 
caused confrision and blasphemy to find a place even in the 
name of the Deity. In this word EOV-E the letter E is 
doubled, as it was in the primitive word EIE. There remain, 
therefore, EOV and EI. 

EOV expresses doubt as to existence : existence which may 
or may not exist: an impulse towards nothingness. The 
difference depends on the letter which precedes. Existence 
considered in this manner brings us to the T-EOV B-EOV of 
the world, to ideas of pain and misery, of chaos, and even of 
hell. The word E-OV-E, overwhelmed by the evil meanings 
of its root, instead of signifying, as it should do. Being and 
Existence, has added to this idea that of misfortune, ad- 
versity, calamity, a gulf of misfortunes, injustice, of some- 
thing hurtful, and of plague. Such ideas could not have 
been associated originally with the idea of the Deity, and 
consequently this word was only applied symbolically to God. 

When Moses appeared, the worship of AEI was lost and 
forgotten — idolatry was prevalent, and it became necessary 
to destroy it. The determination to effect this was taken by 
the priests. The priests were under the control of a Chief 
Priest, and in the Egyptian temples this chief was called 
EOVE or EOVA, that is he, him, because his name was not 
allowed to be pronounced. As it was necessary that the 
reform should appear to come from God Himself, that is, 
frt>m him who was considered in the temples, and even among 
the people, to be the supreme head and president of the 



/'/. / 



2 A i >: . 



(JIMEJ^ 



T A r 



.^1 l !>T 





\ 1' v 



D 1 >• 




ALlKil^H. 



e K T a-j 




^' A 1 . 




iLAlMlfiJj. 




j^ 



'^^':^ 



v>v 



.' K\ 



^K\ 



\ 






/" 



liy^ 



BETH. 




A 



V A :P y\ . 



it 



fe-j 



THE ZODIACAL AlPHABFT 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 41 

tribunal of the gods, it was necessary that this god should 
have a name, and none seemed more suitable than that which 
had long been given to the ADON, the master of the temple, 
he who permits or grcmts. They got this name from Phoenicia, 
where, as well as in Assyria, Adonis was the name of the 
sun (Macrob. Saturn. 1. 1, c. zxi.). This name was changed by 
the addition of the letter I, thus making of EOYE a proper 
name, belonging only to the Deity, and in the same manner 
they altered the word ADON into ADON-I, the future master, 
or he must always exist. The mysterious power which 
already belonged to the word EOYE or EOYA became g^reater 
and more terrible when this word became J-EOVE or J-EOVA, 
the eternal ^^He." The initiators, when sanctifying this word 
by the Mosaic mission, considered the heavenly J-EOYE or 
J-EOYA as they had previously considered the EOYE of the 
temple, that is, as the only one, AIQh MLEME, the sole /orce, 
the only strong One^ who had the power of overcoming and 
destroying idolatry. AIQh, which is ATT in Chaldee, means 
summus sacerdos, fortis, robustus, asper, durus, and is in 
short vir fortis, strenuus, prsestans, &c. 

The motive for this choice, which was of necessity kept 
secret, was soon forgotten, and the word JEOYE, which was 
surrounded by so profound and fearful w mystery, became a 
subject of terror to those who sought to ascertain its real 
meaning. Thus in Lev. xxiv. the son of the Israelitish 
woman, whose father was an Egyptian, and who appears to 
have understood the meaning of this word better than the 
Israelites, having entered upon a discussion of it with one 
of them, was stoned to death. As the sight of this name 
could not be prevented, it was forbidden to prorumnce it, 
under penalty of death. The high priest himself could 
only utter it once a year. With such teri'or surrounding 
the name, aided by superstition and fanaticism, it became 
easy to insert whatever the priesthood pleased in the books 
of the Bible, and it was only necessary to cause Jehovah 
to interfere, by word or by action, to render all discussion 
impossible. It was sufficient in fact to stop a reformer, 
or to cause him to be put to death, that the high priest 
should interrupt him at the first word he spoke. 

The ease with which blasphemy could be committed by 
pronouncing the name wrong, and the capital punishment 
which was ^e penalty for doing so, led to its being considered 



^ MANEIM): THEm 

as only a sign, a symbol formed of letters, a hieroglypli, the 
sight of which should call to mind the word ADONI unless 
this word were joined to it, in which case it represented the 
ALEIM, all the gods subordinate to Jehovah. It is pre- 
tended that there was a manner of pronouncing it among the 
Syrians and Egyptians by means of which a man could be 
caused to fall down stone dead. Clemens Alexandrinus 
(Strom. 1. I.) says that Moses killed the king of Egypt, 
Nechephre, on the spot by breathing this word in his ear, 
and that afterwards he brought him to life again by pro- 
nouncing the same word ! Great powers were attributed to 
the alphabet in ancient times. 

JEOVE, then, was often inserted to mean the supreme 
head of the temple, the chief or president of a learned body, 
which at that period always consisted of the priesthood, and 
sometimes it stood for the military chief, the man of war, who 
was guided by the priesthood, or by orders issued from the 
temple. The literal translation of this word is '* The Eternal 
— he — ^who is, and who shall be, he who exists, — the He, He, 
and It.'' This name is the most venerable, the most holy, 
and the most terrible of secret names. The kings of the 
sacred dynasties, the MLACIM and the MLCIM, obtained 
their secret names %y means of initiation, and the ancient 
kings of Egypt who obtained apotheosis after their death had 
their secret names also. Even at the present day, the Em- 
perors of China at their accession change their name for one 
which conveys the idea of their power or their attributes. 

The number seven appears in the letters L, B, C, D, M, 
N, Sh of the sacred alphabet. The intonations which appear 
in the alphabets which succeeded these are but modifications 
of these letters. Children, for instance, confuse R with L, 
while whole nations, such as the Chinese, cannot distinguish 
between them. The Arabs pronounce P like B, and the 
Chinese B like P. 

Every initiated person who had attained the highest rank 
was called MOSE, MOSES, MUSE, '' a person sent," ซ* a 
missionary," from MUS and MUSE, " to be withdrawn, to be 
sent away from a spot, to be on a mission." The Greeks 
pronounced the name better than we do, and better than the 
Masoretic pronunciation^ when they called it Mo&<77;. " O 
Menes Mouseion, son of the sun," said the initiating priest, 
** hear my words. I am going to tell thee important ^ths. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 43 



beware lest thj prerjndices and affections cause thee to 
fiEul in obtaining the happiness which thou desirest." 

The number ten signified perfection, the end, the aim, 
the completion. It is doubly mysterious and sacred, being 
formed of the two sacred numbers, three and seven. Its 
name OChB or OShB relates to the name of OSiBiS, andซ 
its plural OShB-IM means only a number equal to twenty, 
the number which constituted a month anciently. The 
letter ShlN or ^hlN was the tenth and last of the sacred 
alphabet, and the cruciform sign answers in the Chinese 
letters to the articulate word che, like the Hebrew chin 
and its value is also ten. In the Ethiopian alphabet it has 
kept its position and its form, but it answers to T, which is 
the terminal letter of the Hebrew alphabet. As the letter T 
signified the end, the total, when the alphabet increased to 
sixteen and twenty-two letters it became necessary still to 
place it at the end, but it became a modification of the letter 
D, that is T. The result of this was that several words which 
were originally written Sh became written with T. This 
change is common in Chaldean and Syrian. Thus QhOUB, 
a bull, has been written TOUB-ghCL, TCL, ^hL^h, three, 
triple, TLT, Ac. 

Ludolfus, who spent sixty years in the study of the Hebrew, 

Syrian, Arabic, and African Ethiopic languages, declares 

that their affinity is so close that whoever understands one 

may, without difficulty, render himself master of the other, 

but that the African Ethiopic is the nearest to the Arabic. 

Previous to the introduction of the alphabets of sixteen and 
twenty-two letters there was one of twelve letters, called the 
Zodiacal alphabet. Tradition had made the Cabalists aware 
of this fact, but it would appear that they could not discover 
the real alphabetical characters of the Zodiac, for they took 
them from the letters which compose the following three 
names given to the Deity. 

IE ALEIM TyBAOT 

The eternal Gods of hosts 

By host or army the ancients signified in these names the 
whole of the constellations. 

The Zodiacal alphabet is shown in the engraving, and was 
as follows : — 

ALPh or Aleph, A^ a sacerdotal letter, was Taurus. 
EITy or Cheth or Heth, E, a Zodiacal letter, was Qemioi. 



44 MAXKIXD: THEIB 

YOXJ, or Vau, Y, a Zodiacal letter^ was Cancer. 
IMD, or Lamed, L, a sacerdotal letter, was Leo. 
BIT, or Beth, B, a sacerdotal letter, was yirgo, 
CPh, or Caph, C, a sacerdotal letter, was Libra. 
ZIN, or ZaiD, Z, a Zodiacal letter, was Scorpio. 
GIML, Gimel, G, a Zodiacal letter, was Sagittarius. 
TOU or To, Thau, T, a Zodiacal letter, was Ca^riconiiuu 
ซ MM, or Mim, M, a sacerdotal letter, was Aquanua. 

NOUN, or Nun, N, a sacerdotal letter, was Pisces. 
OIN, Ain, O, a Zodiacal letter, was Aries. 

The six letters taken from the sacerdotal alphabet to form 
the Zodiacal alphabet were therefore A, L, B, C, M, and N, 
being those whose sound or intonation rendered them 
suitable to describe the celestial signs, and six others were 
added which were adapted to the same object, viz., E, Y, Z, 
G, T, and 0. The invention of these six letters raised the 
letters of the alphabet to sixteen. After the addition of 
these six letters the language formed by the alphabet 
became spoken in the temples, and it was found necessary 
to add six more to express the intonations of language, thus 
bringing the Hebrew alphabet to the number of twenty-two 
letters. The letters of this alphabet were now called 
Assyrian, not only from Assyria, or rather the country of 
Ashur, whence the second alphabet was derived, but also from 
the meaning of that word, AShB, perfect, when there is 
nothing to resume, fortunate. 

While the Hebrew has retained its number of twenty-two 
letters, the Arabian language has added six more. The ternary 
progression was because the number six primitively denoted 
rest and joy. The Hebrew letters, twenty-two in number, all 
of which are consonants, with their numerical values, are 
given on the next page. 

We read in Gen. vi. 1, " And it came to pass when men 
began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters 
were bom unto them, that sons (of the Gods) [BNI E-ALEUi] 
saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they 
took them wives of all which they chose ; " and in Job ii. 1, 
^* Again there was a day when the sons of God [BNI E- 
ALEIM] came to present themselves before (Jehovah)." In 
this latter passage we have a description of what passes in 
heaven. The Aleim are here in presence of Jeove, each one 
in his proper place, like the soldiers of an army, or rather 
like the army of heaven, like the constellations, the mansions, 
the dwelling-places of the Gods, they are in their places 



OKIGIN AND DESTINY. 



45 



round the Immovable Star which presides orer them and 
which gives them the strength to act, CI ^hM^h JEOYE 
ALETM, because the sun is the Jeove of the Aleim. In Ps. 
Ixxziy. 12, Satan is with them, for he also is one of the 
Aleim, one of the sons of the Gk>ds. Conf. 1 Kings zxii. 
19-22ซ 13iere is another passage which shows this to have 
been the idea of Job, in chapter xxxyiii., ^' Where wast thou. . • 
when the morning stars sang together and all the sons (of 
the Oods) [BNI ALEDI] shouted for joy? 



ป 



TvnMtibnw Vtmm 



Vmmm aeoording to 
theMasorstio 



Powtr 



Nnmerical 
Talne 



ALFhM . 
BIT a 

GIML3 • 
DLT 1 . 

tAn . 
UOU 1 . . 

ZINf . 

filTn . 
ThITo . 

JOUD % . 

CHPp . 
LMD^ . 

MMd . 

NOUN i . 

SMCd . 
OIN p . 

PhAfi . 

TiDIv . 
QOUPhp 
RICh-i . 

ghme^ . 

ShINfef . 
TOU or TO n . 



Aleph 
Beth 
Gimel 
Daleth 

Vau 

Zain 

Heth 

Teth 

Yod 

Caph 

Lamed 

Mem 

Nan 

8amech 

Ayin 

Pe 

Tsade 

Coph 

Reach 

Schin 

or 
Sin 
Tan 



A 
B 
G 
D 
ฃ 

'ou 
ov 






I 



1 



I 



E 
T 
I 
J 

L 
M 
N 
S 

6 
A 

Ph 
Tซ 

Q 
R 



Sh 
T 



1 
2 
8 
4 
6 

6 

7 
8 
9 

10 

20 
SO 
40 
50 
00 

70 

80 

00 

100 

200 

300 

400 



In order to explain what the Aleim really were it is neces- 
sary to dwell on the above passage. 

The presence of Satan among the sons of the Gods at the 
court of Jeove is very surprising ; though perhaps less so 
than his identity with Jehovah, 1 Chron. xxi. 1. Satan or 
Shathan in Helnrew means an adversary, one who opposes 
or puts hindrances in the way. The manner in whiclx 



46 MANKIND : THEIR 

the word comes to have the meaning of adversary is as 
follows : — 

ShaThaN is composed of ShaTh and ThaN. ShaTh or 
ShouTh means ^^ to go hither and thither, to make a circuit, 
throwing glances of enquiry on all sides." ThaN, which 
is also written ThAN, means, when spelt in the first way, 
" envy, jealousy, envious emulation." When spelt in the 
second way it means ** he who makes objections, who argues, 
who accuses, who causes embarrassment by his objections, 
&c." The origin of these attributes of Satan is to be found 
in the trials to which the initiated persons were subjected in 
the mysteries. Shathan or Satan having become the accuser 
of those who were called but were unworthy of being chosen, 
(Zech. iii. 1, 2, *^ And he showed me Joshua the high priest 
standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing 
at his right hand to resist him,") placed himself at the 
right hand of the accused, as in Fs. cix. 6, 7, '^ Set thou a 
wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand 
when he shall be judged." The place of the judges was on 
the left hand, and the judges were the Aleim, ^'for the 
judgment belongs to the Aleim," Deut. i. 17. This word, 
the Cabalists say, is characteristic of severity of judgment. 
Finally, we have Jeove sitting on the throne of mercy and 
presiding over the trial : " Jehovah, Jehovah, merciful and 
gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth," 
Exod. zxxiv. 6. 

Satan, then, is a being whose duty it is to try men, and 
to show the wickedness which lurks in the heart of the 
initiated person, but often by that very process he causes 
their virtues to be made manifest. Every Aleim, therefore, 
who attempts to oppose or to alter an established order of 
things becomes a Satan, an adversary, and yet he is not a 
spirit of darkness. Thus when Balaam is ordered to curse 
Israel he asks advice from God, who sends one of his Aleim 
to him. This Aleim, however, angry at Balaam's going 
with the princes of Moab, came and placed himself as a 
MLAC, as an envoy, in the way of the prophet, " for an ad- 
versary against him." The word used is Shathan. It follows 
that the Aleim, the Mlac-im, the Gods, may, by the per- 
mission of Jehovah, become Satans without ceasing to form 
part of the angelic hosts. 

The Samaritan version of Genesis makes this word Aleim 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 47 

to mean angels ; thus it translates ch. iii. ver. 5, ^^ Ye shall 
be as angels,** ** God made man in the image of the angels/' 
and ver. 24, " Enoch was carried np bj an angel/' This 
is a proof that the Hebrews of Samaria, and consequently 
the others, understood traditionally bj the word Aleim 
agents of God, angels, or minor deities. The MLAC-IM, 
however, are not our angels, for thej only became known to 
the Hebrews after their return fix)m tibe Captirity. The 
MLAC is an ambassador sent to give advice, a subaltern 
god. Such was the MLC or MoLoC of the Ammonites, 
although it is written as if it were derived from MLO, a 
king. But the MLC-IM, the kings, are considered by the 
spirit of the Hebrew language (agreeing in this respect with 
the spirit of the Egyptian religion), as ambassadors, as high 
functionaries, as men charged with a mission which they 
execute in the absence of the gods to whom they have 
succeeded, for monarchical government succeeded to the 
theocracy. 

In the third chapter of Genesis and the fifth verse we find 
the words ^^ ye shall be as gods." This promise is addressed 
to Eve by the Serpent of Eden. Now if at the period of the 
creation there had been but one Gk)d, the Serpent could not 
have used this language. We are accustomed to the idea of 
a plurality of gods, and the Septuagint translates the word 
SeoC, gods. But how could Adam or Eve know anything 
about them ? Again, in the first chapter of Genesis, and up to 
the third verse of the second chapter, the word Aleim, the 
gods, is used ; but from the fourth verse of the second chapter 
to the end of the third, the word Aleim is no longer used 
alone, but is preceded by the word Jeove, meaning thus the 
head, the sovereign ruler of the gods, Hominum SATOB 
atque DEORUM. But in vv. 1-5 of the third chapter the 
conversation of the Serpent with Eve takes place, and 
throughout this conversation the name Jeove disappears from 
the narrative, and that of Aleim alone remains. It is not, 
therefore, the intentions of Jeove, but of the Aleim, which are 
made known, and it is from them that the prohibition to eat 
of the tree of knowledge proceeds, and it is to them that the 
Serpent says Adam and Eve will become like if they eat 
of the fruit of that tree. As soon as the conversation is 
ended and the Serpent disappears from the scene the name of 
Jeove reappears. 



48 MANKIND : THEIR 

It follows that Moses admitted the existence of many gods, 
and was a polytheist, although he also admitted the existence 
of an only God, superior to them, whom he called Jeove. If 
additional proof were wanting, it is to be found in the passage 
of Maimonides which says that the vulgar Jews were forbidden 
to read the history of the creation, for fear it should lead 
them into idolatry. We find the same idea in India^ as in 
the hymn addressed to Euder for instance : — 

^' I bend low before thy aerial and celestial powers, whose 
arrows are the wind and the rain (conf. Numb. xi. 31, ^ and 
there went forth a wind fix)m the Lord ; ' and Exod. ix. 23, 
' And the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt *) ; I call 
upon them to come to my aid, that I may possess health 
and see the destruction of my enemies. Badi of them, (of the 
powers) is Buderj whose Infinite Power I revere; Buder 
whose fulness is all that exists ; He is all that has been, all 
that is, and all that will be." 

In the third chapter of Genesis, Moses bears witness to 
the plurality of gods in presence of Jeove Himself in 
the words '' Behold, the man is become as one of us** 
(CAED MMNOXJ). This takes away from the impiety 
of the expression, and shows that nothing can be like 
the Supreme God. We find the same distinction in Exod. 
xxxi. 3, and xxxv. 31. Here Jehovah, who alone is men- 
tioned in these chapters, and in those which precede or 
follow them, says, speaking to Moses about Bezaleel, '' I have 
filled him with the spirit of the gods," the word Aleim re- 
appearing suddenly, and evidently in contrast to the word 
Jeove. Again, when Moses is speaking of the tables of the 
law, although he continues to employ the word Jeove, he 
ceases suddenly to do so in order to state that they were 
written by the finger of the Aleim. He then resumes the use 
of the word Jeove alone. This becomes still more remarkable 
when we find the tables of the law referred to a second time in 
ch. xxxii. ver. 16, and that the word Jeove is again abandoned 
for the word Aleim. " And the tables of the law," says he, 
** were the work of the Aleim, and the writing was the writing 
of the Aleim, graven upon the tables." 

The doctrine of Moses was, that God can do no evil, and 
cannot err, but that if there is imperfection in the world, that 
imperfection does not proceed from Him, but from the 
Mlac-im or Aleim. Even when the text used the word Jeove 



ORIGiy AND DESTIXY. 40 

alone we must onderstand by it the gods, the messeugerSy 
for that name is in them and gives them their powers, as in 
Exod. xxiii. 20, 21, " Behold I send a MLAC before thee, to 
keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which 
I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, pro- 
voke him not ; for he will not pardon your transgressions, 
/or my name is in him.^^ And when in Exod. xiii. 21 it is said 
that ** Jeove went before them by day in a pillar of cloud," 
this is explained in ch. xiv. ver. 19, to mean a MLAC, a mes- 
senger. 

Moses the Nazarite, the ASheB-ShaPh, the guardian, the 
keeper of the holy language, and consequently of the holy 
doctrine, either took with him copies of the documents which 
had been entrusted to him, or retained them in his memory. 
It was the duty of the sacred Scribe to keep them in his 
bosom pure and free from all superstition, which may mean 
that the initiator or priest charged with this mission ought 
to know them by heart, and conceal their secret meaning. 
Hermes Trismegistus says, " Vos intra secreta pectoris divina 
mysteria silentio tegete, et tacitumitate celate." The know- 
ledge contained in the AmBRic or Hebrseo-Egyptian books 
was taught in two ways — orally, by reading, or dramatically, 
by means of theatrical representations ; to the latter method 
of teaching were added words and narrations which rendered 
it easy to understand them, 

Moses suppressed all representations which would have 
required hieroglyphical symbols or disguises, which would 
inevitably have brought the Israelites back to polytheism as 
it was understood by the ignorant and superstitious among 
the Egyptians. The cosmogonies and other systems which 
the mysteries had produced as acting representations were 
by him put into the form of narratives, but his expressions 
retain the impress of the mysteries, and his immaterial 
beings have bodies, act and speak just like the material 
beings who had represented them before him in the 
mysteries. 

We must suppose that before speaking of the creation to 
the initiated person, the priests explained to him the 
mystery of the symbols under which he was about to see 
Divine Force or Action represented. This instruction was of 
consequence in order that he might understand how all 
power comes from God, and how all power which is exerted 

E 



60 MANKIND: THEIR 

for God and by his permission, must be designated by a 
symbol and a name having relation to God Himself. The 
Supreme Being was considered to be too great, too imma- 
terial, to act and create and fashion matter Himself. The 
Aleim, who were his agents, were therefore inferior beings. 
Thns the initiated person understood previously to his 
initiation into cosmogony, that there existed an infinite 
number of secondary gods, some of whom dwelt in the stars, 
others near the people whose tutelary gods they were ; 
others, who lived still nearer to men, were their good genii ; 
(thus Gen. xlviii. 16, " The angel which redeemed me fiom 
all evil, bless the lads ; ") and that in general they dwelt in 
that part of the air which is nearest to the earth, (Ephes. 
ii. 2, **the prince of the power of the air.") This belief 
descended to Christian times. Bishop Synesius called the 
angels the spirits of the stars, the rulers of the world with 
glittering eyes. The first Christians believed that the stars 
prayed. "We believe," says Origen (Adv. Celsum), "that 
the sun, the moon, and the stars also pray to God, and we 
think that we ought not to pray to beings who pray them- 
selves." And the Catholic Church has seven stars which are 
the angels of the seven churches of Asia Minor. The result 
of this teaching was, that the gods of other nations were not 
beings who had no existence, as is generally considered, but 
their own gods, under different names, and with or without 
the title of gods, and that therefore the gods must be 
honoured in the manner appointed by law, and divine 
worship be paid to them ; that they were not to speak evil 
of them or curse them (Lev. xxiv. 15), and that the light 
of initiation ought to be shed upon all men, whatever be 
their form of worship or the name of their gods. Hence 
arose a feeling of toleration for the deities of other nations, 
which was so far removed fi:om indifference that impiety 
towards them was a crime which sometimes even deserved 
the penalty of death. 

Fully penetrated with these sentiments, the initiated 
person was taken to the spot where the cosmogonic drama 
was to be symbolically performed before him, but before it 
began he remained for a time in complete darkness, for the 
creation of the world sprang out of darkness. Silence, 
which was also connected with the representation, was 
rigorously enforced. To be mute was symbolical of MUT, 



ORIGIX AND DESTIXT. 61 

death, and the name of creation (BaRA., to create, to form), 
alluded to the act of breaking silence (BaB, to speak, to 
explain). 

At length the darkness slowly vanished in a particular 
place. There appeared under a celestial planisphere, and 
displayed on a dark background, some feebly- lighted masses 
of a white, calcareous substance, pyramidal in shape, like the 
tombs or obelisks, the first attempts of the art of sculpture ; 
they were a sculptured symbol, representing non-existence, 
without shape or form. Near them was the cosmogonic 
Orphic Egg, the egg of Fhtha the Sculptor-God. This 
colossal egg was surrounded by a sea full of seeds, a sym- 
bolical ocean from which the germ of being proceeded, 
which the symbolised breath of the Aleim covered with its 
outspread wings, protecting, incubating, and warming it 

with its love ; 

Chaos ex nocte et rilentio primogenitua. 

Close to these indistinct representations, human beings 
were seen with the knife or chisel of the sculptor, sym- 
bolising creation, and appearing as if they were reducing 
them into shape. These were priests who represented the 
Aleim, the Forces, a name derived from AL, AIL, which 
means Bam and Strength, and which was given to them 
because they were crowned with the sign or head of the 
Bam, just as AMON, the artist, the workman, was repre- 
sented. These were the Amonean or Amunean gods ; the 
Demiurgi, the working gods, the artists, the creators of the 
world. The Aleim were in fact, according to Moses, distin- 
guished by a crown or peculiar head-rdress, (Numbers vi. 7, 
" the consecration of his God is upon his head,") which he 
only expressed by the word NZB, but which, by the use of 
this very word, alludes to the symbolical head-dresses of 
these Egyptian deities. In Lev. xxi. the anointing oil 
which was poured on the head of the priest at his consecra- 
tion, is also compared to ** the crown of the anointing oil of 
his Aleim." The intention was to connect the initiated 
person, the pontiflF, and the priest, with the Aleim. We 
know that initiation was intended to make the initiated 
person resemble the Divine nature, and as Moses himself 
says, Numbers xvi. 9, " The God of Israel hath separated 
you from the congregation of Israel to -bring you near to 
Himself, to do the service of the tabernacle of Jeove." 

? 2 



5i MANKIND: THEIR 

In the two first verses of Genesis, the following words 
occur: ALEIM, BEA, BEAChIT, AT, ChMIM, ARTz, 
TEOU, BEOU, EghC, EOVE, MEEPhT, and MIM. Before 
proceeding to develope the secret meaning of the cosmogony 
of Moses, it is necessary to dwell upon the etymology of these 
words, 

ALEIM, corruptly called Elohim by the modern Jews, but 
always Aleim in the synagogue copies, means " the forces, the 
powers, the Gods." AL signifies " a ram, strong, strength,'* 
and also ** these " (male and female), " God " (Gen. xiv. 18). 
AL-E means "strength, God," (Deut. xxxiii. 17), and also 
" these " (male and female), for God is androgynous. ALE-IM 
means the forces, the strong ones, the Gods, distinguished 
by the sign of Nazariteship, the head-dress, which, from the 
etymology of the word, can be nothing but the symbol of 
AMON, the horns or the mask of Aries. In Exodus vii. 1 we 
find that Moses becomes Aleim, the meaning of which is shown 
in the engraving, and in ch. xii. ver. 12, the gods of Egypt 
are designated by the same words, while in ch. xx. 
ver. 2 the commandment runs, ** Thou shalt have none 
other Aleim but me," clearly showing that the gods of 
other nations were designated by the same name as the God 
of Israel. In Exod. xx. 23, we read of Aleim of silver, and 
Aleim of gold, and in xxxii. 1,4, 8, 23, 31, and in xxxiv. 15, 16, 
1 7, we find that Aleim is the name given to false gods, and 
molt^en images. In Judges xvi. 23 Dagon is designated 
as Aleim, and the same occurs again in 1 Sam. v. 7. In 
ch. xxviii. ver. 13, the witch of Endor sees Aleim coming up 
out of the earth, clearly like an evil spirit ; in 1 Kings xi. 33, 
both Chemosh and Milcom are spoken of as Aleim. 

The commentators have endeavoured to escape from the 
difficulty attending the existence of this word in the plural, 
by saying that it is used as a sign of superiority, ^* ad sum- 
mam majestatem et singularem gloriam indicandum," but, 
besides that this would imply the same in the use of other 
words, such as ChMIM, " the heavens," &c., it admits the 
very principle of polytheism by asserting that a plurality of 
gods is greater than one. 

Al is the root of ''HXwj, the sun ; that it signifies the sun 
is proved by Lib. Adami, 1. I. " Do not worship the sun, 
whose name is Adruai (or Adrui), whose name is Kedusch, 
whose name is EL, EL! (or IL, IL!)" This name is 




!;,.?. KI.OIM, whose Svml'..l is pbr.-.l on his lic-id 



Coriiiilam hcwnx iial.et ^x cmisorllo Seniuiiiis lloni 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 63 

alluded to in Isa. xiv. 1 3, " above the stars of IL/' while in 
Matt, xxvii. 46, and Mark nr. 34, the Hebrew word Eli has 
been purposely retained in the Syriac. Al therefore, signified 
the sun, whether material or spiritual, as Amon signified 
the sun in Aries or the Bam. 

BBA means "they carved, they cut, they sculptured, they 
fashioned, they formed." BR is a knife, from BR-I, to 
carve, to cut ; it means also a production, a fruit, the seed of 
a plant, and a son ; BBA means to carve, to eut, to prune, 
to purify by carving or by cutting, to prune or cut a tree, 
and also to form, to fashion, to give a new shape, to sculp- ^ . 

ture. The J ehizub or book of the creation, which is at- Ijc^*^^ 
tributed to ABraEam, says, " Per semitas Sapientise exculpsit /j *^ 
Dominus Mundum.'* Hence, as in the accompanying en- 
gravinj^, the Aleim holding the knife, were symbols of 
creation. The translation " created *' is erroneous, the 
meaning of the text being that the world was made out of 
visible or invisible pre-existing matter. BBE means to 
eat, because the ideas of cutting or dividing and that 
of eating are connected; thus ACL, to eat, has formed 
M-ACLT, a knife ; BRIT means a covenant, because 
the victims were divided into two parts (Gen. xv. 10), on 
these occasions, BRT becoming changed by inversion into 
BTR, to cut, to divide into two parts. The severity of God's 
judgments is expressed in the New Testament by a term 
which means to cleave a man in two (Matt. xxiv. 51), " And 
shall eut him in sunder ;" (see also Luke xii. 46). In the 
story of Susannah, the same image is presented to us in rela- 
tion to the punishment to be inflicted by the angel of God 
on the two elders. The idea may have been to renew the 
covenant with God by punishing the guilty person, in the 
same way as sacrifices were offered. The Aleim are often 
represented on the Egyptian monuments under the symbol 
of PhTA, the God of Fire, the principle of light and life, 
one of the greatest of the Egyptian gods. The word PhTA 
or PhTE is Hebrew, and its meaning is synonymous 
with that of BRA. Thus PhTE means to carve, to cut, 
to develope, to give rise to, to engrave, to sculpture. 
PhTYE means engraving, sculpture. Phta may be con- 
sidered as a cosmogonic divine artist of the first rank. The 
idea of knife, of cutting, and of carving, is also connected 
with that of creating in the word TzR or TzOUR, one of the 



64 MANKIND : THEIR 

names of tlie Demiurgus. TzR is a hard stone and a knife, 
because tlie first knives were sharp pebbles. On a bas-relief 
at Eletheia (El-Kab) in Egypt, a fisherman is opening a 
fish with an instrument, the shape of which is similar to the 
quoins or hatchets of stone which are found everywhere. It 
was probably made of flint ; the stone with which Zipporah, 
Moses' wife, circumcised her son (Exod. iv. 25), was a stone 
knife, Tzit. It means also " to form of any material what- 
soever, to represent, to sculpture, to model, to draw." It 
signifies the origin and commencement of everything, of the 
world, creation in short. Lastly, it means God, who is called 
the knife, because He creates by carving, by cutting, and by 
fashioning matter. This word has also, according to Ge- 
senius, the sense of " begotten," and this idea was probably 
the one which prevailed among the uninitiated. It seems 
to have also had the meaning of renovare, regenovare, at- 
tributed to it by Farkhurst (in voce Kil, iv.), in this place 
primarily. BB or FB, in the Eastern language, means sacred 
and creative (Loub^re, Hist. Siam.), while Pra in the Pali, 
the sacred language of Si-yo-thi-ya, the Siamese name of the 
capital of Siam, of which Navarete says foreigners have 
made Judia, signifies the Sxm and the great living Grod (La 
Loubftre, pp. 6, 7.) Prom this has come Praja-pati, or the 
Lord of mankind, which means father, ja, creator (^^Asiat. 
Res." vol. viii. p. 265). This is the remote origin of the word, 
of which brat, (Creator,) is probably the noun ; another form 
of the word is Maha-Barata, that is Maha MJIM")! brata^ Great 
Creator. 

BBA^rr means a commencement of existence, a sketch 
or outline. It is composed of B-en EA^h, "principle, 
beginning," and IT, ** being." B is a preposition ; IT is a 
Chaldaic form for I^h, showing that Chaldaic expressions 
are to be found in the Hebrew of Moses, which is worthy of 
notice, I^h or ISh stands for Al^h and A^h as IT does for 
AIT and AT. It is the ensy the being. But IT, or AIT, I^H 
or AIQH signify the essence, the substance (TOTzM), the 
individuality of the being ; A^h, pronounced AQh or ASh, 
is the substance or essence of fire, which penetrates bodies 
and causes them to dilate, which generates them, animates 
them, and brings them to life, or which gives them strength 
and brings them to a healthy state, which brings them back 
to life. This is the origin of the name of the woman, A^h- 




Synibolic head-di-f ssos of 

TIIF, yELOlM. 

The Amoneaii Gods, ihf Ail i si Gods. 



o 
a 




ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 65 

E, and of that of the man, Al^h. AT is substance, essence, 
mdividuality ; it is that i/?hich is, that which constitutes the 
fashioned, the symbolised substance of such a thing, of such 
a being. The Cabalistic meaning of this word will be ex- 
plained later. 

ChMIM signifies the signs of heaven, the constellations, 
the planisphere of the heavens, the heavens themselves. 

ARTz signifies the earth, the white and barren earth, 
uncultivated and unproductive; also the country, the spot, 
the site. 



AR 


-0 1 




AR 


-OA 




AR 


-Q 


' t 


AR 


-QA 




AR 


-Tz J 






Tz-I 




Tz - IF. 




Tz- 


ฃ 



the earth 



In all these words AR is the radical, which 
eii^nifies the earth, and the arid, sterile 
earth. The termination Tz is only added 
to strengthen this meaning. 



} 



Indicate whiteness, drought, aridity. Ti 
then is a radical word. 



From AB and Tz ABTz was formed, the radical^meaning 
of which is a white earth, or an arid, withered, accursed 
earth. There is a distinction in Hebrew between ABTz, 
white earth, and ADME, red earth. This latter word con- 
veys the idea of a cultivated, agricultural country. It was 
formed in Egypt, and conveys the idea of Africa, whose soil, 
as Herodotus remarks, is red. 

TEOU and BEOU will be spoken of where they occur. 
The etymological analysis alone is given here. 

These words are forgeries. No Hebrew word, radical or 
derivative, ends in EOTJ. This termination is in Hebrew an 
interjection, expressive of uneasiness and misfortune. We 
have T and B left. T is a terminal letter ; it is pronounced 
TOU or TO, and the word has consequently been written 
TOU-EOU. It is the name of the boundary of property and 
also of that of existence. B denotes the capacity, the hollow 
of an object which is fit to hold something ; hence the word 
has a prepositive force, expressing in, within, &c. EOTJ is 
composed of E, which expresses the idea of existence in 
general, and OU, the sign of doubt. The synthetic analysis 
of these words then is as follows. 



MANKIND : THBIR 



TEOU md BEOU. 



OU 



ence (witliout life); it signitiea 
such n being, sacn n Bubstance, 
the act of caasing to be luad^, of 
bringing into being. 



ia the espreaaion of doubt, of baiting 
between two propodtiona, betwem 
two periixla, one of which, whicb 
is expressed, is drawn towards tba 
other which is aoteipreaied; tern 
the future to the past, from tbe 
past to tbe future. 



These words united form EOU, that is, existence accom- 
panied bj doubt, uncertain, and full of imperfections and 
miseries, from wliicL is derived the verb EOTTE, and ita 
meanings full of disaster. 



T U the TO, the si^, the mnrk. 

T(IU is a sign having relntinn to a 
doubtful thing and which ought 
to do away with that doubt; a 
boundarj, a limit. 

J^Mi this comeg 

TAE, ta limit. 

TAIt, to limit, and alao the form of 
a Ijoiiniiary, a figure, a fปee. The 
first cffijrts of art describing npo- 
theogixed beings had the slinpe of 
a boundnrj, of a pillar in tbe form 
of iLn obelisk or pyramid. 

From thiป 
TEE ronios to mean an idol, which 
necessarily must be in ilie abape 
of a pyrniuidal ligure. nf sculptured 
Blooe, MTz ItET-EOU llierefore 
must be undefined, dnublfiil exist- 
ence, espresiii'd symbnlicully in the 
shape of a pyramidal or Inuib-lihe 
boundary, a boundary which is 
aymlvilical of the being which has 
gone before, the existence of which 
has been limited or stiipped, which 
is without fonn or iife; in a word, 
a doubtful deity. 



B. 

R ia in, within, &c. 

The form of an object which can 
contain something : the form of 
the orolo, of the egg, containing 
a live being. BlTzA is an e^. 
I'I'zA means to he bom, and Ngni- . 
fiee birth at the time that the 
generated being appears. Thera 
remains therefore B, which we 
must ivaociate with the idea of 
egg, oTolo, ovary, ovoid, and the 
circular shape. 



From this comet 



BD, the pupil of the eye, or anything 

BIZ, the breast. 

IJ-EOU therefore muat he doubtful, 
iinperft.>ct, and 



val form, doubt- 
designated by the 



The egg of I'liTIia, the Orphic 

or egg of the my^titriea. 



With the final letter M, the word T-EOU-M means arrested 
and doubtful, existence considered with regard to all beings : 
tlio sUa]>cIess or chaotic state of nature or of all beings and 



ORIGIN AXD DESTIXY. 67 

things, the abyss of being. The Teon Beon is the Chans- ^ 
eret of Sanehoniathon. Chaos is a Phcenician conception. 

flChC or fiShC signifies ^^ compressed darkness, causing 
hindrance.'* It means hidden existence, latent fire, life 
which is obscnre, hidden, impeded animation, perceptible 
want of life, and lastly obscurity, darkness. 

ROVE or ROUE means " the breath, the spirit which 
dilates and which frees." 

MRiiPhT means " hovered over lovingly, incubated in order 
to warm and render prolific." The word RfiPh is composed 
of RE, " to be full of good-will, to be agreeable," a radical 
word, which is preserved in the Samaritan, from which word 
comes RE-M, to love, to cherish (EM, amorous ardour), and 
of ฃPh, to cover, to protect, to incubate, to brood. RfiPh, 
therefore, means to warm by love, to move while spreading 
oneself over, to brood, to incubate, to be moved by affection 
and generating love. " As an eagle stirreth up her nest, 
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, 
taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone 
did lead him." Deut. xxzii. 11, 12. 

MIM signifies " the waters, the seeds of beings." Thus 
Moses says, Numb. xxiv. 7, ZRO BMIM, *' the seed is in the 
waters." And in Gen. i. 20 we read, " the waters bring forth 
abundantly the moving creature that hath life." 

The letter M is the alphabetical transcription of the two 
undulating lines which signified water in the hieroglyphical 
language ; that is, the water which flows from the two vessels 
of Aquarius. The choice of this letter to signify water is 
connected with the Egyptian ideas of the cause of the genera- 
tion of living beings. M is the cry which natm*e causes the 
child to utter when it wishes to call its mother. M or Ma, 
which, from the constant repetition of this cry, has become 
the name of the mother, signified maternity, the generation 
of beings, the generative faculty, the faculty of multiplying, 
the organ of generation, multiplicity, the plural number, the 
multitude, in a word the principle of this multiplicity or 
generation. 

Among aU nations the sun, light, or fire, was the first pre- 
server, at the same time that he was the creator and the 
destroyer. But though he was the preserver and the re- 
generator, it is evident that he alone, without an assistant 
element, could regenerate nothing, though that element itself 



58 MANKIND : THEIB 

was indebted to him for its existence. That element waa 
water. Water was the agent by which everything was re- 
generated or bom again. 

The Egjrptians owed too much to the inundation of the 
Nile not to adopt this idea, which besides was so natural, 
that in the Chinese hieroglyphs the sign which characterised 
the mother was formed of tiiat which represented cultivated 
districts under the fertilising influence of rain, represented 
by falling drops. This was why the Egyptians determined 
to choose the hieroglyphic sign of water to make of it the 
symbolical letter of the intonation Ma, expressing, in its 
radical meaning, the idea of mother in general. Water there- 
fore means not only the aqueous element, but also mother, 
maternity, generation, multiplication, plurality, the multitude, 
totality, infinity. 

The secret meaning of the three first chapters of the book 
of Genesis wiU now be given. In order to make the trans- 
lation easier to follow, the Hebrew construction has been 
occasionally changed. The conjunction TJ also is frequently 
separated from the verb or noun to which it is joined ; the 
hyphen placed after it indicates that it should be joined to 
the word which is marked by a similar hyphen placed before 
it. Thus :— 



U- I 

ALEIM- Us for UIAMR ALEIM. 

lAMR 



q. 



The verb of which Aleim is the subject is usually in the 
singular. This is a Hebraism which it is impossible to trans- 
late, and we must therefore use the plural. We know that 
Aleim does not mean a god, but gods subordinate to JEOVE. 

It is necessary to observe, that in this Egyptian version of 
the origin of man and of evil there are some important dif- 
ferences from the original conception, which is the one still 
generally received. Man is not created in Paradise, but is 
taken out of the world and put into the garden of Eden. 
The Serpent is not identified with Satan, but appears as a 
serpent who walks, and nothing more. The Serpent is 
identified with the Evil Spirit for the first time in the apocry- 
phal book of Wisdom, ii. 24, " Nevertheless through envy 
of the devil came death into the world ; " and in Ecclus. xxv. 
24 (another apocryphal book) we are told, " Of the woman 
came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 69 

This wan after tlie Jews had come into close contact with the 

Persian mythology. The transgression is represented in 

Gen. iiL 22, as being a gain, not a loss, for it makes the first 

pair become more like God. In Gen. iv. 7, Cain is ordered to 

master sin. The frait eaten by Eve is not the apple, bnt the 

frait of the tree of knowledge. Man is not created immortal, 

but might have attained immortality by eating of the tree 

of life. The usual belief is the original one, and its origin 

and meaning will be explained subsequently. We are now 

going to explain the meaning of an Egyptian or spiritualised 

?ersion of the universal mythos, bearing in mind St. Chry- 

Bostom's warning, ^^Obscurata est notitia Yeritatis,'* and 

Solomon's proverb (Prov. xxv. 2), CROUD ALEIM ESTR 

DBR, CROUD MLCni EQR DBR, " Lingua Deorum celare 

verbum, lingua consiliariorum investigare verbum." 



00 



MANKIND : THEIE 



CHAPTER ni. 

GENESIS. 

CUAPTER I. 

Vekse 1. 



ENOUSH TRANSLATION 



God 



created . 

iu the beginning . 

the Leaven . 



and 
the earth 



HBBRBW TKXr 



ALEIM 



SECRET MXANIXa 



BRA . 
BRAQhlT . 

AT 
KghMIM . 

UAT . 
EARTz 



The Forces, the gods (the 
Amonean gods, the Demi- 
urgic the Artists or Makers 
of the world) 

carved; formed, sculptured 

as a commencement of exist- 
ence, as a sketch, 

the substance 

of the celestial signs, of the 
starry firmament, of the 
heavens, 

and the substance 

of the white and arid earth. 



The ancients called the subaltern deities whom a supreme 
God sent to execute his will Force or Forces. 

The heresiarch Simon, and subsequently the Manichseans, 
objected to the present text of Genesis, that it resulted from 
it that the Creator or Creators of the world were merely 
angels, and that the God of the Jews in particular was merely 
the chief or one of the chiefs of these angels. The author 
of the Recognitions and the Clementine Books, pressed by 
Simon's objections, answers "imprudently," according to 
Beausobre, that things which are false and injurious to God 
have been inserted into the books of Moses ; wherefore, he 
continues : — 

" Reddite Legi propriam dignitatem ; Israeliticas ab e&, 
turpitudines, tanquam verucas, incidite ; deformationis ejus 
crimen scriptoribus imputate." 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 61 

The cosmogonic drama written by Moses opens with the 
action of the Forces or subaltern deities sent by a Supreme 
Beity to fulfil his will. The Prometheus of ^schylus is the 
most ancient cosmogonic drama known in Europe next to that 
of Moses. It gives us a semi-cosmogonic revelation, and is the 
first example of the encroachment of profane literature on 
that which was reserved for the mysteries, to which we are 
indebted for Tragedy. 

The Prometheus also opens by Force, which gives both to 
action, and this Force acts under the commands of JOVE or 
Jupiter, the new god of a yet imperfect world, and puts the 
active principle, the god of fire and work, the worker by fire, 
Vulcan, into action. What is very significant is that -ZEschylua 
was accused before the Areopagus of having divulged the 
sacred mysteries by exhibiting them on the stage, and that 
he only escaped death by proving that he had not been 
initiated. We shall see further on the divulgation of the 
secret teaching threatened with the penalty of death by 
JEOVE, the head of the Aleim, or Forces. 

It may seem as if Moses had omitted all mention of Fire. 
But in his idea God becoming visible, manifesting Himself, 
is Fire. When God has appeared to man He is often described 
aa having assumed the appearance of fire. Thus He appeared 
to Moses in the bush, and thus on the mercy seat in the 
temple at Jerusalem. All the early Fathers held that God 
the Creator consisted of a subtle fire. AL, ALE, AIL, from 
which Aleim is derived, describes Force acting, and radiating 
from above. This radiation was represented by the horns 
which are on the head of the Amonean gods, and which have 
been transferred in modern sculpture to the head of Moses, 
just as the keys of Janus have been transferred to St. Peter. 
The name of Fire, A^h, is the name of Force, of the force 
which builds upon solid foundations. This Igneous Force, 
therefore, is represented by the AJeim, who are virtually Fire, 
and consequently Fire could not be mentioned among the 
things created. 

The Scythians, whose sacred emblems the Ox, Fire, the 
Serpent, and Tho or Theo, the Pan of the Egyptians, the 
god composed of several gods, according to Orpheus, had 
spread through Asia more than eighteen centuries before 
Moses, attributed the organisation of the universe to the 
action of Fire. The connection which exists between India 



62 



MANKIND: THEIE 



and Egypt is made evident by tlie monuments of Thebes at a 
period preceding that when Moses lived. 

The orthodox belief is that Gk)d made the world ont of 
nothing. " Non confiteri," says St. Chrysostom, " qnod ex 
nihilo creavit omnia omnium opifex, desipientiee extremse 
signum est." 

Vebse 2. 

I 



BKOUSH TaAKSLATlOK 


nXBRXW TJULT 


SBOOKT UKAWXa 


And the earth 


UEARTZ . 


And this white and arid earth 


was . . . 


EITE . 


was, was made, 


without form 


TEOU . 


a pyramid si^n or one resem- 
oling an ohelisk, a boundary 










representing the being with- 






out form and without posi- 






tive existence. 


and void. 


UBEOU . 


and an egg representing the 
compressive envelopment of 
the being without form or 










positive existence, 
ana there was compressive 


and darkness 


UEghC 


was 


A 


darkness, caubing hindrance 


on . . . 


6l . . . 


on 


the face 


FNI . . . 


the surface 


of the deep, • 


TEOUM . 


of the tomb-like pyramidal 
emblems representing the 
being without form or poai- 
tive existence. 


and the Spirit 


UROVE . 


But the breath, the dilating 

and liberating Spirit 
of the Forces, of the Gods 


of God . 


ALEIM 


moved . 


MREPhT • 


hovered over lovingly, brooded 




A 


incubated in order to warm 
and render fertile 


upon . 


6l . . . 


on 


the face 


FNI . . . 


the surface 


of the waters 


EMIM . 


of the waters, of the seeds of 
all beings. 



The word Teou refers to extinct life, to life which has passed 
away, and Beou to future existence, progressing under the 
influence of light ; Teou to existence shut up in the pyramidal 
confines, in the darkness of the tomb, and Beou to life which is 
reappearing, still confined by the darkness of the ovary, but 
waiting for the word to be spoken which shall cause the 
dawn of creation to shine upon it. MREPhT, correctly 
translated incubabat by St. Jerome, is a most felicitous ex- 
pression, when we think of the egg of PhTHA, the God who 



ORIGIN AXD DESTIXY. 



03 



breaks, who opens in order to allow the new being to issue 
forth, who carves and who sculptures, like the Amoneans, 
and when we think how it has figured in sacred mysteries in 
India and Greece, Egypt and England, among the Baby- 
lonians of ancient and the Bomanists of modem times. It 
was related to the crescent moon in Heliopolis, and in other 
places was to be seen surrounded by a serpent. 



Vbbse 3. 



XSOLX8B TRASBLATXOX 


EXBBXW TEXT 


BiCBrr MBAxnvo 


And 

God . 

said 

Let there be 

light . 

and 

light • . 

was. 


u- . . . 

ALEIM . 

-lAMR 

lEI . . . 

AOUR . 

U. . . . 

AOUR. 

TKT . 


Then 

the Forces, the Gods 

said 

There shall be created 

a light of dawn 

and 

a light of dawn 

was created. 



By the word AOUR we must understand the light of the 
dawn, day-break. Here it means a light resembling that of 
the dawn, and independent of the light of the sun, which 
was only created on the fourth day. The substance of light, 
according to the Egyptians, was part of the nature, of the 
substance, of Osiris, but for Osiris in the writings of Moses 
we have JEOVE, whose visible substance is Fire, who is 
** a consuming fire,'* Deut. iv. 24. The substance of light is 
the substance of f^e also, even in Hebrew, for AOUR signi- 
fies both Light and Fire. 

The creation, as represented to the initiated, was not the 
primitive creation. The world is constantly renewed, and 
the word BRA, when analysed, expresses only a change of 
form, a renewing, a purification, produced by the act of 
pruning, of carving, cutting and moulding. There was always 
a belief that a previous world had existed, and according to 
2 Pet. iii. 16, " new heavens and a new earth " were looked 
for in that day. ^^ The heavens and the earth perish, and as 
a vesture shall thou change them.'* " For behold," says 
JEOVE, in Isaiah Ixv. 17, '* I create new heavens and a new 
earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into 
mind." 



G4 



MAN'KIXD: THEIR 



Verse 4. 



VMOTJSII TRANSLATION 


UEBREW TEXT 


Akcrkt heakino 


And 
C^od . 
saw 

the liprht 
that it was . 
prood. . 
And 
Ood . 
divided 

the lip:ht 
from the 
darkness. 


u- . . 

ALKIM 
-IRA . 
AT 

EAOUR . 
CI 

ThOUB 
U- 

ALEIM 
-IBDL 
BIN . 
EAOUR . 
UBTN . 
EEghC 


' •< 




Now 

the Forces, the Gods 
regarded with attention 
the suhstance, the essence 
of the liprht of the dawn 
becauAe it was 
beautiful. 
This is why 
the Forces,' the Gods, 
caused a separation to be made 
between the prevalence 
of the light of the dawn 
and between the prevalence 
of the compre.<ซ8ive darkness 
whicb causes hindrance. 



The real meaning is, that the Deniiurgi, the AMONLM of 
Jeove, eonteuiplat<3 with admiration the work which they have 
accomplished according to a plan and model given to them 
by an ADON or skilful Master. Their work is the manual 
work of an artificer, MOChE IDI AMoN, Cant. vii. 1. 





Verse 5. 




ENGLISH TRAXfil^TION 


HEBIIKW TEXT 


BBCRET MEANIKa 


And 


V- 

y.' . • • 


And 


God 


ALEIM 


the Forces, the Gods, the 
artist-pods 


called . 


-IQTJA 


exclaimed, read aloud 


the light 


LAOUR . 


for the light of the dawn 


Day 


jorM . 


DAY ! 


and the darkness . 


ULEChC . 


and for the comprepsivo dark- 
ness which caused hind- 
rance 


he called 


QHA . 


they exclaimed, read aloud 


Niufht. 


LILE . 


NlfHlT! 


And 


riEi . 


And there was created 


the evening . 


C)\U\ . 


a twilight, a passage irom 
light to durkneps 


and • 


UlEI . 


and afterwards there waa 
created • 


the morning . 


BQR . 


a dawn, a renewal of light 


were the first 


AEI) . 


FIRST 


day. 


JOUM . 

1 


DAY. 



ORIGIX AND DESTIXT. 



65. 



These exclamations must be regarded as two cries of joj 
and admiration uttered spontaneously by the Aleim at the 
sight of the work of the supreme deity. It was an ancient 
practice to name newly-born infants afber the exclamation 
or the thought which the authors of their existence 
uttered or expressed at the moment of their birth. This 
is the idea in this passage on the solemn occasion of the 
birth of Day and Night. St. Gregory of Nyssa calls it folly 
and ridiculous vanity on the part of the Jews to attribute to 
Grod the formation of the Hebrew language, as if God were 
a teacher of grammar, who had taught Adam a language 
which he had invented. And he says, referring to this verse 
of Grenesis, ^^ Grod made things, not names ; God is not the 
author of the names of heaven and earth, but of heaven and 
of earth themselves.'* 

Each day of the cosmogonic drama naturally finished with 
the daylight and recommenced at day-break. The repre- 
sentation lasted six days, and we must not confound these 
mysteries with those of the Greeks and Egyptians after the 
time of Moses, or with those of other nations among whom 
initiation only took place at night. Mystery, in fact, is hardly 
the word, for initiation was at that time only teaching : it was 
insti'uction offered to all for the benefit of society in general. 

Vekse 6. 



EXGLXSH TRASnJkTIOS 


HEBRXW TฃXr 


8BCBXT MKANIXO 


And . 


U- . . . 


Then 


God . 


ALEIM 


the Forcefl^ the Gods 


said 


-LVMR 


said 


Let there be . 


lEI . . . 


There shall he created 


a firmament . 


RQlO . . . 


a place, an extension obtained 
by the thinning of the mass 
in the centre 






in the midst . 


BTOUC 


of the waters 


FMIM, . 


of the waters 


and let it 


UIEI . 


and there was formed 


divide . 


MBDIL 


a thing which caused a separa- 
tion to be made 


between 


BIN . 


by occupying a spot : by the 
remainmg of 


the waters . 


MIM . 


the waters 


and the waters. . 


LMIM . 


according to the waters. 



The Egyptians considered the substance of the air to be a 
product of the substance of attenuated or rarefied water, and 

F 



60 MAXKIXD : THEIR 

for this reason they represented the son on a boat. The 
hieroglyphic symbol has been . abandoned, but the sign 
written alphabetically, the name, has been preserved. The 
idea of arh^ of hoat^ oi vessel^ of nave (navis) is connected even 
at the present day with the idea of temple, tabernacle, tent, 
dwelling-places of the sun, and by the sun we must under- 
stand God : " For the Lord Grod is a sun," Ps. Ixxxiv. 11. 

Moses' ark of the covenant was imitated from the Egyp- 
tian ark, as represented in the engraving, carried on staves 
by Levites, and placed on a boat. The winged figures called 
cherubim will be found on the Egyptian ark, and refer in 
both arks to the Almighty power of Grod. Besides the two 
cherubim which looked towards each other, and spread out 
their wings, there was a third called the cherub of the lid, 
because he hovered over the ark. All this can be seen in the 
drawing of the Isiac ark copied from the bas-relief in the 
ruins of the temple of Philae, as well as the table of shittim- 
wood, which is shown in the second engraving. 

This ship or ark was commonly used in the mysteries of 
Greece as well as Egypt, and was the Argha, a Sanscrit 
word, signifying " a particular form of offering in a certain 
shaped vessel." In Hebrew iiซ, araf/, is " to plait, or weave,'* 
an operation necessary in making a boat of bulrushes ; also, 
" to shut up." A word derived from this root is used in 
1 Sam. vi. 8, 11, 15, where it is called " the ark of the Lord." 
The word is t Ji^, argaz^ but the final t Fiirst considers to be an 
unimportant postfix. The Argha was a mystic ship. It had 
both ends alike, was a correct, very much elongated ellipse, 
and was called 'A/jL(f)i7rpvfivav9, Amphiprumnai*^. Hesychius 
says, ^AfjL(f)i7rpv/jLva^ tA iirl acoiijpta irsfxirofjisva 7rXo?a, that 
is, Amphiprumna are used in voyages of salvation, -^lian 
informs us that a lion was the emblem of Hephaistos in Egypt, 
and in the curious description which Capella has given us 
of the mystic ship navigated by seven sailors, we find that a 
lion was figured on the mast, in the midst of the effulgence 
which shone around. This ship was a symbol of the Uni- 
verse — the seven planets were represented by the seven 
sailors — and the lion was an emblem of Phtha, the principle 
of light and life. The ark of the covenant has the name J*Tl$ 
aron, which signifies " a box," " a mummy case," or "a money 
chest." Arka (the Greek apxv) means the sun in Javanese, 
and the ancient temple of Jaggemaut, at Kanarak, where 
there was a famous temple of the sun, is called the Arka. 



ORIGIN' JiSD DESTIXY. 



07 



The ark, as we see in the engraving, was a kind of crescent, 
snch as is made bj the new moon, which in consequence of 
it was mad.e a type of the ark. At the disappearance of Osiris, 
icar a^avuTfiov 'Oo-tptSo^, which they styled the interment of 
the deity, the Egyptians constructed by way of memorial a 
remarkable machine called Aapvaxa firfvoeiBrj, an ark in the 
shape of a crescent or new moon, in which the image of 
Osiris was for a time concealed (Plut. di3 Isid.) 

Isis, lo, and Ino were the same as Juno, and Venus was 
the same deity under a difiTerent title. Juno was the same 
as lonah, and the Iris, or rainbow, was her concomitant. 
Homer says (Iliad, A'. ver..27) ; — 

'Ipiaaiv ioiKore^f uq re YLporiunr 
*ViV vi^ki ffrfjpt^if TtpaQ fitponiav kvBpwnwv, 

And again (H. F. ver. 547} : — 

'HvTt TTOp^pvpiriv Jpiv BvifTOiai ravvtray 
Zct^ l^ ovpavoBhVy ripaq tfifiivaif 

while in a hymn to Selene, ascribed to Homer, the Iris is 
spoken of as being placed in the heavens as a token, 

Tic/iu/p dk ftptfoiQ Kai triifia rirvKrai, 



Verse 7. 



FINGLISH raAXPLATIOX 


HEBREW TKXT 


And . . 


1 
I 

1 i. •" • • • 


God 


ALEIM 


made . 


"i6gh . . , 




AT . . . 


the firmament 


ERQIO 


and divided . 


UIBIDL . 




BIN . . . 


the waters . 


EMIM . 


which were . 


AChR . . . 1 
MTET . 


under . 


the firmament 


LR(ilO 


from the 


UBIN . . . ' 


waters . 


EMIM . 


which were . 


AChR . . . 1 


above . 


MOL . 


the firmament 


LRQiO . ' . 


and it was . 


UIEI . 


oO* • • ซ 


CN . 

1 



FECnKT MRAXIN'Q 



Thus 

the Gods 

made 

that which constitutes indivi- 
duality, the nature 

of the thing spread out ; 

and they caused a separation 
to exist 

by the abode, by the occupa- 
tion of the spot 

of the waters 

which are 

under 

as regards space 

and by the abode, by the occu- 
pation of the spot 

of the waters 

which are 

above 

as regards space, 

and it was done 

so. 



F 2 



08 



MANKIND: THEIB 



Space, BQlO, not being a vacunm but a material 
spread out, as it were in thin layers, Moses oou] 
was even compelled to say, ATEBQiO, the substan 
that which constitutes it. 



Vebsb 8. 



MSQian TBAKSXATIOir 

i 




SKIBR MHA 


And 


U- . . . 


Then 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


. called . 


-IQRA 


exclaimed 


1 the firmament 


LRQlO 


for space 
HEAVEN! 


Heaven 


ChMIM 
UIEI . 


and • • t 


and there was ere 


the evening . 


Orb . 


a twilight, a ps 
light to darknef 


and 


TTTEI . 


and afterwards 
created 


the morning . 


BQR . 


a dawn, a zenewal 


were the second . 


ChNI . 
JOUM . 


SECOND 


day. 


DAY. 



Vebsb 9. 



BirOIISH TRANSLATION 



And 

God . 

said 

Let the waters 

under . 

the heaven . 



be gathered toge- 
ther 
imto 

one t • • 
place • 

and let the dry 
land 

appear . 

and it was . 

so. • . . 



HKBBXW TJULT 






u- . 

ALEIM 
-lAMR 
EMIM. 
MTET. 
EghMIM 

IQOVOU 

AL . 
AED . 
MQOUM 



UEIBghE . 



TRAE. 
UIEI . 
CN . 



And 

the Gods 

said 

These waters 

under, which are 

the heavens, th< 

tions 
will tend directly 

meet in it 
towards 
a single 
spot fixed upoi 

meeting 
and of droughty or 

duced by the f 

internal fire 
the appearance sh 
and it was done 
so. 







Jie iuU may be Wnie with rhcm. 

ln-ir faces shall look one lo another. 

Eio.lrXXVc.ป-La 141820 



Il 



., ^'.t;c. I ;>•?-* 



FROM PHIL/E 




Tfioii shall iJsn inakr :\ Tulili- ol' sliiHini wood, two vuliils shall be 
(lie iffi^rh thcicol , and it it the lipfia.dlh ihtTCof, and a cubit 
;.[kI a hiiir Ok- lifijihl iIhtooI", And ihdu slia.ll niiiki- ihe slaves 

if shiilini wood _ili;.t the tahlc niav l)c l)<>im' with rhem. 

.bill thou shah mukt' the bowl tliPivof. 

r.j^d.^.XXV. V. 23.28, 2'3- 




I 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



69 



Vebue 10. 



BMQLBH TRAHHT^ATinK 




aSORXT MSAKDrO 


• 

And 




U- . . . 


Then 


God . 




ALEIM 


the Gods 


called . 




-IQRA 


exclaimed 


the dry landป 
earth . 




UBChE . 
ARft . 


for the aridity, for the drought 
EARTH ! 


and the gathering 


ULMQOVE. 


and for the spot fixed upon for 


together 






the meeting 


of the waters 




EMIM. 


of the waters 


called he 




QRA . 


they exclaimed 


BeaSa 




IMIM . 


SEAS! 


and 




U- . . . 


Then 


God . 




ALEIM 


the Gods 


saw 




-IRA . 


looked attentively at it 


that li^ was . 




CI . . . 


because it was 


good. . 




ThOUB 


beautiful. 

? 



We have here the repose of JEOVE, the Supreme God, 
who is the origin of all action, though He does not appear : 
we have the Aleim acting for JEOYE, publishing his word 
and creating or giving names to all things; and we have 
ROVE, the air, the spirit of the gods, the divine breath, the 
air which animates, which spreads life around, the spirit 
which descends and hovers over created beings, and which 
incubates and renders them fertile. 



Vebse 11. 



SSTGUBH TBAXBLATIOVS 




BECaXr ICSAKIKO 


And . . 


U- . . . 


And 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


said 


-lAMR 


said 


Let the earth bring 
forth 


TDghA 


there shall be made to grow 


EARTx 


from the white earth, from 






the terrestrial soil, 


grass • 


DghA . 


a dwarf vegetation which can 
be trodden under foot. 


the herb 


O^hB • • . 


a plant of more consequence 

and near maturity 
causing to be sowea around it 


yielding • 


MZRlO 


seed 


ZRO . 


a seed, 


and the fruit-tree • 


OTz . 


the strong and woody sub- 


1 




stance 



MANKIND : TIIEIR 



Verse 1 1 — continued. 



EXGI.IHU TKAXSULTION 


HIIBREW TEXT 

1 
1 


BBCIUCr XK4NIKO 




FRI . . . 


of fruit, 


yielding 
I fruit 


OChE . 
FRI . 


making perfect 
fruit 


1 after his kind 


LMINOU . 


after his kind 


, whose . 


AChR . 


whose 


seed 


ZROOU 


seed 


is in itself 


BOU . 


is in itself 


] upon 


OL . . . 


above, raised above 


; the earth, 


EARTz 


the white earth, the ground, 


and it was . 


UIEI . 


and it was done 


80. . . . 


CN . . . 


so. 




Verse 12. 


? 


1 

ESQLWH TilAXSLATION 


HEBIiKW TEXT 


UBCBET MKAKIKQ 


And the earth 


UTOUTzA . 


Then they caused to arise sud- 


brought forth 




denly and full of strength 




EARTz 


out of the white earth, out of 
the ground 


grass . 


DChA . 


a dwarf vegetation 


? and herb 

1 


OghB . 


a full-grown plant near ma- 


1 

1 

' yielding 


MRZiO 


turity 
sowing around it 


i seed 


zrO . 


seed 


; after his kind, 


LMINEOU . 


after his kind ; 


i and the tree . 


UOTz . 


and the woody substance 


1 yielding 


OChE . 


yielding 


; fruit 


PhRI . 


fruit 


1 whose . 


AChR . 
ZR()OU 


whose 


; seed 


seed 


; ica8 in itself . 


BOU . . . 


is in itself 


' after his kind; 


LMINEOU . 


after his kind, * 


and 


U- . . . 


then 


God . . . 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


saw 


-IRA . 


considered U 


that it was . 


CI . . . 


1 because it was 


good. . 


ThOUB 


beautiful. 



Here we have the earth producing spontaneously alimen- 
tary plants and fruit trees. The sun, which is about to 
appear did not rise for the first time on a barren earth. It 
is to be remarked also, that Moses makes no mention of any 
plants but what arc necessary for the suppoi-t of animals or 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



71 



men* The wild plants and trees were not necessary to them 
m a state of nature. O^hB signifies the plants useful to 
man, and on which he expends labour. 



Vekse 13. 



EKGUBU TRANSLATION 


HEBBSW TEXT 


BSCBVr MSANZMQ 


And 

the eTPniDg . 

and 

the morning . 

were the third 

day. 


UIEI . 

Okb . 

UIEI . 
BQR . 
ChriiChl . 
JOUAI 


And there was created 

a twilight 

then there was created 

a dawn 

THIRD 

DAY. 



Verse 14. 



ESGUSH TRAKSLATIOK 


HERBKW TEXT 


sbchkt mjcakiko 


And • • • 


u- . . . 


Then . 


God . . . 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


said 


-lAMR 


said 


•• Let there be . 


lEI . . . 


There shall be made 


! lights . 


MART 


starry lights 


1 in the firmament . 


BRQiO 


in the space 


of heaven 


EghMIM . 


of the heavens, of the constel- 
lations 
to separate 


to divide • 


LEBDIL . 




BIN . . . 


between the time of remaining 


the day 
from the 


EIOUM 


of the day 


UBIN . 


and between the time of re- 






maining of the 


night: . 


ELILE 


absence of day, of the night, 
also they shall be 


and let them be . 


UEIOU 


for signs 


LATT. 


for signs relating to future 

things 
and for the fixed seasons of 


and for seasons 


ulmouOdim . 






relinous festivals and as- 
semolies, 


1 




: and for days . 


ULIMIM . 


and for the number of days 
which make a year 


and for years. 


UghNIxM . 


and/or the repetitions of years. 



The latter part of this verse is an addition made by the 
priesthood to justify the practice of religious ceremonies, for 
as no animal whatever existed as yet, and man had not 



72 



MANKIND : THEIR 



sinned, there could be no occasion for the institation of 
sacrifices destined to conciliate an angry Grod. 



Vbbsb 15. 



KNOLIRH TBAOTLATIOK 


HKBBKW TEXT 


BKBKT msAimro 


And let them be . 

for lights 

in the firmament . 
of the heaven 

to give light . 

upon the 
earth . 
and it waa . 

80. • . 


UIEOU 

LMAOURT . 

BRQiO 
EghMIM . 

LEAIR 

6l . . . 

EART* 

UIEI . 

CN . . . 


And they shall be, they shall 

be also 
for luminous bodiea, for starry 

lights 
in the space 
of heaven, of the constellations 

of heaven 
to cause the light of dawn to 

move 
above the 
earth 

and it took place 
so. 



Verse 16. 



KKOUSH TBAVSLATION 



And 
God . 
made . 
two 

great . 

lights . 

the greater 

light . 

to rule . 

the day 

and 

the lesser 

light . 

to rule . 

the night 

Tie made the stars 

also. . • • 



HSBIUEW TEXT 



U- 

ALEIM 

-lOCh 

GhNI . 

AT 

EGDLIM 



EMART 

AT 

EGDL .' 

EMAOUR 

LMMGhLT 

EIOUM 

UAT . 

EQThN 

EMAOUR 

LMMGhLT 

ELILE 

ECOUgBIM 

UAT . 



BXCBKT lOLLKINO 



Thus 

the Forces, the Gods 

made 

a double 

substance 

superior in size and in excel- 
lence 

of starry lights, of stars 

the substance 

tchich was the greater 

of the luminous starry bodies 

to represent the rule, the reign 

of the day 

and the substance 

of the lesser 

luminous starry body 

to represent the rule, the reign 

of night 

of the stars, dim and almost 
extinct lights, 

he made the substance also. 



ORIGIN AND DESTDHT. 



73 



17. 



i 


KMMKMW nar 


-c„.ซ™ 


And 

God . 

set . . . 

them 

in the firmament . 

of the heaven 

to give light • 

npon . • • 
the earth. 

1 


U- . . . 

ALKI^r 

-ITN . 

ATM . 

BRQiO 

EChMIM . 

LEAIB . 

Ol . . . 
EABTz 


And 

the Gods 

establiahed, gave 

theae sahrtances 

in the space 

of the constellatinnii of heaven 

to make the lig^ of dawn 

move, or ahintt 
above 
the earth, 



la 



And to rule 

over the day 

and over the night . 

and to divide 

the light 

from • • • 

the darkneas . 

and 

God 

saw 

that it was • 

good. • • 



ULMQhL 

BIOUM 
UBULE 
L-LEBDIL 
BIN . 
EAOUB 
UBIN . 

EEQhC 

U- . 
ALEIM 
-IBA . 
CI 
ThOUB 






And to be the sjmbols, tha 
representatives of Hnmini^ff i 
daring the daj 
and during the night, 
and to separate 
between the time of remaining 
of the light of the dawn 
and between the time of 



of the com p r e ssive dariaiess 

which causes hindninoei 
then 
the Gods 

looked attentivelj at it 
becanse it was 
beaatifuL 



The words AOUB and E^hC reappear in this place to 
carry our thonglits back to the first day, when the initiated 
person saw the earth in the pyramidal or tomb-like form, and 
the extinct beings of the ancient world, like the yet onformed 
being of the new world, compressed by the darlmess. These 
words remind him that all the germs of life wonld have been 
destroyed and stifled by this compression if the soft breath 
of the Grods had not warmed the seed-bearing element, 
and if they had not rendered it fertile by their Iotc. 



74 



MANKIND : THEIR 



Versb 19. 



?KaUSII TRANSLATION 


nSBREW TEXT 


SBCBZr MEAKINO 


And 

the evening . 

and . , 

the morning . 

were the fourth 

day. 


UIEI . 

Okb . 

UIEI . 

BQR . . . 

rbiOl 

JOUM . 


And there was created 

a twilight 

then there was created 

a dawn 

FOURTH 

DAY. 



The root of the number four, EB, designates dilatation, 
greatness, extent, force, superiority, majesty, power, multi- 
plicity, &c., &c. : the square and the parallelogram, such as 
the final MIM of the Hebrew language also signify a collec- 
tion, power, plurality, and totality. The symbol has passed 
from the hieroglypMcal to the alphabetical writing ; M or IM 
signifies the plural. The most sublime of creations, that 
which really constitutes the planetary system, and which 
rules over its admirable and boundless disposition, was kept 
back, in order that it might coincide with the power of the 
number Four. The Egyptians, according to Achilles Tatius, 
placed the ^\m fourth in the order of the planets. 

Verse 20. 



ENOLItfU TRANSLATION 


nEBREW TEXT 




And 


U- . . . 


After this 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods, the Amoneans 


siiid 


-LiMR 


said 


I^et the waters 


EMIM . 


The waters 


bring forth abun- 


ighRTzOV . 


shall bring forth abundantly 


dantly 




and able to creep at once 
a numerous brood of reptiles 


the moving crea- 


ghRTz . 


ture 






that hath life. 


NPhCh . 


breath 




EIE . . . 


living, animalised, 

and tnat which flies, the birds 


and fowl 


U60UPh . 


that may fly . 


lOOUPhPh . 


shall bo made to fly with 
strength and fleetness 


above . 


Ol . . . 


above 


the earth 


EARTz . 


the white earth 


in the . 


Ol . . . 


over, above, in 


open 


PhNI . 


the space 


fiVmament . . 


RQl6 . . . 


extended 


of heaven. 


EghMIM . 


of the starry heavens. 



ORIGIX AND DESTINY. 



76 



NPh^tEIE is the living breath, the animalised inspira- 
tion which belongs to the animal, and is the cause of life. 
We call it vital breath, but Moses, or those sacred scribes 
whose teachings he copied, meant by it animated breath, 
life in the being or animal, not the life of the being. It 
signifies a portion of the Universal Soul, of JEOVE,, (for in 
Him we live,) which has entered the created being. If the 
breath be taken away the animal dies, but the breath is 
immortal. The conception of immortality was easy to the 
Egyptians, on account of this belief. This was the origin of 
the doctrine of regeneration, and of the metempsychosis 
or transmigration of souls, the symbol of which in Egypt 
was the Scarabseus, which St. Augustine has adopted to 
signify Christ. " Bonus ille scarabseus mens,*' says he, " non 
e4 tantum de caus& quod unigenitus, quod ipsemet sui auctor 
mortalium speciem induerit, sed quod in hie fsece nostri sese 
volutaverit et ex h&c ipsS. nasci voluerit." 

In Gren. ii 7, the same expression is made use of with 
regard to Adam, and there is, therefore, no distinction in 
Genesis between the soul of men and that of animals. 



Vebse 21. 



KXGLISH TRANSLATION 


HXBREW TEXT . 


8X0BBT MKANUfO. 


And 


U- . . . 


Thus 


God . . . 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


created . 


-TBRA 


carred; formed by carving like 
a sculptor 




AT . . . 


the substance 


great . 


EGDLIM . 


of those which are superior in 


whales . . . ETNINM . 


size 
of the gigantic reptiles 


and . . . ! U- 


and 


every . . . CL . . . 


every 




-AT . . . 


substance, individuality 


living creature 


NPh^h . 

.ฃฃIjbj • • . 


breath 




of that which is animalised, or 






causes life 


that moveth . 


ERMChT . 


that moveth 


which . 


AChR . 


which 


the waters brought 


ghRTzOU . 


they had produced^ creeping; in 


forth abundantly 




abundance, and suddenly 




EMTM . 


from the waters, from the seed- 
bearing element 
for their kind. 


after their kind. 


LMINEM . 



76 



MANKIND : THEIR 



VsBSE 21 — contmued. 



SNGUBH TRAKBLATIOK 


BXBREir TKXT 




And • ซ • 


u- . . . 


And 


every . 


CL . . . 


every 




-AT . . . 


substance, individuality 


winged fowl • 


OOUPh 


flying thing, 




CNRi . 


with wings 
after his kind. 


after his kind. 


LMINEOU . 


And • • • 


U- . . . 


Then 


Ood 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


saw 


-IRA . 


looked attentively at it 


that it woM • 


CI . . . 


because it wm 


good. 


ThOUB. 


beautifuL 



TNN, TNIN, signifies a dragon, a whale, a serpent, and a 
crocodile. ^^ The great TNIM (dragon) that lieth in the 
midst of his rivers/' Ezek. zxix. 3. ^^ Thou art as a TNIM 
in the seas/' xxxii. 2. 

VSBSB 22. 



XXGUSH TRAN8LATX0K 


HEBREW TEXT 


SBCBET MEAMOrO 


And • • • 


u- . . . 


And 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods, the Amoneans 


blessed . 


-IBRO 


bent their kneea, knelt down 
in order to bless, blessed. — 
^fMibent their knees in order 
to bless them 


them . • 


ATM . 


the substance, these individu- 
alities 


saying . 


LAMR. 


by reason of the act of saying. 


be fruitful 


PhROU 


by saying,* 
be fruitfiu, propagate your 


and multiply . 


URBOU 


and quadruple yourselves, oo- 
cupy the four quarters, 
develope, multiply your^ 
selves 

and fill 


and fill . 


UMLAOU . 




AT . . . 


the substance 


the waters . 


EMDf . 


of the waters 


in the seas . 


BIMIM 


in the seas 


and let fowl . 


UEOOUPh . 


as to the fowl 


multiply 


IRB . . . 


it shall quadruple itself 


in the earth. . 


BARTz 


on the earth. 



* L-AMR, propter eloquium, propter sermonem. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY, 



77 



TJ-IBRC in this verse signifies et genuflectere fecit or feeerunty 
and indicates a sacred ceremony, a religions act, and the 
presence of spectators who are made to fall on their knees to 
receive the blessing which is abont to be given — not the fish 
and birds, which would be absurd. The double meaning of the 
Hebrew word, to fiedl on one's knees in order to bless, or to 
cause persons to ฃEdl on their knees iu order to bless them, 
shows that long before the time of Moses blessings were given 
and received kneeling. 



VSBSE 23. 



KXOLBH TBAXSUkTIOK 






And 

the evening . 

and 

the morning . 

were the fifth 

day. 


UlEl . 

Orb . 

UIEI . 

BQR . . . 

EMIChI 

JOUM . 


And there was created 
a twilight 

then there was created 
a dawn 

hivni 

DAY. 



Vebse 24. 



nailBB niXBLATION 


HBBBXWTKXT 


sBCBrr MXABnro 


And . . . 


U- . . . 


And 


God 


ALEIM 


UieGods 


said 


-lAMR- 


said 


Lettheetfth 


EARTa 


From the white earth 


bring forth • 


TOUTaA . 


there shall issue suddenly and 
with strength 


the living 


KIK . 


a living, animalised 


creature. 


NPhCh . 
LMINE 


breath 


after his kind 


for the species 


cattle . 


BEME ... 


quadruped^ 


and creeping thing 


URMgh 


and the being which moves 

fi.e. on land or in water] 
and the animal life of it 


and beast 


UEITOU . 


of the earth . 


ARTi . 


terrestrial, proceeding from the 
white ei^th 


after his kind 


LMIXE 


for his kind 


audit was 


UIEI . . . 


and it was done 


80. • . . 


CN . . . 


so. 



78 



MANKIND: THEIR 



Vebsb 25. 



KKOUBH TRANBLATIOKT 


HE8BBW TE2CT 


8KCRST MKANIKO 


And 


u- . . . 


Thus 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


made 


-lOCh . 


made 




AT . . . 


: a substance; an individuality 


the beast 


EIT . . . 


animal 


of the earth . 


K ARTz . 


of the white earth, proceeding 
from the white earth 


after his kind 


LMINE 


ac<;ording to his kind 


and 


UAT . 


and the substance, the indivi- 
duality 


cattle . 


EBEME 


of the quadruped 


after their kind 


LMINE 


according to his kind 


and 


U- . . . 


and 


everything . 


CL . . . 


all 




-AT . 


substAnce, individuality 


that creepeth 


RMCh . 
EADME 


that moves 


upon the earth 


of red earth, of Adamic earth 






(so called because man is 






the head of this class of 






animals), proceeding from 
the red earth 






after his kind. 


LMINEOU . 


according to his kind. 


And . . . j 


U- . . . 


Then 


God . 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


saw 


-IRA . 


regarded it 


that it was 


CI . . ., 


because it xom 


good. 


ThOUB 


beautiful. 



There are traces here of a general classification of animals 
according to the nature or colour of the vital fluid found in 
them, viz., the animals with white blood formed out of white 
earth, and those with red blood out of red earth. 



Verse 26. 



RXOUSH TRANSULTION 



And 

God . 

said 

Let us make 

man 

in our image 



HEBREW TEXT 



ALEIM 
-lAMR 
NOChE 
ADM . 



CDMOUTNOU 



SBCKET MEANINO 



Then 

the Gods 

said 

We will make 

the Adamite being, the human 

race, the people 
of similar tnought, of similar 

intelligence with ourselves 



OBIGIN AND DESTINY. 



79 



Vebse 26 — continued. 



1 

KNQLISH TRANSLATION 


HฃBBBW TKXT 


mCBET UKANINO 


! and let them have 


UIRDOU . 


and they shall extend their 


1 dominion 




dominion; they shall preside 
over 


oyer the fish . 


BDGT . 


the fish 


1 of the sea 


EIM . . . 


of the sea 


and over the fowl . 


UBOOUPh . 


and over the hird 


of the air 


EChMIM . 


of the heavens 


1 and over the cattle 


UBBEME . 


and over the quadruped 


and over all • 


UBCL . 


and over the whole 


' the earth 


EARTz 


of the white earth 


' and over every 


UBCL . 


and over the whole of 


1 creeping thing 


fiRMCh 


the heings that move 


that creepeth 


ERMgh 


of the heings that move inces- 
santly 


upon 


6l . . . 


above, on the upper surface 
of the white eartn. 


'?< the earth. 


EARTz 



ULKD-OU is here in the plural though ADM is in the 
singular, because it is not ADAM, the collective expression 
for man, who speaks of himself, but the ALEIM who speak 
of the Adamite beings. Cabalistic mysticism explains this 
plural number by the transmigration of souls, for it sees in 
ADM:— 

A.— ADaM, 

D.— DaViD, 

M.— the MeSSIAH, 

All three of which have had one and the same soul. 

BTzLMNOU CDMOTJTNOU means, like us in form and 
understanding, in shape and in thought. The word TzLM 
signifies an image or design taken from the shadow of a body. 
Moses considers man as the shadow of God, or rather of the 
Gods, and consequently as obliged to follow these luminous 
or starry deities. Matter, according to him, coexists with 
the Gods, and therefore these deities necessarily act upon it 
and follow it everywhere, just as their light necessarily iUu- 
minates it and contends for it against the empire of darkness. 
He also considers the Gods, or the God who is the Gods, as 
bound to man in the same way as a shadow is to a body, and 
this is why Grod requires the love and trust of man, which 
otherwise would be unnecessary to Him. 



80 * MANKIND: THEIR 

This is why those covenants are made which are apparently 
so unequal as between God and man, and this is why the 
Prophecies and the Psalms so often speak of the protecting 
and salutary shadow of the Deity, and of his wings under the 
shadow of which man will find security. This is what the 
Egyptian artists symbolically represented by the winged 
globe, which was always carved over the entrance to the 
temples. This symbol seemed to cover with its protecting 
shadow the faithftil who entered the temple to offer the homage 
of their love to God. 

Man therefore, being formed after the shadow of the Gk)ds, 
is in some sort that shadow itself, and has a share in the 
Divine attributes, that is, in thought, in a reasoning soul, 
resolution, the act of reasoning, and the power of creating 
ruling, and governing, as his name, purposely formed from 
DaM and E-DaM, indicates. He could not deny God therefore 
without denying himself, offend Him without injuring himself, 
or curse Him without the curse falling upon himself, and 
separating him from God by death. " Curse God and die,'* 
says Job's wife, foolishly, but consistently. This mode of 
explaining the procreation of a being by another being who 
resembled him had become almost proverbial, and it is a 
great error to use it so as to give to man an almost divine 
origin. The same expression is used in chap. v. 3 : "And 
Adam • • • begat a son in his own likeness, after his image ; 
and called his name Seth.^' 

In the dramatic representation of the creation of man in 
the mysteries, the Aleim were represented by men who, when 
sculpturing the form of an Adamite being, of a man, traced 
the outline of it on their own shadow, or modelled it on their 
own shadow traced on the wall. This is how the art of 
drawing originated in Egypt, and the hieroglyphic figures 
carved on the Egyptian monuments have so litlJe relief that 
they still resemble a shadow. Pliny says (L xxx v. c. iiL) : 
" all the ancients are agreed that what gave rise to ihป art of 
drawing was a simple sketch accurately traced on the shadow 
of a man. This lineal drawing, or drawing with an engraved 
outline, was invented either by Philocles an Egyptian, or by 
Clecmihes a Corinthian,^* At Ombos and Medinet-Aboo may 
still be seen figures traced in this manner, and which are 
merely sketched in red paint on the outlines thus furnished. 

It is strange to find Pliny mentioning a Greek name. 



OKIGIN AND DESTINY. 



81 



Philocles, at a period much anterior to that at which Psam- 
metichus brought the first Greeks to Egypt. But Philocles is 
a compound word, signifying " he who loves — renown, glory." 
These words in Hebrew are E^hQ-^hM. But the Hebrew 
words have another meaning also. QhM is the name of signs, 
of celestial signs and symbols, and it frequently signifies a 
starry sky, a celestial planisphere. The word E^hQ has the 
meaning of ^^ he who unites, who binds together, and that 
in circidar bands." The word E^hQ-^hM therefore means 
*' he who unites in a circle, or upon a circular band, — the 
figured signs of the sky," in a word, " the artist who carves 
the celestial planispheres." When the Egyptians translated 
these words for their conquerors or for the Greeks under 
Psammetichus they chose the first meaning as the easiest to 
translate into Greek, and at the same time as that which best 
concealed the secret meaning of the Hebrew phrase. The 
word Clean-thes is only a variation of Philo-cles — and means 
also ^^ the artificer of glory, of that which causes glory and 
renown." These two names therefore are not to be taken 
literally, but as an allegorical translation of two words which 
had relation to the art of hierography in Egypt. 

Verse 27. 



ETOUSH TRAVBULTIOX 




BXCRIST MBANIKO 


So .... 


U- . . . 


And 


God 


ATiETM 


the Gods 


created . 


-IBRA . 


carved, sculptured, made by 




AT . . . 


sculpturing 

the substance, the individu- 
ality^, the figured si^, the 
ENS, the representation 

of the Adamic oeing, of man 








EADM . 


in hu own image . 


BTzLMOU . 


after their shadow 


in the image . 


BTzLM . 


in the shadow, on the shadow 


of God . 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


created He . 


BRA . 


they carved, engraved, formed, 
made by sculpturing 


him • • 


ATOU . 


the substance, the individu- 
ality, the figured sign of him 


male 


ZiOxv . • . 


male 


and female . 


UNQBE 


1 and female 


created He • 


BxCA • • • 


they carved, formed, made by 
j sculpturing 


them. • • • 


ATM . 


the substance, the individu- 
ality, the ENS of them. 



G 



• 



82 MANKIND : THEIR 

That is, they gave him the two sexes, for the Gods of 
Moses, like the Supreme God who ruled them, were andro- 
gynous. 

The subsequent statement that Eve was formed out of one 
of Adam's ribs after he had been placed in the garden of 
Eden, and had giren names to the cattle, &c., is hopelessly 
irreconcilable with the statement " male and female created 
they them ; '* HDI nnpDi. The Talmudists, however, settle all 
these difficulties by assuring us that they are above human 
reason and judgment, and that they may not even be 
meditated upon, inn irsrh niK^ i\ l^ซn (Treatise Jouma). 

The secret meaning of the word BEA brings us to the 
Hindu traditions, the first of which had reference to the 
creation of the world by God, or by secondary deities whom 
God had commissioned to create it, and the second of which 
referred to the creation of man in an androgynous form. 
These traditions were anterior to Moses, and had spread 
among all ancient nations. 

The first tradition is found in one of the sacred books of 
the Hindus, in which Yichnu speaks as follows to Brama, 
or Brouma, the Creating Being : " O Brama, my dear son, 
I grant you my favour, and give you the power of creating 
the universe : I keep the universe and all lives concealed in 
my bosom; I command you to create them, or rather to 
develope them." Here we must remark the name of 6BA- 
ma, the creator of the world, and its connection with BRA, 
to create, to form, to reform, to renew ; and with A-BRAM, 
the reformer, the renewer of the ancient worship. 

The second tradition referred to the androgynous nature 
of man. The Scythians assigned the two sexes to the 
Deity, and this idea gave rise to the belief that man being 
formed in the image of the gods, united in himself in the be- 
ginning the two sexes. The Greeks took from it their idea 
of androgyns, a species of hermaphrodites which existed at 
the creation of the world. This idea was widely diffased in 
Asia. In the temple of Bolus at Babylon, androgynous 
figures were represented on the walls with two heads, one a 
male and the other a female head. 

This explains Plato's idea that the mutual inclination of 
the two sexes is owing to their wish to form again the single 
being which they were before they were separated from each 
other. 



ORIGIN AND DBSTIXY. 83 

Yidjaraiiya, in his paraphrase of XTpanishads, has, as his 
first selection, the foorth article (brdhmada) of the third 
lecture of the Vrihad ara^yara. It is descriptive of Viraj 
(the primeval and universal manifested being), and begins 
thus: — 

" This [variety of forms] was before [the production of a 
body], soul, bearing a human shape. Next, looking round, 
that [primeval being] saw nothing but himself, and he first 
said * I am L' Therefore his name was ' I,' and thence, 
even now, when called, [a man] first answers ^ it is 1,' and 
then declares any other name which appertains to him. 

" Since he, being anteriq?: to, all this [which seeks supre- 
macy] did not consume by fire all sinful [obstacles to his 
own supremacy], therefore does the man who knows this 
[truth] overcome him who seeks to be before him. 

" He felt dread ; and, therefore, man fears, when alone. 
But he reflected, ^ Since nothing exists besides myself, why 
should I fear?' Thus his terror departed from him: for 
what should he dread, since fear must be of another? 

^^He felt not delight; and, therefore, man delights not 
when alone. He wished [the existence of] another; and 
instantly he became such as is man and woman in mutual 
embrace. He caused this, his own self, to fall in twain, and 
thus became a husband and a wife. Therefore was this 
[body so separated,] as it were an imperfect moiety of him- 
self: for so Yajuyawaleya has pronounced it. This blank, 
therefore, is completed by woman. He approached her, and 
thence were human beings produced." 

The androgynous beings of Babylon and Greece were 
barren : they had neither parents nor descendants of the 
same species as themselves. This sterility, this silence of 
nature, was represented by sleep. According to Sanchonia- 
thon, all intelligent animals were created in a state of sleep, 
which was only broken by the rolling of thunder, when they 
began to move. This tradition is derived from those pre- 
served by Taut or Thot. In the next chapter of Genesis we 
shall see that, according to the literal meaning, God after 
having created man an androgynous being, causes a deep 
sleep to fall upon him that he may take the woman out of 
one of his sides, and thus separate the two sexes. It was 
taught in primitive cosmogony that the human race was 

o 2 



84 



MANKIND : THEIK 



derived from the race of androgynous beings, but that the 
latter then disappeared from the face of the earth. 





Vkrse 28. 




KNOUIH TRAN8LATI0H 


HSBBEW TKXT 


BBORBT URAXntQ 


And . . • 


U- . . . 


Then 


God 


ALEM 


the Gods 


blessed . 


-TRRC . 


knelt and caused to kneel in 
order to bless it 


them. • t • 


ATM . 


the individuality, the substance 
of them. 


And • 


U- . • . 


And 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


said 


-lAMR 


said 


unto them 


LEM . 


unto them 


Be firuitful 


PhROU 


Be fruitful 


and multiplj . 


URBOD 


and quadruple yourselTea, ex- 
tend yourselves over the 
four quarters of the earth, 
multiply 


and replenish 


UMLAOU . 


and replenish 
the substance 




AT . . . 


the earth 


EARTz . 


of the earth 


and subdue it 


UCBghE . 


and make of it your footstool, 
make yourselves masters of it 


and have dominion 


URDOU 


and cause your power to de- 
scend, extend your dominion 


over the fish . 


BDGT . 


over the fish 


of the sea 


EIM . 


of the sea 


and over the fowl . 


UBOOUPh . 


and over the birds 


of the air 


EChMIM . 


of the heavens 


and over every 


•UBCL . 


and over all 


living thing . 


ETE . 


animal life, Hfe 


that moveth . 


ERMCht . 


of the being that moves 


upon 


Ol . . . 


on the surface 


the earth. 


EARTz 


of the earth. 



The same life is given to all animated beings, the same 
senses, the same wants, and the same passions or conditions 
arising out of those wants. But immortality is not given to 
any being; on the contrary, food is about to be given to 
them to sustain life. Without food both they and man 
would have died. The blessing, too, is the same for all, 
although man is destined to have dominion over the earth. 
The forcible expression of the Hebrew text, "Make the earth 
your footstool,'* gave the initiated person to understand that 
man has not been created in order to live like other animals, 
but is . susceptible of moral education and of progress, and 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



86 



conseqnently of intellectual superiority over beings like him- 
self, which is to be acquired by the study of nature. 



Verse 29. 



SrOLDH TBAHSULTIOSI 


HIBBKW TEXT 


BXCBXT MVAimro 


And 


u- . . . 


And 


God . . . 


AT.FJM 


the Gods 


said. 


-lAMR 


.said: 


Behold . 


ENE . 


Behold 


I haTe given . 


N'lTI . 


I have given, I have appointed 


you 


LCM . 


for you 


every 


CL . . . 


every 




AT . . . 


substance which is 


herb 


OChB . 

zr6 . . . 

ZRO . 


a plant in maturity 


bearing seed . 


yielding seed 




yielding seed (i.e. producing 






much seed, and constantly) 


which %i 


AChR . 

6t . . . 

PhNI . 


which is 


upon 
the ฃmป . 


upon 

the surface 


ofaU . 


CL . . . 


entire 


the earth 


E ART* . 


of the earth 


and 


UAT . 


and the substance 


every . 


CL . . . 


entire 


tree 


EOTz . 


of the wood, of the tree 


in the which is 


AChR . 
BOU . 


which has 
in it 


the fruit 


PhRI . 


fruit 


of a tree 


6Tz . . . 


tchich is woody, belonging to a 
woody substance, to a tree 


yielding seed 


zr6 . . . 


yielding seed 




ZRd . 


yielding seed 


to you . 


LCM . 


for you 


it shall be 


JEIE . 


it shall be 


1 for meat. 

1 


LACn.K 


for food. 



The expressions CLAT OQhB, that is, every adult, mature 
plant, producing much seed, and which grows but a small 
height above the ground, shows that eereal plants in general 
and the Dhoura in particular, are here spoken of. It also 
shows that man was supposed to have been created an 
herbivorous animal only. 



80 



MANKINT) : THEIR 







Verse 80. 




EK0U8H TRAN8LATIOH 


HXBRKW TEXT 


BECRKT MSAMINO 


And to every 
beast 

of the earth 
and to every 
fowl 

of the air 
1 and to every 
thing that ere 
upon 
the earth 
wherein there 
is . 

Ufe 

/ have given e 

I 

1 green 
herb 

for meat. 
And it was 
so. 


lepeth 
very . 


ULCL . 
EIT . 
EARTz 
ULCL . 
OOUPII 
EChMIM 
ULCL . 
ROUMCh 

Ol . 

EARTz 
AChR . 
BOU . 
NPhCh . 
EIE . 

CL 
AT 

IRQ . . 

OChB . 
LACLE 
UIEI . 
CN 


— . — — -V 


And for all 

life, animality 

of the earth 

and for everv 

thing that flies 

in the sky 

and for every 

being that moves 

on the surface 

of the earth 

which has 

in itself 

a breath 

which is animalised, made to be 

life 
all 

substance which is 
a green plant, 

a plant in maturity, shall be 
for food. 
And it was done 
so. 



This verse shows us that no carnivorous animals were 
created at first. The priests wished to convey the idea that 
beings intended to devour each other were not created by 
the Supreme Deity, but that the Aleim in executing his 
commands have allowed the imperfection which characterises 
them to appear in their work, which is the origin of EVIL. 



Verse 33. 



SNGLI8H TBANSLATIOX 


HKBRSW TI^JCT 


KEORSr MKAXDCO 


And 


u- . . . 


Then 


God . 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


saw 


-IRA . 


looked at 




AT . . . 


the substance, 


everything . 


CL . . . 


total 


that 


AChR . 


which 


He had made 


OOhE . 


they had made with their 
hnnds 


and behold it was . 


UENE . 


and behold it was 


very 


MAD . 


as much as possible, very 


good. 


ThOUB . 


beautiful. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



87 



VsBSE 33 — continued. 



MXatlSB TBAX8IATI0N 


UEBKKW TEXT 


8KKST IfXAXCrO 


1 

1 

' And 

' the evening . 

and 

the morning . 
> were the sixth 

1 
day. 


Orb . 

UIEI . 

BQR . . . 

Eghghi 

JOUM . 


And there was created 

a twilight 

then there was created 

a dawn 

OF CONTENT, OF INTER- 
NAL JOY, THAT ONE- 
THE SIXTH 

DAY. 



The number six among the Egyptians was a common 
measure, an exact measure, answering to. and complying 
with, the requirements of property and of the artistic pro- 
portions of the monuments, so that the Hebrew word 9^9^* 
six, described inward satisfaction, the being fully persuaded, 
profound and overwhelming conviction. Nomenclature and 
numeration were not at that time, as at the present day, the 
art of numbering, of calculating, but the art of persuading 
and rendering satisfied by unerring calculations. 

The narrative refers distinctly to the senary division, and 
it is an inaccuracy when, in Gen. ii. 2, God is said to have 
finished his work on the seventh day,, and to have rested on 
that day, and several manuscripts have substituted the sixth 
day for the seventh in that verse. 

All the measurements of ancient Egypt are connected with 
the senary and duodecimal scale, and all the measurements 
which have relation to one another starting from the orgya 
(six feet) are divisible by six. Even in the Egyptian figures, 
from the most colossal statues to the smallest bas-relief, the 
proportions are multiples or sub-multiples of the numbers 
six or twelve. The duodenary division has been adopted 
throughout the east. The Greeks took it from the Egyp- 
tians, the Romans from the Greeks, and Europe from the 
Romans. The zodiacal circle has been divided into twelve 
parts from the earliest times. The meaning of this and 
other mystic numbers will be more fully explained subse- 
quently. 



88 



MANKIND: THEIR 



CHAPTER IV. 



GENESIS. 
CHAPTER II. 
Verse 1. 



KKOUSH TBANSL^TIOir 


URBBBW TEXT 


BBCRBT MEATOHa 


Thus were finiahed 

the heavens . 
and the earth 
and all . 
the host of them 


UICLOU . 

EChMIM . 
UEARTz . 
UCL . 
TzBAM 


Then the complete finishing 
was caused to be made 

of the heavens 

and of the earth 

and of the whole 

strategical disposition of their 
constellations 



The word TzBA describes the order of diflferent masses of 
meu composing an army. TzBA EQhMIM signifies the 
army of heaven. The words " host of heaven " — Deut. iv. 19 
and 1 Kings xxii. 19 et seq. — signify not only the constella- 
tions but the ALEIM who maintain them in their courses. 

An expression of Job, cap. xxxviii. 31, " Canst thou bind the 
sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion,'* 
represents the celestial groups as composed of stars bound 
together. There is in this expression an indication of signs, 
of astronomical figures, as in the expression EQOXJT QhMIM, 
the painted or scTilptured representation of the sig^s and 
constellations of heaven. The celestial host is composed of 
those symbolical figures, on which the stars which they guard 
and direct rest in chains. We must remember, that on the 
Egyptian monuments the Gods are always marked by one or 
several stars. In the same way the divine mission of ISO 
(Jesus) could be announced to mankind in no other way 
than by being accompanied or marked by a star. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



80 



Vbbbe 2. 



IXOLUH TUANflLATXOM 




nORKT MJEAinMO 


And 

God . . . 
ended . 
, on th<ป seventh 
day 

his work 

which . 
He had made, 
j and he rested 

on theseventh 

day 

horn all . • 

his work 

which . 
lie had made 

1 


U- 

AT.ETM 
-ICL . 
BIOUM 
EghBlOl 

MLACTOU 

AghR . 
OChE . 
UighBT 

BIOUM 
EgHBldl . 
MCL . 
MLACTOU . 

AghR . 
OghE . 


1 • 
1 • 
1 • 

> • 

> • 

• • 

• • 

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 


And 

the Gods 

completely finished 

on tne day, at the period 

of the number seven, of com- 
pletion, and of the time of 
returning in one's self 

the object of their mission, the 
work which they had been 
made MLACIM for 

which 

they had performed, 

and they returned to their pri- 
mitive condition, leaving off 
their work, resting them- 
selves 

on the day 

of the number seven 

from all 

the object of their mission, 
their work, 

which 

they had performed, finished 
perfectly. 



The Samaritan transcription of the Hebrew text, the 
Septaagint, and the Syriac change the seventh day mto 
ShShl, the sixth day. Bat the number seven is used 
here because it was symbolical of the end. In the narra- 
tive of the Deluge this number is incessantly recurring. 
Lamech, whose life ends at this period, lives 777 years : 
there are seven pairs of clean animals taken into the ark ; 
seven pairs of each kind of birds ; seven days between the 
announcement of the deluge and the descent of the rain ; 
seven days between the first sending of the dove and the 
second ; seven days more before the third sending ; ^e ark 
was entered on the seventeenth day of the second month ; it 
rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month ; Koah 
went out of the ark on the twenty-seventh day of the second 
month; and lastly, Noah commenced his seventh century 
when the deluge subsided, and returned with the newly-born 
world to the point from which he had set out. 



go 



MANKIND : THEIR 



VฃRSฃ 3. 



KKQUBH TRAirSLATION 


BJEBBEW TKXT 


mCRBT MBAKIKO 


And • . 


u- . . . 


Then 


God 


ALEIM 


the Gods 


blessed . 


-IRRC . 


knelt down or caused others to 
kneel, in order to bless 


? 


AT . . . 


that which constitutes 


the seventh . 


JOUM . 


the day 


day 


EghBlOl . 


of the number seven (indi- ; 
eating a new senary pro- > 
gresfiion) 


and sanctified 


UIQDgh 


And they separated it (from 
the senary number) they 
sanctified 


1 V • • • • 


ATOU . 


the essence of it, that which 
constitutes it 


because that . 


01 . . . 


because 


in it . 


BOU . 


in it on that day 


He had rested 


ChBT . 


they returned to their primi- 






tive condition, leaving off 
work and resting themselves 


from all 


MCL . 


from all 


his work 


MLACTOU . 


their works 


which . 


AChR . 
ALEIM 


which 


God . . . 


the gods 


created . 


BRA . 


had carved, sculptured, 
formed 


and made 


LOghOUT . 


according to the act of work- 
ing. 



Juvenal mentions in his fiffceenth Satire a festival celebrated 
at Tentyris, which he represents as a feast lasting six con- 
secutive days, after which the seventh dawn generally found 
the partakers of it stretched on their beds resting. But the 
inhabitants of Tentyris and Ombos, whom he supposes to be 
neighbours, that he may represent them as engaged in an 
absurd war about a crocodile, were in reality fifty leagues 
apart from each other. The hall, in which the ceremony 
whose jharacter Juvenal has so changed really took place, 
was next in the temples to the library, or place where the 
sacred books were kept. At Thebes this hall contained 
twenty tables surrounded with beds, on which reposed or 
rested the images of deities which, according to the Greeks, 
answered to Jupiter and Juno. To the initiated Egyptian 
this was the androgynous representation of the Deity. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 91 

In Exod. XX. 11 the fact of God haying rested on the 
seventh day is represented as the reason why He blessed it 
and hallowed it. Bnt in Exod. xxiii. 12 a totally different 
reason is given for resting on the seventh day, viz. " that 
thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy hand- 
maid, and the stranger, may be refreshed ; " and the same 
reason is given in Dent. v. 14, ^^ that thy manservant and thy 
maidservant may rest as well as thou.'' 

To attribute to the Deity the division of the year into 
fifty-two weeks of seven days each, making 364 days, or into 
months of twenty-eight days each, leaving sometimes two 
and sometimes three days unreckoned, would be blasphemous* 
This division is of human orig^. Its object was to teach 
the solar system as it was taught in the Egyptian temples 
before and at the time of Moses. It was a wonderful idea 
to make Time an abstract idea, the preserver of astronomi- 
cal knowledge, and shows what able men the priests of 
Egypt were. 

Those priests, those sacred scribes, whom we look upon as 
miserable reprobates, as senseless worshippers of idols and 
animals, were yet able to measure a degree with accuracy, 
and to set the great Pyramid according to the cardinal points 
with more accuracy than Tycho-Brahe could set the observa- 
tory at XJraniburg. 

The exhibition of this system took place in the temples : 
it was symbolically represented by sacred dances. Gebelin 
says that the minuet was the danse oblique of the ancient 
priests of Apollo, performed in their temples. The diagonal 
line and the two parallels described in this dance, were in- 
tended to be symbolical of the zodiac, and the twelve steps 
of which it is composed, were meant for the twelve signs, 
and the months of the year. The dance round the May- 
pole, and the Cotillon, have the same origin. Diodorus tells 
us that Apollo was adored with dances, and in the island of 
lona the god danced all night. The Christians of St. Thomas 
till a very late day celebrated their Christian worship with 
dances and songs. Calmet says, there were dancing girls in 
the temple at Jerusalem. 

No doabt a drama in which the actors were gods, and 
the scene of which was placed in heaven, was enacted with 
all the splendour which the mechanical, musical, physical, 
magical, illusory and pyrotechnical arts in which the Egyp- 



92 MANKIND: THEIR 

tian priests excelled coald lend to it. The sanctification ol 
the seventh day may be understood from the sacredness and 
majesty of such a representation : no ceremony, no symbolic 
or religious exercise could be more august, more solenm, or 
more worthy of the respect of the people. We must re- 
member, too, that by the gods the Egyptians understood the 
starsy because they held that the psychical substance, the 
soul of the gods, ^welt in the stars. 

We may imagine how sublime such a ceremony must have 
been. We can form an idea of those choruses of angels, of 
MLACIM, of celestial substances, which, placed upon the 
bow which JEOVE set in the clouds to re-assure the earth, 
surrounded, like so many fixed constellations, the missionary 
stars (the MtJSAIC or MOSAIC stars), the planets which 
were personified as they were. Then occurred what Job 
states, that " the sons of the gods," the disciples of the gods, 
those who were initiated in the knowledge of the gods, ** came 
to present themselves before the Lord," and the star sent to 
try or to deceive men, the star of devious course which renders 
the earth sad, " came also among them." While the BeNI 
ALEIM, the pupils of the priests, performed their evolutions 
there came from the summit of the rainbow-coloured zones, 
those hymns without words, those sublime songs, of which 
the " Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei " of the Hebrews is but a 
feeble reflection. 

** The heavens declare the glory of God (of the Strong One), 
and the firmament sheweth his handy- work. 

" Day unto day uttereth speech (a wish for the day which 
is to follow), and night unto night sheweth knowledge (an 
instruction for the next night). 

" There is no speech nor language, their voice is not heard. 

^* Their line (the drawing which they have traced) is gone 
out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the 
world." 

The priests sang the vowels only, which were equal in 
number to the planets. 

The allegory of Adam and Eve, and of the fall of man, 
which occupies the remainder of the second chapter of 
Genesis and the whole of the third, is not by the same 
author as the preceding verses. It is, however, of Egyptian 
origin, and probably formed part of the books which Mosea 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 93 

carried awa; with him, or which he initiated. It is treated 
in snch a maimer as to have been capable of being acted in 
the mysteries. 

According to the literal and generally accepted meaning, 
the author explains in very few words the origin of all things 
material and animated, and also the destiny of man, viz : — 
the cultivation of the ground, which supposes society to 
have been founded, and the rights of property to be in 
eziiitence at the time at which the drama commences. But 
according to the secret meaning, it takes man away from 
this state of things and destines him to become initiated, 
to be taught by foreign initiators, the 6B9^^^^> ^^ chief 
ambassadors. 

The author takes man (EPh^h, to strip one-self naJ^,) 
that is, desirous of knowledge (ORE, OTB, to be naked, to 
be full of anxiety and zeal to discover what is hidden, to lay 
baie the truth, and OBM, OBYM, nakedy that is, full of 
ability, sagacity, and prudence). He first makes him follow 
the course of instruction given in the interior of the temples, 
which appears to include the knowledge of the sacred lan- 
guage, the study of created beings, astronomy, &c. He then 
causes him to go through the trials of the temple. The 
drama is acted, in the GeN (GeN ODN, the garden of Eden) 
the garden, the sacred wood of one of these temples. It is 
performed by Gymnosophists, or naked wise men, that is, men 
who have in them all the natural qualities of mind which 
constituted the perfect initiated person. Afterwards we shall 
see this GEN, this garden, this paradise, changed into a 
GEN, into an inferior supreme tribunal, that is, ad corpus, in 
seculo isto. This is the Gehenna of fire in St. Matthew 
and St. Mark. 

This subject being connected with initiation, the period to 
which it belongs is the seventh^ which brings the secret 
meaning a long way from the origin of the world. In the 
chronological- career, which symbolised the progress of the 
human race by individuals, the seventh period falls upon 
Enoch, the initiated one, and initiation. It is this coincidence 
probably which caused this poem to be placed after the three 
verses which speak of the sanctification of the number seven, 
and of that of the seventh cosmogonic period. 

In the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis are two genea- 
logies, apparently distinct, but really the same. The names 



94 MANKIND : THEIB 

are disguised by the Masoretic points, but, if the points are 
taken away, and each name is transcribed, letter by letter, 
the identity becomes evident. The change of order in the 
names has not been made without a reason, which will be 
explained afterwards. 

Chapteb V. Chapter IV. 

APM ADM 

SheT SheT 

AXOUCh ANOUCh 

QINN QIN 

MELLAL MEOUIAL 

IRD 0-IRD 

EXOUC ENOUC 

MTOUChLE MTOUGhAL 

LMC LMC 

These two genealogies are evidently the same, and thus 
disappears the distinction between the sons of Shet, called 
the sons of God, and the descendants of Csdn, the sons of 
man. These forged names and numbers were taught in tlie 
mysteries, but while the author of the fifth chapter (which is 
written by the author of the first) has transmitted them in 
their primitive simplicity, the author of the fourth chapter 
has altered their order. It follows that Adam and Eve, 
the serpent, Cain, Abel, Lamech, &c., are not historical 
characters at all, but are an eastern parable invented for a 
moral and religious purpose. The Sabseans said Adam was 
the apostle of the moon, and that the sky was a deity (Kirch. 
(Edip. vol. i. p. 368, and Selden, de Diis Syriis, p. 327). The 
Chronicle of Alexandria says, that Adam, Eve, her serpent, 
Cain, Seth, &c., were genii, gods, or what the ancients called 
angels. We have seen that the early Fathers of the Church 
interpreted the three first chapters of Genesis allegorically, 
and it is the secret meaning of them alone which we can 
have any concern with. 

The points of difference between the cosmogonic narrative 
of the second chapter of Genesis and that of the firsts accord- 
ing to the received literal interpretation, are as follows : — 

1. In the first cosmogonic narration it is the ALEIM, the 

Gods, who act. 
In the second it is JEOVE ALEIM, the Adoni, the 
Master, the Supreme Head of the Gods. 

2. In the first narrative the earth was covered with water. 



OBIGIX AND DSSTINT. 95 

before the creation. In the second it is drj and 
barren because the Ruler of the Gods has not caused 
it to rain upon it, and a mist arises from it to water 
the ground, merely as a preparatory measure necessary 
to creation. 

3. In the first narrative the plants are created fully de- 

veloped, having their seeds in them, and beaiing their 
fruits. In the second they are made in germ, before 
they grow, and unable to develope themselves for want 
of rain, and because there was no man to cultivate the 
ground. In fact, it is said afterwards that JEOVE 
ALEIM caused the plants to grow after the creation 
of man. 

4. In the first narrative the animals are created before 

man. 
In the second they are not created till after him. 

5. In the first narrative the birds are formed from water. 
In the second they are formed from the earth. 

6. In the first narrative man is created male and female 

by a single fiat, by one act of volition. 
In the second, man is first created, then animals, and 
after the animals, woman. 

7. In the first narrative the ALEIM place man and 

woman at once on the earth in order that they may 
fill it. 
In the second, JEOVE ALEIM places man while he is 
yet alone on a confined spot, which is enclosed (septo 
cinctum), and is called the garden of delight or plea- 
sure, and which is watered by four rivers, and has an 
entrance towards the East. 

8. In the first narrative the ALEIM allow all the fruits of 

the earth to be eaten without any exception. 
In the second JEOVE ALEIM forbids, under penalty of 
death, to eat of the fruit of a tree, called the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil. 

9. In the first narrative the creation is divided into six 

epochs or days. 
In the second no epochs are mentioned. 

10. In the first narrative, which forms part of the second 
chapter, the seventh day is sanctified because God 
rested on it, from his six days* labour. 

In the second, the seventh day is not mentioned at all. 



9(5 



MANKIND : TUEIB 



11. Lastly, in the first narratiye the garden of Eden is not 
mentioned. 
In the second, all the events take place in this garden, 
in which they originate. 
We proceed to examine the remaining portion of the 
second chapter. 

Verse 4. 



SNOUBH TRANSLiLTIOX 


HKBRBW TEXT 


1 

BBCBXT iOXVKQ 


These are 


AIjE 


These things are 


the generations 


TOUT.DOUT 


a summary of facts proceeding 
from, born 


of the heavens 


EghMIM . 


of the signs of the heavens, of j 
the heavens represented by i 


and of the earth 


UEARTz . 


olgllS 1 

and of the white and barren 
earth still uncultivated 


when they were 


BEBRAM . 


after they had been nuide, 


created 




carved, sculptured 


in the day 
that the liord 


BIOUM 


at the period, day, 


JEOVE 


that the Supreme Head 


God 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


made 


OghOUT . 


worked at, made and appro- 
priated to his thoughts 


the earth 


ARTz . 


a white and arid earth 


and the heavens. . 


UghMIM . 


and the stellar signs, tbe 


? 




heavens. 



O^hOUT signifies a manual operation, carried on accord- 
ing to a previously conceived idea, or model. 

JEOVE ALEIM, the Adoni, the Euler of the Gods, is like 
the ancient Euder, the Ruling God, and like Brahma or 
Bacchus, the wavro&vvdoTrjs. He unites in Himself all the 
Eorces, all the Powers : according to Orpheus, who was a pupil 
of the Egyptian priests, he is the God composed of all the 
Gods together. 



ORIGIN AXD DESTIXY. 



9; 



Vebse 5. 



BfOIlSH TBAVSLATEOir 


HXBBSW TBXT 


SLcairr urastsq 


; And every • • 


UCL . 


Then every, anif 


plant 


ChlE . . . 
EghDE 


gift, present, product 

of all-powerful, full-breasted. 


1 of the field . 






vegetative Nature, of the 






country^ of the fields 


before it 


ThRM . 


not yet 


was • 


lEIE . 


is made, or will be made to 






exist 


in the earth . 


BARTz 


on the white, and arid earth, 
which was without culture. 


and every 


UCL . 


Then every, any 


herb 


OChB . 
KGhDE 


full-grown herb near maturity 
of the all-powerful, full- 


of the field . 






breasted, terrestrial ISIS, of 






the fieldn, of the country 


before • • 


ThRM . 


not vet 


it grew . 


ITitME 


shall bud, grow, be made to 
bud, to grow, to be produced 


for ... 


CI . . . 


because 


the Lord 


JEOVE 


the Adoni, the Ruler 


God 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


had not . 


LA . . . 


not 


; caused it to rain . 


EMThIR . 


had caused it to rain 


i upon 


Ol . . . 


upon, on the surface 

of the white and arid earth. 


? the earth 


FARTz 


i And 


U- . . . 


And there is 


. there was not 


AIN . 


no 


! aman • 


ADM . 


Adamic being (endowed with 
the power of thought) 


totill' . 


lobd . 


to worship, serve, honour by 






worshipping, cultivate 




AT . . . 


the substance 


1 the ground. . 


EADME 


of the Adamic earth, of the 


\ 
I 




red earth. 



E^hDE, E-ShiDE, ex iShiDE, from the terrestrial ISIS. 
Isis was the emblem among the Egyptians of the fertile earth. 
The period of the production of shoots, and of the first ap- 
pearance of plants at the winter solstice, was that of the 
delving of Isis : it is that of the creation and of the birth 
of ISO, Hebr. V^ isOy to save. The appearance of man in 
order to cultivate the earth, and cause the plants to sprout, 
coincides in this verse vrith the birth of Horus, the return of 
the Sun to the upper hemisphere. Afterwards Horus having 
become man under the energetic emblem of Harpocrates, 

H 



08 MANKIND: THEIR 

corresponds to the extatic condition of the Adamic being 
mentioned in the twenty-first verse. The word QhDE or 
ShiDE refers then to the remembrance, nay more, to the 
presence, of the symbol of the terrestrial ISIS, (whose name 
SiDE signifies also breast, hence the full-breasted, she who 
nourishes, SiDE, the fields which produce food for man, and 
ISIS the all-powerful, the full-breasted, the symbol of all 
these meanings, as represented in the engraving,) and of the 
earth burnt up by the fires of Osiris, and rendered fertile by 
the waters of heaven, or of the Nile. 

In order that the barren condition in which the earth is 
presented to us by the writers may cease, three things are 
necessary. 

1st. Heat. 

2nd. Moisture, water. 

3rd. Man, and the cultivation which he bestows upon it, 
or cultivation. 

In the next verse these conditions begin to be fulfilled. A 
hot atmosphere will regenerate the waters of heaven, and 
become the cause of a general rain : the earth will no longer 
be called ARTz, that is, the accursed, the barren; it will be 
called ADME, similar to SDI or SiDI, SiyDia, the good, the 
compassionate Goddess ; to SiDE, Nature, the terrestrial 
ISIS, the country rendered fertile by the worship, and the 
love of Osiris, who has left the tomb, who has risen again 
after the overflow of the Nile, towards the winter solstice. The 
word Aleim supposes a considerable number of Gods, of divine 
but subordinate Intelligences. The word is doubly plural. 
Ale is plural in both genders, because the deities are of 
both sexes, and the termination IM adds to this indeter- 
minate number THESE, its tenfold strength, which leaves 
the mind to imagine an infinite number. To the Gods have 
succeeded the angels, whose number cannot be counted. 
Daniel, cap. vii. 9, 10, says that the Ancient of Days is 
ministered unto by thousands of angels, and that ten thousand 
millions stand in his presence. St. John, Rev. v. 11, reckons 
millions of millions, and thousands of thousands of them. 
Christ, Matt. xxvi. 63, who only enumerates a portion of 
them, speaks of twelve legions, or more than seventy-two 
thousand, &c. 



ORIGIN AND DESTIXT. 



99 



Verse 6. 



KKOLUB THAN SULTIOM 



BXBBXVTKXT 



Bat 

there went up 

from 
the earth 

ft misty . 
and watered 
the whole 

sor&oe • 

of the grounds 



U- 
lOLE . 

. MN . 

EARTa. 



-AD . 
UEChQF 
CL . 
AT 
PhNI . 

EADME 



BBOBsr MXAxnro 



• 



Now 

they will cause to risei there 

shall he made rising 
out of 
the white earth, rocky, and 

without cultivation, 
a misty and burning vapour, 
and there shall be a watering 
o/all 

the substance 
of the four angles, the four 

comers of the surface 
of theAdamic, cultivable and 

productive ground. 



The word AD conveys the idea of an atmospheric ignition, 
which being generally accompanied by rains, AD has come to 
signify mist, sonrce, fountain. 



Verse 7. 



ISGLISH nUVBlATIOV 


HKBRKWTUrr 


SBCRXT lOAVDrO 


And . • 


u- . . . 


Then 


the Lord 


JEOVE 


the Adoni, the Ruler 


God . . . 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


formed • 


-iiTzR 


caused to be cut, carved, mo- 
delled, represented, drawn. 




AT . . . 


the individuality, the form, 
the represented sign 






' man • • 


EADM . 


of the Adamic, of the 
human 


of the dust . 


6PhR . 


race, seed 


of . . • 

1 


MN . . . 


out of, a portion of, coming 
from, extracted from 


. the ground . 

i 


EADME 


the Adamic earth, the rich and 

productive ground 
and he caused to inspire^ to 


and breathed . 


UIPhE 






breathe 


1 into his nostrils 


BAPhlOU . 


bv his nostrils 


the breath 


NghMT 


abreathing, inspiring and ex- 
piring movements 
of double, continuous, uiilimi- 


, of life. . 


EiiM . 


1 




1 ted life : of a life of happi- 






1 ness and health. 


1 And he became 


EUU . 


1 And it was 


j a soul . 


LNPhCh 


for a breath 


living . 


EIE . 


animalised, made life, 




EADM . 


of the Adamic beinjf. 



H 2 



5mj29 



100 



MANKIND : THEIR 



The word OPhB does not mean dnst.^ Its radical mean- 
ing is to volatilise a substance, to sublimate it. It is not 
intended to make man lower than the animals by represent- 
ing him as being made out of mud, but to set forth the 
Adamic being as the shadow of the Deity, partaking conse- 
quently of the Divine nature, and involving the impossibility 
of man's existing at all if the Deity did not exist. When the 
word occurs again in Numb, xxiii. 10, ซ Who can count the 
dust,'* OPhR, " of Jacob," it evidently signifies the seminal 
dust, the division, the race proceeding from this seminal 
dost. The Septoagint translates OFHB bj the word aperm-a. 



r 



VSBSS 8. 



nrOLUH TRAKSLATIOK 


HKBBKW TEXT 


BECRBT HEJLKINO 


And 


u- . . . 


Now 


the Lord 


JEOVE 


the Adoni, the Ruler 


God 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


planted . 


IThO . 


had caused to be planted 
in a lasting manner, with 
care 


a garden 


GN . . . 


(palmetum) a spot planted 
with pfdm-trees; a spot 
enclosed and planted with 
trees, serving for an asylum 
and for protection^ a sacred 
wood 


eastward 


MQDM . 


on the east side, set accord- 
ing to the cardinal points, 
oriental 


in Eden . 


bOdn . 


for the synagogue, for the 
religious assembly, where 
instruction is giyen by the 
reading of the law, and of 
the doctrine 


and He put . 


UighM . 


and He caused to be erected, 
raised, placed 


there 


ChM . 

AL • • • 


there 




the representatiye substimce, 






the representatiye indiyidu- 
ality 
of the Adamic, thinking, in- 
telligent, deliberating, being 


the man . . 


EADM . 






whom • 


AQhR . 


whom 


He had formed. 


ITzR . 


He had caused to be sculptured, ! 
modelled. 



B-ODE-EN, for, in — the religious assembly — relating to 
the understanding of the holy doctrine, to prayer, to g^^aee. 




?,-h<- rtll-(.owerful aii.l [\ill \n-<-^ 
Th" I ??[?r.-slial ISIS 



f- 



I 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 101 

to mercy. ODN is a word which has been formed by a 
succession of prophetic lucubrations. It is derived from 
ODE, synagogue, religious assembly, and from EN, prayer, 
grace, mercy, which is modified from EN, which denotes 
abundance, intellectual wealth, reason, wisdom, intelligence, 
happiness, and the pleasure which is the result of them. 
This word has been made to signify a place. The Targum 
of Onkelos translates the Hebrew word in loco voluptatisj the 
Vulgate voluptatia only. 

We must now suppose ourselves in one of the great 
Egyptian temples, consecrated to Isis, as is evident from the 
use of the word Side, the all-powerful, the fuU-breasted, the 
beautiful, the good, the benevolent one. 

The temples were either made to face the four cardinal 
points, or turned towards the Nile. A large court led to the 
temple properly so called, round which were covered galleries 
which served for shelter. This court was on the east side of 
the temple ; when the latter faced the cardinal points, its 
entrance was to the east, and it was surrounded and enclosed 
by a wall. The interior of the court, as Herodotus informs 
OS, was often ornamented with plantations,, which consisted 
of palm-trees and a few fruit-trees. The word GeN in the 
text conveys the same idea ;^ in Arabic GN-E has more espe- 
cially preserved this meaning, which is a palmetum,. a place 
planted with palms, and a garden planted with vines and 
trees. The k^ pZa, signifying wonder, miracle, had the mystic 
meaning of wisdom, and as it was the name of the palm- 
tree, the tree ever-^rcen, supposed to be everlasting, or to 
renew itself for ever from its roots, the favourite tree of the 
East, and the blessing of the desert, it was symbolically 
said to be carried before Jesus Christ, in the procession to 
the temple, as the emblem of everlasting wisdom. The use 
of the word GN to denote what we call the terrestrial 
paradise compels us to give it the meaning of sacred 
grove. In Isaiah Ixv. 3, "A people . . . that sacrificeth 
in gardens," B-GN-OXJT, is explained by the Targum to 
mean " in the gardens of idols," and Schindler observes 
that formerly gardens were consecrated to the worship of 
idols. 

One of the bas-reliefs of the grottoes of Elethyia repre- 
sents the plan of a temple as shown in the engravings. The 
court in front of it is ornamented by two obelisks. In 



102 



MANKIND: THEIR 



tliis court are seen trees of different species and an 
avenue of palm-trees ; there is also a large square basin of 
water, which is divided on each of its four sides into four 
parts. 

It was in the sacred woods belonging to the temple and in 
the court that the people used to assemble and form a sjna- 
gogue to celebrate the sacred festivab, to honour Grod, and 
to receive religious instruction. The garden described in 
Genesis was also planted B-ODN, B-ODE-EN, that is, for 
the religious and solemn assemblies in which the people 
heard the sacred books read, and received the wisdom, the 
grace, and the mercy of JEOVE (ODT JEOVE). 

The court was planted with palm-trees because it was the 
practice to write upon their leaves. They were used for this 
purpose in the remotest antiquity : it was on palm-leaves 
that Brouma, the Creator of the world, acting for Buder the 
supreme God, wrote his four books or Vedams. Strabo, in 
his description of these courts, tells us that they wei*e divided 
into four parts. The garden of Eden was abo divided in the 
same manner by four streams, the names of which have a 
meaning. Those streams flow from a single river or basin, 
like the one in the plan found at Elethyia. 

The meaning of the verse is that frequenting the temples, 
attending assiduously to religious duties and to the iDstruc- 
tion which forms part of them, and which is given by the 
reading of the sacred books, is put forward as the principle of 
true temporal happiness. It is in this course that man ought 
to be placed, offered up from his birth to be kept from danger, 
in allusion to the practice of presenting the first-bom in the 
temples to the Deity. 



Verse 9. 



KNGUSH TRAKSLATIOH 


HXBSEW TBXT 


UCBST MKATrnro 


And 

the Lord 

God 

made to grow 

1 


U- . . . 

JEOVE 
ALEIM 
ITzME . 


Then, afterwards 

the Adoni. the Ruler 

of the Goos 

caused to be made to grow, 
sprout: ordered that there 
should be caused to grow, 
shine^ appear, ' 




s? 






n 






1-. 






^ 






5 

^ 






r ^ 






^' o 


^ 




^. 






^ 


*m* 




s 


0/ 




0^ 


-s 




tf} 






C0 


Cm 
o 




a> 






-s 


?^ 




0/ 


Cfl 




^ 






C/ 






i 


 


r^ 
^ 




-tS 


 


CO 


•% 


rS 


g 




*-^ 




n 


U-4 


g 


i 

•• 


o 




O 


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^ 


•q 




ง 






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rS 


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o 


rS 




4^ 


?s 




c: 








c^' 




1^ 


o 

H 




^s 


ป^ 






"E- 




l; 


-li: 




^M^ 


^^ 




4-) 


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ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



103 



VsRSS d— -continued. 



XXOUSH TtLAXBLLTiaS 




8ECBET MXANINO 


out of • 

i 

i 

' the ground . 
' eTery . 
tree 

i 

' that is pleasant 
to the Bight . 

and good 
for food . 
the tree also . 

! of life . 

in the midst . 
of the garden 

and the tree . 
; of knowledge . 
of good . 
and eviL 


MN . . . 

EADME 

i^i-j • * • 

OTz . . . 

NEMD . 
TiMRAE 

L'ThOUB . 
LMACL 
UOTz . 

EEHM . 

BTOIIC 
EGN . 

UOTz . 
EDOT . 
ThOUB . 
URO . 


an extracted preparation, a 

nourishment prepared, esta- 

hlished, and proceeding 
out of the Adamic earth 
all, every 
wood, table, tree : pillar, table 

of advice and instruction 
made to inspire an ardent wish 
to the sight, to the moral or 

physicid perception 
good also 
for food 
and a trunk, a pillar, a table 

of advice and instruction 
of the double life, relating to 

happiness and health 
m the midst 
of the palm-wood of the sacred 

garoen or grove 
also a table, a column 
of divination^ of knowledge 
good 
and evil. 



The word MN reminds us of MNI or MeNI, the Egyptian 
Taut, the inventor of all sciences, or whose name all the 
sciences bear. The profane name of Moses was MYNNIS, 
MENIS. "Nomen Mosis interpretatum ex lingu& ^gyptifl. 
in Hebrseam, nam ejus ^gyptiacum nomen erat MoNIos ; 
sicque scriptum est in libro de Agricultura, verso ex ^gyptio 
sermone in Arabicum ; sic etiam in Grsecorum libris." 

The tree of knowledge was a pillar covered with instruc- 
tions. Achilles Tatius says : '^ It is said that the Egyptians 
were the first to measure the heavens and the earth, and 
that they wrote their discoveries on pillars (ii; an^Xais), in 
order to hand them down to posterity." The practice of 
engraving laws, instruction, and advice on the trunks of 
trees gave rise to the fable of the speaking oaks at Dodona, 
which oracle originally came from Egypt. The tree of life 
means the preservation of life by moral means, in the same 
way as it is preserved therapeutically or by physical means. 

Death in a moral sense, in the sense in which it was 



104 HANIUND: THEIB 

understood by the initiated, was oblivion, absolute and com- 
plete oblivion. This was why the names of great criminals 
were not allowed to be mentioned, and why Moses and 
Joshua forbad the people to mention any God but JEOVE by 
name. This also is why Adam and Eve do not die in the 
sense usually attached to that word, but die a moral death, 
being exiled from the sacred garden, and from the tree 
of life. 

In the Indian Paradise from which the Ganges flows, that 
river which Josephus, St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, and St. 
Jerome have taken for the river Pison of Genesis, there 
existed a miraculous tree, the fruit of which would have con- 
ferred immortality if it had been permitted to be eaten. 

• 

The pillars or trunks planted in the garden of knowledge 
were divided into four classes. 

1. The columns or tables relating to such sciences and fine 
arts as pleased the sight : OTz NEMD LMEAE. 

2. The columns or tables relating to the arts and profes- 
sions useful for the food of man : OTz ThOTJB LMALC. 

3. The columns or tables relating to the arts useful for the 
prolongation of life ; medicine and piety : OTz EEIIM. 

4. The columns or tables relating to the speculative 
sciences, to divination applied to morality, or to the laws : 
OTz EDOT ThOUB URO. 

We have then : — 

1. The sciences and the arts. 

2. Economical science, agriculture. 

3. The art of healing, all that relates to human life ; con- 
sequently medicine, which was part of the sacred knowledge. 

4. Legislation and the moral principles of society. 

In the following verses these four branches of instruction 
are treated of as follows : — 

1. Agricultural instruction. 

2. Religious and hygienic instruction. 

3. Instruction in history and the arts. 

4. Instruction in legislation and the power of the king. 



OBIGIN AND DESTINY. 



106 



VSBSS 10. 



?arausH tbasblatioh 




IBCBSr MIAHZBO 


And ft liver . 

went out 
of Eden . 
to water 

the garden . 

and from thence . 
it was parted . 
and became . 
into four 
heads. • 


UNER . 
IT7.A . 

mOdn . 

LEGhQOUT . 
AT . . . 

EQN . 

UMChM 
IPhRD . 
URTE . 

larbOe . 

RAghTNf . 


And an illumination of the 
mind; a teaching, an efflu- 
vium, an effusion of know- 
ledge 

was proceeding from^ going 
out of 

the synaffogue^ the religious 
assembly 

to cause to spread everywhere 

the substance, that which be- 
longs to 

the sacred wood, the o^arden 
planted with trees of Know- 
tege and instruction 

when it is out of this place 

it will be divided 

now it shall be, or it is 

for four 

generating principles, branches 
or classes. 



The word NEE, usually translated river, means light, 
light of the understanding, instruction, knowledge and 
memory, memory, for memory is knowledge. It also means 
a rapid flawing, swifb as light, as the memory of the know- 
ledge which one possesses ; when confined to a symbolical 
object or meaning it signifies a rapid and continual stream of 
copious waters, a river. 

The ancient Hebrews called a town of Babylonia in which 
in the time of Ezra there were several celebrated academies 
or colleges of Hebrew literature, NEE DOE or NEE DOA, 
the river of knowledge. Thus from a period before the 
Captivity, and probably at a much more ancient period, 
the idea of instruction spread among men was associated 
in Hebrew with that of intellectual light, illumination of 
the mind, and lastly, of a river. 

The four branches of instruction indicated in the preceding 
verse have their source in the sacerdotal colleges : they 
form a collection of religious instruction given to a whole 
congregation assembled in the great court or the sacred wood 
of the temples, but beyond this enclosure the branches of 
this instruction separate, and become ramified like the 



106 



MANKIND: THEIR 



channels of a river ; they become divided according to thw 
number of the classes which make up society, and spread 
light everywhere through it. 

This sacred wood, this ancient gymnasium, was imitated 
from that of the Gymnosophists of Ethiopia, where Moses 
passed a great part of his life, and where he married. The 
two wives of Moses were both Ethiopians, one being a native 
of Meroe, called Tharbis, and the other of Midian in Arabia, 
called Zipporah. Sippora was a place in Babylonia where 
there was a very famous temple to the solar God, and the 
present name of which is Mooaib. Zippor was a king of Moab. 
The Egyptians themselves derived their reputation for wis- 
dom from Ethiopia, and men who were considered worthy to 
occupy the highest posts in society, and to be made the chiefs, 
the " angles " of the people, were chosen from the sacred 
wood in four different classes. The instruction was based 
on the knowledge of what causes happiness and content in 
human society. The great Greek legislators and philoso- 
phers were usually either initiated themselves or conferred 
with the initiators. 

Veese 11. 



ENOUSH TRANHTJkTION 


BBBREW TEXT 


SBCKET ITEANXNO 


The name 


ChM . 
EAED . 


The sign^ the symbolic name 


of the first 


of the first 


is Pison . 


PhighOUN . 


is the ANCIENT PART, the 
angle of solidness and exist- 
ence 


that is it 


EOVA . 


it is the stone 


which compasseth . 


ESBB . 


of that which surrounds, pro- 
tects, produces 


the whole 


CL . . . 


all 




AT . . . 


the substance 


land 


ARTz . 


terrestrial 


of Hayilah . 


EEOVTI.E . 


of the agricultural production 


where there is 


AChR . 

ghM . 


which is 




the sign, the place (the sign 






indicating the place) 


gold. • 


EZEB . 


of gold, of possessions, of 
wealth. 



In the literal sense Pison is believed to be synonymous 
with the Blue Nile. K we decompose the word Phl^hOUN, 
we find in it PhE or PhAE, PHE, which signifies the ex- 



OBIGIN AND DฃSTINY 



107 



tremity, the side, a part, one of the four angles, a comer, 
and a chief, for by angles the Hebrews, like the modem 
Swiss, meant the chiefs. For this reason Peter is called 
the comer-stone of the church, that is, the head. 

The second part of the word Ph-ighOUN is ighOTJN. 
This word signifies ancient, old ; it represents the substance, 
that which is, that which serves for aid, that which is solid, 
and serves as a foundation or basis. FHI^hOUN, therefore, 
is the ancient angle, the portion, the ancient part, the essen- 
tial and fundamental angle of society. 

EOVILE signifies wealth acquired by manual and agri- 
cultural labour. But it also alludes to the symbol known 
as the Phoenix, and it is from agricultural labour, from this 
annual and continual new birth that gold and wealth in 
general proceed. 



Vebse 12. 





HXBBEVr TBXT 


KECBXr niNIHO 


And the gold 


UZEB . 


And the gold, but the gold 


of that land • 


EARTz 


of the earth 




EEOVA 


there 


is good . 


ThOUB 


is good, worthy to he regarded^ 
lovedj abundant, procuring 
prosperity and happiness 


there is . 


QhM . 


it is the sign, the symbolic 
place 


bdellium 


EBDLE 


of separation, of social distinc- 
tion 


and the stone 


UABN . 


and the angtdar stone 


onyx. 


EghEM . 


of power with authority and 
renown, which possesses au- 
thority and renown. 



The tme wealth of nations is derived from agricnltare, 
and thus for the ancient part, or the most ancient social 
class, we have THE AGKICULTURIST, THE PEOPLE, 
and THE ABTISAN. 



108 



MANKIND: THEIR 



Verse 13. 



XHOUSH TRAJTSLATION 


SBBBEW TSZT 


sacBxr UMurxsQ 


And the name 


ughM . 


And the sign, the symbolic 
name 


of the second • 


EChNI . 
ENER . 


of the second 


river 


instruction 


is Gihon 


GIEOUN . 


is the VALLEY OF MERCY. 


the same is it 


EOVA . 


It is the name 


that compasseth . 


ESOUBB . 


of that which surrounda^ pro- 
tects 


the whole 


CL . . . 


all 




AT • . . 


the substance 


land 


ARTz . 


terrestrial 


of Ethiopia . 


cough 


of Chus, where the fire of 
holocausts, of sacriBces. of 
the combustion of offerings 
bums. 

• 



In the literal sense the Gihon is believed to be identical 
with the White Nile, The valley GI, — of mercy, of grace, 
of prayer, EOtJN, is the valley of Egypt, whose inhabitants 
originally dwelling in Ethiopia, had brought from that 
country the pi'actice of piety, which caused it to be said 
that Egypt was a temple where the fire of the holocausts 
was offered up for the whole earth. This verse therefore 
gives us the second social class, placed next to the people, to 
which it is necessary and even indispensable, THE PRIEST- 
HOOD, THE SACRIFICING PRIESTS, and SACER- 
DOTAL INSTRUCTION. 

COU-^h indicates the practice of religious worship. It is 

composed of COU, combustion, ignition, and ^h for A^h, 

which means not only fire in the abstract, but the igneous, 

burnt substance, the offerings, the fire of the holocausts and 

sacrifices. 

Verse 14. 



KKOLIBH TRA278ULTXOK 


HEBREW TEXT 


BBCBBT HSAirraro 


And the name 

of the third ' 

river 

is Hiddekel . 


UChM . 
EGhLighl . 
ENER . 
EDQL . 


And the sign^the symbolic name 

of the third 

instruction 

is THE LANGUAGE WITH 
A DOUBLE MKANINQ 
ENGRAVED ON THE 
MONUMENTS. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



109 



Vebse 14 — contmuid. 



KNOMflR TBAXILATIOX 




SICRVr MKAKINO 


that 18 it which 


EOVA . 


It is the name 


goeth 


xlEiLC • . • 


of that which leads, of that 






which causes to go, of that 
which guides 


toward the east of 


QDMT . . 


to ancient times, to anterior, 
primitive times 


Aasjiia. 


AghOUR . 


of perfection, of happiness, of 
content. 


And • 


U- . . . 


And (the bign, the symholic 
name) 


the fourth 


ERBIOI 


of the fourth 


riTer 


ENER . 


instruction, 


it . 


EOVA . 


that is 


Euphrates 


PhRT . 


THE POWER OF THE 
PHARAOH, THE PHA- 
RAONATE. 



The class, the social rank, of which the word EDQL is the 
sign or symbolic name, is the class of sacred scribes, of the 
interpreters of the sacred knowledge, it is the name also 
of the initiators of the learned men, who were generally 
called JAMBBES in the sanctuaries, and out of the temple 
Thot, or Dod (David), Hermes, and interpreters. 

The class whode symbolic name is PhBT is that of the 
grandees of the State, of the military and royal orders, of 
the government in general, and the science which particularly 
belongs to it is that of politics, or the art of governing. 

PhET, pronounced PRaT or PEoT, is the name of the 
second Egyptian king before Cheops, to whom Herodotus 
attributes the building of the Grreat Pyramid ; the name is 
PBoTee. PBoT, PhBoT, or PhBd^T is the same name as 
PhRoE, PhaBoE, or Pharaoh, because the letter E which 
terminates that word, often becomes T when it is thus 
placed. 

ED signifies speech, the enigmatic language, the language 
with a double meaning, expressing symbolical, hieroglyphi- 
cal meanings, and Q L means eng^raved, carved, hollowed out 
on metal, wood, or stone. EDQL therefore means speech, 
preaching, instruction cut out or engraved in symbolic or 
hieroglyphical writing on the monuments. 

We learn fix)m Philo, Abulfaragius, Clemens Alexan- 



no MANKIND: THEIB 

drinus, and others, that Moses was taught on this very plan, 
for as soon as he knew how to read, at ten years of age, he 
was taught-^— 

1. Arithmetic and geometry, which latter, as the name 
ysofisrpla indicates, was at that time used, in order to fix the 
limits of the various properties, that the ground might be 
sown after the inundation of the Nile. 

2. He was taught medicine, or the art of hygiene. 

3. He was taught the sacred and philosophic sciences, 
which were written in hieroglyphic characters, and kept 
secret from those who were unworthy of them. 

4. He was taught the military and civil sciences, that is, 
the science of legislation and that which relates to the 
command of armies. 

The Garden of Eden in Genesis is nothing but a sacerdotal 
college, an Ethiopian or Egyptian gymnasium (perhaps both, 
for the words GIEOTJN and COU^h belong, the one to Egypt, 
the other to Ethiopia), in which those who wished to be 
initiated were admitted naJeedy OEOXJMIM, that is, without 
instruction, but intelligent, and quick at discovering the 
secrets of science, not ashamed of their intellectual nakedness, 
of their ignorance, so long as they were unaware of its de- 
gradation, and had not received any instruction, and who 
left these gymnasiums clothed witix knowledge and with 
wisdom. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



Ill 



CHAPTER V. 



0ENE8T8. 
CHAPTER IL 



VZBSE 15. 







SECBXr MXAVIKO 


And . • 
the Lord 
Ood 
took 

the man 

and put him . 
into the garden 
of Eden . ซ 
to dress it 

and to keep it. 


U- . . . 
JEOVE 
ALEIM 
-IQE . 

AT . . . 
EADM . 

UINEEOU . 
BQN . 
ODN . 

l6bde 

ULghMRE . 


Then 

the Adoni, the Huler 

of the Gods 

caused to he hrought, caused 
to he led to seek instruction 

the individuality 

of the Adamic heing (every 
man individually without 
any distinction) 

and caused it to he placed, ad- 
mitted 

into the garden, the sacred 
CTove 

of the synagogue, of the reli- 
gious assembly 

in order to worship, serve, 
honour by worshipping, cul- 
tivate 

and to keep watch over this 
place. 



We have in this verse the origin of the ancient precept of 
initiation, AM TDRChOTJ TMTzAOTJ, which the Pythian 
oracle also proclaimed, T^vpfja-eif idv fi/njcn;*, and which we 
find in the Gospels, ZfJTsi^ Kal 8vpi]r him. 


CNGDOU . 


as his guide, his instructor, 


1 

1 




his revealer. 



The word OZR is masculine, there being no question as yet 
of the distinction of the sexes, and for the same reason 
NGD, he who points out, announces, reveals, instructs, and 
declares, is masculine also. 

It would seem that the idea of the Gymnosophists, or the 
Egyptian initiators, was that man, in an isolated condition, 
left to himself, necessarily inclines to evil, because there is 
nothing to give him light, nothing to instruct him by oppo- 
sition to his views and prejudices by the revelation of what 
really is and ought to be. They considered man, when 
l)laced on the road to perfection, as receiving in the first 
instance the teaching necessary to him to follow the path of 
virtue ; but having near him an overseeing and investigating 
mind he acquires by that means the practice of reason, and 
makes use of that liberty without which he cannot make a 
choice or deserve recompense. 

1 2 



116 



MANKIND: THEIR 



Verse 19. 



BrOUBH TIUIXBLATIOK 


BSBBBW TKTT 


i 


And . . ^ . 


U- , . , 


Then 


the Lord 


JEOVK 


the Adoni, the Ruler 


God • 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


formed . • 


-ITzR 


caused to be carved, modelled^ 
represented, sculptured 


out of . 


MN . . . 


out of a partป an extracted 

part 
of the real earth, of the Adamic 


the ground . 


EADME 






earth, 


every • . • 
beast 


CL • • • 
EIT . . . 


every 

life, living substance 


of the field . 


EghDE 


of the all-powerful, many- 
breasted one, of the terrea- 
trial TsiB, of vegetative 
nature 


and • • • 


U- . . . 


and 


every . 


CL . . . 


every 




-AT . . . 


substance, individuality 


fowl 


60UPh 


that flies 


of the air ; . 


EGhMIM . 
UTRA . 


of the heavens. 


and brought them . 


and he caused them to come, 






he caused a bringing to take 






place 
before, near 


unto 


AL . . . 


Adam . • . 


EADM 


the Adamic being 


lO see t • • 


LRAOUT . 


in a vision, in a show. 


what • • • 


ME . . . 


How 


he would call 


IQRA . 


will he read, name. 


them . • • 


LOU . 


according to his idea, his man- 
ner of seeing P 


and whatsoever 


UCL . 


For every (sign, name) 




AGhR . 


which 


Adam . . . 


EADM . 


this Adamic being, this man 


the living 


EIE . . . 


animalised, living 


creature 


NPhCh 
IQRA . 


breath 


called • 


shall read, shall call out 




LOU . 


for that, for this substance thus 
represented 


that was 


EOVA . 


that iSf it is 


the name thereof. . 


ChMOU 


a sign, a symbol, a name of it. 



NPh^li EIE means animalised breath, a living being. 
These two words would be useless since man has been 
created and endowed with life for a long time, but they are 
inserted here to explain that the initiated Adamic being 
is a real being in the presence of other beings which are 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



117 



only represented, ITzOURIM, symbolical beings, whose 
names he has to read. 

The initiated person is now going throngh what we should 
term a course of natural history and zoology. All created 
beings were represented before him, and defined according to 
their form, their habits and their character. The pontiff or 
head of the sacred college allowed him to make out the 
names, to read them, for that is what the word QBA 
means. This is the real meaning of the passage, for it is 
a palpable absurdity to conceive the Almighty as bringing 
lions, horses, tigers, dogs, birds, &c., &c., and enjoying the 
embarrassment which Adam would have felt in framing new 
names, *' ut videret quid voceret ea ! *' Our languages are in- 
capable of expressing the power, the grandeur of the sacred 
language. Our word lion, for instance, has no meaning at 
all, but LeB, the lion, in Hebrew means the heart, the whole 
heart ; it signifies strength, resolution, courage ; the proud 
courage which mocks and despises ; the fire which animates 
a great mind, which glitters and devours like the blade of a 
sword. The text shows that, according to Moses, or his in- 
structors, language is a human invention, illuminated by a 
superior Intelligence. This Intelligence he usually supposes 
to reside in the sacerdotal colleges, and he applies it to the 
contemplation of the heavens, the abode of the Gods. But 
here alphabetical language is spoken of, and according to 
Moses the first words formed after the invention of it were 
the names of animated beings. 



Verse 20. 



1 


HXBREW TKXT 


8BCRET MKAKIKa 


1 

And 
\ Adam 

gHTB 

{ names 

to all . 

cattle 

and to the fowl 

of the air 
and to every . 


u- . . . 

EADM . 
-IQRA 
ghMOUT . 

luAjLt • • • 

EBEME 
ULOoUPh . 

EChMIM 
ULCL 


And 

this Adamic being 

read, named 

the signs, the astronomical 

characters imitated from the 

celestial signs 
for the whole 
of the quadrupeds 
and for the whole of the flving 

things, and for that wliich 

flies 
in the heavens 
and for the whole 



118 



MANKIND: THEIR 



Verse 20 — continued. 



BNULLSII TRANSLATION 


HEBREW TEXT 


SKCBKT MXANISa 


beast 


EIT . 


life, living substance 


of the . 


EShDE 


of the all-powerful, many- 
breasted one, of the ter- 
restrial Isis, of vegetative 
nature. 


but for Adam 


UIiADM 


And according to the Adamic 
being, of the Adamic nature 
of the human species 


there was not 


LA. 


not 


found 


MTzA . 


did he find 


an help . 
meet for him. 


OZR . 


a strong, an overseeing help 


CNGDOU . 


being as his instructor, bis 


• 




revealer. 



The plural ^tM-OXJT (with the feminine termination) con- 
veys in its secret sense the idea of characters forming a 
name and created by imitating the signs of the heavens. 
We must not forget that Thaut or Hermes, whose scientific 
teaching the Adamic being is now interpreting, invented the 
forms of the letters hy copying the Heavens. 

Verse 21. 



EKOLISH TRAXBLATION 



And 

the Lord 
God . 
caused to fall . 

a deep sleep . 



upon 
Adam . 
and he slept. . 



And He took . 



one 



t . 



HEBREW TEXT 



u- 

JEOVE 
ALEIM 
-IPhL 

TRDME 



6l 

EADM . 
UlIChN 



SECRET MEAKIKO 



UIQE . 



AET . 



Then 

the Adoni, the Ruler 

of the Gods 

caused to be made separately, 
to be particularly marked 

an ecstatic state, an ecstatic 
sleep, a new mode of ex- 
istence 

upon 

this Adamic being, this man, 

for he was changed, he had 
become two beings, was 
changed by age; he had 
come to years of maturity. 

Then He caused to be brought 
by allurement, he led to seek 
instruction 

another {of the game nature, 
LADM), a sister, a fe- 
male relative, an allied per- 
son, an affinity, a person 
associated 1 



OEIGIX AND DESTINV. 



119 



VsBSB 21— continued. 



nOUBH TRAXSLATIOy 




8ICBR' XSAKm O 


of his ribs 

and closed up 

the flesh 
instead thereof. 


MTzLOTIOU 

UISGR . 

BChR . 
TETNE 


following, according to his 
aides, leanings, inclinations 

and He caused to be shut up, 
cancelled 

the sex 

for or by reason of her, or 
under her. 



The word TzLOTIOC means his sides, not his ribs. To 
say that the woman was made from one of Adam's ribs, 
would be inconsistent with ver. 23, in which it is said that the 
woman was made not only from the bones, but from the flesh 
of the man. In the Institutes of Manu it is written, ** Having 
divided his own subsistence, the Mighty Power became half 
male and half female." Brahma is said to have manifested 
himself in a human shape, when one half of his body sprung 
from, the other, which yet experienced no diminution ; and 
out of the severed moiety he framed a woman, denominated 
Ira or Satarupa. After some time, the other half ฉf his 
body sprang from him and became Swayambhuva or Adima. 
From their embrace were born three sons. 

In Gen. i. 27 man is said to be formed after the image of 
God, but God Himself was androgynous. Proclus describes 
Jupiter, in one of the Orphic Hymns, to be both male and 
female, appsvSOrjXwy hermaphroditic, and Bishop Synesius 
adopts this appellation in a Christian hymn. 

Moses gives the real meaning of the word TzLOTIOU in 
Ezod. xxxvii. 27: "And he made two rings of gold for.it 
under the crown thereof, by the two comers of ity OL ChTI 
TzLOTIOU, (which he explains thus,) OL ChNI TzDIOU, 
upon the two sides thereof 

B^hB usurpatur pro verendis utriusque sexus, honestatis 
eausL Gen. xvii. 11, 23 ; Exod. xxviii. 42 ; Lev. xv. 2, 19 ; 
Ezek. xi. 19, xvi. 26, xxiii. 20, xliv. 7, 9, Ac. 

It is impossible to translate the word TzLO, it is so rich 
in meanings relating to initiation. It forms TzLTzL, the 
name of the grasshopper, the symbol of the man who has 
been initiated (HorapoUo 1. II., hieroglyph 49). It has some 



120 



MANKIND : TUEIR 



reference to initiation bj water and fire : it is also the name 
of the grove, of the shadj place in which the initiated found 
shadow and refuge. In fact, protection was designated by 
the shade : " the children of men put their trust under the 
shadow of thy wings," Ps. xxxvi. 7. 

We must remember* that man has been created in the 
shadow (B-TzLM) of the Gods. The expression to draw 
from the sides or ribs of anyone, evidently meant, in the time 
of Moses, to satisfy one's desires, one's love ; to establish 
bonds of relationship. Adam also gave life to Seth by 
drawing him from his shadow, TzLMOU. The meaning of 
this verse then, is that, when man has arrived at a certain 
time of life, his inclination naturally leads him to form 
alliances, to associate himself with an help-mate chosen from 
affection, created in his shadow, who will be attached to him 
as a shadow is to the body which produces it. 

Philo says respecting this account ofthe creation of woman 
from the side of the man, " That is an allegory,'* to prjrbv iwi 
TovTov fivff&Srjs ia7iv. The origin of this allegory is very 
beautiful, and will be given in its proper place. 

In the system of initiation, marriage was to be brought* 
about by the inclination of the man only. The institution 
and the sanctity of marriage were particularly enjoined on 
those initiated persons who were ambassadors or missionaries, 
that is, made Meisi, kings ; MSE, mousaioi or Moses ; MSE, 
Messiahs. Cecrops, one of these ambassadors, who was con- 
temporary with Moses, and entitled the first king of Athens, 
began his reign by instituting and sanctifying marriage. 
This is why he was represented with a double head, one a 
man's and the other a woman's, as can be seen on an 
Athenian coin, and also, why he was called A^t/i^s or Biformis. 

Verse 22. 



EKOUSH TUAXPUinoif 



HEBREW TtTtT 



And 

the I-iord 
God 
made 



ft woman 



U- 

JEOVE 
ALELM 
-IBN , 



SECKET MBA!IC90 



LAChE. 



I 



And 

the Adoni, the Buler 

of the Gods 

caused to he huilt, caused to ' 

conform to the instruction, 

to the teaching 
in order to he a woman, the 

female flame,made suhetance, 

and generatinf? being. 



. , ,. y ^y , ... 



\' • .. 



•?0 



i 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



121 



Vebse 22 — continued. 



; OrOLISH TRAXSLATIOX 

1 


HEBREW TKXT 


SaCBR UKAimSfQ 




AT . . •. 


the individuality 


the rib . 


ETzLO . 


of the side, of the leaning to, 
of the inclination 


which . 


AghR . 


which 


He had taken 


LQE . 


lie had caused to be broughti 
ffained over by allurement, 
brought to seek for instruc- 










tion 


from 


MN . . . 


an extract, a thing proceeding 
from,a balance,an equilibrium 


man 

1 


EADM . 


from the Adamic being, from 
man 


and brought her 


UIBAE 


and Ue caused her to be 
brought, Ue caused her to 
co-habit 


unto 


AL . . . 


opposite to, with 

the Adamic being, the man. 


the man. 


EADM . 



The engraving represents As6 (probably from " asah/' " to 
beget,") placed before the initiated person. 

The existence of society is founded on the sanctity of 
marriage. The object of initiation was the happiness of 
society. Celibacy was forbidden : solitude is not good for 
man, and in the secret meaning of the text it is represented 
as engendering evil. Man requires a desire, an inclination : 
his sides ought to be occupied, fall, weighted, he ought to 
find an equilibrium for his life. This is accomplished by 
means of a wife and the children which are bom of her. 
The inclination of one sex to the other is universal among 
animals, but among mankind it is necessary that the legis- 
lator should concern himself with it, that he should gain 
over, lead and instruct the heart of woman, and form it 
according to this disposition. He must render the choice of 
a wife difficult, and consequently precious and durable, that 
they may not separate like the brutes after being united. 

The spirit of this legislation, founded on oriental customs, 
took no account of the feelings of the woman, which were 
considered as a source of excitement and trouble, EPhOM. 
Woman was a passive being, bom to bring forth children, 
and the author of Genesis appears to have a poor idea of 
her. Throughout the Pentateuch, in fact, woman is almost 
always presented in an unfavourable aspect, and as the author 
or cause of misfortunes. Females are only mentioned by 



122 



mankind: theie 



name when it is indispensable, and when women act it is 
either in some insignificant way, or it is the cause of some 
misfortune, or the originating cause of some bad action. As 
instances, we may take Eve, Sarah, Lot's wife, his daughters, 
Thamar, Rebecca, who induces Jacob to deceive her husband, 
Dinah, Rachel, who steals her father's teraphim and tells him 
an impudent falsehood when he comes to look for them, and 
Potiphar's wife. 

In the text the union of the sexes takes place immediately 
afber the creation of woman. This, however, would not suit the 
theologians, who insist that this union is a consequence of the 
Fall. " Propter peccatum originale inflicta est homini con- 
cupiscentia." Now, as the Fall might never have taken place, 
the creation of two sexes would have been useless, or if God 
foreknew that the Fall would occur, and created woman before- 
hand in consequence, the Fall was inevitable, and was the 
result of an imperfection in the work of Grod. In this case 
no terrestrial tribunal would hold that Adam was guilty. 



VSBSB 23. 



ENOTJAH TIUKSLATIOM 


BXBRKW IXXT 


? 
BSCRKT MKANIKO 


And Adam said 


UIAMR 


Then was uttered, spoken 




EADM . 


by the Adamic being 


this is , 


ZAT , 


this substance, this individu- 
ality, this being 


now • • 


EPhOM 


of excitement, of instigation, 
of impulse, of agitation, of 
injury, of trouble 


bone 


6TzM . 


is a substance, an entity 


of my bone . 
and nesh of . 


M6TzMI . 


of my substance^ of my entity 


UBChR 


and sex 


my flesh 


MBQhRI . 


of my sex 


she 


T.ZAT . 


for this substance, this indi- 
viduality, this being 
shall be called, shall l^ read 


sball be called 


IQRA . 


woman (virago) 


AghE . 


a female flame, made sub- 
stance,and gcneratingbeings, 
a married woman 


because 


CI . . . 


because 


she 


ZAT . 


this substance, this being 


was taken 


LQEE . 


was taken from, gained by se- 
duction, taken, iriade a wife^ 
rendered fruitful 


out of man. • 


MAigh 


from the male flฃime, the 
substantialised and gener- 
ated flame of man. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 123 

OTzMI TJB9I1EI implies a very close degree of relationship, 
snch as brother and sister. The Egyptian priests used to 
sanctify marriages between brothers and sisters in the 
temples, and according to Montesquieu this custom originated 
firom the worship of Isis, in whose temple the drama which 
is now being translated was acted. 

In order to comprehend the expressions male and female 
flame or fire, it is necessary to explain that the elements 
were divided into male and female, as is still the case in 
China, where male and female fire correspond to the colours 
red and reddish, the colours of the Adamic being. ASE, the 
root of A^hE, is the female and generating fire, or woman. 
But ASE, which is pronounced ESE, in Coptic HSE, which 
is read as ISE, and Masoretically as ISE and ISI, produces 
ISI-S or IS-IS, and lastly ISIS. 

ASE means therefore the female fire, fire which has be- 
come substance, or acts upon substance generating the 
Adamic race, producing beings or causing them to be pro- 
duced ; the fiery essence, the igneous feminine entity. This 
word is also written Ast. Its pronunciation EST gives us 
ESTA or VESTA, the goddess of fire. In the Egyptian bas- 
reliefs a goddess is often seen following Ammon, whose flesh is 
painted sometimes red and sometimes yellow. The letters 
which accompany this figure, according to ChampoUion, give 
the word STE or STI, and he cojisiders her to be Vesta. 

In the name of the man, AIS, the name of fire, AS, 
evidently appears ; the letter I, which is in it and modifies it, 
takes away its general application and gives it a particular 
one. The word ADM also agrees in spirit with the word 
AIS, in so far as it describes, not the essence, but the colours 
of fire, redness in general. Here we have the fable of 
Prometheus creating woman and giving life to her by means 
of the celestial or creative fire. For, according to the ancients, 
ISIS, ASE, or ESE was the daughter of Prometheus, who, they 
say, gave her life by stealing fire trom heaven. Now Isis, the 
daughter of Prometheus, is Pandora, the first created woman. 
She is woman created and modelled by an artist-God, after 
the Gods had finished the creation, because she was wanting 
to creation ; she is also the woman whom the Gods had 
forbidden to know good and evil, which knowledge was sym- 
bolically represented by a closed box which she was on no 
account to open. It was woman who, desirous of knowledge. 



124 



MANKIND : THEIR 



and yielding to her curiosity^ caused the human race to be lost. 
ISIS, ISE, or ESE, then, is the ASE, ISE, or ESE of Moses ; 
ISIS, then, is the symbol of woman, and of the woman ASE, 
the type of ISIS i ISIS, therefore, is EVE, and EVE ISIS, 
and we shall see how beautifully all this is connected in the 
original conception of the creation. 

The cosmogonic fable of Pandora is, therefore, the cosmo- 
gonic idea of the Egyptian initiation, in a different dramatic 
form from that which has been transmitted to us by Moses. 



Verse 24 



BNOUSH Tlt^'BLATION 


HEBBKW TXZT 


SBCBXr MSAKINa 


Therefore 


6l . . . 


upon 

a oasis, a foundation, a thing 




CN . . . 






established, made strong in 






a holy, sacerdotal, honour- 






able manner 


a miui . 


Aigh . . . 


the masculine fire, the mamed 
man 


shall leave 


I6ZB , 


shall aid, re-establish, re-make, 
build up again by generating 




AT . . . 


the substance, the individu- 
ality 


his father 


ABIOU 


of his father 


and 


UAT . 


and the substance 


his mother . 


AMOU . 


of his mother (he shall pro- 
create male ana female beings) 






and shall cleave 


UDBQ . 


and he shall cleave with pas- 
sion, amorously 


unto his wife . 


BAghTOU . 


to his female and generating 
fire, to his espous^ wife 


and they shall be . 


UEIOU 


and he shall be 


one , 


AET> . 


one 


flesh. 


LBghR 


as regards sex (he shall have 
only one sex). 



DBQ, arete cohserere, ut, quae cohserent, non facile divelli et 
separari queant, ita adhserere dicitur MAS FCEMIN^, amore 
et fide. 

The latter part of the verse has been distorted to accommo- 
date it to the ordinary meaning. The Samaritan version 
gives us the primitive and rational meaning. It is as 
follows : — 

UEIE, and the man shall be 

MChNIEM, proceeding from these two, 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



125 



LBQhB, as regards sex, 

AED, one, unity. 

That is, he shall be bom of one sex, notwithstanding that 
his parents were of two sexes. This is a natural reflection, 
for man is supposed to have been androgynous, or without sex 
up to this time. Woman was created for the express purpose 
of enabling him to procreate. By her the sexes became dis- 
tinct, and separate : the androgynous being disappears and 
gives place to man properly so caUed, and it is to be observed 
that Moses only makes use of the word AIQh, man, a/W 
the distinction of the sexes and the appearance of AQhE, the 
woman. Up to this time he uses the expression ADaM, the 
Adamic being without distinction of sex, the human race in 
general. 

JEOVE himself (ver. 22) afber having caused a woman to 
be made according to the desire of man as a portion of man 
himself, as a relation, as a sister, AET, instituted marriage, 
brought her Himself to the man, and it is after this that Adam 
says, " This is now bone of my bones," &c. 

Vebse 25. 





UKBKBW TEXT 


SECRET MKANWO 


And they were 
both . 
naked • 

tlie man 
and His wife . 

and were not . 
ashamed. 


UlElOU 
ChNIEM . 
OROUMTM . 

E4DM . 
UAghTOU . 

ULA . 
ITBghghOU 


Now they were 

both 

Gymno- sophists, naked -wise 

ones, full of skill, sagacity, 

and prudence 
this Adamic being 
and the generating flame, and 

his wife 
and did not 
do any thing which might 

cause them to be ashamed. 



OROUM, clear-sighted, discovering the truth, exposing, 
laying bare things hidden in the shade. 

This verse properly belongs to the next chapter, and it is 
BO placed in the Septuagint. The connection is indicated by 
the word OROUM or ORYM, which means Gymnosophists, 
a name given by the ancients to the sages of the temple 
of Meroe, who were of a humane character, according to 
Heliodorus, and whose end was of the most melancholy kind, 
because they had always opposed the progress of despotism. 



126 MANKIND: THEIR 

Philostratus says (Vita ApoU. cap. VI.) that the Gymno- 
Bophists of Ethiopia, who settled near the sources of the Nile, 
descended from the Brahmins of India, having been driven 
thence for the murder of their king. 

Bardisanes Syrus gives this account of the Indians : 
" Among the Indians and Bactrians there are many thousand 
men called Brachmanes (one of the two sects of which the 
Indian Gymnosophists consisted, according to Clemens, lib. 
1. p. 305, the Sarmanse being the other). These, as well 
from the tradition of their fathers as from laws, neither 
worship images nor eat what is animate : they never drink 
wine or beer: they are far from all malignity, attending 
wholly on God.'' Philostratus says that in his time the chief 
of the Brahmins was called Tarch, and Jerome (contra Jovin.) 
says the head of the Gymnosophists was called Buddas. 
Nilus the Egyptian tells ApoUonius Tyaneeus that the Indi 
of all people in the world were the most learned, and that 
the Ethiopians were a colony from them, and resembled them 
greatly. Philostratus says the Indi are the WISEST of all 
mankind. The Ethiopians are a colony from them, and they 
inherit the wisdom of their forefathers. It was the sacred 
island of MERGE, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, which was 
once the fountain whence the learning and science of Egypt 
flowed. Meroe appears to have been a Meru, for its priests 
had the same name, Gymnosophists, as the Indian priests of 
Buddha. This is the name given to the Buddhists by 
Jerome, and also by Clemens Alexandrinus, who says that 
Butta was the institutor of them. The Gymnosophistae 
jEthiopum are mentioned by Hieronymus (Lib. IV. in 
Ezekiel, cap. xiii.), and they extended from the Indus to the 
Ganges, under the name of Ethiopians and Erythrseans. 

The Indian priests were formed into societies, into 
colleges, as recluses. Their religion was that of Ammon 
(Om-man). They worshipped the sun, and their priests were 
called, from the name of the sun, Choru, CJxoriitni Sophitesy 
from which the Greeks made TufjLvo^(Toit 


jPhX . 


for fear lest 


i ye die. . 

1 


! TMTOUN . 


ye be put out, sent away, 
(made AIoSE) be compelled 


1 

1 

4 




to go out, change your place. 



The word PhRI here takes the meaning of the word DOT, 
knowledge, doctrine, of chap. ii. ver. 17. This food there- 
fore which is forbidden, is spiritual food only. 

" Ye shall not cause evil by means of it," that is, " Do not 
make yourselves the cause of evil by divulging it." This 
advice was given in the great temple, for no doubt was per- 
mitted there, the missionary must go to another place to 
make known this knowledge. In fact every apostle, every 
missionary, every man who wishes to establish a new doctrine, 
begins by spreading doubt respecting the doctrine he con- 
tends against : he becomes a disciple of Typhon. Mosaism 
arose out of Doubt respecting Egyptianism, owing to differ- 
ing interpretation of the religious symbols, and Doubt re- 
specting the Mosaic institutes, corrupted by the differing 
interpretations of tradition, gave birth to Christianity. 
Thus the Egyptians used to say that Typhon, by whom 
they meant Moses, having fled from Egypt, had begotten 
Hierosolyma et JudceuSy and in the same way the first 



134 



MANKIND : THEIR 



Christians used to excuse thems3lve8 by saying that the 
Jewish law, the law of Moses, had been disturbed by the 
Evil Spirit : ** Fuit antiquus error," says Suares, ** legem 
Moysi datam fuisse a malo Deo/* 



Veesb 4. 



ENOLIRH TBAVflLATION 


IIRBItEW TEXT 


BBCRKT MKAIONO 


And said 
the sorpent . 

unto 

the woman . 

Ye shall not 
surely . 
die ; • 


UIAMll 
ENEgh 

AL 
EAghE 

ijA. • < • 

MOUT . . 
TMTOUN . 


And the speech 

of him who tries, who tempts, 
and whose symhol is the 
serpent 

opposite to, before 

the woman (the generating 
heat, revealing the future) 

not 

put forth, sent away, 

shall ye be dismissed, shall ye 
be made to change your 
place, shall ye experience 
a change in your life. 



Verse 6. 



SNaiJSH TRANBLATION 



for 
God 
doth know 



that • 
iji the day 

that ye shall eat 

thereof . 

then your eyes shall 
be opened 



and ye shall be 
as Gods . 
knowing 
good . • 
and evil. 



HEBREW TEXT 



CI 

ALEIM 

IDO 






CI 
BIOUM 

ACLCM 

MMNOU 

UNPhQEOU 



OINICM 
UEIITM 
C ALEIM 

idOi . 

ThOUB 
UUO . 



BECRFT MEAinNO 



77ie reason is that 

the Gods 

have the knowledge of good 
and evil, know, foresee 
things; it is because they 
can see the future I 

It is because 

at a certain period, a certain 
day, one day 

ye shall feed, ye shall give 
knowledge to all 

of a part extracted from and 
proceeding from it, 

then shall be opened, shall 
be rendered far-seeing, pene- 
trating 

your eyes ! I 

Then ye shall be 

as Gods 

knowing, foreseeing, divining 

good 

and eviL 



ORIQIX AND DESTIX^'. 136 

roO si^ifies knowing how to doubt, placed between yes 
and no, able to choose, making use of your own free will. 
Pythagoras used to tell his disciples, "Ye shall be as 
immortal gods, inacessible to corruption and to death." 
Eternal life, not death, was the idea associated with the 
serpent. The crowns formed of the asp, or sacred Thermu- 
this, given to sovereigns and divinities, particularly to Isis, 
the goddess of life and healing, symbolised eternal life. 

It is to. be observed that throughout this dialogue the 
name of JEOVE is never once mentioned by the serpent. It 
is the Aleim whom he accuses of being jealous. This dis- 
tinction, however, disappears altogether in the translation. 
The idea of Moses was, that there was a Supreme God to 
whom none of the evil on the earth could be attributed, and 
who was too great for any complaint or prayer to be addressed 
to Him, and that He only acts by means of his agents called 
ALE-IM, the Gods, in the plural and indefinite number, or 
MLAC-IM, ambassadors, or MAM-RIM, voices. These 
Gods, who know both good and evil, are not free fi^m 
passions, from love, anger, and hatred, nor, above all, from 
jealousy. 

The same distinction is even more forcibly kept up in the 
first chapter, where the author clearly points out the diffe- 
rence between this Supreme God (whom, however, he does 
not name) and the Gods who are his agents. He represents 
the latter as stopping at each new period of the creation, 
struck with the beauty, not of their work, but of the superior 
thought which commands and guides them. "And the 
Gods contemplated these things because they were beauti- 
ful;" chap. i. ver. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 31. 

The Talmud (Treatise Schabath, 1. XXTT.) gives the 
Jewish belief on this subject. It says, " The serpent slept 
with Eve, and poisoned her," ซtDnn ni ^^tDni mn ^v cn^ KlB^. 
" Israel got rid of this poison at Mount Sinai, but the people 
who did not obey the law, kept it." 



130 



MANKIND : THEIR 



CHAPTER VI. 



GENESIS. 
CHAPTER III. 



Verse C. 



EX0LI8H TRAXSL.VTION 


HEBnEW TEXT 


BECRET MEANIXG 


And when 


u- . . . 


Then 


the woman . 


EAghE 


this woman, this feminine; and 
generating warmth 


saw 


-TRA 


considered attentively 


that 


CI ... 


that 


the tree 


EOTz . 


this woody suhstance, this table 
this knowledge 


was good 


ThOUB 


u*ii8 good 


for food 


LMACL 


for the intellectual food of all, 
to be divulged 


and that 


UCI . 


and that 


it was 


EOVA . 


it was 


pleasant 


TAOUE 


a limiting symbol, a means of 
limit uig, ruling establishing 
boundaries, restrictions 


to the ejea , 


lOinim 


according to the eyes 


and 


^7 . . 


and that 


a tree . 


EOTz . . 


this woody substance, this 
table of knowledge 


to he desired 


-NEMl) 


was made desirable 


to make otie wise . 


LEghCIL . 


for being guided, directed with 
prudence, with intelligence, 
with discernment 


she took 


UTQE . 


then she took for herself, she 
learnt, rendered fruitful for \ 
herself i 


of the fruit thereof 


MPhRIOU . 


some of the fruit, of the work, 
some part of the knowlcdgt^ 
con tawed in that talfle 


and did eat, . 


UTACL 


and made of it a spiritwtl food, 
communicated the know- 
ledge of it. 


and gave 


riTN . 


Afterwards she gave seme of it, 
she taught it 


also 


GM 


also 



V <••ซ? ?-•-?? 



• t _ .?*ป-??* 



FROM THEBES. 



3UOgUUU OUQOO Q Qi 




Tulit mulic 
deditqiie vi 



fructi. illi. 



. t 






^ 



FROM THEBES. 




TO dixil <|^iiia audisLi 
romedisl i de Ijgno. 



G--nesi. c.IU v. 17. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



137 



Verse 6 — continued. 



O'GLZ^II TRANSLATION 


HEBBEW TBXT 


SBCIIET MEA^XVO 


unto her busbfind . 

t 

i with her 

1 and be did eat 

1 

1 

r 


LAighE 

Ome . 

UIACL 

• 


to her male companion, to the 

masculine and generated 

warmth 
associated with her, joined to 

her, which was with her 
and he made a sptnttsal food of 

it, he made it known, he 

divulged it 



The engravings show two representations of the Tempta- 
tion from the temple of Medinet-Abou, at Thebes. In the 
first a man is seen seated, and a woman, standing; is present- 
ing to him a round fruit. In the second representation, the 
man is taking the woman by the arm in order to draw her 
towards him, and is putting his hand under her chin in 
order to dissuade her. This gesture among the ancients 
was equivalent to soliciting, or praying, in order to over- 
come any given resistance or determination. 

The real meaning of this verse is lost in the received 
translation. The woman, the over-seeing and preserving 
Spirit, created in order to reveal the mysteries of things to 
man (see chap. ii. ver. 18, 20), does not undertake to violate 
this prohibition without reflection. She looks attentively with 
both the bodily and mental eyes, TEA, at the object whose 
importance and real utility is revealed to her. She recog- 
nises the knowledge, the use of which is forbidden in the 
temple, because if they reveal any of it, they will be sent 
away, have to change their place. She makes herself sure 
that this knowledge is good to acquire ; that appreciation 
of the value of things is only possible by its means ; that it 
establishes i^roperty w^ith its limits and its rights ; and that 
in the conduct of life it alone can teach the rules of prudence 
and respond to the desire of man to know what he ought to 
do, and what to avoid doing. It is only after having thus 
considered the subject that she avails herself of the instruc- 
tion oflFered to her, that she gives herself up to the investi- 
gation which was forbidden to her, and that she divulges, 
or renders plain to all, the precious results of it. 



188 



MANKIND : THEIB 



The knowledge which this famous tree imparted related — 

1 . To the instruction of all men^ to the progress of the 
human mind, ThOUB LMACL. 

2. To the establishment of meum and tuumy to civil law, 
to the boundaries of property ; TAOVE LOINIM. 

3. To the moral guidance of man in the social state, to 
wisdom, to prudence, to good conduct during the whole of 
life, NEMD LEghCIL. 

It is evident that the prohibition must have been only for 
a time, and that time the period of trial, for God could not 
have intended to have left man permanently in ignorance of 
what was good and what was evil, which would have left 
him an idiot, and below the animals, which have instinct to 
guide them. But in the latter case, there could have been 
neither prohibition nor trial, so that the prohibition shows 
that there already existed in the heart of man the knowledge 
of good and evil. 

It is evident, however, that the priests, fearing that this 
knowledge might be used against religion, forbad its being 
read either before a certain time or before preUminary 
instructions had been given and convictions formed. To 
divulge it before the proper time was considered as a theft 
committed by the inspiration of Typhon. If it was to be 
made public the moral and religious state of nations rendered 
necessary a modification of the principles and of the dis- 
credited bases of a religion which was about to perish. 



Vbrse 7. 



ENQUSU TRAXBLATIOIV 


HEBREW TEXT 


BXCHKT XKAinNO 


And . • 
the eyes 
were opened . 

of them both, 

and they knew 

that • . • 
naked . 

they toere, 


U- . . . 

OiNI . 
-TPhQENE . 

ghNIEM . 

uidOou . 

CI . . . 
diRMM 

EM . . . 


Then 

the eyes, the mtukion 

were opened, were rendered 
clear-sighted, penetrating 

of them both, a second time, 
doubly 

and they knew, they foresaw, 
they guessed, 

because, for, 

clear-siffhteo, revealing hurt- 
ful things^ made to inspire 
fear 

toere they. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



139 



Vebss 7 — continued. 



1 STGIJHH TBAX8LATION 

1 


BEBIUEW TEXT 


1 
BECBET KEAXtSQ \ 


and they sewed 


UlTPhROU . 


Thus they caused to grow, 
they produced in them- 
selves 


leaves . 


Ol^ . 


a cause, a subject, an occasion, 
a thought 


(of) fig . 


TANE . 


tchich was sad, of sadness, of 
grief. 


and made 


UlOghOU . 


Thus they made, brought 




• 


about, 


themselTOR . 


LEM . 


for themselves, in themselves 


aprons. • 


EGRT . 


a development of confusion, 
an access of virtue minglea 










^ith fear, remorse. 



The meaning of the word OiNI is that the first effect pro- 
duced in man by the knowledge of good and evil was intuition, 
the dear vision of JEOVE in the GN, or garden of the 
temple, the abode of the Aleim, that this intuition, this more 
perfect vision of the greatness and power of JEOVE has 
struck him with fear, and that having become able to reason, 
he has taken refuge in the trees of doubt, in order to re- 
assume himself. See the following verses, 8, 9, and 10. 

The literal meaning of this verse, as usually understood, is 
revoltingly absurd. It may, however, refer to the practice in 
the ancient mysteries of the initiated person being naked 
with the exception of an apron. The secret meaning is 
admirably philosophical. "A species of intuition opened 
their eyes, and they acquired a double power of vision," which 
means that man, who is originally bom with the instincts 
common to animals, receives by knowledge, and by the appre- 
hension of evil and his reasonable desires for good, a new 
power of vision, clear-sightedness, the comprehension of 
things, and almost the power of divination, OYN. He reasons 
on the power of JEOVE, becomes timid, and takes refuge in 
doubt. 

Man's clear-sighted reason and intellect raise him above 
all other created beings, but as they make him acquainted 
with evil they produce in him doubts of what is good, fear, 
and melancholy. While man and woman were yet uncon- 
scious of good or of evil, that is, before they knew that it was 



140 



MAXKIXD : THEIR 



jwssible to doubt, and consequently to fear, Moses calls them 
both ORYM-IM,' and says they felt no shame because they 
were not led to do things which might cause them to feel 
repentance and shame. But as soon as they have acquired 
this knowledge of good and evil, as soon as they have become 
capable of foreseeing this evil, of reasoning upon it, and 
fearing it, he changes the word ORYM into OIRM; and 
then it is no longer mere clear-sightedness, or an aptitude 
for laying the truth bare without fear or apprehension ; it is 
the power of foreseeing misfortunes, adversity and enmities : 
it is the loss of security, it is FEAR. The word henceforth 
is OIRM. We have no more ORYM. That happy power of 
vision untroubled by fear or remorse has been lost together 
with ignorance. 

The word OLE in the text is singular, and means literally 
a single fig-leaf, but as a single leaf could not be sewn 
together the translators have made it into the plural, leaves. 
The verb used by Moses was not TPhR but PhRE, which 
agrees with the secondary meaning of OLE, a cause, a subject, 
a thought, and with TANE, which is derived from ANE,not 
from TAN, and which represents grief and sadness. The 
fear of evil renders the thought of it always present to man, 
and if he has no positive evils to dread, he has the prospect 
of death. 

Verse 8. 



KXCLISil TIlANeLATION 


HEBREW TKXT 


BBCBET MSA^1XQ 


And tbey beard 


L'ighMOOU . 


• 

Then they heard, they under- 
stood 
the substantialisedy speaking 




AT . . . 


the voico 


QOUL . 


thundering, cureing voice 


of the Loi*d . 


JEOVE 


of the Adoni, of the Ruler 


God 


ALEIM 


of the Gods 


walking 


MTELC 


being caused to sound here and 
there 


in the jrnrden 


BGN . 


in the mcred gaijlen 


in the cool 


LKOUE 


according to the wind, accord- 
ing to the violent blowing, 
with the violent blowing 


of the day 


EIOUM 


of tlie day, of that time, of 
that moment 


and 


\^ m m • 


and, then 


Adam . 


EADM . 


this Adamic being 


and his wife . 


UAghTOU . 


and the generating heat, his 
wife 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



141 



Verse 8— -continued. 



Ens-GLXfB TRANSLATION 

1 


HEBREW TE^CT 


SECRFT inSANIXO 


' bid tbemBelves 
1 
from the presence . 

of the Lord . 

God 

amongst . . 

the trees 

of the garden. 

1 

1 

i 


-ITEBA 

MPhXI 

JEOVE 
ALEIM 
BTOUC 
OTz . . . 

EGN . 


made efforts to get to a con- 
cealed spot, a retreat where 
the? could obtain protection 

out of the presence, against the 
anger 

of the Adoni, the Ruler 

of the Gods 

in the central 

woody substance, scientific 
table, knowledge 

of the garden, of the sacred 
grove. 



The name of JEOVE, which, out of respect for that great 
name had disappeared from the narrative when an accusation 
against the Aleim was in question, reappears here as it did 
before the scene of the temptation. The first part of the 
verse seems to indicate one of those physical or scenic effects 
which the Egyptian priests used to make use of with so 
much perfection and ability in the mysteries. Lightning 
and thunder, the great voice of God in oriental language, 
are represented as darting and rolling here and there accord- 
ing to the direction of the winds which were let loose. This 
would strike great terror in Egypt, where storms and tem- 
pests are very rare. 

Adam may be supposed to hide himself in both the literal 
and hidden sense of the passage, from fear, for in both the 
symbolic and vulgar language to see God is to die. But if 
we attempt to explain the passage as meaning that he hid 
himself through shame the difficulty becomes insurmountable, 
for man was made in the image of God, who was that 
moment acting, walking, and speaking like a man. The true 
meaning of the passage is that man, by acquiring the science 
of doubt, the knowledge of good and evil, becomes a caviller, 
a sophist, and in order to conceal the culpability of his act 
he encloses himself in a circle of reasonings, the elements of 
which he seeks for in the very science which he is making so 
bad an use of; he shuts himself up in doubt, he makes himself 
a sceptic. This is what the parable signifies when it says that 



142 



MANKIND: THEIR 



" Adam hid himself in the very tree " (not *^ trees V) " which 
was in the midst of the garden.'' 



Verse 9. 



KKOUSH TRAK8LATI0K 


HSBBEW TEXT 


SXCBSr MBANIXa 


And 


u- . . . 


Then 


the Lord 


JEOVE 


the Adoni, the Ruler 


God . . . 


ALEIM 


of the Goda 


called . 


-IQRA 


caused to call, caused to ndse 
his voice, caused to read 


unto 


AL . . . 


on the subject 


Adam . 


EADM . 


of the Adamic being 


and said 


UIAMR 


and he caused it to be sud 


unto him 


LOU . 


for him, on his (this Adamic 
being's) account 


Where art thou P , 


AICE . 


What wish of thine has there 
been? whither has thy de- 
sire taken thee P what is the 
matter P where art thou P 



Verse 10. 



EKQUBH TRAKSLATIf'N 


HEBREW TEXT 


BBCRET IfEAVIN'a 


And he said . 
I heard . 
in the garden 

thy voice 

and I was afraid . 

because . 
naked . 

I was 

and I hid myself. . 


UIAMR 

ghmOti 

BGN . 
AT 
QLC . 

UAUiA 

91 . 
OiRM . 

ANCI . 
UAEBA 


1 • 

> • 

• 

t • 
1 • 

1 • 

• 

• 
• 


And he said, he answered 

I heard, I understood 

in the garden 

the substantialised 

thundering and cursing voice 
of thee 

and I have been penetrated 
with a holy fear; I turned 
my eyes away, being full of 
fear and veneration 

because 

clear-seeing, disclosing things 
adverse; made to inspire fear 

I ami 

and I retired to an bidden 
place, to a particular strong- 
nold, to a retreat whidi 
afforded me protection. 



QLC, the fulminating: substance, the thunder. Thunder 
is the voice of JEOVE, Ps. xxix. 3 : " The voice of the Lord 
is upon the v^aters, the God of glory thunderethJ 



9> 



ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 



143 



The GreN is no longer the garden, the Palmetum of the 
temple. It is evidently transformed into a GEN, that is, 
into the GeheNna, into the supreme tribunal. The sentence 
which is about to follow is therefore that of the GEN, which 
is carried out by Water and Fire, the elements of purification 
and initiation, for the Zohar says, " Duplex est judicium 
Gehennse, Aquse et Ignis." See also Matt. iii. 11: "I indeed 
baptize you with water. . but. . . he shall baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire." The tempter himself, put on 
his trial, in order that the initiated persons may be absolved, 
will undergo symbolically (ver. 14) tiie severe judgment and 
condemnation of the GEN. 



Vbbsb 11. 



ECOUSH TBAKSLAllON 




PBCRXT MKANIXO 


And he said, . 

j 


TTTAMK 


And the answer was caused to 
he made. 


1 Who . 


MI . . . 


By whom 


told 


EGID . . . 


has it heen indicated, has this 
new thing heen made known 


thee 


JLL/ • . • 


for thee, respecting thee 


that 


CI . . . 


that 


Daked . 


OIRM . 


clear-seeing, disclosing thinc^s 
which are adverse and made 










to inspire fear 


thou toast ? . 


ATE . 


thy substance was, thou art, 
thou I 


Ilast thou 


EMN . 


Unless it is that 


I eaten 

1 


ACLT . 


thou hast eaten, thou hast 
spread the knowledge of, 
thou hast divulged 


1 


JL 


. of the tree 


EOTz . 


the woody substance 


1 whereof . . 


AChR . 
TzOUITlC . 


of which 


I commanded thee 


I caused an express order to 






be given, I caused distinct 






commandment to be given 






to thee 


that thou ahouldest 


LBLTI . 


as an exception, not to 


not 






eat? . 


ACL . 


eat, spread or acquire know- 
ledge of 
any portion of it 




MMNOU . 



The Gods, the Aleim, having now formed themselves into a 
supreme tribunal, pleading has begun, and the Ileipd^wVf 
Satan, the Tempter, is present. We have passed from the 
Typhonium and the sacred grove into the hall, surrounded 



144 



MAXKIXD : THEIR 



with columns, where the judges sat, thirty in number, 
presided over by the sacerdotal JEOVE, and having before 
them the doctrinal books. The president of the temple wore 
a collar of gold, from which hung a figure called TRUTH. 
Mercy was the attribute of Jeove. Severity belonged to the 
Aleim, as did also jealousy, craftiness and cunning, for the 
spirit of enquiry excludes frankness. Hence that proverbial 
expression in the Bible when speaking of Jeove to another 
person : " Tecum sit misericordia et Veritas : Jeove faciet 
tecum misericordiara et veritatem." Jeove himself, speaking 
of Himself, says, I AM THE TRUTH AND 'TEE LIFE, 
because Mercy belongs to Truth, wliile persecution and 
cruelty are characteristic of falsehood. Hence also the use 
of the word Amen, which is a species of affirmation by the 
name of the supreme judge, AMoN, just as another species 
of affirmation used to be made by the name of Pharaoh. 



Verse 12. 



ENGI.1HII TRANSLATION* 


HKBltKW TEXT 


SECRKT HKANIN'O 


And said 

the man 
The woman . 

whom . 
thou gavest . 

to he with me 

she 

gave 

me . . . 

of . 

tlie tree . 

and I did eat. 


UIAMR 

EADM . 
EACjbE 

AChR . 
NTTE . 

OMDI . 

EOVA . 
NTNE . 

LI ... 
MN . . . 

EOTz . 

UAGL . 


And the answer, the speech, 

was mnde 
of the Adauiic being 
This female and generating 

flame ; this woman 
whom 
thou hast offered, thou hast 

plact'd, thou hast caused to 

bo placed 
as my associate, upright before 

me, present to me 
she! 

she has offered, she has taught 
for me, for my convenience 
a part extracted, something 

which came from 
the woody substtmce, the table 

of knowledge 
and I have fed upon it to gain 

knowledge. 



EA^^liE. " Corpus mulieris ignis est," says a holy person. 
" O malum summum et acutissimum telum diaboli, mulier ! " 
exclaims St. Chrysostom, " per mulierem Adam in Paradise 
diabolus prostravit, et de Paradiso exterminaviU^' It would 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



145 



be interesting to enquire what the effect of the story of Adam 
and Eve has been upon the social position and the happi* 
ness or misery of women, both in ancient times and since the 
establishment of Christianity. St. Augustine says : ^^ Mulier 
docere non potest, nee testis esse, neque fidem dicere, neque 
judicare, qnanto magis non potest imperare P '* Women who 
hold the Saints in such veneration do not know the terms in 
which they speak of them on account of this parable, whose 
real meaning was unknown to them. St. John Damascene 
says : ^^ Mulier jumentum malum, vermis repens, atque in 
Adamo domicilium habens, mendacii filia, Paradisi custodia, 
Adami expellatrix, hostis pemitiosa, pacis inimica.^' St. Peter 
Chrysologus, Bishop of Bavenna, says that she is '^ malis 
causa, peccati auctor, sepulchri titulus, inferni janua et 
lamenti necessitas tota." According to St. Anthony, woman 
is ** caput peccati, arma diaboli." " Cum mulierem vides," 
says he, ^^ non hominem, non belluam, sed diabolum esse 
credite." Her voice is " serpentis sibulus." St. Cyprian would 
sooner hear ^^ basiliscum sibilantem '^ than a woman singing. 
St. Bonaventura is fond of comparing women to the scorpion, 
which is always ready to sting man ; they are, says he, ^^ arma 
et balista diaboli." Eusebius of Csesarea says that woman is 
*^ diaboli sagitta." According to Gregory the Great, " mulier 
recta docere nescit." St. Jerome says : " Si mulier suo arbitrio 
reUnquatur, cito ad deteriora delabitur." He says, again, 
** Optima foemina rarior est phoenice." According to him, 
she is ^* janua diaboli, via iniquitatis, scorpionis percussio, 
nocivumque genus." Innumerable similar quotations might 
be made from the works of the Fathers, 



Vesse 13. 



XSrOLISH TRAlVSLATXOir 


HCBRXW TEXT 


BICBIT MSAK150 


And said 

the Lord 

God 

onto the woman, . 

What tf thin . 
that thou hast done? 


UIAMR 

JEOVE 
ALEIM 
LAghE 

ME . . . 
6ghIT . 

ZAT . 


And the ans^^r, the speech, 
was caused to he made 

of the Adoni, the Ruler 

of the Gods, 

to the feminine generating 
fire, to the woman, 

How P by what means P 

has been done to thee, hast 
1 thou been made to do 

this thing ? 



146 



MANKIND : THEIR 



Vebsb 18 — continued. 



KNQLISH TRANSLATION 


HEBREW TEXT 


BBCRET MRANIKO 


And said 
the woman, • 
The serpent . 

beguiled me . 
and I did eat 


UTAMR 

EAghE 

ENEgh 

EghlANI . 
UACL . 


And the word, the answer, the 
speech, 

of tne woman, the female and 
generating warmth, 

This tempter, he who under 
the symbol of a serpent 
tries, inspires the desire 
of knowledge, of divination, 

has beguiled me, has spoken 
prophetically to me, has 
spoken to me of a higher life, 

and I fed my thoughts, my 
intellect with it. 







Vebse 14. 


XNOTJflH TRANSLATION 


UKBRBW TEXT 


And said 


UIAMR 


• ป 


the Lord 

God 

unto 

the serpent, . 


JEOVE 
ALEIM 
AL 
ENECh 


• • 

• • 

• • 

• • 


Because 
thou hast done 
this 
thou art 


OghlT ! 
ZAT . 
ATE . 


• • 

• • 

• • 


cursed . 


AROUR 


• • 


above all 


MCL . 


. • 


cattle, . 

and above every 

beast 

of the field ; . 


EBEME 
UMCL . 
EIT . 
EghDE. 


• • 


thou shalt go 

upon 

thy belly. 


TLC . 

Ol 

GENC . 





SBCBXT XBANIlfO 



Then the word, the conunand, 
was caused to be given 

of the Adoni, the Ruler 

of the Gt)ds, 

opposite to, respecting, 

the Tzyph6oun, the tempter 
symbolised by the serpent, 
respecting him who tries Me 
mitiatedf 

Because 

thou hast caused to be done 

this thing, that 

thy substance, thy individu- 
ality, shall be 

cursed, stretched out, length- 
ened like a furrow, 

beyond all, more than all, 
more than any 

quadruped 

and beyond all, more than any 

life, animal existence, 

of the all-powerfuL many- 
breasted terrestrial Isis^ of 
vegetative nature ; 

thou shalt walk, thou shall go 

upon 

thy breast, tliy belly. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



147 



Verse 2 — cotUmued. 



KNGLISH TRANSLATION' 1 HI3RKW TEXT 

1 

1 


BBCRET MEAM.VO 


And . 

aU. . . . 

the days 

of thy life 

ahaittbou eat 

diut 


U- . . . 
CL . . . 
IMI 

EIIC . 
TACL . 
• 

OPhR . 


Aud 

all 

the days, all the period, 

of thy 'life 

thou shalt feed intellectually, 

thou shalt caused to be di- 

Tulged, made public, 
dust, abject and base things 

which produce mourning 

and misery. 



The curse is, " Thou shalt be symbolised by Typhon in 
the form of (EBEME) EMS, or ChEMS-es, the robber, the 
ravisher, the impious one, the crocodile," a symbol of 
Typhon. The ct)ncluding part of the verse signifies that 
the doubt with which Typhon or the serpent inoculated the 
minds of those who listened to him will produce nothing 
but dast, abjectness, meanness, mourning, misery, and even 
death. 

The serpent spoken of in this chapter is certainly not the 
reptile usually so called. This serpent has legs, and is so 
represented in the zodiac at Esne (see plate 12). He can 
come and go, he can speak and reason, he can make himself 
heard, and can persuade others, like a man, and even an 
eloquent man. This serpent, then, must be a man whose 
name or symbol is the serpent ; thus in the northern temple 
of Esne, the serpent is ofben represented with arms and legs. 
The serpent, instead of being rampant on the earth, is 
henceforth to walk like a quadruped. He is to be extended, 
lengthened, more than any animal of the fields ; he is to 
walk on his breast, which shall cover the earth, and his 
mind shall be fed with base and evil thoughts. 

According to an allegorical tradition, the serpent NE^h, 
after seventy years of life, became the serpent Tzyphon, 
whose penetrating glance caused death (Typhon, the dark 
one, kills Horus, the god of light), and whom no effort, no 
charm, can influence. In the text the symbol changes in 
the same manner. It is no longer NECh, the serpent, in 
his usual shape ; it is a being whose body, made long like a 

I. 2 



148 



MANKIND: THEIR 



furrow, partakes still of the nature of a serpent, but wluch 
walks on four feet ; it is Typhon in the form of ChEMS-es, 
the crocodile. 

HorapoUo tells us that the accipiter, or the sparrow- 
hawk, signified the sun and rising ; the crocodile signified 
sunset and darkness; and the hippopotamus (for which 
Clemens Alexandrinus [Strom. 1. V.] substitutes the croco- 
dile to signify impudence), meant a season, or a fixed hour. 
Both the crocodile and the hippopotamus are emblems of the 
operations of the principle of evil and darkness, or Typhon. 

This evil genius, who is represented in all the cosmogonies 
by the emblem of a serpent, was represented in the temple 
at Hermopolis as contending against the principle of light. 
The hieroglyphic group was composed of the hippopotamus, 
on which the hawk was placed, contending against a 
serpent (Plut. De Isid.). Plutarch says that the hippopotamus 
represented Typhon, and the hawk the power which resisted 
him. Among the hieroglyphic figures of the temple at 
Sais, the hawk and crocodile, or according to some the 
hippopotamus, were also seen. According to Plutarch and 
Clemens Alexandrinus, the hawk represented the beneficent 
deity, and the other animals the object of his hatred, or his 
enemy. 

Hence the worshippers of the principle of light, of Horus, 
or Apollo, had a remarkable hatred for the crocodile and 
the hippopotamus, and iBlian (De Anim. 1. X. c. xxi.) says 
the reason of this was, that Typhon had assumed the shape 
of that animal to escape from the pursuit of Horus. 
Accordingly, there was a certain day in the year on which 
these animals were pursued, killed, and thrown out of the 
temple of the god of light. 

Vebse 15. 



KNOUSH IHANSL^TIOK 


HKBREW TEXT 


8BCBET MXANINO 


And 

I will put 

enmity . 
between thee 


U- . . . 

AghiT . 

-AIBE . 
BINC . 


And 

I will cause to be put, I 

will cause to be made, eป- 

tabliflhed, 
a removal, a separation, accom* 

panied with antipathy, 
during the time that thou re- 

mamest 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



149 



Vebse 15 — continued. 



BTOUBH TRAISBJATIOX 



I 



I 



and 

the woman, • 



and between • 



I thy seed 
' and 



her seed. 



1 



' It . 
shall bruise thy 

head 
and thou 

shalt bruise his 
heel. ซ 



HJBBBSW TBXT 



UBIN . 
EAghE. 



UBIN . 

zr6c . 

IJBIN . 

zr6e . 

EOVA . 
ighOUPhC . 



RACh . 
UATE . 

TghOUPhNOU 
6QB . . 



BECBET MEAlOKa 



and between the time that she 
remains, 

this woman, this generating 
and productive female fire 
(the celestial Isis), 

ana between the time of re- 
maining, dwelling, 

of thy seed, race, onspring, 

and between the time of re- 
maining, dwelling, 

of her seed, race, o&pring. 

This race 

shall cover, darken, cause to 
disappear, break, render 
healthy, thy 

beginning; 

and in thy same way, and thy 
substance also. 

shall cover, darken, cause to 
disappear, render healthy,her 
(of this race) 

act of circumventing, of cun- 
ning, of supplanting. 



This seed, this offspring of AQhE, the celestial Isis, is 
HOE-US, Light. Typhon is the genius of darkness. What 
Moses had in view was the alternate reign of light and 
darkness (see chap. i. ver. 16), when the alternate reign 
of light and darkness is made a principle of the cosmogony. 

ZEO is masculine, EOVA is masculine, and TghOUPh- 
NOU has the masculine pronoun OU for a termination. 
This part of the verse, therefore, does not refer to the 
woman, who is wrongly represented by the translators as 
bruising the head of the serpent. The Eoman Catholic 
Church translates this in the Vulgate IPSA, conteret caput 
iuuniy by which they cause the woman to bruise the serpent's 
head, and not, as the Protestants do, the seed of the woman 
to bruise it. The Hebrew language having no neuter 
gender, a literal translation must have either he or she. 
Availing themselves of this equivocal or double meaning, 
they have made this passage serve as a justification of their 
adoration of the celestial Virgin, which they found in Italy 



160 MANKIND : THEIR 

and other conntries, and wliicli, of course, in compliance 
with their much-abused traditionary practice, they adopted. 

The word T-ChOUPhNOU, or T-ShYPhoN-ou, is remark- 
able because it reveals positively in this place the name of 
TzYPhoN, the Dark One, the enemy of OE-us, the luminous 
offspring of ISIS. 

This verse has been composed while standing opposite, as 
it were, to the representation of the constellations carved in 
a celestial planisphere. The woman AChE, ESE, or ISE, 
the generating fire, is the celestial. ISIS represented in the 
astronomical representations with her son HOR-us, the 
Light One, dawning light, the light of dawn, in her arms, 
and having under her the serpent Typhon, whose name in 
Hebrew means **the hidden one, the darkened one, the 
northern one;'* in Syriac, " the turbulent one;'^ in Ethiopic, 
" the enemy, he who fights." Horus was represented as 
the conqueror of Typhon, as Apollo was of Python, when 
the sun in the upper hemisphere, er at the summer solstice, 
causes the Nile to leave its bed and inundate the country. 
Then the physical evils, and the sterility of which Typhon 
is the principle and emblem, disappear or are healed. In 
the Typhonium of the great temple at Edfou, the Apolino- 
polis Magna, Isis is often represented holding Horus in her 
arms, and resisting the influences of Typhon, as shown in 
the engraving. 

By altering the genders, this verse has been converted 
into a prophecy which has been applied to the Christian 
Virgin, the mother of the child ISO, the light which dawns 
at the winter solstice, the light of men, hostile to darkness. 
This, however, is nothing but a pious fraud. The true 
meaning of the passage is, that man by becoming enlight- 
ened, becomes better; that he covers and effaces by the 
light of his intellect the principle of social evil, and that 
evil only regains its empire over society when man returns 
to the darkness of ignorance. 



M 



\ 



ORIGIX AND DESTINY. 



151 



Vebsb 16. 



EXOLISH TBAXSUITION 

i 

i ITnto 

. the woman . • 



i he said, . 
I will greatly mul- 
tiply 



thy 80IT0W ; . 



thou shalt bring 

forth 
in sorrow 



HJCBBEW TEXT 



AL 
EAQhE. 

AMR . 
ARBE . 



children. 
And 

thy desire 
shaU be to . 
thy husband . 

and he . 
shall rule 



oyer thee. 



ERBE . 
OTzBOUNC . 



UERNC 

BOTzB . 

TLDI . 

BXIM . 
U- 

TQhOUQTC . 
-AL . 
AighC . 

UEOVA 

mghL . 

BC 



BBCRVr MKAXI2CO 



Opposite to, on the subject, 

01 the woman, of the feminine 
and generating fire, 

he caused to be said, 

I will cause to be quadrupled, 
to extend itself on four sides, 
on all sides, I will cause to 
be multiplied, 

the fourfold, the frequent, 

afBiction, sorrow, oppression, 
hard and subordinate condi- 
tion of thee ; 

also thy conception, thy deli- 
very, 

in sorrow, in the toil continj^nt 
on a subordinate condition, 

shalt thou take care of, bring 

children. 

Nevertheless, 

thy course, thy desire, 

diail be opposite to, to, 

thy masculine fire, ihj hus- 
oand, 

but he 

shall have the right of teach- 
ing, of speaking in parables, 
of dominion 

in thee, over thee. 



AMTt, ^^ lie caused it to be said." Every time that an order 
or an act, a question or an answer, emanates from JEOYE, the 
verb shoidd change from the conjugation QAL, "he has done," 
to the conjugation PIEL and PUUAL, expressing the act 
of causing to be done, or to being caused to be done. 
The Masoretic points, which fix the sense to the conjugation 
QAL, have no authority in the writings of Moses; and 
according to the spirit of his theosophy, they are a falsehood, 
an impious impropriety. 

IM^hL, " he shall have the right of speaking in parables," 
because instruction was always given allegorically. The 
meaning of this word shows the folly of those who only 
adhere to the literal meaning. 

The subordinate condition of woman in the East, which 
still exists, is described in this verse. There is no reference 



152 



HANKIin) : THEIR 



to painful delivery, for Moses knew that in warm climates 
parturition is not painfuL The proper meaning of the word 
ILD has reference to the care which it is necessary mothers 
should take in bringing up their children. The true mean- 
ing of " thy desire shall be unto thy husband " is " thou shalt 
seek for a husband." 





Verse 17. 




XNOUflR TRAXSLATION 


HKRBXW TEXT 


SBCRKT MEAKDrO 


And unto Adam . 


UFADM 


But for the Adamic being, for 
what concemfl man, 


he said, . 


AMR . 


he caused it to be said, 


Because 


CI ^ . . . 


Because 


thou hast hearkened 


ghMOr 


thou hast hearkened, thou hast 
deferred. 


unto the voice 


LQOUL 


unto the voice 


of thy wife . 


AghTC 


of thy wife, of thy feminine 
warmth, 


and hast eaten 


UTACL 


and hast fed intellectually, hast 
nourished thy thoughts, hast 
spread the knowledge 






of . 


MN . . . 


of a portion, of a product, 


the tree 


EOTz . . • . 


of the woody substance, of the 




ป 


table of instruction, 


of which 


AChR . 
TzOVITIC . 


which 


I commanded thee^ 


I had caused to be commanded, 






I had caused a distinct order 






to be given to thee, 


saying, . 


LAMR . 


saying. 


Thou shalt not 


LA . . . 


Not 


eat • • • 


TACL . 


shalt thou make an intellectual 
feast, make known 


of it, 


MMNOU . 


any part of it, any product of 
it 


the ground is 


EADME 


this Adamic earth (the ele- 
ment of thought, of reflec- 
tion : the principle of labour 
governed oy intellect) shall 






cursed . 


AROURE . 


despoiled of its fruits, its har- 
vests ; subject to wasting, to 
death, barren and cunea. 


for thy sake. . 


bObourc . 


in, as regards thy com, wheat, 


In sorrow 


B6TzB0UN . 


provisions. 
In sorrow, with trouble, 
fatigue, in painful depend- 

An /.is 


shalt thou eat of it 


TACLNE . 


thou shalt feed upon it, t^Don 
iU produce i 


all ... 


Cli . . . 


all 


the days 


IMI . . . 


the days 


of thy life. 


EflC , 


of thy life. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



153 



EADME. As the earth and its produce are now the sub- 
jttcty the word ABTz would not suit, for it means the barren 
earth. It is ADME, the fertile ground, capable of cultiva- 
tion, which will be exposed to become arid and liable to 
dearth. 

According to the belief of the ancient priests, the world in 
the beginning had a perfectly equable temperature, a per- 
petual spring, during which period there were no harvests, 
and the earth did not lose its fruits. It was to this primitive 
period of enjoyment and happiness that the third instruction 
in the temple was to lead the initiated. 

In the latter part of the verse the same expression is used 
for the man as is used for the serpent. The serpent is con- 
demned to eat dust all the days of its life, and the man is 
condemned to eat of the fruits of the ground. These ex- 
pressions were proverbial, signifying the misery, the abject- 
nes8> into which the primitive initiations had plunged the 
Adamic being, the peophy or those who live by their own 
labour. This mean position is partly the reason why the 
offering of Cain was not acceptable. 



Vebse 18. 



XKOLISH TRAXBLATXOK 


HKBRSW TEXT 


81CRIT MBJLNIMa 


Also 


u- . . . 


For 


it shall bring forth 


TTzMIE 


it shall cause to grow, it shall 
produce, 


to thee . 


LC . . . 


for thee 


thorns . . • 


-QOUTz 


trouble, disquiet^ repugnance 


and thistles ; . 


UDRD . 


and disgust, aversion, con- 
tempt. 


and thoa shalt eat 


UACLT 


Nevertheless, thou shalt feed 




AT . . . 


on the substance. 


the herb 


OTzB . 


of herbs, of wheat, cultivated 






and nearly ripe, 


of the field. . 


EghDE 


of the all-powerful, many- 
breasted Isis, of the vegeta- 
tive earth. 



The literal sense of this passage would make man 
graminivorous by nature, but this he never was. The real 
meaning is that the priest who personated the Adamic being 
wore on his head a bull's head as a symbol, in order to be re- 
cognised. His wife, ASE, ISE, ISIS, was symbolised by the 



154 



MANKIND: THEIB 



head of a cow. This sjinbol indicated the Man of ISIS, the 
Man of the aU-powerfol one, AIS EADME, AIS ESIDE, the 
labourer ; and as the serpent has been made to walk on two 
legs, and speak and reason like a man, so then the agricultoral 
man is made to browse and ruminate, being represented 
with an ox's head. 

The idea of the priests was that man having been created 
graminivorous only, he became more perfect after the Deluge, 
when he became carnivorous — ^that the agriculturist, in short, 
was a less perfect, less advanced being than he who gathers 
the fruits of the earth without cultivating them, and lives 
independent of them on the milk and flesh of his sheep. 
Hence resulted the abasement of the Adamic being, of the 
agriculturist. When Cain and Abel present their offerings, 
the distinction between the agriculturist and the shepherd is 
well marked. Kabbi Jose, in the Talmud (Treatise Jouma, 
1. II), is much disconcerted by the literal meaning of these 
sentences. He says : ^^ He has cursed woman, and everybody 
runs after her; he has cursed the ground, and everybody 
obtains food from it ! ''— nD^KH T\vt hhp n^ T\vt pvi ^Dni nBaiv iralhss *El3pal(0v dvofid^ovai. (Adv. 
Hseres. 1. HI.). There was a city called Eva in Arcadia, and 
another in Macedonia. There was also a mountain called 
Eve or Evan, mentioned by Pausanias (1. V.) ; and he also 
speaks of an Eva in Argolis (1. II.), which he says was a large 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 167 

town. The mountain was so called from a Baccliic cry, 
" Evoi," which Bacchus and the women who accompanied 
him gave utterance to on that spot for the first time. 

The moral signification of this cosmogonic drama is 
shown by the choice of the name of the female fire which 
produces man. The word Eve relates not only to the idea 
of a serpent, but also to those of revelation, of explanation — 
quod nuntiaverit et indicaverit fructum vetitum conjugi 
Adamo. Moses intended also to symbolise by the creation 
of woman that of the female sex generally, and to allude 
to the influence of the serpent on her (for he mentally 
associates both ideas), to the natural inclination of this sex 
to lead astray, put to trial, and subjugate reason. This is 
why, in describing the creation of woman, he has dwelt 
upon the difference of sex, and the manner in which man is 
attracted by the female sex. Before that sex is created, 
man is considered as an androgynous being. 

The moral and political meaning of the second part of the 
Terse is that man is easily led to be wanting in the per- 
formance of his duties and social obligations by this too 
ready adhesion to the advice and instructions of his wife : 
** Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife," 
&c. ver. 17, 18. From this idea arose the moral and 
political degradation of woman in the East. ^^The Supreme 
Being,'* says the laws of the Gtentoos, " created woman in 
order that man might live with her, and that children might 
be bom from this union ; but man ought to keep his wife in 
such subjection, both by day and by night, that she shall 
not be able to do anything of her own free will." 

The serpent who speaks to Eve, therefore, who addresses 
himself to her only, is the symbolic representation of temp- 
tation, of the continual trial to which curiosity, the wish to 
know, the passion for divulging, and ambition, expose 
women. The ordinary translation is absurd, because it was 
impossible for Adam to foreknow that she would be the 
mother of all living* 



i 



168 



MANKIND : THEIR 



Verse 21. 



BKOLISU TBANBI^TION 


HKRltEW TEXT 


BSCRKT MSAMUSO 


Also 


u- . . . 


Now 


the Lord 


JEOVR 


the Adoni. the Ruler 
of the Gods, 


God 


ALEIM 


made 


-i6gh . 


caused to be, to be estab- 






lished, 


unto Adam . 


LADM . 


for the Adamic being 


and to his wife 


ULAChTOU 

6ouu . 


and for his wife 


of skins . . • 


a guardian angel, a spirit 






to watch over and en- 






courage them, reciprocal en- 






couragement, 


coats 


CTNOUT . 


in conformi^ with the act of 
weeping,of consoling,of offer- 










ing wages of consolation, 


aad clothed them. 


UILBghM . 


and he enveloped them, 
adorned them, covered them 
with it. 



CTNOUT is derived from TNE, " wages of consolation, a 
consoling word.'* TNOUT, the infinitive of the conjugation 
Piel, adds to the word the act of causing to be done, and of 
doing with care. 

XJILBQhM Ls to cover, to envelop, to protect. God cover- 
ing with his wings; the MLA.C, the OYR, the guardian 
angel, covers with his wings. 

The literal meaning of this verse involves the idea that 
death came into the world, not by the act of man, as St. 
Paul says, but by God's own act. The skins must have 
belonged to some animal, who must have been killed, skinned, 
and the skin prepared by God himself. The real meaning 
is, that the Almighty, touched by the repentance of the 
Adamic being and his companion, causes their courage to 
revive by placing near them a spirit to watch over them, a 
guardian angel. In fact, the object of the mysteries, accord- 
ing to Plutarch, Cicero, and the ancients generally, was to 
fortify piety, and to give such consolation as might enable 
men to bear the ills of the present life by the hope of a life 
to come foil of enjoyment and happiness. The dogma of 
the immortality of the soul was the great secret of the most 
ancient mysteries ; the Egyptian priests were the first who 
made it known, but they only revealed it to those who were 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 169 

completely initiated, and this is why Moses, who had been 
initiated in these mysteries, is entirely silent on the subject. 
The priests feared lest it should make men careless of the 
present life, favour idleness by inducing a taste for contem- 
plation, and injure the prosperity of human society. 

Plato says, in the Phsedo, " They who initiated the mys- 
teries, did not frame their doctrine without meaning when 
they taught that he who descends into Hades uninitiated 
in the mysteries — ^unpurified according to their rites — shall 
be plunged into mire, but those who have been initiated and 
purified shall live with the gods. But as the mystic saying 
runs, * Many begin the rites, but few are fully purified.' " 
Aristophanes says, ** All who took part in the mysteries led 
an innocent, tranquil, and holy life ; they died, expecting 
the light of the Elysian Fields, while others had only eternal 
darkness to expect.'' Sophocles does not hesitate to call 
them ^^ the hopes of death." 

Plutarch writes thus to his wife to console her for the 
death of their daughter : *^ The profane and vulgar multi- 
tude imagine that nothing remains of man after death, that 
there is neither good nor evil for him. You, my dearest 
wife, know well the contrary ; a family tradition'* (the ances- 
tors of Plutarch had all been initiated, and his father had 
been a hierophant) ^'has transmitted to us from generation to 
generation a different doctrine. Besides, initiated as we are 
into the sacred mysteries of Bacchus, we know the great 
truths. Yes, the soul is immortal, and its future existence 
certain.'* (Consol. ad TJxorem.) 

The Cabalists, shocked at the literal meaning of this 
verse, explained the garments which God gave to Adam and 
Eve to be the material body which they then received from 
him. According to them, man before the fall was a pure 
and immaterial being, nakedy therefore, and partaking of the 
nature of the angels, the spiritual substances, the iBons. 
The result of these ancient opinions was, that the soul was 
represented by nudity. Hence the expression of Seneca, 
^* God is naked," and for the same reason the statues of the 
gods among the Greeks were naked. 



160 



MAXKIM) : THEIR 



Verse 22. 



ESQUBR TRAN8LATI0X 






And 


U- . . . 


Then 


the Lord 


JEOVE 


the Adoni. the Ruler 
of the Goas, 


God 


-aleim: . 


said, 


-lAMR . 


caused it to be said 


Behold, . 


EN . . . 


Behold, 


the man 


EADM . 


this Adamic being ^ 


is become 


EIE . . . 


has been, is become, 


as one . 


CAEI) . 


like a 


ofus • 


MMNOU . 


portion proceeding from us, is 
one 01 us, 


to know 


ldOt . 


to know, to deyise with regard 
to knowledge 


good 


ThOUB 


good 


and evil ; 


URO . 


and evil. 


and now, ' 


uOte . 


But the time is 


lest 


PhN . 


which is not (this is not the 
time) 


he put forth . 
his nand 


IChLE 
IDOU . 


that he shall put forth 

his strength, his might, 

and he shall take, he shall ac- 


and take 


ULQE . 






quire, 


also 


GM . . . 


also 


of the tree 


MOTz . 


some part of the woody sub^ 
stance, of the table of know- 










ledge, of doctrine, 


of life . 


EEUM 


of the double, continuous, life 
of happiness and health. 


and eat . 


UACL . 


and feed upon it, divulge it, 
make it known to all. 


and live 


UEI . . . 


and that then he shall live, 
enjoy the happy life of 
health and enjoyment, 


for ever 


LdLM . 


like the state of an adult man 
who is always young and 
has no end. 



LOLM, "for ever.'* To know the dogma of the future 
life and the immortalitj of the soul, was to enjoy that 
inimortalitj at once. 

*^ This Adamic being has become a portion of ourselyes, is 
a part of ns/' This expression renders it more clear than 
ever, that the Egyptian system, in which God, as the active 
principle of nature, was composed of several gods, is in 
question. Orpheus, who had been initiated by the Egyptian 
priests, held the same doctrine. 

And that then he shall live in eternal youth.'' This is 



i( 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 



161 



the state of the Aleim, the Mlacim, the JSoua, and the 
Diyine substances. 

Vebbe 23. 



EXOLZBB TRAVSL^nOX 



Therefore 

the Lord 

God 

seat him forth 



HE8BBW TEXT 



I 



u- 

JEOVE 
ALEIM 



. ' -ighLEEOU 



I from the garden . . MGN 



BECBST MEANI>*0 



I 



of Eden, 
to till . 



i the ground . 
I from whence . 
• he was taken. 



. 6DN . 
. LOBD . 

' AT 
. EADME 
. AGhR . 
. LQE . 



MghM . 



Then 

the Adoni, the Ruler 

of the Gods, 

made him a ShiLE, an amhaa- 

Bador, an apostle, sent him 

forth 
from the sacred grove, the 

garden of paim-treu 
of the synagogue, 
to serve, to cultivate 
the suhstance 
of the Adamic earth, 
which ambassador 
has received, had received, 

sought for and acquired, 'the 

ins^ction, the doctrine 
proceeding from that place. 



IghLEEOU, ShLIE, ShiLYE, nuncius, legatus, apostolus. 
" Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Gods 
of your fathers. . . . have made me SiLE (have sent me) 
nnto you ** (Exod. iii. 15). The mission alluded to in the 
text evidently refers to that of the ancient legislators towards 
their people, and to that of Moses himselฃ The Sabseans 
held tiiat Adam was not the first man, but a prophet, an 
envoy from the moon (from the celestial ISIS, the founder of 
the Mysteries), to establish her worship, and that be had 
composed some works on agriculture. The person who acted 
the part of Adam carried the symbol of the labourer. 



VSBSE 24. 



KSrOLBB T&AK8LATIOV 


HXBRKW I'KXT 




So he drove out . 


UIGRQh 


And he caused to he made an 
envoy, he caused to para 
from the interior to the ex- 
terior, he made a chief of a 
mission, a stranger and a 
traveller on the earth, 



M 



102 



MANKLVD : THEIR 



Verse 24 — continued. 



ENOUHH TRANSLATION 



HEBREW TฃXT 



SECBSr MKAXINO 





AT . . . 


of the individuality 


the man 


; EADM . 


i of this Adamic heing ; 


and he placed 


uigiigN . . 


and he caused to remain, to 


at the east 


MQDM . 


DUjourny 
at the eastern part 


of the garden 


LGN . 


relatively to the garden 


of Eden 


ODN . 


of the synagogue, of the plaoซ 
where the religious AAscm- 
hlies are held, 




AT . . . 


thp Buhstance 


cheruhim 


KC^RBIM . 


of figures, of statues, 


and 


UAT . 


and the suhstance, that which 
constitutes 


a flaming 


LETh . 


the illusion 


sword, . 


EERI) . 


of a desert, a solitude, a place 


• 




laid wnste, 


which turned every 


EMTEPhCT . 


chanjred in appearance, over- 


way 




whelmed, destroved. 


to keep . . 

1 


LghMR 


to keep, to close as hy means 
of a hedge. 




AT . . . 


that which constitutes, which 
forms 


the way 


DRO . 


the way, the road, 


of the tree 


OTz . . . 


of the table of science and in- 
struction, of knowledge, of 
learninpr, 


of life. . 


EEIIM . 


of the double life, of life as it 
relates to health and un- 
bounded happiness. 



GR^^ ^3 composed of GR, to be a stranger anywhere, and 
RCh to have permission, power, authority to command (see 
chap. ii. ver. 17). Moses called his son GRQh-M, which name 
was chosen in allusion to the mission of Moses. 

The word ECRBIM symbolises thick clouds, phantoms 
which intercept the sight and defend the entrance of the 
Holy of Holies from the profane. The Hebrew word signi- 
fies those clouds. Clouds prevented the tabernacle from 
being entered (Exod. xl. 34 ; xvi. 10, &c.). 

EERB EMTEPhCT. We have seen that the trials which 
accompanied initiation were supposed to take place in a 
desert. EEIEM signifies " of the immortality of the soul." 

The court of the temples was closed by an immense door, 
in front of which stood two obelisks, like those at Luxor. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 163 

These obelisks, symbols of radiating light, in the shape of 
a sword, were set npright, like palm-trees, after which they 
were caUed. At the entrance two colossal statues of genii 
kept watch ; they are still to be seen at Luxor. Cherubim 
also watched at the gate of Eden, and, armed with a ray of 
light in the form of a sword, kept the way of the tree of life. 
But Moses in this passage alludes to a desert, which serves 
as a barrier, and obliterates all traces of a path. It was the 
practice in ancient times to mark out the boundaries or 
frontiers of an empire by immense deserts, or by countries 
laid waste for the purpose. 

The moral meaning of the passage is, that this desert, 
this unknown space, which separates the present from the 
future life, is Death, MOT, with the literal meaning of which 
the initiated person seemed to be threatened, and which was 
considered in the Mysteries as the Mission, MOS, which re- 
moves man from his place, which changes his mode of being, 
and which causes him to pass from one place to another, from 
temporal to external life. In the Septuagint this verse is 
''And he cast out Adam, and caused him to dwell over 
against the Glarden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs 
and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the 
tree of life.** 



If 2 



164 MANKIND : THEIR 



CHAPTER Vn. 

The New Testament, or New Covenant, as it should be called, 
tke Greek name being taken from Heb. yiii. 6-13, is 
founded in great part on the Old Covenant, and partaking 
of its allegorical character. It therefore requires to be 
treated in precisely the same manner, Origen observes 
(Contra Celsura, i. 42) : " In almost every history, however 
true it may be, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to 
demonstrate the reality of it. Let us suppose, in fact, that 
some one should take upon himself to deny that there was a 
Trojan war on account of the improbabilities which are 
connected with that histcry, such as the birth of Achilles 
from a sea-goddess, &c., how could we prove the reality of 
it, overwhelmed as we should be by the evident inventions 
which in some unknown manner have been mixed up with 
the generally admitted idea of a war between the Greeks 
and Trojans ? What is alone practicable is, that he who 
wishes to study history with judgment, and to remove 
illusions from it, must consider how much of that history he 
can believe without more complete information ; how much, 
on the contrary, he must only understand symbolically {rit^a 
Be 7rpo'rro\oyri(Tai)y bearing in mind the intention of the 
narrator ; and how much he must mistrust altogether, as 
being merely dictated by the desire of pleasing. It has been 
my wish to put forward these remarks as preliminary to the 
subject of the entire history of Jesus as given in the gospels, 
not with the view of leading clear-sighted people to a blind 
and unauthorised belief, but of showing that this history 
requires to be studied with judgment, and examined with 
care, and that we must, so to speak, bury ourselves in the 
meaning of the writer, in order to discover for what purpose 
each separate thing has been written." 

The three first gospels were originally anonymous, and 
intended for the use of contemporaries (Luke i. 4 ; Acts LI), 
The authors wished to deliver a true account of what Jesus 



ORIGIN A^D DESTINY. 166 

had done and spoken (Luke i. 1-4 ; Acts i. 1 ; Euseb. H. E. 
iii. 39), and were at the same time inevitably influenced by 
the dogmatic views which, among the contests of parties, 
were peculiar to each of them. They make no allusion to 
any supernatural help or divine inspiration, but set forth the 
events which they had received as true, either by means of 
traditions, or from written sources, or from types or pro- 
phecies in the Old Testament which were supposed to relate 
to the Messiah. Moreover, they show from the manner in 
which they without hesitation weaken each other or their 
vouchers, that the idea of infallibUity or canonicity, such as 
was given in their time to the books of the Old Testament 
in the synagogue was entirely foreign to them with regard 
to their own writings. 

Mosheim says : " The opinions, or rather the conjectures, 
of the learned concerning the time when the books of the 
New Testament were collected into one volume, as also about 
the authors of that collection, are extremely different. . . . 
This important question is attended with great and almost 
insuperable difficulties to us in these later times." This 
question is farther complicated by the admission of Bishop 
Marsh (Michaelis's "Introd. to New Test.," by Bishop Marsh, 
vol. ii. p. 368), that " it is a certain fact that several 
readings in our common printed text are nothing but 
alterations made by Origen [circa a.d. 230], whose 
authority was so great in the Christian Church that emenda- 
tions which he proposed, though, as he himself acknowledges, 
they were supported by the evidences of no manuscripts, 
were very generally received." 

Even as late as the second century, the Christians had 
no other idea of the gospels than that which has been 
mentioned. They honoured the sayings of Jesus, of which 
Matthew had compiled a awTa^is (Euseb. iii. 39), as the 
words of God (tA \07to). They held certain records attri- 
buted to Mark, the friend of Peter, to be a credible, though 
defective, account ol what Jesus spoke and did {XexOii^Ta 
Koi irpax9ima\ which were completed by oral tradition, and 
which became more and more valued (Euseb. iii. 39) ; and, 
like Justin, they denoted these writings by the name of 
** Memoirs'' {amo^vfifjLovev^Mira), which, though not written 
by the Apostles, were considered to have proceeded from 
them and their successors. The value which was assigned 



166 MANKIND : THฃ1B 

to these writings resulted from the particular point of view 
which was taken of them in the Church, so that while 
Hegesippus, Justin, and the Passover-keeping Jewish 
Christians of Asia Minor gave the preference to Matthew, 
Marcion, in order to remove the difficulties of Matthew and 
Mark, held the gospel of Luke to be the only true one, and 
even permitted himself to make alterations in this latter 
gospel, which seemed necessary to support his dogmatic 
opinions. 

In the time of Justin there were no authors* names to the 
gospels. He quotes them without any. By degrees, how- 
ever, not only the words of Christ contained in these 
narratives, but the narratives themselves, were adopted as 
canonical, and were recognised as cry/at ypaai. 

It was the Council of Nice, in a.d. 325, which established 
the four canonical gospels. The Fathers who preceded this 
Council, however, have only quoted the gospels which the 
Council declared to be apocryphal (with the exception of 
some texts quoted by Justin in the middle of the second 
century, at which time, however, there were no authors' 
names to the gospels), and this leads to the conclusion that 
the canonical gospels in their present form were posterior to 
the apocryphal gospels. 

The manner in which this Council set about choosing the 
four gospels which it wished to adopt out of the innumerable 
quantity of gospels which then existed, was as follows, 
according to Pappus in his Synodicon to the Council. The 
Fathers, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, placed promiscuously 
under a Communion-table, in front of which the Council was 
assembled, all the gospels which were known at that time. 
They then prayed devoutly to God, beseeching him " that 
the inspired writings might get upon the table, while the 
spurious ones remained underneath." After the prayer a 
miracle took place. The gospels which Gelasius ought to 
burn remained under the table, and the four inspired ones 
got upon it, and were declared to be canonical ! 

But this Council was terminated by a still greater miracle. 
It was agreed that in order to make the Council valid, all 
the Fathers should sign the records. Two bishops, however, 
Musonius and Chrisantes, died during the Council without 
having signed them. The difficulty was great, for the 
Council was invalid without their signature, but the Fathers 



ORIGIN AND DKSTINT. 167 

caused guards to be placed round the tombs of the bishops, 
and placed in them the Acts of the Council, which, as is 
well known, was divided into sections. The Fathers passed 
the night in prayer, and the next day they found that the 
deceased bishops had fortunately signed the records of the 
OounciL 

This Council was composed of the mystical number of 
318 bishops, and presided over by the " pious " Constantine. 
Yet Sabinus, the Bishop of Heraclea, affirms that, " except- 
ing Constantine himself and Eusebius Pamphilus, they were 
a set of illiterate simple creatures, that understood nothing." 

Venice claims the possession of St. Mark's gospel written 
by himself, as well as of a copy in letters of gold said to 
have been made by St. Chrysostom. Unfortunately, the 
town of Venelli, in Piedmont, also lays claim to possess the 
original MSS. of Mark, but it is written in Latin, and is 
said by those who have examined it to be of the fourth 
century, or even later. It is very strange that the authentic 
copy of the four gospels which was recognised and adopted 
at the Council of Nice is nowhere to be found. Florence 
claims to possess the Gospel of St. John, written with his 
own hand; it is preserved in the palace of Cosmo de' Medici, 
while Sienna has the right arm of John the Baptist. 

St. Irenaeus was the first who said there must be four 
evangelists, neither more nor less ; and as at that remote 
period all religions had reference to the sun and the 
elements, Irenaeus looks upon these evangelists as allegorical 
beings, derived from the Egyptian mysteries, and symbol- 
ising the winds and the seasons. He says: " There are four 
evangelists, neither more nor less, because there are four 
quarters of the world, and four principal winds ; for, as the 
Church is spread over the whole earth, it must have four 
columns to support it. God is seated on a cherub, who has 
the form of four dififerent animals, and the four animals 
represent our four evangelists." 

When the origin of these books began to be investigated 
at the Reformation, Luther at once rejected the Epistle of 
James and the Apocalypse. He not only declared the 
spuriousness of the latter in the preface to his Bible, but 
solemnly charged his successors not to print his translation 
of the Apocalypse without annexing this avowal, which they 
disobeyed. 



168 MANKIND : TUEIB 

Calvin denied the apostolical origin of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews on historical grounds, as also that of the Second 
Epistle of Peter, and the epistles of James and Jude, though 
he admitted them as canonical, notwithstanding their want 
of authenticity. 

The oldest evangelical tradition began, not with the birth 
of Jesus, but with the preaching of John, as is evident from 
Actsi. 22, and x. 37. We are also informed (Epiphan. Hser. 
xzx. ง 1 3, 4), that the Ebionites and primitive Christians in 
Palestine made use of a gospel which did not contain the 
genealogy of Christ. 

At the time that Luke's gospel was written, the gospel 
of Matthew did not commence with the birth of Christ, but 
with the appearance of John, to which the third evangelist 
has prefixed an account of the birth and the childhood of 
Jesus, just as the editor of the canonical gospel of Matthew 
did at a later period, in accordance with another and more 
Judseo-Christian tradition. 

In the last colitmn of the generations given by Matthew, 
where he says there should be fourteen generations (begin- 
ning with Salathiel), there are only thirteen. The corruption 
of the two names Ahaziah and Uzziah with the same sound 
(Ozius) has been the cause of merging four generations into 
one, as the similarity of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin also led 
to the blending them both in the name Jechoniah. Con- 
sequently there ought to be eighteen generations where 
Matthew has only given fourteen. 

Some particulars of the original, but now lost, gospel will 
be given when we come to treat of the origin of these nar- 
ratives. 

The genealogy in Matthew is intended to set before the 
Jews the descent of Jesus from the royal line of David, and 
does not agree with the passage in ch. xii. ver. 46-50. in which 
Jesus is represented as rejecting all earthly dignity, and 
claiming only a spiritual descent. It is evident that the 
author of the first two chapters of Luke knew nothing of 
Matthew's genealogical table, for he extends the lineage 
of Christ beyond David and Abraham, and he gives it an 
universal tendency. The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, Matt, 
ii. 1, does not ageee with the declaration of the multitude in 
ch. xxi. ver. 11, that he was the prophet Jesus of Nazareth 



ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 169 

of Gralilee, nor with the declaration of Jesus himself (ch. 
xiii. ver. 54-57), that Nazareth was his own country. 

Luke states that Jesus was bom at Bethlehem, but does 
not mention the circumstances which form the conclusion of 
the narrative in Matthew. Again, according to Matthew, 
Jesus was bom in Bethlehem because his parents lived there, 
and it was afterwards that they went to Nazareth to dwell 
there. According to Luke, he was bom in Bethlehem 
because his parents, although they dwelt in Nazareth, went 
up to Bethlehem to be taxed, and afterwards returned 
(Luke ii. 89) " to their ovm city Nazareth.** Hence we may 
infer that though Luke wrote his gospel after Matthew, he 
knew nothing of these circumstances. 

The account of the mother of Christ being found with 
child of the Holy Ghost (Matt. i. 18) is contradicted by the 
passage in ch. xii. ver. 46, in which his brethren (not his half- 
brothers) are spoken of, and by that in ch. xiii. ver. 55, 56, in 
which his sisters are also spoken of, and in which he is ex- 
pressly called ^^ the carpenter's son." It is impossible, also, to 
reconcile the account in ch. iii. ver. 16, of the Holy Ghost 
descending upon Jesus for the first time after he had been 
baptised by John, with his being the Son of the Holy Ghost, 
in the first chapter. Mark (i. 10) has the older tradition, 
and Matthew and Luke compiled their narratives from other 
sources. For this reason, also, the conduct of his blood rela- 
tions, narrated in Mark iii. 21, is omitted by Matthew and 
Luke, as inconsistent with their version. Lastly, the apolo- 
getical preface, in which Mark (i. 1-4) declares that the 
gospel of Jesus Christ must, according to the Scriptures, 
begin with the appearance of John, shows that the original 
gospel of Matthew began at the parallel passage in ch. iii. 
ver. 1, just as the original gospel of Luke did. 

The account in Matthew of the descent of Christ from the 
royal line of David is in direct contradiction to the state- 
ment in the same chapter of his descent from Mary by her 
having conceived by the Holy Ghost. The account of her 
being with child by the Holy Ghost is fatal to Christ^s 
descent from Joseph. It is true that the compiler has en- 
deavoured (Matt. i. 16) to reconcile these two traditions by 
calling Joseph " the husband of Mary, of whom was bom 
Jesus, who is called Christ,'* but the subsequent narrative 
renders the genealogical table of Joseph's descent useless. 



170 MAJ^KIND : THEIR 

while Luke (ch. iii. ver. 23) gives the real statement when 
he says, *^ being (as was sappoeed)/' mt hnfi^ero, ^ the son 
of Joseph," &c. 

Not only is there no trace in the New Testament of Mary's 
descent from David, but there are several passages which 
formally contradict such a descent. In Luke i. 27, the words 
" of the house of David," if oikov AavlBy refer only to the 
words immediately preceding them — " a man whose name 
was Joseph " — and not to the words, " to a virgin espoused." 
But we must also remark the expression in Luke ii. 4, where 
it is said, " Joseph also went up . . . (because he was of the 
house and lineage of David) to be registered with Mary." 
If Mary had also been of the lineage of David, the author 
would have put avrovs instead of avrov, 

Elizabeth is said not only to be of the tribe of Levi, but 
of the daughters of Aaron, yet she is spoken of as nearly 
related to Mary, who would consequently be also of that 
tribe, instead of being of the tribe of Judah. Again, not- 
withstanding the relationship and intimacy of their mothers, 
the Baptist is represented as being an entire stranger to 
Jesus, when he came to be baptised by him ; for long after, 
according to Luke vii. 19, et sqq., and Matt. xi. 2, et sqq , 
John tells us himself that he knew nothing about his being 
the Messiah, and in his answer Jesus says nothing about 
Zacliarias &c., but refers to his miracles. 

Acts i. I : " The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, 
of all that Jesus began both to do and to tea^hy*^ shows that the 
gospel or treatise {\6yos) written by him began with the 
third chapter, as does also the fact that the angel in the first 
chapter is made to inform Mary that the child to be bom of 
her should be called the Son of God, and yet in the rest of 
the gospel he is never mentioned by any other appellation 
than that of Son of Man, or Son of David, till after his re- 
surrection, except in the acclamations of some lunatics. 
And the Apostles are represented as calling him the Son of 
Grod after that event, not on account of his supernatural birth, 
but on account of his being raised from the dead. Neither 
could Jesus become the first-born of God, as regards his 
human birth, for Luke himself calls Adam " the son of Grod " 
(ch. iii. ver. 38). The author of the Epistle to the Romans 
expressly asserts that Jesus Christ " was made of the seed of 
David according to the flesh.^^ Moreover, it is a well-known 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY 171 

liiBtoric truth, that there never was a prophet among the 
Jews after their return from their captivity, and consequently 
there could be no such persons as the prophet Simeon and 
the prophetess Anna. 

The " Holy Spirit," irvsvfui ayiov (Matt. i. 18), and " power of 
the Highest," Buvafiis v^larov (Luke i. 35), do not mean the 
Holy Ghost in the ecclesiastical sense, as the Third Person of 
the Trinity, but God himself, as the expression is used in the 
Old Testament, D^n^K nn, spiritus Dei — that is, God acting on 
the world, and especially on human beings. Neither Mark 
Dor John mention the immaculate conception, though the 
latter is said to have taken Mary to his own home after the 
crucifixion. The most extraordinary thing of ^11, however, 
is that Mary herself calls Joseph the father of Jesus (Luke 
ii. 48), and the Evangelist himself speaks (Luke ii. 41) of 
his parents, yoveh, while Jesus himself was reproached with 
being the son of Joseph (Matt. xiii. 55 ; Luke iv. 22 ; John 
vi. 42 ), which he never denied. And, according to the fourth 
gospel, his own disciples looked upon him as being actually 
the son of Joseph, for Philip (John i. 46) presents him to 
Nathanael as " the son of Joseph,'* rw viov rov 'Ig)(7iJ0. And 
in Bom. i. 3, it is said that he was ^^ made of the seed of David 
according to theflesh,^^ Kara adpica (conf. ch. ix. ver. 5), but he is 
called the Son of God, " according to the Spirit of holiness " 
(verse 4), kuto, irvevfia arfioamrf?, thus drawing an evident dis- 
tinction between the flesh and the Spirit. 

In the Protevangelium attributed to St. James, it is said 
that Joseph complained to the high-priest of the infidelity of 
Mary, that the high-priest made them both drink the bitter 
waters or the waters of jealousy (see Numb. v. 18, et sqq.), and 
then sent them into the desert to make their mysterious 
journey, and that, having returned from it safe and well, 
Joseph took back his virtuous wife. 

The ring which Joseph gave Mary is preserved at Perugia, 
and it is believed to have the power of rendering barren women 
fruitful. In 1480, it caused a very angry law-suit, accom- 
panied by violence, between the inhabitants of Perugia and 
those of Chiusa, the latter having stolen this mystic ring. 
The Perugians maintained that they had obtained it by 
means of a miracle. This law- suit lasted along time. The 
Popes took part in this dispute ; they wished to enrich the 
Holy City with the ring, and to place it near the navel of 



172 MANKIND : THEIR 

Jesus Christ, which is preserved in the church of Santa Maria 
del Popolo, at Borne ; but the opposition was very great. 
At last Innocent VIII., in order to put an end to the dispute, 
confirmed the possession of the ring to the town of Perugia. 

Notwithstanding the wide-spread worship of the Virgin in 
the present day, it was not till after a.d. 470 that Gnaphius, 
Bishop of Antioch, named the mother of Jesus Mother of 
God, in Christian prayers, and invoked her name (Niceph. 1. 
XV. cap. 28). Sixtus IV. was the first who established the 
feast of St. Joseph. 

AU reUgious paintings represent Joseph as an old man. 
This is on the authority of a passage in a biography of him 
written in Arabic, in which it was said that he was ninety 
years old when he was married. In a great number of paint- 
ings, he is represented with a green branch in his hand. 
The explanation of this attribute is to be found in a circum- 
stance mentioned in the Protevangelium of James, and the 
history of the birth of Mary. The animals which are repre- 
sented as worshipping the infant Christ in the stable are 
taken from a passage in the latter work, in which it is said : 
" The third day after the birth of the Lord, the blessed Mary 
went out of the cave (into which an angel had told her to 
go and be delivered), and entered into a stable, and she put 
the child into the manger, and the ox and the ass worshipped 
him. Then was fulfilled that which was said by the prophet 
Isaiah, ' The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's 
crib.' " 

In a very scarce Italian book, a copy of which is in the 
Paris Library, entitled, " Vita del nostro Signore Jesu 
Cristo e della sua gloriosa madre vergine madona sancta 
Maria," (Bologna: Baldisera degli Azzoaguidi, 1474, foL), 
we are informed that when the Virgin was confined, Joseph 
sent for two midwives, named G^lome and Salome, and that 
on the demand of Mary, Gelome convinced herself of her 
virginity, while Salome, who said it was impossible, lost the 
use of her hands, which, however, were afterwards made 
whole upon her obeying the directions of an angel. This 
story is taken from two of the apocryphal gospels. The 
Virgin was of course held to be possessed of great personal 
beauty, as appears in the following short extract from a 
poem of the twelfth century on the subject : — 



ORIGIN AND DESTJXV. 178 

Fulcra dorso, pulcra palia, 
* Dentin mqiie aerie I 

Piilcra, pulcram aliorum, 
Formam Tincis et olorum 

Olorina facie. 
Ave, Pulcra fauce, nare, 
Cuius Derao curaxare 

Poteat formam graphicis. 

According to Xavier (^Historia Christi'), Mary was of a 
very good figure, and brown ; her eyes were large, and bluish 
in colour, and her hair was golden. " Maria fuit mediocris 
siatuse, triticei colons, extensd. facie; oculi ejus magni et 
vergentes ad coeruleum, capillus ejus aureus. Manus et 
digiti ejus longi, pulchra forma, in omnibus proportio- 
nata." See also Nicephorus, 1. II. cap. 23. This is ap- 
parently out of all character, for Mary ought to have had a 
Jewish cast of features ; but it is strictly correct, as will be 
seen when we come to the origin of these narratives. 

The passage Matt. iii. 7-10, is an interpolation. The 
narrative should continue like that in Mark i. 8 : ^^ I indeed 
baptise you with water," &c. It was inserted in order to 
make it appear (which is altogether improbable), that the 
Pharisees and Sadducees had allowed themselves to be bap- 
tised by John. This is in contradiction not only to his 
censure of them, but also to Matt. xxi. 26, and Luke vii. 30, 
in which it is expressly stated that the Pharisees were not 
baptised of John. In Mark i. 8, the word vfid? applies to the 
multitudes who (verse 5) were baptised by John. The 
passage has probably been made up from Luke iii. 7-9, and 
the narrative in Mark. 

The word tots, in verse 1 3, is one of the verbal peculiarities, 
such as Trapaylusrai (conf. ch. ii. ver. 1) and tSou, verse 17, 
which belong to the first and second chapters of Matthew, 
and which make the baptism of Christ to follow immediately 
after the words of John, thus altering the natural order of 
things, the "in those days" of Mark (ch. i. ver. 9), and the 
" when all the people were baptised " of Luke iii. 51, and 
showing the hand of a later editor. 

In Matt. iii. 14, 15, John is represented as recognising Jesus 
as the Messiah. This contradicts verse 17, in which it is 
made known to him for the first time by a voice from heaven. 
Mark's gospel contains nothing of this, nor is there any trace 
of it in Luke iii. 21. These verses must have been inserted 
by a later editor. 



174 MAXKIND: THEIR 

The account of the temptation in Matt. iv. is quite con- 
trary to that in Mark i. 13, which represenlfe Christ as being 
tempted of Satan for forty days in the wilderness, and says 
not a word of his fasting. Luke probably took his account 
from some earlier edition of Matthew's gospel. But the 
appellation of Jerusalem (Luke iv. 9) as " the holy city," arfia 
iroKiSy in Matt. iv. 5, which occurs again in ch. xivii. ver. 
63, appears to have been inserted by a later editor. 

In Matt. iv. 12, Jesus is represented as departing into 
Galilee, because he had heard that John was cast into prison. 
This does not agree with the parallel passages, Mark i. 14, 
and Luke iv. 14, and we may conclude from the use of the 
word dvaxo)psli^y which is found in Matt. iL 12-14, and 
again in xii. 15, xiv. 13, and xv. 21, that it is the work 
of the later editor, who has endeavoured by the use of the 
connecting word " and " to connect it with the narrative in 
Mark i. 14. 

The statement in Matt. iv. 13-16, that Jesus went to 
Nazareth after his departure from the Jordan to Gkililee, does 
not agree with Matt. xiii. 53, et sqq., where it is stated that 
Jesus came afterwards to Nazareth, and, being dissatisfied 
with the result of his preaching, left it. The account in 
Mark i. 16, is much more natural. The narrative in Matthew 
was known to Luke, who places the visit to Nazareth (Mark 
vi. 1-5) at the commencement of his gospel narrative, and 
who may have taken it from some earlier edition of Matthew's 
gospel. Yet the naming of the Sea of Galilee by the pro- 
phetic names of Zabulon and Naphtali, and the statement 
that the preaching of Jesus commenced in this region as a 
fulfilment of the prophecy contained in Isaiah ix. 1, 2, which 
is introduced by the words ha ir\r)p(odfj to jyqBiv &a 'Hcra&i; 
rov 7rpo^Tov^ as well as the words KaTa)K7jaev elf, which occur 
nowhere else in the gospels except in Matt. ii. 23, betray the 
hand of a later editor. 

Matt. iv. 23 : Kal Trepirjyev . . . fjuiKaxlav iv t^ \a^. These 
words occur again almost identically in chap. ix. ver. 35, and 
the passage is parallel to Mark vi. 6. Even lBa>v rovs 2;^Xot/F, 
Matt. V. 1, occurs again in chap. ix. ver. 36. The narrative in 
Matt. ix. 35, 36, precedes a succession of instructions which 
Jesus gives to the Apostles in Matt. x. 5, et sqq., and these 
words occur in the same manner in Matt. iv. 23, as an intro- 
duction to the discourse in Matt. v. 1, et sqq. The editor. 



ORIGIN AXD DESTIXV. 175 

probably the latest one, on whom the parallelism with Luke 
depends, took chap. ix. ver. 85, from Mark vi. 6, and i. 39, 
and ingeniously used the same words as an introduction to 
the Sermon on the Mount. 

While chap. iv. ver. 23, points to a later editor, verses 24 and 
25 also seem not to be in their proper place. It is most impro- 
bable that at the very commencement of the ministry of Jesus 
his fame should have extended over all Syria, and that 
great multitudes should have followed him, not only from 
Galilee, but fix)m Decapolis, from Jerusalem, and from 
beyond Jordan. The parallel passages Mark iii. 7-10, and 
Luke vi. 17, are free from this exaggeration. The words xal 
ava/Sawei el? to Spo9y Mark iii. 13, and avi^t) ds to Spos, 
Matt. V. 1, are interchanged. The compiler, who had to 
find a suitable place for the collection of sayings which he 
had derived from elsewhere, and which are contained in 
Matt, v-vii., took the account of the ascent of the mountain, 
chap. V. ver. 1, from Mark iii. 18, and the introduction to it. 
Matt. iv. 24, 25, from Mark iii. 7-10. 

Matt, v.-vii. If Matt. iv. 28-25, is not in its proper place, 
it follows that the later editor must have connected it by 
means of a text which was already in existence before him. 
The article tJ before Spos is remarkable. In Mark iii. 13, 
we have a well-known mountain in the neighbourhood of 
Capernaum, but in Matthew Jesus is on a journey through 
Gralilee, and therefore to opc9 would seem to refer to some 
other mountain. Jesus ascends the mountain just as in Mark 
iii. 13, in order to escape from the multitudes which followed 
him, and in order to occupy himself with his disciples. It is 
also stated in the same way that his discourses were delivered 
in the presence of his disciples, as is clearly shown in verses 11 
and 12. It is evident from their being placed on an equality 
with the prophets (verse 12), and being called " the salt of the 
earth" (13), and "the light of the world'' (14), that only 
the Apostles can be indicated here. But the Evangelist has 
not mentioned the choice of the Apostles, for up to the 
present time only four disciples had been chosen (Matt. iv. 
18-22), and they had not yet been raised to the apostolic 
dignity. The editor forgot to insert the appointment of the 
twelve Apostles, which Jesus, according to Mark iii. 13-19, 
made on the mountain, and only mentions their names much 
later (Matt. x. 2-4), without mentioning how Jesus came to 



ITfi MANKIND: THEIR 

have the number of twelve Apostles. Hence it follows that 
the hearers, who, according to Matt. v. 1, were the disciples 
(with the exception of the multitude which Jesus endeavoured 
to avoid by ascending the mountain), are at the end of the 
discourse (chap. vii. ver. 28) carelessly changed into the 
multitude itself. Lastly, the editor uses in the same verse 
the customary formula, xal eyipsro Zts eriXriaev 6 ^Irjaovs rovs 
X6you9 7ovTov9y which he uses on five occasions (vii. 28, 
xi. 1, xiii. 53, xix. 1, and xxvi. 1) to express the conclusion of 
a number of sayings, and which leads one to suppose that he 
here also concludes a number of sayings. This arrangement 
must have been made by some previous editor, from whom 
Luke (chap. vi. ver. 20-49) took the shorter discourse, the con- 
cluding formula (chap. vii. ver. 1), and the narrative of the 
Centurion's servant, which follows it in chap. vii. ver, 2-10, 
just as it does in Matt. viii. 5-13. 

The discourse (Matt, v-vii.), which was known to Luke 
from some former edition, is either taken from some older 
collection of sayings, or is merely a collection of discourses 
said tx) have been delivered by Jesus on several occasions, 
handed down by tradition, and artistically put together. It 
would appear to have been described by the latest editor, 
having regard to Mark iii. 13, as a discourse on the moon- 
tain. How arbitrarily this has been done appears from the 
narrative in Luke, in which it is expressly stated (ch. vi. 
ver. 1 7) that Jesus came down from the mountain with the 
Apostles, and stood on a level place, and delivered the same 
discourse, not only to the (four) disciples (Matt. v. 1), but " to 
the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of 
people,^' &c. (Luke vi. 17). It is probable that Luke had not 
the words ai'^/Sq eh to Spos — to a-TOfia avrov in his edition 
of Matthew. If the words ran Itoiv Sk tov9 S^^^ov? (conf. 
ch. iv. ver. 25) ihihaaKsv aviovs^ \iy(ov^ it is easy to see 
how Luke, having regard to Matt. iii. 13, represented Jesus 
as delivering the discourse which the canonical Matthew 
represents as being delivered on the mountain, on a level 
place, in the presence of the multitude which had followed 
him on his journey through Galilee. Matt. v. 19, has been 
inserted by some later Judaeo-Christian hand. It has no con- 
nection with the preceding verse, which is naturally followed 
by verse 20. The same is the case with ch. vi. ver. 14, 15, 
which do not agree with the sublime petition in verse 12, nor 



ORIGIN AND DESTIXl'. 177 

with Luke xi. 4 ; and also with the esehatological declara- 
tion in chap. vii. ver. 22, 23, for Uelmj^ in the formula h 
ixeunf rง rjfiipa relates to nothing in the previous sentence, 
and, what is very remarkable, it has not been insei-ted by 
Luke between chap. vi. ver. 46 and 47. 

The Jewish prayer, from which the Lord's Prayer is taken, 
is thus given in the words of the Eev. John Gregorie, p. 168 
(London, 1685). 

** Our Father which art in heaven^ be gracious to us, O 
Lord our God ; hallowed be thy namey and let the remem- 
' brance of thee be glorified in heaven above, and upon earth 
here below. Let thy kingdom reign over us, now and for 
ever. Thy holy men of old said, Bemit and forgive unto all 
men whatsoever they have done against me. And lead us not 
into temptation^ hut deliver us from the evil thing. For thine 
is Hie kingdom^ and thou shalt reign in glory , for ever and for 
evermore." 

Basna^ (" Hist, des Jaifs," t. VI. p. 374) may well say that 
the Jews had an ancient prayer called the Kadish, exactly 
like the Lord's Prayer, and Webster may well remark that 
it is a curious fact that the Lord's Prayer may be constructed 
almost verbatim out of the Talmud. 

After the insertion of Matt. iv. 23, and vii. 28, \hQ editor 
should have taken up the thread of the narrative from Mark 
i. 21. But he did not do this, for he omits in his narrative 
the passage Mark i. 21-28. It is evident that he knew 
Mark's narrative from the similarity between Matt. vii. 28, 
i^nrXijaaoin-o . . . ypafifiarels, and Mark i. 22. The editor of 
Matthew's gospel considered the account of the impression 
the discourses of Jesus made in Capernaum to be superfluous 
after the Sermon on the Mount. This omission may also 
have resulted from the similarity between Mark's narrative 
of the man in the synagogue wilh an unclean spirit, chap. i. 
ver. 23-27, and that in chap. v. ver. 1, et sqq. In both places 
we have an avOfHoiros iv irvsvfJuiTi af(addprq>^ Mark i. 28, and v. 
2, who ** cried out," aviicpa^svy i. 23, Kpd^as (fxav^ fnydXrjy v. 7, 
Tt vfilv Kol cro2, *Ii7<70&; i. 24, and v. 7. It is remarkable that 
when Matthew comes, in chap. viii. ver. 28, to the narrative 
in Mark v., he mentions, instead of one man with an unclean 
spirit, Mark v. 2, two men possessed with devils. 

After the omission of this narrative, that of Simon's wife's 
mother ought to follow. But instead of this, the editor of 

N 



178 MANKIND: TKEIR 

Matthew passes on to Mark i. 40-45. According to Mark, 
this occurrence took place during a journey of Jesus through 
Galilee, chap. i. ver. 38, and before he entered again into Ca- 
pernaum, chap. ii. ver. 1. This leads us to suspect that the 
editor of Matthew's gospel, either the earlier or the later 
one, also placed the healing of the leper during the journey 
of Jesus, Matt. iv. 23, and before his re-entry into Capernaum, 
chap. viii. ver. 5. This suspicion is strengthened by the simi- 
larity between Matt. iv. 23, irspirjyev i\f)v rfjv raXtT^lav StBd- 
(TKcov ev raZs avvcuyoy^aZs avT&v koI Ki]fwaaa)u to evayyiXcov, and 
Mark i. 39, rju Krjpvaatov iv ral^ avvarfcor^als avr&Vy els ZXrjv rijv' 
VaXiXalav. The editor found also here the proper place for the 
narrative of the Centurion at Capernaum, chap. viii. ver. 5-13, 
which is not in Mark, but which Luke had in his edition of 
Matthew (Luke vii. 2-10). The greater originality of Mark's 
account of the healing of the leper appears from the fact 
that, without expressly mentioning a house in which the 
cure took place, he nevertheless intimates that there was one 
in the words i^^jSaXsv axnov (verse 43) and i^eXฃii>v (verse 45). 
The editor of Matthew's gospel seems not to have understood 
the accuracy of these expressions, and makes the occurrence 
to have taken place in the open air, after Jesus had come 
down from the mountain. 

After these two narratives, we come at length to the 
incident of Peter's wife's mother (Matt. viii. 14-17). The 
motive which led Mark to associate with Jesus the three 
disciples whom Jesus had called, together with Simon, at the 
Sea of Galilee, did not exist for Matthew, who represents 
Jesus as journeying and delivering his Sermon on the Mount 
before he returned to Capernaum, and for this reason he 
only mentions Jesus, and changes the avrois of Mark i. 81, 
into avr^, Matt. viii. 15. Verse 17 is evidently the work of an 
editor posterior to Luke from the words iVa irXriptoB^ to prfOiv 
htk ^Wacuov Tov 7Tpo4>'i]ToVy which reminds us of the author of 
chap, i.and ii. We must ascribe to this quotation, which 
speaks of " sicknesses," the fact that Matthew inverts Mark 
i. 34, and puts those that were possessed with devils before 
the sick (verse 16). 

In Matthew's gospel there follow here the command of 
Jesus to depart to the eastern coast of the sea, the narrative 
of the two young men who wished to follow Jesus (verses 
19-22), his embarkation (23), the storm (24-27), and his arrival 



ORIGLV AND DESTIXY. 170 

in the country of the Gergesenes (" Gazarenes," Cod. Sin.) 
(28). The connection of all this with verse 16 is not clear. 
How could the ttoXKoI Sx^oi in verse 18 lead Jesus to depart to 
the other side, when, according to verses 14-16, he was in 
Peter's house, and had merely to re-enter the house to avoid 
the multitudes ? Whence did the ship (or, more accurately, 
the boat) come which is mentioned in verse 23, and which 
there is no previous mention of? — a diflBiculty which dis- 
appears if we compare Mark iv. 35, 36,with chap. iv. ver. i. 
It is also improbable that Jesus should begin a journey 
so soon after his return to Capernaum, and so late in the 
evening after a day of great fatigue. Moreover, the very 
different account given of the young men by Luke (chap. 
ix. ver. 57-60) leads us to think that we have here to do 
with an isolated tradition which the evangelists have in- 
serted each in their own wav. How much more natural 
is Mark's narrative ! Jesus remains, after a day of great 
fatigue, in Peter's house (Mark i. 29), rests himself, and 
rises early the next morning, not, as Matthew states, to go 
to the distant and heathen district of the Gergesenes, but 
to preach to the benighted towns and synagogues of Galilee 
(Mark i. 35-39). The reason why Matthew in this place 
ako did not follow the order of Mark's gospel is probably to 
be found in Mark iv. 35. When he came to Mark i. 32, 
instead of following the narrative Mark i. 35-39, he goes 
to Mark iv. 35, et sqq., in which we find, as in chap. i. ver. 32, 
the words oyltia? yevo^injSy and which, like it, mentions the 
departure of Jesus eh to iripav. 

In Matt. ix. 1, Jesus, on his return from the country of 
the Gergesenes {hfi^iis sU rb ttXoZoi/), crosses the sea, returns 
to Capernaum, and heals a man sick of the palsy. Matthew 
had anticipated tie voyage to the land of the Gergesenes, 
from the conformity of chap. viii. ver. 16, 18, with Mark iv. 35 ; 
and it follows that the account of the palsied man is also 
out of its place. The editor, after the unseasonable junc- 
tion of Mark iv. 35, and v. 20, took up the thread of his 
narrative from Mark ii. 1. But the return to Caper- 
naum, Mark ii. 1 (conf. chap. i. ver. 45), must, in Matthew's 
gospel, owing to the transposition of the narrative, be a 
voyage over the sea (ififias els ro irXolov Bieiripcurevjj Matt. ix. i. 
The hand of the later editor also appears in that Capernaum, 
with reference to the paragraph which had been inserted 



^. n 



180 MANKIND : THEIR 

at Matt. iv. 13 (where it is said Kar^rjasv sU Ka'n'epvaoiffi)^ 
is called the IBca 7r6\i9 of Jesus. Lastly, the editor forgot 
the word iraXiVy which connects Mark ii. 1, with Mark i. 
21 ; and through the abbreviation of the narrative, the 
reader is left in ignorance where this event took place, 
which, according to Mark ii. 1, et sqq., took place in Jesus' 
own house. 

In Matt. ix. 9-13, the editors connect the calling of 
Matthew, as the word eKsWsp shows, directly with the pre- 
ceding event. But, according to Mark ii. 13-17, this event 
had no connection with the calling of Matthew. The in- 
sertion of iKiWev^ Matt. ix. 9, is the result of the less ap- 
propriate connection of this word with Trapdr/fov^ which latter 
word the editor uses in common with Mark ii. 14. 

The writer of this gospel is inconsistent in verse 9, not only 
with Luke, who says the Sermon on the Mount was de- 
livered after the twelve apostles were chosen, but with 
himself, for it makes the very apostle who is supposed to be 
the author of it, and to have circumstantially recorded the 
sermon, not to have been called till some time after it was 
delivered, and the apostles to have been chosen still later 
(chap. X.). 

Matt. ix. 14-17. Here the editor unnaturally joins by 
means of the word tots the discourse about fasting to verse 
13, as if the disciples of John had come in during the meal 
mentioned in verse 10 ; while in Mark ii. 18-22, it stands by 
itself, as an example of the independent teaching of Jesus. 
The editor betrays the later origin of his text by such pal- 
I)able misunderstandings of the original source from which 
he drew, as will be more clearly shown subsequently. 

Matt. ix. 18-26. If slaeXOcov is the correct reading here, 
as the word iyspOels, verse 19 (that is, " from table," verse 10), 
and the words Tama ainov XaXovinos, verse 18, leave no doubt 
it is, not only John's disciples, but also one of the rulers of 
the synagogue, whom Mark (chap. v. ver. 22) calls Jairus, must 
have been in the room where Jesus sat at meat with 
Matthew; and this affords a fresh proof how the editor 
joins narratives to one another which were originally dis- 
connected. In Mark, this narrative occurs after quite diffe- 
rent preceding events, and certainly after the return of 
Jesus from the country of the Gadarenes (" Gerasenes," Cod. 
Sin.), chap. v. ver. 21. It becomes clear why the editor of 



ORIGIX AND DESTINY. 181 

Matthew made this narrative follow in the place where it 
does when we see that, according to him, apx^op eh ep^srai^ 
of which the text of Mark (?/ X^^^^ ^^^ "^^^ apxtavpaydlyyayp)^ 
chap. V. ver. 22, contains no trace. If the editor substituted sla- 
ipXerai for eh ipx^ai^ it would be impossiblefor him to leave 
the narrative in the same situation as it is in Mark. Ho 
read, ** Then cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue : " 
this did not refer to a reception of Jesus when he was on 
the borders of the sea (Mark v. 21, 22), but to a house or 
room into which the iTder of the synagogue could enter. 
This being the case, the editor was obliged to connect the 
circumstance with the meal mentioned in verse 10, which took 
place inside the house. The text of Matthew betrays its 
origin still further in the narrative of the woman with the 
issue of blood, as a later interpolation, by comparison with 
Mark, by means of the words, ** And the woman was made 
whole from that hour" — words which are found again in 
Matt. viii. 13, xv. 28, and xvii. 18 ; where Matthew also 
stands alone, or Mark has not the words. 

Matt. ix. 27-31. This narrative, which is only found in 
Matthew, betrays in the opening words irapdyojv iKsWav (verse 
27) the hand of a reviser (conf. chap. ix. ver. 9). Compare also 
KoriL rrjv iriarw vpL&v yevrjO'^Ta) vfuv (ix. 29) with viii. 13, 
XV. 28 ; and o\r) rj yrj ixelvr) (ix. 31) with ix. 26. 

Matt. ix. 35. This sudden transition to a succession of 
sayings which relate to the sending forth of the apostles 
through Galilee is similar to that previous to the Sermon on 
the Mount (iv. 23), and is taken from Mark vi. 6. The 
words in Matt. ix. 36, stand in better order in Mark vi. 34. 
The words in verse 37 served perhaps to lead into chap. x. 
verse 5, et sqq. Conf. Luke x. 2, 4, et sqq. 

Matt. X. 1-4. The account of the sending forth of the 
twelve apostles in this place is strange, as tl^ere has been 
no previous mention of their having been appointed. There 
was probably some mention in the source from which the 
editor took his narrative of their having been appointed, 
and, being occupied with the insertion of the Sermon on the 
Mount, he forgot to mention it. Conf. Mark iii. 13, 14, 
where the appointment of the Twelve actually precedes the 
sending them forth in chap. vii. ver. 7. 

Matt. X. 6—41 . The position of these commands of Jesus 
to his apostles, when sending them to the land of Israel, is 



182 MANKIND : THEIR 

connected with 7r6pi^7fi; ^Irjaom ras woXsi?, K.r,\. (ix. 35), just 
as it is in Mark vii. 7, 8. It is more probable that, as Mark 
states, this sending forth took place in the more distant 
Nazareth than in the neighbourhood of Capernaum, where 
Jesus ah'eady, according to Matt. iv. 23, Trepirjyev okfjv rrfp Fa- 
\iXaiav {tcl? e)(0fjLsya9 KoyfioiroXsify Mark i. 38), and had already 
preached the Gospel. Besides, the narrative of Matthew is 
evidently interpolated. Matt. x. 5-8, is added to Mark vi. 
8. The prohibition against going to the Gentiles or to the 
Samaritans, and the injunction to go only to the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel, show that it has been inserted 
by the Jud8eo-Christianปhand of some later editor. This 
prohibition is not found in Luke ix. 3. We see this also 
in verse 8, " Heal the sick," &c. ; while in Mark vi. 7, power 
over the unclean spirits alone is given to the Apostles. The 
words sis rr)v oUiav in verse 12 do not agree with verse 11. 
The mention of persecutions and scourging (16-23), and of the 
governors and kings before whom the Apostles were to be 
brought (17-19), the mention of the Gentiles (18), the pro- 
mise of the Holy Spirit (19, 20), do not agree with this 
discourse, and appear for the first time in Mark at a later 
period (chap.xiii. ver. 9-13). Theeditor has evidently inserted 
here, after the commands which Jesus gave to his apostles, 
some discourses of the same description, which he took 
partly from Mark and partly from some collection of 
sayings, and consequently the passage Mark xiii. 9-13, is 
omitted in the parallel passage Matt. xxiv. 9, et sqq., with 
the exception of a single verse, Mark xiii. 13, which occurs 
twice in Matthew (x. 22, and xxiv. 9, 13). 

Matt. X. 23, contains an expectation of persecution which 
does not come in its proper place here, and, moreover, is in 
contradiction to that in Matt, xxiv, 14, 31, in that it relates 
to Israel alone (conf. verse 4), and not to the heathen at all. 
The interpolation is all the more clear from the fact that h 
7// TToXfft (verse 28) refers to verse 14, and has no connection 
with verses 17-22. 

Matt. X. 25. The statement in this verse, that Jesus had 
been called Beelzebub does not occur again in Matthew's 
gospel; and this saying of Jesus appears to stand alone. 
The verses 24-42 are found in quite a diflFerent position in 
Jiuke vi. 40 ; xii. 2- 9, 51-53 ; xiv. 26, 27 ; xvii. 33; and x. 16 ; 



ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 183 

whence we may conclude that Luke made use of some other 
source of information than Matthew. 

Matt. xi. 1. Kai iyiv^o otb ireXijaev 6 ^Irjaovs is the same 
formula as Matthew used before (conf. vii. 28) to conclude 
a collection of sayings. 

Matt. xi. 2-6. John's enquiry whether Jesus was the 
Messiah is unconnected with the preceding verses. John 
is represented as being ignorant of the sect of Jesus, who 
had begun his ministry after him, and as having first begun 
in the prison {cucowra? iv rw Seafiayrrjpitp tA ipya rov ^pKrrov) to 
enquire whether he was really he that should come. This is 
in complete contradiction to Matt. iii. 14, and 16, 17, in 
which John is represented as beholding God in heaven 
recognising Jesus as the Messiah. The traditional explana- 
tions, that John did not send to enquire for himself, but for 
his disciples, and that John^s former belief had died out in 
prison, are quite exploded. In Luke vii. 18, et sqq., the 
connection is quite different. The insertion of the words to5 
Xpurrov (xi. 2), which were probably originally 'Ii/o-ov, is 
most likely the work of the later editor of Matthew's gospel. 
He shows by this alteration that he also considered the 
miracles of Jesus to be the only proofs of his being the 
Messiah (conf. chap. viii. ver. 1 7). The words & aKovhe xal 
pXhrers appear also to be an interpolation of the editor's, 
who, like Luke (chap. viii. ver. 21), had formed an improper 
estimate of the miracles of Jesus. In the discourse of Jesus 
respecting John, Matt. xi. 7-19, the editor appears (12-15) 
to have been desirous of collecting all that he could find in 
his sources of information respecting John. At any rate, 
Luke has not these verses in the parallel passage (chap. vii. 
ver. 28), and inserts them in another place (xvi. 16), where, 
again, they are unconnected with the previous passage. 

Matt. xi. 20-24. These verses are also connected by the 
editor with the preceding verses by the word totฃ, just as 
in ii. 7, and xvii. 17. The allusion to the mighty works 
which Jesus had done in Chorazin and Bethsaida (verse 21) 
refers to a part of the ministry of Jesus respecting which 
the Evangelist gives us no information elsewhere. In Luke 
X. 12-15, those words form part of a discourse delivered by 
Jesus to the Seventy. 

Matt. xi. 26-30. These verses also have no natural con- 
nection with the preceding. It is impossible to discover to 



i 



184 MANKIND: THEIR 

what the words Taura and awoKpidsU (verse 25) refer, and this 
shows that they formerly stood in some different connection. 
The Evangelist connects them with the preceding verses 
by his usual form of conjunction iv iKsiv^ 7^ xaip^. In 
Mark, this forms a portion of the succession of incidents at 
Capernaum and the neighbourhood, which in his gospel are 
detached narratives or episodes, without any chronological 
order. 

Matt. xii. 4. The words ovBe roh fier ainov, el firf T019 
Upsvawy which are not in Mark, are an evident interpolation. 
As the verse stands, the priests must have been journeying 
with David. 

Matt. xii. 5, 6. Verse 6 shows how little connection there is 
between these verses and the preceding ones. The priests did 
their work in the temple on the Sabbath day, and ** a greater 
{nei^wv) than the temple is here.** K we interpret ttie verse 
in this manner, we must ask what connection the " one 
greater than the temple'* has with this narrative. K it 
stands in its proper place, we must seek for it in the first 
verse, but it has no connection with the plucking of the ears 
of com. And the difficulty continues if we suppose Jesus to 
have spoken the fisl^(ov of himself. Under these circumstances, 
the enquiry arises, how this higher position of Jesus could 
appear from the plucking of the ears of com and eating 
them to appease their hunger by the disciples, unless they 
were subject to the authority of Jesus, and not to that 
of the law, respecting the Sabbath, of which the narrative 
makes no mention. Hence it is clear that the typical 
example which these priests afforded must have first ap- 
peared as the words of Christ in some narrative in which 
Jesus or his disciples had done some work of love, so that 
the word fxel^cav should relate to it, and not to the person of 
Christ. The quotation from Hosea vi. 6, in which mercy is 
raised above sacrifice, has the same tendency. This quota- 
tion would prove nothing with respect to plucking the ears 
of corn on the Sabbath day. In Mark ii. 25, 26, Jesus 
justifies the conduct of his disciples only by referring to the 
conduct of David, who, with the consent of the high-priest, 
as now the disciples with the consent of Jesus, violated the 
letter of the law (1 Sam. xxi. 6), and therefore the words of 
Christ come in better in Mark ii. 27, 28. 

Matt. xii. 9-14. The later editor here again makes use of 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 186 

the formula furafihs eKsidsVy with which he connects this narra- 
tive with the preceding, just as he did the previous quo- 
tation fix)m Mark. Verses 11 and 12, which are in a better 
form in Luke xiv. 5, and in a different connection, appear 
to haye been inserted by the editor from the corresponding 
passage in Mark iii. 4. 

Matt. xii. 15-21. *Avs)((opv^^ eKetdgp reminds us of Matt. 
iL 21, and iy. 12 (conf. xiv. 18), and stands here also in con- 
nection with the snares by which Jesus was surrounded by the 
party of the Pharisees, verse 14 (according to Mark iii. 6, by 
the Herodians also). Verse 1 7 shows by the words iva irXvptoO^ 
TO pvfOiv Slit 'Haatbv rov 7rpo(f>ijTov \iyovTos, which precede the 
quotation fr^m Isa. xlii. 1-4, the hand of the latest editor. 
Conf. the quotations in i. and iii. ; and iii. 3, iv. 14, and 
yiii. 17. 

Matt. xii. 22-37. The editor can here again be recog- 
nised by the word tot^. The n/^Xoi (ix. 27) and the K(oif>o9 
iaifAavJjatigvos (verse 32) appear here to have l)een com- 
bined with a single Bcu^vi^ofievof ri/^Xo^ koI /co)if>6s — an 
improbable combination of two different narratives. Verse 
25 represents Jesus as elSi>s ritf ivdvfiriaeis avr&v^ which is 
not to be found in the parallel passage Mark iii. 22, and 
reminds us of ihoav 6 ^Irjtiovs tcls eu0vfiijcrei9 avr&v (Matt. ix. 4) ; 
while Mark states, hrir/vovs o ^IrjaoOs r^ irievfiaTi airrov Sri 
OVTC08 avTol SiaXoyi^omai iv iavrois. 

Matt. xii. 38-42. These sayings are also connected with 
the preceding by the usual tots, and are found in Luke in 
quite a different connection (chap. xi. ver. 16, 29-32). It is 
evident that the whole story about Jonah has been inserted 
from the fact that Matt. xii. 43, is naturally connected with 
ver. 37, or ver. 30. Compare Luke xi., in which ver. 24 and 
25, which is the parallel passage to Matt. xiii. 43-45, join 
Luke xi. 23, which corresponds to Matt. xii. 30. If this 
insertion was made mechanically by the earlier editor, who 
was known to Luke, and derived from some other source, 
the fortieth verse must be a much more recent interpreta- 
tion of the last editor's, who has quite misunderstood the 
meaning of to arjfAiiov 'Io>i/a (ver. 39). This interpretation of 
the sign of Jonas is not found elsewhere. Matt. xvi. 4 (conf. 
Mark viii. 12, and Luke xi. 30), and contradicts these 
passages, just as it does Matt. xii. 41, 42. 

Matt. xii. 46-50. The request of the mother and brethren 



186 MANKIND : THEIR 

of Jesus is connected witb the previous passage by the 
formula Sri Si avrov \a\ovvT09 (couf. Matt. ix. 18). The 
following circumstances lead us to suppose that this 
narrative also stood originally in some other connection : — 

1. Whence came the ^Xoi, ver. 46, y^ho are not mentioned 
in ver. 24 or ver. 38. 2. "Efa), in ver. 47, alludes to a house 
in which Jesus was, which also is not mentioned in the 
preceding verses. 3. Where was Jesus at that time, since 
he (ver. 15) had left Capernaum ? How did his mother and 
his brethren, who lived at Nazareth, come here, and what 
was their object in coming ? All these diflBculties disappear 
when we look at the narrative in Mark. According to it, 
Jesus was in a house at Capernaum (Mark iii. 19). His 
mother and his brethren came (i.e. fix)m Nazareth), and the 
reason of their visit was, that in their opinion Jesus was 
beside himself (ver. 21), and they wished to lay hold on him, 
and bring him into safe custody. 

Matt. xiii. 1, et sqq., is joined to the preceding by the 
words iv Tง rifJLipa e/ceivrj. In Mark iv. 1, this narrative is 
detached. 

Matt. xiii. 16, 17. In the preceding discourse the sub- 
jective want of susceptibility in man to see and hear the truth 
was the subject. But here the disciples of Jesus are spoken 
of as blessed, because they see and hear things which 
prophets and righteous men had not seen or heard, and 
therefore their seeing and hearing has an objective ground. 
But not seeing or hearing was not on that account a result 
of subjective want of susceptibility, because they had no 
object before them which they could see or hear. This 
address, which is also found in Luke x. 23, 24, in quite a 
diflferent connection, must have been inserted here from 
some other source, perhaps from a collection of sayings, and 
inserted here artificially, and in a manner contrary to the 
meaning of the passage. 

Matt. xiii. 18-23. The interpretation of the parable of 
the sower ought properly to come where the parable was 
delivered by Jesus to the multitude which was still in dark- 
ness, and the disciples are permitted (Mark iv. 13-23) to 
understand the mysteries of the kingdom without any 
concealment; and therefore, as will be shown hereafter, 
he follows an older text than Matthew, which must be 
reckoned among the oldest sources of the gospels, of which 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 187 

the more ancient editor, the one known to Lnke, also 
made use. 

Matt. xiii. 24-33, 44-48. The position of this succession 
of comparisons in this connection betrays the work of a 
compiler. 1. AutoU, ver. 24, relates to the disciples in ver. 
10, while, according to verses 2 and 34, the multitude was 
present as his hearers. 2. These parables differ from the 
parallel passages in Mark (conf. xiii. 3, with Mark ir. 3) in 
the introductory formula 'ilfiouaOrf r/ fiaaCKiia r&v ovpcw&Vy 
Ter. 24. Conf. xviii. 23, zxii. 2, xxv. 1 ; or o^ia ia-rtv 
if PaaiXiia r&y ovpav&Vy xiiL 31, 33, 44, 45, 47 (conf. 
XX. 1). 

Matt, viii 35. The apologetical quotation from Psalm 
Ixxyiii. 2, which follows the erroneous interpretation of the 
Septuagint, and is introduced by the customary formula 
in chap. i. and ii., inrxas 'rrXrfpayO^ to prjOhf Siit rov irpo^rp-ov 
\iyovro9, has been inserted by the latest editor. In the Cod. 
Sin. the words are, "By Esaias the prophet," perhaps to 
conceal the inaccuracy of the quotation. The sentence in 
Ps. Ixxviii. is : " I will open my mouth in a parable, I will 
utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and knoum^ 
and our fathers have told usJ^ 

Matt. xiu. 36-43. Here, again, we have the use of the 
word t6t€. The dismissal of the multitude by Jesus con- 
tradicts ver. 10 (conf. Mark iv. 10), where Jesus is alone with 
the disciples. According to Matthew (verse 36), all these 
parables were uttered on the same occasion, as appears also 
from the change of k\a\si^ (Mark iv. 35) into the past aorist 
tkoKriKTev (Matt. xiii. 34). In Mark, the comparisons (iv. 
21, 24, 26, and 30) are joined by the words koX tXeyav or kgI 
\iyuy and are appended to the spiritual discourse (Mark iv. 
1-20), as examples of the teaching by parables on other 
occasions, as the imperfects iXoKei^y iSuvavrOy and hrikvevy " he 
expounded," &c., show. The interpretation of Matthew is 
also very different from the verses which precede, and points 
to quite a different tradition from ver. 18-23. The sower, 
who is the subject in the previous comparison, and who does 
not mean any particular person, becomes in ver. 37 the Son 
of Man. The field is the word, the good seed is the children 
of the kingdom, and not, as in ver. 19, the word of the 
kingdom. He who sows the tares is the devil, and the tares 
(ver. 38) are the children of the wicked one. The harvest 



188 MANKIND: THEIR 

is the end of the present order of things, and the Evangelist 
saw the angels in the reapers. In this interpretation, by 
means of which, in contradiction to verses 18-23, all this 
is introduced unnaturally by way of applying it to the 
minutest details, we recognise a later tradition, which has 
been adopted by the editor. The explanation given here is 
evidently from some other source than that in ver. 18-23, 
which is the one found in Mark also. The phraseology, 
also, is diflferent from the portions which are the same in 
the two gospels. Care was taken of such phrases as pdaov 
tlfiiv rffv 'rrapajSoXijVy ver. 36 (conf. xv. 15) ; of 6 irovripos^ 
instead of which Mark has o ^aravas (conf. ver. 18 with 
Mark iv. 15) ; of awriXsia rou ai&vo9^ ver. 39 (conf. xiii. 
40, xxiv. 3, xxviii. 20) ; Kafiivos toO vvposy ver. 42 (conf. 
ver. 50); 6 KXavdfibs Kal 6 Ppirfphs t&v oSoi/rcoPy ver. 42 (conf. 
viii. 42, xiii. 50, xxi. 13, xxiv. 51, xxv. 33) ; which expres- 
sions are only found in Matthew. 

Matt. xiii. 49, 50. This interpretation is also the work of 
a later editor, as a comparison with the preceding one, 
with which it is connected, will clearly show. 

Matt. xiii. 51, 52. The enquiry whether the disciples 
understood the parables sounds strangely after the preced- 
ing elaborately distinct explanations. Verse 52, which is not 
taken from Mark, shows traces of some speech of Jesus 
which was handed down by tradition. It says little for the 
genuineness of it that Jesus is here represented as putting 
himself in the class of the scribes. 

Matt. xiii. 53. Here we have for the third time the cus- 
tomary formula fcal iyivsro Ine hiXecrev o ''Irjcdv?^ with which 
the editor is in the habit of concluding a number of inter- 
calated discourses (conf. vii. 28, and xi. 1). The word fierTJpev 
also is in the style of the later editor (conf. chap. xix. ver. 1, 
with Mark x. 1). 

Matt. xiii. 54-58. If the passages Matt. viii. 18, 23-24, 
are not in their proper places, we can clearly see that the 
succession of events from Mark iv. 35, to y. 20, is the 
preferable one, and that the journeys of Jesus fi^m Caper- 
naum to Nazareth in connection with Matt. xiii. 54, are not 
in their right place. The editor, who took Mark iv. 35, to v. 
20, and 21-43, out of their proper places, takes up the narra- 
tive at chap. xiii. ver. 54, which is found in Mark vi. 1-6. 

Matt. xiv. 1. According to Matthew, Herod heard of the 



ORIGIX AXD DESTINY. 189 

fame of Jesus during his stay in Nazareth (xiii. 64-58), 
which was the place in which he could do few, or, accord- 
ing to Mark, no mighty works (conf. Matt. viii. 58, with 
Mark vi. 5). The omission of what was done by the 
Apostles in the name of Jesus (Mark vi. 13), with which the 
fame of Jesus (verse 14) is connected, makes the fame which 
came to the ears of Herod to vanish into the air in Matthew's 
account. The editor also uses his customary connecting 
formula ev ixsivip rw xaip^. 

Matt. xiv. 13. 'AKovaa? 6 ^Irjaovf ave^dapriaev i/ceWsp. The 
editor made use of the same expression in chap. iv. ver. 12, 
on the occasion of the journey of Christ through Galilee, 
in order to give it a motive by the imprisonment of John. 
Here he makes use of the burial of John for the same purpose. 
We may also recognise the hand of the later editor in the 
word sKsWsp. We can also see that the hand of a compiler 
has been busy here from the people who are said to have 
followed him, and of whom there has been no previous 
mention. According to xiii. 58, Jesus was at Nazareth, 
an inland town, which is not on any sea, and he could not, 
therefore, as is stated in Matt. xiv. 13, depart thence by 
ship into a desert place apart. The Apostles, who, according 
to chap. X. ver. 5, had been sent forth, are again with Jesus 
(chap. xiv. ver. 18, et sqq.), without any notice of their journey 
(Mark vi. 12, et sqq.) or their return (Mark vi. 30). This 
want of coherence shows that the narrative has been com- 
piled. According to Mark vi. 30, the narrative (conf. Matt, 
xviii.) is consistent, and we may learn from it that Jesus 
was at that time in some town near the Sea of Galilee. 
The disciples go on their journey (verse 12), and at a later 
period gather themselves together unto Jesus {awdyoinai irpo? 
701/ 'lr)aovv)y chap. vi. ver. 30 ; after which they cross the sea 
with him, not in order to escape from Herod (which was 
not in the thoughts of Jesus ; see Luke xiii. 31-33), but in 
order to go apart into a desert place and rest awhile after 
their journey (Mark vi. 31). 

Matt. xiv. 28-31. The Evangelist adds here to the 
walking of Jesus on the sea (Mark vi. 47-50), the tradition 
that Peter also wished to walk on the sea, but would have 
sunk from want of faith, if Jesus had not caught him by the 
hand. The later editor may be recognised in the formula 
airoKpiOiis diTBv (verse 28), which is peculiar to Matthew in 



100 MAXKIXD: THEIR 

contradistinction to Mark ; by Kvpis^ which only occurs once 
in Mark (vii. 28), and then without any dogmatic meaning, 
but which recurs frequently in Matthew, even in places 
in which Mark writes 'Va^^d (Mark ix. 6). We must also 
consider the word kbKbvsiv^ which, in the parallel passages of 
Mark, is hryrourcreiv^ jrapar/yiXeiv (vi. 27, viii. 6) ; eTrira vSara, 
conf. verse 25 (Mark has sttI with the genitive) ; am rod 
irXoiav (Mark has iK rov 7r\o{oVy chap. v. ver. 2) [conf. Matt. iii. 
18, airo Tov vBaT09, with Mark i. 10, ix t. vS. ; Matt. viii. 1, 
xvii. 8, Korefi. airo tov SpovSy with Mark ix. 9, ex c. X' B. D. al. ; 
Matt. xii. 43, xvii. 18, e^ipxscrdcu aTro, spoken of demons, 
with Mark i. 25, 26, etc ; Matt. xiv. 2, xxvii. 64, xxviii. 7, 
iyep0, airb r&v vsKp, with Mark vi. 14, 16, ix. 9, 10, xii. 25, 
iie v8Kp, ; Matt. xxi. 8, aTro ranf hivhp(ov, with Mark xi. 8, ek 
T. 8.] ; KaTanopTi^eadaiy which only occurs once again in 
Matt, xviii. 6, in which place Mark writes jSaXXsadat els rrjv 
BaKaaaav (ix. 42) ; oKiy&nurros (conf. viii. 26, xvi. 8, with 
Mark iv. 40, viii. 17) ; and Burrd^siVj which only occurs 
once again (Matt, xxviii. 17). The narrative shows the hand 
of a later editor by those peculiarities of language, in which 
it differs from Mark. 

Matt. xiv. 33. The recognition of Jesus as the Son of 
God contradicts chap. xvi. ver. 15, and cannot be in its 
proper place here. Mark has not these words. 

Matt. XV. 1, is joined to the preceding narrative by the 

usual TOTS. 

Matt. XV. 21-28. T^ fifpr) Tvpov Kal ^iZ&vos. This is 
artificially connected with the preceding. Mark only speaks 
of Tyre (vii. 24), and tells us (verse 31), how Jesus went 
from thence through Sidon. In the Col. Sin. the reading is 
(verse 31) : " And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre, he 
came through Sidon unto the Sea of Galilee.** Matthew, 
who has not the passage Mark vii. 31-37, joins Tyre and 
Sidon, and thereby shows that his work is a compilation. 
The latter part of ver. 23 and 24 also show a later editor, 
at least the words in verse 24, tA TrpoySaTara aTroXcoXora oIkov 
*IapaT)\y have evidently the same origin as the same words in 
chap. X. ver. 6, and, like them, contradict Matt. viii. 10, 11. 
The concluding words also (xv. 28) — ysvr)0i]T(a aoi d>9 6iksi9. 
Kal iddr) fj dvyaTTjp ainijs oltto Tr]9 &pas kfCBLvqs — ^remind us of 
Matt. viii. 13, xvii. 18, and ix. 22. 

Matt. XV. 32. The editor, as usual, connects this para- 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 101 

graph by 6 Si with the preceding ones. He forgot that 
Jesus, according to Matt. xv. 29, was near the sea, in the 
neighbourhood of Cape aum, and that the passage verses 
32-38 contradicts the other one, for in it Jesus is repre- 
sented as on a three days' journey (ver. 32) through a wilder- 
ness {ipr)fi(a)y ver. 33. In Mark, this incident stands by itself 
(viii. 1), and the 8x\jo9 which attended Jesus is diiSferent 
from the Sx^o9 mentioned in chap. vii. ver. 33. 

Matt. xvi. 1. The junction of the Pharisees and Saddu- 
cees (conf. Mark viii. 11, in which the Pharisees alone are 
mentioned) is unhistorical, and points to a date when they 
were joined together as the common enemies of Christ. In 
Mark no combination of this sort is found at all, while in 
Matthew it is found in passages of undoubtedly later date 
(iii. 7 ; xvi. 11, 12). 

Matt. xvi. 2. ^O'^ias yevofjJvrjf • . • ou ivvcurde. This sen- 
tence is found in Luke xii. 64-56, in quite a diflferent con- 
nection, and was probably inserted here by the editor from 
some other source, probably a collection of sayings. It is 
not found in Mark, and woiJd not agree with his narrative, 
neither is it in the Codex Sinaiticus. Besides, we observe 
the phrase airo/epLffeU el-mv (verse 2), and the phrases tvSla 
and TTvppd^siv, which only appear here. 

Matt. xvi. 13. There seems to be a hiatus between this 
verse and the preceding. According to Matthew, Jesus 
departs from Magdala (chap. xv. ver. 39) to the eastern side 
of the sea (xvi. 6). Matthew does not say where he disem- 
barked. Hence arises the contradiction that he makes 
Jesus go while still on board ship (verse 5) to CsesareaPhilippi, 
which is an inland town. This is avoided in Mark's narra- 
tive, for between chap. viii. verses 20 and 27, he narrates the 
arrival of Jesus in Bethsaida, on the north-west coast of the 
sea, whence Jesus proceeds by land ( ev rfj oSoS), verse 27, to 
Csesarea Philippi. 

Matt. xvi. 17-19. These verses, though not out of their 
proper place with respect to the preceding ones, have evi- 
dently been taken from some other source. 'AirofcpideU 
sViTiv is doubtful. ATTo/raXuTTTeii/ is found in Matthew only 
in places which are derived from some other source than 
that which he had in common with Mark (see Matt. xi. 
25-27). But, above all, the word ifCKXtjcrlay and especially 
fjLov rj iKK\ff6a\fiS}v avTioP, ix. 29 ; iva dvoi,)(dwaiV oi oddKfjLo\ 17/xeS]/, 
XX. 33, avsfp^O-qaav airSv oi 6(f)da\fioly ix. 30; rj/coXovOrjaav 
rtUTO), XX. 34, ix. 27. The double number of the blind, where 
Mark only mentions one blind man, has certainly been taken 
from Matt. ix. 27. The evangelist compiled his narrative in 
this place from two different sources. 

Matt. xxi. 10 and 11, are properly connected. But the 
isolated position of these verses, which the synoptical 
tradition does not mention elsewhere, being in combination 



198 MANKLVD: THEIR 

with some words which belong to the style of the later 
editor, show that they also have been recently inserted. 
Conf. aiUaOaiy Matt. xxi. 10 with xxvii. 51, xxviii. 4 ; iraaa 
t) TToXt.?, verse 10, with ii. 3, viii. 34; oi ox^ol, which is 
peculiar to Matthew, and instead of which Mark, with the 
exception of chap. x. ver. 1, writes 0x^09. 

Matt. xxi. 12-14. According to Matthew, the casting out 
of the temple takes place immediately after the arrival of 
Jesus from Jericho, and also, very improbably, about even- 
tide. According to Mark, on the contrary, Jesus (chap. xi. 
ver. 11-1 7) arrives at Jerusalem in the evening, goes to the 
temple, then goes out unto Bethany, and casts the people 
out of the temple the next day. Mark's narrative is much 
more natural, and the abridged account in Matthew does 
away with a whole day. 

Matt. xvi. 21, 22. There is no connection between the 
withering of the fig-tree, a symbolical representation, and 
the strength of faith, which is able to wither trees. These 
words have probably been inserted at a later date. 

Matt. xxi. 28-32. This comparison is not found in Mark, 
and does not appeal* to have been read by Luke. The way 
in which Mark (xii. 1) introduces with rjp^aTo (" he began ") 
avTcls ip irapa^oKals XaXslv the allegory of the vineyard pre- 
vents us from supposing that Mark had intentionally omitted 
a comparison which had been imparted to Matthew. Hence 
Matthew could take the opportunity, from the plural iv 
TTapa^oXahy which Mark uses whenever he speaks of Jesus 
speaking in parables, iii. 23, iv. 2 (conf. Luke viii. 4, Bih 
7rapa^o\tjs),ix. 11 (conf. verse 10), and which is again placed 
before a parable, to add to the parable Mark xii. 1-12 two 
other parables (xxi. 28 32, and xxii. 1-14) which are intro- 
duced by him with the same formula as elsewhere, d\\T}v 
7rapa0oXi]v (conf. xiii. 24, 31, 33). It is observable that 
Matthew has allowed the words 17 ffaaiXelarov ฉeoO, verse 31, 
which he elsewhere writes fiaaiXua icoi; oipavwv^ to remain 
unaltered in this place. 

Matt. xxi. 43, is only found in Matthew's gospel. We see 
that iroLslv Kapirovs is not in Mark, and that the editor, who 
everywhere else in the parallel passages altered 17 fiaaiXeia 
rod 0ฃoi), used by Mark in accordance with the language of 
the sources whence he derived his gospel, into /ScunXsia twv 
ovpav&Vy allows it to remain unaltered in this passage. This 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 199 

verse therefore is neither taken from Mark nor does it 
belong to the earlier edition of Matthew, but has been 
inserted by the latest editor. 

Matt. xxii. 1-14. The formula a-rroKpids^s ilirev 6 'I/ycrouy, 
without there being anj preceding question, shows the 
editor's hand. Since Matthew joins the conversation (xxii. 
15) to the previous comparison by the word tot?, in chrono- 
logical succession, he omits (xxi. 46) the words koX a3vrs9 
cLurov airrjkOov^ Mark xii. 12, and inserts them at chap. xxii. 
ver. 22, in which context they are not found in Mark xii. 17. 
This parable belongs, as may be seen from the formula oaixoi'' 
a)0fi fi fiaaiKsia t&p oipav&v^ to that succession of parables 
which is in Matt. xiii. 24 et sqq., and which is there inserted 
from some other source. The comparison itself shows the 
hand of a compiler. Verses 6 and 7 contain a fragment of some 
other comparison, and are not connected at all with verses 
11-13, which, again, are a fragment of some other com- 
parison. In Luke xiv. 16-24, there is no corresponding 
parable. The formula to aKoros to s^drspov is not in the 
style of either Matthew or Luke. The words 6 K\av9fios koI 
6 fipirffjLos Twv 6B6irro}Vy as a representation of the torments 
of hell, give an explanation of the comparison which 
does not belong to the comparison itself, and are, with 
the exception of Luke xiii. 28, only found in Matthew viii. 
12, and xiii. 42, 50, where, as we have seen, they were 
inserted at a later date, and in chap. xxiv. ver. 51, and chap. 
XXV. ver. 30. Lastly, the words in verse 14, ttoWoI yap 
euTiv Kkfiroi^ k.tX.^ are not in Matthew. The same words iu 
Matt. IX. 16, are not genuine, and in the Cod. Sin. they are 
omitted. 

Matt. xxii. 15-22. The editor joins his narrative together 
by the usual totc, and by omitting aivTes avrov d-rrrjXOov 
(Mark xii. 12) in the previous comparison and at chap, xxi, 
ver. 46. In Mark the narrative of the events of the last 
days stands by itself (chap. xii. ver. 13). The editor has 
inserted irrroKpirai (verse 18), which he makes Jesus to utter, 
while in Mark xii. 15, it was a thought of Jesus. The con- 
cluding words a) 
suddenly addresses himself to the scribes and Pharisees, of 
whom (verses 1-12) he had spoken to the multitude in the third 
person. Verses 1-12 were, therefore, originally separate from 
verses 13-36. In Luke these discourses are in quite a different 
connection, (xi. 39-52), although there also they are most un- 
naturally put into the mouth of Jesus when he was A guest of 
one of the Pharisees, and was sitting down to meat with him. 
Again, in contradiction to the preceding verses, verses 37 
and 38 are spoken not to the Pharisees and scribes, but to 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The different position of this 
word in Luke xiii. 34, 85, and the spelling of ^hpouaaXtjfjL 
where Matthew has 'IspoaoXvfia (ii. 1, 3, iii. 5, iv. 25, v. 
35, XV. 1, xvi. 21, XX. 17, 18, xxi. 1, 10), show that the editor 
formed the discourses in Matt, xxiii., which were originally 
unconnected, into one narrative, and has adhered to the 
same text as Mark xii. 38-40. 

The junction of '' scribes and Pharisees," verse 13 et sqq., aซ 

if they were two different sects, is unhistorical, and of a later 

(late, for the scribes belonged either to the Pharisees or the 

Badducees (see Mark ii. 16). The correct reading of Mark ii. 

16, is according to x B. D., ypa^fJuiTsh rcov ^aptaaiajv; and in 

the Cod. Sin. the passage runs, "And there followed him also 

scribes of the Pharisees, and when they saw that he was 

eating with publicans and sinners," &c, (conf. Luke v. 30) ; 

and this shows that the scribes here mentioned were under 

the direction of the Pharisees. The same thing is signified 

in Mark vii. 1. The evangelist means to say, '• The Pharisees 

and (among them) certain scribes ; " in which way we must 

explain verse 5 also. This combination, which is only found 

again in Matt. v. 2, xii. 38, and which is in Luke vi. 7 (conf. 

Mark iii. 2), xi. 36, and xv. 2, is not in Mark. It is also 



ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 201 

clear that tlie word ypafifuiTsh, chap, xxiii,, is not in the 
ori<^inal, but has been inserted by the editor from the fact 
that Luke (xi. 39, 41, 43) only mentions the Pharisees, 
aman^ whom, and not besides whom, there were scribes (verse 
44 ) ; and we can thus see that he did not find the scribes men- 
tioned in the source of his gospel, probably an older edition 
of Matthew. The word {rrroKpnal^ also (Matt, xxiii. 13, 14, 15, 
23, 25, 27, 29), which is not in Luke (the word in chap. xi. ver. 
44, being spurious), reminds us of the same word Matt. xxii. 
18, which was there attributed to the editor. * O Xpiarov, also 
(Matt, xxiii. 10), is like chap. xi. ver. 2, a gloss of the editor's 
(conf. verse 8). In verse 34, iya> cannot refer to Jesus, who did 
not send any prophets to the scribes and Pharisees, but must 
refer to God (conf. i} ao(j)ia tov 0€oO, Luke xi. 49), who also is 
evidently spoken of in verses 37, 38, and is there indicated as 
the God of Israel, who sent his prophets to save Jerusalem, 
but in vain. Lastly, the editor's hand is visible also in the 
gloss vlovBapaj^lov (verse 35), which is not in Luke xi. 61, and 
has been inserted owing to a misapprehension of the editor, 
who has confounded Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron. 
xxiv. 20) with Zechnriah the prophet, the son of Berechiah 
(Zech. i. 1, or with Zechariah the son of Barach, of whom 
Josephus, B. J. iv. 5. 4, makes mention. In verse 39 Jesus 
is made to say, " Ye shall not see me heticeforthy till ye shall 
say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." 
This is an extraordinary example of the manner in which the 
jjfospels have been compiled. The very same expression has 
already been used in chap. xxi. ver, 9, where it is put into the 
mouth of the multitudes. What meaning it has here it is 
impossible to conceive, for in the very next chapter Jesus 
leaves the temple, goes to the Mount of Olives, and thence 
to Bethany ; and from this period up to the time of his ci-uci- 
fixion, no such circumstance as is here predicted is so much 
as said to have taken place. 

Matt. xxiv. 1. The statement that Jesus went out of the 
temple (conf. Mark xiii. 1), while in Matthew there is no men- 
tion of any visit to the temple after chap. xxi. ver, 13, renders 
it probable that a paragraph in which he was in the temple, 
as in Mark xii. 41-44 (the story of the widow's mite), has 
been omitted. The omission was probably due to uninten- 
tional neglect, which was the consequence of the interpola- 
tion of the minatory discourses in chap, xxiii. 



202 MANKIND: THEIR 

Matt. xxiv. 36. The enquiry of the disciples in this phw^e 
is not in connection with the preceding, inasmuch as Jesus 
had not spoken of his coming, but of the destruction of the 
temple, which was to be brought about by the great cata- 
strophe at the end of the present world. 

We may remark that the destruction of the temple in the 
time of Titus is not spoken of here : — for, 1. The temple was 
not pulled down by force, but was the prey of the flames. 
2. This occurrence was little thought of by the earliest 
Christians. It was after the complete triumph of the 
Messiah that the terrestrial Jerusalem and the visible tem- 
ple were first held to be replaced by a new and heavenly 
Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 3, 10), in which (verse 22) there was 
no temple to be seen. 

The editor also changes the expression orav /i^Wj) ra^na 
avvTsXetaOai iravra (which should be translated : ** When 
shall all this," viz., all the magnificent buildings of the 
earthly temple, " come to an end ? " Mark xiii. 4, conf. 
Luke iv. 13, that is, shall cease to exist), in which he alone 
uses the expression avvriXeia rov aloopo?, (conf. chap, xiii., 
verses 39, 40, chap, xxviii. ver. 20). In verse 9, the per- 
secutions which the disciples are to undergo, are joined by 
the usual tots in an unnatural manner to coSTi/ff^, verse 8, 
(conf. Mark xiii. 9, where this difficulty is removed ) ; verse 
9 contains diroKrevovaiv v/tfiy, which only occurs in Matthew, 
and is a gloss which is in contradiction to aSi/ts, verse 15, 
and 17 vyrj vfiwvy verse 20 (conf. verse 23, where it is set 
forth that the apostles were still alive). Only verse 13 and 
verse 10 have been taken from Mark xiii. 10-13, which is 
in its proper place, and the rest has been omitted ; while, 
as has been shown, it was inserted in Matt. x. 17-22, as 
part of the discourses delivered by Jesus to the apostles. 
Verse 26, which is in Luke in a different connection, chap, 
xvii. verses 23 and 37, shows that it is an interpolation 
taken from elsewhere, by the formula 17 irapovaia tov i !ov 
Tov dvOpMirovy verse 27 (conf. verse 3). Besides, the declara- 
tion that these events will take place while the present 
generation is in existence (ver. 34) does not agree with 
the warning of Jesus (verses 4-8), not to expect it soon, 
and to put no faith in the false Messiahs who said that the 
end of the world was near at hand (conf. Luke xxi. 8, 
Xiyoi^TSs — 0T6 6 Kaipos i]yyiKฃv)y nor with the declaration 



OKIGIN AND DESTIXl'. 20;J 

(Matt. XXIV. 36), tliat " of that day and hour knoweth no 
man " but God only. In the Cod. Sin. the passage runs : 
*' But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
angels of heaven, nor the Son, but my Father only." 
Again, we find on examining Matt. xxiv. 37-42 critically, 
the expression 17 irapovala^ verse 39 = Kvpios vfi&v ifyxjtraiy 
Terse 42, instead of which there is in Mark xiii. 33-36 a 
plainer, and therefore a more ancient narrative. Grotius 
says that for wise purposes the piovs fraud of the near ap- 
jproach of tlie day of judgment was palmed upon the world by 
the founder and promulgator of Christianity. 

Matt. XXV. 1-13. The allegory of the virgins belonged 
originally, as may be known by the inserted formula ofioLw- 
Sriaerai rj ^aaCKsla tฃv ovpav&Vy just as in chap, xviii. verses 
23-35, XX. 1-16, xxii. 1-14, to the succession of comparisons 
Matt. xiii. 24 et sqq., and has been transferred here by the 
editor, and joined to the preceding discourses by the word 

TOTf. 

Matt. XXV. 14-30. The allegory of the talents is in Luke xix. 
11, but in a better form and in a different connection, and it 
was intended to turn the hearers from idle questionings to a 
life of practical usefulness. The lord who travelled into a far 
country (a7rfiS?;/i77o-fi/), and who returns (Matt. xxv. 19), is as 
little Jesus as is the householder who went into a far country 
(aTTgSiJ/iiyo-fp), chap. xxi. ver. 33, whose son represents the 
Messiah. Again, the words fiera iroXvv xpovov ep'^Brai, verse 
19, do not agree with the declaration of the time of the 
catastrophe, chap. xxiv. ver. 34, xvi. 28, x. 23. To say 
that Jesus, when he left the world, gave to each of his dis- 
ciples his especial talent (that is, a greater or less sphere of 
authority), contradicts Matt. ix. 37, 38, where Jesus puts 
forth not himself, but God, as the Lord of the harvest, who 
sends forth the labourers, and the explanation. Matt. xx. 20, 
that it was not in his power, but in God's only, to deter- 
mine who should be taken into the kingdom of God. How- 
ever, the editor understood by this allegory the preaching 
of the final catastrophe, and concludes it by a comparison 
taken from elsewhere (verse 30) in which to a koto? to i^dyre- 
pov and 6 xXavOfios xai 6 ^puyfws twv oSovtcdp shows his hand 
just as elsewhere, chap. viii. ver. 12, xxii. 13 (conf. the 
remarks in chap. xxii. ver. 10). 

Matt. xxv. 31. The editor joins to the proclamation of 



204 M.VXKIND : THEIR 

the final catastroi}lie the description of the Last Judgment 
itself. Jesus does not speak in the oldest portions of this 
gosjiel of such a judgment to be held by himself, the Son of 
Man (see chap. v. ver. 22, x. 15, xi. 22, xii. 35, 41, 42, 
xxiii. 33), but only in parts of later origin (chap. vii. ver. 22, 
xiii. 41-43, xvi. 27). Mark and Luke, and even the author of 
the Apocalypse, chap. xx. ver. 11, 12 (conf. Bom. xiv. 10, 
which in the Cod. Sin. and other ancient MSS. is, " we shall 
all stand before the judgment seat of God,") do not hold 
that any such judgment is to be held by Christ. This idea 
appears first at a lat^jr date : see Acts x. 42, xvii. 31 ; conf. 
2 Cor. V. 10. The manner in which the Messiah is spoken 
of in the third person respecting the Judgment, makes it 
probable that the object of the original author of this para- 
graph was to set forth not the words of Christ, but the 
expectations of the Christians at the time he lived. The 
idea of Christ being the " King " of the kingdom of God 
(verses 34 and 40) is evidently of later date, and shows some 
other origin than Matt. ix. 37, 38, and xx. 23. Lastly, we 
have here for the fifth time the concluding formula /cat kyivero 
OTS iriXeaev 6 ^Irjaous irdvras rovs \oyov9 TovTovSy with which 
the editor finishes the discourse (chap. xxvi. ver. 1), just as 
he concludes in chap. vii. ver. 28, xi. 1, xiii. 53, and xix. 1, 
a succession of sayings which he had brought together. 

Matt. xxvi. 1, 2. Here again, the editor joins what is to 
come directly and immediately to the preceding discourses. 
The later editor's hand is also shown in the junction of 
verses 3-5 to verse 2 by the word t6t€. In Mark, as usual, a 
new narrative commences in this place, which stands by 
itself (chap. xiv. ver. 1). 

Matt. xxvi. 14-16. This papsage also is connected with 
the preceding by the word tote, 'Atto tots is also a formula 
peculiar to the editor, Matt. iv. 17, and xvi. 21. 

Matt. xxvi. 25. This enquiry of Judas, and the assenting 
answer of Jesus, are not in connection with the preceding 
passage, and would lead us to think that Judas, after his 
detection (conf. John xiii. 30, 31), left the society, and did not 
remain to eat the passover. This verse, which is only found 
in Matthew, must be the work of the latest editor. 

Matt. xxvi. 32. This would appear to be an insertion of 
later date, which does not go well with verse 31 and verse 33, 
and was probably inserted by the editor in order to give a 



ORIGIN AXD DESTIXY. 205 

reason for ISov slirov vfxlv with which Matt, xxviii. 7 con- 
cludes, which was probably sIttsv originally, like Mark xvi. 7. 

Matt. xxvi. 50. *E0' ^ Trdpecy a later Grffjcism for hrl rl 
'jrdpei. The insertion is evident by a comparison with Mark 
xiv. 45. 

Matt. xxvi. 51-54 is not in Mark, and is probably another 
insertion by the editor. The formula which follows, h 
ifcecvy ttj Zpa^ verse 55 (conf. Mark xiv. 48), also reminds us of 
the latest editor. One is reminded by it of the formula tovto 
Si o\ov yffovsv Xva irKfiptodwaw ai ypaxfHil twp 7rpoijTajp ; conf. 
Mark xiv. 496. 

Matt. xxvi. 636. The junction of this verse to the follow- 
ing by the words airoKptOels EiTreVy which are peculiar to the 
editor, and which are not preceded by any question, is arti- 
ficial. In Mark xiv. 616 this part of the jerse is introduced 
by irdXip 6 dpxi^epsvs hnjfxora avrovy and appears like a second 
trial, standing unconnected (conf. Luke xxii. 66-71). 

Matt. xxvi. 67 is unnaturally connected with the preceding 
Terse by the word tots. The editor did not think how im- 
probable his story would appear when, in consequence of his 
passion for compiling from different sources, the members of 
the council are made guilty of the brutal proceeding here 
narrated. In Mark this scene stands by itself, and Luke 
properly describes the men who held him as inflicting these 
brutalities, but not in presence of the council, chap. xxii. 
ver. 63. 

Matt, xxvii. 3-10. The account of the remorse and suicide 
of Judas, which is joined to verse 2 by the usual tots, has the 
same character as the narrative in Matt. i. and ii. The use 
of the formula totb e7r\rfpa>9rj to pr)6ivy ic.T.X. reminds us of the 
later editor. We must suppose that Luke, who was not un- 
acquainted with the second edition of Matthew's gospel in 
other places, did not know of this story (conf. Actsi. 17, 18). 
The quotation from Jeremiah (in verse 9) is not to be found in 
that prophet. The false translation of " potter *' is shown 
further on ; in the meantime the passage in Zechariah (chap. 
xi. 12,) which is inserted in the margin of our bibles, is here 
given side by side with the pretended quotation in Matthew 
from Jeremiah : — 



20G MANKIND : THEIR 

Matthew. i Zkchariah. 



• '' And they took the thirty pieces 
of sHvPF, the price of him that was 



" So they weighed for my price 
tliirty pieces of silver. And the 



valued, whom they of the children i Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the 
of Israel did value, and gave them | potter: a goodly price that I was 
for the potter's field, as the Lord , prized at of them. And I took the 



appointed me." 



thirty pieces of silver, and cast them 
to tne po tter in the house of the 
Lord." 



Matt, xxvii. 11. The saying of Pilate, "Thou art (the 
emphasis is on au) the King of the Jews ! " is not a question 
but an exclamation : How ! thou, thou simple, helpless man, 
puttest thyself forward as King of the Jews ! The editor 
thought a question was asked here, and made Jesus answer, 
" Thou sayest it," in other words, " Yes, 1 am." The later 
introduction of thjs answer, which is already probable from 
what has been said, is proved by verse 14, " And he answered 
him never a word *' {irpos ovBs iv prjfia) and therefore verse 11 
cannot stand. 

Matt, xxvii. 19. The dream of Pilate's wife inserted in 
tlie text of Mark xv. between verses 10 and 11, and unknown 
to Luke, tells of later legends which the later editor enlarged 
the gospel of Matthew with. The expression Kar ovap, too, 
which does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, re- 
minds us of Matt. i. 20, ii. 12, 13, 19, 22. The declaration 
that " Pilate sat down on the judgment seat," is also sur- 
prising. Did he not, then, sit on it before ? If he did, the 
introduction of this passage is unnecessary ; if he did not, 
why did he' now sit upon it for the first time? 

Matt, xxvii. 24. Pilate's washing of his hands stands 
between Mark xv. 14 and 15, and is joined to the following 
verse by tLts. Compare (tv ci/r?;, chap, xxvii. ver. 4, with the 
formula vfieis oyjreaOsy and chap, xxvii. ver. 4 with aO&os and 
al/Lxa, verse 24. The exclamation of all the people in verse 25 
is only in Matthew. Both belong to the dramatic narratives 
of the latest editor, and are unknown to Mark or Luke. 

Matt, xxvii. 28. " And put on him a scarlet robe," x^- 
ftuSa KOKKipr)v. In Mark xv. 17, it is said, "And they clotiied 
him with purple,'^ koi evBtfovaiv avrov mopvpav. 

Matt, xxvii. 29. Kal KoXa^ov ev rrj Se^ia avrov. The accu- 
sative case here cannot be governed by eiriOrjKatf. These 
words, which are not in Mark xv. 17, have been inserted, 
and belong to the dramatic style of the latest editor. 



ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. 207 

Matt, xxvii. 43. Tlewoi0ev — v/oy. Tliese words aLlso, which 
are unnaturally put into the mouth of the scribes from 
Ps. xxii. 8, have been inserted here between Mark xv. 32a 
and 326. 

Matt, xxvii. 516-53 are unhistorical traditions inserted 
between Mark xv. 38, 39, and unknown to Luke. Com- 
pare with 17 yrj iaeiadrjy verse 61, chap. xxi. ver. 10, xxviii. 
4, and with dyca TroXty, verse 53, Matt. iv. 5, insertions which 
are not found anywhere but in Matthew. ''Eyspai?^ verse 
o3, is found nowhere else in the New Testament ; hfiav(^€a0aty 
spoken of a supernatural occurrence, is only used again in a 
spiritual sense in John xiv. 21, 22. "And the graves were 
opened '* is omitted in the Cod. Sin. 

Matt, xxvii. 62-66. Here the high priests and the 
Pharisees remember a previous declaration of Jesus which 
contradicts other parts of this gospel which relate to it, and 
according to which Jesus, with the exception only of chap, 
vii. ver. 40, which passage is also inserted by the latest 
editor, spoke not in their presence, but only privately to 
his disciples, of his resurrection. See Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 
9, XX. 19, xxvi. 32. The expression fj,BTa rpeh fi^Upasy when 
in chap. xvi. ver. 1 and xx. 9 only t^ rptri; fj^iipa is found, 
shows a different mode of speech, and that this paragraph, 
which is unknown to Luke, is the production of the latest 
editor. Again, the improbable conjunction of " high priests 
and Pharisees," which, with the exception of Matt. xxi. 45, 
in which we see the later editor (conf. Mark xii. 12), is 
found as little in Matthew as in Mark or Luke. It is 
first found in John vii. 32, 45, xi. 47, 57, xviii. 3. 

Matt, xxviii. 1. Tง hn(f>a)a'Kov(Tr)^ ai/aTel\avT09 rov fiXiov, 
" when the sun was risen," Mark xvi. 2. 

Matt, xxviii. 2-4. According to this narrative, an earth- 
quake took place as a result of the descent of an angel, and 
the rolling back of the stone, as did also the flight of the 
keepers, and the resurrection of Jesus in the presence of the 
women in connection with verse 1, and in contradiction to 
verses 5 and 6, in which the angel tells the women that Jesus 
had already risen {fjyipBrj). The contradiction arises from 
the introduction of some tradition known only to Matthew, 
to the effect that the grave, of the opening of which the 
earlier tradition gave no account, was opened by an angel. 
^AiroKptdels el-nevy verse 5, also shows traces of a later edition 



208 MAXKIXD : THEIR 

whicli was unknown to Luke : it is the usual concluding 
expression of the editor, and no question precedes it. 
Lastly, we may conclude this from the preceding word 
Iboif, the pet word of the latest editor (Matt. i. 20, ii. 1, 9, 
13, 19, iii. 16, 17, iv. 11, xxvii. 51, xxviii. 11, and 
a number of other places, where Mark, in the parallel 
passages, has not this word) ; from ical l8ov aeiafio^ /jJyas 
iydi/STo, conf. with Matt. viii. 24, xal ISov asicfios fiiyas eydi/ero 
(Mark iv. 37) ; from rd(f>09y verse 1, which is only found in 
Matthew xxiii. 27, 29 (conf. Luke xi. 48, fipjjfislov) ; from chap, 
xxvii. verses 61, 64, 66 (conf. Tai], chap, xxvii. ver. 7) ; from 
a/fye\o9 Kvplov (conf. Matt. i. 20, 24, ii. 13, 19) ; from 
eirdpco avrov^ verse 2, (conf. chap. ii. ver. 9, v. 14, xxi. 
7 [Mark xi. 7, cV airoi/], xxiii. 18, 20, 22, xxvii. 37), 
which does not occur in Mark, who has KaOij/jbevov h roh 
Ss^ioL9 ; from IB^a or slSea, verse 3 (hap. leg.) ; from d)s 
darpairr)^ the description of a celestial being, which Luke 
alone has (k^aarpdirTuyv) chap. ix. ver. 29 (conf. in loco 
the parallel passages of Matthew and Mark) ; from hhvfiay 
verse 3 (see Matt. iii. 4 [conf. Mark i. 6], vi. 25, 28, vii. 
15, xxii. 11, 12), (Mark has IfidnoPy ifidrui^ and in chap. xvi. 
ver. 5, aToXrj) ; from diro rov (poficv (conf. chap. xiv. ver. 26) ; 
frompyspdrjvaL Atto twv vexpoovy (conf. chap. xiv. ver. 2, xxvii. 64,) 
(Mark in the parallel passage has ex vetcp&v) ; and from the 
slip of the pen in substituting el-rrov in verse 7, for elirep (conf. 
Mark xvi. 7), to which Matt. xxvi. 32 owes its origin. 

Matt, xxviii. 9, 10. The announcement of the angel, iKsl 
avTov oyjrsade (verse 7), prevents us from expecting an ap- 
pearance of Jesus to the women in the neighbourhood of 
Jerusalem on the first day of the week. Verse 10 is a repe- 
tion of verses 5 and 7, by which means the words of the 
angel were in the later tradition turned into those of the 
risen Jesus. Besides, IBov, Trf>ooi for fuiOrjTal (conf. ver. 7). 

Matt, xxviii. 11-15. This is a continuation of chap, 
xxvii. verses 62-66, and has also been inserted at a later 
date. See the agreement between the expressions here and 
other places, which also belong to the latest edition ; ISov^ 
KovarcoSla (conf. Matt, xxvii. 65), avfj,0ov\Lov Xa/z/Sai/fiv, verse 
12 (conf. chap. xii. ver. 14, xxii. 15, xxvii. 1, 7), where 
Mark writes avp^ovXiov iroulv^ chap. iii. ver. 6, xv. 1, dpyv- 



OKIGIN AND DESTINY. 200 

pttty verses 12, 15 (conf. cliap. xxvi. ver. 15 ; xxvii. 3, 5, 6, 9) ; 
o rpfefjudiv (conf, chap, xxvii. verses 2, 11, 14, 15, 21, 23, 27) 
(Mark has o TlCKaToij ; ireiffeiv, verse 14 (conf. Matt, xxvii. 
20) (Mark has dvactUiVj chap. xv. ver. 11) ; a/iipifiposy hap. 
leg. in the gospel. Moreover, we observe that the saying 
was commonly reported " until this day '* {ji^XP^ t^* ai]fi8pop), 
verse 16, which reminds us of the kindred expression SopovvTo yap 
(Mark xvi. 8). We can also see the hand of the later 
editor in fioBfireveWj verse 19 (conf. xiii. 62 ; xxvii. 67) ; 
in the expression avvriXeui rov ai&vos (verse 20), which is 
peculiar to Matthew (conf. Matt. xiii. 39, 40, 49 ; xxiv. 3) ; 
and in the command to baptize (verse 19), which was first 
made obligatory at a later date (conf. Acts ii. 36). It is, 
however, very probable that there was an appearance in 
Gralilee in the original gospel which agreed with the indi- 
cation of that country by the angel (Mark xvi. 7). 

The result of this investigation is, that the gospel of 
Matthew, whether considered by itself or compared with 
that of Mark, is from beginning to end a mere compila- 
tion. Mark's gospel, or an original Mark (though this is 
uncertain), in which most of the incidents, especially those 
which related to the period of the abode of Jesus in Jeru- 
salem, stood by themselves as detached episodes, without 
being directly connected with one another, is the first source. 

The second source was probably some collection of legends, 
the origin of which must now remain unknown. This col- 
lection, of which Papias spoke when he calls one of 
Matthew's writings a avma^ts tAv /cvpia/ewv \oyUav (Euseb. 
iii. 39), some of the fragments of which will be given in a 
subsequent chapter, may be called the First Matthew. To 
this belong v. 3-7, 27; viii. 11; ix. 13; ix. 37, 38; x. 16, 
24-42; xi. 21-24, 266-29; xii. 5-7, 11, 27, 28, 33-37, 39, 

p 



210 MANKIND: THEIR 

41, 42, 43-45 ; xiii. 16, 24-80, 31-88, 44^48, 52 ; xv. 13 ; 
xvi. 2,3; xvii. 206; xviii. 10-14, 15, 16, 21-35; xix. 10- 
12 ; XX. 1-16 ; xxi. 21a, c, 22, 28-82, 43 ; xxii. 1-14, with 
the exception of verses 6, 7, 11-13, which belong to another 
comparison; xxiii. 2-12, 13, 36; xxiv. 11,26-28; xxv. 1-13, 
14-30a ; xxvi. 42. 

The third source was a writing from which the peculiari- 
ties in the preaching of John (Matt. iii. 7-10, 12), the three 
temptations (chap. iv. ver. 3-lla), the story of the centurion 
(chap. viii. ver. 5-10, 13), and of the irresolute young man 
(chap. viii. ver. 19-22), of the two blind men and the man 
possessed with a devil (chap. ix. ver. 27, 32-34), the message 
of John from the prison, and the discourse of Jesus respect- 
ing John (chap. xi. ver. 2-19), are taken. The latter dis- 
course, especially, is not in Mark,*and circumstances show 
that it was not taken from the usual collection of legends, 
and it may be assumed to be a fragment of some previous 
gospel which is now lost. The compilation which has been 
made from these three sources may be called the Second 
Matthew. This writing, which Luke, as we shall presently 
show, had among his sources of information (though in 
what form we can only approximately conjecture, since it is 
now lost), was deficient in a number of portions which are 
in the canonical gospel, which have been inserted into the 
text of Mark, and which are not to be found in Luke. This, 
added to the others, makes a fourth source. To it belong 
certainly chap. i. and ii, ; iii. verses 3, 14, 15 ; the editing of 
iv. 12 and 13; verses 14 and 15; the words avi^ri . . . roaro/ia 
avTov; V. 1, 2; verse 19; vii. 22, 23; viii. 12, 17; x. 6, 6; 
xi. 2 (toO Xpurrov) ; xii. 17-21 ; xiii. 35, 36-43, 49, 50) ; the 
editing of xiv. 13a; xiv. 28-31 ; xv. 24; xvii. 24&-27; xix. 
i7a, 196, 28 ; xx. 16 ; the editing of xxi. 2, 7 ; xxi. 4 and 5 ; 
xxiii. 10 (6 XpioTos) ; verses 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29 {ypafi- 
fuiTsls) ; verse 35 {vlov 'Bapax^ov) ; the editing of chap. xxiv. 
verses 3, 20 {fjLtjSe iv aajS/SuT^) ; 516 ; xxv. 306 ; xxvi. 2, 15, 25 ; 
xxvii. 3-10, 19, 24, 25, 43 ; the editing of chap. xxviL verse 
34; xxvii. 51-53; the editing of verse 54; xxvii. 62-66; 
xxviii. la, 2-4, 8, 9, 11-15. The writing which has been 
compiled from these four sources is that which is now the 
canonical Matthew, which we shall call the Third Matthew. 



OBIGIN AND DESTIST. 211 



The Quotations from the Old Testament, 

a. Quotations whicli are only found in the Tliird 
Matthew : — 

Matt. i. 23. The author follows, the LXX, as is shown bj 
his translating nijpt* by the word irapOivos. The Hebrew 
text, in which T\ich^ does not mean a yirgin, but generally a 
young woman, would not serve the author's purpose. The 
future, too, t^si iv ycurrplj ri^ertUy and /ca'XJaovi, ^^she 
calls,"), where the Hebrew has the participles n^ri and 
Tvj^^ give a prophetical form to the passage. The Hebrew 
^ she calls " would not be admissible here, because it was 
not Mary, but the angel, who gave the name Emmanuel to 
the infiEuit Messiah. 

Matt. iL 5. The Hebrew text must, as is shown by the 
LXX, and by reason of the masculines "^^V and n^^K, which 
do not agree with the real Bethlehem, be read thus : nn($\ 
^VTif^ n^3. According to this text, if it were in existence in 
the time of Jesus, the prophecy of Micah would not serve 
the purpose of the evangelist. He followed the LXX, Kal 
o^ Bi^dKeifi; but he wrote yrj 'loSSa, instead of oIko? tov 
'E(f>pa$d. Above all, the insertion of oviafi&s is remarkable, 
a word which is not to be found either in the LXa, or in 
the Hebrew text, and which was perhaps introduced here 
firom some Targum. In the prophet, the contrast is made 
as follows : '^ From the little house of Ephratah something 
great, namely, the fifth king of Israel, shall proceed.". The 
Sabbinistic spirit found "little" not a suitable term for 
the birth-place of the Messiah, and therefore changed " little " 
into " not the least." 

Matt. ii. 15. This is quoted word for word from the 
Hebrew text, or from one of the Targums upon it. The 
text of the LXX has t^ rsKva airov, instead of tov viov fiov, 
and therefore could not be used by the evangelist for his 
purpose. 

Matt. ii. 18 ; Jer. xxxi. 15. The text of Matthew follows 
the LXX so far that in oBvp/Ao? iro'kus (Heb. D'T^npn) (which 
is omitted in the Cod. Sin.) the influence of a Targum is evi- 
dent, the traces of which are stiU to be found in Jonathan t??*!^ 

a 

P 2 



212 MANKIND: THEIB 

Matt. ii. 19, 20, is the parallel passage to Exod. iv. 19, ac- 
cording to the LXX. 

Matt. ii. 23. The name 'i^a^wpaios does not mean the 
Hebrew IJJ, Isa. xi. 1, but only the sound of NaftpoToy, LXX 
p\t?), Judges xiii. 5. It is evident that the translator had 
this passage in view from the parallel formula tSov hv ycurrpi 
i^H9 Ka\ ri^ vlovy Judges, xiii. 5, 7, with Matt. i. 21, 23. 

Matt. iii. 3. The LXX alone, wluch restores the perverted 
Hebrew text by joining iv tง ip^fjup to tJKovrf fiowvros, and 
using K^lp as a genitive, could be of service to the evangelist. 
He quotes freely, however, for he makes rh? rplfiovs avrav 
serve instead of the LXX text ras rpl^ovs rov SeoO fifiMv. 

Matt. iv. 15. This quotation does not correspond with 
the LXX In the first place, the LXX has x^P^> instead of 7^. 
Matthew omits ot Xoinroi oi rfjv wapaXlav Karoucovvnsy and ap- 
proaches nearer to the Hebrew text with oiov Oakdaaris (Heb. 
o;n 'Jl'31), sliiv (Heb. ^Kn ; LXX, tisre), and avTol9 (Dp^.^lj ; LXX, 
i(^' vfias). The quotation is a complete adaptation, to which 
the Hebrew text, or a Targum, as well as the LXX, contri- 
buted. Moreover, KaOr^fievos (LXX, 7ropev6fi€vo9 ; Heb. D?D.:>nn), 
and the placing of xal before KaOrifisvos^ is a free translation. 

Matt. viii. 17 ; Isa. liii. 4. This quotation does not agree 
with the LXX, and is nearer to the Hebrew text. Matthew 
transl|ปted ^^} K^n by iXafiev (LXX, ^peC)^ in order to serve 
his purpose. 

Matt. xii. 18-21 ; Isa. xiii. 1-4. The quotation takes the 
T^ ovofiari ainrov from the LXX, which is an abbreviated trans- 
lation of the Hebrew ^nnln^ ("for his teaching*'), and l^i/i;, a 
translation of the Hebrew D^^fcji ("the isles*'). Els hv eifSo/crjaep 
ylrvxn t^y (^OVl *^^3) corresponds with the Hebrew text. On 
the other hand, the translator in Matthew takes frt>m both 
the words Stos av ix^aXfj els vucos rrjp KpiaiVy which contradicts 
Heb. i. 4, and in Oijao) (Heb. ^J?n}; LXX, eBajxa). The words 
els vIkos are exegetical, and by the word 6ri^*=rny^K, "king's coffers,'' from "iVi*; and just as little the 
LXX, which also reads "^V^', and translates it x^^^^t^VP^ov. The 
influence of some Targum existed probably in this case also. 
At least the Chaldee paraphrast read "iV^^ from "^V^, and trans- 
lated it i??"]?^, " treasurer.'* 

The preceding quotations belong to those portions of 
Matthew's gospel which were written by the third Matthew, 
and can be recognised by the manner in which the text is 
edited, partly in accordance with the LXX, and partly with 
the Hebrew original, or a Targum. Whether the editor 
himself did this, or whether it came into his hands in this 
form, cannot be known. The latter, supposition is 30 far 
probable that the evangelist, when he leaves the LXX, 
makes use of modes of speech which are not customary with 
him. 

6. Quotations which are only found in Matthew (the 
Second Matthew) and Luke : — 

We place under this head those quotations in Matthew 
which, being also in Luke, belong to the second Matthew, 
and are recognised by their agreement with the LXX, with- 
out reference to any Hebrew text or Targum. 

Matt. iv. 4; Deut. viii. 3, is word for word from the 
LXX. The word pripuari, on which an emphasis is laid by 
Matthew, is a gloss of the LXX, and is not in the Hebrew 
text.. 



214 MANKIND : THEIR 

Matt. iy. 6; Ps. xci. 11, 12, is taken word for word firom 
the LXX. 

Matt. iv. 7 ; Deut. vi. 16. 'Eiarsipcureif. This is word 
for word from the LXX. The Hebrew text has ^DJD in the 
plural. 

Matt. iv. 10 ; Deut. vi. 18. Mowp is in the LXX, and not 
in the Hebrew text. Tov Qeov irpoaKwriireiSj which differs 
from ofiTjd^(Tu, LXX Eee. (Heb. K^JH), is in the LXX (Cod. 
Al. and other MSS.). It is clear that this alteration was not 
made by the second Matthew himself, for irpoaxwew is onlj 
construed with the dative in this gospel (chap. iv. ver. 9 ; ii. 
2,8,11; viii. 2; ix. 18; xiv. 63 ; xv.25; xviu. 26; xx.20; 
xxviii. 9, 17. 

Matt. xi. 10; Mai. iii. 1. This quotation does not agree 
with either the Hebrew or the LXX {irpoatoTrop fjLov). 
Matthew has itp6s0S avroU (verse 10) is in Hebrew \> N?'}^, impersonal, 
" and there shall be healing for it.'' Matthew follows the 
LXX literally in chap. xiii. ver. 15, Ka)lde\&v. This is according to 
the LXX and the Chaldee text Dan. vii. 13. Matthew 
(xxvi. 64) writes iTrl t&v vse\&Vy referring to Jesus, whose 
coming in the clouds was expected (conf. chap. xxiv. ver. 
30, and Mark xiii. 26). 

Mark xv. 34. ^Ekooty iXcot, \a/jLfia < 
5c Av dtroXviry rt)v yvvauca airrov 
wupuerbc \6yov iropvf(aฃ...ica< ^ idy 
diro\e\vfUvriv yafitiayf fioixdrat* 

Matt tL 15. 'Edv Sk fit^ dQ voui* TO ik aairpbv Sivipov 
Kapiroiic ''ovripoifg iroicT. 

18. 0{} dvvarat Bkvipov dya%v 
Kapiroi^ wovripo^ jrouXvy o(/Sk SiySpop 
aenrpdv Kapvoi>g KoXohc jroulv. 

Matt. iz. 13. fidOin ri Ivrip * 'EXioq 
BsXut cat oh Ovoiav, 

Matt. ix. 84. Ot Bk ^ptcdtoi tXtyov, 
'' *Kv Tip dpxovTi T&v iatfiot'iwv 
iff/SoXXct rd daifjidvuij* 

Matt Z. 15. dviKTSrtpov fffrai yy 

XoiSfuav Kol Fofioftputv Iv riftkpq. Kpiatiof;^ 

4 Ty v6\ii hiivy. 

Matt X. 17. wapaBio<(v- 

rtifv Bid t6 hvofid fiov * 6 Bk ifrrofitivas 

f I'c rfXoCy oiroc aia9rif utBt b Xpurrhg^ i) HitBtf fiy 
TTtorthm^re, 

Matt xxyiii. 7. wpodyti,t,UH 
airbv o^oGt, 



Matt six. 9. Aiyi* Bk [vfuvf dc Av 
dfroXvay r^v yvva^Ka ahrov jiifi iiri vop- 
viUf,,,Kal b diroXfXviiivfiv yafiiivag 
fioixarat, Conl Mark x. 11. 

Matt xyiiL 35. Ofirw Kai b warrip 
fiOv b iiTovpdvtog noiriau hfiiv idv fiji^ 
dfrjrt tKaoroQ rtf dBiX^ ahrov,, ปrd 
wapafrrwfiara avrutr. 

Matt xii. 33. ^ trouiffart rb Biv^ 
Bpov KaXbv Kai rbv Kapnbv ahrov 
KaXbVf ^ frotri

\6s Kal K(o(f>6f, Matt. xii. 22, arose from the combination of the blind man. Matt. ix. 27, and the Kco(f)6s Baifjuovi^ofievos^ chap. ix. 32. Conf . : — xiL 22. wpoff' avTt^ Batfiovi- Matt ZofiivoQ rv^Xbg xai Kkt^Sg, 28. roi W^Tca^ro irdv' rซc o* ox^oi JCrti tXtyov,,, 24. Ot ik ^apioaloi flirovj "Ovroc ... iv ... fy Matt. ix. 82. irpov^ rjvtyKav avrtf dv9p(ajrov Kut^v iaifiovtZofitvov, 83. icat iQavfiaaav oi ox^oiy Xlyovrฃf... 84. Oi^j ^opceratoi IXf- yov, " *Ev Tip apxoirri rซv 8aifiOvi(aVf** ir.r.X. Markiii. 22. Kal oi ypaftfiardg,,, (XtyoVf "'Ort ivnp apxovn Tuv Saifiovuitv" r.r.X, 224 MANKIND : THEIR Words and expressions which are peculiar to the two first chapters of Matthew, and which occur again else- where : — i. 16 . L17 . i. 20 . i.20 . i.24; ii. 13, 19 ii. 12, 13, 19, 22 ii. 7, 13, 19 . 1.1 L 21 ; ii. 4 . i. 22 . ii. 16, 17, 23 . i. 26 . ii. 1 . iL 3 . ii. 4 . i. 22; u. 6, 15, 23 ii. 7 . ii. 9 . ii. 12, 13, 14, 22 L22; U. 16, 17 ii. 19 . iL23 . 'Irjtrovc 6 Xiyofiivo^ X/oicrroc. Conf. XXvii. 17, 22. 6 Xpiaroc, a word used bj the editor. Conf. zi. 2, xxiii. 10. ivOvfittnOai. Conf. ix. 4, xii. 26. IM occurs fifty-six times, only a few of which are in the parallel passages of Mark. ayyf\og Kvplov, Conf. xxix. 2. Kar ovap, Conf. xxvii. 19. ^aivtaQai, spoken of visions. Conf. xxiv. 30. v\bQ Aaw?. Conf. ix. 27, xii. 23, xv. 22.; xx. 30, 31 ; xxi. 9, 15. In Mark, this expression ololj occurs twice in the parallel passages (x. 47, 48), and then it has probably been inserted by a later hand. 6 Xaoc, the people, emphatically. Conf. iv. 23, ix. 85| xxi. 23; xxyi. 3, 5, 47; xxvii. 1, 25. In Mark, it. only occurs twice in the usual sense of ox^o^: (xL 32, xiv. 2). TOVTO Se o\ov yiyovtv 'iva, Conf. Xxi. 4, XXvL 56. Iva irXtiputO^ro priQkv vrrb Kvpiov fid rov wpo^iirov MyovTOQ. Conr. iv. 14, viii. 17, xii. 17, xiii. 35, xxi. 4, xxvi. 56, xxvii. 9. 'iug od. Conf. xiv. 22, xvii. 9, xxvi. 56. It is not found in the parallel passages in Mark. wapayiviaOai, Conf. ill. 1. irdaa 'UoujffoKvfiaf for the inhabitants. Conf. iii. 6, viii. 34, xxi. 10. 01 dpxitpf^i Koi ypaftpariig rov \aov. Conf. Zxi. 23 ; xxvi. 3, 47 ; xxvii. 1. iid rov TTpotptirov, without the name. Conf. xiii. 35, xxi. 4. ron occurs seventy-two times vrith the meaning of '' then,^' while Mark has it only seven times, and only with reference to time. itrraOti, Conf. XXVii. 11. dvayotpuv, after some menacing danger. Conf. It. 12, xiii. 15, xiv. 13, xv. 21. rb pt]^hv, Conf. iv. 14, viii. 17, xii. 17, xiii. 35, xxi. 4, xxii. 31, xxiv. 15, xxvii. 9 (o pi/Pfi'c, iii. 3). riKwrdv, Conf. ix. 18, and ii. 15, 17 rikivrq. It occurs in Mark oul^ in quotations. Kart^Ki)i8 ••• avT6i^{9). Mark i. 44. Uepl rov KoSapurfioO aiov, This is probably a gloss (conf. Luke v. 27). Perhaps the second Mark took him, in the same sense that Levi was said to have been chosen au apostle, for James the son of Alphasus (chap. iii. ver. 18). ' A/coXovdsi fjLoi (Mark ii. 14) : conf. Matt. iv. 25, viii. 19, ix. 27. The editor of Matthew (chap. ix. 9, 10) appears to have taken the call of Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, to have been a call to the apostleship, and rg oUla avrovy by which (Mark iL 15) the house of Jesus is meant, for the house of the publican, and on this account to have omitted the word airrov after oi/c(a. Luke (v. 29) carries this still further. Owing to this mistake, the editor, not finding the name of Levi in the list of apostles, was obliged to insert it (chap. x. ver. 3), and to call him " the publican." Levi in Mark ii, 14 (conf. chap. iii. ver. 18) is not as yet the Apostle Matthew (Matt. ix. 9), and he did not continue to be a publican (Matt. x. 3). Mark ii. 156. ''Haav yap ttoWoL This is a needless repe- tition of TToXXo/ in the first part of this verse. The words Kol riKoKovdovv do not belong to this parenthesis. In the Cod. Sin. and other MSS. the passage runs, " And there followed him also scribes of the Pharisees, and when they saw that he was eating," &c. Mark ii, 176. Ovic ^\6ov /ca'\J(Tat,.*diJbapTa}\ov9. These words seem to be a dogmatical gloss. Probably the second Mark took them from Matt. ix. 13, and inserted them into the text of the first Mark. Luke (chap. v. verse 32) added the words 619 fierdvoiav to this speech. Mark ii. 26. 'EttI *Al3id0ap dpxiepioa?. This is a gloss which contradicts 1 Sam. xxi. 1, in which passage it is not Abiathar, but his father Abimelech, who was high-priest at that time (conf. Matt. xii. 4, and Luke vi. 4). Mark ii. 26. Kae iitoKe koX roh avv airr^ ova-tv, A gloss, which refers to verse 25a (conf. Matt. xii. 4 ; Mark iii. 15 -h /cal.,,SaifjL6via; conf. chap. vi. ver. 76). Mark iii. 16. The text is probably corrupt. We should read, St/ucDva, koI hre0r)Kiv ovofia axn^ /c.t.X. (conf. ver. 17, and Luke vi. 14). Mark iii. 23. + iv Trapa^oKats. Conf. Matt. xii. 25. Mark iii. 30. ''Ot^ ikerfov 'rrvevfia aKaOaprov i)(Bu This is a ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 229 gloss to show why blasphemy against Jesus (verse 22) was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (verse 29). The words of Jesns, Matt. xii. 27, 28, are redundant, like this illustration, which was superfluous, on account of Mark iii. 22, which the second Mark has inserted into the text of the first Mark ฃrom the collection of sayings (the first Matthew). Mark iv. 11. ToU i^co is a gloss (conf. 1 Cor. v. 12, 13). Mark iv. 39, 40. In Matthew the censure of the unbelief of the disciples is previous to the rebuking the storm, but in Mark it is in the reverse order. The text of Matthew seems to be more ancient in this place than that of Mark. Jesus first rebukes their want of faith, which is the principal thing, and then stills the storm. We see the hand of the later editor in the reversed narrative, who considered the stilling of the storm as the principal thing. Mark v. 1. Trj9 daXdaar^s is a gloss for foreign readers. Matt. viii. 28, has only to iripav. Mark v. 7. -f ToC xr^iarov. Conf. Matt. viii. 29. Mark v. 9. '^Ori iroWol eofisv. An explanation of Xsyscov. Mark v. 13. -f 'Ei; rrj daXdaarj. Conf. Luke viii. 33. Mark v. IS.H-'Xls Stov aov. Matthew keeps to the original Sx^tv aimjp. The second Mark gave as a commentator the reason why John said this, viz. that Herodias was his brother's wife. Josephus says that the reason why John was arrested and put to death was the fear of troubles from his numerous disciples. He says that the people " pricked up their ears at his words" {^pOija-av rf) aKpoaau r&v Xoy&v), and that Herod, having become alarmed, thought it better to cause John to be executed — Beiaa9 Kpelrrov riyeiTat {tov ^Irodptftjp) avaipelv. The narrative in Mark would lead us to suppose that the head of John was brought while Herod was yet at 2&2 MANKIND : THEIR table : consequently, the prison must have been in the neigh- bourhood. Now Josephus says that John was imprisoned at Machserus, a strong place situated on the southern frontier of Percea, while the residence of Herod was at Tiberias, which was a day's journey from Macha^rus. The head of John could not, therefore, have been brought ijntil two days had elapsed. This, with the exceeding improbability of so brutal a transaction having taken place in the palace of a Boman governor, and in the presence of the " lords, captains, and chief men of Galilee," justifies us in regarding this narrative as unhistorical. Mark vii. 2. ToOt' Hariv aviirroi9. An explanation of Koivah for persons who were not natives of Palestine. Mark vii. 3-4. An historical explanation for foreign readers. Mark vii. 11. ''O iam hS)pov, An explanation for foreign readers. Mark vii. 26. 'H he ^wi) fiv 'EXXiyi^ly, Xvpo(f>oivixiaaa tซ yivsi. This parenthesis is not in connection with the pre- ceding passage, and appears to be an explanation for foreign readers of " Xavavaia " (Matt. xv. 22). Mark vii. 34. "O icrrt Aiapoix'^rjTi. A translation of *E(l>paOd for foreign readers. Mark viii. 10. + MstcL r&v fia0T)T&p ainov (conf. Matt. xv. 39). Mark viii. 19 and 20. The words \iyov(Tiv ain-fo AdBsKa and Kot \iyov(riv avrw 'Fi-rrrh weaken the meaning, for the answer is not wanted, but appears in the question itself. Mark viii. 31. -\- aTroSoKifiaadiji/ai. Conf. Matt. xvi. 21. Mark viii. 34. + Kal . . . irpoaKaXsadfAevos top o)(\oy* Mark viii. 34. -f a/^aTO) top aravpop ainov. Mark viii. 35. Kal tou evarfysXiov (conf. Matt. xvi. 25). This is a gloss, which leads us very properly to observe that Jesus did not mean his Person as such, but his business in that Person. This also follows from chap. x. ver. 29, com- pared with Matt. xix. 29. Mark viii. 386. The words sp rfj yevsa rav-rp tj) fioixoXihi Kol afiapTa)\^ are meant here to indicate the present time, instead of what is elsewhere called ip r^ ivp al&vi, and con- trast with oTap i\dง, verse 38c. It is improbable that either Jesus or the early editions of the gospel should have called all the contemporaries of Jesus, including the pious, by these names. The words appear to have been taken from Matt. xiL 39, where they have no article, and are only used re- ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 238 specting a particular class of men, and are inserted here to contrast with the future period (ij ^aaiXela tov ฉeoO), chap, ix. ver. 1. Mark ix. 1. ^E\r)\v0vcav iv hvvdfiH. A gloss, which Luke (chap. ix. 27) has omitted as superfluous. Mark ix. 8. Ola fypa(f>iV9 • . . XeuKavai, An eyident para- phrase of the poetical expression ay? to <^9, Matt. xvii. 2. Mark ix. 5 and 4. + ^ hiroKptdels and 4- fjaav. Conf. Matt, xvii. 4 and 8. Mark ix. 376. Kal hs . . • tov diroaTslXavrd fis. This is a later addition to the speech of Jesus, taken from Matt. x. 4 (conf. Matt, xviii. 5). Matt. ix. 41. These words do not agree with the context, especially the word vfiasy which one would expect to be t/vo, and they are very properly omitted in Luke ix. 50. They were probably taken from Matt. x. 42, where, instead of v/Aaf, eva t&v /MiKpcju tovtodu stands, which agrees with the context ; and this was probably the reason why Mark in- serted here the speech about the oi fiiKpoi (verses 37 and 42). We may also remark here that in Mark's text the distinct- ness of the words of Matthew, els ovofia puiOrjTovy i.e. in order to honour in him a disciple — that is, in his quality of disciple (conf. els ovofxa 7rpo^Tov and els opoixa hiKaiov, Matt. x. 41 ; and, again. Matt, xviii. 20, els to k^v oyofia ; xxviii. 19, els to ovofia TOV TrarpoSy k,t,\, ; 1 Cor. i. 13, els ro ouofia IlauXoi;) — is half obliterated by the expression ot* Xpiarov iari (conf. 1 Cor. i. 12); and that the commentator, while changing /jLa6r)Tov into OT* XpujTov hoTiy forgot to alter iy ovofiaTiy which is the origin of the unintelligible text, ^* In (the) name, that ye be- long to Christ.'* Lastly, " Christ," as a proper name (which is here introduced without the article), is nowhere else put into the mouth of Jesus, except in Matt, xxiii. 10 (conf. verse 8), which, we have already seen, is a gloss of the editor's, while the words " even Christ " in verse 8 are not in the Cod. Sin. ; and in John xvii. 3. Mark ix. 43-50. As the second Matthew inserted after yhi^pavy chap, xviii. ver. 9, toO irvposy from chap. v. ver. 22, we may also suppose that the second Mark inserted after these words, " Where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched," from Isaiah Levi. 24, and that by the words ** unquenchable fire " he commented on the word yeevpa. Mark x. 2. + 'AvSpl (conf. Matt. xix. 3). The later editor, who retained the original text in verse 11, in opposition to 234 MANKIND : THEIR Matthew (chap, xix. 9), now improperly omits the words xarh irSurav airlav. Matt. xix. 8. But the Pharisees asked Jesus, in consequence of the teaching of Hillel and Schammai, on the subject of divorce, whether a man might put away his wife, not under any particular circumstances, but under any circumstances whatsoever. Jesus, however, rests on the ideal point of view, and puts divorce out of the question, as he did the performance of an oath (Matt. v. 33-37), although he recognises the practical utility of the Mosaic law of divorce {irpoi rtjv aKKrjpoKaphlav vfi&v), Mark x. 11. + i7r* ain-TJv. Conf. Matt. xix. 9. Mark X. 12. KallcLv • . .fiotx^'^o^t* These words cannot be originaL The right of the woman to put away her husband belongs to the customs of Greece and Eome (conf. 1 Cor. vii. 13), but was not lawfal among the Jews (Deut. xxiv. 1 ; Joseph. Antiq. vii. 10). Matthew (chap. xix. 9) has not this addition. Mark x. 21. ''A pas rov aravpov. This expression, which is a duplicate of Mark viii. 34, is not in its proper place here (conf. Matt. xix. 21). Mark x. 24. + ^AmtcpiOel?. Conf. Matt. xix. 23. Mark x. 27. IXavra ycip Bvvard id. Alex., 617^^0797. The second Mark, who did not know of this place, put Bethany for Bethphage. (See Orig. Comm. in Matt. vol. XYI. chap. xiv. and xvii). Mark xi. 3. Ti iromn rovro, A glossarial paraphrase of Tiy Matt* xxi. 3. Mark xi. 5-6. The editor endeavours here to bring the events which followed into literal agreement with verse 3 (conf. the editing of Matthew, xxi. 6). Mark xi. 7. + 'n'pof tov ^Irjaovp. Conf. Matt. xxi. 7. Mark xi. 10a. An extended repetition of Matt. xxi. 9. Mark xi. 13. 'O 7^^ Kaipot om fjv ctvkodv, A thoughtless gloss, to which one can only give a meaning in accordance with the passage by a strained interpretation (conf. Matt. xd. 19). Mark xi. 14. ^km-oKpiOels. Conf. Matt. xxi. 19. Mark xi. 14. The optative arfoi^ by which the expres- sion of Jesus is turned into a curse, is less original than ov fitf/chi i/e TtvsvfjLaTt t& ayup, Matthew (chap, xxii. 43) has, perhaps by way of explanation, the earlier text iv TTvevfJuart, Mark xii. 42. + o eart Koipdvrr}9, An explanation of T^jeiniL hvo for Eoman readers (conf. Luke xxi. 2). Mark xiii. 4. -f Trai/ra. Conf. Matt. xxiv. 3. Mark xiii. 11. To irvsvfia to ayiov. The first Mark probably wrote only to TrvevfjLa ; and both rov irarpbs vficjPy Matt. x. 20, and TO ayiov, in Mark, are glosses (conf. Mark xii. 36, with Matt. xxii. 43 ; and also Mark i. 10, roirvsv^a^ with Matt. iii. 16, TO TTPevfjLa Tov ฉeoO, and Luke iii. 22, to irvevfui t6 aryiov), Mark xiii. 23. -{-TrdvTa. Conf. Matt. xxiv. 25. Mark xiii. 32. Ovhe 6 vlos. '* The Son " is represented here dogmatically as a Person between the angels and God. Matthew wrote (chap. xxiv. 36), evidently from an earlier source, " No man, no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." The opinion that Matthew did not take his dogmatic views of the lower rank which the Son holds here with reference to the Father, and of his want of knowledge, from the earliest times, is contrary to the spirit of the period ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 287 at wliich Matthew's gospel must have been edited, for Christians then held Jesus to be of supernatural origin, but not quite a God, or equal to the Father. On his side, the editor of Matthew's gospel embellished the sources from which he derived it, for he altered odSs ol ayysXoi oi h od- pavw into ovhe oi ar/ye\oi rcav oipav&v, and inserted fwv fiovos after iraTqp (chap. xxiv. 36). Mark xiv. 3. 'Ei; rfj olxla Xlfuavos rod XBirpov. The. publication of the name of the host would, if it had been originally in the text, show an acquaintance with collateral circumstances which does not agree with the author's ignorance respecting other persons, especially respecting the woman who anointed Christ, whose name he would not have omitted to mention if he had known it, especially in con- nection with verse 9. The name of *' Simon " appears to have crept into the tradition as the host from a recollection of another meal at the house of a certain Simon, a Pharisee (Luke vii. 36, 40, 43, 44), where Jesus was also anointed. These meals soon became identified in the later tradition, so that Luke leaves the meal at Bethany unmentioned, and the fourth evangelist (John xii. 1, et sqq.) has compiled his narrative from both sources. The name of " the leper " does not sound historical, for it is strange that anyone should be called by the name of the disease he suffered from, especially so despicable a one ; but it was probably a nickname which the Christians gave to the Pharisee Simon, on account of the spiritual leprosy, the manifestation of the hostility of Judsea to Christ, of the sect to which Simon belonged. " Simon the leper " was probably not in the First Mark, and the second Mark took it from Matthew. The hand of the second or canonical Mark is also to be seen in the verses which follow. Mark xiv. 4. Tiph seems to be a later improvement of 01 fjLa0r)ral (Matt, xxvi. 8). K Matthew had read rivhy it would be very improbable that this evangelist, who omits everything in Mark that could affect the credit of the Twelve, should have altered the indefinite rcvB9 into oi fiaOrfjai If this be correct, tradition passed through the following details : In the oldest source it was "the disciples;" this was subsequently altered to " some ; " and at last, in John xii. 4, the blame is attached to Judas Iscariot alone. Mark xiv. 4, 5. ToO fivpov ysyovev and to fivpop are glosses (conf. Matt. xxvi. 8, 9). Mark xiv. 76. + /cai orav ... iroirja-ai. (Conf. Matt. xxvi. 11) • 238 MANKIND: THEIR Mark xiv. 126. "'Orff to 'iria^a eOvop. An explanation for readers who did not dwell in Palestine (conf. Matt. xxvi. 17). Mark xiv. 18. + o ^lr)aov9. Conf. Matt. xxvi. 21. Mark xiv. 28. A later insertion, taken by the second Mark from Matt. xxvi. 32, and xxviii. 7. Mark would have written dvaarijvaiy instead of iyepOrjvM. After removing verse 28, we for the first time find that verse 29 joins verse .27 suitably. Mark xiv. 30 and 72. *H S/y is not in Matt. xxvi. 34, Luke xxii. 54, or John xiii. 38 ; nor in Mark in the Cod. Sin. The gloss refers to the double crowing of the cock, Mark xiv. 686 and 72, of which the other evangelists take no notice. K we take the story of Peter's denial in Mark to be the original one, we must suppose that the editor of Matthew's gospel omitted the first crowing of the cock in order to assimilate what followed with the prediction ; while the over-zealous Mark, on the other hand, for the same reason inserted the second crowing of the cock in the prediction. Mark xiv. 86. "All things are possible unto thee.'* These words contradict the preceding tva si Svvarov {iarivjy by which Jesus indicates that all things are not possible to God. These words, like the corresponding passages Mark x. 276, and Matt. xix. 26, must be taken to be a gloss of later date. Mark xiv. 39. " And again he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words." In Matt. xxvi. 42, 44, we have after these words a second prayer, in which (conf. verse 39) there is a beautiful gradation in the aspirations of Jesus, which the second Mark involuntarily neglected by adopting the earlier text. After he had written verse 39, which he had taken from Matthew (verse 44), and omitted verse 42, he observed the mistake, and, in order to do away with it, again followed Matthew (verse 43), except in verse 40. Mark xiv. 41. To rplrov. A gloss, on account of etc hsvripov^ Matt. xxvi. 45. Mark xiv. 43. -^-r&v ypafijiaTeayv and irdmss olap^iepsh, verse 53. Conf. Matt. xxvi. 47, 57. Mark xiv. 48. Kal airoKpiOeis elirsv. As the use of airoKpi6sL9y when not preceded by a question, does not occur in Mark, the common source probably contained koX el-rrev. Mark xiv. 58. The editing is not the original text (conf. chap. XV. 29). The words top 'xj^tpoiroirirov and aWov dx^H>o^ ORIGIN AXD DESTINY 289 iroifiTov are a paraplirase, which may be considered as the oldest commentary on the words. Jesus had in his mind the destruction of the earthly temple, and the building of another — that is, a spiritual temple (conf. the conclusion of Mark xiii. 2, in D. It. Cypr. in Griesbach). Mark xiv. 62. 'ฃ70) slfii. An explanation of the less usual ov. Pro- bably two Romans, whom the second Mark knew (conf. Matt, xxvii. 32). Mark xv. 25. ^Hi/ Bh &pa rplrr) koX icTTavptoaap airrou. According to Mark, the soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha, gave him before his crucifixion the drink of myrrh to deaden the pain, crucified him, and parted his garments. The superscription on the cross proclaimed to the people the crime imputed to him, and Jesus hung on the cross exposed to the railing of the passers-by and of the chief-priests, in which the robbers that were crucified with him took part. Immediately upon this follows the darkness. The sixth hour was come {ysvo/jiJin)9 &pa9 iKT-qs)^ Mark xv. 33 (conf. Mark i. 32; vi. 2, 21), and at broad midday the sun withdrew his light until the ninth hour, when Jesus gave up the ghost on the cross. According to this statement, the darkness con- tinued the whole time that Jesus was on the cross, and thus at once revealed its true symbolical meaning. The editor of Matthew's gospel, who may be known by airo and S^, puts the darkness in such a way as to signify that Jesus had already hung a long time on the cross before it began, and thence the second Matthew took the liberty of placing the commencement of the crucifixion at the third hour. Luke (chap, xxiii. 44) shows still more clearly that the darkness began with the erection of the cross and the OEIGIN AND DESTINY. 241 revflings wliich followed. Kal tjv {fjBrf is omitted by A. D. C.** and many other MSS.) ixrel &pa S/crrj xal a\d9. This is taken from Ps. xxii. 8, like Matt, xxvii. 39. As this mode of looking at prophecy as a source of history is characteristic of Matthew, it is probable that the First Mark did not contain this passage, but merely the words, " And they that passed by railed on him, and said. Ah," &c. Mark xv. 34. "O lartp . . . iy/cariXurh fie. A gloss for foreigfu readers. Mark xv. 40. ToO fiixpov, A gloss, to distinguish him from James the son of Zebedee. Mark xv. 42. "O iarc irpoad/S/SaTov. An explanation of irapaaicsvriy to make it understood by foreign readers. Mark xvi. 1. Kal XaXdfir), Probably inserted from Mark xv. 40. In verse 47 she is not mentioned as being among the women. Matthew, who in chap, xxviii. ver. 1, only speaks of the two Maries, appears not to have found the name of Salome in his source (Mark xvi. 1). Mark xvi. 4. *Hi/ yhp fiSyas (T(f>6Bpa. This yap can only be considered to be affected by dscopovaiv oriy on account of the declaration particle {they saw the stone was rolled away, for it was very great, and therefore visible at some distance), but refers to the question in verse 3, " Who shall roll us away the stone ? " But in this case the words cannot be in their right place, and appear to be a gloss formed after Matt, xxvii. 60. Mark xvi. 8. Kal i^ikdowrai. This " exit " gives us to understand that the women had previously returned to the grave, which, however, is not probable from the previous narrative. According to verse 2, they came {epxovrai) unto the sepulchre {hrl to fimjfielov). According to verse 6, they have entered {eursXjOovaai) into the sepulchre {eU to fipr)/jLslov). (See John xi. 38, compared with verse 41 ; iv. 5, compared with verse 28; xx. 1, compared with verse 11.) Hence it results that they did not enter the tomb. But if we sup- pose that Matthew retained the earlier reading in this place, B 242 NLANKim): THEIB the women did not go out of, bnt away from, the tomb (airfX- Oovaa^ airb rov fivrjfislov) . Luke is the first (chap. zxiv. 3) to alter tkOovatu elf (Mark zvi. 5) into BiaiKBowrKUy and inserts in addition, that " they found not the body of the Lord Jesus." According to the same idea, the second Mark may have altered the original aTrsXOoCinu into i^tkdovaau OEIQIN A^D DESTINY. 243 CHAPTER X. MYTHICAL ELEMENTS IN THE FIB8T MABE. Eesebving for future discussion the question of the historical character of these portions of the gospels which are not touched upon here, we must not overlook the fact that in this gospel, even where it betrays the insertions of the later Mark, and in places in which Matthew has the earlier text, a collection of narratives has been made which criticism, from its present point of view, cannot admit as historical. It needs not to be said that this is especially the case with the colossal miracles which the first Mark narrates in common with the other evangelists. In this state of things, the enquiry arises, how we can show that so much that is possible, and so much that is evidently mythical, can have been brought together in the same gospel ? We must assume, what we have already shown reason to suppose, apart from the miracles, that even in the First Mark there has been inserted a collection of mythical elements into an originally historical general work, or that they have been worked up with and amongst material which was originally historical. I. Preliminary Remarks. The epya of Jesus. The appearance of the Messiah was expected to be attended by signs and miracles. The eyes of the blind were to be opened, and the ears of the deaf to be unstopped, the lame were to leap, and the tongue of the dumb to sing. See Isa. XXXV. 5, et sqq. ; xlii. 7 (conf. xxxii. 3, 4). These expres- sions, which were only metaphorical, were taken literally, and thus the ideal Messiah, even before the appearance of Jesus, was described with constantly increasing minuteness of de- tail. Thus in Tauchuma, f. 54, 4 : " R. Acha nomine R. Samuelis bar Nachmani dicit : Qusacumque Deus S. B. facturus B 2 244 MANKIND: THEIR est tempore Messiano, ea jam ante fecit per mantis jnstomm seculo ante Messiam elapso. Deus S. B. suseitabit mortuos, id quod jam ante fecit per Eliam, Elisam, et Ezecliielem. Mare exsiccahit^ prout per Mosem factum est. Oculos caecorum aperiet, id quod per Elisam fecit. Deus S. B. futuro tempore visitabit sterileSy quemadmodum in Abrahamo et Sara fecit." Jesus, however, did not cause any sea to retire, as Moses did, and on this point the parallel fails. It is possible that Jesus may have healed bodily diseases, and have done other works of the same description, which his wonder-loving contemporaries turned into and set forth as things astonishing and marvellous; things which are called in the gospels and apostolic epistles " mighty works " (Bvvdfisis)y Matt. xi. 20, 21, 23 ; xiii. 64, 58 ; xiv. 2 ; Mark vi. 2, 5, 14 ; ix. 89 ; and which are called in Matt. xi. 2, ** the works of Christ" {ipya rov Xptarov), Passages such as Matt. xi. 20, and Luke xiii. 32 (conf. Mark i. 29-34), in which (especially in the passage in Luke) there is nothing for the narrator to do for effect, show that Jesus was believed to have driven out devils, and to have wrought other cures. We derive the same impression from Matt. xi. 2-6, where the answer to John, in which Jesus speaks symbolically of his spiritual miracles, has no meaning, except on the supposition that the " works " (ipya) of which John had heard were conspicuous ones, especially cures, on which account he thought that Jesus might be the Messiah ; and Jesus immediately puts forward his spiritual miracles as the true marks by which the Messiah was to be known. Jesus was not alone in his age in performing such ef3ya or Svidfiet?. The disciples of the Pharisees (Matt. xii. 27), and persons who were not disciples of Jesus (Mark ix. 38, 39), also did mighty works, and cast out devils. The office of exorcist is, however, not mentioned in the enumeration of the miraculous gifts (1 Cor. xii.). Jesus even asserts that false prophets would show signs and wonders (Mark xiii. 22). In the time of the Apostles it was believed that those who had the charisma had no difficulty in healing diseases and performing mighty works {Svidfieis). See 1 Cor. xii. 9, 10; Gal. iii. 5. Conf. also the narrative of the eye-witnesses. Acts xxviii. 8, 9. ApoUonius Tyaneus also performed a great number of miracles. The early Christians accused him oi sorcery, and their writers termed him an impostor, and a ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 246 worker of false miracles, which, however, they did not deny that he performed. If Jesus did such works, especially among the sick, whose disturbed nervous system disposed them to mania, he must have exercised a beneficial influence (conf. Luke viii. 2fc.), and have recognised the same influence in others, Mark ix. 38, 39 (conf. Matt. vii. 22) ; and he pointed out to his enemies as a reproach, not that they ascribed his miracles to the influence of the devil, but that they recognised and re-- viled the Holy Spirit (Tlvevfi^a to '^Ayiov) in the works which he did, as is especially noticed in Mark iii. 29, 30, and Matt. xii. 32; and he lamented over Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which, though witnesses of his mighty works, which gave evidence of the same Spirit, nevertheless dis- regarded them (Matt. xi. 21-25). In the signs and wonders also which false prophets (Mark xiii. 22) showed, the true messengers of God could not be recognised (Matt. xii. 39, 41, 42). "When they asked of him a sign, he indicated the sign by which Jonah was recognised as a prophet in Nineveh, and the instance of the Queen of Sheba, who came not to see miracles, but to hear the wisdom of Solomon (Matt. xii. 41, 42). With regard to Jonah, compare tA aijfiela r&v Kaip&Vy Matt. xvi. 8 (the signs which characterise the times) ; ra irqfisia TTji arjs irapova-iasy Matt. xxiv. 3 (the signs by which the second coming was to be known) ; to arjfislop rod vlov rou dydpamovy Matt. xxiv. 30 (the sign by which the Son of Man was to be known) ; ar)fisiop rrjs SiadijKrj?, Gen. ix. 12, 13, 17^ xvii. 11 (the sign by which the covenant was manifested). Conf. also, p6vb9y -ffisch. Prom. 842, and (njfiela Orjpo? ovts tov Kvv&Vy Soph. Ant. 254. The sign of Jonah is the preaching of Jonah. It is probable, though not absolutely certain, that (Luke xi. 30) understood it in this sense. To conclude from an appositive genitive case that Jonah himself was the sign, is diflScult to conceive gramma- tically if the person of Jonah is meant, and does not agree with the context. Most of the miracles attributed to Jesus have reference to healing the sick and raising the dead. The priests were the physicians among the Jews ; thus in Lev. xiii. the care and healing of lepers is entrusted to them, while in 2 Chron. xvi. 12, King Asa is blamed for consulting the physicians. 246 MANKIND: THEIR Many of the modem priests are called curates, from eurare, " to heal; " but being precluded from giving themselves up to the acquisition of medical knowledge, they have attributed to themselves the art of healing (in a mystic sense) souls which are sick. Among Oriental nations medicine, which is part of Physics, was the peculiar privilege of the priest and the Magi. Pliny (Hist. Nat. xvi. 44, and xxiv. 118) says that medicaments could only be touched by the priests, together with certain ceremonies. Metampus, who is said to have introduced the festivals and ceremonies of Bacchus into Greece, was both priest and physician (Herod, ii. 40; Diod. i. 96). The Brahmins are even now the physicians of India. The third class of priests in Egypt had to treat all physical maladies in accordance with the six books of Hermes. If, however, the opponents of Jesus had not evidence enough, and could not attain to the truth, notwithstanding such preaching as that of John, no matter whether it was of men or from God, then he also would give no answer as to the authority by which he entered Jerusalem as a reformer (Mark xi. 28-33). John, when he hoard in prison of the works of Jesus, enquired whether he was, perchance, the expected Messiah. Jesus referred him to the works he had done by spiritual agency, and warned his disciples not to be offended at the Son of Man, who did no miracles (Matt. xi. 6). In the same way, he clearly explains (Mark viii. 12) to his contemporaries who asked for a sign, that no sign of any description should be given to them, and called those who sought for such signs " an evil and adulterous (i.e. irre- ligious) generation " (Matt. xii. 39). If all these expressions are accurately reported, the original conception of Jesus, who, distinguished from all others by the gift of " making whole," performed such great works of love towarfs many, was, that he was no Thaumaturgist, or worker of miracles, and refused to be one. Even narratives of later origin set forth that Jesus, who had commanded his disciples to speak upon the house-tops (Matt. x. 27), would not that any man should know of his wonderful works (Mark v. 43) and enjoined them to give praise to God, not to him, for the cure (Mark v. 19) ; and even in the mythical narrative (Matt. iv. 6, 7), we find the truth still adhered to, that the Messiah was no worker of miracles. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 247 It is carious to find Eusebius objecting to the miracles attributed to ApoUonius Tyaneus in much the same way that the Jews are said to have objected to those attributed to Jesus. In his answer to Hierocles (chap, xxxv.), after enumerating the miracles which ApoUonius is said, in the fourth book of his Life, by PhUostratus, to have worked, he says : " Such are the miracles which ApoUonius is said to have worked. It would be weU to examine the circumstances attending them, in order to show that, even if these deeds should be true, they ought only to be attributed to the assistance ApoUonius may have received from the devU. For, in a word, if the contagious disease which he predicted at Ephesus (1. lY. chap, iv.) might have been discerned by the subtleness of his senses alone, which he owed to his mode of living and his great temperance, it might also have been revealed to him by impure spirits. AU the other predictions attributed to him might be rendered doubtful by arguments taken from Philostratus himself. But even if we aUow that he per- formed them, one would always be able to maintain that he knew the future by the aid of the devU. For one would not dare to say that he knew the future altogether; and it is clear that he has not foreseen or predicted aU things, that he has often displayed doubt and ignorance on many siibjects, and that he has often asked questions of others to obtain instruction. For they to whom the gods impart Ught have no occasion to consult men. One can easUy form an opinion, by what we have said, respecting the abatement of the plague at Ephesus (I. IV. chap, x.), and one will recognise that it is nothing but iUusion and imposture. As to the con- ference with AchiUes (1. IV. chap, xvi.), what appearance is there that the soul of that hero had quitted the abode of the happy, to return to his tomb ? We may fairly say, therefore, that the phantom which appeared there was nothing but an impure spirit. It was also, doubtless, an impure spirit which was driven out of the body of the young debauchee (1. IV. chap. XX.). If he delivered Menippus from the vampire or the lamia which possessed him (1. IV. chap, xxv.), it was, perhaps, by the aid of another demon more powerful than it. To the same cause must be attributed both the cure of the young man who began to be seized with madness in conse- quence of the bite of a mad dog, and the cure of the dog itself (1. VI. chap, xliii.). Thus aU the prodigies and 248 MANKIND : THEIR miracles performed by Apollonius were merely the result of the uaderstanding which existed between him and the devils.'* 11. The Narratives of Miracles, It follows from what has been said that it is inconceiyable that the accounts of the wonderful miracles which Jesus worked^ even according to the First Mark, should be of the same date as those portions of the gospel which appear to possess an historical character. If Jesus did such things as, for instance, to still a storm, to walk on the sea as on firm ground, to wither a fig-tree, and to raise the dead, contrary to the laws of nature, it is his- torically impossible to conceive how his miracle-loving con- temporaries should complain of him as unable to perform any miracles (Matt. xiii. 39 ; Mark viii. 12) ; and it is equally incomprehensible why Jesus, on the occasion of the message from John, who thought he was the Messiah on account of his wonderful works, should have warned his miracle-loving con- temporaries " not to be offended in him " (Matt. xi. 6). If, on the contrary, Jesus did not perform these miracles, all is clear. What Jesus did was not sufficient for the miracle-seeking Jews. Others did these things, and therefore he was not the Messiah in the estimation of those who expected a worker of miracles. m. Origin of the Miraculous Nai^atives, If these narratives are unhistorical, it becomes necessary to enquire how they arose, and how they became part of the narrative. It would be superfluous here, after what has been said, to dwell on the miracles which accompanied the birth of Jesus. It has already been clearly shown that these narratives originated at a very late period, and were unknown in the most ancient traditions. They reproduce in mythical form the impressions of the first apostolical congregations respecting the person of Jesus. The idea of the birth of Jesus of the Holy Spirit, without any earthly father, may have arisen in mythical shape from the deep impression which Jesus had made by words and deeds, which gave rise to the idea that he who in the spiritual sense was born of God was super- naturally born of him in a physical sense — a supposition OHIOIN AND DESTOnr. 249 \vliich Paul and the fourth evangelist, who either did not know of this myth, or disregarded it, hare set forth as the pre-existence of the Son of God, and his Incarnation as the Logos proceeding from God. The miraculous star, in obedience to which the Magi came from the East, symbolises in the Christian tradition the conviction that Jesus was the Star which was expected to rise out of Jacob (Numb. xxiv. 17), for the appearance of which the heathen world eagerly looked, and also that the wise men of the most remote nations paid homage to him. The angels at Bethlehem show forth the good-will of God towards men, which was manifested by the appearance of this, the greatest of the sons of men. To the same mythical category the miracle at Golgotha, related by Matthew (chap, xxvii. verses 51-58) also belongs. The sun hides his light from an earth which is polluted by the crime of Gtolgotha; the earth quakes, but God's saints arise from their graves. The death of Christ is therefore the Resurrection and the Life, and the torn veil of the temple proclaims that there is now free access to God. Besides these myths, so rich in meaning, there are some miraculous narratives which are not mythical, but have merely been inserted from the later apocryphal traditions, in which what was perhaps originally historical was mingled with miraculous additions. Among these we may reckon the one which states that Jesus, when touched by a woman, remarked that " virtue was gone out of him," which is put forward in the Second Mark only as an observation of the narrator's (v. 20), but is converted in Luke (viii. 46) into a speech of Jesus himself; and also the story in Luke xxii. 15, of Jesus touching and healing the ear of the servant of the high-priest, which, according to Mark xiv. 47, had been cut oflF. It needs no proof that such narratives are tmhistorical, and are, like the story of the piece of money in the fish*8 mouth (Matt. ivii. 27), of later date. Some of the miraculous narratives are direct copies from those of the pagans — for instance, the miracle of Cana, which was performed annually at the festival of the Thyades, among the Elaeans, who had consecrated a temple and a theatre to Bacchus. Fausanias tells us (Heliac. chap, ii.) that on this occasion the priests took three empty jars, which they shut up in a chapel, after putting a seal upon them in the presence of the people. The next day the jars were looked at, and the seals were found to be 260 MANKIND : THEIR onbroken, and yet the jars were full of wine. This miracle was believed and attested by all the principal inhabitants : the citizens, as well as the visitors, told Fausanias that it was real. This may perhaps account for the enormous quantity of wine said to have been produced in this miracle, which has been calculated as being from 130 to 200 gallons, which has so astonished the commentators that some have endeavoured to escape from the diflSculty by alleging, most dishonestly, that the prejwsition avd has not a distributive, but a collec- tive meaning — that is, that the six water-pots contained only two or three firkins (AซTp?;Ta5) altogether — while others attempt to say that only part of the water was changed into wine. The miraculous narratives which the second Matthew and the second Mark borrowed from their common source — the First Mark — are of earlier origin. They are distinguished from what may be called the principal ones by their not setting forth what the later assemblies believed respecting Jesus, but by their showing in a symbolical manner, connected with the history, what Jesus himself aimed at performing in word and deed while on earth, or was able to accomplish. According to the often-mentioned fragment which Matthew has preserved (chap. xi. ver. 2, et. sqq.), Jesus gave John a description in his answer of his spiritual ministry. A com- parison of Luke iv. 18, 19, xv. 32, with Isa. xxxv. 5, 6, Ixi. 1, 2, xxvi. 19, and Ezek. xxxvii. 1, 13, shows that Jesus, like the prophets, set forth spiritual teaching, in the Oriental manner, in symbolical language. Hence the statement that the dead are raised up. Matt. xi. 5, cannot be taken in the same sense as that which shows Jesus, in Matt. ix. 18, et sqq., restoring a damsel to life, or, in Luke vii. 11-16, restoring a young man to life. With regard to the question whether Jesus really performed miracles of this description as tokens of his Divine mission, we must consider that Paul, who lived in the midst of the earliest Christian communities, and who came into contact with the Apostles at Jerusalem, Gal. i. 18, 19,|ii. 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, and Acts xxi. 17, 18 (compiled by the so-called reporters, or eye-witnesses), who reckoned inhabitants of Jerusalem, such as Barnabas, Silas, and Mark (1 Cor. ix. 6, 2 Cor. ii. 19, 1 Thess. i. 1, Col. iv. 10, Gal. ii. 9) among his truest friends, and was acquainted at first-hand with apostolical traditions (1 Cor. xi. 25, et sqq., and xv. 3, 11), lays it down as a reproach ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 251 "to the Jews (1 Cor, i. 22) that they " require a sign," or, as the Cod. Sin. has it, " signs." Can this be conceived if Jesus had been a worker of miracles according to Jewish ideas ? If this Apostle could call Jesus the " first-finits {airapxv) of them that slept " (1 Cor. iv. 20, 23), and the " first- bom from the dead" (Col. i. 18 ; conf. Eev. i. 5, " the first-begotten of the dead " ), and at the same time state his conviction that Jesus was the first in time of all men who ever returned from Hades to earth, how could this be the case if the dead had been raised in the life-time of Jesus 9 Could this same Apostle, whose opinion is stated in Bom. vi. 9 — that he that is raised from the dead dieth no more — have beh'eved in risen persons, who, having returned to their own life on earth, were afterwards, like the young man at Nain and the daughter of the ruler, subject for the second time to the usual destiny of death, as is set forth respecting the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, who ate again (Mark v. 43) after her resurrection, and also had a material body, and re- specting Lazarus, whom the chief-priests (John xii, 10) sought to put to death 9 The junction in Matt. xL 6, of the "preaching of the gospel to the poor'' with the previous part of the verse leaves no doubt that Jesus spoke symbolically in this pas- sage of his spiritual ministry ; while Matthew (verse 4), and especially Luke (vii. 21, 22), understood the words in their literal sense, as referring to the miracles of Jesus. The comparison of the preaching of the gospel to fishing (Mark i. 17), and also that of the kingdom of heaven to a fisherman's net (Matt. xiii. 47), and of the Jewish nation to an unfruitful tree which was to be cut down (Luke xiii. 6-9), and to whose root, according to the preaching of John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 10), the axe was already laid, are also part of the symbolical language which Jesus made use of. We must here suppose that Jesus, who has compared the kingdom of heaven to leaven, added the filling of those who hungered and thirsted after righteousness (Matt. v. 6), and in the spiritual narrative of the temptation declared that " man shall not live by (material) bread alone " (Matt, iv. 4), and set forth Truth as bread with which he satisfied hungry humanity — a mode of preaching which the fourth evangelist apparently borrowed when he used the formula peculiar to him, " the bread of life " (John vi. 51), and 262 MANKIND : THEIR 4i meat which perisheth not" (John vi. 27). Lastly, it is probable that Jesus, in connection with Hosea vi. 2, and Ezek. xxxvii. 1, et sqq., set forth his future spiritual life in humanity under the representation of a resurrection set forth in his visible death (Mark viii, 31, et sqq.), Conf. John xii. 22-24. It cannot appear strange that out of this symbolical re- presentation of the actual ministry of Jesus symbolical state- ments should arise by degrees, and that these should, without prejudice to their spiritual meaning, appear in the later traditions as actual occurrences. It can be shown from several instances that this really took place. There is no doubt, for instance, that the narrative of the miraculous draught of fishes (Luke v. 1, et sqq.) was substituted for the narrative of the calling of the first disciples (Mark i, 16-20; Matt. iv. 18-22). There is no doubt — nay, it is certain — that an originally symbolical speech, attributed to Jesus, " I will make you fishers of men " (Mark i. 17 ; Matt, iv. 19), which Luke also mentions (chap. v. 10), gave rise to the story of a miraculous draught of fishes, as a sequence to the symbolical narrative, and that this grew in trtCdition into an actual fact, and was added to the narrative of this transaction, or, at any rate, was worked up with the original history. If Jesus, to take another episode, represented celestial aid by the symbol of the protecting angels (conf. Ps. xci. 11 ; Matt, xviii. 10, xxvi. 53; Luke xv. 10), is it not clear that the angel who gave him strength in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke xxii. 43), and who is unknown in the earlier traditions, was inserted as a symbolical part of the history? Is it different with Acts ii. 1-4? and are not in that passage also the rushing of the wind, and the fiery tongues which speak foreign languages, symbols of the new Spirit which was to renew the world by the preaching of the Apostles, and to ma^e known the message of freedom to all people, nations, and languages ? We have already seen from the story of the withered fig-tree, that such alterations were made even in the First Mark. It may be historical that Jesus during his wan- derings in Palestine saw such a tree on his journey, and as a result thereof uttered, as on other occasions, a prophecy, in the form of a comparison (Luke xiii. 6-9), respecting the Jewish nation, which, like that tree, was near to its de- ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 253 stmction. But even in this case it is clear that the pro- phecy of Jesus is set forth, both in the First Mark, and, in accordance with him, in the Second Matthew, as a curse ; and as the result of this a symbolical prediction of the destruc- tion of the tree is inserted as if it were a miraculous deed of Jesus consisting in the actual destruction of it. This last episode teaches us that as the spiritual narrative in Mark i. 16-20, and Matt. iv. 18-22, is converted in Luke into a miraculous draught of fishes, the symbol of the preach- ing of the Gospel, so a miracle is joined in the First Mark also to a symbolical speech which probably did not appear at all in the original draught, and the enquiry follows whether this is not also the case with the other miraculous narratives contained in the First Mark, and whether the healing of demoniacs, lepers, persons sick of the palsy, the lame, the dumb, and the blind, as well as the raising individuals from the dead, were not originally symbolical representations of the spiritual ministry of Jesus — ^representations which became at a later period converted into facts, although still symbolical facts, and which were introduced by the first Mark, or per- haps in the older traditions, into the original text from the oldest evangelical traditions, or were worked up with and amidst the historical material. We may therefore conclude that all the miracles in Mark refer so far to the original portion as either to render clear some truth of which they are the symbols, or to represent some idea to which the history clearly points. K it is asked, How did such narratives come to be believed ? the answer is, that the Rabbis, and after them the Cabalists, did not deny that Jesus performed miracles, because they could by that means preserve among the people those ideas from which they derived their power. They said that Jesus went one day into the temple, penetrated into the Holy of Holies, which the high-priest alone had the right to enter ; that having entered it secretly, he had found the word " Jehovah," that he carried it off, concealing it in his thigh by means of an incision, and that it was by means of the in- effable name that he performed the miracles attributed to hira. Besides this, the popular belief was, that a fever was a demon that had taken up its abode in the body of the patient, and could only be expelled by spells, incantations, and leucromancy, or white magic, as opposed to necromancy, or 264 MANKIND: THEIR black magic, by which, diseases and evils of all sort(E(were^ believed to be incurred. The white magic consisted of prayers, fastings, &c. (" Howbeit this kind goeth not out except by prayer and fasting,'* Matt, xviii. 28), which were believed to have the same power over good demons, and even over God himself, as the black magic had over evil demons and their supreme head, the devil. St. Chrysostom declares " that miracles are only proper to excite sluggish and vulgar minds, that men of sense have no occasion for them, and that they frequently carry some untoward suspicions along with them." 1. Tlie Theophany at Jordan. The first miraculous story in Mark is the account of the opening of the heavens at the baptism of Christ — as if the sky were a solid firmament which must open before God (who lived above it, according to Jewish belief) could come down to earth — the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him in the form of a dove, and the representation of the voice of God himself calling Jesus his Son, in whom he is well pleased. How can we suppose that such an occurrence took place in the material world ? It is also incredible to suppose that a psychological vision is described here, seen either by Jesus or by John, as is maintained by Origen, who says : " For silly people it is a small thing to put the universe in motion, and to cleave so solid a mass as the sky ; but he who examines these things more profoundly will think of those revelations from on High, by means of which chosen individuals believe, during their vigils, and more especially in dreams, to have seen things by means of their bodily senses, while in fact it is merely their soul which acts." It is also improbable that Jesus should set forth the truth in visions, as also that he should take to himself Isaiah xlii. 1, and the title of King (Psalm ii. 7) ; and it is contrary to the subsequent history to suppose that the mystery of the Messiahship of Jesus was made known to John at that time (see ante). We have therefore in this place also to deal with a mythical narrative in which, according to the method of symbolical representation, which took more and more, and especially in Luke iii. 21, 22, the character of a real occurrence, the conviction of the Chris- tians that heaven opened, for Jesus appeared (conf. Ezek. L 1; Isa. Ixiv. 1; Acts vii. 56; John i. 52), the Holy Spirit OBIGIN A>T) DESTIXr. 255 descended upon him (Isa. xi. 2), and he is acknowledged by God to be his Son (conf. Psabn ii. 7, and Acts xiii. 87). This symbolical representation, which perhaps had originally no connection with the Baptism, was inserted immediately after the historical fact which precedes it, the baptism of Jesus by John (Mark i. 9), either by the first Mark or from the tradi- tions which existed before him, and thus became a well- known tradition. 2. The Temptation. Mark i. 13. " The wild beasts '' here are the emblems of thewildness of man's passions (conf. Ps. xxii. 13, 17 ; Dan. vii. 3-8). Conf. ver. 17, the " beast " (Eev. xiii. 17, xvii. 7, et sqq.), the allegory of the Boman empire, and the contest *^ with wild beasts " which Paul had at Ephesus (1 Cor. xv. 32) . The " ministering angels " (conf. Heb. i. 14) represent the sup- port of Gk>d which Jesus had during his struggle with the spirit of the world ; and the forty days are taken from the forty days and forty nights that Moses fasted, neither eating bread nor drinking water (Exod. xxxiy. 28 ; Dent. ix. 9, 18, and the fasting of Elijah for a similar period (1 Kings xix. 8), or perhaps from the forty years' trial which Israel, the type of the Messiah, underwent in the wilderness. Matthew, however (chap. iv. ver. 2), makes the temptation begin after the forty days had passed ; while Luke attempts to reconcile the two accounts by making Jesus to be tempted during the forty days as well as after. Both the angels and the forty days are as little historical as the personal appearance of Satan, the pinnacle of the temple, or the mountain from which Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the earth (Matt, iv. 1-11). The desert is the usual residence of infernal spirits. Azazel (Lev. xvi. 8, 10) and Asmodeus (Tobit. viii. 3) both dwell there. In the canonical gospels the number three is constantly occurring. There are three temptations : Jesus at 6ethsemane tears himself three times away from his disciples (Matt, xxvi.), Peter denies his master three times {{bid.)y and Jesus three times doubts of the love which Peter bears to him (John xxi.). In the Babbioical description of the temptation of Abraham by the devil in person, the patriarch has three contests with him, and the manner in which the two attack each other and defend themselves is analogous to the description in the 256 MANKIND : TIIEIR canonical gospels. The dialogue between Abraham and Satan is narrated as follows in Gemara Sanhedrin, p. 424, note 2 : " 1. Satanas : Annon tentare te (Deum) in tali re regre feras P Ecce erudiebas multos • . • labantem erigebant verba tua . . . quum nunc advenit ad te (Deus taliter te tentans) nonne segre ferres ? (Job iv. 2-5.) " Cui respondit Abraham : Ego in integritate mei ambulo (Psalm xxvi. 11). " 2. Satanas : Annon timor tuus, spes tua ? (Job iv. 6.) " Abraham : Recordare, quseso, quis est insons, qui perierit? (verse 7). "3. Quare, cum videret Satanas se nihil praeficere, nee Abraham sibi obedire, dixit ad ilium : Et ad me verbimi furtim allatum est (verse 12), audivi. . . pecus fdturum esse pro holocausto (Gten. xxii. 7) non autem Isaacum. ^*Cui respondit Abraham: Hsec est poena mendacis, ut etiam cum vera loquitur, fides ei non habeatur.'* What is perhaps historical, and to which symbolism united itself, is that Jesus went into solitude after his baptism by John, and armed himself in communion with God for the con- test which he had to expect in the fulfilment of his great work with the unholy world (" the dominion of Satan," 2 Cor. iv. 4). Perhaps the original groundwork only contained the statement that " Jesus was tempted of Satan in the wilder- ness," from which we may suppose that verse 12 was joined to verse 9. This short account of the temptation was after- wards added to symbols in the First Mark, or in the tra- ditions which he followed, verse 12, 13, and was further worked out by Matthew (chap. iv. 1-11) and by Luke (chap, iv. 1-13). The latter makes the narratives of his prede- cessors still more resembling real occurrences. 3. The Possessed Person in the Synagogue, Mark i. 23-28. This narrative is nothing but a duplicate of the one in Mark v. 1, et sqq., and on this account is omitted by Matthew. We may also doubt whether such a duplicate could belong to the original version of the earliest written tradition. As regards the connection, the verses between verse 22 and 'verse 29 can be omitted, and the enquiry arises whether the original was not limited to the account of the first preaching of Jesus in the synagogue, by ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 267 wUcIi he separated himself from the teachers of his time, teaching "as one that had authority" (Mark i. 21, 22). Christian poetry symbolised this as the expulsion of a demon by Jesus, who trembled at his presence, and knew him to be the Holy One of God. When Jesus speaks as one who has power, conscience awakes, and the evil spirit recognises him, and is driven out by his mighty words. If men were aoป customed in the early Christian assemblies to symbolise in this manner the spiritual power of Jesus, the symbol would become united to the event, and to the original account of it^ such as Mark i. 21, 22, which is symbolically represented. This later insertion also clears up the difiiculty which surrounds the unintelligible exclamation r/? 17 ฃi8a;^ 17 tcaivtf avrri ; orri tear* h^ovalav xai T019 wpevfuun . • • teal inraKovouo'tv auT^ (Mark i. 27). The first portion of this sentence has no connection with the expulsion of the demon, but is a repetition of verse 22. The editor has, it would appear, endeavoured in this place to unite the two things which were in his mind — ^the preaching, and the expulsion of the demon — and he thus becomes obscure. Lastly, it is evident that possession even by many devils is used as a symbol of spiritual death from Matt. xii. 43-45, and Luke xi. 24, 25, where Jesus himself compares the spiritual condition of the people of his time (17 ysvsit, avrrjy verse 45) to that of a possessed person, out of whom the demon departs, to return with seven others which are worse than himself. Conf. also the symbolic passage Luke x. 17-19. 4. The Cure of a Leper. Mark i. 40-45. This narrative must be unhistorical, for it is inconceivable that bodily leprosy should be healed by a single word of Jesus. We must also consider that, histori- cally speaking, the narrative states that after this event be- came known, Jesus " could no more openly enter into the city," and " was without in desert places," in order to with- draw himself from the multitude, and even there was not unmolested. In Mark this episode is isolated between chap. L 39, and chap. ii. 1. Jesus, in verse 39, is on a journey through the towns roundabout, preaching, and returns, chap, ii. 1, to Capernaum. The healing of the leper, which takes place between these verses, also occurs on a journey. This, however, is not indicated in the narrative. The paragraph s 258 MANKIND : THEIR stands by itself, without any reference to what has preceded; Luke seems to have felt this difficulty, and he therefore in- serts into his account (Luke y. 12), that this event took place " when he was in a certain city " which Ji'sus passed through when on a journey, after he had called his first disciples in Galilee. It is therefore not improbable that an originally symbolical account of one of the lepers cleansed by Jesus (conf. Luke xvii. 12), altered in tradition to a physical miracle, was inserted between Mark i. 89, and ii. 1, and passed thence into Matthew's gospel also. The leper is set foi'th in Matt. xi. 5, as a symbol of spiritual uncleanness. It also appears to be symbolical that Jesus orders the leper to show himself to the priest, to prove that he is clean, according to the prescription of the law. The spiritual leper, who has been cleansed by Jesus from sin, stands before the priestly power a pure man, over whom the law has lost its condemning power. The author chose to introduce this narrative into the journey of Jesus through Galilee because its inhabitants were held by the priesthood at Jerusalem to be, on the whole, especially leprous. 5. The Sick of th^ Palsy at Capernaum. Mark ii. 3-12. The bodily cure of the sick of the palsy must be regarded as unhistorical. There is no connection between the power of healing a cripple by a miracle and the power of preaching the remission of sins, except in the mind of the evangelist, or in the tradition which he followed, which saw, in contradiction to Jesus himself, the proof of a Divine mission in the performance of a physical miracle. As the originally symbolical representation lost its original character after it had been converted by tradition in an actual event, it follows that the narrative, as we now have it, con- tradicts itself. The idea of the scribes that Jesus put him- self into the place of God by forgiving sins (verse 7), and the statement of Jesus which follows, that he had power on earth to forgive sins (verse 10), does not agree with verse 5, for in this case Jesus had not forgiven sins, but preached to the sick person, in the words " Thy sins are forgiven," the remis- sion of sins by God (conf. Luke vii. 47, xxiv. 47 ; John xx. 28). Again, the conjecture that there is some earlier source for this narrative becomes strengthened by the inaccurate repre- sentation that they were obliged to break through the xoof ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 269 to bring the sick man to Jesus, which would be useless, for in Eastern houses one can descend through a large opening into the house — a want of accuracy which Luke (chap. v. 19) has endeavoured to remedy. The original account was simply that Jesus, after his return to Capernaum, preached the word to the people {iKaXei avrols tov \6yov)y a circum- stance which is entirely omitted in the later tradition in Matt. xi. 1, which confines itself entirely to the miracle. The original account gave as little of the substance of this preaching as Mark i. 22, 28. What the later account has interwoven is the forgiveness of sins, which Jesus proclaims to the sinner as coming from God. The effect of this preaching is set forth in the healing of a man with the palsy, in the spiritual regeneration of a man whose spiritual strength is diminished through the consciousness of his sins. Conf. Ps. XXXV. 8 (LXX), Heb. xii. 12, ta^warB yovaTawapaXsXvfUpa^ and the symbolical meaning of the ^^lame'' (Matt. xi. 5). Jesus healed men of their spiritual paralyses by awakening in them belief in the forgiving love of God. Such a sym- bolical representation, which showed its symbolical meaning even at a later date, when it was taken for an actual event, must have been joined by the first Mark, or by the tradition before him, to the original (Mark ii. 2), as a spiritual repre- sentation of the preaching of Jesus. The author, or the tradition before him, did not place this representation here, where Jesus goes out to preach to " the people," without reason, inasmuch as the preaching of the *' forgiveness of sins," which the Pharisees did not find themselves in need of, was of special value to the " people," who were loaded with sins and weary of the yoke of the priestly government. This was the **sick of the palsy," who, bowed down under the yoke of sin, and spiritually crippled, was restored by the preaching of Jesus, that there is forgiveness vnth God for those who are weary and heavy laden with sins. 6. The Healing of the Man with the Withered Hand. Mark iii. 1-6. This narrative also is unhistorical, and the three oldest MSS. omit the words " whole as the other " in verse 6. Both the sudden restoration of a withered hand by a mere word of command, and the circumstance that the Pharisees were joined with the Herodians at this early period of the public life of Jesus *^ to destroy him " (Mark iii. C), is, s 2 S60 MANKIND: THEIR historically speaking, ioconceivable. Perhaps the historical groundwork contained simply : " And (among other circum- stances) he entered again into a synagogue, and they asked him whether he could heal on the Sabbath day, in order that they might accuse him. And he said unto them. Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, or to do eril ? to save life or to kill ? " In this way Mark would describe a perfectly complete event. It is established that Jesus per- forms cures on the Sabbath day. When, on another occasion, he again entered into one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day, the Pharisees again asked him whether he would do so, in order that they might convict him of Sabbath-breaking. This gave Jesus the opportunity of putting forward the per- mission to heal the sick on the Sabbath day. The narra- tive is complete in itself, even if we omit the inserted episode of the restoration of a withered hand. A later tradition of a cure was first inserted into the original account of the event in order, probably, that it might be seen that Jesus had carried into action his principle that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Luke (chap. vi. 7) omits aMy after OspairevaBij and implies that there was no occasion to see whether Jesus healed any particular individual (oirroV), but whether he would heal on the Sabbath day. Perhaps avrov was not in his edition of Mark. The account of the restora- tion of a withered hand in a Jewish synagogue as an ex- ample of healing may be ascribed to the design of the evan- gelist to set forth conspicuously how Jesus planted a new religious life in the soul, in the place of the dry dogmas of the synagogue. Drought was the usual representation of spiritual unfiruitfiilness (Mark vi. 6, xi. 20 ; Luke xxiii. 31). 7. Detached Miracles which were also worked by personal contact. Mark iii. 76, 8, and 10-12. The two first of these verses contain an extension of the original narrative (verse 7a), "And a great multitude followed him." Tlie mention of Judsea, Jerusalem, Idumsea (which is not mentioned iu the Cod. Sin.), and the parts beyond Jordan, and even Tyre and Sidon, can as little be historical as the narrative in Matthew, where the miracle is placed at a still earlier period, and Decapolis is added to all the other countries (Matt. iv. 24, 25). Verses 10 and 11 give an explanation of the intention of ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 201 Jesus in verse 9, and the request in verse 12, not to make him known, does not agree with the context in this place, where Jesus is represented as surrounded by a large multi- tude. It probably stood alone in the original: "Jesus, with his disciples, withdrew to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him. And he spake to his disciples that a small ship should wait on him, because of the multi- tude, lest they should throng him." 8. The Storm at Sea. Mark iv. 89-41. The journey from Capernaum to the oppo- site coast cannot be omitted in this portion of Mark. There is nothing improbable in the statement that Jesus, weary with the labour of that day, went to sleep at night, rebuked his disciples for their want of faith, and re-awakened trust in God in their souls. What follows in Matthew, by whom (chap. viiL 26), contrary to the Second Mark (chap. iv. 39, 40), the address to the disciples precedes the ceasing of the storm, is probably the original version of the First Mark. Here also the ceasing of the storm gives the disciples the impression that Jesus stills the storm and calms the sea — a symbol which in the tradition became a fact, and was in- serted as historical in this place, either by the first Mark or by the tradition before him, which perhaps did not extend further than to Matt. viii. 26a, and Mark iv. 88-40. For the use of the sea and the wind as metaphors by the Hebrews, conf. 1 Kings xix. 12, and Psalm cvii. 25, 28-30. 9. The Possessed Person in the Country of the Gadarenes, Mark v. 1-20. The more circumstantial text of Mark has the precedence of the abbreviated account in Matthew. The statement that the devils prayed to go into a. herd of many swine, and that the whole herd ran into the sea, in Matt, viii. 80-82, is evidently artificially drawn up, as Matthew alone speaks of two possessed persons, and the narrative is incomprehensible without the statement in Mark v. 9, that a legion of devils had entered into him. The Talmud says that God is surrounded by myriads of angels, who wait upon him (Trxm ^:9K^t3), and that the intermediate spaces between the seven heavens are full of them. Many of these good angels attend upon the pious man when he goes to the house of prayer and returns to his house from the synagogue. 269 MANKIND: THEIR But man in general is surrounded bj so many demons, that if ho were to see them he could not live, see Treatise Berachoth, 1. I. m^-h py^ men n:na nhthn The Masikin are the demons of the gospel. Literally, they are those who do mischief — the wicked. This is what is meant by a legion of devils. The idea that this herd of swine ran violently " down a steep place into the sea " originated in the observation of Mark (chap. v. 11) that the herd was feeding " nigh unto the mountains.'* In the same way, the address of the possessed persons to Jesus (Matt, viii. 29) became intelligible only by means of Mark v. 8 {e\ey6 yap, k.t.X.). If we consider, in addition to this, the use of the dual number and the glosses in the text of Matthew, no doubt will remain of the priority of the text of Mark. From the fact that Jesus healed a possessed person, and that Mark's narrative (chap. i. et sqq.) of what took place in the country of the Gadarenes does not treat of the spiritual works of Jesus among the heathens in that country, this narrative does not appear to be altogether mythical, but may be, at least in part, historical. We must add to this, that as Mark gives an historical abstract of the joumeyings of Jesus in Palestine, the journey to the west coast of the sea and the country on that side, and the return of Jesus to Capernaum (chap. v. ver. 21), cannot be omitted without destroying the connection. At the same time, it is clear that the narrative, as we have it, cannot be historical. It would be probable that a limatic was meant, in connection with Matt. xii. 43-45, and Luke viii. 2, by the man*s being possessed with devils, and perhaps so far identifying him- self with them that he entreated for them, and begged that they might be sent into the swine ; but it cannot be supposed that Jesus uttered such a command, or that the devils, who only existed in the popular superstitions, and in the figurative representations of madness, could actually go into the swine and cause them to rush into the sea. The rationalistic in- terpretation, according to which the possessed person in his madness threw himself among the herd, is contrary to the narrative ; and no other mode of interpretation is left than that the legion of devils left the possessed person, and ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 203 totered the herd of swine (u^a m ainovs elaikt'tafuyjy Mark v. 12y where the ntimber of the devils is thus estimated at about " two thousand." If, then, both the literal and the rationalistic explanations of this narrative are impossible, the question arises whether the original contained anything more than that Jesus, having landed in the country of the Gudarenes (Mark v. 1), healed a demoniac in the following or some similar manner (verse 2) : ^* And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him in the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. And he said unto him. Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit." However this may be, we can see with certainty in the compilation, or in the later my thical additions by some other hand, the peculiar modes of speech which separate the mythical insertions from what we receive as original. Such are fiinfpmaivy verses 3 and 5 (conf. fivrffi^UoVy verse 2, and everywhere rise where Mark speaks of tombs), o Saifiovi^Sfjuevof, verses 15, 16, and 6 hcufjLoviadtlfj verse 18 (conf. Audpunros h fnfivfJMT^ dicaddpTipj verse 2) ; irpoasKvvrfaav adrov^ verse 6, A, C, L, A, &c., versus k B, D, &c. (conf. chap. xv. 19, avT&) ; vii, the vocative, in verse 7, while Mark only uses the nominative case with the article (conf. verse 8 ; chap. xiv. 36, XV. 18, 29, 34, with the parallel passages) ; irpos r^ ipny verse 11 (conf. irpo9 ri^v dvpavy chap. ii. 2) ; the in- sertion of a^kovi (see Cod. Sin.) after fioatcom-ev (verse 14), while elsewhere the elliptical formula is peculiar to Mark ; the use of the aorists ihpafitv and irpoaeicvuriasv^ verse 12 (chap. XV. 19, wpoasKvyovv), and irapeKoXeaaVy verse 12 (chap. vi. 56, wap€tcti\ovp)y where Mark in places of this description, and even Matthew (verse 31) in this place, makes use of the im- perfect, irpoaKwehf (verse 6) ; where Mark, with the exception of chap. XV. 19, and even there with the addition of riffivrtf ra yovaray is in the habit of writing yopuTrereiv (chap. i. 40; X. 17), irpoaTTLTrreiP (chap. v. 63; vii. 25), miirrH ir^io? (chap. V. 22 ; conf. the parallel passages in Matthew) ; the use of the genitive absolute with a present participle (verse 18) where Mark writes iv r^ with the infinitive (conf. Mark ii. 15, with Matt. ix. 10) ; o Kvpiof (verse 19), to indicate God, which only occurs here, with the excep- tion of chap, xiii, 20, which is, perhaps, also of later origin. Besides, dirb fia/ep6(^ip iSpafjuv (verse 6) does not harmonise with ivtivf dwtfpjrjaey aui^ (verse 2) ; and just as little doe;^ 264 MANKIND : THEIR the plurality of the devils in verses 9-13 agree with verses 2 and 8, where only one man, with one unclean spirit, is 8i>oken of. If an originally simple story respecting a Gudarene lunatic has been added to by later traditions, it becomes impossible to mistake the symbolical character of this narrative. The man possessed with many devils is the representative of the heathen world, which, according to the belief of that period, was the place in which the evil spirits had power. Their ignorance and savage passion for prey is wild and untame- able in them, as in a madman. But Jesus appears. The wild spirits recognise him as greater than them, tremble in their turn, and their destiny is, while they lose their spiritual power, to go into the swine (the symbol of heathen unclean- ness) and to become united to them — that is, to all unclean- ness, which adheres to them. The heathen world, hitherto the prey of devils, sits at the feet of Jesus, restored by him, and brought back to a right mind, like this lunatic. This spiritual narrative, which became in later times represented as a fact, and which was adorned with circumstances (verses 18, et sqq.) which had no connection with it, would be joined, in its originally spiritual enunciation, either in the First Mark, or in the tradition before him, to the cure of a lunatic, and would then be made to take place, not un- intentionally, in a heathen district, such as that of the Gadarenes. 10. The Resurrection of the Daughter of a Ruler of the Synagogue of Capernaum. Mark v. 22-24, 86-43. The story of the ruler of the synagogue, who asked Jesus on his return from the land of the Gadarenes to heal his sick daughter — and of which the part which passes in the house where she died can be as little taken for historical as its position in the account of the journeyings of Jesus through the land of Judaea — may be considered as purely mythical. Here, again, the question arises whether a mythical addition has been made, either by the first Mark or the traditions before him, to an event which may have taken place. If in the nari'ative of the call of the first four disciples an historical saying of Jesus that they should become " fishers of men " became altered into the myth of the marvellous draught of fishes (Luke v. 1-11), so ORIGIN AKD DESTINY. 265 the saying of Jesus to the mourning father in the present narrative, " Be not afraid ; only believe ! " and what follows, ** The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth," is the scope of it. The father comes to beseech Jesus to cure his dying daughter, and while he is on the way to do so, news comes that she is dead. Jesus then enters the house where she lies dead, witnesses the vain and formal outward lamentations which belonged at that time to the Jewish ceremonial, and said in indignation, " Why make ye this ado, and weep ? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." This reproach of Jesus cannot have been connected in the original, as it is in the First Mark, with the resurrection of the damsel, because one cannot see how Jesus could rebuke the customary mourning of the Jews with reference to the unusual occurrence which was about to take place, and which no one could possibly expect. On the supposition, on the other hand, that Jesus enunciated a general truth, that death was for all pious people an entrance into a higher life, he would have good ground for condemn- ing their vain lamentations. The belief in life and immortality, which was among the Jews more a dogma than a belief giving inward strength to console the sorrowful (conf. Job xii. 64), was, according to the gospels, for the first time raised by the life-awakening spirit of Jesus to the rank of a truth. We may consider the narrative as true as far as verse 39 ; and the subsequent account of a bodily resurrection must be considered as symbolical of the truth that Jesus had brought life and immortality to light by means of the gospel — a symbol which was treated afterwards by the first Mark or the traditions before him as an actual occurrence, but still retaining its symbolical meaning. The three accounts of resurrections of the dead in the gospels show a progressive miraculous development. The daughter of Jairus is resus- citated by Jesus on the bed on which she has just died ; the young man of Nain is in his coffin, and is being taken to the cemetery, when he is restored to life ; and, lastly, Lazarus has been four days in the sepulchral grotto when the command, '* Lazarus, come forth ! " is given. What is very important to remark is, that the writers of the synoptical gospels knew nothing of the resurrection of Lazarus, which event, never- theless, is said to have taken place at Bethany, close to Jerusalem, to have created a great sensation among the Jews^ and to have been witnessed by the whole of the Apostles (John 266 MAN&IKD: THEIB xi. 16). The conclusion is inevitable that the authors of the qrnoptical gospels were neither apostles themselves noir were in connection with anj of the Apostles, supposing that any such event really took place. Lazarus is represented as coming forth from the sepulchre, although he is bound hand and foot with grave-clothes (John xi. 44), which would render it im- possible for him to do so. 11. The Woman with an Issue of Blood. Mark v. 25-84. The narrative of the healing of the woman with an issue of blood, which is between the two portions of the last narrative, has, as far as we can see, no symbolical character. The assertion that she was cured by a secret power which went out of Jesus against his-will leads us to suppose it to be a subjective thought, perhaps of the disciples, or more probably of the later editor's, who narrates the event, which was afterwards, according to some later tradi- tion, inserted in Luke into the mouth of Jesus himself. If this thought is considered to be a gloss, then this woman was not cured by any power which issued Irom Jesus against his will, but by the power of her fJELith (verse 34). In this sense the narrative may be historical. As in another narrative (Mark vi. 56), so here we can have no difficulty in supposing that the superstitious idea that persons could be healed by touch- ing the clothes of Jesus is historical, and the concluding sentence, ^^ As many as touched him were made whole,'' must be assigned to the unhistorical tradition which had been inserted into the historical groundwork. That such was not necessarily the result is shown by Mark iii. 10, where the sick also crowd round Jesus to touch him, but where no cure results. In Matthew the miracle is magnified. According to Mark vi. 56, the sick that touched him were made whole (&ro* &p rfTTTovTo aiTov)y while, according to Matthew, who (chap, xiv. 86) omits o^tov, they were cured merely by touching the hem of his garment, and he adds to the account in Mark, th9m the coasts of Tyre, he came through Sidon unto the Sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of De- capolis," which is the reading in the Cod. Sin, The words " And he could not be hid " (verse 24), and the repetition of h T&v opimp Tvpov (verse 31), agree well with the idea of a narrative of this description. The only historical portion is the journey of Jesus to the borders of Tyre. It agrees with his intention of travelling incognito, which Mark alone has mentioned, to find that he did no work on this journey, but merely passed through the country. His personal ministry, therefore, was confined to Israel, and did not in- clude the heathen — a circumstance which is dwelt upon in Matt. XV. 24, and x. 5.- 272 MANKIND: THEIR V CHAPTER XI. 15, The Cure of a Man who was Dumb and Blind. Mark vii. 82-37, It lias been already shown that this narrative was known to Matthew, who does not insert it. The words " the string of his tongue was loosed " and " his ears were opened " (conf. Luke i. 64, " His tongue was loosed, and he spake, and praised God," and Isa. xxxv. 6, " Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped ") sound symbolical. Jesus also explains in a symbolical sense that ^^ the deaf hear," Matt, xi. 6 (conf. Mark iv. 23). The representation of these deaf and dumb men refers properly to the heathen world. The great pouring out of the Spirit which Jesus caused, if not in person, at least by means of his ministry among the heathen, whose tongues he loosed, that they might glorify God, and whose ears he opened, that they might hear the voice of truth, was symbolically represented as a miraculous cure. This allegory, in its turn, became a real occurrence, and was inserted into the journey of Jesus through the heathen districts of Sidon and Decapolis, the allegorical meaning being at the same time retained. The words " and he came through Sidon unto the Sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coast of Decapolis " were probably immediately followed by the words in chap. viii. 10, "And straightway he entered into a ship with his disciples, and came into the parts of Dalmanutlia." The confused narrative Mark viii. 14-21 is, especially fix)m its connection with the second feeding (chap. viii. 1-9), a duplicate of the first, and can be left out of the context. After the conversation with the Pharisees (chap. viii. 11, 12), in Dalmanutha, Jesus left them (verse 13), and, entering into the ship, departed unto the other side. This might be followed by, "And he cometh to Bethsaida" (Julias), chap. viii. 22a, whence he afterwards went into the town of Csesarea ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 273 Philippi (verse 27, et sqq.). Between these verses tlie first Mark inserted the account of the cure of a blind man, which cannot be considered as historical. Jesus opens the eyes of the spiritually blind. Matt. xi. 6, and Luke iv. 18 (conf. Isa. XXXV. 86, vi. 10 ; Mark viii. 18 ; Luke xxiv. 31 ; Acts xxvi. 18 ; Eom. xi. 10 ; Eph. i. 10 ; John xii. 40 ; 1 John ii. 11). The cure of the physically blind man, which in John xix. 1, et sqq., is represented as the cure of one that was born blind, is therefore an allegory. The blind man at Bethsaida, who first saw men as trees walking, is an allegory of the heathen world, whose eyes are not opened at once by the shining of the truth, but gradually at first. The symbol became a narrative, and it found its place, not without good ground, in the narrative of the journey of Jesus through the northern parts of Palestine, where many heathen dwelt. 16. The Transfiguration on the Mount. Mark ix. 2-8. This narrative also is unhistorical. What is here put forth as an objective occurrence is a compilation from subjective narratives which were already in existence among the Jews. The " cloud " (verse 7) belongs also to Hebrew symbolism. Elias and Moses (verse 4), who, accord- ing to Jewish tradition, did not die, but were taken up into heaven, were expected by the Jews as the forerunners of the Messiah (conf. chap. viii. 28, and ix. 11) ; and the voice from heaven is a compilation from two Messianic passages, Psalm ii. 7. (conf. Acts xiii. 33), and Deut. xviii. 15, 10 (conf. Acts iii. 23). To imagine this scene to have been a vision, involves the difficulty that the three disciples saw it ; and also that to explain such a vision psychologically, we must suppose a stronger and more living faith in Jesus than existed at that time among the disciples. Lastly, the nar- rative is too descriptive ajid too circumstantial for a vision. We are here upon entirely mythical ground. The myth, in its original sketch in the First Mark, and afterwards in its more extended form in Matthew, becomes most developed in' Luke, where it is converted into an external, though symbolical, fact, symbolising the pre-eminence af Jesus over Israel's lawgiver, and over her later reformer, and the accom- plishment of the words of Moses (Deut. viii. 15, 19) in his person. We may suppose that this narrative had its place in the historical sketch after the mention of the occurrence T 274 MANKIND : THEIR (chap. viii. 27, 28). Mark ix. 9, 10, where the reality of the ascent of the mountain is set forth, belongs also to this narrative. If this mythical narrative, which in the tradition becomes more and more a real occurrence, was first joined by the first Mark, or in the tradition before him, to some older groundwork which has not come down to us, it would be possible that the enquiry of the disciples (Mark ix. 11) followed immediately after chap. viii. 37, excluding Mark viii. 38, and ix. 1. The words in chap. viii. 34, " And when he had called the people unto him," which are not in Matt, xvi. 24, and the two glosses, " And take up his cross " and " for the gospel's sake " (verses 34 and 35), are inserted by the second Mark. If Jesus were the Messiah, who was only to establish the kingdom of God after great struggles and sufferings, and for whom his disciples had to expect contests and danger of their lives (ver. 31-37), it is diflS.cult to see how this agrees with what the scribes said, that the restoration of all things by Elias should 'precede the coming of the Messiah, which Jesus himself confirms (Mark ix. 12, 13). Our attention is also drawn to the fact that the enquiry about Elias (chap. x. ver. 11), and the answer of Jesus that Elias is indeed come in the person of John, does not agree with the statement in Mark ix. 4 and 5, that the original Elias appeared on the mountain, which, if we admit Mark ix. 11-13, to be the original version, is a proof the more that the scene on the mountain was not in the original text. The injunction in verse 9 also, " That they should tell no man what things they had seen till the Son of Man were risen from the dead," does not sound historical, and appears to be a mythical repetition of Mark viii. 30. Lastly, the expression (chap. ix. ver. 9), "Were risen from the dead," which cannot be interpreted as meaning anything here but the corporeal resurrection of Jesus, is inferior to . the ex- pression which Mark makes use of elsewhere (chap. viii. ver. 31, ix. 31, x. 34), where he only speaks of the resurrec- tion, without the accompanying iic ra)v vsKpa>v, and, as it would seem, in a figurative sense. If in this latter case the words were obscure to the disciples (chap. ix. ver. 32), it seems strange that they to whom Jesus spoke in plain terms (as in chap. ix. ver. 9) about his resurrection should be enquiring what " the rising from the dead should mean " fin verse 10), when they already knew it. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 275 17. The young Man wlw was Incapacitated through the tearing of a Dumb Devil. Mark ix. 14-29. Mark's account is prior to tliiit of Matthew (chap. xvii. 14-21), The narrative of Mark is, like that of Matthew and of Luke (ix. 37, et sqq.), connected with the transfiguration of Jesus on the mount (Mark v. 9 and 14; Matt. v. 9; Luke v. 37), and must, therefore, like the description of the latter, be held to be a narrative which was inserted at a later date into the original. Be- sides, there is no natural connection between the two para- graphs. Whence do we get here, at the foot of the mountain (conf. verse 9), in the north of the country where Jesus wished to remain unknown and unthought of (Mark vii. 24), not only the disciples whom Jesus (chap. ix. 2) had left behind (and whom we should expect would be called *nhe remaining disciples"), but also a great multitude, and even scribes (chap. ix. ver. 14) ? Moreover, the narrative is confused and self-contradictory. The scribes question ** with them " (with wliom ? with the multitude, or with the disciples?). The father declares that he has brought {qviyKa TTpc? ae), verse 17, his son to Jesus, so that the sick youth is present, in contradiction to the command of Jesus (to whom 9 to the father and his people [verse 22, ^/uuv and 7jfjLds']y or to the disciples V), that the youth was to be brought to him {(j)spsTc avTOP irpo? fjLi)<, which was done (rivsrfKav avrov irpof avTOp), verses 19, 20. Again, who are the avTol (verse 19) to whom the exclamation of Jesus, '* O faithless generation," &c., applies ? Are they the disciples who could not cast out the devil (verse 18), or the father and his friends ? If the discii)les were meant, and if the failure of the cure were owing to their unbelief, it is strange that they should be again able (in verse 28) to ask, " Why could not we cast him out ? " If the father and his friends are meant, the question arises, how so violent a reproach could be directed against one whose very coming to Jesus showed his faith, and who (in verse 24) shows himself willing to believe even more. Neither is it clear to whom the saying, " All things are possible to him that believeth," applies — whether to Jesus, as would appear from El TL BvvT) (verse 22) and el Bvprj (verse 23), or to the father, whose answer (verse 24) contains a prayer that Jesus would T 2 270 mankixd: theie increase his faith. What kind of devils are meant by toCto TO 'yivos (verse 29) ? and how does the assertion that " this kind can come forth by nothing but prayer " (" and fasting " is omitted both in the Cod. Sin. and the Vatican MS.), verse 29, agree with the statement in verses 19 and 33, that faith is the necessary predecessor of healing P Lastly, how can a dumb and deaf spirit {irvsv^ia SXaXov koX K(oi^v) be spoke a of, when (in verses 25 and 26) he can hear the command of Jesus and cry out ? Matthew, whose text is of later date, has endeavoured to restore order in this confusion ; amonsr other things, he omits " the scribes " (chap. xvii. 14), and the speech of the father, " I have brought unto thee my son ; " but he connects belief and prayer, to which he also (verse 21) adds fasting, without our being able to see what logical value there is in the opposing preposition hi in ver. 21. The internal contradictions in this narrative do not allow us to consider it historical. It is not in natural connection with the events which immediately precede it ; and if this paragraph, as well as the Transfiguration, did not form part of the original, we must enquire what meaning was attached to this narrative in the biographical sketch by the first Mark. Several circumstances render it probable that this narra- tive, although it is here inserted and embellished as if it were a real event, must originally have had a symbolical meaning. This is indicated by the words " this kind," &c., for this possessed person is here distinguished from other possessed persons. The advice to " pray," also, not by way of petition, but as a TrpoasvxVy ^^^ ^ have faith — ^that is, according to Matthew (verse 20), a faith which can move mountains (the spiritual significance of which is set forth in Luke xvii. 6, and 1 Cor. xiii. 2), in order to be able to expel a devil — shows a spiritual freedom from the power of the devil, according to which a mere bodily cure of devils is so little connected with a religious frame of mind that even the disciples of the Pharisees, of whose faith there is no trace, were able to cast them out (Matt. xii. 27). The inability also of the disciples of Jesus to cast out this devil becomes first intelligible when we come to think of a person spiritually possessed, for the Apostles (Mark vi. 18), and men who did not follow them (chap. ix. 38), were able to cure men of their physical infirmities. Besides, it is clear that a ORIGIX AND DKSTIXY. 277 deaf and dumb man, who, physically speaking, can neither hear nor speak, but who afterwards hears the voice of Jesus and cries out with a loud voice, can only be looked upon as gpiritually deaf and dumb. As long as the man remains under the power of the devil, his ear is closed to truth and liis mouth to the glorification of God; but both ears and mouth are opened as soon as the demon of unbelief and wickedness is driven away by the power of Jesus. It is probable that the reason why this paragraph was inserted into the gospel of the first Mark was, that the author, whose Pauline proclivities are evident in many other symbolical passages, especially in Mark v, 1, et sqq., and vii. 24, et sqq., wished to set forth here the lower rank and the spiritual deficiencies of the twelve apostles. The Twelve do not understand the plain meaning of the parable of the sower (chap. iv. ver. 18) ; elsewhere they appear as men who did not understand the miracle of the loaves, and whose heart was hardened (chap. vi. ver, 52) ; who had eyes and saw not, and having ears, heard not (chap. viii. 18) ; and who, when Jesus spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees, reasoned among themselves that it was because they had no bread for the journey (chap. viii. ver. 16.) Tlie first Mark imputes the same inability in chap. ix. ver. 6, where Pek>r knew not what to say, and where he tells us that the disciples ques- tioned among themselves what the rising from the dead ajjoken of by Jesus (chap. ix. ver. 10) should mean. All these remarks, so prejudicial to the Twelve, occur in places which we have shown had a later origin. The author is here, evidently owing to his Pauline tendencies, guilty of an excessive depreciation of the Apostles. It is remarkable that Matthew, tlie Judax)-Christian reverencer of the Twelve, omits all these particulars from the First Mark, and Luke follows him in this particular. In the present narrative, too, the insertion of BieoTpafifMem) (Matt. xvii. 17) after yevea airioTos is an indication that Matthew did not consider the address of Jesus as applicable to the Twelve, but to his con- temporaries generally, who might correctly be assumed to be unbelievers ; and it is incredible that he who is so much concerned for the credit of the Twelve should have called them in this passage, not only an unbelieving, but also a *' perverse " generation— differing in this from Mark ix. 19. The tendency of the narrative Mark ix. 14-29, in connection 278 MANKIND: THEIR with this explanation, appears to have the contemplated result of representing the disciples of Jesus, notwithstanding the radiant proof of his majesty which they had had on the mount, as still wanting in true faith and in spiritual development, and as being thereby prevented from performing the mighty work of their Master, the expulsion of devils by spiritual prayer, which was necessary to produce such a result, 18. The Blind Man at Jericho, Mark x. 466-52. The narrative of the blind man at Jericho is in an earlier form in Mark than in Matthew, and the common source of both is also in the First Mark. It is as little historical as the other narratives of the healing of the blind. Only the account of the arrival of Jesus at Jericho, and of his departure thence with his disciples and a great number of people, belong to the original gospel history, and are indispensable to the narrative of the journey. The mythical character and later insertion of this narrative appear : 1. From the insertion of the name of the blind man, which is not in the narrative undoubtedly written by Mark, and which became current only at a later date. The names also of the two disciples in Luke xxii. 8, Peter and John, are not mentioned in Mark xiv. 19. 2. From the name of BartimoDUS, which, as it cannot be derived from two lan- guages, from the Aramean Bar and the Greek Timoeus, sounds unhistorical, and perhaps indicates that the blind man was the son of a blind man. Lightfoot remarks on this passage : " Quid ? si N^D^n idem sit cum N^D^D, ex usu n pro o apud ChaldD30s, ut Bartimceus, filius Timsei, sonare potuerit, Filius coecus cceci patris ? " According to Grotius, Hieronymus wrote the word somewhere " Barsemja." 8. From the title, "Thou son of David" (verses 47 and 48), which occurs nowhere in Mark, and which places the blind man in the position of a Jew waiting for the visible Messianic kingdom. 4. From the vocative vU (verse 48), to which elsewhere the article with the nominative, or the nominative alone, is prefixed (chap. v. 34, 41, xiv. 36, xv. 34), differing from the parallel passages. 5. From a-rroKpiOsh slirep (verse 51a), which has no question preceding it. We may consider it probable that the first Mark, or the tradition before him, did not insert this narrative capriciously in the original, considering how he has taken ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 279 other mythical narratives out of their proper places. If the cure of the blind man, Mark viii. 22-25, occurred on his journey through a district where heathen, who are spiritually blind, abode (conf. Acts xxvi. 17, 18), so here a blind man is healed on his departure from Jericho, in sight of Jerusalem, the seat of Judaism, as if the evangelist wished to give us to understand that Jesus was now about to try his healing powers over blind Jerusalem. If this is so, we can under- stand how this blind Jew, who, differing from the blind man in Mark viii. 22-26, waited for an earthly Messianic kingdom, should address Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the " son of David," a title which Jesus protested against in his con- ference with the Pharisees (chap, xii, 35-37), after he had entered the city. The name of Bartimseus, " the son of a blind man," agrees well, too, with the allegorical explanation. Not only the Jews, but their fathers also^ were spiritually blind — an idea which is put forth elsewhere by Jesus, Matt. xxiii.^31 (conf. Acts vii. 51). In the original, Mark xi. 1, was probably joined to Mark x. 4(k/, as follows : " And tKey came to Jericho ; and as he went out of Jericho, he was ac- companied by his disciples and a great number of people, and when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany," &c. 19. The Entry into Jerusalem, Mark xi. 1, et sqq. Christian tradition soon considered the entry into Jerusalem to be a triumphal procession or a Messianic demonstration, and to be the fulfilment of Zech. ix. 9. It is only the entry and the hosannas of the Galilican multitude which accompanied Jesus which have nothing improbable in them. We may doubt, however, whether Jesus — who was not, and did not wish to be, a Jewish Messiah — would allow such a demonstration to be made. If he had intฃyyo9 0)9 at/MaTi^ovaa BieXiTTiv, " There was darkness over the whole earth, the sun in the middle of the day being darkened, and the stars appearing, among whose lights the moon appeared not, but, as if turned to blood, it left its shining." This exactly agrees with what Peter is represented as quot- ing from Joel (Acts ii. 20) : "The sun shall be turned into dark- ness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come." And Arnobius, who is quoted by Lardner as evidence of the " uncommon darkness and other surprising events at the time of our Lord's passion and death " (vol. ii. p. 255), says that: " When he had put off his bod}', which he can'ied about in a little part of himself, after he suffered himself to be seen, and that it should be known of what size he was, all the elements of the world, terrified at the stmngeness of what had happened, were put out of order : the earth shook and trembled ; the sea was completely poured out from its lowest bottom; the whole atmosphere was rolled up into balls of darkness (globis tenebrarum) ; the fiery orb of the sun itself caught cold and shivered." 21. The liending of the Veil of the Temple, Mark xv. 38. This verse breaks the connection between verse 37 and verse 39. The statement in verse 37, that "Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost," would in this case end with, " And when the centurion which stood over against him, and those with him, saw that he so gave up the ghost," &c. (see Cod. Sin.). The verse which has been inserted is another symbolical representation, which became afterwards regarded as an actual occurrence, with- OKIGIN AND DESTINY. 283 out prejudice to its originally symbolical meaning. As a result of the death of Jesus, the veil of the temple, behind which the majesty of God in the Highest was hidden from the people, was rent, and a free access to God was opened to them (conf. Heb. ix. 8). The first Mark, or the tra- ditions before him, allowed this symbolical representation to follow immediately after the death of Jesus, although it was disadvantageous to the context, and we shall see that it differs from the statement in the original gospel. Matthew after- wards inserted other occurrences also of a symbolical descrip- tion (chap, xxvii. 61-53). 22. The Opened Graven and the Resurrection, Mark xvi. 1-8. The narrative of the resurrection, although it is simpler in Mark than in Matthew or in liuke, cannot be received aซ historical in the sense in which we find it in Mark. The opening of the grave, which does not admit of being explained by Joseph's having previously placed the corpse in a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, and its being taken elsewhere in the silence of the night between Saturday and Sunday, is connected with the belief that Jesus has risen from the dead, and must, therefore, in conformity with some later version of the resurrection, have left the tomb. The oldest belief, as displayed to us in 1 Cor. xv. 3-11, contains the fact that the crucified Jesus had returned from Hades, and that on the third day, according to the Scriptures (Hos. vi. 2). When he rose, he was not invested with his former body of flesh and blood, which remained in the grave, but with a new and heavenly body. According to the ideas set f<;)rth in the epistle, the dead bodies which had been turned to dust, of those that had expired, did not arise from their graves at the resurrection of Jesus, for " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God " (1 Cor. XV. 50). Just as little is there any connection between the old abandoned body of flesh and blood (crw/xa yjfV)(^Lfc6i', aco/jLa t?)? aapKos^ Col. i. 22, ii. 11; awfia tijs Tairei- r(oaฃ(D9y Phil. iii. 21 ; i} iiriysios oUiay 2 Cor. v. 1), w^hich is subject to corruption {(pOopd, 1 Cor. xv. 42, aTrsipsTai iu ijydopa) and to death {acofia, tov Oavdrov^ from which the faithful believer is free, Rom. vii. 24, viii. 23), and the new life of those that are risen (awfia irvevfuntKoVy 1 Cor. xv. 44 ; cr&)/L*a Ti}y ^o^9j Phil. ii. 21 ; a&fia iirovpapiop, 1 Cor. xv. 40 ; to 284 MANKIND : THEIR oUtjTtjpiov TO l^ oxfpavovy 2 Cor. v. 1, 2), The old body is left as if it were put off, and the spirit, rising from Hades, during its stay in which it had been without any corporeal covering (yvfivos), is tiO be clothed {iTrsuBvaaaOat) with a new body, and also with an heavenly dwelling-place, which is prepared in heaven for them that believe (J^o/Aei/, 2 Cor. v. 1); and this body has nothing in common with the body of flesh and blood which has been put off. It was never thought that this body had sprung out of the old body as from a germ, for the new body was supposed to be of entirely celestial origin and preparation. Hence it was also held that the true believers who should be alive at the second coming would be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and tliat by the putting on the new body the mortal body would fall off and be, as it were, swallowed up (1 Cor. xv. 51-54). The sayiiig that, according to Paul, the germ must remain in the buried corpse, rests on a comparison bon'owed from the grain out of which plants are developed (1 Cor. xv. 36, 37). But does he here speak of development? Does he not say plainly that the grain dies, and that God gives to the dead grain, which represents the dead, " a body as it hath pleased him," " to every seed its own body," or, according to the Cod. Sin. and other MSS., " to every seed a body of its own " ? and does he not explain in the same passage (verse 37), " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that bodj^ that shall be," or, as the Cod. Sin. has it, " that which thou sowest u not that body that shall be " ? With this disappears the monstrous idea which has been ascribed to Paul, that the spirit when rising from Hades resumes its old body on its journey to heaven, even though it be in an altered form. It was a gross Jewish idea that the old body should return to life, which is found in the legend Matt, xxvii. 52, and finds some support in Acts ii. 31 {oiTe rj adp^ avrov eIBsp Bia(f>9opay) , and in John v. 28, 29, but not in the teaching of Paul, nor in Rev. i. 18, and XX. 13, where it is not the grave, but Hades, that gives up the dead. That '' the sea gave up her vefcpoi " does not mean that the author thought of drowned corpses, for in that case he must have held that those that were drowned did not go to Hades at all. The Apostle must have had the same idea respecting the resuiTection of Jesus, which, as he states, is the type of the future resurrection of the true believers (1 Cor. xv. 23). It is probable that the other ORIGIX AND DESTIXY. 2P5 apostles had the same ideas respecting the resurrection of Jesus, for Paul followed their teaching (1 Cor. xv. 3, et sqq.), and men were able, when Jesus was yet alive, even when the body lay in the grave, or when, as was the case with the Baptist, the head was divided from the trunk, and the body was buried vnthout its head (Mark vi. 28, 29), to believe, without troubling themselves about the corpse, that Jesus was John, who had risen from Hades (Mark vi. 14-16). The Pharisees did not teach that the same body should rise again but that the souls of the pious would go at the conclusion of their sojourn in Hades sis erspov a&fia (Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 8, 14). Conf. Mark xii. 25, ix. 2, and Luke xx. 35, 36, ix. 31. With such a new and heavenly body, Jesus ascended to heaven, transfigured, and appeared from heaven to his apostles, and, last of all, to Paul. In these ideas there is no mention of an opened grave which is found empty, and from which the body of the crucified One had been taken while it was yet quick. And men thought just as little at that time of a second and terrestrial life of Jesus between the Resurrec- tion and the Ascension. The resurrection, or the coming back of Jesus from Hades, was immediately connected with his glorification, or sitting on the right hand of God (see Acts ii* 32, 33, 36, iv. 10, 11, v. 30, 31 ; R^v. i. 18 ; Rom. viii. 34; Eph. i. 20; 1 Pet. iii. 21, 22; Heb. i. 3). In connection with this, too, the resurrection is not put forward as the com- mencement of another life by the historical aorist (vy^pOrj), as an event among other events, but as a something which continues after it has happened (Rom. vi. 10), by the perfect ^//,ycpTai (1 Cor. XV. 4). The Apostles believed in the resur- rection of Christ and in his glorification as connected -with it, while the deeply-rooted conviction that he was the Christ (Mark viii. 29), though weakened by the crucifixion, awoke in their souls with new strength, notwitlistanding the agonies of the cross. If Jesus were the Messiah, he could not loner remain the prey of Hades, and he must, as the conqueror of Death, have left the realms of death, and have been taken up into the glory of God. These strong convictions displayed themselves in a vision of the glorified One in a prophetic ecstacy by Cephas first, then by James and the other apostles, and, again, in an assembly of five hundred brethren ; and he was afterwards seen by Stephen (Acts vii. 35) and by Paul 286 MANKIND: THEIR (1 Cor. ix. 1, XV. 8). The original gospel contained nothing of the detailed discourses which Jesus held with his disciples. He was seen, perhaps a single word was heard— that was all. " The Lord is indeed risen — ^he who was crucified lives, he has been seen by Simon, he sits on the right hand of Grod, and will come a second time " — was thenceforth the apos- tolical preaching ; and the Christian communion was founded on these beliefs in the living Lord, which find no expression in the dogmatic formulas of the period. If the crucified Jesus had ascended to glory, and if, ac- cording to the ideas of that period, the glorification gave them no other notion than that Jesus, after going to Hades, like all other dead persons, had left it again, and had as- cended to heaven clothed with a glorified body — (it is evident that outside the circle of Paul's teaching it was believed that Jesus was clad with a glorified body from Mark ix. 2 ; Moses and Elias were also seen in glory [o^Oiursf h Sof/;], Luke ix. 31) — the next step would be to insert this as a fact, though no one had been a witness of his visible resurrection, into post-apostolic tradition as a real transaction, empirically taken as true ; and the ^* third day," which was originally taken from prophecy, became a chronological event. The earliest indication of this appears in the First Mark. The women who went early in the morning on the first day of the week, and also on the third day, to anoint the coi*pse, and saw that the stone had been rolled away, and that an angel sat upon it, gave rise to the story, referring to the open tomb, that Jesus had left the gi'avc. In this, the oldest edition of the narrative, there is nothing said about the appearance of Jesus, either to the women or to the disciples, on the third day. The appearance first took place (on the supposition that Mark had in the con- cluding verses of his gospel something like Matt, xxviii. 16-17) after the frightened discij^les (Mark xiv. 50) had returned to Galileo from Jerusalem. Then they saw Jesus for the first time, although some doubted. It was therefoi-e neither on the third day nor in Jerusalem that this took place, but in the environs, and it was there that they heard his last words. In the second edition, the narrative runs that the women who had departed hastily from the sepulchre, with fear and ORIGIN AND DESTLNT. 287 great joy, to bring his disciples word of what the angel had told them, met Jesus liimself on the way (Matt, xxviii. 9, 10), and they now receive from his lips also the command which in the first edition of the narrative was given to them by the angel only. But even in this version the disciples do not see him on the third day, nor in Jerusalem. The first appearance does not take place until the disciples had re- turned to Galilee (Matt, xxviii. 16-18). If the tomb was found open, the narrative in its extended form does not neglect to tell us how it came to be so. The angel, it informs us, who in the first edition of the narrative was only seen sitting by the grave, has here " descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone during an earth- quake" (Matt, xxviii. 2). The narrative in its first form, in conformity probably with the facts, contained no account of any other appear- ance of Jesus to his disciples than the one • which took place in Galilee ; it knew nothing of any second life of Jesus on earth, and shows us Jesus in Galilee, not on the third day, nor as an inhabitant of earth, but as the glorified One to whom all power in heaven and earth is given. Then, in the second edition, there is a meeting with the women in Jerusalem, who threw thcnisalves at his feet; and there is a still lat^T edition in Luke xxiv. 3, 22, 23, to the effect that they entered into the sepulchre and found it empty, and that when tliey went to tell the Ai)ostlcs they were not believed (verses 10, 11). Peter (Luke xxiv. 12) goes alone to the sepulchre, and finds it empty. The command of the angel to go into Galilee is not mentioned at all in this account (Luke xxiv. 5-7) ; the flight of the disciples at Getlisemane (Mark xiv. oO), their return to Galilee, and the very appearance of Jesus, are all omitted — and the latter is even rendered impossible by Jesus forbidding them to leave Jerusalem (Luke xxiv. 49; Acts i. 4) — in order that the appearance of Christ on the third day in the neighbom-hood of Jerusalem to his disciples at Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 13-35), and in Jerusalem to Simon (verse 34), and to the Eleven (ver. 36-43) might be inserted here. Thus was the original pious belief in the glorification of Jesus, which in its original form represented a resurrection from Hades, which took place on the third day, in accordance with the Scrii)ture8, changed into the facts that on that day the grave, opened 288 MAxVKIIsT): THEIR by an angel, was found empty by the women and by Peter, and that Jesus appeared on that same day to his disciples in Jerusalem and its environs. Nor is this all. The appear- ance of the glorified ฃ)ne, which, invisible to mortal eyes, was seen by the eyes of the spirit (on which account also the spiritual things of the invisible world were also unseen [conf. Acts X. 4, and Jolin xiv. 19]), became soon the appear- ance of a dead person who returns to earth with the same body as he had before, walks with his disciples, but in a secret manner, and with the power of rendering himself invisible (this also is a remnant of the original Christo- phany), breaks bread with them (Luke xxiv. 30), talks with them, and even shows them the marks of the wounds on his hands and feet, to show them that he has the same body of flesh and bones, allows himself to be handled, and eats in their presence (verses 36-43). A visible ascension is necessarily added to this narrative, for it could not be omitted after the appearance of the glorified One had been turned into a second life upon life. One of two things must necessarily take place — either Jesus must die again, or if tltis cannot be (Eom, vi. 9, 10), he must leave the earth without dying, and by a visible ascension. Tradition gives an account of such an ascension in Luke xxiv. 60, 51, where it takes place on the same day, an accoimt which is converted later 'by the same author (Acts i. 9) into the statement that Jesus was forty days on earth with his apostles (chap. i. 2, 3), and eat and drank with them (chap. x. 41). The fourth evangelist gives those accounts which in his time had long been adopted and accredited (see John xx). There is no return to Galilee, nor any appearance of Jesus until the later passages in chap, xxi. The meeting of Jesus with the women (Matt, xxviii. 9), which was not adopted in the first account in Mark, becomes an appearance to Mary Magdalene. In tlie visit to the grave, the other disciple whom Jesus loved, took part, besides Peter (Luke xxiv. 12). The appearance to the Eleven (Luke xxiv. 36), in which Jesus shows his pierced hands and feet (verse 39), becomes an appearance to the Ten, to whom Jesus (John xx. 20) shows his hands and his pierced side, while his request to the Apostles to make themselves certain of his personal identity by touching him (Luke, verse 39) is made to Thomas (John ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 289 . 26 y 27), and not on the first day of the week, but after eight days. All these visible appearances had therefore no religious. value in the eyes of this evangelist. Those who, like Thomas, trusted to them for their belief in the glorified Jesus, furnished thereby the proof of the lower degree of faith which they possessed. K the Apostles and the women believed, according to the existing accounts, because they had seen Jesus with the eyes of the body, Jesus, from the point of view of the ideal disciple, in which the fourth evangelist places his readers, recognises that belief only as valuable which is spiritual and unassisted by any bodily vision — " Blessed are they that have not seen (* me,' Cod. Sin.), and yet have believed " (John xx. 29). The account of what passed in Galilee, which is not in Luke, shows a later writer in this gospel, who narrates an appearance of Jesus in Gralilee also in the added last chapter, in wliich, to the advantage of Peter, who had been left too much in the background, he is again called to be an apostle, and the symbolical representation of the miraculous draughb of fishes (Luke V. 1, et sqq.) is repeated. Besides this, the narrative in the Third Matthew (chap, xxvii. 62-66), that not only was a seal set upon the stone, but that a watch also was set upon the grave, was intended to contradict among the Jewish Christians the Jewish story that the Apostles had stolen the corpse, and to show that the pretended theft was nothing but a lie of the soldiers, who, urged by the priests, spread abroad the report that the disciples stole the body while they slept (Matt, xxviii. 4, 11-16). The spurious conclusion of Mark (chap. xvi. 9-20) may be disregarded, for it is compiled from Luke, John, and later apocryphal legends. It results from the foregoing explanation of the origin of the traditions, that the first Mark gives the original account of the resurrection, and shows, with much more accuracy than Luke or John, that Galilee was where the appearance of Jesus took place ; but he also gives a narrative in which the original apostolical belief in the narrative and glorifica- tion of Jesus is turned into the empirical fact of an open grave, from which the crucified corpse has risen, which was enlarged by the addition of an angelophany to the women who were at the grave. u ^190 MANKIKI): THEIR The enquiry then arises — How much of this was in the original which perhaps formed the groundwork of Mark's gospel? Was Mark xvi. 1-8, in itP Mary, who. in Mark XV. 40, is called the mother of James the Less and of Joses, appears in verse 47 as the mother of Joses only, and in chap, xvi. ver. 1, as the mother of James only. We may suspect that the evangelist inserted Joses only in the first draught of his gospel for the sake of brevity, but when James is mentioned instead of Joses, in chap. xvi. ver. 1, we see the hand of a later editor, who has intentionally named James, who was omitted in chap. xv. ver. 47, and who has thus sought to remove the discrepancy between Mark xv. 47, and xv. 40. It is improbable, moreover, that the women whose presence is mentioned in verse 47, when Joseph rolled the stone unto the door of the sepulchre, in order to close it, because they intended to anoint the body, should not have thought of doing 80 on this occasion, but have first mentioned it when on the road (chap. xvi. ver. 3). It is also strange that the angel should remind the women of a prophecy which, accord- ing to chap. xiv. ver. 28, had been told to the disciples only, and which, perhaps, was not at one time in the First Mark. Luke appears to have felt this difficulty, and therefore, in chap. xxiv. ver. 6, he makes the angel speak of another prophecy which Jesus himself had uttered when on his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke xviii. 82, 33), on which journey the women of Galilee were in his company (Luke xxiv. 49, viii. 2, 3 ; conf. Mark xv. 41, and Matt, xxvii. 65, and xx. 20). For these reasons it is probable that Mark xvi. 1-8, was added by the first Mark, or the tradition before hira, to the original. We assume that in the correct, but now lost, version of this gospel. Matt, xxviii. 16 followed immediately after Mark xv. 47, and that it ran as follows : — **Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee; and when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake [* unto them ' is omitted in the Cod. Sin.], saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ! '* Thus the original would contain the state- ment that Jesus died and was buried. The women remained sorrowing at his grave (Mark xv. 47), and the disciples returned to Galilee, where, after the first shock which their belief in the Messiahship of Jesus had received from his ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 201 cracifizion, they were enabled, after many strifes and de- liberations (conf. Luke xxiv. 13-35), to behold the glorified Jesus with the eyes of their ecstatic imaginations (which is indicated by the circumstance " but some doubted^'), and to hear the promises of his lasting and powerful proximity to them (Matt, xxviii. 16, 17, 18, and 20h). Sustained by their belief, they returned to Jerusalem after the death of Jesus, and there preached enthusiastically the mighty works of God. u 2 292 MANKIND : THEIB CHAPTER XII. We have now to examine the narrative contained in the first sketch of the gospel of Mark, divested, as far as possible, of the additions which have been made to it from time to time. It commences with the words, " John did baptize in the wilderness." John was not called " the Baptist *'(6 BaTrrt- arrfsi) at this early period, but 6 fiairri^oov, or merely " John '* (see chap. i. 14, vi. 14, 21, and conf. Matt. iii. 4, and xiv. 2, in old MSS). According to K, B, D, L, we must read fiawrl^opro? in Mark vi. 24, and in verse 25 also, according to L. There will then remain only the passage Mark viii. 28, which has BaTTTWTiyp, like Matt. xvi. 14, but which is probably also of later origin. The name of John is the same as n^V , Yonah or Jonah, and signifies a dove, and also a resouly or prophet. There exists in the Eastern countries, chiefiy in the neigh- bourhood of Bussora, a sect called Mandaites, Hemero- Baptists, Nazoreans, Nazareans, Nazireans, which are all evidently the same sect, only with some slight shades of difference. This sect is named by St. Epiphanius, and is said by him to have been in existence before the time of Christ, and not to have known the Saviour. They have a book called the Book of Adam, in which is the mythos of Noe, and most of Genesis, but they equally detest the Jews and the Christians, and put their founder, the Hemero- Baptist John, in the place of the Saviour. John had, like Jesus, apostles and disciples, twelve of the former, and thirty of the latter. His sect existed before the date ascribed to Jesus, and were called Hemero-Baptists. It is still in existence. They hold the principle of the renewal of worlds, abhor all bloody sacrifices, and do not use the rite of circumcision : therefore they cannot have come from the Jews. The gospels of Matthew and Luke, as we now have them, make Jesus to have been both circumcised and baptized — that is, to be both a Jew and a disciple of John. The cir- ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 293 cumcision is not mentioned in the fourth gospel, and the chapters in which it is narrated are a later addition. If Jesua had been a Jew, and deiived his name according to Jewish custom from the place of his birth, he would have been called Jesus of Bethlehem, or of Nazareth, Mosheim (Com. Cent. i. sect. 6) shows that the rite of baptism was an old ceremony of the Israelites long before the time of Christ. After baptism, they received the sign of the cross, were anointed, and fed with milk and honey (Mosheim, Hist. Cent. ii. chap. iv. sec. 13. John was a Nazarite, and established a religion of his own, as is evident from the men who came to Ephesus, and were there converted from his religion to Christianity by St. Paul (Acts xix. 1-7). The Mandaites, of whom John was one, and who derive their name from the Chaldee yi^o, mndoy Manda, which signifies TywTtSy or knowledge, who were, in fact, the sect of Gnostics, taught that from the throne of God flowed a primitive Jordan (the river of wisdom), from which again flowed 860,000 Jordans. This is why Jesus is said to have been baptized of John in Jordan. There are a great many Christians of the Order of St. John in Mingrelia, Chaldsea, and Mesopotamia, but they are more numerous in Persia and Arabia than anywhere else. The particulars of the creation of the world by the angel Gabriel, as stated in their canonical books, are as follows : — " The angel Gabriel created the world in obedience to the orders of God. Three hundred and sixty-five thousand demons worked under his orders. This angel made seven spheres, out of which the earth was made. He modelled them on the seven celestial spheres. These spheres are composed of different metals: the first, which is nearest to the centre of the earth, is made of iron ; the second^ of lead ; the third, of brass ; the fourth, of tin ; the fifth, of silver ; the sixth, of gold ; and the seventh is the earth, which sur- rounds all the others, and holds the first rank, as being the most fertile and the most useful to man, and the most suitable to his preservation, while the others seem only to exist for his destruction. They suppose that God sent an angel to visit the sun and the moon (this is an Indian fable also), and this angel, according to these Christians, put in the midst of them, to guide their movements, the cross which is the origin of their brightness. 2d4 MANKIND : THEIR " They believe that 865 of the principal demons (this, like the 865,000 who created the world, shows the solar allegory) are present at the death of the faithftil; that the angel Gabriel is the Son of God, engendered from his light ; that the glorious mother of Jesus is not dead ; that she yet lives and is in the world, but that the happy spot where she dwells is unknown; they believe that next to her St. John is the greatest of the saints, that he was engendered of Zacharias and Elizabeth by a mystic union ; that St. John married, and that God granted him to have four children from the waters of the Jordan, and that his wife only suckled them ; that he was buried in a crystal sepulchre, which was miracu* lously brought, and that the ancients saw him in a temple, near the Jordan/* Tliese Christians have ceremonies which resemble those of the Jews. The priests alone can sacrifice a hen ; when they slaughter an animal, they say, " In the name of God let this flesh be profitable to all who eat of it." They will not eat animals which have been killed by the Turks, or food which has been prepared by them. They believe that all men will be saved at the day of judgment, even the wicked, who will be saved by the prayers of the righteous. These Christians therefore preserve the astronomical solar system even in the number of their dreams, and in that of the two principles, the good and evil Babylonian angels. They have also an infinite number of pious contemplations, and follow partly the Cabalistic and partly the Manichaean systems. They dwell on the banks of rivers, in order to practise their religious rites more easily ; the greater number of these Christians are artisans, and they declare that their belief and their books come from St. John himself. Every yeai' they have a great festival, which lasts five days. During this period the bishops renew the baptism of St. John on their disciples. They only baptize on Sundays, and always in rivers, by immersion, like St. John. The new-bom infants are carried to the church, where the bishops read prayers over the head of the child ; afterwards the bishop goes with the parents to the river, which they all go into as far as the knees ; after this the bishop says some more prayers, and sprinkles the child three times with water, repeating each time the following words : " In the name of the Lord, who is the First and the Last of this world and of Paradise, the Most ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 296 High Creator of all things.*' The bishop then reads the last prayers, after which the godfather plunges the child into the water, takes it out again immediately, and all disperse. They believe that Mary became with child by means of the water of a fountain which she drank of. They believe, also, that Jesus disappeared when the Jews wished to crucify him, and that he put a spirit in his place, on which they exercised their cruelty. This agrees, as will be seen subsequently, with the belief of the early Christians, and the substitution of Simon of Cyrene for Jesus. When they celebrate the Lord's Supper, they make use of bread made of flour kneaded with oil and wine; and they say that Jesus, when he ate the Supper with his apostles, used wine only, and no water ; whereas in the Eoman rite water is always mixed with the wine in the cup. Their prayers in this ceremony are confined to praising and thanking the beneficent Deity. They bless the bread and wine in memory of Jesus, without speaking of his body or his blood. Among the Christians of this Order, the bishops and priests marry. If they die without children, the nearest re- lative and the most learned in religious matters is appointed to succeed them, so that the priests and bishops form a separate caste, like the Levites. The bishops and priests wear a little cross, and have their hair long. Polygamy is allowed. According to Mark i. 7, 8, Jesus was already known to John, and he had already attained considerable celebrity. **He shall baptize with the Holy Spirit" is to be taken literally, if the statement in John iii. 22, is correct, that ^' Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judeea, and there he tarried with them, and baptised." In the Levitikon, which is said to have been written by St. John, is the following statement : — " Moses having been raised to the highest degree of initia- tion among the Egyptians, and being profoundly versed in the physical, theological, and metaphysical mysteries of the priests, introduced initiation and its dogmas among the Hebrews. Euler and guide of an ignorant people little fitted to know the truth, he found himself compelled to confide the truths of religion to Levites of the highest class only. But soon the passions and interests of these Levites altered the law of Moses, and aU traces of it were becoming lost. 296 MANKIND : THEIR when Jesus the Nazarite appeared. Full of the Divine Spirit, gifted with the most astonishing qualities, having passed in Egypt through all the degrees of scientific, political, and religious initiation, and having received with them the Holy Spirit and theocratic power, he returned to Judsea, and there pointed out the numerous alterations which the law of Moses had undergone at the hands of the Levites. The Jewish priests, finding their credit attacked, and blinded by their passions, persisted in the errors which were at once the result and the support of them, and leagued themselves together against their formidable enemy — but their time was come. Jesus, directing his lofty meditations towards civilisation and the happiness of the world, tore asunder the veil which hid the truth from nations. He preached to them the love of their fellow-creatures, and the equality of all men in the sight of their common Father, and consecrated at last by a Divine sacrifice the celestial dogmas which he had received, and fixed for ever on earth the religion which is written in the books of Nature and of Eternity.'* This statement resembles the teaching of the Carpocratians, who were coeval with Christianity, and who, while profess- ing to follow the teaching of Jesus, admitted only the unity of God, and taught their disciples that Jesus Christ had chosen for his twelve apostles certain faithful friends, to whom he had confided all the knowledge which he had acquired in the temple of Isis, where he had studied for six- teen years. Jesus was not originally called Jesus Christ, but Jeschua Hammassiah, according to the Rev. Mr. Faber. Jeschua is the same as Joshua and Jesus, and meaus Saviour, and Ham is the One of India (the Ammon), and Messiah is the anointed. It will then be The Saviour One anointed, or, reading in the Hebrew mode, The anointed One the Saviour. His name was also Jesua ben Panther. Panthers were the nurses and bringers-up of Bacchus. Panther was the surname of Joseph's family. Thus the Midrashkoheleth, or gloss, upon Ecclesiastes — *'It happened that a serpent bit R. Eleasar ben Damah, and James, a man of the village Secania, came to heal him in the name of Jesus ben Panther." This statement is also found in the book called " Abodazura," where ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 207 the comment upon it says, "This James was a disciple of Jeans the Nazarene/' The circumstance of Joseph's family name being supposed to be Panther is confirmed by Epi- phanins (Hseres. 78, Antidic. s. vii.)? who says that Joseph was the brother of Cleophas, the son of James, surnamed Panther. Thus we have the statement both fi'om Jewish and Christian authorities. The Talmud makes Jesus travel to Alexandria to leam sorcery there with a certain Babbi Jehoschua Ben Berachiah ; and Celsus (Orig. adv. Celsum, 1. I. chap, xxviii.) makes a Jew say that Jesus, having gone into service for a salary in Egypt, had been able to leam a few magical tricks, and on his return had given himself out as being God. In an MS. of the gospel of St. John, which probably dates from the Byzantine revision, and which was in the archives of the Order of the Temple, is the following passage (John vi. 41, et sqq.) : " The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know ? [* whose father also we know,* Cod. Sin.] How is it, then, that he saith, I came down from heaven? Is it because he has dwelt among tlie Greeks that he comes thus to speak with us ? What is there in common between what he has learnt from the Egyptians and what our fathers have taught us ? " Now, to say that Jesus had dwelt among the Greeks to obtain learning among the Egyptians, is to give us to understand plainly that he came from Alexandria. The pagans, finding in the Christian rites all the ceremonies of Egypt, said that Jesus had borrowed their mysteries from the Egyptian priests (Amobius contra Gentil. 1. I.). But the Christians, not wishing to be con- sidered as a sect of the followers of Isis, immediately altered their gospels, and cancelled all that could recall their Egyp- tian origin. This is why the passage above cited is cut short in the Vulgate or canonical translaiion. The passage in the Talmud above alluded to is as follows : — " No one must ever be put aside with both hands ; on the contrary, when one puts aside any one, especially young people, with the left hand, one must bring them back with the right, and not do as the prophet Elisha did with Gachsi and Eabbi Jehoschuah Ben Berachiah with Jesus.^' There- 2d8 MANKIND : THEIB upon the Talmud states that at the period when the Pharisees were killed by King Jannes this Eabbi Jehoschuah went with Jesus to Alexandria. This, however, is an anachronism, for Jesus was not bom at the time when this king lived. The bad Chaldee in which it is vmtten shows that it is a legend, but it nevertheless may be held to show that Jesus did go to Egypt while he was yet young with his rabbi and pharisaic teacher. On his return, when recalled by Simeon ben Shatach, the young disciple quarrelled with his master, because he admired Nature. His master having found fault with him, Jesus rushed towards Bintha (Reason), and prostrated himself before her. At a later period he returned to his master while he was praying; but the latter having moved in a certain way, the disciple thought he was repulsed, although he was called back, and he never returned. Thereupon tlie Talmud adds, " This Jesus has bewitched, raised up, and turned away Israel from their path." Bacchus was called a son of God. He was twice bom, and was represented at the winter solstice as a little child, born five days before the end of the year. On his birth a blaze of light shone round his cradle, and he was brought up by a panther. The Eomans had a god called Quirinus ; he was said to be the brother of Bacchus. His soul emanated from the sun, and was restored to it. He was begotten by the god of armies upon a virgin of the blood royal, and exposed by order of the jealous 'tyrant Amulius, and was preserved and educated among shepherds. He was torn to pieces at his death, when he ascended into heaven, upon which the sun was eclipsed or darkened. Bacchus's death and return to life were annually celebrated by the women of Delphi ; his return was expected by his followers, when he was to be the sovereign of the universe. He was said to sifc on the same thi-one as Apollo. He was three nights in hell, when he ascended with his mother to heaven, where he made her a goddess. He killed an amphisbaena which bit his leg ; and he, with several other gods, drove down the giants with serpent's feet who had made war against heaven. The same general character is visible in mythoses of Hercules and Bacchus. Hercules was called a Saviour : he was the son of Jove by the virgin Prudence. He was called the Universal Woed. He was reabsorbed into ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 290 God. He was said by Orpheus to be self-produced, the generator and ruler of all things, and the father of time. The tomb of Bacchus became a church of St. Bacchus, just as the pretended tomb of the deified Romulus, in Rome, became the Church of St. Theodorus. At Saint-Denis, near Paris, the god Bacchus, or Alopvaosy is worshipped under the name of St. Denis. At Ancona, on the top of the promontory, Bacchus is worshipped under the name of Liber and Liberius. The Eev. Mr. Faber says (Pag. Idol., Book IV. chap. 8), " Dionysus is cut to pieces by the Msenades on the top of Mount Parnassus : Denis is put to death in the same manner on the summit of Montmartre. Dionysus is placed on a tomb, and his death is bewailed by women : the mangled limbs of Denis are collected by holy females, who, weeping, consign him to a tomb over which is built the abbey church that bears his name. Dionysus experiences a wonderful restora- tion to life, and quits the coffin within which he had been con- fined : Denis rises again from the dead, replaces his severed head, to the amazement of the spectators, and then de- liberately walks away. On the southern gate of the abbey, the whole history of this surprising martyrdom is represented. A sculptured sprig of the vine, laden with grapes, is placed at the foot of the holy man ; and in all parts may be seen the same tree, blended with tigers, and associated with a hunting match." The Christians have made their St. Bacchus and Liber, Dionysius — Eleutherius, Rusticus — marked in the calendar, October 7, fest. S. Bacchi ; 8th, festum S. Demetri ; and the 9th, fest. SS. Dionysii, Eleutherii et Rustici. In the Dyonysiacs of Nonnus, the god Bacchus is feigned to have fallen in love with the soft, genial breeze, under the name of Aura Placida. Out of this they have made the saints Aura and Placida. This festival is on October 5, close to the festival of St. Bacchus, and of St. Denis, the Areo- pagite. Throughout all the ancient world the birth of the god Sol, personified as Bacchus, Osiris, Hercules, Adonis, ซ&c., was celebrated on December 25, the day of the birth of Jesus. Lightfoot observes (" Exer. on Matt. chap, iii." vol. ii. p. 113) of the births of John and Jesus : " So the conceptions and births of the Baptist and our Saviour ennobled the four famous Tekuppas (revolutions) of the year : one being 800 MANKIND : THEIR conceived at the summer solstice, the other at the winter : one bom at the vernal equinox, the other at the autumnal." Matthew says that the son of Mary was called Jesus, because he would save (i.e. preserve) his people from their sins. The Jews say in their Talmud, that the name of Jesus was Bar Panther, but that it was changed into Jesus. That the sun, rising from the lower to the upper hemisphere, should be hailed the Preserver or Saviour appears extremely natural ; and that by such titles he was known to idolaters cannot be doubted. Joshua signifies literally the Preserver or Deliverer ; and that this preserver or deliverer was no other than the sun in the sign of the Ram or Lamb, may be inferred from many circumstances. The LXX write ^Irjaovs for Joshua, and the lamb has always been the type of 'Ii/aoup. The following passage from the Apology of Justin Martyr will show that Jesus was not looked upon diflferently by the Christians to what the gods of antiquity were by the pagans : — ** When we say that all things have been made by God, what do we say more than Plato ? When we teach that all things will be destroyed by fire, what do we teach more than the Stoics? When we oppose the worship of the work of men's hands, we speak like Menander the comedian. And when we say that our Master Jesus Christ is like the Logos, like the first-bom of God, bom of a virgin who has not known man, who was crucified, died, was buried and went up to heaven afterwards, we say nothing more than what you say of the sons of Jupiter. For we need not tell you what a number of sons the most popular writer among you gives to Jupiter. As an imitation of the Logos, you have Mercury, the interpreter of Zeus or Jupiter, who is worshipped among you ; you have -SJsculapius the physician, who was struck by lightning, and who afterwards ascended to heaven ; you have Bacchus, who was torn to pieces, and Hercules, who burnt himself to free himself from his suffer- ings. You have Castor and Pollux, sons of Jupiter and Leda, and Perseus, the son of Jupiter and the virgin Dodma, without enumerating many others. '^1 wish to know why you always deify your deceased emperors ? and I wish, also, to know whether any one could prove that we saw Caesar ascend to heaven with the flame of the funeral pyre ? . . . ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 301 " As to the Son of God, called Jesus, even if we should consider him to be no more than a man, yet his title to be the Son of God is justified by his wisdom, seeing that you worship Mercury as the word and messenger of God. ** As to the crucifixion of our Jesus, I say that suflferings were common to all the sons of Jupiter before mentioned, observing only that they suffered different deaths. As to his being bom of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that ; and as to the healing of the lame, the sick of the palsy, and those who were deformed from their birth, there is nothing in that which is much superior to what -Ssculapius did." Justin also says that Socrates was a Christian, and that before the advent of Jesus Christ, philosophy was the way to eternal life. He calls it Msyiarov KTrjfjbay " a thing most acceptable in the sight of God, and the only sure guide to a state of perfect felicity." In the genealogy of Jesus, given in Luke iii., which is identical with the genealogy in 1 Chron. i., as to the de- scent of Jesus from Adam, we find that, just as in Genesis v., from which both are taken, there is no mention whatever of the Fall, of death as the consequence of the Fall, or of the creation of woman. " This," it is said in Gen. v. 1, et sqq., " is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him ; male and female created he them ; and blessed them, and called their name Adam^ in the day when they were created." And the next verse informs us that Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own like- ness, after his image ; and called his name Seth." There is no mention here of Eve, or of Cain her first-bom, or of Abel, although the chapter purports to be a book of the genera- tions of Adam. The author speaks of other sons and daughters of Adam, but without naming them, and Seth is distinctly put forward as his first-bom. This does away with the story of the fall of man. It is most probable that the drama of Adam and Eve and their pos- terity was brought from Egypt, either by Moses or by some initiated person after him, but was only considered as an allegory until the period of the Captivity. Ezra then felt himself at liberty, as the people no longer understood the Hebrew language, and as the writings of Moses no longer 802 MAI^KDO): THEIB existed, except in their memories, or in the copy which had, been discovered and amended by Hilkiah (which he alone was in possession of), to add this book to the other narra- tives which make up the book of Genesis, but out of regard to historical accuracy he did not Inention Eve, Cain, or Abel in his chronicles. As the nn mhy or spiritus, was the passive cause (brooding on the face of the waters), by which all things sprang into life, the dove became the emblem of the ruhy or Spirit, or Holy Ghost, the third Person, or Destroyer, or, in his good capa- city, the Regenerator. The Holy Ghost was sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine. Origen expressly makes the Holy Ghost female. He says : UaiSlaKrj Ss /evpias rov aylov llv€VfiaT09 ij -^1^1] : " The soul is maiden to her mistress, the Holy Ghost." In the foundation of the Grecian oracles, the places peculiarly filled with the Holy Spirit or Ghost, or inspiration, the Dove, the admitted emblem of the female procreative power, which always accompanies Venus, was the principal agent. We have in the New Testament several notices of the Holy Ghost or the Sanctus Spiritus, ^^P qdisy nn ruhy irvsvfia ayiovj '^vyi) Koa-fMovj or Alma Venus. It de- scended upon Jesus at his baptism in the form of a Dove, and, according to Justin Martyr, a fire was lighted in the moment of its descent in the river Jordan. Philo (De Confus. Ling. p. 267, B.), calls the Logos 'Ap;^. The Logos being proved to be Wisdom, 'A.pxn must con- sequently remain Wisdom. Onkelos translates the word by *iOfc< amr^ verbum. From the close connection between the Logos and the Lamb, lambs came to be called nnoN, amrut. From amr^ verbum, comes the word KiD^D, mimra, a word or voice, which is supposed to be the same as the Bathkol 7pnnn, bet-ql^ daughter of voice. The Jordan is called in Gen. xiii. 11, \'^'^'*^y c-irdn, that is, the Jordan. The word \^yT\^ e-irdn, consists of, in fact, three words. The first is the emphatic article n, e, the ; the second the word ">% ir, which in the Hebrew language means KiVER, and the third p, dn^ to judge, to rule ; as a noun with i r*ป, diriy a judge, and with a formative a pN, Adn, a ruler, director. Lord — spoken of God. If Adonai or Adonis were the second Person of the Trinity, of course he would be Wisdom. Hence we have the meaning of this river — the OEIGIN ANT) DESTINY. 803 river of Adonis, that is, of the Stiii. It is very remarkable that the foaiitains ^non (Chald. anarvan), sear SaJim, in the vicinity of Hebron, where John " was baptizing because there was mnch water there," accoruing to John iii. 23 (an expression which is inapplicable to the Jordan), were also sacred to the sun. A ruin named Bamet-et Khalil, near Hebron, corresponds to this description. Jestts came from Nazareth of Galilee to be baptized of John. Mr. Higgins says that this was the town of Nazir or Na^w^ioi , the flower, and waa situated in Carmel, the vineyard, or garden of God. Jesus waa a flower, whence came the adoration by the Eosi- cmcians of the Rose and Cross, which Rose was Has, and this Kas, or Knowledge, or Wisdom, was stolen from the garden, which waa crucified, as it literally is, on the red cornelian, the emblem of the Kossicracians — a rose on a cross. This crucified plant was also liber, a book, a letter or tree, or Bacchus or IHS. The Society of the Bossicrucians, or Kosl-cruxions, is closely allied to the Templars. Their emblem or monogram or jewel is a red rose on a cross, thus — If, When it can be done, it is surrounded with a glory, and placed on a Calvary. Where it is worn appended and made of cornelian, garnet, ruby, or red glass, the Calvary and glory are generally omitted. This is the Naurutz, Katzir, or Rose of Isiuren, of Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water-rose, the Lily, Padma, Pema, Lotus, crucified for the salvation of man — crucified in the heavens at the vernal equinox ; it is celebrated at that time by the Persians, in what they call their Non BOSE, i.e. Neros or Naurutz. The word nod is the Latin mons, aiid oar new, which, added to the word rose, mates 304 MANKIND : THEIB the new rose of the vernal equinox, and also makes on the rose of the P22 Rss = 360, and the SP2 ars, or cross, or crs, or, with the letter e added, the Rose = 365 — in short, the God of Day, the Ess or Divine Wisdom, X, P2, the Cross- Wisdom (Ethiopie^), the same as the monogram with which the title-page of the Latin Vulgate is ornamented. The Eomish Church maintains that the Essenes and the Carmelites] were the same order of men. Pythagoras was an Essenian, and he dwelt or was initiated into the order on Carmel, !?P"?3, " the fruitful field," " the garden." The first regulation of the Order, who were called Nazarites, and brought from Egypt, is probably to be found in Numb. vi. 13-21. Jesus Christ was a Nazarite, as is indicated by the word Na^wpaios : had it meant Nazarene, it would have been i^a^dprfios. He was a Nazarite of the city of Nazareth, or of the city of the Nazarites. This mistranslation, which can scarcely have been acci- dental, connects the real meaning of this appellation as ap- plied to Jesus. The Egyptian priests used to shave the head, and the fact of its being afterwards prohibited to the Jews, as Bochart has shown, proves that the custom once prevailed among them. Josephus says that the Jews assisted the Persians against Greece, and cites the poet Choerilus, who, he says, names a people who dwelt on the Solymean mountains of Asia Minor, and spoke Phoenician. This colony was probably from Tekte Solymi. There were Solymean mountains near Telmessus, and one of these, now called Takhta-lu, was called formerly by the Greeks Mount Solyma. The colony spoken of by Josephus were probably londi, from India, which is confirmed by their sooty heads^ like horses* heads dried in the smoke, and their having the tonsure, or shaven crown. The Christian priests, as is well known, shave a portion of their heads. This custom is alluded to by Jeremiah, chap. XXV. verse 23, in which he speaks of " Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that have the corners of the hair polled ; " and in Numb. vi. 18, "And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation," &c. This custom became law among the Egyptians, and even obtained among the Romans. Their emperors, who performed the functions of Sovereign-Pontifis, submitted to the operation. Spartius says that Commodus had undergone it, and gives the above reason for it. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. SOB The Egyptian tonsure represented the disk of the sun. Herodotus (lib. III.) says that the Arabs shaved their heads in consequence of their tradition that Bacchus had done so also. The same custom existed in Peru, where those who were devoted to God, or his emblem the Sun, had their heads shaved. At Nazareth was the monastery of Nazarites or Carmelites, where Pythagoras and Elias both dwelt, under Carmel, the vineyard or garden of God. Eupolemus states that there was a temple of lao or Jupiter on Carmel, without image, which is confirmed by Tacitus. This was the temple of Melchizedek, of Joshua, and the proseuchia discovered by Epiphanius. This, probably, was also the temple where Pythagoras, who sacrificed to the bloodless Apollo at Delos, went to acquire learning, or to be initiated. Clemens Alexandrinus says in the Stromata, lib. I. p. 304, ** Alexander autem in libro de symbolis Pythagoreis, refert Pythagorani fnisse discipulum Nazarati Assyrii. Quidam eum existimant Ezechielem, sed non est, ut ostend^tur postea: et vult prseterea Pythagoram Gallos audiisse et Brachmanas." Pythagoras and Jesus were, according to tradition, natives of nearly the same country, the former being bom at Sidon, the latter at Bethlehem, both in Syria. The father of Pythagoras, as well as the father of Jesus, was prophetically informed that his wife should bring forth a son, who should be a benefactor to mankind. They were both bom when their mothers were from home on journeys : Joseph and his wife having gone up to Bethlehem to be taxed or registered, and the father of Pythagoras having travelled from Samos, his residence, to Sidon, about his mercantile concerns. Pythais, the mother of Pythagoras, had a connection with an Apol- loniacal spectre, or ghost of the god Apollo, or god Sol, which afterwards appeared to her husband and told him that he must have no connection with his wife during her pregnancy. From these peculiar circumstances, Pythagoras was known as the son of God, and was supposed by the multitude to be under the influence of Divine inspiration. After his death his wife Theanes presided over his disciples, just as Mary the mother of Jesus is said to have done (Acts i. 14). Before he became the sage of Samos, he was said to have been the Trojan Euphorbus (see Diog. Laert. 1. VIII. 1, 4 ; and the " Lives of Pythagoras," by Porphyry and Jam- ao6 mankind: their bliohns). His death is mentioned by Homer. After his return to life, he would never clothe himself with anything that had been taken from an animal ; he abstained fit)m all animal food, and from aU sacrifices of living creatures, and worshipped the gods by offerings of cakes of honey, by incense, and by hymns. When young, he was of a very grave deportment, and was celebrated for his philosophical appearance and wisdom. He wore his hair long, after the manner of the Nazarites, whence he was called the long-haired Samian. No doubt he was a Nazarite for the term of his natural life, and the person called his daughter was only a person figuratively so called. He spent many years of his life in Egypt, where he was instructed in the secret learning of the priests, as Jesus is said to have been in the apocryphal gospels and the Levitikon. He was carried thence to Babylon by Cambyses, the icono- clast and restorer of the Jewish religion and temple, where he was initiated into the doctrines of the Persian Magi. Thence he went to India, where he learned the doctrines of the Brahmins. He was bom B.C. 592. In order to be admitted to the greater mysteries of Isis, and that he might be enabled to learn astronomy and divination from the Egyptian priests, he allowed himself to be circumcised, and he underwent this painful operation when he was of full age, for he was an athlete. (See Clem. Alex, and Davier, " Life of Pythagoras.'*) In 1682 the Carmelites of Beziers maintained in public theses that Pythagoras had been a monk, and a member of their Order. The Jews had previously maintained that Pythagoras had travelled in Judsea, and that he had been initiated into the sect of the Essenes. Xamoleis, a Greek, a slave of Pythagoras, who accompanied him to Egypt, having been freed, returned to his own country, where he caused a subterranean temple to be built, where he instructed his disciples in the mysteries according to the Egyptian rites. He was the bead of the Plytes (a mystical corporation), whom Josephus compares for their virtues to the Essenes. The Carpocratians associated the image of Pythagoras with that of Christ (St. Augustine, De Hseres., ad Q. V. D. no. 7). Plato was also said to be bom of Parectonia, without connection with his father Ariston, but by a connection with Apollo. Origen defends the Immaculate Conception on this ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 307 grotmd, assigning also, in coiifiirmation of the &ct, the example of vultures, who propagate without the male ! The legend of an immaculate conception is found in China also. Loui-Ztn, the mother of Chao-Hao, became pregnant at the sight of a star, and Tou-Pao at the sight of a shining cloud. Hou- Su, " the expected flower," " the daughter of the Lord," became pregnant by means of a rainbow, which sur- rounded her and caused her to feel emotion ; she gave birth to No-Hi at the end of twelve years. Nin-Oua is the most celebrated of the virgin-mothers. She is called the Sovereign- Virgin : her prayers enabled her to have miraculous deliveries. Some have thought that she resembles the Greek Hecate, who was of later date than the Chinese virgin. The Indian virgins were seated on the Nenuphar, which in their sacred mysteries was the sacred symbol of virginity. The Egyptians substituted for it the Lotus, on which was seated the chaste Isis, the syrolx)l of Nature and mother of the Graces, and this is the plant which the angel Gabriel is represented as pre- senting to the Virgin Mary. In Mark i. 13, Jesus is said to have been tempted by Satan, but in Matthew and Luke he is said to have been tempted by the devil. The etymology of this word will be given subsequently. In Rev. ix. 11, the king of the devils is said to be called Abaddon in Hebrew, and ApoUyon in Greek. This word is probably derived from the cruciform Abadan, signifying the lost one, the sun in winter, or darkness. According to the Talmud, Satan is all-powerful except the day of Jom Kipour, the day of Atonement, on which day he has no power. The Talmud asks. Why? where is the proof of this ? and gives the following highly satisfactory answer : — " Rami, the son of Haim, has said : The numeral letters of Satan (which must be spelt with a d, however, for it is sometimes spelt Sadan) make up three hundred and sixty.four days. During these three hundred and sixty-four days he has the power to do mischief, but on the three hundred and sixty-fifth he cannot do any, and that day is the Kipour." According to Mark, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilder- ness, where he was forty days tempted of Satan (that is, by the arguer, the sophist), and was with the wild beasts (that is, exposed to a contest with human passions), and the angels (that is, the inferior deities) ministered unto him. It is pro-* X 2 BOS MANKIND: THEIR bable that the stars are here meant, for the " host of heaven " was considered to be a myriad of angels directed by seven archangels, each archangel being a messenger of the Supreme. In every cycle the incarnation of the solar deity, the Aoyo9y was renewed. The genius of each cycle, every year as it revolved, was celebrated microcosmically. In allusion to this he was bom with the new-bom sun, on the moment when the sun began to increase on December 25 ; and he was feigned to die, or to be put to death, and to rise from the grave after three days, at the vernal equinox. In accord- ance with this, Jesus is said to come into Galilee — ^that is, raX'oX'lay or K^-^K-^i gUal-iay the country of the circle or revolution — and after his resurrection to have gone before his disciples (Mark xvi. 7) into Galilee again. All the Hebrew names of places in the Holy Land were astronomical, and all had a reference to the solar mythos. It is very remarkable that Peter is called Simon through- out Mark's gospel, with the single exceptions of Mark iii 16 — where the text is probably corrupt, and certainly so accord- ing to the Cod. Sin. — and Mark xvi. 7, which, as we have seen, is from the contradiction in the chapter almost certainly an addition to the originaL In the passages Mark i. 16, 29, 30, 36, iii. 16, and xiv. 37, where he is called Simon only, Matthew, on the contrary, call^ him in the parallel passages (chap. iv. 18 ; viii. 14 ; x. 2 ; xiv. 28 ; xv. 15 ; xvi. 16) either Peter, or Simon Peter, or Simon who is called Peter. The original statement, therefore, is that Jesus called Simon and Andrew his brother, who were fishers, and also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were fishers also. Jesus himself was called a fish. The well-known acrostic 1H20T2 XPEI2T02 ฉEOT TI02 SHTHP itself forms an acrostic. The first letters of the five words give IX8T2, a fish, which was a name given to Jesus Christ. The Christians were at first called, among other names, Pisciculi, or little fishes. Among the primitive Christians, the figm^e of a fish was adopted as a sign of Christianity, and it is sculptured among the inscriptions on their tombstones, as a private indication that the persons there interred were Christians. This hint was understood by brother Chris- tians, while it was an enigma to the heathen. In Mark i. 22, 23, we are told that Jesus entered into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and taught ; but we are not ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 809 told anytUng of the subject of his discourse, or the nature of his teaching. In Mark vi. 2, we find him teaching in the synagogue at Nazareth, his birth-place ; and Luke (iv. 16, et sqq.) supplies us with the text upon which he preached, and the commencement of his discourse upon it. The text is from Isaiah Ixi. 1, 2 ; but this portion of Isaiah was written as late as the time of Nehemiah, and is not a prophecy at all. It is an addition to the book of Isaiah, and is expressive of delight at the permission given through Nehemiah to build up the walls of Jerusalem. So care- lessly also has the text been put together, that a portion of it, ** to set at liberty them that are bruised '' {dTrocrstXat TS0pavafiivov9 h di(Tei), is taken from Isaiah Iviii. 6, which is by another writer, and is merely a complaint of the melan- choly and disorderly state of the country after the return of the people from captivity. It would not have been possible for Jesus to insert a portion of one chapter into another, es- pecially as only one portion of the roll on which the Scrip- tures were written, and that a small one, could be visible at one time. Mark does not mention the subject of his dis- course at Nazareth, any more than at Capernaum ; neither does Matthew. Apuleius says (on the demon of Socrates) : " Each man has in life witnesses and watchers over his deeds. They are visible to none, but are always present, witnessing not only every act, but every thought. When life has ended, and we must return to whence we came, this same genius who had charge over us takes us away, hurries us in his custody to judgment, and there assists us in pleading our cause. If anything is falsely asserted, he corrects it ; if truly, he sub- stantiates it ; and according to his testimony our sentence is determined." Much of this belief may be found in the New Testament — for instance, in Matt, xviii. 10, where it is said that every infant has an angel to watch over it. It was not until the Hebrews came into close contact with the Greeks that their modem notions of demonology prevailed. In the apocryphal book of Tobit, which is the first evidence we find of it, a demon is represented as being in love with a female. Demosthenes refers to it, B.C. 330, in his Oration de Coronfl., wherein he reproaches iEschines with being the son of a woman who gained her living as an exorcist ; and his brother 810 MANKIND: THEIR Epicnrus seems to have been equally taunted by the Stoics. Josephus (Antiq. viii. 2, 5) states that he saw a Jewish prac- titioner drive out a devil from one possessed therewith, in the presence of Vespasian and a large party of soldiers, and that, to prove the reality of the expulsion, he ordered the spirit to upset a certain basin of water placed there for the purpose. In the first Liturgy of Edward VI., anno 2, the following form of exorcism was ordered in baptism: "Then let the priest, looking upon the children, say, I command thee, un- clean spirit, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou come out and depart from these infiints, whom our Lord Jesus Christ has vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism, to be made members of his body and of his holy congregation. Therefore remember, thou cursed spkit, remember thy sentence, remember thy judgment, remember the day to be at hand wherein thou shalt bum in fire everlasting, prepared for thee and thy angels. And presume not hereafter to exercise any tyranny towards these infants, whom Christ hath bought with his precious blood, and by this holy baptism called to be of his flock," Great difibrences of opinion existed among the Jews as to the time when the Messiah should come. Abodah Sarah says : " Eabbi Joses has said, * In the time to come all nations will be converted to Jehovah.' '* He goes still further. In the Treatise Megilah, we read in the first book : " Every man who renounces the service of false gods (of idols made by man) may be regarded as a Jew." And then, continuing respecting the Messiah, he says : " The Son of David will not come till all kingdoms have been converted to the Minoth " — that is, to the false faith. The words Min and Minoth are used by the Talmud to designate the faiths which were opposed to Judaism. The true meaning of the word is scoffer and scoffing. In this sense it is often used to signify the early Christians, who scoffed, not without reason, at the Talmud and its mode of reasoning. The Talmud says, again, " The Messiah will not come till everything is quite right or everything quite wrong." Rabbi Abouah says, " The time of the Messiah for Israel will not come for seven thousand years." This was ivritten about 1,500 years ago. Then comes a Rabbi Hillel (not the one who ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 811 lived before the time of Christ), who sajB : " Ah, bah, there is no longer any Messiah for Israa)vo9 t^ vofup)^ and, in fact, the day succeeding the Last Supper is treated in the gospels by all as a working day, and it is therefore impossible to suppose that it was the first day of the Passover, and, consequently, that the supper of the preceding day had been the Passover. Moreover, Jesus, himself does not observe it as such, for he goes out of the town to the Mount of Olives, which was prohibited at the time of the Passover. It is very remarkable that the Last Supper is not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. The "breaking of bread" mentioned in chap. ii. verse 42, is represented in Luke xxiv. 30, 31, 35, as an habitual practice of Jesus. The Judaising Christians considered the Last Supper as a species of passover : thus (1 Cor. v. 7), " Christ our passover is sacrificed " {dc in the old MSS., " for us " being a later addition). They therefore described the cup to contain wine, after the manner of the Jews in their Passover. On the contrary, the Manichseans and many of the other Eastern sects, took this rite with water instead of wine. The ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 321 Eucharist of the Lord and Saviour, as the Magi called the Sun, or their eucharistic sacrifice, was always made exactly and in every respect the same as that of the orthodox Christians, except that the latter use wine instead of water. This bread-and- water sacrifice was offered by the Magi of Persia, by the Essenes or Therapeutฎ, by the Gnostics, and indeed by almost, if not quite, all the Eastern Christians, and by Pythagoras in Greece and Numa at Eome. The Ebionites or Nazarenes, who were the most immediate and direct followers of Jesus, who resided in Judsca, and are acknowledged to have been among the very earliest of the sects of Christians, used water instead of wine, as did also the Encratites, Nestorians, and others. In the service of our Edward VI., water is directed to be mixed with the wine, which is a union of the two systems. According to Justin's account, the devils busied themselves much with the Eucharist. After describing in several places that bread and wine and water were used in the Christian rite, he says : ** This is what, by an imitation suggested by the evil spirit [everyone knows that the Mithraic rites pre- ceded Christianity by many hundreds of years], has been taught and practised in the mysteries and initiation of Mithra ; for you know for certain, or you can learn if you like it, that either in the sacrifices or in the mysteries of the Deity [St. Justin admits the Divinity of Mithra] they make use of bread, and of water in a chalice, making use of a certain form of words." TertuUian also says (De Prescript. Hseret.) that the devil used to baptize the faithful, promising them that by this means their sins would be forgiven, and that by this means he initiated them in the doctrine of Mithra, by marking them in the forehead and making the oblation of bread. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 1. VII. chap, ix.) tells us that the faithful from the earliest times of Christianity used to go .to the altar to take from it the consecrated bread. A priest used to put it into their hands, and they went home, taking with them this portion of the Communion as a sign of the peace in which they lived with their brethren. This consecrated bread was even preserved in the family, and portions of it were given to guests as a sign of peace and friendship. The Council of Laodicsea, in its 4-lth canon, forbids women to go themselves to the altar, and in a.d. 692 T 822 MANKIND : THEIR the CouncU of TruUe forbade men to go. The priest used to pat the consecrated bread into the hands of the men, and the women held out a white linen cloth in which the priest de- posited the portion of the Communion which was set apart for them. Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromat. 1. 1.), St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine (Cont. Epi. Parmen. 1. II. chap. vii.)> say that the Eucharist was given by hand. In the time of Justinian, at Constantinople, children were taken into the churches to eat the remains of the Mystic Supper. Nicephorus and Callistus (1. VII. chap, xii.) say they had been allowed this favour in the thirteenth century. The first Christians gave a human shape to the bread, which is now replaced by the impression of a Christ on tie Host, which caused the opponents of Christianity to believe that they really eat the flesh and blood of a child, as was Baid of the Jewish Christians, when Bome was burnt, in the time of Nero. Peter Martyr, Paw, and Carli (Lett. Amer.), state that the Mexicans had the Communion, which was exactly similar to the Christian one just spoken of. The priests of the Sun made a great statue with the dough of Indian com, which they cooked, just as the passover cakes of the Jews were prepared by the Levites. The high-priest, after accom- panying a grand procession, in which this statue was carried, when it had re-entered the temple, broke up this statue, and gave the pieces to the people to eat, who believed them- selves to be sanctified by this means. The Peruvians had a festival called the festival of Capa- creyme, in the first month of their year, called Kaym^, which Acosta supposes was contrived by the devil in imita- tion of the Passover. In this festival, besides the sacrifice of bread, the priests dipped their hands in a vinous extract of maize, and, looking up to the Sun, made aspersion with it, as was done by the Jews also. This is the facsimile of the primitive Jevrish Communion, which was given by hand (Exodus xxix. 23, 24) : " Also thou shalt take one loaf of bread, and one cake of oiled bread, and one w^fer out of the basket of the unleavened bread that is before the Lord : and thou shalt put all in the hands of Aaron, and in the hands of his sons, and shalt shake them to and fro for a wave offering before the Lord.'^ The followers of Tatian used no wine — only water — for the ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 323 Eucharist. Tertullian, Jerome, and other Fathers of the Church, infonn us that the Gentiles celebrated, on Dec. 25, or on the eighth day before the calends of January, the birth of the god Sol, under the name of Adonis, in a cave, like that of Mithra (in Persia, Mithra ; in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Biblis, Adonis) y and that the cave wherein they celebrated his mysteries was that in which Christ was born in the city of Bethlehem. In Matt. xxvi. 30, we are told that after the Last Supper Jesus and the Apostles sang a hynm. Fragments of this hymn are found in the 237th letter of St. Augustine to Bishop Ceretius. Augustine only reproves the Priscillianists, who admitted this hymn into their worship, for interpreting it wrongly. The hymn runs as follows : — I wish to unbind, and I wish to be unbound. I wish to save, and I wish to be saved. I wish to beget, and I wish to be begotten. I wish to sing ; dance ye all with joy. I wish to weep ; be ye all struck with grief. I wish to adorn, and I wish to be adorned. I am the lamp for you who see me. I am the gate for you who knock. Ye who see what I do, do not tell what I am doing. I have enacted all in this discourse, And I have not been in any way deceived. One of the uncanonical gospels states that Jesus and his apostles celebrated a dance after the Last Supper. The Jews have a ceremony— the traces of which may be- found among the followers of Mithra, of Pythagoras at Delphi, and of the Jews in the time of Melchizedek — of the sacrifice of bread and wine. When a master of a Jewish family has finished the Paschal supper, he breaks the bread, and, along with the crater or cup, hands it round to the whole of his family, servants and all, in token of brotherly love. When the early Christians celebrated their mysteries, a deacon used to cry out, " Let the profane depart ; close the doors ; the mysteries are about to begin." When the priests became intolerant and were protected by the different governments, they substituted for this injunction, which was common to all religions, " The mysteries are about to begin ; away with the dogs ; holy things are for the saints " {foras canesy sancta Sanctis). St. Chrysostom, in his 25th homily on T 2 324 MANKIND : THEIR Matthew, tells us what formalities were used before the com- mencement of the Christian mysteries : " When we celebrate the mysteries, we send away those who are not initiated, and we close the doors/' We must keep in mind that the whole of our information on this subject reaches us from the Judaising Christians. The small band of disciples, about one hundred and twenty in number (Acts i. 15), which was left at Jerusalem "were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God " (Luke xxiv. 53) ; and " they continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house " (Acts iL 46), and scrupulously observing all the Jewish ceremonies, praying (Acts iii. 1) at the appointed hours, and observing all the precepts of the law. They were, in fact, Jews who believed that the Messiah had come. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 826 CHAPTEE XHL The Last Supper is represented as having taken place on Wednesday the 12th Nisam, or April 1, in the evening, according to the synoptical gospels. We shall see, however, that tlie festival of the resurrection was formerly on March 25. As early as the year a.d. 57, we find the Eucharist an old institution, and fcdl of abuses (1 Cor. xiซ 17, et sqq.). At a later period it was celebrated on Sunday (Acts xx. 7 ; Pliny, Epist. x. 97 ; Justin, Apol. i. 67), in the evening (Acts XX. 11). At a still later period it was celebrated in the morning (Plin. ib.). The agony of Jesus at Gethsemane consists in Mark of a prayer that the " cup '^ might be taken from him — in other words, that he might not be crucified, and, consequently, that this (supposed) expiatory sacrifice might not be accomplished. And he tells Peter that " the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.^* This is already sufficiently improbable con- duct for the Son of God, but Luke adds to it by informing xis that ^^ an angel appeared imto him from heaven, strengthen- ing him," and that a bloody sweat accompanied his earnest prayer. This alone would settle the question as to Matthew and John being the authors of the gospels attributed to them, for Matthew was in the garden at the time, and says nothing about the angel, and John was one of the three disciples who were near to Jesus, and he is equally silent on the subject. If it is said that they were overcome with sleep, how did Luke learn that such an appearance took place 9 Again, a bloody sweat is one of the rarest of phenomena, and is only a symptom of particular diseases. It can oul^ be regarded in this place as a poetical expression or a mythical insertion. It is impossible also to regard the account of what passed in the garden of Gethsemane as historical, for it assumes that Jesus was divinely forewarned of what was going to happen to him, which is impossible, for if it had 826 MANKIND: THEIR been so, he could not have made use of false explanations of prophecies. Luke's statement of the conduct of Jesus at this time is quite irreconcilable with the meek and humble character usually attributed to him, for he tells his disciples to provide themselves with swords (Luke xxii. 36). "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." In the next verse he is satisfied because they had two swords, and in verse 50 one of them is used to cut off the right ear of the servant of the high-priest. Thus it is represented that armed resistance to a Divine decree was actually made. The arrest of Jesus in the three first gospels is hopelessly irreconcilable with the account of it in the fourth. In Mark and Matthew and Luke, Judas is represented as kissing him, and thus designating which he was. In the fourth gospel Jesus gives himself up ; and as soon as he said, " I am he," the whole of the men and ofl&cers fell to the ground (John xviii. 4-6). Matthew adds the account of "one of them that stood by " cutting oflf the ear of a servant of the high-priest ; John says it was Simon Peter, and that the servant's name was Malchus ; and Luke adds the miracle that Jesus healed him by touching his ear, which, however, does not seem to have surprised anyone. Jesus is then represented as being taken before the Roman governor on a charge of representing himself to be the king of the Jews, for they well knew that no Boman governor would interfere in any religious questions, imiversal toleration being the rule. All that Jesus is represented to have said in answer to the high-priest's question (Mark xiv. 64) is, " Thou hast said " (the correct reading, as in Matt. xxvi. 64) ; and we have seen that the passage in which he is represented as acknowledging to Pilate that he was the king of the Jews (Mark xv. 2) is a later interpolation, which contradicts verse 5, which should run, " But Jesus answered nothing." We have no longer the authority of any of the Apostles for the transactions which follow, for the last two chapters of Luke are a later addition ; and, besides, we are now engaged with the earliest, and therefore most authentic account, that of Mark (if that gospel is written by him), who was a native of Jerusalem (Acts xii. 12), and would not have failed to support his narrative by such authority if he could have done so. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 827 The procurator Pontius, to whom the Jews had now delivered Jesiis bound, was sumamed Pilate, on account of the pilum or javelin of honour which he or one of his ancestors had been decorated with. All his acts which are known to us show him to have been an able governor. He had been compelled to act with severity towards the Jews, who were violently opposed to all change, especially as to what related to Roman buildings, even to those of the greatest utility. Two votive escutcheons, with inscriptions, which Pilate had caused to be set up at his palace, which was near the temple, were the cause of a violent outbreak. Worse than this, however, he had erected a statue of Caesar in the temple ; and although St. Jerome considers that Matt. xxiv. 15, may refer to the statue of Hadrian, yet it is more probable that it refers to the act of Pilate than to an event which would make the text of so late a date. His words are (" Comment on Matt, xxiv. 15," vol. iii. p. 720, ed. Paris, 1609) : "Potest autem simpliciter aut de Antichristo accipi, aut de imagine Caesaris quam Pilatus posuit in templo, aut de Hiidriani equestri 8tatu4 quae in ipso sancto sanctorum loco usque inpraesentem diem statuit." The bloody work mentioned in Luke xiii. 1 — '* There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood PUate had mingled with their sacrifices" — is not, however, mentioned by any Greek or Soman historian. Pilate was a pagan and a sacrificer him- self, and would never have considered idolatry a crime in anyone. The narrative of the denial of Peter (Mark xiv. 66-72) is hopelessly in-econcilable with that in the fourth gospel. In the latter Peter is brought into the palace by John, and there are only two denials by Peter. The scene is also laid in the palace of Annas, while Mark speaks of it as taking place in the palace of Caiaphas. The damsel in John keeps the door ; in Mark she is a servant of the high-priest. Peter is standing at the fire in John ; in Mark he is sitting. In Mark, Peter curses and swears ; in John he says nothing. The prediction of Jesus, Mark xiv. 30, and its exact accomplish- ment, show that this narrative is unhistorical. We are now informed, on the authority of the evangelists only, of a custom which existed of releasing a prisoner to the Jews, whomsoever they desired, at the feast of the Passover. This custom existed among the Romans and 328 MANKIND : THEIR Athenians^ on the occasion of certain great festiyals, "but Pilate would neyer have done so on the occasion of a Jewish festival. We may here notice the extraordinary rapidity with which, according to the received account, the trial and condemnation of Jesus took place — all in about twenty-four hours. In Mark viii. 31, Jesus teaches his disciples that he must rise again ^* after three days " (ftera rpsh ^/jJpas), which agrees with Matt, xxvii. 63, " Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again." In Matt. xii. 39, 40, xvi. 1-4, and Luke xi. 29, 30, however, he says that he must be " three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." This, therefore, was Christ's own prophecy. The facts, as stated by the evangelists, are as follows : — Jesus was alive on the cross at the ninth hour of the Jewish Saturday, or three o'clock in the afternoon of our Friday (Mark XV. 34 ; Matt, xxvii. 46), and died shortly afterwards (Mark XV. 37 ; Matt, xxvii. 50 ; Luke xxiii. 46). Joseph of Aiima- thsea went to Pilate to ask permission to cut down the body and prepare it for burial, " when even " was come, i.e. about six o'clock (Mark xv. 42 ; Matt, xxvii. 57 ; Luke xxiii. 54; John xix. 31, 42). Some time elapsed, however, before he obtained permission, for Pilate had to send a centurion to see whether Jesus was really dead. When permission was at last obtained, some time was required to prepare the body for burial (according to John xix. 40), so that it could not have been buried earlier than ten o'clock that night. This was against the law, however, for it was unlawful to allow the bodies of malefactors to remain all night upon the tree, or to bury them on the Sabbath. Being, however, en- tombed after the commencement of the Sabbath, he was found to have risen — according to Mark, very early in the morning of the next day ; according to Matthew, in the end of the same Sabbath, when it drew towards the next day ; according to Luke, on the first day of the week, very early ; and according to John, on the first day of the week, while it was yet dark. Mark informs us that certain women came to the sepulchre " very early in the morning of the first day of the week " (chap. xvi. 2) ; and Matthew says (chap, xxviii. 1), that they came "in the end of the Sabbath,'* and found that he had risen. Accordingly, we may conclude. ORIGIN AND DESTINT. 82ft according to Matthew, that he rose on the very same day he was buried ; and, according to Mark, that he rose in a yery few hours. Thus, according to the one, he was not in the tomb twenty-four hours ; according to the other, about thirty hours ; and in either case he is represented as having falsified his own prediction. Strange to say, the prisoner whose release the Jews de- manded, at the instigation of the priests, was also called Jesus, though that name has disappeared from most of the MS8., and was sumamed Bapa/S^d? — that is, " Son of the Father,*' or Bar-abban. He lay bound with those that had joined him in the insurrection, during which he had com- mitted murder. Now Tacitus (Ann. xv. 44, supposing that passage to be genuine) represents the death of Jesus as a political execution on the part of Pontius Pilate. It is possible that Jesus Barabbas was really executed at this time. The circumstances which follow the trial and condemna- tion of Jesus — the purple robe, the crown of thorns &c. — could never have disgraced the judicial administration of a Boman magistrate. Our doubts as to the accuracy of the whole account become strengthened when we find a totally diflferent representation of them in Luke, taken fix)m some diflferent source or tradition. There Jesus is repre- sented as admitting to Pilate that he was the king of the Jews, which had, as might be expected, no influence at all upon Pilate's mind, who said to the chief priests and to the people, " I find no fault in this man.'* He then sends him to Herod, and it is Herod who " set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe." In Matthew, as we have seen, the purple robe is changed into a scarlet one, which would have no meaning at all; and the reed with which (Mark xv. 19) the soldiers " smote him on the head '' is turned (Matt, xxvii. 29) into a reed which they placed in his right hand, and the words have been unskilfully inserted. The opinion of Basilides prevailed most among the Jews, and caused immense numbers of them to become his followers. Basilides is said to have been one of the dis- ciples of Peter, and to have lived at the same time as Christ is said to have done. He taught that Christ was not crucified, that a substitution took place, that Simon 830 MANKIND : THEIR of Cyrene was crucified in his stead, and that Christ had thus made a jest of the Jews and their mistake. (See " Pearson on the Creed," vol. ii. p. 269.) It is also said that the Apostles held that it was merely a phantom that was crucified, which caused Coterius to say (Patres Apostol. ii. p. 24), " Apostolis adhuc in seculo superstitibus apud Judeeam Christi sanguine recente et phantabma corpus Domini asserebatur." (Conf. Luke ix. 18, 19, 20, xxiv. 31, and Mark ix; 2.) The same vagueness and uncertainty is apparent in the events which attended the crucifixion. It seems to have been felt that there were no witnesses of it except the passers- by and some women looking on " afar off." Accordingly, in Luke it is said that " a great company of people " followed him, " and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him," Simon bearing the cross " after Jesus ; " and Jesus is represented (Luke xxiii. 28-31) as uttering words to them which cannot have been written until after the siege of Jerusalem. Verse 30 is taken from Hosea x. 8, and refers to the destruction of the high-places of Aven — and cannot pos- sibly refer to Jerusalem in her latter days. The second Mark has endeavoured to identify Simon by calling him " the father of Alexander and Eufus ; " but if this had been the case, the first Mark and Matthew would surely have mentioned it. One of the Christian sects held that a Simon was crucified instead of Christ, because if Christ were an incarnate God, he could not die. It was a Simon Magus {magon in Phoenician means a priest or wise man) who bewitched the people of Samaria. We are astonished, after the express declaration that Simon carried his cross (which was formed of two beams bound together in the form of a T, and so low that the feet of the criminal nearly touched the ground), to find Peter and the other apostles (Acts v. 29) speaking of Jesus as being slain, and hanged on a tree. This is repeated in Acts X. 39 ; and in chap. xiii. 29, it is the JewSy not Joseph of Arimathsea, who took him down fi'om the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. The fourth gospel contradicts the other three on this point, for it distinctly states (John xix. 17), " And he, bearing his cross," &c., or, according to the Cod. Sin., " And he, bearing the cross by himself, went forth," &c. Luke (chap, xxiii. 49) informs us, in contradiction to Mark ORIGIN A^^) DESTINY. 831 and Matthew, that ^^ all his acquaintance " {irdmes oi yvwarol avTov) " stood afar off/' This would include all the Apostles ; but the fourth gospel contradicts this, by stating that John alone was present, together with Mary the wife of Cleo- phas, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Jesus, instead of Mary the mother of James and of Joses, and Salome ; and, as if to complete the confusion, it contradicts all the three other gospels by saying that they were not *' afar off," but " by the cross." The cross was at that time a Eoman punishment, reserved for slaves and for cases where the aggravation of ignominy was intended to be added to that of death. According to the Jewish law, Jesus would have been stoned (Joseph. Ant. XX. ix- 1). The Talmud, which represents his death as having been entirely the result of fanaticism, states that he was condemned to be stoned, and afterwards that he was hanged — the very expression used in the Acts. It was often the case tbat men were hung after being stoned. See Misch- na. Sanhedrim, vi. 4. Conf. Deut. xxi. 22, 23: "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and thou hang htm on a trce^ his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in anywise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God) ; that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God hath given thee for an inheritance." (See Talm. of Jerusalem, Sanhedrim, xiv. 16 ; Talm. of Bab. ib. 4Sa, 67a.) The punishment of the cross was a suitable one for murderers and robbers, but was scarcely applicable to a man of blameless life, in whom the Eoman governor could see no fault. Death by the sword would have been his punishment, rather than the ignominious ] death of a highwayman, for crucifixion was reserved for criminals of the latter description. It is no wonder that Paul (1 Cor. i. 23) calls a crucified Christ "unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness " [sic in Cod. Sin.] . The exact spot where Golgotha was situated is uncertain, but it was cer-. tainly to the north or north-west of Jerusalem, and may have been connected with the hill Gareb, and the locality Goath, mentioned in Jer. xxxi. 39. Mark next states that when they arrived at the place of execution, they offered Jesus wine mingled with myrrh, which was an intoxicating beverage intended to allay pain, which dd2 MANKIND : THEIR the ladies of Jerusalem ofben brought themselyes to the con- demned persons, in order to stupefy them. When none of them came, it was bought out of the public money. Matthew has altered this beverage to " vinegar mingled with gall,*' because in Psalm Ixix. 21, it is said, ^^ They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink, which he wished to represent as a fulfilment of prophecy. In John xix. 29, we have a sponge filled with vinegar only, and put upon hyssop, which latter is suspected to be derived from Exodus xii. 22. In Luke xxiii. 36, they offer vinegar only. Nothing is said of this drink being offered to those who were crucified with him, the object being, apparently, to stow that Jesus was above receiving such aid. The criminals were then stripped, and the Roman soldiers, who were the executioners, and who usually kept such of the clothes (pannicularia) of the condemned as were of little value (Dig. XLVII. XX., De Bonis Damnat., 6 — a custom which was limited by Adrian), cast lots for his garments. John (chap. xix. 24) alters the passage by representing the soldiers as casting lots " for " instead of " upon " the vesture, which he also represents as a single garment (x*t<ปi')5 because it was " without seam " {appa(f>os)y and "woven from the top through- out ^* {v(l>ainos 8t' i\ov). This was no doubt inserted to make Jesus appear as an high-priest, for the dress of the Jewish high-priest was made in this fashion (Joseph. Ant. III. vii. 4). " The high-priest indeed is adorned with the same garments that we have described, without abating one ; only over these he puts a vesture of a blue colour. . . Now this vesture was not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders and the sides, but it was one long vestment so woven as to leave an aperture for the neck.'^ At nine o'clock in the morning, according to Matthew, but at mid- day according to Mark, Luke, and John, the cross was erected. The criminal was fastened to it by driving nails through the hands; the feet were frequently nailed, but sometimes only bound with ropes. A piece of wood, a sort of horn, was attached to the shaft of the cross, and passed be- tween the legs of the criminal, who rested on it. Without this aid, the hands would have been torn, and the body would have sunk down. At other times a horizontal piece of wood was fixed where the feet came, and supported them. Accord- ing to Mark, two robbers were executed with him, but, unable ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 333 to agree in almost any particular, Matthew represents that their execution took place afterwards {tots). In the gospel of Nicodemus these robbers are called Gestas and Demas. It was customary to place over the cross an inscription stating the crime for which the criminal suflFered. Mark says that on this occasion the "superscription of the accusation '* which was written over was, " ' O fiaatXeifs r&v 'lou&wW,*^ " The king of the Jews; ^' and we find elsewhere that this superscription is said to have been written by Pilate himself, who, however, had not found Jesus guilty on that account, but is represented (Mark xv. 35) as giving him up in order " to content the people/' How is it possible, then, to suppose that he should have written an accusation of a crime of which he had not found the accused guilty ? In Matthew this is all altered, and it is the soldiers who set up over his head an accusation quite differently worded — "05to9 i<;es of a made-up narration. Mark xv. 29, *' And they that passed by," &c., is taken f5rom Psalm xxii. 7, which is in the LXX, irdvTsv ol OBeopovirrh fjus i^efivtcT'qpuTav /is, iKdXrja-av iv ')^sCKsa\i]V. In verse 31, the high-priests are represented as mocking. This is a gross blunder, for there was but one high-priest among the Jews, and it is evident that the author knew the difference between priests and high-priests from chap. ii. 26, where Upevai is correctly used for " priests." At three o'clock in the afternoon Jesus, according to Mark and Matthew, " cried with a loud voice," saying, " Eloi, Eloi, 334 MANKIND : THEIR lama sabaclithani ? " according to Mark, but " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ? '* according to Matthew. Neither Lnke nor John mention these words, which is very remarkable. There can be little donbt that they were intentionally omitted by Lnke, for he mentions (chap, xxiii. 46) that " Jesus cried with a loud voice ; " and he inserts the words, " Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," from Psalm xxzi. 5. The disciples had all fled. There were only present Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome, with many other women ; but in Matthew, Salome is changed into the mother of Zebedee's children, though many suppose the two to have been identical. In the Cod. Sin. the passage runs : " Among whom was Mary the mother of James and the Mary of Joseph and the Mary of the sons of Zebedee." Jesus is represented as hanging three hours on the cross, and he was to rise again in- three days. The shortness of the time, however, gave rise to many doubts as to the reality of his death. A few hours of hanging on the cross appeared to persons who were in the habit of witnessing crucifixions quite inadequate to produce such a result. Many cases were cited of crucified persons who, after being taken down sufficiently soon had been recalled to life by energetic remedies. Josephus (Vita, 75) says : " Having been sent by Titus Csesar with Cerealis and a thousand horsemen to a certain village called Theroa, to examine whether the place was capable of being fortified, I saw, as I came back, several prisoners crucified; and having recognised three with whom I had been acquainted, I was distressed at it, and I told Titus of it, weeping. He immediately ordered them to be taken down, and that all possible care should be taken of them. Two died, notwithstanding the treatment, but the third survived.'' (See also Herod, vii. 194.) Persons of strong constitution were able to sleep on the cross, and only died of hunger (Euseb. Hist. EccL viiL 8). Origen (In Matt. Comment.) was obliged to call in the aid of a miracle to account for it. Mark says that Pilate *^ marvelled," and asked the centurion if he had been any while dead. Mark also states that after Jesus had given up the ghost, the veil of the temple was rent in twain. It is very remarkable that no allusion is made to this event ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 336 in any other portion of the New Testament, and we mnst suppose it to be merely a symbolical expression. According to the Roman custom, the body of Jesus should have remained on the cross to become the prey of birds. According to the Jewish law, it should have been taken away in the evening, and buried in the place destined for them who had died an infamous death. Neither of these des- tinies awaited the corpse of Jesus, according to the evange- lists. We should have expected that some of the apostles would have claimed the corpse, as the Roman law at this time ordered that the body of the criminal should be given up to whoever asked for it (Dig, XL VIII. xxiv., De Cadaveribus Punitorum). Nothing is more remarkable than the absence of all the apostles and disciples on this occasion. It was necessary, however, to establish that Jesus had been in a tomb three days. Accordingly, we are told that Joseph, of the small town of Arimathsea {Haramathaim)^ probably the same as the ancient Rama), a member of the Sanhedrim, " went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.'* We are also told that he " waited for the kingdom of God,'* which in Matthew is amplified into ^' was also himself Jesus' disciple." In Matthew, Joseph becomes " a rich man of Arimathsea,'* in order to agree with Isaiah liii. 9, where the supposed prophecy states that " he made his grave . . . with the rich in his death." But the same passage states also that he made his grave " with the wicked," which Joseph, as a disciple of Jesus, could not be, and there was no other person likely to occupy the tomb. In John xix. 38, he no longer appears as a Jew and member of the Sanhedrim, but as a disciple of Jesus, who is afraid of the Jews ; and a new person, of whom there is no mention in Matthew or Mark — Nicodemus — assists Joseph to wrap the body in linen and lay it in the sepulchre. Moreover, Nicodemus brings a hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes, and winds up the body of Jesus in linen clothes with the spices (John xix. 39, 40). Yet Mark and Luke represent the women, who had seen " how his body was laid," as returning and preparing spices and ointments, when the body had already been embalmed, " as the manner of the Jews is to bury." In the Acts, the burial of Jesus is mentioned as a reproach to the Jews by no less a person 330 MAiVKIIH) : THEIR tlian Paul himself. He says that "they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him noty nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sahbath day . . . took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre " (fivrjfielovy the word used by Mark, Luke, and John). Luke says that Joseph had not consented to the counsel and deed of the others ; but these two chapters are not by the author of the Acts, and this parenthesis has been in- serted to make the story more probable. It is of course possible, though highly improbable, that a member of the Sanhedrim may have secretly held the belief that Jesus was the Messiah; but what increases the improbability of the whole story is the different mode in which his action is represented and viewed. In Mark he goes in " boldly ; " in Matthew and Luke he merely goes to Pilate ; in John he goes " secretly, for fear of the Jews ; " and in the Acts he is one of the " rulers " who did not know Jesus. It is said that a Protestant missionary. Dr. Buchanan, discovered the whole story represented on the walls of the temple of Jugger- nauth. Joseph laid the body of Jesus in a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, which in Matthew is converted into " his own new tomb," and in Luke is " a sepulchre hewn out of stone, wherein never man before was laid." In John, however, the statement is that he was buried where he was crucified — that is, in Golgotha — where there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, and not a word is said about its being hewn out of a rock. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 4) merely says that he was buried and rose again, and never mentions the women, or the angel, or the earthquake, or any one of the incidents enumerated by the evangelists. Maiy of Magdala and Mary the mother of James. saw where the corpse was laid. The next day being the Sabbath, nothing could be done ; but very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre — " at the rising of the sun," according to Mark ; " as it began to dawn," according to Matthew ; and " when it was yet dark," accord- ing to John. According to Mark, as they were going away from the tomb (this is probably the correct reading ; see ante)y they saw " a young man," clothed in a long white garment, sitting on the right side, " and they were affirighted," and in consequence told no one what they had seen (Mark xvi. 8). In Matthew this " young man " has become " the angel of ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 337 the Lord," who descended from heaven, a great earthquake accompanjiug his descent, and rolled back the stone from the door of the tomb and sat upon it ; and he expressly orders the women to "go quickly and teU his disciples," &c. (Matt, xxviii. 7). In Luke the women who came with Jesus fix>m Galilee come unto the sepulchre, bringing with them spices which they had prepared, "and certain others with them ; " but this seems to be a later addition (these words are wanting in the Cod. Sin. and Vat. MS.), to increase the num- ber of witnesses. We find now, however, no earthquake, no angel descending from heaven and rolling back the stone, and sitting upon it, but in his place " two men in shining gar- ments," who tell them, " Bemember how he spake unto you while he was yet in Galilee, saying. The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again ; " and the women now, of th^ir ovm accordj "returned from the sepulchre, and told all those things unto the Eleven, and to all the rest !" (Luke xxiv. 9.) But in Luke ix. 22, the disciples alone are addressed, and they are " straitly charged to tell no man that thing ; " and in chap, xviii. 31, et sqq. the Twelve alone are addressed, and we are told that " they understood none of these things." It was in consequence of this error, probably, that the words " certain others with them " were inserted, though, as it is stated that they were aU women (Luke xxiv. 10), the inser- tion does not mend the matter. In this gospel, we have for the first time the mention of Peter as a witness. Now as Peter and Mark were well acquainted, and even perhaps related to one another, it is utterly inconceivable that he should have omitted to tell him so important a piece of evidence as his own visit and that of other disciples (Luke xxiv. 24) to the sepulchre, or that Mark should have omitted to insert it if he had done so. St. Paul knows nothing (1 Cor. XV. 3-5) of this visit to the sepulchre. In John's gospel, the tradition is much altered and added to. It is now Joseph of Arimathsea and Nicodemus, not the women, as in Mark xvi. 1, and Luke xxiii. 66, who bring the spices, about a hundred pound weight, and lay the body in the tomb with them. It is Mary of Magdala alone who comes and sees the stone taken away (there is no mention of an earthquake, nor of the descent of an angel), and who then runs and finds, not " the Apostles," but Simon Peter, and z 338 MANKIND : THEIR John, who outruns Peter, and is consequently the first wit- ness of the empty state of the tomb. Notwithstanding the express declarations of the other evangelists, we are told that neither Peter nor John knew that he was to be raised the third day. Satisfied with what they had seen, they went away, not, as it woijd have been natural they should do, to communicate so marvellous an event to the other apostles, but " unto their own home.** It is no wonder that Bishop Marsh is obliged to confess that after all his attempts to reconcile the contradiction of St. John's account of the resurrection of Christ with that of Mark and Luke, " he has not been able to do it in a manner satisfactory to himself, or to any other impartial enquirer into truth." Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping, and looking in saw two angels in white, sitting, this time, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body had lain. Thus first one angel appears to one group of women, then two angels appear to another group, and afterwards these two angels conceal themselves from the apostles, but after their departure show themselves to Mary Magdalene, who is, how- ever, not the least surprised at this occurrence, but calmly answers their question, " Woman, why weepest thou ? " Jesus then appears to her ; she salutes him as Babboni, and would have touched him, but Jesus warns her not to do so, because he had not yet ascended to the Father {sic in Cod. Sin. and Vat. MS., and the latter part of this verse shows that this must be the correct reading), though some verses later he is represented as allowing Thomas to do so. In the added verses of Mark xvi. nothing is said of Jesus appearing to her at the tomb ; it is merely stated that he appeared first to her out of whom he had cast seven devils — a circumstance which is only mentioned in Luke viii. 2, and therefore shows the later date of this portion of Mark — and that she went and told those who had been with him, who did not believe her. IrenflBus was bishop of Lyons. He wrote about a.d. 182. He was one of the first Fatiiers of the Church who suffered martyrdom, and generally accounted one of its most eminent and illustrious early writers. He was an Asiatic, but was sent as bishop to Gaul, and founded or built a church in that coun- try. With reference to his opinion respecting Christ's death and resurrection, which is given below, we may observe that ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 339 lie was a person in many respects of extreme credulity (as lie states that he had seen the statue of Lot's wife, for instance), though not more so than Augustine, the glory of Afidca, who says he saw men in Ethiopia without heads, and also with one eye in their foreheads. The passage occurs in his thirty-third sermon, and is as follows : " I was already Bishop of Hippo, when I went into Ethiopia, with some ser- vants of Christ, there to preach the Gospel. In this country we saw many men and women without heads, who had two great eyes in tiieir breasts ; and in countries stiU more southerly, we saw a people who had but one eye in their foreheads." This holy and veracious Father also says he was an eye- vntness of several resurrections of the dead ; and if we believe the one, we cannot refuse credit to the other statement. TVhen such a man as Irenceus accuses the evangelists of forgery, we may be sure that the case is a very bad one indeed. The passage is a portion of lib. 11, chap, xxxix. of Dr. Grabe's IrenffiUB, which is entitled, ^^ A demonstration that the Lord preached after his baptism, not merely for one year, but that he employed in preaching the whole term of his life." And it contains the following passage : — " For he came to save all through himself — aU, I say, who through him are bom to God — infants, little children, boys, youths, and old people. Therefore he preached in every stage of life, and made an infant with infants, sanctifying infiEuits ; a child among children, sanctifying those of the same age as himself, and at the same time supplying an example to them of piety, of justice, and of submission ; a youth among youths, becoming an example to youths, and sanctifying them to the Lord. So also, an elder among elders, that the teacher might be perfect in all things, not only according to the exposition (law or rule) of truth, but also according to the period of life ; and sanctifying at the same time the elders, becoming an example even to them. After that he came to death, that he might be the first-bom from the dead, he himself having pre-eminence in all things, the prince of life, above all, and excelling all. But to establish their ovm forgery^ that it is written of him, to call (it?) the acceptable year of the Lordy they say against themselves that he preached (during) one year (oiily?), and suffered on the twelfth month (of it?). They have forgotten — giving up E 2 840 MANKIND: THEIR every (important ?) affair of his, and taking away the more np- cessary, the more honourable, and, I say, that advanced period of his, in which, teaching diligently, he presided over all. For how did he obtain disciples if he did not teach ? And how did he teach — not having attained the age of a master (or doctor) P For he came to baptism who had not yet completed thirty years of age (for thus Luke, who indicates his years, lays it down, and Jesus was, as it were, entering on thirty years when he came to baptism) ; and afiber (his ?) baptism he preached only one year — on completing his thirtieth year he suffered (death), being as yet only a young man, who had not attained maturity. But as the chief part of thirty years belongs to youth (or, as a person of thirty may be considered a young man ?), and everyone will confess him to be such till the fortieth year ; but from the fortieth to the fiftieth year he declines into old age, which our Lord having attained he taught^ ^ as the gospel and all the elders who in Asia assembled with John the disciple of the Lord testify^ and (as) John himself had taught them. And h^ (John ?) remained with them till the time of Trajan. And some of them saw not only John, but other apostles, and heard the same things from them, and bear the same testi- mony to this revelation.' " ^' Kal irdvTes oi irpsa^xnspoi, fuxprvpovciv^ ot Kara r^v ^Aalav ^Iwdvij) To> Toi) Kvpiov fiadrirfj avfifiefiki^Kores (ita Eusebius loco citato et Nicephorus, 1. III. chap, ii., sed in Georgii SinceUi Chronographia, p. 345, edit. Paris, 1662, excuderunt avfi^s^Xi]KQT69y et ne quid vanitatis dicit, in margini posuerunt avfi^€^uofcoT6s)y irapaSaSoytcipoi ravra rov ^Iwai^mjv • irapefieLvs yhp avrots f^B^pl t&v Tpacdvov 'xpovtov, Quidam autem eorum non solum Joannem, sed et alios Apostolos viderunt, et hsec eadem ab ipsis audierunt, et testantur de hujusmodi relatione." Here we have Jesus called the first-born from the dead, the very expression used in Coloss. i. 18, and showing in what way it was then understood. The orthodox were not the only persons who disputed the age of Christ. Some insisted that he lived thirty, thirty-three, forty, and others nearly but not quite fifty years. Stephanus Gobarus has collected many of these notions in the extracts made of his works by Photius. The doctrine of a crucified Christ, was, according to St. ORIGIX AND DESTIX1\ 341 Paul, '^tinto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness," thus showing that even in his time Christians were not agreed respecting the crucifixion. It was a stumbling-block because there is no prediction what- ever of a crucified Messiah in the Old Testament. Dan. ix. 26, really refers to the Eomans establishing an aristocracy in place of the monarchy; and Zach. xii. 10, belongs apparently to the reign of Jehoahaz, and refers to the conquest of Jerusalem by some nation which is not mentioned, and speaks of the great mourning in the city for one who lamented as an only son, who seems to be King Josiah. Ezek. xxxvi. 25, and xxxvii. 23, written durinn: the Cap- tivity, refer to the deliverance of the Jewish people from the idolatrous nations which surrounded them, and strike at the root of the idea of vicarious sacrifice by declaring that every man is to be punished for his own sins only. Josephus does not say a word respecting the Messianic hopes of his countrymen ; and Philo, who does speak of a hero similar to the Messiah, says not a word of his crucifixion or death.* Isa. liii. is by an unknown author who wrote after the return from the Captivity, and refers to the writer himself. All the passages in the New Testament which refer to the accomplishment of prophecy (Acts iii. 18, viii. 35, xxvi. 22, et sqq. ; 1 Cor. XV. 3 ; 1 Pet. i. 11, et sqq.) were written after the event, and are consequently valueless. Origen states (Adv. Celsum, i. 55) that a wise man among the Jews (\&y6fi2vos irapd *lovSaloi9 a6os) replied to his Christian interpretation of Isa. Iii. 13 — liii. 12, that "that prophecy was made respecting the whole people, which had been dispersed among the nations, and struck down, and that it was inserted in order that many proselytes might be made." The Talmud gives a totally different description of the death of Jesus from that in the gospels, and one much more consistent with the customs of the Jews. In the gospels Judas is represented as being paid for recognising Jesus and point- ing him out to the chief priests. But how can we admit that a man who had just made a triumphal entry into the city, followed by the acclamation of the whole people, was only eight days afterwards so unknown to the magistrates that they were obliged to bribe a disciple to inform them which he was ? 342 MANKIND : THEIR According to the law of Moses, no one could be condemned without two paid witnesses. But when sacred teaching was in question, the Talmud says that it is permitted to con- ceal two witnesses behind tapestry, or a screen, where they can see and hear everything, and to make the accused person speak. " And this,'* says the writer, " is what they did with Jesus. Judas had placed two witnesses in concealment, and then asked Jesus ^ Is it not thou who art the Son of (xod 9 * and Jesus having answered, * Yes,' the witnesses came forth from their hiding-place and accused him.*' The Talmud adds : " They hung Jesus the day before the Passover. (The Jews used to stone a criminal before hanging, and made him drunk.) But forty days before the execution, the crier cried every day, * Jesus is condemned to be stoned for having bewitched, turned aside, and raised up Israel. If anyone knows how to defend him, let him come and defend him ! ' No one came. So they hung him the day before Pasach." The above is written in the Hebrew spoken at the time Jesus lived. As to the forty days crying through the tovm, no evangelist speaks of it. It may be observed that this account, whether true or not, agrees verbatim with that in Acts V. 30, " The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye (the Jews) slew and hanged on a tree," and with chap. x. 89, where the same expression is used. We have already seen that the Rabbis were far fix)m wish- ing to discredit the miracles of Jesus. It would seem from the above that they were equally anxious to establish his having died by an ignominious death. The whole, however, is unhistorical, for the Jews, being subject to the Romans, had no longer the power of pronouncing judgment in capital cases, and consequently could not condemn Jesus to be guilty of death (Mark xiv. 64). Their powers were limited to the punishment of heretics by the synagogues, which consisted of corporal punishments usually inflicted by the hazzan, 'TTrrjpirn^j or apparitor (Luke iv. 29), who belonged to each synagogue. They had also messengers ('ATroo-roXoi, or 0775X0*), of whom Paul was probably one, who carried on the communication between one synagogue and the other. Examples of the pimishments inflicted by them are to be found in Matt. v. 25, x. 17, xxiii. 34 ; Mark xiii. 9 ; Luke xii. 11, xxi. 12 ; Acts xxii. 19, xxvi. 11 ; 2 Cor. xi. 24, in none of which cases is there any ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 843 mention of capital punisliment, though death sometimes resulted from stoning, to which Paul himself was subjected. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told for the first time that Jesus was seen of the Apostles " forty *' days, and that he told them that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence, which contradicts Mark i. 8, in which John tells the multitude that Jesus himself would baptize them with the Holy Ghost. The gospel of Matthew is the first which mentions the appearance of Jesus after the crucifixion, and states it to have taken place on a mountain in Galilee. In Luke it takes place at Emmaus, and the ascension takes place at Bethany. The concluding verses of Mark do not specify any place, nor any witnesses of the resurrection. In the Acts the ascension is represented as taking place from " the mount called Olivet," and we have now a development of the tradition — Jesus is taken up, a cloud receives him out of their sight, and two men in white apparel stand by them as they look toward heaven as he went up. Paul, however (1 Cor. XV. 5, 6), renders this impossible by distinctly stating that after he had been seen of Cephas, then of the Twelve (not the Eleven), he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, afterwards of James, then of aU the apostles, and lastly by himself, and does not mention a visible resurrection at all. One of the evangelical books which is now considered ai)Ocryphal, but which was formerly one of the canonical books, the "Acts of the Apostles, or Travels of the Apostles Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul,'* says that Christ never really showed himself; that he had merely apx)eared to his disciples in difierent human shapes ; that at one time he appeared as an old man, at another time as a young man, sometimes tall, sometimes of middle height, sometimes very tall, sometimes surrounded by light, and sometimes entirely enveloped by a cloud. The account of the Ascension is imitated from the tra- ditional account of the disappearance of Moses, which is thus given by Josephus (Ant. IV. viii. 48) * " Now, as soon as they (i.e. the Senate, Eleazar the high-priest, and Joshua) were come unto the mountain called Abarira (which is a very high moimtain, situate over against Jericho, and one that aiBFords, to such as are upon it, a prospect of the greatest 344 MANKIND : THEIR part of the excellent land of Canaan), lie dismissed the Senate ; and as he was going to embrace Eleazar and Joshua, and was still discoursing with them, a cloud stood over him on the sudden, and he disappeared in a certain valley, although he wrote in the holy books that he died, which was done out of fear, lest they should venture to say that because of his extraordinary virtue he went to God/' After the ascension had taken place, the Eleven and about a hundred and twenty disciples being assembled in an upper room, Peter stands up and delivers a speech about Judas, which he says was prophesied about by the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David. The only passage in the Psalms which can be made in any way to refer to this is Ps. xli. 9 ; but why is not verse 8 equally prophetic, " An evil disease, say theyy cleaveth unto him," &c. P Judas of Kerioth, respecting whose fate we are left in ignorance in Mark, and who in Matt, xxvii. 3-5, brought back and threw down the thirty pieces of silver in the temple, and went and hanged himself, now appears as having purchased a field called Aceldama, and, instead of hanging himself, as falling headlong, and bursting asunder in the midst. This it is attempted to be shown was prophesied in the Psalms, and for that purpose two passages are taken from two different psalms and joined together. These passages in the original Hebrew run as follows : " Let their palace be desolate, and let there not be a dweller in their tents, and let another take his office," Ps. Ixix. 25, and cix. 8, which has been altered into " Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein." It has been observed that the Judas of the gospels and the Judas of the Acts are quite different personages : thus — The Judas of the gospels Repented ; Heturned the money to the chief priests and elders ; Cast it down in the temple, and de- parted; Died by his own act and will. The Judas of the Acts Did not repent ; Kept the money for his own use ; Bought a field with it ; Died by accident Papias (Frag. 3) gives another and totally different accoimt of the death of Judas. He says : " Judas walked in this world a great example of impiety ; for being swelled so much in flesh that he could not pass through where a cart passed through easily, he was crushed by the cart, so that ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 346 entrails gushed out" (CEcumenii Comment, in Acta Apostolic, chap. ii.). When the feast of Pentecost, or nnyincj'nsn, chaq hdshabaroth, "which came seven weeks, or fifty days, after the Passover was come, the Twelve were all with one accord in one place [the Cod. Sin. reads, " They were together in one place ;" and both the Vatican and Alexandrian MSS. omit " with one accord "], and "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared scattered among them tongues " (this is the correct translation ofxal &4>dr}€d9^ AIHFHSEIS ri tivas /card to bIkos t&v irakai Trpo(f>'qTa)v ipfirjveuriKds . • • hnaToXai ravra eh(u — that is, that it was his opinion that " the sacred writings used by this sect were none other than our gospels and the writings of the Apostles, and that certain Diegeses, after the manner of allegorical interpretations, were the epistles." St. Epiphanius, speaking of the verbal harmony of the gospels, which he calls their preaching harmoniously and alike (ZvfjL(l)6v(os kcu iaa)9 tcqpv^ai^ Hseres, 51, 6), accounts for it by saying that they were drawn from the same source {otl if avTTis TTJs Trriyrjs &pfii)VTaC), The Gospel to the Hebrews, if not that source, is the most ancient gospel we have ; and as it singularly confirms what has been said respecting the form in which the gospels originally appeared, a short account of its principal deviations from the canonical gospels is subjoined. Papias used this gospel. He says : lAdiOaios fj^v ovv 'EySpatSt SiaXifcr^ rd \oyla avveypdy^aroy ^p/j,fjvsvi]aaTi p,e koX there • on irvevfxa adpKa koX oaria ovK sx^h 'cadoDs ifie decopeire ovk S)(opTa (" Handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see I have not "), which is alone consistent with the expression atpavros eyivero (" he vanished out of their sight ") in verse 31 ; and it is evident that the Marcionites felt no difliculty in the fact that he eat before them. The passage in the fourth gospel (John XX. 27), where Jesus bids Thomas thrust his hand into his side, confirms this, for no body could have endured such a trial. Clemens Alexandrinus quotes a passage from the " Acts, or Journeys of the Apostles," which says that the Apostle John, "attempting to touch the body of Christ, perceived no hardness of the flesh, and met with no resistance, but thrust his hand into the inner part." The Gnostics did not admit the genuineness of the gospels, but they did not deny the authenticity of many parts of them ; and they pointed 374 MANKIND : THEIR to such passages as Jesus passing through the midst of the Jews when they were about to cast him headlong down the brow of a hill (Luke iv. 29, 30), and when they were going to stone him (John viii. 59 ; x. 31, 39), as proofs of his incor- poreal nature. Cerinthus, who was contemporary with the Apostle John and his followers, taught that Christ suffered and was cruci- fied, but that he did not rise from the tomb, but that he wiU rise when there shall be a general resurrection : Xpiarov ttfttok- Bauai Koi eoTavp&aOaif fA^Trco Stryyefidaif fisWelv Be avdoTcurOa^ irav i} KaddKov yevfjTct vexpoap avdarao'if, (Theodoret.) TertuUian, who describes the tenets of Marcion in language too indecent for transcription (Adv. Marcion, 601), has only to say in defence of his own faith : " I find no other means to prove myself to be impudent with success, and happily a fool, than by my contempt of shame ; as, for instance — I maintain that the Son of God died; well, that is wholly credible, BECAUSE IT IS MONSTROUSLY ABSURD — I maintain that after having been buried, he rose again ; and that I take to be absolutely true, because it is manifestly impossible.^' We have seen what was the real belief of Paul and the earliest Christians respecting the nature of the body of Jesus after the resurrection. In 1 Cor. xv. 5, et sqq., he places the pretended appearance of Christ to himself on precisely the same footing as the anterior appearances to " Cephas,'* to the Twelve, to the five hundred brethren, to Janies, and to " all the apostles " (who are therefore different from " the twelve ;" conf Gal. i. 19). There is, however, no mention of any appearance to the women, which shows the later date of this tradition, while the gospels are silent as to the appear- ance to Cephas, to the Twelve (Mark xvi. 14, states that he appeared to the Eleven ; conf. Matt, xxviii. 16; and after Judas had hanged himself there were only eleven left), and to the five hundred. The testimony of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, quoted by St. Jerome (De Viris Illustribus, 2), is decisive as to the nature of James's vision, for it appears from that gospel that it was an eucharistic vision, in which Jesus appeared taking and breaking the bread. It was very common in those times for men to see " visions." We are told on one occasion that there were no less than 400 prophets in Israel (1 Kings xxii. 6) . They even had a distinct name given to them — that of nj.n choza, a " beholder," ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 875 as distinct from ro^A, a" seer," and na&{ and 7ie6iaA,a"niale or female utterer of words." Thus Isaiah says, "In the year that King IJzziah died, Isaw also the Lord sitting upon a throne," &c. (vi. 1-13) ; while Ezekiel, Daniel, and others have visions. Visions of this description were by no means confined to scriptural chai*acters ; the Talmud speaks of a rabbi seeing Jehovah Zebaoth sitting on his throne, as if it were quite an ordinary occurrence. Besides the appearance of Jesus to Paul, we have in 2 Cor. xii. an account of another vision and revelation, which some think took place at Antioch, about the year 57. This vision is given below, according to the Codex Sinaiticus, with an amended translation : — " It is not expedient, indeed, to glory ; but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ who above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell : God knoweth) how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeak- able words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory : yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. But now I forbear even the abundance of the revelations, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me ; for lest I should be exalted above measure, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buflFet me." " The garden," as the word IlapdSeiaop should be trans- lated, is the garden of Eden, which the Jews and Arabians believe to have been taken up, and to be still in heaven. There is a prayer in the Talmud (Treatise Berachoth, sect. 9) in which a rabbi prays that he may be placed in the garden of Eden after death. The word TlapdBsiaov is Persian, "Pairida^za" signifying "an enclosure." It is much to be feared that Paul merited St. Chrysostom's com- mentary on 1 Cor. ix. 19, ** Great is the force of deceit, provided it be not incited by a treacherous intention." The third heaven here spoken of was believed by the Jews at this period to be above the firmament, or solid, though soft and liquid, rock in which the stars were supposed to be set, like precious stones in gold and silver. This is quite different from the account given of the celestial regions in the Bevelations. Before the invention of printing, it was easy for copyists 376 MAJfKIND : THEIR to interpolate authentic writings with alterations and ad- ditions which suited their credulity or cunning, and even to forge writings, which they produced under the name of any writer they pleased. It would be strange, indeed, if the canonical writings of the New Testament had escaped any better than those of the Old, and many of the Fathera rejected books now held to be canonical as altogether spurious. Thus Origen omits the epistles of James and Jude (Comment, in Matt, apud Euseb. Hist. 1. VI. cap. xxv.; Exposit. in Joan, 1. V. apud Euseb. ibid.), thoug^h he owns them both in other parts of his writings; and Eusebius, whose catalogue (Hist. Eccl. 1. HI. cap. Iv. ; conf. ejusdem lib. cap. iii.) is exactly the same with the modem one, says the epistles of James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John, though generally received, were doubted of by some. Besides the canonical writings, there is a body of others which are now called apocryphal because they were rejected at the Council of Nice. Of these, some have come down to us (which are distinguished with an asterisk in the follow- ing list), while the others are only mentioned by name (with occasional extracts) by writers in the lirst four centuries : — Gospels. The Gospel of Andrew. A gospel under the name of ApoUos. The Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles. The Gospel of Barnabas. The Gospel of Bartholomew. The Gospel of Basilides. * The Gospel of the Birth of Mary. The Gospel of Cerinthus. The Gospel of the Ebionites. The Gospel according to the Egyptians. The Gospel of the Encratites. The Gospel of Eve. * The Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ. * Thomas's Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ, The Gospel according to the Hebrews. The false gospels of Hesychius. * The Protevangelion, or Gospel of James the Lesser, Cousin and Brother of the Lord Jesus. A gospel under the name of Judas Iscariot. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 377 A gospel under the name of Jude, The false gospels published by Luciauus. The Gospel of Marcion. The Gospel of Matthias. The Gospel of Merinthus. The Gospel according to the Nazarenes. * The Gospel of Nicodemus. The Gospel of Perfection. The Gospel of Peter. The Gospel of Philip. The Gospel of Scythianus. The Gospel of Thaddseus. The Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Titan. The Gospel of Truth, made use of by the Yalentinians. The Gospel of Valentinus. Epistles. * The General Epistle of Barnabas. An epistle of Christ to Peter and Paul. An epistle of Christ produced by the Manichees. * The first and second epistles of Clement to the Corin- thians. * An Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul. * Paul's answer to the above Epistle. * The epistles of Ignatius to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smymseans, and his Epistle to Polycarp. * The epistles of Jesus Christ and Abgarus, king of Edessa. * Several epistles of Paul, unknown to us, but extant in Arabic according to Kirstenius. * The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Laodiceans. * The epistles of Paul the Apostle to Seneca, and Seneca's to Paul. * The Epistle of Peter to Clemens. * The Epistle of Polycarp to the PhiUppians. The Catholic Epistle of Themison the Montanist. Acts. * The Acts of Andrew. * The Acts of Andrew and Matthew. .• ^ 378 MANKIND : THEIR ^ The Acts of Barnabas by Mark. * The Acts of Bartholomew. The Acts of the Apostles made use of by the Ebionites. * The Acts of John. The Acts of the Apostles by Lentitius. The Acts under the Apostles' name by Leontins. The Acts of the AposUes by Leucius. The Acts of the Apostles by Leuthon. The Acts of the Apostles used by the Manichees. * The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew. The Acts of Panl. * The Acts of Panl and Thecla- The Acts of Peter. * The Acts of Peter and Paul, * The Acts of PhiUp. * The Acts of Philip in Greece. The Acts of the Apostles by Seleucus. * The Acts of Thaddseus. * The Acts of Thomas. * The death of Thomas. Eevelations. The Eevelation of Cerinthus. The Eevelation of Paul. The Eevelation of Peter. The Eevelation of Stephen. The Eevelation of Thomas. Miscellaneous. Books under the name of Andrew. The Writings of Bartholomew the Apostle. A Hymn which Christ taught his Disciples. The Book of the Helkesaites. * The Shepherd of Hermas. The Book of James. Books forged and published under the name of James. Books under the name of John. The Books of Lentitius. Books under the name of Matthew. The Traditions of Matthias. A Book under the name of Matthias • The Anabaticon of Paul. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 879 A Book under the name of Paul. The Preaching of Paul and Peter. Books under the -name of Peter. The Disputation of Peter and Apion. The Doctrine of Peter. The Judgment of Peter. The Preaching of Peter. Books under the name of Thomas. * The Itinerary of Thomas. Of those which remain, a gospel very much resembling the Gospel of the Birth of Mary was attributed to Matthew, and received as genuine and authentic by several of the ancient Christian sects. The Protevangelion^by James, which includes the principal part of the last-named gospel, is also frequently alluded to by the Fathers in a manner which shows that it had obtained a very general credit in the Christian world. The Grospel of the Infancy was received by the Gnostics, and several of its relations were accredited by Eusebius, Atha- nasins, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, &c. The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans has been highly esteemed by many learned men of the Church of Eome and others, and the Quakers have printed a translation of it, and plead for it. The epistles of Paul to Seneca and of Seneca to Paul are undoubtedly of high antiquity ; and Jerome, in his enumeration of illustrious men, places Seneca, on account of these epistles, amongst the ecclesiastical and holy writers of the Christian Church. The First Epistle of Clement was publicly read in the assem- blies of the primitive Church, according to Eusebius, and is in- cluded in one of the ancient collections of the Canon Scripture. Archbishop Wake, who has translated both this and the second epistle, believes it to be a genuine production. The Epistle of Barnabas is believed to be genuine and canonical by Origen and Jerome, and in later times by Bishop Fell and Dr. Bernard, Savilian Professor at Oxford, who says it was read throughout in the churches at Alexandria, as the canonical Scriptures were. The genuineness of the epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp is believed in by Archbishop Wake. ** The Shepherd of Hermas," as we have seen, is quoted by Irenseus under the very name of Scripture. In the face of all this, we may accept Dr. Lardner's admission as true, viz. that '^ even so late as the middle of the sixth century, the 880 MANKIND : THEIR canon of the New Testament had not been settled by any authority that was decisive and universally acknowledged ; but Christian people were at liberty to judge for themselves concerning the genuineness of writings proposed to them as apostolical, and to determine according to evidence." The verbal agreement between the iBrst three canonical gospels in such passages as Matt. xxiv. 32-35, and parallel passages, and Mark xiii. 13-32, with the parallel passages in Matthew's gospel is so complete, that the conclusion is in- evitable that they must have copied from each other or from a common source. Lessing adopted the hypothesis first put forth by Semler in 1783, of a common Syriac or Chaldaic origin for all three gospels; and in 1790, Dr. Niemeyer, Professor of Divinity at Halle, said that, " If credit be due to the authority of the Fathers, there existed a most ancient narrative of the life of Jesus Christ, writf-en especially for those inhabitants of Palestine who became Christians from among the Jews." " This narrative is distinguished by various names — as the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel according to Matthew [or the source whence that gospel was drawn], the Gospel of the Nazarenes; and this same, unless all things deceive me, is to be considered as the fountain from which other writings of this sort have derived their origin, as streams from the spring." He goes on to show that upon this hypothesis alone can the vei-bal agreement between the evangelists be explained. '^Make a hundred men to have been witnesses of the same fact; make the same hundred to have written accounts of what they saw ; they will agree in matter, they will differ in word — nor will anyone say that it happened by accident, if even three or four out of tiieir number had so related the story as to answer word for word through many periods. " But who is ignorant that such an agreement is to be observed repeatedly in the commentaries of the evangelists ? But this is not wonderful, since they drew from the same fountain. • . . But how came it that Luke should follow a different arrangement from Matthew? That many things should be wanting in Mark that are readily to be met with in Matthew, whose steps he seems to follow ? That in par- ticular parts one should be found more wordy than the other? in observing minute circumstances more diligent? — Why, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 381 because, as we have said, there really was a wonderful diver- sity in the copies which contained those, ^Airofivsyfiara, those memoirs, of the Apostles ; and secondly, because it was optional for those who composed their gospels out of those commentaries to add whatever they knew of the matter from other sources, and to cut oflf whatever they considered to be of equivocal credibility, or less useful to readers and alien from their object in writing.'* Mr. Halfeld received a prize from the theological faculty of Gottingen, in 1793, for his dissertation on the question proposed by them : — " What was the origin of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Prom what fountains did the authors of these gospels draw? For what readers in particular, and with what aim, did they write ; and how, and at what time, came it to pass that these four gospels acquired a greater authority than that of the gospels which are called apocryphal, and became canonical?" Mr. Halfeld maintained that the evangelists extracted their gospels from diflferent documents. The three epistles, Galatians and 1 and 2 Corinthians, are held to be undoubtedly genuine. That to the Galatians, written at least fourteen years after Paul's conversion, is the earliest, and all three are supposed to have been written between a.d. 54 and a.d. 57, during his residence at Ephesus. The following are some of the principal errors and ana- chronisms which have been pointed out, and which leads us to believe that Paustus's account of the New Testament writings is the true one. In Mark vii. 31, there is an indication of the period when that gospel was compiled. It is there said that Jesus came unto the Sea of Galilee " through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis." And this name has been inserted into Matthew's gospel (chap. iv. 25) merely in order to make it be believed that the fame of Jesus had spread far and wide. Luke, whose description is confirmed both by Josephus and Tacitus, tells us that in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and during his whole reign, the Jewish territory was divided by the Romans into four tetrarchies ; and Josephus never mentions the name of Decapolis before Vespasian was governor of Syria, and general against the rebellious Jews, in the latter end of Nero's reign. Again, Pliny tells us (Nat. Hist. 1. V. cap. X.) that the territory which intervened between these ten cities, and which surrounded each of them, was not subject 882 MANKIND : THEIB to the same goyemment as the cities themselves, but to the adjoining tetrarchies. The Bomans had probably been induced to annex ten Jewish cities to the government of Syria, in consequence of the insurrection of the Jewish against the Syrian inhabitants of some of those cities. It is evident, therefore, that the Decapolis was not any distinct country or continued district, but merely the general appel- lation of ten detached, insulated cities, lying all, except Scythopolis, east of the Jordan. Yet Mark and Matthew speak of it as if it were a province, like Galilee or Trachonitis, and as if it were situated north-west of the Sea of Galilee. This gross ignorance of geography shows that the writer cannot have been a native of Palestine, and the insertion of the name renders it probable that both gospels were composed after the destruction of Jerusalem, as the third certainly "was (Luke xix. 41, 43-44; xxi. 9, 20 ; xxiii. 29). Luke's gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are by the same author, who has been supposed to be a Palestinian Christian ; but in face of the gross blunder in chap. iii. 2, where he makes the Jews to have two high-priests, and chap. xiiL 1, respecting the Galilseans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, which is a pure invention, it is difficult to believe that the author had ever been in Palestine. Interpolations took place in this gospel even after the second century, for it appears from Origan that several believers in his time were ofiPended with that part of the gospel which relates to the penitent thief, and declared that that passage was not in the older copies, but a late addition of some of the interpolators ('PoStov/yyo/). Origen does not agree with them, but they are right, for neither Justin, nor Irenseus, nor Tertullian take notice of this remarkable circumstance, though they have quoted almost every other passage of Luke relating to the crucifixion, and though Tertullian in particular has written a treatise upon the intermediate state of souls be- tween death and the resurrection. The story receives further developments in the Evangelium Infantise Arabicum and in the Gospel of Nicodemus (chap. viii. 10-13). The words iv T^ irapahsla^ (" in the garden ") denote the Jewish belief before alluded to, and are found with the full meaning expressed in the Confessio Judaei -3Bgroti (in Wetstein, p. 820) — " Da portionem meam in horto Edenisy et memento mei in seculo future, quod absconditum est justis "—and in other passages ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 888 (ibid. p. 819). The belief in the immediate transition to Paradise is also found in Cetuboth, f. 103 : ^^ Quo die Babbi moriturus erat, venit vox de ccelo, dizitque. Qui prsesens aderit morienti Babbi, ille intrabit in paradisum." As late as A.D. 407, the Acts of the Apostles had not gained general acceptance, and Chrysostom, who was bishop of Constanti- nople at that time, says in his first homily upon the title and beginning of this book, " To many this book is unknown, by others it is despised, because it is clear and easy." And the first of his homilies upon the whole book begins with the sentence, XloXXoi^ tovto fiifiXiov ovSonovv yvdpifiov harlp^ ovtb ainoy 0VT8 6 ypa^^s avrb Kal avvOeh (^* By many this book is not at all known, neither (the book) itself, nor who wrote it and put it together '*). Bretschneider*s opinion of the fourth gospel is, that the Jesus depicted in it is wholly out of keeping, and entirely a different sort of character, from the Jesus of the other gospels, and that it is utterly impossible that both descriptions can be true ; that this gospel contains no testimony of an inde- pendent historian, or of a witness to the things therein re- lated, but is derived solely from some written or unwritten tradition, and that the author was neither an inhabitant of Palestine nor a Jew. That John cannot have been the author of it is evident from chap xxi. 24 : " This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things : and we know that his testimony is true." In order to escape from this difficulty, the commentators have sup- posed that the last chapter is an addition made afterwards by the Church at Ephesus ; but there are other reasons. The expression, " My Lord and my God," in chap. xx. 28, shows that it cannot have been written by John, because the latter appellation was not addressed to Christ either at that time or for many years afterwards. The use of the word paffi\Xioy in chap. ii. 15, which is a Latin word barbarously written in Greek characters, also leads to the presumption that the writer did not live till the close of the second cen- tury. It was undoubtedly in existence about the year 170. Theophilus of Antioch, writing about a.d. 180, says that John was the author of it ; but in chap. ix. 7, there is a mistake which no Jewish writer could possibly have made, for Siloam does not signify "sent," but "the place of the sending forth of waters " — that is, " the sluice," or, according 384 MANKIND : THEIR to another interpretation, a fountain {rh^). " Sent " is mSe^ in Hebrew. The commentators have endeavoured to get the words " which is by interpretation, Sent," considered as a mere marginal note ; but they are in all the codices, and are evidently part of the text itself. This miracle is represented as a standing one, frequently repeated in the sheep-market — that is, in one of the most public places in Jerusalem. Yet no historian, Jewish or Roman, who has given an account of that city, has ever mentioned so extraordinary a circumstance. In the fourth chapter we have Christ represented as moving from Judaea to Galilee, and meeting with the Samaritan woman (his road lying through Samaria), who expresses her surprise that he, who was a Jew, should ask drink of a Samaritan (" for the Jews have no dealings with the Samari- tans " is not in the Cod. Sin.), though all his disciples had gone (verse 8) to a Samaritan city called Sychar (a city un- known to geography) " to buy meat." The chronology of this gospel is hopelessly irreconcilable with that of the others, for it makes the Passover at which Jesus was crucified to be the fourth from the commencement of his ministry. With respect to the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, not only is it not mentioned by any other evangelist, but we are informed that in consequence of it " many of the Jews . . . believed on him " (chap. xi. 45), thus contradicting the author of the Acts, who says that all the disciples of Jesus at his death were Galilseans, and that the whole number was only " about an hundred and twenty " (Acts i. 15). In this gospel we find neither parables nor exorcisms. There is a very extraordinary account by Nicephorus Callistus (lib. X. cap. xxxiii.) of the discovery of " all that gospel which was uttered by the Divine tongue of the virgin disciple" at the time when the founda- tion of the temple was laid. This must of course refer to the first part, in which the higher part of the Jewish cabala is so distinctly marked ; and it is no wonder that both Jews and Greeks were amazed at finding it concealed in the Temple from a period long anterior to the Christian era. The book contained " in large letters, even at its commencement, * In the beginning,' &c." In chap. i. verses 13-15, of the Epistle to the Eomans, Paul is represented as writing to the brethren at Rome that he had oftentimes purposed to come unto them. In chap. XV. ver. 25 &c., the author says the time of Paul's writing ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 886 this epistle was when lie was going to Jemsalem with the contributions for the poor Christians of that city — that is, in the reign of Claudius — and says that when he has per- formed that good office, he will come by way of Rome into Spain. But the Acts show that Paul never had the least idea of traveUing to Spain, and that he did not go to Rome till, by the partiality of Festus and his persecutors, he was constrained to appeal to Ceesar, and from the same history it is evident that when Paul arrived at Rome for the first time, in the reign of Nero, there was no Christian Church there, and that the Gospel had never been preached beyond the limits of Asia till Paul was, in a vision, admonished to go into Macedonia, and thence into Greece ; yet Paul is made to write this epistle to the Christian converts at Rome while he was preaching the Gospel at Corinth. Again, it was Jews, not Christians, who met Paul at Appii Forum (Acts xxviii. 15). His first step when he arrived at Rome was to call the Jews resident there together, and to exculpate him- self for having appealed to the emperor ; and these Jews, far from knowing the Gospel to have been already preached and received at Rome, declared themselves totally ignorant con- cerning it, except that it was everywhere spoken against, and were desirous to be informed of its doctrines by him. Aquila and Priscilla, to whom he sends greetings, had, according to the Acts (xviii. 2), left Rome about, or rather before, the pretended date of this epistle, in obedience to the edict of Claudius, commanding all Jews to depart from Rome. Neither the fifteenth nor the sixteenth chapters are in Marcion^s Catalogue, and are certainly spurious. Chap. xi. verse 12, shows clearly that the writer is not Paul, but some person who lived and wrote some time after the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, for it speaks of their " faU," as does also verse 15 : " If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the re- ceiving of them be ? " (See also verses 21 and 22.) The epistles to the Thessalonians contradict those to the Corinthians, in that the Advent is represented as being post- poned ; and in 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, we are told (according to the Cod. Sin.) : " Let no man deceive you by any means : for the day of the Lord shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of iniquity be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all 386 MANKIND : THEIR that is called God, or that is worshipped : so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." The Thessalonians are also praised for close imitation of the Jewish churches, and the Jews are vehemently condemned (chap. ii. 15) for persecuting him (Paul), who had him- self been the chief persecutor of the Christian Church. The assertion in 2 Thess. iii. 17, that he sends his salutation with his " own hand," which is the token in every epistle, shows that it cannot have been written by Paul, for he could not so early have anticipated the rise of a spurious Pauline literature. The Epistle to the Ephesians is also written in the name of Paul, but it is a mere amplification of that to the Colossians. Seventy-eight out of the hundred and fifty- five verses which it consists of contain expressions identical with the Colossian letter. It is assumed in it (i. 15, 16, and iii. 1) that a Christian Church was settled in Ephesus before Paul himself preached the Gospel there ; but we are expressly told in Acts xviii. and xix. that Paul himself preached the Gospel at Epbesus for the space of three years. The epithet ^*holy," given to the Apostles, was never used in apos- tolic times. The character of the letter is Gnostic, and Christ is exalted as the pre-existent source of aU being, and the chief of a graduated celestial hierarchy ; while such words as " fulness," " mystery," " wisdom," " knowledge," and the recognition of " the prince of the power of the air," carry us beyond the limit of apostolic times. In Colossians i. 4-9, Paul is made to say that it was Epaphras who first preached the Gospel to the Colossians, and that it was from him he had heard of their faith and love in Christ Jesus. And in chap. ii. 1, he is made to declare expressly that neither they nor the Laodicseans " had seen his face " (" in the flesh " is not in the Cod. Sin., and seems to have been inserted to obviate the following dis- crepancy). Colosse and Laodicea were both cities of Phrygia, and we are told (A.cts xvi. 6, Cod. Sin.), " Now they [that is, Paul and Silas] went throughout Phrygia^** and, again (xviii. 23), that he " went also over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia, in order, strengthening all the dis- ciples." In Philippians the Clement mentioned in chap. iv. 3, who was the writer's fellow-labourer, the Clement executed by ORIGIX AND DESTiyi\ 887 Domitian, has his name written in the Book of Life — a somewhat strange assumption. This Clement, however, could not possibly be Paul's companion in travel, nor could the letter be written till long after the Apostle's death, for in chap. i. 1, a distinction is made between the ^^ saints of Christ Jesus " [Cod. Sin.] " which are at Philippi " and " the bishops and deacons," which is not an interpolation, and is not to be found in any other writing attributed to St. Paul. Again, in chap. i. 13-15, and iv. 22, we are given to understand that through the notice taken of him during his imprisonment, many of the Emperor Nero's court were converted to Christianity, which is impossible, for to be **many" (verse 14), they must have been converted before Paul's arrival at Bome ; and it is difficult to realise Nero's courtiers preaching the Gospel at the same time that he did, many of them ^* of contention, not sincerely " (verse 16). In chap. iii. 2, the Philippians are warned to " beware of dogs " and of " the concision," which is an unbecoming manner of speaking of a Divine ordinance which, though abrogated, still subsisted, and had been practised by Paul himself (Acts xvi. 3) on his disciple Timotheus, though he was only the son of a Jewish mother by a Greek father. Again, in chap. iv. 3, he entreats his yoke-fellow, whom, however, he does not name, to help " those women who labour with him in the Gospel ; yet the author of the Acts assures us that none but he and Timotheus accompanied Paul into Macedonia and Greece. In verses 10-19, Paul is made to speak of himself as being in pecuniary distress, and relieved by the supply they had sent him by Epaphroditus &c., thus contradicting 1 Cor. ix. 15, 18, and Atjts xx. 33-35 ; while in 1 Thess. ii. 2, 6, 9, he is made to speak of his being " shamefully entreated at Philippi." The three " pastorals " — the two to Timothy, and that to Titus — were either unknown to Marcion (a.d. 140), or were deliberately rejected by him. Tatian, in the second century, rejected the two to Timothy. Origen admitted that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul, and the style is so totally different to that of the other epistles which pass under his name, that it is evident that it could not be written by the same author. In chap. xiii. 7 and 17, the teachers of Christianity are said to rule over their congregations, in direct contradiction to c c 2 888 MANKIND: THEIR the practice of Patil as shown in the Acts and the other epistles. In the Eastern Church it was recognised only after the middle of the third century. In the fourth, it obtained canonical acceptance in the West. It was known in Alexandria about a.d. 125, but was not then regarded as Pauline. The quotations in this epistle follow the Alexan- drian copy of the Greek version, which it is impossible that a Hebrew, writing to Hebrews, could hare used. An ex- ample of how a text of the Old Testament can be used to accommodate it to a doctrine, may be found in chap. x. 5, which is subjoined, with the verse from the Psalms parallel to it: Hebrews. P8a.lh xl. 6. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest Sacrifice and offering thou didst not, but a body hast thou prepared not desire ; mine ears hast thou me. opened. In chap. i. 6, Deut. xxxii. 43 — " Rejoice ye heavens, and let all the angels of God worship him," which is not in the Hebrew text — is quoted from the Septuagint. In chap. ii. 3, 4, the writer expresses himself in terms which plainly show that he was not Paul, and that he lived after the apostolic age, for he says the Gospel " at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him ; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost." Paul could not have spoken of himself in this manner. At the time of its composition, Timothy was no longer Paul's companion, so that the notice of the imprisonment alludes to a period after the Apostle's death. In chap. vii. 27, the writer afl&rms that the high- priest went daily into the temple to oflfer sacrifice — a mis- take St. Paul never could have made ; though Philo, speak- ing of what did occur in the temple of Onias, speaks of the high-priest's daily ministration. All chap, xi., respecting faith, is in Philo, often verbally. The letter attributed to St. James in the Cod. Sin. has no title, but only a subscription. This Epistle is ad- dressed (chap. i. 1) " to the twelve tribes which are scat- tered abroad " — an expression which seems to refer to the final dispersion of the Jews under Vespasian, but which could not with any propriety be addressed to Christians, who, as such, were no longer Jews. The origin of extreme ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 889 unction, for which a direction is ^ven (chap. y. 14), is a demonstration that the writer was not endowed with the gift of healing, and that he ynrote after those supposed iniracnious powers had ceased in the Church. The doctrine of forgiveness of sins by means of the prayers of the Elders of the Church, and the institution of auricular confession, in verse 16, also show this writing to be spurious. In the earliest patristic period the genuineness of this epistle was suspected. In the Greek Church it found acceptance only in the fourth century ; and in the Western Church, at the same period, Luther pronounced it an epistle of straw. The First Epistle of Peter is of second-century authorship. In it the author says (chap. iv. 3), that in the former part of his life he was lascivious, lustful, drunken, riotous, and an abominably idolatrous Gentile. He speaks of the Gospel being preached to the dead (verse 6), and of the end of all things being at hand (verse 7), which an apostle was little likely to do. He also professes to write from Babylon, where there is not the slightest reason to suppose Peter ever went. What is said in chap. ii. 12, of the Christians being accused as evil-doers, which we know from Pliny's testimony was not the case in the beginning of the second century, seems to prove that the composition of this epistle must be placed even later. The Second Epistle of Peter is an undoubtedly spurious production, included by Eusebius in the Antilegomenon, and, according to Jerome, rejected by the majority of the Christian world. In chap. iii. 15, 16, the author speaks of Paul's epistles as being collected together, and universally known in his time ; he professes to have read them all, and says there are some things in them " hard to be understood,'* which it is not possible to suppose Peter can have said. An apocryphal fiction, about a contest between Michael and the devil about the body of Moses, is introduced into the Epistle of Jude, which the author of 2 Peter has imitated. This letter confesses (verses 17, 18) its post-apostolic origin. Philemon and the three epistles of John are also post- Pauline. In Philemon, Paul is made to speak of his fellow- prisoner, though we learn from the Acts that he himself was the only Christian prisoner sent to Eome by Pestus, and that he was permitted " to dwell by himself ^ with a soldier that kept him '* (Acts xxviii. 16), 390 MANKIND : THEIR All the writers of the fourth century, who are the first that mention the two last epistles of John, inform us that they were spoken against, and by many rejected as spurious. The distinction between venial and deadly sins, 1 John v. 16, is unknown to the gospels, and shows a post-apostolic age. In chap. ii. 13, Antichrist is spoken of, but no such word is to be met with either in the Apocalypse, of which John is supposed to be the author, or in Paul's predictions of the same event. The ascription to Jesus of the Messianic function of Judge is different from the conception of the fourth gospel, in which the judicial ofiGice is formally denied to Christ. The learned Scaliger says : " Epistola Judse non est ipsius Judae, ut nee Jacobi, nee Petri secunda, in quibus sunt mira quae non videntur esse Apostolica. Tres epistolsB Joannis non sunt Apostoli Joannis. Secunda Petri et Judse sunt recen- tiores. Ecclesia Orientalis non agnoscit, nee sunt divinae ; indoctsD sunt, nihil majestatis habent " (Scaligeriana, p. 72). The three epistles, Galatians and 1 and 2 Corinthians, are held to be the genuine productions of St. Paul. It is to be observed, however, that these epistles contradict the Acts of the Apostles, in which the Apostles are represented as friendly to Paul, while in Galatians they are in violent antagonism to him ; nor is it possible to conceive that James and the other apostles should have consented to what was a complete change of doctrine and belief. The Ebionites, or Nazarenes, who are supposed by many to have been the first Christians, used water instead of wine in their Eucharist. This shows that the present gospels can- not be theirs ; but it also seems to indicate that the institu- tion of the Eucharist of bread and wine in 1 Cor. xi. is in opposition to the practice of these early sects. Again, these epistles recognise the practice of baptizing the dead (1 Cor. XV. 29) — " Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all ? " This practice was con- tinued by the Marcionites, who probably founded their teaching on this text. It was conducted in the following manner. Some one placed himself under the bed on which the deceased person lay. The baptizer then asked the dead if he wished to be baptized. The living person who was placed under the bed answered " Yes." The body was then plimged into a tub. How can we suppose that anyone who ORIGIX AND DESTLVY. 891 pretended to be au inspired apostle should recognise so absurd and superstitious a practice? And are we to suppose that Christ, from whom the author of these epistles says he received the Gospel, taught him one which he had not taught the other apostles? James had also had an eucharistic vision. Why was Paul's of more consequence than his? In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that after Paul's conversion and baptism, he was some days with the disciples at Damascus, afber which he ^^ preached Jesus in the syna- gogues." But the Epistle to the Galatians says, on the contrary, that he neither received the Gospel of man, neither was taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, and also that he had been " separated," i.e. set apart (conf. Acts xiii. 2, where the same word is used) from his mother's womb. The Clementine homilies represent Paul as Simon Magus, the wicked magician, the heretical antithesis of Simon Peter, the hateful preacher of a false gospel, founding their de- nunciation upon the epistles attributed to him. In Bev. ii. 2, the church of Ephesus is commended because " thou hast tried those which call themselves [sic in Cod. Sin.] apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." In 1 Cor. xvi. 9, we find that at Ephesus there were " many adversaries," and, according to Polycrates the authority of Paul there had been supplanted by that of Peter and John. Whether these epistles are genuine or not, therefore, it is certain that the primitive believers would not recognise Paul as a true apostle. The beliefs, some of the more modem phases of which have been examined in the preceding pages, show by their great antiquity, and the universality of their diffusion, that, under the veil of allegory and mysticism which envelops them, there must be something which, rightly or wrongly, has claimed both respect and faith from the most intellectual of mankind, as well as from the vulgar. It is certain that the well-informed among the ancients did not believe in the literal meaning of their mythology. The teaching of the hierophants in the mysteries was identical with the Jewish teachmg, as is evident from what Clemens Alexandrinus, who is supposed to have been initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis, tells us of it. He says (Strom, v. p. 50) that " the truths taught in the m} steries had been stolen by the philo- 392 MANKIND : THEIB Bophers from Moses and the prophets " — in other words, that they were the same. In another place (Strom, v. p. 2), Bi)eaking of the mysteries, he says : " Here is an end of all instruction. We behold Nature and things." Pausanias says (Arcad.) : "The wise men of Greece nerer expressed themselves in former times except in an enigmatic manner, and never in a direct and natural manner." He makes this remark respecting the monstrous adventures of Saturn and Bhsea, and excuses himself for narrating this and similar fables by saying that the Arcadians, the oldest people in Greece, had told him that it was under this strange form that the ancient philosophers instructed men, and that these marvellous stories concealed the hidden wisdom of the Greeks. Sallust tells us why the ancient philosophers adopted this mode of instruction. " It is," says he, " in the first place because Nature should be described in language which imitates the secret of her progress and of her opera- tions. The world itself is a species of enigma to us. We see nothing but bodies in motion, but the force and the springs which cause them to move are concealed fit)m us. In the second place, this strange style excites the curiosity of the wise man, who is warned by the evident absurdity of these narratives that what they contain is not to be under- stood literally, but that there are certain truths, and wise ideas, concealed under this mystic veil. For what purpose, in fact, are those mutilations, those murders, those adulteries, and those thefts, imputed to the gods in mythology ? Is it not evidently in order that the mind of the reader may be warned by these very absurdities that these narratives are nothing but a cover and a veil, and that the truth which they conceal is a secret ? The aim which those who wrote them had was to train the minds of those who studied those allegories, and who wished to discover the meaning of them. Poets, writing under Divine inspiration, the wisest among philosophers, all theologians, and all the chiefs of the initia- tions and mysteries — nay, the gods themselves, when giving forth oracles — have all borrowed the figurative language of allegory." The Emperor Julian gives nearly the same reasons as Sallust as to why the ancient philosophers made use of the figurative style, and of the marvellous, in order to conceal the mys- teries of their learning. " The Egyptians," says Proclus (in ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 8ป3 Tim. p. 40), "preferred this mode of teacliingป and they only spoke of the great secrets of Nature in mythological enigmas. The Gymnosophists of India, and the Druids of Gaul, ac- cording to Diogenes Laertius (Prooem. p. 4), taught science in the same enigmatic language. And Sanchoniathon tells us that the hierophants of Phoenicia also wrote in this style.*' The interpretation of these enigmas will occupy the re- mainder of this volume. 304 MANKIND : THEIK CHAPTER XV. " The world," says Pliny (Hist. Nat. 1. II. cap. i.), " and what we call the heavens, which in their immense expanse embrace all other beings, must be regarded as a god, who is eternal, vast, unbegotten, and indestructible. To seek for other beings external to it is not only useless to man, but is also beyond his mental powers ; it is a sacred, vast, eternal being, which encloses all in itself; it is at once the work of Nature and Nature herself. It is mere folly to wish to go beyond it to seek for anything else." And Ocellus, who was a pupil of Pythagoras, says (cap. i. ง 6) : " The universe, con- sidered as a whole, displays nothing to us which betrays a commencement or which foretells destruction ; no one has seen it created, or increased, or improved, or deteriorated, or decreased ; it is ever the same, existing in the same way, always equal and similar to itself." Hence the worship of Nature formed the basis of all the religions of antiquity ; and the worship of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, was common to the most learned and the less civilised nations of the ancient world. The Egyptians and PhcBnicians knew in reality no other gods than the heavenly bodies and the sky in which they move, and in their hymns and their theogonies sang the praises of Nature alone. The Syrians worshipped the stars of the constellation Pisces (Hygin. 1. II. cap. xlii), and had the sacred images of them in their temples (German. Cses., cap. xxxvi.). The worship of Adonis was established at By bios and in the neighbourhood of Mount Libanus (Lucian, De Dea Syria, p. 878) ; and all ancient authors are agreed that Adonis was the sun. There was a magnificent temple to the sun at Palmyra, which was plundered by Aurelian's soldiers, and which that emperor ordered to be restored and dedicated anew. The Pleiades (Kircher, CEdip. vol. i. p. 350), under the name of Succoth-Benoth, were publicly worshipped by the Babylonish colonies established OKIOIN AND DESTINY. 305 in the country of the Samaritans (2 Kings xvii. 29, 30). Saturn, or the planet which bears that name, is called Bemphan by the Copts (Kircher, (Edip. vol. i. p. 383), and the Acts (chap. vii. 43) reproach the Jews with having adopted the worship of the star Bemphan (Chiun in Amos V. 26). Jupiter was called Baal; Mars, Moloch; Venus, Astaroth and Astarte ; Mercury, Nebo (Hyde) ; and all these names are also those of the Syrian, Assyrian, Phoenician, and Canaanite deities (Selden, De Diis Syriis ; et Kircher (Edip. vol. i.). Eusebius says that the Phoenicians and Egyptians held the same religious opinions respecting the origin of all things, and respecting the divinity of the sun and stars, the only Bulers of the world. He relies upon a passage qf Diodorus Siculus (1. I. cap. x. and xi.), who informs us that " the most ancient inhabitants of Egypt acknowledged two great deities, the first in rank, and eternal, viz. the sun and moon . . . that they held that these two deities governed the world, and that everything which receives nourishment or increase received it from them ; that the whole work of generation, and the perfection of all the effects which are produced in nature, depended upon them.'* Porphyry (Epist. ad Annecb. pnemissa operib. Jamblici de Myst. uffigyptiac. Oxon. 1678) tells us that Cheremon (one of the most learned of the Egj'ptian priests) and a number of other learned Egyptians are convinced that we ought not to admit any- thing external to the universe or to the visible creation, and they fortify themselves by the opinions of the ancient Egyp- tians. We also learn from Lucian (De Astrol.), that all the Egyptian worship, even that of animals, related to the stars, and was founded entirely on astrology. Clemens Alexan- drinus (Strom. 1. VI.) says that the book of astrology was one of the sacred books which were carried by the priests at the head of the processions, and the palm, which was con- sidered to be a symbol of astrology, was also carried in them. He also says (I. V.) that the four sacred animals which were led in these processions were considered as emblems of the four signs or cardinal points which determine the seasons at the equinoxes and tropics, and which divide the annual progress of the sun, their great deity, into four parts. Prom this also is derived the expression, "The year of God," which designates the great solar period, of which the celestial S96 MANKIM): THEIR Dog, one of these four animals, fixed the commencement (Cen- Borin. De Die Natali). The Curds of Mount Lebanon (Hyd. Vet. Pen. Rel.), who were at times masters of Egypt, borrowed the worship of the Dog-star from them. The dogmas of their religion were contained in a book called Souph Sheit, or Book of Seth, to whom they attributed it. Seth is one of the names of the Canis Major or rather of Sirius, the principal star of this constellation, which is the most beautiful star in the heavens, and the one which the Persians said had been appointed by Ormuzd to be the chief and superintendent of the whole heavens (Cic. De Div.). This naturally made Seth or Sirius to be the inventor of astrology, and gave rise to the story of the astrological books written by Seth, and to that of the columns on which the astronomical knowledge of the antediluvians was said to be engraved (Joseph, Ant. 1. 1, cap. ii.). Sanchoniathon, the most ancient PhoBnician writer, who merely interpreted the ancient monuments of his country, which were consecrated on the monuments of Thaut, says that the first inhabitants of Phoenicia raised their hands up to heaven towards the sun, that they looked upon him as the sole king of heaven, and honoured him by the name of Beel- Samin, which in their language signifies King of Heaven. They also raised columns to the elements— one to fire, and the other to the air or the wind — and worshipped them. SabsBanism, or the worship of the stars, fiourished throughout Babylonia. The Arabians also worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, and Abulfaragius (Hist. Dynast.) tells us that each tribe was under the protection of some particular star. The Saracens in the time of Heraclius still worshipped the planet Venus, which they called Cabar, or the Great, the same as Astarte the Great mentioned by Sanchoniathon (Euthym, Ziga-ben-Sarracenie, p. 1). Strabo speaks of an altar to the sun in Arabia Felix (1. XVI). on which the choicest incense used to bum. In the island of Panchaia, on the east of Arabia, was a fountain consecrated to the sun, which no one except the priests could approach (Diod. Sic. 1. V. cap. xliv.). Near it was a sacred mountain, on which it was said the throne of Uranus, or Heaven, was placed. Bryant says (vol. i. p. 284) : " The worship of Ham, or the sun, as it was the most ancient, so it was the most universal ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 897 of any in the world. It was at first the prerailing religion of Greece, and was promulgated over all the sea-coast of Europe, from whence it extended itself into the inland provinces. It was established in Gaul and Britain, and was the original religion of this island, which the Druids in after times adopted." All benefits were believed to proceed from the sun, and the beneficent Nile was said to be both the gift and the emblem of Osiris, or the sun, and an emanation from him — *OaipiBo9 ^Airoppoi) (Plut. De Isid.) — and its name corresponds with the days of the year : thus — N =50 R - 6 1 =10 A =80 O =70 S =200 But it was anciently NIA02, for the Egyptian year originally consisted of only 360 days. The names of the gods allotted to each day of the week are as follows : Sunday to the Sun, Monday to the Moon, Tuesday to Mars, Wednesday to Mercury, Thursday to Jupiter, Friday to Venus, and Saturday to Saturn. This system was invented by the Egyptians, according to Dio Cassius and Herodotus, and spread from them to all the civilised nations of the world (Scalig. De Emend. Temp., Mem. de PAcad. Inscrip., tome iv. p. 65). They were called " the days of the gods,'* because the planets to which they belonged were called gods. In Montfaucon (" Supp. de 1' Antiquity ex- pliqu6e'*) is a bronze which gives the order of their succession. Origen (Contra Cels. 1. VI.) says that Celsus, when explain- ing the Persian theology, attributed this distribution of the planets to the mystic ideas respecting the harmony of the universe which are so well known in the Pythagorean system. Dio Cassius gives the same reason for the distribution of the planets in the order in which they exist in the days of the week. The Pythagoreans took the diatessaron, or the interval of the fourth, which they looked upon as the first note of music, as the basis of the harmony of the universe. The sun being taken as the first note in this harmony, and being the centre of the planetary system, the moon is the first fourth. Mars the second, &c. Moore says (Pantheon, pp. 6, 16) : ^^ Most, if not all, of the 398 MANKIND : THEIR gods of the Hindu Pantheon will, on close investigation, resolve themselves into the three powers, and these powers into one deity, Brahm, typified by the sun/* " In Hindu mythology everything is, indeed, the sun." We must not suppose, however, that men like Socrates, Plato, Zoroaster, &€., who were initiated in the most secret mysteries, did not acknowledge one Supreme God, the Lord and First Cause of all, which ultimately is the Universe itself, which, as Ocellus says (cap. i. ง 2), exists because it exists, and would not exist if it had not always existed. It is certain that in judicial astrology Osiris was the sun, the spouse of Isis, and also her brother, and that Horus, who is also called the Trporoyovos 0€O9, or first-bom God, is said to be their son. Plutarch (De Iside) tells us that on the front of the temple of Isis at Sais was the famous inscription : I2I2 Era EIMI HANTA rErONGS, KAI ON KAI ESOMENON, KAI TO EMON H EH AON OTAE12 TflN 0NHTX1N AHEKAAT^EN. ^* I, Isis, am all that has been, that is, or that shall be ; no mortal man hath ever unveiled me.'* But Proclus says, that in addition to that inscription there were originally the following words: hp iya> xapirov Jstsksv^ fi\io9 iyspsTo (" The fruit which I have brought forth is the sun"). These more refined views, however, had little influence; and we shall see how even the men who held them were not different in their belief from others who looked upon the heavenly bodies as gods. Plato (in Tim.), speaking of the unity of the Universe, calls the heavens "that unique Being which has been, which is, and which will be." The sun, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, was the great deity of India (Clemens in protrep.). The great majority of nations, he says, struck by the spectacle of the heavens and of the regular movements of the stars, and deceived by the testimony of their senses, to which alone they trusted, made gods of them, and worshipped the sun, like the Indians. Lucian adds that the Hindus turned to the East when thev worshipped the sun, and kept a profound silence while they performed a species of dance, in imitation of the movement of that planet (Lucianus, De Salt.). Stephanus of Byzantium assures us that they consecrated themselves especially to the sun (Steph. Byz. in voce Bram.) ; their gymnosophists contem- ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 300 plated the luminous disk of that deity with fixed attention, as if they wished, says Solinus, to discover in it the secrets of the Deity. The Arabian Sharistan attributes to the Hindus the same religion as that of the Arabs, viz; Sabsean- ism; and Abulfaragius reckons the Hindus among the seven great nations which professed that religion. Kircher (CEdip. vol. i. pp. 411 and 415) considers sun and fire worship to be the first and greatest worship of India. He says that the majority of their festivals during the whole course of the year have the sun for their object, and that their religion resembles, almost entirely, that of the Persians and Egyptians, from whom they appear to have borrowed it. In an MS. in the National Library at Paris are paintings of different Indian deities, among which are to be seen those of the sun and the moon, which have pagodas dedicated to them in India. " Men," says Eusebius (Prsep. Evan. 1. 1, cap. vi.), " struck with the imposing beauty of the heavens, took the celestial luminaries for their gods, offered victims to them, and prostrated themselves before them, without, however, building any temples to them at first, or erecting any statues ; but they fixed their attention on the vault of heaven, and con- fined their worship and adoration to what they saw." Such was the worship of the ancient Persians, who, as Herodotus tells us (Clio, cap. xiii.), would have neither temples, nor altars, nor statues of the gods, and blamed those who had introduced this innovation into religion. They long con- tinued to sa<<^ ^^^ vtvpy^iv iierbv. Black he stood as night, His bow uncased, his arrow strung for flight. Heraclitus, a lyric poet, composed a poem in honour of the twelve great gods (Diog. Laert. vit. Heracl.). The northern nations have their twelve Azes, or senate of the twelve great gods, of whom Odin is the chief; and the Japanese, in their ancient mythology, have twelve gods, whom they divide, like the Egyptians, into two classes, the one of seven, and the other of five, which were added later. Massoudi, an Arabian historian, says that at the period of Brahaman mines of various metals were discovered, that arms were made, that science was held in high estimation, and that that king built temples in which he caused the twelve signs of the zodiac and the celestial orbs to be painted (Mem. Acad. Inscrip. t. xxxi. p. 96), in order that men might know the planets and their influences. The Jews, who came to Egypt from Arabia, and whose tribes are identical with the political divisions of the Arabians, represented the duodecimal division of the universe by every species of emblem. The breastplate of their high- priest, comprising twelve precious stones, arranged three by three, and grouped like the seasons, and their twelve cakes, six in a row, like the signs of each hemisphere, had no other signification than the sky and the zodiac, as well as the divisions of time which move in that circle, according to Josephus (Ant. Jud. 1. III. cap. viii.), Philo (1. III. De Vita Moys.), and Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. V.). We find this number even in their fabulous legends — for instance, in that one which says that the Bed Sea divided itself into twelve parts, no doubt to allow each tribe to pass separately. It is for this reason, also, that when they arrived in the desert (Cedren. p. 77) they found there twelve fountains and seventy-two palm-trees (seventy being put for ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 403. seventy-two): the latter number multiplied by twelve was also one of the mystic numbers. Christian interpreters have thought the apostles and disciples were indicated by these numbers ; but the numbers of the fountains and the apostles, and those of the palm-trees and the disciples are equally mystic (Phil. De Profug. p. 272), and have allegorical relations to the celestial divisions. Prom the same respect for this number, the Jews gave twelve sons to Jacob, foreshadowed by twelve stars in the dream of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 9), and they sometimes gave the same number to Abraham (Euseb. Prsep. E vang. 1. IX. cap. xix.). An ancient author, quoted by Euscbius, supposes that Abraham had twelve sons, who divided Arabia into twelve tribes, and that since that period the twelve chiefs of those twelve tribes always took the name of those twelve original chiefs. Ishmael had also twelve sons (1 Chron. i. 29, 30). The Jewish temple represented the order and harmony of the universe. Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. V.) tells us that it contained several emblems of time, of the sun, moon, and planets, of the two Bears, of the zodiac, of the elements, and of other portions of the world. Josephus (Antiq. Jud. 1. m. cap. viii.), in the explanation which he gives us of the tabernacle and the ornaments of the Jewish high-priest, also refers all these emblems to nature. " This," says this en- lightened historian, " is what the dress of the chief sacrificer consisted of, and I cannot feel sufficient astonishment at those who hate us, and who treat us as impious persons because we despise the deities whom they worship ; for if they will consider with us the construction of the tabernacle, the vest- ments of the sacrificing priests, and the sacred vessels which are used to offer sacrifices to God, they will find that our legislator was a Divine man, and that we are accused very fisilsely, since it is very easy to see by the things which I have related that they represent in some sort the uniyebse. For out of the three portions into which the length of the tabernacle is divided, the two into which the sacrificing priests are allowed to enter represent the earth and the sea, which are open to everyone, and the third portion, which is inaccessible to them, is like the heaven, which is reserved for God alone, because it is his dwelling-place. The twelve cakes represent the twelve months of the year. The candle- stick, composed of seventy portions, represents the twelve D D 2 404 MANKIND : THEIR signs, through which the seven planets run their course ; and the seven lamps represent the seven planets. The veils, woven in four colours, represent the four elements. The tunic of the chief sacrificer represents the earth ; the hyacinth, which is nearly azure, represents the sky. The ephod, woven in four colours, represents in the same way all nature, and I am of opinion that gold was added to it to represent light. The breastplate, which is in the centre, also represents the earth, which is in the centre of the universe. The two sardonyxes, which serve for clasps, represent the sun and the moon, and the twelve other precious stones represent the months, or the twelve signs represented by the circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac.*' The learned Bishop of Alexandria gives exactly the same explanation as Josephus of these different omament-s, and especially of the breastplate (Strom. 1. V.), considered as an emblem of the light which is diffused throughout the twelve signs during the twelve months. He says (ibid. p. 561) that it would occupy much spa<;e if he were to enter into a detailed account of the enigmatic expressions used by the prophets and in the Jewish law, because Holy Writ contains little else than allegories and emblems ; but that it is suffi- cient, in order to convey to any sensible person the idea which runs through their works, to give some instances of these symbolical representations. This enigmatic character may, he says, be at once dis- covered by the division of the temple into seven courts, and by the symbolical dress of the high-priest. All these em- blems represented the system of nature, from the first sphere of the sky to the last, viz. the earth. Next to the seven courts, which represented the seven spheres which preside over sublunary nature, he places the veil woven in four colours, which resembled those of the elements which they represented ; and lastly, in the centre of this veil was the altar, the symbol of the earth, which is placed in the centre of the universe, and from which exhalations rise (represented, no doubt, by the incense burnt on the altar). As to the garments of the high-priest, he says: " The dress of the high-priest is the symbol or emblem of the visible world. The five precious stones and the two carbuncles signify the seven planets. One of the two carbuncles represents Saturn, the other the moon (the two outer planets). The first, Saturn, is humid, terres- ORIGIX A]ST) DESTINY. 406 trial, and heavy, the other is more aerial in its nature. As the spirits which Providence has set over the seven planets are connected with that continual generation which takes place here below, their symbols have been placed on the breast, and near the shoulders, where the heart and the principle of life reside : it is this first hebdomad, or septenary number, which presides over the generative energy. " The emeralds which are placed on the shoulder represent the sun and the moon, the two principal instruments of the operations of nature, and the quadrilateral of precious stones, twelve in nimiber, three on each side, represent the zodiac divided into the four seasons." The breastplate, according to Syncellus, related to the science of divination, which was eflfected by the inspection of the heavens, and of the place the seven planets occupied in the twelve signs. Philo (De Vitfi.Moys. 1. III. ; De Mon. 1. 11. ; De Yict. p. 547) has adopted all these explanations, so simple and natural did they appear to those writers. He sees in the number of the cakes, and in their division into sixes, a representation of the twelve months divided by the two equinoctial points into the northern and southern hemi- spheres, or into signs of the long days and signs of the long nights. Josephus (Ant. Jud. 1. III. cap. viii.) regarded them in the same manner. Macrobius (Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. vi.) fixes in the same way the duration of the vicissitudes which light undergoes at six signs, and at each seventh sign he notes a periodical variation in the revolutions of the year, the month, and the day. Philo (De Vict. p. 647) makes the same remark with regard to vegetation, the principal epochs of which are marked by spring and autumn. The cherubim, according to Philo (Vit. Moys.) and Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. V.), represented the two hemispheres, and their wings the rapid movement of the firmament, and of time, which circulates in the zodiac. For Philo says, speaking of the wings of the cherubim, " The heavens fly." The Phoenician cosmogony of Sanchoniathon (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. III. cap. x.) also gives wings to Chronos, or the son of heaven — that is, to Time. Two of these wings are lowered and at rest, while the other two are in motion. This is nearly the same conception. The Jews borrowed their arts, architecture, and ornaments from 406 MANKIND : THEIR Phcsnicia, as we see by Solomon (Joseph. Antiq. Jad. L Yill- cap. ii.), who brought the workmen who worked at the building and decoration of his temple from Tyre. The Tyrians had two columns, consecrated, the one to the winds, and the other to fire. The cherubim had two wings, which touched the walls of the Holy of Holies, the one on the south and the other on the north, while the two others were lowered over the ark, which they covered. The animals, such as the lion, the ox, &c., to which these wings were attached, are in the firmament, among the signs, and fix the four portions of the rotation of the sky, and of time engendered by the zodiac. It is the same with the seven planets which move in this circle (Phil. Vit. Moys.). The candlestick with seven branches represented them : even the manner in which these seven branches were arranged had been formed upon that of the planets (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. V.), with due regard to musical proportions, and to that system of harmony of which the sun was both the centre and the locality. This candle- stick, according to Josephus (Antiq. 1. III. cap. vii.), was of gold, not massive, but hollow. " It was ornamented with little round balls, lilies, pomegranates, and little cups, seventy in number, which rose from the top of the stem to the top of the seven branches of which it was composed, the number of which related to the seven planets." These branches, ac- cording to Philo (Vit. Moys. 1. III.), were grouped by threes, like the upper and lower planets about the sun, and in the middl6 of these two groups was the branch which repre- sented the sun, which by its position is the fisairrjfy or mediator, or rather the moderator of the celestial harmony. The sun, in fact, is on the fourth Une of this musical scale, as Philo, and Martianus Capella in his Hymn to the Sun, observe. The architect whom Hiram, king of Tyre, sent to Solo- mon was, according to Hiram himself, a man who not only knew every portion of architecture, but who also understood Nature, and all that the sky under her contains (Euseb. PraBp. Evang. 1. IX. capp. 31 and 33). The universe and its parts — the sun, moon, stars, and elements — being, accord- ing to Eusebius (ibid. 1. I. cap. vi.), the great deities, and even the only gods of the Phoenicians, it is no wonder that the study of astronomy and of nature formed part of the knowledge of those artists who sculptured the images of the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 407 gods, or who built temples to them. Accordingly, the Phoenician architect commenced by placing the temple which he built according to the cardinal points. In imita- tion of the temple at Tyre, where the two famous columns stood which were consecrated to the winds and to fire, the Tyrian artist also made two bronze columns, which were placed at the entrance of the porch of the temple (Joseph. Ant. L Vm. cap. ii.). There, too, was the famous hemi- spherical vessel supported by four groups of oxen, three by three, which fiiced the four cardinal points of the horizon. The sea of brass was used by the Egyptians to purify the neophytes by means of water : it represented the year sup- ported by twelve oxen, placed three by three, just as in the temple of Solomon. The Egyptians celebrated their greater and lesser mysteries at the period of the fiill moon which took place in their ninth month. The initiated persons had to purify themselves in the sea on the second day ; therefore a great vessel, called the Sea of Brass, was fixed in the temples which were distant from the sea. This purification took place in Greece at the same period of the year and on the same days as in Egypt, and was there called the Sea- bath. Moses adopted this emblem, and in Exod. xxxviii. 8, we see that the women of the tribe of Levi gave Moses their brazen mirrors, that he might make the laver of brass of them. The bulls which surrounded the column which was intended to support the great vessel called the Sea were consecnited to the great Tyrian goddess Astarte, who in the Phcenician cosmogony wears a head-dress resembling a bull as a symbol of her royalty — that Astarte to whom Hiram himself had erected a temple (Joseph. Ant. 1. VIII. cap. ii.). This emblem, the ox, also ornamented the arms of Solomon's throne (Cedren. p. 65), which rested on representations of lions, like the throne of Horus in Egypt, or that of the sun, which was worshipped at Tyre by the name of Hercules (Joseph. Ant. 1. VIII. cap. ii.), to whom Hiram also caused a temple to be built, and who, together with Astarte, was the greatest deity of Tyre. The Hebrew chroniclers have been guilty of the most enormous exaggerations respecting the Temple. Not only are we required to believe that its building occupied for seven years 153,600 workmen, but Villapandus has cal- culated that it cost, according to the text, 6,900,000,000/. 408 MANKIND : THEIR — six thousand nine hundred millions of pounds sterling 1 Yet Herodotus knew nothing of the magnificent empire of Solomon, or of the emigration of 2,000,000 Jews from Egypt, or of the destruction of the army of Pharaoh; neither did Plato ; nor haa the name of Solomon been recognised on any Cuneatic inscription. The Jews dis- play a greater propensity to exaggeration and falsehood than any other nation. The Sabbis inform us that there are 60,000 towns in the mountains of Judaea, and that each of them contains 60,000 inhabitants; also that when the Messiah shall come, Jerusalem will be enormously enlarged, that it will then hare 10,000 palaces and 10,000 towns ; and Rabbi Simeon ben Jachia asserts that there will be 180,000 shops where nothing but perfumes are sold, and each grape will yield thirty casks of wine (see Bartolocci's Bibliothecft Eabbinica). The books of Kings and Chronicles, which give the ac- count of the building of the temple, were written, the first about 500 years after that event, and the second about 60 years after the former. In 1 Kings v. 26, we are told that Solomon had 40,000 stalls for his horses and chariots ; but in 2 Chron. x. 25, he has only 4,000, while the number of horsemen remains the same, viz. 12,000. The total of Solomon's possessions in gold, including the 5,000 talents which his father left him, was equal to 52,000,000/. sterling! Josephus found the neglect by Alexander of the sumptuous temple at Jerusalem so unsatisfactory that he found it ex- pedient to forge a story of his having visited Jerusalem, which he never did. What Moses represented in the tabernacle, and Solomon in the temple, had been previously represented by Zoroaster in the famous cave or subterranean temple (Hyde, De Vet. Pers. Eel. p. 16) which he had consecrated to the sun, under the name of Mithra. There, according to Eubulus, quoted by Porphyry (Porph. De Ant. Nymph.), the imiverse and its divisions into climates, as well as the elements, the planets, the zodiac, and the double movement of the heavens, that of the fixed stars and that of the planets, as also the equinoc- tial points and the gates of the sun, and the sacred ladder (Orig. cont. Celsum, 1. VI.), on which the seven planets were drawn up in order following the order of the days of the week, were represented. ! ' I I ' . ) ' . V *\ . I 4| t. * '-.? \ ha! V ? ., .^ A ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 400 Simplicius (in Aristotel. de Ccel.) says that all temples and sacred edifices, as well as all representations of the gods, have been made in imitation of the heavens, and that they have symmetrical relations with them, in order the better to receive the luminous influence of the gods, and that there is no worship without this communication. Hyde says (De Vet. Pers. Relig. pp. 63 and 128) that this was also the belief of the ancient Sab&eans. They looked upon the luminous bodies of the seven planets as seven palaces or temples inhabited by gods, or by genii or angels whom they called kings, a name which has given rise to many mistakes in the history of mythological times. They therefore imi- tated these palaces or celestial temples by sacred buildings, which they consecrated on earth to these genii, whose images they enclosed in those monuments : such were the temples of Moloch and the star Bemphan, of which the Jewish books and the Acts of the Apostles speak. Hyde adds that they had as much respect for these images as for the stars themselves ; they addressed prayers to them, ofiFered incense and perfumes to them, and clothed them- selves in dresses of a colour suitable to the planet. The statue or image of each star was made of the metal which was consecrated to it, and represented the figure of the constellation: thus the constellation Cepheus, on which a shepherd and his sheep had formerly been drawn (Cassius, Coelum Astron., Hyde, p. 131), had for its image the statue of a shepherd accompanied by his sheep^ and this statue or image was put forward to receive the respect and worship of the people. This was a result of the maxim that the earth must be an imitation of the sky, in order to obtain the assistance of the gods (Kircher. CEdip. vol. iii.), and to induce them to condescend to come down and honour their statues and their temples by their presence. This principle of imitation was extended to political divisions. Just as the Arabian tribes had each their star, so each Jewish tribe had its flag, on which one of the signs of the zodiac was drawn. Kircher (CEdip. vol. ii. part i. p. 22) has had this symmetrical division of the twelve tribes engraved, drawn up each under its standard, just as the astrological genius of the Jews, resembling that of the Arabs, had conceived it (see plate). The Hebrew camp is formed on a great quadrilateral. 410 MANKIND : THEIR divided into sixteen portions ; the four divisions nearest the centre being occupied by the representations of the four elements. The four divisions which occupied the four angles of the quadrilateral have the four signs which the astrologers call fixed, and which they submit to the in- fluence of four great stars, called regal, viz. the Lion, the Bull, Aquarius, and the Scorpion, influenced by the beauti- ful star of the celestial Vulture, a species of eagle, which rises on the horizon at the same time as this sign, and which performs the function of paranatellon (of marking its rising) with regard to it. It is probable that the Egyptians for- merly painted the representations of the celestial animals, which were their deities, upon their standards. Plutarch says that they thought this ancient practice led to the worship of animals. It was said (Plut. De Isid.) that Osiris, the sun, the king of the stars, when starting on his travels, ranged his army in companies and battalions, which marched under standards on which these sacred animals were painted. The Hebrew Jacob and his twelve sons is probably a copy of some of these Egyptian flctions. The other signs are dis- played on the four faces of the quadrilateral, and on the parallel and lower divisions. An extraordinary resemblance is visible between the characters which Jacob in his dream (Gen. xlix.) gives to each of his sons, and the characters of the signs or planets which are domiciled in these signs. Aquarius, the water from whose vessel runs towards the southern pole, and which is the first of the regal signs in ascending, is the standard of Reuben, the first-bom of Jacob, whom his father calls " unstable as water." The Lion is in- scribed on the banner of Judah, whom Jacob compares to that animal, who in the skies is the domicile of the sun. Ephraim, who is compared to a bullock (Deut. xxxiii. 17), has the celestial Bull for his standard. Dan, whom Jacob compares to the adder, a species of serpent, is placed under the sign of the Scorpion, to which the Vulture or the falling Eagle cor- responds. This bird, according to Kircher, was often sub- stituted on the ensign of Dan for mystic reasons, which it is easy to understand when we remember that that sign was dreaded on account of its terrible influence. Typhon had established his empire in it. No more was necessary to cause its paranatellon, the Vulture or the Eagle, to be sub- stituted for it. This is what has been done, as may be seen ORIGIN AND DESTINV. 411 hj the four figures so well known in the sacred paintings of the Jews and the Christians, viz. the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Eagle. They are the four beasts of the Apocalypse, which is a copy of Ezekiel, where they are found revolving round burning circles ; and they are the four animals which accompany the four evangelists, &c. Aries, the domicile of the planet Mars, leader of the celestial hosts and of the twelve signs, is assigned to Gad, of whom Jacob makes a warrior, the leader of his army. Cancer, in which are situated the stars called the Asses, is the figure on the standard of Issachar, whom Jacob calls ^^ a strong ass " (Gen. xlix. 14). The sign of Capricorn, with the fish's tail, which astronomers call the son of Neptune, became the standard of Zebulun, whom his father tells that he " shall dwell at the haven of the sea " (Gen. xlix. 13). The hunter in Sagittarius, who is preceded by the celestial Wolf, becomes the emblem of Benjamin, whom Jacob compares to a hunter. This sign is where the Bomans placed Diana, the goddess of hunters. The Virgin, the domicile of Mercury, is painted on the standard of Naphtali, whose speed in hunting and whose eloquence, both the distinctive attributes of Mercury, are boasted of by Jacob. Simeon and Levi are associated by Jacob just as the Fish of the constellation under which they are placed are joined together. Diodorus Siculus, in his fortieth book, quoted by Photius (Phot. Codex, 244) said that Moses divided his people into twelve tribes because that number was perfect, and because it corresponded to the division of the year. He adds that the Great God of Moses, and even the only one, was, like that of the Persians, the vault of heaven, which embraces the earth, and which is the supreme Lord of all things ; and that it is for that reason that he did not represent the Deity in human shape. The Emperor Adrian, who assigned great importance to the influence of the sky and the stars, erected a superb building at Jerusalem (which he called ^lia, a name derived from the sun and from his own, ^lius), which was called Dodecapylon, or the temple with twelve gates, an evident allusion to the twelve houses of the sun, "HXioj (Chronic. Alex. 597). He also divided the town into seven portions — a division which had relation to the number of the planets and of the planetary spheres. The new Jerusalem of the tho latlws of Jerusalem c Ji>nitii\l jn-rsons, in order i them I'iime. it was bought oiU hits alli'reJ tbis bcveragfl i Ki'iiiiStf in Psalm liii. 21, it | fi-r MIT moat, and iu my wliiili he wished to repreaenl JiAm xix. 2i>. we have a jiiiil pu: iijiou bvssop, d- rivi'il from Eiodus xii, viii'.'L'ar oiih". Nothing ia n^. ih.se who were crucified I ai'iurentlv, to show that Jet The erimiuals were then e whii were the exeeutiocera, i_ I'l-thfj- iMnnicuIaria)oftbeM Pi-. XLVir. XX.. Do Bonii w.i> liiiiiieJ by Adrian), casti ihaji. xix. -1 altera thepasu^ as iMitiiiL,' Juts "for" insteaJ J hfiiiso rt'['resi'iits !is a siugrlei '?willloilt seuiil " \appa(^s), I ..m " .t'-^iiTorJf't'Xou). TMa* Jcsiis iij'peiir as au bigb-pries' liiirh -priest was made in tbisft •? 'Hie lii::li-priest indeed is ado that ?ซ>.? Iiave deseribed, witbou' lie j'Uts a vesture of a blue coI> not i\>nii'i>siHl of two I'ieces, no the sbotiMers and the sides, bu ซoien iis to leiivo an apertnre f in iJie nioniinjr. according t- iuiordiiiir to Mark. Lnkc, erivtul. The eriminul waa fii ihaaiirh the bands; the feet souietinios only bound with roj^ born, was attached to the ahat^ iween the legs of tbe criminaJ lbiซ aid. the bands would bare I have sunk down. At other tin, was fixed wliere the feet came,: i„.-toMark,two robbers were e ORIGIN AND DESTINY 413 pp. 467, 473, 475, 477) ; the gold in it, according to Heraclitns Pontius, divided the torrid zone. There was also a division of the zodiac into thirty-six portions, three for each sign, or one for every ten degrees. This division is known as the division nnto Decans, because each of these portions, or each section of ten degrees, was under the inspection of a spirit, called Inspector, Ephor, or Decanus (Salmasius, Ann. Climat. p. 600). This theo- retical division was one of the principal foundations of the religious system of the ancient Egyptians. From it was derived the series of the thirty-six gods (Orig. cont. Cels. 1. Vin. p. 428), who divided the empire of the human body among them, and presided over its care. Origen speaks of them, and gives us five or six of the names of these spirits or genii, which are also found in the series of the thirty-six Decans given in Salmasius. This division into thirty-six parts was the type of the division of Egypt into thirty-six nomes or provinces, each of which was under the protec- tion of one of these Decani (Diod. Sicul. 1. I. cap, liv.). It was attributed to the celebrated Sesostris, who no doubt adopted the opinion which Proclus speaks of (in Tims8, p. 21), that a wisely constituted republic should be founded on the model of the heavens ; an idea which Plato adopted for his model republic. The geographical division of Egypt, there- fore, was in imitation of that of the zodiac and the celestial signs. The living animals which the Egyptians revered as the images of their gods were the representatives of them. Hence the land of Egypt and the dwelling-place of the gods were in communication with each other, and their influences, distributed in thirty-six houses, were spread over thirty-six nomes or prefectures, which had each their guardian and protector in the heavens, whose name they also borrowed, such as the name of the Dog, that of the Goat of Mendes, &c. Kircher speaks also of a later division of Egypt into thirty nomes, a number corresponding to the days of the month and the degrees of each sign. Each nome had its talisman or tutelary genius, placed in one of the thirty nomes of the general assembly (Strab. 1. XVII., et Abne- phius). Kircher observes (ibid. p. 13) that each of the days of the month was under the invocation of one of these tutelary genii of the nomes, each of whom presided twelve times over one of the 360 portions of the year, the govern- 414 . MANKIND : THEIR ment of which they divided among themselves. The Persians had also thirty angels, who presided over each day of the month ; as they had twelve greater angels, who presided over the twelve months, and who distributed their influence over the whole year (Hyd. De Vet. Per. Eel. cap. xv. p. 190, &c.). Pythagoras held that the celestial bodies were immortal and Divine (Diog. Laert. Vit. Pythag.); that the sun, moon, and stars were so many gods, who possessed a superabundajice of heat, which is the principle of life; that the rays of the sun, penetrating the air and the water down to the profoundest depths of the ocean, spread the germs of life everywhere. The same dogma was held by the Egyptians, who attributed the primitive organisation of animals to the heat of the sun (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. I. cap. vii.). Pythagoras therefore placed the substance of the Deity in this ethereal fire, of which the sun is one of the sources (Cic. De Nat. Deor., L I. cap. xi.; Lact. De Fals. Eel. 1. I. cap. v.; Senec. 1. 1., Quaest. Nat. Minu. Felix, p. 151 ; Salvian. De Gub. Mund. 1. I. p. 4), and which, circulating throughout matter, constitutes the universal soul of the world, or the Deity, of whom each soul or each principle of individual motion and life is an emanation. These doctrines are beautifully set forth by Virgil in the sixth book of the JEneid and the fourth of the Georgics. In the profound obscurity of a dark night, when the sky ia covered with clouds, and when all objects have disappeared, and man seems to be alone with himself and with the deep shadow which envelopes him, his feeling is that light alone can restore him to himself, and to nature, which seems to have deserted him. Hence all who have experienced this sensation make light, a single day of which, shining in the midst of chaos, has produced the universe and man, their first deity. All poets who have invented cosmogonies have had this idea. It is the first dogma of Orpheus, of the cosmogony in Genesis, and of all theologians; and it is the Ormuzd whom the Persians invoke, and whom they consider as the source of all the good in nature, just as they place the origin of aU evil in darkness, and in Ahriman its ruler. Light and goodness early became synonymous in the mind of man, just as darkness and evil did. Plutarch (De Iside) says : — ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 416 " We mnst not believe that the principles of the universe are inanimate bodies, as Democritus and Epicurus thought, nor that matter without any quality belongring to it is organised and ruled by a particular wisdom or providence, as the Stoics have said ; for it is not possible that a single being, whether good or bad, should be the cause of all, as God cannot be the cause of any evil. The harmony of this world is a combina- tion of contraries, like the strings of a lyre, or like the string of a bow, which is bent and unbent. * Never,' says the poet Euripides, ^ is good separated from evil.' There must be a mixture of both in order that all may go well. This belief in the two principles belongs to the remotest antiquity. It has passed from the theologians and legislators to the poets and philosophers. The author of it is unknown, but the belief itself is shown by the traditions of the human race : it is con- secrated by mysteries and sacrifices among both Greeks and baorbarians. We recognise in it the dogma of opposing principles in nature, which by their opposite produce the mixture of good and of evil. One cannot therefore say that it is a single Dispenser who draws off events, so to speak, into two barrels, in order to mingle them together, and make us drink the mixture, for nature produces nothing here below which is without that mixture. But we must recognise two contrary causes, two opposing powers, which draw us, the one to the right, and the other to the left, and which thus govern our life, just as they do the sublunary world, which is on this account subject to so many changes and irregularities of every description. For if nothing can happen without a cause, and if good cannot be the cause of evil, it becomes absolutely necessary that there should be a cause for evil, just as there is a cause for good." Plutarch adds that thisdogma has been generally received by most nations, and especially by those which have the greatest reputation for wisdom. " They have all admitted two gods of different trades, if one may use the expression, one of whom is the cause of the good, and the other of the evil, which exists in nature. They called the first the Su- preme God, and the second the demon. The Persians, or Zoroaster, the head of their religion, called the first Oromasdes (Ormuzd) and the second Ahriman. They said that the first was of the nature of light, and the second of the nature 410 MANKIND : THEIR of darkness. The Egyptians called the first Osiris, and the second Typhon, the eternal enemy of the former." Cedrenus says that the Chalds^ns adored the light ; that they called it intellectual light, and that they described it or symbolised it by the two letters A and ft, or Alpha and Omega, by which he meant the extreme terms of the diffusion of matter in the seven planetary bodies, of which the first, or the moon, answered to the vowel A, and the last, or Saturn, to the vowel fl, and that the letter I described the sun, and these together formed the word lAfl, the Panaugria of the Gnostics, or the universal light of the planets. Even at the present day the Faroquis, who live in the forests of Persia, worship the sun, and never eat till they have worshipped him (Sonnerat, " Voyage de I'lnde,'* 1. 1, ch. V. p. 107). In the Zend-Avesta almost every page contains invocations to Mithra, to the moon, the stars, the elements , the trees, the mountains, and every portion of nature. The celestial Bull, to which the moon unites herself, is invoked in it ; while four great stars — Taschter, Satevis, Haftorang, and Tenant — ^the great star Bapitom, and other constellations which watch over various portions of the world, are also addressed : — " I invoke and I celebrate the Bull raised on high, who causes the grass to grow abundantly. ... I invoke and celebrate the divine Mithra, who is raised above the pure worlds. I invoke the stars, that excellent and celestial nation ; Taschter, that brilliant and luminous star ; the moon, the depositary of the germ of the Bull; the dazzling sun. . . T celebrate the waters, the lands, the trees, the earth, which is pure, the pure wind. . . . May Taschter, that star brilliant with light and glory, be favourable to me, together with Satevis, which is near the water, with the stars which are the germs of water, the germs of earth, the germs of trees, together with the star Venant, and the stars which compose the Haftorang, brilliant with light ! '' The literal meaning of &e6s^ Deus, God, &c., will show the origin of the ideas found in the sacred writings of all nations respecting the Divine Nature. Various meanings have been assigned to the word, because the language from which the word is really derived was unknown to ancient writers. Thus Herodotus says that the Pelasgians called the gods 0SOVS, from the circumstance that they, after having put ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 41 • {divTsi} all things in order, took in hand the whole manage- ment of them (Euterp. ii. 52). And Athenagoras (1. XI.) says, TO iroifjccu deipcu vpos t&u apyaltov iXiysro, ** Hoc pacto,'* adds Scap.) ** S€69 erit conditor et creator universi/' Phurmutus (De Nat. Deor.^ i, p, 140, ed. Gale) agrees with both, saying, ** The gods are ' arrangers ' and makers of all that exists ;" and adds that of old, men took to be Beovs (gods) ^' the bodies they saw continuaUy revolving," &c. This idea is borrowed from Plato (Cratyl. sec. 81, ed. Bek., and Euseb. Praap. Evang.iซ p. 29, et sqq.), who says that the Greeks at first worshipped the Sim, the moon, the earth, the stars, and heaven : are oiv aura op&vres irdma oh lovra SpOfiov koI Oiovra airo ravnj? rrJ9 vaeo}f rrjf rod dilv Oeoifs abroifs hrovofjLcurai : ^^ As they saw those bodies continually revolving in their course, they called them 0sov9 (gods), from the rapid motion (to OhiVj rovr^ iari rpex^tVt teal 6l^ii09 tciPslaOai) inherent in their nature." The word has also been derived from dsapiiadaiy " to be contemplated " (Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 4), from Otfiofuii, "admiror " (Scap. p. 258) ; from 0a(Oy Le. ddofuii, " specto cum curd. ;" and from the Egyp- tian Hermes, " Taut, Thoth, or Theuth," according to Bryant (Anc. Myth. i. 13), who thinks it was originally written ^svd. The real origin of the word is to be found in the Sanscrit root Diu, Div, implying (1) brilliancy, and (2) the sky or heaven, from which 0e69 is derived, probably through Diu-s, D6us. Diu is a substantive — ^masculine, feminine, and neuter — which occurs in the Vedas. As masculine (nom. sing.), Diu-8, it means " Agni," " fire," the " sun ;" as feminine, it implies " a ray of light," " day " (Lat. "dies ") ; as neuter, it stands for " the sky," or " heaven " (atOijp). Div is also fre- quently found in the Vedas (1) as an adjective, " brilliant," and (2) as a feminine substantive, for the " sky," or " heaven." There is also the kindred word Diaus, which signifies the sky ; and also A9an, or " heaven " — " of the stars, of the moon, and of the sun ; self-existing lights that have no beginning " — mentioned in the Zend-Avesta ; and this feminine and masculine word ranged high above the lower and neuter Diu (the sky, or " expanse of heaven "), which was inhabited by the Maruts (winds or genii) "bom of the earth." There, in the higher heaven, the procreating or generative Power ("HX*o* iravroKpartopy Agni, Dius) dwelt in splendour, surrounded by his revolving satellites. From this Dius 418 MANKINl): THEIR (mascnline), Agni, or " the sun," and (feminine) ** radiating light," in connection with the allied roots Diu, Diaus, and Div, is derived the Latin Deua and the Greek SeS?, in the following waj: — From Dius came the Latin DSos; the Doric XSiiis (Alctsi, ฃr. 3 ed. 9) and ZeSs; the Lacedsemonian XtSs (Thncyd. v. 77, irepl Si r& 2*ft> aofuiTOfi and aelos avrjp^ &c., AxiBi, Eth. vii. 2) ; the ^olic ^sv9^ Zev9 (gen. Acot, dat. Alt, ace. Ala), or Slo9 (Salmas. Not. in Epict. p. 37 ; Scheid. in v. Leu. et. Gr. p. 917); the Attic (like ovOeh, oifOivy for o\}^ bIs, ovS' iv ; hvO^ihs for hvafjihs, &c.) 0r;j (CaUim. Cal. Cer. 58, ytivaro h^aOevs; and 129, irorl rhv dew) and The sun was adored because he gave light to heaven, and life to the earth ; and heaven was in turn worshipped as the abode of the sun. But the object of adoration in both was " LIGHT," as inseparable from the heat of " life " (Ya9na, L 37). This is why the Aour, or auroral light, is introduced in the Jewish cosmogony, a light independent of that of the sun, and perhaps the origin oiOCpavos. Our word " God " has the same origin. Of old, on the frozen shores of Ultima Thule, was heard : S61 ek 84 ; Sva thotti mer Sem ek seei gavfgan Guth : Henni est laut Hinnsta siuni Allda heimi i. I saw the sun \ It appeared thus to me, As if I saw a majestic god ; I bowed to the earth before him For the last time In this passing world 1 Edda, Solar, L xli. For there also Eldr er best Meth yta sonom Ok S<51ar syn. Heylindi sitt Ef mathr hafa nair. " Fire is best, among the sons of men ; and the light of the sun ; if a man keep his health " (Hava-Mal. 68). The word %z6s has then, in its original meaning, nothing in common with " spirit," since it first meant the " sun" or '^heaven." Oco^ and Zivs both arise from the root Diu, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 419 Diu-8, or Div, "Hoc idem ostendit antiquius Jovis nomenj nam olim Diovib et Diespitbb dictus, id est *dies pater' (*die8,' i.q. *dius/ Lanzi. Sagg. iii. 721), a quo * dei ' dicti qui inde, et ^ dius ' et * divos ; ' unde * sub divo,' ^ Dius Fidius.* Itaque inde ejus perforatum tectum ut ea videatur *divom,' id est *coelum;' — ^^lius * Dium Fidium ' dicebat ^ Diovis filium/ ut Grseci AiSaKopou Castorem," &c. (T. Varro, v. 65, and ix. 75, ed. Miill.). ** Jovis Diespiter appellatus, id est diei et lucis pater : idcircoque simili nomine Diiovis (or Diovis) dictus est et * Lucetius,' quod nos die et luce quasi vita ipsa afficeret et juvaret" (Gell. V. 10; inMommsen. Tint. D. p. 274). The most common name for Diu-s, or the sun, was San and Son, expressed also Zan, Zon, and Zoan. Zeus of Crete, who was supposed to have been buried in that island, is said to have had the following inscription on his tomb: ^il8g fjjya9 Kelrai Zev9y iv Aia KiKkrjaKovai, The lonians expressed it Z^i/, and Zrfva. The Babylonish name for the sun was Xdcov^ sometimes expressed Xavy Soan. It was the same as Zanan of the Sidonians. Hesychius speaks of Zavdvas^ Ssos ti9 iv Xlha>vi — evidently the sun. He also says that the Indian Hercules, by which is always meant the chief deity, was styled Dorsanes {/^opadpTjs 6 'HpaK\rJ9 TTCLp^ "Ii/So^y. The name Dorsanes is an abridgment of Ador-San or Ador-Sanes (San in Sanscrit means " fine," " existing," " excellent, " best," and is an epithet of the sun ; ** savada-San," " always existing" in Vishnu Pur. II. viii. 16), that is, Ador-Sol, the" lord of light." It was this glorious orb, this god of light, that man welcomed with joy, when the first faint rays announced his approach. A thousand colours adorn the gate by which he is to return ; roseate hues appear under his advancing steps ; gold, mingling its brilliancy with azure, forms the triumphal arch under which the conqueror of night and of darkness is to pass. The stars disappear before him, and leave free to him the Olympian fields he is to rule over alone. All nature awaits him : the birds celebrate his approach by tlieir warbling, and make the plains of the air, over which his chariot is about to fly and which the soft breath of his horses already agitates, resound with their songs. The summits of the trees are gently agitated by the fresh wind which springs up from the east. The animals, too, awake, R E 2 420 MANKIND: THEIR like man, and receive from the dawn of day the signal which tellfi them to seek their pasture in the meadows and the fields, where the plants, the herbs, and the flowers are bathed in soft dew. At length the dazzling diadem of the king of day is seen above the horizon, and soon the beneficent Star himself appears, surronnded by all his glory. As he rises, shadow, his eternal enemy, which attaches herself to the bodies which produce her, and to gross matter, of which she is the daughter, flies before himซ always retreating in the opposite direction. " Light,'* says Sallust, the philosopher (cap. vii.), ^^ draws its substance from the sun and from fire, and only exists by means of, and in connection with, that element. Shadow belongs to bodies, and only exists by its means." Thus Typhon was placed in the dark matter which forms bodies — Typhon, who, like the Giants, was the son of Earth, and the enemy of Jupiter, the father of Day. As the sun slowly sinks beneath the horizon, after his daily course is run, with the same majestic slowness with which he arose, and night spreads her black veil over the earth, another phenomenon is presented to the eyes of man. On the side on which he saw the sun disappear, a new star, emerging as it were from his side, and formed out of his substance during the sleep of the god of day, an airofnrcuTyya Tov fikiov (Sanchon. Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. m.), a dis- memberment of the sun, as it was oaUed, just as Eve is said to have been taken out of Adam's side, appears to repair partially the loss of light, robing herself day by day with garments which shine more and more, so that at the end of fourteen days they cover her entirely, and then her full and perfectly round disk rivals in some degree the god who lends her his light, and yields to her the dominion of night. Another movement of the sun and moon did not fail to be observed — that which takes place from one tropic to another without ever passing certain limits, but moving obliquely, and in a reverse direction to their daily course. It did not fail to be observed, for what can cause a greater feeling of sadness in men than the aspect of Nature when divested of her verdure and her foliage ? The delightful temperature of the spring and summer, the harmony of the elements, which was in unison with that of the heavens, the richness and beauty of the coimtry with its crops and its fruits, and the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 421 flowers which enamelled it, perftiming the air with their odours, and presenting a cliarming spectacle with their varied and brilliant colours, have all disappeared. Happiness has fled from man, together with the god whose presence rendered the country beautiful. The ancient Egyptians feared lest some day he would leave them altogether (Manil. 1. 1, ver, 69) ; and therefore every year, at the winter solstice, they had festivals of rejoicing (AchUl. Tat. chap, zxiii. p. 85 ; Uranol. Petavii, vol. iii.), when they saw that the sun began to return to them, and to retrace his path in order to revisit our northern climes. Still greater joy was felt when he had ascended to the middle of his course, and had driven before him the darkness which had encroached on the day and usurped a portion of his dominion. The equilibrium of day and night, and with it the harmony of nature, being restored, a new order of things, as beautiful as that which had passed away, recommenced, and the earth, rendered fertile by the heat of the sun, which had reacquired the freshness and the strength of youth, grew lovely beneath the rays of her husband. Five stars. or luminous bodies, of different sizes, were also observed, which all partook of the motion of the sun and moon between the tropics. Their constant movement over the same portion of the heavens, their fidelity and attachment to the sun, near whose path they always were, sometimes preceding, sometimes following him, caused them to be re- garded as the satellites of the king of heaven. Such the Chaldseans considered them to be, and such they called them. The greater or less duration of their revolutions caused men to think that some described greater circles than the others. Saturn, the time of whose revolution occupies thirty years, was considered to be the most distant movable star, and the moon, for the same reason, to be the nearest. Hence arose the idea of seven spheres or consecutive heavens, more or less near each other, and placed at distances proportioned to the duration of the revolutions. The moon, the nearest of all, was surmounted by Mercury and Venus, which completed their revolutions in less than a year. Beyond these three stars was placed the sun, whose revolution formed the term of comparison for the duration of the others ; and conse- quently the three other stars whose revolutions were longer than his were placed above him. Hence the ladder of the seven planets, placed in the following order: The moon, 422 MANKIND : THEIR Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The sun was placed in the midst of these seven spheres, as he ought to be, seeing that he was the soul of the world, and the bond of the universal harmony. He was the king of nature, round whom everything was grouped : the chief of the gods, to whom the heavens paid homage, and round whose throne the other gods revolved. The zodiac and its twelve divisions, called the circle or wheel of the signs, was the result of these observations, and the vernal equinox was chosen as the starting-point of what was called the path of the gods. By degrees, not only the signs of the zodiac, but all the constellations, became grouped into figures of men and animals, or placed under signs. These other signs or constellations were joined to the signs or marks of the twelve divisions of the zodiac, and were subordinate to them. When the division of the zodiac into twelve parts was after- wards increased to that into thirty-six parts by the sub- division of each of the twelve parts into three, recourse was had, in order to enable these to be recognised, to thirty-six points beyond the zodiac, or to thirty-six constellations or groups of stars, forming figures, which corresponded to the twelve signs, and to each of their three divisions. This gave forty-eight figures or marks altogether : twelve in the zodiac, and thirty-six beyond it. This is the exact number of the constellations known to the ancients. If the signs which correspond to the seasons are no longer the same at the end of a certain number of centuries ; if the equinoxes, which at first occurred under the signs of the Bull and the Scorpion, and the solstices, which corresponded to the Lion and to Aquarius at the same period, no longer take place at these times, when the sun arrives at these signs after the lapse of 2,115 years ; and if, on the contrarj-, they take place a month before he has arrived at them, no doubt the correspondence between tbe signs and the seasons will be disturbed, but the seasons themselves will continue the same. A period of twelve times 2,115 years, or 25,812 years, will, however, bring everything back to its former state. It follows from what has been said that Taurus, which pre- sided 2,500 years before our era over the first day of spring, presided about the commencement of that era over the second month, having been replaced at the equinox by Aries. Aries, in turn, gave place to Pisces, some 300 years before our era. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 438 The sun, in his annual course, returned to the equinoctial point about V earlier each year, which made a degree every seventy-two years, and, consequently, at the end of that period the difference of a day was made. This is what is termed the precession of the equinoxes, and all the changes in vegetation and in destiny are comprehended in the great period or year of 25,812 years ; and, when it is completed, the same phenomena are reproduced, with the same changes and with all the peculiarities which had been exhibited on the first occasion. It is evident, however, that the symbols of the ancient worship no longer corresponded with those of the period 2,115 years later. It was no longer Taurus, but Aries, that opened the year at the vernal equinox. It was no longer Leo that filled the solstitial throne of the Sun of Summer ; Cancer had taken his place. Scorpio was no longer the first sign under which Nature became degraded, but Libra, The representation of the visible causes of the effects produced on the earth being changed, like the causes themselves, the fictions founded on them no longer corresponded with their object. The sacred enigmas became unintelligible — ^religious fables, and the temples, fashioned upon the order of the heavens, presented nothing but a shapeless chaos, the ir- regular plans of which corresponded to nothing, because all that they referred to had been changed. 424 MANKIND ! TIIEIB CHAPTEE XVI. The ancient Egyptians called the son the king, and the moon the queen, of heaven. They compared the one to the right eye, and the other to the left (Sext. Empir. 1. V. p. 114). The Chaldseans called them the interpreters of the gods (Diod. 1. 11. cap. xxx.), a denomination which has continued in the case of Mercury, because he appears constantly close to the sun, like a dog ; hence Plutarch and Diodorus tell us that the great gods of Egypt, Osiris and Isis, took Mercury- Anubis for their companion (Diod. and Plut. De Isid.), who was their guardian, just as the dog is that of man. In an age so primitive that King Evander and Ulysses were repre- sented as attended by a dog, there was nothing ludicrous in this idea. The Chaldseans also saw in the planets the interpreters of fate, and of the oracles of astrology, because, according to Diodorus, they observed that while the other stars remain fixed, or move in the sky preserving the same relative position to each other, the planets have a peculiar motion of their own, by means of which they disclose the future to men, and reveal the intentions of the gods, of whom they are the interpreters. It was on the motions of these five planets that they chiefly based their theory, and especially on those of the star which describes the largest orbit — that is, Saturn. " They gave the name of Helios, or the sun, to the most brilliant of the stars, to that one which gives the most important and the most numerous prognostics." Virgil shows us what importance was attributed to the sun in these matters : The sun reveals the secrets of the sky ; And who dare give the source of light the lie ? The change of empires often he declares, Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars. He first the fate of Caesar did foretell, And pitied Rome, when Home in CsDsar fell. In iron clouds concealed the public light. And impious mortals feared eternal night. Georg. 1. I. V. 463. Dryden's Translation. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 425 We also know that this god, under the name of Apollo, was famous for his oracles. Ocellus of Lucania tells us (chap ii, ง 16) that '^ among the bodies which compose that principle which operates on other things besides itself, and which is all that is above the moon, the most active bodj, the most powerful agent, is the sun, who by his coming and going is continuallj changmg the air from hot to cold, whence result the changes on the earth and in all that belongs to the earth." It is this influence of the sun on elementary nature and on the generation of sublunary beings which caused Cheremon to say that the ancient Egyptians placed in him the mighty force (Euseb. Prcep. Ev. 1. in. cap. iv.) which organises all beings, and that they looked upon him as the great architect of the world. Porphyry says : " Chปremon aliique multi nil quidquam asfnoscunt ante mundum hunc ad8^tabUem,necdu8!kg7pti3Liinip8i88criptornm8uoniia exordiis ponunt Deos, prseter vulgo dictos Planetas et Zodiaci signa, et Stellas simul cum his in conspectum venientes, sectiones descensorum et Horoscopes. Quippe videbat enim qui solem universi architectum esse dicerent, ab illis non ea tantum qusB ad Isidem et Osiridem pertinent, sed etiam quidquid sacrarum Fabularum erat, partim in stellas, partim in lunse varietatem, partim in solis cursum, vel in noctumum aut diumum hemisphserium, vel in Nilum fluvium, cuncta denique in res naturales nihil in naturas corpore^ mole carentes inventisque conferri." Plato, in his " Eepublic," acknowledges the supremacy of the sun in nature (Plut. Qusest. Plat. p. 1006), and says that he is the king of the visible universe, just as the Being whom he calls God or Goodness, by way of expressing his supre- macy, is the god of the world of mind. He calls him the son of the Supreme Being, whom he has engendered similar to himself (Plat. De Eep. 1. VEL). This beautiful and sublime idea respecting the sun has been consecrated in the magni- ficent hymn of Martianus Capella, and in the address of the Emperor Julian to that star, who is the father of nature, and the visible image of the invisible Being who governs the world in the system of the Spiritualists. Aristotle observes that the cause of the generation and disorganisation of bodies, of their growth, and of all the changes which they undergo, is to be found in the oblique path of the sun in the zodiac, according to his greater or 426 MANKIND : THEIE less vicinity to us, and that these periods of generation and destruction take place in equal periods of time. It is to these two periods, he observes, that we ought chiefly to direct our attention. The Emperor Julian (Julian. Imp. Orat. 4), in his hymn to the sun, makes the same observatio nrespecting the effects produced by the sun in his annual course. " It is he," he says, " who infuses the principles of motion and of life into that matter which he renders fertile by his approach ; it is he abo who by his withdrawal and by passing to the other hemisphere, abandons it to the principles of death which it contains.'* The idea of assimilating the sun, or rather the daylight, to man, and of comparing its progress and duration to that of the life of man at its different ages, appears to have been borrowed by the Greeks who were settled in Italy from the Egyptians ; at least, Macrobius tells us (Macrob. Sat. 1. L cap. xviii.) that in this respect they imitated the Egyptians, who, at a certain period of the year, presented the image of the sun to be worshipped by the people under the semblance of an infant child, which they produced from the secret recesses of their sanctuary. This mysterious child is the same as the famous Horus, the Egyptian Apollo, son of the virgin Isis, or as Harpocrates, whom this goddess, according to Plutarch (De Isid.) brought forth about the winter solstice, and as the Christ of the added chapters of the gospels. By the effect of the precession of the equinoxes, Aries succeeding to Taurus furnished the head-dress of the sun, when he became known as Jupiter Ammon. He was no longer bom exposed to the streams of Aquarius, like Bacchus, nor enclosed in the urn, like the Egyptian god Canopus ; but he was bom in the stables of Augias, or of the celestial (Joat (Isid. Orig. 1. ni. cap. xlvii. ; Eratosth. cap. xxvii. ; Hygin. 1. n. In Oapric. German. Caes.), which, according to Eratos- thenes, had been bi'oughtup with Jupiter on Mount Ida, and was on that account placed among the constellations under the name of -SJgipan. This is Bacchus the son of Caprius, of whom Cicero speaks (DeNat. Deorum, 1. III.). As Bacchus, he achieved his triumph mounted on the Ass placed in the stars of the constellation of Cancer (Hygin. 1. II.), which at that period was situated at the summer solstice, or the highest portion of the sun's path, which had previously been occupied by the Lion. OEIGIN AND DESTINY. 427 The PersiaBS begin their year with the Lamb of spring (Ber^, sen AgnxuUy sc. Arietem, Hyd. De Vet. Pers. cap. xix.) ; and it is at the entrance of the sun into that sign that they celebrate their festival of Nauruz, or the new year, at the rising of the constellation Perseus, from which they said that they had sprung (Cedren. vol. i. p. 23) — of that Perseus who waซ the first who brought down from heaven the celestial fire which was held sacred in their temples. This fiction evi- dently alludes to what the earth experiences at this period under the powerful action of the sun, which has returned to warm it, and to relight the torch of nature which autumn had extinguished. All the religious ceremonies which take place at this period are intended to recall to men's minds the renewal of nature, and the triumph of Ormuzd, or the god of light, over darkness, or Ahriman its ruler (Hyde, De Vet. Pers. cap. xix.). Our ceremonies of Easter, or the festival of the passage of the sun under this same sign of the equinoctial Lamb, are a copy of the Persian festival. The Jewish legislator also fixed on the month Kisan, which corresponds to the equinoctial sign of spring, as the com- mencement of the Jewish year, to commemorate the renewal of nature after the pretended Deluge, and also to comme- morate their deliverance from a land where they had suffered oppression, and from which they were delivered by the sacrifice of the Lamb at this period. This celestial Lamb is the hero of all the fictions founded in the passage from the darkness of winter, and the evils which it brings with it, to the delights of spring. It is thus that Bacchus and his army, after long wanderings in burning deserts, were brought back by Aries, or the Lamb, to pleasant meadows, and to the springs which watered the temple of Jupiter Ammon. The Bull had previously enjoyed this prerogative. The division of the zodiac into thirty- six parts is evidently of later date than that into twelve, for there would be no reason for commencing with Mars (the planet which is domiciled in Aries), if Aries had not been in the equinox when this division was thought of. The seven planetary bodies were domiciled as shown below. The two signs, Leo and Cancer, which were the nearest to the solstice, and con- sequently the two highest thrones, were assigned to the king and queen of heaven — the sun and the moon. Saturn occupied the seat fui-thest from them — Aquarius and Capri- 428 MANKIND: THEIB com. Mercury^ being nearest to the sun, had the highest seat next to the sun and moon, and was domiciled in Gremini, and Virgo. Venus was next to him, and was domiciled in Taurus and Libra. Next to her came Mars, who had Aries and Scorpio ; and after him Jupiter, who had his seat in Pisces and Sagittarius, between the seats of Mars and of Saturn, between whom he is actually placed in the succes- sion order of the spheres. This distribution of the planets in the signs is found in Manilius, Macrobius, Firmicus, Porphyry, &c. DOMICILES OF THE PLAl^ETS. SB ClNCEB Gemini Taubus < CO < Q O O CO W3 c i o 1 ^ ^1 ^ 5 "^1 I % ซ 5 ^1 I ^ ^ -I s -$ Si Nil ^ -^ 5 •^ S: 2: ^ t' ^ -^ V V V V, ov ^i 5^ ^ .3 •4 o H -^ o TUT NEW VOniC W'-^ ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 429 other liand, a fresh one ascended every ten dajs (Died. Sic. L II. cap. XXX.) ; and that this circulation continued through- out eternity. This astrological theory forms part of the sacred teaching under the name of Theology of the Decani, or of the subaltern genii which each bore the mark of the third part of a sign, or which divided the action of each of the twelve sig^s into three, and formed a company of thirty-six gods (Jul. Fir. 1. IV. cap. xvi.), which ruled the zodiac, and took part in the effects produced by the sun, moon, and the five other planets upon which the government of the universe rested. The Greek and Latin astrologers have preserved the names of each of these decani or genii. They may be seen in Fir- micus (1. lY. cap. xvi.) and Salmasius (Salmas. An. Clim. p. 610). Origen (Contra Celsum, 1. IV.) has preserved a few of them. As to the figures which represent them, they are described in the three spheres, the Indian sphere (JuL Scalig. Not. in Apotel. Manil. p. 336), the Persian sphere, and the Barbarian sphere, of which Aben-Ezra has given a description, and they are mentioned by Scaliger at the end of his commentary on Manilius's poem, and also in Leopold of Austria's " Science of the Stars." They are also repre- sented in an astrological planisphere, in the Egyptian Btjle (dee engraving), which was found at Home in a very mu- tilated state, and was sent to the Academy of Sciences by Signor Bianchini. The figures of the decani are connected with those of the planets distributed in these decans, which are drawn up above them in this planisphere. Although this series is incomplete, it is easy to complete it, at least for the planets, by repeating them in the order above men- tioned. The ancient astrologers, imitating the Egyptian priests, only taught this secret theology respecting the decans, which plays a very important part in ancient astrological religions, witii much reserve and mystery. " This,'' says Pirmicus (1. IV. cap. xvi.), '^ was that secret and august docixine the principles of which the ancients, inspired by the Deity, only confided to those initiated into that science with reserve, and with a certain fear, taking care to envelop it in a thick veil, that it might not come to the knowledge of the profane." To this theory of the decans was joined that of the para- natellons, or extra-zodiacal planets^ on the right and left of 430 MANKIND : THEIR the zodiac, which rise or set at the same moment, and during the same period as each of the ten degrees of each sign takes to rise or to set. Hence they must be thirty-six in number^', which is exactly the number of the extra-zodiacal constella- tions. These, together with the attributes of the planek which corresponded to them, formed the attributes of the decani and the genii of the paranatellons, as may be seen in the Egyptian planisphere engraved in Kircher's CEdipitf^ (vol. ii. part ii. p. 206), the first part of which is shown in. the engraving. For example — Every time that the sign at Capricorn sets, Oanis Major and Minor rise at the Sams moment in the opposite portion of the eastern horizon. These two animals are therefore placed in the planispherv over Capricorn as paranatellons, although they are far distant from that sign in the heavens, because they are found under Cancer — that is, under the sign diametrically opposite to Capricorn, or 190 degrees from that sign. The same is the case with the other representations of animals or men which are placed over each of the twelve signs of this planisphere^ as is shown in the second part of the planisphere, which it given in a subsequent chapter. Upon this principle the poem of Aratus, the ancient calen* dars, and, generally speaking, all the descriptions of asterisms compared with the figures drawn in the twelve signs, have been composed. Two specimens of the most complete of these tables, those of Hipparchus, are subjoined, relating to the paranatellons which rise, and those which set, in Cancer (Hipp. 1. m. cap. viii.). Pa/ranatellons which rise. Cakcee. " Oriente Cancro, cum eo Zodiacus oritur, a Geminorum parte 23, ad Cancri 18. Culminant a Piscium 6 ad Arietis 1 medium. Prior oritur Stella, quae in extrema Boreali Chel4; ultima verd, qua3 in extremitate Australis Chelse. Culmina ver6 reliquis 6 Stellis, prior lucida, quae est in Andromedao capite. Novissima verd praicedens Stellaram, lucidarum trium, quae sunt in Arietis capite, et a meridie Ceto adjacens, circa medium corpus ipsius, expers nominis et lucida. Item Australior succedentium, quae in laterculo Ceti ; nee non pes Andromedae sinister paululum citra meridianum situs. Oritur Cancer hora 1 et 24 parte." THE NEW v.. . r. ??•? I I ? .1 ; iป> ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 431 Parwnatellona which seL Cangeb. ^^ BnrsTis occidente Cancro, descendit cum eo Zodiacus, h, gradu Geminorum 26 ad Cancri medium 20 : culminat k Chelarum 17, ad Scorpii 12. Prima Stella occidit lucida, qua) est in pedibus Cancri, in directum posita, ad occasum Australiores respiciens, quee circa nubeculam in Cancro sunt. Ultima, quGB est in extremitate Borealis forcipis Cancri. Cseterarum Stellarum culminant Bootee pes dexter, et Chel- arum lucida, quse est in extremitate Australis Chelse. Postremd culminant, quee est in brachio dextro Ingeniculi, et quee est ab humero dextro tertia. Item Scorpii tertia, quarta et quinta vertebra earum, quee sunt post pectus. Occidit Cancer horS, 1, 36'." The thirty-seven dynasties of the Egyptians, of which Cheremon speaks, are in reality thirty-six, the difference arising from the epithet given to one of them being taken for a new dynasty or decan, as they really were. These heads of the astrological divisions were, owing to the theory being kept secret, as Firmicus has told us, taken for kings or political chieftains. Lastly, the heavens were also divided into 360 gods, or tutelary genii of the 360 degrees of the circle of the zodiac. This is the origin of the 360 deities of the theology of Orpheus, of the 360 urns into which the Egyptian priests poured libations in honour of Osiris, and of the 860 divisions of the circle which surrounded the tomb of Osimandias. One of these spheres may be seen in Scaliger, presided over by 360 decani, whose representatives are described under each of the 360 degrees of the circle of the zodiac. Plato only admitted two primary elements, out of which the world was formed, and which gave it the double property it possesses, that of being seen and touched (Plut. De Fort. Kom. p. 316). Earth gave it solidity and stability, fire gave it shape, colour, and motion. The two other elements, air and water, were only placed as intermediaiy links, which united these outer elements, which were really the primary and necessary elements, and which required other elements to make the passage from one to the other less abrupt. For this reason, Anaxagoras divided the elements into light and 482 MANKIND: THEIR heavy. The light ones, such as fire, rose ; the heavy ones sanic ; while air and water found their place between them (Diogen. Laert. 1. II., Y. Anax., p. 93). This idea was the foundation of the distribution of the four elements among the twelve signs by astrologers. As this theory formed part of the religious system of the ancients, it is necessary to give the following summary of it, from Firmicus (1. IT. cap. zi.). In elementary nature, or in the sublunary world, every- thing being considered to be modified by the action of the twelve signs, men thought they perceived, or rather they fancied, that some particular sign had more analogy than others with some particular element. As the twelve signs, therefore, imited in themselves the nature of these four elements, three were assigned to each element, proceeding in rotation by fire, earth, air, and water. Thus, looking at the engraving, and taking Leo, or the domicile of the sun, for the first sign (as it was 2,500 b.o.), and fixing in it the seat of fire, the earth became placed under the virgin who is called Ceres, the air under Libra, and water under Scorpio. By continuing and repeating the series, fire occupied a new seat in the arrow or bow of Sagittarius, the earth in Capricomus, the air in the urn of Aquarius, and water in Pisces. Aries became the third seat of fire, Taurus of earth, Gemini of air, and Cancer of water. This gave a triangle for fire, by drawing lines which connected each of its seats, of which Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius form the three apexes, &c. Thus four elementary triangles were formed. This theory is applied in the treatise on Isis and Osiris, in which Plutarch (De Isid. p. 366) says that, the sun being in Scorpio and the full moon in Taurus, the death of Osiris, the husband of Isis, was mourned for, and a figure was formed of a mixture of earth and water, analogous to the nature of those deities, because Isis, or the moon, was in Taurus, the sign of earth, and Osiris, or the sun, was in Scorpio, the sign of water. Proclus says (Tim. p. 14) that there is a concerted action, and a species of united force and inspection, in all the celestial deities, by means of which all that comes from the earth, and all that appertains to the changes which it experiences, is ruled. Hence it becomes necessary to understand thoroughly whether these deities or secondary agents of the sun are signs or paranatellons. All the stars attend upon the seven DISTRIBUTION OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS ia the twelve si^us of the Zodiac and in the domiciles of the planets. E.AdIard ic. London .-Lon^mA&B Jb Co. ORIGIN ANT) DESTINY. 433 planels (Pirke Eliezer, cliap. vi. pp. 9, 14) , and the seven planetd upon the twelve signs of the zodiac, according to the Babbis. All the signs also attend upon the sun and moon, and the creation of men, and it is by their means that the world exists. Albohazen Halj (pars prima, cap. i. De Judic. Astron.) also speaks of the action of the twelve signs on the four elements, which are the principles of the organisation of all bodies, and of the passage of the different celestial bodies into these signs, which produced the changes of the seasons by their presence, their entrances, or their exits. ** Has not each star its peculiar activity or energy ? '* asks Marcus Aurelius (1. VI. cap. xxxviii.) ; " but nevertheless all these differences are combined with one another, so as to form the universal action of nature.'^ Hence sacred learning, according to Cheremon and the most learned Egyptian priests, had for its object the signs of the zodiac and their gods, or genii of the paranatellons ; in other words, the stars, whose appearances, disappearances, risings, and settings, governed the progress of the architect of the universe. This was the basis of all sacred myths, because it was also the basis of ancient astronomy or natural astrology, on which all religious are founded. The Persians fixed the duration of the happiness of man as ranging from the sign of the Lamb, or the equinoctial sign of spring, to the sign of Libra, or the autumnal equinox. At that period, according to them, evil entered the universe (Boundesch, vol. ii. p. 353) under the seventh thousand of the total revolutions of the world ; that is, they make the good in nature, and the reign of the good principle, to begin and end with the period of the year during which the action of the sun is beneficent. These six signs they call the six thousand of God, and the six others may be called the six thousand of the devil. Time, according to the Boundesch, or the Persian cosmogony (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 421) consists of 12,000 years. The thousands of God are the Lamb, the Bull, the Twins, the Crab, the Lion, and the Ear of Com or the Virgin, which make 6,000 years. After these comes Libra, when Ahriman or Petifireh appeared. After them came the Scorpion, and Zoack ruled for a thousand years, &c. It follows from these passages that the six gods of Ormuzd, each of which presides over some physical or moral good, are the tutelary deities of the six first sigpis, and that p F 434 MAXKIXD : THEIH the six others are those which destroy their beneficent operations. These deities interfere with the affiurs of tlie sublunary world, and combine their influences with those of the thirty-six extra-zodiacal constellations. Hence we have forty -eight gods, twenty-four of whom are beneficent^ and tv^enty-four maleficent, which divide the celestial sphere among them, and, by their contrary influences, pour forth the good and evil which are mingled together in the world, and which are represented by the mystical Egg of the MagL It is in this Egg that they mingle, fight, circulate in opposite directions, and triumph successively over one another, according as the sun draws near to, or departs from, our hemisphere. The symbolic egg which the Egyptians represented as coming out of the mouth of the invisible god Kneph was known in the mysteries of Greece as the Orphic egg. The Coresians make their god Chumong to issue from it (Cont. d'Orville, tome i. p. 175) ; the Egyptians did the same with their Osiris (Diod. Sic. 1. I. cap. xxix.) ; the modem Orphites their god Phanes, the principle of light (Athenag. Leg. p. 70), which is the same as Phenn or the Phoenix, and has the meaning of 608 (4> = 500, H = 8, N = 50, N = 50 : = 608). The Japanese cause it to be broken by their sacred bull, which makes the universe proceed from it ; the Greeks placed it at the feet of Bacchus, the god with bull's horns. Aristophanes (Aves, ver. 695) makes Love proceed from it, who, in conjunc- tion with Night, brings chaos into order ; and we learn from the Orphic Argonaut, (ver. 11) that *'Epo>y, or Divine Love, had the name of Phanes (Bryant, Anal. vol. ii. p. 330). This egg, in fact, symbolised the universe in ancient times, and the Magian fables respecting the egg of Oromasdes have the same signification. If we suppose an egg to be divided into two hemispheres, one of which is white and the other black, and surrounded by a circular band in an oblique position, one portion of which is in the white and the other in the black hemisphere, and divide this circular band into twelve equal parts, six will be in the white and six in the black hemisphere. Let us then suppose that there are thirty-six images exterior to this band, and twelve in it ; we shall then have forty-eight images or representations of deities, which cover the whole surface of the egg, half of which will serve to mark the graduations of the white hemisphere, and the other half ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 486 those of the black hemisphere. We have now the symbolic representation of the universe divided into two principles, subdivided into twelve houses, and represented by forty- eight images or representations of deities. These images form the stars into groups of good or of dangerous influences. It follows that, classifying the stars according to the effects produced by their risings and settings, the stars of spring, such as Aries, Taurus, the Charioteer, and the she- goat Amalthsea, will be of the number of beneficent stars, and that the stars of autumn, such as Libra, Scorpio, the serpent of Ophiucus, and the dragon of the Hesperides, which rise with them, will exhibit the influences of the evQ principle, and be looked upon as signs or causes of the effects produced at that period. All nature was divided between the two principles of light and darkness, and between their agents, or the partial causes, which were subordinate to these primary causes. Thus in Christianity, if the soul does not belong to God, it belongs to his enemy ; if the angels of light are not its guides, it is subject to the tyranny of the angels of darkness. Christians hold that there has been a division among the angels from the commencement, some remaining faithful to light, and others to darkness ; and these two armies of white and black angels, or good and evil angels, marched each under the banner of their chieftains, God and the devil, to make war against one another, which resulted in the defeat of the latter. This is the same as the war between Jupiter and the giants, which ends in the triumph of Jupiter, and the defeat of the latter, who were precipitated into black Tartarus. In this war Minerva, Vulcan, Pan, Bacchus — in short, all the gods of Olympus — range themselves on the side of the god of light, or Jupiter Ammon, represented by the Lamb or Aries ; while, on the other side, all the dark children of Earth and Chaos, Typhon, &c., contend against Jupiter, and, struck down by his thunderbolts, fall back into the dark bosom of the rebellious earth which had begotten them. Froclus (in Tim.) looks upon the war of the giants as a mythological fiction which represents the resistance of dark and chaotic matter to the active and beneficent force which organises it. It is especially at the vernal equinox that the creative energies of heaven manifest themselves, and that its whole F F 2 436 MANKIND: THEIR demiurgic energy becomes developed. All these myths of the triumph of the principle of light over its enemy, the genius of darkness, ore myUis respecting the vernal equinox* Ubi pulsam hyemem Sol aoieuB eg^t Sub Terras, coelumque 8B8tiY& luce refolsit. Virg. Georg. L IV. ?. 61. The shapes of the Lamb, of Aries, or of Taurus, which the victor assumes, are a proof of this ; and the poem of Nonnus confirms it. The first two books describe the battle of Jupiter with Typhon, who had taken his thunder from him during the winter. The god of light takes it from him, and strikes his enemy, whose arms and feet are composed of serpents, with his thunderbolts. Winter departs ; the sun, mounted on the Bull, and attended by Orion, shines gloriously in the heavens. All nature rejoices at this victory, and order and harmony are re-established in all its parts, where, some time previous, all was in frightful confrision, in conse- quence of the dominion of Typhon, the prince of darkness. The victory of Ormuzd over Ahriman is of the same de- scription ; and in the following extracts from the Boundesch will be seen the germ of those ideas which have furnished the material for the theological and poetical works of the Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks respecting the wars of the gods and the angels. The Zend-Avesta tells us that exist- ence was first given to Ormuzd and to PetidrSh Ahriman; it then tells us how the universe has been distributed from the beginning and will be to the end. "Ormuzd, raised high above all, was placed, together with supreme wisdom and with purity, in the light of the universe. This throne of light, this place where Ormuzd dwells, is called the First Light. The supreme wisdom or knowledge, and purity, which is produced by Ormuzd, is the Law. Both Ormuzd and Ahriman are throughout their existence the solitary inhabitants of endless Time. The good Ormuzd lives with his law, and Ahriman also dwells in darkness with his law. He has always begun the contest ; he has always been evil, and he is so still, but one day he will cease to be evil and to contend. The dark place in which he dwells is called the Primary Darkness ; he, the wicked one, dwells alone in the midst of it. These two beings, boundless, and hidden in the excess of good and of evil, mingled together when they appeared. The places where they dwelt were boundless. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 487 and thej dwelt alone in the midst of these abysses, and became united. Each of them is bounded according to his form. Ahriman knows everything, as also Ormnzd. Each of them has given all that exists ; " that is, all the good and evU in nature. Each of them has his followers. "The followers of Ormuzd will live for ever when the resurrection takes place ; the followers of Ahriman will disappear at that period, but he himself will exist for ever." The Boundesch states that the first production of Ormuzd was the sky, which Bahman, the king of the world of light, was to govern properly (Boundesch, p. 448). Ormuzd created light between heaven and earth; he made the fixed stars and the planets, then the moon, and lastly the sun. He divided the fixed stars into twelve parent constellations, the names of which are the Lamb, the Bull, &c. (ibid. p. 349) ; he also made the twenty-eight constellations which fix the twenty- eight stations of the moon. All these constellations, or the stars which form them, are intended to assist created beings against the evil one. Talismans were, in fact, placed nnder their influence, and bore their diflferent marks. The Boundesch represents these stars as an army of soldiers, ready to make war against the enemies of nature. This is what the Jewish books call the celestial host. It is these which Nonnus, in his description of the war between Jupiter and Typhon, puts into active warfare with that dread enemy, re- taining the very same name for them that they still bear. Six thousand four hundred stars, continues the Boundesch, (ibid.), have been formed, in order to aid each star of these constellations. Ormuzd has also placed at the four comers of heaven four sentinels, to watch over the fixed stars. These are probably the four regal stars of our astrologers. The star Taschter guards the east, Satevis the west, Yenant the south, and Haftorang the north. Ormuzd (Boundesch, p. 350) harangues his army, and draws it up in order of battle. Ahriman does the same on his side, accompanied by the dews, or evil genii who march under his standards. It is especially the sight of the purity and happiness of man which excites his envy, and plunges him into dejection (ibid. p. 351). At length, assembling all his forces, and encouraged by the exhortations of a leader of those evil genii, who pro- mises him that he will corrupt light, fire, water, trees, and plants, and will reproduce his evil nature in all that Ormuzd 438 MANKIND : THEIB has created, Ahriman comes to the light with all his dews, and gets into heaven in the shape of a serpent. This is the yerj figure of the constellation which spreads above Libra, and ascends with it, at the moment when the Persians supposed that evil entered for the first time into the world, which, up to that time, had been happy under the six thou- sand years of God. He penetrates into the midst of the earth by a hole which he had made in it — the same idea as that of the Magi, who suppose that the evil principle made a hole in the symbolic egg, to pour his poison into it. Ahri- man went into the water (ibid. p. 351, 352), on the trees, on fire, and especially on the celebrated Bull, who died in con- sequence. He spread thick darkness over the earth, like night, going southwards (ibid. pp. 353). He put on the earth the Kharfesters which bite and are poisonous, such as the serpent, the scorpion, and the toad. He burnt everything down to its roots ; he put a burning water on the trees, and made them dry up on the spot. The Bull, struck by him who desired nothing but evil, and by his poison, became ill and died. The world was dark as night, and the dried and bumt-up earth scarcely existed. Ahriman ascended on the fire, from which a dark smoke arose (ibid. p. 355), similar to that which rises from the bottomless pit in Eev. ix. 2. Aided by a great number of dews, he mingled with the planets and the fixed stars, and measured his strength with that of heaven. The Izeds, or celestial genii, fought for three months against Ahriman and against the dews (ibid.). They defeated them, and drove them down into hell. We see, therefore, that, as Cheremon tells us, all sacred mythology was based on physical objects, and on the order and motion of the visible universe, and that they did not in any way allude to abstract beings, or to those intellectual and living entities which metaphysicians invented at a later period, and by means of which Proclus and the New Platon- ists pretended to explain the ancient myths. But Cheremon was far from being right in saying that the ancient Egyp- tians, who invented these myths, and who worshipped the sun and the other stars, saw nothing in the universe but a machine without life and without intelligence, either in ite whole or in its parts, and that their cosmogony was nothing but pure Epicureanism, which requires nothing but matter and motion to create and rule its world. Jamblichus, in his ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 439 answer to Cheremon, proves to him that the Ugyptians did not see mere mechanism in the universe, and in the springs which moved it, but that they also admitted life, soul, and spirit, &c. The Epicurean idea necessarily excludes all religious worship, for it is impossible to offer sacrifices and prayers to deaf and dumb beings, or to bodies which are brilliant indeed, but which are considered to be nothing but lifeless matter, the action of which cannot be modified or changed, and which therefore it would be useless to invoke. No people, however, had such a magnificent and varied worship as the Egyptians had from the most remote antiquity, nor did any people ever possess such a reputation for being religious. Their theology and mythology, therefore, did not make the universe to be a mere machine, which consisted of nothing but matter and motion, and which was destitute of that life and intellect which existed in man and in animals — that is, in an infinitesimally small and short-lived por- tion of that vast, immutable, and eternal Being which was called God, or the Universe. It possessed, on the con- trary, in their opinion, eminently and in all its fulness, that which sublunary beings only had in a very inferior degree, and in a very small quantity. It resembled in some degree the ocean, from which streams, fountains, and rivers have arisen by means of evaporation, and which, after traversing more or less space, and being separated for a long or short period from the immense mass of water which produced them, return to its bosom again. The machine of the universe was moved, like that of man, by a principle of life which kept it in eternal motion, and which circulated in all its parts. The universe was living and animated just like man and animals, or rather these latter were only animated because, the universe being essen- tially so, it communicated to them for a few moments an infinitely small portion of its own eternal life. If this was withdrawn, men and animals died, and the universe alone, living and circulating round their remains, organised and animated fresh bodies by its eternal motion, by pouring into them again the active fire and the subtle substance which gave life to itself, and which, being incorporated with it, constituted its Universal Soul. Virgil has consecrated the doctrine of Pythagoras, and consequently that of the Egyptians, his masters, respecting 440 MANKIND: THEIR the soul and intelligence of the world, in the sixth book of the iBneid, and again in the fourth book of the Georgics. Servius, in his commentary on Yirgil, says that the Great Whole is composed of five things, viz. of the four elements and of God. But as it has been shown that the four ele- ments are but passive causes, God alone must be the active principle which organises them. Senrius accordingly adds (Comment, ad 1. YI. iBneid.) that the elements, or that organised matter which composes the universe, not being the whole, God is the active breath, the life-giving spirit^ which, spread throughout matter, or the elements, pro- duces and engenders everything, fie enquires into what we receive from God, and what from the elements, and he says that the elements compose the substance of our bodies, and that God formed the soul which gives life to them* All animals, says Servius, in another place (Greorg. 1. IV. ver. 220), borrow their flesh from the earth, their humours from water, their breath from the air, their heat from fire, and their instinct from the universal or Divine breath. Timฃeus of Locris, and Plato his commentator, have written a treatise on this subject, called the ^^ Soul of the World," a work which is nothing but the development of the cloctrine of Pythagoras, the instructor of Timseus, who held, as Cicero observes (De Nat. Deor., 1. I. cap. xi.) that God is that Universal Soul which is spread throughout all nature, and of which ours are but an emanation. St. Justin has given us a summary of this doctrine, in which he appears to quote the very words of Pythagoras : " God is One, says Pythagoras. He is not, as some think, external to the universe, but is the universe itself, and is wholly in the whole sphere. His eyes are upon everything that is bom : it is he who also creates all the immortal beings, and who is the Author of their power and of their deeds. He is the origin of everything ; he is the light of heaven, the Father, the Wisdom, the Soul of all beings, the Mover of all spheres " (Justin. Cohort, ad Gent. p. 18). Thus spoke Pythagoras; and, as Justin observes, Plato had also imbibed the same doctrine respecting the unity of Gk>d, the Soul and Intellect of all things, in Egypt. Although, however, this Soul pervaded all things, it did not act equally, or in the same manner, everywhere. The highest portion of the universe^ which was^ as it were^ the head of it, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 441 seemed to be its principal seat. It was there, then, that the guide of the rest of the universe, which was called the Hegemony, was placed (Diog. Laert. Vit. Pythag. 1. VIII.), just as in man the brain is supposed to be the principal seat of the soul, although it spreads motion and life throughout the rest of the body. By dividing the upper stratum of the universe into seven spheres or concentric layers, an eternal order will be found in them, the fruit of that Intelligence which causes the immortal bodies which form the harmonious system of the heavens to move in a constant and regular course. This Soul was divided, like the planets, into two parts, one of which moved from east to west, and the other in the opposite direction, which is that of the seven planetary spheres. This distinction is set forth in Timssus, and in Plato, his commentator. " Of the parts of the universe," says Timseus, " those which we see in the sky — that is, in the ether — are of two kinds : the one partakes of the nature of the being who is always the same, the other of that of the being who is always changing." The first, which are placed on the outside, carry with them all the portions which are inside them by a general movement from east to west : the others, which are inside, have a motion from west to east, which they derive from the being who is constantly changing. The motion of the changing being — ^that is, of that layer of the heavens which is next to the heaven of the fixed stars — *^ was divided into seven parts, with harmonious relations between them, and it forms seven spheres, circles, or con- centric skies. The moon circulates in the circle which is nearest to the earth. Above her is the sun, which Mercury and Yenus ever surround and accompany. Above the sun. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn accomplish their revolutions with the different rates of speed which belong to them, and at unequal periods." Thus the sun occupies the centre of this harmonious system of the planetary bodies, since he has only Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn above him. This is the origin of the famous symbolic flute, the seven unequal pipes of which represented the pretended harmony of the seven spheres. It was put into the hands of Pan, or the statue which repre- sented the sun, the soul of the God of the Universe, which became subdivided into the seven planetary bodies which 442 MANKIND: TUBIR modified sublunary nature by their motion in the sky and in the zodiac, of which the Goat, or Pan, fixed the commence- ment and the origin. Of the same nature is the series of the seven vowels arranged in mystic order, which were repeated when the planets were invoked ; of the seven-stringed lyre which was put into the hands of the sun-god, Apollo ; of the ship, which is the emblem of the universe, filled with the ether, and commanded by seven pilots ; of the seven-branched candlestick in the Jewish temple ; of the seven chambers of Moloch, the seven pyrsea or altars consecrated to the planets by the Persians, the seven pyramids of Laconia, the seven golden candlesticks of Bevelation, the seven-gated Thebes, and the book vrith seven leaves in which the Fates are consulted in Nonnus's poem ; of the book with seven seals, and the seven churches represented by the seven stars, in the Apocalypse of John — in a word, of all the sacred ex- pressions relating to the number seven which divides the heavens as above described. The metamorphoses ascribed to Jupiter, Vishnu, Bacchus, &c., are nothing but a mode of expressing the motion of the universal soul under different forms during the whole period of the sun's annual course. Thus in the spring, when the ether descends in the form of fertilising rains on the bosom of its spouse, to use Virgil's expression (Georg. 1. 11. ver. 324), and enriches nature with its precious gifts at the heliacal rising of Perseus, placed over Aries or Ammon, or over the equinoctial sign, it is Jupiter who visits lovely Dansd in the form of a shower of gold, and gives birth to Perseus. When the sun, in whom Uie active force which moves nature is deposited, enters the sign of Taurus or of the moon at her exaltation, it is Jupiter in the form of a bull who carries off the lovely Europa, sister of Cadmus, the Serpent, who rises in aspect in the evening with that same sign. The Bull, which enabled him to metamorphose himself, still shines in the heavens (Ovid. Fasti, 1. V. ver. C05 &c.), where it has retained the name of the " Bull that ravished Europa ;" and mythol- ogy has not allowed us to forget that this ravisher wore the crescent moon on his shoulder, like the Egyptian ox Apis, which Lucian tells us represented the celestial Bull. The Stoics, says Achilles Tatius (ch. xiii.), pretend to prove that the stars are animated beings from the very fact of their being composed of the substance of ethereal fire. Chrysippus, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 443 in his book respecting Providence and the gods, Aristotle in his book De Caelo, and Plato, continues Tatius, maintain the same opinion. This is no doubt the origin of the eight gods of Xenocrates, who placed five of them in the five planets, two in the sun and the moon, and the eighth in the whole sky (Cic. De Nat. Deor., 1. 1. cap. xiii.), including all the fixed stars, in which the ethereal and intelligent substance which composes the heavens circulates. It is easy to see that if this latter be divided either into constellations or into stars, a crowd of deities will emerge from it. Each star will become a god, or an animated and intelligent being, which will partake of the Deity, or of the nature of the Universal Cause which acts in chaos. Heraclides Pontius, who belonged to the school of Plato (Cic. De Nat. Deor., ib.), held the same doctrine respecting the divinity of the planets, and respecting that of heaven and earth, or Ovpavos and F^, the father and mother of all the gods. Theophrastus considered the heavens to be Divine, because he recognised in them a principle of eternal life (Procl. in Tim. p. 177), and because he supposed them to be animated. Simplicius, according to the doctrine of Aristotle, upon which he comments, would not have us look upon the stars as in- animate bodies, but maintains that they possess life and in- tellect, and that they act accordingly. He believes them to be eternal in the widest sense (Simpl. in Aristot. De Caelo, 1. III.), having never been created, and being never liable to destruction, being exempt from change and alteration, im- passible, and free from all the misfortunes which are ex- perienced here below ; that is, he gives them all the charac- teristics of Deity (ibid. 1. 11.). He holds that all celestial bodies have a motion of their own, like all a.m'mal8 ; that they are in fact animated and Divine beings, whose eternal activity cannot be arrested. Aristotle also taught (Meta- phys. 1. XII. cap. vii. and viii.) that each star had an im- mortal intellect, which presided over its course, and accom- panied it throughout its revolution. Macrobius (Som. Scip. 1. I. cap. xvii.), speaking of the rotation of the universe, at- tributes it to the wish which leads it to pursue the soul, which is distributed throughout it, but the purest portion of which composes those intelligent souls which according to Cicero (Somn. Scip. cap. iii.) animate the spherical and luminous bodies which we call stars. 444 MANKIin): THEm We thus see the tratli of what Augustine (De Civ. Dei, L XX. cap. zxix. ; 1. YIL cap. iu. ; 1. XTTI. cap. zvii.) says to the adversaries of his religion. " The works of yonr philosophers/' he says, ** suppose that the sun and all the other stars are living, animated beings, perfectly happy, and immortal as their celestial and Divine bodies." Augustine could not have been ignorant that this opinion was not peculiar to them, and that it was often adopted by the Christians themselves. Origen held the same opinion as the ancient philosophers respecting the stars being so many living and animated bodies. And does not Augustine himself admit that the stars are intelli- gent beings, when he tells us that everything that is visible in this world has an angelic power which is placed over it, and that according to the most formal and numerous texts of Scripture ? (August. De Div. qusest. 83, vol. vi. p. 63.) The monk Cosmas reproached the Chaldseans (though without any foundation) for not knowing that every star was under the guidance of an angel, which proves that he be- lieved it himself. The author of a Christian work called the Octateuch, which was written in the Emperor Julian's reign, says that the stars move in consequence of the impulse given to them by the angels placed above the firmament (Photius, cod. 36). Tatian (Cont. Gent. p. 151) says that the same species of life, or the same soul, animates the stars, the angels, and men. According to Plato, it was the purest por- tion of this universal soul which dwelt in the stars, and, generally, all the ancients believed that the spirits which animate the stars are much more perfect than those which animate terrestrial bodies (Huet., Origin, p. 12). Philo calls them very pure and perfectly just and holy spirits, exempt from all mixture and from all contagion — in a word, he represents them as being of as pure a nature as that which Christians attribute to the celestial spirits known by the name of angels. Philo also says (De Plantat. Noe, p. 168) that both the fixed stars and the planets are animated and intelligent, and places in the part which is nearest to the ether some very piu-e spirits which the Greeks, he says, call " genii " and " heroes," and which Moses, with more reason, calls " angels " or " messengers " of the Deity, mediators between God and man (Philo, De Gigant. p. 221). The creation of the angels, according to Augustine (De Civ. Dei^ 1. XI. cap. ix.), was comprised in the creation of ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 445 heaven and of light. The Chaldseans had no donbt that the stars were spirits clad in bodies of fire, which served them as means of transport (Hnet., Orig. 1. 11. qusest. 8 ; Petav. De Opific. 1. 1, cap. xii.). This was the belief of the Orientals respecting angels, which they looked upon as fiery spirits — a belief which spread to the Christians, and which had long before been held by the Jews (Beaosobre, Hist. Manich. t. i. p. 323; t. ii. p. 368). Plato, continues Beausobre, the Greek phi- losophers, the Jews, and a great number of Christian doctors have held the same opinion. St. Augustine hesitates, St. Jerome doubts, whether Solomon gave a soul to the stars. St. Ambrose has no doubt that he did, and in the time of Eusebius this opinion was very prevalent among the Catholics. Among those who are in the Church, says Pamphilius (Apolog. pro Origen, p. 123), there are some who believe ihat the luminaries of heaven are reasonable beings, &c. ; others think that they are destitute of life ; but neither the one or the other opinion is heretical, because the teaching of the Church is not clear on this point. The Manichseans went further : they maintained that every- thing in nature, down to the very stones, was alive (Beausob. t. II. 1. VI. cap vi. ง 14). This resulted from their conception of an universal soul which was found everywhere. Manichseus, in his letter to Henoch (Manich. Ep. ad Men. apud August. Op. Imp., 1. m. p. 162), asserts that this soul is spread confusedly throughout all bodies, all savours, and generally throughout all species of beings. Alexander of Lycopolis goes so far as to say that they taught that everything in nature is spirit, or that spirit is diffused everywhere. These different dogmas of the Manichseans are merely results of the system of Pythagoras and of Plato, respecting the soul of the world, and respecting universally diffused spirit, a belief which is found everywhere under different shapes. The Chaldseans (Stanleb. De Phfl. Chald. p. 1123) had their life-giving fire, which agitates matter, and penetrates to the centre of it. Porphyry places intellect everywhere, but he makes it to be graduated from the stars down to the plants, in which it exists only in grain (Porph. Sent. no. x. p. 221). Tatian (Cont. Gent. p. 159) is also of this opinion ; he makes a difference between the soul according to the bodies it animates. Tatian believes all this to be founded on Scripture, and the Jewish doctors have no doubt about the matter (Beausob. t. ii. p. 446 MANKIND: THEIR 870). They have liheir Sandalphor, which they define as the spirit of nature, which dwells in the azilntic or material world, every part of which is penetrated and animated by it. The belief of the Manichseans was, as nearly as possible, that of all the ancient philosophers (Beansob. t. II. L ix. cap. L ง 10, p. 594, &c.). It is certain, says Beansobre, that several of the ablest of the Fathers believed that the sun and all the stars are living beings. Origen calls them illustrious preachers, who announce to mankind the perfections of the Deity. Clemens Alexandrinus and the author of the Eecognitions which bear the name of Clemens Bomanus (Becogn. Clem. 1. V.) held the same opinion. It is not true that Sabseanism ever excluded spirits from the stars, or that the Sabsean worship was directed to purely material beings, which were incapable of hearing and granting the prayers of men. Many apologists of tie worship of Nature replied to the Christians who accused them of worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, that it was not to the visible bodies of those deities that they addressed their worship, but to the spirits which dwelt in them, and which might be considered as so many portions of that one Deity which is spread throughout Nature, and which acted in diflferent parts of her, where it was invisible (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. III. cap. xiii.). They defied their adversaries to prove to them that the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the most active and prominent portions of nature were not real deities, or animated causes, gifted with intelligence and reason, aud of a nature superior to that of man (Athan. Cont. Gent. p. 28). The seven archangels which preside over the seven planets in the Jewish Cabala are the seven great powers which Avenar tells us were charged by God to superintend the government of the world. They correspond to the seven Ousiarch rulers, who, according to Trismegistus (Trismeg. in Asclepeo) preside (Tver the seven spheres. The Arabians and Mohammedans have preserved them, the only difference being in the names. The Copts, or modern Egyptians, have them also. Among the Persians each planet was presided over by a spirit, and watched over by a genius who was placed in a fixed star. The star Taschter watches over the planet Tir, or Mercury. This Tir is very similar to the angel Tiriel, whom the Cabalists call the spirit of Mercury. Haftorang ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 447 has charge of the planet Behram, or Mars ; Yenant, of the planet Anhonma, or Jupiter ; the star Satevis, of the planet Anahid, or Venus. Mesch, which is in the midst of heaven, has charge of the planet Kevan, or Saturn. The names of these stars are the names of angels among the modem Persians (Zend-Avest. vol. iii. p. 356). Hafborang is an angel who takes his name fix)m the stars of Ursa. Venant is the same as Pluto. Hyde (De Vet. Pers. Eel. p. 179) says : *' Beshter (Taschter) est Angelus Michd/cl, qui victum et sustentationem hominibus prsebet, et alimentum eis suppe- ditat. In Ph. Sur Beshter, et minus rect^ Teshter, absolute exponitur Mich^el-Angelus." It is certain that Michael presided over the planet Mercury, according to the Cabalistp> just as Taschter presided over that planet according to the cosmogony of the Persians. The angel, or rather the archangel, who in Christian or Jewish theology overthrows the dragon (Orig. Cont. Cels. 1. VI.), or the devil described in that shape — in a word, the celebrated Saint Michael the Archangel — was drawn with a lion's head, just as the celestial Hercules is clothed with the skin of that animal, and tramples on the famous dragon of the pole. Python, which he holds crushed under his feet. The similarity becomes more striking when we observe the position of the celestial Hercules, who rises in the heavens with the sign Libra at the very time that the feast of St. Michael is held, at the end of September, and when we remember that St. Michael was represented holding a pair of scales in his hand, and that he appeared thus to the priest of Siponte (Beaus. t. ii. p. 625). Scaliger^s Persian sphere has in the first decan of Libra a man with a threaten- ing aspect, holding a pair of scales in his hand, and close by is the head of a dragon (Seal. Not. ad Manil. p. 343). The first degree of the sphere of the 860 decani places in it a man holding darts, with the astrological device, " He who is bom under this sign will be warlike" (ibid. p. 451). In the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which Pius IV. con- secrated, are the seven archangels over the high>altar round the Virgin, and over Michael is the inscription, " I am ready to receive souls." He was the same as Minos, therefore. St. Michael also was clad as a warrior, which he borrowed from the sign which followed, to which Hercules corresponds in a great measure, and which was the domicile of Mars. He 448 MANKIND: TIIEIK became the warrior angel of the Catholics. The Grecian Hercules, whose attributes he took, who defeated the dragon of the Hesperides, he who had his seat near the tree cele- brated for its fatal apples, is placed on the equinoctial limits which fix the path which souls traverse on their way to helL There is a dispute between Michael and the devil about the body of Moses in the Epistle of Jude, verse 9. It is Michael who, like Minos, weighs souls. Next to the archangel with the lion's head comes TJriely the archangel with the ox's head ; then Baphael, with a human head and the body of a serpent, a species of am- phibious monster ; and Gktbriel, with tiie eagle's head (Origen. Cont. Cels. 1. VI.). These four figures — the lion, the ox, the man, and the eagle— are those of four constellations which have produced the four beasts of the Apocalypse, and are also those of the four evangelists. As to the three other archangels—- one with the head of a bear, called Tantabaoth ; the second with the head of a dog. Mercury, and called, Erastaoth ; and, lastly, one with the head of an ass, called, after the Greek "Ovo*, Onoel — no doubt can exist of their having taken their attributes from the constellations, since all these figures are among them. Astrologers have also designated the planets by the names of animals with which they were supposed to have some analogy. Saturn was called the Ass (Salmas. Ann. Clim. p. 623), Jupiter the Eagle, Mars the Wolf, the sun the Lion, Venus the Dove, Mercury the Dragon, and the moon the Ox. Several of these animals are the same which characterise the arch- angels, and all are among the constellations. The Pleiades were called the Doves : the word Peleias signifies '* dove." The Ass is in Cancer in aspect with Capricorn, the domicile of Saturn ; the Wolf is under the domicile of Mars ; the Eagle is above Sagittarius, the domicile of Jupiter. The Ox is the point of exaltation of the moon. The Dove, or the Pleiad, belongs to the same sign, the domicile of Venus. The Hydra is under Virgo, the domicile of Mercury ; and the Lion is the domicile of the sun. The Phoenician cosmogony of Sanchoniathon, which, like Genesis and all the ancient theogonies, sets forth Oifpavos and r^, Haschamaom and Harets, heaven and earth, as the first creation, and which sets before us the sun and time personified, contains nothing but a cosmogonic theory of ORIGIN AXD DKSTIXY. 449 nature, written so as to resemble history. To prevent any mistake, the historian concludes by saying : " Such are the objects which the hierophant used to turn into allegories, in which were described the phenomena of nature and the order of the universe, and which were taught in the orgies and initiations. The hierophants, who sought to excite the astonishment and admiration of mortals, transmitted these things faithfully to their successors, and to the in- itiated." Origen tells Celsus (Cont. Cels. 1. I. p. 12), who boasted that he understood the Christian religion thoroughly, " In Egypt the philosophers have a sublime and secret knowledge respecting the nature of God, which they only disclose to the people under the cover of fables or allegories. Celsus resembles a man who, having travelled in that country, and having never conversed except with the rude vulgar, should think that he understood the Egyptian religion. All the Eastern nations — the Persians, the Indians, the Syrians — conceal secret mysteries under religious fables ; the wise of all nations fathom the meaning of them ; while the common people only see the symbols and the outside of them." It is in Persia and in the books of Zoroaster that we shall find the key to the sacred allegories of the Hebrews. The Persian legislator places man in a garden of delights, and causes evil to be introduced into it by a serpent, so that these two cosmogonies nearly resemble each other ; but the Persian, being the original, is the clearest, and gives us the interpretation of the enigma, which is suppressed in the second. In the Zend-Avesta (vol. i. p. 2 ; p. 263, farfard 1), Ormuzd, the god of light, the good principle, tells Zoro- aster that he has given to man a place of pleasure and abundance. " If I had not given this seat of pleasure, no other being would have given it. This place is Eiren-Vedio, which, in the heginning^ was more beautiful than all that world which exists by my power. Nothing equalled the beauty of this delightful spot which I gave. I (Ormuzd, or the good principle) acted first, and afterwards the other (the evil principle). This Petiง,rSh Ahriman, full of death, create^ in the river the great serpent, the mother of winter, given by the dew (or evil principle). Winter spread cold throughout the water, the earth, and the trees. Winter was extremely g"g 450 MANKIND : THEIR bitter towards the middle of it. It is only after the winter that good things grow again in abundance." We have in the words of Ormuzd the same words — ** In the beginning " — as in Genesis; but Zoroaster only uses them to explain that the good principle always acts first. In Genesis, as in Zoroaster, a river is placed in the garden, which is divided into fonr heads. This is the river of Eiren, in which the serpent subsequently spreads cold. Lydio Giraldi (in Pythag. Symb. p. 92) has preserved a figment of Zoroaster respecting the soul, in which there is a mystic allegory respecting the four rivers of Paradise, which proves that these four streams of Eden or of Eiren were not foreign to the religion of Zoroaster. Many theories have been propounded as to the situation of the garden of Eden, the most plausible being that which places it near the country of the ancient Iberi, near the sources of the Phasis (which may be the Phison), the Euphrates, and the Tigris ; while the Gihon may mean the Cyrus or the Araxes. Some countenance is given to this theory by the fact that in Origen (Comm. in Johan. 14) the Jews are reproached with having the same kind of worship as Strabo (1. XI. and XII.) says is established in Armenia and Albania. In this passage Heiucleon tells the Jews that they, who pretended that they alone knew the true God, were nevertheless ignorant of him, since they prostituted their worship to the genii, to the mouths, and to the moon. This, however, would only show that the mythos which perhaps originated in Iran or Aran, a part of Armenia — the Iberia and Albania of Strabo, now called the Hauran and Georgia — became adapted in course of time to the physical features of these countries. Independently of the fact that the Hindus, who have the same mythos, place their garden of Eden on Mount Meru, while the Nile itself was formerly supposed to be the Euphrates, which was conveyed into Africa by an underground passage, it is certain that there is no spot on earth to which the description of a garden watered by four rivers proceeding from one source can apply. It is in the heavens, therefore, as will be shown in a subsequent chapter, that we must look for the original Garden of Delight, with its river parted into four heads, of which the terrestrial Edens are but a copy or a reminis- cence. OllIGTX .VX1> DESTIXY. 451 The dogma of two principles — one perfectly good, and the other perfectly evil — arose, as we have seen, out of the diffi- cnlty the ancients experienced in making the good and evil which is to be seen in nature arise out of a single principle. They compared these principles to light and darkness, to summer and winter, to Ormuzd and Ahriman, to angels of light and angels of darkness, to God and the devil ; and this doctrine pervades all theologies — only, while the Persians, Manichseans, and other sects, made the two principals co- eternal and coequal (Beausobre, 1. 1. 1. ii. cap. ii. p. 177 ; and Pocock, p. 147), the Christians have made the evil principle inferior to the good. Plutarch tells us that this theological dogma was consecrated by the most ancient traditions of the human race ; by mysteries and by sacrifices in the religion of all nations, both Greeks and barbarians, and especially among those who had the greatest reputation for wisdom. " The Persians," he continues, " called the first principle Oromasdes, and the second Ahriman." The Egyptians called them Osiris and Typhon ; the Chaldseans, according to Plutarch, preserved this dogma in their astro- logical system by admitting good and evil stars into it. The Greeks, he continues, had their Jupiter and their Pluto, and Diogenes Laertius, in a very important passage (Diogen. Laert. Prooem. p. 6), after telling us that the system of the two principles formed the foundation of the doctrine of the Magi, adds that the Jewish doctors inherited their teaching. The Fathers have preferred the dogma which makes the great principle alone eternal, without troubling themselves to ascertain how an essentially good principle can produce a principle which is the cause of all the evil in nature. "God" says Lactantius (Instit. 1. XL cap. ix.), "wishing to create this world, which was to be composed of things quite contrary to one another, began by creating two sources of these things, which are continually in opposition to, and at war with, each other. They are two spirits — the one good, the other evil. The first is, as it were, the right hand of Grod, and the other his left. These two spirits are the Sou of God and Satan." Origen (Comm. in Matth. p. 454) also places powers in the world which are contrary to each other, the one under the dominion of the good principle, and the other under that of the evil, and which are in- a n 2 452 mankind: titetr cessantly engaged in opposing each other. He calls the latter the angels of the devil. These are the dews of the Persian cosmogony, who fight under the banners of Ahriman. Origen also says (Comm. in Johan. p. 16) that the dragon, whose shape the evil principle assumed, belonged to matter, and to the darkness produced by it. Manilius, in his poem (1. II. ver. 218), makes the division of the year from the vernal to the autumnal equinox for the upper hemisphere, or the upper part of the egg which re- presented the world, and that from the autumnal to the vernal equinox for the lower hemisphere, to be one of the fundamental divisions of ancient astronomy. Geminns (Uranol. Petav. p. 15) and Pliny (Hist. Nat. 1. XVIII. cap. XXV.) also mention it. This division comprises the six pre- fectures of Ormuzd and the six of Ahriman, as we shall see in another cosmogonic tradition of the Persians, in which this tradition is clearly set forth by the names of the signs of the zodiac, and is made to belong to the same zodiacal constellations as Geminus, Manilius^ and Pliny, or rather as astronomical truth, mark as the limits of the dominion of day over night, and of night over day. The Manichseaus placed the empire of dai*kness in the southern portion of the globe (Beausobre, tome ii. p. 298). Light and darkness — that is, " God with all the celestial powers, and the devil with all his — had each of them their empire and their dwelling-place. Light held the east, west, and north ; darkness was placed towards the south." In the Boundesch, p. 351, &c., Ahriman takes refuge in the south. The author of the Psalms asks to be delivered " a dsemone meridiano." The sacred traditions above alluded to are printed with the Boundesch or Persian cosmogony, and are taken fix)m the third section of Modimel and Tawarik (Zend-Avesta, vol. II. part ii. p. 352 ; chap. viii. sect. 2, of the Modimel el Tawrik), and are as follows : — " The Supreme Deity in the beginning created man and the Bull in an elevated spot, and they remained for three thousand years free from evil. These three thousand years comprise the Lamb, the Bull, and the Twins. After this they remained three thousand years longer on the earth without experiencing either trouble or opposition, and these three thousand years correspond to Cancer, to the Lion, and to ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 453 the Ear of Com (the Virgin). After this, in the seventh thousand, which corresponds to Libra, evil appeared. This man was called Caiomorh; he cultivated the earth, &c. The stars began their courses in the month Phervardln, which is the Neuruzd (the vernal equinox), and, by the revolution of the sky, day was separated from night. Such is the origin of man." In another portion of this cosmogony it is said that " the whole duration of the world, from the beginning to the end, has been fixed by the Supreme Deity at one thousand two hundred years. The world remained without evil in its upper portion for three thousand years. The world was still with- out evil for three thousand more years, when God sent beings below (the sun begins then to return). Afterwards Ahriman appeared, who caused evil and contests to arise in the seventh thousand (under Libra), where the mixture of good and evil was produced." In these two cosmogonies the introduction of evil takes place at the time of the ascension of Libra, or the sign which brings back the cold of autumn. In the first, however, it is the serpent who brings winter back. These two emblems, however, are really the same cosmic symbol, for when Libra is seen in the sky at the autumnal equinox, the serpent is by its side, and always ascends with the sign with which it is connected. For the serpent, as Theon says, in his Commen- taries on Aratus (p. 117), rests his head on Libra, to which he seems to adhere. Since, therefore, there is no serpent on earth who brings winter back again, just as there is no dog who produces heat, we must seek the cold-producing serpent in the skies, where also is the dog who produces the heat of the dog-days. Hence that evil which is produced every year in autumn will be driven away at the vernal equinox, or at Easter, and that evil which is synonymous with cold, and which follows the retirement of the sun towards the south, will be driven away by Good — that is, by the vegetative warmth which the sun will bring back when he returns to our northern regions. The restorer will be the sun himself, that star who is the father of nature, whom Plato calls the son of the Supreme Deity, whom he has engendered similar to himself, and who comes forth in the shape of Ammon or the equinoctial Lamb, to which he is joined at that period, iust as the principle of darkness took tibe form of the serpent 454 MANKIND: TUEIR placed in Libra at the time of the other equinox, when darkness began to resume its empire over the earth, in which serpent Pluto, the god of darkness and death, is enfolded. In another portion of this theology (Zend-Avesta, vol. iL p. 82, et sqq.) the creation is stripped of the allegory of the " thousands," and is distributed into six months. " Water is produced in the fourth month, in the month Tyr " — ^that is, under Cancer, in which sign water was placed, astrologically speaking. " In the sixth month the earth appeared " — that is, under the sign Virgo, in which earth was also placed by astrology, which shows that astrology was considered as very important in these cosmogonies. Hence, as the six thousand years of the Persian cosmogony represented six months, we must understand the six days of the Jewish a<;count of the creation to represent six months also, both being allegorical expressions. Chardin (" Voyages en Perse," t. vii. p. 40) confirms this idea, for he says that " the ancient Persian idolaters took the months of the year from the six days of the week which God employed in the creation of the world." Hyde (De Vet. Eel. Pers. p. 1 65) shows that a number of days really constituted a period of time, or a day. The six Ghahanbfir-hds, into which the creation is divided in the Sad-der, are given by him as follows : — I. The first period is Mid-yuzeram, consisting of forty-five days, in which the heavens were created. II. The second is Mid-yusham, or Mid-yushaham, con- sisting of sixty days, in which the waters were created. III. The third is Pitishalium, or Pitishalium-Ghah, con- sisting of seventy-five days, in which the earth was created. IV. The fourth is lyaseram, consisting of thirty days, in which trees were created. V. The fifth is Midiyfirun, consisting of eighty days, in which all animals were created. VI. The sixth is Hamespitanudun, consisting of seventy- five days, in which man was created. These periods make together the solar period of 365 days, or the 12,000 allegorical years. This is repeated in the Bouudesch (p. 460), where Ormuzd says of himself that " he made the products of the world in 365 days, and that it is for that reason that the six Ghahaubar-htls are included in ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 466 the year," In another part (p. 845) it is said that " Time established Ormuzd, that limited king, for 12,000 years/' Here the division of time into good and evil is omitted in order to consider the action of the snn on the universe generally, though the division into six periods is carefully retained. 450 MANKIND : TUEIB CHAPTER XVn. In the following cosmogony the deviation of the sun's action is considered both in its whole and in its parts. In one portion will be found the millenary knd duodecimal division of the Persian cosmogony, and on the other the different divisions of Genesis, in the same order and with tlie same expressions. This cosmogony is quoted by Saidas, in the article " Th^nrrenia," and seems to have belonged to the ancient Tuscans. " A very learned Tuscan author," says Suidas, "has written that the great Demiurgus, or the God who is the architect of the universe, spent and consecrated twelve thousand years in the works which he produced, and divided them into twelve periods, distributed into the twelve houses of the sun (the twelve signs of the zodiac) : — " In the first thousand (April, or the Persian Lamb), he made heaven and earth. " In the second thousand he made the firmament, which he also called heaven. " In the third he made the sea, and the waters which flow on the earth. " In the fourth he made the two great lights of nature. " In the fifth he made the soul of birds, of reptiles, and of quadrupeds, and the animals which live in the air, on the land, and in the waters. " In the sixth thousand he made man." The second thousand corresponds with Taurus, or May ; the last with Virgo, or August. "It seems," continues the author, "that the first six thousand years having preceded the creation of man, that the human race ought to exist for the other six thousand years, so that the whole period of the completion of the work may be included in the period of twelve thousand years." In fact, as Plutarch observes (Cur Oracula Desie- rint, p. 416), "the year contains in it the beginning and ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 457 the end of the effects produced by the seasons, and of the benefits which the earth produces from her bosom." This is what the Persians meant by saying that eternity engendered a period which was limited to twelve thousand years, when Ormuzd was to triumph, and nature was to be re-established. We may observe here that all cosmogonic traditions fix the creation and regeneration of nature at the vernal equinox, the reason being evidently because the re- generating force of the sun is then felt in our hemisphere. The Persians fixed it in the month Phervardin, at the equinox when the Nauruz, or the new revolution, was cele- brated. Virgil also fixes it at the same period : The spring adorns the woods, renews the leaves, The womb of earth the genial seed receives, For then almighty Jove descends, and pours Into his buxom bride his fruitful showers ; And, mixing his large limbs with hers, he feeds Her birth with kindly juice, and fosters teeming seeds. Then joyous birds frequent the lonely grove, And beasts, by nature strong, renew their love. Then fields the blades of buried com disclose. And while the balmv western spirit blows. Earth to the breath her bosom aares expose. With kindly moisture then the plants aoound. The grass securely springs above the ground ; The tender twig shoots upwards to the skies, And on the faith of the new sun relies. Georg. ii. 324. The Chronicle of Alexandria, Albulfaragius, Cedrenns, and St. Cyril all agree in fixing the creation at the vernal equinox, or at Easter. They also expect the second creation, or the re-establishment of all things at the second coming, at that period, which is fixed, according to Cedrenus, at the festival which is called the passage of the Lord, from which the new era and the new order of things is to start. Father Petau has remarked that the Babbis are accustomed to use the word " bara," which means, strictly speaking, " to renew," when they speak of the creation. The Persians call the month of April the month of Paradise (Beausobre, tome ii. p. 208). There is a description of Paradise in the Manichsean hymn (August, cont. Faust. 1. XV. cap. v.). It consists, according to it, of nothing but fields covered with flowers and plants, which exhale a delicious perfume. It is a per- petual spring, and the zephyr ever blows there. It was at the vernal equinox, therefore, in the month 468 MANKIND: THEIR Phervardin, at the period of the sun of the Lamb, that that period began which is so famous in the sacred allegories — that period the return of which brought back the same effects, the same order of things, and which saw the works of the sun-god begin, come to perfection, and end. It was divided sometimes into four parts, sometimes into four ages, the successive changes of which expressed ^hose of, vegeta- tion and of harmony which the heavens, or the sacred and intelligent Fire, brought into the elementary world at the moment .when it descended on the bosom of matter and rendered it fertile. The moment which preceded this equi- noctial period of spring was that in which everything was supposed to come to an end by an universal destruction, which was sometimes called fire, sometimes a deluge, to be renewed immediately by the action of that celestial fire which gave new life to Nature, and gave her fresh youth, to which mature and old age succeeded. After this, all fimshed, and recommenced with the periodic time measured by each revolution of the sun, beginning with the moment at which that creative god aroused matter from the inertia in which it had been plunged during the winter, and organised thia species of chaos. Hence arose those philosophic opinions respecting worlds destroyed and worlds created of which the philosophers of India and of Greece speak. This opinion is the same as that of the Stoics, who looked upon the world as a god who draws continually a new order of things from his bosom, and plunges it again into chaos (Diog. Laert. 1. VII. cap. i.). The renewal of the world was called a general re-establish- ment (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 593), which took place at the same time as that which was considered to be the primitive creation — that is, at the vernal equinox — and it was brought about first by the Bull, and afterwards by the Lamb, or Aries. This was the origin of the Persian idea of a regeneration by the Bull. "Men,'' says the Boundesch (pp. 412, 415), "will be again that which they were at first, and the dead will be resuscitated by what wiU come from the Bull." The serpent, whose shape the evil principle assumed in order to bring havoc into the universe, appears more than once in Persian theology, and the manner in which it is spoken of leaves no doubt that it is a constellation. The Boundesch says (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 351) : " Ahriman, or ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 459 the principle of evil and of darkness, he by whose agency evil comes into the worid, entered into heaven in the form of a serpent, accompanied by dews, who only sought to destroy." The dews are the genii of darkness, who, together with the serpent, bring back the long nights to our hemisphere* In another portion of the Zend-Avesta (p. 188), where the sub- ject is this Ahriman, the head of the evil genii, the mis- chievous serpent is formally called the star serpent. " When the p^is (the evil genii) rendered this world desolate, and overran the universe; when the star serpent made a path for himself between heaven and earth — that is, when he ascended on the horizon," &c. The wolf, a constellation which is south of Libra, as the serpent is north of that sign, and which also ascends with them, is often joined to them. " When Ahriman rambles on the earth, let him who takes the form of the serpent glide on the earth ; let him who takes the form of the wolf run on the earth; and let the violent north wind bring weakness" (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 168). The Scan- dinavian cosmogony always joins the wolf Feuris to the celebrated serpent, his brother, who brings havoc into the world. In Greek mythology (Ov. Met. 1. 1, fab. 6 and 9) Lycaon is changed into a wolf at the moment that the age of gold ends, and when Themis- Astrsea, the Virgin of our constellations, which precedes Libra, rises to heaven. After this fable comes that of the famous serpent, over whom Apollo, or the sun, triumphs ; and this serpent is he who is placed at the pole, and who guards the apples of the Hesperides. Not only the wolf and the serpent of Ophiucus are put into action in this cosmogony, but also the dragon of the pole, called the " guardian dragon of the apples of the Hesperides," who rises with the serpent of Ophiucus, and with Libra, but further north. We have here to do with the constellation Serpens, because it appears by the traditions which are still preserved among the Persians that it is this constellation which is indicated by the serpent in Genesis. Chardin (tome v. p. 86) says, in the article respecting the sphere of the Persians : " The Persians have nearly the same constellations as we have, except that the northern constellations, Bootes and Serpens, are called the Great and Little Ava, which is Eve, the mother of mankind." This latter constellation is 400 MANKIND: THEIR the famous ^sculapius, the god whose children had temples at the town of Eve, in Argolis (Pausan. Corinth, p. 80). It appears, therefore, that the Persians are still aware that this constellation is the celebrated woman who, together with the serpent, introduced evil into the world, and who was accompanied by the monster serpent, the mother of winter, who did in &.ct rise at the same time as the head of her serpent, together with Libra — that is, at the seventh thousand of the duodecimal period. A Rabbinical tradition confirms the connection between the serpent of Eve and the celestial serpent. Together with the serpent, and close by its side, further to the north, is the constellation of Hercules Ingeniculus, where the sphere of the Arabians described a camel (Cal. Astron. p. 156): ". There,'^ says this sphere, " a camel with its trappings rises." From this union there resulted a symbol composed of the attributes of the serpent and the camel, or a camelo-morphic monster. This is the very being who deceived Eve, accord- ing to the Rabbinical tradition which is found in the story of the great Samael, who is also called Asmodseus, a name derived from two names of Ahriman among the Persians — Asmog, a serpent, and Dew, an evil genius — which became Asmog-Dew, or Asmodseus. The Talmud says that Eve was so beautiful that Samael fell in love with her, and seduced her. They even say that Cain was the son of the serpent, not of Adam. The tradition above alluded to is as follows. " It is related," says Maimonides (More Nevoch. 1. II. cap. iii.), " that the serpent who deceived Eve re- sembled a qamel, on which Samael, which is the name of the prince of the genii of darkness, or of the devil, rode . . . It is said that God, seeing Samael come to deceive Eve mounted on a camelo-morphic serpent, could not help laugh- ing at the knight and the animal he bestrode." The same result will be arrived at if the Draco Gustos Hesperidum be taken for the serpent which deceived Eve, for the stars of his head are called by the Arabians the seven dromedaries or camels (Cffis. p. 112; Bay. Uranol. t. iii.). The position of this serpent in the heavens in relation to Libra, or to the woman who carried the scales in the ancient spheres, agrees with that given to it in Genesis, for it sup- poses that the serpent is at her feet, endeavouring to hiie them. This woman bearing the scales might be taken to be ORIGIN AXD DESTIXY. 401 Eve, unless the passage in Chardin be taken to be the accu- rate view. He places her in the northern constellation of the man carrying the serpent. If this be so, it would be better to take Ingeniculus, which crushes the serpent who guards the Hesperides, and who bites his foot, than Ophiu- cus ; and perhaps it is these two constellations, each of which has a serpent, which are called Meschia and Meschiane, to each of whom a serpent is given, in the Persian cosmogony. They are said to have been our first parents, and to have in- troduced evil into the world (Boundesch, p. 378). What is certain is, that at the autumnal equinox, when darkness over- shadows nature, when the Bam, the Goat, and the Bull sink below the horizon, four of the animals named in this cos- mogony, the two Hercules Ingeniculus and Ophiucus, each with a serpent, rise above it and announce the degradation of nature. The tree of life, or the tree which symbolises time, pro- duces fruits which give knowledge of good and evil, by dividing its duration into the six thousand of God and the six thousand of the devil. Homer has the same idea when he speaks of the two casks of Jupiter, one of which pours forth good, and the other evil. Instead of the casks, we have a symbolic tree, the fruit of which teaches man to know good and evil. This, in the monument of Mithra, is divided into two. The tree which begins to vegetate is placed near the sign of spring, and- the lighted torch is attached to it. The tree which bears the fruits of autumn, on the contrary, is near the Scorpion, which produces physical evil, and which destroys the fertilising action of the Bull. The letter which Manes wrote to Marcellus (Beausobre, tome i. p. 220) contains this article of his belief, viz. that there are two principles, which Jesus Christ has called the good and the bad tree. The fiction of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is of the same description, and set forth the same cosmogonic ideas. The tree is called merely the tree of life when it is near the throne of the god of light, but it is called the tree which produces evil when it is near that of Ahriman* Like the tree in the Apocalypse, it bears twelve fruits; and St. Epiphanius has preserved a passage out of the Gospel of Eve, " Vidi arborem ferentem duodecim fructus in anno, et hoc est lignum vitse," which mystic and sacred expression had been preserved by the Gnostics. 462 MANKIND : THEIR As to the tree of life properly so called — ^that wliicli had the power of rendering men eternally happy — the Apocalypse places it near the throne of the Lamb — that is, near the equi- noctial sign — where the sun was to restiore nature, and to re- establish the world of light. It was there that the real gate of the Grarden of Delights stood, to which man must return to recover his first happiness, which the serpent and the fruit of autumn had made him lose. It is at this gate that Grod places a winged genius, armed with a sword (" cherubim *' in our version) : he is placed there as a sentinel to defend the entrance until the Restorer has caused man to re-enter by it. This winged genius, armed with a sword, stands in the Sphere in the same attitude, and bearing almost the same name, near the equinoctial gate of the Lamb, which he opens at his rising, at the commencement of the empire of good and of light, just as the serpent, the deceiver, is at the opposite point of the same sphere, at this gate of autumn, at the beginning of the dominion of the periodic evil of nature, and of that of darkness. This genius is Perseus, who is celebrated in the Persian allegories, and who is re- presented with wings, holding a great sword, and who is called Chelub (Csesius, p. 120), which is very similar to Cherub. This word Chelub, according to the Arabians, signifies ** dog " and "guardian" (Tat. Alphons.) . The Persian sphere mentions it among the signs which rise with the Pleiades, towards the extremities of Aries and the com- mencement of Taurus. It is described by the words, " Here is a hero armed with a sword" (Seal. Not. ad Manil. p. 837). All these ideas refer to physical evil ; and as the meta- physical theory is necessarily of later date than the physical one, it has been framed on the latter ; and the ideas, as well as the ceremonies, which related to the wanderings of the soul, degraded by darkness, and regenerated by light, were essentially connected with the equinoctial points, and repre- sented by the emblems which are drawn at those points. These are the metaphysical allegories of which Philo speaks in his work on the allegories of Scripture (Phil. Leg. AUeg. p. 46), in which he quotes a dogma of Heraclitus respecting life and death, which he pretends had been borrowed by him from Moses. The principles of this philosopher are the same as those which Cicero and Macrobius have developed in the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 463 dream of Scipio respecting the life and death of the sonl (Macrob. Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. x.). Chelub, or Perseus, placed above the Lamb, haa near him the beautiful constellation of Auriga, or the charioteer who carries the goat that nursed Jupiter, and the two goats or kids which gave his attributes to Pan. It is from this goat, it is said, that the god of light, Jupiter, took the name of -S]giochu8, and it long fixed the vernal equinox, like Perseus, and even some centuries before him, at the time when it corresponded with the commencement of Taurus. It was at the vernal equinox that the " ascensus animarum in regnum lucis," and at the autumnal equinox that their ^^ descensus in tenebras," took place. This was partly the object of those mysteries in which the serpent of autumn played a great part. It was made to glide into the bosom of the initiated person ; and the mystic generation of Baochus was given, " Serpens genuit taurum, taurus genuit serpentem." These mystic ideas relate to the periodical succession of light and darkness in the visible world, which was established as the object of the religious worship of all those nations who mourned the departure of the sun and rejoiced at his return, as Achilles Tatius and Manilius inform us. This was the real motive of those festivals of joy which they celebrated at that time ; the spiritual meaning of the mysteries came after- wards, and borrowed the symbols which astronomy had already consecrated in the worship of the sun. It was &om the constellation of the Goat (Amalths^) and her he-goats that the god of light often took in the spring his attributes by the name of -S]giochus ; and it is thus that we can explain the extraordinary expression by which the Creator is designated in the Samaritan Pentateuch. It began with the words, " In the beginning the Goat created the heaven and the earth.** The Hamaites (Kir. (Bdip. vol. i. p. 368, and Selden,De Diis Syriis, p. 327), according to the generality of the Hebrew interpreters, worshipped the Creator by the name of Azima, and his emblem was the he-goat, the same as that of Mendes in Egypt (Synt. II. cap. ix.). Aben-Ezra, in his preface to Esther, says that the Samaritan Pentateuch began, " In principio Azima creavit coelum et terram ; " and it is explained elsewhere that "Azima erat simulacrum similitudine hirci, et sic legunt omnes, et sic explicant hoc vocabulum Babbini in Sanhedrim.*' (Baal Aruk et Bussi). 4m MAXKIND: THEIR Mendes — in Coptic men dho, that is, a he-goat, hircus — ^was the fourth division of Egypt. It was so called from the worship of Hircus, or Pan, who, Strabo tells us, was worshipped in this name : 'ฃd at the end of 8,000 years sent his Will, radiant with light (Beausobre, t. ii. p. 31 9) and clad in human form ; it was accompanied by seventy of his chief angels. Beausobre observes that this celebrated number seventy is that of the angels or genii who are supposed to have divided the earth between them after the confusion of tongues. The Itabbis say that all the stars are subject to the seven planets, and the seven planets to the twelve signs of the zodiac (Pirke Eliezer, cap. vi.). It is not by chance that this duodecimal number is found among all nations who have worshipped the sun. The Greeks, the Eg)'ptians, the Persiaus, &c., had the twelve great gods, just as the Mithraic Christians had the twelve companions of Christ, or of the sun-god. The chief of these twelve genii of the annual revolution had the boat and the keys of Time, just as the chief of the secondary gods among the Bomans, Janus, of whom St. Peter is a copy, had. This Janus had his seat in the heavens in the same celestial sign in which we find his youthful Lord — that is to say, in the sign of the Virgin-mother of Christ, who opened every year the new solar revolution, as may be seen in Plutarch (vol. ii. ; Parallel, p. 307). Thus the mother, the son, and the head of the twelve are in the heavens at the exact point of the zodiac where the annual revolution begins. The number of his disciples is fixed at seventy-two (dodecans of five degrees each, 72x5 = 360), a number which is also conse- crated in the allegories respecting the sun, and which Josephus refers to the planetary system. Lastly, the num- ber seven, which is that of the planets, is consecrated in every portion of the Christian o-Mithraic religion, for in it are reckoned seven sacraments, seven sins, seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, &c. — in short, this religion has all the mystic numbers of the solar religion. Even the name of the Virgin is very analogous to the fiinction she comes to perform in nature. Isidore of Seville (Orig. 1. VII. cap. x.) says that he calls her who is going to give light, Maria lUuminatrix. This virgin's mother is called Anna, an allegorical name by which the Eomans called the revolution of the year, which was personified, and held as a festival, by the name of Anna Perenna (Macrob. Sat. 1. I. cap. xii.), at the time when the year in ancient times began. Ovid (Fast. 1. III. verse 656) says she was the same as Themis, or as the celestial Virgin ORIOIX AXD DESTIXY. 477 who is SO named, and who really opened the year when she began at the winter solstice, as we have seen. At the end of eight months, when the snn-god, having increased, traverses the eighth sign, he absorbs the celestial Virgin in his fiery course, and she disappears in the midst of the luminous rays and the glory of her son. This pheno- menon, which taJces place every year about the middle of August, gave rise to a festival which still exists, and in which it is supposed that the mother of Christ, laying aside her earthly life, is associated with the glory of her son, and is placed at his side in the heavens. The Boman calendar of Columella (Col. 1. II. cap. ii. p. 429) marks the death or disappearance of Virgo at this period. The sun, he says, passes into Virgo on the thirteenth day before the kalends of September. This is where the Catholics place the feast of the Assumption, or the reunion of the Virgin to her Son. This feast was formerly called the feast of the Passage of the Virgin (Beausobre, tome i. p. 350) ; and in the Library of the Fathers (Bibl. Patr. vol. II. part ii. p. 212) we have an account of the Passage of the Blessed Virgin. The ancient Greeks and Ilomans fix the assumption of Astrssa, who is also this same Virgin, on that day. At the end of three weeks, or thereabouts, the cflendar notes the birth of this Virgin, or her release from the solar rays. On the third day, before the Ides, it says, the middle of Virgo rises. This is also the day of the birth, or of the nativity, of the mother of Christ ; so that the same constellation which is bom in September presides at midnight on the 25th of December over the birth of Christ, or seems to give birth to him, and is reunited to him, and eclipsed in his glory in the middle of August. Thus, without making any alterations, this Virgin goes through absolutely the same as the mother of Christ, aud at the same periods of the year as the festivals on which these different events are fixed are celebrated. It is impos- sible, therefore, but that the theory here advanced must be true, both for the mother and the Son, even if we had not at the present day on the front of the temples of this same Virgin the absolute confirmation of it by the existence on them of all the astronomical characters which belong to the constellation which opened the year and the seasons, and which gave birth to the god of day. One of these valuable monuments of the worship paid to 476 MANKIND : THEIR Isis, the goddess of the months and of the year, which is shown in the engraving, exists on one of fhe lateral doors of Notre Dame at Paris (built about a.d. 1300). It is on the door on the left, entering from the side of the cloister, or from the north. The twelve signs of the zodiac are carved round the frame of the door, and are ranged six on each side perpendicularly, in the order of the domicOes. At the top of one side (the right side, and the place of honour) is Leo, the domicile of the sun ; on the left side is Cancer, the domicile of the moon. Below Leo, going down- wards, is Gemini, the domicile of Mercury ; Taurus, the domicile of Venus ; Aries, the domicile of Mars ; Pisces, the domicile of Jupiter; and Aquarius, the domicile of Saturn. On the other side, below Cancer, is the house corresponding to Gemini, which ought to be occupied by the Virgin. Below is Libra, or the Scales, carried by a woman ; this is the domicile of Venus. Next comes Scorpio, the domicile of Mars ; below, Sagittarius, the domicile of Jupiter ; and a little lower, Capricornus, the domicile of Saturn ; so that the five domiciles of the planets correspond ] on each side. What is most remarkable in this doorway is, that the celestial Virgin is not in succession to Libra or Scorpio, nor ] is she in any of the twelve domiciles of the celestial animals. The sculptor has put himself in her place, between Cancer and Libra. He is there represented with the apron, and with the hammer and chisel in his hand, cutting and carving the stone. What is the reason of this singularity ? Why, . of all the constellations, should the Virgin alone not be in ! her place with the others ? The reason is, that as the Lady ] of the temple, as the goddess to whom it is consecrated, she has been separated from the lower deities, and placed in the middle of the doorway and of the twelve divisions of ^ the signs, holding in her arms the god of light, the child of ; whom she has just been delivered, having under her feet a : serpent, which winds itself round a tree, which is identical with the '^ coluber arborem conscendens '' of the sphere, or with the dragon of the Hesperides, the dragon, or Python, '; whom Apollo, the god of light, slays. This dragon rises in I the heavens after the Virgin and with Libra, as may be 1 seen on a celestial globe, and as the Persian sphere and the sphere of the Barbarians, which are printed in Scaliger's -r>.v. I E.NOX ^^C (OATIONS. I / ? I * I ' . 1 4 1. ซ^ ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 479 notes to Manilius, assert. By the side of the serpent are the representa^tions of Adam and Eve. The Virgin is here just as the Apocalypse represents her, with the crown of twelve stars, representing the twelve months, of which she opens the procession, and the twelve signs which correspond to them. This symbol is absolutely the same as that of the twelve altars of Janus, which is- in the same constella- tion. This Virgin of the Apocalypse has with her the image of the sun and moon, whose revolution she commences, and resembles in this respect the celebrated Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana, who, at the moment of her delivery, is pursued by the serpent Python, which is the name of the "Draco, coluber arborem conscendens *' who always rises after her and pursues her. The child is represented with six gradations of age, cor- responding with the six months during which the year increases its light from infancy to old age. On the inner sides of the pillar on which this virgin and child stand is a young man of twelve years of age ; above him one of eighteen ; higher up, a young man who has scarcely any beard ; above him a full-grown man with a beard ; still higher up, a man of riper age and with a larger beard ; and at the summit, a decrepid old man. On the other side is the gradation of heat. At the top is a young man perfectly naked, who stands under the shade of a tree, to designate the solstitial heat. In the next division he has only a light garment on, from his waist downwards. Below him is a young man with two faces, like Janus, the one young and the other old, to represent the passage of the equinox, that of Nature from youth to old age. He is inclined obliquely to the horizon, and, as it were, lying down, so that the youthful face looks at the upper portion of the sky, where the youth of Nature resides ; and the face of the old man contemplates the earth, or the lower portion of the signs, where winter is drawing near. In this part he has a cloak, but it only covers the half of his body, taking it in its length, and the old part of it, so that the arm and shoulder, the side and the thigh, which are towards the upper portion of the sky, are quite uncovered. Below this Janus is the 'same man with only one face, well wrapped up in a cloak. Under this, again, he is represented as bending beneath the weight of a bundle of wood, which he is taking home. Lastly, he is 4^ MANKIM): THEIR seen sitting by a large fire, and above him are several bundles of wood lieuped together. Besides these representations, there are twelve others, which correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac, in the the middle of which they are placed. They are carved at the side of each of the signs, and represent the agricaltnral operations of each month. For instance, by the side of Cancer, or the sign of the month of June, is a man sharpen- ing his scythe ; by the side of the sign where the Virgin should be, a man cutting off the ears of com, &c. Hence, it is evident that the aim of the designer of this doorway, which forms a complete system of thirty- six sculptures, sur- rounding the Virgin, was to represent her with all the retinue suitable to the goddess of the year, the days, and the seasons — in short, such as the Egyptian Isis, by whom, according to Horapollo, the year was designated, should be. This renowned Isis was the goddess of the ancient Franks (Tacit. De Morib. Germ. cap. ix.) or Suevi, who always added to her worship the symbolic ship, known by the name of the Ship of Isis, which is still the coat of arms of Paris, or of the town of which Isis was the tutelary goddess. In Kircher's (Edipus is a medal of Isis, or Ceres, holding in her arms the young Horus, whom she is suckling, and who is exactly like the representations of the Virgin, the mother of Christ. Kircher remarks that this image of the young child Horus, or Apollo, whom his mother suckles, was much venerated in ancient times ; that there was not a house nor a crossway where it was not found. It was worn round the neck, as a phylacterium or talisman, and served as both penates and lares. It used to be invoked as a powerful intercessor. It was the favourite image of the Basilidians, and of the Gnostics, the most highly educated sect of the Christians. They knew of nothing more sacred than this mystic child. Aben-Ezra calls him Serapis — that is, the sun : " Erant -ffigyptiis simulacra qua)dam pueri specUy qua) vocabantur nomine -ffigyptii Serapis " (QEdip. vol. i. p. 259). This agrees with what Adrian says of the Christians (Flav. Vopis.), that tliey worshipped Serapis, or the god on whose medals we see inscribed ''H\to^ ^dpairis. It is to Isis, the mother of the god of light, that the people made offerings of wax tapers the first day of the year, and even during the remainder of the year, and in raemoiy of whom the famous ORIOIX A\D DRSTIXY. 481 Feast of Lights is celebrated, which was instituted in honour of Minerva of Sais, of that chaste virgin who said of herself that she was a mother, and that the fruit of her womb was the sun. The Chronicle of Alexandria has preserved the tradition of the practice of exhibiting the sun on the supposed day of his birth as a new-born infant as being held sacred in the mysteries of Eg}'pt, just as it was in the mysteries of Bacchus in Greece, Campania, and Egypt, and this from the most remote antiquity. ''Eoiy vvv Alyihmoi OeoTroiova-tp Hap^ Oipov Xdyov Kal ^pe09 h tfidrvt) TiBiinsi trpoaKVvova iv, Kal Tlro\sfial(p t& fiaaiKsi rijv air lap irvvBavofiivtp SXeyoVf otl irapon Sorop etrrl fivGTrjpiop irrrb oalov lLlpo< Cili' k. ill? ?' t 'IS M I 'm 114 ' ^ {I i !i; I ir OKTGTX AXD DE.STIXY. 483 not because the sun was then bom, but because the Lord created the sun." The Jews celebrated on the 25th of the month Cheslen (the first of December) a great festival, which they called ft)ป, or the Feast of Light, as may be seen in Josephus ( Antiq Jud. 1. XII. cap. xi.), who attributes the establishment of it to Judas Maccabseus. The accompanying planisphere shows the position of the heavens on the eighth day before the kalends of January, at which time the nativity oif Mithra and of Christ were cele- brated — that is, that nativity of the sun-god under those two differ:^nt titles. Herodotus tells us (1. I. cap. cxxxiii.) that the Magi attached great importance to the birthday of every man, and consequently to that of the personified year, and of the god of day described under the emblem of the child born at the winter solstice. This planisphere is divided into two by a line which termi- nates at the east and west, and which represents the horizon. The part below the horizontal line comprises the lower and invisible hemisphere; that which is above comprises the upper and visible hemisphere. At the bottom of the planisphere is placed the sign Capricorn, which at midnight on that day is in the lower meridian, while Cancer is in the upper and visible meridian. This Capricorn is the he-goat who was brought up with the god of light, Jupiter, who, like Christ, took in the spring the shape of the Ram Ammon, or of the Lamb. These three decans, which are marked, belong to the sun, Mars, and Jupiter. Capricorn is followed by Aquarius, or the man who accom- panies one of the evangelists, and who is one of the four cherubim. He is preceded by the eagle which accompanies the Evangelist John, and which is also one of the cherubim. Both of them — that is, the man and the eagle — are dia- metrically opposite to two other animals which are in the upper hemisphere, viz. the lion and the ox, which both accompany the two other evangelists, and form the two other cherubim. In the upper and visible part of the planisphere is seen in the horoscope, or at the east, the celestial Virgin, who by her ascension presides over the opening of the year. She has beneath her feet in the lower horizon the dragon of the 1 I 2 484 MANKIND: TIIETR Hesperides, who rises after her with Libra^ and who seems- to pursue her. In the same way the dragon of the Apoca- lypse pursues the winged woman who was about to be delivered of the god who was to reign over the universe, and, like the serpent Python, whose name he bears, he pursues Latona, the mother of the sun, or of Apollo. This virgin bore the name of Isis, the mother of Horns, or the god of light, and of Ceres, mother of the young god of the mysteries, and who was called the Holy Virgin. Her first decan was that of the sun, or of the god whose birth was celebrated on December 25, and whose natal hour was consulted by the priests. The representation of the sun is consequently placed over this decan, which places the sun upon her head. The first decan of Libra was that of the moon. Thus she had, like the woman in the Apocalypse, the sun on her head, and the moon under her feet. This virgin is represented carrying a new-bom child, as in the Persian spheres of Aben-Ezra and of Abulmazar, with his name of Christ and of Jesus. At her feet, towards the eastern side, is the star Janus, the original of St. Peter, head of the twelve apostles, as Janus was of the twelve months, or of the signs, represented by twelve altars placed at his feet. On the horizontal line, towards the east, is the guardian or foster-father of Horus, son of the virgin Isis, mother of the god of day, preceded by the bark of Janus, or the vessel of Isis and Osiris, of which the bark of Peter and of Janus has been made, for both have the ship and the keys. On the horizon itself is Stephanos, or the first paranatellon, of whom Stephanos or Stephen, the first martyr — whose festival comes next to that of Christ, or on December 26 — has been made. He is followed by the eagle of St. John the Evangelist, whose festival is on the twenty- seventh of this same month. The Virgin is preceded in her ascension, just as the mother of the god was, by the sign of the Lion, one of the four animals or cherubim, and the animal which accompanies the Evangelist Matthew. It is in this Lion, the domicile of the sun, that the Jewish Cabalists have placed the tribe of Judah. "Exorietur leo de tribu Juda. Virgo pariet et concipiet," &c. At the meridian is Cancer, which contains the manger of ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 486 the new-born Jupiter, and the asses of Bacchus, or of the sun- god, who was represented as a child at the winter solstice Thus, at the lower meridian is found the stable of Augias, the son of the sun ; at the upper meridian, the ass and the manger; in the east, the Virgin and her new-bom son ; and in the west, the Lamb, whose form he assumes in the mysteries at the moment of his resurrection, and of the exaltation of the sun. This is the Lamb of the Theophany, or of the manifestation of God. It has above it Orion, which contains the three beautiful stars still known by the people as the three Magian kings, who, warned by tiie star seen in the east, came to worship the Lamb which was to restore all things, or Christ, who in this shape is to undertake again the empire of the universe. This star, which warned them of this nativity, was, according to Zoroaster's prophecy (Abulfar. Dynast, p. 54), to represent a young virgin, such as is seen on the eastern side at the commencement of the annual revolution. Above the three kings is the Bull or Ox, a symbolic animal which is assigned to one of the evangelists, and whose shape is assumed by one of the cherubim. Such is the exact position of the sphere at the instant of midnight on December 25, on the 8th day before the kalends of January, at the time that Christ is made to be bom, and at the time that the birth of Mithra was celebrated — Mithra^ the god of light and day, who, like Christ, died, was bom again, and saved those who were initiated into his mysteries by his sufferings. 4^6 ^lANKLVD : THEIR CHAPTER XVIIL The sun, who was the repairer of the evils produced by winter, being held to be bom at the moment of the solstice, in the fictions of the mystagogues, had to remain three months in the lower signs, and in the region which belongs to the prince of darkness, and to death, before crossing the equinox, which was to make his triumph over night certain, and to restore the face of the earth. During all this period, therefore, he is to be made to live exposed to the infirmities of mortal existence, until he has assumed again in his triumph all the attributes of deity. The allegorical genius of the mystagogues will compose a life for him, or invent a history of his life, such as the hierophants of Egypt made for Osiris and Typhon, of which Plutarch and Diodorus have preserved some fragments. Bishop Synesius (De Provident. 1. I.) has drawn for us in a similar manner the portrait of the life, manners, and adventures of the sacred fable of thซ Egyptians respect- ing Osiris and Typhon, who, he says, were two brothers, but with different souls, one from a light, the other from a dark, source. The story devised for Christ was rather a melancholy legend than an able poem : he was not made a hero so much as a gentle, patient, beneficent man, who came upon earth to inculcate by his example the virtues which were endea- voured to be taught to those who were initiated into his mysteries. He was made to undergo, to inculcate, and to herald the austerities which the Brahmins and other Eastern devotees still practice. He had his disciples, like the Siamese Samnonacodon, The legends respecting him par- take of the character of the austerer sects of Judaea, and are often copied from the old Jewish legends. He is made to be circumcised, and his mother to be purified. When he has become of mature age, he publishes the doctrine of his initiation, and supports it by miracles. As Bishop ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 487 Synesius observes, the heads of the initiation into the Christian mysteries felt that the people must be deceived by the imposing spectacle of miracles and by illusions. Those who wrote the life made it to have passed in a particular country — Judeea — at a particular time, such as the age of Augustus and Tiberius, and under a particular governor — Pontius Pilate — of whose acts we do not hear till some forty years or more after they are alleged to have taken place. Synesius has drawn up the story of Osiris and Typhon in exactly the same manner, with of course no other object than that of describing the opposite characteristics of good and evil, and the triumph of good over evil, after personifying them both, and giving them adventures analogous to their characters. Everything is the work of imagination, except that, as in the story of Christ, some marvels have been extracted from other fictions respecting the same god of light, such as the turning the water into wine, and riding in triumph on an ass, like Bacchus, as well as some from Jewish and other sources. These marvellous narratives, however, do not follow the course of the sun with any regularity, like the poems respecting Hercules and Bacchus, though they contain many references to the solar myth. The two leading mysteries which are founded upon it are the Nativity, which has been explained, and the Resurrection in the form of the Lamb which is to restore all things. The sun brings about this restoration, and reassumes his empire over darkness, at the vernal equinox ; and it is at that very time that Christ triumphs, for he triumphs at Easter, and the Christian Easter is necessarily fixed at the equinox. The reason it was fixed at that time is, that it was the festival of the Passage of the Lord the Sun to the northern regions, and to those which compose the domain of Ormuzd, or of the light. The word phase has always been translated " festum transitus,'* or festival of the Passage of the Lord. The sun was called Adoni, or Lord. Porphyry (De Abstinent. 1. IV.), in a prayer which he addresses to him, calls him " The Lord the Sun ; '' and in the consecration of the seven days of the week to the seven planets, the day of the sun, or Dies Solis, is called the Day of the Lord, or Dies Dominica, while the other days merely retain the names of their planets. The sun is the only one which is called lord or king of the universe. 488 MANKIND : THEIR Tliis festival of the transit was originally fixed on the 8th day before the kalends of April, or three months exactly, day for day, after the Dies Natalis on the 8th day before the kalends of Januarj', and corresponded to the 25th of March. Then the sun renewed nature, haying destroyed the former world, on the ruins of which the Lamb raised a new world, in which virtue and happiness resumed, their empire. All these mystic ideas are set forth in the following pasdage from Cedrenus, who fixes the primitive creation and the restoration, and commencement of a new age and world, after the destruction of the first, at the 25th of March. " The first day of the first month," he says, " is the first of the month Nisau, which corresponds to tiie 25th of March of the Bomans, and with the Egyptian month Phamenoth. On that day Gabriel gave the salutation to Mary to conceive the Saviour. On that same day our Saviour-God, after having finished his career, rose again from the dead, which our ancient Fathers called the Pascha, or Passage of the Lord. It is on this same day of the month of March that our old theologians fix the return, or the second advent, of this Saviour- God, which is the time when the general judgment is to take place, the new era having necessarily to run fix)m that equinoctial period, because it is on that same day that God originally created heaven, earth, wind, and light.*' Cedrenus says that this was why the Church ordered the Passover to take place on the 25th of March : ''06ev xat to KVfjiov irdaxa ioprd^uv ij 'E/c/cXT^ata 7rap6i\r)e ifj KE tow Maprlov fATjpos ; and in another place he says, ^AXrfdipop ou ai'dreiXev. This tomb is the lower hemi- sphere, the abode of darkness, in which Adonis, or the sun, is enclosed until his resurrection. " Eratque dies paschalis iste, quo sol ingressus est primum signum arietis, eratque dies ille soleninis ac celeberrimus apud ^gyptios" (Chron. p. 7). "Quin et oviculse in Mgjfto mactaiffi adhuc apud ^gyptios traditio celebratur, etiam apud idolatras : in tempore enim, quando pascha illic fiebat (est autem principium veris cum fit eequinoctium) omnes iEgyptii rubricam accipiunt per ignorantiam et illinunt oves, illinuiit arbores, sicut ac reliqua, preedicantes quod ignis in hac die combussit orbem terrarum. Figura autem sanguinis igni- color," &c. (Epiph. adv. Haeres. vol. I. cap, xviii.). lu another place Cedrenus fixes the death of Christ in the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 489 * nineteenth year of Tiberius, on the 23rd of March ; and his resurrection on the 25th. Prom this, he says, is derived the practice in the Church of celebrating Easter on the 25th of March. On that dayjthe true light came forth from the grave. The Eastern Chronicle (Abrah. Echel. Chron. p. 7) also fixes Easter at the time of the entrance of the sun into Aries, or the Lamb, and says that the equinox v^as one of the greatest Egyptian festivals, which Plutarch confirms (De Iside, p. 368). St. Epiphanius also speaks of it as having existed from the most remote antiquity in Egypt. In this festival everything vras marked with red, to foretell the cele- brated conflagration of the universe ; and it teok place, like Easter, at the beginning of spring (Epiph. adv. Hseres. cap. xviii.). The Babbis have preserved the same traditions. Our festival of Easter does not now fall on the first day of the first sign; but in primitive times it was fixed on the 25th of the month, as is still further shown by a passage from Theophanes, printed in the Uranologia of Father Petau (vol. iii. ; Auctar. p. 158) : " Hunc enim invenit die 23 Martii ejusdem ac parasceve, in salutiferam passionem incidisse, quam pro nobis sponte ille sustinuit, et sepultus a Josepho, qui ex Arimathea erat oriundus et Nicodemo, terti& ab eSdem parasceve die resurrexit, un& sabbaterum et Nisan primi apud Hebrscos mensis primd. die, quse vicesima quinta Martii una eademque semper incidit.*' In the Persian mysteries, the body of a young man, ap- parently dead, was exhibited, which was figured to be re- stored to life. By his suSerings he was believed to have worked their salvation, and on this account he was called their Saviour. His priests watehed his tomb to midnight of the vigil of the 25th of March, with loud cries, and in dark- ness, when all at once the light burst forth from all parts, and the priest cried, " Eejoice, O sacred initiated ! your god is risen. His death, his pains and sufiTerings, have worked your salvation." This was the day also on which the Romans celebrated the triumph of the sun-god over the darkness of winter by a festival which they termed Hilaria. The resurrection of Christ was held to have taken place at midnight on the first day of the first month, exactly three months after the Nativity, as may be seen in Theodore of Gaza (cap. vi.). Father Petau says (Uranol. vol. i. p. 1G8) : " Theologi qui accolunt Athon 400 M^iNKIND : THEIR montem, toils viribus contendunt circiter noctis medium re- surrectionem factum esse, et sacra ilia antelucana in ejus memoriam a medi^ nocte incipiunt." The night of the 25th of March was as celebrated among the Christians as that of the 25th of December. It is known in the writings of the Fathers as the Pervigilium Paschse. St. Augustine (vol. v. p. 285) has a sermon entitled " De esu agni in pervigilio paschse." " It is to-day,'* he sajs, " that the Lamb which takes away the sins of the world is slain for the salvation of man. To-day our gates should be marked with his blood. Let us prepare for the sacrifice of the Lamb." Isidore of Seville (Orig. 1. VI. cap. xvi.) also speaks of this Pervigilium Pascha?, or night of Easter, when the moment of the resurrection was awaited, and when a festival was held to celebrate the renewal of all things. He says : " PascIuB nox ide6 pervigilium dicitur, propter adventum regis et Domini nostri, nt tempus resurrectionis ejus nos non dor- mientes, sed vigilantes inveniat. Cujus noctis ratio est, sive quod in e^em cum vitam recipit, cum pa^sus est, sic quod postea eadem hora,, qufi, resurrexit, ad judicandum ventoroB est. Eo autem modo agimus pascha, ut non solum mortem ac resurrectionem Christi in memoriam revocemus, sed etiam coetera quae circa eum.'' " Ad sacramentorum significationem inspiciamus, propter initium novse vita? et propter novum hominem quem jubemus induere, et exuere veterem expurgando vetus fermentum, quoniam pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus. Propter hanc ergo vitse novitatem primus mensis novorum in anni raensibus celebrationi Paschali attributus est mystic^.*' Here we see how physical ideas were applied to intellectual initiations, and how the renewal of nature at this period was made emblematic of that which should take place in onr souls at this period. Lactantius (1. VII. cap. xix.) also fixes the moment when Christ rose triumphant from his tomb, and that when, after the destruction of the universe, he is again to create a new world of light, and to establish the new order of things, which is waited for in the middle of this night. He says : " Tum aperietur coolum medium intempestd, et tenebrosa nocte, uti orbi toto lumen descendentis Dei tanquam fulgor appareat : quod Sibylla his versibus locuta est : 'Onori av t\9y Ilvp tarai acorof iv ry fxiaay vvktI /itXalvy^ ORIGIN AXD DESTINY 491 Hoc est non quse a nobis propter adventum regis ac Dei nostri pervigilio celebratur, cnjus noctiq duplex ratio est, quod in e& et vitam recipit, cum passus est, et postea orbis terrse regnum recepturus est/' Constantine was in the habit of causing wax torches and lamps to be lit in any town in which he happened to be on Easter night. All the ceremonies of Holy Saturday, and especially those of the New Fire and the famous Paschal Taper, have been instituted in honour of this triumph of the god of light over darkness. The ceremony which still takes place at Jerusalem at the mystic tomb of the sun and of Christ is a striking proof of this. Every year at Easter the bishop of Jerusalem shuts himself up in a little vault, which 18 called the tomb of Christ (it would be the tomb of Osiris in Egypt). He has some packets of small wax tapers ; he strikes a light, lights one of these packets, and causes aป light to burst forth, such as is seen on the stage, to make the people believe that fire has come down from heaven to earth. Then he comes out of the vault, exclaiming, " Fire has come down from heaven — the holy taper is lighted ! '* Immediately all the credulous spectators buy these conse- crated tapers. The whole service for Holy Saturday on the consecration of fire shows its nature. In it are these words : Hsec nox ver6 beata nox, in quS* destructis vinculis mortis Christus ab inferis victor ascendit." Everything in it shows that it is the festival of the passage of light, which triumphs over darkness, and of the passage from the empire of evil to that of good, of deliverance from oppression, of the re-creation of all things; and everywhere in it is seen the Lamb who restores all things. Pietro della Valle (1. XVIII.) has given an account of the ceremony of the Holy Fire at the sepulchre at Jerusalem, and of the deceit of the priests, who make the people believe that fire comes down from heaven on that day. They do it so skilfully that anyone might be deceived. The flame, he says, is seen to rise, and to come out of the roof of the vault so exactly at the proper time, through certain small windows, that it really seems as though it did come down from heaven. A ceremony very similar to this is to be seen on a monu- ment still existing in Egypt, and engraved in Montfaucon 492 M.\XKIND: THEIR ("Antiq, Expliq. Suppl^m.'* pi. 51). A pile of wood is represented on it, composed of three heaps of wood, con- sisting of ten logs each, which number is equal to that of the decans of the first sign ; and they are divided, like it, into three portions. On each heap is seen the equinoctial Lamb, or Aries, and above a huge sun, whose rays extend to the ground. The priests touch them with the tips of their fingers, to extract from them the sacred fire which is to set the pile of the Lamb on fire, and to cause the conflagra- tion of the universe. St. Jerome (1. IV. cap. xxviii., in Matt.) tells us why the Pervigilium Paschse was observed. It was, he says, a tradition among the Jews, who transmitted it to the Chris- tians, that Christ would come at midnight on that day. This is why they did not go to bed. These various passages show why this day was originally fixed upon, and the nature of the festival held upon it. We have now to examine the symbolic form under which the sun-god triumphs. The triumph of the sun, according to the Persians, is his return to Aries, or the Lamb. This sun of the equinox must therefore be drawn with the attributes of Aries, or the Lamb. Sometimes a young man was drawn leading a ram, or with a ram at his side ; sometimes he wore ram's horns on Ids head, like the god Amnion of the Libyans, who placed the throne of their god in the equinoctial Aries ; at other times a slaughtered lamb was represented, just as in former times the Mithraic ox was represented, slaughtered, and fertilising the earth with his blood. These are different methods of representing the same idea. As the principle of evil was represented by the serpent of the constellations, so should the good principle, or the sun of spring, be represented by the ram or lamb. And so it was. To describe the vivify- ing heat which warms the universe, according to Abneph (Kircher, (Edip.), the ancients drew the ram. ** Ut pingant calorem mundanura, arietem pingunt." It follows that the Egyptian god, or the Jupiter with the ram's horns, called Ammon, is nothing else than the sun of spring, which agrees with the testimony of Martianus Capella in his Hymn to the Sun, who says that the lamb or ram god is nothing else than the sun. If, then, Christ is the sun, he must be represented, like that star, by the symbolic lamb. This, we know, he is. He is called everywhere in Scripture by the OKIOm AM) DESTINY. 4^3 mystic name of the Lamb. His mysteries are the mysteries of the Lamb without spot: the worid is renewed by the blood of the Lamb. Everywhere it is the blood of the Lamb which makes atonement for the sins of the world. When the mystic bread in which Christ is said to be is presented to the people, the initiated person is told, " Ecce Agnus Dei qui toUit peccata mundi." He is called the Lamb which has been slain from the beginning of the world. The faithful are called the followers of the Lamb in the Apocalypse. Osiris was represented as being stretched on the immense cross formed by the junction of the meridian and the equator. This deity was suspended in the Phrygian mysteries to a cruciform tree^ which was cut up and distributed as a talis- man, and which became the Lignum Vitae. This is equiva- lent to the " salvation by wood," which is a portion of the interpretation of the mystic word " Abraxas." Julius Firmicus gives the following account of the rites of Tammuz or Adonis, or the Syrian or Jewish pK adป, or ^IW aduni — " On a certam night (while the ceremony of the Adonia, or religious rites in honour of Adonis, lasted), an image was laid upon a bed, and bewailed in doleful ditties. After they had satiated themselves with fictitious lamentations, light was brought in ; then the mouths of all the mourners were anointed by the priest, upon which he, with a gentle murmur, whispered : Trust, ye saints, your eod restored, Trust ye in your risen Lord ; For the pains which he endured Our salvation have procured." After the enemy of the Lamb, the great serpent, and all the genii who form his retinue, are precipitated into hell, nature is renewed, and the initiated are shown the Lamb and the holy city. This city is divided, like the heavens, into twelve stations, the principal of which is the Lamb, as it is in the zodiac, under which sign the harmony of the universe is restored. It is divided into threes, like the signs and the seasons. The twelve tutelary genii of the signs preside over it under the name of Apostles of the Lamb, or of Aries. The foundations of the wall are the same precious stones as were worn on the breastplate of the high-priest. 494 MAXKIND: THEIR and which, according to the explanation ^yen by JosephnSy PhilOy and Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromat. L y.)ป represented the twelve signs of the zodiac. They are the same, and are arranged in the same order, as the stones by which the Arabian astrologers designate the twelve houses of the sun, as may be seen in Kircher (CEldip. vol. ii. p. 177). The Lamb is the temple and the light of this city. Those only are ad- mitted who are written in the Lamb's book of life — ^that is, only those who are initiated into light, which conquers under the sign of the Lamb. Lastly is seen the river of Time, which, like a river of clear water, proceeds out of the throne of the Lamb, on the banks of which is planted the tree of life, which bears twelve firuits, and yields one every month. There is no more curse, for the throne of God and of the Lamb is there, and his servants (those who are initiated in his mysteries) shall have his name on their foreheads. Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have right to the tree of life. The type and the symbolic name of the Lamb was care- fully preserved by the Christians, because it was the watch- word, the symbol, and, as it were, the tesseraj of that company of initiated persons who called themselves the disciples of the Lamb, and those admitted into the fellowship of the initia- tion of the lamb. This, therefore, was the sign, and, as it were, the seal, by which all the initiated were marked. It was the symbolic attribute by which they recognised their fraternity, just as the Freemasons have their characteristic attributes, and the symbols which belong to their association. Hence was derived the practice in the primitive Church of giving the initiated persons, or those who had been newly baptized, the seal of the lamb for a tessera (Casali De Veter. Sacr. Christ. Bitib. cap. v. p. 62), or a piece of wax stamped with a representation of the lamb. Casali says : " Puit con- suetude dandi baptizatis in cerfi, consecrata imagines agni coelestis (ut ait Guliel. Durantus in Eation. Divin. OfiSc), et hodi^ Bomse peragitur cajrimonia veteris consuetudinis vestigium, quod die dominico qui paschatis solemnia subsequitur, dum pontifex agnos e cera rit^ consecrata fictos domesticis distribuit, acolythus tum aM voce clamat: Domine, Domine, Domine, isti sunt agni novelli qui, &c., alleluia modo veniant ad fontes, &c." The Christians at that time made their children wear round their necks the ORIGIN AND DESTINV. 4ป5 symbolic image of the lamb, instead of that of a bull (Casal. cap. xlviii. p. 267). Everyone knows the Agnus Deis. At that time no other representation of Christ was known than the figure of the lamb; sometimes with a vessel, into which the blood of the slain lamb flowed (Casal. cap. iiL p. 14), sometimes at the foot of a cross, as may be seen in an ancient monument engraved in Casalius (ibid. p. 48), St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola (Epist. xii. ad Sulpitium Severum), says : " Sub cruce sanguined niveo stat Christus in agno ; " " Et paulo post — Sanctam fatuntur crux et agnus victimam" (Firm. 1. II. cap. iii. and XII. cap. xi.). This practice of exposing the symbolic lamb to be worshipped by the people continued until the year 680, It was ordered at the sixth Synod of Constantinople, can. 82, that instead of the lamb — the only representation used up to that time — a man on a cross should be substituted, which was confirmed by Adrian I. (Decret. de Consecr. Distinct, iii. can. 60). Pope Adrian I., in the seventh council, in his letter to Tarasius, bishop of Constantinople, approves of and adopts the representation of Christ in the shape of the lamb. It is still seen in churches. It formerly existed over the portal of Notre Dame, at Paris, where it was represented of the size of life ; but it was taken away, together with the other figures, in the second year of the ftepublic. It is still to be seen in other parts of the church, sometimes joined to the book of the seven seals, or of the planetary destinies, sometimes lying down with the mystic cross. The word " exaltation " used by the sun- worshippers, has been preserved by the Freemasons, and by the Fathers of the Church, who call the resurrection of Christ by this its true and original name. St. Athanasius uses it (Ath. cent. Arian. Orat. ii. p. 3o0) ; and he explains St. Paul's expression, "Exaltavit ilium Deus," to mean the resurrection. He looks upon the two expressions as being identical. All the ancient mysteries were celebrated at the two equinoctial periods. The Emperor Julian (Orat. v.), has given us the reason, which has already been stated, and it was especially at that time that the celebrated spring festival in honour of the exaltation of the god Atys took place. Julian tells us that the sun of spring had the power of attracting to himself virtuous souls. This explains the passage in the fourth gospel, ^^ Cum exaltatus faero a terr^, omnia traham mecum." 490 MANKIND : THEIR This idea is found in India, where the Brahmins saj that the just pass into Brahma's paradise, drawn thither by the rays of the sun, when he directs his course towards the north. The Arabians had two sacred idols at Mecca, the one white, and the other black (Bernard. Beindenbak). The one (the white one) was worshipped when the sun entered the sign of the Lamb. The Ammonites brought incense to it. The other (the black one) was worshipped when the sun entered Libra. Astrological reasons were given for this idolatrous worship, taken from the theory of the exaltation of the planets. Vincent de Beauvais (Specul. Historic. 1. TV.) men- tions a similar ceremony practised by some Indian tribes at the time of the entrance of the sun into the vernal equinox. The great Persian festival is still that of the Neurouz, or new year. The beginning of the year was fixed at the period of the sun's entrance into the Lamb by Giemschid at this period, according to them, because light and motion were given to the universe at that instant (Hyde, De Vet. Pers. Rel. cap. xix.). They celebrate the return of the sun to the equinoctial point, formerly the Lamb, with the greatest pomp. They sing the praises of the Great Lamb who gives a new life to nature. They represent in it the august messenger, the envoy of God, the blessed one who comes to bring in the new year, and to renew all nature with it (Hyde, ibid.). ** Hie novus dies mensis novi, de anno novo, novi temporis, quo necesse est renovari quidquid tempore constat," says the king to his court. Bishop Synesius makes the tyranny of Typhon to end, and Osiris to return, at the very moment the sacred fire is lighted on the altars, and that the returning Osiria comes to name the year. He mentions this, however, with an air of mystery, and adds, that he says nothing about it except what can be told to the people. The other Fathers of the Church and the Christian writers often speak of these festivals, which were celebrated in honour of the death and resurrection of Osiris, and draw a parallel between it and that of Christ. St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Minutius Felix, Lactaiitius, Julius Firmicus, all the pagan and Christian authors who have spoken of Osiris, or the suu- god who was worshipped by that name in Egypt, agree in describing the mourning wliich took place at his death every year. The same was the case with Bacchus, whom Hero- ORIGIX AND DESTINY. 497 dotus, Plutarch, Macrobius, and all the ancients consider to be the same as Osiris, and consequently as the sun. Bacchus therefore is bom, dies, goes down to hell, and rises again, just as Osiris and as Christ do. Bacchus dies, like Osiris ; he is torn to pieces, like him, by the giants, and afterwards he is restored to life. Such was the doctrine which was taught in the solar mysteries under the name of Bacchus (Macrob, Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. xii.), in whom the theologians behold the mind, the Novy, or the A0709 of the Deity, so far as it is united to matter, and, so to speak, incarnated, until it is afterwards restored to that single and eternal principle from which it descended — an idea which much resembles that of the incarnate Logos, who is put to death, rises again, and returns to the bosom of his father. At St. Denis, over the portal of the temple of Bacchus, or the Gaulish Dionysus, is a zodiac like the one at Notre Dame, but less complete, for the figures which repre- sent the different degrees of heat and light are absent. Over the side-door which is to the left, or towards the north, is the zodiac ; and over the side-door which is on the right or southern side, are the twelve representations of the agricultural operations of each month. Christ is on the top of the centre of the door, between the two columns which support the representations of the signs, each of which is enchased in a species of circular medallion. There are only ten signs, five on each side, which are arranged in the order of the domiciles. The signs of Mercury, viz. Virgo and Gemini, are on the top of each column ; at the bottom are the two domiciles of Saturn, Aquarius and Capricorn. The domidiles of the sun and moon, Leo and Cancer, are not there : there has been some transposition, for Virgo is above Taurus, and Gemini above Libra. At the southern door, where the twelve agricultural re- presentations are, there is on the left column a man cutting iron ; 2nd, a man thrashing com ; 3rd, two men pouring wine into a cask ; 4th, a man beating down acorns, which two pigs are devouring ; 5th, a man putting a pig in the salt-tub, and a pig which has been killed hung up by the hind legs ; 6th, a man at table, who seems to be kneading some paste which some one else brings him ; near him is a fireplace, in which wood is buming. The other column represents : 1st, at the top, a man who K K 408 MANKIND : THEIR is raking up hay ; 2nd, a man taking a horse, saddled and bridled, out to pasture ; 3rd, a man passing his hand oyer some flowering plants which are shooting out of the ground; 4th, two men cutting trees ; one has a cloak with a hood; 5th, two mfen with hoods on, sitting in arm-chairs ; one of them seems to be stirring a brasier with a pair of tongs ; 6th, a Janus with two faces, one old, the other young. He is drawing the new year out of a door, under the emblem of a little man ; and is making the man who represents the expiring year go in on the other side, that of the old face, the other, or new year, being on the side of the young fece. The old portion of the body is covered by a cloak, while the new portion is naked. These representations are suitable to Osiris, the god of the seasons, or to Bacchus. One of these zodiacs is on the cathedral of Strasburg. Nonnus, in his Dionysiacs (Nonnus, 1. VI. v. 175, &c.) sup- poses that Bacchus was torn to pieces by the giants; Jupiter revenges his death by sending a deluge, which de- stroys the universe, and gives a second Bacchus to the reno- vated earth. Julius Firmicus makes Bacchus to be a prince, just as he believed Christ to be a man who had really lived, died, and risen again ; but he cannot help admitting that the pagans explained all by reference to nature, and looked upon these adventures as a mystic fiction relating to the sun. He makes the sun complain that men dishonour him by absurd fables. " Mourn for Bacchus, says the sun ; mourn for Atys, mourn for Osiris ; mourn for Christ, let us add, but without dishonouring me by yonr fables." Thus speaks the sun in Firmicus (De Prof. EiTor. Relig. p. 19). From what he says, it is evident that the pagans had a tradition that all these tragic and incredible adventures, these deaths and resurrections, were only mystic fables about the sun. The same is the case with the factitious represen- tative of Christ. Like Christ, Bacchus was called 2io)n;y, or Saviour (Pans. Corinth, pp. 74, 79). Like him, he per- formed miracles (ibid. Mea&en. p. 147), healed the sick, and predicted future events (ibid. Phoc. p. 852). He was also said to go down to hell (ibid. Corint. pp. 78, 86). From his childhood upwards his life was threatened (ibid. Achaic). Snares were laid for him, like Herod's for Christ. Bacchus established initiations, like Christ, to which none but the virtuous were admitted. The initiated persons exj^ected his OIUGIK AM) DKS'TIXY. 4J>0 second coming. They hoped that he would then take upon himself the government of the universe, and re-establish the former state of happiness (Freret. " Acad, des Inscriptions," tome xxiii. p. 167). He was often painted by the side of his virgin-mother, or Ceres, or Isis ; these two names being those of the Virgin of our constellations. He was called the son of God. He was exposed in the mysteries on the mystic fan, under the emblem of a new-bom child. Those who wor- shipped him were persecuted, and his mystic rites were often prohibit.ed in Italy (Livy, 1. XXXIX. cap. ix. 18; TertuU. Apolog.). The mysteries of Adonis were of a similar de- scription, while in Egj^t, as Macrobins tells us (Sat. 1. I. cap. xxi.), "Apollo, or the sun, takes the name of Horus. This people, wishing, to consecrate a statue to the sun with this name, represented him with his head shaved, with the exception of a tuft of hair which they left him on the right side. By this they indicate the period when the day is at the shortest, and when it has lost all the increase it had received, the sun having arrived at the most restricted portion of his divine career, which takes place at the winter solstice. But afterwards this planet, emerging from the narrow and dark prison in which he had been confined, takes his course towards the summer solstice, adds con- stantly to the days, and regains his empire." Here we have Horus, who takes the name of Apollo in his passage to the southern hemisphere (Macrob. ibid.), or that of the conqueror of the sei-pent Python. Plutarch says (De Iside) that the victory of Horus over the serpent is exactly the same as that of Apollo over Python, of Osiris over Typhon, the monster bristling with serpents, as that of Jupiter or Ammon over the Titans and the giants, and as that of Bacchus over the giants who had dismembered him. The same was the case with the Odin of Iceland, and with the Atys of Phrygia, also called Esmun (Damasc. Vit. Isid. Phot, codex ccxlii.) and Esculapius. As the Christians held that the dying Christ was siispensvs in ligno, so the wor- shippers of Atys represented him also in his passion as tied to a tree, or as a young man bound to a tree, which was cut in their ceremonies (Jul. Fir. De Prof. Eel. p. 54). The worshippers of Atys also, like the Christians, put the lamb, or equinoctial Bam, at the foot of the tree which was cut in the middle of the night on which the mystery of his X K 2 600 MANKIND : THEIR sufferings was celebrated (ibid. p. 53). It was in Phrygia, where the worship of Atjs and Cjbele was established, iAiat Menelaus (ibid. 1. III. y. 108) proposes to Paris to sacrifice to the sun and to the earth a white lamb and a black sheep* These colours are symbolical. Some coins of Gallienus are in existence, with the lamb, or Aries, stamped on them, with the epithet ** To Jupiter the Saviour, Jovi Servatori." The Manichseans, or Christians of the East, who had not entirely lost the thread of the Mithraic ideas, said that the sun was Christ (Beausobre, t. ii. p. 58;^). Theodoret (Hseres. Fab. 1. I.) and Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. 15, ง 2) attest this fact. Archelaus, in the discussion with Cascar (Beausob. ibid. p. COO) tells Manes, " Barbarian, priest of Mithra, thou adorest nothing but the sun." St. Leo ^Serm. iv. in Epiph.) also says that they placed Christ in the luminous substimoe of the sun, and of the moon, which is but the reflected light of the sun ; and this was why the Greeks made the Mani- chseans abjure that article of their faith which said that Christ and the sun were one and the same (Beaus. p. 264), which proves that the Manichseans understood their religion better than those who made them abjure this truth. Theo- sebius, a pagan philosopher, conjuring a demon by whom his wife was possessed, conjures him in the name of the God of the Hebrews, taking the rays of the sun to witness (Phot, cod. ccxlii. p. 1068). And by the God of the Hebrews he meant Christ, because he confounded the Christians with the Jews. A letter of Hadrian, addressed to the Consul Servienus, in the life of the Satumian tyrant, by Vopiscus, contains the following passage : — " I have learnt, my dear Servienus, that that Egypt which you have praised so much to me is changeable to a degree peculiar to itself, and flies after every novelty. Those who worship Serapis (the sun) are Christians, and they are priests of Serapis who call themselves bishops of Christ ; even if their patriarch should come to Egypt, he would be compelled by one party to worship Serapis, while others would compel him to adore Christ. There is there non^. of the chw/s of the Jcvmh synagogue^ no one of the Samaritans^ no priests of the Christians or Mathcmatici (Therapeutce), no Aruspex or Bather (Baptist)." The Baptists at this period were a diflerent sect from the Christians. ORIGIX AND DESTINY. COl The authenticity of this document has never been ques- tioned, and it shows that the followers of Serapis, of Moses, and of Christ, and their hierophants, worshipped the sjrmbol of Serapis, the emblem of God ; and that a patriarch was often compelled to assist at the public worship of diflferent faiths ; and that the Bather or Baptiser held a separate rank from that of the Aruspex, the Christian priest, &c., which shows the distinction intended to be drawn between Christ and John. The mixture of the worship of Serapis with that of Christ and other beliefs is so clear in early Christianity that it is impossible to doubt it. Socrates tells us that when the temple of Serapis at Alexandria was demolished by one of.the Christian emperors, the monogram of Christ was discovered beneath the foundation. Medals are preserved in collections which prove that the emperors professed several beliefs at the same time. Medals of Julian are numerous ; and there are some of Constantino the Great witli pagan deities on them, of the same date as the period when he protected the Chris- tians. There is one in existence of the Emperor Constantino, who was a Christian, the father of Constantino the Great, and who owed his empire to the Christians. On one side is his bust, and on the other the god Anubis. The word Serapis is composed of seven letters, a mystic number, which refers to the planets and astronomy ; and the symbol of Serapis joined to the cross has served as an allegory for several religions. The tonsure of the priests of Isis and Serapis is exactly continued by the modem monks. The religion of Mithra and of Christ so strongly resemble each other that Julius Firmicus devotes throe pages to the comparison of them, in order to show how the devil had abused the most holy things, and appropriated the mystic ideas contained in the prophets to himself ! These, however, are not the only features of resemblance that exist between the Mithraic and the Christian initiations. The ecclesiastical writers and the Fathers of the Church themselves will now show us these features, which show the descent of the one religion from the other by the rites which are common to them both. Tertullian (De Prsescript. adv. Hseres. cap. xl. ; Suidas Naz. Orat. iii.) says that the religion of Mithra had its prepara- tory trials, which were even more severe than those of the Christians ; and that it had its believers, its faithful 502 MANKIND: THEIR defenders, and its martyrs. He says that the sacrameuts of bapti^ in and of the Eucharist also existed in this religion. The followers of Mithra marked their foreheads with a sacred sign, like tl^e Christians, and they had the doctrine of the symbol of the resurrection. The crowns which adorn the head of maityrj used to be presented to them (TertoIL De Coronfl., cap. xv., and De Praescrip. cap. xL). Their Sovereign-Pontitf must not have been often married. They had their virgins and the law of continence. In a word, every practice that exists among Christians is fotmd among them. It is true that Tertullian says that it was the devil who imitated the Christians, by way of accounting for such complete similarity. But we know that the Mithraic religion existed long before the Christian, and therefore, if these religions resemble each other, the later one must be the copy, and not the earlier. Tertullian says in another place (Adv. Marcion, p. 372) that the pagans saw nothing in all these mysteries but the mysteries of Nature. He says that the ancients explained the death and resurrection of Osiris to signify Nature and the phenomena she exhibits in vegetation, in the action of the elements, and in the revolutions of time and of the year; and that the philosophic sect of Mithra had represented in its symbols and religious ceremonies the mystic adYentures of the element of fire — the great deity of the Persians. He states, and truly, that the Christian mysteries are exactly similar; the two religions are therefore identical. JuUos Firmieus (De Prof. Rel. p. 10) also sees in the mystic worship of Mithra homage wliich is paid to the pure sub- stance which shines in the sun under the symbols of the ancient equinoctial signs the Bull and the Serpent. St Justin (Apolog. 1. II.) establishes the resemblance between the religion of Mithra and that of Christ, especially with regard to the sacrament of the Eucharist, or the consecration of bread and water, for water was often used instead of wine, even by Christian sects (Beausob. tome ii. p. 728). In his Dialogue with Tryphon he points out the resemblance between the birth of Christ and of Mithra. He says : '' The first, who was born at Bethlehem, came into the world in a cave near the town, because Joseph could find no room in the inns; and being shut up in it with Mary his wife, she brought forth the infant Christ, and put him in a man^r, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 603 and it was there that some Magi, who came from Arabia, went to worship him. They say of the latter that he was born from the bosom of the rocks, and that he initiated his converts in a cavern known as the cave of Mithra." St. Chrysostom speaks of this cave as being a pleasant place, to which the initiated, after having purified themselves, came to pray in silence for three days. St. Jerome (Epist. ad Lsetam., Hyde, De Vet. Pers. Relig. p. 113, &c.) sa3's that Gracchus, when he became prefect of Rome, caused the grotto of Mithra, and all the monstrous representations which it contained, to be destroyed. These representations all related to the order of the universe, to the stars, and to the elements, as may be seen in the de- scription which Porphyry and Celsus (De Antr. Nymp., Origen contr. Celsus, 1. VII.) have given of it. Such, in fact, should be the birthplace of the god of day, who, as Macrobius says (Satur. 1. I. cap. xxi.) was at the moment of his birth confined in a dark place until he re-entered upon his empire of light. This is why Christ and Mithra (Justin. Dialog, cum Tryph.), or the winter sun, receive the worship of men at their birth in a dark subterraneous place, which represents the lower portion of the universe, in which the sun at that time is held to reside. As to the consecration of the bread, which is one of the great mysteries of the Christian religion, it is found in the religion of Mithra with the mystic words which effect it. St. Justin (Apol. 1. II.) after quoting the words of Christ in the institution of the Eucharist, '* This is my body," &c., acknowledges that this eucharistic oblation forms part of the mysteries of Mithra also, and that mystic words were said in them also over the bread and water which were ofifered in them (Beausob. t. ii. p. 723). The Manichseans, the Eucra- tites, and other Christian sectaries used pure water instead of wine (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. I., and Epiph. adv. HcDres. xxxii. ง. 16). Hyde (De Vet. Pers. cap. xix.) gives an example of the con- secration of bread which still takes place among the Persians at the same period as that at which the Christian festival was established, and which greatly resembles it. This cere- mony is that which is practised at the Nauriiz or new year of the Persians, when the sun enters the sign of the Lamb. In this festival a young man, caUing himself the messenger 504 MANKIND : THKIR of God, announced to the king that he came from God to bring him the new year. The king assembled all his court, and even a multitude of people. A large loaf was presented to him, composed of diflferent kinds of grain — wheat, barlej, rice, &c. The kin^ partook of it first, and afberwards distri- buted it among tliose present, making use of the following formula : " This is the new day of the new month of the new year, which brings a new season, and in which all that is engendered or produced by Time will be renewed." He then blessed them, and distributed different presents to them. There was a remarkable festival among the Babylonians and Persians, called by Bersous ^atcia^ and attended with a particular sacrifice. It is described very fully by Dio Chry- sostom (Orat. quont. De Regno). He calls it t^i/ r&u Saซcซtfv iofyrriv. He says : Ovk ivv&qv iopTfjVj f^ป UipaM aryova-i'y Xaffovres r&i* SeafioroiP Sva i&v iiri Oavdrtpy Ka0i^cvap, Kol rats waTOuiKah ')(pria'6{u rat iifiipas iKaiva9 rah ^aa-iXJtof koI oriSsls ovBev KOjiXvei iroieiv, &ป fiovXirai, MerA Si ravra dwoSva-avTsSy koI fiaaTtyoHriiiTSf, iKpifJMaav. * EKpifiaaav iirl ^vXov : patibulo suffigebant. See Athenseus, 1. XIV. cap. x., and the notes of Is. Casaubon. The Persians had a theory about angels which was much more complete than that of the Christians. They had angels of light, and angels of darkness, contests of angels, and names of angels, which have passed into Christianity; they had baptism and confirmation, paradise and hell. They had a hierarchic order and the whole ecclesiastical constitu- tion whic^h is established among us, and which has existed more than three thousand years among them (Hyde, cap. xxviii.) ; they have twelve angels which preside over the twelve months, just as the Christians have their twelve apostles, and they have thirty others for the thirty days of the month. They have the theological fiction of the fall of the angels, which the Jews and Christians have adopted ; each day has its angel, as each day has its saint among the Christians ; and as this saint is invoked in the daily mass, so did the Persians call upon the angel of the day in their daily prayers (Hyde, p. 346). The Talmud of Jerusalem admits that the names of the angels and of the months were borrowed from the Babylonians by the Hebrews — " Nomina ORIGIN AND DESTINY. (iOo mensium et angelorum ascendisse cum Judceis ex Babylonid;, ut Grabriel, Michael, &c." — which must naturally be the case if, as has been shown, the theology of the Jews and Christians is founded on the Persian theology, and is but an emanation of the ancient and primitive doctrine of the Magi, and a corollary from the constituent principles of the mystic sc'.ence of the disciples of Zoroaster. The pagans in the first centuries of Christianity did not fail to observe the resemblance between it and the worship of the sun, as we see in Tertullian, who admits that they were only looked upon as a sect of sun-worshippers. The most learned sects among them, the Gnostics and the Basilidians, adhered to these solar forms of worship more than any others. The Gnostics called their Christ lao, the name which the oracle of Claros in Macrobius (Sat. L I. cap. xviii.) gives to the sun, and which the Phoenicians gave to light (Cedren. p. 169). They had their 360 iEJons, founded on the 860 degrees of the zodiac. They had also their Abraxas, a word made up of the seven numerical letters which express the duration of the year which lao, Christ, or the sun, gives birth to in his revolution. This was no doubt the origin of the idea that Christ was to reign for 365 years. They also admitted 365 heavens, as the Ophites did also. Beausobre observes that the ancient Christian sects paid much attention to astronomy and astrology, which need not surprise us if their worship had the sun-god for its object, attended by the twelve spirits, the twelve signs, and being himself the Jtfedtator or Meairrjs of the planetary harmony. There are still one or two Christian sects in the East which are said to worship the sun (Beausob. t. ii. p. 613 ; 1. IX. cap. i.). They dwell on the mountains of Armenia and Syria. The first is that of the Jezidus, a word derived from the name of Jesus (Hyde, p. 519). The second is called Shemsi — that is, Solars — a name which has no doubt been given to them on account of the worship they paid to the sun. Lastly, the features of resemblance between many sects of Christianity and the religion of the sun were so striking that the Emperor Hadrian calls them worshippers of Serapis (Flav. Vospisc. in Saturn.), and their bishops ministers of the worship of Serapis, in whose temple crosses were in fact found. Now Serapis was the sun-god who was worshipped in Egypt under the emblem of a serpent, to 600 M.\XiaND : THEIR whom Christ is made to compare himself (John iiL 14). The Christians never prayed without turning to the east. All their churches are turned to the east. Their sacred day is Sun-day. There must be a reason for these practices, which reveal the nature of their religion ; and if that natore is astronomical or astrological, their book of initiation, called the Apocalypse, or the Revelation of John, as it was originally called, must contain the same astronomical doc- trine as the gospels. Before proceeding to show that it does so, a short historical sketch of the history of the book, and of the doubts which have existed as to its canonicity, is subjoined. The first Christian writer who maintains the Apocalypse is St. Justin, but he also believed in the Cumsean Sibyl, whose sepulchre he pretended to have found (Admonit. ad Gentes), and took the god Sabin Semo-Sancus, whose statue was at Rome, to be Simon the Magician. Not much credit, therefore, can be given to his critical acumen. Irenseos (1. V.) quotes the Apocalypse on the authority of an un- known old man ; but he also tells us that the four animals of Ezekiel and of the Apocalypse are the four conditions of the son of God. The lion is the royal dignity, the ox the priesthood, &c. Before the time of Irenajus, Melito had composed a treatise called " The Devil of the Apocalypse " (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. I. cap. xxvL); but as it is lost, we do not know in what terms he spoke of him. Before the time of Justin there is not the least trace of the book in any of the Christian writings or in any of those attributed to them, which makes it doubtful whether it is as old as the times of St. John the Evangelist. The title "St. John the Divine " is later than the fourth century. Clemens Alexandrinus, who mentions the Apocalypse towards the end of the second century without mentioning its author, informs us that there was an Apocalypse of St. Peter. Clement had such an opinion of this latter Apocalypse, which, according to Sozomenes was read in the churches of Palestine, that he explained it in his teaching as a sacred book. This Apocalypse is reckoned among the books of the New Testament in the fragment which is called the Muratorian *^ Apocalypse etiam Johannis ct Petri tantum recipiraus. quam quidam ex nostris Icgi in ecclesia nolunt." Cleujens ORIGLV AND DESTINY. 607 Alexandrinus mentions it in the Hypotyposes, in which he commented on the whole of the sacred writings in these terms : MiySi ras avTiKsyofiivas {ypa^us) irapiXBoDVy rrju ^lovSa \fya>, koI rhs Xoiwaf KaOdXiKas imaroXaSy ttjv t8 Bap- vd^a Kai rr)if Tlerpov Xsyofiei^rjif airoKaXv^JnVy ic.t.X. (Euseb. H. E. VI. 14, 1). Methodins, bishop of Tyre (who died circa a.d. 312), placed the Apocalypse of Peter iv OsoTrviv- aToi9 ypdfifiaaiv, " among the inspired writings." Even the Codex Sinaiticus appears to have contained it, after the Epistle of Barnabas, in a portion which has been lost, for the Sinaitic index of the sacred books mentions TlsTpov awo- KoKv^iv among them. The following are the fragments of this Apocalypse which remain : Clemens Alexandrinus (ex scriptis propheticis, eclog. ง 41 p. 999, et sqq.) says : 'H ypa(f>q (f>7)

^. ov iraiZsviaOal rs icaX av^eiv ' Koi iaovraiy <^7;rja't^ koI oarpaTrq irvpof TTi^Bcoaa airo r&v ^pea)V eKsivcop Kal TrXqaaova'a rovs 6(f>6a\/ioif9 T&v yvvatK&v * iirsL 6 hUaios &s (rmvdrjp Sia KaXdfirjf iKKafiim Kal KplvBL idvrj (Sap. iii. 7). lb. ง 48, 49, p. 1000, et sqq. : AvriKa 6 n/rpop iury airoted" Xtnlrei dya, Kal dvarpi^opra sl9 avTd9 KareaOUi' Bid 'rd9 dfiapTia9 yiiaadai rd9 KoXda-si9 SiBdaKdov, iK t&p dfjutpruov yspvdaOai axnd9 (fyqalv, o)9 Bed Tap dfiapTia9 iirupdaOr} 6 X(i69j Kal Bid ri)p U9 XpioTop dTnariap, d}9 r)aip 6 dwooToXof trrro t&v o^eoop iddfcpoPTo (1 Cor. x. 9). TertuUian quotes the Apocalypse, but endeavours to prove from it that the soul is material (Tertull. De Anim.), re- ferring to the passage in which it is said, " I saw under the altar the souls of them which had been put to death for the word of God ; " and also believes that the holy city had been seen in the air. " We acknowledge," says he (ibid. 1. III. Contr. Marcion), "that we have a reign on earth promised to us, namely, the resurrection for a thousand years, in the n08 MANKIND: THEIR town of Jerusalem, which is made by the hand of God, and which came down from heaven. Ezekiel knew of it, and the new prophecies^ which we believe in, have even shown ns the plan of it before it was built, as a sign to us when it appeared. At last this sign has appeared lately in the East, and the pagans themselves are witnesses that there has been seen in Judsea, for forty days, a town suspended in the air, whose walls diminished as the daylight increased, and which at length disappeared altogether." These new prophecies which he speaks of were the revela- tions of Priscilla and Maximilla, two prophetesses of the Phrygian sect which held its assemblies at Pepuza, and to which reference will again be made. Origen speaks of the Apocalypse, but he also speaks of those of Elias and of Paul. He also believed in the Sibylline book, and in the visionp of Hermas. Hippoly tus, his friend, says that St. John was banished by Domitian to the island of Patmos, where he had the apocalyptic vision; that he fell asleep under Trajan, at Ephesus, and that his remains could not be found. These sleepers of Ephesus are very suspicious persons, and the book of Hippolytus is a tissue of fabrications. Cyprian quotes the Apocalypse frequently, but never with the author's name. Papias, who was almost contemporary with St. John, does not mention it (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. III. chap, ix.), and though he taught the doctrine of the millennium, he rested it on an unwritten tradition. What is of still more consequence is, that St. Dionysius of Alexandria assures us, in a long fragment which Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 1. VII. cap. xxix.) has pre- served to us, that many authors who lived before him had written criticisms on the Apocalypse ; and as he himself lived about the middle of the third century, these authors must be of great antiquity. Not only do they reject the Apoca- lypse altogether, but they refuted it chapter by chapter, as being, according to them, devoid of sense and reason. They also maintained that the inscription of the book was false, and that it had not been composed by St. John or by any of the apostles (Euseb. ibid.). They added that Cerinthus was the author of it, and had made use of a great name in order to inculcate his millenary opinions. Cerinthus was first heard of soon after the period at which the death of the apostles is fixed (Euseb. 1. III. cap. xxviii. and cap. xxv.). ORIGIN AND DESTIXY. 509 He got tliis idea from the Jews, and endeavonred to pass off what was suspected to be his own production as a work by St. John. Other leaders of sects, such as Cerdon and Mar- cion (TertuU. contr. Marcion, 1. I.), and even the Alogians (Epiph. Hseres. cap. lix.), rejected the Apocalypse, which they said could not be by St. John, because, among other reasons, there was no Christian church in existence at Thyatira in the time of St. John. St. Epiphanius acknow- ledges this, but endeavours to surmount the difficulty by saying that St. John wrote to the church at Thyatira, not because it was then in existence, but because it would be at some future time ! This admission shows us that this work really belonged to the sect which was originally at Thyatira^ — that is, to the Phrygian sect. Caius, a priest who wrote about a.d. 200, and was looked upon as a kind of oracle of the church at Itome, also at- tributes this work to Cerinthus (Euseb. 1. III. cap. xxviii.). It is not in the collection called the Apostolical Canons, which is the code of the ancient Church ; and there is this difference between the Fathers who admit, and those who reject it, that the former admit it without appearing to trouble them- selves as to how it came to them, while the latter only reject it after a critical examination. Victorinus, who is considered a very indifferent authority, is the first writer of a commentary on the Apocalypse. He wrote after the middle of the third century. The next in order is Lactantius, who, like Victorinus, believed in the millennium. He says : " The Son of the great and supreme God will come to judge the quick and the dead, as the Sibyl testifies. But when he has destroyed all injustice, held the last judgment, and recalled to life all the just persons who have lived since the beginning of the world, he will dwell among men for a thousand years, and will govern them very righteously.'' And elsewhere, in the Epitome of his Insti- tutes, he says that there can be no doubt of their truth, because they are predicted by Trismegistus, by Hydaspes, and by the Sibyls. Eusebius, who had made many enquiries, and who is the historian of the belief of his period, has great doubts (Hist. Eccl. 1. III. cap. XXV.) whether the Apocalypse should be admitted as a canonical book. " As to the Apocalypse,'' he says, " there are still great doubts respecting it, as I have 510 MAXKIXD: THEIR shown elsewhere that the ancients had doubts of it by quot- ing their own words." After giving the list of books held to be canonical, and of those considered to be altogether apocryphal, he adds : " The Apocalypse of St. John may, if you like, be put into this first class, it being a book which some reject, and which others admit among the books of Scripture.'' Nothing can be move clear than these words of Eusebius, who, in another place, conjectures that the Apoca- lypse was written by John who was sumamed the Priest. The celebrated work called " A Synopsis or Abridgment of the Scriptures '* gives a catalogue of the canonical books, and at the end are these words : " There is, besides these, the Apocalypse of John the Theologian, which is received and approved as being written by him.'' The author of the Synopsis, who rejected the Apocalypse himself, adds that some persons attributed it to St. John. What proves, however, that the Apocalypse was not yet in- cluded in the Canon, is the Council of Laodicsaa, the first which framed a catalogue of the sacred books. It was held A.D, 364, by thirty- two bishops of Asia, among whom was the Bishop of Ephesus, where St. John was said to be buried, and to be continually moving in his tomb, and causing the earth to move up and down above it. The Apocalypse is not in their list of canonical books, yet Laodicaja is one of the seven churches named in it, and is the one so highly praised by St. John ; and it cannot be owing to want of credulity, for St. Augustine assures us in his note on the Gospel of St. John, where it is said that that disciple should not die, that very clever people at Ephesus, who were slow of belief, believed in St. John's moving the earth up and down like the bed-clothes on a bed, and yet they would not believe in his prophecy, addressed particularly to them. This credulity still exists, only he is now looked upon as a second Moses or Elijah, and is expected to live to the end of the world. Calmet says r " If John was dead, we should know the time, the manner, and the circumstances of his death ; his relics would be shown, and we should know where his tomb was ; but all this is unknown. In fact, we are assured that when he became old he caused a tomb to be opened, into which he entered while alive ; and having bid farewell to his disciples, he disappeared, and went to some spot unkno^vn to mortals.'* Many masons are of Calmet's opinion, and, founding their ORIGLV AND DESTINY. oil belief on the fact that the two St. Johns whose festivals are celebrated by them represent the two solstices, they conclude that St. John has not died. It is important to observe that the canons of the Council of Laodicsea were not long after- wards adopted into the body of the canons of the Catholic Church. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (a.d. 340) enumerates the sacred writings in his fourth Catechesis, and the Apocalypse is not among them. It could not therefore be read in public, since a catechist omits it- St. Gregory of Nazianzen also gives this list of the canonical books, and, ending at the Epistle of Jude, without mentioning the Apocalypse at all, says : " These are the only authentic and Divine books. All the others must be considered apocryphal." The Apocalypse, therefore, must be placed in the latter category. Amphilochus, who was contemporary with St. Basil, says (Amphil. De Seleuc), after giving a catalogue of the same writings : " As to the Apocalypse, some admit it, but the greater number reject it." St. Epiphanius oflFers the Alogians to give up the Apocalypse, if they would admit the Gospel of St. John ! St. Jerome (Epist. cxxiii. ad Dard.) says that the Greek churches rejected it. When it first appeared, it was not only attacked by the Eastern Christians, but, according to them, victoriously refuted ; and it was looked upon by them as being at the best an obscure and bad poem on the sun in spring. They said that it was impossible to give any rational explanation of it, and that the author had rightly named it " a vision," for, according to them, dreams alone could pro- duce ideas so unconnected and so incapable of being com- prehended by the human understanding. They would not allow it to have been written by John, or even by a Christian ; they held it rather to be the work of some very zealous Jew, for it represents the Jews, and not the Christians, as being persecuted. The Iiatins, however, were more inclined to receive it, especially the Spaniards, and, generally, those who were the most distant from the place where it was written. St. Ambrose, who was a man who had visions and dreams from heaven, naturally supported its authenticity. He wrote about A.D. 374. Philaster, his friend, treated those who re- jected the Apocalypse as heretics, but he also classes among heretical persons those who say that the number of years 512 MANKIND : THEIR -which have elapsed since the creation is uncertain, those who say that there are more than seven heavens, those who regard earthquakes as being produced by natural causes, and those who look upon the stars as being fixed and the firmament as being immovable, instead of believing that God takes them out of his treasury every night, and dresses them, so to speak, in the costume which they are to lay aside the next morning. Such is one of the supporters of the inspiration of the Apocalypse. Sulpitius Sevems, as a believer in the millenium, says that those who do not believe in the Apoca- lypse are mad and impious persons. But he admits that those madmen were in the majority, for he says that the majority rejected it. The Council of Carthage (a.d. 397) was the first which inserted the Apocalypse in the list of the sacred books. We are not told how it came to pass that they knew so much better than the Council of Laodicsea, for whom it sufSced that there was no trace or mention of the book in the traditions or archives of Ephesus, or of the churches ; but it was probably owing to the influence of Augustine. Augus- tine's credulity was without bounds. He used to read firom the pulpit the fables known as the Acta of the Martyrs. He drew up a species of inventory of the miracles performed by their relics, which he read publicly, even on Sundays. Among them was a priest who was cured of the gravel by means of one of his shirts, which had been taken to the shrine of the martyr ; a very obstinate unbeliever, who waa converted by some flowers taken from the altar, and placed on his bolster ; and a martyr who appeared to a woman to console her. Such was the great Augustine, the apostle of apocalyptic visions. St. Jerome says there is not a word in the Apocalypse which has not seven meanings, if we are only so fortunate as to discover them ! St. Dionysius is more modest, for he is content with one meaning, which he owns he did not com- prehend. St. Jerome was afraid of putting too much philosophy into his criticism, for he says he remembers having been severely beaten by the angels for having been too fond of reading profane authors. " It was no dream," he says, "for my shoulders are still a mass of bruises." However, as he did not always say what he thought (Epist ad Paran.), and as, to use one of his expressions, he spoke ORIGIN AND DESTIXY. 51ซ *^ ecumenically," it is possible he did not speak the truth on this occasion. He also frequently contradicts himself, as he does on this very subject. For after the eulogium he has made on the Apocalypse, he says in another place, that St. Dionysius has made a very accurate criticism on this book, and we have seen that this criticism denied that St. John was the author of it. To say that the Greek Churches rejected the Apocalypse is to say that the Latin Churches accepted it. Innocent I., bishop of Rome, puts it into his catalogue of the sacred books at the beginning of the fifth century. But even in the sixth century there were doubts about it. Junilius (De Partib. Div. Leg. 1. I. cap. iv.) says that the Eastern Church doubted the Apocalypse, and he himself, though a Western bishop, rejected the Council of Carthage, and followed the Eastern Church. The Apocalypse, however, became more and more generally received, and the Greeks at last, in- fluenced by an unknown Greek, who called himself Dionysius the Areopag^te, and quoted the book as canonical, began to receive it also. But in the West many still refused to do so, and this was why the Council of Toledo, the first which was held in Europe, ordered it to be read in the Churches, under pain of excommunication against those who refused to do so. This produced a marvellous effect, and after that time there was no further opposition in the West. The Council of Constantinople, however, which met in the palace of the Emperor in the year 692, instead of putting an end to the dispute which still existed between the Churches, made matters worse, for it approved of both the Council of Car- thage, which accepted the Apocalypse, and of the Council of Laodicฃea, which rejected it ! The next century, the eighth, does not give us any more light on the subject. John of Damascus (Orthod. Fid. 1. VI. cap. i. 18) is the only person who puts the Apocalypse among the canonical books ; but notwithstanding the authority he possessed in the East, this was not yet the prevailing opinion in the Greek Church, as may be seen in Nicephorus, who was at the head of the Eastern Church about the beginning of the ninth century. This patriarch of Constantinople places the Apocalypse among the contested and doubtful books. When the dark ages, that period of ignorance in which imposture and credulity of every kind flourished, began, the L li r>14 MANKIND : THEIR Apocalypse was lost sight of; bat it appears to have finally triumphed in the Greek Church, for after the tenth century we hear of ho more doubts respecting it. The Emperor Otho III. wore by way of piety a dress on which he hปd caused the whole of the Apocalypse to be embroidered. It was no doubt a sort of Olympian garment, like that of the initiated persons, covered with dragons and monstrous figures of every description. Burnet, in his Travels in Italy, says he saw a manuscript five hundred years old which con- tained the visions of the Apocalypse joined to the fables of iEsop, with drawings. There is nothing in this which need surprise us, since both were drawn up for the Phrygians, and composed in the same country and in the same lan- guage. This book has been the subject of disputes and contro- versies between Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and An- glicans. As all parties admit that it contains the destiny of the Church, each sect has applied it to itself, frequently to the exclusion of all others. Everything has been seen in it except what really is there. The whimsical figures of the Apocalypse have resembled clouds, which always represent what one wishes to see in them if we study at all the scattered features which compose them, and, by vdshing to see it, we end by being dupes of the illusion which always follows him who seeks for it. ORIGiy A\D DESTIXY. 616 CHAPTER XIX. Akokost the sacred fictions whose aim it was to impress the fear of the justice of the gods on the hearts of mortals, those which threatened the universe with total destruction when the generations of men became so corrupt that the Deity caused his vengeance to burst forth upon guilty mor- tals, held the most prominent place. As there was a judg- ment which decided the fate of each individual, so there was a judgment which decided the fate of generations when they had merited total destruction, in order to make way for a new generation, composed of more virtuous men. This judgment was to take place with the most elaborate pre- parations, and the fall of the whole world, inhabited by guilty men, was attended with the greatest disasters, and announced by the most terrible omens. Hence proceeded those perpetual alarms in which the people were held during the first centuries of Christianity, and those miserable fears of the end of the world, which was believed to be always at hand (St. Cyrill. Catech. 4, de futuro Judicio). It was afterwards deferred to the eleventh century, or the year 1000, because it is said in the Apocalypse that the end will come after Christ has reigned a thousand years. This belief was consecrated by the Sibylline verses, and the Tuscan priests also taught it in their sanctuaries (Plut. Vit. SylL). They said that this terrible catastrophe would be announced by fearful signs in heaven and on earth, such as the loud sound of the trumpet which would be heard in the air. This trumpet reappears in the Epistles and in the Apocalypse. It was a generally received principle, that in order to keep men virtuous it was lawful to use any means, even impos- ture. Timseus of Locris (cap. vi.), a disciple of Pythagoras, who had himself obtained his doctrines from the East, reasoned in this manner. Such was the meaning of the fii^bled deluge of Xixuthrus, from which the Hebrew Noah and L L 2 610 MANKIND : THEIR • the Greek Deucalion are copied ; for these deluges are never attributed to a natural cause, wliich proves that they are not historical traditions. The aim of the ^.uthor of the Apocalypse, who describes the misfortunes which threaten the universe on the eve of a general destruction caused by the wickedness of mankind, is similar to that of the authors of the fabled deluges. He also draws a picture of the happiness which those who, by the purity of their morals and their adherence to the laws of initiation, have preserved themselves from the universal corruption. The Magi used to compose similar works on the contests between Ormuzd and Ahriman, and on the victory which the former was to gain over the latter at the end of the ages, when the time appointed by fate should have arrived. Celsus (Origen contr. Cels. 1. IV.) has shown very clearly the aim of the legislators of antiquity in framing these fictions. " It was,'' he says, " in order to frighten simple persons, who were made to dread a vengeance for which there was no real foundation. We may liken these fearful Christian fictions to the phantoms and other objects of fear which were shown to the initiated in the mysteries of Bacchus. The fable of the deluge of Deucalion and those successive periods of submersion and conflagration of the Universe, caused the Christians to invent their sacred fables, and especially the one of the destruction of the world by fire, when their Christ should come to judge the Universe." Origen answers him, that among the Greeks and other nations these destructions were attributed to the motion of the stars and their periodical return to certain aspects, in which he is perfectly correct ; and he also says that the aim of the Christian teachers in propagating this teaching was to render men more virtuous, either by impressing them by the fear of punishment, or by encouraging them by the hope of rewards. Origen has here unintentionally let out the secret, and betrayed the aim of legislators and of priests. It was at Easter, or during the Pervigilium Paschae, that the end of the world was long expected by the faithful. Every year this chimera of the coming of the bridegroom, and of the marriage of the Lamb, was held out to them. Isidore of Seville states, that the night of Easter was a sacred vigil, not only because Christ being risen must not find the faith- ful asleop, but also because it was at the same hour that he ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 517 rose that he was one day to come to judge mankind. Lac- tantius (1. VII. cap. xix.), Cedrenus, and the author of the Pascal Chronicle (Cedr. p. 2), also fix the advent of Christ at the period of the sun's entrance into the first degree of Aries or the equinoctial Lamb. In the earliest times of Christianity we find sects of persons who were initiated into the my&teries of the Eam, or Atys, or the Lamb which was worshipped in Phrygia, who used to assemble on a certain day to enjoy the view of the holy Jerusalem^ which was the great object of their wishes, and, as it were, the mystic representation of the autopsy of these mysteries. This apparition was called an ^ArrroKoKu^iSy or a revelation made to the prophetess, who thus supplied the place of a priest. This is why John here calls himself a prophet, which is the name given by Sanchoniathon to the chiefs of the initiations ; for John calls his works prophecies (Eev. i. 3, xix. 10), and the angel tells him he is a prophet like his brethren (Rev. xxii. 9, 10). John begins by saying that it is a revelation of Christ which he is going to make public. This is the exact title of the ancient mysteries. Synesius calls the mysteries of Eleusis the revelations of Ceres, "EXfii/o-ty SrfH rh Ar)fitjrpo9 avaKoXvirn^pia (Enem, Calvit. p. 70). These visions took place in a sort of ecstasy, and the prophets or heads of the initiations knew how to bring these ecstatic states on. Cicero (de Div. 1. I.) speaks at some length of these species of ecstasies, in which the future used to be predicted : " Ergo at ii, quorum animi, spretis corporibus, evolant atque con- currunt foras, ardore aliquo inflammati atque incitati, cemunt ilia prefects, quae vaticinantes prsenuntiant : mul- tisque rebus inflammantur tales animi qui corporibus non inbserent, ut ii qui sono quodam vocum et Phrygiis cantibus incitantur.'* It was on an almost desert island that the author of the Apocalypse, on Sunday, or the day consecrated to the sun, fell into the ecstasy in which he saw the heavenly Jerusalem. It was in a desert place at Pepuza, on the continent, and in Phrygia, that is to say, close to the seven towns named in the Apocalypse, and to the island of Patmos, that the secret assemblies of the Phrygians, those sectaries who were spread throughout Phrygia, Galatia, and especially Cappadocia^ where the worship of Mithra flourished, were held. The 518 MANKIND : THEIR ManiehfeaTis, says Ebed Jesu, keep Sunday as a day ol mourning and fasting, because this world is to end an a Sunday, after having existed 9,000 years (Apod ABseman. Biblioth. Orient, vol. iii. pp. 22, 361). Pepuza had been destroyed in the time of St. Epiphaniufl (Epiph. adv. Hseres. cap. xviii.). These sectaries beliered that the heavenly Jerusalem* had come down fix>iii heaven, and manifested itself on this spot. They therefore went there to celebrate their mysteries. Men and women went there to become initiated, and awaited the vision of Christ, or a Theophany, that is, they expected to see what the prophet John says he did see, and which he promises the initiated that they shall see, for he says : ^^ The Seyelation of Jesus Christ which Grod gave unto him, to shew unto his saints things which must shortly come to pass. . • • Behold, he Cometh with clouds ; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him. There is nothing more true " (Eev. i. 1, 7). And he ends by saying that all this will take place very soon. " The time is at hand.'' " Surely I oome quickly " (chap. xxii. 10, 20) ; and the initiated person answers, " Come, Lord Jesus." The traditions of these sectaries were that Priscilla (Epiph. adv. Haeres. cap. xlviii.), or Quintilla, one of their prophet- esses, had fallen asleep at Pepuza ; that Christ had appeared to her in the form of a woman clothed in garments of liaiTfling whiteness, that he had given her a spirit of wisdom, that he had told her that that spot was holy, and that the heavenly Jerusalem had come down there. We have already seen that there was a general belief that souls had originally sinned in another world, and St. Augustine (1. IV. cent. Pelag., and frag. Cic. Opev. ed. d'Olivet, vol. viii. p. 577) has preserved a passage from a work of Cicero, in which he considers this doctrine as forming part of the dogmas taught in the mysteries. As at Pepuza, so in them, men were taught that life is an unhappy condition (Porph. de Antr.) and that death is the end of our misery, since it restores us to our primitive stale of happiness, if we have lived according to the principles of duty ; and the world and the astronomical divisions which fix the different portions of the road traversed by souls, is then traced out. Such, according to Porphyry, (ibid.) was the mystic object of these initiations. " It is in this way," he says, ^^ that the Persians mark the descent of sonk ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 610 here below, and their return at a future period.*' This is -what they taught in their initiations, and what they repre- sented in the mysteries which were celebrated in tiie cave which represented the universe, which was consecrated by Zoroaster (Porph. ibid.). The whole system of astronomy was represented there, both fixed stars and planets (Orig. cont. Cels.), At Pepuza seven young virgins or priestesses, clad in white, entered the temple in which the Phrygian initiations took place, when the people assembled there to await the appearance of Christ and of the heavenly Jerusalem (Epiph. cap. xlix.). They each of them held in their hands a torch, to represent the seven pure and luminous torches which light the world, of which the temple was the representation. Each of them in tium came forth to the people in this dress to gpive forth oracles, and pretended to be in a state of celestial rapture. The genius of Light who speaks to John is attended by a similar retinue, and states to him the prophecies which he orders him to publish. He spoke to him from the midst of seven golden candlesticks, and holding seven stars in his hand (Eev. i. 13, 16). These seven stars, or the candlesticks which indicate them, are the same symbol as the seven altars, the seven planetarj' gates, the seven virgins holding a torch, and as the seven- branched candelabrum of the temple at Jerusalem, which we have seen represented the planetary system. In the monument of Mithra, in the midst of the seven altars which represent the seven planets, the angels of these planets are to be seen (Hyde, Vet. Pers. p. 113), and especially one which is apparently the angel of the sun, placed in the midst of the seven planets, with a serpent wound round him, a symbol which, according to Eusebius, represented the oblique course of the stars. He has wings like our angels. The spirits which moved the universe were drawn by the Eastern nations in human form, attended by allegorical attributes. Basnage (Hist, des Juifs, 1. VIII.) says, " They painted Pan with a fiery face> his countenance radiant with flames . . . holding seven circles in his lefb hand, and with wings on his shoulders." There is a repre- sentation of him similar to this in Kircher (GSdip. vol. i.). In Egypt the symbolical statue of the sun waB similarly represented with a flame- coloured cloak (Phomut. cap.xxvii.). f 620 MAXKLST): THEIR The god who is thus represented, says Flutarcli, speakiiig of the san or of Osiris, is as it were the bodj of the good principle, and like the visible covering of the deiiy or the spiritual substance. When Osiris was invoked in i^ypt in the sacred hymns, the people invoked him who wraps himself up and who hides himself in the substance of the sun, which is the idea in the Psalms, *^ Posuit in sole taber* naculum suum." The sun, therefore, was as it were the body of the Deity, a visible image for a spiritualist, and the Deiiy himself for a materialist, that is, for the greater number of mankind. Plato calls it the imi^ of Grod, his first-bom sonซ The prophet John accordingly says that this genius of light resembled the son of man, or the word ren- dered visible by means of a body. This image of the word of God, as Philo calls it, was indicated among the Phoeni- cians, the neighbours of the Jews, by the two vowels Alpha and Omega (Cedrenus. p. 169), by which the genius of Light in the Apocalypse calls himself. These vowels were the extremes of the seven vowels which designated the seven planets, A being the vowel of the moon, E that of Mercury, Y that of Yenus, I that of the sun, O that of Mars, IT that of Jupiter, and that of Saturn. With the vowel of the sun they make IAO, the mystic name of Bacchus, and the mystic name by which the Gnostics designated Jesus Christ. The ladder by which the soul reascends to its primseval dwelling, like that by which it descends, has seven steps (Marsil. Ficin. Comment, in Ennead. 6, 1. YIL cap. xxxvi.). The first step is the purification of the soul ; the second the knowledge of things separately acquired, Ac.; the third is, when the soul, having arrived at the spiritual world, passes on to the empire of the happiness which lies beyond it. In the mysteries of Mithra (Hieronym. Epist. ad Lffitam) the steps were seven in number, and related to the seven planets. Above them was the father or head of this hierarchic order. This formed the famous Ogdoad, which represented the universe, and which was also repre- sented in the Mithmic cave with seven doors, which, rising by degrees, formed a mystic ladder (Orig. 1. YI.) of which the sun was the summit, as being the star to which the souls are about to ascend. The metal which represented the sun was the same as that of the candlestick, namely, gold. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 521 which was to represent the primary light which glows in the sun, as distinguished from the reflected light mth which the planets shine. The development of this theory respecting the return of souls to heaven, and respecting the union of the sacred numbers seven and twelve, which formed part of this mystic theology, as tliey do of the Apocalypse, may be seen in Beausobre (Hist, du Manich. tome ii. I. VII. cap. vi. p. 500). He refers this union to the principle of the ancient Rabbis (ibid. p. 504, ง 4), who say that all the stars are subject to the planets, and the seven planets to the twelve signs of the zodiac. We see, in fact, nothing in their theology but allusions to the celestial divisions seven and twelve. Joachites (QSdip. vol. iii. p. 125), speaking of the number 7, says that God has impressed the sacred character of that number on every part of the universe. There are 7 principal stars in it, 7 days in the week, 7 gates in the air, 7 spheres, 7 sab- baths, &c. God has preferred this number to all others. Macrobius (Somn. Scip. 1. I.), Aulugellus (1. HI. cap. x.), and Isidore (Orig. 1. VI. cap. xvi.) may also be consulted respecting the number 7, and the importance of the part it was held to play in nature. Linus, quoted by Aristo- bulus in Eusebius (Pr. 1. XIII. cap. xii.), says that every- thing in the starry heavens has been done by means of the number 7. The three numbers 7, 10, and 12, which are sacred numbers in the Apocalypse, were applied to the mystic doctrines of the oldest sects, and referred to the elements, the spheres, and the signs of the month, as may be seen in Irenseus (1. 1, cap. xiv. and Epiph. adv. Hseres. cap. zxxix.). Hence it is that they are repeated so frequently in the work of John. They are the only ones which are reproduced in every page. Thus we have 7 churches, and 7 spirits (chap. i. ^)^ 7 golden candlesticks (i. 12), 7 stars (i. 16), 7 angels (i. 20), 7 lamps and 7 spirits of God (iv. 5), 7 seals (v. 1), 7 hours, 7 eyes, and 7 spirits of God (v. 6), 7 angels and 7 trumpets (viii. 6), 7 thunders (x. 4), 7 thousand men slain (xi. 13), 7 heads and 7 crowns for the dragon (xii. 3), a beast with 7 heads (xiii. 1), 7 vials of wrath (xv. 7), 7 moun- tains (xvii. 9), and 7 kings (xvii. 10). This number is also repeated elsewhere in its multiples. 522 MANKIND: THEIR such as 1260, or 180 multiplied by 7, whicli number is fbund in chap. xii. The number 7, therefore, occurs 25 times. The Persian Amschaspands are seven in number, and are genii or angels of the first order, -who form the retinue of Ormuzd, the beneficent god, the source of all light. In the Zend books is the prayer which is recited on the seyen first days of the month in honour of the seven Amschaspands, with their names, Ormuzd, Bahman, Ardibescht, Schariver, Sapandomad, Kordad, Amerdad (Zend-Avest, vol. ii.). They are the seven highest celestial spirits : they are divided, like the planets, into male and female : they are kings who live for ever, kings of the world. The Jews had also their seven archangels, who always stood before Gk)d, as Baphael, who is one of them, says (Tobit xii. 15). Clemens Alezan- drinus says (Strom. 1. YI.) that there are seven archangels in our hierarchy, just as there are seven planets in the Chal- deean theology, which are appointed to govern the world. That the Jewish idea is really astronomical is evident firom their Cabala, in which each of these seven archangels pre- sides over a planet. The following is their system, according to Kircher {(Ed. Jud. vol. ii. pars 1, p. 210) : — The Sun . Venus Mercury . The Moon Saturn Jupiter . Mars TuEiK Anokls Intellioences Spirits Raphael Hamiel Michael Gabriel Zapkiel Zadykiel Chamael Naj^el Ilagiel Tiriel Elimiel Agiel Sophiel Graphiet Smeliel Noguel Cochabiel Lemanael Sabathiel Zadakiel Modiniel The number 10 is repeated four times. We have the dragon with 10 horns (chap. xii. 3), the beast with 10 horns and 10 crowns (xiii. 1), and another beast with 10 horns (xviL 3). Lastly, the number 12 is repeated 14 times. There are 12 tribes of 12 thousand men each (chap. vii. 5 et sqq.), a crown of 12 stars (xii. 1), 12 gates, 12 angels, 12 names of twelve tribes (xxi. 12), 12 foundations, and 12 apostles of the Lamb (xxi. 14), 12 thousand furlongs (xxi. 16) a wall of 12 times 12 cubits (xxi. 17), 12 precious stones, 12 gates, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 52S 12 pearls (xxi. 19-21) and 12 fruits of the tree of life (xxii. 2). So connected and symmetrical a repetition of the same numbers, so connected with astrological divisions, leaves no doubt as to the astrological character of this work of Eastern mysticity. The numbers 7 and 12 were distin- guished in astrology, in the Cabala, and in all ancient mystic lore, by their astrological importance, and the number 12 was distinguished because souls, after passing through the spheres, traversed also the heaven of the fixed stars in which the twelve signs were situated, and returned to the Empyrean from that point. It is by the twelve signs, says Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. Y.) that souls return to whence they came fix)m. The ancient Cabalists have pre- served traces of the importance which was attached to the numbers 7 and 12 (Simon Joachites, extr. fit>m the ancient Cabala, Kircher, GSdip. vol. iii. p. 103). They say there are seven triads ; the higher, the lower, the eastern, the western, the northern, the southern, and the middle one, in which is the holy temple which supports all. It has twelve gates on which are engraved twelve celestial signs, the first of which is Aries, or the Lamb. There are also twelve rulers, &c. The Mauichseans had twelve ^ons, whom they called the twelve rulers (Beausob. tome ii. p. 504), and who Beausobre says were nothing but the twelve genii who presided over the twelve signs. The Apocalypse opens with the spectacle of the ethereal light diffused through the seven planetary bodies, and of the god who pours light into them, of that god who is wor- shipped throughout this work of Initiation, whose mysteries the initiated celebrated under the first sign of the zodiac, the Lamb, which commenced the career of the sun-god. This sign was one of the most distinguished among the sacred emblems of antiquity. It was called the Boyal Sign (Firm. 1. IV. cap. xii.), the chief sign, the leader of the twelve animals. Astrology placed the exaltation of the sun and his triumph in this sign as being when his influence was most fertilising and most demiurgic. This was doubtless the origin of the Christian prayer ^^ Emitte agnum domina- torem terrse." In the Egyptian planisphere in Kircher this sign is called " The Gate of the GodsJ' Hence the numbers 7 and 12, and the Lamb or Aries 624 MANKIND : THBIB necessarily form the principal features of the Apocalypse, and mark in a striking manner its relations to the order and harmony of the universe, and to the astronomical divisions. The early sects (Epiph. adv. Hseres. cap. zxxiii.) made use of the combination of the seven vowels to express the seven hear vens and the sacred harmony which resulted from their seven sounds. The first heaven, says Irenseus (A.dv. Haer. 1. I. ci^. X. ad 82) gave forth the sound A, the second E, the third H, the fourth, which is also the middle heaven, I, the fifth 0, the sixth T, the seventh, which is the fourth from the middle, II. The virtues of these seven spheres, uniting with each other, form a concert, and celebrate the glory of Him who created them. This glorious sound ascends on high to the Supreme Father and Euler of the universe, and this same sound, reverberating to the earth, engenders the beings which are seen here below — that is, the organisation of sublunary beings is subjected to the combined action of the planets. These seven vowels, according to them (ibid, p. 80) were attached to the Church, and formed the number which characterised it. In the Latin cosmography of Merula is a talisman on which these combinations of the vowels are engraved. It was found in a tomb at Yersay, in Angoumois (Morula, p. 520). A E H I O Y Q U T O I H A E E H I Y Q A r I H E A Q H I Y Q A E o I H E' a A O Y 1 r Q A E H An archangel presided over each planet, according to the Cabalists. Raphael was the archangel of the sun, Hamiel of Venus, Michael of Mercury, Gabriel of the moon, Zaphikiel of Saturn, Camael of Mars, and Zadukiel of Jupiter. Among the Arabians also each planet is presided over by an angel Kircher, CEd. vol. ii. part 1, p. 210). ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 625 The aim of all initiation, says Sallust the philosopher (cap. iv,), is to connect man with the order of the nniverse and of the gods. Proclus (in Tim.) says nearly the same. Who does not know, he says, that the mysteries and initiations have for their object to withdraw our souls from this material and mortal life, to unite it to the gods, and to dissipate the darkness which impedes it by spreading divine light in it P The seven towns in the Apocalypse are not chosen in- discriminately, but are arranged in a continuous and circular form, which includes the whole of ancient Lydia, as may be seen by refering to a map of ancient Asia Minor. Starting from Ephesus, and going northwards, we have in succession Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicsea. Ephesus is the first, not only because it is the nearest to Patmos, but also because it is under the protection of the first planet, the moon, the great Diana of Ephesus. If we look upon initiation as a real institution of Free- masonry, which had several lodges, we must presume that the number 7 determined the number of these lodges, and that each of them was put under a planet. Thus the lodge of Ephesus was called that of Diana or the moon. The number 7, says Isidore of Seville (Orig. 1. VI. cap. xvi.), is often taken to signify the universe, and consequently the universality of the Church, as John has done in the Apoca- lypse, where the universal Church is represented by the seven Churches, throughout which her universality appears to be distributed. And the Church itself is often called the moon. These allusions to the planets and the spheres have nothing in them which does not appear very probable to anyone who is acquainted with the whole tenor of mystic astrology. If we examine the character of the tutelary genius or angel of Ephesus (Bev. ii. 6), we shall see that he is characterised, like Diana, by the spirit of chastity, which makes him detest the Nicolaitajies, who had consecrated debauchery. The same is the case with the other towns. Those who denied the authenticity of the Apocalypse, and who rejected this work as not being written by St. John the Apostle, based their denial on the fact of Uiere being no Christians at Thyatira at the time that John addresses them, the religion of that town being at time the Phrygian sect. If, then, Thyatira belonged to this sect, the other towns which are addressed must have belonged to it also^ and the whol6 work must belong to the Phrygian sect. 620 MANKIND : THEIR The genius of Light, clad in a dazzling robe, who appeared to Priscilla, or the prophetess (Epiph. 1. II. cap. xlix.), strongly resembles the genius glowing with light who appears to John. The attitude of expectation in which the seven virgins awaited Christ resembles exactly that in which the faithful and the friends of the Lamb are when the prophet John announces to them that Christ is a,bout to appear (Bevซ i. 7, xxii. 12), and that he is at hand : ^^ Behold he cometh with clouds," &c. Now, as the theology of the Priscillanists contains the account of the travels of the soul through the sphere, we cannot hesitate to recognise here an allusion to the spheres, in the addresses to the seven lodges of initiated persons who were subordinate to them. We shall now, after having followed the enthusiastic spirit of the hierophant in this journey, pass to the eighth heaven, or the heaven of the fixed stales, which is immediately above the seven planetary layers, and which forms the celebrated Ogdoad (Iren. L L cap. i.) which designated mystically the universe, the earth, Jerusalem, &c. Clemens Alexandrinus (1. Y.), explaining the passage in the tenth book of Plato respecting the path of souls over the meadow, which arrive at their destination on the eighth day, says that the seven days correspond to the seven planets, and that the road they take afterwards leads them to the . eighth heaven, namely the heaven of the fixed stars, or the firmament. We have also seen the eighth door in the cave of Mithra, which is on the summit of the ladder on which are the seven doors of the planets, through which the souls pass. We have now arrived at the eighth heaven, or the firmament. This, therefore, is the picture we have to look upon. After the soul of the prophet in his ecstatic state has passed in its rapid flight through the seven spheres, firom the sphere of the moon to that of Saturn, or fix)ni the planet which corresponds to Cancer, the gate of men, to that of Capricorn, which is the gate of the gods, a new gate opens to him in the highest heaven, and in the zodiac^ beneath which the seven planets revolve ; in a word, in the firmament, or that which the ancients called crystallinum primum, or the crystal heaven. "After this," he says (Rev. iv. 1), "I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven ; and the first voice which I heard was as it were of I L 1 li^h>* k-wOI- \ ? \ 1 1 !?-' ? ORIGIN AXD DESTlNr. 627 a trumpet talking with me ; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter." This door is an expression borrowed from the Mithraic religion, in which each planet had its door, and the same expression is used in the vision of Ezekiel, which is not surprising, as these two mystic works have the same object in view. The Spirit announces to the prophet that he is going to disclose the future to him, and consequently to open the book of destiny to him. Astrology was the basis of the knowledge of the future, and the heaven of the fixed stars, which modified the seven spheres, was the instrument of it. This is why the author is about to place before us the repre- sentation of the sphei^ and of the zodiac placed or fixed on its four cardinal points, which in astrology are called fixed signs and centres, as shown in the accompanying planisphere. These four signs were Leo, Taurus, Aquarius, and Scorpio, for which the brilliant star of the Vulture, a species of eagle, and the Ij-re which ascends with that sign, and determines the ascension of it, was substituted. This substitution took place for mystic reasons, which will be stated hereafter. We have, therefore, the sky resting on four signs, which corre- spond to the four divisions of the circuit of the heavens, which form a species of cross, the summit of which is at the zenith and the foot at the nadir, while the two arms stretch to the east and west. Moving round the heavens, therefore, starting from the top, we find four figures, a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. Above this heaven or firmament the Easterns placed an immense ocean, and they even called this vast extent of the heavens ocean. They looked upon the sky itself as the throne of the Deity. Under this firma- ment were the seven planetary spheres revolving in tlie opposite direction, moved by seven spirits called the seven archangels, the seven spirits of God, and the seven candle- sticks. We now have the astrological sphere fixed on these four centres, and placed in such a way as it ought to be for those who are about to consult the decrees of destiny, which are the result of the action of the planets combined with that of the fixed stars. This, therefore, is the picture pre- sented by the sky to the hierophant to whom the future is about- to be revealed. It is to heaven that the genius calls him, and it is on heaven that he fixes his looks. ^^And immediately I was in the spirit : and, behold, a throne was 628 MANKIND : THEIR Bet in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone : and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty thrones [0p6poi] ; and upon the thrones I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices; and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal : and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf [or ox], and the third beast had a fa<^ as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes about them. • • • • And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever " (Rev. iv. 2-10). This throne is the sky or the firmament-, the throne on which the Deity and the Eternal God who lives for ever is placed. The twenty-four periods of time which the sky engenders by its revolution, are represented by the twenty- four old men (Time is always represented as an old man) who surround the throne of the Eternal, the father of Time and of the hours. The division of Time into four portions of six hours each, the time which each of the great divisions of the zodiac into fixed signs, on which the sphere rests, takes in passing the meridian, is marked by six wings, the usual symbol of the division of time, and of the movement of the revolution of the sky. The figures of the four animals or living creatures [conf. Ezek. i. 5], (fcoa) are the four celestial figures which are attached to these four principal, divisions of the zodiac in which Time, as well as the seven planets, circulafiCS. Lastly, the eyes are the stars, with which the sky, the true Argus of mythology, is spangled. This is the real nature of these emblems. The explanation of them will now be given at greater length, supported by proofs which will leave no doubt respecting the truth of it. ORiniX AND DESTTXA'. 620 In the first place, it is certain that the firmament, or the sky, is looked upon as that portion of the Universe on which the throne of God rests. " The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens," says the Psalmist (Ps. ciii. 19), and in Isa. Ixvi. 1, God says, "The heaven is my throne." The throne of God which the author of the Apocalypse sees is, therefore, in the heaven called the firmament. It is the firmament, therefore, that we must look at. As to the great sea, or the waters which he sees near this throne, this also belongs to the physical ideas of the Easterns, including the Chaldseans, Jews, Arabians and Syrians. The Psalmist (Ps. cxlviii. 4) speaks of these waters which are above the firmament : " Praise him ... ye waters that be above the heavens." The Arabians call it the great and boundless ocean, which is situated above the firmament : the Syrians call it the great ocean, immense and endless (Kirch. (EJip. vol. i. part 1, pp. 423, 426). The three young men whom Nebuchadnezzar is supposed to throw into the furnace (Dan. iii. 20), invite all Nature to bless God in the well-known song of the three Holy Children. In it they invite, among other things, the waters above the heavens to praise the Lord. " O ye heavens, bless ye the Lord" (ver. 36). "O all ye waters that be above the heavens, bless ye the Lord," (rer. 38). And they had said a few verses previously, " Blessed art thou that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubims . : . Blessed art thou on the glorious throne of thy kingdom . . . Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven," &c. (w. 32-34). St. Justin (Quiest. et Bespons. Orth. 93) teaches as a scriptural doctrine, that the convex portion of the heavens is charged with water. Theophilus (ad Aut. 1. II. cap. ix.) also speaks of the visible sky as having drawn to itself a portion of the waters of chaos, at the time of the creation. St. Augustine (de Civit. Dei, 1. II. cap. ix.) says that the firma- ment has been formed between the upper and the lower waters, and that it took the name of heaven — the heaven to which the stars are fixed — from the notion which the book of Genesis (i. 6, 7) itself gives of the foimation of the firmament. This vast sea, this ocean which is above the stars, was, according to the bishop of Pruse, or Patricius, quoted by Cedrenus (p. 242), the luminous fluid which forms the ether. M M baO MANKIND : THEIK The water which flows above the firmament is the ethi fluid, or the ether, which explains the idea of Ezekiel (i who makes sparks come out of the feet of the four li creatures, in the midst of whom fire and lightning were i He compares the firmament upon the heads of these li creatures to the crystal stretched forth over their h above (ver. 22), an expression which suitably characto the ethereal substance of which the heaven of the i stars is composed. This expression, sea and ocean, by which was sign the layer of fluid which circulates above the firmament flowing of which is everywhere visible in the stars w shine in the sky, was borrowed from the Chaldsean Syrian philosophy, that is, from those learned nations whom the Hebrews had most intercourse. A Syrian author (Mor Isaac in Philosoph. Syria, i Kirch. (Edip. vol. ii. part 1, p. 425), who has collected principles of their physical astronomy, divides the w mass or depth of the heavens into ten layers, or spherei far as the sphere of the moon, and supposes the whole t surmounted by a vast ocean, immense and boundless, w he calls the great sea, as shown in the engraving. Eac these spheres is presided over by a spirit, whose hierarcl orders are angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virt dominations, thrones, up to the eighth sphere, or sphez the fixed stars, which is presided over by the cherubim, is, by the same spirits as the author of the Apocalypse before us with wings and ejes, and with the figures of four animals which are called cherubim in Ezekiel (x 14, 15, &c.). The Syrian philosophy attaches them to or and Ezekiel makes them revolve on wheels, which com( the same thing. It is in this eighth sphere, or in the ei( heaven, that the Syrian author placed the fixed stars, el hundred and twenty-two in number, and likens them to choir of the cherubim, resplendent with light, and fu] eyes. He places, still higher, two other layers of stars, less luminous, and of diiferent sizes, the Nebulae, and small stars of the Milky Way, and the whole is surmou by the celestial waters, which, he says, spread over whole firmament, and which compose the great sea of 1 and the boundless ocean. The Arabian system is also g from Kircher. The name of ocean was given to the 1 I. \-\Ua: i.iLVi,A:.v I- , I •i OKIUIX AXD DESTLVV. 531 zon, and to the spherical cap, as it were, which bounds our sight in the sky (Theon, p. 132). This spherical cap was represented in the temple at Jerusalem, where Nature was described by an immense circular sea, to which the animals that sustained it, and consequently the sphere and the sky, the throne of God, were attached in four divisions, and it was called the Great Sea. In Kircher is a table of the seven planets, with the different precious stones which characterise each of them, which are subject to their influences, and which seem to partake of their nature. They are as follows : — Pyropus Carbunculufl Rubini et quie Naturae igneae sunt Gemmae seu Sol LuDa Satumiis Jupiter Mars Venua Mercuriufi i perlae et Uniones Selenites {Onix laspis TopaziuB r Saphirus i Sraaragdua I Marmor ^Magnes liyacinthus Amethistua r Turchesius i Margarita [ BerylluB ( Achates Chryeolithus Stellaria Marmor variegatum. Hence the use made of precious stones in Astrological documents. We need not be surprised at finding in heaven sapphire thrones (Ezek. i. 26), spheres of jasper and sardonyx, and a town (Rev. iv. 3, xxi. 11, 18) which is like jasper, and transparent as glass, whose walls are of jasper, whose foimdations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, and whose gates are pearls. It was these Oriental ideas which gave Lucian (Hist. ver. 2, p. 792) who was bom in the East, his idea of a holy city in- habited by the fortunate inhabitants of Elysium, and the typo of the materials of which this town was built, namely, gold, surrounded by a wall of emeralds, like the heavenly Jerusalem, which was all of gold, and surrounded by a wall of jasper M M 2 532 MANKIND: THKIR • (Bev. xxi. 18). He took from the same source the rich materials out of which he constructed his temple of beryl stones, and his altars of amethyst : it was in the East that he found the ivory which ornaments his town, and the cinna- mon of which he makes the seven doors which close the seven entrances of his holy town. The four cherubim are found at the four cardinal points of the sphere. Their wings show beyond the possibility of doubt what their nature really is. Wings have usually been assigned to Time, whose rapid course they represent. But Clemens Alexandrinus gives us more precise information. This Father, the best educated of all the Christian Fathers, bom in a country where the taste for emblematic represen- tations was predominant, and when the knowledge of these emblems was not quite lost, tells us of the cherubim which were in the temple at Jerusalem (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. V.). He only reckons two, each with six wings, which makes twelve wings in all, equal to that of the signs of the zodiac. This is what he says of these wings, and how he explains this emblem : " They signify the visible Universe, in which the twelve signs across which Time performs its revolution are to be found." If, then, the wings allude to Time which cir- culates in the zodiac, and to the signs into which this Time is divided, and which determine the division of the zodiac, the animals to which the wings of Time and of the zodiac are attached, are the identical animals astronomically repre- sented in the zodiac, and which divide it into four equal parts. Clement has only mentioned two cherubim, and has only alluded to the annual revolution of twelve times, months, or seasons, which the author of the Apocalypse refers to the daily revolution of the whole heavens in twenty- four hours, which is pointed out by four times six wings, or four times six hours, and also by the four divisions of the zodiac. One of these representations of the revolution of Time may be seen in Kircher (CEdip. vol. ii. part 2, p. 193 ; Hor. ApoU. 1. I. cap. ii.) represented by a serpent biting its tail. The circle described by this serpent is divided into four parts marked by the four animals — the lion, the bull, the man, and the eagle — domiciled over the head of the Sun, Venus, Saturn, and Mars, which are the very planets which are domiciled in Leo, Taurus, Aquarius, and Scorpio. As to the eyes which these animals are full of, it is evident ORfGIX AND DESTINT. 6.13 that they signify the stars with which each constellation is spangled. Manilius calls them the eyes of heaven. This is the celebrated Argus of the ancients^ according to those who wished to explain this story in a natural manner (Natal, Comes). Sanchoniathon tells us that the Phoenicians repre- sented their gods with many eyes and wings, and that Thaut, who represented them in this manner, sought to imitate Ouranos or Heaven (Euseb. Prsep. Ev. 1. L cap. ix.) The Cabalists give Grabriel six large wings (Kircher, (Edip. vol. ii. part i. p. 420), to which a hundred other smaller wings are attached. Other angels have seventy faces with seventy mouths to each of them. Others have 360 eyes, 360 tongues, 360 hands, 360 feet, &c., equal to the 360 degrees of the zodiac, or of the horizon, and together with these they have four wings', which stretch to the north, south, east and west. The early Christian sects preserved for their seven arch- angels the figures of the animals in the sphere. Michael, who tramples upon the dragon, has a lion's head; and Hercules, who crushes this same dragon in the sphere, has a lion's skin (Orig. cont. Cels. 1. IX.). This is the figure of the first beast in the Apocalypse. Another had a bull's head, which is the sign where Venus has her domicile, and took the name of Souriel, the name of the bull being Sor in astronomy. This is the figure of the second beast. A third animal was an amphibious man with serpent feet, such as Cecrops (Nonnus. Dionys. 1. IV.) was painted, whom the ancients placed in Aquarius, the domicile of Saturn. This is the third beast. He was called Raphael, and Saturn was called Bephun by the Copts. The fourth animal was like an eagle — the fourth beast in the Apocalypse. It was called Gabriel. The fifth was like a bear, which animal is also among the constellations in the sphere. It was called Thauthabaoth. The sixth was like a dog, the characteristic animal of Mercury, and the dog is one of the most brilliant of our constellations. It was called Erathot. The seventh resembled an ass, and the ass is a constellation which forms a portion of the sign of Cancer, the domicile of the moon : it was called Onoel, a name made up from *'Oi'of, the Greek for ass, by which name this part of the constellation is known in astronomical books. It was also called Thauthabaoth or Tharthoroth. Origen thinks that this doctrine belonged to the Ophites, and to their theory respecting the seven heavens of which C34 MANKIND : THEIR St. Epipbainus speaks (adv. Heeres. 1. 1, cap. xxxviii.), and respecting the seven soons, angels or inferior gods which became metamorphosed into seven heavens which laldabaoth covered with his folds. The Gnostics (ibid. cap. zxvi.), had also their seven heavens, each presided over by a genins, and each of them had its own form and denomination. They were subject to the action of an eighth heaven which comprehended them all, and which was called Barbelo, or Christ the father and ruler of all things. The shape of an ass was given to Sabaoth, or to him who presided over the seventh heaven, or the heaven of the moon, whose domicile was in Cancer, which contains this constellation. The eagle, as we have seen, was substituted for the scorpion, because the latter was an evil sign, and one of bad augury according to the astrologers. " Creditum est," says Kircher, " Dan, quod cerastem in vexillo pingere recusaret, aquilam pro serpente pinxisse. Ita putaverunt doctores et meritd.'* The Egyptians placed Typhon in it, who killed Osiris during the month when the sun passed Scorpio, as Plutarch (De Iside) tells us. The Hebrews gave it to the tribe of Dan, from which Antichrist was to spring. In Eev. vii. is a fresh proof of the superstitious aversion to the tribe of Dan, which followed from the aversion to the sign which characterised it. Among those which are sealed, to the number of an hundred and forty-four thousand, taken by twelve thousand from each tribe, in order to save them from the Divine ven- geance, the tribe of Dan alone is omitted, while all the others are included, and the tribe of Joseph has been obliged to be named twice over, once under his own name, and once under that of Benjamin, to repair this intentional omission, and to complete the number of the twelve tribes. Such is Divine justice according to " inspired " writings ! The twelve tribes or the twelve sons of Jacob are represented by twelve stars in Joseph's dream. Joseph, says Philo (de Somn. 868) reckons himself as the twelfth; he completes the zodiac with his eleven brothers. The four-and-twenty elders are the four-and-twenty good genii of the theology of Zoroaster, from which that of the Apocalypse is borrowed, which surrounded the throne of Ormuzd, and formed his court and retinue (Plut. de Iside). These twenty-four gods or genii were disseminated in the sym- bolical egg which represented the Universe, and contended ORIGIX A^D DESTINY, r>.3o aguinst twenty- four genii of darkness which formed the court of Ahriman. The whitซ robes in which the elders are dressed resemble those of the genii which attend upon Ormuzd, and the genius of Light, whose throne, placed aboTe the spheres, they surround, resembles Oroinasdes, who, according to Plutarch, was born of the purest light, and who rises as far above the sphere of the sun, as that is raised above the earth, in order to form there the luminous body of the fixed stars, of which he made Sirius the chief. Their crowns of gold, the metal which belongs especially to light, confirms this idea of their nature. As to their genuflections, they are absolutely identical with the principles of the Arabian Theology respecting the heavens of jasper, emerald, Ac, and the angels which dwell in them, as may be seen in Kircher ((Edip. vol. ii. part 1), who supports his opinion by a quota- tion from Abulchassen-Ben-Abesch, who represents these genii as praising and worshipping God, as prostrating them- selves day and night before his throne, in the midst of the mountains of fire on which they dwell. They praise God iu different languages, with a noise which resembles thunder. When the astrologer-priest has set his sphere on the four fixed or solid points to which the agriculturists in ancient times at first referred the beginning of the seasons, after having looked upon the four celestial animals which corre- spond to them, and placed them at the four cardinal points, he afterwards looks at the system of the seven planets, which, with the zodiac, formed the hsiaia of astrological observations, and which Astrseus in Nonnus (Dionys. 1. VI. V. 6) consults when he announces the destiny of his daughter Proserpine to Ceres. John adopts the same course, by seeking the destinies of the Universe in the sky. He describes the book of destiny and the planetary heavens, in which the destiny of men was supposed to be written, as a book sealed with seven seals, held by the God whose throne rested on the sky and on the zodiac. The Brahmans of India gave Apollonius seven seals (Phil, in Vit. Apoll. 1. m. cap. XV.) or seven seal rings, which were each called afber a planet. As the course of destiny, or the impulse which the spheres first received, was considored to be connected with the equinox, it is Aries, or the equinoctial Lamb, having seven 530 . MANKIND: THEIB homa and seven eyes in his forehead, which are the seven planetary spirits or the seven spirits of God (Rev, v. 6, 7), who will receive the book of fate from the hand of Grodป The Lamb is the hero of this mystic book, and he vrill be the ruler of the new city, as he is of the order of the universe, the movement of which is considered to begin from the Lamb or Aries, the first of the signs, and the place of the exaltation of the sun, the father and origin of the light of the world. This sun is domiciled in the celes* tial lion, and in the Mithraic monuments in Hyde has the lion below him, that lion which in Egypt supported the throne of Horus, the god of light, of the Greek Apollo, and which served for the standard of the tribe of Judah (Kircher, QSdip. vol. ii. part 1, p. 22). This is the sign which is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. v. 5), who being victorious, ^^ hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof." These two signs, the lion and the lamb, are the only ones which astronomers have given to the sun, the first for his domicile, and the second for the place of his exaltation and of his greatest influence. The Lamb was the chief of all the signs (Finnic. 1. Ill, cap. ii.), "princeps signorum,'* as he is called in all the astronomical books, " dux coeli ; " hence the four beasts and the twenty-four elders, who with their harps form the celestial concert, fall down before him (Rev. v. 8). He is supposed to have been slain (ibid. vv. 6 and 12), and to have risen again. This fiction relates to the sun, which in this place is designated by the double name of Lion and Lamb. In the next chapter (ver. 1) the author says that it is the Lamb who opens the seven seals. The Lion and the Lamb are therefore two different emblems of the same being, which can only be explained by astrology. The Persians, whose cosmogony is much more ancient than the period when the Apocalypse was written, and which dates fi'om the period when the celestial bull was in the equinox, that is, more than 2,000 years before the first stars of Aries or the Lamb arrived at that place, suppose that the bull, who is the creator in their Theogony, was put to death by Ahriman, whom they represent as a dragon ; but they add that he will be bom again, and every- thing with him, and that he is reserved for a period and an earth on which Ahriman can no longer injure him ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 537 (Anquetil, Zend-Avesta, Boiindesch, pp. 355, 356, 418). The same is the case here with the Lamb : he is slain, but rises again, and becomes the chief of the holy city, which he illuminates with his light (Bey. xxii. 5), and where there shall be no more curse. This Lamb has seven horns and seven eyes (Eev. v. 6). This number is consecrated in astrology as a result of the division of the sky into spheres, climates, angles or horns, and seats of happiness in heaven, as may be seen in Sal* masius (Ann. Climat. pp. 174, 191, 406, 440). The Arabians called these seven points, or astrological angles, horns. Each star, according to Porphyry, had also seven rays. We need not be surprised, therefore, at seeing these seven astrological points designated by horns and eyes, which are given to the Lamb, or the constellation which opens the path of the seven spheres. Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. V.) calls the seven planets the seven eyes of the Lord and the seven spirits which dwell in the tree of Jesse. The thousands upon thousands of angels which worship the Lamb (Rev. v. 11) are the spirits of the innumerable stars which the Syrian and Chaldsan theology placed in the sky which is above that of the cherubim or the four beasts, and which formed the celestial hosts. They are invited to praise God in Ps. cxlviii. 2-4: "Praise ye him, all his angels : praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon : praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens : and ye waters that be above the heavens." The Persian cosmogony speaks also of those hosts which, besides the seven great spirits or Amschaspands, formed the retinue of Ormuzd. "How many soldiers," says the Boun- desch (p. 349), "the stars have ready to make war against the enemies of Nature! Five thousand four hundred and eighty small stars have been created to aid each star of the constellations." It is easy to see that everything in the book of John is allegorical, for the prayers of the saints are called vials filled with odours, the smoke of which ascends to the throne of God (Rev. V. 8, viii. 4). The harmony of the heavens, the idea of which Pythagoras acquired in the East, is also ex- pressed in the Apocalypse by the sound of the harps which the elders who surround the throne of God strike. Marti- 538 mankind: THฃIB anus Capella has expressed the same idea by the fiction of an harmonioos forest (De Nuptiis PhiloL 1. L cap. L). From the sixth to the eleventh chapters indosiye, we haye a series of pictures, each more terrible than the other, of the misfortunes which threaten the Universe. War, famine, death, the universal destruction of the Universe, of heaven, of earth, and of the seas, a terrible daj of vengeance of the Lord, — all these are portrayed under the most fearful aspects. Thej seem to be the result of an excited imagination given up to the wanderings of reh'gious delirium. The Persian or Magian theology taught that the time appointed by fate was drawing near, the time when famine and pestilence would desolate the earth, and when Ahriman, after several contests with the Grod of light, would be destroyed, and that then a new world, peopled with happy inhabitants, would succeed to this universal catastrophe. Such, according to Plutarch (de Iside) was the doctrine of the Magi, and such also is the teaching of the Apocalypse of John, whose religion was that of a sect of the religion of Zoroaster, established in Cappadocia and in Asia Minor. The astrologer-priest, in order to terrify sinful men, draws the picture of all these misfortunes beforehand, and heaven seems to indicate them to him by its aspect, and by the prognostics which he draws from it. In the same way Jacob read in the books of heaven what was to happen to his sons and his grandsons (Orig. Comment, in Genes, p. 10). Great calamities were about to take place : the earth was to be overwhelmed by the most terrible calamities; and there were to be, according to the Tuscans and the Jews, signs in heaven and in earth, which were to announce them. It is after the inspection of the heavens, of the celestial signs, and of the astrological aspects therefore, that the enthusiastic astrologer forms his alarming predictions. It is impossible to follow these whimsical creations of a disordered imagina- tion which terminate with the seventh day, when the seventh angel sounds the seventh trumpet to announce that the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, and to reign for ever and ever. At the end of the eleventh chapter, in which the repre- sentations of the misfortunes of the Universe, written on the OKIGIX AM) DESTINY. 639 seven pages of the book of destiny, or on the seyen spheres, are concluded, the author fixes his eyes on the heaven of the fixed stars, and especially on the zodiac, and on that portion of the sky which fixed, at midnight, the beginning of the year at the winter solstice, and which, at spring time, rose first, at sunset, on the horizon at its eastern boundary. These constellations were the ship called Area, and the celestial Virgin attended by the Serpent, who rises afber her, and appears to pursue her in the heavens, while on the western side the river of Orion seems to bury itself in the earth by disappearing as it sets. Such is the picture which the astronomical heavens present to us at the moment when the equinoctial year terminates, and when the sun of spring, which supports the celebrated Lamb, the leader of the twelve signs, is about to shine forth. What are the representations which the Apocalypse sets before us ? The ark shining in heaven (Rev. xi. 19), a woman with wings, like the Virgin of our constellations (xii. 1, l4) who is pursued by a serpent (xii. 3), and a river which is swallowed up by the earth (xii. 15, 16). These are the same representations as the ancient Oriental spheres of Aben-Ezra, which Scaliger has recorded in his notes on the astronomical poem of Manilius (Scalig. Not. ad. Manil. p. 330), still display at the end of the divisions of Pisces, and at the commencement of those of the first sign, the Lamb or Aries. We read in them at the third decan of Pisces in the Persian sphere, " The end of the river ;" in the first decan of Aries, ^^ Here rises the figure of a woman," and this woman is incontestably the celestial Virgin, who is at that time rising in the east. In the fourth decan of Pisces in the Indian sphere this woman is again found joined to the the ship (ibid. 346), on which she is represented as seated, and hydras and vipers, and crocodiles in aspect^ either with Pisces or Aries, are everywhere seen. This same woman is attended (ibid. p. 341), by a black beast, or by a dragon, whose tail is visible. Thus the apocalyptic and the astrological sky are absolutely identical. In Bev. xi. 18 it is said : ^^ Thy wrath is come, and the time of thy dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the prophets (the chiefs of the initiatory ceremonies), and to the saints (the initiated persons) and them that fear thy name, small and 540 MAN&IND: THEIR great; and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.*' This was to take place, as we have seen, at Easter, which equinoctial period was fixed every year, in the evening, by the appearance of the Ark, or the Celestial Ship, situated to the south of the Virgin, which both ascended in the east on the eve of Easter, at the beginning of the Pervigilium Paschse or sacred vigil. This is why the author adds in the next verse, " And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament ; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." The temple of Grod is the sky, the first temple of the Deity. And the author says that the Ark, the celebrated ship of Isis or of the Celestial Virgin, whom Eratosthenes calls Isis, was seen in heaven. This is the emblem under which the ancient Suevi worshipped Isis, as may be seen in Tacitus. This union of the celestial woman and the ship, which rise together in the evening, when the sun arrives at the end of Pisces, at the approach of the vernal equinox, has given rise to the expression in the Indian sphere which describes the aspect of the heavens at this moment : " Mulier formosa, alba, sedens in navi in mari, &c. cupiens exire in siccum." The Virgin and the Ship therefore, rising from below the horizon, are thought, like the sun, to rise from the bosom of the waves. The name of Area or Ki^wtos is one of the names of the Celestial Ship in certain astronomical books (Riccioli, p. 126, and Coesius, p. 324), which call it Noah's Ark. It is in fact this constellation which figures in the myth of the Deluge. The lightnings, thunderings, and earthquakes which ac- company this apparition are phenomena which were always imitated in the mysteries (Meursius, Eleusin. 11, Pletm. Schol. ad Oracul. Magica, Claud, de Rapt. Proserp., and Themist. Orat. in Patrem), especially at the moment when the statue of the goddess, whether Isis or Ceres, who was always attended by serpents or the Bona Dea, at whose feet was the dragon of Erichthonius, as Plutarch states in his life of Caesar, and as we see in the Apocalypse. The prophet, or the hierophant, says Themisthius, used to open the doors of the sanctuary, and all at once, the darkness being at an end, the statue of the goddess was seen, surrounded by light. In the Apocalypse also a woman is seen, clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve ORIGiy AND DESTLVY. 541 stars upon her hecod ; she travails in birth, and pains to be delivered, and after her comes a great red dragon, of the colour of Typhon, who appears in heaven^ and seeks to devour the young child who is to rule all nations ; that is, we see Isis with the child Horus or the sun, whom Typhon, the Prince of Darkness, wishes to devour, but who is soon over- come by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. xii. 11) or Aries, the place of the sun's exaltation, the sign in which the God of Light resumes his empire over the Prince of Darkness, making the duration of the day triumph over that of the night. The crown of twelve stars on the woman*s head signifies the twelve months or signs of the zodiac, and is the same as the crown of twelve rays with which Martianus Capella adorns the head of the sun^^in his mag^ficent hymn to that god. Kadiisque sacratum Bis senis pcrhibent caput aurea luniina ferre, Quod totidem menses, totidem quod coniicis horas. and as the crown of twelve precious stones vdth which he adorns the head of Juno, the colours of which are analogous to the colours of the earth during the twelve months. We have seen that the Arabian author Alboazar or Abul- mazar gives us the true name of the child whom the woman brings forth, from the ancient Persian traditions, viz. Jesus, according to some, and Christ, according to other traditions. In them, as in the Apocalypse, is a new-bom child, carried up on a raised throne in the arms of a woman who has just been delivered, who is suckling him. This child is Christ, the God who, like the child in the Apocalypse, is to reign over the Universe. It is impossible to have a stronger re- semblance. ^ The Celestial Virgin is always represented with wings. Aratus (v. 117) and all his commentators give her wings. Aratus says that she fled far from the habitations of mortals at the beginning of the age of brass, that is, at the moment when the giants with serpent's feet entered the world. She fled, according to Aratus, to the mountains, when she saw crime enter the Universe, and lived there in solitude. He even calls her the solitary Virgin. The river which the earth swallows up is also one of the constellations which are in aspect with the Virgin. Astro- logers joined it to this sign, because its setting coincided 542 MANKIND : THEIR with the rising of Virgo. Eratosthenes, Hipparchas, and the calendars printed in the third volume of Father Petau's XJranologia, place under the ascension of Virgo, the setting or disappearance of the stars of the riyer of Ori6e says the same thing (chap. xii. ver. 9). 544 MANKIND: THEIR The dragon is called " great *' because, as Theon (Comm. ad Arat. p. 113) says, lie is enormously great. Virgil (Greorg. viii.) calls him ^^maximus anguis," Germanicns Caesar (cap. ii.) " mirabile monstrum," Hygin. (fab. 30) " lominosus draco, Typhoni filius," and says (1. II.) of this constellation "Hie vasto corpore ostenditur, inter duas arctos." His body, as Mr. Hyde observes (Comment, ad XJlugbeigh, p. 13) extends over seven signs. It is on this account that he is represented in the Apocalypse as a great dragon with seven heads whose tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, which afterwards all fell towards the West. Per- haps the seven heads only represent the seven signs over which he is spread, or they may mean the seven principal stars of the constellation, which the Arabian astronomers have observed, and have called five of them the five drome- daries (Coesius, p. 112), and the two others the two wolves, "Azophi Arabis quinque dromedarii et duo lupi" (Bayer, fab. 3). Mr. Hyde says (Comment, ad XJlugbeigh, p. 13) " Tunim or Thuban TiJ^ov est serpens grandis, cujus corpus est in sex signis, et cauda in septimo signo," &c. The beast who rises out of the sea (Bev. xiii. 1) is the great constellation Cetus, or the Whale, placed under Aries and Pisces. This enormous constellation, called by Aratus (ver. 629) the " great monster," was differently depicted by different nations, and the object appears to have been to represent a marine monster, without reference to its species, so that it was monstrous. It has therefore received different names, such as Draco, Leo, Ursus Marinus, and Pardus, as may be seen in Blacii (Ccesi. Ca3l. Astron. p. 225, StoflBer, cap. xiv.). Bayer, in his XJranom^trie (fab. 36) says that the asterisms of this constellation seem to require that a marine dragon, rather than a whale, should be drawn, and that several ancient spheres and sculptures found at Bome give this figure to it. Theon (p. 144) gives it the generic title of " ferocious beast." The Hebrews and Arabians called it the sea lion (Kirch, vol. ii. pp. 1, 199, Nabod. Elem. Astrol. p. 207). It is perhaps the famous dragon who guarded the golden fleece. All these different denominations of the monster placed under Aries have been united in this place by the author, and his monster is identical with the four beasts in Daniel (vii. 3 et sqq.), only Daniel has made four separate animals^ and John only one.. Sigillum Soils. 7L2 B^dlard sc ijOudon- li.-'.'i^iiuii.s .V Co ORIGIN AND DKSTIXY. 545 Their identity is also shown by the assertion in the Apo- calypse that the beast had the power to make war for forty- two months ; that is, a time or a year, plus two years and six months. For if we take a time for a year, two times and half a time make three years and a half, or forty-two months, or, as it is said in chap. xi. 3, a thousand two hundred and threescore days. Lastly, what shows this identity in an unequivocal manner is that the next chapter of the Apo- calypse presents to us the image of the Lamb standing on Mount Sion (Rev. xiv. 1), triumphant over the beast and the dragon, and that the eighth chapter of Daniel opens in the same manner with the appearance of Aries, or a ram, standing upright before the river. This Lamb is evidently Aries placed above the Whale, and ascending with it, while above it, farther North, another monster rises, composed of the attributes of the Lamb and the Serpent, which is the famous head of Medusa. These representations, which are inseparable in the sphere, have also been joined together in the Apocalypse. The Persian sphere, which places the sea monster with the Triangle in the first decan, places the other half of the Triangle in the second decan with the head of Medusa, which is called " Caput daemonis," as the Hebrews call ifc, and with them a beast, " dimidium bestirc." The Barbarian sphere places the head and horns of Aries with the Triangle in this same decan. These horns of Aries, which, as they ascend, become united with the head of Medusa and her serpents, have caused painters and engravers to represent Medusa with ram's horns, that is, with the attributes of the Lamb joined to those of the dragon, as may be seen on an engraved agate-onyx which belonged to the Orleans family, and was sold to the Empress of Russia. This astrological emblem has been represented in the Apocalypse (chap. xiii. 11) by a second beast, which had horns like the Lamb, and which spake as a dragon. In verse 13 we are told that this beast made fire come down from heaven upon earth in the sight of men. This was one of the magic arts attributed to Medusa. Cedrenus tells us that Perseus, he who struck the whale with his sword, taught the Persians the magic of Medusa, by means of which fire came down from heaven (Cedren. p. 22). The Egyptian traditions stated that fire from heaven consumed N N 540 MANKIND: THEIR the earth in ancient times in spring (Epiphan. adt. Hseres.). It was on the second decan of Aries, to which Medusa, or the caput cacodsemonis, corresponded, as we have already seen, that the ancient astrologers composed a magic seal, or solar talisman, bearing the mystic number 666. This seal or talis- man, which every one was bound to wear, had the marvellous power of rendering him who possessed it happy in every- thing, of enabling him to obtain whatever he required from princes and from kings, of enabling him to find what had been lost, and of drawing down the blessings of heaven on him, and on all that belonged to him. This, say the astro- logers, was a great secret. The Apocalypse says of this beast or head of Medusa, *^ And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads : and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath under- standing count the number of the beast : for it is the number of a man ; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." These ideas are evidently identical, and the number 666 is the seal or talisman of the sun. The head of Medusa was nailed by the Hebrews the head of the demon (Bay. tab. 1 1 ; Ricciol. p. 126) or the devil, and a larva, or a hideous mask (Hyde, p. 20), whence the epithet give to Perseus, who was called " deferentem caput larva), et caput diaboli " (Alphons. tab. 218; Kirch. (Edip. vol. ii. p. 197 ; Scalig. p. 347; ; in Arabic, Chamil or Hamil ras Algol. Algol is the name of the head of Medusa (Comm. on Alfrag. p. 107). The same con- stellation which the Hebrews call Eosch hassatan, or head of the devil (Comm. on Alfrag; Hyd., Comm. on Ulugbeigh, p. 20), others call Alove (Eicciol, pp. 125-127; Bay. tib. 11 ; Stoffl. p. 122). Abulfaragius tells us how the Arabian astronomers pre- pared this talisman. " Take six drachms of pure gold (the metal of the Sun) and make them into a round plate, on which engrave a table characteristic of the seal at the day and hour when the sun is in the place of his exaltation, which is near the nineteenth degi-ee of Aries, or the Ram. Havins^ done this, warm it in the vapour of saffron ; wash it in rose water in which you have put (musk) and camphor in a state of solution. Then wrap it up in a piece of saffron- ORIGIN AND DHSTIXY. r>47 coloured silk, and carry it about with you. It will render you fortunate in all your undertakings, and every one will fear you. You will obtain everything you want from princes and from kings, either by asking yourself for it, or by mean? of others whom you may choose to send to them. You wiU recover what you lose, and God will shed his blessing on you and on all that belongs to you. This representation of the Sun and of his seal, or his sign, which ought to be engraved on the reverse of the tablet, contains a great secret (est magnum secretum), and it is called Creator, Light, Perfect, Powerful, Glorious, Life, Virtue, Brilliant, Badiant : the Angels of the Sun are Anael and Eaphael." This seal is shown in the annexed engraving with the mystic number which characterises it, as it is in Kircher. Whichever way these numbers are added — ^horizontally, vertically, or diagonally — the number of esLch column is always 111; and as there are six columns, the number is always 666. Kircher also says that the name of man, according to the Cabalistic combination, is Titan or Teitan. He says the names of Antichrist in Irena3us, which are Teiravy Aa/iTreriy, "Ai/TE/io^, AdTsiP09y all give the number 666 thus : T E I T A N . 300 A 30 A 1 A . 5 A 1 N . m A M 40 r . 300 T . 10 II 80 !•: . 5 13 . ;300 1'. . 5 M . 40 I 1 T . 300 o . 70 N I . 10 . 60 1 V 1 . 200 V . 200 2 cm 1 1 1 OGO OGG 30 1 300 6 10 50 70 200 600 The magic talisman of the sun represented a figure and a seal with names, which agrees well with the idea of the prophet who attributes it to the art of Medusa, who taught the Persians magic. There is a talisman in Kircher which has the mystic numbers of the sun in a quadrilateral on one side, and on the other the representation of a lion who has the sun on his back. Above is the word Heloi : the lion is placing his paw on a globe (CEdip. vol. ii. part ii. p. 465). Hesychius says that Titan should be the name of Anti- christ (Hesych. voc. Titan), that is, that the war of Antichrist against Jesus Christ was word for word that of the Titans N M 2 r ^>^ MAXKIND : THEIR against Jupiter, of Ahriman against Ormuzd, &c., a mere copy of the ancient cosmogonic myths respecting the two principles. He also says that the earth which engendered the Titans, and which contains the dark matter in which the evil principle dwells, is called Titanis. The moantain of Sion on which the Lamb stands is the Eastern horizon or mountain on which the sign in which the sun's exaltation takes place appears at its rising. The 144,000 persons who had the name of the Father on their foreheads are evidently the same as those mentioned in chap, vii. 3, 4. They unite with the twenty-four elders, or the genii who accompany the God of light, and the tutelary genii of the hours, to form the music of the spheres, and to join in the harmony of the universe, whose primary impulse is considered to proceed from the first sign. It is thus that in Nonnus Jupiter Ammon, or the god with the ram's horns, slays the dragon Typhon, and enters into his glory with the spring at the moment when the marriage of Harmony, the daughter of Venus, is being celebrated. The judgment, however, must take place before the renewal of all things is brought about. At the moment described in Rev. xi. 18, " Thy wi'ath is come," &c., the author calls our attention to the heavens, and shows us the celestial signs placed as they should be according to the mystic and astrological traditions at the time of this great event. These signs were, in the East and West — the Ship, the Celestial Virgin, the Dragon, the Whale and Medusa, and Aries who was on the eastern horizon on the morning of that great day, and who brought with him the signs in duodenary order, which, with the twenty-four hours, formed the universal harmony. He next looks to the middle of the heavens, which was also one of the principal astrological points. There he beholds three brilliant constellations — the Eagle, the Celestial Vulture, and the Swan. The first of these birds is charac- teristic of the Apostle John. The author calls them three angels fiying in the midst of heaven (Rev. xiv. 6-9). He says : " I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, saying with a loud voice. Fear God, and give glory to him ; for the hour of his judgment is come." One of the two ORIGIX AND DESTINY. (j49 others announces tlie destruction of Babylon the great, which is to take place in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters, and the other predicts the defeat of those who worshipped the beast and his image, who will be plunged into the lake of fire and brimstone, which takes place in the nineteenth chapter ; after which the judgment takes place, as it does in the twentieth chapter, after which nature is renewed, and a new and better order of things is established in the concluding chapters. Two other brilliant constellations are at the same moment at the two extremities of heaven, the one at the East, the other at the West. Each represents a genius with a scythe or pruning knife. The first is Perseus, who holds in liis hand his scythe (Procl. cap. xvi.; Hygin. cap. iii. and xi. ; and Genn. Cfesar), with which he is said to have cut Medusa's head. Opposite to him is Bootes, Icarus the off vintager, who was the first who learnt from Bacchus how to cultivate the vine, and who taught others how to do so. He also holds a species of pruning knife, or small scythe, in his hand,called by astronomers " Falx Italica, media, seu brevior.*' These are the two constellations called in Rev. xiv. 14, 17, two genii or angels armed vdth sickles. The first appears on a white cloud, like Perseus in the midst of the Milky Way. He resembles the Son of Man, and has on his head a golden crown. This is the handsome Perseus, the lover of Andro- meda, the son of Jupiter and Danae, the Mithra of the Persians, the spirit of the sun and of light, and he who presides over the dawn of spring. The other is Icarus the vintager, whose feet touch the earth on the western side towards the North, at the moment that the Altar sets in the South. Eratosthenes (Uranol. Petav. vol. iii. p. 143) marks this period of the ascension of Aries by the words " Setting of the Altar and of the Cowherd [Bootes] Arctophylax." These two constellations are projected on the sphere. The Apocalypse says that an angel who " came out from the altar" "cried to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe," just as an angel had cried to the first genius : " Thrust in thy sickle and reap ... for the harvest of the earth is ripe." The author has made an emblematic use of these two sickles to represent the judgment iis a harvest and a vintage — a 560 . MANKIND : THEIR natural induction for an astrologer who consulted the celestial signs. The altar is evidently the constellation of that name, which is called ^' Thuribulum in quo prunse fuisse dicuntur " (Germ. Csbs. cap. ccclxxv. ; Hygin, 1. II.). This altar was made by the Cyclops, or blacksmiths of Vulcan, the god of fire of the Greeks and Orientals. The Persians had also their Angel of Fire (Hyde, p. 64 ; Germanic, cap. xxxvii. ; Theon, 147), or who had power over fire, and this genius presides over Mars, whose domicile is in Scorpio, in which constellation the Altar is near the tail of the Scor- pion. The fifteenth chapter commences with the appearance of the seven angels having the seven last plagues. These angels are the seven Pleiades, which are situated at tlie extremity of Aries, under the feet of Perseus, exactly where the old year is divided from the new. These seven angels are made to come out of the tabernacle of the testimony, which refers to the constellation itself, which is called by the Phoenicians and Hebrews Succoth benoth (Hyd. Comm. ad XJlugbeigh, p. 33 ; Selden, Syntagma 2, cap. vii. pp. 309, 310; (Edip. voL i. p. 356, &c.), which is translated "taber- naculum filiorum," as may be seen in Selden and Kircher. This assemblage of stars is represented in the Egyptian planisphere on the Celestial Bull, to the division of which it really belongs. This bull is one of the four animals and fixed signs already spoken of. Therefore the author says that it was one of the four beasts that gave the angels seven vials full of the wrath of God. This means, that the bull, on whose back the Pleiades are, communicated to them all the strength which he exercises conjointly with them over all nature. This force and influence were, ac- cording to the ancients, terrible both for the land and sea. Germanicus Ciesar speaking of their setting in spring-time, characterizes them thus : " Sidus vehemens et terra marique turbidum.'" Hence we see in chap. xvi. 2, 3, that they bring destruction upon the earth and upon the sea. The author sees them (chap. xv. 2) placed near a sea of glass mingled with fire, which we have seen represents the upper part of the firmament where the four beasts and the Pleiades are grouped on a section of the Bull, or of one of L. these four beasts (Hygin. 1. 11. ; Germanic, ad Arat. cap. xxii.). It is on this sea, or above the firmament, that the ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. 561 initiated, who have conquered the beast, and the com- panions of the god of light are united together, and sing the song of the famous passage under Aries, or the song of the equinoctial Lamb, who fires himself partly from the rays of the sun. He announces the return of God to the upper hemisphere. At the same time, says Julian, he draws up those virtuous souls whom the analogy of their nature attaches to his victorious rays. " And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire," continues the Apocalypse (xv. 2, 3) " and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and of the Lamb." This celebrated song of Moses is still sung every year on Holy Tliursday, and is the same as that given in Exod. xv. It is quite applicable here, as in both instances a passage is made from the dominion of evil to the Promised Land, and in both salvation is obtained by the blood of the Lamb or Aries. Passing over the next chapters with the observation that the whole of them may be found in the Zend-Avesta, in Plutarch, and in Hyde, &c., we come to the time when Ahriman is defeated and Ormuzd victorious in the Persian theology. Sosioch, placed on an elevated spot, gives a recom- pense proportional to their works to all who have risen from the dead. " The dead will rise again, and man will reappear on the earth" say the Persians (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. pp. 387 and 415). It is after this total defeat of the evil principle that the Magi make men pass to that state of happiness which they are to enjoy in the kingdom of Ormuzd (De Iside, p. 370), where, clothed with bodies of light, they will know no more darkness, nor any species of want. This Sosioch (Zend-Avesta, vol. i. p. 46) who is to place himself at the end of the world, in the last thousand years, on an elevated throne in order to give a reward proportioned to their works to all who have risen from the dead, is identical with what is represented in the Apocalypse after the thou- sand years have i)assed (Rev. xx. 11, 12). The ideas of resurrection and of judgment which are expressed in the Apocalypse were part of the religious opinions of the Persians, as may bo seen in Hyde (Do Vet. Pors. rel. pp. 293 I 652 MANKIND : THEIR and 587). They held that after the resurrection they would lead a tranquil and delightful life on an earth which had been purified by fire (Beausobre, t. I. p. 205). " And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying Alleluia : salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God ; for true and righteous are His judgments, for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication." (Rev. xix. 1, 2.) " Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." (lb. v. 7.) This is the sun, which has now reached the commencement of his reign, which is to last 6000 years. The thousands of God, say the Persians (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 420), appeared with the Lamb, the Bull, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo. After the thousands of God, Libra came, and Ahriman entfired into the world in the shape of a ser- pent. This is why the Apocalypse adds : " Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him ; for the marriage of th^ Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen. Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." (Rev. xix. 7-9.) This applause and those cries of Halleluia uttered on this occasion resemble the Roman feast called Hilaria, when the sun was, as Macrobius says, considered to have entered on his reign : " Tunc ad regnum siium pervenisse creditur." It was at this time that the mystic tree in the mysteries of Atys, at the foot of which was a ram, was cut, and that the Hilaria of the Phrygian Atys were celebrated (Julian, Orat. 5). The bride of the Lamb is clad in white — ^the dress which charac- terises the people of light who form the train of Ormuzd, and which the Romish priests adopt at the Easter ceremony, when they only wear the alb. The subjects of Ahriman wore black (Zend-Avest. vol. ii. p. 345). The Manicheans held that those who were reprobate had a black mark on their foreheads. The bride is the company of the initiated, who are promised communication with the Deity, and the spirit of prophecy is also promised, which we have seen was one of the advantages which the initiated who assembled at Pepuza with their prophetesses, who deceived the people by pretending to be inspired, promised themselves, according to St. Epiphanius (chap. xlix.). As soon as the angel has aimounccd the marriage of the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 663 Lamb, the hierophant sees heayen opened, and sees the Logos, or Divine Word, mounted on a white horse. This heaven is the dawn, which opens the gates of day, and the white horse is characteristic of the god of day, whose chariot was drawn by white horses, while the celestial hosts also ride on white horses, and are clothed in white linen, all of which is characteristic of the good principle and of the god of light. The spirit armed with a sharp sword proceeding out of his mouth is Perseus, who is placed like Mithra between Aries and Taurus, and who, according to Porphyry (De Ant. Nymph.) carried the sword of Mars. Mithra was for the Persians what the Word or Logos was for the Christians. The Zend books represent him with the attributes of the planet Mars, and he is drawn with a dagger in his hand, and strongly resembles the Perseus of our spheres, who is known by the Persian name Perse or Pharse, the horseman, eques, iTnrortj?, as the astronomical books call him. This is the man on the white horse. Hesiod, in the " Shield of Hercules," v. 216, calls Perseus iinrTorjs. His triumph is announced by an angel in the sun, who summons the fowls of the air to eat the flesh of kings and captains. This is an allusion to the Persian custom, which was not to bury their dead, but to expose them so that the birds might eat their flesh. The author here alludes to a practice peculiar to Persia. Up to the present time the triumph of the Lamb is not complete. Another enemy remains, the most formidable of all — the dragon or serpent whose shape Ahriman had assumed in order to introduce disorder and evil into the world. In chap. IX. 1-8, John says, " I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut h\m up and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled ; and afber that he must be loosed a little season." If, at the same moment that Perseus and the Lamb appear at daybreak at the gates of the East, we look to the West, towards that portion of the heavens where the stars and their spirits sink and lose themselves in the abysses of the ocean and below the horizon, the largest constellation, and I 564 MANKIND : THEIR the nearest to the West that we see is the celestial Spirit who holds the great serpent whom he has conquered, in other words, Serpentarias and the serpent whom he presses with his hands. This is the serpent which the Persians still call the serpent of Eve. This monster, whom the Sun, under the name of Hercules, conquered, whom the dragon bore in Lydia (Theon, p. 117 ; Hygin. 1. II.), a country which is near that in which the Apocalypse was written, ascended with Libra at the moment when the 6000 years of God ended. Serpentarius has his foot on the western horizon, and seems to come down from heaven to hide his serpent under the lower horizon, and in the abode of darkness, of which the West forms the entrance, for there are the gates of night. He is also called Cadmus in astronomy, and is the same genius who in the poem of Nonnus assists Jupiter to gain the famous victory over Typhon, which brings about the end of winter at the moment when the Sun is about to enter Taurus. (See Nonnus, 1. I. and II.) In this portion of the Apocalypse we have a double resur- rection, or, rather, a double death. To luiderstand this, we must refer to Plato (De Eep. 1. X.) and Plutarch (De Facie in Orbe Luna?). Plato says that after death souls go to a certain place which is between the earth and the city of light or the ethereal sky, and that they took a thousand years to get there, so that the last judgment, which decided their fate, only took place a thousand years after their death. The same is the case in the Apocalypse. Ip chap. XX. 4, we see thrones, and persons who sit upon them to judge, and near them the souls of the martyrs. But the rest of the dead do not live again until these thousand years are accomx)lishcd. After this, there will be a second death, and a second resurrection, when the final judgment will take place (ver. 11), and those who are not in the Lamb's book of initiation undergo a condemnation which may be regarded as a second death. This final judgment is preceded by a last effort of tlie evil principle, which does not last long, and after which the devil, his friends, and his army are cast into the lake of fire. It appears from Plato that pure and extremely virtuous souls attained this spot with great ease, for Er and several other persons got there in a few days. In fact, only twelve days- elapsed between the death of Er the Pami)hylian and ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 565 his resurrectiop. We also see in Plato that the dead who are obliged to spend a thousand years in arriving at this meadow on which the seats of the judges are placed, meet with much resistance when they arrive there : that at the end of the road frightful monsters appear, who contend with them, and even drive into the abyss those whose faults have not been sufficiently expiated. This is, no doubt, why the evil spirits reappear in the Apocalypse. This spot to which souls ascended before the last judgment was the Moon (Plat. ib. cap. xx, and 7, 8, and 9, 10, 11). This was where the roads which Plato speaks of terminated, some of which led souls to the upper parts of the sky, others to the earth. This was the space which they occupied a thousand years in traversing, if they were laden with ever so little coarse and terrestrial matter, the stain of which they had contracted by too great attachment to the body. This period, according to Proclus (in Tim. 1. I.), was divided into five parts of two hundred years each, coiTCsponding to each of the six other planets whose zones the soul traversed, starting, no doubt, from Aquarius, which sign, according to Macrobius, was assigned to death, and extending to Cancer and Leo, the sign or domicile of the sun, into which the souls eventually passed. But before it made this passage the soul experienced a second death in the moon, and a second separation took place, which left nothing but its purified spiritual portion. The Elysian fields, according to these ancient philosophers (Plut. de Facie, p. 942), were situated beyond the cone of shadow which the earth projects when opposite the sun, and which the moon traverses during eclipses. There was the end of the earth, or of the darkness caused by the opaque material of which it was composed. The moon, therefore, was on the confines of the mortal and immortal, of light and darkness, which she put on, as it were, in succession. Above her were the fields of light, to which virtuous souls repaired. Nothing wicked or defiled was admitted there, only virtuous men. There they led a happy and easy life, but they did not yet enjoy the divine and perfectly happy life, which they only began after the second death. Plutarch explains this second death. Every soul which was separated from the body wandered for a given time in the sj)ace between the r 5o0 MANKIND : THEIR moon and the earth, some for a longer, others for a shorter period. The first death separates the soul and the spirit ฃrom the body. This first separation, according to Plutarch, takes place in a sadden and violent manner. The second takes place in a gentler and slower manner. Each of these parts returns to that which gave it birth. The body returns to earth ; the soul, if it is virtuous, returns to the moon, but only after remaining some time in the air to purify itself. If it is vicious, it is tormented in the air, and afterwards sent into another body as a punishment. The virtuous souls remain in the moon, where they are in a condition which is agreeable, but not perfectly happy. It is this state, no doubt, which the author of the Apocalypse calls a rest ; a reign of a thousand years between death and the last judg- ment, which takes place in the famous field (Plat, de Eepub. X. 616) or valley of Jehoshaphat. Er, the Pamphylian, who has already been mentioned, was, according to Clemens Alexandrinus (1. V.) the same as Zoroaster, whose doctrine was the same as that of the Apocalypse, viz. the system of the two principles, the destruction of the world, the great judgment, and the resurrection— dogmas which the Christian sects have borrowed from the Magi and the Persians (Hyde, pp. 293 and 537). Hyde has very judiciously observed that the doctrine which the Magi and the Apocalypse taught in common had been established in very ancient times among the disciples of Zoroaster, and long before the Apocalypse was written ; that it was the ancient doctrine of the East, that the Apocalypse has preserved it, and that its author has transmitted it to posterity. In fact, we find it in the Zend books, the most ancient records of the religion of Zoroaster. The following creed is found there (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii.) : " I believe, without entertaining any doubt, in the excellent and pure law : I believe in the just judge Ormuzd : I believe that the resurrection of bodies will take place, and that the bodies of the dead will rise again." The Manichseans held that the conflagration of the world and the judgment would be preceded by the apparition of a spirit, whom they called the Ancient (Beausob. t. ii. p. 576). This Ancient is the novissimus dies, the last day. This expression was held sacred in Oriental mysticism, from which ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. 667 Manes, like Daniel, borrowed his theory. Daniel says (chap, vii. 9, 10) : "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool : his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him : thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him : the judgment was set, and the books were opened/' The rest of this chapter has furnished the author of the Apocalypse with many particulars. As we see the dragon and two other beasts slain and consumed by fire before this terrible judgment, so Daniel (ver. 11) sees the beast slain, his body destroyed and given to the burning flame. He sees that the life of the other beasts was prolonged, though their dominion was taken away, and he sees visions, and one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of days. He appears before him, and dominion and glory and a kingdom is given to him. In ver. 19, the fourth beast, the one which corresponds to the dragon, makes war with the saints, and prevails against them, until the Ancient of Days, who is the same as the man on the white throne (Rev. xx. 11), appears. Then he gives the saints the power of judging, and the time being accomplished the kingdom is given to these saints. This is exactly what takes place in the Apocalypse, when the elect go into the holy Jerusalem in chap. xxi. Nebuchadnezzar, whom Daniel represents as degraded for seven* years, and reduced, like Apuleius, to the condition of a beast, is an image of the soul here below, and of its return to its original state, when, after passing through the seven spheres, it returns to its domain and its own country. This mystic idea has been "expressed in an infinite number of shapes in the Eastern allegories. Sometimes the idea of captivity is taken to represent the state of man here below ; sometimes it is death, resurrection, &c. The dogma of the resurrection, as TertuUian says (De Pnec. adv. Hicres.), was also part of the doctrine of Mithra, who probably represented it in their mystic cave. The initiated in these mysteries were, like those in the Apocalypse, distinguished by a mark in the forehead : " et signati in frontibus," like the twelve thousand elect of each tribe (Tertull. ibid. ; Rev. vii. 4 ; xiv. 1, 3 ; xxii. i). r>o8 MANKIND; THEIR It was by means of the Mithraic bull, together with the moon, whose exaltation occurs in this sign, that the passage to the world of light took place and the resurrection was eftected. This Bull, like the Lamb, was dead, and had risen again. Ahriman had caused him to perish in the first instance (Boundesch, pp. 356, 363 ; pp. 387, 415). Men will be restored to life, say the Persians, by that which comes from the Bull. Sosioch will perform izeschn^ with the resuscitated dead. Afterwards, placed on an elevated spot, he will give to all men a reward proportioned to their actions. Substitute the Lamb for the Bull, and we have the doctrine of the Apocalypse word for word. We have now arrived at the time when the spirit, having left behind it all that is material and mortal, sees nothing but the Divine Light, and that spiritual world, the archetype of all that exists, which has been from all eternity in God, and becomes absorbed in the bosom of that luminous ocean from which our spirits issued to become united with the soul, and afterwards with the mortal body. This is the NoOj, for the part called the soul has been destroyed by the second death. This is where, according to Proclus (Com- ment, in Tim. 1. II. p. 93), the real heaven, and the real dominion of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars is. It is here, there- fore, that the true theophany is experienced, or, to use the expression in the Apocalypse, that the elect, or the initiated, shall see the face of God (Rev. xxii. 4). Here is the holy city which was shown every year to the initiated at Pepuza. The souls of the initiated persons, terrified by the frightful pictures which had been presented to them, are at length about to rest tranquilly in the abode of light and happiness, of which the prophet presents them the delightful represen- tation. It receives the mystic name of Jerusalem, which St. Augustine tells us signifies in the language of initiation the Vision of Peace : " Ipsius civitatis nomen mysticum, id est Jerusalem, visio pacis iuterpretatur " (August, de Civ. Dei, 1. XIX. cap. xi.). The "seer" called himself an Israelite after the manner of the Freemasons, who still work at the establishment of the heavenly Jerusalem, of which they are the architects, by means of virtue. Babylon was in the same way the abode of the wars and disorders of Ahriman, the principle of corruption. It is to the Sun-god, who. under th*^ equinoctial sign of ORICaX AXD DESTINY. 55ft the Lamb, draws souls to him by separating them from the coarse matter which adheres to them, that the initiated owe the liappiness of raising themselves in spirit to the happy abode of light, in which they will one day dwell for ever. It is the mysteries of the Lamb, which, celebrated with pure souls and chaste hearts, x>rocure for them this preliminary enjoyment of view of the holy city which will one day receive them into its bosom, and which will prepare for them an easy return to the Deity aft^r death. All that is fragile and mortal has disappeared: the living and eternal God alone remains on the ruins of a destroyed world. Such is the fate which awaits the children of light, the friends of Ormuzd, the initiated who have fulfilled their duties, and whose names have not been removed from the book of initiation. They will be the only citizens of the new world, where one is absorbed in the bosom of happiness and of light. John says (chap. xxi. 1-4) : " And I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away.^' Here we have man established in a new order of things, different from the first, in which he had been subject to the em^nre of darkness, and of evil, which have no existence in this world, in which Ormuzd, the principle of light and life, alone reigns. This philosophic idea is exactly that of the Magi, according to Theopompus, quoted by Plutarch (De Iside). Macrobius (cap. xi.) tells us that the ancients assigned the abode of x:>ure souls in the heaven of the fixed stars. The new Jenisalom, therefore, even in a spiritual world, resembles the Zodiac and its divisions, because it is the archetype of the visible universe, and it possesses in a spiritual manner all that the latter has in a material manner. It is in the world, WJO MANKIND: THEIR 'NotfTot, says Proclas, that the real heaven, and the real gods of the planets, exist. " Come hither," says the angel to the prophet (Eev- xxi. 9-11), " I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high monn- tain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God : and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." This town does not require the light of the sun or of the moon, because it is lighted by the glory of God, and the Lamb is the light of it (verse 23). The nations which are saved walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it (verse 24). There will be no night there, and they will bring the glory and honour of the nations into it (verses 25, 26). When Scipio shows his grandson the abode of souls, the place where great men and rulers of the people, covered with glory, are one day to return, it is on an elevated spot, glittering with light (" In excelso, pleno stellarum illustri etclaro loco"), that he presents this abode to him. These are the stars that we shall shortly see repre- sented by stones of suitiible colours. This is the column of Plato, brilliant with all the colours of the rainbow. It is on a very high mountain that Ezetiel (chap. xi. 2) in a vision of God sees the vision of the now Jerusalem and the new Temple which are going to be rebuilt — a m}i)hical representation which is absolutely identical with that of the author of the Apocalypse, who, like Ezekiel, has placed it after the defeat of Gog and Magog. The description of the holy city occupies chap. xxi. 10-25 of the Apocalypse. We have now to examine the configura- tion of this city, the manner in which it is divided, and its relations to the luminous archetype of the visible world, which has been formed after the eternal model which is placed in the bosom of the light of those real beings, of whom the beings that are seen, or the visible universe, are but an obscure image. The duodecimal division is to be traced in all the dimen- sions of the new city. This division is that of heaven and of the twelve signs, and is so representative of the universe that the ancient Pythagoreans, who represented everything by numbers and figures, chose the dodecahedron, or twelve-faced ORIGIN AST) DESTINY. 501 solid to represent tlie universe, as may be seen in Timseus of Locris, who says, " The dodecahedron is the image of the universe.'^ (Plato, vol. iii. p. 98.) The zodiac was divided into twelve parts in its breadth as well as in its length, thus forming the dimension of the great wall of the city, one hundred and forty-four. The circum- ference of the sky was also divided into twelve portions, called abodes or domiciles, which were the basis of astrological predictions. The horoscope was the first of these (Firmic. 1. II. cap. xviii. &c.) . There was also another division by twelve, called duodecatemoria (ib. cap. rv.). These diflferent divisions were painted in different colours (Salmasius, Ann. Clioiat. p. 67), somewhat like Plato's speckled ball or bowl. The horoscope and the seventh domicile after it were white, the second and twelfth green, &c. There were also what were called the twelfths (Tetrabil. Ptolem. 1. I. cap. ixii.), which were the twelfth part of each sign, and which, therefore, gave 144 twelfths for the whole zodiac or square of twelve. The circle of the horizon (Aulugellus, 1. 11. cap. ixii. Compil. Astrol. Leopold. Austria ducis, p. 44. Venetifie, 1570) was also divided into twelve winds, influenced by the twelve signs ; and the world was also divided into twelve regions. The winds, three by three, corresponded to the cardinal points. An astrologer says that there are twelve winds, be- cause of the twelve gates of the sun, through which these winds to which that star gives birth rush. Simon Joachites (Kirch. (Edip. vol. iii. pp. 109, 116), following the principles of the ancient Cabala, confirms these ideas. In the middle of the seven triads of spirits, four of which correspond to the cardinal points, is a holy, venerated temple which sustains all. It has twelve gates, over each of which is a sign of the zodiac which is carved upon it, and arranged according to an ancient combination. The first is Aries, that is, the Lamb, who, in the Apocalypse, is the ruler of the holy city. There are also, continues Simon Joachites, the twelve chiefs and rulers who have been drawn up according to the plan of distribution of a town and a camp (p. 118). He adds that they are the twelve angels who preside over the year, and one of whose functions is also to preside over the twelve terms or divisions of the Universe. This is the mystic city which the Apocalypse and Simon Joachites present to us, divided in a similar manner to the 532 MANKIND: THEIR Hebrew camp. It is the Universe itself, the tabernacle or tent of the Deity. " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men " (Rev. xxi. 3). The division of this camp, of which the tabernacle occupied the centre, contained, as we have ปeen, besides the seven planets, twelve houses, each under a sign of the zodiac, which have each of them the name of a tribe on them, just as each gate in the Apocalypse has the name cf a tribe over it. (Rev. xxi. 12.) The twelve tribes and the twelve signs are there arranged on the four sides of a quadri- lateral, as the gates of the holy city are in the Apocalypse, and these faces, composed of three houses or signs, look to the four comers of the universe, and to the four winds, the interval between which is fiUed by two others, making three for each face. Psellus, in his Book of the Genii, or angels who preside over the order of the Universe, also groups them three by three, facing the four comers of it. According to the principles of astrology, each sign of the zodiac presided over a region of the earth. Marsilius Ficinus (Kirch. (Edip. vol. iii. p. 317) correctly observes that Plato, in the division of his city, takes the duodenary number as the fundamental one, becau3e there are twelve spheres, twelve signs, &c. These twelve spheres are the four ele- ments, and the eight upper spheres. Proclus (Comm. in Tim.) tells us expressly that the greatest legislators have always endeavoured to make political divisions resemble those of the Universe as much as possible. K Plato had given us in his Pheedo an elaborate descrip- tion of the city of the happy in his celestial kingdom, there is no doubt he could have followed the ideal plan he traced out in his book of laws. But he says himself that it is necessary to abridge the description of these habitations, and that is not the place to describe them. Lucian, who has entered into more details than Plato respecting the city of the happy, and the delights and rich productions of Elysium, has built his city according to the order of the universe, and has taken as the model of his division that of the seven spheres, which we have shown to be an expression signifying the universe. In other respects his city re- sembles that of the Apocalypse. He says (Hist, Vera3, 1. II.) : " We arrive at a field situated in an island called the Island of the Happy, where Rhadamanthus reigned. The guardians of the island chain us with flowers, and lead us to his ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 563 tribunal. We related our adventure. It was decided that some day, after our death, we should be punished for our curiosity ; that for the moment we might remain and con- verse with the heroes in this meadow ; but not for more than seven months.'^ The repose of Er the Pamphylian in the meadow lasted seven days, after which the souls are ordered to leave for the fields of light. " The seven months having elapsed," continues Lucian, " our chains of flowers fell off of themselves, and we passed from the city to the feast of the happy." This is the marriage supper of the Lamb in the Apocalypse. Lucian describes this city of the happy. It was all of gold, like that of John. The wall was of emerald, that of John is of jasper. The stone is not the same, but the idea is. Lucian's city has seven gates, equal to the number of the planets. John's has twelve, equal to the number of the signs — a different mode of expressing the same idea. This seven-gated city resembles that which Cadmus, when he married Harmonia (Nonn. Dionys. 1. V. v. 54), after the defeat of Typhon by Jupiter, built and called Thebes the sacred, which had seven gates, each sacred to a planet, beginning with the Moon and ending with Saturn. Cadmus, says Nonnus (ibid. v. 64) endeavoured to imitate the construction of heaven with his seven spheres : he wished to have an image of Olympus on earth. The author calls it the sacred town, Upov aarv (v. 85) just as John calls Jerusalem the holy. His city is built of different materials from that of John, which proves that he has not copied jfrom him. We will now analyse the materials of which the latter is built. The foundations of this town were garnished with all sorts of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper (Eev. xxi. 19). In the magnificent crown of Juno, de- scribed by Martianus Capella, the stones are ranged three by three, according to the seasons. They are not exactly the same as here, but there are several which are the same, such as jasper, emerald, jacinth, &c. The first, says he, was taken from the head of Cancer ; the second from the eyes of Leo ; the third from the foreheads of Gemini, &c. — an evident allusion to the signs of the zodiac. The colour of each, we are told, was analogous to the colour of earth at the different seasons; sometimes green with verdure, o o 2 6G4 M.iNKIM) : THEIR sometimes yellow with the harvest, sometimes white with snow, &cป Not only this, however, but these stones are all identical with the breast-plate of the Jewish high-priest (Exod. xxviii. 17, &c.), which we have seen represents the zodiac and the seasons. The names of the twelve apostles of Aries, or the Lamb, are engraved on them instead of those of the twelve tribes, which comes to the same thing. This explanation of the twelve foundations of the holy city by the signs of the zodiac is justified by a passage in Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. L Y.), in which he says that it is by travelling these twelve signs that the virtuous soul returns to where it came from, and that the ai/aXi^tf, or return of souls, takes place through these twelve domiciles. This is confirmed by the doctrine of the Manichseans on this subject. Tirbonius says to Archelaus (Beausob. Hist. Manich. t. ii. 1. VIL cap. vi.) : — " The living Father, seeing that the soul was afflicted in the body, had pity on it, and sent his beloved Son to save it. This Son came : he assumed the figure of a man, although he was not a man in reality, and although the vulgar thought he had been bom. As soon as he arrived, he made a machine for the salvation of souls. This machine is a wheel, to which twelve vases are attached. The sphere causes this wheel to turn, which takes up the souls of the dead in its vases. The great star, which is the sim, attracts them by its rays, purifies them, and transmits them to the moon, till she is quite full of them. The moon when full of souls discharges them into the sun, after which she receives others by means of the vases, which descend and rise incessantly. And when she has sent these souls to the -ffions (spirits) of the Father, they remain in the * column of glory,' which is called ^ the perfect air.' This * perfect air ' is 'a column of light,' because it is full of purified souls." This column of light (Plat. deRepubl. 1. X.), this perfect air of which the Manichjean author speaks here, is evidently that luminous column, resembling the iris or rainbow, into which Plato makes virtuous souls pass after the judgment^ after resting for seven days in the meadow, as we have already seen. It is also the "free ether," or "ethereal lights " of Pythagoras (Ilicroclcs, Aurea Carm. v. 70), in which he places Elysium, or the abode of the Irappy, La4)tly, it is OKIGIX AND DESTIX^'. HOo the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, lighted by the light of God, as the Apocalypse represents it (chap. xxi. 11, 23). The wheel of the Manicha;ans is represented in the Apocalypse by the zodiac, by means of which the avaXrfyln?^ or return of the souls, takes place. The Hebrews called the zodiac the great wheel of the signs, "rota signorum'* (Hyde, Comm. ad TJlugbeigh, pp. 29, 30 ; Riccioli, 1. 1, p. 402). The celestial city is called a tabernacle in Rev. xxi. 3 : " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.'* Tliis is the very word which Poemander, which the Eg)'ptian Hermes is supposed to have written, uses to designate the zodiac. " Tabemaculum istud," says he, " zodiaco circulo constitutum, qui ex duodenario constat" (Hermes in Poe- mandro). Without dwelling on a number of minor details, we may assume that the connection between the archetypal and the visible heavens, of which the latter is the representative, with the holy city full of light, which is entered by twelve gates, which everywhere shows the duodecimal division, and in which the souls are about to enjoy eternal rest, has been proved to demonstration. We proceed, therefore, to the twenty-second and last chapter. This chapter begins with a description, which is the last in this mystic work, of a river of water of life, clear as crystal, which comes out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. " In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fiodt every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (verse 2). This fiction is borrowed from Ezekiel, chap, xlvii. 1. After giving the description of the new Jerusalem, which is going to be rebuilt, the chambers of which he distributes just as the gates of the holy city are distributed in the Apocalypse, Ezekiel makes a river issue from the eastern door of the house and run towards the south. He also (verse 12) describes a number of trees bearing fruit, which grow on both banks of the river, " whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed : it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months . . . and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." TertuUian (1. III. adv. Marcion), speaking of the holy Jeru- salem which came down from heaven, says that Ezekiel knew 606 MANKIND : THEIR it, that John had seen it, and that the new prophecies had represented the plan of it before it was built. The Bonndesch says that Ormuzd, firom the love he bears to man, caoses waters to flow near his throne. It is evident that John either borrowed from Ezekiel, or that thej both drew from a common source. Lucian, who was a native of Samosata in Syria, near Mesopotamia, that is, of the same country where the Magi and the Chaldaeans taught the doctrine which is the basis of the visions of the Apocalypse and of Ezekiel, also has a river which waters the holy city in his description of it. After describing the repast, and the city of the happy, which is adorned on all sides with gold and precious stones (Lucian, Hist. Verse, 1. 11.), he speaks of the river which surrounds the city, and of the three hundred and sixty- five fountains which water its meadows. He places close to it vines which bear grapes twelve times a year, a vintage taking place every month. This is very similar to the trees in Ezekiel and the Apo- calypse. The river of living water which runs out of the throne of the Lamb in the Apocalypse, and from the eastern door in Ezekiel, is the river of Orion, the celestial Eridanus, which is situated immediately below Aries, or the Lamb, and which rises immediately after that sign, which seems to give birth to it in the east, whence it streams towards the south, as Ezekiel represents it. This astronomical phenomenon, the appearance of the waters of Eridanus after the rising of the Lamb or Aries, caused that constellation to be called " Dux immortalis aquro," by the ancients. This is its function in the Apocalypse, for it is from the Lamb's throne that this river proceeds ; and this gave rise to the following myth, related by Hyginus and by Germanicus : " It is said that Bacchus, while leading his army in Africa, found a very great scarcity of water, and that straightway a ram issued from the burning deserts, and led Bacchus and his army to a fountain of celestial water." (Germanic, in Ariete, cap. xviii.) Out of gratitude for this service, Bacchus called this ram Jupiter Ammon, and built a magnificent temple to him on the spot where he discovered this miraculous spring. This ram, the guide and ruler of this immortal water, was also placed in the heavens, where his image is seen, and where he presides as leader over the signs of the zodiac. ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. ri67 The union of the river with the Lamb may be seen on the celestial globe, and Hipparchns has recognised it, for in his calendar he places this river with Aries, with which it always sets and rises. * In Virgil's Elysium (Mnป 1. VI. v. G59) we also find a river, and its name is Eridanus. This Eridanus was supposed to be a son of the Sun, who, after the conflagration of the universe, had been placed in the heavens. Aetes, the proprietor of Aries, which is above Eridanus, and also the Charioteer, who is above Aries, and who ascends with Eridanus, were also sons of the Sun. The Egyptians placed their Elysium (Odyss. ft, v. 11) near the torrents of the ocean, near the white stone and the gates of the Sun. This was where souls entered the celebrated meadow where the shades dwelt. The gates of the Sun probably mean the east and west. Isidore of Seville (Orig. 1. m. chap. V. de Astrol.) says, this is what they mean. As to the ocean, Diodorus tells us that it meant the Nile. The Egyptians therefore called Eridanus the Nile. Hyginus, speaking of this constellation, says (1. II. cap. xxxiii.): " Some have called it the Nile, some the ocean." Eratosthenes (cap. xxxvii.) says that Aratus calls Eridanus the river of Orion, but that others, more properly, call it the Nile. Theon also says that the Egyptians called it the Nile. This, therefore, is the stream which issues forth firom the throne of the Lamb. The latter verses of this chapter are a species of recapitu- lation of the principles and object of the book. The " tree of life," and the " river of living waters," are expressions which the author uses to represent the return to life, that is, to heaven (chap. xxii. 2, 14, 17 ; vii. 17). Life and death are spoken of in a mystic sense. " They alone truly live," says Scipio Africanus in Cicero (Somn. Scip. cap. iii.), " whose soul, freed fix>m the bonds of the body, as from a prison, has risen to the upper regions, while what we call life on the earth is a real death." " All who have adopted the principles, first of Pythagoras, and secondly of Plato," says Macrobius (Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. ix. and x.), ** distinguish two deaths: the one of the animal, the other of the soul. The animal dies when the soul separates itself from the body, but the soul dies when it becomes separated from the simple and indivisible source of matter, and distributes itself through the members of the body. To leave this original source of 568 MANKIND: THEIR the sonl is to lose one's life : to retam to that source is to return to the source of life. By the first death the soul is freed from its captivity, and departs to enjoy the true riches of Nature and the liberty which belongs to it ; by the second, on the contrary, which is usually called life, the soul is deprived of its immortality, and plunged into the darkness of a species of death." Strabo (1. XV 11.) tells us that the Indian philosophers also held this opinion. " Death," they said, " is for true philosophers a return to true life and to happiness." According to these philosophical dogmas, therefore, the virtuous soul which returns to its pristine state is about to return to the river of life, to enjoy true happiness, its natural liberty, and the brilliant light of its immortality which it was deprived of here below, which agrees exactly with what we are told in the Apocalypse, that pure and chaste souls are going to drink of the river of living waters, to eat the fruits of the tree of life, and to dwell in a city where there is no more night, and which is lighted by the glory of God. Plutarch (De Iside) says that as long as souls are chained to a material body they can have no intercourse with God but by means of philosophy ; but that when death takes place they are carried up to a pure spot, where God becomes their leader and their king, where they can enjoy the sight of Him without becoming satiated, and where they are retained by their longings for ineffable beauty. "Here below," says Plutarch, " we can only see Him through a veil." Such is the language of the epistles, and such was the philosophy of those times. The light of the glory of God was often called " the bride- groom " in the mysteries of Mithra (Firmicus de Profess. Relig. p. 38). Gregory of Nazianzen (Orat. xlviii.) speaks of this uncreated light when he supposes that God, who created the sun to lighten the world, did not create light for the world of spirits, because that world, being always lighted by the most dazzling light, does not require the secondary Ught. This is the light alluded to in verse 6 of this chapter : " And there shall be no night there ; and they need no candle there, neither light of the sun ; for the Lord God giveth them b'ght." The sources of light and of life were in this uncreated light. This is what the Priscillianists, or the sectaries assembled at Pepuza, called the Virgin Light (Ores. Comm. ad Augustin. ORIGIN AXD DESTIXV. 500 Opera Angustini, vol. vii. edit. Benedic. Cot. 432), that light which has never been corrupted or defiled, and which, there- fore, retains all its natural beauty. The tree of life in the Apocalypse is not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil : it is merely the tree of life, a tree which can only be planted where there is no more curse (chap. xxii. 3, 6), no more night and darkness. This abode is wholly consecrated to happiness and to the enjoyment of the benefits conferred by the Good Spirit, whose purity nothing can change or corrupt. It is there that the initiated will see him face to face in the abode of light where he has fixed his dwelling, and that they will have that true and intuitive sight of which the autopsy of the mysteries is but a sketch and a poor example (chap. xxi. 24 ; xxii. 4, 5). ^^They shall see his face, and the nations shall walk in his light." It will be an eternal Theophany, for they shall reign with him for ever and ever ; or, rather, it will be a Theocracy, to use the expression of the modern Plato- nists, who believed that the contemplation of God could be carried so far even in this life, that the soul not only became united to God, but even became mixed up and identified with Him (Acad. Inscrip. vol. xxxi. p. 319). Photinus pretended to have enjoyed this intuitive vision four times, according to Porphyry, who says that he himself was honoured by a similar vision when he was sixty-eight years old. These are the visions which the initiated at Pepuza sought to obtain, and which impostors never failed to have. This was the great secret of the prophets and prophetesses, who fell into trances and into the delirium of illuminati. The remainder of the chapter is an attestation of the truth of the prophet's revelation, who calls the God who inspires prophets, or who gives the prophetic spirit, to witness the truth of his sayings. In the same way in Virgil (^n. 1. III. V. 251) the harpy calls Apollo to testify the truth of her menacing oracles. The priestesses of Pepuza spared no pains to persuade the people that they were possessed by the spirit of prophecy (Epiph. cap. xlix.). The Cumcean Sibyl does the same when she reveals his destiny to ^neas, and when she initiates him in the doctrine of Tartarus and Elysium. {Mn. 1. VI. verse 7(5, &c.) Impostors are always asserting that they speak the truth. 670 MANKIND: THEIR The anthor conclodes by sayiDg that the things which he has predicted are about to happen quickly, that the time is at hand, that the great Judge will soon come, and that He will reward every man according to his works. The idea especially inculcated in the mysteries was that the judgment would soon take place, and that, as Plato says, one could not be too careful in preparing to appear before the dread tribunal. All great criminals, all lascivious and idolatrous persons, are excluded firom life and from the holy city. This was common to all the ancient initiations, which excluded from heaven not only homicides, impious and wicked persons, those who denied providence, or who belonged to a sect which did not recognise the gods of the country (Meursius in Eleusin. cap. xviii. and xix.), but also all profane persons, by which was meant all who had neglected to become initiated, and those who had not become sanctified by their admission into the holy fraternity. This species of exclusion, therefore, was common to all the religious associations, and the author of the Apocalypse has said nothing but what all the other hierophants told the initiated into order to keep them in their fellowship and in the practice of those virtues which were inculcated as a duty. Everything in these formulas and dogmas was sacred ; therefore the same penalty is threatened against any one who should add to or take away from the words of the book of the prophecy (Rev. xxii. 18, 19). The chapter concludes by a wish of the hierophant that the prophecy may be speedily accomplished, and that the initiated person may enjoy after his death the intuitive sight of the Deity of which the autopsy is an image here below. " Even so," he says, " come. Lord Jesus.*' And, turning round to the initiated, the hierophant adds : ** The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." ORIGIN AND DESTIN7. 571 CHAPTER XXI. The basis of orthodox belief in ancient times was the division of the forces of Nature into active and passive. Nature, says Cicero (Academ. Quscst. i. 6) was divided into two portions, so that one was active, while the other lent itself to this action, which it received and modified. Aristotle in his letter to Alexander on the order of the Universe (Arist. de Mundo) says : " The Universe is composed of heaven and earth, and of all the beings which they contain. In the midst of it is the earth, fixed and immovable, the fertile mother, and the universal dwelling-place of animals of every description ; around it is the air, which envelopes it on all sides ; above it, in the highest region, is the abode of the gods, which is called Ovpavos or heaven ; it is filled with divine bodies which we call stars, and which move with it, revolving at the same time, without interruption and without end. The substance of heaven and of the stars is called ether ; this is a fire which moves incessantly in a circular manner, being a divine and iucorruptible element, which is not subject to the changes of the four others. The ether includes in its circumference all the celestial bodies, the stars and the planets, as well as the order of their motions." On this side of this ethereal and divine Nature, self- governed, immovable, unchangeable, and impassive, is placed that Nature which is both movable and passive, that is corruptible and mortal. Here Aristotle places the four elements : fire, air, water, and earth. He dwells upon the distinction between the two Natures, the one being immov- able, the other always changing. He says that " the most perfect bodies, the stars, the sun, and the moon, are placed in the ethereal region, in that region which we call Oupavor, or the summit of the Universe, and Olympus, that is to say, brilliant with light, because that place is entirely separate from all that belongs to darkness and to those unregulated r>72 MANKIND: THEIR • movements which are confined to the inferior regions ueaxest to the earth, where confusion and furious gales prevail. But the celestial bodies always keep the same order; changes are never seen among them such as are seen on the earth, where everything is incessantly changing both its form and its nature/' Aristotle, therefore, recog- nised this great division of Nature into changeable and unchangeable portions, an idea which gave rise to the distinction between active and passive causes (Phot, de Placit. Phil. 1. II. cap. iv.), and which he recognises else- where when he speaks of the zodiac and the sublunary world. Our English word " heaven,'^ which is directly derived from the Phoenician, seems also to have been derived firom the Anglo-Saxon word hefan, "to be arched," and thus conveys the same idea as prevailed at the time when DHDB^ "the sky," "the abode of the sun" was believed to be situated above the flat earth. " If," says Macrobius (Somn. Scip. 1. 11. cap. xvi.), " you wish to know the movements of the soul of the Universe, look at the rapid motion of the heavens, and at the im- petuous circulation of the planetary spheres which are below it, at the rising and setting of the sun, at the paths and the returns of the other stars, all which movements are produced by the activity of the Universal Soul." Here we see that the action of the heavens upon the earth is not merely mechanical, but is the action of the Divine soul, which descends from the heaven where it dwells to sublunary matter, and spreads in it the germs of life and the principles of those movements which exist in heaven, and which pass to earth by the fixed or movable stars which are the depositaries of it. Hence Manilius (1. n.) says, respecting the action of heaven and of the constellations upon the earth, on which they spread the seeds of life, and regulate the destiny of man : — " I will sing the invisible and powerful soul of nature ; that divine substance which, spread throughout the heavens, the earth, and the waters of the seas, forms the bond which unites all the portions of the vast body of the Universe. It is this soul which, balancing the forces, and bringing into liarmony with one another the varied relations of this same Universe, maintains in it that life and regular motion which agitates it by a result of tlie action of the breath or spirit ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 673 whicli dwells in all portions of it, which circulates in all the channels of universal nature, traverses rapidly every portion of it, and which gives animated beings those forms which are suitable to the organisation of each separate being; a thing which would not occur in a machine all the parts of which had not union and natural affinity with one another, and whose movements did not obey the laws of one only Guide, without whom, the order which exists could not continue. This eternal law, this divine power which maintains the harmony of the Universe, makes use of the celestial signs in order to organise and guide the animated beings which breathe on earth, and even gives each of them the character and the disposition which belongs to them. It is by the action of this same force that heaven governs the state of the earth and of the fields which the agriculturist tills; that it gives or takes away from us plants and harvests; that it makes the sea leave its bed by the flow of the tide, and return to it by its ebb." All mythological fables are but metamorphoses of this Universal Soul, which is the moving power of heaven and of the spheres. This Soul exerts its influence principally by means of the Sun (Macrob. Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. xx.) during his course through the signs of the zodiac, to which are added the paranatellons which modify his influence, and which concur to furnish the attributes which symbolise the Star which governs nature, and which is the depositary of her mightiest energies. This is why the Twins, which rise after ihe Celestial Charioteer, who carries the two kids and the goat, from which Pan and the satyrs borrow their attributes, have, under the names of Amphion and Zethus, been held to be the sons of Jupiter metamorphosed into a satyr, and in love with the beatiftd Antiope, to whose tomb a few clods of earth used to be carried every year, taken from the tomb of her children, at the time when the sign of Taurus was in the ascendant (Pans. Bceoti). If we place the sun in Cancer, the domicile of Diana or the moon, above which is the Celestial She-bear, Calisto, it will be seen how this god, under the semblance of Diana, becomes united to Calisto, and makes her the mother of Areas (Ovid. Metam. 1. 11. fab. xii. ; Hygin. 1. II. cap. ii. iii. v. ; Gterm, Cajsar), or of Boiites, who follows her closely, and whom ancient mythology placed in the heavens after his mother, who k 574 MANKIND : THEIB was changed into a she-bear. The Persian and Barbarian spheres of Aben Ezra give the She-bear as paranatellon to Cancer (Scalig. Not. ad Manil.). When the Sun has arrived at Libra he joins the crown of Ariadne, whom Ovid (Past. 1. III. ver. 459, &c. ; Hygin. fab. cciv. ; Lact. L I. c. x.) calls Libra, or Proserpine. She has below her the serpent of Ophiu- cus, into whose folds the Sun passes. It is then that Jupiter, metamorphosed into a serpent, Ues with the lovely Proserpme, and gives birth to a bull (Clem. Alex, in Protrep. Amob. contr. Gent. 1. V.), that is, to the constellation which then opens the night, and which rises at the very moment that the sun sets with the serpent and with the crown of Ariadne, Libera, or Proserpine. Timseus of Locris and Plato looked upon the Universe as an animated being, and one gifted with reason. All the Platonists looked upon it in the same manner, as may be seen in Plotinus (Ennead. 3, 1. II. cap. iii. and iv. ; 1. lY. cap. zxxiL) and Proclus. Marcus Aurelius says : — " Represent incessantly the universe to thyself as a single living being composed of one sort of matter, and of one soul. This is how all that passes in it is referred to one principle of feeling. This is how one single impulse makes the whole move, and this is why all its products are the eflFect of a number of causes. O Universe ! O Nature ! thou art the source of all, the ultimate term of all. Some one has said, * Dear town of Cecrops ! ' Why did they not say, ^ Dear town of the Universe ' ? * Dear town of the great Jupiter ' ? The same species of soul has been assigned to all animals which are destitute of name, and the same intellectual soul to all reasoning beings, just as all terrestrial bodies are made of the same terrestrial matter, and as all that sees and breathes sees but one and the same light, and breathes but one and the same air. " The light of the sun is one, though we see it dispersed on walls, on mountains, and on a thousand different objects. There is but one sort of matter, though it be divided into thousands of separate bodies. There is but one Soul, though it is divided into an infinite number of organized bodies which have their several limits. There is but one intelligent Soul, though it seems to divide itself. We are all united by a common participation in the same intelligence. Thou hast forgotten that the soul of each of us is a god who has ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 575 emanated from the Supreme Being. Just as bodies after a brief sojourn on earth became changed, and at last dissolved, so that they give place to others, so do souls after their sojourn in the air become changed, and kindle as they re- turn to the fertile bosom of Universal Reason. All souls form a portion of the same spiritual element, just as all seas belong to the element of water. One and the same Beason gives light to them all, as the sun gives light to the earth and the ocean." The Essenes attributed the same origin to our souls, which they looked upon as an emanation from the ethereal fire (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. IX. cap. iii.). Sallust (cap. vii.) after describing the harmonious representation of the Universe or of the spheres, describes God, the A6709 and the Spiritus, or the Universal Soul, as being above it. The A0709 Nov?, or Wisdom, is the cause of the admirable order which prevails throughout it, and the Soul or Spiritus spreads through it the life and motion which agitate it. The Manichseans (Beausob. t. ii. p. 784) believed that the substance in which thought and feeling dwell was spread throughout it. Herbs and plants live ; their seeds are souls, says St. Epiphanius. Tatian says that Spirit is everywhere, not only in the stars and in the angels, but also in plants, in the waters, and in animals, and that though it is everywhere the same spirit, there are nevertheless diflFerences, according to the subjects. Christians hold exactly the same ideas respecting the Aoyos and the Spiritus. They look upon the first as the Wisdom of God and the principle of order which is visible in the Universe, and upon the second as the principle of life which circulates in every part of it, as may be seen in the profession of faith of Gregory Thaumaturgus. The philosophers made God to be a single Being, eternal, and omnipresent, containing all in himself*, and possessing the principle of life and intellect in which all living and reasoning beings, which were formed out of his substance and in his prolific bosom, participated. Thus, giving the name of God to this Universal Cause, which nevertheless is incessantly modified and divided, they admitted but one God, comprising in himself life and wisdom, which were not distinct from him, but were his own vivifying and intelligent substance, divine as himself, and co-eternal with him. Thus the unity of God comprehended the Divine Life or the God- 676 MANKIND: THEIR life (Cicero de Nat. Deorum, 1. 1, cap. xi. xiii. xiv. ; MaimoniJ. Mor. Nov. part i. cap. Ixx.; Theophil. ad Autolyc. 1. IL), Divine Wisdom, or the Wisdom of God, and God was no more a triple Deity than man is in whom the principle of life is distinguished from the principle of thought. Those men who called God the Spiritus or the Soul, and who also called him the Nov* or the intellect of the Universe, and who also looked upon aU these beings together as one great God, did not therefore consider them as being three Gods, but as being one God, that is, as being the tfi'^^vyos koX TuyyiKOfy or animated and intelligent Universe, or as the great Pan, the universal life and intellect of all beings. Every portion of matter composed this immense body, in which dwelt the force which gives life and understanding, which force was itself more or less attenuated, or which at any rate was called by names which relate to matter. The air, without which man cannot live, gave its name to the element of the life of the Great Whole, which was called Anima, and Spiritus, both of which words signify air, wind, breath. The breath of life was attributed to the Universe as well as to man. When the abstractions of philosophy had separated the essence of the Deity from the Universe, the same words, the same material images, still designated the principle of Divine Life, and the word Spiritus was still retained to designate this divine force even when it was considered to be spiritual. Thus, when Christ is supposed to communicate the Spirit to the Apostles, it is said " He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit " {Hvevfjuiy spirit, or breath), and in John iii. 8, he says : " The Spirit (to Trvevfia) bloweth where it listeth," &c. These are all expressions which set forth a spiritual idea by purely material images taken from the original conception of the Spiritus Mundi, or breath of life, which animated the Universe-God. This breath was not, strictly speaking, the air (August, de Civ. Dei, 1. V. cap. ix.), but it resembled the air, and it belonged to material nature according to the materialists, and to spiritual nature according to the spiritualists, and according to both it was uncreated and God, for the material Universe was uncreated and God according to tlie materialists, just as the abstract Being of the spii'itualists was held by them to be. This breath, distributed through the seven spheres of the ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. 677 uniTerse, which it moves and animates, and of which it pro- flnces the harmonies, was represented by the flute with seven pipes, which was placed in the hands of the great Pan, or the omnipresent Deity, who drew forth from it sounds which caused the huge vaults of the universe to resound with their harmony (Macrob. Somn. Scip. 1. II. cap. ii. iii.). Hence is derived the use of the number seven, in which the whole nature of the universe is included and divided in Pagan as in Christian theology. Macrobius (ibid. 1. I. cap. viii.) says that the origin of the soul of the world is included in the terms of the number seven. Christians also divide the energy and influence of the Holy Spirit into seven parts. These are what they call the seven gifts of the Spirit. iJvery day the Catholics sing the "munus septiforme" and the " sacrum septenarium." Like tlie breath of Pan, the breath of the Holy Spirit was divided, according to St. Justin (Cohort, ad Gent.), into seven breaths or spirits. When proselytes were anointed invocations were addressed to the Holy Spirit, which was called the Mother of the seven houses, which, as Beausobre (t. i. p. 418) rightly observes, means the seven heavens of the seven planets. "Mother*^ means Creator, male or female. The Hebrew word for Spiritus is feminine. The ancients represented the element of air or of the Spiritus by a symbolic bird — the dove (Kirch. CEdip. vol. ii.). This bird signifies the Holy Spirit in Chris- tianity also: it is in this form that it appears in the Christian Scriptures, and that it is represented in Christian churches. St. Augustine (De Civit. Dei, 1. VII. cap. xxiii.), following Varro, analyses the universal soul of the Great Whole, which he divides into three portions — the animal, the sensitive, and the intellectual. He says that the latter, which he calls the third degree of this soul, is the ethereal fire which constitutes the essence of the Deity, and that the stars are only con- sidered divine because they participate in the divine and intellectual Fire. In this system, trees, plants, and rocks are the bones and hair of the Deity. The^body of the stars, of the sun, and of the moon perform the functions of the senses, and the ether performs the function of the Intel- ligent Soul which properly constitutes the Deity. He also says (ibid. 1. XI. cap. ix.) that the creation of the celestial spirits or angels is comprised in that of the ether or heaven, p p 578 MANKIND : THEIR tlie unity of which is designated by that of the unity of each of the days of creation. They participate in that eternal light which constitutes the wisdom of God, and which, he says, we call his only Son, an idea which is very similar to that of Yarro and the Stoics respecting the stars. The principle of Fire, therefore, which was eternal, and which was God, comprehended the Spiritus and the Aoyo? in its substance. These ideas are absolutely the same as those contained in the theology of Orpheus, who concen- trated in the sole ethereal fire which embraces the aniverse the three principles of Divine Nature, or Divine Power alone, with the three names of Light, Wisdom, and Life. It is the same in Christianity. The life was light, and the light was life, and the light was the Word (John i.), Orpheus says, (Suidas, voce Orpheus), "Before all things, the Ether was produced by the first God. This Ether existed in the midst of a vast chaos, and of frightful darkness which surrounded it on all sides. From the summit of the ether a ray of light issued forth, which gave light to the earth and to all Nature. This light, the most ancient and sublime of all beings, is the inaccessible God, who envelopes all in his substance, and who is called Wisdom, Light, and Life." Zoroaster (Sharisth. apud Hyde, cap. xxii.) taught that when God organised the matter of the universe he sent his Will in the shape of dazzling light ; it appeared in the shape of a man, and was attended by seventy of his most distin- guished angels. The Phoenicians also placed the intellectual l)ortion of the universe, and that of our souls, which is an emanation from it, in the substance of Light. Its irradiation is looked upon as the act of the pure Soul, and its substance as a being as incorporeal as Wisdom (Julian, Orat. iv.). Oedrenus tells us that the Chaldaeans also worshipped Light, which they called Intellectual Light, and which they designated by tbe two letters A and 12, which represented the extreme terms of the diffusion of light, in the seven planetary bodies, the first of which, the moon, corresponded to A, while the last, or Saturn, corresponded to fi, and the sun was expressed by I. These three vowels form the god IAD, of the Gnostics, or the Havavyeia, or universal light, distributed throughout the seven planetary bodies, the principal of which is the Sun. This Uavavysta is exhibited in the first chapter of the Apocalypse, in the midst of the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 570 seven golden candlesticks, and under the emblem of the seven stars which Christ holds in his hand. The Gebirs still worship light as the most glorious attri- bute of the Deity. " rire," say these old disciples of Zoroaster, " produces light, and light is God." (Chardin.) In the Jewish writings, when God appears there is always a fire (Exod. iii. 2, xxiv. 10, xxxiii. 18; Ezek. i. 4). The most able and most orthodox of the Fathers constantly assert that God is a light, and a very sublime light (Greg. Naz. Orat. xvi.) ; that all the lights we see, however brilliant, are but a feeble ray of this light (ibid. Orat. iv.) ; that the Son is a light which has -had no beginning; that God is an inacces- sible light which always gives light, and never disappears ; and that all the virtues which surround the Deity are lights of the second order — ^rays of the First Light. This is the usual language of the Fathers, both before and after the Council of Nice (Beausobre. tome i. p. 469). " The Word," they say, " is the light which came, into the world ; it emanates from the bosom of that Light which is self-existent. It is God bom of God ; it is a light which emanates from a light. The soul is self-luminous because it is the breath of immortal light,'^ &c. The spiritual conception thus promul- gated was founded on the old material conception, of which it retained the divisions, but it was as much detached as possible &om what was material in the latter. As meta- physical ideas acquired strength, the relative positions of these conceptions became reversed, and the spiritual concep- tion came to be looked upon as the actual and real universe, the model and archetype of the material one. The first verses of the fourth gospel must be thus understood : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by him,, and without him was not anji^hing made that was made," ad. idea which is absolutely identical with the Platonic system, which places the eternal model of all the visible creation in the A6yo9, or Divine Wisdom. There was a spiritual sun, of which the visible sun was but the image ; there was material and immaterial light ; and there was an immaterial XdyoBy which dwelt from all eternity in the mind of the invisible Deity, and a material \6yo9f which was rendered visible to man, and which dwelt with him in the visible universe — the sun. The Fathers explain in this manner the passage F P 2 58() MANKIND : THKIR in John i. 9 : ^^ That was the truo Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.'* This is true of the sun in the material sense ; in the metaphysical sense it is also true of the intellectual light of which our spirits are but rays. And just as the Emperor Marcus Aurelius says that we are all united to the same Spirit by a common participation in it, and that this Spirit is an emanation from that of the Supreme Being, St. Justin (Apologet. voL ii.) makes out the Word, or the A670*, to be that universal Reason of which man has a portion. He calls this Word the reason of God, and he says that all who follow this light are Christians, whatever opinion they hold about the Deity, such as Socrates, Heraclitus, &c. The dun had the mystic surname of Bacchus, IHS, which the Greek Christiaois have lengthened into ^Irjaovfy adding the usual Greek termination. This mystic name consists of three letters, the numerical value of which is 608. These celebrated letters are written in Iloman letters on our pulpit cloths, in Greek letters on the inside of the roof of the Cathedral of St. Alban's, and in every kind of letters on the churches in Italy. They are described in the verses of Martianus Capella, in the Hymn to the Sun, in the lines beginning Solem te Latiuin vocitat, quod solus honore. The lines relating to the mystical number are Octo et sexcentis numeris, cui litera trina CDnformet sacrum nomen^ coj^omen et omen. This number, 608, is one of the cycles. If we take from the period of 5,200, stated by Oas&ini as Eusebius's (viz. from the Creation to the birth of Christ), the precession for one sign, viz. 2,160, we shall have exactly 3,040, which sum is five sacred periods of 608 each. This will be the time from the Hindu Call Yiig, which begins when the Sun enters Aries, or the Lamb, at the vernal equinox (As. Res. vol. ii. p. 398), and which is the date of the flood according to the Brahmin doctrine, to the birth of Christ. This with the three in the preceding 2,160 years, the time the sun took to pass through Taurus, makes up the eight ages which the sacred college of Etruria, when it was consulted in B.C. 1 19 declared was nearly at an end, and that another, for the betf r or the wrvrge. ^"^ ^ 1-0,, 4^ fQ ^^^ place (Plutarch in ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 681 Syllam, p. 456), and which Juvenal, who lived in the first century, declared was past (Sat. 13, ver. 28) : Nona setas ag^tur, pejoraqne sncula ferri Teniporibu9 : quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa Nonien, et d nullo posuit natura metallo. On this passage Isaac Yossius says, ^^ Octo illas setates credit appellatas a coeli regionibus, quas octo faciebant Pythagorei, nonam vero, ob qud, hie, a t^Uure denominatum opinatur : in libeUo de Sibyle." According to Babbi Mor l8aa<; (Kirch. (Edip. vol. i. p. 172) the Egyptians not only attributed life and intelligence to the stars, but also assigned to them free-will in their move- ments and in the exercise of their power, such as gods ought to possess. Kircher shows (vol. ii. p. 200) how these gods or celestial spirits placed in the stars in the Egyptian system were held to act upon sublunary nature, and how from the lofby thrones upon which they were held to be placed they directed the activity of the stars, and the cone of light whose base was in heaven, and whose apex touched the earth, towards it. Astrology, and the whole system of Destiny was entirely based upon the supposed existence of animated and intelligent stars, as Salmasius (Ann. Clim. Prsef.) has well observed. In the description which Martianus Capella gives us of the council of the gods we see the different spirits which preside over the signs, planets, &c., whose combined action modifies the elements, and governs by them, and in them the whole system of sublunary changes, which is subordinate to the general administration of the celestial causes. Hence there is the same division into active and passive among the spirits as has been mentioned among the physical causes. For all the celestial and terrestrial or elementary divisions have each of them their spirits, which unite and are bound together in the general action of the universe, and which are therefore mingled in poems and sacred fictions respecting spirits just as they are mingled in allegories respecting the action of physical causes. There will consequently be celestial and terrestrial gods, which will bear the same relation to one another as Nature has established between heaven and earth in their mutual action on each other. The air, the water, and the earth will have their deities who are subordinate to the 58i MANKIND : THEIR spirits or the gods who dwell in the stars, as these elements are subordinate to the stars themselves, to their inflnences and movements. Hence we have from the summit of the heavens to the lowest abysses of the earth that chain of gods of mature and of diflferent powers which binds together all portions of the imiverse according to the series and distribu- tion of them given by an oracle of Apollo which Eusebius (Prsep. Evang. 1. lY. cap. ix.) has transmitted to us, and he makes the observation that by the celestial gods we must understand the stars. This chain is nothing but the progression of the Universal Soul in its different degrees and in the path which it takes along the body of the Universe when it descends to give it life. It preserves, according to Varro (August, de Civ. Dei, 1. VII. cap. viii.), a well-marked distinction between the active and passive cause, and between their principal divisions, where it assumes different characteristics, and imparts them to the souls and the numerous spirits which people these different portions of the Great Whole. Varro says that in the circuit of the heavens from the summit of Olympus to the moon the souls or ethereal spirits are the stars, fixed and movable, which are the visible deities. In the aerial space which is below the moon are invisible spirits known as genii, heroes, and lares. " This," continues Augustine, " is an abridgment of natural theology," a theology which has been adopted not only by Varro, but by a number of philosophers. The origin of the double movement of souls, which has already been noticed, is that as generation only takes place in the sublunary world, which is divided into four layers of elements, all that belongs to generation is, according to Empedocles (Ovid. Metam. 1. I. fab. ix.), war and discord ; while, on the other hand, he calls all that belongs to com- bustion and to the return of bodies to the primitive fire which forms the pure substance of the stars, concord and peace. This was what made him say that everything in Nature was brought about by contraries. There was the progress of Nature from the upper to the lower, and from the lower to the upper regions. This theory was afterwards applied to souls, which, when they became united to bodies by means of generation, followed the downward course ; and when they became separated from them by death, pur- sued the upward course ; and this was because souls w^re ORIGIN A>T) DESTINY. 583 supposed to be of the nature of ethereal fire (Macrob. Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. X.), which here below is captive and subject to the clashing of the elements, and which regains its liberty when it re-ascends to the luminous region of the other where peace and eternal happiness reign. This soul was in a state of purity and of incredible mo- bility at the circumference of the universe, because nothing which was foreign to it retarded its natural activity ; but it lost both its purity and its activity as it descended towards the centre of the earth and became united with matter which became grosser as it drew nearer to this centre. Like the radius of an immense circle, one extremity of which traverses the circumference with enormous rapidity, while the other seems almost immovable in the centre, tiie Soul of the Universe, or the ethereal fire which composed its substance, circulated with infinite speed in the heavens, above which this active fiuid fiowed with a retrograde move- ment, and covered it with a crown of light, while in the centre of the earth it was almost without motion, embedded in the inert mass of dark matter which composes the earth. Its rapid circulation in the upper movable sphere was repre- sented by a winged circle, and wings were also given to the animals of the zodiac, to the Lion, the Ox, the Man, and the Celestial Vulture, which divided its revolution into four equal parts. This is the origin of the wings of the cherubim and of the spirits which were believed to dweU in the stars. The soul, which according to the Pythagoreans and Platonists was nothing but a number which had an essential power of motion, and which therefore could move itself, was bound to the centre of the world as to a fixed poini^ and was free at the circumference. Its movement, there- fore, must be circular. The radius which issued from the centre of the earth to ascend to the highest circle of the heavens wa* graduated according to certain harmonic pro- portions, which decided the special speed which the planets, which were pla<5ed in this radius, ought to have. The proportion or progression had thirty-six periods, that is, as many as the zodiac has parts in its division into decans. The first period was 384, which represented the central unity, and the whole of the periods were 114,695. The intermediate numbers, which gave the harmonic progression of tones and semitones, formed a musical scale, according 584 MANKIND: THEIR to which the soul was distributed into the various portions of the universe, whose harmony it maintained. It was divided into seven parts (Macrob. Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap, vL), and the impulse which it gave to the several heavens drew from them the harmonious sounds which formed the eternal concert of the Deity : — Vidit et oetherio mundum torquerier axe, Et septem eetemiB sonitatn dare vodbus orbes. (VarrOy in Fragm. Aat. Vet. Poet) The light of the Sun, or his rays, were like the bow which Apollo made use of to strike the lyre of the Master of the Universe (Plut. de Pythic. Orac.). Chalcidius says that Pythagoras demonstrated that evil must necessarily exist, because matter is evil in itself, and the world is made of matter. He adds that Pythagoras believed that matter had a soul which resisted Providence. The philosopher Numenius (Chalcid. ad Plat. Tim. n. 296) praised Plato for having maintained that there are two souls in the universe : a beneficent one which is Grod, and a maleficent one which is matter. Matter, according to these philosophers, is the cause and nourisher of the passions of the soul, which contend against reason which comes to us from on high. Beausobre (tome ii. 1. V. cap. vi.) says that the opinion of these philosophers respecting this second soul as distinguished from the luminous soul is the most ancient and the most generally received. From these two souls, which are spread through and mingle in the sublunary world, we get that multitude of good and evil spirits which emanate from it. The natural dominion of the good spirits is situated in Olympus, and descends to the sphere of the moon (Beausob. tome ii. p. 264), for this is where the dominion of evil terminated. But the demons or evil genii spread themselves through the sublunary regions after they had been driven from the region above the moon, below which rude and gross matter placed itself when Chaos was reduced to order. Psellus (apud Stanleb. de Phil. Chald.) says that the Chaldseans sometimes call the sublunary regions Hades or Hell, because it is there that the demons dwell since they have been driven fi^m the sphere of the moon, which is a sacred locality. The word soul answers to the word force, and the force which moves Nature is always expressed by the celestial signs. Thus, ORIGIN AIH) DESTINY. 685 the revolution of the heavens, which is the result of the impulse given by the Universal Soul, is graduated by the successive risings and settings of the paranatellons, of the signs, and of the places of the sun and moon in the zodiac, which are the foundation of the whole mythological system. All the beings which were supposed to be intermediary between God and man — whether gods, demons, or heroes, as among the Greeks, or archangels or angels of diflferent orders as among the Persians, Chaldseans, Jews, and Christians — were placed on the ray above mentioned in more or less elevated positions, according to their nature. This distinc- tion originates in the gradation of the Universal Soul, which seemed to descend as it were of itself from the loftiest sum- mits of heaven to the profoundest abysses of earth, passing through the celestial animals or the stars into the aerial substances ; then into man, animals, plants, and even into tlie metals (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. III. c. iv.). At the Feast of the Pentecost the German Jews have a cake made which consists of seven layers of paste, to represent the seven heavens which God was obliged to remount from the summit of Sinai to get to the heaven where he dwells. The seven heavens are also alluded to in the Talmud (Treatise Berachoth, 1. V.), where we read : " Babbi Lakisch has said, * The tribe of Israel complains to God, saying, A man who marries a second wife always remembers his first ; why hast thou abandoned me ? ' God answers, * How ! I created the planets, and the zodiac, and the seven heavens — all this I have created for thee alone, and thou sayest that thou hast been abandoned.' " Pythagoras made the First Cause to dwell in the highest heaven, called the Firmament (Autor. Vit. Pyth. apud Phot. Cod. 259). Zeno (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. I. cap. xiv. xv.) saw nothing in the whole of Hesiod's theogony but the action of physical causes, and in the gods whom Hesiod describes nothing but the Universal Soul of the Universe, which assumes different names and forms according to the different places in which it is supposed to act, and the different modes in which it displays itself. Plotinus, like Plato, who calls the earth the first and most ancient of the gods, placed a soul in it (Ennead. iv. 1. IV. cap. xxii.), and says that if we look upon each star as a living being, nothing can prevent the earth from being also a living being. He goes on to say 680 MANKIND: TMEIE that this soul is not that of a vile animal, which has but a fleeting existence (ibid. cap. xxvi.), but that it is intieUigent, and a real deity. This idea resembles that of the Stoics, who^ according to Cicero (De Nat. Deor. 1. 1, cap. xv.; IL xxy. xxvi.), placed the different deities in different parts of Nature, where the Universal Soul and Spirit existed. For instance, they placed Ceres in the soul of the Earth (which Origen, in his fourth Homily on Ezekiel, endeavours to prove is alive, com- mits sin, and is punished for it), Neptune in the soul of the waters, Jupiter in that of the air, &c. Flotinus, says Mar- cilius Ficinus (Comment, in Ennead. ii. I. IX. cap. viii.), was persuaded that the earth was full of immortal beings, as well as the whole space between earth and heaven, and heaven itself. Maimonides (More Nev. pars iii.) thinks that what led Moses to forbid magic so emphatically was that it naturally leads to idolatry, or to the worship of those images which represented the stars, and which received the influence or inspiration of those deities. This, he says, resulted from the idea that the stars were inhabited by spirits which dispense prosperity and adversity. Salmasius says that astrology and religion were identical. Whenever the sun, the moon, and the five planets are mentioned, the astrologers call them gods, and their influences, and the effects produced by them, are the same as the characters attributed to the ancient deities known by those names. Thus Venus is the cause of the existence of voluptuaries, Mars of warriors, &c., so great is the analogy between the character of the planets and that of the spirits known by the names of the great gods of antiquity (Sahnasius, pp. 40, 41, 784, 786). The CabaUsts make Eapbael to be the angel of the sun, but he may also be Serpentarius, or the celestial -ffisculapius, who is drawn with the attributes of the serpent, and who, like his father Apollo, was attached to the Sun as his genius or attendant spirit. This conjecture becomes probable from the fact that in a church at Palermo, in which the names of the seven great angels are written with the epithets which characterise them, Raphael is called a physician (Beausob. tome ii. 1. IX. cap. ii. p. 628), which is the name the Greeks gave to ^sculapius ; Michael is called the conqueror, which is the name the Greeks gave their Hercules (Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tome ii. cap. xx. sect. 16, pp. 6, 7) ; Gabriel is called the messenger, and Uriel the good companion. Gabriel, who ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 587 was drawn as an eagle^ which was the bird of Jupiter, had charge of the messages of the Deity. He was naturally more active than the rest. The Cabalists make him to be the angel of the moon, and give him six hundred wings (Hyde de Vet. Pers. Eel., p. 269). The Arabians attributed the same functions to him as the Egyptians and Phoenicians did to Mercury, who was the secretary of Chemos and Osiris. They called him Al-Namus al-Acher, '* the very great secretary,'* (ibid. cap. xx.), and the Jews called him Saphra-Babba, " the great scribe " (ibid. p. 263). Gabriel was one of the angels who was always near the throne of God ; he was the angel who made revelations (Hyde, p. 263). Uriel, who is called " full of fire," and who was represented with an ox's head, appears to be Aldebaran, or Orion, who is sometimes called Urion, that brilliant constellation which is near the Celestial Bull, whose skin he holds. The other archangels may be assigned to the different constellations whose attributes they bear, such as the Great Bear, the Dog, and the Ass. The latter archangel reminds us that some authors state that an ass's head was found in the sanctuary of the temple at Jerusalem (Tacit* Hist. 1. V. cap. iii. iv.; Tertullian, Apologetic). This celestial animal was sacred to Bacchus, and had, it was said, assisted the Jews in discovering springs of water in the desert, just as the Celestial Ram had aided Bacchus in the same way (Hygin. 1. II.; Germanic, cap. ii.). The Arabians worshipped Bacchus, and it is not surprising that there should be a re- semblance in the religious symbols of the two nations, and it is this resemblance probably which makes some authors believe that the Jews worshipped Bacchus. Plutarch (Sympos. 1. IV. probl. V.) assures us that Jehovah waa none other than Bacchus ; and Tacitus (Hist. 1. Y. cap. i.) mentions it as a received notion. The Sabahoth with the ass's head which the Gnostics devised was perhaps also confounded with the Greek Bacchus Sabazius, whom they got from the Eastern nations. According to the Persian cosmogony (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii.), Ormuzd has placed four stars at the four comers of the heavens to watch over the fixed stars, and has posted them as sentinels at the four corners of the world. Taschter guards the East, Satevis the West, Venant the South, and Haftorang the North. The Jews had also*angels " standing on the four corners of the earth " (Rev. vii. 1), and astrology gave them the superintendence of the four winds, which the four angels 588 MANKIND: THEIR in the Bevelations also have (ibid.). The onlj difference is that the angels or spirits of tiie planets are substituted for the planets themselves. A Greek inscription has been found on a stone of the theatre at Miletus (Acad. Inscript. t. xli. p. 522), on which the seven vowels are written with seven different combinar- tions, so that each line has at its commencement the vowel of the planet to which it was consecrated. This is a formularj of prayer, such as was offcen addressed to the intermediarj angels or archangels who dwell in the seven planets. In it the name of Ized is replaced by that of agie or saint, and the name of apxayysXoi, or archangels, which is added to it, leaves no doubt that it was addressed to the seven great spirits of the planets, which were frequently known as the seven arch- angels, or the great angels, or the Amschaspands. Two columns are wanting in this inscription. The Sun occupies the fourth or middle column, and the initial letter of the second line is I, the vowel of the Sun, and the initial letter of the word lOTHAEH. This column has a disk at the top of it, from which rays flowed in all directions. lEOTAHn . . . TIHflAEn TAHOIHE hotiahe' HiEornA AEHI . . . EHIO HIOT lorn orn — OTft . . . THA HAE AEH AEHI A AHE . . . AHE AHE AHE AHE A _ ^6Kavtr6Xiv . — Mi\ri(riuif . 1 I , Kal rrdi^ras 1 — 1 — — — Toi/s KaToiKovyras — — — APXArrEAOI . i — 4>U\CW (TfTCU rj -rrSKis yitKf}(riony Trdyrts Karoucovyres . 1 Kol 1 This inscription was intended to implore the protection of the gods for the town of Miletus and its inhabitants. It is addressed to the spirit of the planet, or to the great angel who had charge of it, to whom the title of ''Ayto^, or saint, is given. The planet is indicated by the combination which belonged to it, which became a mystic and secret name for it (Euseb. Prsep. 1. XI. cap. vi.). In Macrobius (Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. xii. vi. xiv.) we find in his theory of physical causes the theological idea of the in- fluence of the planets, only in a more metaphysical form. He makes the moon to be the active cause of the organisation sublunary beings, and to terminate the series of divine ORKHX AXD DKSTIW. 680 causes. In his planetary spheres there are souls and spirits which cause and guide their circular motion (ibid. cap. xix.), like those in the system of Avicenus. Plato (de Eep. 1. V.'; Macrob. ibid. 1. II. cap. iii.) places a Siren on the outside of each of these spheres, who delights the gods by her songs. Macrobius says that other theologians have placed nine spirits on them, called Muses, to express the concords pro- duced by the eight separate spheres, and they have invented a ninth to express the harmony of the whole. The eighth Muse is called Urania by Hesiod, which is derived from Ovpavofy Heaven. This is the Muse who presides over the heaven of the fixed stars which is above the seven planetary spheres. This is why the star-spirit, or Apollo, who is con- sidered to be in the centre of the harmonies and of the plane- tary system, often takes the title of MovaarfgTrjf, or leader of the Muses. This title is also given to Hercules, who, Plutarch (de Iside) says, moves in the sun, and who is nothing but the Sun-god at the summer solstice. Macrobius says that attempts are made to describe this celestial music by hymns and songs in the sacrifices, just as the movements and paths of the planets ai*e described by the strophe and the anti- strophe. Cicero has spoken of the system of Pythagoras respecting the pretended harmony of the spheres, and the eternal music which they produce by their motions, and their distances graduated according to musical ' principles. Pythagoras made the distance from the Moon to the Earth to correspond to a tone, that from the Moon to Mercury to a semitone, and that from Mercury to Venus to another semitone. The interval between Venus and the Sun corresponded to a tone and a half. From the Sun to Mars was a tone, from Mara to Jupiter a semitone, from Jupiter to Saturn another semi- tone, and from Saturn to the heaven of the fixed stars a tone and a half. This formed an interval of seven tones, or the diapason, the basis of the universal harmony. (See Pliny, Hist. Nat. 1. II. cap. xxii.) Musical proportions were applied in the same way to the phases or aspects of the Moon, to the sextile, to the trine aspect, to the quadrature, &c. (MareiL Fie. in Plotin. Ennead. ii. I. III. cap. iv.) The Chaldceans, Jews, and Christians have also the hierarchic order of the hymning spirits placed in the nine heavens. The Arabians and Syrians have preserved this distribution un- 590 MANKIND: THEIR altered, together with the names of these difPerent orders of spirits, and their relations to the spheres (Kirch. (Edip. vol. ii. part i. chap. x. Mor Isaac). The Syrians place the chorus of angels in the sphere of the Moon ; the principalities in the sphere of Mercury ; the dominions in the sphere of Jupiter; and the thrones at the summit of the planetary system, or the sphere of Saturn. The eighth sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, contains the cherubim, whose figures are taken from the four principal animals which divide the zodiac. The upper sphere, filled with stars which are supposed to be imperc3ptible, contains the spirits called Seraphim. All these angels of different ranks and names are incessantly occupied in celebrating the wonders of the universal Deity. These are the " thrones, dominions, princi- palities, and powers," spoken of in Col. i. 16, and '^the powers of the heavens " which Christ is represented in Matt, xxiv. 29 as saying shall be shaken at the end of the world. These " angels " and " powers " are invited, as well as the sun, moon, and stars over which they preside, to praise Grod in the Song of the three Holy Children. The same is the case in Fs. cxlviii. where all Nature is invited, as well as the angels and hosts of heaven, to praise Jehovah. Even "the waters that be above the heavens," that is, the waters which the ideas of the ancients supposed to be above the firmament, are called upon in this Psalm to praise God, thus showing that the whole hierarchic system of the Syrians is adopted in it, for they placed their vast sea, their boundless Ocean, above the heaven of the Cherubim and Seraphim. To persuade men that virtue is always successful in this world, and that vice always renders those who give them- selves up to it unhappy, would be a very diflScult task. The idea of a future life, in which virtue, which is often despised and persecuted in this world, would be magnificently rewarded, and in which vice, which is often pleasant and successful here below, would one day be severely punished, became a theological dogma so much the more easily that it received much support from metaphysical discussions on the nature of the soul and on the justice of the gods. This is the origin of the ideas of the ancients respecting Elysium and Tartarus. "All," says Adimantes, one of the speakers in Plato's Republic (1. II.), "whose duty it has been to give ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. 501 lessons of justice and of virtue to men, have always recom- mended justice less for its own sake than because of the advantages which it gives, and especially on account of the credit which attaches to appearing to be just, and, as is a natural consequence, on account of the hope of place and of rank which the reputation of justice may procure. The same is the case with piety, which is cultivated on account of the hope of the great benefits which the gods shed pro- fusely on those who are beloved by them." Plato here reminds us of the magnificent promises which Homer and Hesiod make to kings and other men who practise justice. " Acorns,*' they say, " grow abundantly on the tops of the oaks ; swarms of bees in the middle of the trees form the honey which flows from them. Tor them the sheep produce the finest fleeces." Elsewhere they say : " May Heaven show favour to a just and religious king ; may the earth bring forth rich harvests and grain of every sort from her fertile bosom, may the trees bend beneath the weight of fruit, and may the seas produce abundance of fish for him." Virgil (^n. 1. VI. ver. 735) has develoj^ed the great prin- ciples which Pythagoras, the Stoics, and Plato had laid down in their works, and which they borrowed from the Eastern philosophy and from the teaching of the mysteries. In Cicero's time, however, no one, not even the old women, believed in the stories of hell, in Acheron, in the dark dwelling-places of the infernal regions, or in those dreadful places where eternal darkness reigned (Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1. 1. cap. xxi.). Caesar spoke openly in the senate of the state of man after death. "With it," he says, "all our troubles cease " (Sallust. Catilin.) ; and Cato, who embraces his opinion, dares not support the legend of Tartarus, though he seems not to disapprove of it. He spoke to educated men, and these fictions were invented for the people. In the m3'stic ceremonies by means of which the legislators of antiquity taught the belief in Elysium and Tartarus, which was the principal object of them, the origin of the soul was repre- sented, as also its fall to the earth through the spheres and elements, and its return to the place whence it came, when the sacred fire which constituted its essence had not been defiled by its contact with terrestrial matter, and was not laden with particles foreign to it, which weighed it down and retarded its return, was also exhibited by means of 602 MANKIND : THEIR aUegorical figures and spectres, for there is no abstract idea which has not been attempted to be engendered and to be described by means of material representations. The trials which those who sought to be initiated underwent were often of the most appalling description. The initiation into the mysteries of Mithra, or the Sun, among the Persians, began with slight trials, and gradually increased to such a degree of severity that the lives of those who had to undergo them were often in danger. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. i. in Jul. et in zxxiii. Lam.) calls them tortures and mystical punishments. Suidas says that it was impossible to be initiated in them until the person had proved by undergoing the most severe trials that he had a soul which was virtuous and beyond the power of passion, in taxst im- passive. Those who sought to be initiated were obliged for several days to swim across a large piece of water (Hyde, p. 112), into which they were thrown, and only got out with difficulty. The object of the trials was to give them the opportunity of showing the firmness and constancy of a soul which was free from all bodily weaknesses, which was reduced to a species of insensibility. Iron and fire were applied to their limbs ; they were dragged into the different places by their hair; they were thrown into tanks; they were com- pelled to dig the ground until they fell down with fatigue ; they were made to pass through fire, and to undergo long fasts, and were frequently threatened with death. By these means they rose through the different degrees of initiation, being first soldiers, then lions, crows, &c., names which symbolised the different states of perfection which they arrived at before being completely initiated. Twelve prin- cipal trials were reckoned, though some say there was a larger number. The Coenobites made those who wished to become members of their association sleep for several days at the gates of their monasteries, and devised noviciates during which they put the sincerity and the patience of the candidate to the proof (Joannes cap. 1. IV. ; Instit. cap. iii.). All the ascetic orders copied this institution from the Egyp- tians. Among the Jews the Essenes only admitted new candidates after they had passed through several graduated trials (Porphyr. 1. IV. de Abstin.). In order to give more weight to the fictions which repre- sented the judgment and destiny of souls after death, a ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 603 description was given which was said to be not the result of the fancies of poets and philosophers, but the account and testimony of a man who had died and risen again (Plata de Bep. 1. X.). This man, having been killed in a fight, waซ taken into his house, and placed on the funeral pyre on the twelfth day after his death. Just as the torch was about to be applied to it, he came to life again, and told what he had seen in hell. Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. III.) gives Zoroaster the credit of this marvellous narrative, which he looks upon as a fiction respecting the travels of the soul through the signs of the zodiac on its way back to the ethereal light. This man is made to say that when his soul was separated from his body he found himself travelling with a crowd of dead persons, who went to a sacred spot where he saw two openings near one another, which formed the entrance to a gulf which extended below the earth, and two others above, in the sky, which corresponded to them. In the space between these different openings sat judges, who, after investigating the conduct of those who appeared before their tribunal, caused the just to go to their right hand, where the opening was which led to heaven, after tying in front of them the sentence which attested their virtue. This divine spot to which the souls went to be judged was called the Field of Truth (Axioc. p. 371) ; no doubt because the whole truth was told there. Hierocles also speaks of this famous Field of Truth. In Eev. xix. 11, we have the heaven opened, and a spirit of light who is called Faithful and True, and whose name is the Word of God, who judges in righteous- ness. In this field, says the author of Axiochus, the judges Minos and Bhadamanthus sit. It is impossible to utter falsehoods there, as Virgil observes [Mn* 1. IX. ver. 567) when he tells us that Bhadamanthus compels the dead to confess the crimes they had committed when on earth. Those who had listened to the advice of their good or guardian angel went to join the chorus of the faithful, or of the virtuous souls (Axiochus, p. 371) ; for, as Servius has well observed (Comm. ^neid. 1. VI. v. 535), everyone who was bom entered the world attended by two spirits (Plato de Eep. 1. X.), one of whom advised him to do wrong, and the other to do right. Lucian (Necyomantic.) says that it is the shadow which our bodies cast, and which attends us all our life, which contains our soul, and which comes to give an account of our conduct QQ fm MANKIND : THEIR before the tribunal of the Great Judge. All who were guilty of crimes passed to the left to take the road which led to the abysses of the earth, carrying behind them the sentence which contained the enumeration of their crimes. We have here exactly the representation of the Gospels, where the lambs, or good people, pass to the right, and the goats, or wicked, to the left. There are three classes of men. The first consists of those whose virtue is pure, and whose soul is free from the tyranny of the passions : these are the fewest in number, and are the elect. The second have their souls stained with the blackest crimes ; but these are, fortunately, not the largest number. There is a third class, and unquestionably the most numer- ous, who are half virtuous, half vicious, and who are un- worthy of either Elysium or Tartarus. This triple division is given by Plato in the Phsedo. He says, after describing the celestial earth and the subterranean regions : " Things being thus disposed by Nature, when the dead arrive at the spot whither the familiar spirit of each leads it, the judg- ment begins with those who have lived in conformity with the rules of courtesy, piety, and justice, those who have utterly violated them, and those who have preserved a species of medium between the two. They all advance towards Acheron, and, entering the boats which are allotted to them, they go into the marshes, where they have to remain some time, until, having undergone the chastisement due to their faults, and being purified from their stains, they leave them to receive, according to their deserts, the reward due to them for the good they have done. Among those who are punished there are some who, in consequence of the enormity of their crimes (such as those who are guilty of great sacrileges, assas- sins, in fact, all who have committed great crimes), are cast into Tartarus, as they deserve, from which they will never escape." Here we have the distinction between mortal and venial sins, which Plato certainly did not borrow from the Christians. The third class he represents as being sent to Tartarus for a year, after which they can escape, if they can prevail on those whom they have injured to allow them to do so. The judge places his seal upon each of those who are sent to hell, in order to know who are condemned to eternal punishment, and who are only to be chastised for a short time (Plat, de Bep. L X.). Initiation, however, fortified the soul against ORIGIN AND DESTINY. r,05 the fear of hell (Axioch. p. 871). The author of the treatise called Axiochus, says that Hercules and Bacchus got them* selves initiated before they went down to hell, and acquired the courage necessary for undertaking this dread journey in the sanctuary of Eleusis. Plutarch, in his answer to the Epicureans, after pointing out the three classes of men spoken of aboye, says of those who lead an ordinary life, and have an ordinary amount of morality, that the threats of hell do not much alarm them, because they know that they can be delivered from them by means of lustrations and initiations, through which they attain to an abode of pleasure, where the most dazzling light shines, where the air is always pure, and where games and dances are the only occupation. This was the result of being initiated, and the apologist for in- justice, in the second book of Plato's Republic, says the same. " We shall be terrified, men will say, by the fear of the punishments of hell ; but who is there that does not know that we shall find a remedy against this fear in the initiations, that they are a wonderful resource for us, and that we learn by them that there are gods who free us from the penalties due to crime 9 We have committed injustice. True, but it has procured us money. They tell us also that the gods allow themselves to be prevailed upon by prayers, sacrifices, and offerings. Well I out of the very profits of our injustice we wiU find the means of making the offerings which will appease their wrath." The ideas respecting the ethereal fire, which was the origin of our souls according to the ancients, were the origin of the celebrated dogma of the metempsychosis which prevailed throughout the East. Pythagoras, who brought it from the East, was the first, according to Diogenes Laertius (Vit. Pyth.), who dreamt that the soul, enchained in the circle of necessity, assumes successively the shapes of different animals. Pythagoras made Mercury the depositary and the leader of these souls. From him it passed into the mysteries, where men were persuaded to escape from the circle of theae successive changes by virtuous conduct. The initiated, therefore, prayed the gods for nothing more ardently than to be freed from this circle, and restored to their true life — to be freed from the dominion of evil. Proclus says that this is the chief prayer of the initiated into the mysteries of Bacchus and Proserpine. In the orgies of Bacchus, the Q Q 2 &06 mankind: their poriiication of souls was represented by a procession of priests, dressed in character, and carrying each the emblematical implement of the modes of purification by the several elements of water, air, earth, and fire (see Servins, JEn. 1. VI. ver. 740). The first, in the dress of penitence and abstinence, having his raiment of camel's hair, &c., carried a yase of water in his hand, and ^' came baptizing with water xinto repentance," announcing a second, who came with a fan in his hand, and a sieve, representing the winnowing of com — he baptized with air, the use of the fan being to create that rushing mighty wind which is the more efficient purifier of souls, ^^ whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor ; " a third carried a lighted torch, to burn up the chaff, which the motion of the fan blew out of the sieve, with unquenchable fire; a fourth carried the implements of purification by earth, a pruning-hook or adze, ** to be laid at the root of the tree," that every branch that did not bear fruit might be taken away. This officer was the husbandman, whose hieroglyphic baptism was by earth, his mode of puri- fication being that " every branch that beareth not firuit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth firuit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit " (John xv. 2). These purifications were accompanied by magical formulae, and the initiated person was sometimes made to pass through the fire (Procop. Gaz. in Deuteron., Lucian). The sacred gates of the temple at Athens, in which the initiation took place, were only opened once a year (Demosth. in Neser. Schol. Aris. ad v. 583), and no stranger was ever allowed to enter them. Night lent her veil to these august mysteries, which were not allowed to be revealed to any one whatever (Paus. Corinth, cap. Ixxxvii.). This was the only occasion on which the representation of the death, descent into hell, and resurrection of Bacchus, similar to that of the sufferings of Osiris, which Herodotus tells us were commemo- rated at Sais in Egypt, was given. On this occasion the body of the god was distributed and eaten (Clem. Prot. Eur. Bacch. ver. 139). This emblematic representation consisted of raw flesh, which each of those present partook of, in memory of the death of Bacchus, who had been torn to pieces by the Titans. His sufferings and death were repre- sented every year at Chios and at Tenedos by the immolation of a man, who represented him (Porph. de Abst., 1. II. ง 66). ORIGIN AND DESTIN1\ 6tป7 This festival was celebrated at the vernal equinox, like our Easter, at the time when the sun passed into the sign of the zodiac which was formerly occupied by the Bull, whose shape Bacchus assumed, and subsequently by the Lamb (Pint, de Cup. Div.). Apollo was also slain by Python, and his tomb was at Delphi. Three women came to weep at it, just as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Mary Salom^3 came to the tomb of Christ. Python, in the legend of Apollo, is the serpent of the pole, who brings back each year autumn, cold, darkness, and winter, and whom Apollo triumphs over at the vernal equinox. Pythagoras engraved some elegiac verses on this mystic tomb. Herodotus (Euterp. cap. cxxv.) says that the Egyptians were the first who asserted the immortality of the soul, and held that it underwent various metamorphoses, passing into the bodies of different animals, terrestrial, marine, or winged, and ulti- mately returned again to a human body. Three thousand years was the space they allotted to the completion of this circle, which brings man back after several metamorphoses to his primitive organisation. This is the circle of Pytha- goras and of Proclus, the termination of which was longed for by the initiated, that they might arrive at that period of rest which virtuous souls enjoy. Besides Pythagoras, Empedocles also taught this doctrine in Greece. This philosopher went so far as to assert that souls were metamor- phosed into plants, which was, as it were, the ultimate period of the degradation of the soul (Diog. Laert. Vit. Emp.). ^lian (De Anim. 1. XII. cap. vii.) tells us that the highest metamorphosis into a plant was into a laurel, and the highest into a quadruped was into a lion. The reason of this was that the laurel was the plant, and the lion the animal, which the ancients had consecrated to the Sun, into which the most virtuous souls were to go, according to the oriental system, which was adopted by the Manichseans, &c. The Jews also admired this doc^ne (Marshara, Chem. Can. p. 287). They, however (Beaus. t. ii. 1. VII. cap. v. ง 6, p. 495), limited these transmigrations to three, an idea which they appear to have taken from Plato. The pre-existence of souls was also, according to a modern Babbi (Mennasch-ben- Isr. Probl. x. de Procr. Anim.), always a belief among the Jews. Some philosophers have attempted to explain how 598 . M.\NKIND : THEIR and why it is that souls, which are pure and celestial sub- stances, become united to portions of matter in which the germs of evil and of darkness and of yicious passions, which rob them of their pristine innocence, exist, by supposing that they had committed some sin in their primaBval ' state of which their incarnation was the penalty. This appears to be the idea which the hierophants sanctioned in the initia- tions and mysteries. Jamblichus, who had been initiated, writes : ^' Before being exiled into a body, the soul had heard the harmony of the heavens, and if accents similar to those divine melodies, which it always remembers, are heard by it, it leaps with joy, and is ravished and transported by them." He also says : ^^ The justice of Gk)d is not the justice of man. Man founds justice upon relations drawn from his present life and condition. Qodi founds it upon our suc- cessive existences, and upon the whole of our lives. The troubles which afflict us are therefore ofben the penalties of a sin which the soul had been guilty of in a former state of existence. God^ sometimes conceals the reason of them from us, but we must not on that account cease to attribute them to his justice." Other philosophers, on the contrary, thought that God sent souls into bodies by an absolute decree of his will (Beaus. t. ii. p. 831). The Cabalists have adopted both these ideas, and have said of some that there are souls which are sent into matter by an absolute decree of Providence, which they call Destiny ; and of others, that they descend into matter through their own fault. The system of the Cabalists is as follows : They distinguish four worlds — the Aziluthic, the Briartic, the Jeziruthic, and the Aziatbic — ^that is, the world of emanations, the world of creation, the world of formation, and the material world. These worlds difiFer both in position, being above one another, and in perfection ; both as to their nature, and as to the beings which inhabit them. Souls exist originally^ in the Aziluthic world, which is the highest heaven, the abode of the Deity, and of pure and immortal spirits. They all have a natural and living vehicle to which they are attached. This is the aerial chariot, the Ochema of the Pythagoreans, which carries them. Those which descend from the Aziluthic world by the express order of Providence are provided with a certain divine power which preserves them from the contagion of ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 599 matter, and they infalliblj return to heaven as soon as their mission is ended. This is not the case with those souls which descend through their own fault (Beaus. t. ii. p. 881). They experience, at first, some wish to descend into the Briartic world, and from that time they insensibly grow cold in their love of divine things and in inward contemplation. They fix their attention on the Aziathic world (ibid. p. 832), and feel some inclination to attain to it ; their chariot begins to grow heavy. This weight increases in the Jezirathic world, so that they fall, as it were, into the Aziathic world, dragged down by their own weight. All this theory resembles the theory of Macrobius, only the terms and the divisions of the sky are difierent. The Essenes, like Plato, teach the fiction of the desire of souls for matter. They held that souls descended from the most elevated portion of the ether, being led by the allurements of matter to join themselves to bodies (Porphyr. de Abstin. cap. xiiL ; de Essen. L IV.). The philosophers and mystagogues also held this belief, for they considered it impossible that the soul should exist after the body if it had not existed before it, and if its nature were not independent of that of the body, as Lactantius has observed (1. III. cap. xviii.). Almost all the Greek Fathers have adopted this idea, as well as some of the Boman Church. Babbi Elias says that the doctrine of the metempsychosis was believed in and approved of by the heads of his religion, who have no doubt that human souls pass from one body to another at least three times. They are positive that Adam's soul passed into David, and that it will one day dwell in the body of the Messiah. They say that the soul of an adulterer will pass into the body of a camel, and that David's soul would have suffered this penalty if he had not repented. Babbi Mennasch-ben-Israel says that QoA never allows souls to be entirely lost, and never annihilates them (Beausobre, t. ii. p. 499) ; that he has not determined to banish them absolutely and for ever from his presence, but only for a time, until they are purified from their sins, after which he sends them back again to the world by means of the metempsychosis. Not only the learned among the Jews, but Christians of distinguished piety and learning, held this belief. Origen believed that souls dwelt in several bodies in succession, and tliat those transmigrations were regulated according to their 600 MANKIND: THEIR merits and demerits. St. Jerome reproaches him for having taught that reasoning souls could be rendered so vile as to pass into the bodies of animals. Bishop Sjnesius, who had been initiated, addresses the following prayer to God : " O Father ! grant that my soul, being re-united to light, may not be again plunged into the mire of earth '* (Syn. Frag. iii.). Chalcidius (In Tim. ง 187), another Christian philosopher, says that " the souls which have neglected to attach themselves to God are compelled by the law of destiny to begin a new kind of life, quite contrary to their former one, until they repent of their sins." Sallust, speaking of the feasts of rejoicing which took place at the vernal equinox, and the feasts of mourning in remembrance of the rape of Proserpine, which took place in autumn, says that the Hilaria were celebrated at the vernal equinox, during which it was the custom to crown oneself with flowers, because at that period the return of the soul to the gods took place ; while the festival of the rape of Proserpine (the celebration of whose mysteries was called going down to the infernal regions, according to Servius) was the festival of the descent of souls to hell. This was why the astrologers placed the Styx in the eighth degree of Libra. Firmicus (1. VIII. cap. xii.) tells us that this eighth degree of Libra was what was called the Styx, and says that there can be no doubt that the Styx meant the earth. This mystic idea shadows foi-tli the allegory of the fall of souls to the earth. The Milky Way, which passes near Cancer and Capricorn, the two doors of heaven, was considered by the ancient theo- logians to be the road which souls passed over (Porphyr. de Antro, p. 127; Manil. 1. I. ver. 7G2). They formed, in fact, according to Pythagoras, that assemblage of shades which met in the Milky Way, or the Tload of Milk, to which this name is given on account of the souls which descend here below into the world of generation in order to feed upon milk, which is their principal food ; and it is for that reason also that those who invite the shades of the dead to come to their tombs by means of libations mingle milk with the honey in them. Macrobins (1. I. cap. ix.) speaks of the natural abode of souls, which he fixes in the first sphere: "Animis enim nee cjum desiderio corporis irretitis siderea pars mundi prsestat ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 001 habitacTilum, et inde labuntnr in corpora. Meo his ill5 est reditus qui merentur. Rectissime ergo dictum est, cum in Galaxia, quam Aplanes continet, sermo iste procedat: hue profecti, hue revertuntur." Macrobius gives nearly the same explanations as Pytha- goras respecting the mode in which the cave of Ithaca was arranged, and respecting the two gates of the Sun and of souls, and the Milky Way (Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. xii.). He also brings into this theory the celebrated crater, or celestial cup, of the mysteries, which is near Cancer and Leo, that is, near the domicile of the two stars which were also called the two gates of the souls (Porph. de Antro), assigning the one by which they descended to the moon, and the one by which they re-ascended to the sun. As, according to Porphyry (Somn. Scip. 1. 1, cap. xxi.), the progression of souls, or rather their progressive movement through the universe, takes place through the midst of the fixed stars and the planets, those who superintended the cave of Mithra did not confine themselves to delineating the zodiac and the other constellations, and to marking gates at the four cardinal points of the zodiac through which the souls entered into the world of generation or left it, and through which they passed from the empire of light to that of darkness, and vice versa. They also represented in it the seven planetary spheres through which the souls are obliged to pass in order to come down from the heaven of the fixed stars to the elements which envelop the earth, and they marked seven gates, one for each planet, through which the souls passed both when they ascended and when they descended. "Celsus," says Origen (Contr. Cels. 1. VI.), ** pretends, like Plato, that the path of souls from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven lies through planets. And in order to make a great show of learning in his controversy with us, he says that this doctrine is held sacred in the mysteries of the Persians, and in the ceremonies of initiation of their god Mithra. Celsus says that in these mysteries they drew by varied symbols the celestial spheres, both the fixed stars and the planets, and the paths which the souls took through these spheres. The symbolic imagery they used was as follows. They represented a ladder which reached from earth to heaven, and which was divided into seven steps or stages, on each of which was a door, and at e02 1IAXK15D: THEIR the top there was an eighth door, which was no doubt the door of the fixed stars. The first of the seven doors, which were ranged along the mystic ladder, was made of lead, the second of tin, the third of shining brsiss, the fourth of iron, the fifth of alloy, the sixth of silver, and the serenth of gold. *^ The first gate was the gate of Saturn, whose slowness of movement was represented by the heaviness of lead. The second was the gate of Venus, whose soft^ light and flexible nature was represented by tin. The third was the gate of Jupiter, whose solidity and arid nature were expressed by brass. The fourth was the gate of Mercury, whose indeป fiitigable activity was expressed by iron, of which his gate was made ; an allusion was also intended to his mercantile genins and his sagacity. The fifth gate was the gate of Mars, and the alloy of which it was made represented his unequal and variable nature. The sixth was the gate of the Moon, and the seventh the gate of the Sun. The colours of the planets were designated by the metals of which their gates were made.^ 9> ORIGIN AND DESTINY. (K)3 CHAPTEE XXn. Men loDg received the benefits which Nature bestowed upon them without enquiring into the cause of them, and when at length they did enquire, they conceived that they found it in Nature herself. She was therefore their first deity, and they received her gifts without its having as yet occurred to them that they could be sought for and obtained by means of offerings and prayers. Worship was ultimately founded on man's wants and on the feeling of his depend- ence on something higher. If man had wanted nothing, or if the gods had possessed no power, there would have been no worship, and the idea of a universal Providence was the basis of all religious sentiment (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. I. cap. ii.). This Providence, however, was neither omniscient, since it was necessary that man should inform it of its wants ; nor unchangeable, since its decrees could be altered by means of prayer; nor disinterested, since it required ofierings and presents ; but men, struck by the spectacle of the Universe and its influence over their wants, and per- suaded, moreover, that it contained a spirit of understanding which could listen to their prayers, besought heaven to send rain upon their fields, as in Argolis, where sacrifices were made to Jupiter and Juno when rain was wanted (Pans. Corinth.), and prayed to the Sun that he would ripen their harvests. Plutarch (De Placit. Phil. 1. I. cap. vi.) says that men^ seeing the regular and perpetual motion of the sky and of the sta,rs, which bring back the sun and the moon to us, gave them the name of gods, and looks upon this observa- tion as the first source of religious ideas. He adds that the sky appeared to them to act as a father by means of the rains which it poured upon the bosom of the earth, which in its turn became a mother, being fertilised by them. He says elsewhere (Symp. L VI. prob. ii.) that after the 604 MA>^KIND : THEIR agriculturist has used every means in his power to remedy the evils of drought, heat, and cold, he addresses himself to the gods in order to obtain from them those benefits which are beyond the power of man to procure, such as gentle dews, moderate warmth, and genial breezes. Thus the want of rain and of fine weather among agricultural nations, of favourable winds among seamen, and of health among all nations, has been the earliest foundation of worship ever since some men, more skilful or better observ- ing than others, found means to persuade the vulgar that they were the depositaries of the secrets of Nature and the ministers of her power and her favours. This was the origin of the worship of the stars, and of the spirits which were placed in the sun, in the planets, in the stars, and in all the elements. We must not suppose, says Plutarch (De Iside), that every nation and every town had different gods, that the gods of the Greeks were not the gods of the barbarians, or that those of the northern nations were not the same as those of the southern. As the sun, moon, and stars, and the sky, the earth and the sea, are common to all nations, so are the gods also. Bnt their names and forms vary on account of the difierent religious institutions which have caused the mode of worship to differ. Some call them by mystic names, others by more inteUigible ones, and bring them forward in simpler forms. Isis and the other genii known to the Egyptians are gods who are worshipped by nations which have no Nile and no Memphis ; and although but a short time has elapsed since they called these deities by their Egyptian titles, many centuries have elapsed since they began to recognise their power, and to worship them (Plut. ibid.). Light and darkness, summer and winter, the bright em- pyrean above, and the dull, gross, material earth below, such are the simple, almost infantile, ideas upon which the vast fabric of revealed theology has been imised. Thus Pythagoras, according to Varro (De Ling. Lat. L rV.), recognised two principles of all things— the Finite and the Infinite, Good and Evil, Life and Death, and Day and Night. Yarro adds that when light was shown to tlie Greeks they exclaimed, " How good light is ! '* Pythagoras held that white belonged to the good principle, and black ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 605 to the evil (Diog. Laert, 1. VIII.) ; that light and darkness, heat and cold, dryness and moisture, were mingled in equi 1 proportions (ibid.) ; that summer was the triumph of heat, and winter of cold, and that their combination in equal parts produced spring and autumn, one of which was the cause of yerdure, and was favourable to health ; while the other, by deteriorating everything, gave rise to diseases. He applied the same idea to the rising and setting of the sun, and held, like the Magi, that God resembled light in his body and truth in his soul (Porph. Vit. Pyth.). The vault of heaven was, as Varro (De Ling. Lat. cap. vi.) tells us, originally called Templum, or Temple, by the ancient Eomans. One of their poets calls it the temple of the heavens, spangled with brilliant stars. Afterwards the augurs limited this space by a species of signs or boundaries, which they fixed upon, on the horizon, and this also, according to Yarro, was called Templum, and was the origin of the sacred buildings whose narrow confines bounded the contem- plations of the worshippers in after times. But no such restrictions confined the adoration either of the earlier races of mankind, or of many civilized nations who retained this practice, which they held to be suitable to the vastness of Nature. They prayed and sacrificed on the summits of mountains, where no obstacle intervened to circumscribe their vision. They refused to believe that Nature could dwell anywhere but in herself, or could have any edifice but that of the Universe, which rests on eternal foundations; nor would they have any images of their gods except the gods themselves, whom they could see. " In this manner," says Diogenes Laertius (p. 7, in proem.), " the ancient Persians reasoned." The hold which these beliefs have upon mankind may be partly explained by their immense antiquity. Hero- dotus (Euterp. cap. xliii.) tells us that the worship of Hercules had been established in Egypt from the most remote period, years before the birth of the pretended son of Alcmena ; that the Greeks borrowed the name of Hercules from the Egyptians, and not the Egyptians from the Greeks ; that the worship of Hercules had existed in Egypt more than seventeen thousand years, and that he was among them one of the twelve great gods. He also says that he had seen an ancient temple of Hercules in Phoenicia which had been -built more llian 2,800 years before the time when the birth e06 HANKIND : THEIB of ihe Grecian Hercules, or, in other words, when the intro- daction of his worship into Greece, took place. He adds that he afterwards went to the island of Thasos, where the Phoenician colonies had built a temple to this god more than five generations before the age of the Grecian Hercules, from which he concludes that Hercules is one of the most ancient of the gods, and that his worship was established in Phoenicia and in Egypt before it was in Greece (ibid. cap. xiv.). Aristotle (De CoeL cap. ii. งง 4, 5, &c.) has given a brief analysis of the divisions of the ether, that divine and incor* ruptible element, as he calls it. He says: ^^ Among the stars which are formed of this substance, and which are contained in the heavens, some are fixed, turning with the sky, and always preserving the same mutual relations. In the midst of them is the circle called Zoophorus (the zodiac), which extends obliquely from one tropic to the other, and is divided into twelve parts, which are the twelve signs. The others are wandering stars (planets), and neither move at the same speed as the fixed stars, nor at the same speed as each other, but all in difierent circles, some of which are nearer and others more distant from the earth than the rest. Although all the fixed stars move under the same surface of the heavens, it is impossible to ascertain their numbers. As to the wandering stars, there are seven of them, each of which moves in as many concentric circles, in such a manner that the lower circle is always smaller than the one above it, and that all the seven, enclosed one within the other, are contained by the heaven of the fixed stars. Immediately below the fixed stars is the circle of Phenon, or Saturn ; next comes that of Phaeton, or Jupiter ; next that of Pyrois, or Mars or Hercules. Immediately after them comes the glittering Stilbon, which is consecrated to Mercury and to Apollo, and the luminous phosphorescent star Lucifer, the star of Venus or Juno ; after them the sun, and lastly the moon. The ether envelopes all these divine bodies, and comprises in itself the order of their movements. Beyond this ethereal and divine Nature passive and mortal Nature is placed." The earliest monuments, such as the pyramids and obelisks, were, as Pliny tells us (Hist. Nat. 1. XXXVI. cap. viii. and xi.), so many monuments consecrated to the Sun-god. Even their form is a representation of the sun's rays, and their ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 607 name in the Egyptian language bears that meaning. The learned Jablonski (Panth. ^gjpt. proleg.) has found this derivation in the Coptic. He says that the word IIvp^, Pyre, which forms part of the word Pyramid, still signifies the sun in the ancient Egyptian or Coptic language, and he finds the remainder of the word in " niue," which in Coptic signifies " brightness " and " ray.'' It is certain that the pyramid, as well as the obelisk, was consecrated to the Sun-god in consequence of the analogy which exists between the form of a pyramid and that of the solar rays and the flames of fire (Plut. de Placit. Phil. 1. I. cap. xiv., 1. 11. cap. vi.). Timseus of Locris (De Anim. Mundi, cap. iii. ง 5), when giving the geometrical figures which compose each element, assigns the pyramidal figure to fire. He says: ^^The equilateral triangle forms the pyramid, which has four equal J&ces and four equal angles, and which constitutes the nature of fire, which is the most subtle and unsteady of the elements." This geometrical description of fire was borrowed from the Egyptians (see Achilles Tatius, cap. vi.), from whom Pytha- goras, the instructor of Timseus, had learned his theory of numbers and of mystic figures. Ammianus Marcellinus (1. XYII.) says that the obelisks were specially consecrated to the Sun-god. He gives a translation, made by Hermapion, the Egyptian, of the hieroglyphic inscription on one of these obelisks, which has all the characteristics of a sacred inscription. The Sun, the great deity of Egypt, is supposed to be speaking to King Bameses. He tells him : ^^ I have granted permission to thee to reign on the earth, thou whom the Sun loves, thou whom Apollo the strong, the son of Grod, who made the world, loves, thou whom the Sun has chosen, King Bameses, immortal offspring of the Sun." The second line is : " Apollo the strong, the true king of diadems, who possesses Egypt, and who fills it with his glory, who embellishes the town of the Sun, who shapes the whole earth, who honours the inhabit- ants of the town of the Sun, which the Sun loves." In the remainder of the inscription the Sun calls himself the Great God and the Lord of Heaven, the master of Time, and the father of Light, all which appellations belong to the great Osiris. Osiris is no other than the Persian Mithra, and the sacred traditions of Egypt stated that it was Mithra, who formerly reigned at Heliopolis, who first raised these species 608 MANKIND: THEIR of monnments to the Son-god in the town which was con* secrated to him (Plin. L XXXI Y. cap. viii.). Abneph, an Arabian anthor, also considers the pyramids to be so many monuments consecrated to religious purposes (Kirch. QSdip. vol. i. p. 830), and he calls them the altars of the gods. Lucan (De Bello Civili) calls them by the same name. The Arabian historians speak of pyramids which had doors at each of their faces which corresponded to the four cardinal points (Ben-Salam. apud Kirch. (Edip. vol. ii. pp. 2, 801). These doors led to seven small chambers, con- secrated, like the " conclave Molochi " to the seven planets, whose images, in the shape of little golden idols, were placed in them. One of these images resembled the celebrated Egyptian Harpocrates (the god of silence) and had its finger placed on its mouth in a mysterious manner, while it held in the other hand a book on a level with its forehead* Hermateles, who wrote on Egypt, also considered the obelisks as monuments of the worship of the Sun, according to TertuUian (De Spect. cap. viii.). The tomb in the interior of the Great Pyramid was one of the tombs of Osiris, of which there were many in Egypt. This is what we might expect, since his sufferings and death were represented in what they called the mysteries of the night (Herod. Euterpe, cap. clxxi.), and it was natural they should have his tomb also. The Great Pyramid is placed so that its faces exactly front the four cardinal points. Hence, if we suppose a square whose sides are infinitely prolonged so as to extend to the four cardinal points of the world, we shall have an immense cross, thus — ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 600 which cuts the circle of the horizon in four places. It was in the centre of this cross that the tomb of Osiris was placed. The Sabaeans believed that the ashes of their god ^AyaOoSaifKDVy or the good Deity, were laid beneath these monuments; and as they worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, this confirms the idea that this tomb was that of the beneficent Spirit of Nature, of Osiris who had been put to death by Typhon. Idolatry therefore began among civilised nations by re-* presentations of actual phenomena, and ended by assimilating Nature to man (Euseb. Pnep. Evang. 1. IX. cap. vi.), and by giving her a dwelling-place and representations such as man has (Tacit, de Morib. Germ. cap. ix.). This, however, did not please all her worshippers, some of whom feared to blaspheme the Deity by treating him like a feeble and mortal being (August, de Civ. Dei, 1. IV. cap. xxxi.). If this inno- vation displeased some of the worshippers of the visible Cause, it displeased the Spiritualists much more. They did not think it allowable to represent the immaterial and in- visible Being by material images (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. V.), and held that God could no more be represented than could the soul, or the invisible principle of thought. The Spirit- ualists, therefore, such as the Jews, considered that they ought not to allow any representation of the Deity, and that God ought only to be seen by the eyes of the mind, as Tacitus (Hist. I. V. cap. v.) tells us. Accordingly, in the speech which is put into the mouth of Moses in the revised edition of the Mosaic law which is contained in the book of Deuteronomy the Jews are told : " The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire : ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no multitude ; only ye heard a voice " (Deut. iv. 12) ; and again : " Take ye good heed unto yourselves ; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb . . . lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female," &c. (ver. 15). This, however, contradicts Numb. xxi. 8, where the Lord tells Moses to make a flery serpent and set it on a pole. There is reason to believe that this was a cone, similar to that which represented Venus at Paphos (Tacit. Hist. 11. cap. iii.), in other words, an obelisk or a representation of the sun, whom they looked upon as the soul, or rather as the Spirit and the ruling Deity of the B B 610 MANKIND: THEIB Uniyerse, whicli he governed. The foUowing passage from Pliny (Hist. Nat. 1. 1, cap. vi) explains the reverence which the ancients felt for the visible king and ruler of heaven and earth : — *^ He is the most powerful, as he is the greatest of the stars. His empire extends, not only over the earth and over the revo- lutions of time, but also over the heavens themselves, and over the stars, of which he is the sovereign ruler. We must con- sider him as being the soul, or rather the Spirit, of the Universe. It is right to coiisider him as the chief administrator of the government of the world, and as the chief Deity, to judge by his works. It is he who dispenses Ught, and who drives away darkness. He eclipses the other stars by his radiance. He rules the seasons and the course of the ever-renewed year, and modifies them according to the wants of Nature. He banishes melancholy, and even the clouds which disturb the serenity of men's souls, from heaven. He lends his light to the other planets ; he shines above all, he raises himself above all, he sees all, and hears all, as Homer, the father of literature, expresses it.*' Mythology began in the same way. Abulfaragius (Spec. Hist, cum Phoem.) gives one of the fictions which they used to make about them as a proof that the Arabians did not merely look at the motions of the stars as astronomers, but that there was another point of view from which they looked at them. They said that the stars Alshere and Algomeyse (Canis Major and Minor) were two sisters, who had Sohel, or Canopus, for their brother. The latter married the con- stellation Orion (Aljanze in Arabic), but that having killed his new bride, he escaped to the Southern Pole, to avoid the pursuit of his sisters. Alobur, or Sirius, pursued him beyond the Milky Way, but Algomeyse remained where she was, and shed such floods of tears that her sight became impaired. This fable is nothing but the description of these stars, and a representation of the mode in which they follow one another. The beautiful star Canopus, as it sets, casts Orion below the horizon. The same ideas prevailed in Greece. Their fiction respecting the setting of Orion, which always takes place at the rising of Scorpio, will serve as an example. They said that Orion was a giant who had died from the bite of a scorpion, and for the same reason they made Canopus die of the bite of that animal also. This scorpion also ORIGIN AND DESTINY. Oil alarms the celestial Charioteer, and hurls his horses into Eridanus, which sets at the same time. The Greeks also made the Pleiades to be seven sisters, one of whom dis- appeared and escaped to the North, near the tail of the Great Bear, where she assumed the name of the Foi (Theon, ad Arat. Poke. Noist. p. 134). Idolatry and mythology were therefore far from being what they are usually represented to be, either wilful for- gotfulness of the First Cause, or an irrational worship of statues, pictures, heroes, &c. The ancients endeavoured in their initiations, in their statues, and in the religious sym- bolism of their worship, as well as in their poetry and their songs respecting Nature, and their cosmogonies and sacred fictions, to express those philosophic ideas which the spectacle of the universe and the play of physical causes had given rise to in their minds. Their theologians, as Isidore of Seville (Orig. 1. VIII. cap. vi.) well observes, were identical with their men of science, and they were only called theolo- gians because they regarded Nature in its relation to the Deity. Poetry, philosophy, theology, the oracles, &c., were all mingled together in those times. The priests were every- thing : they were the depositaries of all physical knowledge, and the poets and painters of Nature. To give more dignity to their teaching, they adopted the measured rhythm of poetry,and the numbers and harmony of their verses described the regular movements, and periodic returns of the celestial bodies. Musical harmony represented the harmony of the universe. They endeavoured when singing the praises of the gods to appear as if inspired by them, and filled with a species of enthusiasm which took them out of the condition and rank of ordinary men. The whole doctrine of the Egyptians, from which Orpheus took his theological principles, consisted, as Eusebius (Prsep. Evang. 1. III. cap. xi.) says, " in considering the universe as a great Deity, made up of an immense number of gods, who were nothing but portions of the universe itself, for they have reckoned each part of the universe among the number of the gods." Hence we must conclude with Cheremon and the numerous other learned men of whom Porphyry speaks in his letter to Annebon, that the primitive Egyptian worship related entirely to the visible universal Cause and to its parts, and that even the secret teaching of the priests B R 2 612 MANKIND : THEIR admitted no other deities than the Rtars which shine in the firmament, whether planets or fixed stars, or than natural agents such as the Nile and the four elements ; that ihey did not originally admit any incorporeal Demiurge, or any Demiurgic Spirit, or any intelligent deities, or any invisible or incorporeal power separate from the universe ; tiiat they re- cognised the visible sun as the sole ruler and governor of the world, and recognised no gods but the stars, which are the causes and agents of the organisation of all bodies, and which are altogether subject to the imperious action of fate, which depends upon the stars, and is the result of their positions with regard to each other and to their movements. Eusebius adds that this belief still existed among them. They also drew a distinction between what was remote and seemed to be more perfect, and that which was around and below them, which seemed to them to be gross, material, and full of imperfections. Ocellus says : " Look at Nature in general ; you will see it extend its indestructibility fix>m the principal and noblest bodies to those mortal beings who are subject to changes of form and condition. The chief beings, being self-moving, and continuing to travel over their circular courses in the same manner, do not change either their form or their essence. Those of the second order (the elements), fire, water, earth, and air, change incessantly and continually not their place, but their form. . . . But as in the universe there is generation, and the cause of generation, and as generation exists where there is change and displacement of parts, and the cause of generation where stability of nature exists, it is evident that it belongs to the cause of generation to move and to create, and to that which is subject to it to be made and to be moved. " The very di^dsions of the heavens separate the impas- sible portion of the universe from that which is incessantly changing. The line of division between that which is im- mortal and that which is mortal is the circle which the moon describes ; all that is above her and up to her is the dwelling- place of the gods ; all that is below is the abode of Nature and of discord : the latter brings about the dissolution of things which are made, the other the production of those which are created. ... As the universe can neither be generated nor destroyed, as it has never had a beginning and will never have an end, it follows that the principle which ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 013 brings about generation in another being than itself, and that which brings it about in itself, must always have co- existed with it." Synesius, bishop of Gyrene, who had been initiated in the Egyptian and Grecian mysteries, holds the same language in his work on Providence (1. II.) respecting the active and passive causes in Nature. " The universe," he says, " is a whole which results from the assemblage of several parts which sustain each other by their concord and their harmony, and of which some perform the function of active, and some of passive causes. In fact, there are in the universe two very distinct portions, which have a certain connection with each other, and contain relations which unite them. It is in the portion in which we dwell that generation is carried on, and it is in the portion which is above us, and in the highest portion of the universe, that the cause of these generations dwells, and from which the germs of the effects produced here below descend to us." These primitive conceptions became materialised, and we have in Hesiod^s Theogony (verses 125, 133, 195, &c.) Heaven and Earth, Ovpapos and F?;, placed at the head of the family of the gods, as they are at the head of physical causes. They are held to have been united by a marriage, and all beings are supposed to have proceeded from this imion, both those which shine in heaven, those which dwell on the earth, and those which inhabit both. The sky, spangled with stars, envelopes the earth and covers it on all sides, and many deities spring from its fertilizing embrace. Chrysippus and Zeno considered the whole theogony of Hesiod and of Orpheus to be a description of natural agents and of the play of physical causes. Orpheus also, according to Athenagoras (Legat. pro Christ.), supposed that Heaven married Earth, and that they became the parents of several children. Orpheus made the Deity, or the Great Whole, to be male and female. He calls the sky Uavyspiyrcopy the Father of all things, the most ancient of beings, the beginning and the end of all, he who contains in himself the incorruptible and unwearied force of necessity. He wrote a book or poem respecting the generation of beings by the action of the heavens and the zodiac which was called AojSeKoenjpos (Salmas. Ann. Chin.), which shows how ancient theology and astronomy were con- nected. The Egyptians were the instructors of Olpheus, and 614 MANKIND : THEIK the code of their religioas knowledge was contained in the books of their Hermes or Mercuries (Salmas. ib.), which con- tained the hierarchic representations of the celestial powers, and the principles of their astrology and theology. They were called the Geneses, or the Genetic books of Mercnry. Orpheus also, according to St. Justin (De Monarch.) wrote a book called the Testament, in which he spoke of three hundred and sixty gods, or of an order of spirits equal to that of the degrees of the zodiacal circle and of the ancient division of the year. Hesiod also wrote upon the stars* ApoUodorus (1. I.) begins his Theogony as follows : " In the beginning Oupay69y or Heaven, was the lord of the whole universe ; he took FiJ, or the Earth, to wife, and had several children by her.'* The Atlantides, according to Dio- dorus Siculus (1. III. capp. Ivi. Ivii.), acknowledged Uranus as their first king, and they gave him the Earth, which they called Thitea, the foster-mother, for wife. He had a great number of children by her ; thej reckoned as many as forty- five, a number which is equal to that of the degrees of the upper part of the sky when that portion which reaches from the horizon to the zenith is divided into two portions, or when the visible heavens are divided into two by a circle parallel to the horizon. The grandchildren who were the result of this marriage were Prince Sun and Princess Moon, his sister, who were afterwards placed in the two great stars which give light to the earth. From the same family sprang Hesperus, or the star of the shepherd; the Atlantides or Pleiades, whose father is Atlas, who supports the sky. The theogony of the Cretans also gave the princess F^ to Ovpavos for his wife, and Saturn, or the God of Time, for their son (Diod. 1. V. cap. Ivi.). The anonymous history which is attributed to Berosus, and which contains the cosmogonic princi2:)les of the Armenians respecting the nature of the First Cause, supposes a primary deity or sovereign of the great and lesser gods, which it calls Noah, the sky and the seed of the world, and it gives him Aretia, or the Earth, into whose bosom the sky sheds its fertilising influences, and from which we see everything proceed, for his wife (Berosus, 1. III.). The origin of animated Nature received an easy, though not very satisfactory explanation in ancient times. Pliny (1. II. capp. iii. iv. v.) describes the heavens as being covered ORIGIN A^^) DESTINY. 615 -with flares of animals, sucli as reptiles, quadrupeds, and birds. Both by day and by night, he says, the heavens revolve silently round us and round the four elementary strata, and pour down by means of these varied figures the different seeds of fertility which engender and give shapes to all beings, down to the monsters which dwell in the depths of the seas. Amongst these figures under which the stars are grouped he enumerates the Bull, the Bears, &c., which are but a very small portion of the other celestial figures to which he attributes the power of fertilising matter and giving it a shape. Like Ocellus, he puts forward the zodiac, in which the sun moves in a regular path which he has never deviated from for ages, as the chief cause of the generation of beings. We see here that he seeks the origin of terrestrial forms in the celestial ones, which is the funda- mental dogma of astrology. Proclus (in Tim.) says that the sky has primarily the forms and figures which matter assumes by means of generation in the general system of generation and destruction. According to Ptolemy (In Cen- tiloq. cap. ix.), terrestrial forms are modified by celestial forms. In Pimander (cap. xi.) heaven is made the soul of the earth. He shows us the seven planets lighted by the Eternal Light, and the moon, which is destined to be the organ of inferior Nature, continually modifying matter, which is situated beneath her, and undergoes innumerable metamorphoses. The celestial gods, or the stars, move in order to concur in the great work of Nature, to renew the seasons, and with them the herbs, the plants, and the gene- rations of the different species of animals. This teaching agrees with that of the learned among the Jews. They con- sidered that there was not a planet (a moving thing) on the earth which had not its star in the sky which ordered it to grow. Maimonides (More-Nevoch. part ii. cap. x.) gives us this information, and adds that ^^ every time that philoso- phers speak of the administration of the universe, they say that this lower world, in which the generation and destruction of beings is carried on, is governed by the power and influences of the celestial spheres." The Christians believed that there were angels who had the care of animals and of plants, and who presided over their birth and their growth. " I will say boldly,'* says Origen (Homil. xziii. ia 019 IfANKIXD : THEIB Josli.) ^^that there are celestial yirtaes which goYem this world ; one governs the earth, another goyems plants another rivers and fountains, another rain, another the winds." These spirits of the stars are what Bishop Synesins fspeaks of in his hymn, when he sings to God, ** The rulers of the world with brilliant eyes, the spirits of the stars, praise and celebrate thee, O King ! " In order to explain more fully how the worship of animals, &c., could be common to the intellectual and highly educated priesthood and to the ignorant superstitious multitude, we will return to the worship of the Goat, from which the Nile and Egypt took their names, for we are told ^^Egyptus a Nilo sic dicta, quod wro rijs aiyot vTrrurros tcsiTai, quod sub Capri signo sapinus jaceat." This worship is of immense antiquity, for the Goat is found in the caves of Ellora in India with the same name (Mendes) that it bore in Egypt (Zend-Avesta, vol. I., p. 249), and the Hindus look upon these caves as being the work of spirits, which shows their ignorance of their real date. Herodotus tells us that the Goat and Pan were called by the common name of Mendes, and that while the Greeks, who copied and changed the Egyptian worship, made Pan to be one of the inferior deities, and a modem invention, he was in Egypt one of the most ancient deities, and one of the eight primary gods (Herod. 1. II. cap. cxlv.). The hymn of Orpheus in honour of Pan shows the character of majesty and greatness with which the ancient theology invested that deity, and how it was possible for all classes of the community to regard him with reverence : — " I invoke thee, powerful Pan ! mighty Ruler of all the powers of the Universe, who includest in thyself heaven, the sea, the earth, the queen of all things, and immortal fire, for these are members of thy immense body. Come, beneficent Spirit, source of all motion, who movest in a circle, borne on a chariot of glory surrounded by the seasons. "Author of generation . . . divine enthusiasm, thou transport that warmest and givest life to the soul ! Thou dwellest among the stars, and rulest the symphony of the universe by thy melodious songs. From thee proceed dreams, visions, and those sudden alarms which terrify mortals. Thou takest thy pleasure amongst the rocks, the fountains, and the pastures of the earth ! nothing escapes thy sight. . . . Searcher into all things, thou takest delight ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 617 in hearing the echo of thy eternal harmony. God, begotten of everything, and who in thy turn begettest everything ! thou who art invoked by dififerent names, sovereign Buler of the world, who givest increase, fertility, and light to all things, who dwellest in the deepest recesses of caves, fear- ful in thy wrath, thou true double-homed Jove. Thou hast made the earth, thou makest the seas feel thy power : the Ocean obeys thee, and even air and fire acknowledge thy power. All the elements follow the path which thou pre- scribest to them, notwithstanding their inconstant nature, and provide rain with the food they stand in need of. Ueceive, sacred source of our pleasures and our trans- ports, our vows, together with our incense ; grant that we may end our career happily, and keep from us all that can alarm us." The representations of the gods, whether by means of hieroglyphs, or symbols, or statues, were a species of sacred writing, of which the priests and the initiated alone under- stood the meaning. Porphyry (apud Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. III. cap. vii.) says that those who see nothing in the statues of the gods but representations of men, or masses of wood and stone, resemble those who see nothing in a book but paper or tablets. Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. V.) calls the four gilt statues which were carried in the Egyptian processions, and which represented two dogs, a hawk, and an ibis, written characters. He sees in the two last animals emblems of the sun and the moon, and in the others the symbolic representations of the two hemi- spheres, and of the parts of the horizon which watch over the gates of night and of day. Whether he is correct or not in this supposition, it is certain that these figures had a hidden and enigmatic meaning. The very materials of the statues were chosen, as Porphyry tells us (apud Euseb. ibid.), to represent the opinions of theologians respecting the nature of the different deities. Thus, as the Deity was held to be luminous by its essence, and to dwell in the midst of the ethereal fire in a region invisible to mortals, all matter which shines and has a brilliant polish, such as the marble of Paros, crystal, and ivory, gives us a feeble idea of this luminous being. Gold is by its brightness an image of his essence which nothing can stain, for nothing can stain the purity and brightness of gold. Others, however, have 018 MANKIND : THEIR preferred black stone, in order to represent the mysterious darkness of Nature. Porphyry says that white is the colour assigned to the superior deities who dwell on Olympus, and that the sphere and all spherical shapes are assigned to the universe, to the sun and moon, and even to Fortune and Hope. Thus we have a representation of the Sun as Horns and Harpocrates placed on the lotus, the summit of which is spherical. Pausanias (Messen.) represents Fortune holding the horn of plenty in one hand, and supporting a globe on her head. A more enigmatic style of writing was exhibited in a statue which represented the moon in her first days of increase in the town of Apollo in Egypt (Euseb. ibid. 1. IIL cap. xi.). This symbolic figure was a man with a hawk's head, who was subjugating Typhon, or the principle of darkness, who was represented by a hippopotamus. The white colour of the statues, adds Porphyry, represents the whiteness of the new light of the moon, and the hawk's head shows that this light is given to her by the sun, for the hawk is the sacred animal destined to represent the sim, both on account of its lightness, and of its tendency to rise towards those elevated regions from which light comes to us. The hippopotamus signifies the West, continues Por- phjTy, or the regions of the lowered pole, which swallow up the stars at a certain portion of their coiu-se. Maimonides (More-Nevoch. cap. xxx.) shows us how this image- worship was bound up with the wants of man, whose good or evil fortune depended entirely on the good or evil influence of the heavens upon the earth, and he proves that this worship was founded entirely upon astro- logy, and proceeded from the necessity of drawing down good influences from heaven, and repelling those which were evil. He says " If you inquire into the reasons why the stars and their images were worshipped, you will find that it was usually considered certain that the worship of the stars brought fertility upon the earth ; that the neglect of their worship, and the crimes by which they were offended, caused the most fearful plagues to fall upon towns and countries ; that the husbandman's attempts to clear the ground and render it more habitable cannot but be ex- tremely pleasing to the stars ; that the priests and ministers of those idols announced and published in all religious as- ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 019 semblies tbat the worship paid to them caused rain to descend on the earth, fertilised it, and caused the trees to be laden with fruits . • • that sages and prophets from the most ancient times wished that on festival days musical instruments should be heard round these idols, assuring men that the gods would load with benefits those who thus honoured them, would keep diseases from them, and would cover the earth and the trees with crops and with fruit." The Emperor Julian gives the following account, which is the most correct that we possess, of the nature of idol- worship in its origin, and in the primitive intention of the inventors of images (Jul. Imp. Pragm. pp. 537, 589) : — "The statues of the gods, the altars which have been raised to them, the sacred fire which is kept up in their honour, and, generally speaking, all symbols of this descrip- tion have been consecrated by our fathers as symbols of the presence of the gods, not in order that we should look upon them as gods, but that we may honour the gods by means of them. " In fact, being ourselves connected with bodies, we ought to render a bodily worship to the gods. These gods, them- selves incorporeal by their nature, have presented to us their first images in the second order of gods, or in those which revolve eternally on the vault of heaven. But not being able to pay corporeal worship in a direct manner to these first images of the Deity, which by their nature have no need of it, we have established a third order of gods on the earth in the statues and images of the gods, and the worship by which we honour them serves to render the gods themselves favourable to us. For just as they who revere and honour the statues of princes endeavour thereby to win their good-will and their favour, although this homage adds nothing to the happiness of the princes, so the worship paid to the images of the gods, who, by their nature, have no need of it, does not &il to procure for him who pays it the favour and the protection of these same deities. It is the distinguishing mark of a truly religious soul to pay eagerly all the honour we can to the Deity. . . • Although God wants nothing, it does not follow that for that reason man ought not to ofifer him anything. For if he does not stand in need of the honour we pay him by I 020 M.\NKIND : THEIR songs and hymns, does it follow that we ought to deprive him of that also ? Neither, therefore, ought we to refuse him that which men pay to him by the works of their hands, or abolish a worship which has been established, not only for three thousand years, but firom the remotest antiquity, among all the nations of the world. ^^ We are not so blind as to take the works of our hands for gods. Looking at the statues of the gods, therefore, we neither consider them as mere wood and stone, nor as being really gods. In fact, we do not consider the statues of princes as mere pieces of wood, as mere masses of stone or of bfonze, neitixer do we regard them as being our kings or our princes, but as being their effigies, their images. Who- ever loves his prince, therefore, sees the representation of him with pleasure : the father who loves his son, and the son who loves his father, look with pleasure on whatever recalls their features to them. For the same reason, he who loves the gods contemplates their images and likenesses with pleasure, revering with religious awe the invisible gods whose eyes are fixed upon him. ^^ These statues, made by men's hands, can be destroyed, but those which the gods have made as living images of their invisible substance, those celestial bodies which roll above our heads, are incorruptible and eternal images of the Deity. Nevertheless, not only the statues of the gods, but their temples, their altars, even their priests, deserve our respect." There is no one," says Celsus (Orig. contra Cels. 1. Vli.), so foolish and absurd as to believe that these things are really gods, and not the symbols which we adore in honour of the Deity. In Amobius (1. VI. p. 229, ex edit. Frol. ; see also Lact. 1. II. cap. ii.) the Pagan says to the Christian : " You deceive yourselves, for we do not believe that the brass, the gold, and the silver which compose the statues are God, but we serve God in them, and we venerate the gods as dwelling in them by means of consecration." Thus, Pagan idolatrj- difiFered in no respect from the worship and veneration shown by Christians to religious statues and pictures. Constantine, bishop of Constance, however, went so far as to declare, at the Second Council of Nice, " For myself, I render to images the same worship of honour that is due to the Holy Trinity, and let him be anathematized as ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 021 a Marclonite and Manichoean, who sliall refuse to do the same " (Act iv., near the end). Men were not wanting among the Pagans who endea- voured to recall men to a higher and purer faith. Maximus of Tyre speaks of " the God, the Father and Founder of all that exists, older than the Sun, older than the heavens, greater than all Time, than all ages, and than all the works of Nature ! No words can express, no eye can see Him .... What are we to say respecting His images ? Only this : let men understand that there is but one Divine Nature. Whether the art of Phidias preserves his memory among the Greeks, or the worship of animals among the Egyptiams, a river here, or a flame of fire there, I do not blame the variety of the representations : only let men understand that there is but One God, only let them love but One, only let them preserve but One in their memory." The following passage from Plato's Republic (1. II.) also shows that the philo- sophers were far from admitting the possibility of the visible appearance of God. He says : " If God were to become metamorphosed, he would assume either a^more or a less perfect form. Now it is ridiculous to say that he can assume a more perfect form, for in that case there would be something more perfect than God, which is absurd. It is impious to admit that he can change himself into something less perfect, for God cannot degrade himself, besides, he would appear in a form other than his own, he would lie, because he would appear to be that which he was not. We must therefore conclude that he remains in his own simple form, which is Beauty and Perfection." Plotinus (Ennead. iv. 1. III. cap. xi.) thinks that the wise men of old established sacrifices and carved statues because they wished to bring the Deity nearer to men ; that having studied the nature of the Universal Soul, they had observed that it would be easy to direct the action of it, and as it were ix> hold it captive in matter so moulded as to enable this soul to act upon it and communicate to it a portion of itself; that imitative forms were the surest methods of securing it, and that it resembled in this condition the mirror when it is sufficiently polished to reflect an image. For Nature has contrived, with admirable art, to render the germs which she contains visible by means of imitation. Marsilius Ficinus, his commentator (Comm. Ennead. 1. lY, 622 MANKIND : THEIR capp. xl. xlii. xliii.), developing ibis theory, tells ns that he who prayed to a star in a suitable frame of mind received the spirits of life which are disseminated together with the rays of the star, and that as all the fixed stars are bound to the firmament, their life is bound in* the same way to the Universal Soul, to which ours is also bound. He speaks of the art by which the Magi thought they were able to direct this celestial action, and keep up a correspondence between heaven and earth by means of certain sacrifices and prayers. He quotes Albumasar, and other astrologers who had fixed upon particular positions of the staors under which prayers and sacrifices acquired their greatest power. St. Augustine (De Civit. Dei, 1. XXI. cap. vi.) himself believed in these magical rites, for he speaks of the famous lamp of the temple of Venus which never went out, and never required to be replenished. He considers it probable that some spirit or demon was made to interfere under the name of Venus, and to produce this phenomenon ; for he says that we are able to attract demons, and persuade them to come and dwell here below by mean* of charms to which they are sensible, such as certain stones, herbs, animals, and magical formulae. There are no mysteries in Truth : they only belong to error and imposture. As our bodily diseases have given rise to quackery, so our passions have given rise to those religious institutions which are called Initiations and Mysteries. But neither the one nor the other have ever been of use to man- kind. It is the nature of goodness that it can only spring from the pure sources of truth and of philosophy. The ancient legislators held that the people required a religion, which is true enough provided that it is based upon the worship of virtue and admiration of the works of Nature, for moi*al teaching would then be founded upon truth. But when religion is made for the people it can only be founded on imposture. It is true that the ancients only looked upon this means of inculcating religion as the last that ought to be resorted to, and that Timseus (apud Plat.) has compared the use of it to the use of poison in medicine. But their successors have forgotten that poison ought only to be administered in infinitesimally small doses, and by very cautious hands, and unfortunately the poison has been administered without stint, and the administration of it has been confided to the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 623 most treacherous and incapable hands. In the Angnstan period we see the great historian Livy showing in many of his chapters how disgracefully credulous he and his fellow- countrymen were. Rome owed her ascendancy to her moral virtues ; when superstition alone remained to her, the sceptre of the world broke in her hands, and the conquerors of the world became vile slaves when despotism bound them with the irons of superstition. The Romans had never been so eager to adopt foreign modes of faith as they were under the emperors, who encouraged superstition because they saw the power it gave them over the liberties of their subjects. The same was the case' in Egypt. Men were degraded in that country by sacerdotal despotism, and by kings elected by the priests. The Chaldsean priests, who attributed every- thing to the stars, and who looked upon them as so many gods, had invented the art of modifying their influences, augmenting their benignity, and averting their malignity. The men who compared the administration of the universe to a great monarchy, of which the stars, which were sup- posed to be intelligent, were the ministers, and of which the Sun was the supreme head, caused it to be believed that it was possible to treat with the king of the universe and his ministers as one would treat with an Eastern despot and the ministers of his power, and to gain his favour, as one would gain theirs, by means of prayers and presents. At a subsequent period legislators conceived the idea of applying religion to politics and to morality ; for the religion of antiquity, regarded from its mythological aspect, was by no means calculated to inculcate lessons of virtue. Initia- tion was the moral side of religion. Thus Lucian makes Menippus say, that having found nothing in the poetซ which was contrary to good morals and to good laws, and having seen that the conduct of the gods was always contrary to that of respectable people, he had conceived the idea of going down to the infernal regions in order to learn there from Tiresias, a wise and inspired man, the moral rules which he ought to observe — which is a figurative way of saying that the principles of morality, which could not be found in the philosophers or in the poets, were to be sought for in the sanctuary, and in the doctrine of rewards and pimishments in the world to come. If imposture and de- lusion could \>e necessary to inculcate lessons of justice and 624 MANKIND: THEIR of yirtDe, these legislators might have been excused for bringing about this strange association ; for religion had, at least in appearance, a more noble and more useful aim from the time that it became applied to these subjects. The Bight of the order which reigns throughout the universe seemed to indicate to men that the gods themselves had given them the example of the order which ought to reign in their social institutions. It was said that it was im- possible to please the gods more than by imitating them ; that virtue had more power than ofiFerings in rendering them favourable to us, and whereas their power alone had hitherto been insisted upon, their justice was now brought prominently forward. This was the origin of the idea which the Egyptian priests accredited, and which the Greek poets who travelled in Egypt brought to their own country, that the gods went in various disguises into the diฃFerent towns as strangers in order to be themselves witnesses of the actions of men, and to see whether they respected justice or the reverse (Diod. 1. I. cap. viii.). This is the origin of the story of the angels going to Sodom disguised as men, and this was also the basis upon which the foundations of the initiations were laid, and the perfection of society was the object proposed. The name of Thesmophora, or legislatrix, was given to the goddess to whom the honour of this institution was attributed, by which it was sought to teach posterity that initiations and laws, being derived from the same source, had also the same aim, — the perfection of society. From this time, as Plutarch (De Placit. Mac. Phil. 1. I. cap. vi.) truly observes, belief in the gods was established on the triple basis of philosophy, or rather of physical knowledge, on mythology, and on legislation. The im- posing picture of the universe and the marvels of mytho- logical poetry provided legislators with scenes as wonderful as they were varied, which were exhibited in the sanctuaries of Egypt, Asia, and Greece. All that could contribute to illusion and to pleasure, all the resources of mechanical art and of magic, which was at that time merely the secret knowledge and imitation of natural phenomena, all the pomp of festivals, with their rich and varied decorations and vestments, majestic ceremonials, music with her enchanting powers, choruses, dances, the loud clashing of the cymbals ORIGiy AND DESTINY. ซ25 which was intended to excit>e enthusiasm and religious mad- ness, which was more favourable to religious ideas than calm reason, were put into action in order to attach and attract the multitude to the celebration of the mysteries. Music and philosophy were the two primary agencies set forth by the philosophers of old as a means of perfecting human nature, and the dogmas of Elysium and Tartarus were only invented for those whom it is easier to guide by the illusions of imagination than by reason. Timseus of Locris (cap. vi. ง 9) says : " Music, and philosophy which guides her, have been appointed by the laws and by the gods to perfect the soul. They accustom, they persuade, they compel its irrational portion to obey the other portion. They soften that part which is irascible, they tranquillize concupiscences, and they prevent either of them from rising against reason, or from remaining idle when reason calls them either to act or to enjoy themselves. For all wisdom consists in acting and restraining oneself according to reason. A venerable and august philosophy has freed us from our errors to give us knowledge ; it has withdrawn our minds from profound ignorance to raise them to the con- templation of divine things, by means of which man becomes happy when he knows how to unite moderation in the affairs of this world, and becoming activity during the whole course of his life, with knowledge." Timseus, however, admits that poetical fictions respecting the justice of the gods, and the punishments they inflict upon men for their crimes may be used as an extreme remedy for those whom neither education, nor philosophy, nor the terrors of the law had any effect upon. He admits that they are falsehoods, but says that falsehood may be used for those over whom truth has no power. This maxim is identical with that of the philosophers whom Cicero (De Nat. Deor. 1. I. cap. xlii.) speaks of. They said : " Eeligious ideas have all been invented by the wise for the benefit of society, in order to lead by these means those whom reason could not reclaim." That portion of them which endeavoured to attach men to morality and to obedience to the laws by the fear of puuish- ment and the hope of reward no doubt included such alle- gorical teaching as the Egyptian story of the disappearance of the Atlantis in consequence of the vices of its inhabitants, the submersion of the world in the time of Deucalion, the s a 626 MANKIND : THEIR periodic destructions of the universe when virtue had dis- appearedy and vice had reached its greatest height, and Elysium, Tartarus, and Purgatory. Lucian (De Luctu) says that the poets Homer, Hesiod, and other mythological writers who have been appointed to guide the opinions of those whom the philosophers call the good folks, the vulgar, who have believed their fictions, and respected them as if they were a sacred law, taught that there existed below the earth a deep abyss called Tartarus, and it is on this occasion that he gives a description of the infernal regions. Timceus says: "As to him who is unruly and rebellious against wisdom, let the punishment which the law threatens fall upon him, and let him even be alarmed by the religious terrors which those works in which the vengeance of the celestial deities and the inevitable punishments which are destined for the guilty in hell are described, impress upon men, as well as the other fictions which the i)oet of Ionia has collected according to the ancient religious beliefs. For as the body is sometimes healed by poisons when the disease will not yield to more healthy remedies, so men's minds are kept in order by falsehoods when it is impossible to restrain by truth. Let even the terror of those dogmas from foreign lands be added, if necessary, which make the souls of effeminate and timid men pass into the bodies of women, whose weakness exposes them to wrong, the souls of murderers pass into the bodies of wild beasts^ those of lewd men into wild boars or hogs, those of frivolous and changeable men into birds, and those of the idle, the sluggards, the ignorant, and fools, into fish. It is the just Nemesis who regulates these punish- ments in another life in concert with the terrestrial gods, who avenge the crimes which they have witnessed. The God who is the judge of all things has confided the adminis- tration of this lower world to them." Timaeus evidently agreed with those who held it to be lawful to make use of illusion and imposture to keep men within the bounds of justice and of duty. To gain still further power, the ancient legislators, as Diodorus Siculus (1. I. cap. xciv.) testifies, pretended that they had received their laws from the gods. He tells us that Menes, the first legis- lator of the Egjptians, who gave them the first written laws, pretended that he had received them from Mercury, who had dictated them to him himself; that Minos, who, accord- ORIGIX AND DESTINY. 627 ing to Pausanias (Laonice, p. 82), never deliberated upon legislation without being assisted by Jupiter, and Lycurgus at Lacedsemon, asserted the same, and that this deceit had been practised by all legislators in every nation. He says that Zathraustes among the Arimaspes gave the Good Spirit the credit of his laws ; that Zamolxis among the Getse, who admitted the immortality of the soul, said he had received them ^m Vesta ; and that, lastly, Moses among the Jews pretended to have received his laws from Jehovah, or from Jav, as he calls him. "Whither art thou going?" says Archelaus to Manes (Act. disput. Arch. Monum. Eccles. Grcec. et Lat. p. 60). " Art thou going, O barbarian, to impose upon the multitude and to enact thy play in the celebration of the mysteries of thy deity ? " This speech might have been addressed to all priests and heads of initiations : they were never anything but actors, and their representations were never anything but more or less amusing dramas, acted in more or less magnificent theatres. In the dramatic representations of Mithra and of Isis, griffins were exhibited among the scenes of the initiation. The initiated persons were placed behind a cnrtain, wMch was snddenly withdrawn, and the represen- tations of the griffins appeared to the eyes of the spectators on the day of the great Mithraic initiation (Philip, della Torre, p. 202 ; Vandal. Dissert, ad Taurobol. p. 10). Fantastic figures, such as Indian dragons and hyperborean griffins, were made to appear (Apul. Metam. 1. XI.). This exhibition appears to have taken place on the eighth of the Kalends of May. There were also pantomimic exhibitions and scenes with machinery, which was, no doubt, the reason why Archelaus asked Manes if he was going to act his play. The hierophants contrived that darkness should conceal their mysteries with its veil, because it is favourable to delusion, Initiation was carried on in dark caves; thick groves were planted round the temples to create in them that darkness which creates a species of religious awe. The very name of mystery, according to Demetrius Phalerius, was a meta- phorical expression which indicated the secret terror which darkness inspired. Some think, however, that it is derived from the Egyptian word misiar^ a veil. The mysteries were almost always celebrated at night (Demetr. deElocut. ง 101), and they were usually called vigils, or nocturnal sacrifices 8 9 2 628 MANKIND : TUEIB (Cic. de Legibus, 1. II. Aristopli. Schol.)- All religions have had their pervigilia, or sacred vigils (Evagr. Hist. Eccl. L L cap. xi.). These nights were called holy and mystic nights (Sopat. Qusest. 338). Easter-eve is one of the vigils, the Pervigilium PaschsB (Etym. Mag. Cic. de Nat. Deorum, 1. L). Initiation into the mysteries of Samothrace took place at night, as did also the ceremonies of initiation into the mysteries of Isis^ of which Apuleius speaks, and the other mysteries also. It is evident by the way in which Apuleius speaks of the mysteries of Isis that the great object of them was to set before the initiated person a representation of the life to come. He speaks as follows (Metam. 1. XI.) of what he has seen : *^ I have been near the confines of death : having crossed the threshold of Proserpine, I have returned thence through all the elements. In the middle of the night the sun appeared to me with dazzling brightness. I have been in the presence of the higher and lower deities, and I have worshipped them while I was close to them." The goddess told him that when he departed this life he would go down to Hades, that he would dwell in Elysium, and that from that very moment he might look forward to a long life on earth, on which he would live happy and full of honour under her protection. Isis had the power of averting the malign influences of the stars, of preventing the execution of the decrees of the Fates, and of enabling sailors to escape the dangers of the seas. Each sect of initiated persons was promised a heaven which was agreeable to their tastes. The Thracians, who were fond of wine, and drank deeply of it, were promised banquets, and nectar which was to keep them eternally intoxicated. Mahomet promised the Asiatics, who were fond of women, a paradise of young houris, or of women ever young and ever virgin. The Christians, whose sect arose in a country where celestial harmony and choirs of angels and other spirits, of whom the Chaldaeans had formed a hierarchy which extends through all the spheres, are held in great esteem, have a Paradise in which the angels sing hymns for ever before the throne of God. The Greeks, who loved art, dancing, music, gymnastic exercises, and rural festivals, were to find all these pleasures in Elysium, and to gratify the tastes which they had while on earth. In Lucian (Hist. Verse, vol. i. p. 7S0) we have a description ORIGIN AND DESTINY. C29 of his pretended arrival in the Fortunate Islands. The brilliant description he gives of them, and especially of the city of the happy, and of their happiness, resembles that of the heavenly Jerusalem in the Apocalypse in many particulars, as has already been observed. His city is of pure gold, the walls are of emerald, the buildings of jasper, the altars of amethyst ; there are seven gates instead of twelve, as in the Apoca- lypse, but the allusion in both fictions is evidently astro- logical : there is no night there, and there is perpetual spring. The walls of the town are bathed by a river composed of the most exquisite essences, which meanders through meadows enamelled with flowers ; the zephyr gently stirs the trees, which bear fruit twelve times a year, once every month, as they do in the Apocalypse. Three hundred and sixty five streams of water flow round the city, and there are seven rivers of milk. The sacred feast is held in the Elysian Fields, and it is enlivened by the strains of music and the songs of poetry. Homer, Arion, the Lesbian singer, Anacreon, and Stesichorus are there. The song of the most harmonious birds fills up the intervals of this concert. Two fountains, the fountain of mirth and the fountain of pleasures, are at the entrance of the hall of feasting, and each of the guests drinks of them when he enters it. All the ancient legislators, sages, and the best-known philosophers of Greece are present at this banquet. In Nonnus (Dionys. 1. V.) the seven spheres are represented by the emblem of a large town, with seven gates, each of which is called after a planet, and Cadmus (or Serpentarius) builds it in honour of his wife Harmony on the spot where a cow who has the crescent moon on her thigh has just laid down, that is, under the Celestial Bull, the sign of lo and Yenus, which was the first sign in ancient times, and the point from which the movement of the spheres began. Cadmus, who, like Apollo, had conquered the serpent Python, lays the foundations of the capital of Bceotia, and espouses the lovely Harmony, the daughter of Venus and Mars (Dionys. 1. V. ver. 54). He lays out his streets in the direction of the four quarters of the world. He gives his enclosure a circular form, and makes seven openings in it, to imitate the seven divisions of the heavens. . . . He places seven gates in them — the number of the seven planets. The first gate faced the West ; it was sacred to the Moon, and 630 MANKIND : THEIR had a name which resembled the roaring of a bull, which is the animal which the homed moon harnesses to her chariot. The next gate to that of the Moon was sacred to Mercniy the next planet to her ; and the third to Venus or Aphrodite. Tlie fourth, facing the East, was sacred to the Sun, and was placed in the middle, as the Sun is placed in the midst of the planetary system. This gate is called the gate of Electra, or of Phaeton, on account of its brilliancy. The fifth gate is sacred to Mars, which is separated from Venus by the Sun, or Phaeton, which is betweeu them. The sixth gate, which is more brilliant, bears the sign of Jupiter. The last gate is sacred to the seventh planet, or Saturn. In this terrestrial city Cadmus represents the arrangement of the universe, and the Muses repair to it to celebrate his marriage with Harmony by their songs. Venus ornaments the nup- tial bed, and the Ismenian Apollo, mingling among the Muses, sings on his seven-stringed lyre the wedding of Har- mony. This allegory represents the re-establishment of harmony and order in the Universe at the vernal equinox, at the restoration of the Bull, called Venus, the point to which the movement of each sphere related. Cadmus is Serpentarius in aspect with Taurus which, by its nocturnal rising announced the destruction of winter and of darkness, which were brought in every year by the serpent who is near to the pole, who, Theon says, is the serpent who was slain by Cadmus and by Apollo. The town of Boeotia is the universe, or the annual re-establishment of the order of the universe under the Celestial Bull. The ancients are by no means agreed as to where their Elysium was situated. Plutarch places it in the moon ; but Plato, in his Phsedo, has placed a celestial and holy earth above the other, which resembles the celestial Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. This is the ethereal spot, or the free and luminous air of the Pythagoreans of which the Golden Verses of Pythagoras (Aurea Carmin. ver. 70), speaks as well as Hierocles, who has written a commentary on that work. This was the true Elysium, to which virtuous souls went to enjoy the company of the gods, and participate in the sacred banquet of the immortal deities. It is there, as Plato ob- serves, that the soul, freed from the body, becomes reunited to that divine element which bears the greatest analogy to its ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 631 nature, and that it becomes really united with the gods, to live eternally with them. Lucian (ibid. pp. 764 and 767) has also placed near the Fortunate Islands six other islands, called the Islands of the Impious, from which vast sheets of flame proceeded. A fright- ful smell of sulphur, pitch, and bitumen emanated from it. A black thick smoke filled the air, which gave forth a dew of melted pitch. Mournful cries, the howling of the wretched victims, and the noise of rods was heard on all sides. These islands were girt by steep rocks. The soil was arid ; not a single tree or spring could be seen ; but there were rivers, one of which was a hot slough, the other of blood. In the interior of the prison another river flowed which was all fire, and which was filled with fish which resembled firebrands ; others, which were smaller, resembled live coals in motion. False- hood was one of the crimes which was most severely punished in those frightful abodes. Lucian gets to these regions after seven days' travel through the air (ibid. p. 714), like John, who, after traversing the seven spheres, reaches the firmament, at the four comers of which are the four celebrated animals. The land which he reaches is the moon, where souls, according to Plutarch (De Facie in Orbe Lunse), dwell after death. Lucian traverses the spheres like John, and there are monsters, hippogrifis, &c., which very much resemble those in the Apocalypse. Lucian travels through the zodiac, the town of Lucifer, and the town of lustres or lanterns, which is situated near the Pleiades and Hyades. The author of the apologue of the man who had returned to life, says Plato (De Eep. 1. X.), ordered him to observe carefully everything that passed, because he had to return to earth and inform the living of what happened among the dead. He observed, therefore, souls which went off by the two openings, both those of heaven and those of earth, as soon as they had been judged. Through one of the openings of the earth came the souls which came in order to be judged, and through the other those which had been con- demned returned to the deep abysses of the earth. Through one of the openings of the sky the souls of the just re- ascended towards the abode of light and eternal happiness, and through the other they descended from it to animate bodies. Those which ascended from the earth appeared to 63:1 MANKIND: THEIR be dirfcy and dusty ; those, on the contrary, which came down from heaven were white and Inminoos. As they arrived at the place of meeting in multitudes, they appeajred to be wearied with long travel, and to require to rest in the field which was situated in the midst of their path. There those which had formerly known each other embraced one another, and all of them, both those which ascended from earth and those which descended from heaven, informed themselves respecting the state of those of their acquaintance who still remained there, and each of them hastened to answer these questions. Those which arrived from the earth, still plunged in grief, and weeping, related the evils they had gone through, and which they had witnessed during their painful travels under the earth, which lasted not less than a thousand years. The author of the Apocalypse also speaks (chap, xx.) of an interval of a thousand years which elapses between the iirst and the second death, or between the passage to the place of happiness. Plutarch, as we have seen, places this spot of rest in the moon, where openings were found by which souls went in and out to go to heaven or earth. There they gave an account r>f what they had done. Elysium was situated in that part of the moon which looks towards the sky. The Apocalypse (chap. xx. 4) also causes at this same period of the millenary interval thrones and persons seated upon them to whom the power of judging was given, to appear. The interval between the first death and the second or the passage to life eternal, is clearly indicated in Plutarch. On the other hand, the souls which came down from heaven related the marvels which they had seen, and described the delightful existence they had led there. This theological fiction respecting the travels of souls fix)m heaven to earth, and afterwards from earth to heaven, was not confined to the philosophers : it was exhibited in the sanctuaries, and it formed part of the dogmas of initiation, as we have seen in the vision of John, called the Apocalypse. Plato's fiction, or the revelation of this Er of Pamphylia, as well as that of John, had the same moral aim as the fables of JEsop, which, Mr. Burnet states, formed part of the same manuscript as the Apocalypse, viz. to inspire men with the love of virtue and hatred of vice. The end or moral con- clusion of them all, therefore, is, that we must prepare our- selves to appear before the great Judge with a heart fi-ee from ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 633 all stain, as Socrates says in the Gorgias, for he observes that for a soul stained with crimes to descend to hell is the greatest of all evils. Plato draws the same conclusion from his fable of Er, from which he deduces that it is necessary to follow the paths of justice and wisdom in order that we may one day be able to pursue that elevated road which leads to heaven, and avoid most of the evils to which the soul is exposed during its subterranean journey of a thousand years. Socrates, in the Phsedo, also holds that it is necessary to endeavour to purify our souls from passions here below in order to be ready to appear at the time when destiny calls US to hell. It is easy, therefore, to see that this universally spread fiction had no other object than that which is so evidently shown by the moral which all the philosophers drew at the end of these species of religious apologues. It was a great moral truth which was endeavoured to be inculcated under the veil of a great fiction, and with the apparatus of a great dramatic exhibition, such as that of the mystic phantoms which were made to appear in the sanctuaries. Attempts were also made to assure men against the terrors of death, and against the frightful idea of total annihilation. Death was no longer anything but a passage to a more happy state, as the author of the dialogue called Axiochus says. He adds, however, that a man must have lived a good life in order to be able to attain to this happiness. These fictions, therefore, only brought consolation to the virtuous and religious ; to the rest they brought nothing but despair. They surrounded men with terrors and alarms which dis- turbed them throughout their whole lives. Nothing, in fact, could be more terrible than the descriptions which were given of the dungeons of hell, and of the different species of tortures which were inflicted there upon the guilty. On leaving the field in which the dread judge is seated (Virg. ^neid. 1. VI. ver. S49) the wretched criminal passes to the left to descend into Tartarus. The first object which meets his eyes is an immense prison, surrounded by a triple wall, which the river Phlegethon surrounds with its fiery waves, in which it tosses about fragments of burning rock with a terrible noise. In front is an immense door, set in columns of a metal so hard that no power, not even that of the gods, can destroy it ; it is fianked by a lofty tower of iron. At 6J4 MANKIND : THEIR the entrance the terrible Tisiphone is seated, clothed in a bloody garment, and guarding this gate by day and by night. On drawing near to this horrible abode, the lashes of the whips which tear the bodies of the damned are heard, and their cries of agony which are mingled with the sound of the chains which they drag about with them. The stem judge has scarcely delivered them to the furies, when Tisiphone seizes ihem, and, armed with a whip and with frightful serpents, calls her sisters, the cruel administratrixes of these terrible punishments. As soon as these iron gates, rolling upon their hinges with a fearful noise, are opened, a terrible gulf is seen in which these miserable beings, whom Divine vengeance has delivered up to the most fearful punishments, may be discovered. This gulf, which is called Tartarus, goes under the earth at twice the depth which separates earth from heaven. Into this gulf the ancient children of the earth, the giants with serpents' feet, who move about in every direction at the bottom of this gulf, were hurled by thunderbolts. This fiction has been repeated in the Revelations (chap. xx. 2, 3), where an angel is repre- sented as chaining "antiquum serpentem,'* that old ser- pent, which is the Devil, who had made war against GU>d as the giants had against Jupiter. The Jewish teaching (Treatise Rosch Haschansh) is that "the true sinners among the Israelites and other nations shall go down to hell, and there be judged during the space of twelve months. After these twelve months their body is annihilated, and a spirit spreads them under the feet of the righteous, for it is said : * And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet ' (Mai. iv. 2). But the disciples who interpret the word of Jehovah falsely, those who speak against the Law, and the Epicureans (those who deny the Thorah and the resurrec- tion of the dead), those who depart from the paths of the Church, those who have sinned by teaching others to sin, will descend to hell, and there be eternally damned." In Treatise Sabath, 1. XXIII., we are told, "Rabbi Eliezer has said : * The souls of the righteous are gathered together under Jehovah's throne of glory ; the souls of the wicked are punished ; an angel is at one end of the Universe and throws them to an angel who stands at the other end.' " Another Rabbi says : " For the first twelve months the body is preserved (the wicked are not in question now), and the ORIGIN AND DESTINE'. 635 souls ascend and descend (this is the origin of the legends of the appearances of souls on the graves). But after twelve months the body is annihilated (itD3 ^^^Ti), the soul ascends, and never returns/* Those who were initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis were shown the two principles of darkness and light in the successive scenes of darkness and of light which were made to pass before their eyes (Meurs. Eleus. cap. xi.). To the most complete darkness, attended by illusions and frightful phantoms, the most brilliant light, the brightness of which surrounded the statue of the deity, was made to succeed. (Dion. Chrysost. Orat. xii., Themistius in Patr. et Fragm. ejusd. apud Stobseum). The candidate went into a mys* terious temple, of wonderful size and beauty, where several mystic pictures were exhibited to him, where his sense of hearing was delighted by the sound of different voices, and where scenes of darkness and of light passed in succession before his eyes. Themistius (Orat. EL.) describes the initi- ated person as fuU of fear and religious awe, tottering, and uncertain as to which way he ought to turn in the midst of the profound darkness which surrounds him, at ths moment when he is about to enter that part of the sanctuary in which the goddess dwells. But when the hierophant has opened the door of the inner precinct of the sanctuary, when he has removed the veil which covers tiie goddess, and has cleaned and polished the statue, he causes it to appear to the initiated person, glowing with a divine light. The dense cloud and darkness which had hitherto enveloped the candidate vanishes ; he is filled with a lovely and lumin-> ous brightness, which draws his soul out of the profound depression in which it was plunged, and the purest light succeeds to the blackest darkness. In a fragment of another speech of the same author, which Stobseus (Serm. cxix.) has preserved to us, we see that the initiated person is frightened by sights of all de- scriptions before the exact moment that his initiation is to be completed ; that astonishment and terror take possession of his mind ; his whole body trembles, and a cold sweat runs over his limbs up to the moment when he is shown light — a light of the most wonderful kind. The brilliant representation of Elysium was exhibited to him, in which he saw delightful meadows with a pure sky above them, where he saw festivals celebrated by dances, where he hears I 636 mankind: their the liarmonioas voices and the solemn songs of the hiero- phants, and where he enjoys the sight of the sacred visions. It is there that, being absolutely free, and exempt from all evils, he mingles with the initiated crowd and, crowned with flowers, celebrates the holy orgies with them. In Treatise Baba Bithra, 1. VIIT., it is said : ** In the world to come there will be no one who does not enjoy simultaneously a country in which there are mountains, valleys, and hills,** in other words, the Elysian fields of the Pagans. In another passage a Rabbi says : ** In the world which is to come women will conceive and bring forth children nearly at the same time." "How can that be?" asks a disciple. " Look at the hens," answers the Babbi ; " everything is possible for Nature." Luke xv. 7 : ** Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons," &c., is in accordance with the Talmud, which places the righteous below those who have repented. It says expressly (Treatise Berachoth, 1. v.): " Where those who have repented are placed, those who are perfectly righteous cannot remain." The Midrasch also says : " He who has repented is greater than he who is perfectly righteous." The ancients therefore represented here below in the sanctuaries what was one day to be the lot of the virtuous soul, when it should be freed from the bonds of the body, and from the dark prison in which it is confined, and when that initiation which had sanctified its virtues caused it to pass into the bright regions of the ether, and into the dwelling of Ormuzd, where, as Psellus (In Orac. Zoroast.) says, the true autopsy begins, when he who is initiated sees himself " the Divine Lights." The priests of Eleusis were politic enough not to show all at once. They reserved other representations for succeeding years, so as to keep the curiosity of the initiated person in suspense, and leave him always something to wish for (TertuU. adv. Valent.). There were several enclosures, as in the temple at Jerusalem, which were only entered by degrees. A great veil separated the diflFerent species of pictures, and prevented certain classes of the initiated fit)m seeing the objects exposed to view in the interior of the sanctuary (Psell. de Sphinge in Anagogicis). There were certain statues (Meursius, cap. viii.) and certain pictures in the temples in which the initiated met, which everyone ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 037 cotdd see; but Proclus (in Tim. 1. 11.) says that there were others concealed in the interior which were the forms which the gods assumed in the magical apparitions. These were only known to those who were initiated, and the great advantage of initiation was to be able to enjoy those mystic exhibitions, and to behold the Divine Lights. It was for them that the veil fell which concealed the sanctuary of the goddess from others, and that the sacred robe was removed which covered her statue, and which a divine Ught suddenly surrounded (Themist. Orat. ii.). This ceremony, which wag called ftrra7(ป7i;, announced the apparition or epiphany of the gods. The sanctuary was filled with the divine light, the rays of which struck the eyes and penetrated the soul of the initiated who were admitted to behold this beautiful vision. They were prepared for this moment of bliss by fearful scenes (Meursius, cap. xi. ; Plethon. ad Orac. Zoroastr. ; Dion. Chrysost. Orat. xii.), by alternations of hope and fear, of light and darkness, by the flashing of lightning, by the terrible noise of imitated thunder, and by apparitions of spectres and magical illusions which struck both eyes and ears simultaneously. Claudius gives a description of one of these scenes in the beginning of his poem on the ^^ Bape of Proserpine," in which he alludes to what used to take place at the mysteries of that goddess (Claud, de Rapt. Proserp* 1. I.). ** The temple shakes," exclaims Claudius ; " the lightning sheds a brilliant light, by means of which the goddess announces her presence. The earth shakes ; a terrible noise is heard in the midst of the shocks. The temple of the sons of Cecrops gives forth prolonged roarings. Eleusis raises her sacred torches. The serpents of Tripto- lemus are heard to hiss. • . . The dread Hecate is seen afar off." These imposing preliminaries had, as has been before observed, no other aim than to give the initiated person a grand idea of the state to which he was about to be raised* The other ceremonies, and all the external pomp, which accompanied the celebration of the great mysteries had the same object in view, that of heightening the solemnity of the worship, and of increasing the respect of the people for religion and the laws. Nothing could be grander or more magnificent than the celebration of the great mysteries, which, according to the generally received opinion (Meurs. Eleus. cap. xxi., &c.), lasted nine days. 638 MANKIND : THEIR CHAPTER XXni. The origin of man cannot be considered apart from that nniverse of whicll he forms a portion, and to the influences of which he is subject throughout his life. The ancients held that man and all living creatures were formed through the direct instrumentality of the heavenly bodies, or in the shadow of the gods, out of the earth. In the aphorisms oi a writer called Hermes (Hermetis Centum Aphor.) we are told that the sun and the moon are, next to God, the cause of all living beings. Plutarch (Qusest. Bom.) says that the Romans were of opinion that the sun was the lord and head of movable substance, in which generation and destruction takes place, in other words, of the elementary matter oi which all sublunary bodies are made. Whence does man proceed ? said certain philosophers : from the sun and from man (Julianus, Orat. IV.). In the same way the Peruvians called themselves the Children of the Sun. According to the learned among the Egyptians, the sun by warming the slime, gave birth to all animals, and infused the principles of movement and of heat which put life into the humid matter which formed part of their organisation This development of the foetus under the covering or light bubble which covered the first germs which heat caused to expand is described by Diodorus, quoted by Eusebius (Prsep. Ev. 1. I. cap. vii.). The Phoenicians also attributed to the sun the primitive generation of animals, and also of man, who began existence by raising his hands to the brilliant Star of Day, and proclaiming him Beel-Samim, or King of Heaven, in Phoenician. They also held that his life and his body were under their protection throughout the whole of his existence. Each of the planets had charge of one of the seven ages of the life of man (Sahn. Ann. Chim.). The Moon had the charge of infancy up to five years of age. The next ten years were under the inspection of Mercury, the god of letters and of the sciences which are taught during youth ; ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 630 and the next eight years belonged to Yenas, the goddess of love. The sun presides over youth, and over the middle of life, as being the centre of the spheres. Mars presides over the age in which man is in possession of all his strength ; Jupiter over the age in which man possesses wisdom and the whole of his reasoning powers ; and Saturn over the slow and icy progress of decrepitude. Every member of man's body also was under the inspection of a planet (Haly de Judic. Ast. pars i. cap. vi.) : thus, Saturn had the right ear, the arms, &c. ; Jupiter the sides, the lungs, &c. ; Mars the lefb ear, the loins, &c. ; the Sun had the right eye, the brain, the heart, and the nerves ; Yenus the flesh and fat; Mercury had reason, the tongue, and the nostrils ; and the Moon had the throat, the stomach, the womb, and all the lefb portions of the body. There was another division of the body of man, who was called a microcosm, or little world, and was divided into twelve portions like that larger world to whose action he was subjected. These divisions were made especial use of in medical astrology. Each one of these portions of the body was subject to one of the divisions of the heavens or signs of the zodiac (Firmic. 1. II. cap. xxvii.). The head was subซ ject to Aries, the neck to Taurus, the shoulders to Gemini, the heart to Cancer, the breast to Leo, the belly to Yirgo, the loins to Libra, the groin to Scorpio, the thigh to Sagit- tarius, the knees to Capricorn, the leg to Aquarius, and the feet to Pisces. The signs of the zodiac were in turn subject to the twelve great gods who presided over them. Minerva, who issued from the brain of Jupiter, was placed at the head of the zodiac, or in Aries, which presided over the head of man. These deities were distributed through the signs in the following order : — Lanigerum Pallas, taurum Cytberea tuetur ; Formoeus Phoebus geminos ; Oyllenie cancram, Jupiter et cum matre Deum regis ipse leonem ; Spirifera est yirgo Cereris, fabricataque libra "Vulcano ; pugnax Mavorti scorpius bseret. Venantem Diana yirum, sed partis equinn ; Atque augusta fovet capricomi sidera Vesta ; Et Jovis adversum Junonis Aquarius astrum est ; Agnoscitque suos Neptunus in aequore pisces. (ManiL 1. IL ver. 430.) These astrological ideas were, however, not inconsistent with teaching of a far higher and more elevating character ; 640 MANKIND : THEIIR or rather, perhaps, we may say that the former exhibited the belief of the vulgar, and the latter of the philosophers. In the following ** Discourse on Initiation '' addressed by Hermes to his son Tatian, we discern the germ of those ideas which have been so amply developed since it was written : — ^^ I address this discourse to thee, Tatian I that thou mayest be initiated into the name of the Supreme God. If thou canst understand it, that which seems to thee for the most part to be invisible will become manifest. If God were visible. He could not exist. Everything which is visible has been created, for it has become manifest ; but the Invisible ever exists without having occasion to manifest itself. It ever exists, and it makes all things visible. Invisible, because eternal, it makes all things become apparent without mani- festing itself. Uncreated, it makes all things manifest by rendering them visible. Visibility belongs only to things created ; it is Genesis. He, therefore, who alone is Uncreate is for that very reason unrevealed and invisible ; but by making all things manifest He reveals Himself in them and by them, more especially to those to whom He is wDling to reveal Himself. " Therefore, O my son, first pray to the Lord and Father of all, to the Only God, to the God from whom Unity has proceeded, that He may be favourable to thee, and that thou mayest be able to understand Him. Meditation alone can understand the Invisible, because it is itself invisible. If thou art able, thou wilt see Him, O Tatian, by the eyes of thine understanding, for the Lord does not hide Himself, He reveals Himself throughout the Universe. Thou canst understand Him, lay hold of Him with thine hands, and contemplate the image of God. But how could He manifest Himself to thee if that which is in thee is invisible to thyself? If thou wilt see Him, think of the sun, think of the moon in her course, think of the stars in ordered array. Who sustains that order ? for order is caused by number and by place. The Sun is the greatest of the gods of heaven : all the celestial gods recognise him as their King and their ruler ; and this Star, greater than both earth and sea together, permits other stars much smaller than himself to revolve above him. What reverence, what awe is it that compels him to do so P The course of each of these other stars in ORIGIN AND DESTIXV. 641 the heavens is various and unequal. Who has appointed to each of them the direction and the length of its course ? The Great Bear revolves upon its own axis, and causes the universe to revolve with it. Who uses it as an instrument ? Who has put limits to the sea ? Who has laid the founda- tions of the earth ? ** There is then, O Tatian ! a Creator and a Ruler of all this universe. Place, number, and order could not be maintained without a Creator. Order cannot exist without place, and without limits ; there must therefore be a Ruler, O my son. Disorder must have a Ruler that it may attain unto Order. If thou hadst wings, could st rise in the air, and there, hover- ing between earth and heaven, couldst behold the solid earth, the liquid seas, the flowing rivers, the light air, fire with its subtle nature, the courses of the stars, and the heaven which envelops them, what a magnificent spectacle thou wouldst behold, O my son ! How thou wouldst see in a moment the immovable moving, and the invisible becoming manifest in the order and beauty of the universe ! ** If thou wouldst contemplate the Creator even in perish- able things, in things which are on the earth, or in the deep, reflect, O my son, on the formation of man in his mother's womb ; contemplate carefully the skill of the Workman ; learn to know Him according to the divine beauty of the work. Who formed the orb of the eye ? Who pierced the openings of the nostrils and of the ears ? Who made the mouth to open ? Who traced out the channels of the veins ? Who made the bones hard ? Who covered the flesh with skin ? Who sepa- rated the finnrers and the toes ? Who made the feet broad ? Who hollowed out the pores ? Who spread out the spleen ? Who formed the heart like a pyramid ? Who made the sides wide ? Who formed the caverns of the lungs ? Who made the honourable parts of the body conspicuous, and concealed the others ? See how much skill is bestowed on one species of matter, how much labour on one single work ; everywhere there is beauty, everywhere perfection, everywhere variety. Who made all these things ? Who is the mother, who is the father, if it be not the only and invisible God, who has created all things by his will ? " No one pretends that a statue or a picture can exist without a sculptor or a painter ; and shall this creation not have a Creator ? O blindness ! impiety ! ignorance ! T T 642 MANKIND : THEIR Beware, my son Tat I how thoa deprivest the work of the Workman. Bather give to God the name which suits him best. Call him the Father of all things, for he is the only God, and it is his nature to be a &ther, and, if I may be per- mitted to use so bold an expression, it is his nature to engender and to create. And as nothing can exist without a Creator, God himself could not exist if he were not in- cessantly creating in the air, on the earth, in the deep, in the universe, and in every portion of it — in what exists, and in what does not exist. For there is nothing in the universe which is not God. He is that which is, and that which is not, for he has made manifest that which is, and that which is not he retains in himself. " Such is the Gx)d who is superior to his name, the God invisible and visible, who reveals Himself to the mind and to the sight, who has no body, and yet many bodies, or rather all bodies, for there is nothing which is not God. This is why all names are his, for he is the only Father, and this is why He has no name, for he is the Faiiier of all. What can I say of Thee ? What can I say to Thee ? Where shall I look that I may bless Thee? Above, below, within, or without? There is no path, no place external to Thee. There are no beings but Thee. All is in Thee, all proceeds from Thee. Thou givest all and receivest nothing, for Thou possessest all, and there is nothing which does not belong to Thee. " When shall I praise thee, Father ! for no one can know thy time or thine hour ? For what should I praise thee ? for that which thou hast created, or for that which thou hast not created ? for that which thou hast revealed, or for that which thou hast concealed ? How shall I praise thee? As belonging to me, and possessing thee as mine own ? or as a Being who is distinct from me ? For thou art all that I can be, all that I can do, all that I can say ; for Thou art all, and there is nothing which is not Thee ! Thou art all that is bom, and all that is not born; Thou art wisdom in thought, the creating Father, the God who acts, the Supreme Deity, and the Author of all things. Tlie subtlest thing in matter is air, in air the soul, in the soul wisdom, in wisdom God." This is properly called a "Discourse on Initiation,** for it was the great object of all initiation to bring the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 643 soul to see true beauty, to contemplate the Supreme or spiritual Deity, and to attain to the knowledge of the truth, as far as the weakness of our reasoning powers allows us to do so (Hieroc. in Aurea Carm. ; Pint, de Iside). Hermes or Pimander was a book of very great antiquity among the Christians (Beaus. tome i. p. 306), and it is still much thought of in the East. Faustus the Manichaean places Hermes among the prophets of the Gentiles. The Syrians have still some of the discourses of Hermes with his dis- ciple Tatian, written in the Babylonian language. The Valentinians called initiation ^Might" (Epiph. 1. I.) and so sufficient was it that Clemens Alexandrinus acknowledges that those who lived by the light of reason were Christians : KoX oi fAera rod \6yov /3uoaavTe9 H^icrriavol slatv — in other words, that revelation and initiation were identical. The Egyptians conceived Grod to be in his nature the Author of Harmony. It is the eternal and ever-acting God, says Pimander, who has not only given us harmony, but who has also organised the instruments of His eternal music — that is, as Jablonski (Proleg.) correctly observes, the seven planets, which Plato calls the voices or the instru- ments of Time. Pythagoras introduced into Greece and Italy this Oriental doctrine, which represented God emble- matically as a musician who maintained the eternal concert of the universe, which harmony alone constituted, and from which a species of concert of the celestial spheres resulted (Origen. Philosoph. p. 27). The Hindus also make their Vishnu to be a celestial musician under the name of Be- ringui (MSS. des M6tam. No. xi. fig. 25, Bibl. Boyale). The Pythagoreans called the heavens, which are composed of the seven harmonious spheres, the lyre of Grod (Marsil. Fie. Comm. in Plot. Ennead ii. 1. V. cap. iv.). The motive soul of the heavens was the Deity himself, and the sun was often considered to be that soul; thus Hercules became, like Apollo, a leader of the Muses, and the representation of him in the constellations is attended by the lyre, which is called the lyre of Ingeniculus, and the lyre of Orpheus, for this constellation was called Orpheus. Yirgil also (^n. 1. VI. ver. 646) puts into the hands of Orpheus in Elysium a lyre which gives forth seven diflFerent sounds. S. Athanasius held that the unity of God did not imply the unity of the world. He says (Contra Gent, i.) : " Ijae TT t 644 MANKIND : THEIR opifex imiversam mundum xmiim fecit, nt ne multis con- structis multi quoque opifices pntarentur, sed, xino opere existent e, nnus quoque ejus auctor crederetur. Non tamen quia unus est effectus, unus quoque est mundus, nam alios etiam mundos Deus fabricare potuerit " — in the Greek, *ESv- vaio 7c aWov^ noafiovs irotrjaai, 6 ^sos. The modern doctrine of the eternity of the universe and of matter was laid down long ago by Ocellus, who, as we have seen, says (cap. i. ง 6) : " The universe, considered as a whole, tells us nothing which reveals its origin, or which foretells its destruction. No one has seen it created, or increased, or made better, or become deteriorated, or decrease ; it is ever the same, it ever exists in the same way, and it is always equal, and similar to itself." We find Origen (Contra Cels. 1. IV.) writing against a belief, which he attributes to the Egyptians, the Pythago- reans, and the Platonists, which was not only that the universe was indestructible, but also that there were great periods which succeeded each other throughout eternity, and which perpetually brought back the same aspects of the stars, and the same events. This conception is set forth in the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, which in two MSS. consulted by Pierius was entitled " De Interpretatione Novi Saeculi, et Novi Saeculi Interpret atio/' a title which is fully justified by verses 4 and 5 of the Eclogue. The sacred fiction which Virgil here makes use of to flatter Augustus was embodied in the Sibylline books, which Justin Martyr advises all Christians to read, as most of the true religion may be learned from them. He mentions Plato's opiuion that the Cumffian Sibyl prophesied of many great things truly, and says that she has described the advent of Christ in express words, an opinion which was held, as we shall see, by Con- stantino also, concerning whom we are told, " Non mirum esse, quod Constantinus tarn magnifice de libris Sibyllinis locutus est, cum eminentissima Ecclesise lumina eos toties ante ipsum testimonio suo comprobassent." Bellarmine also admits that the Sibyls are true prophetesses. These pro- phecies were in reality, like all such utterances, capable of being applied to any great personage. Cicero (De Div. 1. 1.) says : " We take notice of the verses of the Sibyl which she is said to have poured out in a fury or prophetic frenzy, the interpreter whereof was lately thought to have been about ORIGIN AN1> 1>ESTINY. 646 to declare in the Senate-house that if we would be safe we should acknowledge him for a king who really was so. If there be any such thing contained in the Sibylline books, then we demand, concerning what man is it spoken, and of what time ? For whoever framed these Sibylline verses, he craftily contrived that whatsoever should come to pass might seem to have been predicted in them by taking away all dis- tinctions of persons and times. He also purposely affected obscurity, that the same verses might be accommodated some- times to one thing, sometimes to another. But that they proceeded not from fury and prophetic rage, but rather from art and contrivance, doth no less appear otherwise than from the acrostic in them." This passage shows that the cele- brated acrostic IH20T2 XPEI2T02 0EOT T102 SXITHP was there in Cicero's time, and moreover Eusebius affirms that Cicero quoted the very verses which contained the acrostic, and which he says were in the Erythrsean SibyL If the Christians had forged the acrostic, they would have inserted Xpiarb^y and not Xpnaros, Scipio and Sylla had both previously founded their claims on the prophecy in the Sibylline books that an illustrious person or a saviour would come on the opening of some unknown, but speedily ex- pected, new age, and Virgil in the sixth book of the ^neid thus applies it to Octavius : — *' Turn, turn thine eyes I see here tby race divine, Behold thy own imperial Roman line : Caesar, with all the Julian name survey ; See, where the glorious ranks ascend to-day I This— this is he I — the chief so long foretold To bless the land where Saturn ruled of old. And give the Lernean realms a second age of gold I The promised prince, Augustus the divine, Of CsBsar's race, and Jove's immortal line/' Seneca (Qusest. Nat. 1. III. cap. xxx.) holds, like Virgil, that when the catastrophes which conclude each of the great periods take place, the former order of things is re-estsr- blished, that both animals and man, who is again put in possession of his primitive innocence and happiness, are again created; that man does not long remain in his state of happiness, but that sin soon reappears on earth, and suUiea the primitive purity of the morals of mankind. All this is the result of destiny. Berosus, quoted by Seneca (ibid, cap, :.), says that it is the motion of the stars which brings 646 MANKIND: THฃIB about those great periodic revolutions. The origin and length of these periods was contained in the astrological books of the Chaldeeans, the Egyptians, and their Hermetic books quoted in Sjncellus (p. 35) as the Glenetic books. Porphyry (in Sent.) says there are as many years as there are planets ; that there is the year or reyolution of the sun, of the moon, of Yenus, &c. But the great year or revolution T^hich comprises them aU is the perfect year, the absolute and complete revolution which is brought about by the impulse of the Universal Soul, in imitation of which all the celestial bodies move. This great revolution must in- clude the immense circle of all the aspects which are possible, and must re-establish the heavens in every respect in what is supposed to be their primitive position, that the primeeval order of terrestrial things may be also re-estab- lished. As the precession of the equinoxes on the one hand and the varying movements of each of the planets on the other cause the aspect of the heavens to vary every instant re- latively to the earth, there can be no great period of restitu- tion which does not make these eight movements agree, and make the end of these eight revolutions coincide once or oftener with the position in which they are supposed to have been originally placed. The ancients having made 86,000 years to be the period of the great revolution of the f5xed stars, it follows that no year which is not a multiple of this period — that is, which does not contain it a certain number of times — can be the period required, for the restitu- tion of the aspects must be complete. Thus Plato in the TimsDus requires that the revolutions of the eight spheres shall be included exactly a certain number of times in that immense period which he calls the perfect one. Cicero (Somn. Scip. cap. vii.) and Macrobius (Somn. 1. II. cap. xi.), his commentator, are of the same opinion. Cicero requires that not only the planets, but the signs, which can only change by means of the precession of the equinoxes, shall all arrive simultaneously at their first position. This period, he says, includes many thousand of years, but yet, as he says in another place (De Nat. Deor., 1. II. cap. xx.), it is of a fixed and acknowledged duration. No fewer than twenty-nine of these peiiods were adopted at vai^ious times ; but the Chaldean period of 432,000 years. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 647 which Berosus has spoken of, is the only one which fulfils the above conditions, because it alone is a multiple of the period of 36,000 years, which must necessarily be included in the great year of restitution. It contains it twelve times, and this period may therefore be looked upon as being one of those great montiis of the great year which Virgil (Eclog. L IV. ver. 12), speaks of : — '' Incipient magni procedere menses." This period was, of course, merely hypothetical, and as little founded on exact observation as the astronomical or rather astrological science which gave rise to it. The true astro- nomers did not admit this fiction or these pretended resti* tutions of all the aspects. They held that the changes continued for ever (Censor, de Die Natal, cap. xviii.), and that it was idle to look for any restitutions. The astrologers, however, held a difiFerent opinion, and based their erroneous teaching on the solar year, which they took as the element of the period sought for ; and the sun, or his return to Aries, or to the primary sign of the zodiac, was taken as the common measure of the movements of the other planets. Every time, therefore, that a planet which was supposed to have started with the sun in Aries was again in the same sign as he was, it was considered to be restored. In order that this might take place, it was necessary that the planet should either have a movement identical to that of the sun, or a more rapid movement which should be an exact mul- tiple of it, or a slower movement which should be a fraction of it. In the latter case, by causing the sun to make as many revolutions as the denominator of the fraction ex- ^ pressed unities, a perfect restitution or coincidence of the two planets in Aries would take place. No such precision, however, exists in Nature, and consequently, as Origen (Comm. in Genes.) tells us, those astrologers who wished to give precision to their calculations did not confine them- selves to observing the position of the planets in the signs, but extended the accuracy of their observations to the six- tieth parts of sixtieth parts of dodecatemeria. These latter divisions were in astrological language the twelfth part of each sign, or a space of two degrees and n half, to which this name was given in order to avoid fractions, thus making a species of small zodiac which revolved in the 648 MANKIND: THEIR twelve signs, and made twelve revolutions in it (Salman. Ann. Clim. p. 640 ; Firmic. 1. II. cap. iv.). Ptolemy speaks of them in his Tetrabiblion (1. I. cap. ixii.) as twelfths of signs, containing two and a half degrees each. But he adds that other astrologers divided the sign into ten parts instead of twelve ; that each of these divisions was under the inspection of a chief or a genius, and th^t this distribu- tion was according to the Chaldsean method. This sub- division gives us 120 divisions of the zodiac, and the Chaldeean division contains 120 saroses, or periods of 3,600 years each, in the 432,000 years. If, -then, we apply to the Chaldeean decatemeria the sexa- gesimal subdivisions which the other astrologers applied to the dodecatemeria in order to give more exactness to the observations — a division which has been used throughout the East, it will follow that each tenth part, or great degree, or part of the sign, will be divided into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds, and the great degree will contain 3,600 seconds as the saros contains 3,600 years, and that 3,600 x 120 will give 432,000 seconds, or small portions, as 120 saroses of 3,600 years each give the great Chaldajan period. In the same way, as we find among the Chaldseans the period of 600 years among the elements of the great period, we find also in each sign 600 minutes, 60 for each decatemory, which is one of the 120 divisions of the zodiac, or a tenth of a sign of the zodiac. Lastly, as the period of 600 years has for its element the period of 60 years repeated ten times, the sign also contains 60 minutes repeated ten times, which minutes are also divided into 60 seconds, or into a sexagesimal number, so that these numbers 60, 600, 3,600, and 120 multiplied by this number 3,600, which are the elements of the great period, are also those of the division of the zodiac, and that the progressive subdivisions of the saroses of 3,600 years, of the neroses of 600 years, and of the sosses of 60 years have the same progression as the divisions and subdivisions of the zodiac intiO 60 seconds, 60 minutes, and 600 minutes to a sign, into 3,600 seconds for each tenth part of a sign, and into 120 times 3,600 seconds for the whole zodiac. In fact, according to the Chaldaean tradition which Syn- cellus, following Berosus, has handed down tons, 120 saroses elapsed up to the Deluge, which makes 432,000 years for ORIGIX AND DESTiyy. 649 the duration of the world till its destruction by that event. It turned out, however, that this period of 432,000 years was only accurate so long as fractions of seconds could be dis- regarded, but these fractions formed at the end of a very- long period a considerable departure from that absolute coincidence which was desired (Orig. contr. Celsum; 1. IV.), whence it resulted that things were not exactly the same at each restitution, and that there were considerable differences. It was thought that a longer period, such as the Indian period, which would be ten times longer (viz. 4,320,000 years) would render these fractions of divisions imperceptible, as they would then amount to no, more than -^ of our seconds, which was the greatest amount of precision that could be attained. This new great y6ar Was divided, like the year itself, into four parts, the progressive duration of which expressed the changes and gradual deterioration of Nature, which it was the great aim of the Eastern hierophants — who never ceased to assert that the world was growing worse, physically as well as morally (Firmic. 1. HI. cap. i.), and that it would be at last destroyed in order to be regenerated when the wickedness of men had reached its height — ^to inculcate. Nature, according to them, had her spring, or age of gold and of happiness ; her summer, or age of silver ; her autumn, or age of brass ; and her winter, or age of iron, which was succeeded by the age of gold. This theory, which is unfor- tunately deficient in truth, was only put into a poetical form by Hesiod several ages later, and by Ovid, because the theo- logians of the East had consecrated it in their cosmogonic fictions. It was from them that Plato (Polit. pp. 273, 274, &c.) took his idea of the world, which, when it lefb the hands of its Creator, at first enjoyed all the advantages of a new work of which nothing had as yet disturbed the movement and the springs, but which in time becomes impaired and worn out, and which would be finally destroyed if the great Demiur- gus, pitying its misfortunes, did not take care to repair it, and restore its former perfection to it. This is the great theological idea which has spread throughout the world, and which was represented in India by another symbol. They represented virtue as a cow (Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes, t. i. p. 211), which stood on[four feet in the first age, on three in the second, on two in the third, and which in the present 660 MANKIND: THEIR or fourth age only stands on one. These four feet were Truth, Penitenoe, Charity, and Almsgiving. She loses one of her feet in each age, until, having lost them all, she regains them, and commences the circle de novo. This idea was also symbolised by numbers, 1, 2, 3, and 4, representing the ages or the feet of the cow, and these numbers are represented as doubling as they ascend, in order to convey the idea of degradation, as is done in the symbols of the metals and the cow. Thus, the great period of the Hindus being 4<,820,000 years, they divide it as follows : — Yean. The first period laated • . • • • 1,728,000 The second „ 1,296,000 The third „ 86i,000 The fourth wililnst 41^2,000 4,320,000 The Chronicle of Abugiaฃajr supposes that God created the Dives before he created Adam, and gave them the government of the world for four thousand years plus three thousand, or for seven thousand years. The Peris succeeded them for 2,000 years. Following the gradations of this theory, we have again 4,000, 3,000, 2,000, and 100 years for the four generations of man, and of the more perfect genii who preceded him. The Etruscans also decomposed the Chaldsean astrological period into eight successive generations, difiFering in their morals and mode of life, which were included in a great cycle which they called the great year. Plutarch tells us this in his Life of Sylla. In the midst of the sanguinary wars which Marius and Sylla had originated, and which were distracting the Eepublic, several prodigies seemed to presage the misfortunes of the universe, and the vengeance of the gods angry at the wickedness of mortals. One of the most alarming of these prodigies was the shrill and mournful sound of a trumpet, the dreadful sound of which frightened every one, and which issued from mid-air at a time when the sky was clear and calm (Plut. in Vitfl. Syllae). The Etruscan soothsayers were consulted, and declared that it was the sign of the end of the ages, and of the commence- ment of a new order of things (Censorin. de Die Natal, cap. xvii.). The passage of Suidas in which their expectation that the world would last 12,000 years, in which eight gene- rations lived successively, is set forth has been already given. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 661 The following table shows that this period of 12,000 years is the result of a decomposition of the Chaldsean period ; for if we take, according to the aathor quoted bj Suidas, the duration of the present generation of men at — 12,000 years The previous one will have lasted 24,000 „ or twice 12,000 Thethiid „ „ 86,000 ^ 3 times 12,000 The fourth „ „ 48,000 „ 4 „ 12,000 The fifth „ „ 60,000 „ 6 „ 12,000 The sixth „ „ 72,000 „ 6 „ 12,000 The seventh „ „ 84,000 „ 7 „ 12,000 The eighth and last „ 96,000 „ S „ 12,000 Which numhers, added together give 432,000 the exact duration of the Chaldsean period. Thus, the same period is found everywhere. When increased, it formed the Indian period of 4,820,000 years; when decreased, it brings us to its primary element among the Etruscans. Josephus (cap. iii.) also reckons eight generations before the Deluge. The Indian period, which is formed of the union of the ten restorations of the world, or of the eight spheres distributed according ta the progression of the four first numerals, has a character of Pythagorean mysticity about it, and displays to us the celebrated decad with its natural elements or with the tetrad (Hierocl. in Aurea Carm. p. 226, ed. 16mo, Paris, 1588). For the sum of the four first numbers of the numerical progression gives ten, or the decad, the comple- tion of the primary numbers, and the source of all the others. This celebrated decad, which comprises the total duration of the world, or 4,820,000 years, expresses also the greatest climacteric period of the duration of the universe, according to the theory of the climacteric decad, or the ladder of ten dodecads by means of which the life of man, like that of the world, rises to its greatest duration. In fact, if we take for the monad the Chaldsean period, or for the first step of the ladder the first dodecad of the restitution of the fixed stars — which comes to the same thing, because 86,000 years, which is a number equal to the duration of the first Chaldsean reign, that of Alorus (Syncell. p. 18), repeated twelve times or united in a single dodecad, give 482,000 — we shall have the following ladder : — 652 MANKIM): THEIB Ladder of the Series of the Ten Climacteric DodeKode of the DuraHtm of the World (SalfMU. Ann, CUmacL p, 468). Years of the World. Yean of Man. Monad . • 432,000 years or 12 times 36,000 yean, or 12 times the period of the fixed stan 864,000 years or 24 times 36,000 years 1,296,000 „ 36 „ 36,000 Dvad . Triad . Tetrad. Pentad. Hexad . Heptad Ogdoad Ennead Decad . 1,728,000 „ 48 „ 86,000 2,160,000 „ 60 „ 36,000 2,682,000 „ 72 „ 36.000 3,024,000 „ 84 „ 36.000 3,456,000 „ 06 „ 36,000 3,880,000 „ 108 „ 36,000 ป n ft ff It If . 4,320,000 „ 120 „ 36,000 Here again we see (Firm. 1. IH., Praef.) that the pro- gressive law of the climacteric ladder of the duration of the life of man, formed by the ancient astrologers, has been exactly imitated in that of the life of the world, the last step of it containing ten times the first. The ladder of the duration of the years of the great world and that of the years of the little world, or of man, are, therefore, directly related to each other in every particular, which is necessarily the case in an astronomical system ; for, as Firmicus well observes, the one ought to resemble the other exactly, and include the same elements on a small scale. He even holds that the distri- bution of the greater world has only been regulated in this manner in order that there might be an immense model on which the genethliac thesis of the life of each individual might be traced. It is therefore, not surprising that the one hundred and twenty great divisions of the zodiac recognised by the Chaldaean astrologers, which comprise the total dura- tion of the complete revolution of the eight spheres, should have made them fix the extreme duration of the life of man at one hundred and twenty years also. This climacteric decad was also the reason why the Chaldaeans divided the one hundred and twenty saroses of the duration of the world into ten reigns of 36,000 years each, commencing with Alorus, and ending with Xixuthrus, under whom the Deluge took place. The periods were regulated, like the catastrophes which terminated them, by the laws of Destiny, of which the seven planets and the heaven of the fixed stars were the real instruments. The distaff of the Fates, to which Virgil in his fourth Eclogue (ver. 46) gives the development of the ages, Talia sfficla suis dixerunt, currite, fusis, Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcป, ORIGIN AND DESTimr. 053 was accordingly formed of eight concentric circles, which decreased progressively like the spheres. The distaff turned on the knees of Necessity, whose three daughters, the Fates, kept up and regulated its movements. The summit of the distaff is fixed above the eighth heaven, in the midst of the Ethereal Light, where it sets in motion all the celestial revolutions, whose perfect coincidence produces the perfect number of Time, or the Great Tear, which comprises the eight generations of the Etruscans. The souls destined to dwell one day in mortal bodies, and to form the successive generations of the world, were also disseminated among these eight spheres (Plat, in Tim. ), and it was through them that they descended to dwell upon the earth after having assumed different characters according to the different natures of the planets (Macrob. Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. zi. and xii.) and according to tlie longer or shorter period they had dwelt in them. The celestial divisions and the astrological system enter also into the composition of the fictitious periods respecting the successive duration both of the four ages of the great Indian year and of the eight generations of the great Etrus- can year. The ages themselves, being governed successively by Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, also show their connection with the planetary order, and with the descending series of the spheres. Mars is not mentioned by name, but it is said that at that period men began the deeds of Mars, such as bloody wars and terrible combats. In Firmicus (1. III. cap- i ) we see the five planets, beginning with Saturn, take in suc- cession the government of the five ages included in the great apocatastases, at the end of which the world is alternately destroyed by fire and by water. Hesiod also reckons five ages. In order to ascertain the astrological positions which displayed the principal features of the catastrophes supposed to take place at the end of the great year, we must go back to the period when these events are supposed to have taken place, viz. about 2,000 years before the Christian era, at the time, for instance, when the colure of the solstices passed close to Regulus, or the heart of the Lion, whom the Chaldsean astrologers make the head of the celestial revo- lutions, according to Theon (Comment, in Arat. p. 122). There is also a tradition, which Murtady has preserved, to the effect that Regulus was in the colure of the solstices e64 MANKIND: THEIR when the Deluge took place. It is evident from what has been said, that these catastrophes must take place when the heavenly bodies are in exactly the same position as they were at the Creation, because they only occurred when the heavens had resumed their primaeval aspect. This aspect, however, could only be settled by means of a fiction ; for, as Firmicus (1. III. cap. iv.) observes, upon the supposition of a world which had been created it was impossible to admit the existence of the science of astronomy in the origin of things, or of observers capable of determining the place of the planets in the zodiac. The selection of the period when the genesis of the world took place being arbitrary, all countries did not fix upon the same period ; but nevertheless it was fixed at one of the periods at which the year com- menced, either at the equinox or Aries, or at the summer solstice. The Persians, who begin their year at the vernal equinox, make the whole planetary revolution begin at that period, (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 358), and they put the Sun in Aries at the period when the stars are about to begin their career for the first time, and they place the planets in the same places of the sky as those in which the Babylonian astrologers, according to Firmicus (1. II. cap. iii.), fixed the exaltation, or position of greatest influence, of each of them. Others not only placed the Sun in Aries, but also all the other planets, on the same line, and they assumed, more naturally, that the origin of the movement of all the planets was the origin of the divisions of the circle in which they move. This is the hypothesis of Abulmazar and certain Egyptian astrologers (D'Herbelot, Bib. Orient, pp. 27, 28; Murtady; Bailly, Astr. Ind. Disc. prel. pp. 28, 152). According to this hypothesis, at that equinox some 2,000 years before our era, when the old revolution ended and the new one began, the colure of the equinoxes passed near the Pleiades, which long heralded the spring (Theon, pp. 121, 135), and consequently the Sun had then almost passed through Aries, and was about to enter the constellation Taurus, being preceded in his rising by the Celestial Charioteer and the she-goat Amalthsea, the aisch of Job, according to the Talmud and Buxtorfi^, situated in his left shoulder, whose beautiful star rose an instant before him and above him, and which seemed to guide his luminous chariot during the last day of the revolution of the cycle and of the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 655 year, at the moment when the Sun was about to enter our northern Ixemisphere, and heat it by his fires. This union of the she-goat and her kids, which are seen near the left hand of the Chaidoteer, at the equinoctial renewal of Aries, was represented in a hieroglyphical figure which Eusebius speaks of (Prsep. Evang. 1. III. cap. xii.). The day drew to an end, and there was seen in the west, near the sea, the Charioteer of the Sun's chariot about to descend into the bosom of the waves with the river Eridanus below him, and which sank with him at the moment when the huge Scorpion of the zodiac rose on the horizon, and terrified by his fright- ful appearance the horses of the Sun, which, together with their Charioteer, were cast out of heaven. It is this same monster that kills Orion, who follows the Eridanus, and ac- companies the Charioteer in his fall ; and which also causes Canopus, or the beautiful star of the helm of the Celestial Ship, which also sets at the same moment, to perish : in a word, this is the enemy and the destroyer of all the constella- tions, which disappear as he rises, and which are at that moment on the western horizon. The moon was supposed to be at this moment in Taurus, the place of her exaltation. This planet is called lo by the Copts and the Argives, where we find the fable of lo changed into a cow, and placed in Taurus or the place of the moon's exaltation. The story of lo's metamorphosis into a cow, the custody of which is confided to the starry heavens, is con- nected with that of Phaeton — who is identical, according to Nonnus (Dionysiac. 1. XXXVIII. ver. 43) with the Chario- teer — in Ovid, and according to Herodotus (1. II. cap. clviii.), it is Epaphus, the son of lo, the Egyptian Apis, who pro- poses to the young Phaeton the challenge which caused his fall. These two fables follow immediately after the triumph of the Sun, or Apollo, over the winter, and are, therefore, essentially connected with the equinoctial period and with the return of spring. This agrees completely with the tradition preserved by St. Epiphanius, who says that in his time a festival was still held at the vernal equinox, at the time that the sun passed under Aries or the Celestial Lamb, in memory of the famous conflagration of the Universe ; that the trees, the sheep, and many other things were coloured red, and that blood, the colour of which resembles that of fire, was looked upon as a preservative from a similar disaster. i 666 MANKIXD: THEIE This took place at nearly the same time that Adonis^ Mithra, Atys, &c., were mourned for in Asia, and Phaeton in Italy. Plutarch and Nonnus tell us that the dwellers on the banks of the Po had lamented the death of the unhappy Phaeton for many centuries. Lucian (De Astrologii, voL ii.) considers the adventure of Phaeton to be an incredible fable, the origin of which he seeks to explain by astrology, and, although he did not discover the true explanation of it, he saw clearly that this and many other fables which he men- tions, such as that of Pasiphae, and of the loves of Venus and Mars, &c., belonged in reality to that science. This appears to have been the origin of the fable of the conflagration of the universe, made on the conclusion of the equinoctial period, or on that of the year which began with the equinox, the commencement of which was marked by the heliacal rising of the Charioteer at the moment when the Sun was approaching the first stars of Taurus, and the conclusion by the fall or setting of this same constellation. We have now to examine the celestial aspects of the second hypothesis, or that which fixed the commencement of the period at the summer solstice. We find the same difference of opinions respecting the primitive arrangement of the planets in this hypothesis also. Some bring them all together at the solstitial point in the 80th degree of Cancer, or the Ist of Leo, on the colure itself (Nicetas, Choniate Thes. Orthod. Fidei, 1. IX.). Others distribute them throughout the height of the zodiac, from Cancer to Capricorn. The planet which was nearest to the earth was placed in the sign which was nearest to our north- em lands, that is, in Cancer, which culminated over the head of the inhabitants of Syene. The most distant was placed in the sign which is the most remote from our regions, and the others were domiciled in the five intermediary signs, according to the order assigned to the planets by the Egyptians and by Plato, who placed the sun next to the moon. The throne of the planet which dominated in each sign was placed in the middle of it, and it was there that all the energy and influence of the sign occupied by it appeared to be concentrated. It was therefore supposed that when the world began each of the planets was exactly in the middle of the sign in which it was domiciled. This is why Firmicus, who has given us the genesis of the world, has placed them ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 657 all in the fifteenth degree of their original domicile. The following, he says (Firmic. 1. III. cap. i.), was the position of the planets according to the principles of Esculapius and Anubis, to whom the great god Mercury confided the secrets of onr science, at the moment when the world was created. The Sun was placed in the fifteenth degree of Leo, the Moon in the fifteenth degree of Cancer, Saturn in the fifteenth degree of Capricorn, Jupiter in the fifteenth degree of Sagittarius, Mars in the fifteenth degree of Scorpio, Venus in the fifteenth degree of Libra, and Mercury in the fifteenth degree of Virgo. This position is the same as that given by Macrobius and by the Greek author quoted by Salmasius, except that they do not give the degree of the sign in which the planets are domiciled ; but Firmicus himself warns us not to suppose that it is anything but an arbitrary assump> tion on the part of the astrologers, for not only was there no one in existence at the Creation to verify the position of the planets, but it would be impossible even by calculation to go back as far as that primeval period, the period of restitution, or of the great Apocatastasis being no less than three hundred thousand years. It is not enough to know what was the position of the planets in the different portions of the heavens at the moment that the spheres began to revolve ; we must also know what the position of the heavens themselves was relatively to the horizon, and consequently to the day, in order to discover the exact position of the heavens at the moment when the first ray of light shone forth, and there- fore that which it will have at the moment which will end the night which is to be the last of each period, when the dawn of day is to herald the beginning of a new one. This position is also given by Firmicus and Macrobius. The latter says (Somn. Scip. 1. I. cap. xxi.), " At the moment that the day which first shed its light on the Universe, when all the elements, emerging from Chaos, became arranged in that brilliant form which we admire in the heavens — that day which we may properly call the birth -day of the world — it is said that Aries was in the midst of heaven. As the culmi- nating point is in some sort the summit of our hemisphere, Aries was on that account placed at the head of the othar signs, as having been, so to speak, at the head of the Universe when light shone forth for the first time. Cancer, u u 658 MANKIND: THEIR bearing the crescent Moon, rose on the horizon, closely followed by Leo, surmounted by the Sun ; then Mercury with Virgo, &c. ; and last came Saturn on Capricorn.*' Saturn therefore rose last, at the precise moment when day ended, and night began. This, according to Macrobius, was the reason that the sign which each planet was in at that moment was assigned to it for its domicile. Firmicus (1. III. cap. i.) also places the middle of Cancer at the moment when the heavens are about to move in the horo- scope, or on the eastern horizon. The other planets, each in their sign, were below the horizon, and ascended to it in succession during the whole of the first day. This astro- logical tradition respecting the position of Cancer at this period is confirmed by -Slneas Gazseus (In Theophraste, Bib. Mag. Patr. Parisin. t. xii. p. 647), who informs us that the hierophants of Egypt made Cancer preside over the natal hours of the world. Porphyry (De Antro Nymph. ; et Ptolem. Tetrab. 1. II. cap. x.) also makes the Egyptian year begin with the rising of Sirius, who always ascends with Cancer, and who presided over the birth of the world, as did Regulus, who ascends with him in Babylonia, also. This made Solinus (cap. xxxii.) say on the occasion of the rising of the Dog-star, that the Egyptian priests looked upon that moment as the natal hour of the world. It was the rising of the Dog-star which caused the intumescence of the waters, and made the Nile overflow the plains, which at this time of the year were inundated by a species of periodical deluge (Plut. de Iside; Herod. 1. II. cap. xix.). Sirius was the tenth chief or decanus of the Zodiac, as Xixuthrus was the tenth king, in whose reign the great Deluge took place. He was called " Hydragogus ; " and Solinus adds that when he rose the river overflowed most copiously. Servius (Comm. in Georg. 1. I. ver. 218) says he was a parana- tellon of Cancer — that is, as he explains, the principal of the stars which always accompany Cancer as he rises. We have also a description of the heavens at the time of the Deluge in the poem written on that subject by Nonnus, an Egyptian poet, thus proving the astrological nature of these fictions, and that they were connected with the move- ments of the stars, as Berosas observes. The position he assigns to the planets is nearly the same as that which Firmicus and Macrobius assign to them. The moon has returned to Cancer, and the sun to Leo. The Deluge, ORIGIN AXD DESTINY. 659 therefore, has taken place at the moment when the Nile overflows and Sirius rises. Mercury is in his domicile Virgo, Mars in Scorpio, Saturn in Capricorn; Venus and Jupiter alone are misplaced, but are nevertheless in their domiciles. Nonnus has mistaken the second domicile for the first, a mistake which it is easy to see. This is the position which the planets are about to reassume at the precise moment that the world is about to come to an end that it may be regenerated (Nonn. Dionys. 1. VI. ver. 2-W). Jupiter, wroth with the giants, and with the guilty race which has put his son to death, causes the terrible trumpet which announces the end of the univei'se to be heard iu mid-air. The earth is soon submerged by the torrents which fall from the seven cataracts of heaven. The whitening foam rises to the skies, and becomes mingled with the Milky Way. The fire of Love alone is not extinguished by the waters of the Deluge. Deucalion, borne on his ship, sails near the summit of the atmosphere. At length the earth becomes hard as the waters retire, and the sun hardens the slime from which the new generation to which Bacchus brings the present of wine, which the first men were unacquainted with, is to proceed (Nonn. Dionys. 1. VII. ver. 10, &c.) ; and then appears with him the white-haired god of the age, holding in his hand the key of the times and the genera- tions. In this poem the Deluge follows the conflagration of the universe, as the solstitial catastrophe follows that which terminates the equinoctial period. Such is the position of the heavens given by Petosiris and Necepsos for the primitive position, and by Nonnus for that which had been resumed at the moment when the world was about to be renewed — a position which Nonnus has taken from the old Egyptian poems on the Cycles, the frag- ments of which assisted him in the composition of his work. We can now place the globe before us in the same position as that in which the spheres of the priests were placed when they composed their sacred fables respecting Nature and the revolutions of Time. We shall see the heavens as they appeared to the astrologer-poet, and we shall easily see the origin of the principal features of the fable of this poem. The lasfc day of the universe was coming to an end, and the last night began as the sign opposite to the Sun, which was then in Leo, rose on the horizon ; this sign was u u 2 660 MANKIND : THEIR Aquarius leaning on his urn, from -which torrents of water gushed forth. He was immediately preceded by Saturn, who was then in Capricorn, and who as he ceased rising drew Aquarius after him and heralded his coming. The man who is drawn in the sign of Aquarius, holding an urn in his hand from which a river flows, was held by all the ancients to be the celebrated Deucalion, under whom the Deluge took place, as may be seen in Hyginus, Germanicus, and other authors who have written on the origin of the different names given to the constellations. The um which he holds in his hands was, according to Horns- Apollo (1. I. cap. xxi.), the symbol of the inundation in Egypt. Aquarius himself was held in Egypt to be the cause of the intu- mescence of the Nile, whose waves he raised by stamping on them with his feet, as Theon, the commentator of Aratus, informs us. By his side and a little above him, the horse Pegasus ascends, who also causes a river to flow by means of his foot, and whom we shall presently see appear in the Hindu legends, in which he also heralds the end of the world. In the west was seen Apollo's raven (Hygin. 1. III.), which enters into the fires of the Sun, while that star itself sails all that day and all the following in the Ark or Celes- tial Ship, which corresponds by its length exactly to the divisions of Leo, which the Sun is then passing through. This Ship, which some Rabbis suppose to be the Chesil of the book of Job, and which among many other names was called Noah's Ark (Bay. tab. xl. ; Ricciol. p. 126 ; Cses. p. 324), was considered in Egypt to be the ship of Osiris, and the beautiful star at the helm was called Canopus, his pilot. In the Chaldsean fable of Xixuthrus, his ark, and his birds, the pilot is also placed with Xixuthrus in Olympus. This corre- spondence of Navis or the Ship, with the solar Leo is the origin of one of the tables which the paranatellonic sphere of the Egyptians, engraved in Kircher's (EdipusiEgyptiacus, exhibits to us. This cosmogony is that of a vessel in which the Lion is sailing. In the Oriental spheres of Aben-Ezra, printed in Scaliger (Int. ad Manil.), the celebrated ship in which the sun embarked at the summer solstice, and in which he sails during the whole period of the inundation, is always found among the constellations which fix the three decans of Leo by their rising and setting. In the first decan of the Persian sphere we read : ** Half ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 661 of the Ship, with sailors on board Head of the horse." Ill the first decan of the Barbarian sphere : " The middle of the Ship." In the second decan of the Persian sphere : " The other half of the Ship The middle of the horse." In the second decan of the Barbarian sphere : " The prow of the Ship." Here the prow is last, because the Ship ascends the reverse way. Lastly, in the third decan of Leo in the Persian sphere is, " The Raven The last portion of the horse, which has completed its rising." It was this connection between the sun and the stars through which he passed at the solstice and during the following month — viz. the Ship and the Celestial Baven — which caused them to form part of the solstitial myth, as was also the case with Aquarius, who rose in aspect with him, and who began the night. The Raven was the bird of the Sun, whom Apollo placed in the skies (Hygin. 1, U. cap. zli.). In the three myths of Deucalion, Noah, and Xixuthrus, both the Ship and the birds of the Ark, which were released at the moment that the earth became solid, are found. Plutarch speaks of Deucalion's dove (Apollod. Bibl. Deorum, cap. vii.), and observes that the mythologists pretend that the dove which was sent forth from Deucalion's ship heralded the tempest when it entered the vessel, and that, on the contrary, when it flew away, it was a sign to him that the flood had ceased (Plut. de Solert. Animal, v. 2). The Raven does in fact reappear ; he leaves the solar rays with the Ark at the moment that the Nile has subsided, and the sun draws near Libra (Solin. cap. xxxii.). This is probably the origin of the Egyptian tradition which says that it is under Libra that the earth, emerging from the waters of Chaos, becomes fit to receive man (Firmic). We have seen that Saturn comes mounted on Capricorn to announce the nighfc which is opened by Aquarius, and the Chaldaean myth supposes that it was Saturn who appeared to Xixuthrus in a dream to announce the deluge. Saturn was also domiciled in the Aquarius of Deucalion, and Lucan has handed down to us in his poem (1. I. ver. 651) the astro* logical fiction respecting the return of Saturn to his domi- 662 MANKIND : THEIR cile, and respecting the aspect of Aquarius at the time of the Deluge. The state of the heavens at the commencement of the ciyil war is most fearful. Everything unites to announce a terrible catastrophe to the worid and to the human race. Nothing is wanting in these prophetic signs but the return of Saturn to his domicile, that Aquarius may by his influence bring about the Deluge once more. The Chaldaean myth also supposes that Xixuthms de- posited all the monuments of human knowledge at Siparis, the city of the Sun, and buried them in the earth when the Deluge began. This myth resembles that of the Americans, who supposed that the waters of their deluge inundated the whole world except Mount Olagmi, on which the Temple of the Sun stood. The same idea is found in the story of Deucalion, who is made to stop on Mount Lycoreus (Luc. vol. i.), or on the Moimtain of Light. Other authors allude to the name of the vessel, and call the mountain on which it stopped Mount Baris, which is the name given to it by Nicholas Damascenus, quoted by Josephus (Ant. Jud. 1. I. cap. ill.). Nigidius makes it stop on the summit of Mount Etna. Berosus, as has already been observed, gives a pilot to the ship of Xixuthrus (Syncell. p. 30), just as the Egyptians gave one to the Celestial Ship, which they called the ship of Osiris, and which our astronomical books call by its ancient name Area No6 (Csesius, Gael. Astron.). Li the Clialdscan myth Xixuthrus is taken up to heaven, and placed among the gods, with his wife, his daughter, and his pilot (Syncell. p. 31). His companions return to Siparis, and bring the depository of human knowledge to light. Plato taught that the world would be destroyed by fire and water. In fact, he did more than any one else to accredit the fiction of the Deluge. He says in the Timseus that the story of Phaeton's burning the world refers to the dissolu- tion of all things by fire. He also says in his Politics : — " When the time of all these things is full, and the change is needful, and all beings on the earth are exhausted, each soul having produced all its generations, and having planted as many seeds in the earth as were appointed unto it to do, then doth the Pilot of the Universe, abandoning the helm, return to his seat of circumspection, and the course of the world is turned back by Fatซ, and by its own innate concu- piscence. At that time, too, the gods, who act in special ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 603 places as colleagues of the Supreme Deity, being aware of what is coming to pass, dismiss the several portions of the world from their care. The world itself, being turned away, coming into collision, following inversely its course of beginning and ending, and feeling a great concussion within itself, brings about another destruction of all living things. But in due process of time it is set free from tumult, con- fusion, and concussion, and becomes calm, and then, being set in order, it returns to its pristine course," &c. In India, where the periodic inundations which change Egypt into a species of sea do not take place, it is not Deucalion or Aquarius who is connected in their myth with the end of the solstitial period, but the constellation which is at his side, which rises with him, a little above him, towards the north, and which also fixed the end of the period and the consummation of the ages. This constella- tion is the Celestial Horse, or Pegasus, whose right foot, raised, and carried forwards, as is also his head, rises on the horizon at the same time as the head of Aquarius, while his whole body ascends gradually at dusk throughout the whole month that the sun is passing through Leo and that the period is terminating. Night ends, and the period finishes at dawn. Then the Horse, who has performed his revolution above the horizon during the night, is near the western border, on which he places his foot, while a little further to the north, on the horizon, is the Lyre, called Testudo by the Bomans, and Chelys by the Greeks. The Dragon of the Pole is in sight, and leans towards the west. These are the aspects which determine the end of the period. The union of Pegasus, or the Northern Horse, with the divisions of Leo, is clearly shown in the Persian and Barbarian spheres, as we have seen. The Indian sphere also mentions this con- stellation in the second decan, in which we read, ^^ Here is a horseman, looking towards the north.'' The end of the world does not take place among the Hindus in the tenth month, under the tenth king, as in Chaldsea, or in the tenth age, as in the Sibylline books, but during the tenth metamorphosis of Vishnu. This latter metamorphosis will only take place at the end of the ages. Then Vishnu will appear in all his glory, mounted on the Kallenqui or Kelki, the horse who is now in the skies with his right foot raised, which he will only put down on the 664 M-\NKIND : THEIK • earth in order to cnish it, and to punish the impious and the wicked. At this moment the Serpent "who supports the world will lose his strength and bend beneath the weight, the Tortoise (the fabled origin of the lyre) will plunge into the sea, and men will perish on account of their corrupt state. Then the Age of Gold will return. This fiction does not require any change in the position which haa been given to the sphere according to the indications given by the Egyptian astronomers Petosiris and Necepsos, and the poem of Nonnus the Egyptian. In the temple of Jupiter Olympius was a place consecrated by the name of Olympias, and a hole was shown in it through which the waters of the deluge under Deucalion were sup- posed to have flowed away (Paus. Attic). Aquarius is called Deucalion in astronomy (Hyg. 1. II. cap. ixx. ; Germ. CsDsar. cap. zzvi.). It was also said that Deucalion built this temple, and this was used as an argument to prove that Deucalion had dwelt at Athens. This is easily explained when we find that he is also called Cecrops (ibid.), who is said to have founded the twelve tribes of Athens; for, as Suidas (Theod. Episcop. Tars. 1. III. apud Photium, Cod. cciii. p. 66) observes, the division of the Athenian people by Cecrops related to the four seasons, the twelve months, the thirty days which made up each month, &c. A similar hole to the one at Olympias was shown in a temple consecrated to the tutelary goddess of Aquarius, Juno, in Syria (Lucian de DeS; Syria), and it is said that the waters of the Deluge had flowed away through it. Lucian says that of all the superb and renowned temples which he saw in Syria, the temple of Hierapolis was the most magnificent, as it was also the most ancient and the most sacred in the world (Strabo, 1. XVL). He enters into details respecting the magnificent works, the precious gifks, and the beautiful statues which were contained in this temple, in which the skill of the priests had exhausted all the resources of art and of mechanism in order to deceive the people, and to subjugate them by the most marvellous apparatus that imposture, and a talent for deluding them, could make use of. There were statues there which were covered with perspiration at certain periods. Voices were heard which issued from the remotest parts of the sanctuary (the doors of which had been closed), and which gave forth ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 605 oracles. Devotees brought rich offerings to it from Arabia, Phoenicia, Babylonia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Assjrria. Vast storehouses were to be seen there which contained valuable stuflFs, and masses of gold and silver. In no part of the world were the festivals celebrated with more pomp, or the religious assemblages more solemn. Lucian, having discovered the antiquity of this temple,, enquired what goddess was worshipped there (ibid.). Several different accounts were given to him, some of which were veiled by religious mysticism, while others were more distinct, and others again entirely mythical. Some contained traditions which were entirely foreign to those of the Greeks, and others agreed with those which existed in Greece. The first of these traditions, with which alone we ai*e concerned here, stated that this temple had been consecrated by Deucalion the Scythian, under whom the Deluge took place. This is the Deucalion whose representative the (i reeks have placed in Aquarius (Hygin. 1. 11.), who holds the urn, while, as Hyginus observes, " the Southern Pish seems to receive the water which flows from the urn of Aquarius. It is said that he formerly came to aid Isis, and that out of gratitude for this service the representation of that goddess, and of the two Fish of the Zodiac, her children, that is, which rise immediately after her, were placed in the heavens. On this account tiie Syrians abstain from fish, and have made sacred golden images of fish, which serve them as tutelary gods, or dii penates." These fish are called Daghioto by the Syrians (Rice. p. 126), and Dagaim by the Hebrews (Kirch. (Edip. vol. ii. part ii. p. 199). Germanicus Ccesar (cap. xxxvi.) tells us on the authority of Nigidius that these fish, as well as the Southern Fish, came from the river Euphrates ; that they found an enormous egg which they sent up on to its bank, and that a dove sat upon it, and hatched the Syrian goddess, or Venus. This goddess obtained permission from Jupiter that the fish who saved the egg should be placed in the sky, and shine among the signs of the zodiac. On this account, Germanicus adds, the Syrians eat no fish, and worship doves aa possessing divine power. Diodorus Siculus (1. II. cap. iv.) says that there is a deep and vast lake near Ascalon in Syria which is full of fish, and by the side of it is a magnificent temple of the SjTian 6C0 MANKIND : THEIR goddess Derceto. Her statue represents a woman in its npper portion, and the rest of her body resembles a fish. He explains that this originated from the circumstance that Derceto, who was the daughter of Venus, displeased her mother, who, in order to be revenged upon her, inspired her with love for a young man whom she picked out of a crowd of worshippers who went to the temple. Derceto had a daughter by him, but being ashamed of her crime she caused her lover's death, and exposed the child on some rocks. She then threw herself into the lake, and was metamorphosed into a fish, in consequence of which the Syrians abstain from eating fish, and venerate them as so many gods. Some doves fed the child, who was afterwards known as Semiramis, the goddess-mother, who was worshipped under the form of the dove that accompanied the ark. Her name signifies ^^ the supreme Dove,'' and she was identical with the Syrian goddess, as Hyginus shows. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 067 CHAPTER XXIV. The Bagawadam contains a sacerdotal myth respecting the Deluge which is evidently astrological in its origin, for it can be explained without diflSculty by the astronomical aspects. Vishnu, or the guardian deity, assumes in it the form of a fish in Capricorn, as is represented in the Hindu Zodiac. This is the Southern Fish, which is at the end of the water of Aquarius in our spheres, and winds under Capricorn. The Sun-god, or Vishnu, assuming this celestial shape, came, it is said, in order to be near a virtuous prince, whom he wished to save from the Deluge in order to re- establish a new order of things. This prince is evidently Aquarius, or Deucalion, who was also saved from the Deluge on account of his virtues. The Chinese also place a prince, Tchouen-Hi, under whom also a deluge took place, in this same sign (Souciet, t. iii. p. 82). In the Hindu fiction this prince is the seventh Menu, or tutelary genius, who presides over one of the ages, just as Aquarius is the seventh sign from the summer solstice, and as Saturn, who is also domiciled in it, is also the seventh. Vishnu in this shape tells this virtuous prince that he will be near him ; that as soon as he is on the ocean he will see a large ship and a sea- serpent appear in the midst •of the waters, and that this serpent will serve as a cable by which the ship can be drawn along by tying it to the great horn of the fish, whose form Vishnu himself has assumed. The Deluge begins; the sea overflows, the rain falls in. torrents. This alludes to the sign we are about to enter, namely, Aquarius, or the first Bitou, under whom the year is about to be renewed. The protecting Deity also appears on the ocean in the shape of a fish which glitters like gold. No better description can be given of a constellation which contains a star of the first magnitude, called Phom-aJ-hAt (Heb. Dag), or the mouth of the Southern Pish. The Pish- G(58 MANKIND : TUEIB god increases prodigiously, and the prince fastens an im- mense ship, which appears to him all of a sudden, to his enormous horn by means of a cable made out of a large serpent. In his joy at being thus saved the prince sings the praises of God, who has preserved him from the deluge, and has also willed that a new world shall be produced under his reign. Nothing proves the connection which exists between the Hindu myth respecting the Deluge and the celestial aspects more than the general agreement which exists between the periods at which this semi-mythological, semi-astronomical event is fixed by all the nations who believe in it, and the astronomical positions which belong to this period. All agree in placing the solstitial colure in the first stars of Leo and Aquarius, and the equinoctial colure in the first stars of Taurus. Censorinus (cap. xxi.), who quotes Varro as his authority, says that three periods are reckoned. **The first period is that which elapsed before the Deluge ; it is called the dark period, and it is uncertain whether it is eternal or not. The second is the mythological period, that is, the period which has elapsed between the Deluge and the first Olympiad; this is considered to have lasted nearly 1,600 years. Now, as the date of the first Olympiad is B.C. 776, this deluge took place about B.C. 2360, and the period which has elapsed since the first Olympiad is the only one which can be considered historical." This period corresponds with the commencement of the reign of lao in China, in whose reign the Chinese say a flood occurred, and who began to reign, according to them, B.C. 2357. The astronomical position of the heavens at the time of the Chinese deluge is that the Summer solstice corresponds with Regulus, the beautiful star of the Heart of the Lion, and the winter solstice with the horn of the Fish, whose form Vishnu assumes at the period of the imaginary deluge, and with the first stars of Aquarius, in which sign the Greeks place Deucalion, who is saved from the deluge (Hygin. 1. HE. cap. xxx. ; Grerraanic. cap. xxvi.), and the Chinese Tchouen-Hi, in whose reign a deluge occurred. Thus the astronomical positions both in China and in Greece correspond with the calculations of both Varro and the Chinese historians, who speak of a great flood which took place in the reign of lao (Souciet, t. iii. p. 13). The ORIGIN AND DESTINY. (WM) Egyptians have another position, that of Regulns in the summer colure. Murtadi states, in accordance with ancient Egyptian books, that the world was renovated after the deluge, Regulus being at that time in the summer solstice, while the winter solstice corresponded to the horn of the Fish, and to Aquarius. The traditions of all nations have thus been shown to give the same position of the sphere as existing when the end of a period, or of a year, and the appearance of a new one, were celebrated in the poems on the cycles, viz. the entrance of the Sun into Aquarius. This position is of a later date than the Mithraic monuments and the Per- sian observations of the colures. It is hardly necessary to observe that, independently of the physical impossibility of such an event having ever taken place, if there had been a Deluge the Mithraic monument would never have come down to us. Deucalion would never have put it on board his vessel, nor would any one have observed the position of the colures, or that of Regulus, at the time of the universal destruction of all things. Sanchoniathon is silent respect- ing it, and neither Homer nor Hesiod mention the deluges of Ogyges or Deucalion, which shows that this tradition was unknown till hvter times. None of the most ancient and trust- worthy Greek writers — neither Herodotus, nor Thucydides, nor Xenophon — allude to it, though Herodotus (1. I.) names Deucalion, and says that he reigned over Phthiotis, a district of Thessaly, which was where the Hellenes originally settled. The history of Berosus, who was a priest of Belus at Baby- lon, and which was written after the death of Alexander the Great (between B.C. 300 and 260), is the first which gives any detailed account of it. The whole is a mere astronomical fiction founded on the passage of the sun through Aquarius, just as the date of the Argonautic expedi- tion shows that it referred to the passage of the sun through Aries. Eratosthenes tells us that " the constellation Argo was placed in the heavens by divine command^ for the Argo was the first ship that was ever built ; it was, moreover, built in the earliest times, and was an oracular vessel. It was the first ship that ventured upon the seas, which had never been crossed before, and it was placed in the sky as a sign to those which were to come after." Plutarch says (De 670 MANKIND : THEIR Iside) ! To irkoiov h tcaKovaiv "EWiyvgy *Apyw rrJ9 ^Oa-iptBof vitas sUaiKov hrl Tififi /caTrfcrrepia-fiJi^ov. ** The constellation which the Greeks call Argo was a representation of the sacred ship of Osiris, and it was out of reverence placed in the heavens.'' The winter solstice was long in the water of Aquarius (which extends as far as the Southern Pish), in which the year began and ended. This was the origin of the myths respecting the destruction of the world by water, and of the name of Deucalion and that of Tchouen-Hi, which the Chinese have given to Aquarius. They have a dictionary called Eulya, in which it is expressly stated that " Hiven- Mao," the celestial sign which we call Deucalion, is the symbol of the reign of Tchouen-Hi, and indicates that emperor, in whose reign a great flood took place. The same fictions respecting the destruction and renewal of the world are found in Scandinavia (Voluspa, stroph. lii.). The sun is darkened, the earth perishes, and is replaced by a new earth more beautiful than that which preceded it. The Northern nations also celebrated the night of the winter solstice, which they called the Mother Night, or the longest night (Mallet, cap. vii.). The Egyptians said of Aquarius that he caused the water in the Nile to leave the bed of the river by a kick with his foot (Theon, p. 136), and Aquarius did in fact rise in the evening at the summer solstice at the same time as Sirius, when the Etesian winds began to blow, and the species of deluge which overflows the whole of Egypt at that period commenced. The Arabians call Aquarius Delu, Ab-delu, &c. (Bay. t. xxiii.), and the Hebrews Deli (Kirch. (Edip. vol. ii. pars ii. p. 199). These words signify an urn and a pitcher (Hyde, Comm. ad TJlugb. pp. 42-45). There is no allusion to the Deluge throughout the Hebrew Scriptures with the exception of Is. liv. 9, a chapter written after the return from captivity, and Ezek. xiv. 19, 20, a portion of Ezekiel which was written during the captivity. This extraordinary omission points to a foreign origin, and we shall find that the Deluge of Noah is almost identical with that of Osiris and Typhon as described in Plutarch (De Iside) and other authors, for Osiris is shut up in the ark on the very same day (the 17th) of the month A.thor, or November, that Noah was, and the adventures of Osiris ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 671 and Isis occupy almost exactly the same period of time that the Deluge does, Noah is said (Gen. vii. 10) to have bd^n shut up on the 17th day of the second month ; and as the old civil year of the Hebrews began with the month Tisri in the autumn, the 17th day of the second month corresponded to the middle of November, which was the commencement of the windy and rainy season. The name of Typhon signifies a deluge or inundation, for which reason Plutarch says the Egyptians called the sea Typhon. The Talmud, which the Jews held to be equally inspired with the Scriptures, and which they say was given to Moses on Mount Sinai at the same time as the tables of stone, the Thorah, and the Mitzvah, shows the astronomical nature of the Deluge. In Treatise Berachoth, sect. ix. we have the following account of how it was brought about : — "In Job xxxviii. 31, God says to Job : * Canst thou bind the bands of no'*:^ (Chima) or loose the cords of ^^D3 (Chesil) ? * What does nD^3 mean? Samuel said about one hundred stars (which make up the constellation), which act together according to some, and separately according tiO others. What does B^ (Arcturus or Lucifer) mean ? E. Jehuda says, the Km\ And what is the Km^ P Some say it is the tail of Aries (hto), and others say it is the head of Taurus (ซ7"ปy). The most probable opinion is that of those who say that it is the head of Taurus, for it is written (Job xxxviiL 82) : * Canst thou guide the fiW to his sons P ' ฃix)m which we conclude that the fi^ is in want of something, and it appears that this something has been taken from him by force, and that he is going after the nD'>:^^ and says to him, * Give me back my son,' seeing that at the time that the Holy One, blessed be he, determined to bring the Deluge on the earth, he took two stars out of the nD^3 (the Pleiades), and made the Deluge come through the holes left by them, and when he wished to stop them up, he took two stars from the W, and put them into the holes." The constellation Chima consists, according to the Babbis, of about a hundred stars, the principal of which is En Hascior, which is called Chima on account of its peculiar brilliancy. They say that is a very hot and arid star, and and that the waters are kept up above the sky by means of heat and acridity, but that God, as we have seen above, brought about the Deluge by taking two stars out of the con- ป 672 MANKIND : THEIR Btellation. The Jews acknowledged seven firmaments, or heavens, called Yilon, Bakia, Scechakim, Zenul, Mach6 Maa6n, and Aranoth. The zodiac and planets, &c., were all in the second heaven, called Bakia. We see from this passage that the Jewish belief was that the Delnge was connected with the Pleiades. ^* Who can doubt," says Pliny (Hist. Nat. 1. TI. cap. xxxix.), " that the temperature of summer and of winter, and the periodical changes which take place during each annual revolution, are 80 many results of the motions of the stars ? Not only does the sun, as the Supreme Ruler, whose action is manifest throughout the general course of each year, influence them, but each particular star influences them by its peculiar characteristics, and by the analogy which exists between its nature and that of the effects produced. Some are calculated to bring about liquefaction and dissolution into fluids, others the concretion and congelation of these fluids, either into hoar-frost, or snow, or hail. Other stars are the cause of winds, give an agreeable warmth to the atmosphere, or carry up heated exhalations, spread abroad the dew, or, lastly, engender bitter cold." This passage shows that every star was held to develop its peculiar power, and to act during the period of its revolution as its imputed nature led it to do. The worship of the Pleiades was established in the East, where they were called Succoth-Benoth (Selden, synt. II. cap. vii.)> who was one of the chief Babylonian deities. When Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, established colonies from various countries in the cities of Samaria after its capture, each of the colonies brought their deities with them, and " the men of Babylon made Succoth-Benoth," (2 Kings xvii. 30). This idol, according to the Rabbis (Kirch. CEdip. vol. i. p. 350 ; Hyde, Comm. p. 30), represented a hen and chickens. They say that this is the constellation called Chima in the Scriptures, and also Succoth-Benoth, and that as the cock was called Schevi, the hen was called Succoth, and the chickens Benoth. This evidently represented the Pleiades, which the common people called the Hen and Chickens, and which were represented in that shape in Taurus, the si^n appointed to Venus, who is domiciled in it. Hence Selden, Vo88ias,and others have taken Succoth-Benoth to be an idol belonging to the Assyrian Venus, and other spheres represented the Pleiades, or Doves, a bird con- ORIGJN AND DESTINY. 673 secrated to Venus, in this sign (Kirch. CEdip. vol. ii. part ii. p. 243). The Hebrews called tlie Pleiades the foundation of the celestial revolutions, on account of their connection with the progress of the seasons (Kirch, ib. vol. i. p. 356), and they were considered to influence the weather more than any- other stars. Theon (Ad Arat. Phoen. p. 133) fixes the rising of the Pleiades as taking place in the morning from May to June 28, and in the evening from October to November 19. They rise in the morning for fifty-two days about the period of the vernal equinox, the sun being then at about the seven- teenth degree of Taurus, and they rise in the evening for the same period after the autumnal equinox, when the sun arrives at Sagittarius. Their rising in the morning, continues Theon, announces the commencement of hot weather ; their setting in the morning the commencement of ploughing. They rise in the morning at dawn about the 25th of the month Pharmuti (April), the sun being then in Taurus. The Egyptian harvest takes place at this time. They rise in the evening when the sun is in Scorpio in the month Athor (November). At this point they are visible on the horizon during the whole of night. " Jupiter himself,*' says Theon, " has placed them, in order that they may be the faithful heralds to mortals of the revolutions of the seasons, and of the beginning of summer and winter." They set in the morning during the month Athor, when the winter begins. Their nocturnal rising brings cold weather, as their rising in the morning brings heat. The cosmogony of the Atlantes makes them to be th^ daughters of Hesperia and Atlas, and calls them indiscri- minately Hesperides and Atlantides (Diod. Sic. 1. IV. cap. xxvii.). Hesperia, their mother, was a daughter of Hesperus, the brother of Atlas. These are the seven damsels whom Busiris, king of Egypt, ordered certain pirates to carry oflf; but Hercules killed the latter, and restored the seven damsels to their father. In Ptolemy's calendar (Uranol. Petav. vol. iii. p. 71), which is framed in accordance with the Egyptian months, the 1 7th of November is marked " Hyemis initium," and this is also the day of the death of Osiris, as Plutarch (De Iside) tells us i Tavra Bi irpaxOrj^a^ \iyovraL iBBofirj hrl hiKa /jLTfvos "XOvp^ iv ^ tov aKOpnriov o ^\io9 Bte^mriVy SyBoov Sto9 teal BiKoarop ifcsipov fiaaiKevovros *Oa^}iSof* Tzetzes X X 674 MANKIND : THEIR (Chil. X. Hist. 355) says positively that Noah was identical with Osiris and Bacchus, ^Os 'S&i ical ^lopvaos ical ^Oaipi.9 KoKBirai ; and Theophilus (Ad Antolyc. 1. TI. p. 370) speaks of No)5, hs KSKXrjTaL vno hmv AsvKa\ia>Pj ** Noah, who is called by some Deucalion." Philo (De Praemiis et Pcenfi.) also says that Deucalion was Noah. The Chaldseans called him Xixuthrus, 'O NAs S^ffovdpos trapcL XaXSatouj (Cedren. p. 11). Plutarch shows the astronomical nature of these legends when he says (De Iside), To irXolov h xaXovaip'^EtWrfves 'A/xyo), rrj9 'OcTAptSoj pฃ&9 hrl rifj,^ KaTqarspuTfiivov, " The vessel in the celestial sphere which the Greeks call Argo is a repre- sentation of the Ship of Osiris, which out of reverence has been placed in the heavens." This Argus, or Argo, as it should be called, signifies an ark, and is synonymous with Thebes, where the original of Noah's ark is to be found. Diodorus (1. I.) tells ns that Sesostris constructed a vessel 280 cubits in length, made of cedar (of which wood the Targum of Onkelos says Noah's ark was made), plated with gold, and inlaid with silver, and which he dedicated to Osiris at Thebes. This ship was only one-fifteenth less than Noah's ark, which is 800 cubits long, and the disparity arose probably more from the mode of measming than from any real difference. From its immense length it was more probably a temple than a shrine. Ships, however, were actually carried in procession at Eruthra in Ionia, at Smyrna in the feast called Dionusia, and at the Panathenaea at Athens. At Olympia there was a building like the fore part of a ship which faced the end of the Hippodrome, and there was an altar towards the middle of it upon which particular rites were performed at the renewal of each Olympiad (Pans. 1. VI.). Pausanias also says (1. V.) when describing the splendid temple of Juno, " There is also an ark (Aapi/af ) made of cedar placed in the temple, with ornaments of gold and ivory, and partly also made of this same cedar wood." The ship of Sesostris was the origin of all the Arkite rites in Egypt, Greece, &c. ; and Nonnus (Dionys. 1. XLI.) tells us why Thebes was so named : — vorit^ vapa Nซi\^ 0//3i;c dp\tyivoio fipwwfiOQ tirXiTo 6///3)} * " Thebes in the most southern part of the Nile was built and named after the ark, which was the original Thebes." ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 676 Diodorus, however, is mistaken in supposing that Sesostris constructed this ship or temple in honour of Osiris. The truth is that Sesostris, Osiris, Dionusos, Menes, and Noah, were all identical. Sesostris is called Seisuthrus by Abjdenus. Xixuthrus by Berosus and Apollodorus, and was also called Zuth, Xuth, and Zeus, and had divine honours paid to him. Menes, the so-called first king of Egypt, is the same as Ne or Mne, the Hebrew name of Noah, which signifies "rest" or " expiation." The Egyptian sacred ship was a representation of the crescent moon, whence it was called M^i^ and l,s\i^vr)^ and the person who was saved in it was called Meen and Menes, and was worshipped all over the East as Deus Lunus, and his votaries were called Minyse. Plutarch (De Iside) says that Typhon made an ark richly ornamented in order that he might dispose of the body of Osiris, and that Osiris entered into it and was shut up by Typhon. He also says that the Greeks mourned at the same time of year as the Egyptians, and at the same time that the Pleiades rose in the evening. The number 17, which is that of the day of the month on which Osiris was put into the ark, was an accursed number, and one which the Pythagoreans considered as being of bad omen. The peculiar circumstances of the climate and soil of Egypt are the reason that the death of Osiris takes place when the waters of the inunda- tion are drained oflF into canals, and the productive power of Osiris, or the sun, has ceased. Plutarch states that all the adventures of Osiris and Isis are nothing but the luni- Bolar phenomena allegorically described. The astronomical explanation of the commemoration of the death of Osiris is that the diurnal and nocturnal hemispheres have for their centres the sun, and the point opposite to the sun respec- tively. Tlie latter is where the shadow cast by the earth terminates, and this is the point which determines the position of the full moon, which is always in opposition with the sun, and which only becomes eclipsed when it passes into this cone of shadow. This, therefore, is where the ark which Osiris entered while the sun was in Scorpio was placed, for at that time the middle of the night, and the point of the cone of shadow fell upon Taurus, that is, on the sign which furnished Osiris with his attributes, and which was represented by Apis, the representative of Osiris. This was the origin of the ceremony in which a golden ox covered z X 2 676 MANKIND: THEIR with black crape was paraded on the 17th day of the month of the Scorpion, the day of the full moon, on which the death of Osiris was lamented, and on which Ptolemv's Egyptian calendar marks the commencement of winter (TJranol. Petav. vol. iii.). It is easy to see that as the son advances a sign each month as he passes through the lower signs, the ark, or the cone of shade, also advanced in the upper signs, while Isis, or the moon, endeavoured to reach it every full moon. But at length, when the moon was full in Libra, and the sun was consequently in Aries, near the equinox, the cone of shadow passed into the lower hemi- sphere. Between this period and the next new moon, which occurred in Taurus, fourteen days elapsed, during which time the cone of shadow quitted the upper hemisphere, and became mingled with the darkness which existed in the lower hemisphere. The new moon rejoined Taurus and the sun, and then that beautiful renewal of the moon took place at the period of the year when the entrance of Osiris into the moon was celebrated. Taurus became the central point of day, and passed back into the luminous hemisphere, while six months previous to this he had been enveloped in the darkness of night at the extremity of the cone of shadow which forms the centre of it. Orestes, the son of Deucalion, is said to have discovered the vine (Athenseus 1. II. cap. i.). Others attributed the discovery of it to Bacchus, who taught Icarus or Bootes, who rises at the time of the vintage, how to cultivate it. This fiction also alludes to the function of Bootes as the constel- lation which heralded the vintage — namely, as Icarus with his daughter Erigone, or Virgo, one of whose stars is called Vindemiatrix, the female vintager ; the star as Germanicus (cap. xlii.) observes, which foretells the ripening of the grapes. These stars rise in the evening with the Ship when the sun is passing through Aquarius, in which sign the Greeks placed Deucalion, as we have seen. Bootes and his beautiful star Arcturus, and Virgo and her beautiful star Spica, play various parts under diflferent names in ancient mythology. Among others they are Meschia and Meschiane (the first man and woman) in the Persian mythology (Boundesh, p. 378). The anniversary of the death of Meschia is still kept in Persia on the day in May on which Arcturus sets. ORIGIN AxVD DESTINY. 677 The cardinal points which are fixed by the intersection of the colures, or rather the colures themselyes, which divide the zodiac into four portions, have been represented by the Chinese by four rivers, which flow from the Yellow Foun- tain, or from the zodiac, which is called the Yellow Eoad by the Chinese (M6m. sur les Chinois, Mission de P^kin, t. i. pp. 106, 108). Each of these rivers has a colour which refers to its season, just as the seasons were distinguished by different colours in the Mexican year, in the twelve stones which composed the diadem of Juno, and in the dress of the charioteers at the games of the circus, in order to represent the colours of the four elements and of the seasons (Isidor. Orig. 1. XVI. cap. xxx.). The Chinese also speak of red water, or the water of the Red River, and yellow water ; but the most remarkable circumstance is that the fourth river reckoning from the summer solstice, and which corresponds to the vernal equinox, or Aries, was called the Water of the Lamb, and this constellation was also called the Lamb by the Persians, as we have seen. This is the sign called Vare (Zend-Avesta, vol. iii. p. 357). " When the Kordeh of Cancer appears, the days are at the longest.'' This water is elsewhere called a river, whose name signifies abundance. This is what the Chinese call the most abundant and highest spring, which they say flows between the North and East. It is at this period of the year that the Boundesh supposes that Taschter, or the guardian angel of the East, causes the water to flow in the ninth Kordeh (house of the moon), called Avr^, which corresponds to the claws of Cancer, the constellation which was in the summer solstice when Aries corresponded to the vernal equinox. The same author who calls the summer colure, which is in opposition to the colure of the short days, by the name of fulness, or abundance, designates the winter one by a river whose name signifies "narrow," and "rapid" — an evident allusion to the short duration and rapid course of daylight at the winter solstice. This is where the Hindus placed the metamorphosis of Vishnu into a little dwarf, and where the Chinese make their yellow river to flow between the South and West. The red stream is made to flow between the East and South, or through the autumnal equinox. At this period of the year the radiance of the summer sun decreases, and it is accordingly designated by a river whose name 678 MANKIND : THEIR signifies " weakness '' or "dispersion.*' The fourth river, which the Chinese cosmogony calls " the river of the Lamb," flows between the West and the North, that is, throngh the point where the colure cuts the zodiac in Aries, and separates the three winter months from the three spring months which begin with Aries. The author places it in the East because it was there that the Lamb, or Ammon, who was worshipped on the banks of the Nile, appeared at sim-rise on the first day of spring. This river of the Lamb is also an allegorical river which is called Moundi-Agni by the Hindus (Ezourved, 1. IL cap. iv. p. 259). These allegorical rivers are, therefore, not to be sought for in any terrestrial Eden, but in the world which is subject to the government of two principles (Alph. Tibet, p. 31), represented by two Princes, one of whom was seated on the mountain of Life, and the other on the mountain of Death (M^m. sur les Chinois, t. i. pp. 106-108). The latter was represented with the attributes of Ophiucus, who is placed in the heaven at the point which separates spring and summer from autumn and winter, or the empire of Ormuzd from that of Ahriman. He is the Scorpion of the Mithraic monument, and the Time or Xpovos of the Orpheans (Athenag.), who takes from Heaven or Ovpaio9 the produc- tive power which had been developed during the spring and Slimmer, and which, being deposited in the waters, gave birth in the ensuing spring to Venus, or the goddess of life and generation. Life is poured down on the earth by means of the zodiac, in which all the instruments which Time and Destiny make use of are continually circulating, and the Chinese (M6m. p. 106) call the zodiac that lofty spring from which the water of immortality gushes forth, and which is divided into four rivers or canals. The cosmogony of the Lamas, which also speaks of these four allegorical rivers (Alphab. Tibet, p. 188) leaves no doubt as to their connection with the sphere, and with the celestial figures through which the colure used to pass when the summer solstice corresponded with. Leo and the vernal solstice with Taurus. This cosmogony gives one of these rivers the head of a Lion, another the head of a Bull, another the head of a horse, or of Pegasus, who was at that time above the winter solstice, and the fourth has the shape of an elephant, which animal is in aspect of opposition with the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 670 antumnal equinox on the Oriental spheres. Four animals represent the colures in other cosmogonies also: the two first are the same as above ; the third, however, is Aquarius, instead of Pegasas, who is above him. The name of the first of these rivers is the Gangi or Ganges, which the Hindus look upon as the greatest of all rivers (Bhagavat-Guta). The Chinese author also calls it the Granges, and he translates the word ^^ fulness," the allegorical meaning of which has been explained. Each of these rivers corresponds to one of the cardinal points of the sphere, like the four great stars of the Persian cosmogony, which watch over the four quarters of the heavens, for the direction of these rivers is indicated in the cosmogonies of China and of Thibet. The second river is called Sinthu, the third Pakiu, and the fourth Sita. The first issues forth towards the North, or towards the part of the zodiac nearest the North Pole at the summer solstice, in which Leo is at that time. A Lion's head is given to this river. Another river looks to the South, and has a Bull's head. The third, which looks to the West, has a horse's head ; and the fourth, which looks to the East, has an elephant's head. Taschter, one of the guardian stars in the Persian cosmogony, has a Bull's head with golden horns (Zend-Avesta, vol. i. p. 419 ; Souciet, t. ii. p. 185), and is sometimes joined to the body of the Celestial Horse. The Hindus suppose that the largest mountain in the world. Mount Meru, from which four rivers spring, is in the middle of the earth (Ezour-Ved.). One of these rivers is called Brom- moza, another Bodra, and another Ganga. Brommoza runs northwards, Ganga southwards, &c. The celebrated tree Par- anagiadika is planted near the latter (Barthov. System of the Brahmins, p. 291, &c.). There is an attempt here to indicate the cardinal points, and at the same time to identify these rivers with others which have a real existence, and are well known. These four directions are also indicated by the four roads taken by Brammon, Cuttery, Shuddery and Wise, the four sons of Pourone and Parcoutee, the first man and woman in the Banian religion, in order to go and repeople the world (H. Lord, cap. ii.-vi.). This fiction of the four rivers is also found in another shape in the Brahminical description of the Universe (Bagawad, 1. V.). A stream issues from Mount Meru, waters the tree of Brahma, and issues by its 080 MANKIND: THEIB four gates (the name given by the CabalistB to the four cardinal points of the sphere) in the shape of fonr rivers, which are called Sadalam, Sadasson, Patram, and Alagaey. One of these streams, rising in the air, washes the feet of Vishnu. The explanation of this allegory is that the Hindus call the stars of Aquila, which is over Capricomus, and through which the solstitial colure passed as it rose from Capricorn to Cancer, the Feet of Vishnu. The town of Brahma, or Brahma-Patna, is said to be glittering with gold ; this is a good description of the ethereal sphere. In the sphere which represents the primitive position of the colures at the moment of the division of the houses of the sun and moon, the colure of the solstices passes through the 22nd Natchron (Lunar House) of the Hindu sphere, the emblem of which is the Foot of Vishnu. This leaves no doubt as to the accuracy of the above explanation. Kircher (OEdip. vol. iii. p. 88, and vol. ii. p. 131) gives a systematic table of the four rivers, vrith tlie names of the angels which preside over them, of the four seasons which they represent, and of the four cardinal points to which they correspond. These four angels are the four great stars or superintending spirits of the Persian cosmogony, and it is they who have the control over the four winds which blow from different parts of the horizon. Their names are Mahaziel, Aziel, Samael, and Azazel, and the names of the rivers are the Euphrates, the Pison, the Gihon, and the Tigris. This division of time into four parts by the colures which mark the limits of the seasons, and the division of the day into four parts, is represented by another emblem in Thibet. The Lamas have in their cosmogony an immense square column round which the sun revolves. This column has four faces (Voyage de Pallas, t. i. p. 531), one of which is silver, another sky-blue, another gold, and the fourth red. Round the column are four large pieces of ground which represent the four cardinal points, and two islands are formed between each of these points, making twelve in all, and representing the duodecimal division of the horizon into cardinal winds and intermediary winds, as it appears in the Cabalists and in Joachides (Kirch. (Edip. vol. iii. p. 118). The same cosmogonic idea is expressed among them by the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 081 fiction of Mount Bighiel, which is supposed to have four sides, the eastern of which is composed of atoms of crystal, the southern of Pema, the western of Bedcharia, and the northern of gold. The gold corresponds to the summer solstice, or the Northern Tropic, because that is the domicile of the sun, to whom gold was sacred. The Ganges is placed here in other cosmogonies. To the south of this mountain is the tree called Zampal, which the Hindoos call Giamum, near which are four rocks with the astronomical forms of the Lion, the Ox, Ac, froia which four streams issue (Alph, Tibet, p. 192). The Hebrew text fixes the creation of the world as haying taken place B.C. 4121. The earth, which had been made out of nothing, was " without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep," for the ancient authors who have written on cosmogony held that Night begat Chaos. Light is next created ; the succession of day and of night is appointed; the fertile earth is adorned with fiowers and laden with fruits, and after this the sun, moon and stars are created, the latter being the symbol of twilight in Egypt owing to the time when they were supposed to have been created, and the faintness of their light (Horap. 1. IL Hierog. 1). Besides the period mentioned above, there are numerous other periods, about 300 in all, which have been put forward by various authors as the true date, and these systems vary in their extremes upwards of 3,000 years, the longest being that of King Alphonsus of Castile, who fixes the date of the creation at B.C. 6984, and the shortest that of Babbi Lipman, who fixes it at B.C. 3616. The modem Jewish computation is that the world was created B.C. 3760, and that the "Deluge took place B.C. 2104. The Exodus, according to them, took place B.C. 1312, thus giving exactly 792 years for the foundation and existence of the mighty empires of Assyria and Babylonia, for the won- derful structures and advanced civilization of the Egyptians, and for the civilization of the whole world. The received chronology makes Abraham to be contemporary with Noah for fifty-eight years of his life, and to die thirty-five years before Shem, who did not die till b.o. 1846, and sixt)'-four years before Eber, who did not die tiU B.C. 1817. Isaac was bom only forty-two years after the death of Noah, and was contemporary with Shem for 110 years, yet there is not the 682 BfANKIND: THEIR slightest mention of Abraliam's having seen or heard of Noah, or Shem, or any of their descendants, or of the Deluge. Again, Ham, who was the father of the Egyptians, according to the Hebrew text, and his son Mizraim, must have been worshipping the true Gk)d in Egypt while Terah, the father of Abraham, though contemporary with Noah for 128 years of his life, was not only a worshipper of idols, but a manufacturer of them. The vulgar Jewish chronology makes Shem die B.o. 1602, and Peleg b.c. 1573, only fifty-one years before the descent into Egypt. Abraham, according to this chronology, was bom forty-eight years before the confusion of tongues. The Septuagint version makes Methuselah live fourteen years beyond the Deluge, and our Masoretic version contains an equally extraordinary statement, for it makes Methuselah to be drowned in the Deluge. We are told that he was 187 years old when he begat Lamech, and that Lamech was 182 years old when he begat Noah. Methuselah therefore was 869 years old when Noah was bom, and as he lived 969 years, he must have lived 600 years after that event, and consequently must have been still alive when Noah entered the ark. The Epistle of Barnabas, which was read formerly in the churches of Alexandria just as the canonical Scriptures were, says (cap. xii. 4), " Consider, my children, what that signifies, he finished them in six days. The meaning of it is this, that in six thousand years the Lord God will bring all things to an end." This idea is founded on Ps. xc. 4, " For with him one day is as a thousand years ; as himself testifieth, saying, Behold this day shall be as a thousand years. There- fore, children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, shall all things be accomplished " (ibid. ver. 5). The Jewish authorities are also very clear on this point. R. Ketina says in Gemara Sanhedrim, " Sex annorum millibus stat mundus, et uno vastabitur : de quo dicitiu*, Et exaltabitur Dominus solus die illo ; " and shortly afterwards, " Sicut e septenis annis septimus quisque annus remissionis est, ita e soptem millibus annorum mundi septimus millenarius remissionis erit quemadmodum dicitur (Isa. ii. 11, 1 7), Et exaltabitur Dominus solus die illo." Irenaeus and Lactantius taught the same. Babbi Abuah, however, who wrote about 1,600 years ago. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 683 iaays : " The period of the Messiah for Israel will not co:xie for seven thousand years yet/' The same expectation of the final destruction of all things existed in the Gentile world. Seneca taught that all created beings were to be destroyed, or resolved into the uncreated essence of the Deity, and Plutarch makes Cleanthes the Stoic declare that the moon, the stars, and the sun will perish, and that the ether, which according to the Stoics was the essence of the Deity, will convert all things into its own nature, or assimilate them to itself. B. Abihu com- menting on Gen. i. 31, seems to be of a contrary opinion. He says on the words " And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good '* : " Prom this we see that the Holy One, blessed be he, had successively created and destroyed sundry worlds before he created the present one, and when he created the latter he said, ^ This pleases me, the others did not please me.' " (Bereschith Babba). Origen asks : *^ If there has been a beginning to the universe, what was God doing before it began P *' *^ It is at once impious and absurd," he continues, "to suppose that the Divine nature was ever idle and inactive, or to think that there ever was a time when its goodness could not attain to any human being, or when its Almighty Power could not extend itself over any object. I do not think that any heretic can easily give me an answer to these propositions. As to myself I hold that God did not begin to act at the time when our visible world was created, but as there will be another world after the destruction of this one, so do I believe that before its birth other worlds existed." After quoting Isa. Ixvi. 22 and Eccl. i. 9-11 in support of his opinion, he concludes as follows: "We ought therefore to believe not only that many worlds exist at the present time, but also that there were other systems of worlds before the creation of this one, and that there will be others after its destruction." It is scarcely necessary to say that all the dates above given are untenable. In the historical period alone we find that Lepsius traces the dynasties of the Egyptians back to B.C. 4242. Lesueur, a pupil of ChampoUion, and author of a very learned work, considers that the first dynasty of civil rulers in Egypt corresponded with b.o. 8986, thus making the h 684 MANKIND : THEIR historical period in this part of the world to have coxnmeiiced 10,858 years ago. Plato (in Tim.) says that everything that had occurred for 8,000 years was written in the sacred books at Sais, and the priest who gave this information said that he would give an abridged account of what had happened during 9,000 years. Plato also says (De Leg. 1, 11.), "Works of painting and of sculpture are to be found among the Egyptians which were executed ten thousand years ago (this is not to be taken as a vague assertion, but literally), which are not inferior to those of the present day, and which have been executed in conformity with the same rules as the modem ones." Diogenes Laertius says that the priests had preserved records of 373 solar and 832 lunar eclipses, which must have extended over an immense period of time. Diodorus Siculus says that the Pyramids were built about 3,400 years before our era, but that the Egyptians carried their dynasties back 15,000 years, and that they only began after Hermes and the gods had regulated legislation, worship, and morals. An Arabian manuscript (Trans. PhiL Abr^g. t. i. p. 252) fixes the period of the building of the Pyramids eighty years earlier, that is, about B.o. 3482, at which period Taurus was at the vernal equinox, as he appears on the Mithraic monuments, and on the top of almost all the ancient obelisks, where he has the Accipiter above him, which denoted that equinox (Clem. Al. Strom. 1. V.). The conflagration of the universe was connected, as we have seen, with the vernal equinox, or the beginning of the reign of Light and Fire, which period of conflagration, so to speak, by the sun, was represented as a real conflagration by the poets, who exaggerate everything in their fictions. Thus Manilius describes summer in as vivid terms as the mythologists used to describe the conflagration of the earth by Phaethon : — Exoriturque canis, latratque canicula flammans, Qua subdenle facem terris, radiosque movente Dimicat in cineres orbis, fatumque supremuni Sortitur languetque suis Neptunus in undis, Et viridis nemori sanguis decedit et herbis. Cuncta peregrinos orbes animalia quoBrunt Atque eget aJterius mundus. Natura suismet ^grotat morbis nimios obsessa per asstus, Inque rogo vivit (Lib. V. ver. 214.) This idea was also expressed allegorically by the lighted torch which accompanied the equinoctial Bull, and the same ORIGIN AND DESTINY. C85 idea is intended to be conveyed by the fable of Perseus, who brings down lightning, by means of which he lights the sacred fire. Pythagoras held that the world began with fire. The Pontiff at Borne used to go and fetch new fire from the aJtar of Vesta at the commencement of spring. Lucian says that fires were lighted in Syria to which people flocked from all parts. St. Epiphanius describes the Egyp- tian festiyal, held, as we have seen, on the day of the equinox, in memory of the great conflagration of the uni- verse, as follows (Adv. Haeres. 1. I. cap. xviii.) : " Quin et oviculse in ^gyptiorum regione mactatae adhnc apud -SJgyp- tios traditio celebratur, etiam apud idolatras. In tempore enim, quando pascha illic fiebat (est autem turn principium veris cum fit sequinoctium), omnes -SJgyptii rubricam acci- piunt per igorantiam, et illinunt oves, illinunt ficus et arbores reliquas, prsedicantes quod ignis in h^ die combussit aliquando orbem terrarum ; figura autem sanguinis igui- color,'' &c. The blood with which the trees and flocks were marked was therefore the symbol of the celestial fire which fertilised Nature at the end of the old period, or of the year that had terminated, and at the return of the sun to the equinox at the heliacal rising of Aries. This tradition and festival were preserved by the Romans, who held a pastoral festival, called Palilia, at the rising of Aries and at the entrance of the sun into Taurus (Ovid, Fast. 1. TV. ver. 715), in which water and fire received a peculiar form of worship. The shepherd and his sheep were purified by fire, " Ignis cum duce purgat oves " (ib. ver. 781) ; and in order to purify them they were made to pass through the flames : — Moxque per ardente stipulae crepitantis acervos Trajicias celeri strenua meuibra pede. and among the reasons given for celebrating the festival there was one which was identical with that which the Egyptians gave for it : — Sunt qui Phaeton ta referri Credunt When the equinox was in Taurus, his entrance into that constellation, or his arrival at the equinoctial point, was announced by the rising of Aries, Capricomus, and Auriga. The beneficent star which heralded the renewal of Nature was in some measure the creative spirit of Nature, the God of Light, and it was called Phaeton, or brilliant, a name 686 MANKIND: THEIR which is still given to the constellation Auriga in some astronomical books. Not only was the charioteer of the Snn, who drove his chariot on his return to our hemisphere, celebrated by the poets, but also the equinoctial sign Taurus, in which the Sun was thought to commence his course. Taurus was the constellation in which lo was placed after her metamorphosis, and accordingly the story of Phaeton follows that of lo in Ovid, and Taurus is still called lo, as Ovid says, speaking of the Celestial Bull : Hoc alii signum pbariam dixere juvencam, Quffi bos ex homine est, ex bove facta Dea. (Ovid. Fast. 1. V. ver. 619). The story of lo is therefore properly connected with that of Phaeton, and it is right that her son Epaphus should appear in this myth. This Epaphus was the same as Apis, according to Herodotus, and Apis, according to Lucian, was the symbol of Taurus. This is why the solar spirit of Taurus was chosen to guide the chariot of the sun in consequence of the bantering of Epaphus. Phaeton's own fall is aUegorical. He was the star of the spring, and his mother was PciSiy, or the Bose. He appeared in the morning in the East, and preceded the chariot of the sun ; he might therefore also have been the son of Aurora. Most mythologists assign him Clymene, the allegorical name of one of the Hyades, for his mother. Nonnus (Dionys. 1. XXXVIII, ver. 91) gives up nearly a whole book to the narration of the marriage of Clymene with the sun, and the unfortunate end of Phaeton. The star which heralded the vernal equinox was the spirit which came to kindle fire in the universe — the ligrht-bearer. This is the name which Nonnus (Dionys. 1. XXXVIII. ver. 144) gives to Phaeton ; and Plato (Timseus) says that this name was given not only to Lucifer or Venus, but also to every star that preceded the sun in the morning. The sign of Aries, which rose heliacally at that time as well as Capri- comus and Auriga, were therefore looked upon as heralds, or even as causes, of the heat which the earth was about to experience during the summer. Accordingly, the ancients described the heat of the universe by the emblem of a ram, according to Abnephius (Kirch. (Edip.), ** Indicaturi calo- rem mundanum, Arietem pingunt." The Hindus have their Fire-god, whom they call Agni, and who is represented riding on a caparisoned ram. This god has four arms, and ORIGIN AND DESTINY. C87 flames radiate from his head. He is one of the incarnations of Vishnu. The name of Agni, and the ram on which he rides, indicate the celestial ram which the Persians call the Lamb (Agnus). They say it is the equinox when the Lamb appears. This is the lamb or ram which the youthful Phaeton harnesses to his chariot in Nonnus's poem. In Montfaucon (Antiq. Expliquees, Suppl. pi. 51) he is repre- sented three times on account of the three decans of each sign of the zodiac, and he is placed on three piles of wood, each consisting of ten pieces of wood, equalling in number the degrees of each decan. Two priests in front of the piles are represented as lighting the sacred fire by means of the sun's rays on the day of the equinox. Phaeton or Auriga was therefore looked upon both as the star which brought back heat, and as the spirit who was to set the world in flames. On the day on which the reign of Fire began, which was to last all the summer, Auriga was on the horizon with the sun in the morning, and after driving his chariot all day he set with Eridanus in the evening as Scorpio rose. This Scorpion is the animal the sight of which terrifies his horses, which throw themselves down and approach the earth, " Spatio terrsB propriore feruntur," and Phaeton perishes and falls into Eridanus. Eridanus is the constellation of which the setting precedes that of Phaeton, which is above it, by a few minutes. This river or constellation is still called Amnis Phaetontius (Gees. p. 220) by astronomical writers, as may be seen in Blaeii. This astronomical apซ pearance is the origin of the myth of the young son of the Sun, whose fall was lamented in Italy, just as the deaths of Osiris and Thammuz were lamented in Egypt and Syria- Plutarch says : " Barbari ad Eridanum accolentes atris vestibus amicti, Phaetontem lugent." A great many philosophers have considered fire to be the first of the elements, and the universal principle of all things (Achill. Tat. cap. iii.). Heraclitus said that fire was the origin of everything, and held that everything was composed of that element, and would be resolved into it again (Diog. Laer. 1. IX.) ; that the universe was formed by the extinction of this primary fire, and that the grosser particles formed by uniting the spherical mass which is called the Earth (Stob. Eclog. Phys. 1. I. cap. xiii.). He considered that the earth, cracking by the action of fire. 088 MANKIND: THEIR allowed that lighter species of matter which is called watei to flow out, the subtler portions of which, becoming evapo rated, produced the atmosphere (Plut. de Placit. Philosoph. 1. I. cap. iii.)} and that one day this world and aU thai exists upon it will be consumed by the rekindling of this same fire, which will cause them to return to their pristine element by means of a general conflagration. This philo- sophical idea respecting the origin of the world and its future destiny is also found among the Hindus. The} believe that the world is destroyed by fire at certain periods and that Chiven, one of their gods, lost the diffierent shapes which he had assumed while it was in existence (Sonnerat Voyage de PInde, p. 180). Chiven is the same god at Boudra, the god of fire, who dwells in the sun, the moon fire, &c. He was one of the five primitive powers whon the Creator engendered. The first was Mayessoura, or th( air ; the second Sadisvia, or the wind or the spiritus whicl Diodorus says the Egyptians recognised ; the third Boudra or fire ; the fourth Vishnu, or water ; and the fifth Brouma or earth. These are what they call Panga-Cartagnel, th< five powers, or gods. These five elements, which they sup pose to be animated by five spirits, which are placed at tht head of the five dynasties of their emperors, are also founc among the Chinese (Paw, Bech. sur les Egypt, et Chinois t. ii. p. 148). This doctrine respecting the five elements was adopted by the Manichseans (Epiph. adv. Hseres. cap Ixvi. ; and Beausob. t. i. p. 222). The Scjrthians also helc this doctrine (Justin, 1. I. cap. ii.), which was taught bj Zoroaster, and seems to have been the origin of fire-worshij in Persia, the ethereal fire being looked upon as the Creatoi of Nature, and the luminous substance of the sun. The zodiac, which plays so important a part in ancieni theology, is an immense circular band in the heavens, aboui eighteen degrees in width, and in which all the planets move. The path of the sun is in the exact centre of it, and this path is called the Ecliptic because the moon musi be on it, or on that portion of her orbit which cuts it, before an eclipse can take place. It was in this circle that Time and the god who metes i\ out best to us, revolved — that Time which sprang from the bosom of eternity, because ever reproduced, but which wa€ also finite becao&e it began and ended at each revolution as ป ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 689 it was meted out by the zodiac, which engendered all, and destroyed all in its creative as well as destructive progress. Over this path the twelve-winged god ever hovered (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. I. cap. viii.), implanted that light and heat which gave birth to all the productions of time, and en- compassed that whole system of good and evil, light and darkness, which Ormuzd and Ahriman divided equally between them (Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. pp. 10-96 ; vol. i. part ii, p. 414). The Greeks called the zodiac AofoV, " the oblique circle, because it cuts the equator obliquely, and Za>Sta#cof, or the circle of life, or of the animals that are represented in it. The Romans called it Signifer, and Hermes called it Taber- naculum, "the great tent." The Egyptians spoke of it as " the empire of the twelve great gods," Tametouro en Teniphta. The Hebrews called it " the wheel of the signs " (Ophan-hammazzaloth), "the sphere of the signs" (Salgal- hammazzaloth) (Riccciol. p. 402), "the circle of the signs,'* (Igghul-haramazzaloth), and " the band or girdle of the signs " (Ez6r-hammazzaloth). They also called it "Cheshebh ephd dath hag<;falgal, — inventio, seu opus Phrygioniarium orbis signorum " (Bay. tab. xxii.). When Ezekiel sees wheels in the heavens, he makes use of a word which signifies the signs and the movements of the zodiac. The Cabalists held that the heavens were a book, and divided the stars into letters (Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, 1. III.). Isa. xxxiv. 4, when pro- perly translated, reads: "The heavens shall be rolled up because they are a book ;" and Postellus says, " Whatever is in nature is to be found in the heavens." Astrology had a much more natural origin than casual observation would lead us to suppose, and there is no trace of idolatry in the harmless symbolism which eventually led to so much superstition. No one can see the slightest re- semblance between the animals and other figures which are represented there, and the constellations themselves. Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Metth. 1. V.), justly observes that astro- nomical symbols have not been invented on account of any fancied resemblance, but that they are, as it were, the emblematic characters of science, and signs of instruction. Macrobius (Satur. 1. I. cap. xvii. xxi. ; Manil. Astr. 1. IV. ver. 311, 347), when explaining the twelve signs of the zodiac considers each of these figures to be a symbol of the progress T T i 694 MANKIND : THEIR Thus the twelve signs form a zodiac which evidently belongs to a solar year, for two signs belong to the solstices, and two to the equinoxes. This ancient solar year began when Capri- corn was at the summer solstice, and designated the com- mencement of the year, as Sagittarius did the end. The most ancient year was the solar year, for the priests of Memphis used to make the kings promise, when they con- secrated them in the temple, that they would not allow any intercalation during their reign, which shows that it had been the practice previously. The following are the twelve months according to the primitive Egyptian calendar, with their names in Greek and Arabic. SUMMER. Greek, 'Ririj^f Cnptic, Ep^p Arabic, Hebndb CAPRICORN. Commencement of the year. The Nile be- gins to increase. SinCMER 80L8TICS. Miffopi? Mesori Mesour AQUARIUS. Great increase of the NUe. Qu9 Thorut Touhout. PISCES. Inundation of Egypt. Opening of the dylces. AUTUMN. Greek, ^aio< had heen made in ancient times, and in order to be unde stood themselres hy posterity, as well as in order to kuc when the period was completed so as to enable tbem rectify the lesser periods which were joined to the gre one. There are altogether twenty-nine periods known aa Gre Years, beginning with the Dieterid, or period of two yes (Censorin. de Die Nat. cap. zviii.) and ending with tiie longei known as the period of Diogenes, of 6,o70,000 years, whi' contains the Sothiac period ^,500 times, and may, thereftn be the Egyptian Annus Magims. The great year of Cซ BEindra, 3,60U,000 years, is a mnltiple of the great yean 86,000 years. That of Linns and Heraclitus, 10,800 yea: is the division of the three degrees of each decatemoi reduced into minutes and seconds, for 6U' x 60* = 8,60 X 3 = 10,800". Censorinns (De Die Natal, ibid.) says : " Est pneter annus qiiam Aristoteles maximnm potins quam nia^v appellat, qnoiu solis, lunm, yagamniqae quinque stellan: orbes coiificiimt, cum ad idem signum nbi qaondam sin fuerunt una referuntur. Cujus anni hyems suinma f KarancXuir/j^r, (jueiii iiostriDihivionem appellant; lestasanb itvvpaiais, quod est mundi incendium. Kam his alten temporibus mundus turn exignescere, turn ezaquesct videtur." This belief is much that of the Ch!ilJa?ans and of Berosi which Seneca mentions {QuEDst. Nat. 1. III. cap. irix.) : — " Berosus, qui Belnm iiiterpre tutus est, ait cursu ii sidenini fieri ; et ideo quidem id afiirmat, ut conflagrattoi utque diluvii tempus assignet ; arsura enim terrena conteni quandu omnia sidera qusc nunc diversos agunt cursus Cancrum convenerint, sic sub eodem posita vestigio ut re( linea exire jier orbes omnium possit : inundationem futun c&m endem sidcrum turba in Capricornum convenerit, II solstitium, hie bnima conficitur. Magnse potentise sigi quando in ips^ mutationc anni momenta sunt." The fiiunders of astronomy and guardians of the key of symbols Lave often altered the latter to suit the neceasit ;nid the spirit of different ages, but without changiug th moaning, and in such a manner that the symbolB of t 11 ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 097 primitive zodiac formed the basis of the new emblems. This has not been the case with those to whom they transmitted their astronomy without transmitting its meaning. They have kept the zodiac as they received it, without making any change in it. We ourselves, for instance, still call the signs by their ancient denominations, and this has given rise to two kinds of zodiacs, one of which is based upon sign, and the other upon constellations ; for the sign of Aries is now distant from the constellation of that name, whereas they were formerly identical. Thus we say the sun is entering Aries, though he is in reality only at the commence- ment of Pisces. The Persians, who used to make use of letters as numbers (Chardin, t. v. p. 84) still indicate Taurus by the letter A or 1, Gemini by B or 2, Ac. The general re-establishment of all things was brought about by the Bull before it was brought about by the Lamb. " Men " says the Boundesh (pp. 412 415), "will be again what they were at first, and the dead will rise again by means of what will proceed from the Bull." The Persians, therefore, fixed the creation of the world and the starting-point of all things in Taurus. This creation, however, belongs to a much more recent period: the oldest, that of the primitive sphere, appears to be Egyptian. The Scholiast on Ptolemy speaks of several creations, and among others of the primitive one, the one which ^sculapius said took place under Libra (Scalig. Not. ad Manil. 1. I. ver. 128, Scholiast. Tetrabibl. Ptolem.). The Egyptians began their great period at the summer solstice and at the rising of Sirius from the most remote antiquity, and this was as it were the point of departure for all the periods, as Solinus says (cap. xxzii.) : " Hoc tempus natale mundi sacerdotes judicant.** The year and the period began in the evening (Hyde. p. 213), because the ancients began to reckon by nights before they reckoned by days. This was the case with the Egyptians (Isid. Orig. 1. V. cap. x.), the Athenians (Macrob. Sat. 1. 1, cap. iii.), the Lacedaemonians, the Greeks, several Italian nations, the Germans, and all the Northern nations. The days of the Creation in (xenesis are reckoned in the same manner. Sirius rose in the evening in the south of Egypt, described a diurnal arc for about an hour and a half, and after apซ pearing for a short period, sunk below the horizon. He was 608 MANKIND: THEIR therefore, the Star of the River, for he seemed to rise merely to announce the inundation, and then, his task accomplished, he disappeared. He came as night approached to warn the Egyptians to be on their guard ; he was the faithful monitor who repeated his warning every year. The resemblance between his functions and the service which the faithful dog who watches at his door renders to man made him be com- pared to that animal, and the constellation was called the Dog-Star (Hor. Ap. cap. iii.; Germ. Cses. cap. xxxi.), and is still known as Canis Major. The brilliant lustre of the star, its size, and the amount of light which it emits (Eratosth. cap. xxxiiL) cause it to partake in the appellation lisipios, which astro- nomers give to all glittering stars, and constitute it according to Hor- Apollo (1. 1. cap. iii.) the Queen of Heaven. Vettius Yalens calls it Seth, the violent (Salm. Ann. Clim. p. 113), and the Egyptians called it Hydragogos, or the star which causes the Nile to overflow (Plut. de Iside). They also called it Isis, Isidis Sidus, Osiridis Sidus, and Anubis. It sets at the rising of Sagittarius, and rises with Cancer about the period of the solstice, and near the month Epep or Epiphi, which corresponds to July (Theon, p. 142), and brings fever with it. Its rising and setting are felt by their influences, and it is even said that its rising causes madness in dogs. Its rising in the morning brings back the Etesian winds, which blow for sixty days. At this time the winds and the waves are violent, and large vessels are wrecked (Theon, p. 110). Anubis was the Egyptian Mercury, and Plutarch gives the same account as above of his origin. It follows from what has been said that Sirius must have been the first extra- zodiacal constellation that was obseiTcd, and this is confirmed by Plutarch (De Iside), who says, "Oromasdes spangled the sky with stars, and gave them Sirius to be their chief." He says also that the Ethiopians paid the same honours to Sirius as they would to a king, and called him by that title. Sirius rose in lat. 23'' N. at the summer solstice when Capri- corn was at that point, and this was probably the part of Egypt where astrology had its birth. Lucian (De Astrol. p. 985) says that astronomical science began in Ethiopia, and descended thence into Egypt, but that the Egyptians brought it to perfection, and determined the motion of each star, and the duration of the year, the months, and the seasons. They ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 099 went ftirther— they classified the fixed stars, invented the division of the zodiac into twelve signs, and drew animals in it, Diodorus (1. iii. cap. ii.) says that the Ethiopians pretended to be the most ancient people in the world ; that it was natural to suppose that the heat of the sun in the southern regions of the earth, drying up the yet moist slime, should have poured into it the first principles of life ; that the worship of the gods and the ceremonials of religious worship began among them, and that this is what rendered their piety so celebrated throughout the world, and gave rise to the idea that the sacrifices of the Ethiopians are the most acceptable to the gods. They quote Homer as a witness, for in his Iliad he supposes that Jupiter and the other gods went into Ethio- pia to partake of a festival, and of the anniversary repast given to them by the Ethiopians (Bayer, p. 176). They said that Egypt was an Ethiopian colony founded by Osiris, and that Egypt was formerly not a continent, but was buried below the sea, and formed gradually by the deposits of the Nile. Rejecting what is fabulous in tiiis account, it shows the immense antiquity of the first colonization of Egypt, whether the Ethiopians were really the aborigines as they pretended, or, as is more probable, were themselves a colony from Eastern Ethiopia or Arabia. Sinus is found with Capricorn on ancient sculptures. The Egyptian planisphere represented in the engraving is con- sidered by Kircher (CBdip. 1. II. part ii.), to be the sphere of the priests and the hierophants, that is, of those who were ihe guardians of religion and science in Egypt ; and he is of opinion that this division was mystic, and related to the spirits who presided over the ordering of the world — in other words, that it was the fundamental basis of their mysteries and their theology, and was therefore a sacred calendar which was unknown to the common people, and which contained the key to their learned mysteries. On this planisphere is seen not only Capricorn, but also the spirit Sirius, Seth, or Sothi (?othis), the dog-headed Mercury. The celestial division in which these two symbols are brought together is called Begnum Sothiacum, or the empire of Sothi, from whom the Sothiac period, or the Cycle of the Dog-star, took its name. Capricorn has the fish's tail just as in the modem spheres ; and these two symbols, the Caper, and its paranatellon, the 700 MANKIND: THEIR star which marked the entrance of the snn into that sign are united in it. We even see Mercury Cynocephalus, th< dog-headed Mercury, leading this amphibious goat by a leash The date of this planisphere is about B.C. 2000, when Capri corn was near the winter solstice, but its connection witl the present subject is that the commencement of the divisioi of the zodiac, and of the dominion of the spirit of th Sothiac period is fixed in it, although the Sothiac period di( not start from the winter solstice, but from the summer one which latter period was long before Capricorn was near th< winter solstice, as it is here. A very singular ceremonj commemorative of the period when Capricorn was in th summer solstice, took place every year in Egypt at that period Plutarch (De Solert. Animal.), tells us that about the summe solstice all the goats in Egypt were made to turn toward Sirius, and that this ceremony was commemorative of th above-named period, and in conformity with the astronomica tables. ^^ Esseque id firmissimum documentum rrjs irspioBox maxime tabulis astronomicis consentiens." Besides this. Hydra, or the Serpent, an aquatic animal (sei pens aquaticus, Cses. cap. vii. ; Bay. tab. xliv.), whose tortuou progress resembles the windings of a river, presents a natun image of the Nile when it has overflowed (Theon ad Arai Phsen.). Exactly three months elapse between the nocturne rising of the star of the head of this constellation and tha of the last star of its tail, and this is precisely the length < time that the inundation lasts. It was, therefore, for man centuries an astronomical record of the length of time tl inundation lasted. Virgil (Georg. 1. I. ver. 244) coiupan the windings of the celestial serpent to the sinuosities of river, " in morem flumini elabitur anguis," &c. This, in fac is the only reason why so prodigious a length has been at signed to the celestial Hydra (Hygin. 1. HI. cap. xxxix.), an why the heavens have been filled with so many rivers or se] pents emblematic of rivers. The effect of the precession i the equinoxes being to give the stars a movement from wei to east, the ancient observations became inaccurate at tl: end of a certain number of centuries. Hence the same symbol cal spirit, inspired by the same want, no doubt created in su( ceeding ages the serpent Ophiucus and the river of Orioi which is still called the Nile in astronomy. Ophiucus migl fix the duration of the overflow of the Nile when the solstic ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 701 corresponded with the commencement of Libra, and the river of Orion (Hyg. 1. II. cap. x^txiii.) when it coincided with the rising of Sagittarius. A planet was assigned to each day in ancient times, and its duty was to preside over that day and over the first hour of it. This is the origin of that hebdomadal division of time which we call week. The seventh day, on which this brief period terminated, was a sacred day (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. XIII. cap. xii.), as Sunday or the day of the Sun is now. Thus, if we start from Saturn, which is the most distant planet, the 25th hour, or the first hour of the second day going backwards, belonged to Venus. If the moon had been taken first, the second planet would have been Mars. As each day consists of twenty-four hours, this short planetary period is repeated three times, leaving three planetary places to be filled up. If, therefore, we suppose the moon to be the planet which presides over the first hour of the first day, the twenty-second hour will again be pre- sided over by the moon, the twenty-third by Saturn (when the series recommences), the twenty-fourth by Jupiter, and the twenty-fifth, on the first hour of the second day, by Mars. Continuing in the same way, the first hour of the third day will be presided over by Mercury. Thus the Moon is the planet of Monday, Mars of Tuesday, Mercury of Wednesday, &c., until we come to the last day of the week, or the day of the Sun, the first hour of which is presided over by him. We might also have begun with the sun as the chief of the planets (Isid. Orig., 1. Y.), and the same results would have been obtained (Kirch. CBdip. voL ii. p. 232; Salm. Ann. Chin. p. 250). Dio Cassius and Hero- dotus (1. II.) say that the Egyptians invented this division of time into as many days as there are planets, and they placed the sun first as being entitled to the first rank in the distribution of time. The moon, which holds the second rank, presides over the second day, and Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, follow in the same order as they do in our modem week. This was the primary and natural origin of the hebdomadal division of time. Dio Cassius adds another, which may also have originated in a country where the celestial harmony played an important part in the religious system. The interval of the fourth. 702 MANKIND: THBIR or the diatessaron, which was considered the first in music, existed in the planetary system. Accordingly, if the snn is pat at the head of the celestial harmony, if we take the planet which occupies the fourth place next, suppressing the two intermediary planets, we shall find it to be the moon, and, repeating the process, we shall come to Mars, and so throughout the week. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 703 CHAPTER XiLV. The Egyptian priests did all in their power to persuade the vulgar that the gods who were honoured as Osiris, Isis, Horus, Harpocrates, &c. had really existed on earth. Their tombs were shown, their memory was honoured, and the very colour of their hair and skin was descnribed: thus Horus was said to be white, and Typhon red (Plut. de Iside). Inscriptions written in pompous language, such as those which were engraved on the famous columns near Nysa in Arabia, where Osiris and Isis were said to have their tombs, handed down the memory of their glory to the remotest posterity. In fact, all the teaching of the mysteries went to prove that the gods formerly lived on earth (Cic. Tusc. Disp. 1. I. cap. xiii.), for on no other grounds could they have been put forward as models. The priests, themselves, how- ever, did not, it would appear, believe in the asti*onomical and astrological system upon which the allegorical teaching was founded. In the highest mysteries, those of Osiris, into which it was much more difficult to be initiated than those of Isis, the truth respecting the gods of the allegorical creation, the real laws of nature and of cosmogony, were taught. Pythagoras had been initiated into all the Egyptian mysteries, and had been taught by the priest Perenites as Orpheus had by Etimon. He seems, however, to have gained an insight into their esoteric teaching, probably from his second preceptor, the high-priest Sonchis, who pre- sided over the sacred college at Thebes, to which he was sent after visiting Heliopolis and Memphis, for he knew that the moon receives her light from the sun, and that she is only eclipsed when that light is intercepted by the earth (Diog. Laert. 1. Vm. ; Stob. 1. I.), that her orb is diversified by mountains and valleys (Plut. de Facie in Orbe Lunse; Stob. L I.), and that one lunar day equals fifteen of ours. 704 MANKIND: THEIK which computation is nearly correct. Plutarch says in his life of Nuina, "The Pythagoreans think that the sun occupies the middle of the universe; that the earth is carried by a circular motion round the central fire, and that it is far from forming a principal part in the universal system." Aristotle (De Cselo, 1. II. cap. xii.) says, " We have seen the moon, one half bright, and the other half dark, pass between us and the planet Mars, which disappeared under the dark side, and came out from behind the shining part. Similar observations of other stars are described by the Egyptians and Babylonians, who anciently, and for many ages, made astronomical observations, and from whoTn many things worthy of credit have come to us concerning the several constellations." In another passage of the same treatise he says, " The Pythagoreans say that the fire (the sun) is in the middle, and that the earth is one of the stars, being carried round the centre, and thus (as it revolves on its axis) producing night and day." Plutarch says that Plato in his old age became a convert to the teaching of the Pythagoreans. Aristarchus taught that the sun is a fixed si^r, and that the fixed stars are suns. Even the laws of gravitation seem to have been known to them, for Aristotle combats their system as being inconsistent with them. " The mass of earth," he says, " must be heavier than the mass of fire, and therefore the earth, and not the fire, ought to occupy the centre of the Universe." Now that we know that the sun is a solid body whose weight is 740 times greater than that of all the planet? put together, this objec- tion of Aristotle's falls to the ground. There seems to be no ground for doubting that the use of the telescope was also known to the ancients. Moschopolus mentions four instruments which they used in observing the stars — the catoptron, the dioptron, the eisoptron, and the enoptron. He says that the catoptron was the same as the astrolabe, which Ptolemy made use of. The dioptron appears to have been the tube or telescope through which astronomers observed the stars. The discovery of a lens at Nineveh seems to leave no doubt that this instrument was known at that time, and the extraordinary skill of the Egyptians in casting glass makes it highly probable that they also made use of it. A passage in Strabo (1. III. cap. cxxxviii.) in which he says, " Vapours produce the same effects ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 705 as the tubes in magnifying objects of vision by refraction," is inexplicable unless the astronomers were acquainted with the magnifying powers of ghiss, and placed lenses in the tubes of the dioptrons. The other two instruments seem to be named from mirrors being placed in them, for Aristotle (Meteorolog. 1. I.) says that the Greeks used mirrors when they observed the celestial appearances. These mirrors were also used for religious purposes. In the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis there was a large miiTor so placed that it reflected the sun all day, and filled the temple with light, as the Arabian historians Abenhekem, Abusour, &c. all agree in stating. Care was taken that the first rays of the sun should enter the temples, and that the buildings should correspond to the nature of the god worshipped in them. Pliny (1. 1.) says that 1,600 stars had been counted in the 72 constellations, by which he appears to mean the 72 dode- cans. The Persians, according to the Nimetullah, appear to have known that the Milky Way appears white from the number of stars which it contains, and Democritus seems to have heard the same thing, probably during his stay in Egypt. He also says that some of the planetary bodies were unknown to the Greeks. The Chaldaeans said that they had discovered more (Seneca, Quaest. Nat,), probably the satellites or asteroids, and the Brahmans reckoned the planetary bodies to be fifteen in number. The mariner's com- pass was also known. The Chinese appear to have used the magnetic needle in the time of Hoang-Ti, more than 2,700 years before the Christian era, and it is more than probable that they received it from the Arabians, from whom the Europeans received it, as is proved by the Arabic designations Zophron and Aphron (South and North) given to the two points of the magnetic needle by Vincenzius of Beauvais in his " Mirror of Nature.'' In the Mercator of Plautus (Act V. scene ii.) is the following passage : " Hue secundus ventus est, cape modo vorsoriam," and the word varsoHam has been interpreted to mean the mariner's compass. Pineda and Kircher both consider that the compass was used by the Phoenicians and Hebrews in the time of Solomon, and it is probable that the former owed their skill in navigation to the possession of the compass many centuries previously. They called the magnet "the stone of Hercules," and Hercules is said to have departed on his great maritime z z 706 MANKIND: THEIR expedition to the West with a cup which he had i^eceivec from Apollo. The cnp is assodidied with Hercnles both ii the myths and in sculptured and other representations which show him with a cap in his hand, and this reminds uf of the cup in which the later Arabians floated the needle. Herodotus tells us that Hercules had a temple at Tyre more than 2,800 years before his time, or about b.o. 2750, and that his temple at Thebes was still more ancient, for he wai one of the oldest deities of Egypt (Tacit. Annal. L II. cap Iz. ; Herod. 1. II. cap. xliii.). The great Indian astronomer Aryabhata, who was bon A.Dซ 476, was acquainted with the roundness of the eartli and its daily rerolution on its own axis. He says, '^ The terrestrial globe, a compound of earth, water, fire, and air entirely round, encompassed by a girdle (the equator), standi in the air, in the midst of the stellar spheres. Like as a ball formed by the blossoms of the Nauclea Eadamba is on every side beset with flowerets, so is the earth-globe witl all creatures, terrestrial and aquatic" In another passage he says, <'As a person in a yessel, which moving forward sees an immovable object moving backwards in the same manner as the stars, however immovable, seem to move daily." On another occasion he says, " The sphere of the stars is stationary, and the earth, making a revolution produces the daily rising and setting of stars and planets." We need not be surprised that these discoveries, whenevei made, should not have spread among the people, or havซ been recognized by the immense majority of the philosophers. Whatever the priests believed themselves, they took everj pains to persuade the people that the system they taughi them was the ti'ue one. In the temple of JBelus there wiu a sidereal court which turned round, ornamented, as Philo- stratus tells us, with sapphire-coloured globes, supporting the gilded images of their respective ruling gods. A1 Ecbatana too there was an immense machine which strucl the Emperor Heraclius with stupor, and which Cedrenus tells us was made by king Chosroes to represent the heavenS; and all the revolutions of the stars, with the angels whc preside over them. Another thing which served to stifl< enquiry was the fact that all the celestial phenomena observed at that time could be explained by the false as wel as by the true hypothesis, as is shown by Shuttleworth ii ORIGTN AND DESTIXY. 707 Ills astronomy. Besides all this that strange jealousy of science which has always existed in the world formed also an impediment to the reception of the truth. Macrobius, after describing the manufacture of souls, shows how Hermes made the bodies of men out of the residue of the mixture which had served to make the souls, and represents Momos as intervening during this operation, and persuading him to put limits beforehand to the future boldness of men by mixing some elements of uneasiness and pain with this life. " O Creator, dost thou think that this future enquirer into the great mysteries of Nature should be exempt from cares ? Wilt thou leave him whose thoughts will extend to the utmost limits of earth free from sorrow ? Men will tear up the roots of plants, they will study the properties of the natural juices, they will observe the nature of stones, they will dissect, not only animals but themselves, in their wish to know how they have been made. They will stretch forth their audacious hands even over the sea, and, cutting down the spontaneous forest-growth, they will cross from one bank to the opposite one in order to seek one another. They will investigate the inmost secrets of Nature even on high, and will seek to study the movements of the heavenly bodies. And this is not all. There remains but for them to know the extreme limits of the earth, and they will go thither and search for the outer confines of Night. If they meet with no obstacle, if they live exempt from sorrow, without cares or fears, heaven itself will be no im- pediment to their daring, and they will seek to extend their power even over the elements ! " The following speech, which Euripides puts into the mouth of Sisyphus, shows that religion was regarded as merely a politick institution by the more enquiring minds among the Greeks : — A time there was, when man's unruly life Was like the brute's, to force subordinate : The good went unrewarded for good deeds, The bad unpunished for their wicked acts. At length mankind estftblished penal laws, That Justice o'er the human race might reign, Enthralling violence, and condemning guilt. Thus by degrees were men restrained by law From acts of open outrage ; but dark deeds Were done in secret Then, it seems to me, Some wise and prudent man, devising means TIow to strike terror into guilty mortals, z z 2 708 MAXKIXT): THEIR Ev'n when they acted, spokn, nnd thought, in privato, SuppoMHl and introduced a deit}', A genius flouriahinp; with life eternal, Ilearinjjf and peป*ing intellectually, Obeerving, watching o*er such things as these. And bearing still the nature of a (lod, Pปy whom all thingi^ are heard that nioi-tals say, And who can nlways fteซ whate'er they do. Kv*n sliouldst thou plot in silence evil deeds, Thou cfUiKt not liid(ป it from the minds of gods. Thus did he teach them a most pleasing doctrine Concejiling truth beneath the garb of fiction. Cicero (Somn. Scip.) says: "Be assured that for all those who have in any way conduced to the preservation, defence, and enlargement of their native country, there is a certain place in heaven, where they shall enjoy an eternity of happi- ness. For nothing on earth is more agreeable to God, the Supreme Governor of the Universe, than the assemblies and the societies of men united together by laws, which are called * states.' It is from heaven their rulers and preservers came, and thither they return." No small amount of political power appears to have been obtained by initiation. Mark Antony was initiated in the mysteries of Osiris, and Plutarch tells us that he was called the new Bacchus in Egypt. He also says that Cleopatra wore the sacred dress of Isis, which is the same as saying that she was her priestess. A medal of Cloopatra calls her the young goddess, Awl Ns(OT8pa. Xilander, who has translated this passage of Plutarch, says that Cleopatra wore the sacred dress of Isis, and gave forth oracles in the name of the New Goddess. Elysium only existed for those who had been initiated. Sophocles calls those thrice happy who die after initiation. They alone could look forward to a happy future life, while the most severe punishments awaited other mortals (Pint, de And. Poetis) . This made Diogenes Laertius exclaim : " What ! will the fate of the robber Patsecion be better because he is initiated than that of the brave Eparainondas? What an absurdity ! " The system once established, howerer, it was kept up by the most rigorous measures, death having been the punishment of two young Acamanians who had merely entered the temple of Ceres by mistake at the same time with some initiated persons (Livy, 1. XXXI.). The herald used to proclaim the exclusion of all who were not to parti- cipate in the celebration of the mysteries, or to enter into the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 700 saaciuary (Brissoniiis de Formal, p. 4). The same was done by the Christians. " Withdraw yourselves, ye profane," used to be called out by the deacon when their mysteries were about to be celebrated ; " let the catechumens and those who are not yet admitted depart " (Tertull. Apolog. p. 8 j Casaub. Exercit. ad Baron. Annal. p. 16). This naturally caused the idea to spread that it was indis- pensable to become initiated before death if one wished to escape the torments of Tartarus (Aristoph, de Pace, ver. 874). Parents therefore caused their children to be initiated at the earliest possible age (Apoll. apud Donat. ad Terent. Phorm. Act. 1. ver. 15). Their innocence seemed even to render them more fit to go through this august ceremony. Philip of Macedonia and his wife Olympias were mere children when they met in the sanctuary at Samothrace, and fell in love with one another (Plut Vit. Alex.). Many other points of resemblance are to be found between the Pagan and Chris- tian initiations, and they were both based upon cosmogonic and theological ideas which they held in common. Justin was right when he declared that Socrates was a Christian. Ammonius Saccas, who was born of Christian parents, and educated in their religion, held that one universal and very refined system originally pervaded the whole Christian world, and that it only required to be freed from the corruptions with which the craft of priests or the infirmities of man had loaded it in different countries to be found everywhere ; that, in fact, there was no fundamental difference between the Pagan and Christian systems. Mosheim (Com. Cent. II. ง 28) says that ^^he maintained that divine wisdom had been first brought to light and nurtured among the people of the East by Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, and other great and sacred characters ; that it was warmly espoused and cherished by Pythagoras and Plato among the Greeks ; from whom, although the other Grecian sages might appear to have dissented, yet that, with nothing more than the exercise of an ordinary degree of judgment and attention, it was very possible to make this discordance entirely vanish, and show that the only points on which these eminent characters disagreed were but of trifiing moment, and that it was chiefly in their manner of expressing their sentiments that they varied." He acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an excelleut man, and the friend of God, but said that it 710 MANKIND: THEIR was not his intention to abolish entirely the worship of dtemons, but that he only intended to purify the ancient religion. His attempts at reconciliation were approved of by Athenagoras, Pantsenus, and Clemens Alexandrinus, and by all who had the care of the school belonging to the Christians at Alexandria, and were afterwards adopted by LonginuSjPlotinus, Herennius, Origen, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Sopater, Edisius, Eustathius, Mazimus of Ephesus, Priscus, Chrysanthius the master of Julian, Julian the Apostate, Hierocles, Proclus, and many others, both Pagans and Chris- tians. Photius speaks of a certain author of Panoplus in Egypt (Phot. Cod. 170) who had brought together all the testimonies of the ancient Greek, Persian, Thracian, Egyptian, Baby- lonian, Chalda?an, and Boman authors, and who had proved that the same religious ideas would be found in them as those which are found among Christians respecting the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Cross, the death, burial, resur- rection, and ascension of Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, the rewards and punishments of the next world, the creation of the world. Providence, Paradise, &c. A certain Aristocrites also (Beaus. t. i. p. 326) composed a work called a Theosophy, in which he proved that the Pagan, Jewish and Christian religions all agreed in principle and in their dogmas, and only differed in certain ceremonies. The Emperor Constantine, in his Oration to the Clergy, cap. xviii., thus distinctly recognises the ancient oracles, re- ferring to the celebrated acrostic in the Sibylline verses : — "Here we must needs mention a certain testimony of Christ's divinity, fetched from those who were aliens and strangers to the faith. For those who contumeliously detract from him, if they will give credence to their own testimonies, may sufficiently understand thereby that he is both God and the Son of God. For the Erythraean Sibyl, who lived in the sixth age after the Flood, did yet, by the power of dimne in- spiratian, prophesy of future matters that were to come to pass concerning God, and by the first letters, which is called an acrostic, declared the history of Jesus. The acrostic is Jesus Christus, Dei Filius, Servator, Crux. And these things came into the Virgin's mrnd by inspiration, and by way of prophesy. And therelbre I esteem her happy whom our ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 711 Saviour did choose to be a prophetess, to divine and foretell of his providence towards us." In the next chapter, reproving those who were incredulous, he says : ^^ The truth of the matter doth manifestly appear ; for our writers have with great study so accurately compared the times, that none can suspect that this poem was made and came forth after Christ's coming, and therefore they are convicted of falsehood who blaze abroad that they were not made by the Sibyl." Chapter XX. is entitled "Other verses of Virgil concerning Christ, in which, under certain veils (as poets use), this knotty mystery is set forth," &c. and he then quotes the fourth Eclogue of Virgil as the ulti- mate proof, and main evidence, of the Christian revelation I Here we have no less an authority than that of the first Christian Emperor, whose conversion, according to Lardner (vol. ii. p. 322), was " a favour of Divine Providence, and of great advantage to the Christians," and who convoked and presided over the Council at which the inspired gospels were selected from those which were held to be spurious, a distinct declaration that the Pagan oracles were genuine, and given forth by Divine inspiration. This, however, sinks into insignificance beside the recognition of the inspiration of these books by the Apostle Paul himself. Clemens Alex- andrinus (Strom. 1. VI.) says : — ** As God, out of his desire to save the Jews, gave them prophets, so raising up prophets also to the Greeks from their own nation and language, as far as they were capable of receiving that good gift of God, he separated them fr^m the vulgar, as not only the preaching of Peter, but the Apostle Paul also declares, speaking thus : ^ Take the Greek books into your hands, and look into the Sibyl, how clearly she speaks of one God, and of things to come; then take Hystaspes also, and read, and you will find the Son of God much more clearly and evidently described, and that many kings shall employ all their force against Christ, out of their hatred to him, and to all who caU upon his name.' " This Hystaspes is called by Lactantius (1. VIL cap. xvi.) a most ancient king of the Medes, and by Ammianus Mar- cellinus (1. XXTTI. cap. vi. and Not. Velas.) the father of Decius, and is said to have been a master of all the doctrines of the Magi. The oracles themselves appear not to have been originally written in Greek, but in some Oriental language from which there were translations, for the Sibyl- 712 MANKIND : THEIR line verses quoted in Lactantias diflFer from those in Opsopieeas in many words. Clemens himself quotes the Sibyls in his Epistle to the Corinthians, as he is quoted by Justin Martyr in his answer to the 74th question. Clemens also quotes Heraclitus, who says that the Sibyls were inspir^ by God. St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 1. XVIII. cap. xxiii.) says : It is no error to believe that to some of the Gentiles the mystery of Christ was revealed, and they were inspired by the spirit of prophecy to declare it." And he says of the Erythrcean Sibyl that she wrote some prophecies of Christ, and makes her a citizen of God's holy city ! He also says that the Sibyls, Orpheus, and Homer, all spoke truly of God and of his Son. Diodorus Siculus affirms that the Sibyl was actuated by the spirit of God, and that Homer bori'owed many of his verses from Daphne, a Sibyl, who lived at the taking of Thebes. Aristotle (Probl. xxx.) says that the Sibyls were inspired, and that one of them lived in a cave at Cumae, in Italy. Justin Martyr writes (circa a.d. 150) : " Being at Cuma), we saw a large basilica dug out of the rock, where they said the Sibyl had pronounced her oracles. It had in the middle three large basins, also hollowed out of the rock, which had served for the lustrations of the Sibyl, who after- wards retired into the innermost part of the basilica (--i/So- rarop ttjs ^no-LXiK^f olfcov), and there gave her predictions from an elevated throne. Josephus (Ant. 1. I. cap. vi.) quotes the Sibylline oracles concerning the building of the Tower of Babylon, and says that " the gods " sent a wind which blew down the tower, as the oracles say ; and he also says that the Sibyls speak of the confusion of tongues. The passage in Josephus respecting the destruction of the Tower of Babel occurs in Antiq. i. 6, and is as follows : — Uspl 8e Tov TTVpyov tovtov Kal rrj^ aWo(f>coi ta^ icoi/ aidp'jiiTOiV fiB/xprfTac fcal ^i^oWa "Seyovaa oi/tqjs', Tldvicov Ofxoi^iovtav omcoy Ta)v dvOpuyrrayv^ irvpyop WKoBofiTjadu tivS9 vyp-r^XoTarop^ o)s ettI TOP ovpavop dpa/3r)acfjLฃvoi 8t' avrov, Oi Bh 6col dvsfiovs eTTL'jrefi' 'sjrapre? apirpe'y^tap lov irupyop, Kal Bid tovto BaySfXw.a avps^rj K\r)drivaL t7)V ttoXlv. This expression "the gods havingsent a wind " would be very remarkable but for the fact that the Hebrews recog- nised the deities of other nations. Exod. xviii. is an \examplc of this. Jcthro, Moses' father-in-law, was high- Mest of the Midianites, and served a strange god, Beinsf ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 713 told by Moses of the great things Jehovah had done for the Hebrews, he tells Moses " Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods" (ver. 11) ; but, notwithstanding this, he not only does not deny the existence of other gods, but actually sacriiices to them in this very camp, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came and ate bread with him in the presence of the gods. The word Jehovah disappears from the text as soon as Jethro has recognised the power of that god, and both the Midianite priest in the advice he gives to Moses, and Moses in his reply to him, make use of the plural Aleim (see Exod. xviii. 11, 15, 16, 19, in which verse the word Aleim is repeated three times, 21 and 23). After Jethro's departure the word Jehovah reappears, not once only, but eight times in succession (cap. xix. 3, 7, 8 [twice], 9 [twice], 10, and 11). Although Moses forbids sacrifices to the gods, he will not allow them to be despised. He says : " Whoever curseth his gods shall bear his sin " (Lev. xxiv. 15) ; and in Exod. xxii. 28 we have the command **Thou shalt not revile the gods." Josephus and all the best commentators are agreed that in these passages other gods than Jehovah are spoken of. St. Jerome was so alarmed at the consequences which might be deduced from these passages that he ventured to translate Dent. iv. 19 — which is correctly ^'Quas partitus est Dominus Deus tuus eas omnibus populis sub omnibus coelis '' — by " Ne adores ea et colas qux creavit Dominus Deus tuus in ministerium cunctis gentibus qua) sub ccelo sunt.'* The Septuagint uses the verb iTnvijfiayy which correctly trans- lates the Hebrew ; and St. Augustine, who was contemporary with St. Jcromo, quotes from the Italic version, which is also correct in its rendering : " Ne enim adores ea, et servies illis quae distribuit Dominus Deus ea omnibus gentibus quce sub ccelo sunt." Deut. xvii. 2-5 is an interpolation, and is evidently inconsistent with the state of things described in Exodus, and permitted by Moses. St. Jerome affirms that the Erythnean Sibyl existed in the time of Eomulus, and the Samian Herophile in the timei of Numa or Hostilius. St. Augustine says that the Cumrcan Sibyl existed in Numa's time, when Manasses slew Isaiah^ and the Erythraean in Romulus's days, and that Flavianus, the Roman proconsul, when he discoursed of Christ with him, showed him a Greek copy of the Eryihra'au SibyPs 714 MANKIND: THEIR verses. The Boman Catholic Church has also recognised them by placing the statue of the Erythrsean Sibyl over the Casa Santa at Loretto, besides having their figures beauti- fully inlaid in the marble floor of the Cathedral of Sienna, and their statues placed in a church at Venice which formerly belonged to the barefooted Carmelites. The Fathers also showed the slender distinction which they drew between Christianity and Paganism by their recognition of the miracles of ApoUonius Tyanseus, who was considered by a great number of the Pagans as a divine being, and whose statue was placed by Severus in his laraซ rium side by side with those of Jesus Christ, Abraham, Alexander tihe Great, and Orpheus. ApoUonius was in reality a certain Salinas, or Ketab Belinas, an Arabian, who was the first of the alchemists, and taught that mercury was the origin of all things, and that it was sometimes male and sometimes female. He says of himself, '^ I was an orphan, and of the town of Tbou&na." In a treatise on Stones, attributed to Othaud ben Mohammed, Salinas is put forth as the prince of Greek philosophers, and Kazoniny mentions his name between those of Ptolemy and Pythagoras. In a chronological fragment quoted by Ebn Abi Ossaibiah in his History of Medicine from Obeid Allah ben Djebrail, com- prising the series of Koman Emperors, we read : " After Vespasian, his son Titus reigned two years, and I have found in an abridgment of Roman chronology that after him reigned Domitian, and it was in his time that the wise Salinas, the man of talismans, lived." Nicetas, writing in the thirteenth century, says that at the palace at Constantinople brazen gates were still to be seen with magical characters engraved on them by ApoUonius, and that they were melted down because they had become objects of superstition to the Christians. Hierocles in his PhUalethes maintained that ApoUonius performed his miracles by the aid of Divine power, while Eusebius, Lactantius, and Arnobius said that he performed them by magic. The author of " Questions and Answers for the Use of the Orthodox " (said to be St. Justin) does not deny the reality of these miracles, which consisted of raising the dead, &c., but attri- butes them partly to the knowledge of natural science which ApoUonius had acquired, and partly to the intervention of the devU. As late as the fifth century some of the Fathers, ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 716 sncli as Sidonius Apollinarins (ep. i. iii. 8), Cassiodorus in Chronico, and the monk Isidore of Pelusium (ep. i.) speak in the highest terms of praise of ApoUinarius and his miracles* St. Augustine compares Apollinarius to Jupiter, and admits that his conduct yras more respectable than that of the god of Olympus. The system we have spoken of as based upon certain cosmogonic and theological ideas was carried to an extreme degree of refinement. Philosophers wrote treatises upon the birth of the Universe and the elements of which it was composed, and poets composed cosmogonies and theogonies. In fact the subject not only engaged the attention of all men, but it was the only one written upon. The cosmogony of the Jews, which is attributed to Moses, that of the Phoenicians, which is attributed to Sanchoniathon, that of the Greeks, sung by Hesiod, the cosmogonies of the Egyp- tians, the Atlantes, and the Cretans, mentioned by Diodorus, the remains of the theology of Orpheus, dispersed through various authors, the cosmogony of Linus, and the poem of Epimenides on the astronomicid expedition of the Argonauts, or on the appearance of the sun at the vernal equinox at the rising of Aries, mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, the Persian Boundesh, the Hindu and Chinese books, the cosmogonic verses which Virgil puts into the mouth of lopas at Carthage, the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses — aU these show the antiquity and universality of these fictions. Before the time of Socrates, who brought philosophy down from the skies, and employed it for objects more useful and more congenial to the mind of man, such as laying down the foimdations of morality, and tracing out the paths of men's duties, it consisted chiefly in the study of Nature and of the causes of things, and poetry embellished with her charms the suUime speculations of philosophy. At the head of these causes were placed heaven and earth, and the more prominent portions of each of them, which formed the principal causes of generation. The portions of the passive cause were the elements, whose successive transmutations and varied combinations concurred in the formation of animal as well as of vegetable and mineral bodies, and in that of the various phenomena of the atmosphere. Thus philosophy and mythology concurred in teaching the same lesson, though in different language. 71C MANKIND: TIIEIB Not only were these causes so classed iu the progressive order of their energy as to place heaven and earth at the summit of the series, but their sex was in some sort rendered distinct. Ocellus drew this distinction between the two primary causes, but he was by no means the first who did so. The Egyptians did it before him when, as Horus Apollo (L I. cap. X.) tells us, they chose animals in which they thought they recognised those emblematic qualities to represent the two sexes of the world. Their god Cneph, expelling the Orphic egg from his mouth — from which the author of the Clementine Recognitions (Cotel. Patres Apostol. 1. X. cap. XXX.) makes an hermaphrodite figure to issue which unites in itself the two principles of which heaven and earth are formed, and which enter into the organisation of all beings which are engendered by the contact of heaven and earth — is another emblem of the active and passive power which was held to exist in the Universe. Orpheus, who studied in Egypt, borrowed the mystic forms under which Nature was veiled from the theologians of that country, and introduced into Greece the symbolical egg, with its division into two parts or causes, represented by the hermaphrodite figure which issues from it. The Bi'almiins in India represented the same cosmogonic idea by a statue which represented the world, and in which the two sexes were combined. The male sex was represented by the sun, the centre of the active principle, and the female sex by the moon, which is the beginning and basis of the passive part of Nature (Porph}T. in Styge). This was the origin ot a form of worship which had nothing degrading about it in its origin. All sublunary Nature is in a state of dependence upon the Nature which is above it. The meeting of these two beings, the one ever changing, the other changeless, was held to be the cause of those varied products which the earth engendered. Their union was held to be their marriage, and the beings produced by them, or which form portions of them, to be their children. The passive principle of Nature, which reaches from the sphere of the moon to the lowest depths of the earth, is subdivided into several portions. Besides the four elements, of which fire occupies the summit, and earth the base, while air and water connect them, and fill tjie interval between them (Plat, in Tim.), a primary matter was supposed to exist ORKHX AXT) DESTIXT. 717 which was shapeless, and without order, until it became organised by active Nature. This is what is commonly termed Chaos, which has furnished the materials of all organic substances, which are called matter in order, or the Cosmos, for the Greek word K6ซr/Aoy signifies both the Universe, order, and ornament. The Universe was considered to have been made, not out of what did not exist, but out of what was not good, or not so good as it might be (Pint, in Procr.). Plato (in Tim.) says, " God, thinking that what is in order is better than that which is not, took matter out of the state of disorder in which it was, in order to infuse into it that order and arrangement which it did not possess by itself." As usual, a metaphysical abstraction, by which matter was conceived of as existing without any regular form, was put forward as a literal fact, and was frequently personified (Ovid, Fasti, 1. I, ver. 103). The succession, or rather the idea of the succession, of these two states of matter made the first be regarded as the cause of the second, in the same way that the non-existence of light having been held to precede the existence of it, it was made to issue from the primeval dark- ness, and Light was described as the child of Night, though it was well known that darkness could never give birth to light. When we speak of Chaos, therefore, we are in reality speaking of a theological fiction, which lent the semblance of reality to an abstract idea. Man often substitutes his own ideas for the operations of Nature. Thus the theogony of Hesiod — which is made up from the old Eastern cosmo- gonies, and in which abstract, moral, and physical beings are personified and blended together in a mass of theological ideas borrowed from the ancient Materialists and Spiritual- ists — places at the head of all things an abstract and in- definite being called Chaos, from which the two first regular causes. Heaven and Earth, proceed. He says (Theog. ver. 116):— First Chaos was, and then broad-breasted Earth, The seat still safe of all the deathless Powers That on Olympus* snow-clad summit dwell, Or that inhabit gloomy Tartarus, In deep recesses of the spacious soil. Then Love, the fairest of immortal Gods, Was bora. *Tis he that chases care away, Subdues the mind, and rules in reason's spite, O'er every bosom human and divine. Ulnoli Xifrht and P^n'bus from Chaos sprung ; 718 mankind: their And then were Daj md Etker bom of Night, Who broaght them forth to ber loved EreboiB, And Eartb produced an equal to bead^ The starrj Heayen, &c. It is easy to see tliat the supposed sacoession of events is metaphorically expressed here. For the same reason the earth, which is dark by natare, and which only receives light from the sky, was considered to have existed before light shone npon it, and the darkness produced by it precedes the birth of light, or of the luminous substance of which the heavens which give it light are composed. Thus the author of Grenesis, who had been brought up in the school of tlie Spiritualists of the East^ presents to us an earth *' without form, and void,'' and shrouded in darkness, before the brilliant ray of light which he supposes to have given light to the Universe for the first time issued from the Being who is the eternal principle of light. This idea had been also rendered sacred in the cosmogonic teaching of Orpheus (Cedren. voL i.), who had conceived a primaeval Chaos (Syncell. p. 38) which a ray bursting forth from the ether came to illuminate. The Chaldscan cosmogony, which Berosus gives an account of (Ovid, Metam. 1. 1. ; Fast. 1. 1, ver. 1 05, Ac.), describes Chaos in a more animated manner, and says that it contained beings which were living, but whose shapes were monstrous and unwieldy, until the god Belus, having contemplated the chaotic and dark fluid in which these monsters disported themselves, drew the line which separates terrestrial from celestial matter by means of the circle of the moon, and produced the two great divisions into active and passive causes from which all organizations result. All these monsters immediately died, and all irregularities both in form and matter ceased at once. Four passive causes, known as fire, air, water and earth, issued from this shapeless Chaos, and assumed their places in the Universe according to their specific weights (Achill. Tat. cap. iii. ; Diog. Laert. 1. VII.), notwithstanding which, however, they became frequently mingled with each other. This was especially the case on the earth, upon which bodies composed of these four elements were received into her bosom in a state of confusion until they were disengaged afresh. Most organized bodies were formed on the surface or in the bosom of earth, and this is ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 719 why that name was given to the whole of the passive causes which existed in the four elements, while portions of the earth became also partial causes or gods whom earth engen- dered. These were the giants of the Phoenician cosmogony, by whose names Mounts Libanus, Anti-Libanus, Cassius, and Bra this were called (Euseb. Preep. Evang. 1. 1, cap. x.). The inhabitants of the western coast of Africa looked upon Atlas as a beneficent god from whom they were descended (Proclus in Tim. 1. 1.), while the Arcadians were said to have found food and clothing in the Pelasgic forest, and attributed these benefits to Pelasgus, whom they looked upon as their father (Pans, in Arcad. cap. i.). Earth, however, was often placed before the other three elements, and the Romans worshipped the goddess Tellus, and the Greeks also raised altars to the Earth. Cicero (De Nat. Deor. L I. cap. xv., 1. 11. cap. xxvi., &c.) speaks of several philosophers who held that the earth, and the vital forces with which it is endued, were the origin of several deities. This was especially the doctrine of the Stoics, and of Zeno (AchiU. Tat. cap. iii.). Next to earth, the element of water, both as the ocean and in the form of rivers, streams, and fountains, gave birth to a number of deities. Orpheus taught that the ocean gave birth to all beings, and the stars themselves were said to be maintained by its waters, or by those of rivere, which were drawn out of it by means of evaporation, and which returned to it by means of the channels of the rivers (Plin. 1. U. cap. Ixviii.). The Egyp- tians held that aU created beings, including man, sprang fix)m the slime of the Nile heated by the sun (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. m. cap. ix.), and they therefore called their river the ocean, and said that the gods themselves were produced by the Nile (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. III. cap. xxii.). The prayers of the Persians are full of invocations to generating water, which destroys the products of the evil principle, and which throughout the annual revolution (Zend-Avesta, vol. i. part ii. p. 262, farg. 21), which is called figuratively the twelve thousand years of the duration of the world, gives to all Nature the germs and the substance which constitute her strength, and enable her to resist the efforts of the Dews (ibid. p. 424), or the agents of destruction which the principle of Discord makes use of. In Grenesis also the world is made to issue from the waters, just as the Egyptians and Phoeni- •20 MAXKLVD : Tm:m cians made it proceed from slime impregnated with the flnid of Chaos (Euseb. Praep. Evang. 1. 1, cap. vii. ix.) ; for, as Achilles Tatias (cap. iii.) observes, the name of Chaos was often given to that flnid which is the principle and the origin of all things in the cosmogony of Pherecydes and in the teaching of Thales. The air played as important a part as water in ancient theology, and was often confounded ^vith Juno, the sister and wife of Jupiter, and the chief of the goddesses. Anaxi- mander, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Egyptians, held that the air was a deity. Anaximenes (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. I. cap. X.) held that the air was a divine, immense, and infinite substance which was in a state of perpetual activity (Euseb. ibid. 1. 1, cap. viii.; Minut. Felix, p. 150). He said that everything arose from the air (Euseb. ibid. ; Pint, de Placit. Phil. 1. 1, cap. iii.), and resolved itself into air again ; even our souls, which according to him are but an emanation of the Spiritus or Divine breath. Zeno says that air was the first agent of the Deity when God put matter into a fluid state. This is the Spiritus or breath which moved on the face of the waters from which the earth proceeds in Genesis, and it is also the spiritual element or the dark air which is one of the first principles of the Phoenician cosmo- gony accordiug to Sanchoniathon (Euseb. Pra*p. Evang. 1. I. cap. X.). The phenomena of the air became so many causes in sub- lunary Nature, among which winds, rain, and thunder wei-e especially conspicuous. From the wheels on which the seven- coloured rainbow appeared, the goddess Iris, the daughter of Thaumas (Thammuz), was engendered (Hesiod. Theog. ver. 265)— as he describes her further on (ver. 780). The father of Thaumas was the humid element which produces by its vapours the cloud which resolves itself into rain, and on which Iris displays her brilliant colours. The mother of Iris was Electra, the daughter of Ocean, and one of the Pleiades. The peacock was made the bird of Juno because the colours of his plumage resembled the Iris or rainbow. The Egyptians called this goddess Eiras, and Plutarch (In Antro) says that the two attendants of Cleopatra who sup- ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 7*1 ported her in her last moments were called Eiras and Charmion, which signify Bainbow and Doye. Out of Eiras the Greeks formed Eros, or Love, who was one of the children of Venus, the Phoenician Astarte, according to the Phoenician theology ; the other being Pothos, or Cupid. Hence, according to the allegory, Pothos, or Desire, became attached to Eros, or Love and Beauty, and their union gave birth to all living creatures. Thus Hesiod (Theog. ver. 120) describes Love as becoming united to Chaos, and giving birth to Nature. Pliny says that as Yenus KoXXitm; or Most Beautiful, never appeared but in the morning or evening twilight, the ferti • lizing dew which gives nourishment to plants, trees, and fruits was to be attributed to her influence. Yen or Ben means ''wind" in the Eastern languages. The breath of God is supposed to pass over Chaos, and the dark Yenus gives birth to Love, the principle of all beings. Lucian attributes the origin of the dance to Eros, and adds : '* The dance, or choral march, of the stars, and the compli- cated movement of the fixed stars among the planets, their common concord, and harmonious order, offer examples of the primitive dance." He also says : " The Indians, after they have risen in the morning, salute the sun, not as we do, who think our worship complete when we have kissed our hands, but, standing with their faces turned towards the East, they salute the sun with a dance, arranging themselves in silence, and imitating the dance or measured march of the god." A Greek poet thus addresses Apollo :^— Sot ftkif X^P*i tvSutc Atrripup Kar 'OXvftirov dvaKta x<$f>ci;ti, 'Avtrov fuXog aiiv dnddv iHt^yiit Ttpwofiivoi \vp^ • Plutarch considers that the poets are right in making Eros to be the son of Iris by Zephyrus, the west wind. Eros and Iris were in fact identical, and Hesiod (Theog. ver. 120) makes Eros appear next after Chaos, and thus the beautiful emblem of a child with the rainbow denotes Eros, or Divine Love, which is supposed to appear at the renewal of the world. The bow is also represented as being set in a cloud, that is, in a cloak, or cloud, out of which Phanes, as Eros was sometimes called, displayed himself: Xir&vay fj rijv vsih^^V^y ^Ti' ^f^ Toxnwv lnOpoDo-KSi ^diffs (Damascius, n^pl ituiimav apx&t^)' Orpheus (Argonaut.) speaks of 3 a m MANKIND : THEIB The reign immense of aadeot Chaoe fint ; Then Knmas, that in boundless realms beffot Ether, and two-sexed, brilliant, glorious Love, Of ever-breeding Nisrht the ttplendid aire, Whom later mortals Phanes oall, becauso He first shone forth. He is also called Dionysus (Orph. Fragm. apad Maerob. Sat. 1. I. cap. xii.)y Phaethon (Orpheus apud Lactant. de Fals. Bel. 1. 1, cap. y.), Protogonos, Diphues, and Dionysus Dimater, his second mother being the Ark, which is called Aa/xar^, and Mi^p Bfc^v, and according to Hermias (Comm. in Plat. Phsed.) he has golden wings : Xpv(rila4f trrepvy^ai The doctrine of the Trinity in Unity originated with the Egyptians. It is known from a hieroglyphical inscription to hare formed part of the religious teaching as early as the eighth century b.o., but it is unquestionably of much earlier origin. Eusebius remarks that the resemblance between the theological conceptions of the Platonists and the Christians on this subject is very striking^ but says that it was taught by the Jews long before Plato, He might have added that before them it formed part of the teaching of the Egyptian priests and the Oriental philosophers. Plutarch says that Mithra or Oromasdes was frequently taken for the to BfSbv, or the whole Deity, and that Mithra is often called the second Mind, which lends him to observe how great an agree- ment there was between the Zoroastrian and the Platonic Trinity, the difference being only verbal. He says in another place (De Iside) : " Zoroaster is said to have made a threefold distribution of things ; to have assigned the first and highest rank to Oromasdes, who in the oracles is called the Father, the lowest to Ahrimanes, and the middle to Mithra, who in the same oracles is called rov Bg&repop Now, the second Mind.'' These oracles contain the remarkable expression — UavTi yAp Iv Konftift \Afivn rplac *'Hg fiovac apx*iป The origin of this belief is thus explained by Joachides :— ^ " There are twelve gates, in which twelve celestial sign9 have been sculptured, combined, and formed in the Universe : thoir sij^na are MK^, that is, "ilB* n^D Dnsnn Aries, Taurus, ORIGIX AXD DESTIKY. 72-^ Gemini, the three first; the second Triad is ^KtD, that is, ^h^r^2 n^t< JblO Cancer, Leo, Virgo ; the third Triad is pm that is, nep anpy D^DID Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius ; the fourth Triad is T^3, tliat is," D*3") v"i **0 Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces* And these are twelve rulers, whom God hath dis- posed like to a state, and has drawn them up in warlike array, and has made one out of the others, three mothers, who are three fathers, from whom proceed Fire, Spirit, and Water." Cedrenus mentions an oracle which contains an answer made to a king of Egypt who wished to know whether any power had ever equalled his. The oracle answered : " The sovereign power is in God, next in his Logos, and that the Spiritus possesses it in common with them ; that they have a common nature, and everlasting power." Manetho (A.p. Malal. 1. L cap. Iv.J says that the following answer was given to Sesostris : " On his return through Africa he entered the Oracle iv un-f/wj^ai/m, saying, * Tell me, O thou strong in fire, who before me could subjugate all things? and who will do so after meP' But the Oracle rebuked him, saying, * First God, then the Word, and with them the Spirit.' " Cedrenus also gives an outline of the doctrines attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. He says that this Egyptian philo- sopher distinguishes three attributes in the Deity which form one nature. In a dialogue entitled " Pimander " he says that above intellectual light thei*e is another intellectual light; that above intellect is its cause, which is but the unity of the intellect — in other words, that the chief Deity, who is placed above intellect, is the Unity of the triple being. This Wisdom, existing eternaUy by itself, contains everything eternally by its light, its intellect, and its breath or spirit. There is neither God, nor angel, nor spirit, nor any other substance external to it ; all exists in the supreme God, who is the Lord, the God, and the Father of all things, and all is from and in Him. His Word, perfect in all respects, issuing from his bosom, endowed with the demi- urgic fertility and strength, having descended into genera- tive matter, that is, into the fluid which is capable of repro- duction, has rendered the waters fertile. This latter idea is quite Egyptian, and refers to the fertilising powers of the Nile. Hermes concludes this discourse by a prayer to God ; 3 A 8 724 MANKIND: THEIR " I pray thee, O Voice of the Father, thou first Word whom he has uttered, his only Logos, to be favourable to me/' Cedrenus adds that St. Cyril admitted that the doctrine of the Trinity was clearly set forth in the writings of Hermes. Philo (apud Easeb. Prsep. Eyang. 1. XI. cap. xxiv.) sets forth the ideas which the Jews held respecting the xmiversal light called Panaugeia, which was the image of the Divine Logos, and the source of the light of the seven planets. When it passed from the light of intellect to the visible world, and became endowed with a body, its light became feeble, and it seemed then to participate in the weakness of matter, and in the bodily affections of the material world, while on the contrary it was pure and impassible in its original source. Li the same way the imiversal light in which all moves and seems to be absorbed is represented in the vision of the creation of the Universe shown to Hermes by Pimander. " Everything," says Hermes, " became a soft and agreeable light, which delighted my eyes. Soon after- wards fearful and horrible darkness, sinuous in its shape, descended ; it seemed to me that I saw this darkness change into I know not what humid and dim nature, exhaling smoke like fire, and producing a species of lugubrious noise. Then there proceeded from it a lugubrious cry, which seemed to be the voice of Light. A holy Word descended upon Nature from Light, and a pure fire darted upwards from humid Nature ; this was subtle, penetrating, and at the same time active. And the air, by reason of its lightness, followed the fluid, and rose from earth and water to the fire, from which it appeared to be suspended. Earth and water seemed to be mingled together, so that the one could not be seen through the other, and they received the impulse of the Word which was heard to proceed from the upper fluid. " ^ Hast thou understood,' said Pimander to me, * what this vision means ? ' T answered, * I am about to learn.' He said, ' This light is Me, it is Wisdom, thy God, who precedes humid Nature, which has emerged from darkness. The luminous Word which emanates from Wisdom is the Son of God.' * What dost thou mean P ' I replied. * Learn that that in thee which sees and hears is the Word, the speech of Grod ; wisdom is God the Father. They are not separated from one another, for union is their life.' . . . * Whence came the elements of Nature ? ' I asked. He answered, * From the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 726 Will of Gk>d, who, having taken Reason (the Word), and con- templating order and beauty in it^ formed the world upon this model by means of elements taken from itself, and by the germs of souls. Wisdom, the male and female Deity, who is Life and Light, engenders by means of the Word another creative intellect, the QoA of fire and of spirit, who in his turn formed seven ministers who envelop the visible world in their circuit, and govern by means of what is called Destiny.' *' St. Justin considers light in two points of view, first in the most general and abstract sense, independent of the bodies to which it is joined in this world ; this is what he calls the first light, and what may be called intellectual light in the most general and metaphysical sense of the word, or light in general, which, however, only exists relatively to us in the bodies which enable us to perceive it. He next considers it in a mass, and as united to a material body which renders it visible. Such, for instance, is the light of the sun, which is united to the body of that planet, and becomes in some measure materialised by this union. From this point of view the visible light of the sun is indeed the substance of the A6yo9f but of the Aoyos united to a body, and dwelling in the material, sensible, and mortal world. There are there- fore, he says, two natures to be distinguished in the stm, the nature of light, and the nature of the body of the sun with which it is incorporated. He goes on to say that Christ is nothing but that universal Reason of which each of us has a poi-tion, thus sho>ving that what he understands by the Word or the Logos is Reason, the sovereign Wisdom of the Deity, from which our intellects are derived. Tertullian (Apologet. p. 21) also looks upon the Word, or rather the Logos, as being the Reason of God, and the Intel- lect which governs the Universe. He makes use of the word Logos, or Ratio, which, he says, expresses that Reason and Wisdom which has arranged and ordered all things even according to the ideas of the ancient philosophers, who have not only admitted the idea, but even used the word Logos. This is that God who is the soul or intellect of Jupiter. He compares the Logos to a ray of the sun, which, without separating itself from the unity of the being which produces it, is but an extension of its substance. He also distinguishes 726 MANKIND : THEIR in the work of creation the Bea43on whieh produces order and arrangement from the vis viva which completes the work. Kircher in his dissertation on the Unity and Trinity of the first principle traces all these metaphysical subtleties to Pythagoras and the Egyptian Mercuries (Hermes). This philosophy was the most ancient and widely-spread in the world, and was not peculiar either to the Christians, the Jews, or the Greeks, with the exception of certain slight differences of opinion which always characterise the various branches of a school of philosophy, and which are distinc- tive of the various sects of a common religion. St. Augus- tine himself (De Civ. Dei, cap. zxi.) admits that ideas were held in every nation of the world respecting the Deity which resembled in a great measure those which the Clu'istians held on the subject ; that the Platonists and Pythagoreans, several philosophers among the Atlantes, the Libyans, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Chaldseans, the Scythians, the Gauls, and the Spaniards held many theological principles respecting the unity of God, Light, and the destiny of man- kind in common with the Christians. He confines himself, however, to developing the doctrines of the Platonists, because they were the best known. Kircher ((Edip. vol. iii. p. 578) also examines the Hermetic system respecting the first monad, the principle and the origin of all things. Hermes calls it the paternal monad. This engenders the dyad, which, when united to the first monad, gives the triad, which shines throughout all Nature. It is thus that the learned men in China say that one has produced two, and that two united to one have produced three, and that everything results from the latter number. He calls the nomad the Father, or the first principle. The second principle is NoO^, the wisdom of the Father self- engendered. He calls the third principle the third Intellect, and gives it this name by way of comparison with that which he calls self-engendered. The creative Intellect of the igneous world he ofills Intellect of Intellect, the supreme God, the Master, the source, the life, the strength, and the Spirit or breath which animates all things. These are the terms, according to Cedrenus. in which he defines liis Trinity. Afterwards come the following words : " From the primary Wisdom proceeds the luminous Word, the Son of God, identical ORIGIN AND DBSTINT. 727 With hit Father. For they are not distinct from ohe finother ; their onion is life* This, therefore is the Spirit of Life." In the Pythagorean and Platonic writings we have the ^VfMovpyof or Ziiff Bao-iXcuy, the Bnntpot Bcoป, or second Qod^ the MWpaf fiealrtis^ or mediatorial Mithra, and the Fewfirof 0d. Philo (De Confus. Ling. p. 267) calls it 'Ap^. The first of the Jewish Sephiroth was called Corona, the second Sapientia, and the third Intelligentia. Proclus (In Tim. p. 93) gives an account of the triads of Numenius, Harpocration, Aurelius, Orpheus, &c., and of the monad which united them knd was placed above them. The tripli- eity of the Demiurgic First Cause was the fundamental dogtiia 728 MANKIND: THEIR of tbe theology of those ages, and was a sacred nnmber in all the schools of metaphysics. An immense number of triads of all descriptions were invented, and were combined with the seven planets or the seven heavens, as may be seen in Psellus and in Kircher ((Edip. vol. iii. p. 107). These were so many refinements of the Chaldsean and Egyptian metaphysics, which passed into the philosophical sects of the first ages of Christianity. Ensebins (Preep. Evang. 1. XI. cap. XV. xvii. zviii., &c.) has given an account of the dif- ferent triads and their resemblance to the Christian Trinity. Kircher (vol. iii. p. 575) has also given an account of the triads of the Pythagoreans, the Platonists, and those of Zoroaster, Hermes, the Cabalists, &c. Beausobre (Traits du Manich. t. i. p. 578) shows how all the attributes of the Deity, whose nature was divided into principles of life, of wisdom, &c., were personified by the Christian sects, how sexes were given to these attributes, and filiations and mamages assigned to them. He also shows how the first god, dwelling from all eternity in the depth of his invisibility and silence, lived with 'Em^ or thought. XiTfij his wife gave birth to Novf, that pure spirit who alone is equal to his father, and able to know the per- fections of his greatness. This spirit, who was called the only son of the Father, had 'AXiy^gta, or truth, who was bom at the same time with him, for his wift^ (TrenaBus, 1. 1. Epiph. adv. Hseres.). Bv069 signifies the Divine Nature considered in it>s incomprehensible immensity. Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1. V.) says that God was called Bu06s because he contains all things and keeps them in his bosom, and because he is incomprehensible and infinite. Xiyn signifies Silence, under whose veil he is concealed. St. Epiphanius says that the only son, wishing to make God known, was prevented from doing so by the father's order by Xiyt]. Wisdom and Truth were the first productions of the incomprehensible Being. Wisdom and Truth gave bii*th to Aoyo9 and Zcwiy, or Reason and Life. The author of Hermes Trismegistus says that Thought, with his sister the Word, emanated from the pure Spirit s H SI vorjais djro rov voVy aB8\(f>}f oiaa tov \6yov. The light of the sun, according to Justin, only becomes material when it enters the visible world, when it becomes subject to the laws of the bodies to whiih it attaches iteelf. Origen (Comm. in Manil. 14 Jeremise) saija nearly the ORIOIN AND DESTINY^ 729 mme thing: ^'Litz rera filius Dei, quse illuminat omnem hominem. Qaicnnque rationalis est, particeps verse lacis efficitnr. Bationalis autem omnis homo." ** Many of the Fathers," says Beausobre (t. I. p. 80), "have held much the same ideas as the Pagans respecting the universal light. They considered the human mind, or reason, to be like a ray, or a light, which issues from the Word, or from Divine Reason, which was the reason that Justin Martyr said that Christ had been partly known by Socrates, because Christ is the Word, and the Word (Aiyof) is in all men ; the whole human race participating in it." EUerocles in his commentary on the Grolden Yerses of Pythagoras draws a distinction between two sorts of light, one of which is pure and unmingled, and the other is that which " in tenebris lucet," or which is connected with matter : ^f inrapOpov teal fcaOapoVy fjL€0^ h iirivosiTai to iv o-ki^ ^9 koX to irrroavfifurfit cKOTfp yeivofjJvov. This is what is meant by the expression "the light shineth in darkness" in John i. 5. In the ManichsBan system the sun and the moon were formed of good matter, while the other planets and stars were formed of mattf-r somewhat deteriorated by the evil principle. This was no doubt the reason why they paid such honour to the sun. "Solem honorat Manichseus, et, ut existimavit, decemit non habere mixtionem mali" (Titus of Bostra, p. 921); It is this light, joined to the matter called darkness by the metaphysicians of antiquity (of which matter our world is composed), which is figuratively said to shine in the midst of darkness, without, however, sustaining any damage from it. Origen (Comm. in Joan. p. 70) says that there is a difference between the light, " quse in tenebris lucet nee ab eis apprehenditur, et lux in qu& haudquaquam tenebrse sunt," &c. The epithet Mtclnjfy or Mediator, was also given to the Sun, or Mithra ; and Plethon (Orac. Caldaic.) calls Mithra the second principle, the second Intelligence, ^vrepov tiow^ who has above him the eternal Light called the Father* The position of the sun in the centre of the Universe gave rise to this idea of a moral mediator. Beausobre (t. I. p. 167) says : " It is certain that Mithra is one of the names which the Persians give to the sun, but according to Por- phyry, Mithra was also the name of that second Intelligence (the Aoyos) by which God created the world." This was 7m MAirKIND: THEIR the Mar/n^r Bซ6t of Flutareh. The sun waa also oohcddered to be the connecting link of the harmony of the spheres, in which he is placed in order to regolate their moTements and maintain their eternal concord. This is another reason why he is called Mediator, or Mfo-Zn^y. His car rolled throngh the fonrth circle of the planetary orbits, having on either side those orbits which circumscribed his own, and he gave the double fourth of the celestial harmony, as Martianus Capella says :— Hinc eat quod quarto jus est decurrere Cireo, Ut tibi peifecta nnmenis mtioDe probetur. Nonne & prindpio geminvm tu das tetiachordon f He was the Movoycvi]?, or only son of his father, and Lis first luminous emanation. His sacred head shone with the splendour of twelve rays which, crowned it— ra number equal to that of the months and hours which he engendered in his course. His chariot was drawn by four steeds, who repre- sented the four elements, which are subject to his action, and which he modifies and directs by his power : — Solem te Latium vocitat, quod solus houore Post Patrem sis luds apex, radiisque sacratum Bis senis perhibent caput aurea Lumirni ferre, Quod totidem menses totidem quod conficis horas. Quatuor alipedes dicuut te flectere habenis, Quod solus obruistis quam dant elementa, quadrigani. His duty is to drive away darkness, to raise the dark veil which bangs over Nature, and to embellish her by means of his pure light, whence he is called Phoebus, or he who discloses the future by removing the shadows which cover it, and Ljseus, or he who drives away the restless anxieties of the night. He is Serapis on the banks of the Nile, Osiris at Memphis, Mithra in Persia, Pluto elsewhere, Atys in Phrygia, Amraon in Libya, Adonis at Byblos — he is, in short, the universal god of all nations, who honour him tmder a multitude of different names :— Nam tenebras pechibens retegis quod cserula lucet ; Hinc PhoBbum perhibent prodentem occulta futuri ; Vel, quia dissolVis noctuma admissa, Lyseum. Te Serapim Nilus, Memphis veneratnr Osirim, Dissona sacra Mithram, ditemque ferumque Typhoneni. Atys piilcher item, curvi et puer almus aratri : Amnion arentis Libya?, ac Biblus Adonis. iSic vario cunctus te nomine conyocat otHb. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 781 This passage shows that the Son has been the chief deity of all nations, notwithstanding the difference of his names and attribateSy and of the legends concerning him. He is Apollo who trinmphs over the serpent, the enemy of light ; he is Bacchus Lyaens, who is bom, dies, goes down to hell, and rises again after being torn to pieces by the monsters with serpent's feet ; he is the god Serapis enreloped in the ser* pent's folds, that Serapis in whose temple in Egypt the cross was found, the symbolic sign of the fiiture life, which the Egyptians themselves explained it to mean, as may be seen in Sozomenes and Bufinus, that Serapis or Serapis Sun who the Emperor Hadrian wajs convinced was the god of the Christians. He is Osiris, who is bom, dies, and rises again ; he is Mithra, whose nativity was celebrated at Christ- mas — ^Mithra, who was bom in a cave, died, and rose again, and who saved by his death those who believed on him. He is Ammon, the ram-headed god, who is placed in the equi- noctial sign of the Bam or Lamb, where the sun achieves his greatest triumph. He is Adonis, whose death, resurrection, and ascension were celebrated in the same countries that Christianity arose in. He is Atys, the Esmun of the Phoeni- cians, who, after being mourned for three days, returns to the celestial regions, and whose passion, death, and re- surrection were accompanied by the sacrifice of a ram or lamb. The dogma of the unity of God was, however, held by the ancients in the midst of the polytheism which prevailed, and the idea of a supreme God, who was the head and origin of all the subordinate deities, was admitted even in the popular religion (Sonnerat, Voy. aux Indes, t. ii. cap. xiv., &c. ; Acad. Inscrip. t. xxxi. p. 19, t. iii. p. 1). Th^s following is the creed of Pythagoras, drawn up many centuries before the Christian era : — ^' God is neither the object of sense, nor subject to passion, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelligent. In his body he is like the light, and his soul resembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades and diffuses itself over all Nature. All beings receive their life from Him. There is but one only God, who is not, as men are apt to imagine, seated above the world beyond the orb of the Uni- verse, but, being himself all in all, he sees all the beings that fill his immensity, the only principle, the light of heaven. 733 MANKIND: THEIB the Father of all. He produces eTerything ; he orders and disposes everything; he is the reason, the life, and the motion of all beings." In the Greek mysteries a hymn was snng which clearly indicated the unity of Grod (Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. IIL cap. ix.). The high priest, addressing himself to the initiated, said : ** Worship the Buler of the XJniyerse : he is one, he is omnipresent, but invisible to all eyes." Athenagoras (Leg. pro Christ.) has collected all the features of resemblance that are to be found between the belief of the Christians, and that of the Pagans on this subject. He says that both poets and philosophers agree on this point. He quotes Euripides and Sophocles as well as Plato, Pythagoras, Timseus, Philo- laus, Aristotle, the Stoics, &c., thus proving the existence of a common theology, just as an ancient and common cosmogony prevailed among the Eastern nations. The Sibylline Oracles set forth this dogma, for they speak of Elc Oc^c ^ Moyoc ^fX^'f vwfpfifylOifc iyivfiroc* 'AXXd Oc^c Moyoc tic Towxiprarogf <^f , teal 6 ouro^s. The mystic lacchus was the god of the Hebrews, n% lah or lach, Jah, or Jehovah. Fiirst says that "the Phoenicians had a supreme god, whose name was triliteral and secret, invented (Sanchon. p. 40, ed. Orelli), as is alleged by the hierophant Istris, the brother of Chna (i.e. since the origin of the Phoenician people), and he was *Ia<- —'ytytntv fuucdpwv dvrirutv r dvOpuปini>v, Hermes Trismegistus, quoted by Lactantius, says : 'O Si %iof f If, 6 B$ f If opop^ros oif irpaaSimUy ifrrl ykp i &ฅ OMii- The Sibylline verses represent God as saying : — Etc ii6ฅ0i tifii Oi6cf Kai oifK lorl 9thc oXXoc* and Xenophanes beliered that — dc 0<^9 Iv r< Otolai Kai dvOpiinroioi fiiytarocp Otrt Sfitac &vtiTOurtv hftotioc ohrt vorifia, OiXoc ^ff ovkog 9k vottf oiXog 9i r aicovfc. The following is a translation of some Orphic verses on the Orgyas, a word which is synonymous with Mystery* He says to the initiated—* "Consider the Aoyof, or Divine Word: never cease to contemplate it. Direct your hearts and minds the right way, and look up to the Buler of the Universe, who alone is immortal, and who alone has begotten from himself. All things proceed from him alone, and he dwells in thenu Invisible to all mortals, he nevertheless sees all that goes on.'* Lastly, Hermesianax admits in the following verses that all the gods, that is, all the personified forces of nature, are but one God ; — nXourwVy Tlipot<"' Kvavoxair^i'f 'ฃplซ jyc ^\ *'Hfat9r6c re cXvr^, Hivp Zcvc rซ, rnc ^H/m/, *Afปrf/4t{;, iftf' *EKatpyo^ 'AjtoAAmi', llc d<^ ioriv^ 736 MANKIND : THEIE CHAPTER XXVI. The origin of man has been the subject of much discussion of late years, and while much difference of opinion still exists upon questions of detail, it is generally agreed that man has been developed . from some .preceding form of animal existence at a rery remote period, not created in the generally accepted sense of that term. The old idea was that man was formed out of the ground, and in the mystic chamber of the Temple of Philse Amun-Kneph is repre- sented turning a potter's wheel, and moulding the moi-tal part of Osiris, the Father of men, out of a lump of clay. The hieroglyphical inscription is : ^^ ]^um, the Creator, on his wheel moulds the divine members of Osiris [the type of man] , in the shining house of life " — that is, in the solar disc. This is identical with the Hebrew belief: " Lord, thou art our father ; we are the clay [Eadme, the Adamic or fertile earth], and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand" (Isa. Ixvi. 8). Man is now, however, con- sidered to Le the last of an immense series of animals which intervene between him and the Causa Causans. Aristotle laid down the law of the gradation of beings long ago. ** The transition from inanimate beings to animals," he says, ^' is effected by slow degrees ; the continuity of the gradations conceals the limits which separate these two classes of beings, and withdraws from the eye the point of division between them." He remarks afterwards : " In most animals there may be observed traces of those affections of the soul which manifest themselves in man in a more marked manner. We see among them a character either tractable or savage, and also gentleness, generosity, ferocity, baseness, timidity, confidence, anger, and malice. We may even observe in many something which resembles the foresight of man. The origin of man is connected not only with the origin of organic life, but with that of inorganic matter, for before the ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 737 earth had cooled sufficiently to allow of the existence of even the lowest form of living beings, there was but one existence upon it — mineral existence. The following brief summary contains what appears to be the truth, according to the best authorities, on this difficult subject. Throughout that Infinite Space which surrounds us is diffused matter in its primary and most attenuated form, with its atoms in motion. It is probable, however, that beyond these ultimate material elements the law of con- tinuity is still preserved, and that there are existences in the ascending order which have neither weight nor form, and are merely force. If matter were composed of originally hard solid atoms, every additional atom would in all cases increase its bulk, whereas many bodies are known which contract their dimensions by additions to their matter. Matter being universal, it is probably also homogeneous, and there is but one primary matter out of which what are termed the elementary or simple substances are formed. Continuous motion, which is the result of force, and the origin of all the phenomena of Nature, exists when a mov- able point perpetually changes its place in such a manner that successive and constantly succeeding points correspond to individual moments of time. It is possible to conceive a relation of such a nature between Time and Space that rest, or retrogression, or other combinations might result from it ; but continuous motion is the only form in which it exists in Nature, in which there is no rest. All matter is in motion, not only in the enormous masses of the plane- tary spheres, but throughout its most intimate structure. Motion seems not only to -sustain matter, but to generate it also. The law of Continuity is immutable and eternal. In obedience to it all changes are made by infinitely small degrees. Nature never works per saltv/m; nothing can pass from one extreme to the other without passing through all the intermediate grades. We see it in motion, for all movements are made in continuous lines, which are never broken, such as the movements of the planets and comets. Day dawns by degrees, and fades slowly away in the twilight, the sun ascending above the horizon and descend-^ ing below it, not suddenly, but with a continuous movement. Heavy bodies projected into space describe parabolas or 3b 738 MANKIND: THKIR hyperbolas, according to the resistance of the air* Trees and plants do not spring up in a day, but rise slowly from seed or shoot. All the raoTements "which depend upon gravity, upon elasticity, and upon the magnetic and other forces, are continuous because the forces which produce them are continuous also. Thus Gravity, which decreases as the squares of the distances, cannot cease per saltum^ but must pass through all the intermediate magnitudes. It is owing to this law also, that the ma^etic force depends upon distance, and the elastic force upon inflexion, as in thin plates, or upon compression, as in fixed air. The law of Unity pervades and directs all the operations of Nature. It causes molecules to group themselves round their centre of affinity, as it does worlds around their suns, and gives these worlds similar forms and movements; it gives to minerals similar geometric forms and figures ; it constructs the arterial and osseous system of men and animals on the same model as it does the leaves of plants and the branches of trees, and it causes each being to concur in the general harmony, and prevents anything from being isolated in the general economy. Creation has been well described as orderly development in accordance with eternal laws. Every element of the Universe acts upon and is connected with every other. There are no real cata- clysms or convulsions in Nature. The Kocr/io^, as we have seen, means not only the Universe, but Order as well. Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Chemical Affinity, and all the other attributes of matter, which may be con- sidered to be inseparable from it, are only modifications of each other, and are the result of motion, which in its turn is not a cause or agent, but only an effect. It is in facfc only a certain state of relation, of a movable thing. None of the attributes of matter are the causes of the others, but each can engender the others or be engendered by them, and all can be converted into one another under certain conditions. A single force, Light, has been made to produce, mediately or immediately, electricity, magnetism, heat, and motion. Electricity produces chemical affinity, and chemi- cal affinity produces heat and light. Motion being uni- versal, there is no absolutely cold body in the Universe. Heat and Light are but matter in motion, and there is no difference between them except the greater or less rapidity ORIGIX AND DRSTINnr. 780 of the vibrating movements which produce them. To our imperfect senses there appears to be darkness, but Light is universal and eternal. The nebulous mass which once filled the space now occu- pied by our system has become condensed in the course of ages, and as Ghladni beautifully expresses it, has " be- come crystallised in the limpid waters of the azure sea in which suns revolve." The earth was once in a fluid state. The different strata of which it is composed have become arranged in the order of their densities according to laws which experience has shown to be necessary to the stability of liquids and to their equilibrium under the action of weight. At one time all the existing water and all the volatile chemical compounds formed part of the atmosphere, but when the earth became sufficiently cool the vapours of water became condensed as they were precipitated on the surface in torrential rains, taking with them the less volatile bodies, dissolving the substances with which they came in contact, and giving rise to new combinations from which the present character of the earth's crust is derived. It has been estimated that nearly 3,000,000,00ft of years elapsed while the earth cooled to the temperature of what is termed the Eocene period in Great Britain. The elements of the primary rocks, intimately mingled by fusion, have combined during the cooling process, following the laws of Affinity, to constitute the minerals which we find there. By tiie incessant chemical reactions of the interior of the earth the rocks themselves change their composition, and the vegetations of crystals succeed each other in stones as the fauna and flora do on the earth. The life of the earth has been properly called a perpetual Grenesis. Life is everywhere, in subterranean lakes, in hermeti- cally closed natural caverns, on the glaciers of the Alps, on the Polar snows, and on the summits of the tropical Andes at an elevation of three miles above the sea level. Light, heat, and electricity create for it a thousand worlds, and open a thousand ways for its extension. It is still in active exercise, everywhere moving, everywhere creating. Leibnitz says that the greatest sum of life is always at the full, and that at any given moment the maximum of individual existence is realised. 3 B 2 740 mankind: theib In the sediments of the Primary Period are found the early representatives of the animal kingdom, the filamentary beings which have nothing of the animal about them but spontaneous movement, and the infusoria which can bear a temperature of from 160** to 170ฐ Fahrenheit. Living beings are found in waters of from 176ฐ to 194ฐ Tahrenheit. Life, therefore, became possible when the earth had cooled down to this temperature, and when the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere had been partially absorbed by the waters. Chemistry draws no line of demarcation between the organic and inorganic kingdoms, and all the elements which constitute organised bodies — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, to which often, though not always, sulphur is added — are lifeless. What is termed Protoplasm, which is the foundation of all organic life, both animal and vegetable, is nothing but a combination of these elements, and all living beings, even to man himself, are but masses or aggre- gations of this Protoplasm. It is evident that either the theory of universal evolution must be the true one, or else that the first organised being must have been formed by a special act of creation. The discovery of the simplest organisms that can be conceived, the Monera, which consist while living of nothing but a structureless bit of Protoplasm, and yet exhibit all the forms of vital activity, show that the latter are bound on to structureless Protoplasm. The one thing necessary to pro- duce the forms and vital properties of Protoplasm is Carbon, and therefore organic compounds are called in modern chemistry " carbon-compounds.*' The luminous ether is now supposed by many eminent natural philosophers to be an imponderable medium, filling all Space, and penetrating all bodies, but this mode of motion doftfl not pr^sftnt the same mobility in all bodies. Here there is a medium which no process of heating or refrigeration can destroy. It is in the bodies in which life has been destroyed as it is in those bodies in their ordinary state. But it has not the same mobility in all bodies, and this is why in experiments on spontaneous generation, or as it is more philosophically called, Archigenesis, proto-organisms can only be produced by a putrescible,that is, a highly electrical substance. When that substance becomes changed by being boiled, or otherwise heated, it loses its power of production ORIGIN AND DSSTIN7. 741 gradually at firstly and finally altogether. Electricity is there, but acting with diminished energy. On the other hand, where galvanism has been brought to bear upon in- fusions where certain yegetable products alone appeared, others and diฃPerent ones were produced, and animals also appeared in half the time they would have been produced in naturally. This subtle medium, which is eyerywhere present, though inappreciable by our senses, becomes apparent to them when manifested in such phenomena as those of dynamic electricity, chemical reactions, and magnetism. It is matter in its dynamical state, and is perpetually moulding that ponderable matter which it originally produced. We may suppose that this imponderable matter resides in carbon in some peculiar manner, and thus produces that state of vital activity which we term life. Archigenesis is therefore the result, like every other phenomenon of Nature, of force or motion. "But," a Grerman author observes, "while we refer all force to matter, we have no fear of degrad- ing 'vital principles' to mere mechanical, physical, and chemical processes, since our most exalted conceptions of Nature, and the sublimest natural philosophy, emanate from the very simplicity of physical laws, and the un- limited number of natural phenomena to which they give rise.*' One step farther, and we should know all. What is the origin of force? To this no answer can be given. The Egyptians had so far ascertained the true cause of natural phenomena that they called God " the Mover." The Greeks also called the Giver of life the Now, meaning by that word not only intelligence but motion. The word y6o9, usually contracted into vovfy is said by Eustathius to be composed from viofiaiy i.e. wopevofiaif because there is nothing which moves quicker than mind. The Egyptians, however, after long discussing the nature of the Being to whom they applied that epithet, concluded that it was beyond the power of human reason to comprehend. Hence they called God, or the First Cause, ** unintelligible darkness," and "impene- trable obscurity ; " n/xinyy CLpxh^ axirof inrip irdaav votjatv • cieoTos aryvwoTov rpi9 rovro hriifnjfjU^oyTtf (Damascius apud Gale, not Jamblic). The Platonists called the chief Deity " the supreme and inefiable God," the Egyptians called him " the 742 AlANKIND: THEIR invisible Cneph," the disciples of Orpheus called him ""the. God who dwells iu inaccessible light/' the Yalentinians called him BvOof and X^t^, and the Athenians the "Ayvtoarot Seo9. All theologies agree in confessing that the First Cause is invisible and incomprehensible. We have freqi:ently bad occasion to see how the spiritual part of theology arose out of physical ideas. The names of the good and evil principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman^ are also examples of this. The name of Ormuzd is composed of Hor, Sun, and Muzd, benevolence, while Man in Pehlvi signifies the sun, and Ahariman, which is the old spelling, indicates the winter sun, shrouded in clouds and obscured by storms ; hence Ahariman signifies '^ the foul sun." Again, Mem or Men was an idol adored by the Arabians and Syrians, and is the deity referred to in Isa. Ixv. 11, " praeparantes Grad mensam, et implentes Meni vinum miztum." Men or Meues here signifies the Sun, of which Man, Min, and Mon were also very ancient appellations. Ammon, the title of the eun, was also formed from these old names. It is often written 'A/xCv in Greek, which, when read from left to right, forms Numa. It is also written 'Ofuufos. The Greeks said that the sun was the first divine king, and Menes the first mortal king, that reigned over Egypt, but both were mere personifications of the sun. The term Man became in time synonymous with " lord " in Persia. Tacitus says that the ancient Germans adored a god named Mannus, who was probably the sun. Osiris, according to Diodorus, means a being with many eyes, which is a suitable name for the Star which darts its rays in every direction, and uses them as it were to contemplate the earth and sea. Mystically, he was looked upon as the Intellectual Light. These origins of names show conclusively how the ideas of physical evil, and of the dominion of man over all other created beings, arose, and the personification of moral evil was based upon the physical conception. The difficulty of accounting for the evil which exists in the world has always been felt to be very great, and is thus stated by Lactantius (cap. xiii., On the Anger of God) : " Either God wishes to l^emove evil from this world, and cannot, or he can and will not, or he neither can nor will, or, to conclude, he both can and will. If he will and cannot, it is impotence, which is contrary to the nature of God ; if he can and will not, it is OEIGiy AND DESTINY. 743 wickedness, and that is no less contrary to his natnre ; if be neither will nor can, it is wickedness and impotence at once ; if he both can and will (which alone of these conditions is suitable to Gk)d), whence comes the evil which exists in the world P " Bacon says in his Essays, " It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely ; and certainly superstition is the reproach of Deity." The Eabbis however, did not embrace this view, for they settled this momentous question by boldly asserting that God himself was the author of evil, and the same doctrine is taught in such passages as Isa. xlv. 7 : " I form the light and create darkness ; I make peace, and create evil." Hermes, in his discourse entitled the Crater, or the Monad, has given us the true answer: "Evil does not proceed from God, but from ourselves, who prefer it to good." The usual teaching is that man was bom in a state of original perfection, the traces of which, however, are nowhere to be found, and that in consequence of his fall not only mankind, but all Nature, lies under a curse. Upon this teaching is founded the dogma of the eternal damnation of all unbaptized children. St. Augustine says, " Parvulos trahit peccatum originale ab Adam," and, " Deus prsedestinat ad setemam mortem propter originale pecca- tum." In his letter to St. Jerome, he says, positively, that not even new-bom infants can escape eternal damnation except by being baptized. Yet in this same letter he asks continually what can be the reason why God should inflict so terrible a calamity upon innocent children. He concludes, however (De Peccatorum Meritis et Eemiss., 1. III. cap. iv, n. 7), that they could not be damned if they had not sinned, and that, as it is impossible they can have sinned before they attained the age of reason, they must have inherited the original sin of Adam by the mere fact of their being born, and that it is this sin of Adam which has rendered the whole human race liable to damnation ! To explain this extraordinary statement, he wishes it to be believed (ibid. 1. I. cap. X. n. 11) that all the souls of men have been one in Adam, and that they have all been derived from the sinful substance of his soul, like branches which grow from a single diseased stem. 744 ICANKIND: THEIR Other theologians haye repreeented the damnation of tl^se innocent children and of others as forming part of the enjoy- ment of those who are sayed. St. Thomas Aqninas (Snmma Theologica, SnppL ad tertiam partem, qnsest. 94, art 1, 2, and 8, vol. ii. Paris, 1617), '^Ut beatitude sanctoram eis magis complaceat, et de eft uberiores gratias Deo agant, datnr eis nt poenam impiorom perfiscte yideant. • . • Beati qni eront in glorift nnllam compassionem ad damnatos habebnnt. Sancti de pcenis impiomm gandehnnt^ considerando in eis diyinsB jnstitise ordinem, et suam liberationem de qu& gande- bnnf Drexelins, another amiable theologian, says in the dedicatory epistie to the Apostolic Nuncio Carafa of his work De setemo Damnatorum Carcere et Eogo (Munich, 1630), " The happy inhabitants of heayen will not feel any compassion at the sufferings, not only of those who are not related to them, but eyen of those who are ; the just will rejoice when they see yengeance; they will wash their hands in the blood of sinners." St. Gregory also says, that the elect *^ will be sated with joy as they gaee on the un- speakable anguish of the impious, returning thanks for their own freedom." We have seen how yery plainly some of the Catholic theologians confessed that they did not belieye a word of what they preached, and Prot^tant diyines are not behind them in this respect. Bishop Bumet (who converted the Earl of Rochester) tells his clergy in his treatise De Statu Mortuorum, which was written in Latin in order that it might not fall into the hands of the laity, seriously to main- tain and preach the reality and eternity of hell torments, even though they should believe nothing of the sort themselves. He continues : " Si me tamen audire velis, mallem te poenas has dicere indefinitas quam infinites ; " ** If you will listen to me, however, I should prefer that you should say that these torments were of indefinite duration rather than that they are eternal." " Sed veniet dies," he adds, " cum non minus absurda habebitur et odiosa heec opinio quam tran- substantiatio hodie." "But the day will come when this opinion will be held to be no less absurd and odious than the belief in Transubstantiation is now." Adam, according to the Rabbis, was created on the sixth day at nine o'clock in the morning. He, however, trans- gressed the first hour after his creation, iiud was ejected OMOIX AND DESTINY. 746 from Paradise at three o'clock in the afternoon, so that, according to Barcepha, Philoxenns, and SamgensiSy he was only six hours in Paradise. Dr. Lightfoot says, ^^ Adam was created on Friday morning at nine o'clock ; he ate the for- bidden fruit about one (that being the time of eating) ; and Christ was promised about three o'clock in the afternoon.'' The promise of Christ signifies that the curse pronounced on man can only be removed by a bloody sacrifice, for it is held that the sin of Adam can be expiated in no other way. Thus Milton (Paradise Lost, Book UI. 1. 209) makes God say : — He, with his whole posterity, must die ; Die he or justice must, unless for him Some other able, and as wiUing, pay The rigid aatisfactiony death for aeath. He goes on to say that any of the angels would have done as well as the Son of God : — But all the heavenly choir stood mnte^ And silence was in heayen. — ^ib. L 217. TbiB sacrifice is supposed to have been typified by the Jewish festival of the Day of Atonement. It has been proTed, however, by a learned Jew, that this festival was neyer cele- brated in the lifetime of Moses, nor during the existence of the first Temple. He says that neither the festival of the first of the year (Boschaschanah), nor the Day of Atonement ( Jom Kipour) are mentioned in the list of festivals in Deut. xvi. What proves that it could not have been in existence at that time is that every Israelite had to go up to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, which are ordained in it, and as the feast of ฃipour (ransom) is only four days before the feast of Tabernacles, the people would certainly have been ordered to go up to Jerusalem four days earlier in order to celebrate it. This festival is mentioned in Lev. xxiii., a chapter which has apparently been inserted by some Pharisee a thousand years after the death of Moses, and the release of the scape- goat is of the same nature as the release of the bird of atonement in Lev. xiy. 32, which is a chapter of much earlier date. The priests who sought to inculcate the idea of Atonement inserted this chapter, as they inserted many other things. The Hebrew is not what would have been used in the time either of Moses or of the first Temple. This festival I- 1 T • • V 746 MANKIND: THEIR was, however, not only imposed on the credulous people, supported by a miracle. Treatise Boschaschanah e that it was the practice on that day to tie a red thread the great internal gate of the Temple. As soon as the sea goa^ laden with the sins of the people, reached the wile ness, this thread became white, so as to fulfil what Isa said, ^^ though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wl as snow." This was effected by the mere prayer of the H Priest! It is not too much to say that the doctrine of propitiat sacrifice has demoralised the world. The Reverend '. Evanson says : — " It is true, the orthodox Church preaches the pure etl of the gospel, and the virtue of temperance among the re but she has, at the same time, ingeniously and impioui contrived to render her own, and what is still worse, all preaching of the gospel, of none effect, by her doctrine the death of Jesus, considered as a propitiatory sacrifice infinite efficacy^ and an universal atonement for sins. E^ the Protestant subdivisions of that Church, in their m sacred and solemn acts of devotion, as well as in the serm< of their preachers, declare that by his death, a fully peffi and sufficient sacrifice, ohUUion, and satisfaction hath hi made to the divine justice far the sins of the whole wot Gracious God, have mercy upon the presumptuous folly s madness of thy erring creatures ! — By this single doctr she has erected an universal asylum, as far as another life concerned, not for intemperance alone, but for every otl vice and crime of which human nature is capable. 1 miserable, quibbling supplement to this shocking doctri that repentance and a proper faith is necessary for the p ticular application of this atonement, can be of no avail ; no sinner will believe that a jt^t being will inflict a punishment on account of offences for which he has alrea received perfect and sufficient satisfaction, and besides, sii the people are also taught that a sinner may effectua recur to this saving faith and repentance even on his deal bed, or in the condemned dungeon of Newgate, wl religious motive can any man have to curb and restrain 1 natural passions or inclinations, so long as he hath it in ] power to gratify them, at any rate, when he knows that the last moment of his life he can liope to secure hims t • ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 747 Against the deseired consequences of his wickedness by taking refuge at the Crqss of Christ P If anj reflecting person can doubt of the dreadfully pernicious influence which such a persuasion as this must have upon the morals of the people in general, let him, for a moment, consider what would be the certain effect should the Legislature set up an asylum for murder in every parish in the kingdom, to which, if the wilful murderer could flee before he was appre- hended, he should be exempted from punishment. Society would soon experience the evil consequences of such a policy in the centuple multiplication of instances even of that crime, the most shocking to human nature. And to com- plete his conviction of the similar effects which this doctrine has, and ever hath had, upon the morals of professed Chris- tians, he needs only to review the moral history of Christen- dom, and attend to the vicious immoralities everywhere continually practised by persons of all stations in this first decade of the nineteenth century of the Christian Era." Upon the doctrine of Original Sin is founded that other most extraordinary doctrine that man, who had previously been immortal, became subject to death in consequence of eating the forbidden finit. This forms no part of the teaching of Genesis, and even in the literal interpretation the existence of a tree of life by eating of which man might have become immortal, shows that he had been liable to death previously. This may also be inferred from the command in the first chapter to ^^ increase and multiply, and replenish the earth," for it needs but a slight acquaint- ance with the laws of population to know, that in the course of a few centuries the earth would have become so densely populated as to be uninhabitable. Again, we are told in Gen. i. 21, that God " created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind." Now there clearly was no place for the monsters of the deep in the Garden of Eden. All that can be admitted are such fish as might have dis- ported themselves in the four rivers which are said to have watered the Garden. These, and all the salt-water fish, must therefore have escaped the curse, as they did also the Deluge, for Noah did not take any fish on board the arkซ Yet no one will pretend that fish are immoi'tal. Everyone knows that this statement is absolutely untrue. 748 MANKIND: THEIR and that death has always been the portion of all created beings without exception. ''The law of death/' sajs Epictetus, '^ is the law of secondary and material matter ; it does not exist in primordial and ethereal nature/' Hermes speaks differently. He says : ** Death does not exist ; the word ' mortal ' has no meaning, or is but the word * immor- tal ' without its first syllable. Death would be destruction, and nothing is destroyed in the Universe. If the Uniyerse is a second god, an immortal being, no portion of a Hying and immortal being can die. But everything is a portion of the Universe, especially man, who is the animal possessed of reason. The first of all beings is the eternal, uncreated Being, the God who has created all things. The second has been made in his image ; this is the Universe which he has engendered and preserved, and which he maintains ; it has received immortality fix)m its Father, and it therefore ever lives. Immortality differs from eternity; eternity has not been engendered by any other being, it has produced itself, or rather it creates itself eternally. He who speaks of eternity speaks of what is universal. The Father is eternal by his own act — the Universe has received from him per- petual existence, and immortality." These speculations are the result of the assumption that the soul, as Hermes defines it elsewhere, is an incoiporeal essence, which does not entirely lose its previous mode of existence while it is connected with matter, that it is a primary force, and that as life is the union of intellect and soul, so death is not the destruction of that which was united, but only the rupture of unity. Modem views, which are based upon scientific observation, are of course very different, at least in details, from the speculations of the Egyptian philosopher. Cuvier's definition of Life is as follows (R^gne Animal, Introd.) : — *' If, in order to acquire a just idea of what constitutes the essence of life, we consider it in those beings in which it appears in its simplest form, we shall soon perceive that it consists in the faculty which certain corporeal combinations possess of lasting during a certain definite time, and in a certain definite form, while incessantly attaching to them^ selves a portion of the substances which surround them, and restoring to the elements portions of their own substance. " Life, therefore, is a more or less violent or complicated ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 749 whirlwind, the cause of which is always the same, and which is ever attaching to itself molecules of the same description, bnt into which separate molecules are continually entering, and from which they are continually departing, so that the form of the living body is more essential to life than its matter. As long as this movement continues, the body in which it takes place is alive — it lives." This definition seems incomplete, for it makes nutrition to be the sole support of life. Bichat's definition appears to be much more accurate. He defines life to be nothing but a number of functions or powers which resist death. In- organic bodies, he observes, are incessantly acting upon organic bodies, so that if there were no principle of reaction, they would soon cease to exist. In childhood there is an exuberance of life, because the reaction is greater than the action. As life attains its prime, an equilibrium is esta- blished between the two, while as old age draws on reaction decreases, the action of external forces remaining the same, and death takes place when reaction has wholly ceased. " Our lives,'* he says, " are double. The one we possess in common with the vegetable and the animal, the other belongs exclusively to the latter. The vegetable life is, as it were, the rough sketch of the animal, the difference being that the latter is provided with external organs which are suitable for bringing it into communication with the ex- ternal world. The first life is called organic, the second animal life. While organic life acts incessantly and without rupture of continuity, while respiration and circulation con- tinue, while all the secretions act uninterruptedly, exhalation and absorption continually succeeding each other, and nutrition never remaining inactive, and while the double movement of assimilation and rejection which only ends with life, goes on continually, in animal life, on the contrary^ there are constant alternations of activity and repose, and complete intermittances, not the mere casual ones which are observed in some organic phenomena. The intermission of animal life is sometimes partial, sometimes generaL" In natural death, he continues, animal life ends almOst entirely long before life comes to an end. In extreme old age the senses become gradually imperfect, except taste, which is allied to the organic as well as the animal life. The hair grows white, the brain ceases to perform its functions, memory I I 760 MASKIKD : THEIB grows feeble, and second childhood supervenes. Oi^ life terminates in old age after the almost complete los animal life in a slow and gradoaJ maoner. The digee organs continue to act, and absorption frequently contii in activity after suilden death has taken place. In gen it may be said, that in cases of sudden death organic ends in a slow and gradual manner. Deaths of this desc tion disturb the harmony of the external fnnctions, and ! at once attack the general circulation and respiration ; their influence on the other fnnctionB is only successive, i the general organic life first, and afterwards the ape functions, which cease in this sort of death. On the c trary, in death by old age the whole of the fubctions c( only because each has ceased in succession. Each or becomes gradually enfeebled ; digestion becomes weak ; secretions and absorption cease ; circalation becomes peded, and at last is stopped by death. In death from age life begins to cease in all parts of the body, and fin in the heart ; death exerts its power from the cireumfere to the centre. In death by violence life ceases in the he and afterwards in all parts of the body ; the phenomenf death manifest themselves from the centre to the circi ierence. This account of death shows that the mental facult which, taken in the aggregate, we call our souls, begit decay before the body, which indeed is matter of comi experience ; oidy, so long as the soul is considered as soi thing apart from the mental faculties, the importance of 1 fact is not observed. That mind, or spirit, may exist aj from matter is what no one who admits the existeoce c Power which rules and directs the forces of Nature wo deny, but we can form no conception of it. All that know is, tliat the kinds of matter in which the mei qualities manifest themselves uniformly live, and that w they cease to exist the mental qualities cease also. I mental faculties cannot act independently of an organi but many of the physical faculties can and do constai operate independently of the mental. The organism therefore, after all, the one thing indispensable, and mind is but an attribute of matter. Knox has shown 1 the organism has arisen out of the lowest organic forms : " Man stands not alone ; he is one of many, b part i ORIOLV AND DESTINY, 751 parcel of the organic world from all eternity. During his youth he undergoes numerous metamorphoses, too numerous even for the human imagination. They have a relation to the organic world. They embrace the entire range of organic life from the beginning to the end of time. Nature can have no double systems, no amendments or second thoughts, no exception of laws. Eternal and unchanging, the orbs move in their spheres precisely as they did millions of years ago. Proceeding, as it were, from an invisible point endowed with life, he passes rapidly at first through many forms, all resembling, more or less, either different races from his own, or animals lower in the scale of being, or beings which do not now exist, though they probably once existed, or may at some fixture time. When his develop- ment is imperfect, it resembles then some forms resembling the inferior races of men, or animals still lower in the scale of being. . . . The law of generation being generic, and not specific, marks the extent of the natural family, its unity in time and space, the fixity of its species, the destruction of some and the appearance of others being but the history, not of successive creations, but of one development, extend- ing through millions of years, countless as the stars of the firmament. *^ A vertebral bone becomes to the philosophical anatomist the type of all vertebrate animals ; of the entire skeleton, limbs and head included ; of the organic world, vertebrate and invertebrate ; carried fiirther, it possesses the force of the primitive cell, of the sphere, of the Universe. We may believe that in the embryo the elements of the skeleton may, after all, be the same in every animal. From man to the whale, all is alike : one theory explains all, one idea or plan pervades all." The law of organic being, therefore, is Progressive De- velopment, and it would even seem to be possible that man may be developed in the course of ages into a superior being to what he is now. This law of Progressive Development shows an immense and ever-increasing distance between man and the highest races of animals, and gives rise to the idea, that matter capable of such high organisation may not be subject to the same law of destruction as pervades the rest of Nature. The whole Universe is alive in one sense, for motion is 752 MANKIND: THEIR universal, and being and life are inseparable ideas. Indi- viduals die, but life remains. Nature lives in all the bodies termed inorganic as she does in organised plants and animals. Life extends to all beings, and knows no rest and no limits. Wherever we look there is movement, formation, and transformation. Nature carries in herself the principle and the determining cause of her life ; she is an animated being. There is no principle of vitality. Pure chemistry shows us that the laws which control the cohesion of different atoms in stones and rocks are the same as those by which the persistence of the atomic composition of animals and vegetables is maintained. The chemical quantity of a substance corresponds generally to its physiological import- ance ; thus the more complex atoms, the chemical parts of which have a less stable equilibrium, occur especially wher- ever the higher functions of material life manifest them- selves. Chemical combination is the means by which Nature creates from a few kinds of matter the immense diversity of beings in the material world, and elective affinity is the means by which she produces the ceaseless change we see upon the face of the earth. A particle of matter has scarcely entered into combination with some other particle of matter before it meets with some other kind of matter which it prefers, unites with it, and forms a newer body still. Hence, on the face of Nature all is unstable. Death and destruction alone seem paramount, but they are only a change into a newer state of being, or into a newer form of life. In consequence of the powerful affinities which hold them together, the bodies which we term mineral have less ten- dency to enter into combinations than organised bodies. But even in these there is no exception to the law of change and progress. Minute quantities of substances are present in them which clearly indicate the passage of one mineral into another, and lay before us clearly the genetic parts of the vital processes. The doctrine of the transmutation of metals as held by the alchemists is no longer opposed to the analogies of science, it is only some stages beyond its present development. The matter of plants and animals is no more organised than substances derived from the mineral kingdom. The ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 768 lower organic compounds can be formed artificially from inor- ganic materials, and it is probable that even the higher will one day be produced in the laboratory. The brain, the seat of thought, reason, and intellectual activity, is as material as the elements from which it is derived — water, fatty matter, albumen, osmozome, phosphorus, and different salts and acids, such are the substances of which it is composed, and which can be resolved into their elements — hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, of which they are only various combinations. It must be admitted that the purely scientific view of the subject does not hold out any very encouraging hopes of immortality. Professor Owen says plainly that " philosophy does not recognise an immortal entity, mental principle, or souL" At the same time it is possible that the combinations once formed may continue, and the fact that man, however much he may degenerate, shows no indication of return to the lower orders of being from which he sprung, may be considered to support this view. Toung, in his "Night Thoughts,'' bases the immortality of man on the analogies of Nature: — Look Nature through, 'tis revolution all ; All change, no death ; day follows night, and night The dying dav ; stars rise and set, and set and rise : Earth takes the example. See, the Summer gay, With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers, Droops into pallid Autumn : AVinter gray, Homd with frost, and turbulent with storm, Blows Autunm and his golden fruits away, Then melts into the Spnng : soft Spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south Recalls the first All, to reflourish, fades : As in a wheel, all sinks to reascend : Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. Hegel and Bichter both denied the immortality of the soul, as did also Strauss, Hegel's disciple. The latter says, *^ There is, as modem speculation has proved, but one single substance, the Absolute. Individuals are but the perishable and changing forms of this substance. They are bom, they die, and a constant succession of other individuals comes to replace those which are no longer in existence. It is this movement which makes up the life of the Absolute. The strength and talents of the individual are limited and finite ; •these limits are precisely what constitute individuality. The So 754 MANKIND: THEIR fieusolties of the species, of the genus, or rather of the universe, are alone immortaL When, after passing the prime of life, we draw near to old age and its infirmities, the soul declines, together with the body, of which it is but the life, the centre, or the idea.'* In another place he says, ^^The proof of immortalitj drawn from the system of rewards and punishments may be formally stated as follows : Since it often happens that good men are not happy in this world, and that the wicked often remain unpunished, there must be another world in which they respectively receive the rewards and the punishments which they deserve. ^* Supposing that this argument is worth anything, the utmost that can be proved by it is that there will be a greater or less prolongation of human life after death. For once souls are sufficiently rewarded or punished, they must necessarily return to nothingness. But if we look closer at it, this argument is entirely unfounded and worthless. Does not virtue in fact carry with it its own reward, and vice its own punishment 9 Would it not be worthy of man's dignity to place piety and greatness of soul above all else, even if he were convinced that his soul was not immortal P Is it not precisely that which constitutes virtue which leads us to act, we will not say without reference to any reward, that is impossible, but without regard to any reward other than that which we receive fix>m the practice of virtue itself? It is only the ignorant and the wicked who believe that true liberty consists in surrendering oneself to one's passions, or who regard a rational and moral life as a painful slavery, and obedience to Divine laws as a heavy yoke, the pain of supporting which is to be recompensed by future rewards. In the eyes of the wise there is none among the noble and truly great men who is not more happy and more to be envied in this world than the most powerful of the wicked." Plato in the Pluedo represents Socrates as saying, ** I hope that there will be a state after death, and that, as has long been held, the future life will be better for virtuous than for wicked men," Plato proves the immortality of the soul in the following manner. He says, " If the question is asked, What is that which, being in the body, will give it lifei' we must answer. It is the soul. The soul, when it lays hold of any body, always arrives bringing with it life. ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 756 Now death is tlie contrary of life. Accordingly the soul, which always brings with it life, will never receive the con- trary of life. In other words, it is deathless and immortal." Aristotle, Plato's master, who is quoted by Plutarch (Consol. ad Apollon.), speaks of the happiness of man after this life fLa a creed of so ancient a date that no one can tell when it originated. Cicero (Tuscul. Qusest.) says that the immortality of the soul has been maintained by the most learned of men, and that it is an idea held by the ancients, who lived nearer to the time of the gods, and who therefore had better opportunities of knowing the truth. He also says that they held it before philosophy began, and that they were persuaded of its truth by a species of natural inspiration, without enquiring into the reason of their belief. Plutarch (De Proc. Anim.) says, " Plato saw clearly to- wards the end of his life that it was necessary to suppose that matter was alive, because a substance which possesses neither qualities nor actions of its own, and which by its nature is in perfect equilibrium, cannot be either the cause of motion or the principle of evil. Hence it follows that this principle is the powerful agent which moves matter, which resides in it, and which produces movements which are irregular and devoid of reason. It is a power which Plato calls in his book on laws ^ an irregular and mischievous soul, and one which is opposed to the cause of goodness.^ '* Clemens Alexandrinus, who quotes this passage in his Stromata (Iซ T.), says that it is the devil who animates matter, and such in fact was the belief of that period. What was really understood in ancient times to be the soul of man was a material being, containing in itself life and thought, or rather whose essence it was to live and to think. Two species of matter were recognised which were of absolutely diflferent natures, and the qualities of which were far from being identical, but which often united in order to organise bodies. One of these two species of matter, that which composes the earth and the elements, was inert, destitute of activity, life, or motion, without form, and without light, but prepared to receive all these qualities by uniting with the other species of matter, which gave it light, form, motion, and life, and which drew it along with it, bound all its parts together, passed through it in every direction, and produced the organisation of individual bodies, 3 c 7fi6 MANKIND : TUEIK aad of Nature in general. This matter, which was ac and endowed with reason and thooght, was not in its pr place when, drawn on hy iis own impetus, it found i compelled to remain on the earth in consequence of strong attraction of the dark matter for it. Its nat place waa in the highest portion of the Universe, to w' it would one daj return. The souls of man and of anii were fomed of this divine, inBnitely attenuated, and finitely active suhatance ; they received it when they ' bom, and yielded it back when they died. Porphyry Ant. Nymph.) holds that the ancients were right in secrating caverns and caves to the world in general, as as to the separate parts of it specially. The earth, io w the cave was formed, was the emblem of matter, of w the world is made. These caves, too, which are m< hollowed out by the hands of Nature, are composed substance which is anal<^us to the substance of the et and they are uniformly' surrounded by rocks ; the iateri' concave, while the upper portion is co-extensive with earth. Porphyry thinks that they resemble the world, parts of which have a neutral affinity, and which is es tially material, and is called stone and rock, by which tt the inertia of matter, and its passive nature, whic intended to receive the impression of other forms of ma is allegorically represented. This comparison of the world to a dark cave into w souls descend is not a fanciful idea of Porphyry's. I has made use of the same idea in the seventh book of Kepublic, as Porphyry observes. He represents man below as being in a dark and deep cave which ha^ a I opening towards the light. Further on he resumes comparison, and likens this mortal dwelling-place ' prison, and the light of the fires which are lighted the: that of the sun which gives light to the world. Oi (Somn. Scip., c. 3) also compares the body in which the dwells to a prison. Virgil {^n. 1. VI. v. 744) makes u the same comparison. Generally speaking, all who written either respecting the world, or respecting the in its relation to the soul, have never described it othei than as a cave and a prison. According to Macrobius soul is originally a simple substance, a monad, the orij place of which is heaven. This, he says, is the univ ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 757 belief of all philosophers^ and its true wisdom consists in looking up to its source so long as it continues united to matter, and endeavouring to return to its original habita- tion. This is the secret teaching of all the mysteries and initiations, the object of which was to remind man of his divine origin, and to show him how to return to his original state. Philosophy had no other aim, as may be seen in the works of the Pythagorean, Platonic, and other philosophers, whose dogmas and morality have been borrowed by Chris- tian vmters. The great lesson inculcated in the mysteries was the knowledge of self, of the iUustrious origin of man, of the greatness of his destiny, and of his superiority over the animals, who could not attain to this knowledge, and whom man resembled so long as he did not reflect on his destiny, and enquire into his own nature. This was the lesson which the oracle at Delphi taught him who consulted it as to how he should attain happiness, ** Learn to know thyself." This sublime sentence was said to have come down from heaven, and was carved on the front of the temple. Seneca has applied it as follows : — Stet, quicunque volet, potens Aulas culmine lubrico ; Me dulcis saturet quies. Obscuio positus loco, Leni pernruar otio. Nullis Dota Quiritibue iEtas per taciturn fluat ; Sic, cum transierint mei Nullo cum strepitu dies, Plebeius moriar senex ; nii mors gravis incubat, Qui, notus nimis omnibus, Ignotus moritur sibi. All the lustrations, expiations, fastings, and especially the initiations, were used to prevent the soul from preserving any stains, owing to its long abode on earth, which might retard its progress towards heaven. Many of these practices were originally symbolical, but afterwards came to be looked upon as causes which produced that purity of mind of which they were only the external symbols. The Platonists, such as Proclus, taught that ** the mysteries and initiations draw souls away from this mortal and material life in order to unite them to the gods, and dissipate the darkness of ignorance in those who are initiated by the light of the 7ซ MANKIND: TUEIB Deity." Cicero (3oDin.8cip.c. 9) show that without this h of contemplation beings which am above the visible wc and of Beparating itself in some measure irom the bod;, soul in in danger of being retained in eleioentaiy ma after death, and of meeting with obBtacles to its reti "The soul," sayt Scipio to hia son, *'haa always exisi and will exist for ever. Let it exercise itself in the prac of virtues if it wishes to return with ease to that place fi which it came. The actions which ought above all occupy it are those which have for their object the conn and the means of saving it. It is at this price that soul will be most easily able to effect its retnra' to the pi which gave it birth, and to take an unimpeded flight tows its original abode." St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 1. X. c Bays that Porphyry had composed a work on the return this soul to its original habitation, in which he frequei: repeated this maxim : " Everything that is material m be avoided, in order that the soul may the easier rent itself with God, and live in happiness with him." Eusebins (Prsp. Evang. 1. XI. c. 28) has quoted a jtassi from Porphyry's " Treatise on the Soul," in which he aa " The soul appeaj^ to be divine tcom its resemblance to 1 indivisible Being, and mortal by reason of its points contact with perishable Nature. According as it descei or ascends, it seems to be mortal or immortal. On the ( hand is tlie man who has no other occupation but that eating and drinking, like the brutes ; on the other side the man who is able by his ability to save a vessel in storm, or to restore the health of his fellow-men, or discover truth, or to investigate the method which is suita' to each science, or to invent fire signals, or to draw hoi scopes, or to imitate the works of the Creator by means machines. Has not man, in fact, taken upon himself represent here below the orbits of the seven planets, imitating the heavenly phenomena by mechanical uioi menta P [This alludes to the sphere of Archimedes.] Wl has not man invented by making manifest that divine wisd< which be possesses in himself? Of a certainty this wi8d< proves by its bold conceptions that it is really Olympij divine, and an entire stranger to our mortal state ; yet, consequence of its attachment to terrestrial things, whi renders it incapable of recognising this wisdom, the vulg ORIGIN AND DESTINT. 759 judging by external appearances, have oome to believe that it IB mortal • • . • It can be proved incontestablj, either by intellectoal conceptions, or by history, that the soul is im- mortal/' Where the ancient theologians and philosophers could see nothing but a World in which imperfection, decay, and death, the visible manifestations of Divine yrrath, prevailed, the modem student of nature sees the very reverse of all this. Linnceus, who devoted his life to the study of her works, ex- claims, ^* I have awoke I I have awoke ! God has passed before me. I have seen Him, and have been struck with stupor. I have followed some of his traces across the crea- tion, and in all beings, even in those which are the smallest, and almost imperceptible, what power, what wisdom, what absolute perfection ! " Goethe says, " I believe in God — that is a beautiM and a praiseworthy expression ; but to find out God, when and how He reveals Himself, is heaven upon earth ... Do we not feel in lightning, in thunder, and in the tempest the presence of a superior Power, and in the per- fume of flowers and the warm breath of the breeze a loving Being who comes to us P '' Again, he says in his song of May: ** With what magnificence does Nature shine before me I ** How the sun shines, how the landscape smiles ! " The flowers burst forth from every branch, and a thou- sand voices from every bush, and joy and gladness from every breast. " O Earth ! O Sun ! O happiness ! O joy ! ** Love ! Love ! brilliant as the morning clouds on yonder hiUs! ** Thou sheddest rich blessings on the perfumed flowers, on the new-bom country, and on the teeming earth." Aristotle says, ^* The flnal cause of all things is goodness, for good is the object of all creation." It is in fact impossi- ble for a perfectly good Being to wish for anything but the happiness of his creatures. Hence the absurdity of that teaching which represents this world as a frightful prison, a land of exile, which we should be anxious to leave. All these ideas have their rest in that conception of the grossness of matter, and of the necessity of the soul's being freed from it, which pervades all ancient theology. Porphyry shows in the following passage to what lengths this conception could II 760 HANEHfD: THBIB be carried : " We will sacrifice, bat in a manner that proper, bringing chosen victims tc^ether with the choic of onr faculties, offering to God, who, as a wise maji obserr is above all, nothing sensual, for nothing is joined to mat which is not impure, and therefore unfit to be o&red t< nature which is free irom the contagion belonging to matt For this reason neither speech, which belongs to the voi nor even internal and mental language, if it be infected w any disorder of the mind, is proper to be offered to God, 1 we must worship Him with unspotted silence, and the m pure thoughts respecting his nature." Notwithstanding these refinements, the love of ihe matet world and of Nature breaks out in all descriptions of Fit dise, whether terrestrial or celestial, past or future. Avitus's poem " De Initio Muudi " the following descripti of ฃden is given, which Milton's description (Paradise Lc Book IV. 1. 246-265) closelj resembles: "Beyond Ind where the world begins, where they say the confines of eai and heaven join, is an elevated asylum, inaccessible mortals, and closed by eternal barriers since the first crimii vaa driven from it after his fall, and since the guilty p saw themselves justly eipelled from their happy abode . No alternation of seasona brings back cold there ; the son summer does not follow the ice of winter there. Wi elsewhere the revolving year brings oppressive heat, causes the fields to become white with frost, the favour heaven maintains an eternal spring in this favoured spot ; t blustering south wind does not blow there, and the clouds from an atmosphere which is always pure, and a sky whi is ever sereue. The soil does not need that rain should f in order to refresh it, and the plants are nourished by th own dew. The earth is covered with perpetual verdure, a its surface, over which a gentle warmth is diffused, is : splendent with beauty. The grass never leaves the hills, t trees never lose their leaves, and though the latter are p< petuiiUy covered with flowers, their strength is promp repaired by means of their own sap. The fruits, which (ปn only obtain once a year, ripen there every month ; 1 sun does not cause the brightness of the lilies to fade thei the violets are unstained, and the rose ever preserves 1 colour and graceful form . . ? Sweet-smelling balm exui upintoiTiiptcdly there from prolific branches. If by char ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 761 a liglit wind arises, the beantiftil forests, agitated by the breeze, shake with a gentle murmur their leaves and flowers, which allow the sweets and perfumes to escape from them and to be wafted to a distance. A stream of clear water pours there from a spring of which the bottom can be seen without difBcultj. The most polished silver does not shine like it, nor do the crystals of iced water give forth so much light. Emeralds adorn its banks, and all the precious stones which worldly vanity boasts of are scattered about there like pebbles, and enamel the fields with the most varied colours, and crown them as with a natural diadem." Pindar (Olymp. 2) represents the virtuous souls that have been sanctified by initiation as being transported to the For^ tunate Islands, where the Zephyr maintains eternal coolness. There flow rivulets whose pure streams water meadows enamelled with golden-coloured flowers, which are destined to form the crowns which encircle the heads of the happy inhabitants of heaven (Horn. Od. A, v. 562). Some ride on horses across the flowery plains, others play on the lyre in the midst of clumps of roses whose agreeable odour perfumes the air, .under the shade of trees which bear golden apples (Pindar apud Plut. Consol. ad Apoll.). Schools of philosophy, musicians, poets, sacred banquets, and everything that could add to the luxury and pleasure of eternal life was there. Neither cold nor heat was known there, but a mild tempera- ture and eternal spring prevailed. The fertile earth produced all kinds of fruit throughout the year. The water of the streams was the purest possible, and the meadows were planted with flowers of every description. Plato in the Phsedo represents Socrates as describing the place to which souls repair after death. He imagines a sort of ethereal earth, above that in which we live, and of which our earth is as it were the foundation, formed by the sediment of a much purer matter, and resembling the bottom of a vast gulf, in which water, darkness, and dense air are collected together. We crawl along at the bottom of this gulf, and it is only through the dark element that we can see the pure earth, that is, the upper portion of our earth, which extends into the pure region of the ether, into the realms of light, in which the stars are really placed. We think, but erroneously, that we live on the earth, but our error is like that of a man who should crawl along the bottom of the sea, and who. 702 IfANKIND: THEIB seeing the sun and the stars through the water, should think that the sky is the sarฃax^e of the sea. That which would happen to tihis man if he had never been able to reach the surface^ or raise his head above the water, to see how much more beautiful and luminous the region of the ether is, happens to us, who take the upper portion of the air for the sky, as though that were actually the heaven in which the stars move. If our weakness, and the laws of weight, did not prevent us from rising to the surfSeu^ of the air, we should be euabled to enjoy the brilliant spectacle of that true earth, which the true sky conceals, and where the true light shines. Our earth contains nothing that can be compared to the wonders of this elevated region. Colours are brighter and more brilliant there. Vegetation is more luxuriant ; trees, flowers, and fruits are infinitely more perfect than here below. Precious stones, such as jaspers, emeralds, and sardonyxes, shine with an infinitely brighter lustre than ours, which are but grosser portions which have become detached from the others ; the pearls also are of finer and purer water. This magnificent earth is covered with these precious stones ; gold and silver dazzle the eyes there, and the view of its beauties forms the happiness of its fortunate inhabitants. The animals are much more perfect there ; air supplies the place of sea^ and ether of air. The seasons are so temperate that no ill- ness is ever experienced, and the life of man is much longer than here below, the organization and all the senses of the inhabitants being very superior to ours, just as tlie substance of the ether is superior to that of the air. The gods dwell in the temples, and give forth the oracles themselves. Men converse with them, and live in their society ; they see the sun, the moon, and the other stars such as they really are, and they enjoy all the happiness which necessarily attends upon such a mode of life. These are daydreams. Aristotle (Metaph. xiL 7) says: ** To watch, to feel, to think, is for us the greatest happiness. We possess it only by flashes as it were, but God possesses it constantly. Enjoyment, for Him, is action." How then can we look forward to an eternity of idleness ? The Greeks gave the soul its best and truest name, *Ae& Syr. p. 910). This festival was the greatest in i whole year for the Sabeeans, and on this day they put their handsomest dresses, according to Calaachendi, 1 Egyptian author quoted by Hyde (De Vet, Pcrs. Hel. 125). DiodoruB {I. III. c. 3) says of the Sabeeans, " Havi never been conquered, by reason of tbe lai^eness of tl country, they fiow in streams of gold and silver ; and li wise their beds, chairs, and stools have their feet of sili and all their household stuff is so sumptuoas and mi nificent that it is incredible. The porticoes of their hon and temples, in some CLises, are overlaid with gold. 1 like wonderful coht thej- are at throughout their wh buildings, adorning them, in some parts, vrith silver t gold, and in others with ivory, precious stones, and ot things of great lalue, for they have enjoyed a constant i uninterrupted peace for many ages and generations. Agatharcides Bays, " The Sabeeans surpass in wealth i magnificence not only the neighbouring barbarians, but ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 766 other natibns whatsoever. As their distant situation pro- tects them from all foreign plunders, immense stores of precious metals have been accumulated among them, es- pecially in the capital — curiously wrought gold and silver drinking vessels in great variety ; couches and tripods with silver feet ; an incredible profusion of costly furniture in general ; porticoes, with large columns partly gilt, and capitals ornamented with wrought silver figures ; roofs and doors ornamented with gold fretwork set with precious stones; besides an extraordinary magnificence reigning in the deco- rations of their houses, where they use silver, gold, ivory, and the most precious stones, and all other things that men deem most valuable. These people have enjoyed their good fortune from the earliest times undisturbed." The elder Pliny says of the Arabians generally, ^^ Take them all in all, they are the richest nation in the world." Maimonides (Mor. Nev. Part ITI. cap. xxx.) speaks of a book of the ancient Sabseans which was translated into Arabic, and which was entitled ^' A Treatise on the Degrees of the Celestial Orbs, and on the Figures which rise with each Degree." If this book were stiU extant it would give the key to many myths and religious symbols. The Greeks unfortunately confined their attention almost entirely to the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Herodotus merely says of Arabia that it is the farthest of the inhabited countries towards the South, and that it is the only region in which myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, and ledanum grow. Pliny, however, says that '^ Arabia is inferior to no country throughout the whole world," and refers to the " once famous cities " of the " Omani," or people of Oman, which, he says, " at the present time are wildernesses." Even in his time, however, he says that they are the richest nation in the world. It is probably in consequence of the ignorance of the ancients and of this more ancient civilisation and religious development that the Egyptians are put forward as the first who worshipped the gods. Herodotus (Euterpe, cap. xlix.) attributes the invention of the mysteries of Bacchus, and of several other religious insti- tutions which Melampus took with him from Egypt to Greece, to the Egyptians. They were also, he adds (lb. cap. Iviii.), the first who established religious assemblies, festivals^ pompous solemnities, and processions. The Greeks 7ซ^ MMSKaU: naoM 4ftAy hmUiUA Ih^sm, wUdb, he wmn, is a fnaf ttiMitMh are nr^eitMy wink thMe of the K ggciMป iff ff^ Ixu^rfc to th# msBOteit antiqintr. Hf r; if^^^lu m the most pmiti f ^c ^Tb^ K^TptiaiM/' hif S6171, '^ are emaideRd ซ> he As ฃe3K #/f ail ktumn nationa who held aoy ideaa teapeetiiv the ^^ida^ ntuh^nUffA the e^irremoniea of religioaa worAipv hmk ปwpiFซi and itmtiUiUA nAigunm aaieiiibliea ; tiiej are &e wirre tfiorritighly acquainted with the thซ ^oda, and who inrented rriigiooa allegonea. Aaa/riana rnxm adopted their teaching and defodoDal iU'Atnf bttilt altam and temples^ and placed eonaeermled and statoea in them ; but in ancient times the E gyptian s lia^l no statn/fS in their temples. There are abo ten^les in Hyrisi which are not of much later date thui the Egyptian mseSy and I hare seen a great number of them." Almlfara^pns (Hist Djn. pซ 2) sajs, ^' All who hare written on Unircfrsal Historj, and who hare traced nations np to their origin, reckon seven great primitire nations, from whicli ail the rest descended : the Persians, the Chaldseans, the (iri9eks, the Egyptians, the Turks, d, and his alta were crowded with his votive offerings. The people wc taught to believe that the emperor beheld the visihte ima of Apollo with his own eyes. Constantine published ti edicts in the same year — the first enjoining the observance the Dies Solis, or Day of the Sun [Sunday] (Ad. Theod( L IL tit. viii. leg. I ; Cod. Justinian. 1. HE. tit. xii. leg. I to which his Pagan subjects can have had no olgectio; while the second directed the regular consultation of arc pices (Cod. Theodos. 1. XVT. tit. x.). At the beginning the year 315, one of his medals bears the inscription, So invicto comiti. The Invincible Companion of the Son. ฃ head is surrounded with rays, and resembles that of t Sun, or Apollo. He always retained the title and pren^ tives of Pontiff, which gave him absolute jurisdiction matters concerning the Pagan religion. Many of hia medi give him the title of God, with which the monogram Christ (which is also that of Jupiter Ammon) was ast ciated. The title, ensigns, and prerogatives of soverei Pontiff were accepted without hesitation by seven Christ! emperors, and Paganism was tolerated fi^m Constant! down to Uratian. Consta^ntine himself only received af catechumen the imposition of hands, and was afterwa baptised during his last illness. The principal deity of the Scythians was the Earth, ฃr which they and their flocks drew their subsistence (Her ORIGIN AND DKSTINY. 769 Melpotn. cap. liv.). Justin, in a speech which he puts into the mouth of the Scythians, makes them attribute the organisation of the Universe to fire. All the nations com- prised under the term Celtic worshipped fire, water, air, earth, the sun, moon, and stars, the vault of heaven, trees, streams, &c. (Peloutier, Hist, des Celtes, t. v. p. 68). The Hungarian religion was somewhat similar to the Persian (Daniel Cornid). They had neither temples nor statues, they held fire to be God, and sacrificed horses to it. The Huns worshipped heaven and earth (Hist, du Bas-Emp. t. V. p. 328) ; their leader assumed the title of Taujon, or Son of Heaven. Agathias (L I. p. 13) tells us that the Germans worshipped trees, sacred groves, hills, and rivers, and sacrificed horses to them. Procopius (Bell. Goth. 1. II. cap. XV.) says that the inhabitants of the island of Thule, and all the Scandinavians, placed their deities in the fii*ma- ment, in the earth, in the sea, in springs, in running waters, &c. Julius Ceesar (De Bello Gall. 1. VI. cap. v.), speaking of the tribes which dwelt in ancient Germany, says that the Germans only worshipped the visible cause, and its principal agents, such as the sun, moon, and fire, or Vulcan. This worship extended to modem times, for a bishop was obliged to prescribe it in Germany. "Your fathers," he said to them, " have left you as a heritage that superstition which makes you honour the elements, the moon, the sun, and the stars, and makes you observe the new moon and the eclipses, as if you could restore her brilliancy to her by your cries, and as if the elements could come to your aid " (Burechard. Wormanen. Episcop. 1. X. decret. cap. xxxiii., et 1. XIX. de Poenit. p. 269). Solinus (cap. xxxv.) informs us that the sacred fire was formerly kept alive in the temple of Minerva in Great Britain. In the county of Kildare virgins were charged with the duty of maintaining it (Hyde, de Vet. Pers. Eel. p. 148). Some of the capitularies of Charlemagne forbid the ancient practice of placing lighted candles near trees and springs, to which a superstitious worship was paid (Pelout. t. vi. p. 204). Seneca says that Augustus conse- crated a temple to the wind Circius, in Gaul, because it purified the air^ Orosus (1. IV. cap. xv.) says that the cele- brated temple at Toulouse was consecvated to the Sun. On 3 D I 770 MANKISD : THEIR the monnmeot foond at Notre Dame in 1726, vhicL engraved in the " M^moires de TAcad^mie des Inscriptioi are Jupiter, Yulcan, Castor and Pollox, together with Heens or Mars of the Gauls, Trho resembles the tntel deity of March, which is still to be seen on the doon near the representations of the twelve signs and the tw( months which are carved npon it. We may conclude therefore that, as Hjde (de Vet. P Kel. p. 135) observes, Sabeeanisni was not confined to East, but spread over the whole of the West, and tha formed the basis of the religion of the ancient Enrop nations, such as the Germans, the Suevi, the Goths, Dknes, the Gauls, &c. ; that these nations worshipped stars, and especially the pltuif^ts, and that the manner which they have all consecrated a day of the weet to e of the planets, is a witness which still exists of the reltgi veneration in which they formerly held them. The primitive and universal religion extended over I as it did over Europe. " The lonians," says Cedrenus (p. ? " worshipped the statues of the Sun and the Moon, which t looked upon as powerful deities, on whom the whole govซ ment of the world depended, according to the priuciplef Egyptian theolc^y, and which, combining their action v that of the five other planets, nurtured all the bodies wl were subject to the infiuence of the stars and the gem system of the heavens, and caused thera to grow." Throa out Asia Minor temples were built dedicated to the Mc and to the god Month, whom she engendered by her re lutiou. She had a temple in Caria, which was very o brated (Theod. Hist. Eccl. 1. III. cap. ii. ; Ammian. Mi p. 240). Diana of Ephesus was the Moon. Strabo (1. X speaks of a priesthood established in honour of her Pisidia, of a temple dedicated to the god Month, betw Laodicea and Carura, and of another one at Cabim Cappadocia to the month Phamace, as well as of a ten of the Moon similar to those which existed in Phrygia i Albania. The inhabitants of Albania and Iberia, who Ii in the finest country in the world, resembling, in fad garden of delight, worshipped the two sta,rs which seer to have most influence upon vegetation. Strabo (1, 3 says, " They adored the Sun and Moon, and especially latter planet, as gods. The Moon has a magnificent ten ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 771 dedicated to her on fhe confines of Albania and Iberia, which a priest who takes rank next after royalty officiates in.'' The Turks, who dwelt round Mount Caucasus, had a great yeneration for fire, air, water, and earth, whose praises they sang in their sacred hymns (Theophyll. Simocall., 1. YII. cap. iii.). The Tartars, who dwelt to the east of the Imaiis, worshipped the sun, light, fire, earth, and water, and offered to them the first-fruits of their food, especially in the morn- ing (Hyde, p. 149). Herodotus (Clio, cap. ccxi. and ccxvi.) says that the only deity of the Massagetse was the Sun, to whom they offered horses. All the Tartars had the greatest yeneration for the Sun, whom they considered to be the father of the Moon, who borrows her light from him (Hyde, p. 282). They have also an idolatrous worship of the earth, which they revere under the name of Matagai (Eirch. (Edip. yoL I. p. 411). Herodotus (Clio, cap. czxxi.) says that the Persians used to ascend lofty mountains in order to sacrifice to the heavens, which they called Jupiter, and to its most brilliant portions, the Sun and the Moon, and that they also sacrificed to the earth, to fire, to water, and to the air or the winds ; that these were the only gods they worshipped from the most ancient times, and that they also worshipped rivers, and drove leprous persons out of their towns because they con- sidered leprosy to be the punishment of a crime against their deity the Sun. Plutarch says they worshipped air and earth. Barbahil, a Syrian author, says that they worshipped all the elements (Hyde, p. 90). Justin says that they had priestesses of the Sun, and Clemens Alexandrinus compels the philosophers to admit that the Persians, the Magi, and the Sarmatians taught them to worship the elements. That form of their worship which consisted in drawing nearer to the primitive simplicity of their worship by keeping fire lighted by the rays of the sun* perpetually burning was in- vented according to some by Zoroaster (A^th. 1. II. p. 58), according to others by Perseus (Cedren. p. 28) : " Perseus, who by his secret knowledge was able to make fire come dovni from heaven, is said to have introduced initiations and magic into Persia ; by the aid of his art he was able to bring celestial fire down to the earth, and caused it to be preserved in a temple, and to be called the sacred and immortal fire : he chose virtuous men as priests of the new worship, and 3 i> 2 \ ! • • #. •. t • • f \ • .-.-l ซ - • * t • ' . 772 MANKIND : THEIR established the order of the Magi to be the guardiads of i fire, which their duty was to keep burning." Isaac Tze (Chil. I. cap. Ixvii.) also speaks of the arrival of Perseus lopolis, where there was a temple of the Moon, and of establishing fire-worship, and giving the Magi the name Priests of Fire. Farther east the same worship prevails. The Banis have the greatest veneration for the Ganges ; they look uj that river as a god, and sacrifice small lighted lamps to which they float down the stream every evening, and tl also throw gold, pearls, and precious stones into it (Confe d'Orville, 1. II. p. 164). Nonnus (Dionys. 1. XXX V. 242) says that earth and water were the great deities India. Clemens Alexandrinus, however, says that the Sun \ their great deity. Apollonius Tyanseus speaks of a tem consecrated to the Sun in India, and the king told him t he never drank wine except when he sacrificed to the S (Philostr. in Vit4 Apoll. 1. II. cap. x., xi.). The Hindus 1 also their sacred fire, which they drew from the rays of Sun, and which they went to seek on the summit of a mo tain which they looked upon as being the centre of Ind and the Brahmins, in order that their worship might be m agreeable to the Sun, walked upon ground covered with gi and flowers to the height of nearly two cubits, being j suaded that the higher they were above the ground more acceptable would be their offering (Philostr. 1. III. < 111. IV.). The inhabitants of Taprobane (Ceylon) have no oi deities than heaven, the sun, and the stars (Diod. Sic. 1. cap. Iv.). The sun and moon were worshipped in Suma and in Java (Cont. d'OrvilL, Hist, des Rel. t. ii. pp. 289, : 814). The same worship of Nature was spread through Moluccas,* the Philippine Islands, &c. The inhabitant Tonkin worship seven celestial idols, which are the se planets, and five terrestrial idols consecrated to the eleme Seven external and five internal portions of the human b and seven passions of the soul and five periods of human correspond to these seven idols (Contant d'Orv. t. i. p. 3 In China all the parts of Nature which are held to be 8 have worshippers and temples. There were temples heaven, to the Queen of heaven, to the dragon of the se^ the planet Mars, to the earth, and to the spirits of mount ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 773 and rivers (Kirch. (Edip. vol. I. p. 401). They also had many Greek and Egyptian deities, temples to the Nymphs, the Oreads, Ac.; and there was no town which was not under the protection of a star, like the Arabian tribes (Kirch. Chin. Ulustr. p. 154). Tien, or Heaven, was especially worshipped by them, as being the universal principle of all things. The Japanese worshipped deities who dwelt in the stars, and also prayed to spirits which they supposed to exist in the elements and in plants (Cont. d'Orville, t. i. p. 218). In Africa Heliodorus says, in his history of Ethiopia (1. X.; see Kirch. CEd. vol. i. p. 334), that the Ethiopians sacrificed prisoners of war to the sun and moon. They worshipped the day, or Memnon, the son of Aurora, together with the sun. They represented him as a young man rising, whose death or disappeai*ance they afterwards lamented (Philostr. Vit. ApoU. 1. VI. cap. iii.). This figure was made with great skill ; the rays of the sun fell upon its eyes and lips, and gave it an animated appearance, while a sound seemed to issue from the lips which resembled articulate speech. This nation called themselves Children of the Sun, and they looked upon him as their first parent (Heliod. in ^thiopica, 1. lY.). The Hottentots assemble at night to worship the moon. Every new moon they congratulate her on her return, sacrifice their cattle to her, and offer her flesh and milk. They also worship the Scarabปus, which the Egyptians also worshipped, on account of the moon, and the Celestial Bull in which this goddess has the place of her exaltation, which shows that they derived their worship ft^m the ancient Egyptians (Cont. d'Orville, t. vi. p. 438). The negroes of Senegal also have lunar festivals (ib. p. 300). The whole northern coast of Africa was colonised by the Phoeni- cians, who naturally brought their worship of Nature with them. The Carthaginians, who were a colony from Tyre, and who worshipped Hercules in common witii that town, invoked the sim, moon, earth, rivers, fields, and waters in their treaties (Polyb., 1. VII.). Urania, whom some think was the moon, waB their great deity. The Arabian author Gelaldin, speaking of a certain Mezralm, whom he represents as re- sembling Hercules, makes him arrive on the shores of the Ocean, where he builds a magnificent temple, in which he places the statue of the Sun (Kirch. (Edip. vol. i. p. 73). Generally speaking, all the inhabitants of the west coast of t m I •i ' . .'' 774 MANKIND : THEIR Africa, Bucli as those of Congo and Angola, worshipped 1 sun and the moon (ib. p, 416). The same worship existed the Canary Islands and in the island of Teneriffe (Conti d'Orv. t. vi. p. 485). In America the savages who dwelt in the North raiฃ their hands to heaven, and to the sun and moon ; while Peru and Mexico the representations of these stars w< adored in magnificent temples where gold glittered on sides, and the ceremonies were conducted with the utm< pomp and magnificence. In the temple of Cusco, in Pe: was the representation of the sun. This was of massi gold, and was surrounded by rays of immense length. T moon was similarly represented in silver ; and her temple in opposite to that of the sun, of whom she was at once the w and the sister, like Juno. The doors and walls of her tem] were covered with plates of silver, as those of the sun w< with plates of gold. Another temple, dedicated to 1 beautiful planet Venus, which the Peruvians called Chus was equaUy splendid. A foiu:th temple was consecrated the phenomena of the air, such as meteors, thunder, a lightning ; and it is remarkable that in Arcadia sacrifi< were made to lightning, thunder and tempests (Panฎ Arcad.) ; and they adopted this mode of worship from 1 Pelasgi, who were great navigators and taayeUera. Laซt there was a temple sacred to Isis, or the rainbow. The greatest festival at Cusco was the one called Int Eaymi, which was held in June, immediately after \ solstice. At this festival new fire was obtained from the a before the sacrifices commenced. This was effected means of a concave vase, about the size of half an oran which was very highly polished, and the rays of the & being directed on this set fire to some lint made of cott< When, however, the sun did not shine on that day, fire ^ obtained by rubbing two sticks together; and it is rema able that Sanchoniathon states this to have been the metl of obtaining fire adopted by the earliest worshippers of 1 Sun. Eusebius (Prsep. Evang. 1. I. cap. x.) obser ** Sanchoniathon says that the first inhabitants of Phoeni raised their hands to heaven in the direction of the Sun, tl they considered him to be the sole ruler of the heavens, { that they worshipped him by the name of Beelsamim, King of Heaven. They afterwards invented a legend ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 775 three children, called Light, Fire, and Flame, who, having obtained fire by rubbing two pieces of wood against each other, taught men how to make use of it." It seems the more probable that the Phoenicians gave the religion of the Incas its form, from the fact that the solstitial sxm, whose festiyal they used to celebrate, was the famous Tyrian Hercules, clad in the lion's skin, which was the celestial sign into which the sun used formerly to enter on the day of the solstice, and in which the first labour of that deity was placed. This symbolic garment of Hercules, the lion's skin, was the dress of the priests on that occasion. Others of the priests had plates of gold and silver fastened to their robes. Some also had wings formed of black or white feathers, which probably represented spirits of the day and spirits of night (Cont. d'Orville, t. v. p. 335). The religion of the sun allowed sins to be forgiven upon confession and penitence, which was also the case in the religion of Mithra or the sun in Persia. Confessors were appointed in all the provinces of Peru, who received the con- fessions of the people, and proportioned the penalties to the sins confessed. Women were sometimes confessors. The Tnca was the only person who confessed himself directly to the Sun ; and, after bathing in running water, he used to say to the river : " Receive the sins which I have confessed to the Sun, and bear them into the sea." The same was the case in Mexico, where there were temples, priests, hieroglyphic statues resting on a serpent, resembling the Egyptian Serapis, festivals, sacrifices, and the whole apparatus of sumptuous public worship. They gave the name of Creator, and Wonderful, to the heavens, and worshipped the sun, the moon, the morning star, the earth, the sea, thunder, lightning, and meteors (Hist, des Voy. t. xlviii. pp. 46, 67). Every portion of Nature had its altars and its worshippers. They thought that good men, those who died in battle, and those who, having been made prisoners; were sacrificed by the enemy, parsed into the sun, or into a place which they called the house of the sun. Humboldt was of opinion that the religious symbols, archi- tecture, and hieroglyphics showed that communication had formerly existed with the Old World. It has been shown by M Jomard (Ti*ans. Ethn. I. 477) that the letters on an in- scribed tablet found at New Orleans are the same as the / 7G MAXKIND: THEIR Libyan on the monument of Tliugga and of tlie Tuarjclis used at this daj. The Abb^ Brasseur de Bourboui^ says that the native traditions of the Mexicans and Central Americans generally attribute their earliest civilization to bearded white men, who came across the ocean from the East. Diodorus Siculus (1. V. cap. xix.) says, " Over against Africa lies a very great island in the vaซt ocean, many days' sail from Libya westward. The soil is very fruitful. It is diversified with mountains and pleasant vales, and the towns are adorned with stately buildings." He says that this was discovered by a Phoenician ship which was sailing down the west coast of Africa, and was " on a sudden driven by a furious storm far into the main ocean ; and, after they had lain under this tempest many days, they at length arrived at this island," which must have been some part of Central America or Yucatan, where the great cities he mentions then stood. He describes this island as having a fertile soil which extended some distance up the mountains. Navi- gable rivers "watered the country. There were numerous gardens, planted with various kinds of trees, and innumerable orchards intersected by fresh water canals. There were towns with sumptuous buildings. The mountains were covered with fruits and fruit-trees. The sea was full of fish, and the country of game. The air was so mild that the trees bore fruit the greater part of the year. The country seemed more fit for gods than for men to live in. iElian (Varia Historia, 1. III. cap. xviii.) says that Theo- pompus related the particulars of an interview between Midas, king of Phrygia, and Silenus, in which Silenus reported the existence of a great continent beyond the Atlantic, '^ larger than Asia, Europe, and Libya put together." The Abb^ Brasseur says that there is an abundance of legends and traditions concerning the habitual communication of the Irish with America long before the time of Columbus. An Irish saint named Vigile, who lived in the eightK century, being accused by Pope Zachary of having taught heresy on the subject of the antipodes, proved to the Pope that the Irish had been accustomed to communicate with a Trans- atlantic world, and this fact is said to have been preserved in the records of the Vatican. When these facts and many others of the same description are taken into account, we ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 777 shall cease to be surprised at the resemblance, amounting to almost perfect identity, between the Mexican and Peruvian astronomical and religious myths, and those which prevailed in the Old World. Almost all travellers agree that the inhabitants of the Isthmus of Panama had neither altars, nor temples, nor any external marks of worship. They believed that the sun was God, and was the husband of the moon, and they worshipped these stars as the supreme deities of the Uni- verse. The same was the case with the inhabitants of Brazil. The Caribbees also worshipped the sun and moon, but had neither temples nor altars. They believed in two sorts of spirits, beneficent ones who dwelt in heaven, and one of whom attended each man as his guide, and evil ones who dwelt in the air. The savages of St. Domingo used to make pilgrimages to a sacred cave in which they made the sun and the moon to be bom. This resembles the Persian idea, which makes the sun, or Mithra, to be bom in a cave in which a number of figures representing the stars, elements, &c., were carved. The cave of these savages also contained some rude figures, and the entrance was guarded by the representations of two demons, or spirits, which it was necessary to worship before being admitted. The natives of Florida were idolaters, worshipped the sun and moon, and offered prayers and sacrifices to them. They said that the sun having once moved slowly for twenty-four hours, the waters of the great lake Theomi overflowed to such an extent that the tops of the highest mountains were covered, with the exception of Mount Olaimy, which the sun pro- tected on account of a temple which stood upon it, which he had built for himself with his own hands. Since that time the Apalachites go to worship the sun on this mountain. This myth, as we have seen, closely resembles that of the Chaldseans respecting the deluge of Xixuthrus. The Floridian myth also supposes that all who reached the summit of this mountain were saved from the inundation ; the next day the sun resumed his usual course and made the waters subside (Cont. d'Orville, t. v. p. 251, Ac. ; Hist, des Voyages, t. xli. 1., lix.). The Iroquois called the heavens Garonhia, the Hurons Soron-Hiata, and both nations worahipped it as the gupreme Being (Lafiteau, Mceurs des Sauv. t. i. p. 122). The Hurons also called the sun Areskoui, or the Supreme 3 E 778 HANKIXB: THEIB Being (Hist, des Voy. t. Ivii. pp. 73 and 93). They had also an infinite number of good and evil spirits, whom they also worshipped, and they had their Neptune, or Grod of the Waters. The savages of Virginia had the greatest venera- tion for the sun. At daybreak the most pious among them bathe ฃaปsting in running water, and the ablution lasts until the sun rises (Cont. d'Orv. t. v. p. 458). When the sun had attained the third part of his course they offered tobacco to him, and they also offered some to him whenever they were about to undertake a journey. On crossing a river they used to offer tobacco to the spirit of the river, that it might be propitious to them. They believed that the winds and the seasons were presided over by spirits or deities (ibid, p. 458). They also had idols, symbolic figures, such as the circle, and the Egyptian hieroglyphic wheels. Lastly, the savage nations throughout North America never make a treaty without calling upon the sun to witness and to guarantee their oaths (Hist, des Voy. t. Ivii. p. 169), as was done by Agamemnon (Hom. II. 1. III. v. 276), and by the Carthaginians (Polyb. 1. VII.). The worship of Nature has thus been shown to have been the primary and universal religion of mankind from that remote period when her first worshippers adored her without the aid of temples, or statues, or altars, when she was as it were her own temple, when the majestic spectacle she offered to men's eyes was better than all representations of her, and when men used to assemble on the summits of mountains, and contemplate the azure vault on which their gods shone in all their majesty while they worshipped them and addressed their petitions to them, down to the time when that system became established which gave to each planet its destiny, and to the forces of Nature, and to each day and hour, its presiding angel. The whole civilised world regarded Nature in one and the same aspect. They beheld her manifesting herself everywhere and at all times as a powerful cause, acting with sovereign power, and her children, assuming that she was what she appeared to be, have given her the title of the Universal Mother. All is eternal in Nature, except the modifications which matter imdergoes by changes of form. Goethe says of her, " She is at once the supreme Unity, and infinite variety ; what she does now she will do for ever. She shows herself ORIGIN AND DESTINY. 770 to each indiyidaal under different aspects ; she hides herself under thousands of names and terms, and yet she ever remains the same." Prom her we sprung, and to her we must return ; but the very fact that, finite beings as we are, we can aspire to the Infinite, is a proof that we are immortal. We are sure that that glorious and ennobling hope cannot have been implanted in us in vain, whatever maybe the way in which it is to be realised, else, as Akenside asks, Wli^ was man so eminentlv ndsed Amid the vast creation ; why ordained Through life and death to dart his piercing eye. With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame, But that the Omnipotent might send him forth In sight of mortal and immortal powers. As on a boundless theatre, to run The great career of justice ; to exalt Ilis senerous aim to all diviner deeds; To chase each partial purpose from his breast ; And through the tossinff tide of chance and pain To hold hifl course unmltering, while ike voice Of Truth and Virtue, up the steep ascent Of Nature, calls him to his high reward, The applauding smile of Heaven P Else wherefore bums In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope, That breathes from dav to day sublimer things, And mocks possession r Wherefore darts the mind With such resistless ardour to embrace Majestic forms ; impatient to be free, Spuminff the gross control of wilful might ; Proud of the strong contention of her toils ; Proud to be daring P The high-bom soul Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft Through fields of air : pursues the flying storm ; Rides on the vollied lightning through the heavens ; Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast, Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars The blue profound, and, hovering round the sun, Beholds him pouring the redundant stream Of light ; beholds his unrelenting sway Bend the reluctant planets to abeoWe The fatal rounds of Time. Thence far effused, She darts her swiftness up the long career Of devious comets ; through its burning signs Exulting measures the perennial wheel Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars, Whose blended light, as with a milky zone, Invests the orient • From the birth Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said, That not in humble nor in orief delight, 780 MANKIND : THEIR ORIGIN AND DESTINl'. Nor in the fading echoes of Renown, Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowing lap, The soul should find enjoyment : but from these Tuminff disdainful to an equal good, Througn all the ascent of tnings enlarge her view, Till eyeiy bound at length should disappear, And infinite perfection close the scene. I,o\wป- : ruiNTF.Ii RT a:ป:) r.\iiLi\siKxr btueet / r r ?^