The assessor of Osiris-Sol, as St. Michael is the assessor, Ferouer, of the Word.

The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by the occult verse of the Pater, to which we have called attention in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it, or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning: one reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to neophytes and the profane.259

Jerome found the authentic and original Evangel written in Hebrew, by Matthew the Publican, at the library collected at Cæsarea by the martyr Pamphilius. “I received permission from the Nazaræans, who at Berœa of Syria used this (gospel) [pg 149]to translate it,” he writes toward the end of the fourth century.260 “In the Evangel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use,” said Jerome, “which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek, and which is called by most persons the genuinegospel of Matthew,” etc.261

That the apostles had received a “secret doctrine” from Jesus, and that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that “a difficult work is enjoined, since this (translation) has been commanded me by your Felicities, which St. Matthew himself, the Apostle and Evangelist, did not wish to be openly written. For if this had not been secret, he (Matthew) would have added to the Evangel that what he gave forth was his; but he made up this book sealed up in the Hebrew characters, which he put forth even in such a way that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the hand of himself, might be possessed by the men most religious; who also, in the course of time, received it from those who preceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be transcribed, and its text they related some one way and some another.”262 And he adds further on the same page: “And it happened that this book, having been published by a disciple of Manichæus, named Seleucus, who also wrote falsely The Acts of the Apostles, exhibited matter not for edification, but for destruction; and that this (book) was approved in a synod which the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to.”263

Jerome admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as being written “by the hand of Matthew,” was nevertheless a book which, notwithstanding that he translated it twice, was nearly unintelligible to him, for it was arcane. Nevertheless, Jerome coolly sets down every commentary upon it but his own as heretical. More than that, Jerome knew that this Gospel was the only original one, yet he becomes more zealous than ever in his persecution of the “Heretics.” Why? Because to accept it was equivalent to reading the death sentence of the established Church. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was well known to have been the [pg 150]only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And neither of the latter accepted the divinity of Christ.264

The badge of Dan-Scorpio is death-life, in the symbol ☧ as cross-bones and skull, ... or life-death ... the standard of Constantine, the Roman Emperor. Abel has been shown to be Jesus, and Cain-Vulcain, or Mars, pierced him. Constantine was the Roman Emperor, whose warlike god was Mars, and a Roman soldier pierced Jesus on the cross....

But the piercing of Abel was the consummation of his marriage with Cain, and this was proper under the form of Mars Generator; hence the double glyph, one of Mars-Generator [Osiris-Sun] and Mars-Destroyer [Mercury the God of Death in the Egyptian basso-relievo] in one; significant, again, of the primal idea of the living cosmos, or of birth and death, as necessary to the continuation of the stream of life.267

A Latin cross of a perfect Christian shape was found hewn upon the granite slabs of the Adytum of the Serapeum; and the monks did not fail to claim that the cross had been hallowed by the Pagans in a “spirit of prophecy.” At least, Sozomen, with an air of triumph, records the fact.268 But archæology and symbolism, those tireless and implacable enemies of clerical false pretences, have found in the hieroglyphics of the legend running round the design at least a partial interpretation of its meaning.

According to King and other numismatists and archæologists, the cross was [pg 151]placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau, or Egyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries. Symbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon the breast of the Initiate, after his “new birth” was accomplished, and the Mystæ had returned from their baptism in the sea. It was a mystic sign that his spiritual birth had regenerated and united his astral soul with his divine spirit, and that he was ready to ascend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light and glory—the Eleusinia. The Tau was a magic talisman at the same time as a religious emblem. It was adopted by the Christians through the Gnostics and Kabalists, who used it largely, as their numerous gems testify. These in turn had the Tau (or handled cross) from the Egyptians, and the Latin Cross from the Buddhist missionaries, who brought it from India (where it can be found even now) two or three centuries b.c. The Assyrians, Egyptians, ancient Americans, Hindus and Romans had it in various, but very slight modifications of shape. Till very late in the middle ages, it was considered a potent spell again at epilepsy and demoniacal possession, and the “signet of the living God” brought down in St. John's vision by the angel ascending from the east to “seal the servants of our God in the foreheads,” was but the same mystic Tau—the Egyptian Cross. In the painted glass of St. Denis (France) this angel is represented as stamping this sign on the forehead of the elect; the legend reads, SIGNUM TAY. In King's Gnostics, the author reminds us that “this mark is commonly borne by St. Anthony, an Egyptian recluse.”269 What the real meaning of the Tau was, is explained to us by the Christian St. John, the Egyptian Hermes, and the Hindu Brahmans. It is but too evident that, with the Apostle at least, it meant the “Ineffable Name,” as he calls this “signet of the living God” a few chapters further on270 the “Father's name written in their foreheads.”

The Brahmâtmâ, the chief of the Hindu Initiates, had on his head-gear two keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death, placed cross-like; and in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and Mongolia, the entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally containing the staircase which leads to the inner dagoba,271 and the porticos of some Prachidas272 are ornamented with a cross formed of two fishes, as found on some of the zodiacs of the Buddhists. We should not wonder at all at learning that the sacred device in the tombs in the catacombs at Rome, the “Vesica Piscis,” was derived from the said Buddhist zodiacal sign. How general must have been that geometrical figure in the world-symbols, may be inferred from the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that Solomon's temple was built on three foundations, forming the “triple Tau” or three crosses.

In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an emblem, to the realisation by the earliest philosophy of an androgynous dualism of every manifestation in nature, which proceeds from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity, while the Christian emblem is simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic law [pg 152]prevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated.273 The crucifix was an instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as it was unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the “Tree of Infamy.” It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian symbol; but during the first two decades the apostles looked upon it with horror.274 It is certainly not the Christian Cross that John had in mind when speaking of the “signet of the living God,” but the mystic Tau—the Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on the most ancient Kabalistic talismans, was represented by the four Hebrew letters composing the Holy Word.

The famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus, and in the desert, after her last marriage, as Hanoum Medjouye, had a talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druse from Mount Lebanon. It was recognised by a certain sign on its left corner as belonging to that class of gems which is known in Palestine as a “Messianic” amulet, of the second or third century b.c. It is a green stone of a pentagonal form; at the bottom is engraved a fish; higher, Solomon's Seal;275 and still higher, the four Chaldaic letters—Jod, He, Vau, He, IAHO, which form the name of the Deity. These are arranged in quite an unusual way, running from below upward, in reversed order, and forming the Egyptian Tau. Around these there is a legend which, as the gem is not our property, we are not at liberty to give. The Tau, in its mystical sense, as well as the Crux ansata, is the Tree of Life.

It is well known that the earliest Christian emblems—before it was ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus—were the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and The Fish. The origin of the latter emblem, which has so puzzled the archæologists, thus becomes comprehensible. The whole secret lies in the easily ascertained fact that, while in the Kabalah the King Messiah is called “Interpreter,”or Revealer of the Mystery, and shown to be the fifth emanation, in the Talmud—for reasons we will now explain—the Messiah is very often designated as “DAG,”or the Fish. This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, and relates—as the very name indicates—to the Babylonian Dagon, the man-fish, who was the instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared. Abarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his (Messiah's) coming is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sign Pisces.276 Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon identifying their Christos with the Messiah of the Old Testament, they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true origin might be traced still further back than the Babylonian Dagon. How eagerly and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by the early Christians, with every imaginable kabalistic and pagan tenet, may be inferred from the language of Clemens, of Alexandria, addressed to his co-religionists.

When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the following words: “Let the engraving upon the gem of your ring be either a dove, or a ship running before the wind (the Argha), or a fish.” Was the good father, when writing this sentence, labouring under the recollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called Jesus in the Greek and Slavonian versions); or had he forgotten the real interpretation of these pagan symbols?277

As an emblem of death, being placed over the door of life and signifying birth, or of the intercontainment of two opposite principles in one, just as, mystically, the Saviour was held to be man-woman.278

Each a double sign or male-female [in ancient astrological Magic]—viz: it was Taurus-Eve, and Scorpio was Mars-Lupa, or Mars with the female wolf [in relation to [pg 154]Romulus]. So, as these signs were opposites of each other, yet met in the centre, they were connected; and so in fact it was, and in a double sense, the conception of the year was in Taurus, as the conception of Eve by Mars, her opposite, in Scorpio. The birth would be at the winter solstice, or Christmas. On the contrary, by conception in Scorpio—viz., of Lupa by Taurus—birth would be in Leo. Scorpio was Chrēstos in humiliation, while Leo was Christos in triumph. While Taurus-Eve fulfilled astronomical functions, Mars-Lupa fulfilled spiritual ones by type.279

Mooth or Mouth, was the Egyptian cognomen of Venus, (Eve, mother of all living) [as Vach, mother of all living, a permutation of Aditi, as Eve was one of Sephira] or the moon. Plutarch (Isis, 374) hands it down that Isis was sometimes called Muth, which word means mother ... (Issa, אשה, woman). (Isis, p. 372). Isis, he says is that part of Nature, which, as feminine, contains in herself, as (nutrix) nurse, all things to be born.... “Certainly the moon,” speaking astronomically, “chiefly exercises this function in Taurus, Venus being the house (in opposition to Mars, generator, in Scorpio), because the sign is luna, hypsoma. Since ... Isis Metheur differs from Isis Muth and that in the vocable Muth the notion of bringing forth may be concealed, and since fructification must take place, Sol being joined with Luna in Libra, it is not improbable that Muth first indeed signifies Venus in Libra; hence Luna in Libra.” (Beiträge zur Kenntniss, pars. 11, S. 9, under Muth.)280

The double play upon the word Muth by help of which the real intent is produced in the occult way ... sin, death, and woman are one in the glyph, and correlatively connected with intercourse and death.281

In this primitive signification [of void] was בהו [bohu] taken in the Biblical cosmogony, and used in establishing the dogma יש מאין Jes (us) m'aven, (Jes-us from nothing), respecting creation. [Which shows the writers of the New Testamentconsiderably skilled in the Kabalah and Occult Sciences, and corroborates still more our assertion.] Hence Aquila translates οὔδεν vulg. vacua (hence vacca, cow) [hence also the horns of Isis—Nature, Earth, and the Moon—taken from Vâch, the Hindu “Mother of all that lives,” identified with Virâj and called in Atharvaveda the daughter of Kâma, the first desires: “That daughter of thine, O Kâma, is called [pg 155]the cow, she whom Sages name Vâch-Virâj,” who was milked by Brihaspati, the Rishi, which is another mystery] Onkelos and Samarit. ריקבי.

The Phœnician cosmogony has connected Bohu בהו Βααυ into a personified expression denoting the primitive substance, and as a deity, the mother of races of the gods [which is Aditi and Vâch]. The Aramean name בהו-תא, בהו-ת, בהו-ת, Βαώθ, Βυθ-ός, Buto, for the mother of the gods, which passed over to the Gnostics, Babylonians and Egyptians, is identical then with Môt (מות, our Muth) properly, (Βώθ) originated in Phœnician from an interchange of b with m.282