by Lloyd » Sun Mar 01, 2026 2:08 am
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In how few strokes of the pen does this father of Arabian poetry give us a bold and correct outline of his picture. Ovid, in his PHAETon and DeuCAlion, has given the world two beautiful pictures of the summers and winters of that forlorn age, but, he has taken no notice of "the face of the deep being frozen;" a circumstance, which must have happened twice a year on the equator, one when the sun would be near the north horizon for several days, and again when he would be as long on their south horizon: at which time the Mediterranean Sea must have been hid as with a stone. But neither this nor any other sea in the neighbourhood of Arabia, can be ____frozen and hid as with a stone, unless the angle of the two poles was more than VINCE and LA-PLACE allow it to have been.
It seems as if this Arabian poet had been disgusted with the licence taken by poets of surrounding nations; which is that of personifying inanimate nature.
This poet has not represented the snow, the gentle rain, and the dew drops, as three sisters, by the names of Leucothea, Erse, and Pandrosa, nor the great rains of his strength by a giant named Enceladus; nor hath he named the whirlwind Briarius; nor does the giant Naphalim represent the garment of clouds which covered the sea-pressed hemisphere of winter in the ____age of horror; nor do we, here, see the tremendous thunder, nor the lightening, which extends from the ends of the earth, represented as a ____flying, roaring dragon vomiting fire: but all the ravages of the elements are happily expressed according to the true language of nature. The author’s dislike to the personification of the elements, is shewn in the 28th and 29th verses, chap 29th, by modestly asking "Hath the rain, or the drops of dew a father? or from what mother came the ice?
Had poetry never assumed any other language than that which the writer of Job hath put into the mouth of the Lord, speaking out of a whirlwind, the nations of the world had not now been cursed with battles wherein both sides butcher one another for the glory of God! When the ancient historians recorded the operations of the elements under the various angles of the poles, they spoke of them as of the actions of intelligent beings: and those which were beneficial to mankind were spoken of in terms of praise, and figures of them were drawn with all the extravagant embellishments of a brilliant imagination; Pandrosa, so delightful to the village throng, would be described as a beautiful young lady, dressed in a light verdant robe covered with brilliant gems of purest crystal, in which you might behold all the beaming radiance of her sister's eye — the heart-elating, joy-diffusing, yellow hair Nympth Aglauros!* when human forms had been spoken of in such like terms as these, the illiterate might soon forget that they were but symbols of a fine morning, when the sun shone through branches all spangled with dew, and from contemplating them as benign beings, long revered by their ancestors, might, in time, entertain some strange ideas about them: which would paint them out as beings more than mortal, and, as worthy of divine honours. But, alas! with what ardour soever we might offer up our prayers at the shrine of Pandrosa and Aglauros they would not drive away the boreal clouds of December! We do not see that one of the thousand rosy fingered nymphs that string their flowery chaplets round the sun, when he drives his blazing chariot through the realms of June, come with her smiles to charm away the rage of those fell ruffians which surround the persecuted sun while in the dominions of that traitor Judas, called December.
(* Aglauros, means the splendour of the sun.)
If it is really true that the vulgar people in India do mistake their symbols of the ancient operations and configurations of astronomical circles for those of intelligent beings which are capable of dispencing good and evil, I think that the ignorant part of the people in Europe who fancy themselves to be Christians, ought not to be set so much at variance against them on the part of religion, as we every where see they are both by ranting preachers, and missionary papers; which are alike disgraceful to any sect of religion: invective and insult being their constant theme. As it is confessed that many of their dogmas are so similar to those professed among Christians themselves, that, they must have had ____one common origin, would not an impartial man ask, may we not as well conclude, as the Hindoos were a learned and polished people while we lived in forests and cloathed ourselves with skins, that our ideas are a corruption of theirs? Observe I do not say that the Christian religion is a corruption of the symbols of ancient astronomy, when the sun used to be represented as dead in Leo, when Leo was in the pit of Satan; and when he used to rise to new life in the bosom of Virgo — but I think I might be allowed to ask of the ranting declaimers against the Hindoo antiquity, — As the religious ideas of the Hindoos have evidently been derived from the astronomical symbols of so remote a time as 4,320,000 of years; how has it happened that the dogmas of Christians are so similar?"
In the oblong zodiac of Tentyra, each of the twelve signs is divided into three parts of ten degrees, and each part is represented by a human figure (with attributes expressive of his functions) called a Decan; and as each sign of the zodiac has three of these, the first of each was called a powerful leader* of three. To this company of thirty-six decans they attributed the management of the seasons. These were the powers whose functions were more durable than those of the twelve Zodiacal Constellations which are still found to alter their position every 2,000 years, relative to the seasons; and to move, in that time, through a space of thirty degrees from the equinoctial points. Not so the more powerful and constant gods called the Decans, or Eloim; those of that rank which are fixed at the equator are still supposed to compel the sun to shine twelve hours a day all the world over; and those at the opposite parts of the equator constantly propel the sun the same way through their dominions, i. e. those at the spring node will not suffer the sun to pass out of their palace the same way by which he entered; but order him to move on to the sign more northward. This is known to be the constant order of the sun, moon, and planets; which must continue till the CABIRI, the most powerful of all the gods, shall unite; and then the functions of the Decans are at an end; and one unbounded spring shall govern all; until A POWER more powerful than the Cabiri, shall cause the poles again to separate; when the seasons will again return, and the Decans again take their stations: but now, observe, all topsy-turvy turned, and what before was north, the northern pole forsakes! The lion now, which trod beneath his feet the hydra Nile, is decorated with a hydra tail, that casts his venom over the lion's Back!!! And now the Decan-trio of the wintry sign, when ever the lion comes within their reach, decoy the sprawling monster back- wards down; but by such slow degrees, that in twelve visits, seen from Delhi's plain, he still is free from Swayambhuva's den. But steady to their dreadful word of woe, when the great twelve have ten more circling revolutions run, hell's central Pivot strikes the lion’s heart.
(* Samuel, book ii. chap. 23rd, verse 1th, to the end of the chap, and i. hook of Chronicles, chap. 11th, verse 10th, to the end of the chap. The reader will compare the two chapters and make their own comments.)
The Orphic hymns commemorate the vanquished lion sprawling on his back, which the Greeks have preserved in the story of Orpheus and Euridice; which is explained in the fust part of this work. The gem preserved in the British Museum shew us the lion erect. And though the lion would go from pole to pole in about 12,000 years by the precession of the equinoctial points, and return to the south pole again in about the same time; yet he would return in the same order; viz. he would return with his back the same way to the pole: and in that order he would descend through the seven tiers of hells — the seven regions of the Menus; the territory of the seven angels pouring out the bottles of God's wrath in heaven, and of those who sounded the seven woe -proclaiming trumpets; but he would leave the Satya or south pole passing through the seven stages on the opposite side; and in seven times 25,000 years, would appear above the horizon standing upright thereon, at noon; in that order he would be seen to approach the equator in fifteen revolutions of 25,000 years each; from whence, in the same time, he would descend with his feet to the horizon, and so on, to the region of the Satya, i. e. the south pole.
Here the intelligent astronomer will see the true order of the heavenly motion. In forty-five revolutions of the zodiac all the constellations would be reversed, i. e. if the equator and the ecliptic coincide with all the backs of the animals to the north pole, after forty-five revolutions they will coincide again, but with their backs towards the south pole. But though the same seasons return in that time it would take twice that time to bring the constellations into the same state, as seen from the earth; which is what constituted the Prajanatha Yuga of 2,160,000 years, being twice 45 times 24,000.
But the stories which have been the result of the particular method made use of by ancient historians to express the various changes of the constellations and seasons of the great year; and the causes of those changes; may be worth our while to examine.
The Elohim, the Decans, or the symbols which presided over the thirty-six sub-divisions of the Zodiac, or, more properly speaking of the year, each month having three; were those Gods whose care it was to regulate the weather in the different seasons, and who were supposed to vary it according to their will: if the planet Venus or Jupiter paid a visit to any of their Godships, he would not fail to let us know how pleased he was by sprinkling the earth with growing showers. Mars perhaps might persuade him to throw down a few thunderbolts: and Mercury — but there would be no end to stories of this kind — nor are they to our purpose.
These Decans or Eloim are the Gods of whom it is said he created the universe. They arranged the order of the zodiac. The Eloim of the summer month were three gods of a benevolent disposition; they made the days long and loaded the sun’s head with Topaz: they were doubtless of kin to the sun, upon whom they bestowed so many favours: while the three wretches that presided in the winter month, which were at the extreme end of the year, seem to be of kin to none but a society for the suppression of light and hospitality! Hid in the realms below, from mortal eyes concealed, they joy’d to see the sun’s declining orb retire to rest, and flung a misty curtain round his couch: then, soon, a host of foes, in various forms, absorb his crown of gems.
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But we have seen the process by which the sun descends from the south horizon to the pivot, — Satya, i. e. the south pole: let us now, for a few minutes, place ourselves in a situation similar to that of the ancients at the setting in of the winter of i he age of horror: and if we possessed their piety we should assemble in our temples to take the last-long-lingering-look of the. descending sun; and hymn our doleful dirge as Chrisna dies; in some such words as these: —
"I cannot live without thy light,
Cast out and banished from thy sight.
— Let thy good spirit ne’er depart;
Nor hide thy presence from my heart."
The above lines are in strict conformity with the loss of the sun Chrisna in remote antiquity. And there can be no doubt that there were some sages who said that "His death was necessary for our salvation." Again, they might comfort the poor in spirit by saying that "It is requisite that he should become poor; that by his poverty we might become rich." These expressions are strictly applicable to the state of nature: for if the sun were to shine with a very considerable altitude all the year round, it is evident we could have no vegetation: it is therefore necessary that the sun should seem to lose his power in winter, that the earth may be well saturated with water to sustain the next year’s treasure. When these expressions are applied to the conquering and conquered Chrisna we do not find in them any mystery!
Again, admitting that the Eloim were powerful and intelligent beings that managed these things, we would accuse them of being the authors of all the sufferings of Chrisna. And, as they and the constellation of Leo were below the horizon and consequently cut off from the end of the zodiac, there were but eleven constellations of the zodiac to be seen; the three at the end were wanted, but those three would be accused of bringing Chrisna into those troubles which, at last, ended in his death. All this would be expressed in the eastern language by saying, that, Chrisna was persecuted by those Judoth Ishcarioth!!!!! But the astronomy of those distant ages, when the sun was at the south pole in winter, would leave five of those Decans cut off from our view, in the latitude of twenty-eight degrees; hence Chrisna died of wounds from five decans, but the whole five may be included in Judoth Ishcarioth, for the phrase means the men that are wanted at the extreme parts. Ishcarioth is a compound of ish, a man; and carat, wanted or taken away; and oth, the plural termination, more ancient than im, which make Ishcarioth* to mean men separated from, or men cut off, or men wanted. These exactly agree with the conditions of the five Decans or Eloim that cannot be seen in the latitude of twenty-eight degrees, in the middle of the age of horror. For if we take the three in Leo, with the middle one at the pole, then the one on each side would extend fifteen degrees each way from the pole; to which if we add the last decanate of Cancer and the first Decanate of Virgo, the whole extent of the five decanates would not come to the horizon of Delhi; by three degrees: of course, five men or Decans would be cut off at the end of the ecliptic.
(* I am aware that there are those that in translating Iscariot, make it to mean a man of murder! but it is done in the wholesale way; what they would make of it in the retail I have no guess: but as his history goes back no more than 17, 18, or 19 hundred years at the most, his history of persecuting Christ the saviour of the Christians, can have no connexion with the five Ishcarioth who persecuted Chrisna the Saviour of the Hindoos 400,000 years ago.)
What sinister policy can induce a certain description of men to be constantly stunning the ears of their deluded hearers by asserting that, the poor Hindoos have had some faint glimpses of divine truth, which they must have received from the spurious gospels of the early Christians, I know not; unless it be that of dragging vast sums of money every year from their pockets.
I have sufficiently proved that the, hitherto mysteries of the ancient nations have not been borrowed from any books of the moderns; nor from any book but the great book of God, which is published to all nations of the earth in letters of Topaz, Carbuncles, and Rubies, set in one extended gem of Saphire!
The Jews might, with equal propriety, assert that the Hindoos borrowed their superstitious notions from the Pentateuch; and the custom of bathing in the Ganges, from Elisha’s directing Naaman to bathe seven times in Jordan as a cure for the leprosy! Kings, 2nd chap, verse 5th. We know that the custom in India of bathing in the Ganges, and even dying on its banks have been held sacred from time immemorial, and even the desire of being buried in its stream; but what proves the vast antiquity of the custom, beyond that of the Jews, is that, an old bed of the Ganges has been lately discovered at a very considerable distance from and at a vast depth below the level of the present chanel; the bottom o* which is filled with human bones of all sizes mixed with a variety of those of other animals. These things put the passion for Gangetic veneration beyond the time of Elisha.
Indeed, after considering the vast quantity of incontrovertible proofs of Hindoo antiquity, deduced from the exact agreement of their recitals will) the present well known complicated motions of the earth in its orbit, it would be the greatest insult to human reason, to assert that the 'poetical history of the eighteen original shastras of astronomy, or the fourteen Menus or Manwantaras, &c. &c. which carry us back info time more than four millions of years could have been borrowed from books whose utmost antiquity is not more than six, or seven thousand years: or eight thousand at most.
The Jewish history, therefore, that is, the marvellous part of it, seems not to be composed of new materials: but of such as they had gleaned up from the various nations among whom they had been in bondage: and that their annals might have some appearance of originality they took the liberty to make such alterations as would give them the superficial appearance of novelty by turning singulars into plurals; and plurals into singulars: and what was femenine with their masters, they made to be masculine; in working it into their histories; and in some places things inanimate have been turned into men by adding the sign of the masculine gender; this was frequently done by the Greeks. But as assertions are not so satisfactory as proofs, we will investigate some parts of their history.
According to the testimony of Sir W. Jones, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 2, page 116, the Hindoos call the Menus, Children of the Sun, Chrisna; But the Jews, on the contrary, tell us in Judges, ch. 13th that Mano was the Father of the Sun; they have, however, endeavoured to do away with every idea of mythology by adding to Meno, their sign of the masculine gender, all, which makes Menoah look more like a man’s name. In the Grecian mythology Climene was the mother of the Sun Phaeton; — but Climcne, is from Cali-menah — the regulating period of heat — the spirals round the poles, called Menus. Ale mene was the mother of the Sun Hercules: Alemene is from Alea-menah the all powerful manah or menu, which must mean the Menu round the pole, as in that circle nearest the pole the sun's power must be most invincible, whether he is called Hercules, Phaeton, Shimson, — Samson, or Krisna. Those tales all relate to the sun in the age of horror and all bear the same complexion; — The two Grecian suns have a female parent, called Menus; but the Hebrew sun has a male Meno for his parent; whilst the sun of the Hindoos is father to the Menu.
The story of Noah deserves particular attention; because, of late, so many men of great learning with but little genius, have written so many large volumes about it for no other purpose, that I can find out, than that of driving every vestage of reason from the heads of their readers and of making perplexity more perplext.
Captain Wilford says that Satyavrata is Noah. Now Satyavrata is that circle of the seven tiers of hells round the south pole, which is called Satya, and because the whole world was under water when the sun was there, (that is, the two hemispheres alternately) the Cap. has no doubt that this symbol of the lowest hell was Noah. I have no objection, whatever, to call the whole age of horror, the age of Noah; for Noah is from no, a boat, and ah, a masculine termination, similar to the os of the Greeks. And as it is only by rendering the true meanings of these words into familiar English that we can obtain their fair sense — in familiar English then, Noah is, Mr. Boat; as the Father of Samson, Manoah, is Mr. Menu, whose father was a certain man of Zereh.
Noah, is a word, to which, like most others of the ancient Hebrew or Phenicean, several meanings are attached; all, however, are applicable to the boat; as rest, repose, to quaver, and to totter. No, is also synonymous with habitation: as in the ancient name of Thebes, which was Ammon-no; — the habitation of Ammon. Here are five significations to No, all of which are applicable to boat. ____In Lower Egypt we know the country was underwater three months in the year, during which time the people lived in boats and did no work. — It was the time of rest, the no or boat was a symbol of repose; and when boats are afloat on wide waters agitated by the wind, they are tossed up and down—and consequently they totter about. But no, about, is synonymous with habitation, because, in Egypt the people used to live so much in boats. Before we had houses in England we lived in bowers, and we still call the people who live contiguous to one another neighbours, which originally meant nigh-bower?. But in Egypt there was a populous city, called No. It was surrounded with waters, and consequently was a city of boats. See Naaham, chap. 3rd, verse 8th, "Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea," &c. But when men lived in boats it was necessary to have some sort of covering to them, that they might nestle in them, secure from the wind, the rain, the sun, &c. Now if we add to no, a prefix indicative of nestling in repose, every body would know the no, when so united, to be a boat. In the Hebrew language, the word Ken means a nest, and if we place it before no it would strike every reader; for who does not know that canoe is a boat? which is formed from ken-no — a boat to live in.
If we turn our attention to the state of man in the age of horror, we shall assure ourselves that he must have had recourse to the aid of flotillas in all extensive plains. In mountaneous countries, where he found a safe retreat from the great waters, in that forlorn age, flotillas were not necessary; the mountains would give refuge to multitudes, for whose subsistance, the vallies between would furnish but a scanty pittance, while the plains manured by the water, must have been fertile beyond description; but the presence of man was necessary, to assist nature in producing her abundance; which could not be done by those from the mountains, upon such vast plains as those of Chaldea and Hindoostan; where the memory of those times have been preserved in numerous volumes. Here, then, lived the Noachidae or children of the boats; the fragments of whose history, the Jews may have blended in with some traits of their own.
But the custom of living in boats, in the age of horror, was not confined to the plains of Asia; but must have been common to all large plains; the inhabitants of which, in that age must have been Noachidae. And as the plains of Europe, which was peopled by the descendants of Iapeto, had their Noachidae: and the plains of Egypt called the plains of Am, from its amazing fertility; had their Noachidae; and the vast plains of Asia, (which last country, abounding with astronomers, who studied the science of heaven, might have been called the country of Shemim, which is hebrew for heaven) had their Noachidce; we gee of what vast antiquity is the story of Shem, Am, and Ja-pet being reduced to the state of Noachidae, or people living in boats! Hence would very naturally arise an idea that the Noachidce were the children of Noach as if Noach had been a man or a woman. People who live in poverty, are called the children of Distress, and yet we do not enquire whether Distress be either a man or a woman.
There is a writer who asserts that Menu was Noah; Menu was never a man that lived, — it was a symbol of laws and regulations, and is precisely the Manah of the hebrews which means to regulate or to cast up; i. e. to reckon: it is varied in pronunciation, and is sometimes called menus, manes, and monah; hence the ____English Moon, which is the regulator of time. The same writer says that Nau was Noah; naus is a Greek word for ship; but whether Noah be a boat or a ship, are alike fatal to his existence as a man. In another place he informs his readers that Hippomenes, is Noah! This is still fatal to the existence of Noah as an identical man; but it will establish Noah as a mythological being, as no — a boat, with the masculine affix, ah, is, at most, the man of the boat, i. e. a boatswain, or if you will a captain of a boat or ship — some man or other, not any particular man. In this sense Noah is Hippomenes; for Hippomenes, according to the poetical history, in the tenth book of Ovid’s Met. was Admiral of the nary of the Island of Atalanta.* It seems, from the narrative beginning at line 560, that, at the time of the above story, the form of government, in that island, was republican, that many heroes had attempted to become sovereigns, but had been cruelly repulsed; none were to be admitted but such as would comply with certain conditions: which proves that the people wanted a limitted monarchy. After several heroes had been slain, Hippomenes, the Admiral, had the daring temerity to offer himself: him the people had the power to refuse (proof of their freedom) but Hippomenes had plenty of gold, which had been clandestinely obtained from the mines of Peru or Mexico;* with this he bribed the people of Atalanta three several times, and gained his election.
(* We must go back more than eleven thousand years into time for the existence of this island, how far further, for the time when its Admiral was elected King we know not; but if Noah was this Admiral — was this Hippomenes what are we to think of the Jewish history? Mr. Paber was not aware of the difficulties which his bantering etymologies might bring him into.
* Called by Ovid Tamasen, i. e. the land of darkness, from Thamus — HIDDEN: because in India, America was below the horizon. See N, B. page iii. book first of this work.)
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But, observe, upon his assuming the regal authority, the Goddess Cybele sunk the island below the Stygian water!
Hippomenes, is derived from Ippos, a greek word for horse, and that from a word which signifies to fly: this then is the flying horse Pegasus; which is a ship. And from Manah, a regulater: Hippomene, then, as connected with the Island of Atalanta, must have been, at least, Admiral of a fleet, but what puts it beyond all doubt is, his boasting of his pedigree, which is but four removes from Neptune the king of the waters. However, an acquaintance with their gradations of rank would determine that point.
I cannot conclude my remarks on the Noachidae, or people who inhabit extensive plains in the age of horror, without observing the necessity of taking into their arched flotillas some of their most useful cattle, which must otherwise have perished: this we are certain of without a rexelation! and in the oblong zodiac of Tentyra, where we find cancer at the south pole; and the divisions of Gemini crouded with seven persons all busily employed in arranging matters of some serious importance, previous to their getting into winter quarters, we find, also, in the last decanate but one, to the south pole, there is actually an OX placed in a BOAT: this is not the constellation of Taurus, for that is on the other side of Gemini, where we see him with a circle on his neck which informs us that there was a full moon in the last decanate. Was this a type of what was afterwards to happen among the Jews? borrowed from their books, it could not be, as it is well known that ____they had no books of Moses till nine hundred years after his death, unless we call the ten commandments by that name, which were engraved on the two tables of stone: for, "There was nothing in the Ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt." This confession is recorded in the 8th chap, of the first book of Kings, verse 9th. Here is an indisputable proof that there was no book of Moses in the Ark, nor do we hear any thing about the books of Moses, either in Judges or Samuel, or in the reign of David, or of that of Solomon, or in the reign of any other of their Kings, till the eighteenth year of Josiah: when all of a sudden the High-priest said to the scribe, "I have found a book in the house of the Lord," second of Kings, chap. 22nd verse 8th. Strange! that this book should be called the book that contained the books of Moses. By whom was it written? and where concealed for nine hundred years; When Solomon dedicated the temple, he knew nothing about it; there was "nothing in the Ark but the two tables of stone," second of Chron. chap. 5th, verse 10th. Having found a book it was read to the king and people by little and little: the king rent his clothes, and the people, for the first time in their lives, now heard of the marvellous things that were done in old time, &c.
All the directions and patterns for building the temple were given to Solomon by David, first of Chron. chap. 28th, verse 19th. All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern. But least there should be any mistake, we are told that the Lord himself came down to converse with Solomon about it; which would have been quite unnecessary, if they had known any thing about it by its having been communicated to a man five hundred years before.
We have seen from what ancient memorials the story of Noah may have arisen — from the necessity of living in boats at a very remote period: and we shall see how a similar mistake may have given ____existence to a Moses. The book, which first sprung to life in the sight of the High-priest Hilkiah, about, twenty years before the babylonish captivity, and which had never before been heard of was called the book of the Covenant of the Lord; in one place it is called the book of the Law by Moses, or the book of Moses, the law of Moses, the code of Moses, &c. All these expressions seem to point out that there was a book written by Moses. — The history of a woe fraught heart might, with much propriety, be called the book of misery: but what Englishman could be prevailed upon to believe that misery was either a man or a woman, by whom that book was written: — a foreigner however, who did not understand the meaning of the word misery might very pardonably mistake miserry for the name of the author of the book; instead of understanding it to be a book that treated OF grievous things. Hence we see what errors may arise from ignorance! and alas; it is these errors — these fatal errors, that have given birth to so many mystic characters, whose lives of wonder swell the volumes of history. But the mystic offspring of error, are the figurative children of falsehood, whose miraculous recitals have instilled into the minds of man that poison which has been productive of his greatest woe: the only antidote to which rmiit flow from the throne of truth, when he shall allow himself to be guided by that precious ray of divine essence, which we call reason: for it is that alone which distinguishes the man from the brute; and it is that alone which has brought man from the cave to the palace.
As we are assured, from the authority of the bible, that the book produced by the High-priest Hilkiah, about twenty years before the babylonian captivity, was not written by a man who lived nine hundred years before, called Moses: it was therefore a book of the laws about Moses — of, or concerning Moses; a book concerning whatever was mosaic. But Moses means saved from the waters. It is a name that the Egyptians gave to the land every year when the water of the Nile returned within its banks, and the land was saved from the waters, (see part first, page l4,) or rather the name that was given to the symbol which the Egyptians set up, when the water had left the land, that was called Moses,* or Mouses. And the code of laws by which they governed their husbandry during the nine months that their land was safe from the water, was called the Code of Moses. This term was applicable to the laws of all the inhabitants of extensive plains, subjected to inundations, — to the people called Noachidae.
(* See PJuche’s History of the Heavens, vol. 1st, page 98.)
But the whole world, in the age of horror, was not peopled by the Noachidae; there was another description of people that inhabited the mountains; these could not be governed by the laws of Moses, or the laws of Noachidae, — Fire, not water was their foe; they wanted no laws of the Noachidae; they wanted a code of laws by which they might be able to defend themselves from the ravages of the burning sun, when men hid themselves in the holes of the rugged rocks "from the fierce anger of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when the mountains flowed down at his presence."
The laws of Persia bore a title relative to fire under the name of Zerouse or Zoroaster. The Jews, willing to monopolize all ancient history to themselves, have very ingeniously coupled the code of the inhabitants of the mountains, with that of Noachidae, or inhabitants of the plains, by adding to their code the names of Moses and Aaron! — Moses was taken from the bottom of the water, and Aaron they acknowledge was a Mountaineer! What a remarkable coincidence! top and bottoms — what extremes!
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Second of Sam. chap 22nd, David is drawn out of many waters. In chap. 23rd, he is burned with thirst and longed for a drink of water of the well of Bethleham, which is by the gate. David has been said, by many authors, to be a mythological character. — His name and his songs are exactly upon a par with Apollo and his canticles. His marshalling his mighty men into twelve companies of three men each, and his having twelve captains, one for each month in the year, &c. look very much like an astronomical arrangement. There are three different muster-rolls of his mighties which differ from one another: they may, however, be all seen, free of expence in the bulletins of the Kings of Israel and Judah, first of Chronicles chap. 27, verse 11; and second of Samuel, chap. 23. His conduct before the hand-maids of his servants, for which his wife Michal reproves him, looks very much like the Chrisna of the Hindoos who danced with the twelve gopies or twelve female representatives of the twelve signs.
But what has still more the appearance of Astronomy is, that, David, who had so many traits in his character of the singing conqueror Apollo (which is known to be the name of the sun, in the forlorn age) is the offspring of Jesse: this is but the constellation of Virgo, almost undisguised. — The Isheh of the Egyptians, which the Greeks called Isis, the virgin mother of young Orus, the sun. Here, again we see the poverty of the inventive faculty of the hebrew historians; ever despising the annals of the pagans, and yet always taking them for their guide without being able to disguise their symbols so as to hide them even from ordinary observers; for who does not know that neither the Jews nor Phenicians had a letter J, in their alphabet, they could not therefore say Jesse, but Isse, or sometimes yesse; — Ishu is the hebrew for Jesus and by the affix of an h, becomes Ishuh or Ishuah which we write Joshua, in general, but his name is spelt four different ways in the Bible; in Num, 13, 16, Moses calls Oshea the son of Nun, Jehoshua: in Deut. chap. 32, verse 44 it is Hoshea; when we see the different scribes among the Jews, varying the same word we need not dispute about Isse the father of David and Ishe the mother of Apollo, or the sun. But what may we think of Ishu, Jesus, the son of God, and Ishua, the son of the eternal! for Nun, or Non, as it is written in the first of Chro. chap. 7, verse 27, is the Eternal!
We have seen from what astronomical consequences that the sun stood still on Mount Gibeon, in the first part of the work; we have now to consider by whose command it seemed to be stationary at the pole; we are told it was at the command of Ishuh the son of the Eternal. — Is not the sun* itself, that stood there, the son of the Eternal. But when we reflect upon the unsettled state of the jewish nation, we need not be surprised at the various ways of expressing and writing the same word; nor, indeed, of their having different shades of ideas attached to the same word.
Were they again to be united, they would be several years before they could establish a regular language; which after all their endeavours, would at last be but a heterogeneous dialect; a kind of latin-grecian-phen'cian-syrio—babylonic—mediopersiac-sanscrit sort of tongue: for such a mixture it had obtained among their writers, when their sacred books were written; from which confusion we may easily account for such mistakes as the above.
The festival of the passover is confessedly astronomical; it was always kept at the vernal equinox. Much mystery and miracle have been blended into this annual festival by the lovers of wonder: but as she is a lady whose charms I never admired, I always stretched my optic nerves into the very back ground of her picture: where I perceive, that when the angel of the Lord pass over the land of Egypt, it is precisely the time when the sun (the great angel) ____pass over the equator! — for that festival is still kept at the time when the sun is passing over that circle, which is about the 21st day of March, when the sun rises in the east, from which circumstance we call our festival about that time the feast of Easter. But we are told, that, at that time, in Egypt, all their first born were slain; this would be a melancholy consideration to those who did not know, that, this was the time when the people in Egypt were cutting down their hay and corn, which is well known to be the first born* of the year, their fruits not coming to perfection till afterwards.
(* None but the first born of the Egyptians were slain — the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, Exod. chap. 19, verse 13. This plague of cutting the hay and corn did not fall upon any of the Children of Israel — Very true; for being Sura, they had no land, consequently they had no hay or corn to cut.)
The plagues which we hear of, were very common in that country — some of them, however, go back to the age of horror, the true age of plagues: but the frogs are a very common plague in Egypt: and the waters being turned into blood is but a poetical expression for the stagnant water in the month of May, when it is covered with arid weeds, and emits a putrid stench, from which it was with some propriety called the red dragon.
At the time that the Jews left Egypt, the equator passed through the constellation of the Ram; and at the above time of the year all Egypt was gay; they had a festival at which they used to decorate their houses with branches of trees and surround their door posts with wreaths of flowers; and, to shew their knowledge in astronomy, they decorated a ram with ribbons and dowers which they led in triumph, thereby acknowledging their gratitude to God for favours received while the sun was in that constellation.
The Jews, however, hating every thing that related to astronomy, though they had a festival at the same time, had a lamb which they slew, and they decorated their two side posts and the upper door posts, not with wreaths of flowers—-no no, they smeared their doors with the blood of the lamb,* Exod. chap. 12, verse 7.
(* The time that the Jews left Egypt was near a thousand yean before the vision of John, who was called unto the supper of the Lamb; and as the woolly constellation occupies a smaller portion of the Zodiac than thirty degrees, this feast must have been the breakfast of the Lamb.)
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But from the wonders of this part of their history, concerning their coming out of Egypt, we are led to those of a higher antiquity, when Abram first went down into Egypt; as this is placed further out of our reach we shall find it to be more astronomical. What motives first induced nations to trace their history up to the beginning of the world, I do not know: to me it has ever appeared a monstrous folly, and I cannot now be prevailed upon to believe that any of the ancients intended such a thing; they traced histories up to the beginning of some astronomical period and from that recited the events; and if their annals were barren of events they could fill up the deficiency, with the history of astronomical occurrences. Whether the Jews intended their history of the creation and the subsequent parts, as real occurrences of human beings is not certain, but it is certain that they have the appearance of mythological beings; we have seen the mythological connexion of Samson and Delilah, of David and his mighty men, of Moses and Aaron and of Noah, and his descendants; and we shall find the history of Abram agreeing with the phenomena of that science without going in search of it into a remoter time than what is stated in their own books. It is asserted, in them, that Tarah was the father of Abram, whose wife was Sarah, by whom he had a son whose name was Isaac; whose seed was to be numerous as the sand on the sea shore: and whose son Jacob was father to the twelve tribes of Israel. M. Volney asserts that, All "the pretended personages, from Adam, to Abraham, and his father Tarah, are mythological beings, stars, constellations, and countries." Adam, he says, is Bootes; but he has offered no proof of it. Noah, is Osyris; but I must confess that I do not feel much conviction flash into my mind from either of these assertions. Abram, which was the original name of Abraham is precisely the Brama of the Hindoos: it seems that this people had a way of placing the as, of foreign words last in order, as in this word Abram; by transposing the a, it becomes brama; again, when India was conquered by the King of Egypt, they called him Brama Gypta: here we see the a transposed; which seem to shew that they were fond of an a terminal: but whether the meaning of the name remained the same I am not certain: we know, however, Brama was their grand name for the Deity, we know, also, that they held the Bull in high veneration, but whether there was any connexion in their minds with the Bull and Brama, I am not certain; but we know that Abir signifies the Bull; which the Greeks corrupted into Apis: both names, however are compounds, and are applicable to the Bull, in consequence of his being the most distinguished constellation in the zodiac, and of his being used in ploughing the ground; which last employment procured him the epithet of Apis or Ab-is — Ab-isis, contracted: Isis with the ear of corn is the symbol of harvest, and as the bull ploughed the ground, he was the figurative father of harvest, i. e. Abis from Ab, father; and Isis, harvest. In the circular and oblong zodiacs from Teniyra (both of which may be seen in Denon’s Travels in Egypt) the bull is the most distinguished of all the animals, in the solar round, he was, therefore, the father of the fires, i. e. he was Ab-irim. The bright star in that constellation, is the most brilliant of all the stars or fires in the zodiac, it was the father fire, i. e. it was Ab-ir. and this etymology is confirmed by the arabic name of that bright star, which is Al-de-'bir-an, i. e. the-great-father of fires. The city of ABRIRopolis in Goshen, and Abaris in Hindoostan were so called from the abundance of cattle.
Now the veneration of the ancients for the constellation of the Bull, is well known; and at the return of the equator to the various stars that composed it, one or other of the great nations ended and began their reckoning, at which time they bad a grand festival, and then putting off the old man with his deeds, they began a new aera, of 1, 2, 3, 4, &c: of this the Jews were acquainted; and being willing to have something of antiquity prefixed to their annals, they began a narrative from the beginning of Taurus: and during the passage of the equator from the first star in the Bull’s north horn to the bright star Al-de-brn they have given a list of ten ancestors in one line, and seven in another. The reader ought to examine the fourth and fifth chs. of Genesis, where he will find a ____great sameness in the two lines of descent. In one Methusael, begets Lamech; in the other it is Methuselah. The Irad in the one, and Jarad in the other are precisely the same names; and so are Enosh and Enoch; which two occur, in both genealogies, the third in descent. Enos, in hebrew is mortal man or mortal thing: it is the Enys of the greeks, the goddess of war; but the Jews having altered the sex, and made it masculine, it becomes the god of war, i. e. Mars. For it is a well known fact that Mars is rated in the third rank of mythological beings, and as such, he was worshipped on the third day of the week: and still, in France the third day of the week is called Mar-di, i. e. the day of Mars. I might ask, here, how has it happened that in both lists of the hebrew patriarchs, they have placed the god Mars as their third patriarch? In page 58, part first, I have shewn that Maha-la-leel lived at the time when the equator was in that cluster of stars in Taurus, called Meah: and I shall here observe, that in one of the lines of descent we are told that Cain was the father of Enosh or Mars; now, Cain, according to their own account, was a murderer: — it is the true sublime of romance, to make the father of the bloody god of war, to be a murderer. In the list of ten, seth is the second in order; and seth is but Iseth badly disguised, which is a well known Egyptian name for the moon, and the moon was the second mythological being which has given name to the second day of the week, (Monday.) In Adam both lines unite; he is the first of men, he is the father of life the father of all living; which is a proper epithet for the first man; the sun, is, also the father of life, he is the first in the order of the adorable beings among mythologists, and his worship, and name, graced the first day of the week, called Sun-day. Among the many hundred names given to that glorious luminary that of Adam would be among the foremost; in quality of his being the father of life, for Adam is a compound of Ad, a syriac word for father; and am, life. Thus we find how easy it is to compose a list of progenitors. Sunday begat Monday, and Monday begat Tuesday: which in French is Mar-di;— and so on till we come to Saturday, the seventh day of the week, which was a day of rest: and behold, they worshipped Saturn the seventh planet on the Saturday, the seventh day of the week; and as saturn is a very slow paced gentleman; being two years and a half in creeping through one house, which is almost like doing nothing, the Jews have, in the most accommodating way imaginable, made his day, a day of rest: which is a collateral proof that they began their march from Egypt on the Sunday morning, and pursued their journey six days by forced marches; at the end of which finding that they were safe from the Egyptian officers, they rested on the seventh: and a law was made by the order of God, to rest every seventh day through all their generations for ever, as a memorial of their quitting Egypt: from which country they were thrust out, and could not tarry, Exodus, chap. 12, verses 27, 16, 17, 39, Deut. chap. 5, verse 15, Chronicles, chap. 16, verse 3.
It is very remarkable, that, the ten commandments which were put into the temple, at its dedication, by Solomon, and which were given by God at mount Horeb, should not contain any thing about the creation of the world in six days; it is said in the fifth chap, of Deut. verse 15th, that "the Lord thy God brought thee out thence (Egypt) through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep holy the sabbath day." But notwithstanding this we hear of no observance of the sabbath for several hundred years before Josiah; neither to commemorate their leaving of Egypt; for which it was first instituted; nor yet to remind them, that, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, &c.: and as there is but one solitary witness in favour of the institution of the sabbath in consequence of God’s six days labour; and such a host in favour of its being observed in consequence of the six days labour of the Jews in marching in the wilderness six days in haste; we may therefore conclude, that, the eleventh verse of the twentieth chap, of Exodus, was put in after the babylonish captivity: but why not expunge all the other passages which state, that the sabbath was first instituted to commemorate the leaving: of Egypt in six days forced marches? These things, which are in contradiction to each other cannot be both true. Besides, we are assured, from the whole tenor of the Jewish history as it is contained in the Bible, that there was no observance of a sabbath on any account, till the days of Nehemiah, (see Neh. chap 8, verse 14, 15). But independent of its first origin, the observance of a day of rest from labour once in seven days, is a very agreeable regulation. Its origin, however, is evidently an improvement of an astronomical observance, which had a festival at the full and new moons, and at the quadratures; these sometimes happen at six days, and sometimes at eight days asunder, and require a considerable knowledge in that science to enable a man to make the necessary calculations, which becomes useless to an inland people when once custom had established the regular observance of a seventh day. In England this was done by an act of parliament: which was of sufficient power: but all the commandments of God were not sufficient to prevail upon the Jews to cease from labour on the seventh day, not even in the days of Nehemiah, who saw some in Judah, in his days, treading wine presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes and figs and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath-day.
It may, perhaps, be thought foreign to a work of this kind to spend so much ink about what may seem to be of a religious concern, but the unfounded assertion that the sabbath was instituted in consequence of God having created the world in six days is not altogether of a religious nature: it is well known how that assumption affects geology; which is a science that must for ever be involved in mystery, till its students shall call in the aid of its parent astronomy, such as I have shewn her to be in this work. And as there is not a single line in the history of the Jews, from their coming out of Egypt at the covenant at Horeb down to the days of Nehemiah, inclusive, that speaks of the sabbath as arising from the six days of God creating the world, we may safely conclude, that, the six days, has some hidden meaning, like that of the six periods of time among the hindoos which they call six sacas.
If we take the assumed "beginning," from the middle of the age of horror in the latitude of twenty-four degrees, then would there be six periods of time, of 25,000 years each, before the world would become a comfortable abode for man and animals, which story is again repeated in what is called the flood; which did not continue 150,000 years but 150 days; i. e. one day for 1,000 years. But they have placed ten generations between the creation and the flood; and between the flood and the birth of Abram are ten generations: this is another remarkable point in the history of the Jews; they seem to have had a great veneration for the numbers seven, ten, and forty; for they were forty years feeding upon Manna; Moses was forty days and forty nights upon a mountain with God, during which time (perhaps) he fasted: all which, seem strongly to favour their having been, ____originally refugees of the island of Atala, which anciently extended as far as the Azores* in the latitude of forty degrees: from whence the polar mountain would be seen as a cone with ten steps, and on which, the sun, in the age of horror, would be twice forty days in passing through the ten menus, or circles round their mount Meru: and Moses went twice up the flaming mount Horeb for his ten Menus or regulations; and was gone forty days and forty nights each time. — The double ascent to the mountain seems to indicate, that the age of horror had been repeated but twice in that part of the Island which extended to forty degrees, it having submitted to the ravages of Neptune, long before that part about the neighbourhood which is mentioned by Plato to have disappeared about 11,000 years ago. But this would more properly come under the consideration of the Geologist.
(* Asiatic Researches, vol. 8, page 286.)
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We have seen in a former part of this work, that, when the ancients rectified the heavens and the earth about 23,000 years ago, the constellation of Leo was verticle at Lanca or Ceylon, and Taurus, at that part of Atala near Teneriffe, which was called the residence* of the Bull: and we find that the Jews preserved such a veneration for the Bull, that they have made him to be their great progenitor; for though we admit that there may have been a man whose name was Abram, &c. &c. yet the history of him has an exact parallel in astronomy; with which it will be found to agree, much better than it does with the lives of human beings.
(* Asiatic Researches, vol. 9, page 78.)
The story of ____Abraham, notwithstanding all the endeavours of theologians to give it the appearance of the history of human beings, has preserved its mythological features with an outline and colouring, easily to be recognised by every son of Urania. We have just seen that the Egyptians have their harvest about the time which the sun passes over the equator, and if we go back to the time of Abraham we shall find that the equator was in Taurus; the Egyptians must, then, have had their harvest while the sun was in the Bull; the Bull, was, therefore, in their figurative way of speaking, the father of harvest, not only because he ploughed the ground, but, because the sun was there when they got in their harvest: thus the Bull was doubly distinguished as their benefactor; he was now, more than ever, become the Bull of life, i. e. he was not only called Abir, the Bull, but Abir-am or Ab-r-am, the Bull of life, — the father of harvest. And as their harvest was originally under the direction of Iseth, or Isis, whatever belonged to harvest was Isiac; but the Bull, Abiram, was now become the father of Isiac! and to give this the appearance of a human descent, they added to Abir, the masculine affix ah; then it became Ab’-rii-am who was the father of Isiac. And we actually find this equivoque in the hebrew history of Abram whom the Lord afterwards called Abraham, who was the father of Isaac, whose seed w as to be as countless as the sand on the sea shore for multitude; even this is truly applicable to Isiac the offspring of Ab’rh-am; for countless indeed are the offspring of the scythe and sickle! but if we allow Isiac to be a real son of Ab'rah-am, we must enquire after his mother. During the time that the equator is passing through the constellation of the Bull in the spring, the Bull would rise in the east every morning in the harvest time, in Egypt, — but in the poetical language of the ancients, it would be said that, when Abir-am consorts with Aurora he will produce Isiac. But Aurora is well known to be the golden splendour of the east, and the brightness of the east is called Zara, and the morning star is Serah, in the eastern languages, and we find a similar change of sound in the name of Isaac’s mother, whom the Lord would no longer call Sarai but Sarah.
These are remarkable coincidences! But Ab'ram is the astronomical offspring of Tarah, which in the eastern language has a meaning like our word terror, and when the ancients wanted to express, in one word, all that was frightful, they doubled the word tara and said taratara', from which the greeks made Tartarus, which we translate Hell. The reign of winter was the reign of terror or tarah, and before the Bull came to the equator it was a wintry constellation; but when it had risen or while it was rising above the equator it was the offspring of Tarah! but the land of the nativity of Abraham and Terah was ur; Tarah, Abraham, &c. belonged to a wane family; and Tarah and Abir-am and Zara, the Bull’s wife or sister are also a Urane family — all the offspring of the chaste virgin Urania!
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It is really surprising to see with what ease and exactness all the very remote and miraculous histories of the ancients, agree with the symbolical and highly poetical expressions made use of by the sons of Urania to commemorate the various effects produced by the complex motions of the earth, through a series of painful observations for more than four millions of years. And I am quite certain that if the sons of Geological research would take this theory of time for their guide, we might soon be in a very fair way of obtaining a more correct history of the earth itself, and all its various strata, than has hitherto been given. This had been my task some years ago, but, that I found it necessary, as a solid foundation for such an undertaking, to reduce the vast chaos of time which the earth must have been in existence into its regular component parts or subdivisions, as they have been marked out by the finger of truth upon the Dial of the Deity.
THE END.
Printed by R. Walker, new the Duke’s Palaoe.
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In how few strokes of the pen does this father of Arabian poetry give us a bold and correct outline of his picture. Ovid, in his PHAETon and DeuCAlion, has given the world two beautiful pictures of the summers and winters of that forlorn age, but, he has taken no notice of "the face of the deep being frozen;" a circumstance, which must have happened twice a year on the equator, one when the sun would be near the north horizon for several days, and again when he would be as long on their south horizon: at which time the Mediterranean Sea must have been hid as with a stone. But neither this nor any other sea in the neighbourhood of Arabia, can be ____frozen and hid as with a stone, unless the angle of the two poles was more than VINCE and LA-PLACE allow it to have been.
It seems as if this Arabian poet had been disgusted with the licence taken by poets of surrounding nations; which is that of personifying inanimate nature.
This poet has not represented the snow, the gentle rain, and the dew drops, as three sisters, by the names of Leucothea, Erse, and Pandrosa, nor the great rains of his strength by a giant named Enceladus; nor hath he named the whirlwind Briarius; nor does the giant Naphalim represent the garment of clouds which covered the sea-pressed hemisphere of winter in the ____age of horror; nor do we, here, see the tremendous thunder, nor the lightening, which extends from the ends of the earth, represented as a ____flying, roaring dragon vomiting fire: but all the ravages of the elements are happily expressed according to the true language of nature. The author’s dislike to the personification of the elements, is shewn in the 28th and 29th verses, chap 29th, by modestly asking "Hath the rain, or the drops of dew a father? or from what mother came the ice?
Had poetry never assumed any other language than that which the writer of Job hath put into the mouth of the Lord, speaking out of a whirlwind, the nations of the world had not now been cursed with battles wherein both sides butcher one another for the glory of God! When the ancient historians recorded the operations of the elements under the various angles of the poles, they spoke of them as of the actions of intelligent beings: and those which were beneficial to mankind were spoken of in terms of praise, and figures of them were drawn with all the extravagant embellishments of a brilliant imagination; Pandrosa, so delightful to the village throng, would be described as a beautiful young lady, dressed in a light verdant robe covered with brilliant gems of purest crystal, in which you might behold all the beaming radiance of her sister's eye — the heart-elating, joy-diffusing, yellow hair Nympth Aglauros!* when human forms had been spoken of in such like terms as these, the illiterate might soon forget that they were but symbols of a fine morning, when the sun shone through branches all spangled with dew, and from contemplating them as benign beings, long revered by their ancestors, might, in time, entertain some strange ideas about them: which would paint them out as beings more than mortal, and, as worthy of divine honours. But, alas! with what ardour soever we might offer up our prayers at the shrine of Pandrosa and Aglauros they would not drive away the boreal clouds of December! We do not see that one of the thousand rosy fingered nymphs that string their flowery chaplets round the sun, when he drives his blazing chariot through the realms of June, come with her smiles to charm away the rage of those fell ruffians which surround the persecuted sun while in the dominions of that traitor Judas, called December.
(* Aglauros, means the splendour of the sun.)
If it is really true that the vulgar people in India do mistake their symbols of the ancient operations and configurations of astronomical circles for those of intelligent beings which are capable of dispencing good and evil, I think that the ignorant part of the people in Europe who fancy themselves to be Christians, ought not to be set so much at variance against them on the part of religion, as we every where see they are both by ranting preachers, and missionary papers; which are alike disgraceful to any sect of religion: invective and insult being their constant theme. As it is confessed that many of their dogmas are so similar to those professed among Christians themselves, that, they must have had ____one common origin, would not an impartial man ask, may we not as well conclude, as the Hindoos were a learned and polished people while we lived in forests and cloathed ourselves with skins, that our ideas are a corruption of theirs? Observe I do not say that the Christian religion is a corruption of the symbols of ancient astronomy, when the sun used to be represented as dead in Leo, when Leo was in the pit of Satan; and when he used to rise to new life in the bosom of Virgo — but I think I might be allowed to ask of the ranting declaimers against the Hindoo antiquity, — As the religious ideas of the Hindoos have evidently been derived from the astronomical symbols of so remote a time as 4,320,000 of years; how has it happened that the dogmas of Christians are so similar?"
In the oblong zodiac of Tentyra, each of the twelve signs is divided into three parts of ten degrees, and each part is represented by a human figure (with attributes expressive of his functions) called a Decan; and as each sign of the zodiac has three of these, the first of each was called a powerful leader* of three. To this company of thirty-six decans they attributed the management of the seasons. These were the powers whose functions were more durable than those of the twelve Zodiacal Constellations which are still found to alter their position every 2,000 years, relative to the seasons; and to move, in that time, through a space of thirty degrees from the equinoctial points. Not so the more powerful and constant gods called the Decans, or Eloim; those of that rank which are fixed at the equator are still supposed to compel the sun to shine twelve hours a day all the world over; and those at the opposite parts of the equator constantly propel the sun the same way through their dominions, i. e. those at the spring node will not suffer the sun to pass out of their palace the same way by which he entered; but order him to move on to the sign more northward. This is known to be the constant order of the sun, moon, and planets; which must continue till the CABIRI, the most powerful of all the gods, shall unite; and then the functions of the Decans are at an end; and one unbounded spring shall govern all; until A POWER more powerful than the Cabiri, shall cause the poles again to separate; when the seasons will again return, and the Decans again take their stations: but now, observe, all topsy-turvy turned, and what before was north, the northern pole forsakes! The lion now, which trod beneath his feet the hydra Nile, is decorated with a hydra tail, that casts his venom over the lion's Back!!! And now the Decan-trio of the wintry sign, when ever the lion comes within their reach, decoy the sprawling monster back- wards down; but by such slow degrees, that in twelve visits, seen from Delhi's plain, he still is free from Swayambhuva's den. But steady to their dreadful word of woe, when the great twelve have ten more circling revolutions run, hell's central Pivot strikes the lion’s heart.
(* Samuel, book ii. chap. 23rd, verse 1th, to the end of the chap, and i. hook of Chronicles, chap. 11th, verse 10th, to the end of the chap. The reader will compare the two chapters and make their own comments.)
The Orphic hymns commemorate the vanquished lion sprawling on his back, which the Greeks have preserved in the story of Orpheus and Euridice; which is explained in the fust part of this work. The gem preserved in the British Museum shew us the lion erect. And though the lion would go from pole to pole in about 12,000 years by the precession of the equinoctial points, and return to the south pole again in about the same time; yet he would return in the same order; viz. he would return with his back the same way to the pole: and in that order he would descend through the seven tiers of hells — the seven regions of the Menus; the territory of the seven angels pouring out the bottles of God's wrath in heaven, and of those who sounded the seven woe -proclaiming trumpets; but he would leave the Satya or south pole passing through the seven stages on the opposite side; and in seven times 25,000 years, would appear above the horizon standing upright thereon, at noon; in that order he would be seen to approach the equator in fifteen revolutions of 25,000 years each; from whence, in the same time, he would descend with his feet to the horizon, and so on, to the region of the Satya, i. e. the south pole.
Here the intelligent astronomer will see the true order of the heavenly motion. In forty-five revolutions of the zodiac all the constellations would be reversed, i. e. if the equator and the ecliptic coincide with all the backs of the animals to the north pole, after forty-five revolutions they will coincide again, but with their backs towards the south pole. But though the same seasons return in that time it would take twice that time to bring the constellations into the same state, as seen from the earth; which is what constituted the Prajanatha Yuga of 2,160,000 years, being twice 45 times 24,000.
But the stories which have been the result of the particular method made use of by ancient historians to express the various changes of the constellations and seasons of the great year; and the causes of those changes; may be worth our while to examine.
The Elohim, the Decans, or the symbols which presided over the thirty-six sub-divisions of the Zodiac, or, more properly speaking of the year, each month having three; were those Gods whose care it was to regulate the weather in the different seasons, and who were supposed to vary it according to their will: if the planet Venus or Jupiter paid a visit to any of their Godships, he would not fail to let us know how pleased he was by sprinkling the earth with growing showers. Mars perhaps might persuade him to throw down a few thunderbolts: and Mercury — but there would be no end to stories of this kind — nor are they to our purpose.
These Decans or Eloim are the Gods of whom it is said he created the universe. They arranged the order of the zodiac. The Eloim of the summer month were three gods of a benevolent disposition; they made the days long and loaded the sun’s head with Topaz: they were doubtless of kin to the sun, upon whom they bestowed so many favours: while the three wretches that presided in the winter month, which were at the extreme end of the year, seem to be of kin to none but a society for the suppression of light and hospitality! Hid in the realms below, from mortal eyes concealed, they joy’d to see the sun’s declining orb retire to rest, and flung a misty curtain round his couch: then, soon, a host of foes, in various forms, absorb his crown of gems.
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But we have seen the process by which the sun descends from the south horizon to the pivot, — Satya, i. e. the south pole: let us now, for a few minutes, place ourselves in a situation similar to that of the ancients at the setting in of the winter of i he age of horror: and if we possessed their piety we should assemble in our temples to take the last-long-lingering-look of the. descending sun; and hymn our doleful dirge as Chrisna dies; in some such words as these: —
"I cannot live without thy light,
Cast out and banished from thy sight.
— Let thy good spirit ne’er depart;
Nor hide thy presence from my heart."
The above lines are in strict conformity with the loss of the sun Chrisna in remote antiquity. And there can be no doubt that there were some sages who said that "His death was necessary for our salvation." Again, they might comfort the poor in spirit by saying that "It is requisite that he should become poor; that by his poverty we might become rich." These expressions are strictly applicable to the state of nature: for if the sun were to shine with a very considerable altitude all the year round, it is evident we could have no vegetation: it is therefore necessary that the sun should seem to lose his power in winter, that the earth may be well saturated with water to sustain the next year’s treasure. When these expressions are applied to the conquering and conquered Chrisna we do not find in them any mystery!
Again, admitting that the Eloim were powerful and intelligent beings that managed these things, we would accuse them of being the authors of all the sufferings of Chrisna. And, as they and the constellation of Leo were below the horizon and consequently cut off from the end of the zodiac, there were but eleven constellations of the zodiac to be seen; the three at the end were wanted, but those three would be accused of bringing Chrisna into those troubles which, at last, ended in his death. All this would be expressed in the eastern language by saying, that, Chrisna was persecuted by those Judoth Ishcarioth!!!!! But the astronomy of those distant ages, when the sun was at the south pole in winter, would leave five of those Decans cut off from our view, in the latitude of twenty-eight degrees; hence Chrisna died of wounds from five decans, but the whole five may be included in Judoth Ishcarioth, for the phrase means the men that are wanted at the extreme parts. Ishcarioth is a compound of ish, a man; and carat, wanted or taken away; and oth, the plural termination, more ancient than im, which make Ishcarioth* to mean men separated from, or men cut off, or men wanted. These exactly agree with the conditions of the five Decans or Eloim that cannot be seen in the latitude of twenty-eight degrees, in the middle of the age of horror. For if we take the three in Leo, with the middle one at the pole, then the one on each side would extend fifteen degrees each way from the pole; to which if we add the last decanate of Cancer and the first Decanate of Virgo, the whole extent of the five decanates would not come to the horizon of Delhi; by three degrees: of course, five men or Decans would be cut off at the end of the ecliptic.
(* I am aware that there are those that in translating Iscariot, make it to mean a man of murder! but it is done in the wholesale way; what they would make of it in the retail I have no guess: but as his history goes back no more than 17, 18, or 19 hundred years at the most, his history of persecuting Christ the saviour of the Christians, can have no connexion with the five Ishcarioth who persecuted Chrisna the Saviour of the Hindoos 400,000 years ago.)
What sinister policy can induce a certain description of men to be constantly stunning the ears of their deluded hearers by asserting that, the poor Hindoos have had some faint glimpses of divine truth, which they must have received from the spurious gospels of the early Christians, I know not; unless it be that of dragging vast sums of money every year from their pockets.
I have sufficiently proved that the, hitherto mysteries of the ancient nations have not been borrowed from any books of the moderns; nor from any book but the great book of God, which is published to all nations of the earth in letters of Topaz, Carbuncles, and Rubies, set in one extended gem of Saphire!
The Jews might, with equal propriety, assert that the Hindoos borrowed their superstitious notions from the Pentateuch; and the custom of bathing in the Ganges, from Elisha’s directing Naaman to bathe seven times in Jordan as a cure for the leprosy! Kings, 2nd chap, verse 5th. We know that the custom in India of bathing in the Ganges, and even dying on its banks have been held sacred from time immemorial, and even the desire of being buried in its stream; but what proves the vast antiquity of the custom, beyond that of the Jews, is that, an old bed of the Ganges has been lately discovered at a very considerable distance from and at a vast depth below the level of the present chanel; the bottom o* which is filled with human bones of all sizes mixed with a variety of those of other animals. These things put the passion for Gangetic veneration beyond the time of Elisha.
Indeed, after considering the vast quantity of incontrovertible proofs of Hindoo antiquity, deduced from the exact agreement of their recitals will) the present well known complicated motions of the earth in its orbit, it would be the greatest insult to human reason, to assert that the 'poetical history of the eighteen original shastras of astronomy, or the fourteen Menus or Manwantaras, &c. &c. which carry us back info time more than four millions of years could have been borrowed from books whose utmost antiquity is not more than six, or seven thousand years: or eight thousand at most.
The Jewish history, therefore, that is, the marvellous part of it, seems not to be composed of new materials: but of such as they had gleaned up from the various nations among whom they had been in bondage: and that their annals might have some appearance of originality they took the liberty to make such alterations as would give them the superficial appearance of novelty by turning singulars into plurals; and plurals into singulars: and what was femenine with their masters, they made to be masculine; in working it into their histories; and in some places things inanimate have been turned into men by adding the sign of the masculine gender; this was frequently done by the Greeks. But as assertions are not so satisfactory as proofs, we will investigate some parts of their history.
According to the testimony of Sir W. Jones, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 2, page 116, the Hindoos call the Menus, Children of the Sun, Chrisna; But the Jews, on the contrary, tell us in Judges, ch. 13th that Mano was the Father of the Sun; they have, however, endeavoured to do away with every idea of mythology by adding to Meno, their sign of the masculine gender, all, which makes Menoah look more like a man’s name. In the Grecian mythology Climene was the mother of the Sun Phaeton; — but Climcne, is from Cali-menah — the regulating period of heat — the spirals round the poles, called Menus. Ale mene was the mother of the Sun Hercules: Alemene is from Alea-menah the all powerful manah or menu, which must mean the Menu round the pole, as in that circle nearest the pole the sun's power must be most invincible, whether he is called Hercules, Phaeton, Shimson, — Samson, or Krisna. Those tales all relate to the sun in the age of horror and all bear the same complexion; — The two Grecian suns have a female parent, called Menus; but the Hebrew sun has a male Meno for his parent; whilst the sun of the Hindoos is father to the Menu.
The story of Noah deserves particular attention; because, of late, so many men of great learning with but little genius, have written so many large volumes about it for no other purpose, that I can find out, than that of driving every vestage of reason from the heads of their readers and of making perplexity more perplext.
Captain Wilford says that Satyavrata is Noah. Now Satyavrata is that circle of the seven tiers of hells round the south pole, which is called Satya, and because the whole world was under water when the sun was there, (that is, the two hemispheres alternately) the Cap. has no doubt that this symbol of the lowest hell was Noah. I have no objection, whatever, to call the whole age of horror, the age of Noah; for Noah is from no, a boat, and ah, a masculine termination, similar to the os of the Greeks. And as it is only by rendering the true meanings of these words into familiar English that we can obtain their fair sense — in familiar English then, Noah is, Mr. Boat; as the Father of Samson, Manoah, is Mr. Menu, whose father was a certain man of Zereh.
Noah, is a word, to which, like most others of the ancient Hebrew or Phenicean, several meanings are attached; all, however, are applicable to the boat; as rest, repose, to quaver, and to totter. No, is also synonymous with habitation: as in the ancient name of Thebes, which was Ammon-no; — the habitation of Ammon. Here are five significations to No, all of which are applicable to boat. ____In Lower Egypt we know the country was underwater three months in the year, during which time the people lived in boats and did no work. — It was the time of rest, the no or boat was a symbol of repose; and when boats are afloat on wide waters agitated by the wind, they are tossed up and down—and consequently they totter about. But no, about, is synonymous with habitation, because, in Egypt the people used to live so much in boats. Before we had houses in England we lived in bowers, and we still call the people who live contiguous to one another neighbours, which originally meant nigh-bower?. But in Egypt there was a populous city, called No. It was surrounded with waters, and consequently was a city of boats. See Naaham, chap. 3rd, verse 8th, "Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea," &c. But when men lived in boats it was necessary to have some sort of covering to them, that they might nestle in them, secure from the wind, the rain, the sun, &c. Now if we add to no, a prefix indicative of nestling in repose, every body would know the no, when so united, to be a boat. In the Hebrew language, the word Ken means a nest, and if we place it before no it would strike every reader; for who does not know that canoe is a boat? which is formed from ken-no — a boat to live in.
If we turn our attention to the state of man in the age of horror, we shall assure ourselves that he must have had recourse to the aid of flotillas in all extensive plains. In mountaneous countries, where he found a safe retreat from the great waters, in that forlorn age, flotillas were not necessary; the mountains would give refuge to multitudes, for whose subsistance, the vallies between would furnish but a scanty pittance, while the plains manured by the water, must have been fertile beyond description; but the presence of man was necessary, to assist nature in producing her abundance; which could not be done by those from the mountains, upon such vast plains as those of Chaldea and Hindoostan; where the memory of those times have been preserved in numerous volumes. Here, then, lived the Noachidae or children of the boats; the fragments of whose history, the Jews may have blended in with some traits of their own.
But the custom of living in boats, in the age of horror, was not confined to the plains of Asia; but must have been common to all large plains; the inhabitants of which, in that age must have been Noachidae. And as the plains of Europe, which was peopled by the descendants of Iapeto, had their Noachidae: and the plains of Egypt called the plains of Am, from its amazing fertility; had their Noachidae; and the vast plains of Asia, (which last country, abounding with astronomers, who studied the science of heaven, might have been called the country of Shemim, which is hebrew for heaven) had their Noachidce; we gee of what vast antiquity is the story of Shem, Am, and Ja-pet being reduced to the state of Noachidae, or people living in boats! Hence would very naturally arise an idea that the Noachidce were the children of Noach as if Noach had been a man or a woman. People who live in poverty, are called the children of Distress, and yet we do not enquire whether Distress be either a man or a woman.
There is a writer who asserts that Menu was Noah; Menu was never a man that lived, — it was a symbol of laws and regulations, and is precisely the Manah of the hebrews which means to regulate or to cast up; i. e. to reckon: it is varied in pronunciation, and is sometimes called menus, manes, and monah; hence the ____English Moon, which is the regulator of time. The same writer says that Nau was Noah; naus is a Greek word for ship; but whether Noah be a boat or a ship, are alike fatal to his existence as a man. In another place he informs his readers that Hippomenes, is Noah! This is still fatal to the existence of Noah as an identical man; but it will establish Noah as a mythological being, as no — a boat, with the masculine affix, ah, is, at most, the man of the boat, i. e. a boatswain, or if you will a captain of a boat or ship — some man or other, not any particular man. In this sense Noah is Hippomenes; for Hippomenes, according to the poetical history, in the tenth book of Ovid’s Met. was Admiral of the nary of the Island of Atalanta.* It seems, from the narrative beginning at line 560, that, at the time of the above story, the form of government, in that island, was republican, that many heroes had attempted to become sovereigns, but had been cruelly repulsed; none were to be admitted but such as would comply with certain conditions: which proves that the people wanted a limitted monarchy. After several heroes had been slain, Hippomenes, the Admiral, had the daring temerity to offer himself: him the people had the power to refuse (proof of their freedom) but Hippomenes had plenty of gold, which had been clandestinely obtained from the mines of Peru or Mexico;* with this he bribed the people of Atalanta three several times, and gained his election.
(* We must go back more than eleven thousand years into time for the existence of this island, how far further, for the time when its Admiral was elected King we know not; but if Noah was this Admiral — was this Hippomenes what are we to think of the Jewish history? Mr. Paber was not aware of the difficulties which his bantering etymologies might bring him into.
* Called by Ovid Tamasen, i. e. the land of darkness, from Thamus — HIDDEN: because in India, America was below the horizon. See N, B. page iii. book first of this work.)
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But, observe, upon his assuming the regal authority, the Goddess Cybele sunk the island below the Stygian water!
Hippomenes, is derived from Ippos, a greek word for horse, and that from a word which signifies to fly: this then is the flying horse Pegasus; which is a ship. And from Manah, a regulater: Hippomene, then, as connected with the Island of Atalanta, must have been, at least, Admiral of a fleet, but what puts it beyond all doubt is, his boasting of his pedigree, which is but four removes from Neptune the king of the waters. However, an acquaintance with their gradations of rank would determine that point.
I cannot conclude my remarks on the Noachidae, or people who inhabit extensive plains in the age of horror, without observing the necessity of taking into their arched flotillas some of their most useful cattle, which must otherwise have perished: this we are certain of without a rexelation! and in the oblong zodiac of Tentyra, where we find cancer at the south pole; and the divisions of Gemini crouded with seven persons all busily employed in arranging matters of some serious importance, previous to their getting into winter quarters, we find, also, in the last decanate but one, to the south pole, there is actually an OX placed in a BOAT: this is not the constellation of Taurus, for that is on the other side of Gemini, where we see him with a circle on his neck which informs us that there was a full moon in the last decanate. Was this a type of what was afterwards to happen among the Jews? borrowed from their books, it could not be, as it is well known that ____they had no books of Moses till nine hundred years after his death, unless we call the ten commandments by that name, which were engraved on the two tables of stone: for, "There was nothing in the Ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt." This confession is recorded in the 8th chap, of the first book of Kings, verse 9th. Here is an indisputable proof that there was no book of Moses in the Ark, nor do we hear any thing about the books of Moses, either in Judges or Samuel, or in the reign of David, or of that of Solomon, or in the reign of any other of their Kings, till the eighteenth year of Josiah: when all of a sudden the High-priest said to the scribe, "I have found a book in the house of the Lord," second of Kings, chap. 22nd verse 8th. Strange! that this book should be called the book that contained the books of Moses. By whom was it written? and where concealed for nine hundred years; When Solomon dedicated the temple, he knew nothing about it; there was "nothing in the Ark but the two tables of stone," second of Chron. chap. 5th, verse 10th. Having found a book it was read to the king and people by little and little: the king rent his clothes, and the people, for the first time in their lives, now heard of the marvellous things that were done in old time, &c.
All the directions and patterns for building the temple were given to Solomon by David, first of Chron. chap. 28th, verse 19th. All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern. But least there should be any mistake, we are told that the Lord himself came down to converse with Solomon about it; which would have been quite unnecessary, if they had known any thing about it by its having been communicated to a man five hundred years before.
We have seen from what ancient memorials the story of Noah may have arisen — from the necessity of living in boats at a very remote period: and we shall see how a similar mistake may have given ____existence to a Moses. The book, which first sprung to life in the sight of the High-priest Hilkiah, about, twenty years before the babylonish captivity, and which had never before been heard of was called the book of the Covenant of the Lord; in one place it is called the book of the Law by Moses, or the book of Moses, the law of Moses, the code of Moses, &c. All these expressions seem to point out that there was a book written by Moses. — The history of a woe fraught heart might, with much propriety, be called the book of misery: but what Englishman could be prevailed upon to believe that misery was either a man or a woman, by whom that book was written: — a foreigner however, who did not understand the meaning of the word misery might very pardonably mistake miserry for the name of the author of the book; instead of understanding it to be a book that treated OF grievous things. Hence we see what errors may arise from ignorance! and alas; it is these errors — these fatal errors, that have given birth to so many mystic characters, whose lives of wonder swell the volumes of history. But the mystic offspring of error, are the figurative children of falsehood, whose miraculous recitals have instilled into the minds of man that poison which has been productive of his greatest woe: the only antidote to which rmiit flow from the throne of truth, when he shall allow himself to be guided by that precious ray of divine essence, which we call reason: for it is that alone which distinguishes the man from the brute; and it is that alone which has brought man from the cave to the palace.
As we are assured, from the authority of the bible, that the book produced by the High-priest Hilkiah, about twenty years before the babylonian captivity, was not written by a man who lived nine hundred years before, called Moses: it was therefore a book of the laws about Moses — of, or concerning Moses; a book concerning whatever was mosaic. But Moses means saved from the waters. It is a name that the Egyptians gave to the land every year when the water of the Nile returned within its banks, and the land was saved from the waters, (see part first, page l4,) or rather the name that was given to the symbol which the Egyptians set up, when the water had left the land, that was called Moses,* or Mouses. And the code of laws by which they governed their husbandry during the nine months that their land was safe from the water, was called the Code of Moses. This term was applicable to the laws of all the inhabitants of extensive plains, subjected to inundations, — to the people called Noachidae.
(* See PJuche’s History of the Heavens, vol. 1st, page 98.)
But the whole world, in the age of horror, was not peopled by the Noachidae; there was another description of people that inhabited the mountains; these could not be governed by the laws of Moses, or the laws of Noachidae, — Fire, not water was their foe; they wanted no laws of the Noachidae; they wanted a code of laws by which they might be able to defend themselves from the ravages of the burning sun, when men hid themselves in the holes of the rugged rocks "from the fierce anger of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when the mountains flowed down at his presence."
The laws of Persia bore a title relative to fire under the name of Zerouse or Zoroaster. The Jews, willing to monopolize all ancient history to themselves, have very ingeniously coupled the code of the inhabitants of the mountains, with that of Noachidae, or inhabitants of the plains, by adding to their code the names of Moses and Aaron! — Moses was taken from the bottom of the water, and Aaron they acknowledge was a Mountaineer! What a remarkable coincidence! top and bottoms — what extremes!
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Second of Sam. chap 22nd, David is drawn out of many waters. In chap. 23rd, he is burned with thirst and longed for a drink of water of the well of Bethleham, which is by the gate. David has been said, by many authors, to be a mythological character. — His name and his songs are exactly upon a par with Apollo and his canticles. His marshalling his mighty men into twelve companies of three men each, and his having twelve captains, one for each month in the year, &c. look very much like an astronomical arrangement. There are three different muster-rolls of his mighties which differ from one another: they may, however, be all seen, free of expence in the bulletins of the Kings of Israel and Judah, first of Chronicles chap. 27, verse 11; and second of Samuel, chap. 23. His conduct before the hand-maids of his servants, for which his wife Michal reproves him, looks very much like the Chrisna of the Hindoos who danced with the twelve gopies or twelve female representatives of the twelve signs.
But what has still more the appearance of Astronomy is, that, David, who had so many traits in his character of the singing conqueror Apollo (which is known to be the name of the sun, in the forlorn age) is the offspring of Jesse: this is but the constellation of Virgo, almost undisguised. — The Isheh of the Egyptians, which the Greeks called Isis, the virgin mother of young Orus, the sun. Here, again we see the poverty of the inventive faculty of the hebrew historians; ever despising the annals of the pagans, and yet always taking them for their guide without being able to disguise their symbols so as to hide them even from ordinary observers; for who does not know that neither the Jews nor Phenicians had a letter J, in their alphabet, they could not therefore say Jesse, but Isse, or sometimes yesse; — Ishu is the hebrew for Jesus and by the affix of an h, becomes Ishuh or Ishuah which we write Joshua, in general, but his name is spelt four different ways in the Bible; in Num, 13, 16, Moses calls Oshea the son of Nun, Jehoshua: in Deut. chap. 32, verse 44 it is Hoshea; when we see the different scribes among the Jews, varying the same word we need not dispute about Isse the father of David and Ishe the mother of Apollo, or the sun. But what may we think of Ishu, Jesus, the son of God, and Ishua, the son of the eternal! for Nun, or Non, as it is written in the first of Chro. chap. 7, verse 27, is the Eternal!
We have seen from what astronomical consequences that the sun stood still on Mount Gibeon, in the first part of the work; we have now to consider by whose command it seemed to be stationary at the pole; we are told it was at the command of Ishuh the son of the Eternal. — Is not the sun* itself, that stood there, the son of the Eternal. But when we reflect upon the unsettled state of the jewish nation, we need not be surprised at the various ways of expressing and writing the same word; nor, indeed, of their having different shades of ideas attached to the same word.
Were they again to be united, they would be several years before they could establish a regular language; which after all their endeavours, would at last be but a heterogeneous dialect; a kind of latin-grecian-phen'cian-syrio—babylonic—mediopersiac-sanscrit sort of tongue: for such a mixture it had obtained among their writers, when their sacred books were written; from which confusion we may easily account for such mistakes as the above.
The festival of the passover is confessedly astronomical; it was always kept at the vernal equinox. Much mystery and miracle have been blended into this annual festival by the lovers of wonder: but as she is a lady whose charms I never admired, I always stretched my optic nerves into the very back ground of her picture: where I perceive, that when the angel of the Lord pass over the land of Egypt, it is precisely the time when the sun (the great angel) ____pass over the equator! — for that festival is still kept at the time when the sun is passing over that circle, which is about the 21st day of March, when the sun rises in the east, from which circumstance we call our festival about that time the feast of Easter. But we are told, that, at that time, in Egypt, all their first born were slain; this would be a melancholy consideration to those who did not know, that, this was the time when the people in Egypt were cutting down their hay and corn, which is well known to be the first born* of the year, their fruits not coming to perfection till afterwards.
(* None but the first born of the Egyptians were slain — the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, Exod. chap. 19, verse 13. This plague of cutting the hay and corn did not fall upon any of the Children of Israel — Very true; for being Sura, they had no land, consequently they had no hay or corn to cut.)
The plagues which we hear of, were very common in that country — some of them, however, go back to the age of horror, the true age of plagues: but the frogs are a very common plague in Egypt: and the waters being turned into blood is but a poetical expression for the stagnant water in the month of May, when it is covered with arid weeds, and emits a putrid stench, from which it was with some propriety called the red dragon.
At the time that the Jews left Egypt, the equator passed through the constellation of the Ram; and at the above time of the year all Egypt was gay; they had a festival at which they used to decorate their houses with branches of trees and surround their door posts with wreaths of flowers; and, to shew their knowledge in astronomy, they decorated a ram with ribbons and dowers which they led in triumph, thereby acknowledging their gratitude to God for favours received while the sun was in that constellation.
The Jews, however, hating every thing that related to astronomy, though they had a festival at the same time, had a lamb which they slew, and they decorated their two side posts and the upper door posts, not with wreaths of flowers—-no no, they smeared their doors with the blood of the lamb,* Exod. chap. 12, verse 7.
(* The time that the Jews left Egypt was near a thousand yean before the vision of John, who was called unto the supper of the Lamb; and as the woolly constellation occupies a smaller portion of the Zodiac than thirty degrees, this feast must have been the breakfast of the Lamb.)
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But from the wonders of this part of their history, concerning their coming out of Egypt, we are led to those of a higher antiquity, when Abram first went down into Egypt; as this is placed further out of our reach we shall find it to be more astronomical. What motives first induced nations to trace their history up to the beginning of the world, I do not know: to me it has ever appeared a monstrous folly, and I cannot now be prevailed upon to believe that any of the ancients intended such a thing; they traced histories up to the beginning of some astronomical period and from that recited the events; and if their annals were barren of events they could fill up the deficiency, with the history of astronomical occurrences. Whether the Jews intended their history of the creation and the subsequent parts, as real occurrences of human beings is not certain, but it is certain that they have the appearance of mythological beings; we have seen the mythological connexion of Samson and Delilah, of David and his mighty men, of Moses and Aaron and of Noah, and his descendants; and we shall find the history of Abram agreeing with the phenomena of that science without going in search of it into a remoter time than what is stated in their own books. It is asserted, in them, that Tarah was the father of Abram, whose wife was Sarah, by whom he had a son whose name was Isaac; whose seed was to be numerous as the sand on the sea shore: and whose son Jacob was father to the twelve tribes of Israel. M. Volney asserts that, All "the pretended personages, from Adam, to Abraham, and his father Tarah, are mythological beings, stars, constellations, and countries." Adam, he says, is Bootes; but he has offered no proof of it. Noah, is Osyris; but I must confess that I do not feel much conviction flash into my mind from either of these assertions. Abram, which was the original name of Abraham is precisely the Brama of the Hindoos: it seems that this people had a way of placing the as, of foreign words last in order, as in this word Abram; by transposing the a, it becomes brama; again, when India was conquered by the King of Egypt, they called him Brama Gypta: here we see the a transposed; which seem to shew that they were fond of an a terminal: but whether the meaning of the name remained the same I am not certain: we know, however, Brama was their grand name for the Deity, we know, also, that they held the Bull in high veneration, but whether there was any connexion in their minds with the Bull and Brama, I am not certain; but we know that Abir signifies the Bull; which the Greeks corrupted into Apis: both names, however are compounds, and are applicable to the Bull, in consequence of his being the most distinguished constellation in the zodiac, and of his being used in ploughing the ground; which last employment procured him the epithet of Apis or Ab-is — Ab-isis, contracted: Isis with the ear of corn is the symbol of harvest, and as the bull ploughed the ground, he was the figurative father of harvest, i. e. Abis from Ab, father; and Isis, harvest. In the circular and oblong zodiacs from Teniyra (both of which may be seen in Denon’s Travels in Egypt) the bull is the most distinguished of all the animals, in the solar round, he was, therefore, the father of the fires, i. e. he was Ab-irim. The bright star in that constellation, is the most brilliant of all the stars or fires in the zodiac, it was the father fire, i. e. it was Ab-ir. and this etymology is confirmed by the arabic name of that bright star, which is Al-de-'bir-an, i. e. the-great-father of fires. The city of ABRIRopolis in Goshen, and Abaris in Hindoostan were so called from the abundance of cattle.
Now the veneration of the ancients for the constellation of the Bull, is well known; and at the return of the equator to the various stars that composed it, one or other of the great nations ended and began their reckoning, at which time they bad a grand festival, and then putting off the old man with his deeds, they began a new aera, of 1, 2, 3, 4, &c: of this the Jews were acquainted; and being willing to have something of antiquity prefixed to their annals, they began a narrative from the beginning of Taurus: and during the passage of the equator from the first star in the Bull’s north horn to the bright star Al-de-brn they have given a list of ten ancestors in one line, and seven in another. The reader ought to examine the fourth and fifth chs. of Genesis, where he will find a ____great sameness in the two lines of descent. In one Methusael, begets Lamech; in the other it is Methuselah. The Irad in the one, and Jarad in the other are precisely the same names; and so are Enosh and Enoch; which two occur, in both genealogies, the third in descent. Enos, in hebrew is mortal man or mortal thing: it is the Enys of the greeks, the goddess of war; but the Jews having altered the sex, and made it masculine, it becomes the god of war, i. e. Mars. For it is a well known fact that Mars is rated in the third rank of mythological beings, and as such, he was worshipped on the third day of the week: and still, in France the third day of the week is called Mar-di, i. e. the day of Mars. I might ask, here, how has it happened that in both lists of the hebrew patriarchs, they have placed the god Mars as their third patriarch? In page 58, part first, I have shewn that Maha-la-leel lived at the time when the equator was in that cluster of stars in Taurus, called Meah: and I shall here observe, that in one of the lines of descent we are told that Cain was the father of Enosh or Mars; now, Cain, according to their own account, was a murderer: — it is the true sublime of romance, to make the father of the bloody god of war, to be a murderer. In the list of ten, seth is the second in order; and seth is but Iseth badly disguised, which is a well known Egyptian name for the moon, and the moon was the second mythological being which has given name to the second day of the week, (Monday.) In Adam both lines unite; he is the first of men, he is the father of life the father of all living; which is a proper epithet for the first man; the sun, is, also the father of life, he is the first in the order of the adorable beings among mythologists, and his worship, and name, graced the first day of the week, called Sun-day. Among the many hundred names given to that glorious luminary that of Adam would be among the foremost; in quality of his being the father of life, for Adam is a compound of Ad, a syriac word for father; and am, life. Thus we find how easy it is to compose a list of progenitors. Sunday begat Monday, and Monday begat Tuesday: which in French is Mar-di;— and so on till we come to Saturday, the seventh day of the week, which was a day of rest: and behold, they worshipped Saturn the seventh planet on the Saturday, the seventh day of the week; and as saturn is a very slow paced gentleman; being two years and a half in creeping through one house, which is almost like doing nothing, the Jews have, in the most accommodating way imaginable, made his day, a day of rest: which is a collateral proof that they began their march from Egypt on the Sunday morning, and pursued their journey six days by forced marches; at the end of which finding that they were safe from the Egyptian officers, they rested on the seventh: and a law was made by the order of God, to rest every seventh day through all their generations for ever, as a memorial of their quitting Egypt: from which country they were thrust out, and could not tarry, Exodus, chap. 12, verses 27, 16, 17, 39, Deut. chap. 5, verse 15, Chronicles, chap. 16, verse 3.
It is very remarkable, that, the ten commandments which were put into the temple, at its dedication, by Solomon, and which were given by God at mount Horeb, should not contain any thing about the creation of the world in six days; it is said in the fifth chap, of Deut. verse 15th, that "the Lord thy God brought thee out thence (Egypt) through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep holy the sabbath day." But notwithstanding this we hear of no observance of the sabbath for several hundred years before Josiah; neither to commemorate their leaving of Egypt; for which it was first instituted; nor yet to remind them, that, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, &c.: and as there is but one solitary witness in favour of the institution of the sabbath in consequence of God’s six days labour; and such a host in favour of its being observed in consequence of the six days labour of the Jews in marching in the wilderness six days in haste; we may therefore conclude, that, the eleventh verse of the twentieth chap, of Exodus, was put in after the babylonish captivity: but why not expunge all the other passages which state, that the sabbath was first instituted to commemorate the leaving: of Egypt in six days forced marches? These things, which are in contradiction to each other cannot be both true. Besides, we are assured, from the whole tenor of the Jewish history as it is contained in the Bible, that there was no observance of a sabbath on any account, till the days of Nehemiah, (see Neh. chap 8, verse 14, 15). But independent of its first origin, the observance of a day of rest from labour once in seven days, is a very agreeable regulation. Its origin, however, is evidently an improvement of an astronomical observance, which had a festival at the full and new moons, and at the quadratures; these sometimes happen at six days, and sometimes at eight days asunder, and require a considerable knowledge in that science to enable a man to make the necessary calculations, which becomes useless to an inland people when once custom had established the regular observance of a seventh day. In England this was done by an act of parliament: which was of sufficient power: but all the commandments of God were not sufficient to prevail upon the Jews to cease from labour on the seventh day, not even in the days of Nehemiah, who saw some in Judah, in his days, treading wine presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes and figs and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath-day.
It may, perhaps, be thought foreign to a work of this kind to spend so much ink about what may seem to be of a religious concern, but the unfounded assertion that the sabbath was instituted in consequence of God having created the world in six days is not altogether of a religious nature: it is well known how that assumption affects geology; which is a science that must for ever be involved in mystery, till its students shall call in the aid of its parent astronomy, such as I have shewn her to be in this work. And as there is not a single line in the history of the Jews, from their coming out of Egypt at the covenant at Horeb down to the days of Nehemiah, inclusive, that speaks of the sabbath as arising from the six days of God creating the world, we may safely conclude, that, the six days, has some hidden meaning, like that of the six periods of time among the hindoos which they call six sacas.
If we take the assumed "beginning," from the middle of the age of horror in the latitude of twenty-four degrees, then would there be six periods of time, of 25,000 years each, before the world would become a comfortable abode for man and animals, which story is again repeated in what is called the flood; which did not continue 150,000 years but 150 days; i. e. one day for 1,000 years. But they have placed ten generations between the creation and the flood; and between the flood and the birth of Abram are ten generations: this is another remarkable point in the history of the Jews; they seem to have had a great veneration for the numbers seven, ten, and forty; for they were forty years feeding upon Manna; Moses was forty days and forty nights upon a mountain with God, during which time (perhaps) he fasted: all which, seem strongly to favour their having been, ____originally refugees of the island of Atala, which anciently extended as far as the Azores* in the latitude of forty degrees: from whence the polar mountain would be seen as a cone with ten steps, and on which, the sun, in the age of horror, would be twice forty days in passing through the ten menus, or circles round their mount Meru: and Moses went twice up the flaming mount Horeb for his ten Menus or regulations; and was gone forty days and forty nights each time. — The double ascent to the mountain seems to indicate, that the age of horror had been repeated but twice in that part of the Island which extended to forty degrees, it having submitted to the ravages of Neptune, long before that part about the neighbourhood which is mentioned by Plato to have disappeared about 11,000 years ago. But this would more properly come under the consideration of the Geologist.
(* Asiatic Researches, vol. 8, page 286.)
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We have seen in a former part of this work, that, when the ancients rectified the heavens and the earth about 23,000 years ago, the constellation of Leo was verticle at Lanca or Ceylon, and Taurus, at that part of Atala near Teneriffe, which was called the residence* of the Bull: and we find that the Jews preserved such a veneration for the Bull, that they have made him to be their great progenitor; for though we admit that there may have been a man whose name was Abram, &c. &c. yet the history of him has an exact parallel in astronomy; with which it will be found to agree, much better than it does with the lives of human beings.
(* Asiatic Researches, vol. 9, page 78.)
The story of ____Abraham, notwithstanding all the endeavours of theologians to give it the appearance of the history of human beings, has preserved its mythological features with an outline and colouring, easily to be recognised by every son of Urania. We have just seen that the Egyptians have their harvest about the time which the sun passes over the equator, and if we go back to the time of Abraham we shall find that the equator was in Taurus; the Egyptians must, then, have had their harvest while the sun was in the Bull; the Bull, was, therefore, in their figurative way of speaking, the father of harvest, not only because he ploughed the ground, but, because the sun was there when they got in their harvest: thus the Bull was doubly distinguished as their benefactor; he was now, more than ever, become the Bull of life, i. e. he was not only called Abir, the Bull, but Abir-am or Ab-r-am, the Bull of life, — the father of harvest. And as their harvest was originally under the direction of Iseth, or Isis, whatever belonged to harvest was Isiac; but the Bull, Abiram, was now become the father of Isiac! and to give this the appearance of a human descent, they added to Abir, the masculine affix ah; then it became Ab’-rii-am who was the father of Isiac. And we actually find this equivoque in the hebrew history of Abram whom the Lord afterwards called Abraham, who was the father of Isaac, whose seed w as to be as countless as the sand on the sea shore for multitude; even this is truly applicable to Isiac the offspring of Ab’rh-am; for countless indeed are the offspring of the scythe and sickle! but if we allow Isiac to be a real son of Ab'rah-am, we must enquire after his mother. During the time that the equator is passing through the constellation of the Bull in the spring, the Bull would rise in the east every morning in the harvest time, in Egypt, — but in the poetical language of the ancients, it would be said that, when Abir-am consorts with Aurora he will produce Isiac. But Aurora is well known to be the golden splendour of the east, and the brightness of the east is called Zara, and the morning star is Serah, in the eastern languages, and we find a similar change of sound in the name of Isaac’s mother, whom the Lord would no longer call Sarai but Sarah.
These are remarkable coincidences! But Ab'ram is the astronomical offspring of Tarah, which in the eastern language has a meaning like our word terror, and when the ancients wanted to express, in one word, all that was frightful, they doubled the word tara and said taratara', from which the greeks made Tartarus, which we translate Hell. The reign of winter was the reign of terror or tarah, and before the Bull came to the equator it was a wintry constellation; but when it had risen or while it was rising above the equator it was the offspring of Tarah! but the land of the nativity of Abraham and Terah was ur; Tarah, Abraham, &c. belonged to a wane family; and Tarah and Abir-am and Zara, the Bull’s wife or sister are also a Urane family — all the offspring of the chaste virgin Urania!
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It is really surprising to see with what ease and exactness all the very remote and miraculous histories of the ancients, agree with the symbolical and highly poetical expressions made use of by the sons of Urania to commemorate the various effects produced by the complex motions of the earth, through a series of painful observations for more than four millions of years. And I am quite certain that if the sons of Geological research would take this theory of time for their guide, we might soon be in a very fair way of obtaining a more correct history of the earth itself, and all its various strata, than has hitherto been given. This had been my task some years ago, but, that I found it necessary, as a solid foundation for such an undertaking, to reduce the vast chaos of time which the earth must have been in existence into its regular component parts or subdivisions, as they have been marked out by the finger of truth upon the Dial of the Deity.
THE END.
Printed by R. Walker, new the Duke’s Palaoe.