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Title: The Masculine Cross

Author: Anonymous

Release date: April 10, 2012 [eBook #39414]

Language: English

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THE MASCULINE CROSS.


[Illustration: _God Indra Nailed to a Cross._]

[Illustration: _Buddhist Cross._]

[Illustration: _Cross Common on Ancient Assyrian Monuments._]

[Illustration: _Ancient Heathen,--Mexican Cross._]


THE MASCULINE CROSS

Or
A History of Ancient and Modern Crosses and
Their Connection with the Mysteries of Sex Worship
Also an Account of the Kindred Phases of
Phallic Faiths and Practices.







Privately Printed
1904.




CONTENTS.


                                                  PAGE

  CHAPTER I.
    THE CROSS                                        1


  CHAPTER II.
    THE CROSS (Continued)                           23


  CHAPTER III.
    THE DOCTRINE OF A SACRED TRIAD                  42


  CHAPTER IV.
    THE DOCTRINE OF A SACRED TRIAD (Continued)      63


  CHAPTER V.
    THE GOLDEN CALF OF AARON                        79


  CHAPTER VI.
    CIRCUMCISION                                    91


  CHAPTER VII.
    ANDROGYNOUS DEITIES, SEX WORSHIP, &C.          100




INTRODUCTORY.


_In the following pages certain things supposed to be of comparatively
modern origin have been traced back to the remotest historic ages of the
world; as a consequence, it follows that the modern symbolical meaning
given to such things is sometimes only one acquired in subsequent times,
and not that exactly which was originally intended,--it must not be
supposed, therefore, that the interpretation belonging to the epoch in
which we are first enabled to trace a definite meaning is to be
conclusively regarded as that which gave birth to the form of the symbol.
The original may have been--probably was--very different to what came
after; the starting point may have been simplicity and purity, whilst the
developments of after years were degrading and vicious. Particularly so
was this the case in the Lingam worship of the vast empire of India;
originally the adoration of an Almighty Creator of all things, it became,
in time, the worship of the regenerative powers of material nature, and
then the mere indulgence in the debased passions of an abandoned and
voluptuous nature._

_With regard to the symbol of the Cross, it may be repugnant to the
feelings of some to be told that their recognition of its purely Christian
origin is a mistake, and that it was as common in Pagan as in more
advanced times; they may find consolation, however, in the fact that its
real beginning was further back still in the world's history, and that
with Paganism it was, as it had been with Christianity, simply an adopted
favourite._

_Our story is taken up in the middle epoch of the history, and shews the
relationship of the things we deal with to prevailing phallic faiths and
practices._




THE MASCULINE CROSS.




CHAPTER I.

    _Universal prevalence of the Cross--Mistakes--The Cross not of
    Christian Origin--Christian Veneration of the Cross--The Roman
    Ritual--The Cross equally honoured by the Gentile and Christian
    Worlds--Druidical Crosses--The Copt Oak of Charnwood Forest--Assyrian
    Crosses in British Museum--Pectoral Crosses--Egyptian Crosses--Greek
    Cross--St. Andrew's Cross--Planetary Signs and Crosses--Monogram of
    Christ at Serapis--Cross in India--Pagodas in form of
    Crosses--Mariette Bey's Discovery--Buddhist and Roman Crosses--Chinese
    Crosses--Kampschatkan Crosses--American Crosses--Cross among the Red
    Indians--The Royal Commentaries of Peru--Mexican Ideas relative to the
    Cross--The Spaniards in America--Sign of the Cross--Cross as an
    Amulet--Hot-cross Buns--Tertullian on the Use of the Cross._


The universal prevalence of the cross as an ornament and symbol during the
last eighteen centuries in the Christian church has led to some great, if
not grave, mistakes. It has been supposed, and for various obvious reasons
very naturally so, to be of exclusively Christian origin, and to represent
materially no more than the instrument by which the founder of that
religion was put to death; and, spiritually or symbolically, faith in the
sacrificial atoning work he then completed. There are not a few people
about who, having become imbued with this idea, rush to the hasty
conclusion that wherever the cross is found, and upon whatever monuments,
it indicates a connection with Christianity, and is therefore of
comparatively modern origin. History, in consequence, becomes a strange
and unfathomable mystery, especially when it belongs to kingdoms of
well-known great antiquity, amongst whose symbols or ornaments the cross
is plentiful, and the mind finds itself involved in a confusion from which
it cannot readily extricate itself. Never was there a greater blunder
perpetrated, or a more ignorant one, than the notion of the figure of the
cross owing its origin to the instrument of Christ's death, and the
Christian who finds comfort in pressing it to his lips in the hour of
devotion or of trouble must be reminded that the ancient Egyptian did a
similar thing.

The fact is, there is great similarity between the cross worship, or
veneration if you please, of ancient and modern times. Christians, we
know, are apt to repudiate the charge of rendering worship to this symbol,
but it is clear from what is printed in some of their books of devotion
that some sort of worship is actually rendered, though disguised under
other names. As to the veneration thus offered being right or wrong, we
here say nothing; the fact only concerns us so far as it relates to the
subject we have in hand.

If we open the _Tablet_ (Roman Catholic newspaper) for the 26th of
November, 1853, we read:--"Those of our readers who have visited Rome
will, doubtless, have remarked, at the foot of the stairs which descend
from the square of the Capitol to the square of the Campo Vaccino, under
the flight of steps in front of the Church of St. Joseph, and over the
door of the Mamertine prison, a very ancient wooden crucifix, before which
lamps and wax tapers are constantly burning, and surrounded on all sides
with exvotos and testimonies of public thanksgiving. No image of the
crucified Saviour is invested with greater veneration.... The worship
yielded to the holy crucifix of Campo Vaccino is universal at Rome, and is
transmitted from generation to generation. The fathers teach it to the
children, and in all the misfortunes and all the trials of life the first
idea is almost always to have recourse to the holy crucifix, the object of
such general veneration, and the source of so many favours. It is, above
all, in sickness that the succour of the holy image is invoked with more
confidence and more eagerness.... There are few families in Rome who have
not to thank the holy crucifix for some favour and some benefit.... In the
interval of the sermons and other public exercises of devotion the holy
crucifix, exposed on the high altar in the midst of floods of light, saw
incessantly prostrated before it a crowd of adorers and suppliants.... As
soon as the holy image of the Saviour had appeared on the Forum, the Holy
Father advanced on the exterior flight of steps of the church to receive
it, and when the shrine had arrived at the base of the stairs of the
Church of San Luca, at some paces from the flight of steps on which the
Holy Father stood, in rochet, stole, and pallium of red velvet, he bowed
before the holy crucifix and venerated it devoutly."

In harmony with this, the Missal supplies us with prayers and hymns in the
service for Good Friday, addressed directly to the cross.

"We adore Thy cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify Thy holy
resurrection; for by the wood of the cross the whole world is filled with
joy."

    "O faithful cross, O noblest tree,
    In all our woods there is none like thee.
    No earthly groves, no shady bowers
    Produce such leaves, such fruit, such flowers.
    Sweet are the nails and sweet the wood,
    Which bore a weight so sweet and good."

    "O lovely tree, whose branches bore
    The royal purple of His gore,
    How glorious does thy body shine,
    Supporting members so divine.
    Hail, cross! our hope, on thee we call
    Who keep this paschal festival;
    Grant to the just increase of grace,
    And every sinner's guilt efface."

There is something unusually remarkable about the popularity of the cross;
we can hardly point to a time when, or to a part of the world where, it
has not been in favour. It has entered into the constitution of religions
of the most opposite character, has been transmitted from one to another,
and though originally belonging to the rudest form of pagan idolatry, is
now esteemed highly by those who profess to have adopted the loftiest
ideal of civilised worship. After mentioning the fact of its popularity in
the pagan world, Mr. Maurice remarks: "Let not the piety of the Catholic
Christian be offended at the preceding assertion, that the cross was one
of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India.
Equally honoured in the Gentile and the Christian world, this emblem of
universal nature--of that world to whose four quarters its diverging radii
pointed--decorated the hands of most of the sculptured images in the
former country, and in the latter stamped its form upon the most majestic
shrines of their deities."

Here we may profitably glance at a few different parts of the world and at
some of the past ages, in tracing out the possible origin and meaning of
this symbol. In Britain there have been found monuments so ancient and
with such surroundings that but for certain peculiar marks they would
unhesitatingly have been put down as Druidical. They are marked with the
cross, and in the estimation of some, as we have already pointed out, that
is regarded as conclusive proof of Christian origin. The inference,
however, is a false one, the monuments are too old for Christianity, and
the cruciform etchings upon them belong to another religious system
altogether. It is known that the Druids consecrated the sacred oak by
cutting it into the shape of a cross, and so necessary was it regarded to
have it in this form, that if the lateral branches were not large enough
to construct the figure properly, two others were fixed as arms on either
side of the trunk. The cross having been thus constructed, the Arch-Druid
ascended and wrote the name of the Deity upon the trunk at the place of
intersection, and on the extremities of the arms.

The peculiar interest attached to this idol lies in the fact that it is
described by the best authorities as the Gallic or Celtic Tau. "The Tau,"
says Davies in his _Celtic Researches_, "was the symbol of the Druidical
Jupiter. It consisted of a huge grand oak deprived of all its branches,
except only two large ones which, though cut off and separated, were
suspended from the top of its trunk-like suspended arms." The idol, say
others, was in reality a cross, the same in form as the linga.

A few years ago, near the hill of Bardon, in the middle of Charnwood
forest, in the county of Leicester, there grew and perhaps still grows, a
very old tree called the Copt Oak. This tree, there is reason to believe,
was more than two thousand years old, and once formed a Celtic Tau. Forty
years ago, a writer who knew the tree well, said that its condition then
suggested very distinctly the possibility of the truthfulness of the
story. It was described as a vast tree, then reduced to a mere shell
between two and three inches only in thickness, perforated by several
openings, and alive only in about one-fourth of the shell; bearing small
branches, but such as could not have grown when the tree was entire; then
it must have had branches of a size not less than an oak of ordinary
dimensions. This was evident from one of the openings in the upper part of
the shell of the trunk, exactly such as a decayed branch would produce.
The tree was evidently of gigantic size in its earlier days, as shown by
its measurement at the date we are speaking of. The remains of the trunk
were twenty feet high, the height proper for the Tau, and the
circumference at the ground was twenty-four feet; at the height of ten
feet the girth was twenty, giving a diameter of nearly seven feet. This
tree, we have said, was called the Copt Oak; the epithet copt, or copped,
may be derived from the Celtic _cop_--a head, and evidently indicates that
the tree had been headed and reduced to the state of a bare trunk. The
idol, as already described, was formed by cutting away the branches of the
tree, which was always a large one, and affixing a beam, forming a cross
with the bare trunk.[1]

From time immemorial the Copt Oak has borne a celebrity that bears out the
tradition of its ancient sacredness. Potter, the historian of the forest
of Charnwood, writes that it was one of the three places at which
Swanimotes were held, always in the open air, for the regulation of rights
and claims on the forest; and persons have been known even in late times
to have attended such motes. "At this spot," he says, "it may be under
this tree, Edric the Forester is said to have harangued his forces against
the Norman invasion; and here too, in the Parliamentary troubles of 1642,
the Earl of Stamford assembled the trained bands of the district." "These
facts," says Dudley, "mark the Copt Oak extraordinary, and show, that
notwithstanding the lapse of two thousand years, the trunk was at that
distant period a sacred structure, a Celtic idol; and that it is
illustrative of antiquarian records."

Still further back in history than the foregoing are we able to trace this
singular figure. If we visit the Assyrian galleries of the British Museum
we shall observe life-size effigies in stone of the kings Samsi-Rammanu,
B.C. 825, and Assur-Nazir-Pal, B.C. 880; suspended from the necks of these
monarchs and resting upon their breasts are prominently sculptured Maltese
crosses about three inches in length and width; they are in a good state
of preservation, and will amply repay anyone for the trouble of an
inspection, should they be desirous of pursuing this enquiry. In the Roman
Catholic dictionaries we find these ornaments described as pectoral
crosses--crosses of precious metal worn at the breast by bishops and
abbots as a mark of their office, and sometimes also by canons, etc., who
have obtained the privilege from Rome. It is stated these pectorals were
not generally used by the Roman ecclesiastics till the middle of the
sixteenth century; however that may be, it is a fact, as proved by the
Assyrian sculptures, that they are nearly, if not more than, three
thousand years old, and not the least interesting feature distinguishing
them is their perfect similarity of design. It is strange that we
moderns--the disciples of Christ--should have had supplied to us at that
remote period the pattern of an ornament or symbol which we are accustomed
to regard as emblematic of essential features of our religion, but it is
true.

Look across now to Egypt and we find monuments and tombs literally
bedizened with the cross, and that too in a variety of shapes. Long, long
before Christ, the Ibis was represented with human hands and feet, holding
the staff of Isis in one hand, and a globe and cross in the other. Here we
are in one of the most ancient kingdoms of the world--a kingdom so ancient
that its years are lost in obscurity--yet still the cross is found.
Whatever it may have represented in other countries, and whatever may be
its meaning here, from the positions in which it is found and from its
constant association with ecclesiastical personages and offices, it was
evidently one of the most sacred of their symbols. Two forms, among
others, are common, one a simple cross of four limbs of equal length, the
other that shaped like the letter =X=; the first is generally known as the
Greek cross, the second as that of St. Andrew, both however being of the
same form and owing their different appearance only to the position in
which they are placed.

It is well known, probably, to most of our readers that the astronomical
signs of certain of the planets consist of crosses, crescents, circles,
and in ancient Egypt these were precisely the same as those now used.
Saturn was represented by a cross surmounting a ram's horn, Jupiter by a
cross beneath a horn, Venus by a cross beneath a circle, the Earth by a
cross within a circle, Mercury by a cross surmounted by a circle and
crescent, and Mars by a cross above a circle. These may still be seen in
almanacs, and on the large coloured bottles in the windows of the
druggist. In the hands of Isis, Osiris, and Hermes, corresponding with the
Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury of the Greeks, are also found the above signs.

When the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, was destroyed by one of the
Christian emperors, it is related by several historians, Socrates and
Sozomen, for instance, that beneath the foundation was discovered the
monogram of Christ; and that considerable disputing arose in consequence
thereof, the Gentiles endeavouring to use it for their own purposes, and
the Christians insisting that the cross, being uneasy beneath the weight
or dominion of the temple, overthrew it.

If we turn to India we find the cross almost as common as in Egypt and
Europe, and not the least interesting feature of the matter is the curious
fact that a number of the pagodas are actually cruciform in structure.
Jagannath is the name of one of the mouths of the Ganges, upon which was
built the great pagoda where the Great Brahmin or High Priest resided. We
were told years ago, by travellers, that the form of the choir or interior
was similar in proportion to all the others, which were built upon the
same model, in the form of a cross. The pagoda at Benares, also, was in
the figure of a cross, having its arms equal. After the above, in
importance, was the pagoda at Muttra; this likewise was cruciform. One of
these temples, that at Chillambrum on the Coromandel coast, is said to be
four miles in circumference. Here there are seven lofty walls one within
the other round the central quadrangle, and as many pyramidal gateways in
the middle of each side which form the limbs of a vast cross, consisting
altogether of twenty-eight pyramids. There are, therefore, fourteen in a
row, which extend more than a mile in one continuous line.

What has been called, and perhaps justly so, the oldest religious monument
in the world was discovered a few years ago by Mariette Bey, near the
Great Pyramid. For ages it had lain there, buried in the sand--how many we
cannot tell, but very many we know; enough to carry us back to a very
remote past. And this, too, like the Indian temples, was in the shape of a
cross. Renan visited it in 1865, and though he found it in many
particulars different from those known elsewhere, he described the
interior, which much recalled the chamber of the Great Pyramid, as in the
form of =T=, the principle aisle being divided in three rows, the
transverse aisle in two.

Mr. Fergusson, the architect, also saw it, and, while admiring its simple
and chaste grandeur of style, with some astonishment described the form of
the principal chamber as that of a CROSS. And this was the plan of both
tomb and temple in the earliest ages, testifying to the great veneration
paid to this symbol.

There is a remarkable resemblance between the Buddhist crosses of India
and those used by the Christian Roman Church. The cross of the Buddhist is
represented with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a
Calvary as by the Roman Catholics. It is represented in various ways, but
the shaft with the cross-bar and the Calvary remain the same. The tree of
life and knowledge, or the jamba tree, in their maps of the world, is
always represented in the shape of a cross, eighty-four yoganas, or 423 or
432 miles high, including the three steps of the Calvary.

From India we naturally turn to China, and, though its use there is
involved in a deal of mystery, the cross is found among their
hieroglyphics, on the walls of their pagodas and on the lamps which they
used to illuminate their temples.

In Kamschatka, Baron Humboldt found the cross and remains of hieroglyphics
similar to those of Egypt.

Passing into America, we find that what could only be described as perfect
idolatry prevailed with respect to the veneration paid to the cross.
Throughout Mexico and some parts of South America the emblem is constantly
found, and in many instances is evidently of great antiquity. Some
travellers have explained their presence by attributing them to the
Spaniards, but those people found them there when they arrived, and were
greatly astonished at the spectacle, not knowing how to account for it. A
lieutenant of Cortez passed over from the island of Cosumel to the
continent, and coasted the peninsula of Yucatan as far as Campeachy.
Everywhere he was struck with the evidences of a higher civilisation, and
was astonished at the sight of numerous large stone crosses, evidently
objects of worship, which he met with in various places.

At Cozuma an ancient cross is still standing. Here there is a temple of
considerable size, with pyramidal towers rising several stories above the
rest of the building, facing the cardinal points. In the centre of the
quadrangular area within stands a high cross, constructed of stone and
lime like the rest of the temple, and ten palms in height. The natives
regard is as the emblem of the god of rain.

The discovery of the cross amongst the Red Indians as an object of
worship, by the Spanish missionaries, in the fifteenth century, completely
mystified them, and they hardly knew whether to attribute it to a good or
an evil origin--whether it was the work of St. Thomas or of the Devil. The
symbol was not an occasional spectacle in odd places, as though there by
accident, it met them on all sides; it was literally everywhere, and in
every variety of form. It mattered not whether the building was old or
new, inhabited or ruined and deserted, whether it was a temple or a
palace, there was the cross in all shapes and of all materials--of marble,
gypsum, wood, emerald, and jasper. What was, perhaps, still more
remarkable was the fact that it was associated with certain other things
common on the Babylonian monuments, such as the bleeding deity, the
serpent and the sacred eagle, and that it bore the very same names by
which it was known in Roman Catholic countries, "the tree of subsistence,"
"the wood of health," "the emblem of life." In this latter appellation
there was a parallel to the name by which it was known in Egypt, and by
which the holy Tau of the Buddhists has always been known; thus placing,
as has been said, any supposition of accidental coincidence beyond all
reasonable debate.

In the Royal Commentaries of Peru, we have some interesting allusions to
the cross and to the general sanctity with which it was surrounded. In the
city of Cozco, the Incas had one of white marble, which they called a
crystalline jasper, but how long they had had it was unknown. The Inca,
Garcillasso de la Vega, said he left in the year 1560, in the cathedral
church of that city; it was then hanging upon a nail by a list of black
velvet; formerly, when in the hands of the Indians, it had been suspended
by a chain of gold and silver. The form is Greek, that is, square; being
as broad as it was long, and about three fingers wide. It was previously
kept in one of the royal apartments, called Huaca, which signified a
consecrated place. The record says that though the Indians did not adore
it, yet they held it in great veneration, either for the beauty of it, or
for some other reason which they knew not to assign; and so was observed
amongst them, until the Marquess Don Francisco Pizarro entered the valley
of Tumpiz, when by reason of some accidents which befel Pedro de Candia
they conceived a greater esteem and veneration for it. The historian
complains that the Spaniards, after they had taken the imperial city, hung
up this cross in the vestry of a church they built, whereas, he says, they
ought to have placed a relic of that kind upon the high altar, adorning it
with gold and precious stones; by which respect to a thing the Indians
esteemed sacred, and by assimilating the ordinances of the Christian
religion as near as was possible with those which the law of nature had
taught this people, the lessons of Christianity would thereby have become
more easy and familiar, and not seemed so far estranged from the
principles of their own Gentilism.

This cross is again mentioned in another part of the Royal Commentaries,
and two travellers are described as being filled with admiration at seeing
crosses erected on the top of the high pinnacles of the temples and
palaces; the which, it is said, were introduced from the time that Pedro
de Candia, being in Tumpiz, charmed or tamed the wild beasts which were
let loose to devour him, and which, simply by virtue of the cross which he
held in his hand, became gentle and domestic. This was recounted with such
admiration by the Indians, who carried the news of the miracle to Cozco,
that when the inhabitants of the city understood it they went immediately
to the sanctuary where the jasper cross already mentioned stood, and,
having brought it forth, they with loud acclamations adored and worshipped
it, conceiving that though the sign of the cross had for many ages been
conserved by them in high esteem and veneration yet it was not entertained
with such devotion as it deserved, because they were not as yet acquainted
with its virtues. Believing that the sign of the cross had tamed and shut
the mouths of the wild beasts, they imagined that it had a like power to
deliver them out of the hands of their enemies.

On both the northern and southern continents of America the cross was
believed to possess the power of restraining evil spirits, and was the
common symbol of the god of rain and of health. The people prayed to it
when their country needed water, and the Aztec goddess of rains held one
in her hand. At the feast celebrated to her honour in the spring, when the
genial shower was needed to promote fertilisation, they were wont to
conciliate the favour of Centeotl, the daughter of heaven and goddess of
corn, by nailing a boy or girl to a cross, and after they had been so
suspended for awhile piercing them with arrows shot from a bow. The
Muyscas, less sanguinary than the Mexicans in sacrificing to the god of
the waters, extended a couple of ropes transversely over some lake or
stream, thus forming a gigantic cross, and at the point of intersection
threw in their offerings of food, gems, and precious oils.

Quetyalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office a mace like the
cross of a bishop; his robe was covered with the symbol, and its adoration
was connected throughout with his worship.

There is, of course, no doubt whatever that the Spaniards took the cross
with them to America, and scattered it about so much in such varied
directions that their own became so intermingled with the native ones as
to make it difficult to distinguish one from the other; but the fact
remains that what there was of cordiality in the reception they met with
from the aborigines, was due in no small degree to their use of the same
emblem on their standards; when this became apparent the astonishment was
mutual. Many travellers have told us of these ancient crosses, and some of
them while expressing doubts as to their antiquity, have yet supplied us
with evidence of the same. Mr. Stephens is one of these. In his _Incidents
of Travel in Central America_, he supplies us with some wonderful Altar
Tablets found at Palenque, the principal subject in one of which is the
cross. It is surmounted by a strange bird, and loaded with indescribable
ornaments. There are two human figures, one on either side of the cross,
evidently of important personages; both are looking towards the cross, and
one seems in the act of making an offering. The traveller says:--"All
speculations on the subject are of course entitled to little regard, but
perhaps it would not be wrong to ascribe to those personages a sacerdotal
character. The hieroglyphics doubtless explain all. Near them are other
hieroglyphics which remind us of the Egyptian mode of recording the name,
history, office, or character of the persons represented. This tablet of
the cross has given rise to more learned speculations than perhaps any
others found at Palenque. Dupaix and his commentators, assuming for the
building a very remote antiquity, or at least, a period long antecedent to
the Christian era, account for the appearance of the cross by the argument
that it was known and had a symbolical meaning among ancient nations long
before it was established as the emblem of the Christian faith."

Near Miztla, "the city of the moon," is a cavern temple excavated from the
solid rock in the form of a cross, 123 feet in length and breadth, the
limbs being about 25 feet in width.

Other relics have been found in abundance in the same part of the world,
proving how well known this emblem was before the advent of Christianity.
In the Mexican Tribute Tables, we were told a few years ago by a writer in
the _Historical Magazine_, small pouches or bags frequently occur.
Appendages to dress, they are tastefully formed and ornamented with fringe
and tassels. A cross of the Maltese or more ordinary form (Greek or Latin)
is conspicuously woven or painted on each. They appear to have been in
great demand, a thousand bundles being the usual Pueblo tax.

The practice of marking the cross on their persons and wearing it in their
garments was once common with some if not with all the occupants of the
Southern Continent. The Abipones of Paraguay tatooed themselves by
pricking the skin with a thorn. They all wore the form of a cross
impressed on their foreheads, and two small lines at the corner of each
eye, extending towards the ears, besides four transverse lines at the root
of the nose, between the eyebrows, as national marks. What these figures
signified no one was able to tell. The people only knew this, that the
custom had been handed down to them by their ancestors. Not only were
crosses marked on their foreheads, but woven in the red woollen garments
of many of them. This was long before they knew anything of the Christian
religion.

The "hot cross bun," eaten in this country on Good Friday, is supposed by
many to be exclusively Christian in its origin; whereas it is no more than
a reproduction of a cake marked with a cross which was duly offered in the
heathen temples to such living idols as the serpent and the bull. It was
made of flour, honey and milk, or oil, and at certain times was eaten with
much ceremony by both priests and people.

There was also used in the Pagan times the monogram of a cross upon a
heart, the meaning of which was according to Egyptologists, "goodness."
"This figure," says Sir G. Wilkinson, "enclosed in a parallelogram, in
which form it would signify 'the abode of good,' was depicted or
sculptured upon the front of several houses in Memphis and Thebes."

A very ancient Phoenician medal was found many years ago in the ruins of
Citium, on which were inscribed the cross, the rosary, and the lamb. An
engraving of this may be seen in Higgins' _Celtic Druids_ and in Dr.
Clark's _Travels_.

The connection of the cross with Paganism originally, and its ultimate
assumption by the Christian church, is curiously and strikingly brought
out by Tertullian in his _Apologeticus_ and _Ad Nationes_. These
treatises, we may observe, are so much alike that the former has sometimes
been regarded as a first draft of the latter, which is nearly double the
length. Probably, however, they are entirely different productions, one
being addressed to the general public and the other to the rulers and
magistrates.

Charged with worshipping a cross, he says:--"As for him who affirms that
we are the priesthood of a cross, we shall claim him as our
co-religionist. A cross is in its material a sign of wood; amongst
yourselves also the object of worship is a wooden figure. Only, whilst
with you the figure is a human one, with us the wood is its own figure.
Never mind for the present what is the shape, provided the material is the
same; the form, too, is of no importance, if so be it be the actual body
of a god. If, however, there arises a question of difference on this
point, what, let me ask, is the difference between the Athenian Pallas or
the Pharia Ceres, and wood formed into a cross, when each is represented
by a rough stock without form, and by the merest rudiment of a statue of
unformed wood? Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an
erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its
mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam,
of course, and its projecting seat. Now you have the less to excuse you,
for you dedicate to religion only a mutilated imperfect piece of wood,
while others consecrate to the sacred purpose a complete structure. The
truth however, after all, is that your religion is all cross, as I shall
show. You are indeed unaware that your gods in their origin have proceeded
from this hated cross. Now every image, whether carved out of wood or
stone, or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer material,
must needs have had plastic hands engaged in its formation. Well then,
this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden
cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the
latent and concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards and
the back takes a straight direction and the shoulders project laterally,
if you simply place a man with his arms and hands out-stretched, you will
make the general outline of a cross. Starting then from this rudimental
form and prop, as it were, he applies a covering of clay, and so gradually
completes the limbs and forms the body, and covers the cross within with
the shape which he meant to impress upon the clay; then from this design,
with the help of compasses and leaden moulds, he has got all ready for his
image which is to be brought out into marble, or clay, or metal, or
whatever the material be of which he has determined to make his god. This
then is the process: after the cross-shaped frame the clay; after the clay
the god. In a well-understood routine the cross passes into a god through
the clayey medium. The cross then you consecrate, and from it the
consecrated deity begins to derive its origin. By way of example let us
take the case of a tree which grows up into a system of branches and
foliage, and is a reproduction of its own kind, whether it springs from
the kernel of an olive, or the stone of a peach, or a grain of pepper
which has been duly tempered under ground. Now if you transplant it or
take a cutting off its branches for another plant, to what will you
attribute what is produced by the propagation? Will it not be to the
grain, or the stone, or the kernel? Because as the third stage is
attributable to the second, and the second in like manner to the first, so
the third will have to be referred to the first, through the second as the
mean. We need not stay any longer in the discussion of this point, since
by a natural law every kind of produce throughout nature refers back its
growth to its original source; and just as the product is comprised in its
primal cause, so does that cause agree in character with the thing
produced. Since then, in the production of your gods, you worship the
cross which originates them, here will be the original kernel and grain
from which are propagated the wooden materials of your idolatrous images.
Examples are not far to seek. Your victories you celebrate with religious
ceremony as deities, and they are more august in proportion to the joy
they bring you. The frames on which you hang up your crosses--these are as
it were the very core of your pageants. Thus in your victories the
religion of your camp makes even crosses objects of worship; your
standards it adores, your standards are the sanction of its oaths, your
standards it prefers before Jupiter himself. But all that parade of images
and that display of pure gold, are as so many necklaces of the crosses. In
like manner also in the banners and ensigns, which your soldiers guard
with no less sacred care, you have the streamers and vestments of your
crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship unadorned and simple
crosses."

We give this passage at length because it emphasises what we are urging in
connection with this subject, viz., that the cross is common to both
Christianity and Paganism, that the latter possessed it ages before the
former, and is therefore more likely to have originated it. We speak with
some reserve on this latter point for want of proper and full evidence. It
may of course be possible that in a purer and more enlightened age the
cross was known and used; we shall probably, however, find our researches
stop short in Pagan times, in which we shall have to look for the
generally recognised meaning of the symbol.

It is remarkable in the quotation just made, that Tertullian never
attempts to refute the charge brought by the Pagans against the Christians
of his time of worshipping the cross; he merely retaliates by asserting
that they did the very same thing in a somewhat different manner. "As for
him," he says, "who affirms that we are the priesthood of a cross, we
shall claim him as our co-religionist.... What, let me ask, is the
difference between the Athenian Pallas or the Pharian Ceres, and wood
formed into a cross?"

He further identifies himself and his religion with the Pagans in this
particular by saying:--"In all our movements, our travels, our going out
and coming in, putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in
lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down: whatever employment
occupies us, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross." How much
all this reminds us of the universality of the symbol in pre-Christian
times. We can scarcely point to an age or to a century in which it did not
in some way enter into its history, its theology, its social and domestic
life. Again and again have monuments been discovered which put the date of
its use further back than had been imagined, and some have been brought to
light which carry the story back into very remote antiquity indeed. In the
wilds of Central India, for instance, a little over twenty years back, the
late Mr. Mulheran, C.E., discovered two of the oldest crosses ever met
with. They were granite monoliths, perfect in structure, and very much
like those to be found here and there in the western parts of Cornwall.
One was ten feet nine inches in height, and the other eight feet six
inches; each being in the midst of a group of cairns and cromlechs or
dolmens, which Colonel Taylor describes as similar in character to some
which he formerly surveyed near the village of Rajunkolloor, within the
Principality of Shorapoor, in the Deccan. Their extreme antiquity is
inferred from the fact, as stated by the European officer who first
discovered them, that the vicinity of the groups of cromlechs and crosses
had, at some remote period, been cultivated; that parts of the hills had
been cut into terraces, and supported by large stone banks or walls; but
that the country for miles in every direction was, and had been for
centuries and centuries, entirely uninhabited, and was grown over with
dense forests. It has been estimated that, as this elevated and
long-neglected region has been the possession of the low castes, or
non-Aryan helots, from time immemorial, we may confidently assume that the
monoliths in question were erected by the aboriginal population of the
soil--a population which was driven, not improbably three thousand years,
at the least, before the advent of Christ, from the richer plains below by
the first Aryan invader who had crossed the five streams, and found a
temporary refuge in the nearest range of hills to the west of Chandar,
until another foe--the Mogul--appeared upon the scene, and finally subdued
both the conqueror and his victims. "Here then," says a reviewer, "amongst
these now fragmentary people from the débris of a widely-spread primeval
race (to borrow a phrase from a recent writer on the non-Aryan languages
of the Continent), we find the symbol of the cross, not only expressing
the same mystery as in all other parts of the world, but its erection,
doubtless, dating from one of the very earliest migrations of our
species." It is impossible to adduce any clearer or stronger proof of its
primitive antiquity than this.

It has been suggested by some writers, who, for some reason or other,
objected to the recognition of the cross as an emblem of great antiquity,
that the stone structures which were erected in the British Islands by the
Druids, Saxons, and Danes, owed their cruciform character to the
necessities of the situation rather than to any other cause; that the
stones were placed across each other as a matter of mere convenience, and
not with the view of forming a cross, and that these monuments, which
served as instruments of Druidical superstition before the implanting of
the Gospel in Britain, were afterwards appropriated to the use of
Christian memorials by being formed in the figure of a cross or marked
with this emblem. It is admitted, of course, that those cruciform
structures were thus appropriated, but of what use will it be to repudiate
the antiquity of examples whose age has been far surpassed in other parts
of the world. The crosses of India, just alluded to, remain to be
accounted for, and even when they have been as summarily disposed of as
the British ones, there are the crosses suspended from the necks of the
Assyrian kings, whose existence cannot possibly be accounted for by the
above hypothesis. It was not necessity or convenience that designed a
Maltese cross, a thousand years before the Christian era, of precisely the
same form as that which is worn by men and women in this nineteenth
century, nor probably was it a merely ornamental taste; we are rather
disposed to believe that the secret lies in the symbolical meaning, which
has ever been attached to the form.

The universality of the cross as a religious symbol is certainly a most
astounding fact, and the more so because it has evidently always
represented the same fundamental idea in connection with the theological
systems, in all ages, of the Old and New Worlds. If but one of these
mythologies possessed it, there might be little difficulty in tracing out
the significance of the coincidence between its existence there and in
Christian theology, but prevailing as it does universally, and destined as
it is to retain its connection with the religion of man, it excites
feelings of the most profound wonderment and surprise. Lipsius and other
early writers, in reference to this matter, declared their sincere belief
that the numerous cruciform figures to be found on the monuments of
antiquity were of a typical character, and expressed a sentiment which
looked forward to the cross of Christ; a few others doubted this, and
suggested difficulties, while Gibbon ridiculed the whole matter, as it
thus stood, from beginning to end. The belief, however, that the cross in
Pagan lands was in some incomprehensible manner connected with the same
object or idea as in the Christian church was not easily got rid of, and
was considerably deepened by the testimony of missionaries to the New
World that amongst people of apparently different origin and of altogether
different attributes, the cross was common as an object of worship and
veneration. So universal has the presence of this symbol and its attendant
worship been found that it has been said to form a complete zone about the
habitable globe, extending as it does from Assyria into Egypt, and India,
and Anahuac, in their ruined temples; to the pyramidal structures of East
and West, and to those in Polynesia, especially the islands of Tonga,
Viti, and Easter; "as it appears upon numberless vases, medals, and coins
of the earliest known types, centuries anterior to the introduction of
Christianity; and as its teaching is expressed in the concordant customs,
rites, and traditions of former nations and communities, who were widely
separated from, and for the most part ignorant of, the existence of each
other, and who possessed, so far as we are aware, no other emblematical
figure in common." Egypt, Assyria, Britain, India, China, Scandinavia, the
two Americas--all were alike its home, and in all of them was there
analogy in the teaching respecting its meaning.




CHAPTER II.

    _Forms of the Cross--Ancient Maltese Cross--Phallic Character of some
    Crosses--Offensive Forms of the Cross in Etruscan and Pompeian
    Monuments--Thor's Battle-axe--The Buddhist Cross--Indian Crosses--The
    Fylfot or Four-footed Cross--Danish Poem of the Thors of
    Asgard--Legend of Thor's Loss of his Golden Hammer--Original Meaning
    of these Crosses--Reception of Christianity amongst the Britons--Plato
    and the Cross--The Mexican Tree of Life--Rain Makers--The
    Winds--Various Meanings attributed to the Cross--The Crux
    Ansata--Phallic Attributes--Coins, Gaulish and Jewish--Roman
    Coins--The Lake Dwellings--The Cross in the Patriarchal Age._


In studying the origin and signification of the pre-Christian cross, we,
naturally of course, turn our attention to the forms in which it is
delineated; these are both numerous and varied--so varied indeed that a
writer, some years ago, in the _Edinburgh Review_ stated that his
commonplace-book contained nearly two hundred representations, which he
had found combined as often as not with other emblems of a sacred
character, and which had been collected from all parts of the world. We
may notice a few of the principal which are really, generally speaking,
types of all.

Most people are familiar with the Maltese cross--that consisting of four
triangles meeting in a central circle, or as it is generally described,
the cross with the four delta-like arms conjoined to or issuing from the
nave of a wheel or a diminutive circle. It derives its name from its
discovery on the island of Malta, and from its adoption by the Knights of
St. John for their coat-of-arms. There is no doubt it is one of the most
ancient forms of the cross we are acquainted with, as it is found, as we
have already stated, on the sculptures of the Assyrian monarchs long
before the Christian era, and may be seen on the sculptures in the
British Museum. In some of the Nineveh monuments representing
subject-people bringing tribute to the king, it occurs in the form of
ear-rings.

In Assyria, it is believed to have been the emblem of royalty, as it is
found on the breasts of the most powerful of the rulers. As it was known
originally in Malta, it was of a very different character to the ornament
worn either by the Assyrian monarch or by the modern inhabitants of
civilised nations. It was indeed of so gross a character, that the Knights
of St. John soon set to work to make something more decent of
it--something which while not altogether discarding the old form, should
yet be inoffensive to the eye of the more modest onlooker. It was made up,
in fact, of four gigantic phalli carved out of the solid granite, similar
to the form in which it is found in the island of Gozyo, and on some of
the Etruscan and Pompeian monuments.

The reason why it assumed a phallic character in the locality which gives
it its name, is not perhaps clear, but the study of Assyrian antiquities
has revealed the meaning attached to it in the palmy days of Nineveh and
Babylon; it referred to the four great gods of the Assyrian pantheon--Ra,
and the first triad--Ana, Belus, and Hea; and when inserted in a roundlet,
as may be seen in the British Museum, it signified Sansi, or the sun
ruling the earth as well as the heavens. It was therefore the symbol of
royalty and dominion, which accounts for its presence on the breasts of
kings.

On the Etruscan and Pompeian monuments generally, this cross is as gross
and offensive in form as in ancient Malta, but it is found in a character
as unobjectionable as in Assyria, on the official garments of the Etruscan
priesthood. It has been found in Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Sicily; and Dr.
Schliemann discovered many examples of it (with other crosses) on the
vases which he dug from the seat of ancient Troy. It was also found in
what was described as a "magnificent cruciform mosaic pavement, discovered
about thirty years ago in the ruins of a Gallo-Roman villa at Pont d'Oli
(Pons Aulæ), near Pau, in the Basses-Pyrenees, accompanied by several
other varieties of the cross, including the St. George and the St. Andrew,
all glowing in colours richly dight, and surrounding a colossal bust of
Proteus, settled in the midst of his sea monsters."

The cross generally regarded as the most notable type of that emblem,
because it is said to have figured in the religious systems of more
peoples than any other, is that known as "Thor's hammer," or "Thor's
battle-axe." It may, perhaps, also be set down as the most ancient of the
crosses--how many years back it dates we cannot say, several thousands
evidently. It consisted of the last letter of the Samaritan alphabet, the
tau or tav in its decussated or most primitive form, and may be described,
as it has been sometimes, as a _cruciform hammer_.

It derived its name from being borne in the hand of Thor, as the
all-powerful instrument by means of which his deeds recorded in the Eddas
were accomplished. "It was venerated by the heroes of the north as the
magical sign which thwarted the power of death over those who bore it; and
the Scandinavian devotee placed it upon his horn of mead before raising it
to his lips, no doubt for the purpose of imparting to it the life-giving
virtues." To this hour it is employed by the women of India and of the
north-eastern parts of Africa as a mark of possession or taboo, which they
generally impress upon the vessels containing their stores of grain, &c.

A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ of January, 1870, hazards the opinion
that this was the mark which the prophet was commanded to impress upon the
foreheads of the faithful in Judah, as recorded in Ezekiel ix. 4. He gives
no reason or authority for this statement, but probably derived it from
St. Jerome and others of his time, who said that the letter _tau_ was
that which was ordered to be placed on the foreheads of those mourners.
Jerome says that the Hebrew letter _tau_ was formerly written like a
cross.

As to the name of this cross, the popular designation is clearly a
mistake, since its origin dates back centuries before the mythology of the
north was developed. In India it was known as the swastika of the
Buddhists, and served as the monograms of Vishnu and Siva. Such are its
associations and uses at the present day, and, no doubt, they have been
the same from the very advent of the religions of these respective
deities. The enquirer has, however, not even here measured the limit of
its antiquity, for in China it was known as the Leo-tsen long before the
Sakya-Buddha era, and was portrayed upon the walls of their pagodas and
upon the lanterns used to illumine their most sacred precints. It has ever
been the symbol of their heaven. In the great temple of Rameses II., at
Thebes, it is represented frequently with such associations as
conclusively prove that its significance was the same in the land of the
Nile as in China. All over the East it is the magic symbol of the Buddhist
heaven; the chief ornament on the sceptres and crowns of the Bompa deities
of Thibet, who dispute the palm of antiquity with all other divinities;
and is beautifully pressed in the Artee, or musical bell, borne by the
figure of Balgovina, the herald or messenger of heaven. The universality
of the use of this symbol is proved by its prevalence as well in Europe as
in Asia and Africa. Among the Etruscans it was used as a religious sign,
as is shown by its appearance on urns exhumed from ancient lake-beds
situated between Parma and Pacenza. Those taken from the Lacustrine
cemeteries are thought to date back to 1000 B.C. On the terra-cotta vases
of Alba Longa the same sign is impressed, and served as the symbol of
Persephone, the awful queen of the shades, the arbiter of mortal fate;
while on the roll of the Roman soldier it was the sign of life. On the
old Runic monuments it is ever present. Even in Scotland it is found on
sculptured stones of unknown age. The most numerous examples of this form,
however, are found in the sculptures of Khorsabad, and in the ivories from
Nimroud; here occur almost all the known varieties. It has been observed,
too, in Persia; and is used to this day in Northern India to mark the jars
of sacred water taken from the Indus and Ganges. It is especially esteemed
by the inhabitants of Southern India as the emblem of disembodied Jaina
saints. Very remarkable illustrations of it, carved in the most durable
rock, and inserted in the exterior walls of temples and other edifices of
Mexico and Central America, also occur, which may be seen in Lord
Kingsborough's _Mexican Antiquities_. It is found on innumerable coins and
medals of all times and of all peoples; from the rude mintages of Ægina
and Sicily, as well as from the more skilful hands of the Bactrian and
Continental Greeks. It is noteworthy, too, in reference to its extreme
popularity, or superstitious veneration in which it has been almost
universally held, that the cross-patée, or cruciform hammer, was one of
the very last of purely pagan symbols which were religiously preserved in
Europe long after the establishment of Christianity. To the close of the
Middle Ages the stole, or Isian mantle, of the Cistercian monk was usually
adorned with it; and men wore it suspended from their necklaces in
precisely the same manner as did the vestal-virgins of pagan Rome. It may
be seen upon the bells of many of our parish churches in the northern,
midland, and eastern counties, as at Appleby, Mexborough, Hathersage,
Waddington, Bishop's Norton, West Barkwith, and other places, where it was
placed as a magical sign to subdue the vicious spirit of the tempest. It
is said to be still used for the like purpose, during storms of wind and
rain, by the peasantry in Iceland and in the southern parts of
Germany.[2]

This cross is also known as the "Fylfot," or "Fytfot" (four-footed cross),
or "Gammadion"--"the dissembled cross under the discipline of the secret."
Jewitt, who has written in an interesting manner upon the subject,
supports what we have already stated in the foregoing pages with the
observation that this is one of the most singular, most ancient, and most
interesting of the whole series of crosses. Some say it is composed of
four gammas, conjoined in the centre, which as numerals expressed the Holy
Trinity, and by its rectangular form symbolised the chief corner-stone of
the Church. We mentioned that it was known in India as the swastika of the
Buddhists; we note further that it is said to be formed of the two words
"su" (well) and "asti" (it is), meaning "it is," or "it is well;" equal to
"so be it," and implying complete resignation. "From this the Swastikas,
the opponents of the Brahmins, who denied the immortality of the soul, and
affirmed that its existence was finite and connected only with the body
upon earth, received their name; their monogrammatic enblem, or symbol,
being the mystic cross formed by the combination of two syllables, _su_ +
_ti_ = _suti_, or swasti."[3]

The connection of this cross with Thor, the Thunderer, is not without its
signification and importance, in considering the forms and origin of these
emblems and their transmission from the Pagan to the Christian world. Thor
was said to be the bravest of the sons of Odin, or Woden, and Fria, or
Friga, the goddess of earth. (From Thor, of course, we get our Thursday;
from Woden, Wednesday; and from Friga, Friday). "He was believed to be of
the most marvellous power and might; yea, and that there were no people
throughout the whole world that were not subjected unto him, and did not
owe him divine honour and service; and that there was no puissance
comparable to his. His dominion of all others most farthest extending
itself, both in heaven and earth. That, in the aire he governed the winds
and the clouds; and being displeased did cause lightning, thunder, and
tempest, with excessive raine, haile, and all ill weather. But being well
pleased by the adoration, sacrifice, and service of his suppliants, he
then bestowed upon them most faire and seasonable weather; and caused
corne abundantly to grow, as all sorts of fruits, &c., and kept away the
plague and all other evil and infectious diseases."

Thor's emblem was a hammer of gold, represented as a fylfot, and with it
he destroyed his enemies the Jotuns, crushed the head of the great Mitgard
serpent, killed numbers of giants, restored the dead goats to life that
drew his car, and consecrated the pyre of Baldur. This hammer, boomerang
like, had the property, when thrown, of striking the object aimed at and
then returning to the thrower's hand. Mr. Jewitt thinks we have, in this,
a curious insight into the origin of the form of the emblem itself. He
says:--"I have remarked that the fylfot is sometimes described as being
formed of four gammas conjoined in the centre. When the form of the
boomerang--a missile instrument of barbaric nations, much the shape of the
letter =V= with a rounded instead of acute bottom, which, on being thrown,
slowly ascends in the air, whirling round and round, till it reaches a
considerable height, and then returns until it finally sweeps over the
head of the thrower and strikes the ground behind him--is taken into
consideration, and the traditional returning power of the hammer is
remembered in connection with it, the fylfot may surely be not
inappropriately described as a figure composed of four boomerangs,
conjoined in the centre. This form of fylfot is not uncommon in early
examples, and even on a very ancient specimen of Chinese porcelain it
occurs at the angles of the pattern--it is the ordinary fylfot, with the
angles curved or rounded.

Ancient literature abounds in curious and sensational stories about the
wonders accomplished by Thor with the assistance of this hammer. Once he
lost his weapon, or tool, and with it his power, by stratagem however he
regained both.

The Danish poem, called the "Thorr of Asgard," as translated by De Prior,
says:--

    "There rode the mighty of Asgard, Thor,
      His journey across the plain;
    And there his hammer of gold he lost,
      And sought so long in vain.

    'Twas then the mighty of Asgard, Thor,
      His brother his bidding told--
    Up thou and off to the Northland Fell,
      And seek my hammer of gold.

    He spake, and Loki, the serving-man,
      His feathers upon him drew;
    And launching over the salty sea,
      Away to the Northland flew."

Greeting the Thusser king, he informed him of the cause of his visit,
viz., that Thor had lost his golden hammer. Then the king replied that
Thor would never again see his hammer until he had given him the maiden
Fredenborg to wife. Loki took back this message to Thor, who disguised
himself as the maiden in woman's clothes, and was introduced to the king
as his future bride. After expressing his astonishment at the wonderful
appetite of the maiden, he ordered eight strong men to bring in the hammer
and lay it across the lap of the bride. Thor immediately threw off his
disguise and seized the hammer, with which, after he had slain the king,
he returned home.

The fylfot cross is frequently found on Roman pottery in various parts of
England, as for instance on the famous Colchester vase, on which is
depicted a gladiatorial combat, the cross being distinctly marked on the
shields of the combatants. Another fine example is found on a Roman altar
of Minerva at High Rochester. "The constant use of the symbol," says
Jewitt, "through so many ages, and by so many and such varied peoples,
gives it an importance which is peculiarly striking."

To sum up this part of the subject then, we have amongst numerous others
the following chief forms of the cross common in all parts of the world.
The Latin, a long upright with shorter cross beam; the Greek, an upright
and bar of equal lengths; the St. Andrews, in the form of a letter =X=;
the Maltese, four triangles conjoined to a circular centre; the Hammer of
Thor; and the Crux Ansata, or handled cross.

The question now arises, what was the origin or original meaning of these
crosses? Uninformed Christians are generally under the impression that all
refer to one and the same thing, viz., the instrument of the death of
Jesus Christ: historical evidence just produced, however, clearly
disproves that, and what we may say further will add additional weight to
the argument.

It has been noticed that the Britons received Christianity with remarkable
readiness, and this has been attributed to the following among other
circumstances, viz., the impression which they held in common with the
Platonists and Pythagoreans, that the Second Person of the Deity was
imprinted on the universe in the form of a cross. We have already
explained that the Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the
most stately and beautiful tree as an emblem of the Deity they adored, and
having cut off the side branches, affixed two of them to the highest part
of the trunk in such a manner as that those branches, extending on each
side like the arms of a man, together with the body, should present to the
spectator the appearance of a huge cross, and that on the bark of the
tree, in various places, was actually inscribed the letter =T=,--Tau.

"Some have gone so far as to suppose a Celtic origin for the word cross,
and have derived it from _Crugh_ and _Cruach_, which signify a cross in
that language, though others suppose these have a much more probable
origin in the Hebrew and Chaldee. _Chrussh_, signifies boards or pieces of
timber fastened together, as we should say, cross-wise; the word is so
used in Exodus xxvii. 6. This seems a very natural and probable etymology
for the term, but it may also allude more to the agony suffered on such an
erection, and then its origin perhaps may be traced to Chrutz,
'agitation.' This word also means to be 'kneaded,' and broken to pieces
like clay in the hands of a potter. Chrotshi, in Chaldee, we are told by
Parkhurst, means accusations, charges, revilings, reproach, all of them
terms applied to Jesus Christ in his sufferings. Pliny shows that the
punishment of the cross among the Romans was as old as Tarquinus Priscus;
how much older it is perhaps difficult to say.

"Plato, born 430 years before Christ, had advocated the idea of a Trinity,
and had expressed an opinion that the form of the Second Person of it was
stamped upon the universe in the form of a cross. St. Augustine goes so
far as to say that it was by means of the Platonic system that he was
enabled to understand properly the doctrine of the Trinity."

Perhaps, originally, the cross had but one meaning, whatever its form; it
is probable that it was so. However that may be, it is certain that as
time went on and its form varied, different significations were attached
to it. It represented creative power and eternity in Egypt, Assyria, and
Britain; it was emblematical of heaven and immortality in India, China,
and Scandinavia; it was the sign of freedom from physical suffering in the
Americas; all over the world it symbolised the Divine Unity--resurrection
and life to come.

"In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and worthy name, 'Tree of
our Life,' or 'Tree of our Flesh.' It represented the god of rains and of
health, and this was everywhere its simple meaning. 'Those of Yucatan,'
say the chroniclers, 'prayed to the cross as the god of rains when they
needed water.' The Aztec goddess of rains bore one in her hand, and at the
feast celebrated to her honour in the early spring (as we have previously
noted) victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. Quetzalcoatl,
god of the winds, bore as his sign of office a mace like the cross of a
bishop; his robe was covered with them strewn like flowers, and its
adoration was throughout connected with his worship."

We have mentioned that "when the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of
waters, they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus
forming a gigantic cross, and that at the point of intersection threw in
their offerings of gold, emeralds and precious oils. The arms of the cross
were designed to point to the cardinal points, and represent the four
winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us have
recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, and see
the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it.

"When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he retired
to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a cross,
placed upon it a piece of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and
commenced to cry aloud to the spirits of the rains. The Creeks at the
festival of the Busk, celebrated to the four winds, and according to the
legends instituted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The manner
of this was to place four logs in the centre of the square, end to end,
forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points; in the
centre of the cross the new fire is made."[4]

"As the emblem of the winds which disperse the fertilising showers," says
Brinton, "it is emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and
our health. It never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been
said, the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with
reference to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this
symbol, indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the
four spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence
when watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient
Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted _life_; doubtless, could we
trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be derived
from the four winds."[5]

The Buddhist cross to which allusion has been made was exactly the cross
of the Manicheans, with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed
upon a Mount Calvary as among the Roman Catholics. The tree of life and
knowledge, or the Jambu tree, in their maps of the world, is always
represented in the shape of a Manichean cross 84 yojanas, or 423 miles
high, including the three steps of the Calvary. This cross, putting forth
leaves and flowers (and fruit also, Captain Wilford was informed), is
called the divine tree, the tree of the gods, the tree of life and
knowledge, and productive of whatever is good and desirable, and is placed
in the terrestrial Paradise. Agapius, according to Photius, maintained
that this divine tree, in Paradise, was Christ himself. In their
delineation of the heavens, the globe of the earth is filled with this
cross and its Calvary. The divines of Thibet, says Captain Wilford, place
it to the S.W. of Meru, towards the source of the Ganges. The Manicheans
always represented Christ crucified upon a tree, among the foliage. The
Christians of India, though they did not admit of images, still
entertained the greatest veneration for the cross. They placed it on a
Calvary in public places and at the meeting of cross roads, and even the
heathen Hindus in these parts paid also great regard to it.

Captain Wilford was presented by a learned Buddhist with a book, called
the Cshetra-samasa, which contained several drawings of the cross. Some of
these his friend was unable to explain to him, but whatever the variations
of the cross were in other particulars, they were declared to be
invariable as regards the shaft and two arms; the Calvary was sometimes
omitted. One of these crosses seemed to puzzle the Buddhist completely, or
he would not say either what he thought or knew about it. It consisted of
the ordinary cross with shaft and cross-bar, pointed at the ends, but with
two other bars intersecting the right angles formed by the shaft and
cross-bar, thus giving six points. No one can look at this cross, and not
at once discern its phallic character. Some writers affect to laugh at
this, but we have ample evidence that at times such a meaning has been
attributed to the cross. In connection with this, Dr. Inman makes some
remarks which we shall do well to consider, whether we receive them or
not; there may be nothing in them, and there may be much. He says:--"There
can be no doubt, I think, in the mind of any student of antiquity, that
the cross is not originally a Christian emblem; nay, the very fact that
the cross was used as a means of executing criminals shows that its form
was familiar to Jews and Romans. It was used partly as an ornament, and
partly in certain forms of religious worship. The simple cross, with
perpendicular and transverse arms of equal length, represented the nave
and spokes of the solar wheel, or the sun darting his rays on all sides.
As the wheel became fantastically developed so did the cross, and each
limb became so developed at the outer end as to symbolise the triad.
Sometimes the idea was very coarsely represented; and I have seen, amongst
some ancient Etruscan remains, a cross formed of four phalli of equal
length, their narrow end pointing inwards; and in the same work another
was portrayed, in which the phallus was made of inordinate length so as
to support the others high up from the ground; each was in itself a triad.
The same form of cross was probably used by the Phoenicians, who appear to
have colonised Malta at a very early period of their career; for they have
left a form of it behind them in the shape of a cross similar to that
described above, but which has been toned down by the moderns, who could
not endure the idea of an union between grossness and the crucifix, and
the phalli became as innocent as we see them in the Maltese cross of
to-day."

So many traces of the cross, as used in ancient times in all parts of the
world, meet us on every hand that we find it difficult within the limited
space at our command even to enumerate them; we have already traversed in
our account a greater part of the known world, and still vast numbers of
instances remain unnoticed. Almost as varied as its principal forms are
the explanations offered respecting its origin and significance. We are
told by some that for its origin we must go to the Buddhists and to the
Lama of Thibet, who is said to take his name from the cross, called in his
language Lamh. Higgins quotes Vallence as saying that the Tartars call the
cross Lama, from the Scythian Lamh, a hand, synonymous to the Yod of the
Chaldeans; and that it thus became the name of a cross, and of the high
priest with the Tartars; and with the Irish, Luarn, signifying the head of
the church, an abbot, &c.

The last form of cross to which we shall here allude is that known as the
Crux Ansata, or Handled Cross. Whatever may be the signification of that
instrument, or ornament, it is certain that no other has ever been so
variously explained, or has been so successful in puzzling those who have
sought to give it a meaning. Some have said it was a Nilometer, or measure
of the rise of the Nile; one--a bishop--thought it was a setting stick for
planting roots; another said it represented the Law of Gravitation. Don
Martin said it was a winnowing fan; Herwart said it was a compass; Pococke
said it represented the four elements. Others, again, suggest that it may
be only a key. "It opened," says Borwick, "the door of the sacred chest.
It revealed hidden things. It was the hope of life to come." And he
continues, "However well the cross fit the mathematical lock, the phallic
lock, the gnostic lock, the philosophical lock, the religious lock, it is
quite likely that this very ancient and almost universal symbol was at
first a secret in esoteric holding, to the meaning of which, with all our
guessing, we have no certain clue."

This cross has certainly a most remarkable connection with the ancient
history of Egypt, being found universally represented on the monuments,
the tombs, the walls, and the wrapping cloths of the dead; hence,
evidently, the idea that it is peculiarly Egyptian and its ascription of
"Key of the Nile." From Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Ruffinus, we
learn that it was known to the Egyptian Christians at the close of the
fourth century as the symbol of eternal life. Later on, Dr. Max Uhlman
wrote, "that the handle cross means _life_, is manifest from the Rosetta
inscription and other texts." Zöckler, another German author, notices the
opinion of Macrobius that it was the hieroglyphic sign of Osiris, or the
sun, it being a fact that when the ancient Egyptians wished to symbolise
Osiris, they set up a staff with an eye upon it, because in antiquity the
sun was known as the eye of God, and then claims that the round portion
represented the orb of the sun, the perpendicular bar signifying the rays
of the high mid-day sun, and the shorter horizontal bar symbolising the
rays of the rising or setting sun. The discovery of this emblem by M.
Mariette in a niche of the holy of holies in the ancient temple of
Denderah, points significantly to its importance and peculiar sacredness,
and it has been thought probable that it was the central object of
interest in the inner precincts of the temple.

It seems that the Egyptian priests, when asked for an explanation of this
cross, evaded the question by replying that the Tau was a "_divine
mystery_."

However varied the explanations offered may be, and whatever the mystery
said to surround this object, the feature always remains,--its
symbolisation of life and regeneration. From this, its phallic character
was very easily inferred--its derivation from the _lingam-yoni_ symbol,
said Barlow, seemed a very natural process. The junction of the yoni with
the cross, in Dr. Inman's judgment, sufficiently proved that it had a
phallic or male signification; a conclusion which certain unequivocal
Etruscan remains fully confirmed. "We conclude, therefore," says this
writer, "that the ancient cross was an emblem of the belief in a male
creator, and the method by which creation was initiated."

Not the least remarkable exemplification of the universal prevalence of
the cross both as to time and country, is found amongst coins and medals:
here as in other things it is ever prominent. Take the ancient Gaulish
coins, for instance, and the fylfot and ordinary Greek cross abound; take
the ancient British coins of the age long prior to Christianity, and the
same thing occurs. "On Scandinavian coins, as well as those of Gaul, the
fylfot cross appears, as it also does on those of Syracuse, Corinth, and
Chalcedon. On the coins of Byblos, Astarte is represented holding a long
staff, surmounted by a cross, and resting her foot on the prow of a
galley. On the coins of Asia Minor, the cross is also to be found. It
occurs as the reverse of a silver coin, supposed to be of Cyprus, on
several Cilician coins; it is placed beneath the throne of Baal of Tarsus,
on a Phoenician coin of that time, bearing the legend 'Baal Tharz.' A
medal possibly of the same place, with partially obliterated Phoenician
characters, has the cross occupying the entire field of the reverse side.
Several, with inscriptions in unknown characters, have a ram on one side
and the cross and ring on the other. Another has the sacred bull,
accompanied by this symbol; others have a lion's head on obverse, and a
cross and circle on the reverse."[6]

Strangely enough, even Jewish money is marked with this emblem, the shekel
bearing on one side what is usually called a triple lily or hyacinth; the
same forming a pretty floral cross.

On Roman coins the cross was of very frequent occurrence, and
illustrations of good examples may be seen in the pages of the _Art
Journal_ for the year 1874. An engraving of the _quincunx_, or piece of
five _unciæ_, is given, bearing on one side a cross, a =V=, and five
pellets; and on the other a cross only. This is an example of the earlier
periods; of course when we come to the later periods the emblem is still
more frequent. These coins are often found in ancient graves and
sarcophagi, and these latter again supply examples of various familiar
forms of crosses of very remote antiquity,--not simply the adornment of
coffin and gravecloths, but the actual construction of the tomb or
grave-mound in that form. Fine specimens of these have been discovered at
Stoney-Littleton, at New Grange, at Banwell, Somerset, at Adisham, at
Hereford, at Helperthorpe, and in the Isle of Lewis.

"Before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the plains
of northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the
sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history
tells nothing, knowing not their name, but of whom antiquarian research
has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the laws of
civilisation, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes,
and that they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive their
loved ones whom they committed to the dust. Throughout Emilia are found
remains of these people; these remains form quarries whence manure is dug
by the peasants of the present day. These quarries go by the name of
_terramares_. They are vast accumulations of cinders, charcoal, bones,
fragments of pottery, and other remains of human industry. As this earth
is very rich in phosphates it is much appreciated by agriculturists as a
dressing for their land. In these _terramares_ there are no human bones.
The fragments of earthenware belong to articles of domestic use; with them
are found querns, moulds for metal, portions of cabin floors, and great
quantities of kitchen refuse. They are deposits analogous to those which
have been discovered in Denmark and Switzerland. The metal discovered in
the majority of these _terramares_ is bronze; the remains belong to three
distinct ages. In the first none of the fictile ware was turned on the
wheel or fire-baked. Sometimes these deposits exhibit an advance of
civilisation. Iron came into use, and with it the potter's wheel was
discovered, and the earthenware was put in the furnace. When in the same
quarry these two epochs are found, the remains of the second age are
always superposed over those of the bronze age. A third period is
occasionally met with, but only occasionally; a period when a rude art
introduced itself, and representatives of animals or human beings adorned
the pottery. Among the remains of this period is found the first trace of
money, rude little bronze fragments without shape.

"Among other remains in these lake-dwellings, pottery has been in many
cases found, and these vessels bear, on the bottom, crosses of various
forms, as well also curious solid double cones. That which characterises
the cemeteries of Golasecca, says M. de Mortillet, and gives them their
highest interest, is this:--first, the entire absence of all organic
representations; we only found three and they were exceptional, in tombs
not belonging to the plateau; secondly, the almost invariable presence of
the cross under the vases in the tombs. When we reversed the ossuaries,
the saucer-lids, or the accessory vases, we saw almost always, if in good
preservation, a cross traced thereon ... the examination of the tombs of
Golasecca proves, in a most convincing, positive, and precise manner, that
which the _terramares_ of Emilia had only indicated, but which had been
confirmed by the cemetery of Villanova; that above a thousand years before
Christ, the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent
employment."[7]

"There is every reason to suppose that the cross was a symbol of more
import in the early patriarchal ages than is generally imagined. It was
not only the _first letter_, but it was also the emblem, of Taut, the
Mercury, the word, the messenger of the gods, the angel, as we may say, of
his presence, himself a god among the Egyptians and the Britons, whose god
Teutates was analagous both in name and nature; a winged messenger. M. Le
Clerc, one of the ablest mythologists who ever wrote, has shown that the
Teutates of the Gauls, the Hermes of the Greeks, the Mercury of the
Romans, were all one and the same.

The Ethiopic letter _Taui_, or _Taw_, says Lowth, still retains the form
of a cross, =X=; and the Samaritan =T=, which the Ethiopians are said to
have borrowed from the Samaritans, was in the form of a =X= cross. In
several Samaritan coins, says Montfaucon, to be found in the collections
of medallists, the letter Tau is engraved in the form of a cross, or Greek
Chi, and he gives as his authority Origen and Jerome.

The Jewish High-priest, we are informed by the Rabbis, was anointed on his
investiture, while he who anointed him drew on his forehead with his
finger the figure of the Greek letter Chi, =X=."[8]




CHAPTER III.

    _Heathen Ideas of a Trinity--The Magi--Ancient Theologies--The Indian
    Trinity--The Sculptures of Elephanta--The Sacred Zennar--Temples
    consecrated to Indian Trinities--The Greek Trident--Attributes of
    Brahm--The Hindu Meru--Narayana--The Trimurti--Gods of Egypt._


"Many of the heathens are said to have had a notion of a Trinity," wrote a
contributor to an encyclopædia, some eighty years ago. Now that altogether
fails to reach the truth, for heathen nations are known to scholars to
have had very definite ideas indeed about a sacred Triad; in fact, as
another writer has said, there is nothing in all theology more deeply
grounded, or more generally allowed by them, than the mystery of the
Trinity. The Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, both in their
writings and their oracles, acknowledged that the Supreme Being had
begotten another Being from all eternity, whom they sometimes called the
Son of God, sometimes the Word, sometimes the Mind, and sometimes the
Wisdom of God, and asserted to be the Creator of all things.

Among the sayings of the Magi, the descendants of Zoroaster, was one as
follows:--"The Father finished all things, and delivered them to the
Second Mind."

We learn from Dr. Cudworth that, besides the inferior gods generally
received by all the Pagans (viz.: animated stars, demons, and heroes), the
more refined of them, who accounted not the world the Supreme Deity,
acknowledged a Trinity of divine hypostases superior to them all. This
doctrine, according to Plotinus, is very ancient, and obscurely asserted
even by Parmenides. Some have referred its origin to Pythagoreans, and
others to Orpheus, who adopted three principles, called Phanes, Uranus,
and Cronus. Dr. Cudworth apprehends that Pythagoras and Orpheus derived
this doctrine from the theology of the Egyptian Hermes; and, as it is not
probable that it should have been first discovered by human reason, he
concurs with Proclus in affirming that it was at first a theology of
divine tradition, or revelation, imparted first to the Hebrews, and from
them communicated to the Egyptians and other nations; among whom it was
depraved and adulterated.

Plato, also, and his followers, speak of the Trinity in such terms, that
the primitive fathers have actually been accused of borrowing the doctrine
from the Platonic school.

In Indian theology there is no more prominent doctrine than that of a
Divine Triad governing all things, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
By Brahma, they mean God, the Creator; by Vishnu (according to the
Sanscrit), a preserver, a comforter, a cherisher; and by Siva, a destroyer
and avenger. To these three personages, different functions are assigned,
in the Hindoo system of mythologic superstition, corresponding to the
different significations of their names. They are distinguished, likewise,
besides these general titles, in the various sastras and puranas, by an
infinite variety of appellations descriptive of their office.

Whatever doubts may arise respecting the Indian Trinity, they will very
speedily be dispelled by a view of that wonderful and magnificent piece of
sculpture which is found in the celebrated cavern of Elephanta, which has
so often been described by travellers, and which has ever been such a
source of amusement to them. This, it is said, proves that from the
remotest era, the Indian nations have adored a Triune Deity. In this
cavern, the traveller beholds, with awe and astonishment, carved out of
the solid rock, in the most conspicuous part of the most ancient and
venerable temple in the world, a bust nearly twenty feet in breadth, and
eighteen feet in altitude, gorgeously decorated, the image of the great
presiding Deity of that sacred temple. The bust has three heads united to
one body, and adorned with the oldest symbols of the Indian theology, is
regarded as representing the Creator, the Preserver, and the Regenerator
of mankind. Owing to the gross surroundings of these characters,
respectively denominated Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, any comparison cannot
be instituted with the Christian Trinity; yet the worship paid to that
triple divinity incontestably evinces that, on this point of faith, the
sentiments of the Indians are congenial with those of the Chaldeans and
Persians. Nor is it only in this great Deity with three heads that these
sentiments are demonstrated, their veneration for that sacred number
strikingly displays itself in their sacred books--the three original
_Vedas_--as if each had been delivered by one personage of the august
Triad, being confined to that mystic number; by the regular and prescribed
offering up of their devotions three times a day; by the immersion of
their bodies, during ablution, three times in the purifying wave; and by
their constantly wearing next their skin the sacred Zennar, or cord of
three threads, the mystic symbol of their belief in a divine all ruling
Triad.

The sacred Zennar, just mentioned, is of consequence enough to demand a
fuller notice. Its threads can be twisted by no other hand than that of a
Brahmin, and he does it with the utmost solemnity and many mystic rites.
Three threads, each measuring ninety-six hands, are first twisted
together; then they are folded into three, and twisted again, making it to
consist of nine,--that is three times three threads; this is folded again
into three, but without any more twisting, and each end is then fastened
with a knot. Such is the Zennar, which being put upon the left shoulder,
passes to the right side, and hangs down as low as the fingers can reach.

"The Hindoos," says M. Sonnerat, "adore three principal deities, Brouma,
Chiven, and Vichenou, who are still but _One_; which kind of Trinity is
there called Trimourti, or Tritvamz, and signifies the reunion of three
powers. The generality of modern Indians adore only one of these three
divinities, but some learned men, besides this worship, also address their
prayers to the Three united. The representation of them is to be seen in
many pagodas, under that of human figures with three heads, which, on the
coast of Orissa, they call Sariharabrama; on the Coromandel coast,
Trimourti; and Tretratreyam, in the Sanscrit. It is affirmed by Maurice
that this latter term would not have been found in Sanscrit had not the
worship of a Trinity existed in those ancient times, fully two thousand
five hundred years ago, when Sanscrit was the current language of India."

There have been found temples entirely consecrated to this kind of
Trinity; such as that of Parpenade, in the kingdom of Travancore, where
the three gods are worshipped in the form of a serpent with a thousand
heads. The feast of Anandavourdon, which the Indians celebrate to their
honour, on the eve of the full moon, in the month of Pretachi, or October,
always draws a great number of people, "which would not be the case," says
Sonnerat, "if those that came were not adorers of the Three Powers."

Mr. Forster writing, in 1785, on the Mythology of the Hindoos, says:--"A
circumstance which forcibly struck my attention, was the Hindoo belief in
a Trinity. The persons are Sree Mun Narrain, the Mhah Letchimy (a
beautiful woman), and a Serpent, which are emblematical of strength, love,
and wisdom. These persons, by the Hindoos, are supposed to be wholly
indivisible. The one is three, and the three are one. In the beginning,
they say that the Deity created three men to whom he gave the names of
Brimha, Vystnou, and Sheevah. To the first was committed the power of
creating mankind, to the second of cherishing them, and to the third that
of restraining and correcting them." The sacred persons who compose this
Trinity are very remarkable; for Sree Mun Narrain, as Mr. Forster writes
the word, is Narayen, the supreme God; the beautiful woman is the Imma of
the Hebrews; and the union of the sexes in the Divinity, is perfectly
consonant with that ancient doctrine maintained in the Geeta, and
propagated by Orpheus, that the Deity is both male and female.

Damascius, treating of the fecundity of the divine nature, cites Orpheus
as teaching that the Deity was at once both male and female, to show the
generative power by which all things were formed. Proclus upon the "Timæus
of Plato," among other Orphic verses, cites the following: "Jupiter is a
man, Jupiter is also an immortal maid." In the same commentary, and in the
same page we read that all things were contained in the womb of Jupiter.

The serpent is the ancient and usual Egyptian symbol for the divine Logos.

M. Tavernier, on his entering one of the great pagodas, observed an idol
in the centre of the building, sitting cross-legged in the Indian fashion,
upon whose head was placed _une triple couronne_; and from this triple
crown four horns extended themselves, the symbol of the rays of glory,
denoting the Deity to whom the four quarters of the world were under
subjection. According to the same author, in his account of the Benares
pagoda, the deity of India is saluted by prostrating the body three times,
and he is not only adorned with a triple crown, and worshipped by a triple
salutation, but he bears in his hand a three-forked sceptre, exhibiting
the exact model of the trident of the Greek Neptune.

Now here we must allude to some very remarkable discoveries respecting the
Trident of Neptune and the use of a similar symbol of authority by the
Indian gods.

Mr. Maurice points out that the unsatisfactory reasons given by
mythologists for the assignment of the trident to the Grecian deity,
exhibit very clear evidence of its being a symbol that was borrowed from
some more ancient mythology, and did not naturally, or originally belong
to Neptune. Its three points, or _tines_, some of them affirm to signify
the different qualities of the three sorts of waters that are upon the
earth, as the waters of the ocean, which are salt; the water of fountains,
which is sweet; and the water of lakes and ponds, which, in a degree,
partakes of the nature of both. Others, again, insist that this
three-pronged sceptre alludes to Neptune's threefold power over the sea,
viz., to _agitate_, to _assuage_, and to _preserve_. These reasons are,
all of them, in his estimation, mighty frivolous, and amount to a
confession of their total ignorance of its real meaning.

The trident was, in the most ancient periods, the sceptre of the Indian
deity, and may be seen in the hands of that deity in one of the plates
(iv.) of M. d'Ancarville's third volume, and among the sacred symbols
sculptured in Elephanta cavern, as pictured by Niebuhr in his engravings
of the Elephanta antiquities. "It was, indeed," says Maurice, "highly
proper, and strictly characteristic, that a threefold deity should wield a
triple sceptre, and I have now a very curious circumstance to unfold to
the reader, which I am enabled to do from the information of Mr. Hodges,
relative to this mysterious emblem. The very ancient and venerable
edifices of Deogur, which are in the form of immense pyramids, do not
terminate at the summit in a pyramidal point, for the apex is cut off at
about one seventh of what would be the entire height of the pyramid were
it completed, and, from the centre of the top, there rises a circular
cone, that ancient emblem of the sun. What is exceedingly singular to
these cones is, that they are on their summits decorated with this very
symbol, or usurped sceptre, of the Greek [Greek: Poseidôn]. Thus was the
outside of the building decorated and crowned, as it were, with a
conspicuous emblem of the worship celebrated within, which from the
antiquity of the structure, raised in the infancy of the empire after
cavern-worship had ceased, was probably that of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva:
for we have seen that Elephanta is, in fact, a temple to the Indian Triad,
evidenced in the colossal sculpture that forms the principal figure of it,
and excavated probably ere Brahma had fallen into neglect among those who
still acknowledge him as the creative energy, or different sects had
sprung up under the respective names of Vishnu and Siva. Understood with
reference to the pure theology of India, such appears to me to be the
meaning of this mistaken symbol; but a system of physical theology quickly
succeeded to the pure; and the debased, but ingenious, progeny, who
invented it, knew too well how to adapt the symbols and images of the true
and false devotion. The three sublime hypostases of the true Trinity were
degraded into three attributes; in physical causes the sacred mysteries of
religion were attempted to be explained away; its doctrines were
corrupted, and its emblems perverted. They went the absurd length of
degrading a Creator (for such Brahma, in the Hindoo creed, confessedly is)
to the rank of a created Dewtah, which has been shewn to be a glaring
solecism in theology.

"The evident result then is, that, nothwithstanding all the corruption of
the purer theology of the Brahmins, by the base alloy of human philosophy,
under the perverted notion of three attributes, the Indians have
immemorially worshipped a threefold Divinity, who, considered apart from
their physical notions, is the Creator, the Preserver, and the
Regenerator. We must again repeat that it would be in the highest degree
absurd to continue to affix the name of Destroyer to the third hypostasis
in their Triad, when it is notorious that the Brahmins deny that anything
can be destroyed, and insist that a change alone in the form of objects
and their mode of existence takes place. One feature, therefore, in that
character, hostile to our system, upon strict examination vanishes; and
the other feature, which creates so much disgust and gives such an air of
licentiousness to his character, is annihilated by the consideration of
their deep immersion in philosophical speculations, of their incessant
endeavours to account for the divine operations by natural causes, and to
explain them by palpable and visible symbols."

No image of the supreme Brahma himself is ever made; but in place of it
his attributes are arranged, as in the temple of Gharipuri, thus:

    Brahma  | Power   | Creation     | Matter | The Past    | Earth
    Vishnu  | Wisdom  | Preservation | Spirit | The Present | Water
    Siva    | Justice | Destruction  | Time   | The Future  | Fire

Captain Wilford in the 10th vol. of the _Asiatic Researches_ writes of
Meru or Moriah, the hill of God, and he says:--"Polyænus calls Mount Meru
or Merius, Tri-coryphus. It is true that he bestows improperly that
epithet on Mount Meru, near Cabul, which is inadmissible. Meru, with its
three peaks on the summit, and its seven steps, includes and encompasses
really the whole world, according to the notions of the Hindus and other
nations previously to their being acquainted with the globular shape of
the earth." Basnage, in his history of the Jews, says "there are seven
earths, whereof one is higher than the other; for the Holy Land is
situated upon the highest earth, and Mount Moriah (or Meru) is in the
middle of that Holy Land. This is the hill of God so often mentioned in
the Old Testament, the mount of the congregation where the mighty King
sits in the sides of the north, according to Isaiah, and there is the city
of our God. The Meru of the Hindoos has the name of Sabha, or the
congregation, and the gods are seated upon it in the sides of the north.
There is the holy city of Brahma-puri, where resides Brahma with his court
in the most pure and holy land of Ilavratta."

Thus Meru is the worldly temple of the Supreme Being in an embodied state,
and of the Tri-Murtti or sacred Triad, which resides on its summit, either
in a single or threefold temple, or rather in both: for it is all one, as
they are one and three. They are three, only with regard to men who have
emerged out of it they are but one: and their threefold temple and
mountain, with its three peaks, become one equally. Mythologists in the
west called the world, or Meru with his appendages, the temple of God,
according to Macrobius. Hence this most sacred temple of the Supreme Being
is generally typified by a cone or pyramid, with either a single chapel on
its summit, or with three; either with or without steps.

This worldly temple is also considered by the followers of Buddha as the
tomb of the son of the spirit of heaven. His bones, or limbs, were
scattered all over the face of the earth, like those of Osiris and Jupiter
Zagreus. To collect them was the first duty of his descendants and
followers, and then to entomb them. Out of filial piety, the remembrance
of this mournful search was yearly kept up by a fictitious one, with all
possible marks of grief and sorrow, till a priest came and announced that
the sacred relics were at last found. This is practised to this day by
several Tartarian tribes of the religion of Buddha; and the expression of
the bones of the son of the spirit of heaven is peculiar to the Chinese,
and some tribes in Tartary.

Hindu writers represent Narayana moving, as his name implies, on the
waters, in the character of the first male, and the principle of all
nature, which was wholly surrounded in the beginning by tamas, or
darkness, the Chaos and primordial Night of the Greek mythologists, and,
perhaps, the Thaumaz or Thamas of the ancient Egyptians; the Chaos is
also called Pracriti, or crude Nature, and the male deity has the name of
Purusha, from whom proceeded Sacti, or, the power of containing or
conceiving; but that power in its first state was rather a tendency or
aptitude, and lay dormant and inert until it was excited by the bija, or
vivifying principle, of the plastic Iswara. This power, or aptitude, of
nature is represented under the symbol of the yoni, or bhaga, while the
animating principle is expressed by the linga: both are united by the
creative power, Brahma; and the yoni has been called the navel of
Vishnu--not identically, but nearly; for, though it is held in the Vedanta
that the divine spirit penetrates or pervades all nature, and though the
Sacti be considered as an emanation from that spirit, yet the emanation is
never wholly detached from its source, and the penetration is never so
perfect as to become a total union or identity. In another point of view
Brahma corresponds with the Chronos, or Time of the Greek mythologists:
for through him generations pass on successively, ages and periods are by
him put in motion, terminated and renewed, while he dies and springs to
birth alternately; his existence or energy continuing for a hundred of his
years, during which he produces and devours all beings of less longevity.
Vishnu represents water, or the humid principle; and Iswara fire, which
recreates or destroys, as it is differently applied; Prithivi, or earth,
and Ravi, or the sun, are severally trimurtis, or forms of the three great
powers acting jointly and separately, but with different natures and
energies, and by their mutual action excite and expand the rudiments of
material substances. The word murti, or form, is exactly synonymous with
[Greek: eidôla], of the supreme spirit, and Homer places the idol of
Hercules in Elysium with other deceased heroes, though the God himself was
at the same time enjoying bliss in the heavenly mansions. Such a murti,
say the Hindus, can by no means affect with any sensation, either
pleasing or painful, the being from which it emanated; though it may give
pleasure or pain to collateral emanations from the same source; hence they
offer no sacrifices to the supreme Essence, of which our own souls are
images, but adore Him with silent meditation; while they make frequent
homas or oblations to fire, and perform acts of worship to the sun, the
stars, the earth, and the powers of nature, which they consider as murtis,
or images, the same in kind with ourselves, but transcendently higher in
degree. The moon is also a great object of their adoration; for, though
they consider the sun and earth as the two grand agents in the system of
the universe, yet they know their reciprocal action to be greatly affected
by the influence of the lunar orb according to their several aspects, and
seem even to have an idea of attraction through the whole extent of
nature. This system was known to the ancient Egyptians; for according to
Diodorus, their Vulcan, or elemental fire, was the great and powerful
deity, whose influence contributed chiefly toward the generation and
perfection of natural bodies; while the ocean, by which they meant water
in a collective sense, afforded the nutriment that was necessary; and the
earth was the vase, or capacious receptacle, in which this grand operation
of nature was performed: hence Orpheus described the earth as the
universal mother, and this is the true meaning of the Sanscrit word Amba.

Further information respecting the male and female forms of the Trimurti
has been gathered as follows:--

Atropos (or Raudri), who is placed about the sun, is the beginning of
generation; exactly like the destructive power, or Siva among the Hindus,
and who is called the cause and the author of generation: Clotho, about
the celestial moon, unites and mixes: the last, or Lachesis, is contiguous
to the earth: but is greatly under the influence of chance. For whatever
being is destitute of a sensitive soul, does not exist of its own right;
but must submit to the affections of another principle: for the rational
soul is of its own right impassable, and is not obnoxious to affections
from another quarter. The sensitive soul is a mediate and mixed being,
like the moon, which is a compound of what is above and of what is below;
and is to the sun in the same relation as the earth is to the moon. Major
Wilford says:--"Well Pliny might say, with great truth, the refinements of
the Druids were such, that one would be tempted to believe that those in
the east had largely borrowed from them. This certainly surpasses
everything of the kind I have ever read or heard in India."

These three goddesses are obviously the Parcoe, or fates, of the western
mythologists, which were three and one. This female tri-unity is really
the Tri-murtti of the Hindus, who call it the Sacti, or energy of the male
Tri-murtti, which in reality is the same thing. Though the male tri-unity
be oftener mentioned, and better known among the unlearned than the other;
yet the female one is always understood with the other, because the
Trimurtti cannot act, but through its energy, or Sacti, which is of the
feminine gender. The male Trimurtti was hardly known in the west, for
Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune have no affinity with the Hindu Trimurtti,
except their being three in number. The real Trimurtti of the Greeks and
Latians consisted of Cronus, Jupiter and Mars, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. To
these three gods were dedicated three altars in the upper part of the
great circus at Rome. These are brothers in their Calpas; and Cronus or
Brahma, who has no Calpa of his own, produces them, and of course may be
considered as their father. Thus Brahma creates in general; but Vishnu in
his own Calpa, assumes the character of Cronus or Brahma to create, and he
is really Cronus or Brahma: he is then called Brahma-rupi Janardana, or
Vishnu, the devourer of souls, with the countenance of Brahma: he is the
preserver of his own character.

These three were probably the Tripatres of the western mythologists,
called also Tritopatores, Tritogeneia, Tris-Endaimon, Trisolbioi,
Trismacaristoi, and Propatores. The ancients were not well agreed who they
were: some even said that they were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, the sons
of Tellus and the sun. Others said that they were Amalcis, Protocles, and
Protocless, the door-keepers and guardians of the minds. Their mystical
origin probably belonged to the secret doctrine, which the Roman college,
like the Druids, never committed to writing, and were forbidden to reveal.
As the ancients swore by them, there can be little doubt but that they
were the three great deities of their religion.

Disentangling the somewhat intricate and involved web of Indian mythology,
and putting the matter as simply as possible, we may say the deities are
only three, whose places are the earth, the intermediate region, and
heaven, namely Fire, Air, and the Sun. They are pronounced to be deities
of the mysterious names severally, and (Prajapati) the lord of creatures
is the deity of them collectively. The syllable O'ru intends every deity:
it belongs to (Paramasht'hi) him who dwells in the supreme abode; it
pertains to (Brahma) the vast one; to (Deva) God; to (Ad'hyatma) the
superintending soul. Other deities, belonging to those several regions,
are portions of the three gods; for they are variously named and described
on account of their different operations, but there is only one deity, the
Great Soul (Mahanatma). He is called the Sun, for he is the soul of all
beings. The Sun, the soul of (jagat) what moves, and of that which is
fixed; other deities are portions of him.

The name given by the Indians to their Supreme Deity, or Monad, is Brahm;
and notwithstanding the appearance of materialism in all their sacred
books, the Brahmins never admit that they uphold such a doctrine, but
invest their deities with the highest attributes. He is represented as the
Vast One, self-existing, invisible, eternal, imperceptible, the only
deity, the great soul, the over-ruling soul, the soul of all beings, and
of whom all other deities are but portions. To him no sacrifices were ever
offered; but he was adored in silent meditation. He triplicates himself
into three persons or powers, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Creator, the
Preserver, and the Destroyer, or Reproducer; and is designated by the word
Om or Aum by the respective letters of which sacred triliteral syllable
are expressed the powers into which he triplicates himself.

The Metempsychosis and succession of similar worlds, alternately destroyed
by flood and fire and reproduced, were doctrines universally received
among the heathens: and by the Indians, the world, after the lapse of each
predestined period of its existence, was thought to be destroyed by Siva.
At each appointed time of its destruction, Vishnu ceases from his
preserving care, and sleeps beneath the waters: but after the allotted
period, from his navel springs forth a lotus to the surface, bearing
Brahma in its cup, who reorganises the world, and when he has performed
his work, retires, leaving to Vishnu its government and preservation; when
all the same heroes and persons reappear, and similar events are again
transacted, till the time arrives for another dissolution.

After the construction of the world by Brahma, the office of its
preservation is assumed by Vishnu. His chief attribute is Wisdom: he is
the Air, Water, Humidity in general, Space, and sometimes, though rarely,
Earth: he is Time present, and the middle: and he is the Sun in the
evening and at night. His colour is blue or blackish; his Vahan, the Eagle
named Garuda; his allotted place, the Air or intermediate region, and he
symbolises Unity. It is he who most commonly appears in the Avatars or
Incarnations, of which nine in number are recorded as past: the most
celebrated of which are his incarnations as Mateya or the Fish Rama,
Krishna, and Buddha: the tenth of Kalki, or the Horse, is yet to come. It
is from him that Brahma springs when he proceeds to his office of
creation.

The destroying and regenerating power, Siva, Maha-deva, Iswara, or Routrem
is regarded metaphysically as Justice, and physically as Fire or Heat, and
sometimes Water. He is the Sun at noon: his colour is white, with a blue
throat, but sometimes red; his Vahan is the bull, and his place of
residence the heaven. As destruction in the material world is but change
or production in another form, and was so held by almost all the heathen
philosophers, we find that the peculiar emblems of Siva are, as we have
already shown, the Trident, the symbol of destruction; and the Linga or
Phallus, of regeneration.

The three deities were called Trimurtti, and in the caverns of Ellora they
are united in a Triune bust. They are collectively symbolized by the
triangle. Vishnu, as Humidity personified, is also represented by an
inverted triangle, and Siva by a triangle erect, as a personification of
Fire; while the Monad Brahm is represented by the circle as Eternity, and
by a point as having neither length, nor breadth, as self-existing, and
containing nothing. The Brahmans deny materialism; yet it is asserted by
Mr. Wilford, that, when closely interrogated on the title of Deva or God,
which their most sacred books give to the Sun, they avoid a direct answer,
and often contradict themselves and one another. The supreme divinity of
the Sun, however, is constantly asserted in their scriptures; and the
holiest verse in the Vedas, which is called the Gayatri, is:--"Let us
adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the Godhead, who illuminates all,
who recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we
invoke to direct our understanding aright in our progress towards his holy
seat."

It has been said that in India is to be found the most ancient form of
that Trinitarian worship which prevails in nearly every quarter of the
known world. Be that as it may, it is not in India where the most
remarkable phase of the worship is to be found; for that we turn to Egypt.
Here we meet with the strange fact that no two cities worshipped the same
triad. "The one remarkable feature in nearly all these triads is that they
are father, mother, and son; that is, male and female principles of
nature, with their product."

Mariette Bey says:--"According to places, the attributes by which the
Divine Personage is surrounded are modified; but in each temple the triad
would appear as a symbol destined to affirm the eternity of being. In all
triads, the principal god gives birth to himself. Considered as a Father,
he remains the great god adored in temples. Considered as a Son, he
becomes, by a sort of doubling, the third person of the triad. But the
Father and the Son are not less the one god, while, being double, the
first is the eternal god; the second is but the living symbol destined to
affirm the strength of the other. The father engenders himself in the womb
of the mother, and thus becomes at once his own father and his own son.
Thereby are expressed the uncreatedness and the eternity of the being who
has had no beginning, and who shall have no end."

Generally speaking, the gods of Egypt were grouped in sets of three, each
city having its own Trinity. Thus in Memphis we find Ptah, Pasht and
Month; in Thebes, Amun-Ra, Athor and Chonso; in Ethiopia, Noum, Sate and
Anucis; in Hermonthis, Monthra, Reto and Harphre; in Lower Egypt, Seb,
Netphe and Osiris; in Thinnis, Osiris, Isis and Anhur; in Abousimbel and
Derr, Ptah, Amun-Ra and Horus-Ra; in Esné, Neph, Neboo and Haké; in Dabad,
Seb, Netpe and Mandosti; in Ambos, Savak, Athor and Khonso; in Edfou,
Horket, Hathor and Horsenedto. The trinity common throughout the land is
that of Osiris, Isis and Horus.

Dr. Cudworth translates Jamblichus as follows, quoting from the Egyptian
Hermetic Books in defining the Egyptian Trinity:--"Hermes places the god
Emeph as the prince and ruler over all the celestial gods, whom he
affirmeth to be a Mind understanding himself, and converting his
cogitations or intellections into himself. Before which Emeph he placeth
one indivisible, whom he calleth Eicton, in which is the first
intelligible, and which is worshipped only by silence. After which two,
Eicton and Emeph, the demiurgic mind and president of truth, as with
wisdom it proceedeth to generations, and bringeth forth the hidden powers
of the occult reasons with light, is called in the Egyptian language
Ammon: as it artificially affects all things with truth, Phtha; as it is
productive of good, Osiris; besides other names that it hath according to
its other powers and energies." Upon this, Dr. Cudworth remarks:--"How
well these three divine hypostases of the Egyptians agree with the
Pythagoric or Platonic Trinity of,--first, Unity and Goodness itself;
secondly, Mind; and, thirdly, Soul,--I need not here declare. Only we
shall call to mind what hath been already intimated, that Reason or
Wisdom, which was the Demiurgus of the world, and is properly the second
of the fore-mentioned hypostases, was called also, among the Egyptians by
another name, Cneph; from whom was said to have been produced or begotten
the God Phtha, the third hypostasis of the Egyptian Trinity; so that Cneph
and Emeph are all one. Wherefore, we have here plainly an Egyptian Trinity
of divine hypostases subordinate, Eicton, Emeph or Cneph, and Phtha."

Mr. Sharpe, in his Egyptian Inscriptions, mentions the fact that there is
in the British Museum a hieroglyphical inscription as early as the reign
of Sevechus of the eighth century before the Christian Era, showing that
the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity already formed part of their
religion, and stating that in each of the two groups, Isis, Nephthis and
Osiris, and Osiris, Isis, and Horus, the three gods made only one person.
Also that the sculptured figures on the lid of the sarcophagus of Rameses
III., now at Cambridge, show us the King, not only as one of a group of
three gods, but also as a Trinity in Unity in his own person. "He stands
between the goddesses, Isis and Nepthys, who embrace him as if he were the
lost Osiris, whom they have now found again. We further know him to be in
the character of Osiris by the two sceptres which he holds; but at the
same time the horns upon his head are those of the goddess Athor, and the
ball and feathers above are the ornaments of the god Ra."

Nearly all writers describe the Egyptian Trinity as consisting of the
_generative_, the _destructive_, and the _preserving_ powers. Isis answers
to Siva. Iswara, or Lord, is the epithet of Siva. Osiris, or Ysiris, as
Hellanicus wrote the Egyptian name, was the God at whose birth a voice was
heard to declare, "that the Lord of all nature sprang forth to light."

A peculiar feature in the ancient trinities is the way in which the
worship of the first person is lost or absorbed in the second, few or no
temples being found dedicated to Brahma. Something very much like this
often occurs among Christians; we are surrounded by churches dedicated to
the second and third persons in the trinity, and to saints, and to the
Mother of Christ, but none to the Father.

It has been noticed that while we find inscribed upon the monuments of
Egypt a vast multitude of gods, as in India, the number diminishes as we
ascend. Amun Ra alone is found dedicated upon the oldest monuments, in
three distinct forms, into one or other of whose characters all the other
divinities may be resolved. Amun was the chief god, the sacred name,
corresponding with the Aum of the Indians, also, probably, the Egyptian
On. According to Mr. Wilkinson, the Egyptians held Kneph, Neph, Nef, or
Chnoubus, "as the idea of the Spirit of God which moved upon the face of
the waters." He was the Spirit, animating and perpetuating the world, and
penetrating all its parts; the same with the Agathodæmon of the
Phoenicians, and like him, was symbolized by the snake, an emblem of the
Spirit which pervades the universe. He was commonly represented with a
Ram's head; and though the colour of the Egyptian divinities is perhaps
more commonly green than any other, he is as frequently depicted blue. He
was the god of the Nile, which is indirectly confirmed by Pindar; and by
Ptolemy, who says that the Egyptians gave the name of Agathodæmon to the
western, or Heracleotic branch. From his mouth proceeded the Mundane egg,
from which sprung Phtah, the creative power. Mr. Wilkinson
proceeds:--"Having separated the Spirit from the Creator, and purposing to
act apart and defy each attribute, which presented itself to their
imagination, they found it necessary to form another deity from the
creative power, whom they call Phtah, proceeding from the former, and
thence deemed the son of Kneph. Some difference was observed between the
power, which created the world, and that which caused and ruled over the
generation of man, and continued to promote the continuation of the human
species. This latter attribute of the divinity was deified under the
appellation Khem. Thus was the supreme deity known by the three distinct
names of,

    Kneph,      Phthah,      Khem:

to these were joined the goddesses Sate, Neith, and Buto; and the number
of the eight deities was completed by the addition of Ra, or Amun-Ra,"
this last, however, was not a distinct god, but a name common to each
person of the triad: and, indeed, to all the three names above the name of
Amun was constantly prefixed.[9]

Phthah corresponds with the Indian Brahma, and the Orphic Phanes, and
appears in several other forms. In one form he is represented as an
infant--often as an infant Priapæan figure, and deformed.

The deity called Khem by Mr. Wilkinson, and Mendes by Champollion, is
common on the monuments of Egypt, and is recognised as corresponding with
the Pan of the Greeks. His chief attribute is heat, which aids the
continuation of the various species, and he is generally coloured red,
though sometimes blue, with his right arm extended upwards. His principal
emblems are a triple-thonged Flagellum and a Phallus. He corresponds with
Siva of the Indians, his attributes being similar, _viz._, Destroying and
Regenerating. He is the god of generation, and, like Siva, has his Phallic
emblem of reproduction; the triple-thonged flagellum is regarded by some
as a variation of the trident, or of the axe of Siva. He has for a vahan
the Bull Mneuis, as Sivi has the Bull Nandi. The Goat Mendes was also
consecrated to him as an emblem of heat and generation; and it is well
known that this animal is constantly placed in the hands of Siva. "In
short," says Mr. Cory, "there is scarcely a shade of distinction between
Khem and Siva: the Egyptians venerated the same deity as the Indians, in
his generative character as Khem, when they suspended the flagellum, the
instrument of vengeance, over his right hand; but in his destroying
character, as the ruler of the dead, as Osiris, when they placed the
flagellum in his hands as the trident is in that character placed in the
hand of Siva."

In the Chaldean oracles, so far as they have been preserved, the doctrine
of a triad is found everywhere. Allowing for the existence of much that is
forged amongst these oracles, as suggested by Mr. Cory and others, we may
reasonably conclude that there still remains a deal that is ancient and
authentic. They teach as a fundamental tenet that a triad shines
throughout the whole world, over which a Monad rules. This triad is
Father, Power, and Intellect, having probably once been Air, Fire, and
Sun.

Amongst the Laplanders the Supreme God was worshipped as Jumala, and three
gods were recognised as subordinate to him. The first was Thor of the
Edda; the second Storjunkare, his vicegerent, the common household god;
and the third Beywe, the Sun.

With regard to the Phoenicians and Syrians, Photius states that the Kronus
of both was known under the names of El, Bel, and Bolathen.

The Sidonians, Eudemus said, placed before all things Chronus, Pothas, and
Omichles, rendered by Damascius as Time, Love, and Cloudy Darkness,
regarded by some as no other than the Khem, Phthah, and Amun Kneph of the
Egyptians.

The Heracles or Hercules of the Greeks, known as Arcles of the Tyrians,
was a triple divinity, described by Hieronymus as a dragon, with the heads
of a bull, of a lion, and of a man with wings.

Among the Philistines also we find their chief god Dragon, who is the
Ouranus of Sanchoniatho. It appears also that Baal was a triple Divinity:
while Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and Baal Peor, of the
Midians, seem to be the Priapæan Khem of Egypt, the god of heat and
generation. The Edessenes also held the triad, and placed Monimus and
Azizus as contemplars with the Sun.[10]




CHAPTER IV.

    _The Supreme God of the Peruvians--Assumed Origin of the Trinity Idea
    in the Patriarchal Age--Welsh Ideas--Druidical Triads--The Ancient
    Religion of America--The Classics and Heathen Triads--The
    Tritopatoreia--The Virgin Mary--The Virgin amongst the
    Heathen--Universality of the Belief in a Trinity--The Dahomans._


The Supreme God of the Peruvians, was called Viracocha; known also as
Pachacarnac, Soul of the world, Usapu admirable, and other names.

Garcilazo says, "he was considered as the giver of life, sustainer and
nourisher of all things, but because they did not see him, they erected no
temples to him nor offered sacrifices; however they worshipped him in
their hearts, and esteemed him for the unknown God."

Generally, speaking, the sun was the great object of Peruvian idolatry
during the dominion of the Incas. Its worship was the most solemn, and its
temples the most splendid in their furniture and decorations, and the
common people, no doubt, reverenced that luminary as their chief god.

Herrera mentions the circumstance that at one of the festivals, they
exhibited three statues of the sun, each of which had a particular name,
which as he translated them were Father and Lord Sun, the Son Sun, and the
Brother Sun. He also says, "that at Chucuisaea, they worshipped an idol
called Tangatanga, which they said was three and one."

The Spanish writers consider this doctrine to have been stolen by the
devil from Christianity, and imparted by him to this people. By this
opinion they evidently declare its antiquity in Peru to have been greater
than the time of the Spanish conquest.

Those writers and scholars who refuse to believe that the doctrine of the
Trinity as taught in the Christian religion, was known during the
patriarchal or judaical dispensations, and therefore will not allow that
the trinity of the Peruvians had any reference to the dogma of
Christianity, contend that their trinity was founded in those early
corruptions of patriarchal history, in which men began to represent Adam,
and his three sons; and Noah, and his three sons; as being triplicates of
the same essential person, who originally was the universal father of the
human race: and secondly, being triplicated in their three sons, who also
were considered the fathers of mankind. They say therefore, Adam and Noah
were each the father of three sons; and to the persons of the latter of
these triads, by whose descendants the world was repeopled, the whole
habitable earth was assigned in a threefold division. This matter, though
it sometimes appears in an undisguised form, was usually wrapped up in the
cloak of the most profound mystery. Hence instead of plainly saying, that
the mortal who had flourished in the golden age and who was venerated as
the universal demon father both of gods and men, was the parent of three
sons, they were wont to declare, that the great father had wonderfully
triplicated himself.

Pursuing this vein of mysticism, they contrived to obscure the triple
division of the habitable globe among the sons of Noah, just as much as
the characters of the three sons themselves. A very ancient notion
universally prevailed that some such triple division had once taken place;
and the hierophants when they had elevated Noah and his three sons to the
rank of deity, proceeded to ring a variety of corresponding changes upon
that celebrated threefold distribution. Noah was esteemed the universal
sovereign of the world; but, when he branched out into three kings
(_i.e._, triplicating himself into his three sons), that world was to be
divided into three kingdoms, or, as they were sometimes styled, three
worlds. To one of these kings was assigned the empire of heaven; to
another, the empire of the earth, including the nether regions of
Tartarus; to a third, the empire of the ocean.

So again, when Noah became a god, the attributes of deity were inevitably
ascribed to him, otherwise, he would plainly have become incapable of
supporting his new character: yet even in the ascription of such
attributes, the genuine outlines of his history were never suffered to be
wholly forgotten. He had witnessed the destruction of one world, the new
creation (or regeneration) of another, and the oath of God that he would
surely preserve mankind from the repetition of such a calamity as the
deluge. Hence when he was worshipped as a hero-god, he was revered in the
triple character of the destroyer, the creator, and the preserver. And
when he was triplicated into three cognate divinities, were produced three
gods, different, yet fundamentally the same, one mild though awful as the
creator; another gentle and beneficent as the preserver; a third,
sanguinary, ferocious, and implacable as the destroyer.[11]

The idea of a trinity was rather curiously developed amongst the Druids,
especially amongst the Welsh. They used a number of triplicated sentences
as summaries of matters relating to their religion, history, and science,
in order that these things might be the more easily committed to memory
and handed down to future generations. The triads were these:--

1. There are three primeval Unities, and more than one of each cannot
exist:

    One God;
    One Truth;
    One Point of Liberty, where all opposites equiponderate.

2. Three things proceed from the primeval unities:

    All of Life;
    All that is Good; and
    All Power.

3. God consists necessarily of three things:

    The Greatest of Life;
    The Greatest of Knowledge; and
    The Greatest of Power.[12]

The Druids venerated the Bull and Eagle as emblems of the god Hu, and like
the Jews and Indians, "made use of a term, only known to themselves, to
express the unutterable name of the Deity, and the letters =OIW= were used
for that purpose."

From Herodotus, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, we get information
concerning the triads amongst the Persians, and which were similar in many
respects to those recognised by other eastern nations. Oromasdes and
Arimanes were ruling principles always in opposition to each other, viz.,
_good_ and _evil_, and springing from _light_ and _darkness_, which they
are said to have most resembled. Eudemus says, "they proceeded from Place
or Time." Oromasdes was looked upon as the whole expanse of heaven, and
was considered by the Greeks as identical with Zeus. He was the Preserver;
and Arimanes, the Destroyer. Between them, according to Plutarch was
Mithras, the Mediator, who was regarded as the Sun, as Light, as
Intellect, and as the creator of all things. He was a triple deity and was
said to have triplicated himself. The Leontine mysteries were instituted
in his honour, the lion being consecrated to him, and the Sun was
represented by the emblems of the Bull, the Lion, and the Hawk, united.

In the ancient religions of America, a species of trinity was recognised
altogether different to that of Christianity or the Trimurti of India. In
some of the ancient poems a triple nature is actually ascribed to storms;
and in the Quiché legends we read: "The first of Hurakan is the lightning,
the second the track of the lightning, and the third the stroke of the
lightning; and these three are Hurakan the Heat of the Sky."

In the Iroquois mythology the same thing is found. Heno was thunder, and
three assistants were assigned to him whose offices were similar to those
of the companions of Hurakan.

Heno was said to gather the clouds and pour out the warm rain; he was the
patron of husbandry, and was invoked at seedtime and harvest. As the
purveyor of nourishment, he was addressed as grandfather, and his
worshippers styled themselves his grandchildren.

Amongst the Aztecs, Tlaloc, the god of rain and water, manifested himself
under the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and the thunder.

But this conception of three in one, says Brinton, "was above the
comprehension of the masses, and consequently these deities were also
spoken of as fourfold in nature, three _and_ one." Moreover, as has
already been pointed out, the thunder-god was usually ruler of the winds,
and thus another reason for his quadruplicate nature was suggested.
Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and probably Heno, are plural as well as singular
nouns, and are used as nominatives to verbs in both numbers. Tlaloc was
appealed to as inhabiting each of the cardinal points and every mountain
top. His statue rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, and
had in one hand a serpent in gold. Ribbons of silver, crossing to form
squares, covered the robe, and the shield was composed of feathers of four
colours, yellow, green, red and blue. Before it was a vase containing all
sorts of grain; and the clouds were called his companions, the winds his
messengers. As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed to be flints,
and thus, as the emblem of fire and the storm, this stone figures
conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the Quichés fire by
shaking his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. He is distinctly
said to be the same as Quetzelcoatl, one of whose commonest symbols was a
flint. Such a stone, in the beginning of things, fell from heaven to
earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each of which sprang up a god; an
ancient legend, which shadows forth the subjection of all things to him
who gathers the clouds from the four corners of the earth, who thunders
with his voice, who satisfies with his rain the desolate and waste ground,
and causes the tended herb to spring forth. This is the germ of the
adoration of stones as emblems of the fecundating rains. This is why, for
example, the Navajos use as their charm for rain certain long round
stones, which they think fall from the clouds when it thunders.

It is said that all over Africa, belief in a trinity of gods is found, the
same to-day as has prevailed at least for forty centuries, and perhaps for
very much longer. Chaldæa, Assyria, and the temple of Erektheus, on the
Acropolis of Athens, honoured and sacrificed to Zeus (the Sun, Hercules,
or Phallic idea) the Serpent and Ocean; and Africa still does so to the
Tree-Stem or Pole, the Serpent, and the Sea or Water; and this Trinity is
one god, and yet serves to divide all gods into three classes, of which
these are types.

Important and interesting notices relative to the nature of the deities
worshipped by the ancients are to be found in the treatise of Julius
Firmicus Maternus, "De Errore Profanarum Religionum ad Constantium, et
Constantem Angg." Firmicus attributes to the Persians a belief in the
androgynous nature of the deity [naturam ejus (jovis) ad utriusque sexus
transferentes]. No doubt this doctrine has always been recognised, by many
writers, as being held by the philosophers of India and Egypt, and that
it constituted a part of the creed of Orpheus, but its connection with
Persia has not been so generally acknowledged.

Firmicus, after speaking of the two-fold powers of Jupiter (that is, the
deity being both male and female) adds, "when they choose to give a
visible representation of him, they sculpture him as a female." Again,
they represent him as a female with three heads. It was a figure adorned
with serpents of a monstrous size. It was venerated under the symbol of
fire. It was called Mithra. It was worshipped in secret caverns. The rites
of Mithra were familiar to the Romans, but they worshipped them in a
manner different from the Persian ceremonies. Firmicus had seen Mithra
sculptured in two different ways: in one piece of sculpture he was
represented as a female with three faces, and infolded with serpents; and
in another piece of sculpture he was represented as seizing a bull.

Classic writers abound with references, not simply to a plurality of gods
among the heathen, but to a trinity in unity and unity in trinity,
sometimes approaching in the similarity of their broad outlines the
doctrine as held by orthodox religionists. Herodotus calls the deity of
the Pelasgians, _Gods_, and it is admitted that the passage evidently
implies that the expression was used by the priests of Dodona. The
Pelasgians worshipped the Cabiri, and the Cabiri were originally three in
number, hence it is inferred that these Cabiri were the Pelasgian Trinity,
and that having in ancient times no name which would have implied a
diversity of gods, they worshipped a trinity in unity. The worship of the
Cabiri by the Pelasgians is evident, for Herodotus says, in his second
book, "that the Samothracians learnt the Cabiric mysteries from the
Pelasgians, who once inhabited that island, and afterwards settled in
Greece, near Attica." Cicero testifies that the Cabiri were originally
three in number, and he carefully distinguishes them from the Dioscuri. A
passage in Pausanias states that at Tritia, a city of Achaia, there is a
temple erected to the Dii Magni (or Cabiri); their images are a
representation of a god made of clay. "We need not be surprised," said a
writer once, "that Pausanias should be puzzled how to express the fact
that, though it was the temple of the three Cabiri, yet there was only one
image in it. Is not this the doctrine of a trinity in unity?"

Potter informs us that those who desired to have children were usually
very liberal to the gods, who were thought to preside over generation. The
same writer also says:--"Who these were, or what was the origination of
their name, is not easy to determine: Orpheus, as cited by Phanodemus in
Suidas, makes their proper names to be Amaclides, Protocles, and
Protocleon, and will have them to preside over the winds; Demo makes them
to be the winds themselves." Another author tells us their names were
"Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, and that they were the sons of heaven and of
earth: Philocrus likewise makes earth their mother, but instead of heaven,
substitutes the sun, or Apollo, for their father, where he seems to
account, as well for their being accounted the superintendents of
generation, as for the name of [Greek: tritopateres]; for being
immediately descended from two immortal gods, themselves," saith he, "were
thought the third fathers, and therefore might well be esteemed the common
parents of mankind, and from that opinion derive those honours, which the
Athenians paid them as the authors and presidents of human generation."

Again, the Tritopatoreia was a solemnity in which it was usual to pray for
children to the gods of generation, who were sometimes called
_tritopateres_. The names of the Cabiri, as Cicero says, are Tritopatreus,
Eubuleus, and Dionysius: this fact is supposed to give us a little insight
into the origin of the word _tritopateres_, or _tritopatreis_. Philocrus,
as we have seen, makes them the sons of Apollo and of the earth: this
fact will help us to develop the truth: the two last hypostases emanated
from the Creator: thus in the Egyptian Trinity of Osiris, of Isis, and of
Horus, Isis is not only the consort, but the daughter of Osiris, and Horus
was the fruit of their embrace, thus in the Scandinavian Trinity of Adin,
of Trea, and of Thor, Trea is not only the wife, but the daughter of Odin,
and Thor was the fruit of their embrace, as Maillet observes in his
_Northern Antiquities_ (vol. ii.), there is the Roman Trinity of Jupiter,
of Juno, and of Minerva, Juno is the sister and the wife of Jupiter, and
Minerva is the daughter of Jupiter: now, it is a singular fact, that in
the Pelasgic Trinity of the Cabirim, two of them are said to have been the
sons of Vulcan, or the Sun, as we read in Potter (vol. i.) Hence we see,
it has been contended, the mistake of Philocrus: there were not three
emanations from the Sun, as he supposes, but only _two_: their name
tritopateres, which alludes to the doctrine of the trinity, puzzled
Philocrus, who knew nothing of the doctrine, and he is credited with
coining the story, to account for this appellation: the Cabiri were, as is
known from Cicero, called Tritopatreus, Dionysius, and Eubuleus. Dionysius
is Osiris, and Eubuleus and Tritopatreus are the two hypostases, which
emanated from him: the name of the third hypostasis is generally
compounded of some word which signifies the third: hence Minerva derived
her name of Tritonis, or Tritonia Virgo: hence Minerva is called by Hesiod
(referred to in Lempriere's Classical Dictionary), Tritogenia: hence came
the Tritia, of which Pausanias speaks: hence came the Tritopatreus of
Cicero: hence came the Thridi of the Scandinavians. We read in the Edda
these remarkable words: "He afterwards beheld three thrones raised one
above another, and on each throne sat a man; upon his asking which of
these was their king, his guide answered, 'he who sits upon the lowest
throne is the king, and his name is Hor, or the Lofty One: the second is
Jaenhar, that is Equal to the Lofty One; but he who sits upon the highest
throne is called Thridi, or the Third.'"

Pausanias has a number of passages which bear upon this subject, and seem
to prove conclusively that the Greeks recognised the doctrine of a trinity
in unity and worshipped the same. In his second book he says: "Beyond the
tomb of Pelasgus is a small structure of brass, which supports the images
of Diana, of Jupiter, and of Minerva, a work of some antiquity: Lyceas has
in some verses recorded the fact that this is the representation of
Jupiter Machinator." Again, in Book I., when describing the Areopagite
district of Athens, he says:--"Here are the images of Pluto, of Mercury,
and of Tellus, to whom all such persons, whether citizens or strangers, as
have vindicated their innocence in the Court Areopagus, are required
sacrifice." "In a temple of Ceres, at the entrance of Athens, there are
images of the goddess herself, of her daughter, and of Bacchus, with a
torch in his hand."

That the grouping of the three deities was not accidental is evident from
the frequency with which they are so mentioned, and other passages show
that they were the three deities who were worshipped in the Eleusinian
mysteries. Thus in Book VIII., Ch. 25:--"The river Lado then continues its
course to the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, which is situated in
territories of the Thelpusians: the three statues in it are each seven
feet high, and all of marble: they represent Ceres, Proserpine, and
Bacchus." In another passage (Book II., Ch. 2) he says:--"By a temple
dedicated to all the gods, there were placed three statues of Jupiter in
the open air, of which one had no title, a second was styled the
_Terrestrial_, and the third was styled the highest."

The learned say, of course, it is clear that the missing title should have
been the _God of the Sea_, as the others were the _God of Heaven_, and
the _God of the Earth_. Another passage in Pausanias confirms this:--"In a
temple of Minerva was placed a wooden image of Jupiter with three eyes;
two of them were placed in the natural position, and the other was placed
on the forehead.... One may naturally suppose that Jupiter is represented
with three eyes as the God of the Heaven, as the God of the Earth, and as
the God of the Sea."

It has been remarked that Pausanias records the tradition that this story
of the three-eyed Jupiter comes from Troy, and it is known that the
Trojans acknowledged a trinity in the divine nature, and that the Dii
Penates, or the Cabiri of the Romans, came from Troy. Quotations from the
translation of the Atlas Chinesis of Montanus, by Ogilby, show that the
three-eyed Jupiter was an oriental emblem of the trinity:--"The modern
learned, or followers of this first sect, who are overwhelmed in idolatry,
divide generally their idols, or false gods, into three orders, _viz._,
celestial, terrestrial, and infernal: in the celestial they acknowledge a
trinity of one godhead, which they worship and serve by the name of a
goddess called Pussa; which, with the Greeks, we might call Cybele, and
with Egyptians, Isis and Mother of the Gods. This Pussa (according to the
Chinese saying) is the governess of nature, or, to speak properly, the
Chinese Isis, or Cybele, by whose power they believe that all things are
preserved and made fruitful, as the three inserted figures relate."

In the doctrine relating to the Virgin Mary as held by the Church of Rome,
there is a remarkable resemblance to the teaching of the ancients
respecting the female constantly associated with the triune male deity.
Her names and titles are many, and though diversified, mostly pointing to
the same idea. Some of these are as follows:--"The Virgin," conceiving and
bringing forth from her own inherent power. The wife of Bel Nimrod; the
wife of Asshur; the wife of Nin. She is called Multa, Mulita, or Mylitta,
or Enuta, Bilta or Bilta Nipruta, Ishtar, Ri, Alitta, Elissa, Bettis,
Ashtoreth, Astarte, Saruha, Nana, Asurah. Amongst other names she is known
as Athor, Dea Syria, Artemis, Aphrodite, Tanith, Tanat, Rhea, Demeter,
Ceres, Diana, Minerva, Juno, Venus, Isis, Cybele, Seneb or Seben, Venus
Urania, Ge, Hera. "As Anaitis she is the 'mother of the child;' reproduced
again as Isis and Horus; Devaki with Christna; and Aurora with Memnon."
Even in ancient Mexico the mother and child were worshipped. Again she
appears as Davkina Gula Shala, Zirbanit, Warmita Laz. In modern times she
reappears as the Virgin Mary and her son. There were Ishtar of Nineveh and
Ishter of Arbela, just as there are now Marie de Loretto and Marie de la
Garde.

She was the Queen of fecundity or fertility, Queen of the lands, the
beginning of heaven and earth, Queen of all the Gods, Goddess of war and
battle, the holder of the sceptre, the beginning of the beginning, the one
great Queen, the Queen of the spheres, the Virgo of the Zodiac, the
Celestial Virgin, Time, in whose womb all things are born. She is
represented in various ways, and specially as a nude woman carrying an
infant in her arms.[13]

The name _Multa, Mulita, or Mylitta_, Inman contends is derived from some
words resembling the Hebrew _meal_, the "place of entrance," and _ta_, "a
chamber." The whole being a place of entrance and a chamber. The cognomen
Multa, or Malta, signifies, therefore, the spot through which life enters
into the chamber, _i.e._, the womb, and through which the fruit matured
within enters into the world as a new being. By the association of this
virgin goddess with the sacred triad of deities is made up the four great
gods, _Arba-il_.

We are here reminded of the well-known symbol of the Trinity which seems
to have been as abundantly used in ancient times, at least in some
countries--Egypt for instance. This is the triangle--generally the
equilateral--which of course symbolised both the trinity in unity and the
equality of the three. Sometimes we get two of those triangles crossing
each other, one with the point upwards, the other with the point
downwards, thus forming a six-rayed star. The first represents the phallic
triad, the two together shew the union of the male and female principles
producing a new figure, each at the same time retaining its own identity.
The triangle with the point downwards, by itself typifies the Mons
Veneris, the Delta, or door through which all come into the world.

The question has arisen:--"How comes it that a doctrine so singular, and
so utterly at variance with all the conceptions of uninstructed reason, as
that of a Trinity in Unity, should have been from the beginning, the
fundamental religious tenet of every nation upon earth?"

Inman without hesitation declares "the trinity of the ancients is
unquestionably of phallic origin." Others have either preceded this writer
or have followed suit, contending that the male symbol of generation in
divine creation was three in one, as the cross, &c., and that the female
symbol was always regarded as the Triangle, the accepted symbol of the
Trinity. The number three, was employed with mystic solemnity, and in the
emblematical hands which seem to have been borne on the top of a staff or
sceptre in the Isiac processions, the thumb and two forefingers are held
up to signify the three primary and general personifications. This form of
priestly blessing, thumb and two fingers, is still acknowledged as a sign
of the Trinity.

The ancients tell us plainly enough that they are derived from the
cosmogonic elements. They are primarily the material and elementary types
of the spiritual trinity of revelation--types established by revelation
itself, and the only resource of materialism to preserve the original
doctrine. The spirit, whether physical or spiritual, is equally the
_pneuma_; and the light, whether physical or spiritual, equally the _phos_
of the Greek text: so that the materialist of antiquity had little
difficulty in preserving their analogies complete.

The Dahomans are said by Skertchley to deny the corporeal existence of the
deity, but to ascribe human passions to him; a singular medley. "Their
religion," he says, "must not be confounded with Polytheism, for they only
worship one god, Mau, but propitiate him through the intervention of the
fetiches. Of these, there are four principal ones, after whom come the
secondary deities. The most important of these is Bo, the Dahoman Mars;
then comes Legba, the Dahoman Priapus, whose little huts are to be met
with in every street. This deity is of either sex, a male and female Legba
often residing in the same temple. A squat swish image, rudely moulded
into the grossest caricature on the human form, sitting with hands on
knees, with gaping mouth, and the special attributes developed to an
ungainly size. Teeth of cowries usually fill the clown-like mouth, and
ears standing out from the head, like a bat's, are only surpassed in their
monstrosity by the snowshoe-shaped feet. The nose is broad, even for a
negro's, and altogether the deity is anything but a fascinating object.
Round the deity is a fence of knobbed sticks, daubed with filthy slime,
and before the god is a flat saucer of red earthenware, which contains the
offerings. When a person wishes to increase his family, he calls in a
Legba priest and gives him a fowl, some cankie, water, and palm oil. A
fire is lighted, and the cankie, water, and palm oil mixed together and
put in the saucer. The fowl is then killed by placing the head between the
great and second toes of the priest, who severs it from the body by a
jerk. The head is then swung over the person of the worshipper, to allow
the blood to drop upon him, while the bleeding body is held over a little
dish, which catches the blood. The fowl is then semi-roasted on a fire
lighted near, and the priest, taking the dish of blood, smears the body of
the deity with it, finally taking some of the blood into his mouth and
sputtering it over the god. The fowl is then eaten by the priest, and the
wives of the devotees are supposed to have the children they crave for."

The principal Dahoman gods, described by Skertchley, are thus mentioned by
Forlong:--

Legba, the Dahoman Priapus, and special patron of all who desire larger
families.

Zoo, the god of fire, reminding us of Zoe, life.

Demen, he who presides over chastity.

Akwash, he who presides over childbirth.

Gbwejeh, he or she who presides over hunting.

Ajarama, the tutelary god of foreigners, symbolised by a whitewashed stump
under a shed, apparently a Sivaic or white Lingam, no doubt called foreign
because Ashar came from Assyria, and Esir from the still older Ethiopians.

Hoho, he who presides over twins.

Afa, the name of the dual god of wisdom.

Aizan, the god who presides over roads, and travellers, and bad
characters, and can be seen on all roads as a heap of clay surmounted by a
round pot, containing kanki, palm oil, &c.

"So that we have Legba, the pure and simple phallus; Ajarama, 'the
whitened stump,' so well known to us in India amidst rude aboriginal
tribes; and Ai-zan, the Hermes or Harmonia, marking the ways of life, and
symbolised by a mound and round pot and considering that this is the
universal form of tatooing shown on every female's stomach,--Mr.
Skertchley says, a series of arches, the meaning is also clearly the
omphi. Mr. S. says that Afa, our African Androgynous Minerva, is very much
respected by mothers, and has certain days sacred to mothers, when she or
he is specially consulted on their special subjects, as well as on all
matters relating to marrying, building a house, sowing corn, and such
like."[14]

Some years ago a writer, speaking of the Sacred Triads of various nations,
said: "From all quarters of the heathen world came the trinity," what we
have already revealed shows that the doctrine has been held in some form
or other from the far east to the extreme verge of the western hemisphere.
Some of the forms of this Triad are as follows:--India--Brahma, Vishnu,
Siva: Egypt--Knef, Osiris as the first; Ptha, Isis as the second; Phree,
Horus as the third: the Zoroastrians--The Father, Mind, and Fire: the
Ancient Arabs--Al-Lat, Al Uzzah, Manah: Greeks and Latins--Zeus or
Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto: the Syrians--Monimus, Azoz, Aries or Mars: the
Kaldians--The One; the Second, who dwells with the First; the Third, he
who shines through the universe: China--the One, the Second from the
First, the Third from the Second: the Boodhists--Boodhash, the Developer;
Darmash, the Developed; Sanghash, the Hosts Developed: Peruvians--Apomti,
Charunti, Intiquaoqui: Scandinavia--Odin, Thor, Friga: Pythagoras--Monad,
Duad, Triad: Plato--the Infinite, the Finite, that which is compounded of
the Two: Phenicia--Belus, the Sun; Urama, the Earth; Adonis, Love:
Kalmuks--Tarm, Megozan, Bourchan: Ancient Greece--Om, or On; Dionysus, or
Bacchus; Herakles: Orpheus--God, the Spirit, Kaos: South American
Indians--Otkon. Messou, Atahanto.




CHAPTER V.

    _The Golden Calf of Aaron--Was it a Cone or an Animal?--The Prayer to
    Priapus--Hymn to Priapus--The Complaint of Priapus._


In the thirty-second chapter of the Book of Exodus we have the following
remarkable account of certain Israelitish proceedings in the time of Moses
and Aaron:--"When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of
the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said
unto him, up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for _as for_ this
Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not
what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, break off the golden
earrings, which _are_ in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your
daughters, and bring _them_ unto me. And all the people brake off the
golden earrings which _were_ in their ears, and brought _them_ unto Aaron;
and he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool,
after he had made it a molten calf, and they said, 'These _be_ thy gods O
Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt.' And when Aaron saw
_it_, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said,
'To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.' And they rose up early on the morrow,
and offered burnt offerings, and brought offerings, and brought peace
offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to
play."

There is no doubt this is a most remarkable, and, for the most part,
inexplicable transaction. That it was an act of the grossest idolatry is
clear, but the details of the affair are not so readily disposed of, and
some amount of discussion has in consequence arisen, which has cast
imputations upon the conduct of the ancient Jews not very favourably
regarded by the moderns.

The conduct of Aaron is certainly startling, to say the least of it, for
when the people presented their outrageous demand, coupled with their
insolent and contemptuous language about the man Moses, he makes no
remonstrance, utters no rebuke, but apparently falls in at once with their
proposal and prepares to carry it out. The question is, however, what was
it that was really done? What was the character of the image or idol, he
fashioned out of the golden ornaments which he requested them to take from
the ears of their wives, their sons, and their daughters?

The suggestion that anything of a phallic nature is to be attributed to
this transaction has been loudly ridiculed and indignantly spurned by some
who have had little acquaintance with that species of worship, but it is
by no means certain that the charge can be so easily disposed of. That
phallic practises prevailed, more or less, amongst the Jews is certain,
and however this matter of the golden image may be explained, it will be
difficult to believe they were not somehow concerned in it.

It may be a new revelation to some to be told that in the opinion of some
scholars the idol form set up by those foolish idolators was not that of a
calf at all, but of a cone. The Hebrew word _egel_ or _ghegel_ has been
usually taken to mean calf, but, say these gentlemen, erroneously so, its
true signification being altogether different. It is pleaded that it was
not at all likely that the Israelites should, so soon after their
miraculous deliverance from the house of bondage, have so far forgotten
what was due from them in grateful remembrance of that, as to have plunged
into such gross and debased idolatry as the adoration of deity under the
form of an animal. Also that it would have been inconsistent with their
exclamation when they saw the image, "This is thy God, O Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt," and with Aaron's proclamation,
after he had built an altar before the idol for the people to sacrifice
burnt offerings on, "To-morrow is a feast to the Lord." It is urged from
these expressions that the only reasonable and legitimate inference is,
that the golden idol was intended to be the similitude or symbol of the
Eternal Himself, and not of any other God.

Certainly it is, as we have said, remarkable, and presents a problem not
at all easy of solution. Dr. Beke contends that in any case, it is
inconceivable that the figure of a calf should have been chosen to
represent the invisible God--he concludes, therefore, that the word _egel_
has been wrongly translated.

With regard to the etymology of the word, its root _àgal_ is declared to
be doubtful, Fürst taking it to mean _to run_, _to hasten_, _to leap_, and
Gesenius suggesting that its primary signification in the Ethiopic,
"_egel_ denoting, like golem, something _rolled_ or _wrapped together_, an
_unformed mass_; and hence _embryo_, _foetus_, and also _the young_, as
just born and still unshapen."

It is inferred from this, supposing it to be correct, that the primary
idea of this and kindred roots, is that of roundness, so that _egel_ may
readily mean any rounded figure, such as a globe, cylinder, or cone.
"Adopting this," says Dr. Beke,--"a cone, as the true meaning of the
Hebrew word in the text, the sense of the transaction recorded will be,
that Moses having delayed to come down from the Mount, the Israelites,
fearing that he was lost, and looking on the Eternal as their true
deliverer and leader, required Aaron to make for them Elohim--that is to
say, a visible similitude or symbol of their God who had brought them up
out of the land of Mitzraim. Aaron accordingly made for them a golden
_cone_, as an image of the flame of fire seen by Moses in the burning
bush, and of the fire in which the Eternal had descended upon Sinai, this
being the only visible form in which the Almighty had been manifested. Of
such a representation or symbol, a sensuous people like the Israelites
might without inconsistency say, 'This is thy God, O Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Mitzraim;' at the same time that Aaron,
after having built an altar before it, could make proclamation and say,
'To-morrow is the feast to the Eternal,' that is to say, to the invisible
God, whose _eidolon_ or visible image this _egel_ was."

It is admitted by the advocates of this theory that there are certain
things in the English version which appear adverse to it. For instance, it
is said that all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in
their ears, and brought them to Aaron; and he received them at their hand,
and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf,
from which it might be inferred, it is said, that the idol was first
roughly moulded and cast by the founder, and then finished by the
sculptor.

It is urged however, that it is generally admitted by scholars that the
original does not warrant this rendering, the words "after he had," which
are not in the text, having been added for the purpose of making sense of
the passage, which, if translated literally, would read, "He formed it
with a graving tool, and made it a golden calf," a statement, says Dr.
Beke, which in spite of all the efforts made to explain it, is
inconsistent with the rest of the narrative, which repeatedly says, in
express terms, that the idol was a molten image.

In order to get rid of this difficulty, several learned commentators have
interpreted the word _hhereth_ (graving-tool) as meaning like _hharith_, a
bag, pocket, or purse, causing the passage to read, "He received them at
their hands, and put it (the gold) into a bag, and made it a golden calf."
Dr. Beke thinks this untenable on the ground that as Aaron must
necessarily have collected the golden earrings together before casting
them into the fire, it is hardly likely that express mention would be made
of so trivial a circumstance as that of his putting them into a bag merely
for the purpose of immediately taking them out again.

The root _hharath_, according to Gesenius, has the meaning of to cut in,
to engrave; and one of the significations of the kindred root _pharatz_ is
to cut to a point, to make pointed. "Hharithim, the plural of hhereth, is
said to mean purses, bags for money, so called from their long and round
shape, perhaps like an inverted cone; whence it is that Bochart and others
acquired their notion that Aaron put the golden earrings of the Israelites
into a bag."[15]

Dr. Beke remarks:--"If the word _hhereth_ signifies a bag, on account of
its resemblance to an inverted cone, it may equally signify any other
similarly-shaped receptacle or vessel, such as a conical fire-pot or
crucible; and if the golden earrings were melted in such a vessel, the
molten metal, when cool, would of course have acquired therefrom its long
and round form, like an inverted cone, which is precisely the shape of the
_egel_ made by Aaron, on the assumption that this was intended to
represent the flame of fire. Consequently, we may now read the passage in
question literally, and without the slightest violence of construction, as
follows: 'And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in
their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their
hands, and placed it (the gold) in a crucible, and made it a molten cone;'
this cone having taken the long and rounded form of the crucible in which
it was melted and left to cool."

An argument in favour of this reading is certainly supplied by Exodus
xxxii. 24, where Aaron is represented as saying to Moses, when trying to
excuse his action, "I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them
break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there
came out this calf" [or cone?]. It is contended that "the whole tenour of
the narrative goes to show that the operation of making the idol for the
children of Israel to worship must have been a most simple, and, at the
same time, a very expeditious one, such as the melting of the gold in a
crucible would be, but which the moulding and casting of the figure of a
calf, however roughly modelled and executed, could not possibly have
been."

This cone or phallic theory met with a by no means ready reception by
Jewish scholars; it had not been broached many days before it was
energetically attacked and its destruction sought both by ridicule and
argument. It has been admitted, however, that philologically there is
something in it, more even, says Dr. Benisch, than its advocate Dr. Beke
has made out. The former goes so far as to state that its root, not only
in Hebrew, but also in Chaldee and Arabic, primarily designates roundness;
and secondarily, that which is the consequence of a round shape, facility
of being rolled, speed, and conveyance; consequently, that it may
therefore be safely concluded that it would be in Hebrew a very suitable
designation for a cone. "Moreover, the same root in the same signification
is also found in some of the Aryan languages. Compare the German 'kugel'
(ball) and 'kegel' (cone)."

The chief objection lies in the fact that there are various passages in
the Scriptures where the word occurs, whose contexts clearly show that the
idea intended was that of a living creature, and that the unbroken usage
of language, from the author of Genesis to that of Chronicles, shows that
the term had never changed its signification, viz.: that of calf, bullock,
or heifer. In Levit. ix. 2, 3, 8; 1 Sam. xxviii. 26; Ps. xxix. 6; Isa. xi.
6; Isa. xxvii. 10; Mic. vi. 6, for instance, there can be no mistake that
the reference is to the living animal, and a reference to the Hebrew
concordance shows that the term, inclusive of the feminine (heifer),
occurs fifty-one times in the Bible, in twenty-nine cases of which the
word indisputably means a living creature. Dr. Benisch therefore asks, "Is
it admissible that one and the same writer (for instance, the
Deuteronomist) should have used four times this word in the sense of
heifer (xxii. 4 and 6; xxi. 3), and once in that of cone (ix. 16) without
implying by some adjective, or some turn of language, that the word is a
homonyme? Or that Hosea, in x. 11, should clearly employ it in the sense
of heifer, and, in viii. 5, in that of cone? A glance at the concordance
will show that, in every one of the more important books, the word in
question occurs most clearly in the sense of calf, and never in a passage
which should render a different translation inadmissible. On what ground,
therefore, can it be maintained that, in the days of the author of the
106th Psalm, the supposed original meaning of cone had been forgotten, and
that of calf substituted?"

The reply to the objection that one and the same word is not likely to
have been used by the same or contemporaneous writers in two different
senses, and that the word has a uniform traditional interpretation, is
that in the Hebrew, as in the English, considerable ambiguity occurs, and
that the same word sometimes has two meanings of the most distinct and
irreconcilable character. As regards the second objection, says Dr. Beke,
which is based on the unbroken chain of tradition for about two thousand
years, it can only hold good on the assumption that the originators of the
tradition were infallible. If not, an error, whether committed
intentionally or unintentionally in the first instance, does not become a
truth by dint of repetition; any more than truth can become error by being
as persistently rejected. The Doctor contends that when the Jews became
intimately connected with Egypt, and witnessed there the adoration of the
sacred bull Apis, they fell into the error of regarding as a golden calf
the _egel_, or conical representation of the flame of fire, which their
forefathers, and after them the Ten Tribes, had worshipped as the
similitude of the Eternal, but of which they themselves, as Jews, had
lost the signification. If this was the case, it is only natural that the
error should have been maintained traditionally until pointed out.

So stands the argument with regard to the theory of its being a golden
cone, and not the figure of a calf that Aaron made out of the people's
ornaments, and the worship of which so naturally provoked the wrath of
Moses. There is much to be said in its favour, though not enough, perhaps,
to make it conclusive. The propounder of it expressed his regret that he
was under the necessity of protesting against the allegation that he had
imputed to the Israelites what he calls the obscene phallic worship. "Most
expressly," he says, "did I say that the molten golden image made by Aaron
at Mount Sinai was a plain conical figure, intended to represent the God
who had delivered the people from their bondage in the land of Mitzraim,
in the form in which alone He had been manifested to them and to their
inspired leader and legislator, namely that of the flame of fire." This is
perfectly true, but those who are intimately acquainted with the phallic
faiths of the world will find it difficult to disassociate the conical
form of idol from those representations of the human physical organ which
have been found as objects of adoration in so many parts of both the
eastern and western hemispheres.

Supposing the philological argument to possess any weight--and that it
does has been admitted even by those who regret the cone theory,--there
are other circumstances which certainly may be adduced in confirmation
thereof. For instance, the word _chéret_ translated graving-tool, may mean
also a mould. Again, it does not appear at all likely that the quantity of
gold supplied by the ear-rings of the people would be sufficient to make a
solid calf of the size. True, it may have been manufactured of some other
material and covered with gold; but the easier solution of the difficulty
certainly seems that which suggests that Aaron took these ornaments and
melted them in a crucible of the ordinary form, afterwards turning out
therefrom, when cold, the golden cone to which the people rendered
idolatrous worship.

The whole subject is surrounded with difficulty, and men of equal learning
and ability have taken opposite sides in the discussion, supporting and
refuting in turn. Passing over the dispute as to whether Aaron simply
received the ear-rings in a bag or whether he graved them with an
engraving tool,--the first warmly argued by Bochart, and the latter by Le
Clerc--a dispute we can never settle owing to the remarkable ambiguity of
the language, we may briefly notice the question, supposing it was a calf
made by Aaron, what induced and determined the choice of such a figure?
Nor must it be supposed that _here_ we are upon undebatable ground; on the
contrary, the same divergence of opinion prevails as with respect to the
previous question. Fr. Moncæus said that Aaron got his idea on the
mountain, where he was once admitted with Moses; and on another occasion
with Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders. This writer and others tell
us that God appeared exalted on a cherub which had the form of an ox.

Patrick says that Aaron seems to him to have chosen an ox to be the symbol
of the Divine presence, in hope that people would never be so sottish as
to worship it, but only be put in mind by it of the Divine power, which
was hereby represented,--an ox's head being anciently an emblem of
strength, and horns a common sign of kingly power. He contends that the
design was simply to furnish a hieroglyphic of the energy and power of
God.

The usual explanation is that Aaron chose a calf because that animal was
worshipped in Egypt. That the Israelites were tainted with Egyptian
idolatry is plain from Joshua's exhortation:--"Now therefore, fear the
Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which
your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and
serve ye the Lord" (Josh, xxiv., 14). Also Ezekiel xx., 7 and 8:--"They
did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did
they forsake the idols of Egypt."

There is no deficiency of evidence respecting the worship of the ox in
Egypt. Strabo says one was kept at Memphis, which was regarded as a
divinity. Pliny repeats the story and says that the Egyptians called this
ox Apis, and that it had two kinds of temples, the entrance to one being
most pleasant, to the other frightful. Herodotus says of this idol:--"Apis
or Epatus, is a calf from a cow which never produced but one, and this
could only have been by a clap of thunder. The calf denominated Apis, has
certain marks by which it may be known. It is all over black, excepting
one square mark; on its back is the figure of an eagle, and on its tongue
that of a beetle."

It certainly seems tolerably clear that the worship of the calf came out
of Egypt, but so much difficulty surrounds the question of whether the
Egyptian worship preceded or followed that of Aaron's calf, that we are
inclined to endorse the opinion of a modern writer, and say we suspend our
judgment respecting the precise motive which determined Aaron to set up a
calf as the object of Israelitish worship, and conclude that had he
offered any other object of worship, whether some other animal, or any
plant, or a star, or any other production of nature, the learned would
have asked, "Why this rather than some other?" Many would have been the
divisions of opinion on the question; each one would have found in
antiquity, and in the nature of the case, probabilities to support his own
sentiment, and perhaps have exalted them into demonstrations.[16]

The mention of a cone in connection with the matter now under
consideration, and as the form of Aaron's idol, suggests other examples of
the same figure which are said to have had a phallic form. The Paphian
Venus, for instance, was represented by a conical stone: of which Tacitus
thus speaks:--"The statue of the goddess bears no resemblance to the human
form. It is round throughout, broad at one end, and gradually tapering to
a narrow span at the other, like a goat; the reason of this is not
ascertained. The cause is stated by Philostratus to be symbolic."

Lajard (_Recherches sur la Cult de Venus_) says:--"In all Cyrian coins,
from Augustus to Macrinus, may be seen in the place where we should
anticipate to find a statue of the goddess, the form of a conical stone.
The same is placed between two cypresses under the portico of the temple
of Astarte, in a medal of Ælia Capitolina; but in this instance the cone
is crowned. In another medal, struck by the elder Philip, Venus is
represented between two Genii, each of whom stands upon a cone or pillar
with a rounded top. There is reason to believe that at Paphos images of
the conical stone were made and sold as largely as were effigies of Diana
of the Ephesians.

"Medals and engraved stones demonstrate that the hieratic prescriptions
required that all those hills which were consecrated to Jupiter should be
represented in a conical form. At Sicony, Jupiter was adored under the
form of a pyramid."


  PRAYER TO PRIAPUS.

    Delight of Bacchus, Guardian of the groves,
    The kind restorer of decaying loves:
    Lesbos and verdant Thasos thee implore,
    Whose maids thy pow'r in wanton rites adore:
    Joy of the Dryads, with propitious care,
    Attend my wishes, and indulge my pray'r.
    My guiltless hands with blood I never stain'd,
    Or sacrilegiously the god's prophan'd:
    Thus low I bow, restoring blessings send,
    I did not thee with my whole self offend.
    Who sins through weakness, is less guilty thought;
    Indulge my crime, and spare a venial fault.
    On me when fate shall smiling gifts bestow,
    I'll (not ungrateful) to your god-head bow;
    A sucking pig I'll offer to thy shrine,
    And sacred bowls brimful of generous wine;
    A destin'd goat shall on thy altar lie,
    And the horn'd parent of my flock shall die;
    Then thrice thy frantic vot'ries shall around
    Thy temple dance, with smiling garlands crown'd,
    And most devoutly drunk, thy orgies sound.--PETRONIUS.


  HYMN TO PRIAPUS.

    Bacchus and Nymphs delight O mighty God!
    Whom Cynthia gave to rule the blooming wood.
    Lesbos and verdant Thasos thee adore,
    And Lydians in loose flowing dress implore,
    And raise devoted temples to thy pow'r.
    Thou Dryad's Joy, and Bacchus' Guardian, hear
    My conscious prayer with attentive ear.
    My hands with guiltless blood I never stain'd,
    Nor yet the temples of the gods prophan'd.
    Restore my strength, and lusty vigour send,
    My trembling nerves like pliant oziers bend.
    Who sins through weakness, is not guilty thought,
    No equal power can punish such a fault.
    A wanton goat shall on your altars die,
    And spicy smoke in curls ascend the sky.
    A pig thy floors with sacred blood shall stain,
    And round the awful fire and holy flame,
    Thrice shall thy priests, with youth and garlands crown'd,
    In pious drunkenness thy orgies sound.--PETRONIUS.


  A TRANSLATION OUT OF THE PRIAPEIA.

  THE COMPLAINT OF PRIAPUS FOR BEING VEILED.

    The Almighty's Image, of his shape afraid,
    And hide the noblest part e'er nature made,
    Which God alone succeeds in his creating trade.
    The Fall this fig-leav'd modesty began,
    To punish woman, by obscuring man;
    Before, where'er his stately Cedar moved
    She saw, ador'd and kiss'd the thing she loved.
    Why do the gods their several signs disclose,
    Almighty Jove his Thunder-bolt expose,
    Neptune his Trident, Mars his Buckler shew,
    Pallas her spear to each beholder's view,
    And poor Priapus be alone confin'd
    T'obscure the women's god, and parent of mankind?
    Since free-born brutes their liberty obtain,
    Long hast thou journey-worked for souls in vain,
    Storm the Pantheon, and demand thy right,
    For on this weapon 'tis depends the fight.--PETRONIUS.




CHAPTER VI.

    _Circumcision, male and female, in various countries and ages._


Circumcision is one of the most ancient religious rites with which we are
acquainted, and, as practised in some countries, there seems reason to
suppose that it was of a phallic character. "It can scarcely be doubted,"
says one writer, "that it was a sacrifice to the awful power upon whom the
fruit of the womb depended, and having once fixed itself in the minds of
the people, neither priest nor prophet could eradicate it. All that these
could do was to spiritualise it into a symbol of devotion to a high
religious ideal." Bonwick says: "Though associated with sun worship by
some, circumcision may be accepted as a rite of sex worship." Ptolemy's
_Tetrabiblos_, speaking of the neighbouring nations as far as India, says:
"Many of them practise divination, and devote their genitals to their
divinities."

It is not possible, perhaps, to speak with any degree of certainty about
the origin of this rite; the enquiry carries the student so far back in
history, that the mind gets lost in the mists of the past. It is regarded
by some as a custom essentially Jewish, but this is altogether wrong; it
was extensively practised in Egypt, also by the tribes inhabiting the more
southern parts of Africa; in Asia, the Afghans and the Tamils had it, and
it has been found in various parts of America, and amongst the Fijians and
Australians. It has been argued, and with considerable plausibility, that
it existed long before writing was known, and from the fact of its having
been employed by the New Hollanders, its great antiquity may be inferred
with certainty.

It has been noticed by historians that sometimes a nation will pledge
itself to a corporal offering of such a kind, that every member shall
constantly bear about its mark on himself, and so make his personal
appearance or condition a perpetual witness for the special religion whose
vows he has undertaken. Thus several Arabian tribes living not far from
the Holy Land, adopted the custom, as a sign of their special religion
(or, as Herodotus says, "after the example of their God"), of shaving the
hair of their heads in an extraordinary fashion, viz., either on the crown
of the head or towards the temples, or else of disfiguring a portion of
the beard. Others branded or tattooed the symbol of a particular god on
the skin, on the forehead, the arm, the hand. Israel, too, adopted from
early times a custom which attained the highest sanctity in its midst,
where no jest, however trifling, could be uttered on the subject, but
which was essentially of a similar nature to those we have just mentioned.
This was circumcision.[17] It was this special character which no doubt
gave rise to the idea so common amongst the uninformed that it was a
Jewish rite.

Herodotus and Philo Judæus have related that it prevailed to a great
extent among the Egyptians and Ethiopians. The former historian says it
was so ancient among each people that there was no determining which of
them borrowed it from the other. Among the Egyptians he says it was
instituted from the beginning. Shuckford says that by this he could not
mean from the first rise or original of that nation, but that it was so
early among them that the heathen writers had no account of its origin.
When anything appeared to them to be thus ancient, they pronounced it to
be from the beginning. Herodotus clearly meant this, because we find him
questioning whether the Egyptians learnt circumcision from the Ethiopians,
or the Ethiopians from the Egyptians, and he leaves the question
undecided, merely concluding that it was a very ancient rite. If by the
expression "from the beginning," he had meant that it was originated by
the Egyptians, there would not have been this indecision: and it is known
that among heathen writers to say a thing was "from the beginning," was
equivalent to the other saying that it was very anciently practised.

Herodotus, in another place, relates that the inhabitants of Colchis also
used circumcision, and concludes therefrom that they were originally
Egyptians. He adds that the Phoenicians and Syrians, who lived in
Palestine, were likewise circumcised, but that they borrowed the practice
from the Egyptians; and further, that little before the time when he
wrote, circumcision had passed from Colchis to the people inhabiting the
countries near Termodon and Parthenius.

Diodorus Siculus thought the Colchians and the Jews to be derived from the
Egyptians, because they used circumcision. In another place, speaking of
other nations, he says that they were circumcised, after the manner of the
Egyptians. Sir J. Marsham is of opinion that the Hebrews borrowed
circumcision from the Egyptians, and that God was not the first author
thereof; citing Diodorus and Herodotus as evidences on his side.

Circumcision, though it is not so much as once mentioned in the Koran, is
yet held by the Mahomedans to be an ancient divine institution, confirmed
by the religion of Islam, and though not so absolutely necessary but that
it may be dispensed with in some cases, yet highly proper and expedient.
The Arabs used this rite for many ages before Mahomet, having probably
learned it from Ismael, though not only his descendants, but the
Hamyarites and other tribes practised the same. The Ismaelites we are
told, used to circumcise their children, not on the eighth day, according
to the custom of the Jews, but when about twelve or thirteen years old, at
which age their father underwent that operation; and the Mahomedans
imitate them so far as not to circumcise children before they are able at
least distinctly to pronounce that profession of their faith, "there is no
God, but God, Mahomet is the apostle of God;" but they fix on what age
they please for the purpose between six and sixteen. The Moslem doctors
are generally of opinion that this precept was given originally to
Abraham, yet some have said that Adam was taught it by the angel Gabriel,
to satisfy an oath he had made to cut off that flesh, which, after his
fall, had rebelled against his spirit; whence an argument has been drawn
for the universal obligation of circumcision.

The Mahomedans have a tradition that their prophet declared circumcision
to be a necessary rite for men, and for women honourable. This tradition
makes the prophet declare it to be "Sonna," which Pocock renders a
necessary rite, though Sonna, according to the explanation of Reland, does
not comprehend things absolutely necessary, but such as, though the
observance of them be meritorious, the neglect is not liable to
punishment.

In Egypt circumcision has never been peculiar to the men, but the women
also have had to undergo a practice of a similar nature. This has been
called by Bruce and Strabo "excision." All the Egyptians, the Arabians,
and natives to the south of Africa, the Abyssinians, the Gallas, the
Agoues, the Gasats, and Gonzas, made their children undergo this
operation--at no fixed time, but always before they were marriageable.
Belon says the practice prevailed among the Copts; and P. Jovius and
Munster say the same of the subjects of Prester John. Sonnini says it was
well known that the Egyptian women were accustomed to the practice, but
people were not agreed as to the motives which induced them to submit to
the operation. Most of those who have written on the subject of female
circumcision have considered it as the retrenchment of a portion of the
nymphæ, which are said to grow, in the countries where the practice
obtains, to an extraordinary size. Others have imagined that it was
nothing less than the amputation of the clitoris, the elongation of which
is said to be a disgusting deformity, and to be attended with other
inconveniences which rendered the operation necessary.

Before he had an opportunity of ascertaining the nature of the
circumcision of the Egyptian women, Sonnini also supposed it consisted of
the amputation of the excrescence of the nymphæ or clitoris, according to
circumstances, and according as the parts were more or less elongated. He
says it is very probable that these operations have been performed, not
only in Egypt, but in several other countries in the East, where the heat
of the climate and other causes may produce too luxuriant a growth of
those parts, and this, he adds, he had the more reason to think, since, on
consulting several Turks who had settled at Rosetta, respecting the
circumcision of their wives, he could obtain from them no other idea but
that of these painful mutilations. They likewise explained to him the
motives. Curious admirers as they were of smooth and polished surfaces,
every inequality, every protuberance, was in their eyes a disgusting
fault. They asserted too that one of these operations abated the ardour of
the constitutions of their wives, and diminished their facility of
procuring illicit enjoyments.

Niebuhr relates that Forskal and another of his fellow-travellers, having
expressed to a great man at Cairo, at whose country seat they were, the
great desire they had to examine a girl who had been circumcised, their
obliging host immediately ordered a country girl eighteen years of age to
be sent for, and allowed them to examine her at their ease. Their painter
made a drawing of the parts after the life, in presence of several Turkish
domestics; but he drew with a trembling hand, as they were apprehensive of
the consequences it might bring upon them from the Mahometans. A plate
from this drawing was given by Professor Blumenbach, in his work _De
Generis humani Varietate nativa_, from which it is evident that the
traveller saw nothing but the amputation of the nymphæ and clitoris, the
enlargement of which is so much disliked by husbands in these countries.

Sonnini suspected that there must be something more in it than an excess
of these parts, an inconvenience, which, being far from general among the
women, could not have given rise to an ancient and universal practice.
Determining to remove his doubts on the subject, he took the resolution,
which every one to whom the inhabitants of Egypt are known, he says, will
deem sufficiently bold, not to procure a drawing of a circumcised female,
but to have the operation performed under his own eyes. Mr. Fornetti,
whose complaisance and intelligence were so frequently of service to him,
readily undertook to assist him in the business; and a Turk, who acted as
broker to the French merchants, brought to him at Rosetta a woman, whose
trade it was to perform the operation, with two young girls, one of whom
was going to be circumcised, the other having been operated on two years
before.

In the first place he examined the little girl that was to be circumcised.
She was about eight years old, and of the Egyptian race. He was much
surprised at observing a thick, flabby, fleshy excrescence, covered with
skin, taking its rise from the labia, and hanging down it half-an-inch.

The woman who was to perform the operation sat down on the floor, made the
little girl seat herself before her, and without any preparation, cut off
the excrescence just described with an old razor. The girl did not give
any signs of feeling much pain. A few ashes taken up between the finger
and thumb were the only topical application employed, though a
considerable quantity of blood was discharged from the wound.

The Egyptian girls are generally freed from this inconvenient superfluity
at the age of seven or eight. The women who are in the habit of performing
this operation, which is attended with little difficulty, come from Said.
They travel through the towns and villages, crying in the streets, "Who
wants a good circumciser?" A superstitious tradition has marked the
commencement of the rise of the Nile as the period at which it ought to be
performed; and accordingly, besides the other difficulties he had to
surmount, Sonnini had that of finding parents who would consent to the
circumcision of their daughter at a season so distant from that which is
considered as the most favourable, this being done in the winter; money,
however, overcame this obstacle as it did the rest.

From Dalzel's _History_ we learn that in Dahome a similar custom
prevails with regard to the women as that in Egypt. A certain
operation is performed upon the woman, which is thus described in a
foot-note:--"Prolongatio, videlicit, artificialis labiorum pudendi,
capellæ mamillis simillima." The part in question, locally called "Tu,"
must, from the earliest years, be manipulated by professional old women,
as is the bosom among the embryo prostitutes of China. If this be
neglected, her lady friends will deride and denigrate the mother,
declaring that she has neglected her child's education; and the juniors
will laugh at the daughter as a coward who would not prepare herself for
marriage.[18]

"Circumcision was a federal rite, annexed by God as a seal to the covenant
which he made with Abraham and his posterity, and was accordingly renewed
and taken into the body of the Mosaical constitutions. It was not a mere
mark, only to distinguish the Hebrews as the seed of Abraham from other
nations; but by this they were made the children of the covenant, and
entitled to the blessings of it; though if there had been no more in it
than this, that they who were of the same faith should have a certain
character whereby they should be known, it would have been a wise
appointment. The mark seems to be fitly chosen for the purpose; because it
was a sign that no man would have made upon himself and upon his children,
unless it were for the sake of faith and religion. It was not a brand upon
the arm, or an incision in the thigh, but a difficult operation in a most
tender part, peculiarly called flesh in many places of scripture. That
member which is the instrument of generation was made choice of, that they
might be an holy seed, consecrated unto God from the beginning; and
circumcision was properly a token of the divine covenant made with Abraham
and his posterity that God would multiply their seed, and make them as the
stars of heaven."[19]

Ludolf, in his History of Ethiopa, after comparing the circumcision of the
Jews with that of the Abyssinians, says: "This puts us in mind of the
circumcision of females, of which Gregory was somewhat ashamed to
discourse, and we should have more willingly omitted it had not
Tzagazabus, in his rude Confession of Faith, spoken of it as a most
remarkable custom introduced by the command of Queen Magneda; or had not
Paulus Jovius himself, Bishop of Como, insisted in the same manner upon
this unseemly custom. This same ceremony was not only used by the
Habisenes, but was also familiar among other people of Africa, the
Egyptians, and the Arabians themselves. For they cut away from the female
infants something which they think to be an indecency and superfluity of
nature. Jovius calls it Carunniculam, or a little piece of flesh; Golius,
an oblong excrescence. The Arabians, by a particular word, called it
Bedhron, or Bedhara, besides which they have many other words to the same
purpose. Among their women it is as great a piece of reproach to revile a
woman by saying to her, O Bandaron: that is, O Uncircumcised, as to call a
man Arel, or Uncircumcised, among the Jews. The Jewish women in Germany,
being acquainted by their reading with this custom, laugh at it, as
admiring what it should be that should require such an amputation."




CHAPTER VII.

    _Androgynous Deities--Theories respecting the Dual Sex of the
    Deity--Sacredness of the Phallus--Sex Worship--The Eastern Desire for
    Children--Sacred Prostitution--Hindu Law of Adoption and
    Inheritance--Hindu Need of Offspring, and especially of a
    Son--Obsequies of the Departed._


The phallic idea alluded to again and again in the preceding pages as
entering into the heathen conception of a trinity, the practice of
circumcision, and the use of the cross as a symbol, branches out in a
great variety of directions; at some of these we must cast a brief glance
in order that we may form a correct estimate of the subject.

Reference has been made to the androgynous nature ascribed to the Deity by
different nations, and here at once is opened up the whole subject of sex
worship. It is impossible to say how far back we should have to retrace
our footsteps in seeking for men's first ideas upon this matter; many
ages, it is certain. Forlong, speaking of a remote age and our
forefathers, says: "They began to see in life and all nature a God, a
Force, a Spirit; or, I should rather say, some nameless thing which no
language of those early days, if indeed of present, can describe. They
gave to the outward creative organs those devotional thoughts, time, and
praise which belonged to the Creator; they figured the living spirit in
the cold bodily forms of stone and tree, and so worshipped it. As we read
in early Jewish writings, their tribes, like all other early races, bowed
before Ashar and Ashe'ra, as others had long before that period worshipped
Belus and Uranus, Orus and Isis, Mahadeva, Siva, Sakti, and Parvati.
Jupiter and Yuno, or Juno, or rather the first ideas of these, must have
arisen in days long subsequent to this. All such steps in civilisation
are very slow indeed, and here they had to penetrate the hearts of
millions who could neither read nor write, nor yet follow the reader or
the preacher; so centuries would fleet past over such rude infantile
populations, acting no more on the inert pulpy mass than years, or even
months, now do; and if this were so after they began to realise the ideas
of a Bel and Ouranos, how much slower before that far-back stage was won.
Their first symbolisation seems clearly to have been the simple line,
pillar, or a stroke, as their male god; and a cup or circle as their
female; and lo! the dual and mystic =10= which early became a trinity, and
has stood before the world from that unknown time to this. In this mystic
male and female we have the first great androgynous god."

Alluding to this subject, an anonymous writer, believed to be a Roman
Catholic priest, some sixteen years ago, said:--"The primitive doctrine
that God created man in his own image, male and female, and consequently
that the divine nature comprised the two sexes within itself, fulfils all
the conditions requisite to constitute a catholic theological dogma,
inasmuch as it may truly be affirmed of it, that it has been held 'semper,
ubique, et ab omnibus,' being universal as the phenomenon to which it owes
its existence.

"How essential to the consistency of the Catholic system is this doctrine
of duality you may judge by the shortcomings of the theologies which
reject it. Unitarianism blunders alike in regard to the Trinity and the
Duality. Affecting to see in God a Father, it denies him the possibility
of having either spouse or offspring. More rational than such a creed as
this was the primitive worship of sex, as represented by the male and
female principles in nature. In no gross sense was the symbolism of such a
system conceived, gross as its practice may have become, and as it would
appear to the notions of modern conventionalism. For no religion is
founded upon intentional depravity. Searching back for the origin of life,
men stopped at the earliest point to which they could trace it, and
exalted the reproductive organs into symbols of the Creator. The practice
was at least calculated to procure respect for a side of nature liable
under an exclusively spiritual regime to be relegated to undue contempt.

"It appears certain that the names of the Hebrew deity bear the sense I
have indicated; El, the root of Elhoim, the name under which God was known
to the Israelites prior to their entry into Canaan, signifying the
masculine sex only; while Jahveh, or Jehovah, denotes both sexes in
combination. The religious rites practised by Abraham and Jacob prove
incontestably their adherence to this, even then, ancient mode of
symbolising deity; and though after the entry into Canaan, the leaders and
reformers of the Israelites strove to keep the people from exchanging the
worship of their own divinity for that of the exclusively feminine
principle worshipped by the Canaanites with unbridled licence under the
name of Ashera, yet the indigenous religion became closely incorporated
with the Jewish; and even Moses himself fell back upon it when, yielding
to a pressing emergency, he gave his sanction to the prevailing Tree and
Serpent worship by his elevation of a brazen serpent upon a pole or cross.
For all portions of this structure constitute the most universally
accepted symbols of sex in the world.

"It is to India that we must go for the earliest traces of these things.
The Jews originated nothing, though they were skilful appropriators and
adapters of other men's effects. Brahma, the first person in the Hindoo
Triad, was the original self-existent being, inappreciable by sense, who
commenced the work of creation by creating the waters with a thought, as
described in the Institutes of Manu. The waters, regarded as the source of
all subsequent life, became identified with the feminine principle in
nature--whence the origin of the mystic rite of baptism--and the
atmosphere was the divine breath or spirit. The description in Genesis of
the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters, indicates the
influence upon the Jews of the Hindoo theogony to which they had access
through Persia.

"The twofold name of Jehovah also finds a correspondence in the
Arddha-Nari, or incarnation of Brahma, who is represented in sculptures as
containing in himself the male and female organisms. And the worship of
the implements of fecundity continues popular in India to this day. The
same idea underlies much of the worship of the ancient Greeks, finding
expression in the symbols devoted to Apollo or the sun, and in their
androgynous sculptures. Aryan, Scandinavian, and Semitic religions were
alike pervaded by it, the male principle being represented by the sun, and
the female by the moon, which was variously personified by the virgins,
Ashtoreth or Astarte, Diana, and others, each of whom, except in the
Scandinavian mythology, where the sexes are reversed, had the moon for her
special symbol. Similarly, the allegory of Eden finds one of its keys in
the phenomena of sex, as is demonstrated by the ancient Syrian sculptures
of Ashera, or _the Grove_; and 'the tree of life in the midst of the
garden' forms the point of departure for beliefs which have lasted
thousands of years, and which have either spread from one source over, or
been independently originated in, every part of the habitable globe."[20]

It is evident that this worship is of the most extremely ancient character
and that it was based originally upon ideas that had nothing gross and
debasing in them. It is true that it at various times assumed indelicate
forms and was associated with much that was of the most degrading
character, but the first idea was only to use for religious purposes that
which seemed the most apt emblem of creation and regeneration. "Is it
strange," asks a lady writer, "that they regarded with reverence the great
mystery of human birth? Were they impure thus to regard it? Or, are we
impure that we do _not_ so regard it? Let us not smile at their mode of
tracing the infinite and incomprehensible cause throughout all the
mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of our own
grossness on their patriarchal simplicity."

It became with this very much as it does with all symbolism, more or less,
that is to say from the worship of that which was symbolised, it
degenerated to the worship of the emblem itself.

But the ancient Egyptians exerted themselves considerably to restrain
within certain bounds of propriety the natural tendency of this worship
and we find them allowing it to embrace only the masculine side of
humanity, afterwards, as was perhaps only to be expected, the feminine was
introduced. Then, as particularly exhibited in the case of India, it
gradually became nothing more or less than a vehicle for satisfying the
licentious desires of the most degrading of both sexes.

It is wonderful, however, the extraordinary hold these ideas attained upon
the human mind, whether they entered into the religious conceptions of the
people, or pandered to vicious desires under the mere cloak of religion.
The Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy (four books relative to Starry Influences),
speaking of the countries India, Ariana, Gedrosia, Parthia, Media, Persia,
Babylon, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, says:--"Many of them practise
divination, and devote their genitals to their divinities because the
familiarity of these planets renders them very libidinous."

Nor must we forget the peculiar sacredness with which in the early Jewish
Church these organs were always regarded,--that is, the male organs.
Injury of them disqualified the unfortunate victim from ministering in the
congregation of the Lord, and the severest punishment was meted out to the
criminal who should be guilty of causing such injury. Thus in the book of
Deuteronomy, chap. xxv., 11, 12, we read:--"When men strive together one
with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her
husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her
hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand,
thine eye shall not pity her." And this was not to be an act of revenge on
the part of the injured man, but was to be the legal penalty duly enforced
by the civil magistrate. It is very extraordinary, for it appears that
such an injury inflicted upon an enemy--and evidently it meant the
disablement of the man from the act of sexual intercourse--was regarded as
even more serious than the actual taking of life in self-defence. The
degradation attached to the man thus mutilated was greater than could
otherwise be visited upon him--all respect for him vanished and he was
henceforward regarded as an abomination.

Such mutilation has always been common in heathen nations--similarly
regarded as amongst the Hebrews, but used as the greatest mark of
indignity possible to inflict upon an enemy--some of the Egyptian
bas-reliefs represent the King (Rameses II.) returning in triumph with
captives, many of whom are undergoing the operation of castration, while
in the corners of the scene are heaped up piles of the genital organs
which have been cut off by the victors. Some of the North American
Indians, particularly the Apaches of California and Arizona, have been
noted for their frequent use of the same barbarous practice on the
prisoners taken in war and upon the bodies of the slain.

We get a similar instance in Israelitish history as recorded in the first
book of Samuel, where Saul being afraid of David, sought a favourable
opportunity to get him slain by the Philistines. There is the story of the
love of Michal, Saul's daughter, for David, and the use Saul endeavoured
to make of that fact in carrying out his evil designs. The news that
Michal had thus fallen in love, pleased Saul, and he said, "I will give
him her, that she may be a snare to him and that the hand of the
Philistines may be against him." So David was told that the King would
make him his son-in-law. But it was customary in those times for the
bridegroom to _give_ a dowry instead of as at other times and in other
places, to _receive_ one, and David immediately raised the objection that
this was out of his power as he was but a poor man. This was Saul's
opportunity and his message was, "the King desireth not any dowry, but an
hundred foreskins of the Philistines. But Saul thought to make David fall
by the hand of the Philistines." Of course this involved the slaughter of
a hundred of the enemy, and Saul made sure in attempting such a task,
David would fall before odds so terribly against him. In commanding the
foreskins to be brought to him Saul made sure that they would be
Philistines who were slain, they being almost the only uncircumcised
people about him. This proposal, however, it seems, did not alarm David in
the least, he went forth at once on his terrible mission and actually
brought back thrice the number of foreskins required of him by the King.
This is not the only case on record of such a mutilation; mention is made
by Gill the commentator of an Asiatic writer who speaks of a people that
cut off the genital parts of men, and gave them to their wives for a
dowry.

So sacred was the organ in question deemed in ancient times, especially in
Israel, that it was used as the means of administering the most binding
form of oath then known. It is described as putting the hand upon the
thigh, and instances are found in Genesis xxiv., 2, and xlvii., 29. In the
former of these passages Abraham requires his elder servant to put his
hand under his thigh and take an oath respecting the wife he would seek
for his son Isaac. In the second passage, it is Jacob requiring his son
Joseph to perform a similar action; in each case what is meant is that the
genital organ, the symbol of the Creator and the object of worship among
all ancient nations was to be touched in the act of making the promise.

But, as we have pointed out, there is another side to this matter, the
worship of the male organ was only one part; the female organs of
generation were revered as symbols of the generative power of God. They
are usually represented emblematically by the shell, or Concha Veneris,
which was therefore worn by devout persons of antiquity, as it still
continues to be by pilgrims and many of the common women of Italy. The
union of both was expressed by the hand, mentioned in Sir William
Hamilton's letter, which, being a less explicit symbol, has escaped the
attention of the reformers, and is still worn as well as the shell by
women of Italy, though without being understood. It represented the act of
generation, which was considered as a solemn sacrament in honour of the
Creator.

Some of the forms used to represent the sacti or female principle, are
very peculiar yet familiar to many who may not understand them. Indeed, as
Inman says, "the moderns, who have not been initiated in the sacred
mysteries, and only know the emblems considered sacred, have need of both
anatomical knowledge and physiological lore ere they can see the meaning
of many a sign."

As already stated, the triangle with its apex uppermost represents the
phallic triad; with its base uppermost, the Mons Veneris, the Delta, or
the door by which all come into the world. Dr. Inman says:--"As a scholar,
I had learned that the Greek letter Delta ([symbol]) is expressive of the
female organ both in shape and idea. The selection of name and symbol was
judicious, for the word Daleth and Delta signify the door of a house and
the outlet of a river, while the figure reversed ([symbol]) represents
the fringe with which the human Delta is overshadowed"--this Delta is
simply another word for the part known as Concha, a shell. This Concha or
Shank is one of the most important of the Eastern symbols, and is found
repeated again and again in almost everything connected with the Hindu
Pantheon. Plate vi. of Moor's elaborately illustrated work on the Indian
deities represents it as seen in the hands of Vishnu and his consort. The
god is represented like all the solar deities with four hands, and
standing in an arched doorway. The head-dress is of serpents; in one of
the right hands is the diamond form the symbol of the Creator; in one of
the left hands is the large Concha and in the other right hand, the great
orb of the day; the shell is winged and has a phallic top.

This shell is said to have been the first priestly bell, and it is even
now the Hindoo church-bell, in addition to gongs and trumpets. It comes
specially into use when the priest performs his ceremonies before the
Lingam; it is blown when he is about to anoint the emblem, like a bell is
used in some Christian churches in the midst of ceremonies of particular
importance and solemnity.

The female principle, or sacred Sacti, is also represented by a figure
like that called a sistrum, a Hebrew musical instrument, sometimes
translated cornet. Inman contends in spite of much opposition from his
friends that this represents the mother who is still _virgo intacta_. He
points out that in some things it embodies a somewhat different idea to
the Yoni, the bars across it being bent so that they cannot be taken out,
this showing that the door is closed.

The secret of this peculiar worship seems to lie in the fact, ever so
prominent in all that has to do with the social and religious life of the
Eastern, of an intense desire for offspring. In harmony with this is the
frequent promise in the Scriptures of an abundance of children and the
declaration of happiness of the man so blessed. One instance may be noted
as recorded in Genesis xiii., 16, the promise to Abram: "I will make thy
seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the
earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." None the less
fervent--perhaps even more so--is the desire of the Indian to possess and
leave behind him a progeny who shall not only succeed to his worldly
acquisitions, but by religious exercises help forward his happiness in the
region of the departed.

It is said that in this part of the world, a constant topic of
conversation amongst the men is their physical power to propagate their
race, and that upon this matter physicians are more frequently consulted
than upon any other. "Not only does the man think thus, but the female has
her thoughts directed to the same channel, and there has been a special
bell invented by Hindoo priests for childless females." Some kindred
belief seems to be held or suggested by the practices of the Mormon
community, in which large numbers of women are united in marriage to one
man. In Genesis xxx., Rachel seeing that she bore no children is described
as envying her sister, and saying to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I
die." Again 1 Samuel i., 10, 11: "And she (Hannah) was in bitterness of
soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and
said, 'O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of
thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but will
give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord,
&c.'" And so on; instances could be multiplied largely, but it is
unnecessary.

With many of the eastern women it was a matter of the highest consequence
that they have children, as failing to do so it was strictly within the
legal rights of the husband at once to put away his wife by a summary
divorce, or at any rate to take a concubine into his home in order that
he might not go childless; the woman who proved hopelessly barren became
an object of contempt or commiseration to all about her, and her life a
scene of prolonged shame and misery. And so, in certain parts of the
world, arose sex worship, the idea being that by the worship of the organs
of generation the misfortune of barrenness might be avoided. The priests
were not slow to avail themselves of a ready means of adding to their
reputation and influence and increasing their revenues, and women, who for
some cause or another had hitherto been without offspring, were encouraged
to visit the temples and make their proper offerings, and go through the
prescribed ceremonies for curing their sterility. As willing as the women
were for all this, were the men, and though sometimes the defect lay in
themselves physically, it is said that the arrangements at the temples
were such as almost invariably succeeded in making the wives mothers.

"If abundance of offspring was promised as a blessing," says Dr. Inman,
"it is clear to the physiologist that the pledge implies abundance of
vigour in the man as well as in the woman. With a husband incompetent, no
wife could be fruitful. The condition, therefore, of the necessary organs
was intimately associated with the divine blessing or curse, and the
impotent man then would as naturally go to the priest to be cured of his
infirmity as we of to-day go to the physician. We have evidence that
masses have been said, saints invoked, and offerings presented, for curing
the debility we refer to, in a church in Christianised Italy during the
last hundred years, and in France so late as the sixteenth
century,--evident relics of more ancient times."

"Whenever a votary applied to the oracle for help to enable him to perform
his duties as a prospective father, or to remove that frigidity which he
had been taught to believe was a proof of Divine displeasure, or an
evidence of his being bewitched by a malignant demon, it is natural to
believe that the priest would act partly as a man of sense, though chiefly
as a minister of God. He would go through, or enjoin attendance on certain
religious ceremonies--would sell a charmed image, or use some holy oil,
invented and blessed by a god or saint, as was done at Isernia--or he
would do something else."

Intimately connected with the worship of the male and female powers of
generation is the sacred prostitution which was practised so generally by
some of the ancient nations, and of which we have details in the classics.
The information given by Herodotus respecting the women of Babylonia reads
strange indeed to those who are acquainted only with modern codes of
morals, and to whom the special and essential features of phallic faiths
are unknown. This author describes it as a shameful custom, but he informs
us of it as an indisputable fact, that every woman born in the country was
compelled at least once in her life to go and sit in the precinct of
Venus, and there consort with a stranger. Rich and poor alike had to
conform to this rule--the ugly and the beautiful, the attractive and the
repulsive. A peculiarity of the custom was that once having entered the
sacred enclosure, the woman was not allowed to return home until she had
paid the debt which the law prescribed as due from her to the state; the
result of this was that those who were the happy possessors of personal
charms seldom were detained very long, while the plain-featured and
unattractive ones were sometimes several years before they could obtain
their release. We are told that the wealthier women, too proud to
associate with the lower class, though obliged to undergo the same ordeal,
would drive to the appointed place in covered carriages with a
considerable retinue of servants, there making as much display as possible
of their rank and wealth in order to overawe the commoner class of men,
and drive them to females of humbler rank; they sat in their carriages
while crowds of poorer people sat within the holy enclosure with wreaths
of string about their heads. The scene was at once strange and animated;
numbers of both sexes were coming and going; and lines of cords marked out
paths in all directions in which the women sat, and along which the
strangers passed in order to make their choice. Patiently or impatiently,
as the case may be, the female waited till some visitor, taking a fancy to
her, fixed upon her as his chosen sacrifice by throwing a piece of silver
into her lap and saying, "The goddess Mylitta prosper thee." (Mylitta
being the Assyrian name for Venus). The coin need not be of any particular
size or value, but it is obligatory upon her to receive it, because when
once thrown it is sacred. Nor could the woman exercise any choice as to
whom she could go with, the first who threw the coin had a legal title to
her, and the law compelled her submission. But having once obeyed the law,
she was free for the rest of her life, and nothing in the shape of a
bribe, however extensive, would persuade her to grant further favours to
any one.

There is an allusion to this custom in the book of Baruch (vi., 43), where
it is said:--"The women also with cords about them, sitting in the ways,
burn bran for perfume; but if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by,
lie with him, she reproaches her fellow that she was not thought worthy as
herself, nor her cords broken." Strabo in his sixteenth book testifies to
the same effect, and he says that the custom dated from the foundation of
the city of Babylon. The same writer states also that both Medes and
Armenians adopted all the sacred rites of the Persians, but that the
Armenians paid particular reverence to Anaitis, and built temples to her
honour in several places, especially in Acilisene. They dedicated there to
her service male and female slaves, and in this, Strabo says, there was
nothing remarkable, but that it was surprising that persons of the
highest rank in the nation consecrated their virgin daughters to the
goddess. It was customary for these women, after being prostituted a long
time at the temple of Anaitis, to be disposed of in marriage, no one
disdaining a connection with such a person. He mentions what Herodotus
says about the Lydian women, all of whom, he adds, prostituted themselves.
But they treated their paramours with much kindness, entertaining them
hospitably and frequently, making a return of more presents than they
received, being amply supplied with means derived from their wealthy
connexions. The Lydians indeed appear to have devoted themselves with the
most shameless effrontery, for they not only attended the sacred fêtes
occasionally for the purpose, but practised prostitution for their own
benefit. A splendid monument to Alyattes, the father of Croesus, built by
the merchants, the artizans, and the courtesans, was chiefly paid for by
the contributions of the latter, which far exceeded those of the others
put together.

It has been asserted by some writers that sacred prostitution was not
practised in Egypt, but so much is known of the character of certain acts
of worship in that country that the statement is regarded as of little
worth. The worship of Osiris and Isis, which was very much like that of
Venus and Adonis, was attended with excesses that indicate a very
abandoned state of things. It is known that when the pilgrims were on
their way to the fêtes of Isis at Bubastis, the females indulged in the
most indecent dances as the vessels passed the riverside villages, and
historians declare that those obscenities were only such as were about to
happen at the temple, which was visited each year by seven hundred
thousand pilgrims, who gave themselves up to incredible excesses.

It cannot be shewn that the motive leading to what is called sacred
prostitution was the same in all countries; in India, for example, it
appears to have had very much to do with the desire for children which we
have described as common with the easterns; so common was it that the one
object of woman's life was marriage and a family. This, and the more rapid
development of the female in that part of the world than in others, and
the impression that dying childless she would fail to fulfil her mission
lies at the basis of the early betrothals and marriages which appear so
repulsive and absurd to European ideas. There is a further desire,
however, than that of simply having children, especially in India; the
desire is for male children, and where these fail, it is common for a man
to adopt a son, and in this his motive is a religious one. According to
prevalent superstition, it is held that the future beatitude of the Hindu
depends upon the performance of his obsequies, and payment of his debts,
by a son, as a means of redeeming him from an instant state of suffering
after death. The dread is of a place called Put, a place of horror, to
which the manes of the childless are supposed to be doomed; there to be
tormented with hunger and thirst, for want of those oblations of food, and
libations of water, at prescribed periods, which it is the pious and
indispensable duty of a son to offer.

The "Laws of Manu" (Ch. ix., 138), state:--"A son delivers his father from
the hell called Put, he was therefore called puttra (a deliverer from Put)
by the Self-existent (Svayambhû) himself." The sage Mandagola is
represented as desiring admission to a region of bliss, but repulsed by
the guards who watch the abode of progenitors, because he had no male
issue. The "Laws of Manu" illustrate this by the special mention of heaven
being attained without it as of something extraordinary. Ch. v., 159,
"Many thousands of Brahmanas, who were chaste from their youth, have gone
to heaven without continuing their race."

Sir Thomas Strange, many years ago Chief Justice of Madras, wrote very
fully concerning the Hindu law of inheritance and adoption, and we learn
from this great authority that marriage failing in this, its most
important object (that is to say securing male issue), in order that
obsequies in particular might not go unperformed, and celestial bliss be
thereby forfeited, as well for ancestors as for the deceased, dying
without leaving legitimate issue begotten, the old law was provident to
excess, whence the different sorts of sons enumerated by different
authorities, all resolving themselves, with Manu, into twelve, that is the
legally begotten, and therefore not to be separately accounted:--all
formerly, in their turn and order, capable of succession, for the double
purpose of obsequies, and of inheritance. Failing a son, a Hindu's
obsequies may be performed by his widow; or in default of her, by a whole
brother or other heirs; but according to the conception belonging to the
subject, not with the same benefit as by a son. That a son, therefore, of
some description is, with him, in a spiritual sense, next to indispensable
is abundantly certain. As for obtaining one in a natural way, there is an
express ceremony that takes place at the expiration of the third month of
pregnancy, marking distinctly the importance of a son born, so is the
adopting of one as anxiously inculcated where prayers and ceremonies for
the desired issue have failed in their effect.

The extreme importance to the Hindu of having male offspring, and the
desire to get such children as the result of marriage rather than by
adoption--a practice allowed and inculcated as a last resort, has led to
that extensive prevalence of Lingam worship which is such a conspicuous
feature in India. In nearly every part of that vast empire are to be seen
reproductions of the emblem in an infinite variety of form, and so totally
free from the most remotely indecent character are they, that strangers
are as a rule totally ignorant of their meaning. We have even known,
within the last few years, specimens of the smaller emblems being put up
for sale in this country, of whose meaning the auctioneer professes
himself for the most part ignorant, volunteering no other statement than
that they were charms in some way connected with Hindu customs and
worship.

It is--being a representation of the male organ--represented, of course,
in a conical form, and is of every size, from half-an-inch to seventy
feet, and of all materials, such as stone, wood, clay, metal, &c. Lingas
are seen of enormous size; in the caves of Elephanta for instance, marking
unequivocally that the symbol in question is at any rate as ancient as the
temple, as they are of the same rock as the temple itself; both, as well
as the floor, roof, pillars, pilastres, and its numerous sculptured
figures, having been once one undistinguished mass of granite, which
excavated, chiselled, and polished, produced the cavern and forms that are
still contemplated with so much surprise and admiration. The magnitude of
the cones, too, further preclude the idea of subsequent introduction, and
together with gigantic statues of Siva and his consort, more frequent and
more colossal than those of any other deity, necessarily coeval with the
excavation, indicate his paramount adoration and the antiquity of his
sect. Lingas are seen also of diminutive size for domestic adoration, or
for personal use; some individuals always carrying one about with them,
and in some Brahman families, one is daily constructed in clay, placed
after due sanctification by appropriate ceremonies and prayers, in the
domestic shrine, or under a tree or shrub sacred to Siva, the Bilva more
especially, and honoured by the adoration of the females of the household.

It is rather singular that while many Hindus worship the deity of male and
female in one, there are distinct sects which worship either the Lingam or
the Yoni; the first being apparently the same as the phallic emblem of
the Greeks, the _membrum virile_: and the latter _pudendum muliebre_.

The interesting ceremony connected with the obsequies which we have just
said can be the most effectually performed by a male child, and which
gives rise to the intense longing both on the part of husband and wife for
such offspring, is called Sradha, and is of daily recurrence with
individuals who rigidly adhere to the ritual. It is offered in honour of
deceased ancestors, but not merely in honour of them, but for their
comfort; as the Manes, as well as the gods connected with them, enjoy,
like the gods of the Greeks, the incense of such offerings, which are also
of an expiatory nature, similar, it is said, to the masses of the Church
of Rome. Over these ceremonies of Sradhi presides Yama, in his character
of Sradhadeva, or lord of the obsequies. It is not within our province to
give a detailed account of these ceremonies, but owing to their connection
with the subject generally of our book, a brief outline will no doubt
prove interesting.

A dying man, when no hopes of his surviving remain, should be laid upon a
bed of cusa grass, either in the house or out of it, if he be a Sudra, but
in the open air, if he belong to another tribe. When he is at the point of
death, donations of cattle, land, gold, silver, or other things, according
to his ability, should be made by him; or if he be too weak, by another
person in his name. His head should be sprinkled with water drawn from the
Ganges, and smeared with clay brought from the same river. A Salagrama
stone ought to be placed near the dying man; holy strains from the Veda or
from the sacred poems should be repeated aloud in his ears; and leaves of
holy basil must be scattered over his head.

Passing over the ceremonial more especially connected with the burning of
the corpse as not particularly relative to our subject, we proceed. After
the body has been burnt, all who have touched or followed the corpse,
must walk round the pile keeping their left hands towards it, and taking
care not to look at the fire. They then walk in procession, according to
seniority, to a river or other running water, and after washing, and again
putting on their apparel, they advance into the stream. They then ask the
deceased's brother-in-law, or some other person able to give the proper
answer, "Shall we present water?" If the deceased were a hundred years
old, the answer must be simply, "do so:" but if he were not so aged, the
reply is "do so, but do not repeat the oblation." Upon this they all shift
the sacerdotal string to the right shoulder, and looking towards the
south, and being clad in a single garment without a mantle, they stir the
water with the ring finger of the left hand, saying, "waters, purify us."
With the same finger of the right hand, they throw up some water towards
the south, and after plunging once under the surface of the river, they
rub themselves with their hands. An oblation of water must be next
presented from the jointed palms of the hands, naming the deceased and the
family from which he sprung, and saving "may this oblation reach thee."

After finishing the usual libations of water to satisfy the manes of the
deceased, they quit the river and shift their wet clothes for other
apparel; they then sip water without swallowing it, and sitting down on
soft turf, alleviate their sorrow by the recital of such moral sentences
as the following, refraining at the same time from tears and
lamentation:--

1. Foolish is he, who seeks permanence in the human state, unsolid like
the stem of a plantain tree, transient like the foam of the sea.

2. When a body, formed of fine elements to receive the rewards of deeds
done in its own former person, reverts to its fine original principles;
what room is there for regret.

3. The earth is perishable; the ocean, the Gods themselves pass away: how
should not that bubble, mortal man, meet destruction.

4. All that is low, must finally perish; all that is elevated, must
ultimately fall; all compound bodies must end in dissolution; and life is
concluded with death.

5. Unwillingly do the manes of the deceased taste the tears and rheum shed
by their kinsmen: then do not wait, but diligently perform the obsequies
of the dead.

All the kinsmen of the deceased, within the sixth degree of consanguinity,
should fast for three days and nights; or one at the least. However if
that be impracticable, they may eat a single meal at night, purchasing the
food ready prepared, but on no account preparing the victuals at home. So
long as the mourning lasts, the nearest relations of the deceased must not
exceed the daily meal, nor eat flesh-meat, nor any food seasoned with
fictitious salt; they must use a plate made of leaves of any tree but the
plantain, or else take their food from the hands of some other persons;
they must not handle a knife or any other implement made of iron; nor
sleep upon a bedstead; nor adorn their persons; but remain squalid, and
refrain from perfumes and other gratifications: they must likewise omit
the daily ceremonies of ablution and divine worship. On the third and
fifth days, as also on the seventh and ninth, the kinsmen assemble, bathe
in the open air, offer tila and water to the deceased, and take a repast
together: they place lamps at cross roads, and in their own houses, and
likewise on the way to the cemetery; and they observe vigils in honour of
the deceased.

On the last day of mourning, or earlier in those countries where the
obsequies are expedited on the second or third day, the nearest kinsman of
the deceased gathers his ashes after offering a sradha singly for him.

In the first place, the kinsman smears with cow-dung the spots where the
oblation is to be presented; and after washing his hands and feet, sipping
water and taking up cusa grass in his hand, he sits down on a cushion
pointed towards the south, and placed upon a blade of cusa grass, the tip
of which must also point towards the south. He then places near him a
bundle of cusa grass, consecrated by pronouncing the word namah! or else
prepares a fire for oblations. Then lighting a lamp with clarified butter
or with oil of sesamum, and arranging the food and other things intended
to be offered, he must sprinkle himself with water, meditating on Vishnu,
surnamed the lotos-eyed, or revolving in his mind this verse, "Whether
pure or defiled, or wherever he may have gone, he, who re-enters the being
whose eyes are like the lotos, shall be pure externally and internally."
Shifting the sacerdotal cord on his right shoulder, he takes up a brush of
cusa grass and presents water together with tila and with blossoms, naming
the deceased and the family from which he sprung, and saying "may this
water for ablutions be acceptable to thee." Then saying "may this be
right," he pronounces a vow or solemn declaration. "This day I will offer
on a bundle of cusa grass (or, if such be the custom, 'on fire') a sradha
for a single person, with unboiled food, together with clarified butter
and with water, preparatory to the gathering of the bones of such a one
deceased." The priests answering "do so," he says "namó! namah!" while the
priests meditate the gayatri and thrice repeat, "Salutation to the Gods;
to the manes of ancestors, and to mighty saints; to Swáhá [goddess of
fire]: to Swádhá [the food of the manes]: salutation unto them for ever
and ever."

He then presents a cushion made of cusa grass, naming the deceased and
saying "may this be acceptable to thee;" and afterwards distributes meal
of sesamum, while the priests recite "May the demons and fierce giants
that sit on this consecrated spot, be dispersed; and the bloodthirsty
savages that inhabit the earth; may they go to any other place, to which
their inclinations may lead them."

Placing an oval vessel with its narrowest end towards the south, he takes
up two blades of grass; and breaking off a span's length, throws them into
the vessel; and after sprinkling them with water, makes a libation while
the priests say, "May divine waters be auspicious to us for accumulation,
for gain, and for refreshing draughts; may they listen to us, and grant
that we may be associated with good auspices." He then throws tila while
the priests say, "Thou art tila, sacred to Soma; framed by the divinity,
thou dost produce celestial bliss [for him, that makes oblations]; mixed
with water may thou long satisfy our ancestors with the food of the manes,
be this oblation efficacious." He afterwards silently casts into the
vessel, perfumes, flowers, and durva grass. Then taking up the vessel with
his left hand, putting two blades of grass on the cushion, with their tips
pointed to the north, he must pour the water from the argha thereon. The
priests meantime recite:--"The waters in heaven, in the atmosphere, and on
the earth, have been united [by their sweetness] with milk; may those
silver waters, worthy of oblation, be auspicious, salutary, and
exhilarating to us; and be happily offered: may this oblation be
efficacious." He adds namah, and pours out the water, naming the deceased
and saying, "may this argha be acceptable unto thee." Then oversetting the
vessel, and arranging in due order the unboiled rice condiments, clarified
butter, and the requisites, he scatters tila, while the priests recite
"Thrice did Vishnu step, &c." He next offers the rice, clarified butter,
water and condiments, while he touches the vessel with his left hand, and
names the deceased, saying, "may this raw food, with clarified butter and
condiments, together with water, be acceptable unto thee." After the
priests have repeated the gayatri preceded by the names of the worlds, he
pours honey or sugar upon the rice, while they recite this prayer, "may
the winds blow sweet, the rivers flow sweet, and salutary herbs be sweet,
unto us; may night be sweet, may the mornings pass sweetly; may the soil
of the earth, and heaven parent [of all productions], be sweet unto us;
may [Soma] king of herbs and trees be sweet: may the sun be sweet, may
kine be sweet unto us." He then says "namó! namah!" While the priests
recite "whatever may be deficient in this food; whatever may be imperfect
in this rite; whatever may be wanting in this form; may all that become
faultless."

He should then feed the Brahmanas, whom he has assembled, either silently
distributing food amongst them, or adding a respectful invitation to them
to eat. When he has given them water to rinse their mouths, he may
consider the deceased as fed through their intervention. The priests again
recite the gayatri and the prayer "may the winds blow sweet," &c., and add
the prescribed prayers, which should be followed by the music of
flageolets, lutes, drums, &c.

Taking in his left hand another vessel containing tila, blossoms and
water, and in his left hand a brush made of cusa grass, he sprinkles water
over the grass spread on the consecrated spot, naming the deceased and
saying "May this ablution be acceptable to thee:" he afterwards takes a
cake or ball or food mixed with clarified butter, and presents it saying,
"May this cake be acceptable to thee," and deals out the food with this
prayer; "Ancestors, rejoice; take your respective shares, and be strong as
bulls." Then walking round by the left to the northern side of the
consecrated spot, and meditating, "Ancestors, be glad; take your
respective shares, and be strong as bulls," he returns by the same road,
and again sprinkles water on the ground to wash the oblation, saying, "May
this ablution be acceptable to thee."

Next, touching his hip with his elbow, or else his right side, and having
sipped water, he must make six libations of water with the hollow palms of
his hands, saying, "Salvation unto thee, O deceased, and unto the
saddening [hot] season; salvation unto thee, O deceased, and unto the
month of tapas [or dewy season]; salvation unto thee, O deceased, and unto
that [season] which abounds with water; salvation unto thee, O deceased,
and to the nectar [of blossoms]; salvation unto thee, O deceased, and to
the terrible and angry [season]; salvation unto thee, O deceased, and to
female fire [or the sultry season]."

He next offers a thread on the funeral cake, holding the wet brush in his
hand, naming the deceased, and saying, "May this raiment be acceptable to
thee;" the priests add, "Fathers, this apparel is offered unto you." He
then silently strews perfumes, blossoms, resin, and betel leaves, as the
funeral cake, and places a lighted lamp on it. He sprinkles water on the
bundle of grass, saying, "May the waters be auspicious;" and offers rice,
adding, "May the blossoms be sweet: may the rice be harmless;" and then
pours water on it, naming the deceased and saying, "May this food and
drink be acceptable unto thee." In the next place he strews grass over the
funeral cake, and sprinkles water on it, reciting this prayer: "Waters! ye
are the food of our progenitors; satisfy my parents, ye who convey
nourishment, which is ambrosia, butter, milk, cattle, and distilled
liquor." Lastly, he smells some of the food, and poises in his hand the
funeral cakes, saying, "May this ball be wholesome food;" and concludes,
paying the officiating priest his fee with a formal declaration, "I do
give this fee (consisting of so much money) to such a one (a priest sprung
from such a family, and who uses such a veda and such a sacha of it), for
the purpose of fully completing the obsequies this day performed by me in
honour of one person singly, preparatory to the gathering of the bones of
such a one deceased."

After the priest has thrice said: "Salutation to the gods, to progenitors,
to mighty saints, &c.," he dismisses him; lights a lamp in honour of the
deceased; meditates on Heri with undiverted attention; casts the food, and
other things used at the obsequies, into the fire; and then proceeds to
the cemetery for the purpose of gathering the ashes of the deceased.

So long as mourning lasts after gathering the ashes, the near relations of
the deceased continue to offer water with the same formalities and prayers
as already mentioned, and to refrain from factitious salt, butter, &c. On
the last day of mourning, the nearest relation puts on neat apparel, and
causes his house and furniture to be cleaned; he then goes out of the
town, and after offering the tenth funeral cake, he makes ten libations of
water from the palms of his hands; causes the hair of his head and body to
be shaved, and his nails to be cut, and gives the barber the clothes which
were worn at the funeral of the deceased, and adds some other
remuneration. He then anoints his head and limbs, down to his feet, with
oil of sesamum; rubs all his limbs with meal of sesamum, and his head with
the ground pods of white mustard; he bathes, sips water, touches and
blesses various auspicious things, such as stones, clarified butter,
leaves of Nimba, white mustard, Durva grass, coral, a cow, gold, curds,
honey, a mirror, and a couch, and also touches a bamboo staff. He now
returns purified to his home, and thus completes the first obsequies of
the deceased.

The second series of obsequies, commencing on the day after the period of
mourning has elapsed, is opened by a lustration termed the consolatory
ceremony. The lustration consists in the consecration of four vessels of
water, and sprinkling therewith the house, the furniture, and the persons
belonging to the family. After lighting a fire, and blessing the attendant
Brahmanas, the priest fills four vessels with water, and, putting his hand
into the first, meditates the gayatri, before and after reciting the
following prayers: 1.--May generous waters be auspicious to us, for gain
and for refreshing draughts; may they approach towards us, that we may be
associated with good auspices. 2.--Earth afford us ease; be free from
thorns; be habitable. Widely extended as thou art, procure us happiness.
3.--O waters! since ye afford delight, grant us food, and the rapturous
sight [of the Supreme Being]. 4.--Like tender mothers, make us here
partakers of your most auspicious essence.

Putting his hand into the second vessel, the priest meditates the gayatri,
and the four prayers above quoted; adding some others, and concluding this
second consecration of water by once more meditating the gayatri.

Then taking a lump of sugar and a copper vessel in his left hand, biting
the sugar and spitting it out again, the priest sips water. Afterwards
putting his hand into the third vessel, he meditates the gayatri and the
four prayers above cited, interposing this: May Indra and Varuna [the
regents of the sky and of the ocean] accept our oblations, and grant us
happiness; may Indra and the cherishing sun grant us happiness in the
distribution of food; may Indra and the moon grant us the happiness of
attaining the road to celestial bliss, and the association of good
auspices.

It is customary immediately after this lustration to give away a vessel of
tila, and also a cow, for the sake of securing the passage of the deceased
over the Vaitarani, or river of hell: whence the cow, so given, is called
Vaitarani-dhenu. Afterwards a bed, with its furniture, is brought; and the
giver sits down near the Brahmana, who has been invited to receive the
present. After saying, "Salutation to this bed with its furniture;
salutation to this priest, to whim it is given," he pays due honour to the
Brahmana in the usual form of hospitality. He then pours water into his
hand, saying, "I give thee this bed with its furniture;" the priest
replies, "give it." Upon this he sprinkles it with water; and taking up
the cusa grass, tila, and water, delivers them to the priest, pouring the
water into his hand, with a formal declaration of the gift and its
purpose; and again delivers a bit of gold with cusa grass, &c., making a
similar formal declaration, 1.--This day, I, being desirous of obtaining
celestial bliss for such a one defunct, do give unto thee, such a one, a
Brahmana descended from such a family, to whom due honour has been shown,
this bed and furniture, which has been duly honoured, and which is sacred
to Vishnu. 2. This day I give unto thee (so and so) this gold, sacred to
fire, as a sacerdotal fee, for the sake of confirming the donation I have
made of this bed and furniture. The Brahmana both times replies "be it
well." Then lying upon the bed, and touching it with the upper part of his
middle finger, he meditates the gayatri with suitable prayers, adding
"This bed is sacred to Vishnu."

With similar ceremonies and declarations he next gives away to a Brahmana,
a golden image of the deceased, or else a golden idol, or both. Afterwards
he distributes other presents among Brahmanas for the greater honour of
the deceased. Of course, all this can only be done by rich people.

The principal remaining ceremonies consist chiefly of the obsequies called
sradhas. The first set of funeral ceremonies is adopted to effect, by
means of oblations, the reimbodying of the soul of the deceased, after
burning his corpse. The apparent scope of the second is to raise his shade
from this world (where it would else, according to the notions of the
Hindus, continue to roam among demons and evil spirits), up to heaven, and
there deify him, as it were, among the manes of departed ancestors. For
this end, a sradha should regularly be offered to the deceased on the day
after mourning expires; twelve other sradhas singly to the deceased in
twelve successive months: similar obsequies at the end of the third
fortnight, and also in the sixth month, and in the twelfth; and the
oblation called Sapindana, on the first anniversary of his decease. In
most provinces the periods for these sixteen ceremonies, and for the
concluding obsequies entitled Sapindana, are anticipated, and the whole is
completed on the second or third day. After which they are again performed
at the proper times, but in honour of the whole set of progenitors,
instead of the deceased singly. The obsequies intended to raise the shade
of the deceased to heaven are thus completed. Afterwards, a sradha is
annually offered to him on the anniversary of his decease.

What we have just described, elaborate as it looks, is simply an
abridgment of the long and complicated ceremonies attendant upon the
funeral and after obsequies of a rich man among the Hindus, but it is
enough for our purpose. It shows the vast importance attached to those
obsequies, and enables us to understand the desire on the part of these
Hindus to have children who will in a proper and acceptable manner carry
out these proceedings. We have already quoted from the sacred books to
show that a son was regarded as better able to perform those duties than
any other relation, and that failing such offspring in the ordinary course
of nature, it was obligatory upon the would be father to adopt one.

Dulaure and some other writers describe a variety of ceremonies which were
taken part in by the women in order to procure the children who would
satisfy the cravings of their husbands. It is probable that a good deal of
what took place at the shrines of heathen goddesses in other lands, arose
from this anxiety, and not altogether from a merely licentious habit of
character and disposition. It has been said, as we may have already
suggested perhaps, that the priests connected with some of the temples
resorted to by childless women for the cure of their misfortune, were
cunning enough to provide for what was wanted in a more practical way than
by the simple performance of certain ceremonies, and that where the
failure to produce children was due to some fault on the part of the
husband, means were at hand by which the woman soon found herself in the
desired condition. It is rather singular that something very similar was
found among the Jewish women in the time of Ezekiel, as we have found in
India; the Indian woman sacrificed her virginity at the shrine of the
Lingam, and in the 16th chapter of the prophet's book, verse 17, we
read:--"Thou didst take also thy fair jewels of my gold, and didst make to
thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them." The latter,
however, was evidently of a very different character to the former, being
nothing more or less than the impure worship of Priapus as carried on in
the orgies of Osiris, Bacchus, and Adonis, the images of the Hebrew women
being such as the Priapi used in those ceremonies; on no account must
those foolish and filthy practices be confounded with that act of worship
which men in primitively simple condition rendered to the agents employed
in the act of generation, which was innocently regarded as only one of the
operations of nature.

The moral of this part of the subject, and with which for the present we
take leave of it, is this, that the Eastern, from his views of the future
life, deems it absolutely necessary that he should leave offspring, either
real or adopted, behind him, to carry out the obligations imposed by his
religion, and that in order to attain in the possession of what is to him
such a blessing, he is called upon to propitiate in every possible manner
the physical agents and powers employed in the process,--hence the rise
and practice of phallic worship.


THE END.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Dudley's _Naology_.

[2] _Edin. Rev._, 1870, p. 239.

[3] Jewitt.

[4] Hawkins' _Sketch of the Creek Country_.

[5] _Myths of the New World._

[6] Jewitt in _Art Journal_, 1876.

[7] Quoted by Jewitt, in _Art Journal_, 1874.

[8] Lysons, _Our British Ancestors_.

[9] Cory, _Mytho. Inquiry_.

[10] Cory, _Mytho. Inquiry_.

[11] Faber, _Orig. Pag. Idol._

[12] Meyrick's _Cardigan_.

[13] Inman, _Anc. Faiths_. I.

[14] _Rivers of Life._

[15] Dr. Beke.

[16] Dr. F. A. Cox.

[17] Ewald, _Antiq. Israel_.

[18] _Mems. Anthrop. Soc. 1._

[19] Lewis. _Origines Heb._

[20] _Keys of the Creeds_, V.





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