Chapter 30

[318]Princess, vol. i, p. 210.[319]Ibid.[320]See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 112. Edition by Hodges.[321]Bunsen, in Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. ii, p. 89.[322]See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 113.[323]Ancient Empires of the East, p. 76.[324]Herodotus, ii, 84. Translation by Rawlinson.[325]Ibid., ii, 77.[326]Princess, vol. i, p. 17.[327]History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii, p. 528. London, 1881.[328]Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth ed.[329]Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.[330]Ancient Empires of the East, p. 76.[331]Jer., xlvi, 11.[332]Herodotus, iii, 1, 129.[333]Polydamna. Helen’s enforced sojourn in Egypt is fully described by Herodotus (ii, 113-116), Thone, Thon, or Thonis, the historian speaks of as the “warden of the Canopic mouth of the Nile.” The town of Heracleum bore the name.[334]Odyssey, iv.[335]Ibid.[336]Natural History, vii.[337]Homer and the Iliad, vol. i.[338]Beginnings of History, p. 536.[339]Bunsen holds that Esmun and he were originally the same; “as the snake god he must actually be Hermes, in Phœnician, Tet, Taautes.” Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 256.[340]In the cut he appears counting the years on a palm-branch—the ideograph for year. (Fig. 12, p. 101.)[341]Ibis religiosa, Hab of the Ancient Egyptians.[342]Ibis falcinellus, the glossy ibis.[343]Book of the Dead, ch. lxxviii. Translation by Birch, in vol. v of Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, etc. The hawk is the usual symbol of Horus, just as the ibis is of Thoth.[344]Tiele pronounces Horus to be “the God of Light, the Token of Life.” History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 54.[345]Manual of Mythology, p. 346. London, 1873.[346]Often spoken of as the Hercules of the Egyptians.[347]History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 154.[348]See Diodorus Siculus, i, 25; and Tacitus, xiv, 81.[349]Says Gibbon: “Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection, glorified in the name of the City of Serapis.” The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xxviii.[350]See his Essay, p. 50.[351]Egypt of the Past, p. 15. London, 1881.[352]The capital of Lower Egypt.[353]Uarda, vol. i, p. 203.[354]History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 94. London, 1882. Tiele remarks that Imhotep was not only called Asklepios by the Greeks, “but likewise the Eighth, thus showing that they regarded him as one of the Kabirs” (p. 95). I may add that the worship of the Kabirs, in the character of cosmic deities, was early established in the region where Memphis stood. Bunsen, indeed, identifies Ptah and his seven sons with the Kabirs. See Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 217.[355]Vulcan of the Romans.[356]Ancient Egypt, vol. i, p. 333.[357]Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 386.[358]SeeFig. 13, p. 104. The characters of this name are all phonetic; but very many are pictorial or symbolic. Examples of symbolic characters will be given in the chapter on amulets.[359]An offering; food, peace, welcome.[360]Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. i, p. 400.[361]Mysteries of the Cabiri, vol. i, p. 99.[362]See his work on Egypt, etc., in Asiatic Researches, vol. iii, p. 392.[363]Cooper says that they were the two deities of the morning and evening twilight, and “were the origin of the Dioscuri of the Greeks.” Archæic Dictionary. London, 1876.[364]Zoological Mythology, vol. i, p. 353.[365]Evil has always been associated with darkness. Harmful demons have always disliked light.[366]Mythology of the Aryans, vol. i, p. 391.[367]See Wilson’s edition, vol. iii, p. 307.[368]Ibid., p. 103.[369]Ormazd, believed to have been originally identical with Varuna of the Vedas.[370]Believed to be the Asclepias acida, or Sarcostemma viminalis, whose juice yields an intoxicating liquor.[371]Zend Avesta, vol. i, p. 141.[372]Demon.[373]Evil Spirits.[374]Zend Avesta. Translation by Darmesteter, vol. ii, p. 92.[375]The name is given in the cuneiform characters as found in Norris’s Assyrian Dictionary, p. 853. It is spelled phonetically. The first three wedges are the sign or determinative of deities.[376]The devotion of Nebuchadnezzar to him is indicated in the Bible (see 2 Chron. xxxvi, 7, and Daniel, i, 2). The great king went so far as to say: “Merodach deposited my germ in my mother’s womb.” Records of the Past, vol. v, p. 113.[377]In an article entitled “Nemrod et les Ecritures Cuneiformes,” M. Joseph Grivel has occasion to speak of the names of the god. Amar-ud, which is apparently the same as Nimrod, is a synonym of Merodach. See Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 136.[378]The older Bel was Elum, father of the gods.[379]Chaldean Magic, and the Beginnings of History. To M. Lenormant mainly belongs the credit of opening up the valuable stores of learning wrapped in the Accadian and closely allied idioms.[380]A series of small volumes, twelve in number, issued a few years ago, in London.[381]Silik-mulu-khi is rather a descriptive title than a name. It is the designation used in the magical and mythological texts of the Accadian inscriptions.[382]Of this serpentine god of life and revealer of knowledge, Sir Henry Rawlinson remarks that “there is very strong grounds for connecting Hea, or Hoa, with the serpent of Scripture and the paradisiacal traditions of the tree of life.” See George Rawlinson’s second edition of Herodotus, vol. i, p. 600.[383]Chaldean Magic, p. 19.[384]Assyria, its Princes, Priests, and People, p. 59. London, 1885.[385]Another symbol of this god was the thunderbolt in the form of a sickle, with which he slew the dragon of the deep.[386]Chaldean Magic, p. 190.[387]Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 139.[388]Herodotus, who visited the country, states that the Babylonians “have no physicians; but when a man is ill they lay him in the public square and the passers-by come up to him; and if they ever had his disease themselves, or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence, without asking him what his ailment is” (i, 197). From this it would seem that Herodotus might rather have said that the Babylonians were all doctors, or presumed to be. However, it is thought that Jeremiah refers to the practice in Lamentations, i, 12, when he says: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” A similar plan was certainly practiced elsewhere than in Babylonia. Strabo says that the Egyptians resorted to it (xvi), and in St. Mark it is said that the people “laid the sick in the streets” (vi, 56) in order to be healed by Jesus as he passed along.[389]Deuteronomy, xi, 18.[390]Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 140.[391]Was this gonorrhœa or diabetes? See Leviticus, xv.[392]Ana.[393]Hea.[394]Chaldean Magic, p. 4.[395]Chaldean Magic, p. 20.[396]Ibid., p. 22.[397]Lenormant remarks that the assimilation was probably made when Mardux had become emphatically the god of the planet Jupiter, “the great fortune” of the astrologers, which justified them in connecting with his other attributes the favorable and protecting office of Silik-mulu-khi. He was originally a solar deity.[398]Chaldean Magic, p. 190.[399]Jeremiah, v, 15.[400]Or Shinar. See Gen., xi, 2. Essentially Babylonia.[401]See Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 19. Revised edition, by Mr. Sayce, 1880.[402]The Semitic language, called Assyrian, as the one spoken by the Babylonians, including part of the Chaldeans, before the people of Assur (see Gen., x, 11) became a nation, which was later than the time of the great King Sargon (B.C.2000); and here I may say that cuneiform inscriptions are largely Assyrian. I may add that Lenormant takes Assur to be Nimrod, and the latter Mardux, reduced to the position of a hero.[403]Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 466.[404]Kaldu, or Kaldi, was the name of a tribe of Accadio-Sumerians that rose to prominence about nine centuries before our era. The title was subsequently given to the whole race.[405]Zend Avesta, vol. i, p. 85.[406]Ibid., vol. ii, p. 44.[407]North American Indians, vol. i, p. 78.[408]Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 13.[409]Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 13.[410]Bacchus.[411]Fire was duly esteemed by the ancients. The worship was closely related to that of the sun. Atar of the Zend Avesta means fire, and a personification of it, spoken of as the son of Ahura-Mazda, is characterized as “the god who is a full source of glory, the god who is a full source of healing” (vol. ii, p. 8). The Parsis and also the Hindus were forbidden to blow a fire lest the effete emanations from the system, present in the breath, might contaminate the flame. Menstruating women were forbidden even to look at it.[412]Zoological Mythology, vol. i, p. 410.[413]See Gen., ii, 7. Hippocrates appears to takepneuma, the breath, and the soul and vital principle to be the same. It is still a common thing to hear the breath spoken of as the divine and immortal element in man.[414]Ninevah and its Remains, vol. ii, p. 233. London, 1849. See Ex., xxviii, 33-34, and 1 Kings, vii, 41-42.[415]Fir-trees were regarded with much favor in the East. Ezekiel likens the Assyrian nation to a great cedar, envied by “all the trees of Eden,” none being “like unto him in his beauty.” Ez., xxxi,passim.[416]Medical virtues are inherent in fir-trees. Hence, there was a good foundation for the Accadian superstition. It is curious to observe that “among the Dakotah tribe of Indians the white cedar-tree is believed to have a supernatural power, and its leaves are burned as incense to propitiate the gods.” See Emerson’s Indian Myths, p. 241.[417]Beginnings of History, p. 90.[418]Mr. Sayce gives the name as Lubara. See Ancient Empires of the East, p. 157.[419]According to Mr. Black, disease and death have been referred by the unscientific to three great sources, namely: (1) the anger of an offended external spirit; (2) the supernatural powers of a human enemy; (3) the displeasure of the dead. See Folk-medicine, p. 4, published by the Folk-lore Society. London, 1883.[420]The Origin of Primitive Superstitions. Philadelphia, 1881.[421]See Sayce’s Ancient Empires of the East, p. 146.[422]Chaldean Magic, p. 64.[423]Says Tiele: “The operation or the sun is two-fold, beneficial and terrible; it quickens or it destroys life. The Greeks united both characteristics in Phœbus Apollo.” History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 45.[424]2 Samuel, xxiv.[425]Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 15.[426]It appears that the idea of the devil is first brought into clear relief in the Book of Wisdom, where it is said: “By the envy of the devil death came into the world” (ii, 25). The Hebrew demonology is usually said to be of Iranian origin, but it may just as likely have sprung from a Turanian source, either directly or through their Semitic kin in Babylonia.[427]Job, ii, 7.[428]Set, called Typhon by the Greeks, the embodiment of physical and moral evil, was regarded as the Egyptian god of death. Plagues were attributed to him.[429]The plague maiden of Teutonic folk-lore is somewhat like Dibbara. See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (translation), p. 1185.[430]Chaldean Account of Genesis, vol. viii.[431]Psalms, xci, 6.[432]2 Sam., xxiv, 13et seq., and 2 Kings, xix, 35.[433]The wife of Hea, the queen of the gods, Davkina, was a health goddess. In an inscription Marduk is sent to a dying man, and it is further said:—“Sprinkle holy water over him.He shall hear the voice of Hea.Davkina shall protect him;And Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy habitation.”See Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 142. She was invoked by women in labor.[434]This figure is copied from one given by W. R. Cooper in his essay on “Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt.” See Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. vi, p. 321. London, 1873.[435]The Art of Preserving Health. First published in 1744. One of the very few great medical poems.[436]Tobias, viii, 10.[437]American Hero-Myths, p. 19. 1882.[438]This arrangement of the serpent is seen in an Egyptian priestess, a picture of which is given in Cooper’s essay, already referred to.[439]It has been published, I think, in pamphlet form, but the copy I have was issued in 1882 in connection with the March and April numbers of a monthly published in the interest of Jefferson Medical College and her alumni, The College and Clinical Record. There are a dozen octavo pages of it.[440]Animal Kingdom, vol. ix, p. 309.[441]See Tooke’s Pantheon, p. 296.[442]See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (translation), pp. 588, 1150.[443]For Cooper’s view of her origin, see quotation,p. 93.[444]Maut, Mat, or Mut, is to Amen-Ra what Artemis was to Zeus, and Juno to Jupiter. She might be viewed as a form of the more familiar Isis, and from close relationship is often confounded with Neith.[445]From address referred to onpage 125.[446]Princess, vol. ii, p. 296.[447]See Plato’s Timæus.[448]The famous one brought from the East to Scotland and called the “Lee-Penny” has an interesting history. Sir Walter Scott speaks at length of it in his work, “The Talisman.” Says the great novelist: “Its virtues are still applied to for stopping blood and in cases of canine madness” (p. 287).[449]By Josephus.[450]The name signifies highland.[451]The Great Pyramid, p. 159.[452]It stands out prominent in the first chapter of Genesis. The whole host of heaven was created for earthly purposes.[453]The reader of the Book of Daniel learns much of the repute of the Chaldeans as astrologers. The Romans were in the habit of calling all astrologers Chaldeans. That people, I may say, never gave the class legal countenance.[454]In an old Accadian tablet bearing on the observance of the Sabbath by the king, it is said, among other things: “Medicine for his sickness of body he may not apply.” See Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 89.[455]According to the Bible narrative, which Lenormant says is “a tradition whose origin is lost in the night of the remotest ages and which all the great nations of Western Asia possessed in common, with some variations” (Beginnings of History, p. xv), the luminaries were placed in the heavens “to divide the day from the night and to be signs for the time of festivals, the days and the years” (Gen., i, 14). This is from the Elohist version, which, with the Jehovist, may be found in Lenormant’s work. The ordinary version was drawn from the two.[456]Architecture, p. 219, 2d ed. By Joseph Swift. London, 1860.[457]It is well to state that the astrologer was the forerunner of the astronomer. In his interesting book on The Astronomy of the Ancients, Sir J. Cornwall Lewes says: “The word ἀστρολογος signifies an astronomer in the Greek writers. The wordastrologushas the same sense in the earlier Latin writers. In later times the distinction which now obtains between the words astrology and astronomy was introduced” (p. 292).[458]The Greeks generally gave Atlas the credit of introducing it. See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 82. Hodges’ edition.[459]Tetrabiblos, i, 2.[460]In “A Plea for Urania,” issued in 1854, it is said that “less than two hundred years ago an individual who entered upon the profession of doctor of medicine, either in England or any of the European countries, was obliged to pass an astrological examination” (p. 246).[461]Canterbury Tales.[462]Gemmæ Selectae. Amsterdam, 1703.[463]Fascinum and penis are Latin synonyms.[464]This is still done in parts of China and elsewhere in the East.[465]Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 32. London, 1880. Republication by the Folk-lore Society. First issued 1686-’87.[466]See Psalms, lxviii, 4, and lxxxix, 8.[467]Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 92.[468]Chaldean Magic, p. 43.[469]Indian Arts, p. 104.[470]The star of Babylon is frequently spoken of in the Inscriptions. The star of Marduk is the same. It is Dilgan, or Jupiter.[471]Act I, Scene 2.[472]Abracadabrais not the same as abraxas, but may have been derived from it. In the third century, and later, it was regarded as a capital remedy for malarial fevers.[473]Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 94.[474]The letter Alpha = 1, Beta = 2, Rho = 100; Alpha = 1, Xi = 60; Alpha = 1, and Sigma = 200.[475]Egyptian Mythology, p. 93.

[318]Princess, vol. i, p. 210.

[319]Ibid.

[320]See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 112. Edition by Hodges.

[321]Bunsen, in Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. ii, p. 89.

[322]See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 113.

[323]Ancient Empires of the East, p. 76.

[324]Herodotus, ii, 84. Translation by Rawlinson.

[325]Ibid., ii, 77.

[326]Princess, vol. i, p. 17.

[327]History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii, p. 528. London, 1881.

[328]Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth ed.

[329]Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible.

[330]Ancient Empires of the East, p. 76.

[331]Jer., xlvi, 11.

[332]Herodotus, iii, 1, 129.

[333]Polydamna. Helen’s enforced sojourn in Egypt is fully described by Herodotus (ii, 113-116), Thone, Thon, or Thonis, the historian speaks of as the “warden of the Canopic mouth of the Nile.” The town of Heracleum bore the name.

[334]Odyssey, iv.

[335]Ibid.

[336]Natural History, vii.

[337]Homer and the Iliad, vol. i.

[338]Beginnings of History, p. 536.

[339]Bunsen holds that Esmun and he were originally the same; “as the snake god he must actually be Hermes, in Phœnician, Tet, Taautes.” Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 256.

[340]In the cut he appears counting the years on a palm-branch—the ideograph for year. (Fig. 12, p. 101.)

[341]Ibis religiosa, Hab of the Ancient Egyptians.

[342]Ibis falcinellus, the glossy ibis.

[343]Book of the Dead, ch. lxxviii. Translation by Birch, in vol. v of Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, etc. The hawk is the usual symbol of Horus, just as the ibis is of Thoth.

[344]Tiele pronounces Horus to be “the God of Light, the Token of Life.” History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 54.

[345]Manual of Mythology, p. 346. London, 1873.

[346]Often spoken of as the Hercules of the Egyptians.

[347]History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 154.

[348]See Diodorus Siculus, i, 25; and Tacitus, xiv, 81.

[349]Says Gibbon: “Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection, glorified in the name of the City of Serapis.” The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xxviii.

[350]See his Essay, p. 50.

[351]Egypt of the Past, p. 15. London, 1881.

[352]The capital of Lower Egypt.

[353]Uarda, vol. i, p. 203.

[354]History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 94. London, 1882. Tiele remarks that Imhotep was not only called Asklepios by the Greeks, “but likewise the Eighth, thus showing that they regarded him as one of the Kabirs” (p. 95). I may add that the worship of the Kabirs, in the character of cosmic deities, was early established in the region where Memphis stood. Bunsen, indeed, identifies Ptah and his seven sons with the Kabirs. See Egypt’s Place, etc., vol. iv, p. 217.

[355]Vulcan of the Romans.

[356]Ancient Egypt, vol. i, p. 333.

[357]Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 386.

[358]SeeFig. 13, p. 104. The characters of this name are all phonetic; but very many are pictorial or symbolic. Examples of symbolic characters will be given in the chapter on amulets.

[359]An offering; food, peace, welcome.

[360]Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. i, p. 400.

[361]Mysteries of the Cabiri, vol. i, p. 99.

[362]See his work on Egypt, etc., in Asiatic Researches, vol. iii, p. 392.

[363]Cooper says that they were the two deities of the morning and evening twilight, and “were the origin of the Dioscuri of the Greeks.” Archæic Dictionary. London, 1876.

[364]Zoological Mythology, vol. i, p. 353.

[365]Evil has always been associated with darkness. Harmful demons have always disliked light.

[366]Mythology of the Aryans, vol. i, p. 391.

[367]See Wilson’s edition, vol. iii, p. 307.

[368]Ibid., p. 103.

[369]Ormazd, believed to have been originally identical with Varuna of the Vedas.

[370]Believed to be the Asclepias acida, or Sarcostemma viminalis, whose juice yields an intoxicating liquor.

[371]Zend Avesta, vol. i, p. 141.

[372]Demon.

[373]Evil Spirits.

[374]Zend Avesta. Translation by Darmesteter, vol. ii, p. 92.

[375]The name is given in the cuneiform characters as found in Norris’s Assyrian Dictionary, p. 853. It is spelled phonetically. The first three wedges are the sign or determinative of deities.

[376]The devotion of Nebuchadnezzar to him is indicated in the Bible (see 2 Chron. xxxvi, 7, and Daniel, i, 2). The great king went so far as to say: “Merodach deposited my germ in my mother’s womb.” Records of the Past, vol. v, p. 113.

[377]In an article entitled “Nemrod et les Ecritures Cuneiformes,” M. Joseph Grivel has occasion to speak of the names of the god. Amar-ud, which is apparently the same as Nimrod, is a synonym of Merodach. See Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 136.

[378]The older Bel was Elum, father of the gods.

[379]Chaldean Magic, and the Beginnings of History. To M. Lenormant mainly belongs the credit of opening up the valuable stores of learning wrapped in the Accadian and closely allied idioms.

[380]A series of small volumes, twelve in number, issued a few years ago, in London.

[381]Silik-mulu-khi is rather a descriptive title than a name. It is the designation used in the magical and mythological texts of the Accadian inscriptions.

[382]Of this serpentine god of life and revealer of knowledge, Sir Henry Rawlinson remarks that “there is very strong grounds for connecting Hea, or Hoa, with the serpent of Scripture and the paradisiacal traditions of the tree of life.” See George Rawlinson’s second edition of Herodotus, vol. i, p. 600.

[383]Chaldean Magic, p. 19.

[384]Assyria, its Princes, Priests, and People, p. 59. London, 1885.

[385]Another symbol of this god was the thunderbolt in the form of a sickle, with which he slew the dragon of the deep.

[386]Chaldean Magic, p. 190.

[387]Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 139.

[388]Herodotus, who visited the country, states that the Babylonians “have no physicians; but when a man is ill they lay him in the public square and the passers-by come up to him; and if they ever had his disease themselves, or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence, without asking him what his ailment is” (i, 197). From this it would seem that Herodotus might rather have said that the Babylonians were all doctors, or presumed to be. However, it is thought that Jeremiah refers to the practice in Lamentations, i, 12, when he says: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” A similar plan was certainly practiced elsewhere than in Babylonia. Strabo says that the Egyptians resorted to it (xvi), and in St. Mark it is said that the people “laid the sick in the streets” (vi, 56) in order to be healed by Jesus as he passed along.

[389]Deuteronomy, xi, 18.

[390]Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 140.

[391]Was this gonorrhœa or diabetes? See Leviticus, xv.

[392]Ana.

[393]Hea.

[394]Chaldean Magic, p. 4.

[395]Chaldean Magic, p. 20.

[396]Ibid., p. 22.

[397]Lenormant remarks that the assimilation was probably made when Mardux had become emphatically the god of the planet Jupiter, “the great fortune” of the astrologers, which justified them in connecting with his other attributes the favorable and protecting office of Silik-mulu-khi. He was originally a solar deity.

[398]Chaldean Magic, p. 190.

[399]Jeremiah, v, 15.

[400]Or Shinar. See Gen., xi, 2. Essentially Babylonia.

[401]See Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 19. Revised edition, by Mr. Sayce, 1880.

[402]The Semitic language, called Assyrian, as the one spoken by the Babylonians, including part of the Chaldeans, before the people of Assur (see Gen., x, 11) became a nation, which was later than the time of the great King Sargon (B.C.2000); and here I may say that cuneiform inscriptions are largely Assyrian. I may add that Lenormant takes Assur to be Nimrod, and the latter Mardux, reduced to the position of a hero.

[403]Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 466.

[404]Kaldu, or Kaldi, was the name of a tribe of Accadio-Sumerians that rose to prominence about nine centuries before our era. The title was subsequently given to the whole race.

[405]Zend Avesta, vol. i, p. 85.

[406]Ibid., vol. ii, p. 44.

[407]North American Indians, vol. i, p. 78.

[408]Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 13.

[409]Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 13.

[410]Bacchus.

[411]Fire was duly esteemed by the ancients. The worship was closely related to that of the sun. Atar of the Zend Avesta means fire, and a personification of it, spoken of as the son of Ahura-Mazda, is characterized as “the god who is a full source of glory, the god who is a full source of healing” (vol. ii, p. 8). The Parsis and also the Hindus were forbidden to blow a fire lest the effete emanations from the system, present in the breath, might contaminate the flame. Menstruating women were forbidden even to look at it.

[412]Zoological Mythology, vol. i, p. 410.

[413]See Gen., ii, 7. Hippocrates appears to takepneuma, the breath, and the soul and vital principle to be the same. It is still a common thing to hear the breath spoken of as the divine and immortal element in man.

[414]Ninevah and its Remains, vol. ii, p. 233. London, 1849. See Ex., xxviii, 33-34, and 1 Kings, vii, 41-42.

[415]Fir-trees were regarded with much favor in the East. Ezekiel likens the Assyrian nation to a great cedar, envied by “all the trees of Eden,” none being “like unto him in his beauty.” Ez., xxxi,passim.

[416]Medical virtues are inherent in fir-trees. Hence, there was a good foundation for the Accadian superstition. It is curious to observe that “among the Dakotah tribe of Indians the white cedar-tree is believed to have a supernatural power, and its leaves are burned as incense to propitiate the gods.” See Emerson’s Indian Myths, p. 241.

[417]Beginnings of History, p. 90.

[418]Mr. Sayce gives the name as Lubara. See Ancient Empires of the East, p. 157.

[419]According to Mr. Black, disease and death have been referred by the unscientific to three great sources, namely: (1) the anger of an offended external spirit; (2) the supernatural powers of a human enemy; (3) the displeasure of the dead. See Folk-medicine, p. 4, published by the Folk-lore Society. London, 1883.

[420]The Origin of Primitive Superstitions. Philadelphia, 1881.

[421]See Sayce’s Ancient Empires of the East, p. 146.

[422]Chaldean Magic, p. 64.

[423]Says Tiele: “The operation or the sun is two-fold, beneficial and terrible; it quickens or it destroys life. The Greeks united both characteristics in Phœbus Apollo.” History of the Egyptian Religion, p. 45.

[424]2 Samuel, xxiv.

[425]Ecclesiasticus, xxxviii, 15.

[426]It appears that the idea of the devil is first brought into clear relief in the Book of Wisdom, where it is said: “By the envy of the devil death came into the world” (ii, 25). The Hebrew demonology is usually said to be of Iranian origin, but it may just as likely have sprung from a Turanian source, either directly or through their Semitic kin in Babylonia.

[427]Job, ii, 7.

[428]Set, called Typhon by the Greeks, the embodiment of physical and moral evil, was regarded as the Egyptian god of death. Plagues were attributed to him.

[429]The plague maiden of Teutonic folk-lore is somewhat like Dibbara. See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (translation), p. 1185.

[430]Chaldean Account of Genesis, vol. viii.

[431]Psalms, xci, 6.

[432]2 Sam., xxiv, 13et seq., and 2 Kings, xix, 35.

[433]The wife of Hea, the queen of the gods, Davkina, was a health goddess. In an inscription Marduk is sent to a dying man, and it is further said:—“Sprinkle holy water over him.He shall hear the voice of Hea.Davkina shall protect him;And Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy habitation.”See Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 142. She was invoked by women in labor.

[433]The wife of Hea, the queen of the gods, Davkina, was a health goddess. In an inscription Marduk is sent to a dying man, and it is further said:—

“Sprinkle holy water over him.He shall hear the voice of Hea.Davkina shall protect him;And Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy habitation.”

“Sprinkle holy water over him.

He shall hear the voice of Hea.

Davkina shall protect him;

And Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy habitation.”

See Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 142. She was invoked by women in labor.

[434]This figure is copied from one given by W. R. Cooper in his essay on “Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt.” See Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. vi, p. 321. London, 1873.

[435]The Art of Preserving Health. First published in 1744. One of the very few great medical poems.

[436]Tobias, viii, 10.

[437]American Hero-Myths, p. 19. 1882.

[438]This arrangement of the serpent is seen in an Egyptian priestess, a picture of which is given in Cooper’s essay, already referred to.

[439]It has been published, I think, in pamphlet form, but the copy I have was issued in 1882 in connection with the March and April numbers of a monthly published in the interest of Jefferson Medical College and her alumni, The College and Clinical Record. There are a dozen octavo pages of it.

[440]Animal Kingdom, vol. ix, p. 309.

[441]See Tooke’s Pantheon, p. 296.

[442]See Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology (translation), pp. 588, 1150.

[443]For Cooper’s view of her origin, see quotation,p. 93.

[444]Maut, Mat, or Mut, is to Amen-Ra what Artemis was to Zeus, and Juno to Jupiter. She might be viewed as a form of the more familiar Isis, and from close relationship is often confounded with Neith.

[445]From address referred to onpage 125.

[446]Princess, vol. ii, p. 296.

[447]See Plato’s Timæus.

[448]The famous one brought from the East to Scotland and called the “Lee-Penny” has an interesting history. Sir Walter Scott speaks at length of it in his work, “The Talisman.” Says the great novelist: “Its virtues are still applied to for stopping blood and in cases of canine madness” (p. 287).

[449]By Josephus.

[450]The name signifies highland.

[451]The Great Pyramid, p. 159.

[452]It stands out prominent in the first chapter of Genesis. The whole host of heaven was created for earthly purposes.

[453]The reader of the Book of Daniel learns much of the repute of the Chaldeans as astrologers. The Romans were in the habit of calling all astrologers Chaldeans. That people, I may say, never gave the class legal countenance.

[454]In an old Accadian tablet bearing on the observance of the Sabbath by the king, it is said, among other things: “Medicine for his sickness of body he may not apply.” See Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 89.

[455]According to the Bible narrative, which Lenormant says is “a tradition whose origin is lost in the night of the remotest ages and which all the great nations of Western Asia possessed in common, with some variations” (Beginnings of History, p. xv), the luminaries were placed in the heavens “to divide the day from the night and to be signs for the time of festivals, the days and the years” (Gen., i, 14). This is from the Elohist version, which, with the Jehovist, may be found in Lenormant’s work. The ordinary version was drawn from the two.

[456]Architecture, p. 219, 2d ed. By Joseph Swift. London, 1860.

[457]It is well to state that the astrologer was the forerunner of the astronomer. In his interesting book on The Astronomy of the Ancients, Sir J. Cornwall Lewes says: “The word ἀστρολογος signifies an astronomer in the Greek writers. The wordastrologushas the same sense in the earlier Latin writers. In later times the distinction which now obtains between the words astrology and astronomy was introduced” (p. 292).

[458]The Greeks generally gave Atlas the credit of introducing it. See Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 82. Hodges’ edition.

[459]Tetrabiblos, i, 2.

[460]In “A Plea for Urania,” issued in 1854, it is said that “less than two hundred years ago an individual who entered upon the profession of doctor of medicine, either in England or any of the European countries, was obliged to pass an astrological examination” (p. 246).

[461]Canterbury Tales.

[462]Gemmæ Selectae. Amsterdam, 1703.

[463]Fascinum and penis are Latin synonyms.

[464]This is still done in parts of China and elsewhere in the East.

[465]Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 32. London, 1880. Republication by the Folk-lore Society. First issued 1686-’87.

[466]See Psalms, lxviii, 4, and lxxxix, 8.

[467]Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 92.

[468]Chaldean Magic, p. 43.

[469]Indian Arts, p. 104.

[470]The star of Babylon is frequently spoken of in the Inscriptions. The star of Marduk is the same. It is Dilgan, or Jupiter.

[471]Act I, Scene 2.

[472]Abracadabrais not the same as abraxas, but may have been derived from it. In the third century, and later, it was regarded as a capital remedy for malarial fevers.

[473]Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, p. 94.

[474]The letter Alpha = 1, Beta = 2, Rho = 100; Alpha = 1, Xi = 60; Alpha = 1, and Sigma = 200.

[475]Egyptian Mythology, p. 93.

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