[761] In “Præcepta Decaloga” (Edit. of Sion Library), Tom. i., lib. iv., c. 2, n. 7, 8.

[762] Opinion of John de Dicastille, Sect. xv., “De Justitia et Jure,” etc., cens. pp. 319, 320.

[763] “Cursûs Theologici,” Tomus v., Duaci, 1642, Disp. 36, Sect. 5, n. 118.

[764] Name of the highest Egyptian hierophants.

[765] “Crata Nepoa, or the Mysteries of the Ancient Egyptian Priests.”

[766] See Matthew xvi. 18, where it is mistranslated “the gates of Hell.”

[767] Humberto Malhandrini: “Ritual of Initiations,” p. 105. Venice, 1657.

[768] Pages 43, 44, note f. Niccolini of Rome, author of “The History of the Pontificate of Pius IX.;” “The Life of Father Gavazzi,” etc.

[769] And begged in the name of Him who had nowhere to lay his head!

[770] In “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” Bunsen gives the cycle of 21,000 years, which he adopts to facilitate the chronological calculations for the reconstruction of the universal history of mankind. He shows that this cycle “for the nutation of the ecliptic,” arrived at its apex in the year 1240 of our era. He says:

“The cycle divides itself into two halves of 10,500 (or twice 5,250) years each.

“The beginning of the first half:

“The new cycle, which began in 1240 of our era, will come to the end of its first quarter in 4010 A.D.”

The Baron explains that “in round numbers, the most favorable epochs for our hemisphere since the great catastrophe in Middle Asia (Deluge 10,000 years B.C.) are: the 4,000 years before, and the 4,000 years after Christ; and the beginning of the first epoch, of which alone we can judge, as it alone is complete before us, coincides exactly with the beginnings of national history, or (what is identical) with the beginning of our consciousness of continuous existence” (“Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” Key, p. 102).

“Our consciousness” must mean, we suppose, the consciousness of scientists, who accept nothing on faith, but much on unverified hypotheses. We do not say this with reference to the above-quoted author, earnest scholar and noble champion that he is, of freedom in the Christian Church, but generally. Baron Bunsen has well found for himself that a man cannot remain an honest scientist and please the clerical party. Even the little concessions he made in favor of the antiquity of mankind, brought on him, in 1859, the most insolent denunciations, such as “We lose all faith in the author’s judgment ... he has yet to learn the very first principles of historical criticisms ... extravagant and unscientific exaggeration,” and so on—the pious vituperator closing his learned denunciations by assuring the public that Baron Bunsen “cannot even construct a Greek sentence” (“Quarterly Review,” 1859; see also “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” chap. on Egyptological Works and English Reviews). But we do regret that Baron Bunsen had no better opportunity to examine the “Kabala” and the Brahmanical books of the Zodiacs.

[771] “The Funeral Ritual of the Deeds of Horus.”

[772] Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 133.

[773] Lepsius: “Abth.,” iii.; Bl., 276; Bunsen, 134.

[774] In the eighty-first chapter of the “Ritual” the soul is called the germ of lights and in the seventy-ninth the Demiurgos, or one of the creators.

[775] “Ritual,” vi., 44; Champollion: “Manifestations to the Light;” Lepsius: “Book of the Dead;” Bunsen: “Egypt’s Place in Universal History.”

[776] We cannot help quoting a remark by Baron Bunsen in relation to the “Word” being identical with the “Ineffable Name” of the Masons and the kabalists. While explaining the “Ritual,” some of the details of which “resemble rather the enchantments of a magician than solemn rites, although a hidden and mystical meaning must have been attached to them” (the honest admission of this much, at least, is worth something), the author observes: “The mystery of names, the knowledge of which was a sovereign virtue, and which, at a later period, degenerated into the rank heresy (?) of the Gnostics and the magic of enchanters, appears to have existed not only in Egypt but elsewhere. Traces of it are found in the ‘Cabala’ ... it prevailed in the Greek and Asiatic mythology” (“Egypt’s Place, etc.,” p. 147).

We then see the representatives of Science agreeing upon this one point, at least. The initiates of all countries had the same “mystery name.” And now it remains with the scholars to prove that every adept, hierophant, magician, or enchanter (Moses and Aaron included) as well as every kabalist, from the institution of the Mysteries down to the present age, has been either a knave or a fool, for believing in the efficacy of this name.

[777] See Chap. I., pp. 42, 43, note, of this volume.

[778] See “The Principles of the Jesuits, Developed in a Collection of Extracts from their own Authors,” London: J. G. and F. Rivington, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and Waterloo Place, Pall Mall; H. Wix, 41 New Bridge Street, Blackfriars; J. Leslie, Queen Street, etc., 1839. Section xvii., “High Treason and Regicide,” containing thirty-four extracts from the same number of authorities (of the Society of Jesus) upon the question, among others the opinion thereof of the famous Robert Bellarmine. So Emmanuel Sa says: “The rebellion of an ecclesiastic against a king, is not a crime of high treason, because he is not subject to the king” (“Confessarium Aphorismi Verbo Clericus,” Ed. Coloniæ, 1615, Ed. Coll. Sion). “The people,” says John Bridgewater, “are not only permitted, but they are required and their duty demands, that at the mandate of the Vicar of Christ, who is the sovereign pastor over all nations of the earth, the faith which they had previously made with such princes should not be kept” (“Concertatio Ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Angliâ adversus Calvino Papistas,” Resp. fol. 348).

In “De Rege et Regis Institutione, Libri Tres,” 1640 (Edit. Mus. Brit.), John Mariana goes even farther: “If the circumstances will permit,” he says, “it will be lawful to destroy with the sword the prince who is declared a public enemy.... I shall never consider that man to have done wrong, who, favouring the public wishes, should attempt to kill him,” and “to put them to death is not only lawful, but a laudble and glorious action.” Est tamen salutaris cogitatio, ut sit principibus persuasum si rempublicam oppresserint, si vitiis et fæditate intolerandi erunt, eâ conditione vivere, ut non jure tantum, sed cum laude et gloriâ perimi possint” (Lib. i., c. 6, p. 61).

But the most delicate piece of Christian teaching is found in the precept of this Jesuit when he argues upon the best and surest way of killing kings and statesmen. “In my own opinion,” he says, “deleterious drugs should not be given to an enemy, neither should a deadly poison be mixed with his food or in his cup.... Yet it will indeed be lawful to use this method in the case in question (that he who should kill the tyrant would be highly esteemed, both in favor and in praise,” for “it is a glorious thing to exterminate this pestilent and mischievous race from the community of men), not to constrain the person who is to be killed to take of himself the poison which, inwardly received, would deprive him of life, but to cause it to be outwardly applied by another without his intervention; as, when there is so much strength in the poison, that if spread upon a seat or on the clothes it would be sufficiently powerful to cause death” (Ibid., lib. i., c. f., p. 67). “It was thus that Squire attempted the life of Queen Elizabeth, at the instigation of the Jesuit Walpole.”—Pasquier: “Catéchisme des Jésuites” (1677, p. 350, etc.), and “Rapin” (fol., Lond., 1733, vol. ii., book xvii., p. 148).

[779] Puffendorf: “Droit de la Nat.,” book iv., ch. 1.

[780] “Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself.... But I say unto you, swear not at all,” etc. “But let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew v. 33, 34, 37).

[781] Barbeyrac, in his notes on Puffendorf, shows that the Peruvians used no oath, but a simple averment before the Inca, and were never found perjuring themselves.

[782] We beg the reader to remember that we do not mean by Christianity the teachings of Christ, but those of his alleged servants—the clergy.

[783] Dr. Anderson’s “Defence,” quoted by John Yarker in his “Notes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of Antiquity.”

[784] Epiphanius included, we must think, after that, in violation of his oath, he had sent over seventy persons into exile, who belonged to the secret society he betrayed.

[785] United States Anti-Masonic Convention: “Obligation of Masonic Oaths,” speech delivered by Mr. Hopkins, of New York.

[786] John Yarker, Junr.: “Notes on the Scientific and Religious Mysteries of Antiquity; the Gnosis and Secret Schools of the Middle Ages; Modern Rosicrucianism; and the various Rites and Degrees of Free and Accepted Masonry.” London, 1872.

[787] Ibid., p. 151.

[788] John Yarker: “Notes, etc.,” p. 150.

[789] “Proceedings of the Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand Inspectors-General of the Thirty-third and Last Degree, etc., etc. Held at the city of New York, August 15, 1876,” pp. 54, 55.

[790] “Histoire des sectes religieuses,” vol. ii., pp. 392-428.

[791] “Notitia codicis græci evangelium Johannis variatum continentis,” Havaniæ, 1828.

[792] This is the reason why unto this day the fanatical and kabalistic members of the Nazarenes of Basra (Persia), have a tradition of the glory, wealth, and power of their “Brothers,” agents, or messengers as they term them in Malta and Europe. There are some few remaining yet, they say, who will sooner or later restore the doctrine of their Prophet Iohanan (St. John), the son of Lord Jordan, and eliminate from the hearts of humanity every other false teaching.

[793] The two great pagodas of Madura and Benares, are built in the form of a cross, each wing being equal in extent (See Mauri: “Indian Antiquities,” vol. iii., pp. 360-376).

[794] Findel: “History of Freemasonry,” Appendix.

[795] “A Sketch of the Knight Templars and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,” by Richard Woof, F.S.A., Commander of the Order of Masonic Knight Templars.

[796] Findel: “History of Freemasonry,” Appendix.

[797] “General History of Freemasonry,” p. 218.

[798] See Gaffarel’s version; Eliphas Levi’s “La Science des Esprits;” Mackenzie’s “Royal Masonic Cyclopædia;” “Sepher Toldos Jeshu;” and other kabalistical and Rabbinical works. The story given is this. A virgin named Mariam, betrothed to a young man of the name of Iohanan, was outraged by another man named Ben Panther or Joseph Panther, says “Sepher Toldos Jeshu.” “Her betrothed, learning of her misfortune, left her, at the same time forgiving her. The child born was Jesus, named Joshua. Adopted by his uncle Rabbi Jehosuah, he was initiated into the secret doctrine by Rabbi Elhanan, a kabalist, and then by the Egyptian priests, who consecrated him High Pontiff of the Universal Secret Doctrine, on account of his great mystic qualities. Upon his return into Judea his learning and powers excited the jealousy of the Rabbis, and they publicly reproached him with his origin and insulted his mother. Hence the words attributed to Jesus at Cana: ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ (See John ii. 4.) His disciples having rebuked him with his unkindness to his mother, Jesus repented, and having learned from them the particulars of the sad story, he declared that “My mother has not sinned, she has not lost her innocence; she is immaculate and yet she is a mother.... As for myself I have no father, in this world, I am the Son of God and of humanity!” Sublime words of confidence and trust in the unseen Power, but how fatal to the millions upon millions of men murdered because of these very words being so thoroughly misunderstood!

[799] We speak of the American Chapter of Rose Croix.

[800] Pythagoras.

[801] The first Grand Chapter was instituted at Philadelphia, in 1797.

[802] See Yarker’s “Notes on the Mysteries of Antiquity,” p. 153

[803] See 2 Kings, xxiii. 7, Hebrew text, and English, the former especially. In the degree of Kadosh, a lecture is given upon the descent of Masonry through Moses, Solomon, the Essenes, and the Templars. Christian K. K.’s may get some light as to the kind of “Temple” their ancestors would, in such a genealogical descent, have been attached to, by consulting verse 13 of the same chapter as above quoted.

[804] See Eliphas Levi’s “Dogme et Rituel,” vol. i.

[805] Yeva is Heva, the feminine counterpart of Jehovah-Binah.

[806] We find a very suggestive point in connection with this appellation of Jehovah, “Son of ancient Kings,” in the Jaïna sect of Hindustan, known as the Sauryas. They admit that Brahma is a Devatâ, but deny his creative power, and call him the “Son of a King.” See “Asiatic Researches,” vol. ix., p. 279.

[807] As, for instance, Shaddai, Elohim, Sabaoth, etc.

[808] Cahen’s “Hebrew Bible,” iii., p. 117.

[809] The Greek monks have this “miracle” performed for the “faithful” every year on Easter night. Thousands of pilgrims are there waiting with their tapers to light them at this sacred fire, which at the precise hour and when needed, descends from the chapel-vault and hovers about the sepulchre in tongues of fire until every one of the thousand pilgrims has lighted his wax taper at it.

[810] The Rishi are identical with Manu. The ten Pragâpati, sons of Viradj, called Maritchi, Atri, Angira, Pôlastya, Poulaha, Kratu, Pratcheta, Vasishta, Brighu, and Narada, are euhemerized Powers, the Hindu Sephiroth. These emanate the seven Rishi, or Manus, the chief of whom issued himself from the “uncreated.” He is the Adam of earth, and signifies man. His “sons,” the following six Manus, represent each a new race of men, and in the total they are humanity passing gradually through the primitive seven stages of evolution.

[811] In days of old, when the Brahmans studied more than they do now the hidden sense of their philosophy, they explained that each of these six distinct races which preceded ours had disappeared. But now they pretend that a specimen was preserved which was not destroyed with the rest, but reached the present seventh stage. Thus they, the Brahmans are the specimens of the heavenly Manu, and issued from the mouth of Brahma; while the Sudra was created from his foot.

[812] To avoid discussion we adopt the palæographical conclusions arrived at by Martin Haug and some other cautious scholars. Personally we credit the statements of the Brahmans and those of Halhed, the translator of the “Sastras.”

[813] The god Heptaktis.

[814] The sanctuary of the initiation.

[815] “Comparative Mythology.”

[816] While having no intention to enter at present upon a discussion as to the nomadic races of the “Rhematic period,” we reserve the right to question the full propriety of terming that portion of the primitive people from whose traditions the “Vedas” sprang into existence, Aryans. Some scientists find the existence of these Aryans not only unproved by science, but the traditions of Hindustan protesting against such an assumption.

[817] Without the esoteric explanation, the “Old Testament” becomes an absurd jumble of meaningless tales—nay, worse than that, it must rank high with immoral books. It is curious that Professor Max Müller, such a profound scholar in Comparative Mythology, should be found saying of the pragâpatis and Hindu gods that they are masks without actors; and of Abraham and other mythical patriarchs that they were real living men; of Abraham especially, we are told (see “Semitic Monotheism”) that he “stands before us as a figure second only to one in the whole history of the world.”

[818] The italics are our own. “The Vedas,” lecture by Max Müller, p. 75.

[819] “Chips,” vol. i., p. 8.

[820] We believe that we have elsewhere given the contrary opinion, on the subject of “Atharva-Veda,” of Prof. Whitney, of Yale College.

[821] See Baron Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. v.

[822] “Chips,” vol. i.; “The Vedas.”

[823] Max Müller: Lecture on “The Vedas.”

[824] Julian: “In Matrem,” p. 173; Julian: “Oratio,” v., 172.

[825] Lyd.: “De Mensibus,” iv., 38-74; “Movers,” p. 550; Dunlap: “Saba,” p. 3.

[826] “Westminster Review:” Septenary Institutions; “Stone Him to Death.”

[827] “Di Verbo Mirifico.”

[828] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” book iii., p. 292 b. The Supreme consulting with the Architect of the world—his Logos—about creation.

[829] Idra Suta: “Sohar,” iii., 135 b. If the chapters of Genesis and the other Mosaic books, as well as the subjects, are muddled up, the fault is the compiler’s—not that of oral tradition. Hilkiah and Josiah had to commune with Huldah, the prophetess, hence resort to magic to understand the word of the “Lord God of Israel,” most conveniently found by Hilkiah (2 Kings, xxiii.); and that it has passed still later through more than one revision and remodelling is but too well proved by its frequent incongruities, repetitions, and contradictions.

[830] This assimilation of the deluge to an earthquake on the Assyrian tablets would go to prove that the antediluvian nations were well acquainted with other geological cataclysms besides the deluge, which is represented in the Bible as the first calamity which befel humanity, and a punishment.

[831] George Smith notes in the tablets, first the creation of the moon, and then of the sun: “Its beauty and perfection are extolled, and the regularity of its orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a judge and the regulator of the world.” Did this story of the deluge relate simply to a cosmogonical cataclysm—even were it universal—why should the goddess Ishtara or Astoreth (the moon) speak of the creation of the sun after the deluge? The waters might have reached as high as the mountain of Nizir (Chaldean version), or Jebel-Djudi (the deluge-mountains of the Arabian legends), or yet Ararat (of the biblical narrative), and even Himalaya of the Hindu tradition, and yet not reach the sun—even the Bible itself stopped short of such a miracle. It is evident that the deluge of the people who first recorded it had another meaning, less problematical and far more philosophical than that of a universal deluge, of which there are no geological traces whatever.

[832] The “dead letter that killeth,” is magnificently illustrated in the case of the Jesuit de Carrière, quoted in the “Bible dans l’Inde.” The following dissertation represents the spirit of the whole Catholic world: “So that the creation of the world,” writes this faithful son of Loyola, explaining the biblical chronology of Moses, “and all that is recorded in Genesis, might have become known to Moses through recitals personally made to him by his fathers. Perhaps, even, the memories yet existed among the Israelites, and from those recollections he may have recorded the dates of births and deaths of the patriarchs, the numbering of their children, and the names of the different countries in which each became established under the guidance of the holy spirit, which we must always regard as the chief author of the sacred books”!!!

[833] See chapter xv. and last of Part I.

[834] “Description, etc., of the People of India,” by the Abbé J. A. Dubois, missionary in Mysore, vol. i., p. 186.

[835] “Fétichisme, Polythéisme, Monothéisme,” pp. 170, 171.

[836] Against the latter assumption derived solely from the accounts of the Bible we have every historical fact. 1st. There are no proofs of these twelve tribes having ever existed; that of Levi was a priestly caste and all the others imaginary. 2d. Herodotus, the most accurate of historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, never mentions the Israelites at all? Herodotus was born in 484 B.C.

[837] Dr. Kennicot himself, and Bruns, under his direction, about 1780, collated 692 manuscripts of the Hebrew “Bible.” Of all these, only two were credited to the tenth century, and three to a period as early as the eleventh and twelfth. The others ranged between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.

In his “Introduzione alla Sacra Scrittura,” pp. 34-47, De Rossi, of Parma, mentions 1,418 MSS. collated, and 374 editions. The oldest manuscript “Codex,” he asserts—that of Vienna—dates A.D. 1019; the next, Reuchlin’s, of Carlsruhe, 1038. “There is,” he declares, “nothing in the manuscripts of the Hebrew ‘Old Testament’ extant of an earlier date than the eleventh century after Christ.”

[838] “India in Greece,” Preface, ix.

[839] “Chips,” vol. i.

[840] “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” vol. v., p. 77.

[841] Ibid., p. 78.

[842] “Chips;” “Aitareya Brahmanam.”

[843] Dr. M. Haug, Superintendent of the Sanscrit studies in the Poona College, Bombay.

[844] Pococke belongs to that class of Orientalists who believe that Buddhism preceded Brahmanism, and was the religion of the earliest Vedas, Gautama having been but the restorer of it in its purest form, which after him degenerated again into dogmatism.

[845] “India in Greece,” p. 200.

[846] The Asiatic origin of the first dwellers in the Nilotic Valley is clearly demonstrated by concurrent and independent testimony. Cuvier and Blumenbach affirm that all the skulls of mummies which they had the opportunity of examining, presented the Caucasian type. A recent American physiologist (Dr. Morton) has also argued for the same conclusion (“Crania Ægyptiaca.” Philadelphia, 1844).

[847] The late Rajah of Travancore was succeeded by the elder son of his sister now reigning, the Maharajah Rama Vurmah. The next heirs are the sons of his deceased sister. In case the female line is interrupted by death, the royal family is obliged to adopt the daughter of some other Rajah, and unless daughters are born to this Rana another girl is adopted, and so on.

[848] There are some Orientalists who believe that this custom was introduced only after the early Christian settlements in Æthiopia; but as under the Romans the population of this country was nearly all changed, the element becoming wholly Arabic, we may, without doubting the statement, believe that it was the predominating Arab influence which had altered the earliest mode of writing. Their present method is even more analogous to the Devanāgarï, and other more ancient Indian Alphabets, which read from left to right; and their letters show no resemblance to the Phœnician characters. Moreover, all the ancient authorities corroborate our assertion still more. Philostratus makes the Brahmin Iarchus say (V. A., iii., 6) that the Æthiopians were originally an Indian race, compelled to emigrate from the mother-land for sacrilege and regicide (see Pococke’s “India,” etc., ii., p. 206). An Egyptian is made to remark, that he had heard from his father, that the Indians were the wisest of men, and that the Æthiopians, a colony of the Indians, preserved the wisdom and usages of their fathers, and acknowledged their ancient origin. Julius Africanus (in Eusebius and Syncellus), makes the same statement. And Eusebius writes: “The Æthiopians, emigrating from the river Indus, settled in the vicinity of Egypt” (Lemp., Barker’s edition, “Meroë”).

[849] They might have been also, as Pococke thinks, simply the tribes of the “Oxus,” a name derived from the “Ookshas,” those people whose wealth lay in the “Ox,” for he shows Ookshan to be a crude form of Ooksha, an ox (in Sanscrit ox is as in English). He believes that it was they, “the lords of the Oxus,” who gave their name to the sea around which they ruled in many a country, the Euxine or Ooksh-ine. Pali means a shepherd, and s’than is a land. “The warlike tribes of the Oxus penetrated into Egypt, then swept onward to Palestine (Pali-stan), the land of the Palis or shepherds, and there effected more permanent settlements” (“India in Greece”). Yet, if even so, it would only the more confirm our opinion that the Jews are a hybrid race, for the “Bible” shows them freely intermarrying, not alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they come in contact with.

[850] Prof. A. Wilder: “Notes.”

[851] Moses reigned over the people of Israel in the wilderness for over forty years.

[852] The name of the wife of Moses was Zipporah (Exodus ii.).

[853] About 1040, the Jewish doctors removed their schools from Babylonia to Spain, and of the four great rabbis that flourished during the next four centuries, their works all show different readings, and abound with mistakes in the manuscripts. The “Masorah” made things still worse. Many things that then existed in the manuscripts are there no longer, and their works teem with interpolations as well as with lacunæ. The oldest Hebrew manuscript belongs to this period. Such is the divine revelation we are to credit.

[854] No chronology was accepted by the rabbis as authoritative till the twelfth century. The 40 and 1,000 are not exact numbers, but have been crammed in to answer monotheism and the exigencies of a religion calculated to appear different from that of the Pagans. (“Chron. Orth.,” p. 238). One finds in the “Pentateuch” only events occurring about two years before the fabled “Exodus” and the last year. The rest of the chronology is nowhere, and can be followed only through kabalistic computations, with a key to them in the hand.

[855] The Gnostics, called Collyridians, had transferred from Astoreth their worship to Mary, also Queen of Heaven. They were persecuted and put to death by the orthodox Christians as heretics. But if these Gnostics had established her worship by offering her sacrifices of cakes, cracknels, or fine wafers, it was because they imagined her to have been born of an immaculate virgin, as Christ is alleged to have been born of his mother. And now, the Pope’s infallibility having been recognized and accepted, its first practical manifestation is the revival of the Collyridian belief as an article of faith (See “Apocryphal New Testament;” Hone: “The Gospel of Mary attributed to Matthew”).

[856] Hargrave Jennings: “Rosicrucians.”

[857] “Progress of Religious Ideas.”

[858] Lilith was Adam’s first wife “before he married Eve,” of whom “he begat nothing but devils;” which strikes us as a very novel, if pious, way of explaining a very philosophical allegory: Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy.”

[859] It is in commemoration of the Ark of the Deluge that the Phœnicians, those bold explorers of the “deep,” carried, fixed on the prow of their ships, the image of the goddess Astartè, who is Elissa, Venus Erycina of Sicily, and Dido, whose name is the feminine of David.

[860] Dr. Lundy: “Monumental Christianity.”

[861] Lucian, iv. 276.

[862] 1 Kings xviii. All this is allegorical, and, what is more, purely magical. For Elijah is bent upon an incantation.

[863] The Talmud books say that Noah was himself the dove (spirit), thus identifying him still more with the Chaldean Nouah. Baal is represented with the wings of a dove, and the Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim the image of a dove. “Talmud, Tract. Chalin.,” fol. 6, col. 1.

[864] Numbers x. 29, 31.

[865] The Bible contradicts itself as well as the Chaldean account, for in chapter vii. of Genesis it shows “every one of them” perishing in the deluge.

[866] Numbers xiii.

[867] We do not see why the clergy—especially the Catholic—should object to our statement that the patriarchs are all signs of the zodiac, and the old gods of the “heathen” as well. There was a time, and that less than two centuries ago, when they themselves exhibited the most fervent desire to relapse into sun and star worship. This pious and curious attempt was denounced but a few months since by Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer. He shows two Augsburgian Jesuits, Schiller and Bayer, who felt quite anxious to change the names of the whole Sabean host of the starry heaven, and worship them again under Christian names! Having anathematized the idolatrous sun-worshippers for over fifteen centuries, the Church now seriously proposed to continue heliolatry—to the letter this time—as their idea was to substitute for Pagan myths biblical and (in their ideas) real personages. They would have called the sun, Christ; the moon, Virgin Mary; Saturn, Adam; Jupiter, Moses (!); Mars, Joshua; Venus, John the Baptist; and Mercury, Elias. And very proper substitutes too, showing the great familiarity of the Catholic Church with ancient Pagan and kabalistic learning, and its readiness, perhaps, to at last confess the source whence came their own myths. For is not king Messiah the sun, the Demiurge of the heliolaters, under various names? Is he not the Egyptian Osiris and the Grecian Apollo? And what more appropriate name than Virgin Mary for the Pagan Diana-Astarté, “the Queen of Heaven,” against which Jeremiah exhausted a whole vocabulary of imprecations? Such an adoption would have been historically as well as religiously correct. Two large plates were prepared, says Flammarion, in a recent number of “La Nature,” and represented the heavens with Christian constellations instead of Pagan. Apostles, popes, saints, martyrs, and personages of the Old and New Testament completed this Christian Sabeanism. “The disciples of Loyola used every exertion to make this plan succeed.” It is curious to find in India among the Mussulmans the name of Terah, Abraham’s father, Azar or Azarh, and Azur, which also means fire, and is, at the same time, the name of the Hindu third solar month (from June to July), during which the sun is in Gemini, and the full moon near Sagittarius.

[868] Cicero: “De Nat. Deo.,” i., 13.

[869] “Herodotus,” ii., 145.

[870] “Monumental Christianity,” p. 3.

[871] Who but the authors of the “Pentateuch” could have invented a Supreme God or his angel so thoroughly human as to require a smear of blood upon the door-post to prevent his killing one person for another! For gross materialism this exceeds any theistical conception that we have noticed in Pagan literature.

[872] Denon: “Egypt,” ii., pl. 40, No. 8, p. 54.

[873] Pages 13 and 402.

[874] In Volney’s “Ruins of Empires” p. 360, it is remarked that as Aries was in its fifteenth degree 1447 B.C., it follows that the first degree of “Libra” could not have coincided with the Vernal equinox more lately than 15,194 years B.C., to which, if you add 1790 years since Christ, it appears that 16,984 years have elapsed since the origin of the Zodiac.

[875] See cuts in Inman’s “Ancient Faiths.”

[876] Cicero: “De Nat. Deorum,” i., 10.

[877] Virgil: “Æneid,” vi., 724 ff.

[878] The term “coats of skin,” is the more suggestive when we learn that the Hebrew word “skin” used in the original text, means human skin. The text says: “And Java Aleim made for Adam and his wife כתנות עור CHITONUT OUR. The first Hebrew word is the same as the Greek χιτων—chiton—coat. Parkhurst defines it as the skin of men or animals ער עור and ערה, OUR, OR, or ORA. The same word is used at Exodus xxxiv. 30, 35, when the skin of Moses “shone” (A. Wilder).

[879] Here, again, the “Masorah,” by converting one name into another, has helped to falsify the little that was left original in the primitive Scriptures.

De Rossi, of Parma, says of the Massoretes, in his “Compendis,” vol. iv., p. 7: “It is known with what carefulness Esdras, the most excellent critic they have had, had reformed [the text] and corrected it, and restored it to its primary splendor. Of the many revisions undertaken after him, none are more celebrated than that of the Massoretes, who came after the sixth century ... and all the most zealous adorers and defenders of the “Masorah,” Christians and Jews ... ingenuously accord and confess that it, such as it exists, is deficient, imperfect, interpolated, full of errors, and a most unsafe guide.” The square letter was not invented till after the third century.

[880] Scorpio is the astrological sign of the organs of reproduction.

[881] The patriarchs are all convertible in their numbers as well as interchangeable. According to what they relate, they become ten, five, seven, twelve, and even fourteen. The whole system is so complicated that it is an utter impossibility in a work like this to do more than hint at certain matters.

[882] See vol. I. of the present work, p. 32. Alone, the Hindu calculation by the Zodiac, can give a key to the Hebrew chronologies and the ages of the patriarchs. If we bear in mind that, according to the former astronomical and chronological calculations, out of the fourteen manwantara (or divine ages), each of which composed of twelve thousand years of the devas, multiplied by seventy-one, forms one period of creation—not quite seven are yet passed, the Hebrew calculation will become more clear. To help, as much as possible, those who will be sure to get a good deal bewildered in this calculation, we will remind the reader that the Zodiac is divided into 360 degrees, and every sign into thirty degrees; that in the Samaritan Bible the age of Enoch is fixed at 360 years; that in “Manu,” the divisions of time are given thus: “The day and the night are composed of thirty Mouhourta. A mouhourta contains thirty kalâs. A month of the mortals is of thirty days, but it is but one day of the pitris.... A year of the mortals is one day of the Devas.”

[883] See Rawlinson’s “Diagrams.”

[884] In the Brahmanical Zodiac the signs are all presided over by and dedicated to one of the twelve great gods. So, 1. Mecha (Aries) is dedicated to Varuna; 2. Vricha (Taurus), to Yama; 3. Mithuna (Gemini), to Pavana; 4. Karcataca (Cancer), to Sûrya; 5. Sinha (Leo), to Soma; 6. Kanya (Virgo), to Kartikeia; 7. Toulha (Libra), to Kouvera; 8. Vristchica (Scorpio), to Kama; 9. Dhanous (Sagittarius), to Ganesa; 10. Makara (Capricornus), to Poulhar; 11. Kumbha (Aquarius), to Indra; and, 12, Minas (Pisces), to Agni.

[885] Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” pp. 295-302.

[886] Apollo was also Abelius, or Bel.

[887] Halal is a name of Apollo. The name of Mahalal-Eliel would then be the autumnal sun, of July, and this patriarch presides over Leo (July) the zodiacal sign.

[888] See description of the Sephiroth, in chapter iv.

[889] How servile was this Chaldean copy may be seen in comparing the Hindu chronology with that of the Babylonians. According to Manu, the antediluvian dynasties of the Pradjâpatis reigned 4,320,000 human years, a whole divine age of the devas in short, or that length of time which invariably occurs between life on earth and the dissolution of that life, or pralaya. The Chaldeans, in their turn, give precisely the same figures, minus one cipher, to wit: they make their 120 saros yield a total of 432,000 years.

[890] Eliphas Levi gives it both in the Greek and Hebrew versions, but so condensed and arbitrarily that it is impossible for one who knows less than himself to understand him.

[891] See Rabbi Simeon’s dissertation on the primitive Man-Bull and the horns, “Sohar.”

[892] “The Nuctameron of the Hebrews;” see Eliphas Levi, vol. i.

[893] “Anszuge aus dem Sohar,” p. 13, 15.

[894] Such is the opinion of the erudite Dr. Jost and Donaldson. “The Old Testament Books, as we now find them, seem to have been concluded about 150 years B.C.... The Jews now sought the other books, which had been dispersed during the wars, and brought them into one collection” (Ghillany: “Menschenopfer der Hebraër,” p. 1). “Sod, the Son of the Man.” Appendix.

[895] “Jost,” vol. i., p. 51.

[896] Burder’s “Josephus,” vol. ii., pp. 331-335.

[897] “Die Kabbala,” p. 95.

[898] Gaffarel: Introduction to “Book of Enoch.”

[899] So firmly established seems to have been the reputation of the Brahmans and Buddhists for the highest morality, and that since time immemorial, that we find Colonel Henry Yule, in his admirable edition of “Marco Polo,” giving the following testimony: “The high virtues ascribed to the Brahman and Indian merchants were, perhaps, in part, matter of tradition ... but the eulogy is so constant among mediæval travellers that it must have had a solid foundation. In fact, it would not be difficult to trace a chain of similar testimony from ancient times down to our own. Arrian says no Indian was ever accused of falsehood. Hwen T’sang ascribes to the people of India eminent uprightness, honesty, and disinterestedness. Friar Jordanus (circa 1330) says the people of Lesser India (Sindh and Western India) were true in speech and eminent in justice; and we may also refer to the high character given to the Hindus by Abul Fazl. But after 150 years of European trade, indeed, we find a sad deterioration.... Yet Pallas, in the last century, noticing the Bamyan colony at Astrakhan, says its members were notable for an upright dealing that made them greatly preferable to Armenians. And that wise and admirable public servant, the late Sir William Sleeman, in our own time, has said that he knew no class of men in the world more strictly honorable than the mercantile classes of India.”[900]

The sad examples of the rapid demoralization of savage American Indians, as soon as they are made to live in a close proximity with Christian officials and missionaries, are familiar in our modern days.

[900] The “Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian,” translated by Colonel Henry Yule, vol. ii., p. 354.

[901] At the present moment Mr. O’Grady is Editor of the “American Builder,” of New York, and is well known for his interesting letters, “Indian Sketches—Life in the East,” which he contributed under the pseudonym of Hadji Nicka Bauker Khan, to the Boston “Commercial Bulletin.”

[902] Ecclesiastes xii. 13; see Tayler Lewis’s “Metrical Translation.”