drawing from antient sources, have supposed. Granting, then, that the premises respecting Jacob are correct, how does he describe the sign of Serapis? Thus; out of Ashur his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield Royal dainties. With this the blessing of Moses exactly coincides" and of Ashur he said, let him dip his feet in oil." And again the fountains of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine, and the Heavens shall drop down dew. Nor can it be doubted that a similar sign was alluded to in the Revelations. "And lo! a black horse; and he that sate upon him had a pair of balances in his hand, and I heard a voice, in the midst of the four beasts, saying-" a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." The symbols of the wheat measure, the scales, and the black horse, belonged alike to Pluto, Hesperus, and Serapis (17). Hesperus was called Lucifer. A connection is thus laid open with the dragon Lucifer of prophecy. Perhaps a few of the facts adduced might be allowed considerable weight; combined and recapitulated, they appear to me decisive of the question. But the faith of Flosculus, I fear, is hard of conquest. He demands ocular demonstration, and though, perhaps, some may indulge me by thinking my task already achieved, I will endeavour to supply him with the desideratum he requires. First, then, I refer him, not to our, but innumerable coins, gems, medals, and antiques of various nations (18), representing the original Pluto, the fiery Seraph or Serapis in Paradise, and twined round the Hesperian tree of life. Many of these antiques have the figure of Salus standing near the tree. On one in Maurice, from Tyre, there are two heaps of earth on each side the tree, at once representing man (omi, homo, Adam, Chthon, earth) and his tomb (19). On another Tyrian coin is Hercules attacking the great dragon with a stone. Spence gives one, with Salus on one side, and Hercules binding Cerberus, a type of Pluto, on the other. In another of Montfaucon, there are the same figures, with the exception of a MAN supporting a WOMAN in lieu of Salus. No one can doubt that these all refer to the last labour of Hercules, the recovery of the golden apples; and I think there is as little doubt, that all the Pagan stories of apples may be traced to the Mosaic source. The very word in Latin may be fairly connected with other words signifying good and evil. They were at once typical of Fruition and of Death. In illustration of this, I farther refer my appellant to plates of Montfaucon, where Bacchus Tauriformis, the same with Serapis in inferis, has a wreath of apples. Let him compare this circumstance with the fact established by the Zendavista (20), Bryant and others, that the first man after his fall was represented by a Minotaur, or man-bull, and connect with this other fact, that to Hercules was sacrificed an apple made rudely in the shape of an ox. Next, I refer to numerous sculptures of the Mithra, attended by Hesperus, and wrenching off the horn of Apis, the type of Plenty. In some of these he is surrounded by trees. Let Flosculus proceed from this to another Mythratic sculpture, representing an apple-tree encircled by Scorpio, a symbol of death (Muth); next to a second Mythratic fruit-tree, on which is hung the head of Apis, a type of atonement, and which the Egyptians, like the modern Hindoos, cursed with the imposition of their sins. From this I refer him to the head of Bacchus Tauriformis hung upon a tree, as preserved in Spence, to reproduce fructification.-Let him proceed from this to a plate of Denon, where he will see the thigh of Apis offered to Osiris in inferis. I intreat him, then, to connect this circumstance with the division of Behemoth, with the fact that the thigh was consecrated to the Gods; that it was the best part (Esper, or the good lot), that Bacchus and Erechthon, whose Hesperian history I have told were produced from it, and finally that Mount Meru, the earthly Paradise, means a thigh (Meros). Let Flosculus next cast his eye over the pictorial record (for such they are) of the modern celestial sphere, taking care to authenticate the validity of the figures by a collation with the Farnese Globe, and the various Planispheres and Zodiacs exhibited in Kircher and others, many of which are assignable to an era not very posterior to that of Noah. He will there find a serpeut stretching its enormous folds over the signs Libra and Virgo. Both these signs typified the golden age, but particularly the last, which was sometimes represented by a fruit-tree, having two dogs (21) turned different ways on its branches, implying good and evil. He will farther observe, that the head of the serpent is hovering over the top of Mount Masius, now Manalaus, next to the sign Libra, another recorded seat of the terrestrial Eden. Lastly, I refer the inquirer to the figure of Hercules, Engonasis, trampling on the head of the real Pluto, the fiery Dragon. Beside him is a lyre descriptive of the place, meaning the pristine harmony of Eden, and close to it, Cerberus, an Egyptian personification of Serapis, referring to his triple empire. The branch of golden fruit which he grasps testifies that the scene is Paradise, and perhaps even points out its Mosaic position on the river Phrat, or Euphrates (the branch). A similar cabala seems involved in the name of Erechthon, which signifies the land of Erech, near the same river. If your Correspondent, Mr. Editor, should still remain incredu lous, I am sorry for it. If he wishes to remain so, because the proofs adduced are confirmatory of the sublimest religious truths, I am sorry for him; I have endeavoured to convince him, at the risk of again incurring the fearful charge of pedantry; though, perhaps, on reflection, he will do me the justice to think it undeserved. The modesty of my signature, the fact that I am unknown to yourself, Mr. Editor, and the rigid compression of a subject which obviously might be swelled into many bulky volumes, and the notes and references to which might be as obviously diffused over the whole surface of your paper, have very little smack of that desire d'étaler ses marchandises, which is the characteristic of pedantry. For any appearance of that vitium scientia naturally attaching to the subject, I beg your reader's pardon. But Flosculus, on that score, must blame his friend who introduced it, not me who merely took up the gauntlet thrown down to the shade of Darwin. If the armour of the dead Achilles be not adapted to my intellectual size, and leave gaps in my argument for mortal intrusion, I have only to say I cannot help it. Detur digniori. I am afraid there are too many designedly incredulous of any Pagan testimony to the truth of sacred history. To such I have the satisfaction of expressing my own humble conviction, that they are inexhaustible. I have before me a multitude of these pictorial proofs and ocular attestations, which he that runs may read. They are such as have either never been seen by Bryant and his latest pupils; or, if seen, never combined; certainly never produced. Combined by the hands of some sufficing genius, they would, in my opinion, give the last blow to staggering infidelity. Egypt is open to us; that land from whence the ammunition of infidelity has been partially supplied. Let the soldiers of a better cause return the mountains with double force on the heads of the aggressors. The clumsy" inquiry" of infidel speculation, with all its esoteric juggles, would be swept away by the mere wind of the contest. Though deficient in bodily nerve and mental thew, for leading or joining the van of that undertaking, I could, perhaps, from my distant tent, supply Meriones with no mean arms. plain and humble man, howe'er accused of ostentation, I am contented with the hope of our religion, and would not change it for any worldly suffrage. That hope is the real "Kalon" which Plato and his disciples sought in vain. Let those who will, believe, that Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron, There no forced banquet loads the sated guest, But silence spreads the couch of ever-welcome rest. A Let those who choose avert their eyes from the beautiful image on the Portland Vase of unincumbered spirit, leaving at the gate of death "its garment spotted by the flesh." Let them persist in reading nothing on the grim portal, but the terrible words of Dante Lasciate ogni speranza. Can they complain if they have their choice? Can they complain, if rejecting hope and chusing despair, they find the latter their affianced companion? I am, Sir, your obliged servant, (1) Used by St. Paul as a type of resurrection. C. (2) Sanconiatho. From muth or mot, comes mors, mort, matter, and perhaps the moth, emblem of death. (3) Bryant. Quasi Peri, or Phri-apis. (4) Bryant's Analysis. (5) Bp. Cumberland's Sanconiatho: the Greeks considered Iapetus as their father, and Japhet possest the isles and sea coasts. He was brother of Hesperus. (6) Bp. Cumberland, Bochart, Bryant. (7) Elizout is a Phoenician name for pleasure; thence some derive Elysium, but I would rather trace it to the Greek lyo, to absolve; in which sense it agrees with Pluto or Pelouteh, absolution, and Mizrain or Osiris, well freed: and the rather, because the symbols of binding and unloosing the cord and key belonged to Hecate. (8) In Latin, riches, separation; perhaps the Saxon dye, death, may be traced to Dis, dites. (9) See Manuscript. Denon. (11) Plutarch, de Iside et Os. (12) Kircher's Edipus. Universal History. (13) Ashtaroth, the Syrian Isis means cattle, also. (10) Plutarch. (14) Had Homer heard of Enoch when he makes Proteus promise a simiar translation to Menelaus? Free from that law beneath whose mortal sway And he seats it at the end of Ocean in the West, Where from the breezy deep the blest inhale Pope's Odyssey. (15) From Seraph comes serpent. Pliny and Solimus thought the Hesperian serpent an arm of the sea which prevented access. Had it been a Hydra, they were right; but it was a symbol of fire. The words of Moses may be translated a seraph, or fire of separation. So in the cave of Trophonius, the Elysian Fields were circled by streams of fire. The cherubim had oxen's feet, and are in all respects the same as Serapis in symbol. The name comes from ploughing. (16) Plato's story of the loss of Atalantis is well known. All these stories would seem to infer that the tide of civilization has rolled from the extreme West of Africa, and that Negroes were its first depositaries. (17) Spence's Polymatis. (18) Bryant, Hyde, Kircher, Montfaucon, Spence, &c. (19) As we have thus the name of Adam in different languages, so we have Eve's. At the Bacchanalian mysteries, an ox was torn to pieces, and serpents thrown about, to cries of Eva, Eva. So on, wife of the first man, found out the fruit that grows on trees.-Sanconiatho. (20) See Gibbon. (21) Proclus. |