THE NATURAL GENESIS
NOTES TO SECTION 9
[1] [Cf. Rev. 22:18-19. 'For
I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If
any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are
written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God
shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and
from the things which are written in this book.']
[2] [Rit. ch. 149. 'It is a true secret; when it is known, all the providers in all places supply the [dead] Spirits in Hades, food is given to his Soul on earth, he is made to live for ever, nothing prevails against him.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[3] [Rit. ch. 149. 'The Osiris has known thy name, he has known the seven cows and their bull, who give of food and of drink to the living, and who feed the Gods of the West.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[4] [The Angel-Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes and Christians, (poss. pp. 60-1). 'This symbolism enables us to suggest that Pherecydes may have regarded as dwelling-place of Zeus-Chronos the Eastern determining star of aboriginal times, Aldebaran in Taurus, or the Pleiades in the same constellation. Since the seven sons of Zeus-Chronos and of Ehea, according to Phoenician legend were, as we showed, connected with the Pleiades, this constellation, inhabited according to Old-Babylonian and to Hebrew tradition, by the God Sibut-Sebaot, appears indeed to have designated the part of the earth which was conceived to be nearest to heaven and the dwelling-place of Zeus. For the Pleiades stood once nearest to the most ancient equinoctial points observed, and the parts of the sphere determined by the latter mark those points on the horizon where the path of the sun appears to touch the path of the fixed stars, and at the same time the equator, and thus the earth.']
[5] [Gill,
Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, p. 43. 'MATARIKI, OR
PLEIADES.
These stars were originally one. Its bright effulgence excited the anger of the
god Tane, who got hold of Aldebaran (Aumea) and Sirius (Mere), and chased the
offender. The affrighted fugitive ran for his life, and took refuge behind a
stream. But Sirius drained off the waters, thus enabling Tane to renew the
chase. Finally, Tane hurled Aldebaran bodily against the exhausted fugitive, who
was thereby splintered into six shining fragments. This cluster of little stars
is appropriately named Mata-riki, or little-eyes, on account of their
brightness. It is also designated Tau-ono, or the six on account of the apparent
number of the fragments; the presence of the seventh star not having been
detected by the unassisted native eye, Reinga thus sings of the wars of the
star-gods:
Ua riri paa Vena ra ia Aumea, Vena was enraged against Aumea, (Aldebaran),
Noa kite ake i te kakenga. On account of the brilliance of his rising.
Noa ui atu i te ara i pao ai Matariki She demanded if he recollected the fate of
the Pleiades,
E Mere ma e! Shivered by Sirius and his friends.
Tuarangi maiti! Tuarangi maiti! Alas 1 ye bright-shining gods! Bright-shining
gods!
This beautiful constellation was of extreme importance in heathenism, as its
appearance at sunset on the eastern horizon determined the commencement of the
new year, which is about the middle of December. The year was divided into two
seasons, or tau: the first, when in the evening these stars appeared on
or near the horizon; the second, when at sunset the stars were invisible.
The re-appearance of Pleiades above the horizon at sunset, i.e. the beginning of
a new year, was in many islands a time of extravagant rejoicing.
We have already seen that the sun was known as the eye of Avatea, of Vatea
(noon-day)? i.e. the right eye: the left eye of Vatea being the moon.
Venus, as the morning star, was called Tamatanui, i.e. the eye of Tane. The
evening star was regarded as a different planet being known as Takurua-rau.
Jupiter was often mistaken for the morning star.']
[6] [Bleeck, Avesta, pt. 3, p. 46, Tistar Yasht, 24. 'I confess, etc., for the Star Tistrya, the brilliant, majestic, for Catavaica, the distributor of water, the strong, created by Mazda, for the Stars which contain the seed of the water, contain the seed of the earth, contain the seed of the trees, created by Mazda, for Yanant, the Star created by Mazda; for the Stars which are the Hapto-iringa, the brilliant, healthful, Khshnaothra, etc. Yatha ahu vairyo.']
[7] [Unable to trace in the Phenomena of Aratus.]
[8] [Rig-Veda, 10:5, 5. Unable to trace in Wilson.]
[9] [Rig-Veda, 10;8, 3. Unable to trace in Wilson.]
[10] [Rit. ch. 142. 'Amset, Hapi, Tuautmutf, Khabhsenuf.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[11] [Boscawen, 'Inscription of Agu-kak-rimi,' RP, 7, 1. See p. 4, col. 1.]
[12] [Birch, 'Inscription of Haremhebi,' RP, 10, 29. See p. 35, 22-25.]
[13] [Ps. 104:19. 'He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.']
[14] [Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and Progress of the Religions and Institutions of India, vol. 5, p. 410. Maitri Upanishad, 6:14. 'The Maitri Upanishad also celebrates Kala, vi. 14 f., declaring that the sun is its source (suryo yonih kalasyei). We find there the following verse: kalat sravanti Ihutdni kalda vriddhim praydnti cia kale chastam niyachhanti edlo murtir amurtimdn. "By Time creatures waste, by Time they increase; in Time they set: Time is a formless form." The writer proceeds: Dve vava Brahmano rupe Kolas cia Akdlas cha atha yah prag Adityat so 'kalo 'kalah atha yah Aditya-dyah sa Kalah sakdlah. "There are two forms of Brahma, Time and No-time. That which is before the sun is No-time, devoid of parts; and that which is subsequent to the sun is Time, with parts."']
[15] [Rit. supplement ch. 164. 'The Osiris takes the time of the heaven, his time is that of the whole Creation.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[16] [Commentary on the Timaeus, bk. 3, 2122. 'For in divine souls likewise there is time, since, as Plato says in the Phaedrus, they survey through time real being itself.' Taylor's tr.]
[17] [Smyth,
The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 431. 'The Moon
was aberrant before her motions were regulated by Nooralie. Nooralie had much to
remember and to consider before he could decide what should be the times of the
appearance of the Moon, and how she should appear, but at length he addressed
her in these words:
Puk-a Mal-imba Penah-pethanha,
Die you bone whiten,
Penak Buhja Bulga.
bone powder powder.
In other words: "Die! your bones whiten—and
your bones go to powder."
The Moon obeyed Nooralie. She dies at regular periods—and
re-appears—and does her duty to the
Aborigines as Nooralie in times long past commanded her to do.']
[18] [Is. 43:18. 'Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.']
[19] [Massey poss. means The Bijak of Kabir, but unable to trace this ref. in that work.]
[20] [On the Allegories of the Sacred Law, ch. 4. 'But nature delights in the number seven. For there are seven planets, going in continual opposition to the daily course of the heaven which always proceeds in the same direction. And likewise the constellation of the Bear is made up of seven stars, which constellation is the cause of communication and unity among men, and not merely of traffic. Again, the periodical changes of the moon, take place according to the number seven, that star having the greatest sympathy with the things on earth. And the changes which the moon works in the air, it perfects chiefly in accordance with its own configurations on each seventh day. At all events, all mortal things, as I have said before, drawing their more divine nature from the heaven, are moved in a manner which tends to their preservation in accordance with this number seven. For who is there who does not know that those infants who are born at the end of the seventh month are likely to live, but those who have taken a longer time, so as to have abided eight months in the womb, are for the most part abortive births? And they say that man is a reasoning being in his first seven years, by which time he is a competent interpreter of ordinary nouns and verbs, making himself master of the faculty of speaking. And in his second period of seven years, he arrives at the perfection of his nature; and this perfection is the power of generating a being like himself; for at about the age of fourteen we are able to beget a creature resembling ourselves. Again, the third period of seven years is the termination of his growth; for up to the age of one and twenty years man keeps on increasing in size, and this time is called by many maturity.' Works, vol. 1, p. 54. Yonge's tr.]
[21] [Reid, Los Angeles Star, cited in Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 122. 'The southern Californians believed that when the Creator made the world he fixed it on the back of seven giants, whose movements, as in the preceding myth, caused earth quakes. The sky, according to certain of the Yucatecs, was held up by four brothers called each of them Bacab, in addition to their several names, which seem to have been Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac. These four, God had placed at the four corners of the world when he created it, and they had escaped when all else were destroyed by flood.']
[22] [Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 447. 'The men, women, and children had no water to drink; Kur-bo-roo had taken it all. Much distressed and perplexed, the Aborigines gave way at length to extreme despair, for no help came to them. Kur-ruk-ar-ook seeing all these things, came down from the sky, and enquired into the causes of this sorrow. Kur-ruk-ar-ook called all the bears to her and heard their complaints, and she heard also all that the Aborigines had to say, and she settled the quarrel thus: The blacks might eat the flesh of the bear, because it was good, but they might not skin it as they skinned common animals; and the bears were commanded not to steal the Tarnuk, the No-bean tarno, or the waters of the creeks; and all of them, blacks and bears, became friends by means of the counsel given by Kur-ruk-ar-ook. Thenceforth the bear became well disposed towards the blacks, and ever ready to give advice and help to them.']
[23] [Ibid., vol. 1, p. 459. 'By-and-by the blacks lost the fire. Winter came on. They were very cold. They had no place whereat they could cook their food. They had to eat their food raw and cold like the dogs. Snakes multiplied and everywhere abounded. At length Pal-gang, who had brought forth women from the water, sent down from the sky Kar-ak-ar-ook to guard the women. [She is represented as a sister of Pal-gang, and is held in respect unto this day by the black women.] This good Kar-ak-ar-ook, who was a very fine and very big woman, with nerrirn-nerrim kan-nan (a very, very long stick), went about the country killing a multitude of snakes (Ood-gul-gul Kornmul), but leaving here and there a few. In striking one, her big stick broke, and therefrom came fire.']
[24] [Ibid., vol. 1, p. 460. 'The good Kar-ah-ar-ook had told the women to examine well the stick she had broken, and from which came the smoke and fire, and never to lose the gift; but, as this was not enough, Kar took the men to a mountain, whereon grows Djel-ivuk (of the wood of which they could make weenth-kalk-kal k, i.e., fire-sticks), and he showed them how to form and use Boo-ho-ho and Bab-a-noo, so that they might always have the means at hand to light a fire.']
[25] [The author of Os Lusiads.]
[26] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3,
p. 86. 'A much more prosaic and materialistic origin is that accorded to the
moon in the traditions of the Gallinomeros of central California. In the
beginning, they say there was no light, but a thick darkness covered all the
earth. Man stumbled blindly against man and against the animals, the birds
clashed together in the air, and confusion reigned everywhere. The Hawk
happening by chance to fly into the face of the Coyote, there followed mutual
apologies and afterward a long discussion on the emergency of the situation.
Determined to make some effort toward abating the public evil, the two set about
a remedy. The Coyote gathered a great heap of tales, rolled them into a ball,
and gave it to the Hawk, together with some pieces of flint. Gathering ail
together as well as he could, the Hawk flew straight up into the sky, where he
struck fire with the flints, lit his ball of reeds, and left it there, whirling
along all in a fierce red glow as it continues to the present; for it is the
sun. In the same way the moon was made, but as the tales of which it was
constructed were rather damp, its light has been always somewhat uncertain and
feeble.']
[27] [Ibid., vol. 1, p. 109. 'With the superior activity and intelligence of the Thlinkeets, social castes begin to appear. Besides an hereditary nobility, from which class all chiefs are chosen, the whole nation is separated into two great divisions or clans, one of which is called the Wolf, and the other the Raven. Upon their houses, boats, robes, shields, and wherever else they can find a place for it, they paint or carve their crest, an heraldic device of the beast or the bird designating the clan to which the owner belongs. The Raven trunk is again divided into sub-clans, called the Frog, the Goose, the Sea-Lion, the Owl, and the Salmon. The Wolf family comprises the Bear, Eagle, Dolphin, Shark, and Alca. In this clanship some singular social features present themselves. People are at once thrust widely apart, and yet drawn together. Tribes of the same clan may not war on each other, but at the same time members of the same clan may not marry with each other. Thus the young Wolf warrior must seek his mate among the Ravens, and, while celebrating his nuptials one day, he may be called upon the next to fight his father-in-law over some hereditary feud. Obviously this singular social fancy tends greatly to keep the various tribes of the nation at peace.']
[28] [Ausland für
Nov. 4, 1847. 'The following is a very curious negro tradition, taken down
by Dr. Tutschek from a native in Tumale, near the centre of Africa.
Til (God) made men and bade them live together in peace and happiness, labour
five days, and keep the sixth as a festival. They were forbidden to hurt the
beasts or reptiles. They themselves were deathless, but the animals suffered
death. The frog was accursed by God, because when He was making the animals it
hopped over His foot. Then God ordered the men to build mountains: they did so,
but they soon forgot God's commands, killed the beasts and quarrelled with one
another. Wherefore Til (God) sent fire and destroyed them, but saved one of the
race, named Musikdegen, alive. Then Til began to re-create beings. He stood
before a wood and called, Ombo Abnatum Dgu! and there came out a gazelle and
licked His feet. So He said, Stand up, Gazelle! and when it stood up, its
beast-form disappeared, and it was a beautiful maiden, and He called her Mariam.
He blessed her, and she bore four children, a white pair and a black pair. When
they were grown up, God ordered them to marry, the white together, and the black
together. In Dai, the story goes that Til cut out both Mariam's knee-caps, and
of each He made a pair of children. Those which were white He sent north; those
which were black He gave possession of the land where they were born.
God then made the animals subject to death, but the men He made were immortal.
But the new created men became disobedient, as had the first creatures; and the
frog complained to Him of His injustice in having made the harmless animals
subject to death, but guilty man deathless. "Thou art right," answered Til, and
He cast on the men He had made, old age, sickness, and death.' Quoted in Baring-Gould,
Legends of Old Testament Characters, p. 31.]
[29] [As above note.]
[30] ['Pennant, in his Tour Through South Wales, p. 28, noticing the whitening of houses, says: "This custom, which we observed to be so universally followed from the time we entered Glamorganshire, made me curious enough to inquire into its origin, which it owes entirely to superstition. The good people think that by means of this general whitening they shut the door of their houses against the devil."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 521.]
[31] [Seven Years' Travel in Central America, North Mexico, and the Far West of the United States, p. 220. 'Froebel speaks of negro slaves in the United States believing that in the next world they shall be white men and free, nor is there anything strange in their cherishing a hope so prevalent among their kindred in West Africa. But from this the traveller goes on to quote another story, which, if not too good to be true, is a theory of upward and downward development, almost thorough enough for a Buddhist philosopher. He says, 'A German whom I met here told me that the blacks believe the damned among the negroes to become monkeys; but if in this state they behave well, they are advanced to the state of a negro again, and bliss is eventually possible to them, consisting in their turning white, becoming winged, and so on.' From Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1, p. 379.]
[32] [Arnold, Genesis and Science: or, The First Leaves of the Bible, p. 155. 'The Yumula negroes teach that Til the great Creator, cut the knee-caps from the hermaphrodite-Venus, and made from them a black and white human pair. Other negro tribes speak of the first woman being called Iye, or life. The hellenistic myths also knew of a creation of the woman from the rib. It is related of Pelops, that on Demeter having consumed one of his shoulder-blades, Zeus put one of ivory in its place. According to another tradition the lost bone was a rib, and the ivory rib was subsequently shown as a relic in Elis. Again, Leda, the celebrated mother of Sparta, was surnamed pleuronia, which implies that she was taken from the rib-man. Artemidorus speaks of women as ribs, saying, "women are ribs."']
[33]
[Home Tooke, Diversions of Purley, vol. 1, p. 397. 'The outcast race of Cagots, about the Pyrenees, were said to be born with tails; and in Spain the
mediaeval superstition still survives that the Jews have tails, like the devil,
as they say. In England the notion was turned to theological profit by being
claimed as a judgment on wretches who insulted St. Augustine and St. Thomas of
Canterbury. Home Tooke quotes thus from that zealous and somewhat foul-mouthed
reformer, Bishop Bale: 'Johan Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby sayth, that for
castynge of fyshe tayles at thys Augustyne, Dorsett Shyre menne hadde tayles
ever after. But Polydorus applieth it unto Kentish men at Stroud by Rochester,
for cuttinge of Thomas Becket's horse's tail. Thus hath England in all other
land a perpetuall infamy of tayles by theyr wrytten legendes of lyes, yet can
they not well tell where to bestowe them truely an Englyshman now cannot
travayle in an other land, by way of marchandyse or any other honest occupyinge,
but it is most contumeliously thrown in his tethe, that al Englishmen have
tailes.' From Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1, p. 384.
See also Tylor, ibid., vol. 1, p. 383. 'To people who at once believe
monkeys a kind of savages, and savages a kind of monkeys, men with tails are
creatures' coming under both definitions. Thus the Homo caudatus, or satyr,
often appears in popular belief as a half-human creature, while even in
old-fashioned works on natural history he may be found depicted on the evident
model of an anthropoid ape. In East Africa, the imagined tribe of long-tailed
men are also monkey-faced, while in South America the coata tapuya, or
'monkey-men,' are as naturally described as men with tails.']
[34] [Chabas, 'The Magic Papyrus,' RP, 10, 135. See p. 155.]
[35] [Mahaffy, Prolegomena to Ancient History, frontispiece.]
[36] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 583. 'Next come the Tinneh, a people whose diffusion is only equalled by that of the Aryan or Semitic nations of the Old World. The dialects of the Tinneh language are by no means confined within the limits of the Hyperborean division. Stretching from the northern interior of Alaska down into Sonora and Chihuahua, we have here a linguistic line of more than four thousand miles in length, extending diagonally over forty-two degrees of latitude; like a great tree whose trunk is the Rocky Mountain range, whose roots encompass the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, and whose branches touch the borders of Hudson Bay and of the Arctic and Pacific oceans. In the north, immense compact areas are covered by these dialects; toward the south the line holds its course steadily in one direction, while at the same time on either side are isolated spots, broken fragments, as it were, of the Tinneh tongue, at wide distances in some cases from the central line. A reference to the classification given at the end of the preceding chapter, will show the separation of the Tinneh family into four divisions the eastern, western, central, and southern. The eastern division embraces the dialects spoken between Hudson Bay and the Mackenzie River; the western, those of the Kutchins and Keriai of interior Alaska and the Pacific coast in the vicinity of Mount St Elias and Copper River; the central, those of the Tacullies of New Caledonia, the Umpquas of Oregon, and the Hoopahs of California; the southern, those of the Apaches of New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico.']
[37] [Herodotus, Histories, bk.
2.14. 'And certes, in thus speaking of
the Greeks the Egyptians say nothing but what is true. But now let me tell the
Egyptians how the case stands with themselves. If, as I said before, the country
below Memphis, which is the land that is always rising, continues to increase in
height at the rate at which it has risen in times gone by, how will it be
possible for the inhabitants of that region to avoid hunger, when they will
certainly have no rain, 1 and the river will not be able to overflow their
corn-lands? At present, it must be confessed, they obtain the fruits of the
field with less trouble than any other people in the world, the rest of the
Egyptians included, since they have no need to break up the ground with the
plough, nor to use the hoe, nor to do any of the work which the rest of mankind
find necessary if they are to get a crop; but the husbandman waits till the
river has of its own accord spread itself over the fields and withdrawn again to
its bed, and then sows his plot of ground, and after sowing turns his swine into
it—the swine tread in the corn—after
which he has only to await the harvest. The swine serve him also to thrash the
grain, which is then carried to the gamer.'
Rawlinson's tr., and his note: 'The paintings show that oxen were commonly used
to tread out the grain from the ear at harvest-time, and occasionally, though
rarely, asses were so employed; but pigs not being sufficiently heavy for the
purpose, are not likely to have been substituted for oxen.'
'This has been rightly said by the Egyptians with reference to the
Hellenes: but now let me tell how matters are with the Egyptians themselves in
their turn. If, in accordance with what I before said, their land below Memphis
(for this is that which is increasing) shall continue to increase in height
according to the same proportion as in past time, assuredly those Egyptians who
dwell here will suffer famine, if their land shall not have rain nor the river
be able to go over their fields. It is certain however that now they gather in
fruit from the earth with less labour than any other men and also with less than
the other Egyptians; for they have no labour in breaking up furrows with a
plough nor in hoeing nor in any other of those labours which other men have
about a crop; but when the river has come up of itself and watered their fields
and after watering has left them again, then each man sows his own field and
turns into it swine, and when he has trodden the seed into the ground by means
of the swine, after that he waits for the harvest; and when he has threshed the
corn by means of the swine, then he gathers it in.' Tr., Macauley.]
[38] [Symposiacs, question 5, 2, in
Works, vol. 3, p. 307. 'Hence it is, says Callistratus, that I am of an
opinion that this nation has that creature in some veneration; and though it be
granted that the hog is an ugly and filthy creature, yet it is not quite so vile
nor naturally stupid as a beetle, griffin, crocodile, or cat, most of which are
worshipped as the most sacred things by some priests amongst the Egyptians. But
the reason why the hog is had in so much honour and veneration amongst them is,
because, as the report goes, that creature breaking up the earth with its snout
showed the way to tillage, and taught them how to use the ploughshare, which
instrument for that very reason, as some say, was called hynis from
ΰς, a swine. Now the Egyptians
inhabiting a country situated low, and whose soil is naturally soft, have no
need of the plough; but after the river Nile hath retired from the grounds it
overflowed, they presently let all their hogs into the fields.' Goodwin's ed.
In this particular section of the Symposiacs (or Table-Talk),
Plutarch discusses the forbidding of eating pork by Jews and gives a possible
explanation for it; their predisposition for contracting porcine measles through
eating pork. This forms the backbone of his explanation of the Jewish
prohibition from eating the flesh of swine.
See also The Singular Beast (Columbia University Press, 1997) by Claudine
Fabre-Vassas, a fascinating account of the demonization of the pig, and who also
cites this section of Plutarch on pp. 25 and 104. She argues that such a taboo
set up the cultural boundaries between Jews and Christians of the Medieval
period.]
[39] [Spreeuwenberg, 'A Glance at Minahassa, (Menado) in Celebes,' JIA, 2 (1848), 837. 'In Celebes we hear of the world-supporting Hog, who rubs himself against a tree, and then there is an earthquake.' From Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1, p. 364.]
[40]
[Catlin,
Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North
American Indians, vol. 1, (10th ed.), p. 141. 'One of the
Mandan doctors told me very gravely a few days since, that the earth was a large
tortoise, that it carried the dirt on its back—that
a tribe of people, who are now dead, and whose faces were white, used to dig
down very deep in this ground to catch badgers; and that one day they stuck a
knife through the tortoise-shell, and it sunk down so that the water ran over
its back, and drowned all but one man. And on the next day while I was painting
his portrait, he told me there were four tortoises,—one
in the North—one in the East—one
in the South,—and one in the West; that each
one of these rained ten days, and the water covered over the earth.'
See also Tylor, ibid., vol. 1, p. 364. 'Among the Indians of North
America, it is said that earthquakes come of the movement of the great
world-bearing Tortoise. Now this Tortoise seems but a mythic picture of the
Earth itself, thus the story only expresses in mythic phrase the very act that
the earth quakes; the meaning is but one degree distinct than among the Caribs,
who say when there is earthquake that their Mother Earth is dancing.']
[41] [Moor, Hindu Pantheon, pl. 49.]
[42] [Sketches of Ancient History of the
Six Nations. 'The current version of this legend is that set down in
1825 by the Christian chief of the Tuscaroras, David Cusick, as the belief of
his people. Among the ancients, he relates, there were two worlds, the lower
world in darkness and possessed by monsters, the upper world inhabited by
mankind. A woman near her travail sank from this upper region to the dark world
below. She alighted on a Tortoise, prepared to receive her with a little earth
on his back, which Tortoise became an island. The celestial mother bore twin
sons into the dark world, and died. The tortoise increased to a great island,
and the twins grew up. One was of gentle disposition, and was called Enigorio,
the Good Mind, the other was of insolent character, and was named Enigonhahetgea,
the Bad Mind. The Good Mind, not contented to remain in darkness, wished to
create a great light; the Bad Mind desired that the world should remain in its
natural state. The Good Mind took his dead mother's head and made it the sun,
and of a remnant of her body he made the moon. These were to give light to the
day and to the night. Also he created many spots of light, now stars: these were
to regulate the days, nights, seasons, years. Where the light came upon the dark
world, the monsters were displeased, and hid themselves in the depths, lest man
should find them. The Good Mind continued the creation, formed many creeks and
rivers on the Great Island, created small and great beasts to inhabit the
forests, and fishes to inhabit the waters. When he had made the universe, he
doubted concerning beings to possess the Great Island. He formed two images of
the dust of the ground in his own likeness, male and female, and by breathing
into their nostrils gave them living souls, and named them Ea-gwe-howe, that is
'real people;' and he gave the Great Island all the animals of game for their
maintenance; he appointed thunder to water the earth by frequent rains; the
island became fruitful, and vegetation afforded to the animals subsistence. The
Bad Mind went throughout the island and made high mountains and waterfalls and
great steeps, and created reptiles injurious to mankind; but the Good Mind
restored the island to its former condition. The Bad Mind made two clay images
in the form of man, but while he was giving them existence they became apes; and
so on. The Good Mind accomplished the works of creation, notwithstanding the
imaginations of the Bad Mind were continually evil; thus he attempted to enclose
all the animals of game in the earth away from mankind, but his brother set them
free, and traces of them were made on the rocks near the cave where they were
shut in. At last the brethren came to single combat for the mastery of the
universe. The Good Mind falsely persuaded the Bad Mind that whipping with flags
would destroy his own life, but he himself used the deer-horns, the instrument
of death. After a two days' fight, the Good Mind slew his brother and crushed
him in the earth; and the last words of the Bad Mind were that he would have
equal power over men's souls after death, then he sank down to eternal doom and
became the Evil Spirit. The Good Mind visited the people, and then retired from
the earth.' From Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2, pp. 320-2, quoting
Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, part v, p. 632; see part i, p. 316, part vi,
p. 166.
See the full text of Cusick.]
[43] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 55.]
[44] [Schirren, Die Wandersagen der Neuseeländer und der Mauimythos, p. 126.]
[45] [Rit. ch. 85. 'I pass through Substances, making them full. I pierce the darkness. Hidden Reptile is my name. I have cleared the paths for all, the Lord of Joy.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[46] [Wright, Worship of the
Generative Powers, p. 202. 'In the Vienna bowl, the formula of faith is
written on a sort of large placard, which is held up to view by a figure
apparently intended for another representation of Mete or Baphomet. Von Hammer
translates it:—
"Exaltetur Mete germinans, stirps nostra ego et septem fuere, tu renegans
reditus ώρωκγός fis."
This still is, it must be confessed, rather mysterious, and, in fact, most of
these copies of the formula of faith are more or less defective, but, from a
comparison of them, the general form and meaning of the whole is made perfectly
clear. This may be translated, "Let Mete be exalted, who causes things to bud
and blossom! he is our root; it (the root) is one and seven; abjure (the faith),
and abandon thyself to all pleasures." The number seven is said to refer to the
seven archons of the Gnostic creed.']
[47] [Histoire de l'Ordre Militaire des Templiers, p. 94. 'In the first place the invocation which precedes the formula, Yalla (Jah la), agrees exactly with the statement of Raymond Rubei, one of the Provencal templars that when the superior exhibited the idol, or figure of Baphomet, he kissed it and exclaimed "Yalla!" which he calls "a word of the Saracens," i.e. Arabic.' From Wright, ibid., p. 203.]
[48] [Apostolius, Clavis
homerica? 8.19.
Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 644. 'Chorus of
women [singing]: Then, citizens all, hear what
I have to say. I have useful counsel to give our city, which deserves it well at
my hands for the brilliant distinctions it has lavished on my girlhood. At seven
years of age, I carried the sacred vessels; at ten, I pounded barley for the
altar of Athene; next, clad in a robe of yellow silk, I played the bear to
Artemis at the Brauronia; presently, when I was grown up, a tall, handsome
maiden, they put a necklace of dried figs about my neck, and I was one of the
Canephori.']
[49] [Troy and its Remains, p. 228. 'The existence of the figure of a hippopotamus here at a depth of 13 feet is extremely remarkable, nay, astonishing; for this animal as is well known, is not met with even in Upper Egypt, and it occurs only in the rivers of the interior of Africa. It however, probable that hippopotami existed in Upper Egypt in ancient times; for, according to Herodotus (II. 7) they were worshipped as sacred animals at the Egyptian town of Papremis. At all events, Troy must have been commercially connected with Egypt; but even so, it is still an enigma, how the animal was so well known here as to have been made of clay in a form quite faithful to nature.']
[50] [Commentary on the Timaeus, bk. 2. Unable to trace.]
[51] [Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 350. 'juhu, us, f. (fr. rt. hve), a tongue; especially the tongue or tongues of Agni, the flames; saptajuhvafi, the seven tongues of Agni; see jihvd. Juhu personified is the wife of Brahma and goddess of speech; [cf. sarasvati.].']
[53] [The Library, bk. 3:1. 'The Ethiopians say, that they were the first men that ever were in the world; and that, to prove this, they have clear demonstrations. For they say, they are natives of the country, and not strangers that came to settle there; and are therefore, by general consent, almost of all men, called Autochthones; and that, in every man's opinion, it is most probable, that those who inhabit the south, were the first living men that sprang out of the earth.' Booth's tr.]
[54] [Kidd, China, or Illustrations of the Symbols, Philosophy, Antiquities, Customs, etc., p. 305. 'In the absence of inspired teaching, which enabled Hebrew patriarchs and poets correctly to interpret the economy of nature, the Chinese, on the principle that the heavens do rule, have elaborated systems of superstition from the properties and apparent motion of the planets. Their speculative notions on the origin of the universe, which gave birth to their astrological and other systems of divination, occurred, it is said, so early as three thousand years before the Christian era, when Fuh-he drew eight diagrams to coincide with the marks on the back of the tortoise. But though these mystic symbols were discovered so early by this celebrated person, the honour of analyzing them was reserved for a member of the Sung dynasty, who introduced the circle, to which he applied the terms—"extreme limit; chaos; primitive existence; unity."']
[55] [Ibid., pp. 135, 141. 'The original, abstract, principle of causation, denominated Tae-keih, is represented in Chinese authors by a circle, or by a circle enclosing a waving line from the top to the bottom, which is also an ancient symbol of the sun. When this principle was in motion, it produced a male power, and when it was at rest a female power; from whose united operations four visible forms were generated, which represent, by eight diagrams, innumerable combinations and transmutations in nature, resembling the Pythagorean system of accounting for the origin of the universe. Tae-keih means the great limit, or extreme principle of analysis, ... yet these three sages are but one first cause—that is, the one indivisible monad, to which we have already referred, called Tae-keih. This triune power presiding in heaven over assembled divinities and rulers, the sun, moon, stars, and constellations, despatches a celestial messenger to announce the pardon of sin, infinite happiness, and complete deliverance from evil, to all who shall recite his precious name with many magnificent epithets superadded. He is considered as the restorer of reason, who has by incarnation assumed some form or other in seven different periods, from the highest antiquity down to the sera of his residence on earth, and subsequently as late as the sixth century.']
[56] [Job 38:7. 'When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?']
[57] [Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis, p. 152. 'By Gathas, frequently mentioned in the Zend-Avesta, the ancient settlements of the Iranian agriculturists are to be understood. Ahuramazda is constantly called their creator, which means, that these settlements belong to a very remote antiquity, and that they form the basis of the Ahura religion, or the religion of the agriculturists.']
[58] [Unable to trace.]
[59] [Source.]
[60] [Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 4, p. 22.
'But the Greek ..... did not come from Hebrew, because here again there is no
historical bridge between the two languages. In Greek we trace the word to
Xenophon, who brought it back from his repeated journeys in Persia, and who uses
it in the
sense of pleasure-ground, or deer park!
Lastly, we find the same word used in the LXX, as the name given to the garden
of Eden, the word having been .... either a third title from Persia, or taken
from the Greek, and indirectly from the works of Xenophon. This is the real
history of the word. It is an Aryan word, but it docs not exist in Sanskrit.']
[61] [Zoroastriche Studien, (?).
See also Zarathustra in the Gathas, p. 30. 'How sharp and definite the
representation of the genius Mithra appears in the later Avesta, especially in
the Mihir Yasht dedicated to him. He is the genius of the morning-sun, who
brings hither the light. As such he is the enemy and vanquisher of the demons of
night. But he is also the yazata of truth, of rights and contracts. The
sphere of his might ranges still further. He is prince and king of the earth,
the helper in battles whom the warriors invoke at the commencement of fighting,
and who helps them onto victory. Lastly, he takes vengeance on the wicked. He
especially inflicts punishment on liars and violators of promise.']
[62] [Sayce, 'Accadian Hymn to Istar,' RP, 5, 155. See p. 159.]
[63] [In Haug's Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis and Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. 3, pages 459-506.]
[64] [Metamorphoses, 11.47. 'I am she that is the naturall mother of all things, mistresse and governesse of all the Elements, the initiall progeny of worlds, chiefe of powers divine, Queene of heaven! the principall of the Gods celestiall, the light of the goddesses: at my will the planets of the ayre, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell be diposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customes and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the Gods: the Athenians, Minerva: the Cyprians, Venus: the Candians, Diana: the Sicilians Proserpina: the Eleusians, Ceres: some Juno, other Bellona, other Hecate: and principally the Aethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Aegyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustome to worship mee, doe call mee Queene Isis.' Adlington's tr.]
[65] [Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis, p. 363, fargard 1. 'The fifteenth of places and districts produced perfect by me, me who am Auharmazd, was (73) (that of those) who are the seven Hindus (Hinduhdn); (a) and its seven-Hinduism is this, that the chief rulers are seven; yet I do not say this, that there are not seven, since (it is) from the Avesta hacha tishastara Hendva avi daoshastarevi Hendum ("from the eastern Hindu to the western Hindu "). Some say that there is one to each region (Jcesltvar). (74) And in opposition to that were formed by the evil spirit, who is deadly, (75) the unnatural menstruation which becomes more violent, (and) the unnatural heat which is beyond measure.']
[66] [Haug, ibid., as above note.]
[68] [Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis, p. 403. 'The, Ijashne Ceremony. After the Paragnah is completed, the Zota and Raspi go to the taklit on which all the necessary things (Homa juice, &c.) have been placed, and each of them repeats a. v. once; that is, they take the Baj inwardly in this manner. They then recite y. a. v. several times, the number depending upon the nature of the Ijashne, If it be celebrated for Rapithwin, twelve are necessary; if for Hormazd, ten; if for the Frohars, eight; if for Srosh, five; and if for all the Yazads, seven.']
[71] [Ginsburg, Kabbalah, (1920 ed), p. 95. 'We cannot understand more of his nature than the attribute expresses. Hence, when he is divested of all these things, he has neither any attribute nor any similitude or form. The form in which he is generally depicted is to be compared to a very expansive sea; for the waters of the sea are in themselves without a limit or form, and it is only when they spread themselves upon the earth that they assume a form. We can now make the following calculation: the source of the sea's water and the water stream proceeding therefrom to spread itself are two. A great reservoir is then formed, just as if a huge hollow had been dug; this reservoir is called sea, and is the third. The unfathomable deep divides itself into seven streams, resembling seven long vessels. The source, the water stream, the sea and the seven streams make together ten. And when the master breaks the vessels which he has made, the waters return to the source, and then only remain the pieces of these vessels, dried up and without any water. It is in this way that the Cause of Causes gave rise to the ten Sephiroth.' Citing The Zohar, 1:42, b. 43a, sect. Ba.]
[72] [Calmet, Calmet's Great Dictionary of the Holy Bible, pl. 76.]
[73] [Odyssey, bk. 4:477. 'In the river Aegyptus, though eager I was to press onward home, the gods they stayed me, for that I had not offered them the acceptable sacrifice of hecatombs, and the gods ever desired that men should be mindful of their commandments.' Butcher & Lang's tr.]
[74] [Sayce, 'An Accadian Liturgy,' RP, 3, 125. See p. 129.]
[75] [Primitive Principles. 'But the Babylonians, like the
rest of the Barbarians, pass over in silence the One principle of the universe,
and they constitute two, Tauthe and Apason, making Apason the husband of Tauthe,
and denominating her the "mother of the gods." And from these proceeds an
only-begotten son, Moymis, which, I conceive, is no other than the intelligible
world proceeding from the two principles. From them, also, another progeny is
derived, Dache and Dachus; and again a third, Kissare and Assorus, from which
last three others proceed, Anus and Illinus, and Aus. And of Aus and Davke is
born a son called Belus, who, they say, is the fabricator of the world—the
Demiurgus.' In Cory, Ancient Fragments, p.
92.
See also NG 1:465 and 19th C. p. 172. This whole passage has
been preserved in Photius' Bibliotheca, cod. 279, and is also quoted in
Lenormant's Chaldean Magic, p. 202, footnote 3, which Massey also
consulted.]
[76] [Yasna 29.2. 'Then
asked the Fashioner of the Cow of Asha: Where thou a lord for the Cow?'
Bleeck's tr.
See also Haug,
Essays on the Sacred
Language of the Parsis, p. 148. 'Geush urvd means the universal
soul of earth, the cause of all life and growth. The literal meaning of the
word, "soul of the cow," implies a simile; for the earth is compared to a cow.']
[77] [A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, p. 141. 'Another tradition stated that the heavens were originally so close to the earth that men could not walk, but were compelled to crawl. This was a serious evil; but, at length, an individual conceived the sublime idea of elevating the heavens to a more convenient height. For this purpose, he put forth his utmost energy; and, by the first effort, raised them to the top of a tender plant, called teve, about four feet high. There he deposited them until he was refreshed; when, by a second effort, he lifted them to the height of a tree called kauariki, which is as large as the sycamore. By the third attempt he carried them to the summits of the mountains; and, after a long interval of repose, and by a most prodigious effort, he elevated them to their present situation. This vast undertaking, however, was greatly facilitated by myriads of dragon flies, which, with their wings, severed the cords that confined the heavens to the earth.']
[78]
[Rev. 21:10-12. 'And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high
mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of
heaven from God,
Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even
like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve
angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of
the children of Israel.']
[79] [Description of Greece, bk. 1, 14, 7. 'Hard by is a sanctuary of the Heavenly Aphrodite; the first men to establish her cult were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians who live at Ascalon in Palestine; the Phoenicians taught her worship to the people of Cythera. Among the Athenians the cult was established by Aegeus, who thought that he was childless (he had, in fact, no children at the time) and that his sisters had suffered their misfortune because of the wrath of Heavenly Aphrodite. The statue still extant is of Parian marble and is the work of Pheidias. One of the Athenian parishes is that of the Athmoneis, who say that Porphyrion, an earlier king than Actaeus, founded their sanctuary of the Heavenly One. But the traditions current among the Parishes often differ altogether from those of the city.' Frazer's tr.]
[80] [Boscawen, Ac., Oct. 1877.]
[81] [Book of Enoch, ch. 41:1.]
[82] [Gen. 3:24. 'So he drove
out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a
flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.'
Clement Alexander, Stromateis,
bk. 5. I can find no ref. to the above biblical passage in bk. 5, nor is it
listed in the scriptural index.]
[83] [Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, p. 169. Note: I am unsure of this attribution as Massey does not specify vol. no. and there is no mention of 'thigh' or 'leg', but I presume he is referring to this.]
[84] [Job 40:19. 'He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.']
[86] [The Koran, ch. 89. 'Hast thou
not considered how thy LORD dealt with Ad, the people of Irem, adorned with
lofty buildings, the like whereof hath not been erected in the land.' Sale's tr.
'Note a: Was the name of the territory or city of the Adites, and of the garden
mentioned in the next note; which were so called from Irem, or Aram, the
grandfather of Ad, their progenitor. Some think Aaron himself to be here meant,
and his name to be added to signify the ancient Adites, his immediate
descendants, and to distinguish them from the latter tribe of that name: but the
adjective and relative joined to the word are, in the original, of the feminine
gender, which seems to contradict this opinion.' Ibid.]
[87] [ARSB, 3, 299.
Burgess, Surya Siddhanta, ch. 12.39-40. 'Northward, in the clime Kuru, is
declared to be the city called that of the Perfected (siddha): in it
dwell the magnanimous Perfected, free from trouble.
There are situated also at a distance from one another of a quadrant of the
earth's circumference; to the north of them the same distance, is Meru, the
abode of the gods (sura).']
[89] [Wilson, Vishnu Purana, vol. 2, p. 114. 'They are two thousand (Yojanas) in height, and as many in breadth. The Varshas (or countries between these ranges) are: Bharata (India), south of the Himavat mountains; next, Kimpurusha, between Himavat and Hemakuta; north of the latter, and south of Nishadha, is Harivarsha; north of Meru is Ramyaka, extending from the Nila compares its summit, in one place, to a saucer, and observes that its circumference must be thrice its diameter: The Matsya, also, rather incompatibly, says the measurement is that of a circular form, but it is considered quadrangular: According to the Buddhists of Ceylon, Meru is said to be of the same diameter throughout. Those of Nepal conceive it to be shaped like a drum.']
[90] [Sayce, 'Accadian Hymn to Istar,' RP, 5, 155. See p. 159.]
[91] [Bleeck, The Avesta, pt. 2, p. 98, Yasna, 38:15. '(Who) with long arms lead (the body of the world) without creating, without speaking: the Mataro jitayo (milk).']
[92] [Kidd, China, or Illustrations of the Symbols, Philosophy, Antiquities, Customs, etc., pp. 167-8. 'From the time Yin and Yang united, and the five elements were intermingled in the centre of the universe, moisture and heat operated on each other and produced an intelligent being, who, as he gazed upon the heavens, saw a golden blaze of light dart from a star and fall to the earth. He approached the phenomenon, and perceived an animated creature of the same species as himself. It cried out, "The wings have long embraced you; on the breaking forth of the fructifying principle, I knew that you had entered into the world; and then, plucking plants, made garments to cover the inferior parts of the body." Having bestowed the appellation "Imperial reverence," it informed him of the manner of creation; of the division of the heavens and the earth; of the Yin and Yang; of the separation of darkness from light; and that all things were produced from an egg first formed in the water; that there were four other human beings made, at the four points of the compass, each of whom, when the golden-coloured personage disappeared, flew to the spot from a different quarter: the first from the north, "son of the essence of water;" the second from the south, "son of the essence of red earth;" the third from the east, "superintendent of wood;" the fourth, "golden mother," from a paradisiacal mountain in the west. These five persons obtained out of an immense crucible, by chemical process, a male and a female, from whom, through the essential influence of the sun and moon, human beings descended, who gradually filled the earth.']
[93] [Bleeck, The Avesta, pt. 2, p. 98, Yasna, 38:13. 'You, the waters Azi, Mataras, Agenayo, Dregudaya.']
[94] [Bleeck, ibid., pt. 2, p. 98, footnote. 'The name Azi and its translations are alike unintelligble. Mataras (= the mother), betokens the seed of men, Agenayo to the blood, and Dregudaya the juice of fruit.' ]
[95] [Fargard, 5:57. Tr. unknown.
Cf. Bleeck's tr., ibid., pt. 1, p. 42: 'Purified do the waters flow from out the sea
Putika to the sea Youru-kasha.']
[96] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 81. 'The Navajos, living north of the Pueblos, say that at one time all the nations, Navajos, Pueblos, Coyoteros, and white people, lived together, underground in the heart of a mountain near the river San Juan. Their only food was meat, which they had in abundance, for all kinds of game were closed up with them in their cave; but their light was dim and only endured for a few hours each day. There were happily two dumb men among the Navajos, flute-players who enlivened the darkness with music. One of these, striking by chance on the roof of the limbo with his flute, brought out a hollow sound, upon which the elders of the tribes determined to bore in the direction whence the sound came. The flute was then set up against the roof, and the Raccoon sent up the tube to dig a way out; but he could not. Then the Moth-worm mounted into the breach, and bored and bored till he found himself suddenly on the outside of the mountain and surrounded by water. Under these novel circumstances, he heaped up a little mound and set himself down on it to observe and ponder the situation. A critical situation enough! for, from the four corners of the universe, four great white Swans bore down upon him, every one with two arrows, one under either wing. The Swan from the north reached him first, and having pierced him with two arrows, drew them out and examined their points, exclaiming as the result: He is of my race. So also in succession did all the others. Then they went away; and toward the directions in which they departed, to the north, south, east, and west, were found four great arroyos, by which all the water flowed off, leaving only mud. The worm now returned to the cave, and the Raccoon went up into the mud, sinking in it mid-leg deep, as the marks on his fur show to this day. And the wind began to rise, sweeping up the four great arroyos, and the mud was dried away. Then the men and the animals began to come up from their cave, and their coming up required several days. First came the Navajos, and no sooner had they reached the surface than they commenced gaming at patole, their favorite game. Then came the Pueblos and other Indians who crop their hair and build houses. Lastly came the white people, who started off at once for the rising sun and were lost sight of for many winters. While these nations lived underground they all spake one tongue; but with the light of day and the level of earth came many languages.']
[97] [Source.]
[98] [Renouf, HL, p. 221. 'In a
papyrus at Turin, the following words are put into the mouth of "the almighty
God, the self-existent, who made heaven and earth, the waters, the breaths of
life, fire, the gods, men, animals, cattle, reptiles, birds, fishes, kings, men
and gods, I am the maker of heaven and of the earth. I raise its mountains and
the creatures which are upon it; I make the waters, and the Meh-ura comes into
being I am the maker of heaven, and of the mysteries of the two-fold horizon. It
is I who have given to all the gods the soul which is within them. When I open
my eyes, there is light; when I close them, there is darkness I make the hours,
and the hours come into existence. I am Chepera in the morning, Ra at noon, Tmu
in the evening."'
See also BB 2:490.]
[99] [Rit. ch. 71. 'Oh Hawk coming forth from Nu! Lord of the Great Cow [the Flood, Meh-hur].' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[100] [Talbot, 'Chaldean Account of the Creation,' RP, 9, 115. See p. 117, tab. 5.]
[101] [Eitel, Feng Shui, p. 29. 'Accordingly we have, in this new arrangement of the eight diagrams of Foo-he, the diagram for water in the North, that for thunder in the East, that for fire in the South, and that for ocean in the West. The North-East is occupied by the diagram answering for mountains, the South-East by the wind diagram, whilst the diagram for earth is placed in the South-West, and that for heaven in the North-West.' Or pp. 24-5, rev'd ed.]
[102] [Ibid., p. 29. 'To allow fancy and imaginative ingenuity still wider play, these eight diagrams are not only, as we have shown, made to correspond to the eight points of the compass, but also to eight different seasons. Even a set of eight different animals are made to answer to these eight diagrams, the first of which is said to represent the strength of a horse, the second the docility of an ox, the third is said to be pleasant like a pheasant, the fourth degrading like a swine, the fifth penetrating like a fowl, the sixth influential like a dragon, the seventh pleasing like a lamb, the eighth faithful like a dog.' Or p. 24, rev'd ed.]
[103] [Source below.]
[104] [Recueil d'Antiquités Égyptiennes, Étrusques, Grecques, Romaines, etc, vol. 3, pl. 10, 13; vol. 4, pl. 48.]
[105] [Bosio, Roma Sotteranea, p. 255.]
[106] [Origen, Contra Celsus, bk. 4:37. 'The subject before us, however, does not require us to interpret these expressions; for, in our explanatory remarks upon the book of Genesis, these matters have been made, to the best of our ability, a special subject of investigation. Observe next the malignity of Celsus in what follows. For the Scripture, speaking of the "fashioning " of the man, says, "And breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul." Whereon Celsus, wishing maliciously to ridicule the "inbreathing into his face of the breath of life," and not understanding the sense in which the expression was employed, states that "they composed a story that a man was fashioned by the hands of God, and was inflated by breath blown into him," in order that, taking the word "inflated" to be used in a similar way to the inflation of skins, he might ridicule the statement, "He breathed into his face the breath of life,"—terms which are used figuratively, and require to be explained in order to show that God communicated to man of His incorruptible Spirit; as it is said, "For Thine incorruptible Spirit is in all things."' ANCL, 23, 200.]
[106a] [Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 424. 'Melbourne blacks say that Pund-jel made of clay two males. This was in long, long ages past; and the two first breathed in a country towards the north-west (Oodi-yul-yul mootunno per-reen N^jervein). Pund-jel made of clay two male blacks, in the following manner:—With his big knife he cut three large sheets of bark. On one of these he placed a quantity of clay, and worked it into a proper consistence with his knife. When the clay was soft, he carried a portion to one of the other pieces of bark, and he commenced to form the clay into a man, beginning at the feet; then he made the legs, then he formed the trunk and the arms and the head. He made a man on each of the two pieces of bark. He was well pleased with his work, and he looked at the men a long time, and he danced round about them. He next took stringybark from a tree (Eucalyptus obliqua), made hair of it, and placed it on their heads—on one straight hair and on the other curled hair. Pund-jel again looked at his work, much pleased (Bul-li-to monomeeth), and once more he danced round about them. To each he gave a name: the man with the straight hair he called Ber-rook-hoorn; the man with the curled hair, Koo-kin Ber-rook. After again smoothing with his hands their bodies, from the feet upwards to their heads, he lay upon each of them, and blew his breath into their mouths, into their noses, and into their navels; and breathing very hard, they stirred. He danced round about them a third time. He then made them speak, and caused them to get up, and they rose up, and appeared as full-grown young men—not like children.']
[107] [Sale, The Koran, ch. 17, note l: 'It is said that the person
here meant is Adam, who, when the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils,
and had reached so far as his navel, though the lower part of his body was, as
yet, but a piece of clay, must needs try to rise up, and got an ugly fall by the
bargain.'—Jallalo'din.
See also his comment to ch. 2: 'The earth he had taken was carried into Arabia,
to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where, being first kneaded by the angels, it
was afterwards fashioned by God himself into a human form, and left to dry for
the space of forty days, or, as others say, as many years, the angels in the
meantime often visiting it, and Eblis (then one of the angels who are nearest to
God's presence, afterwards the devil) among the rest.']
[108] [Lewin, The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein, p. 90. 'The Kumis of Chittagong believe that a certain Deity made the world and the trees and the creeping things, and lastly he set to work to make one man and one woman, forming their bodies of clay; but each night, on the completion of his work, there came a great snake which, while God was sleeping, devoured the two images. At length the Deity created a dog which drove away the snake, and thus the creation of man was accomplished.' From Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 387.]
[109] [Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, vol. 1, p. 286. 'Finally, they believe that their chief god, Kamantowit, made a man and woman of a stone; which, upon dislike, he broke to pieces, and made another man and woman of a tree, which were the fountains of all mankind; and that we all have in us immortal souls, which, if we were godly, shall go to a splendid entertainment with Kamantowit, but, otherwise, must wander about in a restless horror for ever.']
[110] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 60. 'Now, there had been no sun in existence for many years; so the gods, being assembled in a place called Teotihuacan, six leagues from Mexico, and gathered at the time round a great fire, told their devotees that he of them who should first cast himself into that fire should have the honor of being transformed into a sun. So one of them, called Nanahuatzin either, as most say, out of pure bravery, or, as Sahagun relates, because his life had become a burden to him through a syphilitic disease flung himself into the fire. Then the gods began to peer through the gloom in all directions for the expected light, and to make bets as to what part of heaven he should first appear in. And some said Here, and some said There; but when the sun rose they were all proved wrong, for not one of them had fixed upon the east.']
[111] [Ibid., vol. 3, p. 46. 'Again the gods took counsel together; they determined to make man. So they made a man of clay; and when they had made him, they saw that it was not good. He was without cohesion, without consistence, motionless, strengthless, inept, watery; he could not move his head, his face looked but one way; his sight was restricted, he could not look behind him; he had been endowed with language, but he had no intelligence, so he was consumed in the water.']
[112] [Ibid., vol. 3, p. 531. 'An equally devoted husband was the Neeshenam, whose story is told by Mr Powers in the following legend: "First of all things existed the moon. The moon created man, some say in the form of a stone, others say in the form of a simple, straight, hairless, limbless mass of flesh, like an enormous earth-worm, from which he gradually developed into his present shape. The first man thus created was called Eicut; his wife, Yoatotowee. In process of time, Yodtotowee fell sick, and though Eicut nursed her tenderly, she gradually faded away before his eyes and died. He loved her with a love passing the love of brothers, and now his heart was broken with grief. He dug a grave for her close beside his camp-fire (for the Neeshenams did not burn the dead then), that he might daily and hourly weep above her silent dust. His grief knew no bounds. His life became a burden to him; all the light was gone out of his eyes, and all this world was black and dreary. He wished to die, that he might follow his beloved Yodtotowee. In the greatness of his grief he fell into a trance, there was a rumbling in the ground, and the spirit of the dead Yoatotowee arose out of her grave and came and stood beside him. When he awoke out of his trance and beheld his wife, he would have spoken to her, but she forbade him, for in what moment an Indian speaks to a ghost he dies. She turned away and set out to seek the spirit-land (ooshwooshe kooin, literally, the dance-house of ghosts), Eicut followed her, but the ghost turned and said, Why do you follow me? you are not dead. They journeyed on through a great country and a darksome a land that no man has seen and returned to report until they came to a river that separated them from the spirit-land. Over this river there was a bridge of one small rope, so very narrow that a spider could hardly cross over it. Here the spirit of Yoatotowee must bid farewell to her husband and go over alone into the spirit land. But the great unspeakable grief of Eicut at beholding his wife leaving him forever overcame his love of life and he called aloud after her. In that selfsame instant he died for no Indian can speak to a ghost and live and together they entered the land of spirits. Thus Eicut passed away from the realm of earth, and in the invisible world became a good and quiet spirit who constantly watches over and befriends his posterity still living on earth. But he and his wife left behind them two children, a brother and a sister; and to prevent incest, the moon created another pair, and from these two pairs are descended all the Neeshenams of to-day."']
[112a] [Job 17:14. 'I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.']
[113] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1. 24. 1. 'Arising among these men, Saturninus (who was of that Antioch which is near Daphne) and Basilides laid hold of some favourable opportunities, and promulgated different systems of doctrine—the one in Syria, the other at Alexandria. Saturninus, like Menander, set forth one father unknown to all, who made angels, archangels, powers, and potentates. The world, again, and all things therein, were made by a certain company of seven angels. Man, too, was the workmanship of angels, a shining image bursting forth below from the presence of the supreme power; and when they could not, he says, keep hold of this, because it immediately darted upwards again, they exhorted each other, saying, "Let us make man after our image and likeness." He was accordingly formed, yet was unable to stand erect, through the inability of the angels to convey to him that power, but wriggled [on the ground] like a worm. Then the power above taking pity upon him, since he was made after his likeness, sent forth a spark of life, which gave man an erect posture, compacted his joints, and made him live. He declares, therefore, that this spark of life, after the death of a man, returns to those things which are of the same nature with itself, and the rest of the body is decomposed into its original elements.' ANCL, 5, 90.]
[114] [Of Isis & Osiris, ch. 54-5.]
[115] [Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, vol. 1, p. 62. 'These gods existed from eternity, from and before chaos, or, as the Hawaiian term expresses it, "mai ka Po mai" from the time of night, darkness, chaos. By an act of their will these gods dissipated or broke into pieces the existing, surrounding, all-containing Po, night or chaos, by which act light entered into space. They then created the heavens three in number as a place for themselves to dwell in, and the earth to be their footstool, he keehina honua-a-Kane. Next they created the sun, moon, stars, and a host of angels or spirits kini akua to minister to them. Last of all they created man on the model or in the likeness of "Kane." The body of the first man was made of red earth lepo ula, or ala-ea and the spittle of the gods wai-nao and his head was made of a whitish clay-palolo which was brought from the four ends of the world by "Lono." When the earth-image of "Kane" was ready, the three gods breathed into its nose and called on it to rise, and it became a living being.']
[116] [Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. 2, p. 28. 'A very generally received Tahitian tradition is, that the first human pair were made by Taaroa, the principal deity formerly acknowledged by the nation. On more than one occasion, I have listened to the details of the people respecting his work of creation. They say, that after Taaroa had formed the world, he created man out of araea, red earth, which was also the food of man until bread-fruit was produced. In connexion with this, some relate that Taaroa one day called for the man by name.' Or vol. 1, p. 110, 2nd. ed.]
[117] [The Koran, ch. 18; 'And his companion said unto him, by way of debate, Dost thou not believe in him who created thee of the dust, and afterwards of seed; and then fashioned thee into a perfect man? But as for me, GOD is my LORD; and I will not associate any other deity with my LORD.' Sale's tr.]
[118] [Aristotle, Physics, p. 50. 'And what still farther confirms our exposition is that matter was considered by the Egyptians as a certain mire or mud. "The Egyptians," says Simplicius, "called matter, which they symbolically denominated water, the dregs or sediment of the first life; matter being, as it were, a certain mire or mud.' From Taylor's Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, p. 44, 4th ed.]
[119] [Antiquities of the Jews, bk. 1. ch. 1:2. 'Moreover, Moses, after the seventh day was over(1) begins to talk philosophically; and concerning the formation of man, says thus: That God took dust from the ground, and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit and a soul. This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is red, because he was formed out of red earth, compounded together; for of that kind is virgin and true earth. God also presented the living creatures, when he had made them, according to their kinds, both male and female, to Adam, who gave them those names by which they are still called. But when he saw that Adam had no female companion, no society, for there was no such created, and that he wondered at the other animals which were male and female, he laid him asleep, and took away one of his ribs, and out of it formed the woman; whereupon Adam knew her when she was brought to him, and acknowledged that she was made out of himself. Now a woman is called in the Hebrew tongue Issa; but the name of this woman was Eve, which signifies the mother of all living.' Whiston's tr.]
[120] [Polynesian Researches, 1833 ed., vol. 4, p. 96. 'A very generally received Tahitian tradition is, that the first human pair were made by Taaroa, the principal deity formerly acknowledged by the nation. On more than one occasion I hare listened to the details of the people respecting his work of creation. They say that after Taaroa had formed the world, he created man out of araea, red earthy which was also the food of man until bread-fruit was produced. In connexion with this, some relate that Taaroa one day called for the man by name. When he came, he caused him to fall asleep, and that, while he slept, he took out one of his ifi, or bones, and with it made a woman, whom he gave to the man as his wife, and that they became the progenitors of mankind. This always appeared to me a mere recital of the Mosaic account of creation, which they had heard from some European, and I never placed any reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me it was a tradition among them before any foreigner arrived. Some have also stated that the woman's name was Ivi, which would be by them pronounced as if written Eve. Ivi is an aboriginal word, and not only signifies a bone, but also a widow, and a victim slain m war. Notwithstanding the assertion of the natives, I am disposed to think that Ivi, or Eve, is the only aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the mother of the human race. Should more careful and minute inquiry confirm the truth of their declaration, and prove that this account was in existence among them prior to their intercourse with Europeans, it will be the most remarkable and valuable oral tradition of the origin of the human race yet known.' Or vol. 1, p. 111, 2nd ed.]
[121] [As above note.]
[122] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 59. 'Go beg of Mictlanteuctli, Lord of Hades, that he may give you a bone or some ashes of the dead that are with him; which having received, you shall sacrifice over it, sprinkling blood from your own bodies. And the fallen gods, having consulted together, sent one of their number, called Xolotl, down to hades as their mother had advised. He succeeded in getting a bone of six feet long from Mictlanteuctli; and then, wary of his grisly host, he took an abrupt departure, running at the top of his speed. Wroth at this, the infernal chief gave chase; not causing to Xolotl, however, any more serious inconvenience than a hasty fall in which the bone was broken in pieces. The messenger gathered up what he could in all haste, and despite his stumble, made his escape. Reaching the earth, he put the fragments of bone into a basin, and all the gods drew blood from their bodies and sprinkled it into the vessel. On the fourth day there was a movement among the wetted bones, and a boy lay there before all; and in four days more, the blood-letting and sprinkling being still kept up, a girl was lifted from the ghastly dish.']
[123] [Targum of Palestine, or Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel. 'And the Lord God created man in two formations; and took dust from the place of the house of the sanctuary, and from the four winds of the world, and mixed from all the waters of the world, and created him red, black, and white; and breathed into his nostrils the inspiration of life, and there was in the body of Adam the inspiration of a speaking spirit, unto the illumination of the eyes and the hearing of the ears. [JERUSALEM. And Adam became a soul of life.]']
[124] [Source.]
[125] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk.1. ch. 24. 1. See note 113 above.]
[126] [Ibid., bk. 1, ch. 30. 4. 'They declare, moreover, that her son had also himself a certain breath of incorruption left him by his mother, and that through means of it he works; and becoming powerful, he himself, as they affirm, also sent forth from the waters a son without a mother; for they do not allow him either to have known a mother. His son, again, after the example of his father, sent forth another son. This third one, too, generated a fourth; the fourth also generated a son: they maintain that again a son was generated by the fifth; and the sixth, too, generated a seventh. Thus was the Plebdomad, according to them, completed, the mother possessing the eighth place; and as in the case of their generations, so also in regard to dignities and powers, they precede each other in turn.' ANCL, 5, 105.]
[127] [Divine Pymander, bk. 2:29.]
[128] [Gen. 36:31-41. 'And
these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any
king over the children of Israel.
And Bela the son of Beor reigned in Edom: and the name of his city was Dinhabah.
And Bela died, and Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.
And Jobab died, and Husham of the land of Temani reigned in his stead.
And Husham died, and Hadad the son of Bedad, who smote Midian in the field of
Moab, reigned in his stead: and the name of his city was Avith.
And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead.
And Samlah died, and Saul of Rehoboth by the river reigned in his stead.
And Saul died, and Baalhanan the son of Achbor reigned in his stead.
And Baalhanan the son of Achbor died, and Hadar reigned in his stead: and the
name of his city was Pau; and his wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of
Matred, the daughter of Mezahab.
And these are the names of the dukes that came of Esau, according to their
families, after their places, by their names; duke Timnah, duke Alvah, duke
Jetheth,
Duke Aholibamah, duke Elah, duke Pinon.']
[128a] [Zohar.]
[129] [Ginsburgh, The Kabbalah, (1920 ed.), p. 104. '"Because the Man, represented by the ten Sephiroth, was not as yet. The human form contains every thing, and as it did not as yet exist, the worlds were destroyed." It is added, "Still when it is said that they perished, it is only meant thereby that they lacked the true form, till the human form came into being, in which all things are comprised, and which also contains all those forms. Hence, though the Scripture ascribes death to the kings of Edom, it only denotes a sinking down from their dignity, i.e., the worlds up to that time did not answer to the Divine idea, since they had not as yet the perfect form of which they were capable." (Idra Rahba, Sohar, iii, 185 b.)']
[130] [Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, vol. 1, p. 211. 'Some writers, supporting themselves by a legend said to have come from Hawaii, that the world was produced from an egg. I find a relation of that legend to the Brahminical doctrine of the World-egg. I have been unable to discover or collect such a legend on the Hawaiian group; nor do I know of any resembling it on the other island groups, unless in some distorted form it may refer to the Fiji legend which says that mankind sprang from two eggs that were hatched by the god Ndengei. There is a Hawaiian legend, however, which ascribes the creation of the world to Wakea and Papa in this way: "Papa, the wife of Wakea, begat a calabash ipu including bowl and cover. Wakea threw the cover upward, and it became the heaven. From the inside meat and seeds Wakea made the sun, moon, stars, and sky; from the juice he made the rain, and from the bowl he made the land and the sea."']
[130a] [Natural History, bk. 29, ch. 12.]
[131] [Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, vol. 1, p. 211. 'In a "Journal of a Tour around a Hawaii," "by a deputation from the Mission of those islands," Boston, 1825 of which deputation Rev. Mr. Ellis, of Polynesian and Madagascar fame, was one it is said, page 197, that in a conversation with Mr. John Young, who had resided on the islands since 1790, "Mr. Young said the natives had several traditions, one of which was, that an immense bird laid an egg on the water, which soon burst and produced the island of Hawaii, and shortly after a man and woman, a hog and a dog, and a pair of fowls, came in a canoe from the Society Islands, landed on the eastern shores, and were the progenitors of the present inhabitants." It is much to be regretted that this tradition, of which Mr. Young gave only a meagre resume, should have utterly perished from the land during the fifty years since the above "Tour around Hawaii." It certainly must have been an earlier and purer form of the subsequent tradition of Papa and her calabash.']
[132] [Jones, Works, vol. 3, p. 66; 'Laws of Manu,' ch. 1, lines 12-3. 'In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the Creator, at the close of which by his thought alone he caused the egg to divide itself. And from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath: in the midst he placed the subtil ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.']
[133] [Wilson, Vishnu Purana, vol. 1, p. 39, bk. 1, ch. 2. 'This vast egg, sage, compounded of the elements, and resting on the waters, was the excellent natural abode of Vishnu in the form of Brahma; and there Vishnu, the lord of the universe, whose essence is inscrutable, assumed a perceptible form; and even he himself abided in it, in the character of Brahma.']
[134] [Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, bk. 1, ch. 1. 'He supposes that the beginning of all things was a dark and condensed windy air, or a breeze of dark air, and a chaos turbid and black as Erebus; and that these were unbounded, and for a long series of ages destitute of form (or limit?). But when this wind became enamoured of its own first principles (the chaos), and an intimate union took place, that connexion was called Pothos; and it was the beginning of the creation of all things.' From Cory, Ancient Fragments, pp. 1-2. See also The Phenix, p. 187.]
[135] [Damascius,
Primitive Principles. 'The theology contained in the
Orphic rhapsodies concerning the intelligible Gods is as follows: Time is
symbolically placed for the one principle of the universe: but aether and
chaos for the two posterior to this one: and being, simply
considered, is represented under the symbol of an egg. And this is the first
triad of the intelligible Gods. But for the perfection of the second triad they
establish either a conceiving and a conceived egg as a God, or a white garment,
or a cloud: because from these Phanes leaps forth into the light.' This quote is from Thomas Taylor's notes to
his trans., of Plato's Parmenides. See the Thomas Taylor Series,
vol. 11, p. 242.
Gale, Opuscula Mythologica, p. 179.]
[136] [Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, bk. 1, ch. 1. 'And there were certain animals, not having sensation, from which intelligent animals were produced; and they were called Zophasemium (Tsophe Hashshamayim), i.e., observers of heaven, and they were formed similar to the shape of an egg.' From Cory, Ancient Fragments, pp.1-2. See also The Phenix, pp. 185-6.]
[137] [China, or Illustrations of the
Symbols, Philosophy, Antiquities, Customs, etc., pp. 167-8. 'From
the time Yin and Yang united, and the five elements were intermingled in the
centre of the universe, moisture and heat operated on each other and produced an
intelligent being, who, as he gazed upon the heavens, saw a golden blaze of
light dart from a star and fall to the earth. He approached the phenomenon, and
perceived an animated creature of the same species as himself. It cried out,
"The wings have long embraced you; on the breaking forth of the fructifying
principle, I knew that you had entered into the world; and then, plucking
plants, made garments to cover the inferior parts of the body." Having bestowed
the appellation "Imperial reverence" it informed him of the manner of creation;
of the division of the heavens and the earth; of the Yin and Yang; of the
separation of darkness from light; and that all things were produced from an egg
first formed in the water; that there were four other human beings made, at the
four points of the compass, each of whom, when the golden-coloured personage
disappeared, flew to the spot from a different quarter: the first from the
north, "son of the essence of water;" the second from the south, "son of the
essence of red earth;" the third from the east, "superintendent of wood;" the
fourth, "golden mother," from a paradisiacal mountain in the west. These five
persons obtained out of an immense crucible, by chemical process, a male and a
female, from whom, through the essential influence of the sun and moon, human
beings descended, who gradually filled the earth. His "Imperial reverence"
directed the dispersion of the first families, and supplied them with rafts to
cross the seas and rivers, to whatever place the wind might drive them. These
sentiments are entertained by the sect of Taou, which is called the
philosophical sect of China.'
See also note 92 above.]
[138] [Barddas, vol. 1, pp. 169-73.]
[140] [Taylor, Te
Ika a Maui, or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants,
p. 120. 'By Tane was the heaven propped up; entirely separated were
heaven and earth; was it a vain separation? No,
indeed. Now for the first time were seen the many beings concealed in the womb
of heaven and earth. Yes truly was Tane the author—
Of the great day,
Of the long day,
Of the clear sky,
Of the day driving away night,
Of the day making all things distinct,
Of the day making everything bright.
Of the day driving away gloom.
Of the hot sultry day,
Of the day shrouded in darkness.']
[141] [Etat de la Société Tahitienne à l'Arrivée des Europeens.]
[142] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3,
p. 46. 'It is with this primeval picture, whose simple silent
sublimity is that of the inscrutable past, that we begin.
And the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set in their angle and
alignment, and its boundaries fixed toward the four winds by the Creator and
Former, and Mother and Father of life and existence he by whom all move and
breathe, the Father and Cherisher of the peace of nations and of the
civilization of his people he whose wisdom has projected the excellence of all
that is on the earth, or in the lakes, or in the sea.
Behold the first word and the first discourse. There was as yet no man, nor any
animal, nor bird, nor fish, nor crawfish, nor any pit, nor ravine, nor green
herb, nor any tree; nothing was but the firmament. The face of the earth had not
yet appeared only the peaceful sea and all the space of heaven. There was
nothing yet joined together, nothing that clung to anything else; nothing that
balanced itself, that made the least rustling, that made a sound in the heaven.
There was nothing that stood up; nothing but the quiet water, but the sea, calm
and alone in its boundaries: nothing existed; nothing but immobility and
silence, in the darkness, in the night.
Alone also the Creator, the Former, the Dominator, the Feathered Serpent those
that engender, those that give being, they are upon the water, like a growing
light. They are enveloped in green and blue; and therefore their name is
Grucumatz. Lo, now how the heavens exist, how exists also the Heart of Heaven;
such is the name of God; it is thus that he is called. And they spake; they
consulted together and meditated; they mingled their words and their opinion.
And the creation was verily after this wise: Earth, they said, and on the
instant it was formed; like a cloud or a fog was its beginning. Then the
mountains rose over the water like great lobsters; in an instant the mountains
and the plains were visible, and the cypress and the pine appeared. Then was the
Grucumatz filled with joy, crying out: Blessed be thy coming, O Heart of Heaven,
Hurakan, Thunderbolt. Our work and our labor has accomplished its end.
The earth and its vegetation having thus appeared, it was peopled with the
various forms of animal life. And the Makers said to the animals: Speak now our
name, honor us, us your mother and father; Invoke Hurakan, the lightning-flash,
the Thunderbolt that strikes, the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of the Earth, the
Creator and Former, Him who begets, and Him who gives being speak, call on us,
salute us! So was it said to the animals. But the animals could not answer; they
could not speak at all after the manner of men; they could only cluck, and
croak, each murmuring after his kind in a different manner. This displeased the
Creators, and they said to the animals: Inasmuch as ye cannot praise us, neither
call upon our names, your flesh shall be humiliated; it shall be broken with
teeth; ye shall be killed and eaten.
Again the gods took counsel together; they determined to make man. So they made
a man of clay; and when they had made him, they saw that it was not good. He was
without cohesion, without consistence, motionless, strengthless, inept, watery;
he could not move his head, his face looked but one way; his sight was
restricted, he could not look behind him; he had been endowed with language, but
he had no intelligence, so he was consumed in the water.']
[143]
[Ralston,
The Songs of the Russian Peoples as Illustrated by Slavonic Mythology and
Russian Social Life, p. 194. 'Perhaps the most curious of
the cosmogonic Kolyadki is a Carpathian song, in which we find the following
description of the creation of the world:
Once there was neither heaven nor earth,
Heaven nor earth, but only blue sea,
And in the midst of the sea two oaks.
There sat there two pigeons,
Two pigeons on the two oaks,
And began to take counsel among themselves,
To take counsel and to say,
"How can we create the world?
Let us go to the bottom of the sea,
Let us bring thence fine sand,
Fine sand and blue stone.
We will sow the fine sand,
We will breathe on the blue stone.
From the fine sand the black earth,
The cool waters, the green grass.
From the blue stone the blue heavens,
The blue heavens, the bright sun,
The bright sun, the clear moon,
The clear moon and all the stars."' Quoting Afanasief,
Poeticheskya Vezzyeniya Slavan, vol. 2, p. 466.]
[144] [Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 5, p. 356, bk. 10, hymn 129. 'There was then neither nonentity nor entity: there was no atmosphere, nor sky above. What enveloped [all]? Where, in the receptacle of what [was it contained]? Was it water, the profound abyss? Death was not then, nor immortality: there was no distinction of day or night. That One breathed calmly, self-supported; there was nothing different from, or above, it." In the beginning darkness existed, enveloped in darkness. All this was undistinguishable water. That One which lay void, and wrapped in nothingness, was developed by the power of fervour. Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind; [and which] sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their heart to be the bond which connects entity with nonentity. The ray [or cord] which stretched across these [worlds], was it below or was it above? There were there impregnating powers and mighty forces, a self-supporting principle beneath, and energy aloft. Who knows, who here can declare, whence has sprung, whence, this creation? The gods are subsequent to the development of this [universe]; who then knows whence it arose? From what this creation arose, and whether [any one] made it or not, he who in the highest heaven is its ruler, he verily knows, or [even] he does not know."']
[145] [From Syncellus, Chronology, Eusebius, Chronicon, in Cory, Ancient Fragments, pp. 56-9.]
[146] [Ledraine, Histoire de Israel, Appendix. (The text is in French.)]
[147] [Prose Edda, in Thorpe,
Northern Mythology, vol. 1, p. 4. 'Ymir was nourished from four streams of
milk, which flowed from the udder of the cow Audhumla (Aud-humla), a being that
came into existence by the power of Surt. From Ymir there came forth offspring
while he slept: for having fallen into a sweat, from under his left arm there
grew a man and a woman, and one of his feet begat a son by the other. At this
time, before heaven and earth existed, the Universal Father (Alfodr) was among
the Hrimthursar, or Frost-giants.
The cow Audhumla licked the frost-covered stones that were salt, and the first
day, towards evening, there came forth from them a man's hair, the second day a
head, the third day an entire man. He was called Buri (the producing); he was
comely of countenance, tall and powerful. His son, Bor (the produced), was
married to Bestla (or Belsta), a daughter of the giant Bolthorn, and they had
three sons, Odin (Odinn), Vili and Ve. These brothers were gods, and created
heaven and earth.']
[148] [See note above.]
[149] [Prose Edda. 'Surt
means the swarthy or black one. Many have regarded him as the unknown (dark)
god, but this is probably an error. But there was some one in Muspellheim who
sent the heat, and gave life to the frozen drops or rime. The latter, and not
Surt, who is a giant, is the eternal god, the mighty one, whom the skald in the
Lay of Hyndla dare not name. It is interesting to notice that our ancestors
divided the evolution of the world into three distinct periods: (1) a
pre-chaotic condition (Niflheim, Muspelheim and Ginungagap); (2) a chaotic
condition (Ymer and the cow Audhumbla); (3) and finally the three gods, Odin
(spirit), Vile (will) and Ve (sanctity), transformed chaos into cosmos. And away
back in this pre-chaotic state of the world we find this mighty being who sends
the heat. It is not definitely stated, but it can be inferred from other
passages, that just as the good principle existed from everlasting in Muspelheim,
so the evil principle existed co-eternally with it in Hvergelmer in Niflheim.
Hvergelmer is the source out of which all matter first proceeded, and the dragon
or devil Nidhug, who dwells in Hvergelmer, is, in our opinion, the evil
principle who is from eternity. The good principle shall continue forever, but
the evil shall cease to exist after Ragnarok.
Ymer is the noisy one, and his name is derived from ymja = to howl
(compare also the Finnish deity Jumo, after whom the town Umea takes its name,
like Odinse).
Aurgelmer, Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer express the gradual development
from aur (clay) to thrud (that which is compressed), and finally to berg
(rock).']
[151] [Naville, ZA, 1874, 57.]
[152] [Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 1. See p. 1.]
[153] [Divine Pymander, bk. 7:58.]
[155] [Bamboo Books. See note below.]
[156] [Legge, Chinese Classics, vol. 3. pt. 1. prologue, pp. 108, 113, 117.]
[157] [Burgess, Sûrya-Siddhânta, p. 285, ch. 12:31. 'Revolve Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon; below, in succession, the Perfected (siddha), the Possessors of Knowledge (vidyadhara), and the clouds.']
[158] [Horrack, 'Book of Respirations,' RP, 4, 119. See p. 121.]
[158a] [Rit. ch. 145. Cf. Renouf's.]
[159] [Amos 9:6. 'It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.']
[160] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1, ch. 30:9. 'Adam and Eve previously had light, and clear, and as it were spiritual bodies, such as they were at their creation; but when they came to this world, these changed into bodies more opaque, and gross, and sluggish. Their soul also was feeble and languid, inasmuch as they had received from their creator a merely mundane inspiration. This continued until Prunicus, moved with compassion towards them, restored to them the sweet savour of the besprinkling of light, by means of which they came to a remembrance of themselves, and knew that they were naked, as well as that the body was a material substance, and thus recognised that they bore death about with them. They thereupon became patient, knowing that only for a time they would be enveloped in the body. They also found out food, through the guidance of Sophia: and when they were satisfied, they had carnal knowledge of each other, and begat Cain, whom the serpent, that had been cast down along with his sons, immediately laid hold of and destroyed by filling him with mundane oblivion, and urging into folly and audacity, so that, by slaying his brother Abel, he was the first to bring to light envy and death. After these, they affirm that, by the forethought of Prunicus, Seth was begotten, and then Norea, from whom they represent all the rest of mankind as being descended. They were urged on to all kinds of wickedness by the inferior Hebdomad, and to apostasy, idolatry, and a general contempt for everything by the superior holy Hebdomad, since the mother was always secretly opposed to them, and carefully preserved what was peculiarly her own, that is, the besprinkling of light. They maintain, moreover, that the holy Hebdomad is the seven stars which they call planets; and they affirm that the serpent cast down has two names, Michael and Samael.' ANCL, 5, 109.]
[161] [Buhler, Three New Edicts of Asoka, p. 29.]
[162] [Panthéon Égyptien, p. 30. Unable to trace.]
[163] [Source.]
[164] [Source.]
[165] [Nishmath Chajim, f. 25.
c.2; f. 26, c. 1; f. 27, c. 1. Yalkot Chadash, f. 57, c. 2.
Stehelin,
Rabbinical Literature, vol. 2, pp. 2, 3, 5, 8, 25.]
[166] [Rev. 17:9. 'And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.']
[167] [As above note.]
[171] [Note; the more exact computation is 25,773; i.e. 2148 x 12 or 71.6 x 360. See Collins, Gods of Eden, p. 316.]
[172] [Sharpe, The History of Egypt under the Romans, p. 76. 'A series of twelve coins for the same year tells us that the house of the sun, in the language of the astrologers, is in the lion, that of the moon in the crab, the houses of Venus in the scales and the bull, those of Mars in the scorpion and the ram, those of Jupiter in the archer and the fishes, those of Saturn in the sea-goat and Aquarius, those of Mercury in the virgin and the twins. On the coins of the same year we have the eagle and thunderbolt, the sphinx, the bull Apis, the Nile and crocodile, Isis nursing the child Horus, the hawk-headed Aroeris, and the winged sun. On coins of other years we have a camelopard; Horus sitting on the lotus flower; and a sacrifice to Isis, which was celebrated on the last day of the year. The coins also tell us of the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and of the goodness of the harvests that followed; thus, in the ninth, tenth, thirteenth, and seventeenth years, we see the river Nile in the form of an old man leaning on a crocodile, pouring com and fruit out of a cornucopia, while a child by his side, with the figures 16, tells us that on those years the waters of the Nile rose to the wished-for height of sixteen cubits.']
[173] [Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus. Unable to trace.]
[174] [Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, pl. 1 and 2.]
[175] [Davies,
The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 516-8. 'The
prison of Gwair is here called Caer Sidi. This has been explained above, as
implying, in the first place, the ark, in which the patriarch and his family
were inclosed; secondly, the circle of the zodiac, in which their luminous
emblems, the sun, moon, and planets, revolved; thirdly, the sanctuary of the
British Ceres, which represented both the ark and the zodiac.
The other Caers, mentioned in the conclusion of the several
stanzas, are allusive to the same history, and may be regarded as so many titles
of the ark: thus—
Caer Bediioyd, the inclosure of the inhabitants of the world the ark, which
contained all that was living; or, Caer Mediwyd, the inclosure of the perfect
ones or of the Just family.
Caer Rigor, the inclosure of the royal assembly of the patriarch and his sons,
who were kings of the world.
Caer Golur, the gloomy inclosure the ark, which was closed up, so as to exclude
the light.
Caer Vandwy, the inclosure resting on the height.
Caer Ochren, the inclosure whose side produced life.
The patriarch entered his inclosure, through the mission or apostleship (which,
I fear, implies a profane scoff at the gospel), of Pwyll and Pryderi, reason or
prudence, and serious meditation. It has been seen, that these ideas were
personified in British mythology, and that their history relates to the deluge
and Arkite mysteries. In the vale of the Boat, Puyll as met by Araicn, Pendaran,
the Arkite lord of thundery who commissioned him to take the government of the
deep into his own hands for a whole year, &c.
The chain mentioned by our Bard, was the symbol of that confinement, which the
just man had endured; and of the restraint to which those of his descendants,
who were initiated into Arkite mysteries, patiently submitted.
The woful song of the patriarch implies his pensive reflection upon the
multitudes which had been swept away by the deluge. At the conclusion of the
other stanzas, the Bard repeats the same reflection, with some variety of
expression, as the burden of his own song.
Prydwen sometimes mentioned as the shield of the mythological Arthur, was more
properly his ship, and a title of the ark. It is derived from Prud, beauty, the
general order of things; and Wen, which marks a female character The lady of
beauty, The lady of the world, who had carried all its surviving inhabitants.
According to the mythology of our Bard, thrice the number of men which would
have filled the ark, embarked in their vessels on the deep; but none escaped,
excepting the patriarch, and the seven, who were inclosed with him in Caer Sidi.'
Skene, Four Books of Ancient Wales, vol. 1, pp. 264-5. 'Complete was the
prison of Gweir in Caer Sidi,
Through the spite of Pwyll and Pryderi.
No one before him went into it.
The heavy blue chain held the faithful youth,
And before the spoils of Annwvn woefully he sings,
And till doom shall continue a bard of prayer.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen, we went into it;
Except seven, none returned from Caer Sidi.
Am I not a candidate for fame, if a song is heard?
In Caer Pedryvan, four its revolutions;
In the first word from the cauldron when spoken,
From the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed.
Is it not the cauldron of the chief of Annwvn? What is its intention?
A ridge about its edge and pearls.
It will not boil the food of a coward, that has not been sworn,
A sword bright gleaming to him was raised,
And in the hand of Lleminawg it was left.
And before the door of the gate of Uffern the lamp was burning.
And when we went with Arthur, a splendid labour,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Vedwyd.
Am I not a candidate for fame with the listened song
In Caer Pedryvan, in the isle of the strong door?
The twilight and pitchy darkness were mixed together.
Bright wine their liquor before their retinue.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen we went on the sea,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Rigor.
I shall not deserve much from the ruler of literature,
Beyond Caer Wydyr they saw not the prowess of Arthur.
Three score Canhwr stood on the wall,
Difficult was a conversation with its sentinel.
Thrice enough to fill Prydwen there went with Arthur,
Except seven, none returned from Caer Golud.']
[176] [Plato, Philebus, 66. '"With the sixth generation cease the glory of my song."' Jowett's tr.]
[177] [Gen. 1:26-31. 'And God
said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male
and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the
earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon
the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree
yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every
thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every
green herb for meat: and it was so.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the
evening and the morning were the sixth day.']
[180] [Spiegel on the Avesta. Unable to trace.]
[181] [Fornander, Account of the Polynesian Race, vol. 1, p. 121. 'So also they sometimes thirty days into periods of ten days, corresponding to the increase, the full, and the decline of the moon, analogous to the Greek Dechcemera and the Egyptian Se-su; and the institution of the Hawaiian Kapu or sacred-days at intervals of ten days seems to favour such a conclusion, for I look upon the fourth monthly Kapu-day, that of Kane on the 27th of the month, as of subsequent introduction, following so closely, as it does, upon the Kapu-day of Kaloa-ku-kahi, the 24th. Though obsolete now in common parlance, the term Ana-hulu is of frequent occurrence in the ancient legends and songs as a measure of time comprising ten days.']
[182] [See note below.]
[183] [Symposium, bk. 8.1. 'Amongst all the numbers, the fourth is peculiarly dedicated to Mercury, because, as some say, the God was born on the fourth day of the month.' Essays, vol. 3, p. 440. Goodwin's tr.]
[184] [Amyot,
Memoires concernant l'histoire,
les sciences, les arts, les mouers, les usages, &c. des Chinois, vol. 2,
p. 167.
Eitel, Feng-Shui, p. 15. 'Besides the twenty-eight
constellations, the five planets known to the Chinese and the occult virtues
ascribed to them play a very important part in the system of Feng-shui. Jupiter
is said to reign in the East, ruling the spring and has the attribute of
benevolence. Mars dwells in the South, commands the summer and favours
propriety. Venus dwells in the West, rules in the autumn and her province is
decorum. Mercury is located in the North, rules in winter and is the
representative of wisdom. Saturn reigns in the middle of the earth, rules
midsummer and is characterized by fidelity.' Or p. 13, rev. ed.
Ibid., p. 17.
'The
next point to be considered is the influence which both heaven and earth
exercise upon human beings. The principal agents through which heaven, and
especially the five planets, act upon all living creatures are the five elements
of nature. By these however we must not understand five material substances,
chemically indissoluble, but rather spiritual essences, each characteristically
different from the other and forming the generative causes of all material
substances. These five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal and water, the
first of them being the agent of Jupiter, the second that of Mars, the third
that of Saturn, the fourth that of Venus, the fifth that of Mercury. But it is
also important to observe the mutual relation of the five elements to each
other, for they both produce and destroy each other if placed in certain
conjunctions. Wood produces fire, fire produces earth, earth produces metal,
metal produces water, water produces wood. On the other hand, metal destroys
wood, wood destroys (i.e. absorbs) earth, earth destroys (i.e.
absorbs) water, water destroys fire, fire destroys metal. Again it is to be
considered that wood is abundant in the East, metal in the West, water in the
North, fire in the South, whilst earth predominates in the centre between the
four cardinal points. It is also to be borne in mind, that wood reigns in
spring, fire in summer, metal in autumn, water in winter, and earth during the
last eighteen days of each season.' Or p. 14, rev. ed.]
[185] [Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus, vol. 1, p. 127, bk. 3. 'And these assertions are most concordant with Plato, who at one time says that the heavens consist of the four elements, bound together by analogy, and that the whole world is constituted from these; but shortly after fashions the five figures, and calls them five worlds.' Taylor's tr.]
[186] [Ibid., vol. 2, p. 5, bk. 3. 'Hence also, theologists terminate the progressions of the highest Gods, in that place; and the Pythagoreans call the middle the tower of Jupiter, and the guard-house of Jupiter.' Taylor's tr.]
[187] [Ibid., vol. 2, p. 3, bk. 3. 'Hence too Plato, divinely as it appears to me, does not place the soul in the middle of the universe, but soul.' Taylor's tr.]
[188] [Ibid., vol. 2, p. 3, bk. 3. 'With respect however, to the middle position of soul, different interpreters explain it differently. For some say that the middle is the centre of the earth; others, that the moon is the middle, as the isthmus of generated and divine natures; others, that it is the sun, as being established in the place of a heart; others, that it is the inerratic sphere; others, that it is the equinoctial, as bounding the breadth of the world; and others, that it is the zodiack. And some indeed, place, in the centre the ruling power of the universe; others, in the moon; others, in the sun; others, in the equinoctial; and others, in the zodiack. But to the first of these, the power of the centre bears witness, this being connective of every circulation; to the second, the motion of the moon, which in a various manner changes, generation; to the third, the vivific heat of the sun; to the fourth, the facility of the motion of the equinoctial circle; and to the fifth, the circulation of the stars about the zodiack. Against all these; however, Porphyry and Iamblichus write, blaming them for understanding the middle locally, and with interval, and inclosing in a certain part the soul of the whole world, which is every where present similarly, and which rules over, and lends all things by its motions. Of these divine men likewise, Porphyry indeed, assuming this to be the soul of the universe, interprets the middle according to the psychical essence: for this is the middle of intelligible and sensibles.' Taylor's tr.]
[189] [Wilson, Rig-Veda, vol. 2, p.
128. 'Who has seen the primeval (being) at the time of his being born: what is
that endowed with substance which the unsubstantial sustains: from earth are the
breath and blood, but where is the soul: who may repair to the sage to ask this?
Immature (in understanding), undiscerning in mind, I inquire of those things
which are hidden (even) from the gods: (what are) the seven threads which the
sages have spread to envelop the sun, in whom all abide?
Ignorant, I inquire of the sages who know (the truth); not as one knowing (do I
inquire), for the sake of (gaining) knowledge: what is that One alone, who has
upheld these six spheres in the form of the unborn?']
[190] [Pierret, Le Pantheon Égyptien, figs. 72 & 73.]
[191] [Rit. ch. 1. Cf. Renouf's.]
[192] [Hieroglyphica, bk. 1.10.]
[193] [Source.]
[194] [ZA, p. 97, 1864.
Brugsch,
Histoire d'Égypt des les premiers temps de sen existence jusqu'à nos
jours, pl. 4, fig.
17.]
[195] [Eisenlohr, 'The Great Harris Papyrus,' RP, 8, 5. See pp. 6-7, plate 44, lines 4, 5 , 6.]
[196] [Source.]
[197] [Rit. ch. 17. 'The day of establishing the earth and completing the earth is the burial of Osiris, the soul created in Suten-khen [Bubastis], giver of food [or existence], obliterater of sins, who has traversed the eternal path.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[198] [Rit. ch. 130. 'The book of Vivifying the Soul for ever, of letting it go to the Boat of the Sun to pass the Crowds at the Gate. Done on the Day of the Birth of Osiris.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[199] [Rit. ch. 165. 'the mother of Pa-sha-ka-sa [Ψιαξ], royal wife of Paruhaka, the Creator, the regent, Lord of the Tomb, mother in the horizon of heaven, doing what her heart has wished, prostrating the detainers of food with thy fist.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[200] [Prose Edda, ch. 7.15. 'Then asked Ganglere: Does fire burn over Bifrost? Har answered: The red which you see in the rainbow is burning fire. The frost-giants and the mountain-giants would go up to heaven if Bifrost were passable for all who desired to go there. Many fair places there are in heaven, and they are all protected by a divine defense. There stands a beautiful hall near the fountain beneath the ash. Out of it come three maids, whose names are Urd, Verdande and Skuld. These maids shape the lives of men, and we call them norns. There are yet more norns, namely those who come to every man when he is born, to shape his life, and these are known to be of the race of gods; others, on the other hand, are of the race of elves, and yet others are of the race of dwarfs.' Anderson's tr.]
[201] [Source.]
[202] [Clement Alexander, Stromateis,
bk.
5.8. 'But it was not only the most highly intellectual of the Egyptians, but
also such of other barbarians as prosecuted philosophy, that affected the
symbolical style. They say, then, that Idanthuris king of the Scythians, as
Pherecydes of Syros relates, sent to Darius, on his passing the Ister in threat
of war, a symbol, instead of a letter, consisting of a mouse, a frog, a bird, a
javelin, a plough. And there being
a doubt in reference to them, as was to be expected, Orontopagas the Chiliarch
said that they were to resign the kingdom; taking dwellings to be meant by the
mouse, waters by the frog, air by the bird, land by the plough, arms by the
javelin. But Xiphodres interpreted the contrary; for he said, "If we do not take
our flight like birds, or like mice get below the earth, or like frogs beneath
the water, we shall not escape their arrows; for we are not lords of the
territory."
It is said that Anacharsis the Scythian, while asleep, held his secret parts
with his left hand, and his mouth with his right, to intimate that both ought to
be mastered, but that it was a greater thing to master the tongue than
voluptuousness.
And why should I linger over the barbarians, when I can adduce the Greeks as
exceedingly addicted to the use of the method of concealment? Androcydes the
Pythagorean says the far-famed so-called Ephesian letters were of the class of
symbols. For he said that [Greek] (shadowless) meant darkness, for it has no
shadow; and [Greek] (shadowy) light, since it casts with its rays the shadow;
and [Greek] is the earth, according to an ancient appellation; and [Greek] is
the year, in reference to the seasons; and [Greek] is the sun, which overpowers
([Greek]); and [Greek] is the true voice. And then the symbol intimates that
divine things have been arranged in harmonious order—darkness to light, the sun
to the year, and the earth to nature's processes of production of every sort.
Also Dionysius Thrax, the grammarian, in his book, Respecting the Exposition of
the Symholical Signification in Circles, says expressly, "Some signified actions
not by words only, but also by symbols: by words, as is the case of what are
called the Delphic maxims, 'Nothing in excess,' 'Know thyself,' and the like;
and by symbols, as the wheel that is turned in the temples of the gods, derived
from the Egyptians, and the branches that are given to the worshippers. For the
Thracian Orpheus says:
"Whatever works of branches are a care to men on earth,
Not one has one fate m the mind, but all things
Revolve around; and it is not lawful to stand at one point,
But each one keeps an equal part of the race as they began,"
The branches either stand as the symbol of the first food, or they are that the
multitude may know that fruits spring and grow universally, remaining a very
long time; but that the duration of life allotted to themselves is brief. And it
is on this account that they will have it that the branches are given; and
perhaps also that they may know, that as these, on the other hand, are burned,
so also they themselves speedily leave this life, and will become fuel for
fire.' ANCL, 5, 247-8.
Suidas,
Suidæ Lexicon, Græce et Latine.]
[203] [Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 65.]
[204] [King, The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Medieval. I can find no illustration of such an amulet with this word. However, on p. 94, there is a footnote: 'Clem. Alex. (Strom. i.) calls these Basilidan Inscriptions and Names, Ephesian Letters, meaning thereby legends in an unknown tonne, like the words graven upon the zone and the feet of the Ephesian Diana, which Hesychius has preseryed: viz., Aski, Kataski, Haix, Tetraz, Damnameneus, Aido—interpreted as Darkness, Light, Himself, the Son, Truth. These Ephesian words, says Plutarch (Sympos.), the Magi used to recite over those possessed by devils. Damnameneus is seen on a Gnostic amulet, a mummy enfolded by a serpent, in the De la Turbie Collection. Its meaning, "the Sun," is appropriate enough to a Mithraic stone.']
[205] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 10.]
[206] [Stern, 'The Ancient Festivals of the Nile,' RP, 10, 37. See p. 41. Note; should read nine not vine.]
[208] [Lepsius, on the gods of the four elements.]
[209] [Stern, 'The Ancient Festivals of the Nile,' RP, 10, 37.]
[210] [The Library, bk. 2:31. 'Their rules and notions concerning the eclipses of the sun are but weak and mean, which they dare not positively foretel, nor fix a certain time for them. They have likewise opinions concerning the earth, peculiar to themselves, affirming it to resemble a boat, and to be hollow; to prove which, and other things relating to the frame of the world, they abound in arguments: but to give a particular account of them, we conceive would be a thing foreign to our history. But this any man may justly and truly say, that the Chaldeans far exceed all other men in the knowledge of astrology, and have studied it most of any other art or science. But the number of years during which the Chaldeans say those of their profession have given themselves to the study of this natural philosophy, is incredible; for when Alexander was in Asia, they reckoned up four hundred and seventy thousand years since they first began to observe the motions of the stars. But lest we should make too long a digression from our intended design, let this which we have said concerning the Chaldeans suffice.' Booth's tr., vol. 1, p. 127.]
[211] [Lundy, Monumental Christianity, fig. 19. This illustration is missing in my copy.]
[212] [Prose Edda, ch. 7.15. 'Then said Ganglere: Where is the chief or most holy place of the gods? Har answered: That is by the ash Ygdrasil. There the gods meet in council every day. Said Ganglere: What is said about this place? Answered Jafnhar: This ash is the best and greatest of all trees; its branches spread over all the world, and reach up above heaven. Three roots sustain the tree and stand wide apart; one root is with the asas and another with the frost-giants, where Ginungagap formerly was; the third reaches into Niflheim; under it is Hvergelmer, where Nidhug gnaws the root from below. But under the second root, which extends to the frost-giants, is the well of Mimer, wherein knowledge and wisdom are concealed. The owner of the well hight Mimer. He is full of wisdom, for he drinks from the well with the Gjallar-horn. Alfather once came there and asked for a drink from the well, but he did not get it before he left one of his eyes as a pledge. ... The third root of the ash is in heaven, and beneath it is the most sacred fountain of Urd.' Anderson's tr.]
[213] [Stuart, The Sculptured Stones of Scotland, pl. 86, v. i.]
[214] [Marco Polo, Book of Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, ch. 41. 'The stone slab, about 7½ feet high by 3 feet wide, and some 10 inches in thickness, which bears this inscription, was accidentally found in 1625 by some workmen who were digging in the Chang-ngan suburb of the city of Singanfu. The cross, which is engraved at p. 30, is incised at the top of the slab, and beneath this are 9 large characters in 3 columns, constituting the heading, which runs: "Monument commemorating the introduction and propagation of the noble Law of Ta T'sin in the Middle Kingdom;" Ta T'sin being the term applied in Chinese literature to the Roman Empire, of which the ancient Chinese had much such a shadowy conception as the Romans had, conversely, of the Chinese as Sinae and Seres.']
[215] [O'Curry,
The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol. 2, pp. 143-5.
'As to who this Connla was, from whom the well had its name, we are not
told; but the well itself appears to have been regarded as another Helicon by
the ancient Irish poets. Over this well there grew, according to the legend,
nine beautiful mystical hazle-trees, which annually sent forth their blossoms
and fruits simultaneously. The nuts were of the richest crimson colour, and
teemed with the knowledge of all that was refined in literature, poetry, and
art. No sooner, however, were the beautiful nuts produced on the trees, than
they always dropped into the well, raising by their fall a succession of shining
red bubbles. Now during this time the water was always full of salmon; and no
sooner did the bubbles appear than these salmon darted to the surface and eat
the nuts, after which they made their way to the river. The eating of the nuts
produced brilliant crimson spots on the bellies of these salmon; and to catch
and eat these salmon became an object of more than mere gastronomic interest
among those who were anxious to become distinguished in the art and in
literature without being at the pains and delay of long study; for the fish was
supposed to have become filled with the knowledge which was contained in the
nuts, which, it was believed, would be transferred in full to those who had the
good fortune to catch and eat them. Such a salmon was, on that account, called
the Eo Feasa or "Salmon of Knowledge"; and it is to such a salmon that we
sometimes meet a reference among our old poets, where, when speaking of objects
which they pretend to be above description, they say, "unless they had eaten of
the salmon of knowledge they could not do it justice."
Thus Mac Liag in the poem on Tadha O'Kelly, who was killed in the battle of
Clontarf, and whose body was laid on the shields of his clan, the warrior chiefs
of Ui Maini:
"I am not able to describe their shields,
But the vultures are joyful through their means;
Unless I had eaten the Salmon of Knowledge,
I never could accomplish it."
And thus again Aengus Finn (or the Fair) O'Daly, popularly called
Aengus-na-Diadhachtay ("of the Divinity"), and who flourished about the year
1400, applies this term to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in one of his many hymns to
her praise which begins:
"Often is a kinswoman espoused," etc.
The following is the fourth stanza of this graceful poem:
"Mary is not like unto ordinary women,
In regard to the love that I have contracted with her:
I assert that no cloud ever obscures
The Salmon of Knowledge through whom God became man."
To proceed, however, with the legend of the Shannon: It was forbidden to women
to come within the precincts of Connla's wonderful well; but the beautiful lady
Sinann, who possessed above every maiden of her time all the accomplishments of
her sex, longed to have also those more solid and masculine acquirements which
were accessible at Connla's well to the other sex only. To possess herself of
these she went secretly to the mystical fountain; but as soon as she approached
its brink, the waters rose up violently, burst forth over its banks, and rushed
towards the great river now called the Shannon, overwhelming the lady Sinann in
their course, whose dead body was earned down by the torrent, and at last cast
up on the land at the confluence of the two streams. After this the well became
dry for ever; and the stream which issued from it was that originally known by
the name of the lady Sinann or Shannon; but having fallen into that great
succession of lakes which runs nearly through the centre of Ireland, the course
of lakes subsequently appropriated the name to itself, which it still retains,
whilst the original stream is now unknown. The original Sinann is, however,
believed to have fallen into the present Shannon, near the head of Loch Dearg,
not far from Portumna.
According to legendary tradition, there were seven secret streams of knowledge
flowing from Comulas sacred fountain; among which were the rivers now known as
the Boyne, the Suir, the Nore, the Barrow, and the Slaney. And it is in allusion
to this tradition that Cormac Mac Chuillennain, in a poem written by him a short
time before his death, says, that he found his "nut of knowledge on the waters
of the river Barrow"; for it was Disert Diarmada, (now Castle Dermot, near that
river, in the county of Kildare), that he studied in his youth.']
[216] [Recherches su le Culte Public et les Mystères de Mithras en Orient et en Occident, pl. 61, fig. 6.]
[217] [Lewis and Clarke, History of the Expedition Thence under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark, p. 139. 'It is thus related in the account of Lewis and Clarke's expedition. "Their belief in a future state is connected with this tradition of their origin: the whole nation resided in one large village underground near a subterraneous lake: a grape-vine extended its roots down to their habitation and gave them a view of the light: some of the most adventurous climbed up the vine and were delighted with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffalo and rich with every kind of fruits: returning with the grapes they had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper region; men, women, and children ascended by means of the vine; but when about half the nation had reached the surface of the earth, a corpulent woman who was clambering up the vine broke it with her weight, and closed upon herself and the rest of the nation the light of the sun. Those who were left on earth made a village below where we saw the nine villages; and when the Mandans die they expect to return to the original seats of their forefathers; the good reaching the ancient village by means of the lake, which the burden of the sins of the wicked will not enable them to cross."' From Tylor, Early Researches, pp. 353-4.]
[218] [Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, vol. 3, pp. 248-9. 'Information given to the late General William Clarke, in his expedition up the Missouri, denotes that the Mandans have suffered greater vicissitudes of fortune than most of the American tribes. About a century ago, they were settled on both banks of the Missouri, some fifteen hundred miles above its mouth. They were then living in nine villages, surrounded by circular walls of earth, without the adjunct of a ditch. The ruins of one of the old villages observed in 1804, covered nearly eight acres, and denoted a comparatively large population. Two of these villages were on the east, and seven on the west side of the Missouri. They were first discovered and made known to us, in this position, in 1772. (Mitchell's letter herewith.) They appear to have been a hated tribe to the Dacotahs or Sioux, and Assineboins, who, from the earliest traditionary times, carried on fierce war against them. Finding themselves sorely pressed by this war, and having experienced the wasting inroads of the small-pox, the two eastern villages united into one, and migrated up the river, to a point opposite the Arickaras, 14-30 miles above the mouth. The same causes soon pressed the other seven western villages, reducing them to five; they then afterwards migrated in a body, and joined their tribes-men in the Arickara country, and concentrated and settled themselves in two large villages. Here they dwelt for a time, but were still subject to the fierce attacks of their enemies; and deeming the position unfavorable, they removed higher up the river, and took possession of a precipitous and tenable point of land, formed by an involution of the Missouri, where they formed one compact village, in 1776. The eastern Mandans had settled in two villages, but finding the attacks of the Sioux hard to be resisted, united also in one village. The two divisions of Mandan villages were still separated by the Missouri river, but seated directly opposite each other, about three miles apart, including low lands.']
[219] [Algic Researches, vol. 2, p. 214. 'MUDJEKEWIS and nine brothers conquered the Mammoth Bear, and obtained the Sacred Belt of Wampum, the great object of previous warlike enterprise, and the great means of happiness to men. The chief honour of this achievement was awarded to Mudjekewis, the youngest of the ten, who received the government of the West Winds. He is therefore called KABEYUN, the father of the winds. To his son, WABUN, he gave the East; to SHAWONDASEE, the south, and to KABIBONOKKA, the North. Manabozho, being an illegitimate son, was left unprovided. When he grew up, and obtained the secret of his birth, he went to war against his father, KABEYUN, and having brought the latter to terms, he received the government of the Northwest Winds, ruling jointly with his brother KABIBONOKKA the tempests from that quarter of the heavens.']
[220] [Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, vol. 2, p. 136. 'It is believed by some eminent men and writers, that the Red Race of America are the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. I mention this belief here to say, that I have noted much, in the course of my inquiries, that would induce me to fall into the same belief, besides the general reasons that are adduced to prove the fact. I have noticed that in all their principal and oldest traditions and lodge tales, twelve brothers are spoken of: they are the sons of Ge-tub-e, a name nearly similar to Jacob. The oldest of these brothers is called Mujekewis, and the youngest Wa-jeeg-e-wa-lton-ay, named after his coat of fisher's skins, with which he resisted the machinations of evil spirits. He was the beloved of his father and the Great Spirit ; the wisest and most powerful of his twelve brothers.']
[221] [China Monumentis, p. 72.]
[222] [Vendidad, fargard, 22,
v. 56-8, 'Nine sorts of male horned cattle brought the desirable Airyama.
Nine sorts of male small cattle brought the desirable Airyama.
Nine sorts of willows brought he, he drew nine circles.' Bleeck's tr., pt.
1, p. 153.]
[223] [Moor, Hindu Pantheon, pl. 75.]
[224] [Lundy, Monumental Christianity, fig. 120.]
[225] [Inman, Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. 2, p. 475, fig. 33.]
[226] [Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 5, p. 377. 'Those acquainted with Brahma (divine science, or the Deity) know that living being which resides in this golden receptacle with three spokes, and triple supports.']
[227] [Kidd, China, or Illustrations of the Symbols, Philosophy, Antiquities, Customs, etc., p. 101. Massey seems to err here as the only mention of nine parts is this par. on the same p. 'The third dynasty (man's), extended through a space of forty-five thousand years, during which nine brothers ruled. In this period hills and rivers were separated into nine divisions. Human beings, among whom respectful manners and pure customs prevailed, occupied one territory. The kingly office was not mere pageantry; nor were the functions of state ministers empty titles. Good government was established by rulers, and correct instruction diffused among the people. Males and females originated food and drink.']
[228] [As note above.]
[229] [Ibid., pp. 284-5. 'There is another specimen, called the red lotus or water-lily cap, to which flower the shape of the cap is made conformable. There is no record of the period of its invention, which was probably very ancient; and supplies additional collateral evidence that its sacredness was derived from Egyptian customs and practices to which we have previously referred. There is another specimen worn by the empress, which has also the designation seven gems, added to that of white water-lily.']
[230] [Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, pt. 4, p. 155, quoting from Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina, p. 21. 'The manner of their Interment, is thus: A Mole or Pyramid of Earth is rais'd, the Mould thereof being work'd very smooth and even, sometimes higher or lower, according to the Dignity of the Person whose Monument it is. On the Top thereof is an Umbrella, made Ridge-ways, like the Roof of an House; this is supported by nine Stakes, or small Posts, the Grave being about six or eight Foot in Length, and four Foot in Breadth; about it is hung Gourds Feathers, and other such like Trophies, plac'd there by the dead Man's Relations, in Respect to him in the Grave.']
[231] [Naville, 'Les Destruction des Hommes,' TSBA, 4, 1-19
(in French).
See also BB 2:64 where
it is given at length. And
RP, 6, 103 (in English).]
[232] [Ibid., RP, 6, 103. See p. 105, line 7.]
[233] [D'Orbigny, L'Homme Américain, vol. 2, p. 319. 'In South America the Guarayos, representatives in some sort of the past condition of the Guarani race, worship Tamoi the Grandfather, the Ancient of Heaven ; he was their first ancestor, who lived among them in old days and taught them to till the ground; then rising to heaven in the East he disappeared, having promised to be the helper of his people on earth, and to transport them, when they died, from the top of a sacred tree into another life, where they shall find their kindred and have hunting in plenty, and possess all that they possessed on earth; therefore it is that the Guarayos adorn their dead, and burn their weapons for them, and bury them with their faces to the East, whither they are to go.' From Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2, p. 72.]
[234]
[Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 189. 'At the same time his [Izdubar's] primeval
character of an elementary god, his identity with the Fire, Bar or Bilgi of the
Accadian magic books, seems to me so strongly marked in an invocation in the
Assyrian tongue against the spells of sorcerers.'
See also BB 2:345.]
[235] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 483. 'On the chief island in the lake of Peten, the conquerors found twenty-one stone temples with stone roofs, the chief of which formed a kind of pyramid of nine steps. In this was found a large chalchiuite, representing one of their two battle-gods, Pakoc and Hunchunchan, who gave oracles, and were supposed to join the people in their dances. This familiarity evidently bred contempt, however, for it is related that when a prediction of the oracle was not fulfilled, the priest without hesitation castigated the idol. In the same temple stood a gypsum image in the form of the sun, adorned with rays, inlaid with nacar, and having a gaping mouth set with human teeth. The bones of a horse, which hung from the rafters, were adored as sacred relics. These were the remains of a wounded horse left by Cortes among the natives when on his way to Honduras. Having seen the Spaniards fire from its back, they believed that the animal produced the flash and report, and hence adored it as Tziminchac, god of thunder, and brought it flowers, flesh, and incense; but such offerings did not sustain life, and it was not long before the bones of the apotheosized charger were all that remained to his worshippers. In another place was a stone and lime imitation of this horse, seated on the floor on its haunches, which the natives adored in the same manner. This animal-worship was the more readily admitted, since their gods were supposed to assume such forms. Their idols were so numerous, say the conquerors, that it took over a hundred men a whole day to destroy those existing on the chief island alone; Cogolludo affirms that the priests had charge of all the idols.']
[236] [Ibid., vol. 3, p. 135. 'The Piutes of Nevada have a demon-deity in the form of a serpent still supposed to exist in the waters of Pyramid Lake. The wind when it sweeps down among the nine islands of the lake drives the waters into the most fantastic swirls and eddies, even when the general surface of the lake is tolerably placid. This, say the Piutes, is the devil-snake causing the deep to boil like a pot; this is the old serpent seeking whom he may devour; and no native in possession of his five sober wits will be found steering toward those troubled waters at such a time.']
[237] [2 King. 19:12. 'Have
the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan,
and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar?'
Is.
37:12. 'Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have
destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were
in Telassar?'
Talbot,
'Second Inscription of Esarhaddon,' RP, 3,
109. See pp. 113-4, col. 2. 22-3,
4, 5, 6.]
[237a] [Source.]
[238] [Smith, The Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 75. 'The Babylonian account of the Creation gives the creation of the moon before that of the sun, in reverse order to that in Genesis, and evidently the Babylonians considered the moon the principal body, while the Book of Genesis makes the sun the greater light. Here it is evident that Genesis is truer to nature than the Chaldean text.']
[239] [King, 'Codex Telleriano Remensis,' in Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 6, p. 126.]
[240] [Gladwin, Ayeen Akbary. 'One of the most perfect identifications of the savage and the monkey in Hindustan is the following description of the bunmanus, or 'man of the woods' (Sanskr. vana=wood, manusha=man).' The bunmanus is an animal of the monkey kind. His face has a near resemblance to the human; he has no tail, and walks erect. The skin of his body is black, and slightly covered with hair.' That this description really applies not to apes, but to the dark-skinned, non-Aryan aborigines of the land, appears further in the enumeration of the local dialects of Hindustan, to which, it is said, 'may be added the jargon of the bunmanus,' or wild men of the woods.'' From Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1, pp. 380-1.]
[241] [Naville, 'Les Destruction des Hommes,' TSBA, 4, 1-19.]
[242] [2 Esd. 6:54-9. 'To crown your work you created Adam, and gave him sovereignty over everything you had made. It is from Adam that we, your chosen people, are all descended. 'I have recited the whole story of the creation, O Lord, because you have said that you made this first world for our sake, and that all the rest of the nations descended from Adam are nothing, that they are no better than spittle, and, for all their numbers, no more than a drop from a bucket. And yet, O Lord, those nations which count for nothing are today ruling over us and devouring us; and we, your people, have been put into their power—your people, whom you have called your first-born, your only son, your champion, and your best beloved. Was the world really made for us? Why then, may we not take possession of our world? How much longer shall it be so?' NEB version.]
[243] [Rit. ch. 54. 'I have watched this great egg which Seb prepared for the earth. I grow, it grows in turn; I live, it lives in turn, stimulating the breath.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[244] [Rit. ch. 153. 'Seb rejoices. He liberates Osiris from all his sins, letting the children know their fathers. They pray to see them.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[245] [Rit. ch. 82. 'Written are the words of my father Tum in my mouth. He throws down the concubine and the wife of Seb.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[246] [Rit. ch. 82. 'The Returners perceive it; all the children of Seb or of the earth have been judged. He gives to me his crowns; I have placed them on the heads of those who belong to Annu [Heliopolis].' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[248] [Pierret, Le Pantheon Égyptien, 'Le dieu Af dans sa Barque,' fig. p. 67.]
[250] [Primitive
Principles. 'But the Babylonians, like the rest
of the Barbarians, pass over in silence the One principle of the universe, and
they constitute two, Tauthe and Apason.' From Cory's Ancient Fragments,
p. 92.
See also NG 1:465, NG 2:25.
Ibid. 'I likewise find in the Orphic
rhapsodies, that, neglecting the first two principles, together with the one
principle who is delivered in silence, the third principle, posterior to the
two, is established by the theology as the original; because this first of all
possesses something effable and commensurate to human discourse.' Taylor's tr., in his notes to Plato's Parmenides.
See Thomas Taylor Series, vol. 11, p. 243.]
[251] [Syncellus, Chronology, and Eusebius, Chronicon. 'In the second book was the history of the ten kings of the Chaldeans, and the periods of each reign, which consisted collectively of one hundred and twenty sari, or 432,000 years, reaching to the time of the Flood.' From Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 60.]
[253] [West, Parsee MS. of Miscellaneous Texts, m. vii, fol. 120.]
[254] [Hazard, p. 437.]
[255] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 63. 'It is said that the sun, being at the hour of nine, cast a dart into the earth at the place we have mentioned and made a hole; from this hole a man came out, the first man, and somewhat imperfect withal, as there was no more of him than from the arm-pits up, much like the conventional European cherub, only without wings. After that the woman came up out of the hole. The rest of the story was not considered proper for printing by Mendieta; but at any rate, from these two are mankind descended. The name of the first man was Aculmaitl that is to say, aculli, shoulder, and maitl, hand or arm and from him the town of Aculma is said to take its name.' Citing Mendieta, Historia Ecclesiatica Indiana, pp. 77-81.]
[256] [Ibid., vol. 3, p. 70. 'Following our usual custom, I give the following legend belonging to the Miztecs just as they them selves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls: In the year and in the day of obscurity and darkness, yea, even before the days or the years where, when the world was in a great darkness and chaos, when the earth was covered with water, and there was nothing but mud and slime on all the face of the earth behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and his surname was the Lion-Snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-Snake. These two gods were the origin and beginning of all the gods.']
[257] [Smith, A Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology and Geography, p. 289.]
[258] [Hieroglyphica, bk. 1:63. 'When they would symbolize a king who governs not all but a part of the world, they depict HALF A SERPENT. For by this creature they denote a king, and by half of it, that he is not king over all the world.']
[260] [Rit. ch. 115. Not in Birch. Cf. Renouf's.]
[261] [Windischmann, Zoroastriche Studien.]
[263] [Kircher, Oedipus Ægyptiacus, vol. 2, p. 210.]
[264] [The Library, vol. 1, pp. 208-12,
bk. 3.4. 'Amongst other things, he says, that Ammon, a king, reigning in some
part of Libya, married Rhea the daughter of Coelus. sister of Saturn and the
other Titans; and that when he came first to the kingdom he met with a beautiful
virgin called Amalthaea upon the Ceraunean mountains and falling in love with
her begat a son of her who was afterwards famous and admirable both for strength
and comeliness of person; afterwards he made Amalthaea queen of the neighbouring
nations which in its situation being in shape of an ox^s horn was therefore
called the Western Horn, and that the soil is so very rich that it abounds with
vines and all other sorts of fruit-trees. Being possessed of this country, she
called it after her own name Amalthaea's Horn, And therefore posterity call
every rich piece of land that abounds with fruit-trees, Amalthaea's Horn. But
Ammon fearing the rageful jealousy of Rhea, concealed his adultery, and
privately sent away the child afar off to the city Nysa which lies in an island
almost inaccessible, surrounded by the river Triton, into which there is but one
strait and narrow entrance, called the Nysian gates.
The land there is very rich, abounding with pleasant meadows, gardens, and
orchards, watered on every side with refreshing streams; wherein grow all sorts
of fruit-trees and vines, which grow of themselves, for the most part running up
on the sides of trees. A gentle, cooling and refreshing wind pierces through the
whole island, which makes the place exceeding healthful, so that the inhabitants
live much longer here, than any in the neighbouring countries. The first
entrance into the island runs up a long vale, shaded all along with high and
lofty trees, so thick, that only a dim and glimmering light passes through; but
the fiery beams of the sun enter not in the least to offend the passenger. In
passing along, issue many sweet and crystal springs, so that the place is most
pleasant and delightful to them that have a desire there to divert themselves.
When you are out of this vale, a pleasant and very large grotto, of a round
form, presents itself, arched over with an exceeding high and craggy rock,
bespangled with stones of divers resplendent colours; for, being chequered, some
sparkled with purple rays, some with azure, and others darted forth their
refulgent beauty in divers other colours, no colour being ever known but might
be seen there. At the entrance grew trees of a strange and wonderful nature,
some bearing fruit, others always green and flourishing, as if they had been
created by nature to delight the sight: in these nested all sorts of birds,
whose colour and pleasing notes, even ravished the senses with sweet delight: so
that ail the place around imparted a sort of divine pleasure, not only to the
eye, but the ear; the sweetness of natural notes far excelling the artificial
harmony of all other music whatsoever. Passing through this appears a huge and
spacious grotto, every part enlightened by the bright rays of the sun: here grow
various sorts of flowers and plants especially cassia, and others that
perpetually preserve their sweet odours in their natural strengths Here are to
be seen the many pleasant apartments of the nymphs (composed of various flowers
planted in that order by wise nature's hand, and not by man's art) fit to
receive even the gods themselves. Within all this pleasant round, is not a
flower or leaf to be withered or in the least decayed; so that the spectators
are not delighted with the sight, but even transported with the pleasures of the
fragrant smells and sweet odours of the place.
To this cave the child was brought by Ammon and committed to the care of Nysa,
one of the sisters of Aristaeus, to be brought up; but ordered Aristaeus himself
tube his tutor, who was a prudent honesty and very learned man: and that the
child might he the better secured against the mischievous contrivances of his
stepmother Rhea, to these was joined Minerva, to be his guardian, whom the river
Triton, they say, brought forth a little before these times; and therefore from
thence she was called Tritonides. They report that this goddess lived a virgin
all her days, and that being likewise endued with extraordinary wisdom, she
found out many arts and sciences; and that her strength of body, and manly
courage was such that she employed herself in feats of arms, and went out to the
wars. Amongst her other actions this was one remarkable, that she killed Aegides
a terrible monster, before esteemed invincible. It was the birth of Terra, and
(in an horrible manner) naturally breathed forth flames of fire at her mouth.
This monster first appeared to Phrygia and burnt up the whole country, which is
therefore called burnt Phrygia at this day. Afterwards, she bent her course to
the places about mount Taurus, and burnt and destroyed all the woods and forests
all along, as far as to India: thence she moved towards the sea-coasts, and
burnt down the cedars upon mount Libanus in Phoenicia: thence passing through
Egypt, she burnt up Libya, as far as to the western shore till at length she
set on fire all the woods upon the Ceraunian mountains. The earth being thus all
in a flame, and the inhabitants partly consumed, and partly through fear, having
forsaken their country, Minerva (they say) eminently furnished both with wisdom
and courage, killed this monster; and wore its akin upon her breast, to be both
as a breast-plate and coat of mail against future encounters, and likewise as a
memorial of her valour and glorious victory.
Terra, the mother of this monster, being hereat enraged, in revenge brought
forth the giants, those implacable enemies of the gods, which were afterwards
destroyed by Jupiter, with the assistance of Minerva, Bacchus, and other
deities.
But as for Dionysius, bred up in Nysa, and instructed in the most learned arts
and sciences, he grew not only eminent for the strength And beauty of his body,
and endowments of his mind, but for his inventions of things useful for man's
life. For, while he was but as yet a mere boy, he found out the nature and use
of wine, discovering the pressing of the clusters of the vine, and drying of the
grapes, to the end to store them up for future use. He found out, likewise, what
ground was most proper for the planting of every thing, and in hopes of
attaining unto immortal honour for the great benefits and advantages of those
things by him discovered, he communicated his inventions to mankind.
When his fame and glory was noised abroad in every place, Rhea, (it is said),
enraged at Ammon, endeavoured to seize Dionysius: bat being disappointed in her
design, she forsook Ammon, and, returning to her brothers the Titans, married
her brother Saturn, who, at the instigation of Rhea, with the other brothers,
made war upon Ammon, and in a battle routed him. That Ammon, by reason of
famine, was forced to fly into Crete, and married Geta, one of the daughters of
the Cnretes, then reigning there, and with her gained the sovereignty of the
island, and called it after his wife's name Geta, which was before called Idaea.'
Booth's tr.]
[265] [Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörtenbuch über das Alte Testament?]
[266] [Compendium Historiarum, vol. 1, p. 296.]
[267] [Munter,
Religion der Karthager, p.
40.
Suidas,
Lexicon, Græce et Latine, under entry 'Μανασσής.']
[268] [Compendium Historiarum.]
[269] [Antiquity Explained and Represented in Scriptures.]
[270] [King, Antique Gems and Rings, vol. 2. As Massey cannot be bothered to state which plate or figure he is referring to I have taken the presumption that he is referring to plate 8, and possibly more precisely fig. 3.]
[271] [Adversus Heresies, 26.]
[272] [Is. 56:4-5. 'For thus saith the LORD unto the
eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take
hold of my covenant;
Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name
better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that
shall not be cut off.']
[273] [Matt. 19:12. 'For there
are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are
some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have
made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to
receive it, let him receive it.'
Cf. 18:3. 'And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.']
[274] [Golden Asse, bk. 11, ch. 47. 'Then by little and little I seemed to see the whole figure of her body, mounting out of the sea and standing before mee, wherefore I purpose to describe her divine semblance, if the poverty of my humane speech will suffer me, or her divine power give me eloquence thereto. First shee had a great abundance of haire, dispersed and scattered about her neck, on the crowne of her head she bare many garlands enterlaced with floures, in the middle of her forehead was a compasse in fashion of a glasse, or resembling the light of the Moone, in one of her hands she bare serpents, in the other, blades of corne, her vestiment was of fine silke yeelding divers colours, sometime yellow, sometime rosie, sometime flamy, and sometime (which troubled my spirit sore) darke and obscure, covered with a blacke robe in manner of a shield, and pleated in most subtill fashion at the skirts of her garments, the welts appeared comely, whereas here and there the starres glimpsed, and in the middle of them was placed the Moone, which shone like a flame of fire, round about the robe was a coronet or garland made with flowers and fruits. In her right hand shee had a timbrell of brasse, which gave a pleasant sound, in her left hand shee bare a cup of gold, out of the mouth whereof the serpent Aspis lifted up his head, with a swelling throat, her odoriferous feete were covered with shoes interlaced and wrought with victorious palme. Thus the divine shape breathing out the pleasant spice of fertill Arabia, disdained not with her divine voyce to utter these words unto me: Behold Lucius I am come, thy weeping and prayers hath mooved mee to succour thee. I am she that is the naturall mother of all things, mistresse and governesse of all the Elements, the initiall progeny of worlds, chiefe of powers divine, Queene of heaven! the principall of the Gods celestiall, the light of the goddesses: at my will the planets of the ayre, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell be diposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customes and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the Gods: the Athenians, Minerva: the Cyprians, Venus: the Candians, Diana: the Sicilians Proserpina: the Eleusians, Ceres: some Juno, other Bellona, other Hecate: and principally the Aethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Aegyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustome to worship mee, doe call mee Queene Isis.' Adlington's tr.]
[275] [Ginsburgh, The Kabbalah,
(1920 ed.), pp. 89-92. 'The Infinite was entirely unknown, and diffused no
light before this luminous point violently broke through into vision; (Sohar,
i, 15 a), the White Head, the Long Face, Macroprosopus, because the whole ten
Sephiroth represent the Primordial or the Heavenly Man, of which the first
Sephira is the head; The Inscrutable Height, because it is the highest of all
the Sephiroth proceeding immediately from the En Soph. Hence, on the
passage "Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold the King of Peace with the
Crown!" (Song of Solomon iii, 2) the Sohar remarks, "But who can behold
the King of Peace, seeing that He is incomprehensible, even to the heavenly
hosts? But he who sees the Crown sees the glory of the King of Peace." (Sohar
ii. 100 4.) And, it is expressed in the Bible by the Divine name Ehejeh, or I Am
(Exod. iii, 4), because it is absolute being, representing the Infinite as
distinguished from the finite, and in the angelic order, by the celestial beasts
of Ezekiel, called Ghajoth. The first Sephira contained the other nine
Sephiroth, and gave rise to them in the following order: At first a masculine or
active potency, designated Wisdom, proceeded from it. This Sephira, which
among the divine names is represented by Jah (Isa. xxvi, 4), and among the
angelic hosts by Ophanim (Wheels), sent forth an opposite, i.e. a
feminine or passive, potency, denominated Intelligence, which is represented by
the divine name Jehovah, and angelic name Arelim, and it is from a union of
these two Sephiroth, which are also called Father and Mother, that the remaining
seven Sephiroth proceeded. Or, as the Sohar (iii, 290 a) expresses it,
"When the Holy Aged, the Concealed of all Concealed, assumed a form, he produced
everything in the form of male and female, as the things could not continue in
any other form. Hence Wisdom, which is the beginning of development, when
it proceeded from the Holy Aged, emanated in male and female, for Wisdom
expanded, and Intelligence proceeded from it, and thus obtained male and female,
viz., Wisdom, the father, and Intelligence, the mother, from whose
union the other pairs of Sephiroth successively emanated." These two opposite
potencies, viz., Wisdom and Intelligence, are joined
together by the first potency, the Crown; thus yielding the first triad
of the Sephiroth.
From the junction of the foregoing opposites emanated again
the masculine or active potency, denominated Mercy or Love, also
called Greatness, the fourth Sephira, which among the divine names is
represented by El, and among the angelic hosts by Ghashmalim (Comp. Ezek.
i, 4). From this again emanated the feminine or passive potency, Justice,
also called Judicial Power, the fifth Sephira, which is represented by
the divine name Eloha, and among the angels by Seraphim (Isa. vi, 6); and
from this again the uniting potency. Beauty or Mildness, the sixth
Sephira, represented by the divine name Elohim, and among the angels by
Shinanim (Ps. lxviii, 18). Since without this union the existence of things
would not be possible, inasmuch as mercy not tempered with justice, and justice
not tempered with mercy would be unendurable: and thus the second trinity of the
Sephiroth is obtained.
The medium of union of the second trinity, i.e.
Beauty, the sixth Sephira, beamed forth the masculine or active potency.
Firmness, the seventh Sephira, corresponding to the divine name Jehovah
Sabaoth, and among the angels to Tarshishim (Dan. x. 6); this again gave
rise to the feminine or passive potency, Splendour, the eighth Sephira,
to which answer the divine name Elohim Sabaoth, and among the angels Bethel
Elohim (Gen. vi. 4); and from it again, emanated Foundation or the
Basis, the ninth Sephira, represented by the divine name El Chai, and among
the angelic hosts by Ishim (Ps. civ. 4), which is the uniting point
between these two opposites, thus yielding the third trinity of Sephiroth. From
the ninth Sephira, the Basis of all, emanated the tenth, called
Kingdom, and Shechinah, which is represented by the divine name
Adonai, and among the angelic hosts by Cherubim.']
[276] [Eccl. 11:2. 'Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.']
[277] [Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, vol. 1, pp. 153-4. 'When a canoe or canoes arrive at a place,—Somosomo, for example,—those on board shout, "O, aa!" and put a messenger on shore, who goes direct to the King's house, to report their arrival. Having arrived, the messenger again shouts, ''aa!" and ascends the steps with his hands clasped, entering at a bidding from within. As soon as he is seated, the King's Mata welcomes him with the usual clapping, and says, "Good is your coming from Vuna,'' or another place, as the case may be. The messenger replies by clapping, and saying, "Good, with respect, is your sitting in a lordly style at Somosomo." Several voices will then exclaim, "Report! What is the report?'' The orator is not allowed to stand, and the disadvantages of sitting are increased by his having to bow his head and body towards the Chief, and either clasp his hands or hold his beard. When fairly fixed, he begins by stating that his party were in their own land, and the thought of their Chiefs turned towards the Chiefs of this land; and they said, "Here are these pigs or yams; why are they not taken, that the King may eat them? Let a canoe be launched at once, that they may be taken." The messenger then proceeds, "We therefore were sent off, and we set sail, and the wind was northerly, and, not long after, the clouds gathered and we had a squall, and then we had fine weather, and at last we got here, and found you Chiefs sitting together, and the gods; and this is the end of my report, and that it may be accepted only.'' This kind of detail is generally wearisomely minute, and delivered in a tedious, slovenly, and irregular style. At one time, the speaker talks very rapidly; then suddenly changes into a protracted drawl, sucking the air through his teeth, at intervals, with a hissing noise. As he warms, he gets his hands at liberty, but it is only to play with a straw, or, if out of doors, to pull up the grass near him. The final sentence of this wonderful speech is accompanied by clapping his hands. The Mata, whose business it is to answer, often does so by saying, "Seven!" to which the reporter responds, "Eight!" The Mata proceeds, "Let your report be favourably received, and peace prevail in the land." He then claps, being joined by those sitting round, who also accompany him in repeating, "Mana dina li." "So let it be, truly." Unless the report is one of unusual interest, it receives little attention from the hearers. "Good, good!" is repeated now and then; but the King often talks most of the time to some one else. At Vatavulu, it is said, the messenger has to sit with his back towards the Chief to whom he speaks.']
[278] [Mackey, Lexicon of
Freemasonry, p. 3. 'Abraxas.—In
the MS. found by Mr. Locke in the Bodleian Library, the original of which is
said to have been in the handwriting of King Henry VI, it is asserted that
Masons conceal, among other secrets in their possession, "the faculty of Abrac."
This is an evident allusion to the word Abraxas, which was the name applied by
the arch-heretic Basilides to the Supreme Deity, from whom all other deities
were emanations, being seven in number, with 365 virtues, which were typified by
the numerical value in Greek of the word, as is shown below. It, like the
incommunicable name of God among the Jews, was supposed to be possessed of
magical virtues. Abraxas was also the name of small statues, on which were
inscribed figures of the Egyptian gods, combined with Hebrew and Zoroasteric
symbols, and characters in a variety of languages. According to Beausobre and
Lardner, these stones were mostly of Egyptian origin. The deity Abraxas is said
to be identical with Mithras or the sun. The letters of both names, taken
according to their numerical value in the Greek language, amount exactly to 365,
thus—
The word Abraxas is of uncertain origin. Saumaise says that it is purely
Egyptian, and should properly be pronounced Abrasax. Beausobre, in his
History of Manicheism, enters into a long etymological disquisition to prove
that it is derived from two Greek words [Greek] and signifies "the magnificent
Saviour, he who heals and preserves." [Greek] is also an epithet of the sun, and
hence we again come to like conclusion that Mithras and Abraxas are identical.']
[279] [Didron, Christian Iconography, fig. 21.]
[280] [Prov. 3:19. 'The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.']
[281] [Prov. 8:22-29. 'The
LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains
abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:
While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of
the dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face
of the depth:
When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the
deep:
When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his
commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth.']
[282] [Source.]
[284] [Autolycum, bk. 3:2. 'For it was fit that they who wrote should themselves have been eye-witnesses of those things concerning which they made assertions, or should accurately have ascertained them from those who had seen them; for they who write of things unascertained beat the air. For what did it profit Homer to have composed the Trojan war, and to have deceived many; or Hesiod, the register of the theogony of those whom he calls gods; or Orpheus, the three hundred and sixty-five gods, whom in the end of his life he rejects, maintaining in his precepts that there is one God? What profit did the sphaerography of the world's circle confer on Aratus, or those who held the same doctrine as he, except glory among men?' The Writings of Tatian and Theophilus, pp. 108-9.]
[285] [Source.]
[286] [Against Heresies, bk. 1:24.7. 'Basilides again, that he may appear to have discovered something more sublime and plausible, gives an immense development to his doctrines. He sets forth that Nous was first born of the unborn father, that from him, again, was born Logos, from Logos Phronesis, from Phronesis Sophia and Dynamis, and from Dynamis and Sophia the powers, and principalities, and angels, whom he also calls the first; and that by them the first heaven was made. Then other powers, being formed by emanation from these, created another heaven similar to the first; and in like manner, when others, again, had been formed by emanation from them, corresponding exactly to those above them, these, too, framed another third heaven; and then from this third, in downward order, there was a fourth succession of descendants; and so on, after the same fashion, they declare that more and more principalities and angels were formed, and three hundred and sixty-five heavens. Wherefore the year contains the same number of days in conformity with the number of the heavens.' ANCL, 5, 90-1.]
[287] [Targum of Palestine, or Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel. 'And the Lord said to the angels who ministered before Him, who had been created in the second day of the creation of the world, Let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl which are in the atmosphere of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every reptile creeping upon the earth. And the Lord created man in His Likeness: JERUSALEM. And the Word of the Lord created man in His likeness, in the likeness of the presence of the Lord He created him, the male and his yoke-fellow He created them.] In the image of the Lord He created him, with two hundred and forty and eight members, with three hundred and sixty and five nerves, and overlaid them with skin, and filled it with flesh and blood. Male and female in their bodies He created them. And He blessed them, and the Lord said to them, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth with sons and daughters, and prevail over it, in its possessions; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every creeping animal that creepeth upon the earth. And the Lord said, Behold, I have given you every herb whose seed seedeth upon the face of all the earth, and every unfruitful tree for the need of building and for burning; and the tree in which is fruit seeding after its kind, to you it shall be for food. But to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every reptile upon the earth in which is the living soul, (I have given) all green herbs. And it was so. And the Lord beheld every thing He had made, and it was very good. And it was evening, and it was morning, the Sixth Day.']
[288] [Carl Linnaeus was a botanist who established a classification system, in Latin, for all plants that is still used to this day. His Systema Naturae of 1758 was the blueprint for all other classification systems to follow.]
[289] [Source.]
[290] [Origen, Contra Celsus, bk. 6, ch. 22. 'After this, Celsus, desiring to exhibit his learning in his treatise against us, quotes also certain Persian mysteries, where he says: "These things are obscurely hinted at in the accounts of the Persians, and especially in the mysteries of Mithras, which are celebrated amongst them. For in the latter there is a representation of the two heavenly revolutions,—of the movement, viz., of the fixed stars, and of that which takes place among the planets, and of the passage of the soul through these. The representation is of the following nature: There is a ladder with lofty gates, and on the top of it an eighth gate. The first gate consists of lead, the second of tin, the third of copper, the fourth of iron, the fifth of a mixture of metals, the sixth of silver, and the seventh of gold. The first gate they assign to Saturn, indicating by the 'lead' the slowness of this star; the second to Venus, comparing her to the splendour and softness of tin; the third to Jupiter, being firm and solid; the fourth to Mercury, for both Mercury and iron are fit to endure all things, and are money-making and laborious; the fifth to Mars, because, being composed of a mixture of metals, it is varied and unequal; the sixth, of silver, to the Moon; the seventh, of gold, to the Sun,—thus imitating the different colours of the two latter." He next proceeds to examine the reason of the stars being arranged in this order, which is symbolized by the names of the rest of matter. Musical reasons, moreover, are added or quoted by the Persian theology; and to these, again, he strives to add a second explanation, connected also with musical considerations. But it seems to me, that to quote the language of Celsus upon these matters would be absurd, and similar to what he himself has done, when, in his accusations against Christians and Jews, he quoted, most inappropriately, not only the words of Plato; but, dissatisfied even with these, he adduced in addition the mysteries of the Persian Mithras, and the explanation of them. Now, whatever be the case with regard to these,—whether the Persians and those who conduct the mysteries of Mithras give false or true accounts regarding them,—why did he select these for quotation, rather than some of the other mysteries, with the explanation of them? For the mysteries of Mithras do not appear to be more famous among the Greeks than those of Eleusis, or than those in Egina, where individuals are initiated in the rites of Hecate. But if he must introduce barbarian mysteries with their explanation, why not rather those of the Egyptians, which are highly regarded by many, or those of the Cappadocians regarding the Comanian Diana, or those of the Thracians, or even those of the Romans themselves, who initiate the noblest members of their senate? But if he deemed it inappropriate to institute a comparison with any of these, because they furnished no aid in the way of accusing Jews or Christians, why did it not also appear to him inappropriate to adduce the instance of the mysteries of Mithras?' ANCL, 23, 360-1.]
[291] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1, ch.
30:5-8. 'They have also given names to [the several persons] in their system of
falsehood, such as the following: he who was the first descendant of the mother
is called Ialdabaoth; he, again, descended from him, is named Iao; he, from this
one, is called Sabaoth; the fourth is named Adoneus; the fifth, Eloeus; the
sixth, Oreus; and the seventh and last of all, Astanphseus. Moreover, they
represent these heavens, potentates, powers, angels, and creators, as sitting in
their proper order in heaven, according to their generation, and as invisibly
ruling over things celestial and terrestrial. The first of them, namely
Ialdabaoth, holds his mother in contempt, inasmuch as he produced sons and
grandsons without the permission of any one, yea, even angels, archangels,
powders, potentates, and dominions. After these things had been done, his sons
turned to strive and quarrel with him about the supreme power,—conduct which
deeply grieved Ialdabaoth, and drove him to despair. In these circumstances, he
cast his eyes upon the subjacent dregs of matter, and fixed his desire upon it,
to which they declare his son owes his origin. This son is Nous himself, twisted
into the form of a serpent; and hence were derived the spirit, the soul, and all
mundane things: from this too were generated all oblivion, wickedness,
emulation, envy, and death. They declare that the father imparted still greater
crookedness to this serpent-like and contorted Nous of theirs, when he was with
their father in heaven and Paradise.
On this account, Ialdabaoth, becoming uplifted in spirit, boasted himself over
all those things that were below him, and exclaimed, "I am father, and God, and
above me there is no one." But his mother, hearing him speak thus, cried out
against him, "Do not lie, Ialdabaoth: for the father of all, the first Anthropos
(man), is above thee; and so is Anthropos the son of Anthropos." Then, as all
were disturbed by this new voice, and by the unexpected proclamation, and as
they were inquiring whence the noise proceeded, in order to lead them away and
attract them to himself, they affirm that Ialdabaoth exclaimed, "Come, let us
make man after our image." The six powers, on hearing this, and their mother
furnishing them with the idea of a man (in order that by means of him she might
empty them of their original power), jointly formed a man of immense size, both
in regard to breadth and length. But as he could merely writhe along the ground,
they carried him to their father; Sophia so labouring in this matter, that she
might empty him (Ialdabaoth) of the light with which he had been sprinkled, so
that he might no longer, though still powerful, be able to lift up himself
against the powers above. They declare, then, that by breathing into man the
spirit of life, he was secretly emptied of his power; that hence man became a
possessor of nous (intelligence) and enthymesis (thought); and they affirm that
these are the faculties which partake in salvation. He [they further assert] at
once gave thanks to the first Anthropos (man), forsaking those who had created
him.
But Ialdabaoth, feeling envious at this, was pleased to form the design of again
emptying man by means of woman, and produced a woman from his own enthymesis,
whom that Prunicus [above mentioned] laying hold of, imperceptibly emptied her
of power. But the others coming and admiring her beauty, named her Eve, and
falling in love with her, begat sons by her, whom they also declare to be the
angels. But their mother (Sophia) cunningly devised a scheme to seduce Eve and
Adam, by means of the serpent, to transgress the command of Ialdabaoth. Eve
listened to this as if it had proceeded from a son of God, and yielded an easy
belief. She also persuaded Adam to eat of the tree regarding which God had said
that they should not eat of it. They then declare that, on their thus eating,
they attained to the knowledge of that power which is above all, and departed
from those who had created them. When Prunicus perceived that the powers were
thus baffled by their own creature, she greatly rejoiced, and again cried out,
that since the father was incorruptible, he (Ialdabaoth) who formerly called
himself the father was a liar; and that, while Anthropos and the first woman
(the Spirit) existed previously, this one (Eve) sinned by committing adultery.
Ialdabaoth, however, through that oblivion in which he was involved, and not
paying any regard to these things, cast Adam and Eve out of Paradise, because
they had transgressed his commandment. For he had a desire to beget sons by Eve,
but did not accomplish his wish, because his mother opposed him in every point,
and secretly emptied Adam and Eve of the light with which they had been
sprinkled, in order that that spirit which proceeded from the supreme power
might participate neither in the curse nor opprobrium [caused by transgression].
They also teach that, thus being emptied of the divine substance, they were
cursed by him, and cast down from heaven to this world. But the serpent also,
who was acting against the father, was cast down by him into this lower world;
he reduced, however, under his power the angels here, and begat six sons, he
himself forming the seventh person, after the example of that Hebdomad which
surrounds the father. They further declare that these are the seven mundane
demons, who always oppose and resist the human race, because it was on their
account that their father was cast down to this lower world.' ANCL, 5,
106-9.]
[292] [Ibid., bk. 1, ch. 5:3. 'They go on to say that the Demiurge imagined that he created all these things of himself, while he in reality made them in conjunction with the productive power of Achamoth. He formed the heavens, yet was ignorant of the heavens; he fashioned man, yet knew not man; he brought to light the earth, yet had no acquaintance with the earth; and, in like manner, they declare that he was ignorant of the forms of all that he made, and knew not even of the existence of his own mother, but imagined that he himself was all things. They further affirm that his mother originated this opinion in his mind, because she desired to bring him forth possessed of such a character that he should be the head and source of his own essence, and the absolute ruler over every kind of operation [that was afterwards attempted]. This mother they also call Ogdoad, Sophia, Terra, Jerusalem, Holy Spirit, and, with a masculine reference, Lord. Her place of habitation is an intermediate one, above the Demiurge indeed, but below and outside of the Pleroma, even to the end.' ANCL, 5, 22.]
[293] [Commentary on the Timaeus, vol. 2, p. 127, bk. 3. 'And they arrange the monad as analogous to a point, but the hexad, to that which is animated, and the heptad, to that which is intellectual. But how is it possible we should not say, that the number of seven circles is adapted to the soul, which is produced by the vivific Goddess [Rhea], who is a monad, duad, and heptad, comprehending in herself all the Titanniae?' Taylor's tr.]
[294] [Against Heresies, bk. 1, ch. 15.1. 'The all-wise Sige then announced the production of the four-and-twenty elements to him as follows:—Along with Monotes there co-existed Henotes, from which sprang two productions, as w^e have remarked above, Monas and Hen, which, added to the other two, make four, for twice two are four. And again, two and four, when added together, exhibit the number six. And further, these six being quadrupled, give rise to the twenty-four forms. And the names of the first Tetrad, which are understood to be most holy, and not capable of being expressed in words, are known by the Son alone, while the Father also know^s what they are. The other names which are to be uttered with respect, and faith, and reverence, are, according to him, Arrhetos and Sige, Pater and Aletheia. Now the entire number of this Tetrad amounts to four-and-twenty letters; for the name Arrhetos contains in itself seven letters, Seige five. Pater five, and Aletheia seven. If all these be added together—twice five, and twice seven—they complete the number twenty-four. In like manner, also, the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia, reveal the same number of elements. Moreover, that name of the Saviour which may be pronounced, viz. Jesus [Greek], consists of six letters, but His unutterable name comprises four-and-twenty letters. The name Christ the Son ([Greek]) comprises twelve letters, but that which is unpronounceable in Christ contains thirty letters. And for this reason he declares that He is Alpha and Omega, that he may indicate the dove, inasmuch as that bird has this number [in its name].' ANCL, 5, 64.]
[295] [Ibid., bk. 1, ch. 17. 'I wish also to explain to thee their theory as to the way in which the creation itself was formed through the mother by the Demiurge (as it were without his knowledge), after the image of things invisible. They maintain, then, that first of all the four elements, fire, water, earth, and air, were produced after the image of the primary Tetrad above, and that then, if we add their operations, viz. heat, cold, dryness, and humidity, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad is presented. They next reckon up ten powers in the following manner:—There are seven globular bodies, which they also call heavens; then that globular body which contains these, which also they name the eighth heaven; and, in addition to these, the sun and moon. These, being ten in number, they declare to be types of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from Logos and Zoe. As to the Duodecad, it is indicated by the zodiacal circle, as it is called; for they affirm that the twelve signs do most manifestly shadow forth the Duodecad, the daughter of Anthropos and Ecclesia. And since the highest heaven, bearing upon the very sphere [of the seventh heaven], has been linked with the most rapid precession of the whole system, as a check, and balancing that system with its own gravity, so that it completes the cycle from sign to sign in thirty years,—they say that this is an image of Horus, encircling their thirty-named mother. And then, again, as the moon travels through her allotted space of heaven in thirty days, they hold, that by these days she expresses the number of the thirty Æons. The sun also, who runs through his orbit in twelve months, and then returns to the same point in the circle, makes the Duodecad manifest by these twelve months; and the days, as being measured by twelve hours, are a type of the invisible Duodecad. Moreover, they declare that the hour, which is the twelfth part of the day, is composed of thirty parts, in order to set forth the image of the Triacontad. Also the circumference of the zodiacal circle itself contains three hundred and sixty degrees (for each of its signs comprises thirty); and thus also they affirm, that by means of this circle an image is preserved of that connection which exists between the twelve and the thirty. Still further, asserting that the earth is divided into twelve zones, and that in each zone it receives power from the heavens, according to the perpendicular [position of the sun above it], bringing forth productions corresponding to that power which sends down its influence upon it, they maintain that this is a most evident type of the Duodecad and its offspring.' ANCL, 5, 73-4.]
[296] [Ibid., bk. 1, ch. 5:2. 'They affirm, therefore, that he was constituted the Father and God of everything outside of the Pleroma, being the creator of all animal and material substances. For he it was that discriminated these two kinds of existence hitherto confused, and made corporeal from incorporeal substances, fashioned things heavenly and earthly, and became the Framer (Demiurge) of things material and animal, of those on the right and those on the left, of the light and of the heavy, and of those tending upwards as well as of those tending downwards. He created also seven heavens, above which they say that he, the Demiurge, exists. And on this account they term him Hebdomas, and his mother Achamoth Ogdoas, preserving the number of the first-begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma. They affirm moreover, that these seven heavens are intelligent, and speak of them as being angels, while they refer to the Demiurge himself as being an angel bearing a likeness to God; and in the same strain, they declare that Paradise, situated above the third heaven, is a fourth angel possessed of power, from whom Adam derived certain qualities while he conversed with him.' ANCL, 5, 21-2.]
[297] [Ibid., ch. 30:6. 'On this account, Ialdabaoth, becoming uplifted in spirit, boasted himself over all those things that were below him, and exclaimed, "I am father, and God, and above me there is no one." But his mother, hearing him speak thus, cried out against him, "Do not lie, Ialdabaoth: for the father of all, the first Anthropos (man), is above thee; and so is Anthropos the son of Anthropos." Then, as all were disturbed by this new voice, and by the unexpected proclamation, and as they were inquiring whence the noise proceeded, in order to lead them away and attract them to himself, they affirm that Ialdabaoth exclaimed, "Come, let us make man after our image." The six powers, on hearing this, and their mother furnishing them with the idea of a man (in order that by means of him she might empty them of their original power), jointly formed a man of immense size, both in regard to breadth and length. But as he could merely writhe along the ground, they carried him to their father; Sophia so labouring in this matter, that she might empty him (Ialdabaoth) of the light with which he had been sprinkled, so that he might no longer, though still powerful, be able to lift up himself against the powers above. They declare, then, that by breathing into man the spirit of life, he was secretly emptied of his power; that hence man became a possessor of nous (intelligence) and enthymesis (thought); and they affirm that these are the faculties which partake in salvation. He [they further assert] at once gave thanks to the first Anthropos (man), forsaking those who had created him.' ANCL, 5, 106-7.]
[298] [Ibid., ch. 14:4. 'When she (the Tetrad) had spoken these things, Aletheia looked at him, opened her mouth, and uttered a word. That word was a name, and the name was this one which we do know and speak of, viz. Christ Jesus. When she had uttered this name, she at once relapsed into silence. And as Marcus waited in the expectation that she would say something more, the Tetrad again came forward and said, "Thou hast reckoned as contemptible that word which thou hast heard from the mouth of Aletheia. This which thou knowest and seemest to possess, is not an ancient name. For thou possessest the sound of it merely, whilst thou art ignorant of its power. For Jesus ([Greek]) is a name arithmetically symbolical, consisting of six letters, and is known by all those that belong to the called. But that which is among the Æons of the Pleroma consists of many parts, and is of another form and shape, and is known by those [angels] who are joined in affinity with Him, and whose figures (mightinesses) are always present with Him.' ANCL, 5, 60.]
[299] [Ibid. ch. 18:2. 'Again, they assert that the sun, the great light-giver, was formed on the fourth day, with a reference to the number of the Tetrad. So also, according to them, the courts of the tabernacle constructed by Moses, being composed of fine linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, pointed to the same image. Moreover, they maintain that the long robe of the priest falling over his feet, as being adorned with four rows of precious stones, indicates the Tetrad; and if there are any other things in the Scriptures which can possibly be dragged into the number four, they declare that these had their being with a view to the Tetrad. The Ogdoad, again, was shown as follows:—They affirm that man was formed on the eighth day, for sometimes they will have him to have been made on the sixth day, and sometimes on the eighth, unless, perchance, they mean that his earthly part was formed on the sixth day, but his fleshly part on the eighth, for these two things are distinguished by them. Some of them also hold that one man was formed after the image and likeness of God, masculo-feminine, and that this was the spiritual man; and that another man was formed out of the earth.' ANCL, 5, 75-6.]
[300] [Life of Sulla, vol. 3, p. 226. 'The Hetruscan sages affirmed, that this prodigy betokened the approach of a new age, and a revolution of the whole universe. For according to them, there are to be in all eight ages or generations of men, all differing one from the other in their customs and manner of life; that to each of these God has allotted a certain measure of time, determined by the circuit of the great year; that when one age is almost expired, and another approaches, the heavens or the earth give notice of it by some wonderful tokens; so that they who have carefully studied these things, find that at certain periods a generation of men arises, differing in customs, and manners, and more or less regarded by the Gods than the preceding. They add, that among other mighty changes which happen in this succession of ages, or generations, that which attends the art of divination is not the lead observable; that it is highly esteemed in one age, and succeeds in all its predictions, which are supported by clear and evident tokens sent from above; and that in another it is despised, and vilified, founding its predictions not upon the certainty of science, but forming them at random and by conjecture, and having a very obscure and imperfect view of futurity. This was the mythology of the Tuscan sages, who were thought to be more knowing than all others.']
[301]
[Epistle of Barnabas, 13:9-10. 'Lastly, he saith unto them: Your new
moons and your sabbaths I cannot bear them. Consider what he means by it; the
sabbaths, says he, which ye now keep are not acceptable unto me, but those which
I have made; when resting from all things I shall begin the eighth day, that is,
the beginning of the other world.
For which cause we observe the eighth day with gladness, in which Jesus rose
from the dead; and having manifested himself to his disciples, ascended into
heaven.' M. R. James, Apocryphal New Testament, p. 161.
See Wake's tr., full text.]
[302] [Eph. 4:13. 'Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.']
[303] [Bosio, Roma Sotteranea, pl. 1.]
[304] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1, ch. 17:1. 'I wish also to explain to thee their theory as to the wav in which the creation itself was formed through the mother by the Demiurge (as it were without his knowledge), after the image of things invisible. They maintain, then, that first of all the four elements, fire, water, earth, and air, were produced after the image of the primary Tetrad above, and that then, if we add their operations, viz. heat, cold, dryness, and humidity, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad is presented. They next reckon up ten powers in the following manner:—There are seven globular bodies, which they also call heavens; then that globular body which contains these, which also they name the eighth heaven; and, in addition to these, the sun and moon. These, being ten in number, they declare to be types of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from Logos and Zoe. As to the Duodecad, it is indicated by the zodiacal circle, as it is called; for they affirm that the twelve signs do most manifestly shadow forth the Duodecad, the daughter of Anthropos and Ecclesia. And since the highest heaven, bearing upon the very sphere [of the seventh heaven], has been linked with the most rapid precession of the whole system, as a check, and balancing that system with its own gravity, so that it completes the cycle from sign to sign in thirty years,—they say that this is an image of Horus, encircling their thirty-named mother. And then, again, as the moon travels through her allotted space of heaven in thirty days, they hold, that by these days she expresses the number of the thirty Æons. The sun also, who runs through his orbit in twelve months, and then returns to the same point in the circle, makes the Duodecad manifest by these twelve months; and the days, as being measured by twelve hours, are a type of the invisible Duodecad. Moreover, they declare that the hour, which is the twelfth part of the day, is composed of thirty parts, in order to set forth the image of the Triacontad. Also the circumference of the zodiacal circle itself contains three hundred and sixty degrees (for each of its signs comprises thirty); and thus also they affirm, that by means of this circle an image is preserved of that connection which exists between the twelve and the thirty. Still further, asserting that the earth is divided into twelve zones, and that in each zone it receives power from the heavens, according to the perpendicular [position of the sun above it], bringing forth productions corresponding to that power which sends down its influence upon it, they maintain that this is a most evident type of the Duodecad and its offspring.' ANCL, 5, 73-4.]
[305] [Ibid., bk. 2, ch. 21:1. 'The twelve apostles here not a type of the Æons. If, again, they maintain that the twelve apostles were a type only of that group of twelve Æons which Anthropos in conjunction with Ecclesia produced, then let them produce ten other apostles as a type of those ten remaining Æons, who, as they declare, were produced by Logos and Zoe. For it is unreasonable to suppose that the junior, and for that reason inferior Æons, were set forth by the Saviour through the election of the apostles, while their seniors, and on this account their superiors, were not thus: foreshown; since the Saviour (if, that is to say. He chose the apostles with this view, that by means of them He might show forth the Æons who are in the Pleroma) might have chosen other ten apostles also, and likewise other eight before these, that thus He might set forth the original and primary Ogdoad. He could not, in regard to the second [Duo] Decad, show forth [any emblem of it] through the number of the apostles being [already] constituted a type. For [He made choice of no such other number of disciples; but] after the twelve apostles, our Lord is found to have sent forth seventy others before Him. Now seventy cannot possibly be the type either of an Ogdoad, a Decad, or a Triacontad. What is the reason, then, that the inferior Æons are, as I have said, represented by means of the apostles; but the superior, from whom, too, the former derived their being, are not prefigured at all? But if the twelve apostles were chosen with this object, that the number of the twelve Æons might be indicated by means of them, then the seventy also ought to have been chosen to be the type of seventy Æons; and in that case, they must affirm that the Æons are no longer thirty, but eighty-two in number. For He who made choice of the apostles, that they might be a type of those Æons existing in the Pleroma, would never have constituted them types of some and not of others; but by means of the apostles He would have tried to preserve an image and to exhibit a type of those Æons that exist in the Pleroma.' ANCL, 5, 194-5.]
[306] [Rev. 21:14. 'And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.']
[307] [Divine Pymander, bk. 2:61-8.]
[308] [Ibid., bk.
7:58-59.
See also BB 2:100.]
[309] [Morrison, Chinese Dictionary, pt. 3, pp. 204-5.]
[310] [Camoens, Os Lusiads, canto
10.82; Burton's tr., vol. 2, p. 390. ''Only to this Imperial sphere
belong
the gods of Truth; for Saturn, Janus, I,
Jove and his Juno are a fabled throng,
a mortal figment, a blind phantasy:
Only to deck the Poet's sprightly song
we servèd; and, if more
humanity
we gained of man, 'twas that his wit hath given
our names and natures to the stars of heaven.']
[311] [Burgess, Surya Siddhanta, p. 283, ch. 12.21. 'Bestowing upon him the Scriptures (veda) as gifts, and establishing him within the egg as grandfather of all worlds, he himself then revolves, causing existence.']
[312] [Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 97.]
[313] [Sharpe, Egyptian Inscriptions from the British Museum and other Sources?, 118, 3.]
[314] [Source.]