* These are the real types of the Christian Trinity.
"It is thus that God, after having been, First, The visible and various action of the meteors and the elements;
"Secondly, The combined powers of the stars, considered in their relations to terrestrial beings;
Thirdly, These terrestrial beings themselves, by confounding the symbols with their archetypes;
Fourthly, The double power of nature in its two principal operations of producing and destroying;
"Fifthly, The animated world, with distinction of agent and patient, of effect and cause;
"Sixthly, The solar principle, or the element of fire considered as the only mover;
"Has thus become, finally, in the last resort, a chimerical and abstract being, a scholastic subtilty, of substance without form, a body without a figure, a very delirium of the mind, beyond the power of reason to comprehend. But vainly does it seek in this last transformation to elude the senses; the seal of its origin is imprinted upon it too deep to be effaced; and its attributes, all borrowed from the physical attributes of the universe, such as immensity, eternity, indivisibility, incomprehensibility; or on the moral affections of man, such as goodness, justice, majesty; its names* even, all derived from the physical beings which were its types, and especially from the sun, from the planets, and from the world, constantly bring to mind, in spite of its corrupters, indelible marks of its real nature.
* In our last analysis we found all the names of the Deityto be derived from some material object in which it wassupposed to reside. We have given a considerable number ofinstances; let us add one more relative to our word God.This is known to be the Deus of the Latins, and the Theos ofthe Greeks. Now by the confession of Plato (in Cratylo), ofMacrobius (Saturn, lib. 1, c. 24,) and of Plutarch (Isis andOsiris) its root is thein, which signifies to wander, likeplanein, that is to say, it is synonymous with planets;because, add our authors, both the ancient Greeks andBarbarians particularly worshipped the planets. I know thatsuch enquiries into etymologies have been much decried: butif, as is the case, words are the representative signs ofideas, the genealogy of the one becomes that of the other,and a good etymological dictionary would be the most perfecthistory of the human understanding. It would only benecessary in this enquiry to observe certain precautions,which have hitherto been neglected, and particularly to makean exact comparison of the value of the letters of thedifferent alphabets. But, to continue our subject, we shalladd, that in the Phoenician language, the word thah (withain) signifies also to wander, and appears to be thederivation of thein. If we suppose Deus to be derived fromthe Greek Zeus, a proper name of You-piter, having zaw, Ilive, for its root, its sense will be precisely that of you,and will mean soul of the world, igneous principle. (Seenote p. 143). Div-us, which only signifies Genius, God ofthe second order, appears to me to come from the orientalword div substituted for dib, wolf and chacal, one of theemblems of the sun. At Thebes, says Macrobius, the sun waspainted under the form of a wolf or chacal, for there are nowolves in Egypt. The reason of this emblem, doubtless, isthat the chacal, like the cock announces by its cries thesun's rising; and this reason is confirmed by the analogy ofthe words lykos, wolf, and lyke, light of the morning,whence comes lux.Dius, which is to be understood also of the sun, must bederived from dih, a hawk. "The Egyptians," says Porphyry(Euseb. Proecep. Evang. p. 92,) "represent the sun under theemblem of a hawk, because this bird soars to the highestregions of air where light abounds." And in reality wecontinually see at Cairo large flights of these birds,hovering in the air, from whence they descend not but tostun us with their shrieks, which are like the monosyllabledih: and here, as in the preceding example, we find ananalogy between the word dies, day, light, and dius, god,sun.
"Such is the chain of ideas which the human mind had already run through at an epoch previous to the records of history; and since their continuity proves that they were the produce of the same series of studies and labors, we have every reason to place their origin in Egypt, the cradle of their first elements. This progress there may have been rapid; because the physical priests had no other food, in the retirement of the temples, but the enigma of the universe, always present to their minds; and because in the political districts into which that country was for a long time divided, every state had its college of priests, who, being by turns auxiliaries or rivals, hastened by their disputes the progress of science and discovery.*
* One of the proofs that all these systems were invented inEgypt, is that this is the only country where we see acomplete body of doctrine formed from the remotestantiquity.Clemens Alexandrinus has transmitted to us (Stromat. lib.6,) a curious detail of the forty-two volumes which wereborne in the procession of Isis. "The priest," says he, "orchanter, carries one of the symbolic instruments of music,and two of the books of Mercury; one containing hymns of thegods, the other the list of kings. Next to him thehoroscope (the regulator of time,) carries a palm and adial, symbols of astrology; he must know by heart the fourbooks of Mercury which treat of astrology: the first on theorder of the planets, the second on the risings of the sunand moon, and the two last on the rising and aspect of thestars. Then comes the sacred author, with feathers on hishead (like Kneph) and a book in his hand, together with ink,and a reed to write with, (as is still the practice amongthe Arabs). He must be versed in hieroglyphics, mustunderstand the description of the universe, the course ofthe sun, moon, stars, and planets, be acquainted with thedivision of Egypt into thirty-six nomes, with the course ofthe Nile, with instruments, measures, sacred ornaments, andsacred places. Next comes the stole bearer, who carries thecubit of justice, or measure of the Nile, and a cup for thelibations; he bears also in the procession ten volumes onthe subject of sacrifices, hymns, prayers, offerings,ceremonies, festivals. Lastly arrives the prophet, bearingin his bosom a pitcher, so as to be exposed to view; he isfollowed by persons carrying bread (as at the marriage ofCana.) This prophet, as president of the mysteries, learnsten other sacred volumes, which treat of the laws, the gods,and the discipline of the priests. Now there are in allforty-two volumes, thirty-six of which are studied and gotby heart by these personages, and the remaining six are setapart to be consulted by the pastophores; they treat ofmedicine, the construction of the human body (anatomy),diseases, remedies, instruments, etc., etc."We leave the reader to deduce all the consequences of anEncyclopedia. It is ascribed to Mercury; but Jamblicustells us that each book, composed by priests, was dedicatedto that god, who, on account of his title of genius or decanopening the zodiac, presided over every enterprise. He isthe Janus of the Romans, and the Guianesa of the Indians,and it is remarkable that Yanus and Guianes are homonymous.In short it appears that these books are the source of allthat has been transmitted to us by the Greeks and Latins inevery science, even in alchymy, necromancy, etc. What ismost to be regretted in their loss is that part whichrelated to the principles of medicine and diet, in which theEgyptians appear to have made a considerable progress, andto have delivered many useful observations.
"There happened early on the borders of the Nile, what has since been repeated in every country; as soon as a new system was formed its novelty excited quarrels and schisms; then, gaining credit by persecution itself, sometimes it effaced antecedent ideas, sometimes it modified and incorporated them; then, by the intervention of political revolutions, the aggregation of states and the mixture of nations confused all opinions; and the filiation of ideas being lost, theology fell into a chaos, and became a mere logogriph of old traditions no longer understood. Religion, having strayed from its object was now nothing more than a political engine to conduct the credulous vulgar; and it was used for this purpose, sometimes by men credulous themselves and dupes of their own visions, and sometimes by bold and energetic spirits in pursuit of great objects of ambition.
IX. Religion of Moses, or Worship of the Soul of the World (You-piter).
"Such was the legislator of the Hebrews; who, wishing to separate his nation from all others, and to form a distinct and solitary empire, conceived the design of establishing its basis on religious prejudices, and of raising around it a sacred rampart of opinions and of rites. But in vain did he prescribe the worship of the symbols which prevailed in lower Egypt and in Phoenicia;* for his god was nevertheless an Egyptian god, invented by those priests of whom Moses had been the disciple; and Yahouh,** betrayed by its very name, essence (of beings), and by its symbol, the burning bush, is only the soul of the world, the moving principle which the Greeks soon after adopted under the same denomination in their you-piter, regenerating being, and under that of Ei, existence,*** which the Thebans consecrated by the name of Kneph, which Sais worshipped under the emblem of Isis veiled, with this inscription: I am al that has been, all that is, and all that is to come, and no mortal has raised my veil; which Pythagoras honored under the name of Vesta, and which the stoic philosophy defined precisely by calling it the principle of fire. In vain did Moses wish to blot from his religion every thing which had relation to the stars; many traits call them to mind in spite of all he has done. The seven planetary luminaries of the great candlestick; the twelve stones, or signs in the Urim of the high priests; the feast of the two equinoxes, (entrances and gates of the two hemispheres); the ceremony of the lamb, (the celestial ram then in his fifteenth degree); lastly, the name even of Osiris preserved in his song,**** and the ark, or coffer, an imitation of the tomb in which that God was laid, all remain as so many witnesses of the filiation of his ideas, and of their extraction from the common source.
* "At a certain period," says Plutarch (de Iside) "all theEgyptians have their animal gods painted. The Thebans arethe only people who do not employ painters, because theyworship a god whose form comes not under the senses, andcannot be represented." And this is the god whom Moses,educated at Heliopolis, adopted; but the idea was not of hisinvention.** Such is the true pronunciation of the Jehovah of themoderns, who violate, in this respect, every rule ofcriticism; since it is evident that the ancients,particularly the eastern Syrians and Phoenicians, wereacquainted neither with the J nor the P which are of Tartarorigin. The subsisting usage of the Arabs, which we havere-established here, is confirmed by Diodorus, who calls thegod of Moses Iaw, (lib. 1), and Iaw and Yahouh aremanifestly the same word: the identity continues in that ofYou-piter; but in order to render it more complete, we shalldemonstrate the signification to be the same.In Hebrew, that is to say, in one of the dialects of thecommon language of lower Asia, Yahouh is the participle ofthe verb hih, to exist, to be, and signifies existing: inother words, the principle of life, the mover or even motion(the universal soul of beings). Now what is Jupiter? Letus hear the Greeks and Latins explain their theology. "TheEgyptians," says Diodorus, after Manatho, priest of Memphis,"in giving names to the five elements, called spirit, orether, You-piter, on account of the true meaning of thatword: for spirit is the source of life, author of the vitalprinciple in animals; and for this reason they consideredhim as the father, the generator of beings." For the samereason Homer says, father, and king of men and gods. (Diod.lib. 1, sect 1)."Theologians," says Macrobius, "consider You-piter as thesoul of the world." Hence the words of Virgil: " Muses letus begin with You-piter; the world is full of You-piter."(Somn. Scrip., ch. 17). And in the Saturnalia, he says,"Jupiter is the sun himself." It was this also which madeVirgil say, "The spirit nourishes the life (of beings), andthe soul diffused through the vast members (of theuniverse), agitates the whole mass, and forms but oneimmense body.""Ioupiter," says the ancient verses of the Orphic sect,which originated in Egypt; verses collected by Onomacritusin the days of Pisistratus, "Ioupiter, represented with thethunder in his hand, is the beginning, origin, end, andmiddle of all things: a single and universal power, hegoverns every thing; heaven, earth, fire, water, theelements, day, and night. These are what constitute hisimmense body: his eyes are the sun and moon: he is space andeternity: in fine," adds Porphyry. "Jupiter is the world,the universe, that which constitutes the essence and life ofall beings. Now," continues the same author, "asphilosophers differed in opinion respecting the nature andconstituent parts of this god, and as they could invent nofigure that should represent all his attributes, theypainted him in the form of a man. He is in a sittingposture, in allusion to his immutable essence; the upperpart of his body is uncovered, because it is in the upperregions of the universe (the stars) that he mostconspicuously displays himself. He is covered from thewaist downwards, because respecting terrestrial things he ismore secret and concealed. He holds a scepter in his lefthand, because on the left side is the heart, and the heartis the seat of the understanding, which, (in human beings)regulates every action." Euseb. Proeper. Evang., p 100.The following passage of the geographer and philosopher,Strabo, removes every doubt as to the identity of the ideasof Moses and those of the heathen theologians."Moses, who was one of the Egyptian priests, taught hisfollowers that it was an egregious error to represent theDeity under the form of animals, as the Egyptians did, or inthe shape of man, as was the practice of the Greeks andAfricans. That alone is the Deity, said he, whichconstitutes heaven, earth, and every living thing; thatwhich we call the world, the sum of all things, nature; andno reasonable person will think of representing such a beingby the image of any one of the objects around us. It is forthis reason, that, rejecting every species of images oridols, Moses wished the Deity to be worshipped withoutemblems, and according to his proper nature; and heaccordingly ordered a temple worthy of him to be erected,etc. Geograph. lib. 16, p. 1104, edition of 1707.The theology of Moses has, then, differed in no respect fromthat of his followers, that is to say, from that of theStoics and Epicureans, who consider the Deity as the soul ofthe world. This philosophy appears to have taken birth, orto have been disseminated when Abraham came into Egypt (200years before Moses), since he quitted his system of idolsfor that of the god Yahouh; so that we may place itspromulgation about the seventeenth or eighteenth centurybefore Christ; which corresponds with what we have saidbefore.As to the history of Moses, Diodorus properly represents itwhen he says, lib. 34 and 40, "That the Jews were driven outof Egypt at a time of dearth, when the country was full offoreigners, and that Moses, a man of extraordinary prudenceseized this opportunity of establishing his religion in themountains of Judea." It will seem paradoxical to assert,that the 600,000 armed men whom he conducted thither oughtto be reduced to 6,000; but I can confirm the assertion byso many proofs drawn from the books themselves, that it willbe necessary to correct an error which appears to havearisen from the mistake of the transcribers.*** This was the monosyllable written on the gates of thetemple of Delphos. Plutarch has made it the subject of adissertation.**** These are the literal expressions of the book ofDeuteronomy, chap. XXXII. "The works of Tsour are perfect."Now Tsour has been translated by the word creator; itsproper signification is to give forms, and this is one ofthe definitions of Osiris in Plutarch.
X. Religion of Zoroaster.
"Such also was Zoroaster; who, five centuries after Moses, and in the time of David, revived and moralized among the Medes and Bactrians, the whole Egyptian system of Osiris and Typhon, under the names Ormuzd and Ahrimanes; who called the reign of summer, virtue and good; the reign of winter, sin and evil; the renewal of nature in spring, creation of the world; the conjunction of the spheres at secular periods, resurrection; and the Tartarus and Elysium of the astrologers and geographers were named future life, hell and paradise. In a word, he did nothing but consecrate the existing dreams of the mystical system.
XI. Budsoism, or Religion of the Samaneans.
"Such again are the propagators of the dismal doctrine of the Samaneans; who, on the basis of the Metempsychosis, have erected the misanthropic system of self-denial, and of privations; who, laying it down as a principle that the body is only a prison where the soul lives in an impure confinement, that life is only a dream, an illusion, and the world only a passage to another country, to a life without end, placed virtue and perfection in absolute immobility, in the destruction of all sentiment, in the abnegation of physical organs, in the annihilation of all our being; whence resulted fasts, penances, macerations, solitude, contemplations, and all the practices of the deplorable delirium of the Anchorites.
XII. Brahmism, or Indian System.
"And such, too, were the founders of the Indian System; who, refining after Zoroaster on the two principles of creation and destruction, introduced an intermediary principle, that of preservation, and on their trinity in unity, of Brama, Chiven, and Vichenou, accumulated the allegories of their ancient traditions, and the alembicated subtilities of their metaphysics.
"These are the materials which existed in a scattered state for many centuries in Asia; when a fortuitous concourse of events and circumstances, on the borders of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, served to form them into new combinations.
XIII. Christianity, or the Allegorical Worship of the Sun, under the cabalistical names of Chrish-en, or Christ, and Ye-sus or Jesus.
"In constituting a separate nation, Moses strove in vain to defend it against the invasion of foreign ideas. An invisible inclination, founded on the affinity of their origin, had constantly brought back the Hebrews towards the worship of the neighboring nations; and the commercial and political relations which necessarily existed between them, strengthened this propensity from day to day. As long as the constitution of the state remained entire, the coercive force of the government and the laws opposed these innovations, and retarded their progress; nevertheless the high places were full of idols; and the god Sun had his chariot and horses painted in the palaces of the kings, and even in the temples of Yahouh; but when the conquests of the sultans of Nineveh and Babylon had dissolved the bands of civil power, the people, left to themselves and solicited by their conquerors, restrained no longer their inclination for profane opinions, and they were publicly established in Judea. First, the Assyrian colonies, which came and occupied the lands of the tribes, filled the kingdom of Samaria with dogmas of the Magi, which very soon penetrated into the kingdom of Judea. Afterwards, Jerusalem being subjugated, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Arabs, entering this defenceless country, introduced their opinions; and the religion of Moses was doubly mutilated. Besides the priests and great men, being transported to Babylon and educated in the sciences of the Chaldeans, imbibed, during a residence of seventy years, the whole of their theology; and from that moment the dogmas of the hostile Genius (Satan), the archangel Michael,* the ancient of days (Ormuzd), the rebel angels, the battles in heaven, the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection, all unknown to Moses, or rejected by his total silence respecting them, were introduced and naturalized among the Jews.
* "The names of the angels and of the months, such asGabriel, Michael, Yar, Nisan, etc., came from Babylon withthe Jews:" says expressly the Talmud of Jerusalem. SeeBeousob. Hist. du Manich. Vol. II, p. 624, where he provesthat the saints of the Almanac are an imitation of the 365angels of the Persians; and Jamblicus in his EgyptianMysteries, sect. 2, c. 3, speaks of angels, archangels,seraphims, etc., like a true Christian.
"The emigrants returned to their country with these ideas; and their innovation at first excited disputes between their partisans the Pharisees, and their opponents the Saducees, who maintained the ancient national worship; but the former, aided by the propensities of the people and their habits already contracted, and supported by the Persians, their deliverers and masters, gained the ascendant over the latter; and the Sons of Moses consecrated the theology of Zoroaster.*
* "The whole philosophy of the gymnosophists," says DiogenesLaertius on the authority of an ancient writer, "is derivedfrom that of the Magi, and many assert that of the Jews tohave the same origin." Lib. 1. c. 9. Megasthenes, anhistorian of repute in the days of Seleucus Nicanor, and whowrote particularly upon India, speaking of the philosophy ofthe ancients respecting natural things, puts the Brachmansand the Jews precisely on the same footing.
"A fortuitous analogy between two leading ideas was highly favorable to this coalition, and became the basis of a last system, not less surprising in the fortune it has had in the world, than in the causes of its formation.
"After the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of Samaria, some judicious men foresaw the same destiny for Jerusalem, which they did not fail to predict and publish; and their predictions had the particular turn of being terminated by prayers for a re-establishment and regeneration, uttered in the form of prophecies. The Hierophants, in their enthusiasm, had painted a king as a deliverer, who was to re-establish the nation in its ancient glory; the Hebrews were to become once more a powerful, a conquering nation, and Jerusalem the capital of an empire extended over the whole earth.
"Events having realized the first part of these predictions, the ruin of Jerusalem, the people adhered to the second with a firmness of belief in proportion to their misfortunes; and the afflicted Jews expected, with the impatience of want and desire, this victorious king and deliverer, who was to come and save the nation of Moses, and restore the empire of David.
"On the other hand, the sacred and mythological traditions of preceding times had spread through all Asia a dogma perfectly analogous. The cry there was a great mediator, a final judge, a future saviour, a king, god, conqueror and legislator, who was to restore the golden age upon earth,* to deliver it from the dominion of evil, and restore men to the empire of good, peace, and happiness. The people seized and cherished these ideas with so much the more avidity, as they found in them a consolation under that deplorable state of suffering into which they had been plunged by the devastations of successive conquests, and the barbarous despotism of their governments. This conformity between the oracles of different nations, and those of the prophets, excited the attention of the Jews; and doubtless the prophets had the art to compose their descriptions after the style and genius of the sacred books employed in the Pagan mysteries. There was therefore a general expectation in Judea of a great ambassador, a final Saviour; when a singular circumstance determined the epoch of his coming.
* This is the reason of the application of the many Paganoracles to Jesus, and particularly the fourth eclogue ofVirgil, and the Sybilline verses so celebrated among theancients.
"It is found in the sacred books of the Persians and Chaldeans, that the world, composed of a total revolution of twelve thousand, was divided into two partial revolutions; one of which, the age and reign of good, terminated in six thousand; the other, the age and reign of evil, was to terminate in six thousand more.
"By these records, the first authors had understood the annual revolution of the great celestial orb called the world, (a revolution composed of twelve months or signs, divided each into a thousand parts), and the two systematic periods, of winter and summer, composed each of six thousand. These expressions, wholly equivocal and badly explained, having received an absolute and moral, instead of a physical and astrological sense, it happened that the annual world was taken for the secular world, the thousand of the zodiacal divisions, for a thousand of years; and supposing, from the state of things, that they lived in the age of evil, they inferred that it would end with the six thousand pretended years.*
* We have already seen this tradition current among theTuscans; it was disseminated through most nations, and showsus what we ought to think of all the pretended creations andterminations of the world, which are merely the beginningsand endings of astronomical periods invented by astrologers.That of the year or solar revolution, being the most simpleand perceptible, served as a model to the rest, and itscomparison gave rise to the most whimsical ideas. Of thisdescription is the idea of the four ages of the world amongthe Indians. Originally these four ages were merely thefour seasons; and as each season was under the supposedinfluence of a planet, it bore the name of the metalappropriated to that planet; thus spring was the age of thesun, or of gold; summer the age of the moon, or of silver;autumn the age of Venus, or of brass; and winter the age ofMars, or of iron. Afterwards when astronomers invented thegreat year of 25 and 36 thousand common years, which had forits object the bringing back all the stars to one point ofdeparture and a general conjunction, the ambiguity of theterms introduced a similar ambiguity of ideas; and themyriads of celestial signs and periods of duration whichwere thus measured were easily converted into so manyrevolutions of the sun. Thus the different periods ofcreation which have been so great a source of difficulty andmisapprehension to curious enquirers, were in realitynothing more than hypothetical calculations of astronomicalperiods. In the same manner the creation of the world hasbeen attributed to different seasons of the year, just asthese different seasons have served for the fictitiousperiod of these conjunctions; and of consequence has beenadopted by different nations for the commencement of anordinary year. Among the Egyptians this period fell uponthe summer solstice, which was the commencement of theiryear; and the departure of the spheres, according to theirconjectures, fell in like manner upon the period when thesun enters cancer. Among the Persians the year commenced atfirst in the spring, or when the sun enters Aries; and fromthence the first Christians were led to suppose that Godcreated the world in the spring: this opinion is alsofavored by the book of Genesis; and it is fartherremarkable, that the world is not there said to be createdby the God of Moses (Yahouh), but by the Elohim or gods inthe plural, that is by the angels or genii, for so the wordconstantly means in the Hebrew books. If we farther observethat the root of the word Elohim signifies strong orpowerful, and that the Egyptians called their decans strongand powerful leaders, attributing to them the creation ofthe world, we shall presently perceive that the book ofGenesis affirms neither more nor less than that the worldwas created by the decans, by those very genii whom,according to Sanchoniathon, Mercury excited against Saturn,and who were called Elohim. It may be farther asked why theplural substantive Elohim is made to agree with the singularverb bara (the Elohim creates). The reason is that after theBabylonish captivity the unity of the Supreme Being was theprevailing opinion of the Jews; it was therefore thoughtproper to introduce a pious solecism in language, which itis evident had no existence before Moses; thus in the namesof the children of Jacob many of them are compounded of aplural verb, to which Elohim is the nominative caseunderstood, as Raouben (Reuben), they have looked upon me,and Samaonni (Simeon), they have granted me my prayer; towit, the Elohim. The reason of this etymology is to befound in the religious creeds of the wives of Jacob, whosegods were the taraphim of Laban, that is, the angels of thePersians, and Egyptian decans.
"Now, according to calculations admitted by the Jews, they began to reckon near six thousand years since the supposed creation of the world.* This coincidence caused a fermentation in the public mind. Nothing was thought of but the approaching end. They consulted the hierophants and the mystical books, which differed as to the term; the great mediator, the final judge, was expected and desired, to put an end to so many calamities. This being was so much spoken of, that some person finally was said to have seen him; and a first rumor of this sort was sufficient to establish a general certainty. Popular report became an established fact: the imaginary being was realized; and all the circumstances of mythological tradition, being assembled around this phantom, produced a regular history, of which it was no longer permitted to doubt.
* According to the computation of the Seventy, the periodelapsed consisted of about 5,600 years, and this computationwas principally followed. It is well known how much, in thefirst ages of the church, this opinion of the end of theworld agitated the minds of men. In the sequel, the generalcouncils encouraged by finding that the generalconflagration did not come, pronounced the expectation thatprevailed heretical, and its believers were calledMillenarians; a circumstance curious enough, since it isevident from the history of the gospels that Jesus Christwas a Millenarian, and of consequence a heretic.
"These mythological traditions recounted that, in the beginning, a woman and a man had by their fall introduced sin and misery into the world. (Consult plate of the Astrological Heaven of the Ancients.)
"By this was denoted the astronomical fact, that the celestial virgin and the herdsman (Bootes), by setting heliacally at the autumnal equinox, delivered the world to the wintry constellations, and seemed, on falling below the horizon, to introduce into the world the genius of evil, Ahrimanes, represented by the constellation of the Serpent.*
* "The Persians," says Chardin, "call the constellation ofthe serpent Ophiucus, serpent of Eve: and this serpentOphiucas or Ophioneus plays a similar part in the theologyof the Phoenicians," for Pherecydes, their disciple and themaster of Pythagoras, said "that Ophioneus Serpentinus hadbeen chief of the rebels against Jupiter." See Mars. Ficin.Apol. Socrat. p. m. 797, col. 2. I shall add that ephah(with ain) signifies in Hebrew, serpent.
These traditions related that the woman had decoyed and seduced the man.*
* In a physical sense to seduce, seducere, means only toattract, to draw after us.
"And in fact, the virgin, setting first, seems to draw the herdsman after her.
"That the woman tempted him by offering him fruit fair to the sight and good to eat, which gave the knowledge of good and evil.
"And in fact, the Virgin holds in her hand a branch of fruit, which she seems to offer to the Herdsman; and the branch, emblem of autumn, placed in the picture of Mithra* between winter and summer, seems to open the door and give knowledge, the key of good and evil.
* See this picture in Hyde, page 111, edition of 1760.
That this couple had been driven from the celestial garden, and that a cherub with a flaming sword had been placed at the gate to guard it.
"And in fact, when the virgin and the herdsman fall beneath the horizon, Perseus rises on the other side;* and this Genius, with a sword in his hand, seems to drive them from the summer heaven, the garden and dominion of fruits and flowers.
* Rather the head of Medusa; that head of a woman once sobeautiful, which Perseus cut off and which beholds in hishand, is only that of the virgin, whose head sinks below thehorizon at the very moment that Perseus rises; and theserpents which surround it are Orphiucus and the PolarDragon, who then occupy the zenith. This shows us in whatmanner the ancients composed all their figures and fables.They took such constellations as they found at the same timeon the circle of the horizon, and collecting the differentparts, they formed groups which served them as an almanac inhieroglyphic characters. Such is the secret of all theirpictures, and the solution of all their mythologicalmonsters. The virgin is also Andromeda, delivered byPerseus from the whale that pursues her (pro-sequitor).
That of this virgin should be born, spring up, an offspring, a child, who should bruise the head of the serpent, and deliver the world from sin.
"This denotes the son, which, at the moment of the winter solstice, precisely when the Persian Magi drew the horoscope of the new year, was placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the eastern horizon; on this account he was figured in their astrological pictures under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin,* and became afterwards, at the vernal equinox, the ram, or the lamb, triumphant over the constellation of the Serpent, which disappeared from the skies.
* Such was the picture of the Persian sphere, cited by AbenEzra in the Coelam Poeticum of Blaeu, p. 71. "The pictureof the first decan of the Virgin," says that writer."represents a beautiful virgin with flowing hair; sitting ina chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling aninfant, called Jesus by some nations, and Christ in Greek."In the library of the king of France is a manuscript inArabic, marked 1165, in which is a picture of the twelvesigns; and that of the Virgin represents a young woman withan infant by her side: the whole scene indeed of the birthof Jesus is to be found in the adjacent part of the heavens.The stable is the constellation of the charioteer and thegoat, formerly Capricorn: a constellation called proesepeJovis Heniochi, stable of Iou; and the word Iou is found inthe name Iou-seph (Joseph). At no great distance is the assof Typhon (the great she-bear), and the ox or bull, theancient attendants of the manger. Peter the porter, isJanus with his keys and bald forehead: the twelve apostlesare the genii of the twelve months, etc. This Virgin hasacted very different parts in the various systems ofmythology: she has been the Isis of the Egyptians, who saidof her in one of their inscriptions cited by Julian, thefruit I have brought forth is the sun. The majority oftraits drawn by Plutarch apply to her, in the same manner asthose of Osiris apply to Bootes: also the seven principalstars of the she-bear, called David's chariot, were calledthe chariot of Osiris (See Kirker); and the crown that issituated behind, formed of ivy, was called Chen-Osiris, thetree of Osiris. The Virgin has likewise been Ceres, whosemysteries were the same with those of Isis and Mithra; shehas been the Diana of the Ephesians; the great goddess ofSyria, Cybele, drawn by lions; Minerva, the mother ofBacchus; Astraea, a chaste virgin taken up into heaven atthe end of a golden age; Themis at whose feet is the balancethat was put in her hands; the Sybil of Virgil, who descendsinto hell, or sinks below the hemisphere with a branch inher hand, etc.
That, in his infancy, this restorer of divine and celestial nature would live abased, humble, obscure and indigent.
"And this, because the winter sun is abased below the horizon; and that this first period of his four ages or seasons, is a time of obscurity, scarcity, fasting, and want.
"That, being put to death by the wicked, he had risen gloriously; that he had reascended from hell to heaven, where he would reign forever
"This is a sketch of the life of the sun; who, finishing his career at the winter solstice, when Typhon and the rebel angels gain the dominion, seems to be put to death by them; but who soon after is born again, and rises* into the vault of heaven, where he reigns.
* Resurgere, to rise a second time, cannot signify to returnto life, but in a metaphorical sense; but we see continuallymistakes of this kind result from the ambiguous meaning ofthe words made use of in ancient tradition.
"Finally, these traditions went so far as to mention even his astrological and mythological names, and inform us that he was called sometimes Chris, that is to say, preserver,* and from that, ye Indians, you have made your god Chrish-en or Chrish-na; and, ye Greek and Western Christians, your Chris-tos, son of Mary, is the same; sometimes he is called Yes, by the union of three letters, which by their numerical value form the number 608, one of the solar periods.** And this, Europeans, is the name which, with the Latin termination, is become your Yes-us or Jesus, the ancient and cabalistic name attributed to young Bacchus, the clandestine son (nocturnal) of the Virgin Minerva, who, in the history of his whole life, and even of his death, brings to mind the history of the god of the Christians, that is, of the star of day, of which they are each of them the emblems."
* The Greeks used to express by X, or Spanish iota, theaspirated ha of the Orientals, who said haris. In Hebrewheres signifies the sun, but in Arabic the meaning of theradical word is, to guard, to preserve, and of haris,guardian, preserver. It is the proper epithet of Vichenou,which demonstrates at once the identity of the Indian andChristian Trinities, and their common origin. It ismanifestly but one system, which divided into two branches,one extending to the east, and the other to the west,assumed two different forms: Its principal trunk is thePythagorean system of the soul of the world, or Iou-piter.The epithet piter, or father, having been applied to thedemi-ourgos of Plato, gave rise to an ambiguity which causedan enquiry to be made respecting the son of this father. Inthe opinion of the philosophers the son was understanding,Nous and Logos, from which the Latins made their Verbum.And thus we clearly perceive the origin of the eternalfather and of the Verbum his son, proceeding from him (MensEx Deo nata, says Macrobius): the oenima or spiritus mundi,was the Holy Ghost; and it is for this reason that Manes,Pasilides, Valentinius, and other pretended heretics of thefirst ages, who traced things to their source, said, thatGod the Father was the supreme inaccessible light (that ofthe heaven, the primum mobile, or the aplanes); the Son thesecondary light resident in the sun, and the Holy Ghost theatmosphere of the earth (See Beausob. vol. II, p. 586):hence, among the Syrians, the representation of the HolyGhost by a dove, the bird of Venus Urania, that is of theair. The Syrians (says Nigidius de Germaico) assert that adove sat for a certain number of days on the egg of a fish,and that from this incubation Venus was born: SextusEmpiricus also observes (Inst. Pyrrh. lib. 3, c. 23) thatthe Syrians abstain from eating doves; which intimates to usa period commencing in the sign Pisces, in the wintersolstice. We may farther observe, that if Chris comes fromHarisch by a chin, it will signify artificer, an epithetbelonging to the sun. These variations, which must haveembarrassed the ancients, prove it to be the real type ofJesus, as had been already remarked in the time ofTertullian. "Many, says this writer, suppose with greaterprobability that the sun is our God, and they refer us tothe religion of the Persians." Apologet. c. 16.** See a curious ode to the sun, by Martianus Capella,translated by Gebelin.
Here a great murmur having arisen among all the Christian groups, the Lamas, the Mussulmans and the Indians called them to order, and the orator went on to finish his discourse:
"You know at present," said he, "how the rest of this system was composed in the chaos and anarchy of the three first centuries; what a multitude of singular opinions divided the minds of men, and armed them with an enthusiasm and a reciprocal obstinacy; because, being equally founded on ancient tradition, they were equally sacred. You know how the government, after three centuries, having embraced one of these sects, made it the orthodox, that is to say, the pre-dominant religion, to the exclusion of the rest; which, being less in number, became heretics; you know how and by what means of violence and seduction this religion was propagated, extended, divided, and enfeebled; how, six hundred years after the Christian innovation, another system was formed from it and from that of the Jews; and how Mahomet found the means of composing a political and theological empire at the expense of those of Moses and the vicars of Jesus.
"Now, if you take a review of the whole history of the spirit of all religion, you will see that in its origin it has had no other author than the sensations and wants of man; that the idea of God has had no other type and model than those of physical powers, material beings, producing either good or evil, by impressions of pleasure or pain on sensitive beings; that in the formation of all these systems the spirit of religion has always followed the same course, and been uniform in its proceedings; that in all of them the dogma has never failed to represent, under the name of gods, the operations of nature, and passions and prejudices of men; that the moral of them all has had for its object the desire of happiness and the aversion to pain; but that the people, and the greater part of legislators, not knowing the route to be pursued, have formed false, and therefore discordant, ideas of virtue and vice of good and evil, that is to say, of what renders man happy or miserable; that in every instance, the means and the causes of propagating and establishing systems have exhibited the same scenes of passion and the same events; everywhere disputes about words, pretexts for zeal, revolutions and wars excited by the ambition of princes, the knavery of apostles, the credulity of proselytes, the ignorance of the vulgar, the exclusive cupidity and intolerant arrogance of all. Indeed, you will see that the whole history of the spirit of religion is only the history of the errors of the human mind, which, placed in a world that it does not comprehend, endeavors nevertheless to solve the enigma; and which, beholding with astonishment this mysterious and visible prodigy, imagines causes, supposes reasons, builds systems; then, finding one defective, destroys it for another not less so; hates the error that it abandons, misconceives the one that it embraces, rejects the truth that it is seeking, composes chimeras of discordant beings; and thus, while always dreaming of wisdom and happiness, wanders blindly in a labyrinth of illusion and doubt."