Forms of the Cross—Ancient Maltese Cross—Phallic Character of some Crosses—Offensive Forms of the Cross in Etruscan and Pompeian Monuments—Thor’s Battle-axe—The Buddhist Cross—Indian Crosses—The Fylfot or Four-footed Cross—Danish Poem of the Thors of Asgard—Legend of Thor’s Loss of his Golden Hammer—Original Meaning of these Crosses—Reception of Christianity amongst the Britons—Plato and the Cross—The Mexican Tree of Life—Rain Makers—The Winds—Various Meanings attributed to the Cross—The Crux Ansata—Phallic Attributes—Coins, Gaulish and Jewish—Roman Coins—The Lake Dwellings—The Cross in the Patriarchal Age.
Forms of the Cross—Ancient Maltese Cross—Phallic Character of some Crosses—Offensive Forms of the Cross in Etruscan and Pompeian Monuments—Thor’s Battle-axe—The Buddhist Cross—Indian Crosses—The Fylfot or Four-footed Cross—Danish Poem of the Thors of Asgard—Legend of Thor’s Loss of his Golden Hammer—Original Meaning of these Crosses—Reception of Christianity amongst the Britons—Plato and the Cross—The Mexican Tree of Life—Rain Makers—The Winds—Various Meanings attributed to the Cross—The Crux Ansata—Phallic Attributes—Coins, Gaulish and Jewish—Roman Coins—The Lake Dwellings—The Cross in the Patriarchal Age.
Instudying the origin and signification of the pre-Christian cross, we, naturally of course, turn our attention to the forms in which it is delineated; these are both numerous and varied—so varied indeed that a writer, some years ago, in theEdinburgh Reviewstated that his commonplace-book contained nearly two hundred representations, which he had found combined as often as not with other emblems of a sacred character, and which had been collected from all parts of the world. We may notice a few of the principal which are really, generally speaking, types of all.
Most people are familiar with the Maltese cross—that consisting of four triangles meeting in a central circle, or as it is generally described, the cross with the four delta-like arms conjoined to or issuing from the nave of a wheel or a diminutive circle. It derives its name from its discovery on the island of Malta, and from its adoption by the Knights of St. John for their coat-of-arms. There is no doubt it is one of the most ancient forms of the cross we are acquainted with, as it is found, as we have already stated, on the sculptures of the Assyrian monarchs long before the Christian era, and may be seen on the sculptures inthe British Museum. In some of the Nineveh monuments representing subject-people bringing tribute to the king, it occurs in the form of ear-rings.
In Assyria, it is believed to have been the emblem of royalty, as it is found on the breasts of the most powerful of the rulers. As it was known originally in Malta, it was of a very different character to the ornament worn either by the Assyrian monarch or by the modern inhabitants of civilised nations. It was indeed of so gross a character, that the Knights of St. John soon set to work to make something more decent of it—something which while not altogether discarding the old form, should yet be inoffensive to the eye of the more modest onlooker. It was made up, in fact, of four gigantic phalli carved out of the solid granite, similar to the form in which it is found in the island of Gozyo, and on some of the Etruscan and Pompeian monuments.
The reason why it assumed a phallic character in the locality which gives it its name, is not perhaps clear, but the study of Assyrian antiquities has revealed the meaning attached to it in the palmy days of Nineveh and Babylon; it referred to the four great gods of the Assyrian pantheon—Ra, and the first triad—Ana, Belus, and Hea; and when inserted in a roundlet, as may be seen in the British Museum, it signified Sansi, or the sun ruling the earth as well as the heavens. It was therefore the symbol of royalty and dominion, which accounts for its presence on the breasts of kings.
On the Etruscan and Pompeian monuments generally, this cross is as gross and offensive in form as in ancient Malta, but it is found in a character as unobjectionable as in Assyria, on the official garments of the Etruscan priesthood. It has been found in Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Sicily; and Dr. Schliemann discovered many examples of it (with other crosses) on the vases which he dug from the seat of ancient Troy. It was also foundin what was described as a “magnificent cruciform mosaic pavement, discovered about thirty years ago in the ruins of a Gallo-Roman villa at Pont d’Oli (Pons Aulæ), near Pau, in the Basses-Pyrenees, accompanied by several other varieties of the cross, including the St. George and the St. Andrew, all glowing in colours richly dight, and surrounding a colossal bust of Proteus, settled in the midst of his sea monsters.”
The cross generally regarded as the most notable type of that emblem, because it is said to have figured in the religious systems of more peoples than any other, is that known as “Thor’s hammer,” or “Thor’s battle-axe.” It may, perhaps, also be set down as the most ancient of the crosses—how many years back it dates we cannot say, several thousands evidently. It consisted of the last letter of the Samaritan alphabet, the tau or tav in its decussated or most primitive form, and may be described, as it has been sometimes, as acruciform hammer.
It derived its name from being borne in the hand of Thor, as the all-powerful instrument by means of which his deeds recorded in the Eddas were accomplished. “It was venerated by the heroes of the north as the magical sign which thwarted the power of death over those who bore it; and the Scandinavian devotee placed it upon his horn of mead before raising it to his lips, no doubt for the purpose of imparting to it the life-giving virtues.” To this hour it is employed by the women of India and of the north-eastern parts of Africa as a mark of possession or taboo, which they generally impress upon the vessels containing their stores of grain, &c.
A writer in theEdinburgh Reviewof January, 1870, hazards the opinion that this was the mark which the prophet was commanded to impress upon the foreheads of the faithful in Judah, as recorded in Ezekiel ix. 4. He gives no reason or authority for this statement, but probably derived it from St. Jerome andothers of his time, who said that the lettertauwas that which was ordered to be placed on the foreheads of those mourners. Jerome says that the Hebrew lettertauwas formerly written like a cross.
As to the name of this cross, the popular designation is clearly a mistake, since its origin dates back centuries before the mythology of the north was developed. In India it was known as the swastika of the Buddhists, and served as the monograms of Vishnu and Siva. Such are its associations and uses at the present day, and, no doubt, they have been the same from the very advent of the religions of these respective deities. The enquirer has, however, not even here measured the limit of its antiquity, for in China it was known as the Leo-tsen long before the Sakya-Buddha era, and was portrayed upon the walls of their pagodas and upon the lanterns used to illumine their most sacred precints. It has ever been the symbol of their heaven. In the great temple of Rameses II., at Thebes, it is represented frequently with such associations as conclusively prove that its significance was the same in the land of the Nile as in China. All over the East it is the magic symbol of the Buddhist heaven; the chief ornament on the sceptres and crowns of the Bompa deities of Thibet, who dispute the palm of antiquity with all other divinities; and is beautifully pressed in the Artee, or musical bell, borne by the figure of Balgovina, the herald or messenger of heaven. The universality of the use of this symbol is proved by its prevalence as well in Europe as in Asia and Africa. Among the Etruscans it was used as a religious sign, as is shown by its appearance on urns exhumed from ancient lake-beds situated between Parma and Pacenza. Those taken from the Lacustrine cemeteries are thought to date back to 1000B.C.On the terra-cotta vases of Alba Longa the same sign is impressed, and served as the symbol of Persephone, the awful queen of the shades, the arbiter of mortal fate; while on the roll of the Roman soldier itwas the sign of life. On the old Runic monuments it is ever present. Even in Scotland it is found on sculptured stones of unknown age. The most numerous examples of this form, however, are found in the sculptures of Khorsabad, and in the ivories from Nimroud; here occur almost all the known varieties. It has been observed, too, in Persia; and is used to this day in Northern India to mark the jars of sacred water taken from the Indus and Ganges. It is especially esteemed by the inhabitants of Southern India as the emblem of disembodied Jaina saints. Very remarkable illustrations of it, carved in the most durable rock, and inserted in the exterior walls of temples and other edifices of Mexico and Central America, also occur, which may be seen in Lord Kingsborough’sMexican Antiquities. It is found on innumerable coins and medals of all times and of all peoples; from the rude mintages of Ægina and Sicily, as well as from the more skilful hands of the Bactrian and Continental Greeks. It is noteworthy, too, in reference to its extreme popularity, or superstitious veneration in which it has been almost universally held, that the cross-patée, or cruciform hammer, was one of the very last of purely pagan symbols which were religiously preserved in Europe long after the establishment of Christianity. To the close of the Middle Ages the stole, or Isian mantle, of the Cistercian monk was usually adorned with it; and men wore it suspended from their necklaces in precisely the same manner as did the vestal-virgins of pagan Rome. It may be seen upon the bells of many of our parish churches in the northern, midland, and eastern counties, as at Appleby, Mexborough, Hathersage, Waddington, Bishop’s Norton, West Barkwith, and other places, where it was placed as a magical sign to subdue the vicious spirit of the tempest. It is said to be still used for the like purpose, during storms of wind and rain, by the peasantry in Iceland and in the southern parts of Germany.[2]
This cross is also known as the “Fylfot,” or “Fytfot” (four-footed cross), or “Gammadion”—“the dissembled cross under the discipline of the secret.” Jewitt, who has written in an interesting manner upon the subject, supports what we have already stated in the foregoing pages with the observation that this is one of the most singular, most ancient, and most interesting of the whole series of crosses. Some say it is composed of four gammas, conjoined in the centre, which as numerals expressed the Holy Trinity, and by its rectangular form symbolised the chief corner-stone of the Church. We mentioned that it was known in India as the swastika of the Buddhists; we note further that it is said to be formed of the two words “su” (well) and “asti” (it is), meaning “it is,” or “it is well;” equal to “so be it,” and implying complete resignation. “From this the Swastikas, the opponents of the Brahmins, who denied the immortality of the soul, and affirmed that its existence was finite and connected only with the body upon earth, received their name; their monogrammatic enblem, or symbol, being the mystic cross formed by the combination of two syllables,su+ti=suti, or swasti.”[3]
The connection of this cross with Thor, the Thunderer, is not without its signification and importance, in considering the forms and origin of these emblems and their transmission from the Pagan to the Christian world. Thor was said to be the bravest of the sons of Odin, or Woden, and Fria, or Friga, the goddess of earth. (From Thor, of course, we get our Thursday; from Woden, Wednesday; and from Friga, Friday). “He was believed to be of the most marvellous power and might; yea, and that there were no people throughout the whole world that were not subjected unto him, and did not owe him divine honour and service; and that there was no puissance comparable to his.His dominion of all others most farthest extending itself, both in heaven and earth. That, in the aire he governed the winds and the clouds; and being displeased did cause lightning, thunder, and tempest, with excessive raine, haile, and all ill weather. But being well pleased by the adoration, sacrifice, and service of his suppliants, he then bestowed upon them most faire and seasonable weather; and caused corne abundantly to grow, as all sorts of fruits, &c., and kept away the plague and all other evil and infectious diseases.”
Thor’s emblem was a hammer of gold, represented as a fylfot, and with it he destroyed his enemies the Jotuns, crushed the head of the great Mitgard serpent, killed numbers of giants, restored the dead goats to life that drew his car, and consecrated the pyre of Baldur. This hammer, boomerang like, had the property, when thrown, of striking the object aimed at and then returning to the thrower’s hand. Mr. Jewitt thinks we have, in this, a curious insight into the origin of the form of the emblem itself. He says:—“I have remarked that the fylfot is sometimes described as being formed of four gammas conjoined in the centre. When the form of the boomerang—a missile instrument of barbaric nations, much the shape of the letterVwith a rounded instead of acute bottom, which, on being thrown, slowly ascends in the air, whirling round and round, till it reaches a considerable height, and then returns until it finally sweeps over the head of the thrower and strikes the ground behind him—is taken into consideration, and the traditional returning power of the hammer is remembered in connection with it, the fylfot may surely be not inappropriately described as a figure composed of four boomerangs, conjoined in the centre. This form of fylfot is not uncommon in early examples, and even on a very ancient specimen of Chinese porcelain it occurs at the angles of the pattern—it is the ordinary fylfot, with the angles curved or rounded.
Ancient literature abounds in curious and sensational stories about the wonders accomplished by Thor with the assistance of this hammer. Once he lost his weapon, or tool, and with it his power, by stratagem however he regained both.
The Danish poem, called the “Thorr of Asgard,” as translated by De Prior, says:—
“There rode the mighty of Asgard, Thor,His journey across the plain;And there his hammer of gold he lost,And sought so long in vain.’Twas then the mighty of Asgard, Thor,His brother his bidding told—Up thou and off to the Northland Fell,And seek my hammer of gold.He spake, and Loki, the serving-man,His feathers upon him drew;And launching over the salty sea,Away to the Northland flew.”
Greeting the Thusser king, he informed him of the cause of his visit, viz., that Thor had lost his golden hammer. Then the king replied that Thor would never again see his hammer until he had given him the maiden Fredenborg to wife. Loki took back this message to Thor, who disguised himself as the maiden in woman’s clothes, and was introduced to the king as his future bride. After expressing his astonishment at the wonderful appetite of the maiden, he ordered eight strong men to bring in the hammer and lay it across the lap of the bride. Thor immediately threw off his disguise and seized the hammer, with which, after he had slain the king, he returned home.
The fylfot cross is frequently found on Roman pottery in various parts of England, as for instance on the famous Colchester vase, on which is depicted a gladiatorial combat, the cross being distinctly marked on the shields of the combatants. Another fine example is found on a Roman altar of Minerva at HighRochester. “The constant use of the symbol,” says Jewitt, “through so many ages, and by so many and such varied peoples, gives it an importance which is peculiarly striking.”
To sum up this part of the subject then, we have amongst numerous others the following chief forms of the cross common in all parts of the world. The Latin, a long upright with shorter cross beam; the Greek, an upright and bar of equal lengths; the St. Andrews, in the form of a letterX; the Maltese, four triangles conjoined to a circular centre; the Hammer of Thor; and the Crux Ansata, or handled cross.
The question now arises, what was the origin or original meaning of these crosses? Uninformed Christians are generally under the impression that all refer to one and the same thing, viz., the instrument of the death of Jesus Christ: historical evidence just produced, however, clearly disproves that, and what we may say further will add additional weight to the argument.
It has been noticed that the Britons received Christianity with remarkable readiness, and this has been attributed to the following among other circumstances, viz., the impression which they held in common with the Platonists and Pythagoreans, that the Second Person of the Deity was imprinted on the universe in the form of a cross. We have already explained that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the Deity they adored, and having cut off the side branches, affixed two of them to the highest part of the trunk in such a manner as that those branches, extending on each side like the arms of a man, together with the body, should present to the spectator the appearance of a huge cross, and that on the bark of the tree, in various places, was actually inscribed the letterT,—Tau.
“Some have gone so far as to suppose a Celtic origin for the word cross, and have derived it fromCrughandCruach, whichsignify a cross in that language, though others suppose these have a much more probable origin in the Hebrew and Chaldee.Chrussh, signifies boards or pieces of timber fastened together, as we should say, cross-wise; the word is so used in Exodus xxvii. 6. This seems a very natural and probable etymology for the term, but it may also allude more to the agony suffered on such an erection, and then its origin perhaps may be traced to Chrutz, ‘agitation.’ This word also means to be ‘kneaded,’ and broken to pieces like clay in the hands of a potter. Chrotshi, in Chaldee, we are told by Parkhurst, means accusations, charges, revilings, reproach, all of them terms applied to Jesus Christ in his sufferings. Pliny shows that the punishment of the cross among the Romans was as old as Tarquinus Priscus; how much older it is perhaps difficult to say.
“Plato, born 430 years before Christ, had advocated the idea of a Trinity, and had expressed an opinion that the form of the Second Person of it was stamped upon the universe in the form of a cross. St. Augustine goes so far as to say that it was by means of the Platonic system that he was enabled to understand properly the doctrine of the Trinity.”
Perhaps, originally, the cross had but one meaning, whatever its form; it is probable that it was so. However that may be, it is certain that as time went on and its form varied, different significations were attached to it. It represented creative power and eternity in Egypt, Assyria, and Britain; it was emblematical of heaven and immortality in India, China, and Scandinavia; it was the sign of freedom from physical suffering in the Americas; all over the world it symbolised the Divine Unity—resurrection and life to come.
“In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and worthy name, ‘Tree of our Life,’ or ‘Tree of our Flesh.’ It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere its simplemeaning. ‘Those of Yucatan,’ say the chroniclers, ‘prayed to the cross as the god of rains when they needed water.’ The Aztec goddess of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honour in the early spring (as we have previously noted) victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office a mace like the cross of a bishop; his robe was covered with them strewn like flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his worship.”
We have mentioned that “when the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters, they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus forming a gigantic cross, and that at the point of intersection threw in their offerings of gold, emeralds and precious oils. The arms of the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points, and represent the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it.
“When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a cross, placed upon it a piece of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to the spirits of the rains. The Creeks at the festival of the Busk, celebrated to the four winds, and according to the legends instituted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The manner of this was to place four logs in the centre of the square, end to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; in the centre of the cross the new fire is made.”[4]
“As the emblem of the winds which disperse the fertilising showers,” says Brinton, “it is emphatically the tree of our life,our subsistence, and our health. It never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been said, the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol, indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient Egyptian writings, where it is interpretedlife; doubtless, could we trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be derived from the four winds.”[5]
The Buddhist cross to which allusion has been made was exactly the cross of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a Mount Calvary as among the Roman Catholics. The tree of life and knowledge, or the Jambu tree, in their maps of the world, is always represented in the shape of a Manichean cross 84 yojanas, or 423 miles high, including the three steps of the Calvary. This cross, putting forth leaves and flowers (and fruit also, Captain Wilford was informed), is called the divine tree, the tree of the gods, the tree of life and knowledge, and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed in the terrestrial Paradise. Agapius, according to Photius, maintained that this divine tree, in Paradise, was Christ himself. In their delineation of the heavens, the globe of the earth is filled with this cross and its Calvary. The divines of Thibet, says Captain Wilford, place it to the S.W. of Meru, towards the source of the Ganges. The Manicheans always represented Christ crucified upon a tree, among the foliage. The Christians of India, though they did not admit of images, still entertained the greatest veneration for the cross. They placed it on a Calvary in public places and at the meeting of cross roads, and even the heathen Hindus in these parts paid also great regard to it.
Captain Wilford was presented by a learned Buddhist with a book, called the Cshetra-samasa, which contained several drawings of the cross. Some of these his friend was unable to explain to him, but whatever the variations of the cross were in other particulars, they were declared to be invariable as regards the shaft and two arms; the Calvary was sometimes omitted. One of these crosses seemed to puzzle the Buddhist completely, or he would not say either what he thought or knew about it. It consisted of the ordinary cross with shaft and cross-bar, pointed at the ends, but with two other bars intersecting the right angles formed by the shaft and cross-bar, thus giving six points. No one can look at this cross, and not at once discern its phallic character. Some writers affect to laugh at this, but we have ample evidence that at times such a meaning has been attributed to the cross. In connection with this, Dr. Inman makes some remarks which we shall do well to consider, whether we receive them or not; there may be nothing in them, and there may be much. He says:—“There can be no doubt, I think, in the mind of any student of antiquity, that the cross is not originally a Christian emblem; nay, the very fact that the cross was used as a means of executing criminals shows that its form was familiar to Jews and Romans. It was used partly as an ornament, and partly in certain forms of religious worship. The simple cross, with perpendicular and transverse arms of equal length, represented the nave and spokes of the solar wheel, or the sun darting his rays on all sides. As the wheel became fantastically developed so did the cross, and each limb became so developed at the outer end as to symbolise the triad. Sometimes the idea was very coarsely represented; and I have seen, amongst some ancient Etruscan remains, a cross formed of four phalli of equal length, their narrow end pointing inwards; and in the same work another was portrayed, in which the phallus was made of inordinatelength so as to support the others high up from the ground; each was in itself a triad. The same form of cross was probably used by the Phœnicians, who appear to have colonised Malta at a very early period of their career; for they have left a form of it behind them in the shape of a cross similar to that described above, but which has been toned down by the moderns, who could not endure the idea of an union between grossness and the crucifix, and the phalli became as innocent as we see them in the Maltese cross of to-day.”
So many traces of the cross, as used in ancient times in all parts of the world, meet us on every hand that we find it difficult within the limited space at our command even to enumerate them; we have already traversed in our account a greater part of the known world, and still vast numbers of instances remain unnoticed. Almost as varied as its principal forms are the explanations offered respecting its origin and significance. We are told by some that for its origin we must go to the Buddhists and to the Lama of Thibet, who is said to take his name from the cross, called in his language Lamh. Higgins quotes Vallence as saying that the Tartars call the cross Lama, from the Scythian Lamh, a hand, synonymous to the Yod of the Chaldeans; and that it thus became the name of a cross, and of the high priest with the Tartars; and with the Irish, Luarn, signifying the head of the church, an abbot, &c.
The last form of cross to which we shall here allude is that known as the Crux Ansata, or Handled Cross. Whatever may be the signification of that instrument, or ornament, it is certain that no other has ever been so variously explained, or has been so successful in puzzling those who have sought to give it a meaning. Some have said it was a Nilometer, or measure of the rise of the Nile; one—a bishop—thought it was a setting stick for planting roots; another said it represented the Law ofGravitation. Don Martin said it was a winnowing fan; Herwart said it was a compass; Pococke said it represented the four elements. Others, again, suggest that it may be only a key. “It opened,” says Borwick, “the door of the sacred chest. It revealed hidden things. It was the hope of life to come.” And he continues, “However well the cross fit the mathematical lock, the phallic lock, the gnostic lock, the philosophical lock, the religious lock, it is quite likely that this very ancient and almost universal symbol was at first a secret in esoteric holding, to the meaning of which, with all our guessing, we have no certain clue.”
This cross has certainly a most remarkable connection with the ancient history of Egypt, being found universally represented on the monuments, the tombs, the walls, and the wrapping cloths of the dead; hence, evidently, the idea that it is peculiarly Egyptian and its ascription of “Key of the Nile.” From Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Ruffinus, we learn that it was known to the Egyptian Christians at the close of the fourth century as the symbol of eternal life. Later on, Dr. Max Uhlman wrote, “that the handle cross meanslife, is manifest from the Rosetta inscription and other texts.” Zöckler, another German author, notices the opinion of Macrobius that it was the hieroglyphic sign of Osiris, or the sun, it being a fact that when the ancient Egyptians wished to symbolise Osiris, they set up a staff with an eye upon it, because in antiquity the sun was known as the eye of God, and then claims that the round portion represented the orb of the sun, the perpendicular bar signifying the rays of the high mid-day sun, and the shorter horizontal bar symbolising the rays of the rising or setting sun. The discovery of this emblem by M. Mariette in a niche of the holy of holies in the ancient temple of Denderah, points significantly to its importance and peculiar sacredness, and it has been thought probable that it was the central object of interest in the inner precincts of the temple.
It seems that the Egyptian priests, when asked for an explanation of this cross, evaded the question by replying that the Tau was a “divine mystery.”
However varied the explanations offered may be, and whatever the mystery said to surround this object, the feature always remains,—its symbolisation of life and regeneration. From this, its phallic character was very easily inferred—its derivation from thelingam-yonisymbol, said Barlow, seemed a very natural process. The junction of the yoni with the cross, in Dr. Inman’s judgment, sufficiently proved that it had a phallic or male signification; a conclusion which certain unequivocal Etruscan remains fully confirmed. “We conclude, therefore,” says this writer, “that the ancient cross was an emblem of the belief in a male creator, and the method by which creation was initiated.”
Not the least remarkable exemplification of the universal prevalence of the cross both as to time and country, is found amongst coins and medals: here as in other things it is ever prominent. Take the ancient Gaulish coins, for instance, and the fylfot and ordinary Greek cross abound; take the ancient British coins of the age long prior to Christianity, and the same thing occurs. “On Scandinavian coins, as well as those of Gaul, the fylfot cross appears, as it also does on those of Syracuse, Corinth, and Chalcedon. On the coins of Byblos, Astarte is represented holding a long staff, surmounted by a cross, and resting her foot on the prow of a galley. On the coins of Asia Minor, the cross is also to be found. It occurs as the reverse of a silver coin, supposed to be of Cyprus, on several Cilician coins; it is placed beneath the throne of Baal of Tarsus, on a Phœnician coin of that time, bearing the legend ‘Baal Tharz.’ A medal possibly of the same place, with partially obliterated Phœnician characters, has the cross occupying the entire field of the reverse side. Several, with inscriptions in unknown characters,have a ram on one side and the cross and ring on the other. Another has the sacred bull, accompanied by this symbol; others have a lion’s head on obverse, and a cross and circle on the reverse.”[6]
Strangely enough, even Jewish money is marked with this emblem, the shekel bearing on one side what is usually called a triple lily or hyacinth; the same forming a pretty floral cross.
On Roman coins the cross was of very frequent occurrence, and illustrations of good examples may be seen in the pages of theArt Journalfor the year 1874. An engraving of thequincunx, or piece of fiveunciæ, is given, bearing on one side a cross, aV, and five pellets; and on the other a cross only. This is an example of the earlier periods; of course when we come to the later periods the emblem is still more frequent. These coins are often found in ancient graves and sarcophagi, and these latter again supply examples of various familiar forms of crosses of very remote antiquity,—not simply the adornment of coffin and gravecloths, but the actual construction of the tomb or grave-mound in that form. Fine specimens of these have been discovered at Stoney-Littleton, at New Grange, at Banwell, Somerset, at Adisham, at Hereford, at Helperthorpe, and in the Isle of Lewis.
“Before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the plains of northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name, but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the laws of civilisation, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive their loved ones whom they committed to the dust. Throughout Emilia are foundremains of these people; these remains form quarries whence manure is dug by the peasants of the present day. These quarries go by the name ofterramares. They are vast accumulations of cinders, charcoal, bones, fragments of pottery, and other remains of human industry. As this earth is very rich in phosphates it is much appreciated by agriculturists as a dressing for their land. In theseterramaresthere are no human bones. The fragments of earthenware belong to articles of domestic use; with them are found querns, moulds for metal, portions of cabin floors, and great quantities of kitchen refuse. They are deposits analogous to those which have been discovered in Denmark and Switzerland. The metal discovered in the majority of theseterramaresis bronze; the remains belong to three distinct ages. In the first none of the fictile ware was turned on the wheel or fire-baked. Sometimes these deposits exhibit an advance of civilisation. Iron came into use, and with it the potter’s wheel was discovered, and the earthenware was put in the furnace. When in the same quarry these two epochs are found, the remains of the second age are always superposed over those of the bronze age. A third period is occasionally met with, but only occasionally; a period when a rude art introduced itself, and representatives of animals or human beings adorned the pottery. Among the remains of this period is found the first trace of money, rude little bronze fragments without shape.
“Among other remains in these lake-dwellings, pottery has been in many cases found, and these vessels bear, on the bottom, crosses of various forms, as well also curious solid double cones. That which characterises the cemeteries of Golasecca, says M. de Mortillet, and gives them their highest interest, is this:—first, the entire absence of all organic representations; we only found three and they were exceptional, in tombs not belonging to the plateau; secondly, the almost invariable presence of the crossunder the vases in the tombs. When we reversed the ossuaries, the saucer-lids, or the accessory vases, we saw almost always, if in good preservation, a cross traced thereon ... the examination of the tombs of Golasecca proves, in a most convincing, positive, and precise manner, that which theterramaresof Emilia had only indicated, but which had been confirmed by the cemetery of Villanova; that above a thousand years before Christ, the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent employment.”[7]
“There is every reason to suppose that the cross was a symbol of more import in the early patriarchal ages than is generally imagined. It was not only thefirst letter, but it was also the emblem, of Taut, the Mercury, the word, the messenger of the gods, the angel, as we may say, of his presence, himself a god among the Egyptians and the Britons, whose god Teutates was analagous both in name and nature; a winged messenger. M. Le Clerc, one of the ablest mythologists who ever wrote, has shown that the Teutates of the Gauls, the Hermes of the Greeks, the Mercury of the Romans, were all one and the same.
The Ethiopic letterTaui, orTaw, says Lowth, still retains the form of a cross,X; and the SamaritanT, which the Ethiopians are said to have borrowed from the Samaritans, was in the form of aXcross. In several Samaritan coins, says Montfaucon, to be found in the collections of medallists, the letter Tau is engraved in the form of a cross, or Greek Chi, and he gives as his authority Origen and Jerome.
The Jewish High-priest, we are informed by the Rabbis, was anointed on his investiture, while he who anointed him drew on his forehead with his finger the figure of the Greek letter Chi,X.”[8]
Heathen Ideas of a Trinity—The Magi—Ancient Theologies—The Indian Trinity—The Sculptures of Elephanta—The Sacred Zennar—Temples consecrated to Indian Trinities—The Greek Trident—Attributes of Brahm—The Hindu Meru—Narayana—The Trimurti—Gods of Egypt.
Heathen Ideas of a Trinity—The Magi—Ancient Theologies—The Indian Trinity—The Sculptures of Elephanta—The Sacred Zennar—Temples consecrated to Indian Trinities—The Greek Trident—Attributes of Brahm—The Hindu Meru—Narayana—The Trimurti—Gods of Egypt.
“Manyof the heathens are said to have had a notion of a Trinity,” wrote a contributor to an encyclopædia, some eighty years ago. Now that altogether fails to reach the truth, for heathen nations are known to scholars to have had very definite ideas indeed about a sacred Triad; in fact, as another writer has said, there is nothing in all theology more deeply grounded, or more generally allowed by them, than the mystery of the Trinity. The Chaldeans, Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans, both in their writings and their oracles, acknowledged that the Supreme Being had begotten another Being from all eternity, whom they sometimes called the Son of God, sometimes the Word, sometimes the Mind, and sometimes the Wisdom of God, and asserted to be the Creator of all things.
Among the sayings of the Magi, the descendants of Zoroaster, was one as follows:—“The Father finished all things, and delivered them to the Second Mind.”
We learn from Dr. Cudworth that, besides the inferior gods generally received by all the Pagans (viz.: animated stars, demons, and heroes), the more refined of them, who accounted not the world the Supreme Deity, acknowledged a Trinity of divine hypostases superior to them all. This doctrine, according to Plotinus, is very ancient, and obscurely asserted even by Parmenides. Some have referred its origin to Pythagoreans, and others to Orpheus, who adopted three principles, called Phanes, Uranus, and Cronus. Dr. Cudworth apprehends thatPythagoras and Orpheus derived this doctrine from the theology of the Egyptian Hermes; and, as it is not probable that it should have been first discovered by human reason, he concurs with Proclus in affirming that it was at first a theology of divine tradition, or revelation, imparted first to the Hebrews, and from them communicated to the Egyptians and other nations; among whom it was depraved and adulterated.
Plato, also, and his followers, speak of the Trinity in such terms, that the primitive fathers have actually been accused of borrowing the doctrine from the Platonic school.
In Indian theology there is no more prominent doctrine than that of a Divine Triad governing all things, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. By Brahma, they mean God, the Creator; by Vishnu (according to the Sanscrit), a preserver, a comforter, a cherisher; and by Siva, a destroyer and avenger. To these three personages, different functions are assigned, in the Hindoo system of mythologic superstition, corresponding to the different significations of their names. They are distinguished, likewise, besides these general titles, in the various sastras and puranas, by an infinite variety of appellations descriptive of their office.
Whatever doubts may arise respecting the Indian Trinity, they will very speedily be dispelled by a view of that wonderful and magnificent piece of sculpture which is found in the celebrated cavern of Elephanta, which has so often been described by travellers, and which has ever been such a source of amusement to them. This, it is said, proves that from the remotest era, the Indian nations have adored a Triune Deity. In this cavern, the traveller beholds, with awe and astonishment, carved out of the solid rock, in the most conspicuous part of the most ancient and venerable temple in the world, a bust nearly twenty feet in breadth, and eighteen feet in altitude, gorgeously decorated, the image of the great presiding Deity of that sacred temple.The bust has three heads united to one body, and adorned with the oldest symbols of the Indian theology, is regarded as representing the Creator, the Preserver, and the Regenerator of mankind. Owing to the gross surroundings of these characters, respectively denominated Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, any comparison cannot be instituted with the Christian Trinity; yet the worship paid to that triple divinity incontestably evinces that, on this point of faith, the sentiments of the Indians are congenial with those of the Chaldeans and Persians. Nor is it only in this great Deity with three heads that these sentiments are demonstrated, their veneration for that sacred number strikingly displays itself in their sacred books—the three originalVedas—as if each had been delivered by one personage of the august Triad, being confined to that mystic number; by the regular and prescribed offering up of their devotions three times a day; by the immersion of their bodies, during ablution, three times in the purifying wave; and by their constantly wearing next their skin the sacred Zennar, or cord of three threads, the mystic symbol of their belief in a divine all ruling Triad.
The sacred Zennar, just mentioned, is of consequence enough to demand a fuller notice. Its threads can be twisted by no other hand than that of a Brahmin, and he does it with the utmost solemnity and many mystic rites. Three threads, each measuring ninety-six hands, are first twisted together; then they are folded into three, and twisted again, making it to consist of nine,—that is three times three threads; this is folded again into three, but without any more twisting, and each end is then fastened with a knot. Such is the Zennar, which being put upon the left shoulder, passes to the right side, and hangs down as low as the fingers can reach.
“The Hindoos,” says M. Sonnerat, “adore three principal deities, Brouma, Chiven, and Vichenou, who are still butOne;which kind of Trinity is there called Trimourti, or Tritvamz, and signifies the reunion of three powers. The generality of modern Indians adore only one of these three divinities, but some learned men, besides this worship, also address their prayers to the Three united. The representation of them is to be seen in many pagodas, under that of human figures with three heads, which, on the coast of Orissa, they call Sariharabrama; on the Coromandel coast, Trimourti; and Tretratreyam, in the Sanscrit. It is affirmed by Maurice that this latter term would not have been found in Sanscrit had not the worship of a Trinity existed in those ancient times, fully two thousand five hundred years ago, when Sanscrit was the current language of India.”
There have been found temples entirely consecrated to this kind of Trinity; such as that of Parpenade, in the kingdom of Travancore, where the three gods are worshipped in the form of a serpent with a thousand heads. The feast of Anandavourdon, which the Indians celebrate to their honour, on the eve of the full moon, in the month of Pretachi, or October, always draws a great number of people, “which would not be the case,” says Sonnerat, “if those that came were not adorers of the Three Powers.”
Mr. Forster writing, in 1785, on the Mythology of the Hindoos, says:—“A circumstance which forcibly struck my attention, was the Hindoo belief in a Trinity. The persons are Sree Mun Narrain, the Mhah Letchimy (a beautiful woman), and a Serpent, which are emblematical of strength, love, and wisdom. These persons, by the Hindoos, are supposed to be wholly indivisible. The one is three, and the three are one. In the beginning, they say that the Deity created three men to whom he gave the names of Brimha, Vystnou, and Sheevah. To the first was committed the power of creating mankind, to the second of cherishing them, and to the third that of restraining and correcting them.” The sacred persons who compose this Trinity arevery remarkable; for Sree Mun Narrain, as Mr. Forster writes the word, is Narayen, the supreme God; the beautiful woman is the Imma of the Hebrews; and the union of the sexes in the Divinity, is perfectly consonant with that ancient doctrine maintained in the Geeta, and propagated by Orpheus, that the Deity is both male and female.
Damascius, treating of the fecundity of the divine nature, cites Orpheus as teaching that the Deity was at once both male and female, to show the generative power by which all things were formed. Proclus upon the “Timæus of Plato,” among other Orphic verses, cites the following: “Jupiter is a man, Jupiter is also an immortal maid.” In the same commentary, and in the same page we read that all things were contained in the womb of Jupiter.
The serpent is the ancient and usual Egyptian symbol for the divine Logos.
M. Tavernier, on his entering one of the great pagodas, observed an idol in the centre of the building, sitting cross-legged in the Indian fashion, upon whose head was placedune triple couronne; and from this triple crown four horns extended themselves, the symbol of the rays of glory, denoting the Deity to whom the four quarters of the world were under subjection. According to the same author, in his account of the Benares pagoda, the deity of India is saluted by prostrating the body three times, and he is not only adorned with a triple crown, and worshipped by a triple salutation, but he bears in his hand a three-forked sceptre, exhibiting the exact model of the trident of the Greek Neptune.
Now here we must allude to some very remarkable discoveries respecting the Trident of Neptune and the use of a similar symbol of authority by the Indian gods.
Mr. Maurice points out that the unsatisfactory reasons given by mythologists for the assignment of the trident to the Grecian deity, exhibit very clear evidence of its being a symbol that was borrowed from some more ancient mythology, and did not naturally, or originally belong to Neptune. Its three points, ortines, some of them affirm to signify the different qualities of the three sorts of waters that are upon the earth, as the waters of the ocean, which are salt; the water of fountains, which is sweet; and the water of lakes and ponds, which, in a degree, partakes of the nature of both. Others, again, insist that this three-pronged sceptre alludes to Neptune’s threefold power over the sea, viz., toagitate, toassuage, and topreserve. These reasons are, all of them, in his estimation, mighty frivolous, and amount to a confession of their total ignorance of its real meaning.
The trident was, in the most ancient periods, the sceptre of the Indian deity, and may be seen in the hands of that deity in one of the plates (iv.) of M. d’Ancarville’s third volume, and among the sacred symbols sculptured in Elephanta cavern, as pictured by Niebuhr in his engravings of the Elephanta antiquities. “It was, indeed,” says Maurice, “highly proper, and strictly characteristic, that a threefold deity should wield a triple sceptre, and I have now a very curious circumstance to unfold to the reader, which I am enabled to do from the information of Mr. Hodges, relative to this mysterious emblem. The very ancient and venerable edifices of Deogur, which are in the form of immense pyramids, do not terminate at the summit in a pyramidal point, for the apex is cut off at about one seventh of what would be the entire height of the pyramid were it completed, and, from the centre of the top, there rises a circular cone, that ancient emblem of the sun. What is exceedingly singular to these cones is, that they are on their summits decorated with this very symbol, or usurped sceptre, of the Greek Ποσειδων.Thus was the outside of the building decorated and crowned, as it were, with a conspicuous emblem of the worship celebrated within, which from the antiquity of the structure, raised in the infancy of the empire after cavern-worship had ceased, was probably that of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva: for we have seen that Elephanta is, in fact, a temple to the Indian Triad, evidenced in the colossal sculpture that forms the principal figure of it, and excavated probably ere Brahma had fallen into neglect among those who still acknowledge him as the creative energy, or different sects had sprung up under the respective names of Vishnu and Siva. Understood with reference to the pure theology of India, such appears to me to be the meaning of this mistaken symbol; but a system of physical theology quickly succeeded to the pure; and the debased, but ingenious, progeny, who invented it, knew too well how to adapt the symbols and images of the true and false devotion. The three sublime hypostases of the true Trinity were degraded into three attributes; in physical causes the sacred mysteries of religion were attempted to be explained away; its doctrines were corrupted, and its emblems perverted. They went the absurd length of degrading a Creator (for such Brahma, in the Hindoo creed, confessedly is) to the rank of a created Dewtah, which has been shewn to be a glaring solecism in theology.
“The evident result then is, that, nothwithstanding all the corruption of the purer theology of the Brahmins, by the base alloy of human philosophy, under the perverted notion of three attributes, the Indians have immemorially worshipped a threefold Divinity, who, considered apart from their physical notions, is the Creator, the Preserver, and the Regenerator. We must again repeat that it would be in the highest degree absurd to continue to affix the name of Destroyer to the third hypostasis in their Triad, when it is notorious that the Brahmins deny thatanything can be destroyed, and insist that a change alone in the form of objects and their mode of existence takes place. One feature, therefore, in that character, hostile to our system, upon strict examination vanishes; and the other feature, which creates so much disgust and gives such an air of licentiousness to his character, is annihilated by the consideration of their deep immersion in philosophical speculations, of their incessant endeavours to account for the divine operations by natural causes, and to explain them by palpable and visible symbols.”
No image of the supreme Brahma himself is ever made; but in place of it his attributes are arranged, as in the temple of Gharipuri, thus:
Captain Wilford in the 10th vol. of theAsiatic Researcheswrites of Meru or Moriah, the hill of God, and he says:—“Polyænus calls Mount Meru or Merius, Tri-coryphus. It is true that he bestows improperly that epithet on Mount Meru, near Cabul, which is inadmissible. Meru, with its three peaks on the summit, and its seven steps, includes and encompasses really the whole world, according to the notions of the Hindus and other nations previously to their being acquainted with the globular shape of the earth.” Basnage, in his history of the Jews, says “there are seven earths, whereof one is higher than the other; for the Holy Land is situated upon the highest earth, and Mount Moriah (or Meru) is in the middle of that Holy Land. This is the hill of God so often mentioned in the Old Testament, the mount of the congregation where the mighty King sits in the sides of the north, according to Isaiah, and there is the city of our God. The Meru of the Hindoos has the name of Sabha, or the congregation, and the gods are seated upon it in the sides ofthe north. There is the holy city of Brahma-puri, where resides Brahma with his court in the most pure and holy land of Ilavratta.”
Thus Meru is the worldly temple of the Supreme Being in an embodied state, and of the Tri-Murtti or sacred Triad, which resides on its summit, either in a single or threefold temple, or rather in both: for it is all one, as they are one and three. They are three, only with regard to men who have emerged out of it they are but one: and their threefold temple and mountain, with its three peaks, become one equally. Mythologists in the west called the world, or Meru with his appendages, the temple of God, according to Macrobius. Hence this most sacred temple of the Supreme Being is generally typified by a cone or pyramid, with either a single chapel on its summit, or with three; either with or without steps.
This worldly temple is also considered by the followers of Buddha as the tomb of the son of the spirit of heaven. His bones, or limbs, were scattered all over the face of the earth, like those of Osiris and Jupiter Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his descendants and followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the remembrance of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious one, with all possible marks of grief and sorrow, till a priest came and announced that the sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of the bones of the son of the spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese, and some tribes in Tartary.
Hindu writers represent Narayana moving, as his name implies, on the waters, in the character of the first male, and the principle of all nature, which was wholly surrounded in the beginning by tamas, or darkness, the Chaos and primordial Night of the Greek mythologists, and, perhaps, the Thaumaz or Thamasof the ancient Egyptians; the Chaos is also called Pracriti, or crude Nature, and the male deity has the name of Purusha, from whom proceeded Sacti, or, the power of containing or conceiving; but that power in its first state was rather a tendency or aptitude, and lay dormant and inert until it was excited by the bija, or vivifying principle, of the plastic Iswara. This power, or aptitude, of nature is represented under the symbol of the yoni, or bhaga, while the animating principle is expressed by the linga: both are united by the creative power, Brahma; and the yoni has been called the navel of Vishnu—not identically, but nearly; for, though it is held in the Vedanta that the divine spirit penetrates or pervades all nature, and though the Sacti be considered as an emanation from that spirit, yet the emanation is never wholly detached from its source, and the penetration is never so perfect as to become a total union or identity. In another point of view Brahma corresponds with the Chronos, or Time of the Greek mythologists: for through him generations pass on successively, ages and periods are by him put in motion, terminated and renewed, while he dies and springs to birth alternately; his existence or energy continuing for a hundred of his years, during which he produces and devours all beings of less longevity. Vishnu represents water, or the humid principle; and Iswara fire, which recreates or destroys, as it is differently applied; Prithivi, or earth, and Ravi, or the sun, are severally trimurtis, or forms of the three great powers acting jointly and separately, but with different natures and energies, and by their mutual action excite and expand the rudiments of material substances. The word murti, or form, is exactly synonymous with είδωλα, of the supreme spirit, and Homer places the idol of Hercules in Elysium with other deceased heroes, though the God himself was at the same time enjoying bliss in the heavenly mansions. Such a murti, say the Hindus, can by no meansaffect with any sensation, either pleasing or painful, the being from which it emanated; though it may give pleasure or pain to collateral emanations from the same source; hence they offer no sacrifices to the supreme Essence, of which our own souls are images, but adore Him with silent meditation; while they make frequent homas or oblations to fire, and perform acts of worship to the sun, the stars, the earth, and the powers of nature, which they consider as murtis, or images, the same in kind with ourselves, but transcendently higher in degree. The moon is also a great object of their adoration; for, though they consider the sun and earth as the two grand agents in the system of the universe, yet they know their reciprocal action to be greatly affected by the influence of the lunar orb according to their several aspects, and seem even to have an idea of attraction through the whole extent of nature. This system was known to the ancient Egyptians; for according to Diodorus, their Vulcan, or elemental fire, was the great and powerful deity, whose influence contributed chiefly toward the generation and perfection of natural bodies; while the ocean, by which they meant water in a collective sense, afforded the nutriment that was necessary; and the earth was the vase, or capacious receptacle, in which this grand operation of nature was performed: hence Orpheus described the earth as the universal mother, and this is the true meaning of the Sanscrit word Amba.
Further information respecting the male and female forms of the Trimurti has been gathered as follows:—
Atropos (or Raudri), who is placed about the sun, is the beginning of generation; exactly like the destructive power, or Siva among the Hindus, and who is called the cause and the author of generation: Clotho, about the celestial moon, unites and mixes: the last, or Lachesis, is contiguous to the earth: but is greatly under the influence of chance. For whatever beingis destitute of a sensitive soul, does not exist of its own right; but must submit to the affections of another principle: for the rational soul is of its own right impassable, and is not obnoxious to affections from another quarter. The sensitive soul is a mediate and mixed being, like the moon, which is a compound of what is above and of what is below; and is to the sun in the same relation as the earth is to the moon. Major Wilford says:—“Well Pliny might say, with great truth, the refinements of the Druids were such, that one would be tempted to believe that those in the east had largely borrowed from them. This certainly surpasses everything of the kind I have ever read or heard in India.”
These three goddesses are obviously the Parcœ, or fates, of the western mythologists, which were three and one. This female tri-unity is really the Tri-murtti of the Hindus, who call it the Sacti, or energy of the male Tri-murtti, which in reality is the same thing. Though the male tri-unity be oftener mentioned, and better known among the unlearned than the other; yet the female one is always understood with the other, because the Trimurtti cannot act, but through its energy, or Sacti, which is of the feminine gender. The male Trimurtti was hardly known in the west, for Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune have no affinity with the Hindu Trimurtti, except their being three in number. The real Trimurtti of the Greeks and Latians consisted of Cronus, Jupiter and Mars, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. To these three gods were dedicated three altars in the upper part of the great circus at Rome. These are brothers in their Calpas; and Cronus or Brahma, who has no Calpa of his own, produces them, and of course may be considered as their father. Thus Brahma creates in general; but Vishnu in his own Calpa, assumes the character of Cronus or Brahma to create, and he is really Cronus or Brahma: he is then called Brahma-rupi Janardana,or Vishnu, the devourer of souls, with the countenance of Brahma: he is the preserver of his own character.
These three were probably the Tripatres of the western mythologists, called also Tritopatores, Tritogeneia, Tris-Endaimon, Trisolbioi, Trismacaristoi, and Propatores. The ancients were not well agreed who they were: some even said that they were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, the sons of Tellus and the sun. Others said that they were Amalcis, Protocles, and Protocless, the door-keepers and guardians of the minds. Their mystical origin probably belonged to the secret doctrine, which the Roman college, like the Druids, never committed to writing, and were forbidden to reveal. As the ancients swore by them, there can be little doubt but that they were the three great deities of their religion.
Disentangling the somewhat intricate and involved web of Indian mythology, and putting the matter as simply as possible, we may say the deities are only three, whose places are the earth, the intermediate region, and heaven, namely Fire, Air, and the Sun. They are pronounced to be deities of the mysterious names severally, and (Prajapati) the lord of creatures is the deity of them collectively. The syllable O’ru intends every deity: it belongs to (Paramasht’hi) him who dwells in the supreme abode; it pertains to (Brahma) the vast one; to (Deva) God; to (Ad’hyatma) the superintending soul. Other deities, belonging to those several regions, are portions of the three gods; for they are variously named and described on account of their different operations, but there is only one deity, the Great Soul (Mahanatma). He is called the Sun, for he is the soul of all beings. The Sun, the soul of (jagat) what moves, and of that which is fixed; other deities are portions of him.
The name given by the Indians to their Supreme Deity, or Monad, is Brahm; and notwithstanding the appearance ofmaterialism in all their sacred books, the Brahmins never admit that they uphold such a doctrine, but invest their deities with the highest attributes. He is represented as the Vast One, self-existing, invisible, eternal, imperceptible, the only deity, the great soul, the over-ruling soul, the soul of all beings, and of whom all other deities are but portions. To him no sacrifices were ever offered; but he was adored in silent meditation. He triplicates himself into three persons or powers, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer, or Reproducer; and is designated by the word Om or Aum by the respective letters of which sacred triliteral syllable are expressed the powers into which he triplicates himself.
The Metempsychosis and succession of similar worlds, alternately destroyed by flood and fire and reproduced, were doctrines universally received among the heathens: and by the Indians, the world, after the lapse of each predestined period of its existence, was thought to be destroyed by Siva. At each appointed time of its destruction, Vishnu ceases from his preserving care, and sleeps beneath the waters: but after the allotted period, from his navel springs forth a lotus to the surface, bearing Brahma in its cup, who reorganises the world, and when he has performed his work, retires, leaving to Vishnu its government and preservation; when all the same heroes and persons reappear, and similar events are again transacted, till the time arrives for another dissolution.
After the construction of the world by Brahma, the office of its preservation is assumed by Vishnu. His chief attribute is Wisdom: he is the Air, Water, Humidity in general, Space, and sometimes, though rarely, Earth: he is Time present, and the middle: and he is the Sun in the evening and at night. His colour is blue or blackish; his Vahan, the Eagle named Garuda;his allotted place, the Air or intermediate region, and he symbolises Unity. It is he who most commonly appears in the Avatars or Incarnations, of which nine in number are recorded as past: the most celebrated of which are his incarnations as Mateya or the Fish Rama, Krishna, and Buddha: the tenth of Kalki, or the Horse, is yet to come. It is from him that Brahma springs when he proceeds to his office of creation.
The destroying and regenerating power, Siva, Maha-deva, Iswara, or Routrem is regarded metaphysically as Justice, and physically as Fire or Heat, and sometimes Water. He is the Sun at noon: his colour is white, with a blue throat, but sometimes red; his Vahan is the bull, and his place of residence the heaven. As destruction in the material world is but change or production in another form, and was so held by almost all the heathen philosophers, we find that the peculiar emblems of Siva are, as we have already shown, the Trident, the symbol of destruction; and the Linga or Phallus, of regeneration.
The three deities were called Trimurtti, and in the caverns of Ellora they are united in a Triune bust. They are collectively symbolized by the triangle. Vishnu, as Humidity personified, is also represented by an inverted triangle, and Siva by a triangle erect, as a personification of Fire; while the Monad Brahm is represented by the circle as Eternity, and by a point as having neither length, nor breadth, as self-existing, and containing nothing. The Brahmans deny materialism; yet it is asserted by Mr. Wilford, that, when closely interrogated on the title of Deva or God, which their most sacred books give to the Sun, they avoid a direct answer, and often contradict themselves and one another. The supreme divinity of the Sun, however, is constantly asserted in their scriptures; and the holiest verse in the Vedas, which is called the Gayatri, is:—“Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the Godhead, who illuminates all,who recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understanding aright in our progress towards his holy seat.”
It has been said that in India is to be found the most ancient form of that Trinitarian worship which prevails in nearly every quarter of the known world. Be that as it may, it is not in India where the most remarkable phase of the worship is to be found; for that we turn to Egypt. Here we meet with the strange fact that no two cities worshipped the same triad. “The one remarkable feature in nearly all these triads is that they are father, mother, and son; that is, male and female principles of nature, with their product.”
Mariette Bey says:—“According to places, the attributes by which the Divine Personage is surrounded are modified; but in each temple the triad would appear as a symbol destined to affirm the eternity of being. In all triads, the principal god gives birth to himself. Considered as a Father, he remains the great god adored in temples. Considered as a Son, he becomes, by a sort of doubling, the third person of the triad. But the Father and the Son are not less the one god, while, being double, the first is the eternal god; the second is but the living symbol destined to affirm the strength of the other. The father engenders himself in the womb of the mother, and thus becomes at once his own father and his own son. Thereby are expressed the uncreatedness and the eternity of the being who has had no beginning, and who shall have no end.”
Generally speaking, the gods of Egypt were grouped in sets of three, each city having its own Trinity. Thus in Memphis we find Ptah, Pasht and Month; in Thebes, Amun-Ra, Athor and Chonso; in Ethiopia, Noum, Sate and Anucis; in Hermonthis, Monthra, Reto and Harphre; in Lower Egypt, Seb, Netphe and Osiris; in Thinnis, Osiris, Isis and Anhur; in Abousimbel andDerr, Ptah, Amun-Ra and Horus-Ra; in Esné, Neph, Neboo and Haké; in Dabad, Seb, Netpe and Mandosti; in Ambos, Savak, Athor and Khonso; in Edfou, Horket, Hathor and Horsenedto. The trinity common throughout the land is that of Osiris, Isis and Horus.
Dr. Cudworth translates Jamblichus as follows, quoting from the Egyptian Hermetic Books in defining the Egyptian Trinity:—“Hermes places the god Emeph as the prince and ruler over all the celestial gods, whom he affirmeth to be a Mind understanding himself, and converting his cogitations or intellections into himself. Before which Emeph he placeth one indivisible, whom he calleth Eicton, in which is the first intelligible, and which is worshipped only by silence. After which two, Eicton and Emeph, the demiurgic mind and president of truth, as with wisdom it proceedeth to generations, and bringeth forth the hidden powers of the occult reasons with light, is called in the Egyptian language Ammon: as it artificially affects all things with truth, Phtha; as it is productive of good, Osiris; besides other names that it hath according to its other powers and energies.” Upon this, Dr. Cudworth remarks:—“How well these three divine hypostases of the Egyptians agree with the Pythagoric or Platonic Trinity of,—first, Unity and Goodness itself; secondly, Mind; and, thirdly, Soul,—I need not here declare. Only we shall call to mind what hath been already intimated, that Reason or Wisdom, which was the Demiurgus of the world, and is properly the second of the fore-mentioned hypostases, was called also, among the Egyptians by another name, Cneph; from whom was said to have been produced or begotten the God Phtha, the third hypostasis of the Egyptian Trinity; so that Cneph and Emeph are all one. Wherefore, we have here plainly an Egyptian Trinity of divine hypostases subordinate, Eicton, Emeph or Cneph, and Phtha.”
Mr. Sharpe, in his Egyptian Inscriptions, mentions the fact that there is in the British Museum a hieroglyphical inscription as early as the reign of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian Era, showing that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity already formed part of their religion, and stating that in each of the two groups, Isis, Nephthis and Osiris, and Osiris, Isis, and Horus, the three gods made only one person. Also that the sculptured figures on the lid of the sarcophagus of Rameses III., now at Cambridge, show us the King, not only as one of a group of three gods, but also as a Trinity in Unity in his own person. “He stands between the goddesses, Isis and Nepthys, who embrace him as if he were the lost Osiris, whom they have now found again. We further know him to be in the character of Osiris by the two sceptres which he holds; but at the same time the horns upon his head are those of the goddess Athor, and the ball and feathers above are the ornaments of the god Ra.”
Nearly all writers describe the Egyptian Trinity as consisting of thegenerative, thedestructive, and thepreservingpowers. Isis answers to Siva. Iswara, or Lord, is the epithet of Siva. Osiris, or Ysiris, as Hellanicus wrote the Egyptian name, was the God at whose birth a voice was heard to declare, “that the Lord of all nature sprang forth to light.”
A peculiar feature in the ancient trinities is the way in which the worship of the first person is lost or absorbed in the second, few or no temples being found dedicated to Brahma. Something very much like this often occurs among Christians; we are surrounded by churches dedicated to the second and third persons in the trinity, and to saints, and to the Mother of Christ, but none to the Father.
It has been noticed that while we find inscribed upon the monuments of Egypt a vast multitude of gods, as in India,the number diminishes as we ascend. Amun Ra alone is found dedicated upon the oldest monuments, in three distinct forms, into one or other of whose characters all the other divinities may be resolved. Amun was the chief god, the sacred name, corresponding with the Aum of the Indians, also, probably, the Egyptian On. According to Mr. Wilkinson, the Egyptians held Kneph, Neph, Nef, or Chnoubus, “as the idea of the Spirit of God which moved upon the face of the waters.” He was the Spirit, animating and perpetuating the world, and penetrating all its parts; the same with the Agathodæmon of the Phœnicians, and like him, was symbolized by the snake, an emblem of the Spirit which pervades the universe. He was commonly represented with a Ram’s head; and though the colour of the Egyptian divinities is perhaps more commonly green than any other, he is as frequently depicted blue. He was the god of the Nile, which is indirectly confirmed by Pindar; and by Ptolemy, who says that the Egyptians gave the name of Agathodæmon to the western, or Heracleotic branch. From his mouth proceeded the Mundane egg, from which sprung Phtah, the creative power. Mr. Wilkinson proceeds:—“Having separated the Spirit from the Creator, and purposing to act apart and defy each attribute, which presented itself to their imagination, they found it necessary to form another deity from the creative power, whom they call Phtah, proceeding from the former, and thence deemed the son of Kneph. Some difference was observed between the power, which created the world, and that which caused and ruled over the generation of man, and continued to promote the continuation of the human species. This latter attribute of the divinity was deified under the appellation Khem. Thus was the supreme deity known by the three distinct names of,