■*?&&H -. I I )' I In BE iE Eg I^HBfl B /.lj.O-Lf LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. BL 660 .C89 _. , Crawford, Alexander Crawford Lindsay, 1812-1880. The creed of Japhet ,'-'¥; ' ■ ■ I I 1 1 1 HHEwn ^H - ■ ^H IH OH 5tii t&HFr;ir-> M I ■^ AV> IVith the Compliments of the Dowager Countess of Crawford. N 4 1924 fa/** T^*"' — ' THE CREED OF JAPHET, THAT IS OF THE RACE POPULARLY SURNAMED 1NDO-GERMANIC OR ARYAN, AS HELD BEFORE THE PERIOD OF ITS DISPERSION; ASCERTAINED BY THE AID OF COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY AND LANGUAGE. BY ALEXANDEE WILLIAM EARL OF CRAWFORD AND BALCARRES (LORD LINDSAY), AUTHOR OF "ETRUSCAN INSCRIPTIONS," "PROGRESSION BY ANTAGONISM," "(ECUMENICITY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND," "SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN ART," ETC. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 1891. COPY 28. CONTENTS. Preface .... The Author's Letter to Bishop Forbes The Author's Introduction . TAGR ix xv xxviii PART I. GOD AND THE SPIRITUAL WORLD IN RELATION TO MAN (pp. 1-296). Chap. I. — The Supreme God, the Father . 1-33 First Series of Titles, descending through Zwarz . . . 8-12 Second Series, from Zwaz . . . . . 12, 13 Third Series, from Herk-, Hek, Thworestara, etc. . . . 13-18 Typical Impersonations : Surtr, Varuna, Hecate, Oceanus . 18-29 Personal Symbols ....... 29-33 Chap. II. — God the Son 34-181 Typical Forms, Personal Characteristics, Mother-titles 34-59 Sec. I. — The Son-Deity as God 59-74 i. Apollo .... 59-68 ii. Balder .... 68-70 iii. Thor . 70-74 Sec II.— The Son-Deity as Man . 74-108 i. Hercules .... 74-82 ii. Iacchus .... 82-96 iii. .iEacus .... 96-99 iv. Tet 99-108 Sec. III.— Son of God and Son or Seed of Man . 108-181 i. Pallas Athene 108-113 ii. Polydectes .... . 113-119 iii. Polydeuces 119-136 IV CONTEXTS. TAOF. iv. Various other Forms of tho Son-Deity . 136-173 [ndra, Hermaphroditic Zeus, etc. 137-139 Aswins, Penates, Skyphius . 140-142 Bellerophon, Balder 142-146 Indra, surnanied Aki-hau and Vritra-1 ian . 146, 147 Briareus 147-149 Styx .... 149, 150 Heimdall, Ymer . 150-154 Prometheus 154-1G8 Iamus .... 1GS-171 Linus .... 171-173 v. Symbols of the Son-Deity, Bal or Bar Tur, Tus, etc. .... 173-181 Chap. III.— The Spirit-Deity ( Iharacteristics and Forms . Sec. I. — His Generation of the Son-Deity . Sec. II. — His Inspiration or Direction of Man 182-228 182-191 192-208 208-228 Chap. IV. — Unity of the Deity 229-23G Chap. V. — Spirits Intermediate between God and Man 237-296 Seo. I. — Min isters of Mercy / 'irst Class i. Griffins . ii. Harpies iii. Sphinx iv. Echidna v. Chimsera . Second Class i. Sc\ lla and ( Iharybdis ii. The Simplegades The Dogs of Yama Hypnos and Thanatos Third Class . i. Serpen! ii. Crab iii. Scorpion iv. The Vulture of Prometheus v. The Eagle Envoy of Zeus vi. The Dog . vii. Pandora, Harmouia, Helen, (' il\ pso, [duna 240-274 244-250 244-246 246,247 247, 248 248 249 250-256 250-253 253, 254 255, 256 256 257-274 257-261 261,262 262-264 264, 265 265 265-26S 268-271 CONTENTS. Sec. viii. Anishaspands, Amazons . . . 271-273 ix. Titans aud Jotuns . . 273 II. — Ministers of Punishment : Typhoeus, Lok, Azhi- Dahaka, Lycaon .... 274-295 PART II RELATION OF MAN TO GOD AND THE SPIRITUAL WORLD (pp. 297-584). Chap. I.— The Moral Law 302-318 Chap. II. — The Propitiation of God, through Lustration and Sacrifice . . . 319-456 Sec. I. — Lustration ...... 319-334 Sec. II.— Sacrifice ....... 334-456 Subsect. I. — Sacrifices of Expiation and Reconciliation 338-450 Class I. — Ordinary Sacrifices of Appeasement and Reconciliation .... 338-367 1. Sheep ..... 339 2. Goat ..... 339,340 3. Boar ...... 341 4. Bull ..... 341 5. Horse ..... 341 6. Dog ..... 342 Obs. 1 ...... 342 Obs. 2 ..... 343 The six Sacrificial Animals again reviewed . 345 1. Ram ..... 345-357 2. Goat ...... 357 3. Boar ..... 357-359 4. The Bull ..... 359-362 5. Horse ..... 362-366 6. Dog ...... 366,367 Class II. — Extraordinary Sacrifices of Appeasement and Reconciliation . . . 368-394 First Variety — Extraordinary or Human Sacrifice, Passive ..... 371-378 1. Daughter of Erechtbeus . . . 372-378 2. Twelve Trojan Captives . . . 372 3. Polyxena .... 373 4. Iphigeueia ..... 373 5. Exposure of Hesione . . . 373 VI CONTENTS. 6. Phrixus ami Helle .... 7. Death of Pelops .... iSeeond Variety — Extraordinary or Human Sacrifice, Heroic: Self-sacrifice, or Devotio Decius Mus The Three Hundred at Thermopylae The Fabii at Cremona . Curtius and Scsevola Codrus .... Menoeceus Alcestis .... The Athamantidae . Class III.— Theory of Piacular Sacrifice The Covenant between God and Man Analyses Mecone What god was propitiated . Constellation of the Bear Subsect. II. — Sacrifice of Thanksgiving Conclusion of Chapter II. l'ACK 374 374 378-394 378-380 380 380 381 382 382 383 383 394-450 394-421 406-421 421 434, sqq. 443-450 451-454 455, 456 Chap. III.— Education of the Soul during this Life 457-511 mi I. The Soma Festival and its Analogues in the West Sec. II. The Eleusinian Mysteries Sec. III. The Games .... 458-478 478-490 490-511 Chai\ IV.— The City of God Skc. I. — The Constitution of the Church . Sec. II.— The Priesthood . Sec. III. — Conservation of Truth and Discipline . Seo. IV. — Symbolism . 512-540 512-522 522-527 527-531 531-540 Chap, V. — Fi tube State Beo. I. -Death, Judgment, Reward, and Punishment of the Indi- vidual ..... Sec. II.— The Belief regarding the End of the World . SUBSEOT. I.— Tlie Deliverer Subsect. II.— Doom of the Evil Demon Stc. 111.— Scenery, etc., of the Progress of the Soul through the Future World . 541-584 542-549 550-565 551 561 562-565 565-584 CONTENTS. Vll PART III. PAG THE LEGENDS AS TESTIMONIES TO DOGMA (pp. 585-740). Chap. I. — Legends depending on the Doctrine op Human Schuld, or Guilt 590-603 Chap. II. — Legends depending on the Doctrine of Propitiation and Emancipation, or Freedom, from the Con- dition of Schuld, or Guilt, through the Piacular Self-sacrifice of the Son-Deity . . 604-634 Sec. I. — Admetus and Alcestis ..... 606-610 Sec. II.— CEdipus ...... 610-614 Sec. III.— Athamas ...... 614-621 Sec. IV— Bellerophon ..... 621-627 Sec. V. — Theseus and Perseus ..... 628-634 Chap. III.- -Legends depending on the Doctrine of the ' Educatio ' of the Soul Sec. I. — Certain Traditions already considered Sec. II. — The Argonautic Expedition 635-675 636-641 642-675 Chap. IV. — Legends based on the Doctrine of the City of God . . 676-700 Sec. I.— The Legend of Troy ..... 677-687 Sec. II.— Moral of the Legend .... 688-689 Sec. III. — Etymological Illustrations .... 689-693 Sec. IV. — The Legends connected .... 693-700 Chap. V. — The City Restored 701-714 Chap. VI.— Priority of Dogma Sec. I. — Grouping of the Legends Sec. II. — Induction from the Legends . Sec. III.— Traditions point to an Original Scene of Conflict Sec. IV.— Lessons taught by the Legends Sec. V.- The Myths and Legends not Cosmogonical ■Summary of Part III. . . • . • 715-740 715-718 718-724 724-735 735 735-738 738-740 viii ) oni en rs PART IV. iwi.i. -I MMARY THE CREED OF J APHET (pp. 741-757). Chap. I. The Creed of Japhet formulated . 741-718 Chap. EL— The Creed of Japhei as oompabed with thai of Christianity . . 749-757 Appendix A.— Linguistic Varieties of the Word Schwartz . 759 Appendix B.— Precis of the Argument . . . 760-829 PREFACE. It is with the greatest diffidence that I have determined to place this work of my late husband, Lord Crawford, within the reach of that limited portion of the public who take an interest in the subjects of which it treats. I cannot but feel that there is much that will provoke adverse criticism, and that, to some, even the principle on which it is founded may seem unjustified. But in times like these, when all things that can be brought to bear on the great questions of our Faith are so eagerly sought after, I have felt that the result of a long life of deep and conscientious research should not be lost to the world. The greatly increased interest in questions concerning the origin and formation of language, and in the myths of the early ages of the world, has brought many new lights and eluci- dations, unknown in his day, to bear on these subjects ; many new theories have been raised and many abandoned, even since my husband's death, eleven years ago. The present work was entirely completed and written out roughly by Lord Crawford, but he had not even begun to revise it, owing to which fact there are, I am aware, many points, though chiefly, I think, minor ones, which might and probably would have been altered or modified had he been permitted time to carry his work to its x PREFACE. final close. Those who have studied and wrestled with the great and vexed question of etymological deriva- tions and definitions can remember how eagerly a clue is followed up which sometimes turns out to be fanciful and fallacious, and is set aside for another and yet another; such scholars will the more readily comprehend and appre- ciate the great disadvantage under which this book labours, full as it is of collateral illustrations, which the wealth and variety of my husband's learning but rendered the more numerous. Time only, and a more complete and searching revision of these illustrations, various of which were possibly only noted down for consideration, might have determined their final acceptance or rejection: but we have no means of knuwing what would have been his intentions in this respect ; and, at any rate, the main principle on which he founded the basis of his views, and w7hich he laid down in his book on the Etruscan Language, was unmistakable, and upon it his present work rests firm and unshaken. For this cause I am convinced that he would wish that this exposition of his theory, even though inadequately carried out, should be placed in the hands of those students to whom it might prove useful. As will be seen from the 1' tter of my husband to Bishop Forbes of Brechin, the reconstruction of this early Creed was a matter of con- versation and correspondence between them many years ago. The letter now printed, addressed to the Bishop, is in many parts identical with one written to him in 1805, sketching the outline of the work which was subsequently executed by my husband. Of this letter a portion is quoted in Bishop Forbes's 'Explanation of the Nicene Creed' (2nd ed., 18CG). The work, planned in 1805, was begun, PREFACE. XI but not completed, when the Bishop died in 1875, my husband following him in 1880. 1 should scarcely have ventured to make it even so far public as I have done, had it not been for the advice and encouragement given to me by several great and wise men, whose opinion has been absolutely conclusive with me. The late Canon Cook, of Exeter, was the first person to whom I shewed the manuscript, he having met my husband abroad a year or two previously, and having conversed with him on the subject of this work. Having taken great interest in it, I asked his opinion, and he told me that I ought not to let the matter drop, and urged me to undertake the labour of printing it. He put me in com- munication with Dr. Wace, of King's College, London, whose courteous and practical assistance enabled me to take such preliminary steps as were necessary. Dr. Wace introduced to me the Rev. Mr. Hole, and from that time the printing of the book began to take shape and form. Tbe late Bishop Lightfoot, of Durham, although ill and suffering, interested himself in the work, and recommended its being printed for private circulation. The late Dean Church, of St. Paul's, whose kindness I cannot sufficiently express, in a personal interview strongly and unhesitatingly encouraged me to persevere, advising me not to publish the book, but to distribute copies of it to the chief public libraries in Great Britain and abroad, besides presenting it to the principal savants likely to be interested in it. The Dean had previously written to me, ' I have read the ' (proof) ' sheets with much interest and great admiration for the writer's learning, and still more for the largeness and depth of his views of religion. I understand that I am Ml PREFACE. asked for my opinion on the desirableness of either publish- ing the work, or printing it for private circulation. I am sorry that I must say that I cannot advise publication at present. Publication is a challenge; and an argument of this kind is sure, alike on scientific, on religious, and on anti-religious grounds, to meet with a great deal of hostile criticism. I do not think it is fair to the writer that a work like this, bristling with debatable points, should be placed before the public without having had the chance of his last touches and final decisions on any question that might arise.' There has been no attempt to interfere with the work beyond makiug such necessary changes as the elimination of manifold repetitions, the clearer arrangement of the sub- divisions, and the formation of marginal notes to facilitate the study of the various questions raised. Quotations, refer- ences, and linguistic words have been, as far as possible, identified and verified, these frequently demanding long and patient research; and all that could be done consistent with the retention, unmodified, of the original subject- matter has been carefully carried out. For this I am indebted to the Rev. Charles Hole, whose invaluable assist- ance I most gratefully acknowledge. He has with unwearied industry conscientiously deciphered and copied out the entire manuscript, which, written in a very small hand, with interlineations, corrections, and shortening of words, was an exceedingly difficult and arduous task; but it has been accomplished with great skill and kindly care, as also the verifications above mentioned, and the preparation and n'\ isal for thr press. To my daughter Lad} Mabel Lindsay I owe the mar- PREFACE. xiii ginal notes, and also the Precis, which is printed in an Appendix. This she has made in accordance with a sug- gestion made to me by Bishop Lightfoot, through my kind friend Canon Body, of Durham, that it would greatly facilitate the understanding of the book if the student could previously peruse the argument, so as to gain some insight into the scheme of the writer, before applying himself to the study of the proof. The Precis is entirely in the words of the original text, being merely shorn of the illustrations in support of the argument. This book, now printed, was the outcome of the study of many years of my husband's life, and the underlying current of his denpest interest. It was often interrupted, it is true, by other literary undertakings, and by the duties and occupations of a busy life ; but it was always resumed whenever a time of special opportunity or leisure occurred, and was looked upon by him as the great work of his life. He was called home by his Master before being permitted to complete it, and it has remained for me to endeavour, to the best of my power, to carry out his intentions. The original manuscript is dedicated to Professor Max Mullcr, but I have not ventured to act upon this, knowing how vehemently adverse his opinions are to that etymo- logical theory on which Lord Crawford founded his inter- pretation of the Etruscan language, that theory being a main argument in this work ; but I mention this dedication to show how warm an admiration and reverence my husband felt for the great and profouud learning of Professor Max Muller, and his keen appreciation of his works. I have now concluded my task, and this book is sent out, not what it might have been, but, as it now is, unavoidably XIV PREFACE. imperfect for lack of those last touches which none but the master's hand could give to the finished picture. I would ask a kindly and lenient judgment on its many failings, and an honest and unprejudiced consideration of the great field of research thus, as it were, opened out for future labourers. Margaret Crawford and Balcarres. Villa Palmieri, Florence, June, 1891. A LETTER To Alexander Forbes, Bishop of Brechin, Explanatory of the Nature and Object of the Work. My dear Bishop, I delayed replying to your letter in hopes that you would be able to pay us a visit here, in which case I could have replied more readily to your query respecting my ideas on the subject of the Dioscuri, the Ztvg apaevo- 6t]\vQ, etc., as adumbrating the doctrine of the two natures in Our Lord. You held out some prospects of coming to us, which I hope may be realised, and meanwhile I send you a few papers, which will, I think, sufficiently convey my impressions on the interesting point in question. They will hardly, however, be intelligible without a few words of commentary — and, sooth to say, I am very much afraid of bringing them forward publicly as yet, for a reason which I will mention presently. Moreover, they proceed on a theory and principle so much out of fashion at present, and so absolutely scouted by mythological antiquaries, that I do not think that any partial statement of views or facts based on that theory would attract respect or attention. I have therefore reserved all my lucubrations on these subjects, so far as publication is concerned, for a future day, when, after fully testing and working them XVI THE CREED OF JAl'IIET. out, F may produce them (if ultimately thought worth pro- duction, aud the time be suitable) as a consistent whole. In the meanwhile, I need scarcely say that any suggestions that the papers I send may afford you, are heartily at your service, if you think it advisable to make use of them. My belief is that a tradition of the true God, and of the scheme of redemption as foreknown to Adam, was handed down in the succession of Adam to Noah, and was transmitted by Noah to his three sons and their posterity. In the course of ages this tradition was corrupted in the three great lines of Noachide descent, but least so, I appre- hend, in that of Japhet, or of the Aryan race, inasmuch as they were the eldest sons of Noah, and, we may presume, retained the original seat of civilisation while their brethren were more or less scattered abroad, and may thus be pre- sumed to have continued longest in communion with their great original patriarch. I also think that they were the last to fall away from the primitive faith. I believe that in course of time the Almighty re-revealed the primitive faith — not to the Japhetan but to the Shemite race, first through Abraham, then through Moses, and lastly through Our Saviour ; each time restoring, deepening, and enlarging the original inscription of truth, till finally, in the fulness of time and triumph of accomplishment, the book of life stood forth revealed to the gaze of all men, Jews and Gentiles, engraven and manifest for ever, on the rook of Calvary and in the architrave, as it were, of the sepulchre of the Resurrection. Meanwhile the tradition of truth as originally possessed in common by Shem, Ham, and Japhet was, I conceive, overshadowed and obscured more and more by the growth LETTER TO THE BISHOP. XVII of mythology among the two latter, the Hamite and Aryan races, till in the course of years its primal beauty, simplicity, and purity became almost effaced and invisible. This had come to pass long before the time of Our Saviour — before, I should say, Homer and the epoch assigned to the Trojan war. Still, however, beneath this luxuriant overgrowth, the original foundations, and some even of the superstructure, of the ruined edifice, of the doctrinal faith as held by Noah and his three sons, may be traced, partly in the traditions preserved by Mythology herself, partly in the roots of language, that great revealer of what our remote forefathers believed, felt, thought, and did in times anterior to history. The manner in which mythology was, in its most essen- tial elements, generated and developed from the earliest times was through, I think, attributing to the central and personal inherited idea or conception of Deity the image and association suggested by the resemblance of etymo- logical roots similar in sound to those which constituted the names of deity, the central idea in question being thus in each instance robed with incident and imagery through the sport of fancy and imagination. The central and essential idea, handed down in each instance from patri- archal times, seldom or never lost its original brightness, but stands out sublime and recognisable amid the multitude of material characteristics which the process of mythological aggregation — of mythogony, as it may be styled — has heaped around it ; and in such instances the influence of this central idea is visible, acting through unconscious tradition in enhancing the reverence of posterity, and in limiting and controlling the choice of attributes and b Xviii THE CREED OF JAPHET. symbols from among the host of etymological candidates crowding around it for selection. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule in the direction of depravity ; but these have almost always originated, in the first instance, in pure intention, however liable (through an inherent bias to evil) to gross perversion in succeeding generations. This view of the origin of mythology may be considered a very simple and unscientific one in comparison with other schemes which presuppose a philosophy and a scientific knowledge with which I rather scruple to credit mankind at so early an epoch ; and yet it is more in accordance, if I mistake not, with the normal growth of things human ; and I think I see a confirmation of it in the kindred and still earlier growth and formation of symbolic gesticulation and action in accompaniment of the common transactions of life, which was undoubtedly founded to a great extent (unless I am greatly mistaken) on the aural resemblance of words. I do not, however, put this theory forward to the exclusion, in their due degree, of other influences. The language in which the processes of mythological construction here spoken of took place, and in which the primitive faith of Noah can be traced with the most certain results, was, I apprehend, an ancient speech substantially identical with the existing German; that is to say, an old Teutonic language now lost, which I believe to have been the common parent and source of the Germanic, Slavonic, Lithuanian, Latin, Italic, Celtic, Hellenic (and, as I believe, Etruscan) tongues. The other Indo-Germanic tongues, both European and Asiatic, contribute to these results ; and, in a remoter circle and witnessing with peculiar value to the original titles, LETTER TO THE BISHOP. XIX names, and character of deities rather than to mythological development, the Old Egyptian language and the ancient Semitic. I think it can be shewn that the old primitive Teutonic speech, even as preserved in the Gospels of Ulphilas, and the relics of the Old High Dutch, is, to say the least, quite as ancient a language as Sanscrit. There can be no difficulty, therefore, in making use of it or of its earlier prototype in the etymologic interpretation of classical myths. I have constantly found it available as a source of illustration, a lamp of illumination, in the case of Greek and Latin words of obscure origin, of the names and attri- butes of classical deities, of words which, through their contradictory and apparently irreconcilable significations, have been a puzzle to philologists, the names of ancient cities, etc., etc. Perhaps, in lieu of Teutonic, I might style the primitive language above spoken of the Pelasgic. It is certainly older than Greek and even Latin. There is nothing that need surprise one in assigning such antiquity to it, or in expecting to find it the vehicle of primitive truths ; for Japhet, as I have above remarked, and would here reiterate, was the eldest son of Noah ; as such his posterity lingered nearest the parent nest of the Noachide race, and the Aryan tribes of Europe came at no very remote period from the immediate neighbourhood of what we believe to have been the first settlement of man- kind after the Deluge. All this is in favour of the Aryan language being at least as ancient and as near to that spoken by Noah as the Old Egyptian or the Old Semitic. I am writing at considerable length, and what I have written is apparently irrelevant to the proper subject of this XX THE CREED OF JAPHET. letter ; and yet, without preoccupying your mind with these views, I fear the papers I send you will seem utterly baseless and unsatisfactory. What 1 have further to say will ap- pear less visionary, because it will shew that your suggestion of the adumbration of the doctrine of the two natures in the Dioscuri, and in Zevg 'ApatvoQnXvg is not a vague or chance assumption on your part, but the result of sober inquiry, proceeding from a solid ground of fact, on which I have been endeavouring to establish a consistent scheme of historical reconstruction, and for an object which, if at- tained, would well reward all the trouble I could bestow upon it. It has for a long time been in my thoughts that it would be possible to reconstruct the ' Creed of Japhet,' the primi- tive religious belief of the Aryan race, assigning to it what- ever is pure, holy, and of good report, and comformable to the idea of God as witnessed by natural religion, in the mythical traditions of Aryan antiquity, and separating from it whatever is corrupt and unclean as necessarily of later growth and accretion — this inquiry to be prosecuted in entire independence of the Bible and of Revelation, and the materials to be sought for partly in the traditions of mythology, and partly in the utterances of etymology and linguistic science. The second step would be to shew that the creed thus demonstrated to have been held by the primitive ancestors of the Japhetan race coincides in its main features with the creed of Christianity, as recorded in the Bible, and especially in the New Testament. And the third would be to point the inference from this coincidence and parallelism, viz. that the Bible or Book of Revelation, and especially the New Testament, cannot have been the work of men, but must LETTER TO THE BISHOP. XXI necessarily have been inspired by or written under the direction of God Almighty. The leading features of this Creed or Faith of Japhet as ascertainable in the manner indicated will be found, I think, as follows : — That God exists as Father and as Son, the Son being of a twofold nature ; — that there are indications of a Divine Spirit issuing from the Father as the Giver and Generator of Life, who provides for the birth of the Saviour-God on earth ; and that these three, Father, Son, and Spirit, the three Persons of the Trinity, are but one God. That the true Father Almighty is indicated under the name of the " Hidden " — " Shrouded " — " King " — supreme in excellence and power. That through the alliance, in an extraordinary way, of the Supreme God with a daughter of the human race was con- ceived and born on earth through the Holy Spirit the Son of God, who is bifold in nature, God and Man. That there is one unchangeable Moral Law of Order and Right, imposed by God, and that the soul of man, having strayed from the path of duty, became contaminated by sin and deserved punishment. That therefore the labour and sufferings of the Son, Man and God, who dwelt on earth, endured hardships, fulfilling the Law of God in all things, and died — the Immortal to redeem the mortal nature — were needful as expiation to appease the rightful wrath of the Lawgiver, the Father Almighty, the Supreme God. Among these points or articles of the Japhetan faith, the one we conversed about at Florence, and which you now recall to my attention, the myth of the Dioscuri and of the XX 11 THE CREED OF JAPHET. hermaphrodite Zeus held a prominent place, adumbrating, as you there suggested, the twofold nature of the God-man our Saviour. If I mistake not, the primitive title of God (the Father) Almighty was the root which we have as Ra or Re in Egyptian and Babylonian, as El in the Hebrew (7 and r being interchangeable), and as 'Eppog in Greek, the title of the Cretan and Dodonean (the iEolic or Pelasgic) Jupiter, the word and title being that familiar to us in German as 1 H — rr,' • Heri,' ' Herro,' or * Uerr,' etc., etc., (the remote root being interchanged, as Hru, Hlu), and in which the ideas of holiness, veneration, prescience, magnificence, and supreme dignity, and even of belovedness and of glory, are all either latent or developed. I believe the name 'Cronos' to be identical with 'Eppog, as compounded of Cr or Hr and Anu or Onos, implying godhead. The characters and titles of many subordinate gods, reflections of the attributes of the Supreme God, were formed by disintegration from this title 'Ep/aoe or 'Herr,' in the manner illustrated in the papers which accompany this letter. The second person of the Trinity, or ' Son ' of God, is represented by two series of deities : — 1. Those which bear the name of 'Bar' and ' Bal,' imply- ing sonship, as being the strength of their parents' loins, in the oriental mythologies, and of which ' Apollo ' ( Apul, Aplu, in Etruscan) is the prominent example in classical my- thology, the name resolving in analysis, if I mistake not, into ' Va-Bal' or 'Baal,' the 'Lord Baal,' in which form, I apprehend, it became originally known to the Greeks ('Pollux' or ' Pol' is another form of it). 2. Those which bear the names of z-z = (z) = '; - C LETTER TO THE BISHOP. XXII $-r, g}-n, i.e. Zeus, Deus, Tys or Dis, Tuisco, Diosc-, Zida, Set, Tet, Thoth, Tur, Thor, Tir or Tyr, Zr,v, Astur, Tina, Va-Tin, Va-Dana, Va- or A-don-is, O-thin, Odin, Woden, etc., names all originally identical (the terminal letters s and r being always interchangeable, and r in particular changing into n in the Babylonian and Cushite dialects). Zwg, Dens, Zrjv or Diosc-ur stand forth as the prominent members of this group in Europe. The word and title T-s, Z-r, Tus or Tur, having in its oldest Babylonian signification the sense of Son, as derived from ts or dis, implying duality in the sense of distinction and separation, the ultimate root being <$v — du — zwi or ' two.' Ztjv, Tina, etc., have a similar connection through the form tna, half, in Old Egyptian and zwn, twn, or twin in Old Teutonic, the ultimate root being the same as ' 8w,' two. It is in connection with the second of these groups that the bifolcl character of the ' Son ' of God especially develops itself, and I enclose you also, with this letter and the papers referred to, a comparative chart * which I drew up some time ago, but which as yet is not only deficient in many instance*, but insufficiently chastised and tested, exhibiting the various forms and developments of the primeval ' Thor ' and ' Son ' in this and other relations. If you spread it out on the floor, you will see this deity branching out under three heads ; 1. as a unipersonal God or personage ; 2. as a bifold God or personage ; and 3. as resolved into triplets of sons or brothers. The first of these heads is subdivided into two classes; of 1. Deities representing the 'Son' in general or deity in the aggregate ; and 2. Gods presiding over special attributes or realms of deity, such as War, the Sun, * Sent to the bishop, and probably destroyed with other papers at his death. XXIV THE CREED OF JAPHET. Time, Letters and Knowledge, and Hades or the Infernal Regions ; the process of disintegration and separate constitu- tion of dependent deities being analogous to that which took place in the case of Ra, Herr, or 'Ep/Joc. The second head comprehends, first, the class of deities or personages who seem to have partaken of a double animal character, as that of half man, half goat ; half child, half old man ; etc. ; secondly, those that were conceived of as hermaphrodite, or of both sexes, among which the various impersonations of the Demiurgus, the Ztvs a/ojXue of our conversation, stand out conspicuous ; thirdly, the class of twin-gods such as the Dioscuri and others ; and lastly, the brother- and-sister deities, which we find in all mythologies, and whicli certainly, like the other classes included under this head, appear to reflect the twofold idea of the godhead. As regards the third head or category, under which I have ranged the various triplets of sons or brothers, recorded in ancient mythology or tradition, I suspect that the idea of these triple groups originated primarily in the resemblance of the root t-r to the numeral dri, three, in conjunction with the tradition, which must have been common to all post- diluvian nations, of the three sons of Noah ; and I am some- what confirmed in this impression by the consideration that the tribes of the Dorian race were three in number wherever that wide-spread family established itself, those of the Ionic (to point the contrast) being four. It is possible, doubtless, that a tradition of the Trinity may have thus, expressed itself, but I feel less assurance on that point. You will observe, on running your eye along the parallel lines of descent and derivation <»n the chart,* how invari- * See t he jireviuus note. LETTER TO THE BISHOP. XXV ably the deity represented by variations of the title z — r or Thor stands in the relation of son to the earlier and more archaic deity answering to the iEolio 'Eppog. A mother is always imputed : sometimes, as in the case of Rhea, Thea, etc., a mere feminine reflection or image of the parent God ; but at other times with more significance, under- names and accompanied with legends which point to human parentage. The instances of Leto or Latona the mother of Apollo and Artemis, and of Leda the mother of the Dioscuri, are the most important in this category. I have spoken of ' Leda ' in the paper on the Dioscuri now sent ; but it is in the person of Leto or ' Latona ' that the prevision, as it were, of the mortal mother of the God-man is most manifest. Mr. Gladstone, in his work on Homer, has noticed the peculiar beauty and sanctity of her character in Greek tradition. She is said to have been the wife of Zeus before his marriage with Here or Juno. My belief is that she was the wife more properly of 'Eppog, the father (as I conceive, although the relation had been lost sight of) of Zeus or Jupiter. The names of Leto (Latona), Leda, Hludana, and Hludyna (the two last in Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology) are all, I think, forms of a primitive Teutonic or Indo-European word, of which we find an analogue in ladu, translated in the bilingual inscription of Lycia as ' uxor.' Mr. Daniel Sharpe has rightly (as it appears to me) approximated this word to our Saxon ' lady,' * and it is, I conceive, a name formed from the past participle of the Teutonic hit- or led-'mn, to lead, the Latin ducere, the word * In his Appendix B, in Fellows's ' Discoveries in Lycia,' 1841, pp. 479, 481. XXVI THE CREED OF JAPIIET. being translated or translatable as ducta, in the sense of ' ducere uxorem.' ' Leto ' or ' Lat-ona ' must then have implied, in the oldest Pelasgian or Teutonic speech, ' the lady,' that is 'the wife' par excellence, of 'Eppog, the king of gods and men, the final ' ona ' being perhaps the ancient ' Anna,'' implying mother or goddess, and having at all events the sense of amplification and enhancement, as in matrona, Junonis, etc. . You will not perhaps wonder, under all these circumstances, at my recognising as antitype and type a connection between this grand, lofty, and awful revelation of early Japhetan faith and the mild image of * Our Lady,' the mother of the true Apollo, the true Hercules, the true Castor, the true Thor, the Virgin Mary. That the bifold nature and doctrine of the two natures in the Saviour-God is singularly illustrated in the name, character, and symbols of the Dioscuri will, I hope, approve itself to you on perusing the chapter dedicated to them now enclosed to you. That chapter, I would observe, as well as that on 'Eppog, was not written to support that view, but for another object ; nevertheless, the points are incidentally dwelt upon. The hermaphroditic Zeus is but one of many modes of expressing the idea of a union between God and Nature, God as representing the male or active element, and Nature the female or passive, which underlies almost all mythology. The danger I have apprehended (as I above stated) from bringing forward these and kindred views prematurely and isolatedly is this — that they might suggest an attack on Holy Scripture, as being a mere rechauffe of old ideas familiar to the ancient world, and thus a work of merely private and uninspired intelligence. They would not be LETTER TO THE BISHOP. xxvii liable to this imputation if the whole argument were set forth together, not only the ' Creed of Japhet ' as extracted from the records of mythology and language, but the infer- ences from a comparison between it and the gospel, proving, as I think may be shewn, that the latter could only have proceeded from God himself. I have not as yet been able to apply myself properly to this argument; but, in the meanwhile, I subjoin some observations which I wrote as a memorandum for future use shortly before leaving England for Italy last autumn, and after reading which you will understand, I think, how nervous I feel lest I should do harm rather than good by advancing ideas which, it seems to me, might better be reserved till circumstances may demand it, than brought forward without occasion. ' There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent,' says the wisest of men, and certainly one should not speak on such subjects as these till after full scrutiny aud premeditation. With these observations, then, extracted from the memo- randa above spoken of, I will close this long explanatory letter.* * Written by Lord Crawford from Florence, before the present work was composed. INTRODUCTION. My design in this work is to exhibit the scheme of religions belief — the dogmatic creed — held by our earliest ancestors of the Japhetan stock ; and thus to furnish a basis for comparison and judgment whereby the claims of Holy Scripture to authority as a revelation ah externo from God to man may be estimated from a point of view wholly new. My plan is, first, to state pretty fully the method of inquiry by which the Creed in question is to be ascertained ; secondly, to set forth the results arrived at on each particular article of that Creed ; and, thirdly, to bring the Creed as a whole into comparison with that of Christianity, and point the inference. Towards the ascertainment of this very early Creed I shall devote such amount of probation as may suffice to establish the various articles of which it consists, and may justify me in entreating the young and ingenuous reader who is tempted to throw off his hereditary faith, in favour of the new lights set forth by modern criticism, to suspend his judgment, make independent inquiries for himself in the direction I shall point out, and then only— not till then — make his election. There are many points of collateral interest, unessential to the proof, although valuable as adminieula, which will INTRODUCTION. xxix crop up as we proceed in the ensuing investigation; but, as a rule, I shall merely touch upon them as matters worthy of inquiry, — for this book, I need scarcely observe, is suggestive merely, not exhaustive ; new matter would be continually presenting itself were one to live to the days of Methuselah, and where so much may be said, it is better to say but little— in the spirit of the proverb, ' Enough is better than a feast.' The broad outline traced is accurate — of that I feel assured ; the details are open to any amount of exception. It is a virgin soil. Like Tarchon in the Etruscan legend, I merely turn over the furrow that Tages may spring up, and it will be the province of Tages to testify more fully to truth when catechised by my successors. It is but justice to the ultimate object aimed at, as above pointed out, that I should add that the subject of this early Creed was not taken up nor prosecuted by me in the spirit of controversy against current opinion ; it came before me for inquiry and discussion many years ago, while the hydra of doubt was still sleeping in the Lernean Marsh, and in sequence to a series of hitherto unpublished memoirs upon the origin, language, migrations, and primitive history of the Japhetan race, — the inquiry was prosecuted and the Creed ascertained according to the strict scientific method, in pursuit of truth and independently of any collateral purpose ; and the practical bearings of it in relation to the Bible and the Christian faith dawned upon me but slowly, month after month, and year after year, while dwelling (so to speak) in the cave of Trophonius, working — perhaps too isolatedly — among, the roots of language and the ruins of the prehistoric world. Had my purpose been less practical, I should have drawn collateral illustrations as freelv from XXX THE CREED OF JAPHET. Scripture as from the traditions of Mesopotamia or Egypt ; but the conditions of the argument to which I have limited myself with the special object in view have precluded such assistance ; and to these conditions, although sufficiently severe, I shall conform. In a word then, I shall in no one instance base my ascertainment of the 'Creed of Japhet' upon Revelation, whether Hebraic or Apostolical, — the reader shall hear nothing from me, direct or indirect, of Christianity and the Bible till the very conclusion of this memoir ; and then only — after the briefest possible comparison and con- trast— shall I invite him to accept their testimony as from Heaven.* MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY. I commence by pointing out the materials for the inquiry now in view, their relative value, and the use to be made of them ; and this I must do in some detail, my views bt-ing different in many respects from those at present in vogue. 1. Sacred Books and Dogmatical and Mythological Tradi- tions of the Japhetan race. Among the Sacred Books (properly so called) I found mainly upon the earlier portion of the Rig-Veda, the most ancient hymnal of the Hindus, * Since this was written, I have published one of the works above spoken of, under the title of ' Etruscan Inscriptions : analysed, translated, and commented upon,' etc., with the view of justifying beforehand the use I have made in the present memoir of the ancient Teutonic language as an instrument of etymological and mythological comparison and analysis. Such use could only be warranted by the adduction of proof ' that the language in question— the Teutonic— stamls upon a par in point of antiquity and importance with Greek, Latin, Zendic, and Sanscrit; and that its written or rathrr engraved monuments are centuries older than the Gospels of Ulphilas' ('Etr. Inscriptions,' p. 215). Such proof has been supplied, I think, by the evideuce adduced in the work in question, that the Etruscan was a Teutonic speech. INTRODUCTION— MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY. XXXI and on the five Gathas and the Haptanhaiti, the oldest portion of the surviving 'Avesta,' or, as it is popularly- styled, 'Zend-Avesta,' of the Medo-Persians ; the former representing the religion of the Rishis, predecessors of the Brahmins, the latter that of Zarathushtra, or Zoroaster, in its earliest recorded stage. The authority of these docu- ments is very great, their antiquity is almost incalculable ; and yet that antiquity is only comparative, and the autho- rity not absolute in relation to the present inquiry. I cannot allow that the Veda and the Zend-Avesta represent the infancy of religious belief among the Japhetans, and that all is darkness and uncertainty beyond them. Instead of standing abashed in their presence as the ne plus ultra of evidence, we must subject them fearlessly to analysis and comparison, and proceed by careful induction to the truths they testify to, and the still older evidence to which they point. Although towering forbiddingly on the horizon of our knowledge like the twin Pillars of Hercules, we must, in a word, pass between and beyond them if we would discover the ' Creed of Japhet,' moored, like Plato's Atlantis, on the ocean of prehistoric antiquity. Subjected thus to comparison and criticism, the Rig- Veda will be found to represent a very materialistic, and the Gathas a very rationalistic — in both cases a late — development of a pre-existing theology, each development bitterly hostile to the other; the Veda embodying the sacerdotalism, the Gathas the puritanism, of the two sects born of a Schism. Now, the analogy of all religions and all philosophies proves that such developments and schismsare the result of unbridled antagonism between the powers of Imagination and Reason working within the intellect, and that they presuppose in XXX11 THE CREED OF JAPHET. every instance a prolonged period during which the rival elements co-existed within an earlier and larger system, in constitutional opposition doubtless, but in mutual respect and toleration. It has often been pointed out, although without turning the observation to full account in this particular direction, that the gods of the Brahmins are (broadly speaking) the devils of the Zorotistrian faith, and vice versa; but this is merely the external sign and effect of the inward and deeply rooted hostility which charac- terises the two theologies, inducing the proscription by each respectively of those elements of the earlier and more com- prehensive creed which had become distasteful to it, and an exaggeration of those upon which it had taken its original stand in controversy. It is to the original, comprehensive, and constitutional creed thus indicated that we must seek to ascend in this inquiry. It would not be impossible to reconstruct this original creed in accordance with the analogy of theological and philosophical experience ; but what would be more to the purpose would be to discover — to disinter, as it were, from under the ruins of the past — a real, actual, historically substantive religion older than either of the dissentient halves, in which the deities of both India and Iran co-exist in their original amity and apposition, and in which the principles upon which the Rishis and Zoro- astrians severally citadelled themselves, have not as yet come to such desperate collision and hopeless disruption. The religion thus characterised, if such exists or has existed — and the presumption is in favour of the supposition, — would have a manifest claim, unsystematic and rude as it might be, to prior antiquity, as representing the primi- INTRODUCTION — MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY. XXX iii tive faith from which the schools of Iran and India have divaricated. Such a religion, moreover, would furnish means, through its traditions, of testing the claim, not merely of Vedic and Zoroastrian doctrines, but of various dogmas preserved in the later theological literature, alike of the East and West, to aboriginal antiquity — dogmas which, in most instances, could easily be demonstrated to be primi- tive, but which I do not propose to found upon in this memoir, except in rare instances. The comprehensive theology, the pre- Vedic, pre-Zoro- astrian religion, thus sought for, may be found, I think, in that of Western Aryanism (to use a common but in- accurate term) considered as a whole — in the theologies of the classic races, the Greeks, Romans, and kindred tribes, and of the Slavonic, Celtic, Teutonic, and other Indo- European nations of Europe — races which can be shewn to have swarmed off from the parent hive ages before the great Indo-Zoroastrian schism — theologies, all of them, stamped with a common type and character. The Gods who are arrayed and the doctrines which are advocated in mutual hostility in the Zoroastrian and Vedic creeds, co-exist in primitive harmony — or at least in equal recog- nition— in these Western mythologies, in the midst doubt- less of apparent chaos, but with their names and characters unaffected by the influences of sectarian system such as manifests itself in the teachings of the Veda and the Zend- Avesta. These mythologies represent, in short, the original Japhetan faith in a more disintegrated, doubtless, but less adulterated state than those of our oriental brethren; and they thus afford more valuable testimony towards the inquiry now in view. c xxxiv THE CREED OF JAPHET. It has been surmised with much acuteness that, previously to the great controversy which determined the separation of the Hindus and Medo-Persians, those two races had dwelt for a considerable time together apart from the other branches of the Aryan (Japhetan) race.* This early seces- sion was the consequence, I believe, of a similar schism in very remote antiquity, traces of which emerge from a comparison of the creeds and traditions of the eastern and western Indo-European world. I think it may be shewn that a relic of the dogmatic faith of the pre-Vedic pre-Zoroastrian Aryans (proper), as held during the interval in question, still exists, although much adulterated, in an unsuspected quarter ; but it is the earliest stage of all, that anterior to the first schism in the Japhetan theology, which I seek now to reconstitute. The records of the Greek, Roman, and kindred classical mythologies are to be sought for partly in the Homeric poems, the record especially of Hellenic tradition, partly in those attributed to Hesiod, the depository of the far older and independent Pelasgic faith ; partly in the traditions founded upon or alluded to by Pindar, the dramatists, and the later Greek poets ; and partly in the works of the prose-writers, the grammarians, scholiasts, geographers, and historiographers of both Greeks and Latins. These latter sources are often the most ancient really of all, and the most genuine, because derived from purely popular and local tradition.! * Professor Miiller, • Chips from a German Workshop,' vol. i., p. 83. t I do not, of course, mean that the Iliad, or tho Odyssey, or the story of the Argonauts, or the drama9 of 'Prometheus' or ' 03dipus Coloneus' are to be read as so many deliberate expositions of dogma, — their value consists in the testimony they afford to current dogma. The particular dogmata they found upon must be identified and vindicated by independent evidence. INTRODUCTION— MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY. XXXV Of the' primitive Teutonic mythology the original or vernacular monuments have for the most part perished, except in the case of the Elder or poetical and the Younger or prose Edda of Scandinavia, both of them of comparatively recent compilation, but which contain a body of most important myths, demonstrable by comparative mythology and speech to be of primeval antiquity, and which must originally have been current in forms more or less varied throughout the Teutonic world. These authorities may be supplemented by a few illustrations from Etruscan mytho- logy proper, on grounds which I shall specify pre- sently. We derive also some precious facts relating to the Teutonic religion, although at second-hand, from the classical writers. We have merely foreign testimony — hardly any original data— for the Celtic, and but little comparatively for the Slavonic, Lithuanian, and Prussian religions of Europe. We have a vast and daily increasing accumulation of legendary tales and songs current among all these races, but the light they throw on the matters here treated of, although valuable, is indirect. 2. The ancient Speech, or Language, of the Aryan and Japhetan race. Language, or Speech, is older than mythical tradition, and its testimony regarding primitive thought and belief, as brought to light by verbal and grammatical analysis, comes necessarily more near to the truth. We must ascend to this testimony in the same manner as in the case of the Sacred Books and Traditions above spoken of. The various existing groups of Japhetan speech — the language of the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta forming one group, the classical and kindred languages of Europe a second, the Teutonic (including the Etruscan) a third, the XXXVI THE CREED OF JAPHET. Cymro-Celtic a fourth, the Sarmatian or Slavonic a fifth, and so on — are all derived from one original tongue, which is proved to have existed by the concurrent testimony of its descendants, although no written monuments have as yet been discovered of it. It would not perhaps be impos- sible to ascend to and resuscitate this primeval tongue as spoken round the paternal hearth before the ancestors of the eastern and western Japhetans parted company. Such, words and names as all these languages, or the greater number of them, held in common, form necessarily a portion of this original tongue ; and the ideas and doctrines expressed by these words in matters of morals and religion constitute necessarily the basis upon which the ' Creed of Japhet ' reposes. I might pause here ; but two or three further and supple- mentary observations may be permitted to me before pro- ceeding to the especial subject of this memoir. They will render the argument at once shorter and more clear. The first of these regards the origin of Mythology as distinguished from Dogma, an origin which, under the term * Mythogony,' forms the subject-matter of one of the unpub- lished essays above spoken of. I have been led to views on this subject which the very eloquent expositions of one most learned and graceful writer in particular have as yet failed to shake. I cannot concede that mythology is the utterance of the age of childhood in the life of man and nations. The analogy of individual life refutes such an idea. Childhood, however conceptive and construc- tive, and full of promise, is essentially noncreative in character; it is only when passion begins to burn within the veins, when Imagination begins to exert her refining INTRODUCTION — MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY, xxxvii sway over Sense, that that poetry in our individual being which creates mythology in the religious life of mankind comes to the surface. Mythologies and mythologic language are not therefore of primitive growth, but, as in the case of materialistic and idealistic systems of religion and philo- sophy, presuppose an earlier stage of dogmatic belief and integral ideas upon which they fix themselves and grow, like the parasitic plants of South America, scenting the air alternately with fragrance or fcetor according as purity or impurity has suggested or influenced their development. The means of access — through the gates of mythology — to this earlier, this premythologic stage of purely theological belief is to be obtained chiefly through an etymological analysis and critical comparison of the symbols, titles, and epithets of the deities of the mythical period, by the especial test of the old Japhetan tongues. From this analysis and comparison the facts emerge : 1. That among the symbols of a given deity the majority usually point to one among his titles in particular as the leading one, these symbols having frequently hardly any connection with each other or with him except through the resemblance of verbal sound ; 2. That the titles thus distinguished are necessarily older than the symbols which echo them, and must be referred to the earlier or premythological stage of belief here in ques- tion ; and, 3. That a large proportion of those titles, however varied in outward presentment, are etymologically identical, resolving in the case of each group of deities into a single deity, and tending towards unity more and more the higher we ascend through the premythologic period. The theory — not to call it law — to which these and other collateral facts have guided me may be expressed in the position, XXXviii THE CREED OF JAPHET. That mythology was, in its most essential elements, gene- rated and developed, especially among the Japhetan race, by attributing to the central and permanent inherited names and conceptions of deity images and associations suggested : — I might almost say fortuitously — through the resemblance in sound borne by certain etymological roots and words to those original names, — the central ideas in question being thus in each instance robed with incident and imagery through the sport of fancy, even as a pure and beautiful maiden, pure and beautiful as Persephone herself, is arrayed by her mother or her attendant maidens, on her bridal morn, with drapery and flowers. These central and spiritual dog- matic ideas, handed down in almost every instance from patriarchal times, have seldom or never lost their original brightness, but stand out sublime and recognisable amid the multitude of material characteristics which the process of mythical accretion has gathered round them ; and their influence — that of an elevated and pure primeval morality — is in most instances clearly visible, acting through uncon- scious tradition or enduring instinct towards the enhance- ment of the reverence of posterity and the limitation and control of the choice of attributes and symbols from among the host of verbal candidates crowding round for selection. Even the exceptional divergences in the direction of gross- ness almost always originated in pure intention, however liable to perversion in succeeding generations; while many such instances are unquestionably the reflection of cosmo- gonical doctrines, as has been ably shewn by various writers, although the theory has of late been pushed, I think, to extravagance. In a few cases only, but important ones, I shall base an argument upon the views of 'Mythogony' INTRODUCTION— MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY. XXXIX thus laid down ; and I may add, in corroboration of thern, that the identical process in a ruder stage will be found to have originated the kindred, and, still earlier, the very prosaic growth and development of symbolism proper, the daughter of dogma and mother of mythology and the echo, as it were, of Speech in the infancy of human existence, and which has been founded mainly on the accidental resemblance and arbitrary association of sounds — an object denoted by the same word, or by a word similar to that which expresses a person, a circumstance, or an idea,- being chosen to represent that person, circumstance, or idea visibly to the eye of conception — such choice, of itself, necessarily establishing the previous existence of the words of which these symbols thus become the echo. The process is thus from dogma and the words expressive of dogma to sym- bolism, and from symbolism to myths and mythology, the dogma answering to the conceptive age of infancy, the symbolism to the childhood, and the mythology to the glowing youth of humanity. But the symbol is more closely connected with the dogma than the myth, and although not per se explanatory of dogma is too closely bound up with it to be classed with mythology. I shall therefore notice in sequence to each dogma as it passes before us the symbols which reflect it, reserving the myth for definite consideration after I have completed the dog- matic survey.* * ' Mythology,' observes Professor Miiller, ' does not always create its own heroes, but it lays hold of real history and coils itself around it so closely that it is difficult, nay almost impossible to separate the ivy from the oak or the lichen from the granite to which it clings. And here is a lesson which comparative mycologists ought not to neglect. They are naturally bent on explaining every thing that can be explained ; but they should bear in mind that xl THE CREED OF JAl'IIET. I have further to observe, on the subject of Language, that even as the mythologies of the West preserve the pri- mitive religion and traditions of the Japhetan home more purely, albeit in a rude and disintegrated state, than the more highly developed systems of the East, so the ancient dialects of Europe preserve the tradition of the primitive Japhetan speech in greater simplicity and originality than their oriental congeners, although less artificially developed. This more especially applies to the languages qualified by the Greeks and Romans as barbarous, and most of all to the Teutonic. I have at least found that names, words, and phrases absolutely inexplicable by the classical languages in which they occur, and which have proved etymological puzzles alike to the ancients and scholars of our own day, yield a readier response to the test of ancient German than to that of any language by which I have (perhaps in- adequately) addressed them ; while that archaic German or Teutonic — which must have been in existence, substantially what it is now, when those names, words, and phrases were first intelligently uttered by the Greeks and Romans — may be recognised still, clear and ringing, in the old Tyrrhenian or Etruscan language, and likewise in such fragments as we possess of the Pelasgian — the inscriptions in both languages being neither more nor less than primitive and almost unmixed German. I have recently published some proof there may be elements in every mythological riddle which resist etymo- logical analysis for this simple reason, that their origin was not etymological but historical' ('Chips,' ii. 1G9). 'We ought to be prepared,' he concludes, 'even in the legends of Herakles or Meleagrosor Theseus, to find some grains of local history on which the sharpest tools of comparative mythology must bend or break' (p. 171). These observations are most due, but equally applicable, I think, to those dogmas of which these name? arc only the echo. INTRODUCTION — MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY, xli of this assertion.* On the other hand, although it is acknow- ledged that Japhetan words abound (and they do so far more than is usually imagined) in the ancient Egyptian, and though holding that there is strong reason to believe that the early civilisation of Egypt, of Phoenicia, and of the coasts of the Mediterranean generally, was in a great degree Japhetan — while Japhetan elements are admittedly to be found in the theologies and speech of Assyria and Babylon, I shall borrow nothing from these sources for the construction of my Japhetan creed, although I may use them in illus- tration of the comparative antiquity of particular words or names of deities, clearly native, within the Japhetan pale. The presumption, I would add, is in favour of the Japhetan tongue being the nearest representative of the primitive Noachide speech, inasmuch as Japhet was, according to the historical tradition in Genesis — a tradition absolutely un- connected with dogma, and thus open to adduction — the eldest son of the common patriarch, and as such would linger on, himself and his posterity, at the ancestral hearth, the primeval home, the recipient and transmitter of the patriarchal language and tradition for ages after his younger brethren had migrated to other lands. Some prejudice will, I fear, be created against my argument by what may appear to be a too fearless analysis of words and names, and by the unexpected approximations which will proceed from the application of the laws governing the mutation of letters in the formation or variation of words and names. A certain latitude is generally allowed on this score. The interchangeability of the letters d or t, and 1, r, and s, <\> and 0, \ and xp, is sufficiently familiar to * Sec note at p. xxx. xlii THE CREED OF JAPHET. classical scholars, — that the letters b, /, u, v, w are constantly used one for the other (of course under ascertained rules) is readily acknowledged, — and no one has ever disputed the fact when the process has been placed clearly before hirn, that the words 'four,' 'five/ 'twenty,' 'bishop,' and such like, are identical with ' quatuor,' ' quinque,' ' vinsati,' ' eveque,' although hardly a single corresponding letter be the same. But a rooted and not unwholesome jealousy pervades the popular mind as to such derivations, and Professor Midler has, I think, wisely abstained from pushing many of his beautiful analyses too far for the acceptance of his readers, through an apprehension — which is not per- missible to myself — of shocking the prejudice here depre- cated. I shall venture on none, however, but such as are warranted by what I believe to be demonstrable laws legitimately applied. Many of these interchanges find their explanation, if I mistake not, in the fact that the ' utterance of the early Gods ' was thick rather than ' large,' as Keats represents it, — thick through the agglome- ration of what we call consonants at the beginning and in the middle of words, — the normal progress of distinction and refinement being from hard and complex to soft and disentangled sounds. M and b, for example, n and t, t and s, s and h or hard g, were originally pronounced together in the same mumbling, hissing, or husky breath as we now pronounce z, ^, and x; and it was through the decomposition of these harsh and somewhat grotesque com- binations that the component sounds obtained emancipation and independent constitution, descending as m, b, p, t, s, /.-, //, from the fountain-head, and undergoing the attenuation, induration, or mutual interchange noticeable in the later INTRODUCTION — MATERIALS FOR THE INQUIRY. xliii stages of the roots and words in which they occur. The history of language is that of attrition and disintegration, although, as in the case of the olive-tree, life springs up continually from within its veins, even as younger men replace the elder in the families of mankind. And this is what the poets of a living language have to apprehend in the prospect of their speech becoming obsolete, — ' The language grows, And like the tide their work o'erflows.' I have little doubt but that most words which now begin with a vowel began originally with one or more consonants, which have been elided or abraded by time ; and I shall be obliged to notice repeated instances of this process. The terminational letters would appear, as a general rule, to have been more easily and earlier parted with than the initial ones. I would note, too, that the letter r, when occurring in the middle of words, is very frequently softened down into u or iv, and ultimately lost, — this amounts well-nigh to a law in primeval etymology, and must be kept in view in tracing the genealogy of words and names, and I earnestly deprecate any hasty judgment upon the preceding suggestions. I may wind up these observations, and prove by anticipa- tion that some of my identifications, startling as they may appear, are not arbitrary, by citing the various forms which our common word Schwartz, swart, or black, assumes in different languages, as given by Finn Magnusson in his 'Lexicon Mythologicum ' and his other glossaries to the Edda, under the head of ' Surtr,' — some of these languages extending far beyond the Japhetan pale : " Svartr, ater, niger; Dan. sort, Suec. svart, A.S. svart, sveart, Angl. and Germ. Infer., swarf, M. Goth, svarts, Aleman. suuarz, Germ. xliv THE CREED OF JAPHET. Super, schivartz, C. Brit, arddu, Lapp, spirtte, Cauc. Ossetice, ssaiv, Tzschet. Ingusch. Tuss. ardshi, Chunsag. Avar, tscheran, tscherah, Ak. zuttara, Pers. siah, ssiah, — conf. Latin, svasus, niger sive fuscus, at fumo quoque similis; surdus, ater, obscurus, it. ignotus," — and again, " Ebr. scaeher, Gr. \pa- (j>ap6g, squalidus, obscurus, C. Tart. skara, Pelv. schdbba, C. Oss. tar, obscurus (tenebrosus), Pers. tarik, darsh (H.), Angl. dark, Gr. Satpog" * To which I may add as addi- tional (Japhetan) varieties our English mirk, murky, the Greek and Latin pavpog, maurus, the Greek \Pa6vp6g, the Zendic kadrva and kaurva, and cyava, and the Sanscrit, kadru, karbura, Carva, Sara, Kali, Doorga, and even, I think, Sudra (where the metathesis of letters is the same as in kadrva, kadru), — Cimmerian, the old European epithet of darkness, — the Turkish kara, the Latin ' carbo,' obscurus, and kiarth, implying 'niger/ and tapirn, 'fuscus,' in the old Etruscan, the latter, tapirn, again, being identical with the Teutonic zauber and French sombre. The omission of the r, as between swarz and svasus, is in accordance with the rule of abrasion above laid down, and may be paralleled with the Greek vzKpog as compared with viicvg, and the Zendic nacus or with the Zendic thworestara as compared with the Sanscrit tivashtar, both implying 'creator.' Schwartz or swart must have been pronounced and written zwarz originally, as is manifest on approximation of the initial letters of its leading representatives. The reader will perceive hereafter why I have selected this particular word zwarz as an illustration of the literal changes above spoken of.f /'./ r\ t Involutus or ' Opertaneus, and signifies the ' shrouded or ' hidden ' one — and thus, the colour standing as the symbol of the idea, the ' Black ' or ' Swart God.' The title Hck, Ruler or King. ' Hek,' on the other hand, has the proximate signification, as I shall shew, of ' Euler ' or ' King,' but, subjected to a remoter analysis, resolves ultimately, possibly through the medial stage of Here, into a subform of Zwarz, which thus stands out as the name per excellentiam of the Supreme God. This subtitle Hee, although honoured to the last in the personality of its chief representative, was early obscured, and stands practically alone ; but Zwarz is the parent form of almost all the innumerable titles applied to God the Father, and the subordinate deities into whom he was decomposed under the influence of early 'niythogony.' The few names, obscure but not unimportant, that do not fall under this comprehensive type, are traceable to an independent title or rather qualification conveyed by the ancient Japhetan word already adduced under the Zendic ThwOrcstara, Creator, form of Thworestara, signifying 'Creator,' — that is, in its primitive sense, ' He that intervenes,' or ' runs athwart ' or ' across.' This title, in varying forms, was given (as has been stated) sometimes to the Father, sometimes to the Son- God, sometimes, and more especially, to the Spirit-Deity. The primitive sur- It was with a view to the illustration of the process by name Zwarz resolves into the various titles which the primitive surname Zwarz became resolved into of Deity. the various titles of deity which I must now enumerate, that I adduced, in a former page, the Protean forms assumed by the identical word considered as a simple adjective, exhibit- ing as they do the manner in which Time abrades the outer edges of words, decomposes compound letters, and mctamoj- Ch. I.] the supreme god, the father. 7 phoses or softens single ones — the inner vitality of each Titles of the . . Supreme God. such word remaining unaffected by these changes on the outward crust of its embodiment. Taking our place by the side of Time, or rather identifying ourselves with him so as to look down the stream, and applying the process thus warranted to the word in question considered as a designation of the Supreme God,* we arrive by gradual descent to the following results — which I must preface by stating that the titles in question fall into three Three series of titles „ , ... , . . P ■-, descend from the categories : first, a series descending direct from Zwarz ; primitive surname secondly, a series descending from Zwaz, the form answering warz" to the Latin svasus, assumed by Zwarz when the r has been elided ; and thirdly, the series represented by Hek, descend- ing from Zwarz through an intermediate form, Herk, E,ok — after the r has similarly been abraded. The suffixes -n, -in, -nus, -anus, -ana, -as, etc., are, it should be added, varieties, The suffixes -n, -in, „ , , 1 , • -i • , -nus, -emus, -ana, -as, in some cases, ot an archaic word, ans or as, denoting deity etc., are varieties of in the Japhetan language, and, in others, if I mistake not, noting ^Deity/ ' ° C where the n occurs, of the ancient Runic sunu, son, such titles being patronymics and the initial syllable or syllables form- ing the paternal title which is the object of general interest. I do not, of course, mean that the various names now to be grouped together were formed correspondently in exact chronological succession, — the most abraded forms may frequently have been reached almost at a bound, under the influences of physical conditions of speech attaching to different races; but the normal process of disintegration must have taken place nearly in the following order : — * I need scarcely state that I did not start from this point in my own investigation, but ascended to it by a long and painful process of analytical examination of the individual names and deities now to be enumerated. Let those who will, work it out for themselves. 8 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Ft. I, First series of I. First Series, descending through Zwarz. titles from Zwarz . Through decomposing or softening down the initial and final z into its constituent elements, s and t— the latter varying as 6, S, and

X, and a translation of which has been preserved in the title a\aKp6g, while the like signification is assigned, as in the Thracian tongue, to Trito, the paternal element in the patronymic Tritogeneia given to Athene. ii. Secondly, through abrasion of the final z (unless the title date from a wholly pregrammatical period), we may recognise the original root zwar, to hide or cover, in the Zeru-ane Akarene of the Zend-Avesta, a personal title of pre-Zoroastrian antiquity, used in the Gathas in the abstract sense of 'time without bounds,'— in the Satur- Ch. I.] THE SUPREME GOD, THE FATHER. 9 nus of the Latins, where the initial Sat- represents the Titles descending z in Zeru-, Zwar-, as the similar combination does in the Sanscrit vin-sati, the eastern form of zwan-zig, — in the Scandinavian Thor, considered as a title of the Supreme God and distinct from that, derived from a distinct root, borne by the son of OdiD, — and in the Tur-an, the ' Venus Urania,' or holy Aphrodite, of the Etruscans : — While, as the letter r not unfrequently takes the form of n in ancient speech, as in the case, for example, of the Assyrian ' Asshur,' which becomes ' Astun ' in the Samaritan or Cushite version of the Hebrew Bible, Zwar is thus recognisable in the Z»> of Greece, the Tina (or Jupiter) of Etruria, the Thun- aer, or chief God of the Thuringi, and the Tun-ur of the Etruscan inscription at S. Manno, — the San- of Lydia exhibiting a variety of 7A\v> and the Pan and M?jv- of Greece the same title, with the initial entirely abraded. Thirdly, iii. Through reading the initial z or zw ast&, g (hard), or q (modifications likewise of t), we come face to face with Cer-os Duonos and Cer-us Manus, the ' Creator bonus ' of the ' Carmen Saliare,' a deity or deities of extreme antiquity, the better-known Qum-inus, Gbad-ivus, GAU-anus, CurRA, and other such titles in Italy, and Ce-ouus, EH-ea, Cer-cs, Cora (Persephone), Char-ow, to name no others in Greece ; Char-un being moreover a God of much higher dignity in Etruria than in Hellas : — Evp-taioe, understood as the ' discoverer,' under which name Garanus — or Heracles — sacrificed to Jupiter after his recovery of the cattle from Cacus, may also bo noticed here. iv. Through absolute abrasion of both the initial and final z (Jc or t), Zwarz becomes at once the Hindu YAU-una and the Greek VK-anus and Vn-ania; upon which the 10 THE CREED OF JAPIIET. [Pt. I. Titles descending remark is obvious that, Vu-ania presenting an abraded form of the Etruscan LuR-an, Un-amis and \AB.-una must both have been originally written TxjR-anus and TuAR-wwa, and the Sanscrit vri as tvri, that is, Zvri-, Tur- and Tvar- having been still more remotely Zur- and Zwar-, ZuR-anws and ZwAR-ana — early forms which have absolutely disappeared from view in the East. Here too, I think, and with the same ulterior reference to older forms, may be classed such titles as Aur- (in Aurigena, the patronymic of Perseus), Ares, eris, eros, and others, excluding Eppog for a reason presently to be mentioned, although both Ares and Eppog are varieties of one original, as shewn by the common service of the Salii at Rome and the Selli at Dodona, while Ares is identical with Mars, as shewn by the patronymic Quirites, i.e. race of Quir, Gra, or Ares, applied to the Rornan people, and by the name of Rome herself, i.e. R-heirn (as I have explained it in my 'Etruscan Inscriptions,' — - the City of R. or Ares).* Quir and Gra replaced the older form of Ares, as Turan does of Urania. We may trace the intermediate step between Zwar- and Var-, TJr- in the Sanscrit Asura and the Persian Ahura, both of them titles of the Supreme Deity — Ahura as combined with Mazdao in the title familiar to us as Ormuzd ; while Asura was, as suggested by Muir, a title of deity superior even to Mitra and Varuna.f I may notice similar intermediate or trans- lated forms in the titles kvmxo-clite, AriiAR-eMS, borne by the father of Idas and Lynceus, so noted in the history of the Dioscuri — and AMPHiAR-aws, father, according to one account of Linus. I suspect that Apoll-o, in the * Etruscan Inscriptions, p. 304. t Cf. Muir, Orig. Sausc. Texts, ii. 207, 299. Ch. I.] THE SUPREME GOD, THE FATHER. 11 character of father of Iamus and (alternating with Aniphi- Titles descending araus) of Linus, is a simple variety of Zwar, the r being exchanged for I (as in the Sanscrit sphar, sphal, 'dis-sil- ire '), and thus becoming confused with the title Bal, more peculiarly appropriate, as we shall find, to the ' Son-Deity ' as God, but which I think may still be reckoned here as a very rare but legitimate variety of Zwar. v. Again, through softening the initial z, read as z = th= ph = v = m, into this latter letter, or possibly by excision of z altogether and mutation of the sequent u, uu, w, into m, we obtain Mavort-s, Mavors, Mamers, Mars, MARS-pter or MAS-p^er (this last form belonging to a category to be dealt with presently), as a name of deity fundamentally identical with that of TJu-anns VAR-una, and Surtr; and that of MARTEM-is (=i<$T]g), abraded into Artem-«s, but preserving its original form in Brito-martis, titles of the virgin sister of Apollo, whose attributes however, alike in Arcadia, Ortygia, and Tauris, reflect the character of black- ness, severity, and dread thus etymologically attributed to her as the daughter of her father Zeus, Zwaz, Zwarz : — vi. Once more, the final z in Zwarz, taking the form of h or g (hard), we have the MERC-wnMS (MERC-aro) of Rome, the PERK-tmas of the Lithuanians (the God wor- shipped in groves), YAUjanya (if I mistake not) of India, Berec- as in the Berec-ynthia of Thrace ? and Fiorg-yna of Scandinavia, — while, admitting the aspirate as an alterna- tive initial modification, we have Herc-mZms, the Terminal God of Rome ; Orc-us, the God alike of oaths (the sanction of Terminus) and of the grave ; Herac- or Hero, the basis of the illustrious name of HERAC-Zes, HERC-wZes ; Zeus 'Ejok- uog, at whose altar at Troy Priam fell ; the Gtoi 'EpK-tloi and 12 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Ft. I. Tjtles descending tfiK-toi (' Dii Penates '), and other forms, to which I shall pbom Zwarz. rCyert presently, as this forms the starting-point of the category of titles of which Hek is the central type. vii. Through still further abrasion, to the banishment of this very m, u, or 10, we reach, in the descending scale, 'Epp-og and "Efjp-a, the iEolic titles of Zeus and Here (in which the double -pp- replaces the harder -pK-) ; almost all of these varying titles, subforms of Zwarz, testify in similar manner (crosswise, as it were) to their fraternity. viii. Lastly, under this first series it is to be noted that, while the deities enumerated under the preceding groups coalesce under a typical subform of Zwarz representable by the literal combination HE, the r in this combination is conimutable as I and s ; and HR, taking thus the form of HL and HS, gives birth to two collateral series of names of the Supreme Deity or his representatives. We have, therefore, first, under the type of HL, the Cocl-us of anti- quity ; Alc-, the basis of the patronymic KhC-ides, other- wise HERAC-7es, SAN-des, Mijwrfe, etc. ; Auk- holding similar parental relation to Perseus as AvK-nytviig, otherwise Aur- igena, as 'son of Aur* — Avk- being further recognisable in Zeus Lyc-xus, and in Elio, the root of Jupiter Elic-»ws ; and, secondly, under the type of HS, the 2Es-ar of the Etruscans 2E$-ir of the Scandinavians, and Ans-« of the Goths, mere varieties of one and the same collective title of Deity, equivalent to Qeoi or ' Dei ; ' together with the personal name AW of Homer, Hes-sms of the Celts, and Jessa of the Slavonians. Reverting now to the — Second series of titles II. Second Series of names of Deities descending from Z^fee^Sal r Zwaz, i.e. Zwarz softened down by the abrasion of the abraded. central r; and recollecting that we have had a parallel Ch. I.] THE SUPREME GOD, THE FATHER. 13 instance in the familiar Mas- for M.ARS-piter above noticed, Titles descending we may recognise another still nearer to the fountain-head FK0M ZwAZ" in the iEolic S&uc, the classic Zevg, and the Latin Jovis, Ja-iius, and Jv-piter (Zev Trarip), — names which associate themselves apparently with the Sanscrit Vayu ; while Qtog, Otfog, Divus, Deus, Dis, Themis, the venerable goddess of Justice, the old Teutonic Tius (as resuscitated by Grimm). Shamas, the father of Buddha, the Indo- Aryan Dyaus, and the pre-Aryan but Japhetan Siva of India, represent the Father and God per excellentiam in every Japhetan tongue. Pos, which I shall shew to be a distinct title in the com- pound name Pos-e^ow, is the same Zeus, Zwaz, with the z elided (as in Mas-, MAS-p#er) and the u or w changed to p. But z is mutable (as we have seen) as 7c, g (hard) ; and thus Cos and Consus, an ultimate name of Pos-e^' or Fate. Hesiod also testifies to her ever-present help to prayerful men, who, sacrificing to the Gods Kara vofxov, according to the fixed and ancient ritual, humbly invoke her, and receive from her in return special blessings, whether in the field of agriculture, or when travelling by sea or land, or contending in the public games — to such votaries Hecate giving victory or honour. Finally she sits in judgment beside kings — j3a(riXevai aldo'ioiai — kings, not tyrants, — she that is thus the guardian of justice being at the same time the tender KovpoTpofyoi;, or nursing mother of children, from the beginning. The link between the personality of this severe but kindly deity and the Hecate Ch. I.J THE SUPREME GOD, THE FATHER. 23 of popular dread — as well as between the forms of Hek Typical Impersona- . . ., . /.rnioA tions of Godhead. and Zwarz, and the general qualification ot lhworestara, Hecate. may be found in the offerings made to her of 'swart,' or black lambs, dogs, and honey, and in the peculiar worship paid to her, especially in Italy, at ' campita,' or cross-ways — in reference to the root thivor, thwar, 'trans,' or across, which lies at the foundation of the idea of creation, as already stated. Of the Qeol x®°vlol> tne 9£°* ^pKtioi, and Oceanus, whom The @eo\ xe^ioi, etol I have associated with Hecate as contributing to the im- fpKt personation of the Father-God, there is less to be said, but the points are not unimportant. The Qeol yQovioi — the plural form of Hek, Hecate, with collateral association from the Greek \Bwv, the earth, and hence styled 'Dii Inferiores' or 'Dii Manes' — although looked on with the utmost awe, are not demons, but, on the contrary, ' Manes,' that is, the ' Good ' Gods per excellentiam, analogous to the ' Duonos Ceros,' ' Cerus Manus,' or ' Good Creator.' It has been, I should conjecture, through the association of the Dark, the Unknown, the Terrible with the unseen world below and beyond the grave, that the Father-God as Hek, and in the form of Zwarz as Tartarus, acquired the character, in the plural number, of Qtol x0°viol> 'Di Inferi,' domiciled below the \0tov or visible world. The Qtol tpicioi too, or Penates — whose title 'Penates' and ' Denas ' I should be inclined to connect with the Zendic spenta, white, and Duonus, ' bonus,' while their wor- ship attaches itself to that of hserg, or domestic hearth, which was the centre of the 'sacra privata' of the old Roman gentes — appear to present a middle stage between the XOovioi and Hecate, the Father-God, as the object of 24 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Ft. I. Typical Impersona- the worship of the heart, of the individual, Iving and tioua of Godhead. . . priest within his own household, a worship distinguished in its independence, seclusion, and simplicity from the hierarchical and ritualistic worship of the assembly of the faithful in open day, this being apparently the original principle of the Kshatriya and the Zoroastrians, and, I may add, of the Achrei (Archsei, I think, originally), and Argives, as opposed to the Brahmins, the Magians, and the Trojans. Oceanus. Oceanus, lastly — whose name I read as HEK-awa — figures in Homer, not merely as the ocean-stream with which he is associated, but as a personal being, august and powerful, the 'parent' or origin (yivEtriv) 'of the Gods;' whom not only the Olympian, but the earlier Titan deities, and by necessary consequence mankind, revered as their great original and ancestor. It is to him that the Homeric Gods resort periodically for feasting, beyond the Hellenic world, among the ^Ethiopians — suggesting his identity with the pre-Odin-ite and Iotun God iEg-ir, whose mighty Jcver, or caldron (the ocean-basin), whose palace, and whose hos- pitality to the other Gods are celebrated in the Edda. I look upon. Oceanus as the male complement of Hecate ; and one link, at least, may be recognised between them in the fact that Oceanus and Tethys undertook the nursing and education of Here, as entrusted to them by Rhea, compared with the title KovpoTf)6

• • tailed on a irals a' him to the liroTTTtia 01 LleusiS, II found worthy of the Vision, karias, or ' Son of the Hearth ' and to the contingent rights conferred by reception into the family on the 7th or 10th day, could not be enjoyed without previous submission to the highest of all lustrations not of a distinctly public character, viz. the washing away of sin by the water of the Ilyssus, administered at Agree by the Hydranus in the lesser Eleusinia, which were in their integrity con- sidered as the TrpoKadafKTig kcu Trpodyvevcng, the purification and sanctification preparatory, after a year's probation, to the greater ceremonies ; while this, again, was followed, although of less marked importance, by the solemn proces- sion of the assembled votaries to the sea, the especial seat of the Spirit-Deity Poseidon, for the same purpose of lustra- tion, on the second day of the great mysteries, named from :;:;- THE CREED OF JAPHET (Pt. II. LUSTRATION OR PURIFICATION. Greek ceremonial. The river Il-is.sus. Private or personal lustration Public lustrations, Greek and Roman. i. At the Rural Lus- tralia. that ceremony the "AAaSe fivarai. The water of the sea was thought peculiarly sacred at all times, and it is not, perhaps, without significance as regards the river Ilyssus that the word is analysable as Il-issus, signifying ' River of El,' Hlu, or the Father-God, as we shall find reason for interpreting the name. Even Hercules, after his adoption into an Athenian house, necessarily underwent this abster- sion in the Ilyssus before entering upon the mystic week of probation preliminary to an illumination, whicli preceded his descent into Hales. It is hardly necessary to add that the rite of private or personal lustration was practised on every conceivable occa- sion in ordinary life by the Greeks and Romans and their kindred races in the West — I notice the West only, — for there is no religious usage more universal. Nor need I, in the remembrance of the invariable reference to the Gods with which the act was accompanied, insist on the im- possibility that the ceremonial could have had no deeper sense and purport than that of mere cleansing of the physical being. The public lustrations familiar to the Western Japhetans, Greeks and Romans, took place on the following (besides other less important) occasions : — i. At the Rural Lustralia — at harvest-time, before the crops were cut. This was probably the germ or central element of the public, as the Eleusinia were of the private lustrations. The fields were perambulated three times ; fruits and auimals were sprinkled and blest ; complete rest was prescribed to man and beast ; no one was to be present at the chaste rites who had sacri- ficed to Venus the preceding night, for although the noble Theano vindicated the freedom of the marriage-bed in her On. II] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 333 celebrated answer to the inquiry, such was not the usual Lustration or . Purification. understanding ; the ' sacer agnus ' of rural piety and peni- { The Kural Lu3. tence was presented at the altar and accepted — and, as it traha- would appear, sacrificed — by the Pontifex or Censor ; prayers were offered to the ' Dii Patrii ' against all evils that might affect rural interests ; and the day closed with merri- ment and song : — ii. At the annual visitation of the marches ii. The visitation of the marches of the of the ' Ager Komanus by the Arval Brothers, when they « Ager Romanus.' invoked a blessing on the State : — iii. On the completion iii. On the completion . . of each lustrum or of each lustrum or quinquennium, when the victims of quinquennium. the Suovetaurilia — the Trittua of Athens — were sacrificed with his own hands by one of the Censors robed in the ' Toga Preetexta,' or royal Etruscan robe,* and crowned, for the purification of the Eoman Empire, the title * Censor ' and the number ' quinque ' or five, both linking the lustration in question with Consus the Spirit-Deity : — iv. When a navy or an army was sent forth, on which iv. When a navy or . . an army was sent occasions peculiar and singular ceremonies were observed, forth. When a naval expedition was in question, the victims were carried in boats three times round the fleet, and then divided, and one half flung into the sea, the other burnt on the altar ; in the case of an expedition by land, as practised in Macedonia, a dog, figuring, I believe, proxi- mately the tagus, dux, or zogo, the general, was cut into two pieces, and one half thrown to the right aud the other to the left, the army assembling between them, — ceremonies which appear to me to date in their essence from primeval times : — And lastly, a lastratio, attended by religious cere- When a lustratio , , , . „ , ,. i • i i t°°k place on occa- monies and public games ot an extraordinary kind, took sions of great place on occasions when Rome was visited by extreme ca aim y" * Macrob., Sat. i., vi. § 7. 334 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Lustration or calamity, the penalty (as was supposed) of inordinate skhal or guilt, — of this also I shall speak presently. Theory of lustration. The primary and simple idea, the theory, as I may call it, of lustration as practised by the Japhetans, was thus, in fine, that of rendering clean, and pure, and acceptable to God that which, either through inherited responsibility (such as Varishtha acknowledges to Varuna), or personal sin, or ceremonial defilement, had become impure, to the effect of incapacitating it from the efficient and acceptable service of God. The pure lymph effected the abstersion, illumination, and reconciliation with God in the actual body of the worshipper. The sacrifice of blood, unless in a broad and subjacent sense, presently to be illustrated, and as the blood of a personage too of whom the ' sacer agnus ' was a mere symbol, had no part in the essence of the rite. Lus- tration, the type of voluntary but yet accepted passive submission and the pledge of obedience, was thus the neces- sary preliminary to the active service of sacrifice — for I must again repeat that the sacrifices which accompanied lustralia in ordinary practice are aggregations on the original rite. Section II. — Sacrifice. The rite of Sacrifice. The rite of Sacrifice — which we must now deal with — has to be considered, as has been stated, under the two aspects of Sacrifice of Appeasement and Eeconciliation, and Sacrifice of Thanksgiving. Some sacrifices were bloody, marked by the effusion upon the ground of the blood of victims slain and offered at the altar ; others were unbloody, consisting in the mere presentation of an offering, living or inanimate, at the altar, or in the pouring of Ch. II.] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 335 libations on the ground. The former of these were the Sacrifice. especial means prescribed for propitiation of an offended God, the latter the peculiar expression of grateful recogni- tion of the Divine blessing. It has been disputed which were of the oldest ordinance and prior obligation among the Japhetans. My belief is that, as Lustration preceded Sacri- Lustration preceded n . , , .. n* t « •/• i /• Sacrifice, so Piacular nee in principle and practice, so riacular (sacrifice always (in Sacrifice preceded the • i , i ,\ ■• ■• -n j? mi i • • Sacrifice of Thanks- prmciple at least) preceded sacrifice ol Thanksgiving : — giving. I say in principle, because the two rites were constantly and almost inevitably mixed up together in practice. Stress has been laid on the self-flattering assertions of classical writers — of course within historical, that is, comparatively recent times — that the original offerings of their ancestors Bloodless offerings „ ., .,, , , .„ , . ,, claimed as original, were iruit, milk, honey, etc., animal sacrifices being then denied because— unknown. But this can only be accepted as true if under- stood of that remote and mythical Saturnian reign when absolute virtue and peace prevailed upon earth — long, cer- tainly, before the state of things which has reached within all historical memory. It may be important, however, to shew that such was not the doctrine or practice of the primitive Church of Japhet, beyond which I do not seek to ascend in this inquiry : — 1. In the first place, the assertion is negatived by the l. The ancients . . n testify to contempo- testimony of the ancients themselves, that animal sacrifices rary prevalence of were of general prevalence among contemporary or (as they styled them) barbarian nations, many of those nations being, as we know, of common descent with themselves and heirs of the same traditions, while they moreover expressly tell us Theseus, Hercules, that Theseus, Hercules, and other primeval heroes, put down practice of human the practice of human sacrifice, the sacrifice of blood per nOTerfoeless sur- exeellentiam, which nevertheless prevailed in their own vlved> 336 THE CEEED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifice. time and down to the times of Christianity. 2. Another KomanSGandk Etrus- Vvooi to the same effect may be f°Und in tbe admitted fact cans sought for au- ^ t t^ Greeks Romans, and Etruscans sought for auguries gunes in the entrails ' ' on of slain victims. through the observation of the entrails of victims. I have shewn in my ' Etruscan Inscriptions ' * that Trutnut, the word for Haruspex in Etruria, is based in part upon a lost Teu- tonic word denoting 'entrails/ and the fact is then clear that victims were sacrificed and their entrails inspected by a body of men, a sacred college who derived their current name from that office, at a period when the ancestors of the Teutons, the Etruscans, the Greeks, and a. The oldest name Romans were still living together. 3. The oldest name for for sacrificial priest. •/»•!• ■• i_ j j r j.- w i Hotar. Zaotar Gudi. sacrificial priest, in its purest abraded formation, affords further evidence, which, although secondary in point of absolute antiquity, may be reckoned as primary when taken as contemporary with the period just referred to. AYhile Hotar, etymologies, the title hotar, zaotar, fjodi, was originally, I think, written hrotar, zraotar, grodi, like the Irish erutaire and the Greek api)T{}p, as a form of thivorestdra, there is no doubt that in its form of hotar it exhibits a secondary sense, such as would naturally flow from the root found as hu, su, gu, x*v, in the Japhetan language, and signifying to pour, that is in the abstract — the substance poured being described, still in the abstract, as xtv/ua, humor. The Aryans in India understood the root and the x^v/ma as of a particular and generative libation derived from the celestial water spoken of under Lustration ; but the affinity of \tt"/ capra, gabhar, gobhar, etc., — 2. The Goat. the goat or kid. Heed, goat, are varieties of suta and seed, offspring, or, as we have it in English, kid, i.e. 'kind' and 'child.' That aiZ, originally denoted both goat and ram or sheep, and was written rai^, would appear from the fact that Jcizzi signifies hcedus in Old German and tekis, ram, in Lithuanian ; while, extending our view beyond the Japhetan pale, claykas is a sheep in Arabic, and dekar a ram in Chaldean, the Hebrew zahar denoting male in general, as vrisha, arsJian (apm)v), do in Sanscrit and Zendic and ha in Egyptian. But tuil, I conceive was itself written at an earlier period rpaiZ, or 340 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of Expiation. Ordinary, or Animal. Linguistic varieties of names. The Ram- The Goat- -Lanib. -Kid. roofs, the Greek rpayog, goat, representing this older form, while we have the abraded r preserved likewise in fipit,, the Scythic word for ram (as in /3jopi%, rapiZ,. The root is to be found apparently in older forms denotive of male genera- tion ; but (deferring these for the moment), it is to be remarked — starting from the stage of rapiZ,, signifying a child, and s, son, in that language, together with the vrisha, may be considered in connection. Kairpog, aper, aphul, and perhaps suev-s, seem to belong to the category of gabhar, capra, madhr. 4. Tadpog, taurus, originally « staurus,' as shewn by its 4. The Bull, innumerable varieties alike in the Japhetan and Semitic tongues, — balin (Sanscrit), volu (Old Slavonic), builis, bullus (Lithuanian), bull, a word found in short in every Japhetan language,— vrisha, vrishan, bull, in Sanscrit, and the corresponding varshni arshan (apanv, male) in Zendic, which we have in an abraded form in the Zendic uhhshan, Gothic and English auhsan, oxen, as also the San- scrit usra and the European ur, urus, and in a more general sense go, gava, gu, gaus, /3o0e, bos, inclusive of both sexes. — Of these names ravpog associates itself with Kcnrpog, gabhar, madhr, etc., bull has the signification of strength, as of a father's torus, and arshan and its con- geners, implying male generation. Go and fioiig or bos are decomposed forms of an earlier yfiovg, and if the genitive of bos was originally boveris, as stated by M. Varro, the word gbover-s resolves into identity with taurus, gabhar, madhr, etc. 5. Szkapa, aspa, aswa, hrirog, iiacog (Mo\.), equus, each 5. The Horse. (Irish), afioXog, caball-us, the Celtic capall and eeffyl, the Old Slavonic kobyla, Illyr. kobila, Latin caball-us, and the Egyptian Mr, htm. Htr appears to me akin to madhr ; and 342 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Ft. II. Sacrifices op capall- may be so likewise. The Polish szhapa connects itself Ordinary ok witli the name of the horse Shjphius, already familiar to us. Animal- Aspa is derived by etymology from cap, salire ; but if so, I Linguistic varieties of names. should think the earlier form was crap, akin to the same root. 6. The Dog. 6. Finally, )A-ov, /StAA-fpoc, the ram; aper, aphul, the "boar: — balin, the bull; and kapala, afioXog, the horse. TavpoQf a bull, and perhaps vg, sus, suev-is, answer to Tur, Tus. Go, gdo, ukshan, ox, tekis, cu£, hog, equus, and suchaka, dog, correspond with Aku, Deuces; while sauths, saudhr, and the kindred words above enumerated similarly correspond with Z or Tet, the form in which Tus and Aku find their reconciliation through the intermediate form of suta, ' seed ' or ' child,' which is the exact significa- tion of Tet. This correspondence of symbolic with animal Ch. II] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 343 nomenclature — the names of the persons symbolised being Ordinary Sacrifice. , . Animal. uniform while each such personal name is represented by Correspondence of various animals-is in conformity with the principle of£^J^6niraftl mythogony elsewhere laid down. Obs. 2. Again, the preceding names of sacrificial animals, Two groups : I. Ex- . . pressing the idea of considered analytically with reference to the signification secd or offspring in , , , , . , , . general ; II. Tlie conveyed by them, resolve into two groups, expressing idea of sacrificial r espectively the ideas of seed or offspring in a general sense, vlc xma' and of sacrificial victims. Under the former of these groups we have rpayog, (j>plZ,, Group I. fipiZ, the goat, xo7>0c, verves, the boar, and possibly suevis; vrisha, auhsan, the bull, and possibly bos, bover-s ; and aswa, the horse. The root to which vrisha is referred, and to which most of the preceding are also referable, is the San- scrit vrish, expressive of male generation; but vrish is merely a half-way house on the road, and we must trace it further to reach the real root — as well as for that of the kindred root wachsen, to wax or increase, namely the primi- tive thworestdr, implying ' creator,'— vrish with the initial sereh restored answering to thworestar as the abraded vish does to the equally abraded Tvastri. The idea conveyed is that of a son or offspring ' created ' or ' made,' and who is himself at the same time Creature and Maker. An Italian woman says, ' Ho fatto due inaschi.' Under the second group we have the titles above Group II. remarked upon of sauths, saudhr, xwaiPa> caPra> gabhar and perhaps* cairach, Kairpoq, aper, aphul, x°^ suevs, radpog, originally aravpoq (as by comparison with many analogical forms); bover-s (originally gbover-s), bos; a0oXoc, capall, and htr in Egyptian, and catulus, whelp, * See third and fourth groups, p. 341. 344 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of — all of which have, independently of any remoter meaning, Ordinary or the sense of sacrificial offering. The normal type of this NrZofsa.ifi.ia. g""P «■ <° *>e ^ ™ SaUths (H-G")> 8audhl' (°-N>- The animals analysed. word in question, unlike its congeners, is common, with more Group EL or less variation, to a wide range of ^language other than the Japhetan, while a learned French etymologist cites it,* along with the MaBSo-Gothic form of sauds or sauths, as the only general analogue of the category of sacrificial words derived (as he considers it) from su, hu, in the old Aryan tongues of the East, and as not at all sure whether liostia should not be added. In some apparently remoter lan- guages in which the word occurs it denotes the goat, but in the greater number and in the old Japhetan dialects the ram — but always with the idea of sacrifice connected with it. The analogous names grouped (as above) around saudhr, sauths, all resolve into unity with it through that inter- mutation of literal sounds which disguise the outward form of words to the uninitiated eye. The word may be traced higher through this particular form, but I shall reserve this for the moment, and proceed to consider in detail the various sacrificial animals above enumerated, taking the ram first as the most universal and ancient object of sacrifice, and adducing proof under that head of the signification just assigned to saudhr, sauths. 1 will merely remark, before doing so, that the two classifications just specified testify to each other — the sacrificial names which answer to those titles of the Son-Deity, in the first class, by merely verbal or aural assonance having themselves the signification of Son and of Sacrificial offering in the second. In confirmation of the general conclusion thus far arrived * Pictet, Lea Originea Iudo-Eur., iii. 478. Ch. II] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 345 at, it may be interesting to turn for a moment to the Old Ordinary Sacrifice. Animal. Egyptian language, that treasure-house of primeval roots Names of sacrificial and associations, although in a very abraded state. I animals analysed. may observe that ha, besides the general sense of male seed and husband, denotes the bull, answering to the go, gava of the Aryan, — ha, hau, expressing the cow; hu, a calf; ha, — hi, the goat, male and female, corresponding perhaps with eug the goat, and <%f, the ram — this last word being identical with the Teutonic schaf, in regard to which avi, oig, ovis stand in a relatively modern character : — while some words, as ha, to offer, hha, altar, hu, to strike, ha, a type or form, ha, seed (as offspring), and (once more) ha, male, may sufficiently indicate, when considered in con- junction with the two parallel series of names, Japhetan and Egyptian, above enumerated, that the animals in ques- tion were offered and slain as victims at a period when the Japhetans and Egyptians were still living together. The Six Sacrificial Animals again revieived. 1. The Bam or male Lamb. — That the ram or lamb sacri- 1. The Ram or Lamb, 77 . /. i i the propitiatory sa- fice was the propitiatory sacrifice per excellentiam of the early orifice per excellen- Japhetans is to be found partly in the special and cognate sig- u nifications of the Old Northern and Gothic saudhr, sanths, above spoken of, and partly in the testimony of classical an- tiquity. We shall in this and the following section notice the historical and familiar sacrifice first, and afterwards those of mythology, which are usually idealised presentments of ordi- nary rites. Taking the word saudhr (Scand.) first, I have to observe that its signification is given by Pictet as ' victima et vervex, ovis.' In the Gothic speech Ulphilas employs it for his translation of the Now Testament as sauds to 346 THE CREED OF JAPI1ET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of denote Ovaia, Rom. xii. — rendered in the English version Ordinary or ' a lively sacrifice.' He employs it again as sauths in Eph. Al!if ^ T , v. 2, as equivalent to oXoicavTwua, a whole burnt-offering — 1. The Kara or Lamb. ' u ° the passage being that in which Our Saviour is spoken of as having given himself for us as ' an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour' (I quote Scripture here, or rather the Maeso-Gothic translation, the reader will understand, solely in proof of the original pre-Christian and Japhetan signification of the word under discussion). But sauths is also found in Ulphilas, although deprived of its initial letter by the attrition of time, in the sister form of vithrus, the word by which he translates the phrase in St. John i. 29 — ' Behold the Lamb of God ' — vithrus Guths — 'which taketh away the sin of the world.' Sauths, like vithrus (and the Old High German, Old Saxon, and Scandinavian wiclar, withar, veor, our English wether, as well (as I have suggested) as the Greek BeXA^o- in /3t AXepo- Qwv-tik, and the French belier, are mere varieties of the word) thus bore the general signification of sacrifice, and the special qualification of lamb- or ram-sacrifice among the Goths— and this, as shewn by the existence of the word, with the same signification in other languages, ages unnum- bered before the advent of Christianity. The antiquity or civilisation of a nation is not to be estimated merely by tho date of its first appearance in history, but by the more authentic records of speech ; and I have in the present case furnished proof, I think, that the speech of the Goths, as ancestors or at least the nearest congeners of the Europeans, is of antiquity corresponding with that of the classical languages. That Saudhr bore the particular sense of ram in the earliest Japhetan times may be independently shewn by Ch. II .] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 347 the fact that a description of wild sheep in the Hindu Ordinary Sacrifice. Koosh is styled Qoclaur in the language of the Kal Posh, L The Ram or Lamb> that interesting but little-known race flung off into the rocks by the descending torrent of the Aryan immigration into India, and that still preserves the blue eyes and fair complexion of their ancestors, and speak a language derived from a coeval origin with Sanscrit, goclaur stands to sauths as gocli does to hotar, the identical word through the inter- mediation of gak and su ; and it is clear, therefore, that the sauclhr, sauths, or ram, was known to the Japhetans by the same name, and that, as inferred, a sacrificial one, before the separation of the Aryan and non- Aryan Japhetans in the East, and taking the word in connection with its congeners in the European languages, that the sacrifice was not instituted by the Japhetans themselves, but practised by them in common with races not Japhetan. It may be added in illustration that M. Pictet compares sauclhr, sauths with the Gothic saun, the Scandinavian son (from sona, placare, reconciliare), and the Old German suana, all three signifying ' expiatio, satisfactio,' as also allied with the Sanscrit su and its derivative savana, ablu- tion, purification. Saun, I may subjoin, is employed by Ulphilas in translating St. Mark x. 45, where it is said that our Saviour came ' to give his life a ransom,' sacrifice, Xvrpov, for many — which additionally illustrates the sense in which the venerable bishop understood the word as handed down from old pre-Christian tradition. It may be noted in conclusion, so far, that sauclhr, aKa9ap-og, appears to be substantially the same word, s and h being- mutable, as we have so often seen, while the root of Kaf)ap-6g has been traced, a few pages back, to an analogue of the 348 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Ordinary Sacrifice. Teutonic hint-, through which KaQupoic; aud lustratio both Animal. _ l. The Ram or Lamb. ^Uc^ their elder form in hlutarja — that analogue being probably k\vZ,-, kXv^-biv, the older form of Ka0ap-6c;, k\ci6- or K\v6-epoQ. If this induction be correct, the older forms of saudhr, in this particular connection, may have been sluadhr or hluadhr, and it may be important to notice incidentally that the word hlut, or blood, stands in immediate proximity to the form in question as well as to k\v%-, lilut-, suggesting an inference as to the natural fluid, to the virtue of which, as by the convergence of evidence above specified, the sanatory effect of Sacrifice in the first and of Lustration in the secondary instance is attributed. I am inclined to think now, that the word klutiva, explained in the ' Etruscan Inscriptions ' * as ' wethers,' the animal sacrificial offering in the tomb of S. Marino uear Perugia,! and the initial syllable of which I explained by gald, gelt, sterilis, in the sense of emasculation — is in reality a compound of SAUTHS = klut and iva, avi, ovis, thus furnishing the composite signification of ' berbex ' or ' ram-offering.' But the indications do not pause here, and we must inquire whether saudhr, thus restored to an older form as slaudhr, is not recognisable likewise alternatively as sraudhr, in virtue of the constant interchange of I and r. That it is so may be inferred from the fact that ' sator,' ' satus,' ' Saturnus ' must both have existed in an older form as ' Sartus,' ' Sartor,' ' Sartur-nus,' in derivation from ser-o, signifying to sow, or deposit seed; while the Sanscrit and Zendic roots su, hu, gahu, \f)t-a, \tv-, so frequently dwelt upon as final, must, with their derivatives suta, seed, \tvfia, alfia, have been like- wise originally sru, hru, gru, \fitv-, alfxa in like manner * Etr. Iuscr., 110, US. t Vide Etr. Inscr., 213. Cf. 161. Ch. II] THE TROPITIATION OF GOD. 349 Xpaifia, while xr iQ tne corresponding stage produces Ordinary Sacrifice. 'chreo,' 'cruor,' the analogues flu- developing into the 1. TheBam or Lamb, simpler lustrative form 'flu-men' and 'cr' into ' cresco,' wohs-a, and the Aryan forms of vrish, vish, of which I have already spoken, having the sense of flowing on in growth and increase. But the present inference almost ascends to certainty when we compare the form of sraudhr, srauths, thus arrived at with the sacrificial formula pre- served in the Hindu ritual ' Astu sraushat,' signifying (as it is rendered) 'Be increased,' and which Dr. Haug has connected with the Zendic graoeha, the name of the angel ruling over the worship of the Parsees. ' Sero,' sert-, on the other hand, and 'cres-,' cresc-, stand in intimate relation, in the sense of geniture, and both of them find their analogue in thworesc-, the root of thivorestdra, the creating deity. We must conclude, then, that saudhr, sauths, originally sraudhs, but in an abraded form, has the same signification, and is in fact identical with the word else- where repeatedly dwelt upon, and which I may once more mention — as tet and aat in Old Egyptian, get and aught in Anglo-Saxon, hid, hind, and child (through a rare but ascertained mutation of n and I) in Teutonic, and ' Srninth ' -eus as in the title of Apollo, — all signifying 'the Child' or ' Son ' per excellentiam — the ultimate root being sh or s%, implying separation, of which I have so often spoken. The results so far established may be summarised thus — Results summarised: (1) That the name by which the Bam-sacrifice was desig- (l) The name by nated denoted < The male seed ' or < Son ; ' and Orifice was aSgSed (2) The sacrifice of blood, and of the ram or lamb in parti- teed't < Son.^6 cular, whether sufficient in itself or as symbolical of a more exalted victim, underlies the entire system of the propitia- 350 THE CREED OF JArHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of tion of God as held by the Japhetans — although, as stated, Exi'IATION. . . Okdinaky, on Lustration did not itself involve the practice of sacrifice, Results summarised. but merely, as the attendant circumstances and analysis (2) The sacrifice of prove) tne removal of pre-existing disabilities in the case ram or lamb, under- 0f individuals, entitling them personally to offer sacrifice. lies the entire J a- . phetan system of the It is singular that the epithet awTi'ip should be identical, propitiation of God. . at least at the Hellenic stage of its development, with saadhr, as it likewise is with hotar ; but although o-wrZ/p is traceable, like saudhr and hotar, to thworestar, I think it derives its peculiar signification from huot, as in the parallel huotdn, hider or protector, as elsewhere suggested — protector from the wrath of Varuna. Historical proofs in I have now to shew how far the historical facts handed th • West, of the pre- , __ T , . eminence of the ram- down from West Japhetan antiquity support the preceding or lamb-sacrifice. -, ,-, . r , ■, ■, ■, conclusion as to the pre-eminence of the ram- or lamb- sacrifice. The * sacer agnus ' of I would first observe that the 'sacer agnus' — sacer tie' rural lustration . . ,, ,, . , of Italy. signifying ' separated or ' set apart in the most com- prehensive sense, as previously illustrated — was the solitary victim offered up in connection with the rural lustration of Italy, as described in the beautiful idyllics of Tibullus, the ' Candida turba ' of its brethren following peacefully after as it was led to the 'fulgentes aras,' the blazing altar. Little, perhaps, could be founded on a fact so natural as that a lamb should be the offering of a village or rustic com- munity, poor, however happy and loving to the Gods. Such too was the offering per excellentiam of the State herself, of Rome even in all her glory. It was the ram that was thus offered at the Agonia or Agonalia, perhaps the most characteristic sacrifices of Rome, and which were celebrated several times a year — the root of the name Agon- connecting Ch. II] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 351 the rite (as I shall shew hereafter) with the most primitive Ordinary Sacrifice. . , _ . Animal. Japhetan and even pre-Japhetan antiquity. Ihe Gods Western exanipleg propitiated were the Great Gods, the guardians of Rome, ^ aSSfiwfS1*' and the ram was offered up by the Rex Sacrificulus, the the Agonalia. representative of the period when King and Priest were but one office and at the Regia; while the institution of the festival was attributed to Numa, which is tantamount to an ascription of it to the remotest ancestral antiquity. The lamb, too, was the principal and original offering, if The Lamb originally _.. iT-i-rii i i i at the Ludi Seculares. 1 mistake not, at the Ludi Seculares, perhaps also at the Suovetaurilia or Solitaurilia. The facts and etymologies connected with these festivals throw great light upon the whole question of piacular sacrifice. I shall interpose a few comments upon them before endeavouring to establish the peculiar significance of the ram-sacrifice at the close of this section. The Ludi Seculares — instituted originally, according to The Ludi Seculares. tradition, in consequence of the death by disease of the three children of a certain Valeria — were celebrated at Rome on occasions of penitence for surpassing guilt, or after a great national catastrophe. The Secular Games are sometimes spoken of as the ' Ludi Taurii,' and the Sacrifices are said to or Ludi Taurii. have taken place at the 'Tarentum,' a place near the Campus Martius, whence they are also styled 'Ludi Tarentini.' Sterile cows, ' taureae,' were the offering, whence the games bore the name of Taurii. The root is, I have little doubt, the same as that of which ravpog and saudhr(?) are alike variations ; but the principal sacrificial victim, at least in the Secular Games per excellentiam, was still the ram or lamb, as may be inferred from the description of the great Secular Games celebrated by Augustus ; the emperor him- 352 THE CREED OF JArHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of self commencing the rites by sacrificing three lambs, black Ordinary or in colour, to the Parca3 or Fates — that awful power superior W^tera 'examples. to tbe Romau Jove himself, Parca, like Mo7pa, being a l The Ram or Lamb. form 0f zwarz, Herk, Hek, and thus representing the The Ludi beculares. r ° hidden or Supreme God. The name Valerius — a late equivalent, I take it, of fitWepog, vithrus, saudhr — figures, I may observe, attached to different personages, throughout the obscure but singularly significant records of this ancient festival, and it is that, too, of the Pontifex Maximus, who takes part in the most important of the ancient Roman ' devotiones,' presently to be spoken of. The qualification of guilt must be kept in view here in reference to the character of the offering ; and this may be brought out by inquiring into the signification of the title itself, ' Saeculares.' These Ludi Saeculares were not held periodically at the termination of a great Saeculum, as has been supposed, but at irregular intervals and always under circumstances of remorse and fear, as just stated ; Derivation of the and the root ssecul- must, then, be read skhal, scol-o, scelus, root Snecul from ,. .. > • p -i *k 1 1 ai, ecoi-o, scelus, delictum, crime; while the terminational 'ares is tormed from aur, a root corresponding with -jmr, februa, and other words denoting purification, the compound word The lamb the oxpia- thus signifying purification from guilt. The simple lamb oryo rmg orgm . ^g thus, in all probability, as in the preceding cases, the expiatory offering for the suprcmest guilt conceivable by the Roman people. Supremacy of iamb- The supremacy of the ram or lamb, as a sacrificial offer- offering less certain . . ._ jti^ii in the Suovctaurilia mg, is less certain in the other Roman and, 1 would add, and TpLTria. Greek festival above noted, the Suovetaurilia or Solitaurilia The TpiTTva. Three victims 0r Timrva. Three victims were offered, both in Italy and offered, Bull, Ram, * , . . , _,. . Boar. Greece,— the bull, the ram, and the boar-pig; and this Ch. II.] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 353 must be allowed as sufficient to shew that the triple sacri- Ordinary Sacrifice. fice must date at latest from Pelasgian and pre-historic times. Western exam lea The etymology assigned to Suovetaurilia as derived from Suovetauriiia. sus, ov-is, and taur-us, is, like almost all Koman etymo- ymoogy' logies, purely fanciful ; suovet- is simply our familiar sauth-s, saudhr ; aur, the word denoting purification just mentioned, and ilia, the usual suffix implying religious service in ancient Latin, — unless indeed suovetaur be simply a form of saudhr. I own I am inclined to think, consider- ing all the circumstances, that the unit or germ of the sacrifice was the simple saudhr, or ram, one victim usually constituting a sacrifice in the oldest times, while suovet-, suovetaur-, has that especial signification. The dress worn by the sacrificing Censor in offering the suovetaurilia renders it almost certain that the sacrifice was originally Etruscan ; and as the Etruscan, as I have presumed to affirm, were Teutonic,* and spoke a language nearly allied to the Gothic and Norrsena — as I prefer to call the Old Northern tongue — we at once see how the word suovet, Suovetaur, saudhr, sauths, might be common, with precisely the same signification, at once to Italy and Scandinavia. The name of Tpirrva, given to the corresponding or rather Tpirrva. identical festival in Greece, has a peculiar etymological Etymology' interest, as preserving, if I mistake not, the original r which is lost in saudhr — the initial r in rpirrva representing the s in saudhr, as representing an earlier compound z-rptrr-, thus preserving, under a slight modification, the older form of saudhr, sraudhr, above vindicated for it. A yet further proof that the ram or lamb was the earliest 1. The Ram or Lamb. Japhetan sacrifice is afforded by the fact that apviov * Etr. Inscr., 312. 2 A 354 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of was one 0f the Greek words used for the vessel employed Expiation. Ordinary, oh in receiving the blood of the animal slain in sacrifice. The Western examples. other word was ° a general term expressive of 1. The Ram or Lamb, bloodshed merely, whereas afxviov denotes that of the the vessel for^receiv- lamb, hfxvoq, lamb or ram in particular. Two alternatives D&uactionC,i1Ss0d' nere Present themselves, viz. that afxviov is derived from the male lamb prob- » j tne maie ]amD 0r that it is a Greek derivation from ably the especial " sacrifice. the Sanscrit and Zendic and Scandinavian savana, havana, son, signifying ' pouring forth ' in the abstract, but with an admitted sacrificial sense. Under the former, the usual understanding, afivog must have been a primitive and special name for the animal chiefly selected for sacrifice — the ' sacer agnus ' of the Komans — as the vase destined to receive the blood of all animals indiscriminately would not have derived its name from the particular offering — in the latter alternative we have clear proof that the Eastern savana, havana, and the Western suana, son, implied a sacrifice of blood. It would appear, then, from the preceding conclusions from language and from historical record, each leading independently to the same result, that the peculiar piacular offering of the early Japhetans was the ram or male lamb. The preceding names The preceding names of the ram or lamb, saudhr, sraudhr, sa^rSuharacter vithrua, resolve, as we have seen, into mere epithets descriptive of its sacrificial character, but there is one name for it — that of sedf, schaf, 'aries,' sheep, (the title from which, as has been shewn, we have through attri- tion of the initial compound consonant, the Sanscrit avi, Greek of a-, Latin ovis, and Gaelic oi) — that reveals in analysis the peculiar sense in which the animal in ques- tion was piacular and the actual part borne by it, and by of the ram or lamb. Ch. II.] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 355 every other sacrificial victim, including the highest of Ordinary Sacrifice, all, man or God, in the sacrificial rite. This requires^ * One name of the ram and will reward our attention for a few moments. The word or ,amb roveais its peculiar piacular scdf, Teutonic though it be, is of primitive antiquity may character, in the i . . v 6acrificial rite. be inferred from its appearing (as already noticed) in pre- The name sccu Sclwf cisely the same form and with the signification of ' ram,' iu Teutonic- X( in Egyptian, both de- as "Xf in the vocabulary of Egypt. But we may proceed noting ram. further, and, by ascertaining its special signification, obtain an insight into the peculiar doctrine associated by the Japhetans with the sacrifice of the victim in question, by reference to an old Teutonic root almost literally identical with it, scliieb — as in schieben, our common English shove, but not having quite so rude a meaning, at least in this special sense. It is rendered, as in Schaz and Oberlin's Glossary, by 'transferre, devolvere, transferre culpam, declarare quern reum, deprehenso penes ipsum corpore delicti,' and I take scdf, <%f, therefore to have signified, at a very remote period, literally, the ' shove- ' ' "Xf- ' or ' scape-offering ' or ' victim ' upon which the confessed guilt of the penitent or community that offers it in sacrifice is 'shoved' or transferred, for his or their immunity and redemption. That scdf, <%{, was closely connected with the root xP * or Connection of scdf, kp, and other words implying a covenant or contract in its "^ ' W1 , .ie r,0° M r * ° xP or *P> implying a relative symbols, will be shewn further on in this chapter ; contract. but the fact that "Xp, a formation nearly resembling "Xf, likewise signifies in Old Egyptian ' to bear off,' the Greek word for scapegoat, airoTroinraios, exactly answering to it, and "xf, «xft, to desolate, would almost induce one to think, when taken in connection with the peculiar treat- * Cf. p. 401. 356 THE CREED OF JAPHET [Pt IT. Sacrifices or ment of the head ((ce^aX?';, caput, haupt) likewise to be OkdinaryVor noticed hereafter in the Japhetan ceremonial, that the ' ' _ , Japhetan and the Hebrew rite, the one handed down 1. The Ram or Lamb, r in its especial piacu- uninterruptedly, the other, it would appear, reconstituted lar character. Sc-af, Schaf, in Teu- by Moses, but each independently of the other, must have tiau ' ° been a part of the original Noachide worship. This at least may be affirmed, that the title of «xf being thus peculiar to the ram in Japhetan speech, and given to no other animal, is proof per se that the ram was the original central sacrifice of propitiation among the Japhetans, which is all I am concerned to prove. The word «%f, a ram, If, finally, as I have sometimes thought, the Egyptian ffi^oSTitleWord -xf, a ram, be a degenerated form of the title xrp, xrp, denoting 'first; (]enoting, not only ' first, principal,' — in which sense we have considered it under the head of ' spirit,' as a form analogous to that which gave origin to the title ypvip, ypvfwv, — but also ' first fruits,' it may then be that the ' scape-offering ' thus sacrificed was the first-born issue of its parent. The qualification ' princeps gregis ' given to the ram or lamb in the Latin is true in fact. In that case "Xf, sedf, must have been written originally "Xrf, scarf, ' shreep,' and we should thus obtain a satisfactory root for ram, lamb, o^uv-oc (words, as has been stated, identical in origin), — the initial y, in \rj>, sch, % being elided, and p taking the form off or m ; while afi- in afx-vog would represent the same root in the de- scending scale. The first ram-sacri- The first ram-sacrifice of mythology is, the reader will fice of mythology. , . _ .. , 'Chrysomalltis'or have anticipated, that of the ram ' Chrysomallns or 'Golden Fleece,' as the word is rendered. Chrysomallus was the ram provided by Hermes — in the character, doubt- less, of the messenger of his father Zeus — for the rescue Ch. II.] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 357 of Phrixus and Helle, the children of Athamas, whom lie Ordinary Sacrifice. Animal. proposed to sacrifice to Zeus Laphystius in atonement to 1 The R(vmorLamb Nephele, and upon it the brother and sister performed their ' Chrysomallus ' or r » r r . the * Goldea Fleece.' adventurous voyage through the air to Colchis. Phrixus, the survivor, sacrificed the Ram, on his arrival, to Ares — that is, Zwarz or Zeus, — and the recovery of his ' golden fleece,' which was hung upon a tree in the grove of Ares, and guarded by the dragon, was the object of the expedition of the Argonauts. All this will be commented upon more fully hereafter, but by way of retrospective illustration, not of inductive proof. Chrysomallus was subsequently trans- ferred to the skies, and became the first sign of the Zodiac as Kpiog, Aries, the Ram. What is noteworthy in corrobo- ration of the suggestion in the last paragraph is that Hermes — whose name is a form of xrP> as nas been shewn, — himself provides the ram — also a ^rp, as suggested, for this interposition and sacrifice. 2. The Goat. I have nothing further to add on this 2. The Goat, offering except that the ram and the goat appear to have been comprehended under the same title (alike in Japhetan and Egyptian), and sacrificed indifferently, although the ram was always the especial victim of honour. None of the astronomical goats appear to have any relation to sacrifice. — I may pass with almost equal brevity over — 3. The Boar, Boar-pig or Sow. This sacrifice was 3. The Boar, especially connected with treaties or contracts of peace, whether after war, or in marriage, etc., echoing as it were in Kcnrpog, aper, aphul, the attributes of Iacchus. The sacrifice on marriage, the bride and bridegroom especially only offering a ' porcus,' is spoken of with especial reference 358 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices op Expiation. Ordinary, ob Animal. 3. The Boar. In mythology, the sacrifice of tho wild Boar. Meleager and the Caly (Ionian Boar. The hour ysehr- iuinir. The Erynianthian boar. to kings and nobles of Etruria — the connection with peace and covenants seem to have been of Pelasgic antiquity.* It is in mythic story, as in pure mythology, that the Boar sacrifice attains its highest dignity, and that in the case of the wild boar. The close connection of hunting and sacrifice in early speech suggests a frequent preference of wild to domesticated animals as propitiatory offerings. Keeping the relationship of Meleager and of Dionysus Zagreus — the Son-Deity as torn asunder and devoured by the Titans — in view, I suspect that the hunting of the Calydonian Boar by the assembled heroes, headed by Meleager, was of the nature of a sacrifice, partly because jagd zuki is very similar to yaj yajata, but far more so because the name ' Calyd-on ' appears to echo the familiar schuld, ' delictum ' or guilt, which was the cause for sacrifice. The boar Ssehr-irnnir, the object of the daily hunt and nightly banquet of the heroes in Valhalla, and which I have already connected with Dionysus Zagreus, otherwise u/naStos, appears to supply what is wanting in the legend of Calydon, for a feast — the nature of which I shall deal with hereafter — always followed a sacrifice. I have little doubt that the Hellenic sets forth one great pro- pitiatory sacrifice of early times, and the Scandinavian its daily commemorative reiteration. It may be that the Erynianthian boar, slain by Hercules, belongs to the same category — ' Erymanth ' having a remarkable literal resem- blance to Saehrimnir. If the more usual analysis of Saehrimnir as sae-hrimnir be pressed, we may recognise in * I should suggest in this connection whether 'pax* was not originally jiaix'— in connection with the sentiment expressed in the well-known line, ' Parc-ere subjectos et debellare superbos ' V The association of ' porcus ' and 'pa-x ' suggests this Elp-r)vr). Ch. II.] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 359 sse a close resemblance to the Egyptian "Xau — closer than Ordinary Sacrifice. it bears to sus, vg, sow. The reader will not fail to observe g ^ Bq^ that the connection of the porcus with peace, as contrasted with the peculiar bellicosity, so to speak, of the aper, corre- sponds with the two aspects of Dionysus when considered as Iaochus and as Zagreus ; and I may note, finally, that while the name Mel-eager, Bal-Zagreus (as I have inter- preted it) connects itself by verbal assonance with the boar, more especially under the variation of the name aphid, the same designation, aphul, was evidently in view in the ' canting' heraldry of antiquity, when Polyneices of Thebes was represented as bearing a boar on his shield, — Tydeus being stated in the same breath to have carried a lion. The Erymanthian boar was, of course, a native of Arcadia, and it is remarkable that the mythical bear, hereafter to be spoken of, was native of the same locality. 4. The Bull. While the ram or male lamb was the 4. The Bull, especial offering to the highest Gods and those especial ^^g^to'tire111 representatives of Zwarz, the Molpai or Parcae, as above Jjf ^^SlS^ shewn, the bull, ravpog, was the more particular sacrifice to TaOpos was the par- ' r ticular sacrifice to Zeus in his character, as I believe, not of Zwarz, but of Tur, Zeus in his character . t n v • °f Tur or Tus, the or Tus, the Son-Deity. Taurus, the sign of the Zodiac, is son-Deity. usually reputed to have been the bull, in the form of which Zeus accomplished the abduction of Europa; but there is no trace of sacrifice in association with the myth. In Hesiod, however, we have that most ancient and interesting descrip- tion of the sacrifice — not, indeed, of the Taurus or bull, in a restricted sense, but of the fiovg, or go, gaus, the generic bos, inclusive both of male and female, of which I have already spoken in treating of Prometheus— a description fertile in suggestion as to the primitive significance of the 360 THE CREED OF JAPHET. IPt. II. Sacrifices of rite of sacrifice, although the date of the particular offering Expiation. m , . Obdinabt, on is referred to mythical times, and, indeed, to the very origin 4 The Bull °f humanity. The facts as related are that Prometheus, The sacrifice of the described as king and priest, sacrificed a fxiyav fiovv, a vast great flow by Pro- . metheus at Mecoue. ftovg, in the presence of Gods and men, who were in company — enpivovTo — at Mecone.* He divides the fiovg into two parts, placing the white bones, covered with fat, as the rich Kvttr which cau 01lly be effectually filled up or bridged be filled up or over — such was the expression given to the dogma — bv the bridged over by the r o o j voluntary death of an voluntary death of an innocent man in satisfaction for guilt. innocent man in atonement for guilt. The purity, personal integrity, and beauty of the sacrificial animal, its innocence of man's guilt, and even its un- resisting approach to the altar, were thus insufficient; the moral equivalent, the sense of assumed responsibility, the conscious and lofty purpose of self-dedicatioD, the accept- ance of a penalty not rightfully its own, were required for appeasement, reconciliation and blessing; aud such could only be found in the voluntary suffering of man for his brother man, although that, again, could not be other- wise than insufficient when a nation or mankind at large were to be atoned for, except through imputation, as in the case of mere animal sacrifices. This highest achieve- ment of love and duty comes out fully under the heroic and consummate aspect of human sacrifice ; in the lower, im- perfect, and passive phase of it, the active, voluntary, or self-immolating character was simply (as a rule) ascribed or imputed to the victim, as in the case of mere animal sacrifices, by those who offered him. Exemption from punishment and restoration to favour was hoped for in the latter case; but a peculiar and positive blessing was expected and received (so far as history is evidence to dogmatic belief) in the former. The infliction of death for crime must, of course, be Ch. II.] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 371 distinguished from the sacrifice of prisoners or other selected Extraordinary Sacrifices victims ; but so deep was the sense of culpability present, Human. and, I may add, so strong was the consciousness of a common unity between a nation or a family and each member of it, that a sin or crime committed by one was held to involve all in the culpability, and death was thus inflicted judicially, not merely in punishment of the individual, but as an expiation to the community. This feeling is not yet extinct. First Variety. Extraordinary or Human Sacrifice, First variety- Involuntary or Pas- Passive, — and first in relation to the historical or semi- sive Human Sacrifice. historical times of Greece. It may be sufficient here to enumerate rapidly the sacri- At the temple of Zeus Lycaeus and at flees at the temple of Zeus Lycseus in Arcadia and at the the promontory of promontory of Leuca, — those at the Thargelia of Athens At the Thargelia of on the occasion of great calamities, a most curious and suggestive ceremony (the root Tharg- answering to Dwr, Pare, Zwars), — the sacrifice of 300 Spartan captives (in- The 300 Spartan captives. eluding one of the kings) by Aristomenes of Messenia to Zeus of Ithome*— the sacrifice of the 3 victims by The 3 victims by Themistocles. Themistocles before the battle of Salamis— these two last instances suggesting the remark that the number three and its multiple, whatever its signification, is notably occurrent in the facts connected with the Ludi Saeculares, the Suovetaurilia, and many other sacrificial ceremonies, the tripudia moreover being always attendant upon them. In Roman and Italic history, again, we have the Sabine The Sabine sacrifice, sacrifice of the Ver Sacrum in time of adversity, — the sacrifice of the 307 Roman captives by the Etruscan The307 t^a™aP- • Potter, Archaol. Grac, bk. ii., ch. iv., vol. i., 258, ed. 1832. scans- 372 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of State of Tarquin, the fatal stroke being given by the axe, ExriATION. . . Extraordinary, or and not the sword, in order to infer ignominy — the root First variety— Tarq- being here comparable with Tharg- in Thargelia; and Passive. ^lie reported sacrifice, by the Eomans, of the 300 natives of Perugia by the Perugia after their surrender in the siege of Octavian. All these are to be viewed as of the lower type of human sacrifice, carefully to be distinguished from the heroic, in which last the victim is designated beforehand by the divine oracles, and invited, but not compelled, to offer him- self. The minuter history of all these ceremonies is most curious and suggestive. Ascending from historical into Mythical— mythical story, we have — 1. The sacrifice of the 1. (Unless it should be described as of a semi-historical theus of Athens. character) the sacrifice of a daughter of Erechtheus king of Athens, required, some say by an oracle, some by Poseidon, in requital for the death of Eumolpus the Thracian, son of Poseidon, and ancestor of the Eumolpida;, the hereditary hierophants of Eleusis, in the war between Athens and that city. One account — for there are many varying ones — says that the oracle prescribed it as the condition of victory to Athens. Her sisters slew themselves at the same time, in pursuance of a vow which they had made to each other that they would all die together. 2. Twelve Trojan 2. The sacrifice (purely mythical) of the twelve Trojan captives by Achilles. . . ... captives, by Achilles, to the shade of Patroclus, in pursuance of his vow — in which ceremony, as described by Homer, the partition of the victims, six and six, to the right and left of the funeral pile — will remind the reader of the partition of the ftovg by Prometheus, and of the dog in the Macedonian sacrifice — the intervening space symbolising, it would appear, the march to conquest or path to heaven. Ch. II.J THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 373 3. The sacrifice of Polyxena, the promised bride of Extraordinary Achilles, on his tomb, in obedience to the demand of his hdman. shade, unless this be rather a sort of suttee, as in the case pa^™1"16^- of the death of Nanna on the funeral pile of her husband 3. Polyxena, on the tomb of Achilles. Balder. 4. The sacrifice of Iphigeneia, arrested by Artemis, in 4. Iphigeneia. pursuance of a vow by her father — similar to that of Jephtha — the latter hero being, in fact, as I believe, of Japhetan descent and only an Israelite by adoption. Tauris, the shrine of Artemis, appears to indicate, in one direction, etymological relation with saudhr, atonement. The name of Artemis (originally Martemis, Quartemis, as already shewn), and Mars, Martis, appears in very many records of human sacrifice as practised by the early Greeks and Romans ; and the explanation is that they represent in name and in reality, as disintegrated fragments, the primitive Unknown and terrible Father-God Zwarz — viewed more especially as black — as the impersonation of bonds and punisher of Crime, and yet not the less the father of mercy — the mercy of Varuna. 5. The exposure of Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, and 5. The exposure of „ i i • t i Hesione. other princesses of mythological days to sea-monsters, usually sent by Poseidon — Hesione being in this case rescued by Hercules, aided by Athene and the Trojans. This points to a dogmatic distinction between the Trojans as represented by Priam, and the Dardanians or Ilienses of the original Ilion, as ruled over by the ungrateful Laomedon. Poseidon, the opponent of Athene in the contest for Attica, and the parent or natal medium of most of the mediatory deities, was the especial deity of the iEolic race, who practised human sacrifice, and were themselves piacula in 374 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Ft. II Sacrifices of numerous instances, to be noticed under devotio. The Expiation. Extbaobddstabt, or Dardanians were thus adherents to the older and sterner, First variei — *^ie Trojans to the later and milder rule, the former materi- Passive- alising, the latter rationalising in tendency, although in each instance in little more than the germ. iEneas, the descendant of the Dardanian race, sacrificed four human victims. 6. Phrixus and Helle, 6. The sacrifice of Phrixus and Helle, the children of the children ot Athamas. Athamas, of the house of iEolus, demanded by the oracle of Delphi, but who were saved by the ram Chrysomallus through the interposition of Hermes and the sea. The deity to whom they were to be offered — as the Athamantidoe were in after times— was Zeus Laphystius, of whom I shall speak hereafter in especial connection with horse sacrifice. — And, to name no other, — 7. The murder of 7. The murder (as it is denominated) of Pelops by his Tantalus. ^ father Tantalus, who served up his flesh to Zeus, and the The murder of the Gods restored him to life. The murder, by Atreus, of 8" Tantalus and Pleisthenes, the two sons of Thyestes, and The slaughter of the the slaughter of the boy by the sons of Lycaon, son of Lycaon. L Pelasgus, which brought on the deluge of Deucalion, — in each of these cases the murder was, I conceive, a sacrifice followed by a eucharistic feast, which in fact always followed upon sacrifice, although so much as a matter of course that it is not specified in ordinary cases. These and similar legends are founded on a distortion of the early belief that the Son-Deity, and the demigod heroes his representatives, not only became voluntary pia&ula for mankind ; but that Zeus, the Olympian, doomed them to suffering, and even to death, as if through personal hatred, loving them all the while, yet obeying the supreme will Ch. II] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 375 of that Mo7pa or Fate — in other words, Zwarz the hidden Extraordinary Father-God, of whom he was the instrument. This is Human. exemplified in the action of Zeus towards his daughter £irst. variety— * ° Passive. Pallas, and in the legends of (Edipus, Bellerophon, and Argument the piacular heroes and families generally. The frown is always followed by the smile, the suffering by the palm, either at the close of life or after death; and early and premature death is frequently followed, as in the case of Pelops, Dionysus Zagreus, etc., by a resurrection. The monstrosities and revolting incidents which figure in mythical story have their origin, partly no doubt in cos- mogonical metaphors, as has been already shewn, but in a greater degree in a materialisation of spiritual dogma. We must argue upwards, if we would be at once just and correct, from such men as we meet with in the earliest authentic annals of history, and in the older but not less authentic traditions of philosophy, to the character of the men who stood in the relation of parents and ancestors to those immortals among mankind ; and the testimony of language and of comparative mythology combine to prove that the monstrosities we revolt from resolve usually into intelligible, sober, and moral realities — ancient dogmata stamped with the impress of the seal of God. If human nature has never been so bright and sinless as enthusiasts have represented it in the Saturnian reign, it has never, on the other hand, been so low, so brutal, as we are invited to deem of it, except under very exceptional conditions, and those originally, it would appear, in the issue of long- enduring and progressive deterioration from a higher standard. Etymology shews that human existence began in good, not in evil, in lofty aims not brute instincts and 376 THE CREED OF JAPHET. [Pt. II. Sacrifices of Expiation. Extraordinary, or Human. First variety — Passive. Classical usages sym- bolical of human sacrifice. Thirty rush images thrown into the Tiber at the feast of the Lemuralia. The Lupercalia or ' Dies Fcbruata.' impulse. The reader will not, I think, consider, after finishing this chapter, that human sacrifice is necessarily a proof of original barbarism. The voluntary and not merely imputed acquiescence which constitutes a devotio proper does not, it must be remarked here, form an element in any of the preceding human sacrifices of mythology. Among classical usages which have been generally recognised as symbolical of human sacrifice, and which certainly point to the ordinary type of the rite which I am now dealing with, I may mention the ceremony of throwing thirty rush images of men named Argei into the Tiber at the feast of the Lemuralia ; that, still more significant, which took place at each cele- bration of the Lupercalia, or expiatory rite, otherwise styled ' Dies Februata.' Two youths of the patrician order were led in the character of victims to the sacrificing priest, who marked them on the forehead with a knife covered with blood. The assistant priest wiped off the blood with wool steeped in milk, and the two youths were required to laugh during the ceremony — evidently in token, as in the case of animal sacrifices, that the imputed death was accepted cheerfully, although probably in a merely passive not active spirit. The Lupercalia were sacred to Faunus, and among the most ancient institutions of Rome. The Flamen ])ialis himself was present on the occasion denoted. There can be little doubt that these symbolical sacrifices stand to the original rites in the same relation as the small images of bulls and rams offered by the poorer people stand to the actual sacrificial animals; and the inference naturally arises, that the rite of human sacrifice itself, even in its ordinary accomplished form, may in like manner set forth Oh. II] THE PROPITIATION OF GOD. 377 symbolically a propitiatory sacrifice performed for man by Extraordinary . Sacrifices. a being above humanity. Human. I have hitherto spoken only of what are known as the ^irs* variety— r J Passive. classical races— but the universality of human sacrifices, Equally prevalent as recorded among the Germans (of Tacitus), the Goths, ^T^n^^1" Heruli, Franks, Saxons, Frisians, and Thuringians is well attested, as also among the Celts and Lithuanians. The authorities may be seen briefly noticed in Mr. Thorpe's 'Northern Mythology,' and Dr. Latham's 'Germania of Tacitus.' Prisoners taken in war and criminals were fre- quently the victims, both in the North and South, in later times. This was doubtless the effect of reaction against the abuses engrafted on earlier practice ; yet this enforced, un- consenting sacrifice was in obscuration of the principle that lay at the foundation of the rite, viz. the hopelessness of pardon for national sin except through the death of a human being, representative of the nation, suffering in innocence and ~by his own free will for the sins of the people, this qualification being insufficiently supplied by a technical imputation of such free-will to one either unequal to such patriotism, or a stranger to the motive which prompted it. The qualification of guilt and legal condemnation is The imputation of attached to the idea of human sacrifice (at least in the lower iluman sacrifice. or ordinary form), and thus necessarily, through imputation, the attribute of guilt also falls on the guiltless but willing victim. The root ' Lye ' and ' Leuc,' as in Lycidas and Leucas, connects itself with luc-, leg-, lex, as in Lycurgus, Lucumo, Lagmar, and in its alternative form (through the exchange of I and d) as &k-, with Snoj, Suca/oe, otKa