The Origin of the Cabbalistae; the Chaldeans, and their Antagonism to
Patriarchal Tradition.--The Hand-writing on Belshazzar's Wall.--The
Secret Writings of the Cabbalistae.--How Daniel read the
Same.--Ezra.--The Origin of the Masoretic Text.--Zoroaster.--His
Reformation and Reconstruction of the Religion of the
Magi.--Pythagoras, and his "League."--The Thugs.--The Druids.
So far as the children of Shem and Japheth are concerned, it is believed
true religion was preserved, except where tradition became adulterated with
extraneous matter. And for the preservation of that religion, Almighty God,
in his mercy, established of that lineage a certain race, with rules,
partly signifying his truth, partly merely political, which should
thereafter shine as a moral light to the world, no matter how dim the light
might be, through the imperfection of human nature under peculiar
circumstances of temptation or otherwise.
Here, at once, was an antagonism with the pagan religion, which was of the
children of Ham, under his father's patriarchal curse.
When Moses, the servant with the watchword, "I AM THAT I AM," presented
himself to the Shemitic and {42} Japhetic races, he was everywhere received
and acknowledged by them as their leader, in opposition to both the
temporal and theological power of the Magi and of Pharaoh.
Here came the clashing between pagan and traditional theology preserved by
the patriarchs. And Almighty God, to show the truth of his laws, sanctioned
their promulgation by signs and miracles, which the Magi could not equal
nor counteract.
Pass by the Israelitish history until the loss and destruction of the first
temple, when we find this religious race, although imbued with the
principles of truth, fallen from their high estate, and led captive into a
strange land, subject to the very people that insisted on the opposite of
their own religion. They were then under the control of a monarch who was
governed by the laws of the Medes and Persians, that is, of the Magi; and
who, in turn, relied upon their emperor, who trusted only to his magicians,
sorcerers, and Chaldeans. They were in BABYLON itself.
To confirm what has been said, and to elucidate what is to follow, we will
pause a moment to learn what is meant by "the Chaldeans."
The accounts that have been transmitted to us by the Chaldeans themselves
of the antiquity of their learning, are blended with fable, and involved in
considerable uncertainty. At the time when Callisthenes was requested by
Aristotle to gain information concerning the origin of science in Chaldea,
he was {43} informed that the ancestors of the Chaldeans had continued
their astronomical observations through a period of 470,000 years; but upon
examining the ground of this report, he found that the Chaldean observation
reached no further backward than 1,903 years, or that, of course (adding
this number to 331, B.C., the year in which Babylon was taken by
Alexander), they had commenced in the year 2,234, B.C. Besides, Ptolemy
mentions no Chaldean observations prior to the era of Nabonassar, which
commenced 747 years B.C. Aristotle, however, on the credit of the most
ancient records, speaks of the Chaldean Magi as prior to the Egyptian
priests, who, it is well known, cultivated learning before the time of
Moses. It appears probable that the philosophers of Chaldea were the
priests of the Babylonian nation, who instructed the people in the
principles of religion, interpreted its laws, and conducted its ceremonies.
Their character was similar to that of the Persian Magi, and they are often
confounded by the Greek historians. Like the priests in most other nations,
they employed religion in subserviency to the ruling powers, and made use
of imposture to serve the purposes of civil policy. Accordingly Diodorus
Siculus relates (lib. ii., p. 31, compared with Daniel ii. 1, &c., Eccles.
xliv. 3) that they pretended to predict future events by divination, to
explain prodigies, interpret dreams, and avert evils or confer benefits by
means of augury and incantations. For many ages they {44} retained a
principal place among diviners. In the reign of Marcus Antoninus, when the
emperor and his army, who were perishing with thirst, were suddenly
relieved by a shower, the prodigy was ascribed to the power and skill of
the Chaldean soothsayers. Thus accredited for their miraculous powers, they
maintained their consequence in the courts of princes. (See Cic. de Divin.
l. i., Strabo l. xv.--Sext. Emp. adv. Matt. l. v. Sec. 2, Aul. Gell. l. xiv.
s. 1, Strabo l.c.) The mysteries of Chaldean philosophy were revealed only
to a select few, and studiously concealed from the multitude; and thus a
veil of sanctity was cast over their doctrine, so that it might more easily
be employed in the support of civil and religious tyranny. The sum of the
Chaldean cosmogony, as it is given in Syncellus (Chronic. p. 28), divested
of allegory is, that in the beginning all things consisted of darkness and
water; that BELUS, or a divine power, dividing this humid mass formed the
world, and that the human mind is an emanation from the divine nature.
(Perizon. in Orig. Bab. Voss. de Scient. Math. c. xxx. Sec. 5. Hottinger Hist.
Or. p. 365. Herbelot Bib. Or. Voc. Zor. Anc. Un. Hist. vol. iii. Prid.
Conn. b. iv. Shuckford, b. viii. Burnet Archaeol. Phil. l. i. c. 4.
Brucker's Hist. Phil., by Enfield, vol. i. b. i, c. 3.)[44]
Now, we read that, "in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar,
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed {45} dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and
his sleep brake from him. Then the king commanded to call the magicians,
and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to show the
king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king."[45] But when by
the king required not only to interpret but to reveal the very phantasm
itself, they declared it beyond the power of their own or human art.
Daniel, however, of the captive race, revealed it by supernal influence.
Then did the monarch admit as to Deity, that God (JAH, Ps. lxviii. v. 4)
was God of gods (_Baalim_, the representations of Baal).[46] His second
dream was again only understood by the inspired representative of the
Hebrews. But when, finally, appeared the stupendous handwriting on the
wall, and when Belshazzar and his court were overwhelmed with amazement, so
that "the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so
that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against
another, the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans,
and the soothsayers."[47] They came; but all in vain. Daniel interpreted
the hand-writing at sight, and his reading proved true. Some theories
prevail about this, which, whether correct or not, are entitled to be
understood and considered. They have, at least, direct reference to our
subject of secret instruction and writing.
{46}
The wonderful miracles of God at the exodus did not prevent that nation
from repeated lapse into paganism, and acts of open disobedience to the
Theocratic law. Still less were they debarred thereby the mere oriental
customs of imparting moral instruction in secret associations, or the
pursuit of science in hidden confraternities. But the train of thought and
instruction in the Hebrew societies was singularly pure, and directly at
variance with the mysteries of paganism. While the whole result of the
teaching of the heathen mysteries was to represent, symbolically, the
fructifying energies of nature (which they supposed to be the sum of both
science and theology), that of the Israelites was the inculcation alone of
virtue, the acquisition of science, and the preservation of the name of
Deity under peculiar forms and ceremonies, the recognition of which by
members of the initiated, opened from one to the other every heart in
perfect confidence, constantly reminding them of their duty to him as well
as to each other. The whole system of oriental instruction, save that
proclaimed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, was secret. Even the name of Deity
could not be pronounced except at low breath, or in a whisper, under
prescribed forms. Has the reader ever asked himself the meaning of the
passage in the Lord's Prayer, "_Hallowed be thy name_?" The Hebrews had a
visible manifestation of God. That was not the only object of reverence. It
was limited {47} not to any manifestation, but to the _name_ of Deity. And
that teaching has received the express recognition of our Saviour, by his
making it a part of the selections from the Jewish euchologies which form
his prayers. We profess to worship Deity in spirit and in truth. Do we
hallow his _name_? Mere abstinence from profanation is a negative duty. How
must it be hallowed? That is a positive duty. Christianity, rejecting the
Hebrew form, regards this as a mere Hebraism, substituting the name for the
being himself. The Israelites do not: and one secret society still
existing, whose origin we shall trace in this essay, still preserves the
Hebraistic sanctification of the original holy name as their form of
recognition of each other, under solemnities which hallow it.
We know that Moses[48] "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and
was mighty in words and deeds." At his day pagan hieratic and hieroglyphic
symbols only were written on papyrus, or carved and engraved on stone.
Take, then, the fact, that the Hebrew patriarchs and their tribes of his
time were suffering under the persecution of hard task-masters in Egypt.
How could their patriarchs teach to their classes the lessons of virtue and
morality? We can readily suppose at the conclusion of a toilsome day, when
all is dark, and tired nature would otherwise be at rest, he that had
patriarchal authority, at dead of night, when {48} their pagan rulers could
not hear, and while due guard was kept, whether on high hills, or in low
vales, would summon together those who were worthy TO RECEIVE instruction
in moral science, virtue, and their patriarchal traditions, and
there--taking as emblems their instruments of daily toil--preserve the
lessons which thus alone could be imparted. This we believe to be the
origin of the CABBALISTS, or _Kabbalistae_, a secret society among the
Hebrews, whose origin is lost in antiquity, yet whose knowledge may, under
God's blessing, have been an instrument in accomplishing his great results.
Their very name is derived from the Hebrew word [Hebrew: QBL] (Cabbala, "to
receive"). This society of Cabbalistae, had various methods of secret
writing. Their first was the scriptura coelestis; the second, that of
angels, or kingly or dominant power; the third, that of the passage of the
flood (_Scriptura transitus fluvii_). Breithaupt[49] says: "It is to be
recollected, that the more ancient of the Kabbalistae, studied out even a
secret method of writing, consisting of four lines intersecting each other
at right angles, forming a square in the middle, {49} after the following
method. The figure of the four lines is thus:--
| |
shin lamed gimel | resh kaph beth | qoph yod aleph
| |
--------------------------------------------------
| |
mem* samekh vav | kaph* nun he | tav mem daleth
| |
--------------------------------------------------
| |
tsade* tsade tet | pe* pe chet | nun* ayin zayin
|
In each section three letters they place from right to left. When,
therefore, they intend the first of the three, they write the figure of
that section in which it is found, with one point ([Symbol: L with one
dot]). If another (or the next), the same figure with two points ([Symbol:
L with two dots]); if the third, the same again with three points ([Symbol:
L with three dots]), and so on. But the Cabbalistae had also a simpler
writing: "The sublime philosophy of those who are called the Kabbala,
embraces within itself different kinds to which the following appertain. In
their most famous magic pamphlet _Rasiel_, which the Kabbalistae hold in
great respect, in the first place three secret alphabets are read, which,
in many things, are wanting in the common form and syntax of usual Hebrew.
The first is called _Scriptura coelestis_ (the writing of heaven); the
next, [Hebrew: ML'KYM] or [Hebrew: MLKYM], that is, of angels or kings
(_angelorum sive regum_); and the third the writing of the crossing of the
flood."[50] There {50} are extant also, drawings of these letters preserved
by Hern. Corn. Agrippa, in his work "_De Occult. Phil._ lib. iii. c. 30,"
the copying of which would be merely matter of curiosity to no end.
But Breithaupt goes much further, and refers to a book, "In Oenigmatibus
Judaeorum Religiosissimis. Helmst. 1708, editio, p. 49," wherein he
says,[51] that Herm. Vonder Hardt, the most celebrated philologist of our
age, remembers two singular alphabets used by the Jews in preparing their
amulets. The first is {51} when the next succeeding is substituted for the
preceding letter in every instance, as to wit: [Hebrew: B] for [Hebrew: '],
[Hebrew: G] for [Hebrew: B], and so forth. They are said to have concealed
in this manner their recognition of the one true God, which they recite
daily, early and toward evening, and as to which they persuade themselves
that it is the most efficacious safeguard against idolatry, fortified
wherewith they can not lapse from true to false religion. The other secret
alphabet consisted in this, that in inversed order they change the last
letter [Hebrew: T] with the first [Hebrew: '], and this and another in
turn, and so on through the rest, which inversion it is the custom to call
[Hebrew: 'TBSH]. From this they produce, by such letters, in their more
elaborate amulets, the noted symbol [Hebrew: MTSPTS], which is nothing else
than the name of God, [Hebrew: YHWH]. St. Jerome,[52] a celebrated father
of the early church, contends that the prophet Jeremiah used this kind of
writing, and not to irritate the king of Babylon against the Hebrews, for
king, [Hebrew: BBL], said [Hebrew: SHSHK]. But some, also, among the Jews,
declare that these words in Daniel,
[Hebrew: MN' MN' TQL WPRSYN,]
which, at the supper of the King Belzhazzar miraculously appeared upon the
wall, to the astonishment of all, were written in this mode; and hence
think this artificial transposition of letters originated with God. But
these things are to be passed by as {52} uncertain. If this last be true,
the handwriting on the wall would have appeared thus:
[Hebrew: YT`T YT`T 'RB PWGCHMT`][53]
But according to the first system referred to, the following would have
been the appearance.[54]
[Illustration]
(See Conf. Jan. Hercvles de Svnde in Steganologia, lib. v., num. 4., p.
148. seqq.)
If the society of Kabbalistae originated among the Israelites as early as
the time of Moses, their secret writings must having been only known to him
and few besides, with their successors. Solomon, to whom Almighty God
declared "wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee,"[55] must have learned
them; or, if it originated with him, Daniel and Ezra, who lived in a
succeeding age; after the great temple had been destroyed, during the
captivity, and at the rebuilding of the second temple, both inspired
servants of God, equally knew them; and when the inscriptions on the wall,
or on the ark, or in the sacred rolls, were lost and unknown to the people,
they were easily deciphered by means of the knowledge of the Kabbalistic
character, no matter what its form. Thus when Daniel saw the handwriting on
{53} the wall he read it at once, possessed as he may have been of the
knowledge how to read that cipher, while it can readily be seen why the
Magi of Chaldea, and of Media and Persia, were at fault. It was a secret
writing of the Hebrews, known only to the select few. Ezra, in the reign of
Artaxerxes, king of Persia, "was chief-priest. This Ezra went up from
Babylon, and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God
of Israel had given."[56] This was, then, no new matter to him. The book of
the law had been lost during the captivity. Yet, at the rebuilding of the
temple, Ezra was a ready scribe in that lost writing. As such he went up
from Babylon to Jerusalem.
The wisdom of God granted to Solomon, must have provided against the
foreseen loss of the sacred rolls, and determined a way for their
discovery, and the manner of reading them. The lost rolls were brought
forth by Ezra, and were read, notwithstanding the ignorance of their
ancient language. In what way, so consistent with reason, as by his
understanding the secret writing known only to the learned of that
race--the hidden scripture and instruction of a mysterious society, whose
only teaching was pure, in accordance with the divine commands of the
theocracy, and with the oriental manner of instruction in matters of
science and morality? Did this not furnish him a key to the original text?
The words of {54} the one must have been recognised by their original use
in application to the reading of the other; and though the language may
have changed, the old cipher must have interpreted all. We learn that,
"after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all,
which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round
about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod
that budded, and the tables of the covenant," were entered.[57]
The book (or rolls) of the law was commanded to be put within the ark.[58]
The end of laying it there was, that it, as the original, might be reserved
there as the authentic copy, by which all others were to be corrected and
set right.[59] Prideaux contends that, the ark deposited in the second
temple was only a representative of a former ark on the great day of
expiation, and to be a repository of the Holy Scriptures, that is, of the
original copy of that collection which was made of them after the
captivity, by Ezra and the men of the great synagogue; for when this copy
was perfected, it was then laid up in it. And in imitation hereof, the
Jews, in all their synagogues, have a like ark or coffer,[60] of the same
size or form, in which they keep the Scriptures belonging to the {55}
Synagogue; and whence they take it out with great solemnity, whenever they
use it, and return it with the like when they have done with it. What
became of the old ark, on the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar,
is a dispute among the Rabbins. The Jews--and herein they are supported by
the traditions of the most ancient secret society on earth--contend that it
was hid and preserved, by Jeremiah, say some, out of the second book of
Maccabees.[61] But most of them will have it, that King Josiah, being
foretold by Huldah, the prophetess, that the temple would speedily, after
his death, be destroyed, caused the ark to be put in a vault under ground,
which Solomon, foreseeing this destruction, had caused of purpose to be
built for the preserving of it. And, for the proof hereof, they produce the
text where Josiah commands the Levites[62] to put the holy ark in the
house, "which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, did build."[63]
Whether within or without the ark, or within a secret vault or not, EZRA,
the scribe, brought forth the lost book or rolls of the law, and
established the rules for its future perpetuity, whether by writing, or in
oral explanation. And here, again, we note the use of secrecy in matters of
power. From him is derived the present method of reading Hebrew, by what is
usually known as the {56} vowel points in the Masoretic text. The Masorites
were a set of men whose profession it was to write out copies of the Hebrew
Scriptures. And the present vowel points were used by them, as derived from
the secret writings of the Cabbalists. The Jews believe that, when God gave
to Moses the law in Mount Sinai, he taught him first the true readings of
it; and, secondly, the true interpretation of it; and that both these were
handed down, from generation to generation, by oral tradition only, till at
length the readings were written by the accents and vowels, in like manner
as the interpretations were, by the Mishna and Gemara. The former they call
Masorah, which signifieth "tradition." The other is called Cabbala, which
signifieth "reception;" but both of them denote the same thing, that is, a
knowledge down from generation to generation, in the doing of which, there
being tradition on the one hand, and reception on the other, that which
relates to the readings of the Hebrew Scriptures hath its name from the
former, and that which relates to the interpretations of them from the
latter. As those who studied and taught the Cabbala were called the
Cabbalists, so those who studied and taught the Masorah were called the
Masorites. As the whole business of the Cabbalists and Masorites was the
study of the true reading of the Hebrew Scriptures, to preserve and teach
the proper text, they certainly are justly held the most likely to have
invented, or at least {57} received and preserved these vowel points,
because the whole use of these points is to serve to this purpose.[64]
About this time, in the reign of Darius, otherwise Artaxerxes, who sent
Ezra and Nehemiah to Jerusalem to restore the state of the Jews, first
appeared in Persia the famous prophet of the Magi, whom the Persians call
Zerdusht, or Zaratush, and the Greeks Zoroastres: born of mean and obscure
parentage, with all the craft and enterprising boldness of Mohammed, but
much more knowledge. He was excellently skilled in all the learning of the
East that was in his time; whereas the other could neither read nor write.
He was thoroughly versed in the Jewish religion, and in all the sacred
writings of the Old Testament that were then extant, which makes it most
likely that he was, in his origin, a Jew. It is generally said of him, that
he had been a servant to one of the prophets of Israel, and that it was by
this means that he came to be so well skilled in the Holy Scriptures, and
all other Jewish knowledge. From the collation of authorities made by Dr.
Prideaux,[65] it would seem that it was Daniel under whom he served;
besides whom there was not any other master in those times, under whom he
could acquire all that knowledge, both in things sacred and profane, which
he was so well furnished with. He founded no new {58} religion, but only
reformed the old one. He found that the eminent of the Magi usurped the
sovereignty after the death of Cambyses. But they were destroyed, and by
the slaughter which was then made of all the chief men among them, it sunk
so low, that it became almost extinct, and Sabianism everywhere prevailed
against it, Darius and most of his followers on that occasion going over to
it. But the affection which the people had for the religion of their
forefathers, and which they had all been brought up in, not being easily to
be rooted out, Zoroastres saw that the revival of this was the best game of
imposture that he could then play; and having so good an old stock to
engraft upon, he with greater ease made his new scions grow. He first made
his appearance in Media, now called Aderbijan, in the city of Xix, say
some; in that of Ecbatana, now Tauris, say others. The chief reformation
which he made in the Magian religion was in the first principles of it: for
whereas before they had held the being of TWO FIRST CAUSES, the first
light, or the good God, who was the author of all good; and the other
darkness, or the evil god, who was the author of all evil; and that of the
mixture of these two, as they were in a continual struggle with each other,
all things were made; he introduced a principle superior to them both, ONE
SUPREME GOD, who created both light and darkness, and out of these two,
according to the alone pleasure of his own will, made all things else that
are, according to what is {59} said:[66] "I am the Lord, and there is none
else, there is no God besides me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known
me: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that
there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the
light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do
all these things." These words, directed to Cyrus, king of Persia, must be
understood as spoken in reference to the Persian sect of the Magians, who
then held light and darkness, or good and evil, to be the supreme beings,
without acknowledging the great God who is superior to both. To avoid
making God the author of evil, Zoroaster's doctrine was, that God
originally and directly created only light or good, and that darkness, or
evil, followed it by consequence, as the shadow doth the person; that light
or good had only a real production from God, and the other afterward
resulted from it as the defect thereof. In sum, his doctrine as to this
particular was, that there was one Supreme Being, independent and
self-existent from all eternity. That under him were two angels, one the
angel of light, who is the author and director of all good; and the other
the angel of darkness, who is the author and director of all evil; and that
these two, out of the mixture of light and darkness, made all things that
are; that they are in a perpetual struggle with each other; and that when
the angel of light prevails, then the most {60} is good, and when the angel
of darkness prevails, then the most is evil; that this struggle shall
continue to the end of the world; that then there shall be a general
resurrection, and a day of judgment, wherein just retribution shall be
rendered to all according to their works, &c. And all this the remainder of
that sect, which is _now_ in Persia and India do, without any variation,
after so many ages still hold, even to this day. Another reformation which
he made in the Magian religion was, that he caused fire temples to be built
wherever he came: this being to prevent their sacred fires, on the tops of
hills, from being put out by storms, and that the public offices of their
religion might be the better performed before the people. Zoroaster
pretended he was taken up into heaven, there to be instructed in those
doctrines which he was to deliver unto men. Mohammed pretended to have seen
God. Zoroaster was too well informed for such imposture. He only claimed to
have heard him speaking to him out of the midst of a great and most bright
flame of fire; and he, therefore, taught his followers that fire was the
truest _shechinah_ of the divine presence. His followers thereafter
worshipped the sun as the most perfect fire of God. But this was an
original usage of the Magi (referred to in Ezekiel viii. 16), where it is
related, that the prophet being carried in a vision to Jerusalem, had there
shown him "about five-and-twenty men standing between the porch and the
altar, with {61} their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces
toward the east; and they worshipped the sun." The meaning of which is,
that they had turned their backs upon the true worship of God, and had gone
over to that of the Magians.[67] The _Kebla_, or point of the heavens
toward which they directed their worship being toward the rising sun, that
of the Jews in Jerusalem to the Holy of Holies on the west end of the
temple; of those elsewhere toward Jerusalem; of the Mohammedans toward
Mecca, and the Sabians toward the meridian.
Come whence it may, what is the meaning of the use of fire in any divine
worship?
1. Burnt-offerings of old required it.
2. It descended on the altars of Elijah, and of Solomon, from God himself.
3. The Magi, from the time of Zoroaster, have deemed it the symbol of
purity.
4. The pagan mysteries in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, all preserved the
"sacred fire." Most religions seem to have adopted its use. Why?
5. The Catholic church has ever preserved its use in burning tapers, lamps,
and smoking incense.
In his reformation of the customs and rites of the Magi, Zoroaster, as has
been hereinbefore said, preserved their three grades of APPRENTICES,
MASTERS, and PERFECT MASTERS.[68] The first were the inferior clergy, who
served in all the common offices of their {62} divine worship; next above
them were the superintendents, who in their several districts governed the
inferior clergy, as bishops do with us; and above all was the
perfect-master, the archimagus, who was the head of the whole religion.
Accordingly their places of worship were of three sorts. The lowest sort
were parochial oratories served by the inferior clergy, where they read the
daily offices out of their liturgy, and on solemn occasions read part of
their sacred writings to the people. In these churches there were no fire
altars; but the small scintilla of sacred fire preserved in them, was kept
only in a lamp. Next above these were their fire temples, in which fire was
continually burning on a sacred altar. The highest church of all was "_the
fire-temple_," the residence of the archimagus, first established by
Zoroaster at Balch, but removed in the seventh century to Kerman, a
province in Persia on the southern ocean. To gain the better reputation to
his pretensions, Zoroaster first retired to a cave, and there lived a long
time as a recluse, pretending to be abstracted from all earthly
considerations, and to be given wholly to prayer and divine meditations;
and the more to amuse the people who there resorted to him, he dressed up
his cave with several mystical figures, representing Mithra, and other
mysteries of their religion. In this cave he wrote his book, called
Zendavesta, or Zend, meaning "fire-kindler," or "tinder-box." This book
contains much borrowed {63} from the Old Testament. He even called it the
book of Abraham, and his religion the religion of Abraham; for he pretended
that the reformation which he introduced was no more than to bring back the
religion of the Persians to that original purity in which Abraham practised
it, by purging it of all those defects, abuses, and innovations, which the
corruptions of after-times had introduced into it.[69]
Is it not singular that all the nations of the earth still trace their
teaching in pure religion to Abraham, whether under the name of Brahma, or
otherwise?
These ancient Magi were great mathematicians, philosophers, and divines of
the ages in which they lived, and had no other knowledge but what by their
own study, and the instructions of the ancients of their sect they had
improved themselves in. All of the Magi were not thus learned, only those
of the higher order. The priesthood, like the Jewish, was communicated only
from father to son, except to the royal family,[70] whom they were bound to
instruct, the better to fit them for government. Whether it were that these
Magians thought it would bring the greater credit to them, or the kings,
that it would add a greater sacredness to their persons, or from both these
causes, the royal family of Persia, so long as the Magi prevailed among
them, was always reckoned {64} of the sacerdotal tribe.[71] The kings of
Persia were looked on to be of that sacerdotal order, and were always
initiated into the sacred rites of the Magians, before they took on them
the crown, or were inaugurated into the kingdom.[72]
PYTHAGORAS next assumed, in the west, the most prominent place for
learning. He was the scholar of Zoroaster at Babylon, and learned of him
most of that knowledge which afterward rendered him so famous. So saith
Apulcius (Floridorum secundo), and so say Jamblichus (in vita Pythag. c.
4), Porphyry (Ibid. p. 185. edit. Cant.), and Clemens Alexandrinus
(Stromata i. p. 223) for the Zabratus or Zaratus of Porphyry, and the
Na-Zaratus of Clemens, were none other than this Zoroaster; and they relate
the matter thus: that when Cambyses conquered Egypt he found Pythagoras
there on his travels, for the improvement of himself in the learning of
that country; that, having taken him prisoner, he sent him, with other
captives, to Babylon, where Zoroaster (or Zabratus, as Porphyry calls him)
then lived; and that he there became his disciple, and learned many things
of him in the eastern learning. There may be error as to date, but that
Pythagoras was at Babylon, and learned there a great part of that knowledge
which he was afterward so famous for, is agreed by {65} all. His stay
there, Jamblichus tells us, was twelve years; and that, in his converse
with the Magians, he learned from them arithmetic, music, the knowledge of
divine things, and the sacred mysteries pertaining thereto. But the most
important doctrine which he brought home thence, was that of the
immortality of the soul; for it was generally agreed among the ancients
(Porphysius in vita Pythagorae p. 188, edit., Cant. Jamblichus in vita Pyth.
c. 30), that he was the first of all the Greeks that taught it. Prideaux
says he takes this for certain, that Pythagoras had this from Zoroaster,
for it was his doctrine, and he is the earliest heathen on record who
taught it.[73] But Pythagoras seems to have combined the notions he then
received with those of the Egyptian Magi; for he taught immortality to
consist in constant transmigration from one body to another. The Egyptian
Magi claimed to be judges of the dead,[74] and taught this doctrine.
Zoroaster taught a resurrection from the dead, and an immortal state as we
understand it. And it is probable Pythagoras adopted this notion after he
fled from Samos to Egypt to escape from the government of Polycrates.
Be this as it may, he was a master-spirit in a secret society with its
lodges spread through Magna Graecia, originating in one he established at
Crotona in Lower Italy. Like that of the Cabbalists, this society had no
connection whatever with the dominant religion. {66} The Kabbalistae taught
virtue and science, and thus were, perhaps, an auxiliary, but certainly no
opponent to the sacred teachings of the holy law. The Pythagorean league
taught philosophy alone; full instruction was given in the liberal arts and
sciences in accordance with the learning of that age. But, after it was
thought destroyed (and it was suppressed by Cylon and his faction, about
the year 500 B.C.), it still exercised a great influence over all Greece,
in such manner as that Heeren speaks of it as a phenomenon which is in many
respects without a parallel. The grand object of the moral reform of
Pythagoras was SELF-GOVERNMENT. By his dignity, moral purity, dress, and
eloquence, he excited not only attention but enthusiasm. In that day an
aristocracy prevailed in Magna Graecia, based chiefly on the corrupting
tendencies of wealth and luxury. Against this class a popular movement
commenced, by the influence whereof Sybaris was destroyed, and thereupon
five hundred nobles fled for safety to Crotona, and prayed for protection
from that city, which they obtained principally by the advice of
Pythagoras. (Diod. Sic. xii. p. 77. Wechel.) Aristocratic evils he
abrogated. A friend of the people, he recognised their equal rights: and it
would seem that, while he adopted grades in knowledge and moral worth, he
considered mankind on "a level" so far as all political power was
concerned. To accomplish this end, he prescribed in his own society, and
their affiliated {67} lodges, or meetings, a certain manner of life,
distinguished by a most cleanly but not luxurious clothing, a regular diet,
a methodical division of time, part of which was to be appropriated to
one's self, and part to the state. Heeren remarks, that when a secret
society pursues political ends, it naturally follows that an opposing party
increases in the same degree in which the preponderating influence of such
a society becomes more felt. In this case, the opposition existed already
in the popular party. It therefore only needed a daring leader, like Cylon,
to scatter the society by violence; the assembly was surprised, and most of
them cut down, while a few only, with their master, escaped. They are said,
so far as their political views were concerned, to have regarded anarchy as
the greatest evil, because man can not exist without social order. They
held that everything depended on the relation between the governing and the
governed; that the former should be not only prudent but mild; and that the
latter should not only obey, but love their magistrates; that it was
necessary to grow accustomed, even in boyhood, to regard order and harmony
as beautiful and useful, disorder and confusion as hateful and injurious.
They were not blindly attached to a single form of government, but insisted
that there should be no unlawful tyranny. Where a regal government existed,
kings should be subject to the laws, and act only as the chief magistrates.
They regarded a {68} mixed constitution as the best, and where the
administration rested principally in the hands of the upper class, they
reserved a share of it for the people. The writings of the Pythagoreans
commanded high prices, but gained political importance only so far as they
contributed to the education of distinguished men, of whom Epaminondas was
one.[75]
Another scion of these methods of secret instruction, wherein, however,
religion was the engine of political power, came from the ancient Assyrian
stock with Phoenician emigration to Great Britain. The DRUIDS controlled
the learning of that country in religion as in science; and by their
mysteries exerted an overwhelming influence upon the rulers and the masses.
Dr. Parsons[76] says, what were the filids, and bards, and the Druids, but
professors of the sciences among the Gomerians, and Magogians or Scythians,
and it is plain that, from Phenius downward, there were always, in every
established kingdom among the Scythians, philosophers and wise men, who, at
certain times, visited the Greek sages, after they had found their schools?
It is no easy matter to point out the first rise and ages of the Druids.
They taught the same opinions of the renovated state of the earth, and of
souls, with the Magi. According to Caesar, in his time these Druids
instructed their youth in the {69} nature and motion of the stars, in the
theory of the earth, its magnitude, and of the world, and in the power of
the immortal gods. On the continent of Europe, he says, the Druids grew
into such power and ascendency over the minds of the people, that even the
kings themselves paid an implicit slavish obedience to their dictates;
insomuch, that their armies were brave in battle, or abject enough to
decline even the most advantageous prospects of success, according to the
arbitrary prognostics of this set of religious tyrants; and their decisions
became at last peremptory in civil, as well as in the affairs of religion.
One of the kings of Ireland, the learned _Carmac o' Quin_, great in law and
philosophy, who was not afraid to inveigh openly against the corruptions
and superstition of the Druids, and maintained, in his disputations against
them, that the original theology consisted in the worship of one
omnipotent, eternal Being, that created all things; that this was the true
religion of their ancestors; and that the numerous gods of the Druids were
only absurdity and superstition--proved fatal to him. For, as this society
saw an impending danger of their dissolution, they formed a deep conspiracy
against him, and he was murdered. The Druids on the continent never
committed their mysteries to writing, but taught their pupils _memoriter_.
The Irish and Scotch Druids wrote theirs, but in secret character. These
were well understood by the learned men who were in great numbers, and had
{70} not only genius but an ardent inclination to make researches into
science. St. Patrick, then, with the general consent and applause of the
learned of that day, committed to the flames almost two hundred tracts of
their pagan mysteries.[77] And with his day ended the last of druidical
superstition. The Druids preserved the mistletoe evergreen as an emblem of
nature's fructifying energy, and of immortality.
The Thugs, Assassins, Phanzigars, or by what other name they may be known,
were no society for the development of philosophy or religion; and,
although they began about this time, are unworthy of farther mention. Their
mysteries, if any, were only those of the highway robber, murderer, or
other violater of God's law. Their only secrecy was the concealment of
their crime.
* * * * *
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