spears, and pikes. The light troops were armed with darts and slings;
charioteers wielded maces and battle-axes; in siege-operations they
were perfect. “The assailants,” says the anonymous writer, “advanced,
forming a narrow and long line, the point being protected by a
triple-sided, impenetrable engine pushed before them on a kind of
roller, by an invisible squad of men. They had covered underground
passages with trap-doors, scaling ladders, and the art of escalade and
military strategy was carried by them to perfection.... The battering
ram was familiar to them as other things; being such experts in
quarrying they knew how to set a mine to a wall and bring it down.” The
same writer remarks, that it is a great deal safer for us to mention
what the Egyptians _did_ than what they _did not_ know, for every day
brings some new discovery of their wonderful knowledge; “and if,” he
adds, “we were to find out that they used Armstrong guns, this fact
would not be much more astonishing than many of the facts brought out
to light already.”
The proof that they were proficient in mathematical sciences, lies
in the fact that those ancient mathematicians whom we honor as the
fathers of geometry went to Egypt to be instructed. Says Professor
Smyth, as quoted by Mr. Peebles, “the geometrical knowledge of the
pyramid-builders began where Euclid’s ended.” Before Greece came
into existence, the arts, with the Egyptians, were ripe and old.
Land-measuring, an art resting on geometry, the Egyptians certainly
knew well, as, according to the _Bible_, Joshua, after conquering
the Holy Land, had skill enough to divide it. And how could a people
so skilled in natural philosophy as the Egyptians were, not be
proportionately skilled in psychology and spiritual philosophy? The
temple was the nursery of the highest civilization, and it alone
possessed that higher knowledge of magic which was in itself the
quintessence of natural philosophy. The occult powers of nature
were taught in the greatest secresy and the most wonderful cures
were performed during the performing of the Mysteries. Herodotus
acknowledges[796] that the Greeks learned all they knew, including {532}
the sacred services of the temple, from the Egyptians, and because of
that, their principal temples were consecrated to Egyptian divinities.
Melampus, the famous healer and soothsayer of Argos, had to use his
medicines “after the manner of the Egyptians,” from whom he had gained
his knowledge, whenever he desired his cure to be thoroughly effective.
He healed Iphiclus of his impotency and debility by _the rust of iron_,
according to the directions of Mantis, his _magnetic sleeper_, or
oracle. Sprengel gives many wonderful instances of such _magical_ cures
in his _History of Medicine_ (see p. 119).
Diodorus, in his work on the Egyptians (lib. i.), says that Isis has
deserved immortality, for all nations of the earth bear witness to
the power of this goddess to cure diseases by her influence. “This is
proved,” he says, “not by fable as among the Greeks, but by authentic
facts.” Galen records several remedial means which were preserved in
the healing wards of the temples. He mentions also a universal medicine
which in his time was called _Isis_.[797]
The doctrines of several Greek philosophers, who had been instructed in
Egypt, demonstrates their profound learning. Orpheus, who, according
to Artapanus, was a disciple of Moyses (Moses),[798] Pythagoras,
Herodotus, and Plato owe their philosophy to the same temples in which
the wise Solon was instructed by the priests. “Antiklides relates,”
says Pliny, “that the letters were invented in Egypt by a person whose
name was Menon, fifteen years before Phoroneus the most ancient king
of Greece.”[799] Jablonski proves that the heliocentric system, as
well as the earth’s sphericity, were known by the priests of Egypt
from immemorial ages. “This theory,” he adds, “Pythagoras took from
the Egyptians, who had it from the Brachmans of India.”[800] Fénelon,
the illustrious Archbishop of Cambray, in his _Lives of the Ancient
Philosophers_, credits Pythagoras with this knowledge, and says that
besides teaching his disciples that as the earth was round there were
antipodes, since it was inhabited everywhere, the great mathematician
was the first to discover that the morning and evening star was the
same. If we now consider that Pythagoras lived in about the 16th
Olympiad, over 700 years B.C., and taught this fact at such an early
period, we must believe that it was known by others before him. The
works of Aristotle, Laërtius, and several others in which Pythagoras is
mentioned, demonstrate that he had learned from the Egyptians about the
obliquity of the ecliptic, the starry composition of the milky way, and
the borrowed light of the moon.
Wilkinson, corroborated later by others, says that the Egyptians {533}
divided time, knew the true length of the year, and the precession of
the equinoxes. By recording the rising and setting of the stars, they
understood the particular influences which proceed from the positions
and conjunctions of all heavenly bodies, and therefore their priests,
prophesying as accurately as our modern astronomers, meteorological
changes, could, _en plus_, astrologize through astral motions. Though
the sober and eloquent Cicero may be partially right in his indignation
against the exaggerations of the Babylonian priests, who “assert
that they have preserved upon monuments observations extending back
during an interval of 470,000 years,”[801] still, the period at which
astronomy had arrived at its perfection with the ancients is _beyond_
the reach of modern calculation.
A writer in one of our scientific journals observes “that every
science in its growth passes through three stages: First, we have the
stage of observation, when facts are collected and registered by many
minds in many places. Next, we have the stage of generalization, when
these carefully verified facts are arranged methodically, generalized
systematically, and classified logically, so as to deduce and elucidate
from them the laws that regulate their rule and order. Lastly, we have
the stage of prophecy, when these laws are so applied that events can
be predicted to occur with unerring accuracy.” If several thousand
years B.C., Chinese and Chaldean astronomers predicted eclipses—the
latter, whether by the cycle of Saros, or other means, matters not—the
fact remains the same. They had reached the last and highest stage of
astronomical science—they _prophesied_. If they could, in the year 1722
B.C., delineate the zodiac with the exact positions of the planets
at the time of the autumnal equinox, and so unerringly as Professor
Mitchell, the astronomer, proved, then they knew the laws that regulate
“carefully-verified facts” to perfection, and applied them with as much
certainty as our modern astronomers. Moreover, astronomy is said to
be in our century “the only science which has thoroughly reached the
_last stage_ ... other sciences are yet in various stages of growth;
electricity, in some branches, has reached the third stage, but in
many branches is still in its infantine period.”[802] This we know, on
the exasperating confessions of men of science themselves, and we can
entertain no doubt as to this sad reality in the nineteenth century,
as we belong ourselves to it. Not so in relation to the men who lived
in the days of the glory of Chaldæa, Assyria, and Babylon. Of the
stages they reached in other sciences we know _nothing_, except that
in astronomy they stood equal with us, for they had also reached the {534}
_third_ and last stage. In his lecture on the _Lost Arts_, Wendell
Phillips very artistically describes the situation. “We seem to
imagine,” says he, “that whether knowledge will die with us or not,
it certainly began with us.... We have a pitying estimate, a tender
pity for the narrowness, ignorance, and darkness of the bygone ages.”
To illustrate our own idea with the closing sentence of the favorite
lecturer, we may as well confess that we undertook this chapter,
which in one sense interrupts our narrative, to inquire of our men of
science, whether they are sure that they are boasting “_on the right
line_.”
Thus we read of a people, who, according to some learned writers,[803]
had just emerged from the bronze age into the succeeding age of iron.
“If Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylon presented _stupendous and venerable
antiquities reaching far back into_ the night of time, Persia was not
without her wonders of a later date. The pillared halls of Persepolis
were filled with miracles of art—carvings, sculptures, enamels,
alabaster libraries, obelisks, sphinxes, colossal bulls. Ecbatana,
in Media, the cool summer retreat of the Persian kings, was defended
by seven encircling walls of hewn and polished blocks, the interior
ones in succession of increasing height, and of different colors, in
astrological accordance with the seven planets. The palace was roofed
_with silver tiles_; its beams were plated with gold. At midnight, in
its halls, the sun was rivalled by many a row of naphtha cressets.
A paradise, that luxury of the monarchs of the East, was planted in
the midst of the city. The Persian empire was truly the garden of the
world.... In Babylon there still remained its walls, once more than
sixty miles in compass and, after the ravages of three centuries and
three conquerors, still more than eighty feet in height; there were
still the ruins of the temple of the cloud-encompassed Bel; on its top
was planted the observatory wherein the weird Chaldean astronomers had
held nocturnal communion with the stars; still there were vestiges of
the two palaces with their hanging gardens, in which were trees growing
in mid-air, and the wreck of the hydraulic machinery that had supplied
them from the river. Into the artificial lake, with its vast apparatus
of aqueducts and sluices, the melted snows of the Armenian mountains
found their way and were confined in their course through the city by
the embankments of the Euphrates. Most wonderful of all, perhaps, was
_the tunnel under the river-bed_.”[804] In his _First Traces of Man {535}
in Europe_, Albrecht Müller proposes a name descriptive of the age
in which we live, and suggests that “the age of paper” is perhaps as
good as any that can be discussed. We do not agree with the learned
professor. Our firm opinion is, that succeeding generations will term
ours, at best, the age of _brass_; at worst, that of albata or of
oroide.
The thought of the present-day commentator and critic as to the ancient
learning, is limited to and runs round the _exoterism_ of the temples;
his insight is either unwilling or unable to penetrate into the solemn
adyta of old, where the hierophant instructed the neophyte to regard
the public worship in its true light. No ancient sage would have taught
that man is the king of creation, and that the starry heaven and our
mother earth were created for his sake. He, who doubts the assertion,
may turn to the _Magical and Philosophical Precepts_ of Zoroaster, and
find its corroboration in the following:[805]
“Direct not thy mind to the vast measures of the earth;
For the plant of truth is not upon ground.
Nor measure the measures of the sun, collecting rules,
For he is carried by the eternal will of the Father, _not for your
sake_,
Dismiss the impetuous course of the moon;
For she runs always by work of necessity.
The progression of the stars _was not generated for your sake_.”
A rather strange teaching to come from those who are universally
believed to have worshipped the sun, and moon, and the starry host,
as gods. The sublime profundity of the Magian precepts being _beyond_
the reach of modern materialistic thought, the Chaldean philosophers
are accused, together with the ignorant masses, of Sabianism and
sun-worship.
There was a vast difference between the _true_ worship taught to those
who showed themselves worthy, and the state religions. The magians are
accused of all kinds of superstition, but this is what a _Chaldean
Oracle_ says:
“The wide aërial flight of birds _is not true_,
Nor the dissections of the entrails of victims; they are all mere toys,
The _basis of mercenary fraud_; flee from these
If you would open the sacred paradise of piety
Where virtue, wisdom, and equity, are assembled.”[806]
Surely, it is not those who warn people against “mercenary fraud”
who can be accused of it; and if they accomplished acts which seem {536}
miraculous, who can with fairness presume to deny that it was done
merely because they possessed a knowledge of natural philosophy and
psychological science to a degree unknown to our schools?
What did they not know? It is a well-demonstrated fact that the true
meridian was correctly ascertained before the first pyramid was
built. They had clocks and dials to measure time; their cubit was
the established unit of linear measure, being 1,707 feet of English
measure; according to Herodotus the unit of weight was also known; as
money, they had gold and silver rings valued by weight; they had the
decimal and duodecimal modes of calculation from the earliest times,
and were proficient in algebra. “How could they otherwise,” says an
unknown author, “bring into operation such immense mechanical powers,
if they had not thoroughly understood the philosophy of what we term
the mechanical powers?”
The art of making linen and fine fabrics is also proved to have
been one of their branches of knowledge, for the _Bible_ speaks of
it. Joseph was presented by Pharaoh with a vesture of fine linen, a
golden chain, and many more things. The linen of Egypt was famous
throughout the world. The mummies are all wrapped in it and the linen
is beautifully preserved. Pliny speaks of a certain garment sent 600
years B. C., by King Amasis to Lindus, every single thread of which
was composed of 360 minor threads twisted together. Herodotus gives us
(book i.), in his account of Isis and the Mysteries performed in her
honor, an idea of the beauty and “admirable softness of the linen worn
by the priests.” The latter wore shoes made of papyrus and garments
of _fine linen_, because this goddess first taught the use of it; and
thus, besides being called _Isiaci_, or priests of Isis, they were also
known as _Linigera_, or the “linen-wearing.” This linen was spun and
dyed in those brilliant and gorgeous colors, the secret of which is
likewise now among the lost arts. On the mummies we often find the most
beautiful embroidery and bead-work ornamenting their shirts; several of
such can be seen in the museum of Bulak (Cairo), and are unsurpassable
in beauty; the designs are exquisite, and the labor seems immense.
The elaborate and so much vaunted Gobelins tapestry, is but a gross
production when compared with some of the embroidery of the ancient
Egyptians. We have but to refer to _Exodus_ to discover how skilful
was the workmanship of the Israelitish pupils of the Egyptians upon
their tabernacle and sacred ark. The sacerdotal vestments, with their
decorations of “pomegranates and golden bells,” and the thummim, or
jewelled breastplate of the high priest, are described by Josephus as
being of unparalleled beauty and of wonderful workmanship; and yet we
find beyond doubt that the Jews adopted their rites and ceremonies, and {537}
even the special dress of their Levites, from the Egyptians. Clemens
Alexandrinus acknowledges it very reluctantly, and so does Origen and
other Fathers of the Church, some of whom, as a matter of course,
attribute the coincidence to a clever trick of Satan in anticipation
of events. Proctor, the astronomer, says in one of his books, “The
remarkable breastplate worn by the Jewish high priest was derived
directly from the Egyptians.” The word _thummim_ itself is evidently
of Egyptian origin, borrowed by Moses, like the rest; for further on
the same page, Mr. Proctor says that, “In the often-repeated picture
of judgment the deceased Egyptian is seen conducted by the god Horus
(?), while Anubis places on one of the balances a vase supposed to
contain his good actions, and in the other is the emblem of truth, a
representation of Thmèi, the goddess of truth, which was also worn on
the judicial breastplate.” Wilkinson, in his _Manners and Customs of
the Ancient Egyptians_, shows that the Hebrew _thummim_ is a plural
form of the word Thmèi.[807]
All the ornamental arts seem to have been known to the Egyptians. Their
jewelry of gold, silver, and precious stones are beautifully wrought;
so was the cutting, polishing, and setting of them executed by their
lapidaries in the finest style. The finger-ring of an Egyptian mummy—if
we remember aright—was pronounced the most artistic piece of jewelry in
the London Exhibition of 1851. Their imitation of precious stones in
glass is far above anything done at the present day; and the emerald
may be said to have been imitated to perfection.
In Pompeii, says Wendell Phillips, they discovered a room full
of glass; there was ground-glass, window-glass, cut-glass, and
colored-glass of every variety. Catholic priests who broke into China
200 years ago, were shown a glass, transparent and colorless, which
was filled with liquor made by the Chinese, and which appeared to be
colorless like water. “This liquor was poured into the glass, and then
looking through, it seemed to be filled with fishes. They turned it out
and repeated the experiment and again it was filled with fishes.” In
Rome they show a bit of glass, a transparent glass, which they light up
so as to show you that there is nothing concealed, but in the centre
of the glass is a drop of colored glass, perhaps as large as a pea,
mottled like a duck, and which even a miniature pencil could not do
more perfectly. “It is manifest that this drop of liquid glass must
have been poured, because there is no joint. This must have been done
by a greater heat than the annealing process, because that process
shows breaks.” In relation to their wonderful art of imitating precious
stones, the lecturer speaks of the “celebrated vase of the Genoa {538}
Cathedral,” which was considered for long centuries “a solid emerald.”
“The Roman Catholic legend of it was that it was one of the treasures
that the Queen of Sheba gave to Solomon, and that it was the identical
cup out of which the Saviour drank at the Last Supper.” Subsequently
it was found not to be an emerald, but an imitation; and when Napoleon
brought it to Paris and gave it to the Institute, the scientists were
obliged to confess that it _was not a stone_, and that they could not
tell what it was.
Further, speaking of the skill of the ancients in metal works, the same
lecturer narrates that “when the English plundered the Summer Palace of
the Emperor of China, the European artists were surprised at seeing the
curiously-wrought metal vessels of every kind, far exceeding all the
boasted skill of the workmen of Europe.” African tribes in the interior
of the country gave travellers _better razors_ than they had. “George
Thompson told me,” he adds, “he saw a man in Calcutta throw a handful
of floss silk into the air, and a Hindu sever it into pieces with his
sabre of native steel.” He concludes by the apt remark that “the steel
is the greatest triumph of metallurgy, and metallurgy is the glory of
chemistry.” So with the ancient Egyptians and Semitic races. They dug
gold and separated it with the utmost skill. Copper, lead, and iron
were found in abundance near the Red Sea.
In a lecture delivered in 1873, on the _Cave-Men of Devonshire_, Mr.
W. Pengelly, F.R.S., stated on the authority of some Egyptologists
that the first iron used in Egypt was _meteoric_ iron, as the earliest
mention of this metal is found in an Egyptian document, in which it
is called the “stone from heaven.” This would imply the idea that the
only iron which was in use in days of old was meteorite. This may
have been the case at the commencement of the period embraced in our
present geological explorations, but till we can compute with at least
approximate accuracy the age of our excavated relics, who can tell
but that we are making a blunder of possibly several hundred thousand
years? The injudiciousness of dogmatizing upon what the ancient
Chaldeans and Egyptians did _not_ know about mining and metallurgy is
at least partially shown by the discoveries of Colonel Howard Vyse.
Moreover, many of such precious stones as are only found at a great
depth in mines are mentioned in Homer and the Hebrew Scriptures. Have
scientists ascertained the precise time when mining-shafts were first
sunk by mankind? According to Dr. A. C. Hamlin, in India, the arts
of the goldsmith and lapidary have been practiced from an “unknown
antiquity.” That the Egyptians either knew from the remotest ages
how to temper steel, or possessed something still better and more
perfect than the implement necessary in our days for chiselling, is an
alternative from which the archæologists cannot escape. How else could
they have produced such artistic chiselling, or wrought such sculpture {539}
as they did? The critics may take their choice of either; according to
them, steel tools of the most exquisite temper, or some other means of
cutting sienite, granite, and basalt; which, in the latter case, must
be added to the long catalogue of lost arts.
Professor Albrecht Müller says: “We may ascribe the introduction of
bronze manufacture into Europe to a great race immigrant from Asia some
6,000 years ago, called Aryas or Aryans.... Civilization of the East
preceded that of the West by many centuries.... There are many proofs
that a considerable degree of culture existed at its very beginning.
Bronze was yet in use, _but iron as well_. Pottery was not only shaped
on the lathe, but burned a good red. Manufactures in glass, gold, and
silver, are found for the first time. In lonely mountain places are
yet found dross, and the remains of iron-furnaces.... To be sure, this
dross is sometimes ascribed to volcanic action, but it is met with
where volcanoes never could have existed.”
But it is in the process of preparing mummies that the skill of this
wonderful people is exemplified in the highest degree. None but those
who have made special study of the subject, can estimate the amount of
skill, patience, and knowledge exacted for the accomplishment of this
indestructible work, which occupied several months. Both chemistry and
surgery were called into requisition. The mummies, if left in the dry
climate of Egypt, seem to be practicably imperishable; and even when
removed after a repose of several thousand years, show no signs of
change. “The body,” says the anonymous writer, “was filled with myrrh,
cassia, and other gums, and after that, saturated with natron.... Then
followed the marvellous swathing of the embalmed body, so artistically
executed, that professional modern bandagists are lost in admiration at
its excellency.” Says Dr. Grandville: “ ... there is not a single form
of bandage known to modern surgery, of which _far better and cleverer
examples_ are not seen in the swathings of the Egyptian mummies. The
strips of linen are found without one single joint, extending to 1,000
_yards_ in length.” Rossellini, in Kenrick’s _Ancient Egypt_, gives a
similar testimony to the wonderful variety and skill with which the
bandages have been applied and interlaced. There was not a fracture
in the human body that could not be repaired successfully by the
sacerdotal physician of those remote days.
Who but well remembers the excitement produced some twenty-five years
ago by the discovery of anæsthesia? The nitrous oxide gas, sulphuric
and chloric ether, chloroform, “laughing gas,” besides various other
combinations of these, were welcomed as so many heavenly blessings to
the suffering portion of humanity. Poor Dr. Horace Wells, of Hartford,
in 1844, was the discoverer, and Drs. Morton and Jackson reaped the {540}
honors and benefits in 1846, as is usual in such cases. The anæsthetics
were proclaimed “the greatest discovery ever made.” And, though the
famous _Letheon_ of Morton and Jackson (a compound of sulphuric
ether), the chloroform of Sir James Y. Simpson, and the nitrous oxide
gas, introduced by Colton, in 1843, and by Dunham and Smith, were
occasionally checked by fatal cases, it still did not prevent these
gentlemen from being considered public benefactors. The patients
successfully put to sleep sometimes awoke no more; what matters that,
so long as others were relieved? Physicians assure us that accidents
are now but rarely apprehended. Perhaps it is because the beneficent
anæsthetic agents are so parsimoniously applied as to fail in their
effects one-half of the time, leaving the sufferer paralyzed for a few
seconds in his external movements, but feeling the pain as acutely as
ever. On the whole, however, chloroform and laughing gas are beneficent
discoveries. But, are they the first anæsthetics ever discovered,
strictly speaking? Dioscorides speaks of the stone of Memphis (_lapis
Memphiticus_), and describes it as a small pebble—round, polished, and
very sparkling. When ground into powder, and applied as an ointment
to that part of the body on which the surgeon was about to operate,
either with his scalpel or fire, it preserved that part, and _only
that part_ from any pain of the operation. In the meantime, it was
perfectly harmless to the constitution of the patient, who retained
his consciousness throughout, in no way dangerous from its effects,
and acted so long as it was kept on the affected part. When taken in
a mixture of wine or water, all feeling of suffering was perfectly
deadened.[808] Pliny gives also a full description of it.[809]
From time immemorial, the Brahmans have had in their possession
secrets quite as valuable. The widow, bent on the self-sacrifice of
con-cremation, called _Sahamaranya_, has no dread of suffering the
least pain, for the fiercest flames will consume her, without one pang
of agony being experienced by her. The holy plants which crown her
brow, as she is conducted in ceremony to the funeral pile; the sacred
root culled at the midnight hour on the spot where the Ganges and the
Yumna mingle their waters; and the process of anointing the body of the
self-appointed victim with ghee and sacred oils, after she has bathed
in all her clothes and finery, are so many _magical_ anæsthetics.
Supported by those she is going to part with in body, she walks thrice
around her fiery couch, and, after bidding them farewell, is cast on
the dead body of her husband, and leaves this world without a single
moment of suffering. “The semi-fluid,” says a missionary writer, an {541}
eye-witness of several such ceremonies—“the ghee, is poured upon the
pile; it is instantly inflamed, and the _drugged_ widow dies quickly of
_suffocation_ before the fire reaches her body.”[810]
No such thing, if the sacred ceremony is only conducted strictly after
the prescribed rites. The widows are never drugged in the sense we
are accustomed to understand the word. Only precautionary measures
are taken against a useless physical martyrdom—the atrocious agony
of burning. Her mind is as free and clear as ever, and even more so.
Firmly believing in the promises of a future life, her whole mind is
absorbed in the contemplation of the approaching bliss—the beatitude
of “freedom,” which she is about to attain. She generally dies with
the smile of heavenly rapture on her countenance; and if some one is
to suffer at the hour of retribution, it is not the earnest devotee
of her faith, but the crafty Brahmans who know well enough that no
such ferocious rite was ever prescribed.[811] As to the victim, after
having been consumed, she becomes a _sati_—transcendent purity—and is
canonized after death.
Egypt is the birthplace and the cradle of chemistry. Kenrick shows
the root of the word to be _chemi_ or chem, which was the name of the
country (_Psalms_ cv. 27). The chemistry of colors seems to have been
thoroughly well known in that country. Facts are facts. Where among our
painters are we to search for the artist who can decorate our walls
with imperishable colors? Ages after our pigmy buildings will have
crumbled into dust, and the cities enclosing them will themselves have
become shapeless heaps of brick and mortar, with forgotten names—long
after that will the halls of Karnak and Luxor (El-Uxor) be still
standing; and the gorgeous mural paintings of the latter will doubtless
be as bright and vivid 4,000 years hence, as they were 4,000 years
ago, and are to-day. “Embalming and fresco-painting,” says our author,
“was not a chance discovery with the Egyptians, but brought out from
definitions and maxims like any induction of Faraday.”
Our modern Italians boast of their Etruscan vases and paintings; the {542}
decorative borders found on Greek vases provoke the admiration of the
lovers of antiquity, and are ascribed to the Greeks, while in fact
“they were but copies from the Egyptian vases.” Their figures can be
found any day on the walls of a tomb of the age of Amunoph I., a period
at which Greece was not even in existence.
Where, in our age, can we point to anything comparable to the
rock-temples of Ipsambul in Lower Nubia? There may be seen sitting
figures seventy feet high, carved out of the living rock. The torso of
the statue of Rameses II., at Thebes, measures sixty feet around the
shoulders, and elsewhere in proportion. Beside such titanic sculpture
our own seems that of pigmies. Iron was known to the Egyptians at least
long before the construction of the first pyramid, which is over 20,000
years ago, according to Bunsen. The proof of this had remained hidden
for many thousands of years in the pyramid of Cheops, until _Colonel
Howard Vyse found it in the shape of a piece of iron, in one of the
joints, where it had evidently been placed at the time this pyramid was
first built_. Egyptologists adduce many indications that the ancients
were perfectly well acquainted with metallurgy in prehistoric times.
“To this day we can find at Sinai large heaps of scoriæ, produced
by smelting.”[812] Metallurgy and chemistry, as practiced in those
days, were known as _alchemy_, and were at the bottom of prehistoric
magic. Moreover, Moses proved his knowledge of alchemical chemistry by
pulverizing the golden calf, and strewing the powder upon the water.
If now we turn to navigation, we will find ourselves able to prove,
on good authorities, that Necho II. fitted out a fleet on the Red Sea
and despatched it for exploration. The fleet was absent above two
years and instead of returning through the Straits of Babelmandel, as
was wont, sailed back through the Straits of Gibraltar. Herodotus was
not at all swift to concede to the Egyptians a maritime achievement
so vast as this. They had, he says, been spreading the report that
“returning homewards, they had the sunrise on their right hands; a
thing which to me is incredible.” “And yet,” remarks the author of
the heretofore-mentioned article, “this incredible assertion is now
proved _incontestable_, as may well be understood by any one who has
doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Thus it is proved that the most ancient
of these people performed a feat which was attributed to Columbus many
ages later. They say they anchored twice on their way; sowed corn,
reaped it and, sailing away, steered in triumph through the Pillars of
Hercules and eastward along the Mediterranean. “There was a people,” he {543}
adds, “much more deserving of the term ‘_veteres_’ than the Romans and
Greeks. The Greeks, young in their knowledge, sounded a trumpet before
these and called upon all the world to admire their ability. Old Egypt,
grown gray in her wisdom, was so secure of her acquirements that, she
did not invite admiration and cared no more for the opinion of the
flippant Greek than we do to-day for that of a Feejee islander.”
“O Solon, Solon,” said the oldest Egyptian priest to that sage. “You
Greeks are ever childish, having no ancient opinion, no discipline of
any long standing!” And very much surprised, indeed, was the great
Solon, when he was told by the priests of Egypt that so many gods and
goddesses of the Grecian Pantheon were but the disguised gods of Egypt.
Truly spoke Zonaras: “All these things came to us from Chaldea to
Egypt; and from thence were derived to the Greeks.”
Sir David Brewster gives a glowing description of several automata; and
the eighteenth century takes pride in that masterpiece of mechanical
art, the “flute-player of Vaucanson.” The little we can glean of
positive information on that subject, from ancient writers, warrants
the belief that the learned mechanicians in the days of Archimedes,
and some of them much anterior to the great Syracusan, were in no wise
more ignorant or less ingenious than our modern inventors. Archytas, a
native of Tarentum, in Italy, the instructor of Plato, a philosopher
distinguished for his mathematical achievements and wonderful
discoveries in practical mechanics, constructed a wooden dove. It must
have been an extraordinarily ingenious mechanism, as it flew, fluttered
its wings, and sustained itself for a considerable time in the air.
This skilful man, who lived 400 years B.C., invented besides the wooden
dove, the screw, the crane, and various hydraulic machines.[813]
Egypt pressed her own grapes and made wine. Nothing remarkable in
that, so far, but she brewed her own beer, and in great quantity—our
Egyptologist goes on to say. The Ebers manuscript proves now, beyond
doubt, that the Egyptians used beer 2,000 years B.C. Their beer must
have been strong and excellent—like everything they did. Glass was
manufactured in all its varieties. In many of the Egyptian sculptures
we find scenes of glass-blowing and bottles; occasionally, during
archæological researches, glasses and glassware are found, and very
beautiful they seem to have been. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that
the Egyptians cut, ground, and engraved glass, and possessed the art
of introducing gold between the two surfaces of the substance. They
imitated with glass, pearls, emeralds, and all the precious stones to a
great perfection.
Likewise, the most ancient Egyptians cultivated the musical arts, and {544}
understood well the effect of musical harmony and its influence on the
human spirit. We can find on the oldest sculptures and carvings scenes
in which musicians play on various instruments. Music was used in the
Healing Department of the temples for the cure of nervous disorders. We
discover on many monuments men playing in bands in concert; the leader
beating time by clapping his hands. Thus far we can prove that they
understood the laws of harmony. They had their sacred music, domestic
and military. The lyre, harp, and flute were used for the sacred
concerts; for festive occasions they had the guitar, the single and
double pipes, and castanets; for troops, and during military service,
they had trumpets, tambourines, drums, and cymbals. Various kinds of
harps were invented by them, such as the lyre, _sambuc_, _ashur_; some
of these had upward of twenty strings. The superiority of the Egyptian
lyre over the Grecian is an admitted fact. The material out of which
were made such instruments was often of very costly and rare wood, and
they were beautifully carved; they imported it sometimes from very
distant countries; some were painted, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and
ornamented with colored leather. They used catgut for strings as we
do. Pythagoras learned music in Egypt and made a regular science of it
in Italy. But the Egyptians were generally considered in antiquity as
the best music-teachers in Greece. They understood thoroughly well how
to extract harmonious sounds out of an instrument by adding strings to
it, as well as the multiplication of notes by shortening the strings
upon its neck; which knowledge shows a great progress in the musical
art. Speaking of harps, in a tomb at Thebes, Bruce remarks that, “they
overturn all the accounts hitherto given of the earliest state of music
and musical instruments in the East, and are altogether, in their
form, ornaments and compass, an incontestable proof, _stronger than
a thousand Greek quotations_, that geometry, drawing, mechanics, and
music were at the greatest perfection when these instruments were made;
and that the period from which we date the invention of these arts was
only _the beginning of the era of their restoration_.”
On the walls of the palace of Amenoph II. at Thebes, the king is
represented as playing chess with the queen. This monarch reigned long
before the Trojan war. In India the game is known to have been played
at least 5,000 years ago.
As to their knowledge in medicine, now that one of the lost _Books
of Hermes_ has been found and translated by Ebers, the Egyptians can
speak for themselves. That they understood about the circulation of
the blood, appears certain from the _healing manipulations_ of the
priests, who knew how to draw blood downward, stop its circulation for {545}
awhile, etc. A more careful study of their _bas-reliefs_ representing
scenes taking place in the healing hall of various temples will easily
demonstrate it. They had their dentists and oculists, and no doctor
was allowed to practice more than one specialty; which certainly
warrants the belief that they lost fewer patients in those days than
our physicians do now. It is also asserted by some authorities that the
Egyptians were the first people in the world who introduced trial by
jury; although we doubt this ourselves.
But the Egyptians were not the only people of remote epochs whose
achievements place them in so commanding a position before the view
of posterity. Besides others whose history is at present shut in
behind the mists of antiquity—such as the prehistoric races of the two
Americas, of Crete, of the Troäd, of the Lacustrians, of the submerged
continent of the fabled Atlantis, now classed with myths—the deeds of
the Phœnicians stamp them with almost the character of demi-gods.
The writer in the _National Quarterly Review_, previously quoted, says
that the Phœnicians were the earliest navigators of the world, founded
most of the colonies of the Mediterranean, and voyaged to whatever
other regions were inhabited. They visited the Arctic regions, whence
they brought accounts of eternal days without a night, which Homer
has preserved for us in the _Odyssey_. From the British Isles they
imported tin into Africa, and Spain was a favorite site for their
colonies. The description of Charybdis so completely answers to the
maëlstrom that, as this writer says: “It is difficult to imagine it to
have had any other prototype.” Their explorations, it seems, extended
in every direction, their sails whitening the Indian Ocean, as well
as the Norwegian fiords. Different writers have accorded to them the
settlement of remote localities; while the entire southern coast of
the Mediterranean was occupied by their cities. A large portion of
the African territory is asserted to have been peopled by the races
expelled by Joshua and the children of Israel. At the time when
Procopius wrote, columns stood in Mauritania Tingitana, which bore the
inscription, in Phœnician characters, “We are those who fled before the
brigand Joshua, the son of Nun or Navè.”
Some suppose these hardy navigators of Arctic and Antarctic waters
have been the progenitors of the races which built the temples and
palaces of Palenque and Uxmal, of Copan and Arica.[814] Brasseur de
Bourbourg gives us much information about the manners and customs,
architecture and arts, and especially of the magic and magicians of
the ancient Mexicans. He tells us that Votan, their fabulous hero {546}
and the greatest of their magicians, returning from a long voyage,
visited King Solomon at the time of the building of the temple. This
Votan appears to be identical with the dreaded Quetzo-Cohuatl who
appears in all the Mexican legends; and curiously enough these legends
bear a striking resemblance, insomuch as they relate to the voyages
and exploits of the Hittim, with the Hebrew _Bible_ accounts of the
Hivites, the descendants of Heth, son of Chanaan. The record tells
us that Votan “furnished to Solomon the most valuable particulars
as to the men, animals, and plants, the gold and precious woods of
the Occident,” but refused point-blank to afford any clew to the
route he sailed, or the manner of reaching the mysterious continent.
Solomon himself gives an account of this interview in his _History
of the Wonders of the Universe_, the chief Votan figuring under the
allegory of the _Navigating Serpent_. Stephens, indulging in the
anticipation “that a key surer than that of the Rosetta-stone will
be discovered,” by which the American hieroglyphs may be read,[815]
says that the descendants of the Caciques and the Aztec subjects
are believed to survive still in the inaccessible fastnesses of the
Cordilleras—“wildernesses, which have never yet been penetrated by a
white man, ... living as their fathers did, erecting the same buildings
... with ornaments of sculpture and plastered; large courts, and lofty
towers with high ranges of steps, and still carving on tablets of stone
the same mysterious hieroglyphics.” He adds, “I turn to that vast and
unknown region, untraversed by a single road, wherein fancy pictures
that mysterious city seen from the topmost range of the Cordilleras of
unconquered, unvisited, and unsought aboriginal inhabitants.”
Apart from the fact that this mysterious city has been seen from
a great distance by daring travellers, there is no intrinsic
improbability of its existence, for who can tell what became of the
primitive people who fled before the rapacious brigands of Cortez and
Pizarro? Dr. Tschuddi, in his work on Peru, tells us of an Indian
legend that a train of 10,000 llamas, laden with gold to complete the
unfortunate Inca’s ransom, was arrested in the Andes by the tidings
of his death, and the enormous treasure was so effectually concealed
that not a trace of it has ever been found. He, as well as Prescott and
other writers, informs us that the Indians to this day preserve their
ancient traditions and sacerdotal caste, and obey implicitly the orders
of rulers chosen among themselves, while at the same time nominally
Catholics and actually subject to the Peruvian authorities. Magical
ceremonies practiced by their forefathers still prevail among them, and
magical phenomena occur. So persistent are they in their loyalty to the {547}
past, that it seems impossible but that they should be in relations
with some central source of authority which constantly supports and
strengthens their faith, keeping it alive. May it not be that the
sources of this undying faith lie in this mysterious city, with which
they are in secret communication? Or must we think that all of the
above is again but a “curious coincidence?”
The story of this mysterious city was told to Stephens by a Spanish
Padre, in 1838-9. The priest swore to him that he had seen it with his
own eyes, and gave Stephens the following details, which the traveller
firmly believed to be true. “The Padre of the little village near the
ruins of Santa Cruz del Quichè, had heard of the unknown city at the
village of Chajul.... He was then young, and climbed with much labor to
the naked summit of the topmost ridge of the sierra of the Cordillera.
When arrived at a height of ten or twelve thousand feet, he looked
over an immense plain extending to Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and
saw, at a great distance, a large city spread over a great space, and
with turrets white and glittering in the sun. Tradition says that no
white man has ever reached this city; that the inhabitants speak the
Maya language, know that strangers have conquered their whole land,
and murder any white man who attempts to enter their territory....
They have no coin; no horses, cattle, mules, or other domestic animals
except fowls, and the cocks they keep underground to prevent their
crowing being heard.”
Nearly the same was given us personally about twenty years ago, by an
old native priest, whom we met in Peru, and with whom we happened to
have business relations. He had passed all his life vainly trying to
conceal his hatred toward the conquerors—“brigands,” he termed them;
and, as he confessed, kept friends with them and the Catholic religion
for the sake of his people, but he was as truly a sun-worshipper in his
heart as ever he was. He had travelled in his capacity of a _converted_
native missionary, and had been at Santa Cruz and, as he solemnly
affirmed, had been also to see some of his people by a “subterranean
passage” leading into the mysterious city. We believe his account; for
a man who is about to die, will rarely stop to invent idle stories; and
this one we have found corroborated in Stephen’s _Travels_. Besides,
we know of two other cities utterly unknown to European travellers;
not that the inhabitants particularly desire to hide themselves; for
people from Buddhistic countries come occasionally to visit them. But
their towns are not set down on the European or Asiatic maps; and, on
account of the too zealous and enterprising Christian missionaries,
and perhaps for more mysterious reasons of their own, the few natives
of other countries who are aware of the existence of these two cities
never mention them. Nature has provided strange nooks and hiding-places {548}
for her favorites; and unfortunately it is but far away from so-called
civilized countries that man is free to worship the Deity in the way
that his fathers did.
Even the erudite and sober Max Müller is somehow unable to get rid of
_coincidences_. To him they come in the shape of the most unexpected
discoveries. These Mexicans, for instance, whose obscure origin,
according to the laws of probability, has no connection with the
Aryans of India, nevertheless, like the Hindus, represent an eclipse
of the moon as “the moon being devoured by a dragon.”[816] And though
Professor Müller admits that an historical intercourse between the
two people was suspected by Alexander von Humboldt, and he himself
considers it possible, still the occurrence of such a fact he adds,
“need not be the result of any historical intercourse. As we have
stated above, the origin of the aborigines of America is a very
vexed question for those interested in tracing out the affiliation
and migrations of peoples.” Notwithstanding the labor of Brasseur de
Bourbourg, and his elaborate translation of the famous _Popol-Vuh_,
alleged to be written by Ixtlilxochitl, after weighing its contents,
the antiquarian remains as much in the dark as ever. We have read the
_Popol-Vuh_ in its original translation, and the review of the same
by Max Müller, and out of the former find shining a light of such
brightness, that it is no wonder that the matter-of-fact, skeptical
scientists should be blinded by it. But so far as an author can be
judged by his writings, Professor Max Müller is no unfair skeptic; and,
moreover, very little of importance escapes his attention. How is it
then that a man of such immense and rare erudition, accustomed as he
is to embrace at one eagle glance the traditions, religious customs,
and superstitions of a people, detecting the slightest similarity,
and taking in the smallest details, failed to give any importance or
perhaps even suspect what the humble author of the present volume,
who has neither scientific training nor erudition, to any extent,
apprehended at first view? Fallacious and unwarranted as to many may
seem this remark, it appears to us that science loses more than she
gains by neglecting the ancient and even mediæval esoteric literature,
or rather what remains of it. To one who devotes himself to such study
many a coincidence is transformed into a natural result of demonstrable
antecedent causes. We think we can see how it is that Professor Müller
confesses that “now and then ... one imagines one sees certain periods
and landmarks, but in the next page all is chaos again.”[817] May it
not be barely possible that this chaos is intensified by the fact
that most of the scientists, directing the whole of their attention
to history, skip that which they treat as “vague, contradictory, {549}
miraculous, absurd.” Notwithstanding the feeling that there was “a
groundwork of noble conceptions which has been covered and distorted
by an aftergrowth of fantastic nonsense,” Professor Müller cannot help
comparing this nonsense to the tales of the _Arabian Nights_.
Far be from us the ridiculous pretension of criticising a scientist so
worthy of admiration for his learning as Max Müller. But we cannot help
saying that even among the fantastic nonsense of the _Arabian Nights’
Entertainments_ anything would be worthy of attention, if it should
help toward the evolving of some historical truth. Homer’s _Odyssey_
surpasses in fantastic nonsense all the tales of the _Arabian Nights_
combined; and notwithstanding that, many of his myths are now proved
to be something else besides the creation of the old poet’s fancy.
The Læstrygonians, who devoured the companions of Ulysses, are traced
to the huge cannibal[818] race, said in primitive days to inhabit the
caves of Norway. Geology verified through her discoveries some of
the assertions of Homer, supposed for so many ages to have been but
poetical hallucinations. The perpetual daylight enjoyed by this race
of Læstrygonians indicates that they were inhabitants of the North
Cape, where, during the whole summer, there is perpetual daylight. The
Norwegian fiords are perfectly described by Homer in his _Odyssey_, x.
110; and the gigantic stature of the Læstrygonians is demonstrated by
human bones of unusual size found in caves situated near this region,
and which the geologists suppose to have belonged to a race extinct
long before the Aryan immigration. Charybdis, as we have seen, has
been recognized in the maëlstrom; and the Wandering Rocks[819] in the
enormous icebergs of the Arctic seas.
If the consecutive attempts at the creation of man described in the
_Quichè Cosmogony_ suggests no comparison with some Apocrypha, with
the Jewish sacred books, and the kabalistic theories of creation, it
is indeed strange. Even the _Book of Jasher_, condemned as a gross
forgery of the twelfth century, may furnish more than one clew to
trace a relation between the population of Ur of the Kasdeans, where
Magism flourished before the days of Abraham, and those of Central and
North America. The divine beings, “brought down to the level of human
nature,” perform no feats or tricks more strange or incredible than the
miraculous performances of Moses and of Pharaoh’s magicians, while many
of these are exactly similar in their nature. And when, moreover, in
addition to this latter fact, we find so great a resemblance between
certain kabalistic terms common to both hemispheres, there must be
something else than mere accident to account for the circumstance. {550}
Many of such feats have clearly a common parentage. The story of the
two brothers of Central America, who, before starting on their journey
to Xibalba, “plant each a cane in the middle of their grandmother’s
house, that she may know by its flourishing or withering whether they
are alive or dead,”[820] finds its analogy in the beliefs of many
other countries. In the _Popular Tales and Traditions_, by Sacharoff
(Russia), one can find a similar narrative, and trace this belief in
various other legends. And yet these fairy tales were current in Russia
many centuries before America was discovered.
In recognizing in the gods of Stonehenge the divinities of Delphos and
Babylon, one need feel little surprised. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo
and Python, Osiris and Typhon, are all one under many names, and have
travelled far and wide. The Both-al of Ireland points directly to its
first parent, the Batylos of the Greeks and the Beth-el of Chanaan.
“History,” says H. de la Villemarque, “which took no notes at those
distant ages, can plead ignorance, but the science of languages
affirms. Philology, with a daily-increasing probability, has again
linked together the chain hardly broken between the Orient and the
Occident.”[821]
No more remarkable is the discovery of a like resemblance between the
Oriental myths and ancient Russian tales and traditions, for it is
entirely natural to look for a similarity between the beliefs of the
Semitic and Aryan families. But when we discover an almost perfect
identity between the character of Zarevna Militrissa, with a _moon_
in her forehead, who is in constant danger of being devoured by _Zmeÿ
Gorenetch_ (the Serpent or Dragon), who plays such a prominent part
in all popular Russian tales, and similar characters in the Mexican
legends—extending to the minutest details—we may well pause and ask
ourselves whether there be not here more than a simple coincidence.
This tradition of the Dragon and the Sun—occasionally replaced by the
Moon—has awakened echoes in the remotest parts of the world. It may be
accounted for with perfect readiness by the once universal heliolatrous
religion. There was a time when Asia, Europe, Africa, and America
were covered with the temples sacred to the sun and the dragons. The
priests assumed the names of their deities, and thus the tradition of
these spread like a net-work all over the globe: “Bel and the Dragon
being uniformly coupled together, and the priest of the Ophite religion
as uniformly assuming the name of his god.”[822] But still, “if the {551}
original conception is natural and intelligible ... and its occurrence
need not be the result of any historical intercourse,” as Professor
Müller tells us, the details are so strikingly similar that we cannot
feel satisfied that the riddle is entirely solved. The origin of this
universal symbolical worship being concealed in the night of time, we
would have far more chance to arrive at the truth by tracing these
traditions to their very source. And where is this source? Kircher
places the origin of the Ophite and heliolatrous worship, the shape
of conical monuments and the obelisks, with the Egyptian Hermes
Trismegistus.[823] Where, then, except in Hermetic books, are we to
seek for the desired information? Is it likely that modern authors can
know more, or as much, of ancient myths and cults as the men who taught
them to their contemporaries? Clearly two things are necessary: first,
to find the missing books of Hermes; and second, the key by which to
_understand_ them, for reading is not sufficient. Failing in this, our
savants are abandoned to unfruitful speculations, as for a like reason
geographers waste their energies in a vain quest of the sources of the
Nile. Truly the land of Egypt is another abode of mystery!
Without stopping to discuss whether Hermes was the “Prince of
postdiluvian magic,” as des Mousseaux calls him, or the antediluvian,
which is much more likely, one thing is certain: The authenticity,
reliability, and usefulness of the _Books of Hermes_—or rather of
what remains of the thirty-six works attributed to the Egyptian
magician—are fully recognized by Champollion, junior, and corroborated
by Champollion-Figeac, who mentions it. Now, if by carefully looking
over the kabalistical works, which are all derived from that universal
storehouse of esoteric knowledge, we find the fac-similes of many
so-called miracles wrought by magical art, equally reproduced by the
Quichès; and if even in the fragments left of the original _Popol-Vuh_,
there is sufficient evidence that the religious customs of the
Mexicans, Peruvians, and other American races are nearly identical
with those of the ancient Phœnicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians; and
if, moreover, we discover that many of their religious terms have
etymologically the same origin; how are we to avoid believing that
they are the descendants of those whose forefathers “fled before the
brigand, Joshua, the son of Nun?” “Nuñez de la Vega says that Nin, or
Imos, of the Tzendales, was the Ninus of the Babylonians.”[824]
It is possible that, so far, it may be a coincidence; as the
identification of one with the other rests but upon a poor argument.
“But it is known,” adds de Bourbourg, “that this prince, and according {552}
to others, his father, Bel, or Baal, received, like the Nin of the
Tzendales, the homages of his subjects under the shape of a serpent.”
The latter assertion, besides being fantastic, is nowhere corroborated
in the Babylonian records. It is very true that the Phœnicians
represented the sun under the image of a dragon; but so did all the
other people who symbolized their sun-gods. Belus, the first king
of the Assyrian dynasty was, according to Castor, and Eusebius who
quotes him, deified, _i. e._, he was ranked among the gods “after his
death” only. Thus, neither himself nor his son, Ninus, or Nin, could
have received their subjects under the shape of a serpent, whatever
the Tzendales did. Bel, according to Christians, is Baal; and Baal is
the Devil, since the Bible prophets began so designating every deity
of their neighbors; therefore Belus, Ninus, and the Mexican Nin are
serpents and devils; and, as the Devil, or father of evil, is one
under many forms, therefore, under whatever name the serpent appears,
it is the Devil. Strange logic! Why not say that Ninus the Assyrian,
represented as husband and victim of the ambitious Semiramis, was
high priest as well as king of his country? That as such he wore on
his tiara the sacred emblems of the dragon and the sun? Moreover,
as the priest generally assumed the name of his god, Ninus was said
to receive his subject as the representative of this serpent-god.
The idea is preëminently Roman Catholic, and amounts to very little,
as all their inventions do. If Nuñez de la Vega was so anxious to
establish an affiliation between the Mexicans and the biblical
sun-and serpent-worshippers, why did he not show another and a better
similarity between them without tracing in the Ninevites and the
Tzendales the hoof and horn of the Christian Devil?
And to begin with, he might have pointed to the _Chronicles_ of
Fuentes, of the kingdom of Guatemala, and to the _Manuscript_ of
Don Juan Torres, the grandson of the last king of the Quichès.
This document, which is said to have been in the possession of the
lieutenant-general appointed by Pedro de Alvarado, states that
the Toltecas themselves descended from the house of Israel, who
were released by Moses, and who, after crossing the Red Sea, fell
into idolatry. After that, having separated themselves from their
companions, and under the guidance of a chief named Tanub, they set out
wandering, and from one continent to another they came to a place named
the Seven Caverns, in the Kingdom of Mexico, where they founded the
famous town of Tula, etc.[825]
If this statement has never obtained more credit than it has, it is
simply due to the fact that it passed through the hands of Father
Francis Vasques, historian of the Order of San Francis, and this {553}
circumstance, to use the expression employed by des Mousseaux in
connection with the work of the poor, unfrocked Abbé Huc, “is not
calculated to strengthen our confidence.” But there is another point as
important, if not more so, as it seems to have escaped falsification
by the zealous Catholic padres, and rests chiefly on Indian tradition.
A famous Toltecan king, whose name is mixed up in the weird legends
of Utatlan, the ruined capital of the great Indian kingdom, bore the
biblical appellation of Balam Acan; the first name being preëminently
Chaldean, and reminding one immediately of Balaam and his human-voiced
ass. Besides the statement of Lord Kingsborough, who found such a
striking similarity between the language of the Aztecs (the mother
tongue) and the Hebrew, many of the figures on the bas-reliefs of
Palenque and idols in _terra cotta_, exhumed in Santa Cruz del Quichè,
have on their heads bandelets with a square protuberance on them, in
front of the forehead, very similar to the phylacteries worn by the
Hebrew Pharisees of old, while at prayers, and even by devotees of
the present day, particularly the Jews of Poland and Russia. But as
this may be but a fancy of ours, after all, we will not insist on the
details.
Upon the testimony of the ancients, corroborated by modern discoveries,
we know that there were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea, some
of them of a very vast extent. The most renowned of them were the
subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former, beginning on
the western side of the Nile, extended toward the Libyan desert, and
were known as the _Serpent’s_ catacombs, or passages. It was there
that were performed the sacred mysteries of the _kúklos ànágkés_, the
“Unavoidable Cycle,” more generally known as the “circle of necessity;”
the inexorable doom imposed upon every soul after the bodily death, and
when it had been judged in the Amenthian region.
In de Bourbourg’s book, Votan, the Mexican demi god, in narrating his
expedition, describes a subterranean passage, which ran underground,
and terminated at the root of the heavens, adding that this passage was
a snake’s hole, “_un ahugero de colubra_;” and that he was admitted to
it because he was himself “a son of the snakes,” or a serpent.[826]
This is, indeed, very suggestive; for his description of the _snake’s
hole_ is that of the ancient Egyptian crypt, as above mentioned. The
hierophants, moreover, of Egypt, as of Babylon, generally styled
themselves the “Sons of the Serpent-god,” or “Sons of the Dragon;” not
because—as des Mousseaux would have his readers believe—they were the
progeny of Satan-incubus, the old serpent of Eden, but because, in the
Mysteries, the serpent was the symbol of WISDOM and immortality. “The {554}
Assyrian priest bore always the name of his god,” says Movers.[827] The
Druids of the Celto-Britannic regions also called themselves snakes.
“I am a Serpent, I am a Druid!” they exclaimed. The Egyptian Karnak
is twin-brother to the Carnac of Bretagné, the latter Carnac meaning
the serpent’s mount. The Dracontia once covered the surface of the
globe, and these temples were sacred to the dragon, only because it
was the symbol of the sun, which, in its turn, was the symbol of the
highest god—the Phœnician Elon or Elion, whom Abraham recognized as
El Elion.[828] Besides the surname of serpents, they were called the
“builders,” the “architects;” for the immense grandeur of their temples
and monuments was such, that even now the pulverized remains of them
“frighten the mathematical calculations of our modern engineers,” says
Taliesin.[829]
De Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the
Quetzo-Cohuatl, or serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the descendants
of Ham and Canaan. “I am Hivim,” they say. “Being a Hivim, I am of
the great race of the Dragon (snake). I am a snake myself, for I am a
Hivim.”[830] And des Mousseaux, rejoicing because he believes himself
fairly on the serpent’s, or rather, devil’s trail, hurries to explain:
“According to the most learned commentators of our sacred books, the
Chivim or Hivim, or _Hevites_, descend from Heth, son of Canaan, son of
Ham ... _the accursed_!”[831]
But modern research has demonstrated, on unimpeachable evidence, that
the whole genealogical table of the tenth chapter of _Genesis_ refers
to imaginary heroes, and that the closing verses of the ninth are
little better than a bit of Chaldean allegory of Sisuthrus and the
mythical flood, compiled and arranged to fit the Noachian frame. But,
suppose the descendants of these Canaanites, “the accursed,” were to
resent for once the unmerited outrage? It would be an easy matter
for them to reverse the tables, and answer to this fling, based on a
_fable_, by a _fact_ proved by archæologists and symbologists—namely,
that Seth, Adam’s third son, and the forefather of all Israel, the
ancestor of Noah, and the progenitor of the “chosen people,” is but
Hermes, the god of wisdom, called also Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and
_Sat-an_; and that he was, furthermore, when viewed under his bad
aspect, Typhon, the Egyptian Satan, who was also _Set_. For the Jewish
people, whose well-educated men, no more than Philo, or Josephus, the {555}
historian, regard their Mosaic books as otherwise than an allegory,
such a discovery amounts to but little. But for Christians, who, like
des Mousseaux, very unwisely accept the _Bible_ narratives as literal
history, the case stands very different.
As far as affiliation goes, we agree with this pious writer; and we
feel every day as certain that some of the peoples of Central America
will be traced back to the Phœnicians and the Mosaic Israelites, as we
do that the latter will be proved to have as persistently stuck to the
same idolatry—if idolatry there is—of the sun and serpent-worship, as
the Mexicans. There is evidence—biblical evidence—that two of Jacob’s
sons, Levi and Dan, as well as Judah, married Canaanite women, and
followed the worship of their wives. Of course, every Christian will
protest, but the proof may be found even in the translated _Bible_,
pruned as it now stands. The dying Jacob thus describes his sons:
“Dan,” says he, “shall be a _serpent_ by the way, an _adder_ in the
path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall
backward.... I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!” Of Simeon and
Levi, the patriarch (or Israel) remarks that they “ ... _are_ brethren;
instruments of _cruelty_ are in their habitations. O my soul, come not
thou into _their secret_; unto _their assembly_.”[832] Now, in the
original, the words “their secret,” read—their SOD.[833] And Sod was
the name for the great Mysteries of Baal, Adonis, and Bacchus who were
all sun-gods and had serpents for symbols. The kabalists explain the
allegory of the fiery serpents by saying, that this was the name given
to the tribe of Levi, to all the _Levites_ in short, and that Moses was
the chief of the _Sodales_.[834] And here is the moment to prove our
statements.
Moses is mentioned by several old historians as an Egyptian priest;
Manetho says he was a hierophant of Hieropolis, and a priest of the
sun-god Osiris, and that his name was Osarsiph. Those moderns, who
accept it as a fact that he “was learned in _all_ the wisdom” of
the Egyptians, must also submit to the right interpretation of the
word wisdom, which was throughout the world known as a synonym of {556}
_initiation_ into the secret mysteries of the _Magi_. Did the idea
never strike the reader of the _Bible_, that an alien born and brought
up in a foreign country _could not_ and _would not_ possibly have been
admitted—we will not say to the final initiation, the grandest mystery
of all, but even to share the knowledge of the minor priesthood,
those who belonged to the _lesser_ mysteries? In _Genesis_ xliii. 32,
we read, that no Egyptian could seat himself to eat bread with the
brothers of Joseph, “for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians.”
But that the Egyptians ate “with _him_ (Joseph) by themselves.” The
above proves two things: 1, that Joseph, whatever he was in his
heart, had, in appearance at least, changed his religion, married the
daughter of a priest of the “idolatrous” nation, and become himself an
Egyptian; otherwise, the natives would not have eaten bread with him.
And 2, that subsequently Moses, if not an Egyptian by birth, became
one through being admitted into the priesthood, and thus was a SODALE.
As an induction, the narrative of the “brazen serpent” (the Caduceus
of Mercury or Asclepios, the son of the sun-god Apollo-Python) becomes
logical and natural. We must bear in mind that Pharaoh’s daughter, who
saved Moses and adopted him, is called by Josephus _Thermuthis_; and
the latter, according to Wilkinson, is the name of the _asp_ sacred to
Isis;[835] moreover, Moses is said to descend from the tribe of _Levi_.
We will explain the kabalistic ideas as to the books of Moses and the
great prophet himself more fully in Volume II.
If Brasseur de Bourbourg and the Chevalier des Mousseaux, had so much
at heart to trace the identity of the Mexicans with the Canaanites,
they might have found far better and weightier proofs than by showing
both the “accursed” descendants of Ham. For instance, they might have
pointed to the Nargal, the Chaldean and Assyrian chief of the Magi
(Rab-Mag) and the Nagal, the chief sorcerer of the Mexican Indians.
Both derive their names from Nergal-Sarezer, the Assyrian god, and both
have the same faculties, or powers to have an attendant _dæmon_ with
whom they identify themselves completely. The Chaldean and Assyrian
Nargal kept his dæmon, in the shape of some animal considered sacred,
inside the temple; the Indian Nagal keeps his wherever he can—in the
neighboring lake, or wood, or in the house, under the shape of a
household animal.[836]
We find the _Catholic World_, newspaper, in a recent number, bitterly
complaining that the old Pagan element of the aboriginal inhabitants of
America does not seem to be utterly dead in the United States. Even {557}
where tribes have been for long years under the care of Christian
teachers, heathen rites are practiced in secret, and crypto-paganism,
or _nagualism_, flourishes now, as in the days of Montezuma. It says:
“Nagualism and voodoo-worship” as it calls these two strange sects—“are
direct _devil-worship_. A report addressed to the Cortes in 1812, by
Don Pedro Baptista Pino, says: ‘All the pueblos have their _artufas_—so
the natives call subterranean rooms with only a single door, where
they assemble to perform their feasts, and hold meetings. These are
impenetrable temples ... and the doors are always closed on the
Spaniards.
“‘All these pueblos, in spite of the sway which religion has had over
them, cannot forget a part of the beliefs which have been transmitted
to them, and which they are careful to transmit to their descendants.
Hence come the adoration they render the sun and moon, and other
heavenly bodies, the respect they entertain for fire, etc.
“‘The pueblo chiefs seem to be at the same time priests; they perform
various simple rites, by which the power of the sun and of Montezuma is
recognized, as well as the power (according to some accounts) of the
Great Snake, to whom, by order of Montezuma, they are to look for life.
They also officiate in certain ceremonies with which they pray for
rain. There are painted representations of the Great Snake, together
with that of a misshapen, red-haired man, declared to stand for
Montezuma. Of this last there was also, in the year 1845, in the pueblo
of Laguna, a rude effigy or idol, intended, apparently, to represent
only the head of the deity.’”[837]
The perfect identity of the rites, ceremonies, traditions, and even
the names of the deities, among the Mexicans and ancient Babylonians
and Egyptians, are a sufficient proof of South America being peopled
by a colony which mysteriously found its way across the Atlantic.
When? at what period? History is silent on that point; but those who
consider that there is no tradition, sanctified by ages, without
a certain sediment of truth at the bottom of it, believe in the
_Atlantis_-legend. There are, scattered throughout the world, a handful
of thoughtful and solitary students, who pass their lives in obscurity,
far from the rumors of the world, studying the great problems of the
physical and spiritual universes. They have their secret records in
which are preserved the fruits of the scholastic labors of the long
line of recluses whose successors they are. The knowledge of their
early ancestors, the sages of India, Babylonia, Nineveh, and the
imperial Thebes; the legends and traditions commented upon by the
masters of Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato, in the marble halls of {558}
Heliopolis and Saïs; traditions which, in their days, already seemed
to hardly glimmer from behind the foggy curtain of the past;—all this,
and much more, is recorded on indestructible parchment, and passed
with jealous care from one adept to another. These men believe the
story of the Atlantis to be no fable, but maintain that at different
epochs of the past huge islands, and even continents, existed where now
there is but a wild waste of waters. In those submerged temples and
libraries the archæologist would find, could he but explore them, the
materials for filling all the gaps that now exist in what we imagine is
_history_. They say that at a remote epoch a traveller could traverse
what is now the Atlantic Ocean, almost the entire distance by land,
crossing in boats from one island to another, where narrow straits then
existed.
Our suspicion as to the relationship of the cis-Atlantic and
trans-Atlantic races is strengthened upon reading about the wonders
wrought by Quetzo-Cohuatl, the Mexican magician. His wand must be
closely-related to the traditional sapphire-stick of Moses, the stick
which bloomed in the garden of Raguel-Jethro, his father-in-law, and
upon which was engraved the ineffable name. The “four men” described as
the real four ancestors of the human race, “who were neither begotten
by the gods, nor born of woman,” but whose “creation was a wonder
wrought by the Creator,” and who were made after three attempts at
manufacturing men had failed, equally present some striking points of
similarity with the esoteric explanations of the Hermetists;[838] they
also undeniably recall the four sons of God of the Egyptian theogony.
Moreover, as any one may infer, the resemblance of this myth to the
narrative related in _Genesis_, will be apparent to even a superficial
observer. These four ancestors “could reason and speak, their sight
was unlimited, and they knew all things at once.”[839] When “they
had rendered thanks to their Creator for their existence, _the gods
were frightened_, and they breathed a cloud over the eyes of men that
they might see a certain distance only, and not be _like the gods
themselves_.” This bears directly upon the sentence in _Genesis_,
“Behold, _the man is become as one of us_, to know good and evil; and
now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life,”
etc. Then, again, “While _they were asleep_ God gave them wives,” etc.
We disclaim the least intention to disrespectfully suggest ideas to {559}
those who are so wise as to need no hint. But we must bear in mind that
authentic treatises upon ancient magic of the Chaldean and Egyptian
lore are not scattered about in public libraries, and at auction sales.
That such exist is nevertheless a fact for many students of the arcane
philosophy. Is it not of the greatest importance for every antiquarian
to be acquainted at least superficially with their contents? “The four
ancestors of the race,” adds Max Müller, “seem to have had a long life,
and when at last they came to die, they disappeared in a mysterious
manner, and left to their sons what is called the _hidden majesty_,
which was never to be opened by human hands. What it was we do not
know.”
If there is no relationship between this hidden majesty and the hidden
glory of the Chaldean _Kabala_, which we are told was left behind
him by Enoch when he was translated in such a mysterious way, then
we must discredit all circumstantial evidence. But is it not barely
possible that these “four ancestors” of the Quichè race typify in
their esoteric sense the four successive progenitors of men, mentioned
in _Genesis_ i., ii., and vi.? In the first chapter, the first man
is bi-sexual—“male and female created he them” and answers to the
hermaphrodite deities of the subsequent mythologies; the second, Adam,
made out of “the dust of the ground” and uni-sexual and answering to
the “sons of God” of chapter vi.; the third, the giants, or _nephilim_,
who are only hinted at in the _Bible_, but fully explained elsewhere;
the fourth, the parents of men “whose daughters were fair.”
Taking the admitted facts that the Mexicans had their magicians from
the remote periods; that the same remark applies to all the ancient
religions of the world; that a strong resemblance prevails not only in
the forms of their ceremonial worship, but also in the very names used
to designate certain magical implements; and finally that all other
clews, in accordance with scientific deductions, have failed (some
because swallowed up in the bottomless pit of coincidences), why should
we not turn to the great authorities upon magic, and see whether,
under this “aftergrowth of fantastic nonsense,” there may not be a
deep substratum of truth? Here we are not willing to be misunderstood.
We do not send the scientists to the _Kabala_ and the Hermetic books
to study magic, but to the authorities on magic to discover materials
for history and science. We have no idea of incurring the wrathful
denunciations of the Academicians, by an indiscretion like that of poor
des Mousseaux, when he tried to force them to read his demonological
_Memoire_ and investigate the Devil.
The _History of Bernal Diaz de Castilla_, a follower of Cortez, gives
us some idea of the extraordinary refinement and intelligence of the {560}
people whom they conquered; but the descriptions are too long to be
inserted here. Suffice it to say, that the Aztecs appeared in more than
one way to have resembled the ancient Egyptians in civilization and
refinement. Among both peoples magic or the arcane natural philosophy
was cultivated to the highest degree. Add to this that Greece,
the “later cradle of the arts and sciences,” and India, cradle of
religions, were and are still devoted to its study and practice—and who
shall venture to discredit its dignity as a study, and its profundity
as a science?
There never was, nor can there be more than one universal religion;
for there can be but one truth concerning God. Like an immense chain
whose upper end, the alpha, remains invisibly emanating from a Deity—in
_statu abscondito_ with every primitive theology—it encircles our globe
in every direction; it leaves not even the darkest corner unvisited,
before the other end, the omega, turns back on its way to be again
received where it first emanated. On this divine chain was strung the
exoteric symbology of every people. Their variety of form is powerless
to affect their substance, and under their diverse ideal types of
the universe of matter, symbolizing its vivifying principles, the
uncorrupted immaterial image of the spirit of being guiding them is the
same.
So far as human intellect can go in the ideal interpretation of the
spiritual universe, its laws and powers, the last word was pronounced
ages since; and, if the _ideas_ of Plato can be simplified for the
sake of easier comprehension, the spirit of their substance can
neither be altered, nor removed without material damage to the truth.
Let human brains submit themselves to torture for thousands of years
to come; let theology perplex faith and mime it with the enforcing
of incomprehensible dogmas in metaphysics; and science strengthen
skepticism, by pulling down the tottering remains of spiritual
intuition in mankind, with her demonstrations of its fallibility,
eternal truth can never be destroyed. We find its last possible
expression in our human language in the Persian Logos, the _Honover_,
or the living _manifested_ Word of God. The Zoroastrian _Enoch-Verihe_
is identical with the Jewish “_I am_;” and the “Great Spirit” of
the poor, untutored Indian, is the manifested Brahma of the Hindu
philosopher. One of the latter, Tcharaka, a Hindu physician, who is
said to have lived 5,000 years B. C., in his treatise on the origin of
things, called _Usa_, thus beautifully expresses himself: “Our Earth
is, like all the luminous bodies that surround us, one of the atoms
of the immense Whole of which we show a slight conception by terming
it—the Infinite.”
“There is but one light, and there is but one darkness,” says a Siamese
proverb. _Dæmon est Deus inversus_, the Devil is the shadow of God,
states the universal kabalistic axiom. Could light exist but for {561}
primeval darkness? And did not the brilliant, sunny universe first
stretch its infant arms from the swaddling bands of dark and dreary
chaos? If the Christian “_fulness of Him that filleth all in all_” is
a revelation, then we must admit that, if there is a devil, he must
be included in this _fulness_, and be a part of that which “filleth
all in all.” From time immemorial the justification of the Deity, and
His separation from the existing evil was attempted, and the object
was reached by the old Oriental philosophy in the foundation of the
_theodiké_; but their metaphysical views on the _fallen spirit_,
have never been disfigured by the creation of an anthropomorphic
personality of the Devil as was done subsequently by the leading lights
of Christian theology. A personal fiend, who opposes the Deity, and
impedes progress on its way to perfection, is to be sought only on
earth amid humanity, not in heaven.
Thus is it that all the religious monuments of old, in whatever land
or under whatever climate, are the expression of the same identical
thoughts, the key to which is in the esoteric doctrine. It would be
vain, without studying the latter, to seek to unriddle the mysteries
enshrouded for centuries in the temples and ruins of Egypt and Assyria,
or those of Central America, British Columbia, and the Nagkon-Wat of
Cambodia. If each of these was built by a different nation; and neither
nation had had intercourse with the others for ages, it is also certain
that all were planned and built under the direct supervision of the
priests. And the clergy of every nation, though practicing rites and
ceremonies which may have differed externally, had evidently been
initiated into the same traditional mysteries which were taught all
over the world.
In order to institute a better comparison between the specimens of
prehistoric architecture to be found at the most opposite points of the
globe, we have but to point to the grandiose Hindu ruins of Ellora in
the Dekkan, the Mexican Chichen-Itza, in Yucatan, and the still grander
ruins of Copan, in Guatemala. They present such features of resemblance
that it seems impossible to escape the conviction that they were built
by peoples moved by the same religious ideas, and that had reached an
equal level of highest civilization in arts and sciences.
There is not, perhaps, on the face of the whole globe, a more imposing
mass of ruins than Nagkon-Wat, the wonder and puzzle of European
archæologists who venture into Siam. And when we say ruins, the
expression is hardly correct; for nowhere are there buildings of such
tremendous antiquity to be found in a better state of preservation than
Nagkon-Wat, and the ruins of Angkorthôm, the great temple.
Hidden far away in the province of Siamrap—eastern Siam—in the midst of
a most luxuriant tropical vegetation, surrounded by almost impenetrable
forests of palms, cocoa-trees, and betel-nut, “the general appearance {562}
of the wonderful temple is beautiful and romantic, as well as
impressive and grand,” says Mr. Vincent, a recent traveller.[840]
“We whose good fortune it is to live in the nineteenth century, are
accustomed to boast of the perfection and preëminence of our modern
civilization; of the grandeur of our attainments in science, art,
literature, and what not, as compared with those whom we call ancients;
but still we are compelled to admit that they have far excelled our
recent endeavors in many things, and notably in the fine arts of
painting, architecture, and sculpture. We were but just looking upon a
most wonderful example of the two latter, for in style and beauty of
architecture, solidity of construction, and magnificent and elaborate
carving and sculpture, the Great Nagkon-Wat has no superior, certainly
no rival standing at the present day. The first view of the ruins is
overwhelming.”
Thus the opinion of another traveller is added to that of many
preceding ones, including archæologists and other competent critics,
who have believed that the ruins of the past Egyptian splendor deserve
no higher eulogium than Nagkon-Wat.
According to our plan, we will allow more impartial critics than
ourselves to describe the place, since, in a work professedly
devoted to a vindication of the ancients, the testimony of so
enthusiastic an advocate as the present writer may be questioned. We
have, nevertheless, seen Nagkon-Wat under exceptionally favorable
circumstances, and can, therefore, certify to the general correctness
of Mr. Vincent’s description. He says:
“We entered upon an immense causeway, the stairs of which were flanked
with six huge griffins, each carved from a single block of stone. The
causeway is ... 725 feet in length, and is paved with stones each
of which measures four feet in length by two in breadth. On either
side of it are artificial lakes fed by springs, and each covering
about five acres of ground.... The outer wall of Nagkon-Wat (the city
of monasteries) is half a mile square, with gateways ... which are
handsomely carved with figures of gods and dragons. The foundations are
ten feet in height.... The entire edifice, including the roof, is of
stone, _but without cement, and so closely fitting are the joints as
even now to be scarcely discernible_.... The shape of the building is
oblong, being 796 feet in length, and 588 in width, while the highest
central pagoda rises some 250 odd feet above the ground, and four
others, at the angles of the court, are each about 150 feet in height.”
The above underscored lines are suggestive to travellers who have
remarked and admired the same wonderful mason-work in the Egyptian {563}
remains. If the same workmen did not lay the courses in both countries
we must at least think that the secret of this matchless wall-building
was equally known to the architects of every land.
“Passing, we ascend a platform ... and enter the temple itself through
a columned portico, the _façade_ of which is beautifully carved
in _basso-relievo_ with ancient mythological subjects. From this
doorway, on either side, runs a corridor with a double row of columns,
cut—base and capital—from single blocks, with a double, oval-shaped
roof, covered with carving and consecutive sculptures upon the outer
wall. This gallery of sculptures, which forms the exterior of the
temple, consists of over half a mile of continuous pictures, cut in
_basso-relievo_ upon sandstone slabs six feet in width, and represents
subjects taken from Hindu mythology, from the _Ramayana_—the Sanscrit
epic poem of India, with its 25,000 verses describing the exploits of
the god Rama, and the son of the King of Oudh. The contests of the
King of Ceylon, and Hanouma,[841] the monkey-god, are graphically
represented. There is _no keystone_ used in the arch of this corridor.
On the walls are sculptured the immense number of 100,000 separate
figures. One picture from the _Ramayâna_ ... occupies 240 feet of the
wall.... In the _Nagkon-Wat_ as many as 1,532 solid columns have been
counted, and among the entire ruins of Angkor ... the immense number
of 6,000, almost all of them hewn from single blocks and artistically
carved....
“But who built _Nagkon-Wat_? and when was it built?” Learned men
have attempted to form opinions from studies of its construction,
and especially “ornamentation,” and have failed. “Native Cambodian {564}
historians,” adds Vincent, “reckon 2,400 from the building of the
temple.... I asked one of them how long _Nagkon-Wat_ had been built....
‘None can tell when.... I do not know; it must have either sprung up
from the ground or been built by giants, or perhaps by the angels’ ...
was the answer.”
When Stephens asked the native Indians “Who built Copan?... what nation
traced the hieroglyphic designs, sculptured these elegant figures and
carvings, these emblematical designs?” the dull answer he received was
“_Quien Sabe?_” who knows! “All is mystery; dark, impenetrable mystery,”
writes Stephens. “In Egypt, the colossal skeletons of gigantic temples
stand in all the nakedness of desolation. Here, an immense forest
shrouded the ruins, hiding them from sight.”[842]
But there are perhaps many circumstances, trifling for archæologists
unacquainted with the “idle and fanciful” legends of old, hence
overlooked; otherwise the discovery might have sent them on a new train
of thought. One is the invariable presence in the Egyptian, Mexican,
and Siamese ruined temples, of the monkey. The Egyptian cynocephalus
assumes the same postures as the Hindu and Siamese Hanoumā; and
among the sculptured fragments of Copan, Stephens found the remains
of colossal apes or baboons, “strongly resembling in outline and
appearance the four monstrous animals which once stood in front,
attached to the base of the obelisk of Luxor, now in Paris,[843] and
which, under the name of the cynocephali, were worshipped at Thebes.”
In almost every Buddhist temple there are idols of huge monkeys kept,
and some people have in their houses white monkeys on purpose “to keep
_bad_ spirits away.”
“Was civilization,” writes Louis de Carné,[844] “in the complex meaning
we give that word, in keeping among the ancient Cambodians with what
such prodigies of architecture seem to indicate? The age of Pheidias
was that of Sophocles, Socrates, and Plato; Michael Angelo and Raphael
succeeded Dante. There are luminous epochs during which the human mind,
developing itself in every direction, triumphs in all, and creates
masterpieces _which spring from the same inspiration_.” “Nagkon-Wat,”
concludes Vincent, “must be ascribed to other than ancient Cambodians.
But to whom?... There exist _no credible_ traditions; _all is absurd
fable or legend_.”
The latter sentence has become of late a sort of cant phrase in the
mouths of travellers and archæologists. When they have found that no {565}
clew is attainable unless it can be found in popular legends, they
turn away discouraged, and a final verdict is withheld. At the same
time Vincent quotes a writer who remarks that these ruins “are as
imposing as the ruins of Thebes, or Memphis, but more mysterious.”
Mouhot thinks they were erected “by some ancient Michael Angelo,” and
adds that Nagkon-Wat “is grander than anything left to us by Greece or
Rome.” Furthermore Mouhot ascribes the building again to some of _the
lost tribes of Israel_, and is corroborated in that opinion by Miche,
the French Bishop of Cambodia, who confesses that he is struck “by the
Hebrew character of the faces of many of the savage Stiêns.” Henri
Mouhot believes that, “without exaggeration, the oldest parts of Angkor
may be fixed at more than 2,000 years ago.” This, then, in comparison
with the pyramids, would make them quite modern; the date is the more
incredible, because the pictures on the walls may be proved to belong
to those archaic ages when Poseidon and the Kabeiri were worshipped
throughout the continent. Had Nagkon-Wat been built, as Dr. Adolf
Bastian[845] will have it, “for the reception of the learned patriarch,
Buddhagosa, who brought the holy books of the _Trai-Pidok_ from Ceylon;
or, as Bishop Pallegoix, who “refers the erection of this edifice to
the reign of Phra Pathum Suriving,” when “the sacred books of the
Buddhists were brought from Ceylon, and Buddhism became the religion of
the Cambodians,” how is it possible to account for the following?
“We see in this same temple carved images of Buddha, four, and
even thirty-two-armed, and two and sixteen-headed gods, the Indian
Vishnu, gods _with wings_, Burmese heads, Hindu figures, and Ceylon
mythology.... You see warriors riding upon elephants and in chariots,
foot soldiers with shield and spear, boats, tigers, griffins ...
serpents, fishes, crocodiles, bullocks ... soldiers of immense physical
development, with helmets, and some people with beards—probably Moors.
The figures,” adds Mr. Vincent, “stand somewhat like those on the great
Egyptian monuments, the side partly turned toward the front ... and I
noticed, besides, five horsemen, armed with spear and sword, riding
abreast, like those seen upon the Assyrian tablets in the British
Museum.”[846]
For our part, we may add, that there are on the walls several
repetitions of Dagon, the man-fish of the Babylonians, and of the
Kabeirian gods of Samothrace. This may have escaped the notice of
the few archæologists who examined the place; but upon stricter
inspection they will be found there, as well as the reputed father of
the Kabeiri—Vulcan with his bolts and implements, having near him a {566}
king with a sceptre in his hand, which is the counterpart of that of
Cheronæa, or the “sceptre of Agamemnon,” so-called, said to have been
presented to him by the lame god of Lemnos. In another place we find
Vulcan, recognizable by his hammer and pincers, but under the shape of
a monkey, as usually represented by the Egyptians.
Now, if Nagkon-Wat is essentially a Buddhist temple, how comes it
to have on its walls _basso-relievos_ of completely an Assyrian
character; and Kabeirian gods which, though universally worshipped
as the most ancient of the Asiatic mystery-gods, had already been
abandoned 200 years B.C., and the Samothracian mysteries themselves
completely altered? Whence the popular tradition concerning the Prince
of Roma among the Cambodians, a personage mentioned by all the native
historians, who attribute to him the foundation of the temple? Is it
not barely possible that even the _Ramayâna_, itself, the famous epic
poem, is but the original of Homer’s _Iliad_, as it was suggested some
years ago? The beautiful Paris, carrying off Helen, looks very much
like Râvana, king of the giants, eloping with Sita, Râma’s wife? The
Trojan war is a counterpart of the _Ramayâna_ war; moreover, Herodotus
assures us that the Trojan heroes and gods date in Greece only from the
days of the _Iliad_. In such a case even Hanoumā, the monkey-god, would
be but Vulcan in disguise; the more so that the Cambodian tradition
makes the founder of Angkor come from _Roma_, which they place at the
western end of the world, and that the Hindu Roma also apportions the
west to the descendants of Hanoumā.
Hypothetical as the suggestion may now seem, it is worthy of
consideration, if even for the sake of being refuted. The Abbé
Jaquenet, a Catholic missionary in Cochin China, ever ready to
connect the least glimmer of historical light with that of Christian
revelation, writes, “Whether we consider the commercial relations of
the Jews ... when, in the height of their power, the combined fleets
of Hiram and Solomon went to seek the treasures of Ophir, or whether
we come lower down, to the dispersion of the ten tribes who, instead
of returning from captivity, set out from the banks of the Euphrates,
and reached the shores of the ocean ... the shining of the light of
revelation in the far East is not the less incontestable.”
It looks certainly “incontestable” enough if we reverse the position
and admit that all the light that ever shone on the Israelites came
to them from this “far East,” passing first through the Chaldeans
and Egyptians. The first thing to settle, is to find out who were
the Israelites themselves; and that is the most vital question. Many
historians seem to claim, with good reason, that the Jews were similar
or identical with the ancient Phœnicians, but the Phœnicians were {567}
beyond any doubt an Æthiopian race; moreover, the present race of
Punjaub are hybridized with the Asiatic Æthiopians. Herodotus traces
the Hebrews to the Persian Gulf; and south of that place were the
Himyarites (the Arabians); beyond, the early Chaldeans and Susinians,
the great builders. This seems to establish pretty well their Æthiopian
affinity. Megasthenes says that the Jews were an Indian sect called
_Kalani_, and their theology resembled that of the Indians. Other
authors also suspect that the colonized Jews or the Judeans were the
Yadus from Afghanistan—the old India.[847] Eusebius tells us that
“the Æthiopians came from the river Indus and settled near Egypt.”
More research may show that the Tamil Hindus, who are accused by the
missionaries of worshipping the Devil—Kutti-Sattan—only honor, after
all, Seth or Satan, worshipped by the biblical Hittites.
But if the Jews were in the twilight of history the Phœnicians, the
latter may be traced themselves to the nations who used the old
Sanscrit language. Carthage was a Phœnician city, hence its name; for
Tyre was equally _Kartha_. In the _Bible_ the words _Kir_, _Kirjath_
are frequently found. Their tutelar god was styled _Mel-Kartha_ (Mel,
Baal), or tutelar lord of the city. In Sanscrit a city or communal
was a _cûl_ and its lord was _Heri_.[848] Her-culeus is therefore
the translation of Melkarth and Sanscrit in origin. Moreover all
the Cyclopean races were Phœnicians. In the _Odyssey_ the Kuklopes
(Cyclops) are the Libyan shepherds; and Herodotus describes them as
miners and great builders. They are the ancient Titans or giants, who
in Hesiod forge bolts for Zeus. They are the biblical _Zamzummim_ from
the land of the giants, the Anakim.
Now it is easy to see that the excavators of Ellora, the builders of
the old Pagodas, the architects of Copan and of the ruins of Central
America, those of Nagkon-Wat, and those of the Egyptian remains
were, if not of the same race, at least of the same religion—the one
taught in the oldest Mysteries. Besides, the figures on the walls of
Angkor are purely archaic, and have nothing to do with the images
and idols of Buddha, who may be of a far later origin. “What gives a
peculiar interest to this section,” says Dr. Bastian, “is the fact
that the artist has represented the different nationalities in all
their distinctive characteristic features, from the flat-nosed savage
in the tasselled garb of the Pnom and the short-haired Lao, to the
straight-nosed Rajaput, with sword and shield, and _the bearded Moor_, {568}
giving a catalogue of nationalities, like another _column of Trajan_,
in the predominant physical conformation of each race. On the whole,
there is such a prevalence of _Hellenic_ cast in features and profiles,
as well as in the elegant attitude of the horsemen, that one might
suppose Xenocrates of old, after finishing his labors in Bombay, had
made an excursion to the East.”
Therefore, if we allow the tribes of Israel to have had a hand in the
building of Nagkon-Wat, it cannot be as the tribes numbered and sent,
from the wilderness of Paran in search of the land of Canaan, but as
their earlier ancestors, which amounts to the rejection of such tribes,
as the casting of a reflection of the _Mosaic_ revelation. And where is
the outside _historical_ evidence that such tribes were ever heard of
at all, before the compilation of the _Old Testament_ by Ezra? There
are archæologists who strongly regard the twelve tribes as utterly
mythical,[849] for there never was a tribe of Simeon, and that of Levi
was a _caste_. There still remains the same problem to solve—whether
the Judæans had ever been in Palestine before Cyrus. From the sons of
Jacob, who had all married Canaanites, except Joseph, whose wife was
the daughter of an Egyptian Priest of the Sun, down to the legendary
_Book of Judges_ there was an acknowledged general intermarrying
between the said tribes and the idolatrous races: “And the children
of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and
Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and they took their daughters
to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served
their gods,” says the third chapter of _Judges_, “ ... and the children
of Israel forgat their God and served Baalim, and the groves.” This
Baal was Moloch, M’lch Karta, or Hercules. He was worshipped wherever
the Phœnicians went. How could the Israelites possibly keep together
as tribes, while, on the authority of the _Bible_ itself, whole
populations were from year to year uprooted violently by Assyrian and
other conquerors? “So was Israel carried away out of their own land
to Assyria unto this day. And the king of Assyria brought men from
Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from
Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria _instead_ of the
children of Israel” (_2 Kings_, xvii. 23, 24).
If the language of Palestine became in time Semitic, it is because of
Assyrian influence; for Phœnicia had become a dependency as early as
the days of Hiram, and the Phœnicians evidently changed their language
from Hamitic to Semitic. Assyria was “the land of Nimrod” (from _Nimr_,
spotted), and Nimrod was Bacchus, with his spotted leopard-skin.
This leopard-skin is a sacred appendage of the “Mysteries;” it was {569}
used in the Eleusinian as well as in the Egyptian Mysteries; it is
found sculptured on the _basso-relievos_ of Central American ruins,
covering the backs of the sacrificers; it is mentioned in the earliest
speculations of the Brahmans on the meaning of their sacrificial
prayers, the _Aytareya Brahmanam_.[850] It is used in the _Agnishtoma_,
the _initiation rites_ of the Soma Mystery. When the neophyte is “to be
born again,” he is covered with a leopard-skin, out of which he emerges
as from his mother’s womb. The Kabeiri were also Assyrian gods. They
had different names; in the common language they were known as Jupiter
and Bacchus, and sometimes as Achiochersus, Aschieros, Achiochersa, and
Cadmillus; and even the true number of these deities was uncertain with
the people. They had other names in the “sacred language,” known but to
the hierophants and priests; and “it was not lawful to mention them.”
How is it then that we find them reproduced in their Samothracian
“postures” on the walls of Nagkon-Wat? How is it again that we find
them pronounced—albeit slightly disfigured—as known in that same sacred
language, by the populations of Siam, Thibet, and India?
The name Kabeiri may be a derivation from אבר, _Abir_, great; הבר,
_Ebir_, an astrologer, or חבר, _Chabir_, an associate; and they were
worshipped at Hebron, the city of the _Anakes_—the giants. The name
Abraham, according to Dr. Wilder, has “a very Kabeirian look.” The
word _Heber_, or _Gheber_ may be the etymological root of the Hebrews,
as applied to Nimrod and the Bible-giants of the sixth chapter of
_Genesis_, but we must seek for their origin far earlier than the days
of Moses. The name _Phœnician_ affords its own proof. They are called
Φοινικες by Manetho, or _Ph’ Anakes_, which shows that the Anakes or
_Anakim_ of Canaan, with whom the people of Israel, if not identical
in race, had, by intermarriage, become entirely absorbed, were the
Phœnicians, or the problematical Hyk-sos, as Manetho has it, and whom
Josephus once declared were the direct ancestors of the Israelites.
Therefore, it is in this jumble of contradictory opinions, authorities,
and historical _olla podrida_ that we must look for a solution of the
mystery. So long as the origin of the Hyk-sos is not positively settled
we can know nothing certain of the Israelitish people who, either
wittingly or otherwise, have mixed up their chronology and origin
in such an inextricable tangle. But if the Hyk-sos can be proved to
have been the Pali-Shepherds of the Indus, who partially removed to
the East, and came over from the nomadic Aryan tribes of India, then,
perhaps, it would account for the biblical myths being so mixed up with
the Aryan and Asiatic Mystery-gods. As Dunlap says: “The Hebrews came {570}
out of Egypt among the Canaanites; they need not be traced beyond
the _Exodus_. _That is their historical beginning._ It was very easy
to cover up this remote event by the recital of mythical traditions,
and to prefix to it an account of their origin in which the gods
(patriarchs) should figure as their ancestors.” But it is not _their
historical beginning_ which is the most vital question for the world
of science and theology. It is their _religious_ beginning. And if we
can trace it through the Hyk-sos—Phœnicians, the Æthiopian builders and
the Chaldeans—whether it is to the Hindus that the latter owe their
learning, or the Brahmans who owe it to the Chaldeans, we have the
means in hand to trace every so-called _revealed_ dogmatical assertion
in the _Bible_ to its origin, which we have to search for in the
twilight of history, and before the separation of the Aryan and Semitic
families. And how can we do it better or more surely than through means
afforded us by archæology? Picture-writing can be destroyed, but if
it survives it cannot lie; and, if we find the same myths, ideas, and
secret symbols on monuments all over the world; and if, moreover, these
monuments can be shown to antedate the twelve “chosen” tribes, then we
can unerringly show that instead of being a direct divine _revelation_,
it was but an incomplete recollection or tradition among a tribe which
had been identified and mixed up for centuries before the apparition of
Abraham, with all the three great world-families; namely, the Aryan,
Semitic, and Turanian nations, if so they must be called.
The _Teraphim_ of Abram’s father, _Terah_, the “maker of images,”
were the Kabeiri gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the
Danites, and others.[851] Teraphim were identical with the seraphim,
and these were serpent-images, the origin of which is in the Sanscrit
_sarpâ_ (the serpent), a symbol sacred to all the deities as a symbol
of immortality. _Kiyun_, or the god Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in
the wilderness, is Siva, the Hindu,[852] as well as Saturn.[853] The
Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian, having received them as
a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and from thence to Troy; and they
were worshipped far before the days of glory of Tyre or Sidon, though
the former had been built 2760 B.C. From where did Dardanus derive them?
It is an easy matter to assign an age to ruins on merely the external
evidence of probabilities; it is more difficult to prove it. Meanwhile
the rock-works of Ruad, Perytus, Marathos, resemble those of Petra, {571}
Baalbek, and other Æthiopian works, even externally. On the other hand
the assertions of certain archæologists who find no resemblance between
the temples of Central America and those of Egypt and Siam, leave the
symbologist, acquainted with the secret language of picture-writing,
perfectly unconcerned. He sees the landmarks of one and the same
doctrine on all of these monuments, and reads their history and
affiliation in signs imperceptible to the uninitiated scientist.
There are traditions also; and one of these speaks of the last of the
king-initiates—(who were but rarely admitted to the higher orders of
the Eastern Brotherhoods), who reigned in 1670. This king of Siam was
the one so ridiculed by the French ambassador, de la Loubère, as a
lunatic who had been searching all his life for the philosopher’s stone.
One of such mysterious landmarks is found in the peculiar structure
of certain arches in the temples. The author of the _Land of the
White Elephant_ remarks as curious, “the absence of the keystone in
the arches of the building, and the undecipherable inscriptions.” In
the ruins of Santa Cruz del Quiché an arched corridor was found by
Stephens, equally without a keystone. Describing the desolate ruins of
Palenque, and remarking that the arches of the corridors were all built
on this model, and the ceilings in this form, he supposes that “the
builders were evidently ignorant of the principles of the arch, and the
support was made by stones lapping over as they rose; as at Ocosingo,
and among Cyclopean remains in Greece and Italy.”[854] In other
buildings, though they belong to the same group, the traveller found
the missing keystone, which is a sufficient proof that its omission
elsewhere was _premeditated_.
May we not look for the solution of the mystery in the Masonic manual?
The keystone has an esoteric meaning which ought to be, if it is not,
well appreciated by high Masons. The most important subterranean
building mentioned in the description of the origin of Freemasonry,
is the one built by Enoch. The patriarch is led by the Deity, whom
he sees in a vision, into the _nine_ vaults. After that, with the
assistance of his son, Methuselah, he constructs in the land of Canaan,
“in the bowels of the mountain,” nine apartments on the models that
were shown to him in the vision. Each was roofed with an arch, and
the apex of each _formed a keystone_, having inscribed on it the
mirific characters. Each of the latter, furthermore, represented one
of the nine names, traced in characters emblematical of the attributes
by which the Deity was, according to ancient Freemasonry, known to
the antediluvian brethren. Then Enoch constructed two deltas of the
purest gold, and tracing two of the mysterious characters on each, he
placed one of them in the deepest arch, and the other entrusted to {572}
Methuselah, communicating to him, at the same time, other important
secrets _now lost to Freemasonry_.
And so, among these arcane secrets, now lost to their modern
successors, may be found also the fact that the keystones were used in
the arches only in certain portions of the temples devoted to special
purposes. Another similarity presented by the architectural remains of
the religious monuments of every country can be found in the identity
of parts, courses, and measurements. All these buildings belong to
the age of Hermes Trismegistus, and however comparatively modern or
ancient the temple may seem, their mathematical proportions are found
to correspond with the Egyptian religious edifices. There is a similar
disposition of court-yards, adyta, passages, and steps; hence, despite
any dissimilarity in architectural style, it is a warrantable inference
that like religious rites were celebrated in all. Says Dr. Stukely,
concerning Stonehenge: “This structure was not erected upon any Roman
measure, and this is demonstrated by the great number of fractions
which the measurement of each part, according to European scales,
gives. On the contrary the figures become even, as soon as we apply to
it the measurement of the ancient cubic, which was common to the Hebrew
children of Shem, as well as to the Phœnicians and Egyptians, children
of Ham (?), and imitators of the monuments of unhewn and oracular
stones.”
The presence of the artificial lakes, and their peculiar disposition
on the consecrated grounds, is also a fact of great importance. The
lakes inside the precincts of Karnak, and those enclosed in the grounds
of Nagkon-Wat, and around the temples in the Mexican Copan and Santa
Cruz del Quichè, will be found to present the same peculiarities.
Besides possessing other significances the whole area was laid out
with reference to cyclic calculations. In the Druidical structures
the same sacred and mysterious numbers will be found. The circle
of stones generally consists of either twelve, or twenty-one, or
thirty-six. In these circles the centre place belongs to Assar, Azon,
or the god in the circle, by whatever other name he might have been
known. The thirteen Mexican serpent-gods bear a distant relationship
to the thirteen stones of the Druidical ruins. The ~T~ (Tau), and
the astronomical cross of Egypt [A circle with a horizontal diameter
and a vertical radius above] are conspicuous in several apertures of
the remains of Palenque. In one of the _basso-relievos_ of the Palace
of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured on a hieroglyphic, right
under the seated figure, is a _Tau_. The standing figure, which leans
over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the left
hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right with the
index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely
that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which
Jesus is often represented while at the Last Supper. Even the Hindu {573}
elephant-headed god of wisdom (or magic learning), Ganesha, may be
found among the stucco figures of the Mexican ruins.
What explanation can the archæologists, philologists—in short, the
chosen host of Academicians—give us? None whatever. At best they have
but hypotheses, every one of which is likely to be pulled down by its
successor—a pseudo-truth, perhaps, like the first. The keys to the
biblical miracles of old, and to the phenomena of modern days; the
problems of psychology, physiology, and the many “missing links” which
have so perplexed scientists of late, are all in the hands of secret
fraternities. This mystery _must be_ unveiled some day. But till then
dark skepticism will constantly interpose its threatening, ugly shadow
between God’s truths and the spiritual vision of mankind; and many are
those who, infected by the mortal epidemic of our century—hopeless
materialism—will remain in doubt and mortal agony as to whether, when
man dies, he will live again, although the question has been solved
by long bygone generations of sages. The answers are there. They may
be found on the time-worn granite pages of cave-temples, on sphinxes,
propylons, and obelisks. They have stood there for untold ages, and
neither the rude assault of time, nor the still ruder assault of
Christian hands, have succeeded in obliterating their records. All
covered with the problems which were solved—who can tell? perhaps by
the archaic forefathers of their builders—the solution follows each
question; and this the Christian could not appropriate, for, except the
initiates, no one has understood the mystic writing. The key was in the
keeping of those who knew how to commune with the invisible Presence,
and who had received, from the lips of mother Nature herself, her grand
truths. And so stand these monuments like mute forgotten sentinels on
the threshold of that _unseen_ world, whose gates are thrown open but
to a few elect.
Defying the hand of Time, the vain inquiry of profane science, the
insults of the _revealed_ religions, they will disclose their riddles
to none but the legatees of those by whom they were entrusted with the
MYSTERY. The cold, stony lips of the once vocal Memnon, and of these
hardy sphinxes, keep their secrets well. Who will unseal them? Who of
our modern, materialistic dwarfs and unbelieving Sadducees will dare to
lift the VEIL OF ISIS?
CHAPTER XV. {574}
“STE.—Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon us with
savages, and men of Inde?”
_The Tempest_, Act ii., Sc. 2.
“We have now, so far forth as it is requisite for our design,
considered the _Nature and Functions of the Soule_; and have
plainly demonstrated that she is a substance distinct from the
body.”
—DR. HENRY MORE: _Immortality of the Soule_. 1659.
“KNOWLEDGE IS POWER; IGNORANCE IS IMBECILITY.”—AUTHOR OF
“Art-Magic:” _Ghost-Land_.
The “secret doctrine” has for many centuries been like the symbolical
“man of sorrows” of the prophet Isaiah. “Who hath believed our report?”
its martyrs have repeated from one generation to another. The doctrine
has grown up before its persecutors “as a tender plant and as a root
out of a dry ground; it hath no form, nor comeliness ... it is despised
and rejected of men; and they hid their faces from it.... They esteemed
him not.”
There need be no controversy as to whether this doctrine agrees or not
with the iconoclastic tendency of the skeptics of our times. It agrees
with _truth_ and that is enough. It would be idle to expect that it
would be believed by its detractors and slanderers. But the tenacious
vitality it exhibits all over the globe, wherever there are a group
of men to quarrel over it, is the best proof that the seed planted by
our fathers on “the other side of the flood” was that of a mighty oak,
not the spore of a mushroom theology. No lightning of human ridicule
can fell to the ground, and no thunderbolts ever forged by the Vulcans
of science are powerful enough to blast the trunk, or even scar the
branches of this world-tree of KNOWLEDGE.
We have but to leave unnoticed their letter that killeth, and catch the
subtile spirit of their hidden wisdom, to find concealed in the _Books
of Hermes_—be they the model or the copy of all others—the evidences
of a truth and philosophy which we feel _must_ be based on the eternal
laws. We instinctively comprehend that, however finite the powers of
man, while he is yet embodied, they must be in close kinship with
the attributes of an infinite Deity; and we become capable of better
appreciating the hidden sense of the gift lavished by the _Elohim_ on
_H’Adam_: “Behold, I have given you everything which is upon the face
of all the earth ... _subdue it_,” and “_have dominion_” over ALL.
Had the allegories contained in the first chapters of _Genesis_ {575}
been better understood, even in their geographical and historical
sense, which involve nothing at all esoteric, the claims of its true
interpreters, the kabalists, could hardly have been rejected for so
long a time. Every student of the _Bible_ must be aware that the first
and second chapters of _Genesis_ could not have proceeded from the
same pen. They are evidently allegories and parables;[855] for the two
narratives of the creation and peopling of our earth diametrically
contradict each other in nearly every particular of order, time,
place, and methods employed in the so-called creation. In accepting
the narratives literally, and as a whole, we lower the dignity of the
unknown Deity. We drag him down to the level of humanity, and endow him
with the peculiar personality of man, who needs the “cool of the day”
to refresh him; who rests from his labors; and is capable of anger,
revenge, and even of using precautions against man, “lest he put forth
his hand, and take also of the tree of life.” (A tacit admission, by
the way, on the part of the Deity, that man _could do it_, if not
prevented by sheer force.) But, in recognizing the allegorical coloring
of the description of what may be termed historical facts, we find our
feet instantly on firm ground.
To begin with—the garden of Eden as a locality is no myth at all; it
belongs to those landmarks of history which occasionally disclose to
the student that the _Bible_ is not all mere allegory. “Eden, or the
Hebrew גן־עדן GAN-EDEN, meaning the park or the garden of Eden, is
an archaic name of the country watered by the Euphrates and its many
branches, from Asia and Armenia to the Erythraian Sea.”[856] In the
Chaldean _Book of Numbers_, its location is designated in numerals,
and in the cipher Rosicrucian manuscript, left by Count St. Germain,
it is fully described. In the Assyrian _Tablets_, it is rendered
_gan-dunyas_. “Behold,” say the אלהים _Eloim_ of Genesis, “the man is
become as one of us.” The _Eloim_ may be accepted in one sense for
_gods_ or powers, and taken in another one for the _Aleim_, or priests;
the hierophants initiated into the good and the evil of this world;
for there was a college of priests called the _Aleim_, while the head
of their caste, or the chief of the hierophants, was known as _Java
Aleim_. Instead of becoming a neophyte, and gradually obtaining his
esoteric knowledge through a regular initiation, an _Adam_, or man,
uses his intuitional faculties, and, prompted by the Serpent—_Woman_
and matter—tastes of the Tree of Knowledge—the esoteric or secret
doctrine—unlawfully. The priests of Hercules, or Mel-Karth, the “Lord”
of the Eden, all wore “coats of skin.” The text says: “And _Java
Aleim_, made for Adam and his wife כתנות עור, CHITONUTH OUR.” The {576}
first Hebrew word, _chitun_, is the Greek χιτων, _chiton_. It became
a Slavonic word by adoption from the _Bible_, and means a _coat_, an
upper garment.
Though containing the same substratum of esoteric truth as every
early cosmogony, the Hebrew Scripture wears on its face the marks
of its double origin. Its _Genesis_ is purely a reminiscence of the
Babylonian captivity. The names of places, men, and even objects, can
be traced from the original text to the Chaldeans and the Akkadians,
the progenitors and Aryan instructors of the former. It is strongly
contested that the Akkad tribes of Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria
were in any way cognate with the Brahmans, of Hindustan; but there are
more proofs in favor of this opinion than otherwise. The Shemite, or
Assyrian, ought, perchance, to have been called the Turanian, and the
Mongolians have been denominated Scyths. But if the Akkadians ever
existed otherwise than in the imagination of some philologists and
ethnologists, they certainly would never have been a Turanian tribe,
as some Assyriologists have striven to make us believe. They were
simply emigrants on their way to Asia Minor from India, the cradle of
humanity, and their sacerdotal adepts tarried to civilize and initiate
a barbarian people. Halevy proved the fallacy of the Turanian mania in
regard to the Akkadian people, whose very name has been changed a dozen
times already; and other scientists have proved that the Babylonian
civilization was neither born nor developed in that country. It was
imported from India, and the importers were Brahmanical Hindus.
It is the opinion of Professor A. Wilder, that if the Assyrians had
been called Turanians and the Mongolians Scyths, then, in such a case
the wars of Iran and Turan, Zohak and Jemshid, or Yima, would have
been fairly comprehended as the struggle of the old Persians against
the endeavors of the Assyrian satraps to conquer them, which ended in
the overthrow of Nineveh; “the spider weaving her web in the palace of
Afrasiab.”[857]
“The Turanian of Prof. Müller and his school,” adds our correspondent,
“was evidently the savage and nomadic Caucasian, out of whom the
Hamite or Æthiopian builders come; then the Shemites—perhaps a hybrid
of Hamite and Aryan; and lastly the Aryan—Median, Persian, Hindu; and
later, the Gothic and Slavic peoples of Europe. He supposes the Celt
to have been a hybrid, analogous to the Assyrians—between the Aryan
invaders of Europe and the Iberic (probably Æthiopic) population of
Europe.” In such a case he must admit the possibility of our assertion
that the Akkadians were a tribe of the earliest Hindus. Now, whether {577}
they were Brahmans, from the Brahmanic planisphere proper (40° north
latitude), or from India (Hindustan), or, again, from the India of
Central Asia, we will leave to philologists of future ages to decide.
An opinion which with us amounts to certitude, demonstrated by an
inductive method of our own, which we are afraid will be but little
appreciated by the orthodox methods of modern science, is based on what
will appear to the latter merely circumstantial evidence. For years we
have repeatedly noticed that the same esoteric truths were expressed in
identical symbols and allegories in countries between which there had
never been traced any historical affiliation. We have found the Jewish
_Kabala_ and the _Bible_ repeating the Babylonian “myths,”[858] and the
Oriental and Chaldean allegories, given in form and substance in the
oldest manuscripts of the Siamese Talapoin (monks), and in the popular
but oldest traditions of Ceylon.
In the latter place we have an old and valued acquaintance whom we have
also met in other parts of the globe, a Pali scholar, and a native
Cingalese, who has in his possession a curious palm leaf, to which,
by chemical processes, a timeproof durability has been given, and an
enormous conch, or rather one-half of a conch—for it has been split
in two. On the leaf we saw the representation of a giant of Ceylonian
antiquity and fame, blind, and pulling down—with his outstretched
arms, which are embracing the four central pillars of a pagoda—the
whole temple on a crowd of armed enemies. His hair is long and reaches
nearly to the ground. We were informed by the possessor of this curious
relic, that the blind giant was “Somona, the Little;” so called in
contradistinction with Somona-Kadom, the Siamese saviour. Moreover, the
Pali legend, in its important particulars, corresponds with that of the
biblical Samson.
The shell bore upon its pearly surface a pictorial engraving, divided
in two compartments, and the workmanship was far more artistic, as
to conception and execution, than the crucifixes and other religious
trinkets carved out of the same material in our days, at Jaffa and
Jerusalem. In the first panel is represented Siva, with all his Hindu
attributes, sacrificing his son—whether the “only-begotten,” or one
of many, we never stopped to inquire. The victim is laid on a funeral
pile, and the father is hovering in the air over him, with an uplifted
weapon ready to strike; but the god’s face is turned toward a jungle
in which a rhinoceros has deeply buried its horn in a huge tree and is
unable to extricate it. The adjoining panel, or division, represents {578}
the same rhinoceros on the pile with the weapon plunged in its side,
and the intended victim—Siva’s son—free, and helping the god to kindle
the fire upon the sacrificial altar.
Now, we have but to remember that Siva and the Palentinian Baal, or
Moloch, and Saturn are identical; that Abraham is held until the
present day by the Mahometan Arabs as Saturn in the Kaaba;[859] that
Abraham and Israel were names of Saturn;[860] and that Sanchoniathon
tells us that Saturn offered his only-begotten son as a sacrifice to
his father Ouranos, and even circumcised himself and forced all his
household and allies to do the same,[861] to trace unerringly the
biblical myth to its source. But this source is neither Phœnician, nor
Chaldean; it is purely Indian, and the original of it may be found in
the _Maha-Bharata_. But, whether Brahmanical or Buddhistical, it must
certainly be much older than the Jewish _Pentateuch_, as compiled by
Ezra after the Babylonian captivity, and revised by the Rabbis of the
Great Synagogue.
Therefore, we are bold enough to maintain our assertion against the
opinion of many men of learning, whom, nevertheless, we consider far
more learned than ourselves. Scientific induction is one thing, and
_knowledge of facts_, however unscientific they may seem at first, is
another. But science has discovered enough to inform us that Sanscrit
originals, of Nepaul, were translated by Buddhistic missionaries
into nearly every Asiatic language. Likewise Pali manuscripts were
translated into Siamese, and carried to Burmah and Siam; it is easy,
therefore, to account for the same religious legends and myths
circulating in all these countries. But Manetho tells us also of Pali
shepherds who emigrated westward; and when we find some of the oldest
Ceylonic traditions in the Chaldean _Kabala_ and Jewish _Bible_, we
must think that either Chaldeans or Babylonians had been in Ceylon or
India, or the ancient Pali had the same traditions as the Akkadians,
whose origin is so uncertain. Suppose even Rawlinson to be right, and
that the Akkadians did come from Armenia, he did not trace them farther
back. As the field is now opened for any kind of hypothesis, we submit
that this tribe might as well have come to Armenia from beyond the
Indus, following their way in the direction of the Caspian Sea—a part
which was also India, once upon a time—and from thence to the Euxine.
Or they might have come originally from Ceylon by the same way. It has
been found impossible to follow, with any degree of certitude, the
wanderings of these nomadic Aryan tribes; hence we are left to judge
from inference, and by comparing their esoteric myths. Abraham himself,
for all our scientists can know, might have been one of these Pali
shepherds who emigrated _West_. He is shown to have gone with his {579}
father, Terah, from “_Ur_ of the Chaldees;” and Sir H. Rawlinson found
the Phœnician city of Martu or Marathos mentioned in an inscription at
_Ur_, and shows it to signify THE WEST.
If their language seems in one sense to oppose their identity with the
Brahmans of Hindustan, yet there are other reasons which make good our
claims that the biblical allegories of _Genesis_ are entirely due to
these nomadic tribes. Their name Ak-ad, is of the same class as Ad-Am,
Ha-va,[862] or Ed-En—“perhaps,” says Dr. Wilder, “meaning son of _Ad_,
like the sons of Ad in ancient Arabia. In Assyrian, _Ak_ is creator and
Ad-ad is AD, the father.” In Aramean Ad also means _one_, and Ad-ad the
_only-one_; and in the _Kabala Ad-am_ is the only-begotten, the first
emanation of the unseen Creator. _Adon_ was the “Lord” god of Syria
and the consort of Adar-gat, or Aster-‘t,’ the Syrian goddess, who was
Venus, Isis, Istar, or Mylitta, etc.; and each of these was “mother _of
all living_” the _Magna Mater_.
Thus, while the first, second, and third chapters of _Genesis_ are
but disfigured imitations of other cosmogonies, the fourth chapter,
beginning at the sixteenth verse, and the fifth chapter to the end—give
purely historical facts; though the latter were never correctly
interpreted. They are taken, word for word, from the secret _Book of
Numbers_, of the Great Oriental _Kabala_. From the birth of Enoch, the
appropriated first parent of modern Freemasonry, begins the genealogy
of the so-called Turanian, Aryan, and Semitic families, if such they
be correctly. Every woman is an euhemerized land or city; every man
and patriarch a race, a branch, or a subdivision of a race. The wives
of Lamech give the key to the riddle which some good scholar might
easily master, even without studying the esoteric sciences. “And Ad-ah
bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and _of
such as have cattle_,” nomadic Aryan race; “ ... and his brother was
Jubal; he was the father of all such as _handle the harp and organ_;
... and Zillah bare Tubal-Cain, an instructor _of every artificer in
brass and iron_,” etc. Every word has a significance; but it is no
_revelation_. It is simply a compilation of the most _historical_
facts, although history is too perplexed upon this point to know how
to claim them. It is from the Euxine to Kashmere, and beyond that we
must search for the cradle of mankind and the sons of Ad-ah; and leave {580}
the particular garden of Ed-en on the Euphrates to the college of the
weird astrologers and magi, the Aleim.[863] No wonder that the Northern
seer, Swedenborg, advises people to search for the LOST WORD among the
hierophants of Tartary, China, and Thibet; for it is there, and only
there now, although we find it inscribed on the monuments of the oldest
Egyptian dynasties.
The grandiose poetry of the four _Vedas_; the _Books of Hermes_; the
Chaldean _Book of Numbers_; the _Nazarene Codex_; the _Kabala_ of
the Tanaïm; the _Sepher Jezira_; the _Book of Wisdom_, of Schlomah
(Solomon); the secret treatise on _Muhta and Badha_,[864] attributed by
the Buddhist kabalists to Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya system;
the _Brahmanas_;[865] the _Stan-gyour_,[866] of the Thibetans; all
these volumes have the same groundwork. Varying but in allegories they
teach the same secret doctrine which, when once thoroughly eliminated,
will prove to be the Ultima Thulè of true philosophy, and disclose what
is this LOST WORD.
It is useless to expect scientists to find in these works anything of
interest except that which is in direct relation to either philology
or comparative mythology. Even Max Müller, as soon as he refers to
the mysticism and metaphysical philosophy scattered through the old
Sanscrit literature, sees in it naught but “theological absurdities”
and “fantastic nonsense.”
Speaking of the _Brahmanas_, all full of _mysterious_, therefore, as a
matter of course, absurd, meanings, we find him saying: “The greater
portion of them is simply twaddle, and what is worse, _theological
twaddle_. No person who is not acquainted beforehand with “the place
which the _Brahmanas_ fill in the history of the Indian mind, could
read more than ten pages _without being disgusted_.”[867]
We do not wonder at the severe criticism of this erudite scientist. {581}
Without a clew to the real meaning of this “twaddle” of religious
conceptions, how can they judge of the esoteric by the exoteric? We
find an answer in another of the highly-interesting lectures of the
German savant: “No Jew, no Roman, no Brahman ever thought of converting
people to his own national form of worship. Religion was looked upon as
private or national property. It was to be guarded against strangers.
The most sacred names of the gods, the prayers by which their favor
could be gained, were kept secret. No religion was more exclusive than
that of the Brahmans.”[868]
Therefore, when we find scholars who imagine, because they have learned
the meaning of a few exoteric rites from a srotriya, a Brahman priest
initiated in the sacrificial mysteries, that they are capable of
interpreting all the symbols, and have sifted the Hindu religions, we
cannot help admiring the completeness of their scientific delusions.
The more so, since we find Max Müller himself asserting that since “a
Brahman was born—nay, _twice-born_, and could not be made, not even the
lowest caste, that of the Sudras, would open its ranks to a stranger.”
How much less likely that he would allow that stranger to unveil to the
world his most sacred religious Mysteries, the secret of which has been
guarded so jealousy from profanation throughout untold ages.
No; our scientists do not—nay, cannot understand correctly the old
Hindu literature, any more than an atheist or materialist is able to
appreciate at their just value the feelings of a seer, a mystic, whose
whole life is given to contemplation. They have a perfect right to
soothe themselves with the sweet lullaby of their self-admiration,
and the just consciousness of their great learning, but none at all
to lead the world into their own error, by making it believe that
they have solved the last problem of ancient thought in literature,
whether Sanscrit or any other; that there lies not behind the external
“twaddle” far more than was ever dreamed of by our modern exact
philosophy; or that above and beyond the correct rendering of Sanscrit
words and sentences there is no deeper thought, intelligible to some of
the descendants of those who veiled it in the morning hours of earth’s
day, if they are not to the profane reader.
We do not feel in the least astonished that a materialist, and even
an orthodox Christian, is unable to read either the old Brahmanical
works or their progeny, the _Kabala_, the _Codex_ of Bardesanes, or
the Jewish _Scripture_ without disgust at their immodesty and apparent
lack of what the uninitiated reader is pleased to call “common sense.”
But if we can hardly blame them for such a feeling, especially in the {582}
case of the Hebrew, and even the Greek and Latin literature, and are
quite ready to agree with Professor Fiske that “it is a mark of wisdom
to be dissatisfied with imperfect evidence;” on the other hand we have
a right to expect that they should recognize that it is no less a mark
of honesty to confess one’s ignorance in cases where there are two
sides to the question, and in the solution of which the scientist may
as easily blunder as any ignoramus. When we find Professor Draper, in
his definition of periods in the _Intellectual Development of Europe_,
classifying the time from the days of Socrates, the precursor and
teacher _of Plato_, to Karneades, as “the age of faith;” and that from
Philo to the destruction of the Neo-platonic schools by Justinian—the
“age of decrepitude,” we may be allowed to infer that the learned
professor knows as little about the real tendency of Greek philosophy
and the Attic schools as he understood the true character of Giordano
Bruno. So when we see one of the best of Sanscrit scholars stating
on his own unsupported authority that the “greater portion of the
_Brahmanas_ is simply theological twaddle,” we deeply regret to think
that Professor Müller must be far better acquainted with the old
Sanscrit verbs and nouns than with Sanscrit thought; and that a scholar
so uniformly disposed to do justice to the religions and the men of old
should so effectually play into the hands of Christian theologians.
“What is the use of Sanscrit?” exclaims Jacquemont, who alone has
made more false statements about the East than all the Orientalists
put together. At such a rate there would be none indeed. If we are to
exchange one corpse for another, then we may as well dissect the dead
letter of the Jewish _Bible_ as that of the _Vedas_. He who is not
intuitionally vivified by the religious spirit of old, will never see
beyond the exoteric “twaddle.”
When first we read that “in the cavity of the cranium of
Macroposopos—the Long-Face—lies hidden the aërial Wisdom which nowhere
is opened; and it is not discovered, and not opened;” or again, that
“the _nose_ of the ‘ancient of days’ is _Life_ in every part;” we are
inclined to regard it as the incoherent ravings of a lunatic. And
when, moreover, we are apprized by the _Codex Nazaræus_ that “she, the
_Spiritus_,” invites her son Karabtanos, “who is frantic and without
judgment,” to an unnatural crime with his own mother, we are pretty
well disposed to throw the book aside in disgust. But is this only
meaningless trash, expressed in rude and even obscene language? No
more can it be judged by external appearance than the sexual symbols
of the Egyptian and Hindu religions, or the coarse frankness of
expression of the “holy” _Bible_ itself. No more than the allegory of
Eve and the tempting serpent of Eden. The ever-insinuating, restless
spirit, when once it “falls into matter,” tempts Eve, or Hava, which
bodily represents chaotic matter “frantic and without judgment.” For
_matter_, Karabtanos, is the son of _Spirit_, or the _Spiritus_ of the {583}
Nazarenes, the _Sophia-Achamoth_, and the latter is the daughter of
the pure, intellectual spirit, the divine breath. When science shall
have effectually demonstrated to us the origin of matter, and proved
the fallacy of the occultists’ and old philosophers who held (as their
descendants now hold) that matter is but one of the correlations of
spirit, then will the world of skeptics have a right to reject the
old Wisdom, or throw the charge of obscenity in the teeth of the old
religions.
“From time immemorial,”[869] says Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, “an emblem
has been worshipped in Hindustan as the type of creation, or the origin
of life. It is the most common symbol of Siva [Bala, or Maha-Deva], and
is universally connected with his worship.... Siva was not merely the
reproducer of human forms; he represented the fructifying principle,
the generative power that pervades the universe.... Small images of
this emblem carved in ivory, gold, or crystal, are worn as ornaments
about the neck.... The maternal emblem is likewise a religious
type; and worshippers of Vishnu represent it on their forehead by a
horizontal mark.... Is it strange that they regarded with reverence the
great mystery of human birth? Were _they_ impure thus to regard it? Or
are we impure that we do _not_ so regard it? We have travelled far, and
unclean have been the paths, since those old Anchorites first spoke of
God and the soul in the solemn depths of their first sanctuaries. Let
us not smile at their mode of tracing the infinite and incomprehensible
Cause throughout all the mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast
the shadow of our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity.”
Many are the scholars who have tried, to the best of their ability, to
do justice to old India. Colebrooke, Sir William Jones, Barthelemy St.
Hilaire, Lassen, Weber, Strange, Burnouf, Hardy, and finally Jacolliot,
have all brought forward their testimony to her achievements in
legislation, ethics, philosophy, and religion. No people in the world
have ever attained to such a grandeur of thought in ideal conceptions
of the Deity and its offspring, MAN, as the Sanscrit metaphysicians and
theologians. “My complaint against many translators and Orientalists,”
says Jacolliot, “while admiring their profound knowledge is, that _not
having lived in India_, they fail in exactness of expression and in
comprehension of the _symbolical_ sense of poetic chants, prayers, and
ceremonies, and thus too often fall into material errors, whether of
translation or appreciation.”[870] Further, this author who, from a
long residence in India, and the study of its literature, is better
qualified to testify than those who have never been there, tells us
that “the life of several generations would scarce suffice merely {584}
to read the works that ancient India has left us on history, ethics
(_morale_), poetry, philosophy, religion, different sciences, and
medicine.” And yet Louis Jacolliot is able to judge but by the few
fragments, access to which had ever depended on the complaisance
and friendship of a few Brahmans with whom he succeeded in becoming
intimate. Did they show him _all_ their treasures? Did they explain
to him _all_ he desired to learn? We doubt it, otherwise he would not
himself have judged their religious ceremonies so hastily as he has
upon several occasions merely upon circumstantial evidence.