Topic: Symbolism in relation to religion Hannay, James Ballantyne 1912

[Prometheus]

She is represented as Diana’s hare (opposite to her lord as
the Solar Cdck), each of which is inclosed in a circular nimbus,
showing its supreme importance. There is a censer of sacTed
fire on her right, and vial of the gods on her left, while die male
emblem, from Wales (p. 93) to Japan,—the sword,—is held aloft.
She has also the distaff of womanhood and other emblems. Finally
she has the Christian cross twice repeated, hung round her neck.

This form of Venus is still the most worshipped deity of China
and Japan, and her name is Legion, sometimes represented as
Diana, “ Multi mammae,” sometimes as a mass of babies growing
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

103

out of her fingers* toes* and whole body, sometimes as a fish goddess
moving in a Phallic sea holding a Lingam* as we see here [Fig. 91J.

” Kyoto* the Japanese capital* rejoices*’* says Miss Bird* ” in
33*333 representations of the Goddess Kwan-Yoni, described as
pre-eminently the hearer and answerer of prayer or mediatrix* like
the Virgin Mary.” (Miss Bird's “ Japan," p. 64. Forlong, ” Rivers
of LifeU., p. 537.)

Three of the most widely used symbols of Phallic worship are
used as signatures.

The Plough is used by Indian Princes,

The Triform Leaf by Buddhists, and

The Cross by Christian Bishops.

Every nation considered itself the most important, and was the
” Navel ” of the world.—At Dublin, the Irish navel was placed
where five Provinces met, and was called Uis Neach ; and here
the first sacred fire had been lighted. On this hill stood their Phallic

stone* Ail-na miream, that is ” The stone of the Parts.” The
Arran Islanders have still a black stone they take out now and
again and worship, especially during storms, as they are fishermen.

Finally* we find serpent worship, Virgin worship, and all Phallic
emblems all over the Malay Peninsula and in Central America*
Mexico, Peru, etc., showing the cult to be universal, but I have
given sufficient for my purpose, which is to illustrate the effect of
the great nations in building up the ideas embodied in the practice
of the Jews, as described in the Old Testament.

These practices were entirely Phallic, but are sometimes so
disguised by euphemism* and deliberate alteration of texts caused
by Milton’s ” insulse rule ” (p. 41) that, without the knowledge of
the practices of other surrounding nations from which the Jews
got their religious idea* we should have great difficulty in making
any sense out of the involved and contradictory text of the Holy
Writ.
 CHAPTER IV

SUN WORSHIP.

The worship of the Sun and all the heavenly host, gradually
absorbed, and sometimes replaced, the Phallic worship—not,
perhaps, in the affections of the people, but, as the priestly and
official religion of the great countries.

We have only to look at our naming of the days of the week,
and to the fact that we worship our God on Sunday, the day of the
Sun. God’s day is the Sun’s day. The days are named from Sun,
Moon, and Planets.

But so completely did astronomic mythology govern chronology,
that not only were the days named from the host of heaven, but
the hours also.

In Egypt, as in Babylon, the order of the heavenly bodies began
with the most remote, and followed the order: Saturn, Jupiter,
Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Each hour of the
twenty-four was consecrated to one of the heavenly bodies. The
first hour being that of Saturn, it follows that the eighth, fifteenth,
and twenty-second hours would also be Saturn’s. Then the
twenty-third would fall to Jupiter, the twenty-fourth to Mars, and
the first hour of the second day would fall to the Sun. In this
way the first hour of the third day would fall to the Moon, the first
of the fourth day to Mars, of the fifth to Mercury, of the sixth to
Jupiter, and of the seventh to Venus, our Friday.

The cycle having been completed, the first hour of the eighth
day would return to Saturn, and so begin a new week. Thus was
our present rotation of god names said to have been created. The
week was thus fixed at seven days, but whether or not, this was
the first method of reckoning it, is not known. No doubt the
quarters of the moon*gave the week roughly; then the .five planets
smd sun and moon fixed the seven days and possibly the above
complicated system was only inaugurated later, as the ancients
were always searching for *' cycles/*
 CHRISTIANITY

105

The day of the worship of the principal god, generally the Sun,
lias, at one time or another, occupied a position in every day of the
week.

Sunday by   the   Christian.
Monday ,,   ft   Greeks.
Tuesday ,,   t *   Persians.
Wednesday   s t   Assyrians.
Thursday „   I*   Egyptians.
Friday ,,   1 9   Turks.
Saturday ,,   99   Jews.

The English names are derived from those of the Saxon gods.

The Saxons derived their week from the Babylonians, whose
mythology over-ran all Europe, but they substituted the native
names of their gods or heavenly host for those of the Babylonians.
The Latin names, founded on the Babylonian, are still used in Justi-
ciary Acts in Britain, and are still quite legal.

LATIN.   ENGLISH.   SAXON.   
Diet Solis   Sunday   Sun's day   
„ Lunae   Monday   Moon's „   
,, Marti*   Tuesday   Tiw’s # „   God of War, Mars.
,, Mercurii   Wednesday   Woden's ,,   Messenger of the Gods, Mercury.
i. Jovis   Thursday   Thor's „   God of Thunder, Jupiter.
,, Veneris   Friday   Frigga's „   Goddess of Beauty, Venus, Frcya. Father of the Gods, Ancient of Days.
„ Saturni   Saturday   Setern's ,,   

Jn countries where the Roman Catholic Church rules, the
prelates have managed to get the pagan Sun’s day renamed. The
day of the Sun was fixed as a day of rest for Christendom, by the
Code of Justinian, about 530 A.D., where it is laid down:—“ Let
all the people rest, and all the various trades be suspended, on the
venerable day of the Sun.” The Roman Church finally changed
the Christian Holy Day from Saturday to Sunday.

At what date the Church managed to oust the Sun and intro-
duce ” Dies Dominicus,” the Lord’s Day, I have not been able
to ascertain, but probably it was a gradual process, the priests
using the ” Lord’s day ” term (as they all do in Britain now) until it
titered down to the people. The change won no favour amongst
 106

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

the people in Britain, but to the Latin peoples the alteration was
not so great, as the Sun is, after all. Lord, or Dominicus, of the
heavens. How completely the Church has done its work is shown
by the following:—

English. French & Belgian. Italian. Spanish. Portuguese. Roumanian.

Sunday   Dimanch (Dies dom- inicus) Lundi (Moon)   Domenica   Domingo   Domingo   1st Dominica
Monday      Lunedi   Lunes   Segundo   2nd Luni
Tuesday   Mardi (Mars) Mercredi (Mercury)   Martedi   Martes   Terca   3rd Marti
Wednesday      Meicoledi   Miercoles   Quatra  Quinta  Sesta   4th Miercuri
Thursday   Yeudi (Jupiter) Vendredi (Venus)   Giovedi   Yueves      5th Yoi 6th Vineri
Friday      Venerdi   Viernes      
Saturday   Samedi (Saturn or Sabbatto)   Sabato   Sabado   Subado   7th Sambata

Here the Sun is blotted out, as all these nations had their Sun’s
day before the interference of the Church. It should be noticed
also that they have all kept the old Babylonian Sabato, Saturn’s
day, Sabbath, or “ day of no work.” Although Christianity, in
order to kill paganism, changed the day from that of the venerable
Saturn to their new ” Lord,” the Sun, many nations still considered
the old Saturday, or Sabato, sacred, and it was held as a ” half-
holiday,” in semi-recognition of its holy character.

In Scotland the ” rigidly righteous ” looked askance at any one
who in my young days said “Sunday.” They felt there was a
pagan taint about the idea of worshipping God on the Sun’s day.
In austerity of sentiment, however, the Scotch were more allied to
the Jews than to the Christians, so there was a struggle as to how
Sunday should be named.

Some people, especially the ” Highland Host,” spoke with
bated breath of the “Sabbath,” while the Lowland parsons and
“evangelical” churchmen hung out the “Lord’s day” banner.
Happily, neither gained the victory, and we can still take our rest
and recreation on the day of the glorious Sun. The Saxon nations
refused to accept the Roman gods, as witness the English, German,
and other Northern nations.

English.   German.   Dano-  Norwegian.
Sunday   Sountag Sun   Sondag
Monday  Tuesday  Wednesday  Thursday  Friday  Saturday   Montag * Moon Dienstag Serve Mittwocn Mid-week Donnerstag Thunder Freitag Freia Samstag Saturn   Mandag  Tisdag  Onadag  Tovsdag  Frida*  L&rdag

Dutch. Magyar or Hungarian

Zondag   Vasarnap Sun's day

or market
of Sun

Maandag Hetfo
Dinsdag Kedd
Woensoag Szerda Middle
Donnerdag Caotorok
. Vrijdag   Pentek

Zaterdag Szombat
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

107

Here we see the Sun ruling die week, and it is the Holy day.
The Germans leave out the war god's name, but, practical as ever,
they call it ** Service ’* day. We know what being in the “ Service "
means. The use of Sonnabend (Sun Eve) for Saturday, like our
Christmas Eve, shows that the Germans held their Sun as sacred
as we do our Christ.

The Dano-Norwegian Saxons show traces of their ancient
worship of Saturn by calling his day Baptism day.

The Magyar shows a flavour of Turkish in the word market in
Sunday.

The Greeks follow the Babylonian nomenclature for all the
days, except Sunday, when they substitute their Kurios, Sun or
Spirit, for the Sun. This is the word used in the New Testament,
and translated Lord or God in our Bible, so, with the early Christians,
Sun and God were the same. The Armenians follow both Greek
and Turkish methods.

   CREEK.      ARMENIAN.
Sunday   Kuriake      Kurake Sun
Monday   Selene   (Moon)   Second day  of week Here they follow the Greek
Tuesday   Are*   War   Third day .. .. Turks.
Wednesday   Hermes   Mercury   Fourth ii M ii ii
Thursday   Zeus   Jupiter   Fifth i» •• ii m ti
Friday   Aphrodite   Venus   Urpat .. •» .. .1
Saturday   Sabbaton   Saturn   Shapat from Sa batum.

Here, again, we see Babylonian influence, as Urpat, Friday, of
which the etymology is unknown, is also called by the Armenians
“ Shapatamad,” preparation for the Sabbath. This shows that
their Holy day was, in early times, the Babylonian Sabbath, our
Saturday.

There are two nations which have a very disturbed nomen-
clature, and these are Russia and Poland. They seem to have
started with the usual Babylonian nomenclature, for they both
retain die Sabbath, or Day of Rest, day, called here *' no work ’*
day. Long before Christianity, the Sun began to replace Saturn
as the principal deity, and the Sun’s day became the Holy day and
the first day of the week. It was at first called Nedelya, or " no
work ” day, in die native tongue, so they had two names as days
of rest, Saturday and Sunday. As I have pointed out, this is dimly
reflected in Scotland and elsewhere with its half-holiday Saturday
and “ no work.” Sunday. This, however, did not satisfy the
Russian Popes, whose religion lays more stress on the Resurrection
 106

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

of Jesus than on His Divine birth, so they changed their Sunday
to Resurrection day, as here shown

English.  Sunday   Russian.  Vosseressenye Resurrection      Polish.  Niedziela   Not doing or do
Monday   Ponedelnik   Day  Day after   Poniedzialek   nothing day Day after not
Tuesday   Vtornik   Nedelia or after ** no^ work day." Second day Middle of   Wtorek   doing day Second
Wednesday   Sreda      Sroda   Middle
Thursday   Tchetverg   week) Fourth day   Czwartek   Fourth
Friday   Piatnitsa   Fifth day   Piatek   Fifth
Saturday   Subbotta   Sabbath   Sobota   Sabbath

The Monday name still shows the old name of Sunday, but
the striking point is that the Romans, with all their force, never
got Dies Saturnii accepted in place of the Babylonian Sabato, even
in the most Romanised countries. In Russia, the Resurrection idea
comes out strongly at Easter, where everyone is greeted on Easter
Sunday with 44 Christ is risen,4’ and replies, “ Christ is risen indeed.”
Hence, Resurrection Day.

The fury of Mahomet swept away the old day-names from the
Arabic, Persian, and Turkish nations, and all the poetry of their
nomenclature has disappeared. They are mere lists.

English.

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Arabic.
First day

Second ,,

Third M
Fourth ,,
Fifth „
Juma(h)

Sebt (Sabbat)

Persian.
Yekshambih or
Day one
two

„ three
M four
,, five

iuma(h)

so Adma Venus's
day

Shamba or Shambi
(Sabbat)

Turkish.

Market day

The day after Market
day
Sale

The day j°U'penUn
m t» nve
Juma(h) Day of

gathering

The day after
Juma(h)

The week in these tongues is Usbu (Arabic), Hefte (Persian), and
Hafta (Turkish), all meaning a period of seven days.

The one fact which stands out prominently is the wonderful
influence of the old Babylonian Sabbath, which remains in every
language of importance, except the severely Mohammedan Turkish.
But they still retain the Indian Friday, Juma or Venus.

When we go to the East, to the great Empire of India, we find
the sun still triurnphant. The day names are as follows:—

English.   Indian.

Sunday   Ravi (Sun)

Rabi-bar

Yak-Shamba (Sun)

Hindustani.   Sanskrit.

Aditya (Sun) or   Like Roman

Aitwar, or Ithar, God of Sun
from Adit, sun,
and bar, day
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

109

English.  Monday   Indian.   Hin dustani.   Sanskrit
   Soma (Moon) Som-bar   Pir, Indu-bar Chandar-bar   Moon
Tuesday   Mangala (Mars)   Mangal   Mars
Wednesday   Budha   Budh-(bar)   Mercury  Tupiter
Thursday   Vrihaspati  Suka-(bar)   Juma(h)rat   
Friday      Juma(h)war Shamba or Yauma-s-sabt, or   Venus
Saturday   Sani-bar   Sanichar   Saturn

Bar, Var, or War, mean day, and may be added to or omitted
from the name of the day. Each day has three or four vernacular
names, for instance, Saturday has Sanichar, Sanibar, Yauma-s-saht,
Shamba, Bar (day), Hafta (week), and Awwal-i-Hafta.

Going still further East we find the Chinese and Japanese still
staunch sun-worshippers.

English.

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Chinese.

Sing—Sun or Star
Yuek—Moon
Hwo—Fire
Shui—Water
Muh—Plant
Kin—Metal
Tu—Mineral

Japanese.

Nichiyo-~Sun
Getsuyou—Moon
Kayo—-Fire
Suiyo—Water
Mokuyo—Tree
Kinyo—Metal
Doyo—Earth

A glimpse of the adoption of Saturn's day as the Holy day in
the East is obtained in the account of the creation of life in the
Hindu legends.

Life was brought forth by Siva by a great churning of the White
Sea. It was churned for 10,784 days, 12 hours, and 18 minutes,
the time of revolution of Saturn, as computed, perhaps, 10,000
years ago, as against 10,759 as computed by modern astronomers,—
a fair approximation.

But Saturn's period may have shortened since the Hindus fixed
their legend.

Saturn's day was, therefore, the day rendered holy by the bring-
ing forth of life, as Saturn was the father of the gods, and it spread
westward, from India, the world's religious mother.

The death of Saturn, on Thursday, Thor's, or Jupiter, the King
of the gods' day, and his resurrection on Saturday, Saturn's day, is
still celebrated, in the name of Jesus, in Holy Week at Rome (see
p. 333).

The Babylonians carried out this worship of the host of heaven
in the construction of their temples of seven stories, each story being
dedicated to a planet or sun or moon, and coloured the sacred
colour of this heavenly body. The Chinese continue this worship
to the present day (pp. 129, 352).
 HO

[Prometheus]

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

All tribes and nations have worshipped the sun as the supreme
deity at some period of their development, and thus the sun myths
have sunk deep into their folk lore. Later on, their observations
showed them that the Solar movements were in accordance with
law, and by no means erratic, or free willed, so they conceived
that the sun was only representative of some great power hidden
from man (The Amen of Egypt). Then came the great period of
Sun Gods, slain annually by the cold of winter, or by the tooth or
boar of winter.

Martianus Cape 11a said of sun worship, “ Under a varied
appellative the whole world worship thee " (Doane, p. 507, “ Bible
Myths ").

In short all nations worshipped Sun Gods—Surya and Buddha
in India, Merodach in Babylon, Phoebus, Serapis, Osiris, Mithra,
Dis, Typhon, Atys, Adonis, Dionysius, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules,
Mercury, Tammuz, Horus, Theseus, Romulus, Cyrus, Crishna,
Indra, Ra, Perseus, Minos, Dyaus (Dyaus Pittar), Zeupiter. Jupiter,
Baldur, Quetzalcoatle, Vishnu, Dagon, Prometheus, Ixion, Frey,
CEdipus, /Esculapius (the Healer, “Healing on his wings*’), Hu
and Hesus, of the Druids, Beti, Budd, and Breddu-gre (Druids),
Brahm, Dyonysus, Izdubar, and Kephalos.

The races who have left their mark on the history of religions,
and who over-ran India, Western Asia, and Europe, are those of
the Steppes of Asia. There the conditions of life were hard, and
man had the great education of a very real struggle for existence.

There also the difference in the seasons, caused by the inclina-
tion of the earth's cuds, and by the great distance from the ocean
(the great equaliser of temperatures), impressed the people strongly
with the beneficence of the sun.

Their winter was very severe, and only by the return (re-birth)
of the sun annually were they saved from death. Hence arose the
legend of the death of the sun in mid-winter, and his immediate
re-birth, expressed by the Greeks in one of their beautiful medals j
one side of which showed the aged sun as a bald-headed Bacchus
(Sun God) falling into the sea, and on the other the beautiful babe
Bacchus, with a nimbus round his head, being born out of the
mouth of a dolphin (delphys womb).

Bacchus became degraded (as all sun gods do) into the God of
Wine, and his fetes became drunken orgies, but he was originally the
beneficent sun who. ripened the fruits, and hence. God of Wine;
from which, indeed, is derived the English name of< all-our-gods#
angels, prophets, or even parsons,—** divines/* deivini, ** Gods of
Wine." Jesus was the ** True Vine/*
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

111

The sun myth is really the story of the sun’s course during the
day, or during the year* because the sun is also born every day as
Well as every year,—but whether yearly or daily, it is born of the
dawn, represented universally as a beautiful virgin.

Hence, all sun myths begin by having the sun born of a virgin,
Maya in India meaning dawn, also delusion or mirage, as the rosy
delusive dawn so quickly dissolves into the reality of day. Thus
the names of many of the mothers of the gods, as this myth spread
to the West, were corruptions of Maya, such as Mylitta, Myrrha,
Myrrina, Maria, Mary, Mervyn, Morven, Miriam.

The ancients did not see any appreciable movement of the sun
towards the North, till 25th December of our Almanac, so that is
the date of the birth of all suns and the return of light, and is
celebrated by us by candles on our Christmas trees, and by the
“Feast of Lights’* of the Jews, on 25th December, a very old
custom the Hebrews borrowed from Babylon.

Jesus, as we shall see, was supposed to have been born on 22nd
or 25th of September, the Jewish New Year, when the Virgin of
Israel was in the sky, but the Roman Church called in a fictitious
Dionysius, “the little” {pp. 329-330), to reform the calendar, and
he put the Divine birth on to 25th December, so as to agree with
the “ Natalis Invicta Solis ”—“ Birth-day of the unconquered Sun,”
whose festival was held at the winter solstice by all the pagans.

Saint Chrysostom in his Horn. 31, early in the 5th Century, says:
“ Oh this day also, the birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome,
in order that the Christian rejoicings might coincide with the Pagan
Birthday of the invincible one Mithras ” [the Sun] {pp. 126, /30).

Then follows a miraculous infancy, when wicked kings (cold
months of January, February, etc.) fear the growing babe, and seek
to take his life. He finally overcomes the storms and cold of winter,
and passes over the equator from the earthly or winter half of the
year* to the heavenly or paradisical half, at the equinox. This is
th$ 44 Passover ” time, or cross over, or crossification, finally
crucifixion, and is a compromise between the new year held by
some tribes at the winter solstice, and by others at the equinox.
The Sun-babe is born at the winter solstice (Xmas), and is re-
ceived^ with great rejoicings as he comes to save man from starva-
tion, and drive away evil (cold of winter), but the good weather
docsnot come* then; hi* final triumph over winter is not consum-
mated till after the Spring Equinox. Although crucified, crossed
over, he spIUlvesand slowly ascends into heaven,—so this ascension
te qay*r VCfyt clqady dated, as he is ascending from 22nd March
Thg sim is truly crossed over or crucified to the
sslvatioii of mankind.
 112

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

In the English ritual they give him the usual holy six weeks,
or forty days on earth after resurrection, then comes Ascension
Day, as stated in Acts i. 3. But, as Easter depends on the moon, hie
actual ascension varies about a. month.

This myth is the basis of the great majority of religions of the
temperate portions of this earth, as we shall see, and especially
of Asia, Major and Minor, where we will find over twenty savioure
having been crucified, or crossed, or passed over, in the Spring to
save mankind. They were crucified on no earthly cross, but " on
the Cross of the Heavens,” as the Christian Fathers said of Jesus.

This annual sun-journey occurs also daily, and, in fact, it was
the daily birth and daily death, and the 12 hours in the tomb or
passing back through the underworld, which first struck the early
races, and gave rise to the myths of the gods, especially Egyptian.

Naville tells us in ” Records of the Past,” XII., 80, that Ptah Totu-
men, the Sun Creator, generated the gods every day.

The sun myth is so obvious and so universal, and has been
treated by so many writers exhaustively, that it will not be necessary
to enter into its history or details here, as I shall have occasion to
go over it again when showing its effect on the Christian cult. In
every religion the sun is called the “ Light of the World,” the
” Life Giver,” and in many the ” Creator,” descriptions palpably
true; hence comes the blending of the two great cults. As we
have seen, the Phallus was held to be the "life giver” by the
mass of the people. But without the sun no Phallus could create
” life ” or support it. Hence, with growing intelligence, the Solar
religion gained ascendency amongst the thinking people, but the
old Phallic cult was too deeply and intimately embedded in human
thought to be replaced in the minds of the rude peasantry by the
more philosophical speculation. From this arose the great com*
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

113

bined SoIophaUic cult, so well illustrated by Forlong in his " Rivet
of Life,” II., p. 448, where he shows the serpent as being the
conventionalised sign of both Lingam-Yoni and the sun [Fig. 92].

The serpent having gradually become the Phallic sign, and this
idea of life creator or upholder having been transferred by the
astronomer-priests to the sun, the old symbol was applied to the
new god, the sun. Hence, we find authors writing on " sun and
serpent.” C. F. Oldham (Constable), 1905.

Thus, we find that, as the sun was the upholder of all life, even
that of man, tree worship, which was generally only church
worship (see pp. 16-17), and serpent worship, became quite sub-
ordinate ; as without the sun there could be neither trees nor
serpents. Even man was dependent on the sun, which thus became
the universal father. Everywhere he is called the " Shining One ”
and ” Sky Father,” as Jupiter, but sometimes the sky only. The
Dyaus, ” Sky ” of the Hindus becomes the Zeus of the Greeks, and
Deus of the Romans, also Zu, or Ju, or Iu, giving Zu pitar sky
father of the Babylonians, or Ju pater the sky father, or sun of the
Romans. The only thing the sun did not seem to do was the act
of reproduction (except mythologically), and so the Phallic faith was
never displaced, but ran parallel with the solar, forming the Solo-
phallic religions with a serpent as a symbol for both sun and Phallus
(p. 112, Fig. 92). There is no rational connection between a serpent
and the sun, this symbolism having arisen from the serpent being a
symbol for the upholder of life (pp. 230-231)—the sun and the Phallus
having equal claims to this title viewed from the different stand-
points of life generally in the case of the sun, and man’s life
particularly in the case of the Phallus.

In nearly all lives of mythical or semi-mythical heroes (for many
heroes were founded on some prominent human soldier, poet,
king, lord, or priest), we will find the number 12 taking a prominent
part. They have 12 Disciples or Apostles, 12 great labours
(Hercules), and in many religions the inner great circle of gods is
limited to 12 immortals. These are the 12 months (or moonths,
revoludons of the meon) forming the solar year, and we will see the
great confusion which arose because there were not exactly 12
revolutions of the moon round the earth to one revolution of the
earth round*the sun.

Doane (p. 498) quotes the following:—12 great gods, 12 apostles
of Osiris, 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes, 12 altars
of James, 12 labours of Hercules, 12 shields of Mars, 12 brother
Arvaux, 12 God consents, 12 Governors of the Manichean system,
12 Amos of dte Scandinavians, 12 Adectyas of the East Indies, 12

I
 114

CHRISTIANITY; THE SOURCES

gates to the City in Apocalypse* 12 sacred cushions on which
Japanese deity sits, 12 precious stones in the priest’s Ephod* see
Dupuis, pp. 39 and 40, 12 Knights at a round table ; the round
table is the year.

The ** Sura Kund ” (Sun’s Wife), in the South-West part of
Benares, is a sun well, and is said to have originally consisted of
12 wells. The day of 24 hours was divided into 12 hours of two
modern hours each by the Babylonians, but as more ignorant
nations divided night from day, the light from the darkness (which
they considered a substance), giving each a separate god, they
gave each half of the day 12 hours, as at present. This change
was no doubt acceptable, as the two hour period is much too long
for human appreciation. From this relation of the time of the
orbit of moon and .earth (the ancients thought it was moon and
sun) came the superstition still very prevalent of the unlucky number
13. The year contained 12 whole months and a broken or unlucky
one. There are 12 months which recur every year, and the sun ;
which dies every year, slain by the cold of winter. Hence, one
of a group of thirteen must die within the year.

In those nations which held a circle of twelve Immortal gods,
a thirteenth must be mortal or subject to death ; hence, in a society
or group the thirteenth was destined to die. Christians founded
this superstition on the twelve Apostles and Jesus,—one must die.
The history of the active life of Jesus is confined to one year, like
•the sun, and the life of Jesus is a variant of the sun myth, like
Melchizedek or Enoch. Jesus was a “priest for ever after the order
of Melchizedek,” repeated seven times in Hebrews V., VI., and
VII. (see p. 260).

The ancient people, seeing that the earth brought forth flower
and fruit only when the sun returned from winter, wrote of the
Spring Sun returning as a bridegroom ; so every saviour, including
Jesus, was likened to a Bridegroom. In the Spring feasts in India,
as Dr. Oman shows (pp. 39 and 45), the principal actors have the
peculiar hat on their heads worn by the bridegroom only, on his
wedding day. Thus were the Phallic and the Solar ctilts linked up.

In modern times, at the close of the most ignorant and bigoted
time in the history of the world, it was Sir Isaac Newton who
suggested to the modern world what was well known to the ancient,
namely, that the" Christian festivals were determined upon an
astronomical basis. But the hold of dogmatic theology, burnt into
his mind in yotith, was too strong for him, and he closed his eyes
to the inevitable inference, and* like his other brethren in science,
Faraday and Kelvin, he declined to submit the basis of his faith
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

115

to the test of his understanding. It is strange to see men of high
Intellect accepting, as beyond all doubt and criticism, statements
which, if enunciated by a scientific experimenter, would be received
by these same men with ridicule and contempt, and as being utterly
unworthy of even a serious refutation. It is pitiful to read
Newton’s silly lucubrations about the book of Daniel and the
Apocalypse. Such facts illustrate the tremendous strength of early
education and of the mirophilic sentiment.

The day assigned to the birth of the Sun God of all the other
religions was the same as that assigned without a particle of proof
by the Church, to the birth of Jesus. Jesus, according to the
evidence of the Bible, was born in Autumn, but the Christian Church
of the Roman Empire had to alter that and make His birthday that
of the “Unconquered Sun,” as otherwise his Divinity would not
have been accepted (pp. ///-//2, 329).

King, in his “ Gnostics “ (p. 119), says : “ The old festival held
on the 25th day of December in honour of the birth day of the
Invincible One, was afterwards transferred to the commemoration
of the birth of Christ, of which the real day was, as the Fathers
confess, totally unknown.”

I only mention this now to show the great hold the sun god
worship had all1 over Europe, as the powerful Church of Rome
had to bring their dogma about the “ Christ ” to agree with pagan
mythology.

The religions of the great nations of antiquity had the Sun God
as the chief god, and the sun’s attributes gradually became per-
sonified in minor gods. The young suns annually born were all
“sons of Jove,” and so they were destined to die. Justin Martyr
says : “ Suffering was common to all the sons of Jove.” They were
called “Slain ones,” ’’Saviours,” “Redeemers” (p. 307). As all Sun
Gods died and came alive again, or were re-born to save mankind,
they are all called Saviours; and, as there was only one sun at a
time, they were called “ the only begotten son,” long before Jesus.
As the sun was absolutely essential to life on this earth, he was
called the “ Alpha and the Omega/*

Todd, to take one amongst all astronomers, in his “ New
Astronomy,” says:—“Man in the ancient world worshipped
the sun. Primitive peoples who inhabited Egypt, Asia Minor,
and Western Asia, from four to eight thousand years ago,
have left, on monuments, evidence of their veneration of the
Lord of Day. Archaeologists have ascertained this by their re-
searches into the world of the Ancient Phoencians, Assyrians,
Hittites, and other nations now passed from earth. A favourite

[Prometheus]

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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

v >*<?».

representation of the Sun. God was the * Winged Globe,* or
‘Winged Solar Disc,’ types of which are well preserved on the
lintels of an ancient Egyptian shrine of granite in the Temple of
Edfu.

** In the Holy Scriptures are repeated allusions to the protecting
wings of the Deity, referring to this frequently recurring sculptural
design; and we know that if his life-giving rays were withheld
from the earth every form of human activity would speedily come
to an end.

“ The sun is important and magnificent beyond all other objects
in the Universe. The more primitive the civilization the more
apparent is the dependence of man upon the sun.”

That sun worship is still practised in India is shown by Dr.
Oman to be the case, not only with the pure Hindus, but also by
the Sikhs. He described a visit to that most beautifully-placed
temple, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, and says: ” Proceeding
along the North side of the pool ” (the Temple is artistically situated
in an artificial lake) ” we encountered at one place a Brahman
worshipping tiny images of Ganesh and Krishna ” (the Phallic God),
” at another a representative of the same hereditary priesthood
engaged in adoration of the sun.” Note also the combination of
Solo-Phallic worship, Ganesh and Krishna. Dr. Oman goes on to
say: “At the north-east comer of the tank in the umbrageous
shelter of a fine Banyan tree we came upon a temple of Siva repre-
sented, as usual, by a Lingam, which in this instance was about four
inches high with a brass bell over it ” (the bell being a Yoni, the
two gave the “ eternal life,” Lingam-Yoni combination). (” Cults,
Customs, and Superstitions of India,” p. 97.)

Dr. Oman calls this the ” Most sacred spot on earth. It is the
great temple of the Buddhists, believed by five hundred millions to
be built on the exact spot on which, seated in the shade of a spread-
ing Bo-tree, Gautama Buddha, known also as Prince Siddartha, the
Sakya Muni, attained enlightenment some four hundred years before
the Christian era.” It is situated at Gaya, near Bankipore.

Describing this famous shrine, the Mecca of all Buddhists, Dr.
Oman says: ” It is built in the form of a pyramid of nine storeys,
embellished on the outer side with niches and mouldings. Facing
the rising sun is the entrance door way, and above it, at an elevation
greater than the roof of the porch which over adorned the temple
there is a triangular opening to admit the morning glory to faU upon
the image in the sanctuary,” exactly as is described by Josephus
m die case of the Hebrew Tabernacle. (“ Cults, Customs, and
Superstitions of India,” p. 38.) The triangular form of the opening
is derived from the lotus seed-pod, th esymbol of fertility (p. 55).
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

117

We shall see this arrangement carried out equally by the most
ignorant savages, and the most civilised priesthood, all over the
world. In a rapid survey ending with the worship of the sun's
disc on Roman Catholic altars of the present day, Hislop says,
" The Two Babylons,” p. 162 :—" Let the reader peruse the follow-
ing extract from Hind, in which he describes the embellishments of
the Romish altar, on which the sacrament or consecrated wafer is
deposited, and then he will be able to judge :—A plate of silver in
die form of a sun is fixed opposite to the sacrament on the altar,
which, with the lights of tapers, make a most brilliant appearance."
(Hind's 44Rites and Ceremonies, p. 196, col. 1.) “ What has that
brilliant sun to do there on the altar, over against the sacrament or
round wafer? In Egypt the disc of the sun was represented in
the temples, and the sovereign and his wife and children were
represented as adoring it. Near the small town of Babain, in Upper
Egypt, there still exists in a grotto a representation of a sacrifice to
the sun, where the priests are seen worshipping the sun's image as
in the accompanying woodcut.”   (From Maurice's 44 Indian

Antiquities,'' Vol. III., p. 309 ; 1792.)   [1 give here the more lately

discovered example of Khu-en-Aten.]

“ In the great temple of Babylon the golden image of the sun
was exhibited for the worship of Babylonians.

" In the temple of Curzco, Peru, the disc of the sun was fixed up
in flaming gold upon the wall that all who entered might bow down
before it. (Prescot’s ‘‘Peru*** Vol. I, p. 4.)

; " The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshippers, and in tbeir
worship they adored an image of die sun in the form of a disc at
the tip of a long pole.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

“ In the worship of Baal, as practised by the idolatrous Israelites,
the worship of the sun’s image was equally observed, and it is
striking to find that the image of the sun was erected above the.altar,

“ When the good King Josiah set about the work of reformation
we read that his servants in carrying out the work of reformation
proceeded thus (2 Chron. xxxiv., 4): And they take down the
altars of Baalim in his presence, and the sun images that were on
high above them he cut down.”

Benjamin, of Tudela, the great Jewish traveller, gives a striking
account of sun worship even in comparatively modern times as
subsisting among the Cushites of the East:—“ They worship the
sun as a god, and the whole country for half-a-mile round the town
is filled with great altars dedicated to him. They worship the rising
sun on altars provided with a consecrated image, and everybody,
men and women, hold censers in their hands, and all burn incense
therein.” From all this it is manifest that the image of the
sun above or on the altar was one of the recognised
symbols of those who worshipped Baal or the sun. “And
here,” says Hislop, “in a so-called Christian Church, a
brilliant plate of silver in the form of a sun is so placed
on the altar that every one who adores at that altar must bow
down in lowly reverence before that image of the sun ; and when
the wafer is so placed that the silver sun fronting the ‘ round'
wafer—whose ’ roundness ’ is so important an element in the
Romish mystery, what can be the meaning of it but just to show
that the wafer itself is only another symbol of the sun!”

The naming of the groups of stars through which the sun
wandered is lost in antiquity, but no doubt there was a good reason
for the names, either the season of the year, the planting of crops,
or they may have been totem names of tribal chiefs with Phallic
symbols. The latter seems probable, as the names are mostly those
of animals, and this band of stars was called the Zodiac, which
means belt of animals or belt of life.

Our Zodiac has Ram, Bull, Twins, Crab, Lion, Virgin, Libra,
Scorpion, Archer, Goat, Aquarius, Fishes.

The Chinese is Mouse, Cow, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Serpent,
Horse, Ram, Monkey, Chicken, Dog, and Pig.

Both have Ram, Bull or Cow, Serpent or Scorpion, and Lion or
Tiger, all Phallic, and Libra or Ballance was actually the Phallus
ip: 79).   .

The mapping out of the entire heavens for both Hemispheres into
constellations has only been done systematically in comparatively
modern times, although all the brighter stars and groups had names
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

119

and legends from very early times. When the early astronomers
tried to get a systematic classification of the motions and changes
in the relation of the heavenly bodies to the earth and the seasons,
they found, no doubt, an almost impossible task before them; in
fact, the problem was insoluble till the time of Bruno, Galileo and
European astronomers, who gave the true explanation of the
observed phenomena.

The Greeks in Egypt, of the time of Ptolemy Soter, had been
driven, by a consideration of astronomical facts, to a true solution,
and placed the sun in the centre of the system and made the earth
subordinate to it, and, as they had measured an arc of latitude in
Egypt, they knew that the earth was round, and calculated a fair
approximation to its size.

The overwhelming of all knowledge by the advent of ” Spiritual **
religion, and the rejection of all knowledge not ” miraculously re-
vealed,** quickly crushed out the spirit of science begun so well at
Alexandria, and brought in the true dark ages.

The Alexandrians (notably Hero) and Archimedes had com-
menced the study of steam and electricity, and, had such a spirit
prevailed, the world might have been civilised 1800 years ago, but
the spirit which gained power was one which put the wildest visions
of faith before the evidence of the senses, and declared that instead
of close reasoning and scientific investigation, one only required
faith to arrive at the truth. And, in fact, it declared that the most
meritorious individual was he who could bring himself to believe
the most incredible statements or miracles. The more incredible,
the greater the merit. The Alexandrian Greeks stood out for
knowledge, but the world went mad on Mirolatry, which led to
the dark ages.

Of the Roman Catholic Church, in the 19th Century, the
” Encyclopaedia Britannica,’* 1911, Vol. XXIII., p. 494, says :—** If
it was a merit to believe without evidence, it was a shining virtue
to believe in the teeth of evidence,” so Paul's dictum still rules
the Catholic world.

All the great nations, however, had gradually created an
astronomical science for themselves by observation.

The Babylonians had organised their astronomical science so
well that it was famous throughout the ancient world. Lenses have
been found in the ruins, but they are small and do not prove that
the Babylonians had telescopes.

The science began in Accad. The Zenith was fixed above
Elam. Observations were made in Ur, Chaldea, Assur, Ninevah,
and Arbela, and the Astronomers Royal had to send on their reports
to the king twice a month. Here are some of their results.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Stan named and numbered.

Calendar formed and kept.

Division of heavens into degrees.

Twelve months of 30 days. Zodiacal signs about 2200 B.C.

Year of 360 days, with intercalary month added every six years.

Week of seven days date from very early period.

Constellation names can be traced to Babylon.

Seventh day was day of rest, “ Saturn.”

The day was scientifically divided into 12 ” Casbu ” of two
hours each, thus agreeing with the monthly motion in the annual
Zodiac; one day was thus recognised as the same revolution as
one year, as the same constellations were passed over. This
division of the day was more scientific than ours. All eclipses were
carefully observed.

The ignorant Hebrews could not understand and appreciate, as
other nations did, the wonderful science of the Babylonian
astronomers, and looked on all their elaborate studies for date
keeping as mere necromancy. They were afraid of this power, and
cried out against the ” Astrologers, star gazers, and monthly prog*
nosticators ” (Isaiah xlvii, 13).

They had a very poor or debased art, their pottery being
described in ” Underground Jerusalem,” 1912, as ” the dreariest of
all Ceramic series.”

The Chinese still have the Babylonian hour of 12 in the 24 hour
cycle.

The English have a relic of sun worship in their Spherical
Christmas Plum Pudding with its spirituous flames representing the
sun.

It is the remains of a feast or Eucharist such as is described
on the next page, promising that although the sun is dead at the
winter solstice, yet it will return in all its flaming glory of summer,
with its rich treasure of food and fruit to the joy of mankind.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

121

BABYLONIAN RELIGION IN EUROPE.

SUN WORSHIP.

IT is marvellous how, in prehistoric times, the religion of Babylon
dominated not only Western Asia, but all Europe, even into remote
Scotland and Scandinavia (pp. 104-109).

We have seen their Sabbato, Holy day, or day of rest, domin-
ating the week all over Europe from prehistoric times.

In Scotland the last day of the year is called Hogmanay, and
there is a celebration in the morning, now only held by children,
connected with the eating of " bun," a rich cake, made almost
entirely from fruits, such as raisins, almonds, and currants.

The children come joyously to their parents' room, very early,
and with rude symbols for music, poker and tongs for a violin, a
metal tray for a drum, etc., make a great noise, and sing, without
showing much reverence for their mother :

"Get up old wife and shake your feathers.

And dinna think that we are beggars,

For we are bairns come out to play,

Get up and gi'e us our Hogmanay.”

This is not intended disrespectfully, but is the Scotch peasant's
expression of humour.

In Babylon, the last day of the year was called " Hogmanay,"—
the Festival of the Numberer (moon), when he had completed the
computation of the year ; and there was a sort of sacrament or
service held, in which " buns ” were eaten. Notice the wonderful
duration of these words. These buns were baked of dried fruits,
and were a promise that, although the sun was dead, and all
nature still in the dread grasp of winter, these fruit cakes were
a Eucharist, sacrament, or hopeful reminder that summer and fruit
would come again. Here we see old religion reduced to children’s
games.

Again, all over Scotland, up till recently, on the 22nd of June
(die summer solstice), when the sun is in his greatest glory, fires
were kindled, just as they were in Babylon, and the children, and
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

also grown-up people, rushed or jumped through or over these fires,
“ an old remnant of the human sacrifices to the Sun God.” Now
these fires were called Beltane fires, or fires of Bel in Babylon, and
are so called still in Scotland. The practice still exists in Ireland
(see Ellis’s ” History of Ireland ”). The persistence of the word is
striking, and would have been impossible in any advanced nation.
The very isolation and ignorance of the early Scots has resulted in
the preservation of the word.

In Scandinavia and Germany an error of translation reveals the
Babylonian source of their God Heimdal, who, they said, was born
of nine Virgins (Virgin birth with a vengeance). In Chaldea the
phrase “Son of the Virgin of Salvation” is Ben-Almet-lsha, the
Almet being the Virgin, Uma our Alma Mater, ” Virgin Mother ”
of learning, the University. But Ben-Almat-Teshaah sounds
exactly the same, but means “Son of nine Virgins,” so the mistake
arose, but it shows to us the origin of the Scandinavian God.

The God Adon of Babylon seems to have gone round the world,
as he is the Odin and Woden of Scandinavia and Britain, as well
as the Adonis of Greece, and even reached Mexico as Wodan.
The Mexicans had a Wodan’s day, as we have a Wednesday.

The Chinese and Hindu people had their Zodiacs. The Arabs,
owing to their constantly cloudless skies, were earnest students of
astronomy, and had a Zodiac, as also had the Egyptians. This
was improved by the Greeks, and we have the Greek Zodiac as the
basis of our astronomy.

The star names in use in astronomy are in great part Arabian,
and the Arabs or Moors kept the lamp of science alight in
astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, and botany, when Europe was
plunged into darkness with its mirodoxes.

Although we have no proof of the reasons for which the names
were given to the star groups of the Zodiac [Zoo, or Belt of Life],
it is probable that most of the signs were originally Phallic. Ram,
Bull, Lion, Goat, Twins, Ballance, Scorpion, and Fishes are all
widely used symbols of fertility, while other signs in the neighbour-
hood of the Zodiac, such as Virgo, Bootes (Adam) and Serpent
refer to the Phallic story of Eden. The virgin, the joy of man's
life is placed in the happy spring time, but to connect these earthly
matters with the heavens in the way they have been connected is
a matter requiring much study. The constellation of Virgo, to take
an instance, is not visible in Spring, having been lost in the sun's
rays. The sun always, or nearly always, masculine, and his rays
were looked upon (as they are) as the cause of the fructification of
the earth, or in other words, the sun marries the earth in Spring,
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

[Prometheus]

123

the young sun being everywhere likened to a bridegroom, (as all
Sun Gods are, even Jesus), and His bride, is likened to a beautiful
fruitful garden (as the Romanists still call the Virgin Mary). Now
when they noticed that the groups of stars in the Zodiac all passed
in rotation behind or over the sun, and were lost in his rays, they
named the group in the middle of the paradisaical or garden part of
the year the virgin with whom the sun dwelt at this part of the year;
or, as the sun moved amongst them all, the sun “ visited ” the
virgin in her house. Hence, the Zodiacal constellations were called
the “ Houses of the Sun,” as “ astrologers ” do to this day.

The early observers found the most definite and striking
phenomenon of short period lay in the changes of the moon.

The changes of the year are so gradual that the attention is not
arrested by them as it is by the sudden appearance of the new
moon; and the quick changes of the moon, quite short enough
in time to allow of man’s short memory visualising the course of the
changes, and its so frequent repetition, rendered it the phenomenon
which most vividly arrested the attention of early man. The
moon’s changes became a popular study, as every child could see
them, and of course in the hierarchy of the heavens the moon was
the sun’s wife,—Queen of Heaven,—and her crescent became the
symbol of feminity or the Yoni, and, like the horse shoe, lucky.
Her cold beams made her chaste as Astarte, Diana, or Pallas, but
it was lucky to see her naked, not through a veil, hence, our wishing
for luck at new moon, but she must not be seen through glass (see

P- 87).

The observation of the moon’s phases led to the creation of the
month and week, the week representing the four quarters of the
moon’s complete revolution round the earth. The year was deter-
mined by the earth’s journey round the sun, and was very regular
and fixed, while the periods of the cold inconstant moon had no
relation whatever to the earth’s annual period, and neither of them
had any relation to the day or period of the earth’s rotation on
her axis.

Here was then an inexplicable tangle, and as all nations kept
their time in the infancy of their intelligence by the moon, the
new moon being the only sharply defined phenomenon in the
heavens to mark time, their reckoning of time was a terrible
muddle.

One can understand the young nations using the new moon to
mark time, as it is such a striking phenomenon, and even now
men, women, and children feel a thrill of pleasure in the fine silver
bow in the west after sunset.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Observant men saw that the new year was determined by the
son alone, yet the times and seasons were reckoned by moons or
months, which had no simple relation to the year, so commenced
the muddle of calendar keeping. This generally resulted in the
gradual recession of the fixed “ New Year’s Day ” over the year,
and the beginning of the year which all scholars of every country
well knew was at the Winter Solstice, gradually crept later, till it
was in some cases fixed at the Spring equinox, or gradually travelled
to mid-summer or even to the Autumn equinox; or, as was the
case with the Jewish New Year, kept circulating round the entire
year with no fixed relation to the seasons. The Jews were the least
scientific nation of antiquity—all other nations tried to patch up
their calendars, but the Jews having no instruments, making no
observations, and taking all their ideas, religious, astronomical and
cosmological, from other nations, could only cling to the only
visible sign marking time periods, and mark the passage of time
by the appearance of new moon, which they celebrated by the
blowing of horns, as we mark our true noon by the sharply defined
booming of a gun, or the more accurate and instantaneous discharge
of an electric current.

Thus, as neither year, month, week, nor day had any definite
relation to each other, calendars were always needing careful
amendment, and so difficult of attainment was the knowledge re-
quired to do this, that most nations kept their dates simply by the
years of the kings’ reigns, or the chief priest’s holding of office.

So strong, however, was the hold that the new moon had on that
accurate and business-like nation, the Romans, that Julius Caesar
allowed the moon to interfere with the reformed calendar. He
took the disorganised calendar in hand, and, by the advice of a
learned Alexandrian Sosigenes, instituted a 365 day year with an
additional day each four years (our Leap Year) to make up the
extra minutes every year over the exact 365 days. But he did not
start the New Year on the Winter Solstice (22nd December), which
he well knew was the true beginning of the year. To avoid disturb-
ance of moon-regulated commercial contracts, and for general con-
venience, he adopted the rule of the moon and started the New
Year by making it commence on the first new moon following the
Winter Solstice, or true New Year.

This chanced to be ten days after the Solstice, and, hence, our
“ New Year ” is not the beginning of a new year at all, but a purely
arbitrary new yeir. We ought once more to reform the calendar
by dropping ten days, making 22nd December the true new year,
and calling it the 1st of January, or Christmas, or New Year’s Day.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

125

We have at present three celebrations of the Winter Solstice,
or New Year:—(I.) The astronomical or true New Year, 22nd of
December; (2.) Christmas, the universal celebration of the rebirth
of the sun, or the resurrection of the Sun God; and (3.) Julius
Caesar’s moon-fixed New Year, 1st of January.

Many nations held their New Year feast at the date of the
bursting forth of the new vegetation in March, April, or, as in
England, in May. In Rome, about 340 A.D., Christmas was held on
April 21st, in other places as late as May 20th, and at Constantinople
on January 6th.

Sun worshippers were subject to a very wide-spread and curious
superstition. In nearly all countries it has been, at one period of
their civilization, illegal or dangerous or impolite to call rulers,
priests, or higher powers, or Gods by their true names. We have
an example of that in modern times by calling the Sultan of Turkey
the “Sublime Porte” or “Heavenly Gateway,” or the German
Emperor the “ Kaiser,” a Babylonian and Egyptian name meaning
“ God of the Earth,” or the King of Egypt the “ Pharaoh ” or
" Par-aoh,” the “Great Hall" or “Court.” Our Royal Family
is called ” The Court,” exactly the same meaning as ” Pharaoh."

In the Egyptian system of gods, the sun was worshipped,
although, by the learned, the sun was not considered a personal
God, but the manifestation of the Great Amen (or Hidden One), a
power still apostrophised in Christian prayers, and used, as ” God,”
in the Bible. Revelation iii., 14, “These things saith the Amen.”
Isaiah lxv., 16, reference to “God Amen,” mistranslated “God
of Truth.”

But the sun was not worshipped directly, as he, like the kings,
was too holy to be mentioned directly, but was worshipped under
the name and symbol of the ” house,” in which he dwelt in the
beginning of the year. That was thought to be fixed, but as
hundreds of years went past, the sun was found to be leaving his
past ” house ” of the Spring Equinox and entering another owing
to the ” precession of the Equinoxes.” So a new symbol or
house had to be worshipped, and we find that about 4684 B.C.
the sun theoretically entered the constellation of the Bull, or
Apis, or the Latin Taurus, and Ka-Kau, the King with the Phallic
name to which I drew attention on p. 79, brought in the worship
o|-the Bull, about 3485 B.c. But the astronomic priests saw that
the sun was passing from the Bull to Aries, the Ram, or Lamb
(R. and L. are interchangeable), and this took place about the
year 1845 B.C. There then arose priests who said it was only
orthodox to worship the Lamb, and this continued to about
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

125 B.C., when at the equinox, the sun passed into the constellation
of Pisces, the Fishes. These dates are theoretical numbers cal-
culated from the present accepted boundaries of the constellation.
But no exact boundaries were known to the ancients—one con-
stellation bordering a litde vaguely on the other, so that the exact
date of change could not be stated. It was only when the sun had
well entered into the new house that the priests would declare a
changed worship necessary. It will pass into the Waterer,
“ Aquarius,” about 2719 A.D. Before 4684 the sun was at its annual
birth in the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. Now the point I
wish to make clear is the effect of all this on the practice of religion.
In the time of Gemini arose the worship of the ” Twins,” and these
came conveniently to represent good and evil, as in Persia, with
Ah'ura Mazda and Ahriman (Rimmon of the O.T.), the Egyptians,
with Osiris and Typhon, the Israelites, with Cain and Abel, the
Greeks, with Castor and Pollux, and the Romans with Romulus
and Remus, each nation which had a Solar worship having its own
Twin Gods or Heroes.

Then came the gradual change to the Bull. The winged Bulls
of Babylon guarding the temples, the worship of the Bull Apis,
Serapis, or Tzur-Apis, in Egypt, and the founding of a “ cow ” city
Thebes, where the left hand, or female, worshippers had their
headquarters. The change to the house of Taurus resulted in the
erection of the Egyptian Venus’s symbol in Hathor, the Cow
(“ Hat—Hor,” the ” House of Hor,” or the Sun God), “ Queen of
Heaven ” and ” Mother of the Gods,” as all Queens of Heaven are,
even the Virgin Mary is the ” Habitation of God ” in the Roman
Catholic religion.

The passage from Taurus to Aries was symbolised in Persia and
other countries by Mithras slaying the ” Bull.” This may also have
related to the annual death of the sun in Taurus, for some examples
show the Scorpion of winter destroying the reproductive power of
Taurus, or the Sun, and the tail of the Bull budding into barley,
promising food for the coming year, like the bun of the Scotch
Hogmanay (p. 121).

In India the Cow became sacred. Then the Spring Sun slowly
passed into the constellation or Aries, Lamb worship came into
existence, and the Lamb of God became the symbol. A little
before the time of Jesus the sun passed into Pisces, the constella-
tion of the Fishes, in the Spring equinox, and the Gospels are full of
Fish miracles, gs all gods were sun-gods, and Jesus was no excep-
tion. His last act in ” John " was to cause a miraculous draft of
Fishes so that the last Meal or Eucharist of his Apostles might be one
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

127

of Fish* thus symbolising him as the sun-god (pp. 280 tod 291). Of
course, there would be great resistance on the part of the priests of
the older symbol to the introduction of the new and greater reluct-
ance by the ignorant people to any change at all. In fact, it was im-
possible to replace the old faith with all its attendant beliefs,
litanies, symbols, and “ revealed Truth," so, as a matter of fact,
the old and the new went on side by side, so that there were an
overwhelming number of temples and priests. So popular did the

Fig. 94

new Ram worship become in Egypt, however, that every village
had its own particular Ram or Lamb Deity. These customs were
adopted by the Hebrews.

So burdensome did this multiplication of priests become that
a reforming King, Amenhetep IV., recognising that all these were
simply symbols of the solar disc (itself a manifestation of the great
hidden " Amen "), tried to unify the religion by introducing the
worship of the Solar disc, and himself took a god name of Khu-en-
Aten (p. //7), or Akhnaton, for it is differently read, " glory of the
Solar disc/’ (Flinders Petrie, Tel el A mama Tablets.) So diffi-
cult was it to overcome the resistance of the priests that he had to
found new temples, and a new capital, in order to have his way,
but no sooner was he dead than his city and temples were destroyed,
and the old multiple plunder of the ignorant people was resumed.

Hie sun was looked up to as the grand Omnipotent centre of the
universe, whose all vivifying power is the vital and sole source of
existence, whether animal or vegetable, on this earth ; the glorious
fountain out of which springs all the pleasures, riches, and good-
ness of life, nay, life itself, and was naturally the great object of
the homage and adoration of mankind. Hence, the sun, says
 128

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Logan Mitchell (*' Religion in the Heavens ”), as we are informed
by Pausanius, was worshipped at Elusis as “ the Saviour.”

Students of religions find the sun myth the central core of
religion everywhere. There are, of course, local elements which
vary the point of view, just as in hot countries hell is an exaggeration
of the discomfort caused by the heat, while in cold countries hell
is frost and snow, an exaggeration of the discomforts of cold, as
these Scotch verses show.

O what hills are yon,—yon pleasant hills.

That the sun shines sweetly on ?

O yon are the hills of heaven, he said,

Where you will never win.

O whaten a mountain is yon, she said,

-   All so dreary wi’ frost and snow ?

O yon is the mountain of hell, he cried,

Where you and I will go.

Forlong, in his “ Rivers of Life,” in which he details the
elaborate studies he has made of the worshippings, festivals, and
pilgrimages of religious enthusiasts, in all countries and through all
historic times, has drawn up a curve of the intensity of festal

energy, which I reproduce here, and which shows that these
festivals are absolutely determined by sun worship, being grouped
round the Solstices and Equinoxes.

Sir Isaac Newton stated this fact as early as ] 730, but apparently
afraid of its effect on religious opinions he did not push his discovery
to its legitimate conclusion.

Sir William Jones, in his famous ” Asiatic Researches,” Vol. I.,
p. 267, says” We must not be surprised at finding, on a close
examination, that the characters of all pagan deities, male and
female, melt into each other, and at last into one or two, for it
seems a well-founded opinion, that the whole crowd of gods and
goddesses of ancient Rome and modem Varenya, mean only the
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

[Prometheus]

129

powers of nature and principally those of the sun expressed in a
variety of ways and by a multitude of fanciful names/*

Max Muller, another extremely broad-minded and safe master,
treats the subject so well and fully that I cannot do better than
refer the reader to his lectures on the " Science of Religion,*' p. 298,
for an intelligent sketch of sun worship.

The ancient religion of China was the same which was universal
over the world—the worship of sun, moon, and stars. One very
direct proof of this lies in the fact that both the Chinese and the
Indian Hindoos named their successive days after the seven
heavenly bodies. These were personified and known by allegorical
names, under which their real connection with the stars was lost,
and they became personal deities.

The Chinese were always practical and scientific, so their
emblems did not wander so widely ; but the terms of reverence
and respect with which the. heavenly bodies are spoken of in the
Shoo-King are too extravagant to bear only an astronomical mean-
ing, and we are driven to the conclusion " that the ancient religion
of China partook of star worship.” (See Thorntons History of
Chinar VI., p. 14, col. 50.)

In India, the sun, moon, stars, and powers of nature, were
personified, and each supposed quality of theirs, mental and
physical, had its separate emblem till its Pantheon became crowded.

The Hindoo Pantheon contained Dyaus—the sky, Indra—the
rain giver and fertility, Surya—the sun, the Maruts—the winds,
Aditi—the dawn, Parvati—the earth, and Siva—the sun, as earth's
husband. Krishna was also the sun ; as is shown by this prayer
addressed to him: ” Be auspicious to my lay, oh Chrishna, thou
only God of the Seven Heavens, who surveyest the Universe through
the immensity of space and matter. Oh, universal and resplendent
Sun.” Krishna is made to say: ” I am the Light in the Sun and
Moon, far, far beyond the darkness.” (William Henderson, p. 213.)

In the Maha Bharata, Chrishna is called the Son of Aditi, the
Dawn, and is also called Vishnu, a name for the sun. *

Moore, in his "Hindu Pantheon,’* says: "Although all the
Hindu deities partake, more or less remotely, of the nature and
character of Surya or the Sun, and all more or less directly radiate
from or merge in him, yet no one is, I think, so intimately identified
with him as Vishnu ; whether considered in his own person or in
the character of his most glorious Avatara Chrishna.”

The sun being the giver of life, is always mixed up with Phallic
lore* and Chrishna, like Jove and all Sun Gods, has numerous love
passages with maidens representing earthly attributes or even

K
 130

CHRISTIANITY: THE. SOURCES

. *

places. Then we have the promiscuous amours of Jupiter, Her-
cules, Indra, Phoibos, Samson, Alpheips, Paris, and all Sun Gods
forming the great Solo-Phallic cult.

In Egypt the same religion held its sway.

Mr. Le Page Renouf, the leading authority on the religion of
ancient Egypt, in his 44 Hibbert *’ lecture (p. 118), says: “ The
lectures on the science of language delivered nearly twenty years
ago by Prof. Max Muller, have, I trust, made us fully understand
how amongst the Indo-European races, names of the sun, of sunrise
and sunset, and of other such phenomena, come to be talked of and
considered as personages, of whom wondrous legends have been
told. Egyptian mythology not merely admits, but imperatively
demands the same explanation.**

The gods and goddesses of the Persians were also personification
of the sun, moon, and stars. Omenga was the God of the Firma*
ment. He was the Great God of the Persians. Mithra, the
Mediator, was the Sun God. The worship of Mithras, the sun,
survived for many centuries. Pope Leo the Great (440-461 A.D.)
adored the sun from lofty heights, and Christians ascending the
steps of St. Paul*s at Rome turned and made obeissance to the
sun as do our High Church clergy to this day. When the Greek
astronomers first declared that the sun was not a god, but a huge,
hot ball, they were accused of being 44 blaspheming atheists.*’

The Teutonic Norse gods were sun and star deities, and the
worship of the Druids in Britain and France was sun worship, as
shown at Stonehenge.

Doane, from whom 1 have gathered many of these quotations,
says, in his 44 Bible Myths ** : 44 The same worship, sun worship, we
have found in the old world from the furthest east to the remotest
west may also be traced in America, from its simplest or least clearly
defined form among the roving hunters and squalid Esquimaux of
the north, through every intermediate stage of development, to
the imposing systems of sun worship of Mexico and Peru, where it
took a form nearly corresponding to that which it at one time
sustained on die banks of the Ganges and on the plains of Assyria.*9
Researches are always in progress to find explanations of the
orientation of ancient temples and of ancient calendars and Zodiacs,
and they are of the utmost interest, as instanced by the masterly
work of Lockyer in his 44 Dawn of Astronomy,** or by the 44 Ancient
Calendars and Constellations44 of the Hon. E. M. Plunket, but
these have only* rendered certain the well-established fact that all
the nations of the world, at one period <*f the evolution of history,
have based their religion and regulated their practices upon a
deification of the heavenly bodies.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

131

The description handed down of the Sun God, born of a Virgin
the Dawn, Redeemer of the world in Spring from the cold of winter,
Miraculous Healer, and bringer of Joy, born again after death
(resurrection) the annual return of the Sim from the death of winter,
his twelve labours or struggles, and twelve Apostles or Knights
(12 months) became the basis of the redeemer idea in all countries.

The orientation of churches to the east, where the Redeemer
is daily born, used to be very strictly carried out; but there were
always three methods of orientation, all, however, based on sun-
rise, and having the earliest rays of the sunshine on the sacred
altar. Our own rude temple at Stonehenge was, as we all know,
carefully oriented to the rising of the sun in the Summer Solstice;
and annually we see such paragraphs in the newspapers as I quote
here from one in 1905 :—“ To-morrow, the longest day, the annual
pilgrimage will be made to Stonehenge to watch the sun rise over
the historical circle of Giant Monoliths. It is only on a cloudless
morning that it is possible to see the first rays of the sun glimmer
on the huge stone known as the Friars “ Heel ” (a Phallic, or
masculine pillar), on the outside of the circle, and from thence to
the altar stone (feminine) within. The last time this sight was
witnessed was in 1903." That is a solstitial orientation, as the
temple is placed so that the desired shining of the Sun on the altar
takes place at the Summer Solstice, or longest day, called solstice
or " sun standing," because, having reached the most northern
part of its annual north and south motion, it is supposed to pause or
stand still before it commences its southern journey.

The very word orientation, which is now universally used as
meaning merely the " compass direction " of any building, or the
" lie ” of any rocks, in fact, the “ compass direction " of every-
thing, originally applied only to the " Easting " of a church. Here
we have a sample of the innumerable instances of an ecclesiastical
idea being grafted into the secular language of a nation.

The stone circles like Stonehenge gave us our English word
Church, and the Scotch or Teutonic Kirk. The letter C was K
originally, so circle is kirkle or kirk, and then it became as Ch (as
it is in Italy to-day), hence, circle is chirchle or church. Chaucei
spells it Chirche.

The Churches of St. John (being the mid-summer Saint) are
oriented like Stonehenge, to the north-east.

The second method £s equinoctial orientation, or turning the
churches’to the point at which the sun rises on the 22nd of March (or
nearly identical on 22nd of September), when day and night (as re-
gards the sun) are equal. This is the method of orientation of nearly
 132

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

*

all great churches, as St. Peter’s at Rome, Milan Cathedral, Notre
Dame de Paris, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and
nearly all the parish churches of England ; and we know that this
Sun worship, or “ Eastern Position,” is bitterly fought for as a
sacred part of the ritual by the extreme ritualists in England.

The old Basilica at Rome, like the present structure, was oriented
to this Equinox, or East and West, so that, on 22nd March, the
sun at the Equinox shone through the great doors right on to the
high altar. The English Churches are the reverse of this, the)
great window over the high altar is East, so that the worshippers
face the East, and the priests turn their backs to the audience and
bow to the East when necessary.

A third and, at first sight, very puzzling method of orientation,
is that of orienting the Church to the point of sunrise on the day
sacred to the Saint to whom the Church is dedicated. This gives
all sorts of orientation or Easting from the extreme North-East of
St. John to the due East of the Equinoctial Easting, and without the
key to the problem merely looks like careless orientation as there
seems to be no fixed system.

This was the cause of the hopelessness of those who, under
Napoleon I., mapped out the orientation of Egyptian temples, but
all has now been made clear, by showing that the chaos of orienta-
tion was caused by turning the line of the centre of the temple or
church to that point of the horizon where a certain sun god or
goddess rose in conjunction with the sun at a critical date, or even
to the point of rising to the star alone. A clear instance is given
by Lockyer in his ” Dawn of Astronomy as to the orientation of
a Temple of Isis, or Hathor, or Venus, Goddess of Love, which
is clearly announced in one of the inscriptions which Marriette
translates as saying: “She (Isis) shines into her temple on New
Year’s Day, and she mingles her light with that of her father Ra
(the Sun) on the horizon.”

Hathor was called Sothis by the Greeks, and we know from
contemporary astronomers that that is the name for the Star Sirius,
whose Egyptian name was Sept, but in Greek Sothis. Now this
conjunction of Sirius or Sothis with the sun took place about 700
B.C., and Biot, the astronomer, proved that 700 B.C. is the date
of the construction of the great Zodiac in the Temple of Osiris.
Sirius rose at 700 B.C. with the sun on New Year’s Day (which for
strong reasons was Midsummer in Egypt), and she mingled her
rays with that of her father Ra on the great day of the year, New
Year, 20th June, so that such an important event was celebrated
by the building of a temple oriented to the great event.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

133

TKe precession of the Equinoxes, or the slow movement of the
fixed stars, gradually destroyed this combination which will not
again be true for 25,867 years.

Lockyer tells us that the most important temple in China is
oriented to the Winter instead of Summer Solstice, a rare instance.
Babylonian Temples are mostly oriented to the Solstices, there-
fore, at the latitude of Ninevah and Khorsabad, in a North-Easterly
and South-Westerly direction.

I shall have occasion to show that this was also the case with
the Jewish Tabernacle (p. 244, et seq.). The Temple of Amen Ra
is as perfectly oriented as is St. Peter’s at Rome.

Lockyer shows that temples were oriented to the rising of stars,
and were situated in relation to other temples so as to express the
worship of the host of heaven. The same practice holds with
English Churches, where the stars, however, are called Saints,
though really godlets, or children of God, just as they were in
Egypt, Greece, or Rome.

One disturbing factor, which upsets all this orientation of sun
worship in cities, is that the streets grew up out of mere country
lanes and are not oriented or scientifically placed, and when a new
church is desired, or required, a site cannot always be found per-
mitting of proper orientation, so the church must be ** oriented ”
to the line of the street, as we see in the new Roman Catholic
Cathedral at Westminster, which lies nearly North and South.

The architect sacrificed the orientation of this important ecclesi-
astical edifice to the exigencies of land and street.

The Sphinx sits ever watching for the sunrise at the Equinox,
as the Colossi at Thebes watched for the sunrise in the Winter
Solstice. Thus, as Lockyer says, the evidence of the existence of
Solar Temples is absolutely overwhelming, and even when oriented
to stars, the orientation is to the star in conjunction with the sun
at sunrise. Temples built in positions where, owing to the height
of the walls of other temples, the sun was not visible, were still
accurately oriented. The Sphynx Temple had a line of sight
directly along the South face of the second pyramid, or towards
the land of Amend, or the dead, as the sun passed into that land on
setting in the West.

In ‘‘Ancient Calendars and Constellations,** we have a most
successful clearing up of the great muddle caused by the attempt
to base the calendar and Zodiac on a lunar basis, but we are not
interested here in these intricate details; it is sufficient to indicate
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

them, and to see the instances of universal sun worship. In these
books, however, we get glimpses of mythology useful in illustrating
Hebrew mythology. For instance, Indra, the earliest Indian God,
produced creation by overcoming a great water snake, just as the
Hebrew God in the Bible overcame Tehom or Tiamat, a great
water snake, no doubt derived from India through Babylon (p. II,
" Ancient Calendars,” also pp. 190-193 this volume).

We learn also that in the Chinese account of creation, as illus-
trated in their Zodiac, their Constellation Hiu means Vacuum or
void, the same word used in Genesis i., 2.   (Sayce, Trans. Soc.

Bib. Arch., February, 1874.)

The Chinese dating being based on the lunar motions, like the
dating of Easter by the Christians, as derived from Hebrew, we
find a table produced by the Astronomical Board of China exactly
the same in form as the table in an English Book of Common
Prayer,—“ Tables to find Easter,” from the present time to such
and such a date, showing that similar diseases (the faulty lunar
reckoning) require similar remedies. This is a relic of Babylonian
worship in Christianity.

I have dealt with this subject somewhat fully to show that there
is no shadow of doubt that sun worship was universal, and that such
irregularities as were produced by the introduction of the subsidiary
luminaries in their relation to sun and sunrise can be explained
by careful research.

A curious position arose out of this annual birth of the sun in the
Roman mythology. All nations have at first a single creative god,
and are at heart monotheists, and the Romans had their “Sky
Father,” Jupiter, who was too grand to die ; so the annual birth of
the sun had gradually come to be represented as the appearance
of ” Sons of Jove.” The great lonely God of the Deists has never
been able to stand alone, such a religion is too cold for imaginative
humanity, so this ” Awful Presence,” or great abstraction, gradually
retires into an ” ancient of days,” as shown so well in Rubens’s
picture in the frontispiece. The Son of God, a young sun, then
becomes the important one, and marries the earth in Spring, and
they bring forth fruit, flowers, and all life, and they have themselves
a child, as conceived by Rubens. Now this is all very well as a
working theory for one generation, but when annually repeated it
becomes embarrassing. Either the last year's son goes on living,
and we get a grqpt list of Sun Gods, as did the Romans, or we get
die fine metaphysical idea of Christianity, that die Son of God (the
young sun) after having performed the passover, or been crucified
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

[Prometheus]

135

by passing to the North of the Equatorial line and saving man from
death, is re*absorbed in the Heavenly Father or Eternal Sun. But,
in the case of the Romans, they treasured up their Sons of Jove, or
annual Sun Gods, and got such a numerous family that the confusion
led to the idea being ridiculed by iconoclasts, and, when the true
explanation was given by scholars, they were called “ atheists,”
because they explained away the ” immortal gods.” The Sons of
Jove being annually slain were called the ” slain ones,” or the
“ suffering ones.” The Christian Father, Justin Martyr, having
been confronted with these tales of ” Crucifixion to save mankind,”
and thus reducing the story of Jesus to the level of that of any of
the “ Sons of Jove ” (sons of Jehovah), was driven to the following
justification of his own particular tale.

The good Father tells his devout children in his ” Apology ”
that: ” It having reached the devil’s ears that the prophets had
foretold the coming of Christ (Son of God), he set the heathen poets
to bring forward a great many who should be called the Sons of
Jove. The devil laying his scheme in this, to get men to imagine
that the true history of Christ was of the same character as the
prodigious fables related of the Sons of Jove.” (See “Augustine,”
p 330.)

Only when one collects a list of the Sons of Jove, does one
appreciate the difficulty which such a multiplication of suns was
causing the faith of the Romans.

Justin Martyr goes on to say: “By declaring the * Logos ’ the
first begotten of God our Master Jesus Christ to be born of a Virgin
without any human mixture, we Christians say no more in this, than
that you Pagans say of those whom you style the Sons of Jove. For
you need not be told what a parcel of sonsthe writers most in vogue
among you assign to Jove.

“As to the Sen of God called Jesus, we should allow Him to
be nothing more than man, yet the title of the Son of God is very
justifiable upon account of his wisdom, considering that you
(Pagans) have your Mercury in worship under the title of ‘ the
Word,’ a Messenger of God (Logos).” [Mercury was Hermes, the
Phallus, hence, the Phallic character of the Logos or the Christ of
John's Gospel.]

“ As to His (Jesus) being born of a Virgin, you have your Perseus
to balance that." The early “Fathers” justified the Christian
belief by that of the Pagans, and only held their new Son of God
as equal to one of the old Sons of Jove.

Here are a few Sons of Jove, but a careful research in the dim.
archives of the Roman Gods would discover many more (p. 115).
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Name.      Son of
Hercules -      - Jupiter and Alcmene.
Bacchus      - ,, ,, Semele.
Amphion -      - ,, „ Antiope.
Prometheus      - Jupiter.
Perseus      - Jupiter and Danae.
Mercury      - ,, ,, Maia (Indian).
Aeolus      - ,, ,, Aeasta.
Apollo      — ,, ,, Latona.
Aethlius      - ,, ,, Prologenia.
Arcus      - ,, ,, Mortal Mother
Arcolus      

These were all pre-eminently Sun Gods.

Zeus had innumerable children by connection with Dawn
Maidens.

Zoroaster, the Sun God of Persia, had a series of “ Sons of
Zoroaster,” by the immaculate conception of virgins.

They were all destined to suffer and die.

Their birth was foretold by a blazing star at mid-day, and so on.

The mothers of the Sons of Jove are, of course, mothers of the
sun, and hence become mothers of the gods, yet they are mostly
earthly maidens like Mary or demi-goddesses at first and conceive
by “ immaculate conception.”

Their children are the renewed sun in January and the old sun
is the father, but both are the same, so the son is his own father
and is suckled by his wife.

The Christmas dogma does not escape from this dilemma, as the
Prayer Book tells us that the son is eternal and co-exists with the
Father from all eternity in the Godhead. The Virgin Mary is
impregnated by the spirit of God, which is partly the Son, and so
the Son is his own father and suckled by his wife.

These curious relationships exist in all religions; even Adam
was, in Genesis ii., the father of Eve, while, in Genesis i., being
made at the same moment, is her brother, then after Eden, her
husband. The ” sister spouse,” or God’s wife, was a tenet of all
old religions.

This universal myth is caused by the fact that all Northern
religions were founded on fructification of the earth every Spring
by the sun. The sun and earth having been created (or bom) at the
same time by the*same Father (creative god) were brother and sister,
yet the fertility of the earth is caused by the sun, who is the earth’s
bridegroom in Spring. Hence, the earth is sister-spouse to the sun.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

13?

This doctrine was carried out literally in the Egyptian dynasty to
sustain the idea of its Divinity. Cleopatra is said to have encom-
passed the death of her young brother to avoid the necessity of
becoming his wife.

To-save mankind (from the cold of winter), all Sun Gods descend
to earth and take an earthly maiden, who brings forth the Saviour.
But as this maiden is, in all mythology, the Dawn (Maya or Mary),
she is not really earthly, but belongs to the sky, and is a goddess.

This dilemma caused the Catholics to deify the Virgin’s mother,
and father also, and even to say that all her female ancestors were
“without sin,” so that she might be pure. But “without sin”
means without death, so the attempt was made to declare the
Virgin’s forebears to be goddesses.

Now Mary is queen of heaven. She did not die, but was trans-
lated to heaven without death, say the Catholics.

The Protestant heaven with no queen, is a cold conception,
and the theistic heaven of the deist is colder still. Both fail by their
inhuman idea of a companionless God, and they will never hold
warm-blooded humanity.
 PART II.

THE BIBLE.

ANCIENT CULTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Introduction.

In dealing with such a vague subject as “religion,” it is well to take
a careful look at the words we employ, and get an idea of their
true meaning from a detached point of view. We have two words,
“Bible” and “Testament,” to define the “divine word” or
writings, or the direct communication of information from God to
man.

The word Bible is derived from Byblos, the Greek rendering of
Papyrus, on which the Egyptians wrote their scrolls. Papyrus is
our word paper, so that " Bible ” means “ paper ”—not “ book,”
a9 all documents were in rolls, and not bound as are our
books. The Phoenicians rendered Papyrus into Bybylos, then to
Byblos, and this is a good example of transliteration. B and P are
always interchangeable, and R and L in Egyptian and most other
languages, were represented by one sign, so Papyrus could be read
Babylus ; and as vowels could scarcely be said to exist in languages
like Phoenician, the pronunciation could take any sound which
pleased the ear of the people.

Jerome called his Bible, “Bibliotheca Divini”—the Divine
library.

By calling it The Bible, this is The Book or paper, the only book
of its kind, we tacitly state that it is the actual “ Word of God,” and
that there is no other. Now this is just what all other religions
claim, and it is a curious fact that, as each nation arrived at a similar
height of intelligence or civilization, it produced its Bible. The
production of a Bible is just as much the product of the mental
adolescence of a nation as is the production of a flower, the sign
of the adolescence of a plant. As the Asiatic nations were derived
from common stock, the different branches arrived at the maturity
sufficient for Bible .production at periods not far apart, so we find
that from 500 B.c. down to 200 A.D. there was an epidemic of Bible
making.

The second y&rd we use is “ Testament.” This is generally
interpretated as will or message, as in " My last will and testament,”
and may be considered as simply a synonym for ” Word of God,”
 CHRISTIANITY

139

God’s will, or God's writing, spell, or Gospel, that is, God’s spell,
in the same sense as witch’s spell. A spell was an oracular or
necromantic injunction, or curse, sometimes written down in words
or symbols, or ’’spelled,” and the Gospel is God’s “spell,” or
oracle, (or the “cure of souls,” just as a witch’s or devil's spell
might be, to cause injury or malady to souls.

Hence, the New Testament is spoken of as the new “ Will of
God,” although most people consider it as a continuation or com-
pletion of the earlier will, or as a codicil.

But Calmet says that in no part of the Old “ Testament ” does
the word so translated mean “ will or testament.”

As we shall see, at p. 253, Testament, testimony, witness,
covenant, and eduth, as used in the Old Testament, have all a very
old Phallic meaning, connected with the swearing of covenants,
testaments, and witnesses, on the Phallus or Testes, still used by
the Arabs. It is connected with “ Testudo,” the tortoise, the
Phallic symbol of the Indians “ on which the world rests,” in fact,
all “ test ” words, even the chemists* tests performed in the Phallic
“ hermetically ” sealed tubes (Hermes is the Phallus) are Phallic.

Testament is called in Greek, diatheke, or “ going between,”
from the Phallic custom of oath-taking, by placing the hand between
the thighs, or going between that which is cut for sacrificial pur-
poses ; and as we will see in the study of the “ Eduth,” all ” Testi-
monies,” “Witnesses,” “Covenants,” “Stones,” and “Memo-
rials ” in the Ark of the ” Covenant ” have their roots in the same
thing—the Phallus, as is still the case in German.

The word Eduth,—Testimony in the English Bible,—is intimately
connected with the Phallic stones in the Ark, which were replaced
by ” liber,” the Book, and even this was at first by no means a book,
but was connected with that which is liber or “free,” celebrated
by the ” Liberalia ” feasts, or Phallic celebrations.

The Christian is said to be sealed by the “ Sanguis novi testa-
ment!, whereas it was by the “Sanguis” of the “ Testamentum
Circumcisione ” that the Jew was sealed to his Eduth stones, and
we know how Phallic the rite of circumcision is. In fact, we find a
widespread Phallic significance in the word “ test.” Testate and
intestate mean complete and incomplete. Testament then was
closely allied to other early religious ceremonies of the Israelites,
such as taking a solemn oath or promise by putting the hand on
the Phallus of the person who imposed the oath.

The Reverend Mr. Collins told the Society of Biblical Archeology
that Abraham’s oath on his thigh (Phallus), Genesis xxiv., 23,
intimates a widespread Phallic worship, and seems the base of a
general ” Asharism,” which suggests the Priapianism of Greeks
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and Latins. The Asharim were the “ abominable things,’*
“ shameful things,” i.e., Phalli, erected at “every street corner ”
and worshipped under ” every green tree ” by the Jews, for which
the women wove hangings in the temple,—gay ribbons as on the
maypole (p. 58). It is constantly condemned by the Biblical
prophets or Nabis, so this cult was the popular religion of the Jews
interwoven into the very fibre of their nature.

Mediaeval people swore on the cross, which, we shall find, is
admittedly a bisexual Phallic emblem of life.

We still swear on the Testes or Testament, or on that ” liber ”
or Book connected with “ libra,” balance or justice, which libra
is the Phallus (p. 79), and was used to represent justice in Egypt
and in the Zodiac. Liber is the origin of the “ Liberalia,” Phallic
fetes which gave freedom for the day to married and all other
people, as everything Phallic, like love, is free, and not to be
bound or commanded.

We shall find that the Christian Bible is, as Forlong says, the
most Phallic of all Bibles. The reason is that the Jews were very
ignorant of all astronomical science, and so the once universal
Phallic faith was not swept away so early as in other more advanced
nations, and, in fact, remained in their litany and traditions well
into the period of permanent Bible writing, whereas the other
religions had passed well into the astronomical or sun worship
period before their formal Bibles were constructed.

The Libra or Free thing of the Zodiac was no balance, as we
have seen on p. 79, but the complete reproductive organ, and so
symbolical of life. Liber, book, or testament, is well called a
“ Book of Life.”

In Egyptian hieroglyphics [Fig. 84] the word for “just” or
“justice” was a drawing of the Phallus, and it also signified in
this direction “ freedom,” that is freedom from fear, one who would
do justice without fear.

By turning the Phallus of the Zodiac into a pair of scales the
ancients brought in the use of the same word for Liberty, Justice,
Phallus, Book, and Balance. The Liberalia feasts derived from
Libra were orgies of Phallism.

The Jews got their theistic ideas from the nations of their
numerous captivities, but the whole basis of religions, symbolism,
and practice amongst the common people was Phallic, as we shall
see.

The English have replaced the native by foreign Phallic words
(p. 89), but others retain them, for instance Germany, where the
root word “Zeug” signifies Witness, Testimony, Procreation and
the phallus, as “ Test ” does in English.
 CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The faith of a country is not necessarily that of its most advanced
preachers or highest thinkers, their teaching is often as the voice of
one crying in the wilderness ; but, in their admonitions and scold'
mgs, in which they describe and condemn the practices of the
people, one can find a true index of what the common people be-
lieved, loved, and practised. The Bible contains a very fair amount
of this very reliable, because unconsciously given, evidence.

Before we examine the nature of the contents of the Bible,
especially the Old Testament, we may gain some insight into the
cause of the extreme irregularity of its contents if we glance at its
chequered history.

The only writing in Palestine of which we now possess any
specimens, was done in the Babylonian cuneiform characters.
“ There is not a scrap in any other language or script ” (Naoille—
** Discovery of the Book °f the Law,” p. 35). Sayce shows that a
large number of the verses of 14th Genesis are reproductions of
Babylonian originals (“ Higher Criticism,” pp. 119, 160, 278). The
Ten Commandments were written in Babylonian cuneiform, and
were simply Hamurabi’s laws modified by time. Hebrew is a mixed
language, very nebulous, owing to its conflicting sources. It was
borrowed from all the countries in which the Hebrews lived for
various periods as slaves, and was expressed in the Phoenician
alphabet, borrowed about the time of Solomon or later. All this
mixture causes great difficulty in producing a translation on which
all scholars can agree. The language has no backbone to it. It is
like a jelly fish, capable of being squeezed into any form. There
is no evidence of the rise of the Hebrew script. It was probably a
secret priestly medium, as there is no trace of it in Palestine.

The “ Books ” of the Bible have been attributed to various law
givers or prophets, just as all stories in the mythical histories are
clustered round the names of some hero or teacher.

The Books of Genesis and Leviticus contain no statement as to
the reductions of their narratives to writing.

But in Exodus xvii. occurs the first mention of writing a book.
Moees is instructed to record the intention of Yahweh to efface
Amalek in these words, ” And Yahweh said unto Moses, write this

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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua ; that
I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under
heaven.”

Then in xxiv., 4. Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh (Anglice
Jehovah), which formed a solemn covenant of obedience. We
have here the first mention of a religious book, this " Book of the
Covenant.” Here, then, was a sacred book before the Bible.
Then we have a few lines in Numbers xxi., 14, which are attributed
to the ” Book of the Wars of Yahweh,” so there was evidently
smother Holy Book, called “ The Wars of Yahweh.” Another
book is cited in Joshua x., 12, under the name of ” The Book of
Jashar.” To this book belongs the lament of David over Saul and
Jonathan.

It is evident, then, that, as in all other religions, there were
many fragmentary writings in existence, and it required a civiliza-
tion of a certain height before some one produced a book which
utilised the best parts of the scattered literature.

The law was made as “ case law ” is made in our courts to-day,
and law was often made without ” cases ” at all, by creating a theo-
retical difficulty, giving an equally imaginary judgment, and so
establishing law on some hitherto undecided circumstance.

Evidently in the time when Deuteronomy was evolved, the Ten
Commandments did not exist in their present severe form, as we
find in Deuteronomy xxiv., 16: ” The fathers shall not be put to
death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death
for the fathers ; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”
Compare this with the terrible words ” Visit the sins of the fathers
upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation,” a result
which sometimes happens, in the course of nature, in a certain
disease, but which every good Christian is engaged to-day in com-
batting.

We see, then, the gradual evolution of a sort of Bible out of
ancient legends of wars and poems, and continued fresh additions
by various prophets.

In the later Greek age (when Palestine was over-run with Greeks)
to which the composition of the Chronicles must be assigned, the
Mosaic tradition may be regarded as fully formed. ” But it must
be borne in mind,” says Carpenter, ” that the earliest testimony to
Moses as the author of the Pentateuch is thus found to date a
thousand years after the Exodus.” (“Bible in the Nineteenth
Century, p. 33.}'

That the ” Mosaic ” law did not teach any religion, as we under-
stand it, is clear from the result of the life-long researches of Pro-
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

143

feasor Sayce, who says, in his “ Higher Criticism,” p. 279, ” The
Mosaic law maintained a resolute silence on the doctrine of a future
life. Of the doctrine of a resurrection there is not a whisper. The
law of Israel did not look beyond the grave.”

The sacred books of India, China, and other great nations were
taken up with the affairs of heaven, or gods, while the Jewish Bible
is entirely absorbed with the affairs of earth.

The Jewish writers had most of the great thinkers of antiquity
on their side. Gcero had no belief in a soul living after death, and
Horace said, ” Death is the end.” The writer of Ecclesiastes held
the same opinion, Chronicles iii., 19-21.

The most philosophic passages of the Old Testament, which
uphold this view, are also the most beautiful and poetic although
sad in tone and darkened with thoughts of the inevitable tragedy of
the extinction of life by death.

Other texts which occur to me are Job i. 21, Job xiv. 2-14, Psalm
cxv. 17, Eccl. ix. 5-b, Eccl. xii. 5, but as Dr. Sayce so well says,
the Old Testament law has not a whisper of the doctrine of life
beyond the grave and the contrary is everywhere implied.

Having briefly glanced at the mode of production of this book,
let us now see how it has been handed down to us. There is no
authentic copy of the Old Testament earlier than 916 A.D. Accord-
ing to Herzog, a high authority, the oldest MSS. of the Hebrew
Bible dates from 1009—quite close to the Norman Conquest of Eng-
land.

The Westminster revisers, who created, the revised version,
followed a text called the ” Masoretic text,” which was built upon
the Samaritan Bible and the quasi Septuagint version, and they
followed this ” as it has come down in MSS. of no great antiquity—
the earliest being 916 A.D.” (or according to Herzog, 1009 A.D.)

MASORETIC VERSION.

The Masoretic version was produced by the Masoretes, who
were Rabbis of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, and they
finally established a canon and text of Scripture about 550-650
A.D., from a collection of critical and marginal notes to the Old
Testament made by Jewish writers. It is written in Aramaic, and
was printed at Venice in 1525 A.D. The Masoretes were the first
who divided the books into chapters, and the sections of the books
into verses..

The word Masoretes means ” possessors of the tradition.” They
were trained scholars, but relied on tradition.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Hebrew began to be “pointed" by the early Masoretes, like
our shorthand, with dots and lines to indicate vowels, but the pro-
nunciation was quite indefinite and only known by tradition. Suth
“ points ” began to be used about 370 A.D., and the Masorah was
finally established about 650 A.D. The variation in the spelling of
names in the Greek Septuagint shows there were great differences
of opinion as to the pronunciation of names, and it is clear from
the visible blunders of the Masoretes that the original meaning had
ceased to be intelligible even to these trained scholars.

Scholarship was then at a low ebb and there were no dictionaries,
so that these Rabbis amended the text according to their faith or
opinion and entirely on oral traditions.

They worked, not on the Hebrew Bible, but on the Samaritan
version. The division into verses and chapters was quite arbitrary,
as we see in Genesis ii., and the Samaritans divided the Bible differ-
ently from ours, Genesis having 150 chapters in their version.

Dr. Ginsburg in his (the generally accepted) edition of the
Masorah, relies on that of Jacob Ben Chayim, 1524 A.D.

Recent researches call in question much of the Masoretic com-
pilation.

The known Septuagint has no clear relation to its great proto-
type, as it is only composed from the Greek text of the great uncials
of the 4th and 5th centuries; and the Vatican and Alexandrian
MSS. have considerable differences.

The Greek text is as imperfect as the Hebrew, and was also
often altered for religious purposes, while mistranslations, which
make no sense frequently occur, with other corruptions. (“ Faiths
of Man/’ /., p. 304, Forlong.)

Our translators of the revised version had to be content with a
Hebrew MS., which had drifted from an unknown source to St.
Petersburg, and was dated 916 A.D.

The authorised version was translated and composed from a
copy of Aaron Ben Asher, 1034, belonging to the great Maimonides,
the “Second Moses," 1200 A.D., and that of Jacob Ben Naphtali,
a copy also of about our 11th century, and adopted by Eastern Jews.

Let us attempt to trace as much of its history as has been dis-
covered.

In 2 Kings, xxii., an actual document is called the Torah of
Yahweh, and, as Forlong says (•“ Short Studiesp. 415), was
“ suspiciously produced by the high priest Hilkiah, at a time when
he was pressed for funds to amend and repair the temple." This
was about 625 B.C., in the early part of the reign of the pious young
king Josiah, who ordered Hilkiah (father of Jeremiah) to prove that
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

145

ike writing was “ the law of the Lord ” or “ Book of the Covenant
and this the old priest accomplished by the assistance of a certain
woman, Hulda, the “ weasel,” a sorceress. “Thou shalt not permit
a sorceress to live,” and yet we are dependent on a sorceress for
a decision as to the authenticity of the ” Word of God.”

Loisy holds (p. 10, “Religion of Israel”), as do most critics,
that this ” law ” was composed—not found.

This first discovered “Torah of Yahweh ” evidently did not
cause much stir, because we hear nothing further of it till it was
resuscitated by Ezra and his scribes when he was sent up from
Babylon by the over-lord of Jerusalem to re-start the rites and
services of the new temple.

Ezra was not the only Babylonian priest employed in construct-
ing the Hebrew Scripture. Nehemiah was another. We also see
in 2 Kings xvii., 27, and other parts of the Old Testament, how
natives, chosen by the Babylonian priests, who had been carried
as captives to Babylon, were sent back to teach the Hebrews the
elements of religion, and some of the greatest high priests, such as
Hillel, about the time of Jesus, were Babylonian born and trained,
and sent by the over-lord to regulate the Jews’ religion. The chaos
of religions practised in Palestine is shown in verses 30, 31, of
2 Kings, xvii., mixed with Yahweh worship. Succoth Benoth,
Tents of Venus, came from Babylon, as stated in verse 30.

At Ezra’s time Jerusalem had been totally destroyed, its temples
reduced to ruins, its priests dispersed, and the priestly documents
removed, burnt, or otherwise destroyed.

It was found difficult to rule a country without a priesthood, so
Cyrus (the name used for God in the New Testament), King of
Babylon, ordered Jerusalem to be rebuilt and its temple restored ;
and sent Ezra to re-establish the Jewish religion and Bible.

This is how the cosmogony of the Bible was copied from that
of Babylon. George Smith’s discoveries were the first external
proof that this was the case, and great consternation and surprise
were expressed by Church people, but a careful examination of
the mode of production of the “Books of Moses” by Ezra and
Nehemiah might have shown scholars long ago that Babylonian cos-
mogony was the only cosmogony possible, as being the only one
known to these Babylonian writers of the “ Word of God.”

Hislop’s elaborate proof that the Roman Catholic Church
doctrines and practices were directly derived from Babylon had a
Very true basis, although he did not discover the true fountain from
which th^e Hebrew “ Word of God ” had issued.

Even the wise high priest, Hillel, whose tolerant rule issued in

L
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

the revival which led to Christianity, was educated in Babylonian
schools under Persian rule, and died in Jerusalem about 10 A.D.,
when Jesus was a boy. Thus we see that the prophets and high
priests of other times were generally foreigners sent by the
Babylonian Conqueror or over-lord to rule Jerusalem, and
Jerusalem, as we shall see, was almost always under a Conqueror.

In respect of the Jews being taught by foreign priests, we should
remember also that it was not Yahweh, but Jethro, a foreigner, the
father-in-law of Moses, who taught Moses how to govern the tribes.
Our own religion is of foreign origin, imposed on us by Rome.

As a preface, Yahweh tells Ezra that he had formerly made a
similar statement to Moses, and had commanded him ; ” Some of
these my words thou shalt declare, some thou shalt hide; some
things thou shalt show secretly to the wise.” Ezra was seated
under a sacred oak or Ale when the Ale-im or Elohim spoke to
him out of a bush (as they did to Moses), ” 1 will reveal again all
that has been lost, the secrets of the times and the end.” Ezra, in
reply, tells Yahweh, “ Thy law is burnt, therefore none can know
the past or future—send thy Holy Ghost unto me and I shall write
what has been done since the beginning.”

The chance of any official Bible surviving the many conquests of
Jerusalem is very slight. At that time the sacred books were
written or painted on ox hides, so the Bible must have occupied a
large space, so that no private person was likely to have a copy.
The official Bibles were often destroyed by the conqueror, and the
conquest of Jerusalem was accomplished so often, and its temples
and Scriptures so frequently destroyed, that it is difficult to see how
any complete authenticated copy escaped destruction. Here is a
short list of the destructions.

We find in Chronicles I. and II. over thirty wars, sackings, and
pillages when there was every chance of the sacking of the temple
and the destruction of the sacred records. Tiglath-Pileser,
Nebuchadnezzar, Siskak of Egypt, the Syrians, the Philistines,
Senacherib, Necho of Egypt, in turn, conquer the land,—besides
internal rebellions over religious matters and Hasmonean and
Maccabi wars.

Many of the Jews taken captives by the Edomites, about
800 B.C., were sold to the Greeks, who took them to their country.
When they returned from the ” Islands of the Sea ” (Greece),
Isaiah ii., they brought the Greek legends with them in a crude form,
and finally they got incorporated in the Scriptures, Hercules as
Samson, and all the Sun Gods as shown to us by Goldzibter, from
Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Job, and the scraps in Daniel.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

147

Their earlier captivities are related in Isaiah xi.: “In that day
the Lord shall set His hand the second time to recover the remnant
of His people which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt,
and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from
Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea,” mean-
ing Cyprus, Greece, etc.

There are eight captivities. There were besides the long
Persian occupation of the land when they the Persians made slaves
of the best men and deported them for work in the Euphrates
Valley and Persia. Then the Greek occupation, when they were
again enslaved, then the final destruction of the “Hornets’ Nest” by
the Romans, 70 A.D., when they were again deported to Rome and
employed as slaves to build the coliseum and pyramid of Caius
Sextus, which was built into the Aurelian Wall to imitate Egyptian
ideas (“Rome and its Story,” p. 157). They were never again
allowed to return.

Titus Caesar levelled the Temple at Jerusalem 70 a.d. Hadrian
drew a plough share over the site to make perpetual interdiction
(" Gibbon,” Vol III., p. 61).

The sacred Scriptures were removed to Rome at the request of
Josephus and never again heard of. A few years more saw a
Temple of Venus on the spot where it was supposed the death and
resurrection of Jesus took place, and this stood for nearly 300 years,
when Constantine pulled it down and built a Christian Church, to
which worshippers made pilgrimages, just as they had done to the
Hebrew Temple and to the Venus Tabernacle.

Then we find, in another half century, the Emperor Julian chang-
ing all back by rebuilding the Jewish Temple, to counteract the
mummeries which disgraced the Christian shrine and which had
filled Jerusalem with every kind of debauchery and vice. (“ Rioers
of Life," L. p. 217.)

The destruction or mutilation of Bibles by soldiers is well
illustrated, in our own day, by an incident that recently happened
in Tibet. By our invasion of that country China was compelled
to assert its sovereignty and sent an army of occupation. The army
soon found their boots cut up by the rough roads, and when
quartered on some of the great monasteries the soldiers used the
“badly tanned ox hides and shreds of leather,” on which the
Tibetan scriptuffes are still written (or painted exactly as were the
Jewish), to repair their foot gear, and the Lamma has memorialised
the Chinese Emperor complaining of the destruction and mutilation
of their Scriptures in this way. But when we recollect how often
Jerusalem was invaded and sacked and its population deported we
cannot wonder at the chaotic state of their Scriptures.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

It will be seen that the chances of the destruction of a lot of ox
hides, written with rude characters, were very great, especially as
the conquerors always insulted and cowed the conquered by break-
ing their gods, burning their documents, and using their sacred
emblems with contumely.

Ptolemy Soter, or Ptah-mes Soter, 44 Son of God the Saviour 44—
Ptah being the Egyptian God at that time (such claims were made
centuries before Jesus was invested with the title), and his son
Ptolemy Philadelphus, and grandson Ptolemy Euergetes, were all
devoted to literary and art collections. They established libraries,
museums, academies, art, literary, and educational institutions,
while they tolerated, if they did not aid, the religion of all their
subjects.

These rulers used every means to secure books and MSS. from
very distant lands, even from those beyond their sway, and they
made a rule that all originals must be placed in the national libraries,
and the owners supplied with certified copies in exchange. In
this way the world-wide collection was effected. Manetho’s famous
44 History of Egypt44 was deposited in the Bruchium Library, and,
owing to the burning of the library, only fragments, quoted by
others, have come down to us through Eusebius, who saw and
copied some lists of Egyptian dynasties made by Julius Africanus
about 220 A.D. Even these imperfect fragments are the most
valuable ancient histories of Egypt we have. As to the Hebrew
Scriptures, Aristaeus says that Demetrius, the librarian, urged
Ptolemy the first to command the high priest of Jerusalem to send
the Temple copy, but Philadelphus altered that and commanded
the originals to be sent, and that these were finally sent, but only
after many royal gifts and beneficences had been extended to all
Jews, including their being made free men at great expense. The
sacred writings on 44 shreds of leather 44 were sent in charge of 72
temple elders, who were to act as translators, and who never lost
sight of the precious rolls. Then come the usual miracles, etc. The
72 men did their work in 72 days, and the original was stored in the
Bruchium Library. This is the origin of the name 44 Septuagint "
(70) or 44 LXX.44 as applied to the source of the Old Testament.
This famous library, on being catalogued by Zenodotus, contained
490,000 volumes, whereas the Serapeum contained only 42,800.
The Serapium, called after the God Serapis, was more famous, as
this library was popularly, though erroneously, supposed to be burnt
by the Mohaftimedans under the dogma that the Koran was the
only book necessary to man, and that all others should be destroyed.
In 47 B.c. the Bruchium was burnt down, when Caesar set fire to the
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149

Egyptian fleet in the bay, at the famous Anthony and Cleopatra era.
Here were finally destroyed the originals of the Jewish Scriptures.
The miraculous translation is now held to be apocryphal. Encyc.
Brit., vol. 24, p. 654 (llth Edition).

It is clear that we have no originals nor authoritative translations,
and that all our texts belong to mediaeval times, compiled and
copied from unknown sources, by unknown and often “ harmonis-
ing ” ecclesiastics. We find Origen, who was a great harmoniser,
picking up accidentally, in Caesarea, a Greek fragmentary Old
Testament ” by one Symmachus, a semi-Christian translator of the
Jewish Scriptures ” and handing this down through the ages as the
“Word of God."

Dr. Taylor says : “ Symmachus adopts more or less paraphrastic
and inaccurate renderings under the influence of dogmatic pre-
possessions.’*

Origen writes that, in his day, 230-240 A.D., the LXX. (Septua-
gint) was a “ recension of recensions.”

“ It was a long continued process to produce such recensions of
the sacred text as seemed to the scribes needful and apt.” (“ Short
Studiespp. 434, 435," Forlong.)

Eusebius founded his work on that of an apostate called Theo-
dotan, “who was known to be an unsafe translator, especially in
passages referring to Christ as being the Messiah, and at this time
beginning to be called God himself.”

Eusebius was the most learned man of his age, of vast erudition
and sound judgement, and took a neutral position in the great Arian
discussion as to the Divinity of Jesus (Dr. McGijfert, in Encyc. Brit.,
llth Edition, Vol. IX., p. 953). So we see it took 300 years to
deify Jesus, as at the time when Eusebius was writing (300 to 340
A.D.) Jesus was only beginning to be called God.

Origen wrote that “ there is a great difference in the copies (of
the Scriptures) either from the carelessness of scribes or the rash
and mischievous corrections of the text by others, or from the addi-
tions and omissions made by others at their own discretion.

Unfortunately he does exactly the same, uses ” by the help of
God other versions as our criterion .   .   . and where doubtful

by the discordance of copies forming a judgement from other oer-
sions" Canon Selwyn’s translation and italics.

Origen knew that the people must have some standard Bible,
and finding that all luiown versions have been tampered with,
“ framed his Tetrapla as the best he can find," and proceeds to
4* tamper with the tamperedf” as Forlong graphically puts it.

He did his best, by establishing side-by-side various versions.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

and his own remark*. He had laboured to give a special recen-
sion, correcting errors and supplying defects—but with the deplor-
able result that his notes got mixed up with the texts by persons
trying to improve the Scriptures.

The Fathers preferred the corrupt Septuagint, as they knew only
Creek, and could not read the Hebrew, and they used the Maaoretic
text, terribly corrupted or “ improved,” while the Hebrew version,
used by the Rabbin, got mixed up with the Tetrapla and Hexapla
of Origen, and had also alternative readings, marginal notes, and
comments which slipped into the text—itself of unknown origin.

* Even in Ezra's day the Scriptures, or Tar gum, were in a language
unknown to the people, so translations were required.

All this search for an ” original text ” is useless, as there never
was an ” original text.”

The Bible is a growth of centuries, derived from fables and oral
tradition, which were themselves always in process of change ; its
form was decided, and its cosmogony written, by Babylonian
priests.

The Ezraitic account of the writing of the Bible is a paraphrase
of that called the Mosaic, as far as the reproduction of the ” law ”
is concerned. Both are shut up for forty days in close converse
with Yahweh, and in both cases 70 wise men were present to hear
the secret communications, all others are to worship afar off, and
the 70 are to assist Moses when he is in the Tabernacle of the
Highest (Numbers xi., 16), but Ezra had the advantage that he
was a trained Babylonian priest saturated with the lore and cos-
mogonic fables of the ” Mother of Harlots,” and so he moulded
the Jewish, and through it the Christian religion, as Hislop has so
fully proved, on the great Babylonian original. It is not really a
struggle between geology and Genesis, but between modern science
arid the Babylonian "astrologers, star gazers, and monthly prog-
nosticators,” so condemned by Isaiah (Isa-jah) xlvii., 13.

The Hebrew religion was always controlled from Babylon, so
the native Nabis were probably seldbm promoted to the higher
offices. This may account for the terribly bitter language always
employed by them about Babylon.

Volumes could be filled with a mere index of the disastrous
criticism of the text of the Bible ; but enough has been quoted to
show that, when a ” standard ” had been arrived at, it was either
lost, destroyed, or accidentally burnt, and so it drifted on, under-
going incessantochange.

The Holy Book was then re-created from fragmentary copies,
memory, and tradition. Besides these sources of error, there was
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

151

always an evolution going on by alterations of passages, which
could no longer be understood, to make them readable ; as well' as
an absolute change of words, which referred to ancient supersti-
tions, and especially words relating to Phallic observances, so that
die obscene rites, which were quite moral and natural to an early
people, might not shock and degrade those whose ideas had been
changed by the advance of civilization. The English translators hid
these Phallic practices by wilful mistranslation, so that the Bible is
not that of the Hebrews alone, but also of the Westminster trans-
lators. Hence, the " rags and tatters ” of the ancient text which
remain need very careful examination and separating from the
modem parts, in order to arrive at the true meaning of the ancient
rites described.

The Old Testament was practically lost to sight from the time
of the Christian Fathers till 916 A.D., which is the conjectural date of
the oldest known manuscript, now in the St. Petersburg Museum.
It was brought to Spain by the Moors, who considered it inspired.
It came down'to us through Mohammedan sources, for the Bible
as well as Mahomed’s Koran is a sacred book to the followers of
die prophet; but, if the Bible was altered, amended, and edited
out of all recognition, up to the time of Origen, what must we expect
to remain to us unchanged by 400 years’ sojourn amongst the Moors
of a book carried right across Africa ?

The Reverend Sir George Cox, in his “ Life of Colenso,” regrets
that the English Bible does not use the actual Hebrew words instead
of quite different Saxon words for God and Lord. “ For," says
Cox, ‘‘the Hebrew Gods were in no way distinguished from the
Elohim of the nations around them .   .   . and the Shemitic

nations had no special monotheistic tendencies, and those of the
Aryans were decidedly polytheistic.”

The Bible was mis-translated by King James’ commission to suit
modem ideas, and is therefore not the “ Word of God," but the
“ word of King James’s translators ’* (pp. 158-159).
 CHAPTER II

ANALYSIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

That the reconstitution of the Hebrew Scriptures carried out by
Ezra, Nehemiah, and other Babylonian scribes, was derived, for
the most part, from fragmentary documents or traditions, coupled
with the scribes’ own Babylonian cosmogony, is rendered certain
by the results of modern criticism, and from internal evidence. No
set of writings has been subjected to so enormous an amount of
minute criticism as has been bestowed by the great scholars, com-
mencing with Jean Astruc, a French physician of Montpellier, in a
work entitled “ Conjectures on the Original Memoirs, of which it
appears that Moses availed himself to compose the Book of
Genesis.” 1753.

Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, a German of Gottingen, 1780,
adopted Astruc’s results, carried the criticism further, and invented
the phrase “ higher criticism.” He was followed by another
German, Karl David Ilgen, who published his book, ” The Original
Documents of the Temple Archieves at Jerusalem in their primitive
form,” at Halle, in 1798.

All these referred only to Genesis. It was left for a Scottish
Roman Catholic priest, Mr. Alexander Geddes, who, in 1792, pub-
lished a new translation of the Scriptures with notes and critical
remarks to extend the enquiries.

He dealt, not with Genesis alone, but with the first five, so-called,
Books of Moses. From internal evidence he came to three con-
clusions : (1) The Pentateuch, in its present form, was not written
by Moses ; (2) It was written in the land of Canaan, and most
probably at Jerusalem; (3) It could not have been written before
the reign of David, nor after Hezekiah. He suggested the long
pacific reign of Solomon as the likeliest period.

The work was carried on by J. S. Vater, who carried out “ the
fragment hypothesis to a very full extent, but no one had yet
tried to build up similar fragments into separate documents, till
De Wette, in 1806, stated the problem to be two-fold. (1) Analy-
tical, as carried out by Astruc, Eichhorn and Geddes, and (2) Con-
structional, or literary, an attempt to recompose the different docu-
ments which had been mixed up in the Pentateuch. It would take
too long to follow the course of the enormous amount of study and
labour given by hundreds of students to the subject, but all analyses
pointed to the existence of four sources of the narrative contained
 CHRISTIANITY

153

in the Pentateuch. To take them in the order in which they occur
in the early books of the Bible.

(1)   A writer who employed the term Ale-im, or Elohim (in
English) as the supreme being or beings (the word being plural).
This is mis-translated as “ God ” in our English Bible. This
writer’s work is indicated by the letter E.

(2)   A writer who employed the name Yahweh (in English
Jehovah), for the Tribal God of the Hebrews, and translated
" Lord ” in our English Bible, indicated by the letter J.

(3)   A priestly writer, who wrote the “ generations ” of Terah
and Shem, sons of Noah, the book of generations of Adam,
"generations” being expressed in Hebrew as ” Toldhoth.”
These books of origins, universal, and family history, and priestly
legislation are grouped as “ priestly ” under the letter P.

(4)   Deuteronomy is regarded as a separate work by an un-
known author, and is indicated by the letter D.

Al, Ale-im, or Elohim.

The terminology of the Gods of the Hebrews was a very loose
one, its they heard of the same Gods through different nations, and
hence with different pronunciations. The God of Western Asia
was Al, El, II, or Ol, according to the pronunciation of the nation.
(See p. 27.)

We have " Bab-Ilu ” (Babylon of the Greeks), meaning “ Gate
of the God.” The Phoenicians worshipped Ol. The Hebrew form
Al is used 272 times as god in the Old Testament, and is evidently
a name originally signifying virility, as it is constantly identified
wth “ Ail,” a “ ram.” It is used also as meaning the strong, high,
virile one, an oak stem pillar, post or upright thing in Ezek. xxxi.,
14, Job xlii., 8, or terebinth, or other robust tree stem. These were
all symbolised by an upright pillar or Phallus like the column on
page 78 or the phallic symbol for man L used by all ancient
nations (p. 99).

Job also calls his God Alshadai thirty-one times, and identifies
him with the Behemoth, whose Phallic powers he describes as
" Chief of the ways of God ” (Job xl. 19). Now in all early religions
the Chief of the Ways of God was creation of life, or reproduction
of life, and its symbol was the Phallus coupled with a female, Ark,
Ruach, Bowl, Yoni, or Dove, the latter the symbol of Melitta,
Kubele, Aphrodit£, Venus, Mary, or other Queen of Heaven. But
the Hebrews' detestation of woman caused them to state only the
masculine side in their religious allegories.

The< passage is couched in language evidently considered too
coarse for truthful translation, but if the reader will substitute the
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

[Prometheus]

true words for those mistranslated in order to veil the meaning of
verse 17, and write “ setteth up,** or ** maketh to stand,'* as given
in die margin, instead of ** moveth,” and “ phallus *’ instead of
** tail," he will see the true signification. Job likens the ** tail ** to
a cedar, a tree stem universally employed as a symbol for the
Phallus (p. 17, Fig. 32, p. 61), and the setting up is described in

pp. 81-82.

This is a mutilated part of the sixth but earliest purely Hebrew
account of creation (p. 161), when religion was entirely Phallic. It
is masculine. The earliest accounts of other nations were feminine
(pp. 48, 161 et seq.).

A16 occurs 17 times as an oak or terebinth, 99 times as God, 48
times as an oath or to swear, and is the Eli to whom Jesus cried
when forsaken on the cross. " Eli, Eli, Lama Sabacthani."

A16-im, the gods, occurs many hundreds of times in the Old
Testament, and is the plural of Ale, pronounced alley, and called,
in English, Elohim.

It signifies gods, spirits, oaks, rams, strong or great ones, lords
of creation, and even kings and judges.

Alue occurs 57 times as god. He was identical with Yahweh as
the Psalmist says, “ Who is Alue but our Yahweh?"

Olium, or Oli, occurs 74 times as “ most high " or " high " ;
Oli is used 13 times as leaves or branches, and often as a burnt-
offering.

Ailan occurs six times in Daniel, as a tree stump; Alun eight
times, as oak or terebinth; and Ail nine times, as plane tree, 151
times as a ram, palm, tree stem, or post.

We can here see the Phallic nature of this god, as he is asso-
ciated with tree stumps, the symbol of the Phallus, and rams, which
were the special symbol of male fertility; in fact, Lord, God, ram,
pillar, tree stump, and Phallus were the same.

YAHWEH OR JEHOVAH.

The tribal god of the Hebrews, Yahweh, or in English erroneously
called Jehovah, also derived from the. Babylonians, has a very great
number of variations. It is a great pity that the English writers
followed the German, and used die letter J, instead of I or Y, which
are the true equivalents of the German J. By this error our pro-
nunciation of names like Jehovah, Jesus, Jah, and Joshua, is quite
wrong, they should be spelt and pronounced Yehovah, Yesus, Yah,
and Yoshua, of the Y may be replaced by I. We are die only
nation who pronounce words beginning with I, or Y, as though they
began with a soft G, or J. Yahweh should be written lah Veh, and
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

155

as there were no vowels it is Ih. Vh, Ha are mere breaths, so the
name is IV.

Taking, then, the name now called Jehovah, we find that, in
the Hebrew Bible, it was written JHVH or IHVH, and as the H’s are
mere pauses in the breath, this word could not be pronounced,—the
priest always said Adhonay ” or “ Adonai,” instead, really
Adonis “ Lord.” It was said to be ” unpronounceable ” owing
to its holiness, but it is probable that it was so, from quite another
cause. The early form of it was JAH, more correctly I AH; so if
we take out the aspirates (H) we have two symbols, !V from IHVH,
qnd 1A from 1AH, which have been used all over the world as the
symbol of life and have been handed down, probably from our
Druids, to all secret societies, such as Knights-Templar, rosicru-
cians, and our modern Freemasons.

They consisted of the upright Phallic pole or tree stem, repre-
sented by I, as the male symbol, and the triangle or delta V, or

reversed /\ , representing the female. The creator of eternal life,
or the god, was represented by a combination of the two, by placing
the 1 in the V, thus   or   This is the arrow head so much

used to indicate sovreignty, god-ship, or creative power, and it
has come down to our time as the broad arrow as a mark on all
the Sovereign’s goods, even to convicts’ clothes.

That it is not an arrow is evident from the fact that the centre
line, the stele or shaft, is not attached to the pile or head in the
early use of the symbol but is simply placed within the V.

It is the ” three in one ” of the Trinity, and the universal symbol
of reproduction or life (see pp. 24, 259).

The French Phallic symbol for king-godship is the Fleur-de-lys
(p. 24), which has the same meaning and derivation as the ” broad
arrow.”

This formed the symbol of the divine ” Logos ” of St. John (the
mysterious name used by the Christian Gnostics and the Greeks),
which was the ” God,” which was made “ flesh,” and as a symbol
of “flesh," as understood by the. Hebrews, the symbol is perfect
and unpronounceable (p. 135).

This, then, was the original symbol, and as U and V are the
same letters, it had the form 1U (the two sexes), and coupled with
the Assyrian Pittar, ” Father," gave the Romans IU Pittar, creative
father, or, as we say, Jupiter. This was equivalent to saying
” UaganvYoni father,” and we know Jupiter was a very Phallic
god, continually creating life through nymphs.

This » why the genitive of Jupiter is Jovis, or iovis, or YOV1S,—
it is *gsm IV with the genitive " is ” added. The letter O some*
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

times crept in as an alternative feminine, and we have 1.0. (dart
and ring, p. 75), instead of I.V.

This god has even more variations to his name than Al, pp. 153,
154. He is called Ia, Iv, Iah, Jah, Yah, Iau, Jau, Yahu, Ya, Jahv,
Jahu, Jehu, Jeho, Ihvh, Ihbe (Samaritan form), Ya (or Ia), Ava,
IAfl, Ihve, Iaho, Aau, Yahveh, Yahweh, Yachveh, Yahueh, Jhve,
Yach, Yachoh, Jehovah, and even Jo, or Io.

Sayce writes in ” Higher Criticism ” (published by the S.P.C.K.),
p. 470, ” We have Babylonian names BAMA-YA-AVA, NATANU-YA-AVA,
SUTUNA-YA-AVA, ADABI-YA-AVA, all full forms of the name we call
Jehovah. This God was given to the Hebrews by the Baby-
lonians.’*

Mr. Pinches and the Rev. J. C. Ball agree with Sayce that
the Hebrew Jah (or Jehovah) is the Cuneiform Ya-wa, or Ia Va, or
IHVH, or, as Dr. Sayce puts it, Ya-Ava (” v ” and ” w ” are the
same). This is equivalent to IV, as the Babylonian A is equivalent
to the Hebrew H. Mr. Ball found Okab-Iah (Jacob’s Jah).

The God Iah was coupled with a host of names in the Bible,
such as Hilk-iah, Jerem-iah, Hezek-iah, Zechar-iah, Nehem-iah, the
latter being a Babylonian priest, and hence shows that Jehovah as
Iah was common in Babylon.

It is curious how some names persist. We have Larissa, com-
posed of Lars or Luz, the ” love goddess,” who gave their Lares to
the Romans and Isa or Issa, which is considered in Asia to be the
same as Jesus or God, forming a bisexual name.

As late as 1670 A.D. Mr. Pococke, who was studying under
Phatallah, and was much liked by him, tells how Phatallah doubted
not that he would meet Pococke in Paradise under the banner of
Isa or Jesus. Phatallah’s name shows he was a Mohammedan, and
worshipped Al or Allah, II or El, or the Eli, of Jesus’ cry on the
cross.

We find the name Isaiah in the Bible as a great Asiatic prophet;
but at least two writers who have quite different styles have written
under that name, and Dr. Gray in his commentary of Isaiah (1912)
says it is not only double or triple, but is a literature of 600 years’
growth. The name is a combination of Isa (Mohammedan name
for Jesus), and Iah, Isaiah, showing an identity between the two
gods, as all such names contain a tacit declaration—as ” Isa is Iah.”
The phrase Yahweh-Ale-im, so often translated ” Lord God” in
the Bible, could therefore bear a quite different appellation. IV is
double sexecf, or self-creative, or hermaphroditic, while Ale-im
would bear translation as spirits of the oak trees, like those which
uttered the oracles at Dodona. ” Jehovah Elohim” might be
translated the ” Hermaphroditic, or self-creative member of the
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

157

circle of oak spirits,” just as well as " Lord God.” Dr. T. K.
CHeyne, Litt.Doc., D.D., the masterly Oxford professor of Scrip-
ture, and creator of the Encyclopaedia Biblica, in his latest work
the ” Mines of Isaiah Re-explored ” (1912), announces the discovery
that the ” Israelites worshipped a small Divine company under a
Supreme director.” This has been quite obvious since Colenso’s
day. One has only to put ” Lord God ” back to its Hebrew form
Yahweh of the Ale-im or Elohim (plural). We know that the
Eastern conquerors passed through Greece to Rome, and so
they may have brought their Jahs, Jehovahs, and Joves, with them,
and imposed them on the ignorant Westerns. The Bible has other
gods, Tzur, Amen, El Shaddai, A1 Zedik, Kurios, Masio, Ehyeh,
Ur, and so on, derived from the Jews’ neighbours.

Spelling has always been a matter of difficulty, rendering trans-
lations uncertain. Who would, at first sight, discover Jesus on the
letters I-H-C-O-Y-C ?

An elaborate analysis of the Pentateuch is given by Carpenter
and Harford in their analytical works. Looking to the probable
ages in which the four principal writers, Elohistic, Jahvistic, Priestly
and Deuteronomic, composed the E, J, P and D (p. 264), they are
arranged by modern scholars in the order P, J, E, D, putting the
Priestly, or “ Toldhoth,” first, and the first Chapter of Genesis very
late, only before Deuteronomy.

The Elohistic and Jahvistic narrations constantly contradict
one another. They tell the same story, and are principally con-
cerned with history, but constantly differ in detail. For instance,
the Jahvist makes the commandments be given out on Mount Sinai,
while the Elohist says it was on Mount Horeb, yet both make it
a covenant between Yahweh, not Elohim and Israel, so that there
must have been some editing of names also. The origin of many
important passages is obscure. The work of the Harmonist has
been too well done.

The minute analysis given by Carpenter deals with the most com-
plicated and obscure material, and points out so many difficulties
and contradictions that even he is baffled, and one sometimes
rises from its study with the feeling that while he unsettles much,
there are many passages incapable of being settled by our present
knowledge. For instance, after long analyses and serious attempts
to separate the Sinai-Horeb muddle. Carpenter speaks of the ” per-
plexing problems connected with the present form of the Sinai-
Horeb story,” and says: ** The Sinai-Horeb sections in Exodus 19,
24, and 32-34, 28, have long been recognised as among the most in-
tricate and difficult portions of the combined documents. The pres-
 158

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

exit form of the narrative is the result of a succession of editorial pro-
cesses, the steps of which can be very imperfectly traced,” dealing
with fragments by various writers, and he gives up the attempt to
separate the two accounts. So minute have been the analyses of
Scripture carried out by great scholars, that ramifications of the
various authors or compilers, and the editorial tamperings, have
been traced very minutely, as shown by the list Carpenter gives of
the various symbols used to distinguish these various parts of Holy
Writ.

J. Yahwist document.

E. Elohist ,,

J.E. Combination of the two by a ” harmoniser.”

D. The Deuteronomical writer.

Js. Es. Ds., or J2. E2. 02. Secondary elements in J.E.D.

P. Priestly law and history.

Pg. Ground work of P.

Ph. Priestly holiness legislation.

Pt. Earlier groups of priestly teaching.

Ps. Secondary extension of Pg.

Rje. Editorial hands which united and revised J. & E.

Rd. Editors who united J.E. and D.

Rp. „   „   „ J.E.D. and P.

Here we see the complicated web of ” recension of recensions,”
** editing of the edited,” ” tampering with the tampered,” long
before Origen's time.

And this is the Bible, for adding to, or taking away from which,
eternal torment in everlasting fire is threatened.

The whole history of the Bible, through thousands of years, has
been one of ” adding ” and ” taking away,” in which hundreds
have been, and still are, actively engaged.

The translation of the word Elohim as God in the creation story
is one of the points to which 1 have referred as showing the dis-
ingenuousness of the translators of the Hebrew Bible. We are
supposed to be monotheists, although we declare .ourselves to be
worshippers of a Trinity, or tri-theists, in a heaven with hundreds
of “ Godlets,” just as the Greeks and Romans had, but whom we
call saints (The Lord came with ten thousands of Saints, Deut.
xxxii. 2), angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, spirits of the
power of the air, Enochs, Apostles, Virgins, Melchizedeks, Elijahs,
and all the hosts who passed direct into heaven and who live for
ever, die only definition of a god or supernatural being. All
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

159

religions can, and did, claim to be monotheistic, as explained by
their best priests. They had one supreme god, and the others were
merely names for the various manifestations of that one God, as in
the case of Jupiter. Dr. Pinches Jour, Victoria Inst. XXVIII. 8-10,
published a tablet in which the chief divinities of the Babylonian
Pantheon are resolved into forms of Merodach. Enlil becomes
** the Merodach of sovereignty,” Nebo the ” Merodach of earthly
possessions,” and Nergal the “ Merodach of war.” As we, how-
ever, theoretically stood out for a kind of monotheism, it would not
do for us to take our religion from a polytheistic document, and the
translators disingenuously render the word Ale-im as “God”
(singular), whenever it refers to “ our ” or the Hebrew God, but as
** gods ” (plural), whenever it refers to the Philistines or the “ other
man’s ” Gods, with the further ” mental obliquity ” that the trans-
lators put a capital “ G ” when they translate Ale-im as a Hebrew
?“ God,” and a small ” g” when they translate the same word as
another tribe’s ” gods.” This ” grammatical inexactitude ” is not
perpetrated by the Hebrews but by the English Ecclesiastical
translators.

Now it is exactly the’ same word, used in exactly the same
sense, as Colenso proved and Dr. Cheyne now states (p. 157),
yet the translators gave it a different meaning to suit the kind of
doctrine they were teaching. The word Elohim is the plural of the
Eli or Eloi, to whom Jesus bitterly cried when He found Himself
deserted on the Cross. It is the well-known Hebrew plural,—
cherub, cherubim ; seraph, seraphim ; Eloh, Elohim. “Elohim,”
says the Rev. Dr. Duff, ” means simply Elohs.” {Hist. Old Testa-
ment Criticismp. 17.) The phrase Lord God, ” Yahweh Ale-im,”
ought to be'translated “Yahweh of the Ale-im,” or, if you like,
“the Hebrew tribal god amongst the god family,” or, poetically,
“the wrathful one of the heavenly host.” That they were names
is shown by such names as Elijah,—Eli is Jah,—” The Ale-im are
Yahweh,” which makes Yahweh plural, as it sometimes is. That
the word Elohim is plural is now admitted even by the Ecclesiastical
Or “ interior ” school of critics, and it is actually nearly always
translated so (as “ gods ”) in the authorised version, except where
its translation as a singular word is dishonestly used to support the
theory of a monotheistic religion.

For instance, in Deuteronomy xi., 16, we have: ” Serve other
Elohim (gods), and bow down to them ” (pi.); “ go after other
Elohim (gods) and serve them“ (pi.); Deuteronomy.xvii., 3, “Go
and serve other Elohim (gods) and bow down to them ” (pi.); so
tlpt, odt only was Elohim a plural word for a group or council of
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-CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

gods; but there were other councils of Gods besides that of the
Hebrews. Each tribe had Elohim of its own.

A few of the texts, giving plural translation, may be cited.

Deut. xxix. 26 Job. xxiii. 16
,, xiii. 6-13. Ex. xxxiv. 14.
,, xi. 28.

1   Kings ix. 6.

,, ix. 9.

,, xi. 10.

2   Kings xvii. 35.

„ xvii. 15.

Ju. xi. 12.

Jer. xiii. 10. Ju. ii. 19.

,, xvi. 11, xxv. 6. Jos. xxii. 22.

,, xi. 10. Exodus xxii. 28.

,, xxii. 9. Ps. cxxxvi. 2, xcv. 3.
„ vii. 6-9. Genesis vi. 2.

,, xliv. 3. Job. ii. 1, xxxviii. 7.

[Prometheus]

But there are over 60 other texts scattered through the Old Testa-
ment, all of which are frankly plural. Yet in the first chapter of
Genesis the translators have falsely translated the word as ” God,'*
even when the “ gods ” confer with one another. The shyness of
English scholars to say anything which might shake the faith of their
communicants, and perhaps weaken the authority of their Church,
has led to English scholarship being a bye-word on the Continent,
but 1 am glad to notice that this conspiracy of silence is breaking
down, and Sir George Birdwood is allowed, in the Royal Society of
Arts, to say:—

“ Journal Royal Society of Arts,” 30th December, 1910.—
“ Where in the English Authorised Version of the Bible the word
God is used, the original Hebrew was Elohim, * gods.’ This false
translation, which is followed in the Revised Version, is excused
on the pretence of Elohim being the * plural of majesty ’; an ex-
planation utterly untenable, at least, in all the earlier Biblical in-
stances of the use of the word.”

Of course, all scholars have known this for sixty years, but
few have publicly cared to state it. All honour to the fearless
Colenso.

We speak loosely of "‘the story of creation in the Bible,” and
some of us may know that there are two different, and contradictory,
accounts. But few know that there are two main accounts, and
three fragments of other accounts, with glimpses of a sixth account,
all contradicting each other.

So strong is the desire in the human mind to have a neatly
completed picture that the cry ” Tell us of origins ” has been a
universal or^e, and all religions profess to tell man how this world
was created “ in the beginning,” and the Bible begins in this way.

Modern thought has become conscious of one great fact; that
it is impossible to postulate a beginning to anything. It will always
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

161

be found that the ” beginning ” of any thing, state, or epoch, is
only an artificial line drawn, and that on the other side of that line
is the “ end" of some other thing, state, or epoch, and, on
examining carefully the region of the line of division, it is found that
there is no break, no dividing line, but that events were happening
or popularly ” things were going on” at the division line just as
at any other epoch.

We are told: “In the beginning the Gods created the heaven
and the earth,** explaining that before the creation *“ the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.”

There is then a mysterious unfinished sentence standing alone,
with no connection with what goes before or after—“And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.** This is the
first story of creation. Unfortunately it is a mistranslation also,
as the word rendered “ spirit of god ** is “ Ruach,” and is a feminine
noun, meaning the spiritual Queen of Heaven. This will be treated
fully in its place (pp. 162-170).

The second account of creation begins at the third verse of
Genesis i. This second account is the work of a priest of late date,
and is an attempt to systematise the various pagan accounts existing
in the Hebrew writings. It is imported from a Babylonian source.

The third account begins at the 4th verse of Genesis ii., and this,
with the Garden of Eden story, is a purely Hebrew story of native
growth, a piece of real folk lore. It has, however, a Babylonian
form, and was probably written down by Babylonian scribes (Nehe-
miah or Ezra) from the oral traditions of the Hebrews.

The fourth account is in Genesis v,, the “ Book of the Genera-
tions of Adam.** Cain and Abel are unknown in this account.

The fifth account is scattered through the Psalms, Isaiah, and
Job, and begins with the slaying of a dragon.

The sixth account, which is phallic, is dimly shadowed forth
in Job (pp. 153-154).

RUACH—CREATION

The short sentence, in the second verse of the first chapter of
Genesis, should read: “ The mother of the gods brooded over the
fertile abyss,’* and the unfinished part should be, “and brought
forth life.”

Dr. Wallis Budge says this Ruach is feminine, and has descended
from an earlier mythology as the wife of God.

Ruach, or Ruakh, is written in Hebrew, and all old languages
R.K.H., and is identical all over the East, from Chaldea to Egypt.
It has the prosthetic “A” prefixed, and becomes arkh, ark, or

M
 162

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

arc, or arch, and as ark is the feminine box or bowl shown hefce (in
three forms, the dove, the bow, and the ark, or Argha (Fig. 96],

from which all life originates, and is used to symbolise the womb ;
in fact, all boxes, arks, and boats, are simply the womb from which
arises all life when coupled with the Phallus (p. 239). The two
combined, form the Hebrew Lingam-Yoni altar—the Ark of the
Covenant. The ark is the dwelling place of Yahweh, or his symbol
the Eduth, or Phallus. All Queens of Heaven are arks, boats, or
ships, and all churches are called naves, or naves, ships, and are
feminine. The nave of a church is still called Schiff (ship) in
Germany. The bishop, on his appointment, weds his ” bride,” the
Church, with a wedding ring. The Catholic Queen of Heaven,
Mary, is also an ark, and called the ” Habitation of God,” the
“Awful dwelling place,” the “Tabernacle of God” (see pp. 48-50).

Ruach means spirit, as in Genesis, and is used as the spirit of
understanding, supposed to be infused into children by anointing
or baptism; or spiritually opening the eyes and ears by touching
with spittle. R.K.H. or Rekh, Egyptian for spittle, an early form
of baptism still used by ignorant people all over the world, and
used by Jesus to cure blindness. The combination of spirit and ark
makes her the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirits or Gods, or the
mother of the Gods.

The Chaldees and Babylonians used the word Ruach as an
adjective to mean spiritual, as in the case of the Arkite Venus who
wept for Adonis (Fig. 118]. Ruach is generally rendered Rekh by
the Babylonians, and Rkh means pure or purifying spirit or Holy
Ghost (in Elizabethan English), or simply spirit in modem Eng-
lish. Semiramis, the earliest Queen, of Heaven of whom we have
fables, was known as D iune oj Juno, the dove* or the Holy Spirit
incarnate.

Every Queen of Heaven had the dove as her symbol. Now
Semiramis was chased by the “snake-footed” Typhon [Manilius
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

163

Astro, lib. IV., V., 579-582 (p. 323)], and this “Venus Urania,”
Diun6 or Dione, the Heavenly Dove, plunged into the waters of
Babylon to escape, and so consecrated these waters as to fit them
for giving “ new life “ or regeneration by baptism. So comes the
Catholic phrase “ the Holy Ghost “ (Queen of Heaven) who suf-
fered for us “through Baptism.” The Holy Ghost Ruach, or
“ Spirit of God,” was therefore Semiramis, Rhea, Cybele, Venus,
Aphrodite, Isis, Istar, Astarte, or Terra, in fact, all the Queens
of Heaven or ” Goddesses of Love,” and their symbol was the
dove. They were called ” flutterers ” or ” brooders,” the exact
meaning of the word used in Genesis i., 2. (” Two Baba. App.,”
303.)

The phrase " Holy Ghost,”—really ” Holy Spirit,”—pertains
to the Queen of Heaven in each of its words. The word holy has
a special signficance in all religions as ” set apart,” undefiled, or,
as Christians say, immaculate or ” virgin,” as we speak of ” Virgin ”
purity, ” Virgin ” gold, and all the Queens of Heaven were virgins,
no matter to how many ” Saviour Sons ” they gave birth, so that
Holy Ghost, or Spirit of God, is identical with the Virgin Queen
of Heaven, or Spirit of God, the mother of the Ale-im.

Semiramis was the original of the other mothers of heaven, such
as Rhea, Cybele, or Juno, who were all doves or Holy Spirits. She
became, in Egypt, Athor, or Hathor, the ” Habitation of God,” the
” Tabernacle ” or " Temple ” in whom dwelt (or of whom was
bom) ” all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Then she became
Heva, Persian Queen of Heaven, and Eva, the “ Living One,” or
“Mother of all living” of Genesis. In the Apocryphal ” Prot-
evangelicon ” we find a curious statement which links up Eve with
the Virgin Mary, as it says that Saint Joachim had a forty day and
night fast, and mentions him as father of ” Eve, the blessed Virgin
Mary.” This figure Ruach was the mother of the Gods, and yet the
wife of the same God ; just as all Gods are. The husband of Semi-
ramis was of little account, being called by his wife’s name, Ark-el,
the Ark God, Arkels, Herkels, Arkelus, Heracles, and, finally,
Hercules.

We have seen above then the Ruach, the Spirit of God of
Genesis i., 2, as Semiramis giving life to the waters of baptism in
Babylon, and in the Hebrew writings, hatching life out of the fertile
abyss or giving life to the waters of Genesis (p. 162). We know that
her symbol was a dove, and this is expressed by the Roman Catholic
Church in their church windows by a dove sitting in the midst of
water as here shown [Figs. 99, 100].

She is also shown actually creating or moving or fluttering upon
 164

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

the (ace of the waters (Dicjron), God looking on approvingly. " She
is greater than God, without her, he could not act." Note the

ecclesiastical self-importance. Churches were a part of God’s first
creation [Fig. 97].

In Fig. 98 Jahweh is seen proceeding to the location of creation

accompanied by his creative wife. This Is the ecclesiastical ex-
pression, in picture, of Genesis i., 2.
 OF ITS TEACHING ANb SYMBOLISM

165

That this dove is the Queen of Heaven is clearly proved by the
representations of the Trinity.

The intense masculinity of the Hebrew prophets, and their
despisal of woman owing to the Garden of Eden story, made them
deny to woman a soul, and caused them to look upon her as not
only the cause of all sin, but as handing sin on to her offspring, as
we hear Job saying, xxv. 4, “ How can a man be clean that is born
of a woman,’* hence she could have no place with their Ale-im.

This terrible doctrine is still prevalent in India, and results in
terrible cruelty to women at the holiest and most critical period of
their lives. 44 When the time for child-bearing draws near, they
are not sheltered in their homes as with us, but, considered unclean,
they are turned out to lie in any corner of a back yard, despised
and unattended.” (Ruth I. Pitt, 44 Times,” 20.1.12.)

While other nations blamed man (and sometimes mutilated him)
for the spread of sexual disease (pp. 184-185), the Hebrew phophets
blamed the female peor or ark (pp. 231-232).

The symbolism of the Hindu Svastika (a symbol found all over

the world and used by the early Christians) v |-fj &also places

woman amongst the evil influences. If the transomes are turned
to the right, to rotate with the sun, and made in gold or coloured
yellow or red, it indicates the sun and all joy, blessedness, temporal,
eternal, material, or spiritual, and every variety of blessing, health,
and happiness, or man; whereas if turned to the left, so as to revolve
against the sun, and made of silver or coloured blue or green, or
black or white, it is a symbol of fear, and indicates darkness, male-
volence, terror, disease, bad luck, failure, or woman. (See Sir Geo.
Birdwood, J. Roy. Soc. of Arts, 5th March, 1912.)

I say their 44 prophets ” advisedly, as the actual Hebrew people
were enthusiastic worshippers of the Queen of Heaven, as the Bible
testifies in many texts. To take one passage alone, Jer. xiv., 15-19,
44 The men with their wives and all the women, a great multitude,”
told Jeremiah plainly that they would continue to burn incense and
pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven, as 44 we and our
fathers, our kings, and our princes did in the cities of Judah and
in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had plenty of victuals, and
were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense
to the Queen of Heaven and to pour out drink offerings unto her,
we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword
and by the famine.” Owing then to the Nabi’s (see p. 237, 263)
detestation of women through the Eden doctrine they came to ban
woman utterly from any place in heaven, but as the mythology of
aU other nations gave her not only a place, but the highest place.
 m

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

as mother of all the gods, and the chief member of the real Trinity
representing eternal life (man, woman, and child—see frontispiece).

DAXL PVHAND   !, i.i iwn i. A —.1.: I.

Fig. 101   Fig. 102

they, the Hebrew Christians, put her secretly or symbolically
as the dove, the third member of the Trinity, instead of
a woman. So we have the father and son joined at their mouths

Fig. 103

Fig. 104

(m their breaths or souls) by a dove, as shown at Figs. 101, 103.
Clearly the dove links the father and son, and what other “ link ”
can we conceive than the mother. On the Cross (Fig. 102) stands
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

167

the dove to make the Trinity with a female member, although she
was well represented by Mary Magdalene—the Gospel Goddess of
Love (Quia multum amavit). Lastly, in a miniature of the end of
the XIV. Century, Didron gives a female Holy Ghost (Fig. 104).
The dove is the symbol of the “ Mother of God.”

The Babylonian story, and we must remember that the Hebrews
got most of their cosmogony from the Babylonians, tells how the
mother of the gods, when her children began to assert themselves,

Fig. 106   Fig. 107

and die found her sway disputed, retired again to the fertile abyss,
and created beings to help her in her struggle against her children.

The Ruach, or Holy Ghost, was the Kunti, or “ Spouse,” the
” Dove." the ” Love of God,” “ Kun," or ” Kiun ” (Queen), ” She
Kunah,” rose on a prolific stem, Zoroaster’s ”Divine wisdom”
(Pdas Athen6), the ” Virgo ” of die Zodiac with an ear of com and
a babe, die Isis, the ” Altrix Nostra,” nurse of man and all exist'
ence, the Eros (creating love), Ceres Mamosa (all fruitful). We
know that Ruach was the ” Ark ” of God (as well as spirit of God),
and aB arks are die womb which brings forth life. Noah's ark
brought dm new Hfe to the world, and many saviours are, like
Motes; delivered from an ark.
 168

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The "brooding” referred to. in Genesis i. 2, is symbolised in
all ancient mythologies by a figure with feathers turned up, gener-
ally, as a hen does to cover her eggs. Even the sun in Egypt was
thus winged, as by its warmth it brought life out of the waters after
the inundation (see p. 116).

The Babylonian and Persian gods were also thus represented.
[See Figs. 105, 106, 107.] Note that the top figure in creating, uses,
not an arrow, but a trident, the Fleur-de-Lys, or male emblem, and
is surrounded by the female ring.

The Romans combined Juno and Kubele as Juno Covella, the
” Dove that binds with cord ” (see p. 227). In the Figure 106 two
bands instead of feet are symbols of the cord-bound women devoted
to prostitution as devotees of Mylitta.

[Prometheus]

We get a glimpse of how the transformation was made in read-
ing the history of neo-platonism, which has given rise to a volum-
inous literature in Germany. This was the form of faith, descended
from Plato, which was absorbed by Christianity. It was too
philosophical and mystic—a purely idealistic faith, and idealism
has never had any followers, except among scholars. The common
world of men and women knows nothing of it. So when Chris-
tianity began, the popular neo-platonism died of ansemia, and
Christianity absorbed those of its tenets which served for a
philosophic basis of its belief. Proclus, or Proklus, was the greatest
o£ the neo-platonists. “ It was reserved for Proclus,” says Zeller
(Die Philosophic der Griechen), ' 'to bring the neo-platonic to its for-
mal conclusion by the rigorous consistency of his dialect, and, keeping
in view all the modifications which it had undergone in the course
of two centuries, to give it that form in which it was transferred
to Christianity and Mohammedanism in the middle ages.” Proclus
gives us a pretty full account of the beliefs and symbolism of his
times, especially in relation to ” Soul.”

The special study of this period, as showing the shaping of the
Christian doctrine, and the compromises between the anti-feminine
Hebrew ideas, and the pro-feminine learnings of all the other coun-
tries, welded together by the Greek neo-platonism and the sturdy
Roman sun worship, csrnnot be entered upon here, u it requires a
large volume for its treatment, and should this present volume find
acceptance with readers, my next care would be to present the
results of my studies of this period.

The Assyrians and Egyptians, in deifying the elements, claimed
that the air should hold the supreme place, and they consecrated it
under the symbol of the dove, the emblem of the Queen of Heaven
(Julius Firmicus, De Err ore, Cap. 4, p. 9). Juno, the dove, was
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

169

the most pronounced Dove-Goddess, the name having run into two
generations as she was daughter of Dione, or D’lune, the dove.
As breath, or ** spirit,” she was held to permeate all things, and
her special' allotment was the air ; ” for,” said Proclus, ” air is a
symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit ”
(Pneuma). Juno was the special deity who begat or created the
souls of infants, just as their mothers created their bodies. (Proclus
lib. VI., Cap. 22, Vol. II., p. 197.)

The whole domain of spirit, air, breath, and life, was her king'
dom, as she even gave life to the gods themselves. The Hindus
said, ” without her nothing could be created.” She was the
” Spirit ” which stirred the god to action {pp. 48-49, 203).

The soul or spirit of man came, then, from the ” Spirit or Mother
of God,” Ruach ; so that it was certainly the Queen of Heaven
who created life by brooding on the waters in Genesis i., 2.

Didr on, Vol. I., p. 417, says: “Such is the dogma by which
the three persons individually are distinguished one from another,
the father would most properly possess memory, the son intelli-
gence, and the Holy Ghost love.” What is the universal symbol
of love ? Woman, or her symbol, the dove.

“ Thus,” says Hislop, “the deified Queen was adored as the
incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the spirit of peace and love. The
image of the goddess was richly habited, on her head was a golden
dove, and she was called Semeion or Zemeion, the habitation of
the Great,” or God. (Bryant, Vol. III., p. 145.) “ As mother of the
gods she was worshipped by the Persians, Syrians, and all the
kings of Europe and Asia with the most profound religious venera-
tion.” (Joannes Clericus Phil. Orient, lib. II., De Persia, Cap. 9.,
Vol. II., 340.)

Dr. Evans shows us that at Cnossus, in Crete, at 2000 to 3000 B.C.,
the principal Minoan divinity was a kind of magna mater, a great
mother, or nature goddess (see p. 70a), and that the male associate
was a mere satellite. She was the original of Aphrodite, or Venus.
Encyc. Brit., 1911, Vol. VII., pp. 422, 424.   (Compare Hercules,

p. 163.)

All religion is built on symbolism, which really means to say
one thing and to mean another, or to speak in veiled or esoteric
language,. which only the initiated can understand. Thus, the
Trinity Is represented by the father, son, and a dove, meaning the
father, son, and .mother, the latter veiled under the a-sexual name
of die Holy “ Spirit,” or in old English, ” Ghost.” However
completely the Jews* detestation of woman obliterated the feminine
from the Old Testament, the birth of Jesus again re-established
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

the original pagan trinity which all the ancients adored; and to
the majority of Roman Catholics the Trinity is the father, mother,
and son, personified by Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, with the Virgin
as the worshipped member. [See Frontispiece.]

So, following up Genesis i., 2, where woman as the female
“ Spirit of God,*’ or the active and acting member of the godhead,
(as “ spirit ” is always the word used for " activity ”), this RICH
which brought forth life, is gradually being restored to her old place
as Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, ** without whom no
creation could be made,” as the Hindus say (pp. 46 and 203), and
is now taking her place as the central figure of the Trinity.

She was the means not only of creating life ” in the beginning,”
but of obtaining ” life eternal ” for mankind in the ” unseen uni>
verse.”

The Catholics practically ignore all members of the heavenly
hierarchy, save Mary, as mediator, and one can appreciate the
poetry and joy of appealing to her of the ” sorrowful heart ” with
her little babe, to ease the burthen of the world. As King, Gnostics,
Introduction, has well said, "There is no new thing in religion.”
and this Mediatorial function of the Virgin Mary is a good example
of this, as it is a slavish copy of the function of the great Mother of
Heaven of all Western Asia,—Mellitta, whose very name means
Mediatrix. The Trinity is sometimes expressed thus:—

Heart of Jesus, I adore thee,

Heart of Mary, I implore thee.

Heart of Joseph, pure and just,

In these three hearts I put my trust.

(“ What every Christian must know and do/' Rev. J. Fumiss.
/. Daffy, Dublin.)
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

171

SECOND ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.

The first two verses of Chapter I. of Genesis bear evidence of a
very ancient source of myths of far-off times. Chaos, “ Tohuwa
Bohu ” (hurly burley), the darkness on the face of Tehom (the
sulking dragon), and then the mother of the gods hatching life out
of the fertile abyss, all indicate that the two verses are a glimpse
of a piece of very ancient folk-lore.

Not so the second account. It is that of a priest striving to give
exhaustive treatment, as is shown by its catalogue form, and the
phrase, “ each after his kind,” repeated ten times. Research into
its language forms the other points, show that it was not written
till a very late period,—not, in fact, till the Jews had returned from
the Babylonian exile, or about 350 to 200 B.C., the time when the
Babylonian priests, Nehemiah and Ezra, reconstituted the Hebrew
Scriptures.

This is a polytheistic creation by the Ale-im, or Council of Gods
(see pp. 159-160).

It begins, ” And the Gods said. Let there be light,” without
sun, moon, or stars, and they ” divide the light from the darkness ”
as though they were substances, as, indeed, in ancient times they
were supposed to be. Then the ” evening and the morning were
the first day,” and this before the creation of a sun, and no idea
of the earth turning on its axis, and so on, quite a happy-go-lucky
catalogue—not “raisonne.” Then the gods made a firmament to
divide the ” waters from the waters.” Evidently the priest thought
that the falling of rain was a proof of a reservoir of water overhead,
and it wanted something very strong to hold it up, as the word
firmament means in the original, a construction of strength.

On the third day die Gods separated land and water and made
the grass, the herb, and " the tree yielding fruit, and the herb
seed,” but it is a puzzle to know how these things could be brought
forth by the earth and grow before there was any sun to make them
grow. Without a sun there would be universal death, as the
temperature would be somewhere about 150 degrees below zero,
and all water solid ice. Then, said the Gods, let there be lights
in the finnament of the heaven, to ” divide the day from the night,”
 172

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

a quite useless proceeding, seeing that they had already done so
in verses 4 and 5. These lights were to be for signs and for seasons
and for days and years.

To the scribe the sun and moon were equally important, both
" to give light upon the earth,” the difference is to the scribe in*
appreciable. The moon was then the time-keeper, and so, as
important as the sun.

” And the Gods made two great lights; the greater to rule the
day, the lesser to rule the night.”

Zimmern considers that these phrases about ” ruling ” point to
a system of belief in which sun and moon were something more than
mere lights in the sky; in other words, to a society in which the
worship of the heavenly bodies played an important part in a
religion primarily astral. We find the Nabis, or prophets, con-
stantly scolding the Hebrews for worshipping the Queen of Heaven,
and the sun, moon, and all the host of heaven. (Deut. io., 19, and
other passages, pp. 165 and 263, et seq.)

Then the Gods made the “ great whales,” or monsters. To an
inland people those were very marvellous. They then commanded
the fish and fowls to be fruitful and multiply,” but did not make
a similar law for “ the living creature after his kind, cattle and creep-
ing thing and beast of the earth after his kind,” which he created
on the sixth day. We may ask why ” after his kind ” ? There
must have been a model of the ” kind ” somewhere which the Gods
were merely copying or repeating. There was a great world of
men and living things outside, which served as a model on which
to build the Hebrew creation. Cain procuring a wife, from ” the
land of Nod,” clearly shows that this was only a tribal idea of
creation.

” And the Gods said, Let us make man in our image after our
likeness.” Here, again, the priest expresses no new creation, but
something already known to the Gods as ” man,” and the Gods
commune together in the plural,—” our likeness.” So the Gods
created man in their own image, in the image of Elohim (A16-im, the
Gods) created he him, male and female created he them. The
word Elohim is plural, and always translated as ” they,” ” them,”
and ” their ” in other pcurts of Scriptures. It ought to read: “ In
the image of the Elohim (the Gods) created they him, male and
female created they them ” (pp. 159-161).

Similar ly# the scribe has treated die name of the creative powei
(dural (us) in one line and singular (he) in another.

Note the Androgynous God indicated, ”in the image of God,
male and female ” created He them. This is the Universal hernia-
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

173

phroditic idea of the God having two sexes in himself, like the
Ardanari-Ishwara (on p. 47) of the Hindus, symbolised by their
Lingam-Yoni altars, the Asherals or Groves of the Babylonians and
Hebrews, the ring and dagger of the Persian, the Ankh in the hands,
the “ buckle ” in the belt and the pschent on the heads of the
Egyptian gods and kings, in fact, the Androgynous a “ double-
sexed ” idea of all Gods (pp. 30-80).

Then he says to male and female : “ Be fruitful and multiply
and replenish the earth,” which is the Elohim’s and the Yahweh’s
first command to man—and the commandment repeated most fre-
quently in the Bible. Here we have child-birth and the “fall”
(sexual intercourse) actually commanded. Child-birth was said to
have been created as a curse on the woman after the fall, but this
command to man and animals shows that procreation and succes-
sion of life by child-birth were intended from the first.

The Elohim gives them : “ Every tree in which there is fruit ”—
to you it shall be “ for meat,”—no forbidden fruit here.

We have, at this point, a very visible example of the artificial
division of the Bible into chapters carried out by the “ Masoretic ”
Monks in the Christian era, as the first or “ Elohistic ” account of
creation goes over to the end of the third verse of the second
chapter, and a totally different and new account begins at verse 4
of the second chapter. These ignorant divisions add to the already
chaotic arrangement of Holy Writ.

In the third account of creation we come to the true folk-lore of
the Hebrews as written for them by Babylonian priests, such as
Ezra. It is no longer “ the Gods ” Ale-im, but their own tribal god
Yahweh (Jehovah), or Ya Ava, given to them by the Baby-
lonians (pp. 156-157), who creates, but he is still called “Yah-
weh Ale-im,” or the Yahweh of the Gods, oak spirits, or
heavenly host, just as Jupiter was Jove of the Olympian host of
Gods, or the Babylonian, Marduck of the Heavenly Host, or Baldur
of the “ Ring.” He made the earth and the heavens just as did
the A16-im, the earth first,—no doubt standing on the earth to create
the other parts of the universe ; a belief common to all early races.
The first full account of creation is a dry catalogue, the second an
interesting piece of poetic folk-lore, pleasant to read, and taking
us back to the ideas of the childhood of a race.

The naive childishness is beautifully illustrated by the forget-
fulness of Yahweh (Jehovah), who, after making (in one day, not
six), the earth, heavens, and every plant and herb, suddenly remem-
bers that “there was not a man to till the ground.” So tilling
of the ground by man, requiring tools, was not new, but an opera-
 174

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

don well known and evidently necessary before creation* and tilling
was useless without seed from a former year.

The tale is careful to say of the creation of plants. ” every plant
of the field,” before it was in the earth, “ and every herb of the
field,” before it grew; because it is discovered that the tale had
forgotten the necessary rain, without which plants and herbs would
not grow ; and the tale goes on to explain, ” for the Jahweh of the
A16-im had not caused it to rain upon the earth. So that is
remedied, and ” there went up a mist [not rain] from the earth and
watered the whole face of the ground.” This different cause of
fertility, mist or dew instead of rain, looks as though we had here
small fragments of two different myths.

Just as the second account of creation in the first chapter is an
account of the Spring, or creation, of each year, as it occurs in the
Euphrates Valley, so the third account is a picture of the advent
of Spring (annual creation) in Palestine. The Lower Euphrates,
where the Accadians lived,—from whom the Babylonians got their
culture,—was flooded every winter, so much so that all towns had to
be built on mounds, but the Spring sun soon dried it up, and the
flowers came forth, and a new world was created every year. Mar-
duck, the specially selected creator, was the God of the Spring
sun.

In Palestine, the land, being highland, is arid in Winter; cold
winds raise dust clouds, and no green thing can live. But the
gentle Spring rains cause all the herbs to bloom, and the land is
quickly transformed from a dismal, arid desert, to a verdant garden.

The one habitat is in a land of water, the other is one where
there is no water. The priest who wrote it down says Yahweh of
Ale-im had not caused it to rain upon the earth. Now, if there was
no rain in all the earth there could be -no sea, no rivers, no lakes,
and, in consequence, there was no creation of fishes this time.

That this account is that of a people living to the west of
Babylonia is also shown by the statement that Yahweh of the
A16-im planted a garden eastward in Eden, which was at one time
the true name of the land at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris,
and situated on the Euphrates and three other rivers accurately
describing the Babylon habitat. Why should they, the inhabitants
of Canaan, make their paradise in the land of the Babylonians who
had so often conquered them, deported them, and used them
cruelly? It^ was because of the great difference between Babylonia
and Palestine.

[Prometheus]

Ezekiel xxxi., 1-9, describes in poetic language , the richness of
the Assyrian land in fruit trees and cattle; so luxurious was the
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

175

vegetation yielded by the constant and abundant supply of water
by irrigation, “ so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden
of God envied him ” (the Assyrian).

The splendid rivers, with their irrigation canals, made Babylonia
a land “ flowing with milk and honey,” fields rich in grain and well
fed oxen, while Palestine, with its arid, highland hills, could produce
only thin crops. Good pastures were few, and more fit for goats
than cattle, so the Hebrews always looked to Babylonia as a rich
land. It was, in fact, a sort of ” Araby the blest,” and, as Ezekiel
said, ” more to be desired than Eden.”

The watered gardens of Babylon gave a sort of perpetual summer
or Garden of Eden effect, and the Hebrews had been in captivity
there often enough to know of its richness as compared with their
own poor country. Hence, the Hebrews located their Eden there.
The Yahweh Ale-im made a creation quite different from that of
the A16-im alone, consisting merely of earth and heaven, and plants
and herbs ; but with the usual want of foresight, he found he had
forgotten to make rain, and that there was not a man to till the
ground, so he corrected his over-sights by making a mist ” to water
the face of the ground ” and a man from the ” dust of the ground ”
(a fable common to all races), and he breathed life into him.

Then “Yah of the tree stem gods ” planted a garden eastward
in Eden, and out of the ground he made to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food ; also two special trees, one
of ” life,” and one of the “ knowledge of good and evil.”

And he put ” the man,” not yet called Adam, into the " Garden
of Eden ” to dress it and to ” keep it.” Hence, “ Adam,” or man
laboured from the very first. He was specially created for the
labour of tilling. Even ” Adam ” is Babylonian, as that is their
word meaning ” man.”

Now considering what Eden contained—” every tree that is
pleasant to the sight and good for food,” Adam had a big job for
one man ” to dress it and to keep it,” and to “till the ground,”
so poor Adam, set single-handed to a task requiring hundreds or
even thousands of men, must, before the fall, have truly “eaten
his bread in the sweat of his face.” So the curse of labour was
not pronounced because of the fall. Man was condemned to
labour from die first.

Then Yahweh forbade the man (not the woman, for she was not
yet made) to eat of the fruit of only one of the trees, that of know-
ledge, and told him if h« did so: “In the day thou eatest thereof
thou shah surely die.” He was quite free to eat of the tree of
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life, and so gain eternal life, and yet it was to prevent this that
Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden.

Forbidden fruit was a legend in all old religions, and was often
represented by a fenced tree with fruit and a man and woman stand-
ing on each side of it. One occurs to my mind in “ Rajendralala’s
Antiquities of Orissa,” Vol. II., plate XIX.

Here Yahweh’s first prophecy entirely failed, as we shall see
that in the day man ate of the fruit he did not die. Here, as in all
early religions, the serpent or devil is more clever than the God.
The serpent directly contradicted Yahweh, and said: “Ye'shall
not surely die.” The serpent was right, and Yahweh wrong
(Genesis iii., 4).

The narrative now comes out of the garden into the outside
world, and Yahweh, seeing man lonely, thinks of making turn some
sort of companion, so he go<^ on to complete his creation, which
he had interrupted when he suddenly bethought himself that ” there
was not a man to till the ground.”

He then makes the beast of the field and birds of the air, but
he forgot all about the ” great, whales ” and fishes, so in this account
they were never created.

We see how Yahweh breaks the story to get a reason for making
woman, but he broke it earlier for a more curious reason, the Jewish
cupidity for gold. He is busy defining the geography of Eden when
he mentioned the land of Havilah, and Jew-like, in the midst of the
narrative of Almighty God’s important revelation, he says, “ Where
there is gold.” He can’t stop now, but goes on appraising its
quality, and he says with unctuous satisfaction: “And the gold
of that land is good and there is Bedellium and Onyx stone.” A
fine touch that, showing the Jewish origin of the story. And this
was before man’s creation, before ornaments, jewels, or money
were conceived.

The oversight in the creation of fishes is another proof of the
Canaan origin of this story. Jerusalem was far from the sea, and
the Hebrews probably seldom realised that there was a watery
world of which they had no knowedge.

From verse 18 this seems to be another independent fragment
of another account of creation, for the man is now suddenly called
Adam (the Babylonian word for man), asa proper name.

Out of all the beasts Adam found no helpmeet, Yahweh made
a woman from one of his ribs. Note the low conception of com-
panionship. The woman was classed with the beasts. She w$s
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

177

laha (Babylonian for woman), because she was taken out of Ish
(man).

In this purely Jewish account of creation, the debasement of
woman is very marked. First man is made alone and is given power
over the beasts by naming them. Yahweh thinks he needs a com-
panion, but they fail to find a suitable one among the beasts.

Then he forms an absolutely sub-ordinate being out of a frag-
ment of Adam’s body, and, by implication, classes her as one of the
higher beasts, for, as we know, she had no soul.

This tale also reached the Hebrews from a Babylonian source,
but the rib, called Tzalaa, which is the Hebrew rendering of Tha-
laath, is called by Berosus “ Thalaatth Omorka,” the “mother of
the world,*’ or universe. So we see the Jews altered the story to
debase woman, and reduced the mother of the universe to the
level of a rib of Adam.

In verse 24, marriage is hinted at prematurely, as there was, as
yet, no man and wife relation between Ish and Isha, and Adam
could not leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife,
as he had no father and mother.

There is apparently a gap in the story at the end of the second
chapter, as in the first verse of the third chapter the serpent is
spoken of quite familiarly, but no hint of its creation nor existence
inside or outside Eden had yet been given. This was unnecessary
in the original, because the word for serpent, “ Nachash,” was the
Phallus (see p. 23). The English translators used the word serpent
to cloak the true meaning. When, therefore, the man blames the
woman, and the woman blames the serpent, she is simply retaliating
against the man (as is always the case), as the serpent is part of
the man (phallus). Then comes the eating of the forbidden
fruit, and the assurance of the serpent that they would not die. The
sexual nature of the “ eating of fruit ’’ is shown by the sudden sense
of shame, and of their covering up their nudity and hiding. Then
the cursing of the serpent, which made no change, as serpents by
nature always “went” on their bellies; the other part of the
curse was ineffective, as serpents don’t eat dust. Eating dust is a
common phrase applied to those in terrible affliction, and may
refer to the incurable suffering which is caused' by sexual disease
(pp* 230-235). No doubt this is one of the passages rendered
obscure by the exercise of Milton’s “ insulse rule.” Then comes a
muddled sentence, as he, in speaking to the serpent, seemingly
says to the woman, “ It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise
1iis heel,” a purely phallic phrase, as “head” and “heel” are
phallic euphemisms (pp. 41-239), and the phrase refers to the com-
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

munication of the deadly sexual disease by intercourse (p. 438).
Serpents have no heels. The phrase means now that the sexual
act has taken place it must always go on" (p. 239).

He curses the women in an obscure sentence: “I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.” But the woman had not
yet conceived; we know of no sorrow, and he apparently curses
her with child>birth, forgetting the first Commandment, ” Be fruit-
ful and multiply.”

He also curses Adam with labour, forgetting that he specially
created Adam to ” till the ground,” and put him in Eden ” to dress
and to keep ” the most extensive horticultural garden ever con-
ceived, and his reason for making him at all was, that there ” was
not a man to till the ground.”

All this cursing was because man had gained knowledge, though
how he could gain knowledge through his stomach is not clear.

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the
mother of all living.” This is premature, as the birth of a child does
not seem to follow from the ” eating of the fruit,” but because, in
two quite different accounts in Gen. iv. and v., “Adam knew Eve,
his wife.” It is instructive, however, as showing that the eating of
the fruit of the tree of knowledge was originally that of the Tree of
Life, causing Eve to be the ” mother of all living,” and this eating
of fruit was the sexual act.

“The mother of all living” was the name of all Queens of
Heaven, so man’s human wife Eve is treated here as a goddess.
She was really Heva of the Persians, Queen of Heaven, and was the
Ruach of Genesis i. 2, who incubated the fertile waters.

Then, as a last error, it turns out that it would have been still
more dangerous, from the God’s point of view, for Adam and Eve
to have eaten of the Tree of Life, as they would, said the Gods,
communing together, have lived for ever ; and, having already
become “as one of us,” as to knowledge, they would have been,
in every sense, Gods also, and this must be prevented at all costs.

This fight between Gods and men, and the God’s jealousy of
man attaining eternal life is common to all early mirologues.

After eating the fruit in Eden it must have become colder, be-
cause the fig leaf apron was not enough, so Yahweh made coats of
skins for Adam and Eve, while still in Eden.

Now this is a fragment of the Solar myth that Summer is Paradise,
and Winter is the ceasing of Paradise, or expulsion from the garden.

Astronomically, it is expressed by Virgo rising along with Bootes
(Adam and Eve), led by die Balance or Phallus (p. 140), and pre-
ceded by the serpent (sexual passion) into the Spring and Summer
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

179

of the year. They pass slowly across the sky and disappear as it
grows colder, led by the serpent. Then Perseus, with his flaming
sword, appears in the sky to keep them out of Paradise till next
Summer.

Hence, the need of fur coats. The fall was Autumn, or early
Winter.

All deaths of Gods, of ** falls,” or expulsions from Paradise,
are caused by the cold blasts or thorns of Winter (see Job), as the
garden (Paradise) half of the year must unhappily end, and man is
turned out into the cold outer world of Winter. Therefore, the
warm fur garments were necessary. The fig leaf apron was not
enough for the cold which ensued, as Yahweh withdrew his coun-
tenance, or as the sun entered Winter. He must, therefore, have
slain animals and skinned them, so we see that ” death ” must
already have taken place in the world, and at the hands of Yahweh.

The eating of the fruit had given, it seems, to man the only
mental faculty, the lack of which had hitherto differentiated him
from ” us,” the Ale-im, and by having come to know good and
evil he was intellectually the equal of the Gods, so that the modern
idea of an omniscient God was not that held by the writer of Genesis.
The God had only the intelligence of man after eating the fruit.

It is difficult to understand the Gods’ anger at man for acquiring
knowledge, unless it is intended as a picture of the Church's
attitude. All Yahweh’s teaching, as well as Elohim’s and Ell
Shadai’s was to teach man this very knowledge. Now if he got it
by eating fruit, he had no need of all the Biblical teaching.

And all Yahweh’s slaughterings and punishments in the ghastly
chronicles of the Old Testament were quite unnecessary (p. 210).

It was pure jealousy on Yahweh’s part. The Hebrew Yahweh
was a purely anthropomorphic God, a big, angry man, with all man’s
short-sightedness, stupidity, and jealousy, making constant mistakes,
and repenting of the things he had foolishly done, as do the early
Gods of all savage nations.

Yahweh does not blame the woman for man’s rise in knowledge,
as he says ” lest he put forth his hand,” etc., when it was she who
put forth her hand. Yahweh evidently thinks she was quite entitled
to take the bruit as she was not created when the prohibition was
uttered, so in Gen. iii. 17 he blames the man alone.

But the record goes on to say : ” And now, lest he put forth his
hand [it was she who put forth her hand] and take also of the tree
of life, and eat, and live for ever : therefore the Yahweh of the Al£-im
sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from
whence he was taken.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

“ So he drove out the man (what about the woman?), and he
placed at the East (the “ eastern position ” of High Churchmen
begins early) of the Garden of Eden, Cherubim and a flaming sword,
which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.”

Now, here, we see that the expulsion from Eden was because
the Gods had placed a “tree of life,” there, the eating of which
(not its fruit, this time) would make man live for ever. The Gods,
in all early fables about man trying to scale heaven and become a
God (the tower of Babel is such another), are jealous of man’s in-
telligence, and frustrate him in every attempt to obtain eternal life,
or knowledge. Neither man nor woman was warned against the
Tree of Life.

The danger of its being placed in the Garden along with man
seems to have been an oversight of the Gods ; which, as in all other
folk-lore, could not be remedied by the simple expedient of remov-
ing it. The error of the Gods could only be expiated by grave con-
sequences to some hapless individual, as we And in the thousands
of folk-lore stories all over the world.

It is quite clear from this story that man was never intended to
live for ever, in fact, the Gods were already jealous of his rise from
brutish ignorance to the plane of a knowledge of good and evil, and
they sure greatly incensed at the woman especially, for helping man
to attain to this plane of morality which raised him above the brutes.
It is made quite clear that it was only by eating of the Tree of Life
that man could live for ever.

As made by Yahweh, in council with the Ale-im, man was
mortal, and the Gods intended that he should always remain so.
Their alarm that man might live for ever, and thus become in every
sense their equal, results in their repenting of having made an Eden
at all, and closing it up and probably destroying it, as it is never
heard of again, nor the Cherubim with the flaming sword.

That it was the eating of the Tree of Ufe and not the fruit of
the Tree of Knowledge of which the gods were afraid, is again
emphasised by the special statement that the Cherubim with the
flaming sword were there to ” keep the way of the Tree of Life,”
—not that of Knowledge. Why the Hebrews split the original Tree
of Life into two “ trees ” is difficult to understand. As shown on
p. 52 “ Knowledge,” in the Bible, is sexual intercourse, so the two
trees were, identical, and Genesis says that after eating of the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge, Eve was the “ mother of all living.”

The muddle caused by the scribes tampering with the original
story as derived from Babylon, results in die fact that man never
” fell ” at all. The fall means the sexual act, and the Bible says
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

181

[Prometheus]

that man was never allowed to eat of the “ Tree of Life ” (the
Phallus in all countries), and, as a fact, the birth of children did not
follow as a consequence of any act in the Garden of Eden. The
story only tells that of the Roman Catholic Church, which punished
with the cruel death of burning anyone who dared to acquire
knowledge.

In this connection, everyone ought to read the history of the
“Conflict between Science and Religion,*’ of J. W. Draper, and
also Andrew Dickson White’s History of the “ Warfare between
Science and Theology in Christendom.” These books should be
read in every school.

Thus a calm reading and discussion of the original story (not its
distorted echoes in the New Testament), shows us that death did
not come into the world through Adam’s first transgression, as Adam
was always mortal or subject to death, and the Gods took urgent
steps to retain him so, and were very angTy when they thought,
through their own oversight, there was a chance of his becoming
immortal or gaining eternal life. In their intense jealousy they de-
stroyed their beautiful garden, where Yahweh loved to walk “ in the
cool of the evening,” and gave up all the plans they originally had
for the happiness of mankind. The Garden of Eden is the old,
old story of a lost ” golden age,” which must come to an end some-
how, as it never exists within the knowledge of the historian. It
only existed in a fairy land of the past.

The whole myth is made up of fragments of three world-wide
myths. The first is the ” Golden Age ” myth. The second is a
myth, containing a homily, telling man and woman that youth is
their paradise, happy youth with no responsibility and no worries;
but that, with the advent of sexual passion (the serpent) and
marriage, the man is cursed with the labour of finding food, cloth-
ing, and shelter for the woman and her children, a constant toil,
from marriage to the grave ; and the woman with the pains of child-
birth. The third myth is the myth, common to all races, of how
near man came to gaining the secret of eternal life, and how the
jealousy of the Gods frustrated his glorious dream. This idea
appears in Prometheus and his fire from heaven, and led to prac-
tical attempts to realise it by the Alchemists in their search for
the elixir of life, and to much fine literature, such as Faust.

Genesis, therefore, yields no support to the tale that man brought
death into the world, and lost eternal life on earth by eating fruit,
a&dthat a Messiah, the Son or lah or Jehovah, by shedding his blood
appeased die blood-thirsty Yahweh of the Ale-im, and repurchased
etethaf' Kfe for man,-^-not, of course, on this earth, but in some
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

far-off heaven in the skies, ruled by the Eternal Father, El Shadai,
Ancient of Days, Zu Pittar, Jehovah, Yahweh, or love or Jove.
The story of Genesis teaches us exactly the contrary. It teaches us
that man was born mortal and could only have become immortal
by eating, not fruit, but " of the Tree of Life " ; and that Yahweh
and his Council of Gods were quite determined that he never should
become immortal, but that death would always be his portion.

This determination that man should always remain mortal caused
them to abandon all their pleasant plans for the being who was the
apex of all this great work of creation, and to drive him forth from
his beautiful garden to become a wanderer, and to suffer labour and
sorrow all the days of his life,—all to prevent his gaining "life
eternal."

It was certainly not because he and she disobeyed, and ate the
fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, of good and evil, that they were
expelled. It is expressly stated that the reason was " lest he eat of
the Tree of Life and live for ever “ therefore Yahweh of the
Al£-im sent him forth from the Garden of Eden." (Genesis in.

22-23.)

It was logically argued, by the Free Church of Scotland, that,
unless the Garden of Eden story were absolutely and literally true,
the whole fabric of the Christian dogma falls to the ground, because,
without the " fall " and loss of eternal life (erroneously stated by
New Testament theologians to have occurred in Eden), there could
be no need of redemption, and the regaining of " Paradise," or
" the Garden " in another world. The Free Churchmen " were
quite right in their logical argument, rendered invalid, however, by
being founded on a false assumption, and if they had read the
account in Genesis with the care they would give to a newspaper
paragraph, they would have seen that there was no fall and no loss
of eternal life, as man was created to die, and hence there was
no need of a redemption to gain what had never been lost.

Man was commanded to be fruitful and multiply before the Fall
in Genesis i. Now supposing that the world we're only 6000 years
old, what would happen in the 200 generations since the Creation,
if the accumulation of human beings had not been kept down by
death and decay? The accumulation would amount tQ a sphere
over two hundred million miles in diameter of living beings, absorb-
ing Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the Sun (see p. 340).

So, whether Genesis is an absolutely true story of an actual
occurrence, or only folk-lore or myth, the offering of a living
sacrifice, whether man or god, and the spilling of his actual blood,
were absolutely useless to restore a state of affairs which had never
existed.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

183

But the Bible is not read by Christians.

They cannot read it. They can only hum it over in a deep
hollow tone ventriloquially, or “ belly-voiced ” as the ancients say,
or ” Eggastri Muthoi ” as the Greeks called their priests, and apply
to its words the meaning burnt into their minds by their early train-
ing.

And “nothing matters” to the man with “faith.” You may
destroy the basis on which he founds his creed, he goes along smiling
in serene faith, and ignores the destruction, says his creed never
depended on the truth of any earthly utterance, it is ” eternally
true,” or he makes a new basis for the old belief.

Destroy Bibles and they are quietly reproduced, burn relics and
they are back in the old shrines after a decent interval. Buddha’s
tooth ground to powder and destroyed matters nothing, the true
tooth re-appears, the Holy Coat of Treves is lost, stolen, or strayed,
but there it is again as good as ever, pieces of the true cross are
lost or destroyed by fire, but never mind, there are plenty more.
The fact is that the craving of the human mind for a proof of its
religion, through a Mirodox, will always find satisfaction by ” faith ”
in some thing, god, soul, or paradise, not visible nor capable of
proof here in this world, but seen by the “ eyes of faith ” in a world
beyond the skies.

This is what gives very religious nations their strength in war.
They don’t think their god will desert them, and so they will face
fearful odds, and consider death a pass to Paradise, as do the Turks
and Japanese. The German Kaiser appreciates this, and is never
weary of inculcating religion in his recruits, and of addressing them
in Cathedrals when they have piled their arms round an altar
(p. 240).

No other religion has a forbidden fruit of a “Tree of Know-
ledge,” it was always a “ Tree of Life,” or “ Water of Life,” or
” Bread of Life,” which played the part. The Jews seemed to hate
knowledge.

When the Old Testament was written or re-composed, the
anthropomorphic idea of God was being somewhat upset by Greek
thought. Istar was adopted by Greece, as Astarte, and was called
” Idaia Mater,” Mother of Knowledge, so the tree of knowledge
disaster may have been written by the ignorant Jews against Greek
philosophy, and to condemn knowledge. The Hebrews had no
God of Knowledge. ' No Minerva, or Pallas, or Idaia Mater, held
up the sacred lamp in Judea.

The Jews condemn woman for this ” fall,” but the woman was
not warned by the gods about the fruit. Other nations have
 CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

similar stories, but they do not degrade woman as the Jews did.

We have seen on p. 179 that Yahweh did not blame the woman
for the fall, he condemns man alone. It was the Nabis. who repre-
sented an intensely masculine cult, who created the " sinful
woman" dogma, which unfortunately the Christians adopted.

Other nations have a fall (p. 188), but sexual intercourse is openly
stated to be the cause. The Hebrew myth had the same cause, as
the eating of the fruit made Eve the " mother of all living."

That sexual intercourse is the cause of all evil, with the Phallus
as the active agent, as symbolised by the deadly serpent, is a myth
common to all nations.

We see it in the story of Attis. He was beloved of Agdistis,
but Midas gave him his daughter la, and closed the gates of Pessimus
that none might disturb the wedding. Agdistis burst in, however,
and filled the guests with madness. Attis mutilated himself, and
cast his genitals before Agdistis (as Moses* wife Zipporah cast
her son's foreskin at the feet of Yahweh, p. 218) saying, "Take
these, the cause of all evil."

Jesus approved of men becoming eunuchs for the Kingdom of
Heaven's sake, and we know that such practices were common all
over the world in ancient times. Lucian tells us, in " The Syrian
Goddess," that in the Syrian celebrations at Hieropolis (priest town),
at the vernal season, there were feasts and sacrifices of the most
extravagant description, everything being conducted on a scale of
the greatest magnitude. People came from all neighbouring coun-
tries, bringing their gods with them. Here, in their religious frenzy,
they sacrificed to their protectress, Mylitta, or Kubele, not the
symbolical, but the real Phallus. Seized with sudden religious fury,
a devotee would snatch up a sharp knife left on the altar for the
purpose, castrate himself publicly, rush off, and throw what he cut
off into any house he fancied, when the occupier must give him a
complete suit of women's clothing. Thus they not only made vows
of perpetual virginity to the goddess, but took means by this great
sacrifice to prevent themselves from breaking their vows. Kubele's
priests were eunuchs. (Herodotus, lib. /., cop. 199, p. 92.)

The Roman Catholic clergy of to-day, when they take the vows
of celibacy (the modern equivalent of castration) assume women's
clothing (frocks) just as did the devotees of Kub616 or Cyb6le in
Syria.

In Kappadokia, the goddess Ma (their Venus) had 6000 conse-
crated eunuch-priests (" made themselves eunoche for the King-
dom of Heaven's sake," Matt. six. 12), and this worship of the
Mother of Heaven, Ma, gave rise to outbursts of self-torture and
frenzied lust. (Herodotu$.\
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

185

Referring to the worship of the Great Mother .of the Gods
(Cybele) in Rome, Prof. Showerman describes the orgiastic and
frenzied worship of her devotees and eunuch-priests, and says:
“ Self emasculation sometimes accompanied the delirium of worship
of the part of the candidates for the priesthood.”   (Encyc. Brit.,

1911, Vo l. XII., p. 402, a.b.)

In Matthew xix., referring to marriage and the sexual act, Jesus
actually approves of the castration of men in order to prevent this
” fall.” He argues, in verse 12, that ” some are eunuchs from their
mother’s womb, and some are made eunuchs of men,” evidently to
gain a salaried place in the harem of the palace, ” and there be
eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of
Heaven’s sake,” like Origen, who was castrated for righteousness
sake. He evidently thinks this is one way of gaining the Kingdom
of Heaven, and approves of it. So, at least, think the poor, de-
luded Russian peasants, a sect called Skoptsi, from Skopet, to
castrate, who, basing their faith on that text, and the ” fall ” in
Genesis, mutilate themselves in hundreds at secret nocturnal meet-
ings, amid songs and Bacchanalian ” dancing,” carried on till ex-
haustion.   (Anthro. Soc. Journ., July 1870, p. 126. O’Donooan,

Mere Oasis, 1882. M. Gaster, “ Times,” 9th May, 1912, p. 5.)
So, whether the occasion is the enjoyment of the sexual act, or
that of its extinction for life, the same sort of ” Bacchanalia ”
result. The Russian Government strenuously repress this
sect, yet scores of converts are daily added to their num*
bers. This sect call their fathers and mothers fornicators, and
we can see Tolstoi in his old age leaning towards this opinion. Life
is so terribly hard in Russia that to add to their population is con-
sidered by some to be a crime. How inborn is this idea of shame
and sin in every country in the world, medical men can tell. There
are many cases of attempted mutilation of themselves by boys and
lads owing to the depression caused by sensuality. The victims
Bunk by mutilation to get rid of all this temptation and misery.

The Christians show their faith in the dogma of all evil coming
into the world through woman, by their treatment of women in all
religious ceremonies and beliefs,—a curious phase of which is the
greet horror with which ultra-protestants regard the admission of
a woman, a goddess, such as the Virgin Mary, into the inner circle
of Gods. For instance, Hislop, the ultra-Protestant, says, that the
Melchite section of the Catholic Church held that the Trinity con-
sisted of the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their son
[frontispiece} , and exclaims, ” Is there one who would not shrink
with* horror from such a thought!” (“Two Babylons,” p. 89.)
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The word goddess is excluded from the Hebrew mythology, and is
unknown to Christians. Lecky, in his ” History of Morals,** II.,
p. 338-340, says : “ Woman was represented as the * door of hell ’
and the mother of all ills. She should be ashamed that she is a
woman, and live in continual penance on account of the curse she
had brought on the world.”

According to the Jewish view, from the first creation of the
beasts, before man’s advent, the commandment went forth ; ** be
fruitful and multiply the Hebrew god had no better or higher
message for man. The message is often repeated to man and
beast alike, and is emphatically without a trace of sentiment.

Nevertheless the Jewish ” this worldliness ” has had much better
results than the Christian ** other worldliness,” as we see from
the much stronger condition of Jewish children.

We have seen (p. 165) how Jeremiah tells us that the Hebrews
loved the worship of the Queen of Heaven above all others, in spite
of their Nabis’ constant insistence on Yahweh-worship and denun-
ciation of woman as the cause of all evil; and one is almost driven
to conclude that such worship with its sex celebrations were the
real religion of the nation (p. 262). It was constantly carried on
"under every green tree,” “at every street corner,” “on every
high hill,” in the temple, and in special temples by Solomon s
wives (p. 237). It must, therefore, have had the sanction of the
priests and civil powers, as Well as the king, and was condemned
by the Nabis alone.

[Prometheus]

This view is strengthened by the fact that the Jews, far from
despising their women or using them badly, are more solicitous for
their welfare than almost any other race, as we see even in London.

In going to the British Museum Library for many years, I noticed,
on taking a short cut through Hanway Street, some school children
who seemed of a much better appearance than was common to
scholars of London schools of the working class. I do not
mean richer, but more warmly clad, — their clothes in
better condition, their bodies better nourished, and their
whole appearance betokening better parental care than is
shown by the average English child. On exploring this stream of
children to its source, I saw that it issued from a Jewish school. I
then remembered the Jewish system, whereby a responsible mem-
ber of the community is expected to supervise the households of
those in the peighbourhood, and to see that kindly help is afforded,
especially to the women before and after the birth of their children.
All honour to them for showing such an example to us Gentiles.

This is borne out by the investigations of Dr. Wm. Hall, of
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

187

Leeds* who attributes the very remarkable superiority of even the
poor city Jewish children over the better class English at good
schools, such as at that of Ripon Cathedral, to the extensive use
of fat and oil in their diet. Jews use oil even in the dough of their
bread and make cakes of flour and oil as they did in Old Testament
times. Also parental care and breast feeding of the children had
their due effect as ninety per cent, of poor Jewish mothers feed
their children a la nature, while only twenty per cent, of English
do so.

Even now we have men who take the Hebrew view. Even at
the end of 1910 (14, xii., 10.) Signor Marinetti, who call's himself
a ” futurist,” calls women the root of all evil and stigmatises romantic
love as an ” evil blight.”

He thinks that this romantic love has been a poison ” in which
all the vice of man has been bred.” The woman ” of beauty with
her amorous desires, her erotic nature, her utter selfishness, her
cruelty, her greed, her frailty,” is like the infamous woman of the
Bible of whom young men are bidden to beware. Of course, no
men have these bad qualities! ! Her snake-like evils have crushed
and choked the noblest ideals of manhood, and so on. Signor
Marinetti does not seem to know that it was the romantic love which
led man out to fight with nature, to feed and clothe ” all his pretty
chickens and their dam,” which has made him what he is, inventive,
poetic, the explorer, the creator, hence all the Gee Urges or earth
creators are male, while woman is only receptive ; and, because
she plays her role as his inspirer and receiver, Marinetti says that
man is seduced and loses all his virility and moral health. It is his
love of woman which gives him his virility and moral health.

The Hindus have the true view when they say that the female
is the ” Spirit ” of God which ” stirs him to action.” ” Without
her no creation is possible ” (p. 48).

Woman’s sphere and man's are complementary, and neither can
invade the other’s sphere, man is the leader or doer. As inventor
or creator, look at their roles in music. Women have been taught
to play music for centuries, while men were not encouraged and
few were taught. What has woman created in music? She
is often a fine executant of man’s creations, but she does not
create. Marinetti speaks of man doing without woman, and con-
tinuing the human race by mechanical means. Here is a big step,
indeed, but all researches show that the female-produced egg is
essential to the continuance of life, while the male stimulus may
be produced chemically or even mechanically, according to M. M.
Bataillon and Hcnneguy, so it is more probable that woman may
yet do Without die male and turn the tables on Signor Marinetti.
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But it it entirely frivolous to talk of the evil of sex. Sex seems
to be inherent in matter, as we see it stretching back to the very
lowest form of life, and it is probably, like intelligence, inherent in
the properties of the Atom, which seem to be ruled by the “ pair-
ing ” tendency as much as man is.

The instinct of love is strongest in the strongest and best men,
who ought to be the fathers of the next generation. Modern mono-
gamistic marriage, which only exists as a practical morality for a
few hundred years, and seems to have come in about the time of the
Reformation, is destructive of this, and will tend to the degeneration
of the race, unless Eugenists can take the matter in hand and render
the woman economically independent of the man so that she may
be absolutely free to chose the best father for her children. At
present it is money which rules sex matters, and money-making is
altruistically cheating, so that men of mean minds, and often of
feeble body, appropriate the finest women.

The Romans knew the value of the stimulus of sexual love, and
had the temples of Rome and Venus standing back to back, and
the great name “ Roma ” read from the other temple was ” Amor,”
so that the two were interchangeable terms. Amor was worshipped
till 850 A.D., when Pope Leo IV. dedicated the old shrine of Venus
to St. Maria Nova, the new mother of the babe.

However much we may admire the Elizabethan roll of the
language of our Bible, the sacred writings of other races are still
finer. An example occurs to me among many. Holy writ states
baldly that ” contentment is great gain,” 1 Timothy vi., but the
Hindus state it thus beautifully (Jeypore College) “ Oh 1 content-
ment, come and make me rich, for without thee there is no wealth.”

The Indian account of the fall is much more artistic than ours.
There were devotees in a remote time, men and women living to-
gether, in perfect innocence, in a garden of Eden ; but, in course of
time, although their conduct was still quite good, desire had entered
their hearts. Siva determined to expose this, so he sent his beautiful
mountain love Prakriti (rosy dawn in the mountains) to show herself
in a flowing gauzy robe, which the refreshing breeze of the morning
would move, so as to give enchanting glimpses of her perfect form.
The male devotees were making ready for their ablutions and
ceremonies. She approached with downcast eyes, with now and
then a melting glance, and in a low sweet voice asked if she might
join them. They left their pooja paraphernalia, forgot their prayers,
and gathered round her, saying: "Be not offended with us for
approaching thee, forgive us for our importunities—thou who art
, made to convey bibs—admit us to the number of thy slaves, let us
have die comfort to behold thee.” Thus were the men seduced.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

169

Siva himself appeared to the women beautiful as Krishna
(Apollo). Some dropped their jewels, others their garments, with-
out noticing their loss, or their exposure of their seductive beauties,
all rushed after him calling, “Oh thou who art made to govern
our hearts, whose countenance is fresh as the morning, whose voice
is the voice of pleasure, and thy breath like that of Spring in the
opening rose, stay with us and we will serve thee.” Thus were
the women seduced.

The men remained with the Goddess all night and the women
with the god.

Next morning they found themselves alone ; the god and goddess
had disappeared. Shame took possession of them, and they kept
their eyes on the ground. Then they arose, and returned to their
houses with slow and troubled steps. The days that followed were
days of embarrassment and shame. The women had failed in
modesty, and the men had broken their vows. They were vexed
at their weakness, they were sorry for what they had done, yet
the tender sigh sometimes broke forth, and the eye often turned to
where the men first saw the beautiful maid, and the women the
glorious young god.

Compare this fine poem, with its beautiful, sad longing for love,
after the first great madness of cupid and Psyche, with the crass
statement of the Hebrews, ‘ ‘ And Adam knew his wife and she
conceived and bare Cain ” (of Genesis iv.). No word of love is
here. After the Indians and Greeks, the religion of the ignorant
Highland clan is most prosaic. They had little fine poetry but that
of fear. (See Prof. Duhma work on Ezekiel•)

In chapter four, the scribe, having covered the join between
the Ale-im and Yahweh narratives, by coupling the names, Yahweh
A16-im, translated Lord God, whereas it means ” the tribal god
Yahweh of the circle of gods,” dropped the Ale-im altogether, and
gives the tale a purely Hebrew tone by writing of ” Yahweh ” alone.

In Genesis v. we have another quite different story of creation,
the fourth account. It takes for granted that the world always
existed, with its plants, animals, etc., and it was only the ” First
Man ” who needed creation.

. In this story we return to the Gods (Ale-im), who again create
i»|n, and call him Adam (Babylonian for man) ” in the likeness of
the Gods male and female,” so again we see the bisexual Gods
creating man, Zakar and Nekebah, Sword and Sheath, like them-
selves.

In this account there is no Eden, no rib story, no fruit eating;
Cain andAbel are not known, Seth being Adam’s first son. Even
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

the " Mother of all living,” Eve, does not appear, woman being
such an inferior being in the Hebrew mythology that she is not
mentioned in accounts of Genealogy or Toldhoth. Adam is reduced
to an ordinary patriarch, the sole mirodox attached to him being
that of living nine hundred and thirty years. This is Toldhoth, or
tribal history. Into this early history, the cdbmogomy, the Eden
story* and the Cain and Abel tale were inserted at a later date.

FIFTH NARRATIVE OF CREATION.

We find, scattered up and down the Bible, little poetical fragments
of another story of creation, especially in Job, the Psalms, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. This account deals with the slaying of a
dragon in the water, hurly-burly, “ Tohuwa Bohu,” by Yahweh,
and his then commencing creation.

In Psalm Ixxxix. the poet sings :—

“ Thbu remainest Lord when the sea rageth,

When the waves thereof rise thou stillest them,

Thou hast defiled Rahab as Carrion ;

With the arm of strength thou hast scattered thy foes:

Thine is the heaven, thine is the earth ;

The world and its fullness, thou hast founded it;

North and South thou hast created them.”

Here we have a raging sea (Tohuwa-Bohu), then a slaying or
defiling of Rahab, or the dragon, and a scattering of other foes;
then creation.

That Rahab was a dragon, and was slain, we know from
Isaiah li.; ” Oh! Arm of Yahweh awake, as in the ancient day in
the generations of old. Art thou not he that shattered Rahab, that
defiled the dragon ; art thou not he that dried up the sea, the
waters of the great Tehom?” (Tohuwa-Bohu). (The “Great
Tehom ” is rendered in the Bible the “ Great Deep.”)

Here we see that not only is Rahab the dragon shattered or
killed, but she is defiled, and the waters of the great deep dried
up (separated the waters from the earth).

Job xxvi. says : ” By his power hath he stilled the sea. By his
understanding hath he shattered Rahab. His hand hath defiled the
wreathed serpent ” ; again both killing and ” defiling.”

In Job there is mention of proud helpers of Rahab who stooped
under God.

This slaying of Rahab is also sung of as bruising the Leviathan,
as in Psalm boriv., 13-17; ” Thou hast divided the sea with might:
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

191

hast broken the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou hast
bruised the heads of the Leviathan. Gavest him for meat for food
to the jackals ; Thine is the day, and thine is the night; Thou hast
established moon and sun (moon first); Thou hast appointed Summer
and Winter. All the powers of the earth ; them hast thou formed.’*

Here we have further details. There were several dragons which
were defeated, their heads broken,—but there was a special dragon,
or Leviathan, who had several heads, which he not only bruised but
gave him for meat to the jackals, " defiled ” his body, as we saw
in former statements.

Again, in Psalms Ixxxvii., 4, and Isaiah xxvii., I, the same men-
tion is made of slaying “ leviathan ” (like a proper name), or the
dragon. ** Babylon and the Hebrew Genesis.”

Now Eusebius, who wrote an account of all religions for the
Council which discussed the Arian question, tells us that a
Babylonian priest, Berossus, whose works have been lost, wrote an
account of the beliefs of his native land, and described the Baby-
lonian account of creation. From Eusebius and Josephus we gather
that darkness, water, and chaos reigned, with all sorts of monsters,
but over them all ruled a woman, called by the Greek writer
” Thamte,” allegorically the sea. Bel, the Lord, came and cut her
asunder, and of the divided parts formed heaven and earth, and
at the same time destroyed the other creatures who were with her.
He then created man and animals out of the dust of the earth mixed
with the blood of a God, and made the stars, the sun, the moon, and
the five planets.

The Cuneiform clay tablets, found during the last 60 or 70 years
in the library of Assurbanipal, show this to have been nearly correct,
but now we have much more detail.

The epic in clay tells us that when the earth and heaven were
unnamed, and while yet Tihamat, the begotten of the primeval
ocean, ruled over them all, the first of the Gods appeared. (See
Zimmern a “ Babylonian and Hebrew Geneaia.”

Now Tihamat is simply Tehom with the feminine ” at ” (or ” t ”
alone) as the feminine determinant. Note that, in all international
subjects, the pronunciation is always Continental, all other nations
except Britain pronounce ” i ” as our “ ee,” and “ e ” as our “ a,”
and M a ’* as our ” ah.” Berossus, writing in Greek, tried to imitate
the name as Thamte,, the Greek “ Th ” being like “ T,” but he
detained the final ” T,” showing the feminine. The Hebrews, by
omitting the female determinant ” T,” turned the feminine Tiamat
into the masculine Tehom. Again we see the Hebrews* (Nabis)
refusal to admit a female into their creation story, even as a demon.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Tihamat was the mother of the Gods ; she rebelled against her
ancient solitary reign being superseded, and created monsters to
help her.

The gods elected Marduk (the Biblical Merodach) to destroy
Tihamat. He accepted, on condition that, on succeeding, he would
become the ruler of the universe. Marduk (Merodach and Mor-
decai of the Bible) had the title Bel, meaning Lord, and is often
mentioned by that title, especially in the Apocryphal book, " The
story of Bel and the Dragon.” There are poems extant telling of
this election, and praising Marduk telling of his miracles—[no
religion without mirophily]—and giving him weapons to overcome
Tihamat. He goes forth in a grand chariot drawn by fiery steeds,
with bow and arrows, scimitar, and trident, to conquer.

He defeated her companions and took them prisoners.

He cut her body in two, forming the ” firmament with one half,
the earth with the other ” ; the firmament held up the waters of
the sky, like the separation of Seb and Nut in Egyptian Mythology.
[Fig. 56, p. 72.]   ” Bounds he set to it, watchers he placed there,

to hold back the waters he commanded them.” The rest of the
story, as far as yet unearthed, is similar to that told in the first
chapter of Genesis.

[Prometheus]

We now see that the original form of the creation, current
amongst the old Jewish prophets or poets, was identical with the
Babylonian myth. But the first chapter of Genesis was written at
a very late date, probably about 300 or 400 B-.C., and the ideas of the
Jews were too far advanced to admit of them attributing creation
to a foreign God slaying a dragon, and so the writer cut out all the
first part, and had it not been for the references in the poets’
writings, in Psalms, etc., we should never have known from internal
evidence that the Jews obtained their religious account of creation
direct from the Babylonians.

The exact agreement may be summarised as follows:—

It begins with the mysterious second verse of Genesis i., by a
description of the world as water and darkness, Tohuwa-Bohu, the
words conveying an idea of storm and stress, called Tehom, and
tells us that Ruach brooded on the abysmal waters. Hie clay
tablets tell an identical story. But Tihamat was the mother of the
Gods, and we find that Ruach was the wife or mother of the Gods,
and we know that in all mythologies the wife and mother are one
(see p. 136)*'

But let us continue the summary. The feminine Tihamat be-
comes masculine Tehom by dropping the feminine affix, but,
although Tehom is used to mean the primeval ocean, it is used as a
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

193

proper name without the article, as was Tihamat, and represented
a mythological being.

Both myths represent the monster as dragon-like. Both myths
have variants implying that she had several heads.

She has seven heads in the Babylonian myth and in '* Revela-

. «   M

Pons.

Both myths have auxiliary monsters.

Both say the dragqn was against the Gods (plural).

Both make the dragon and her helpers rebels,,

In both, the dragon claims dominion over the world, and in both
this is indicated to be an insolent rebellion.

Marduk (Babylonian) and Yahweh (Hebrew) both go forth armed
with weapons.

Both slay the dragon with a sword.

The helpers are more leniently dealt with in both stories, dis-
persed, conquered, and made prisoners.

In both myths, the dividing of the deep Tehom into the water
above and beneath, preludes the creation of heaven and earth.

In both myths the creation of heaven and earth immediately
follow the destruction of the monsters.

The differences in details, and the changes in sex and nomen-
clature, are exactly what one would expect from the racial ideas
of the nation which adopted the Babylonian myth, but the details
are so similar that it shows that, either the myth had not long been
transplanted, or that the Hebrews were still under the tuition of
their Babylonian conquerors—which we have seen to have been fre-
quently the case (pp. 145-146). I have already pointed out that the
story of Chaos and the waters could only have arisen on Babylonian
soil, and was, as we now know, extant in Babylon long before the
Hebrews inhabited Jerusalem. The Babylonians had a story of
how eternal life was lost to man, as all nations have ; but it differed
somewhat from the Eden myth. Instead of the Gods resolutely
denying eternal life to man, they freely offered it to Adapa, the first
man. The story is that Adapa's boat was sunk by the sudden fury
of the South wind, and in revenge he broke the wings of the South
wind. Anu, the God of Heaven, summoned him to account for his
action. Ea, Adapa’s father, warned him that “ Bread of Death ”
and *' Water of Death ” would be offered to him, pnd he must
refuse them or *•* Thou^shalt surely die ” (like Yahweh’s threat to
Adam). But the God Anu commanded ” Food of Life ” to be
brought to him; he refused it, owing to the warning of Ea, and
' Water of Life ” also. Anu was amazed at a mortal refusing
immortality, and cried, **Oh! Adapa, wherefore hast thou not
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CHRISTIANITY : THE SOURCES

eaten, wherefore hast thou not drunken? So also shall thou not
live. Take him back to his home on earth/'

A much more loveable God was Anu, sorry for the man's folly,
compared with jealous Yahweh, who punished man for the blunders
of the Gods.

But the Garden of Eden was only brought down to earth in late
times; like the Heaven Adapa visited, it was originally far away
in the sky, and, just as we have fragments of the Yahweh-Tehom
myth in the older poetic books, so we have glimpses of the early
Eden in Ezekiel and Revelation.

Ezekiel, in a rhapsody on the beauty of the land of the Assyrian,
chapter mi., 3-9, says, of the Assyrian trees fostered by irrigation,
“ The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him ; the fir trees
were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his
branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in
his beauty.

“ 1 have made him fair by the multitude of his branches; so
that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied
him.”—Ezekiel xxxi., 8-9.

This is a part of the usual ” prophecy ” written after the event.
The Scythians (Skuthians) had destroyed Babylon, and had
plundered the Pharaoh’s tombs in Egypt. They left the tombs in
the chaotic state we now find them, taking a rich plunder of gold
and precious stones, crowns, necklets, rings, etc., in which the kings
and queens had been buried.

They destroyed the irrigation canals of Babylon so completely
that it became the desert which it is to this day.

Ezekiel writes a “ prophecy,” solemnly warning the King of
Egypt that ” therefore, because thou hast lifted up thyself in height,
and he (the Assyrian) hath his top (in pride) 1 haoe therefore de-
livered him into the mighty one of the heathen (Skuthians), and he
shall deal with him.” Note that the future and past, turn about,
trying to make a prophecy of what had already happened.

So we see that all the trees in the Garden of God (Eden), even
the Tree of Life, and that of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,
envied the Assyrians. No wonder they placed their- Eden there.

Our St. George and the Dragon is die Western version of the
Babylonian fable. Marduk was a ” Gee Urge,” Earth Maker, and
slew a Dragon.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

195

THE FLOOD.

The Babylonians had also a deluge story as had all other nations,
as floods are such incontrollable disasters, and always superstitiously
considered to be specially sent as a punishment. The Babylonians
had an excuse, as they had a flood every winter, occasionally a very
destructive one, by typhoons driving up the sea in the Persian Gulf
(see pp. 204-205).

But it is of little use to go over all these myths, for myths they
undoubtedly are. One has only to ask ; is there water enough
available on the world to cover the mountains, to And, on calcula-
tion, that, if all the water were extracted from the air, leaving it
chemically dry, and put into the ocean, it would not raise the
level of the sea more than 10 inches, an amount absolutely invisible
to savage man, in view of the tides and the rise and fall by winds.
Of course a rainfall of ten inches often takes place locally, but
that is the water deposited from a vast volume of air constantly
changing, entering an area of low pressure, and depositing rain,
then passing on to be replaced by more moist air ready to yield up
its moisture in turn, a continuous process. Then the rain over a
large area is concentrated into a narrow valley, and causes floods,
which become exaggerated by the excitement caused by the disaster,
into a flood of the whole world—in fact, the flood was over the
*' whole world ** of the inhabitants of the valley.

In the case of the flood, we have again two contradictory stories.
One gives the flood at forty days and nights, and the other,
a part of a year, a whole year, and anothet a part of a
year. The Babylonian flood lasted only two weeks, but the
cause of the flood and the results were the same, while the minutely
detailed sending out of birds is very similar in both cases, even
down to the sacrifice, and the Gods " smelling a sweet savour.1*

From early times the Zodiacal signs governed the symbols under
which the sun should be worshipped, but the Hebrews were very
ignorant (they had no'astronomers when Babylon had advanced
scientific astronomers), and they clung to the old Phallic worship
and necromancy. But their Bible was written very late, about 400
to 200 B.C., in a highly astronomical period ; so the Babylonian or
Persian priests, Nehemiah and Ezra, who re-composed their Scrip-
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CHRISTIANITY : THE SOURCES

tures, may have given (hem an astronomical turn. For instance, we
see the number 40 linked with all Jewish mirologues. Now the
death and re-birth of the sun is the subject of nearly all the folk-lore
of the Bible ; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are shown by Goldziher
to be Sun Gods. Samson, Job, Esther, and Mordecai, and Daniel,
are all dim reflections of sun myths, while their great miracle play
in the tabernacle, once a year, represented the death and re-birth of
the sun from the Virgin of Israel.

The three days and three nights of Jonah’s incarceration in the
whale’s belly, and of Jesus in the tomb, were, as we know from
the latter, 40 hours,—from Friday afternoon till Sunday morning,
or Thursday till Saturday (pp. 109 and 333).

This represented the time the sun was supposed to be dead
on the winter Solstice ; from 4 p.m. on the 20th of December
(or equivalent on other calendars) till 8 a.m. on the 22nd December,
the 21st being the “lying dead’’ or “standing still” of the sun
(Solstice).

This makes part of a day, a whole day, and part of a day or
forty hours, and the two accounts of the flood were evidently
written by two scribes regarding this same solar period from two
points of view, viz. :—The first as part of a year, a whole year, and
part of a year, and the second as forty days, part of a month, a
whole month, and part of a month, one scribe calling the days of the
Solstice years, and the other calling the days months, or the forty
hours forty days. The flood and the Solstice both refer to the
absence of the sun, or its weak power or death at the winter solstice,
and the use of the words hours, days, and years, was quite
promiscuous ; “ And the days of his years are three score years
and ten.”

These Babylonian accounts, having become fixed by being
written, and having formed part of the liturgy of the
Babylonians, had become widely disseminated over the East
a thousand years before the Hebrews, or Jews, or Israel-
ites, or Judeans, or Canaanites (they have so many names),
had settled in Palestine. Copies of these myths were used
in 1400 B.C. at Tel El Amarna as exercises in writing in the time of
Akhnaton (Flinders Petrie, Tel el Amarna Tablets.). Cuneiform
writing was used for all official correspondence, even in Egypt,
where they had the priestly hieroglyphics, but the Babylonians were
a trading*people, and had developed a more practical language and
writing.

Hence, when the Hebrews either arrived, pr arose, in Palestine,
they would find all these legends current, and they formed the
originals of the Bible folk-lore.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

197

We have preserved for us a great many of the Babylonian
legends, and much of its litany, exactly as it was written, owing
to the imperishable nature of the burnt brick tablets on which it was
written. They were buried by the destruction of all the great
Babylonion cities by the Scythians or Skuthians in the ruthless
invasion which caused the great Song of Fear of Ezekiel
(see Dr. Duff's translation of Prof. Duhm’s poetic analysis of
Ezekiel in Duff's “Old Testament Criticism.*’) These tablets
show us the Babylonian literature of 3,000 to 4,000 years
ago without any change or modernization, whereas the Hebrew
Biblical narrative has been the subject of profound alteration, due
to incessant editing, necessitated by the changes of religious ideas
and beliefs, which are inevitable in any living religion. The
Hebrews gradually evolved their “law,” each prophet or high
priest adding or altering the details to suit the ideas of the day,
and statements about miracles and the ancient history of the race
were inserted or altered by the priestly caste in order to give
authority to their precepts and practices. Thus, all the old Baby-
lonian folk-lore was altered so as to debase woman, and Carpenter
tells us (p. 141), “ In the priestly code much important legislation is
conveyed in the form of a narrative leading to a difficulty, a question
and a decision.”

In other words it is full of “ cases ’’ elaborately designed as pre-
cedents. They are legal fictions by which fresh rules are made
binding, and permanent enactments were evolved out of hypo-
thetical incidents in the wilderness (p. 116). Early races always
require some authority to make their laws enforceable, hence the
“ inspiration ” theory so dear to mirophilists, or the " legal fiction.”

That astronomical facts were the basis of the majority of feasts
and religious rites and of the tales of their gods we have much
evidence.

A large proportion of the cuneiform tables was devoted to
astronomical information and tables, and a further large proportion
devoted to the more popular and superstitious side of astronomy,
viz.: Astrology, showing that the broad facts of astronomy had
filtered down in a distorted form into the general population.

” Babyloif was really the cradle of astronomical observation,”
and ” the astronomy of the Babylonians has been celebrated by
'many Greek and Latin authors.”   (Sayce, “ Hibbert Lectures

p. 229.)

Even the bitter tongued Isaiah, bewailing the heavy yoke Babylon
had laid upon his people, and telling her that although she has said,
" I shall be a lady for ever ” (Isaiah xlvii., 7), yet should desolation
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

come upon her, sarcastically calls out (Isaiah xlvii., 13), “ Let now
die astrologers, the star gazers, and the monthly prognosticators
stand up and save thee.”

But the ignorant and superstitious Hebrew poet only knew the
degraded side of Babylonian knowledge, the “ enchantments,” the
” multitude of the sorceries,” and could not appreciate the laborious
and accurate work of the astronomers in mapping the heavens,
naming the stars, and recording the motions and eclipses of sun and
moon, and keeping correct dates by practical astronomy, as Green'
wich does by more refined methods to-day.

They had mapped the limits of the wanderings of the planets
and the apparent course of the sun amongst the stars (a combination
of observation and reasoning beyond the powers of even the
majority of educated Europeans in the 20th century), and divided
the ecliptic belt, called the Zodiac, into twelve signs or ” houses of
the sun,” as far back as 4700 B.C., or nearly 7,000 years ago, when
the sun in the Spring equinox was in Tammuz, The Twins, our
Gemini. Their signs of the Zodiac were founded on Phallism and
the Totem names of the ancient Accadian religion, and as they
started their Zodiac at the Spring Equinox and made their first sign
the strong bull ploughing a straight course through the heavens,
directing the course of the year, we can calculate that this arrange-
ment must have come into existence about B.c. 4700   (Sayce,

**Hibbert Lectures”)

” Astronomical science underlies the whole Babylonian religion.”
” The cuneiform determinative for a deity is an eight-rayed star ”
(Sayce). In fact, the very word star is said to be derived from the
Babylonian Venus Istar, as is the Church word Easter.

We have seen that while the main story of the creation is Baby-
lonian, and based on the conditions peculiar to the Euphrates
Valley, there is another story with an atmosphere much more suit-
able to the Arid highlands round Jerusalem. These two narratives
use different names for their gods and are mixed up with curious
fragments derived from neither.