mighty and progressive error, is strongly exemplified in the fundamental
doctrine of the ancient religion of Persia--a doctrine which was at
first nothing more than a simple veneration of Nature, its pure elements
and its primary energies--the sacred fire, and above all, light--the
air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and higher air of
heaven--the breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life.
In India, too, this doctrine must have been very prevalent in the
primitive ages; for many and very ancient passages of the Vedas refer to
these elements, while on the other hand, the names of the later Hindoo
divinities appear to have been entirely unknown at that period. This
pure and simple veneration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and
was by far the most generally prevalent in the primitive and Patriarchal
world. In its original conception, it was by no means a deification of
Nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God--it was only at a later
period that the symbol, as it so often happens, was confounded with the
thing itself, and usurped the place of that higher Object which it was
destined originally to represent. And how can we doubt that these pure
elements and primitive essences of created Nature would offer to the
first men, who were still in a close communication with the Deity, not
indeed a likeness or resemblance (for in man alone is that to be found),
nor a mere fanciful image, or a poetical figure, but a natural and true
symbol of divine power;--how can we doubt this, I say, when we see that,
in so many passages of Holy Writ (not to say in every part), the pure
light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-pervading and
all-consuming power and omnipotence of God? Not to speak again of those
passages of scripture, which describe the animating breath and
inspiration of God as the first source of life, and speak of the gentle
breath, the light whisper of the breeze that announced to the prophet
the immediate presence of his God, before whom he fell prostrate, and
mantled himself in awe and reverence; and this surely cannot be
understood as a poetical and figurative expression! Undoubtedly the
scriptures often oppose to that natural emblem or veil of divine power,
in the pure elements, an evil, subterraneous and destructive fire--the
false light of the fiends of error--the poisonous breath of moral
contagion. And how could it be otherwise? Nature in its origin was
nought else than a beautiful image--a pure emanation--a wonderful
creation--a sport of omnipotent love; so, when it was severed from its
divine original, internally displaced, and turned against its Maker, it
became vitiated in its substance, and fraught with evil. This alienation
of Nature from God, this inversion of the right order in the relations
between God and Nature, was the peculiar, essential and fundamental
error of ancient Paganism, its false Mysteries, and the abusive
application of the higher powers of Nature in magical rites. On the
other hand, we ought to regard every similar inversion of things and of
ideas, every similar derangement in the divine system, though
established on the basis of Christianity, and by Christian
philosophers--we ought, I say, to regard every such attempt as being in
its essential nature and principle a heathen enterprise--the foundation
of a scientific Paganism, although no altars be erected to Apollo, and
no Mysteries be celebrated in honour of Isis.[61]
The pure symbolism of Nature, and the whole circle of the primitive
symbolical ideas of the Egyptians, several of the Greek writers
attempted to gather out of the mass of idolatrous tenets, natural
emblems, and hieroglyphic signs of speech; but their researches do not
correspond to the importance of the subject itself, nor to the present
demands of science. It is well worthy of remark that the hieroglyphics,
as far as they have yet been deciphered, do not indicate in their
formation that variety of epochs observable in the Chinese system of
writing; but on the contrary they seem to be all of a single cast, and
offer the same circle of ideas and the same style of emblems. And as
images of Gods are to be found in a diminutive form among the other
hieroglyphic signs, we may conclude from this circumstance, that all the
hieroglyphics must have had a simultaneous origin, and have remained
subsequently unchanged; and that their origin must have occurred at a
time when the Egyptian idolatry had already been wrought into a perfect
system.
In the primitive ages, during the first thirty-three centuries of the
world, according to the ordinary computation, the various nations into
which mankind were divided, followed in their development a separate and
secluded course; and two mighty nations, the Indians and the Chinese,
have remained to this day in this isolated and totally sequestered
state. The peculiar character which distinguishes the second from the
first epoch of the world is that, along with the first mighty conquests,
there existed a much closer connection, a mutual influence, an active
commerce, and various intercourse among many nations, nay, among all the
nations of the then civilized world. From this period, when the
intercourse among nations becomes more intimate, History acquires
greater clearness, precision, and critical exactness; and this is only
six, or at most seven centuries before the Christian era. The first
Persian conquerors advanced with rapid strides towards the objects of
their ambition; for after the founder of the Persian empire--Cyrus, had
made himself master of the whole central region of Western Asia, as well
as of the Lesser Asia, his successes were soon followed up by the
conquest of Egypt by the arms of Cambyses; and a little subsequent to
this, by the great expedition of Xerxes into Greece, whose valiant
defenders, however, ruined his hopes of conquest. Egypt, which in its
intellectual character, civilization, and political institutions, had a
much stronger analogy and affinity with those two great primitive
states--India and China, shut out from the rest of the world, was
engaged in political relations with the nations of Western Asia, and
those inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean, such as the Persians,
the Phoenicians, and the Greeks; and hence a short sketch of its
political history, down to the period of the Persian conquest, as far at
least as is necessary for the elucidation of general history, will not
be here inappropriate or misplaced.
The long list of names of kings, belonging to more than twenty dynasties
of the ancient Pharaohs, furnishes indeed matter of little interest or
importance to the philosophic enquirer in his researches on universal
history. It is, however, worthy of remark that many and vast expeditions
appear to have been undertaken in the early ages of Egypt; though, while
mention is made of such conquests, nothing is said of the permanent
possession of the conquered countries. Sesostris, who, in the lifetime
of his father, Amenophis, had seized the whole coast of Arabia, next
vanquished, for the first time, Lybia and Ethiopia, afterwards extended
his conquests to Bactriana, subdued the Scythian nations in the
Caucasian countries, in Colchis, and as far as the Don, and even took
possession of Thrace. The descent of the Colchians from the Egyptians,
or the existence of an Egyptian colony in Colchis, was regarded by the
ancients as an historical fact. The yet more ancient King Osymandas is
said to have undertaken an expedition, attended by an immense army, to
reconquer Bactriana that had revolted against the Egyptian sway; and the
triumphant arms of Osiris stretched on one hand as far as the Ganges,
and on the other as far as the sources of the Danube. Here a question
arises:--did the Egyptians possess heroic poems similar to the Ramayana
and Mahabarata of the Indians, and were these marvellous narratives
extracted from these poems? Or had all these narratives a signification
purely mythic, as we may easily conjecture to be the case in the
expedition of Osiris? In those historical ages which are better known to
us, Egypt was certainly never a conquering power--at least its conquests
were never of a solid and permanent nature; though even in those times
Egypt made some transient conquests, or at least expeditions; and,
guilty of great political encroachments on other states and nations, was
often doomed to experience from these a vigorous resistance to her
attempts. A part of Libya, the coast of Arabia contiguous to the Red
Sea, and the Arabia Petraea, acknowledged for a long time the sceptre of
the Pharaohs, (and this fact indeed, the various monuments covered over
with hieroglyphics, which are found in those countries, would seem to
corroborate): Ethiopia, too, or at least a considerable portion of that
region, was for a long period in the possession of the Egyptian kings.
The construction of the many ancient and vast edifices and monuments
which are crowded together in the province of Thebais must, to all
appearance, have required a greater number of hands than the Proper
Egypt (a country by no means of considerable extent) could have
furnished of itself. As Ethiopia had been conquered by the Egyptians, so
the Ethiopians in their turn invaded Egypt, and founded there a royal
dynasty. The second of these Ethiopian kings, Tirhaka, sought to stretch
his conquests as far as Libya and the Northern coast of Africa, and must
have penetrated as far as the columns of Hercules, or the modern straits
of Gibraltar. On the other hand, there is historical evidence that even
the Carthaginians, at the time when the family of Mago had the
ascendancy in their state, conquered and took possession of the Egyptian
city of Thebes. The king of Egypt, who is known in the historical books
of the Hebrews by the name of Shishak, and who made the transient
conquest of Jerusalem, is called Sheshonk or Sesonchis in the ancient
inscriptions of the Pharaohs.
It is worthy of remark that we find, in the old Egyptian monuments,
pictures of war-scenes representing very strangely-formed, or at least
very remote, nations, as captives of war, and among these, we
distinguish some with red hair and blue eyes, tattooed on the legs,
perfectly corresponding to the descriptions which many ancients have
left us of the Scythian nations. At a much earlier period, a Nomade
tribe of Phoenician, or, most probably, Arabian descent, had taken
possession of the throne of Egypt, and had established in that country
the national dynasty of the Hycsos, that is to say, the Shepherd-kings.
Some have wished to connect these with the Israelites; but in the whole
history of the latter--the hospitable reception of the Hebrew colony
under Joseph--its subsequent oppression--and its final expulsion from
Egypt in the time of Moses, we can find no trace of any such dominion of
a pastoral nation of Hebrews, or of any dynasty founded by them in
Egypt; and even other circumstances agree not at all with such a
supposition. With the neighbouring nations and tribes, Egypt had
manifold and various relations, which, though in some particulars they
might be similar, were far from being identical. If it is proved that
Sesostris ascended the throne immediately after his father had succeeded
in expelling the Hycsos, it may fairly be presumed that as an internal
revolt against a foreign power and a foreign dynasty is wont to enkindle
a spirit of martial enthusiasm, which easily leads to ulterior and more
vigorous undertakings; the expeditions and conquests of Sesostris,
though ever so much exaggerated, are not entirely destitute of
historical foundation. Thus much is certain, that in antiquity there
existed in many places, comparatively remote from Egypt, whole colonies,
especially of a sacerdotal kind, whose origin was undoubtedly Egyptian;
and that the first colonies which carried arts and civilization into
Greece, and the other countries bordering on the Mediterranean; did not
come solely from Phoenicia; for even in Greece, the genealogy of many
royal families and ancient cities, as well as most, if not all, the
Mysteries, particularly the Orphic, pointed to Egypt as their common
parent. And it is very possible that in those early ages, in which these
Egyptian expeditions are said to have been undertaken, armed colonies
may have emigrated from Egypt, not always influenced however by those
commercial views which invariably directed the colonists of Phoenicia;
but animated by those higher motives of religion, which, for example,
had such an evident influence on the first Persian conquests--by a
desire to diffuse the Mysteries, and thereby, while they bound to Egypt
the then still barbarous nations of the West, to raise the latter to the
more exalted scale of Egyptian civilization. Even domestic troubles and
civil discord may have been instrumental in producing those distant
emigrations, which at this distance of time appear to us so mysterious
and unaccountable. Such civil discord indeed existed in Egypt under
various forms. The country itself was often divided into several
kingdoms; and even when united, we observe a great conflict of interests
between the agricultural province of Upper Egypt, and the commercial and
manufacturing province of the Lower; as indeed a similar clashing of
interests is often to be noticed in modern states. In the period
immediately preceding the Persian conquest, the caste of warriors, that
is to say, the whole class of nobility were decidedly opposed to the
monarchs, because they imagined them to promote too much the power of
the priesthood; in the same way as the history of India presents a
similar rivalry or political hostility between the Brahmins and the
caste of the Cshatriyas. In the reign of the Egyptian king Psammetichus,
who had first checked or repelled the Scythian nations whose victorious
arms then menaced the whole of Asia, this disaffection of the native
nobility obliged this prince to take Greek soldiers into his pay; and
thus at length was the defence of Egypt intrusted to an army of foreign
mercenaries. This circumstance, as well as the great commercial
intercourse with the Greeks, and the number of Greek settlements in
Lower Egypt, had made this province half Greek even prior to the Persian
conquest; and had paved the way, and opened the door, to this, as well
as to the later, conquest by the Greeks: for, in general, states and
kingdoms, before they succumb to a foreign conqueror, are, if not
outwardly and visibly, yet secretly and internally undermined.
The classical writers of antiquity begin in general their universal
history by an account of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, which preceded
the Medo-Persian, and the annals of the early mythic ages of this empire
are embellished with the fabulous victories of Semiramis; as similar
fictions indeed are to be found in the primitive Sagas of all the other
Asiatic nations. However, the conquest of Media by Ninus, appears to be
more historical. The simplest, and for that reason, the most correct
view of the subject is this, that in this great central region of
Western Asia, four countries were contiguous, which often formed
separate empires--Babylon and Assyria, Media and Persia; and which, when
united, were governed sometimes by one, sometimes by another province,
according to the country to which the ruling dynasty belonged; while the
different capitals of these four countries, Babylon, Ninive, Ecbatana,
Susa, or Persepolis alternately formed during their flourishing period
the centre of a great empire. This first Assyro-Babylonian universal
monarchy, as it is called, should not be considered as a distinct period
of history, but rather as the most ancient dynasty of a great Asiatic
empire, which was succeeded by a second, the Medo-Persian dynasty; in
the same way as the successors of Alexander the Great founded in this
very country a new Greek kingdom, and as at a later period the
Parthians, whose original seat lay to the North-east, re-established in
this land a native sovereignty, that proved very formidable to the
Romans. This great middle country of Western Asia is the native seat of
conquest; it was hence that emanated the spirit of ambition and
enterprise, which found indeed in the very situation of the country most
extraordinary facilities. And it is here, too, that Holy Writ places the
abode of the first universal conqueror--the cradle of all ambition and
conquest. In the very place where the ancient Babylon stood there are
now immense ruins, to which the inhabitants of the country give the name
of Nimrod's castle, and which involuntarily bring to the modern
traveller's mind the old history of the Tower of Babel; as these ruins
in all probability formed a part of the great temple of Belus, which in
eight lofty stories rose to a prodigious height, and on the pinnacle
whereof stood a colossal idol of the National Divinity--the sun. Even
now the ruins of this temple, piled in immense heaps one upon the other,
and which seem as if glazed by some raging fire, produce a very profound
impression on the mind; and to such a height do they rise that the
clouds rest on their summit above, while lions couch on the walls, or
haunt the caverns below. Here, too, we look for the place where were the
vast terraces, with their hanging or floating gardens, as the ancients
called them, and which in a country by no means abounding in wood, the
Assyrian monarch constructed from affection to his Median spouse. Here
the widely scattered heaps and mounds of brick, inscribed with the
cuneal characters of Babylon, attest the existence and vast
circumference of the mighty capital, of whose dimensions no European
city, but the Asiatic cities only, can furnish an adequate idea. This
Babylonish tower has been in every age a figure of the heaven-aspiring
edifice of lordly arrogance, which sooner or later is sure to be struck
down and scattered afar by the arm of the divine Nemesis; and in Holy
Writ itself, the Babylon giddied by the intoxicating cup of ambition,
drunk with the blood of nations, is a mighty historical emblem,
applicable to every age from the earliest to the latest times, of the
mad, people-destroying career of a Pagan pride. Here did the evil
commence, although the first Assyrian empire had no very extensive
influence on the nations westward, and although the real epoch of
universal conquest dates from the Persian Cyrus. Yet the ancient Babylon
contrived to maintain her power, for, as has so often been exemplified
in history, she, by the moral contagion of her voluptuous manners,
conquered her conquerors, who abandoned the gods of their ancestors, to
embrace the sensual nature-worship of the Babylonians. In the new
monarchy founded by Cyrus, the Persians (now the ruling nation) were
closely united and politically, at least, incorporated with the once
more powerful Medes. Yet their race and language were originally very
different, and even at a later period we can still observe some traces
of mutual jealousy in a change of dynasty, or the forcible dethronement
of the prince. The institute of the Magi, which Cyrus established in his
new Persian empire, served outwardly at least, to cement this union; for
the Magi were of the Median race, and their sacred zend-books were not
composed in the Persian language, but in two distinct dialects of Media,
if one indeed were not rather Bactrian. The Magi were not so much an
hereditary sacerdotal caste, as an order or association divided into
various and successive ranks and grades, such as existed in the
Mysteries--the grade of apprenticeship--that of mastership--that of
perfect mastership. Foreigners could not easily gain admission into this
sacerdotal order; and it was only at the express solicitation of the
King of Persia, at whose court he resided, that this extraordinary
favour was accorded to Themistocles. Whether the old Persian doctrine
and _system of light_[62] did not undergo material alterations in the
hands of its Median restorer, Zoroaster; or whether this doctrine were
preserved in all its purity by the order of the Magi, may well be
questioned. It is certain at least that that primitive veneration of
nature is found completely disfigured and corrupted in the small
existing remnant of the sect of Guebers or fire-worshippers.
On the order of the Magi devolved the important trust of the monarch's
education--a trust which must necessarily have given them great weight
and influence in the state. They were in high credit at the
_Persiangates_--for that was the oriental name given to the capital of
the empire, and the abode of the prince; and they took the most active
part in all the factions that encompassed the throne, or that were
formed in the vicinity of the court. In Greece, and even in Egypt, the
sacerdotal fraternities and associations of initiated, formed by the
Mysteries, had in general but an indirect, though not unimportant,
influence on affairs of state; but in the Persian monarchy they acquired
a complete political ascendency. The next main pillar of the Persian
monarchy was its nobility, or the principal race of the Pasargads, who
immediately surrounded the throne, enjoyed the highest prerogatives, and
formed indeed the flower of the Persian army. The strict moral and
military education which this nobility received, and of which Xenophon
has drawn such a beautiful ideal sketch, constituted the chief strength
of the state. And certainly the neglect of this old Persian system of
education was one of the primary causes of the decline of the empire--a
decline which the progressive relaxation and corruption of public morals
accelerated with a fearful rapidity. After the first mighty impulse, and
that severe moral character which Cyrus had imparted to Persia, had
disappeared, the same fate befel this empire, as has befallen all the
great oriental monarchies. The same evils, which the domination of
provincial Satraps--a government of the Seraglio--invariably bring along
with it--the factions, the conspiracies, the changes of dynasty, and the
other disorders incident to despotism, appear in exactly similar colours
in the Persian annals; and even in the modern kingdom of Persia, we find
many of those characteristic traits or usages of Asiatic government, as
they existed in the ancient empire. Even the army for the most part
consisted of troops levied out of the conquered nations, and the greater
were its numbers, the less internal union did it possess. Hence we can
well conceive that a small army of Greeks, animated by patriotic valour,
and commanded by generals possessed of a true tactical eye and genius,
were able to oppose to the immense hosts of Persia a resistance which in
a numerical point of view, appears almost incredible, and were even
enabled to gain unexpected victories over their enemies. We can conceive
too, how in the time of Alexander the Great, three battles should have
decided the fate of this great empire; for its moral life and energy
were gone, and the pillars of the state were completely decayed.
The Persian empire lasted but for the short period of two hundred and
twenty years, from its foundation by Cyrus to the reign of the last
Darius, whose personal character and fate leave such an affecting and
tragical impression on our minds. The universal conquests of the
Persians, rapid, but transient, acted on the age with all the violence
of the elemental powers of nature. Sudden and rapid, like a wind-storm,
they invaded and subdued all other states and kingdoms;--the expedition
of Xerxes into Greece was a real inundation of nations--and as the
destructive fire, after blazing on high and desolating and consuming all
things around, sinks quickly again--it was so with the Persian empire.
The dominion of the Persians exerted no very permanent influence on
those other nations whose civilization was anterior to their own. Egypt,
in despite of the violent persecution which she sustained under
Cambyses, remained still the ancient Egypt--and with yet greater
fidelity did she cling to her ancient customs, under the milder sway of
the Ptolemies, whose government was so much more congenial to her spirit
and character. Phoenicia, Palestine, and Asia Minor, also remained
essentially unchanged. In an historical point of view, the main result
of the Persian conquests was this--they brought the nations of Western
Asia and of Egypt into a close contact, and a very active and permanent
intercourse with the states of Greece, and those situated on the shores
of the Mediterranean. The Persian dominion, and the contest of that
power with Greece, had indeed a very great, though only indirect,
influence on the latter country, inasmuch as it favoured the growth and
development of Grecian liberty, and at a later period produced the great
re-action under Alexander the Great. This Greek re-action was in its
spirit and character somewhat similar to the previous irruption and
ambitious invasion of the Persians; in Alexander at least, we can
clearly discover an oriental spirit that, not content with the narrow
boundaries of his hereditary kingdom of Macedon, sought to transcend the
sphere of Hellenic civilization, Hellenic doctrines, and Hellenic modes
of thinking. And I call that an Asiatic enthusiasm which, with
resistless impetuosity, bore away the Macedonian to the capital of
Persia, and even beyond the banks of the Indus.
END OF LECTURE VII.
LECTURE VIII.